📉 HMSTR Crashes 42% On Launch

GM Defiers!

Hamster Kombat’s highly anticipated airdrop is live, with the project distributing 60% of HMSTR’s supply to 131 million users. However, HMSTR is off to a bearish start, with the token crashing 42% within four hours of launching.

PayPal continues to embrace cryptocurrency, with U.S. merchants now able to trade and transfer digital assets using PayPal business accounts.

Markets rallied on Thursday following the release of upbeat U.S. economic data. BTC jumped 3% to $65,000, while ETH and DOT rallied 2%. SOL climbed 4%.

Avalanche unveiled a $40 million grants program to incentivize developers launching Layer 1s using its forthcoming Avalanche9000 architecture.

Layer 1 networks continue to rally, with SUI and SEI up more than 100% from their August lows.

Also, Banana Gun will refund exploit victims, ApeCoin DAO’s secretary quits, ZKsync rallies 10% on Coinbase listing, and QED Protocol and Nexus team up on Dogecoin zkVM.

✍️ In today’s newsletter:

HMSTR plummets amid airdrop
PayPal business accounts support crypto
Markets rally as U.S. GDP meets expectations
Avalanche offers incentives ahead of upgrade
SUI and SEI shrug off market consolidation
Banana Gun pledges $3M to hack victims
ApeCoin DAO faces internal criticism
ZK posts double-digit rally after Coinbase listing
QED and Nexus team up on Dogecoin smart contracts

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📈 Markets in the last 24 hrs:

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🎬WATCH

Check out our podcast with Paul Frambot, the co-founder and CEO of Morpho Labs, to learn about the protocol’s journey to $1 billion in deposits.

Catch up on our interview with Richard Teng, the recently appointed CEO of Binance, to get his bull thesis on the crypto markets.

And, watch our interview with Kendall Cole, the co-founder of Proximity Labs, a research team focused on Near Protocol, for the latest news on Near’s AI pivot.

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DIA launches ‘Lumina’ – a brand-new trustless oracle network. Its modular, rollup-based design enables the verifiable sourcing and delivery of any data to any blockchain. Fully decentralized and permissionless.

🪂 Hamster Kombat’s Highly Anticipated Airdrop Goes Live

Hamster Kombat’s airdrop is live, with 131 million users receiving an allocation. However, HMSTR is off to a bearish start, with the token crashing 42% within four hours of listing on exchanges.

👀 PayPal Rolls Out Crypto Trading and Transfers For U.S. Merchants

PayPal, the global payments giant, keeps expanding its support for digital assets. U.S. merchants can now execute cryptocurrency trades and make external transfers using business accounts.

📈Crypto Markets Climb on Strong U.S. Economic Data

Thursday's economic data painted a positive picture of the U.S. economy. Initial jobless claims fell to 218,000 for the week ending Sept. 21, while GDP grew at an annualized rate of 3% in the second quarter, meeting analyst expectations. BTC rallied 3% to $65,200.

❄️ Avalanche Announces $40M Grant Program Ahead Of Avalanche9000 Upgrade

The Avalanche Foundation unveiled a $40 million retroactive grants program to incentivize developers building on its upcoming Avalanche9000 overhaul. The upgrade will revamp Avalanche’s subnet ecosystem in a bid to reduce the barriers to developers launching specialized Layer 1 networks on Avalanche.

🚀 Sui and Sei Lead Altcoin Market Higher

SUI and SEI are leading the recent resurgence of Layer 1 assets, with both tokens posting triple-digit gains since August’s lows. The TVL of both Sui and Sei are also at all-time highs.

🍌 Banana Gun Pledges to Pay Back Victims of $3 Million Exploit

Banana Gun, a popular Telegram trading bot, announced it will allocate $3 million from its treasury to fully repay the 11 victims of an exploit it suffered last week. Banana Gun attributed the incident to a vulnerability identified in its Telegram message oracle.

🦍 ApeCoin Shakeup: Secretary Steps Down Citing Inactive Stewards

The secretary of ApeCoin DAO stood down after criticizing the project for wasteful spending, poor communication, and a lack of accountability. The former secretary said the DAO is spending $130,000 every month on salaries for ApeCoin stewards despite the individuals failing to contribute to the DAO.

📈 ZkSync's ZK Pumps 10% on Coinbase Listing

ZKsync’s ZK token posted double-digit gains after getting listed on Coinbase. The news follows a rocky period for ZKsync, with the Ethereum scaling team laying off 16% of its staff at the start of the month.

🤝 QED Protocol and Nexus Team Up On Dogecoin zkVM

QED Protocol is working with Nexus to modify Nexus’s zero-knowledge virtual machine for Dogecoin. The move comes after QED proposed an opcode and Layer 2 rollup supporting smart contracts on Dogecoin in July.

🌍 ELSEWHERE

Wall Street Titan Guggenheim Tokenizes $20M of Commercial Paper on Ethereum (CoinDesk)
Bitdeer and TSMC to launch state-of-the-art mining chip after successful test (The Block)
South Korea Reminds Crypto Scammers of Possible Life Sentence If Illicit Gains Exceed $4 Million (Decrypt)
Caroline Ellison Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison for Role in FTX Fraud (Unchained)