Welcome to The Protocol, RialCenter’s weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I’m Margaux Nijkerk, RialCenter’s Tech & Protocols reporter.
In this issue:
- Ethereum At 10: Where Next For The World Computer?
- Linea to Burn ETH With Every Transaction in Bold L2 Upgrade
- Solana Players Unveil ‘Internet Capital Markets’ Roadmap
- Square Begins Rollout of Bitcoin Payments for Sellers, Targets Full Availability by 2026
Network news
10 YEARS OF ETHEREUM: When Ethereum launched on July 30, 2015, it set out to be more than just another cryptocurrency. It aimed to expand the boundaries of blockchain technology itself. While Bitcoin became digital gold, Ethereum pursued a more expansive vision: to be a decentralized “World Computer”—programmable, extensible, and open-ended. A decade later, Ethereum has transformed finance, culture, and software. Along the way, it has faced existential crises, volatile markets, and fierce internal debates. Now, it stands on the cusp of a new era—one that may see it fully embraced by traditional finance. Ethereum has seen an uptick in the last two months as the project hits the 10-year milestone, with the price of ether (ETH) rebounding to reach $3,800 in July, after languishing around $1,500 as recently as April. Over the last few months, the ecosystem has seen a new wave of use cases, including tokenization and stablecoin growth, and the network has also benefited from the trend of companies holding ETH in their treasuries, not just for long-term value but to earn yield. On the anniversary, leading players from Ethereum’s ecosystem weigh in on the last 10 years. — Margaux Nijkerk.
LINEA’S COMPREHENSIVE PROTOCOL CHANGES: Linea, an Ethereum layer-2 network incubated by Consensys, has unveiled a comprehensive suite of upgrades designed to embed the network deeper into the layer 1’s economic and ideological fabric. Linea’s updated roadmap, expected to roll out in October 2025, introduces ETH-native staking on bridged assets, a protocol-level ETH burn mechanism, and the allocation of 85% of its token supply to ecosystem development. This move comes as momentum in the Ethereum ecosystem is building, driven by growing institutional interest. The Linea team stated their updates will “position Ethereum to meet the needs of sophisticated capital as TradFi begins to onboard to DeFi, and reinforce Linea as a major home of future innovations in on-chain capital markets, staking, and infrastructure.” They claim that Linea will become the first layer 2 to burn ETH at the protocol level, committing 20% of net transaction fees toward reducing Ethereum supply. The remaining 80% of fees will be used to burn LINEA tokens, which are capped in supply, embedding deflationary pressure directly into network activity. “Linea Mainnet will burn ETH with every transaction, use the LINEA token to support users, builders, and public goods, and return value to Ethereum’s base layer, all while growing long-term value in the LINEA token-based economy,” said Declan Fox, Head of Linea. — Margaux Nijkerk.
SOLANA PLAYERS UNVEIL ‘INTERNET CAPITAL MARKETS’ ROADMAP: Solana’s ecosystem is coalescing around an updated vision its architects call “Internet Capital Markets”—a decentralized, high-performance foundation for the next generation of on-chain financial applications. While the network has long focused on boosting bandwidth and reducing latency, its latest roadmap dives deep into market microstructure, arguing that the next leap forward lies in giving applications granular control over transaction execution. The roadmap, coauthored by leaders from the Solana Foundation, Anza, Jito Labs, DoubleZero, Drift, and Multicoin Capital, centers on Application-Controlled Execution (ACE), which will give smart contracts millisecond-level authority over transaction sequencing. “In our conversations with teams across the ecosystem, market microstructure is the single most important problem in Solana today,” the authors wrote. The new roadmap outlines six critical tradeoff dimensions: privacy vs. transparency, speedbumps vs. unfettered trading, inclusion vs. finality vs. latency, colocation vs. geographic decentralization, makers-first vs. takers-first priorities, and flexible vs. opinionated architecture. — Margaux Nijkerk.
SQUARE BEGINS ROLLOUT OF BTC PAYMENTS FOR SELLERS: Jack Dorsey’s Square has begun the rollout of bitcoin payments for merchants on its network. Square has started onboarding the first sellers, enabling them to accept Lightning Network-powered BTC payments from customers. Payments are settled in near real-time using Bitcoin layer-2 Lightning, with Square processing the exchange into fiat. The service is planned to be available to all merchants on its sales platform by next year. Square piloted the system at a recent conference in Las Vegas, allowing attendees to make purchases in BTC by scanning a barcode. — Jamie Crawley.
In Other News
- Strategy (MSTR), the largest corporate owner of bitcoin, announced it has acquired roughly $2.4 billion worth of BTC using funds from its new preferred stock issuance. The firm sold nearly $2.5 billion worth of preferred stock to investors, significantly more than the initially planned $500 million. The stock, which aims to deliver a regular dividend to investors initially set at a 9% rate, will start trading on Wednesday. With the proceeds, the company purchased 21,021 BTC at an average price of $117,256, bringing its bitcoin holdings to 628,791 BTC, worth nearly $74 billion at current prices. — Krisztian Sandor.
- SharpLink Gaming, the Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury firm led by Ethereum co-founder and Consensys CEO Joseph Lubin, revealed its ether (ETH) holdings increased to 438,190 tokens, worth roughly $1.68 billion at current prices. The company bought 77,209 ether for $297 million through the week ending on July 27. It has also raised $279 million by selling shares through an at-the-market equity facility. The Minneapolis-based firm has pursued an aggressive treasury strategy since its late May pivot and has earned 722 ETH since then. — Krisztian Sandor.
Regulatory and Policy
- The digital assets industry’s most reliable U.S. Senate ally, Cynthia Lummis, has introduced her latest crypto bill, which would allow mortgage borrowers to use their cryptocurrency holdings to help secure their loans. Last month, the Federal Housing Finance Agency Director directed government-backed mortgage giants to propose how they can include crypto holdings as collateral for mortgages. Lummis’ bill would permit the holdings of a borrower in a digital asset, maintained under a qualified custodial arrangement, to be included in the reserves without converting the digital asset to U.S. dollars. “This legislation embraces an innovative path to wealth-building,” Lummis said, suggesting digital assets might help bridge the gap to home ownership for young Americans. — Jesse Hamilton.
- Roman Storm, the Tornado Cash developer standing trial on charges that the privacy tool he created helped launder over $1 billion in criminal proceeds, will not testify, his lawyers stated in court. Storm indicated he was aware of his right to testify but chose not to. After this decision, his defense team rested their case. — Cheyenne Ligon.
Calendar
- Sept. 22-28: Korea Blockchain Week, Seoul
- Oct. 1-2: Token2049, Singapore
- Oct. 13-15: Digital Asset Summit, London
- Oct. 16-17: European Blockchain Convention, Barcelona
- Nov. 17-22: Devconnect, Buenos Aires
- Dec. 11-13: Solana Breakpoint, Abu Dhabi
- Feb. 10-12, 2026: Consensus, Hong Kong
- May 5-7, 2026: Consensus, Miami
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