🚨 Weekly Recap: Telegram CEO Arrested

Happy weekend Defiers!

The arrest of Pavel Durov, Telegram’s co-founder and CEO, dominated headlines this past week.

Durov was arrested on Saturday and received extended detention as law enforcement investigated his alleged complicity in a slew of cybercrimes for failing to enforce a content moderation policy on the encrypted messaging platform.

The incident has called the future prospects of The Open Network (TON), the Layer 1 network that has enjoyed explosive growth since integrating with Telegram one year ago, into question. TON also suffered poorly timed disruptions as the network was overloaded by users trying to claim the DOGS memecoin airdrop, including a seven-hour outage.

Kakao and Line, companies operating hugely popular messaging platforms in Korea and Japan, completed a well-time merge of their Klaytn and Finschia blockchains. The new Kaia network aims to replicate TON’s success on their own messaging apps.

The Ethereum Foundation is under fire for transferring $94 million to a centralized exchange just as the price of ETH was looking bullish. Community members are outraged by the lack of transparency surrounding the organization’s ETH sales.

Crypto markets were marred by bearish performance, with sellers quickly erasing early-week gains. Spot Bitcoin ETFs suffered three consecutive daily outflows after an eight-day streak of inflows.

Sony launched a testnet and incubator program for its forthcoming Soneium Layer 2. Seoneium hopes to attract participation from DeFi, NFT, gaming, entertainment, and social protocols.

PayPal’s PYUSD became the fifth-fastest stablecoin to amass a $1 billion market cap. However, the growth appears driven by unsustainable incentives from Solana-based DeFi protocols.

Polymarket hosted all-time high monthly volume and active users for the fourth month in a row. More than 87% of the volume came from the platform’s election markets.

Donald Trump and his team bagged $1.7 million within 24 hours of launching his fourth NFT collection. However, buyers cannot resell the tokens until Jan. 31, 2025.

MakerDAO continues moving through its endgame roadmap, with Maker rebranding to Sky. The project also scheduled the launch of new governance stable tokens for next month.

Analysis shows that Lido, the largest DeFi protocol and top liquid staking provider, has only been profitable for seven of the 44 months it has operated.

Plus, Nostr adoption surges amid Telegram drama, Aerodrome beats out Uniswap by year-to-date revenue by 140%, Base and Taiko prop up Layer 2 activity, and a U.S. court ruled that Elon Musk didn’t manipulate Dogecoin.

Also, don’t forget to check out our podcast with Redouane Elkamhi, the Economic Lead at GOAT Network, to learn about their vision for building DeFi on Bitcoin Layer 2.

Enjoy!

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Swell's New Bitcoin LRT - swBTC

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PODCAST & INTERVIEWS

Sustainable BTC Yield on Bitcoin | Dr. Redouane Elkamhi Discusses GOAT Network

In this week’s podcast, Cami Russo was joined by Redouane Elkamhi, the Economic Lead at GOAT Network, a project building a Bitcoin Layer 2.

The conversation dives into GOAT’s objective of building a decentralized financial market on Bitcoin and a focus on sustainable yield. Elkamhi shares his vision for economic incentives and decentralized sequencers on the network, and the impact he anticipates GOAT will have on the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Inside Crecimiento: Building Argentina's Blockchain Valley

The Defiant spoke to Diego Fernandez, Secretary of Innovation & Digital Transformation for the city of Buenos Aires, to learn about Argentina’s bid to become a global leader in crypto through the grass-roots Crecimiento movement.

The initiative is currently hosting Aleph, a month-long pop-up city event in Buenos Aires attracting participation from startups and crypto enthusiasts from the region. Argentina's challenging economic history has led to strong crypto adoption, planting the seeds for the movement to take form.

Diego argued in favor of regulations supporting web3 innovation, warned against tribalism within the space, and highlighted the potential of tokenized real-world solutions to propel the growth of Argentina’s crypto sector.

VIDEO & TUTORIALS

Exploring Parachains on Polkadot

In our latest explainer, Jack Dunham walks you through Polkadot’s vibrant ecosystem of Layer 1 parachains.

Saturday

Bitcoin DeFi Protocol Seeks to “Save” WBTC from Justin Sun Concerns have been raised over WBTC custodian BitGo’s decision to partner with the Tron network and its founder.

Friday

Controversial Curve Funding Proposal Wins Over Tokenholders The proposal previously attracted pushback from Curve’s community.
TON Faces Uncertainty After Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s Arrest Durov’s arrest has left many questioning what The Open Network’s future will look like.
Bitcoin Drops as ETFs Record Third Day of Net Outflows Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $71.8 million in net outflows on Thursday.
Court Dismisses $258B Lawsuit Alleging Elon Musk and Tesla Manipulated Dogecoin The court found Musk’s tweets to be non-factual and aspirational, describing them as "puffery."

Thursday

Aerodrome Tops 2024 DEX Revenue Rankings Fueled by token incentives, Base’s leading DEX has raked in more than double Uniswap’s revenue this year.
Nostr Usage Soars on Privacy Concerns After Telegram CEO Arrest Nostr’s users soared to 34,000 from 9,000 after Pavel Durov was detained in France.
NFL Players Union Sues DraftKings For NFT Deal The NFLPA claims DraftKings owes them roughly $65 million after breaching their contract.
Crypto Markets Rally on Positive U.S. Economic Data ETH ETFs recorded positive inflows on Wednesday as Bitcoin reserves on crypto exchanges slumped to a new low for the year.
Aave To Onboard BUIDL Shares As Collateral For GHO Users will be able to exchange GHO for BUIDL shares on a one-to-one basis should the proposal pass.
Kakao’s Klaytn and Line’s Finschia Blockchains Merge To Create Kaia Kaia aims to compete with The Open Network by powering dApps on the Line and Kakao messaging applications.
Base and Taiko Sustain Boom In Layer 2 Activity Base and Taiko are driving nearly 6.5 million daily transactions combined amid points programs.
Cobie’s Platform Echo Has Invested $10 Million Into Startups Echo allows retail investors to access investments otherwise restricted to venture capitalists.

Wednesday

Lido is Still Unprofitable Despite Being the Largest DeFi Protocol The Ethereum liquid staking platform has posted positive monthly revenue just seven times since launching in December 2020.
Telegram-Based Hamster Kombat Announces September Token Launch Users will be able to claim HMSTR tokens on Sept. 26.
Bitcoin Price Drops Below $59,000 as ETFs End Eight-Day Winning Streak Leverage traders suffered $300 million in liquidations as the markets flipped bearish.
Proof of Play to Launch Second Blockchain to Support Pirate Nation Game Proof Of Play said it is already testing the limits of its existing Layer 3 network.
SEC is Investigating NFT Marketplace OpenSea, CEO Says OpenSea said it received a Wells Notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Trump's Latest NFT Collection Bags $1.7M In 24 Hours Investors buying Trump’s NFTs in bulk will receive tickets to a gala dinner attended by Trump alongside an assortment of shoes.
TON Goes Offline For Seven Hours Amid DOGS Airdrop The Open network suffered a seven-hour outage as memecoin degens raced to claim DOGS tokens.
Sony Launches Testnet and Incubator For Soneium Layer 2 Soneium wants to foster projects targeting the DeFi, NFT, gaming, and social sectors.

Tuesday

Bitcoin Price Drops as Crypto Markets Erase Weekend Gains Crypto markets pulled back after a bullish weekend.
Ethereum Layer 2 Network StarkNet Struggles to Maintain Its Footing Post-Airdrop Activity on StarkNet nosedived after its highly anticipated airdrop.
‘This Technology Can’t Be Stopped,’ Says Top Argentina Regulator About Crypto Argentina’s pup-up web3 city is bustling.
Ethereum Community Rattled by Foundation’s ETH Sales and Vitalik’s ‘DeFi Hate’ The Ethereum community is demanding transparency after the Foundation transferred $94 million to Kraken.
SEC Charges Abra, Prepares To Battle Kraken In Court Abra is the latest CeFi lender to feel the wrath of regulators in recent years.
Polygon Miden Integrates QED Protocol To Accelerate Transaction Execution QED Protocol’s WebGPU API is estimated to speed up Miden’s client-side proving by 10 times.
MakerDAO Rebrands To ‘Sky’ and Schedules USDS Stablecoin Launch “This is how DeFi should be designed,” said Rune Christensen.
France Reveals Charges Levied Against Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Durov is accused of complicity in a slew of cybercrime stemming from his failure to enforce content moderation on Telegram.

Monday

Fantasy.Top Mounts a Comeback with ‘Tactics V2’ The SocialFi trading card game recorded its highest trading volume since June on August 23.
AI Tokens Rally Amid Crypto Market Lull Investors await Nvidia’s quarterly earnings report.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s Detention Extended After Paris Arrest Durov was arrested by French authorities on Aug. 24.
Polymarket Volume and Users At New High With Election Markets Making Up 87% Polymarket is on fire, but will the activity die off after the 2024 U.S. election?
Boson Protocol and Superchief Gallery Tokenize $5.1 Million Art Collection The market for tokenized real-world assets has grown by 40% since the start of 2024.
PayPal USD Surpasses $1B Market Cap Amid Solana DeFi Incentives PYUSD is the fifth-fastest stablecoin to boast a ten-figure capitalization.

🚨 Weekly Recap: Telegram CEO Arrested

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