Flux NFT

Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron called for a fundamental shift in how decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols manage liquidity, labeling the sector’s ongoing liquidity crisis as “self-inflicted.” In an exclusive interview, Boiron outlined Polygon’s vision for sustainable DeFi, emphasizing chain-owned liquidity and transparent economic models as the path forward.Boiron criticized DeFi protocols for fueling a cycle of “mercenary capital” by offering sky-high annual percentage yields (APYs) through token emissions. “It’s just renting liquidity; it’s not real loyalty,” he told Cointelegraph, noting that such strategies lead to fleeting liquidity that vanishes when yields drop or token prices falter. This reliance on short-term hype, he argued, undermines the sector’s stability and deters institutional adoption.Chasing DeFi stability over hypeTo break that cycle, Boiron urged protocols to prioritize fundamentals over flashy returns. “Sustainable DeFi needs models where liquidity sticks around for the right reasons,” he said, pointing to Polygon’s POL token as a blueprint for achieving this.“Protocols can put their treasury to work, earning yield instead of diluting token value. Over time, this strengthens the treasury rather than just paying off temporary liquidity providers.”Polygon’s approach centers on chain-owned liquidity, where protocols build treasuries to directly own liquidity positions rather than relying on external providers. Unlike token emissions, which Boiron said attract liquidity quickly but dilute token value, owned liquidity offers long-term stability and capital efficiency.The only trade-off in the plan, according to Boiron, is time. He explained that building a treasury through captured fees, bond mechanisms or limited emissions requires patience and disciplined management.Polygon prepares to onboard traditional finance in cryptoFor traditional finance (TradFi), liquidity stability and predictability are prerequisites for full DeFi adoption:“Traditional finance runs on models that need stable, reliable market access. If a DeFi protocol suddenly loses liquidity or slippage spikes, it creates a level of risk most institutions just won’t take.”However, Boiron said that Polygon’s solutions — sustainable treasury management, owned liquidity and transparent models — are not just for institutions. “These are good financial fundamentals that work for any protocol,” he said, dismissing suggestions that Polygon’s strategy is too narrow to address DeFi’s broader issues.Related: Yemenis are turning to DeFi as US sanctions target Houthi groupBuilding a scalable blueprint for chain-owned liquidityAs Polygon pushes for a DeFi reset, Boiron remains optimistic about getting support from frameworks like Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation and evolving US guidance. “We’re 12–18 months away from seeing a lot more institutional involvement,” he predicted.Looking to 2026, Boiron envisions a more stable DeFi ecosystem with less volatility, stronger community governance and sophisticated financial products bridging TradFi and real-world assets. He said Polygon (POL) could reduce reliance on mercenary capital, fostering true decentralization.He added that POL is the foundation for long-term growth, as it helps protocols focus on building better products and keeping users engaged, instead of plugging liquidity gaps or diluting tokens to stay afloat:“POL doesn’t solve everything on its own, but it gives protocols the breathing room to tackle bigger challenges like user retention and capital inflows the right way.”Boiron’s core message to DeFi protocols is clear: “Sustainable economics always win in the long run.” While market pressures make it tempting to chase high APYs, he noted that surviving protocols from past cycles prove the value of sustainability. “More teams are starting to get it,” he said, urging the ecosystem to adopt models that prioritize long-term growth over fleeting buzz.Magazine: Ethereum is destroying the competition in the $16.1T TradFi tokenization race

Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, the disgraced co-founder of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, to a low-security US federal correctional institutionBankman-Fried was moved to the low-security Terminal Island federal correctional institution. Previously, he was located at the Victorville medium-security facility, a notoriously violent place, according to prison consultant firm Elizabeth Franklin-Best.Samuel Goldfaden, a partner at the crypto-centric lawfirm, DLT Law told Cointelegraph that while his previous facility was violent, BankmanFried had been held in a safer part of the facility, adding:“Sam Bankman-Fried spent most of his detention in the more secure dorm units of MDC Brooklyn, reportedly alongside other high-profile inmates such as Sean P. Diddy to ensure his safety.“Terminal Island FCI review. Source: Elizabeth Franklin-BestIn “good” companyTerminal Island is located in San Pedro, California and houses involved in financial crime. According to Franklin, notable inmates at the facility include ormer stockbroker Anthony Elgindy (wire fraud, racketeering, securities fraud and extortion) and internet music entrepreneur Mouli Cohen (wire fraud, money laundering and tax evasionNew York ttorney Aaron Brogan told Cointelegraph that Bankman-Fried’s “non-violent record may well have been incorporated into a risk score” which led him to this low-security facility. His alleged autism, on the other hand, was unlikely to have had an influence despite layers playing it as a card:“I’ve heard reports that describe Sam as autistic, but that is within a particular subclinical contemporary lens — autism can be a debilitating condition, but Sam graduated from MIT, founded multiple billion-dollar companies, and successfully defrauded millions of people.“Goldfaden suggested a tie between Bankman-Fried’s interview with political commentator Tucker Carlson, which was not approved by prison authorities and followed by solitary confinement. He highlighted that shortly after the interview,“was transferred, to improved conditions and moved closer to his family.A win for the FTX co-founderBrogan pointed out that lower security facilities are usually “nicer” and said that as a result he is less likely to become a victim of violent crime. will probably have a “slightly easier” time communicating with his attorneys.Still, Brogan said that those are suppositions that are likely to be true, but not guaranteed and the change may be negative for Bankman-Fried instead:“It is hard to say from the outside, but generally one would expect lower security prisons to make such communication less challenging.“The timeline of the FTX co-founder’s appeal will not be affected by the move, his pardon-seeking. The move also raises questions about the markedly different safety and rehabilitation environments that inmates guilty of non-violent offences find themselves in.Still, Brogan said that is “the nature of the United States prison system.” He highlighted that “the prison system treats all inmates unfairly, and almost nobody cares.” He :“This is a punishment and the mass of people want it to be hard. There is some threshold of human decency, but nothing that has happened to Sam approaches that.“

Non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea regained its position as the leading platform for digital collectible trading, even as overall market activity declined.Data tracker NFTScan shows that OpenSea has held the top spot in NFT marketplace trading volume for the last 30 days. According to the data, OpenSea holds more than 40% of the market’s trading volume, while Blur, its largest competitor, is at 23%. NFT platform Magic Eden has a 7.69% market share, while OKX NFTs have a 5% market share. The data tracker also shows that in the last month, almost 70% of the wallets transacting with NFTs engaged with OpenSea. More than 610,000 wallets used OpenSea. In the last three months, OpenSea had over 2.1 million wallets engaging with its platform. By comparison, wallets engaging with Magic Eden, Blur and OKX NFT reached a combined market share of 17%, about 103,000 wallets. In the last three months, the platforms had a total of 380,000 wallets trading NFTs on their platforms. NFT marketplace wallet distribution data. Source: NFTScanOpenSea regained NFT dominance amid platform developmentsIn the last quarter of 2024, OpenSea promoted the launch of its new platform OS2. OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer said they would “reimagine everything,” and that a new version would come in December.  On Feb. 13, OpenSea launched the open beta for OS2, allowing the public to finally use its platform after a period of reserved access for private beta users. The NFT marketplace also teased the launch of the project’s official token, SEA. Apart from launching a revamped NFT marketplace, the project ventured into crypto token trading. On April 19, the platform announced that it had opened its Solana trading access for all its users, skipping a scheduled closed beta phase limited to 50,000 users. The new feature allows OpenSea users to trade Solana tokens, including popular memecoins like Bonk and Ai16z. In addition to platform developments, the NFT marketplace had also been freed from regulatory scrutiny. On Feb. 22, Finzer said the US Securities and Exchange Commission had dropped its investigation into the digital collectible marketplace. Related: Polygon NFTs overtake Ethereum collectibles in 7-day salesNFT sales dropped 61% in the first quarter of 2025 OpenSea is regaining its market dominance amid a slowdown in NFT sales volumes. CryptoSlam data shows that in Q1 2025, NFT sales volumes reached $1.5 billion. This represented a 61% decline compared to the $4.1 billion volume in the same period in 2024. Despite declining sales volumes, some metrics show that NFTs are still interesting to many traders. CryptoSlam shows over 359,000 NFT buyers in the last seven days, a 52% increase compared to the previous week. Furthermore, despite the volume slowdown, some collections have shown signs of life. In the last seven days, CryptoPunks surged 82% in sales. In the last 30 days, the collection reached almost $20 million in sales volumes. Magazine: Pokémon on Sui rumors, Polymarket bets on Filipino Pope: Asia Express

When Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple had the idea to make the documentary film Vitalik: An Ethereum Story, they were actually filming another documentary, and over the course of their filmmaking journey, they ended up capturing both a deeper, human look at the world of crypto and an end product that serves as a use case for the future of crypto filmmaking.When crafting a documentary, filmmakers will typically start with a vision of what they’d like to explore, a vision often saddled with a set of assumptions, only to shatter that vision once filming begins, creating an entirely new direction for the project.It’s a creative evolution that filmmakers Zach Ingrasci and Chris Temple also experienced while making the documentary feature This Is Not Financial Advice, during which they realized they had an entirely different film on their hands.“While we were making that film, we wanted to interview Vitalik Buterin,” Ingrasci said to me during a recent interview. “We got connected to him, but as soon as we met him, we were really inspired by his unique form of tech optimism and how he broke stereotypes we’d had of the crypto space. He was a billionaire but very humble, funny, quirky and truly committed to his values of decentralization. That was very inspiring for us — so much so, we thought we should make a piece about Vitalik or about the Ethereum community at large.”Temple and Ingrasci (left to right) while filming their PBS feature “Five Years North.” Source: OptimistBut Ingrasci and Temple weren’t crypto-native filmmakers — rather, they were individuals interested in technology and communities using technology in new ways, and Vitalik and Ethereum just happened to check both of those boxes.The human touch in techIngrasci and Temple then went out and launched a non-fungible token (NFT) crowdfunding campaign, raising almost $2 million in 50 hours, allowing them to get started quickly in the summer of 2021 during the height of the NFT boom.“It allowed us to own the film without being beholden to any stakeholder, platform or middleman who would otherwise be directing the content of the film,” Temple said. “It was an amazing opportunity to spend over two years following Vitalik — a global nomad — all around the world.”Temple and Ingrasci followed Buterin to Ukraine, Montenegro, Toronto and Colombia, trying to understand the man behind the technology. They even spent time with Buterin’s father and his family members, diving into the history of his family emigrating from Russia to Canada.“We wanted to understand how Vitalik’s upbringing had affected his values,” Temple said. “We spent time talking with folks in the Ethereum community, with Vitalik’s friends and others, trying to paint this deeper picture and understand how the creators of crypto technologies affect the end product. How are they coding their values, blindspots and interests into the end result?”‘Vitalik: An Ethereum Story’ premiered globally on April 15. Source: OptimistFrom the beginning, Temple and Ingrasci’s main goal was to create a piece that would be accessible to a mainstream audience, one that could help translate some of the values and interesting things they were seeing in the Ethereum community in a way that a non-crypto native person could understand.But they didn’t really know what that meant or what it would lead to initially since they were following different stories and different people within the Ethereum ecosystem. As they were editing the documentary together, they started testing it with people who knew nothing about crypto, who, as expected, were very confused.“It’s so difficult to create a documentary that’s accessible and entertaining for people who know nothing about the crypto space, but we saw very clearly in the feedback from these early screenings that when people could connect to someone — especially Vitalik, who is so likeable and inspiring — it creates an entry point to then get into these more abstract concepts,” Ingrasci said.“We did not set out to make the film only about Vitalik, and I don’t think the film is only about Vitalik,” Ingrasci told Cointelegraph.“Vitalik is our human hook, our human story about someone who is going to surprise you, break your stereotypes about crypto, and leave you a little more excited than you thought you would be after watching this film.”According to Ingrasci, Buterin’s favorite scenes in the film were when he was drinking tea or making breakfast — being his normal, quirky, funny self.“That’s what makes this film entertaining, watchable and human,” Ingrasci said. “When someone is willing to be natural on camera with us as filmmakers, it creates a much more human story rather than this very intellectual version of Vitalik that we were already very aware of.”Related: Institutions break up with Ethereum but keep ETH on the hookDeveloping a crypto use case for filmDuring the filming of Vitalik, Buterin’s father talked to the filmmakers about how, growing up, Buterin’s favorite toy was the computer, and his favorite thing was to play with Excel. “When he was seven years old, he actually built a 100-page manifesto that was an imaginary world for bunnies,” Temple said. “It had their financial systems, energy systems and was full of graphs and tables — an amazing creation for a seven-year-old’s mind. I think to so many of the people we shared this with, it helps people connect to the world of Ethereum as a new world being built. If you can imagine Vitalik as a seven-year-old building this whole new imaginary world, that’s what he’s trying to build again with Ethereum.”It’s all part of Buterin’s hope for Ethereum creating real utility in the world, something Ingrasci felt was epitomized when Buterin visited Ukraine.“When he went to Ukraine, he was talking to the vice prime minister, Fedorov, and it quickly became apparent that the banking system at the beginning of the war was in shambles,” Ingrasci said. “Without crypto, thousands of lives in the military would have been lost because crypto was able to get money very quickly to the front lines and was able to mobilize across borders, raising over $130 million for Ukraine to resist this invasion. When Vitalik was there visiting Kyiv during the war, he got to see this thing he helped create being used in this incredibly important way, and that’s where that world-building came into reality. It was an emotional moment to witness just how powerful it was.”In many ways it’s because Buterin is simply a child at play, tapping into his inner youthful creativity, only now with an adult mind and body and the relationships and resources to execute on his ideas.“Vitalik has said he’s a builder and a thinker first and foremost,” Temple said. “An interesting tension for him during filming was how people looked to him to be something more, to be this leader and representative of the entire crypto movement. Throughout the film, he wrestles with how much to use his voice, how much to become a leader and how much to speak out against things he doesn’t always agree with. He eventually does decide to speak out against speculation and say that he doesn’t think Ethereum was designed to trade million-dollar monkeys and that there’s a lot more we can do to fix systems and help people.”It’s a humanizing element of a pedestaled tech founder, epitomizing how at times we all struggle with speaking up on our values — especially when those values are different or run counter to the dynamics of our own social circles and society at large.And that’s the power of Vitalik. The film is not just about crypto; it’s about the human stories that can resonate beyond the immediate environment the film is in — crypto just happens to be the backdrop.Quite a bold story to tell by a couple of “non-native” crypto filmmakers.“We’ve actually used crypto for a lot of elements in the distribution process for this film, which is exciting because the documentary space is broken,” Ingrasci said. “For an independent documentary to happen, it’s just so difficult these days. A lot of streamers have a lot of control over the film you ultimately make, but because we were able to crypto-crowdfund in the beginning on Mirror, we were able to have creative control over the film.”Related: Dark Knight & Superman writer launches AI-powered crypto film universeIngrasci and Temple executed a movie trailer drop through Zora and an early onchain release of the film this past September on Bonfire, both powered by Web3, which helped raise the funds the duo is currently using to market the documentary to mainstream audiences.“A lot of independent filmmakers have zero marketing budget; there’s very little money in documentaries. But instead [because of our crypto-crowdfunding], we’re able to really make sure the trailer, the message and the film gets out there.”In this way, Ingrasci and Temple have created a sub-narrative around the making of a film using crypto-native tools, providing a real-world use case for other filmmakers on how they, too, might find success by utilizing blockchain platforms for the creation of their own film projects.“I think there’s so much potential for these tools to have a big impact on filmmakers, though we’re still at the beginning,” said Ingrasci. “It’s still difficult to understand, and the complexities are not abstracted away enough. The short initial onchain release of the film — while a testament — was very difficult for people who were not in crypto to access it.”But ultimately, the decentralized theatrical release of the film occurred in 24 countries and 30 cities all around the world, all on the same night.“At the premiere in New York where we were, somebody came up to me and was, like, ‘I feel like I can share this with someone, and they’ll finally understand what I do for a living and why I do it,’” Temple said. “Those kinds of reactions — the ‘I feel seen’ and ‘I feel understood as a technologist’ — as a filmmaker, hearing those reactions from people who are trying to build new systems is the dream.”Ingrasci, producer Jenna Kelly, co-producer Linda Xie, producer Carrie Weprin, and Temple at the premiere in New York. Source: OptimistFor Ingrasci and Temple, the dream continues to evolve, with their film now available all around the world on mainstream platforms such as Apple and Prime Video.“If the goal is to be able to make a film you can send to your mom — while she might not understand what Ethereum is, she’ll understand why you’re interested in this thing — so I think we did that,” Ingrasci said.“Vitalik believes technology can be used to make our lives better, especially today when there’s a lot of polarization and cynicism surrounding blockchain tech and questions around if it’s worth it. If we use these technologies in good ways and invest the energy into finding real use cases for them, it can make our lives better, and Vitalik showed us these are questions worth asking.”Magazine: 3 reasons Ethereum could turn a corner: Kain Warwick, X Hall of Flame

The planning commission of Vilonia, Arkansas, unanimously rejected a proposal to establish a cryptocurrency mining facility within the city limits, following strong opposition from residents.According to local reports, the decision came after weeks of community pushback, where citizens voiced concerns over potential noise pollution, increased energy consumption and the overall environmental impact associated with crypto-mining operations.During public meetings, Vilonia residents expressed concern that the mining operation could disrupt the town’s quiet atmosphere and strain local infrastructure.Many pointed to examples from other regions where similar facilities led to rising electricity costs and constant noise from mining rigs.“I just want to ask, like, did we make a mistake moving here? We’re not asking these people to come here. I grew up here. I graduated from Vilonia, and we [are] Arkansas, the natural state, not Arkansas, the Bitcoin state,” one community member told THV11.Vilonia community members oppose a new crypto mine in their town. Source: YouTubeRelated: Crypto startups no longer welcome in Nvidia’s accelerator programVilonia has a history of rejecting crypto miningVilonia has confronted the prospect of crypto mining before. In previous years, residents expressed disinterest in hosting miners, citing long-term sustainability concerns and minimal local economic benefits.In 2023, the city’s planning commission denied Vilo AR permission to build a crypto mine in town and revoked its permit permanently.The same year, Vilonia residents voiced strong opposition to a crypto-mining facility proposed by Green Digital near residential areas, citing concerns over constant loud noise from powerful mining computers and potential ties to the Chinese Communist Party.In 2024, the Arkansas State House passed two bills that restrict cryptocurrency mining within the state.Related: Bitdeer turns to self-mining Bitcoin, US operations amid tariff tumult — ReportIn January, Arkansas lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban crypto mining operations within 30 miles of any US military facility in the state.Senate Bill (SB 60) was introduced by Senator Ricky Hill and House Speaker Brian Evans, aiming to amend the Arkansas Data Centers Act of 2023 to keep crypto mining facilities away from military installations. However, the Arkansas Senate’s City, County and Local Affairs Committee eventually rejected the bill.The opposition to crypto mining centers in Arkansas follows a broader trend across various US municipalities where crypto-mining initiatives have faced increasing scrutiny.In October 2024, a group of residents in Granbury, Texas, filed a lawsuit against Marathon Digital, alleging that its mining facility generated too much noise.The lawsuit claimed that residents were experiencing physical symptoms from the noise, including fatigue, headaches, nausea, hearing loss, memory issues and even psychological problems.Magazine: Crypto AI tokens surge 34%, why ChatGPT is such a kiss-ass: AI Eye