THE PHENOM CRYPTO LETTER

GM,

Welcome to the Phenom Weekly Update—your no-nonsense guide to everything you need to know about crypto this week. Whether you're here to turn memes into millions or just trying to understand what the heck an "altcoin" is, we've got you covered. We sift through the hype, the FOMO, and the endless stream of jargon so you don't have to. Strap in.

Here’s what we’ve got this week:

Jump to a Section:

• Reading Corner

• Blockbuzz

• Crypto Twitter

• Memes

Is the Ethereum Foundation Blowing its Treasury?

This week there was some drama on Twitter after the Ethereum Foundation (EF) moved $100m worth of ETH to an exchange. We wanted to see what all the fuss was about so we decided to check out what EF does with its holdings and how it spends its ETH. Lets dive in.

• EF holds $845m (price depending) worth of ETH. About. 45% of the circulating supply.

• They primarily fund salaries, grants and bounties.

The latest available report is from 2021 (not a great look that they aren’t more transparent). In 2021 they had a total expenditure of $48m.

The largest expenses included:

• $21m for L1 Research & development

• $9.7m for community development (grants, education, etc)

• $5.1m on operations for the foundation

The primary drama on Twitter was invloving people thinking EF was blowing $100m on enriching itself. With the latest full year of data available showing they spend just over 10% of expenditures on operations that seems to be an overblown criticism. In fact, they seem to be pretty frugal and generally good stewards of their treasury. Obviously we don’t know what their plan is with this latest $100m move and we don’t have data on 2022 or 2023 yet but hopefully they stay in line with their overall budget allocations from 2021.

On a side note, hopefully this $100m for the year is an outlier and they reduce those numbers to be more aligned with their earlier budget. At $100m per year they only have an 8 year runway…

McDonald's Instagram Gets Hacked—With a Side of $700K in Fake Crypto! 🍟💸

Just when you thought fast food couldn’t get any more dangerous… BAM! McDonald's Instagram page gets hacked and served up a McRugPull. Here’s what happened:

• The Cybercrime Meal Deal: 

Some hackers decided to take over McDonald's Instagram, turning it into a crypto rug pull that swindled $700K. That’s a lot of McNuggets. 🐔

• How It Went Down: 

The hackers slid into McDonald's DMs—literally. They posted some too-good-to-be-true crypto giveaways. You know the drill: "Send us your crypto, and we’ll send you back even more!" Spoiler alert: They didn’t send anything back. 🚫💸

• The Victims: 

Who fell for it? Quite a few folks, apparently. Turns out, when you mix fast food with fast money, people get really, really hungry for some easy cash. 🍔➡️💰

• The Damage: 

$700K later, the hackers vanished quicker than your fries when you say, “I’m not hungry.” McDonald's had to step in, clean up the mess, and lock down their account like it was the last McRib ever.

• Lesson of the Day: 

Don’t trust everything you see on social media—especially when it involves free crypto. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Now, excuse me while I change all my passwords. 🔒

• What’s Next for McD’s? 

Hopefully, a stronger social media team and maybe some extra sauce to cool down after this burn. 🥵

Stay sharp out there, and remember: the only thing you should be ordering from McDonald's is a Big Mac, not financial advice! 🍔📉

READING CORNER

A collection of longer form content we are consuming this week 

BLOCKBUZZ

Quick Hitters from the week

• Telegram CEO Pavel Durov Arrested in France: French National Anti-Fraud Office detains Telegram founder Pavel Durov, according to TF1.

• Kraken Scores Legal Victory in California: Federal Court rules that none of the tokens on Kraken are securities, marking a major win for the exchange and crypto users.

• Grayscale Launches AVAX Investment Trust: Introduces a new investment trust focused on Avalanche’s AVAX token.

• Worldcoin Faces Scrutiny in Colombia: Regulator claims Sam Altman's Worldcoin violated data policies while collecting biometric data in the country.

• New Binance CEO Dismisses IPO Need: Richard Teng, who succeeded Changpeng Zhao, focuses on a 100-year strategy for the exchange, with no immediate plans for an IPO.

• Justin Sun's USDD Stablecoin Drops Bitcoin Backing: USDD is no longer backed by Bitcoin, signaling a shift in the stablecoin’s collateral strategy.

• El Salvador Continues Bitcoin Accumulation: Adds 162 BTC to its holdings, further entwining the country's financial future with the volatile crypto market.

THE TWITTERVERSE

A collection of the most interesting stuff on Crypto Twitter this week

A look at $TRON, which has seen massive user growth this year.

Probably nothing…

WAGMI

For the (crypto) Culture

Big OOF

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