💰 Tech giants pledge trillions, 2025 M&A boom, & leanVM

Gm! Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the On & Off Chain newsletter.

Tech giants pledge trillions for U.S. infrastructure, crypto mergers and acquisitions hit an historic stride in 2025, and Vitalik Buterin proposes leanVM to advance Ethereum scalability.

But, wait! There’s more! Check out the rest of the news below.

Latest News 

Most Solana DEX Wallets Are Short-Lived Despite Massive Address Count

Solana’s decentralized exchanges have logged more than 750 million transaction addresses, but nearly all of them—96.6%—remain active for less than a day. In contrast, a smaller cohort of 1.8 million wallets show long-term engagement, averaging about 655 days of lifespan.

LINEA Token to Launch on Ethereum Layer-2 Network via Airdrop

The Linea Association will launch its native token, LINEA, through a token generation event (TGE) beginning September 10, 2025, including an airdrop available to eligible early users for a 90-day claim window. The total supply is approximately 72 billion LINEA, with 10% allocated to early adopters (around 9.3 billion tokens), 75% reserved for Linea ecosystem participants via a consortium, and 15% locked in the ConsenSys treasury for five years.

AI to Reconstruct the Lost Footage of Orson Welles’s "The Magnificent Ambersons"

AI startup Showrunner is embarking on an academic endeavor to recreate approximately 43 minutes of lost footage from the 1942 Orson Welles film using deepfake technology and newly filmed scenes grounded in archival imagery. The reconstructed version will not be released commercially due to rights constraints but aims to resurrect the much-discussed missing scenes for posterity. Read more →

Ethena’s ENA Token Rockets ~12% Following StablecoinX’s $530 Million Capital Raise

Ethena’s native token ENA surged roughly 12% after StablecoinX—an Ethena-aligned treasury vehicle—secured an additional $530 million in fresh PIPE financing, pushing its total funding toward $890 million. The capital raise is part of a strategic effort to accumulate over 3 billion ENA tokens and bolster liquidity, underpinned by a sizeable buyback program to support price stability. Read more →

German Authorities May Have Missed Spotting 45,000 BTC Linked to Movie2K Piracy Site

Arkham Intelligence has uncovered a dormant cluster of 100 wallets holding around 45,000 Bitcoin (currently valued near $5 billion) associated with the defunct piracy site Movie2K, assets that apparently evaded seizure by German authorities. With no legal mechanism currently available to reclaim the funds, the discovery raises the prospect of additional crypto holdings by the state—or the difficulty thereof. Read more →

Wall Street’s On-Chain Needs May Forge Ethereum Privacy Progress, Says Etherealize

Danny Ryan, co-founder of Etherealize, argues that institutional demands for privacy in on-chain trading may accelerate the adoption of zero-knowledge proof technologies on Ethereum, turning traditional market requirements into tools for broader privacy enhancements. The startup has raised $40 million to build infrastructure for tokenized equity trading and settlement, positioning privacy as a baseline expectation rather than a niche feature. Read more →

Crypto’s 2025 M&A Boom Redefines Growth Strategy

Crypto dealmaking has hit a historic stride in 2025, with $9.8 billion in acquisitions across just 29 disclosed deals, nearly matching the past five years combined. Landmark takeovers—Coinbase buying Deribit, Kraken acquiring NinjaTrader, Ripple securing Hidden Road, and Stripe moving into stablecoin payments—signal a pivot from fragmented fundraising to strategic consolidation. Read more →

Tech Giants Pledge Trillions for U.S. Infrastructure in White House Meeting

At a White House dinner with President Trump, CEOs from Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI committed unprecedented investments in U.S. infrastructure. Meta and Apple each pledged $600 billion, Google promised $250 billion, and Microsoft projected up to $80 billion, signaling a historic wave of domestic tech spending. Read more →

El Salvador Maintains Daily Bitcoin Buying Streak

El Salvador continues its policy of purchasing Bitcoin every day, reinforcing President Nayib Bukele’s long-term bet on the cryptocurrency. The strategy underscores the nation’s commitment to positioning Bitcoin as both a reserve asset and a pillar of its economic identity.

Vitalik Buterin Unveils ‘leanVM’ Proposal to Advance Ethereum Scalability

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reported major progress toward long-term scalability, decentralization, and resilience, noting several milestones are approaching on the roadmap. He introduced a proposal for “leanVM,” a minimal zkVM optimized for XMSS aggregation and recursion that uses a simplified instruction set and advanced proof techniques to cut commitment costs compared to Cairo.

WLFI Flags Possible Market Manipulation Amid Price Drop

World Liberty’s Ryan Fang suggested that large holders and exchanges may have influenced WLFI’s price by shifting tokens to liquid venues and opening major short positions, though no proof has been established. The token briefly fell to $0.1611, and in response, the project blacklisted Justin Sun’s wallet along with 272 other addresses over the past week.

Paxos Proposes USDH Stablecoin Backing for Hyperliquid Ecosystem

Paxos has submitted a proposal to help launch USDH, a new stablecoin for Hyperliquid that complies with the GENIUS regulatory framework and is structured for global distribution. The plan includes a 95% reserve interest buyback of HYPE tokens, alongside revenue-sharing mechanisms for the protocol and validators to scale with Hyperliquid’s growth.

Wyoming’s FRNT Stablecoin Expands to Hedera—but Still Not Available to Buyers

Wyoming’s state-backed FRNT stablecoin is set to launch on the Hedera blockchain, following its mainnet debut in August across Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Polygon, Optimism, and Base. The Wyoming Stable Token Commission selected Hedera for its alignment with security and compliance priorities—but despite the expansion, FRNT remains unavailable for public purchase, with details on buying set to be announced soon. Read more →

Strategic Reserve Accumulates 1.55% of Solana Supply

The Strategic SOL Reserve has grown to 8.9 million SOL, equivalent to 1.55% of total supply, now concentrated among just 13 entities. The holdings highlight increasing institutional-style coordination around Solana’s token reserves.

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