Ethereum returned to price levels last seen in 2021, Salomon Brothers moved to claim “abandoned” bitcoins, a Tornado Cash co-founder was found guilty in the United States, OpenAI released GPT-5, and more from the week.
Ethereum pulls ahead
Although the first cryptocurrency put in a strong showing—rising over seven days from $114,000 to $118,500 (+4%)—market focus fell squarely on Ethereum.
Over the past week ETH rose almost without pause from $3500 to $4300—up 23%. The token last traded this high in December 2021.
At the time of writing the coin has eased to about $4200. ETH trades just 14% below its all-time high, according to CoinGecko.
Ethereum’s price climb came alongside livelier on-chain activity. Daily transaction volume (7 MA) is near record levels.
The number of validators and the amount of ETH locked in staking continue to rise, reaching 1.1 million and 36.1 million, respectively.
Among external drivers, the late-week catalyst was the signing by US president Donald Trump of a new order on retirement savings.
The document directs preparations to allow cryptocurrencies, private equity and other alternative assets in 401(k) plans.
Among the top ten by market cap, XRP (+11%), SOL (+11%) and DOGE (+16.9%) stood out.
The total value of the digital-asset market hit $4.02 trillion, while bitcoin’s dominance slipped to 58.6%.
The crypto Fear and Greed Index stands at 69.
Claims on other people’s bitcoins
A company operating under the Salomon Brothers brand said it intends to appropriate bitcoins from “abandoned” wallets. It sent notices via OP_RETURN to addresses it believes fall into this category.
The group says it aims to protect the funds from criminals and “rogue states”. Its legal basis is the “doctrine of abandonment”—assets inactive for 14 years may be deemed ownerless.
Wallet owners have been given 90 days to prove ownership by making a transaction or submitting a form on the website. How the firm would gain access to the “abandoned” assets remains unclear.
The initiative sparked lively debate. Some suggested a link between Salomon Brothers and the self-proclaimed bitcoin creator Craig Wright.
In comments to ForkLog, experts called the idea unworkable, both technically and legally. Web3 researcher Vladimir Menaskop argued that bitcoin cannot be treated as “national” property and that blockchains require a new body of international law that does not yet exist.
Economist-libertarian Yevgeny Romanenko saw in Salomon Brothers’ move an attempt to test the US court system and “apply the rules of the old world to the new”.
“Are they hoping to ‘stake a claim’ to these rights for the future? So that later, when these bitcoins are moved by their true owners and surface somewhere, lawyers accuse the new owners of theft? This is an attempt to seize bitcoins through the court system,” he suggested.
What to discuss with friends?
- The CrediX team vanished after a $4.5m hack.
- New Trump tariffs hit US bitcoin miners.
- TON slumped 8% after Verb Technology announced a reserve.
- Institutions increased purchases of Ethereum for staking and risk hedging.
An end to a years-long dispute
Ripple and America’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a joint notice with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to abandon further appeals, ending a legal fight that lasted almost five years.
“End of story… Now we can get back to work,” wrote the blockchain firm’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty.
The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, accusing it of illegally selling XRP. In 2023 judge Analisa Torres ruled that token trading on exchanges did not violate the law. However, offering the cryptoasset to institutional investors breached securities rules.
Ripple was fined $125m, though the regulator had sought $2bn. A series of appeals followed.
After Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election and a leadership change at the Commission, the parties agreed to end the dispute. In June 2025 Ripple and the SEC asked the court to scrap the fine and the ban on offering XRP to large players, but Torres rejected the request.
On August 7 the company and the regulator filed a final joint statement withdrawing their appeals.
On the news, XRP jumped 11%, from $3 to $3.3, before easing to $3.15.
A new GPT
On August 8 OpenAI launched a new flagship AI model that will power the next generation of ChatGPT.
GPT-5 is the first “unified” model combining step-by-step reasoning with rapid responses. The chatbot can act on a user’s behalf—building software applications, navigating calendars or compiling research reports.
The new model is available to users without a subscription, with limited quotas.
OpenAI positions GPT-5 as state of the art in several areas, ahead of Anthropic, Google DeepMind and xAI on many metrics, but behind in some.
On the SWE-bench Verified coding test it scored 74.9% on the first attempt, edging Claude Opus 4.1 (74.5%) and Gemini 2.5 Pro (59.6%).
But on Humanity’s Last Exam—assessing maths, humanities and the natural sciences—GPT-5 with extended reasoning scored 42%, versus 44.4% for Grok 4 Heavy.
OpenAI says the new model is safer: it hallucinates less and is better at spotting bad actors.
Other updates include:
- customisable conversational style;
- an improved voice mode—more natural and smarter;
- chat colour themes;
- connections to third-party services such as Gmail and Google Calendar.
The community’s reception was muted, if not negative. Many complained about slow responses, persistent bugs and tighter rate limits even for paying subscribers.
Also on ForkLog:
- The SEC and CFTC proposed new rules for the crypto industry.
- Bitwise identified three key crypto trends for the coming years.
- HashFlare’s founders asked a court not to jail them over a $577m fraud.
- Bloomberg: Chinese regulators restricted the promotion of stablecoins.
A disappointing verdict
During the week a US jury found Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm partially guilty, agreeing with prosecutors that he conspired to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
On counts related to money laundering and sanctions violations, jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict. America’s Department of Justice may bring a new case on those charges.
Storm intends to appeal.
Some lawyers warned that a broad reading of money-transmission laws sets a precedent authorities could wield against other crypto protocols.
Variant Fund’s legal chief, Jake Chervinsky, called it “a sad day for DeFi”.
Attorney Zach Shapiro agreed with the “bleak conclusion” but noted a bright spot: Storm does not, for now, face “draconian” prison terms on money-laundering counts.
Industry figures likewise criticised the decision, calling it a dangerous precedent for open-source software developers.
“We are disappointed that the jury did not recognise that Storm should not be held responsible for the actions of third parties he could not control,” said the DeFi Education Fund.
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