Shares of Cantor Equity Partners (CEP) surged 55% on Tuesday and are up an additional 15% in pre-market trading, trading below $19.

The skyward movement was driven by investor optimism around its proposed merger with Twenty One Capital a bitcoin (BTC) native investment vehicle backed by Tether, Bitfinex, and SoftBank.

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Led by Strike CEO Jack Mallers and Brandon Lutnick, Twenty One Capital is being positioned as a public proxy for bitcoin, potentially holding over 42,000 BTC at launch and introducing metrics like Bitcoin Per Share (BPS) and Bitcoin Return Rate (BRR) to measure shareholder value in BTC terms.

According to the latest pro forma ownership tables, Tether will control 42.8% of equity and 51.7% of voting power, while Bitfinex and SoftBank hold 16.0% and 24.0% of the company respectively, post-convert. Public SPAC shareholders will retain just 2.7% ownership, underscoring the extreme dilution but significant upside if BTC rises.

Pro Forma Ownership (Twenty One)

With BTC trading near $94,000, and the entity holding nearly $4B in BTC exposure, investors are re-rating CEP as a high-leverage bet on institutional bitcoin adoption. The stock is set to re-list under ticker “XXI” once the merger is finalized.

Disclaimer: This article, or parts of it, was generated with assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.

Cantor Skyrockets 130% as Traders FOMO Into CEP on Bitcoin SPAC Frenzy

Coinbase has added the newly launched native asset of an on-chain social network to its listing roadmap.

The exchange’s customers may soon be able to trade ZORA, the native asset of the Zora Network, a layer-2 protocol built on top of Ethereum (ETH).

Explains the project’s website,

“Zora’s mission is to make the internet valuable and free – that’s why we’re building a social network that makes tokenizing and trading posts easy, fun, and rewarding.

Our Rewards enable creators and developers on Zora to earn from trading activity through two distinct reward systems: Trade Rewards and Market Rewards.”

ZORA launched on Wednesday and is trading at $0.022 at time of writing. The 606th-ranked crypto asset by market cap is down around 20% since its launch but is up more than 3% in the past 24 hours.

Being added to Coinbase’s listing roadmap means that the top US crypto exchange is considering rolling trading support for the asset in the near future. The roadmap was established in 2022 to increase transparency and reduce the possibility of investors frontrunning new trading support announcements.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has previously said the exchange aims to list as many crypto assets as possible, as long as they meet the company’s standards.

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Top US Crypto Exchange Coinbase Adds Brand-New On-Chain Social Media Altcoin to Listing Roadmap

Former Goldman Sachs executive Raoul Pal says one Solana (SOL) competitor is his “favored child.”

Pal tells his 1.1 million followers on the social media platform X that if he had to “have a favorite,” the layer-1 chain Sui (SUI) would look preferable to Solana.

The Real Vision chief executive shares a chart comparing the SUI/USD price to the SOL/USD price, with SUI/USD looking like it’s on the cusp of breaking out of resistance.

SUI is trading at $2.97 at time of writing. The 13th-ranked crypto asset by market cap is up more than 21% in the past day and nearly 41% in the past week.

SOL is trading at $149.47 at time of writing. The sixth-ranked crypto asset by market cap is up more than 3.5% in the past 24 hours and more than 13% in the past week.

Pal isn’t the only analyst bullish on the Solana rival: Last week, crypto trader Michaël van de Poppe told his 783,900 followers on the social media platform X that Sui is gaining adoption as a decentralized finance (DeFi) network, including for Bitcoin (BTC) staking and lending, referred to as Bitcoin DeFi (BTCfi).

“Once the markets are turning back into an uptrend, the money will flow back into the ones that have shown strength. SUI is one of them. It’s a great spot to investigate SUI:

BTCFi is quickly growing fast as 10% of TVL (Total Value Locked) going through SUI.

DeFi on SUI is in the top six of all chains.

Nearly $6 billion in trading volume on DeFi in the past month.

I think it can do really well in the upcoming cycle.”

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Ex-Goldman Sachs Executive Raoul Pal Favors One Surging Layer-1 Asset Over Solana (SOL) – Here’s Why

A US bank is warning thousands of customers that their sensitive information may be at risk following an “administrative error.”

In a new filing with the Office of the Maine Attorney General, Bluestone Bank says an error in late February led to the unauthorized disclosure of personal data belonging to 7,605 customers.

According to the Bridgewater, Massachusetts-headquartered bank, personal and confidential information belonging to its customers was inadvertently sent to an unintended recipient on February 28th of this year.

“The personal information that may have been accessed includes the data we have on file for you, such as your name, address, social security number, and account number(s).”

Bluestone Bank says it has taken various steps to minimize the risk of potential harm to customers.

“The individual who received the information has signed a Certificate of Destruction, confirming that all information was promptly and securely destroyed and no information was retained…

We have further addressed this incident by reinforcing proper data handling procedures and mandating retraining on the appropriate management of customer data. In addition, we have evaluated and enhanced our existing protocols and controls to ensure this will not happen again.”

To prevent possible misuse of personal information following the incident, Bluestone Bank is offering its customers a complimentary membership to an identity-monitoring service for one and a half years.

Customers also have the choice of closing and reopening their bank accounts as a safety precaution.

Bluestone Bank had $1.5 billion in total assets as of November of 2024.

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7,605 Bank Customers Receive Urgent Data Breach Alerts After ‘Administrative Error’ Exposes Social Security Numbers, Names and Account Details

Bitcoin (BTC) продовжив своє весняне Rally в п’ятницю і на шляху до свого найсильнішого тижневого показу з моменту перемоги Трампа на виборах.

Найбільша і найстаріша Криптовалюта зберігала близько 95 000 доларів США в другій половині дня, що на 1,8% більше за останні 24 години. Ефір Ethereum (ETH) слідував за ним, підвищившись на 2% і перевищивши 1800 доларів. Нативний ринок Sui (Sui), Bitcoin Cash (BCH) і HBAR Hedera привели до зростання в індексі Крипто CoinDesk 20 Index для широкого ринку.

Продовження Нижче Не пропустіть жодної історії. Підпишіться на розсилку Crypto Daybook Americas вже сьогодні . Переглянути Всі Розсилки Підписатися Підписуючись, ви отримуватимете листи про продукти CoinDesk та погоджуєтесь з нашими умови використання та політика конфіденційності .

Сьогоднішній приріст обмежує винятковий імпульс для Крипто Ринки , які оговтуються від мінімумів початку квітня на тлі тарифних потрясінь. BTC зріс більш ніж на 11% з понеділка, ставши його найбільшим тижневим приростом з листопада 2024 року, коли Дональд Трамп став президентом США, поштовхнувши Крипто Rally на широкому ринку.

Читайте також: Bitcoin трейдери націлені на 95 тисяч доларів у NEAR перспективі; Sui продовжує багатоденне Rally

Апетит інвесторів з боку інвесторів ETF також значно відновився: спотові Bitcoin ETF, зареєстровані в США, цього тижня зафіксували 2,68 мільярда доларів чистого надходження, що є найбільшим показником з грудня, згідно з даними Дані SoSoValue. (Дані про надходження в п'ятницю будуть опубліковані пізніше.)

Відключення BTC

Нещодавнє зростання біткойна щодо американських акцій і золота підкреслює відокремлення BTC від традиційних макроактивів, сказав Девід Дуонг, керівник глобальних досліджень Coinbase Institutional.

« RARE можна спостерігати точки перегину ринку в режимі реального часу, оскільки ми схильні розпізнавати основні зміни режиму лише за допомогою часу та роздумів», — сказав Дуонг у П'ятничний звіт. «Відокремлення ефективності біткойна від традиційних макроактивів цього тижня може бути настільки близьким, наскільки ми наблизилися до такого моменту».

«На нашу думку, ця розбіжність підкреслює зростаючу роль біткойна як активу збереження вартості — ONE , який інституційні та роздрібні інвестори все частіше розглядають як стійкий до макроекономічних сил, що впливають на ризикові активи в більш широкому плані», — написав він.

Доунг зазначив, що ця теза набирає популярності, оскільки все більше компаній приймають корпоративні казначейські зобов’язання BTC . Після успіху стратегії Майкла Сейлора, Двадцять ONE столиця, нова фірма, яку підтримують Tether, Bitfinex, SoftBank і афілійована компанія Cantor Fitzgerald, також планує мати 42 000 BTC на момент запуску.

Частково через нещодавнє накопичення ліквідність на спотовому ринку BTC «суттєво вичерпалася», – сказав у Telegram доктор Кирило Кретов, провідний стратег платформи автоматизації торгівлі CoinPanel. Відповідно до власного аналізу блокчейну фірми, з листопада 2024 року значна частина ліквідності Bitcoin була вилучена з активних транзакційних адрес, включаючи біржі, наражаючи Ринки на нестабільні коливання цін.

«Ринок тонкий, вразливий, і його легко переміщати великими гравцями», — сказав Кретов. «Різкі коливання на 10% вгору або вниз, швидше за все, поки залишаться нормою».

Шлях біткойна до нових рекордів

Незважаючи на те, що шлях може бути нестабільним, Rally цього тижня, ймовірно, є першим кроком наступного кроку біткойна до нових рекордів, сказав Джон Гловер, головний інвестиційний директор Крипто кредитора Ledn.

Грунтуючись на своєму технічному аналізі за допомогою WAVES Елліотта, він сказав, що BTC почав п’яту й останню хвилю свого багаторічного бичачого ринку.

Прогноз ціни BTC від ІТ-директора Lend Джона Гловера (Ledn/TradingView)

Теорія хвиль Елліотта припускає, що ціни на активи рухаються за передбачуваними моделями, які називаються WAVES, керованими психологією колективного інвестора. Ці патерни зазвичай розгортаються у п’ятихвильових трендах, у яких перша, третя та п’ята WAVES є імпульсивними підйомами, тоді як друга та четверта WAVES є коригуючими фазами.

Хоча повторне тестування цьогомісячного мінімуму в 75 000 доларів не можна виключити, Гловер бачить, що BTC підніметься до вершини циклу приблизно наприкінці 2025 року, на початку 2026 року.

«Я сподіваюся, що наприкінці цього року, на початку наступного року Rally підніметься до 133-136 тисяч доларів», — сказав він.

Читайте також: Bitcoin кити повертаються в силі, купуйте Rally цін на BTC , показ даних у мережі

Новини про Bitcoin : ціна BTC готова до найсильнішого тижневого зростання ціни з моменту WIN Трампа на тлі надходження ETF у розмірі 2,7 млрд доларів

Bitcoin (BTC) continued its spring rally on Friday and is on track for its strongest weekly showing since Trump's election victory.

The largest and oldest cryptocurrency held around $95,000 during U.S. afternoon hours, up 1.8% over the past 24 hours. Ethereum’s ether (ETH) followed closely, gaining 2% to hover just over $1,800. Sui’s native (SUI), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), and Hedera’s HBAR led gains in the broad-market crypto benchmark CoinDesk 20 Index.

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Today's gains cap an exceptional momentum for crypto markets recovering from the early April lows amid tariff turmoil. BTC is up over 11% since Monday, putting it at its largest weekly gain since November 2024, when Donald Trump clinched the U.S. presidency, kickstarting a broad-market crypto rally.

Read more: Bitcoin Traders Target $95K in Near Term; SUI Continues Multiday Rally

Investor appetite from ETF investors also bounced back strongly: U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $2.68 billion in net inflows this week so far, the largest since December, according to SoSoValue data. (Friday inflow data will be published later.)

BTC decoupling

Bitcoin's recent strength relative to U.S. stocks and gold underscores BTC's decoupling from traditional macro assets, said David Duong, Coinbase Institutional's global head of research.

"It’s rare to witness market inflection points in real time, as we only tend to recognize major regime shifts with the benefit of time and reflection," Duong said in a Friday report. "This week’s decoupling of bitcoin’s performance from that of traditional macro assets may be as close as we come to such a moment."

"In our view, this divergence highlights bitcoin’s maturing role as a store-of-value asset—one that is increasingly being viewed by institutional and retail investors alike as resilient against the macroeconomic forces affecting risk assets more broadly," he wrote.

Doung noted that the thesis is gaining traction with more companies adopting BTC corporate treasuries. Following the success of Michael Saylor's Strategy, Twenty One Capital, a new firm backed by Tether, Bitfinex, SoftBank, and a Cantor Fitzgerald affiliate, also plans to hold 42,000 BTC at launch.

Due in part to recent accumulation, liquidity in the spot BTC market has been "significantly drained," Dr. Kirill Kretov, lead strategist at trading automation platform CoinPanel, said in a Telegram note. According to the firm's proprietary blockchain analysis, a large portion of bitcoin liquidity has been withdrawn from actively transacting addresses, including exchanges, since November 2024, exposing markets to volatile price swings.

“The market is thin, vulnerable, and easily moved by large players," Kretov said. "Sharp swings of 10% up or down are likely to remain the norm for now."

Bitcoin's route to fresh records

While the route could be choppy, this week’s rally is likely the early innings of bitcoin's next leg higher to new records, said John Glover, chief investment officer of crypto lender Ledn.

Based on his technical analysis using Elliott Waves, he said BTC began the fifth and final wave of its multi-year bull market.

BTC price prediction by Lend CIO John Glover (Ledn/TradingView)

Elliott Wave theory suggests asset prices move in predictable patterns called waves, driven by collective investor psychology. These patterns typically unfold in five-wave trends, in which the first, third, and fifth waves are impulsive rallies, while the second and fourth waves are corrective phases.

While retesting this month's low at $75,000 cannot be ruled out, Glover sees BTC climbing to a cycle top around late 2025, early 2026.

"My expectations continue to be for a rally to $133-$136k into the end of this year, beginning of next,” he said.

Read more: Bitcoin Whales Return in Force, Buy the BTC Price Rally, On-Chain Data Show

Bitcoin News: BTC Price Poised for Strongest Weekly Price Gain Since Trump Win Amid $2.7B ETF Inflow

A new rival of Ethereum (ETH) is seeing a massive boost in price after gaining support from the world’s largest crypto exchange platform by volume.

In a new announcement, Binance says it will officially add the layer-1 blockchain Initia (INIT) to its suite of products starting on April 24th, preceding a spike in price for the asset.

INIT went from a low of $0.605 on April 24th to a peak of $0.921 just a few hours later. The digital asset has since retraced and is trading for $0.88 at time of writing, a 40.95% increase during the last 24 hours.

On its official website, the development team behind Initia says the project is designed to offer rollups and infrastructure for appchain development and streamline the development process by reducing the decisions developers have to make.

According to the project, developers spend a lot of time creating rollups – or transactions processed in large batches off-chain as a means of increasing efficiency, which prevents them from fully focusing on their applications.

“Historically, building a rollup requires developers to research, select, and piece together numerous components and services…

[The] tasks divert time and resources from developers, preventing them from focusing on building their applications… With [our] approach, developers can focus solely on building, improving, and shipping their applications.”

Earlier this month, INIT was added to Binance’s launchpool.

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

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New Ethereum (ETH)-Competitor Leaps Over 40% Following Official Binance Listing

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal has settled a lawsuit that arose from his endorsement of the failed crypto exchange FTX.

The former professional basketball player is among the co-defendants in a case against FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is now behind bars for misappropriating over $8 billion in customer funds that led to the collapse of the exchange.

The class action complaint filed by Oklahoma resident Edwin Garrison in 2022 accused the celebrities and athletes who promoted FTX of engaging in deceptive practices and failing to perform due diligence prior to promoting the now-defunct trading platform.

The other defendants named in the case also include retired NFL quarterback Tom Brady and his ex-wife, model Gisele Bündchen, NBA player Stephen Curry, MLB pitcher Shohei Ohtani, NFL quarterback Trevor Lawrence and Shark Tank star and investor Kevin O’Leary.

O’Neal, who court documents indicate received nearly $750,000 for endorsing FTX, is now close to resolving the case.

In a joint notice of settlement agreement filed on April 23rd, the counsels representing O’Neal and the plaintiffs inform the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, that the two parties have agreed to an amicable resolution of the suit.

The filing did not disclose the settlement amount, and the agreement is still subject to court approval.

“Pursuant to the Class-Action Settlement Agreement the Parties executed on April 1, 2025, the terms of the agreement will remain confidential until Plaintiffs file a motion seeking preliminary approval of the settlement.”

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Retired NBA Star Shaquille O’Neal Settles FTX Endorsement Lawsuit for Undisclosed Amount

A widely followed crypto analyst says that Ethereum (ETH) looks primed to skyrocket if Bitcoin (BTC) sparks a rally to the upside.

In a new thread, prominent crypto strategist Credible Crypto tells his 467,100 followers on the social media platform X that the second-largest digital asset by volume would confirm a bullish move by closing the month with a price tag near $1,870.

However, according to the trader, the top altcoin could first see a dip that sees it plunge near its range lows before it breaks out.

“ETH is in a similar position where the move off of $1,533 does look impulsive. We are at supply here but if BTC breaks out, ETH should as well, and in that case, we would not expect to see below $1500 again.

For this most bullish scenario, we will get further confirmation on a monthly close above our key HTF (high time frame) level at $1,870. If we pull back, dips into GREEN would offer the best R/R (risk reward ratio) opportunity if the bottom is indeed already in.

If green is lost, however, then it means we probably move back down to range lows for a push into our ‘wick zone’ and a ‘final’ bottom.”

The trader goes on to say that BTC itself appears on the cusp of a breakout, which could be delayed based on how the crypto king performs in the short term.

“We are looking for one more leg up here on lower timeframes to seal the deal. If we get it, then dips are for buying to at least $150,000+ basically.

If we move back below $89,000-ish before getting another leg up then we end up with a three-legged (corrective) structure and that would mean we just have to wait longer for the ‘real’ breakout.”

BTC and ETH are trading for $95,496 and $1,815, respectively, at time of writing.

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Crypto Analyst Says Ethereum on Cusp of Breaking Out if Bitcoin Rallies – But There’s a Catch

The Federal Reserve is taking a major step back from monitoring banks’ crypto activities.

In a new press release, the regulator says it is withdrawing four previous statements and letters regarding the Fed’s expectations of banking crypto activities.

“The Federal Reserve Board on Thursday announced the withdrawal of guidance for banks related to their crypto-asset and dollar token activities and related changes to its expectations for these activities.

These actions ensure the Board’s expectations remain aligned with evolving risks and further support innovation in the banking system.”

The Reserve Board is officially withdrawing its expectation of banks to give advance notice of crypto activities. It plans to continue to monitor crypto activities under a “normal supervisory process.”

The Fed is also withdrawing a letter “regarding the supervisory nonobjection process for state member bank engagement in dollar token activities.”

In partnership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Reserve is also withdrawing two joint statements regarding US bank crypto activities.

“The Board will work with the agencies to consider whether additional guidance to support innovation, including crypto-asset activities, is appropriate.”

The move follows a trend of regulators taking a relaxed stance against the crypto sector since the reinstatement of the Trump administration.

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Disclaimer: Opinions expressed at The Daily Hodl are not investment advice. Investors should do their due diligence before making any high-risk investments in Bitcoin, cryptocurrency or digital assets. Please be advised that your transfers and trades are at your own risk, and any losses you may incur are your responsibility. The Daily Hodl does not recommend the buying or selling of any cryptocurrencies or digital assets, nor is The Daily Hodl an investment advisor. Please note that The Daily Hodl participates in affiliate marketing.

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US Federal Reserve Announces Withdrawal of Guidance for Banks Concerning Crypto Activities

The Japanese public firm adopting the investment strategy pioneered by leading Bitcoin (BTC) corporate holder Strategy is now closer to reaching its goal of holding 10,000 of the flagship cryptocurrency.

On Thursday, Metaplanet announced the acquisition of an additional 145 Bitcoin.

The hotel and investment company bought the crypto asset for 13,280,472 yen, or around $92,885, per coin for a total of 1.926 billion yen ($13.473 million).

“The Company has strategically increased its Total Bitcoin Holdings through acquisitions funded by capital market activities and operating income.”

The recent purchase brings Metaplanet’s crypto holdings to 5,000 BTC, or half of the 10,000 BTC that it aims to own by this year.

Says Metaplanet chief executive Simon Gerovich,

“We have reached 50% of our initial goal of 10,000 BTC by the end of 2025. This is a big step forward in our aim to become one of the world’s leading Bitcoin holding companies. We will lead the global bitcoin race from Japan.”

Metaplanet says it invested 64.091 billion yen, or around $448.26 million, for its aggregate Bitcoin stash at 12,818,168 yen ($89,671) per BTC.

The company says it is buying the top crypto asset as part of its Bitcoin Treasury Operations, which became its official business line on December 18th, 2024. The target is to reach 21,000 BTC in holdings by the end of 2026.

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Japanese Firm Metaplanet Gets Halfway to 10,000 Bitcoin Goal for 2025 After Gobbling Up Another 145 BTC

Bitcoin mining has come a long way since the days of GPUs and basement set ups. In that time, miners have advanced in countless ways. For example, ASICs are now the standard, not GPUs. Furthermore, enterprise grade players have entered the field, opening new frontiers and bringing with them the size and institutional recognition that opens the doors to otherwise unreachable places for smaller miners. Nowadays, the mining landscape is one where grid services, curtailment strategies, and energy market participation are no longer edge cases but core strategies. As the world around it has moved forward, there’s one question we keep hearing from miners: can PPLNS adapt?

Many miners, particularly those working closely with energy providers or integrating Demand Response mechanisms, have come to view PPLNS with suspicion. They worry that it penalizes downtime and rewards only uninterrupted hashrate—a bad deal for those who routinely curtail machines to support the grid or provide other services.

This fear isn’t baseless. It traces back to a pivotal moment in the mining industry’s recent past, one that apparently sealed the deal for many on PPLNS style payouts: the fallout between RIOT and Braiins Pool.

At the time, Braiins was using the Score payout system. Designed in 2011 by Slush himself, Score was engineered to solve the problem of pool hopping—when miners would jump between pools to exploit reward systems. There’s also been a misconception that Score is a PPLNS style payment system, but as Rosenfeld’s bible on pool payout systems describes, Score and PPLNS are distinctly different payout methods. The main difference is how they account for shares, specifically, Score implemented a rolling window with exponential decay function, this effectively made the lookback window very short. On the other hand, PPLNS is a family of payout systems with various types of fixed length lookback windows.

As shown on this archived website of how Score worked, you can see that after 90 minutes your hashrate had no more presence on the pool. This means that the moment a miner starts mining, their share of rewards fairly quickly reaches the fair value of the hashrate. On the other hand, when a miner stops mining, it drops equally fast, as shown on the gif below.

This might have worked well in the era of cowboys and hackers, but it was never designed with today’s complex mining environments in mind. Certainly not with Demand Response, where miners intentionally and profitably take machines offline to stabilize energy grids or bid into ancillary markets. To Score, that kind of behavior looks no different than a pool hopper—someone attempting to cheat the system.

So when RIOT left Braiins, citing concerns about payout mechanics, it sent a shockwave through the mining world. Due to the aforementioned misconception, Score system’s flaws got unfairly projected onto a broader category of payouts, PPLNS got caught in the fray, catching a stray bullet in the process, and the industry collectively threw the baby out with the bathwater.

But the mining world has changed, and it’s time for the phoenix to rise from his ashes.

SLICE: A Payout Mechanism for the 21st Century Grid

Enter SLICE, a modern, open-source Stratum-V2-ready payout system created by the DMND team. It’s an improvement and evolution of PPLNS, that rethinks how miners get paid, rewards are calculated, and —most importantly— how downtime is treated respect

to Score. All while preserving miner’s right to build their own block templates with SV2.

At its core, SLICE is about fairness and transparency. It preserves the foundational idea of PPLNS—paying miners in proportion to their actual contribution to solving blocks—while modernizing it for today’s decentralized mining landscape.

The key innovation lies in how SLICE structures reward calculation, and on how the lookback window works. Rather than treating the entire pool as a monolith, SLICE breaks time into smaller, dynamic “slices” of work to properly distribute the fee component. These slices represent batches of shares submitted over a specific period, where we control for the amount of fees in the mempool, and compare and score different job templates for the financial value they represent. When a block is found, SLICE distributes the block subsidy and transaction fees separately. The subsidy is allocated proportionally by hashrate, while the fees are distributed based on hashrate and financial value.

This is particularly relevant in a world where miners can choose their own transaction sets. Some miners may prioritize high-fee MEV-style bundles; others may exclude certain types of transactions for ideological, political or technical reasons. SLICE ensures that, within each slice, miners are rewarded according to both the quantity and quality of their work—without punishing them for downtime or strategic energy decisions. For those curious to learn more, this article can prove helpful.

Demand Response Without Penalty

What makes SLICE especially attractive for miners participating in Demand Response or curtailment programs is that it doesn’t penalize you for being offline.

That’s because SLICE doesn’t decay your payout just because you took a break. Your shares remain in the PPLNS window—the rolling window of recent work that is eligible for payouts—as long as they’re recent enough. In this way, each share is treated independently, and is expected to get 8 payouts, since SLICE uses an 8-block rolling window, each valid share remains eligible for payout across the next 8 blocks on average. This means that regardless of how big or small the pool is, you will never have the abysmal luck of eating up bad luck days without a block, disconnecting, having the pool find a block, and not get paid.

That means miners can power down during peak demand hours, support their regional grid, and still collect their fair cut from blocks found after they resume operations, most importantly, even while they’re offline, if their shares are still in the window. In other words, if the pool has a streak of bad luck, and then the miner is called to perform demand response and shuts off, even if the pool finds a block during their down time, that miner will get paid their fair share for all the time they were online. That’s because each share generated during that time will be active and getting paid for 8 blocks on average.

This is not a workaround. This is the feature. It makes SLICE fully compatible with modern energy strategies that require flexibility, whether you’re participating in frequency regulation markets, ramping down during grid emergencies, or simply optimizing for off-peak pricing.

For example, let’s say that a miner is mining at a pool, and the pool hasn’t found that day’s block yet. This means that the pool hasn’t found the block yet, and thus the miners hasn’t gotten paid for that day yet. Now, the miner shuts off to provide ancillary services during peak summer load for a few hours, during that time, the pool finds the block. In a Score based pool, the miner would not see a single Sat of that after 90 minutes, when the decay has had full effect. But even if the pool found a block 30 minutes later, due to the exponential decay, the miner would barely see anything. On the other hand, the miner would have all of the shares they mined over the day receive a payment, since each share receives on average 8 payments. Thus, the miner would benefit in the good times, and not be penalized in the bad times.

Payment Transparency and Auditability

Furthermore, SLICE doesn’t just modernize payout fairness—it does so in a way that minimizes trust in the pool operator. Every slice is fully auditable. Each share is tracked, indexed, and publicly verifiable by any miner, so miners can independently verify their share of the block reward. There’s no black box, no “trust me bro.”

And if the pool operator attempts to cheat—say, by injecting fake shares to dilute payouts—miners can challenge the integrity of the slice. The Job Declaration extension to Stratum V2, which SLICE relies on, includes mechanisms for publishing share data, verifying Merkle roots, and ensuring that each share corresponds to real computational work.

For miners who care about decentralization, SLICE isn’t just a payment scheme—it’s an accountability tool.

From Defensive to Strategic

The shift from Score to SLICE represents more than a technical upgrade. It’s a mental shift. Mining pools no longer need to defend against bad actors by penalizing everyone. Instead, they can structure payouts in a way that reflects reality: that miners are sophisticated participants working not only in the Bitcoin blockchain, but also the energy ecosystem.

With SLICE, PPLNS stops being a liability and becomes a strategic advantage. It enables better revenue capture, more transparency and auditability, and smoother integration with grid services.

And in a world where uptime is optional, but fairness is non-negotiable, that’s exactly what enterprise-grade miners need, a strategic pool partner that pushes forward and innovates, bringing the future today and enabling miners to make more money with the same hardware.

This is a guest post by General Kenobi. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.



SLICE: Making PPLNS Work for Demand Response

Paul Atkins’ first public event as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was a crypto roundtable on Friday, where the new agency chief devoted his inaugural speech to assuring the industry that he'll continue to remake securities policy to favor digital assets innovation.

The agency and industry have been awaiting congressional action to establish crypto market-structure oversight that will likely set guardrails, and Atkins told an audience at the SEC's Washington headquarters that the regulator will work toward delivering "a rational, fit-for-purpose framework" for crypto.

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However, in answer to a question from CoinDesk after his speech, Atkins indicated that the agency may be able to act to some degree during this wait for new laws.

"It's always good to have Congress' input, and if there's a statute to back up what we're doing, I think that's all the better," Atkins said. "But we have ample room to maneuver under existing rules and laws."

Atkins further suggested that he thinks the concept of special-purpose crypto broker dealers, a little-used registration most prominently represented by Prometheum, has been very successful and may need to be reconsidered, and he said the agency will look at whether custody rules need to be changed to "accommodate crypto assets and blockchain technology."

Atkins previously appeared at a swearing-in ceremony earlier this week in the White House, where Trump said "he's the perfect man to lead this agency" at a time when the digital assets sector needs regulatory clarity, and Atkins said a "top priority of my chairmanship will be to provide a firm regulatory foundation for digital assets." But Friday's event at the SEC's headquarters represented his first full-fledged engagement with the public.

Read More: Crypto Ally Paul Atkins Sworn In to Replace Gary Gensler Atop U.S. SEC

The crypto sector has high hopes for Atkins, though his stand-in for the past few months — Commissioner Mark Uyeda — already took a number of decisive actions to reverse the regulator's earlier crypto reluctance under former Chair Gary Gensler. As interim chairman, Uyeda reversed or sidelined a number of crypto policy efforts pursued under Gensler and has abandoned most of the regulator's prominent enforcement actions targeting the industry.

Until now, industry expectations for Atkins' leadership were based on conjecture rooted in his experience advising and investing in digital assets firms, especially since his Senate confirmation hearing failed to explore his crypto views.

Atkins had served as an adviser to crypto entities such as the Digital Chamber and as a board member of tokenization firm Securitize, and his ties to Off the Chain Capital had previously linked him to its investment stakes in big crypto companies like Digital Currency Group (DCG) and Kraken.

Friday's roundtable was the third in a series the agency has held on crypto matters, this time focused on custody in the industry. Crypto custody has been a particularly dicey topic at the agency, which under Gensler's reign had sought to approve a policy demanding investment advisers put their clients' digital assets only with certain qualified custodians. Gensler had argued that the rule was meant to exclude most of the existing crypto platforms as suitable custodians, but the effort was put on ice.

Read More: U.S. SEC's Acting Chair Walking Back Agency Proposal on Crypto Trading Platforms

Atkins was asked by reporters on the event's sidelines about President Trump's own crypto interests and whether Trump's memecoin, $TRUMP, will rob credibility from the White House on industry policy.

"I have no comment on any of that," Atkins said.

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