Persistence 2023 Liquid Staking Roadmap Update

April 27, 2023

The Appchain for Liquid Staked Tokens (LSTs)

A hub is best defined as the effective center of activity. Persistence has embarked on a journey of becoming the center of activity for liquid staking in recent years. From pioneering a liquid staking solution for ATOM with pSTAKE to evolving into an appchain for liquid staked tokens–native issuance of & DeFi for LSTs, this journey so far can be best described in a single word: ‘Persistence’. Persistence Labs & the community continue to persist in bringing the vision of being a one-stop-shop for liquid staking to life.

With $17.32B in TVL, Liquid Staking is now the #2 DeFi category on DeFiLlama. It has seen exponential growth and adoption in the last two years and is primed to be at the forefront of DeFi in 2023 and beyond. Most of this has been driven by Ethereum and the Shapella upgrade. But the Core-1 team believes that Cosmos and other major ecosystems, such as the BNB Chain, have immense untapped potential & a huge role to play in LSTs becoming the most popular DeFi asset class.

A quick look at Persistence today

The last few months for Persistence have been all about rollouts:

Thanks to these key advancements, on-chain activity is booming like never before:

$4M+ chain TVL
$3M+ worth of $ATOM has been liquid staked in 1500+ transactions on pSTAKE
$400K+ worth of $stkATOM has been redeemed instantly by 571 wallets (only available with pSTAKE on Persistence)
$1M+ TVL on Dexter ($300K+ in $XPRT liquidity)
$300K+ volume processed by Dexter in its first month

What’s next for Persistence

With the basic building blocks for a thriving liquid staking economy coming into place, the Core-1 team believes that the focus should now shift to three key aspects: On-chain Traction, Expanding the Ecosystem, and Bolstering Infrastructure. The 2023 roadmap mentioned below dives into individual points under these three aspects for the next few months and how each benefits Persistence & its various stakeholders, all powered by XPRT.

1. On-chain Traction

Potential Partner chain for Replicated Security

Replicated Security is a new shared security model in which the Cosmos Hub will rent its security to partner chains. This gives birth to the ATOM Economic Zone (AEZ), an ATOM-aligned ecosystem for economic value creation, including the LSM on the Cosmos Hub. Onboarding as a partner chain will give the Persistence Core-1 chain a boost of ~80X in terms of Economic Security. The Core-1 team believes that adopting Replicated Security will help Persistence enter and eventually become a big part of this AEZ alongside others like Neutron & Stride. In the coming weeks, the Core-1 team will work with Informal Systems & others in Cosmos to evaluate the best way to be a partner chain and discuss that with fellow Persisters & Cosmonauts through various public forums.

Support for LSM (Liquid Staking Module, built by Iqlusion)

The LSM is a module built to empower use cases for natively staked tokens. Persistence aims to be the first chain to enable the LSM and be the playground for the entire Cosmos to test its novel benefits. With the LSM on the Core-1 chain, stake delegators can perform transactions that were impossible before, like moving staked tokens between wallets or converting their native stake to liquid stake. The LSM will benefit the eventual launch of stkXPRT by pSTAKE, allowing already staked XPRT to be converted into liquid staked stkXPRT without going through the 21-day unbonding period. The Core-1 team will also contribute to bringing the LSM to the Cosmos Hub (planned for Q3 2023). The LSM was added to the Persistence Core-1 testnet on Monday, 24th April 2023.

Add Oracle with price-feeder

An Oracle connects blockchains to external systems and enables decision-making for existing contract logic based on these data inputs. Besides providing essential price data feeds, the Oracle will also filter & authenticate the integrity of the information crucial for executing specific contracts in a decentralized manner, such as Dexter’s Metastable pool and Bamboo’s Borrowing/Lending mechanisms. Over time, the Oracle will also become a revenue generator for XPRT validators & the chain itself. For reference, 40% of the blocks produced by Umee, a money market app chain in Cosmos with 20 listed assets, contain 95+ txns each related to the Oracle. The Oracle was added to the Persistence Core-1 testnet on Monday, 24th April 2023.

MEV-capture with Skip Protocol

The Core-1 team believes that a sovereign MEV solution will ensure maximum value capture & minimum value leakage when it comes to MEV on the chain. Skip Protocol is creating modular tools that give the app chain complete control over transaction ordering and inclusion rules. For example, let’s assume Dexter has a $100 arbitrage opportunity. Instead of an MEV bot extracting this value, Skip’s Proto-Rev module on the Persistence Core-1 chain can extract this value to be distributed to XPRT stakers finally. On-chain MEV will increase with the increase in on-chain activity (thanks to pSTAKE, Dexter, Bamboo, & other dApps in the future), resulting in a new source of yield for XPRT stakers. Over $7M in MEV has been extracted from Osmosis in 2 years since its genesis. Integrating with Skip will allow more value to be extracted and distributed to XPRT stakers.

Native $USDC on Persistence

Stablecoins like USDC are one of the best examples of product-market fit in Crypto, with a total market cap of $130.73B. Stablecoins in Cosmos have majorly been decentralized CDP-based like $CMST, $SILK, or bridged like $axlUSDC & $gravUSDC. However, Noble, a general asset issuance chain in Cosmos, is bringing native $USDC to Cosmos. For comparison, ecosystems like Solana, Polygon, and Arbitrum all have $1B+ in native stablecoin liquidity. The Core-1 team will look to collaborate with Noble to utilize cosmos-native $USDC for ecosystem dApps such as Dexter & Bamboo.

New dApps #BuiltOnPersistence

Earlier in Q1 2023, the Bamboo team came out of stealth with their vision of creating a borrowing/lending protocol for LSTs. Bamboo is still under development & is expected to go live in the coming months. Another external team has started to develop a vault product around liquid staking on the Core-1 chain. If you or someone you know is interested in building exciting use cases for LSTs on Persistence, please contact the Core-1 team here.

2. Expanding the Liquid Staking Ecosystem

Bring non-cosmos native LSTs to Persistence

The Core-1 team will work closely with the pSTAKE team to bring EVM-based stkASSETs issued by the pSTAKE protocol (like stkBNB & stkETH) to the Core-1 chain in partnership with bridge/interoperability protocols like Axelar. This will further cement Persistence as the center of liquid staking activity.

Enhance the Core-1 chain’s security

The Core-1 team believes the Persistence Core-1 chain will become the center of liquid staking activity. Hence, expanding to as many security avenues as possible is in the chain’s best interest. In line with that, the Core-1 team will actively explore and consider the different options available in Cosmos today–Replicated Security, Babylon’s Bitcoin Security, & Mesh Security. This will improve the chain’s security significantly and open a new dimension of economic dialogue–imagine an appchain for liquid staked tokens secured by the Cosmos Hub, Bitcoin-grade security & other chains in Cosmos. The Core-1 chain is already live on Babylon’s testnet as of April ‘23.

Revamp $XPRT Tokenomics

Various community members have recently voiced their opinion and made a case for revamping the $XPRT tokenomics considering the increased on-chain activity & the upcoming XPRT halvening. The Core-1 team is working closely with Persisters in driving this community initiative by opening a direct dialogue & collating various ideas. In the coming months, community members will take this discussion public on the Persistence Forum, followed by a consequent on-chain governance proposal.

Enable IBC v6

IBC v6 will allow dApps such as pSTAKE to scale to more Cosmos native stkASSETs seamlessly. Expansion of pSTAKE to support other IBC-enabled chains will further increase on-chain activity by resulting in more txns, chain TVL, & IBC volume with Persistence’s peers. IBC v6 will also enable Fee Middleware, an on-chain mechanism to fund relayers for Persistence’s IBC connections to scale sustainably.

Improve CosmWasm Dev Tooling

The Core-1 chain is a semi-permissioned CosmWasm-enabled chain. This requires the Core-1 team to work closely while onboarding external teams like Dexter. By improving dev tooling for CosmWasm, onboarding & deployment of external projects will become more efficient. The first example here is an ongoing discussion with the Celatone team.

Welcome Ledger Live

The Core-1 team will work closely with the Ledger team for $XPRT wallet integration into Ledger Live. Native support for XPRT on Ledger will create a safer way of storing keys. Besides that, dApps deployed on the Core-1 chain, such as pSTAKE and Dexter, are also expected to be supported by Ledger Live, creating better avenues for onboarding new users into the Persistence Ecosystem.

3. Bolstering Infrastructure

Bump to cosmos-sdk v47

Upgrading the Core-1 chain to v47 will bring various performance and functionality benefits, including CometBFT & ABCI1.0 (in-depth details here). Besides that, it will enable working with Skip Protocol on its latest version of in-protocol MEV capture.

Other add-ons: Group module, PFM, IBC Wasm Hooks

Group module will allow the creation and management of on-chain multisig accounts and configurable decision policies, making it easier for users to manage their tokens while enabling more front-end use cases for wallet management. It will complement a multisig tool built using CosmWasm.
PFM or Packet Forward Middleware will make it possible to route incoming packets from the source chain to the destination chain by solving for token fungibility across the Interchain.
IBC Wasm Hooks is a middleware that will allow cross-chain contract calls involving token movement (enabling Squid Router for cross-chain swaps on Persistence).

Improve the chain’s Indexer setup

An indexer listens to data produced by blocks on the chain & can immediately filter and process it as needed. The Core-1 chain currently uses the graph protocol for indexing data. This data is crucial for dApps on the chain. For e.g., Dexter uses this for faster front-end interactions, especially those that rely heavily on historic data such as transaction history. The Core-1 team will explore alternatives to the graph protocol that allow for better data access & usage.

Increase Performance Monitoring

With a further expected increase in on-chain activity, performance monitoring for validators, relayers & RPCs, among other critical chain infrastructure, will be crucial. The Core-1 team will increase its performance monitoring by working with various stakeholders & security partners.

Streamline Automated Testing

The Core-1 team will work on further streamlining feature testing, upgrade testing, E2E testing, and regression testing to provide a better testing environment for the chain and deployed dApps.

Conclusion

The Persistence Core-1 chain is an appchain for liquid staking with a vision to bring about a new paradigm in PoS by being the one-stop-shop for liquid staking–issuance of & DeFi for LSTs.

The Core-1 team believes that working towards the three essential aspects–On-chain Traction, Expanding the Ecosystem, & Bolstering Infrastructure is naturally the next step in making Persistence synonymous with liquid staking.

While the Core-1 team will do everything possible to achieve everything mentioned in this roadmap in the coming quarters, some things might change depending on various circumstances. But the belief behind the vision of each of these will remain the same.

This 2023 Persistence Roadmap Update is brought to words by Tushar Aggarwal, Mikhil Pandey, Jeroen Develter, & Aditya Vandkar. Fellow Persisters are urged to give their feedback on what’s next for Persistence via our Discord, Telegram, Twitter, Forum, or saying gm in person.

About Persistence

Persistence is an appchain for liquid staking–issuance of & DeFi for LSTs.

The Persistence chain hosts pSTAKE Finance–a multi-chain liquid staking protocol for issuing LSTs that allows users to earn staking rewards while participating in DeFi primitives, Dexter–the Interchain DEX for yield-generating assets like LSTs. Bamboo, a borrowing/lending protocol for LSTs & a vault product for LSTs, are expected to launch soon.

Persistence aims to offer a one-stop-shop for liquid staking for PoS (Proof-of-Stake) users and enable developers to build innovative applications around LSTs.

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February 17, 2025

The Dawn of DeFi: The Hidden War for a Decentralized Future

👉 DON'T FADE THIS ARTICLE~ Crypto Michael AKA "The Dinarian"

The below article is NOT financial advice, it is being broadcast for entertainment purposes only. You should DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH and NEVER invest any more than you are willing to lose. On that note, THIS ARTICLE AND THE UNDERLYING ASSET DISCUSSED COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE FOR THE BETTER FOREVER! You SHOULD pay close attention as this MAY BE THE MOST IMPORTANT article you could ever have read, unless you were fortunate enough to read the Bitcoin whitepaper and had invested in it back in 2008. The asset I am about to present to you, COULD EASILY FLIP BITCOIN! ESPECIALLY WITH TODAYS ADMINISTRATION IN PLACE!
~ Namasté 🙏 Crypto Michael AKA "The Dinarian"

Attempted Theft of the World's Most Valuable Property, SEC Lawfare & The ETHgate Scandal

It is widely accepted that the media often spreads misinformation and hides any truth that challenge the establishments narratives. Well, this is one of those hidden truths...

Loans without Banks, Trades without Exchanges, Contracts without Lawyers. Peer to Peer Capital Markets disrupts traditional finance by removing middlemen and counter-party risk, enabling you to become your own bank by holding the keys to it all in your own privately held digital wallet.

To what lengths do you think the establishment would go to defend their control of the financial system? A system seemingly ripe with market manipulation, naked shorts, money laundering and regulatory capture.

The Myth of Open Source

For context, in the realm of open source, major corporations can engage in Intellectual Property theft by using open source projects to gain insights, technology, or legal protections without fully reciprocating to the community. Companies might contribute code to an open source project, only to later use that same code in commercial products, extending it with enhancements, essentially using open source as a low-cost R&D resource. Patents are crucial here, serving as a defense mechanism. Although open-source licenses cover copyrights, they don't extend to patents, meaning that companies holding patents can enforce legal protections against unauthorized commercial use, ensuring that any commercial application of their patented technology within open-source software requires proper licensing or recognition. This protection has historically led to the hyper-growth of industries like mobile phones and the internet, where patented technologies could be safely shared and built upon, promoting innovation and market expansion.

Validating Inventorship

In fields such as technology, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing, patents are vital for safeguarding new inventions, with Nikola Tesla's extensive patent portfolio serving as a testament to his contributions to science.

However, Tesla's revolutionary inventions, like the Wardenclyffe Tower which aimed at providing free wireless energy, faced fierce opposition due to their potential to disrupt established control over energy markets. Financially sabotaged by investors like J.P. Morgan, legally challenged through "the war of currents" by Thomas Edison's promotion of the less efficient Direct Current system, and undermined by media smear campaigns, Tesla's work was systematically suppressed. After his death, the FBI's seizure of his documents further suggests efforts to control or conceal his ideas that could disrupt centralized energy distribution, illustrating how innovation can be stifled to maintain existing power structures.

Could this type of suppression still be happening today?

The Genesis of Decentralized Finance

Reggie Middleton first introduced Distributed Finance what would later become known as Decentralized Finance (DeFi), in 2013 when he invented and patented technologies under the title "Devices, systems, and methods for facilitating low trust and zero trust value transfers." This included groundbreaking concepts like programmable Smart Contracts, Swaps, Tokenized Assets, NFTs, Stable Coins, Digital Wallets, and even underpin Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs).

https://patents.google.com/patent/US11196566B2/en?oq=US11196566+

Called by many as "The Most Valuable Property in the World", his patents US11196566B2, US11895246B2, JP6813477B2, JP7204231B2, JP7533974B2, & JP7533983B2 have been cited over 138 times by major financial institutions, underscoring their foundational role in the blockchain industry.

His patents cover:

Trustless Peer-to-Peer Value Transfers: Systems for enabling decentralized and secure value transfers between parties without the need for intermediaries. Applicable to cryptocurrency transactions, DeFi platforms, and digital payment systems.
Decentralized Financial Systems (DeFi): Methods and devices that facilitate decentralized trading, lending, borrowing, and yield generation. Impacting decentralized exchanges (DEXs) like Uniswap, SushiSwap, and similar platforms.
Smart Contracts: Implementation of self-executing contracts on blockchain networks, used to automate agreements and enforce conditions without intermediaries. Essential for platforms such as Ethereum, Cardano, and other Layer-1 and Layer-2 blockchain protocols.
Tokenized Asset Trading: Methods for creating, transferring, and trading tokenized assets, including cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and digital securities. Platforms like OpenSea, Rarible, and asset tokenization platforms may fall within the scope.
Cryptographic Security and Wallet Systems: Systems for securing digital assets using cryptographic methods, including cold storage, multi-signature wallets, and multi-party computation (MPC). Potential overlaps with services offered by companies like Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini, and institutional custody providers.
Decentralized Identity and Verification Systems: Technologies for managing and verifying digital identities on decentralized networks, including for KYC (Know Your Customer) purposes. Likely touching on identity solutions like Civic, BrightID, and Blockstack.
Blockchain-Based Voting and Governance: Systems for implementing decentralized voting, governance, and consensus mechanisms, foundational to DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations). Relevant to governance platforms like Aragon, Snapshot, and MakerDAO.
AI Economic Agentic Computing: First introduced by the VeADIR Platform refers to the application of autonomous agents in economic systems, where software entities can make decisions, negotiate, and execute transactions independently. These agents use artificial intelligence to analyze market data, predict trends, and optimize economic activities like trading, resource allocation, and supply chain management. Used by OpenAi, Claude Sonnet, Meta and xAI.

The societal value of these patents to disrupt traditional financial models and fintech business practises, by essentially removing the banks as middlemen, create significant economic incentives to suppress his work.

True Decentralization

Current Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs) often fall short of being truly decentralized due to various practical and structural limitations. Although DEXs leverage blockchain technology and smart contracts to enable trading without a central authority, aspects like governance, liquidity, and user interface can introduce centralization. Governance tokens might be concentrated in the hands of a few, influencing decision-making unevenly. The frontend, controlled by developers, represents a centralized point of control or potential failure. Liquidity pools can be dominated by a handful of large providers, leading to centralized liquidity dynamics. Some DEXs implement regulatory compliance like KYC/AML, which inherently involves centralized oversight. The use of layer-2 solutions for scalability might also undermine decentralization if not fully autonomous.

However, patents like US11196566B2 and US11895246B2 could pave the way for true decentralization by introducing innovations in blockchain interoperability and decentralized governance mechanisms. These patents potentially offer solutions for more evenly distributed control over exchange operations, enhancing the autonomy and distribution of decision-making, thus moving closer to genuine decentralization in the DEX ecosystem, which can be expanded to other industries like Healthcare, Supply Chain, or any other industry that trades value.

Who is Reggie Middleton?

Reggie Middleton, through his BoomBustBlog, became a notable figure in financial analysis, particularly for his early and accurate predictions regarding the collapses of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns during the 2008 financial crisis. His blog was renowned for providing in-depth, contrarian insights into economic trends, investment opportunities, and corporate vulnerabilities. Reggie won the CNBC's stock draft consecutively for two years, and appeared on major financial news networks like CNBC, BBC and Bloomberg where he discussed market trends, his forecasts, and the implications of financial strategies adopted by major firms. His track record has undeniably positioned him as a significant voice in the financial commentary space.

Reggie's work gained public attention when he appeared on the Keiser Report and CNBC in 2014, premiering his innovations built on the Bitcoin blockchain called "Ultracoin", two years before Ethereum captured the crypto limelight.

His vision was to create sound markets for a financial ecosystem where loans could be issued without banks, trades executed without exchanges, and contracts enforced without lawyers, aiming to disintermediate traditional finance by removing the middleman that doesn't add value.

In 2014, Reggie pioneered a simple Apple trade using a Pure Bitcoin Wallet: The Ultracoin Client.

Ultracoin later renamed VERI short for “Veritaseum” meaning "of truth", was the

first to market in tokenizing precious metals, offering VeGold, VeSilver and even tokenized fiat currencies or so called "Stablecoins". Veritaseum also introduced VeRent creating yield through P2P lending, and the revolutionary VeADIR platform, an autonomous, blockchain-powered research platform that independently evaluates and acts on dynamic research in real-time, communicates in machine language, and operates by purchasing, analyzing, and distributing insights on various assets while allowing VERI token holders to access and trade this research.

In 2018 he created the worlds first Gold Denominated Blockchain Mortgage

with traditional written note, mortgage as well as a smart contract on a public blockchain, both of whom incorporate each other by reference. The transaction had traditional title insurance and the note was recorded with the county clerk. The mortgage was denominated in Veritaseum's VeGold product, a digital form of gold in bearer form, fully transferable and redeemable upon demand.

Merely a few examples of groundbreaking products offered by Veritaseum.

Coinbase's Challenge: The Patent Infringement Suit

Coinbase, a dominant force in the cryptocurrency exchange market, enlisted the services of Perkins Coie, one of the largest patent law firms, to contest the validity of Reggie Middleton's patents.

They launched an Inter Partes Review (IPR) at the Patent Trials and Appeals Board (PTAB), arguing that Middleton's patents lacked novelty. An overwhelming 85% of patents are invalidated through this process. However, Coinbase's challenge was denied along with the appeal, thereby upholding and strengthening the validity of Reggie's patents.

This IPR challenge came after Veritaseum sued both Coinbase and Circle USDC for $350 million each over patent infringement. Unfortunately, Reggie's patent attorney and close friend passed away during this suit, so the cases has been dismissed without prejudice, meaning they can be negotiated or the cases reopened at any time. This leaves Coinbase in a precarious position, especially if shareholders have not been properly informed of this risk.

This lawsuit details how Coinbase's infrastructure, specifically its Ethereum and Solana validator nodes, engage with client devices to facilitate transactions. Exhibit #3 meticulously outlines the patent's claims, detailing the roles of computing devices, the use of memory for key pair storage, network interfaces for transaction terms, and the generation and dissemination of transaction data records. It provides concrete examples such as the processing of NFT transactions on Ethereum and the management of transaction fees on Solana, supported by in-depth references to code and API interactions. Furthermore, the exhibit explains the verification of transactions through an external state, illustrating how Coinbase's technology aligns with the patent's principles for decentralized transaction processing without a central authority.

SEC's Intervention: A Turning Point

In 2019, with promising negotiations on the horizon with both the Jamaican and the Nigerian Stock Exchanges for digital asset platforms, Reggie's world was turned upside down.

The SEC accused Reggie of fraud, alleging he misled investors about the functionality of Veritaseum's VeADIR platform, which the SEC ordered to be shut down following a live demonstration. The SEC also made claims on the validity of Reggie's patent applications, which have since been approved by both the USPTO and the Japan Patent Office. Oddly enough, the SEC may actually infringe on these very patents through the disgorgement and storage of seized crypto tokens.

Despite Veritaseum's cooperation with the SEC over a two-year period, along with a detailed response addressing the SEC's allegations, and not one token holder claiming to be defrauded, these allegations still led to a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that froze millions in assets, destroying the company's operations, and forcing a consent judgment "neither confirming or denying the allegations". The SEC would top it all off with a gag order that barred Reggie from publicly discussing the matter.

Keep in mind, the SEC is claiming jurisdiction by calling Utility Tokens "Digital Asset Securities" but recently SEC Commissioner @HesterPeirce stated:

"...by using imprecise language we've been able to suggest the token itself is a security, apart from that investment contract, which has implications for Secondary Sales, it has implications for who can list it...

We've fallen down on our duty as a regulator not to be precise. So, tucking into a footnote that yes we admit that now that the TOKEN ITSELF IS NOT A SECURITY, that is something we should have admitted long ago and then started wrestling with the difficult questions."

This calls into question if the SEC even had jurisdiction to bring forth this case to begin with. The Veri Community would later challenge the SEC's unproven allegations against Reggie with

a Dossier supporting the Vacating or Setting Aside of this case, and suggesting possible misconduct by the SEC.

Allegations of SEC Misconduct:

Misrepresentation of Facts: Assertions that the SEC deliberately mischaracterized the
functionality of the VeADIR platform, along with the patents and their value, by labeling them as lacking novelty and part of fraudulent activities.
Misleading Evidence: The SEC's use of declarations from Patrick Doody and Roseann Daniello, which contained misleading information about the personal ownership of a Kraken account used to misappropriate funds. Doody would later correct his statement, but the SEC did not update the court with this new information, potentially misleading the judicial process.
Conflict of Interest: Doody's undisclosed financial interests in the digital asset space through Lily Pad Capital LLC could suggest a bias in his testimony, which was pivotal in obtaining the TRO.
Coercion and Intimidation: Witnesses like Lloyd Cupp and John Doe provided affidavits claiming coercion by SEC attorneys to alter their testimonies, pointing towards witness tampering and intimidation.

FOIA Responses: The SEC's FOIA department initially denied any communications with Kraken, only later admitting to subpoena issuance, suggesting an attempt to obscure facts.
RICO Allegations: A 95 page RICO Dossier, supported by extensive evidence, alleges that the SEC's actions could resemble an organized crime syndicate, with systemic coercion, misrepresentation, and procedural misconduct aimed at Reggie Middleton.
Bar Complaint: The Veri community lodged a Bar Complaint against the SEC's Lead Attorney
over the use of misleading evidence, coercion and intimidation of witnesses.

Summary Articles of the B ar Complaint and RICO Dossier

Comparisons with the SEC Misconduct in the DEBT Box Case

The DEBT Box case shares a troubling parallel with the Veritaseum case. In both cases a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) freezing funds was issued using dubious evidence which suppressed the ability to defend themselves. This behavior was already admonished by five US Senators

in a letter to Commissioner Gary Gensler in which the SEC presented misleading claims in this now high-profile cryptocurrency case.

"Regardless of whether Commission staff deliberately misrepresented evidence or unknowingly presented false information, this case suggests other enforcement cases brought by the Commission may be deserving of scrutiny. It is difficult to maintain confidence that other cases are not predicated upon dubious evidence, obfuscations, or outright misrepresentations."

Given the similarities in alleged procedural misconduct between the cases, it raises systemic questions about the SEC’s litigation approach in cryptocurrency matters.

This parallel underscores a potential agency-wide issue that could involve either implicit biases against crypto companies or an explicit strategy to pursue aggressive, potentially misleading tactics in court.

Is The Fox Guarding the Hen House?

In a significant development, the Attorney Grievance Committee (AGC) has decided to forward a complaint against SEC attorney Jorge Tenreiro to the SEC's Office of General Counsel (OGC) for investigation. This controversial move suggests a potential conflict of interest, given that the OGC is part of the SEC, the very agency where Tenreiro was recently promoted to Chief Litigation Counsel. The complaint, filed by the Veri community, accuses Tenreiro of misconduct including alleged coercion, witness tampering, and misrepresentation during SEC investigations. The Veri Community argues that this decision undermines the integrity of the legal process, as the OGC's role is to provide legal advice and defend the SEC, not to independently investigate its own employees. This raises questions about the impartiality and transparency of the disciplinary process for attorneys, especially when it involves high-profile figures like Tenreiro.

"As noted in re Rowe, 80 N.Y.2d 336 (1992), the public’s confidence in the legal profession depends on transparent and impartial disciplinary processes. Delegating oversight to the SEC, where Mr. Tenreiro remains a senior official and where the OGC has a clear institutional stake, jeopardizes this confidence and risks the appearance of protectionism.”

The VeriDAO has submitted a response letter to the AGC along with creating a PDF generator
to help the estimated 100 complainants and anyone else interested in requesting the AGC to reconsider this action.

Legal and Judicial Trials

The legal battles would only continue for Reggie. The case of Hall v. Middleton, in which Hall, a 1% shareholder sued Reggie, raises concerns of judicial bias and procedural mishandling. In this case, Reggie was denied Due Process and barred from presenting crucial evidence or calling witnesses due to his former attorneys' "Office Failures" that missed deadlines to submit evidence without the knowledge of Reggie or the firm Brundidge & Stanger that outsourced his counsel as detailed in their affirmations.

"In my many years of practice it is a rare instance where I have witnessed an attorney intentionally not file critical documents as required by Court Order without the permission or knowledge of his client, who had an established and fully developed attorney client-relationship with said attorney, and then misrepresent that the requirements of the Court Order were being satisfied. This is one of those instances and I hope not to see another."
~ Carl Brundidge

The judge ruled that Reggie must:

Pay a $1M fine to his company Veritaseum Inc., in which he owns 99%
The plaintiff was awarded costs of $495k against Veritaseum Inc.
The Judge ordered Patents (filed before the creation of Veritaseum Inc.) to be assigned to the company without compensation.

Attorney's "Office Failures":

Sheridan England missed critical deadlines, resulting in the striking of exculpatory evidence. England’s inaction or inadequate defense exacerbated Middleton’s legal vulnerability, directly leading to adverse outcomes.

Judge Schecter’s Conduct:

Ignoring Exculpatory Evidence: Despite knowledge of its existence, Schecter struck Middleton’s post-trial memorandum.
Procedural Bias: The judge’s decisions systematically favored Hall, including allowing him to collect attorney fees from Middleton personally, contrary to the principles of derivative law.
Forced Patent Transfers: Schecter’s order to transfer patents to an underfunded entity (Veritaseum) which were court restrained by the same judge, rendering them defenseless against attacks and IP theft.

This ordeal was compounded when Reggie was held in Contempt for using personal funds (while Veritaseum’s funds were court-restrained) to successfully defend his patents against an IPR challenge by Coinbase in the PTAB of the USPTO in an attempt to invalidate these patents. The Forced Patent Expropriation to Veritaseum without compensation or the ability to defend them could be seen as coordinated as it benefited very large competitors seeking to avoid licensing fees or infringement claims, or possibly even IP Theft.

Judicial Complaint: A formal complaint has been filed with the NYS Commission on Judicial Conduct by the Veri Community.

ETHgate: The Broader Conspiracy Allegations

Parallel to Middleton's struggles, "ETHgate" emerged, involving allegations by Ethereum co-creator @StevenNerayoff. Nerayoff claimed a government conspiracy aimed at controlling or monopolizing cryptocurrency development by targeting key figures. This narrative suggested that by attacking innovators (like Reggie Middleton as the Veri Community contends), the SEC might have indirectly cleared a path for Ethereum, which, despite its decentralized claim, benefited from a regulatory environment less scrutinized than its competition.

The term "ETHgate" encapsulates the belief that Ethereum's "Free Pass" from regulatory scrutiny might not just be due to its technological merits but also due to strategic regulatory maneuvers, where attacking smaller or less established DeFi projects could safeguard larger, more influential platforms like Ethereum.

Back in 2021, @JohnEDeaton1 from @CryptoLawUS explained XRP's side of Ethereum's "Free Pass". More recently, further SEC RICO Claims are insinuated in "RIGGED from the start" a documentary by @Fruition_News , along with posts by @KuwlShow and the XRParmy involving the SEC, Ethereum, a16z, and Consensys surrounding the Bill Hinman speech. Active FOIA requests by @EleanorTerrett seek to shed light on meetings between Hinman and Ethereum members.

Given the SEC protection of ETH and the high probability of Ethereum infringing on Reggie Middleton's patents as meticulously detailed in Exhibit #3 of the Coinbase case, is it ridiculous to believe Reggie Middleton could have been targeted?

Community Support: The Backbone of Resilience

Despite the SEC's narrative labeling them as "The Defrauded," the Veritaseum community rallied around Reggie.

SmartMetal with embedded NFT avalaible through VeriDAO.io

Financially devastated and with his funds frozen, Reggie faced foreclosure and was threatened with jail time after contempt charges for defending his patents using personal funds. In a remarkable show of support, the Veri Community rallied, raising an impressive $149,000 in less than two weeks to cover the fine while the case is under appeal.

They funded legal battles largely through donations and more recently with innovative means like NFT silver rounds called SmartMetal using Reggie's patented technologies, underscoring their belief in his vision. The first minted round was auctioned off for an astonishing $14,000 won by "M S"

"There is no better witness to the veracity of any defense than the alleged defrauded defending the alleged fraud at their own expense"
~ The Veri Community

This community support was not just financial but also moral, with efforts such as an Amicus Brief in the case against XRP, a No Action Letter (NAL) seeking clarity on secondary market sales of tokens, a Bar Complaint against the SEC's newly promoted Chief Litigation Counsel, and the @dao_veri's

#ProjectSunlight The SEC RICO Revelation.

A Call for a New Regulatory Paradigm

Reggie Middleton's saga is emblematic of the challenges faced by pioneers in the blockchain and DeFi arenas. His patents, now granted, underscore their foundational nature, yet the path to their recognition was marred by legal battles, suggesting a systemic issue where the regulatory framework might not fully comprehend or support emerging tech. His resilience, supported by an unwavering community and the validation of his intellectual property, underscores the need for a regulatory environment that fosters rather than stifles innovation. As blockchain technology continues to evolve, Reggie's story serves as a critical reference for balancing innovation with legal and ethical governance, ensuring that the future of finance remains open to all, not just those with the resources to navigate the legal maze.

For more information visit https://veridao.io/

I know what everyones question is, "HOW CAN I GET MY HANDS ON THE $VERI TOKEN BEFORE EVERYTHING GETS REVERSED AND RELEASED BACK TO THE COMMUNITY?"

Your in luck: Mark is a trusted source, longtime Veri Vet that beta tested the VeADIR platform. Simply follow the thread below. I highly advise picking up a few, and tuck them away! This is the token that could literally FLIP BITCOIN $100k and beyond!

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