If Shakespeare was alive today, he'd be the perfect person to write a comedy about crypto. 

Story One

One digital identity isn't enough 

Perhaps the question we should ask isn't "Who am I?" but "How many?"

In Japan, there's a belief that we all wear masks, some of which we never shed. That's probably why masks feature heavily in traditional Japanese theatre, and continue to be prominent in anime to this day.

No-Face is also a face

In a similar vein, when we interact online, we don't always do so as the person we portray to be in reality. If you have an anon account you're pretending to be a cat on, I applaud you. We need more of that silliness, and less of the world domination attempts by digital identity projects like: World (they aren't trying hard to hide what they want to govern). 

As Vitalik points out in his most recent blog post, while a single-system digital identity looks pretty convenient at first glance, it risks becoming a totalitarian regime where one is robbed of their pseudonymity and forced to live one's life entirely in public. It also makes it very easy to deplatform people for good. 

That's why he advocates for pluralistic identity systems, combining different approaches such as social graphs, government-issued documents, and internet personas. Only then can we maintain privacy, inclusivity, and resist abuse. 

Now you won't have to read the entire blog. You're welcome. 

Takeaway: In my view, it's always been evident that having a diverse rather than one centralized system should be the goal for decentralization maxis. But then again, common sense isn't that common, and many just want to replace the current empires with their own. 

Story Two

RWA Summer 

Not the summer we wanted, but the summer we deserve. 

Me, a europooor without AC

Now that certain big players happily sponsor the military while pretending to be cypherpunks, is it any surprise that the hottest theme has become tokenization? The idea of bringing financial assets on-chain isn't new, but it's gaining momentum with a clearer regulatory framework and TradFi realizing that... It's yet another avenue for exit liquidity. 

First, we got the Circles IPO, and the latest asset put onchain now are stocks. The primary perpetrator in this case is Backed Finance, a company dedicated to democratizing access to finance. Unlike previous tokenized stocks, this one guarantees that the onchain stocks purchased are backed 1:1 by real stocks held by them. 

Similar to how stablecoins work, except with more accounting transparency than Tether will ever have. 

Takeaway: Stablecoins, stocks, equities, all of these things are quite boring to the memecoin degenerate, but they do point at the larger picture: we're not becoming an alternative to, we're becoming part of Big Finance. 

Story Three

You win some, you lose some 

We won some adoption with the TradFi bros, but we also lost some money to exploits. The numbers are in for the first half of 2025, and they don't look great. We'll probably surpass previous heights. Admittedly, the most significant portion of the exploits is attributed to the $1.5 billion ByBit hack, which ultimately resulted in a total loss of $2.1 billion. 

Once again, the winning team in these Olympics are the North Korean hackers, who gained a steep $1.6 billion, which their benevolent leader can spend on toys. The rest is spread across different DeFi protocols and other infrastructure attacks. In recent days, the most popular vector has become the Front-end. Just a few weeks ago, CoinMarketCap suddenly featured a wallet drainer. 

Next up, Cointelegraph, the media outlet, was hit with a similar attack where attackers advertised a fake airdrop on their official websites. While it's unclear how much funds were lost this way, what's clear is that we'll hardly be taken for serious people if our biggest tracking sites and media outlets can't secure their own frontends. 

Takeaway: The year is 2025, and we still haven't figured out how to offer verifiable, secure frontends to users. It says a lot about our priorities. 

Fact of the week: Since I spent a lot of time longing for a fan these days, did you know that the world's biggest ceiling fan has a wingspan of 24 feet. Fittingly its producer is called Big Ass Fans.

Naomi for CoinJar

CoinJar’s digital currency exchange services are operated by CoinJar Australia Pty Ltd ACN 648 570 807, a registered digital currency exchange provider with AUSTRAC.

CoinJar Card is a prepaid Mastercard issued by EML Payment Solutions Limited ABN 30 131 436 532 AFSL 404131 pursuant to license by Mastercard. CoinJar Australia Pty Ltd is an authorised representative of EML Payment Solutions Limited (AR No 1290193). We recommend you consider the Product Disclosure Statement and Target Market Determination before making any decision to acquire the product. Mastercard and the circles design are registered trademarks of Mastercard International Incorporated.

Google Pay is a trademark of Google LLC. Apple Pay is a trademark of Apple Inc.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.