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Inflation Grips EU’s Top Economies as Oil Prices Pummel Region

Inflation in Europe’s top economies jumped to the highest level in years following the latest upswing in energy markets, focusing attention on what the European Central Bank will do next to tame prices.

SEC changes token buyback guidance as spending hits $638M

The staff added a no-central-party condition, raising a harder question than how much a project buys back. The post SEC changes token buyback guidance as spending hits $638M appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Iran Warns No Energy Infrastructure Will Be Safe If It Can't Sell Oil

Iran threatened to attack energy infrastructure across the Middle East if its security isn't guaranteed as it ratcheted up its rhetoric while waiting for the United States to officially respond to a plan Tehran says would reopen the Strait of Hormuz. While air attacks by both sides have subsided recently, ships in the key waterway continue to be targeted by Iran, which claims control over the strait despite US assertions that it remains open. "In a region where we cannot sell oil, no one else will sell oil either, or if our security is not guaranteed,…

NEAR Governance Discussion: Reducing Issuance to 1.6%, and the Path to a Fixed Supply

NEAR Governance Discussion: Reducing Issuance to 1.6%, and the Path to a Fixed Supply When Illia withdrew the Sovereign Fund proposal in August, he named the core problem which is that a fund needs someone to decide where the capital is allocated and who receives it. At the core these functions rely on discretionary judgement. SVRN supported the direction with caveats focused on controls, transparency, and verifiability, but the discussion that followed convinced us the problem was core to the design and discretion itself. We landed on the idea that a better path forward is one where nobody has to make a decision on allocation. So I want to put two things in front of the community. The first is a proposal we intend to take to a vote next week. The second is a direction we’d like to research and design together. Part 1: Reduce issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% What it does → Lowers NEAR’s maximum annual issuance from 2.5% to 1.6%, gradually, every epoch over 24 months → Keeps the 90/10 split between stakers and the treasury exactly as it is → Changes one parameter. Why now NEAR is no longer a network that needs high issuance to bootstrap. The validator set is oversubscribed, Intents is generating real revenue, and that revenue is already buying NEAR on the open market. Meanwhile, 2.5% issuance adds about 89,500 new NEAR to supply every day. Most of that goes to stakers, and 58.7% of NEAR isn’t staked. Those holders are diluted and receive nothing in return. Part of what stakers receive often leaves the ecosystem entirely to finance tax liabilities incurred from staking. Those that do not sell to cover tax liabilities, are left with dry tax charges. Over six years, the ramp avoids about 66M NEAR of new issuance. At today’s price, that’s roughly $329M that never enters circulation. We began this journey as protocol with 1B tokens and today we have 1.3B+ in circulation due to the impact of compounding emissions. In many ways this is in direct contradiction to the systems we aimed to re-invent where inflation targets define monetary policy objectives, and namely the US dollar, which has landed in a spiraling debt crisis. What it costs stakers Staking yield moves from about 5.4% today to about 3.5% at the target rate. For someone staking 1,000 NEAR, that’s about 21 fewer NEAR after two years than they’d earn at 2.5%. NEAR would need to be worth 9.4 cents more for that holder to break even and just under half of that comes from the smaller supply alone. Holders who don’t stake are better off immediately, given they are diluted less on a daily basis. What happened the last time NEAR cut issuance The most common concern with any cut is that small validators will shut down, but we are fortunate that we don’t have to guess given our experience in October last year. When NEAR halved issuance from 5% to 2.5%, there were 342 active validators. Over the next three months, dollar revenue per staked NEAR fell about 75% as the price dropped, and the validator set grew to 382. It peaked at 439 in April and is 413 today. The precedent Solana passed a similar single-parameter cut in August, while a more complex fee proposal focused on resource based consumption failed in the same voting window. Under the schedule we propose, NEAR achieves a higher staking yield with a smaller relative yield cut, and a larger supply reduction. How it takes effect After a House of Stake vote, the change still has to be adopted by validators through the standard upgrade process, the same way the 2025 halving was. The people running the network have to independently agree to it. We propose a 90-day grace period before the first reduction so wallets, exchanges and staking providers can update contracts, adjust terms and normalize to the change. The full proposal, with every figure, the methodology, the risks and the technical specification, will be posted next week. Part 2: The end game for NEAR tokenomics This part is not a proposal. It’s where I believe NEAR should ultimately go, and I’d like the community to help shape how we get there. I believe NEAR’s issuance should eventually end, with a fixed total supply. A fixed supply means every NEAR held is a permanent share of the network. It ends the steady dilution of holders, and it ends the cycle of reopening monetary policy every year or two. The network would pay for what it needs out of what it earns. NEAR is one of very few networks where that’s realistic. Issuance pays stakers roughly $146M a year today. The infrastructure that actually secures and runs the network costs a small fraction of that, with the rest being the cost of economic security. Revenue is growing fast, and the protocol treasury already holds a meaningful reserve. We are not proposing mechanics today. Replacing issuance with something sustainable has to keep NEAR secure, and it has to fit where the technology is going: chain signatures, confidential compute and TEE-secured infrastructure all change what security needs to look like. Whatever we design should follow the principles this community has already set: no oracle, no validator registry, no discretionary allocation. We’ll share our research as it develops, and any proposal that comes out of this will go through its own discussion and vote. Disclosure I’m CEO of SVRN (NASDAQ: SVRN). SVRN holds 55+M NEAR, most of it staked. We run validator infrastructure through partners, we authored HSP-007 focused on MPC node incentives, and we operate an MPC node under the program. Part 1 reduces the yield SVRN earns by roughly 970,000 NEAR a year (about $~5M in revenue under US GAAP revenue recognition) and Part 2 proposes a path that would reduce revenue recognition materially further.. Neither creates any benefit for SVRN in standard financial accounting frameworks, but we hold a fundamental belief that building a robust crypto-economic system focused on NEAR as a store of value, alongside a thriving demand economy, will drive material value appreciation to the token in USD terms. We are happy to trade US GAAP reporting on revenue recognition for a balance sheet in the billions that will be used to further foster and grow the ecosystem. What I’m asking For Part 1: please read the formal proposal we post next week, feel free to check the numbers, and if you disagree we are open to feedback. For Part 2: we have the opportunity to embark on an ambitious mission at the edge of technical advancements, crypto-economic security, and the design of permissionless stores of value. We invite you to participate and share feedback as we iterate towards the ultimate and final design, which we hope will be welcomed by the ecosystem. The full Phase 1 proposal will be posted for a vote next week. 1 post - 1 participant Read full topic

Bitcoin Price Tops $85K as US Core PCE Rises 0.2% MoM, Cooler Than Expected

Core PCE data came in cooler than expected, propelling risk-on markets into a fresh move upward.

Bitcoin and Gold Prices Jump in Minutes as US Inflation Cools to 3.4%

US PCE inflation cooled to 3.4% in August, and Bitcoin and gold jumped within minutes. Here's what drove the move. The post Bitcoin and Gold Prices Jump in Minutes as US Inflation Cools to 3.4% appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Cardano tapped by Brazil’s state oil giant to track cleaner jet fuel and diesel

US Consumer Spending Rises Most in a Year, Core PCE Up 0.2%

US consumer spending rose in August at the fastest pace in over a year, helping to power the economy through persistent inflation.