Crypto: 2nd September 2025
📣 Headlines
• Global investor Jeremy Kranz discussed IPO tokenization and the Finternet as emerging trends in financial technology infrastructure.
• Cybersecurity budgets are allocating 40% to software as generative AI attacks can now execute in milliseconds, raising concerns for blockchain and crypto security.
• A comprehensive GPU buying guide for 2025 covers NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel options with considerations for DLSS/FSR upscaling and ray tracing capabilities.
• Elon Musk filed to dismiss an SEC lawsuit over his late disclosure of Twitter share purchases, with the SEC seeking penalties for alleged market manipulation.
🎨 Digital Art & Cultural Commentary
No title (markjgsmith.com). Haseeb Qureshi on Kanye West releasing $YZY; discussion of cabal, villains, Avengers analogy, celeb coins, and saga wrap-up
Digital Combines Outlands (claudiahart.com). Artist Claudia Hart reframes digital combines as hybrid art merging tangible objects with NFT metadata, smart contracts, and cloud-linked digital files
A NEW ALCHEMY Outlands (claudiahart.com). Artist Claudia Hart reflects on Bitcoin as digital gold, Ordinals, Sotheby’s auction, and the fusion of art, proof-of-work ritual, and open-world game references
My concerns about the direction of cryptocurrency (eshlox.net). Personal reflection on decentralization, Web3, open-source trust, and the drift toward centralized finance in crypto
🏛️ Regulation & Traditional Finance
Investor Update – Strategic Learnings from The Political Economy of Shitcoins (tompepinsky.com). Narrative = liquidity; low barriers boost velocity; regulatory arbitrage; attention as asset; meme-driven macro insights for founders
The GENIUS Act: How U.S. Stablecoin Regulation Unlocks New Opportunities for Blockchain Infrastructure (blog.quicknode.com). GENIUS Act 2025 sets 1:1 reserves, AML/KYC, attestations and audits for USD-backed stablecoins; defines permitted issuers, tokenized deposits tracks, and infra needs
The Convergence Powering the Next Wave of Global Finance (blog.chain.link). Catalysts driving convergence of traditional and onchain finance; T+1, stablecoins, tokenization, CCIP, DvP PvP, Kinexys, CRE, Project Guardian, tokenized funds, asset tokenization, BCG forecast
Broken Money (flowtwo.io). Broken Money examines money history, inflation, base vs broad money, fractional reserve banking, and Bitcoin as a decentralized, deflationary alternative
⚡ Payment Systems & Infrastructure
Live in Zashi: Decentralized Off-Ramp for Shielded ZEC (electriccoin.co). Decentralized off-ramp for shielded ZEC via Zashi with NEAR integration enabling private swaps and address-hiding cross-chain transfers
Three Projects Funded to Contribute to the TALER Payment System (nlnet.nl). NGI TALER grants fund Libre Payments in Ruby, Liberapay Taler provider, and Taler OpenAPI specification for TALER integration
Fungible Assets 101: Introducing Aptos FA Token Standard (aptoslabs.medium.com). Aptos FA Token Standard enables modular capabilities, extensible metadata, and composable extensions for fungible assets on Move
Post-Eclipse Layoff: an Update and Plan (appetrosyan.github.io). Post-Eclipse layoff update: burnout, validator client history, Emacs Widget plan, Eclipse L2, Solana, and career search
🔧 Ethereum Ecosystem & Development
Protocol Update 003 — Improve UX (blog.ethereum.org). Open Intents Framework, Ethereum Interoperability Layer, ERC standards, fast L1/L2 confirmations, 3-stream UX interoperability roadmap
The Ecosystem Support Program's Next Chapter (blog.ethereum.org). ESP pauses open grants to pursue strategic priorities, refines priorities, and supports active grantees amid EF ecosystem-development shift
Implement EIP-7730 today (blog.trailofbits.com). EIP-7730 enables hardware wallets to decode transactions via a JSON manifest, reducing blind signing and improving UX for dapps
Turning Solidity NatSpec into Interactive Markdown UI (stevedylan.dev). NatSpec markdown UI for Solidity, interactive Markdown UI, Markdown UI, sourcify devdoc, Contracts UI Builder, Wagmi
₿ Bitcoin Analysis & Security Threats
How quantum computing would effect Bitcoin (johndcook.com). Quantum threats to Bitcoin: public-key cryptography, hash functions, Shor’s algorithm, and post-quantum signatures like Dilithium and SPHINCS+
Issue 91 – GDP on the blockchain (citationneeded.news). Regulatory vacuum at the CFTC as Trump pushes crypto-favorable oversight and pro-crypto PACs surge fundraising
Two reasons why Bitcoin has imploded (greyenlightenment.com). Bitcoin shorting shifts to 24-7 hedging; two drivers: US stance on reserve and global AI capital shift vs crypto
Systems are Better than Experience (greyenlightenment.com). Systems outperform experience in finance and investing; mentions Jane Street hiring, FNMA, Danielle Fong, SPY puts, Bitcoin timing, AI race, and QQQ/NVDA divergence
🔐 Privacy & Cryptographic Systems
More on seed phrase words (johndcook.com). Explores seed phrase word uniqueness by first four letters, list construction from Google 10k words, 2048-word set overlap with BIP39, and vocabulary estimation challenges
It’s a Cold Day in Developer Hell, So I Must Roll My Own Crypto (soatok.blog). Threshold cryptography toolchain, FROST, ChillDKG, Ed25519, Ristretto255, DKG, Go, Fediverse Key Transparency, MLS, Mastodon, RFC 9591
The Custody Trap (sethforprivacy.com). Critique of e-cash custodianship on Bitcoin; privacy trade-offs, mint trust, ark-based off-chain scaling, Fedimint, Lightning, and sovereignty
Crescent library brings privacy to digital identity systems (microsoft.com). Crescent library adds unlinkability and selective disclosure to JSON Web Tokens and mobile driver’s licenses without system updates
📚 Academic Research
Smart Contract Intent Detection with Pre-trained Programming Language Model (arxiv:cs). SmartIntentNN2 achieves 92.7% F1-score detecting malicious smart contract intents using BERT-based language models. Essential for preventing smart contract exploits and protecting DeFi protocols from intentionally malicious code
Time Tells All: Deanonymization of Blockchain RPC Users with Zero Transaction Fee (Extended Version) (arxiv:cs). Researchers demonstrate 95% success rate linking IP addresses to blockchain pseudonyms through RPC timing analysis. Critical privacy vulnerability affecting all major networks including Ethereum, Bitcoin, and Solana
BridgeShield: Enhancing Security for Cross-chain Bridge Applications via Heterogeneous Graph Mining (arxiv:cs). BridgeShield achieves 92.58% F1-score detecting cross-chain bridge attacks using graph attention networks, 24% improvement over existing methods. Crucial advancement given billion-dollar bridge hack frequency in DeFi
Unpacking Maximum Extractable Value on Polygon: A Study on Atomic Arbitrage (arxiv:cs). Comprehensive 22-month analysis of MEV extraction on Polygon reveals auction-based strategies outperform spam-based approaches. Key insights for traders and protocol developers navigating MEV dynamics
EconAgentic in DePIN Markets: A Large Language Model Approach to the Sharing Economy of Decentralized Physical Infrastructure (arxiv:econ). LLM framework models $10B+ DePIN market dynamics, analyzing how AI agents respond to token incentives. Valuable for understanding emerging tokenized infrastructure economies and governance mechanisms
👋 Before you go
I've got a big favor to ask - keeping Blaze running isn't expensive, but it does all add up, so I'm asking readers like you to help, if you can.
That's why I'm launching a Patreon page!. Nothing flashy, just a way for folks who find value in these newsletters to chip in a little each month. In return, you'll get:
- Real say in how Blaze evolves — vote on new topics, features, topic curation ideas
- First dibs on merch (details still cooking)
- That warm fuzzy feeling knowing you're supporting something that saves you time and keeps you plugged into great tech writing
If you are getting value from blaze, checking this out would mean the world. And if you can't contribute, no worries—the newsletters keep coming either way, and you can follow along on patreon for free.
Thanks for reading and being part of this nerdy corner of the internet. All the best - Alastair.
You may also like
About Crypto
Our Crypto newsletter covers the latest developments, projects, and insights in Web3, DeFi, and blockchain technologies. Each week, we curate the most important content so you don't have to spend hours searching.
Whether you're a blockchain developer, investor, or crypto enthusiast, our newsletter provides valuable information to keep you informed and ahead of the curve.
Subscribe now to join thousands of professionals who receive our weekly updates!