Web3 Watch: A second Trump token fiasco

All three sons of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump have now been caught up in ill-fated memecoin launches.

Eric Trump on Tuesday told his social media following that he had “truly fallen in love with Crypto / DeFi.” On Wednesday, Donald Trump Jr. followed suit.

Trump Jr. — who recently posted about bitcoin on X as his father curried favor with the industry — posted cryptically that “[d]ecentralized finance is the future,” and that he was about to announce something “HUGE.”

Read more: The Trump Effect brings thousands of new holders to memecoin MAGA — for now

The posts left their meaning perhaps a bit too vague, as a lot of people lost money on an apparent Trump-related memecoin Thursday. Ryan Fournier, chair of the Students For Trump organization, made the claim that the Trump kids had released an official coin called Restore the Republic. 

A couple of crypto influencers got involved posting about the token, and Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko briefly amplified the post before deleting his repost.

Read more: PolitiFi parodies are half-way to the US election — but it’s uphill from here

RTR’s price quickly spiked, but when the two sons denied any involvement in the project, the token collapsed. 

“I love memecoins,” Donald Jr. said later in a Q&A on the social media platform Locals. But the Trump brothers’ project would be a “larger type of platform” that would “take on the banking world.”

In June, Trump’s teenage son Barron became involved in an imbroglio surrounding the DJT memecoin. Multiple personalities claimed the project was legitimate, but the Trump campaign ultimately did not claim the token. 

Read more: Web3 Watch: The Trump token that wasn’t

Ronin Bridge Pauses

The popular gaming blockchain Ronin had its bridge paused this week amid reports of a potential MEV exploit. 

Twelve million dollars was withdrawn from the bridge but will likely be returned, Ronin said, as the exploiters appeared to be white hat hackers — those who break into computer systems to help find and fix vulnerabilities. The bug apparently was introduced after a Ronin Bridge upgrade this week. 

Read more: Sky Mavis’ Ronin Network Bridge exploited for over $625M

Web3 watchers can be forgiven for their blood pressure spiking upon reading the words “Ronin Bridge” and “exploit” in the same sentence. The gaming bridge for the popular title Axie Infinity was hacked for $625 million in 2022, and is still among the largest crypto hacks to date. 

One interesting stat:

• The fully diluted valuation (FDV) of the Solana gaming sector has fallen 95% since mid-2022, according to research put out by Syndica.

Also of note:

• Blockchain-based social platform Zora announced a secondary market for items minted on the platform alongside DeFi giant Uniswap.
• NFT-linked company Doodles released limited edition merch with Adidas.
• Animoca Brands announced a partnership with Lamborghini.

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