Protocol: Nvidia to Produce AI-Powered Supercomputers in the US, New Opportunities for Cryptocurrency Miners

Protocol: Nvidia to Start Manufacturing AI Supercomputers in the US, Opening New Opportunities for Cryptocurrency Miners

Plus: Ethereum Developer Privacy Debate Rekindles, Optimum Raises Seed Funds, Noble's New 'AppLayer'

By Margot Nijkerk, Sam Kessler Updated April 17, 2025, 7:19 AM Published April 16, 2025, 5:49 PM

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly roundup of the most important developments in cryptocurrency tech. We're Margot Nijkerk and Sam Kessler, reporters on CoinDesk's tech team.

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• Can Ethereum Really Provide Anonymity? Developers Push for Encrypted Mempool and Privacy by Default
• Nvidia Moves AI Supercomputer Production to U.S., Opening New Horizons for Cryptocurrency Miners
• MIT-Incubated Optimum Raises $11M in Seed to Build Web3's Missing Memory Layer
• Noble's New 'AppLayer' Lets Developers Build Stablecoin Tools on Celestia

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ETHEREUM DEVELOPERS’ PRIVACY IS BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT: After the U.S. government imposed sanctions on the Ethereum-based crypto mixing service Tornado Cash in 2022, it sparked a debate in the crypto community that continues to this day. Supporters argued that enforcing the sanctions was a form of censorship — a violation of the cypherpunks’ founding principle. President Donald Trump backed the cypherpunks and lifted the sanctions on Tornado Cash in March of this year, but for some Ethereum developers, the situation exposed a flaw in the network that still exists today: Why should users rely on third-party apps to conduct private transactions? Perhaps inspired by the recent events surrounding Tornado Cash, Ethereum developers and researchers have once again begun discussing ideas for how to make the Ethereum network inherently private. “Privacy shouldn’t be an option that users have to manually enable — it should be a standard feature of the network,” said PCaversaccio, whose post outlined his vision for a privacy-focused Ethereum plan. “Ethereum’s architecture should be designed so that users can remain anonymous by default, not as an exception.” In response to PCaversaccio’s post, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin left a short comment on the network’s main developer forum with his significantly shorter, privacy-focused roadmap for Ethereum. Buterin proposed focusing on anonymity for on-chain payments, obscuring on-chain activity in applications, anonymizing on-chain communications, and privatizing the reading of on-chain data. To achieve these goals, Buterin listed various steps, such as integrating certain third-party privacy features into the mainnet. — Margot Nijkerk and Sam Kessler Read more.

NVIDIA'S AI SUPERCOMPUTER PLANS COULD BENEFITS FOR CRYPTOCURRENCY MINERS: Nvidia is set to manufacture its next-generation AI chips and supercomputers entirely in the U.S. for the first time, the company said. The move reflects growing interest in AI infrastructure and a broader trend toward locally manufactured high-tech — a trend that could also benefit May

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