Crypto: 22nd July 2025

• Trump's entities can now sell up to $1 billion in $TRUMP tokens, while he makes a big Bitcoin bet as Congress nears crypto legislation.

• The GENIUS Act establishes federal rules for stablecoins, enabling instant, low-cost payments and financial inclusion while ensuring consumer protection and legitimacy.

• Fintech startups see a modest rise in venture funding amid high investor optimism, buoyed by recent IPOs and notable investment rounds in 2025.

• Mexico leads Latin America in venture funding for the first time in over a decade, surpassing Brazil with a focus on AI and fintech sectors.

• Startup M&A surged to over $100 billion in H1 2025, led by major deals like Google's acquisition of Wiz for $32 billion.

• Cybersecurity funding reached $9.4 billion in H1 2025, with AI applications driving investment growth and major rounds for security companies.

Security Principles for Designing an Unhackable Crypto Wallet (cacm​.acm​.org). Designing secure crypto wallets requires understanding adversarial tactics, key management, code quality, UI/UX, secure recovery, and post-quantum strategies

Cursor IDE Malware Extension Compromise in $500k Crypto Heist (snyk​.io). Malicious 'Solidity Language' extension in Cursor IDE leads to $500,000 crypto theft, highlighting supply chain risks in third-party integrations

The $9.8M Gift: ResupplyFi’s Vault Exploit vs. One Wei (quantumloom​.in). ResupplyFi's $9.8M vault exploit highlights ERC-4626 vulnerabilities, donation attacks, and liquidity manipulation resulting in significant financial loss

PYUSD on Solana: PayPal's Stablecoin Integration Complete Guide (blog​.quicknode​.com). Guide on integrating PayPal's PYUSD stablecoin on Solana, focusing on Token Extensions, compliance, and developer tools for various applications

SuiHub Launches in Lagos, Fuels Nigeria’s Blockchain Rise (siliconafrica​.com). SuiHub launches in Lagos, enhancing Nigeria's blockchain ecosystem with resources for developers, aiming to boost fintech and tackle funding disparities

I have built a simple blockchain in Go over the weekend (evgeniipendragon​.com). Evgenii Pendragon builds a simple blockchain in Go, highlighting key concepts, data structures, and API interactions for ledger applications

Limited Mainnet Beta Update (blog​.pantherprotocol​.io). Panther Protocol's Limited Mainnet Beta progresses with enhanced wallet synchronization, transaction speeds, and $ZKP rewards, preparing for a full mainnet launch

Building open governance: Partnering with DeSci Foundation on the CODEX Protocol (investinopen​.org). IOI collaborates with DeSci Foundation to design governance for CODEX Protocol, emphasizing transparency and community engagement in open scholarly infrastructure

Bitlayer’s BitVM Bridge Debuts Its Mainnet, Offers Trust-Minimized Bitcoin DeFi (cosmicmeta​.io). Bitlayer launches BitVM Bridge on Bitcoin mainnet, enabling trust-minimized DeFi with NST processing and zero-knowledge proofs for non-custodial asset management

Bitcoin: The New Tradfi (manonthemargin​.com). Bitcoin's promise of decentralized currency is compromised as it shifts towards traditional finance; Adam Back's involvement leads to concerns over its sustainability

Derangements of Bitcoin (truthcoin​.info). Bitcoin faces challenges termed 'derangements,' affecting its potential for success amidst competitors and the dilution of independent thinking

The Bear’s Lair: As Bankers Replace Nerds, Crypto gets Scammier (tbwns​.com). Crypto's evolution from innovative decentralized finance to speculative scams with institutions like FTX and political influence causes widespread corruption and distrust

Analyst Spotlight Circle (USDC) Overview (coinmetrics​.io). Exploration of Circle's USDC, its adoption drivers, and its role as a foundational element in digital finance and on-chain transaction volume

Solana MEV Economics: The Role of Jito, Bundles, and Liquid Staking (blog​.quicknode​.com). Explore Solana's $7.5B MEV economy through Jito bundles, validators, liquid staking, and the emerging complexities of transaction prioritization

Tokenized in America: How the U.S. Financial System Gains Global Market Share by Embracing Blockchain Technology and Tokenization (blog​.chain​.link). U.S. financial system poised to lead in blockchain-driven tokenization of assets, enhancing efficiency, compliance, and global market accessibility

LLAMA: Multi-Feedback Smart Contract Fuzzing Framework with LLM-Guided Seed Generation (arxiv:cs). LLAMA integrates LLMs and evolutionary strategies for smart contract fuzzing, enhancing seed generation and vulnerability detection with significant instruction and branch coverage

AI Agent Architecture for Decentralized Trading of Alternative Assets (arxiv:cs). GoldMine OS utilizes AI agents for decentralized trading of physical gold, bridging custody with blockchain, ensuring compliance, liquidity, and risk management through smart contracts

Evasion Under Blockchain Sanctions (arxiv:cs). Assessment of OFAC sanctions on Tornado Cash reveals 71% deposit decline but 78% usage in security incidents, highlighting evasion strategies and enforcement challenges

Stablecoins: Fundamentals, Emerging Issues, and Open Challenges (arxiv:econ). Stablecoins exceeding $200 billion in 2025 reveal economic, technical, regulatory challenges; gaps in security, governance, and financial accounting standards highlighted

Measuring CEX-DEX Extracted Value and Searcher Profitability: The Darkest of the MEV Dark Forest (arxiv:q-fin). Empirical analysis of CEX-DEX arbitrages reveals $233.8M extraction, centralization trends, and searcher-builder profitability on Ethereum from 2023 to 2025

On the Consideration of Vanity Address Generation via Identity-Based Signatures (arxiv:cs). Exploration of identity-based signatures for generating vanity addresses in blockchain, addressing ECDSA limitations and demonstrating gas cost equivalence in Solidity

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