Crypto Twitter this week was dominated by the industry’s new hottest topic, Bitcoin Runes—plus a steaming hot serving of legal drama in the form of a preemptive lawsuit filed by Ethereum software giant against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Ever since Bitcoin’s latest Check your wallets!100,000,000,000 $DOG has been successfully airdropped to Runestone holders.Shoutout to giga-chad volunteer community member @gm7t2 for flawlessly executing it.The journey to $1 has begun pic.twitter.com/XPL7q6m7VG— Leonidas (@LeonidasNFT) April 24, 2024Runes fever took such hold over the cryptosphere this week that activity on the protocol quickly surged to BREAKING: Runes accounted for 72.7% of all Bitcoin transactions in the past 24 hours— Ord.io (@ord_io) April 24, 2024Some crypto users bemoaned the overwhelmed by the number of absolute mid curve takes from people who are fading runes.“sit on your hands for now see how it goes”“all these tickers suck”“the fees are too high for meme coins”bruh you will be buying rune 1 from me for 100x sooner than you think.EZ game.— faXx | 824.eth (@faxx_eth) April 24, 2024Over on Ethereum, bullish news was found this week in the eye-popping, multi-million dollar sale of yet another CryptoPunk NFT. Punk #635, an ultra-rare Alien Punk, sold on Thursday for a whopping $12.38 million to an anonymous collector. The sale marked the third occasion within weeks that an Alien Punk had traded hands for north of $11 million. CryptoPunk 635, the Alien originally owned by Larva Labs and sold at the Christie’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in May 2021, has just been acquired by an anonymous collector in a deal brokered by Fountain. We’re honored to have played a small role in this sale. Congratulations… pic.twitter.com/glisy3MZpv— Fountain (@Fountainxyz) April 25, 2024It wasn’t all smiles for everyone in the Ethereum NFT ecosystem, however. On Friday, Yuga Labs, the multi-billion dollar company behind the once-dominant NFT collection gm, really tough day today. I am hellbent on transforming yuga and getting us back to our roots, and that means making hard decisions. by far the hardest is saying goodbye to some talented team members. here was my message to the team this morning. pic.twitter.com/gBkoNf2iK3— Garga.eth (Greg Solano) (@CryptoGarga) April 26, 2024The biggest bombshell of the week, however, came on Thursday, when Ethereum software giant Consensys revealed in a Today, Consensys filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission. The goal behind this is to ensure that Ethereum remains a vibrant and indispensable blockchain platform and to preserve access for the countless developers, market participants, and institutions…— Consensys (@Consensys) April 25, 2024Industry leaders immediately took to Twitter to I know ETH is a commodity. You know ETH is a commodity. The CFTC knows ETH is a commodity. It’s time for the SEC to admit that it still knows ETH is a commodity too. No more games. Thank you to @Consensys for standing up against the SEC’s unlawful expansion of authority. https://t.co/8w7A4PBwUK— paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) April 25, 2024Hayden Adams, founder of decentralized exchange (Sue the Exchange CommissionThanks @ethereumJoseph and @Consensys for fighting back and defending our industryWe’re tired of the overreach and harassment https://t.co/yDTjjiaJWl pic.twitter.com/vtWxqKxv9n— hayden.eth (@haydenzadams) April 25, 2024Disclosure: ConsenSys Mesh is one of 22 investors in Decrypt. Edited by Ryan Ozawa.
