Top crypto stories of week 42, 2025
Mon 13 to Sun 19 October 2025
The 20 top stories on Kiwi News from Mon 13 to Sun 19 October 2025, ranked by upvotes, comments and clicks, with 18 comments in total. Most-shared sources: farcaster.xyz, paragraph.com, xcancel.com.
Text under a title is an AI summary of the linked article.
- The Irony of Onboarding the Next Billion (paragraph.com)
The author, Caolán Walsh, argues that the Ethereum Foundation lacks anyone explicitly responsible for user and community success, leaving grassroots organisers without effective support or feedback. He points to Ireland's ETH Dublin, which reportedly ran three annual events and side events with about 14 volunteers and less than €150,000, with over 10% of its budget coming from the Ethereum Support Programme. He says the group was told first-time events were ineligible and previous grantees favoured, but it was later denied funding, and it was not given clear reasons. Walsh also cites Project Mirror, which identifies "The Abandoned" archetype of web3 app builders who experience "zero human support," and he announces the Hacker Archives, led by Alina Latinina with his support, to collect feedback on care in building.
- Ithaca × Tempo (ithaca.xyz)
The ithacaxyz GitHub organization, titled "Ithaca × Tempo," lists its public repositories. Its main projects include porto, described as authentication and payments on the web, and relay, described as transparent cross-chain transaction routing for EIP-7702 accounts. Odyssey is described as a testnet open-source Layer 2 co-designed with the developer tools stack, last updated Jul 12, 2025, and exp-0003 covers subscriptions using Porto.
- Deep Marketing (blundercheck.timberschroff.com)
Grabowski argues that projects should spend at least as much on marketing as on engineering, keeping a Marketing / Engineering Investment Ratio above 1. The article defines marketing as market research done before or during product engineering, distinct from sales, promotion, and advertising that come after the product is ready. Its reasons are that upfront marketing clarifies market size, user personas, and willingness to pay, and that path dependence makes product design costly to change later. The author also extends the idea to field building for emerging technologies, citing the U.S. government's mandate of TCP/IP for ARPANET users as an example.
- The MON Airdrop (blog.monad.xyz)
- @kompreni: Memecoin traders are worse than labels for funding creators (farcaster.xyz)
Kompreni argues that tokenizing creators' work through memecoin-style markets is worse for creators than the label and platform models that came before. He says creators historically get paid loosely, through sponsorships, paid subscribers or ads, and that tokenized models like Zora's add a burden on fans, who can hold losses or become exit liquidity when an artist sells. He also argues that memecoin traders have high time preference and no long-term commitments, so artists would be better served without retail funding their work this way.
- "zihilism", and why young men are choosing the roulette wheel (hardspace.substack.com)
- AI trading in real markets (nof1.ai)
Nof1, an AI research lab, argues that financial markets are a strong domain for frontier AI research because they are open-ended, consequential and measurable, and that current LLMs are poor at them. The article says markets are non-stationary, so past successes often fail later, and that they can serve as both an evolving benchmark and a training environment for adaptability. Nof1 says it is building new models for financial markets, along with environments and benchmarks to train and evaluate them. The lab says it has identified a proto scaling law for financial intelligence, with signs of skill transfer to other domains. Research is led by Julian Togelius, founder of NYU's Open-ended Learning Lab.
- @whale_alert: 300 trillion PYUSD ($300B) minted at unknown wallet (xcancel.com)
- why didnt bluesky work as x replacement (farcaster.xyz)
Bluesky did not replace X for many users, but the author argues it has still succeeded for several groups. The author says it arrived during the second exodus from X, after Mastodon had already drawn people away and many returned to X or left microblogging, and that Bluesky's complex handles and mostly self-moderation added friction. The author also says Bluesky is the default for people opposed to billionaire-controlled media, that major newspapers now have a large presence there, and that its DNS verification serves organizations concerned about X's paid checkmarks. The author concludes it is too early to judge and says they are more bullish on Bluesky than Farcaster over the long term.
- Learnings from my call with a North Korean hacker (paragraph.com)
The author, a crypto developer, describes a suspected scam attempt made over a video call that began with a LinkedIn message from someone named "Brendo" proposing a vague blockchain collaboration. The author lists red flags that made the call appear fraudulent, including a name that did not match the sender (Magnus), a Gmail address instead of a company email, pressure to turn off cameras, a video that seemed AI-generated, background sounds unlike a Norwegian office, and a company link that differed from the CEO role Brendo claimed. The author says it is unclear whether North Korean hackers were involved and considers it more likely an amateur attempt, and warns that such scams increasingly target people looking for work in crypto.
- @AyaMiyagotchi: Bhutan is first nation to anchor national digital ID on Ethereum (xcancel.com)
- The Information Asymmetry Crisis: Rethinking How We Measure Sentiment in Web3 (caladan.xyz)
Behavioral on-chain data offers a more reliable measure of Web3 sentiment than social media tracking, because paid promotions and incentive programs can inflate social metrics. Layer3 is cited as the main example, reporting over 167 million on-chain actions across 45+ blockchains and more than 60 million CUBE credentials issued. Its Signal product calculates an "Attention Index" comparing unique participants completing on-chain actions with content volume, and Robinhood selected Layer3 as its exclusive Web3 education partner.
- @tommyr345: Sydney gold queues extend as metal hits record $4186 AUD (x.com)
- Kiwi News Weekly Digest — Oct 17, 2025 (buttondown.com)
- Devconnect Argentina · 2025 (devconnect.org)
- @itsbasil: Base builders are leaving due to creator coin focus over infra (farcaster.xyz)
Builder Basil (@itsbasil) argues that base builders are leaving the network because its focus has shifted to creator coins rather than infrastructure. He says he talks to four or five builders daily and that most of those trying to build scalable products are questioning base's direction and exploring alternatives. He writes that builders want a faster chain, gas stability, sponsorships and $10k checks, and that base should build the blockchain itself. He also criticizes a planned launchpad model in which founders could sell fifty percent of their token to holders, comparing it unfavorably to the 8% listing fee that Binance was criticized for.
- Why Is ChatGPT Telling People to Email Me? (nytimes.com)
- The AI that we’ll have after AI (pluralistic.net)
Cory Doctorow argues that when the AI bubble pops, the useful residue will be cheap GPUs sold at firesale prices, skilled applied statisticians looking for work, and open source models that can be optimized to run on modest hardware. He contends that AI companies spend heavily to signal investment rather than to build products, citing a $45b/year industry-wide revenue figure against spending of most of a trillion dollars in capital expenditures. He points to DeepSeek, whose launch knocked $589b off Nvidia's stock price, and to Pete Warden's demo of a voice assistant running on a chip costing "low single digit dollars."
- @BitcoinMagazine: Bitcoin Magazine x Gold Bar Whiskey exclusive collection (x.com)
- Toda, JTB, Fujitsu launch digital transformation plans for Japan (coingeek.com)
Toda, JTB and Fujitsu have teamed up on ECHIZEN Quest, a tourism digital transformation project that uses NFTs, with a field trial in Echizen City, Fukui Prefecture, running from November 2025 to the end of January 2026. Toda Corporation provides overall project management and smart city infrastructure, JTB handles tourism product planning and promotion, and Fujitsu handles NFT issuance and blockchain deployment. Visitors who complete craft sessions receive a digital collectible depicting Murasaki Shikibu as proof of participation, which can be redeemed for souvenirs. After the trial, the partners plan to integrate the NFTs with a point system or regional currency.