World Liberty Freezes Justin Sun’s $900M WLFI Holdings

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🎙️ Bits + Bips: DATs vs ETFs — the real alpha?

• ❌ Justin Sun’s $900M WLFI stash frozen by World Liberty

• 🪙 Stripe + Paradigm drop new blockchain “Tempo”

• 📈 Kraken adds skill-based prop trading with Breakout

• 🔒 Venus claws back $13.5M stolen by Lazarus hackers

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Bits + Bips: The Case for Why DATs Are Superior to Crypto ETFs

DATs: fad, fix… or the next great crypto cash machine? Plus, the crew drops some alpha on which alts could soon take off.

DATs aren’t done. They may just be getting started.

In this episode, CoinFund’s Chris Perkins and Upexi’s Brian Rudick join Ram Ahluwalia and Steven Ehrlich to dissect why some DATs could outcompete ETFs for certain investors, the bullish accretion math behind premiums, and what makes a winning vehicle.

We also dig into whether this is altcoin season or a head fake, why Galaxy’s tokenized-share move matters, and the one market unlock Perkins says could change everything.

Use this episode to pressure-test your assumptions: are DATs “just banks,” or the best product-market-fit crypto has found for TradFi capital?

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform.

World Liberty Blacklists Justin Sun-Linked Wallet

World Liberty Financial has blacklisted a wallet associated with Tron founder Justin Sun — one of World Liberty’s biggest advocates — effectively freezing over 540 million unlocked tokens and 2.4 billion locked WLFI tokens held by Sun.

Onchain data shows that the wallet was blacklisted after Arkham Intelligence flagged that it had transferred $9 million worth of World Liberty’s native token WLFI.

The transfer raised fears of a potential large token dump and market manipulation, especially as WLFI's price dropped over 16% in the same period.

“Our address only carried out a few general exchange deposit tests with very small amounts, followed by an address dispersion. No buying or selling was involved, so it could not possibly have any impact on the market,” wrote Sun in a Thursday X post. 

Sun invested a total of $75 million in WLFI, making him the project’s largest individual investor and securing him an advisory position at the entity. Before the blacklisting, his total holdings were valued at nearly $900 million, much of which remains locked or vested.

Stripe and Paradigm Announce New Layer 1 Blockchain ’Tempo’

Payments firm Stripe and crypto venture firm Paradigm have jointly unveiled Tempo, a new layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for stablecoin payments.

Tempo, built with contributions from partners like OpenAI and Visa, is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chain that aims to facilitate low-cost global transactions for any business use case.

It currently operates in a private testnet phase with select global partners testing cross-border payouts, B2B payments, remittances, and other payment use cases.

Paradigm founder Matt Huang said the network is capable of 100,000 transactions per second and sub-second finality.

“We’re building Tempo with principles of decentralization and neutrality,” said Huang, noting that those plans include stablecoin neutrality and a diverse validator set with a roadmap towards being permissionless.

Kraken Acquires Breakout to Offer Users Prop Trading

Crypto exchange Kraken has acquired Breakout, a crypto-native proprietary trading firm, to enable performance-based, leveraged bitcoin trading with funded accounts.

Breakout is a trading platform that allows skilled crypto traders to access up to $200,000 in capital after passing a “rigorous” trading evaluation rather than using their own funds.

Breakout’s evaluation-based model has been integrated into Kraken Pro, giving traders direct access to institutional-grade tools and liquidity. Traders will also be able to retain up to 90% of the profits they make.

“Breakout gives us a way to allocate capital based on proof of skill rather than access to capital itself,” said Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi.

“In a world that is rapidly shifting from who you know to what you know, we want to build systems that reward demonstrated performance, not pedigree.”

Venus Recovers $13.5 Million From Lazarus-Linked Phishing Attack

Decentralized lending platform Venus Protocol successfully recovered $13.5 million in crypto stolen from a user in a phishing attack linked to the North Korea-backed Lazarus Group.

The attackers exploited a malicious Zoom client to deceive the victim into granting delegated control over their account, allowing them to drain millions in stablecoins and wrapped assets.

Venus paused the platform immediately after the suspicious activity and initiated an emergency governance vote that authorized the forced liquidation of the attacker’s wallet, enabling quick recovery of the stolen funds within 12 hours.

The victim in question, Kuan Sun, explained that blockchain security firm SlowMist was the first to trace the hacker’s origins to Lazarus, and that multiple teams from Binance, PeckShield, and Venus were involved in the recovery effort.

“This whole thing felt like a battle against the Lazarus. And together, as a team, we won,” said Sun.

• 💵 Fireblocks, last valued at $8 billion, launched a payments network for stablecoins with 40+ members, including Circle and Stripe-owned Bridge, after processing a record $212 billion in July to make cross-border transfers and conversions faster.

• 📜 SEC Chair Paul Atkins unveiled an agenda stacked with crypto priorities, targeting April for new rules on asset issuance, custody, and trading, marking what he called a “new day” as the agency ramps up Project Crypto alongside the CFTC’s own sprint.

• 🗳️ Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss poured more than $32 million into Republican causes this year—including $21 million into a pro-Trump super PAC—cementing their role as millennial megadonors aiming to shape U.S. crypto policy for decades.

• 🪙 Public companies collectively passed 1 million bitcoin on their balance sheets—now 5.1% of supply—with Saylor’s Strategy still far ahead at 636,505 BTC as newer entrants like Metaplanet and XXI set multi-year accumulation goals.

• 📢 The Jito Foundation approved JIP-24 to double DAO block engine fees to 6% and route all engine and new Block Assembly Marketplace revenues to the treasury, completed a $1 million JTO buyback with ongoing plans, launched a live economic hub, and set its first tokenholder call for September 24.

• 🥇 Tether expanded its gold push by pledging $100 million more into Canadian royalty firm Elemental Altus, adding to its 37.8% stake and $8.7 billion in gold reserves as bullion prices hit records above $3,550 per ounce.

• 💳 Missouri’s Lead Bank, bought for $56 million just three years ago, raised $70 million at a $1.47 billion valuation as it scales banking services for fintech and crypto firms, already partnering with Stripe and Visa on stablecoin-linked payments.

• 💼 Taiwan’s Sora Ventures revealed plans for a $1 billion fund to back Asian companies adopting bitcoin treasuries, with $200 million already committed to tap into the region’s growing corporate BTC adoption wave.

• 🏦 Mega Matrix filed a $2 billion SEC shelf to buy Ethena’s ENA governance token instead of holding its USDe stablecoin directly, betting on protocol fees and yield as synthetic stablecoins boom under the GENIUS Act’s restrictions.

• 🐕 Thumzup Media, backed by Trump Jr., pivoted from advertising tech to crypto mining by acquiring 3,500 Dogecoin rigs, projecting annual revenue of $22.7 million at current prices—or $103 million if DOGE climbs to $1.

1. The Information: Nasdaq Steps Up Scrutiny of Companies Loading Up on Crypto

2. OAK Research: Ethena (ENA): A Deep Dive into the Ecosystem

3. Axios: Trump family-backed American Bitcoin is a different sort of power play