-Constellation L2: now live - $xrETH the first full yield LST
-Saturn 0: ETH only bonds, <2 wks away!!!
-Saturn 1: LEB4s + direct value capture + redesign
-Saturn 2: sublinear bonding down to 1.5E + $RPL buy&burn
The SEC filings today, filled with factual errors and misleading statements, show concretely that the agency's incompetence is endangering investors.
The most decentralized dApp on Ethereum is Rocket Pool - it has more home stakers than Solana, Gnosis, Polygon, Avax, everything but Ethereum itself.
In a sea of charlatans, Rocket Pool has pioneered true decentralization.
In this post, I will first explain why I believe $rETH is NOT a security by analyzing all of Howey, Reves, and the FIT21 criteria. Next, I will explain several factual errors that the SEC has made in its lawsuit against @Consensys with evidence. After this I will say why Consensys will likely win on summary judgment by analysing the Coinbase victory.
Finally, I will explain how, just like tornado cash, Rocket Pool is unstoppable. Neither the Rocket Pool DAO, nor Rocket Pool LTD., nor the SEC, nor any US or international court has the power to stop people from running nodes at home or holding $rETH in their wallet.
Let's start with the elephant in the room. The SEC has alleged in its complaint against @Consensys that the $rETH token is an unregistered security.
Before diving into why I think the lawsuit will be dismissed before it ever gets evaluated on its merits, I want to defend the tougher position and establish why $rETH ought not to be a security. This analysis will be broken into 3 sections: an analysis through the Howey test and each prong, an analysis through the Reves test and its prongs, then finally an analysis through the yet hypothetical FIT21 for good measure.
I will be using @TeamPOSA's analysis for the below section and will link to their full report. I highly recommend reading it.
Disclaimer: I'm a full-time medical student. I am not a lawyer and I have never studied law. The people who wrote the report are, and you should read the real report. This is just my interpretation of their arguments.
2/16
Prong 1 of Howey: Investment of Money
Liquid staking tokens operate akin to titles on staked assets such that "the holder possesses legal and beneficial ownership of the staked cryptoassets and any Network Rewards generated from (or slashing penalties deducted from) such cryptoassets."
Rocket Pool is fully noncustodial -- ETH is automatically allocated to a pool where it is used to launch validators across a many thousand strong node operator set.
In the context of Rocket Pool, the protocol does not "have any discretion as to how to use the funds, but instead the cryptoassets are required to be staked until the Liquid Staker makes the decision to redeem the underlying cryptoassets"
Short thread on the most important aspect of the FIT 21 bill - the five prong decentralization test to determine whether or not an asset is a digital commodity.
Expect all protocols with goals of decentralizing to be paying very close attention to this test.
Bill text below 👇
Prong 1 - Power Rule
Prong 1 has two subdivisions concerning the previous 12 month period.
(I) - no person* can change the code
*more on what a person is at the end of the thread
(ii) - no person can prohibit any other person from using the system in any way
Prong 1 thus requires protocols not to have admin censorship powers!
I will describe how Eigenlayer can be used without adding existential risk to a protocol. I suggest a unique collaboration between Rocket Pool and @Eigenlayer
The RP GMC has approved a $60,000 bounty for the completion of the RP x @Eigenlayer integration, pending pDAO vote.
2/31
BIG PICTURE
Rocket Pool will hold senior debt so that in case of disaster, rETH is always made whole first.
The Ethereum withdrawal address will go to the Rocket Pool contract *before* it touches Eigenlayer.
Once upon a time, I wrote about the @Rocket_Pool layer zero bull case.
Rocket Pool has a bonafide army of node operators with huge capital at stake - the perfect partner to turn @eigenlayer into a decentralized powerhouse.
Time to bring yield to decentralization, a thread 👇
With over 3,000 node operators and no foundation-based delegation, @Rocket_Pool is a more decentralized protocol than almost any L1.
All this decentralized trust plus >$2 billion in locked economic security.
Technical, capitalized, aligned.
All that's missing is a marketplace.
With only 100 nodes, @eigenlayer is targeting 10 MB/s data throughput.
Imagine what would be possible with 30x that number of nodes. Perhaps 1 GBps is not so far away after all 🤔