Sunday Review 16/02/2025

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Happy Sunday, Observers!

Buterin’s bad joke about communism threatened to be the major event in crypto this week but the Ethereum co-founder ended up being overshadowed by CZ’s pet dog Broccoli.

The former CEO of Binance caused meme mayhem after he published some pictures of his Belgian Malinois. One of the hundreds of tokens launched in honor of Broccoli soared to a market cap of $400 million.

CZ supporters are among a growing number of people creating meme coins for the small chance of getting rich in one click.

The government of the Central African Republic also joined the meme coin craze earlier this week. The country’s president, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, announced on Monday the launch of $CAR, a token to “unite people” and “support national development.”

Has the Government of the Central African Republic Launched a Meme-coin?

The unlikely announcement was dogged by scams, phishing, and accusations of AI, but the government’s X account continues to insist it’s real.

While several crypto sleuths found phishing tools connected to the first national meme coin ever launched, there were no reports that the president’s account had been hacked or that the token wasn’t real.

At the root of this new social phenomenon is the meme coin launchpad Pump Dot Fun, which is now responsible for over 50% of all token launches in crypto.

Despite mounting criticism, the platform continues its stellar performance and this week announced the launch of a mobile application to make it even more easy to create investible memes.

Pump Drops More Fun

Pump.Fun token launchpad released its mobile versions moving closer to its goal of becoming a social app. The powerhouse of meme coins is as busy as ever, but mounting criticism is taking a toll on the chances of long-term success.

🔥 Highlights Of The Week

• Tether and Reelly Tech have partnered to integrate USDT into real estate transactions;
• Telegram wallet enables zero-fee USDT purchases in 60+ countries;
• Tether acquires a minority stake in Juventus as part of its diversification strategy.

📈 Crypto Markets

🍭 Crypto Highs And Fun Times

• After strong pressure from the Ethereum community, the blockchain's gas limit was raised from 30 million to 36 million units, allowing more transactions to be entered into a block.
• Institutions in Portugal and Brazil can now make seamless cryptocurrency cross-border payments with Ripple Payments thanks to a partnership between the U.S. giant and Unicâmbio.

🕵🏾 Crypto Mysteries: The SEC Hack

The SEC Hack: One Year Later, Questions Remain About the Bitcoin ETF Hoax

A year after the SEC’s X account was hacked to falsely announce Bitcoin ETF approval, only one man—Eric Council Jr.—has been charged. He pleaded guilty to SIM-swapping the account but acted on behalf of unidentified co-conspirators. Was insider information involved? The full truth remains elusive.

One year ago, the X account of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission published a post announcing the approval of a Spot Bitcoin ETF, which turned out to be the result of a hack rather than deliberation.

The story was quickly swept under a rug with the arrest of a 22-year-old who pled guilty to swapping the SIM card of one of the regulatory agency’s employees.

But while the fake announcement was made public nobody knows what other secret information the hacker got or whom he shared it with.

✨ Twinkle Twinkle Unichain

Uniswap’s Unichain Goes Live, Setting the Stage for Unified Cross-Chain Swaps

The new layer 2 network aims to solve the Ethereum fragmentation problem and become a key player in the Ethereum L2 space.

Uniswap’s Unichain went live this week, and major names in the ecosystem, including Circle, Coinbase, Lido, and Morpho, are already building on it.

In the first days following the launch of Layer 2 of the largest decentralized exchange, over 10,000 users bridged to it, and more than 150,000 transactions were completed.

The launch of Unichain comes as the dynamic between layer one and layer two is being intensely debated.

Rather than adding fuel to the fire by increasing competition, the goal of the platform is to be a liquidity provider for ALL of the Ethereum ecosystem.

To do so, Uniswap created a new cross-chain intent standard to simplify swaps between chains.

ERC-7683 was developed in partnership with Across Protocol, and major protocols such as Optimism, Superchain, AggLayer, and Arbitrum are already working to adopt it.

Project Of The Week: Story Protocol

Story Protocol Launches Public Mainnet

The purpose-built blockchain aims to support decentralized management of intellectual property rights, addressing among others the issue of unauthorized use and infringement by generative AI

Story Protocol launched its mainnet and native token $IP on Wednesday.

The platform aims to help creators guarantee their rights in an online world increasingly dominated by generative artificial intelligence via an open market for programmable IP.

The EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain architecture consists of “IP Legos” that allow provenance to be tracked and "modules" that make IP a composable asset.

As AI continues to disrupt how economies operate, blockchain tools such as Story are increasingly seen as a way to safeguard the rights of humans online.

😈 Crypto Naught And Sloppy

• Not so easy degen cowboys: Etherscan has a new credit score feature that allows users and platforms to understand the risk of the wallets they interact with. Powered by the Blockchain Bureau, the new feature adds another layer of transparency to crypto while also bridging the security gap between traditional and decentralized finance.

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