Praxis Raises $525M for Crypto City

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ Cosmos Staking Module was developed by North Korean agents; Cosmos Cofounder blames Iqlusion's Zaki Manian.

• Bitcoin Miner sues local council to retrieve hard drive containing ~$500m of Bitcoin; hard drive was buried in landfill in 2013.

• Base surpasses Arbitrum $ARB in TVL becoming Ethereum's largest rollup.

• Grayscale seeks to convert its Digital Large Cap Fund into an ETF; fund composed of $BTC, $ETH, $SOL, $XRP, & $AVAX.

• Ripple $XRP partners with Bitstamp, MoonPay, & more for its upcoming Ripple USD $RLUSD stablecoin launch.

• Canary Capital Group files to launch first Litecoin $LTC ETF; previously filed to launch an $XRP ETF.

• Sui claims an infrastructure partner sold $400m of $SUI; refutes allegations of it being an insider, employee, or investor.

• Tiktok accused of operating as an unlicensed crypto exchange in the UK due to its virtual currency.

• UAE's Central Bank approves the launch of an AED-pegged stablecoin.

• Italy to raise capital gains tax on Bitcoin investments from 26% to 42%.

Alpha

• Fuel introduces Fuel Ignition as it launches Mainnet.

• PumpBTC unveils PumpBera NFT mint details; mint begins October 18th.

• Mezo posts "TESTNET LOADING ███████▒▒▒ " on X.

• ⭐️ Astria posts "Mainnet soon" on X.

• Caldera extends deadline for Meet the Metalayer campaign to October 18th.

• Union posts "Loading: Testnet-9 ████████░░ 80%" on X.

• Towns, a decentralized & permissionless group chat app officially launches.

• Chainbase updates Zircon Roadmap; Testnet planned for Q2 2025 & Mainnet planned for Q4 2025.

• Gitcoin announces Gitcoin Grants 22; begins October 23rd.

Airdrops

• Tea Protocol Airdrop Strategy by Earndrop.

• WalletConnect Token $WCT airdrop coming soon; few days left to register.

• ICYMI Zyfi - The Future of Paymaster on ZKsync by Earndrop.

• ICYMI Weekly News Recap by Earndrop.

• ICYMI Hyperliquid establishes Hyper Foundation; $HYPE coming soon.

Finance News

• Marathon Digital $MARA secures $200m line of credit; to be used to capitalize on strategic opportunities & for other purposes.

• MetaPlanet buys another ~$6.8m of Bitcoin; total holdings now worth ~$56m.

• Bit Digital $BTBT acquires HPC data center for $46m; maintains an asset-light approach to its bitcoin mining operations.

• China begins enforcing tax on overseas investment gains.

• ⭐️ Global Public Debt to exceed $100 Trillion this year; could reach 115% of Global GDP in 3 years.

• Goldman Sachs' $GS Saudi Arabia CEO to resign.

• ASML $ASML tumbles after it warns of slower market recovery than expected.

• Intel $INTC to lay off 1.3k workers as it reduces workforce by 15k company-wide.

Security and Exploits

• SlowMist publishes Weekly Security Report; highlights an increase in phishing attacks.

• ⭐️ Radiant Capital exploited for ~$50m due to multisig compromise.

• Hong Kong Police arrest 27 linked to crypto romance scams; ~$46m from defrauded individuals.

• GitHub releases Enterprise Server security updates patching vulnerability that allowed unauthorized access.

• MacOS Sequoia discovered to leak network traffic due to firewall bug.

• Cryptographic Vulnerabilities found in several end-to-end encrypted cloud storage services.

• CitizenLab warns of cryptographic vulnerabilities in WeChat's MMTLS encryption protocol.

• Microsoft Internet Explorer zero-day leveraged by threat group TA-RedAnt; impacts applications that use IE's browser engine.

Token Unlocks

• Starknet $STRK / ~$28m / OCT 15
• Eigenlayer $EIGEN / ~$37m / OCT 15
• Ethena $ENA / ~$5m / OCT 16
• Arbitrum $ARB / ~$51m / OCT 16
• Cardano $ADA / ~$6m / OCT 17
• Echelon Prime $PRIME / ~$6m / OCT 17
• Bitget $BGB / ~$6m / OCT 17
• ApeCoin $APE / ~$11m / OCT 17
• Pixels $PIXEL / ~$8m / OCT 19

Funding

• ⭐️ Praxis Society raises $525m in funding.

• Blockstream raises $210m in funding led by Fulgur Ventures.

• Azra Games raises $42m in Series A funding led by Pantera Capital.

• Bitnomial raises $25m in Series C funding led by Ripple.

• Opacity Network raises $12m in funding led by Archetype & Bryer Capital.

• Mento Labs raises $10m in funding.

• Predicate raises $7m in funding.

• Vue Protocol raises $6m in Pre-Seed & Seed funding.

• Pell Network raises $3m in Pre-Seed funding led by Halo Capital, Mirana Ventures, & Paper Ventures.

• Blockcast raises $2.85m in funding led by Lattice.

• The Arena raises $2m in Pre-Seed funding.

• Hermetica raises $1.7m in Seed funding led by UTXO Management.

• Lombard Finance raises $1m in funding from Binance Labs.

• Bracket Labs raises an undisclosed amount in funding from Zero Seven One Labs.

The Degen Farmer