🤖Weekly Recap: AI and Crypto Collide Through Truth Terminal

Happy weekend Defiers!

The AI-crypto narrative was again thrust to the forefront of web3 discourse by the success and controversy surrounding Truth Terminal, an AI agent backed by A16z’s Marc Andreessen that became the first agent to hold a seven-figure crypto portfolio.

After sending the price of GOAT on a 65,000x rally last week, Truth Terminal garnered skepticism after publishing a tweet containing a conspicuously human typo, briefly tanking the price of GOAT. The agent continued to attract controversy after a wallet was spotted accumulating the RUSSELL token shortly before Truth Terminal tweeted about the token.

However, experts and Truth Terminal’s founder concluded the spelling error resulted from the agent increasingly interacting with typo-laden tweets, while the suspicious accumulation was likely engineered by degens spamming the Truth Terminal with specific keywords related to memecoins.

It was a volatile week for digital assets, with the crypto markets staging a bullish comeback over the weekend after the SEC approved Bitcoin ETF options. However, the gains were short-lived, with cryptocurrencies slumping as tech stocks lost ground and treasury yields spiked. BTC is down 1.4% over the past seven days, while ETH tumbled 5%.

Scroll’s Oct. 22 airdrop failed to live up to expectations, with SCR tumbling nearly 40% since going live. SCR’s lackluster performance suggests the hype for large airdrops from VC-backed L2s has died down, with Scroll trading at a fully-diluted valuation of just $850 million and ranking 324th by market cap with $161.6 million.

But not every cryptocurrency is taking a beating, with APE rocketing in response to the ApeChain Layer 3 launching. The SOL/ETH ratio also soared to new highs as Solana’s memecoin frenzy rages on.

PumpFun, Solana’s booming memecoin launchpad, confirmed it plans to airdrop a token in the future and launched an “advanced” trading terminal. PumpFun has now raked in more than $164 million in revenue as SOL this year, half of which it has sold for stablecoins.

The U.S. government appears to have been hacked for $20 million, with stablecoins and ETH flowing out of a seemingly compromised Ethereum wallet. The wallet in question previously received funds seized from the 2016 Bitfinex hacker, suggesting it was under the government’s control. The hacker has since returned most of the pilfered assets.

Microstrategy’s Michael Saylor ruffled the feathers of decentralization devotees, describing self-custody proponents as “paranoid crypto anarchists.” Instead, Saylor said Bitcoiners should trust that the U.S. government and exchanges would never seize cryptocurrency custodied on centralized platforms.

Vitalik continues to preview Ethereum’s future, proposing plans to tackle MEV and staking centralization. Buterin also hopes that users will soon be able to validate the network using lightweight devices like smartwatches.

Plus, Bitcoin whales hold 10% of supply, Uniswap Labs cops flak for excluding governance from its L2 ambitions, MakerDAO may roll back its Sky rebrand, Ordinals marketplaces take aim at mempool sniping, and Buenos Aires government rolls out zero-knowledge powered IDs.

Also, don’t forget to check out our podcast with Dylan Kawalec, the head of developer relations at Goat Network.

Enjoy!

PODCAST & INTERVIEWS

From Rock Bottom to Success: How Bitcoin Saved Dylan Kawalec's Life

In this week’s podcast, Cami Russo was joined by Dylan Kawalec, the head of developer relations at Goat Network.

The discussion explores the Goat Founders Club, an initiative to incubate developers and entrepreneurs operating in Bitcoin’s burgeoning Layer 2 ecosystem. Participants are incentivized through points that can be converted into tokens.

Kawalec also dives into Goat Network’s technical architecture, and his personal story of how Bitcoin transformed his life.

Denelle Dixon on Stellar’s Mission, Competing in Blockchain, and Navigating Crypto Regulation

The Defiant sat down with Denelle Dixon, the CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation.

Dixon shares the organization's mission to create equitable access to the global financial system by building on existing tradfi infrastructure. She highlights the importance of competition, innovation, and collaboration with traditional players like Mastercard and Moneygram to strengthen the Stellar ecosystem. She also touches on recent upgrades to Stellar and its ecosystem, including smart contracts, smart wallets, and partnerships.

Lastly, Denelle emphasizes the need for thoughtful regulatory engagement, particularly in the arena of blockchain technology and stablecoins.

How Paxos is Bringing Universal Access to Finance with Stablecoins | Charles Cascarilla

The Defiant spoke to Charles Cascarilla, the co-founder and CEO of Paxos, a stablecoin issuer and blockchain-based payment solution provider.

In this interview, Cascarilla discusses Paxos' recent partnerships — including collaborations with Stripe and Stellar — to expand the use of stablecoins for real-world payments, especially in emerging markets. He highlights the stablecoin value proposition of democratizing access to dollars and yield, and how they can provide financial stability for unbanked and underbanked populations globally.

Friday

• Bitcoin Dominance Reaches Highest Level Since 2021 BTC dominance is approaching 60% as the altcoin market fails to outperform.
• Hacker Returns $19 Million Stolen from U.S. Government Roughly $700,000 of assets are still missing.
• Mantle-based mETH Protocol Announces Oct. 29 Airdrop COOK tokens will be available to claim on Oct. 29, and the network’s restaking token cmETH will launch the next day.
• Crypto Markets Trade Sideways as ETF Demand Hits Six-Month High Net flows into Bitcoin ETFs total nearly 65,000 BTC ($4.4 billion) in the past month.
• Web3 Game Off the Grid Attracts Sustained Activity The high-quality battle royale game topped the Epic Games store in its opening week and is still growing.
• Lido Greenlights Permissionless Ethereum Staking With 2.4 ETH Collateral Lido users will be able to launch validators with a bond of just 2.4 ETH.
• Microsoft Pushes Back Against Proposed Bitcoin Treasury Allocation The National Center for Public Policy Research called on Microsoft to invest at least 1% of its assets into BTC to hedge against inflation.
• U.S Government Hacked For $20M A hacker appears to have made off with $20 million from a compromised U.S. government wallet.

Thursday

• Mysterious Wallet Frontruns Truth Terminal’s Memecoin Shill The wallet acquired a position in the RUSSEL token on Base, minutes before the AI Agent tweeted about the token.
• Bitcoin Whales’ Holdings Have Surged 800% This Year The number of entities holding more than 1,000 BTC is at the highest level since early 2021.
• Pudgy Toys Launch in 2,000 U.S. Walgreens Stores The presence of the NFT-inspired physical toys continues to expand in retailers across the country.
• Crypto Exchange Kraken Plans to Launch an Ethereum Layer 2 Called Ink The centralized exchange plans to launch the L2 in 2025.
• Bitcoin Bounces to $68,000 Amid Global Market Rally The total cryptocurrency market cap currently stands at $2.42 trillion.
• Evan Van Ness's NFT Auction Lets Winner Tweet From His Account The NFT leverages Teleport, a protocol from Flashbots allowing third-parties to post from a user’s X account.
• Offchain Labs Launches 15-Minute Withdrawals For Arbitrum Orbit Chains Several leading Orbit chains including ApeChain and Xai are expected to Fast Withdrawals in the near future.
• 80% of Web3 Startups Launch on Ethereum and Solana Ethereum attracts 62% of new ventures, while Solana hosts 18%.

Wednesday

• Remember Farcaster? Activity on the SocialFi Dapp is Plummeting The platform has made less than $300,000 since July, and most days it earns less than $1,000.
• PumpFun Sells Over $6M Worth of Solana’s SOL PumpFun has sold a total of 503,343 SOL worth $78.7 million.
• GOAT Token Sparks Innovation in the Memecoin Trenches A16z’s Marc Andreessen spoke about the token and its potential impact on both crypto and AI.
• Verifying Transactions on Smartwatches: Vitalik Unveils Part 4 of Ethereum Roadmap In a new post, Ethereum’s chief scientist explained how verifying transactions could be made easier.
• Markets Slip as Bitcoin ETFs Record First Outflows in Two Weeks Open interest in Bitcoin futures now sits at $38.8 billion.
• Mantra Launches Mainnet of RWA-Focused L1 Users can now stake OM and bridge the token to qualify for future RWA airdrops.
• Scroll Backers Down 48% As FDVs of Airdropped Tokens Fall Scroll’s last funding round closed at a fully-diluted valuation of $1.8 billion.
• Arithmic Network AVS Promises Multi-Chain EigenLayer Staking EigenLayer’s AVS ecosystem has grown to span 19 projects since the start of the year.
• Gensler Defends SEC Crypto Crackdown and 90-Year-Old Securities Laws Gensler said the same laws developed in response to the financial crises of the 1920s are applicable to the web3 sector today.
• Avalanche Unveils Visa Debit Card Users can sign up for a waitlist to access the card.
• Buenos Aires Government Launches Decentralized ID QuarkID is now being rolled out via an app used by more than 3.6 million residents.

Tuesday

• Ordinals Marketplaces Battle to Offer Best Mempool Sniping Protection Magic Eden, Mintif, and Satflow are competing to launch mempool sniping protection features.
• SOL/ETH Ratio Hits New All-time High Solana continues to outperform as memecoin mania shows no signs of slowing down.
• Uniswap Faces Criticism after Launching Unichain Without DAO Approval Uniswap Labs launched a testnet for Unichain on Oct. 11.
• Human-like Typo By AI Millionaire Nukes Token Crypto Twitter started dumping their memecoins after Truth Terminal made a typo.
• Bitcoin Clings to $67,000 as Crypto Market Cap Drops 2% to $2.4 Trillion Over $190 million in liquidations were recorded across the crypto market in 24 hours.
• Movement Labs Leverages ERC-3643 For Compliant RWA Tokenization Movement Network will become the first non-EVM network to integrate ERC-3643.
• Sky To Consider Reverting Back To MakerDAO Branding Sky’s co-founder said the recent rebrand has caused confusion within its community.

Monday

• Is Saylorism Dead? Microstrategy CEO Goes 180 On His Bitcoin Stance Microstrategy’s chairman said people who self-custody are “paranoid crypto anarchists.”
• Vitalik Says 'The Scourge' Will Tackle Ethereum's Centralization Threats Ethereum’s “Scourge” aims to address issues associated with large entities capturing ETH staking rewards and Ethereum block production.
• Maple Finance Prepares for Syrup Token Launch The SYRUP token will be officially released on November 13.
• Apecoin and BAYC NFTs Rally on ApeChain Launch APE is up more than 100% in the past two days.
• Scroll to Airdrop SCR Tokens on October 22 The airdrop will distribute 5.5% of Scroll’s token supply to nearly 600,000 eligible wallets.
• Centrifuge Integrates Fireblocks RWA Custody The partnership makes Centrifuge available to Fireblocks’ 2,000 institutional counterparties.
• PumpFun Teases Token and Unveils 'Advance' Platform PumpFun confirmed it plans to airdrop a token to early users in the future.
• Crypto Markets Erase Weekend Gains as Rising Treasury Yields Dampen Risk Assets Bitcoin and Ethereum rallied over the weekend after the SEC approved options trading for Bitcoin ETFs.
• Blockchain Infra Provider Lava Network Unveils “Industry First” Incentive Structure Supported blockchains will gradually pay out $1 million in native tokens to Lava contributors.
• Ethereum Outperforms Bitcoin Despite Sluggish ETF Flows ETH is up 8% in the past two weeks versus BTC with 5%.

TRENDING

• Evan Van Ness's NFT Auction Lets Winner Tweet From His Account
• 80% of Web3 Startups Launch on Ethereum and Solana
• Remember Farcaster? Activity on the SocialFi Dapp is Plummeting
• PumpFun Sells Over $6M Worth of Solana’s SOL
• Verifying Transactions on Smartwatches: Vitalik Unveils Part 4 of Ethereum Roadmap
• Markets Slip as Bitcoin ETFs Record First Outflows in Two Weeks