Ethereum – Earlybirds Invest https://earlybirdsinvest.com Latest Crypto News Tue, 06 Jan 2026 12:32:29 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.9 https://i0.wp.com/earlybirdsinvest.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/cropped-New-Project-2024-12-17T235703.455.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 Ethereum – Earlybirds Invest https://earlybirdsinvest.com 32 32 240146708 C++ DEV Update: Announcing Remix https://earlybirdsinvest.com/c-dev-update-announcing-remix/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/c-dev-update-announcing-remix/#respond Mon, 15 Sep 2025 21:21:04 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/c-dev-update-announcing-remix/

After almost three months into the “reboot” of the C++ team, I would like to give an update about the team itself, what we did and what we plan to do.

Team update

The so-called C++ team currently consists of Paweł Bylica (@chfast), Greg Colvin (@gcolvin), Liana Husikyan (@LianaHus), Dimitry Khokhlov (@winsvega), Yann Levreau (@yann300), Bob Summerwill (@bobsummerwill), me (@chriseth) and (kindly “donated” by Eris Industries) RJ (@VoR0220).

Paweł is the original author of the llvm-based EVM-to-native just-in-time compiler, re-joined in April and will continue improving the JIT.

Greg joined in February and already achieved substantial speedups for the C++ implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine, using his experience from implementing the Java Virtual Machine for his former employer Oracle.

Liana and Yann are working on Solidity and its IDEs (yes, plural, see below!).

Dimitry is in charge of the consensus tests and is also working on the C++ core.

Bob joined in February (having been part of the community for a longer time) and is currently leading the ambitious effort of disentangling the C++ codebase. He was also a major contributor to the homestead guide.

RJ joined Eris industries in March and is working on the Solidity compiler.

Furthermore, the coordination and co-operation between the C++ and the Go teams is on a completely different level than before. One of the reasons why we improve the interpreter is to get a water mark for the go-ethereum interpreter and lessons learnt during that process will directly feed into the go interpreter, just to name one example.

Announcing Remix

Developing Solidity itself and providing resources and tools for people writing smart contracts and dapps is one of the largest areas of work for the C++ team. An essential such tool is a debugger for Solidity and the Ethereum Virtual Machine so that developers can “look inside” the virtual machine and find the exact spot in their code that is not doing what they expect it to do. Our IDE Mix is a wonderful piece of software that provides exactly this. Unfortunately, most people do not use it and prefer browser-solidity or just some unit testing tools.

This is understandable, people do not want to switch editors (I guess this is also why we got a vast number of Solidity plugins for existing IDEs in the past months) or install extra software. Furthermore, the relative amount of external contributions we received for the html5+js-based minimalistic IDE browser-solidity compared to C++/Qt-based Mix is just overwhelming.

Because of that and also in an effort to increase modularity, reusability and openness, we decided to rethink the way we want to provide developer tools: With the remix project we will create a set of reusable html5+js modules for developing and debugging smart contracts.

This means that it will be possible to integrate a debugger for EVM and Solidity into browser-solidity (which will also move to a more prominent place in the future), but also into visual studio code, atom, sublime, basically any IDE that is html5+js-based. You will even be able to fire up the debugger inside Mist, also for transactions in the past!

It is probably a bit too early to try out remix, but if you want, follow the instructions in the repository, but be sure to use the latest develop version of cpp-ethereum as backend node.

For everyone else: Here is a screenshot of an early proof of concept version:

Screenshot of an early version of remix

Other Tasks

Concerning the current focus for other projects, we are improving the runtime performance of the virtual machine. Greg already made great progress in that area and still has a lot of ideas. We are currently setting up general benchmarks, so that we can compare the performance of different implementations and the difference between interpreters and just-in-time compilers. We plan to make the just-in-time compiler available to other implementations like py-ethereum and of course go-ethereum.

For Solidity, the main areas of work are currently fixed-point types, structs as part of the ABI and extending the usefulness of libraries via “inlineable” functions and templates. Furthermore, we would like to invite the community to write and publish useful libraries. Special thanks to Alex Beregszaszi (@axic), Nick Johnson (@Arachnid) and Andreas Olofsson (@androlo) for making a great start there!

Finally, we want to reduce the pain that is currently caused when working with the C++ codebase, especially due to external and intra-dependencies. We are already almost at the point where Solidity can be compiled in isolation and the goal is to move back to our old home, the ethereum/cpp-ethereum repository, splitting parts off only where it makes sense, namely for Mix, Solidity and EVMJIT.

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XLM Sees Heavy Volatility as Institutional Selling Weighs on Price https://earlybirdsinvest.com/xlm-sees-heavy-volatility-as-institutional-selling-weighs-on-price/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/xlm-sees-heavy-volatility-as-institutional-selling-weighs-on-price/#respond Mon, 15 Sep 2025 17:00:00 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/xlm-sees-heavy-volatility-as-institutional-selling-weighs-on-price/

Stellar’s XLM token endured sharp swings over the past 24 hours, tumbling 3% as institutional selling pressure dominated order books. The asset declined from $0.39 to $0.38 between September 14 at 15:00 and September 15 at 14:00, with trading volumes peaking at 101.32 million—nearly triple its 24-hour average. The heaviest liquidation struck during the morning hours of September 15, when XLM collapsed from $0.395 to $0.376 within two hours, establishing $0.395 as firm resistance while tentative support formed near $0.375.

Despite the broader downtrend, intraday action highlighted moments of resilience. From 13:15 to 14:14 on September 15, XLM staged a brief recovery, jumping from $0.378 to a session high of $0.383 before closing the hour at $0.380. Trading volume surged above 10 million units during this window, with 3.45 million changing hands in a single minute as bulls attempted to push past resistance. While sellers capped momentum, the consolidation zone around $0.380–$0.381 now represents a potential support base.

Market dynamics suggest distribution patterns consistent with institutional profit-taking. The persistent supply overhead has reinforced resistance at $0.395, where repeated rally attempts have failed, while the emergence of support near $0.375 reflects opportunistic buying during liquidation waves. For traders, the $0.375–$0.395 band has become the key battleground that will define near-term direction.

XLM/USD (TradingView)
XLM/USD (TradingView)
Technical Indicators
  • XLM retreated 3% from $0.39 to $0.38 during the previous 24-hours from 14 September 15:00 to 15 September 14:00.
  • Trading volume peaked at 101.32 million during the 08:00 hour, nearly triple the 24-hour average of 24.47 million.
  • Strong resistance established around $0.395 level during morning selloff.
  • Key support emerged near $0.375 where buying interest materialized.
  • Price range of $0.019 representing 5% volatility between peak and trough.
  • Recovery attempts reached $0.383 by 13:00 before encountering selling pressure.
  • Consolidation pattern formed around $0.380-$0.381 zone suggesting new support level.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

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The Latest Developments That Could Turn Bitcoin Bullish and Fuel Bitcoin Hyper’s $16M Presale https://earlybirdsinvest.com/the-latest-developments-that-could-turn-bitcoin-bullish-and-fuel-bitcoin-hypers-16m-presale/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/the-latest-developments-that-could-turn-bitcoin-bullish-and-fuel-bitcoin-hypers-16m-presale/#respond Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:37:26 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/the-latest-developments-that-could-turn-bitcoin-bullish-and-fuel-bitcoin-hypers-16m-presale/

Bitcoin distribution via miners takes a step back, Japan lowers Bitcoin taxes, Cameron Winklevoss believes in a 10x Bitcoin, while $BTC’s profitability hits historic highs.

These are just some of the recent developments in the crypto world and we’ll discuss all of them.

The first to touch on is Bitcoin’s profitability retesting a historical point after reaching a 92% threshold in Supply in Profit.

Bitcoin’s Supply in Profit percentage

This matters because, every time Bitcoin pushed above 90%, a bull rune followed. And the same thing is likely to happen now, as Bitcoin stagnates between $114K and $116K.

An October bull run would push Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) up the charts faster than ever. The presale is already at $16M, showcasing sustained investor confidence in the project’s future as one of the best altcoins of 2025.

Will the New Bitcoin Season Start in October?

All evidence points to a rich October.

The most recent news crosses the Pacific from Japan, where the government decided to cut Bitcoin taxes by more than half.

According to Coin Bureau, Japan slashed Bitcoin taxes from 55% to 20% for 2026, which spells good news for the Asian crypto markets.

Especially in the context of Metaplanet increasing its Bitcoin treasury, currently at 20,136 $BTC, and leading by example.

Pair this with the Bitcoin miners’ shift to HODLing, which increases the asset’s scarcity, and we can see where this is going.

The miner-to-exchange flow for Bitcoin according to CryptoQuant

The Winklevoss twins, the co-founders of Gemini, believe it’s going to a 10X Bitcoin. The two said they see Bitcoin as ‘Gold 2.0’ and that it can easily reach $1M per coin in 10-years time.

This comes just as Gemini hit Nasdaq last Friday, with $28 per share, after raising over $425M during its IPO.

The conclusion is almost self-explanatory: Bitcoin will see a fiery end of the year, especially with Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) targeting a Q4 release.

How Bitcoin Hyper’s $16M Presale Will Contribute to Bitcoin’s Success

Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) is set to accelerate Bitcoin’s success by fixing one of the network’s most pressing issues: its capped performance.

Bitcoin is currently limited at 7 transactions per second (3 right now), which is responsible for several problems, like slow and expensive transactions, no scalability, and a fee-based priority system, causing small transactions to sometimes experience hours-long finality times.

Bitcoin Hyper changes that with the help of tools like the Canonical Bridge and the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM).

The Canonical Bridge connects Hyper to the Bitcoin ecosystem and relies on the Bitcoin Relay Program to confirm incoming transactions.

The Bridge then mints the tokens into the Hyper layer, allowing investors to use them within the Hyper ecosystem or withdraw them to the Bitcoin network whenever necessary.

How Hyper’s Canonical Bridge works

Together with SVM, which delivers the ultra-fast execution of smart contracts and DeFi apps, the Canonical Bridge turns Hyper into a fast-performing ecosystem that upgrades Bitcoin to modern standards.

The presale is now at over $16M, with Hyper sitting at $0.012925.

Based on the project’s utility and scope, we expect $HYPER to experience widespread adoption shortly after launch.

Our price prediction for $HYPER is $0.025 by the end of 2025 and $0.25 by the end of 2030. This translates into a 10-year ROI of 1,834%. With the community behind it, $HYPER could very well defy these predictions and go even higher.

If you want to invest, read our guide on how to buy $HYPER and get your tokens while they’re still at presale price.

Remember, this isn’t financial advice. Do your own research (DYOR) and invest wisely.

Authored by Aaron Walker, NewsBTC: Bitcoin Weekend Takeaways & Analysis: Bitcoin Hyper Might Be 2025’s Best Altcoin

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‘Monumental’: Russia is likely buying silver for its reserves https://earlybirdsinvest.com/monumental-russia-is-likely-buying-silver-for-its-reserves/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/monumental-russia-is-likely-buying-silver-for-its-reserves/#respond Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:16:49 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/monumental-russia-is-likely-buying-silver-for-its-reserves/

According to Gold Telegraph, it’s “likely” that Russia is buying silver for its reserves, sending shockwaves through precious metals markets. For the first time, a central bank is disclosed to be actively accumulating silver, marking a sharp shift in global reserve strategy and a “monumental” moment for silver itself.

A new era if Russia is buying silver

In its 2025–2027 Federal Budget, Russia allocated $535 million to buy precious metals, with silver explicitly included alongside gold, platinum, and palladium.

This is the first time during the current precious metals bull market that any central bank has announced silver purchases for state reserves.

If Russia is buying silver, it could be helping drive the precious metal to a 14-year high, with the price surpassing $42/oz in September, up nearly 28% year-to-date.

The move is not just financial; it highlights silver’s strategic importance in a world where supply deficits and industrial demand are increasing.

Other countries are buying gold

Silver’s run is happening alongside a multi-year record spree in gold buying. Central banks globally are expected to buy 1,000 metric tons of gold in 2025, marking the fourth consecutive year at these levels.

Poland, Turkey, and China are key gold buyers, with Russia doubling its own gold shipments to China. Across Europe and Asia, gold is being purchased not only for financial stability but as a strategic hedge against currency debasement and geopolitical risk.

Both gold and silver are setting records. Gold hit an all-time high of US$3,667/oz on September 9, 2025, driven by economic instability and surging central bank demand.

Silver, meanwhile, is posting new highs in multiple currencies and regions, and maintains velocity with back-to-back weekly records. The gold-silver ratio, once over 100:1, now reflects silver’s increasing strength as gold’s “precious metal sister” comes out of the shadows.

A vote of no-confidence in fiat currencies

Central bank buying drives scarcity and price. As these institutions move their reserves out of the dollar and into metals, gold and silver serve as a vote of no-confidence in fiat currencies. It fuels inflation-hedge narratives and exacerbates supply constraints that push prices higher.

For Bitcoin and digital assets, it’s a double-edged sword: rising gold and silver prices highlight inflation risks, make hard assets attractive, and drive more capital into alternative stores of value. But they also show that Bitcoin is now competing in a world where governments are hedging with tangible assets, not just digital ones.

If Russia is buying silver, it affirms that even “tiny” markets can feel outsized pressure when central banks take notice.

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C++ DEV Update – July edition https://earlybirdsinvest.com/c-dev-update-july-edition/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/c-dev-update-july-edition/#respond Mon, 15 Sep 2025 03:54:21 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/c-dev-update-july-edition/

Since the last C++ DEV Update, a lot of things happened in the engine room which were not really visible to the outside. This post wants to give an overview about what we are currently working on.

Apart from the features side, Bob has been working on a proposed process for re-licensing of the C++ runtime client code to Apache 2.0, as has been mentioned a few times in the past month or two. Expect more news on that very soon.

Eth Unit-Test Mode

Not only because it is essential for being able to perform our Solidity end-to-end tests via IPC, Dimitry Khoklov and others added some new RPC endpoints to the eth client which allow much more flexibility for testing smart contracts. If you use eth –test -d /tmp/test and connect to the ipc port at /tmp/test/geth.ipc (we recommend using ethereum-console for that because it already has these features added) you can:

  • change the blockchain parameters (e.g. remove proof of work checking and pre-fund certain accounts)
  • mine a certain amount of blocks (at around 30 blocks per second)
  • modify the timestamp of the current block (to e.g. test timeouts in your contracts)
  • revert the blockchain to a given block number

This allows us to run our currently 305 Solidity end-to-end tests in around 46 seconds on a moderate computer. Each of these tests include at least two (often more) transactions and the same amount of mined blocks.

More information about these features can be found at https://github.com/ethereum/ethereum-console.

Please note that this is currently only available for the binary that is provided via the ubuntu dev ppa.

Virtual Machine Speedup

Greg Colvin spent the last months speeding up the C++ implementation of the EVM interpreter. He harvested what he calls the low-hanging fruits (he worked for Oracle on the Java interpreter before…).   The most important improvements so far have been replacing 256-bit calculations with 64-bit calculations for gas metering, and making sure that no more metering calculations are done for each VM operation than necessary.  These and other changes resulted in the following results for Paweł Bylica’s nascent benchmark suite. The following chart shows the speedup relative to the old cpp ethereum interpreter (cpp int (old)).

relative_speedup

To be fair, we have to tell what these benchmarks measure. The first benchmark (where the evmjit goes off the scale with a speedup of 472x) does a million empty loops, and shows how slow the EVM’s computed goto is compared to the direct jump of a JIT – fixing that is next on the stack.  The second benchmark is a bad random number generator that does a million loops with four multiplications and four additions per loop.  It is dominated by 256-bit calculations, so a JIT makes less difference.  (Note that the Go JIT does not compile to native code, but to a faster interpreted representation.)

In practice, these speedups will only be relevant to “number-crunching” contracts because the computation time is otherwise largely dominated by storage access. On the other hand, the “rng” benchmark is quite similar to cryptographic operations which pulls such things further into the realm of actual on-chain implementations.

Paweł Bylica is working on a C-language interface between the virtual machine implementation and the client that hosts it, with the goal of being able to plug different VMs into an Ethereum client. This way, geth can also potentially benefit from our changes to the C++ virtual machine and especially from the LLVM just-in-time compiler.

Note that these changes are not yet released, but they are part of the ubuntu dev ppa.

Remix

Yann Levreau and Liana Husikyan are working on our new EVM debugger remix. We released the alpha version some days ago:

ApplicationInstructions

For now, you can “only” use it to inspect every single step in the execution of any transaction in the blockchain, look at the current stack, memory and storage contents and see the sequence of instructions. The next step will be to also allow source-level debugging where you can see the current position in the source code, step on line or instruction level and see the decoded values of the variables (instead of only the raw hex values).

The debugger is for you, the community, and we were delighted to hear that etherscan has already integrated Remix into their blockchain explorer.

Repository Reorganisation

Bob Summerwill is dedicated to bringing back C++-Ethereum to its former home, https://github.com/ethereum/cpp-ethereum and thus remove the unnecessary and confusing split into multiple sub-repositories. We are making great progress there, one of the first really visible steps was to decouple the testing infrastructure of Solidity from the virtual machine implementation. The Solidity tests can now be compiled without the virtual machine and they are run by communicating with a specially configured eth process (the one mentioned above) over the regular IPC interface.

The next steps here are to disentangle the rest of the code, modify the test automation and continuous integration accordingly and perform the actual move.

Together with this step, we unfortunately have to say goodbye to Mix and AlethZero (the spirit of mix will live on in the new remix project). The burden they drag along would be too big, because it includes Qt and a tight coupling with Solidity. As already explained in earlier posts, a loose IPC-based coupling of these tools to a small client implementation makes us much more flexible and the community support that comes with a change to JavaScript and Web-based tools like remix and browser-solidity is just overwhelming in comparison.

Formal Verification

We are extending the existing formal verification tools integrated with Solidity to cross-contract calls. This would enable automated proofs that e.g. a recursive call attack is not possible against a certain contract. Also, as why3 (the tool we use to do the heavy lifting) was recently ported to browsers, we can probably expect it to be available right inside browser-solidity and other tools like blockchain explorers!

There is a first proof of concept including explanations that shows how automated verification can be used to show that it is impossible to steal money from a solidity contract, even if recursive calls are allowed.

This proof of concept will hopefully evolve into a usable tool in the next weeks.


Several people from the community and from inside the Foundation are currently working on tools for Solidity or the EVM in general. These include:

  1. Solidity AST analysis for warnings by Dave Hoover (@redsquirrel)
  2. A Read-Eval-Print version of Solidity by raineorshine: Solidity-repl
  3. Control-flow analysis graph also by raineorshine
  4. EVM disassembler by Nick Johnson
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Bitcoin Bulls Bet on Fed Rate Cuts To Drive Bond Yields Lower, But There's a Catch https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-bulls-bet-on-fed-rate-cuts-to-drive-bond-yields-lower-but-theres-a-catch/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-bulls-bet-on-fed-rate-cuts-to-drive-bond-yields-lower-but-theres-a-catch/#respond Sun, 14 Sep 2025 23:33:16 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/bitcoin-bulls-bet-on-fed-rate-cuts-to-drive-bond-yields-lower-but-theres-a-catch/

On Sept. 17, the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) is widely expected to cut interest rates by 25 basis points, lowering the benchmark range to 4.00%-4.25%. This move will likely be followed by more easing in the coming months, taking the rates down to around 3% within the next 12 months. The fed funds futures market is discounting a drop in the fed funds rate to less than 3% by the end of 2026.

Bitcoin bulls are optimistic that the anticipated easing will push Treasury yields sharply lower, thereby encouraging increased risk-taking across both the economy and financial markets. However, the dynamics are more complex and could lead to outcomes that differ significantly from what is anticipated.

While the expected Fed rate cuts could weigh on the two-year Treasury yield, those at the long end of the curve may remain elevated due to fiscal concerns and sticky inflation.

Debt supply

The U.S. government is expected to increase the issuance of Treasury bills (short-term instruments) and eventually longer-duration Treasury notes to finance the Trump administration’s recently approved package of extended tax cuts and increased defense spending. According to the Congressional Budget Office, these policies are likely to add over $2.4 trillion to primary deficits over ten years, while Increasing debt by nearly $3 trillion, or roughly $5 trillion if made permanent.

The increased supply of debt will likely weigh on bond prices and lift yields. (bond prices and yields move in the opposite direction).

“The U.S. Treasury’s eventual move to issue more notes and bonds will pressure longer-term yields higher,” analysts at T. Rowe Price, a global investment management firm, said in a recent report.

Fiscal concerns have already permeated the longer-duration Treasury notes, where investors are demanding higher yields to lend money to the government for 10 years or more, known as the term premium.

The ongoing steepening of the yield curve – which is reflected in the widening spread between 10- and 2-year yields, as well as 30- and 5-year yields and driven primarily by the relative resilience of long-term rates – also signals increasing concerns about fiscal policy.

Kathy Jones, managing director and chief income strategist at the Schwab Center for Financial Research, voiced a similar opinion this month, noting that “investors are demanding a higher yield for long-term Treasuries to compensate for the risk of inflation and/or depreciation of the dollar as a consequence of high debt levels.”

These concerns could keep long-term bond yields from falling much, Jones added.

Stubborn inflation

Since the Fed began cutting rates last September, the U.S. labor market has shown signs of significant weakening, bolstering expectations for a quicker pace of Fed rate cuts and a decline in Treasury yields. However, inflation has recently edged higher, complicating that outlook.

When the Fed cut rates in September last year, the year-on-year inflation rate was 2.4%. Last month, it stood at 2.9%, the highest since January’s 3% reading. In other words, inflation has regained momentum, weakening the case for faster Fed rate cuts and a drop in Treasury yields.

Easing priced in?

Yields have already come under pressure, likely reflecting the market’s anticipation of Federal Reserve rate cuts.

The 10-year yield slipped to 4% last week, hitting the lowest since April 8, according to data source TradingView. The benchmark yield has dropped over 60 basis points from its May high of 4.62%.

According to Padhraic Garvey, CFA, regional head of research, Americas at ING, the drop to 4% is likely an overshoot to the downside.

“We can see the 10yr Treasury yield targeting still lower as an attack on 4% is successful. But that’s likely an overshoot to the downside. Higher inflation prints in the coming months will likely cause long-end yields some issues, requiring a significant adjustment,” Garvey said in a note to clients last week.

Perhaps rate cuts have been priced in, and yields could bounce back hard following the Sept. 17 move, in a repeat of the 2024 pattern. The dollar index suggests the same, as noted early this week.

Lesson from 2024

The 10-year yield fell by over 100 basis points to 3.60% in roughly five months leading up to the September 2024 rate cut.

The central bank delivered additional rate cuts in November and December. Yet, the 10-year yield bottomed out with the September move and rose to 4.57% by year-end, eventually reaching a high of 4.80% in January of this year.

According to ING, the upswing in yields following the easing was driven by economic resilience, sticky inflation, and fiscal concerns.

As of today, while the economy has weakened, inflation and fiscal concerns have worsened as discussed earlier, which means the 2024 pattern could repeat itself.

What it means for BTC?

While BTC rallied from $70,000 to over $100,000 between October and December 2024 despite rising long-term yields, this surge was primarily fueled by optimism around pro-crypto regulatory policies under President Trump and growing corporate adoption of BTC and other tokens.

However, these supporting narratives have significantly weakened looking back a year later. Consequently, the possibility of a potential hardening of yields in the coming months weighing over bitcoin cannot be dismissed.

Read: Here Are the 3 Things That Could Spoil Bitcoin’s Rally Towards $120K

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Solana (SOL) Bulls Complete Bullish Breakout — Eye $360 Mid-Term Target https://earlybirdsinvest.com/solana-sol-bulls-complete-bullish-breakout-eye-360-mid-term-target/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/solana-sol-bulls-complete-bullish-breakout-eye-360-mid-term-target/#respond Sun, 14 Sep 2025 19:09:53 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/solana-sol-bulls-complete-bullish-breakout-eye-360-mid-term-target/ Solana (SOL) has emerged as a major headliner following an impressive 20.89% gain over the last week. Solana’s price now sits comfortably within the $240 price range and is only 18.05% away from its present all-time high at $294. Interestingly, renowned market expert Ali Martinez has noted a positive effect of SOL’s recent price surge, which points to a sustained price rally.

SOL Surges Above Key $205 Resistance: Fibonacci Levels Point Toward $362

In an X post on September 13, Martinez shares an in-depth technical analysis of the Solana price structure, which shows significant potential for a prolonged uptrend. Notably, SOL’s price gain from last week resulted in a breakout from a key ascending triangle formation, signaling strong bullish momentum that projects to higher mid-term targets.

Looking at the chart below, the latest price surge effectively lifted Solana above the multi-month resistance zone near $205, where price had consolidated between April and August. It is clearly observed that breaking above this resistance, combined with the sustained higher lows that formed the ascending triangle, points to a classic bullish continuation pattern.

Solana

Notably, the introduction of the Fibonacci extension levels provides more insight into the bullish potential of this recent breakout. The immediate price target presently lies at the 1.272 Fibonacci extension around $250, followed by the 1.414 extension near $277. However, if momentum continues, Solana could reach further upside levels, around $321 (1.618 extension) and the ultimate mid-term target at $362, which corresponds with the 1.786 extension.

On the downside, the $205 breakout zone now serves as critical support. Holding above this level is crucial to maintaining the bullish outlook, as a decisive break below it could open the door for a retest of lower Fibonacci retracement zones, particularly around $176 or $156. However, the rising trendline that has supported price action since April adds another layer of structural support for bulls.

Solana Price Outlook

At the time of writing, Solana is trading at $246, reflecting a modest 1.67% gain over the past 24 hours. However, trading volume has declined sharply by 27.53%, currently standing at $7.49 billion.

According to analysts at Coincodex, investor sentiment toward Solana remains broadly bullish, even as the Greed & Fear Index sits at a neutral 52. Their short-term outlook suggests limited price movement, with the asset projected to remain around $247 for the next month. Looking further ahead, analysts expect Solana to climb to $264 over the next three months, highlighting steady but moderate growth expectations.

Nevertheless, with a market cap of $131.65 billion, Solana continues to rank as the fifth-largest cryptocurrency in the world.

Solana

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$7.5T in US money market funds could soon be seeking a new home https://earlybirdsinvest.com/7-5t-in-us-money-market-funds-could-soon-be-seeking-a-new-home/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/7-5t-in-us-money-market-funds-could-soon-be-seeking-a-new-home/#respond Sun, 14 Sep 2025 14:48:15 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/7-5t-in-us-money-market-funds-could-soon-be-seeking-a-new-home/

$7.5 trillion is now parked in U.S. money market funds. This vast amount of capital marks a new all-time high that risk asset traders are closely watching. Why? Because as yields trend lower and the Fed prepares to cut rates, this colossal dry powder could be primed to flood into risk assets, including tech stocks and Bitcoin.

Money market funds and the dry powder dilemma

Money market funds have soared by almost $100 billion in just days. Bar Chart posted the figure at $7.4 trillion on September 9, only to be updated on September 13 to $7.5 trillion.

$7.5T in money market funds (Source: Barchart)
$7.5T in money market funds (Source: Barchart)

Semantics? Maybe, either way, it’s a huge wave of liquidity that could soon be looking for a new home.

Traditionally, this much cash on the sidelines signals huge pent-up appetite for risk, especially as interest rates fall and safe returns shrink. Every rate cut makes holding cash less attractive. So once the Fed slashes rates, investors will seek out higher-yielding, risk-on opportunities, such as Bitcoin and growth stocks.

The Fed’s upcoming rate cut is a hot topic. Most crypto traders and institutional analysts expect fresh liquidity to flow into markets after the cut, catalyzing new bull runs for volatile assets. Lower rates mean easy capital, looser financial conditions, and less incentive to stay parked in money market funds.

Voices of caution: not everyone wants a rate cut

It’s not a unanimous party, as CryptoSlate reported yesterday. Vocal critics, such as economist and goldbug Peter Schiff, call the Fed’s rate cut a “huge mistake,” warning it could reignite inflation and put the dollar at risk as a reserve currency.

Schiff argues that constantly easier money is fueling dangerous bubbles and eroding long-term economic stability, pointing to gold’s rally as a forward signal of policy error.

The scale of money market funds today is unprecedented, and it’s drawing new scrutiny to America’s fiscal health. 23 cents of every tax dollar now goes strictly to paying interest on U.S. federal debt, an eyewatering figure that has investors and policymakers sounding the alarm.

The S&P 500 is at record highs as unemployment rises and the national debt balloons. This dichotomy has some analysts concerned about the misstep between Wall Street and Main Street. Typically, a stock market correction comes after a weaker labor market and signs of a sluggish economy.

$7.5 trillion: keep watching the numbers

With a rate cut on the horizon, historic money market liquidity, and mounting fiscal worries, all eyes are on how the dry powder gets deployed. If investors rotate even a fraction of this $7.5 trillion into riskier assets, crypto markets could benefit dramatically.

Keep watching the numbers. Every move in rates, every inflation print, and every fiscal headline is rewriting the risk landscape. For Bitcoin and risk assets, opportunity and volatility have never looked bigger.

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Taylor’s Summer Update https://earlybirdsinvest.com/taylors-summer-update/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/taylors-summer-update/#respond Sun, 14 Sep 2025 10:25:52 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/taylors-summer-update/

Hey everyone, I spent some time with our Canadian friends in Toronto after presenting “Ethereum: The World Computer” at Blockchain Training Conference last month and I wanted to provide a quick update on some of the exciting happenings in the Ethereum dev ecosystem. Lots of things are brewing behinds the scenes, so let’s jump in!

Projects

Mist

Ethereum wallet has been refined significantly over the last several months expanding support to arbitrary contract interaction via the “custom contracts” tab. This is a massive improvement over sending transactions on the command line, as was often required in Frontier. With several new team members doing work with the Ethereum Foundation, new versions of Mist are now rolling out and will incorporate improvements to Geth and Eth as they are integrated. If you’re using an old version, update to Mist 0.8.0 for the latest goodies.

Screenshot Mist 0.8.0 Screenshot Mist 0.8.0

Remix

After all the hard work spent reorganizing the C++ codebase, the CPP team has shifted gears from Mix to Remix, as the IDE now targets the web. Remix has hit it first alpha, and published with a demo online. Check out its repository at https://github.com/ethereum/remix for more info. In general, EVM IDEs aren’t yet popular, so this could be a major step forward in approachability, like the online Solidity compiler has been. New security tools, such as EVMDIS as expected to be released to the community. Work is also being done so that formal verification can detect recursive call patterns. More details can be found in Christian’s C++ DEV Update.

ENS

ENS example diagram Diagram of example ENS hierarchy with multiple records

Not an official project, but closely related to many projects, Nick Johnson has started work on the Ethereum Name Service. The encompasses smart contract-based resolvers with standard API. The specification supports delegation by name component (separated by “.”) and multiple types of records. It’s possible to build gateways to plug-in to existing systems, like DNS. Currently, a draft specification with a reference implementation is available in solidity and discussion is ongoing on Gitter. This could have large implications for general usability of many services on Ethereum network from wallet aliases to friendly Swarm node names.

Protocols

Light client

Something to watch closely is light-client functionality entering public testing phase. Zsolt has been working on this code for months and the team looks poised to merge it into the main repo soon. The new code decreases chain sync time to under 30 mins from genesis block and under a minute when used week-to-week. This builds on top of work that Peter did for the fast sync functionality that is now the default in Mist (–fast). More work is being done to improve log/receipt retrieval, and several iterations to the protocol is expected over time, so this is not the last you’ll hear about LES!

Light client running on embedded device Tweet of light client running on embedded device

Swarm

Swarm is also being vigorously tested as PoC2 demonstrating economically self sustaining storage and distribution layers. Viktor, Dani, and Aaron have been working hard to ensure the code is as bug-free as possible before launching it on testnet. Nick has developed a simulation script for network and communication verification which will go a long way towards this effort. One of the exciting features of their work is the accounting & incentive systems allowing for long-term storage and retrieval of data. If you want to know more, the Swarm team has been featured in several YouTube videos which explains how everything works.

Data storage & retrieval on Swarm Data storage & retrieval on Swarm

Though called many other names, this enables a vision for decentralized storage where you own your own data. Currently, while there are a few blockchain-based apps, full availability of Swarm will allow for those blockchain-backed apps to become full DApps and run 100% decentralized inside Mist.

IPFS & Raiden

On a collaborative note, continued discussion between the IPFS and Ethereum teams may allow them to share a protocol in the future, allowing both ecosystems to benefit from their respective network effects. Further, work going towards Raiden and Swarm turned out to be complementary as solutions were working towards solving similar problems. I’m told that the Raiden Network can be used as a payment channel for the Swarm incentive system, which would help address some privacy and scalability concerns while also multiplying their own efforts. Knowing that they are reinforcing makes me even more excited for what’s in store for the future!

Wrap-up

Devcon2 is right around the corner, with sessions scheduled for September 19, 20, 21 during the Global Blockchain Summit in Shanghai, China. Ethereum Foundation’s information website is now online at ethereumfoundation.org/devcon and more information about the Summit can be found at blockchainweek2016.org. Despite having a larger venue, space will still be limited, so register now!

I hope 2016 will prove to be a pivotal year for blockchains. UI/UX is improving rapidly over what was available just a couple years ago and with solutions like Raiden for state/payment-channels, some of the privacy and scalability problems of blockchains are eased. Combined with research advancements targeted for Serenity, we are on pace to overcome many of the obstacles Vitalik once listed as hard problems.

Keep Calm and Code On Keep Calm and Code On
 


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Your Company Probably Doesn’t Need Its Own L2 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/your-company-probably-doesnt-need-its-own-l2/ https://earlybirdsinvest.com/your-company-probably-doesnt-need-its-own-l2/#respond Sun, 14 Sep 2025 06:04:43 +0000 https://earlybirdsinvest.com/your-company-probably-doesnt-need-its-own-l2/

More and more companies are attracted to the idea of launching their own Ethereum layer 2 network. Most of them shouldn’t bother. There’s already a staggering number of them — over 150. Quite a few of these are centralized and linked to a single enterprise and several companies such as Robinhood have recently announced plans to launch their own layer 2 networks.

The attractions for launching an Ethereum layer 2 network are significant, especially when compared to launching your own layer 1 (foundation layer) blockchain. Layer 1 networks must compete with networks like Ethereum and Solana in an already intensely competitive and crowded market. Layer 2 networks that run on top of Ethereum also face an intensely competitive marketplace but can simultaneously draw upon the strength of the Ethereum ecosystem, thanks to deep integration into Ethereum itself.

With Ethereum having turned 10 in July, it remains the dominant smart contract blockchain and it is the largest single home for digital assets, real-world assets (RWA), stablecoins and decentralized finance applications. Ethereum’s share of the overall decentralized finance ecosystem has been stable at about 50% for three years now. When layer 2 networks are included in the total, it appears to be rising modestly.

The temptation to launch your own Ethereum layer 2 network is easy to understand — they look like a useful concept with great economics. A layer 2 network on top of Ethereum offers a bit of “best of both worlds” functionality: you can control your own ecosystem within your layer 2 but retain integration with and access to the overall Ethereum ecosystem. Centralized layer 2 networks can set their own price structures and have nearly all the same controls as a stand-alone private blockchain such as deciding who has access to the network and what kind of data will be visible to others.

This comes with a cost. Layer 2 networks must purchase transaction processing space on the Ethereum mainnet to finalize their transactions (known as blob space) — but those costs are likely to be lower than those associated with starting a network from scratch and competing head-on with Ethereum. In fact, according to Token Terminal, the costs of developing a layer 2 are remarkably low. For Base, a layer 2 network run by Coinbase, during June of 2025, the network generated $4.9 million in fee revenue and spent just $50,000 on layer 1 settlement fees.

Indeed, the layer 1 settlement fees on Ethereum are so low they have set off a fiery debate within the network ecosystem about whether they are too low, and that layer 2 networks represent a transfer of benefits from layer 1 stakeholders to layer 2 networks. It is likely this will result in some re-balancing of fees, but even a 10x increase in fees is not likely to alter the fundamentally good value proposition that comes with scaling with layer 2 networks.

Furthermore, the recent announcement by Robinhood that they will be building their own layer 2 network on Ethereum fundamentally validates the overall layer 2 thesis within Ethereum: layer 2 networks are not only a good scaling option, they also enable a variety of business models that will entice a wide range of companies to join the network.The layer 2 ecosystem is likely to have a range of participants from the fully decentralized to the completely centralized.

And this brings us to the key question: does your company need its own layer 2 network? Chances are, you don’t. The real value proposition of a blockchain ecosystem is the ability to work in cooperation with others without any one party controlling the network. If you’re a manufacturing company, for example, you want to work with your suppliers and customers on a level playing field with your competitors. Blockchains let everyone join in without favoring any one participant. In the long run, working together on a level playing field is much cheaper and preferable to trying to integrate into different systems controlled by each one of your key customers or suppliers.

While some layer 2 networks look very profitable right now, this is only true if you can generate good transaction volume. Many of the layer 2 networks operating are doing little to no business as they struggle to differentiate themselves in a crowded market. According to L2Beat, most of these networks have less than $1mm in TVL bridged in from Ethereum and are averaging less than one user operation per second.

So when does a company need its own layer 2 network? My hypothesis is that this works best for firms that can aggregate significant transaction volume into the network and whose customers do not have the means or the individual volume to make their own direct connection to Ethereum. Right now, that largely means financial services firms that have thousands or millions of retail customers, from Coinbase to Kraken to Robinhood. More firms will surely follow. Having a layer 2 network might be seen, in the future, the way we looked at having a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Brokerage firms would want them, but a car maker wouldn’t find value in it.

Three questions would be useful in determining if a firm should launch its own Ethereum layer 2 network: first, is the company able to aggregate a significant volume of its own transactions or clients compared to other networks? Second, is transacting on-chain central to the company’s core business model (e.g., are you an intermediary, especially a financial one that presently transacts on traditional financial rails). Lastly, does your layer 2 approach offer a differentiated value proposition compared to the many other network options out there? If you can say yes to all three options, this is a possible path forward.

For most other types of firms, they may find the optimal value proposition to be connecting directly to Ethereum, or one of the other open layer 2 networks. It will be less costly and more private than going through an aggregator who will be able to mark up your transaction costs and see your transaction flow and less costly than running your own network.

I suspect, however, that before we are done, quite a few firms that have no need to run their own layer 2 will launch one anyway for the same reasons many firms launched private chains in the past.

No matter how reliably they have failed, the attraction of private blockchains was always hard to counter. The allure of “controlling your destiny” and “taxing the ecosystem” was hard to resist. Public chains, with their openness, interoperability, and permissionless nature can look scary to business users who would prefer more control.

To the same buyers who wanted private chains, centralized layer 2 networks look like a halfway house that may seem appealing. Unlike private chains, I don’t think they are all doomed to fail, but I do suspect only a few will succeed. History keeps repeating itself – mostly because we’re not very good at paying attention to it. Here we go again.

Disclaimer: These are the personal views of the author and do not represent the views of EY.

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