Welcome to the OpenSea digest. Let’s look back through the biggest NFT and web3 news of the week.

Coinbase acquires Opyn team, as Base evolves into an all-in-one onchain app

On July 11, Coinbase announced it has acquired the leadership team behind Opyn Markets, a crypto startup that builds advanced decentralized finance (DeFi) tools for perps trading.

The announcement came just before a major update to Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-two (L2) network, which is expanding from a blockchain into a full product ecosystem. 

According to the hour-long, live A New Day One broadcast, Base now includes a new social app (formerly Coinbase Wallet), instant payments with USDC via Base Pay, and a universal onchain identity called Base Account. 

With these updates, it seems Coinbase and Base are aspiring to bring buying, selling, payments, social media, and app discovery into a single user-owned platform.

To celebrate the news, along with the start of Base’s annual Onchain Summer event, Base teamed up with Erewhon to offer free “based” juices at select Los Angeles locations on July 17. 

Congress moves forward on stablecoin rules and crypto oversight

It’s “Crypto Week” in the U.S. Congress, where lawmakers are weighing three major bills that could be the first to regulate digital currencies in the country and bring long-awaited clarity to the web3 space.

The GENIUS Act, which passed the House on July 17, lays out clear rules for stablecoins by defining who can issue them, what kind of reserves they need, and how they’ll be regulated. 

Meanwhile, the CLARITY Act aims to define which federal agencies have authority over different parts of the crypto industry. It would spell out what counts as a digital commodity and explain how to determine whether a blockchain project is considered decentralized.

Finally, the third bill expected to reach the House floor this week is the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would bar the Federal Reserve from creating a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and stop the Fed’s Board of Governors from using any form of CBDC to carry out monetary policy.

Bitpanda teams up with Paris Saint-Germain and AC Milan to launch new $VSN token 

Bitpanda, a Vienna-based crypto investment platform, will launch its new token, Vision (VSN), on July 16 as part of its expansion into web3. The token is expected to support a new set of blockchain-based tools and features for users. 

According to a company press release, PSG Labs, the innovation arm of football club Paris Saint-Germain, will serve as a strategic partner to help promote VSN through fan engagement and digital campaigns, such as co-branded NFTs, online challenges, and virtual experiences tied to match-day content. Bitpanda has also partnered with AC Milan, the Italian football club, to expand the token’s reach through its global fanbase.

The press release says Vision is key to Bitpanda’s web3 plans and offers features such as staking rewards, voting rights and loyalty benefits. Deputy CEO Lukas Enzersdorfer-Konrad said the goal is to connect Bitpanda’s regulated platform to audiences with the global reach of major sports brands.

$PUMP token goes live on Solana 

Pump.fun, a Solana-based platform that allows users to create and trade meme coins, has launched its native token, $PUMP. The token is now live for public trading. 

On Pump.fun, anyone can create a coin under the same terms, with pricing based on a curve that adjusts as people buy and sell. The team says it plans to use $PUMP to support future tools that connect user-created coins with social media features.

Snoop Dogg sells nearly 1 million Telegram collectibles in 30 minutes

Last week, Snoop Dogg’s new digital gift collection on Telegram sold out in just 30 minutes, generating $12 million across almost 1 million purchases. 

The rapper partnered with the messaging app to help launch its new collectible gift feature, which lets users send animated items in chats and upgrade them into unique, transferable artwork. 

The collection includes visuals tied to Snoop’s signature style. In three weeks, Telegram will mint the gifts on the TON blockchain, which will allow users to buy, sell, or collect them inside the app.

ZED Picks launches on Android and adds staking to horse racing ecosystem

ZED Picks, the free-to-play fantasy racing game from web3 studio and ZED RUN creator VHS Labs, is now available to Android users in most U.S. states. Players can use in-game currency called ZCoin to make picks on two to four virtual horses in any ZED Champions race. 

At the same time, ZED Champions has launched staking, which lets players back any active horse with $ZED or reZED tokens and receive a share of its balance when it retires. 

Together, these features expand the ways fans can participate in the ZED ecosystem without needing to own a horse.

Switzerland to release public AI model trained on supercomputer 

Researchers from Swiss university École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), ETH Zurich and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) plan to release a large language model (LLM) in late summer 2025, which they say is fully developed on public infrastructure. 

Trained on the Alps supercomputer at the CSCS, the model is promoted as fully open source, multilingual across 1,000+ languages, and designed for wide adoption in research, education, and business. It will be licensed under Apache 2.0 for free reuse. 

The project is part of the Swiss AI Initiative, a national effort led by EPFL and ETH Zurich to fund open-source AI using public infrastructure, and aims to offer a transparent, high-performing alternative to commercial AI models.

‍Note: The mention of a token is for informational purposes only nor is it intended as financial or investment advice.