Donald Trump is officially the 47th President of the United States, and the U.S. government is going in some different directions from the last administration.

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Executive order

The narrative

U.S. President Donald Trump was sworn into office on Monday and quickly signed a flurry of executive orders. While it took him a few days to get to crypto-specific items, we've seen a number of actions from his administration already — not to mention the broader Republican Party.

Why it matters

These agencies and Congressional bodies' initial actions set the tone for what we can expect as the new Congress and administration really get going this year.

Breaking it down

There'll be time to go more into detail on some of these later, but for now:

White House/Administration

Donald Trump signed a highly-anticipated executive order on crypto. Among its provisions are items that:

Create a working group composed of Cabinet officials, White House advisers and others tasked with identifying regulations that address crypto and recommending whether they be changed. AI and crypto czar David Sacks will chair this working group.

Task the working group with evaluating a digital asset stockpile.

Ban any central bank digital currency, with a somewhat broad definition of a CBDC.

Revoke former President Joe Biden's executive order on crypto, which mostly just directed his Departments to craft reports about various aspects of crypto and consumer protections.

Trump also announced that Sacks would co-chair his President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, now operating under Acting Chair Mark Uyeda, formed a crypto-focused task force headed up by Commissioner Hester Peirce. Trump previously named Paul Atkins as his pick to serve as the agency's chair, once he's confirmed by the Senate.

One of the SEC's first moves was to rescind Staff Accounting Bulletin 121, which directed publicly traded companies holding crypto for their clients to mark those holdings on their own balance sheets. SAB 121 was strongly opposed by the crypto industry, which argued that it made it more difficult for banks to provide certain crypto services.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission is now operating under Acting Chair Caroline Pham. Pham named CFTC Senior Policy Advisor Harry Jung as the regulator's lead for crypto industry engagement. Trump has not yet named a nominee to take over as permanent chair.

Trump pardoned Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht, saying on Truth Social that he did so "in honor of [Ulbricht's mother] and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly." Ulbricht was convicted on criminal enterprise, narcotics distribution and various conspiracy charges and sentenced to double life in prison and 40 years with no parole.

Trump announced he would rename the existing U.S. Digital Service as his Department of Government Efficiency, the entity headed up by Elon Musk (Vivek Ramaswamy, who was previously a co-head, has now left to run for Ohio governor). Initially, the entity's website just had the Dogecoin logo on it. Companies are also filing for dogecoin exchange-traded funds now.

Trump spoke with El Salvador President Nayib Bukele shortly after signing his crypto executive order, though an official readout of the call did not mention crypto in any form.

Senate

The Senate Banking Committee has confirmed the creation of a subcommittee focused on digital assets, led by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.). The subcommittee's other members include freshmen Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who unseated former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) with $40 million worth of support from crypto political action committee Fairshake, Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), who received $10 million worth of support and Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), among others.

The Banking Committee is also holding a hearing on Feb. 5, though the specific time and witness list have yet to be announced.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced a joint Congressional Review Act resolution alongside House Rep. Mike Carey (R-Ohio) to overturn the IRS' recent crypto broker rule. The rule, finalized late last month, defines the term "broker" for IRS tax reporting purposes, but has already drawn a lawsuit from the Blockchain Association. The industry lobbyists argue the final rule "puts unlawful compliance burdens on software developers."

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the new lead Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, is also asking the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to look into the TRUMP token. She sent an open letter co-signed by Massachusetts Representative Jake Auchincloss.

House of Representatives

The House Oversight Committee sent out a letter announcing it would investigate whether banks de-banked crypto companies at the government's behest.

The House Financial Services Committee has already scheduled two hearings on crypto next month. The first, on Feb. 6, 2025, will focus on the aforementioned debanking. The second, set for Feb. 11, is titled "A Golden Age of Digital Assets: Charting a Path Forward."

The leading Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Gerry Connelly, asked the panel's leading Republican, Rep. James Comer, to probe Trump's issuance of the TRUMP coin and his ties to World Liberty Financial.

Stories you may have missed

Coinbase Asks U.S. Appeals Court to Say On-Platform Crypto Trades Aren’t Securities: Coinbase has filed its request to file an interlocutory appeal with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, having received permission from the district judge overseeing its SEC case to do so.

Ethereum Core Developer Eric Conner Departs as Vitalik Dismisses Calls for Leadership Change: Ethereum and the Ethereum Foundation are going through some disagreements.

Vitalik Buterin Calls for Added Focus on Ether as Part of the Network's Scaling Plans: Also relevant to that previous item.

Ledger Co-Founder's Kidnapping Highlights Threat of Crypto Robberies: Ledger co-founder Davad Balland and his wife were kidnapped for ransom, and the kidnappers reportedly cut off his finger as part of the extortion scheme.

Real Estate Firm Propy Is Rolling Out Crypto-Backed Loans to Buy Houses: Propy is letting prospective buyers for a Hawaiian condo take out a loan by putting up collateral in bitcoin or ether.

This week

Tuesday

16:00 UTC (9:00 a.m. MT) The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in Custodia Bank's ongoing case against the Federal Reserve.

Elsewhere:

(Sam Curry) Some security researchers discovered they could track and control certain Subaru cars (i.e. ones connected to the internet). The vulnerability has been patched, per the writer of this.

(Bloomberg) Walgreens spent $200 million replacing refrigerator doors with screens whose vendor is now in a legal fight with the pharmacy/convenience store chain.

If you’ve got thoughts or questions on what I should discuss next week or any other feedback you’d like to share, feel free to email me at nik@coindesk.com or find me on Bluesky @nikhileshde.bsky.social.

You can also join the group conversation on Telegram.

See ya’ll next week!

Remember those middle-school writing prompts: Describe your favorite cookie.

Your teacher told you to write it as if to an alien, a being who had never encountered a cookie before, which meant touching on each sense – sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. You might not have realized it then, but describing something in a way that allows people to get a clear picture is actually quite hard.

Let me try to describe Matheus Pagani, founder and CEO of Venture Miner. Matheus is a male with light caramel skin and dark brown hair. Even though his hair is cut close, you can tell it’s curly. He’s got a thick dark brown, almost black beard, which connects to a mustache. His eyes are dark brown behind thin wire glasses. His bottom lip sticks out a little further from his top lip, giving him a look of assurance, but not arrogance.

Picturing him yet? How confident are you?

Oh yeah, and he’s Brazilian.

Got it?

Let’s see what Matheus Pagani actually looks like.

Is this what you had come up with in your head from my description? Doubt it. Whenever I told you he was Brazilian, did you accessorize him in bright colors and a feathered headdress? Something like this?

If so, check your bias, but also you’re thinking like an AI. That was what ChatGPT came up with from the prompt “some Brazilians having fun.” Pagani showed this and other examples spit out by our generative AI (Italians have fun by sitting around long tables with multiple generations eating pizza) during the AI2Web3 Bootcamp in NYC in early December.

The bootcamp, run by Pagani and Build City, brought together 59 participants across all skill levels to learn how the two buzziest (and often misunderstood) technologies can be brought together to create useful products and services. Pagani used a version of the middle-school assignment to explain how and why AI made the significant leaps that have kept us all excited and on edge over the past few years. Before there was largely only text data being used to train AIs, and as the exercise highlights, that only goes so far. But mix text information with visual data, and you get a fuller picture.

And understanding this, getting hands on with both AI and blockchain technology to understand its core components is what the bootcamp was all about. For Pagani, these skills are going to be relevant for nearly all people – engineers, tech users, journalists, artists, doctors – real soon.

“We want to join brilliant minds from all backgrounds to come and work with AI and Web3, since the junction of their multiple perspectives can uncover new use cases that we would never envision just with a specialized Web3 or AI mindset alone,” Pagani said. “Nowadays we have tools to easily enable any non-technical enthusiasts to build practically functional applications and systems just with "plain English," so what matters is bringing passionate people interested in solving problems together with the proper education. When you have this combination, you just need to light the match and watch it burn.”

Mind-Boggling Building

What makes the intersection of these two technologies so exciting is just how much you can build in such a short amount of time without really any prior technical experience.

Not only will AI source whole codebases with the right prompt, but the crypto industry is also building tools to help make developing at the intersection of both more intuitive and accessible.

For instance, Coinbase, who sponsored the bootcamp, launched AgentKit in November. The framework allows developers to build AI agents with their own crypto wallets, enabling the agents to interact autonomously with blockchain networks. This could be used to build a squad of agents that can monitor the markets and execute trades automatically based on predefined rules and guardrails.

“One day, we’ll have AI agents own their own cars and operate their own taxi service that gets paid by customers in crypto and then uses that crypto to purchase repairs,” Lincoln Murr, associate product manager at Coinbase, told the attendees.

Coinbase currently has a grants program ongoing for building with AgentKit. “What you build doesn’t have to be useful; we have a bias towards cool stuff,” Murr told the bootcamp, hoping to inspire projects and applications that no one has yet thought of.

Ora Network also has an interesting model for developers looking to build AI-enabled Web3 applications or vice versa. The network allows developers to utilize current large language models, including Meta’s Llama3 and Stable Diffusion, but it also enables developers to build their own models and offer a so-called initial model offering (IMO) to crowdfund its continued development.

“It’s kind of winner-takes-all right now in AI, but with this model, we’re allowing the crowdfunding of AI building and training, so people can have a share of the models, which is empowering if we think these models will run society in a decade,” Alec James, partnerships and growth lead at Ora, said during the bootcamp. “If that’s the case, we’ll want that development distributed.”

Near, Fleek and Alora were also among the companies that sponsored the bootcamp and presented their various tools and programs for building at the intersection of these two innovative technologies.

Can Devs Do Something?

During the final day of the bootcamp, nine teams presented working prototypes for projects that blended Web3 and AI. These projects ranged from AI assistants meant to help you pick gifts, order delivery or diversify your financial portfolio to applications to help crypto operators pump out memecoins with big virality potential.

Jackie Joya, a participant who had flown in from San Francisco, said the bootcamp has really inspired her to keep building. With a background in animal science, Joya is still new to engineering, but was amazed how much a novice could build with the tools available.

Other participants, across all skill levels, said similar things. Choudhury Imtiaz, a market researcher from Bangladesh, who is in the U.S. on an H-1B1 Visa waiting for a placement, hasn’t heard of Web3 before the bootcamp, but was able to pitch a team project on the last day. And Isayah Culbertson, who has worked as an engineer for both crypto and AI projects separately, was able to learn skills for building with both, which he thinks has the potential to change the world for the better.

“I see the combination accelerating the research and development of so many different fields, while also allowing for a more equitable distribution of wealth generated from that R&D,” he said.

Nasdaq has filed a proposed rule change to allow in-kind creation and redemption for the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), according to a Friday filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The process allows large institutional investors, called authorized participants (APs), to buy and redeem shares of the fund directly to bitcoin (BTC).

It is considered to be more efficient as it allows APs closely monitor the demand for the ETF and to act fast by buying or selling shares of the fund without cash being involved in the process. Retail investors are not eligible to participate.

When the SEC first approved spot bitcoin ETFs including IBIT last January, the agency allowed to launch the funds with cash redemption, instead of bitcoin.

"It should have been approved in the first place but Gensler/Crenshaw didn't want to allow it for a whole host of reasons they gave," Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst James Seyffart wrote on X. "Mainly [they] didn't want brokers touching actual Bitcoin."

BlackRock's IBIT is the largest spot BTC ETF on the market, attracting nearly $40 billion of inflows in its first year, making it the most successful ETF debut ever.

Solana (SOL), the layer-1 blockchain designed for high-speed and low-cost transactions, has been at the center of a trading frenzy with Donald Trump's memecoin driving stablecoin supply on the network to a fresh record-high.

The total stablecoin supply on Solana has surged to $10.5 billion, doubling since the start of January, according to data source Artemis. Circle's USDC led the increase surpassing $8 billion in total circulation on Solana, adding more than $4 billion this month, while Tether's USDT grew to $2 billion from $917 million, per Artemis. Stablecoins are a key piece of infrastructure in the crypto economy, serving as a popular source of liquidity for crypto trading.

Solana and its ecosystem of in-built protocols built have become a bustling hub for trading and launching tokens in red-hot, fast-growing crypto sectors such as memecoins and crypto AI agents.

The network's stablecoin liquidity growth was steady over the past months as digital asset markets rejuvenated with crypto-friendly Trump's election victory, but it skyrocketed with the launch of TRUMP coin Jan. 17, the "official" memecoin tied to the U.S. President. Released on Solana, the token garnered massive trading volume across decentralized exchanges, driving transaction activity and liquidity inflows to the network.

Before the token got listed on popular centralized exchanges like Binance and Coinbase, trading with the TRUMP coin was first available on decentralized exchange (DEX) Meteora paired against the USDC stablecoin, David Duong and David Han from Coinbase Institutional Research, noted in a Friday report. That said, fast-moving traders first needed to first acquire USDC to buy the coin, driving USDC inflows to the network.

Along with stablecoin growth, trading volume on Solana-based decentralized exchanges (DEX) also soared to record highs of more than $25 billion daily, executing 74% of overall DEX trading volume on all blockchains, the report noted.

"Staggering numbers," Sean Farrell, head of digital asset research at Fundstrat, said in an X post.

The increased activity was reflected in Solana's native token (SOL) price, posting the largest gain through this week with 20% among the broad-market CoinDesk 20 Index members, vastly outperforming bitcoin's (BTC) 2% advance.

Read more: Solana Bull Bets Big on SOL Rallying to $400

While USDC and Tether's USDT dominate the stablecoin market on Solana — as they do in the broader crypto landscape — there's a growing number of up-and-coming issuers that recently expanded to the blockchain, noted Tom Wan, head of data at Entropy Advisors.

Last week, Hong Kong-based First Digital added native support on Solana for its $1.8 billion FDUSD fiat-backed stablecoin. DeFi lending behemoth Sky, formerly MakerDAO, also brought its yield-generating USDS stablecoin to the network in November.

An investigation in the U.S. House of Representatives and a hearing in the Senate will examine whether financial regulators during the administration of former President Joe Biden deliberately cut off crypto industry leaders and others from the banking system in an inappropriate use of authority.

“Debanking is un-American — every legal business deserves to be treated the same regardless of their political beliefs," said Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican who took over the gavel earlier this month and has scheduled a February 5 hearing on debanking. "Unfortunately, under Operation Chokepoint 2.0, Biden regulators abused their power and forced financial institutions to cut off services to digital asset firms, political figures, and conservative-aligned businesses and individuals."

Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is the name Republican lawmakers and the digital assets industry have been using for the systemic severing of crypto insiders from U.S. banks, in reference to an earlier era's Operation Chokepoint — a government-sanctioned effort to reduce risk in banking by encouraging the lenders to back away from legal but otherwise risky businesses.

Delving into the struggle of crypto executives and businesses to maintain banking relationships, the House Oversight Committee is "investigating whether this debanking practice originates from the financial institutions themselves or from either implicit or explicit pressure from government regulators," according to a letter the committee chairman, Representative James Comer, sent on Friday to founders and CEOs of several crypto companies and organizations, including Coinbase, Lightswap and Uniswap Labs.

The challenge of pinning the lack of banking options entirely on the government is that some financial institutions may have made decisions based on their own risk appetites or business plans that deliberately steered clear of crypto interests. And banking regulators such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency were public in their guidance that regulated banks seeking to do crypto business would face restrictions and additional scrutiny from the agencies.

However, a Coinbase pursuit of private FDIC communications with banks demonstrated that the agency directed them to stop pursuing digital assets services until the regulator had specific rules in place, which it wasn't developing.

"We are grateful to assist in the thorough investigation of this pernicious practice,” said Kristin Smith, CEO of the Blockchain Association, which also received the House committee's letter probing the trend.

Meanwhile, congressional Democrats have been focusing their own investigation requests on President Donald Trump's recently launched meme coin, $TRUMP. He's been accused of using the presidency to rack up billions of dollars, and they cite the token as a potential risk for dangerous conflicts of interest.

The House Financial Services Committee announced a hearing on the issue late Friday, scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 6.

UPDATE (Jan. 24, 2024, 21:25 UTC): Adds House hearing.

It was a big week for crypto following the inauguration of Donald Trump to a second term Monday.

The White House issued an executive order on digital assets, calling for a friendly approach to crypto across the administration and the creation of a "digital asset stockpile" (which may, or may not be, a Bitcoin Strategic Reserve). Regulatory editors Nik De and Jesse Hamilton were all over the news, as usual.

The SEC withdrew a controversial crypto accounting rule, started a crypto taskforce headed by Hester Peirce (aka “Crypto Mom”), and named crypto-friendly Commissioner Mark Uyeda as acting chair.

Senator Cynthia Lummis, arguably crypto's most loyal friend in Congress, was named to head the Senate Banking Committee's new digital assets panel, Hamilton also reported.

We dissected the fallout from the (very) controversial memecoins dropped by the Trump family on the eve of Monday’s swearing in. CoinDesk’s Shaurya Malwa reported that 60 Solana Whales made off with at least $10 million each (many others gained a lot less). Reporting from Tom Carreras on Monday showed that the paper wealth generated by these surprise tokens was, frankly, staggering, even absurd.

Still the memecoins were a great success, encouraging filings for memecoin ETFs, Helene Braun reported. Helene also broke the story about how CME leaked information about XRP and SOL futures ETFs by mistake, which sank those tokens and weighed on the broader market.

Ross Ulbricht, who created Silk Road about 12 years ago, educating thousands on bitcoin for the first time, went free after serving ten years in prison. His freedom was a key promise of the Trump team on crypto. Sam Reynolds had the news.

And the news kept on coming. In fact, it was hard to remember a week when more stuff of importance happened in crypto. Amid it all, the Ethereum community hotly debated its future (particularly that of the Ethereum Foundation). Parikshit Mishra and Sam Kessler followed the story.

Stay tuned for more big stuff happening next week.

The DePIN revolution is coming to a fast food franchise near you. The movement that started with Helium and has spread to numerous categories, including mapping and car data, this year is now spreading to hospitality. The initiative shows how quickly DePINs — or decentralized networks of physical infrastructure — are becoming mainstream.

The fast food and hospitality industry, often associated with consistency and efficiency, is quietly upgrading as decentralized technologies make their way into the mainstream. The adoption of DePIN by major franchises like Taco Bell and KFC signals a shift in how these businesses operate and engage with technology.

At the core of this transformation is the integration of DePIN devices — sensors, routers, and other physical infrastructure — powered by blockchain and token-based incentives. These networks enable businesses to contribute to shared ecosystems while gaining real-time operational insights and being rewarded for their participation. It’s a forward-thinking approach that combines cutting-edge technology with the practical needs of fast-food and hospitality businesses, paving the way for greater efficiency, sustainability and customer satisfaction.

With DePIN, the industry is embracing a strategic evolution — one that reflects the growing potential of decentralized technologies to enhance traditional models while creating new opportunities for growth.

For franchisees, the potential benefits of DePIN are significant. By integrating DePIN devices into their operations, they can unlock a wealth of opportunities:

Enhanced operational efficiency: DePIN devices, such as air quality sensors from Ambient Network, can provide real-time data on environmental conditions. This information can be used to optimize HVAC systems, improve indoor air quality, and reduce energy consumption.

Increased customer satisfaction: By leveraging DePIN-powered solutions, franchises can offer a more personalized and convenient customer experience. For instance, indoor cell site deployments from Helium Mobile or XNET can provide reliable connectivity, while blockchain-based supply chain management can ensure product quality and freshness.

A case study: the power of collaboration

A prime example of DePIN's impact on the franchise industry is the partnership between major fast-food chains and Ambient Network, the largest decentralized air quality network on Solana. By deploying air quality sensors across hundreds of stores, from coast to coast, these franchises are not only improving air quality for their customers but also contributing to a cleaner environment. Moreover, they are generating valuable data insights that can be used to optimize operations and reduce costs.

“With the growing maturity of tokens and decentralized technologies, we’re seeing a shift in how we can use these assets within our stores and properties,” explains Pushpak Patel, Founding Principal at CMG Companies, one of the largest operators of KFC, Taco Bell, Sonic, Little Caesars, Rent-A-Center, and Ace Hardware franchises in the US.

“By installing 1,000 DePIN devices from Ambient Network, we’re enhancing our ability to gather operational insights across our locations. Having air quality sensors installed doesn’t just provide real-time conditions, both outdoor and indoor — it also enables us to participate in demand-response programs. And with the strategic density of our locations, we can help unlock greater coverage for the network, which in turn generates additional data insights. This is a game-changer.”

Franchisees may partner with third parties to deploy and manage the infrastructure, or they can manage the devices in-house to improve operational efficiency with the devices and potentially generate an excellent return on investment. With Helium, these deployer participants are seeing ROI from a few dollars to tens of dollars per day based on factors like location, miner density and network demand.

Parami Investors, one of the largest deployers of Helium and Ambient devices in North America, has also been bullish on DePIN opportunities for franchise locations. We are clearly seeing greater adoption by retailers and hospitality providers to adopt and deploy decentralized solutions such as Helium and Ambient. Ambient is now deployed across highly dense commercial shopping and dining centers like the Japanese Village Plaza in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo district, hotels like the Best Western in Las Vegas and fast food chains like Taco Bell, KFC and Five Guys. Revolutions start on the street with franchisees pushing the envelope for wider corporate adoption.

The road ahead

As DePIN technology continues to mature, we can expect to see even more innovative applications in the franchise industry. From decentralized energy grids like Powerledger and community-powered solar from Glow, to blockchain-based loyalty programs from Hang, the possibilities are endless.

For fast food retailers and franchisees, deploying DePIN devices is not just a technological trend — it’s an investment in a more efficient, profitable, and sustainable future. From generating passive income to collecting valuable data and optimizing operations, the benefits are clear. As the technology continues to evolve, franchisees and other small businesses will find even more ways to leverage DePIN devices to improve both the customer experience and their bottom line.

Decentralized solutions are building an ecosystem that benefits everyone, driving participation through incentives. And DePIN devices are a key part of that vision. By embracing these new technologies, franchisees are setting themselves up for long-term success, ensuring that they remain competitive in an ever-changing market.

Many participants in industry hackathons are just looking to make some quick prize money and move on to the next contest — Dominic Kwok calls them “bounty hunters.”

But EasyA, the start-up for developers that he and his brother Phil started four years ago, is looking for a different type of competitor — those who are looking to build companies that can have a significant impact on Web3. It’s an approach that has proved fruitful, with the companies coming out of EasyA’s app community and monthly in-person hackathons having raised money at a collective valuation of over $3 billion from top VC firms such as a16z crypto and CMT Digital. And EasyA’s mobile app, which helps developers easily start building their own Web3 projects, has over a million users worldwide.

At the first EasyA Consensus hackathon in Austin last May, more than 700 participants launched 100 different crypto projects, and the Kwoks are expecting similar numbers for upcoming events at Consensus Hong Kong and Consensus Toronto (if you’d like to apply for the EasyA Hackathon at Consensus Hong Kong 2025, please go here).

Here they discuss why their unique approach to hackathons, how they expect Consensus Hong Kong will differ from hackathons in other parts of the world and how Donald Trump’s election could affect the types of projects crypto developers focus on.

This series is brought to you by Consensus Hong Kong. Come and experience the most influential event in Web3 and Digital Assets, Feb.18-20. Register today and save 15% with the code CoinDesk15.

This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.

How did EasyA get started?

Dominic: So we originally launched EasyA about four years ago as the go to place for anyone to learn about the world's best blockchains. Anyone can use the EasyA app on iOS and Android to learn about the top Layer Ones out there, like Solana, Polkadot, Stellar and Ripple’s XRP Ledger. And people can learn how to not only develop, but also launch their own projects. We also host a lot of big hackathons in person all around the world, in which hundreds of people come in person and launch projects on our blockchain partners. And the goal is to get these people not just launching, but then also founding and building startups that go on to get funded by the ecosystem and VCs.

How do you approach hackathons differently than other companies that run these?

Dominic: Two things. The first is that EasyA is very focused on founders who want to start their own companies, versus hackathon “bounty hunters.” We really want to make sure that our participants actually stick around and build their projects because that’s where we see the future of Web3 really being built from. And the second thing is most of our hackathons are single chain, so participants focus on one piece of tech and they actually launch on that one, as opposed to focusing on 50 different chains. We want to put people in front of the best ecosystems that have the most support for developers.

How do you think the Consensus hackathon in Hong Kong will be different from those you hold in other parts of the world?

Dominic: The scale is just going to be super big. We've already had a record number of people apply for the seats in the arena. We'll obviously have people from Hong Kong, but then also from other Asian countries like India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and China. And we're also seeing huge numbers of people from the West want to come. For many of those people, it'll be the first time they've actually been to Asia.

Do you expect there to be differences in the types of projects that developers in Asia pursue, as opposed to those in other parts of the world?

Phil: There's a geographical element and then there's also a thematic one. A huge theme that we've seen come up over the past couple of weeks is AI x Web3, and a lot of developers are excited about that intersection. We've also seen protocols like virtuals really kick off and become very successful, so I think we'll see a lot of that. Geographically, in Asia there are obviously so many different currencies, and we're seeing that developers there actually understand those cross-border use cases a lot better. If you're a U.S.-based developer, you don't necessarily see those friction points a ton. So I think that we're going to see a lot more of the cross border payment solutions start to flesh themselves out.

How do you think Donald Trump’s presidency will affect the kinds of projects you see at your hackathons?

Phil: Obviously DeFi has always been one of the biggest areas of product market fit in crypto — arguably one of the few that actually has that fit. But so far because of, frankly, how scared a lot of developers were in the States, a lot of people just weren't building nor launching in the U.S. And so you'd often go on to a decentralized app and it'll say “Oh, you're in the States, you can't use this.” So that’s a very visible area where we're going to start seeing changes. Another area where you can't participate if you’re from the U.S. is airdrops. So if you are an end user, you couldn't really access a lot of crypto. And if you wanted to target this demographic, which of course is the wealthiest in the world, you couldn't. So I think DeFi is really going to explode, especially in the States.

Both of you are also speakers at Consensus Hong Kong. What will you be talking about?

Dominic: Our keynote will be about why it's so hard right now for Web3 ecosystems to attract developers now. And we're going to be giving some of our tips on how they can attract developers more easily and at a bigger scale. Right now, Web3 firms are competing over the same developers, and the growth of Web3 devs has pretty much stagnated. And obviously at EasyA, our whole mission is actually to bring way more developers into the space. That starts with making it easy. But we’re also making several big tech upgrades that will allow developers to build much more easily on-chain. And we're going to be revealing those on stage.

David Balland, co-founder of cryptocurrency wallet developer Ledger, was rescued in a police operation after being kidnapped in a ransom attack in France, according to reports, putting an end to days of swirling rumors.

Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau said that Ballard and his wife were kidnapped on early Tuesday from their home in Central France and held captive at two separate addresses, Reuters reported on Friday. The prosecutor said that the kidnappers contacted another Ledger co-founder to demand ransom paid in cryptocurrencies.

A police operation involving French elite forces GIGN freed Ballard on Wednesday and his wife was found on Thursday, the prosecutor said. Ballard was taken to hospital to receive treatment to one of his hands, which was mutilated, Beccuau said, without revealing further details, according to Reuters. Local newspaper Le Parisien reported that the attackers severed Ballard's finger and sent it to associates to extort a ransom.

"We are deeply relieved that David and his wife have been released, and are now safe," Pascal Gauthier, chairman and CEO of Ledger, said in a statement shared with CoinDesk.

Rumors circulated on social media earlier this week that one of the co-founders of Ledger had been kidnapped. Reports alleging that Eric Larchevêque, another co-founder of the company, was the victim turned out to be false. CoinDesk reached out to Ledger for confirmation at the time, but the company didn't comment.

"Our top priority was always to allow law enforcement to do their jobs and protect the integrity of the investigation," CEO Gauthier said. "We respected law enforcement requests around safeguarding critical details of the ongoing investigation and appreciated members of the press who did the same."

The incident was another example of an alarming trend of robberies and crime targeting crypto traders and industry figures as the crypto bull market marches on creating riches to investors. For example, Dean Skurka, the CEO of WonderFi, a publicly listed crypto holding company that owns one of Canada's largest crypto exchanges, was kidnapped for a ransom in Toronto last year.

"Have seen an uptick in irl [real life] robberies targeting crypto traders located in Western Europe over the past few months," popular blockchain sleuth ZachXBT posted on Telegram. "The cases all involve known people in the crypto community where they were held at gunpoint. As the rest of the cycle continues, be extra mindful of who you share your wins with and meet up with [in real life]."

CoinDesk Indices presents its daily market update, highlighting the performance of leaders and laggards in the CoinDesk 20 Index.

The CoinDesk 20 is currently trading at 3991.46, up 2.5% (+97.0) since 4 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Nineteen of 20 assets are trading higher.

Leaders: HBAR (+8.0%) and SOL (+4.8%).

Laggards: ETC (-0.1%) and BTC (+0.4%).

The CoinDesk 20 is a broad-based index traded on multiple platforms in several regions globally.