Hello Observers!

What a demure news week this has been!

With much of the Western world enjoying the nice summer weather away from work, the days have been calm and relaxing. It seems that even hackers took some time off, with only one major Rug Pull scam registered.

We are talking about the infiltration of McDonald’s social media which scammers users to pump a Grimace-themed meme coin, which soon after they dumped.

The hack caused $GRIMACE to reach $24 million, allowing the scammers to pocket $700,000. While the numbers are high, one wonders how much more they would have cashed if they had planned the attack for a time other than salad season.

🔥 Week Highlights

  • The Amazon of LatAm, Mercado Pago, is leading the way for e-commerce companies with the launch of a dollar-pegged stablecoin
  • Gaming giant Sony has announced it is developing an L2 blockchain called "Soneium”, based on Optimism technology
  • Co-founder of Telegram Pavel Durov was arrested in France

Crypto Markets

Following some rough weeks, Ether prices seem to be heading up again. Despite being the most vibrant ecosystem in Web3, Ethereum is more influenced by macro factors outside of the decentralization realm than by its intrinsic monetary economic rules.

One area where Ether was expected to score but isn't is staking. More staking should, in principle, lead to higher prices, but while the ratio of staked Ethereum is growing consistently, the token's price is not affected.

🍭 Crypto Highs And Fun Times

  • Due to the many problems that its many projects face, Justin Sun has always been a controversial figure in the crypto world. Controversy makes money, and the entrepreneur knows it. That is why he has entered the meme-coin arena with a platform for creating these always surprising tokens. Since launching on August 13th, SunPump has generated 8 million TRX in fees - around $1.3 million.
  • Cryptocurrency projects are becoming fans of European sports. Sponsorships of the former to the latter have been on the rise, most of them around the good old European favourite game - football. The U.S. is currently lagging behind in both - football (which they call “soccer”) and crypto sports sponsorships.
  • Blockchain veteran Joseph Delong has started a new SocialFi project, but it is not for everybody. Frustrated about the direction Web3 is taking, the former CEO of Sushi created a platform prioritizing great discussions over great numbers of users and engagement. Its name is Untitled, and it makes no promises.

😈 Crypto Naughty And Sloppy

Project Highlight: IOTA

IOTA Achieves Shari’a Compliance: Paving the Way for Islamic Finance Integration
Islamic finance adheres to the principles of Shari’a law, which prohibits the earning or payment of interest and emphasizes transactions backed by tangible assets or services.
Observing moneytech and cryptoAlexander Mardar

If there was one “The Essential Crypto Words” dictionary, the word permissionless would surely feature.

The word is used in blockchain circles to mean that a protocol or a dApp has no entry barriers or participation requirements, and everybody can jump in.

While the term is frequently used to express inclusion, the reality is different. Many factors that do not relate directly to technology keep people from using it.

In the Islamic World, one of those factors is the Shari’a law. The religious-guided code of conduct prohibits the earning or payment of interest, promotes risk-sharing, and emphasizes ethical investments. Because of this, Islamic finance stays away from many investment opportunities.

Our project highlight this week, IOTA, has sought and successfully achieved Shari’a certification from the Cambridge Institute of Islamic Finance.

The accreditation aligns the distributed ledger protocol with the Islamic principles of investment, broadening the meaning of permissionless beyond its technological scope.

Tweet of The Week

Politicians in the U.S. are too busy preparing for the November presidential election to take some rest this summer. So, every week has been a dramatic roller coaster, and this one was no exception.

In the last couple of days, Kamala Harris has unsurprisingly accepted her nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate, while Trump got himself a trump card, with Robert J. Kennedy Jr. suspending his campaign to back the former president.

Following the steps of the candidates are the millions of people whose future depends on who will be sitting in the Oval Office next.

Several of those excited followers are crypto enthusiasts who believe that whoever wins will have and use their power to define the crypto industry.

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