Last week, there was a massive drop in NFT interest, with the dumping of the fourth most valuable NFT of all time.
Donald Trump expressed interest in appointing Elon Musk to his cabinet if re-elected.
While a senior advisor hinted that Kamala Harris supports crypto policies, there is still considerable scepticism about her actual stance.
Hackers exploited McDonald's social media to promote a fake memecoin and steal $700,000 in investor funds.
While citing media bias, Ronald F. Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed Donald Trump.
Last week was just as eventful as any other, with several political and non-political events in the crypto space.
Within the week, we had a particularly interesting case of the fourth most valuable NFT—a CryptoPunk worth $24 million—being sold off at likely a loss.
We also had a $700,000 heist carried out with McDonald’s, the latest among some of the biggest companies to be hit by crypto heists.
Finally, Ronald F. Kennedy, the third most popular US presidential candidate, dropped out of the race amid prospects of landing a cabinet position along with Elon Musk if Trump wins the election.
Here are some of the biggest events in crypto from the last week.
Last week, we saw CryptoPunk #5822, which was purchased for around 8,000 Ether (or valued at $23.7 million) in 2022, got dumped by NFT investor Deepak Thapliyal, its owner.
This NFT is unique because it holds the record for being the most expensive CryptoPunk NFT and the fourth most expensive of all time.
This didn't stop it from being dumped on 19 August, when the owner transferred it to an unlabelled wallet in an anonymous sale.
This comes amid a massive decline in NFT interest across the crypto space, with another CryptoPunk (#491) that was originally worth $70,000 - $100,000 being put on auction for $45,000.
After the duo met for a chat on an X Space the week prior, Donald Trump told Reuters that he would consider naming Tesla CEO Elon Musk to a Cabinet position if he wins the US presidential election in November.
"I certainly would, if he would do it," Trump said, "he's a brilliant guy".
Musk is willing to serve
This comes after Musk started publicly endorsed the former president via his Twitter (X) handle, which has more than 100 million followers.
This is also despite Musk’s opposition to a Trump presidency in 2020, during which the former asked the latter to "hang up his hat and sail into the sunset".
There are no clear indications of which position Trump would consider putting Musk in, whether Energy, Commerce, Treasury, or Transportation. However, there is a lot of speculation about the crypto community being a huge beneficiary, considering both are outspoken crypto enthusiasts.
On the other hand, Kamala Harris’ senior campaign adviser, Brian Nelson, told Bloomberg that the Democratic candidate would support crypto.
In particular, Nelson says that Harris will "support policies that ensure that emerging technologies and that sort of industry can continue to grow" after being asked questions about her outlook towards crypto.
This is amid Harris' notable silence on the issue of digital assets, more than a month after President Biden stepped down from the race and endorsed a Harris Presidency.
Despite these promises, however, nobody seems convinced.
Senator Cynthia Lummis, for example, a known Bitcoin advocate, expressed skepticism about Harris' stance on Bitcoin, even mentioning during the SALT Wyoming Blockchain Symposium that there hasn't been a "single indication" that Harris's being president will benefit the crypto industry.
Last week, scammers took over the official McDonald's Instagram account and used it to promote a scam memecoin.
These scammers made off with approximately $700,000 on 21 August, according to BubbleMaps.
The screenshots shared on Twitter showed that the hackers took over the account and started making a series of posts about a "Grimace" memecoin deployed on Solana and based on the fast food chain's mascot.
BubbleMaps reports that the hacker deployed the token using Solana's Pump.fun and held a staggering 75% of its total supply.
The hacker then split this token supply across roughly 100 different wallets, as the coin’s market cap went from a few thousand dollars to around $25 million in a few minutes.
In 40 minutes, this hacker dumped their tokens as the market crashed.
Last week, Ronald F. Kennedy "suspended" his presidential ambition and moved camps supporting Donald Trump.
Kennedy made this announcement during a live-streamed event on 23 August, in which he said that "in an honest system," he would have won the election.
He further criticized the media, stating, "In my heart, I no longer think I have a realistic path to victory in the face of this relentless censorship and media control".
Despite keeping his name on the ballot in some states, he said he would support Trump in 2024, claiming that Vice President Harris "declined to meet or even speak" with him.
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