2 weekly News Digest for June 30 – July 13, 2025
▪️Telegram administration temporarily blocked at least five Ukrainian OSINT channels, as well as a number of similar Russian and Belarusian resources.
▪️Telegram has actively cooperated with South Korean police and, since last October, has provided over 95% of requested data for investigations, leading to a sharp increase in arrests for crimes related to sex content, drugs, and deepfakes.
▪️The "Fact Check" function has started working in Telegram: official clarifications from the messenger now appear under controversial posts, as already noticed under a We TON channel publication about Telegram's alleged departure from Russia.
▪️An interview with the new TON Foundation CEO Max Crown was released, where he discussed how TON, through deep integration with Telegram and simplified user experience, aims to shed its niche blockchain image and achieve mass crypto adoption.
▪️Sticker Pack launched an updated sales system: now purchases are only possible via a TON wallet with a fair lottery among participants, protection against scripts and empty accounts, and all deposits will be tracked on the blockchain.
▪️Crypto exchange MEXC on July 1 launched PX/USDT trading pair and an airdrop+ campaign with a prize pool of 1,000,000 PX and 50,000 USDT.
▪️xRocket Pay is integrated into the Harbor marketplace for buying and selling stickers, and in honor of this, a giveaway of 22 collectible stickers worth over 500 $TON is being launched — participate by making purchases of 4 TON or more via xRocket Pay until July 7!
▪️Sticker Pack published new rules for selling stickers.
▪️Not Games expands integration and improves bots, Not Pixel launched its second tournament with a prize pool over $1 million, VOID completed its first round of loot boxes, and DOGS opened beta testing for a new game, Disk Trickster.
▪️A new version of MyTonWallet 3.8 has been launched with expanded NFT functions, an updated activity feed, fiat sum display, and improved performance.
▪️In 10 days, Tonnel users earned almost 20,000 TON from instant gift resales, and the top collection (watches) brought traders 1050 TON.
▪️Over the past two weeks, more than 1.1 million new NFTs have been created on the TON blockchain, bringing their total to 23.2 million, indicating rapid activity growth in the ecosystem.
▪️Telegram blocked the @virusgift account, associated with Virus Game casino, due to suspicious activity, with gifts totaling over 51,000 TON.
▪️In the latest Telegram update, every user now displays their TON balance, and it's also possible to offer posts to channel owners for Toncoins and stars directly through the app.
▪️Split now allows topping up TON without KYC.
▪️Major buyer Fuhao announced readiness to buy any gifts in bulk worth from 100,000 USDT, inviting gift owners to contact him.
▪️Tonkeeper Pro for iOS now features a built-in browser that allows using dApps, partner services, and tools directly within the wallet without third-party applications.
▪️In four months, open interest in TON doubled and reached $140,310,000, reflecting growing trader interest and token market activity.
▪️42 Club: The number of wallets with a balance over 10,000 TON has doubled since April, exceeding 2000.
▪️Pavel Durov stated that fake news and false accusations have recently been spread around Telegram, which may be part of a targeted campaign to discredit the platform.
▪️Getgems added a new "Gifts" tab with a common feed, where all Telegram gifts can now be viewed in one place, rather than just by individual collections.
▪️TON Global Community Lead: TON Foundation is actively working on addressing community questions and suggestions.
▪️TOP, the developer of the Wallet in Telegram, raised $28.5 million at a $1 billion valuation to scale crypto services to the global market, with Ribbit Capital as the lead investor.
▪️Video of The Open Hack: The Future of Web3 on TON (EthCC Cannes) is available.
▪️A new post was published on the official TON blog with detailed advice on how to avoid scams in the TON and Telegram ecosystem, including warnings about fake applications, contact compromise, and scam tokens.
▪️After the ban on Azuki sticker trading, users who bought them with stars massively listed them for sale, leading to a price drop of more than 50%.
▪️MRKT opened a new category, now users can buy and sell Not Games in-game items.
▪️New gifts worth over $3,000,000 were sold out in 9 minutes.
▪️BotNews: On July 4, from 18:10 to 19:35 UTC, due to a technical failure, some bots could not load the Telegram gift list, but the issue has been resolved.
▪️The second stage of The Open Hack hackathon from TON Europe Hub: projects are accepted until July 18, participants can expect online workshops, an $8,000 prize pool, and support from TON experts.
▪️An article has been published about how usernames in Telegram have evolved from ordinary links into valuable NFT assets on TON, which can be bought, sold, and used as digital brands within the messenger.
▪️An article by "Durov's Code" has been released, thoroughly analyzing the situation with gifts in Telegram and auto-buy bots, explaining the nuances and risks of using such services.
▪️TON has accelerated transaction finality: now transactions are confirmed in 3–5 seconds under low and medium load thanks to core optimizations and the transition to a single shardchain instead of four.
▪️TON has launched a unique program: now you can get a 10-year UAE residency visa by staking $100,000 in TON without buying real estate, with the option to get your funds back after 3 years.
▪️" Durov's Code" has prepared a selection of useful articles for Telegram beginners: from the best bots and security to task creation and custom languages.
▪️UAE authorities have officially denied rumors about issuing "golden visas" to digital currency investors, stressing that such visas are not provided for crypto investors and TON does not have the relevant license in the country.
▪️Marketapp has launched a feature for minting usernames for channels and groups at the Fragment auction: you choose a name, set your bid and wallet, and after the auction, you receive the proceeds minus a 2% fee.
▪️Tolk v1.0 has been released — a new language for TON smart contracts with lazy loading, AST inlining, and partial updates, allowing lower fees compared to FunC.
▪️Crypto.com Custody is expanding its support for TON, so now large investors, funds, and companies can use Crypto.com Custody for secure storage of their TON tokens.
▪️TON Foundation has stated that there is no official "golden visa" program in the UAE for TON investors — the initiative is being developed independently and is not approved by the Emirati government.
▪️The Hipo team has publicly criticized the TON Foundation leadership for misleading statements about UAE "golden visas" for TON staking, calling for transparency, accountability, and acknowledgment of the mistake to maintain trust in the ecosystem.
▪️Max Crown apologized for the misunderstanding around the UAE "golden visa" initiative, emphasizing that it was only about an early partnership with a licensed company, not a government program.
▪️CZ: "Bro, that was misleading marketing. You could've spelled out those details. There's a big difference between a $35k + $100k requirement for a golden visa and just 'applying.' And the related token price spike. This damages the industry."
▪️Wallet now supports Ethereum network tokens, including USDT (ERC-20), as well as ETH, PEPE, SHIB, LINK, and other popular tokens.
▪️DAOLama reduced lending rates on key NFT collections, making liquidity even more accessible for TON users, and will soon enter the off-chain gift lending market.
▪️A new article on the TON blog explains how blockchain analytics helps identify suspicious activities and make safer decisions in the ecosystem.
▪️Pavel Durov once again bought a Telegram Gift on Fragment, drawing attention to collectible gifts on TON.
▪️Kreado published a misleading article about the TON "golden visa," erroneously claiming that all media outlets misrepresented the news and did not clarify details with the TON Foundation, although the information was confirmed by Crown. Analysis of Kreado news
▪️TON Ecosystem Map / Q2 2025
▪️Lex Fridman said he accidentally met Pavel Durov and Jack Dorsey in Paris, and they discussed life and freedom together.
▪️Now your messages in Telegram are translated by ChatGPT-4 AI.
▪️Tokenstore was the first online store to implement payment via MyTonWallet Pay, allowing users to buy gift cards and subscriptions with TON and USDT, and from July 9th, a cashback of up to $50 in Toncoin is available for purchases over $50.
▪️Snoop Dogg's channel (10 million subscribers) released a music video dedicated to Telegram Gifts.
▪️Pavel Durov: Almost a million collectible digital gifts from Snoop Dogg were sold out on Telegram in just 30 minutes, bringing the platform a record $12 million.
▪️Former leader of TON Society CIS Alexey Solovyov and head of the “Safe Internet League” Ekaterina Mizulina criticized the new Telegram gifts featuring images associated with drugs, noting that this threatens the messenger’s reputation and may provoke a negative reaction from authorities, up to bans in some countries.
▪️Pavel Durov: "If you want to fully unleash your potential and maintain mental clarity, stay away from addictive substances. My success and health come from over 20 years of abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, coffee, pills, and illegal drugs. Short-term pleasure is not worth your future."
▪️TON Foundation DeFi Lead announced his resignation and plans to focus on community development, launching an AI agent for stablecoin farming, new investment strategies, and educational streams.
▪️TON Space officially renamed to TON Wallet — it is now a multifunctional self-custodial wallet on TON directly in Telegram.
▪️Over the week, TON liquidity on Binance increased by 10.7%, the total inflow to centralized exchanges amounted to 6.76 million TON, and TON/USDT pools on DEX added 1.32 million USDT (+15.7%), despite the ongoing decline in on-chain user activity.
▪️Getgems launched its first public API in beta: now you can programmatically mint NFTs for free, upload media to TON, and integrate these functions into bots and services.
▪️Durov's Code: Telegram is preparing to launch ads in videos: text banners will appear over videos in channels.
▪️Telegram stickers have already reached over $6 million in secondary market volume.
▪️Next week, TON Nest will hold a fundraising workshop for TON builders and founders with expertise from Daniil Shcherbakov (TonTon Games), where they will analyze real metrics, timelines, and what truly attracts investors.
▪️National Bank of Kazakhstan is working on creating a Bitcoin reserve.
▪️Japanese Metaplanet bought another 1005 BTC — the company now holds 13,350 BTC.
▪️Moscow Exchange is considering launching futures on other crypto ETFs, including BlackRock Ethereum ETF.
▪️Last week, Strategy bought 4980 BTC for $531 million.
▪️In St. Petersburg, police liquidated a mining farm illegally connected to a substation — the damage from unaccounted electricity consumption amounted to about 10,000,000 rubles.
▪️Last week, net inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs were $2.22 billion, and into spot Ethereum ETFs — $283.4 million.
▪️Bhutan plans mass adoption of crypto payments to attract tourists.
▪️Central Bank of Russia expects the digital ruble (CBDC) to become a common means of payment within 5–7 years — about 2500 digital wallets have already been opened and over 100,000 operations carried out as part of the pilot.
▪️Spanish police, with the support of Europol, uncovered an international crypto scam scheme worth $540,000,000 — more than 5000 people were victims.
▪️Ripple launched the XRPL EVM mainnet, which is compatible with Ethereum.
▪️An Ethereum ICO participant woke up after 11 years of inactivity — the user acquired 1000 ETH for $310, which are now valued at $2,440,000.
▪️By the end of June, the value of leading crypto assets practically did not change: Bitcoin rose by 2.5%, and Ethereum fell by 1.5%.
▪️In 2012, a Bitcointalk participant under the nickname JohnGalt bought a Casascius bar with 100 BTC for $500 — on May 13, 2025, he revealed the private key and cashed out coins worth about $10,000,000.
▪️Tokenized stocks (RWA) are now available on the Solana blockchain and a number of centralized exchanges (Kraken, Bybit).
▪️Circle company applied for a national trust bank license in the USA.
▪️Connecticut Governor signed a law prohibiting state agencies from investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
▪️South African state energy company Eskom plans to engage in Bitcoin mining.
▪️Deutsche Bank plans to launch a cryptocurrency custody service in 2026.
▪️CZ donated Vitalik Buterin $10,000,000 in BNB to support his open-source biotechnology project.
▪️In Ethiopia, there is a growing electricity deficit due to the mining boom — data centers associated with mining use more than 8 TWh, which is approximately 30% of the country's total electricity consumption.
▪️Sber CEO German Gref skeptically assessed the prospects of the digital ruble (CBDC), calling it redundant — according to him, all functions of this form of money are already implemented through cashless payments, and banks are already technologically advanced enough.
▪️Ripple intends to obtain a banking license in the USA — the company has already submitted a corresponding application.
▪️Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed Bill HB 2324, which proposed creating a Bitcoin and Digital Assets Reserve Fund.
▪️OFAC imposed sanctions against a crypto wallet associated with the Russian hosting company Aeza Group. The wallet held $350,000 — it was used to support ransomware.
▪️Bitcoin balances of centralized exchanges fell below 15% — the lowest level since August 2018.
▪️An Ethereum ICO participant today sold 501 ETH — he bought 16,000 ETH for $4,960 during the ICO, and later bought an additional 804 ETH from exchanges for $369,000 in 2017.
▪️European financial giants are launching the first licensed Euro stablecoin EURAU, compliant with MiCA regulations.
▪️Italian bank Banca Sella will launch a crypto custodial service.
▪️Chinese company Addentax Group plans to buy up to 12,000 BTC from a large holder — they signed a preliminary agreement for $1.3 billion.
▪️A user was liquidated 8 times in 5 hours — their total loss exceeded $15,000,000 in just 10 days.
▪️In addition to applying for a banking license, Ripple also applied for a master account with the US Federal Reserve System (Fed).
▪️Vitalik Buterin urged blockchain developers not to chase complex technologies, but to focus on the main thing — user freedom and privacy.
▪️Elon Musk liked a tweet in which a user suggested that Musk was secretly buying Bitcoin.
▪️Fees from BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) have already exceeded the revenues from fees of the flagship iShares fund, which is 8 times larger.
▪️Over 40 malicious extensions disguised as well-known crypto wallets — MetaMask, Trust Wallet, Coinbase, and others — were found in Firefox.
▪️Chinese tech giants JDcom and Ant Group plan to launch a stablecoin, pegged to the offshore yuan.
▪️Bank of Russia does not plan to invest in cryptocurrencies — Nabiullina called them too risky and unstable.
▪️Tether will start mining Bitcoin in Brazil using renewable energy sources.
▪️Congressman Bo Hines stated that the US wants to cooperate with miners and use public electricity for BTC mining.
▪️A large trader, whom we wrote about earlier, was liquidated 5 more times — his balance decreased from $16.28 million to $610,000.
▪️Metaplanet bought an additional 2205 BTC — the company now holds 15,555 BTC worth $1.7 billion.
▪️The Ministry of Energy of Russia launched a national register of equipment for crypto mining.
▪️Vitalik Buterin and researcher Tony Warhsheter presented EIP-7983 — a proposal to introduce a gas limit per transaction of up to 16,770,000 units into the Ethereum protocol.
▪️Spanish banking giant BBVA will open services for trading and storing BTC and ETH for retail clients in its mobile application.
▪️Drake, one of the most commercially successful artists in history, decided to mention Bitcoin in his new song.
▪️An American earned $255,000 on Polymarket by betting that major events would NOT happen.
▪️Michael Saylor plans to raise another $4.2 billion to buy BTC.
▪️CZ recommended staying away from crypto if you want to get rich quickly, and not blaming it for your failures.
▪️Putin noted the growing popularity of cryptocurrency among corrupt officials. Russian security forces will help Russian banks identify corrupt cryptocurrency transactions.
▪️The volume of coins in the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin ETF fund exceeded 700,000 BTC — it now accounts for 55% of all BTC held in spot Bitcoin ETFs.
▪️The first tokenized money market fund — QCD Money Market Fund — was registered in Dubai.
▪️An ICO Ethereum participant with 1140 ETH in his account woke up after 10 years of inactivity — he received his coins for $353, now it's $2,880,000.
▪️Metaplanet is considering the possibility of acquiring a digital bank in Japan.
▪️Pakistan is creating its first independent crypto regulator — PVARA, which will license companies and monitor compliance with international standards.
▪️French IoT project Sequans raised $384,000,000 to implement a Bitcoin reserve initiative.
▪️Tether invested in blockchain forensics firm Crystal Intelligence to strengthen the fight against criminal use of USDT.
▪️SharpLink Gaming additionally acquired 7,689 ETH ($19.2 million), now the company ranks first among all public companies by the volume of Ethereum on its balance sheet — 205,634 ETH worth approximately $530,000,000.
▪️In Russia, mining will be banned in data centers — this will be enshrined in amendments to the law "On Communications."
▪️Since October 2024, large Ethereum holders ("megawhales") have increased their Ethereum reserves by 9.31% — this is the most active accumulation since 2020 and twice the rate before the 95% growth in 2022.
▪️GMX exchange was hacked, the damage amounted to $42,000,000.
▪️Four stablecoin issuers (Tether, Circle, First Digital, and Paxos) collectively hold US Treasury bonds worth approximately $182.4 billion.
▪️A Bitcoin whale dormant since 2019 moved 17,283 BTC ($1.88 billion) to unknown wallets.
▪️Japanese company Remixpoint, specializing in energy consulting, raised $215,000,000 to buy BTC for its balance sheet.
▪️Stablecoins are used for transactions totaling approximately $800 billion per month.
▪️From January 1, 2026, crypto users in the UK will be required to report their full name, date of birth, address, country of residence, and tax number to services.
▪️New Zealand bans crypto ATMs and introduces a $5000 limit on international transfers — this is part of reforms to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.
▪️In the second quarter of 2025, companies bought a record 159,107 BTC, which at current prices amounts to over $17.6 billion.
▪️Changpeng Zhao's family office will support the launch of a new investment company that will give investors access to BNB and plans to go public in the US.
▪️River analysts believe that Bitcoin has completely decoupled from the rest of the crypto market.
▪️Tether printed 1,000,000,000 USDT.
▪️Fintech giant Ant Group, owned by Jack Ma, will add Circle's USDC stablecoin to its platform for international payments.
▪️BNB Foundation conducted another quarterly burn — 1,595,599 BNB ($1 billion) were destroyed.
▪️Miner BIT Mining decided to diversify its business — the company plans to invest up to $300,000,000 in Solana.
▪️AI will not take away jobs from people, other people who know how to use AI will take them away — Nvidia CEO.
▪️An unknown user withdrew 72,050 ETH ($200,000,000) from the Kraken exchange in the last 24 hours to a newly created wallet.
▪️Amid reaching ATH, Bitcoin reached a capitalization of $2.33 trillion and now ranks 6th among all global assets.
▪️Kazakhstan is considering investing part of its gold and foreign exchange reserves in crypto assets — Head of the Central Bank.
▪️Chinese authorities are discussing policies regarding stablecoins and cryptocurrencies — this is a signal of a possible softening of China's stance.
▪️Kinto protocol was hacked, the damage amounted to $1,550,000.
▪️Yesterday, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded the second largest daily inflow in history — over $1.1 billion.
▪️Ethereum Foundation sold 1210 ETH ($3,500,000).
▪️KULR company is expanding mining in Paraguay, installing 3,570 ASICs and increasing capacity to 750 PH/s — the choice of country is due to cheap and renewable electricity from the Itaipu hydroelectric power plant.
▪️The hacker who hacked the GMX exchange decided to return the stolen assets worth $42 million for a reward of $5 million.
▪️The Government of Bhutan transferred 313 BTC ($37,000,000) to the Binance exchange in two days.
▪️Binance exchange helped the World Liberty Financial team, associated with the Trump family, develop the basic code for the USD1 stablecoin — Bloomberg.
▪️Ethereum Foundation plans to implement ZK-proofs (zero-knowledge proofs) into the Ethereum mainnet.
▪️Tether will cease support for the USDT stablecoin on Omni, Bitcoin Cash SLP, Kusama, EOS, and Algorand networks from September 1, 2025.
▪️The Pump Fun token sale closed in 12 minutes — the project raised $600,000,000. The PUMP token was listed on Binance futures at a rate of $0.005.