How Democrats Are Seeing Crypto 'in a New Light'

Dave Grimaldi, EVP of lobby group the Blockchain Association, explains how Democrats’ attitudes toward crypto are shifting following the U.S. presidential election

Good morning and welcome to Wednesday! And yes, it’s just one week until Christmas 🎄🧑‍🎄🎄 I’m Juan Aranovich, managing editor of Unchained.

In today’s edition:

A Democrat change of heart toward crypto?

Lido hits four years with first profit

Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU dives on debut

Tether bets on MiCA-ready stablecoins

Ethereum Foundation sells $420K more ETH

Think tank pushes strategic bitcoin reserve

Coinbase’s law enforcement info requests drop 18%

How Democrats Are Seeing Crypto 'in a New Light'

Dave Grimaldi, EVP of lobby group the Blockchain Association, explains how Democrats’ attitudes toward crypto are shifting following the U.S. presidential election, looks at the rise of the “crypto voter,” and explores why stablecoin legislation might arrive sooner than structural market reform.

What’s Poppin’?

By Sage D. Young and Tikta

Lido Finance on Track for First Profitable Year as It Turns 4

Lido Finance, the decentralized protocol that introduced liquid staking, turned four years old on Tuesday and is currently on course to generate a yearly profit for the first time since it was founded.

Lido’s 2024 net revenue stands at more than $99 million, while its outgoings add up to around $94 million, making the protocol’s net income some $5 million, according to data from a Dune Analytics dashboard curated by crypto advisory and consulting firm Steakhouse Financial, which also helps to create financial statements for Lido.

Pudgy Penguins’ PENGU Drops 54% on Debut

The Pudgy Penguins native token, PENGU, nosedived almost immediately after it began trading following its launch yesterday.

The Solana-based token initially surged to $0.069 but quickly plummeted more than 54% to around $0.028 in less than five hours, representing a dive in market capitalization from $4.36 billion to less than $1.81 billion.

The decline was mirrored in the NFT market, where the floor price of Pudgy Penguins NFTs tanked from 29 ETH ($111,330) to around 15 ETH.

The airdrop distributed around half of PENGU’s total supply of 89 billion tokens to eligible users. Around 26% of the tokens were earmarked for the Pudgy community, while 24% were allocated to other communities that have yet to be identified.

Despite a number of airdrop recipients rushing to sell their tokens, some managed to make sizable profits in the initial frenzy of trading. One PENGU holder trousered $8.36 million in less than 20 minutes, according to a post by blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain.

Tether Invests in European Stablecoin Issuer Stable as MiCA Looms

Tether, the company behind the USDT stablecoin, has announced a strategic investment in European stablecoin issuer StablR.

StablR has introduced two stablecoins — the euro-pegged EURR and the U.S. dollar-pegged USDR — designed to streamline transactions and offer cost savings for users.

Tether’s investment comes as the European Union prepares to implement the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework on Dec. 30.

USDT is not currently MiCA-compliant, so instead of modifying its flagship stablecoin, Tether appears to be investing in MiCA-compliant entities instead.

The European stablecoin market has experienced significant growth in recent months, with a total capitalization approaching $400 million for euro-pegged coins.

Ethereum Foundation’s ETH Sales Reach $12.6M This Year

The Ethereum Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Ethereum and its ecosystem, sold another $420,000 of ETH for Maker DAO’s DAI token — rebranded as USDS — on Tuesday.

The latest sale brings the sum of ETH offloaded by the foundation this year to $12.6 million, according to data from blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain.

ETH was down 4.5% in the 24 hours before press time, trading at $3,828. Some market participants have attributed its negative price performance to the foundation’s sale.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has commented on that assertion on a number of occasions, most recently in October, when he reminded one user that the funds were used to pay researchers and developers.

Bitcoin Policy Institute Drafts Executive Order for Strategic BTC Reserve

The Bitcoin Policy Institute think tank has drafted an executive order for the signature of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump proposing the establishment of a strategic bitcoin reserve within the U.S. Exchange Stabilization Fund.

The draft, shared by Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey, calls for allocating $21