💔Weekly Recap: Political Division Disrupts Crypto Community

Happy weekend Defiers!

The divisive political landscape is reverberating across web3. Crypto assets appear to rally in response to the failed assassination attempt on the former U.S. president, Donald Trump, with Trump-themed memecoins enjoying outsized gains.

Ethereum’s chief scientist, Vitalik Buterin, attracted mixed reactions after warning the crypto community against blindly supporting politicians proclaiming a sudden affiliation with web3. Also, Messari’s CEO stepped aside after attracting backlash over controversial posts, including regarding the attempted assassination.

It seems like Trump’s brush with death did nothing to change his recent pro-crypto stance as he announced plans to launch a fourth NFT collection.

Real-world asset (RWA) tokenization is continuing to attract leading TradFi institutions. Goldman Sachs plans to launch three tokenization pilots by the end of the year, BlackRock is supporting MakerDAO’s $1 billion RWA push, and Chainlink launched a digital asset sandbox for mainstream financial institutions.

Crypto assets posted a bullish week, with spot Bitcoin ETFs hosting more than inflows exceeding $700 million.

In other ETF news, the SEC approved the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust and ProShares Ethereum ETF. The move comes as analysts tip that spot Ether ETFs will enter the markets next week.

However, experts say that spot Solana ETFs are unlikely to receive regulatory approval, with analysts pointing to the absence of regulated SOL futures markets and the SEC’s assertion that SOL comprises a security in lawsuits against top U.S. crypto exchanges.

Polygon scheduled its long-awaited token migration for early September. POL will serve as the gas and staking token for the Polygon PoS chain moving forward, with plans for the token to also power Polygon’s Agglayer staking hub following its 2025 launch.

Veda surged past $1 billion in TVL, buoyed by the increasing adoption of EtherFi’s liquid vault. EtherFi also launched claims for its second airdrop, with Season 3 incentives also on offer until Sept. 14.

Base’s on-chain activity is surging after the Layer 2 launched a points-based incentive program as part of its on-chain summer campaign.

Plus, Ethereum’s top block builder is no longer censoring transactions, India’s WazirX exchange suffered a $230 million exploit, and Grayscale launched a decentralized AI fund.

Also, check out our podcast with the famed technologist, Benjamin Jones, the director of the Optimism Foundation, to learn about his Superchain thesis.

Enjoy!

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ALPHA INTEL

Symbiotic Restaking Guide

Our resident DeFi degens walk you through how to earn NURI tokens and Scroll’s points, “Marks,” by providing liquidity to the Nuri decentralized exchange.

Plus, our analysts share their in-depth technical analysis covering the latest price action and market moves.

PODCAST & INTERVIEWS

The Superchain Thesis: Scaling Ethereum with Optimism - A Deep Dive with Benjamin Jones

In this week’s podcast, Cami Russo was joined by Benjamin Jones, the director of the Optimism Foundation. Optimism’s OP Mainnet is the third-largest Layer 2 network with a more than $6.4 billion TVL, while Optimism is currently working to build out a multi-network ecosystem dubbed the Superchain.

The discussion explores Optimism’s Superchain thesis, the future of zero-knowledge proofs, Optimism’s retro funding rounds, and the end goal for Ethereum scaling.

Crossing The Chasm With Jeremy Allaire | Circle, USDC, Stablecoins, CBDCs

The Defiant spoke to Jeremy Allaire, the co-founder and CEO of Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin. The conversation explores real-world assets, stablecoin regulation, and Circle’s journey since 2013.

NEAR Protocol Wants To Fix Crypto's AI Problem | Co-Founder Illia Polosukhin

The Defiant sat down with Illia Polosukhin, the co-founder of Near Protocol, at the EthCC conference in Brussels. Polosukhin shares his insights into web3’s growth, Near’s AI pivot, and the project’s vision for the next five years.

VIDEO & EXPLAINERS

Fuel The Future: How To Earn With Fuel's Points Program

This week’s sponsored explainer video explored Fuel Network, a rollup operating system for Ethereum, which recently launched a points program ahead of its Q3 mainnet launch.

Friday

• Binance Launches Proof-of-KYC Token That Can Be Used Across Platforms The Binance Account Bound Token (BABT) is non-transferrable and can be revoked by Binance.
• Microsoft Goes Down But Crypto Doesn’t Care While outages are reported across industries, crypto websites and blockchains are up and running.
• Messari CEO Ryan Selkis Steps Down After a Slew of Controversial Social Media Posts After 6.5 years as CEO, Selkis is passing the reins onto co-founder Eric Turner.
• Scroll Halts Chain Finalization After $7 Million Rho Market Exploit The exploiter has sent the funds to a multi-sig wallet after what experts presume to be a white hat hack.
• ZetaChain Aims to Push Cross-Chain Interoperability Envelope With Gateway Upgrade Gateway allows users to access dApps hosted on supported third-party networks from ZetaChain.
• Crypto Markets Dip as Traders Speculate On Biden Withdrawal Bitcoin ETFs attracted $860 million of inflows this week.
• Copper Launches Support For Internet Computer’s ICRC and SNS Tokens Copper integrated support for ckBTC, a Bitcoin-backed token on Internet Computer.
• Base’s Onchain Summer Heats Up Activity on Coinbase’s Layer 2 network has spiked since the company introduced points into its ‘Onchain Summer’ campaign.

Thursday

• Ether.Fi Releases Season 2 of its ETHFI Token Airdrop The liquid restaking protocol is now starting the third phase of its campaign to distribute $ETHFI to users.
• Top Builder On Ethereum is No Longer Censoring Ethereum's censored transactions now account for 35% of the total.
• Crypto Markets Hold Firm as Tech Stocks Crater Bitcoin is consolidating around $65,000 despite the Nasdaq posting its worst day since December 2022.
• Chainlink Launches Digital Asset Sandbox For Financial Institutions Chainlink aims to accelerate mainstream institutions’ ability to launch pilots and proofs-of-concepts exploring digital assets.
• VeWorld Wallet Incorporates Apple Pay Through Transak Integration The partnership aims to make crypto more accessible to VeChain users.
• Polygon Spearheads Next-Gen Loyalty Programs in Collaboration with Google Cloud and Accenture The firms aim to provide mainstream brands with tokenized rewards programs.
• SEC Approves ProShares and Grayscale Mini Spot Ether ETFs Experts say spot Ether ETFs will begin trading on July 23.
• Indian Crypto Exchange WazirX Halts Withdrawals After $230 Million Breach On-chain data shows the hacker selling various cryptocurrencies for Ether.
• Polygon Schedules MATIC to POL Token Migration For September 4 POL will immediately serve as the gas and staking token on the Polygon PoS network.

Wednesday

• Hyperliquid’s Upcoming Airdrop has Users Flocking to the Ecosystem Hyperliquid’s total value locked and active users are rising.
• Ethereum Creator Vitalik Buterin Says Don’t Choose Politicians Just Because They Are ‘Pro-Crypto’ Buterin called for users to stand with the underlying goals behind cryptocurrencies and not just “number go up.”
• Analysts Say Solana Spot ETFs Are Still a Long Shot Experts say uncertainty on whether SOL is a security and its lack of regulated futures may limit the chances of a Solana ETF approval.
• Grayscale Launches Decentralized AI Fund The fund will provide accredited investors exposure to DeFi’s artificial intelligence sector.
• StarkWare Verifies Zero-Knowledge Proof on Bitcoin’s Test Network The milestone was enabled by Satoshi-era code called OP_CAT that is currently undergoing testing on Bitcoin’s Signet.
• Crypto Markets Rally as Spot Bitcoin ETFs Attract Major Inflows The week already hosted spot Bitcoin ETF flows worth $722 million, including the highest daily inflow in a month.
• Arca Taps Securitize To List Tokenized U.S. Treasury Fund The move comes after the market cap of tokenized treasuries grew 140% since the start of the year.
• Hermetica Launches Bitcoin-backed Synthetic Dollar USDh leverages the Runes protocol and currently offers a 12% staking yield.
• Veda Introduces Multi-Chain Yield Infrastructure After TVL Roars Past $1B Veda surpassed a $1B TVL less than four months after launching.
• Trump to Launch Fourth NFT Collection Because ‘The People Want Him To’ The former President acknowledged that he once called cryptocurrency a "fraud.”

Tuesday

• Real World Asset Sector Outperforms on Growing TradFi Tokenization Effort RWAs are surging driven by Goldman Sachs’ tokenization initiative, and MakerDAO’s plan to invest $1 billion in the sector.
• Crypto Markets Surge After BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Calls Bitcoin ‘Digital Gold’ Larry Fink's comment on Bitcoin sent ripples through the crypto world.
• Scroll TVL Soars Past $1 Billion The Ethereum Layer 2 network is outperforming the rest of the sector, driven by its ‘Session One’ points program.
• ‘Mempool Sniping’ Plagues Bitcoin Ordinals Ordinals and Runes traders are falling victim to onchain front-running.
• Starknet Integrates Pyth Network as Oracle Provider Developers can now access over 500 real-time price feeds sourced from financial institutions.
• Pixelverse to Launch PIXFI Token on TON Network Pixelverse reported 50 million new players in June for PixelTap on Telegram.
• Pendle Launches New Pools On Arbitrum Network Pendle also partnered with the restaking protocol Karak Network.

Monday

• Trump-related Tokens Soar After Ex President Survived Shooting at Rally Trump’s digital trading cards nearly doubled in price and volume increased tenfold in the hours after he was shot at.
• BlackRock’s BUIDL to Participate in MakerDAO’s $1 Billion RWA Push Kicking off on August 12, the Spark Tokenization Grand Prix is part of MakerDAO's Endgame strategy.
• Crypto Markets Rally After Assassination Attempt On Donald Trump Optimism is also driven by expectations that the SEC will approve spot Ether ETFs this week.
• Matcha Unveils New Price Engine For Whales Trading on DEXs Traders will have access to “best routes” when executing trades up to $10 million.
• South Korea's Ruling Party Proposes to Delay Crypto Taxes by Three Years The Asian nation awaits the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s decision on the proposed tax delay to Jan. 1, 2028.
• Bloomberg Analyst Says Ethereum Spot ETF to Launch July 23 The SEC is reportedly asking for final S-1 applications by Wednesday.

TRENDING

• Arca Taps Securitize To List Tokenized U.S. Treasury Fund
• Hermetica Launches Bitcoin-backed Synthetic Dollar
• Trump to Launch Fourth NFT Collection Because ‘The People Want Him To’
• Real World Asset Sector Outperforms on Growing TradFi Tokenization Effort
• Crypto Markets Surge After BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Calls Bitcoin ‘Digital Gold’
• Starknet Integrates Pyth Network as Oracle Provider
• DeXe Partners with HOT to Empower Telegram with DAO Creation
• Pixelverse to Launch PIXFI Token on TON Network
• ‘Mempool Sniping’ Plagues Bitcoin Ordinals
• Pendle Launches New Pools On Arbitrum Network
• Scroll TVL Soars Past $1 Billion
• Bloomberg Analyst Says Ethereum Spot ETF to Launch July 23
• Trump-related Tokens Soar After Ex President Survived Shooting at Rally
• Matcha Unveils New Price Engine For Whales Trading on DEXs