Crypto Journalist

Amin Ayan

Crypto Journalist

Amin Ayan

About Author

Amin Ayan is a crypto journalist with over four years of experience in the industry. He has contributed to leading publications such as Cryptonews, Investing.com, 99Bitcoins, and 24/7 Wall St. He has…

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May 23, 2025

Mihailo Bjelic, one of the driving forces behind Ethereum scaling solution Polygon, has officially stepped down from his role at the Polygon Foundation.

In a post shared May 23 on X, Bjelic announced he would wind down his day-to-day involvement with the project but hinted that his journey in crypto is far from over.

“After much thought and reflection, I’ve decided to step down from the board of the Polygon Foundation and wind down my day-to-day involvement with Polygon Labs,” Bjelic wrote.

“As projects evolve and mature, it is natural for visions to evolve, and sometimes diverge.”

Bjelic Says He Remains Committed to Crypto

While Bjelic did not provide a roadmap for his next steps, he made it clear that he remains committed to the broader crypto industry.

“You will likely still see me around,” he said, signaling continued interest in blockchain development beyond Polygon.

His departure drew responses from across the crypto space. Fellow co-founder Sandeep Nailwal praised Bjelic’s role in shaping the protocol, saying he was “a force behind so much of what makes Polygon what it is today.”

Leon Stern, Polygon’s head of marketing, added, “Thanks for everything you’ve done for Polygon, and best of luck.”

Industry peers weighed in as well. Aave-chan Initiative founder Marc Zella called the move a “Big L for Polygon,” while Skale Network CEO Jack O’Holleran applauded Bjelic’s impact and expressed optimism about his future endeavors.

Bjelic’s resignation marks the third high-profile exit from the company in two years, following earlier departures by Polygon Labs’ Jaynti Kanani and Anurag Arjun.

Arjun’s exit coincided with the launch of Avail, a data availability and consensus layer that now operates as a standalone entity under his leadership.

Despite the leadership changes, Polygon has remained active in onboarding new use cases.

In January, Jio Platforms—owned by Mukesh Ambani—teamed up with Polygon Labs to integrate Web3 capabilities into its services.

In March, RWA platform DigiShares launched RealEstate.Exchange (REX) on Polygon, aiming to tokenize real estate trading.

Polygon Introduces the Agglayer Breakout Program

Last month, the team behind the Polygon blockchain announced the Agglayer Breakout Program to launch high-value chains that will contribute to Agglayer’s network effects.

The aggregation layer, or AggLayer, is a cross-chain settlement layer developed by Polygon Labs and its collaborators, launched in early 2024, followed by v0.2 in early 2025.

Polygon Foundation and Polygon Labs are backing the novel program. The goal is to launch “high-impact projects that drive significant activity” to Agglayer and Polygon PoS, its proof-of-stake sidechain for Ethereum.

He indicated that he sees crypto as a critical area to maintain American dominance and prevent China from gaining control.

“I’m a big fan of crypto because I want to keep it away from China,” Trump said on Sunday evening, addressing the issue while returning to the White House from Palm Beach, Florida.

His comments come amid a rising tide of competition between the US and China, particularly in the fields of artificial intelligence, blockchain and other technological advancements.

Trump Speaks Out Against China’s Potential Control of Crypto

Trump added that crypto is “a whole new thing that started, you know not so long ago,” further showing the sector’s rapid rise. He expressed concern that China’s growing influence in technology could extend into cryptocurrency unless the US actively counters this trend.

“I’m very much in favor of crypto because otherwise China is going to take it over,” he warned.

Trump’s SEC Task Force Aims to Ease Crypto Regulations

In January, under Trump’s leadership, the SEC created a crypto task force aimed at reducing regulatory barriers for the industry. This move was part of a broader effort to foster growth and innovation within the sector.

Additionally, Trump appointed former PayPal COO David Sacks as the AI & Crypto Czar, a key role focused on developing a clear and comprehensive regulatory framework, something that the crypto industry has long been advocating for.

China’s interest in cryptocurrency, particularly its state-backed digital yuan, has spurred concern in Washington. Experts argue that Beijing’s growing efforts in digital currency could potentially give China unprecedented control over global financial systems.

As such, Trump’s endorsement of cryptocurrency has become a symbol of resistance against China’s ambitions.

Trump’s remarks also reflect a broader concern about Chinese dominance in industries critical to global economies. He has often criticized China for its aggressive strategies in fields like artificial intelligence, 5G, and now, cryptocurrency.

The post Trump Wants China to Stay Out of the Crypto Space appeared first on Cryptonews.

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The White House has explicitly framed Bitcoin accumulation as a geopolitical imperative, likening it to a 21st-century “space race.” In an exclusive interview recorded inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Bo Hines, Executive Director of the President’s Council on Digital Assets, spoke with Bitcoin Magazine political correspondent Frank Corva and Riot Platforms head of policy (and former White House deputy communications director) Brian Morgenstern.

Hines framed the administration’s first 100 days as a deliberate reversal of the “lawfare” that had hounded the crypto sector. “The President made promises on the campaign trail,” Hines said at the outset, “and he’s delivered on many of those promises thus far, but we still have quite a bit of work to do.”

The Bitcoin ‘Space Race’

Central to that is the launch of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve (SBR) and a broader Digital Assets National Stockpile. The goal, Hines explained, is to secure as much of the digital gold as fiscal prudence permits. “We recognize bitcoin as being unique and we’ve said repeatedly that we view Bitcoin as digital gold,” he said.

When asked how much bitcoin the United States hopes to amass, Hines dismissed the premise: “That’s a silly question. That’s like asking any country how much you want of any asset with intrinsic stored value. You want as much as you can possibly accumulate.” Statutory language requires all accumulation to be budget-neutral, but Hines voiced confidence that “high-IQ people in this administration, specifically over at Treasury and Commerce,” will “come up with extremely creative ways for us to accumulate.”

That intent is animated by an explicitly geopolitical lens. “There is definitely a sort of space race as it pertains to accumulation of this asset,” Hines said. “We’ve positioned ourselves to be the bitcoin superpower of the world.” The analogy to the twentieth-century contest for extraterrestrial dominance recurred throughout the conversation; in the administration’s view, hash rate, custody competence and sovereign reserves may soon count as strongly as launch pads once did.

Hines credited much of the early velocity to what he called a deliberate infusion of private-sector talent into government. David Sacks, named both AI and “crypto czar,” was singled out for lending the expertise of Silicon Valley venture capital to federal decision-making. “We’re finally testing the hypothesis… what happens when you take a bunch of private-sector actors who have been successful and inject them into government?” Hines said, arguing that three months of regulatory reversals and policy construction already vindicate the experiment.

The White House’s demolition-construction-implementation roadmap is aggressive. Stage one—removing “burdensome regulations that really stifled innovation”—is already under way with lawsuits dropped by the Securities and Exchange Commission and new banking guidance designed to make the United States, in Hines’s words, “the most pro-crypto-friendly environment that possibly exists in the world.”

Stage two entails shepherding both stablecoin and market-structure bills through Congress. “We want to make sure we deliver on the President’s wishes to get both pieces of legislation on his desk before August recess,” Hines declared, predicting bipartisan passage. Stage three, scheduled to begin once a statutory framework exists, will integrate blockchain rails into conventional payments—an overhaul Hines said could become the signature achievement of the President’s second term.

Open Questions

That timetable is undergirded by a 180-day inter-agency report mandated by the executive order, meant to articulate how federal departments will operate under the forthcoming legal architecture. Treasury has already audited existing government-held Bitcoin (deadline was April 5); Hines said every relevant agency “has been extremely cooperative in producing what they have,” with consolidation now in progress.

One open question is how the government will acquire new coins. Policymakers have floated ideas ranging from revaluing gold certificates to leveraging federal energy assets for on-site mining. Hines declined to privilege any single path. “We can do this in numerous different ways,” he said, emphasizing speed and practicality. “What can we move on in the quickest fashion, and how can we start this accumulation process in the most expeditious manner possible?”

The administration is also trying to strike a balance between blockchain transparency and individual privacy. Hines rejected the notion that crypto rails are uniquely hospitable to illicit finance—“You’re a pretty dumb criminal if you want to use digital assets to do something nefarious, because that can be traced publicly”—while acknowledging the importance of self-custody and anonymity for lawful users. “It is a delicate balance, but it’s one that we can strike very effectively,” he said, adding that the world will “look to the US” for precedent.

As the interview concluded, Hines framed the initiative as both domestic necessity and international contest. If legislation passes and the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve begins accumulating before year’s end, he argued, “we will be the crypto capital of the world at that point.” Whether other nations accept that outcome—or accelerate their own sovereign accumulation—now depends on how seriously they take the United States’ declaration that Bitcoin is the new battlefield where economic superpowers measure their reach.

At press time, BTC traded at $95,068.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

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Boldly going: The US Space Force has awarded $13.7 billion in contracts to SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin under the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 program. The contracts run through 2029 and mark the first time three companies will simultaneously handle top-priority military satellite missions – signaling a new era of competition in defense space launches.

SpaceX secured the largest share of the contracts, landing $5.9 billion for 28 launches. Meanwhile, ULA snatched $5.4 billion for 19 missions, and Blue Origin received $2.4 billion for seven. These launches will carry sensitive payloads – such as National Reconnaissance Office spy satellites – into orbits that require advanced technical precision. As its first attempt at an NSSL award, Blue Origin’s inclusion alongside veteran contractors underscores the shifting dynamics of the military launch industry.

A closer look at the financials reveals notable cost differences between providers. SpaceX’s average price per launch is around $212 million – well below ULA’s $282 million and Blue Origin’s $341 million. These figures include not just the launches themselves but also added services like fleet surveillance and mission-specific studies.

SpaceX will deploy its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets for these missions.

The NSSL Phase 3 program splits launches into two tracks: Lane 1 for commercial-style missions and Lane 2 for high-stakes national security payloads. The recent awards fall under Lane 2, demanding rigorous performance and security standards to minimize risks. This structure opens the door for newer providers in Lane 1 while reserving Lane 2 for systems that can meet the program’s most complex requirements.

Phase 3 represents a significant expansion over its predecessor, with an anticipated 84 missions scheduled between fiscal years 2025 and 2029 – nearly double the number conducted during Phase 2. Of these, 54 missions are allocated to Lane 2, underscoring the importance of this segment in maintaining national security.

ULA is using its newly certified Vulcan Centaur rocket.

Each provider will use its flagship rockets for these missions. SpaceX will deploy Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, while United Launch Alliance will rely on the newly certified Vulcan Centaur, phasing out its older Delta IV and Atlas V rockets. Blue Origin will use its New Glenn, which completed its maiden flight earlier this year but still needs additional certification before handling Lane 2 missions.

The competitive dynamics of military space launches have shifted significantly over the past decade. While ULA once dominated this sector, it now faces fierce competition from SpaceX’s reusable Falcon boosters, which offer a more cost-effective alternative. Since gaining eligibility to bid on military contracts in 2015, SpaceX has captured over 40 percent of NSSL missions, solidifying its role as a key partner for the Pentagon.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket completed its maiden flight earlier this year.

Blue Origin is making strides in this domain but faces hurdles. The company needs at least one more successful flight of its New Glenn rocket to achieve full certification for Lane 2 missions, with that milestone expected by late 2026. Meanwhile, ULA certified its Vulcan rocket after two successful test flights. Designed for complex orbital maneuvers and long-duration missions, ULA hopes the rocket will differentiate it from competitors.

Winning 60% of the missions may sound generous, but the reality is that all SpaceX competitors combined cannot currently deliver the other 40%!

I hope they succeed, but they aren’t there yet.

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 4, 2025

In addition to Lane 2 missions, Lane 1 provides opportunities for newer players like Rocket Lab and Stoke Space to enter the military launch market with lower-risk payloads destined for low-Earth orbit. These less demanding missions have fewer certification requirements, fostering broader participation while maintaining cost efficiency.

Ryan Haines / Android Authority

Nothing users cry foul

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?

The following is a guest post from Shane Neagle, Editor In Chief from The Tokenist.

Since the introduction of altcoins, after Bitcoin paved the road for them, we have seen many projects give 10x gains in relatively short periods. It has also been accepted that the crypto space oscillates between altcoin and bitcoin seasons, suggesting more investing opportunities down the line.

A deluge of memecoins flooded the market as well, serving as a more robust gambling system (compared to online casinos). As crypto space lost $530 billion market cap over the last 30 days, it is prudent to examine its fundamentals once again.

Is such a concept as ‘altcoin season’ meaningful moving forward? Is there more to cryptos than cyclical speculation? To answer those questions, we must first remind ourselves of narratives past.

The Merge Foreshadowing

During the evolution of the crypto space, Bitcoin became de-facto the only proof-of-work digital asset worth considering, following Ethereum’s The Merge in September 2022. As a transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), The Merge represents a cleavage in blockchain philosophies.

While Bitcoin’s proof-of-work (PoW) requires computational resources, Ethereum’s PoS eliminates such barriers in order to boost transaction speed and efficiency. In other words, Bitcoin further differentiated itself as a store of value, while Ethereum focused more on cost-effective blockchain utility.

At first glance, this may seem perfectly complementary, but there are several underlying problems that eventually reared their heads.

• PoW is more amenable to decentralization contrasted to PoS, which relies on the cumulative wealth of validators in the “rich get richer” feedback loop.
• PoS is divorced from hard assets, such as energy and machines, while Bitcoin is grounded in them.
• And because Bitcoin’s PoW is part physical, part digital, it is less reproducible than PoS as a commitment mechanism. In turn, this contributes to Bitcoin’s network effect and safeguards against devaluation in the long run.

Altogether, the PoW-PoS bifurcation translates into PoS fragmentation. If PoS-based assets, and PoS-based platforms competitive to Ethereum, are more reproducible, they can be launched with minimal upfront costs. With this foundation, there is no single altcoin asset to cling onto. Ultimately, with a low barrier of entry, this led to the fragmentation of the crypto market across +34,000 digital assets.

From the Bitcoin-Ethereum perspective, as the two largest digital assets by market cap, PoS-led fragmentation manifests as a corrosive effect on Ethereum price level.

To put it differently, Bitcoin’s key features, PoW and scarcity, are reinforcing Bitcoin fundamentals. In contrast, Ethereum suffers from network effect erosion from competing PoS chains, which offer similar functionality and incentive structure.

Moreover, the increased complexity outside of Bitcoin is creating a barrier to entry from new capital inflows. Who can spend time filtering thousands of assets and bet that they will have staying power beyond one year? Even sophisticated investors leveraging popular futures trading algorithms often struggle to navigate the fragmented market effectively.

In fact, this is precisely why memecoin mania gained traction. The complexity and fragmentation of the crypto market lends itself to thinking of digital assets outside their fundamentals. Instead, focus is then on celebrity endorsements, humor, viral marketing, which often turns into pump-and-dump schemes.

Inevitably, this creates a negative feedback loop:

1. Crowded and confused altcoin market births memecoins.
2. Rollercoasting memecoins inevitably erode trust in the altcoin market itself.
3. Legitimate innovative projects are then less likely to gain traction, as capital is misallocated.

But there is an even greater problem than that. Let’s assume that this negative feedback loop created by memecoins doesn’t exist. One has to consider if there even is a market for blockchain based solutions, as it was previously imagined.

Erosion of Underlying Fundamentals

Through anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) requirements, governments around the world have expended great efforts to subdue the crypto ecosystem. Let’s quickly remind ourselves of key promises before regulative sweeps took place:

Decentralization as elimination of intermediaries – nearly everything is now intermediated through fiat rails, including transfers from self-custodial wallets.

Financial inclusion as access for the unbanked/underbanked – it is still more convenient to use legacy banking than blockchain tech, which is inherently complex and requires digital literacy. According to the latest EMarketer report, cryptocurrency payment penetration is hitting a wall.

Although the number of crypto payment users is expected to rise by 82.1% from 2024 to 2026, this is from a tiny overall population base of only 2.6%. It may very well end up being the case that a digital dollar, a stablecoin like USDT, will subsume this effort entirely in place of a direct CBDC.

Censorship resistance as a guarantee that transactions cannot be reversed or intercepted by governments and organizations. Governments regularly pursue innovative mechanisms to cancel such efforts, from debanking to the persecution of smart contract developers.

Although Treasury sanctions against Tornado Cash were overturned in January, there is little indication that financial privacy will become a human right any time soon. In fact, indicators point in the other direction.

BREAKING: The ECB’s Digital Euro is set to launch in October. Key concerns include:

– Real-time transaction tracking
– Potential for payment blocking
– Automatic tax deductions
– Restrictions on cash withdrawals
– Programmable money with expiration dates

They couldn’t… pic.twitter.com/UvQH750gbl

— Dr. Simon Goddek (@goddeketal) March 9, 2025

Altogether, this friction between blockchain-led solutions and governments leads to a contained market. And if a blockchain-based solution should be deployed, it will be under governments’ terms.

Lastly, the entire concept of Web3 is dubious as a decentralized, blockchain-based iteration of the internet. Elon Musk’s DOGE revelations in the case of USAID funding clearly point to great efforts to push narratives, control narratives, suppress and de-legitimize dissent.

A semantic, censorship-resistant Web3 is fundamentally at odds with governments’ needs to maintain authority and legitimacy as they push various agendas. To think that established information proliferation nodes such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook would be allowed to erode in favor of Web3 would be foolhardy.

Any government needs centralized nodes to maintain power. This was amply demonstrated in the case of the TikTok ban. Although this video reels app is vastly superior to YouTube shorts, a leverage was pulled to sanitize it and make it less relevant.

Again, this is another factor that contains the blockchain space to a micro-niche instead of propelling it into mainstream expansion. With this in mind, blockchain space is still worthy of engagement.

Crypto Projects with Revenue-Generating Staying Power

Bitcoin will likely remain the main focus of crypto investing, owing to its unique, PoW-based network effect. Although the recent White House Crypto Summit was less bullish than expected, it was still positive in the long run. The decision to use seized bitcoins effectively removed this sell pressure from the table.

Likewise, President Trump seems to be serious about ending the “war on crypto”. But looking at the crypto space from a purely innovative solutions perspective, which projects should retail investors consider during steep discounts?

• Sonic (S) – previously FTM, this is the top performing layer 1 blockchain network with sub-second transaction finality. This alone opens up new use cases such as high-frequency trading (HFT), micropayments, in-game economy, DEXs and IoT supply chains.

• Near Protocol (NEAR) – a layer 1 launching pad for dApps that has gained traction for use in AI initiatives.

• The Graph (GRT) – also adjacent to the AI narrative, this protocol indexes data for AI use similar to how Chainlink (LINK) is used by DEXes to power decentralized financial services.

• Hey Anon (ANON) – this early project could be the key in solving DeFi complexity (barrier to entry) by using conversational AI to manage DeFi strategies across chains.

• Render (RENDER) – former RNDR – with AI generation of assets, it is likely this solution will gain demand by monetizing GPU-based distributed rendering.

These five tokens should be considered as long play exposure during crypto market deflation. After all, it is unlikely that AI narrative will subside any time soon.

In terms of top 10 revenue-generation chains during the market slump, crypto activity is clearly on the side of low-friction payment chains (Tron) and general purpose, high-performing chains (Solana, Avalanche). Ethereum still maintains high ranking due to its large market share within the DeFi ecosystem.

In conclusion, what should crypto investors keep in mind moving forward?

Due to inherent friction with governments, digital assets are unlikely to ever penetrate mainstream to a significant extent. But within the contained ecosystem, investors should focus on long term narratives – AI, infrastructure and chain performance.

A truly decentralized Web3 should be understood as a niche play that will be countered by deep pockets of Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META), as centralized node extensions of the USG. By the same token, retail investors would do well to expose themselves to their stock options as safer bets.

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