GM ☕️ 

Conviction doesn’t come from knowing - you get it from deciding. Especially in weeks like this, when everything feels half formed.

Yet, waiting for the perfect moment usually means missing it 🤔 

Here’s what we’ve been watching:

• 🐶 Telegram finds relevance again – thanks to Snoop’s bags

• 🚀 Ethereum tightens its grip (and possibly its gas limits)

• 👛 EF reveals “Kohaku” - an Ambire-based prototype wallet

• 🎰 pump.fun might build a chain - the sh*%coin casino wants to print its own chips

• 👴 US Treasury scraps crypto broker rules

The W3oF Degen Portfolio didn’t give us much to work with - but it didn’t disappoint either.

It’s sitting in that awkward middle ground and staring back like it’s waiting for us to blink first 🙄 

But if you’ve got something to shake it loose, our Discord is always open 🤗 

Telegram finds relevance again – thanks to Snoop’s bags

Telegram didn’t put out anything cool in crypto space for a while. For some time now, it drifted more or less towards the boring corner, somewhere between that hamster game and the last run of the mill meme launch, TON’s once hyped ecosystem just... fell off 🙄 

But this week, Telegram reminded the world that it still has a pulse - with Snoop Dogg bringing the defibrillator 💊 

• On July 9th, Snoop Dogg dropped a set of Telegram native digital collectibles / NFTs called “Gifts”. They were sold directly through the app’s new collectible feature 📱 

• Nearly 1 million digital items - animated stickers inspired by Snoop’s brand - went live via Telegram’s “Send a Gift” tab and sold out in 30 minutes. The total haul: $12 million 💰️ 

• Prices ranged across five tiers. The premium drop went for 10,000 TON tokens (~$150), with 12,000 NFTs sold. The other tiers included cheaper options like the “Swag Bag” at $7.50, all featuring items like cars, chains, cartoon dogs, and golden hand signs.

• The top tier sold out in less than two minutes. The lowest tiers were gone in under four 🤯 

The NFTs were cosmetic - as in they were meant to be flexed in Telegram profiles, used in chats, and resold later on TON-based marketplaces.

• The actual onchain minting is officially scheduled for July 31, but secondary markets are already trading the gifts ahead of schedule ⏳️ 

So far so good. But here’s where the stunt becomes a bit obvious though 👇️ 

Snoop Dogg has a long history with crypto. He accepted BTC for albums in 2013. He built a $17 million NFT collection under the alias “Cozomo de’ Medici”, he collaborated with Sandbox, Ape avatars, and Ethereum projects since before the last bull run even started 👀 

But what most people miss - intentionally or otherwise - is that Snoop has also been brutally honest about his promo involvement. In 2022, he publicly stated that anyone can hire him to promote a project, music video, or NFT.

The quote was: “You got the money, I got the time” 🤷‍♂️ 

So it’s clear that this wasn’t Snoop discovering Telegram’s tech stack and falling in love. This was Telegram’s marketing budget buying a pulse 🤌 

But you can’t deny that it worked.

He posted teaser clips. He released a new track tied to the launch. He joked with Pavel Durov on X about “droppin' 106 kids” 🙃 

The stunt was orchestrated, but it was loud and effective - and the entire space ate it up and liked it.

What about the market?

The drop created an initial pump, briefly lifting global collectible volumes and floor prices across select collections. Yet, despite the immediate hype, this uptick felt like barely a ripple in a much larger, stagnant pond 😷 

Telegram desperately needed a way to matter again, and it found it through celebrity clout.

The play wasn't sophisticated, but sophistication was beside the point - seems like attention mattered more 📢 

And while Telegram's strategy briefly worked wonders for TON, the broader NFT market remains stubbornly down, still far from its peak 🤷‍♂️ 

Ethereum tightens its grip – and (possibly) its gas limits

Ethereum has now outpaced Bitcoin in 24 hour futures trading for the first time in 2025.

• According to Glassnode, Ethereum futures clocked in at $62.1 billion in volume. Bitcoin came in slightly lower at $61.7 billion. It’s a small margin on paper - but a massive signal on the screen. Because futures don’t lie. They don’t track sentiment. They track bets.

And right now, the traders are betting on ETH 👀 

• Bitcoin’s futures volume dropped 20% in June. Ethereum’s rose. The Pectra upgrade, rising ETF inflows, renewed activity - all of it combined produced sort of a narrative shift.

When futures flip, it’s capital positioning ahead of events - betting on upside, on flow, on volatility worth playing. And for the first time this year, Ethereum is where the biggest bets are being placed 🪙 

EIP-7983

At the same time that ETH took the derivatives crown, a new Ethereum proposal emerged - EIP-7983, authored by Toni Wahrstätter and Vitalik and finalized for review 🤓 

• The proposal introduces a hard gas limit cap of 16.77 million per block.

The goal is to prevent edge case DDoS vulnerabilities, reduce validator variance, and eliminate mega-transactions that consume an entire block. In effect, to say: “this is how much gas you get. No more” 😶 

Bullish, but not loud about it

Ethereum is getting that 2021 bullish feel again. Onchain treasuries are growing. Futures have flipped. And underneath it all, the chain is still being actively upgraded 🔧 

Core devs are heads down, refining Ethereum’s foundations commit by commit, and turns out it can work out without the fat marketing wallet.

Ethereum's methodical cleanup also shows a clear understanding: the goal isn't chasing fleeting narratives, but outlasting all of them 🫡 

Because in crypto, survival is just domination playing the long game.

Ethereum Foundation reveals “Kohaku,” an Ambire-based prototype wallet

Talking about the devs, the Ethereum Foundation just teased Kohaku, a new prototype wallet built specifically for interoperability, privacy, and crosschain UX.

While Ethereum-related wallet prototypes aren’t exactly rare news, there's one crucial detail making waves here: Kohaku is based on Ambire 👀 

• This comes as an implicit - but powerful - validation. Ambire has long emphasized secure, clean, and robust wallet infrastructure, championing gas abstractions and simplifying complex interactions.

• Now, having the Ethereum Foundation leverage Ambire’s architecture for its latest prototype sends a clear signal about code quality and technical rigor 🫡 

Kohaku isn’t just a new toy. It’s a serious infrastructure explicitly designed for crosschain ease of use, UX focused interoperability, and built-in privacy.

Three of crypto’s longest standing headaches.

And the Foundation's choice to rely on Ambire’s existing tech means they're betting on proven infrastructure rather than reinventing wheels 🧠 

It’s a quiet, indirect endorsement - but in an ecosystem built on reputation and reliability, actions like this speak louder than a thousand paid KOLs 👑 

pump.fun might build a chain - the sh*%coin casino wants to print its own chips?

According to leaked documentation discovered on pump.fun’s own backend API, the team isn’t just launching tokens anymore - they want to build and own the whole casino.

• The leaks - buried in the public-facing API under api.pump.fun - point to an entire backend architecture built for something far larger than one click shitcoin deployment.

• Subscription layers, token launch controls, video content, Stripe integrations, “orderbook” structures, approval flows - all wrapped in Ethereum-native terminology 🤓 

You don’t build something like this in stealth to pump a few frog tokens 🤔 

• The leaked API shows full EVM compatibility baked into the platform’s next phase. That means they’re building architecture that can launch and manage tokens across multiple chains ⛓️ 

• The same Pump.fun that made you lose $42 on a shitcoin with a crazy name might soon be processing serious liquidity flows across Ethereum and its L2s 👀 

• The docs even show signs of integration with tools like Stripe and Privy - hints that fiat onboarding and real identity frameworks might be entering the equation.

The platform already processes absurd volume on Solana. And with the upcoming $PUMP token sale (targeting a $4B valuation with no purchase cap), they’ve got dry powder to back the vision 💰️ 💰️ 

The docs also suggest governance tooling, staking systems, and liquidity incentives - all things that turn a toy into a protocol.

There’s no confirmation yet. But you don’t design systems like this unless you're planning to be more than a meme.

The power play is obvious

Pumpfun saw the writing on the wall. To just stay a launchpad will eventually become a bottleneck. The only way to keep printing fees is to own the rails. So now they’re trying to build them ⛏️ 

This leak was a quiet whisper to the market that Pumpfun isn’t going to stay on Solana forever. It’s going multichain. It’s going sovereign. And it wants to own the value layer.

US Treasury scraps crypto broker rules – DeFi survives another day

When regulators change their minds, it’s rarely something good 👴 

In fact, the most significant regulatory decision for DeFi in two years arrived quietly, tucked away in a bureaucratic note: the US Treasury has officially withdrawn the notorious crypto broker reporting requirements, form 1099-DA under Section 6045 📜 

• Originally proposed back in 2021 as part of the infrastructure bill, Section 6045 would have defined decentralized exchanges, liquidity protocols, and even basic crypto tooling as "brokers," requiring them to submit customer transaction data to the IRS - despite many of these platforms having no customers in the traditional sense 🥴 

• The threat wasn't hypothetical. DeFi developers paused features, protocols blocked US users preemptively, and cautious investors held back funding. Even though actual enforcement seemed implausible, the mere existence of the rule was enough to inject uncertainty into every roadmap 😨 

Then suddenly - almost casually - the rule was deleted. A brief Federal Register filing from the IRS and Treasury simply restored the previous regulatory text, without explanation or replacement ✉️ 

The government didn't explain the decision.

But consider what that silence implies: the Treasury didn't see a viable path forward for enforcement. Perhaps the legal headaches were too severe, or most likely, it became politically unsustainable.

DeFi's breathing room returns

With the pressure suddenly removed, DeFi builders in US find themselves in an unexpectedly open landscape 👷 

• Projects that previously hesitated can restart development without constantly looking over their shoulders. Investors who were sidelined due to ambiguous legal exposure may reconsider their positions.

• Infrastructure can now expand without the perpetual threat of becoming an inadvertent IRS informant 🤦‍♂️ 

• This withdrawal sends a subtle but meaningful signal. Regulators haven't declared support or opposition - they've simply stepped back from a fight that wasn't winnable or worth winning. It's neither a gift nor a guarantee, but an acknowledgment that decentralized technology can’t easily fit traditional definitions 🪙 

That’s honestly exactly what DeFi needed: the removal of unnecessary friction.

Other worthy reads

Airdrop watchlist, by Cape:

A take on Pump ICO, by Didi:

The Future of Ecosystem Development at the EF:

MEMES

That's all for now, frens.

We'll meet in a week! And remember, the market conditions are temporary, but our commitment to building a better Web3 is here to stay. Thanks for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you back next week. Cheers!

Yours, The 🔥 Team

Brought to you by Ambire: The Only Web3 Wallet That You’ll Need!