Treasury Secretary: "US Will Not Purchase More $BTC for Reserve"

️ On today's Top Picks:

Crypto News

• ⭐️ US Treasury Secretary Bessent says the US will not be buying additional Bitcoin $BTC; says the strategic BTC reserve will only be grown with law enforcement seizures.

• Coinbase $COIN completes acquisition of Deribit for ~$2.9B; includes $700M in cash and 11M shares of Coinbase Class A common stock.

• Circle $CRCL announces Arc, "an open Layer-1 blockchain purpose-built to drive the next chapter of financial innovation powered by stablecoins."

• Stripe to launch Tempo, payments-focused Layer-1 blockchain; Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang to lead Tempo as CEO.

• Google clarifies non-custodial wallets are NOT affected by new policy requiring crypto developers to obtain licenses before publishing apps on the Play Store.

• Justin Sun sues Bloomberg, alleging they intended to disclose “his highly confidential, sensitive, private, and proprietary financial information.”

• Do Kwon, Terraform co-founder, pleads guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud; to pay financial penalties of $19M and could face up to 12 years in prison.

• Digital Asset Investment Products saw $572M of inflows last week; Bitcoin $BTC ~$260M inflows, Ethereum $ETH ~$268M inflows, Solana $SOL ~$21.8M inflows, Ripple $XRP ~$18.4M inflows.

Alpha

• Monad confirms Mainnet launch in 2025; recently upgraded its Testnet with MonadBFT, reduced block times, & more.

• MetaMask to announce its stablecoin $mUSD as early as this week; to potentially launch by the end of August.

• Rainbow launches AppIconMarketCap, a website for Rainbow’s collection of NFT app icons; to launch new NFT app icons soon.

• Hey (Lens) to launch Hey mobile app soon; to launch early access for Hey Pro users next month.

• Etherscan launches Etherscan Points Beta & 10th Anniversary Campaign; earn points & redeem for rewards; Etherscan OG's can claim a 10th Anniversary Badge & one-time OG Points Reward.

• Introducing Anoma by HavAirdrops.

Airdrops

• Airdrops, Checkers, & Points by Olimpio.

• Spark launches $SPK Overdrive airdrop claim; users who staked their Ignition airdrop from July 29th to August 11th are eligible.

• ⭐️ Sapien to launch $SAPIEN TGE & airdrop on August 20th; Sapien points holders are eligible.

• SatLayer launches $SLAY airdrop claim; SatLayer rewards program participants, SatLayer community members, & more are eligible.

• Airdrop, Checkers, & Points (August 5th) by Olimpio.

• ICYMI Succinct launches $PROVE TGE & airdrop claim; Succinct community members, open-source developers, & more are eligible.

• ICYMI Towns launches $TOWNS TGE & airdrop claim; Towns users with activity between June 7th, 2024 & July 10th, 2025 are potentially eligible.

Finance News

• US July PPI inflation rises to 3.3%, above expectations of 2.5%; US Core PPI inflation rose to 3.7%, above expectations of 2.9%.

• ⭐️ US Federal Reserve ends supervisory program that monitored banks' crypto activity; the "Novel Activities Supervision Program" was announced in August 2023.

• Strategy $MSTR buys an additional 155 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$18M at ~$116,401 per BTC; now holds 628,946 BTC worth ~$74B.

• Metaplanet $3350.T buys an additional 518 Bitcoin $BTC for ~$61.4M at ~$118,519 per BTC: now holds 18,113 BTC worth ~$2B.

• Bitmine $BMNR increases Ethereum $ETH holdings to 1,150,263 ETH worth ~$5B; also expands its at-the-market equity program from $4.5B to $24.5B to buy more ETH.

• SharpLink $SBET reports Q2 2025 earnings; reports 728,804 Ethereum $ETH holdings worth ~$3B, $103M in net losses, $1.4M in revenue.

• Google $GOOG acquires 8% stake in TeraWulf $WULF; TeraWulf signs two 10-year HPC agreements with Fluidstack worth $3.7B.

Security and Exploits

• ⭐️ BtcTurk exploited for ~$48M due to exploit; crypto deposits and withdrawals suspended.

• Odin[.]fun exploited for ~$7M due to vulnerability; team working on plan to compensate affected users.

• Binance joins T3+, a collaboration program dedicated to combating illicit activities on the blockchain; jointly launched Tether, TRON, and TRM Labs.

• US Treasury sanctions Grinex, the successor to Garantex; US authorities charged two Garantex administrators & seized Garantex's domains in March 2025.

• Microsoft releases August 2025 security update; patches 111 security flaws across Windows, Office, Azure, & related products.

• Proton confirms gradual exit from Switzerland due to the Swiss government’s proposed mass surveillance ordinance; Proton has not specified the countries where the new infrastructure will be located.

• 6 Tools To Protect Your Wallet, Airdrops, & Sanity by Hawk Drops.

Token Unlocks

• Arbitrum $ARB / ~$47M / AUG 16th
• ZKsync $ZK / ~$11M / AUG 17th
• ApeCoin $APE / ~$9M / AUG 17th
• LayerZero $ZRO / ~$54M / AUG 20th
• Kaito $KAITO / ~$24M / AUG 20th
Sourced from Tokenomist

Funding

• Neon Machine (Shrapnel) raises $19.5M in funding led by Gala Games.

• ⭐️ Transak raises $16M in Strategic funding led by Tether & IDG Capital.

• USD AI raises $13.4M in Series A funding led by Framework Ventures.

• Mesh raises $9.5M in funding from several investors.

• Almanak raises $8.45M in funding from several investors.

• Hyperbeat raises $5.2M in Seed funding led by EtherFi Ventures & Electric Capital.

• HackQuest raises $4.1M in Pre-Series A funding led by Animoca Brands & Open Campus.

The Degen Farmer