In a significant development, the Ethereum Foundation has pledged to match up to $500,000 in donations for the legal defense of Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash, who was recently found guilty of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitter. This case underscores the complex legal landscape surrounding the use of cryptocurrencies, particularly those designed to provide privacy. It also raises questions about the potential criminalization of code development and the application of financial crime statutes to developers.
Meanwhile, Jack Dorsey's Block Inc. continues to accumulate Bitcoin, signaling a strategic commitment to the cryptocurrency. The company's total Bitcoin investment now stands at $1.15 billion, demonstrating the growing institutional interest in digital assets. Block's steady accumulation strategy and integration of crypto across multiple business lines highlight the increasing acceptance of cryptocurrencies in the mainstream financial sector.
In another development, the proposed $9 billion all-stock sale of Core Scientific to AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave has faced opposition from Core Scientific's largest active shareholder, Two Seas Capital. The hedge fund argues that the sale undervalues Core Scientific and exposes its shareholders to significant economic risk due to the volatility of CoreWeave's stock. This situation underscores the need for careful consideration of deal structures and valuations in the crypto industry.
President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at ending discriminatory banking practices against the cryptocurrency industry is a significant move that could enhance the regulatory environment for crypto firms. This order could potentially boost the growth of the industry by ensuring fair access to financial services and eliminating unjustified account closures and disruptions.
Finally, Chainlink's launch of an onchain treasury designed to accumulate its native token, LINK, is an innovative step towards ensuring the long-term sustainability of the Chainlink Network. This move also highlights the growing trend of blockchain projects leveraging their native tokens to fund development and incentivize network participation.
The following article summaries have been sourced from Decrypt, CryptoSlate, NewsBTC, and Crypto Briefing. Each summary includes a direct link to the original source.
The Ethereum Foundation has pledged to match up to $500,000 in donations for the legal defense of Roman Storm, co-founder of Tornado Cash. Storm was recently found guilty of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitter, a federal charge that could potentially criminalize code development. The jury, however, remained undecided on separate charges of money laundering and sanctions evasion. The Free Pertsev & Storm legal aid organization has emphasized the need for continued funding, warning that Storm could face up to 5 years in jail if his appeal fails, and potentially decades if the government decides to retry the unresolved counts.
Storm's legal issues arise from his involvement in Tornado Cash, a coin mixer that enables users to conceal crypto transactions by pooling funds with others. The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the protocol in August 2022, alleging that $7 billion had been laundered through it since 2019, including frequent use by North Korea's Lazarus Group hackers. While prosecutors portrayed Storm as profiting from "hiding dirty money for criminals," his defense argued that Tornado Cash was intended as a privacy tool for regular users, not specifically for illegal activities. The verdict has been seen as a troubling precedent, testing the limits of applying financial crime statutes to code developers.
Jack Dorsey's Block Inc. continued its Bitcoin accumulation strategy in Q2, adding 108 BTC to its corporate treasury holdings, bringing the total to 8,692 BTC. The company's total Bitcoin investment is now valued at $1.15 billion, with $2.14 billion in revenue generated from Bitcoin sales through Cash App. Block reported a total revenue of $6.05 billion in Q2, a 1.5% increase from Q1's $5.96 billion, while gross profit rose 8.2% to $2.54 billion from $2.33 billion. The company also recognized a $212.2 million gain on Bitcoin remeasurement during the quarter.
Block's Q2 Bitcoin purchase, with a cost basis of $11 million, continues the company's steady accumulation strategy. The company had previously accumulated approximately 207 BTC in Q1, with a combined cost basis of $20.6 million for both quarters. Block has integrated crypto across multiple business lines, including plans to enable Bitcoin payments through its Square merchant network and the development of Bitcoin mining hardware through its Proto division. Block shares jumped 6% in after-hours trading following the report’s release, and the fintech company was added to the S&P 500 index last month.
Core Scientific's largest active shareholder, Two Seas Capital, is opposing the proposed $9 billion all-stock sale of the company to AI infrastructure provider CoreWeave. Two Seas Capital, which holds a 6.3% stake in Core Scientific, has described the offer as "inadequate" and disadvantageous to existing shareholders. The hedge fund argues that the sale "materially undervalues" Core Scientific and leaves its shareholders exposed to significant economic risk due to the uncollared structure of the deal and the volatility of CoreWeave's stock.
Two Seas Capital has expressed disappointment at the decision to sell at an "inadequate valuation," and claims that the deal unfairly favors CoreWeave at the expense of Core Scientific shareholders. The hedge fund points out that Core Scientific's stock fell by 30% in the days following the announcement of the transaction, reflecting wider investor concern. The deal, announced last month, pegs each Core Scientific share to 0.1235 of a CoreWeave share, which at the time implied a value of about $20.4 per share. However, CoreWeave's stock has since fallen by between 26% and 30%, reducing the effective valuation to just over $13 per share.
The deal's terms have come under increased scrutiny due to this drop, with some investors highlighting patterns seen in other contested all-stock mergers. Jeffrey Emanuel, founder and CEO of blockchain infrastructure firm Pastel Network, suggests that investors against a stock transaction would prefer more of the consideration to be in the form of cash or a less volatile security, or a more favorable merger ratio. However, he believes CoreWeave would likely be unwilling to make these concessions, as it is in their interest to use their inflated stock as a currency. A shareholder vote on the deal is expected later this year, which could add volatility to both companies' shares.
On August 7, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at ending what his administration has termed as discriminatory banking practices against the cryptocurrency industry. The order prevents federal regulators from using "reputational risk" as a basis for influencing banks' decisions to work with legal businesses, a practice that has allegedly led to abrupt account closures, payroll disruptions, and loss of financial access for law-abiding crypto firms. This move directly challenges what critics have labeled "Operation Choke Point 2.0," an informal regulatory pressure campaign that discourages banks from servicing digital asset companies, even those that comply with existing laws.
The term "Operation Choke Point 2.0" is a reference to a 2010s-era Department of Justice initiative that aimed to cut off banking access for industries considered high-risk for fraud, including firearms and payday lending. However, the contemporary version has primarily targeted the crypto industry. Since early 2023, several firms have reported unexplained debanking, often due to vague risk concerns rather than specific compliance violations. This unfriendly environment has created uncertainty for both startups and institutional players, hindering growth and undermining regulatory credibility in the US. Trump's order aligns with recent actions by the Federal Reserve, FDIC, and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, all of which have pledged to stop evaluating banks based on reputational factors. It also aligns with legislation currently under discussion in Congress, which calls for stricter limits on how regulators supervise politically sensitive or emerging industries.
Chainlink has launched the Chainlink Reserve, an onchain treasury designed to accumulate its native token, LINK, using revenue from both enterprise clients and blockchain services. The initiative is aimed at supporting the long-term sustainability of the Chainlink Network by converting off-chain and on-chain payments into LINK through its recently expanded Payment Abstraction infrastructure. In its early launch phase, the Reserve has already accumulated over $1 million worth of LINK, with no withdrawals planned for several years, positioning it as a long-term asset base to fund future development and network incentives.
Chainlink’s Payment Abstraction allows users to pay for services in a variety of tokens, including gas tokens, stablecoins, or even fiat, with all payments programmatically converted into LINK. This system now extends to large-scale enterprise integrations, enabling corporations to pay off-chain while still contributing to the LINK economy. The mechanism facilitates conversions using Chainlink’s own infrastructure, CCIP, Automation, and Price Feeds, alongside Uniswap V3. As demand for Chainlink’s services rises, particularly among major banks and capital markets institutions building tokenized asset infrastructure, the volume of converted payments is expected to increase.
The Chainlink Reserve operates as an Ethereum smart contract and includes a multi-day timelock for added security. A public dashboard is available at reserve.chain.link, offering transparency into its holdings and activity. The Chainlink Reserve complements the protocol’s broader economic framework, which includes usage-based fees, staking-secured revenue sharing, and a Build program that supports early-stage projects in exchange for token commitments. With over $80 billion in value secured across over 60 blockchains and more than 2,000+ oracle feeds, Chainlink remains the dominant provider of decentralized data infrastructure. The Chainlink Reserve is intended to ensure this position strengthens as the next wave of blockchain adoption, driven by tokenized real-world assets and stablecoins, unfolds.
In July, the non-fungible token (NFT) market experienced a significant resurgence, surpassing decentralized finance (DeFi) in terms of user activity, according to a report by DappRadar. The data showed that NFT trading volume increased by 96%, reaching $530 million, despite the total number of transactions falling by 4%. This suggests a shift in buyer behavior, with fewer NFTs being traded but at much higher prices. The average NFT sale price more than doubled, rising from $52 in June to $105 in July. Platforms catering to power users and creators, such as Blur and OpenSea, saw the most growth during this period.
While NFTs were making headlines, DeFi also continued to grow. The total value of assets locked (TVL) in DeFi increased by over 30%, reaching $259 billion by the end of July. The sector even reached a new all-time high of $270 billion on July 28, driven by growing user demand and fresh liquidity injection across lending, trading, and tokenized assets. A notable trend in DeFi was the rise of tokenized stocks, with wallet interactions increasing substantially. Ethereum continued to lead DeFi, commanding $166 billion in TVL, far surpassing Solana’s $23 billion.
Keshav, a senior writer at NewsBTC, has been with the platform since June 14, 2021. He has a diverse writing background, having explored various niches, including fiction. However, his longest stint has been in the cryptocurrency industry. Keshav holds a bachelor's degree in Physics from the University of Delhi (DU), one of India's premier institutes. His original plan was to pursue a career in Physics, but the onset of COVID-19 led him to shift his focus. The move to online classes provided him with the opportunity to explore other interests.
Keshav's writing career began as a hobby and a way to earn some extra cash. However, he soon found himself handling real projects and decided to pursue writing as a full-time career. Despite his focus on writing, Keshav maintains his passion for Physics and plans to pursue a master's degree in the field for personal interest. He developed an interest in blockchain and its concepts in 2020 and has since incorporated on-chain analysis into his NewsBTC pieces. Keshav values clarity and consistency in his work and strives to explain the indicators he discusses in detail.
Outside of his professional life, Keshav is an avid football fan and player, an anime enthusiast, and a video game player. He has even self-taught Japanese to enjoy untranslated anime and games and used this skill for Japanese-to-English translation jobs during the early days of the pandemic. Keshav is also committed to fitness, focusing on agility and acceleration-related workouts due to their relevance in football, and follows a traditional strength-based gym program to maintain overall fitness.
Tron (TRX) has seen a significant rise in its price over the past month, with a nearly 20% increase in the past 30 days and a 1.5% gain in the last 24 hours. This growth comes amidst an increase in on-chain activity, largely driven by the use of the TRON network for Tether (USDT) transactions. This has positioned TRON as a major player in the stablecoin infrastructure space. According to Arab Chain, a contributor at CryptoQuant, TRON processed over 8.29 million USDT transactions in the week ending August 3, 2025, highlighting the diversity of transaction sizes across the network.
The distribution of these transactions underscores TRON's appeal to various user groups. Mid-sized transactions, ranging from $101 to $1,000, accounted for the largest proportion at 38.66%, indicating usage by freelancers, online vendors, and remittance users. Larger transactions suggest participation by institutional traders, high-net-worth individuals, and potentially corporate entities. The analyst also noted a decrease in transactions below $10, suggesting a shift away from micro-payments or testing activity towards practical use cases.
The use of TRON for real-world settlement purposes is further supported by its infrastructure, which facilitates low-cost, high-volume stablecoin transactions. This makes TRON a key player in enabling digital commerce, payroll systems, and cross-border payments. CryptoQuant analyst Burak Kesmeci linked TRX's recent momentum to the passage of the GENIUS Act by the US Congress on July 18, 2025, which provides a clearer legal foundation for dollar-backed digital assets. Following the passage of the Act, TRON quickly expanded its footprint, with approximately $1 billion worth of new USDT minted on the TRON network, increasing TRX's share of the total circulating USDT supply to over 83 billion out of 163 billion. This development further solidifies TRON's position as the leading blockchain for stablecoin transfers.
The article from NewsBTC provides an in-depth profile of Aayush Jindal, a highly regarded figure in the financial markets with over 15 years of experience in Forex and cryptocurrency trading. Jindal is recognized for his exceptional skills in technical analysis and chart interpretation, which have made him a trusted advisor to investors worldwide. His background as a software engineer has also been instrumental in his career, enabling him to use advanced tools and algorithms to optimize trading strategies and navigate the volatile financial markets.
Jindal's roles extend beyond finance and technology. He is the director of a leading IT company, where he leads initiatives to drive digital innovation and transformation. Despite his professional commitments, Jindal values work-life balance, often traveling and exploring different cultures. His journey to success is characterized by a relentless pursuit of excellence and continuous learning. His passion for analyzing markets and identifying profitable opportunities amidst volatility sets him apart as an industry leader. His expertise, integrity, and enthusiasm for the markets serve as a guiding light in the uncertain world of finance.
Stephen Miran, a known Bitcoin advocate and current chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), has been nominated by President Donald Trump to serve as a temporary governor for the Federal Reserve Board. Miran is set to fill the seat vacated by Adriana Kugler, who is stepping down. The nomination is pending Senate confirmation, which is not expected to occur until September. If confirmed, Miran will serve until January 31, 2026, completing the remainder of Kugler's term.
Miran has been a vocal supporter of pro-crypto innovation and has criticized excessive financial regulations. He has also backed President Trump's economic policies, including the use of tariffs to reduce trade deficits and stimulate growth. Miran has downplayed the inflation risks associated with tariffs, distinguishing him from more cautious Federal Reserve officials. Regarding digital assets, Miran views cryptocurrency as a potential driver for economic expansion, particularly under the Trump administration. He has previously stated that crypto could play a significant role in innovation and triggering another economic boom under the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump has issued an executive order aimed at preventing financial institutions from debanking based on political, religious, or lawful business activities. The order is designed to ensure fair access to financial services for all Americans by eliminating discriminatory debanking practices and enforcing objective, risk-based banking policies. Federal banking regulators, such as the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Federal Reserve (Fed), are required to remove "reputational risk" language from their guidance, manuals, and policies, which has been used in the past to justify cutting off lawful but controversial clients.
The executive order also addresses banking restrictions faced by crypto companies. It instructs federal regulators to review and remediate any discriminatory policies. The Treasury Secretary is tasked with developing a comprehensive strategy to combat debanking activities, and regulators are instructed to review financial institutions for discriminatory policies and take remedial actions, including potential fines or consent decrees. The order also directs the Small Business Administration to push for the reinstatement of clients previously denied services due to unlawful debanking. The move comes in response to several reported incidents, including a major bank's denial of ticket-payment processing for a Republican event and the flagging of transactions with certain companies or using certain terms without evidence of criminal activity.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs have agreed to withdraw their appeals in the XRP litigation, marking the end of a significant phase in their legal battle. The district court's ruling that XRP sales on public exchanges are not securities transactions will remain in effect. The decision to dismiss the appeals follows a final judgment in the Southern District of New York that imposed a $125 million civil penalty on Ripple. The SEC had appealed the ruling to challenge the court's finding that XRP sales on public exchanges and certain token distributions did not violate securities laws, while Ripple cross-appealed the court’s decision holding it liable for unregistered institutional sales.
The SEC stated that the stipulation "resolves the Commission’s civil enforcement action" against Ripple and its two executives. With the underlying district court judgment still in force and no further litigation pending in the case, the matter now moves into the enforcement phase. Ripple must pay the penalty within the required timeframe and comply with the injunction's terms. Once payment is made and no motions remain, the district court will administratively close the matter, and the SEC will treat the enforcement action as resolved. This marks the formal closure of one of the highest-profile crypto enforcement actions in history.
