Top crypto stories of week 37, 2025
Mon 8 to Sun 14 September 2025
The 20 top stories on Kiwi News from Mon 8 to Sun 14 September 2025, ranked by upvotes, comments and clicks, with 21 comments in total. Most-shared sources: decrypt.co, farcaster.xyz.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- We Just Found Malicious Code in the Popular NPM Package (jdstaerk.substack.com)
Malicious code has reportedly been found in a popular NPM package, according to the title, but the text contains only obfuscated JavaScript and does not name the package, its maintainers or any dates. The script wraps the browser's fetch function and XMLHttpRequest so that response bodies pass through a routine that finds the closest match among long built-in lists of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tron and Solana-style addresses. It also checks for an injected window.ethereum wallet before running its main logic. The text does not explain what the code does with these matches or who is responsible.
- Compensation Insights for Ethereum Core Developers (protocolguild.org)
- What mom hasn't told you about building in consumer crypto (kanfa.macbudkowski.com)
The author, a former Kiwi founder, argues that consumer crypto products are harder to validate than normal consumer startups because speculation and non-user supporters distort the usage signal. Farcaster Pro made over $1M in revenue within 24 hours of launch, but almost half of its buyers had fewer than 100 followers, and the first 10,000 buyers who paid $120 received $600 in airdrops the next day. At Kiwi, over 100 people bought the $10 Kiwi Pass in its first three months, but only some of them wanted to use the product. The text also points to a small market of about 45M monthly active Ethereum addresses and to falling Kiwi usage during the 2024 Base memecoin mania.
- OpenSea Reveals 'Flagship' NFT Treasury Stockpile as SEA Token Drop Nears (decrypt.co)
OpenSea said it has committed more than $1 million to acquiring culturally relevant NFTs for a new Flagship Collection, ahead of the launch of its native ecosystem token, SEA. The collection will begin with CryptoPunk #5273, which was last purchased for $282,000 on August 25 and transferred to a new address on Monday. OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said the firm aims to pick pieces that "will stand the test of time," and the company plans to start using 50% of its platform fees for a prize vault on September 15, seeded with $1 million in ARB and OP tokens. The OpenSea Foundation is expected to share SEA tokenomics in early October.
- Introducing the MCP Registry (blog.modelcontextprotocol.io)
The Model Context Protocol project has launched the MCP Registry in preview, an open catalog and API for publicly available MCP servers meant to improve discoverability and implementation. The official registry at registry.modelcontextprotocol.io is open source, along with a parent OpenAPI specification, so organizations can build compatible sub-registries. The registry is maintained by the registry working group, and community members can submit issues to flag servers that violate moderation guidelines, such as those containing spam or malicious code. The preview does not provide data durability guarantees, and breaking changes may occur before general availability.
- plebbit/plebchan: a serverless, adminless, decentralized 4chan alternative (github.com)
5chan is a serverless, adminless, decentralized and open-source imageboard built on the Bitsocial protocol, where anyone can create and own boards and multiple boards compete for each directory slot. Each board owner runs their own P2P node, and the project has no global admins or central authority. Currently, developers manually pick directory assignments by reviewing GitHub pull requests, while planned directory voting pages would let 5chan Pass holders participate, with final governance still being designed to include BSO-holder alignment. Boards run with the 5chan Board Manager to enforce imageboard behavior such as thread limits, bump limits, and archive retention.
- Techmeme profile. turns 20 this week. looks and feels like it did in 2005 (crazystupidtech.com)
Techmeme, a news aggregator launched full-time on September 12, 2005, reaches its 20th anniversary this week while keeping a design that has barely changed. Founder Gabe Rivera says the site's text-only, dense layout was chosen for readability and speed, and he has resisted adding photos, videos or podcasts because they would slow down timely news. Traffic is up 25 percent this year, which Rivera attributes likely to interest in AI. Rivera says the company is profitable without venture capital, runs on two servers in one hosting facility, and earns between $1 million and $5 million a year from newsletters and a corporate service launched in 2020.
- @alterego_io: Alterego, near-telepathic wearable for silent communication (xcancel.com)
- Jack Dorsey’s Bitchat Surges in Nepal, Indonesia Amid Protest Crackdowns (decrypt.co)
Downloads of Jack Dorsey's offline messaging app Bitchat surged in Nepal and Indonesia during national protests, with the Nepal spike tied to a government ban on social media. According to data from an open-source developer who goes by callebtc, Nepal downloads rose from just over 3,300 the previous Wednesday to 48,781 by Monday, making it the app's largest user base worldwide. The ban covered 26 platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and Instagram, and at least 34 people died in clashes before the ban was lifted. Christian Ruz, account director at crypto-native agency Hype, told Decrypt that decentralized, censorship-resistant apps will see an explosion in adoption.
- How I made cycling fun again (proofinprogress.com)
The author describes giving up on using bikes for city transportation and reframing cycling as a sport, after years of frustration over traffic safety in Berlin. They say they once believed bikes could make inner cities less polluted, quicker and safer, but close calls with motorists left them exhausted and stressed. Their new rules are to ride only for sport, keep workouts under an hour (for example, 15 minutes out and back), and minimize time sharing roads with motorists. They report that this has made cycling enjoyable again, and they bought a Canyon Griyl AL 7 gravel bike to do so.
- @rachinkalakheti: Nepal government overthrown via Discord-coordinated protests (x.com)
Nepal's government was overthrown within 48 hours through protests coordinated on social media and Discord without a central leader, according to the author's account. The September 8, 2025 protest, with over 12,000 participants, turned violent after the government ordered police to shoot, killing more than 20 people and injuring over 300. The next day, crowds burned the houses of the prime minister and many other politicians, and the prime minister resigned by late afternoon. The army took control and planned talks with protesters, whose representatives were being chosen through polls on Discord and Reddit.
- Pentagon Pizza Index (pizzint.watch)
The Pentagon Pizza Index (PizzINT) is a real-time dashboard that tracks Pentagon-area pizzeria activity as a possible signal of late-night, high-tempo military operations and breaking news. The page traces the theory from a claimed 1970s-1980s Soviet "PIZZINT" effort through Gulf War-era reports, including Frank Meeks, owner of 43 D.C. Domino's franchises, documenting 101 pizzas delivered to the Pentagon on January 15, 1991. It notes that the Department of Defense told FOX Business it has "nothing to offer" on the theory, and that the Pizza Index has since been extended to gay bars and strip clubs near military sites. The dashboard's own disclaimer says data correlation does not imply causation.
- Kiwi Weekly is back! (paragraph.com)
- Moving on from Topology (guiltygyoza.xyz)
The author announces they have left Topology and reflects on mistakes made while running it, including tying their self-worth to external progress measures, rushing into action before planning sufficiently, relying on building from scratch instead of reading prior research, and copying the traits of a few founders without understanding what kind of founder they should be. They say they are now exploring topics in applied sciences, drawn by the possibility that GPT might accelerate scientific progress, and they remain open to starting another company, which they describe as a means to an end.
- Ethereum Devs Earn 50-60% Less Than Market Rates: Protocol Guild (thedefiant.io)
- plainlanguage.gov (plainlanguage.gov)
This page presents plain language guides for web managers and content strategists, arguing that clear content helps the public understand its obligations and benefits and that plain language is also required by law. It states that the guides explain how to create, design and test content so a specific audience understands it, citing the Plain Writing Act of 2010 as the basis for the requirement that public content be written for its specific audience. The featured resources cover plain language principles, writing for an audience, content design, and testing comprehension. The guides are adapted from PlainLanguage.gov, and the original content is archived in the PlainLanguage.gov GitHub repository.
- Christie’s Shutters Digital Art Department (nowmedia.co)
- npm Author Qix Compromised via Phishing Email in Major Supply Chain Attack (socket.dev)
Qix, a prolific npm maintainer, had his account compromised through a phishing email, and attackers published malicious versions of widely used packages including chalk-template, color-convert, and strip-ansi. Socket, which detected the attack, says the packages generally receive 2-3 billion downloads per week and many are co-maintained by Qix and Sindre Sorhus. The affected maintainer confirmed the compromise came from a 2FA reset email sent from support [at] npmjs [dot] help. Socket's analysis says the malicious code swaps cryptocurrency transactions to the attacker's own addresses.
- @kazani.eth: 30-90 day parasite cleanse protocol with detox pathways (farcaster.xyz)
- Crypto industry chose plutocracy over neutral tech, blockchains are transitory (farcaster.xyz)
The commenter argues that the crypto industry has chosen plutocracy and corporatocracy over neutral technology, and that blockchains are transitory tech likely to be made obsolete. They say institutional speculation offers a market 3-4 orders of magnitude larger, making it more important to pump holdings than to deliver maximally neutral technology. They also argue that holders invested in a ticker rather than in a blockchain's technology should embrace better-suited alternatives under their banner rather than dismissing them as bearish.