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Go to Alpha ReportsIllustration by Mitchell Preffer for Decrypt

Crypto Twitter this week was dominated by the industry’s hottest new topic, Bitcoin Runes – plus a hot helping of legal drama in the form of a pre-emptive lawsuit filed by software giant Ethereum against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Since the last launch of Bitcoin reduce by halfRunes — a new Bitcoin-based protocol which can support fungible tokens like meme coins – has grown in popularity. DOG, a new Runas meme token, was thrown into the air on Wednesday to the holders of the Runestones Ordinal project. Distribution to tens of thousands of wallets immediately made DOG the most popular Runes token ever created.

Check your wallets!

100,000,000,000 $DOG has been successfully released for Runestone holders.

Shout out to volunteer community member giga-chad @gm7t2 for executing it perfectly.

The journey to $1 has begun 🐕🚀🌕 pic.twitter.com/XPL7q6m7VG

– Leonidas (@LeonidasNFT) April 24, 2024

Rune fever took over the cryptosphere this week as activity on the protocol quickly increased to master the entire Bitcoin network.

BREAKING: Runes accounted for 72.7% of all Bitcoin transactions in the last 24 hours

-Ord.io (@ord_io) April 24, 2024

Some crypto users lamented the thorn in Bitcoin network fees caused by the Rune frenzy. But other proponents of the protocol remained steadfast in the conviction that the excitement around the new class of tokens was just beginning.

impressed by the number of absolute average curves of people who are disappearing with runes.

“sit down for now and see how it goes”

“all these tickers are shit”

“fees are too high for meme coins”

bro, you will be buying rune 1 from me for 100x sooner than you think.

Ez game.

—faXx 🎈| 824.eth (@faxx_eth) April 24, 2024

On Ethereum, optimistic news was found this week in the multimillion-dollar sale of yet another CryptoPunk NFT. Punk #635, an ultra-rare Alien Punk, sold on Thursday for a whopping $12.38 million to an anonymous collector.

The sale marked the third occasion in weeks that an Alien Punk has changed hands for more than $11 million.

CryptoPunk 635, the Alien originally owned by Larva Labs and sold at Christie’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in May 2021, has just been acquired by an anonymous collector in a deal brokered by Fountain. We are honored to have played a small role in this sale. Congratulations… pic.twitter.com/glisy3MZpv

– Source (@Fountainxyz) April 25, 2024

However, it wasn’t all smiles for everyone in the Ethereum NFT ecosystem. On Friday, Yuga Labs, the multibillion-dollar company behind the once-dominant NFT collection Bored Monkey Yacht Club, laid off an undisclosed number of employees. In a message to employees, the company’s CEO and co-founder, Greg Solano, admitted that the company had “lost its way”.

GM, very difficult day today. I am determined to transform the yuga and take us back to our roots, and that means making difficult decisions. By far the hardest thing is saying goodbye to some talented team members. here was my message to the team this morning. pic.twitter.com/gBkoNf2iK3

– Garga.eth (Greg Solano) 🍌 (@CryptoGarga) April 26, 2024

The biggest bombshell of the week, however, came on Thursday when Ethereum software giant Consensys revealed in a proactive process against the SEC that the federal regulator is allegedly trying to sue the company and potentially declare Ethereum as a security in the process.

Today, Consensys filed a lawsuit against the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The goal behind this is to ensure that Ethereum remains a vibrant and indispensable blockchain platform and to preserve access for countless developers, market participants, and institutions…

– Consensys (@Consensys) April 25, 2024

Industry leaders immediately took to Twitter to vocal support the lawsuit, chastising the SEC for potentially trying to effectively ban Ethereum after several other US government entities indicated that ETH does not fall within the SEC’s jurisdiction.

I know that ETH is a commodity. You know that ETH is a commodity. The CFTC knows that ETH is a commodity. It’s time for the SEC to admit that it still knows that ETH is also a commodity. No more games. Thanks for @Consensys for standing up against the SEC’s illegal expansion of authority. https://t.co/8w7A4PBwUK

—paulgrewal.eth (@iampaulgrewal) April 25, 2024

Hayden Adams, founder of decentralized exchange (DES) Uniswap likened the lawsuit to a rallying cry for the crypto industry to finally take an aggressive and collective stance against the SEC in a Lord of the Rings– weird battle. Uniswap revealed earlier this month that it is also being sued by the SEC for alleged securities violations.

Disclosure: ConsenSys Mesh is one of Decrypt’s 22 investors. Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

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