Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Margaux Nijkerk, CoinDesk’s Tech & Protocols reporter.
In this issue:
- Solana’s Seeker Phone Fixes Saga’s Flaws With Usability Upgrade
- Base Says Sequencer Failure Caused Block Production Halt of 33 Minutes
- Solana's Jito Proposes Routing 100% of Block Engine Fees to DAO Treasury
- Cardano Community Approves $70M Core Dev Budget, Boosting ADA Prospects
Network news
SOLANA SEEKER PHONE BEGINS SHIPPING: The Solana Seeker phone is not your average smartphone, nor does it want to be. Building on the lessons of its predecessor, the Saga, Solana Mobile’s newest device reimagines what a crypto-native phone can be. Smaller, lighter and boasting a longer-lasting battery than its predecessor, the Seeker aims to improve on the user experience while doubling down on mobile-first crypto usability. Out of the box, it’s clear who this device is for: active Solana users who regularly transact on-chain, with the design focusing on everything crypto-first. With 150,000 phones pre-ordered from over 50 countries and at a price point of $500 the Seeker wants to bring Solana ecosystem participants the ability to transact on the go in a matter of seconds. If you’re someone who frequently uses Solana, the Seeker might feel like it was built specifically for you. However, this phone is not intended for the casual crypto user. “If you're somebody who transacts at least once a week, frankly, then you might not be a full on power user, but you're at least a regular enough user that Seeker makes sense,” Emmett Hollyer, the general manager at Solana Mobile, told CoinDesk in an interview. Read CoinDesk’s full review of the phone here. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
POST-MORTEM ON BASE’S BLOCK PRODUCTION HALT : Block production on Coinbase’s (COIN) Base network halted for 33 minutes early Tuesday following a sequencer failover that didn’t recover as expected, developers said in a post-mortem report. The outage began at 06:07 UTC on Aug. 5, when the active sequencer fell behind due to congestion from on-chain activity. While Base’s Conductor module — a core component of the OP Stack designed to maintain uptime — correctly attempted to shift leadership to a standby sequencer, the new instance had not been fully provisioned and was unable to produce blocks. Since it couldn’t automatically switch again, production stalled until engineers manually fixed the issue. The network was fully recovered by 06:40, according to the report. To avoid reorganization risks — that is, when a blockchain temporarily rewrites history by replacing confirmed blocks with alternative ones — the team paused Conductor and coordinated a controlled leadership transition. This process contributed to the length of the outage. The outage highlighted a key operational risk in layer-2 rollup networks that rely on centralized sequencers to order and submit transactions. These systems remain dependent on rapid failover mechanisms and complete provisioning, and a single-point gap in this chain can lead to full network stalls. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.
NEW JITO PROPOSAL FOR REROUTING BLOCK ENGINE FEES: Jito Labs put forward a new governance proposal, called JIP-24, aimed at decentralizing the network further by routing all its Block Engine and Block Assembly Marketplace (BAM) fees directly to the Jito DAO treasury. If approved, the DAO would assume control over protocol revenue streams, directing them to the network's JTO tokenholders. This, in turn, would reduce Jito Labs' influence over the network of the same name, with a DAO subgroup taking on a greater role in development. Jito Labs hopes the change will ultimately boost the Jito token's value. Currently, rewards from Jito’s Block Engine are split evenly — 3% to Jito Labs and 3% to the DAO. JIP-24 would eliminate the split, sending the full 6% of fees, along with all future BAM-related revenue, to the DAO treasury permanently. “This proposal reflects the commitment of the Jito ecosystem to ensure that protocol fees accrue directly to the token holders as optimally as possible and cements the DAO as central to the technical and economic governance of the Jito Network,” the Jito Labs team wrote in their proposal. — Margaux Nijkerk Read more.
CARDANO CORE DEVS GET $70M BUDGET : Cardano’s core development team, Input Output Global (IOG), secured approval for a $71 million treasury allocation to fund 12 months of network upgrades following a drawn-out governance vote that drew concerns around transparency, accountability and cost. The proposal passed with 74% in favor and authorizes the disbursement of 96 million ADA, or roughly 13% of the protocol’s treasury, to IOG. Payments will be milestone-based and overseen by Intersect, a member-driven governance body. Smart contracts and an independent committee will add additional oversight, IOG said. Key deliverables include Hydra, a layer-2 scaling product for faster and cheaper transactions, and Project Acropolis, which aims to re-architect the Cardano node for greater modularity and ease of developer onboarding. The team also plans to reduce memory usage and improve operational costs for validators. Such implementations can eventually lead to increased developer activity and new use cases on the Cardano network, contributing to demand for ADA, the network’s gas token. — Shaurya Malwa Read more.
In Other News
- Big banks are making it harder and more expensive for consumers to use fintech and crypto apps, which amounts to what could be seen as “Operation Chokepoint 3.0.” That’s according to Alex Rampell, general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). In the firm's latest fintech newsletter, Rampell pointed to traditional financial institutions charging high fees to access account data or move money, particularly to services like Coinbase or Robinhood, as a move to strangle the competition. “Under the Biden administration, Operation Chokepoint 2.0 tried to debank and deplatform crypto,” Rampell said. “That era has ended, but now the banks are aiming to implement their own Chokepoint 3.0 — charging insanely high fees to access data or move money to crypto and fintech apps — and, more concerningly, blocking crypto and fintech apps they don’t like.” — Francisco Rodrigues Read more.
- When Celestia airdropped its TIA token to 580,000 users in 2023 it was the plat du jour among traders and investors, with the project saying the release aligned with a new “modular era.” However, despite rallying to a dizzying $20 price point in September 2024, it has since slumped to less than $1.65 in a desperate plight spurred by a series of massive cliffs in the token's vesting schedule. Data from Tokenomist shows that core contributors and early backers, notably a slew of venture capitalists, could sell tokens purchased relatively cheaply in early fundraising rounds onto the open market. This coincided with TIA's precipitous move to the downside, although it's worth noting that the token's market cap, currently at $1.2 billion, actually increased by 50% despite the token losing 90% of its value due to the sheer scale of supply increase. — Oliver Knight Read more.
Regulatory and Policy
- The White House is preparing an executive order that would penalize banks for cutting off customers over their beliefs. The order, reported by the Wall Street Journal, is expected to be signed by President Donald Trump as early as this week. It would direct banking regulators to investigate whether financial firms violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act or other consumer protection laws when closing accounts. While the order could still be altered, it would bring further stability to the crypto sector. During the Biden administration, a coordinated effort from the federal government was launched to de-bank crypto firms, an effort known as Operation Chokepoint 2.0. The draft order does not name specific banks, but reportedly references an incident involving Bank of America and a Christian nonprofit in Uganda. The bank said it closed the accounts because it does not serve small businesses operating abroad.— Francisco Rodrigues Read more.
- A group of French lawmakers is preparing a draft law that would enable the use of surplus electricity from nuclear power plants to mine bitcoin, according to recent public statements. The proposal would install mining hardware at facilities owned by state utility, Électricité de France (EDF), according to Le Monde. The process would take advantage of surplus energy generated by these nuclear power plants. France is the largest producer of nuclear power in the European Union, according to 2023 data from Eurostat. It accounted for 338,202 gigawatt hours, or more than half the 27-nation bloc's total output. The heat produced by nuclear fission is used to produce electricity, but more than two-thirds of it is lost, the statistics agency said. — Francesco Rodrigues Read more.
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
