Crypto Takes Washington

Donald Trump's crypto czar David Sacks spoke in Washington on Tuesday. Amidst many pleasantries, he highlighted the importance of 'regulatory clarity' for the crypto industry; stressing that without it, the US runs the risk of giving away value creation to other countries. One of the most notable moments from his speech was his closing remark:

The speech left many feeling optimistic, especially about stablecoins. Sacks pushed the idea that they help keep the U.S. dollar on top globally. How? Stablecoin issuers buy U.S. Treasuries to back their digital dollars, which pumps up demand. And since the U.S. government borrows money by selling Treasuries, more demand means lower interest rates. This cuts government borrowing costs and gives politicians more to spend.

On the same day, Acting SEC Chairman Mark T. Uyeda announced his executive staff appointments, three of whom are listed as members of the SEC’s Crypto Task Force.

For those who’ve been in crypto for a while, please take a moment😮‍💨

This shift in sentiment has been a long time coming. Not too long ago, the SEC was handing out Wells Notices like they were going out of fashion. Today, we're being told that a 'Golden age' is coming.

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In the markets this week, we saw just how much crypto is heavily influenced by geopolitical events.

Trump’s latest executive orders on tariffs sent waves of uncertainty through global markets, and crypto was no exception. The market shed nearly half a trillion dollars.

This raises a crucial question: How can crypto become more resistant to broader economic uncertainty?

After all, one of its core promises is to serve as a hedge against inflation, government overreach, and the fragility of traditional finance. Yet, in moments like these, its resilience is being put to the test.

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Not-So-Ultrasound Money?

The “ultrasound money” meme emerged in the summer of 2020, anticipating the effects EIP-1559 would have on Ethereum's monetary policy. EIP-1559 introduced a mechanism in which, during periods of high network activity, the amount of Ether burned by the protocol’s base fee could exceed the amount of Ether issued, leading to deflationary periods.

However, the introduction of "blobs" through EIP-4844 on March 13, 2024, began to reverse this trend. For now, Ethereum is somewhat inflationary again.

This shift occurred because, before EIP-4844, L2 chains across the ecosystem posted their data to Ethereum via calldata (expensive). EIP-4844 provided a cheaper alternative for L2s, reducing the total amount of gas consumed per block. As a result, less Ether is being burned than issued, leading to a mildly inflationary state instead of deflation.

What you won’t read on X is that, if you zoom out, Ethereum’s inflation has still slowed drastically.

Additionally, the reversal isn't solely due to the introduction of blobs. Since the Merge (Sep 2022), the number of validators on the Beacon Chain has increased by ~146%. More validators result in higher ETH issuance, which scales proportionally to the square root of the total validator count.

So next time you see posts like ​this, remember there’s usually more to the story than meets the eye. Zoom out. As Hans Rosling wisely put it in Factfulness:

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Foundry - Initcode Verification

This isn't simple Etherscan verification. Forge has developed a powerful new CLI tool that verifies a contract’s initcode AND runtimecode.

Remember, when we deploy smart contracts, we first execute the initcode. This code has the ability to modify a contract’s storage, potentially introducing malicious state.

Check out forge verify-bytecode if you need more rigorous smart contract verification.

Command:

See this tweet for a more detailed break down.

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Bonus:

There's a new cheatcode called 'isContext' which checks the current forge execution context.

Usage: