Morning Minute | Vitalik Proposes Major Changes for Ethereum

TylerD's Market Summary

🤯 Ethereum Changes May Be Coming

Ethereum has been out of the spotlight.

Bitcoin is getting all of the attention from the ETFs and from Larry Fink (see his latest comments from BlackRock's Q3 earnings).

And Solana has the memecoin casino along with loads of young energy.

But Vitalik continues to push Ethereum forward, regardless of attention levels.

What Happened?

In a Monday blog post, Ethereum co-founder Vitailik Buterin explored several changes to improve Ethereum's efficiency and accessibility.

These suggestions focus on lowering staking requirements, speeding up transaction finality, and potentially decreasing centralization.

Specifically, he proposed the following adjustments:

• Lowering the Staking Threshold: Reducing the minimum ETH required for staking from 32 ETH (approximately $84,000) to 1 ETH (around $2,600) to make solo staking more accessible.
• Single-Slot Finality: Moving towards a model where transactions are finalized within a single 12-second slot, rather than the current 15-minute timeframe.
• Improving Decentralization: Encouraging solo staking by lowering the entry barriers, which could reduce reliance on large staking pools like Lido Finance.

Those are certainly some big changes from current state Ethereum.

What Are They Saying
A key quote from Vitalik:

“Poll after poll repeatedly show that the main factor preventing more people from solo staking is the 32 ETH minimum. Reducing the minimum to 1 ETH would solve this issue, to the point where other concerns become the dominant factor limiting solo staking."

He also noted that single-slot finality would bring Ethereum’s performance in line with centralized, high-speed chains.

Why It Matters

These changes would make Ethereum faster, more accessible and more decentralized.

That's a win win win.

Lowering the solo staking minimum below 32 ETH may also lead to more folks who want to hold ETH to be eligible for validating (less sell pressure).

It's clear that Vitalik has put much thought in to this, and when it comes to Ethereum - in Vitalik we trust.

Hopefully this proposal moves forward...

🚚 What else is happening in NFTs?

Here is the list of other notable headlines from the day in NFTs:

• Ethereum led NFT trading volume with $5.5M on the day; Bitcoin was next with $2.8M, and then Solana with $2.6M
• ETH NFT leaders mostly chopped; Punks even at 27.8 ETH, Pudgy -1% at 8.9, BAYC -1% at 10.9, Azuki -1% at 5
• Meme NFTs led with Sprotos +14% to 3.9 ETH, Mog Auras +80% to 0.48 ETH and Honey Bastards +100% to 0.17
• Mog Auras (+40%) and Auntieverse (+24%) were notable top movers
• BTC NFT leaders were mostly green up 3-6%; NodeMonkes +2% at 0.17 BTC, Puppets +7% at 0.176 BTC, OMB +3% at 0.175, Quantum Cats -2% at 0.23
• The Runes leaders were mostly red; DOG -9% at $520M mc, PUPS -20% at $148M, RSIC -5% at $96M mc, BDC -5% to $75M; GIZMO fell 28% to $13M after its recent rally
• 0xDeafbeef announced his newest project MOVEABLE TYPE, launching on Shape on Oct 16 (tomorrow)
• OSF teased he will be doing a Red Bull Racing art drop later this month, with more details coming soon

💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker

Here's a rundown of major token, protocol and airdrop news from the day:

🌎 Around Crypto and Web3

A few other Crypto and Web3 headlines that caught my eye:

• Crypto majors are slightly green up 1-3% with ETH leading;  BTC +1% at $65,670; ETH +3% at $2,610, SOL +1% at $155; NOT, BCH and WLD are top alt movers up 11-13%
• Memecoin majors were mostly green up 1-3%; DOGE +2%, SHIBA +1%, PEPE +1%, WIF -4%, BONK +3%, POPCAT even, and MOG -10%
• The Bitcoin ETFs have seen a resurgence in interest with $556M in inflows on Monday, the highest since early June
• Larry Fink shared thoughts on Bitcoin in the BlackRock Q3 earnings call, calling it an "asset class in itself" and stating that the rise of national digital currencies and better analytics/AI will broaden the market
• The SUI team denied allegations of insider selling of $400M in tokens, in a X post on Monday
• Kamala Harris announced a pro-crypto stance in a bid to win over Black male voters, promising to establish a regulatory framework that would safeguard crypto investors.
• Crypto wallets linked to MrBeast allegedly made around $13M from token sales associated with controversial crypto projects, which analysts suggest may have been pump-and-dump schemes
• Adin Ross teased that KICK is building a Kick Currency for a potential stream-to-earn model for viewers

🚀 Memecoin Movers 

• $HIGHER (+54% to $26M market cap, BASE)
• $MOODENG (+45% to $45M market cap, ETH)
• $TURBO (+28% to $770M market cap, ETH)
• $DADDY (+20% to $110M market cap, SOL)
• $BILLY (+16% to $46M market cap, SOL)

📈 NFT Floor Price Increase (ETH)

• Tribes of Remilio (145%, 0.04 ETH)
• Honey Bastards (93%, 0.16 ETH)
• Mog Auras (64%, 0.48 ETH)
• Mavia Land (55%, 0.17 ETH Floor)
• Webbland (49%, 0.16 ETH)

🗓 Upcoming Mints and Events

Today is a slower day of mints.

The highlight is World Liberty Financial starting its token sale for $WLFI, though the tokens will be non-transferable for a year.

See the full list and dive in for more details with Swizzy's daily mint monitor. 

• WLFI token sale (8:00 a.m. ET)
• Hello Monster (10:00 a.m. ET)
• Loud (11:00 a.m. ET)
• Meatbags (12:00 p.m. ET)

Enjoy this write-up and/or want to sponsor the Morning Minute? Follow along with me on Twitter @tyler_did_it or reach out via email to tyler.d.warner@gmail.com.