• US vs Storm trial ends with MTB conviction.

• Aave releases the V3 dev toolkit.

• Pendle launches a funding rate trading protocol.

• Cosmos Health $300 million ETH reserve strategy.

In the U.S. v. Storm trial, the jury convicted Roman Storm of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate sanctions, leaving possible re-prosecution by the U.S. government. Neeraj Agrawal, Director of Communications at Coin Center, noted that the charge contradicts FinCEN’s own guidance. He called the outcome a significant setback for developers of non-custodial software, such as those building DeFi applications. Prosecutors requested that Storm be taken into custody ahead of sentencing, but Judge Katherine Failla denied the request, referencing that Storm has an incentive to stay and appeal.

Aave launched the Aave V3 Developer Toolkit, a new suite that includes an SDK, React Hooks, and an API. The toolkit enables developers to integrate Aave markets and deploy vaults into their apps. Apps can connect to lending pools based on specific risk profiles, and offer users the ability to earn yield or borrow against their assets. MetaMask recently integrated Aave to bring DeFi yield directly into its wallet, giving its 100 million users access to Aave yield opportunities without leaving the app. Aave is the largest DeFi protocol with over $60 billion in TVL.

Pendle Finance, a tokenized yield protocol, launched Boros, a new platform for trading funding rates. Now live on Arbitrum One, users can trade BTC and ETH funding rates on Boros. Similar to Pendle's Yield Tokens, users can speculate on or hedge funding rate yields using Yield Units. Each yield unit represents the funding yield of one unit of the collateral asset until maturity. Liquidity providers can also earn through Boros Vaults, which earns yield from Pendle incentives, swap fees, and APR movements. At launch, Boros has a $10M Open Interest cap per market and a 1.2x leverage limit. In the future, Boros aims to expand into traditional assets, including bonds and equities.

Cosmos Health Inc. (NASDAQ: COSM) announced a $300 million financing facility to launch its strategic Ethereum treasury reserve. Following in the footsteps of companies like BitMine, SharpLink, BTCS Inc., and BitDigital, Cosmos Health plans to accumulate ETH as part of a broader strategy to boost ETH-per-share and enhance long-term shareholder value. The company will stake its ETH through crypto custodian BitGo. A total of 3 million ETH, valued at over $11 billion, is already held in strategic ETH reserves.

• Ethereum L1 hits ATH tx count

• Linea offers free bridging

• Hester Peirce supports financial privacy

• Next chapter of interop

• Storm guilty verdict on 1 of 3 counts

• Takeaways from Storm verdict

• DEF will support Storm's appeal

• Herd launches Trails

• PYUSD transfer value grows to $10b YoY

• Tom Lee says ETH could flip BTC

• Vitalik on rollup fast withdrawals

• Payy introduces stablecoin debit card

• Hyperlane Warp Routes 2.0 on Unichain

• VanEck comments on Ethereum

• GrowThePie app revenue page

Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.

• Liquid staking activities are not securities.

• Ethereum L1 Scaling update.

• Base block production disruption postmortem.

• SharpLink achieves a 521k ETH Treasury.

The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance issued a statement clarifying that liquid staking activities do not constitute securities under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Exchange Act of 1934. According to the statement, liquid staking tokens are receipts for non-security assets.Liquid staking allows users to deposit assets and receive receipt tokens representing ownership of the staked assets and their rewards. Liquid staking enables capital efficiency by allowing users to use their receipt tokens in DeFi without needing to unstake. The statement provides clarity for liquid staking protocols like Lido and Rocket Pool, as well as third-party providers like Coinbase.

Ethereum core developers shared an update on L1 scaling efforts. In July, the Ethereum mainnet block gas limit was raised to 45 million. Parithosh Jayanthi and Nethermind’s PerfNet team are leading efforts toward the medium-term target of 100 million gas per block. All major Ethereum execution clients also support Partial History Expiry, which reduces node disk usage by approximately 300–500 GB. The team is also preparing to include Block-Level Access Lists (BALs) in the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade. BALs are designed to enable parallel transaction execution and faster block processing, which will support higher gas limits and improved sync performance.  Long-term, Ethereum aims to replace full transaction execution with real-time zkEVM proofs. A prototype zkEVM attester client is currently in development. As network demand increases, RPC node performance optimization is also a current priority. Ethereum developer Marius van der Wijden has also joined Tim Beiko and Ansgar Dietrichs to co-lead the L1 scaling track at the Ethereum Foundation, focusing on scaling Ethereum L1 safely and rapidly.

Base experienced a temporary halt in block production for approximately 33 minutes starting at 06:07 UTC on August 5, 2025. The disruption was caused by an automatic handoff to an unhealthy sequencer within its high-availability (HA) cluster. The elected sequencer was still provisioning and unable to produce blocks. As a result, users were likely unable to execute transactions during the disruption. The Base team detected the issue within minutes, paused the HA system, and issued a fix within 33 minutes by manually transferring leadership to a healthy sequencer.

SharpLink Gaming added 83,561 ETH to its treasury at an average price of $3,634 per ETH, bringing its total holdings to 521,939 ETH, a 19% increase from the previous week. SharpLink Gaming is the second-largest corporate holder of ETH, trailing only BitMine Immersion Technologies. Since launching its treasury strategy on June 2, 2025, the company has earned 929 ETH in staking rewards. The company aims to double its current holdings by acquiring another half-million ETH to reach its 1 million ETH treasury goal.

• Geth v1.16.2 release

• EIP-4361 is now final

• EF is hiring a DeFi Specialist

• ACDC #162 agenda

• SΞR surpasses 3 million ETH

• MetaMask to launch USD stablecoin

• Verifier Alliance 8m verified contracts

• Succinct Prover Network goes live

• Octra unveils encrypted EVM

• Gelato 200ms flashblocks for OP Stack

• Gemini teases Horizon

• Slash USD accounts on Base

• Liquity update August 2025

• Interface supports Arbitrum

• 3Jane VantageScore 3.0

• 8.1b USDT on Aave

Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.

• Linea native yield via Lido V3.

• EigenLayer Programmatic Incentives v2.

• BitMine amasses 833k.

• The Ether Machine buys $40m ETH.

Linea announced that it will enable Native ETH Yield in October 2025, leveraging Lido V3, the latest version of the liquid staking protocol that introduces stVaults. stVaults are customizable smart contracts that allow protocols to define their own validator configurations. They support overcollateralized stETH minting and include critical safeguards such as immutable collateral caps and an escape hatch to opt out of protocol governance if needed. Bridged ETH on Linea will be automatically staked via Lido V3 stVaults, with staking operations managed by a Native Yield Operator and overseen by the Linea Security Council. Staking rewards will be distributed to liquidity providers on Linea, aiming to deliver dual returns from both trading fees and ETH staking yield. Linea will support instant withdrawals backed by a protocol-level Liquidity Buffer, with stETH available as a fallback during high-withdrawal periods. Linea will also activate its ETH burn mechanism in October. Linea is an EVM-equivalent ZK Rollup developed by Consensys.

The Eigen Foundation proposed Programmatic Incentives v2, an update to its onchain rewards engine that distributes EIGEN tokens to restakers and operators securing Autonomous Verifiable Services (AVSs). The v2 aims to increase the annual EIGEN inflation rate from 4% to 8%, which amounts to 2.67m EIGEN tokens per week. The proposed changes include raising the reward allocation for EIGEN Stakers and their Operators from 1% to 4%, as well as introducing a new 1% allocation for Business Development and Ecosystem Growth. Until v2 is approved by governance and deployed, the current Programmatic Incentives v1 system will remain in effect, and users can continue accruing rewards indefinitely.

BitMine Immersion Technologies, Inc. (BMNR) announced it now holds 833,137 ETH, valued at nearly $3 billion, making it the largest corporate ETH holder in the world. The milestone follows the company’s aggressive accumulation strategy, acquiring its ETH in just 35 days since launching its strategic ETH reserve on June 30th. Bill Miller III, a prominent value investor, has taken a stake in BitMine, joining institutional investors such as Ark Invest, Pantera, Founders Fund, Kraken, DCG, Galaxy Digital, and MOZAYYX. BitMine has a bold goal of acquiring and staking 5% of Ethereum’s total supply, which is about 6 million ETH.

• The Ether Machine buys 10,605 ETH

• SharpLink buys 18,680 ETH

• Volume on Safes above $15b/wk

• ZK can fix the BSA

• Aave x MetaMask hits $60m yield

• RWA Ascend accelerator 

• Lean Ethereum tracker

• Overclocking Blocks with Gas Refunds

• CDK: Meet the devs

• No verdict today in US vs Storm

• Sub Account features live on Base

Disclaimer: Content is for informational purposes only, not endorsement or investment advice. The accuracy of information is not guaranteed.