OpenAI Simultaneously Recruits Schumer’s Daughter and Veteran Republican Operative to Focus on U.S. State AI Policies
From Beating AI Express News: OpenAI has appointed three new state-level policy heads, with Jessica Schumer drawing the most attention. She is the daughter of US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, previously served as chief of staff at the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers, and later led Amazon’s public policy work in New York. At OpenAI, she will oversee policy and partnerships in the US Northeast.
Another new hire, Caulder Harvill-Childs, previously worked in public policy at Meta and also served Republican Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns; he will now be responsible for the US Southeast. Thomas MacLellan will handle state-level cybersecurity policy, with prior experience at firms including Palo Alto Networks, Symantec, and FireEye.
OpenAI is shifting more focus to US states, a strategy it terms "reverse federalism": instead of waiting for Congress to enact uniform legislation, it is pushing major states like California and New York to adopt similar AI rules, eventually forming de facto national standards. OpenAI publicly noted that California, New York, and Illinois have already started aligning on frontier AI safety rules.
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Altcoins rally broadly, with Layer 2 (L2) and DeFi sectors surging sharply. ARB, RAY, and SUSHI – the direct beneficiaries of the Meme craze – lead the market’s gains.
According to HTX market data, altcoins are rallying broadly amid active trading on Robinhood, BNB Chain, and Solana. The L2, DeFi, and DEX sectors are seeing sharp gains, with L2 led by ARB, followed by OP, STRK, IMX, etc. DeFi and DEX tokens including RAY, ORCA, JUP, UNI, SUSHI, CAKE, CRV, SPK, LISTA, and ENA are all rising, as capital flows back to DeFi projects with real trading use cases and fee mechanisms.
On BNB Chain, boosted by BNB breaking above $780, tokens like BOME, 1000CAT, MARSCOIN, and TUT are also climbing. Meanwhile, today’s Altcoin Season Index has risen to 40, meaning roughly 40 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap have outperformed Bitcoin over the past 90 days, and total altcoin market cap has hit $1.10 trillion.
Top gainers: ARB up over 51% in 24 hours, trading at $0.1997. Robinhood Chain, an Ethereum L2 built on Arbitrum Orbit, allocates 10% of its net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem—8% to the DAO treasury and 2% to development funds. RAY up over 42% in 24 hours, trading at $1.177.
Solana-based token launch platform StonkFun announced it has integrated with Raydium LaunchLab. Going forward, all new StonkFun token deployments will launch via LaunchLab to cut costs, reduce front-running risks, and enable auto-compounding liquidity post-binding. SUSHI up over 24% in 24 hours, trading at $0.2385.
SushiSwap has integrated its DEX and launchpad into Robinhood Chain, allowing new tokens to pair with tokenized stocks and launch with an existing Sushi V3 pool. SushiSwap Launch V2 is set to launch around September 4, with SUSHI serving as the launchpad’s quote asset.
Other notable 24-hour gains: BOME, IOST, 1000CAT up over 20%; COTI, TUT, CAKE, SPK, UNI, STRK, MET, ORCA up over 10%; CRV, ENA, IMX, JUP, LISTA also posting solid increases.
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StonkFun completes a $1 million buyback of STONK tokens; its platform token STONK surpasses $100 million in market cap today.
Solana-based token launch platform StonkFun announced it has completed a $1 million STONK token buyback, while over $7.5 million in rewards have been distributed to holders in the StonkFun ecosystem. StonkFun also announced it has launched on Raydium LaunchLab. Going forward, all new StonkFun token deployments will be initiated via LaunchLab to lower deployment costs, reduce sniper risks, and enable automatic liquidity compounding after binding is completed. According to GMGN market data, StonkFun’s platform token STONK surpassed $100 million in market cap today, currently trading at $92 million, with a 256% 24-hour gain and $30.4 million in trading volume over the same period. BlockBeats reminds users that related token prices are highly volatile, so investors should exercise caution.
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Leading DeFi researcher questions Ethereum’s Layer 2 strategy: Robinhood’s revenue has surged, yet Layer 1 settlement layer revenue remains low—Is this a problem?
Renowned DeFi researcher Ignas points out that Robinhood’s Layer 2 (L2) network paid just around $722 to its underlying base layer yesterday, while Robinhood itself posted a record $6 million in fee revenue that same day—roughly 10% of which went to Arbitrum, with nearly negligible amounts reaching Ethereum’s Layer 1 (L1). Against this backdrop, Ignas questions: Is this structure, where platforms rake in massive profits while the settlement layer gets almost nothing, actually a problem for Ethereum? Ethereum may currently be using low fees to onboard TradFi players into its ecosystem, planning to raise revenue shares once user migration costs become sufficiently high. If Ethereum’s official roadmap does include a strategy of first attracting a large number of L2s, then monetizing on L1 after switching costs rise, this could be positive for ETH—but such an approach is not visible in Ethereum’s current roadmap.
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Base-based meme coin Basecat hits a market cap of $83 million, reaching an all-time high.
According to GMGN market data, the meme coin Basecat on the Base blockchain hit a market cap of $83 million, an all-time high. It rose around 38% in 24 hours, with trading volume of $7.6 million over the same period. Coinbase previously launched spot trading for BASECAT. Basecat is a well-recognized cat-themed meme in the Base ecosystem, and has regained capital attention as sentiment around multi-chain memes warms. BlockBeats reminds users: Most meme coins have no practical use cases and are highly volatile. Please protect your assets and avoid FOMO.
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