Hey Edge readers, welcome back!

BTC is knocking on the door of $100K, holding just shy of this historic milestone! SOL also surged to a new all-time high, showcasing its continued strength this cycle. While Bitcoin and Solana dominate the headlines, Ethereum is quietly laying the groundwork for a more accessible, future-proof network. Plus, we’ve added two new stablecoin pools on Exponential.fi for yield seekers looking to earn on USD and EUR.

Here’s what we got for you this week:

• Making Ethereum as accessible as your smartphone

  Learn how Ethereum is making it easier and cheaper to run a node, so even your phone could verify the network.

• New stablecoin pools: Earn yield on USD and EUR ✨

  Earn up to 18% APY on stablecoins with the latest opportunities on Exponential.fi.

• A perfect storm is brewing for Bitcoin 🗞️

  Solana DEXs keep outpacing Ethereum in volume, double-digit yields are making a comeback, and Ethereum blob debate heats up over scaling and value trade-offs.

Stay sharp. 🫡

-The Exponential team

The future of Ethereum: Part 4

Last week, we continued Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s six-part vision for Ethereum (Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol) with The Scourge, exploring how Ethereum is tackling centralization risk. Now, in Part 4: The Verge, Vitalik dives into his plans to make Ethereum easier and cheaper to run.

Part 1: The Merge ⛘
Part 2: The Surge 📈
Part 3: The Scourge ⚔️
Part 4: The Verge 🧩
Part 5: The Purge 🧹
Part 6: The Splurge 💎

Part 4: The Verge 🧩

The Verge focuses on making Ethereum more accessible and resilient to future challenges. One of its core goals is to reduce the barriers to running a node, which currently requires storing hundreds of gigabytes of blockchain data. This is a significant hurdle for many users, limiting who can fully participate in securing the network.

To address this, The Verge introduces “stateless clients,” where nodes no longer need to store the entire blockchain. Instead, they rely on advanced cryptographic proofs—such as Verkle trees—to compress vast amounts of blockchain data more effectively. This change would enable even low-power devices, like phones or basic laptops, to fully verify Ethereum, significantly increasing decentralization by empowering more participants.

In addition to statelessness, The Verge considers the long-term security of the network. It explores quantum-resistant alternatives to Verkle trees, ensuring Ethereum can withstand the potential threats posed by emerging technologies like quantum computing.

Next week, we’ll dive into Part 5: The Purge, which tackles Ethereum’s data bloat problem by reducing storage demands.

New high-yield strategies this week for stablecoin holders. 💵

Earn up to 18% APY on your USD and EUR on Harvest.

These pools use the same underlying mechanics as the Harvest cbBTC pool we detailed previously to earn leveraged yield via Moonwell.

In the news 🗞️

• Bitcoin’s reflexivity squared. Exponential’s co-founder Mehdi Lebbar dives into the impact of Bitcoin ETF options in his latest piece. His take? This could ignite a perfect storm of reflexivity, potentially sending BTC into uncharted territories.

• Double-digit yields are back. Ethena’s USDe token has surged in popularity, attracting $1 billion in inflows this month to reach a market cap of $3.44 billion—just shy of its all-time high. Fueled by a red-hot crypto market and soaring perpetual funding rates, USDe now offers an eye-popping 29% annualized yield to investors.

• Solana’s rise continues. Solana’s ecosystem continues its meteoric rise, with its decentralized exchanges (DEXs) now processing more than double the volume of Ethereum’s DEXs. Over the past week, Solana DEXs accounted for 266% of Ethereum’s weekly volume and 36% of the total DeFi DEX market share.

• Ethereum’s blob balancing act. Blobs, Ethereum’s new scaling tech, cut costs for Layer 2s but sparked debates as fees rise. ETH holders want more value now, while researchers see blobs as a long-term win. The big question: prioritize ETH gains or keep scaling to attract users?

Trending 📈