News: Meta is currently building a prediction markets app to rival Polymarket and Kalshi, according to sources
the app, currently called "Arena," will be a standalone offering and was ordered up by Mark Zuckerberg
w/ @yaffebellany
https://t.co/IobogS4xkV
This year, the EF is decreasing its budget by roughly 40%, which entails some difficult decisions. The goal of the decreases was set out in the Treasury Management Policy last year: the EF is transitioning into being a long-term-oriented endowment-based organization, shifting from its pre-2026 average of spending ~15% of its remaining funds each year, toward a post-2030 target of ~5% per year.
Often, when an organization goes through something like this, people try to pretend that nothing of great value was lost, that it is an efficiency increase, that the only people cut are unproductive dead weight, and everyone else stopped partying, studied the blade, entered cracked S-tier beast mode, and this was sufficient to make up for the downside. I will not try to pretend this. I respect my EF colleagues far too much to pretend that there was not much that is lost. They are brilliant people. They are dedicated engineers of whom some have worked on the Ethereum protocol for nearly a decade. They have brought a bright light to the Ethereum ecosystem with their code, their words, their warmth as human beings and their actions. My dearest hope is that they find a path that brings them fulfillment and happiness whether inside Ethereum or outside. Hopefully many will be able to bring their excellent talents and mindset to the wider Ethereum ecosystem, or the even wider CROPS world.
Instead, I will try to explain what *are* some of the grand sacrifices being made. The Ethereum Strawmap is no small thing. It is an extremely ambitious undertaking seeking to replace and augment almost every part of the protocol - consensus, proofs, privacy, account model, state, and more. This is the third iteration of Ethereum, in the same way that the Merge was the second, even if the shipping style is less Big Bang and more one-piece-at-a-time. On top of this, the EF is increasing its role in the Access Layer. We are not compromising on Ethereum being a Deeply Impressive protocol, something worthy of its place in a world with quantum computing, rockets to Mars and powerful biotech and AI, and capable of meeting the challenges that this era will bring.
Some of the deficit will be recovered through more work happening outside the EF. But not all. So what are the grand sacrifices that will enable a leaner effort to accomplish all of this? I will give a few examples (though far from an exhaustive list):
* The multi-client model will shift in the direction of multiple clients existing less for _redundancy_, and more for _specialization_. Up to this point, redundancy has been the main security strategy: if one client has a bug, if it has less than 33%, the chain keeps going and does not even stop finalizing. We are increasingly exploring moving more pieces of the protocol to a different security strategy: AI-assisted formal verification. Some smaller pieces of Ethereum (eg. BLS libraries) have worked this way already for a long time. But soon many more parts of Ethereum will likely function on this model. This may greatly reduce resource requirements of shipping a large number of EIPs. The resources saved by client teams can ideally instead be used to better serve different specialized user needs, including EF Access Layer goals.
* PSE (Privacy and Scaling Explorations) is winding down as a unit, and its underlying task (working on ZKP and related tech to support privacy and scaling) is shifting from an "exploration" strategy to a "build specific things we know are important" strategy, which requires less resources.
* Devcon will likely over time become smaller-scale, somewhat more spartan, much lower-deficit than previous years, in addition to other changes in vision in line with the Mandate.
* Fewer beyond-Ethereum megaprojects coming from EF. As I announced earlier this year, I am taking on some of the responsibility of doing projects in this category that I consider valuable with my personal funds.
* EF institutional work is reducing in scope, specializing more specifically on creating replicable test cases of highly CROPS-friendly deployments, even if at smaller scale.
These do not explain all departures; in some cases they do not explain departures at all and rather explain _reduced need for new spending_. But they are a large part of the strategy at play.
In the longer term, I personally favor a "soft lean-and-done" approach to Ethereum: once the Strawmap is completed, generally stick to security fixes and small high-value changes, and have a much higher bar for considering new feature additions to the protocol. This allows Ethereum to remain capture-resistant without demanding very large budgets. Learn less from multimillion-line-of-code behemoth projects, more from bitcoin.
The past years have been a challenging era for Ethereum. However, the ecosystem is adapting, both inside the EF and outside, and I am confident that Ethereum is very well-positioned to succeed and thrive.
https://t.co/iZiOonRYzR
Announcing Ethlabs: a non-profit R&D lab for Ethereum and ETH
Our mission is to make Ethereum the settlement layer of the global economy.
The internet became global because shared protocols created a common language between networks. Private systems remained useful, but bounded. Finance is approaching a similar moment. As value, assets, and markets become digital, the world needs shared settlement infrastructure.
Ethereum is uniquely positioned to become that shared base layer, the neutral foundation on which users, institutions, and agents can transact without intermediation.
What we believe:
• We believe credible neutrality matters. Ten years of uptime and the lowest counterparty risk. Ground that cannot be pulled away by any one country, institution, company, or person.
• We believe ETH matters. The most valuable, programmable store of value. A decade of broad distribution, deep liquidity in onchain markets, and maximally trustless asset on Ethereum.
• We believe DeFi matters. Markets, liquidity, credit, exchange, and coordination, open to anyone.
• We believe adoption matters. Principles do not change the world until people benefit from them.
We sit between two worlds: real usage from the builders at the frontier, and the protocol that has to support it. We work with users, applications, wallets, L2s, infrastructure teams, institutions, ETH holders, core devs and researchers, then turn what they actually need into protocol work, shared standards, infrastructure, and shipped products.
Ethlabs is independent but Ethereum is a shared project. We are one node in a much larger network of stewards. This is the multi-node future.
We have spent the better part of the past decade contributing to Ethereum core research and development.
We are opinionated and transparent. We move with urgency, learn in public, and course-correct when we’re wrong.
We are building a lean, talent-dense team for people who want to do the most important work of their careers: [email protected]
Everyone in crypto wants polymarket to be the king of prediction markets, but the cold data says kalshi is quietly eating its lunch in the us and nobody on the timeline wants to admit it
First the money, kalshi locked a $22b valuation in march led by coatue and is already raising another $1b at that same number, polymarket's last priced round was $9b back in october 2025 and it's only now in talks at $15b, the two moved in lockstep for a year then kalshi doubled and pulled away
Next the business, kalshi holds roughly 90% of us prediction market share, crossed a $2b revenue run rate and already started ipo talks, polymarket only began charging real trading fees this year so revenue is still catching up despite the scale, full year 2025 kalshi did $43b volume vs polymarket's $33b
And now the part kalshi fans skip, polymarket still owns the global game, full onchain settlement on polygon, ~45ms execution, every whale wallet public and copyable, kalshi gives you none of that, it's a closed centralized orderbook with no chain to read
The split is structural not cosmetic, kalshi is cftc regulated, fiat, kyc with your ssn, us only, robinhood piping it to 23m+ funded accounts, frictionless for normies, polymarket is usdc, no kyc on the global side, geopolitics markets fee free, deeper liquidity but a 3-5% round trip if you aren't already crypto native
Here's the edge nobody prices right, polymarket still has the $POLY token and airdrop loading, that's exactly why investors discount it, they can't separate real volume from farmers yet, kalshi has no token and cleaner revenue, but it's also fighting 20+ lawsuits and criminal charges in arizona while leaning on a friendly cftc chair
So who's actually better, wrong question, kalshi is winning the us regulated race, polymarket is winning the global onchain one, pick the game you're actually playing
Is CZ lying to the public again?
As he said, he is fully aware of the legal and regulatory risks. Yet a shell called @Aster_DEX was created that appears to copy the @HyperliquidX model almost exactly.
Aster reportedly shares significant resources with the Binance ecosystem, including team members. CZ himself has promoted Aster multiple times.
Maybe creating a separate shell is their way to be “compliant.”
The real question is: if the business model, resources, people, and incentives are largely the same, how different is it really?
Today is the 6 year anniversary of when I launched Polymarket.
I’m truly grateful to be able to work on something that means so much to me.
It’s been awe-inspiring to see the world catch up with this crazy idea called “information markets”. Yet there still remains a long ways to go
For those curious about my headspace when starting the company, this thread is a nostalgic artifact.
The world's value is moving onchain
And now, you can access it all through Uniswap
Users can trade tokenized assets like SpaceX, Apple, Tesla, NVIDIA, and more directly from Uniswap Web App, Wallet, and API
Exclusive limited edition Vibes TCG Season 3 Starter and Collector Bundles will go live tomorrow June 11th at 3:30PM ET.
This drop will be live for 48 hours or while supplies last.
More information below. Be ready.
Polymarket just got one step closer to becoming the perfect product
Now when you look at the World Cup winner polymarket, you can see news below explaining why teams’ odds are going up or down
For example, it’s very easy to see that France’s odds recently dropped after losing a friendly to Ivory Coast
Btw, we also wanted to build something like this in @Poly_Helper, but it wasn’t a priority. I’m glad Polymarket did it themselves, and did it really well
As damage control, @Saylor just announced $MSTR bought 1,550 BTC for $101 million while also increasing its U.S. dollar reserves by $100 million. If MSTR sold stock at a discount, that diluted Bitcoin per share. This doesn't prove MSTR can sell Bitcoin, but that it can't.
Only one scenario saves bitcoin:native and $MSTR in the short-term.
Saylor has to come out and say (via Monday's 8K, or next Monday's 8K):
"I sold $4 bn of MSTR and BTC... we now have 2.5 years before we have to raise money again... dividends are covered for 2+ years, debt doesn't mature til sept 2028 (puttable in 2027) and that's easy to refinance via more converts".
If he does that, the market rips, and might even rip 20-30%. It once again makes MSTR uninteresting for years, but that's a good thing. STRC probably goes back close to $100, but he won't be able to sell more. And while capital markets might be closed to MSTR for awhile, it at least buys a ton of time, and in that time who knows what other catalysts might pop up.
He should have done this last week instead of that misguided $2.5mm teaser sale.
If he doesn't, and he continues to just wait it out (only has 5 months), or he sells tiny amounts as he goes (just enough to pay each monthly dividend), this selling won't stop
$SV151 is now live on @Solana.
$SV151 by @MeteoraAG represents tokenized shares of sealed Pokemon SV151 packs, the set featuring the original 151 Pokemon, the OG heroes of the game.
Tradable now.
False.
We are launching a new beta product and allowing a select group of users to try it out, with KYC required only during this beta period. No KYC is being added to any part of existing https://t.co/gjDrCpKT9n with this launch. Once this product is out of beta no KYC will be required to use it.