Plus: Inside the Google Drive of a North Korean hacker

GM. Even the lemons are sweet today - the whole fruit basket's in bull mode.

Here's what we're serving today:

🍍 The majors are breaking records + is it altseason yet?

🧑‍💻 Inside the Google Drive of a North Korean hacker.

🍋 Ethereum dev's wallet got drained, UK crypto traders beware + more

🍍 Market flavor today

Crypto Market Cap: $4.06T -1.74% (24H)
Name		Price	24H	7D
	Bitcoin BTC	$118,766.61	-1.57%	2.36%
	Ethereum ETH	$4,659.92	0.23%	22.39%
	XRP XRP	$3.12	-3.78%	2.77%
	BNB BNB	$850.52	0.55%	10.59%
	Solana SOL	$196.59	-0.12%	15.74%

Hope you’re into the color green, because the weekly chart looks like someone spilled a giant bucket of green paint over it.

And not just a light coat - we’re talkin' record-breaking levels out here:

🚀 Bitcoin set a new all-time high above $123K;

🚀 BNB hit a new record above $860;

🚀 Ethereum got to a level ~$100 away from its own all-time high.

Plus, something you could notice is that a lot of major altcoins are actually beating Bitcoin's gains rn.

Naturally, the next logical question is: is this it?.. Are we in altseason?!

... Not quite.

Bitcoin’s still holding most of the money in the market, and the across-the-board altcoin pump that defines a real altseason hasn’t started.

For that, we usually need BTC dominance to drop to 40 - 44% - and we’re still above that.

That said, Google searches for altcoins hit their highest level in five years.

Which is a sign that retail traders are starting to sniff around, wondering if it’s time to enter.

Historically, an increase like that happens right before one of two things:

1️⃣ Early hype before rotation - people start talking, but Bitcoin still runs the show;

2️⃣ The real run - curiosity turns into full-on FOMO, and money floods into mid- and small-cap coins.

Right now, it feels more like option one. The talks are there, the interest is there… but the market hasn’t flipped the altseason switch just yet.

Yet 😉

🥝 Memecoin harvest

Every token here looks like it was named during a fever dream - and they’re all mooning 🥴

Data as of 06:40 AM EST.

Check out these memecoins and plenty more here.

🧑‍💻 The North Korean hacker myth... demystified

I was having my daily "not a thought behind those eyes" doomscroll moment when I saw this one video: a guy pushed a girl into a pool… and then someone immediately shoved him in too. Instant karma, 10/10 replay value.

Then I realized something: there's something deeply satisfying about the bad guy getting a taste of their own medicine.

And today's story kinda fits that vibe.

North Korean hackers have been a nightmare for the crypto community for years.

We’re not talking quiet teenagers in hoodies - this is a state-backed cyber army with elite training that has stolen over $6B in crypto over the past decade.

And crypto sleuth ZachXBT revealed that someone actually hacked into a device belonging to one of these hackers 😈

(Okay, the perfect poetic justice moment would’ve been stealing their crypto - but just the hack is still pretty satisfying.)

The device belonged to a guy working in a small team of five, running 30+ fake identities with forged government IDs and purchased Upwork / LinkedIn accounts to get developer jobs at crypto projects.

And it was discovered that they organize stuff using… Google products.

"Elite hackers" schedulng crimes through Google Sheets 😃👍 Kinda funny, idk.

Digging through those files made it even better, btw. In one weekly report, a worker admitted they’d missed a deadline, and their official "solution” was: “Put enough efforts in heart" 💔

Jokes aside, the Google Drive actually revealed a lot about the team's operations.

One spreadsheet listed their expenses: stolen Social Security numbers, pre-made Upwork and LinkedIn accounts, burner phones, AI subscriptions, rented computers, and VPNs or proxies to hide their location.

It also laid out their workflow: get a freelance account → set up a rented or bought computer → connect through AnyDesk → pass yourself as a legit dev under a fake identity.

The drive even found that one of their crypto wallets was linked to a $680K hack of a platform called Favrr back in June 2025.

... Okay, one last funny bit for the road.

In the browser history of one of these North Korean IT workers was this gem of a Google search: "can I deploy ERC20 on Solana?"

For anyone new to crypto: ERC-20 is Ethereum’s token standard. Solana is… not Ethereum. Totally different blockchain. You can’t just drop one onto the other.

It’s basically the crypto equivalent of hiring a professional chef and catching them Googling how to boil pasta.

Overall, the takeaway is that these people aren’t necessarily tech masterminds - they’re more like persistent opportunists.

They spam the freelance market with so many fake profiles that catching them all is nearly impossible - and sooner or later, someone lets them in. From there, it doesn't take much for things to go very, very wrong.

So, if you’re hiring in crypto - or anywhere remote, really - basic precautions go a long way:

👉 Verify identities,

👉 Check work history beyond just what’s on LinkedIn,

👉 Be suspicious of applicants who can’t have a video call,

And maybe, just maybe, if your senior blockchain dev is Googling how to deploy ERC-20 on Solana… it’s time to hit them with the "After careful consideration, we will not be proceeding with your application."

🍋 News drops you can't miss

🎉 Get $100 just for joining. Download the Changelly app using this link anytime in August 2025, and you’ll get an exclusive $100 welcome bonus right inside the app.

😬 Ethereum dev Zak Cole lost access to one of his crypto wallets after accidentally installing a browser extension. It all started when he added something called "contractshark.solidity-lang" through Cursor AI.

🚀 Thumzup Media, a company tied to Trump Jr., is going deeper into crypto. After raising $50M, they plan to buy more crypto and start their own crypto mining setup.

📑 The UK’s tax office is rolling out tougher crypto tax rules. If you hold or trade digital assets and mess up your reporting, you could face fines - or even prosecution.

🍌 Juicy memes