Nothing Research

Observations and personal opinions from Nothing Research Partner 0x_Todd. The following content does not constitute any investment advice.

A few days ago, Vitalik published an article about privacy, which mentioned an interesting idea. Today, I carefully read the details and share it with you.

It turns out that the simplest way to resolve the Tornado Cash controversy is to add another blacklist and then use cryptography to prove that the source of your funds does not belong to hackers and related addresses.

My views on Tornado Cash have always been very complicated.

I support privacy. After all, it is a bit unpleasant that one address makes all your on-chain history and transactions public.

But the negative thing is that Tornado Tornado objectively provides a convenient place for hackers. Once the funds enter the Tornado, it basically declares that there is no hope of recovery.

I am far from being right-wing enough to think that hackers laundering funds is also as exaggerated as [freedom and power].

But the solution proposed in this paper is too simple:

Just add a whitelist/blacklist and it's done-

Proof of qualification ("I prove that my withdrawal comes from one of these deposits")
Proof of exclusion ("I prove that my withdrawal does not come from one of these deposits").

You can use some cryptographic proof to prove that the source of your funds has nothing to do with the hacker address.

The good address can issue a proof at will, but the hacker address cannot issue this proof.

Then you can use this mixer freely, and then we are more familiar with the link, A address deposits money, B address withdraws money, and creates privacy.

Of course, the entity that maintains the whitelist/blacklist still needs to rely on centralization. This is unavoidable, because it involves the real world, and this entity may be under some pressure in the future.

For example, now Coinbase requires KYC of deposit/withdrawal addresses, so this entity may be subject to regulatory pressure in the future, and the scope of the blacklist may also be greatly increased. However, this is the worst case.

This idea solves my biggest worry, that is, the contradictory mentality towards privacy, which really makes me happy.

Observations and personal views from Nothing Research Partner @0x_Todd. The following content does not constitute any investment advice.

Just a casual remark. Due to the Unichain mining, the $UNI and transaction fees earned by each account are highly correlated.

All this forces liquidity providers to compress the price range to the maximum extent possible, with a 0.01% fee rate and an average of two tickers (otherwise it's treated as the denominator), meaning that USDT~USDC must narrow the range to 0.9998-1.0000 😂

So, it means:

Uniswap, by paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidy costs,
Has exchanged for tens of millions of dollars in super depth of stablecoins on Unichain,
(But only limited to ± 1/10000, once it falls below 2/10000, the depth drops dramatically),
But it only generates 1K-2K in transaction fee revenue per day,
The key point is that Uniswap itself cannot even take a cut of this fee.

So, I really doubt the significance of doing this.

What does your 0.01% matter? The USDT-USDC market on Binance has a 0% fee, and it’s where users start.

I came across several posts yesterday criticizing the difficulties of cross-chain transactions to Unichain; Unichain really is at the end of the universe.

----Divider----

The user profile that can trade stablecoins on Unichain must meet:

1. Urgent but not too urgent
(SuperBridge has a 25 min mandatory wait, making a round trip of 50 min
Those who are not in a hurry can place orders on CEX)

2. Large amounts but not too large
(Amounts below 5M should go to CEX, amounts above 20M would break the liquidity)

3. Particularly concerned about fees, but can’t be too stingy
(Cannot accept the mainnet's 0.05% but can accept 0.01%)

4. Skilled in cross-chain, and adept at using cross-chain bridge TG for issue resolution

Don't say it — it’s hard to say which is narrower between this user profile and Uniswap's range requirements 😅

If you often explore DeFi, you will find that in the high-yield pools on Curve/Convex, there is always a trace of sUSD. However, upon closer inspection, one might hesitate because sUSD has long been unpegged (currently at $0.86). In the absence of buying pressure and insufficient market confidence, simply continuing to increase pool incentives and urging others to join is futile.

Synthetix can be considered an old DeFi OG. Its mechanism has actually remained unchanged over the years, which is to issue synthetic assets through over-collateralization of its native token, providing them for trading within the ecosystem.

As the bear market arrives, times are tough. The price of SNX has dropped, collateral ratios have declined, funds have withdrawn, and TVL has entered a negative spiral. The scale of sUSD has also fallen from over $300 million at the peak of the last cycle to just over $20 million now, resulting in a significant contraction of the ecosystem.

Although sUSD is still over-collateralized at present, with approximately $70 million of SNX still staked, theoretically, the current market price is undervalued, but no one dares to arbitrage.

In March 2025, Synthetix launched a new mechanism called the 420 Pool, aimed at simplifying staking and improving capital efficiency. However, because users no longer need to manage and hedge their debt positions themselves, stakers lose the incentive to buy sUSD at low prices for debt repayment. If someone initiates an attack on the price of sUSD, it will become passive.

To re-peg sUSD, large-scale destruction of sUSD is necessary, along with unstaking SNX, but this also means that the game for sUSD might be coming to an end. Continuous unpegging and destruction would lead the quantity of sUSD to zero.

However, the deeper issue lies in the mechanism of Synthetix: issuing synthetic assets through staking its native SNX has limited scalability and can only succeed in favorable conditions. At the peak in 2021, the scale of sUSD was only $300 million. How much ecosystem and revenue can it support? In contrast to other stablecoins which easily reach tens or hundreds of billions in scale, it simply cannot compete.

The bear market following the collapse of LUNA in 2022 was actually the best opportunity for Synthetix to transform, such as by introducing external collateral assets, but this opportunity has been missed.

Observations and personal opinions from Nothing Research Partner @0x_Todd. The following content does not constitute any investment advice.

Will the United States use tariffs to buy Bitcoin?

I think this news has been translated several times and it has become a bit of a headline party. I listened carefully to the original film and would like to highlight a few key points for you:

1. General policy:

1.1 We (the United States) need to acquire as much Bitcoin as possible

1.2 in a *budget-neutral* way

1.3 without spending taxpayers' money.

----Dividing line----

2. Since we can't spend money, here are some feasible ideas:

2.1 Bitcoin ACT 2025

The most important is Cynthia Lummis's Bitcoin ACT 2025 (a new version of the Bitcoin Act, which still requires the United States to obtain 1M Bitcoins. I shared this on Twitter before. It is a two-pronged approach with the Bitcoin strategic reserve).

This bill is currently under discussion. Let's see if it can get more support from Congress.

2.2 Adjust the Treasury's holdings (gold → Bitcoin)

The Treasury currently holds a lot of gold certificates, and those gold are calculated at $43 per ounce, which is actually $3,100 now.

If gold is repriced and the position allocation is adjusted (gold → Bitcoin), the Bitcoin position can be increased without violating the big policy.

Especially under the premise that the Minister of the Treasury is also a crypto-friendly person.

2.3 Tariffs?

Bo only mentioned tariffs, but did not specifically say how to buy Bitcoin with tariffs 😂.

The original text is "We are exploring many creative ways, perhaps through *tariffs*, or other channels."

I think the biggest possibility is to allow others to use Bitcoin to pay tariffs, because directly using tariffs to buy Bitcoin violates the above policy 1.1, but this is also a big thing, but it seems that this thing is earlier.

----Dividing line----

3. About Bo Hines himself

He is the executive director of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Digital Assets. This position is mainly for policy advice and has no direct regulatory power, but it has an important impact on digital asset policies.

I think overall, it is still an exciting message, especially the gold position adjustment to Bitcoin, which has a more spiritual massage effect.

对于 Pancake 3.0 提案，说真心话感到有些遗憾

veToken 这个玩法本质没有问题：veCake 的 holder 是真正的 holder，他们在 $Cake 币价最低迷阶段依然不离不弃（当然，锁仓了想离弃也做不到）。

在我们看来，贿赂模型可能不完美，但是是当前环境下已是优解。

目前的提案之所以要删除 veToken 和贿选模型，是因为：

目前 Cake 排放给了低 Volume 池子太多，而这些池子创造的收入太少（即 Cake 燃烧），两者不相匹配，所以要改成按照池子规模来补贴。

我们认为，恰恰相反，小池子才需要补贴，就好比一个国家，总要给新兴产业补贴一样。

这是均等（equality）vs 公平 （equity）的区别，大池子就在那里，是否补贴都不会影响人们继续当 LP 还是 quit。

而每个小池子，都有机会变成大池子。

而且，拿到贿赂的人，是放弃了流动性的人，他们受贿的资格是公平的。

其实，公开贿赂，其实是更像竞价，而非真正的私下贿赂，贿赂只是个比喻。

这个提案基本上断送了 CakePie （相当于 Curve 的 Convex）的生路，当然里面是否有隐情，我们就不得而知了。

所以感到遗憾。

利益相关： $CAKE $CKP $MGP 的曾经持有者。

I see friends discussing how to share private keys;

Of course, the level of security measures taken is positively correlated with how much money you have in your wallet.

→ If it’s an empty wallet💰🈳, for example, used for a one-time interaction.
Just copy it directly, it doesn’t matter, don’t stress yourself out.

→ If there are some funds inside💰
After copying, *make sure* to clear the clipboard, on Windows it’s Win key + V, on Mac it’s [Menu - Edit - Clipboard]

→ If there are large amounts of funds💰💰, transfer it individually.
*Definitely* input it manually;
and do it quickly, don’t let the private key remain in plaintext👁 (worried about screenshots or camera), memorize it in your head.

→ If it involves large amounts of money💰💰💰 and needs to be sent to others, you have to use network transmission.

Then it’s best to split the private key into multiple slices and send the slices through different channels.

For example: 12 mnemonic words

WeChat voice read 2 mnemonic words
TG private chat text send 2
TG call read 2
WhatsApp send 2
Signal send 2
Finally, call and verbally say 2 mnemonic words

Then tell your friend, the order is 4-2-3-1-5-6 or any sequence you prefer

This way, the level of security significantly increases.

Personal views from Nothing Research Partner 0xTodd, intended for sharing and communication, not constituting any investment advice:

My intuition tells me that if a mining operation's interest is unknown, it means you are that interest.

However, my rational mind tells me that if exchanges around the world were to collapse in order, Coinbase would definitely be the last one standing.

Yesterday, I used AI to review the application for Circle's listing, and I couldn't find out why Coinbase can offer a subsidy of up to 12% on $USDC. Because even days before the FTX collapse, they were only willing to give around 5% interest.

Coinbase's USDC reserves are probably the largest in the world, and unlike other exchanges, they don’t need to attract assets (refer to yesterday's disclosed marketing deal between Binance and Circle, which only offers around 1% subsidy).

But then again, Coinbase, as the world's largest asset management CEX and the custodian for 17 ETFs, has licenses that could cover an entire wall.

I can only engage in some imaginative thinking; perhaps Coinbase wants to develop its derivatives trading? And support USDC to compete with USDE/BFUSD?

Then rely on the derivative fees and Circle's subsidies, along with the fact that American users can't participate, resulting in a situation where there are few monks but plenty of porridge?

Whatever, rationality triumphs over intuition, still saving a bit 😂

I thought there were no better wealth management opportunities than other double-digit ones.

Circle, with USDC backed by US dollar assets, achieved nearly a 5% return rate, generating 1.7 billion USD in revenue over 24 years.

However, after deducting various costs, the profit is only about 0.5%.

Among these, distribution costs surprisingly accounted for 60% of the revenue,
which went to subsidies for Coinbase, Binance, and others.

Then, employee and administrative costs consumed 30% of the revenue.
It seems working at Circle should be quite enjoyable.
In 24 years, over 800 employees took home 260 million USD in salaries.

---Divider---

In contrast, Tether clearly has much higher employee efficiency.

Tether has an employee scale of around 200 people.

In 24 years, it generated 13 billion USD in revenue (mainly, besides earning interest spreads, Tether is also involved in other businesses, such as investing in BTC/gold, mining, etc.).

If investment returns are included, the employee efficiency is actually 30 times that of Circle 😂.

#Circle #Circle上市

For Hyperliquid

Best option: Reinforce the defenses after the last 50x user arbitraged
Moderate option: Close positions at market price and pay out this round of arbitragers from our own pockets
Worst option: Roll back at an ultra-low price
Even worse option: Sacrifice $HLP holders

Protecting user interests is the top priority
Fortunately, they did not choose the worst approach

However, from our perspective, rolling back is still not a good choice

The core spirit of decentralization is to take risks and accept losses
Not the tyranny of the majority
And certainly not the tyranny of the minority

In fact, the boundary between arbitragers and hackers is very blurred
But the boundary between arbitragers and smart money users is equally blurred

From a moral standpoint, everyone supports punishing hackers;
From a moral standpoint, everyone also agrees to reward smart money users;
In the presence of a whistleblower;
This arbitrager resembles the latter rather than the former.

Hope $HYPE is fine
Also hope to quickly reinforce the defenses after losing two sheep.