🎭 Bad actors?

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Just in: EigenLayer received a $70 million investment from a16z to help build out developer platform EigenCloud. 

“EigenCloud expands the programmability of crypto and makes virtually anything verifiable onchain. It opens up the opportunity for developers to build highly ambitious products like disintermediated digital marketplaces, onchain insurance, fully onchain games, automated adjudication, powerful prediction markets, and verifiable AI,” Eigen Labs CEO Sreeram Kannan said.

Following the announcement, Eigen Labs will publicly release the alpha version of EigenCloud later this week. 

And I also have to note that this isn’t a16z’s first time investing in EigenLayer, either — it invested $100 million last year.

♊ Blast from the past

Five months ago, Gemini and the CFTC agreed to a settlement of $5 million related to a 2022 lawsuit from the CFTC alleging that the crypto exchange made false or misleading statements about a bitcoin futures contract it wanted to launch. 

Gemini sent a letter via its lawyers to the CFTC’s Inspector General Christopher Skinner alleging that the Division of Enforcement (DOE), which led the suit, didn’t act in good faith.

The 13-page document claims the DOE “was not motivated by a principled application of the law or a desire to protect the commodities markets.”

The letter alleges, instead, that the individuals involved in Gemini’s case sought to go after Gemini in the hopes of gaining a legal win. But Gemini’s not the only one who’s been critical of the DOE recently. 

A court sanctioned the CFTC back in May in a case led by the regulator against Traders Global Group. This led to acting chairman Caroline Pham making a public statement about her concerns with the DOE and the efforts she’s since undertaken to reorganize it. 

Now Gemini is making its own public statement, alleging that DOE staff failed to provide any evidence proving that information was omitted about the bitcoin futures contract. 

(The background of this is that an ex-employee, who was terminated, allegedly lied to the CFTC in a whistleblower report that led to this whole suit.)

Its letter directly referenced the case above, noting that the DOE also tried to “downplay its wrongdoing” to the Commission. 

Gemini said it got to the point where it had “no choice” but to agree to the $5 million settlement.

“Gemini Trust did not settle because it did anything wrong…For nearly seven years, the DOE Staff subjected Gemini Trust to abusive investigation and litigation. As detailed above, the DOE Staff took extraordinarily aggressive legal positions and abused special governmental privileges in order to substantially hinder Gemini Trust’s ability to defend itself,” Gemini claims. 

It is important to note that while Gemini agreed to a permanent injunction, it did not admit or deny the CFTC’s allegations. However, that is standard in these types of settlements.

You may be wondering why we’re bothering to talk about this, especially since we’re in such a new era. But remember when big players, like Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, said they wouldn’t hire or interact with firms that brought on ex-SEC enforcement lawyers? This is a similar situation. 

Yes, things look a lot brighter now, but that doesn’t change the past, and in order to move forward, it’s important to acknowledge what happened and get to the bottom of it. Think about Castle Island Ventures’ Nic Carter’s push to prove Operation Chokepoint 2.0 happened.

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• X suspended Pump.fun and founder Alon Cohen’s handles on Monday along with other accounts linked to memecoins. 

• Paradigm warned that the case of Tornado Cash’s Roman Storm could have an impact on software development in the US in a brief ahead of his trial. 

• JPMorgan filed a trademark for JPMD, which some think could be a potential stablecoin.

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Yesterday, the Financial Times reported that Tron, the Justin Sun-backed company, plans to go public. 

Then we got some confirmation. SRM Entertainment, which is publicly listed on Nasdaq, announced it agreed to a Securities Purchase Agreement “with a private investor” for $100 million that it will use to build a treasury focused on Tron’s TRX. Oh, and Sun will become an advisor to the company, and it’ll change its name to Tron Inc following the SPAC. 

The FT also reported that Eric Trump, who’s seemingly gotten closer to Sun (Sun also owns millions of President Trump’s memecoin), would be joining the board.

Trump said that part of the story isn’t true. 

(I will note that both Trump and his brother, Donald Trump Jr. reportedly sit on the board of Dominari Securities, which is the investment bank leading the deal.)

There were a lot of great takes on the timeline yesterday, and I’m not even going to try to compete with them. What I will say, though, is that one benefit of a company going public is that it’s a whole lot easier to access financial records.