Nomura-backed Laser Digital Japan received registration to provide domestic liquidity before expanding into institutional crypto trading.

Nomura Group’s digital asset subsidiary, Laser Digital, received authorization to operate as a crypto asset exchange service provider under Japan’s Payment Services Act (PSA)

A list issued by Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) on Friday showed that Laser Digital received the country’s first crypto exchange license in four years. The last platform to receive FSA authorization was Binance Japan in October 2022.&

Japan’s crypto market is entering a “new phase of maturity,” creating a need for “trusted counterparties and infrastructure” as “institutional investors increase their interest in this asset class,” Jez Mohideen, co-founder and CEO of Laser Digital, said in a Friday press release.

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Binance’s employees were cleared and released after providing statements to UAE authorities about third-party fund flows through a company client account, a spokesperson told Cointelegraph.

Binance employees detained in the United Arab Emirates were cleared and released after providing statements about third-party fund flows through a company client money account, a spokesperson for the exchange told Cointelegraph.

The New York Times reported Thursday that two Binance employees were detained after being stopped at airports in the UAE amid police inquiries into possible financial crimes involving the exchange.&

The employees were not the targets or subjects of what Binance described as “routine inquiries.”

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Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick said Bitcoin could move toward its $126,000 all-time high after Oct. 6 as spot Bitcoin ETF inflows recover.

Bitcoin may move toward its all-time high of $126,000 before the end of the year, with the recovery potentially accelerating after Oct. 6, according to Geoff Kendrick, global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered.

Kendrick said in a Friday note shared with Cointelegraph that the latest rally has been driven largely by short liquidations, while inflows into spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds have also started to recover. He said low open interest could leave room for more investors to return as prices rise.

“For the first time this year there is now a risk my end year forecast (of USD100k) is too low,” Kendrick wrote.

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Coinkite urged Coldcard users to generate new seed phrases, warning that existing vulnerable seeds remain unsafe despite the security upgrade.

Coinkite released a new security upgrade to strengthen seed phrase generation by requiring user-supplied entropy mixed with improved device randomness.

Coinkite announced firmware 5.6.1 for Coldcard Mk4 and Mk5 devices and 1.5.1Q for the Coldcard Q in a Thursday blog post.

The release requires newly generated seeds to include user-supplied entropy through at least 65 keypresses with unpredictable timing, 50 rolls of a six-sided die or 128 coin flips. That input is combined with randomness from multiple device sources, including its secure elements and hardware random-number generator (RNG).

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Bitcoin gains 20% in two days as Strategy sees its BTC treasury climb out of the red.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit $77,000 on Friday as business intelligence company Strategy’s corporate treasury returned to profit.

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Bitcoin ETF inflows pushed August’s total to a 2026 high of $2.07 billion as Bitcoin traded above $75,000 and Ether climbed to $2,357.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) drew $608.3 million in net inflows on Thursday, lifting weekly inflows above $1.6 billion, while spot Ether ETFs logged their largest single-day intake since October.

The Bitcoin funds extended their positive streak to four straight sessions after attracting $297.6 million on Monday, $189.3 million on Tuesday and $517.2 million on Wednesday,SoSoValue data shows.

August net inflows reached $2.07 billion through Thursday, already surpassing April’s $1.97 billion, the previous monthly high for 2026, with seven trading sessions remaining. Cumulative net inflows stood at $53.4 billion.

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The proposal would let the FIU investigate suspected violations and refer unregistered crypto operators directly to law enforcement.

A group of South Korean lawmakers has introduced a bill to amend an existing financial law and expand the Financial Intelligence Unit’s (FIU) authority to investigate unregistered crypto businesses.

On Thursday, People Power Party lawmaker Eom Tae-young and nine other lawmakers filed the bill, which aims to add a new provision to the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information.&

Under the proposal, anyone could report suspected violations of the law to the FIU. The agency could investigate and analyze alleged violations, file complaints with the relevant authorities, request criminal investigations or provide information to investigators.&

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The token recovered to about $0.0044 after setting a new low, while exchanges paused deposits and withdrawals from the halted MANTRA Chain.

MANTRA’s native token sank 18.5% from its 24-hour high to a record low shortly before MANTRA Chain stopped producing blocks and its team announced a precautionary halt over an unexplained incident.

According to CoinGecko, MANTRA fell from $0.005060 to an all-time low of $0.004126 around 11:00 pm UTC on Thursday. It later recovered to about $0.0044 but remained down roughly 10% over 24 hours, while trading volume climbed nearly 600% to $24 million.&

MANTRA said Friday it was “aware of an incident affecting MANTRA Chain” and had halted the network as a precaution while it investigated. “We don’t have a root cause or timeline to share yet,” the project said, adding that all endpoints and transactions were frozen.&

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UAE clients will be able to buy and hold crypto through Capital.com’s app, expanding beyond price exposure through contracts for difference.

Trading platform and contracts for difference (CFD) broker Capital.com plans to offer spot crypto services to clients in the United Arab Emirates after its affiliate, Capital Vault, secured a virtual-asset license from the country’s Capital Market Authority (CMA).&

According to an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, the license allows Capital Vault to deal in virtual assets as an agent or matching principal and provide custody on behalf of clients.& &

Once the service goes live, UAE clients will be able to buy and hold actual crypto through the Capital.com app, with Capital Vault providing execution, custody and settlement. This differs from Capital.com’s CFDs, which provide price exposure without ownership of the underlying crypto.&

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The BTC price reclaimed its 200-day moving average for the first time in nine months as its rally gained momentum after the US Treasury expanded its bond buybacks.

Bitcoin’s latest rally has pushed the cryptocurrency above a key long-term technical indicator for the first time in about nine months, offering a potential signal that its broader downtrend is losing momentum.

Charting platform Barchart highlighted on Thursday that Bitcoin’s (BTC) price had crossed above its 200-day moving average for the first time since November 2025, roughly a month after BTC reached an all-time high above $126,000.

The 200-day moving average is widely used to gauge longer-term market trends, with moves above the indicator often viewed as a sign of bullish momentum. A sustained break above the level could therefore suggest that Bitcoin’s months-long downtrend is beginning to weaken.

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Michael Selig said at a meeting of the Innovation Advisory Committee that he had directed CFTC staff to explore developer protections and other crypto-related policies.

Michael Selig, who chairs the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), signaled that the agency would not be idle while Congress continued to debate provisions in a cryptocurrency market structure bill.

In prepared remarks for the inaugural meeting of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee on Thursday, Selig said that the commission would move forward on crypto regulations even in the absence of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act being passed by lawmakers, adding it would “help [Donald Trump] deliver if Congress will not.” According to the chair, he had already directed staff to allow registered and non-registered entities to offer “crypto asset trading on a leveraged or margined basis” and explore developer protections.

“We’re going to give CLARITY its breathing room for a vote, but if the Democrats cannot support a bipartisan work product, which reflects compromises from both sides of the aisle, and ultimately send a fair version of the bill to the President’s desk, then rest assured, I will direct CFTC staff to move swiftly to propose these new rules for the industry,” said Selig.

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Binance’s Agent OS lets AI agents access market data, execute trades and make payments while giving users control over permissions and account access.

Binance has launched Agent OS, a developer platform that allows AI agents to access market data, monitor user accounts and execute crypto trades on the exchange.

According to a company announcement, the platform supports AI tools including ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor, allowing users to authorize agents to view account information and place trades within configured permissions and limits.

Users can assign agents to dedicated subaccounts to separate funds and trading activity, configure their permissions and revoke access at any time. Binance said it can monitor trades placed through Agent OS but cannot see an agent’s external information sources, interpretation or decision-making, which occur within the user’s chosen AI application.

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Analysts say the $40 trillion debt milestone could bolster Bitcoin’s long-term case, even as Treasury yields, dollar strength and liquidity remain key near-term drivers.

As US federal debt tops $40 trillion for the first time, there is renewed debate over whether mounting government borrowing could strengthen Bitcoin’s case as a scarce, non-sovereign asset.

Interest costs have also climbed, surpassing Medicare to become the federal government’s second-largest budget expense behind Social Security in the first 10 months of fiscal 2026, according to Reuters.

The debt milestone coincided with a Treasury move to calm a bond selloff that’s pushed long-term yields to their highest levels since 2007. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday the department would double buybacks of 10- to 30-year debt to at least $4 billion per operation, initially pushing yields and the US dollar lower as Bitcoin (BTC) and gold rallied.

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Nine public miners generated $341 million from AI and HPC operations in the first half of 2026 after spending more than $5 billion on capital assets.

Public Bitcoin miners are spending billions chasing artificial intelligence and high-performance computing revenue, though returns have yet to keep pace, underscoring the massive upfront investment required to diversify beyond Bitcoin mining.

In its latest Miner Weekly newsletter, BlocksBridge Consulting reported that a group of 15 Bitcoin miners and AI data-center companies spent a combined $30.7 billion on capital assets in their latest 2026 reporting periods, already 42.6% more than the $21.53 billion they spent throughout 2025.

Among Bitcoin miners specifically, the gap between capital spending and AI revenue remains significant. Nine comparable miners spent $5.11 billion on capital assets during the first half of 2026 while generating just $341.2 million in directly reported AI and HPC revenue — a roughly 15-to-1 capex-to-revenue ratio.

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A new poll showed 63% of 1,166 Americans varied sharply along partisan lines, with a majority of Republicans saying it was appropriate for Trump and his family to invest in crypto.

A new poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos found that a majority of respondents in the US believed it was not “appropriate” for US President Donald Trump and his family to earn through cryptocurrency investments while in office.&

According to the results of the poll of 1,166 people between Aug. 14-17, 63% of the respondents said it wasn’t appropriate for Trump and his family to earn money from crypto. Notably, 69% of Republicans polled said it was appropriate, while an overwhelming majority of Democrats, 92%, responded negatively.

Source: Reuters

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The governance vote redirects tokens previously reserved for user airdrops toward partnerships, incentives and Optimism’s growing institutional push.

Blockchain Optimism’s governance has approved a proposal to repurpose 546.9 million OP tokens previously reserved for user airdrops to support ecosystem growth and institutional adoption.

OP currently has a market cap of roughly $214 million, with a circulating supply of about 2.29 billion tokens, according to CoinGecko data.

The new Strategic Ecosystem Fund will support partnerships with chains, protocols and institutions, as well as incentives to increase activity and liquidity on OP Mainnet and grow OP Enterprise.

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Bitcoin saw new multimonth highs above $72,500 even as US stocks cooled amid US threats of “economic warfare” with Iran.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw multimonth highs after Thursday’s Wall Street open while stocks dipped and bond yields rebounded on US-Iran war nerves.

Key points:

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USDT is disappearing from regulated European platforms, but there is little sign that it has resulted in weakening global demand for Tether.

Europe’s crackdown on Tether’s USDT is entering a new phase.

When Revolut told European users it would delist USDT after Aug. 31, it became another in a long line of European platforms restricting access to the world’s largest stablecoin as firms adapt to the requirements of the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

MiCA’s stablecoin rules have been phasing in since 2024, and the EU-wide transition period ended on July 1, putting further pressure on platforms to drop tokens that don’t meet the rules.

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Bitdeer expects revenue from the five-year agreement to begin in early 2027 as it builds toward 350 megawatts of AI cloud capacity by 2028.

Bitcoin mining company Bitdeer’s artificial intelligence (AI) division, Bitdeer AI, signed a five-year customer deal covering about 50% of the capacity of its A102 Malaysia facility before its energization.

The deal was signed with an undisclosed customer of “high credit quality” and is expected to bring approximately $400 million in total revenue, Bitdeer revealed in a Wednesday announcement.

Revenue and associated costs are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027 when services commence. Bitdeer AI is targeting 350 megawatts of AI cloud data center capacity by the first quarter of 2028.

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Rapid7 unveiled a new cryptocurrency phishing campaign targeting 885,000 phone numbers, aiming to steal investors’ holdings by redirecting them to fake wallet provider websites.

Cybersecurity firm Rapid7 unveiled a new cryptocurrency phishing campaign known as Operation Asterix, targeting roughly 885,000 phone numbers from several countries to steal cryptocurrency investors’ assets.

The phishing campaign led to& 5,576 accounts matched to users on crypto exchange Binance, which were queued for attack, while the recovered logs also showed fake emails impersonating Crypto.com, according to a Monday report by Rapid7.

Of the 885,000 phone numbers, the largest file included 316,002 German mobile numbers, with additional directories covering Hong Kong, Bulgaria, the UK, the US, Canadian fintech companies and additional Ledger-related lists.&

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Investors have poured more than $1 billion into US spot Bitcoin ETFs this week as BTC neared $72,000 and Ether climbed 19% to about $2,286 on Thursday.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $517.2 million in net inflows on Wednesday, their largest single-day investment since May 4, pushing August net inflows to $1.47 billion.

The funds have taken in about $1 billion since Monday, already their strongest weekly net inflow since the week ended Jan. 16, when they attracted about $1.42 billion.

The inflows came as crypto prices rallied on Wednesday, alongside a US Treasury decision to expand buybacks of longer-dated government debt and renewed attention on crypto regulation after President Donald Trump urged Congress to advance the CLARITY Act at a White House event.

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While Webull reported a record $198 million in second-quarter revenue, cryptocurrency trading only generated about $2.25 million of the quarter’s revenue stream.

Webull said Wednesday that cryptocurrency trading accounted for $2.25 million, or a little over 1% of the platform’s record $198 million revenue for the second quarter of 2026.

Revenue for the period was up 51% year-over-year, according to online brokerage and digital trading platform’s Wednesday earnings release.

That’s as equity and options trading generated $112 million of the quarterly income, or about 56% of the total $198 million.

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Bitcoin approached $72,000 in a second day of upside as crypto short liquidations passed $3.1 billion.

Bitcoin (BTC) and altcoins are breaking records as short position liquidations pass $3 billion over two days.

Key points:

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Gnosis Chain was approved to transition to an EEZ rollup, enabling it to settle directly to Ethereum rather than continue with an independent validator set.

GnosisDAO approved Gnosis Chain’s transition from a standalone layer-1 network to a ZK-proven Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) rollup.

GIP-153 received 123,158 GNO in support, 115 against and 151 abstaining across 54 voters, Gnosis Chain said in an X post. Turnout reached 123,425 GNO, exceeding the 75,000 quorum.

Under the proposal, Gnosis Chain’s validator set would be retired and the network would settle transactions on Ethereum, making Gnosis Chain a layer-2 (L2) that relies on Ethereum’s validators for settlement.

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Regulators reportedly accepted BitGo Korea’s registration on Tuesday, two days before stricter VASP entry requirements took effect.

BitGo Korea has secured a virtual asset service provider (VASP) registration in South Korea, providing a regulatory foundation to offer digital asset custody services to institutions.&

On Thursday, BitGo announced that the Korea Financial Intelligence Unit accepted its local entity’s VASP registration, allowing it to provide virtual asset custody and transfer services to institutional and enterprise clients.&

The company said it established the local entity instead of acquiring an existing registered provider and said it had built security, anti-money laundering, internal control and operational frameworks tailored to South Korean requirements.&

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HYPE reached $72 after Trump said the CFTC was pursuing compliant US access for Hyperliquid, though no formal regulatory plan has been released.

Hyperliquid’s native token surged more than 20% over 24 hours after United States President Donald Trump said regulators were working on a compliant pathway to make the decentralized trading platform available to American users.

HYPE traded around $62 immediately before Trump’s remarks and subsequently jumped as much as 16% to a 24-hour high of $72.28, according to CoinGecko. It later settled to about $70, up approximately 20% in the last day, with 24-hour trading volume reaching $1.4 billion.&

“I understand that Mike is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion,” Trump said during a Wednesday White House event, referring to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Michael Selig. “Working very hard on that.”

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Senator Ruben Gallego said the White House has not provided point-by-point feedback on a bipartisan ethics proposal as a September vote approaches.

Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego warned that rushing the CLARITY Act to a Senate vote before lawmakers resolve disputes over ethics and stablecoin yield could set US crypto market structure legislation back.

Speaking at the SALT Wyoming Blockchain Symposium on Wednesday, Gallego said the crypto industry should encourage Senate Democrats and Republicans to continue negotiating instead of pushing for an immediate vote. He said lawmakers still had to address the bill’s Agriculture Committee portion, assemble the broader package and determine how to send it to the House.

The CLARITY Act would establish a federal framework for digital assets and divide oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission. On Aug. 7, Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed to Cointelegraph that the chamber was “punting” the vote and said CLARITY would be queued up “first thing” after lawmakers returned from recess in September.

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The integration expands access to USDU, the UAE’s first central bank-registered US dollar stablecoin, as it builds distribution beyond institutional channels.

Bitcoin.com is integrating USDU, a US dollar-backed stablecoin registered with the Central Bank of the UAE, into its self-custodial web and mobile wallet.

USDU is issued by Abu Dhabi-based Universal Digital and is the first and currently only Foreign Payment Token registered under the UAE central bank’s Payment Token Services Regulation. Universal is also regulated by the Abu Dhabi Global Market’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority to issue fiat-referenced tokens.&

According to Wednesday’s announcement, the Ethereum-based stablecoin will be available for users to hold, send and receive through the wallet, while swap and buy-and-sell functionality is expected to be added later through third-party providers.

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Donald Trump spoke from the White House on Wednesday, urging the Senate to pass a crypto market structure bill to keep the country “ahead of China.”

Update (Aug. 19, 8:55 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include comments from Senator Ruben Gallego at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium.

US President Donald Trump continued to push for passage of a crypto market structure bill as the Senate remains in recess.

In a Wednesday press conference with crypto company executives including Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Gemini co-founders Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Trump said members of Congress should pass “a fair version” of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act to keep the US “ahead of China.” The market structure bill, passed by the House of Representatives in July 2025, has been stalled in the Senate for months amid concerns about tokenized equities, stablecoin rewards and the Trump family’s potential conflicts of interest with the crypto industry.

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A Fairshake spokesperson said that the PAC was “just getting started“ on its expenditures as part of efforts to fill US Congress with lawmakers friendly to the crypto industry.

Update (Aug. 19, 8:27 pm UTC): This article has been updated to clarify that Lois Frankel won the Democratic primary in Florida’s 23rd congressional district and not re-election.

Four of the five candidates supported by ads funded by the cryptocurrency-aligned political action committee (PAC) Fairshake won their primaries or otherwise advanced on Tuesday, potentially a bellwether for the industry’s influence in the 2026 midterm elections.

On Tuesday, Democratic and Republican candidates supported by media funded by the Fairshake-affiliated PACs Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, respectively, notched wins across three US states. Altogether, the PACs spent about $3.6 million on House and Senate races in Alaska, Florida and Wyoming.

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The $1 billion facility will deploy assets backing USDe into overcollateralized institutional loans, expanding Ethena’s sources of returns beyond crypto basis strategies.

FalconX and Ethena have launched a $1 billion secured lending facility that will use assets backing USDe to fund overcollateralized loans to institutional borrowers.

The facility is structured through a special purpose vehicle, with FalconX originating and servicing the loans and managing collateral. Assets securing the loans will be held at qualified custodians, while the facility gives Ethena access to institutional lending as an additional source of returns on the assets backing USDe beyond the crypto basis strategies it has traditionally used.

FalconX said the facility can support financing for institutional trading strategies, corporate treasury management and payments. The companies did not disclose the facility’s expected returns, loan terms, borrowers or how much capital has initially been deployed.

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The US banking regulator released a 376‑page proposal in February, calling for public comment on rules to implement the stablecoin bill ahead of its January 2027 effective date.

US Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould said that his agency would have final rules related to the implementation of a payment stablecoin law out by November.&

Speaking at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium on Wednesday, the regulator said that following the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC’s) proposal to implement the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, OCC would release finalized rules ahead of the law’s scheduled January 2027 enactment.

Gould said that the OCC “will have a final rule out by November” as the agency considered feedback from the crypto industry following the release of its proposed rules in February. He added that he expects the regulator could begin processing applications related to stablecoin issuers starting in 2027.

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The transaction connected the banks’ separate tokenized deposit systems through Swift’s ledger, marking a step toward interoperable, 24/7 cross-border payments.

Standard Chartered and HSBC have completed the first live cross-border transaction on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger, demonstrating interoperability between the banks’ tokenized deposit systems a month after the ledger’s launch.

The transaction involved payment messages exchanged between the two through Swift’s ledger, with the resulting obligations recorded on HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service and StanChart’s tokenized deposit infrastructure.

Swift’s ledger acted as an orchestration layer, matching and netting the obligations between the banks before final settlement through existing payment systems.

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Bitcoin’s rebound toward $69,000 is gaining momentum as Geoff Kendrick points to improving liquidity conditions and a potential cycle bottom.

Bitcoin could be poised for a run toward $100,000 by year-end as the US Treasury ramps up support for the long end of the government bond market in an effort to rein in surging interest rates, according to Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick.

In a recent client note shared with Cointelegraph, Kendrick said Bitcoin’s (BTC) key technical level is $65,500, with a break above that threshold potentially confirming that the cycle low is already in.

“Investors should now be positioning for a move to USD $100,000 by year-end 2026,” he wrote.&

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The consent orders ended the CFTC’s case against two former crypto executives after FTX and Alameda agreed to $12.7 billion in disgorgement and restitution payments in August 2024.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced consent orders related to its civil cases against former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Zixiao “Gary” Wang.&

The orders, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, require Ellison and Wang to continue cooperating with the CFTC and imposed a five-year trading ban on both former executives. Ellison also received a 10-year registration ban, while the commodities regulator imposed an eight-year registration ban on Wang.

“Ellison and Wang were senior executives who committed fraud at Alameda and FTX for which they were found liable,” said the CFTC’s enforcement director, David Miller. “Their sanctions, however, reflect their material assistance in the Commission’s FTX-related investigations.”

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Bitcoin joined US stocks in a broad rally after the US Treasury announced that it was at least doubling the amount of its debt buyback operations from September.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw its highest levels since the start of June after Wednesday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to a US government liquidity move.

Key points:

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Injective’s affiliated entity can now maintain securities ownership records, adding regulated market infrastructure to its growing push into tokenized assets.

Injective Institutional Services, an entity affiliated with the Injective blockchain ecosystem, said its registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a transfer agent is now effective, adding a regulated securities recordkeeping function to Injective’s tokenization infrastructure.

Wednesday’s announcement said that the registration allows the affiliate to maintain securities ownership records and process ownership changes, an important function in traditional securities markets that could also support tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

The company plans to pair the transfer agent function with Injective Mint, its platform for issuing and managing tokenized assets.

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Apate’s 200,000 fake AI ‘victims’ are so good at scam baiting, the company has a monthly KPI for how many F-bombs scammers drop at the infuriating bots.

Australian tech firm Apate deploys a vast array of AI-bot characters worldwide that play the role of gullible scam victims to waste millions of hours of con artists’ time each month.

Hilariously, one of the company’s monthly performance metrics is how many times frustrated scammers swear at the idiot ‘victims’ who are playing dumb and stringing them along.

“I think we’re the only company in the world that is actually keeping as part of their KPIs the number of F-words that scammers are dropping at them,” Apate founder Dali Kaafar tells Magazine with a chuckle.&

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“Crypto mom” Hester Peirce praised the SEC’s proposed crypto regime, published days after the Senate failed to pass the CLARITY Act, the US’ first comprehensive industry framework.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) new regulatory proposal marks a significant step forward from a set of “inapt” crypto rules to clearer and more enforceable digital asset regulations, according to Commissioner Hester M. Peirce.

A “whole generation has struggled with the SEC’s insistence” and the application of “a set of inapt rules to crypto,” but the SEC’s new crypto guidelines mark an important step toward “putting clear, sensible, enforceable rules in place for crypto offerings,” said Peirce in a statement released on Tuesday.

SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins also praised the initiative and said that the agency’s prior enforcement-heavy approach has “driven investment offshore, limiting the type of protections that we can provide investors here,” according to a separate statement.&

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Symbiotic’s Liquid Lane gives eligible holders immediate USDC liquidity across three Centrifuge funds managed by Janus Henderson and NYLIM.

Centrifuge has added Symbiotic’s liquidity network across three tokenized funds that represent about $1.6 billion in assets under management, giving eligible holders another route to exchange their positions for USDC.

The integration covers Janus Henderson’s JAAA, an AAA-rated collateralized loan obligation strategy, JTRSY, a short-duration US Treasury strategy and New York Life Investment Management’s HYB, a US high-yield corporate bond strategy.

Symbiotic’s Liquid Lane uses an onchain request-for-quote (RFQ) marketplace where market makers can tap liquidity from vaults to fill redemption requests. Market makers can then redeem the acquired fund tokens through the issuer or sell them through another RFQ transaction.

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Sweden’s H100 reported a $26 million loss for the first half of the year, as it completed its acquisitions to become Europe’s second-largest Bitcoin treasury by holdings.

Sweden-listed health-tech and Bitcoin treasury company H100 Group reported a pre-tax loss of 98 million Swedish kronor ($10.3 million) for the second quarter and a loss of 253 million kronor for the first half of 2026.

H100 also reported 3 million kronor in operating income, flat with Q2 2025, and 6.1 million kronor for H1 2026, up from 5.8 million kronor for H1 2025, according to its interim report published on Wednesday.

Nearly all of the Q2 loss was a non-cash write-down attributed to Bitcoin’s (BTC) price decline during the period, the company said in a Wednesday X post.

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Ripple said the $275 million raised will support its expansion into traditional financial services such as prime brokerage and multi-asset clearing, citing strong demand from institutions.

Ripple raised $275 million in a senior note offering that closed on Tuesday to support blockchain enterprise solutions provider’s ongoing US business expansion into financial services.

The senior unsecured notes were issued in a private placement by the company’s non-bank prime brokerage, Ripple Prime, the company announced on Tuesday. Ripple said the note offering attracted a diverse base of institutional investors from financial markets.

Ripple Prime President Noel Kimmel said that the support received during the note offering is a signal of “confidence in our long-term vision for the growing intersection of traditional and digital asset financial infrastructure.”&

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Bitcoin maintained its appeal as a diversification investment despite dropping more than 50% from all-time high, a BlackRock report stated.

Bitcoin (BTC) falling more than 50% from its $126,200 all-time high was a “positioning correction,” BlackRock says.

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Nexo introduced regulated, cryptocurrency-backed credit lines that allow users to access liquidity in Australian dollars or stablecoins by borrowing against their digital assets.

Nexo Australia launched crypto-backed credit lines after becoming a credit representative under Australia’s National Consumer Credit Protection Act, the company said in a Tuesday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The new credit lines allow eligible clients to borrow Australian dollars or stablecoins by using their cryptocurrencies as collateral without having to sell them.

Funds are generally available within 24 hours with flexible repayments, with no fixed term or origination fees. Interest rates range from 0.9% to 21.9%, depending on the credit line and the client’s loyalty tier.

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Hayes revealed his new role as Flop Labs CEO and teased a “massive airdrop” from the AI inference protocol in the fourth quarter of 2026.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said he would lead Flop Labs and updated his X profile to identify himself as the company’s CEO. Flop Labs is developing a proposed network through which AI agents would pay for computing and other services.

“I’m coming out of retirement to lead @flop_labs,” Hayes said in a Tuesday X post.

Cointelegraph has approached Hayes for comment and asked whether this position would affect his existing role as chief investment officer of Maelstrom Fund.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs took in $189 million on Tuesday, lifting August net inflows to $951 million, while Ether ETFs added $71.5 million.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) drew $189.3 million in net inflows on Tuesday, lifting August net inflows to about $951 million.

The latest gains followed $297.6 million in net inflows on Monday, bringing the two-day total to $487 million, or more than half of the funds’ net inflows so far this month, according to SoSoValue data.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust led the day’s inflows with $143.6 million, while Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund added $23.9 million.

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A preliminary analysis says six chained bugs let a 23-message transaction drain 48.87 million CACAO, sending the token down nearly 89%.

[Update 09:25 UTC, Aug. 19: Adds details on the exploit mechanics and its impact on MAYAChain’s liquidity pools.
Update 06:57 UTC, Aug. 20: Adds comments from Maya Protocol co-founder Aalux.]

Cross-chain decentralized exchange (DEX) Maya Protocol halted its network after an attacker exploited a series of software flaws to obtain an estimated $1.7 million in crypto.

On Wednesday, Maya Protocol’s pseudonymous co-founder Aalux said the attacker stole about 20 Bitcoin worth $1.4 million and another $300,000 in assets. They said the halt prevented further damage and the team had started working on a fix to resume swaps.

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The FASB said secondary-market liquidity alone would not be enough, with holders needing direct issuer redemption rights and one-to-one liquid reserves.

[Update 12:50 UTC, Aug. 19: Adds background on FASB, proposed disclosure requirements and the US regulatory framework for stablecoins.]

The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) has proposed guidance outlining when companies may classify certain stablecoins as cash equivalents under generally accepted accounting principles in the United States.&

On Tuesday, the FASB said the proposed Accounting Standards Update would add illustrative examples to the current definition, addressing inconsistent treatment of digital assets such as stablecoins. The definition itself would remain unchanged.&

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The proposed rules from the US securities regulator would provide companies with a safe harbor from tokens being treated as “investment contracts” and certain exemptions for token issuance.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed new rules that could affect the cryptocurrency industry after lawmakers in Congress failed to pass a market structure bill before breaking for a month-long recess.

In a Tuesday notice, the SEC said that the agency proposed rules to create a “clear and fit-for-purpose framework for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.” According to the regulator, the “tailored securities offering regime” would allow entities to raise capital while preserving investor protections.

The agency’s rules did not include an “innovation exemption” for crypto-based stocks, which had also been expected to be announced. Notably, the proposed rules came just days after the US Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, a bill expected to clarify the roles federal agencies would have in overseeing and regulating crypto.&

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The non-custodial cross-chain swap engine connects Canton’s institutional tokenized-asset markets with liquidity and trading activity across major public blockchains.

Interstice Digital has launched a cross-chain swap engine with FalconX connecting the Canton Network with Ethereum, Solana and Robinhood Chain.&

According to Tuesday’s announcement, the non-custodial engine allows assets to be swapped across the four networks without Interstice taking custody or executing transactions on users’ behalf.&

FalconX, a digital asset prime brokerage serving institutional investors, provides liquidity for the engine, which is designed to connect Canton’s institutional markets with assets and trading activity on public blockchains, giving users a route between tokenized assets on Canton and liquidity on networks such as Ethereum and Solana.

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A Florida representative not running for reelection who voted against the GENIUS and CLARITY Acts has endorsed a Democratic candidate, possibly leading to PAC-funded negative ads.

Update (Aug. 19, 2:46 pm UTC): This article has been updated to clarify that California held House runoffs on Aug. 18.

An affiliate of political action committee (PAC) Fairshake, funded primarily by Coinbase and Ripple Labs, has poured more than $2 million into media opposing a Democratic candidate who did not appear to have taken any prominent position on digital assets before the ads were released.

According to records with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as of Tuesday, the Protect Progress PAC had spent more than $2 million on ads opposing Democratic candidate Oliver Gilbert in Florida’s 24th congressional district. Notably, no candidate in the Democratic primary appeared to have taken a strong position on digital assets as part of their campaigns before the PAC’s involvement.

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The $33.3 million Winklevoss Capital deal expands Cypherpunk’s ZEC strategy as it targets 5% ownership of the cryptocurrency’s circulating supply.

Cypherpunk Technologies is expanding its footprint in the Zcash ecosystem, launching what it says is the world’s largest Zcash mining operation after acquiring a mining fleet from Winklevoss Capital, signaling growing institutional interest in the privacy-focused network.

Cypherpunk said Tuesday that it acquired the fleet through an equity-based transaction valued at $33.33 million. The mining operation is already online at facilities across the United States, producing roughly 4.2 GSol/s, or about 18% of the Zcash network’s current hashrate.

If the company’s figures are accurate, the transaction gives a single publicly traded company a significant share of Zcash’s mining capacity.

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The multi-asset card lets US customers spend crypto and fiat and earn cashback as Kraken’s parent company expands across financial services.

Kraken’s payment app, Krak, has launched a multi-asset debit card in the US, allowing customers to spend crypto and fiat while earning up to 2% cashback in dollars or Bitcoin (BTC).

The card supports more than 600 currencies and assets, with holdings converted into US dollars at point of sale. A single purchase can draw from multiple balances, with users setting the order in which assets are spent, according to an announcement Tuesday.

The card is issued by Lead Bank on Visa’s network and powered by Stripe Issuing, with physical and virtual versions available to eligible US customers. The company said cashback rates depend on average assets held across Krak, Kraken and Kraken Pro.

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Currently serving a 12-year sentence in federal prison, Alex Mashinsky continues to explore legal avenues to vacate his conviction related to activities at Celsius.

An effort by Alex Mashinsky, the former CEO of now-defunct cryptocurrency lending platform Celsius, to convince a federal court to vacate his 12-year sentence for fraud and market manipulation faces pushback from US prosecutors in the Southern District of New York (SDNY).

In a Friday filing, SDNY Attorney James McDonald and Assistant US Attorney Allison Nichols said that the court should deny Mashinsky’s petition to vacate his conviction and sentence, saying that many of his legal arguments were “without merit” and pushing back against claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.&

The former Celsius CEO informed the court in May that he would be proceeding pro se — that is, representing himself in the case — and filed a motion to vacate, including claims about cryptocurrency exchange FTX and his former colleague, the company’s chief revenue officer Roni Cohen-Pavon.

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The proposed deal with Nasdaq-listed Super League Enterprise would give the Tokyo-based company a foothold in US capital markets while using existing Bitcoin rather than additional purchases.

Metaplanet, the Tokyo-listed company that has adopted Bitcoin as its primary treasury reserve asset, plans to take a controlling stake in Nasdaq-listed Super League Enterprise, expanding its Bitcoin treasury strategy into the United States and potentially opening up new sources of capital.

On Tuesday, Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich said the company plans to contribute 2,100 Bitcoin (BTC) and $2.5 million in cash to Super League, which will be renamed Superplanet and become the company’s US Bitcoin treasury platform.&

The 2,100 BTC contribution represents just under 5% of Metaplanet’s 43,000 BTC holdings and is worth roughly $135 million at current Bitcoin prices. Because the Bitcoin will come from Metaplanet’s existing treasury, the transaction does not represent a new BTC purchase.

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The $613 billion asset manager will subadvise a high-yield fund tokenized across Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and Sui.

Asset manager Neuberger has launched its first tokenized fixed-income fund through Securitize, offering an actively managed high-yield strategy across four blockchains, Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) and Sui (SUI).

The Neuberger Securitize High Income Tokenized Fund (HINC) will invest primarily in high-yield bonds, with additional exposure to collateralized loan obligations and leveraged loans, according to an announcement Tuesday.

The launch comes as investors are demanding higher yields amid heated competition for corporate and government funding.

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Bitcoin returned to $65,000 for the first time in a week as fresh BTC price volatility accompanied US claims that the Strait of Hormuz was “open and operating.”

Bitcoin (BTC) hit $65,000 after Tuesday’s Wall Street open as US stocks rebounded in spite of geopolitical pressure.

Key points:

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Retail investors can apply to buy the 1 billion yen bond without a securities account and receive perks through Toyota’s payment app.

Toyota’s finance arm is launching a tokenized bond that retail investors can buy directly through the Japanese carmaker’s mobile payment app, Toyota Wallet.

Toyota Finance said Tuesday that applications have opened for the one-year bond, with investments starting at 100,000 Japanese yen ($676). The new bond will be distributed directly by Toyota Finance, allowing investors to buy it without opening a securities account.

The 1 billion yen bond carries a 1.72% annual interest rate and will be managed on blockchain infrastructure provided by Japanese security-token firm BOOSTRY.

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Eligible US users can fund MoonPay crypto purchases with Cash App balances as the payments firm expands beyond its core onramp business.

MoonPay has integrated Cash App Pay as a payment option for cryptocurrency purchases, allowing eligible US customers to fund transactions using their Cash App balances.

The crypto payments company said in an announcement shared with Cointelegraph Tuesday that Cash App Pay is now available through MoonPay’s own checkout and with select partners, including Trust Wallet, Bitcoin.com, MetaMask, Moonshot, Ledger, BitPay, Uniswap, Tangem, LOBSTR and Edge.

The integration lets customers use their Cash App balance to buy crypto directly through MoonPay without switching between apps or completing a separate login.

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Eligible EEA users can trade conventional US shares alongside more than 700 tokenized xStocks through Kraken’s European entity.

Kraken has launched trading in more than 7,000 US-listed stocks for customers in the European Economic Area (EEA), expanding its traditional finance offering alongside cryptocurrencies and tokenized equities.

The crypto exchange said Tuesday that eligible EEA customers can trade US stocks through Kraken Pro and its mobile app under the company’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II authorization.

The shares are available alongside more than 600 crypto assets and over 700 xStocks, which are tokenized versions of publicly listed equities.

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Bitcoin derivatives markets created a short squeeze that took BTC price action 3% higher on Monday.

Bitcoin (BTC) short liquidations hit their highest in almost one month as it hit $64,500 on Monday, new data reveals.

Key points:

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The newly authorized lenders will begin offering e-CNY services after completing operational and technical preparations.

China’s central bank has added eight banks to its digital yuan network, bringing the number of e-CNY operating institutions to 30.&

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) added Ping An Bank, Hengfeng Bank, China Bohai Bank, Bank of Shanghai, Bank of Hangzhou, Huishang Bank, Bank of Changsha and Guangxi Beibu Gulf Bank, according to a Xinhua report published Monday on the government’s website.

The banks will be connected to the PBOC’s digital yuan system and begin offering services after completing operational and technical preparations.&

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The Korea Media and Communications Commission said Polymarket’s structure and operations amount to illegal gambling despite its noncustodial design and smart contracts.

South Korean authorities have ordered access to Polymarket to be blocked after determining that the crypto prediction market provides an illegal gambling environment to users in the country.

The country’s media and communications review commission said Tuesday that Polymarket falls under information that facilitates gambling or the opening of a gambling venue under the Criminal Act, as well as prohibited analogous betting activity under the National Sports Promotion Act.

The regulator said Polymarket’s winner-takes-all structure, where users can gain or lose money based on outcomes including politics, sports and weather, encourages speculative gambling behavior. It also cited Polymarket’s role in operating markets, setting trading rules, providing crypto deposit, withdrawal and settlement systems and collecting transaction fees.

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BitBox recommended all users update to firmware version 9.26.5 and said it had received no reports of exploitation or fund losses.

Hardware wallet maker BitBox has released a firmware update that fixes two vulnerabilities it described as “severe” that could have enabled the installation of malicious firmware or put user funds at risk.&

In a security disclosure on Monday, BitBox said one involved memory corruption affecting Multi editions of BitBox02 and BitBox02 Nova that had not been configured with a wallet. A malicious host could exploit it to execute arbitrary code and potentially install malicious firmware, which could lead to lost funds.&

The second affected BitBox’s Silent Payments implementation and could have allowed a malicious host to lock Bitcoin to an unintended address. Direct theft was not possible, but an attacker could potentially demand a ransom to cooperate in recovering the coins, according to BitBox. The company said it had received no reports of either vulnerability being exploited or causing users to lose funds.&

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Developers have been urged to test on Plataberget before Glamsterdam’s new gas model reaches Ethereum’s other testnets and mainnet.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has warned that some wallets, indexers and gas estimators may break because of gas-model changes in the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade.&

On Monday, the EF’s Protocol DevOps team said any tool relying on a hardcoded maximum gas limit “will break” and must be updated. It urged developers to test their systems on Plataberget, a public testnet intended to operate for several months.&

According to upgrade tracker Forkcast, Plataberget launched on Aug. 13. Meanwhile, the Glamsterdam fork is scheduled to activate on the network on Thursday, before its deployment on the Sepolia and Hoodi testnets.&

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Ripple is bringing its cross-border payments platform to Jeonbuk Bank, but key details including its launch status and settlement asset remain undisclosed.

South Korea’s Jeonbuk Bank has partnered with blockchain payments company Ripple to deploy its cross-border payment system for business customers.

On Tuesday, Ripple said its Ripple Payments platform would let the bank’s customers settle overseas transfers in seconds to minutes, with operations around the clock. The service targets businesses including import-export companies, technology startups and online content creators.&

Ripple said its system would provide the bank with faster, less expensive remittance capabilities than conventional transfers routed through intermediary banks via the SWIFT messaging network, which can take several days.&

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Prosecutors allege Edward Zimbardi collected crypto from thousands of investors, lost over $34 million on currency trades and spent at least $10 million personally.

Edward Zimbardi, the alleged mastermind of a $165 million crypto Ponzi scheme, was returned to the United States after being deported from Fiji to face federal fraud and money laundering charges.&

On Monday, the US Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia said that Fijian authorities deported Zimbardi on Friday in coordination with the FBI and State Department. He was scheduled to appear before a federal magistrate judge in Los Angeles, with prosecutors seeking his detention pending proceedings in Georgia.&

Prosecutors allege Zimbardi promoted a scheme called “The Crypto Program” from June 2022 to August 2023 as an advertising-package investment promising guaranteed returns of 25% monthly. Thousands of investors allegedly sent over $165 million in crypto to wallets he secretly controlled.&

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Binance’s bStocks are the second largest tokenized stock issuer just two months after launch, and BitMart’s internal feud erupts into the spotlight ahead of its closure

BitMart’s official Chinese-language X account has publicly demanded that founder Sheldon Xia explain the whereabouts of user funds and produce a repayment plan.

It said some users were unable to withdraw funds and some employees have not received their final salary or compensation and threatened Xia that if he does not provide a verifiable asset disclosure and repayment plan by the deadline, it would continue to submit evidence to regulators, law enforcement, lawyers and the media.

Xia& called the claims in the post “fabricated rumors” and promised a counter-attack.

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The US financial regulator gave conditional approval for World Liberty Financial’s charter bid as ten Democrats signed onto a bill to “prevent corruption in banking applications.“

Amid scrutiny and accusations of conflicts of interest from many lawmakers, the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) gave conditional approval for World Liberty Financial’s application for a national trust bank.

In a Friday notice, the OCC said the conditional approval for World Liberty’s charter application, subject to certain regulatory and policy requirements, would allow the company to operate under the title World Liberty Trust Company, National Association. According to its application, the World Liberty bank proposed issuing US dollar-backed stablecoins and custodying digital assets related to the company’s USD1 token.

The OCC approval came amid concerns about potential conflicts of interest between World Liberty and US President Donald Trump’s family. The president and his three sons are affiliated with the company, and the head of the OCC, Jonathan Gould, was nominated by Trump in 2025.& World Liberty’s website also said a Trump family entity controlled 38% of the company’s equity interests.

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Binance’s UK arm has been barred from offering regulated activities in the country since June 2021, but the company will reportedly move to secure licensing under new crypto rules.

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance is reportedly planning to apply for a license with the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in a move expected to relaunch certain services for residents in 2027.&

According to a Saturday report from The Telegraph, Binance will apply for the UK license as new digital asset laws are set to take effect in the country. The FCA said in June 2021 that Binance’s UK arm, Binance Markets Limited, was “not permitted to undertake any regulated activity in the UK,” and the exchange announced in 2023 that it would halt onboarding of new users in response to the UK watchdog’s rules on financial promotions.

A Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the exchange “does not comment on speculation surrounding potential licence applications.” The company did not respond to questions on its existing operations in the UK.

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The regulatory review could shape an emerging market that lets companies and investors trade and hedge the cost of increasingly scarce AI computing power.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is preparing to solicit public comment on futures contracts tied to computing capacity, a critical resource for artificial intelligence development, as major exchanges move to launch products tied to the emerging asset class.

Bloomberg reported Monday that the regulator sent a request for comment to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. The move could complicate the timeline for planned compute futures from CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange, whose products remain subject to regulatory approval.

Once the White House review is complete, the CFTC is expected to open a public comment period, typically lasting 30 or 60 days, according to Bloomberg. The review signals that regulators are still weighing questions around a market that would allow participants to trade and hedge the cost of computing power.

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The stablecoin bill signed into law last year is scheduled to go into effect in January 2027, potentially without finalized regulations from US government agencies.

The US Department of the Treasury issued a notice of proposed rulemaking related to the implementation of the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act, a bill to establish a framework for payment stablecoins signed into law last year.

In a Monday notice, the Treasury Department said that it was opening a proposed rule up to public comment ahead of the January 2027 implementation of the GENIUS Act. Under the terms of the bill, the stablecoin law had been scheduled to go into effect 120 days after agencies finalize rules, or 18 months after it was passed in July 2025, making its effective date Jan. 18, 2027.&

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the department “welcomes input from stakeholders as [it works] to provide the regulatory certainty businesses need to innovate and grow in America.”&

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Bitcoin price strength saw BTC/USD pass $64,000 on 2% daily gains as gold pushed higher while US stocks wobbled on fresh US-Iran rhetoric.

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to $64,000 after Monday’s Wall Street open as US stocks gave way to gold.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD up by more than 2% on the day, rebounding from Sunday’s weekly close.&

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Tom Lee’s Ethereum treasury company keeps buying the second-biggest crypto through the downturn, while more than 5 million staked ETH is projected to generate $287 million in annual rewards.

Tom Lee’s Bitmine Immersion Technologies, an Ethereum treasury company, resumed its Ether purchases last week, bringing it closer to a key business target of owning 5% of the second-biggest cryptocurrency’s supply despite challenging market conditions.

The company disclosed Monday that it acquired 9,926 Ether (ETH) during the week ending Aug. 16, bringing its total holdings to roughly 5.82 million ETH, or about 4.8% of Ethereum’s circulating supply. At an ETH reference price of $1,893, Bitmine’s Ether holdings were valued at roughly $11 billion. However, much of the company’s ETH was acquired at significantly higher prices.

Ether’s price was little changed on Monday, sitting just above $1,900.

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Proceeds funded STRC dividends and repurchases, while $149.1 million was added to Strategy’s US dollar reserve, which reached $4.8 billion.

Strategy raised $333.7 million through common stock sales last week but made no Bitcoin purchases, leaving its holdings unchanged at 840,447 BTC.

The company sold 3.46 million MSTR shares between Aug. 10 and Aug. 16 through its at-the-market offering program, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Of the proceeds, $52.4 million was used to fund the twice-monthly dividends on STRC preferred stock, while $132.2 million funded repurchases of the same security. Another $149.1 million was added to the company’s US dollar reserve.

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Harmony said selectively restoring transactions could create inconsistent chain state, as Ravencoin faces a separate rollback dispute after an exploit.

Harmony plans to roll back its blockchain to Aug. 11 following an exploit that created forged ONE tokens, discarding more than 109,000 transactions confirmed after its chosen checkpoint.

The layer-1 network said Monday that validators would revert to blocks recorded at 11:25 pm UTC on Aug. 11. New blocks will be produced from the next heights using replacement databases.

The discarded window includes 109,126 regular transactions and 315 staking transactions. Harmony said selectively restoring transactions was unsafe because balances, contract states, nonces and other conditions would differ on the replacement chain.

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Bitcoin confirmed a weekly candle close below its 200-week moving average, copying the 2022 bear-market as traders warn of further BTC price downside next.

Bitcoin (BTC) is starting the new week at around $63,000, but bear-market history continues to repeat with weekly close below a key long-term trend line.

Key points:

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Reuters reported that Binance supplied transaction records and identity documents later used in a terrorism-financing case against Yuri Belenkiy.

Binance reportedly provided Russian authorities with transaction records and personal information belonging to a customer accused of financing terrorism via cryptocurrency donations to Ukrainian fundraising campaigns.

Russian investigators used information supplied by Binance as evidence against IT specialist Yuri Belenkiy, who was detained in September 2025 and is awaiting trial in Russia, according to law enforcement documents reviewed by Reuters.

Russia’s Investigative Committee alleged Belenkiy sent more than $700 in crypto between January 2023 and March 2024 to the Ukrainian military and a banned organization that Reuters identified as the group known at different times as the Azov Brigade and the Azov Regiment.

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The FMA said Bitpanda breached MiCA rules on crypto white papers and marketing communications, with the decision now final.

[Update 10:40 UTC, Aug. 17: This article has been updated to include a statement from Bitpanda in sixth and seventh paragraphs.]

Austria’s financial regulator has fined crypto platform Bitpanda 70,000 euros ($82,000) for violating the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, in the watchdog’s first published final penalty under MiCA.

The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) said Friday that Bitpanda failed to submit a crypto-asset white paper to the regulator at least 20 working days before its publication, as required under MiCA.

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BitMart’s Chinese-language X account demanded an Aug. 19 repayment plan, while Sheldon Xia called its claims of blocked withdrawals and non-payment of salaries “fabricated rumors.”

BitMart’s official Chinese-language X account has publicly demanded that founder Sheldon Xia explain the whereabouts of user funds and produce a repayment plan by Wednesday.

The account said in a Monday post that some users remained unable to withdraw funds and that some employees had not received their final salary or compensation, while calling on Xia to disclose BitMart’s wallets, assets, liabilities and available reserves, according to a machine translation of the post.

The post said if Xia does not provide a verifiable asset disclosure and repayment plan by the deadline, it would continue to submit evidence to regulators, law enforcement, lawyers and the media.

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Greenlane recorded a $19.1 million noncash valuation loss as BERA’s price fell nearly 76% year to date.

Greenlane Holdings’ BERA-focused crypto treasury ended the second quarter valued at $16.4 million, less than a quarter of its $70 million cost basis, according to a regulatory filing.&

On Friday, the company said it held 81.3 million BERA and BERA-equivalent tokens as of June 30. The $53.8 million gap between their cost and fair value left the portfolio 76.6% below cost.

Greenlane reported a $19.1 million noncash fair-value loss on digital assets during the quarter, contributing to a net loss of $24.8 million. Meanwhile, its digital asset segment generated $309,000 in staking and yield revenue over the same period.&

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The sealed complaint leaves Chainalysis’ specific objections and requested remedy undisclosed as briefing continues.

Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis has sued the United States government over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) decision to award a sole-source contract to competitor TRM Labs.&

On July 27, Chainalysis Government Solutions filed the challenge in the US Court of Federal Claims. The relevant motion became publicly accessible through CourtListener’s RECAP archive on Sunday.&

A federal award notice values the contract at about $94.6 million and says it covers forensic software and support services for Homeland Security Task Force investigations. The one-year award runs from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027.&

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Owners of Trezor and SafePal crypto wallets at high risk of phishing attempts after separate data leaks, CLARITY odds at 10% despite White House meeting this week.

Galaxy Digital has lowered its estimate of the CLARITY Act’s chances of passing in 2026 to just 10%. In May it had estimated the chance of passage at 75%.

Multiple political issues remain unresolved and the Senate only has 14 days in session to pass the bill after it reconvenes on Sept. 14.

Unless an initial motion to proceed vote occurs immediately upon lawmakers’ return to Washington, there would only be enough time for the CLARITY Act to pass if it “dominates basically the entire working session,”& wrote& Galaxy head of research, Alex Thorn.

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DefiLlama’s founder said Apple removed one fake app within days after the company documented it draining funds from a small crypto wallet.

DefiLlama delayed the launch of its mobile app while it spent months trying to get Apple to remove phishing apps from its App Store that impersonated the analytics provider, according to the company’s pseudonymous founder, 0xngmi.

“We waited ‘till all the fake apps were taken down before we launched ours to avoid any user getting scammed,” 0xngmi said in a Saturday X post.

DefiLlama had tried for months to get one malicious app removed, but Apple took it down “in days” after the team downloaded the app and documented a small wallet being drained, 0xngmi added.

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The Hegotá upgrade aims to introduce more native privacy for Ethereum applications.

Ethereum developers are currently reviewing 66 proposals to narrow them down as part of scoping the next major Ethereum upgrade, Hegotá, with several proposals aimed at bringing more privacy capabilities into the protocol.

FOCIL is currently the only Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) scheduled for inclusion in the upgrade. Frame Transactions (EIP-8141), Keyed Nonces (EIP-8250) and Recent Roots for Frame Transactions (EIP-8272) should also be included to “unlock native privacy, allowing privacy apps to work without having to rely on intermediaries,” wrote Ethereum Foundation contributor Toni Wahrstätter in a Sunday X post.

FOCIL, short for Fork-choice enforced inclusion lists, seeks to allow a committee of validators to force pending transactions into blocks to boost the network’s censorship resistance, while the other proposals could provide protocol primitives for privacy applications.

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The additions come as Bybit’s TradFi perpetuals lineup grows to more than 200 products spanning equities, ETFs, commodities, indices and private companies.

Dubai-based crypto exchange& crypto exchange Bybit has launched pre-IPO perpetual contracts tied to Chinese robotics firm Unitree and artificial intelligence startup Moonshot AI, expanding its push into private-market trading.

The USDT-denominated and settled contracts give traders price exposure without ownership of the underlying shares. Bybit said its TradFi perpetuals lineup has grown to more than 200 products since launching in April, spanning equities, ETFs, commodities, indices and pre-IPO companies.

Unitree received approval from China’s securities regulator in July for an initial public offering on Shanghai’s STAR Market. The perpetual gives traders exposure to the robotics company before its shares begin trading publicly.

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Tokenized equities reached 1.31 million holders over the past month, as monthly transfer volume surged 179% to $23.13 billion and distributed value rose 5.9% to $2.38 billion.

The number of tokenized stock holders has more than doubled over the past month to 1.31 million, according to RWA.xyz data.

Monthly transfer volume surged nearly 180% over the same period to $23.13 billion, while monthly active addresses increased 34.62% to nearly 572,000. The total distributed value of tokenized stocks also rose 5.9% to $2.38 billion.

At the time of writing, Ondo leads the market with about $872 million in distributed value, followed by Kraken’s xStocks at $557.8 million and Binance’s bStocks at $521.8 million. BStocks launched in June and is already within roughly $36 million of xStocks in distributed value.

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The trillions required to boost Bitcoin to a price of $1 million per coin is not going to happen by 2030... or perhaps ever, says party pooper Markus Thielen.

The numbers behind the oft-cited prediction that Bitcoin will reach $1 million by 2030 simply don’t add up, according to Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research.

“It’s mathematically impossible,” Thielen tells Cointelegraph on Trade Secrets, arguing that Bitcoin’s historical capital inflows over the past 15 years fall far short of the amount it would need to attract over the next four years to reach $1 million. “We have seen $1 trillion US dollars of inflow to bring the market cap really to $1 trillion. To $1 million [per] Bitcoin. It’s 15x, I think, from here,” Thielen says.

At the time of publication, Bitcoin’s market cap is around $1.28 trillion, with its price trading at $63,868, according to CoinMarketCap.

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Klippsten said Bitcoin could bottom about a year after its previous peak and argued that crypto’s best outcome is to become part of TradFi.

Bitcoin could bottom in October before recovering to around $130,000 ahead of the 2028 halving, according to Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) price peaked above $126,000 in early October 2025, meaning that the “market should bottom in October,” Klippsten told Cointelegraph.&

He argued that Bitcoin has so far bottomed about 12 months after each previous bull market peak, while cautioning against extrapolating from only a few previous cycles.

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Kalshi must implement initial geofencing by Aug. 19 and a GeoComply multi-source geofencing system by Sept. 2.

A Washington state judge has ordered prediction market platform Kalshi to stop offering a broad range of event contracts in the state, rejecting its argument that federal commodities law preempts Washington gambling law.

King County Superior Court Judge John McHale barred Kalshi from offering contracts tied to sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, tech and science, and “mentions.” Contracts involving commodities, climate, economics and finance are exempt.

“We’re holding Kalshi accountable for running an illegal gambling operation,” Washington Attorney General Nick Brown said Thursday on X, citing a recent court ruling.&

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Galaxy cited unresolved ethics, stablecoin yield and developer protection issues, along with a narrow Senate window when lawmakers return in September.

Galaxy Digital has lowered its estimate of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act’s chances of passing in 2026 to 10%.

It warned that multiple political issues remain unresolved and the Senate will have only about two to three weeks to pass it when it reconvenes on Sept. 14.

Unless an initial motion to proceed vote occurs immediately upon lawmakers’ return to Washington, there would be enough time for the CLARITY Act to pass the Senate only if it “dominates basically the entire working session,” wrote Galaxy’s head of firmwide research, Alex Thorn, in a Friday X post.

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Binance data showed Gen Z allocating a growing share of equity activity to ETFs while trading less frequently and using less leverage than older working-age cohorts.

Gen Z traders on Binance are allocating a growing share of their equity activity to exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with the products accounting for 25% of the cohort’s trading volume in early August, according to Binance Research.

ETFs accounted for 21.9% of Gen Z net equity inflows in July, up from 18.5% in June, while the share going to individual stocks fell to 74.2% from 77%.

The analysis examined activity across direct equities, tokenized stocks and traditional finance perpetuals, comparing Gen Z accounts with Millennials, Gen X and Baby Boomers on measures including trading frequency, net flows and leverage use.

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The proposed policies under Ireland’s AML framework included stricter measures on transfers from private crypto wallets and overseas digital asset companies.

The government of Ireland published a comprehensive anti-money laundering strategy, detailing how the country would address digital assets potentially used for illicit purposes.

In a Thursday notice, Ireland’s government released its first National Anti-Money Laundering, Countering Financing of Terrorism and Countering Proliferation Financing Strategy. The document included proposed reforms on cryptocurrency-related policies related to strengthening Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFTC) measures.

“The bulk of this has been implemented with these final elements introducing new anti-money laundering obligations for crypto-asset service providers, requiring enhanced checks on transfers involving private crypto wallets and stricter due diligence when dealing with overseas crypto firms,” said the Irish government.

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The value of the university endowment’s holdings in the Bitwise Solana staking ETF, Grayscale Ethereum staking ETF and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF dropped to about $12 million.

The value of crypto-related investments held by Ivy League university Dartmouth College’s $9 billion endowment fell by more than $2 million in three months.

In a Thursday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the trustees of Dartmouth College reported that the university endowment held about $12.4 million worth of the Bitwise Solana staking exchange-traded fund (ETF), the Grayscale Ethereum staking ETF and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF as of June 30. The endowment held the same number of shares of each ETF, but the overall value dropped by about 15% since it reported holding $14.6 million as of March 31.

The drop in value roughly corresponded to falling crypto prices tied to each ETF. Since March 31, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) fell 7.7% to $62,915, Solana (SOL) by 9.6% to $75.11 and Ether (ETH) by 10.8% to $1,875.

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Payward grew revenue despite weaker crypto spot activity, as funded accounts jumped 42% and a growing share of revenue came from outside transaction-based activity.

Kraken parent Payward reported $508 million in adjusted revenue for the second quarter, up 17% year over year despite a decline in crypto spot trading and overall transaction volume.

According to Friday’s earnings report, total transaction volume fell 13% year over year to $310 billion, while funded accounts increased 42% to 6.6 million.

Payward remained adjusted EBITDA positive at $23 million. Asset-based and other revenue accounted for 60% of total revenue, up from 55% a year earlier, as the company generated a growing share of its revenue outside transaction-based activity.

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The UK lawmaker declared victory following a by-election, triggering a resumption of an investigation from the parliamentary commissioner for standards into his crypto donations.

UK Reform leader Nigel Farage will face an investigation that had been briefly paused following his resignation from Parliament after winning a by-election on Thursday with no major party candidates participating.

As of Friday, the UK Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards website showed that Farage was currently under investigation for “failure to register an interest” related to the Reform leader receiving millions of dollars’ worth of donations and gifts from two figures tied to the crypto industry. The investigation was halted in July after Farage resigned as a member of Parliament, but resumed following his reelection as Clacton’s MP.&

The commission will probe cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne giving Farage $6.7 million as well as the Reform leader’s staff and security funded by George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster tied to a crypto casino. Should the investigation determine that Farage violated parliamentary rules, he faces a possible suspension from parliament, which could trigger another by-election.

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Bank Leumi customers will be able to buy, hold and sell three major cryptocurrencies directly through the bank’s investment app beginning in early 2027.

Israel’s Bank Leumi has partnered with Galaxy Digital to let customers trade Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Solana (SOL) through the bank’s investment platform, with the service expected to launch in early 2027.

The companies said Friday that customers of Leumi and Pepper, its mobile banking arm, will be able to buy, hold and sell the three cryptocurrencies through a dedicated section of the Leumi Trade app. Leumi and Galaxy said the rollout would make Leumi the first Israeli bank to offer digital asset trading services to customers.

Leumi will use GalaxyOne Institutional for trading and related services, while Galaxy’s custody infrastructure platform, formerly known as GK8, will support the bank’s digital asset infrastructure.

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A $116 million Bitcoin wallet exploit puts self-custody under scrutiny as ETF inflows rebound, Strategy eyes more BTC and miners chase billions in AI deals.

A $116 million hardware wallet exploit has reopened one of Bitcoin’s oldest debates: Is holding your own keys worth the risk? Days later, US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded their strongest inflows since April, prompting Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas to wonder whether security scares could eventually push more investors away from self-custody and toward ETFs.

Elsewhere, Strategy is preparing to resume Bitcoin purchases after a rare bout of selling, Riot Platforms is reportedly turning its mining infrastructure into a $9 billion AI deal, and Trump Media is rethinking its crypto treasury strategy after a $238 million quarterly loss.

Strategy CEO Phong Le said the company plans to resume Bitcoin accumulation later this year, seeking to reinforce its long-term strategy after a series of relatively small sales drew scrutiny over its once-firm “never sell” stance.

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Bitcoin falls further toward new August lows, ignoring positive US inflation trends while US stocks continue to circle all-time highs.

Bitcoin (BTC) declined into Friday’s Wall Street open as traders increasingly saw a BTC price breakdown next.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD down 1.3% on the day at $62,570, near its lowest levels month-to-date.

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Morgan Stanley’s reported IBIT holdings rose to 16.5 million shares in Q2, while Ether ETF positions and several crypto-linked stocks also increased.

US investment banking giant Morgan Stanley reported larger crypto fund positions in the second quarter, led by an increase of more than 3 million shares in BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF).

Morgan Stanley’s reported holdings in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) increased by 23% to around 16.5 million shares from 13.4 million, according to its Q2 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

Morgan Stanley also reported 2.57 million shares of its own Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), worth about $43.3 million. The product began trading in April.

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JPMorgan reported a 25% increase in its Bitcoin ETF position and more than quadrupled its Ether ETF position in the second quarter.

JPMorgan’s reported position in BlackRock’s Bitcoin exchange-traded fund increased by about 25% in the second quarter, while its Ether ETF position more than quadrupled, according to its latest securities filing.

The Form 13F filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, submitted Wednesday, covers holdings as of June 30 and includes 17 other investment managers across JPMorgan.

That makes it difficult to determine whether individual positions reflect a directional market view, Jonatan Randin, senior market analyst at PrimeXBT, told Cointelegraph.

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Binance said it will stop processing transactions for involving 11 crypto platforms, including HTX, which was recently listed in the EU’s sanctions package targeting Russia.

Binance will stop processing transactions involving crypto exchange HTX and 10 other listed crypto platforms and service providers from Aug. 23.

The cryptocurrency exchange cited recent regulatory developments for the decision in a Friday announcement. Binance will stop processing transactions involving HTX, Rapira, Aifory Pro, ABCeX, WhiteBird, NoOnecrypto INC., Tradex, Monease Ltd, BitPapa, Exnode and EXMO.

Transactions attempted on or after the effective date may be held and subject to compliance review. Binance said restrictions may also be applied to impacted wallets while the review is ongoing.

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Solana’s proposed fee overhaul would make resource-heavy transactions more expensive while cutting costs for simpler activity, and it increases the amount of SOL burned.

Solana is preparing to change how it charges for computing resources on the network.

Solana Improvement Document (SIMD-0553) would make its most resource-intensive users pay more while cutting the costs for simpler transactions. As a bonus, it would increase SOL’s burn rate in stages — and one day could even help make it deflationary.

Cavey, a researcher at Solana infrastructure firm Temporal and author of the proposal, tells Magazine that fees currently don’t reflect the real costs:

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Credit card and staking revenue drove Gemini’s services growth in Q2 as exchange revenue fell 38% and trading volume dropped by two-thirds.

Cryptocurrency exchange Gemini reported a 37% year-over-year increase in second-quarter revenue to $45.5 million, while posting a $107.7 million net loss as exchange trading weakened.

Exchange revenue fell 38% to $12.5 million as trading volume dropped to $3.8 billion from $11.3 billion, the company said Thursday.

Services revenue climbed 149% to $23.5 million, led by a 231% increase in credit card revenue to $16.2 million and a 50% rise in staking revenue to $4 million. Including interest income, services revenue and interest income totaled $26 million.

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Shinhan Asset Management and Plume will test a tokenized fund using a Korean won-denominated ultra-short-term bond fund as its underlying asset.

South Korea’s Shinhan Asset Management signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with tokenization-focused blockchain network Plume to develop a proof of concept for a Korean won-denominated tokenized fund.

The pilot project will use a Shinhan won-denominated ultra-short-term bond fund as its underlying asset and BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized fund as a benchmark to test the issuance and distribution process, Shinhan said on Friday.

The companies will also test compliance requirements for tokenized investment products, including whitelist-based transfer restrictions, onchain operations, Know-Your-Customer checks and Anti-Money Laundering controls.

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Bitcoin futures open interest on Binance fell alongside BTC price as analysis published on CryptoQuant flagged mounting pressure on leveraged longs.

Bitcoin (BTC) long positions are “facing liquidation” as volatility shows signs that a range breakout is finally coming.

Key points:

Insights published on onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant by community analyst “BorisD on Thursday said that leveraged long BTC positions are being flushed out as BTC/USD targets month-to-date lows.

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RedotPay’s US IPO has reportedly been delayed as it seeks regulatory approvals, while the company says it secured a US money transmitter license.

RedotPay’s plans for a US stock market debut have reportedly been delayed as the stablecoin payment company prepares to expand into the country.

The company delayed plans for a US initial public offering (IPO) while it seeks regulatory approvals and contends with legal disputes involving Binance, Bloomberg reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

A RedotPay representative declined to comment on the timing of an IPO to Cointelegraph. The representative instead pointed to the company’s US expansion, saying RedotPay obtained a money transmitter license in the US this week and is preparing to launch its product in the country.

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JPMorgan Chase reportedly cut banking ties with Polymarket in October 2025 over regulatory concerns but remains open to an underwriting role if the platform goes public.

JPMorgan Chase ended a banking relationship with Polymarket over regulatory concerns, according to the Financial Times.

JPMorgan notified the prediction market platform in October 2025 that it needed to find a new bank, the Financial Times reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Polymarket now works with an unidentified lender.

Still, JPMorgan has maintained other ties with Polymarket. The bank is allegedly keen on a potential underwriting role should Polymarket attempt to go public. Polymarket reportedly said that it continues to have a “close, active relationship” with JPMorgan.

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JPMorgan Chase reportedly cut banking ties with Polymarket in October 2025 over regulatory concerns but remains open to an underwriting role if the platform goes public.

JPMorgan Chase ended a banking relationship with Polymarket over regulatory concerns, according to the Financial Times.

JPMorgan notified the prediction market platform in October 2025 that it needed to find a new bank, the Financial Times reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Polymarket now works with another unnamed lender.

However, JPMorgan has maintained other ties with Polymarket. The bank is allegedly keen on a potential underwriting role should Polymarket attempt to go public. Polymarket reportedly said that it continues to have a “close, active relationship” with JPMorgan.

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Crypto acceptance was just 0.2% online and remained below 1% at physical points of sale, while mobile payments gained ground.

Crypto remains a marginal payment option among euro area businesses even as other forms of digital payments gain ground, according to a new European Central Bank (ECB) report.

Just 0.2% of companies selling goods and services online accept crypto assets, the ECB said in its survey on companies’ cash use, published Thursday. Cash remains the most widely accepted payment method, with 92% of companies with physical points of sale accepting it.

The ECB surveyed 8,205 businesses across the 21 euro area countries, covering retail, restaurants and cafes, hotels, and arts, entertainment and recreation. Market research firm Ipsos conducted the telephone interviews from Feb. 23 to April 10.

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The SEC canceled a meeting on proposed crypto offering rules after the Senate left for recess without voting on the CLARITY Act.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has canceled an open meeting scheduled for Friday that was expected to consider new cryptocurrency rules.

The SEC said Thursday that the meeting had been canceled. The commission had been expected to consider whether to propose a “tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.”

The SEC told Reuters that the meeting would be moved due to “an unforeseen scheduling issue.” The agency did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request to comment.

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BA Labs had previously classified a proposed NUSD integration as higher risk because of its counterparty, operational and liquidity exposure.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Neutrl has suspended minting and redemptions for its NUSD synthetic dollar after unspecified circumstances affected protocol reserves, leaving the cause and scale of any potential impairment unclear.&

On Thursday, Neutrl said it had also paused other protocol functions on legal advice while it assesses the impact. The protocol did not identify the affected asset or counterparty, say whether reserves suffered a realized loss or provide a timeline for resuming operations.&

Structured-yield protocol Strata later said it paused minting, redemptions and related functions for contracts in its Neutrl market, which supports several NUSD-linked products. Strata said its other markets remained operational.&

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Figure expects consumer loan marketplace volume to range from $4.8 billion to $5.2 billion in the third quarter.

Figure Technology Solutions reported $4.3 billion in consumer loan marketplace volume for the second quarter, up 132% from a year earlier, as its quarterly profit nearly tripled.&

On Thursday, Figure said net income rose 192% year-on-year to $87 million, from about $30 million. Net revenue more than doubled to $226 million, while its net income margin increased 10.5 percentage points to 38.8%.&

Figure’s marketplace volume includes home equity lines of credit, debt-service coverage ratio loans and personal loans processed through its loan origination system, along with third-party loans traded on Figure Connect, which accounted for $2.8 billion, or 65%, of the quarterly total.&

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Advances in compact proofs have erased Poseidon’s previous performance advantage, according to researcher Justin Drake.

The Ethereum Foundation is moving away from the Poseidon hash function in its planned post-quantum architecture, according to researcher Justin Drake.&

On Thursday, Drake said the foundation was abandoning Poseidon and turning to established alternatives such as SHA or BLAKE. A hash function converts data into a fixed digital fingerprint, enabling computers to check that information has not been altered.&

Poseidon had been considered for future post-quantum systems such as leanVM, which would help Ethereum efficiently verify large volumes of blockchain activity. Those systems have not yet been deployed on mainnet.&

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The city’s complaint over gambling laws and deceptive trade practices included Robinhood, Webull and Coinbase as partners with prediction market platform Kalshi.

The City of Baltimore and its mayor, Brendan Scott, filed lawsuits against Kalshi and Polymarket over allegations that the companies violated local gambling laws.

In a Thursday notice, the Baltimore mayor’s office said that the two prediction market companies operated “illegal, unlicensed sports-betting platforms” and misled users about the ”legality and regulatory status of their products.” The lawsuits are centered on claims disputing Kalshi’s and Polymarket’s characterization of event contracts, arguing that the trades amount to unlawful wagers under state laws.

“These companies are running sportsbooks without licenses and betting that a new label will put them above the law,” said Scott. “It won’t. Baltimore will not let multibillion-dollar companies put profits over people and harm our communities through illegal gambling.”

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KPMG’s audit covered Tether’s 2025 financial statements and found its reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.8 billion.

Tether completed the first full independent audit of its annual financial statements, with KPMG US issuing a clean opinion on the stablecoin issuer’s 2025 accounts.

The audit covered Tether’s balance sheet, income statement and cash flows for the year ended Dec. 31, 2025, including the assets backing its issued tokens and the liabilities they represent.& Tether said the audited statements showed reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.814 billion.

Unlike Tether’s quarterly reserve attestations, which it has published for years,& the full audit subjected the company’s broader financial statements& and underlying evidence to independent examination, including transactions, systems, ownership records, valuations and counterparties.

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More than a year after being indicted on fraud charges related to his activities at crypto company Delio, Jeong Sang-ho faces prison time in South Korea.

A judge in South Korea reportedly sentenced Delio CEO Jeong Sang-ho to 15 years in prison after he was found guilty of defrauding users out of about $50 million in crypto.&

According to a Thursday report from South Korean news outlet Newsis, the 11th Criminal Division of the Seoul Southern District Court sentenced Jeong after his conviction on charges related to embezzlement and the use of a false trading license, but the CEO received no detention for defrauding users of $175 million.

“While operating Delio, [Jeong] falsely obtained a virtual asset trading license and defrauded victims of approximately 70 billion won [$49.3 million] in virtual assets,” said the court, adding:&

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The CFTC will hold a meeting for its Innovation Advisory Committee on Aug. 20 to address regulation related to crypto assets, artificial intelligence and prediction markets.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) announced a committee meeting to advise the agency on policy issues, including a potential exploration of how to address cryptocurrency regulation in the absence of congressional action.

In a notice issued Thursday, the CFTC said it would hold a meeting for its Innovation Advisory Committee on Aug. 20 to address regulation related to crypto assets, AI and prediction markets. Among the potential topics to be discussed on crypto were “areas where regulatory action can complement future congressional legislation,” likely referring to the US Senate failing to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act before breaking for an August recess last week.

The CFTC announcement followed a similar notice of a meeting to be held by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday. The agenda said that it intended to discuss “new rules to create a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.” A spokesperson added that it would support Congress’ effort to pass a market structure bill, but until such a law was passed, the SEC would work “within [its]& authority” to advance crypto regulation.

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The Blockchain Association argues the Fed should not have broad discretion to deny eligible state-chartered banks direct access to its payment system.

The Blockchain Association urged the US Supreme Court to hear Custodia Bank’s challenge to the Federal Reserve’s denial of its application for a master account, which would give the crypto-focused bank direct access to the Fed’s payment system.

In an amicus brief filed Wednesday, the industry group argued that federal law requires the central bank to make its payment services available to eligible nonmember banks and that the Fed should not have broad discretion to deny access.

The association said the appeals court’s decision effectively gives the Fed veto power over state-chartered banks by allowing it to withhold services needed to operate independently. It also linked Custodia’s case to alleged crypto debanking under “Operation Choke Point 2.0,” arguing that federal regulators discouraged banks from serving the digital asset industry.

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Standard Chartered said Robinhood’s Uniswap integration could solve a key challenge for new blockchains while accelerating UNI token burns.

Robinhood’s partnership with Uniswap is helping the brokerage rapidly build liquidity on its new blockchain, potentially removing a key obstacle to attracting users and assets, according to Standard Chartered.

In a recent note, Standard Chartered analyst Geoffrey Kendrick said Robinhood Chain has grown to nearly $1 billion in total value locked (TVL), which he described as the fastest growth of any blockchain by that measure. Virtually all of Robinhood Chain’s liquidity needs are being met through Uniswap V2, V3 and V4, Kendrick said.

The arrangement gives Robinhood access to established decentralized finance infrastructure as it scales its blockchain, potentially strengthening its ability to attract users without having to build liquidity from scratch.

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AI and HPC are reshaping mining economics as operators repurpose power and data centers, while a smaller group of miners continues to expand Bitcoin capacity.

Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are cutting mining capacity faster than the Bitcoin network overall, suggesting that more operators are redirecting electricity and infrastructure toward data centers and high-performance computing (HPC), in another sign of the sector’s evolution beyond creating more crypto.

In the latest Miner Weekly newsletter, BlocksBridge Consulting reported that realized hashrate among a cohort of public Bitcoin miners fell from 368.3 exahashes per second (EH/s) in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 319 EH/s in the second quarter of 2026, a 13.4% decline.

The contraction was even sharper when excluding Bitdeer, which continued to expand its mining operations. Without Bitdeer, the cohort’s realized hashrate fell 21.2% over the six-month period, from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s. Bitdeer’s realized hashrate, meanwhile, increased 44% to 63 EH/s.

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The crypto exchange operator’s shares gained around 10% as adjusted EBITDA more than tripled and subscription and services revenue hit a record high.

Bullish shares jumped around 13% in early trading Thursday after the institutional-focused crypto exchange and CoinDesk owner reported a 62% year-over-year increase in second-quarter adjusted revenue and more than tripled its adjusted EBITDA.

Bullish reported $92.6 million in adjusted revenue for the quarter, up from $57 million a year earlier, while adjusted EBITDA rose to $29.5 million from $8.1 million. Adjusted net income reached $14.3 million, reversing a $6 million loss in the year-ago quarter.

Subscription, services and other revenue hit a record $62.7 million, helping offset weaker exchange activity. The company recorded $179.6 billion in quarterly trading volume, down from $197.4 billion a year earlier, while average daily volume fell to $2 billion from $2.2 billion.

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The wallet provider warned that thousands of users could potentially be at risk of phishing attempts, while advising that all devices, private keys and backups were safe.

Cryptocurrency wallet company Trezor reported a breach of personal data affecting about 14,000 users through its shipping provider, ShipMonk.&

Trezor’s Wednesday blog post said users who received its products from the US, UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal between May 10 and Aug. 8 were at risk from potential phishing attacks using their personal information. The company reported that 11,742 customers could have had their name, physical address, phone number, and email address compromised, while 1,947 users potentially had their name, city, and email address breached.

“To be clear, our systems were not compromised, and your Trezor device is secure, but the affected customers might be targeted by more sophisticated phishing attempts,” said the company. “Scammers can use the leaked information to send fake emails, make fake phone calls, send fraudulent letters, or potentially impersonate banks, crypto exchanges, or even Trezor.”

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Bitcoin joined US stocks in modest gains after July PPI inflation data continued a cooling trend seen over the past month.

Bitcoin (BTC) edged away from weekly lows on Thursday after the US Producer Price Index (PPI) narrowly cooled in July.

Key points:

BTC/USD was up around 0.5% on the day near $63,900 with volatility broadly absent, data from TradingView showed.

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Bitmine’s Ether staking revenue is an important financial buffer that fills financial gaps and provides recurring revenue streams beyond Ether’s price appreciation, analysts told Cointelegraph.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest corporate Ether holder, surpassed 5 million Ether in staked tokens, which will generate an estimated $257 million in annualized revenue, according to a company announcement on Monday.&

Ether (ETH) staking is emerging as an important revenue stream that generated about 98% of Bitmine’s revenue for the fiscal quarter ending May 31, or $45.7 million of the company’s $46.5 million, analysts from Bitfinex exchange told Cointelegraph, adding:

Ether treasury companies are facing growing unrealized losses as their margins are pressured by the decline in Ether’s spot price, which fell roughly 23% during the second quarter of 2026.&

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MUFG’s experiment plans to bring Japanese government bond repo transactions onchain to achieve 24/7 settlement, as well as improved capital and operational efficiency.

Four MUFG companies plan to bring Japanese government bond repo transactions onchain using the Canton Network, as part of a new proof of concept (PoC).

The four companies, including MUFG, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking and MUFG Bank, will collaborate with Digital Asset Holdings and Progmat for the PoC, according to a Thursday announcement.

The companies said they seek to improve operational efficiency through automation of the transaction lifecycle, enable real-time intraday settlement 24/7, as well as enhance funding and capital efficiency.

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The SEC said it will not pursue enforcement action if Franklin Templeton’s funds start investing cash in the asset manager’s own tokenized money market fund.

Franklin Templeton received the regulatory nod to invest in its own blockchain-based money-market fund under specific guardrails, without having to adhere to physical custody regulations.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a no-action letter on Wednesday stating it won’t take enforcement action if Franklin Templeton fund managers invest cash in the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund, an interest-bearing tokenized fund that invests in US government securities and aims to maintain a stable $1 share price.

The SEC will also allow the affiliated transfer agent, Franklin Templeton Investor Services (FTIS), to act as custodian for the tokenized funds and hold their private keys without adhering to existing physical-custody rules. It comes in response to Franklin Templeton’s formal no-action request letter sent earlier on Wednesday.&

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Flying Tulip founder Andre Cronje contends that DeFi protocols have evolved into a new financial paradigm of “onchain finance,” but have sacrificed some of their inherent immutability and decentralization.

[Update, Aug. 14, 07:56 UTC: This article was updated to clarify Andre Cronje’s role in developing Fantom’s working network and his former role as Sonic Labs chief technology officer.]

Most decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols are no longer truly decentralized, according to Andre Cronje, founder of DeFi platform Flying Tulip and the technical architect who led the development of Fantom’s working network.

“I don’t think DeFi exists anymore outside of those very small niches,” Cronje told Cointelegraph during Thursday’s Chain Reaction X Spaces show.&

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Binance bStocks became the second-largest tokenized stock issuer less than two months after launch, narrowly ahead of Kraken’s xStocks.

Binance bStocks have overtaken xStocks to become the second-largest tokenized stock issuer by value less than two months after launch.

BStocks reached about $624 million on Aug. 3, surpassing xStocks at roughly $579 million but trailing Ondo Finance at about $927 million, according to Token Terminal data. As of Tuesday, bStocks remained in second place at $610.6 million, narrowly ahead of xStocks at $601.2 million.

The issuer landscape has shifted sharply as the tokenized stock market has grown. A year earlier, xStocks led with $40.7 million, followed by Robinhood at $37.2 million, while Ondo held about $65,000. The total value tracked by Token Terminal has since surged from roughly $80 million to about $2.7 billion.

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Bitcoin’s weakness near range highs stems from short-term holders trying to break even on underwater BTC investments, Glassnode says.

Bitcoin (BTC) recent buyers are the latest hurdle to a breakout from a stubborn trading range in place since June.

Key points:

In the latest edition of its weekly newsletter, crypto analytics platform Glassnode highlighted the ongoing significance of Bitcoin’s speculative investor base.

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Securitize shares fell 16% from Wednesday’s close after the tokenization platform’s $14.4 million second-quarter revenue missed Wall Street estimates.

Securitize shares sank in premarket trading on Thursday after the tokenization platform missed Wall Street revenue estimates.

Securitize reported $14.4 million in total revenue in its second-quarter earnings, down 5% compared to the same period last year, according to its quarterly results published on Wednesday.

The revenue came in below the Wall Street consensus estimate of $20.6 million, according to analyst estimates compiled by Yahoo Finance. Securitize shares traded at $6.62 in premarket trading as of 8:10 am UTC, down about 16% from Wednesday’s $7.86 close.

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An $18.8 million unrealized digital asset loss and weaker trading margins pushed BitGo into the red in the second quarter.

BitGo, a publicly listed digital asset infrastructure company, posted a $19 million net loss in the second quarter of 2026 despite revenue surging nearly 80% year-on-year to $4.3 billion.

BitGo (BTGO) on Wednesday reported that its net loss narrowed from $60.7 million in Q1, while revenue rose 14.7% quarter over quarter. The year-on-year swing to a loss largely reflected an $18.8 million unrealized loss on digital assets, compared with a $55.8 million unrealized gain a year earlier.

BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said during the earnings call that Q2 financial performance fell short of expectations.

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Copper Markets US will offer qualified custody, staking, financing and OTC services after securing its regulated US presence.

Digital asset infrastructure provider Copper has established a regulated presence in the US after its local entity became a broker-dealer registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and a member of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Copper announced Wednesday that Copper Markets (US) Inc. had been accepted as a FINRA member, allowing the firm to expand its institutional custody and trading infrastructure into the US market.

FINRA BrokerCheck records show Copper Markets with an approved SEC registration status dated Aug. 7. The records also identify FINRA as the company’s self-regulatory organization.

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Bitwise’s Matt Hougan said he expects revenue-capture mechanisms to spread across DeFi applications and layer-1 networks over the next 12 to 24 months.

Crypto valuations could at least double as protocols increasingly use revenue to fund token buybacks and burns, according to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan.&

On Wednesday, Hougan said crypto outside of Bitcoin is becoming a revenue-driven market in which network activity feeds into native-token value. He said investors have not priced in that change, leaving some crypto assets undervalued.

Hougan pointed to Hyperliquid, Uniswap, Aave, Pump.fun and Lighter, protocols that use fees to repurchase or remove tokens from circulation. He said he expects decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and layer-1 networks to adopt similar revenue-capture mechanisms over the next 12 to 24 months.&

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Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich said no Bitcoin was sold after the company moved 5,014 BTC between custodial addresses for about $8 in fees.

[Update 7:55 am UTC, Aug. 13: Adds Metaplanet’s first-half financial results in final paragraph.]

Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich has shut down speculation that the Japanese Bitcoin treasury company was selling its holdings.

“This was a routine custody operation. No bitcoin was sold, and our holdings remain 43,000 BTC,” Gerovich said Thursday.

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ASX’s failed blockchain-based CHESS overhaul faces renewed governance scrutiny after the exchange admitted misleading the market.

An Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) shareholder plans to seek Federal Court permission to sue former ASX officers and directors over alleged breaches of duty connected to its failed blockchain-based clearing and settlement overhaul.

On Wednesday, ASX said Rosherville Pty Ltd had notified the exchange that it proposes to apply for leave to commence a statutory derivative action under sections 236 and 237 of Australia’s Corporations Act. If approved, Rosherville would bring the proceedings on ASX’s behalf.&

The exchange said there were no allegations against ASX itself. It did not identify the former officials targeted, describe their alleged breaches in detail or disclose the remedies Rosherville intends to seek, while the court has not considered whether the proposed case can proceed.&

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Qualifying new customers can receive full reimbursement, including fees, if they notify both the operator and law enforcement within 30 days.

Arizona’s crypto ATM law has helped 35 scam victims receive full refunds totaling $171,332 since the measure took effect in September 2025, according to the state’s attorney general.&

On Wednesday, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office said it helped the victims obtain full refunds and urged residents to report fraudulent transactions before the law’s 30-day deadline.&

Under House Bill 2387, crypto kiosk operators must refund eligible new customers for fraudulently induced transactions, including any associated fees. Victims must contact both the operator and the attorney general or another law enforcement agency within 30 days and provide the operator with an official report determining that they were fraudulently induced into making the transaction.&

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Hawaii will join Minnesota, Tennessee and Indiana in becoming the fourth US state to completely ban the use of cryptocurrency ATMs and kiosks in response to scams.

Hawaii will soon become the latest US state to enact a total ban on cryptocurrency kiosks and ATMs after its governor signed off on legislation.&

Following the passage of House Bill 1642 by Hawaii’s legislature in May, Governor Josh Green signed the legislation into law in July, setting the US state for a complete prohibition on “the ownership, operation, or management of a digital financial asset transaction kiosk that accepts United States currency from a customer in exchange for a digital financial asset.”

The bill cited data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, which reported in April that Americans lost more than $11 billion from scams related to digital assets in 2025. The bureau added that it had recorded 826 complaints related to crypto from Hawaii residents in 2025, with the US state having about $80 million in losses from digital assets, including ATMs and kiosks.

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The deal would add NEOS’ $30 billion ETF business, including Bitcoin- and Ether-linked income funds, to Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Goldman Sachs has agreed to acquire exchange-traded fund manager NEOS Investments for up to $2.25 billion, a deal that would add the firm’s Bitcoin- and Ether-linked funds to its growing ETF business.

NEOS manages $30 billion across 19 options-based income ETFs, including the Bitcoin High Income ETF (BTCI), Boosted Bitcoin High Income ETF (XBCI) and Ethereum High Income ETF (NEHI). The crypto funds use options-based strategies designed to generate monthly income alongside exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) or Ether (ETH).

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of 2027, subject to regulatory approval, with NEOS co-founders Troy Cates and Garrett Paolella and the firm’s broader team set to join Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

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Council Speaker Julie Menin sent letters to four companies offering prediction market services to New Yorkers as part of an investigation into their marketing practices.

The New York City Council launched an investigation into companies offering prediction market services, aiming to examine whether they used “false and deceptive marketing” through influencers to target young adults.

In a Wednesday notice, the council said Speaker Julie Menin sent letters to Kalshi, Polymarket, Coinbase and Gemini Titan as part of an investigation into what they called “abusive marketing” through the platforms’ prediction market services. The probe will determine whether New York City officials need to consider additional measures against such marketing practices, including legislation, education and enforcement.

“Apps like Polymarket are expanding rapidly unchecked,” said Council Member Shekar Krishnan, who chairs the committee on oversight and investigations. “Their unprecedented reach is because they are preying on young adults and minors with deceptive and sometimes outright false marketing tactics that pull them in and wring them dry.”

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Kraken’s funded trading program adds round-the-clock exposure to the US equity benchmark as it builds out its multi-asset offering.

US-based crypto exchange Kraken has added an S&P 500 perpetual product to its proprietary trading program, giving funded traders round-the-clock exposure to the US equity benchmark.

According to a company blog post on Wednesday, the product is structured as a perpetual priced off an index oracle tracking the S&P 500, rather than a standardized futures contract, meaning it has no expiration date or rollover requirement.

The S&P 500 joins the Nasdaq 100 as the second traditional market available through Kraken Prop, with the company planning to add commodities as part of a broader multi-asset rollout.& Traders can access the S&P 500 market across Kraken Prop’s evaluation and funded accounts with up to 5x leverage and a maximum notional exposure of $1 million, according to the company.

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Crypto companies from including Coinbase, BitGo, Robinhood, Polygon and Pump.fun have announced workforce reductions this year, citing a variety of reasons, including shifting to AI and market forces.

Digital asset manager Bitwise has cut 14% of its staff in a move that reduced workers at the San Francisco-headquartered company from about 180 to 155 people.

A Bitwise spokesperson confirmed to Cointelegraph on Wednesday that it had laid off about 25 people amid a crypto market downturn. The company is the latest in the crypto industry to announce staff cuts in 2026, following similar moves by Robinhood, Polygon, Pump.fun and others.

Bloomberg earlier reported that Bitwise chief executive Hunter Horsley said that the company still expects growth as crypto “further integrates into the global economy.” The company acquired Chorus One in February in a move expected to expand its staking services.

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Following the initial lawsuit, at least one of Kalshi’s event contracts was changed to list “Primary Source Agency” as the entity behind verifying flight cancellation data.

Just a day after real-time flight tracking website FlightAware filed a lawsuit against prediction markets platform Kalshi over use of its name and data, the flight data company gave notice of voluntary dismissal of the case.&

In a Tuesday filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, attorneys for FlightAware said that they had voluntarily dismissed the case against Kalshi. The flight tracking company had filed the lawsuit a day earlier, claiming that Kalshi had used its “data and name to run gambling markets on flight cancellations.”

While the immediate turnaround could suggest a closed-door settlement, neither company had publicly commented on the case as of Wednesday. On Tuesday, a judge ordered Kalshi to show cause why the court should not issue a temporary restraining order over FlightAware’s trademark and data.&

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The Digital Pound Lab is testing a cross-border trade finance flow combining stablecoin payments with simulated digital pound settlement.

The Bank of England’s Digital Pound Lab is testing whether stablecoins and a potential digital British pound can operate within the same cross-border payment flow as part of an experiment focused on trade finance.

The experiment involves NOBO Finance, Dun & Bradstreet and Polygon Labs, with an exporter receiving an advance via a stablecoin rail while a UK importer completes settlement using simulated digital pounds, according to a Wednesday announcement from the three companies.

The project also includes a separate workstream aimed at creating reusable credit profiles for small businesses by combining transaction data, open-finance information and Dun & Bradstreet’s commercial risk data, with Polygon providing the smart contract infrastructure.

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HashKey has become an authorized distributor for Anchorpoint’s HKDAP, expanding institutional access as Hong Kong’s regulated stablecoin market takes shape.

Anchorpoint Financial, a Hong Kong-licensed stablecoin issuer, has added HashKey Exchange as an authorized distributor for its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, HKDAP, potentially expanding access to the fiat-backed asset as Hong Kong’s regulated stablecoin market takes shape.

The companies announced on Tuesday that the arrangement is part of a beta rollout allowing eligible institutions and professional investors to access the stablecoin through HashKey and other supported channels. HashKey said it has already completed its first HKDAP minting and redemption transaction with eligible clients, including fiat on- and off-ramping.

The companies said they plan to expand distribution over time and explore additional uses for HKDAP, including cross-border payments, settlement and tokenized finance.

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Bitcoin price action did not reflect relief in US CPI inflation numbers matching expectations amid a warning over $63,000 failing as support.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw weakness around Wednesday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to key US inflation data.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD dropping below $63,500, erasing the day’s gains.

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Kalshi launched access to its sports and crypto perpetual data feed through DoubleZero’s dedicated fiber network to bolster institutional data access.

Prediction market Kalshi’s live order book is now available through data provider DoubleZero Edge’s dedicated fiber network, the two companies said in a Wednesday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Kalshi said this makes it the first prediction market to distribute its real-time order book data on sports and crypto perpetuals event contracts, which will be available to new DoubleZero Edge subscribers.

Users looking for a machine-readable view of prediction market data can access these capabilities via the dedicated feed, instead of building this infrastructure from order books and application programming interface (API) responses themselves.

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Slovenia entered the EU’s MiCA stablecoin register through electronic money institution Dinaro, as the update also added two new CASPs.

Slovenia has appeared for the first time in the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) register of electronic money token (EMT) issuers.

Dinaro, a Slovenia-based electronic money institution supervised by the Bank of Slovenia, joined the EMT list in the latest European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) register update on Wednesday.

According to its website, Dinaro provides payment services, including card issuing and acquiring, and says it holds Mastercard principal membership. Its addition marks the first appearance of a Slovenia-based issuer in ESMA’s EMT dataset.

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Five years after El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, the experiment has fallen short of its original promises for locals, but it’s been great for Bitcoin’s global profile.

It’s been five years since El Salvador became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

President Nayib Bukele announced the plan at the Bitcoin conference in Miami on June 5, 2021, to the jubilant cries and applause of the Bitcoin community, who hailed the tiny Central American nation as living proof that BTC could be sovereign money.

Bukele sold the experiment as a way to bank the unbanked, slash remittance costs, and attract investment to the impoverished nation.

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Wintermute will reportedly invest $1 billion in AI infrastructure and high-frequency trading as part of its expansion into traditional finance.

Crypto market maker Wintermute reportedly plans to invest up to $1 billion in artificial intelligence (AI) data center infrastructure and high-frequency trading over the next five years.

The plans include scaling up Wintermute’s non-crypto market activity to account for over 50% of its business by the end of 2027, up from the current 10%, Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy told Bloomberg.

Wednesday’s report said that as part of the plans, Wintermute will also double the staff in its 17-person New York office next year and expand its global headcount by about 40%. Cointelegraph has approached Wintermute for more details surrounding its expansion plans.

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Fidelity plans to add staking to its Ether fund, with 85% of rewards retained by FETH and quarterly cash distributions planned for investors.

Fidelity Investments plans to add staking to its spot Ether exchange-traded product, the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), according to its Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The asset manager said FETH could stake up to 100% of its Ether under normal conditions, excluding ETH reserved for redemptions, expenses and liquidity needs.

The fund would retain 85% of staking rewards, with 15% going toward staking fees, and plans quarterly cash distributions, although payouts are not guaranteed. Fidelity expects staking to begin “as soon as practicable” after the prospectus date. The preliminary prospectus remains subject to change before the registration statement becomes effective.

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Amid a $473 million legal dispute, RedotPay says it expects Binance to end its Singapore case, while Binance says its claims remain active.

Binance and RedotPay are disputing whether a Singapore case related to their nearly $473 million Hong Kong legal battle is coming to an end.

The stablecoin payments card issuer told Cointelegraph on Tuesday that it expects Binance to discontinue the Singapore proceedings following a hearing on Aug. 7. “RedotPay will be seeking legal costs arising from the discontinuance of the matter from the claimant,” a spokesperson for RedotPay said, adding that the parties would try to agree on costs.

However, Binance said it has no plans to abandon its claims. “Reports that Binance will be withdrawing its Singapore claims are false,” a Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph, adding that the company “is not abandoning its claims and has informed both the court and RedotPay accordingly.”

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Bitcoin miners showed a “concerning” trend of pivoting to AI amid a profit squeeze as transaction-fee income barely bounced from 10-year lows of 0.52% of revenue.

Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fees now account for just 0.69% of miner revenue as major players pivot to AI.

Key points:

Data from onchain analytics platform Glassnode shows that fees as a proportion of miner revenue remain near decade lows after falling to just 0.52% in April.

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The Bitcoin Policy Institute and other industry participants urged AI companies to offer early access to their frontier models to aid Bitcoin and open-source developers in their cybersecurity efforts.

A group of cryptocurrency companies has urged frontier artificial intelligence (AI) labs to give Bitcoin developers early access to their most capable models.

The letter, published by the Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) on Monday, said many digital asset defenders, including Bitcoin Core developers, lack access to lab cyber programs and can be blocked by guardrails on publicly available frontier systems, leaving them to rely on less capable open-weight models.

The signatories urged frontier AI labs to “establish or expand standing trusted-access programs for qualified defenders of open-source financial infrastructure.”&

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Suspected North Korean IT workers joined a fake crypto startup — without realizing their every move was being tracked to extract valuable intel.

It isn’t often that a reporter gets asked to pose as a venture capitalist to fool suspected North Korean IT workers.

But in June, I found myself joining a Zoom call as “Aelin Ashriver,” an investor from the fictitious Definitive Communications, to meet the development team of crypto startup Ballena Azul.

The IT workers on the call believed they were pitching for VC backing for their startup. In reality they had spent weeks working inside a fake crypto company set up purely to study their methods and infrastructure by Mauro Eldritch, founder of cybersecurity firm BCA LTD, and Heiner García, a cyber threat intelligence analyst at Telefónica Tech and founder of NorthScan.

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Harmony is working with exchanges to freeze funds and is preparing a patch after claims that 2.8 billion unauthorized ONE hit trading platforms.

Harmony is considering rolling back its blockchain after claims that an attacker exploited the network to mint nearly 4 billion ONE tokens, equivalent to about 26% of the token’s supply.

On Tuesday, Harmony said it was working with exchanges to stop and freeze funds. The layer-1 blockchain said it was preparing a patch and evaluating rollback options. It did not confirm the cause, the number of tokens created or the amount sent to exchanges.&

Cointelegraph contacted Harmony for comment but had not received a response by publication.&

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The order escalates a jurisdictional fight over whether states may treat federally regulated event contracts as illegal gambling.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) invoked its emergency authority on Tuesday, ordering prediction market Kalshi to continue operating.

The CFTC said that New York’s enforcement action and request for a temporary restraining order themselves constituted a market emergency and directed Kalshi to continue operating in accordance with its normal practices and the Commodity Exchange Act’s Core Principles.

New York’s requested temporary restraining order would bar Kalshi from operating a business offering contracts tied to sports, culture, elections and other events in or from New York or to people in the state. The CFTC said the order could prevent Kalshi from offering all event contracts nationwide because it is based in New York. According to the CFTC, New York is seeking at least $36 billion in compensatory damages pending an accounting.

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Mining pools controlling most of Ravencoin’s hash rate are building a competing chain that could trigger a three-day reorganization.

Ravencoin dropped to an all-time low on Wednesday as an exploited consensus vulnerability left several days of transactions at risk and prompted exchanges to suspend RVN transfers.&

According to CoinGecko, the cryptocurrency dropped to $0.002754, about 22% below its 24-hour high of $0.003529. Trading volume climbed above $18 million during the sell-off before easing to about $9.6 million, while RVN recovered to around $0.00284 at the time of writing.&

On Tuesday, Ravencoin said the exploit caused vulnerable nodes to accept invalid blocks, with the first known instance appearing at height 4,487,776 on Friday. Similar invalid blocks appeared after the flaw was demonstrated on the mainnet, it added.&

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Regulators allege Goliath promised crypto liquidity-pool returns but instead paid earlier investors and funded its founder’s luxury spending.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed separate civil lawsuits on Tuesday against Goliath Ventures and founder Christopher Delgado over an alleged crypto Ponzi scheme that raised about $400 million.&

The SEC said Goliath raised at least $425 million from more than 1,300 investors through an unregistered securities offering. Investors were told their money would be placed in crypto liquidity pools, but the agency alleged none of the funds or crypto assets were invested in the pools and Delgado diverted at least $51 million for personal use.&

In a separate action, the CFTC said about 1,600 customers contributed at least $397 million after Goliath solicited funds for crypto trading in Bitcoin and Ether.

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The US securities regulator scheduled a meeting this week with the potential to step up on digital asset policies without congressional action.

Update (Aug. 11 10:40 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a response from the SEC.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced a meeting to consider “new rules to create a tailored offering regime for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.”&

According to the SEC’s agenda, the commission will hold an open meeting on Friday that has the potential to address policies and regulations affecting the crypto industry in the absence of action from the US Congress. Last week, lawmakers in the Senate failed to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, also known as CLARITY, which was expected to provide a comprehensive framework for financial regulators on the oversight of cryptocurrencies.

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The bank will test tokenized fixed-income securities and investment funds as part of an ANBIMA-led industry pilot.

Itaú, Latin America’s largest private sector bank, has partnered with digital asset infrastructure provider OpenAssets to participate in an industry-led pilot testing the tokenization of fixed-income securities and investment funds in Brazil.

The initiative is led by the Brazilian Financial and Capital Markets Association (ANBIMA), which is testing the issuance, trading and settlement of capital markets instruments using distributed ledger technology (DLT).

According to Tuesday’s announcement, the companies will develop technical proofs of concept and assess the operational, compliance and technology requirements for tokenized assets, with debentures and investment funds among the use cases being explored.

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MoneyGram’s Ramps service now connects Solana wallets and applications to its global cash network, with Rift becoming the first wallet to integrate the service.

Global remittance company MoneyGram has expanded its Ramps service to Solana, allowing wallets, exchanges and developers on the network to offer cash-to-crypto and crypto-to-cash conversions through its payments network.

Ramps previously operated on Stellar, making Solana its second supported blockchain. Rift is the first Solana (SOL) wallet to integrate the service, allowing users to move between crypto and local currencies through MoneyGram.

In an X post announcing the launch, Solana said MoneyGram serves more than 60 million customers through nearly 500,000 retail locations across more than 170 countries, with the network now accessible to Solana developers through a single API.

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After an August recess, lawmakers in the Senate will have just 36 days in session before the end of the year to pass the CLARITY Act.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act is expected to be held for a cloture vote in September upon the US Senate’s return, but it still faces significant hurdles on the path to becoming law.

Just before the Senate broke for a month-long recess last week, Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture for the crypto market structure bill to go to the floor for consideration. Lawmakers will return from recess on Sept. 14, but only have 14 days scheduled to be in session before breaking for a recess before the November election and another 22 days before the end of the year.

This 36-day window for the CLARITY Act still has many crypto industry advocates publicly expressing their optimism for the bill’s chances in Congress, but lawmakers had not announced any deal on many of the provisions still at issue. These included ethics language affecting US President Donald Trump’s ties to digital assets and additional restrictions for crypto companies offering stablecoin rewards.

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After an August recess, lawmakers in the Senate will have just 36 days in session before the end of the year to pass the CLARITY Act.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act is expected to be held for a cloture vote in September upon the US Senate’s return, but it still faces significant hurdles on the path to becoming law.

Just before the Senate broke for a month-long recess last week, Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture for the crypto market structure bill to go to the floor for consideration. Lawmakers will return from recess on Sept. 14, but only have 14 days scheduled to be in session before breaking for a recess before the November election and another 22 days before the end of the year.

This 36-day window for the CLARITY Act still has many crypto industry advocates publicly expressing their optimism for the bill’s chances in Congress, but lawmakers have not announced any deal on many of the provisions still at issue. These include ethics language affecting US President Donald Trump’s ties to digital assets and additional restrictions for crypto companies offering stablecoin rewards.

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The company has bought roughly 25 times more BTC than it has sold this year, despite recent sales that challenged its long-standing accumulation strategy.

Strategy CEO Phong Le said the company plans to resume accumulating Bitcoin later this year, even after shifting business priorities prompted it to sell portions of its holdings in moves that drew scrutiny from the market.

In a Monday interview with FOX Business, Le said Strategy had purchased around 175,000 Bitcoin since the beginning of the year while selling roughly 7,000 BTC, making the company a significant net buyer.

That’s “about 25 times more” buying than selling, Le said. He added that Strategy has gone from the world’s second-largest institutional Bitcoin holder to the largest.

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The license allows ARP Digital to offer regulated digital asset and stablecoin conversions into UAE dirhams as it expands its Gulf presence beyond Bahrain.

ARP Digital, an institutional digital asset infrastructure provider, has secured a broker-dealer license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, allowing the Bahrain-based firm to offer regulated conversions between digital assets and the UAE dirham.

According to ARP Digital, the license covers United Arab Emirates-based corporates, capital markets participants and qualified investors, including conversions between stablecoins and dirhams. The company said it will also provide institutions with a regulated route to convert digital asset capital for deployment into local UAE assets.

The approval marks ARP Digital’s second regulated Gulf market. The firm is licensed by the Central Bank of Bahrain, where it says it has processed more than $3.5 billion in volume for over 450 institutional and corporate counterparties, with fourfold year-on-year growth in 2025.

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The legal action against Kalshi focused on trademark infringement and injury to its reputation in addition to citing state authorities comparing the company’s contracts to gambling.

FlightAware, a company that offers real-time status and information about flights globally, filed a lawsuit against Kalshi in a New York federal court over the prediction markets platform using its “data and name to run gambling markets on flight cancellations.”

In a Monday filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the company said that despite repeated demands for Kalshi to stop using its registered trademark and offering bets “verified by FlightAware’s data,” the prediction market has continued to list event contracts based on flight cancellations.&

The lawsuit cited authorities’ claims that event contracts on prediction market platforms like Kalshi were “wagers” in violation of state laws, adding that the company’s expansion to trading on commercial flights starting in July was associating FlightAware with activities potentially harming its reputation. FlightAware sought to “stop Kalshi’s illicit behavior before there is any harm to public safety.”

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Flowdesk’s VARA approval follows its MiCA authorization in France as crypto firms build regulated operations across major global markets.

Flowdesk, an institutional crypto market maker backed by Coinbase Ventures and BlackRock, has received a full broker-dealer license in Dubai, expanding its ability to serve institutional investors in the emirate.

On Tuesday, Flowdesk said Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority granted the license to its local entity, Flowdesk Omega FZE, allowing it to provide regulated broker-dealer services to qualified and institutional investors in and from Dubai.

The approval follows Flowdesk’s broader regulatory expansion, with the company receiving authorization in France as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework.

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Nasdaq’s acquisition of the third-largest US alternative trading system comes as the exchange operator expands into tokenized securities and longer trading hours.

Nasdaq has agreed to acquire LeveL Markets, the third-largest alternative trading system in the US by trading volume, as part of its push into tokenized and always-on markets.

According to Nasdaq, LeveL Markets processes hundreds of millions of shares daily and serves more than 2,500 buy- and sell-side clients. The venue will operate within Nasdaq’s new Digital Liquidity Networks unit, led by Roland Chai, who has overseen the company’s digital assets strategy since earlier this year.

Nasdaq first invested in LeveL Markets in 2021. The platform has since grown to execute trades across more than 7,000 symbols daily and serves more than 300 institutional buy-side firms, with average daily trading volume increasing 56% in 2025.

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Bitcoin price action sank to one-week lows ahead of US CPI data, while retail investors piled into gold ETFs and XAU/USD hit its highest levels in nine weeks.

Bitcoin (BTC) headed lower around Tuesday’s Wall Street open as investors’ appetite for gold sent the precious metal to nine-week highs.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD abandoning a low-timeframe rebound to drop back below $64,000.

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Shipfinex plans to bring 35 vessels onchain through ADI Chain as tokenization expands into the multitrillion-dollar maritime industry.

Dubai-based maritime asset tokenization platform& Shipfinex partnered with ADI Chain to tokenize a pipeline of around 35 vessels worth $500 million, as it looks to open new financing channels for shipowners.

According to the company, the vessels will be placed in separate special-purpose vehicles, with the resulting tokens potentially representing vessel-backed credit, charter-linked income or other economic interests in individual ships.

ADI Chain, an Abu Dhabi-based blockchain focused on stablecoins and real-world assets, will provide the distribution and settlement infrastructure. Primary allocations and distributions are expected to use UAE dirham-, US dollar- and other currency-denominated stablecoins.

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SharpLink reported a net loss of $394 million in the second quarter of 2026, largely driven by Ether’s 23% decline during the quarter.

SharpLink, the second-largest Ether treasury company, reported a net loss of $394 million for the second quarter of 2026, compared to a $103 million net loss during the same period last year.&

The loss included $321 million in unrealized crypto losses and $76 million in impairments on staked Ether (ETH) tokens, according to a Monday announcement.&

The Miami, Florida-based Ether treasury company said it generated $11.5 million in revenue, including $11.1 million from ETH staking. Cash and cash equivalents totaled $56 million, up from $28 million in December 2025.

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Trading platform eToro will acquire TradeZero as part of its US expansion as it reported crypto-related revenue fell by about 30% compared to the second quarter of 2025.

Trading platform eToro plans to acquire US online brokerage TradeZero as part of its US expansion plans, the company announced Tuesday.

In its second-quarter report, eToro reported $1.59 billion in revenue, down from $2 billion in the comparable 2025 period. Of that, $1.34 billion was revenue from crypto assets, down about 30% from $1.9 billion in Q2 of 2025. However, eToro reported $1.35 billion in crypto-related cost of revenue and $19.7 million in net income from crypto assets. Total net income was $53.4 million.

Equities and commodities-related trading generated $141 million in net income for the platform.

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Russia’s central bank proposed allowing Bitcoin, Ether and USDT to trade on regulated exchanges, following a law signed by President Vladimir Putin last week.

Russia’s central bank has compiled a proposed list of crypto assets that could be admitted to public trading on exchanges under new rules approved last week.

The list includes Bitcoin, Ether and Tether’s stablecoin USDT, the Bank of Russia said Tuesday, adding that the assets meet criteria including market capitalization, average daily trading volume and at least five years of price history on overseas markets.

The proposal follows a new law, signed by President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 4, that gives the Bank of Russia authority to determine which digital currencies can be admitted to organized trading and set related rules.

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Bitcoin analysis suggested that sell pressure would not increase given the historically large contraction in USDT market cap over a 60-day period.

Biggest stablecoin Tether (USDT) has shed $4 billion in market cap in just two months, but history suggests that the downturn is nearly over.

Key points:

Onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant in a blog post last week flagged market cap “undergoing one of its sharpest contractions on record.”

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The Coldcard hack has no definitive loss figure yet as investigators rely on victim reports and onchain analysis that produce varying estimates.

The Coldcard hack is testing crypto investigators’ ability to measure losses from self-custody wallets, where victim reports are critical to establishing the scale of the theft.

Blockchain analytics platform CryptoQuant currently puts confirmed losses at 1,432 Bitcoin, while other analysts have traced substantially more funds to the attack.

Galaxy Research and blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs both say their analysis points to a higher toll, while distinguishing between losses directly confirmed by victims and funds attributed to the attack through onchain patterns.

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Keel completed the shutdown of its US Bitcoin mining operations as it pivots toward AI and high-performance computing infrastructure

Keel Infrastructure said it has decommissioned all US Bitcoin mining operations in preparation for high-performance computing (HPC) site construction, according to its second-quarter report published on Monday.

The digital infrastructure company reported $30 million in revenue, down 50% year-on-year. The decrease was largely attributed to a decline in the average Bitcoin (BTC) price and the shutdown of its Moses Lake crypto mining operations in April 2026.&

The company also reported a $141 million operating loss, compared with operating income of $11 million in the same period last year. The loss included $84 million in non-cash depreciation.

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Anthropic reportedly struck a $9 billion deal with Riot for 191 megawatts of capacity from the Bitcoin miner’s Rockdale campus in Texas.

Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms said it secured a 20-year agreement to supply 191 megawatts of capacity from its Rockdale, Texas, campus to a “leading frontier AI” company, according to a Monday press release.

The customer is Anthropic and the deal is valued at about $9 billion, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Cointelegraph has approached Anthropic and Riot for comment.

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South Korea will remove its 1 million won Travel Rule threshold and apply information-sharing requirements to all transfers between registered crypto service providers.

South Korea will expand its crypto Travel Rule to all transfers between registered virtual asset service providers (VASPs), removing the current 1 million won (about $700) threshold.

The country’s Cabinet approved amendments to the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Reporting and Using Specified Financial Transaction Information on Tuesday.

Under the changes, the Travel Rule will apply to all transfers between registered crypto service providers regardless of value. Receiving platforms will also be required to obtain sender and recipient information and may request missing information or reject transactions when required data is unavailable.

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Decta will use USDC through OpenPayd’s infrastructure for international treasury settlement, seeking faster transfers and more efficient liquidity management.

Update Aug. 11, 11:15 am UTC: This article has been updated to modify comments from Decta UK CEO Scott Dawson.

Payments platform Decta will use USDC to settle its own funds internationally, bringing stablecoins into its back-end treasury operations.

Decta said Tuesday that it will use OpenPayd, a financial infrastructure company, to convert company funds into USDC for international settlement, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

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Luke Dashjr lost his BIP editor privileges after developers raised concerns over his role in BIP 110 and its stalled minority fork.

Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr has been removed as an editor of Bitcoin Improvement Proposals following a dispute over his role in BIP 110.

Bitcoin developer Mark Erhardt opened the pull request on Sunday after recommending Dashjr’s removal on the Bitcoin Developer mailing list.

Erhardt said Dashjr had been “heavily involved” in creating and implementing BIP 110 and alleged that he unfairly favored the proposal while serving as an editor, including by attempting to assign it a BIP number before mailing-list discussion and quickly merging an update to it.

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Patrick Witt says the Trump administration will keep negotiating with Democrats as the Senate prepares for a September CLARITY vote.

US President Donald Trump’s administration remains committed to passing the CLARITY Act in September despite the Senate’s decision to delay action until after its August recess, according to the White House’s top crypto policy official.

Patrick Witt, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors for Digital Assets, said Tuesday on X that the administration would continue negotiating with Democrats “all the way up until the September vote,” adding, “we also can’t afford to wait forever.”

The Senate is expected to hold a cloture vote on the bill in mid-September, a procedural step that would require 60 votes to advance CLARITY toward a final vote.

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Trump Media says it will take a more disciplined approach to its crypto treasury while directing more resources toward its core media business.

Trump Media said it plans to revamp its digital asset treasury strategy after unrealized losses on crypto and securities helped push the company to a $238 million net loss in the second quarter.

The company reported $190.4 million in unrealized losses across its digital assets, pledged digital assets and equity securities in its Q2 earnings release on Monday.

Trump Media said the new framework is intended to preserve its long-term digital asset exposure while managing volatility and improving the productivity of its balance sheet.

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The Bitcoin Red Team has been forced to rely on open source Chinese AI, after OpenAI restricted access. Thailand sets crypto tax to 0% in bid to become crypto hub.

THAILAND

For the next few years crypto investors in Thailand won’t have to pay any capital gains taxes on sales made via platforms licensed by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission. The exemption is for five years and covers the period of Jan. 1, 2025, through to Dec. 31, 2029.

The scheme aims to boost Thailand’s attractiveness as a regional crypto hub, and it’s already home to a growing community of crypto digital nomads

However, trades on unlicensed or overseas exchanges will still face standard personal tax rates as high as 38%. The exemption aligns the tax treatment of crypto with capital gains from traditional securities in the country.

Thailand previously waved 7% value added tax on crypto gains in early 2024.

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A New York judge granted a motion filed by US prosecutors in July to stay the CFTC’s civil case against Gannon Ken Van Dyke over making more than $400,000 on prediction markets.

A federal judge ordered that a civil case initiated by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) be stayed pending the outcome of a criminal case against a US soldier who is alleged to have used nonpublic information to profit from a Polymarket event contract on the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

In a Monday ruling in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, District Judge Andrew Carter granted a motion filed by prosecutors in July to stay the CFTC’s civil case “pending the outcome of the criminal proceeding.”&

The cases against Gannon Ken Van Dyke, a US Army Special Forces Master Sergeant, involve allegations of making more than $400,000 on Polymarket event contracts tied to Maduro’s removal. According to the US Justice Department, Van Dyke was involved in the operation to oust Maduro in January, leading to allegations he used nonpublic information to profit on prediction markets.

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Messari reported that Tron recorded all-time highs in stablecoin supply and network activity during the second quarter, while DeFi and decentralized exchange activity declined.

Tron, the layer-1 blockchain founded by Justin Sun, ended the second quarter with $87.9 billion in circulating USDT (USDT), surpassing Ethereum (ETH) while processing $2.1 trillion in USDT transfers during the period.

According to a Messari report, USDT accounted for 98.5% of Tron’s stablecoin market, which grew 4.1% quarter-over-quarter to a record $89.2 billion. Average daily USDT transfer volume also returned to growth, rising 4.3% to $22.8 billion after declining in the first quarter.&

The increase coincided with record network usage. Tron averaged 11.8 million daily transactions during the quarter, up 8.7%, while average daily active addresses increased 11.7% to 3.6 million. The network processed a record 14.6 million transactions on June 15, the report said.

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An individual behind the Aqua 1 entity that purchased $100 million worth of World Liberty Financial tokens in 2025 is reportedly a businessman with ties to the UK and UAE.

An individual previously under investigation in the UK for money laundering following the collapse of a cryptocurrency business was reportedly behind buying $100 million worth of tokens from the Trump family company, World Liberty Financial.

According to a Sunday New York Times report, Guren Zhou, also known as Bobby, was behind the Aqua 1 entity that purchased $100 million of WLFI tokens from the Trump family crypto business in June 2025. The token purchase financially benefitted members of US President Donald Trump’s family and that of World Liberty co-founder Zach Witkoff.

Zhou’s reported involvement in the World Liberty purchase followed speculation that the individual behind Aqua 1 was Dave Lee. The Aqua 1 foundation acknowledged in July 2025 that Lee joined the company as co-founder and CEO in April 2025, but did not say whether he was behind the funds going into the WLFI tokens.

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Coinsbuy said it covered all affected client funds after unauthorized withdrawals, while an onchain investigator estimated more than $7.9 million was stolen.

Wallets linked to crypto payments platform Coinsbuy were reportedly drained of more than $7.9 million across Ethereum and TRON on Sunday.

According to a Telegram post from blockchain investigator SpecterAnalyst, the attacker began moving the stolen funds into Monero through exchanges, while ChangeNOW helped freeze a six-figure portion of the assets.

Coinsbuy temporarily paused deposits and withdrawals following the incident before restoring both services, according to SpecterAnalyst. The investigator identified three addresses linked to the stolen funds, including two Ethereum addresses and one TRON address.

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Following a procedural delay in the US Senate, lawmakers are expected to address a major crypto market structure bill after they return from a month-long recess, which met with industry criticism.

With the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act now set for a cloture vote in September, many advocates and industry leaders are frustrated and disappointed at lawmakers’ failure to act before the US Senate broke for a month-long recess.

On Saturday, the Senate Daily Press reported that Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on a motion for the CLARITY Act to go to the chamber floor for consideration, ending speculation that lawmakers would address the bill more than a year after it was passed by the House of Representatives. The CLARITY vote is now expected when the Senate reconvenes in mid-September, and would require support from 60 senators to pass.

Across the crypto industry, many executives and advocates expressed their disappointment with the Senate’s inaction, as the push to September will happen with just 50 days before the 2026 midterm elections, likely reducing the odds of CLARITY passing.&

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Bitcoin wobbled with US stocks as Iran deflated hopes on the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz oil route, while analysis praised “exceptionally strong” institutional BTC inflows.

Bitcoin (BTC) slipped below $64,500 after Monday’s Wall Street open as markets digested more US-Iran uncertainty.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $64,447 on Bitstamp, its lowest since Friday, before a modest rebound.&

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BlackRock Canada’s new IBQT fund combines global equity exposure with a 3% Bitcoin allocation through the firm’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF.

BlackRock Canada launched two exchange-traded funds Monday, including a portfolio that combines globally diversified equities with a 3% allocation to Bitcoin.

The two funds, which began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, are the iShares Equity + Bitcoin ETF Portfolio (IBQT) and the iShares Core MSCI All-International Equity Index ETF (XINT).

IBQT allocates 97% of its portfolio to Canadian, US, international and emerging-market equities and 3% to Bitcoin (BTC) exposure through BlackRock’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), which trades on Cboe Canada. Rather than investing in individual stocks, IBQT primarily holds other iShares ETFs to provide its equity and Bitcoin exposure.

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BlackRock Canada’s new IBQT fund combines global equity exposure with a 3% Bitcoin allocation through the firm’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF.

BlackRock Canada launched two exchange-traded funds Monday, including a portfolio that combines globally diversified equities with a 3% allocation to Bitcoin.

The two funds, which began trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange, are the iShares Equity + Bitcoin ETF Portfolio (IBQT) and the iShares Core MSCI All-International Equity Index ETF (XINT).

IBQT allocates 97% of its portfolio to Canadian, US, international and emerging-market equities and 3% to Bitcoin (BTC) exposure through BlackRock’s Canadian iShares Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), which trades on Cboe Canada. Rather than investing in individual stocks, IBQT primarily holds other iShares ETFs to provide its equity and Bitcoin exposure.

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Bitdeer mined 2,694 BTC in Q2, but ended the quarter holding just 150 BTC after liquidating its treasury earlier this year.

Bitdeer mined 2,694 Bitcoin during the second quarter of 2026, up nearly fivefold from 565 BTC a year earlier.&

The miner closed the quarter with 150 BTC held on its balance sheet, down 90% from 1,502 BTC a year earlier, according to the company’s Q2 report published Monday.

Bitdeer liquidated its entire 943 BTC treasury in February, citing liquidity decisions rather than a shift away from its core Bitcoin mining business.&

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Strategy sold 1,690 Bitcoin to repurchase STRC shares as its US dollar reserve rose to $4.65 billion and its Bitcoin holdings fell to 840,447 BTC.

Strategy, which holds the largest corporate Bitcoin treasury, sold BTC for the second week in a row to repurchase its STRC preferred stock.

The company sold 1,690 Bitcoin for $108.6 million between Aug. 3 and Aug. 9, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Strategy used the proceeds to buy back 1.15 million shares of its STRC preferred stock for $108.6 million. STRC is a variable-rate preferred stock designed to pay monthly dividends.

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The LINK token may see a 25-fold increase to $200 by the end of 2030, as the growing real world asset market increases demand for the industry’s largest oracle services provider, according to Standard Chartered.

The Chainlink (LINK) token may see an more than 25-fold increase by the end of the decade, as tokenized real world assets (RWA) will reach $4 trillion by the end of 2028, according to a forecast by Geoff Kendrick, the global head of digital asset research at Standard Chartered.

Kendrick said that the growth in tokenized assets will require more external data to come securely onchain, which may increase Chainlink’s fee generation and push its LINK token to $200 by the end of 2030, up from $8 today, according to a Monday report shared with Cointelegraph.

The report also forecast a 37-fold rise in tokenized and crypto-native assets deployed in decentralized finance, pushing these assets to $2.7 trillion by the end of 2030. Kendrick said these assets will require trusted data, interoperability between networks, privacy-preserving compliance and integrations with existing financial systems, which “only Chainlink is currently equipped to provide.”&

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Bitcoin spiked to a new August high into Sunday’s weekly close as market participants turned their attention to the next US inflation reports.

Bitcoin starts the week with new August highs as traders weigh the impact of crunch US inflation data.

Key points:

Key US inflation data is due as markets shift their expectations of Federal Reserve interest-rate policy.

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Sweden’s H100 more than tripled its Bitcoin holdings to 3,506 BTC after completing an acquisition involving 2,455 BTC.

Sweden-listed health-tech and Bitcoin treasury company H100 Group completed its acquisition of Norwegian Bitcoin companies holding 2,455 Bitcoin (BTC), more than tripling its Bitcoin treasury to 3,506 BTC.

The transaction involved no cash consideration, with H100 issuing 790.5 million new shares to the sellers, the company said in a Monday press release.

The newly issued shares diluted existing shareholders by about 70%. H100 priced them at 1.86 Swedish kronor ($0.20) each, valuing the transaction at about 1.47 billion kronor ($155 million).

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The UK’s FCA is reportedly preparing a regulatory framework for tokenized gold and how these products may be used as collateral assets in wholesale markets.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has reportedly held talks with banks and other industry participants over potential rules for tokenized gold.

The FCA has also sought feedback on the use of tokenized gold as collateral in wholesale markets, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.

The regulator is reportedly preparing to outline plans for new regulatory standards for tokenized gold. Cointelegraph has approached the FCA for comment on the matter.

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Bitcoin Red Team has now found 1,288 critical and high-level vulnerabilities in the Bitcoin ecosystem as of Saturday.

A Bitcoin security researcher says he has been forced to go back to using open-source Chinese AI models after finding himself restricted from analyzing further codebases by OpenAI, highlighting a growing concern that the most capable AI tools aren’t being made available to defenders.&

In an X post on Tuesday, AnchorWatch CEO Rob Hamilton said he had begun integrating OpenAI’s Trust & Cyber capabilities into his Bitcoin Red Team work on Saturday, only to find his access restricted the following morning.&

“It absolutely guts me as a patriotic American to have to do this, but I will be going back to using Chinese open source models to conduct my research to protect Bitcoin infrastructure,” he added.&

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Australia’s financial watchdog has suspended Cryptolink’s registration for three months, adding to a crackdown that previously saw the Bitcoin ATM operator fined $56,340.

Australia’s anti-money laundering watchdog has suspended the operation of Cryptolink’s Bitcoin ATMs for three months, citing “ongoing concerns” about its compliance with anti-money laundering obligations.&

Australia has the highest number of crypto ATMs of all countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Australian authorities have been cracking down on the criminal use of crypto ATMs since at least late 2024.&

AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said Monday the company’s Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) registration has been suspended for three months starting Sunday, meaning its crypto ATMs will not be allowed to operate during that time.

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Bad actors with access to a cryptography-breaking quantum computer probably won’t try to announce it to the world by hacking Satoshi Nakamoto’s high-profile Bitcoin wallets, crypto executives say.

[Update 03:40 UTC, Aug. 11: Includes comments from Binance chief security officer Jimmy Su.]

The first sign that quantum computing has broken modern cryptography probably won’t be a splashy theft of Satoshi Nakamoto’s dormant Bitcoin. It could just be a wave of unrelated crypto wallet breaches with no trace of how an attacker did it, according to the founder of blockchain startup Quantus.&

“When someone cracks your key, you don’t get a memo saying how they did it,” Christopher Smith, CEO and co-founder of Quantus Network, told Cointelegraph. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could derive a private key from public keys exposed onchain, allowing an attacker to move funds without compromising a wallet, device or exchange’s internal systems.&

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BIP-110 forks itself into oblivion with a “2-block chain” and CLARITY will finally get a Senate vote in September. The odds say that vote will be a No.

Supporters of the BIP-110 soft fork hoped to eradicate spam from the blockchain, but after a lengthy and heated debate the proposal has been pronounced Dead On Arrival. After securing just 2.5% support ahead of entering mandatory signaling on Saturday, it split off into a minority chain that mined just two blocks in eight hours before stalling.

This is probably no surprise given it’s just as difficult and expensive to mine on the new chain as it is on Bitcoin — but without any hope of being able to sell the block reward to recoup the costs. The difficulty would have adjusted downward if they’d managed to mine through another 2,014 blocks.

BIP-110 aimed to rid Bitcoin of non financial transactions, such as Ordinals, but opponents saw it as imposing censorship on the chain and it faced opposition from prominent Bitcoin advocates. Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said he shared the proposal’s objectives but argued that its approach& threatened Bitcoin’s neutral rules& and consensus.&

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BIP-110 forks itself into oblivion with a “2-block chain” and CLARITY will finally get a Senate vote in September. The odds say that vote will be a No.

Supporters of the BIP-110 soft fork hoped to eradicate spam from the blockchain, but after a lengthy and heated debate the proposal has been pronounced DOA or Dead On Arrival. After securing just 2.5% support ahead of entering mandatory signaling on Saturday, it split off into a minority chain that mined just two blocks in eight hours before stalling.

This is probably no surprise given it’s just as difficult and expensive to mine on the new chain as it is on Bitcoin — but without any hope of being able to sell the block reward to recoup the costs. The difficulty would have adjusted downward if they’d managed to mine through another 2,014 blocks.

BIP-110 aimed to rid Bitcoin of non-financial transactions, such as Ordinals, but opponents saw it as imposing censorship on the chain and it faced opposition from prominent Bitcoin advocates. Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor said he shared the proposal’s objectives but argued that its approach& threatened Bitcoin’s neutral rules& and consensus.&

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Former US Defense Secretary Mark Esper says the CLARITY Act is not merely a financial services bill, its a national security one.

A former US defense secretary has urged the Senate to pass the CLARITY Act, arguing that weak digital asset rules create openings for North Korea and China to undermine American financial power.

In an op-ed in the Financial Times on Saturday, former US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Beijing is already investing in state-directed payment systems to sidestep American supervision and erode the US dollar’s central role.&

“I have long argued that China is the greatest strategic threat of our lifetime,” said Esper, who also serves as a member of the Coinbase Global Advisory Council.&

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The enforcing fork remains stuck at Bitcoin’s full mining difficulty as mandatory signaling proceeds with little hashpower support.

Bitcoin’s BIP-110-enforcing branch stalled at block 961,633 on Sunday after producing only two blocks, while the non-enforcing chain advanced to 961,721, widening the gap to 88 blocks.&

According to the BIP-110 monitor, updated at 10:19 am UTC, the branch’s latest block had been mined about 12 hours earlier. Ocean records show that a pseudonymous mining group called Roughnecks produced the branch’s first two blocks using Ocean’s Decentralized Alternative Templates for Universal Mining (DATUM) mining protocol.&

The divergence began after BIP-110 entered mandatory signaling at block 961,632 on Saturday. Only 51 of the preceding 2,016 blocks, or 2.53%, signaled support. During this window, BIP-110 nodes reject blocks that do not signal through version bit 4, while ordinary Bitcoin nodes accept both signaling and non-signaling blocks.&

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The rules, effective Jan. 1, 2027, cover transactions above $10,000 sent to overseas providers or self-custody wallets, along with other transfers flagged for review.

Brazil’s central bank will require virtual asset service providers (VASPs) to place precautionary holds of up to 24 hours on certain transfers to foreign platforms or self-custody wallets as part of new measures aimed at preventing fraud.&

On Friday, the Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) said the requirement will apply to funds received above $10,000, either in a single transaction or based on a customer’s total transactions in a day. Providers must also hold other transfers requiring further scrutiny under their risk-management policies.&

The rules take effect on Jan. 1, 2027. Providers must notify customers of holds and keep records of fraud incidents, attempted fraud and corrective actions. A VASP may complete its assessment and release a transfer before the 24 hours expire, provided that it follows parameters set out by the central bank.&

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Foundation and Citadel21 reported drained Lightning nodes, but the total amount stolen and number of affected operators remain unknown.

BTCPay Server has temporarily restricted public remote connections to Lightning Network nodes running Lightning Network Daemon (LND) software after attackers exploited a critical vulnerability to obtain credentials and move funds.&

BTCPay said the restriction prevents external wallets such as Zeus from connecting through a BTCPay Server domain or Tor onion address on Docker deployments. BTCPay said Lightning payments can continue and that it plans to restore the remote-access option when it considers it safe.&

Version 2.4.2 installs LND version 0.21.1 and automatically regenerates the macaroon credentials on standard BTCPay installations. The project advised operators to check for unauthorized payments, unexpected channel closures, unfamiliar peers and discrepancies in their onchain or Lightning balances.

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The deployment milestone tests whether enforcing nodes can sustain the change amid limited miner signaling and discussion of a hard-fork fallback.

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 entered its mandatory-signaling phase at block 961,632 on Saturday, with miners signaling support in just 51 of the preceding 2,016 blocks, or 2.53%, well below the 55% threshold required for early activation, according to the BIP-110 monitor.

Starting at block 961,632, nodes enforcing BIP-110 began rejecting blocks that did not set version bit 4, while ordinary Bitcoin nodes continued accepting both signaling and non-signaling blocks. A minority BIP-110 branch subsequently emerged, but quickly fell behind the dominant chain.

The low signaling rate makes a sustained rival chain unlikely without substantially greater miner participation. With relatively little mining support, a BIP-110 branch could advance slowly or stop producing blocks altogether.

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The spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds registered their third-strongest showing since October as institutional demand showed signs of renewed momentum.

Demand for US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) rebounded sharply this week, signaling renewed investor appetite after months of uneven flows, even as uncertainty persists around digital asset regulation and the security of crypto self-custody.

On Saturday, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the spot funds attracted roughly $1 billion in net inflows for the week, their strongest showing since April and third-best week since last October — a period he referred to as Bitcoin’s “silent IPO.”

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The procedural move puts crypto market structure legislation back on track as lawmakers continue negotiations over ethics and stablecoin provisions.

US Senate Majority Leader John Thune has filed cloture on a motion to take up the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, also known as the CLARITY Act, setting up a key procedural vote on the crypto market structure bill for September.

The vote is expected after the Senate reconvenes on Sept. 15, giving lawmakers several more weeks to resolve disagreements that prevented a deal before the August recess.

The Senate Daily Press confirmed that Thune filed cloture on the motion to bring the CLARITY Act to the Senate floor for consideration. Invoking cloture requires 60 votes, meaning Republicans will need Democratic support to clear the procedural hurdle.

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Crypto is growing up thanks to trading in real world assets, and Bitcoin will never dip below $60K again, says Nansen founder founder Alex Svanevik.

Crypto is finally shaking off the “get rich quick” reputation that has defined the industry for more than a decade according to Nansen founder and CEO Alex Svanevik — and it’s not just because nobody’s getting rich right now.

“Crypto assets have kind of been like the ‘toy world’ era of blockchains. And now we’re moving into the real-world era, where you see tokenized stocks, you see people trading indices like the S&P 500 and Hyperliquid,” Svanevik tells Magazine on the Trade Secrets show.

“I think the interesting spot that blockchains are in right now is that they are basically giving a lot of room for non-crypto assets,” Svanevik says.

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IMF First Deputy Managing Director Dan Katz says users may favor digital dollars for their liquidity, network effects and cross-border acceptance.

Domestic-currency stablecoins intended to curb reliance on dollar-backed tokens could instead make it easier for users to move funds into digital dollars, according to a senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official.

On Friday, IMF First Deputy Managing Director Dan Katz said that once local and dollar stablecoins operate on the same blockchain infrastructure, users can convert between them through decentralized exchanges, liquidity pools or peer-to-peer swaps.&

In a speech at the University of Cape Town, Katz said the shift could move foreign exchange activity away from banks and currency dealers, reducing the friction that gives authorities tools to monitor and manage capital flows.&

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Expedited discovery allows the exchange to seek account identities, balances and transaction histories from platforms with US operations.

United States court records unsealed on Thursday show that a federal judge backed crypto exchange Bybit’s effort to trace assets stolen in the $1.5 billion North Korea-linked hack by granting the company expedited discovery.&

According to the records, Bybit filed the lawsuit under seal on June 18 against North Korea, its Reconnaissance General Bureau, the Lazarus Group and 20 unidentified defendants. The court granted Bybit’s request for expedited discovery on June 19.

The discovery authority gives Bybit a practical route to identify alleged intermediaries and pursue a small portion of stolen assets that remains traceable, rather than relying solely on a judgment against North Korea.&

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The president’s company will unwind an agreement with Crypto.com to create a multibillion-dollar CRO treasury and reportedly not integrate prediction markets onto Truth Social.

US President Donald Trump’s company, the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), is pulling back from a deal with the Crypto.com exchange to instead focus on a merger with energy company TAE.

First reported by Axios on Friday, TMTG interim CEO Kevin McGurn said that the company would pull back from two Crypto.com deals aimed at creating a $6.4 billion CRO treasury and integrating prediction markets into its Truth Social platform. The Trump media company, crypto exchange, and special purpose acquisition company Yorkville Acquisition Corp said “prevailing market conditions and shifting business and stakeholder priorities” led to the dissolution of the treasury deal.

TMTG announced the CRO treasury deal in September 2025, in which President Trump’s company would purchase billions of dollars worth of Crypto.com’s CRO tokens, potentially allowing Truth Social users to receive crypto rewards. The media platform followed with an October announcement that it planned to enable prediction markets under the service Truth Predict.

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The company will unwind an agreement with Crypto.com to create a multibillion-dollar CRO treasury and reportedly not integrate prediction markets onto Truth Social.

US President Donald Trump’s company, the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), is pulling back from a deal with the Crypto.com exchange to instead focus on a merger with energy company TAE.

First reported by Axios on Friday, TMTG interim CEO Kevin McGurn said that the company would pull back from two Crypto.com deals aimed at creating a $6.4 billion CRO treasury and integrating prediction markets into its Truth Social platform. The Trump media company, crypto exchange, and special purpose acquisition company Yorkville Acquisition Corp said “prevailing market conditions and shifting business and stakeholder priorities” led to the dissolution of the treasury deal.

TMTG announced the CRO treasury deal in September 2025, in which President Trump’s company would purchase billions of dollars worth of Crypto.com’s CRO tokens, potentially allowing Truth Social users to receive crypto rewards. The media platform followed with an October announcement that it planned to enable prediction markets under the service Truth Predict.

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The US government sanctioned an individual and two crypto exchanges it said facilitated money laundering for a combined $5 million in digital assets linked to Iran.

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against two digital asset exchanges it said that “the Iranian regime relies on to launder billions of dollars” amid military actions between the two countries.&

In a Friday notice, OFAC said it had taken measures against crypto exchanges Shelbit and Aban Tether for “facilitating illicit cryptocurrency activity and sanctions evasion,” using the proceeds to support Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The government agency also sanctioned Iranian national Siavash Kayvanpour and crypto wallets and companies tied to him, one of which operates Shelbit.

“We will continue to increase the economic pressure,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “Whether in dollars, rials, or crypto, Treasury will hunt down and dismantle the illicit financial networks that keep the regime afloat.”

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The rollout gives X Layer users access to Circle-issued USDC and crosschain transfers as the stablecoin expands across major blockchain ecosystems.

Circle has launched its USDC stablecoin on X Layer, OKX’s Ethereum layer-2 network, extending the stablecoin to an ecosystem connected to one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume.

Circle announced Friday that native USDC and its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) are now available on X Layer. The network is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing applications built for Ethereum to run on it with relatively few changes.

CCTP allows USDC to move between X Layer and other supported blockchains by burning the tokens on the source chain and minting an equivalent amount on the destination chain. The integration supports uses including payments, decentralized finance lending and borrowing, trading and crosschain transfers.

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As the chairman of the Reform UK calls for an investigation into a FTX-linked political donation, the party’s leader prepares to face voters amid his own crypto-related scandal.

The chairman of the UK’s Reform party has called for an investigation following reports of a $50,000 political donation linked to former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried.

According to a Friday report from the Telegraph, Reform UK chair Lee Anderson called for the parliamentary commissioner for standards to probe Defense Secretary Wes Streeting over reported $50,000 in donations from a think tank in 2022 and 2023. The reported donations came from Labour for the Long Term, whose founder reportedly accepted a $675,000 gift from Bankman-Fried before sending funds to Streeting.

Notably, Reform leader Nigel Farage is set to face voters next week in a by-election triggered by his resignation as a member of parliament amid his own crypto scandal. The UK politician received $6.7 million in donations from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne and financial assistance from George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster linked to a crypto casino. Farage claimed that the contributions were “gifts.”

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Bitcoin hit month-to-date highs above $65,000 as risk-assets gained on low US nonfarm payrolls data.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit new August highs into Friday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to weaker US jobs numbers.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $65,340 on Bitstamp, up 1.3% on the day, as fresh US labour-market data was released.

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Crypto business is converging with banking as stablecoin reserves, tokenized funds, Treasury income and balance sheet management become key profit drivers.

At first glance, this week’s biggest business stories could have come straight from Wall Street. BlackRock launched tokenized money market funds for stablecoin reserves. Tether generated another $1.5 billion in profit from its US Treasury holdings. Tokenized gold continued gaining traction, though its use in decentralized finance remains limited. Even Bitcoin (BTC) mining was defined by production costs, profitability and balance sheet management rather than the price of Bitcoin.

The digital asset industry’s business model is increasingly converging with traditional finance. Stablecoin reserves, tokenized money market funds and onchain collateral are emerging as some of the industry’s most important revenue drivers, signaling that blockchain’s next phase may be shaped as much by financial infrastructure as by digital assets themselves.

Asset manager BlackRock has introduced two tokenized money market products designed to help stablecoin issuers meet reserve requirements under the US GENIUS Act, expanding its push into blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

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Ethereum’s proposed EIP-8363 staking overhaul aims to reduce issuance, but critics say it could hurt DeFi, decentralization and institutional adoption.

Ethereum researchers just wanted to reduce staking incentives. Instead, they sparked one of the biggest debates over the network’s economics since the Merge.

Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-8363, or “Tapered Issuance Burn,” would gradually reduce staking rewards as more and more Ether is locked up to secure the network — eventually cutting new protocol issuance to zero once 50% of ETH’s supply is staked.

Its authors, including Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake and Ethereum Community Conference (ETHCC) co-founder Jerome de Tychey, argue that Ethereum has reached the point where additional staking provides diminishing security returns, while diluting holders who choose not to stake.

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Dice entropy may become the new gold standard after the Coldcard hack

In light of the catastrophic low-entropy bug in Coldcard hardware wallets, linked to publicly observed thefts beginning on July 30, Bitcoin holders have started to re-evaluate the trust assumptions in their hardware wallet setups.&

The Coldcard devices were equipped with apparently functional STM32 “true random number generators” (TRNGs) that rely on physical processes to produce an unguessable seed phrase.

However, after Coldcard creator NVK decided to initiate a firmware rewrite to switch from a GPL-licensed free software model to a read-only model, a serious vulnerability appears to have been introduced.

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Russia has shut down nine unregistered crypto exchanges in Moscow, with the FSB alleging they helped move scam proceeds abroad through Ukrainian call centers.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has raided nine unregistered crypto exchange services in Moscow over alleged money laundering involving fraud proceeds that authorities linked to Ukraine-based scam call centers.

The agency said it detained more than 20 employees at the Moscow International Business Center (Moscow City) as part of an operation targeting channels allegedly used to move illicit funds abroad through crypto assets, according to an official statement on Friday.

The FSB said the exchanges converted money stolen from Russian victims of phone scams into cryptocurrency and transferred it to accounts belonging to what it described as Ukrainian handlers.

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Perpetual futures trading volume on crypto exchanges fell to its lowest level in 31 months, while perpetual trading on decentralized platforms neared a one-year low.

Crypto perpetual futures trading volume on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (CEXs) fell to $4 trillion in July, marking a 31-month low last seen in December 2023.

Binance led CEXs with $1.4 trillion in monthly perpetual futures volume, followed by OKX with $607 billion and Bybit with $300 billion, analytics platform CryptoRank said in a Friday X post.

Perpetual futures volumes briefly recovered between April and June before declining across all major venues in July.

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Binance saw a record divergence between daily spot and futures trading volumes, with the latter reaching nearly $58 billion.

Bitcoin (BTC) derivatives trading volumes are now nearly eight times higher than spot markets on Binance.

Key points:

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CleanSpark’s shares fell 5.5% on Thursday after the Bitcoin miner reported $138 million in quarterly revenue, narrowly missing Wall Street’s consensus estimate.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark reported $138 million in revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2026.

The $138 million represented a 30.5% year-over-year decrease from $198 million, according to its quarterly results published on Thursday.

CleanSpark also reported a net loss of $239 million, or $0.89 per basic share, for the three months ended on June 30, compared with $257 million in net income, or $0.90 per share, for the same period last year.

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Stripe-owned Bridge has entered the EU MiCA register following Luxembourg approval, joining regulated providers under the bloc’s crypto framework.

Bridge Building, the Luxembourg-based entity behind Stripe-owned stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge, has joined the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) register after receiving regulatory approval in Luxembourg.

Bridge’s inclusion brings the number of MiCA-authorized electronic money token (EMT) issuers in the EU register to 42, according to the latest European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) update published on Wednesday.

The addition came weeks after Bridge announced on July 2 that it had secured a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) authorization under MiCA and an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. Bridge’s Head of Product, Mai Leduc Blount, said the approvals allow businesses in the EU to build stablecoin and payment products under a regulated framework.

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Industry figures warned that continued legislative limbo could slow institutional adoption, revive regulation by enforcement and push innovation offshore.

The US Senate’s delay of a vote on crypto market structure legislation could give Hong Kong and Singapore more time to strengthen their positions as digital asset hubs, according to First Digital founder and CEO Vincent Chok.

On Friday, Thune’s office confirmed to Cointelegraph that the Senate would not vote on the legislation before the August recess. Thune cited Democratic opposition and said the bill would be a priority when senators return in September.

Chok, whose company issues the FDUSD stablecoin, said the delay could give jurisdictions with clearer regulatory frameworks an advantage in attracting capital and talent as US uncertainty weighs on institutional adoption.&

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The Coldcard exploit, which caused more than $100 million in losses, helped push July crypto thefts to $247 million, making it the second-worst month of 2026.

July emerged as the second-worst month of 2026 for cryptocurrency thefts, largely due to the recent Coldcard exploit.

Hackers stole $247.4 million in crypto in July, the most this year after the $644 million stolen in April, according to DefiLlama data. The total was more than triple the $75 million stolen in June and the $60 million stolen in May.

The Coldcard exploit was the month’s biggest exploit, with at least $100 million in Bitcoin (BTC) stolen from 7,300 wallets across three confirmed attack waves, according to Galaxy Digital. The company also identified a suspected fourth wave that could bring total losses to about $130 million. DefiLlama’s hack tracker estimates losses tied to the Coldcard exploit at $115 million.

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Japanese authorities called for address registration, customer-specific limits and stronger authentication as part of a broader push to curb misuse of exchange accounts.

Japan’s financial regulator has asked crypto exchanges to introduce withdrawal delays and other safeguards as authorities respond to increasingly sophisticated scams involving digital assets.&

On Thursday, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) said it had jointly requested the measures with the National Police Agency amid growing losses among crypto exchange users and cases where funds obtained through fraudulent schemes are being transferred to exchange accounts.

The request calls on exchanges to restrict crypto withdrawals for a specified period after customers deposit fiat currency or purchase digital assets. Platforms were also asked to require users to pre-register crypto withdrawal addresses and impose a waiting period before newly added addresses can be used.

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The latest bipartisan ethics proposal would reportedly require Trump to divest crypto businesses while allowing him to defer capital gains taxes on those sales.

A bipartisan ethics proposal pitched to US President Donald Trump to secure passage of the crypto market structure bill in Congress could create a significant tax benefit for the president, Bloomberg reported Thursday.&

The ethics addendum, which has not been made public, includes a provision requiring the president to divest from crypto-related businesses, according to people familiar with the matter. The proposal would reportedly allow Trump to defer capital gains taxes on any required divestitures, potentially leading to tax savings in the millions.&

Democratic concerns over Trump’s crypto conflicts have been a central obstacle to passing the market-structure bill. Senators have been working on an ethics addendum meant to break that impasse, though the reported tax-deferral benefit could become another point of contention for Democrats to question whether the president’s financial interests are genuinely curbed.&

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Crypto exchange Bitget has signed an agreement with Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority to pursue a regulated local presence.

Bitget has signed an agreement with Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority to explore establishing a licensed local operation, as the crypto exchange seeks a foothold in the country’s developing digital asset sector.

The agreement could pave the way for Bitget to establish a legal presence and prepare its application for a relevant financial services license in GMC, a $100 billion autonomous economic zone backed in part by Bhutan’s national Bitcoin reserves that aims to create high-value roles in finance, tech and wellness.

“GMC is the emerging hotbed for digital finance, and Bitget looks forward to contributing exchange experience, infrastructure knowledge and local talent development as this ecosystem grows,” said Gracy Chen, CEO at Bitget.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the chamber was “punting” the vote until September.

Update (Aug. 7, 2026, at 6:20 am UTC): Added comments from Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Ji Hun Kim.

Senate Republican leaders are expected to leave for their August recess without voting on crypto market structure legislation, delaying consideration of the bill until at least September, according to a report from Politico.&

Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the chamber would not vote on the legislation before the recess, citing Democratic opposition and saying it would be prioritized when senators return next month.&

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Bitcoin miner MARA posted its highest quarterly Bitcoin production in over a year, but was overshadowed by a 28% decline in the average price of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin miner MARA swung to a net loss of $611.3 million from a year-earlier profit in the second quarter of 2026, driven primarily by a change in the value of its Bitcoin holdings, despite reporting its highest quarterly Bitcoin production in more than a year.&

The net loss, equivalent to $1.60 per diluted share, is down compared to a net income of $808.2 million, or $1.84 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2025, according to the company’s 10-Q SEC filing. MARA mined 2,422 Bitcoin in the quarter, 3% more than the prior year period, but higher production was more than offset by a 28% decline in the average Bitcoin price.&

“Two things defined Q2 for MARA. Bitcoin prices created a challenging revenue environment [and] we used the quarter to fundamentally transform our power portfolio and capital structure,” said MARA chief financial officer Salman Khan during an earnings call on Thursday.& &

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Wintermute said the registration allows the firm to position itself for the growth of tokenized securities in the US.

Wintermute’s US arm has registered as a broker-dealer, enabling the crypto trading firm to expand into traditional financial services in the US.&

On Thursday, Wintermute announced its affiliate Wintermute USA LLC has registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The registration allows Wintermute USA to trade stocks and stock options and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products “including those tied to digital assets.”

Wintermute said the registration allows the firm to position itself for the emerging tokenized securities landscape.&

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The Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress PACs reported spending more than $1.5 million on media for four House and Senate races ahead of Aug. 18 primary elections.

Two groups affiliated with the cryptocurrency company-backed political action committee (PAC) Fairshake disclosed spending more than $1.5 million on media to support House of Representatives and Senate candidates in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming after suffering a primary loss in Michigan on Tuesday.&

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings as of Thursday, Fairshake PAC affiliates Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress spent a combined $1.5 million on ads for Republican and Democratic candidates, many of whom voted in favor of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act while serving in Congress.&

In Alaska’s at-large congressional district, scheduled to hold a primary on Aug. 18, Defend American Jobs spent more than $500,000 on media supporting the re-election of Representative Nick Begich. The Super PAC spent about the same amount on Republican candidate Sydney Gruters in Florida’s 16th district, and Representative Harriet Hageman, running for the soon-to-be-vacant Wyoming Senate seat now occupied by Cynthia Lummis. Both US states will also hold primaries on Aug. 18.

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A week-long streak of inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs has coincided with the Coldcard wallet exploit, fueling debate over whether some investors are shifting away from self-custody.

Demand for US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has accelerated over the past week, with a string of daily inflows coinciding with the Coldcard wallet hack — timing that has prompted speculation about whether some investors are reconsidering self-custody.

According to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB), ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) as well as Defiance Daily Target 2X Long MSTR ETF (MSBT) have recorded inflows every trading day since the weekend exploit, totaling roughly $620 million. The cumulative figure is consistent with Cointelegraph’s recent reporting on the ETF inflow streak.

The Coldcard exploit drained more than $116 million worth of Bitcoin from over 5,200 wallet addresses, according to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs.

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Three circuit judges disputed the former FTX CEO’s claims that the defunct crypto exchange’s investors could have been made whole and wouldn’t have experienced any losses.

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a formal mandate upholding the conviction and sentence of former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, reducing the number of potential opportunities for being released from prison early.

On Tuesday, the Second Circuit filed a mandate following its June 12 ruling affirming a lower court decision convicting the former CEO on seven felony counts and sentencing him to 25 years in federal prison. Three circuit judges disputed Bankman-Fried’s claims in appeals that FTX had “sufficient liquidity to ensure that investors were made whole and would not experience any losses” and also upheld a New York court’s $11 billion forfeiture order as part of the criminal case.

“As the district court recognized, any contention that Bankman-Fried lacked an intent to defraud because he intended to eventually repay his customers was legally misleading and prejudicial because the wire fraud statute encompasses temporary misappropriation of money or property,” said Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker in the court opinion. “As the district court made clear, FTX customers were defrauded as soon as Bankman-Fried transferred their money to Alameda regardless of how strongly he believed he might later return the money.”

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The South Carolina lawmaker who heads the Senate Banking Committee said that the majority leader still had time to put the crypto bill on the agenda despite the narrow voting window.

Senator Tim Scott, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said that the chamber would vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act before it broke for an August recess, giving lawmakers just a few days to take action on the crypto bill.

In a Thursday Fox Business interview, Scott said that the Senate “should have the first vote” on the CLARITY Act before lawmakers leave for state work periods this week. He added that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has the authority to set the agenda and schedule floor votes, still had time to announce a cloture vote on the crypto bill in the next few days.

“The good news is we have the time to get it done,” said Scott.&

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New analysis finds AI infrastructure contracts are becoming larger and more profitable, but investors now demand stronger execution before rewarding bitcoin mining stocks.

Bitcoin miners’ pivot into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) is reshaping their business models, but investors are no longer rewarding new infrastructure deals with the same enthusiasm they once did, suggesting the market has become more discerning as AI hosting strategies move into the mainstream.

According to new analysis by Blocksbridge Consulting published in TheEnergyMag’s Miner Weekly, the market reaction to AI infrastructure announcements has weakened significantly over the past two years. Reviewing 25 AI and HPC infrastructure deals announced between June 2024 and August 2026, the report found that the average announcement-day stock move fell from roughly 24% for the earliest deals to about 10% for the most recent ones. Median gains also dropped by roughly half over the same period, even as the size and value of the contracts increased.

The report found that annualized revenue per contracted megawatt has edged higher over time, indicating that AI hosting agreements are becoming more lucrative. However, as such deals become increasingly common, investors appear to be placing greater emphasis on execution, financing and long-term profitability than on headline contract values alone.

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Bitcoin price action stayed compressed in an ongoing divergence from stocks and gold while US PMI data sparked fresh talk of “stagflation.”

Bitcoin (BTC) stayed motionless at Thursday’s Wall Street open as analysis saw signs of reemergent US “stagflation.”

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD hovering above $64,000, down around 0.5% on the day, while US stocks opened flat.

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Move-to-earn project Step App will wind down services by Aug. 21 after four years, while its FITFI token trades 99.9% below its all-time high.

Step App, a move-to-earn platform, is shutting down after four years of operation, joining a growing number of crypto companies winding down amid an ongoing market slump.

The company announced Wednesday on X that it will wind down all services by Aug. 21, asking users to unstake locked tokens and manage their exchange positions before the date.

“We are incredibly proud of what Step App achieved — not just as a product, but as a movement,” Step App said.

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Tokenized cows may have gone viral, but they’re just the latest in a long line of strange things to find a home onchain, from farts, to human skin and destroyed artworks

Brazil’s B3 stock exchange made headlines last month when its tokenized cows went viral.

A farmer in southern Brazil was able to use 10 cows as collateral for a 100,000 Brazilian real ($19,600) loan by virtually herding them into a blockchain based holding pen, demonstrating how farmers can literally milk their assets to access credit.

And it raises an obvious question: if cows can be tokenized, what can’t be?

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Blockchain.com secured a VASP custody license from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority, expanding its regulated crypto services in the region.

Blockchain.com has secured a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority to offer custody services.

Granted on July 22, 2026, the license allows the cryptocurrency services company to provide regulated crypto custody services in the Cayman Islands, according to a Thursday announcement reviewed by Cointelegraph. The license followed a conditional approval issued by CIMA in December 2025.

The license also allows Blockchain.com to provide crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto exchange services. The company has held a VASP registration in the Cayman Islands since May 2022.

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Tokenized real-world assets accounted for more than a third of Hyperliquid’s quarterly trading volume, generating 6.6% of the protocol’s $169 million quarterly revenue.

Tokenized real-world asset (RWA) trading now accounts for more than 33% of the trading activity on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid.

HIP-3 RWA perpetual contracts saw their share of trading volume increase to 32.2% during the second quarter of 2026, up from 20.7% in Q1 and 1.8% in Q4 of 2025. RWA trading volume reached $213 billion during Q2 on Hyperliquid, according to its quarterly report published on Wednesday.

Hyperliquid said that RWA trading generated 6.6% of the protocol’s quarterly revenue of $169 million. Of that $169 million, the platform said it returned $141 million to token holders through Hyperliquid (HYPE) token buybacks. Hyperliquid reported over $1 billion in cumulative protocol revenue.

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The self-custodial Bitcoin Lightning Network wallet disabled infrastructure after an incident and founder Evan Kaloudis said no customer funds were lost and no Lightning vulnerability was found.

Zeus Wallet, a self-custodial Bitcoin Lightning Network wallet, took its infrastructure offline after a cybersecurity incident on Wednesday, and is auditing its systems before restoring services.

In an X post announcing the incident, Zeus said the attack did not put customer funds at risk and that it had no evidence the incident affected Lightning node software. “Based on our investigation so far, we believe this incident was limited to Zeus infrastructure,” Zeus founder Evan Kaloudis said in a company blog post.

According to Kaloudis, Zeus mitigated the attack within hours. He said that customers whose Lightning Service Provider (LSP) channels closed during the incident will receive replacement channels once services resume.

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While only 12 of 46 documented attempts resulted in payment, data leaks and attacks on relatives are widening the physical risks facing crypto holders.

Criminals stole more than $30 million through physical attacks on crypto holders in the first half of this year, putting the year on pace to surpass the record $58 million stolen in 2025.

In a Chainalysis report released Thursday, the blockchain analytics firm said that 46 violent crypto-related incidents had been documented globally through late June, up from 40 during the same period in 2025. The incidents include kidnappings, home invasions and hostage situations, collectively known as “wrench attacks.”&

The findings suggest wrench attacks are increasing, expanding the risks facing crypto holders beyond custody and asset management to their physical safety, homes and families.

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Doubts emerge over the Bitcoin corporate treasury model as institutional BTC investment vehicles cut holdings.

Bitcoin (BTC) institutional investment vehicles have shed 10% of their BTC holdings since May as analysis warns of a “breaking” sector.

Key points:

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Hackers behind the Coldcard exploit transferred millions in digital assets to cryptocurrency mixers, while most stolen funds remained traceable in attacker-controlled wallets.

About 64 Bitcoin, worth $4.17 million, and 200 Ether, worth $380,000, linked to the recent Coldcard exploit were sent to cryptocurrency mixing protocols, according to blockchain security platform CertiK.&

The Bitcoin transfer was from address bc1q0 to crypto mixing protocol Wasabi on Tuesday, according to blockchain data shared by CertiK.

“We think it might be a smaller exploiter. There’s likely a few copycats after the initial exploit,” a CertiK spokesperson told Cointelegraph. The 200 Ether (ETH) was transferred to Tornado Cash on Wednesday, according to CertiK’s X post.

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Situational Awareness reportedly made a $400 million investment in an undisclosed company, days after the hedge fund nearly collapsed following July’s AI stock crash.

Situational Awareness, the hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, reportedly invested $400 million in a privately held company days after it nearly collapsed under margin calls.

The fund invested $100 million in the same unnamed company in July, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.& The latest investment was completed on Tuesday.

Cointelegraph has approached Situational Awareness for comment.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a crypto law establishing market rules for exchanges, custodians and investors, with core provisions taking effect in September 2026.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law creating a regulated framework for cryptocurrency markets in the country.

Putin signed bill No. 1194918-8, titled “On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights,” into law on Tuesday, according to official records from the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. The legislation establishes rules for crypto market participants, including exchanges, brokers, custodians and other crypto service providers.

The law requires crypto exchange operators to meet regulatory requirements and join a financial market self-regulatory organization. It limits retail investors to buying approved crypto assets through intermediaries, with an annual cap of 300,000 rubles ($3,700) per intermediary. Qualified investors will be allowed to purchase any cryptocurrency without such restrictions.

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Tokenized real-world assets moved beyond issuance as RWA deposits more than tripled to $7.4 billion, while lending and trading activity expanded despite a broader industry slowdown.

Real-world assets (RWAs) are gaining momentum as tokenized versions of traditional investments move beyond issuance and become active parts of onchain financial markets.

RWA deposits across decentralized finance platforms more than tripled year over year to $7.4 billion in the second quarter of 2026, while total DeFi deposits fell about 15%, according to a joint report by CoinShares and Token Terminal published Thursday.

CoinShares CEO Jean-Marie Mognetti said the divergence shows that RWA demand is being driven by practical use cases rather than broader market conditions.

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JPYC said it plans to use the new capital to expand its financial and Web3 ecosystem and accelerate adoption of its yen-pegged token.

Japanese yen stablecoin issuer JPYC has completed an extension of its Series B funding round, bringing the round’s cumulative total to about 6 billion yen ($38 million).&

On Wednesday, the company said Japanese logistics group AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings joined the round as a new investor. JPYC said it plans to use the proceeds to expand its financial and Web3 ecosystem and accelerate the adoption of its yen-pegged stablecoin.

JPYC did not disclose the exact amount raised through the extension or the size of AZ-COM’s investment. However, the round’s cumulative total increased by about 1 billion yen from about 5 billion yen announced in May. It also did not provide financial terms for the companies’ capital and business alliance.

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Nasdaq-listed PowerCompute refinanced $18 million of debt through a Bitcoin-backed facility carrying an initial interest rate of about 2%.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company PowerCompute has consolidated its three existing debt facilities totaling $18 million under a new Bitcoin-backed credit facility with Arch Lending.

PowerCompute pledged 307 Bitcoin (BTC) from its treasury as collateral. The company entered an initial bridge loan with Arch on July 27 before entering into the new facility on Monday, according to a Wednesday press release shared with Cointelegraph.

The new facility replaced PowerCompute’s previous $11 million loan from Galaxy Digital, a $5 million loan from SE and AJ Liebel used to purchase a 15-megawatt Oklahoma facility and another $2 million loan from Liebel used to purchase an 11-megawatt Mississippi facility.

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US-listed Bitcoin ETFs attracted $244.4 million on Wednesday, marking three consecutive inflow days for a combined $626 million.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) attracted $244.4 million in net inflows on Wednesday.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs have kicked off August by fetching $626 million in net inflows over three consecutive days, according to SoSoValue data.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) led the gains, attracting $479 million over the three-session period and lifting its cumulative net inflows to nearly $61 billion, according to Farside Investors data.

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Criminals are reportedly using fake websites and falsified documents to target customers searching for licensed crypto providers.

Fraudsters are impersonating financial regulators and crypto businesses to target customers of crypto service providers that have failed to secure European Union licenses, according to officials cited by the Financial Times.

Several of the bloc’s watchdogs have reportedly seen an increase in scams since the July 1 deadline that required firms to obtain authorization under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation. Companies that failed to secure approval must wind down or transfer their EU operations, forcing customers to move their assets.&

Stéphane Pontoizeau, an official at France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), said the regulator encountered cases in which fraudsters impersonated AMF representatives, directing users to transfer assets to them through fake websites.&

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Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said she is “prepared to act” if inflation remains too high above the Fed’s target rate.

Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook said she is prepared to support higher interest rates if US inflation fails to come down, a change that can pressure crypto and other high-risk investments.

Cook was speaking at a luncheon hosted by the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, saying that while some disinflationary forces are in play, she is “prepared to act” if disinflation stalls.

“As I have described, inflation is too high, and I consider the risks to the inflation side of the dual mandate higher than the risks to the employment side at this point,” said Cook. “As such, I am prepared to act by raising rates, if necessary.”

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Eliza Labs founder Shaw Walters said the project transferred its remaining treasury to settle a tokenholder lawsuit and will continue building Eliza without an associated cryptocurrency.

ElizaOS fell 19% over 24 hours to an all-time low after Eliza Labs founder Shaw Walters said the token was “dead” and that the Eliza Foundation was winding down.&

CoinGecko data showed the token trading at $0.000285 at the time of writing after touching a record low of $0.000284 on Thursday with a market capitalization of $2.1 million.

The drop came after an announcement from Walters that the foundation was winding down. “The token is dead. Completely,” Walters said, adding that he no longer owned or supported the token. He said the development of the open-source Eliza software would continue without the token or the foundation.&

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The incident reportedly stemmed from a misconfigured testing environment, adding Meta to a growing list of AI firms whose models have escaped evaluation sandboxes.

Meta has become the latest major AI company to disclose that one of its models hacked another company’s systems during testing, following similar incidents involving Anthropic and OpenAI.&

The model involved Meta’s Muse Spark 1.1, which launched in July, according to The Information, citing sources. The issue reportedly stemmed from a misconfiguration by Irregular, an artificial intelligence security testing and red-teaming firm, which inadvertently gave the model internet access during an evaluation.& &

The model “exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service, in a manner similar to previously reported instances with other companies,” Meta told Reuters in a statement.&

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Cash App and Square drove better-than-expected results, while the company said it expanded its use of AI across software engineering.

Fintech company Block (XYZ) lifted its full-year outlook after reporting a strong second quarter driven by growth in Cash App and Square, with gross profit up 25% year over year to $3.17 billion, ahead of Block’s prior guidance.&

Second-quarter adjusted operating income also exceeded guidance, reaching $855 million, according to a results filing on Wednesday. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $1.02, beating the Wall Street consensus estimate of 87 cents per share.

The results led Block to lift its full-year gross profit guidance to $12.51 billion from $12.33 billion, and adjusted operating income to $3.47 billion from $3.34 billion.&

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Mysten Labs’ co-founder Sam Blackshear said he is joining Anthropic as AI shifts the balance between attackers and defenders.

Sam Blackshear, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Mysten Labs, has announced he will be stepping down to join Anthropic to work on defensive security research.

Blackshear, along with four former Meta executives, founded Mysten Labs — the creator of the Sui blockchain — in September 2021. Blackshear said Mysten Labs co-founder and CEO Evan Cheng will step in to set the “technical vision” for Mysten going forward.

“When I reflect on my career, I have been happiest doing hands-on technical work while exploring new problem domains,” said Blackshear. “This is an opportunity to do both, and I’m motivated to work on security at a time when the balance of power between attackers and defenders is shifting.”

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“There’s a lot of chaos right now in the ecosystem. We absolutely understand that many people are being bombarded with security issues right now,” said Bitcoin developer Calle.

A Bitcoin security group made up of just 16 volunteers said they have found nearly 5,000 potential issues during a rapid AI-assisted review of projects in the Bitcoin ecosystem.&

Bitcoin Red Team is a volunteer security effort that includes Rob Hamilton, CEO of AnchorWatch and Bitcoin developer Calle, among others, which has been using AI tools and human review to scan open-source Bitcoin-related repositories for vulnerabilities.&

“We’re averaging on the order of 1 critical exploit per hour per person,” said Calle in a post to X on Wednesday.&

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The lawmaker reportedly sent a letter to the Commerce Secretary demanding answers about the administration’s treatment of the UAE following investments in the Trump family’s crypto company.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has reportedly asked the US Commerce Department to explain the administration’s policy toward the United Arab Emirates following the country’s investment in President Donald Trump’s family-backed cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial.

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US lawmakers have only a few days to hold a vote on a crypto market structure bill before a recess begins that could push consideration into the 2026 election season or beyond.

The window for the US Congress to pass a comprehensive market structure bill on cryptocurrencies is closing, with the Senate set to go on recess in a matter of days, and lawmakers still have not announced clear plans to vote on the legislation.

In a Wednesday X post, Senator Cynthia Lummis said she anticipated that the Senate would vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act before the chamber breaks for its month-long August recess. The Wyoming lawmaker has been one of the biggest proponents for the crypto bill, which has split many members of Congress and industry leaders over different provisions on ethics, stablecoins and tokenized equities.&

“It’s just time to get people on the record,” said Lummis.

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The undisclosed investment will support the development of Tokenet, a digital asset lending platform, as institutional demand for crypto infrastructure continues to grow.

Marex Group, a Nasdaq-listed financial services firm, has invested an undisclosed amount in institutional crypto infrastructure provider Digital Prime Technologies, underscoring traditional finance’s growing interest in digital asset markets.

The companies announced Wednesday that the investment will support the continued development of Tokenet, a digital asset lending and borrowing platform built by Digital Prime in partnership with EquiLend. Marex said the investment is part of its strategy to expand its institutional digital assets business.

Last week, Digital Prime said Tokenet had surpassed $1 billion in lending inventory and more than $1 billion in borrowing demand from its launch partners. The figures referred to the amount of digital assets available to lend through the platform and the volume of borrowing interest expressed by participating institutions, rather than completed loans. Launch partners included Galaxy Digital and Ripple Prime, among others.

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A Midwest Democratic primary that raised accusations of payback from the cryptocurrency industry ended with the unseating of two-term incumbent Shri Thanedar.

Michigan State Representative Donavan McKinney won a Democratic primary against incumbent House Representative Shri Thanedar in a race that raised accusations of payback by the cryptocurrency industry.

McKinney won the primary for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District with 51.9% of the vote against Thanedar’s 48.1% as of Wednesday, the New York Times reported. The primary saw a cryptocurrency-backed political action committee (PAC) spending more than $2 million on media in an attempt to re-elect Thanedar, who has voted in favor of many bills favoring the industry while in Congress.&

Election results for Democratic primary in Michigan’s 13th congressional district. Source: The New York Times

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The remittance giant is rolling out Stablecard across 37 markets, targeting cross-border payments and consumers seeking US dollar-denominated savings in volatile economies.

Western Union has partnered with stablecoin infrastructure provider Rain to launch Stablecard, a digital wallet and Visa-branded card that enables users to hold and spend a US dollar-backed stablecoin, marking one of the company’s biggest moves into blockchain-based payments.

On Wednesday, Western Union said Stablecard allows users to hold, receive, transfer and spend USDPT, a US dollar-backed stablecoin issued by Anchorage Digital Bank on the Solana blockchain.

Stablecard launched in 37 markets, with Western Union aiming to expand availability to more than 60 markets by the end of the year. Users can receive Western Union money transfers directly into a USDPT wallet, transfer funds to compatible crypto wallets and exchanges and spend their balances anywhere Visa is accepted, including through Apple Pay and Google Pay.

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Gold and US stocks stole the limelight on Wednesday as Bitcoin failed to gain significantly beyond $64,000.

Bitcoin stayed wedged at $64,000 on Wednesday’s Wall Street open as gold hit six-week highs.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed continued BTC price inertia contrasting with upside for both precious metals and US equities.

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Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP whales increased balances during market weakness, as CryptoQuant said large holders are absorbing supply ahead of a possible bottom.

Large cryptocurrency holders are accumulating Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) as valuations approach levels associated with the final stage of a bear market, according to CryptoQuant.

Rising whale balances during price weakness can reduce available supply and concentrate ownership among larger holders, the blockchain analytics company said in its latest Smart Money report seen by Cointelegraph.

Bitcoin whale holdings, excluding exchanges and mining pools, rose to about 3.06 million BTC from 2.87 million BTC in December 2025, with accumulation accelerating after Bitcoin dropped below $60,000 in June.

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The Coldcard entropy flaw caused a crisis of confidence in hardware wallets. Here’s the details you need to know before you entrust Ledger, Trezor or Foundation with your Bitcoin.

Just when you thought crypto market morale couldn’t sink any lower, along comes the Coldcard entropy bug to prove you wrong.

The discovery of a flaw in one of the industry’s longest-running hardware wallets last Friday serves as a stark reminder that there is no perfectly safe place to put all your Bitcoin.

Coldcard disclosed the entropy-generation flaw affecting multiple Coldcard devices on July 31. Since then, researchers at Galaxy Digital say attackers have been able to steal more than 1,596 Bitcoin worth at least $100 million through several coordinated attacks.

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Galaxy Digital reported an $85 million net loss driven by falling digital asset prices and $8.7 billion in revenue that missed Wall Street estimates.

Galaxy Digital reported an $85 million net loss for the second quarter of 2026 as cryptocurrency valuations declined in the period.

That resulted in a $0.09 loss per share posted on Wednesday which Galaxy attributed to the depreciation of digital asset prices during the quarter.&

Revenue at $8.7 billion was down 15% from $10.2 billion in the first quarter of 2026. Analysts had forecast a consensus of $12.7 billion, according to estimates compiled by Yahoo Finance.

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Mastercard and Borderless are exploring ways to bring more trust into cross-border stablecoin transfers through the payment processing giant’s Crypto Credential framework.

Payment processor Mastercard and stablecoin orchestration network Borderless will run a new pilot project to explore how Mastercard’s Crypto Credential standards-based framework can bring greater trust to cross-border stablecoin payments.

The pilot will test how Mastercard’s framework can address the challenge of providing assurance signals that participants can incorporate into their approval, compliance and risk processes, they said in an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Mastercard’s framework uses common standards and assurance signals to help bring certainty to blockchain transactions. The pilot will seek out new governance signals that can reduce friction in cross-border stablecoin payments.

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Binance-linked companies sued RedotPay, accusing it of diverting more than 470,000 Binance Card users under a commercial deal and seeking nearly $473 million in damages.

Binance-affiliated companies have sued the founders of Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency payments company RedotPay, alleging it diverted more than 470,000 users from Binance Card in breach of their commercial agreement.

The plaintiffs seek nearly $473 million in damages, alleging the conduct contributed to RedotPay’s valuation as the company considers a potential initial public offering, Bloomberg reported Wednesday, citing a Hong Kong court filing it obtained.

RedotPay said it is defending the proceedings and rejected what it described as “unfounded allegations” against the company and its co-founders. “RedotPay is strenuously defending the proceedings,” a RedotPay spokesperson told Cointelegraph, adding that it will respond through the appropriate legal process.

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Stablecoin issuer Circle reported $701 million in Q2 revenue, missing Wall Street estimates of about $713 million.

Stablecoin issuer Circle reported $701 million in revenue for the second quarter of fiscal year 2026 on Wednesday, narrowly missing preliminary Wall Street estimates.

Circle reported $701 million in total revenue and reserve income, up 7% year-over-year, according to its announcement. It also reported net income from continuing operations of $48 million, marking a $530 million year-on-year increase.

Circle also reported $668 million in reserve income, which increased 5% year-on-year, primarily due to a 25% increase in average USDC (USDC) circulation.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $382 million in two-day inflows, with Galaxy’s Bitcoin ETF returning to gains as the Coldcard incident renewed custody concerns.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are attracting fresh capital as a high-profile cryptocurrency custody incident puts renewed focus on digital asset security.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $211.5 million in net inflows on Tuesday, adding to Monday’s $170 million, according to data from SoSoValue.

The inflows came as the ongoing Coldcard hack drew attention from analysts, with Galaxy Research estimating that the attack may have affected as many as 7,300 addresses and resulted in about $130 million in suspected Bitcoin (BTC) losses from users of the hardware wallet.

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The rating recognizes the fund’s ability to maintain a stable net asset value, while S&P separately reaffirmed USDT among the lowest-rated stablecoins under its existing assessment framework.

S&P Global Ratings assigned its highest principal stability fund rating to BlackRock’s new tokenized money market fund.

The ratings provider assigned an “AAAm” rating to the BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle (BRSRV) on Monday, citing the creditworthiness of its investments and counterparties, its maturity structure and management’s ability to maintain a stable net asset value.

S&P said it identified “no weaknesses” in its qualitative assessment of BlackRock Advisors’ management and organization, credit research and analysis, risk management and compliance.

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Glassnode confirmed that its aggregate BTC price cycle tool was in its coldest phase since the collapse of FTX in late 2022.

Bitcoin is seeing its longest capitulation since the end of the 2022 bear market, onchain analytics platform Glassnode reported on Monday.

Key points:

Glassnode’s Bitcoin Cycle Position Heatmap, a composite BTC price metric overview tool, has signaled capitulation throughout 2026.&

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JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform will tokenize select BlackRock money market fund shares denominated in pounds, euros and US dollars.

BlackRock will offer tokenized versions of select European money market funds using JPMorgan’s blockchain infrastructure.&

According to a Tuesday Bloomberg report, the offering will include pound sterling, euro and US dollar share classes from BlackRock’s Institutional Cash Series, which collectively manage about $311 billion. The figure refers to the broader fund range, not the assets that will be tokenized.

Each token will represent a share in an underlying money market fund and can be transferred around the clock between approved digital wallets.&

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The a16z-backed studio will open-source Pirate Nation assets, while an independent foundation continues supporting the PIRATE token.

Blockchain game developer Proof of Play will cease operations after failing to build a sustainable business around its decentralized gaming thesis.

The a16z-backed studio said Tuesday it could not develop a product that proved blockchain-based games could help usher in a decentralized internet at scale. It will open-source much of its code and artwork, including the Pirate Nation game, smart contracts and internal software-development tools.

Proof of Play said the independent Pirate Nation Foundation will continue supporting the PIRATE token and keep its website operational. However, Proof of Play points will not be redeemable for anything.

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Forgd’s ratings draw on data from more than 500 token projects and 35 market-making firms, but do not solely reflect trading performance.

Updated (Aug. 6, 2026, 2:12 am UTC): Added more comments from Forgd CEO Shane Molidor.
Crypto analytics platform DefiLlama has integrated Forgd’s market-maker leaderboard, giving users access to data on spreads, market depth, trading volume and uptime.&

In an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, Forgd said that the dashboard ranks crypto market makers using standardized measures of pricing, depth, reliability and execution quality. The data comes from more than 500 token projects and 35 market-making firms that use Forgd’s tools to monitor liquidity across active engagements, according to the company.&

The integration allows DefiLlama users to compare market makers across exchanges and assess the liquidity supporting individual tokens. Forgd first launched the leaderboard in May as a tool for token projects selecting and monitoring liquidity providers.

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The completed tie-up combines Boerse Stuttgart Digital’s custody business with Tradias’ trading operations under a joint management team.

Boerse Stuttgart Digital and institutional crypto trading firm Tradias have completed their merger after clearing the required ownership control procedure, creating a combined digital asset infrastructure unit with about 300 employees.

The transaction was first announced in February, when the companies agreed to combine their regulated crypto businesses and expand their services for banks, brokers and other financial institutions across Europe.

The merged business will operate under the Boerse Stuttgart Digital name, while Tradias will remain the brand for trading services, according to a Wednesday announcement.

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ESMA’s latest MiCA update brings the number of authorized CASPs to 321 and adds three entities to its non-compliant register.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) added 12 companies to its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) register in its fourth update since the July 1 transitional deadline.

Published on July 31, the update brings the total number of authorized crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) listed under MiCA to 321. The latest additions include three German cooperative banks: Volksbank Raiffeisenbank Oberbayern Südost, VR Bank Schleswig-Holstein Mitte and VR-Bank Landau-Mengkofen.

The list also includes two companies in Spain — Basque Pay and Fintech Payments — and four in France — Finary, Woorton, Blockchain Process Security and Shares Financial Assets.

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Taiwan’s regulator plans to apply the Travel Rule to domestic VASP transfers from October before extending it to overseas platforms by the end of 2027.

Taiwan’s financial regulator plans to require crypto platforms to transmit customer information on all domestic platform-to-platform transfers starting in October.&

On Tuesday, the Financial Supervisory Commission said its proposed amendments would apply the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) Travel Rule regardless of value.&

Transfers exceeding 30,000 New Taiwan dollars (about $930) would trigger additional data requirements, including an individual sender’s date of birth and residential address, or a corporate sender’s official identification number and registered address. Receiving VASPs would also be required to compare beneficiary information supplied by the originating platform with their own records.&

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The defendants allegedly traveled from Missouri to Connecticut to kidnap a Bitcoin holder and force him to transfer cryptocurrency before abandoning the plan.

Three Missouri men were charged over an alleged August 2024 plot to kidnap a Bitcoin holder and steal his holdings.

Sedric Louis, John Davis and Martel Williams were allegedly hired to kidnap and force a Bitcoin holder to transfer cryptocurrency to accounts controlled by organizers, according to a Tuesday press release by the US Attorney’s Office. They traveled from St. Louis to Connecticut, where they rented vehicles and obtained air rifles to stake out the victim.

After staking out the intended target for two days, they abandoned the plan for fear of being caught on home security cameras. Shortly afterward, another crew from Florida arrived to carry out the plan.

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Cloudflare introduced programmable Wallets for AI agents and said payment features using stablecoins will launch in a future update.

Cloudflare introduced Cloudflare Wallets on Tuesday, a programmable wallet for artificial intelligence (AI) agents designed to support stablecoin payments.

The US cloud infrastructure company said in a blog post that the product aims to simplify how AI agents identify themselves and pay for application programming interfaces (API) and digital content through stablecoin micropayments, enabling what it calls “agentic commerce.”

Cloudflare said users can claim a Cloudflare Wallet handle immediately, while payment features will roll out later.

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Hayes likened the debt-fueled AI infrastructure boom to the 2008 credit bubble, but evidence suggests financial strain is uneven across Big Tech.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes said the debt-fueled artificial intelligence infrastructure boom could end in a 2008-style credit crisis and predicted the resulting government liquidity response could drive Bitcoin (BTC) to $1 million or higher.&

In a Tuesday blog post, Hayes said investors have mistakenly treated spending on data centers and power infrastructure as high-growth technology investment rather than leveraged real estate. He said he expects lenders to finance excessive construction before a slowdown in AI capital expenditure exposes weaker borrowers.&

The thesis connects the trillion-dollar expansion of AI infrastructure to a potential new source of crypto-market liquidity. However, Hayes’ predicted crisis, government bailout and subsequent BTC rally remain speculative.&

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Matt Hougan argues that regulatory guidance from the SEC and CFTC would keep the industry moving even if Congress fails to pass landmark market structure legislation this year.

A failure to pass the CLARITY Act this week will put the bill in a “walking dead” state, but won’t stop the crypto industry’s march forward, according to Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan.&

In a blog post on Wednesday, Hougan said while many, including himself, have called it the “make or break” week for the CLARITY Act, the reality is that the crypto industry has made too much progress to “go back in the bottle.”&

“The reality is that Washington is always late to major technology shifts, and it has rarely mattered as much as people feared,” said Hougan.&

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Bybit’s Austrian payments subsidiary gained regulatory approval to develop card, merchant, open-banking and person-to-person payment services.

Bybit’s European payments subsidiary has secured an electronic money institution license in Austria, providing the exchange with a regulatory basis to add payment and e-money services to its regional platform.&

On Tuesday, Bybit said Bybit Payments GmbH received the license from Austria’s Financial Market Authority. The authorization provides a legal basis for future payment capabilities, which may include person-to-person payments, merchant payment solutions, open banking features and card products.

The payment services will be offered through Bybit.eu alongside services provided by Bybit EU GmbH, a separate Austrian entity authorized under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation since May 2025. Bybit.eu serves users across the European Economic Area (EEA), with Malta excluded.&

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EIP-8363 is a newly published draft proposal that would cut net consensus-layer rewards as the Ethereum staking ratio heads toward 50%.

A group of six Ethereum researchers and developers, including Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake, has proposed changing the network’s issuance policy to cut validator rewards more sharply as the proportion of staked ETH rises.&

The draft, called the Tapered Issuance Burn and currently being assigned the provisional number EIP-8363, would burn an increasing fraction of validators’ consensus rewards as the amount of staked ETH approaches a fixed threshold of 60.25 million ETH (around 50% of the current ETH supply), at which point the deduction hits 100%. The changes would phase in over 18 months.&

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In a July 8 meeting, US and UK regulators highlighted the implementation of the GENIUS Act, payment modernization and cross-border cooperation, reinforcing a shared framework for digital asset oversight.

The United States and the United Kingdom reaffirmed their commitment to closer financial regulatory cooperation during a recent bilateral working group, signaling continued policy alignment on digital assets as US authorities move to implement landmark stablecoin legislation.

During the 13th meeting of the UK-US Financial Regulatory Working Group (FRWG), held in London on July 8, officials discussed stablecoin regulation, digital asset market structure in the United States, tokenization and the UK’s Wholesale Financial Markets Digital Strategy.

An Aug. 4 joint statement summarizing the meeting said US officials updated their UK counterparts on implementation of the GENIUS Act, the country’s landmark stablecoin law, as well as ongoing work on digital asset market structure. Participants also discussed payment modernization and the G20 Cross-border Payments Roadmap, an international initiative to improve cross-border payments.

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The custody giant is expanding beyond safekeeping by adding staking services, allowing eligible institutional clients to earn yield on proof-of-stake assets.

BNY and Galaxy have partnered to integrate institutional crypto staking into BNY’s digital asset custody platform, allowing eligible clients to earn staking rewards without moving assets out of custody.

Under the arrangement, which was unveiled on Tuesday, institutional clients will be able to stake supported proof-of-stake assets while keeping them within BNY’s custody framework. Galaxy will provide the staking infrastructure and serve as a design partner for BNY’s broader digital asset platform. The companies did not specify which digital assets will be supported.

The partnership also aims to combine custody, staking, reporting and tax services into a single offering for institutional clients, a move the companies said could simplify digital asset operations.

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Bitcoin built on $64,000 as hopes of the Strait of Hormuz reopening to oil traffic sent the S&P 500 index to a record $70 trillion market cap.

Bitcoin saw new August highs into Tuesday’s Wall Street open as markets bet on US-Iran tensions again easing.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD climbing to $64,176 on Bitstamp, marking maximum daily gains of around 1%.

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A 16-year agreement secures 121 megawatts of AI computing capacity in Norway, highlighting how crypto mining companies continue to pursue new revenue streams beyond Bitcoin.

Bitcoin mining company Bitdeer has signed a 16-year lease agreement valued at as much as $4.7 billion to secure artificial intelligence and high-performance computing data center capacity, underscoring how crypto miners are increasingly expanding into AI infrastructure as demand for computing power grows.

Under the agreement, Bitdeer will provide 121 megawatts of IT capacity at its Tydal, Norway, AI data center to a tenant that the company identified only as a subsidiary of Volta Infra. The facility will be configured to support Nvidia GPU-based AI workloads, though Bitdeer did not disclose the tenant’s identity or specify whether Volta is the end customer or an intermediary.

Bloomberg News reported that the Nvidia-backed Volta’s $10 billion ‌cloud contract is with ⁠Anthropic, citing people familiar with the matter.

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Galaxy said that at least 15 different attackers have exploited the Coldcard vulnerability, which may have been avoided with just $2 worth of AI hardening, according to Dragonfly’s managing partner.

At least 15 different attackers have exploited the Coldcard vulnerability, according to Galaxy Digital’s head of research, Alex Thorn, citing new victim reports received since the incident.

Thorn said Tuesday that the victim reports helped the company label new attackers that would have gone undiscovered, as the nature of the exploit was different from a hack on a centralized exchange.&

“Due to one single victim’s report of less than 1 BTC stolen, we identified a new attack with 12 BTC siphoned from 126 addresses,” Thorn wrote in a Tuesday X post.

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Transform Ventures founder Michael Terpin says Bitcoin could have another 30% downside from its current price before he is confident the market has reached a bottom.

Bitcoin may have already erased half of its market cap, but veteran crypto investor Michael Terpin says the asset still has further to fall before hitting rock bottom.

“We still have more pain to go,” Terpin tells Cointelegraph on the Trade Secrets show. Terpin believes that Bitcoin will ultimately fall “66%” from its October 2025 all-time high of $126,100. “I think that brings us down into the 40s, and I think that’s about where we’re gonna go,” Terpin says.&

To be precise, a 66% drop from the ATH would see Bitcoin changing hands for $43,500, a price the asset has not seen since early February 2024. The 68-year-old investor, often referred to as the “Godfather of Crypto,” has seen Bitcoin plunge enough times to know what a true bottom feels like.&

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Monday’s announcement that Texas Governor Greg Abbott set a moratorium on approval of ERCOT-linked data centers pending an audit won’t impact miners’ approved electricity contracts.

Bitcoin miners with operations in Texas are not expected to be impacted by a moratorium on approval of data center projects connected to the state’s grid operator ordered by Governor Greg Abbott, Bernstein analysts said Tuesday.

Abbott on Monday directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to audit all data centers seeking to connect to the state’s power grid. The duration of the audit was not specified and comes amid increasing public backlash to the pace of data center build-out across the state, The Texas Tribune reported.

Bernstein analysts told clients on Tuesday that as most of the Bitcoin (BTC) miners operating in Texas are under contract for approved electric capacity, those operations are unlikely to be impacted by the moratorium.

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XAUt added to its bullion backing during gold’s worst quarter since 2013, as tokenized commodity holder counts continued to rise.

The physical gold reserves backing Tether Gold (XAUt) increased 9.5% in the second quarter, which Tether said reflected growing demand for tokenized gold exposure.

Gold fell 14.1% during the quarter, its worst quarterly performance since the second quarter of 2013, data from TradingView shows.

“Holders of Tether Gold are not only buying XAUt when the price of gold is rising. They are using periods of market weakness to increase their ownership of physical gold through a product that is fully backed, transparent, portable and accessible onchain,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether, in Monday’s XAUt attestation report.&

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Italy’s largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo increased its staked Ether ETF position to $7.1 million while reducing its holdings in two spot Bitcoin ETFs.

Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest banking group, tripled its position in an iShares staked Ether exchange-traded fund during the second quarter while reducing its position in the iShares spot Bitcoin ETF.

The bank reported holding 349,600 shares of the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHB) worth $7.1 million as of June 30, according to Friday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. That was up from 116,200 shares valued at $3.15 million at the end of March.

Intesa retained 3.47 million shares of the ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) worth $67.6 million, its largest crypto-linked holding in the filing. The share count was down about 4% from the first quarter.

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The CNBC personality said he’ll sell his Bitcoin holdings due to fears about quantum computing, as some cryptocurrency investors celebrated, referencing the popular “inverse Cramer” meme.

[Update, August 4, 1:43 pm UTC: Adds comments from Bitfinex analysts beginning in 15th paragraph.]

Former hedge fund manager and CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer said he plans to sell all his Bitcoin due to quantum computing fears.&

“I’m going to sell mine [Bitcoin],” said Cramer during a Friday episode, citing quantum computing concerns that IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna had raised on his show the previous day.&

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A former FBI supervisory agent pleaded guilty to stealing about $1 million worth of digital assets from an adversarial country and forfeited about $925,000 in funds to government-controlled wallets.

Former FBI supervisory agent Patrick Steven Yaroch was charged with using internal systems to obtain credentials for cryptocurrency wallets linked to an adversarial country, which he used to transfer funds to his own crypto wallets.

Yaroch admitted to 10 unauthorized transfers between late 2024 and early 2025 that involved an estimated total of $1 million in digital assets, some of which he deposited into Suilend to earn yield, according to a Saturday US Federal court filing.

After self-reporting the incident, Yaroch was placed on administrative leave last Wednesday, terminated and then arrested on Friday. Agents retrieved devices, seed phrases and a Trezor wallet from his Virginia residence to access his accounts on Suilend and crypto exchange Kraken. With his cooperation, they transferred roughly $925,000 in funds to government-controlled wallets.

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The preferred shares have recovered nearly 24% from their June closing low as Strategy builds its cash reserve and repurchases STRC.

Strategy’s variable-rate preferred stock, STRC, closed above $90 for the first time in seven weeks, extending its recovery from a June selloff that raised concerns about the Bitcoin treasury company’s financial resilience.

STRC closed at $92.32 on Monday, up 3.2% from Friday’s $89.46 close, according to Yahoo Finance data. It was the first close above $90 since June 16. The stock has recovered nearly 24% from its June 26 closing low of $74.57.

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The first US-Japan joint yen intervention in 28 years came amid record bond yields and worries about the yen carry trade.

Joint currency interventions in the yen by Japan and the US could ultimately benefit Bitcoin and risk assets.&

Washington’s growing coordination with the Bank of Japan (BoJ) points to a potential boost in global dollar liquidity — even as it runs up against a yen carry trade unwind that could squeeze liquidity if it deepens further.

Last week, the US and Japan conducted a rare joint intervention to prop up the yen, which had slid to 40-year lows of 164 per dollar — the first of its kind since 1998. The New York Federal Reserve Bank sold euros, rather than dollars, on behalf of the US Treasury. The sales involved the Exchange Stabilization Fund, or ESF,& a stockpile of foreign exchange reserves.

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Apple restored Telegram after the messaging platform removed content that violated its child safety policies and banned the user who posted it.

Apple briefly removed Telegram from the App Store after its review found content that violated its policies on child sexual abuse material, according to Bloomberg.&

The messaging app was later restored after Telegram removed the content and banned the user who posted it, Apple said.

The Telegram-linked token Gram fell about 6.4% to $1.32 from $1.41 following reports of the removal. It had recovered to about $1.40 at the time of writing, according to CoinGecko data.&

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The ruling leaves New York’s case against Kalshi in place while allowing the CFTC to renew its request before Judge Victor Marrero.

Judge Jed S. Rakoff denied without prejudice an emergency Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked New York from pursuing its enforcement case against prediction market operator Kalshi.

Rakoff found that the CFTC had not shown a high likelihood of success on the merits or a likelihood of irreparable harm. The CFTC may renew the motion before Judge Victor Marrero on Friday, Aug. 7, according to the order.

New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Kalshi last Friday, alleging that it operates an illegal, unlicensed gambling business by offering contracts tied to sports, elections and other events. The New York State Gaming Commission issued Kalshi a cease-and-desist order in October 2025.

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The framework specifies how existing tax obligations apply to crypto disposals and rewards, with some withheld amounts payable in the originating token.

Nigeria’s revenue agency has issued rules requiring crypto platforms and peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplaces to collect, report and remit taxes, including paying some withheld amounts in digital tokens.

In its Guidelines on Taxation of Virtual Assets, the Nigeria Revenue Service (NRS) said income tax deducted at source and stamp duty “shall be remitted to the Service in the originating token of the transaction.” Value-added tax, by contrast, must be remitted in the currency used for the payment.&

The guidelines place exchanges and P2P marketplaces at the center of withholding, reporting and remittance under the country’s existing laws.

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Crypto executives say restricting powerful AI models may initially be justified, but it doesn’t make sense as open-source alternatives become more capable.

Many of crypto’s biggest players are still waiting to gain access to powerful new AI models to strengthen their code from attacks, with only a select few having been able to get it.&

US crypto exchange Coinbase said in June that it had secured access to Anthropic’s restricted Mythos model and Zcash’s Zooko Wilcox said Anthropic used the model to audit the Zcash protocol& at the request of Shielded Labs, while other major crypto players are seemingly yet to get access.

“That’s one advanced frontier model that hasn’t been made available to crypto just yet,” Binance’s chief security officer Jimmy Su told Cointelegraph. “We have been trying to make inroads there. We also talked to other crypto exchanges and our own investors to try to make some progress. But we haven’t gotten the most frontier AI model, like Mythos.”&

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Galaxy Research said 90% of the stolen Bitcoin remains unmoved as investigators examine a suspected fourth wave that could lift losses to $130 million.

Confirmed losses from the Coldcard wallet incident have exceeded $100 million, with 1,596 Bitcoin (BTC) stolen from about 7,300 addresses across three separate major attack waves and 14 smaller incidents, according to a new update from Galaxy Research.&

On Monday, Galaxy Digital’s research arm said 73 victims had contacted its researchers, and victim reports confirmed the first three major attacks, helping investigators identify smaller “footprints” that Galaxy said could represent opportunistic attackers exploiting the vulnerability.

Galaxy Research also identified a suspected fourth wave that could bring total losses to 2,055 BTC, worth about $130 million. However, Galaxy said it excluded the event from its confirmed estimate because it had not yet received confirmation from victims believed to be part of that wave. The research group said with “medium-high” confidence that the wave largely represented attacker activity.

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Bitmine said it now holds about 4.8% of Ether’s circulating supply as it pursues its 5% acquisition target.

Ether treasury company Bitmine Immersion Technologies bought another 10,399 Ether last week and repurchased 4.5 million of its shares as it continued its crypto accumulation and stock-buyback program.

On Monday, Bitmine said it held 5,797,813 Ether (ETH) worth $10.9 billion. The company said its ETH holdings represent about 4.8% of Ether’s 120.7 million circulating supply. Bitmine is pursuing a target of 5% of the total ETH supply.&

The company also held 209 Bitcoin (BTC), $173 million in cash and marketable securities, and equity stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings. Its combined crypto, cash, securities and other investments were valued at $11.3 billion.&

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Mastercard said the tie-up would help banks, fintechs and enterprises expand stablecoin payments, payouts, settlement and treasury services.

Mastercard has completed its acquisition of stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK, closing a deal valued at $1.8 billion.

On Monday, Mastercard said the acquisition combines its global network with BVNK’s onchain infrastructure to connect digital currencies with fiat currencies. The payments company said the combination would help institutions, fintechs and enterprises expand their use of stablecoins and tokenized assets across cross-border business payments, payouts, settlement and treasury flows.&

In a separate announcement, BVNK said it had officially become part of Mastercard, adding that customers would continue to use the same teams, products and integrations, with no action required.&

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Fake romance crypto investment scams net $9 million in a single week in Hong Kong, as Malaysian authorities lose it over a crypto conference’s after-party.

HONG KONG

An insurance agent in Hong Kong was fleeced out of $3.3 million after her fake online boyfriend convinced her to invest in a fraudulent crypto application.

There were 25 similar romance-linked fraud cases reported to Hong Kong police between July 24 and July 30, which collectively defrauded lonely hearts of $9 million.

Scammers typically connect with victims through dating or messaging apps and sometimes spend months building a rapport before dropping the idea of investing in crypto. They direct victims to a site that appears to be a legitimate trading application. It displays fake profits to encourage victims to invest more and more funds. Victims typically realize they have been scammed when they are unable to withdraw funds.

Hong Kong news in brief

— Hong Kong-licensed cryptocurrency exchange HashKey Exchange received approval from JPMorgan Chase to open a client money account, its parent company& said.

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The boutique brokerage will focus on high-net-worth clients rather than competing with retail crypto exchanges.

Caleb & Brown, an Australian crypto brokerage owned by the Swyftx Group, has entered the UK market, expanding its services for wealthy investors beyond Australia and the US.&

The expansion comes a year after the boutique digital asset brokerage was acquired by Swyftx in 2025 in a deal worth more than $100 million. The firm will target high-net-worth clients in the UK.&

Swyftx Group co-CEO Andrea Yuen said the UK was an “untapped opportunity” as it has lower levels of crypto adoption than other markets.&

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The non-custodial protocol said attackers are discovering and adapting exploits faster than its small development team can identify and patch them.

Boltz, a non-custodial Bitcoin swap service, says it is disabling its service until further notice after a rise in AI-assisted hacking attempts over the last few months.

In a post to X on Monday, Boltz said the decision came after seeing a steady increase in “automated AI-assisted probing” of its infrastructure this year.&

“After reviewing the results of our own recent security scans, we cannot responsibly re-enable Boltz swaps, especially as we are being actively targeted by what appear to be multiple resourceful groups while we race to deploy fixes.”&

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A key architect of the Trump administration’s digital asset agenda is leaving the Treasury Department as Congress struggles to advance landmark crypto legislation.

Tyler Williams, a senior US Treasury official overseeing digital asset policy and a key adviser to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, has left the department, according to a Monday report by Punchbowl News.

In a statement shared with Punchbowl, Bessent confirmed that Williams’ last day at the Treasury Department was Friday, saying he had been “instrumental” in advancing the Trump administration’s vision of making the US the “crypto capital of the world.”

Williams joined the Treasury Department in early 2025 after serving as head of policy at Galaxy Digital. During his tenure, he played a central role in shaping the administration’s digital asset agenda. According to the report, Williams is expected to return to the private sector.

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According to Bloomberg, the digital asset prime broker is refocusing its Singapore strategy and withdrawing its local license application as crypto companies continue to trim costs.

FalconX, the digital asset prime brokerage that acquired crypto ETF issuer 21shares last November, has laid off roughly 10% of its global workforce as it prepares for a prolonged downturn in the cryptocurrency market, Bloomberg reported Monday.

Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg said FalconX is also reshaping its strategy in Singapore by focusing on crypto derivatives trading and plans to withdraw its license application with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The company intends to maintain its presence in Asia while expanding its European business.

FalconX employed about 350 people across the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Hong Kong before the layoffs.

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A new digital verification platform aims to reduce forged certificates by allowing employers and universities to authenticate academic records onchain.

Kenya has launched a blockchain-based system for verifying academic credentials through the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC), placing more than 30 million records on the Avalanche network in an effort to combat certificate fraud and make credentials easier to verify.

KNEC and Avalanche announced the initiative on Monday, saying the platform is designed to address the thousands of forged academic certificates reported in the country each year.

The system allows employers, universities and other institutions to verify academic credentials onchain, making records more difficult to tamper with. While the verification platform is now live, neither KNEC nor Avalanche disclosed how widely it has been adopted by students, employers or educational institutions.

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The asset manager introduced two blockchain-based money market funds designed to qualify as stablecoin reserve assets under the US GENIUS Act.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has launched two tokenized money market products designed to serve as reserve assets for stablecoins, marking another step in bringing regulated financial products onto blockchain infrastructure.

The first product, BlackRock Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund OnChain Shares (BSTBL), is a tokenized share class of the asset manager’s existing Select Treasury Based Liquidity Fund on Ethereum. Eligible investors can transfer tokenized fund shares between approved wallets while the fund continues investing in cash, short-term US Treasurys and Treasury-backed overnight repurchase agreements. BNY serves as the transfer agent and tokenization provider for the fund’s onchain shares.

The second product, BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle (BRSRV), is a newly created tokenized money market fund available to institutional investors. The fund supports multiple blockchains, automatically reinvests daily dividends and is designed for digital asset use cases, including stablecoin reserve management. Securitize is BRSRV’s transfer agent and tokenization provider.

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The spot price Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, which was never able to attract more than $18 million in net assets, will pay out investors and sell its 225 BTC in the coming weeks.

Hashdex said it will liquidate its eponymous spot-price Bitcoin exchange-traded fund this month, distributing the cash to all remaining shareholders and selling the fund’s roughly 225 BTC holdings.

In a filing on Monday, the fund issuer said the decision was made after evaluating factors including trading liquidity, operating costs and investor interest. The 200,000 shares, which have traded on NYSE ARCA under the DEFI ticker since March 2024, have net assets of $14.25 million, according to the fund’s website.

Late to the game, which saw the first of 10 other competing BTC ETFs debut months ahead of it, analysts saw opportunity at a time when BTC was trading for the then-all-time high of more than $73,000.

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The US and Japan coordinate on the yen for the first time since 2011 as Bitcoin traders brace for a historically rough August.

Bitcoin (BTC) starts the first full week of August circling $63,000 as traders weigh the impact of the ongoing Coldcard wallet hack.

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Fake World Assets turns forgotten NFTs into an onchain lottery — but is crypto’s latest obsession built to last?

Just when you thought crypto was getting boring, a new phenomenon is lighting up Crypto Twitter — Fake World Assets (FWAs). Yes, really.

It’s the latest iteration of the onchain gacha craze, where users receive a random collectible, or collectibles, that are usually worth very little, but are sometimes worth quite a lot.

Within four days of launch, FWAs guzzled so much Ethereum gas that they briefly became the chain’s largest gas consumer by fees over a 24-hour period.

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Michael Saylor’s Strategy sold 1,638 Bitcoin in its second-largest sale of the year to fund dividend payments and repurchase its preferred STRC stock.

Strategy sold 1,638 Bitcoin from July 27 through Sunday, marking its second-largest BTC sale of the year.

Strategy sold 1,638 Bitcoin at an average price of $63,957 for a total of $104.7 million, according to a Monday 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Of the proceeds, $52.4 million was used to fund dividend payments on Strategy’s STRC preferred stock, while another $52.3 million was used to repurchase STRC.

The company now holds 842,138 Bitcoin bought at an aggregate cost of $63.5 billion.

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The South Korean exchange plans to seek preliminary listing review in 2027 while overhauling controls after a February crediting error.

South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb said Monday it plans to apply for a preliminary listing review in 2027 and complete an initial public offering in 2028.

Bithumb said it has reorganized its business structure, including spinning off Bithumb Asset, to clarify responsibilities across its business units and reduce potential conflicts of interest ahead of the listing review.

The exchange said its preparations will include upgrading internal controls and shifting from domestic accounting standards to K-IFRS, the international accounting framework used by listed companies in South Korea.

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Bernstein said Congress’ failure to pass the CLARITY Act’s could trigger another leg down for crypto valuations and accelerate policy support from US regulators.

The odds of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act’s (CLARITY) passage are dwindling as the US Senate is scheduled to begin summer recess at the end of this week, threatening another leg down for cryptocurrency valuations, according to wealth manager Bernstein.

Bernstein said that the Senate’s failure to pass the legislation could trigger an immediate negative “industry knee-jerk reaction,” which may result in another leg down for Bitcoin and the broader crypto market.

“From a tactical standpoint, we expect the crypto market to bottom and start showing momentum towards late Q3 and early Q4 prior to the mid-terms,” Bernstein analysts wrote in a Monday report shared with Cointelegraph.

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Trump-linked Bitcoin miner produced a record 932 BTC in the second quarter, lifting mining revenue 8% as its net loss narrowed from the previous quarter.

American Bitcoin posted record Bitcoin production in the second quarter, as higher mining output lifted revenue while the Trump family-linked miner remained in the red.

The Nasdaq-listed company, co-founded by Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., reported Q2 results on Monday, with record production of 932 Bitcoin helping lift mining revenue 8% to $67 million from $62.1 million.&

The company reported a net loss of $57.2 million, narrowing from a $81.8 million Q1 loss.

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Ripple made a strategic investment in Zilo and Licuido as it looks to enable the use of tokenized funds as collateral from the point of issuance.

Ripple announced two new strategic investments as the blockchain-focused fintech seeks to expand access to tokenized financial assets on its blockchain ledger.

The company said it made strategic investments in Zilo, which provides global transfer agency asset solutions for wealth managers, and in Licuido, a tokenization solutions provider regulated by the UK Financial Conduct Authority, according to a Monday announcement.

Financial details for the investments were not provided. UK-based Zilo has raised $58.7 million in total equity funding, according to data compiled by Traxcn. Licuido is also based in the UK.

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Bitcoin could confirm an August bear-market bottom, though rising Treasury yields could force the Fed to raise rates in September, according to 10x Research.

Bitcoin could confirm a bear-market bottom in August with a monthly close above $63,000, according to 10x Research.

Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, said in a Monday report shared with Cointelegraph that Bitcoin closed July below the threshold needed to confirm a technical bottom.

A monthly close near $63,000 would turn several of 10x Research’s cycle indicators bullish. Bitcoin was trading at $63,140 when the analysis was prepared, meaning a relatively small gain from July’s closing level could trigger the reversal signal. The company said it continued to favor long positions but would shift to a neutral stance if Bitcoin broke key support levels and moving averages.

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HashKey Exchange said it received approval to open client money accounts with JPMorgan, weeks after it launched customer fund accounts with DBS Bank.

Hong Kong-licensed cryptocurrency exchange HashKey Exchange received approval from JPMorgan Chase to open a client money account, its parent company said Monday.

The account will support client fund segregation and settlement through JPMorgan’s banking infrastructure, HashKey Holdings said in a press release.

A week earlier, HashKey Holdings combined the previously separate HashKey Exchange and HashKey Global applications into a single portal.

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The crypto exchange stopped accepting new registrations from Japan residents and will begin progressively restricting existing accounts on Nov. 1.

Crypto exchange Bitget said it will stop providing services to residents of Japan and phase in account restrictions.&

The exchange announced Monday that it had stopped accepting new registrations from residents of Japan, while account restrictions will begin Nov. 1. Any positions still open on Dec. 31 will be forcibly closed.

Bitget said users who believe they have been incorrectly classified as residents of Japan must complete “Level 2” identification, which includes address verification, by Nov. 1. Failure to do so will result in their accounts being classified as belonging to residents of Japan.

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The Nasdaq-listed company relies largely on staking rewards to fund operations, while its 0G holdings were valued 91% below their recorded costs.

Nasdaq-listed crypto treasury company ZeroStack warned that substantial doubt exists about its ability to continue operating over the next year, reversing its assessment from three months earlier.&

In a Form 10-Q filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, ZeroStack reported $2.6 million in cash, negative working capital of $600,000 and an accumulated deficit of $339.1 million as of June 30. The company also posted an $82.5 million fair value loss on digital assets and a net loss of $61.3 million for the first half of 2026.

ZeroStack said its 75.1 million Zero Gravity (0G) tokens had an aggregate cost of $163.3 million and a fair value of $15.2 million as of June 30, leaving the holdings valued about 91% below their recorded costs.&

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The persistent discount suggests US spot buyers have remained less aggressive than overseas traders even as US Bitcoin ETF inflows turned positive in July.

Bitcoin fell under $63,000 on Monday as the Coinbase Premium Index, a proxy for US institutional demand for Bitcoin, reached its 77th day in the red.&

Bitcoin has traded at a persistent discount on Coinbase relative to international exchanges since May 19, with the latest premium rate at -0.1369%, according to Coinglass. As of Monday, the premium has continued its longest negative streak in history.&

10x Research head Markus Thielen said the negative premium indicates that US institutional investors are still liquidating Bitcoin.

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The five-year bug escaped detection because auditors verified that the intended random number generator existed, but not that it was being called.

Update (Aug. 4 at 2:50 am UTC): Added information shared by Ledger about its own device certifications.

Coldcard’s five-year seed-generation flaw has exposed a broader weakness in how hardware wallets are independently tested, according to Kraken chief security officer Nick Percoco.&

In an X post on Sunday, Percoco said the incident should be a “wake-up call” for hardware-wallet makers, calling for independent testing to verify that the approved source of randomness is the one actually used by production firmware.&

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Stablecoins have been flowing out of South Korean exchanges for 18 consecutive months as regulators weigh tighter oversight of cross-border crypto activity.

South Korea saw 560.3 billion won ($367 million) in stablecoin outflows to overseas exchanges in June, extending the country’s streak of monthly net stablecoin outflows to 18 consecutive months.&

The figure comes from Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) data obtained by Yonhap News Agency through People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jong-wook. South Korea’s five major crypto exchanges — Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, Korbit and Gopax — transferred 2.7 trillion won ($1.81 billion) in stablecoins offshore in June and received 2.2 trillion won ($1.44 billion) from foreign platforms.

Market participants cited by Yonhap attributed the transfers to demand for products restricted or unavailable on domestic exchanges, such as overseas derivatives, tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), decentralized finance and staking products.&

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Galaxy research head Alex Thorn warned that unconfirmed transactions may give some Coldcard users a narrow opportunity to save their funds.

Update (Aug. 3 at 4:19 am UTC): This article has been updated with the latest estimated number of affected addresses and Bitcoin from Galaxy’s Alex Thorn.

Coldcard users are being warned of a new wave of coordinated thefts targeting their Bitcoin hardware wallets, coming just days after the first wave of attacks on Thursday.

In an X post on Monday, Galaxy research head Alex Thorn flagged hundreds of transactions impacting 709 potential victim addresses, moving 448.7 Bitcoin (BTC).

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The “sickening” loss of $90 million of Bitcoin from cold storage weighs heavily on sentiment, as the Clarity Act stalls with just five days left to hold a Senate vote.

After $90 million in Bitcoin was drained from Coldcard wallet users, small hodlers desperately sought refuge on centralized exchanges and via alternative custody methods.

Bitcoin transfers below 1 BTC climbed to their highest daily level since 2022 on Friday, with 39,600 BTC moved,& according& to data shared by CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno on Saturday.

The figure was just 300 BTC below the 39,900 BTC transferred on Nov. 16, 2022, days after FTX filed for bankruptcy.

Galaxy Research, the research arm of crypto investment company Galaxy Digital,& reported& Saturday that the third wave of attacks on users of the hardware wallet on the weekend brought estimated losses to 1,367 BTC ($88.6 million) across 4,585 addresses.

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Investors have previously benefited from a payout boost when the preferred STRC shares traded well below their $100 par value for a month.

While Strategy’s preferred STRC shares ended July well below their $100 par value, investors were told that their August dividend will not increase, holding at 12%.

Executive chairman Michael Saylor delivered the news in a tweet on Saturday, continuing to pitch STRC as a way to “stretch your income.” August will be the second month that the dividend will be paid semi-monthly after shareholders approved that change in June.

STRC shares closed at $89.46 on Friday, clocking a 5.42% price increase for the month which began with a dividend hike — 50 basis points to 12% — after a poor stock performance in June. The volume on the Nasdaq-traded shares on Friday were about two-thirds of their daily average.&

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BNB Chain said a former employee allegedly used a company tutorial wallet to create a memecoin that the blockchain ecosystem says it did not authorize or endorse.

BNB Chain, the blockchain ecosystem behind the BNB cryptocurrency, said it is pursuing legal action after a former employee allegedly used unauthorized access to a wallet to launch a memecoin.

In an X post on Saturday, BNB Chain said the wallet was originally created for a video tutorial explaining how to launch tokens on BNB Chain. It said the former employee, who was not named in the message, retained unauthorized access to the wallet’s seed phrase after leaving the company and later used the address to create a new token.

Blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain subsequently alleged that the former employee deployed a meme token called Asteroid Shiba (ASTEROID) and used four newly created wallets to buy 796.7 million tokens, representing 79.67% of the total supply. Lookonchain further alleged that the wallets later sold 718.8 million tokens for 1,103 BNB, worth about $638,000 at the time of the transaction.

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Trump Media transferred another 2,628 Bitcoin to Crypto.com, bringing its reported sales over seven months to 7,281 BTC and leaving the company with 4,261 BTC in holdings.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind Truth Social, has made another major move involving its Bitcoin holdings, extending a series of recent sales.

The company sold 2,628 Bitcoin (BTC) worth about $165 million through transfers to Crypto.com, blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain said in a Sunday X post, citing data from Arkham.

Lookonchain said Trump Media bought 11,542 BTC at an average price of $118,522 before beginning to sell portions of its holdings seven months ago.

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Bitcoin users moved 39,600 BTC in small transactions as the Coldcard hack continued, with researchers warning that the attack remained active.

Smaller Bitcoin transfers have reached levels not seen since the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX amid an ongoing suspected Coldcard hack.

Bitcoin transfers below 1 BTC climbed to their highest daily level since November 2022 on Friday, with 39,600 BTC moved, according to data shared by CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno on Saturday.

The figure was just 300 BTC below the 39,900 BTC transferred on Nov. 16, 2022, days after FTX filed for bankruptcy. “The Bitcoin plebs had not moved this amount of BTC in a day since the FTX collapse,” Moreno said, adding that he was encouraged to see users “taking action.”

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State officials reported that Minnesota residents, and largely senior citizens, had lost about $1 million from scams tied to crypto kiosks from 2023 to 2025.

A Minnesota law prohibiting virtual currency kiosks in the US state took effect on Saturday following the signing of a bill by Governor Tim Walz in May.&

According to the law, SF 3868, which Walz signed on May 5, all crypto ATM operators in Minnesota are prohibited from “installing, operating, maintaining, or making available” virtual currency kiosks. Companies with machines already installed must deactivate them by Saturday, but have until Dec. 31 to physically remove them from locations “visible or accessible to the public.”

Minnesota’s commerce department reported residents had lost about $1 million from scams tied to crypto ATMs from 2023 to 2025, with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reporting the state had more than $151 million in losses tied to digital assets or crypto wallets in 2025. Officials said that the schemes “disproportionately targets seniors” and often involved situations where victims were pressured to quickly send money based on fake emergencies.

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Michigan incumbent Shri Thanedar’s re-election bid against other Democratic challengers is getting more about crypto with an infusion of ads funded by an industry-aligned PAC.

Crypto political action committee (PAC) money is pouring into ads for next week’s primary race in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District, led by a group funded largely by contributions from Ripple Labs and Coinbase.

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings as of Thursday, the Protect Progress PAC had spent more than a combined $2 million on media to support Michigan Representative Shri Thanedar in the state’s 13th district and oppose his Democratic challenger, Donavan McKinney.&

The most recent filings effectively doubled what the PAC had reported spending a week prior, with an additional $884,240 on ads to support Thanedar and more than $150,000 to oppose McKinney.

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Russia has added Moscow, the Moscow Region and parts of Kursk Region to its cryptocurrency mining ban list, citing power supply concerns behind the restrictions.

Russia has expanded its cryptocurrency mining restrictions to Moscow, with the ban set to take effect on Aug. 15, 2026, and remain in place through Dec. 31, 2032.

Russia’s Resolution No. 936, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on July 25, 2026, amends an earlier mining restriction order issued in December 2024, according to records published on Pravo.ru.

The updated rules add the nation’s capital, the Moscow Region and several territories in Russia’s Kursk region to the list of restricted areas. The measure expands existing restrictions on cryptocurrency mining in areas facing electricity supply concerns. The ban also covers eight municipal districts and the city of Lgov in the Kursk region, which border Ukraine.

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Galaxy Research identified 1,196 addresses that lost 1,082.65 Bitcoin in a 41-minute window, expanding the estimated scope of the Coldcard wallet incident.

Galaxy Research, the research arm of crypto investment company Galaxy Digital, identified 1,196 addresses linked to the Coldcard wallet incident that lost 1,082.65 Bitcoin, worth about $70.2 million at the time of the transactions.

Galaxy Research traced the Bitcoin movements between 1:10 AM and 1:51 AM UTC on July 30 across blocks 960,183 to 960,191, about 30 hours before Coldcard published its first security advisory, according to an X post on Friday.

Earlier preliminary analysis of the Coldcard incident by AnchorWatch CEO and co-founder Rob Hamilton estimated that 594.48 Bitcoin, worth around $38 million, moved across 500 transactions within a three-block window.

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Spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted $172.4 million in July inflows but remained $5.3 billion negative year to date after heavy withdrawals in May and June.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) finished July in the green despite a late-month wave of selling and BTC price volatility.

Bitcoin ETFs attracted a modest $172.4 million in net inflows in July, reversing two consecutive months of outflows, according to SoSoValue data.

The monthly inflows came despite a volatile end to July, as the funds logged a $265.4 million net outflow on Friday, marking their largest daily withdrawal since July 13.

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Researchers found that fiat conversion costs and payment infrastructure, rather than blockchain fees, accounted for most of the differences in stablecoin remittance costs and settlement times.

A Bank of Italy study found that stablecoin-based remittances did not offer a systematic cost or speed advantage over traditional payment channels, as fiat on- and off-ramp frictions accounted for most costs and transfer delays.

Researchers tested 200 USDC (USDC) remittances across 10 bidirectional payment corridors linking Italy with Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa, comparing end-to-end costs and settlement times with traditional remittance services. They found that exchange fees and currency conversion made up most of the cost, while blockchain transaction fees represented only a small share.

Geographic design of the remittance experiment. Source: Bank of Italy

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Pump.fun co-founder Noah Tweedale reportedly attributed the layoffs to the company growing too quickly.

Solana-based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun reportedly fired employees two months before they were due to receive PUMP tokens worth millions of dollars.

According to a Friday Sandmark report, at least one Pump.fun worker was due to receive PUMP tokens worth in the seven-figure range. The news outlet reported that Pump.fun co-founder Noah Tweedale said the company “grew too quickly,” resulting in layoffs of an undisclosed number of employees.&

The employees were reportedly fired in April, just two months before they were due to start receiving the company’s tokens based on agreements signed in 2025. The agreements, according to documents viewed by Sandmark, said that Pump.fun would unlock a quarter of the employees’ allocated tokens in one year, scheduled for June 2026.

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Several users of the long-defunct crypto exchange reported that distribution agents had begun releasing funds to reimburse creditors for some of their 2022 losses.

The trust behind reimbursing creditors from defunct cryptocurrency exchange FTX has begun its fifth distribution of funds, sending $900 million to affected users.

In a Friday X post, former FTX user Sunil Kavuri reported that he had received funds distributed from the FTX Recovery Trust and crypto exchange through Kraken. Kavuri said he had received a notice last week that FTX had sent the funds to Kraken, which released them as scheduled on Friday as part of the distribution plan for exchanges including BitGo and Payoneer.

Source: Sunil Kavuri

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Tether’s reserve surplus grew to $4.11 billion in the second quarter as USDT supply rose despite a weaker stablecoin market and continued pressure across the crypto sector.

Stablecoin issuer Tether generated another multibillion-dollar quarter as income from its US Treasury portfolio continued to bolster earnings, even as the broader crypto market remained under pressure.

Tether’s latest quarterly attestation, released Friday, reported a net operating profit of $1.5 billion for the second quarter, driven primarily by interest earned on US Treasury holdings and repurchase agreements, or short-term loans backed by government securities.

The company also reported a reserve buffer of $4.11 billion as of June 30, meaning its assets exceeded liabilities by that amount.

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Eligible retail and institutional users can use tokenized shares of Nvidia, Apple, Tesla and three other US companies across Bybit’s trading and lending products.

Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit has enabled six tokenized stocks to serve as collateral for margin trading and lending products, expanding the financial utility of blockchain-based equities.

The update allows eligible retail and institutional users to use tokenized shares of Nvidia (NVDAX), Robinhood (HOODX), Circle (CRCLX), Tesla (TSLAX), Alphabet (GOOGLX) and Apple (AAPLX) as collateral for margin trading and borrowing through Bybit’s Unified Trading Account, Crypto Loans and Institutional Loans. The feature is available subject to Bybit’s lending terms and product availability.

Bybit first introduced xStocks in June through a partnership with tokenization platform Backed, listing more than 60 tokenized US stocks and exchange-traded funds on its spot market. The assets are backed 1:1 by the underlying securities, which are held by a regulated custodian.

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TIPS data points to rising real yields, not inflation, a dynamic that weighs on non-yielding assets like Bitcoin.

Key points:&

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Bitcoin saw fresh downside pressure as US stocks tracked sideways into the end of the month, diverging from the relief bounce seen in Asia.

Bitcoin (BTC) fell to its lowest levels in over two weeks on Friday as US stocks saw pressure into the monthly close.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD falling 3.5% to reach $62,369 on Bitstamp, a level last seen on July 14.

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The European Central Bank proposed accessibility standards for its planned digital euro app, saying it would be one of several ways users could access basic digital euro services.

The European Central Bank (ECB) said Thursday its planned digital euro app will exceed the accessibility requirements of the European Accessibility Act.

The proposed design includes enhanced visual design, full keyboard navigation, screen-reader support, time-out warnings, simplified language, error prevention and reduced motion settings, among other accessibility features, the ECB said in a Thursday release.

The ECB first described the standalone digital euro app in an October 2025 progress report, saying it would serve as a fallback if bank apps failed and allow users to switch payment service providers without learning a new application. The report said both bank and non-bank payment service providers opposed mandatory support for the standalone app.

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Crypto forensics company AMLBot launched an AI-enabled tool allowing users with no specialist knowledge to trace their digital assets, even after they are stolen.

Crypto forensics and compliance company AMLBot has launched its AI Tracer, described as a self-service blockchain analysis tool that maps visible fund movements from a transaction hash across blockchain networks.

AMLBot said the tool aims to address the current need for specialist software and knowledge to trace transactions. The company said the tool also traces through bridges that move assets cross-chain or when the assets are split among multiple wallets.

“The process is automatic: the AI traverses the transaction graph, follows the movement of funds from the starting address through intermediate wallets toward whatever endpoint the money reached, and matches known entity labels — exchanges, services, flagged addresses — against every wallet it encounters,” the company said in a press release shared with Cointelegraph.

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The New York trust charter allows Circle’s subsidiary to provide fiduciary and custody services under state banking law.

Circle said Friday that the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) has granted a limited purpose trust charter to its subsidiary, Circle Internet Trust Company LLC.

A limited purpose trust charter is issued under New York Banking Law for institutions that do not have the general power to accept deposits or make loans like traditional banks, according to the NYDFS.

Instead, charter holders may exercise fiduciary powers and conduct activities such as custodial services, investment management, corporate trust, transfer agency and securities clearance. NYDFS also notes that some applicants seek to engage in virtual currency-related activity.

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The Japanese yen crosses a key psychological level after the country’s central bank reportedly conducted a major currency intervention.

Japan’s central bank held interest rates steady at 1.0% on Friday after a reported major intervention in the yen.

Key points:

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Situational Awareness retained about $10 billion in assets, including its Anthropic stake, after reportedly selling leveraged public stock positions to Ken Griffin’s Citadel.

Ken Griffin’s Citadel reportedly bought a large proportion of the public stock portfolio of Situational Awareness, the hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.

The Financial Times first reported Thursday that Citadel bought the portfolio holdings after heavy losses during July’s artificial intelligence stock market rout.&

The transaction followed Aschenbrenner’s fund falling about 67% in July, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing a person who saw a letter sent to investors. The letter said the fund remained up about 80% for the year. The Financial Times previously reported the fund was up 439% through June.

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Twenty-eight financial institutions and central banks completed real-value settlements across six currencies using tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said Project Agorá completed real-value testing of tokenized wholesale cross-border payments, with 28 financial institutions and central banks settling 800,000 Swiss francs ($1 million) across 17 transaction scenarios.

The BIS said Thursday that the tests used tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to settle payments in Swiss francs, euros, pounds sterling, Japanese yen, South Korean won and US dollars, with an average settlement time of about 80 seconds.

Participants included the Bank of England, Bank of France, Bank of Japan, Bank of Korea and the Swiss National Bank, alongside commercial banks including JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, UBS, Standard Chartered and MUFG.

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The lawsuit adds to a growing clash between New York and the CFTC over whether federally regulated prediction markets are subject to state gambling laws.

[Update 11:45 UTC, July 31: Adds Kalshi’s response in the sixth and seventh paragraphs.]

New York has sued prediction market platform Kalshi, alleging it operates an illegal, unlicensed gambling business by offering event contracts on sports, elections and other outcomes.

The lawsuit seeks to stop Kalshi’s alleged illegal gambling operation in the state, require the company to forfeit illegal gains, pay restitution to users and pay civil penalties equal to three times those gains.

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DeFi risk management service LlamaRisk recommended that Aave wind down every reserve on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos, but action against most of those instances was already taken.

An Aave governance proposal would wind down the lending protocol’s V3 markets on six blockchains and retire dozens of low-use token listings, a cleanup covering $98.1 million in supplied assets and $15.6 million in debt.

Risk service provider LlamaRisk, working with other Aave service providers, recommended offboarding 50 low-use reserves and 21 matured Pendle principal token listings across 11 deployments. It also proposed retiring all 25 reserves on Sonic, Scroll, zkSync, Metis, Soneium and Aptos. The balances were measured on July 28.

An ARFC is a detailed proposal and precursor to an Aave Improvement Proposal; it is not, by itself, proof of a completed final onchain vote or execution.

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RWA perpetual futures reached 99.2% of Bitcoin perpetual volume on Hyperliquid and Binance as tokenized equities led trading.

Perpetual futures tied to tokenized stocks and commodities generated nearly as much trading volume as Bitcoin perpetuals on two of the largest venues for the products over the past week, according to Talos.

Combined seven-day volume across tracked real-world asset (RWA) perps reached $61.7 billion, equal to 99.2% of Bitcoin perpetual volume on Hyperliquid and Binance, where most trading activity is concentrated, Talos told Cointelegraph in an email summary citing a data snapshot taken on Thursday.

Tokenized equity contracts accounted for 57.8% of the total, followed by commodities at 28.2%.

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BlackRock’s IBIT led $233.1 million in daily inflows as US spot Bitcoin ETFs turned positive for the week and July stayed on track to end in the green.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted their strongest daily inflows in more than three weeks on Thursday, attracting $233.1 million.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) led the gains with $183.4 million in net inflows, accounting for 78.7% of the day’s total, according to SoSoValue data. Bitwise’s BITB attracted $20.7 million, followed by Fidelity’s FBTC with $15.5 million, while several other funds posted smaller inflows.

That flips Bitcoin ETFs into positive territory for the week, leaving them with $203.84 million in net inflows. Barring a net outflow above that value on Friday, the funds could close their fourth straight week in the green.

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Institutional investors accounted for 72% of Wintermute’s spot OTC flow in the first half of 2026 as capital clustered in fewer tokens and altcoin rallies became more selective.

Crypto’s next altcoin season may produce fewer winners as institutional investors concentrate their activity in a narrower group of digital assets, according to crypto market maker Wintermute.

In its over-the-counter (OTC) flow report for the first half of 2026, Wintermute said institutional counterparties generated 72% of spot flow across all tokens on its OTC desk, the highest share on record. That was up from 61% in the second half of 2025 and 59% in the first half of last year.&

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Coinkite urged Coldcard Mk3 users to migrate funds after identifying a potential seed-generation risk, as Bitcoin security experts separately examine an unexplained $38 million wallet drain.

Canadian Bitcoin hardware maker Coinkite has warned users of its Coldcard Mk3 signing device to move funds from wallets whose seed phrases were generated on affected firmware.&

On Thursday, Coinkite said seeds created on an Mk3 running firmware version 4.0.1, released in March 2021, or any later Mk3 version may put funds at risk. The issue extends through version 5.0.3, the final firmware supporting the Mk3, while the Mk4, Q and Mk5 are not affected, according to the company’s early analysis.

The warning comes as Bitcoin security specialists examine an unexplained, coordinated sweep involving 594.48 BTC from single-signature addresses. Still, no definitive public evidence has established that the Mk3 issue caused those transfers.

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3iQ will manage an undisclosed portion of Gelephu Mindfulness City’s Bitcoin treasury as Bhutan develops a digital-asset investment hub.

Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC) has appointed Canadian digital-asset manager 3iQ to manage a mandate backed by part of its Bitcoin treasury as the special administrative region develops a digital-asset investment hub.

Under the partnership, 3iQ will manage an undisclosed portion of the Bitcoin allocated to support Gelephu’s development. The company will also establish a long-term presence in the city, invest in local talent and provide training and knowledge transfer.&

In December 2025, Bhutan announced that up to 10,000 Bitcoin from the country’s national holdings would be allocated to support the GMC.&

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The window to pass a comprehensive crypto market structure bill before the Senate breaks for a month-long recess is closing, with ethics a dividing issue for many lawmakers.

Two US senators on opposite sides of the political aisle have reportedly sent revised ethics guidelines to the White House as part of discussions over a cryptocurrency market structure bill in Congress.

According to a Thursday PunchBowl report, Senator Thom Tillis and Senator Ruben Gallego submitted a counteroffer to the Trump administration that included a change to ethics provisions in the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. The changes would reportedly address concerns from many lawmakers in the first draft by allowing state authorities to enforce a ban on federal officials issuing or sponsoring tokens rather than the US Attorney General.

Gallego, a Democrat, previously said that provisions around ethics, consumer protection, illicit finance, conflicts of interest and market integrity “must be strengthened” and he would continue to work with Republicans to get the bill “over the finish line.” Cointelegraph reached out to Gallego’s and Tillis’ teams for clarification on the proposed changes but did not receive an immediate response.

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The Bitcoin treasury company said it has built a $3.75 billion cash reserve to support preferred stock payouts following the launch of its BTC monetization program.

Strategy reported an $8.22 billion second-quarter net loss, driven primarily by an $8.32 billion unrealized loss on its Bitcoin holdings as the cryptocurrency’s price declined during the quarter.

As of Sunday, Strategy held 843,775 Bitcoin (BTC), up 25% from the beginning of the year. The company also disclosed that it had sold about $218.4 million worth of Bitcoin under its newly established BTC monetization program to help fund a portion of its preferred stock dividend obligations. Most of those sales ($216 million) occurred in early July after the second quarter ended.

Strategy also said it has built a $3.75 billion U.S. dollar reserve, enough to cover more than two years of preferred dividend payments and interest obligations. The company recently repurchased $25 million of its STRC preferred shares at a discount to par and said it intends to continue buying the securities while they trade below $100.

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The blockchain analytics firm said the World Cup attracted global participation in prediction markets and digital collectibles, with more than 400,000 wallets placing blockchain-based bets.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup drove $20 billion in blockchain-based prediction market volume and $24 million in digital collectible trades, with more than 400,000 wallets participating in blockchain-based betting, according to a report from blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.

The $20 billion figure includes trading before and during the tournament, with bettors placing roughly $5.7 billion in wagers over the five-week World Cup itself. World Cup-related markets accounted for about 63% of all prediction market activity during that period, the report said.

According to Chainalysis, users from every continent except Antarctica participated in World Cup prediction markets, with the United States and China generating the highest attributable trading volumes, followed by Canada, Thailand and the United Kingdom.

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The crypto exchange blamed softer spot trading and low volatility for the earnings miss while highlighting growth in derivatives, stablecoins and tokenized finance.

Crypto exchange Coinbase reported mixed second-quarter results on Thursday, missing Wall Street expectations on profitability as weaker trading activity weighed on results despite the company capturing a record share of the crypto market.

In the second quarter, Coinbase generated roughly $1.2 billion in net revenue, broadly in line with expectations but down 19% from a year earlier. The company reported a GAAP net loss of $359 million, significantly wider than analysts’ expectations for a roughly $122 million loss. Transaction revenue, subscription and services revenue, and adjusted EBITDA also fell short of consensus estimates.

Despite the losses, the exchange posted an all-time-high 10.3% share of global crypto trading volume, up from 9.1% in the first quarter, even as industry-wide trading activity weakened.

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The Telegram founder said Russia designated him a terrorist after he refused government demands for mass surveillance and censorship on the messaging platform.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov said Russian authorities designated him a “terrorist” after he refused government demands for mass surveillance and censorship on the messaging platform, responding publicly a day after Russia announced charges against him.

In a Telegram post on Thursday, Durov also said Russia had barred him from “publishing information on the Internet,” adding that authorities had “got confused about who can ban whom from the Internet.”

Source: Telegram, Pavel Durov

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The proposed legislation referenced US President Donald Trump’s disclosure of billions of dollars in crypto earnings in 2025, as well as his family’s business ties to foreign governments.

Update (July 30, 11:25 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from the White House.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced legislation to create a new US government agency focused entirely on addressing corruption at the federal level, noting President Donald Trump’s gains from “various, and extremely lucrative, cryptocurrency ventures.”

In a Thursday notice, Schumer said that he had introduced a bill called the Anti-Corruption Bureau Creation Act, which, if passed, would have the authority to “investigate, enforce, and prevent executive branch corruption.” The text of the bill addressed Congress’ findings that Trump had disclosed earning more than $2 billion from investments in 2025, including $1.4 billion tied to crypto, and his family had more than $1 billion in a crypto fund tied to foreign governments.

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The new XRPL-based share class gives eligible investors blockchain-based access to a regulated US dollar liquidity fund while keeping traditional custody arrangements.

Aviva Investors, the London-based asset management arm of Aviva Plc, has launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) after receiving approval from the Central Bank of Ireland, marking another step in the growth of tokenized real-world assets.

The company announced that the tokenized share class will be available to eligible investors with digital wallets. The fund’s underlying assets will continue to be held by custodian BNY Mellon, while Komainu will provide digital asset custody and Licuido will supply the tokenization infrastructure.

The US Dollar Liquidity Fund invests in high-grade, short-term US dollar-denominated debt securities and money market instruments issued by governments, banks and corporations. According to Aviva, the tokenized share class offers the same investment objective and liquidity profile as the conventional fund.

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A survey of more than 2,000 Canadians in late 2025 and early 2026 showed an increasing awareness of risk around the crypto industry and higher ownership of assets.

Canadians’ ownership of cryptocurrencies increased to 25% in 2026 from 10% in 2023, new data from the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) shows.

In the results of a survey released on Tuesday, the OSC found that crypto ownership and awareness among Canadians had increased from a few years ago. The survey polled 2,360 individuals age 18 and over between December 2025 and January 2026, finding that 59% of the respondents were aware of crypto assets and 25% held them.

“Crypto markets continue to evolve, and Canadians are participating in them more than ever before,” said Naizam Kanji, executive vice president of strategic regulation at the OSC. “By identifying emerging trends and behaviors with our research, we can look around corners, anticipate potential opportunities and risks, and ensure our regulatory approach supports investor protection while fostering fair and efficient markets.”

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Bitcoin and US stocks enjoyed a relief bounce as the South Korea semiconductor rout eased and US PCE inflation data conforms to year-on-year expectations.

Bitcoin (BTC) shook off volatility on Thursday as US stocks rebounded on the back of inflation-data relief.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC price action focusing on $64,500, broadly unchanged from the day prior.&

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Bitcoin and US stocks enjoyed a relief bounce as the South Korea semiconductor rout eased and US PCE inflation data conforms to year-on-year expectations.

Bitcoin (BTC) shook off volatility on Thursday as US stocks rebounded on the back of inflation-data relief.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC price action focusing on $64,500, broadly unchanged from the day prior.&

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The Bitcoin miner is using part of its treasury and a BTC-backed credit facility to fund an AI campus tied to a potential multi-billion-dollar infrastructure contract.

Bitcoin miner Hyperscale Data sold about 100 Bitcoin and secured a Bitcoin-backed credit facility to help finance construction of its Michigan AI data center, according to a Thursday announcement.

The company said proceeds from the Bitcoin (BTC) sale are being used to fund construction and purchase critical infrastructure and long-lead equipment for its Michigan campus. The& Bitcoin-backed credit facility& is expected to provide financing at variable interest rates of about 4.5% to 5.0%.

The campus is being developed to support a previously announced master services agreement with an unidentified AI infrastructure provider, initially covering about 20 megawatts of AI compute capacity. The 10-year agreement includes two optional five-year extensions and is expected to generate more than $1.2 billion in revenue if fully exercised.

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A RedStone report found tokenized bullion held up during gold’s sharp sell-off, but DeFi lending adoption remains limited despite surging market growth and trading volumes.

Demand for tokenized gold has surged this year as physical bullion climbed to record highs, but very little of the asset is being put to work in decentralized finance, highlighting a major adoption gap, according to a new report by RedStone.

Tokenized gold spot trading volume reached $90.7 billion in the first quarter as gold futures rallied above $5,600 per troy ounce. Yet only about $63 million worth of Tether Gold (XAUT) and PAX Gold (PAXG) is currently being used as collateral on Aave v3 and Morpho, RedStone said. That’s just 1.5% of the tokens’ combined $4.2 billion market capitalization.

Despite the limited adoption, tokenized gold has already weathered a meaningful market test, RedStone said.

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South Korean crypto exchanges saw a fresh spike in trading activity as the country’s stock market had several days of significant downside.

Cryptocurrency trading volumes spiked in South Korea as its stock market fell by nearly 18% this week.&

Key points:

KRW/USDT volumes spike in response to stock sell-off

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Russian authorities charged BitRiver founder Igor Runets with alleged fraud tied to a $8 million crypto mining equipment deal involving Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska.

Russian authorities have charged BitRiver founder Igor Runets with alleged fraud involving about 1 billion rubles ($12.5 million), expanding the criminal case against the executive of one of Russia’s largest crypto mining-linked companies.

Runets was officially charged with large-scale fraud over an alleged failure to deliver crypto mining equipment under an $8 million contract, local news agency Pravo reported on Wednesday.

Investigators allege that Fox, a company controlled by Runets, signed the contract in 2023 to supply the equipment to a company within an industrial group founded by businessman Oleg Deripaska. Authorities say that while the buyer paid $7.9 million upfront, the equipment was not delivered within the agreed 32-day period.

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Samsung SDS is discussing stablecoin infrastructure and AI-based payment models with Dunamu, the operator of South Korean crypto exchange Upbit.

Samsung SDS, the IT services arm of Samsung Group, is exploring stablecoin infrastructure, digital asset systems and AI-based payment models with Dunamu, the operator of Upbit, one of the biggest local cryptocurrency exchanges.

Samsung SDS said it is discussing potential cooperation with Dunamu on stablecoin infrastructure, digital asset systems and AI-based payment business models, CEO Lee Jun-hee said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Thursday.

“We have already secured differentiated business capabilities in digital asset infrastructure through the Korea Securities Depository’s tokenized securities platform project and through end-to-end validation [...] of the full stablecoin process from issuance to settlement,” Lee said. He said he expects the relationship with Dunamu will help Samsung SDS expand in the digital asset infrastructure market.

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The FT said Situational Awareness has approached investors and lenders after borrowing amplified losses during July’s AI stock sell-off.

Situational Awareness, a hedge fund founded in 2024 by ex-OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, has approached investors and lenders for fresh capital after suffering heavy losses in the recent artificial intelligence stock sell-off, the Financial Times reported Thursday.

The fund, which the Wall Street Journal said had around $20 billion in assets under management as of June 8, has also offered some investors the option to buy portfolio assets, according to the FT, citing people briefed on the discussions and a July 24 investor letter.&

The size of the losses and amount sought were not disclosed. Aschenbrenner’s fund had gained 439% after fees through June, according to the letter, but the FT said borrowing increased the size of the fund’s bets, driving up losses when AI stocks collapsed during July’s market rout. Aschenbrenner reportedly wrote in the letter that the sell-off had created attractive investment opportunities.

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Telegram faces Australian court proceedings after eSafety alleged the platform failed to detect and remove extremist material shared by users.

Telegram, the messaging platform used by more than 1 billion people worldwide, is facing a major legal challenge in Australia over claims that it failed to stop the spread of terrorism-linked material.

Australia’s online safety regulator, the eSafety Commissioner, launched civil penalty proceedings against Telegram in the Federal Court on Thursday, according to an official statement.

The authority alleged Telegram breached its obligations under the country’s Online Safety Act to address “pro-terror” content by failing to act on multiple user complaints.

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China Business Journal says fraudsters impersonated the publication, demanding Bitcoin to suppress purported investigative reports about targeted companies.

China Business Journal, a state-affiliated newspaper, has warned that fraudsters have been impersonating the publication to extort companies by demanding Bitcoin in exchange for suppressing damaging reports.

In a statement issued Thursday, the newspaper said scammers used a Proton Mail address to contact businesses, falsely claiming they had uncovered negative information through undercover investigations and threatening to publish the material unless paid in Bitcoin.

The publication said the emails were unauthorized and that the scheme appeared to constitute fraud.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $32.1 million in inflows on Wednesday despite Bitcoin dipping below $64,000, ending a four-session outflow streak.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) ended a four-session outflow streak on Wednesday, recording $32.1 million in net inflows.

After posting more than $500 million in combined outflows over four straight trading sessions, spot Bitcoin ETFs returned to positive territory despite Bitcoin briefly falling to around $63,300 during US trading hours, according to data from SoSoValue and CoinGecko.

So far this week, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have recorded net outflows of $29.29 million, while monthly net inflows have reached $204.7 million. Cumulative net inflows across the funds stand at $51.36 billion.

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Policy report recommends interim licensing guidance, greater flexibility for stablecoin issuers and rules ahead of the Digital Asset Basic Act.

South Korea should allow greater flexibility for stablecoin issuers, provide interim licensing guidance and phase in stablecoin regulation before completing its Digital Asset Basic Act, according to a policy report published Wednesday by Hashed Open Research and the Solana Policy Institute.

The report summarizes a June 23 symposium attended by lawmakers, legal experts and industry participants.

The Digital Asset Basic Act would establish South Korea’s first comprehensive digital asset framework, covering stablecoins, issuance, disclosures and market rules. Still, lawmakers have yet to reconcile multiple bills, with disagreements over stablecoin issuance delaying the legislation.

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The US Treasury said HormuzSafe accepted Bitcoin and other digital assets to evade sanctions and generate revenue for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The US Treasury has sanctioned two Iranian maritime firms involved in an alleged Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-backed insurance network, saying one accepted Bitcoin (BTC) and other digital assets to bypass Western sanctions.&

On Wednesday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said that Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority were integral to what it described as an IRGC-backed insurance network that required commercial vessels to buy approved coverage before transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The firms were designated as operating in Iran’s financial sector.

The action comes after earlier reports that Iran was considering a Bitcoin-based maritime insurance platform. US authorities now allege the network generated revenue for the IRGC. Treasury also sanctioned eight companies linked to Iran’s shadow fleet and identified eight vessels as blocked property.

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Luno and Gnosis joined a widening round of crypto restructurings in July, when at least 12 companies reported job cuts.

Crypto exchange Luno is reportedly cutting about 20% of its global workforce as it restructures operations and shifts more resources toward institutional clients, financial infrastructure and business-to-business services.&

According to a Bloomberg report on Tuesday, Luno CEO James Lanigan said the company had invested in automation and broader operational improvements that changed the resources needed to run the business. Luno will also trim costs in line with market conditions while investing in compliance, core infrastructure and retail products.&

Luno has previously made larger workforce reductions. In January 2023, the exchange cut 35% of its staff, nearly 330 employees, as turbulence across the technology and crypto sectors weighed on its growth and revenue.

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The Bitcoin and altcoin fund builds on Gumi’s growing crypto business centered around XRP, with the company nearly doubling its crypto holdings over the past year.

Japanese game developer Gumi said it will begin operating a 3 billion yen (about $18.3 million) crypto asset fund on Saturday with SBI Financial Services and backing from Daiwa Securities Group and other investors.

The fund is operated by SBI Crypto Fund, a joint venture owned 51% by SBI Financial Services and 49% by Gumi subsidiary gC Labs.

According to Gumi’s Tuesday announcement, the fund will invest primarily in Bitcoin and major altcoins, using staking, portfolio rebalancing and hedging strategies.&

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Pascal Caversaccio joins the Ethereum Foundation’s four-member board as the organization elevates privacy and security in its protocol strategy.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has appointed Pascal Caversaccio, also known as “pcaversaccio,” a co-founder and lead of crypto security response group SEAL 911, to its board as the organization deepens its focus on privacy and security.

On Wednesday, the EF said Caversaccio joined for an initial one-year term voluntarily. He joins president Aya Miyaguchi, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Swiss counsel Patrick Storchenegger on the four-member board.
Caversaccio is a longtime Ethereum contributor and a member of the Foundation’s Silviculture Society, an informal advisory group focused on censorship resistance, open-source development, privacy and security. He also authored The Ethereum Cypherpunk Manifesto in 2024 and Ethereum Privacy: The Road to Self-Sovereignty in 2025.

The board sets the Foundation’s vision and oversees whether management’s strategies and decisions remain aligned with its values. The Foundation described the body as a “security council” responsible for protecting its mission and ensuring compliance as a Swiss foundation.

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The American Arbitration Association’s Web3 Panel brings together specialists in blockchain, smart contracts, digital assets and autonomous transactions.

The American Arbitration Association (AAA), one of the world’s largest providers of private dispute-resolution services, has launched a specialist panel for blockchain and digital-asset cases, giving companies access to arbitrators with expertise in the technical and legal complexities of crypto disputes.

On Wednesday, the AAA said that its new Web3 Panel brings together arbitrators with experience across law, technology, academia, litigation and digital-asset businesses.&

The panel is designed to address disputes arising from increasingly automated and decentralized commercial systems, including disagreements over contract interpretation, governance, asset control, cybersecurity, transaction records and cross-border enforcement.

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The online brokerage continued expanding its digital asset business with Robinhood Chain, tokenized stocks and decentralized lending even as cryptocurrency transaction revenue declined.

Online brokerage Robinhood posted record second-quarter revenue and earnings, though cryptocurrency transaction revenue fell 38% from a year earlier.

According to the company’s earnings report on Wednesday, revenue increased 32% year over year to $1.31 billion, while its net income rose 48% to $573 million.

The company reported that cryptocurrency transaction revenue fell to $100 million from about $160 million a year earlier.& Separately, it recorded $40 billion in crypto trading volume during the quarter, including $18 billion on the Robinhood app and $22 billion from Bitstamp, the crypto exchange it acquired in June 2025.

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The online brokerage continued expanding its digital asset business with Robinhood Chain, tokenized stocks and decentralized lending even as cryptocurrency transaction revenue declined.

[Update 08:55 UTC, July 30: Updates with additional reporting and context.]

Online brokerage Robinhood posted record second-quarter revenue and earnings, though cryptocurrency transaction revenue fell 38% from a year earlier.

The company said Wednesday in its earnings report that crypto transaction revenue fell to $100 million from about $160 million a year earlier. Overall revenue rose 32% year-over-year to $1.31 billion, while net income increased 48% to $573 million. Transaction-based revenue climbed 44% to $776 million.

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The CEO of the US crypto exchange said that the company would apply for a license with the CFTC in August, allowing it to offer prediction markets.

According to its leadership, cryptocurrency exchange Binance.US will apply for a Designated Contract Market (DCM) with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to offer prediction markets services to users.

At the Rare Evo blockchain conference on Wednesday, Binance.US CEO Steve Gregory said that the CFTC license would allow the exchange to launch its own prediction market in what could become a challenge to platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket. The CEO said that the company will apply for the DCM sometime in August.

Under CFTC guidelines, DCMs can legally trade “futures or option contracts based on any underlying commodity, index or instrument.” Companies seeking to be licensed as a DCM must comply with 23 core principles from the agency, including having system safeguards, conducting record keeping and addressing conflicts of interest.&

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ARK Invest’s Lorenzo Valente says revenue is becoming increasingly concentrated among a handful of crypto protocols, setting the stage for more mergers, acquisitions and exchange closures.

An ARK Invest analyst says the cryptocurrency industry is entering what he describes as its biggest consolidation phase yet, with revenue increasingly concentrated among a handful of dominant protocols.

In a Wednesday post on X, Lorenzo Valente, a research associate at ARK Invest, said investors have become increasingly selective, making it harder for crypto projects and exchanges without strong product-market fit to attract capital. As weaker projects struggle or shut down, revenue is becoming concentrated among a small number of dominant protocols, he said.

As evidence, Valente said perpetual futures exchange Hyperliquid and memecoin launchpad Pump.fun account for roughly 67% of total crypto application revenue. Including synthetic dollar protocol Ethena raises the top three’s combined share to nearly 80%, highlighting what he described as record-high revenue concentration across the sector.

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A group of 12 county commissioners voted unanimously to ban mining facilities and data centers in unincorporated areas as it deals with a lawsuit by a digital asset company.

The Hawkins County Commissioners in Tennessee passed their second ban related to digital assets, following a similar one in 2025.

On Monday, the commission voted unanimously 12-0 to ban the establishment, construction, installation, expansion and operation of crypto mining facilities and data centers in unincorporated areas of the county. The government body had already banned similar activities in September 2025 as part of an effort to block the ExoticRidge mining company from establishing operations in the county, and passed a resolution in January affirming its authority to do so.

ExoticRidge and Tennessee county officials proposed a settlement in January over the crypto company’s operations, allowing it to construct and run its facility with noise restrictions. The proposed terms would restrict the company from operating at more than 80 A-weighted decibels (dBA) at the property line “for more than 30 minutes during any four-hour period.”

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A White House crypto adviser said that the proposed changes to the CLARITY Act were “not even close” to the administration’s position, signaling another fight over the bill.

Organizations representing law enforcement officials in the US have reportedly proposed changes to a comprehensive cryptocurrency market structure bill under consideration in the Senate, with only days left until the chamber breaks for a month-long recess.

According to a Tuesday Politico report, the National Association of Assistant US Attorneys and the National District Attorneys Association sent a letter to the White House asking for changes on provisions regarding developers in the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act. The changes proposed to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) within the CLARITY Act included that guidelines on developers not “create, expand, or modify criminal liability under Federal law.”

In response to reports on the proposed changes, White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt said that the provisions were “not even close” to the Trump administration’s position, and implied that it was not the result of “productive negotiations.” Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has reportedly been pushing the White House to address the BRCA before any potential vote.

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New commodity options let traders gain exposure to gold and silver prices through Binance’s Abu Dhabi-regulated exchange.

Binance will launch USDT-settled options on gold and silver through its Abu Dhabi-regulated exchange, expanding its lineup of traditional financial products alongside cryptocurrencies.

The contracts will be listed through Nest Exchange Limited, Binance’s Abu Dhabi Global Market-regulated Recognized Investment Exchange (ADGM). The options allow traders to gain exposure to movements in gold and silver prices without taking delivery of the underlying metals.&

Retail users will only be able to buy options, while eligible institutional users and liquidity providers can also write contracts. According to Binance, restricting retail users to buying options limits downside risk to the premium paid, while eligible institutional participants can write options to collect premiums.

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Bitcoin traders weathered an oil-price surge and ongoing Asia chip-stock sell-off into the Federal Reserve interest-rate decision.

Bitcoin (BTC) whipsawed around $64,000 on Wednesday as geopolitical and macroeconomic tensions pressured US stocks.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD halting a local rebound at the Wall Street open, having hit 11-day lows of $62,700 the day prior.

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MoonPay’s PayBox vault lets ChatGPT and Claude users authorize crypto purchases, token swaps and crosschain transactions while retaining custody of their assets.

MoonPay has launched PayBox, a payment vault that lets ChatGPT and Claude users authorize AI to buy crypto, swap tokens and bridge assets from within a conversation while keeping control of their funds.

Users connect a crypto wallet and payment methods to ChatGPT or Claude, which prepare transactions such as token swaps, crosschain transfers and DeFi interactions using natural-language prompts. Users can approve each transaction with a passkey or set spending limits that allow the AI to execute certain actions automatically, according to MoonPay.

MoonPay said PayBox uses multi-party computation and trusted execution environments to protect wallet keys, preventing either the AI assistant or MoonPay from independently accessing user funds. The platform also lets users require approval for every transaction or allow AI to act autonomously within predefined spending and permission limits.

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Seoul’s historic two-day crash and widening hyperscaler credit spreads suggest the AI trade’s leverage is starting to bite — in equities and in bonds.

Key points:

Korean equities saw the second day of a historic sell-off on Wednesday with market-wide circuit breakers again halting trading. Combined with Tuesday’s drop, the KOSPI has now shed nearly 17%, wiping out $620 billion in market capitalization. This prompted the government to convene an emergency meeting of its financial authorities.

The initial trigger for the sell-off was SK Hynix’s Q2 earnings miss. The stock was down another 4% today, extending Tuesday’s 15% drop. Taken together with Samsung Electronics, the company makes up nearly half of the Korean index.&

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BNY is launching a blockchain-based transfer agency platform as the bank expands its digital asset infrastructure and moves core financial records onchain.

BNY, one of the world’s largest custodian banks, is taking a major step toward blockchain-based financial infrastructure by moving fund ownership records onchain.

The New York-based institution will launch a blockchain-based version of its transfer agency business, which manages fund ownership records and investor transactions, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

“We think of BNY as modernizing a function that sits behind every single fund transaction by bringing the books and records on-chain,” Carolyn Weinberg, BNY’s chief product and innovation officer, reportedly said.

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Crypto’s fundamentals have never been stronger, yet degens keep chasing hot new narratives. Behavioral finance may explain why get-rich-quick stories continue to beat substance.

“Investments change fast; human nature and human aspirations stay constant.”

That’s how Meir Statman, behavioral finance pioneer, professor of finance at Santa Clara University and author of “A Wealth of Well-Being,” explains one of investing’s oldest puzzles. And it may be why every crypto cycle so far has been about chasing the next hot narrative rather than fundamentals, whether it’s DeFi, meme coins or decentralized compute.

In an industry that has spent years maturing into an ecosystem of institutional investors, revenue-generating protocols and real-world use cases, investor attention still gravitates toward the next shiny thing that can offer the promise of outsized returns.

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The service is limited to eligible UAE residents and bookings are priced and settled in dirhams.

Emirates, the Dubai-based flagship carrier, has launched Crypto.com Pay on its website and app, enabling eligible United Arab Emirates residents make flight bookings with cryptocurrencies, the airline said Tuesday.

Mobile users are sent to the Crypto.com app to authorize payment from their wallet, while desktop customers scan a QR code at checkout, the companies said in an announcement. Emirates settles in UAE dirhams rather than holding crypto, with Crypto.com handling the conversion.

The move “reflects the rapidly evolving preferences of a younger, digitally fluent generation who manage their money and plan their journeys primarily from their phones,” said Adnan Kazim, Emirates’ deputy president and chief commercial officer. Neither company indicated whether they would expand the Emirates service beyond eligible UAE residents.

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A CoinGecko study points to rising demand for tokenized equities and commodities on centralized exchanges, with perpetual futures driving most of the market’s trading activity.

Intense competition from traditional brokerage and decentralized exchanges is pushing crypto exchanges to expand beyond digital assets into tokenized stocks, commodities and precious metals, CoinGecko said.

A study, released by the crypto data provider on Wednesday, found that the market capitalization of tokenized traditional assets, including precious metals, US stocks, commodities, global indexes and forex, grew to $6.6 billion in June 2026 from $1.4 billion in January 2025. The analysis covers activity across Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Gate and MEXC.

The market’s initial growth was fueled largely by tokenized precious metals before expanding into US equities. By mid-2026, US stock perpetual futures had overtaken precious metals in both trading volume and open interest, driven by investor interest in semiconductor stocks and anticipated initial public offerings, the report said.

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Hungary removed mandatory third-party checks for crypto conversions as CoinCash received authorization to provide digital asset services under MiCA.

Hungary is rolling back strict crypto rules as CoinCash prepares to resume services after receiving authorization under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation.

The Hungarian Parliament voted to repeal the country’s crypto validator requirement, removing mandatory third-party approval for certain crypto transactions, the Hungarian tax and legal publication Ado.hu reported on Tuesday.

Finance Minister Kármán András said the government removed the validation requirement after the previous rules disrupted Hungary’s crypto market, prompting some service providers to halt operations in the country.

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Gabriel Perez, who was accused of profiting from Kalshi bets tied to President Donald Trump’s speeches, is no longer employed by the federal government.

A White House teleprompter operator accused of using inside knowledge to profit from prediction market bets on President Donald Trump’s speeches no longer works for the federal government, according to the Associated Press.

A White House official said on Tuesday that Gabriel Perez, who had been placed on unpaid leave earlier this month, is no longer employed by the federal government but declined to say whether he resigned or was fired.

Perez was accused of using nonpublic information to make more than $100,000 betting on Kalshi prediction markets tied to Trump’s speeches, according to an earlier ABC News report.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded four straight sessions of outflows totaling $526 million as Bitcoin faced renewed selling pressure after failing to hold $65,000.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) extended their outflow streak to four consecutive trading sessions, with investors withdrawing about $49.8 million as Bitcoin briefly fell to $63,000.

Bitcoin ETFs recorded total net outflows of about $526 million across the four trading sessions, with the largest withdrawals coming on July 24 and July 23, at about $240 million and $225 million, respectively, according to SoSoValue data.

Despite the recent selling pressure, cumulative net inflows remained at $51.3 billion, while total net assets stood at $77.2 billion as of July 28.

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Industry participants said stablecoins offer the biggest near-term benefits for cross-border payments, while domestic UK retail adoption is likely to remain limited.

Cross-border payments are the clearest near-term use case for stablecoins, while consumer adoption in United Kingdom retail payments is likely to be slower, according to the Financial Conduct Authority’s Stablecoin Sprint.

The FCA published findings from its March policy initiative that brought together banks, payment firms, stablecoin issuers and other industry participants to explore how stablecoins could be used.

Participants said stablecoins offer the greatest advantages for cross-border payments, particularly in emerging markets with limited access to US dollars, but provide fewer benefits in major payment corridors where existing systems are already fast and relatively inexpensive.

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Russia’s FSB says Telegram founder Pavel Durov faces a terrorism-related charge and an international arrest warrant, while a separate French case remains open.

[Update, 11:13 am UTC: Adds wanted list clarification in third paragraph.]

Russian authorities have placed Telegram founder Pavel Durov on an international wanted list as they escalate a criminal case accusing him of facilitating terrorist activity.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday that it had charged Durov with facilitating terrorist activity and issued an international warrant for his arrest, local news agency Interfax reported.

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Trade.xyz said its oracle worked as designed but will reimburse eligible traders after an external SK Hynix price print caused the contract’s mark price to fall nearly 19%.

Trade.xyz, an operator of onchain perpetual markets on Hyperliquid, said it will cover eligible liquidation losses after a price anomaly hit its contract tracking SK Hynix, a South Korean chipmaker and producer of high-bandwidth memory for artificial intelligence.

Trade.xyz said the SKHYNIX contract’s mark price fell to $917.25 from $1,127.90 at 23:01 UTC on Monday after an executed trade was relayed by multiple independent data providers. Eligibility requirements will be announced soon, with distributions expected in the coming days.

The SK Hynix contract ranks among Hyperliquid’s most active markets. On Wednesday, Hyperliquid data showed the contract had generated over $1.5 billion in 24-hour volume and held nearly $600 million in open interest at the time of writing.

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Hayden Adams said critics misunderstood Uniswap’s newly approved v4 protocol fees, rejecting claims the change reduces liquidity providers’ earnings.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams pushed back against criticism of Uniswap’s newly activated v4 protocol fees, arguing that claims they reduce liquidity providers’ earnings are based on incorrect assumptions.

In an X post on Tuesday, Adams said recent criticism surrounding the protocol fee activation amounted to “FUD and misunderstanding.”

Adams also disputed claims that the protocol was taking 25% of LP profits. Using a 30-basis-point pool as an example, he said a 5-basis-point protocol fee represents about 14% of total swap fees, not a reduction in LP earnings.

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The FSC reportedly plans a government-backed digital asset bill covering stablecoins and exchanges, while opposition lawmakers seek to scrap a 22% crypto tax due in 2027.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC) reportedly plans to draft a consolidated Digital Asset Basic Act with the ruling Democratic Party, giving lawmakers a government-backed proposal covering stablecoins and the broader cryptocurrency market after months of delays.

According to an Edaily report published Wednesday, the FSC told the National Assembly ahead of a policy briefing that it intends to introduce a consolidated bill. The proposal would reportedly cover stablecoin issuance and circulation, digital asset business rules, exchange entry requirements, disclosures, internal controls and system-resilience standards.

A consolidated government-ruling party proposal could provide a central framework for negotiations. At the moment, 10 separate digital asset and stablecoin bills are pending in Parliament, while disagreements have prevented South Korea from settling key elements of its second-stage crypto legislation.&

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The Bitcoin miner and AI infrastructure company closed at $62.90, giving it a market capitalization of about $2.8 billion after its direct listing.

Ionic Digital shares climbed about 26% from their opening price in their Nasdaq debut Tuesday after the Celsius-linked Bitcoin miner and AI infrastructure company completed its direct listing.

The shares opened at $50 and closed at $62.90, giving Ionic a market capitalization of about $2.8 billion based on approximately 44.9 million shares outstanding, according to its registration statement filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Ionic was formed in 2024 to acquire Celsius Mining’s assets through the bankrupt crypto lender’s restructuring and has since expanded into AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.

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The agreement covers tokenized securities, blockchain-based market infrastructure and the potential use of USDT as a settlement layer.

Tether signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nairobi Securities Exchange to explore tokenized securities, blockchain-based market infrastructure and the potential use of USDt (USDT) as a settlement layer.

Tether said in a Tuesday announcement that the memorandum outlines plans to explore blockchain-based market infrastructure, digital asset education and real-world asset tokenization, including the potential use of its Hadron tokenization platform for issuing and trading tokenized securities.

The memorandum also calls for the parties to assess instant settlement mechanisms and the potential use of USDT as a digital settlement infrastructure layer, where permitted under Kenyan regulations.

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Zcash researchers published more than 2,700 machine-checked theorems designed to rule out undetectable counterfeiting bugs in Ironwood.

Zcash researchers have completed formal verification of Ironwood, publishing a machine-checked proof that the network’s new shielded pool does not contain undetectable counterfeiting bugs under its stated cryptographic assumptions.&

On Tuesday, Project Tachyon said that the proof, written in the Lean programming language, comprises over 2,700 theorems and took three teams of researchers and cryptographers over a month to complete. The work establishes a security property known as balance integrity, designed to ensure the shielded pool cannot pay out more value than has publicly entered it.

The researchers said the proof covers the components needed for that property, including Ironwood’s zero-knowledge proof system, circuit rules and ledger-level accounting. It does not cover Ironwood’s separate privacy guarantees.&

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RL1 began operations as a member-owned blockchain cooperative backed by 10 European financial institutions, including ABN AMRO, DekaBank and Natixis CIB.

Ten European financial institutions have launched Regulated Layer One (RL1), a jointly owned blockchain cooperative designed for regulated financial markets and tokenized assets.&

On Tuesday, the group announced that RL1 had been established as a European Cooperative Society in Luxembourg and had begun operations with founding members including ABN AMRO, Cecabank, Chartered Investment, Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale, DekaBank, DZ BANK, LBBW, Natixis CIB, SC Ventures and Seturion.&

RL1 said each member will have equal decision-making rights over the network’s governance and development.

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Myanmar lawmakers approved an anti-online scam bill whose draft proposes prison terms of 10 years to life for crypto scams and operating scam centers.

Myanmar’s Parliament passed an anti-online scam bill that would impose prison terms of 10 years to life for crypto scams and operating online scam centers.

The Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, Myanmar’s combined Parliament, approved the bill in its entirety on Tuesday after resolving differences between versions previously passed by its two chambers, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM). The report did not say whether the bill had received presidential assent or when it would take effect.&

The legislation is Myanmar’s latest attempt to curb a growing cyberscam industry that has turned parts of the country into hubs for online fraud.

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Visa said it is investing across the stablecoin stack, highlighting OpenUSD, tokenized deposits and AI-powered commerce during the company’s third-quarter earnings call.

Visa reported fiscal third-quarter revenue of& $11.6 billion, up 14% from a year earlier, driven by double-digit growth in payments volume, cross-border volume and processed transactions.

During the company’s earnings call,& Visa outlined its broader stablecoin strategy, saying it has been investing across multiple layers of the stablecoin ecosystem. The company said:

Visa added that it had joined the OpenStandard consortium, which plans to issue the OpenUSD stablecoin for global money movement. The company said the Visa stablecoin platform is designed to enable partners to settle with Visa in stablecoins, provide onchain wallet-as-a-service infrastructure and move money between fiat currencies and stablecoins, beginning with OpenUSD.

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The new exchange-traded products track Ether and Solana, offer staking rewards and follow the firm’s Bitcoin fund launched earlier this year.

Morgan Stanley Investment Management has launched Ether and Solana exchange-traded products, expanding its fund lineup beyond Bitcoin.

The Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (NYSE Arca: MSSE) and Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (NYSE Arca: MSOL) seek to track the performance of Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL), respectively, using the CoinDesk Ether Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate and CoinDesk Solana Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate.

Both funds carry a 0.14% expense ratio and intend to stake a portion of their holdings, with staking rewards passed through to investors. Morgan Stanley said it will not retain any portion of the staking rewards earned by either fund.

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The crypto-focused companies announced separate acquisitions as demand for power-intensive AI and digital infrastructure continues to grow.

Crypto companies continued to expand their physical footprint in Texas, with Galaxy Digital and MARA Holdings announcing separate land acquisitions tied to AI, high-performance computing (HPC) and Bitcoin mining infrastructure.

On Tuesday, Galaxy Digital, a crypto financial services and infrastructure company, said it acquired a 500-acre site in McGregor, Texas, where it plans to build its second AI and high-performance computing (HPC) data center campus in the state. The project is expected to launch with 74 megawatts of power capacity before expanding in later phases.

MARA Holdings, a Bitcoin miner and digital infrastructure company, separately announced an agreement to acquire a 1,200-acre powered site in Matagorda County with access to up to 2 gigawatts of power capacity. The company said it intends to develop the site for AI and HPC workloads as well as bitcoin mining.

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Bitcoin and crypto dropped as contagion from a major Asia stock-market correction spreads to the US at the Wall Street open.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit ten-day lows at Tuesday’s Wall Street open as BTC price action followed a US stocks sell-off.

Key points:

Semiconductor-led losses from Asia spilled over into US trading. South Korea’s KOSPI Index finished the day down 10.8% in a single session, fueled by 14.8% losses for chip-maker SK Hynix, while Japan’s memory manufacturer Kioxia Holdings fell 18.3% on the day.

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Eligible US users can request IPO allocations, while customers in more than 110 countries gain access to tokenized Jersey Mike’s shares backed 1:1 by the underlying stock.

Crypto exchange Kraken is offering retail investors access to the planned Jersey Mike’s initial public offering, allowing eligible US customers to request allocations of the sandwich chain’s shares and users in more than 110 countries to request tokenized shares backed 1:1 by the underlying stock.

Eligible US customers can submit interest in book-entry Jersey Mike’s shares at the IPO price, while global customers can request JMKEx, a tokenized version of the stock with the backing shares held in regulated custody. Allocations are determined by the IPO underwriter and are not guaranteed.

JMKEx will begin trading 24 hours a day, five days a week on Kraken and participating xStocks Alliance platforms once the IPO closes, while the underlying Jersey Mike’s shares will trade during regular US market hours.

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Core Scientific reported strong second-quarter revenue growth as AI colocation became its largest business, though a non-cash accounting charge resulted in a $1.15 billion net loss.

Digital infrastructure company Core Scientific more than doubled its second-quarter revenue as rapid growth in its artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) colocation business continued to reshape its earnings profile following its pivot beyond Bitcoin mining.

The company reported Tuesday that Q2 revenue increased to $164.2 million, up from $78.6 million a year earlier. Colocation revenue accounted for $136.7 million of the total, compared with just $10.6 million in the same period last year, while gross profit increased to $70 million from $5 million.

Despite the revenue surge, Core Scientific reported a net loss of $1.15 billion, driven primarily by a non-cash accounting charge related to the rising value of outstanding warrants as its share price increased.

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DeFi projects that survived the fallout from the Terra and FTX collapses in 2022 are dying out in 2026. But analysts say it’s not a case of industry consolidation — but the opposite.

When DeFi dashboard Zapper announced this month that it would shut down after nearly seven years, it joined a growing list of decentralized finance projects that have folded in 2026.

Bitcoin DeFi platform Botanix, Solana portfolio tracker Step Finance, DeFi analytics platform Parsec and DEX aggregator Odos Protocol also wound down or are winding down this year after multiple market cycles.

The carnage isn’t limited to DeFi — RootData has tracked 101 “dead” crypto projects in total this year as of July 26 — but it accounts for more than half the cadavers.

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Analysis warned of a repeat of the 2024 yen carry-trade unwind that pressured crypto markets ahead of the next Bank of Japan interest-rate meeting.

Japan’s central bank is in focus this week as its next interest-rate meeting comes amid new 40-year yen lows against the US dollar.

Key points:&

Data from TradingView showed USD/JPY approaching 164 on Tuesday, just a fraction below new 40-year highs seen last week.

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Blockaid found Ethereum remained the hardest-hit blockchain in H1 2026, while Solana replaced Arbitrum as the network with the second-highest losses, driven largely by key compromises.

Crypto losses topped $1 billion in the first half of 2026 as the industry recorded its highest number of hacks in a six-month period, according to onchain security platform Blockaid.

Ethereum and Solana recorded the largest losses from incidents affecting their networks, with roughly $332 million and $326 million in stolen funds, respectively, Blockaid said in its H1 2026 security report published Tuesday.

Blockaid tracked 212 security incidents during the period, with the largest single exploit coming from KelpDAO at $292 million, while the platform verified 3.4 times as many high-threshold exploits in H1 2026 as across all of 2025.

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PayPal highlighted growth of stablecoins and AI-driven payment tools in Q2 while reporting $8.68 billion in revenue and an $81 million crypto-related earnings adjustment.

Global payments giant PayPal highlighted stablecoins and artificial intelligence-driven payment tools as part of its second-quarter strategy while crypto assets remained part of its earnings reconciliation.

PayPal reported Q2 earnings of $1.26 per share on Tuesday, compared with $1.30 per share in the same period last year and below analysts’ $1.28 estimate. Revenue reached $8.68 billion, up from $8.29 billion a year earlier and above the $8.47 billion analyst consensus.

The company also recorded an $81 million non-GAAP adjustment related to gains and losses from strategic investments and crypto assets held for investment. PayPal said it excludes gains and losses from strategic investments and crypto assets held for investment from non-GAAP results because it does not actively trade those assets or rely on them to fund ongoing operations.

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Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch announced the launch of its Aqua protocol allowing users to provide liquidity to many protocols at once.

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch announced Aqua, a protocol aimed at unifying the liquidity pools of numerous markets in the decentralized finance ecosystem.

According to Tuesday’s announcement, Aqua allows liquidity providers to authorize several strategies against one wallet inventory, while the assets remain in the wallet until a trade settles, rather than depositing the funds to any particular liquidity pool. The protocol has been deployed on 13 blockchains including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Robinhood Chain and BNB Chain.

Source: 1inch

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The IMF said Brazil’s stablecoin market has expanded rapidly since 2017, with cross-border crypto flows growing faster than traditional capital flows.

The International Monetary Fund said Brazil’s crypto asset market, particularly US dollar-pegged stablecoins, has expanded rapidly since 2017 and requires closer oversight as cross-border crypto flows grow faster than traditional capital flows.

In its Financial System Stability Assessment released Thursday, the IMF said stablecoins have played a key role in the significant growth of Brazil’s crypto asset market. The report said cross-border crypto flows have “been steadily increasing” and that stablecoin purchases are two to three times more sensitive to global shocks than traditional portfolio investment or foreign direct investment flows.

The IMF said Banco Central do Brasil (BCB) has already taken steps to regulate crypto asset service providers, but gaps remain in areas such as customer asset protection, stablecoin issuance rules and anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) compliance. “The crypto-asset market in Brazil is large and fast-growing, and increasingly interconnected with the traditional financial system,” the report said.

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Lido launched Curated Module v2, an upgrade that could reduce Ethereum’s validator count by one-third by consolidating validators and introducing new operator rules.

Lido, a liquid staking protocol that lets users earn Ethereum staking rewards through its stETH token, has launched an upgrade to its staking infrastructure that aims to improve validator efficiency and decentralization.

The upgrade introduces Curated Module v2, which adds support for Ethereum’s 0x02 withdrawal credentials. The change allows validators to increase their effective balance from 32 ETH to as many as 2,048 ETH, according to a Lido update on Monday.

Lido said the migration could reduce Ethereum’s validator count to about 628,000 from 880,000, a decrease of about one-third. The migration has not started yet, and the figures are based on Lido’s projections.

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The new system marks an apparent departure from the institution-focused layer-1 blockchain Ondo announced in 2025.

Real-world asset tokenization platform Ondo Finance has launched an offchain execution network in an apparent pivot away from the institution-focused layer-1 blockchain it introduced in 2025.&

The company said Monday that Ondo Network will handle trades away from public blockchains and is already being used by Ondo Perps, its perpetual futures platform.&

Traditional blockchains typically rely on distributed networks of computers to validate transactions and maintain shared state. Ondo Network instead runs its trading software inside one protected computing environment that the company calls “enclaves,” which are also known as Trusted Execution Environments in crypto parlance. A group of operators checks that the software has not been altered, and each holds part of the digital key needed to authorize transfers.&

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Three users allege a fake Sparrow Wallet app on Apple’s App Store drained their Bitcoin holdings, with losses totaling more than $1.8 million.

Apple is facing a lawsuit from three customers who say they lost a combined $1.8 million after downloading a fake Bitcoin wallet app from the App Store.

The complaint, filed Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges Apple failed to adequately review and monitor apps despite promoting the App Store as a trusted marketplace, according to a copy of the filing obtained by MacRumors.

The plaintiffs, James Ramirez, Christopher Ellis and Jalen Delgado, said they entered their seed phrases into the fraudulent app, allowing scammers to transfer their Bitcoin. They reported losses of about $875,000, $840,000 and $120,000, respectively, during 2025, according to the complaint.

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Binance co-founder CZ backed crypto license passporting across ASEAN to simplify approvals, reduce compliance costs and encourage competition.

Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao backed crypto license passporting across ASEAN, arguing that firms regulated in one market should be able to enter others through a simplified approval process rather than applying from scratch.

Speaking Tuesday during the “One ASEAN, One Digital Economy” fireside chat at the ASEAN Tech Summit Manila 2026, Zhao backed an idea raised by FinTech Alliance PH founding chair Lito Villanueva for regulatory passporting or license portability. Zhao said regulators could still review applicants but should not require them to complete another full licensing application from scratch.

A regional licensing framework could reduce compliance costs, encourage competition and make it easier for crypto and stablecoin services to operate across ASEAN’s fragmented regulatory markets. Member states regulate digital assets separately, creating multiple approval processes for companies seeking a regional presence.

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The preliminary injunction allows Kalshi and Polymarket US to continue operating in Minnesota while the court considers their challenge to the state law.

A US federal judge has temporarily blocked Minnesota from enforcing its new prediction market ban against CFTC-regulated platforms Kalshi and Polymarket US.

According to a Monday court order granting the plaintiffs’ motions for preliminary injunctions, US District Judge Katherine Menendez found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed, at least in part, on claims that the Commodity Exchange Act preempts the Minnesota statute.

The judge said several event contracts offered by the platforms appeared to qualify as swaps, giving the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over transactions involving those contracts on designated contract markets.&

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Sandbox participation permits supervised testing but does not guarantee full commercial registration.

Zimbabwe’s securities regulator has admitted seven financial technology projects to its regulatory sandbox, with tokenization accounting for most of the latest group.&

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe (SECZ) listed Zimbabwe Entrepreneurship Exchange, Ndarama Standard, Questview Brokers, Crowdaxe Capital, Procode Platforms, Financial Securities Exchange (FINSEC) and Colmin Resources Zimbabwe as approved participants.

The projects cover blockchain-based capital raising, crowdfunding, synthetic trading and the tokenization of assets, securities and infrastructure, with four of the seven directly focused on tokenization,&

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The HKMA aims to make Hong Kong’s banking sector fully prepared for quantum-related security risks by 2030 as the city expands tokenized finance.

The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) has launched a framework to assess banks’ preparedness for quantum-computing threats as the city expands its use of tokenized deposits, digital assets and blockchain settlement.&

On Monday, the HKMA introduced a white paper on quantum preparedness and the sector’s first Quantum Preparedness Index (QPI). The index gave the sector an overall readiness score of 2.3 out of 10, while the white paper found that around half of surveyed institutions had no formal post-quantum planning in place. The HKMA said it aims to achieve full sector readiness, represented by a QPI score of 10, by 2030.

The development comes as Hong Kong moves more traditional financial activity onto distributed ledgers. Government figures show that Hong Kong has issued three batches of tokenized green bonds totaling about HK$16.8 billion (about $2.1 billion) since 2023, while the HKMA is advancing tokenized deposits and digital-asset settlement through Project Ensemble.&

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Binance has been phishing its own staff to get ahead of potential attacks. South Korean crypto volumes tank 89% — plus all of the week’s other crypto news from Asia.