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Devs are standing up for their right to build, and the web3 industry is backing them. Ethereum is owning its real world era with a new platform full of impact stories that remind us why this tech matters beyond hitting an all time high. Even Google and the U.S. government are jumping into the chain game… for better or worse, showing just how mainstream the experiment has become.
It’s a reminder that web3 is not just charts and coins, it’s a living movement shaping how the next chapter of the internet will feel. We’re here for the optimism, the creativity, and the builders who won’t stop pushing the edges of what’s possible to make the world a better place.
WAGMI (we are going to make an impact!)
What’s Inside
📣 Latest News
📚 What We’re Thinking About
🔈 Podcasts & Spaces
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
🎪 Events
📡 On Our Radar
📣 Latest News
Ethereum Surges to New All-Time High Amid Likely September Rate Cut
Billions and Intuition partner to bring identity + reputation to the age of agents
Anthropic launches higher education advisory board and AI Fluency courses
SDG Blockchain Accelerator Announces the Start of a Virtual Hackathon
Global Policy, Regulation, and Adoption News
China Weighs Yuan-Backed Stablecoins to Lift Currency’s Global Use
SBI Group, Chainlink partner to bring crypto tech to Asia’s finance scene
Philippine Congressman Proposes Bitcoin Reserve to Attack National Debt
CFTC to Allow US Citizens to Trade on Binance, Other Foreign Crypto Exchanges
US Commerce Dept. Puts GDP Data on Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana Blockchains
Stablecoin News
MetaMask Debuts mUSD Stablecoin in Collaboration with Bridge
Aave Labs Launches Horizon, Enabling Institutions to Borrow Stablecoins Against RWAs
Reports & Project Updates
Why $1.35 Million for a climate round beats $10 Million in a spray-and-pray strategy - Octant case study
📚 What We’re Thinking About
✨ Ethereum for the World
It’s a new platform from the Ethereum Foundation designed to spotlight how Ethereum can drive real-world change (we’re so here for it!). Launched with support from Celo Public Goods, it will serve as a home for stories of builders creating solutions aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
This is huge. Ethereum is often talked about as finance, speculation, or infrastructure. Ethereum for the World reframes it as a canvas for impact — a place where stories of clean energy, transparent aid, and community-driven finance come alive.
The website already showcases studies that show what’s possible, from regenerative finance pilots to digital tools expanding access to education. These projects remind us that Ethereum is not just a network, but a movement powered by people who want to solve real problems.
Check out the stories, share them, and get inspired. Let’s keep connecting Ethereum’s innovation with the everyday challenges the world needs answered.
✊ Developer rights & civil liberties
It was all over the feed a few days ago. This week, the DeFi Education Fund spearheaded what might be the biggest coalition in crypto history. Over 110 firms (think Coinbase, Kraken, Ripple, a16z, Uniswap Labs, and more) sent an industry-wide ultimatum to the US Senate. Their message? No developer protections, no support for the market-structure bill. That bill, they demand, must explicitly shield non-custodial developers from being misclassified as financial intermediaries.
With the Tornado Cash verdict still echoing through the industry, the push is clear: software creators shouldn’t be criminalized for what users do with their code. Why should the gov care? Without protections, US open‑source talent could vanish. TLDR: this is DeFi's developers demanding the same kind of legal clarity we demand for speech, not just code.
📊 GDP onchain
After saying it's planning to publish GDP data directly on a blockchain earlier this week, the US Commerce Department officially followed through. Yesterday, the government started uploading Q2 2025 GDP data on to nine blockchain networks. On paper, it sounds like a win for transparency (immutable, time-stamped, instantly auditable records of official economic releases). No backdating, no quiet revisions, no lost PDFs buried on .gov sites. Great, right?! But it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. Blockchain guarantees integrity, not accuracy. If the underlying data is flawed, biased, or politically massaged, putting it onchain just makes the error permanent. Trust in the source still matters more than trust in the rails.
The upside? A verifiable public record, open APIs for anyone to tap into, and maybe a signal that US institutions are serious about modernizing data infrastructure. The risk? It could be a more symbolic than substantive, headline-grabbing move that doesn’t actually solve the deeper problem of how economic stats are produced and audited in the first place. It’s a fascinating case study in how governments are experimenting with decentralization: Does onchain automatically mean more trustworthy? Or is it just a distribution upgrade without a legitimacy upgrade?
🏢 Another week, another corporate blockchain
This time it’s Google with the announcement of its own Layer 1. As regulations get clearer, of course the big organizations are moving in. Do we really need a Google chain though? Many in the community see risks of walled gardens, less decentralization, and corporate capture. Others note that while these launches can bring resources and visibility, they often overlook the values that made blockchain important in the first place. This update is not about hype, but about a trend. Corporate blockchains are becoming normal, and it matters because the future of web3 could either stay open and community led or be reshaped by the same giants it was meant to challenge.
As we wrote two weeks ago, “For the humanitarian and impact space, this moment is telling. When companies of this scale decide the base layer is worth building, blockchain in payments is no longer a side experiment. It has become a core strategy. That could mean faster settlement, lower transaction costs, and the ability to move funds across borders at scale, which in theory could transform how aid is disbursed, remittances are sent, or crisis response is coordinated. But it also sharpens the question of who controls the rails. A corporate-owned chain may deliver speed and compliance, but it is not censorship-resistant. In politically sensitive contexts, that distinction matters.”
Plus:
💳 Stripe and Coinbase Are Racing to Own Crypto Payments. Who Will Win? - “Stripe and Coinbase operate very different businesses. While Stripe is a payment processor serving primarily e-commerce platforms and merchants, Coinbase started as a cryptocurrency trading platform that now has business lines across almost all crypto activity. One is a mainstay of the traditional payments ecosystem, the other is a crypto-native conglomerate. Each, however, is wading into the other’s field.” (Unchained)
🌱 Green RWAs recast climate assets as profitable cutting-edge tech - “Basic climate assets (think bonds and thematic exchange-traded funds), already with billions in assets under management, will likely see exponential growth as the investment mix shifts. Supply constraints and verification issues could bottleneck this market. However, through blockchain-based tokenization and verification, efficiency and transparency could be improved.” (Cointelegraph)
⛏️ What Bitcoin Mining Can Learn from Traditional Mining to Mitigate Risks while Innovating - “These considerations include addressing “license to operate” and stakeholder management, which are increasingly relevant for the crypto space and broader technological development. And although they may seem less urgent for those in the crypto world, as investors in traditional mines have learned over many decades, ignoring what doesn’t initially meet the eye can eventually lead to unforeseen delays, clashes with communities and governments, and even scrapped projects and lost profits.” (Bitcoin Policy Institute)
🔈 Watch & Listen
Crypto Altruists Growing Good on Solana - Episode 2 - ecoBridge - Building a Global Web3 Marketplace for Verified Ecological Impact
Crypto Altruists Podcast - Episode 216 - Kava - How Decentralized AI Can Help Web3 Communities Scale Impact, Onboard Users, and Deepen Engagement
The Defiant - Filecoin’s Role in Decentralized AI and Data Sovereignty | Marta Belcher
🚀 Opportunities & Calls to Act
Apply: The Bitcoin Policy Institute Congressional Fellowship Program is a unique opportunity for outstanding individuals to contribute to the development of sound public policy related to Bitcoin. Fellows are placed in Congressional offices, committees, or other relevant organizations for a twelve-month, full-time position.
Hack: RealFi Hack from Funding the Commons is a global virtual hackathon bringing together builders creating practical solutions to real problems. Registration is open now.
Funding: Giveth’s Causes Quadratic Funding Round empowers creators to curate 5–50 verified projects under one powerful mission and rally a community around that vision to earn 3% of every donation in $GIV. Causes will be amplified with a quadratic funding matching pool of $20,000+.
Visa Support: Going to Argentina for Devcon and need a visa? All Devconnect participants can apply to a special visa program for a smoother application process.
Share Feedback: Gitcoin Listening Tour: Learning From 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 is an attempt from @owocki to gather constructive input to make the 3.0 era a time of thriving. Make your voice heard.
Build: The Funding the Commons 2025 Builder Residency is a three-week immersive program designed to support collaboration and experimentation in the public goods and blockchain space.
Learn: Kernel is a peer-to-peer learning community for technologists, researchers, builders, and artists shaping the future of the web. KB11 will bring together ~50 fellows to go deep on a clear research or product focus. *Applications will be accepted until August 31.*(We are both Kernel fellows and are happy to share our experiences, if you have any questions about applying).
🎪 Events
🆕= New to the roundup this week
Virtual
The Future of Digital Finance: Emerging opportunities in India, in China and on the African continent is happening September 24-25.
IRL
ETHAccra is happening September 3-6 in Accra.
ETHSafari 2025 is happening September 7-14 in Nairobi.
Edge City Bhutan is happening September 14-21 in Paro, Gelephu, Thimphu, and other locations in Bhutan.
PGP* for Crypto Briefings and Roundtable Discussion is happening September 17 in DC.
Africa Money & DeFi Summit West Africa is happening September 24-25 in Accra, Ghana.
ETHGlobal New Delhi is happening September 26-28 in New Delhi. 🆕
BTC in D.C. is happening September 30 - October 1 in DC.
The Aptos Experience is happening October 15-16 in NYC.
Progress Conference 2025 is happening October 16-19 in Berkeley.
FIL Dev Summit 7 @ DevConnect is happening November 13 in Argentina.
Devconnect 2025 is happening November 17-22 in Argentina.
ETHBoulder is coming in 2026…
Recurring
Monthly Earth Day is a global event that happens on the 22nd every month, not just once a year. Get involved next on September 22.
📡 On Our Radar
IP Tokens $FACC & $OVARIA target endometriosis and ovarian aging.
SpaghettETH is the Italian Ethereum movement to buidl an open sauce future together.
Chatafisha Blockchain is a hybrid blockchain carbon credit platform. With Chatafisha, waste collectors use blockchain to boost their income and clean their city.waste collectors using blockchain to boost their income and clean their city.
The Africa Bitcoin Institute (ABI) serves as a think tank that provides research, analysis, and policy recommendations specifically for Africans.
