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Week of August 4, 2023

Weirdo's Weekly Update — 4 Aug, 2023

The update covers major crypto regulatory news including the SEC lawsuit against Richard Heart, July's $300M+ in hacks, and top-performing altcoins. AI news features OpenAI's GPT-5 trademark filing and Meta's AudioCraft, plus travel safety tips for Mexico and Fiverr as tool of the week.

Crypto News

Regulatory News

The SEC filed a lawsuit against Richard Heart, founder of Hex, Pulsechain, and PulseX, alleging unregistered securities sales and personal misappropriation of funds for luxury purchases.

Surge in Hacks, Scams, and Rug Pulls

July experienced over $300 million in losses from exploits and fraud. Notably, Curve Finance suffered a ~$50 million hack, with concerns raised about the CEO's substantial debt backed by Curve tokens.

Ethereum Futures-based ETFs

Six asset managers—including VanEck, ProShares, and Grayscale—filed SEC applications to launch Ethereum futures-based ETFs.

Top-performing Altcoins in July

XRP (+46.53%), MKR (+44.81%), UNI (+22.56%), SOL (+22.64%), and OP (+20.60%) led performance.

Changes in the Last Week

  • Bitcoin: $29,615 (+1.2%)
  • Ethereum: $1,859 (+0.1%)
  • Gold: $1,933

AI News

OpenAI's GPT-5 Trademark Filing

OpenAI filed for GPT-5 trademark covering language model applications including "speech and text production advancements, audio conversion, speech recognition."

Meta's AudioCraft

Meta introduced AudioCraft, an AI suite generating music and audio from text prompts, though copyright concerns were raised.

ChatGPT Plus Custom Instructions

OpenAI added Custom Instructions, allowing users to "set default behavior and text for their chat sessions."

Travel Tips

Discussion of Mexico's safety, emphasizing research, awareness of high-crime areas, respectful conduct, valuables protection, secure ATM usage, and avoiding drug involvement.

I Am Currently Listening

The Authority Hacker Podcasts: #316 - Ultimate New Pinterest Strategy

I Am Currently Watching

The full story of MrBeast

Tool of the Week

Fiverr.com — a freelance marketplace for digital services including design and writing. Fiverr enables outsourcing for digital nomads and small business owners, improving efficiency through delegating tasks to skilled freelancers.

Inspiring Quotes

"One version of confidence is: I've got this figured out. Another version is: I can figure this out. The first is arrogant and close-minded. The second is humble and open-minded." — James Clear

"No one can compete with you on being you" — Naval Ravikant