OVERVIEW

Yup. August Is A Mean SOB. 😡

Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap:

And here’s a look at crypto’s total market and altcoin market cap charts:

NEWS
Grayscale’s Fifth Trust Conversion Request Of 2025: Avalanche 🏔️ 

Grayscale filed to convert it’s AVAX trust into an ETF today. 🔄 

Since the beginning of 2025, Grayscale has filed to convert a big chunk of it’s crypto trusts into ETFs. AVAX is the fifth request to convert. The others are:

• XRP - filed in January

• Solana - filed in January

• Litecoin - Filed in March-ish?

• Dogecoin - August

Earlier in July, the SEC did approve for Grayscale’s Digital Large Cap (GDLC, made up of BTC, ETH, XRP, SOL, and ADA) to make the switch to an ETF, but then the SEC did the legal equivalent of a, ‘oh, wait, hold thar a minute’. 

No resolution on the GDLC yet. We’ll keep you updated. 🛑 

NEWS
MSTR’s “Flexibility” Moment: Saylor Eases the Floor, Sells the Shares, Buys the Bitcoin 🙂

Saylor found the erase key, used it, and immediately fed the ATM. 💳️ 

Protos reports Strategy scrubbed the “no issuance below 2.5x mNAV” line from its Q2 deck on Aug 18, then sold 875,301 new MSTR shares while the enterprise value to mNAV sat around 1.59x.

Net take was about $309 million, and with preferreds in the mix, the company says it put $356.9 million into more BTC. In other words: new stock, lower multiple, more coins.

Protos also took a clean swing at the pivot. The old slide 96 said no common issuance under 2.5x mNAV except to pay interest and dividends. The revised language now lets Strategy dilute “to provide greater flexibility in executing our capital markets strategy.” 

Convenient wording. Convenient timing. And yes, they used it. 

If you own MSTR for the torque, the new policy is simple enough: expect more paper between 1x and 2.5x mNAV whenever the company decides it’s “advantageous,” then hope the coin stack outruns the dilution. 😐️ 

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
AI, Stablecoins, & Privacy News 🕵️

🧠 ArAIstotle Uses Virtuals To Build Crypto’s Truth Layer

The project blends Aristotelian rigor with AI to fact-check misinformation, launching on Virtuals Protocol with 658% oversubscription and 16,000+ participants. Instead of hype launches that implode, Virtuals gave them rails that stopped snipers and funneled in aligned users. It’s part Socratic dialogue, part meme factory - philosophy class, but you get tokens for homework. Virtuals Protocol.

🛰️ American Crypto Projects Take Swing At Big Tech’s AI Monopoly

The fight is on: Silicon Valley hoards GPUs, while crypto turns idle rigs into an open AI bazaar. GPU shortages and cloud lock-in opened the door for DePIN projects like Bittensor, Render, Ocean, and Kava AI to offer decentralized compute and data. Users get transparency, cheaper access, and actual control over their data, not another opaque Big Tech black box. Kava.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Real World Asset Tokenization (RWA) News 🪙

🥇 Matrixdock Drops Tokenized Gold (XAUm) on Sui

XAUm, a gold-backed token fully redeemable for LBMA 99.99% bars, is now live on Sui. That means you can hold, lend, or collateralize shiny metal in DeFi without paying vault fees. It’s basically alchemy: turning gold into DeFi collateral you can loop and farm. Sui.

📊 Plume: TVL Means Jack Without Users

Plume calls BS on TVL as a metric, arguing adoption is about holders and usage, not one whale parking $100M. Since June, Plume tripled the global RWA holder market, grabbing 190K+ wallets - more than Ethereum and Solana combined. Plume Network.

🏠 Tokenized Real Estate Gets Its Own Playground

Fancy schmancy news for Polymesh: REtokens just launched a FINRA-approved secondary market where you can trade tokenized real estate shares for as little as $100. It kills the old model of multi-year lockups and insane minimums that kept 99% of investors out. Basically, Wall Street condos are now collectible trading cards for the masses. Polymesh.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Metaverse, NFT, & Gaming News 🎮️

🎮 Lisk Kicks Off Gaming With PowerPals

Lisk just dropped its first game, PowerPals, a pet-raising and breeding battler built by Indonesia’s Nomina Games under Creo Engine. Every pal lives on-chain, tradable and powered by LSK, which doubles as the in-game currency. Think Pokémon meets Tamagotchi, but your critter is actually a blockchain asset you can flex, sell, or breed for profit. Lisk.

🪐 VeChain’s Uranus NFTs Are Live

Congrats, you can now say you’re “maximizing Uranus benefits” with a straight face. VeBetterDAO’s cosmic ladder continues with the Uranus GM NFTs, giving holders a 5x reward multiplier and bigger governance clout. To join, you’ll need to cough up 1.25M B3TR to the treasury - no free rides at this tier. VeChain.

🤝 UXLINK Keeps Climbing in SocialFi

If Web3 wants “real” networks, this is the closest thing to LinkedIn without the fake humblebrag posts. With 54M+ users and Telegram-native onboarding, UXLINK is proving SocialFi isn’t just hype. Users build two-way, verifiable connections instead of hollow follower counts, with AI matchmaking and PayFi perks layered in. UXLINK.

🎮 Enjin AMA Spills Future Of NFTs And Gaming

Just as I was thinking, ‘it’s been a while since they’ve announced an update’, here it is:the team outlined a 1-year plan for migration tools, a 5-year push for NFT-driven games, and a 10-year vision where blockchain assets are just “normal.” HyperBridge will map EVM NFTs into Enjin’s Substrate world while wallets get cleaner UX and fuel tanks to hide gas costs. Enjin.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
DeFi, DEX, & Lending News 🏦

🔗 Units.Network + SafeBlock Take on Cross-Chain Swaps

SafeBlock (DEX aggregator) is integrating with Units.Network. Users get swaps across 10+ chains, split trades, staking, and widgets for easy integration. Think Expedia, but for tokens - best route, best price, all chains. Waves.

👻 Aave Cracks Aptos, First Ever Non-EVM Deployment

After 5+ years glued to Ethereum clones, Aave V3 just wrote (or is it rewrote?) itself in Move to go live on Aptos. This is kind of like teaching Shakespeare to speak Klingon - the same lending engine, just in a new tongue with Chainlink price feeds and Petra wallet access. Multiple audits, a $500K bug bounty, and a CTF later, Aptos finally gets DeFi’s biggest liquidity magnet. Aave.

🕶️ Horizen Drops DarkSwap To Smack MEV Bots

Horizen’s new L3 on Base comes with DarkSwap, a privacy-first DEX that hides trade size, price, and intent. That means front-runners and sandwich bots can’t peek at your order flow before you hit send. It’s poker with your cards face down instead of broadcast on ESPN. Horizen.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Protocol News 🏦

🏘️ Your HOA Sucks. A DAO Might Help.

Instead of Karen deciding mailbox colors in secret, a DAO-run HOA would log proposals, treasury spend, and votes on-chain for all to see. It’s less yelling about shrubs, more transparent budgets and delegated votes. If DAOs can save your sanity in an HOA, they can probably handle a PTA, book club, or maybe… the actual government. Polkadot.

💸 Republic + Injective = Wall Street Goes On-Chain

Injective just got an institutional sugar daddy with licenses everywhere from the US to UAE. Republic is going full-send on Injective. They’re integrating Injective assets into Republic Wallet, spinning up a launchpad, and doubling down as validators. Injective Protocol.

⚡ Solana Turns Into Internet-Speed Finance
Solana expanded block capacity by 25% this year with another 66% planned, rewrote its Token Program (95% more efficient), and is rolling out Firedancer (1M+ TPS in tests) plus Alpenglow (sub-150ms finality). Numbers aside, here’s the analogy: Solana’s going from “high-speed train” to “teleportation pad” for finance - let’s hope it doesn’t break. Again. Solana.

🪙 Ethena Drops New Rulebook For Backing Assets

The Ethena Risk Committee just rolled out a framework for what assets can back USDe hedges, with thresholds like $1B open interest, stable funding, and tight spreads. In plain English: no more YOLO hedging with illiquid junk; only assets with deep, liquid perp markets make the cut. Early winners? XRP, HYPE, and BNB; ADA and SUI didn’t even clear the liquidity bar (personally offended but not surprised #angryface). Ethena.

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🏦 Banking’s $4.7 trillion problem: Why programmable money is the infrastructure solution

🌍️ World Opens Colombia Flagship – Its Largest to Date

📆 Champions Arena: 2nd Anniversary Events

💳️ Gemini launches XRP credit card

🤯 US SEC opens comment period on proposed staked Injective ETF from Canary

🤦 LIBRA token 'facilitator' earns $12 million sniping Kanye West memecoin: Bubblemaps

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in ADA, IMX, COPI, MIN, AGIX, ALGO, ZEC, XLM, and NEAR. 📋