Scenius Sync (Issue #116)

Telegram Privacy Under Fire, Crypto Scammers Turn to "Pig Butchering", Pump.fun Surpasses $100M Revenue, & Yuga Reveals Team Focused on Apechain dApps

Scenius: The intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. The communal form of the concept of genius.

Welcome to The Scenius Sync.

Our mission with this concise publication is twofold:

1. Share the essential stories driving the crypto industry and markets.

2. Highlight innovative applications and mainstream adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.

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Essential News 🗞

1. Telegram Privacy Under Fire as Founder Awaits Trial

   • Following the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in Paris last week, privacy advocates quickly rallied to his defense, with the likes of Proton CEO Andy Yen calling Durov’s arrest “insane.” But in the days since, a rift has opened up among the developers of privacy-focused apps and cryptocurrencies, with some questioning Telegram’s tools for “protecting user privacy.”

   • In related news, Telegram financial statement shows it holds $400 million in crypto

2.  ‘Google of South Korea’ launches crypto wallet for 33M users

   • South Korean tech conglomerate Naver is launching its first-ever crypto wallet, Naver Pay Wallet, in partnership with the sport-focused blockchain Chiliz. Chiliz, a layer-1 blockchain built around supporting fan tokens, stated in an Aug. 29 X post that it was chosen as the inaugural blockchain for the wallet, which is available to over 33 million Naver users. Naver — known as “the Google of South Korea” — runs the country’s most used search engine. It was the most visited website in South Korea last month with 1.7 billion visits, according to Similarweb. The wallet is managed by Naver subsidiary Naver Pay, which reportedly has over 97,000 merchant users.

3. Crypto criminals pivot from Ponzi schemes to 'pig butchering' scams: Chainalysis

   • In the past year, crypto criminals have shifted from Ponzi schemes to more targeted scams like "pig butchering," according to a new Chainalysis report. "There is a macro trend consistent with the continued pivot of scammers from elaborate Ponzi schemes that cast a wide net to more targeted campaigns like pig butchering or address poisoning, driven in part by increasing enforcement efforts and stablecoin issuers blacklisting scam addresses," Friday's Chainalysis mid-year update part two said.  Pig butchering scams earn their name from the way scammers "fatten up" their victims to extract maximum value. This typically involves cultivating a romantic relationship over time through text messages or dating apps, ultimately persuading the victim to invest in a fraudulent scheme. In a disturbing turn, many of the scammers orchestrating these conversations are themselves victims—kidnapped, trafficked to Southeast Asia and forced to work in labor camps within large compounds to carry out these scams, according to Chainalysis.

4. OKX now fully licensed in Singapore, hires former MAS official as local CEO

   • Global cryptocurrency exchange OKX announced that its Singapore entity, OKX SG, received the full Major Payment Institution license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It also appointed Gracie Lin, a former MAS official, as CEO of the regional arm. The license grants OKX SG to offer digital payment token and cross-border money transfer services, including spot crypto trading for Singaporean investors, its press release said. 

5. SEC warns FTX against paying creditors back in stablecoins, other crypto

   • A recent filing from the SEC warns the FTX estate that the agency might oppose any attempts to pay creditors back with stablecoins or other digital assets.  The agency, like the U.S. Trustee, also opposed to a discharge provision that would limit the future legal liabilities of the FTX debtors’ estate. 

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Innovation & Adoption 💡📈

1. Pump.fun surpasses $100 million in revenue as Polymarket outshines NFTs in August

   • Popular memecoin launchpad Pump.fun has made $100 million in cumulative revenue from more than one million memecoins since it launched in January of this year.  Another hot crypto project, Polymarket, had more volume in August than all NFTs across all chains combined, according to analytics platform CryptoSlam. 

2. Yuga Labs CEO reveals The Workshop team focused on ApeChain dapps

   • Yuga Labs co-founder and CEO Greg Solano, a.k.a. Garga, has announced the company’s first major initiative since he took over as CEO in February: an internal team called The Workshop built to “make delightful shit, on-chain, fast.”  Solano said Coinbase’s embrace of the Base Layer 2 blockchain inspired the new team, which will be shipping its first products on the forthcoming ApeChain in the coming “weeks and months.” 

3. Cardano’s Chang Hard Fork Goes Live, Introducing On-Chain Governance

   • Cardano, the layer-1 blockchain launched in 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson, activated its highly anticipated “Chang” upgrade on Sunday, marking the ecosystem's long-planned shift towards decentralized governance. With the Chang upgrade now live, ADA token holders will be able to shape Cardano's future by electing governance representatives and voting on development proposals.

   • More coverage from the Block here: Cardano shifts to decentralized governance as Chang hard fork goes live

4. Stablecoin money movement firm Bridge raises $58 million in funding

   • The web3 payment firm Bridge has raised a total of $58 million in funding. Started by former Coinbase and Square employees, the firm has backers including Sequoia, Ribbit, Index and Haun Ventures, according to a company post on X. Bridge is building a stablecoin-powered money movement platform, offering services such as payouts, cross-border payments and exchanging foreign currencies. It has already partnered with Bitso for business-to-business cross-border payments undergirded by stablecoins in Latin America.

5. Bitcoin Layer-2 Network Stacks Begins Nakamoto Upgrade

   • Stacks, a layer-2 blockchain that augments the Bitcoin network, has begun its Nakamoto upgrade with the aim of making transactions even faster.

     The Nakamoto upgrade, which is named after Bitcoin's pseudonymous creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, will decouple the block production schedule on Stacks from Bitcoin's. Network operators now have a two-week window to implement the Nakamoto upgrade, after which there will be hard fork that completes the process. Nakamoto introduces a new way of producing Stacks blocks, using a proof-of-transfer consensus algorithm. Users burn bitcoin to mine Stacks blocks and receive rewards. This process began its implementation in April, with block "signers" coming online to validate "tenures" of transactions.