Former Ethereum Foundation researcher Francesco D’Amato has joined independent protocol research group Ethlabs, extending the movement of core Ethereum developers into organizations operating outside the Foundation.

According to a statement shared by Ethereum Foundation researcher Francesco D’Amato on X, he has left the Ethereum Foundation after five years to join Ethlabs, a nonprofit protocol research organization established by former Foundation researchers to continue Ethereum core development.

During his time at EF Research, D’Amato said he worked across several protocol research areas, including maximal extractable value (MEV), consensus mechanisms, data availability sampling, and execution layer pricing. He described the decision to leave as difficult but said the current period of change made it the right moment for “a new beginning.”

“Leaving that behind is hard, but after 5 years this time of great change seems right for a new beginning,” D’Amato wrote.

He added that, for the first time since beginning Ethereum protocol research, he believes there is “a credible shot” for core research to advance outside the Ethereum Foundation.

At Ethlabs, he said he will work alongside former EF colleagues to expand the organization’s protocol research efforts, bring new researchers into the ecosystem, and continue contributing to Ethereum’s long-term technical roadmap.

Among his priorities, D’Amato said he intends to keep working on reducing Ethereum’s transaction finality time, stating that he plans to focus much of his effort on helping Ethereum “finalize much faster, as soon as possible.”

Ethlabs expands its research team

Ethlabs launched in June as an independent nonprofit research organization founded by former Ethereum Foundation researchers Ansgar Dietrichs, Barnabé Monnot, Caspar Schwarz Schilling, Josh Rudolf, and Julian Ma. The organization said its research spans settlement speed, network capacity, native asset issuance, cross-chain interoperability, and Ethereum’s monetary design.

Backed by Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin, Bitmine, SharpLink, Anchorage, Octant, SNZ, and other Ethereum ecosystem participants, Ethlabs has said its research priorities are tied to growing institutional use of Ethereum for stablecoins, tokenized assets, investment products, and AI-driven commerce. 

The group has also stated that research decisions remain independent despite corporate funding, with contributions managed through an external grants administrator.

When the organization launched, executive director Ansgar Dietrichs said Ethlabs was created to advance Ethereum’s core technology while providing a long-term home for protocol researchers outside the Ethereum Foundation. Lubin described the organization as another stewardship body working alongside the Foundation and other independent contributors to Ethereum’s development.

Ethereum development spreads beyond the Foundation

D’Amato’s move comes as the Ethereum Foundation continues reshaping its internal structure and as more protocol work shifts to independent organizations.

Last month, the Foundation reduced its workforce by 54 positions, or about 20%, following a review of its staffing and long-term responsibilities. It later dissolved its Protocol Support team while reorganizing its remaining work into dedicated divisions covering protocol development, users, community, access, and institutional activity.

The restructuring has also led to the creation of new Ethereum-focused organizations. Earlier this month, former Foundation employees Mo Jalil, Oskar Thorén, and Aaryamann Challani launched EthSystems, a for-profit company building confidential infrastructure for regulated financial institutions on Ethereum with backing from Bitmine, SharpLink, and Lubin.

On 3 July, Japan’s Finance Minister, Satsuki Katayama, stated that the Ministry of Finance remains in close contact with US authorities regarding developments in USD/JPY as the yen traded near its weakest level in almost 40 years. Similar verbal warnings have become increasingly common whenever the pair approaches the 162.00 area, although no direct intervention has been announced so far.

At the same time, weaker-than-expected US inflation data added pressure to the dollar. On 14 July, June’s Consumer Price Index came in below forecasts, significantly reducing expectations of a Federal Reserve rate hike at the July meeting and pushing US Treasury yields lower. The combination of increasingly cautious rhetoric from Japanese officials and softer US inflation expectations may keep USD/JPY range-bound, preventing buyers from establishing a sustained break above its multi-decade highs.

Technical Picture

On the four-hour chart, USD/JPY advanced steadily throughout June, reaching a peak near 162.80 on 1 July. A sharp reversal followed, with the pair dropping rapidly to the 160.50 area, where the green support zone is currently located. The decline coincided with market speculation about a possible currency intervention by the Japanese authorities.

After rebounding from the 3 July low, the pair began forming a triangle pattern. Price is now testing the upper boundary of the formation, although the attempted upside breakout is currently being capped by the upper edge of the current volume profile at 162.45. Just above this level lies the red resistance zone at 162.70.

The Point of Control (POC) is located around 162.08 and could become a key magnet if the pair moves back towards the lower part of the range, where two additional important technical levels are visible: the lower boundary of the volume profile at 161.45 and the green support zone at 160.50.

Volume behaviour also deserves attention. The break above the triangle’s upper boundary was not supported by strong bullish volume, indicating limited buying conviction and increasing the risk that the breakout could soon reverse. Meanwhile, the RSI + MAs oscillator stands at 54, 52 and 52 respectively, with all three readings remaining firmly in neutral territory, reinforcing the current lack of directional conviction.

Key Takeaways

USD/JPY is testing the upper boundary of its current market structure while momentum indicators remain neutral. The lack of bullish volume at the breakout adds uncertainty, while the Point of Control around 162.08 could be the key reference level if price begins to move lower.

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It shows that major participants are not just “long-only” or “short-only” speculators; they are increasingly treating volatility as a separate asset class and using complex options Greeks, specifically vega (sensitivity to volatility) and gamma (sensitivity to price acceleration), to extract profit from market turbulence.

Inside the $28 million straddle

Notional value represents the total market value of the underlying asset controlled by the trade, rather than the cash paid to enter it.

The straddle involved the purchase of 15,000 contracts, with each contract representing 1 ETH. The notional value, therefore, is calculated by multiplying 15,000 by the market price of ETH on the day of execution. That amount comes to roughly $28 million.

According to Laevitas, the trader paid a premium of $852,000 to establish this $28 million notional straddle. That premium represents the maximum amount at risk if ether remains range-bound or quiet through the July 24 expiry, leading to a “time-decay” in option value.

Now, turning to the maximum possible gain: it is theoretically unlimited. This stems from the fact that volatility itself has no upper bound, as asset prices can, in principle, move dramatically in either direction.

Caveat

While the prospect of profiting from a move in either direction is enticing, the high cost of entry and the relentless decay of time value serve as a stark warning.

A prominent Bitcoin Ordinals advocate, Leonidas, has proposed building an alternative open-source Bitcoin client aimed at easing protocol-level limits that currently affect Ordinals inscriptions and Runes-style token transfers. The proposal, discussed in a Friday post on X, is framed as a way to reduce what Leonidas calls unnecessary “permission” requirements enforced by widely used node software.

Leonidas’ plan—described as “Bitcoin $DOG Mode”—would, if implemented, increase the maximum individual transaction size and reduce the network’s dust threshold. Supporters argue these changes would make it more practical to package larger token and inscription activity into fewer transactions, while critics have long accused Ordinals and Runes of contributing to “spam” on Bitcoin’s base layer.

Key takeaways

• “Bitcoin $DOG Mode” proposes a new open-source client to relax limits that Leonidas says hinder Ordinals inscriptions and Runes transactions.
• It targets a much higher max transaction size—3.9 million weight units versus Bitcoin Core’s 400,000 WU.
• It would lower the dust limit to 1 satoshi from the current range of 294–546 sats, reducing output padding requirements.
• The approach is positioned as competitive: the client would be an alternative to Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots, with the goal of pressuring broader adoption to loosen restrictions.

What Leonidas says would change

In his announcement on X, Leonidas set out two specific operational tweaks. First, the proposal would lift the maximum allowed size for an individual transaction to 3.9 million weight units, compared with 400,000 WU under Bitcoin Core. Second, it would reduce the dust limit—the minimum UTXO amount considered economically spendable—to 1 satoshi, down from a 294–546 satoshi range.

Leonidas’ stated reasoning is that Bitcoin’s rules and culture are broader than what popular client implementations currently permit. He argues that Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots have spent years applying policies that go beyond what he believes the protocol requires, particularly in ways that complicate how Ordinals and Runes activity is formatted and relayed across nodes.

“Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots have spent years enforcing rules that Bitcoin itself does not have,” Leonidas said in a statement, describing the initiative as a response to what he calls excessive restrictions.

Why transaction limits matter for Ordinals and Runes

Both Ordinals and Runes are often discussed as Bitcoin’s answer to categories of assets usually associated with token standards outside Bitcoin—inscriptions for non-fungible representations and Runes for fungible token-like transfers. Even though they’re controversial, they share a practical challenge: getting complex data and structured token transfers into transactions that fit within standard limits.

Leonidas emphasized that increasing the transaction size ceiling would make it easier for Ordinals users to fit much larger files or collections into a single transaction. Under the proposed settings, he said it could be possible to create transactions that consume a large share of block space—transactions approaching nearly an entire block—without being blocked by client-imposed maximums.

The dust-limit change would also target day-to-day friction. Dust rules determine the smallest outputs that are economical to handle. If dust is too high, users may need to create extra output padding to ensure their transactions get relayed and processed smoothly by default Bitcoin Core nodes. Leonidas’ proposal would reduce that requirement by lowering the economically “uneconomical” floor to 1 satoshi.

From an end-user perspective, those adjustments translate into fewer constraints when forming inscription-heavy or token-heavy transactions—potentially enabling more efficient packaging and less waste in output structure.

Alternative client strategy—and what it would take to move the market

Leonidas positioned $DOG Mode not as a patch to Bitcoin Core, but as an alternative open-source client. In his description, the new client is meant to compete with two of the most widely used Bitcoin node implementations: Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Knots.

The broader bet is that if enough users run the new client, Bitcoin Core may eventually be forced to reconsider its own policy restrictions in practice. Leonidas said the objective is to build enough adoption that Bitcoin Core would “eventually” have to loosen its stance.

That strategy reflects a key tension in Bitcoin’s ecosystem: software defaults strongly influence what is considered “normal” network behavior. Even when community debate centers on whether certain limitations are truly required by Bitcoin’s fundamentals, the reality for users is that mainstream clients shape what transactors can practically submit and propagate without running into relay or policy friction.

Whether a competing client can achieve the kind of uptake Leonidas is targeting remains unclear. Adoption depends on more than technical changes—it requires trust in the client’s security, compatibility, and network behavior. The proposal’s effectiveness would also hinge on how other nodes in the ecosystem handle and standardize the transactions produced by $DOG Mode.

An ongoing debate over “spam” and Bitcoin’s direction

The move lands in the middle of a continuing community argument. Leonidas’ remarks explicitly tap into a familiar criticism: that Ordinals and Runes can increase on-chain activity by embedding additional data and structures into transactions. Detractors have repeatedly argued that this kind of usage is “spam” that burdens the network and obscures Bitcoin’s purpose.

Supporters generally counter that Bitcoin’s permissionless nature allows diverse usage, and that clients should not restrict how data and token-like activity can be expressed on-chain when the underlying protocol can accommodate it.

Leonidas’ client proposal is essentially a technological expression of that philosophical dispute. By altering parameters around transaction size and dust thresholds, $DOG Mode would aim to make controversial activity easier to execute and easier to propagate—without relying on permission from the dominant clients.

Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph has discussed the conservative node client landscape as part of this broader context, underscoring how different implementations can influence what users can do on Bitcoin without friction.

Earlier Cointelegraph reporting has also highlighted how conservative approaches can restrict certain inscription activity, reinforcing why Leonidas’ focus on client-enforced rules is central to this proposal.

What readers should watch next is whether Leonidas and supporters produce a working open-source implementation of “Bitcoin $DOG Mode,” and—if they do—how quickly it gains traction among users and node operators. Equally important will be whether the proposed parameter changes trigger more explicit policy adjustments from Bitcoin Core or other major clients, or whether the ecosystem continues to split into competing operational norms.

BitPay has secured authorization under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, allowing the crypto payments company to offer regulated digital asset services across the bloc through its Dutch subsidiary.

According to a press release shared with crypto.news, BitPay B.V. has received authorization as a crypto-asset service provider (CASP) from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM), enabling the company to operate across European Union member states under MiCA’s passporting rules.

The approval allows BitPay to expand regulated crypto payment services across the region, including cryptocurrency payment acceptance, stablecoin-based transactions, and cross-border payment solutions for businesses. Consumers will also gain access to tools for spending and managing digital assets, while partner platforms can support buying, selling, and swapping cryptocurrencies.

Thom de Jong, BitPay’s Chief Compliance Officer Europe, said the authorization strengthens the company’s ability to serve businesses and consumers throughout the EU while reinforcing its compliance-focused approach. He added that MiCA provides a common regulatory framework for responsible digital asset innovation across Europe.

MiCA licensing race reshapes the European market

BitPay joins a growing list of crypto companies that have secured MiCA authorization following the European Union’s July 1 deadline requiring crypto-asset service providers to operate under the new regulatory framework.

Earlier this month, Ripple received full CASP authorization from Luxembourg’s financial regulator after first obtaining preliminary approval in June. Coinbase also selected Luxembourg as its European regulatory base, giving it passporting rights across all 27 EU member states as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway.

Not every company completed the licensing process before the deadline. Earlier reports showed Binance withdrew its Greek license application and began limiting services in several European markets after the transition period ended.

Industry observers have also noted that customer migration toward licensed platforms has created new compliance challenges. Bruna Szego, chair of the EU Authority for Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AMLA), previously warned that firms onboarding large numbers of new customers must maintain effective anti-money laundering controls while handling increased demand.

BitPay plans further expansion in Europe

From its European base in Amsterdam, BitPay said it intends to support merchants, partners, and consumers as demand for regulated digital asset payments continues to grow. 

“Europe is one of the most important regions for the future of payments,” said Jonathan Arler, Head of Europe at BitPay. 

“From Amsterdam, BitPay is now positioned to support merchants, partners, and consumers as demand grows for practical ways to accept, move, manage, and spend digital assets.”

The company said the authorization also expands its global regulatory footprint, which already includes money transmitter licenses and other approvals in multiple jurisdictions.

 According to BitPay, the additional regulatory coverage will support businesses and consumers as cryptocurrency payments, stablecoin transactions, consumer finance applications, and cross-border settlement become more widely used.

Founded in 2011, BitPay said the MiCA authorization represents the next stage of its European operations. The company also plans to invest further in regional infrastructure and strategic partnerships to expand regulated cryptocurrency payment services across the European Union.

PayPal’s board has determined that a $53 billion takeover proposal from Stripe and Advent International undervalues the company while raising financing and regulatory concerns, even as discussions continue.

Reuters reported that PayPal’s board believes the consortium’s $60.50-per-share offer does not fully capture the value the company could generate if its turnaround plan succeeds, according to a person familiar with the matter. The proposal values PayPal at about $53 billion and represents a premium over the company’s recent trading price.

While the board has not formally responded to the offer, Reuters reported that directors are reviewing both the bid and the possibility of competing proposals before deciding on the company’s next steps. 

Alongside the purchase price, the board is weighing the certainty of financing, possible regulatory obstacles, and the time needed to complete such a transaction, the report said.

Shares of PayPal rose about 2% on Thursday to $56.73.

Earlier this month, Stripe and private equity firm Advent International submitted the joint proposal after first approaching PayPal with Block in April. Reuters previously reported that Block later exited the consortium before the latest offer was presented.

Financing package and deal structure

According to Reuters, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have assembled a financing package of roughly $50 billion to back the acquisition, while Stripe and Advent would contribute about $17 billion in equity. Under the proposal, the two companies would jointly own PayPal with equal stakes instead of splitting the business into separate entities.

People familiar with the discussions told Reuters the consortium has also explored possible remedies should antitrust regulators raise concerns. One option under consideration would be to separate PayPal’s Braintree business or certain other assets and transfer them to Advent, where they could be combined with the firm’s existing payments investments, including Nuvei.

Although PayPal has reservations about the current terms, Reuters reported that Stripe and Advent remain interested in reaching an agreement and continue to be viewed as the most serious bidders. The sources added that negotiations are expected to continue and may take time before any outcome becomes clear.

Turnaround plan and crypto business remain in focus

Investors are now looking ahead to PayPal’s July 28 earnings report for evidence that its core checkout business is recovering after the company issued weaker-than-expected guidance earlier this year and warned of slowing momentum in the segment, Reuters reported.

PayPal has been restructuring its operations under CEO Enrique Lores, who took over in March. In April, the company reorganized its business into three divisions covering checkout, Venmo consumer financial services, and payments and crypto. First-quarter revenue rose 7% year over year to $8.35 billion, while payment volume increased 8% on a currency-neutral basis to about $464 billion.

The company’s crypto operations include PayPal USD (PYUSD), a dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Paxos and backed by U.S. dollar deposits, Treasuries and similar cash equivalents. PYUSD recently expanded natively to Polygon through the network’s Open Money Stack, giving businesses access to stablecoin payments, settlement, fiat conversion and compliance services.

The proposed acquisition would also unite PayPal’s crypto payment products with Stripe’s expanding stablecoin infrastructure. Stripe strengthened its blockchain payments business through its roughly $1.1 billion acquisition of stablecoin platform Bridge and has since expanded stablecoin payment services across multiple technology platforms and blockchain networks.

According to Reuters, Advent joined the bid because funding the entire equity portion would be difficult for privately held Stripe alone. The private equity firm’s long history of investments in payment companies, including Worldpay, Vantiv, and Nuvei, could also provide additional flexibility if regulators require changes to the transaction structure. 

Reuters noted that the size of the proposed acquisition and potential antitrust scrutiny could complicate any path to a completed deal.