Weekly News Digest for July 20 - 26, 2025
▪️Telegram expressed surprise at statements by Nepalese authorities about blocking the messenger due to an increase in online fraud and money laundering, refuting claims of non-cooperation and emphasizing its consistent response to legitimate requests, active moderation of harmful content, and reliability of security measures.
▪️Telegram's payment provider, Kazan-based Bank 131, which served @donate, @tribute, and @premiumbot, has been sanctioned by the EU and will no longer be able to conduct transactions through European financial organizations.
▪️The total TVL of decentralized protocols on TON exceeded $180 million, with Tonstakers leading in terms of funds with $164 million.
▪️New features have appeared in the Telegram bot dAssets: now on the main screen you can see the total unrealized PnL for any Jetton or TON, and by clicking on an asset — detailed Net Worth and PnL for any period.
▪️The GemsWall team announced the closure of the project due to declining user activity and an insufficiently mature TON ecosystem, but most SBTs will still receive internal TON points, and the platform will operate for another week for reward withdrawals.
▪️A "gift collection" function will appear in the new version of Telegram — gifts in the profile will now be conveniently categorized.
▪️Telegram is preparing an update with a star rating, limits on the number of gifts for one user, and exclusive gifts only for premium accounts — limit parameters can be configured.
▪️Telegram launched the built-in TON Wallet crypto wallet for US users.
▪️Decentralized lending protocol Euler Finance with a TVL of $1.1 billion is now available in Tonstakers Earn: now stakers can deposit tsTON into Euler on Ethereum and earn up to 36% APY — this is the first integration of tsTON with an EVM protocol via TAC.
▪️On Getgems, you can now trade off-chain gifts with extended zero commission: only improved gifts are sold, TON is not stored by the platform, and trades are wallet-to-wallet.
▪️A new tool has appeared in Telegram — @stickers_tools_bot, which allows for deeper analysis of the sticker market.
▪️In Telegram for macOS (v11.14.0), a new function "Profile Rating" has appeared — now you can see your rating, which grows as you buy stars, but for now it is only visible to you, and only works on macOS.
▪️You can now burn stickers by sending them to address 0.
▪️New DeFi leaders have been appointed at TON Foundation — Sami Al-Abed and Vladislav Khripun, who will lead the development of tgBTC, the integration of synthetic dollar with Ethena, and the scaling of DeFi products in the ecosystem.
▪️TON Foundation, in conjunction with Kingsway Capital Partners, plans to raise at least $400 million to create a cryptocurrency treasury company that will hold Toncoin.
▪️A new scam has appeared in Telegram, where scammers can destroy your account using a bot: after clicking "Start" and transferring ownership rights to you, the bot is renamed to an official name, mass complaints are made against it — and your account along with the bot gets banned.
▪️For the fourth consecutive week, TON inflows to centralized exchanges have been maintained (an increase of +2.4 million TON over the week), while TON/USDT pools on DEX lost $1.21 million (-10.6%), but on-chain user activity has minimally grown for the second consecutive week.
▪️Now, to access holder chats, you don't need to store stickers in a Sticker Pack — @stickers_holders_bot recognizes your hold on Harbor and automatically grants access to the community, and your current portfolio can be viewed via @stickers_tools_bot.
▪️@push v1.1 has been released — now the bot allows not only sending but also requesting funds in Telegram, shows the equivalent in dollars, supports notifications, group transfers, improved security, and a Russian-language interface.
▪️MRKT has received the long-awaited dark mode — now you can easily switch between light and dark themes directly in the application.
▪️TON Core completed the "Accelerator" update, moving to the final blockchain architecture, optimized tools for validators (including MyTonCtrl, monitoring, notifications, Proxy, and support), and also implemented support for collators, role separation, and the ability to track individual shardchains to improve network performance and stability under high loads; the mainnet update is scheduled for July 28.
▪️Anatoly Makosov announced the closure of his Telegram channel and transition to X (ex-Twitter) https://x.com/anatoly_makosov.
▪️Grayscale is considering TON and 15 other cryptocurrencies as potential candidates for its investment products in Q3.
▪️TON Payment Network can now be launched directly in the browser — the technology has been updated, supports jetton, extra currencies, and a web interface, and test nodes and smart contracts are already available and covered by unit tests.
▪️BotFather has its own Mini App — now managing bots has become even easier directly in Telegram.
▪️The State Duma warned that malicious actors are using gifts in Telegram for hidden advertising of prohibited materials and hinted that ordinary users risk coming under the scrutiny of law enforcement agencies due to these malicious actors.
▪️Telegram fixed a bug in the internal gift resale market — now gifts with constantly changing prices no longer appear there.
▪️A scandal erupted in China due to a massive leak on Telegram — thousands of men shared private photos of women without their consent, causing public outcry and concern about personal data leaks.
▪️Starting in 2026, Russians will be fined for cryptocurrency payments — fines will be introduced: from ₽100,000 for individuals and from ₽700,000 for legal entities.
▪️Last week, the total net inflow into spot Bitcoin ETFs amounted to $2.39 billion.
▪️Indian exchange CoinDCX was hacked for $44,200,000.
▪️Strategy acquired 6220 BTC ($740 million) last week at an average price of $118,940 per coin.
▪️Five major US banking associations are asking to suspend the issuance of licenses to Ripple, Circle, and Fidelity.
▪️The UK Home Office is working on selling its confiscated BTC reserve worth $7 billion.
▪️Chinese startup Conflux plans to launch an offshore yuan-backed stablecoin in August.
▪️Ethereum turns 10 — the first block was formed on July 20, 2015, and the mainnet was launched only on July 30.
▪️A whale spent over 2,000 ETH to buy 45 CryptoPunks — the collection's floor price has risen by 15% in the last 24 hours.
▪️Cypherpunk Adam Back, who recently sold $9.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, stated that "There are many alts and meme tokens. Bitcoin is the only scarce asset."
▪️Beware, schoolchildren have invented a new scam method.
▪️Hackers infected over 3,500 websites with a hidden Monero miner — the malware gets onto vulnerable sites (most often WordPress and e-commerce) and launches a script in visitors' browsers that mines cryptocurrency.
▪️A gang that kidnapped a "crypto millionaire" who only had $9 in his wallet was convicted in London.
▪️Arthur Hayes published a new essay in which he stated that he expects Bitcoin to reach $250,000 and Ethereum to reach $10,000 by the end of the year.
▪️A pastor from Colorado and his wife are accused of crypto fraud totaling $3,400,000.
▪️Bitcoin hodlers who bought crypto 5 years ago are starting to "wake up" — today they transferred 10,606 BTC (approximately $1.26 billion) to unknown wallets.
▪️Last night, BNB, Binance's native coin, set an all-time high above $800.
▪️Approximately 519,000 ETH worth $1.9 billion are awaiting withdrawal from staking — the largest amount since January 2024.
▪️Polymarket is considering launching its own stablecoin.
▪️Payment giant PayPal officially unveiled a new platform — PayPal World, which will unite the largest payment systems and digital wallets in one place.
▪️Tether disclosed part of its investment portfolio — the CEO reported that the USDT issuer has already invested in over 120 companies, and this number will grow.
▪️Shares of companies that buy altcoins are growing faster than the coins themselves — by an average of 150% per day and over 220% per month, while cryptocurrency rates barely change.
▪️MARA Holdings will additionally raise $850,000,000 to purchase BTC — the company currently holds 49,940 BTC ($6 billion) on its balance sheet.
▪️Putin signed a law according to which the mass implementation of the digital ruble (CBDC) will begin on September 1, 2026.
▪️Jack Dorsey's Square company is beginning to deploy devices for paying for goods with BTC.
▪️Tether management visited the White House, and the company is now working on entering the US market.
▪️After 14 years, another Bitcoin whale woke up — his wallet holds 3962 BTC ($468,000,000).
▪️Joe McCann, crypto investor and founder of the Asymmetric hedge fund, will raise $1 billion to buy Solana.
▪️Arkham analysts claim that the US government still holds 198,011 BTC in its wallets.
▪️Public companies in 2025 acquired 825,000 ETH ($3 billion) and 2.95 million SOL ($531 million).
▪️Tether plans to launch an institutional stablecoin specifically for corporate clients in the US.
▪️Scam exchange FTX will begin the third phase of payouts on September 30 — August 15 will be the date for fixing claims.
▪️Japanese AI development company Quantum Solutions will invest over $500,000,000 in Bitcoin.
▪️The Central Bank of Russia will discuss the possibility of allowing management companies to include crypto assets in mutual fund portfolios.
▪️At the request of US authorities, Tether froze and reissued 1,600,000 USDT linked to a Palestinian payment network.
▪️Anchorage Digital, in collaboration with Ethena Labs, is launching the first stablecoin compliant with the GENIUS standard and subject to federal regulation in the US.
▪️The classic BTC cycle model no longer works.
▪️Auction house Christie's opened a crypto-real estate division — now transactions can be conducted entirely in cryptocurrency, without bank involvement.
▪️Tether reported that approximately 250,000 Tether Gold (XAU₮) tokens are in circulation, each backed by one troy ounce of physical gold — totaling over 7.66 tons.
▪️Adam Back's Galaxy Digital company transferred approximately 13,000 BTC ($1.5 billion) to exchanges in the last 8 hours.
▪️New research showed that MEV-arbitrage in the Ethereum network is becoming increasingly centralized.
▪️An Arizona resident was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison for helping North Korean hackers infiltrate over 300 American crypto and IT companies.
▪️American biotechnology company Windtree Therapeutics will spend $720,000,000 on forming a BNB reserve.
▪️Vietnam launched the national blockchain platform NDAChain — it will become the foundation for the country's entire digital infrastructure.
▪️An Ethereum ICO participant with 37 ETH in his account woke up after 10 years of inactivity — he received his coins for $11, now worth $140,000.