Weekend Wrap: Early Solana Firedancer, Bill Maher wrong about crypto, and more
2024-09-23

Early version of Firedancer goes live on Solana mainnetAn early version of the Firedancer independent validator client, Frankendancer, has made it to the Solana mainnet, according to Jump Crypto’s chief Science Officer Kevin Bowers.Approximately 1% of the Solana network’s “proof-of-life” stake comes from Frankendancer, a presentation from Bowers showed.Jump Crypto is the blockchain infrastructure firm behind the Solana validator clients.Validator clients like Firedancer will play a crucial role in processing transactions and building blocks on Solana’s near $70 billion network.It has been touted as a superior solution to “QUIC” — a Google-developed data transfer protocol with a history of failing to process transactions when Solana experiences surges in network activity.Bowers said that Firedancer is currently live on Solana testnet.However, another Solana contributor at the same conference claimed that Firedancer is already live on Solana mainnet — but is in “non-voting mode.”Non-voting mode essentially means it can’t build blocks or partake in consensus — one of the primary roles of a blockchain validator, Cardano fan and X user “ItsDave_ADA” noted.“I recognise the need for client diversity and actually really like their efforts to improve this but this is marketing that forgot to mention that the validator is missing about 60-70% of its primary role.”“[This] is strange as it’s supposed to be a superior client,” he added.
An early version of the Firedancer independent validator client, Frankendancer, has made it to the Solana mainnet, according to Jump Crypto’s chief Science Officer Kevin Bowers.
Approximately 1% of the Solana network’s “proof-of-life” stake comes from Frankendancer, a presentation from Bowers showed.
Jump Crypto is the blockchain infrastructure firm behind the Solana validator clients.
Validator clients like Firedancer will play a crucial role in processing transactions and building blocks on Solana’s near $70 billion network.
It has been touted as a superior solution to “QUIC” — a Google-developed data transfer protocol with a history of failing to process transactions when Solana experiences surges in network activity.
Bowers said that Firedancer is currently live on Solana testnet.
However, another Solana contributor at the same conference claimed that Firedancer is already live on Solana mainnet — but is in “non-voting mode.”
Non-voting mode essentially means it can’t build blocks or partake in consensus — one of the primary roles of a blockchain validator, Cardano fan and X user “ItsDave_ADA” noted.
“[This] is strange as it’s supposed to be a superior client,” he added.
Pendle token soars 25% after Arthur Hayes sells $1.5M of it
The Pendle token rallied more than 25% shortly after Arthur Hayes confirmed that his crypto-focused family office fund Maelstrom sold more than 392,000 Pendle tokens — worth $1.56 million.
It stirred controversy as Hayes was seen boasting about the project’s potential on stage at the Token2049 conference late last week.
“Just 9 days ago, he tweeted that he bet $PENDLE to $10, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain noted.
But the sale was purely made to take some profits, Hayes revealed in a Sept. 21 X post.
Hayes, who serves as Maelstrom’s chief investment officer, said the fund will use those proceeds to fund a “special situation” — which observers may get a glimpse of by monitoring the fund’s wallets.
PENDLE soared 25.2% to $4.36 roughly 24 hours after Hayes confirmed Maelstrom’s sell — though it has since cooled off to $4.06, CoinGecko data shows.
Hayes noted at Token2049 that Pendle is a decentralized interest rate market that allows users to hedge their staking yield, which can be as high as 9% with Bitcoin.
However, Hayes isn’t sure whether that is attractive enough to convince US Treasurys holders to “rush out of earning 5.5%” due to various smart contract risks that often plague decentralized finance protocols.
Bill Maher shares supposed misinformation about crypto on national television
Bill Maher — the host of American TV talk-show “Real Time with Bill Maher” — has made several purportedly incorrect comments about who uses cryptocurrencies and how much energy is used to mine them.
“All the progress that we’re making with green energy is being sucked away by crypto,” he said in revealing the “big secret about crypto” that “bugs him” so much in a Sept. 21 episode.
Maher claimed that 8% of electricity is consumed by crypto mining, which he claims is comparable to putting 15 million gas-powered cars back on the road.
“So as we take them off to go to electric, crypto eats it all and goes the other way,” said Maher, who routinely refers to Bitcoin and other cryptos as a “ponzi scheme.”
However, the United States Energy Information Administration estimates that crypto mining represents between 0.6% to 2.3% of US electricity consumption.
The TV talk show host also said that crypto is “used completely by criminals” who are trying to evade US regulators. 
However, blockchain forensics firm TRM Labs found the share of illicit crypto funds was 0.63% in 2023.
Maher’s comments also ignore crypto’s acceptance in the institutional space — namely through the spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) exchange-traded funds, which were launched after dozens of back-and-forth discussions between the and the US securities regulator and the ETF issuers.
However, Maher acknowledged why many people are “afraid of big governments these days,” citing Canada’s response to the truck protesters in January 2022.
“Canada froze a lot of those people’s assets, that’s a scary thing, is it not,” Maher asked. 
Infinex has now raised $58M with Patron NFTs for new consumer app
Infinex has now raised nearly $58 million selling Patron non-fungible tokens to several venture capital firms, industry leaders and community members.
The NFT sales aim to spark community interest in Infinex’s vision to offer a non-custodial, unified UX layer across all blockchains and decentralized finance apps.
Participants in the Patron NFT sale included Wintermute Ventures, Framework Ventures, Near Foundation, Synthetix, Solana Labs CEO Anatoly Yakovenko and Ethereum Foundation researcher Tim Beiko, Infinex revealed in a Sept. 22 post.
87.5% of the total “Early Access” NFT supply has been exhausted across Wave 1 and 2.
Infinex confirmed Wave 3 is now open until Sept. 23 at 11:59 pm UTC. Immediately after that, Wave 4 — the final phase of the NFT sale — will commence for 24 hours.
A total of 37,124 Patron NFTs have already been sold, Infinex data shows.
The Patron NFTs come in three tiers, costing either $5,000, $3,000, or $1,250, with the latter NFT being locked for 12 months from the distribution date, meaning that they won’t be transferable until they gradually unlock.
Following “launch season,” Infinex plans to roll out several features that bring it to “parity” with centralized cryptocurrency exchanges.
Among those features are custody, spot trading, margin, lending, perps, options, staking, NFTs, launchpads, and yield farming.
Infinex was launched by Kain Warwick — the founder of synthetic asset issuance platform Synthetix — in mid-2023.
Warwick’s Infinex hopes to replace centralized cryptocurrency exchanges as the first and main point of contact for new users.
“For the last decade and a half, each new wave of users has been onboarded via a CEX. This cycle, we intend for them to land onchain first. If we are successful, Infinex will prove that onchain is far better, cheaper and safer than CeFi,” Infinex said on its website.
Other news
A US judge has fined a New York resident $36 million for allegedly swindling crypto investors by promising high returns and using the funds to support his lavish lifestyle. William Koo Ichioka must pay $31 million in restitution to victims and $5 million in civil monetary penalties.
The Supreme Court of India regained control of its official YouTube account shortly after it was hijacked by crypto scammers selling fake XRP investments. The hackers rebranded the channel to resemble Ripple and deleted all previously uploaded content.