ETH, LINK, BTC Treasury Companies Launch

Olivia Capozzalo & Camila Russo
August 07, 2025

gm, Defiers!

Here’s what’s happening today:

TL;DR

The White House issued an executive order authorizing U.S. 401(k) retirement plans to offer investments in cryptocurrencies
Ripple is set to acquire stablecoin platform Rail for $200 million, looking to expand its payments infra. Ripple and the SEC have also dismissed their respective appeals, ending a five-year lawsuit.
Blockchain oracle Chainlink unveiled its on-chain LINK treasury vehicle, Chainlink Reserve
Bitcoin asset manager Parataxis is going public via SPAC merger to raise up to $640 million for a yet another BTC treasury, while
Despite the decline in Solana memecoin activity, one asset, TROLL, saw explosive price action this week, dominating Solana ecosystem mindshare.
This week’s verdict against Tornado Cash signals that crypto developers may face increased legal risks when working on one of the areas the industry arguably needs most: privacy. [FEATURE]
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Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.

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Alephium’s Danube Upgrade Is Live — The Web3 We Were Promised, On Proof-of-Work

Alephium, the only scalable Layer 1 powered by Proof-of-Work and native sharding, has launched its landmark Danube upgrade. Danube delivers the performance and simplicity users expect with 8-second block times, seedless onboarding, invisible sharding, and a smoother smart contract experience. It’s Web2-grade UX, running on a decentralized, energy-efficient PoW chain.

Danube marks Alephium’s biggest step toward the Web3 we were promised - scalable, secure, and actually usable.

Read more: Alephium’s Danube Upgrade Goes Live: A Major Leap for Web3 on Proof of Work

We’re back! Here’s what you need to know in web3 today

📈 Markets in the Last 24 Hours

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$116,421	0.66 %
Ethereum	$3,824.49	3.55 %
XRP	$3.05	1.22 %
BNB	$775.62	0.15 %
Solana	$169.3	-0.13 %

MessariPortals	MINDSHARE Rank	MINDSHARE % Change (7d)
		-15.20%
		48.09%
		8.03%
Powered by Messari Portals

Let’s get into it

The White House just issued an executive order authorizing U.S. 401(k) retirement plans to invest in cryptocurrencies. That’s the most mainstream stamp of approval you can get —crypto in grandma’s pension fund. The door is now open for trillions in retirement assets to trickle into the market, putting digital assets on par with equities, bonds, and real estate in America’s most protected investment vehicles.

Meanwhile, Ripple is finally out from under its five-year SEC cloud. Both parties have dropped their appeals, ending one of crypto’s longest-running legal battles over whether XRP is a security. That came on the heels of Ripple announcing a $200M deal to acquire Rail, a stablecoin platform that could expand its global payments network.

Ethereum might soon gain a new mega-whale. Fundamental Global Inc., a newly minted Ethereum treasury vehicle, has filed to raise a staggering $5B to buy ETH. While the raise is far from guaranteed, the ambition echoes Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy playbook.

Chainlink is playing a similar game on a smaller, more ecosystem-focused scale. This week, it unveiled Chainlink Reserve, an on-chain treasury vehicle for holding LINK. The move keeps tokens in circulation but within reach of the protocol’s strategic needs, potentially supporting staking rewards, ecosystem grants, or long-term development funding.

And Bitcoin’s corporate treasury saga rolls on. Parataxis, a BTC asset manager, is going public via SPAC in a deal that could raise up to $640M for—you guessed it—buying more Bitcoin. This comes as the “BTC on balance sheet” strategy continues to appeal to both crypto-native firms and traditional companies looking for asymmetric upside.

But the week wasn’t all about capital flows and legitimacy milestones. The guilty verdict in the Tornado Cash trial cast a shadow over the developer community. Roman Storm’s conviction for conspiracy to launder money underscores the growing legal risks for building privacy tools—a sector many argue is essential for crypto’s original vision of financial sovereignty. It’s a stark reminder: while institutions are wiring in, the ability to freely write the open source code that underpins this technology is under threat.

With love,

Cami, founder of The Defiant

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