Matt Furie, the artist behind Pepe, returned to X in early August after nine months of silence and was then linked to three separate meme coin contract addresses within a week: HOODRAT, DORK, and BOYZ. Posts tied to each token were later deleted. On Aug. 9, the account said it had been hacked, rejected any endorsement of “shitcoins,” and pointed users to a note on Furie’s website. BlockBeats reported that the activity began on Aug. 1, when the account changed its profile picture to a hoodrat image and posted HOODRAT-related content together with a contract address. The token’s market cap quickly surged before the post was removed and the price fell sharply. On Aug. 3, the account posted DORK’s official contract address shortly after deployment, followed the project account, and shared crossover art featuring Pepe and Dork Lord. Around Aug. 7, the account said it supported BOYZ, described it as the only token it would endorse, and added a website link and contract address. On-chain analyst @StandartXBT said the deployer behind DORK rapidly bundled purchases, removed liquidity, and sold, extracting notable ETH profits from the seed funds. The same analyst also said web archive checks did not show the website disclaimer before Aug. 9, casting doubt on the hacking claim.

A republished commentary carried by WuBlockchain argues that one of crypto’s longest-running investment assumptions is breaking down: network usage is no longer reliably translating into token value. The piece revisits the “fat protocol thesis,” first articulated in 2016, which held that applications would be commoditized while protocols would capture most of the upside through their native tokens. According to the author, this cycle is showing something else. The article points to a record $3.86 billion in onchain tokenized stock trading in June, a 145% month-over-month increase, with Solana handling about 96% of volume. Tokenized SpaceX stock alone accounted for $1.19 billion, or roughly 31% of the month’s total. Yet SOL was cited at about $77, down by half over the past year and 73% below its peak. Similar examples are used across Ethereum and Arbitrum infrastructure: Robinhood’s Layer 2 reportedly generated about $816,000 in revenue after launch, with roughly 89% retained by Robinhood, 10% going to Arbitrum, and only $1,538 reaching Ethereum for settlement. The commentary argues that the real economic claims sit with equity, not tokens, because equity carries enforceable rights to cash flow. It extends that argument through M&A, IPO, and token unlock examples involving Stripe, Mastercard, Kraken, Securitize, Celestia, Polkadot, Circle, and Figure, while acknowledging counterarguments such as fee switches, buybacks, revenue sharing, and stronger regulatory frameworks.

In a recent interview, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik said Robinhood most likely won't issue a token because doing so could undercut the value of its stock, HOOD. While some in the market had speculated that the brokerage might launch an ecosystem token similar to certain crypto projects, Svanevik indicated the company is now more inclined to treat blockchain as a technical infrastructure layer. He pointed out that Robinhood's Layer 2 network is already built on Ethereum and uses a gas token for network fees, so an extra platform token would be redundant. The real goal of its blockchain push is to strengthen product capabilities, not to raise capital or construct a new token economy. (Cointelegraph)

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Nansen CEO Alex Svanevik said Robinhood likely won't launch its own token, partly because it could compete with its publicly traded stock, HOOD. He noted that Robinhood's Layer 2 network already runs on Ethereum and has a gas token for network fees, removing the need for an additional platform token. Svanevik framed the brokerage's blockchain push as a product capability play rather than a fundraising tool or a bid to build a token-centric economy.

PA Daily compiled a wide-ranging set of crypto and tech developments, led by two headline items: token TUT’s sharp price spike and a fresh funding round for chip startup Source Foundry. TUT rose from $0.045 to $0.305 at its peak over the past day, with spot trading volume at $570 million and derivatives volume at $2.5 billion across the market. On-chain activity showed 160 million TUT, equal to 20% of supply, moving from Binance to Bitget over a little more than a day. Liquidations also surged, with TUT accounting for $34.99 million over the past hour. On the investment side, hedge fund Situational Awareness, founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, added $400 million to Source Foundry after a previous $100 million investment, bringing the total to $500 million. The digest also covered U.S. and EU policy moves, the Bitcoin BIP-110 split, BitMart’s response to withdrawal concerns, Santiment’s Bitcoin wallet data, and a series of market, macro and treasury-related research notes.

A busy news cycle from Aug. 6 to Aug. 7 brought a mix of crypto regulation, market structure, corporate disclosures, and AI-linked developments. Dow Protocol said claims that OKX Ventures had invested in the project were false and said a list of investors would be released this week without OKX Ventures on it. The U.S. Senate, meanwhile, decided to delay a vote on the Clarity Act until September, extending uncertainty around a major federal crypto bill. Outside Washington, Thailand confirmed a five-year capital gains tax exemption on crypto trades executed through Thai SEC-licensed venues from Jan. 1, 2025 through Dec. 31, 2029. MetaMask introduced a self-custodial AI wallet that lets agents execute on-chain transactions within user-defined limits, and Wintermute registered a broker-dealer subsidiary with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and FINRA. The update set also included Binance Alpha’s AGT and AIA blind box airdrop, Cipher Digital’s sale of 1,619 BTC at a realized loss, a Chainalysis report on more than $30 million in violent robbery losses targeting crypto holders in the first half of 2026, Bernstein’s renewed $140 target on Circle, and several funding, hardware, and security stories tied to the broader AI sector.

According to a PANews report published on Aug 6, US equities opened with mixed results. Bybit market data placed the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.05% higher, the Nasdaq 0.80% lower, and the S&P 500 down 0.03% at the start of trading. Storage stocks bore the brunt of the early selling. SanDisk (SNDK.O) fell 13%, Western Digital (WDC.O) slipped 19%, and SK Hynix (SKHY.O) dropped 7.8%. Crypto-related shares also traded in the red. Coinbase (COIN) lost 1.73% intraday, while Robinhood (HOOD) was down 1.20% intraday. Western Digital was the steepest faller among the three storage names, while SanDisk and SK Hynix declined by double-digit and high-single-digit percentages, respectively. The figures, sourced from Bybit, cover the opening stretch of the US session and show losses extending across both chipmakers and digital-asset brokers.

According to an SEC filing, Robinhood (HOOD) General Counsel Daniel Martin Jr sold 10,000 shares at an average price of $90.42 per share on August 3, totaling approximately $904,200. His direct holdings decreased to 461,396 shares after the transaction. The sale was disclosed in a public SEC filing.