Greetings Ethereum Pioneers! 👋
Welcome to Local Ethereum, a newsletter where we cover the geo-story of Ethereum.
To begin with, we’d love to share with you that Ethereum turns 10 years old! There are 100+ events happening across the ecosystem to celebrate Ethereum's 10-year anniversary. 10 years on, Ethereum has rebuilt itself time and again without compromising on its values.
Asia 🌊
India
Which are the most web3-focused college clubs in India? Blockchain Society IIT Roorkee and Blockchain Club SRM top the list.
Aspiring stories: From Volunteer to Chief of Staff: Aniket’s Journey through Hackathons, Hustle & Heart.
Philippines: The Philippines ranks among the world's highest for crypto adoption. Learn more about crypto adoption, policy shifts, remittances, and consumer products in Liz's new article Transformation Under Way in Philippines as Crypto Market Matures.
Thailand: Thai Baht TrueMoney (THBT) is a new digital payment pilot project launching for testing, built on Ethereum L2 Base blockchain. The project operates under Thailand's Enhanced Regulatory Sandbox as part of the Bank of Thailand's Programmable Payment initiative.
Indonesia: Raising tax rate on crypto transactions: Under the new regulation, sellers of crypto assets in domestic exchanges need to pay a 0.21% tax on the transaction value, up from 0.1% previously, while sellers in overseas exchanges are charged 1%, from 0.2% previously.
Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Monetary Authority released guidelines for stablecoin regulation which took effect on August 1, 2025, stablecoin holders must undergo KYC!
Japan
ETHTokyo 2025 is back! If you're a project or individual interested in the Japanese market, this is a must-attend event! September 12-15, 2025.
Titania Research and ZOMIA have merged to establish a new research foundation, the Nyx Foundation.
Pop artist Takashi Murakami to launch collectible trading cards onchain via Base app.
Korea: Bank of Korea creates crypto asset division amid local stablecoin momentum.
Malaysia: Progcrypto online study group by Wen Kang is back!
Taiwan: Try the free Unphishable Web Phishing challenges co-built by DeFiHackLabs, SlowMist and ScamSniffer.
Kazakhstan: The National Bank is considering investing national funds, such as gold and foreign currency reserves, into crypto. They are taking inspirations from the Norway's sovereign fund, the U.S. Strategic bitcoin reserve and Sovereign Wealth Funds in the Middle East.
Bhutan: Ethereum on Tour is heading to Bhutan, a country that's building a crypto “region”. Led by Aya Miyagotchi, the tour will also explore how Bhutan's national identity system is being settled onchain!
Europe 🏰
France: EthCC[9] 2026 will return next year in…Cannes!
Germany: Deutsche Bank plans crypto custody launch in 2026 with support from Bitpanda.
Romania: The amazing ex-Geth team lead Péter Szilágyi’s last talk on Ethereum, Decentralisation: Original dream vs. shaping reality.
Turkey: One of the most comprehensive Türkiye Ethereum Ecosystem Overview.
Others: Our friends NapulETH, ETHBelgrade and ETHCluj are organizing Ethereum Communities AMA Tour together with the EFDevcon team. Each episode connects builders, event organizers, and local leaders to highlight work, address challenges, and exchange ecosystem driving ideas.
North America 🗽
The U.S. was a major driver of institutional momentum in July.
Policy:
US House passes GENIUS Act, which marks pivotal moment for stablecoin and digital assets sector.
The White House has released an awaited 168-page report outlining recommendations for how cryptocurrency should be regulated, including language around banking, a crypto stockpile, stablecoins, taxes, and illicit finance.
Coinbase unveils Base App, rebrands wallet as all-in-one social and trading platform with strong push in social app.
Fintech Integration: PayPal USD expands to Arbitrum, bringing Layer 2 efficiency to multi-chain development stack.
Cash flow: ArbitrumDAO New Money Machine generated $2M in fees within 3 months through Timeboost. Tether reports record $4.9 billion net profit for Q2, positioning the company among the world's most profitable companies.
Deloitte Insights said 99% of polled North American chief financial officers “envision using cryptocurrency for business functions in the long term.” The future of finance is ETH + AI.
Crypto IPO boom:
In July, crypto-focused Grayscale confidentially files for potential US listing. BitGo, a crypto custody startup also files for IPO.
Last month, Gemini confidentially filed for US IPO. And earlier, stablecoin issuer Circle went public in a blowout debut on the New York Stock Exchange.
“Pre-IPO crypto companies would be crazy not to move ahead with listings after seeing how Circle traded," said Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at Renaissance Capital.
The first ever Ethereum House SF event happened this July.
Latam 💃
Argentina
Crecimiento: July Recap on Identity Day, Startup Club, Product Design and more!
Local communities including Crecimiento, ETHKipu, SeedOrg, Ethereum Argentina and others are pulling out all the stops to make ETHCon.ar and Devconnect a huge success!
Together with la Agencia de Habilidades para el Futuro of the Buenos Aires City Ministry of Education, Kipu is launching the second edition of the Ethereum Developer Pack, a free online developer course under the Talento Tech program for Buenos Aires residents.
Ripio partnered with FinTech Tapi to let users pay for 5,000+ services (such as electricity bills, water, telephone, Internet, tuition, private subscriptions, among others) directly with crypto from its app, boosting real-world crypto utility.
Brazil:
Nobel Prize winner and economist Paul Krugman praises Brazil PIX as superior to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, is it true?
Social Currencies In Brazil: Blockchain's Newest Frontier? A social experiment run by Chainlink, the Plexos Institute and the EDinheiro Institute.
Bolivia: Bolivians are using crypto as a hedge against currency devaluation, with inflation at 24%, its highest level in over three decades.
Others:
Mapping the stablecoin stack in LatAm: Here are the wallets, stablecoins, exchanges, on/off ramps, and infra players building across LatAm.
Odisea Labs received a grant from the Ethereum Foundation to explore how Ethereum tech can mitigate the societal risks posed by AI in LatAm.
The LatAm Trilemma: Problems, Talent, and Capital.
LatAm sees a new crop of tokenized agriculture and energy projects.
Africa 🦁
Following Mauritius and Tunisia, DR Congo launches blockchain-based platform for diploma verification. Mauritius’s eVerify system was a spinoff of Singapore's Open Attestation built on Ethereum, which verifies documents by checking against a blockchain hash value assigned to the document.
Western Union is working on stablecoin settlement systems in Africa.
The African blockchain funding scene: More deals, less dollars.
Oceania 🏄
We'd love to learn more from you! Share what's happening in your region 💬
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Global Ecosystem Update 🗺️
EF researcher Justin Drake shares 10-year 'lean Ethereum' vision: defense—fort mode, offense—beast mode, lean upgrades, lean cryptography, lean craft and lean legacy.
ETH treasuries surpass $10 billion across 64 entities. But it’s just getting started. SharpLink raised its ETH holdings over $1.6B, emerging as one of the largest corporate ether holders since its pivot to a crypto treasury strategy. The Ether Machine adds 15,000 ETH for $57 million. More on Strategic ETH Reserves.
Top 10 entities with the largest ETH Reserves
Web3Privacy will be mapping the Ethereum privacy ecosystem with the support from the EF.
Argot, a research and development group focused on free and independent software related to Ethereum, has secured foundational funding from the EF.
Ecosystem Data 🔢
Ethereum's L2s saw their total value locked (TVL) surpass $40 billion by July 2025.
Ether Price Surge: Ether (ETH) jumped nearly 50% in July 2025, significantly outperforming Bitcoin and leading the crypto market rebound. Investors were focused on stablecoins, tokenization, and institutional adoption.
ETH/BTC Ratio Reversal: The ETH/BTC ratio rose above 0.032, its highest since mid‑2022, signaling renewed confidence in Ethereum’s outperformance potential.
Dominance in Stablecoins & DeFi: Ethereum now powers over 50% of global stablecoin balances, and controls nearly 60% of DeFi TVL, which exceeded $140 billion in July.
Opportunities 💡
We’re hiring a Full Stack developer and a UI/UX designer at Geode!
DeFiHackLabs talent referral for Ethereum security talent.
Applications are open for Edge City Patagonia Fellowship (October 18 – November 15, 2025), a fully sponsored month-long program to co-live and collaborate with frontier builders.
2025 EF ZKET Core Program is back! Your opportunity to explore the world of programmable cryptography (ZKP, FHE, MPC) and make substantial contributions to open-source projects!
Invisible Garden Buenos Aires edition is now open for applications. 100% free for developers.
The Ethereum Translatathon is back for its 3rd edition! Applications open Friday, Aug 8, 2025, at 7:00 AM.
Highlighted Events in July ✨
The Science of Blockchain Conference 2025 (SBC'25), August 4-6, 2025;
Frontiers 2025, Paradigm's annual open source conference for application and infrastructure developers, August 6-8, 2025;
COSCUP 2025 <> Taipei Ethereum Meetup, Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Track, August 9-10, 2025;
ETHGlobal New York, August 15-17, 2025;
PRODFEST 2025 Web3JosConference, August 19-23, 2025;
ETH Shenzhen 2025, August 23-24, 2025;
Ethereum Protocol Day, August 24, 2025;
Web3Lagos Conference, August 28-30, 2025;
Aleph Hackathon, empowering blockchain innovation in Argentina & LATAM, August 29-31, 2025.
❤️❤️❤️
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