OVERVIEW

It's Not Ethereum's Birthday 🎂 

Here’s What’s Happening 👇️

Today’s top trending tickers:

NEWS
Happy Birthday To The Wrong Chain 🤷

If you’ve seen all the Happy Birthday Ethereum shtuff today, I hate to be the one to tell you it’s not Ethereum’s birthday. I mean, technically, it’s still Ethereum’s birthday, but not the one you’re thinking of. 🎂 

Think of it as a family. Mom is the blockchain. She showed up July 30, 2015, and she's produced a block every few seconds since without ever leaving the address. Dad is Vitalik and the client developers. In July 2016 dad found a number in the family ledger he didn't like, and when mom wouldn't cross it out, he packed up and moved across town.

He took the last name. Took the house, the friends, most of the kids, and the wedding albums. Started fresh with someone more flexible about bookkeeping. Mom never went anywhere. She just goes by Classic (Ethereum Classic) now.

What Happened

• Jul 30, 2015 - Genesis. One chain, no dispute.

• Jun 17, 2016 - Roughly 3.6M ETH, about $50M, gets diverted into an attacker-controlled child DAO and sits there under a 27-day lock. The DAO held nearly 14% of all ether outstanding.

• Jul 20, 2016 - Hard fork at block 1,920,000. Fork-enabled clients execute a one-time state transfer, moving DAO-related balances into a recovery contract.

• The edited chain kept the name Ethereum. The original, unedited one became Ethereum Classic.

So… Whose Birthday Is It?

One is a year-ish older than the other. Only one of them still lives in the house where the ledger says what it always said. The Ethereum we know today as $ETH ( ▲ 1.8% )  turned 10 on June 17, 2026. The original Ethereum blockchain, $ETC ( ▲ 2.36% ), turned 11 today. 🧠

STOCKTWITS
Stuff Stocktwits People Said 👇️

NEWS
Zcash Mining Is Getting Crowded

Interest in mining $ZEC ( ▲ 2.83% ) is picking up. Fortitude Mining just committed roughly $31.5 million to buy 9,000 Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro units. That’s one of the largest recent hardware purchases focused entirely on the Equihash network. 🤯

The order will add about 7.56 GSol/s of hashrate when the miners are deployed later this year across Fortitude's 60+ MW of mining sites in Nebraska, South Dakota, Texas, and New York. The company says it secured the machines at a discount to prevailing market prices, suggesting it's willing to make a sizable bet before broader demand pushes costs higher.

The move also shows growing conviction around Zcash infrastructure. During the first half of 2026, Fortitude mined 72,696 ZEC, accounting for roughly 28% of total network production over that period. Doubling down with another 9,000 ASICs is a pretty good sign the company expects mining economics and long-term network participation to remain attractive.

And, naturally, they must believe Zcash’s price is going to go higher. Kind of a waste of money if they were just yoloing $32 million on a forecast that is just a ‘maybe’. What do they know we dont…. 🤔 

STOCKTWITS
Stuff Stocktwits People Said 👇️

STABLECOINS
USA₮ Finds a Chain With Users 👍️

I always like crypto stories where the little guy gets a win. 🏆️

$CELO ( ▼ 1.53% ) just became the second blockchain after Ethereum to support native USA₮, the federally regulated dollar stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank and backed by Tether.

Good for you, Celo. Well done.

For those who don’t know, Celo is an Ethereum L2 built mainly for mobile-first payments, remittances, savings, and everyday stablecoin use. Less “financial revolution in a 94-page PDF.” More “send someone dollars without paying a bank $38 and sacrificing a Tuesday.”

USA₮ arrives with native minting and burning, plus, and its crazy this is something that even needs to be a thing: the ability to pay Celo transaction fees in USA₮ itself. No separate stash of CELO needed just to move the stablecoin.

Celo now handles 28% of USD₮ transfers across blockchains, according to the project, while users grew 67% during Q2 2026. More than half of Celo gas fees are already paid in stablecoins. Opera’s MiniPay wallet, built on Celo, has also brought in over 18 million users and plans to add USA₮ support.

Good work. Keep doing that. 👍️ 

NEWS
Quant: Tokenized Money Is Running Into the Same Old Problem ⚠️

The easy part was putting money on a blockchain. The hard part is getting all those blockchains, banks, and payment systems to talk to each other. 📣

Yes, stablecoins proved digital dollars can move around the world in seconds. Yes, tokenized bank deposits are following. Yes, there are pilots like the UK's GBTD showing regulated bank money can live on distributed ledgers. But Quant says there’s a problem.

Almost all stablecoins live on public chains, but most tokenized deposits stay inside permissioned banking networks. The moment money has to cross between them, things get messy.

$QNT ( ▲ 1.22% ) ’s Fusion wants to solve that by acting as the connective tissue between networks. Instead of moving assets through bridges, it uses synchronized settlement so every leg of a transaction either completes together or fails together. That could make cross-border payments, FX settlement, and tokenized securities transfers less of a juggling act. 🤹

ON-CHAIN ANALYSIS
news

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

🤖 Casper Gives Bots Their Own Checking Account

Casper is upgrading csprUSD into the default dollar settlement asset for its x402 stack, letting AI agents pay for APIs, data, and compute inside ordinary HTTP requests. CEP-3009 lets an agent sign a one-time authorization off-chain while a facilitator handles settlement, and CEP-97 cuts minimum network fees from 2.5 CSPR to 0.1 CSPR. Caspner Network.

💵 Kraken Removes A Detour From Injective’s Dollar Rails

Kraken now supports native USDC deposits and withdrawals on Injective, removing the extra blockchain withdrawal and cross-chain transfer previously required. Clients can move Circle-issued USDC directly between Kraken and Injective, then use it for trading, tokenized assets, payments, or applications. Injective Protocol.

🧤 Alchemy Pay Collects Michigan

Alchemy Pay now holds money-transmitter licenses in 19 states after Michigan joined the list. The approval supports fiat-to-crypto and crypto-to-fiat services in the state while adding another regulatory brick beneath Alchemy Chain and its stablecoin plans. It’s still annoying that America makes payment companies collect licenses like refrigerator magnets. Alchemy Pay.

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

🎟️ World Wants the Bots Out of the Ticket Line

Fans are not losing ticket queues to faster thumbs; they are competing with software. World’s Concert Kit lets organizers reserve inventory for Orb-verified World ID holders, while purchases still run through existing ticketing systems and platforms learn only that the buyer is a unique human. The model has already been used in San Francisco and for upcoming Thirty Seconds to Mars shows in Germany. Worldcoin.

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

🏴‍☠️ Enjin Puts 100,000 ENJ In The Pirate Loot Chest

Captain & Company is bringing its pirate MMORPG to Enjin, where players mint a non-tradable Pass that levels from Bronze to Gold as their on-chain mXP grows. Its launch contest puts 100,000 ENJ inside Pirate Blob NFTs for 50 winners - five drawn randomly with no purchase required and 45 taken from the doubloon leaderboard. Enjin.

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

🧾 Solana Swap Apps Can Add Their Own Convenience Tax

0x has added optional fee controls to its Solana Swap API, letting wallets and frontends charge volume-based fees inside each swap request. Integrators can split fees among several recipients, charge the input token, output token, or both, and leave existing integrations unchanged. 0x.

🛡️ TrancheShield Hires a Risk Manager Who Never Sleeps

A Uniswap v4 hook only does something when somebody trades, which is awkward when reserves are draining between swaps. TrancheShield pairs its hook with a Reactive Lasna testnet contract that tracks volatility, reserve health, and senior withdrawals, then adjusts fees, coverage, or deposit access. Five withdrawals within an hour triggers crisis mode, cuts coverage to 15%, and closes senior deposits - automated risk control, not a magical promise that impermanent loss went extinct. Reactive Network.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Protocol News 🏦

⛏️ Stacks Hardfork Lands; Stakers Have Homework

PoX-5 activated at Bitcoin block 960,230 with block production continuing normally, opening the phased rollout of Bitcoin Bonds and self-custodial BTC yield. If you stake STX, your previous position unlocked and must be restaked before block 962,050 to earn during the first new cycle; ordinary holders need no swap or migration. Stacks.

⛽ Flow Raises Gas, Mints Less Of Itself

Flow is raising most transaction fees 2-4x after 3.39 million mainnet transactions showed the old pricing model underestimated execution cost by roughly 5x. The average increase is about 0.01 FLOW and remains below one-tenth of a cent, while current activity would cut monthly issuance by roughly 171,000 FLOW. Flow.

OLD NEWS
Crypto Stuff That Happened Today, But A Long Time Ago 📜

Here’s what was happening in the newsletter a year ago today:

• Trump’s EO 14178 was the policy headline - CBDCs got blocked, a new Working Group got 180 days to rethink crypto rules, and the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve stayed in “study it harder” mode.

• Kraken wanted Wall Street money before going public - reportedly chasing $500M at a $15B valuation ahead of a possible Q1 2026 listing.

• A Florida sheriff’s crypto seizure backfired - Volusia County froze and sold BTC tied to the wrong wallet, then had to return the coins, claw back Wisconsin’s check, and pay the legal bill.

Here’s what was happening in the newsletter two years ago today:

• NFTs made their “if Taylor Swift tickets aren’t securities, why are we?” argument - law professor Brian Frye and songwriter Jonathan Mann sued the SEC for clarity on whether NFTs fall under its jurisdiction.

• DraftKings shut down its NFT business - legal pressure from a class action claiming its NFTs were unregistered securities forced the company to close the whole thing and offer buyouts to Reignmakers users.

OLD NEWS
Other Stuff That Happened Today, But A Long Ass Time Ago ⌛️

July 30

• 30 B.C. - Mark Antony won one final cavalry battle, then watched his infantry and fleet abandon him the next day.

• 762 - Caliph al-Mansur founded Baghdad as the new capital of the Abbasid Empire.

• 1627 - An earthquake struck Italy’s Gargano Peninsula and killed roughly 5,000 people.

• 1864 - Union troops detonated 4 tons of gunpowder beneath Confederate lines, then charged directly into the crater.

• 1916 - German saboteurs blew up a New York munitions depot, damaging the Statue of Liberty.

• 1930 - Uruguay defeated Argentina 4-2 to win the first FIFA World Cup.

• 1945 - A Japanese submarine sank the USS Indianapolis in 12 minutes, leaving survivors stranded for 4 days.

• 1956 - “In God We Trust” became the official U.S. motto and mandatory on paper currency.

• 1965 - Lyndon Johnson created Medicare and Medicaid, enrolling Harry Truman as Medicare’s first beneficiary.

• 1975 - Jimmy Hoffa vanished from a Bloomfield Hills restaurant parking lot.

• 2003 - The final classic Volkswagen Beetle rolled off the line after 21,529,464 were built.

• 2003 - Scientists cloned an extinct ibex, which lived for minutes and became the first species to go extinct twice.

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🤯 Cathie Wood's Ark Trims BMNR Stock Exposure Despite Calling Its Ethereum Strategy ‘Exponential’ – Sells BLSH, HOOD, XYZ Shares Too

🪙 DCG Says US Faces 'Alarming' Offshore Flight Without CLARITY Act, Demands Vote Before August Recess

🟩 Blindfolded speedcuber solves Rubik's cube in 11.56 seconds

🚗 BeamNG.drive, Steam's finest car pancake maker, gets its biggest update yet with overhauled graphics, fresh rally stages and a sporty new coupe

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Author Disclosure: The author of this newsletter holds positions in AVAX, ADA, PUDGY, WLD, NEAR, INJ, LTC, LINK, ZEC, XLM, and FET. 📋