Today in crypto: Metaplanet approved a capital structure overhaul that enables the company to raise funds via dividend-paying preferred shares, Uniswap’s fee switch is set to go live as a community vote is likely to pass and Jameson Lopp says Bitcoin migration to post-quantum could ‘easily’ take 10 years.
Metaplanet clears issuance of dividend-paying shares for overseas institutions
Metaplanet approved an overhaul of its capital structure on Monday, allowing Japan’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder to raise funds through dividend-paying preferred shares aimed at institutional investors.
Investors approved five proposals that collectively expand Metaplanet’s ability to issue preferred shares, introduce new dividend mechanics and open participation to overseas institutional capital, said Dylan LeClair, the company’s Bitcoin strategy director.
The approved measures include reclassifying capital reserves to allow for preferred share dividends and potential buybacks, doubling the authorized number of Class A and Class B preferred shares and amending dividend structures to introduce floating and periodic payouts.
In addition, Metaplanet cleared the issuance of Class B preferred shares to international institutional investors.
Metaplanet held about 30,823 Bitcoin (BTC) at press time, worth $2.75 billion, according to Bitcoin Treasuries. This makes the company the biggest corporate Bitcoin holder in Asia, and the fourth-biggest in the world.
Uniswap fee switch to go live as community vote set to pass
The Uniswap protocol fee switch, dubbed “UNIfication,” is set to pass and go live later this week, having reached the 40 million vote threshold needed to trigger one of the biggest upgrades in the decentralized exchange protocol’s history.
Nearly 62 million votes had been cast in favor of the governance proposal as of early Monday, with voting having opened on Saturday and set to close on Thursday, Christmas Day.
Uniswap Labs CEO Hayden Adams has said a successful vote would follow a two-day timelock period in which Uniswap v2 and v3 fee switches would flip on the Unichain mainnet, triggering the burning of more Uniswap (UNI) tokens.
The proposal will see 100 million UNI tokens burned from the Uniswap Foundation’s treasury, while a Protocol Fee Discount Auctions system to increase liquidity provider returns would also be implemented.
The changes are expected to significantly improve the supply-demand dynamics of the UNI token and make it more appealing to hold over the long term.
Jameson Lopp says Bitcoin migration to post-quantum could ‘easily’ take 10 years
The Bitcoin protocol’s shift to post-quantum security standards could “easily” take up to 10 years to complete, according to Jameson Lopp, a Bitcoin Core developer and co-founder of crypto custody solutions company Casa.
Lopp weighed in on the social media debate that intensified after venture capitalist Nic Carter sounded the alarm on Bitcoin’s lack of a quantum security plan.
Carter argued that the Bitcoin community needs to shift to post-quantum standards as soon as possible. Lopp responded:
“No, quantum computers won't break Bitcoin in the near future. We'll keep observing their evolution. Yet, making thoughtful changes to the protocol and an unprecedented migration of funds could easily take 5 to 10 years.”
The ongoing debate highlights the schism in the crypto community, with many Bitcoin maximalists saying that the threat of quantum computers to the Bitcoin protocol and encryption is still decades away.
Still, others, including software developers and venture capitalists, say that quantum supremacy is only five years away.