Investors who added 10% in Bitcoin (BTC) to their “60/40 portfolio” strategies got a 90% risk-adjusted return in the past 12 months, outperforming gold’s 51% return in the same period.

On a June 16 post via X, the profile Ecoinometrics highlighted BTC’s performance through June 13 and charted the result against total return. A 60/40 portfolio is a strategy in which investors allocate 60% of the portfolio’s assets to equities and 40% to fixed-income instruments.

A pure equities index fund earned about 12% with a risk-adjusted ratio of 0.55. Adding bonds dropped the return to roughly 8% and left the risk metric near 0.45. Reallocating 10 bond points to gold pushed the ratio to 0.62 and lifted the return to 12%.

Meanwhile, the same substitution with Bitcoin drove the ratio past 0.80 and elevated the return to 14%. The publication only counted downside deviation, setting the risk-free rate to zero.

Fidelity sees portfolios evolving

Fidelity Digital Assets researcher Chris Kuiper and Fidelity Investments macro director Jurrien Timmer also highlighted the importance of Bitcoin in modern portfolio construction during a new episode of The Value Exchange. 

Kuiper said investors now confront deglobalization, persistent inflation, and policy uncertainty that undermine old allocation playbooks.

Timmer added:

“The status quo we’ve known for decades faces a transactional world order.” 

Both argued that portfolios may need fresh stores of value that operate outside sovereign systems.

Kuiper traced bonds’ nominal compound annual growth to just 1% to 2% over the past decade and noted real drawdowns that reached 55%. Timmer recalled 2022 when treasuries “went from being the port in the storm to bringing the storm.” 

Those outcomes prompted the pair to consider which macro assets could fill the hedging role that bonds once fulfilled. Their answer pointed to scarce digital assets, with Bitcoin foremost.

Bonds’ role weakening 

Kuiper labeled Bitcoin a network asset whose volatility often works in favor of holders. He cited internal modeling that shows price expanding 6x for every 40% rise in the network’s age. 

Timmer built on that framework, arguing that global money supply growth should lift demand for non-sovereign scarcity. Both researchers observed that institutional adoption, although difficult to quantify in real-time, continues to deepen liquidity and smooth execution.

Ecoinometrics’ comparison with gold reinforces that view. An allocation identical in size and funded from the same bond sleeve delivered a markedly lower upgrade to risk-adjusted performance despite gold’s long tenure as a hedge. 

Bitcoin’s outperformance on both axes of return and downside-adjusted risk aligns with the narrative that the asset class now commands consideration alongside precious metals and inflation-protected securities when investors assemble durable multi-asset portfolios.

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The Ethereum Foundation is realigning its developmental strategy to address core protocol efficiency and user experience challenges, following recent leadership changes earlier this year.

Co-executive director Tomasz Stańczak outlined the updated focus areas in a public statement on X earlier today, emphasizing that the shift is intended to strengthen Ethereum’s long-term scalability while improving near-term usability.

Protocol Upgrades and a Revised Role for Vitalik Buterin

Stańczak described the discussions surrounding Ethereum’s base-layer roadmap as extensive and community-driven, noting that the changes are designed to sharpen focus among researchers and core developers. Stańczak wrote:

Our discussions about the Layer 1 scaling roadmap have been extensive, and the feedback so far suggests that the community appreciates our ambition. Turning that ambition into reality now depends on the focus of the core development teams and researchers.

As part of its strategic transition, the Ethereum Foundation is aiming to give Vitalik Buterin more time to focus on advanced research rather than daily operational oversight.

“We aimed, among other things, to free more of Vitalik’s time for research and exploration,” Stańczak stated, adding that Buterin’s recent writings on topics like RISC-V and zkVMs have been instrumental in directing attention toward potentially “transformative technologies.”

According to Stańczak, these insights have played a significant role in realigning the Ethereum community around long-term priorities, such as privacy, modularity, and decentralized infrastructure.

Stańczak clarified that Buterin’s proposals are not mandates but starting points for community-led exploration:

Vitalik’s proposals will always carry weight, but they are intended to start conversations and encourage progress in difficult research areas.

He also stressed the importance of giving other researchers the same freedom, highlighting ongoing work by contributors like Justin Drake and Tankard Feist.

Overall. the Foundation’s research direction is now geared toward short-term outcomes that include better Layer-1 scaling, enhanced Layer-2 integration, and more “seamless” user experiences—especially in upcoming upgrades like Pectra, Fusaka, and Glamsterdam.

RISC-V Proposal and Developer Flexibility

The Foundation is also assessing the feasibility of moving from the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to a more modern execution environment powered by RISC-V.

This proposal, initially introduced by Buterin, suggests that RISC-V could streamline execution, improve efficiency, and simplify zero-knowledge proof implementation.

“We are exploring ways to bring forward projects that currently look three to five years away,” Stańczak noted, referencing possible acceleration in next-gen execution and consensus layer development.

RISC-V’s benefits include broader language compatibility and the potential for backward compatibility with existing EVM contracts. Developers could continue using Solidity and Vyper or expand into languages like Rust.

Additionally, RISC-V could improve validator performance through hardware-level customization, while maintaining core Ethereum features such as account models and contract interactions.

As research and experimentation continue, Stańczak emphasized the importance of community input: “Ethereum researchers often ask that readers recognize the exploratory nature of their posts and proposals. Focus remains essential.”

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I know that I can announce a channel between the two peers or do it without notice. However, even if the channel is public, the channel balance has not been revealed. As far as I know, this is a concern about the efficiency of routing in Lightning networks.

Why can’t peers opt out of this privacy constraint (along with other peers’ agreements) and reveal the balance between improving routing and network efficiency? Clearing channel balance reduces privacy, but connected peers can benefit financially from doing so.

For example, large LN nodes belonging to the exchange are very likely to agree to this. They are already well known, so they earn more economic benefits and have little privacy concerns. If they don’t care about privacy, this is a win-win situation.

Basically, we sell your information to make more money.

My understanding of PQC (post quantum encryption) schemes is that it usually requires one or more of the following:

1. Very big public key
2. Very big signature
3. Very slow verification time

This allows for when you want to keep the node validation resources constant (i.e., if the block size does not increase and you do not allow a significant increase in the worst case block validation time).

Furthermore, although a (hardware) wallet that generates such signatures may have to be more powerful, I’m not worried here.

At the same time, there is a lot of excitement about ZKPS (Zero Knowledge Proof) in terms of space efficiency and inexpensive to verify.

Both PQC and ZKP require future soft forks to be practical for individual use.

This asks the question whether these can be combined. If Bitcoin has a soft fork that makes ZKP practical, using direct OP codes or with efficient contract support, can it be used to implement PQC?

I can imagine at least two warnings.

1. ZKP selection adds additional encryption assumptions
2. If ZKP (contract) is based on challenge response, the worst case footprint is still an issue

But is that all?

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is advocating for deeper research into the Poseidon hash function as the network explores ways to improve zero-knowledge (ZK) proof efficiency.

In a Feb. 26 post on X, Buterin encouraged cryptographers to participate in a security analysis program for Poseidon while quoting a message that extended the funding application deadline to March 15.

He stated:

“We are seriously considering migrating Ethereum to the Poseidon hash to optimize zk-prover friendliness, so having more information about its security properties is extremely high value.”

What is Poseidon?

Poseidon is a cryptographic hash function designed specifically for zero-knowledge applications.

Unlike traditional hash functions such as SHA-256, Poseidon is optimized for zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs, a cryptographic technique that allows transactions to be verified without revealing sensitive details.

ZK proofs are becoming increasingly crucial in Ethereum’s scaling efforts, particularly for rollups that process transactions off-chain before finalizing them on the main blockchain. Poseidon’s efficiency could reduce computational costs, making these solutions faster and more accessible.

According to Poseidon Cryptanalysis:

“Poseidon hash function has been used in numerous Ethereum applications that deal with verifiable computation. It is among the top performers at recent STARK benchmarks by StarkNet, which makes it a promising candidate for the use at Ethereum L1 for various protocols that employ ZK proofs.”

Community reactions

While some in the crypto space view Poseidon’s potential adoption as a positive step for Ethereum’s efficiency, others have raised concerns.

Ye Zhang, a co-founder of the Ethereum Layer 2 project Scroll, questioned whether Poseidon’s advantages outweigh its trade-offs.

Zhang pointed out that Poseidon’s various configurations could limit SNARK choices, making it less flexible. He also noted that Poseidon is significantly slower than alternatives like Blake and Keccak, which could create bottlenecks unless Layer 2 solutions adjust for compatibility.

Zhang added that Scroll initially used Poseidon but would revert to the Merkle Patricia Tree (MPT) with Keccak in a future upgrade due to performance considerations.

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