So basically P(doom) is plummeting right before our eyes due to an X-risk fear social contagion, caused by a Frances Haugen-style corporate whistleblower microdrama in the weeks before a blockbuster IPO. I can safely say this one was not foretold in 2015-era LessWrong posts.

Ethereum is for shipping. Here are 35 things the Ethereum ecosystem launched, upgraded, and announced through August. 1/ GnosisDAO approved a vote to transition @gnosischain from its own L1 to a ZK-proven Ethereum L2 rollup with synchronous composability, so apps on Gnosis and Ethereum can interact in a single transaction. 2/ @BlackRock introduced the BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund (BSTBL) with a tokenized share class on Ethereum mainnet for managing stablecoin and digital asset reserves, and began tokenizing share classes of its $311B European money market fund series on Ethereum. 3/ @aztecnetwork launched Alpha v5, a protocol upgrade that reduced private transaction proving times and brought the first wave of privacy-preserving apps to the network. 4/ @Uniswap processed $1B+ in stock token volume and $20B+ in total volume on @RobinhoodCrypto's Robinhood Chain since its July launch. 5/ @ethPandaOps introduced the Platåberget testnet, preparing client implementations for Glamsterdam, Ethereum's next network upgrade. 6/ @Morpho crossed $880M in total deposits on Robinhood Chain in its first <2 months live and reached $5.75B in total deposits on @base. 7/ @web3privacy shared the Ethereum Privacy Ecosystem Mapping 2026, an updated map and repository covering Ethereum’s privacy ecosystem. 8/ @Revolut announced the phased rollout of its euro-denominated stablecoin EURR, live on Ethereum for eligible users. 9/ @aave v4 surpassed $525M in deposits on Ethereum. 10/ Coinbase Tokenized Stocks launched on @base for non-U.S. users, held 1:1 by a regulated custodian, owned in self-custody wallets, and usable across DeFi 24/7. 11/ @FreedomFactory opened presales for the PQ1, a fully open-source, air-gapped hardware wallet that signs with post-quantum cryptography through an Ethereum smart account. 12/ @OctantApp launched Epoch 13, its latest funding round, focused on privacy on Ethereum and across the open internet. 13/ @selfxyz and Google Cloud launched the USAT Mainnet Faucet on @Celo, letting anyone verified on Self claim USA₮. 14/ @PrivacyBoost launched the Privacy Boost App, a frontend to send private transfers from your connected wallet. 15/ @Whitechain_io, the distribution-focused network connected to the WhiteBit ecosystem, announced it is evolving from an L1 into an Ethereum L2 built on the OP Stack. 16/ @ether_fi added tokenized stocks, portfolio-backed loans through @aave, and other new features to its crypto neobank. 17/ @ethereuminsti announced its ecosystem funding round and supporter coalition, welcoming 100+ organizations to support Ethereum's institutional onboarding, and shared that Open Standard's Open USD stablecoin will launch on Ethereum on day one. 18/ @class_lambda and @gattacahq shared that their PropAMM (pAMMs) infrastructure has facilitated over $2B in total volume swapped on Ethereum. 19/ @theInterfold, an open-source protocol for confidential coordination and encrypted execution environments built on Ethereum, launched its Network Alpha production environment. 20/ @arbitrum activated ArbOS Elara, bringing more responsive fees and 4x bigger Stylus smart contracts to Arbitrum One, along with new features for chains built on the Arbitrum stack. 21/ @Uniswap launched v4 Permissioned Pools, a hook standard to enforce allowlists on swaps and liquidity deposits while the protocol itself stays permissionless, bringing regulated assets to AMM trading with launch partners @SuperstateInc, @Securitize, and Dowgo. 22/ @EthCoordinate, a new crypto-native organization building on the EthStaker community's work, was formed to support Ethereum governance coordination, facilitate stakeholder interaction, and accelerate Ethereum adoption. 23/ @MetaMask launched the MetaMask Agent Wallet, an agentic wallet with built-in spending limits, allowlists, and risk profiles. 24/ @ResearchHub, a tool for the open funding, publication, and discussion of scientific research built on Ethereum and @base, launched a new homepage to surface open research proposals and funding requests. 25/ @base opened applications for Base Batches 004, a startup accelerator program for 10 early-stage teams, and also launched Base Verify Onchain, a privacy-preserving identity layer for apps to enforce one-person-one-claim onchain distributions. 26/ @Cloudflare announced Wallets, enabling AI agents to buy APIs and content with stablecoin payments over the x402 payment standard. 27/ The @ethereumfndn launched the better[.]codes autoresearch challenge to advance post-quantum Ethereum, built with @zksecurityXYZ and @eigenlabs on @yukonresearch, putting a machine-verified security problem on a public leaderboard that anyone can push forward. @Lighter_xyz also launched the Lighter Prover challenge, an autoresearch competition to make Lighter's production exchange faster. 28/ Privacy-focused wallet @staycloakedxyz reached $650k in deposits and $1M in volume in its first 90 days live. 29/ @mtpelerin added support for @ensdomains names as sending and receiving addresses when creating personal IBANs for bank transfers in crypto. 30/ @Blockspace_ETH was announced, a company focused on out-of-protocol infrastructure for Ethereum blockspace. 31/ @0xprivacypools launched onchain payroll support, allowing employers to provide recurring wage payments with privacy for salary amounts and recipient addresses. 32/ Fake World Assets (FWA), a NFT gacha protocol by @token_works, launched the FWAir NFT distribution mechanism with an initial 111 item PFP collection. 33/ Builder @z0r0zzz launched zSwap, a fully onchain decentralized exchange built on Ethereum, with all code, including frontend and application logic, stored on mainnet smart contracts. 34/ MMO game @playcambria surpassed $10M in total game volume in August, and @LootSurvivor and Cambria launched a 72-hour onchain dungeon competition. 35/ @EFDevcon released the official Devcon 8 travel guide for Mumbai ahead of this year's Devcon 8 conference in November.

🚨 Is the CCP’s military command system breaking down? Insiders claim major PLA positions remain vacant and some important military documents are going unsigned because officers fear taking responsibility. Meanwhile, Xi Jinping is promoting discipline officials instead of filling key operational command posts. Watch the full report to learn what sources say is happening inside China’s military leadership.

An absurd scene in CCP China: Tibetan lamas are arranged to visit Mao Zedong’s former residence for “ideological re-education.” Let me tell you, what CCP China practices is not communism or socialism, but a gang of thugs plus an evil cult.

What Would Happen If Elon Musk Had Been Born in China? This is China’s version of Elon Musk @elonmusk. How strong do you think the resemblance is? This is Mr. Ma, a barbecue chef at a restaurant in Tongchuan, Shaanxi Province. Because he looks strikingly like Elon Musk, a customer took his photo and uploaded it online, unexpectedly making him famous. He said that over the past two days, more than a dozen people have asked to take photos with him, while several others have approached him about possible collaborations. In fact, there have long been many discussions on the Chinese internet about what would have happened if Elon Musk had been born in China. One fairly representative article argued: "Let us suppose that, in 1971, twenty people with the same potential as Elon Musk were also born into ordinary Chinese families. "If they were fascinated by science and technology, the most they could probably do would be to join an extracurricular hobby group at a children’s activity center and build model airplanes. "In 1981, a computer cost tens of thousands of yuan. There was absolutely no way an ordinary Chinese family could afford one. "It would not be until the 1990s that they might finally get access to computers in a school computer lab, where one hour of use could cost about as much as an entire meal. "But students had to attend morning reading sessions every day and evening self-study classes at night. Where would they find the time to learn programming? "Besides, what if they spent all their time messing around with these 'useless' things and then failed to get into a good university? 'A mild-tempered father might patiently lecture them: 'Focus on your studies. Stop wasting your time on improper pursuits,' until they finally gave up on their own. "A bad-tempered father would simply confiscate everything. If they dared to argue, he would grab something and beat them. "From the first grade onward, they would have to devote all their energy to exam scores. Otherwise, they might not even make it into university. "By the time they finally entered college, all their sharp edges would have been worn away. They would have been molded into conformity and would have had almost no chance of becoming another Elon Musk. "If Musk had been placed in China, his life would probably have followed a path like this: "No one would have paid for software like Zip2, an online city-guide and business-directory platform. Lenovo would not have acquired it. It would have ended up like Zhang Xiaolong’s Foxmail: users would simply use pirated copies. "Have you ever seen Lenovo pay a huge amount of money to acquire independently developed personal-computer software? "So Musk would probably have starved to death at the age of 28 and gone to meet Karl Marx. "Suppose he somehow survived until the age of 31 and developed a payment platform like PayPal. The major Chinese internet giants—Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent—could simply copy it. Why would anyone pay to acquire his company? "Have you ever seen BAT pay an enormous price to acquire an internet application developed by an individual entrepreneur? Investors would know that his product would be copied, so they would refuse to fund him from the very beginning. This time, he would definitely be finished. "Even if BAT did not copy him, could Musk manage the necessary connections? Could he obtain the required licenses? "Those are not things an ordinary person can easily secure, as everyone understands. "Operating such a business without a license would be illegal. In the best-case scenario, the authorities would order him to shut down. In a more serious case, they might accuse him of illegal fundraising, and Musk could end up spending the rest of his life in prison. "Even if he successfully built PayPal and had more than a billion yuan in his hands, could he establish a company like SpaceX? "That is the domain of the state-owned aerospace corporations. "Even if he somehow obtained permission to enter the industry, no one would provide him with the necessary components or support. "If one private individual were allowed to accomplish all that, where would it leave the millions of people working within China’s state aerospace system? "I guess that, had Musk been born in China, the best possible outcome for him would have resembled Zhang Xiaolong’s career path: working for someone who had the connections and qualifications needed to obtain the necessary licenses."

🚨 Among the hot AI race between the US and the CCP, DeepSeek just halted its second fundraising round. Why? Seems its founder has said something that exposes China’s real AI computing gap, Huawei’s disadvantage against Nvidia, and DeepSeek’s alleged access to restricted chips.👇

🚨 DeepSeek just slammed the brakes on its second funding round. Founder Liang Wenfeng’s leaked speech spilled the real Chinese AI gap and how firms get around US chip bans. Full story👇

Today I saw @EnesFreedom in person for the first time! I actually recorded his entire speech as one of the audience members on site! Will share it later. “Keep inspiring people.” In the face of 27 years of persecution, @enesfreedom feels inspired by the nonviolent and peaceful resistance of the Falun Gong community. - July 23, 2026 at the Lincoln Memorial. #FreeFalunGong#

Ethereum is for shipping. Here are some of the things the Ethereum ecosystem launched, upgraded, and announced over the past month. 0/ @RobinhoodApp launched Robinhood Chain (@RobinhoodCrypto) on mainnet, an Ethereum Layer 2 built on the @arbitrum stack, enabling 24/7 trading of tokenized stocks and ETFs for users in over 120 countries through Robinhood Wallet. The network surpassed $1B in DEX volume in just over a week. 1/ @aztecnetwork achieved Stage 2 rollup decentralization under @l2beat's framework, removing governance control over its core protocol and taking another step toward trust-minimized infrastructure. 2/ @VitalikButerin shared updates to Ethereum's evolving technical roadmap, outlining the next phase of Lean Ethereum and the protocol's long-term direction. 3/ @ethlabs_org launched as a non-profit R&D lab for Ethereum and ETH. Their mission is to make Ethereum the settlement layer of the global economy. 4/ @ethereuminsti launched as an independent non-profit dedicated to accelerating the institutional adoption of Ethereum, its L2s, applications and overall ecosystem. 5/ @aave introduced Stable Vaults, fixed-rate stablecoin yield vaults designed for seamless integration into consumer applications. 6/ @zama launched the First DeFi Yield Venue for Confidential USDC (cUSDC) in partnership with @Morpho and @SteakhouseFi, bringing private stablecoin lending to Ethereum. 7/ @swissknifexyz launched a new Privacy Protocol Tracker, making it easier to compare fees, wait times, supported chains, and other metrics across Ethereum privacy protocols. 8/ Global tickets for @EFDevcon 8 went live, alongside speaker applications for this year’s conference in Mumbai, India. 9/ @Optimism and @toss__official signed an agreement to explore bringing the Korean Won onchain, expanding blockchain-based financial infrastructure for one of South Korea's largest fintech platforms. 10/ @OctantApp completed Epoch 12, its first full quadratic funding round using a zero-knowledge vote coprocessor and new voting application, distributing 88.1 WETH to Ethereum public goods projects. 11/ @0xprivacypools launched the trusted setup ceremony for Privacy Pools V2 ahead of its next protocol deployment. 12/ Gwei Name Service launched an ownerless, immutable Ethereum naming system built without administrative ownership. 13/ @ammalgam launched on Ethereum mainnet, introducing oracle-free lending without impermanent loss. 14/ @lodestar_eth added support for Fast Confirmations, allowing Ethereum node operators to confirm transactions in a single slot using validator attestations. 15/ @PrivacyBoost introduced preconfirmations for private transfers, allowing transfers to be treated as usable in around one second before final settlement. 16/ The @ethereumfndn published Ethereum Basics for Governments and Institutions, a new primer introducing Ethereum as a credibly neutral digital public utility for policymakers and enterprise leaders. 17/ @OndoFinance launched @OndoPerps, enabling tokenized stocks to be used as collateral for perpetual futures across equities, commodities, and indices. 18/ @base introduced Base Privacy, giving enterprises infrastructure to trade, pay, and settle onchain with built-in confidentiality and compliance features. 19/ @BGDA_UK launched BAGEY, a natively tokenized UK regulated fund on Ethereum where the blockchain serves as the legal register of record. 20/ @sparkfinance launched the Stablecoin FX Layer on @Uniswap v4, introducing shared liquidity infrastructure that lets stablecoins access a common liquidity layer. 21/ @Trueo_ launched user-created prediction markets, allowing anyone to create a market by asking a question and letting participants trade on the outcome through a fully onchain prediction market. 22/ @kpk_io integrated @OpenCover Covered Vaults, allowing depositors to add opt-in onchain insurance to curated vaults, with coverage underwritten by @NexusMutual. 23/ @PropellerSwap launched Turbine on Ethereum mainnet, enabling large trades to settle with lower slippage by sourcing liquidity across onchain, offchain, and peer-to-peer markets. 24/ Hosted by @web3privacy, the Neocypherpunk Summit brought together around 1,000 builders and researchers in Berlin to advance privacy, open-source infrastructure, and human rights. 25/ @eth_systems launched as a company building modular privacy infrastructure for institutional Ethereum.

The Chinese Communist Party’s state television @CCTV really has a "remarkable" talent for staging reality. A netizen in Sichuan noticed that the river near his home had turned muddy yellow after heavy rain. But on the live broadcast from CCTV, the same river appeared crystal clear and even bluish. Do you know how they managed to do that?