Solana Mobile stands to earn at least $67.5 million from sales of the Seeker, which had pre-orders many times higher than the first-generation device. Solana Mobile has started shipping the second generation of its mobile device on Monday, supplying users in over 50 countries. The Seeker phone, which has amassed over 150,000 pre-orders, will feature upgraded technology, a mobile-native crypto wallet and a decentralized application store that bypasses “cryptophobic censorship” seen in app stores today. Solana Mobile general manager Emmett Hollyer told Cointelegraph that the Seeker comes with hardware improvements across the board compared to the first-generation Saga. “But what really sets Seeker apart is its onchain features.” Read more
Grayscale reappoints founder Barry Silbert as chairman and hires top Wall Street talent as it looks to defend its ETF revenue lead and sharpen its institutional edge. Grayscale Investments has expanded its executive team and board as part of its “next phase of growth,” adding four financial industry veterans to key leadership roles and reappointing founder Barry Silbert as board chairman. The expanded leadership team includes Diana Zhang as chief operating officer, Ramona Boston as chief marketing officer, Andrea Williams as chief communications officer and Maxwell Rosenthal as chief human resources officer. The newly appointed executives come from traditional finance firm like Bridgewater, Apollo, Goldman Sachs and Citadel. Read more
The GENIUS Act’s ban on yield could dampen the appeal of digital dollars, particularly as tokenization efforts in traditional finance gain momentum. The recent passage of the US GENIUS Act was widely celebrated as a major step forward for stablecoin adoption, but a key provision may curb the appeal of digital dollars compared to money market funds, raising questions about whether the bill’s authors were swayed by banking industry pressure to restrict yield-bearing stablecoins. The GENIUS Act expressly bans issuers from offering yield-bearing stablecoins, effectively preventing both retail and institutional investors from earning interest on their digital dollar holdings. Because of this, Temujin Louie, CEO of crosschain interoperability protocol Wanchain, cautioned against viewing the legislation as an unqualified win for the industry. Read more