PRICE CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- BTC ($11,678): -2% / +62%
- ETH ($393): -10% / +200%
- LTC ($61): -3% / +47%
- XRP ($0.29): -5% / +48%
- Crypto Market Cap ($364B): -3%  / +90% 
- BTC Dominance: 59%

STABLECOIN MARKET CAP CHANGE: WTD/YTD

- Tether ($10.0B): 0% / +142%
- USDC ($1.3B): +13% / +158%

THIS WEEK IN CRYPTO

- Highly anticipated decentralized data storage project Filecoin is having legal issues with its investors ahead of a public launch expected next month. Protocol Labs, the parent company of Filecoin, was founded in 2014 and raised seed capital from investors like DCG, Union Square Ventures, and Winklevoss Capital. In 2017 Filecoin raised over $205 million via token sales and retained a percentage of the tokens which in theory would accrue in value to equity investors. According to sources, a large percentage of those tokens were distributed by CEO Juan Benet to himself and early employees, and no tokens were distributed to shareholders. Protocol Labs and its investors entered mediation last week, and it's expected that equity investors will receive some Filecoin tokens (albeit not as many as they wanted). Link. 

- USPS filed a patent for blockchain technology that would make mail-in voting a safe alternative to physical polling stations. The news follows recent comments against mail-in voting from President Trump. The patent laid out voting operations based on a blockchain, complete with ballot codes and electronic signatures. Link. 

- Mobile based crypto trading is growing faster than ever. In July the top 10 crypto wallet apps grew new installs by 81% year over year and have seen a 110% increase in DAUs so far this year. Coinbase saw its highest number of DAUs ever, at almost 1 million. Link. 

- Uniswap users have spent almost $7 million in Ethereum gas payments over the last month. Link. 

- Curve, a decentralized exchange for trading stablecoins, has become the third DeFi protocol to hit $1 billion in total value locked. This comes one day after non-custodial lending and borrowing protocol Aave hit the $1 billion mark. Both DeFi protocols are being heavily used in the current yield farming craze. Link. 

- The price of YFI, the governance token of yearn.finance, has doubled this week from $6,300 to $12,500. Yearn is a DeFi protocol that lets users earn interest on crypto deposited within smart contracts. It's the sixth-largest DeFi protocol with $585 million wrapped up in its smart contracts. YFI is distributed to depositors for using the Yearn protocol. Link. 

- Ripple says that more than 20% of all transactions on its global network of financial institutions now use the blockchain startup's native cryptocurrency XRP. Link. 

- LatAm crypto exchange Airtm has been appointed to redistribute $18 million seized by US authorities to 62,000 healthcare workers in Venezuela. The funds were taken in relation to a corruption case involving Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Link. 

- Yam Finance, the yield farming sensation which aggregated $600M in assets in less than 48 hours before being shut down after bugs were found in its code, is coming back to life. Yam is now proposing a two-phase rollout in which the protocol transitions to a fully audited system; Yamv1 holders will migrate to the new Yam protocol which incorporates all code updates and allows for community governance. Despite the failure of V1, farmers still have rough $175 million staked in the protocol. Link. 

- Ashton Kutcher artwork has been digitized and will be auctioned on the new NFT and digital art marketplace Cryptograph. Proceeds from the sale will go towards non-profits Global Wildlife Conservation and OxygenSeven. Cryptograph launched in July and is seeking to position itself as the leading marketplace for one-of-a-kind digital collectibles. Link. 

- Decentralized exchange Uniswap has been plagued by a number of fake tokens associated with upcoming token sales. DeFi lending protocol Teller Finance, NEAR Protocol, and Acala Network have all seen scammers list fake tokens from the projects on the exchange. Unlike centralized platforms, Uniswap doesn't maintain any rules or criteria for listing, meaning that anybody can list an ERC-20 token on the exchange. Link. 

- Binance and blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs took down a $42 million Ukrainian crypto laundering operation last week. Link. 

- Spaghetti Money, which offers staking pools in several DeFi protocols including Yearn (YFI), Maker (MKR) and Compound (COMP), launched earlier this week and saw investors stake over $200 million into digital assets into its protocol within hours of launch. It's the latest in a series of "meme" coins that come up overnight with a catchy name and emoji to attract traders to stake millions into their pools despite not having audited codebase. Spaghetti is also distributing its native PASTA token - which has no function since there's no governance model - to staking pools next week. Link. Twitter account. 

- Crypto lender BlockFi raises a $50 million Series C round led by Morgan Creek Digital; the company has raised over $100 million over the last 12 months. BlockFi has $1.5 billion in crypto assets on its lending platform and is producing almost $10 million a month in revenue. Link. 

- Blockchain startup Alchemy is opening up its developer platform to the public. Their tools make it easy to build smart contract-based projects. Alchemy claims to have 4 million users worldwide and says most Ethereum-based projects, especially DeFi, use Alchemy to run their operations. Link. 

- Tether (USDT) has gone live on the OMG Network, just months after announcing it was moving off of Ethereum because of high transaction costs. Link. 

- Uber's former Chief Security Officer, Joseph Sullivan, was arrested for allegedly trying to cover up a 2016 hack that compromised data of 57 million Uber users and drivers. The DoJ alleges that Sullivan took deliberate steps to prevent knowledge of the breach from reaching the FTC and is charging him with obstruction of justice. They allege that Uber paid the hackers $100,000 in bitcoin in 2016 in exchange for their silence. The hackers were prosecuted last year. Link. 

- Akon City, a "futuristic crypto themed city" founded by music mogul Akon, is set to begin construction in Senegal after securing $4 billion from investors. The city will exclusively use the "Akoin" digital currency and plans to have parks, universities, schools, a stadium, hotels and more. Phase 1 of the project is expected to be complete by the end of 2023. Link.