Today in crypto, US President Donald Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping to iron out tariff tensions, a pro-crypto political group has endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral race, while, Grayscale Investments launched its staking Solana ETF in the US.

Trump, Xi meet in South Korea to resolve trade tensions

US President Donald Trump and Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping have met face-to-face in South Korea to stabilize relations and resolve tariff tensions.

Before the bilateral meeting, Trump indicated that the parties are showing signs of alignment, stating: “We’ve already agreed to a lot of things and we will agree to some more right now.”

“I think we’re going to have a fantastic relationship for a long period of time,” Trump said in a video posted to X by The White House on Thursday.

Trump’s use of tariffs since returning to the White House, combined with China’s retaliatory limits on exports of rare earth elements, has fueled fears of an economic slowdown, with some of the most severe tariff implementations triggering crashes in the crypto market in recent months.

That included the Oct. 10 market crash, which saw Bitcoin fall from $121,560 to below $103,000.

The Rapid Response 47 X account confirmed that the meeting has since wrapped up.

Pro-crypto org backs Andrew Cuomo for NYC mayor as election approaches

Innovate NY, a self-described “pro-digital assets” political organization funded with about $100,000 ahead of the New York City mayoral election, has backed independent candidate and former state Governor Andrew Cuomo.

In a Tuesday notice, Innovate NY endorsed Cuomo for mayor, the race for which is already in the middle of early voting. The political group cited an agenda that included “blockchain, tokenization, public-benefit stablecoins, and artificial intelligence.” 

The organization, registered as an independent spender with the New York City Campaign Finance Board, was funded with $99,500 from six individuals through two companies as of Wednesday.

According to expenditure records, Innovate NY spent $30,000 on a flyer to support Cuomo and oppose Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani, who is currently leading in many polls against the former New York governor.

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Part of a flyer funded by Innovate NY on Friday. Source: New York City Campaign Finance Board

New York City’s mayoral race has drawn attention from many in the crypto industry due to its potential impact on companies operating in the US’ biggest economic hub. Voters will choose between frontrunners Mamdani, Cuomo and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa on Nov. 4.

In the final weeks of his campaign, Cuomo made a push to crypto-minded New York voters, pledging to set up an Innovation Council with advisory committees for crypto, AI and biotech if elected. Mamdani, leading in the polls against Cuomo, has largely avoided making digital assets a part of his campaign and instead focused on cost-of-living concerns, including childcare and affordable housing.

Grayscale debuts Solana ETF, joining Bitwise in SOL staking ETF race

Cryptocurrency asset manager Grayscale Investments has launched its staking-enabled Solana spot exchange-traded fund (ETF), expanding institutional access to Solana exposure.

According to a Wednesday announcement, the Grayscale Solana Trust ETF began trading under the GSOL ticker on the New York Stock Exchange Arca platform. The product includes staking functionality, allowing investors to earn rewards through Solana’s proof-of-stake (PoS) network.

Grayscale’s senior vice president of ETFs, Inkoo Kang, said the new product is “expanding investor choice.” The company said it is now among the largest Solana (SOL) exchange-traded product (ETP) managers in the United States by assets under management.

The launch follows the debut of Bitwise’s staking Solana ETF on Tuesday, which launched with $222.9 million of assets under management. Grayscale launched with a seed of $102.7 million, less than half of Bitwise’s.

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Solana ETF data. Source: Farside Investors

Ethereum’s Fusaka fork primed for mainnet after final testnet debut

Ethereum’s next major upgrade, Fusaka, went live on the blockchain’s final testnet, Hoodi, on Tuesday, setting the stage for its Dec. 3 mainnet launch that is slated to add several scalability and security improvements to the network.

Fusaka will add several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), such as Peer Data Availability Sampling, or PeerDAS, via EIP-7594, enabling validators to read smaller pieces of data on layer 2 networks as opposed to full blobs, boosting node efficiency.

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Source: Nethermind

EIP-7825 and EIP-7935 are also included in the update, which aim to raise the gas limit and improve efficiency as Ethereum prepares to unlock parallel execution, the processing of multiple smart contracts at the same time. Other EIPs in the update focus on improving zero-knowledge rollups.

The upgrade is looking to improve Ethereum’s scalability, one third of the so-called “blockchain trilemma” coined by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin that also includes decentralization and security.