Trump reiterates support for Bitcoin, Durov breaks silence after arrest, & Binance has barred CZ!

GM anon ☕🐺

In today’s Alpha Bytes👇

Trump vows to make US 'world capital of crypto,' picks Musk to lead government overhaul. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov vows to ‘Significantly Improve’ moderation of criminal activity after arrest. Meanwhile, Binance CEO says CZ is banned from managing or operating the exchange. Polymarket’s open interest soars past $100M as crypto enthusiasts bet big on presidential election.

BTC $56, 335 (-0.79%), ETH $2, 378 (-0.71%), SOL $130.23 (-1.18%)

Crypto News 📰 

• US prosecutors argue FTX’s Ryan Salame’s guilty plea didn’t stop investigation into partner

• Mastercard launches crypto debit card for self-custodial wallets in Europe with Mercuryo partnership

• NVIDIA $NVDA says "we have not been subpoenaed by the Department of Justice”

• Visa and Santander selected by Brazil’s central bank for a second phase of CBDC pilot

• Ethereum Foundation to release financial report, holds roughly $650M in main wallet: Justin Drake

• Christensen balances new Sky governance with user choice amid freeze function debate

• Ripple 100M XRP move sparks buzz as US SEC hints at filing appeal

• Ethereum exchange reserves fall to lowest levels since 2016 amid price volatility

• Pump.fun retakes lead over SunPump, Justin Sun turns to celebrity tokens

• Monochrome pushes for Ethereum ETF on Cboe Australia

• US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $211M in outflows, extending streak of negative flows

• JOJO Exchange integrates Chainlink data streams on Base mainnet

• Skyscanner integrates with Travala, enabling hotel bookings in over 100 cryptocurrencies

• Ether has underperformed Bitcoin by 44% since switch to proof-of-stake: CryptoQuant

• Bitcoin short-term holders’ unrealized losses emerge as market weak spot: Glassnode

• Bitcoin drives Morgan Stanley fund’s strategy with key positions in IBIT and MicroStrategy

• Aptos leads losses as crypto weakness continues; Coinbase shares fall to 7-month lows

• Coinbase custodies 2.27M BTC, representing 10.83% of Bitcoin’s supply

• DWF Labs reveals ‘overcollaterized’ synthetic stablecoin backed by Bitcoin and Ethereum

• DeFi and social dApps lead in monthly unique wallets for August – DappRadar

• Marathon digital hints at AI pivot following Bitcoin production slowdown in August

• Crypto payments firm BCB group has received takeover interest: Sources

• UK regulator says 87% of crypto registration applications failed to meet standards for approval

• WazirX hacker launders $10M through Tornado Cash

• A Crypto project's weird marketing 'Hack' riffed on infamous 1987 Chicago TV hijacking

• US crypto firms ramp up lobbying efforts, expenditures up 1386% over 7 years

• Telegram is driving crypto adoption, despite bad news

• Bitcoin miner ionic faces challenge from disgruntled shareholders

• IREN advances toward 50 EH/s target as August BTC production climbs

• Blockstream launches third series of security token providing bitcoin mining exposure

• Feds charge AI music maker for faking streams in $10M scheme

Airdrops🪂 

• EIGEN Season 2 Stakedrop - Claims go live on or before September 17, 2024

Project Updates 🔥 

• Telegram Game 'Catizen' Sets Token Launch Date as Pre-Market Trading Expands

• Bitcoin Liquid Staking Comes to Zest Protocol on Stacks With BTCz

• PixelRealm taps Neon EVM to bring Ethereum games to Solana

• @OMOSwapx has listed @puff_drgn $PUFF on #Mantle!

• @eatsleepyeet YEETBONDS Testnet app is LIVE

• Injective is introducing the tokenized index for BlackRock’s $BUIDL Fund

• @LiquityProtocol Liquity V2 codebase is now public! 

• @Infinity_VM - Enshrining Offchain Compute

• @renegade_fi - The first on-chain dark pool, is live on Arbitrum

• Kamino Lend V2 - Reshaping Lending on Solana

• @GMX_IO Introducing GMX Liquidity Vaults (GLV) - Now Live!

Threads 🧵 

• Thoughts on markets - @RunnerXBT

• Korean retail traders responsible for nearly 30% of the global crypto trading volume - @SynFuturesDefi

• Timeframes of VCs, liquid PMs and traders - @mrjasonchoi

• CT attention economy - @Galois_Capital

• Make DeFi Great Again: What's next after World Liberty Financial embraces @Aave? - @CurveCap

• Ethervista innovative model positive & negative - @arbusai

Launches 🚀 

• Socket launches the Socket Protocol Whitepaper

• Synthetix has introduced SNAXchain

Fundraise 💰

• 'Wall Street', 'American Psycho' Studio Raising Film Funding via Avalanche

• Morph and Foresight Ventures launch $20M ecosystem fund 

• @puffpaw_xyz (GameFi) - $6M Seed led by @Lemniscap

• @Balance_Games (GameFi) - $30M led by @a16zcrypto / Galaxy Interactive

• @VanillaFinance (DeFi) - $TBD Strategic investment from @Ventures_HTX

• @Arris_io (Social) - $TBD

That's a wrap for today!

Join the Crypto Pragmatist YouTube channel and enjoy the journey into the depths of the crypto world 👇