Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has released a new blog post discussing a new cryptographic proving system that can make zero-knowledge proofs more efficient.



The proving system, called Binius, is designed to operate directly over binary code on computers. Binary code is a language understood by computers, and it is used to store information and represents data using the symbols zero and one, otherwise known as bits. 



Although there are some similarities between STARKs and Binius, Buterin explains that the mathematical tricks that enable these different proving systems are very different. 



Generally speaking, STARKs is a technology that has enabled complicated statements to be easily cryptographically verified. It is designed in a way that can easily compute numbers when they are of small value, when there are large values, STARKs generate extra values, which can lead to inefficiency. 



Unlike STARKs that “arithmetize” a statement into a polynomial equation — a mathematical expression which model a relationship between variables in a block — Binius treats data as a hypercube and grid, and uses multilinear polynomials to perform cryptographic proofs.




BInius: highly efficient proofs over binary fieldshttps://t.co/lHAGXbgI9r pic.twitter.com/3Xx4zIAm1b— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 29, 2024




Binius converts individual values into bits and places them in a hypercube and a square. This hypercube is then converted into a grid and computations are performed in order to receive an output matrix. 







A verifier will then perform its own computational calculations to ensure that the information itself matches and ensure that the compute columns returns a value claimed by the prover.



“I highly encourage people to understand and explore! Lots of innovations have been happening in ZK-proving recently. And I expect lots more to come soon,” Buterin wrote in an X post.







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Vitalik Buterin talks ways to make zk proofs more efficient

In a highly anticipated move, the Federal Reserve chose to hold interest rates at their existing level on Wednesday following the Federal Open Market Committee two-day policy meeting. 



The rate hike pause marks the central bank’s sixth since consecutively raising interest rates from March 2022 to July 2023. Persistent inflation and a healthy labor market contributed to central bankers’ decision to hold rates, they said. 



“In considering any adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks,” Wednesday’s statement read. “The Committee does not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range until it has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2%.” 



Central bankers will need to see more evidence that inflation is easing before cutting rates, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday during a press conference.



“The path forward is uncertain,” Powell said. 



“Although some measures of short-term inflation expectations have increased in recent months, longer-term inflation expectations appear to remain well anchored as reflected in a broad range of surveys of households, businesses and forecasters, as well as measures from financial markets,” he added.



Stocks and cryptocurrencies were little changed on the news. Bitcoin (BTC) traded sideways in the moments after the Fed released its statement at 2 pm ET, sitting around $57,786 at time of publication, per Coinbase. The largest cryptocurrency is down about 4% over the past 24 hours. 



Ether (ETH) similarly traded flat, hovering around $2,900 at time of publication – about 1% lower over 24 hours. 



The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 indexes inched marginally higher on the news, managing to move just barely into the green after an otherwise disappointing trading session. 



Bitcoin has hovered below $60,000 since early Wednesday, a

Fed holds interest rates, markets hardly react 

This isn’t going to be another op-ed about how silly it is for celebrities to do cryptocurrency ads. We all know that they don’t age well.



Instead, what I’d like to opine on is why a cryptocurrency ad with Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, falls flat in particular. If you’re going to put a celebrity in your crypto ad, you need to go all out with creativity, humor or just overall entertainment value. Eminem’s new crypto ad does none of that — it has almost nothing to do with the rapper, or crypto at all.



The rapper’s voiceover on an advertisement for Crypto.com aired during the Lakers NBA play-off game last week. The ad itself, just a minute long, shows a nameless, faceless boxer getting ready to face-off in a match at the Crypto.com Arena. You can hear Eminem’s voice saying empty platitudes of encouragement in the background, telling the audience to enjoy the moment, before the screen shows the somewhat infamous slogan, “Fortune favors the brave.”



I say infamous, because Matt Damon’s 2022 Crypto.com SuperBowl commercial — where the Oscar-nominated actor was actually pictured on screen saying that catchphrase out loud — just looked so silly in the wake of the FTX crash. Damon later gave an awkward, pause-filled red carpet interview, noting that he only did the commercial to support his water non-profit in a down year.



Some are already speculating that Eminem’s main motivation to lend his voice to Crypto.com’s latest ad is part of a marketing push for his upcoming album. But his motivations for being crypto’s latest celebrity spokesperson aren’t important. What’s important is how soulless that advertisement is. Watching the commercial for the first time as a longtime Eminem stan, I lamented all of the missed opportunities staring me in the face.



Read more from our opinion section: Crypto’s best use case? Buying goats on Twitter



For one, this is far from Eminem’s first foray into crypto — he had his own, pretty

Eminem's new crypto ad fails to capture the moment, lets it slip

Stablecoin issuer Tether has notched a record quarterly net profit at a time during which the company is broadening its scope. 



Tether tallied an all-time high net profit of $4.52 billion in the first quarter, according to a Wednesday attestation report by auditing firm BDO. 



Tether’s first quarter net operating profits of $1 billion were driven by its US Treasury holdings, the company added. Other profits stemmed from mark-to-market gains in its bitcoin and gold positions.



Bitcoin’s price hit a new peak of about $73,000 in mid-March before trending downward in April.



The $4.52 billion total obliterates the former record of $2.85 billion in net profit gathered during the last three months of 2023.



Read more: Tether made nearly $1B in monthly profit during Q4



Tether’s token, USDT, is intended to maintain a value of $1 and can be redeemed for US dollars at any time.  



As of March 31, Tether’s reserves were nearly $6.3 billion higher than the liabilities of the companies issuing USDT.  



USDT’s market capitalization was roughly $110 billion at 10 am ET, behind only bitcoin and ether among crypto assets. That figure is more than triple the $33 billion market cap of competing stablecoin USDC. 



The latest disclosure comes as Tether seeks to build out its business beyond just stablecoins.



Read more: Tether looks to ‘build the next generation of open AI models’ with new data division



It recently launched a data initiative focused on developing and investing in new technology, for example. Other new divisions include a unit focused on blockchain-based financial infrastructure and one involved in the mining and energy sectors. 



“With this evolution beyond our traditional stablecoin offerings, we are ready to build and support the invention and implementation of cutting-edge technology that removes the limitations of what’s possible in this world,” CEO Paolo Ardoino said in a statement last month.







Start your day

Tether just obliterated its former net profit record for a single quarter 

The world’s largest asset manager appears poised to move deeper into the tokenization space after injecting capital into a tokenization firm it has worked with before.



BlackRock led a $47 million funding round for Securitize, a company focused on bringing physical and traditional financial assets onto the blockchain, the firms said Wednesday. 



Fintech companies and traditional finance giants have increasingly been testing out tokenization, noting that blockchain rails can help reduce costs and improve transparency. BlackRock Larry Fink has called tokenized securities “the next generation for markets.” 



To that end, BlackRock and Securitize are not strangers. 



BlackRock launched its first tokenized fund — the BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund — in March, offering a different way to earn US dollar yields. Qualified investors can subscribe to that fund through Securitize Markets.



Read more: Circle debuts way to trade BlackRock tokenized fund shares for USDC



"We believe that tokenization has the potential to drive a significant transformation in capital markets infrastructure,” Joseph Chalom, BlackRock's global head of strategic ecosystem partnerships, said in a statement. “Our investment in Securitize is another step in the evolution of our digital assets strategy."  



Chalom is now a member of Securitize’s board of directors.



Other investors in the $47 million funding round include Hamilton Lane, ParaFi Capital and Tradeweb Markets. 



Private markets investment firm Hamilton Lane in January 2023 made available one of its equity funds through a Securitize feeder fund tokenized on Polygon. 







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BlackRock doubles down on tokenization via investment in Securitize

CZ is no SBF 



CZ was sentenced yesterday to four months in prison for violating the Bank Secrecy Act. 



It’s not what the government wanted and it’s not what CZ wanted. But all things considered, we say he got a pretty damn good deal. I wonder what SBF is thinking. 



Zhao pleaded guilty last November for failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program at Binance. He had to resign as CEO and hand over $50 million in fines, but his ownership of the exchange is intact and his net worth is still in the tens of billions (Forbes estimates $33 billion while Bloomberg says it’s closer to $36 billion, either way, $50 million is pocket change). 



The prosecution asked the judge for three years. CZ’s team made a valiant attempt for house arrest or probation. 



Read more: Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months in prison



In the end, judge Richard Jones settled in the middle, citing the moving letters CZ’s supporters wrote to the court and the indifference the Binance founder displayed while breaking the law. After all, CZ’s apparent catch phrase was “ask for forgiveness not permission.” 



Even if it wasn’t exactly what they wanted, CZ’s team seems pretty content. The New York Times reported that CZ’s son, a college student in the US, attended the hearing and “silently pumped his fist” when the judge said he would be ignoring the government’s request. 



CZ’s co-founder seemed to be taking a victory lap on X hours after the sentencing was announced.  




Got it. https://t.co/qctXcY0b0r— Yi He (@heyibinance) April 30, 2024




The sentencing comes roughly a month after FTX’s founder SBF was sentenced to 25 years in prison. It’s a large discrepancy, but it should come as no surprise. 



Read more: 25 years for Sam Bankman-Fried — A fair sentence, or no?



SBF famously avoided accepting responsibility for his actions, a point the judge held against him. It also didn’t help that SBF lied on

Empire Newsletter: Why CZ and SBF's sentencings were so different

Anchorage Digital is now custodying shares of a tokenized Treasury fund via a partnership with Arca Labs meant to advance institutional participation in the segment. 



The link-up comes as the tokenization of real-world assets is set to continue as a “defining trend” for institutional crypto in 2024, Anchorage CEO Nathan McCauley told Blockworks.



The innovation unit of crypto investment firm Arca first issued shares of its US Treasury Fund as digital asset securities, known as ArCoin, in 2021. The company has argued that ArCoin can replace US Treasurys in enterprise workflows while reducing costs and improving transparency.



The company has now turned to Anchorage — a crypto-focused bank chartered by the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) — to custody the shares.



Anchorage Digital Co-Founders Nathan McCauley and Diogo Mónica


The alliance allows Anchorage clients to keep ArCoin in custody at the bank. Institutions can now access the tokenized shares from the Anchorage platform as it would for the hundreds of assets the company supports. 



Read more: Crypto-focused federal chartered bank intros settlement network



McCauley has said Anchorage meets the Securities and Exchange Commission’s definition of a “qualified custodian.” The term was included in the regulator’s February 2023 proposal that would “entrust safekeeping of client assets” to such entities.



“Now that institutions have validated the benefits of blockchain technology, companies are seeking the most secure and seamless digital assets solutions that meet US regulatory standards,” Arca Labs president Jerald David said in a statement.



The Anchorage platform uses hardware security modules, which keeps assets offline in segregated, on-chain vaults while keeping them accessible. The model serves as a “major unlock” for institutional participation in tokenization, McCauley argued.



Tokenizing assets — from real estate to funds — has made

Anchorage, Arca Labs link up in bid to advance tokenization adoption

While inflows into spot bitcoin ETFs and anticipation around the Bitcoin halving helped fuel BTC’s price rally in the first quarter, the asset may now need a new upward driver.



Investor demand for the US bitcoin funds have stalled in recent weeks and “halving” headlines have slowed given the event came and went on April 19.



Bitcoin’s price (BTC) was about $60,300 on Tuesday at 3 pm ET — down 13% from a month ago. 



The asset had seen a record seven consecutive months of price growth. That is set to end in April, a fate some segment observers had expected. 



It’s tricky to determine whether the long-term effects of the latest halving — an event during which per-block rewards for mining bitcoin dropped from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC — have been priced in, said Hashdex research head Pedro Lapenta. 



Bitcoin prices have historically peaked between 12 to 18 months after each halving, indicating BTC’s price might not hit new heights until next year. But bitcoin had never reached a record price so soon before a halving as it did this year — putting into question past trends.



Read more: The history of Bitcoin halvings — and why this time might look different



Either way, the recent BTC slump in April shouldn't be alarming, Lapenta added.



“With bitcoin seeing seven straight months of gains, it's typical for the period following a halving to involve modest increases or corrections, as we're observing now,” he told Blockworks.



Fineqia International analyst Matteo Greco attributes BTC’s price decline to more investors taking profits after entering the market during the downturns of 2022 and 2023. Many ETF investors who saw significant share price appreciation since January did the same, he added.



To that end, the bitcoin ETF category has seen three straight weeks of net outflows — an unprecedented streak since such funds hit the US market in January.



Read more: New mix of bitcoin buyers bode well for ecosystem: Franklin

What could drive BTC price with halving complete, ETF demand stalled

The Runes protocol has gained a lot of interest in the Bitcoin community over the past few months. 



Runes is a fungible token standard designed by Casey Rodarmor, the creator of Ordinals. The protocol is designed to be an alternative to BRC-20, an experiment token standard for fungible tokens on Bitcoin.



The BRC-20 standard is built on ordinals, which means it stores information in a Bitcoin transaction's witness data, in a similar way, runes data is stored in a data storage function called OP_RETURN, Bob Bodily, the founder of Bioniq, told Blockworks.



Read more: Motoko Sentinels gain traction despite ordinal volume decrease post-halving 



“Runes is a very elegant byte-efficient protocol; everything is encoded down into integers that you can store in the operator,” Bodily said. 



Unlike BRC-20 tokens, which often leave behind “junk” after transactions which can consequently clog the network, runes use Unspent Transaction Outputs (UTXOs), and messages sent using the rune protocol (called runestones) will be stored on Bitcoin transaction outputs. 



With Runes, users can deploy (etch), mint, and launch tokens in the same way that they can with ERC-20 tokens.



Read more: Bitcoin Runes look to spice up the halving party



Rennick Palley, the founding Partner at Stratos, a VC firm focused on early-stage crypto projects, believes that Runes may have a bright future in enabling bitcoin miners to remain profitable. 



"By adding a whole new layer of fungible tokens on Bitcoin, Runes is making the network busier and more versatile. This should mean more transactions and, by extension, more fees for miners. It’s especially promising because it meshes well with Bitcoin’s existing UTXO model, which is a core part of how miners operate,” Palley said.



However, he notes that with Runes' growing popularity, transaction fees may climb, making everyday Bitcoin transactions less appealing due to their cost. 



“It should encourage more BTC to

A look into Runes, a new Bitcoin token standard for issuing fungible tokens

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao was sentenced to 4 months in US prison today. 



The sentence is lower than some bettors expected, with those on Polymarket expecting the judge to hand down a sentence of six months.



Zhao will now head to a US prison to serve out his sentence, which is lower in comparison to the 36 months sought by the Department of Justice. Zhao’s team only sought five months probation. 



Zhao also must pay a $50 million fine, as stipulated in his guilty plea signed in November. 



Prosecutors aimed high when requesting Zhao’s sentence — which is double the 18 months at the high end of the guidelines — because they wanted the sentence to match the “gravity” of Zhao’s crimes, the government wrote in their sentencing memo last week. 



"If Mr. Zhao does not face incarceration after deliberately and willfully planning to violate U.S. law to build the largest crypto exchange in the world and get rich in the process … then no one will face incarceration and the BSA will for intents and purposes be a dead letter,” prosecutors argued at the hearing, according to CoinDesk’s Nikhilesh De. 



We broke down what you need to know about the sentencing in our X article:







Now what?



Zhao’s sentencing comes less than a month after former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried received his own legal judgment. 



Unlike CZ, SBF didn’t reach a deal with the government and was instead found guilty of fraud by a jury in New York at the end of last year. He’s now serving a sentence of 25 years; far more jail time than the former Binance CEO.



As part of his plea deal, he agreed not to contest a sentence of 18 months.



While this wraps up the DOJ’s actions against Zhao and Binance, the two still face charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The regulator was notably absent from the DOJ’s settlement. The agreement included the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and

Former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months in prison

Bitcoin investor Roger Ver was charged with tax fraud by the US Department of Justice on Tuesday.



The DOJ is seeking Ver’s extradition for a trial in the US. He was arrested in Spain on US criminal charges. 



The DOJ alleges that Ver evaded $50 million in taxes. Ver, the DOJ noted, became a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis in 2014, but he still had two US companies — MemoryDealers.com and Agilestar.com. The Justice Department said that Ver bought bitcoin for both himself and the two companies. 



Ver was required to pay an “exit tax” on the capital gains. Both the companies and Ver allegedly owned roughly 131,000 bitcoin in 2014, with the companies specifically owning 73,000 of that sum.



“As a result of his expatriation, Ver allegedly was required under U.S. law to file tax returns that reported capital gains from the constructive sale of his world-wide assets, including the bitcoins, and to report the fair market value of his assets,” the DOJ’s release said.



The IRS, the DOJ said, lost “at least” $48 million due to the allegations against Ver. 



“The indictment further alleges that by June 2017, Ver’s two companies continued to own approximately 70,000 bitcoins. Around that time, Ver allegedly took possession of those bitcoins and in November 2017 sold tens of thousands of them on cryptocurrency exchanges for approximately $240 million in cash,” a press release from the DOJ said. 



Ver also provided “false or misleading information” to a law firm he hired so that he could allegedly conceal the amount of bitcoin both he and his companies held. 



“As a result, the law firm allegedly prepared and filed false tax returns that substantially undervalued the two companies and their 73,000 bitcoins and did not report that Ver owned any bitcoins personally,” the release said.







Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

DOJ charges Roger Ver with tax fraud

Global authorities are intensifying their war against one of crypto’s core use cases — and no, I don’t mean memecoins. 



Crypto mixers have long been in the regulatory crosshairs for their use by money launderers and other illicit actors. Mixing tech obfuscates the original source of a crypto transaction — anathema to the kind of surveillance conducted by regulators across the world’s financial system. 



Such efforts saw a significant expansion with last week’s arrests and indictment of the co-founders of privacy-focused bitcoin wallet Samourai.



The co-founders, accused of enabling more than $100 million in laundered funds, face decades in prison if convicted. The US Department of Justice, which shut down Samourai’s services and seized its websites, called it “a haven for criminals to engage in large-scale money laundering and sanctions evasion.”



This case is a big deal — so big, in fact, that one wonders whether the crypto community fully appreciates the gravity of what’s been happening. Or where things could go from here: Self-censorship by developers afraid of legal drama, greater centralization of crypto services and the further abandonment of the US as a destination for technology innovation.  



In the past two years, regulators have targeted other mixing services and platforms. Roman Sterlingov, founder of mixing service Bitcoin Fog, was convicted earlier this month on similar charges and faces sentencing in July. 



Tornado Cash, the Ethereum-based mixer, was sanctioned in 2022 and one of its co-founders is currently on trial, with a verdict expected next month.



The Bitcoin network’s founding message referenced looming bailouts for British banks. It was, in a sense, a rejection of the old ways of money and finance and a promise, however tiny at the time of genesis block, of something new. That didn’t mean simply breaking away from entrenched financial interests, but breaking away from centralized parties who have