OVERVIEW

Cardano Voucher Audit Shuts Down the FUD 📨

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:

CARDANO
Cardano Audit Kills Voucher FUD 📑

Cardano’s voucher program has been a crypto bogeyman for nearly a decade. Between 2015 and 2017, almost 26 Billion $ADA.X ( ▼ 3.6% ) were sold through paper vouchers in Japan and parts of Asia. 📜 

By the time mainnet went live in 2017, almost all of it was redeemed. The leftover slice? That became the FUD factory: whispers of stolen funds, MLM sales tactics, upgrades designed to brick redemptions, and phantom “private keys” that somehow got deleted.

In May 2025, IOG hired McDermott Will & Schulte LLP and BDO USA, P.C. to run a forensic audit. A 128-page legal-accounting grind.

The purpose was simple: stress-test five persistent accusations and either confirm them or kill them. The verdict?

All five died on the slab. 💀 

The Big Five Allegations, Stress-Tested

1. “Insiders stole or misused voucher ADA.”

   1. False. The unredeemed ADA went into the Reserve and rewards funded the multi-year Post-Sweep Redemption Project - PIs, KYC staff, lawyers. The principal always matched liabilities 1:1. 💯 

2. “The sale was predatory or MLM-style.”

   1. Wrong. Attain’s distributor contracts explicitly banned hype like “guaranteed price rises.” Elderly buyers (roughly 6% of sales) were even offered refunds as a safeguard. 🛡️ 

3. “Blockchain upgrades blocked redemptions.”

   1. Nope. Shelley (July 2020) made Byron-era redeem addresses obsolete. Allegra (Dec 2020) swept them into the Reserve, signed by all seven Genesis Keys. Manual redemptions started in 2021. 😐️ 

4. “Private keys were deleted.”

   1. Never existed. Holders got one-time redemption codes, not cryptographic keys. A mistranslation of the Japanese word for “password” into “private key” fueled years of nonsense. 🔑 

5. “No legal right to transfer leftovers to CDH.”

   1. False. After years of documented outreach, 68.3M ADA tied to unreachable or waived claims went to Cardano Development Holdings. Funds bootstrapped Intersect and funded continuity contracts, including 24.15M ADA to IOI under a Master Services Agreement backed by invoices, time logs, and public repos. 📙 

By The Numbers

• Byron era (2017-2020):

  • 14,012 vouchers redeemed on-chain (97.3%).

  • 25.6B ADA redeemed (98.8%).

  • 390 vouchers unredeemed at Shelley, worth 318.2M ADA.

• Post-Sweep manual redemptions (2021-2025):

  • Outreach: 4,269 emails, 872 letters, 3,235 calls, 402 site visits (that still boggles my mind).

  • 246 more vouchers redeemed.

• Cumulative as of Aug 15, 2025:

  • 14,282 redeemed (99.2%).

  • 25.85B ADA redeemed (99.7%).

  • Left: 120 vouchers (0.8%), 76.7M ADA (0.3%).

The final scraps - 120 vouchers - are still in process, with a standing refund/repurchase offer through Oct 1, 2028.

So the next time someone insists the vouchers were a scam, point them to the 128-page cure for insomnia that proves otherwise. Facts don’t trend as well as FUD, but they tend to outlive it. 🫡 

STOCKTWITS COMMUNITY EVENTS
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We’re covering airfare, hotel, and ticket for one Stocktwits community member to join us in Coronado, Oct 20-22. Make the case why YOU should be there in the post comments, OR submit a short video here. 🗳️ 

Submissions are open until September 18, at 12 pm ET. We’ll select the top 4 pitches, and the community will vote on the winner! Full T&Cs here. 📝 

Want to secure a spot? Grab your ticket now before they sell out! 🎫 

NEWS
Small Towns, Big Problems 🏡 

As a lifelong, small-town, rural Great Plains/Upper Mid-West Murican’, I always like to see what small-town America is doing with crypto. Turns out, it’s mostly noise. 🔉 

And I mean, literally, noise.

Mitchell Bend, Texas: When Your Town Exists to Shut Up a Bitcoin Mine

A MARA Holdings BTC mine drones so loud in rural Texas that neighbors are literally voting to incorporate as their own town just to pass noise laws. We’re talking tinnitus, insomnia, vertigo - all thanks to endless server fans. The vote is in November. 🤫

Mountain City, Tennessee: Yarn Factory Out, Bitcoin Mine Almost In

CleanSpark wanted to drop a 30 MW mine into a 2,500-person town where the old yarn mill collapsed. Locals found out late, stormed town hall, and killed the deal. The kicker? The county commission refused a law to block future projects, so the door’s still cracked open for the next crypto suitor. 🧶

Dafter Township, Michigan: School Sues Over Crypto Noise

Lake Superior Academy - a Montessori school with outdoor classrooms - took a mining firm to court because their kids couldn’t hear nature over the server hum. A judge actually issued a restraining order against the mine. The operator - this is more small town than booze cruising down gravel roads with only your fog lights at 1AM - tried hay bales as soundproofing. 👨‍🌾

Grundy Center, Iowa: Mine Eats Town’s Power, Then Burns Down

A mining farm in Grundy Center consumed more electricity than all the homes in town combined - until it caught fire in January. Locals got their power grid back, along with a $300M charred husk. Call it poetic balance: crypto took the juice, fire took the mine. 🔥

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

🤖 Kava AI: From Model to DeFi Co-Pilot

Kava AI, the most adopted decentralized AI model (100k users and counting and according to them), announced upgrades at Token2049 that push it toward agentic DeFi functionality. The AI now aggregates alpha across multiple chains in the Kava ecosystem and will soon deploy autonomous agents to actually trade on those insights. And, unlike centralized AI clouds, Kava AI keeps data sovereignty intact. Kava.

🧠 Human-Aligned AI? Start With Who Owns The Keys

LazAI and Hyperion show how communities can actually steer AI evolution instead of just supplying the training fodder. Corporate AI is like a vending machine rigged by the shareholders - your data in, their profits out. Flip the script with user-owned agents and suddenly alignment isn’t a promise, it’s baked into the incentives: your data, your rules, your rewards. Metis.

⚙️ ASI Chain Wants To Be The Highway For On-Chain Intelligence

Wait, AI-native workloads that run at scale without waiting for ETH’s insane gas prices to calm down? Do eeeeet..Legacy chains choke on static contracts - ASI Chain was built for living, reasoning agents with parallel sharding, modular consensus, and MeTTa, a symbolic execution kernel that lets code ADApt on the fly. Artificial Superintelligence Alliance.

🌐 THORChain Orbital Pools Bring Curve-Style Swaps Across Chains

Stablecoins are everywhere, but swapping them across chains is still a bridge nightmare. Orbital Pools solve it by letting USDC, USDT, DAI, and others pool natively across Ethereum, TRON, XRP, and more using THORChain’s TSS vaults. It’s Curve’s stable AMM logic, but cross-chain - meaning near-zero slippage swaps without juggling bridges or wrapping tokens. THORchain.

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

🔑 ENS Primary Names Finally Work Properly on L2s

Your ENS name is basically your Web3 caller ID - but until now, it didn’t always show up on L2s, leaving people back to staring at ugly 0x hex strings. Enter L2 Primary Names: reverse resolution finally works on Arbitrum, Base, OP, Linea, and Scroll. Payments were never the issue, but display was. Now when you connect to supported L2s, your name shows up instead of an address. Also, for you smart ass Litepaper readers, yes, I know there are more than three sentences in this story. Ethereum Naming Service.

🎮 Enjin Launches Staking Dashboard With NFT “Degens”

Enjin rolled out staking on NFT.io with a twist: pools come branded as “Degens,” NFT avatars that act as your pool’s insignia. Stake ENJ, secure the chain, earn rewards - but also rally around an NFT identity that doubles as your membership badge. To sweeten launch week, there’s a staker badge NFT, Beam credits, and even a one-off 5,000 ENJ-infused collectible for the biggest whale. Enjin.

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

💸 dYdX Puts Partner Revenue Share On-Chain

Instead of backroom affiliate deals, dYdX now bakes revenue share directly into the protocol - governance approves, and fees flow automatically to partners who route order flow. Affiliates still get priority, but ecosystem partners finally have transparent, verifiable revshare coded into the blocks. It’s one of the few DEXes turning “grow with us” from marketing fluff into literal on-chain payouts. dYdX.

🏦 Alchemy Pay + Fiat24: Swiss Bank Accounts, Web3 Edition

Alchemy Pay’s Web3 Digital Bank just leveled up: thanks to a tie-up with Fiat24, users worldwide can open Swiss IBAN accounts and get Master debit cards. That means fiat, crypto, and compliance under one roof - no juggling between shady exchanges and your local bank. Fiat24 runs under FINMA’s blessing, so this isn’t vaporware banking but crypto rails bolted to old-world trust. Alchemy Pay.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Protocol News 🏦

🐇 Zano Levels Up: Mastercard, Off-Ramps, and .ZANO Domains

August delivered Zano’s biggest utility leap yet - swipe $ZANO anywhere with a Zebec Mastercard, cash out with a direct fiat off-ramp, and even buy groceries at SPAR. Unstoppable Domains dropped .ZANO names, BTSE listed the token, and community projects like ZanoZon and ZanoStats kept the ecosystem buzzing. Zano.

🧬 OriginTrail + Oxford PharmaGenesis Want To Fix Medical Data Chaos

Clinical trial results are scattered like puzzle pieces in a storm - researchers can’t find them, patients can’t trust them, and AI can’t use them. By pushing this data into OriginTrail’s decentralized knowledge graph, every piece becomes verifiable, connected, and machine-reADAble. The goal: an AI-ready medical library that replaces misinformation with structured truth. OriginTrail.

🚀 Jito August Roundup: ETFs, BAM, and Fee Overhauls

VanEck filed the first Solana ETF backed entirely by JitoSOL, marking a TradFi crossover moment. The BAM testnet went live, pushing private/verifiable block building closer to Solana’s mainnet. JIP-24 proposes all Block Engine fees go to the DAO, while JIP-25 expands validators to 400 with revised scoring. Anchorage and SollPay integrated JitoSOL, and multiple podcasts plus a new BAM 101 video series hammered home how institutions might finally touch Solana DeFi. Jito.

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🪙 Tom Lee’s BitMine adds $358M ETH as price rally builds

🤖 Why humanoid robots aren’t advancing as fast as AI chatbots

🏃‍♀️ Barefoot woman breaks record for running across Lego bricks

🤔 Coinbase thinks vibe-coding 50% of its platform is a good idea

🔫 007 First Light Collector's Edition comes with a golden gun replica

🏦 US SEC unveils agenda to revamp crypto policies, ease Wall Street rules

💶 ECB Chief Lagarde calls for stricter rules on non-EU stablecoin issuers to close MiCA gaps

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