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Bloomberg Intelligence’s Eric Balchunas, with the subtlety of a foghorn, amplified the news on X: “It’s a new day at the SEC…” His post, a masterclass in understatement, highlighted the SEC’s sudden pivot allowing authorized participants (APs) to deliver or receive bitcoin or ether directly. No more routing cash through issuers like a Victorian postman dodging puddles. One might almost call it progress—assuming one still believes in such quaint notions.

American banking giant JPMorgan Chase, with all the gravitas and conservative flair you’d expect, is teaming up with Coinbase, a company that’s basically the rebellious sibling of traditional finance, to make crypto easier to access – because why should the Wild West stay wild forever?

Crypto enthusiasts have been playing a game of legal hide-and-seek for years—except the rules keep changing faster than a chameleon at a rainbow convention. Under the stern gaze of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who insisted every shiny digital doodad was a security waiting to happen, the industry was caught in a regulatory version of “guess what I am.” Gensler’s law was clear—or so he claimed, while the crypto market silently rolled its eyes and packed snacks. 📦🤓

On the social plains of X, CryptoQuant shared a thread that spoke of the altcoins rising from their slumber, particularly after Bitcoin’s triumphant march to new all-time highs (ATH) in mid-July. It was as if the king had stepped aside, allowing the courtiers to shine.

So, on July 31st, coinciding with their second-quarter report (numbers, numbers, always numbers!), Coinbase deigned to reveal this grand vision. A series of pronouncements on that vulgar platform, X (formerly Twitter, heavens!), outlined their intention to integrate… well, everything, really. “Millions of assets → Derivatives → Tokenized equities,” they chirped. Rather breathless, wouldn’t you agree? The whole thing follows some marginally improved results in derivatives and…decentralized exchange, whatever that is. 🤷‍♀️

Enter the scene: Pumpius, a crypto analyst with a handle that suggests Roman ancestry and a penchant for exclamation marks, delivers a Twitter treatise brimming with juicy tidbits. The dirt? Japan’s staid banking behemoth, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG), has decided it’s high time to do away with stodgy old ledgers and start transforming property deeds into dazzling digital trinkets—courtesy of the XRP Ledger, or XRPL for the acronym lovers among us.

According to Grayscale, the Story protocol is like a digital copyright fairy godmother, but for AI and memes. It’s supposed to let you program your cat’s selfies into a licensing agreement. Because who doesn’t want to monetize their pet’s existential dread? 🐱💸

Now, liquid staking—imagine, if you will, leaving your tokens at a bustling party to be guarded by a validator, all while receiving a shiny derivative token in return. It’s like borrowing your uncle’s vintage car, driving it around, and still claiming it’s yours—except the car can be traded, used in DeFi, or even loaned out to a friend who’s in a tight spot. All very clever, but not without the risk of a spectacular smash-up, mind you.

The government of the Philippines, in a move that might be likened to a sudden attachment to the latest fashion, has adopted the Polygon blockchain to notarize public documents. This decision, we are told, is part of the country’s earnest endeavor to improve transparency and prevent fraud—a noble aim, though one might question the efficacy of such measures in a world where deceit is as common as rain in April. Maria Francesca Montes Del Rosario, an undersecretary at the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), made this grand announcement on July 30, 2025, via a Facebook post—a platform, one presumes, chosen for its modernity and reach, though perhaps not for its gravitas.

Now stablecoins are no longer just the kids at the crypto playground throwing tantrums and jumping fences. Nope, they’re transforming into the prime-time stars of the financial circus—programmable, reliable, and ready to juggle the world’s money. Hong Kong is strutting onto the stage, claiming the spotlight as the top clown in a very serious digital arena. 🤡💰