Golier _ SR Crypto Research

🔥LayerZero Foundation proposes to acquire the Stargate bridge along with the STG token for 110 million USD, sending it directly to the Stargate DAO for voting (70% threshold). If approved, STG will be phased out, and holders will exchange it for LayerZero's ZRO token at a rate of 1 STG = 0.08634 ZRO.

Stargate was once the darling of LayerZero when it launched in 2022, peaking at 4.14 USD and now falling below 0.20 USD. The deal is referred to by CEO Bryan Pellegrino as a step towards acceleration, bringing Stargate under the same roof and dissolving the DAO. Immediately after the announcement, STG jumped 12%, and ZRO increased by 15%, raising the actual value of the deal to approximately 127 million USD.

However, the community is heated: many holders believe the price is too low compared to Stargate's potential and massive revenue. LayerZero asserts that this is a reasonable price, and whether to approve it or not is the DAO's right, but internally, LayerZero will exclude itself from the voting.

🔥BlackRock has officially confirmed that there are no plans to file a spot ETF for Ripple's XRP and Solana, despite market rumors. The company is focused on Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, clearly demonstrating its cautious strategy. Nevertheless, BlackRock is still exploring assets like SOL and XRP for future proposals, rather than a spot ETF.

This move reflects the fierce competition in the crypto ETF market and recent regulatory changes, such as the SEC approving asset creation and redemption mechanisms. Although there is no official filing yet, BlackRock may consider filing a spot ETF for SOL and XRP in October 2025 if regulatory factors become clearer.

Additionally, Ripple's victory in the lawsuit against the SEC is seen as a significant milestone, opening up new opportunities for the crypto industry.

🔥Tomasz K. Stańczak, Co-founder and Director of the Ethereum Foundation, today emphasized the importance of the Fusaka upgrade, expected to launch in Q4 2025, and urged the Ethereum community to focus to avoid any delays. Stańczak advised to pause discussions on the Glamsterdam upgrade to prioritize Fusaka, stressing that effective coordination is the key factor in meeting deadlines.

The Fusaka upgrade will combine two major projects: Fulu (consensus layer) and Osaka (execution layer), with 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and significant enhancements such as PeerDAS and Verkle Trees. EIP-7825 will help increase the protection of the Ethereum network against attacks, while PeerDAS enhances the scalability and security of the network. Verkle Trees improve storage efficiency and data synchronization.

At the same time, Ethereum is continuously upgrading its technology, attracting the attention of companies, as the inflow of funds into the Ethereum ETF surpasses that of Bitcoin, and a report from VanEck suggests that ETH could become a store of value alongside BTC.

🔥Tether's CEO, Paolo Ardoino, revealed that 40% of total transaction fees on major blockchains today are used to transfer USDT. Particularly in emerging markets, where millions of people use USDT to protect their assets from inflation and currency devaluation.

Among major networks like Ethereum, Tron, and Solana, USDT transfer fees make up a large portion. However, Tron has made a difference by allowing users to pay gas fees with USDT, helping this network gain an advantage in providing the number one stablecoin. Ardoino asserts that blockchains with low gas fees and the ability to pay with USDT will have a global advantage.

At the same time, the trading volume of all stablecoins set a new record, surpassing $1.5 trillion last month, demonstrating a strong increase in the use of these stable digital assets.

🔥Bitcoin has dropped below 113K USD after U.S. President Donald Trump announced new taxes on pharmaceuticals and semiconductor chips. In an interview with CNBC, Trump stated that his administration will announce new tax rates within a week, with initial rates low but gradually increasing to 250% over the next few years. This tax threat has caused the cryptocurrency market to decline by 1.82%, and stocks have also fallen, with the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow dropping by 0.28%, 0.36%, and 0.03%, respectively.

Bitcoin is currently at 114,150 USD, down 0.9% in 24 hours and 3.93% over the week. However, trading volume remains stable, increasing by 10.52% compared to yesterday. The cryptocurrency market is still being dominated by political moves and taxes from the Trump administration.

🔥The strategic reserves and ETF funds of Ethereum are having a significant impact on the market. According to data from Strategicethreserve xyz, 2.96 million ETH worth approximately $10.8 billion are being locked up by 63 entities, accounting for nearly 2.45% of the total Ethereum supply.

The leading public company in terms of holdings is BitmineImmersion Tech with 833,100 ETH ($3.04 billion), followed by Sharplink Gaming (438,200 ETH $1.6 billion), The Ether Machine (345,400 ETH $1.26 billion), Bit Digital ($439.2 million), and BTCS Inc. ($255.7 million). Other names such as Gamesquare Holdings, ETH Strategy, and Intchains Group maintain reserves in the tens of millions.

In a smaller group, BTC Digital Ltd. holds 2,100 ETH, and Centaurus Energy Inc. only holds 137 ETH, equivalent to half a million dollars. The top 10 reflects the diversity of technology, gaming, and native blockchain organizations.

Excluding public companies, the remaining top 25 are large scale: the Ethereum Foundation leads with 233,600 ETH ($852.8 million), followed by Pulsechain Sac (166,300 ETH $607.2 million) and Coinbase (136,800 ETH $499.4 million). Organizations like Mantle, Golem Foundation, and Gnosis DAO each hold over 66,000 ETH. The U.S. government is also present with 60,000 ETH ($218.9 million).

Large DAOs such as Lido, Arbitrum, Optimism, along with infrastructures like Ethereum Name Service (ENS), Status, and Frax Finance hold tens of thousands of ETH each. The list concludes with Request Network, Aave DAO, Onchain Foundation, and several other private blockchain organizations holding between 7,000 to 36,000 ETH, showing the widespread presence of Ethereum in both the decentralized ecosystem and entities outside the public sector.

🔥No longer an outsider, the giants of Wall Street Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs are quietly leading the traditional finance (TradFi) invasion into the world of blockchain. According to a recent report from Ripple, from 2020 to 2024, global banks have made 345 investments in blockchain companies, with over 100 deals coming from the G-SIBs group, the financial institutions that 'if they collapse, the whole world shakes'.

Notably, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs each led with 18 deals, followed by JPMorgan and Mitsubishi UFJ. Not only are they investing broadly, but they are also targeting specific strategic areas: asset tokenization, trading infrastructure, custody, and payments.

Notable deals such as CloudWalk (Brazil) with over 750 million USD in funding or Solaris (Germany) receiving hundreds of millions from SBI Group show a very clear appetite for investment and a strong ambition for acquisition.

🔥Although Ethereum has dominated the media for the past month, Solana has quietly surpassed it in one aspect: the growth of real-world assets (RWA).

According to data from RWAxyz, the total RWA value on Solana has increased by over 200% from the beginning of the year to mid-July 2025, while Ethereum only increased by 81%. Data from Messari, although more cautious, also records a 140% increase for Solana, with a value exceeding 418 million USD.

Notably, the price of SOL has only increased by 5% in the last 30 days, while Ether has risen by 30%. This indicates that the RWA potential on Solana is being undervalued by the market, opening up speculative opportunities for altcoin investors.

Interest from the U.S. government also reinforces confidence in this trend. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins recently stated: “Tokenization is an innovation, and we at the SEC should focus on how to promote innovation in the market.”

While Solana is performing well in both the meme coin and RWA segments, analysts believe that a boost from institutional investors could help Ethereum regain its advantage in the altcoin race of 2025.

🔥On August 1-8, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines to the appropriate area, in response to what he described as highly provocative statements from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now the Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council.

Trump warned that words could lead to unintended consequences and implied that Moscow should not underestimate Washington's threats. Medvedev has not responded but had previously not hesitated to challenge Trump, referencing the Doomsday Machine, the Soviet-era retaliatory nuclear strike system.

Tensions escalated from a social media spat on July 31, when Trump criticized Medvedev for downplaying the call for Russia to end hostilities in Ukraine within 10–12 days, rather than the original proposal of 50 days. Medvedev called it an "ultimatum," while alluding to the risk of U.S.-Russia war.

This is not the first time Trump has publicly criticized Medvedev for nuclear insinuations. However, this time, the warning came with a clear deterrent message amidst the ongoing escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the West's inability to find common ground.

The market turned red again.

🔥Ondo Finance has been honored by the White House in the latest report from the Presidential Task Force on Digital Financial Markets. This report not only confirms Ondo's position in the revolution of tokenizing real-world assets (RWA), but also considers it a key factor shaping the future of the global financial system.

With a hybrid approach between public blockchain and institutional compliance standards, Ondo is not following the beaten path. They are transforming assets such as U.S. government bonds or private equity into vibrant, flexible investment products, ready to flow in the veins of DeFi. Ondo was used as an illustrative example of the end-to-end tokenization process in the White House report, an honor not bestowed upon the majority.

Legally, the report asserts that tokenization does not alter the legal nature of the assets, meaning that RWAs remain under the control of regulatory agencies. However, the growing presence of non-financial assets being tokenized, such as gold, real estate, and collectibles, is ushering in a new era where the boundaries between the physical and digital are increasingly blurred.

🔥In Q1 2025, the transaction volume using stablecoins surpassed Visa, reaching over 6 trillion USD, nearly double that of the giant in the traditional payment industry. According to Bitwise Asset Management, the increase of over 30% compared to the previous quarter indicates an irreversible trend of stablecoins dominating the global payment landscape, DeFi, remittances, and business transactions. Backed by USDC and USDT, stablecoins are gradually transforming blockchain into a core financial infrastructure, posing a direct threat to the long-standing dominance of payment networks like Visa.

🔥Strategy issues 2.52 billion USD in preferred stock to purchase 21,000 Bitcoin, raising total holdings to 628,791 BTC, equivalent to 80 billion USD.

The new class of stock, coded STRC, is designed smartly with a variable dividend of 9% per year, paid monthly, trading close to par value of 100 USD. This is the largest issuance of preferred securities on the US market since 2009, strongly attracting cash flow from investors seeking steady yields.

While most companies remain cautious about Bitcoin, Strategy chooses to go against the tide: accumulating nearly 27,000 BTC in just one week, with total spending exceeding 3.2 billion USD. The “42/42” program they are pursuing aims to raise 84 billion USD to buy Bitcoin before 2027.

The strategy does not dilute common stock, but instead uses preferred stock to accelerate the accumulation of digital assets, showing a good move. With the current volume of Bitcoin holdings, Strategy is not only leading the market but is reshaping the game.

BTC has just set a new record with a hashrate (hashing speed) reaching an all-time high of 938 EH/s (exa hashes per second). This is a sign that more and more computing power is being contributed to the Bitcoin network, reflecting the increasing level of interest and investment from the mining community worldwide.

In addition, the mining difficulty has been adjusted to a level of 127.62T. This level of difficulty means that more computing power is required to solve the system's algorithms, thereby helping to maintain the stability and security of the network. The increase in difficulty along with the hashrate is a clear testament to the growing confidence of miners in the future of Bitcoin, while also contributing to making the blockchain increasingly robust and harder to attack.

🔥After being knocked out of the leading position in the meme coin market on Solana by LetsBONK (Pump fun now only holds 12% market share compared to 84% of LetsBONK), Pump fun is quietly preparing a 30-day incentive program, rewarding PUMP tokens based on trading volume.

Data from the new SDK reveals features for tracking transactions, setting reward conditions, and the ability to distribute up to 1 billion tokens per day, although this may only be a test figure. Notably, activities under the bonding curve mechanism will also be included in the reward system.

This move comes as Pump fun's revenue has severely decreased (only reaching 254,000 USD on July 25, while LetsBONK earned 1.3 million USD). The price of PUMP tokens also plummeted over 50% after the ICO, partly due to the CEO's announcement of no airdrop, which shattered investor expectations.

Pump fun is cornered and forced to burn tokens to regain market interest. But with investor confidence shaken and competitors racing ahead, it remains unclear whether this gamble will be enough to turn the tide.

🔥Ethereum sets a new record for daily gas consumption reaching a historic peak of 162 billion units, with the number of active addresses exceeding 500,000 for two consecutive days for the first time since March 2024.

Weekly transactions have also surged to 10.3 million, the highest level since the peak in May 2021.

🔥Less than a week after President Trump signed the GENIUS Act, the first legal framework for stablecoins in the US, Ethena Labs quickly seized the opportunity, preparing to launch USDtb worth nearly 1.5 billion USD.

This move is backed by Anchorage Digital, a licensed digital bank in the US, responsible for issuing USDtb through a regulatory-compliant platform specifically for financial institutions.

Although a specific date has not been announced, an Anchorage representative confirmed that USDtb will be launched in the near future. Ethena's CEO, Guy Young, stated that the emergence of the new legal framework will unleash strong growth potential for USDtb in the product ecosystem and digital platforms.

The stablecoin market, currently valued at over 250 billion USD, is entering a boom period. Standard Chartered Bank predicts that the market size could triple by the end of 2026. From traditional financial giants like Citigroup, JPMorgan, Western Union to crypto players like BitGo and World Liberty Financial, everyone is racing into the stablecoin competition.

🔥Just one large withdrawal believed to be from Justin Sun withdrew $1.7 billion in ETH from Aave, causing borrowing rates to spike, leading to a 0.3% peg loss of stETH and shaking the entire DeFi system.

The stETH/ETH leverage strategies that were widely used collapsed en masse as borrowing costs increased and the stETH exchange rate began to slide. Investors panicked, withdrawing funds, with the unstake queue extending up to 18 days, forcing many to sell off in the secondary market, further driving down the price of stETH.

With a spread of only 0.3%, but on 10x leverage, losses can reach up to 3%, causing many positions to be forcibly closed or trapped.

This event exposed systemic risks in DeFi:
• Dependence on oracles that lag behind market prices.
• Slow staking withdrawal mechanisms, easily causing liquidity traps.
• The withdrawal of a single individual can collapse the entire leverage chain.

Amid the chaos, ETH rose 8%, sETH surged 30%, indicating that investors are seeking an escape from stETH. Once again, DeFi proves that rapid growth does not come with systemic resilience.

🔥SharpLink Gaming holds Ethereum worth up to 360,807 ETH, equivalent to 1.3 billion USD, after acquiring nearly 80,000 ETH just in the past week. This move not only places the company on the map of major Ethereum holders but also drives its stock price to soar over 10%, reaching nearly 28 USD, with a shocking increase of 206% in one month.

Behind the strong purchasing deal is a clear strategy to accumulate assets, increase the proportion of digital assets on the balance sheet, and optimize shareholder benefits. Chairman and founder of SharpLink, Joseph Lubin, who is also the CEO of Consensys, boldly stated that this is the company's steadfast way of expanding the ETH treasury with discipline and strategic vision.

Other major players like Bit Digital and BitMine Immersion are also pouring billions into Ethereum, shedding the old mining model to chase the treasury game.

The strategy that MicroStrategy once pioneered with Bitcoin is now being replicated on Ethereum, and SharpLink is leading the charge.

🔥The trading volume on the decentralized exchange of BNB has exceeded 191 billion USD/month, a figure that makes the rest of the market wary. The ecosystem has also processed over 513 million stablecoin transactions with a value exceeding 295 billion USD, and owns 14.8 million stablecoin wallet addresses, far surpassing Tron and other competitors.

The event of the US Congress passing the GENIUS Act, reshaping stablecoin standards, has become a positive catalyst for BNB. As regulations tighten, the network increasingly requires a stable and efficient trading system, and BNB is ready to meet that need.

Not stopping there, the token burn mechanism worth over 1 billion USD each month transforms BNB into one of the few cryptocurrencies with sustainable deflation, a strategic advantage amid the wave of massive issuances from other projects. The day BNB surpasses its ATH is not far off.

🔥The GENIUS bill recently signed into law by President Donald Trump has struck a blow against profit-generating stablecoins, which are stablecoins that allow users to earn interest through staking or lending. This move cuts off the channel for passive income generation for both individual and institutional investors in the U.S., forcing them to pivot towards DeFi where Ethereum reigns supreme.

Experts suggest that as the dollar ceases to yield profit, DeFi will become the new fortress for capital seeking yield. This is a golden opportunity for Ethereum and the decentralized finance ecosystem to accelerate, especially in the context of traditional banks being accused of protecting exclusive profit privileges by preventing interest-bearing stablecoins.

Senator Gillibrand bluntly admitted that interest-paying stablecoins could kill traditional banks. Meanwhile, the crypto supporters countered: this is not regulation, but anti-competitive behavior disguised as law.

GENIUS tightening stablecoins does not stifle the market; rather, it could trigger a wave of capital flowing into DeFi, turning the stablecoin season into a DeFi season on Ethereum. Organizations will have to choose between continuing to endure traditional interest rate control or chasing yields on the blockchain.