This week on Crypto Twitter: Bitcoin Runes Mania and more Ethereum legal drama

Crypto Twitter was hit by the industry's hottest topic this week—Bitcoin Runes—also steamy legal drama in the form of software company Ethereum's preliminary lawsuit against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Since the recent Bitcoin Cut in halfRunes-new A protocol based on Bitcoin Able to support fungi like meme coins—soared in popularity. Doug, there was a new Runes meme token. The air came down Owners of Runestones casual project on Wednesday. The distribution of tens of thousands of wallets has made DOG the most popular Runes token to date.

With runes fever taking over the cryptosphere this week, activity on the protocol quickly picked up. dominance The entire Bitcoin network.

Some crypto users were disappointed Spill Payments by the Bitcoin network due to the frustration of Runes. But other proponents of the protocol insist that momentum around the new class of tokens has only just begun.

On Ethereum, news of another CryptoPunk NFT crash was discovered this week with an eye-popping multi-million dollar sale. Punk #635, an extremely rare Alien Punk, sold for $12.38 million to an anonymous collector on Thursday.

The sale marks the third time an Alien Punk has traded north of $11 million.

But it wasn't all smiles in the Ethereum NFT ecosystem. On Friday, Yuga Labs, the multi-billion dollar company behind the once-dominant NFT collection Boring Monkey Boat Club, laid off an unknown number of employees. In a message to employees, the company's CEO and founder, Greg Solano, acknowledged that the company had “lost its way.”

The biggest bombshell of the week, however, came on Thursday, when Ethereum software giant Consensus announced in A Active charge A federal regulator at the SEC may sue the company and declare Ethereum safe in the process.

Industry leaders immediately took to Twitter With voice support The lawsuit, challenging the SEC in an attempt to effectively ban Ethereum after several other US government entities indicated that ETH was not within the SEC's jurisdiction.

Hayden Adams, founder of Decentralized Exchange (DEXUniswap likens it to a battle cry for the crypto industry to finally take an aggressive and collective stand against the SEC. The Lord of the Rings– Combat battle. Uniswap said earlier this month, too, that it was sued by the SEC for securities violations.

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