Gm☀️

Hello there, August! July proved to be a buzzing month in the crypto world. We had Ripple showing the SEC who's boss, altcoins taking a moonshot, and let's not forget our own little surprise - DOUGH token being airdropped to over 100 of our top referrers.

Now, as we step into this new month, we can't wait to see what our vibrant community is going to pull off. So, let's gear up for an exciting ride, shall we?

📈 MARKETS: PAST WEEK

In the world of crypto and stocks, things have been relatively quiet lately. Most are idling along, with only the Nasdaq showing a significant uptick from last week.

S&P 500 just wrapped up July with its fifth-straight monthly gain, its best streak since 2021.

However, a word of caution - August and September are historically the underperformers for these indexes. Let's see if they can buck the trend this time around.

DONUT HOLES

Hole lotta news…

• Recession: the Fed might be able to pull off a miracle

• Avalanche launches $50M tokenization initiative

• Binance gets operational license in Dubai

• Gucci reveals rewards for its NFT holders: a Gucci bifold wallet or a Gucci x 10KTF duffle bag

• Optimism hits ATH for daily transactions, thanks to Worldcoin

• Whale reclaims $74M in ETH locked in ENS auction

• Uber to accept crypto payments

MEME COINS

Crypto millionaire… for a day

This guy went from $500 → $2M → $120K—all within 24 hours! The culprit behind this wild ride? A meme coin named BALD.

What’s the hype?

Do you recall the Base blockchain that Coinbase debuted earlier this year? Seems like it's become a hotspot for meme coin enthusiasts to feed their frenzy. Coins like BALD, COIN, and BASED have seen their value shoot through the roof, from 100x to an insane 10,000x just over the weekend.

At the eye of this storm was BALD, which saw its market cap balloon to $90 million after it soared by 4,500,000% in a day.

Tale of a guy called cheatcoiner…

This famous trader managed to buy 2% of the total market cap of BALD with just $500 early on. He even announced on X, “Not touching the bags until $100M market cap.”

The next day, our man woke up to find $1.5 million in his wallet. By the day after that, he was getting his champagne ready as BALD teetered on the brink of his $100M goal.

Then - plot twist. BALD turned out to be a classic rug pull (aka crypto scam). Its crafty devs drained an alleged 11,000 ETH worth $20M from the liquidity pool, and BALD's price took a 90% nosedive from 9 cents to just 1 cent. Ouch.

But they should’ve seen it coming

Honestly, we expected better from a seasoned trader like cheatcoiner.eth. We've talked before about how to easily spot the red flags with meme coins. Although the Base blockchain is not compatible with these tools yet, you can still look out for liquidity rug pull risks by checking the token contract on the block explorer. Stay smart, folks!

SECURITY

$100M hacked from Curve Finance

The well-known stablecoin-focused DeFi protocol, Curve Finance, shared a worrying update: a cyber attacker might have stolen up to $100 million worth of crypto from their vaults. Although the final figure hasn't been confirmed, whispers suggest a possible loss around $47 million.

Naturally, this bit of news had some fallout. The price of Curve Finance's governance token, CRV, took a nosedive of over 20%. On top of that, the Total Value Locked (TVL) in Curve Finance, essentially the amount of funds under their management, shrunk dramatically, from $4 billion to $2 billion.

Adding fuel to the fire, Curve Finance's founder, Michael Egorov, has used CRV tokens as collateral to secure loans totaling $168 million from different DeFi protocols. If the CRV price continues to sink, we could see a lot more CRV tokens flooding the market, potentially leading to further price declines.

This one is a pretty big deal, even though hacks are pretty common in crypto. Curve Finance is no minor player in the DeFi space – it's one of the top 10 dapps in terms of TVL.

REGULATIONS

COIN drops 10% following absurd SEC request

The SEC demanded Coinbase to halt trading for all cryptocurrencies except Bitcoin, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong recently revealed. In his interview with Financial Times, Armstrong expressed his confusion over the SEC's request, suggesting that limiting trade to Bitcoin alone would “essentially end the crypto industry in the US.”

The SEC has rebuffed these allegations, stating they did not officially ask Coinbase to delist any crypto assets. Nevertheless, Coinbase (COIN) stocks took a steep 10% drop after Armstrong’s interview.

Given the SEC's past conduct, Armstrong's accusations may hold some merit. The SEC previously have sued Binance and Coinbase, during which they named multiple crypto assets as securities. Gary Gensler, the SEC Chair, has been cited as saying that "everything other than Bitcoin is a security” and that the US “doesn’t need crypto”.

🐦 TWEET OF THE WEEK

If you’re a visual leaner and want to know about how our economy is doing right now, this is a must-watch.

You can also watch it on YouTube.

💰 REWARD QUIZ

Quiz yourself, earn rewards

Did you learn something new today? Let’s see if you were paying attention. Buckle up for a 20-second quiz—we might just have a little treat for ya—just for trying!

Afraid of getting questions wrong?

Yes, the shiny 100 points are awesome, but remember, it's about getting your hands dirty and giving it a go. If you get something wrong? They stick in your memory longer, which means you learn more.

So, hop on board with the rest of our brave quiz-takers. Remember, it's ok to score a zero!

Alright, that's a wrap for now. If you made it to here, let us know by voting below👇.

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