Welcome to Flywheel, your #1 source for Bitcoin, Crypto and DeFi news, analysis, and general vibe metrics.

What's in this email:

• Corn announces new Bitcoin-powered L2
• SEC denies Solana ETF
• Basenames launches with Dutch auction
• Yieldnest ynLSDe goes live
• Sunpump eclipses Pump.fun
• Agora Dollar on Avalanche

SEC sends Solana ETF to the Shadow Realm

In a move that surprises absolutely no one, Gary Gensler, the regulatory boogeyman has once again flexed his bureaucratic muscles, leaving Solana ETF hopefuls crying into their digital wallets.

Picture this: Cboe BZX, playing the role of the plucky underdog, strolls into the SEC's lair with two shiny 19b-4 applications for Solana ETFs.

But faster than you can say "blockchain," the SEC whips out its favorite - the "It's a Security!" trap card.

Poor Solana, caught in the crossfire, is labeled as the troublesome teenager of cryptocurrencies.

ETH and BTC passed through the fire, only for Solana to be unceremoniously yeeted into oblivion... for now.

Look Ma, a new Bitcoin L2 dropped

We're rapidly all becoming Bitcoin Maxi's again.

Today, Corn was announced, a new Ethereum L2 that uses Bitcoin as gas.

You can use a variety of custodians to mint BTCN, which is a gas token for the network.

The team building it is Chris Spadafora (@spadaboom1), formerly of Badger DAO and eBTC, and Zak (@0xzak), managing partner at Number Group.

We reached out to Chris, who told us that Corn "has a core focus of BTC adoption, and also aligns all network participants (users, apps and token holders) versus being another useless chain with a token that has no utility and liquidity leaves as fast as it comes."

In a novel twist, they are applying ve-tokenomics at the network level. Corn ve-stakers direct all new corn emissions at contracts (apps), which can then use CORN as incentives to distribute to their users.

As a ve system, stakers can be bribed with incentives for their votes, or they can delegate voting power out to active participants.

Bitcoin is in its comeback phase. We're seeing restaking (Babylon), wrappers (tBTC, cbBTC) and now ETH L2s all debuting in 2024.

Corn is interesting because it is using its own Bitcoin variant instead of WBTC, which another project BOB chose to use.

It will be interesting to see how they compete and what demand there is from Bitcoin holders to migrate their assets to a new network.

Yieldnest launches its second restaking token ynLSDe

If you are looking for one of the newest and best LRTs to stake with, look no further than Yieldnest.

What makes Yieldnest different than other LRTs is that they provide cutting-edge risk management and analysis on the individual Actively Validated Services (AVS's) in partnership with LlamaRisk, an independent research team that is one of the best in the industry.

If you own stETH, sfrxETH, wOETH, or mETH, you can deposit it into their contracts and earn increased yield and "seeds" aka points which will convert to their token at a future date.

Get your Basename today

Base launched its version of Ethereum Name Service (ENS) called Basenames, allowing you to buy an ID so you can send funds to an easy-to-read address like flywheel.base.eth.

Basenames are being sold right now using a Dutch auction that began at a fee of 100 ETH and declines down to 0 over 36 hours.

As of writing, 600 Basenames have been minted. By the time you read this, prices will be under $50, so go pick one up if you enjoy using Base.

Sunpump vs Pump.fun

Above is the most important chart in crypto currently (lol). It's the share of mint transactions on Tron's newly released Sunpump versus Pump.fun.

In just one day, Sunpump has overtaken Pump.fun in terms of new tokens launched. While this may be a flash in the pan, several tokens launched on the platform have already 1000x'd.

$SUNDOG is top dog, sitting at $211.87m market cap.

$FOFAR is #2, at $31.75m market cap.

What a time to be alive when we are bridging over to Tron to chase memecoins.

Agora dollar launches on Avalanche

Friend of Flywheel Agora Dollar is now on Avalanche. Founded by Frax Dev Drake Evans, Agora is reshaping the stablecoin industry with its innovative contract design and fee sharing.

We finally bullied Vitalik into bull-posting

And guess what... it worked!

Good Reads

• 1kx published "Trustless Interoperability between Rollups: Landscape, Constructions, and Challenges"
• Blockworks Research tweet thread on Liquid AI token performance
• EigenPhi writes "Metamorphosis of Jaredfromsubway.eth: cunninger Jared 2.0 with more layers"
• Investment kingryu on Ton's growth challenges and possible blocking in Russia
• Vitalik opines on Plurality Philosophy in an Incredibly Oversized Nutshell