A rogue OpenAI research agent bypassed blocks on the Australian government health-data portal, accessing non-public files in June.

The CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic have reportedly been summoned to appear at an Australian Senate inquiry into AI, just days after news broke that a rogue OpenAI bot had hacked the country’s health data.

The Australian Medicare breach is one of the highest-profile incidents of AI agents accessing external systems outside the US, according to a Sunday Business World report.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei were asked to appear at the inquiry in Canberra on Thursday, the report said.

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The Bitcoin miner has continued to expand its data-center business as well.

Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms this week repaid a $200 million credit facility from Coinbase Credit, releasing its collateral.

The facility had been secured by a pledge of Riot’s financial assets, including Bitcoin, USDC and cash, which was held in the custody of Coinbase Custody Trust Company.

Riot finished paying the remaining principal and interest on Monday, according to a Friday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Our ambition should be to “enable 10 million new companies to raise capital,” Strategy’s executive chairman Michael Saylor wrote in an essay.

Michael Saylor, co-founder of Strategy, said that an age of digital assets and intelligence needs a “bill of digital rights,” rather than restrictions.

An age of AI can increase production, but it needs better money and capital markets to realize its potential, according to an essay that Saylor, executive chairman of world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, posted on X Saturday.

A useful framework for digital assets should establish five fundamental rights, or freedoms, Saylor wrote.

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The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against prediction market Kalshi, siding with Ohio and Tennessee on regulating sports-event contracts under state laws.

Prediction market Kalshi lost on appeal when a court ruled that Ohio and Tennessee can regulate sports-event contracts under their state gambling laws.

The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Kalshi on Friday when a three-judge panel sided unanimously with Ohio and Tennessee, finding that the prediction market failed to demonstrate its sports-event contracts are “swaps” under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

The ruling followed a similar finding from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last month, which broke from an April decision by the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals allowing the company to do business in New Jersey as its appeal process proceeds.

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Peirce, known as “Crypto Mom,” served on the SEC for about eight years, including as director of the Crypto Task Force.

SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has submitted her formal resignation from the US Securities and Exchange Commission, effective Oct. 2.

Peirce, also known as “Crypto Mom” amid her advocacy of clear, rules-based regulation of the crypto industry, posted a copy of her resignation letter on her X account Friday.

In the letter, she thanked the president for the “honor of her professional lifetime” serving as a commissioner and said she was leaving the SEC under the excellent leadership of Chairman Paul Atkins and Commissioner Mark Uyeda, the two remaining members, who are both Republicans.

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The CFTC claimed that Cash FX engaged in minimal forex trading and misappropriated most of the participant funds.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said it is suing& Cash FX Group and three individuals in a $950 million foreign-exchange investment case involving cryptocurrency.

The defendants are Cash FX and its CEO Huascar Jose Lopez Castillo of Brazil, The Conversion Pros and its CEO Ronald Pope of Oregon, and Justin Halladay of Florida.

The CFTC said its complaint was filed Friday in the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida. It alleges the defendants operated a multilevel marketing Ponzi scheme, soliciting and accepting over $950 million for the purported purpose of trading retail foreign currency contracts in a commodity pool.&

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OG.com, recently spun out of Crypto.com, joins Coinbase, Kalshi and Kraken parent Payward in seeking approval to bring perpetual futures to individual US stocks.

OG.com Markets is seeking US regulatory approval to offer perpetual futures tied to individual stocks, as trading platforms push to bring the popular derivatives product to US equity markets.

In a Thursday filing with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), OG.com proposed new rules allowing it to list cash-settled single-stock futures that never expire and can trade 24 hours a day, five days a week.

OG.com was recently spun out of crypto exchange Crypto.com as an independent prediction markets and derivatives platform valued at $5 billion. At the time, CEO Kris Marszalek said the platform planned to expand beyond prediction markets into futures and perpetual contracts.

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Former CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger joined the Blockchain Association in 2025 after resigning during her second term at the federal commodities regulator.

Update (Sept. 25, 10:20 pm UTC): This article has been updated to clarify Kristin Smith’s role with the Solana Policy Institute.

Summer Mersinger, formerly a commissioner with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), will step down as CEO of the Blockchain Association and leave the advocacy organization at year’s end after one of the group’s legislative priorities faced a significant setback in Congress.

On Friday, the Blockchain Association (BA) announced that Mersinger would step down as CEO on Oct. 16, when the group’s former chief executive, Kristin Smith, would return to lead the organization as interim CEO in addition to her existing role as president of the Solana Policy Institute. Mersinger joined the Blockchain Association in June 2025 after leaving the CFTC three years before her second term as a commissioner was scheduled to end.

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US prosecutors alleged that a payments business illegally transferred hundreds of millions of dollars at the direction of EQIBank, where Tether holds some assets.

Stablecoin issuer Tether said that it had limited exposure through assets held at a bank that reportedly directed a payments company to allegedly move hundreds of millions of dollars on its behalf.

In response to reports linking Tether and Bitfinex to a Montana-based payments business named in a civil forfeiture complaint filed by the Department of Justice, a company spokesperson told Cointelegraph that it had “no knowledge” of any of the alleged conduct. Tether confirmed it was a customer of EQIBank, the bank the Justice Department alleged directed the payments company, Capstone, to send and receive money, but the amount held at the bank represented 0.034% of the group’s total assets.

US prosecutors reportedly froze about $84 million in Capstone’s accounts as part of the complaint. Justice Department officials alleged that the business was unlicensed and had made payments to “hundreds of individuals and entities” on behalf of Tether and Bitfinex, according to the Financial Times.

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The crypto executive and Dystopia Labs founder previously held senior roles at Stellar and Solana before joining venture capital firm Hack VC.

Update (Sept. 25, 18:30 UTC). This article was updated with additional details on Hsin-Ju Chuang’s cause of death.

Hsin-Ju Chuang, a former partner at crypto venture firm Hack VC, died at age 37, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner. The county’s Coroner Death Registry later listed her death as a suicide.

California Highway Patrol officers responded to southbound Interstate 15 south of Field Road in Harvard, California, on Aug. 24, where Chuang was pronounced dead at the scene.

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The Bitget breach announced on Thursday affected about $35 million more than previously reported, based on an analysis of assets on Zcash and TRON.

Crypto exchange Bitget released an updated incident report on Thursday’s security breach, clarifying that about $388 million in assets had been affected and not $352 million as previously reported.

In a Friday update, Bitget said it would continue to pause withdrawals following the security breach, and the company had launched a bounty program to incentivize freezing or recovering the assets. The exchange confirmed that “$387.5 million were transferred to attacker-controlled addresses” based on onchain tracing — about $35 million more than reported on Thursday.&

“The revised figure reflects a more complete accounting of transfers that occurred during the incident, adding affected assets on Zcash and TRON that were not included in the initial estimate,” said Bitget. “It does not reflect further unauthorized transfers. The incident remains contained and no further unauthorized transfers are possible.”

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Strategy’s proposal would move STRC and its three other preferred stocks to daily dividend payments, following a similar move by Bitcoin treasury firm Strive.

Strategy is seeking shareholder approval to move its four preferred stocks, including STRC, to daily dividend payments without changing their dividend rates or the total amount paid.

The company’s board approved the proposal on Thursday, according to a Friday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Shareholders are scheduled to vote on the amendments at a virtual special meeting on Oct. 28.

If approved, each calendar day would become a dividend record date, with the corresponding payment made on the next business day. STRC would move to the new schedule first, with its initial daily dividend payment expected on Nov. 2.

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Stablecoins and tokenized assets are pushing banks, exchanges and crypto companies into the same markets, from payments to stocks and ETFs.

The line between crypto companies and traditional finance is blurring. Binance is buying a $100 million stake in Circle, Canada’s six largest banks are exploring tokenized deposits and the New York Stock Exchange is working with Blockchain.com to bring US stocks and ETFs onchain.

Crypto companies want a bigger role in payments and traditional assets, while banks and exchanges are bringing those markets onchain without giving up their place at the center of the financial system.

This week’s Crypto Biz highlights how stablecoins and tokenized assets put crypto companies and traditional finance on increasingly overlapping turf, with both sides vying for control over how money and assets move.

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The IRS can now see your crypto gains, but has no idea about the cost-basis. That’s proving to be a big headache for some cryptocurrency investors.

It’s that time of year again in the United States. The days start to draw in, the leaves start to fall, and the tax man comes knocking for your 2025 return.

This year, thanks to the Inland Revenue Service’s new rules, the agency now knows more about Americans’ crypto trades than ever before, with brokers required to report gross proceeds from certain digital asset sales.

But unfortunately for some taxpayers, getting a form from an exchange hasn’t made filing their returns any easier.

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CoinGlass will retain its brand and team, while its website, app, free tools, API and pricing will remain unchanged following the acquisition.

CoinMarketCap has acquired crypto derivatives data platform CoinGlass for an undisclosed amount, expanding its coverage of leveraged trading across major exchanges.

CoinMarketCap announced Friday that CoinGlass will continue operating under its existing brand, with its team remaining in place. Its website, app, free tools, API and pricing will be unchanged.

CoinGlass tracks open interest, funding rates, liquidations and options. It covers 28 exchanges and more than 2,500 instruments, according to the announcement.

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The analyzed Safari sample targets iOS 18.4–18.6.2 using previously patched flaws, while its effectiveness on iOS 26.5 remains unverified.

An iPhone Safari attack behind recent security warnings hasn’t yet been linked to a confirmed cryptocurrency theft in SlowMist’s investigation.

Multiple reports surfaced this week urging iPhone users to update their devices immediately and warning that malicious Safari pages could expose crypto private keys and seed phrases, with some citing a range from iOS 13 through iOS 26.5.

SlowMist told Cointelegraph that it has not independently confirmed a victim compromised by the specific Safari attack sample it analyzed, while its strongest technical evidence covers iOS 18.4 through 18.6.2.

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IBIT’s expected volatility sits near the bottom of its 12-month range, according to Saxo Bank’s analysis of options data from Sept. 23.

Options on BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) are pricing smaller swings than the fund experienced during Bitcoin’s recent rebound, according to Saxo Bank.

IBIT’s implied volatility stood at 37.4%, compared with realized volatility of 45.5% over the 20 trading sessions through Tuesday, Saxo investment and options strategist Koen Hoorelbeke wrote Thursday.

Based on Wednesday’s data, Hoorelbeke’s analysis put IBIT’s implied volatility rank at 11.9, placing the measure near the bottom of its 12-month range.

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Yuga Labs’ 0xQuit said the NFTs are safe and will be returned once the risk passes, while holders were urged to revoke NFT permissions.

[Update, 12:55 UTC, Sept. 25: This article was updated with Magic Eden’s statement identifying the affected protocol and its guidance for former users.]

A whitehat moved 3,832 non-fungible tokens from hundreds of wallets on Friday amid concerns about a vulnerability involving NFT marketplace Magic Eden.&

NFT community member who goes by Cirrus on X flagged the activity on Friday, saying a single wallet moved 3,832 NFTs from hundreds of wallets. Cirrus said the transactions appeared as sales through Magic Eden and advised NFT holders to revoke permissions as a precaution.

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KelpDAO says LayerZero endorsed its bridge setup before the attack, while CEO Bryan Pellegrino has dismissed the lawsuit as meritless.

KelpDAO has filed a lawsuit against cross-chain protocol LayerZero following the roughly $292 million exploit of its rsETH bridge earlier this year, alleging that failures in LayerZero’s security infrastructure contributed to the attack.

KelpDAO said Friday that LayerZero failed to disclose risks in its technology or prevent attackers from compromising its infrastructure. It also alleged that LayerZero had reviewed and endorsed its deployment and configuration in writing before the exploit.

The lawsuit also names LayerZero co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $191 million Thursday as daily inflows slowed for a third day, lifting year-to-date net flows to $787 million.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) drew about $191 million in net inflows on Thursday, pushing their six-session total past $2.8 billion.

After hitting a 2026 high of $999 million on Monday, daily inflows fell for three consecutive sessions while Bitcoin retreated from above $87,000. Thursday’s total was down 81% from Monday, according to SoSoValue data.

The latest inflow streak lifted the funds’ year-to-date total to roughly $787 million, reversing a 2026 deficit of about $5.5 billion at the end of June. September alone has attracted $2.56 billion so far, following $3.52 billion in August.

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Keonne Rodriguez says he and 70 others face another move after their treatment program was deactivated. His previous transfer took 30 days.

Samourai Wallet co-founder Keonne Rodriguez faces another prison transfer after the drug treatment program at FCI McKean was deactivated, he said Wednesday.

Rodriguez said on X that McKean’s warden told program participants that Rodriguez and 70 others would be moved to facilities where treatment remains available. He entered the program because completing it could reduce his sentence by up to a year.

In a letter published by The Rage, Rodriguez called his earlier journey from FPC Morgantown to McKean the “absolute worst 30 days” of his life. He said his request to make the roughly four-hour trip himself was denied.

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Anthony Albanese said governments must help shape AI’s development, after revealing earlier that an OpenAI agent accessed non-public files on an Australian Medicare data portal.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warned artificial intelligence is evolving at a “furious pace” and has urged other countries to shape its development, after an OpenAI agent breached an Australian government website this year.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Albanese called for international cooperation on emerging technology, adding that AI company leaders themselves have warned about advancing frontier AI too quickly without safeguards.

“Recently, an artificial intelligence agent infiltrated an Australian government website. This is unacceptable,” he told world leaders on Thursday.

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Shielded Bitcoin would use zero-knowledge proofs and encrypted notes to hide transaction details without changing Bitcoin consensus, but researchers have raised questions about anonymity and quantum resistance.

Researchers at the cryptography research firm Alloc Init have proposed a system for bringing Zcash-style private transfers to Bitcoin without requiring a soft fork.&

The proposal, called Shielded Bitcoin, would conceal transaction amounts, senders, receivers and links to previously spent funds using encrypted notes and zero-knowledge proofs. The paper was published on Thursday by Clara Shikhelman, Mikhail Komarov and Aleksei Moskvin.

The proposal offers a potential path to stronger privacy for Bitcoin users without requiring consensus changes to the base protocol.

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Block joins Google, Microsoft, AWS and Coinbase in backing x402, an open payment standard enabling agentic AI commerce.

Block has joined the x402 Foundation and added Bitcoin Lightning support to the payment protocol as the company expands its push into payments for AI agents.

Block on Thursday said Lightning is suited to the low-cost, high-volume payments that agentic commerce will depend on.

“Bringing Lightning to x402 is a concrete step toward making Bitcoin everyday money for people and the agents acting on their behalf, and we’re excited to help the industry build on it,” said Steve Lee, head of Block’s Bitcoin development initiative Spiral.&

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Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said a preliminary investigation found IP addresses matching VPN choices associated with a DPRK hacking group.

Update (Sept. 25 at 4:30 am UTC): This article has been updated to add new comments from Bitget CEO Gracy Chen and preliminary analysis from onchain researcher Specter.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said North Korean hackers may be behind the exchange’s $351.6 million security breach on Thursday, citing preliminary findings linking IP addresses to VPN services used by a North Korean group.&

Speaking during a live Q&A following the incident on X, Chen said security investigators had flagged similarities with previous North Korean attacks. She said the exchange did not believe the breach was an inside job.&

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The APAC region accounts for half of the Global Crypto Adoption Index. Bitget suffers massive $352M loss and OpenAI forgets to mention its agents hacked the Australian Government.

Almost half of the top 20 nations in terms of grassroots crypto adoption are in the Asia Pacific region. According to Chainalysis’s newly released 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index, Japan ranks at number 4, followed by South Korea (5), India (6), Thailand (8), China (12), Indonesia (14), Australia (15), Vietnam (18) and the Philippines (19), which totals nine countries out of 20 on the index.

A big growth area in the APAC region is cross border stablecoin transfers.

Tianwei Liu, co-founder and CEO of StraitsX, told Cointelegraph that in Asia, fragmented currencies and payment systems have created demand for stablecoin settlement.&

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The APAC region accounts for half of the Global Crypto Adoption Index. Bitget suffers massive $351M loss and OpenAI forgets to mention its agents hacked the Australian Government.

Almost half of the top 20 nations in terms of grassroots crypto adoption are in the Asia Pacific region. According to Chainalysis’s newly released 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index, Japan ranks at number 4, followed by South Korea (5), India (6), Thailand (8), China (12), Indonesia (14), Australia (15), Vietnam (18) and the Philippines (19), which totals nine countries out of 20 on the index.

A big growth area in the APAC region is cross border stablecoin transfers.

Tianwei Liu, co-founder and CEO of StraitsX, told Cointelegraph that in Asia, fragmented currencies and payment systems have created demand for stablecoin settlement.&

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The Fed’s proposal would set capital requirements, a two-day redemption window and new reserve disclosures as regulators implement the GENIUS Act.

The Federal Reserve has proposed capital, redemption and other regulatory requirements for stablecoin issuers under its supervision as it moves to implement the GENIUS Act.

The GENIUS Act already requires stablecoin issuers to maintain reserves backing their tokens on a one-to-one basis and limits the types of assets they can hold, including cash, bank deposits and short-term US Treasurys. The law left federal regulators to establish more detailed capital, reserve-diversification and risk-management requirements.

Under the Fed proposal, issuers would face an operational-risk capital charge equal to 2% of the first $20 billion in stablecoins outstanding, 1.5% of the next $30 billion and 1% of amounts above $50 billion, along with additional capital requirements tied to credit and operational risks.

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Bitget said unauthorized transfers affected a limited number of hot wallets, while cold wallets and most platform assets remained unaffected.

Crypto exchange Bitget has confirmed unauthorized transfers affecting approximately $351.6 million in assets and temporarily suspended withdrawals as it investigates the security breach.

Bitget said its security systems detected the transfers involving a limited number of hot wallets at 18:31 UTC on Thursday, prompting the exchange to activate emergency response procedures.

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said the breach was contained to a portion of the exchange’s hot and warm wallet layers, while its cold wallets remained secure.

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Although the CFTC chair did not say the failed vote on the CLARITY Act was behind new rules for authorized crypto entities, he said the move was “to provide regulatory clarity.“

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has updated its guidance on tokenized assets and using blockchain technology for recordkeeping.

In a Thursday notice, the CFTC said that it had updated information under its frequently asked questions on registered crypto-related entities.&

The guidance originally released in March was updated to specify that authorized companies could invest customer funds in tokenized forms, provided “the tokenized form of the asset grants the holder legal and economic rights that are the same or functionally equivalent to the rights received by holders of the asset in its traditional form.” The regulator added that it “would not object” to companies utilizing blockchain-based recordkeeping under the new rules.

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US Treasury yields hit a 19-year high on Thursday, pressuring risk assets as Bitcoin held near $84,000 and ONDO became top performer among altcoins.

Bitcoin (BTC) had a volatile Thursday during US hours as the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note climbed to its highest level in nearly two decades. After briefly falling below $83,000, BTC struggled to reclaim $84,500. Ondo Finance (ONDO), meanwhile, was among the top-performing altcoins.

Key points:&

The US 10-year Treasury yield rose more than 4 basis points to 5.18% on Thursday, its highest level since July 2007, according to TradingView data. The 30-year yield hit 5.46%, reclaiming 2004 highs.

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DoubleZero launched a dedicated fiber market data feed for Hyperliquid, giving professional trading firms faster access to its full order book.

DoubleZero has launched a dedicated market data feed for Hyperliquid, giving professional trading firms access to the decentralized exchange’s full order book over fiber rather than through its public APIs.

The feed includes Hyperliquid’s native perpetual futures and markets operated by trade[XYZ], which uses Hyperliquid’s infrastructure to offer perpetual contracts tied to assets including oil, gold and silver. The Hyperliquid feed was developed with validator operators and ecosystem partners including Hyperion DeFi, MAVAN and Kinetiq.

DoubleZero said the service delivers a continuous, ordered stream of market data for market makers, quantitative trading firms, and proprietary trading firms that need faster, more consistent order book updates.

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Most DATs now trade below the value of their crypto holdings, weakening a financing model that once helped companies expand their balance sheets.

The crypto treasury model has largely lost its early advantage, with most digital asset treasury (DAT) companies no longer commanding the premiums that allowed them to raise capital and accumulate more crypto without diluting existing shareholders, according to a new report from DWF Ventures.

The report, published Thursday, found that only four of the 20 largest DATs by assets under management trade above an mNAV of 1, meaning their market value exceeds the value of their crypto holdings. They are Bit Digital, Strive, Hyperliquid Strategies and BitMine.

The widespread discounts suggest investors are no longer willing to pay the same premium for crypto exposure through publicly traded companies.

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The France-based semiconductor company has fully unwound a Bitcoin treasury that once held more than 3,200 BTC as more firms scale back crypto holdings.

Sequans Communications has sold its remaining 314 Bitcoin, completing its exit from a Bitcoin treasury strategy that once saw the semiconductor company hold more than 3,200 BTC.

On Thursday, the French semiconductor company said the exit follows the redemption of its convertible debt in May and will allow it to refocus on its core cellular internet-of-things (IoT) and software-defined radio businesses.

CEO Georges Karam said the company used Bitcoin sales to eliminate its convertible debt and strengthen its balance sheet, leaving Sequans with no cryptocurrency holdings and no outstanding debt beyond government-financed research and development obligations.

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SoFi dives deeper into payments as it moves its entire card program to blockchain-based settlement using its SoFiUSD stablecoin, with more than $25 billion in expected annualized volume.

Stablecoins are increasingly being used to settle payments behind existing card networks, allowing money to move around the clock without changing how consumers pay.

But rather than cutting Visa, Mastercard or banks out of the process, the technology is beginning to replace a narrower piece of the payments stack: the traditional banking rails used to settle obligations between participants.

That shift was in focus this week when SoFi began settling debit and credit card transactions with Mastercard using its SoFiUSD stablecoin. The bank said it is migrating its entire card program, which it expects to process more than $25 billion in annualized volume, to the system.

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The action filed by state lawmakers followed a similar lawsuit against prediction markets company Kalshi in July that alleged the platform was running an illegal gambling operation.

New York Attorney General Letitia James is suing prediction markets platform Polymarket for offering contracts related to sporting events.

On Thursday, New York state officials filed a lawsuit against Polymarket, alleging that the company’s prediction market event contracts violated state gambling laws. The lawsuit followed a similar action against Kalshi in July and litigation against prediction market platforms run by Coinbase and Gemini in April.&

Thursday’s filing cited Polymarket’s sporting event contracts on its mobile app launched in December 2025, including its advertising practices to New Yorkers. According to the filing, state officials could also seek to block the platform to residents.

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IBM’s beta link lets banks instruct tokenized deposit transfers on Swift’s ledger using existing payment messages and compliance processes.

IBM has added beta connectivity to Swift’s blockchain-based ledger for tokenized deposits and a beta option for banks to run IBM’s digital asset platform in their own data centers.

IBM on Thursday announced the two additions to its Digital Asset Haven platform. Financial institutions participating in Swift’s program have tested tokenized deposits on the ledger using the platform, IBM said.

Digital Asset Haven, IBM’s platform for banks and other regulated institutions to manage and secure digital assets, now includes a messaging adapter that lets institutions instruct tokenized deposit transactions using ISO 20022, the global standard for financial messaging. IBM said banks can use existing payment formats and compliance processes instead of building blockchain-specific workflows.

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Rachel Conlan will oversee institutional partnerships and ecosystem growth, while Jamal Raees will focus on stablecoins and tokenized deposits, following a wave of new partnerships.

Solana Foundation has appointed former Binance chief marketing officer Rachel Conlan as chief strategy officer and former Polygon Labs executive Jamal Raees as general manager of payments.

Conlan will lead strategy across institutional partnerships, ecosystem growth and efforts to bring businesses onto Solana, the foundation said Thursday. She spent three years at Binance and previously held senior roles at OKX, CAA Sports and Havas.

Raees said he would deepen the foundation’s engagement with major payments companies and focus on infrastructure used by teams building payment services on Solana.

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HIFI CEO Zach Walsh told Cointelegraph the $37 million Series A is the company’s first priced funding round, though HIFI did not disclose its valuation.

Stablecoin infrastructure company HIFI has raised $37 million in a Series A funding round led by Left Lane Capital as the use of stablecoins for payments and cross-border transfers continues to grow despite weakness in the broader crypto market.

Cross-border stablecoin flows rose 77.5% to $220.3 billion in the 12 months ending June 2026, even as the wider crypto market shrank by more than a third over the same period, according to Chainalysis.

HIFI CEO Zach Walsh told Cointelegraph that the Series A is the company’s first priced funding round. The company did not disclose its valuation. “HIFI is processing approximately $7 billion in annualized volume directly through its platform,” Walsh said.

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Bybit’s global campaign positions it as a broader financial platform, though its stock, gold and forex derivatives were already available.

The era of the “pure crypto exchange” is ending as customers seek stocks, gold and payments alongside digital assets, Bybit co-founder and CEO Ben Zhou told Cointelegraph on Thursday.

“The people who trade crypto also want stocks, gold, forex, indices, and derivatives,” Zhou said. “They want to pay, save, and grow their wealth in the same place.”

His comments accompanied Bybit’s launch of “Make Your Move,” a campaign positioning the exchange as a broader financial platform. Bybit already offers derivatives tied to stocks, gold and indexes, as well as forex. Those products provide price exposure without ownership of the underlying assets.

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The EBA outlined potential rules for crypto lending and firms providing access to DeFi protocols as part of the European Commission’s MiCA review.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) has called for crypto lending to be brought under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework as regulators consider potential changes to MiCA.&

In a response to the European Commission’s (EC) targeted consultation on MiCA, the EBA said crypto borrowing and lending should be regulated, including where crypto asset service providers facilitate access to decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols.

The regulator recommended that the EC conduct a cost-benefit analysis of legislative changes that could add intermediating crypto borrowing and lending to the list of services regulated under MiCA, potentially adding specific compliance requirements and oversight activity. It also suggested requirements for crypto firms that provide clients access to DeFi lending protocols.

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Bitcoin traded near $83,200 as Fed hike odds reached about 75% and Treasury prepared a $6 billion buyback of long-dated bonds.

Key points

Bitcoin fell below $84,000 during Asian trading hours on Thursday, slipping to $83,200 after the US 10-year Treasury yield climbed to its highest level since 2007.

The 10-year yield closed Wednesday at 5.11%, up from 4.96% Tuesday, and reached 5.13% intraday. CME attributed the bond selloff partly to stronger US business data and rising oil prices.

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US spot Bitcoin ETF inflows slowed to $347 million on Wednesday as Bitcoin fell below $84,000, while five-day inflows reached $2.65 billion.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) drew about $347 million in net inflows on Wednesday, extending their positive streak to five trading days even as Bitcoin fell below $84,000 after briefly trading above $87,000.

The funds have drawn about $2.65 billion over the five sessions through Wednesday, according to SoSoValue data. Wednesday’s tally was down from $714.75 million on Tuesday and a 2026 high of $998.95 million on Monday.

The funds have attracted $2.37 billion so far in September, offsetting earlier outflows and lifting year-to-date inflows to about $596 million.

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Every institution interviewed that owned crypto held Bitcoin, usually as its largest asset; some set exit conditions for Ether and Solana.

None of the 15 institutions interviewed by asset manager Bitwise cut their crypto allocations during a roughly 50% market drawdown, while several bought more.

Every institution in the group that owned crypto held Bitcoin (BTC), usually as its largest and longest-held position, while Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) were smaller bets with shorter investment horizons and conditions for selling.

Bitwise’s Institutional Crypto Adoption Report draws on interviews conducted in late March and April amid a market decline that began in October 2025. The interviews included investment professionals at endowments, foundations, public pensions, sovereign wealth funds, multi-family offices, investment consultants and public companies.

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OpenAI notified Australia nearly three months after its agent breached a government portal while gathering public medicine-spending data.

[Update, 10:45 UTC, Sept. 24: This article was updated with OpenAI’s account of when it learned of the June activity, how it notified Australian authorities and what information its models accessed.]

An OpenAI research agent bypassed blocks on an Australian government health data portal, accessed non-public files and wrote files to an internal server in June, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Wednesday.

The government has opened a forensic investigation and announced a review of how it handles AI-related cyber incidents.

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A weeklong optimization challenge cut the estimated GPU cost of preparing an experimental quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction to under $67, potentially making the “last-resort measure” a little easier on the wallet.

The estimated computational cost to prepare a quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction has fallen below $67 after a week of optimization, down from the roughly $320 spent on the first such mainnet transaction in August, according to StarkWare.&

The results came after participants in the Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Optimization Challenge found ways to push down the GPU computation needed to build a quantum-safe Bitcoin transaction.&

The reduction could make the experimental defense (which doesn’t require changes to the network’s consensus rules) against future quantum attacks more practical for Bitcoin holders. However, the latest optimizations have only been demonstrated in benchmark tests.&

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The reported initiative could involve private-sector companies and several US agencies as Washington looks to expand the international use of dollar-backed stablecoins.

The Trump administration is reportedly considering an initiative to promote the use of dollar-backed stablecoins overseas as part of an effort to reinforce the US dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency.&

Citing people familiar with the plans, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the US government could support stablecoin projects by creating joint ventures with private-sector firms. The effort could involve several federal agencies, including the Treasury Department, State Department and the US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC).

The initiative would seek to expand the international use of dollar-denominated stablecoins while potentially boosting demand for US Treasurys, a common reserve asset for dollar-backed stablecoins.

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Kalshi said nearly $5 billion in similarly sized Ether perpetual trades reflected its liquidity incentive programs and rejected allegations that the activity was wash trading.

Prediction markets operator Kalshi said it has not been contacted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and does not believe there is any formal examination, after a report that the regulator was reviewing a flurry of trading activity in its Ether perpetual futures market.&

On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the CFTC is examining a pattern of rapid trades clustered around $5,500, citing a person familiar with the matter. The trading pattern has prompted allegations of wash trading.&

The scrutiny comes as Kalshi has reported rapid growth in its perpetual futures business. A week after launching its perpetual futures markets in May, the company told CNBC that trading volume had surpassed $1 billion.

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SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said that the agency dropped many cases against crypto companies in early 2025 to avoid potential credibility problems in court.

Mark Uyeda, who served as acting chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before Paul Atkins’s confirmation, said the agency dropped civil cases against cryptocurrency companies filed under the previous administration because it was preparing a “180-degree change” in rulemaking.

In a Wednesday panel at the Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy’s Financial Markets Quality Conference, Uyeda said the SEC dropped cases involving crypto companies in early 2025 as it could have hurt the agency’s credibility in arguing positions in court contrary to its planned policy changes. Uyeda argued that there had been “significant concerns” that the cases against crypto companies were “justifiable under law.”

“I’m not about to have our litigators, even though they’re having cases that were authorized under the prior administration, stand up in court and have a commission interpretation be issued that is a 180-degree change from what they’d been arguing for that court,” said the commissioner. “I think that hurts [our] credibility as an agency.”

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The crypto executive and Dystopia Labs founder previously held senior roles at Stellar and Solana before joining venture capital firm Hack VC.

Hsin-Ju Chuang, a former partner at crypto venture firm Hack VC, has died at age 37, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff-Coroner.

California Highway Patrol officers responded to southbound Interstate 15 south of Field Road on Aug. 24, where Chuang was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities have not publicly disclosed a cause of death. Cointelegraph contacted the California Highway Patrol for additional information but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Chuang founded Dystopia Labs and previously served as head of growth at Stellar and Solana. She joined Hack VC as a venture partner in 2021 before becoming partner and head of platform in 2025.

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The case between New Jersey authorities and a prediction market company, if accepted by the Supreme Court, could result in clarity for state and federal officials over sports bets.

A group of US state lawmakers has filed an amicus brief with the US Supreme Court, urging justices to weigh in on a case between prediction markets platform Kalshi and gaming authorities.&

On Tuesday, the National Council of Legislators from Gaming States (NCLGS) filed in the US Supreme Court, supporting New Jersey’s Attorney General and gaming authorities’ petition for a writ of certiorari. The petition, filed on Sept. 2, asked the nation’s highest court to consider New Jersey’s case against Kalshi, potentially resolving whether state authorities or federal agencies have jurisdiction over prediction market companies.

In its amicus curiae filing supporting New Jersey’s position, the NCLGS argued that a ruling favoring Kalshi would “[render] states powerless” to regulate sports betting on prediction markets, causing “substantial harm and confusion.” According to the group, “gaming-related matters” should be left to individual US state authorities, though the filing did not address the competing argument that event contracts traded on federally regulated markets fall under the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction.

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President Donald Trump disclosed a July purchase of Strategy shares as his administration continues to advance crypto policy through federal regulators and Congress.

President Donald Trump disclosed purchasing $50,001 to $100,000 worth of Strategy shares in July, according to a US Office of Government Ethics filing released Tuesday.

The filing shows Trump bought $50,001 to $100,000 worth of Strategy shares on July 27, following a smaller $1,001 to $15,000 purchase three days earlier. Strategy is the world’s largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holder, with 846,000 BTC, according to BitcoinTreasuries.net data.

Trump also disclosed transactions involving several other crypto-linked companies, including a Coinbase stock purchase and sales of Bitcoin miners MARA Holdings and CleanSpark in July. The July 27 Strategy purchase was the largest of the crypto-linked transactions identified in the filing.

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The survey released by Visa posited that bank-like protections for stablecoins could increase adoption in the US as companies are preparing for the enactment of the GENIUS Act.

Visa released the results of a survey signaling that bank-level fraud protection and insurance could drive adoption in stablecoins for cross-border transactions among US users.

In a survey of 2,192 US-based customers published on Wednesday, Visa said that the “adoption intention” of stablecoins among US users could climb from 36% to 56% “in a hypothetical scenario with bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance.” The findings from a survey by Morning Consult between February and March showed that Americans who were asked about financial terms like stablecoins were looking for faster and cheaper methods to send money abroad.

“Nearly two-thirds (64%) [of respondents] say trust depends more on who offers a payment method than on the tech itself,” said Visa. “Willingness to use stablecoins rises from 36% to 45% when offered through an existing financial provider.”

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The product gives European investors brokerage access to the LIT token as Bitwise expands its lineup of products tied to decentralized derivatives platforms.

Bitwise Asset Management has launched an exchange-traded product (ETP) in Europe tracking Lighter, giving traditional investors a way to bet on one of Hyperliquid’s emerging rivals without buying its token directly.

On Wednesday, Bitwise said its Bitwise Lighter Staking ETP (BLIT) had launched on Deutsche Börse Xetra, making it the first exchange-traded product tracking LIT, the native token of decentralized derivatives platform Lighter.

The product is fully backed by LIT held in cold storage and carries a 0.85% annual expense ratio. European investors can buy the ETP through a regular brokerage account without buying or holding LIT directly.

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Blockchain.com users could gain access to tokenized US stocks and ETFs through NYSE’s planned digital trading platform under a new partnership, as bourses rush to deliver new trading.

Blockchain.com and the New York Stock Exchange have signed a memorandum of understanding to give Blockchain.com users access to tokenized US-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds through NYSE’s planned digital trading platform.

Under the proposed arrangement, Blockchain.com would distribute tokenized US equities and ETFs traded on NYSE’s digital alternative trading system (ATS), subject to regulatory approval. The deal would extend NYSE’s planned tokenized securities offering to Blockchain.com’s global customer base.

The agreement also covers an exchange of market data. NYSE affiliate ICE Data Services plans to distribute Blockchain.com’s crypto market data and analytics to its clients, while Blockchain.com would add certain ICE and NYSE market data feeds to its platform.

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Bitcoin long liquidations mounted as BTC/USD briefly traded below $84,000, while analysis flagged key support to hold.

Bitcoin (BTC) was rejected near $87,000 on Wednesday as onchain data showed negative spot demand.

Key points:

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National regulators will map client-facing uses of the technologies, check a subset of firms and develop common approaches to oversight.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) will make AI and tokenization the initial focus of a new supervisory priority on digital innovation starting in 2027.

Across the European Union, supervisors will identify where tokenization is emerging and document how firms use or plan to use AI and tokenization in products and processes that directly affect investors. They will also conduct initial checks on a subset of the most affected firms.

ESMA said Wednesday that the priority is intended to help supervisors build expertise and develop common approaches as firms increasingly use AI and tokenized products in financial services.

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The SEC has opened a five-year path for tokenized stocks, but only some products and venues fit the model. Will Uniswap, Robinhood, Coinbase or Kraken come out on top?

“Tokenization is coming to America,” said Robinhood chief executive Vlad Tenev after the SEC announced its Innovation Exemption last week — and it seems the markets looked kindly on the development.

BTC and ETH soared over 10%, and Uniswap’s UNI token — a protocol that looks as it if could become prime real estate for tokenized stock trading — gained more than 30% in the days that followed.

While the Securities and Exchange Commission has indeed greenlit tokenized stocks in America, most of the existing stock tokens fall outside of the new rules.

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MoonPay’s North Capital acquisition adds US broker-dealer, trading and investment infrastructure as it expands into tokenized securities.

MoonPay, a crypto payments company, agreed to acquire private-markets infrastructure provider North Capital, expanding into regulated US securities infrastructure as it builds out services for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

The acquisition would allow MoonPay to expand into the issuance, custody and secondary trading of private securities, including tokenized securities, the company said in an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Wednesday.

MoonPay’s all-stock deal to acquire North Capital is worth more than $60 million, a person familiar with the matter told Cointelegraph. MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright said the acquisition would help the company connect parts of the financial system through “modern, programmable infrastructure.”

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Cross-border stablecoin transfers surged as the wider crypto market shrank 37%, with Chainalysis pointing to growing use for trade, remittances and savings.

Crypto’s downturn over the last year has done little to slow stablecoins at the border, with cross-border stablecoin flows rising 77.5% in the year to June 2026 as the broader market lost more than a third of its value, according to new research from Chainalysis.&

In its newly released 2026 Global Crypto Adoption Index, Chainalysis said cross-border stablecoin flows rose 77.5% to $220.3 billion in the 12 months ending June 2026, from $124.2 billion in the previous 12-month period, despite total crypto market capitalization falling 37% to $2.1 trillion over the same period.&

“The bear market hit the price-sensitive half of crypto and left the payments half alone,” Chainalysis said.

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EU supervisors warn quantum computing could weaken blockchain security as Bitcoin developers weigh a draft migration plan and Ethereum targets 2029.

European Union financial supervisors warned Wednesday that advances in quantum computing could threaten the cryptography securing blockchains.

The European Banking Authority, European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority and European Securities and Markets Authority said in a joint risk update that quantum computing could undermine systems used to secure transactions, communications and databases.

The warning follows a more detailed assessment from Google Quantum AI. In March, its researchers estimated that breaking the cryptography used by many cryptocurrencies could require about 20 times fewer physical qubits than earlier estimates. A qubit is the basic unit of a quantum computer.

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Michael Selig said tokenization could reshape financial markets as the CFTC and SEC continue advancing onchain initiatives despite the CLARITY Act setback.

US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Michael Selig said financial markets should prepare for “mass tokenization” as regulators adapt existing frameworks for blockchain, artificial intelligence and onchain markets.

In remarks delivered Tuesday at the US Treasury Market Conference, Selig said tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) could become the foundation of a more efficient financial system, enabling near-instant settlement and real-time collateral movement between clearinghouses, intermediaries and users.& &

“Just as the transition from hand signals to electronic trading advanced our financial system, I believe tokenization can do the same for all asset classes,” Selig said, adding that the CFTC would pursue principles-based rules as tokenization and onchain finance evolve.

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BTC price analysis concluded that onchain signals had “confirmed” the new Bitcoin bull market.

Bitcoin (BTC) faces its “next real test” at $90,000 as traders continue to return to unrealized profit.

Key points:

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Bitpanda will provide crypto infrastructure to Raiffeisen network banks, potentially extending digital asset access to about 18 million customers.

Update (Sept. 23, 2:20 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include comments from an RBI spokesperson on the planned rollout, from the sixth paragraph.

Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI), an Austrian banking group with operations across Central and Eastern Europe, is expanding its cryptocurrency push through a group-wide partnership with Bitpanda.

Bitpanda Enterprise will provide the digital asset infrastructure that RBI’s network banks can use to introduce crypto services, potentially reaching about 18 million customers, according to a joint announcement on Wednesday. Individual banks will determine their offerings and rollout based on local market and regulatory requirements, the companies said.

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BitMEX officially ended exchange operations after more than 11 years, while withdrawals remain open as the crypto derivatives platform urges users to remove their funds.

BitMEX ended all exchange operations at 4:00 UTC on Wednesday, two months after the crypto derivatives exchange announced plans to shut down after more than 11 years of operations.

The platform no longer allows trading or deposits, but users can still log in and withdraw remaining balances through its website, BitMEX announced in an X post on Wednesday.

As part of its gradual phaseout, BitMEX will disable application programming interface (API) withdrawals on Sept. 28, requiring users to process withdrawals through the web platform.

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The proposed NU7 change would disable version 4 transactions, leaving ZEC in Zcash’s legacy Sprout shielded pool unspendable.

Zcash users holding ZEC in the network’s legacy Sprout shielded pool should move it before the planned NU7 upgrade or risk losing the ability to spend it.

Under Zcash Improvement Proposal-2003, NU7 would stop accepting the older transaction format that allows users to spend Sprout funds. ZEC left in the pool would become unspendable after the upgrade.

The proposal would not burn Sprout funds and leaves open the possibility of restoring access later. However, it warns that holders may never be able to spend funds left in the pool.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded more than $1.7 billion in net inflows over two days as Bitcoin rose above investors’ estimated average cost basis.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded more than $1.7 billion in net inflows over two days as Bitcoin traded above the estimated cost basis of the average ETF investor.

The funds had $715 million in net inflows on Tuesday, following a 2026 high of $999 million on Monday, according to SoSoValue data.

Total net assets across US spot Bitcoin ETFs reached around $111 billion on Tuesday, up 56% from their 2026 low of roughly $71 billion on June 30. The total remains about 13% below the 2026 high of $128 billion recorded on Jan. 14.

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US President Donald Trump previously tapped David Sacks as his AI and crypto czar before Sacks stepped down from the role earlier this year after reaching his service limit as a special government employee.

Update (Sept. 24 at 1:05 am UTC): This article has been updated with a response from a US Treasury spokesperson.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is reportedly being considered as US President Donald Trump’s next artificial intelligence czar, days after Trump announced plans for an “AI Force” amid mounting concerns about the technology’s risks.

Bessent is a frontrunner for the position, three sources familiar with the matter told Semafor. Other candidates include the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios and Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, a former managing partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross.

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SlowMist said malicious FomoPeek versions distributed through Apple’s App Store used iOS kernel exploits to escape the sandbox and access sensitive data from other apps.

[Update 09:15 UTC, Sept. 23: This article was updated with comments from SlowMist on how FomoPeek operated, what its researchers verified and its advice for people who installed affected versions.]

A malicious iOS app distributed through Apple’s App Store has been linked to nearly $580,000 in stolen crypto after researchers found it contained multiple kernel exploits capable of escaping Apple’s sandbox and accessing sensitive wallet data.

According to an investigation published by blockchain security firm SlowMist, the app, called FomoPeek, introduced two malicious modules that could exploit iOS vulnerabilities, gain elevated privileges and access Keychain data and files belonging to other apps.&

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BlackRock says AI agents could drive demand for stablecoins and programmable payment rails, while tokenized computing capacity could create another opportunity for digital assets.

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, says broad AI adoption could represent an underappreciated source of demand for digital assets.&

In its latest research paper, “The Machine-Native Economy,” BlackRock said the rise of AI and machine-to-machine payments could increase demand for blockchains and other programmable payment infrastructure, including stablecoins and other on-chain assets. It also sees a potential opportunity for digital assets to support the compute market, allowing claims on computing capacity to be tokenized, traded and used as collateral.&

“Together, these developments position AI as a structural catalyst for digital asset adoption and digital assets as a potential facilitator of the AI economy,” BlackRock’s Will Su, Robert Mitchnick, Jay Jacobs and William Helm wrote. “This relationship remains underappreciated and could expand the role of digital assets as core infrastructure for an increasingly autonomous digital economy.”

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are expected to brief the UN Security Council as it examines AI risks and global security.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are expected to brief the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday as the body examines artificial intelligence risks and their implications for international security.&

According to CNBC, the UN confirmed Altman and Amodei’s participation. Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue and Yoshua Bengio, co-chair of the UN’s Independent International Scientific Panel on AI, are also expected to take part.

Reuters reported that the Security Council meeting will examine growing concerns over AI’s impact on international security. Chinese AI companies DeepSeek and Moonshot have been invited to make statements at the meeting, according to Reuters. DeepSeek is expected to participate, though its founder Liang Wenfeng does not plan to attend, the report said, citing a source familiar with the matter.

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The warning comes weeks after the CFTC fined a former White House teleprompter operator who made more than $107,000 trading prediction contracts tied to President Trump’s speeches.

The top US derivatives regulator has warned that prediction market contracts tied to what a person says or does carry a heightened risk of manipulation, putting exchanges on notice as the industry faces increasing scrutiny over market integrity.&

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Division of Market Oversight on Tuesday said it issued an advisory to some of its regulated entities, advising that there are only “limited circumstances” in which “mention markets” — event contracts based on whether an individual will say certain words, attend or appear at an event or interact with another person — can be listed consistently with the Commodity Exchange Act.&

“These contract types present a heightened risk of manipulation because their settlement turns on the discrete conduct of a person that may be neither independently generated nor externally verifiable,” the regulator said.&

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Arch Lending’s Himanshu Sahay said on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction podcast that the lender plans to move into tokenized equities as onchain stocks gain traction as collateral.

Crypto lender Arch Lending plans to expand into loans backed by tokenized equities as the market for onchain stocks expands and lenders begin exploring new uses for the assets as collateral.

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Many Democrats have previously called for investigations into the Trump family’s crypto ventures, but now a Republican is asking for an inquiry based on ties to the presidency.

Senator John Curtis, a Republican representing Utah, sent a letter to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee calling for an investigation into US President Donald Trump’s and former President Joe Biden’s sons, citing the former’s involvement in the crypto industry.

In a Monday letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley and ranking member Dick Durbin, Curtis said that the body should probe “the use of presidential family relationships for private financial benefit, preferential treatment, or access by domestic and foreign interest.”& He also asked for subpoenas for Donald Trump Jr. and Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son.

The Utah lawmaker specifically called out Donald Trump Jr. for accepting gifts from Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev as part of his wedding, his “active promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency ventures” and advisory roles with prediction market platforms, as the companies are under the regulatory purview of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.& The president said last week that his son had paid Kremlev back for what Donald Trump Jr. and his wife called a “generous wedding gift.“

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The country’s largest financial institutions are exploring tokenized deposits for interbank payments, just weeks after regulators clarified how they should be treated.

Canada’s six largest banks are jointly exploring a system for tokenized Canadian dollar deposits that would allow digital representations of bank deposits to move between financial institutions.

The initiative involves Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank and TD Bank Group,& according to a joint announcement from the banks on Tuesday.& The first phase will focus on moving tokenized deposits between Canadian financial institutions before potentially connecting with other digital asset systems.

The project comes less than two weeks after Canada’s banking regulator provided additional clarity on the legal permissibility of tokenized deposits for financial institutions.

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21shares listed physically backed ZEC and ETHFI products on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam, as issuers broaden their offerings beyond major cryptocurrencies.

European asset manager 21shares has launched the region’s first exchange-traded product tied to Zcash, extending the privacy coin’s reach into regulated markets following its strong performance over the past year.

On Tuesday, 21shares listed its physically backed Zcash ETP on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam, allowing investors to gain exposure to ZEC through brokerage accounts without holding the cryptocurrency directly.

The asset manager also introduced an ETP tracking ETHFI, the governance and utility token of Ether.fi, a decentralized finance protocol that offers staking and other crypto-based financial services. The ETHFI product is physically backed and trades on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam.

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Bitcoin price action avoided a significant drop below $86,000 as US president Donald Trump pledged a deal with Iran after November’s midterm election.

Bitcoin (BTC) fluctuated around $86,000 on Tuesday as crude-oil prices hit their lowest levels in nearly three weeks.

Key points:

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Control of the US House and Senate is up for grabs in 2026, and some advocates speculate that the crypto industry could ratchet up attempts to sway elections after the CLARITY vote.

Last week’s US Senate failure to advance a digital asset market structure bill could light a fire under cryptocurrency industry groups seeking to sway key congressional races in the 2026 US midterm election that‘s just 42 days away.

Senators on Sept. 15 voted 49 in favor and 50 against advancing the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, significantly reducing the chances of Congress passing the legislation with limited days in session before 2027.

While some crypto advocates haven’t ruled out the possibility of CLARITY coming up for another vote before the next session of Congress, at least one of the industry’s political action committees (PACs) isn’t taking any chances.

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Researchers can trace an estimated 1.1 million BTC to a distinctive early mining operation. The harder question is whether that miner was actually Satoshi.

One of the first things anyone learns about Bitcoin is that it has a pseudonymous creator — and they’re a billionaire multiple times over.

Nearly 1.1 million BTC is widely attributed to Satoshi Nakamoto, but it’s a number that rests on a forensic trail identifying a mining operation, not a person. The estimate also varies by more than 200,000 Bitcoin depending on how strictly a certain “fingerprint” test is applied.

When 600 BTC mined in 2010 suddenly moved after 16 years, triggering speculation that “Satoshi’s coins” had awoken, that distinction became more important.

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The ECB and EU central banks want to replace MiCA’s stablecoin bank-deposit requirements with liquidity thresholds, warning that sudden withdrawals could strain lenders.

[Updated 15:33 UTC, Sept. 22 with comment from Tether CEO Paulo Ardoino in final paragraph.]

The European Central Bank (ECB) and EU central banks want to replace mandatory bank-deposit thresholds for stablecoin reserves with new liquidity requirements, arguing that large stablecoin deposits could create liquidity risks for banks.

The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) called for removing rules requiring at least 30% of reserves, or 60% for significant stablecoins, to be held as bank deposits. The proposal came in the ESCB’s response, published Tuesday, to the European Commission’s review of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

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Circle sold Binance $100 million in stock and agreed to pay monthly incentives under an expanded five-year partnership promoting USDC.

Binance has invested $100 million in stablecoin issuer Circle as part of an expanded five-year agreement to promote USDC on the crypto exchange.

Circle issued Binance 1,237,011 shares of its Class A common stock at $80.84 per share in a private placement on Sept. 17, according to a Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The purchase price reflected a discount to Circle’s market price before the transaction closed.

New York Stock Exchange-traded CRCL shares were up more than 1.3% in Tuesday’s premarket activity after closing Monday at $94.29 apiece, according to Yahoo Finance data.

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The ECB aims to gain firsthand DLT market experience by buying tokenized public-sector securities and settling the trades through Pontes.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is preparing to invest a “small portion” of its own funds in tokenized public-sector securities.

The purchases will be settled in central bank money through Pontes, the Eurosystem’s settlement system for distributed ledger technology-based transactions launched Monday.

The ECB said in a separate announcement Monday that the initiative will give it firsthand experience across the full investment lifecycle, including trade execution, settlement, systems and portfolio management.&

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Glassnode’s Altcoin Cycle Signal printed a new altseason signal after a month of Bitcoin and altcoin market-cap gains.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) rise to $86,000 this week has dragged altcoin markets higher as the industry’s market cap reclaimed $3 trillion.

Key points:

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Bitcoin traded near $86,000 as major altcoins gained, while rising derivatives leverage pointed to growing speculative activity across crypto markets.

The cryptocurrency market cap briefly climbed back above $3 trillion earlier on Tuesday as Bitcoin and the biggest altcoins extended a broad rally, while increasing leverage pointed to growing speculative activity.&

Bitcoin (BTC) traded around $86,000, up about 4.5% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Ether (ETH) gained about 2.3% to $2,745, while XRP rose 5.7% to $1.53 and Solana (SOL) advanced 3.6% to $117. BNB gained 1.6%, while Dogecoin (DOGE) was among the stronger large-cap performers, rising about 11%.

The total crypto market cap stood just below $3 trillion at the time of writing, up about 4.3% over the previous day.&

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White hats secured about 40% of the Bitcoin moved in the Coldcard exploit’s second wave, transferring it to a Wyoming trust for victims.

White hats have transferred Bitcoin they rescued from wallets exposed by a Coldcard vulnerability to a trust set up to return the funds to victims.

A total of 52.37 Bitcoin was moved to an address controlled by Wyoming-based Crypto Recovery Trust, Galaxy Digital head of research Alex Thorn said in an X post on Monday. About 40% of the Bitcoin associated with the second wave was swept by white hats to protect victims’ funds.

Thorn said 3.0134 BTC included in the transfer came from addresses Galaxy had not previously tracked. He said the funds were presumably also rescued from wallets affected by the Coldcard flaw, but that Galaxy could not confirm their origin.

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Solstice CEO Ben Nadareski says deeper liquidity and growing institutional participation could make future crypto bull runs less volatile than previous cycles.

Ben Nadareski, CEO of Solana-based decentralized finance platform Solstice, said crypto markets are unlikely to return to the extreme boom-and-bust cycles as deeper liquidity brings stability to digital assets.

Speaking on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction show, Nadareski said liquidity across major crypto trading pairs has increased significantly, even during bear markets, reducing the conditions that produced sharp price swings seen in previous cycles.

He added that crypto is increasingly a market for institutional capital and household wealth rather than speculative trading.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs drew nearly $1 billion on Monday, their largest daily inflow since October 2025, as Bitcoin briefly climbed above $87,000.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) drew nearly $1 billion in net inflows on Monday, their biggest daily haul of 2026.

The funds recorded $998.9 million in daily net inflows, surpassing the previous 2026 high of $844 million on Jan. 14, according to SoSoValue data.

Monday’s total also marked the largest daily inflow since Oct. 6, 2025, when US spot Bitcoin ETFs attracted more than $1.2 billion. Despite the surge, US spot Bitcoin ETFs have posted about $464 million in net outflows so far in 2026.

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Animoca Brands suspended its reverse merger talks with Currenc but said it remains committed to pursuing a listing on a major exchange.

Animoca Brands has suspended plans to take the company public through a reverse merger with Nasdaq-listed Currenc Group.

Both parties mutually agreed on the decision after reviewing market conditions and the deal’s projected closing timelines, Animoca announced Tuesday.

Under the proposed transaction, Currenc would have acquired Animoca, with Animoca shareholders owning 95% of the combined Nasdaq-listed company.

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Treasury named AI among five major transitions expected to reshape Australia’s economy, while Coinbase says the report overlooks the digital financial infrastructure AI agents could eventually need.

Australia’s new 40-year economic outlook has identified artificial intelligence as one of five major transitions expected to have a profound effect on the economy, while leaving out any mention of crypto.&

The latest Intergenerational Report, published on Monday by the Australian Treasury, described agentic AI systems as having become “significantly” more capable, autonomous and widely used — surpassing human-level performance on some benchmarks. The other major transitions are geopolitical conflicts, an aging population, a shift to clean energy and Australia’s industrial transformation toward services.

“The Intergenerational Report makes it clear that Australia’s prosperity over the next 40 years will depend heavily on our ability to adopt new technology and lift productivity,” Coinbase Australia country director John O’Loghlen said in emailed comments. “And while the report focuses heavily on artificial intelligence, it completely misses the financial infrastructure those agents will need.”

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Trueo said Base was the right choice when it launched, as Ethereum gas fees were higher, but said mainnet now offers greater integration potential.

Prediction market platform Trueo plans to migrate from Base to Ethereum, citing broader integration opportunities and plans to build the next iteration of its oracle system.

The project, which launched on Base in March 2025, said its priority after the migration will be attracting liquidity and launching the next generation of its oracle, the system used to verify real-world outcomes that are used to resolve prediction markets.

Trueo said it chose to move from Base to Ethereum because it offered higher integration potential and product upside, while on Base, integrations are limited to the immediate ecosystem.

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Kakao Pay and KakaoBank are exploring digital asset opportunities with Fireblocks, including infrastructure for stablecoins.

South Korean financial companies Kakao Pay and KakaoBank have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with crypto infrastructure provider Fireblocks to explore digital asset opportunities, including stablecoins.&

Under the agreement, the companies will conduct proof-of-concept tests for digital asset infrastructure suited to South Korea’s regulatory, security and service requirements. The initiative aims to help establish secure onchain infrastructure for the country’s emerging digital asset market.&

The announcement on Monday did not include a launch, investment or implementation timeline.&

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The investigation is reportedly examining whether Binance knowingly allowed trading that violated US sanctions on Iran, months after reports first revealed a Justice Department probe.

The Manhattan US Attorney’s Office is investigating whether Binance knowingly allowed trading that violated US sanctions on Iran, Bloomberg reported Tuesday, providing new details about a Justice Department investigation first reported in March.

The Justice Department’s Criminal Division in Washington is also involved in the investigation, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

Asked for comment, a Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph: “We maintain a zero-tolerance policy for sanctions violations. We fully cooperate with law enforcement, and we remain committed to rooting out and shutting down bad actors.”

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Saudi Arabia has left mBridge, a cross-border CBDC platform that has drawn scrutiny from US policymakers, according to the Financial Times.

Saudi Arabia has withdrawn from mBridge, a China-backed cross-border digital currency project designed to enable direct transactions between central banks, according to the Financial Times.

SAMA, Saudi Arabia’s central bank, joined mBridge as a full participant in June 2024 and ended its participation after completing a proof of concept on May 13, 2025, FT reported, citing a statement from the central bank. SAMA said it had planned to end its participation.

MBridge was established in 2021 through a collaboration between the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Hub and the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates, with the aim of making cross-border payments faster and cheaper.

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Ondo’s new in-kind conversion system allows approved institutions to mint and redeem tokenized stocks and ETFs using the underlying securities instead of cash.

Ondo Finance has introduced a way for eligible institutions to convert stocks and exchange-traded funds directly into their tokenized equivalents, or redeem the tokens for the underlying shares.

Under the new system, approved institutions can transfer shares from their Alpaca accounts to Ondo through an internal book transfer, with corresponding Ondo Stocks tokens then issued onchain. The process also works in reverse, allowing institutions to redeem the tokens for the underlying shares.

The in-kind option adds to Ondo’s existing cash-funded model. Under that system, an institution that already holds the underlying shares must still provide separate cash to mint the corresponding tokens.

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The digital asset-aligned PAC joined other groups to spend more than a combined $300 million in the 2024 Ohio Senate race, resulting in Sherrod Brown’s loss to Bernie Moreno.

Fairshake, the political action committee (PAC) funded largely by cryptocurrency companies Coinbase and Ripple Labs, plans to spend $30 million opposing Democrat Sherrod Brown’s bid to return to the US Senate.

In a statement to Cointelegraph, Fairshake spokesperson Geoff Vetter confirmed reporting by the New York Times that the PAC initially planned to spend $30 million opposing Brown’s 2026 election bid to represent Ohio in the Senate. Vetter said that the PAC expected to announce additional expenditures before the midterm elections on Nov. 3.

Fairshake spent about $41 million supporting Republican Bernie Moreno and opposing Brown in the Ohio lawmaker’s 2024 reelection bid. Brown, who had been the Senate Banking Committee chair when Democrats were in the majority, lost to Moreno by about four points in 2024 following more than $300 million in spending by Fairshake and other PACs.

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Circle is bringing Bitcoin-backed borrowing to institutional clients, allowing them to tap BTC holdings for USDC liquidity without selling their Bitcoin.

Stablecoin issuer Circle has launched a Bitcoin-backed borrowing service for institutional clients, allowing eligible Circle Mint customers to use BTC as collateral to borrow USDC through onchain lending markets.

The service, called Digital Asset-Backed Borrowing, lets customers deposit Bitcoin, mint Circle’s wrapped Bitcoin token cirBTC and supply it as collateral to supported third-party lending markets on Arc or Ethereum. Morpho is the first lending protocol supported, with Circle planning to add Aave and other protocols. The rollout coincides with cirBTC going live on Arc on Monday.

According to Circle,& borrowed USDC is deposited directly into the customer’s Circle Mint balance, while borrowing rates, collateral requirements and liquidation thresholds are set by the third-party lending market. The borrowing positions are overcollateralized, with collateral supplied through a customer-controlled wallet to third-party DeFi protocols rather than lent directly by Circle. New York clients are excluded.

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Bitcoin crossed the $86,000 mark for the first time since late January as falling oil prices and concerns over supply lifted US stocks.

Bitcoin (BTC) spiked above $86,000 after Monday’s Wall Street open as US stocks rose amid cooling oil prices.

Key points:

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Coinbase draws scrutiny after the CLARITY Act stalls, while the SEC moves ahead with tokenized stocks and crypto firms push deeper into payments.

The crypto industry spent much of the past two years preparing for regulatory clarity in Washington. This week, one of its biggest legislative priorities hit a major roadblock.

The CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate on Tuesday, falling short of the 60 votes needed to bring the bill to the floor for debate. The setback significantly narrows the bill’s path this year, with the Senate calendar tightening ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Strategists say crypto exchanges such as Coinbase may have more at stake than most from the stalled legislation.

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Multicoin Capital co-founder Samani expects SOL to surpass Ether’s market capitalization “this market cycle” and argues that “today, no one really uses Ethereum.”

Multicoin Capital co-founder Kyle Samani predicts more crypto companies will choose to build on Solana over Ethereum due to its ease of use and greater functionality.

Solana will flip Ether during “this market cycle,” Samani told Cointelegraph during an episode of Trade Secrets, predicting that Ethereum may gradually lose its edge as the default smart contract network choice for crypto companies.

Samani and Multicoin amassed a sizable early position in Solana and he has been one of its strongest proponents for years. His prediction would require a five-fold increase in SOL’s $58 billion market capitalization to surpass Ether’s current market cap of $293 billion.

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Strategy bought 950 Bitcoin for $75.7 million after a two-week pause and spent another $174 million repurchasing its STRC preferred stock.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy resumed buying Bitcoin after a two-week pause while continuing to repurchase its STRC preferred stock.

Strategy acquired 950 Bitcoin (BTC) for $75.7 million at an average price of $79,670 per coin between Monday and Sunday, according to a Form 8-K filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

The purchase brought Strategy’s holdings to 846,000 BTC, acquired for about $63.8 billion at an average cost of $75,416 per Bitcoin, including fees and expenses. With Bitcoin trading at $84,925 at the time of publication, Strategy was sitting on an unrealized gain of about $8.05 billion on its holdings.

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Pontes will expand its services and operating hours gradually, with full implementation expected by 2028 and more participants set to join.

The European Central Bank (ECB) launched Pontes, a system that allows financial institutions to settle wholesale tokenized asset transactions in central bank money, providing an alternative to private settlement assets such as stablecoins.

The ECB announced Pontes’ launch on Monday as part of the Eurosystem’s strategy for tokenized finance. The system initially offers a core set of services, with full implementation expected by 2028.

Tokenization represents assets as digital tokens, typically on distributed ledger technology (DLT) networks. The ECB said it could make wholesale transactions faster and more efficient by combining issuance, trading, settlement, custody and servicing on a single platform while enabling automation through smart contracts.

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Near expanded privacy features for traders as NEAR Intents recorded $29.3 billion in cumulative volume, including swaps involving Zcash.

Near Protocol’s native token surged nearly 80% over the past week, outpacing the wider crypto market as the network expanded its privacy-focused trading services.

On Monday, NEAR traded around $4.29, up about 78.2% over seven days and 22% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Total cryptocurrency market capitalization rose about 6% over the same seven-day period.

On Thursday, Near Protocol said deposits and withdrawals for perpetual futures trading through near.com were now confidential by default. Near said the feature obscures the link between a trader’s funding wallet and a dedicated Hyperliquid trading account.

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Bitcoin hit $85,000 for the first time since January as markets focused on cooling oil prices.

Bitcoin (BTC) starts a new week at its highest levels in nearly eight months as bulls propel the market to $85,000.

Key points:

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X alleges six Bitcoin-focused accounts coordinated posts and engagement to inflate creator payouts, with claimed and projected losses of at least $378,000.

Elon Musk-owned social media platform X has sued the alleged operators of a network of Bitcoin-focused accounts, seeking to recover at least $278,000 in creator payouts it says they obtained by manipulating engagement.

X filed a lawsuit in the High Court of England and Wales on Thursday against Vivek Kumar Sen, Zamyang Sherpa and unidentified account operators, alleging they fraudulently obtained at least 207,384 British pounds ($278,000) from its creator revenue-sharing program. The court filing is available on X’s Transparency Center.

The company claims the defendants coordinated multiple accounts to boost engagement by reposting and liking one another’s content and publishing identical or substantially similar posts, creating what the company described as a “false appearance of genuine, human communication and interaction.”

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ZetaChain plans to wind down its Cosmos-based layer 1 and migrate ZETA to Solana, joining other crypto projects moving away from standalone chains.

ZetaChain tokenholders have approved a plan to wind down the project’s layer-1 blockchain and migrate its native ZETA token to Solana.&

Governance proposal 68 passed Sunday with 99.4% support and 58% participation, exceeding the network’s 40% quorum requirement. Under the proposal, ZETA will become an SPL token on Solana through a 1:1 conversion, with the same ticker and total supply.&

According to the proposal, the vote does not immediately trigger ZetaChain’s shutdown or migration. Core contributors will submit a second proposal detailing the withdrawal window for assets linked to other blockchains, snapshot block height, shutdown timetable, token claim process and exchange conversion period. Validators will continue operating and staking rewards will continue during the transition.

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The Bank of Korea’s new network will let foreign investors settle won transactions during business hours in their home countries.

The Bank of Korea (BOK) launched a pilot of its first 24-hour won settlement network, aimed at allowing foreign investors to settle won transactions outside South Korea’s normal banking hours.

On Monday, the central bank said its international wire network started trial operations with four domestic lenders: KB Kookmin Bank, Woori Bank, Hana Bank and Shinhan Bank. Full operations are scheduled for January 2027, when participation is expected to expand to other institutions and foreign banks.

The network will operate 24 hours a day, excluding weekends and public holidays. Foreign investors will be able to settle won transactions during business hours in their home countries through accounts with Registered Foreign Institutions for KRW Business, or RFI-Ks, without opening accounts directly with South Korean financial institutions.

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Bitcoin’s move above its 50-week moving average has historically marked the end of bear markets, but analysts say one weekly close isn’t enough to confirm a new bull run.

Bitcoin has closed above its 50-week moving average for the first time in more than 10 months, a development some analysts said could signal the end of Bitcoin’s bear market.&

Bitcoin closed the week at $81,159 on Coinbase on Sunday, above its 50-week moving average of $78,788, according to TradingView. The last weekly close above the moving average was on Nov. 9, 2025.

In August, Galaxy Research’s head of firmwide research Alex Thorn described the 50-week moving average as serving as a ceiling during bear markets.&

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The five-year digital bond reportedly shortened settlement from three to five business days to the same day using Euroclear’s blockchain infrastructure.

South Korea’s Hana Bank has reportedly issued a five-year, $100 million digital bond using Euroclear’s blockchain-based platform.&

On Monday, Yonhap News Agency reported that the bank used Euroclear’s Digital Financial Market Infrastructure to issue the foreign-currency bond. The report described the transaction as the first digital bond issuance in South Korea to directly use Euroclear’s blockchain infrastructure.&

According to Yonhap, the bond’s issuance, registration and settlement were processed on a distributed ledger network. Using the technology for bond allocation and payment settlement reportedly shortened the process from three to five business days to the same day.&

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North Korean cyber group WaterPlum targeted developers with fake jobs at crypto, AI and NFT companies, infecting at least 30,000 devices across more than 100 countries.

North Korean hacking group WaterPlum stole at least $10.7 million by posing as recruiters for legitimate crypto and AI companies, attacking unsuspecting job seekers with malware.&

The group, also known as Contagious Interview, targets software developers and IT professionals worldwide, according to a joint advisory from Japan, Germany, Australia and the US. Authorities said the fake recruiters also impersonated non-fungible token (NFT) companies and used recruiting services.

“The primary targets were individual web designers, engineers, and specialists in cryptocurrency, blockchain, and Web3 technologies,” they added.&

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Crypto missed out on CLARITY, but tokenized stocks were legalized and the Bitcoin Reserve advanced. Meanwhile Standard Chartered says Arbitrum’s price could increase 70 times by 2030.

After a year’s buildup, the US Senate failed to pass a cloture motion on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act.

The motion received just 49 votes in favor and 50 against, well short of the 60 votes required.

However, Republican Senator Thom Tillis’s “no” vote was not all it seemed, and he confirmed he’d only switched sides at the last minute to enable him to call a new vote in future.

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Trump posted on Truth Social that his new project would manage the fast-growing sector without adding regulations that could slow innovation.

US President Donald Trump said that he plans to create an “AI Force” and appoint an artificial intelligence czar.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday that his new project would manage the fast-growing sector without adding regulations that could slow innovation, according to Newsweek and other media.

“For this purpose, I am forming the AI Force, much like I did Space Force, which has been a tremendous SUCCESS, in my First Term,” the president wrote. “To that end, I will be announcing, in the near future, the AI ‘Czar’ — Only High I.Q. individuals need apply!”

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At the close of trading on Sept. 28, shareholders will receive two extra shares for each one they hold.

Grayscale’s Zcash ETF (ZCSH) plans a 3-for-1 forward share split, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

At the close of trading on Sept. 28, shareholders will receive two extra shares for each one they hold, according to the filing.

The forward split is expected to decrease the price per share of the fund, according to a Grayscale press release, with a proportionate increase in the number of shares outstanding.

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The partnership is non-exclusive, and Anthropic expects to announce other evaluators in forthcoming weeks with which it will also work.

&

Anthropic said it has chosen Accenture as its first embedded evaluator to help slow the pace of AI development as proposed last week by CEO Dario Amodei.

Amodei published a three-step proposal on Sept. 12 to slow the development of AI and allow safeguards to be put in place amid warnings of a potential for catastrophic harm in the wake of swift, unchecked development.

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The partnership is non-exclusive, and Anthropic expects to announce other evaluators in forthcoming weeks with which it will also work.

&

Anthropic said it has chosen Accenture as its first embedded evaluator to help slow the pace of AI development as proposed last week by CEO Dario Amodei.

Amodei published a three-step proposal on Sept. 12 to slow the development of AI and allow safeguards to be put in place amid warnings of a potential for catastrophic harm in the wake of swift, unchecked development.

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The new ASSX fund offers 2x daily exposure to Strive shares, giving traders a leveraged way to bet on the Bitcoin treasury company.

REX Shares and Tuttle Capital Management launched a leveraged exchange-traded fund that seeks to deliver twice the daily performance of Strive, a publicly traded Bitcoin treasury company and asset manager.

The T-REX 2X Long ASST Daily Target ETF began trading Friday under the ticker ASSX on Cboe and seeks to deliver 200% of Strive’s daily share-price performance before fees and expenses.

The fund resets its leverage daily, meaning returns over periods longer than one trading day can differ significantly from twice the performance of Strive shares. Unlike spot Bitcoin ETFs, ASSX does not hold Bitcoin or seek to track its price, instead providing leveraged exposure to Strive shares.

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Kalshi’s proposal would bring perpetual futures tied to individual stocks to US traders, as Coinbase and Bitnomial pursue similar products.

Kalshi has filed to offer perpetual futures tied to individual US stocks, joining Coinbase in the competition to bring crypto-style derivatives to traditional equity markets.

The prediction market filed the proposed rule change with the Securities and Exchange Commission and submitted it to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval on Friday. The CFTC has yet to approve the proposal.

The proposed contracts would have no preset expiration date and would use periodic funding payments between long and short positions to keep their prices aligned with the underlying stocks. Kalshi said the contracts would be treated as security futures products and cleared through its CFTC-registered clearinghouse, Kalshi Klear.

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Kalshi’s proposal would bring perpetual futures tied to individual stocks to US traders, as Coinbase and Bitnomial pursue similar products.

Kalshi has filed to offer perpetual futures tied to individual US stocks, joining Coinbase in a push to bring crypto-style derivatives to traditional equity markets.

The prediction market filed the proposed rule change with the Securities and Exchange Commission and submitted it to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for approval on Friday. The CFTC has yet to approve the proposal.

The proposed contracts would have no preset expiration date and would use periodic funding payments between long and short positions to keep their prices aligned with the underlying stocks. Kalshi said the contracts would be treated as security futures products and cleared through its CFTC-registered clearinghouse, Kalshi Klear.

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VanEck said Metaplanet’s executive equity exposure remains well above its digital asset treasury peers, even after the company cut its potential share pool by 41%.

Asset manager VanEck has criticized Metaplanet’s executive compensation structure, contending that recent efforts by the Bitcoin treasury company to curb shareholder dilution still fall short of adequately aligning management with investors.

In a Friday report examining executive compensation across the 10 largest digital asset treasury companies, VanEck labeled Metaplanet’s compensation structure “Bad,” making it the only firm to fall into the lowest category. VanEck cited an equity plan equal to 14.7% of fully diluted shares and officer exposure of 8.2%.

VanEck said Metaplanet’s officer exposure is roughly 10 times the 0.8% average of the other nine companies analyzed, while its overall equity plan is nearly four times the peer average.

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Bastion Platforms National Trust Company will offer stablecoin custody and wallets, payment infrastructure and white-label issuance from a single federally regulated entity.

Stablecoin infrastructure provider Bastion said the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) had granted it preliminary conditional approval for a US trust bank charter.

The charter adds federal supervision from the OCC to the state licenses Bastion already holds, according to a news release on Friday. Still, the proposed bank could not accept deposits or make loans, separating it from a conventional commercial bank.

Licensed as Bastion Platforms National Trust Company, it will offer stablecoin custody and wallets, payment infrastructure and white-label issuance from a single federally regulated entity.

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Former banking official gets four years in prison over false letters of credit and accepting $470,000 in cryptocurrency bribes.

A former bank official in Hong Kong who falsely authenticated letters of credit for more than $1.6 billion was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to make restitution of more than $470,000 he received in cryptocurrency bribes.

Lam Chun-yin, 32, who was a customer relationship manager at China Construction Bank (Asia), had previously pleaded guilty in District Court, The Standard reported on Saturday.

Judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung said deterrent sentences are necessary even for first-time offenders, especially in light of the grave nature of the crime and its impact on society.

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Former banking official gets four years in prison over false letters of credit and accepting $470,000 in cryptocurrency bribes.

A former bank official in Hong Kong who falsely authenticated letters of credit for more than $1.6 billion was sentenced to four years in prison and ordered to make restitution of more than $470,000 he received in cryptocurrency bribes.

Lam Chun-yin, 32, who was a customer relationship manager at China Construction Bank (Asia), had previously pleaded guilty in District Court, The Standard reported on Saturday.

Judge Ernest Lin Kam-hung said deterrent sentences are necessary even for first-time offenders, especially in light of the grave nature of the crime and its impact on society.
HashKey begins beta distribution of Hong Kong-regulated HKDAP stablecoin

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Coinbase wants to bring 24/5 perpetual futures trading to individual US stocks, with its proposed contracts now awaiting regulatory approval.

Coinbase has filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to list single-stock perpetual futures in the United States, seeking to bring a derivatives product widely used in crypto markets to individual US equities.

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Binance is joining a growing number of crypto exchanges offering around-the-clock exposure to foreign exchange markets through perpetual futures.

Binance is expanding its derivatives offering into foreign exchange with the launch of 24/7 perpetual futures, starting with a US dollar-Brazilian real contract on Monday.

Unlike traditional FX markets, which close for the weekend, Binance’s contracts will trade continuously using a dual-mode pricing system. During regular FX trading hours, prices will track a weighted index from third-party data providers, while weekends and public holidays will use an orderbook-based pricing mechanism.

The USDBRLUSDT contract will go live on Sept. 21, settle in USDT and offer up to 100x leverage, according to a Friday announcement. Binance said the weekend system uses an exponentially weighted moving average of orderbook prices, rather than relying on external price feeds.

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Coinbase, Strategy and other crypto-linked stocks rallied Friday as the CFTC and SEC moved ahead with crypto-related actions under existing authority.

Crypto-linked stocks rebounded sharply on Friday, reversing losses that followed the Senate’s failure to advance the CLARITY Act earlier this week, as Bitcoin climbed back above $80,000.

Strategy led the gains, rising more than 13%, while Coinbase and American Bitcoin climbed about 11% each. Robinhood gained nearly 9%, according to Yahoo Finance data.

Source: Yahoo Finance

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The US commodities regulator submitted a new crypto market regulatory action for White House review days after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has submitted a new regulatory action covering crypto asset transactions and markets for White House review, as the agency moves forward with its approach to overseeing the digital asset sector.

According to a filing with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the action, titled “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets,” was received on Sept. 17 and is listed at the “prerule” stage.& The designation indicates the action is at an early stage of the rulemaking process and has not yet been formally proposed.

The filing does not disclose details of the planned regulation, but comes days after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, legislation aimed at establishing a federal regulatory framework for crypto markets.

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Bitcoin price action made swift gains at the start of Friday’s Wall Street trading session as US 30-year bond yields began rising again.

Bitcoin (BTC) jumped past $80,000 around Friday’s Wall Street open as fuel-crisis woes spread through global markets.

Key points:

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Banks now represent nearly one in four providers on ESMA’s MiCA register after roughly doubling their presence since late June.

Banks are rapidly expanding their presence in Europe’s regulated crypto market, with traditional lenders now accounting for nearly one in four providers listed under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework (MiCA).

The number of banks on the EU’s MiCA crypto provider list doubled to about 80 from roughly 40 between June 26 and Sept. 16, according to a Cointelegraph analysis of MiCA register data from the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA).

The overall number of listed crypto-asset service providers (CASPs) rose from 243 to 349 over the period, but non-bank providers lost ground in relative terms, with their share falling from about 84% to 77%.

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The non-profit signaled support for reducing Ethereum block times, citing increasing institutional activity moving onto the smart-contract network.

Ethereum Institutional signaled support for Ethlabs’ motion to reduce block times and create a faster Ethereum to address increasing competition from other networks.

“Make Ethereum faster,” wrote the non-profit organization in a Friday X post, arguing that reducing block times is needed as “more institutional activity moves onchain.”&

On Thursday, Ethlabs published an article quoting 20 decentralized finance (DeFi) founders showing broad support for EIP-8198, also known as “Quick Slots,” which seeks to initially reduce Ethereum block times to 10 seconds from 12 seconds.

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HYPE hit a record $90.92 after Hyperliquid opened manual borrowing, letting users borrow stablecoins against HYPE and Bitcoin collateral.

HYPE, the native cryptocurrency of the Hyperliquid layer-1 blockchain and decentralized trading platform, set a fresh all-time high above $90 on Friday as the protocol rolled out manual borrowing.

HYPE surged as high as $90.92 shortly after Hyperliquid announced users can now supply HYPE and Bitcoin as collateral to borrow the stablecoins USDC and Tether’s USDt (USDT).

“Manual borrows are live on Hyperliquid,” the protocol said, adding that the feature and its portfolio-margin system use the same underlying HyperCore infrastructure. Hyperliquid co-founder Jeff Yan said the design means every borrowed asset comes from a supplier rather than being created through platform-level margin accounting.

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Industry watchers are debating the fate of the Zcash development fund after the ZEC token’s rally pushed its value above $95 million.

Crypto-focused venture capital firm Dragonfly’s managing partner, Haseeb Qureshi, proposed winding down the Zcash developer fund after it expires under current rules in 2028.

“I’m of the opinion that this should be the final Dev Fund,” wrote Qureshi in a Friday X post, arguing that the fund is large enough to fund remaining work on Zcash and that it risks being “politicized” as it approaches $100 million in value.

The Zcash development fund held 63,962 Zcash (ZEC) tokens at press time, worth about $95 million, according to ZecStats.

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The Fisher Transform indicator produced a rare crossover for only the fourth time in Bitcoin’s history.

Bitcoin (BTC) is showing strong signs that its latest long-term floor is already in, according to a classic trading indicator.

Key points:

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Dtcpay plans to expand its merchant network and payment products after completing a $25 million Series A backed by Japan’s SBI Group.

Singapore-based stablecoin payments company Dtcpay has completed a $25 million Series A funding round after securing backing from Japanese conglomerate SBI Group.&

On Friday, SBI Holdings said it invested through SBI Ventures Asset and the SBI-NTU-Kyobo Digital Innovation Fund, two Singapore-based investment vehicles managed by the group. Neither SBI nor dtcpay disclosed the size of SBI’s contribution or the company’s valuation.

Dtcpay said the investment completed its $25 million Series A, which began with a $10 million tranche led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia & India in April. Genedant Capital and existing investor Kwee Liong Tek also participated in the round. Dtcpay previously raised $16.5 million in pre-Series A funding in June 2023.

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Binance declined to address reports of ECB intervention in its Greek MiCA bid, saying it remains committed to securing authorization in Europe.

Binance declined to address a report that European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde intervened in its failed Greek crypto license bid and said it continues seeking authorization under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that a vice chair of Greece’s Hellenic Capital Market Commission (HCMC) told Binance that Lagarde had asked Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis not to approve its application.

Greek officials informed the European Securities and Markets Authority in early June that the regulator intended to approve the license, according to the report.

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Onchain analyst James Check says Bitcoin may have bottomed near $58,000 after two capitulations and warns against anchoring to an October low.

James Check, founder and lead analyst at Checkonchain, said Bitcoin may have already established its cycle bottom after undergoing two capitulation events, arguing that shifts in holder behavior indicate the market has absorbed much of its selling pressure.

Bitcoin (BTC) reached a record of just over $126,000 in October 2025 and traded around $77,400 at the time of writing, nearly 39% below its peak. Some traders expect BTC to establish another low in October 2026 based on its historical four-year cycle. In July, analyst Benjamin Cowen said that cycle-duration data and the US midterm-election calendar pointed toward a fourth-quarter bottoming window.

In an interview on Cointelegraph’s Proof of Thesis show, Check described Bitcoin’s February decline toward $60,000 as a “price-pain capitulation,” when investors who bought near the top sold at substantial losses. He identified a second “time-pain capitulation” around $58,000 in June and July, following months of sideways price action that caused holders to question whether Bitcoin would recover.&

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NU7 will cut Zcash block times to 25 seconds and preserve its halving schedule, with testnet activation planned for Oct. 6.

Zcash developers are targeting Nov. 5 for NU7 mainnet activation after organizations and engineering teams reached “unanimous agreement” on its contents and estimated timeline.&

On Thursday, Zcash developer Sean Bowe said the upgrade is scheduled to activate on the testnet on Oct. 6. A final decision on the mainnet upgrade and its activation height is scheduled for Oct. 20, after an assessment of NU7’s testnet performance.&

The upgrade would reduce Zcash’s target block spacing from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, disabling version 4 transactions and integrating the Network Sustainability Mechanism (NSM). The chosen NSM configuration would preserve Zcash’s halving schedule, with the reintroduction of previously removed supply beginning in February 2031.&

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Input Output Group told users to avoid its YouTube channel after it began livestreaming a suspected AI-manipulated Charles Hoskinson video promising to “double your wealth.”

Input Output Group has urged users to avoid its YouTube channel, with the channel on Friday livestreaming a suspected AI-manipulated video of Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson promoting a crypto giveaway.

The livestream purported to be a town hall for Project Catalyst, a decentralized community innovation fund and grant program. It was live for nearly two hours.

Source: YouTube

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World Money is rolling out across more than 150 countries, combining stablecoin payments, digital asset rewards and trading in a self-custodial app.

World has launched World Money, a self-custody financial “super app” combining stablecoin payments, digital asset rewards and trading.

The rollout began Thursday in more than 150 countries, World said, with features varying by location. Users can send supported digital assets, including stablecoins, to a recipient’s World username, deposit eligible assets to earn rewards, and buy and sell digital assets through exchanges.

The app lets users access “Mini Apps” such as Kalshi, Credit and Morpho. A partnership with Stripe allows users to fund their accounts and buy stablecoins with Apple Pay, starting with users in the US.&

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US Treasury says the Iranian exchange processed payments received through Iran’s Strait of Hormuz maritime scheme and helped move hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the IRGC.

US authorities on Thursday announced sanctions against Iranian crypto exchange BitBank, accusing it of processing Bitcoin paid by ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said that as of June, the Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority used BitBank to transfer payments it received to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The Treasury alleged it is part of the architecture used by Iranian financier Babak Zanjani to move hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin to the IRGC.

Treasury has previously alleged Hormuz Safe is part of an IRGC-backed scheme forcing vessels to buy maritime insurance for passage, including coverage against seizures by Iran itself.

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North Korea and Iran account for the majority of onchain malware, while Malaysia has been named among the most crypto curious Islamic nations.

North Korean and Iran linked hackers were responsible for the majority of the 420% increase this year in malware on public blockchains according to a Chainalysis report.&

State-linked hackers accounted for roughly two-thirds of new activity whereby attackers stored malware instructions or infrastructure information on public blockchains.

Chainalysis also identified UNC5342, a North Korea linked group, to previously unattributed activity spanning Tron, Aptos and BNB Smart Chain.

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The US regulator’s move could make it easier for crypto wallets and other apps to offer access to regulated derivatives and prediction markets without registering as introducing brokers.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has expanded regulatory relief for “passive software” providers that connect users to regulated derivatives firms and exchanges.

In a no-action position issued Thursday, the agency’s Market Participants Division said it would not recommend enforcement against qualifying providers or their personnel for failing to register as introducing brokers or associated persons when facilitating trading with CFTC-registered firms and exchanges.

The position could make it easier for crypto wallets and other apps to offer access to regulated derivatives, including perpetual contracts and prediction markets, without becoming CFTC-regulated introducing brokers themselves.

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MoonPay plans to use WisdomTree’s $1.2 billion WTGXX tokenized fund as part of its stablecoin reserves while helping expand access to US investors.

WisdomTree and MoonPay are partnering to expand US investor access to a tokenized Treasury money market fund, which MoonPay also plans to use as part of its stablecoin reserves.

According to a Thursday announcement from the companies, the fund issuer is using MoonPay’s technology to develop an access point for its WisdomTree Treasury Money Market Digital Fund (WTGXX), a tokenized money market mutual fund that seeks to maintain a $1 share price. The companies said the arrangement would give WisdomTree access to MoonPay’s network of more than 35 million accounts.

MoonPay, a financial technology company that provides infrastructure for moving between fiat and digital assets, plans to use WTGXX as part of its stablecoin reserve management stack.

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CLARITY isn’t dead after failing a key Senate vote, but with time running short and Democrats still demanding changes, its path forward is narrowing.

[Disclaimer: This article was updated on Sept. 18, 2026, at UTC 3 pm to include a response from US Senator Thom Tillis.]

Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink may be the sentiment of the crypto industry, lobbyists and lawmakers who’ve spent the last year trying to get the CLARITY Act over the line.

No shortage of negotiations, amendments or political wrangling; yet not enough to get the bill moving through the Senate.

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Bitcoin made modest daily gains as US stocks saw upside in the aftermath of the US Federal Reserve’s first interest-rate hike since July 2023.

Bitcoin (BTC) traded near $76,500 after Thursday’s Wall Street open as investors snapped up US stocks following their recent dip.

Key points:

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Former Hut 8 CEO Jaime Leverton will take the helm at Fortitude as the Zcash-focused miner expands its operations and moves toward a planned public listing.

Fortitude Mining has appointed former Hut 8 CEO Jaime Leverton as chief executive as the Zcash-focused miner prepares to go public through a proposed merger with HeartSciences. Leverton will& succeed Andrea Childs as CEO& on Sept. 21, with Childs moving to chief operating officer.

Fortitude mined 72,696 ZEC in the first half of 2026, accounting for about 28% of the network’s total production during the period. The company reported revenue of $20.9 million for the second quarter.

It operates more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas and New York, and in July agreed to purchase 9,000 Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro machines, which are expected to add 7.56 GSol/s of equihash hashrate. Shipments are expected in the fourth quarter.

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Crypto.com’s CEO said its sister exchange was cleared to offer US access to single-stock perpetual futures, as the latest platform to bridge TradFi and digital assets.

OG.com has received authorization from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to offer single-stock futures in the US.

Kris Marszalek, co-founder and CEO of crypto.com, made the announcement its sister futures exchange in a Thursday X post that received regulatory approval to list single-stock futures in the US.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has acknowledged OG.com’s 1-N filing, authorizing the platform to offer single-stock futures in the US, .

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The SEC’s Innovation Exemption allows limited tokenized US stock trading on onchain venues with trading caps and transparency requirements.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission approved a temporary exemption allowing limited trading of tokenized US stocks on certain onchain venues.

Under the innovation exemption approved Thursday, Tokenized Securities Venues (TSVs) can offer permissioned trading of tokenized National Market System (NMS) stocks.

The exemption covers trading through automated market makers and liquidity pools, subject to requirements including transaction transparency, recordkeeping and technology safeguards, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said. TSVs must also regularly publish US dollar-denominated transaction data, including prices, trade sizes, timestamps, pool addresses, end-of-day pool sizes and daily volumes.

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Bitcoin treasury companies promise to amplify returns over investing in Bitcoin alone, but does the potential upside outweigh the risks to the downside?

There are now 179 listed companies holding Bitcoin on their balance sheets, all following variations of the same simple formula:

Raise capital on traditional markets, buy Bitcoin and attempt to increase the amount of BTC that backs each share faster than the company dilutes shareholders.

According to Mark Palmer, managing director and senior equity research analyst at StoneX, that’s how treasury companies attempt to “beat” Bitcoin’s returns.

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S&P Global agreed to buy OpenZeppelin, which says its smart contracts have facilitated more than $37 trillion in value transfers.

S&P Global is set to acquire the blockchain security company OpenZeppelin, expanding the financial data, ratings and benchmark provider’s digital asset capabilities.

The deal announced on Thursday is aimed at complementing S&P Global’s risk assessment and ecosystem development capabilities in the digital asset market, it said. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the transaction remains subject to closing conditions.

“Our digital assets strategy centers on bringing trusted data, benchmarks and transparent risk assessment to markets as they move onchain,” S&P Global ratings president Yann Le Pallec said. He added that OpenZeppelin would expand his company’s smart contract and onchain technology risk assessment capabilities.

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German crypto adoption is progressing through family offices and wealth managers, while the UK’s retail-facing cryptocurrency market remains “nascent,” according to the researcher.

Cryptocurrency adoption is advancing in Germany, particularly among younger investors, while the UK is gradually falling behind, largely due to lagging regulations, according to CoinShares crypto researcher Luke Nolan.

German cryptocurrency adoption is showing “very good progress” through “family offices, wealth managers, individual advisors” and younger generations looking to invest inherited wealth in digital assets, Nolan told Cointelegraph on the Chain Reaction show on Thursday.

In contrast, the UK is “still very much behind,” said Nolan, adding that the country’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) only lifted its ban on crypto exchange-traded products less than a year ago, making its digital asset market “nascent.” The regulator previously banned these products from retail participants in January 2021.

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North Korea-linked hackers used Tron, Aptos and BNB Chain to maintain malware infrastructure, while suspected Iran-linked actors embedded directions in Bitcoin transactions.

State-linked hackers accounted for roughly two-thirds of new activity each quarter as the number of times attackers stored malware instructions or infrastructure information on public blockchains rose 420% over the past 12 months, according to a Chainalysis report.&

Chainalysis identified North Korea and Iran-linked operators among the state actors adopting the technique. In one of the report’s findings, the analytics firm connected previously unattributed activity spanning Tron, Aptos and BNB Smart Chain (BSC) to UNC5342, a North Korea-linked group tracked by Google Threat Intelligence.&

Encoded pointers in Tron and Aptos transactions directed infected devices to the same BSC transaction, with Tron serving as the first route and Aptos as a fallback, Chainalysis reported. The BSC transaction contained encrypted server addresses and configuration data that connected compromised devices to offchain infrastructure used for remote access and data theft.&

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Zcash rose about 20% in 24 hours as Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang disclosed that the firm invested in ZEC amid a broader crypto market rally.

Zcash gained about 20% over the past 24 hours as Paradigm co-founder Matt Huang disclosed that the crypto investment firm made an unspecified purchase of ZEC, the privacy-focused token that has been outperforming a broader rise across crypto markets.

Zcash (ZEC), a cryptocurrency that enables users to make shielded transactions that conceal addresses and transaction amounts using zero-knowledge proofs, traded around $1,338 at last look on Thursday. Its surge came in the wake of Huang’s Wednesday post revealing that Paradigm is an investor in the Zcash Open Development Lab (ZODL) as well as a ZEC token holder.&

Today’s more than 10% rise extends ZEC’s one-month increase to roughly 160%, compared to Bitcoin’s (BTC) 18.2% rise in the same period, according to Coingecko data.

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Revolut says it received no direct contact despite separate ransom demands for $3 million in Monero and 10,000 Bitcoin from competing breach claimants.

Revolut said Thursday it had received no direct contact from those claiming responsibility for a customer data breach despite multiple public ransom demands.

A group calling itself “IAmNotAVillain” publicly demanded 6,000 Monero (XMR), worth about $3 million, from Revolut within 24 hours, threatening to sell the customer records to other criminal groups, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

“Revolut has not received any direct contact or demand from the individuals or group making these claims,” a Revolut spokesperson told Cointelegraph.

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South Korean police reportedly referred 18 Polymarket users to prosecutors in a gambling probe involving 26 people and $12.7 million in bets.

South Korean police have reportedly referred 18 Polymarket users to prosecutors in an illegal gambling investigation involving 26 people who collectively wagered about 17.6 billion won (worth $12.7 million).&

According to Asia Economy, data submitted by the National Police Agency to the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Yoon Kun-young showed that the Gangwon Provincial Police Agency had placed 26 people under investigation as of Tuesday and sent 18 of them to prosecutors. The report said the largest amount wagered by a single user was about 5.7 billion won ($4.1 million).

Police identified users by analyzing publicly available blockchain transactions, the report said. Polymarket lets users buy and sell contracts tied to the outcomes of real-world events and operates on a noncustodial, peer-to-peer structure with automated settlement. It does not maintain a conventional list of users by their real names, the report said.&

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Bitcoin corporate treasuries remained at an unrealized loss on their holdings as the price fell below $80,000 and fresh capital inflows dwindled.

Bitcoin (BTC) is no longer a target for corporate treasuries as current buyers sit on unrealized losses, new research shows.

Key points:

Onchain analytics platform Glassnode reveals that in 2026, listed companies bought around 5,900 BTC — less than 7% of their purchases in July 2025 alone. During that month, companies bought 89,000 BTC, even as BTC/USD traded above $100,000.

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The Celsius estate alleges BitMEX wrongfully liquidated and seized 6,360 BTC, worth nearly $490 million, during the March 2020 market crash.

The Celsius bankruptcy estate sued five BitMEX-linked companies, alleging fraud, market manipulation and wrongful liquidations during the March 2020 market crash.&

The complaint was filed on Sept. 12 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York by Celsius entities acting through estate representative Blockchain Recovery Investment Consortium (BRIC). Defendants include HDR Global Trading, ABS Global Trading, Shine Effort, 100x Holdings and HDR Global Services.

The estate alleged that BitMEX wrongfully liquidated and seized 1,325.84 BTC in collateral from Celsius on March 12, 2020, and 5,034.33 BTC from investment fund JST the following day. JST subsequently assigned the related claims to the estate, according to the filing.

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The six cases are separate from July’s incident, when OpenAI models escaped containment and hacked Hugging Face during a security evaluation.

OpenAI on Wednesday disclosed another six cases of “unexpected or concerning” model behavior over the last six months.

In a blog post, OpenAI said the cases illustrate a range of different behaviors it classifies as “misaligned behavior,” such as concealing information from the user and taking “unsanctioned actions” to overcome obstacles.&

The disclosures add to concerns among AI developers and researchers about whether safeguards are keeping pace with increasingly capable models. Last week, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for a slowdown in frontier AI development, warning that unchecked AI advancement may “outrun our ability to understand and control these systems.”&

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Bitcoin showed little immediate reaction to the Fed’s first rate increase since 2023, but 16 of 18 officials expect at least one more hike before the end of the year.

Bitcoin held near its pre-Fed announcement levels of around $76,000 on Wednesday despite the US Federal Reserve raising its benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2023 to address persistently high inflation.&

The Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee on Wednesday voted unanimously to raise rates by 25 basis points to a target range of 3.75% to 4%, a move that typically puts pressure on stocks and other risk assets. However, Bitcoin showed little immediate reaction to the announcement and was trading at $76,663 at the time of writing, up 1.35% in 24 hours.

“The initial reaction suggests the Fed’s decision was largely anticipated by crypto markets. Bitcoin has remained relatively resilient, holding broadly around pre-announcement levels even as equities moved lower,” said Cooper Duschang, research analyst at Talos in comments shared with Cointelegraph.&

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The legislation seeks to codify Trump’s Bitcoin reserve policy, locking up Bitcoin acquired through civil and criminal forfeiture for 20 years.

US lawmakers took a step on Wednesday to put US President Donald Trump’s executive order to establish a strategic Bitcoin reserve into law.&

The American Reserve Modernization Act of 2026 (H.R. 8957) passed the US House Committee on Financial Services in a 28-21 vote. The bill would establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate Digital Asset Stockpile within the Department of the Treasury for federally held Bitcoin and other digital assets acquired through criminal or civil forfeiture.

“We cannot allow Bitcoin to be held by the federal government to languish in fragmented and inconsistent custody,” said US Representative Nicholas Begich, who introduced the bill on May 21. “It poses unacceptable cybersecurity risks and fails to give an adequate accounting of what the federal government actually owns.”&

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Digital Sovereignty Alliance managing director Adrian Wall said senators from both parties are considering another attempt to advance the crypto market structure bill before the current Congress ends.

The CLARITY Act could get another chance in Congress during the post-election lame-duck session despite failing to advance in the Senate this week, according to Digital Sovereignty Alliance managing director Adrian Wall.

Wall said Wednesday that he has spoken directly with senators from both parties who are considering another attempt to advance the crypto market structure legislation before the current Congress ends.

“There is an appetite to put this forward even during the lame duck period of Congress,” Wall said during Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction show on X. “Is it easy? No. It’s going to be very complicated. It’s a long shot.”

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The FCA’s new guidance outlines which crypto activities may require authorization as firms prepare for the UK’s incoming digital asset regulatory regime.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority has issued& final guidance outlining when& crypto activities may require authorization under the country’s incoming regulatory regime.

The& guidance& covers activities such as issuing qualifying stablecoins, operating crypto trading platforms, dealing and arranging transactions, safeguarding cryptoassets and arranging crypto staking. It is intended to help firms determine whether their activities fall within the regulatory perimeter and which permissions they will need to operate under the new framework.

Existing registrations and permissions will not automatically convert under the new regime, meaning firms will need to determine whether they require FCA authorization or a variation of permission.

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A bipartisan House committee vote advanced legislation that would reshape federal tax rules for stablecoins, staking, crypto lending and digital asset transactions.

The US House Ways and Means Committee passed the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act with bipartisan support on Wednesday, advancing legislation aimed at reshaping the federal tax treatment of digital assets.

The bill advanced in a 38-5 vote and covers stablecoins, mining and staking, digital asset lending, transaction fees and other crypto-related activity.

Among its provisions, the bill would establish special tax treatment for qualifying dollar-pegged stablecoins and certain crypto lending agreements, extend wash-sale rules to widely traded digital assets and establish new rules for mining and staking income.

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Anchorage Digital Bank added custody support for Etherlink and several Etherlink-based assets, including xU3O8, a token representing physical uranium.

Anchorage Digital Bank, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the US, has added custody support for Etherlink and seven assets on the Tezos layer-2 network, including xU3O8, a token representing physical uranium.

The other supported assets include wrapped XTZ (WXTZ), liquid staking token stXTZ, stablecoins USDT, USDC and USDSM, and wrapped Ether (WETH), according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The integration allows Anchorage’s institutional clients to custody assets issued on Etherlink, an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible layer-2 network that settles on Tezos, through segregated accounts at the federally chartered bank.

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A strategist at the Danish bank said Coinbase has more at stake in the CLARITY setback because its trading business is directly exposed to US market-structure rules.

While Bitcoin and crypto-linked stocks fell sharply after the US Senate failed to advance the Digital Asset Market Clarity, or CLARITY, Act, Saxo Bank believes exchanges like Coinbase have more at stake than most because clearer rules could directly affect their trading businesses.

In a Wednesday note, Saxo strategist Ruben Dalfovo said Coinbase (COIN) is the most directly exposed to developments around CLARITY because market-structure rules could determine registration requirements, which assets can trade and who can participate in US crypto markets.

“Coinbase is most exposed to clearer market rules because trading and crypto participation directly affect its business,” Dalfovo wrote.

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Bitcoin price support materialized around $68,000 as markets saw a 93% chance of the Fed hiking rates by 0.25% on Wednesday.

Bitcoin (BTC) stayed near monthly lows at Wednesday’s Wall Street open as markets awaited the US Federal Reserve’s decision on interest rates.

Key points:

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Zero-knowledge technology could let companies verify who you are without storing your identity documents. So why isn’t it already standard practice?

The massive theft of more than 153 million US and Canadian driver’s licenses earlier this month should make one thing abundantly clear: the safest place for a copy of your driver’s license is nowhere at all.

The leaked IDs, which appear to have come from an identity verification provider, ended up on a dark web identity service dubbed Nexus, alongside millions of other stolen identity and travel documents.

The danger was underscored this week after fintech Revolut revealed it had been tricked by a hacker into handing over reams of sensitive customer data, including copies of passports and verification selfies. The hacker is now drip feeding the identification documents of 680 customers onto the web in an attempt to secure a $3 million ransom in Monero.

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Bernstein said the federal agencies will publish new regulations to compensate for the time lost negotiating the CLARITY Act, after its cloture vote failed on Tuesday.

Bernstein analysts expect “aggressive and swift” rulemaking from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), after the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act failed to pass a Senate cloture vote on Tuesday.

Bernstein analysts said the regulatory agencies will publish new regulations to “make up for the time lost negotiating the CLARITY Act,” in a Wednesday note shared with Cointelegraph.

The analysts said they expect agency regulations including token taxonomy for raising capital, developer protection measures concerning decentralized finance and self-custodial protocols, innovation exemptions for equity tokenization, faster approval times for real-world asset perpetual futures, and amendments to rules around federal sports even contracts and their classification as swaps.

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Nearly 99% of ZEC holders voted to reduce block times to 25 seconds, while keeping ZEC issuance and halving schedules unchanged.

Zcash token holders backed cutting the network’s target block time to 25 seconds from 75 seconds and preserving its existing halving schedule in a poll on the next major upgrade.

The faster-block proposal received 99.9% of the Zcash (ZEC)-weighted vote, while 98.9% supported keeping halvings, according to results published Monday. Voting power reflected eligible ZEC holdings, with both percentages including abstentions.

The shorter interval would reduce the expected wait for a transaction’s first confirmation, according to the proposal. The amount of new ZEC issued per block would fall to keep scheduled daily issuance unchanged.

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Circle’s Arc mainnet is live with USDC for transaction fees, support for more than 20 fiat stablecoins and links to over 20 blockchains.

USDC issuer Circle has launched the mainnet of Arc, a layer-1 (L1) blockchain targeting stablecoin payments and financial markets, particularly agentic transactions.

Arc uses USDC as its native gas asset and offers Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility and deterministic sub-second settlement finality, according to an Arc blog post on Wednesday.

The network supports more than 20 fiat stablecoins, including USDC, EURC, JPYC, KRW1 and TRYB, while tokenized assets including BlackRock’s BUIDL and Circle’s USYC are available natively on Arc. Arc also offers interoperability with more than 20 blockchains through Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) and Gateway.

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Germany’s largest bank is awaiting regulatory approval to launch institutional custody solutions for Bitcoin, Ether and select stablecoins before expanding into tokenized assets.

Germany’s largest bank, Deutsche Bank, is awaiting regulatory approval to launch digital asset custody solutions for institutional clients and corporations in Europe.&

Deutsche Bank plans to go live with the offering for its first clients this year, subject to completion of the applicable regulatory timeline, the bank announced on Wednesday.

The bank plans to offer initial support for Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and select stablecoins, including Circle USDC (USDC), EURC (EURC) and AllUnity EUR (EURAU). It also plans to include support for tokenized financial instruments at a later point.

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Bitcoin miners generated 35% of the state-owned power producer’s revenue last year, but declining reservoir inflows led the utility to prioritize households and manufacturers.

Ethiopia has reportedly reduced electricity delivered to Bitcoin miners to 23% of contracted levels as lower water inflows strain the country’s hydroelectric reservoirs.

On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that El Niño intensified dry conditions in the east African country, reducing water inflows into its reservoirs by 20%. Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP) CEO Ashebir Balcha said the company cut power to miners to prioritize households and manufacturers.

Balcha said EEP initially reduced deliveries to 75% of contracted levels, easing to 50% and then 23%. The company will reassess conditions in October and could impose further reductions or even restrict electricity exports to neighboring countries, according to the report.

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Italy is probing the Revolut-linked breach after its cyber agency reported more than 650 cases involving abused or illicit certified email accounts.

Italian authorities are investigating a government email breach linked to the leak of Revolut customer data after hackers allegedly used the compromised account to obtain sensitive customer information.

Polizia Postale, Italy’s cybercrime police, is investigating the incident for alleged unauthorized access to a computer system and computer fraud, Italian news agency ANSA reported on Tuesday.

Some Italian media reports identified the compromised account as belonging to the Prefecture of Reggio Calabria. The agency later denied sending requests to Revolut, according to ANSA.

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Bitcoin exchange demand on Coinbase declined after the US Senate voted against the CLARITY Act, while traders sent BTC to exchanges at an unrealized loss.

Bitcoin (BTC) demand is under pressure in the US as investors react to the failure of the CLARITY Act to advance in the Senate.

Key points:

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Euro-area online and mobile merchants can apply until Oct. 27 to test beta digital euro payments in a 12-month pilot.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is seeking online and mobile merchants to participate in a 12-month digital euro pilot expected to begin in the second half of 2027.&

On Tuesday, the ECB said e-commerce and mobile-commerce merchants operating in the euro area can apply until Oct. 27. Selected businesses will enable beta digital euro payments in remote commerce environments and test how the currency could fit into checkout processes.&

The pilot will assess user experience, technical functionality and operational processes of the digital euro. The ECB said the beta version will be close to the currency described by the draft legislation but will not have legal tender status.&

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Federico Variola says AI has diverted capital from crypto and is empowering attackers, while rising cybersecurity costs could push the industry toward greater centralization.

Phemex CEO Federico Variola says AI has been a ‘net negative’ for crypto, despite the crypto exchange announcing an AI-focused transformation earlier this year.&

Speaking on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction, Variola said AI has diverted capital away from the industry, while empowering attackers and driving up cybersecurity costs for smaller teams — pressures that risk pushing crypto toward greater centralization.&

“It’s difficult to be bullish about AI in crypto,” he said. “Liquidity have been significantly diverted to to that industry on one side. On the other hand, AI has empowered a lot of bad actors that have been exploiting protocols.”

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The former employees allegedly earned more than $50,000 each by trading Hyperliquid perpetuals ahead of Robinhood token listings.

US prosecutors on Tuesday charged two former Robinhood engineers with commodities fraud and wire fraud for allegedly using confidential information about upcoming cryptocurrency listings to profit from perpetual futures trades on Hyperliquid.&

According to the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Hefu Chai and Huaisong “Jerry” Xiang bought perpetual contracts linked to tokens ahead of Robinhood Crypto listings. The DOJ alleged each profited more than $50,000 from the trades between 2025 and 2026.&

The DOJ said Chai and Xiang had access to a private company Slack channel containing information about planned listings. Prosecutors allege they used that information to open long positions on Hyperliquid, closing them when their value increased after their debut on Robinhood.&

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The $450 million withdrawal came as Bitcoin fell 2.5% and the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate, with Fidelity and BlackRock funds leading the outflows.

Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded their largest day of outflows since late June after a major crypto bill stalled in the Senate.

The 13 US-listed funds saw a net $450.4 million outflow on Tuesday, after attracting $159.9 million on Monday, according to data from Farside. It marks the largest outflow since June 24, when Bitcoin ETFs lost $469 million as a tech stock sell-off pressured risk assets.

Data shows Fidelity’s FBTC saw the biggest outflows, shedding $214.8 million, followed by $161.7 million from the BlackRock iShares Bitcoin Trust, $44.1 million from Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC), $17.4 million from ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) and $12.4 million from Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB).

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The CLARITY Act still has a procedural path after Senator Thom Tillis moved to reconsider the failed cloture vote, though industry executives are divided over whether Congress has enough time left.

Crypto industry leaders are looking to US financial regulators to fill the regulatory gap after a major crypto bill establishing a regulatory framework for digital assets stalled in the Senate on Tuesday.

The Senate voted 49-50 on a motion to invoke cloture and advance the CLARITY Act, short of the 60 votes needed as Democrats raised concerns over US President Donald Trump’s crypto investments. Industry executives said the result was a disappointment, but pointed to potential rulemaking from the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission as the next best source of regulatory clarity.&

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A BIS study found widely used crypto metrics can obscure economic activity, with measurement challenges spanning Bitcoin, Ethereum and stablecoins.

Researchers at the Bank for International Settlements found that estimates of Bitcoin onchain transfer values can vary by as much as sixfold depending on how transactions are measured.

The finding concerns onchain Bitcoin transfer values, rather than trading volume on crypto exchanges. The sixfold gap reflects differences between measurement methods, including how change outputs and other transfers back to the sender are treated.

The discrepancy stems largely from Bitcoin’s transaction structure. When users spend Bitcoin, unspent funds are often returned to the sender as change, which can be counted as another output even though it does not represent funds being transferred to another party.

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Circle and Coinbase shares fell about 10% as the failed Senate vote weighed on crypto-linked equities, with Bitcoin miners and treasury companies also declining.

Crypto-linked stocks fell sharply on Tuesday after the US Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, with shares of Circle and Coinbase dropping about 10%.

Bitcoin treasury companies were also hit, with American Bitcoin falling around 8%, while Strategy and Strive each declined about 5%, according to Yahoo Finance& data.& Bitcoin miners joined the selloff, with Riot Platforms falling about 6%, CleanSpark nearly 5%, Hut 8 more than 4% and IREN almost 4%.

Coinbase (COIN) shares fell 9.9% on Tuesday. Source: Yahoo Finance

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The failed procedural vote leaves the CLARITY Act facing an uncertain future after months of negotiations over crypto oversight and ethics provisions.

The US Senate on Tuesday failed to pass a cloture motion on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act that would have established the country’s first regulatory framework for digital assets.

The motion received 49 votes in favor and 50 against, short of the 60 votes needed to advance the legislation to debate on the Senate floor.

With less than 36 days of business before 2027, when a new session of Congress is scheduled to be sworn in after November’s midterm elections, the bill will likely not see further action for the rest of the year.

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A Bank of England policy maker said digital dollars could expand access to the US currency while turning stablecoin issuers into bigger buyers of government debt.

Carolyn Wilkins, a member of the Bank of England’s Financial Policy Committee, says the rise of stablecoins could reinforce the US dollar’s global dominance and increase demand for US Treasurys, underscoring how the growing market for digital dollars could have consequences well beyond crypto.

In a Tuesday speech at Queen’s University Belfast, Wilkins said dollar-denominated stablecoins could strengthen the greenback by making cross-border settlement easier, expanding access to dollar-linked assets outside the US and increasing demand for Treasurys held as reserves.

The largest stablecoin issuers are already significant buyers of US government debt. Tether’s USDt (USDT) and Circle’s USDC (USDC) held nearly $150 billion in Treasury bills at the end of 2025 and bought roughly $33 billion during the year, according to data cited by Wilkins.

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The crypto exchange is expanding its traditional finance offerings with 11 US-listed exchange-traded funds focused on US Treasurys and investment-grade bonds.

Binance has launched a wealth management service offering access to 11 US-listed exchange-traded funds focused on short-term US Treasurys and investment-grade bonds.

The new Binance Earn offering groups the ETFs into cash management, steady income and yield enhancement products based on investment horizons ranging from less than six months to more than a year.

Users can browse the available ETFs and place orders through Binance Earn, with purchases processed through the exchange’s stock trading service. Binance said investors receive the economic benefits of the shares, including price movements and cash distributions.

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Bitcoin price action weakened over market nerves prior to the Senate CLARITY Act vote, while surging bond yields pressured risk assets across the board.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw month-to-date lows at Tuesday’s Wall Street open as global bond yields spiked and crypto markets awaited a key US Senate vote on the CLARITY Act.

Key points:

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Standard Chartered sees Robinhood Chain as an early sign that tokenization could transform Arbitrum’s economics and drive ARB sharply higher by 2030.

Standard Chartered says layer-2 network Arbitrum could emerge as one of the digital asset industry’s top performers through 2030 as traditional financial firms move more assets onchain, giving the network a potentially lucrative revenue source beyond crypto-native activity.

In a note shared with Cointelegraph, Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered’s global head of digital assets research, said Arbitrum’s economics offer considerable upside because the network receives 10% of the net protocol revenue generated by companies building on it. Robinhood Chain, developed by the online brokerage, is the first major example.

According to Kendrick, Robinhood Chain has already materially changed Arbitrum’s economics. At its current run rate, Arbitrum is expected to generate $5 million in revenue in September, more than five times its level before Robinhood Chain launched in July.

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An MEV bot known as “Yoink” front-ran an attacker attempting to exploit a custom Safe module, capturing the stolen rsETH before Kelp temporarily froze the receiving address.

An attacker exploited a custom module connected to an Ethereum Safe wallet in an attempt to extract roughly $7.7 million in rsETH, only to have the funds intercepted by an MEV bot.

According to blockchain security firm Blockaid, the attacker used a public keeper multicall to direct a custom Uniswap v4 liquidity module into an attacker-created hooked pool, where aEthrsETH was unwrapped into rsETH.

Blockaid identified the affected wallet as a Safe belonging to an unidentified user and said about $7.73 million in rsETH had been lost at the time of its initial report.

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Tether’s USDT stablecoin was part of a failed oil trade that reportedly cost a Polish energy giant $230 million in late 2023.

Update, Sept.17, 1:17 pm UTC: This article has been updated to include comments from an Orlen spokesperson.

The world’s largest stablecoin by market cap, Tether’s USDt, was reportedly used in a failed Venezuelan oil trade that cost Poland’s largest energy giant $230 million in late 2023, according to the Financial Times.

That was after the Caracas-based state oil company, PDVSA, began demanding partial payments in USDT as a workaround to US financial sanctions.

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The 114-page bill would change the tax treatment of crypto fees, stablecoins and lending while leaving existing reward-tax timing unchanged.

The US House Ways and Means Committee will consider a 114-page crypto tax package on Wednesday that leaves out a provision that would have allowed miners and stakers to defer taxation of rewards until the tokens are sold.

The Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act, H.R. 10357, was published alongside the committee’s markup notice on Monday. The package does not include the reward-timing provision contained in Representative Mike Carey’s Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act, introduced in June.

The provision would have allowed taxpayers to choose between recognizing newly created tokens as income when received or treating them similarly to self-created property and paying tax when sold.

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Ethereum and Base are pursuing different account abstraction designs after talks failed, according to Ethlabs researcher Derek Chiang.

Ethereum and Base are set to implement different account abstraction standards after efforts to agree on a shared account abstraction standard broke down last week.

Interoperability standards became secondary to each chain’s core goals, leading both to go their separate ways and “putting the burden on wallets,” Derek Chiang, founding member and researcher at Ethlabs, as well as a co-author of Ethereum’s EIP-8141 proposal, said in a Monday X post.

The divergence could require wallet developers to support separate transaction formats to provide a consistent experience across networks. Account abstraction allows programmable rules for authorizing transactions and paying fees.

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Bitcoin short-term holders approached a full month in partial profit as analysis saw improving odds of an enduring bullish BTC price reversal.

Bitcoin (BTC) speculators have held onto profits for nearly a month in what new analysis sees as a key sign of market strength.

Key points:

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Tether froze $61.19 million across 10 Tron addresses in 2025 that prosecutors allege were connected to black-market Iranian oil proceeds.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is seeking forfeiture of more than $61 million in Tether’s USDT stablecoin, alleging the funds came from black-market sales of sanctioned Iranian oil and were intended to finance Iran’s government and military, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).&

On Monday, the DOJ alleged that Blessed Trust and Hexa Whale, both incorporated in Hong Kong, used Binance accounts to move proceeds from oil sold to buyers in China. A network of related addresses allegedly received and distributed more than $1.5 billion, including transfers to IRGC-linked money-transfer businesses, cryptocurrency addresses and an Iranian exchange.

A Binance spokesperson told Cointelegraph that Binance did not permit transactions with sanctioned individuals and would continue cooperating with law enforcement, including by investigating, restricting or freezing accounts where appropriate. The spokesperson said the case was not filed against the exchange and did not allege wrongdoing by Binance.&

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Solana raised its transaction size limit to 4,096 bytes, giving developers more room for zero-knowledge proofs and transactions with multiple signatures.

Solana raised its maximum transaction size from 1,232 bytes to 4,096 bytes to allow developers to fit more complex operations into a single transaction, including zero-knowledge proofs and new onchain signature schemes.

The upgrade was activated on mainnet on Tuesday at the start of epoch 1,035 around 1:00 am UTC, according to blockchain data shared by the Solana Foundation.

The upgrade also introduced the v1 transaction format, which maintains full backward compatibility with legacy transactions. Existing transaction formats continue working for applications and wallet providers, but protocols that want to benefit from the size increase need to update to v1 transactions.

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Banking groups also said the GOP’s final text leaves stablecoin reward loopholes, while tribal gaming interests warn that its prediction market provisions threaten tribal sovereignty.

Odds of the CLARITY Act becoming law this year on Polymarket fell sharply again on Monday after spiking the day before, as key Senate Democrats reportedly said they had not been swayed by Republicans’ “final” crypto bill proposal.& &

Polymarket traders initially saw a newly revised Republican proposal with expanded ethics provisions as a positive sign, sending the odds to 35%. However, their confidence was dashed as reservations about the revised text began mounting, with the odds falling back as low as 16% on Monday.&

US Senator Mark Warner, one of the Democrats involved in negotiations, reportedly said the revised ethics provision was not “near enough,” while Democrats involved in negotiations began preparing a counterproposal on Monday.&

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CoinEx said falling trading volumes and liquidity, along with rising regulatory and compliance costs, had exceeded “reasonable boundaries,” with withdrawals remaining open until Dec. 22.

Crypto exchange CoinEx said it is winding down operations, citing a prolonged crypto market downturn, sinking trading volumes and liquidity, and rising regulatory and compliance costs, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

As part of the wind-down, CoinEx will halt new user registrations, referral commissions and other rewards. Futures contracts will enter a “Reduce-Only” mode. CoinEx will also stop accepting new orders or subscriptions across its fiat, margin trading, lending, earn, staking and strategic trading services.

“After much reflection, I have come to accept a hard truth. CoinEx did not become one of the industry’s leading exchanges, and the security and compliance risks of running a crypto exchange have become increasingly difficult to contain,” CoinEx CEO Haipo Yang said in a post on X.

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Balancer cut costs and shipped new products after restructuring, but Marcus Hardt says v3 failed to replace legacy revenue as November’s $128 million exploit continued to weigh on adoption.

Balancer, a decentralized exchange and automated market maker, has proposed winding down the protocol after its post-exploit restructuring failed to generate enough revenue, with its leader saying he underestimated how much a $128 million exploit in November would continue to weigh on adoption.&

The proposal was authored by Balancer Labs CEO Marcus Hardt and published on the Balancer governance forum on Monday. It calls for an orderly wind-down of the protocol and the distribution of its remaining treasury, currently worth more than $9 million, to BAL tokenholders.

The proposal comes after Balancer Labs shut down in March, when executives opted to continue operating the protocol under a leaner structure. Hardt said Monday that while the restructuring succeeded in cutting costs and delivering the products promised to tokenholders, the revenue side of the plan fell short, echoing profitability challenges faced by several other DeFi protocols this year.&

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Some Democrats remain dissatisfied with the bill’s crypto ethics provisions and will be sending a counterproposal just hours before a key procedural vote.

Senate Democrats working on the crypto market structure bill are reportedly preparing a counterproposal to the Republicans’ latest revised CLARITY Act text, despite GOP lawmakers describing it as their “last, best and final offer” to Democrats when they released it Sunday.&

Democrats working on the bill met in Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office on Monday, according to Politico. It is understood that some Democrats remain unsatisfied with crypto ethics language in the latest bill text.&

“The Democrats who’ve been working on this in good faith are sending a counterproposal,” Senator Mark Warner told Politico as he exited the meeting.

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Kraken’s new xStocks vaults let investors earn yield on tokenized versions of Nvidia and major US stock market ETFs by lending the assets in DeFi markets.

Crypto exchange Kraken has launched onchain yield vaults for select tokenized stocks and ETFs, allowing clients to earn returns by lending the assets through decentralized finance protocols, according to a Monday announcement.

The new xStocks vaults support tokenized versions of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPYx), Invesco QQQ ETF (QQQx) and Nvidia (NVDAx), with yield generated by lending the assets through onchain markets. Yield is paid in the deposited xStocks, while withdrawal requests are processed within three days.

The vaults use the same infrastructure as Kraken DeFi Earn, which launched in January and has since attracted more than $800 million in deposits, according to the company.

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Bitcoin’s price rose toward $80,000 after US President Donald Trump hinted that the US-Iran war would end, pushing oil prices lower.

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to $79,000 after Monday’s Wall Street open as markets dissected mixed signals over the US-Iran war.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD erasing its weekend losses and gaining around 3% on the day.

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Strive’s latest Bitcoin purchase was funded entirely through its SATA preferred stock as the company continues its rapid climb among corporate BTC holders.

Strive, a top-five Bitcoin treasury company and asset manager, purchased 469 Bitcoin for about $36.6 million last week, bringing its holdings to 25,000 BTC.

According to a Monday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Strive acquired the Bitcoin between Sept. 8 and Sept. 11 at an average price of $77,954 per BTC, including fees and expenses.

The biggest crypto by market cap was last trading at $78,823, according to Coingecko data.

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Trump’s ethics concession addresses one hurdle for the crypto bill, but 18 state attorneys general say the revised legislation would weaken state oversight.

The CLARITY Act is heading for a crucial US Senate procedural vote on Tuesday after President Donald Trump agreed to most of a bipartisan proposal to strengthen ethics restrictions around public officials’ crypto interests, according to various reports.

However, the latest compromise hasn’t resolved all of the opposition, with a bipartisan group of state attorneys general now urging senators to reject the bill over concerns that it would weaken state oversight of the crypto industry.

A coalition of 18 state attorneys general, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, argued in a letter to Senate Banking committee leaders that the CLARITY Act would make it harder for states to take action against crypto companies accused of fraud or other misconduct.

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The investment brings together major financial institutions as Kaiko expands its data infrastructure for tokenized securities and onchain financial markets.

S&P Global has led a strategic investment in Kaiko, extending the Paris-based crypto market data provider’s Series B funding to $110 million as it expands its data infrastructure for tokenized financial markets.

The round also included BNP Paribas, Bpifrance, Broadridge, Canton Foundation, Coinbase Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Nasdaq Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada, Stellar and Susquehanna Private Equity Investments.

Kaiko said the funding will support its core digital asset market data business and its push into onchain financial infrastructure, including data services for tokenized Treasury bills, money market funds, equities and bonds.

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Bitmine now has more than 5 million ETH staked, turning most of its Ether holdings into a recurring income stream as it continues to accumulate.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies added to its Ether holdings last week while projecting hundreds of millions of dollars in annual staking revenue, highlighting how its massive ETH treasury could generate income even during volatile market conditions.

In a Monday announcement, Bitmine said it acquired 27,180 ETH last week, bringing its holdings to more than 5.95 million ETH, worth roughly $15.4 billion and representing about 4.9% of Ether’s circulating supply. Including cash and other crypto assets, Bitmine reported total holdings of approximately $15.8 billion.

Bitmine said more than 5.06 million ETH is now staked, generating an estimated $334 million in annualized staking revenue at current rates.

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AI’s biggest labs are suddenly calling for a slower pace of development. Is it because AI risks are catching up with the technology, or because the economics of the race are getting harder to justify?

For years, the defining characteristic of the artificial intelligence race has been speed.

Build a bigger model. Spend more on compute. Release it. Rinse and repeat, with litte regard for the unknown unknowns.

The average “p/doom” (probability of AI eventually going catastrophically wrong) among AI researchers was estimated to be between 15% and 20% in 2024.

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Stablecoins may reduce trade finance friction, fragmented regulatory regimes limit their adoption to just 3% of global payments, according to the World Trade Organization.

Fragmented regulatory regimes are limiting stablecoin adoption in international trade, according to Juan Marchetti, director of the trade in services and investment division at the World Trade Organization (WTO).

“The constraint is not technology. It is actually regulation and the lack of development of regulatory frameworks,” said Marchetti during a Monday speech in Geneva, at the launch of WTO’s study on stablecoins in world trade.

He cited an October 2025 report from the Financial Stability Board which found that only 39%, or 11 out of 28 surveyed jurisdictions, have finalized their stablecoin regulatory frameworks.

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Token buybacks have pushed Hyperliquid to all time highs, but Alice Liu from CoinMarketCap warns that Binance poses a threat to the revenue stream it depends on to pay for them.

Despite Bitcoin failing to hold above $80,000 following the recent rally, the cryptocurrency is unlikely to revisit the lower price levels it has hovered near for much of this year, according to CoinMarketCap Head of Research Alice Liu.

“I think we might have already touched the bottom,” Liu tells Cointelegraph on Trade Secrets, referring to Bitcoin falling to around $59,000 in June this year, approximately 53% below its October all-time high of $126,100.&

Bitcoin recently tapped $81,600 at the start of September, an approximate 28% rally since mid-August. It pushed the CoinMarketCap Crypto Fear & Greed Index, which measures overall sentiment in the crypto market, back up to Greed after posting Fear scores for most of the year.

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Crypto wallet providers must submit an early vulnerability report within 24 hours and a full notification within 72 hours of exploits, or risk administrative fines of as much as $17.3 million.

The EU is telling cryptocurrency hardware and software wallet providers that they have 24 hours from awareness to report actively exploited bugs or severe security vulnerabilities affecting their products.

The measure is part of the EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), which took effect on Friday, according to an announcement from the European Commission.

Manufacturers must submit an early warning for severe vulnerabilities within 24 hours, followed by a full notification within 72 hours. A final report will be required 14 days after corrective or mitigating measures are available and within one month for severe incidents.

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Bitcoin traders brace for volatility as the CLARITY Act awaits a Senate vote to move forward and the Fed is due to announce its latest rate decision.

Bitcoin (BTC) is starting the third week of September below key weekly support levels as traders eye volatility cues.

The Federal Reserve takes the spotlight for risk-asset traders this week as Wednesday’s decision on interest rates dictates the mood.

On the back of high inflation and cautious words from chair Kevin Warsh, the Fed is widely expected to hike benchmark rates by 25 basis points to 3.75-4% despite several dissenting officials in favor of holding them at current levels. The setup echoes that of the Fed’s July rate decision, when policymakers held rates while several voices argued for a hike.& Now, Warsh faces pressure from US president Donald Trump not only to avoid a hike but to enact rate cuts.

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Symbiosis is offering a 20% bounty for information leading to asset recovery after the hacker refused to return the stolen funds for the same white-hat bounty.

Cross-chain liquidity protocol Symbiosis said it recovered 15 Bitcoin, worth around $1.1 million, from a Bitcoin bridge exploit it suffered Friday.

Symbiosis said it recovered 15 Bitcoin (BTC) into a team-controlled multi-sig wallet and clarified that all routes remain operational, according to a Friday X post. The exploit affected Symbiosis’ native Bitcoin bridge, which remains paused.

The attacker’s address minted 46.1 billion unbacked tokens from the protocol’s Bitcoin bridge but realized net proceeds of 4.3 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), worth $336,000, according to blockchain security company Blockaid, which flagged the exploit on Friday. The protocol has not specified how the recovered Bitcoin relates to the $336,000 in proceeds attributed to the attacker.

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The FCA said uncertainty over whether some tokenized gold products fall under UK fund rules could affect adoption and investor access.

[Update, Sept. 14, 2026, 10:17 UTC: Added information from the UK FCA’s call for input and feedback statement.]

The United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is seeking feedback on whether some tokenized gold products should be exempt from fund rules as regulators examine their use in wholesale markets.

In a call for input published Monday, the FCA said it is looking at whether tokenization could improve how gold is traded, transferred, pledged and held in UK markets, including its potential use as wholesale collateral.

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ARKB, GBTC and IBIT led Bitcoin ETF withdrawals, while BlackRock’s ETHA pushed Ether ETFs into weekly inflows.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) posted $462.7 million in net outflows last week, reversing after three consecutive weeks of inflows, while Ether ETFs moved the other way with nearly $197 million in net inflows.&

According to Farside Investors, the withdrawals ran across all four trading sessions from Tuesday to Friday. The outflows followed the strongest three-week inflow run of 2026, which ended after the funds shed $166.8 million in the first two days of the holiday-shortened week.& &

The selling deepened on Thursday, when US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $282.7 million, their largest daily withdrawal since July. Friday’s outflow slowed to $13.2 million, but still extended the negative streak to four trading days, according to SoSoValue.&

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The gathering comes days after Dario Amodei and Sam Altman called for greater restraint at the AI frontier, warning that rapidly improving systems could pose increasingly difficult-to-control risks.

Leaders of the world’s most powerful AI firms are set to convene in Scotland this week at a summit hosted by Britain’s King Charles III to discuss responsible AI development, amid industry fears that the technology could outpace human control.&

The event will be held this week at Dumfries House and overseen by the Ditchley Foundation, according to The Sunday Times. Leaders from companies including Nvidia, OpenAI, Anthropic, IonQ and Google DeepMind have been invited to discuss how AI could be developed “for the good of humanity.”&

The summit would come a week after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk called for greater restraint in frontier AI development.&

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Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said issuers should be involved if tokenized products change shareholder rights or company obligations, but not when they create separate instruments backed by shares.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev said companies should not have veto power over tokenized stock products that do not change shareholder rights, issuer obligations or a company’s official stock ledger.&

In a post on X on Friday, Tenev said the question of issuer consent depends on whether a tokenized product changes the rights attached to the underlying shares or creates new obligations for the company or its transfer agent. If it does, he said the issuer should be involved.&

However, Tenev said if the product creates a separate financial instrument that holds or references freely transferable shares without changing the issuer’s rights, obligations, or shareholder record, issuer consent should not be required.

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The 635-page revised proposal includes Trump-backed ethics provisions and comes just two days before a key procedural vote.

Senate Republicans on Sunday released revised text of the CLARITY Act aimed at swaying Democrats ahead of a procedural vote on Tuesday, featuring major changes to rules relating to government officials’ involvement with digital assets.

The 635-page proposal, released by US Senate Banking Digital Assets Subcommittee Chair Cynthia Lummis alongside Chairmen John Boozman and Tim Scott,& also includes changes to the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act (BRCA) and provisions governing stablecoin yield. Lummis said the new ethics provisions had been agreed to by US President Donald Trump.&

“After a year of intense daily bipartisan negotiations, this bill is ready,” she said. “President Trump voluntarily agreed to unprecedented ethics restrictions, holding every federally elected official, judge, and their spouses to some of the toughest ethics restrictions in US history.”

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Attackers reportedly published identity documents and selfies belonging to Revolut customers and threatened to release more data each day until the fintech pays.

Update (Sept. 14 at 09:55 UTC): This article has been updated to include a comment from Felix Römer, one of Revolut’s customers, whose details appear in the leak.

Threat actors who obtained sensitive Revolut customer information appear to have begun posting the information online and are threatening to release more data every day until “revolut pays.”

The newly leaked information reportedly includes selfies and copies of identity documents belonging to tennis player Alexander Shevchenko and Felix Römer, CEO of online crypto casino Gamdom, according to an X post from International Cyber Digest on Sunday.&

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Crypto’s moment of CLARITY finally arrives with a key Senate vote on Tuesday. AI swarm fears prompt development slowdown, with some predicting big falls in AI stock prices.

The CLARITY act heads for a crucial Senate vote on September 15, with Politico reporting that Democrat senators were called to a meeting on Sunday by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to discuss their position.

While Polymarket puts the odds of CLARITY becoming law this year at just 24%, the odds of there being 60 votes in favor of the cloture vote on Tuesday are higher, as it would move the bill into the amendment and debate phase. That’s where the rubber would hit the road on issues that have drained support so far including ethics provisions for elected officials, stablecoin yield, and protections for decentralized developers. The final vote would require a simple majority of 51 however.

The bill has now doubled in size to more than 630 pages since the first draft was released in May 2025. It follows a year’s worth of work by both Democrat and Republican senators. A new draft was released last week with 14 pages of new text directing the SEC and CFTC to determine whether those in control of “non-decentralized finance trading protocols” must comply with securities, commodities and anti-money laundering requirements. That version didn’t include any of the big changes to the ethics provisions the Democrats have demanded as a red line for supporting the bill.

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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman agrees with safety concerns regarding AI development, says no initial share sale this year.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a blog post on Saturday that the speed of AI development is too fast and that left unchecked it may “outrun our ability to understand and control these systems.”

He noted that AI’s current blistering advance is being driven by its own increasing ability to build the next generation of AI, or recursive self-improvement.

Amodei also cited the OpenAI-Hugging Face incident in July, in which a swarm of agents acted as a “fanatically devoted collective,” breaking out of their testing environment and attempting to hack into a grader evaluating their performance.

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Passports, selfies and financial transaction histories of some customers were revealed to a fraudster using a government agency domain.

Financial tech and banking company Revolut released sensitive customer data, including copies of passports, verification selfies and full transaction histories after receiving a fraudulent request that seemed to be from a government agency.&

Requests for customer information sent from a legitimate government agency email domain passed Revolut’s authentication checks, according to International Cyber Digest posting on X. Revolut later concluded they were not authentic, and customers whose information was compromised were notified on Friday.&

A company spokesperson told Cointelegraph on Saturday that “Revolut recently identified a sophisticated external impersonation scam where an unauthorised third party utilised a legitimate government agency domain email to submit fraudulent requests for information.”

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The DPRK has turned to third-country IT workers to pass job interviews, after which, the positions are usually taken over by North Korean operatives.

North Korea (DPRK) is now using remote workers from third countries, including Iran and Lebanon, to aid its efforts to infiltrate US companies and obtain money to fund its weapons programs, NBC reported on Friday.

An alert issued in July by the US government and several foreign agencies said North Korean IT workers “seek out contracts with the intent of remitting their salaries to their parent North Korean agencies. They also pose an insider threat to companies and are involved in data exfiltration, cryptocurrency theft, and theft of sensitive information.”

As the US and other governments have moved to counter North Korea’s efforts, the DPRK has turned increasingly to third-country IT workers to pass job interviews, the report said. After work contracts are obtained, the positions are usually taken over by North Korean operatives.

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Ben Delo, co-founder of BitMEX, donated almost $50 million to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, matched a day later by Christopher Harborne.

Update (Sept. 12, 2026): This article has been updated to include Christopher Harborne’s matching 36 million pound donation.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has received 72 million pounds ($97 million) from two cryptocurrency billionaires after Christopher Harborne matched a record donation from Ben Delo.

Harborne announced his 36 million pound contribution on Saturday, following Delo’s announcement a day earlier. The donations are jointly the largest ever made to a British political party. Harborne also gave 9 million pounds to the party in August 2025.

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Ben Delo, co-founder of BitMEX, donated almost $50 million to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party.

Ben Delo, a British crypto billionaire, gave 36 million pounds ($49 million) to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in the biggest donation ever made to a British political party, the DPA and other media reported on Saturday.

Delo, who co-founded the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange, said he had given the money to ensure a “fair fight” at the polls.

Farage said: “I am honored and humbled that Ben Delo has shown such confidence in Reform. … Ben knows that we are the only party that can turn the country around and reverse Britain’s decline.”

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Anthropic is said to be seeking to raise as much as $100 billion in the offering, which could value the AI company at about $2 trillion.

Anthropic is in talks with Nvidia about a potential $10 billion investment in what may be the biggest IPO in history, Reuters reported on Saturday, citing people familiar.

The people said Anthropic is seeking to raise as much as $100 billion in the offering, which could value the AI company at about $2 trillion.

The discussion is ongoing and could change, the people told Reuters, remaining anonymous amid the confidential negotiations.

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The Swiss crypto financial services firm plans to move back-office functions to lower-cost international hubs as it expands its global wealth and asset management business, according to Finews.

Bitcoin Suisse plans to shift up to half of its Swiss jobs abroad as the crypto financial services firm expands its international operations.

Founded in Zug in 2013, the company provides crypto trading, custody, staking and lending services. The restructuring could affect up to 60 of the company’s 120 Swiss positions, primarily in back-office and administrative roles, according to a Friday report from Swiss financial publication Finews.

The affected functions are expected to move to lower-cost hubs in Bratislava and Vietnam, where Bitcoin Suisse plans to establish a new location in the coming years.

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The Crypto Banter founder said Hyperliquid’s network effects give it a strong competitive moat, but regulatory uncertainty remains its biggest threat.

Crypto Banter founder Ran Neuner said regulation poses the biggest risk to Hyperliquid, warning that decentralized exchanges could eventually face greater government scrutiny.

Speaking on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction podcast, Neuner said regulators have begun establishing rules for centralized crypto exchanges and predicted decentralized platforms would be next.

“The biggest issue is that we don’t know how regulators are going to treat the decentralized exchanges,” Neuner said. He added:

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The US federally chartered crypto bank will allow institutional clients to hold, mint, redeem and stake Frgmnt’s fUSD stablecoin through its custody platform.

Anchorage Digital has partnered with stablecoin protocol Frgmnt to give institutional clients access to its fUSD and sfUSD tokens through Anchorage’s custody platform.

The integration will allow institutions to hold, mint, redeem, stake and unstake fUSD without setting up a separate custody arrangement, according to a Friday announcement.

Frgmnt is a stablecoin protocol built on Base that& issues fUSD against USDC, with the backing deployed across onchain lending markets. Users can stake fUSD for sfUSD to earn rewards generated by the protocol’s underlying strategies.

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Bitcoin briefly rebounded past $79,000 and US stocks turned green as US CPI inflation data met expectations.

Bitcoin (BTC) returned to $79,000 on Friday after key US inflation data broadly conformed to expectations.

Key points:

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Metaplanet will cut 131.3 million potential shares and form a $1 million Hong Kong subsidiary for trading in Bitcoin, equities and credit products.

Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich said the Japanese Bitcoin treasury company will further amend its Series 10 stock acquisition rights amid shareholder backlash over dilution concerns.

Metaplanet will reduce the number of potential shares underlying the rights by 131.3 million, from 319.464 million to 188.19 million, by resetting the conversion ratio from 1:696 to 1:410, the level before its September 2025 international share offering, Gerovich announced in a Friday X post.

Shares already delivered through prior exercises will not be returned or canceled. The reduction applies to the number available through future exercises.

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Why would anyone want to trade a healthcare stock for a memecoin like BONER? Why wouldn’t they, ask the degens on Robinhood Chain who are building a strange new corner of DeFi.

The HIMS token is designed to track shares of the teleheath company Hims & Hers, which trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). On Robinhood Chain, traders can buy and sell the tokenized stock alongside other crypto assets like memecoins.

And that’s what happened with BONER.

The deliberately ridiculous memecoin was paired with HIMS in a liquidity pool, where traders could swap between the two tokens.

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ARK 21Shares accounted for $164 million of Thursday’s Bitcoin ETF withdrawals, while Ether and Solana funds also recorded net outflows.

US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) registered their largest daily outflow in nearly two months, reversing part of the $3.8 billion in net inflows recorded during the funds’ strongest three-week stretch of 2026.

The spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs logged $282.6 million in net outflows on Thursday, marking the largest net outflow since the $424.7 million outflow recorded on July 13, according to SoSoValue data.

Total net assets across the funds stood at $97.5 billion. The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) accounted for the largest share of Thursday’s outflows, at $164 million, followed by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) with $36 million and Fidelity’s FBTC with $33.6 million.

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Bitstamp accounted for $10.1 billion of Robinhood’s August crypto volume, while trading on the Robinhood app fell 46% from a year earlier.

Robinhood’s crypto trading volume rose 61% month-on-month to $17.5 billion in August, though it remained 38% below the year-earlier level.

The online brokerage said in its August 2026 monthly operating report, published Thursday, that Bitstamp accounted for $10.1 billion of the total, while the Robinhood app accounted for $7.4 billion.

Bitstamp’s volume rose 53% from July but fell 30% year-on-year, while the Robinhood app volume increased 72% month-on-month but dropped 46% from August 2025.

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The Italian bank is reportedly seeking assistance in launching access to crypto trading, custody and tokenized investment products.

UniCredit Bank is seeking a technology provider that would allow it to build infrastructure for digital asset trading, custody and access to tokenized investment products.

The Italian bank’s discussions are still in the early stages, with areas of interest including crypto custody and brokerage capabilities, tokenized investment products and stablecoin-based fixed-income securities, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on Friday.

Cointelegraph has approached UniCredit for comment on what technology provider might fill this infrastructure gap.

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Bitcoin HODL waves data revealed an unusually muted reaction to Bitcoin’s drop below $58,000, raising questions over its status as a bear-market floor.

Bitcoin (BTC) buyers avoided “buying the dip” as BTC price fell to $57,800 in July, analysis reports.

Key points:

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The bank expects Sky to pass five times as much value to token holders by 2028 as USDS adoption and borrowing capacity continue to expand.

Standard Chartered initiated coverage of Sky’s SKY token with a $0.325 price target for the end of 2028, up fivefold from the $0.065 price cited in a Friday report shared with Cointelegraph.

Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, likened Sky, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform formerly known as MakerDAO, to a “federal bank” because it issues stablecoins, creates a governance framework and charges borrowers a wholesale interest rate.

Kendrick wrote that Sky returns value to token holders primarily through staking rewards, with token buybacks accounting for a smaller share.

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SEBI said later phases of Demat 2.0 will introduce secondary trading and open the tokenized bonds to retail investors.

India’s securities regulator and central bank have launched a tokenized corporate bond pilot, with three companies issuing a combined 10.25 billion rupees (about $107 million) through the new market infrastructure.&

On Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) said Demat 2.0 allows corporate bonds to be issued and held as digital tokens on a distributed ledger owned by the country’s statutory depositories. The system connects to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) wholesale central bank digital currency (CBDC) through its Unified Market Interface.&

The first issuance came from public-sector lender REC, which raised 5 billion rupees from 18 investors on Monday. Engineering conglomerate Larsen & Toubro (L&T) raised another 5 billion rupees from four investors on Wednesday, while non-bank lender IIFL issued 250 million rupees in bonds to one investor on the same day.& & & &

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A Russian-speaking operator targeted more than 20 organizations, while a Mali consultant used Claude to build a mass-surveillance platform.

Russian- and Chinese-speaking operators used Anthropic’s Claude to automate cyberattacks, the company said in a Thursday report.

Russian-speaking operator “JackPoterz” used customized AI-driven workflows to automate large parts of the attack chain, targeting more than 20 organizations, including government ministries and intelligence bodies. The actor also targeted embassies and diplomatic missions in Ukraine and Europe.

Chinese-speaking operators also used Claude as an engineering and orchestration layer for vulnerability research, with one workflow producing more than a dozen possible zero-day findings in network-appliance firmware in one month.

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Blockstream said it would work with law enforcement, exchanges and forensic specialists to recover the Bitcoin if the hackers do not return it.

Bitcoin infrastructure company Blockstream said it will not pay a ransom to recover funds still held by the Liquid Network hackers.

“Taking assets without authorization and withholding their return is a crime, not responsible disclosure,” Blockstream said Friday. “It is not white-hat activity. It is theft.”

The company said it had engaged with the hackers in good faith to recover user funds but would not accept their demands.

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BWOW held about $688,000 in net assets as of Sept. 9. Trading is expected to end Oct. 14, with cash payouts to follow around Oct. 22.

Bitwise plans to liquidate its Dogecoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) in October, less than a year after launching the product.

The asset manager said Thursday that it was closing the Bitwise Dogecoin ETF (BWOW) to “optimize its product range to meet evolving investor needs.”

BWOW had about $688,000 in net assets as of Sept. 9, according to Bitwise’s fund data. The company announced its launch on Nov. 25, 2025.

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Bankman-Fried’s lawyers challenged the exclusion of evidence about customer losses and argued that his $11 billion forfeiture was excessive.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly asked the US Supreme Court to overturn his 2023 fraud conviction.

He sought a new trial and the reversal of an $11 billion forfeiture order, according to a Thursday court filing seen by CNN.

His lawyers argued that the trial judge excluded evidence that his investments were sound and would have covered FTX customers’ losses. They also argued that the $11 billion forfeiture violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on excessive fines.

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The bill’s ethics section remained largely unchanged despite being one of the main points of contention ahead of a pivotal Senate vote.

A revised version of the CLARITY Act would direct United States regulators to determine whether people or groups controlling “non-decentralized finance trading protocols” must comply with securities, commodities and anti-money laundering (AML) requirements.

The revised text, posted on Senator Cynthia Lummis’ website, defines such a protocol as one whose functionality, operation, or rules can be materially altered by a person or coordinated group. The definition also covers protocols whose controllers can restrict users or whose transactions are not governed solely by transparent, pre-established code.

Under the proposal, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) would develop activity-based rules addressing registration, conduct, disclosure, recordkeeping and supervision. Meanwhile, the Treasury would establish how existing Bank Secrecy Act obligations apply to affected controllers.

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Trezor told Cointelegraph that the phishing email was sent to 347,000 subscribers and said it is treating every address as “known to the attacker and possibly reusable for phishing.”

An attacker exploited a flaw in email platform Brevo’s login system to access 138 client accounts, enabling a phishing email to reach roughly 347,000 Trezor newsletter subscribers and similar fraudulent messages to be distributed through accounts belonging to hardware wallet maker BitBox and crypto portfolio tracking and tax-reporting platform CoinTracking.

In a Thursday postmortem, Brevo said six accounts were used to send phishing emails, contacts were exported from 43 and 93 accounts showed no meaningful activity. The platform did not specify whether the categories overlapped.&

The attacker created a Brevo account, enabled single sign-on and invited legitimate Brevo users into the configuration. Brevo said access should have been confined to that organization, but an authorization boundary failed and granted access to every organization the invited users could reach.

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Shareholders of Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet are seething over equity allocations for insiders, while new figures cement Singapore’s role as the top Asian crypto hub.

JAPAN

Japanese Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet’s executive stock pool continues to draw shareholder backlash over stock dilution concerns.&

Multiple shareholders objected across social media to Metaplanet’s 10th Series executive option pool, which was designed as 20% of fully diluted shares and automatically expanded as the company issued new shares to fund its Bitcoin (BTC) accumulation.

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The EU securities regulator flagged tokenized equities, DeFi exploits and prediction markets as areas where growing crypto ties could pose risks to the broader financial system.

Europe’s securities regulator has warned that growing links between crypto and traditional finance could increase the risk of shocks spreading across the broader financial system.

In its latest risk monitoring report published Thursday, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) called for closer monitoring of the “growing linkage between increasingly vulnerable crypto-asset markets and the broader financial system.”

ESMA pointed to growing adoption of tokenized equities and recent decentralized finance (DeFi) exploits as areas that could deepen links between crypto and traditional markets and increase the potential for financial spillovers.

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The amendment would require the UK Treasury to develop a strategy covering cryptoassets, stablecoins, tokenized securities and digital financial infrastructure.

The UK House of Lords backed an amendment requiring the government to develop a digital asset strategy, in a 194–138 vote on Wednesday, despite the Labour government’s opposition to the measure.

The amendment was added to the Financial Services and Markets Bill during its Report Stage on Wednesday. The bill is progressing through Parliament and would make broader changes to the UK’s financial services regulatory framework.

Amendment 88, introduced by Conservative peer Baroness Neville-Rolfe, would require the Treasury to prepare, publish and consult on a digital asset strategy within 12 months of the Financial Services and Markets Bill becoming law.

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Liquid restarted block production after deploying emergency software updates, though transactions and peg operations remain suspended as recovery efforts continue.

The Liquid Network has resumed block production following a $320 million Bitcoin withdrawal, although transactions and peg operations remain suspended as recovery efforts continue.

In a Thursday post on X, Liquid said block production had resumed& “without transactions” as a precaution while the network is monitored to “confirm full stabilization.” Required updates to its functionary and bridge nodes have been deployed, with functionary nodes now signing and validating blocks as intended.

Peg operations, including PAK-authorized peg-outs, remain suspended while the network works to restore its BTC/L-BTC reserve.

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MoneyGram is following rival Western Union’s lead, rolling out a Visa stablecoin debit card as it expands blockchain-based payments.

MoneyGram is expanding its stablecoin activities, introducing a Visa-branded stablecoin debit card just weeks after a similar move by global remittance rival Western Union.

The MoneyGram Card will initially debut as a virtual card in Colombia that can be used with Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, the company said in an announcement. It plans to introduce a physical card option as it expands to additional markets later this year.

It is working with infrastructure provider Rain on the new card. Western Union is also working with the provider in the roll-out of its Stablecard, announced last month.

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European finance and tokenization groups say Brussels should remove limits on assets admitted to DLT infrastructure or set a 1.5 trillion euro baseline if a cap remains.

A coalition of European financial and tokenization groups has urged EU lawmakers to remove a proposed 100 billion euro cap ($116.3 billion) on tokenized financial instruments or raise it to at least 500 billion euro.

The draft letter, dated Sept. 7 and addressed to EU Council members and the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, said the 500 billion euro threshold should serve as a baseline if lawmakers decide to retain a cap.

Among the groups signing the letter were Nasdaq, Boerse Stuttgart Group, Securitize, the European Ethereum Institute and Axiology.

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Bitcoin fell with US stocks as high inflation and a further surge in oil prices coincided with another multidecade high for US bond yields.

Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $77,000 around Thursday’s Wall Street open as risk assets faced resurgent macro headwinds.

Key points:

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The partnership will provide stablecoin acceptance, settlement and real-time funding capabilities to over 1,000 community banks and credit unions.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase partnered with financial platform Moov to bring stablecoin infrastructure to more than 1,000 community banks and credit unions that are part of Moov’s customer base.

The partnership will combine Coinbase’s regulated digital asset infrastructure and Moov’s payments platform to offer stablecoin payment acceptance, settlement and real-time funding, according to a Thursday announcement.

The infrastructure will support use cases such as consumer stablecoin payments, merchant settlement and payouts. It will also offer businesses and merchants access to Coinbase custodial accounts.

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Memecoin platform Pump.fun accounted for most of the new tokens among launchpads, as the Solana network notched a new all-time daily issuance high.

The Solana network reached an all-time high in daily token issuance, surpassing the number of new coins issued during the peak of the memecoin cycle in late 2024.

More than 263,000 new Solana Program Library (SPL) tokens were minted on the Solana blockchain on Wednesday, marking a new record high, according to Solscan. Some 40,000 to 50,000 daily tokens were issued on Solana at the peak of the memecoin cycle in December 2024.&

Of the total 40,360 tokens issued through launchpads, memecoin platform Pump.fun accounted for the majority, or 34,184 coins, according to Blockworks’ dashboard.

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Jon Cunliffe, Jochen Metzger and Ron Berndsen join Fnality Europe’s supervisory board as the company works to expand beyond its sterling payment system.

Fnality has named former Bank of England deputy governor Jon Cunliffe to chair its UK board as the blockchain settlement company develops euro and US dollar payment systems.

The company said Thursday that Jochen Metzger, a former Deutsche Bundesbank director general for payments and settlement systems, had joined its European subsidiary’s supervisory board and was expected to chair it. Ron Berndsen, a former senior official at the Dutch central bank, also joined the board.

Fnality’s sterling payment system launched in 2023 and is regulated by the Bank of England. It enables market participants to settle obligations using central bank money balances.

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Nasdaq invested $100 million in Payward as part of its push toward tokenized stock products with round-the-clock trading.

Nasdaq has invested $100 million in Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, as part of the New York electronic bourse’s expansion into tokenized assets.

Nasdaq’s venture arm made a $100 million investment in Payward, the exchange operator revealed in a Thursday announcement. As part of the deal, Kraken will offer tokenized versions of Nasdaq-listed stocks on its own platform. The investment builds on Nasdaq’s partnership with Payward announced in March.

Payward will also adopt Nasdaq’s surveillance technology across its crypto, equities, tokenized equities, futures and options venues, according to the announcement.

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Secretary Scott Bessent warned that failing to pass the CLARITY Act would send a “troubling signal” about America’s leadership in the digital asset industry.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged lawmakers to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act when the Senate returns from its August recess next week.

“I strongly urge everyone to remain at the negotiating table, agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process,” wrote Bessent in a Wednesday X post, warning that failing to pass the bill would send a “troubling signal” about America’s leadership in the digital asset industry.

The Senate is scheduled to return from its August recess next Monday, according to its legislative schedule. The CLARITY Act seeks to establish the first comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the US.

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Nansen found a $117,800 unrealized loss in one wallet as the team announced liquidity incentives and Bubblemaps flagged fresh top holders.

Hunter Biden has denied profiting from his LAPTOP memecoin after its launch-day price crash, adding that neither he nor his team had sold tokens.

Several X users accused the LAPTOP project of a “rug pull” after the memecoin lost more than 95% of its value in the first hour of trading on Wednesday. At the time of writing, the new token traded at $0.8562, according to CoinGecko data.

“The team’s allocation is locked. Nobody on our side sold, and nobody could have,” Biden said in an X post Wednesday. “I, personally, have not made a single dollar.”

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ARKB led Wednesday’s Bitcoin ETF outflows as Ether and Solana funds returned to net inflows.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $120.2 million in net outflows on Wednesday, bringing withdrawals across the first two sessions of the holiday-shortened week to $166.8 million, according to Farside Investors data.&

The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) led Wednesday’s withdrawals with $78 million, followed by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) with $27.2 million and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) with $19.5 million. Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) was the only fund to record inflows, adding $4.5 million.

Wednesday’s withdrawals followed $46.6 million in net outflows on Tuesday, marking the category’s first back-to-back outflow days since a three-day run ended on Aug. 14. Across the two sessions, GBTC lost $92.7 million, while ARKB and IBIT recorded net redemptions of $69.9 million and $8.8 million, respectively.&

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Bitcoin investors showed little sign of panic selling as BTC held most of its August gains and sell-side risk fell to rare lows, data showed.

Bitcoin (BTC) sell-side risk remains near historic lows as August profit-taking cools, new data shows.

Key points:

In the latest edition of Glassnode’s The Week Onchain newsletter, the crypto analytics platform said Bitcoin’s sell-side risk ratio (SSRR) had reset lower.

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The system will combine farmer, grain, warehouse, insurance and loan data for lenders, though no launch date or initial deployment size was disclosed.

Indian agricultural warehousing and lending company Arya.ag is testing a system to tokenize warehouse receipts for stored grain on a dedicated Avalanche layer-1 blockchain.&

Arya.ag is working with Finternet to connect grain deposits, warehouse receipts, collateral commitments and loan status through the network.

Devika Mittal, Ava Labs’ head of India, told Cointelegraph that testing was underway and said each tokenized receipt would represent ownership of the stored commodity. The companies did not disclose an expected launch date or how much grain or lending the initial deployment would cover.

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The complaint says Uniswap’s counsel sent three letters before Unicoin’s Sept. 28 launch and seeks declarations on its marks and domains.

TransparentBusiness Inc., which does business as Unicoin, sued Universal Navigation Inc., which does business as Uniswap Labs, in the Southern District of New York, seeking declarations that its UNICOIN mark does not infringe or dilute Uniswap’s claimed marks.

TransparentBusiness argued in a complaint filed Tuesday that its UNICOIN mark does not infringe or dilute Uniswap’s claimed UNI, UNISWAP and UNICHAIN marks. It also asked the court to cancel US trademark registration for UNI.

The complaint says Uniswap’s counsel sent three demand letters on June 3, July 17 and Aug. 14, accusing Unicoin of trademark infringement, dilution, cybersquatting and unfair competition, and threatening further legal action. The letters demanded that Unicoin stop using UNICOIN and other UNI-formative marks, transfer its unicoin.com and unicoin.org domains, provide an accounting of revenue and profits, and reimburse Uniswap’s legal fees.

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BitBox said multiple Bitcoin companies appeared to have been targeted through a shared newsletter provider, while Trezor confirmed a breach at its email service.

Hardware wallet makers Trezor and BitBox warned users about phishing emails disguised as urgent security notices after suspected compromises involving third-party email services.&

On Wednesday, Trezor said its email provider had been breached and warned that a message titled “Critical Security Alert: STM32 Entropy Vulnerability” was fraudulent. The company urged recipients not to click any links.

On the same day, Bitbox warned users about a phishing email pretending to come from the company. The company said its preliminary review indicated that its newsletter provider was likely compromised, adding that multiple Bitcoin companies appeared to have been targeted through a shared provider.&

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The Justice Department seized Xinbi’s Telegram channels and two wallets as investigators pursued 47 additional wallets across its alleged laundering network.

[Update, Sept. 10, 2026, 05:00 UTC: Added comments from TRM Labs Global Head of Policy Ari Redbord.]

United States authorities restrained more than $52 million in crypto linked to Xinbi Guarantee and its vendor network as part of a coordinated operation against the scam marketplace.&

On Wednesday, the US Justice Department said its Scam Center Strike Force seized two wallets used by Xinbi to collect vendor payments containing about $12 million. Law enforcement also sought restraints against 47 additional wallets believed to be connected to money laundering across Xinbi’s network.&

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The expansion gives institutional and automated traders real-time access to Kalshi’s political markets as election betting activity continues to grow.

DoubleZero, a network for high-speed data distribution, has added real-time data from Kalshi’s election and politics markets as prediction market trading picks up ahead of the US midterm elections in November.

The expansion adds Kalshi’s election contracts to DoubleZero Edge, which already carries data from the prediction market’s sports contracts and crypto perpetual futures, according to a Wednesday announcement.

The feed includes top-of-book and trade data, along with aggregated order book data from Kalshi’s election markets. Andy Ross, head of institutional at Kalshi, said the integration is intended to make political market data easier to incorporate into institutional workflows as expectations shift around election outcomes.

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The restructuring will separate MetaMask’s consumer business from Consensys’ Ethereum protocols and institutional blockchain infrastructure operations.

Consensys Software Inc., the Ethereum software company behind MetaMask, plans to split into two independent companies, separating its consumer business from its institutional blockchain infrastructure operations.

According to Wednesday’s announcement,& the separation is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with Joe Lubin serving as chairman and CEO of MetaMask and executive chairman of the new Consensys.

The new Consensys will house the company’s protocols and institutional infrastructure businesses, including Linea, Besu and Teku, and will be led by CEO Mike Kriak and President David Cunningham. The company will focus on Ethereum infrastructure and helping financial institutions deploy blockchain technology for tokenization, stablecoins and other onchain financial services.

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The blockchain intelligence firm said its annual recurring revenue has quadrupled over the past three years as it expands its AI-powered investigations business.

Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs has doubled its valuation to $2 billion following an expansion of its Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company did not disclose the size of the latest investment but said its annual recurring revenue has quadrupled over the past three years, according to an announcement Wednesday.

The expansion follows a $70 million Series C in February, also led by Blockchain Capital. TRM provides blockchain intelligence and investigation software used by more than 600 government agencies and private-sector institutions across 75 countries, the company said.

Prior to the February round, the company was valued at $930 million, according to data compiled by Traxcn. It breached the $1 billion valuation mark in the round that included Citi Ventures and Galaxy among the investors.

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The pilot moved USBDC between the bank’s North American and European entities on the public Stellar blockchain.

U.S. Bank, the fifth-largest commercial bank in the United States, has completed a live cross-border payment using its proprietary USBDC stablecoin on the Stellar blockchain.

The pilot moved funds between U.S. Bank entities in North America and Europe, with USBDC issued and transferred on the public Stellar network. It also tested the stablecoin’s minting, redemption, freezing and clawback functions while integrating with the bank’s existing risk, compliance and operations systems.

The transaction validated U.S. Bank’s internally developed Digital Asset Platform, which connects tokenized assets with its traditional banking infrastructure, the bank said Wednesday. The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based bank is exploring additional uses including cross-border treasury operations, liquidity management and moving collateral onchain.

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Bitcoin trended lower with US stocks on Iran escalation while US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent contributed to fears of a yen carry-trade unwind.

Bitcoin (BTC) struggled below $80,000 on Wednesday as attention refocused on the Japanese yen.

Key points:

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The project’s disclosures say LAPTOP has no utility, lock founder tokens for six months and reserve 2% for wallets that lost money on TRUMP.

[Update, Sept. 9, 3:45 p.m. UTC: Updates with pricing information in the first paragraph.]

Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP memecoin fell 95.7% in its first hour of trading on Wednesday, as the son of former US President Joe Biden officially entered the market for politically themed cryptocurrencies.

The token, issued on Ethereum layer-2 network Base, traded at $2.0977 at 3:45 pm UTC, after opening at $199.50, according to CoinGecko data. It recorded more than $13.4 million in trading volume.

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Following on their earlier lawsuit, CCI and the Blockchain Association seek to block Illinois’ 0.2% crypto tax, arguing it is unconstitutional and would impose costly compliance burdens.

The Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI) and Blockchain Association (BA) are seeking to block Illinois from enforcing a 0.2% tax on cryptocurrency transactions before it takes effect in January 2027.

The trade groups said Wednesday that they have filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, Illinois to protect digital asset firms from suffering irreparable harm.

“Companies are being asked to spend millions to build systems for a tax that violates their constitutional rights without answers to basic questions about what is taxed and when, all under the threat of criminal penalties,” said Ji Hun Kim, CCI CEO, in a statement. “These costs are being borne right now, against a Jan. 1 deadline, forcing companies to divert key resources and employees to a clearly unlawful tax.”

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The evergreen fund will use USDT infrastructure to support asset-backed lending through fintech platforms in more than 60 countries.

Tether and Fasanara Capital have launched a private credit fund backed by $400 million from the two firms that aims to raise as much as $3 billion from institutional investors.

The evergreen fund, called StableFund, will use Tether’s USDT (USDt) as settlement infrastructure for short-duration, asset-backed lending to businesses and consumers through fintech platforms in more than 60 countries, the companies said Wednesday.

Fasanara will manage the fund’s investments, while Tether will source USDT-linked financing opportunities and provide the infrastructure for moving funds on- and offchain. The fund will focus on small and medium-sized businesses and consumer lending, including trade receivables and supply chain finance.

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The German Ministry of Finance is reportedly seeking to impose a 25% tax on cryptocurrencies, departing from current laws that make crypto gains tax-free after one year of holding.

The German Federal Ministry of Finance reportedly issued a draft proposal to transition cryptocurrency trading profits to the standard 25% flat-rate tax starting in 2028.

The ministry’s proposal would apply to all crypto assets acquired after Jan. 1, 2027, according to a draft proposal seen by local news outlet Die Welt on Wednesday.

The draft also proposes grandfathering protections, meaning that digital assets bought before this deadline may be treated under the old taxation rules.

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From the whereabouts of the CryptoQueen to a mysterious death involving a DeFi builder paranoid about the “pedo elite,” here are 10 crypto mysteries that still have no good answer.

In an industry built on transparency and verifiability, newcomers might assume that crypto and blockchains leave very little room for mystery.

They’d be completely wrong of course, because the murky world of digital assets is rife with underhanded dealings, unsolved enigmas and fortunes disappearing behind pseudonyms.

From the identity of Bitcoin’s mystery creator to what really happened to a DAI developer on a beach in Puerto Rico, here are 10 crypto mysteries that remain unsolved.

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BitMart provided no asset figures or withdrawal timetable and will launch a feedback portal within five working days during a financial adviser review.

[Update, 06:00 UTC, Sept. 10: Expands Echo Base CEO Roshan Dharia’s commentary.]

BitMart appointed Alvarez & Marsal as its financial adviser on Wednesday, its self-imposed Sept. 9 deadline for an update, but did not publish the restructuring and business resumption roadmap it said it was developing.

Alvarez & Marsal will work with BitMart’s legal advisers to evaluate the exchange’s assets, financial position, stakeholder issues and possible paths forward, according to Wednesday’s announcement. The review will also consider proposals from unidentified third parties, BitMart said on X.

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Banca d’Italia ordered crypto service providers to implement internal controls to screen for crypto transfers tied to sanctioned entities.

Italy’s central bank, Banca d’Italia, ordered mandatory sanctions screening for cryptocurrency transfers to help curb illicit flows across the EU.&

The bank said that crypto asset service providers (CASPs) must put policies and internal controls in place to enforce EU financial sanctions when processing crypto transfers, according to a Monday announcement.

The central bank said that CASPs should strive to ensure adequate controls to identify customers and transactions linked to sanctioned entities.

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The US Senate has a limited window to pass a crypto market structure bill, but if it were to fail, the legislation could be completely remade or scrapped under Democrats in 2027.

With lawmakers in the US Senate set to consider legislation pushed by many in the cryptocurrency industry for regulatory clarity, there’s a limited window for the bill to become law, potentially delaying it into the next session of Congress with different politics in play.

The US Senate is scheduled to return to session on Monday after more than a month in which lawmakers were on state work periods. Senator John Thune, the Republican majority leader in the chamber, has scheduled a cloture vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act for Tuesday, in which his compatriots will need support from a handful of Democrats to meet the 60-vote threshold and overcome a filibuster.

Should the bill fail to advance with a three-fifths supermajority, the Senate will have less than 36 days of business before 2027, when a new session of Congress is scheduled to be sworn in, one where Democrats could be in control, depending on the outcome of November’s midterm elections.

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Metaplanet’s executive stock pool continues to draw backlash over dilution concerns, as investors urged the company to freeze the exercise rights tied to 273 million shares.

Japanese Bitcoin treasury company Metaplanet’s executive stock pool continues to draw shareholder backlash over stock dilution concerns.&

Multiple shareholders objected across social media to Metaplanet’s 10th Series executive option pool, which was designed as 20% of fully diluted shares and automatically expanded as the company issued new shares to fund its Bitcoin (BTC) accumulation.

Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey defended Metaplanet’s executive stock model, saying that giving the team 20% of the cap table over five years “isn’t some crazy number” and that his company has been invested in Metaplanet since “day zero,” in a Tuesday X post.

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Bitcoin aggregate onchain profit entered its fourth week, but a popular analyst warned that BTC price “downside risk” remained in place.

Bitcoin (BTC) is breaking with typical bear-market behavior as a classic onchain metric puts in its longest bullish streak of 2026.

Key points:

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Alan Lane said a “coordinated attack” by the Biden administration made Silvergate’s continued operation untenable and prompted its liquidation.

Former Silvergate Bank CEO Alan Lane said political and regulatory pressure from the Biden administration drove the crypto-focused lender’s voluntary wind-down in 2023, arguing that the bank remained solvent after weathering a deposit run.

In an inaugural Substack post on Tuesday, Lane said Silvergate could have continued operating after satisfying withdrawals equivalent to 70% of its demand deposits during the fourth quarter of 2022. He argued that a “coordinated attack by the Biden Administration” ultimately led to the wind-down, saying the bank chose liquidation “in the face of political pressure.”

Lane said Silvergate had held liquid assets that could be sold or pledged as collateral during periods of heavy withdrawals. In a January 2023 business update, the bank reported that digital asset deposits fell 68% from $11.9 billion to $3.8 billion during the quarter. Silvergate sold $5.2 billion of debt securities, recording a $718 million loss. The bank said it had $4.6 billion in cash and equivalents at year-end.&

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Exporters can now fund imports with overseas earnings without first selling their foreign currency at official rates, the Financial Times reported.

Iran’s central bank has reportedly eased foreign currency controls to encourage businesses to bring overseas earnings home, including through cryptocurrency, amid tightening US sanctions.

This includes using Tether’s USDt (USDT) and Bitcoin (BTC) to settle cross-border transactions through Iranian cryptocurrency exchanges, the Financial Times reported Wednesday.

Exporters can also use their earnings to finance imports directly without first selling their foreign currency through the government’s exchange platform at official rates, the report said.

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The proposed Builders Bank would offer federally supervised digital asset custody but would not accept deposits or issue loans.

Jack Dorsey’s payments company Block seeks to establish a federally regulated trust bank to provide custody services for Bitcoin and stablecoins.

Block said Tuesday it had submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to create Builders Bank & Trust, an uninsured national trust bank. If approved, the bank would operate under OCC supervision and offer custody and related fiduciary services.&

Block said the charter would give its custody operations a consistent national framework as the business expands. The proposed bank would not accept deposits or make loans, separating it from a conventional commercial bank.

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Gemini’s local entity is authorized to provide digital payment token and cross-border money transfer services without standard transaction-volume limits.

Crypto exchange Gemini has received a Major Payment Institution (MPI) license from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), completing its transition from the in-principle approval granted nearly two years ago.&

On Wednesday, Gemini said MAS awarded the license to Gemini Digital Payments Singapore, its local entity. The MAS Financial Institutions Directory lists the company as authorized to provide digital payment token services and cross-border money transfers.&

MPI license holders can provide regulated payment services without the transaction-volume limits imposed on standard payment institutions. However, MAS said major payment institutions face more comprehensive regulation because their operations’ scale poses greater risks.&

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US prosecutors said Lam organized an international network that targeted cryptocurrency holders through social engineering and home break-ins.

Singaporean national Malone Lam pleaded guilty to participating in a racketeering conspiracy that used social engineering and home break-ins to steal and launder more than $245 million in cryptocurrency.

On Tuesday, the US Justice Department said that Lam organized the international operation, identified prospective victims and coordinated other conspirators. The enterprise was formed through connections on online gaming platforms and operated from no later than October 2023 through at least May 2025, according to court documents.

The plea establishes criminal responsibility nearly two years after Lam was charged over the theft of more than 4,100 Bitcoin, worth over $230 at the time, from a Washington, D.C. resident.&

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One of the first towns in the US to ban Bitcoin mining for 18 months is considering another temporary moratorium extending to data centers and other crypto mining operations.

The town of Plattsburgh in New York state held a public hearing to discuss a temporary land use moratorium for operations including AI data centers and crypto mining.

In a Thursday hearing, Plattsburgh Mayor Wendell Hughes and the common council heard from members of the public about a law proposed to impose a short-term ban on land use related to “certain high energy computing facilities,” including cryptocurrency mining and artificial intelligence. The moratorium, if passed, would halt approvals for operations requiring 300 or more kilowatts (kW) for 12 months.

As of Tuesday, reports signaled that the mayor had not approved the moratorium. The council is scheduled to hold another meeting on Sept. 17.

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Former Franklin Templeton digital asset executive Christopher Jensen will lead StablecoinX, the largest corporate holder of Ethena’s ENA token.

StablecoinX appointed former Franklin Templeton digital asset executive Christopher Jensen as CEO, putting him in charge of the largest corporate holder of Ethena’s ENA token.

Jensen succeeds Ted Chen, who led StablecoinX through its public listing in June and will remain chairman of the company’s board.

StablecoinX, which trades on Nasdaq under the ticker USDE, is a publicly listed company focused on the Ethena ecosystem. Ethena issues USDe, a synthetic dollar that ranks as the fifth-largest stablecoin with nearly $4.4 billion in circulation, according to DefiLlama data. ENA, Ethena’s governance token, gives holders voting rights over changes to the protocol.

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Bybit added USDT-settled perpetuals tracking EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY, with 24/7 trading and leverage of up to 100x.

Dubai-based crypto exchange Bybit has launched USDT-settled perpetual contracts tracking three major foreign currency pairs, adding FX to its growing lineup of traditional finance derivatives.

The contracts cover EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY, tracking movements in the underlying currency pairs without giving traders ownership of the currencies themselves. They have no expiration date and offer leverage of up to 100x.

Profits and losses are settled in USDT, with trading available around the clock, including when underlying FX markets are closed.

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Robinhood will route event contracts through OG.com’s CFTC-regulated infrastructure as it expands its prediction markets business.

Robinhood has taken equity stakes in Crypto.com and its newly spun-off prediction market platform OG.com as part of a multi-year deal to use OG.com’s regulated infrastructure for event contracts.

Under the agreement, Robinhood will route retail event contracts through OG.com’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)-regulated derivatives exchange and clearinghouse, with the rollout beginning Tuesday for eligible US customers.

According to Tuesday’s announcement, the online brokerage will receive initial equity stakes in both Crypto.com and OG.com, with the stakes priced at the valuations established by an earlier Citadel Securities investment in the platforms. The companies did not disclose the size or value of Robinhood’s holdings.

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Visa is combining VisaNet settlement data with blockchain lending as stablecoin payment volume on its network jumps nearly 200% year over year.

Payment giant Visa is connecting its settlement network with onchain lending, giving stablecoin-linked card programs another way to access working capital, potentially expanding the role of onchain lending from crypto markets into payment settlement.

The company announced Tuesday that settlement data from VisaNet will be combined with blockchain-based lending infrastructure, allowing lenders to finance payment obligations using data from the Visa network. The initiative enables lenders to use Visa settlement records alongside onchain transaction data to assess borrowers and finance their settlement obligations.

Visa highlighted Credit Coop, a blockchain-based protocol that extends credit lines to businesses, as an early example of the model. Credit Coop has financed more than $2.5 billion in cumulative settlement volume since 2023 across participating facilities, involving more than 3,000 borrowing events and 9,000 repayments.

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Bitcoin fell with US stocks on the opening of Tuesday’s Wall Street trading session as analysis warns that BTC price support at $78,300 must hold.

Bitcoin (BTC) dipped below $78,000 at Tuesday’s Wall Street open as risk assets fell on renewed Middle East tensions.

Key points:

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While Bitmine’s completed 97% of its goal to acquire 5% of Ether’s supply, Tom Lee’s team faces a $5.1 billion unrealized loss on its main treasury asset.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, the largest corporate Ether holder, announced another purchase of the second-biggest crypto, bringing the company closer to management’s goal of accumulating 5% of the total supply.

Bitmine acquired 28,086 Ether (ETH) last week, according to a Tuesday announcement, which is currently worth about $69.5 million. The purchase brings Bitmine’s total holdings to 5.93 million Ether acquired at an average price of $2,495 per ETH.&

Bitmine reported $15.7 billion in total assets, including $593 million in marketable securities, cash, other crypto holdings and 5.1 million in staked ETH, which is expected to generate $330 million in annualized staking revenue.

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Bitcoin believers see it as an almost certain long-term investment, but retirement demands a different approach. How much crypto exposure is too much for your retirement account?

You stack sats. You farm yield, and you’d rather sell your car than part with your BTC. But does that mean you should bank your golden years on Bitcoin?

Many retirement industry professional such as MIT finance professor Jonathan Parker say there is a sweet spot level for crypto exposure in a diversified retirement portfolio:

Parker, whose research spans portfolio choice, personal finance, retirement finance and Bitcoin, is unusually blunt about where the cryptocurrency belongs. But it’s a view shared by the average citizen.

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Strategy repurchased $176 million worth of its STRC preferred stock and doubled the size of its digital securities repurchase program to $2 billion, while pausing on new Bitcoin buys.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin treasury, skipped its weekly Bitcoin acquisition to repurchase $176 million of its preferred STRC stock.

Strategy repurchased 1.8 million STRC shares for an aggregate $176.3 million between Aug. 31 and Sept. 7, according to a Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

The company also doubled the size of its Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program to $2 billion. With no new purchases, Strategy’s holdings sit at 845,050 Bitcoin (BTC), acquired for a total of $63.6 billion, at an average purchase price of $75,412 apiece.

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Two suspects face a Wednesday hearing over four killings allegedly linked to a crypto wallet believed to hold millions of dollars in Bitcoin.

Two suspects in the killing of four people in Mexico allegedly sought a cold wallet they believed held millions of dollars in Bitcoin, news outlet La Jornada reported on Saturday, citing an update from the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Mexico (FGJEM).

Diego Sebastián and Gerardo, whose surnames were withheld, are scheduled for a court hearing on Wednesday, where a judge will determine whether there is sufficient evidence for criminal proceedings against them to continue, reported Diario de México on Sunday.

The FGJEM announced the arrests of the two suspects in a Sept. 2 X post.

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Tazapay processes $25 billion in annualized volume and offers payout rails across 100-plus markets, extending Circle’s USDC payments reach.

[Update 13:30 UTC, Sept. 8: Adds the $400 million purchase price and stock payment terms disclosed in Circle’s SEC filing.]

Circle has agreed to acquire Singapore-based cross-border payments platform Tazapay in a $400 million all-stock deal expected to close in 2027.

Circle will pay in Class A common stock, with the purchase price subject to adjustments for Tazapay’s debt, transaction expenses and cash, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

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Humo Digital will test HUMO payments with more than 20 merchants under a sandbox jointly overseen by NAPP and Uzbekistan’s central bank.

Uzbekistan has launched a pilot to test payments with a som-pegged stablecoin backed by government securities.&

On Monday, the National Agency for Prospective Projects (NAPP) said it had registered Humo Digital as a participant in a special regime jointly overseen with the central bank. The pilot will test the issuance, circulation and redemption of HUMO, with each token pegged to one Uzbek som.

NAPP said more than 20 merchants are prepared to test HUMO payments for goods and services.

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Ledger and Trezor said researchers have a responsibility to publish their findings if vendors fail to fix bugs within an agreed disclosure window.

Hardware wallet makers Ledger and Trezor called for more responsible disclosure of security vulnerabilities.

In a Monday post on X, Ledger chief technology officer Charles Guillemet said artificial intelligence has made bugs easier to find and exploit. However, some researchers are publishing their findings before fixes are available, a practice he called “attention farming with someone else’s risk.”

Guillemet urged researchers to report bugs privately and agree on a timeline for fixes before publishing details. He cited 90 days as a common default, with flexibility depending on the severity of the flaw and the work needed to fix it.

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Growing demand for tokenized stock trading may drive the Robinhood chain’s annual fees to $160 million by 2028, predicted analysts from Bernstein.

Trading platform Robinhood’s blockchain network is expected to generate as much as $160 million in annual fees by 2028, Bernstein analysts forecast in a Tuesday report shared with Cointelegraph.

The analysts cited growing demand for tokenized stock trading on the network, which grew to account for about 27% of the chain’s total trading volume, while native memecoin pairs trading decreased to 36% of network activity, down from 100% at launch on July 1.

Bernstein said the growing demand for tokenized stocks on the Robinhood chain is driven by automated market-making pools on Uniswap that pair memecoins with stock tokens and create “reflexive demand” for both sides.

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Unrealized gains by whale speculators hit their highest levels on record last week, per data going back to 2016.

Bitcoin (BTC) whales have more reason to sell than at any time in Bitcoin’s recent history as their unrealized profits hit records.

Key points:

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Cronos’s post-mortem put the Tectonic exploit’s affected borrowing at $120.4 million, with 7.6% transferred off-network before validators intervened.

Layer-1 blockchain Cronos said $9.19 million left its blockchain before validators halted the network during the Tectonic exploit, providing an official accounting of funds that were not reversed by its rollback.&

In Tuesday’s post-mortem report, Cronos said manipulated collateral values generated about $120.4 million in borrowing activity. Restoring the network to its pre-exploit state reversed about $111.2 million, leaving 7.6% of the affected funds outside of the network.&

The disclosure confirms the scale of the incident after earlier estimates placed the amount affected at about $75 million. It also puts the amount transferred off Cronos at $9.19 million, above the $8.3 million previously traced to Ethereum by blockchain data provider Bitquery.

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Financial market operator SIX and payment app TWINT have joined numerous banks in the sandbox seeking to develop a Swiss franc-based stablecoin.

Nine Swiss companies have begun sandbox tests of CHFD, a Swiss franc stablecoin, for programmable payments and digital asset settlement.

The pilot will examine whether programmable payments can reduce fraud on online marketplaces, support fair access to event tickets and make public payments more efficient, according to a Tuesday press release shared with Cointelegraph.

Financial market operator SIX and payment app TWINT are new participants in the initiative, which launched in April.

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AUSTRAC said its yearlong sweep included canceled, suspended and unrenewed registrations, while its action against GetCoins helped disrupt organized investment scams.

Australia’s financial intelligence regulator said it canceled, suspended or refused to renew 45 crypto and remittance registrations over the past year as it intensified scrutiny of high-risk payment businesses.&

On Monday, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) said the actions targeted providers that were inactive, insolvent or lacked the capacity to operate. It also cited failures to report material changes, incorrect registrations and cases presenting significant money laundering or terrorism financing risks.&

AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said businesses whose registrations were canceled can no longer operate. He added that individuals connected to some businesses had been referred to Australian and overseas law enforcement or regulatory partners.&

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The actors returned 85% of the Bitcoin withdrawn from Liquid’s federation wallet following the security incident.

Purported white-hat hackers returned 3,400 Bitcoin worth about $270 million to the Liquid Federation wallet after withdrawing roughly $320 million from the Bitcoin sidechain’s reserves.&

On Monday, JAN3 CEO and former Blockstream executive Samson Mow said the return followed confirmation from Blockstream that the affected bridge nodes had been patched. He said about 598 BTC remains outstanding and that Blockstream continues to engage with the actors.

The return follows a Sunday security incident in which hackers withdrew about 4,000 BTC from the wallet’s roughly 4,200 BTC. Onchain records show that exactly 3,400 BTC was transferred back to the federation’s wallet address.&

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Companies offering binary options for retail investors have been barred from selling, marketing and distributing products in the UK since 2019 following a directive from the FCA.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) reportedly has reached out to prediction market companies as part of discussions over whether the regulator would loosen a ban for retail investors, in place since 2019.

According to a Friday report from The Times, the FCA is weighing lifting a ban on prediction market platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi for UK-based retail investors. Because prediction markets offer binary options on event contracts, such as for sports, politics and the weather, they fall under an April 2019 ban imposed by the FCA, in which companies were “prohibited from selling, marketing or distributing binary options to retail consumers.”

“Binary options are gambling products dressed up as financial instruments,” said the FCA’s executive director of strategy and competition, Christopher Woolard, at the time of the ban.

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Ethereum’s Hegotá upgrade will center on FOCIL and Frame Transactions as developers weigh dozens of other proposed changes for inclusion.

The Ethereum Foundation has identified two “must ship” proposals for the Hegotá upgrade, prioritizing censorship resistance and more flexible account authentication as it narrows the fork’s scope.

The ranking evaluated 62 proposed Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), drawing on input from roughly 60 researchers and engineers across the Foundation’s Protocol cluster. It marks the first time the Foundation’s Protocol cluster has published a unified view of proposed EIPs rather than separate opinions from individual teams.

The two must-ship proposals are EIP-7805, known as FOCIL, and EIP-8141, or Frame Transactions, which the Foundation designated as the consensus and execution-layer headliners for Hegotá.

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Hunter Biden will reportedly distribute 200 million of the LAPTOP token to his substack subscribers, members of a mailing list and investors in President Donald Trump’s memecoin.

Hunter Biden, son of former US President Joe Biden, announced that he plans to launch a memecoin based on the reports of his infamous laptop, which has been subject to intense media scrutiny.

In a Monday announcement on X, Hunter Biden posted the memecoin’s ticker symbol, $LAPTOP, signaling a Wednesday launch. The Wall Street Journal reported that Biden would send 20% of the one-billion token supply to substack subscribers, members of a mailing list and investors in President Donald Trump’s memecoin, Official Trump (TRUMP), whose value has dropped by about 97% since reaching an all-time high price in January 2025.

Source: Hunter Biden

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Polish prosecutors charged Romana Ż. with organized crime and misappropriation offenses involving $2.1 million in Zondacrypto user funds.

Polish prosecutors investigating cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto, have formally charged an individual, identified as Romana Ż., with participating in an organized criminal group and allegedly misappropriating 7.8 million zlotys ($2.1 million) in user funds.

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Bitcoin’s struggle to break $80,000 comes as markets price in a growing chance of a September rate hike, putting monetary conditions back in focus.

Crypto fund flows are becoming increasingly sensitive to changes in the US interest-rate outlook, with CoinShares arguing that Federal Reserve policy remains a key barrier to Bitcoin (BTC) breaking above $80,000 despite continued investor demand for crypto.

In his latest market update, CoinShares head of research James Butterfil argued that “Bitcoin is trading like gold again, but the Fed still sets the ceiling” at around $80,000.

That sensitivity was evident after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s speech at Jackson Hole. Warsh said progress on inflation had been modest and that price pressures were not easing quickly enough to give the central bank’s policy makers the confidence inflation was returning to its 2% target. Roughly $100 million exited digital asset investment products immediately after the speech, as markets sharply increased the probability of a September rate hike.

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Capital B’s latest Bitcoin purchase was its largest in nearly a year, pushing the French company ahead of H100 Group among publicly traded BTC holders.

French Bitcoin treasury company Capital B has acquired 376 Bitcoin (BTC) for 25.3 million euros ($29.5 million), bringing its total holdings to 3,521 BTC.

The purchase was funded after Capital B completed roughly 30.1 million euros ($35 million) in capital raises, including a private placement backed by investors Adam Back and TOBAM, according to a Monday announcement.

The company bought the Bitcoin at an average price of 67,182 euros apiece, with Swissquote Bank Europe executing the purchase and Taurus providing custody.

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Bitcoin price fell 2% in low-liquidity conditions as the US Labor Day holiday saw $80,000 once again slip from bulls’ grasp.

Bitcoin (BTC) drifted lower on Monday as a low-liquidity environment erased the weekend’s gains above $80,000.

Key points:

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ZEC gained 45% over the past week, extending its rally since Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into an ETF that began trading Aug. 25.

Zcash (ZEC) climbed to its highest price since 2016, extending a rally that has pushed the privacy-focused cryptocurrency’s market capitalization above $20 billion.

ZEC reached $1,249.28 before retreating to about $1,195 on Monday, according to CoinGecko data. The token gained about 45% over the past week and 138% over 30 days.

The rally leaves Zcash below its launch-era record. CoinGecko lists an all-time high of $3,191.93 on Oct. 28, 2016, when only a small supply of tokens was available.

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This week’s CPI and PPI prints, along with the Fed’s Sept. 16 rate decision, could determine whether Bitcoin can secure $80,000 as a support level.

Bitcoin (BTC) sees its first weekly close above $80,000 since early May as clouds gather over the US inflation outlook.

Key points:

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Citi and DBS completed their first tokenized cross-border transfer over the weekend, using Swift’s blockchain-based ledger to circumvent the constraints of traditional banking hours.

Singapore-based financial services group DBS and American financial services giant Citi completed the first weekend tokenized cross-border payment between Singapore and the US on Saturday.

The two companies executed the transaction using tokenized deposits via the Swift Digital Ledger to bypass the constraints of traditional banking hours, DBS announced on Monday.

The deposit was finalized in minutes, which DBS called a “significant improvement” from the industry norm of as long as two business days for traditional cross-border transfers.

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A central bank proposal would pause new payment operator registrations while requiring enhanced monitoring and transaction limits for arrangements involving virtual asset firms.

The Philippines’ central bank has proposed freezing new payment-system operator registrations for 12 months while imposing tighter controls on payment arrangements involving virtual asset service providers (VASPs).&

Under a draft circular, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) said it would suspend acceptance and processing of applications for operators of payment systems (OPS) to conduct a “holistic review” of its taxonomy and licensing framework.&

Applications submitted before the suspension could continue to be evaluated, but the BSP would not approve or deny any until the pause ends. Entities would be barred from starting activities that require OPS registration unless the regulator authorizes them otherwise.&

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Galaxy said 82% of Bitcoin stolen across all Coldcard attacks remains in the original addresses, with 18% moved in apparent laundering.

The exploiter behind the third wave of the Coldcard wallet hack has moved about 45% of their Bitcoin (BTC) haul, routing the funds through THORChain or into CoinJoin transactions, according to Galaxy Research.

In a Monday update, Galaxy said the exploiter began moving funds to Ethereum through THORChain on Sept. 2. The latest movements sent Bitcoin into CoinJoin rounds, which combine multiple users’ payments into a single transaction to make funds harder to trace.

Galaxy said the third-wave exploiter had created 293 two-of-two multisignature vaults to hold victims’ coins and was moving funds from the largest vaults in descending order of size. Funds from the 11 largest vaults have now been moved.

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Fomo generated $1.76 million on Friday, beating Pump.fun’s $1.1 million, though the memecoin launchpad remains ahead over 30 days.

Social trading platform Fomo generated more daily revenue than memecoin launchpad Pump.fun on Friday.

Fomo generated $1.76 million in daily revenue on Friday, compared with Pump.fun’s $1.1 million, according to DefiLlama data.

Pump.fun remains ahead over longer periods. It generated more than $57 million over the past 30 days, compared with $17.6 million for Fomo.

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The actors told Blockstream they would return most of the 4,000 BTC after the Elements vulnerability is patched across the network.

[Update, Sept. 7, 2026, 7:30 UTC: Added correspondence between the “white hats” and Blockstream.]

Bitcoin sidechain Liquid paused operations after actors claiming to be white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 Bitcoin worth $320 million from its federation wallet.&

On Sunday, Liquid said that bridge nodes were disabled, preventing new transactions, while exchanges had halted or were preparing to halt L-BTC deposits and withdrawals. Other assets issued on Liquid, including USDT, DePix and real-world assets, were unaffected, according to the network.

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Harmony proposed sunsetting its layer-1 blockchain and migrating ONE to Ethereum, weeks after an exploit led to plans to discard 109,000 transactions.

Ethereum-compatible layer-1 network Harmony proposed sunsetting its blockchain and migrating its native ONE token to Ethereum, seven years after launching its mainnet.&

On Sunday, Harmony proposed taking a final network snapshot, issuing ERC-20 ONE tokens on Ethereum and migrating exchange listings. Validators would be offered options to stop their nodes, continue as governors, or join its new AI-video initiative.&

Harmony described the proposal as non-binding and did not specify when the final block would be produced or whether the shutdown would be submitted to the network’s validator-led governance process.&

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Purported white hat hackers have taken 4000 Bitcoin from the Liquid sidechain in a major security breach. The Bitcoin ETFs see the best three weeks of inflows in 2026.

A shade under 4000 Bitcoin worth $319 million has been taken from Liquid Network — with purported “white hat” hackers claiming responsibility. An unverified OP_RETURN message read: “we are whitehats. contact us on chain.”& &

The Blockstream-run Bitcoin sidechain has paused bridge nodes and told exchanges to pause LBTC deposits and withdrawls as the team attempts to contact the attackers and identify the security holes. The Liquid explorer shows the balance of its federation wallet dropped from 4,200 BTC down to just 207.275 BTC.

Under normal Liquid mechanics, LBTC is burned on the sidechain before Bitcoin is withdrawn. In simple terms, the transaction needs to be authorized by an 11 of 15 multisig with funds sent to an approved whitelist.& & & &

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Whale Alert identified 12 mining rewards totaling 600 BTC that moved after 16 years of dormancy, with the onchain tracking platform finding no connection to Satoshi Nakamoto.

Bitcoin mined in 2010 moved from long-dormant addresses after more than 16 years, reigniting speculation over a possible link to Satoshi Nakamoto.

A dozen addresses holding a combined 600 Bitcoin (BTC), worth about $48 million, moved the coins on Saturday after more than 16 years of dormancy, according to onchain data reviewed by Cointelegraph.

Whale Alert, a blockchain transaction tracking platform, said the 600 BTC came from rewards mined across 12 Bitcoin blocks and that its research found no connection to Nakamoto, the pseudonymous creator of Bitcoin.

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Tether-backed Orionx is permanently closing after an audit found more than $7 million in customer assets had moved to wallets outside its custody.

Orionx, a Chilean crypto exchange backed by USDt stablecoin issuer Tether, is shutting down after uncovering a multimillion-dollar issue linked to asset custody.

The exchange said it began a permanent closure process after a forensic audit found more than $7 million in custodial assets had moved to wallets it did not manage, according to a company announcement shared on X on Thursday.

“Our sole priority now is to return as much of our clients’ assets as possible,” Orionx said, adding that withdrawals are temporarily suspended.

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Polish lawmakers failed to overturn a presidential veto of crypto legislation as the Zondacrypto investigation expands and its Estonian operator enters bankruptcy.

Polish lawmakers have again failed to secure the three-fifths majority needed to overturn President Karol Nawrocki’s veto of legislation aimed at strengthening oversight of the country’s crypto market.

The Sejm, Poland’s lower house of parliament, on Friday voted 241-198 in favor of overriding the veto, with three abstentions, falling 25 votes short of the 266 needed.

The vote was yet another attempt to advance Poland’s crypto market rules after President Nawrocki vetoed crypto legislation three times, arguing that the proposed rules would overregulate the industry.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs drew nearly $1 billion in the latest week as Friday inflows stayed positive despite Bitcoin briefly falling below $79,000.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have recorded their strongest three-week inflow stretch of 2026 as Bitcoin traded around $80,000.

The funds attracted $986.9 million in the week ending Friday, bringing net inflows over the past three weeks to $3.8 billion, according to SoSoValue data.

Total net assets across the funds stood at $101.3 billion on Friday after briefly rising to $103.3 billion a day earlier, while cumulative net inflows reached $55.6 billion.

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The US economy added far more jobs than expected in August, pressuring Bitcoin lower as traders repriced the odds of a Federal Reserve rate cut this month.

Key points:

According to data released on Friday, the US economy added 162,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in August, significantly outperforming economists’ consensus expectations of roughly 56,000 jobs. In response to the announcement, Bitcoin (BTC) sold off from $81,300 to local lows of $78,600. At the time of writing it stands at $79,500.&

Recent economic data carries added weight, given how divided rate outlooks remain ahead of the next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Sept. 15-16. Under previous Federal Reserve chairs, expectations ahead of the FOMC were mostly well-anchored. However, the lack of forward guidance from Chair Kevin Warsh, along with potential dissenters in the committee, has resulted in added uncertainty.&

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The mortgage lender plans to bring more than $10 billion in historical loans onchain, turning thousands of mortgage files into blockchain-based records.

Pineapple Financial has moved more than $1 billion in residential mortgage records onto Injective, a layer-1 blockchain focused on financial applications, as part of a broader effort to migrate its historical loan portfolio onchain.

Pineapple plans to eventually migrate more than 29,000 funded mortgages worth over $10 billion onto the network, Injective said Friday.& Each mortgage is represented by an onchain record tied to the underlying loan file, rather than being repackaged as a new mortgage security.

The records contain more than 500 data points, including loan-level information designed to support verification, audit trails and risk analysis. Pineapple’s dashboard shows that the migration now includes 2,079 mortgage records, up from 1,259 when the initiative launched in December 2025.

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The agency reported that “transnational criminal organizations” based in compounds in Southeast Asia were largely behind digital asset scams targeting US residents.

An analysis from the US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) identified $12.7 billion in crypto transactions “perpetrated by overseas scam centers.”

According to a FinCEN report released on Thursday, an analysis of more than 33,000 reports filed between September 2023 and December 2025 of suspected crypto scams revealed about $13 billion in financial transactions. The digital asset-based scams included instances of pig butchering, romance scams and “cryptocurrency confidence schemes,” in which a victim is manipulated into investing in crypto with false promises of large returns.

“Digital asset investment scams pose one of the most significant fraud threats facing Americans today,” said Gene Lange, performing the duties of Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.&

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Corporate crypto bets are getting bigger as rising markets reward direct exposure, putting balance-sheet strategies and institutional adoption back in focus.

Crypto’s August rally put corporate conviction to the test. Bitcoin (BTC) miners that spent much of the crypto downturn courting AI investors are once again trading like leveraged bets on BTC, while Strategy and Strive are adding thousands more Bitcoin to their balance sheets.&

The same concentration is playing out elsewhere. Bitmine is closing in on owning 5% of& Ether’s (ETH) circulating supply despite billions in unrealized losses, while 21 major financial institutions are taking a different approach by developing stablecoins for payments and settlement.

Bitcoin’s August rally lifted beaten-down mining stocks by as much as 67%, reversing a trend that had favored miners pivoting to AI and underscoring the sector’s continued sensitivity to BTC market conditions.

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QuFi’s new platform uses post-quantum cryptography to verify digital asset transactions without requiring changes to existing blockchain settlement networks.

Post-quantum infrastructure company QuFi Network has launched a verification platform designed to protect digital assets against future quantum computing threats without requiring changes to existing blockchain settlement networks.

The platform separates verification from settlement, using a decentralized network of nodes to validate transactions with post-quantum cryptography before they are settled on existing blockchain networks.

QuFi also launched uBTC, a proof-of-concept that applies the verification system to Bitcoin (BTC) and is currently operating on Bitcoin Testnet4. The uBTC system verifies BTC collateral and generates cryptographic proofs governing how value moves between settlement environments, while redemptions ultimately settle as standard Bitcoin transactions.

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Despite earlier opposition to the CLARITY Act over consumer protection, the National Sheriffs’ Association says it will now “step back and allow the legislative process to proceed.“

The National Sheriffs’ Association (NSA) has dropped its opposition to a cryptocurrency market structure bill scheduled for a vote later this month when the US Senate returns to session.

In a Thursday letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the US law enforcement group said that it was changing its position on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act to “neutral.” The NSA cited the “significant work undertaken by Congress, the Administration, and stakeholders to navigate the many legal, regulatory, and enforcement considerations involved” in addressing the bill.

“At this time, we believe the most appropriate course is to step back and allow the legislative process to proceed to establish a clear, effective, and much needed regulatory framework,” said NSA president Troy Wellman and CEO and executive director Justin Smith.

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Revolut and OpenReserve received preliminary OCC approval to form US national banks, with both planning cryptocurrency and stablecoin-related services.

Revolut and Andreessen Horowitz-backed crypto banking startup OpenReserve have received preliminary US regulatory approval to establish national banks, with both companies planning to offer cryptocurrency and stablecoin-related services.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) granted preliminary conditional approval for Revolut to move forward with a proposed bank in Connecticut and OpenReserve with one in Utah, according to separate decisions published Wednesday.

The OCC said Revolut wants its own US bank to provide services at lower cost and with greater efficiency than its current model, which relies on Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)-insured partner banks.

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Crypto projects are spending hundreds of millions buying their own tokens. But are buybacks creating lasting value — or just making tokens look more valuable than they really are?

As the industry matures and borrows more pages out of TradiFi’s playbook, crypto projects are starting to adopt some of the behaviors of public companies.

The latest craze rocking cryptoville is token buybacks: using revenue to buy back your own token.

So far in 2026, crypto projects have spent about $640 million on the practice, up around 17% from the same period the year prior, and an order of magnitude more than the $366,000 spent in 2024. Hyperliquid and Pump.fun accounting for almost 90% of the current spend.

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Kalshi’s US web traffic climbed more than 1,500% in less than a year, while trading volume grew even faster and legal scrutiny of its sports contracts intensified.

Major prediction market platform Kalshi has seen its US web traffic explode over the past year, underscoring the platform’s rapid growth while regulators and courts scrutinize its expanding event-contract business.

Kalshi recorded 15.4 million visits from the United States in July, up about 1,520% from just under 1 million in August 2025, according to Similarweb traffic estimates reviewed by Cointelegraph on Friday.

US traffic accounted for nearly 80% of Kalshi’s traffic in July, up from 72.8% in August 2025, showing that its growth has remained heavily concentrated in the country.

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Trezor said an additional 67,000 US users were affected by its shipping provider’s data breach, opening the path to potential phishing attacks and social engineering scams.

The impact of hardware wallet provider Trezor’s data breach was larger than initially estimated, expanding to an additional 67,000 US customers.

The breach may endanger more US users who ordered between November 2019 and August 2021, Trezor said in a Friday X post, citing the latest update from its shipping provider, ShipMonk.&

These customers had their full details exposed, including name, email, number, shipping address and order specifics. Trezor blamed the shipping provider for not deleting the data from these orders, despite saying it had received written assurances from ShipMonk.

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South Korea’s financial regulator introduced a three-phase roadmap for the issuance of tokenized assets, as the country prepares to adopt its first tokenized securities framework in February 2027.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (SFC) introduced a three-phase roadmap to develop infrastructure for tokenized securities issuance, for assets including stocks, bonds and funds.

Starting Feb. 4, 2027, tokenized securities will be legally recognized as digitized forms of securities after an update to the Act on Electronic Registration of Stocks and Bonds is scheduled to take effect, the FSC revealed in a Friday press release.

The first phase will offer tokenized securities legal recognition, including for institutional money market funds, bonds, unlisted stocks and fractional investment securities. Phase two would expand tokenization to all publicly offered securities, while phase three aims for onchain payments linked to stablecoins.

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AMC’s CEO criticized Robinhood’s tokenized stock offerings for being unregulated in the US and said he will request an investigation from an external securities counsel.

Adam Aron, the CEO of AMC Entertainment Holdings, criticized Robinhood’s tokenized stock offerings that provide economic exposure to AMC shares, stating the company has no affiliation and that it will have a securities counsel investigate the matter.

Robinhood’s stock tokens are not registered under US securities laws and are an “outrageous” offering with no affiliation to AMC, Aron wrote in a Friday X post, adding that the company will request an investigation from its outside securities counsel.

Aron added that these stocks may not be offered to US investors and that they are subject to restrictions in several other jurisdictions, including Canada, Switzerland and the UK.

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US Bitcoin ETFs drew $730.9 million on Thursday as Bitcoin reclaimed $80,000, though CryptoQuant flagged weak fresh demand and a key $83,000 test.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) notched their biggest inflows in nearly eight months as BTC reclaimed $80,000.

Bitcoin ETFs recorded $730.9 million in net inflows on Thursday, the largest daily haul since Jan. 14, when the funds attracted $843.6 million, according to SoSoValue data.

The surge followed $101.2 million inflows on Wednesday and came as Bitcoin reclaimed the $80,000 level after trading in a range between roughly $76,000 and $81,000 this week, according to CoinGecko.

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The IMF attributed Bitcoin added since June 2025 to private donations, addressing questions raised after El Salvador reported a $100 million acquisition.

El Salvador used no public resources to accumulate Bitcoin after the first review of its International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing program in June 2025, according to the lender.&

In a Thursday statement, the IMF said documents supplied by Salvadoran authorities verified that the accumulation came from private donations. According to the lender, the increase in El Salvador’s holdings therefore did not reflect additional Bitcoin purchases financed with government resources.&

The IMF also said majority ownership and operational control of the Chivo wallet had been transferred to a private operator, while the government retained a minority stake and custodial responsibilities. It said no further accumulation beyond documented donations is expected.&

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The agreement includes parallel investigations and information sharing, with US and UK authorities planning a private-sector disruption operation in London in October.

The United States and United Kingdom have formed a joint law enforcement alliance targeting scam centers involved in crypto and cyber-enabled investment fraud.&

On Thursday, the US Department of Justice announced that the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales and the UK National Crime Agency had signed a memorandum of understanding. The DOJ described it as the “first-of-its-kind” international cooperation agreement aimed at disabling such scam centers.

Under the agreement, the agencies will conduct parallel investigations into common targets, share information on organized crime syndicates and discuss which jurisdictions should prosecute specific cases. The DOJ said the authorities have already identified overlapping cases and plan an in-person disruption operation with private-sector partners in London in early October.

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Thai businessmen sue Tether over $42M frozen USDT tied to pig butchering scam, Aussie crypto firms face big fines unless they meet licensing deadline.

THAILAND

Two Thai businessmen have sued stablecoin issuer Tether in a New York district court, claiming it illegally froze $42.4 million in Tether USDt (USDT) in October, as part of a broader case tied to a pig butchering scheme.

The plaintiffs claimed that Tether illegally froze the $42 million without a warrant in October 2025, following an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations.

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Thai businessmen sue Tether over $42M frozen USDT tied to pig butchering scam, Aussie crypto firms face big fines unless they meet licensing deadline.

THAILAND

Two Thai businessmen have sued stablecoin issuer Tether in a New York district court, claiming it illegally froze $42.4 million in Tether USDt (USDT) in October, as part of a broader case tied to a pig butchering scheme.

The plaintiffs claimed that Tether illegally froze the $42 million without a warrant in October 2025, following an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations.

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The CFTC’s lawyers called the lawsuit “much ado about nothing,“ claiming that the CME Group lacked standing to file and argued against its claims over crypto perpetual futures.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a motion to dismiss a civil suit filed by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, which claimed that the regulator’s treatment of cryptocurrency “futures” as “swaps” went against Congress.

In a Wednesday filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, lawyers representing CFTC Chair Michael Selig and the commission requested a hearing to address the motion to dismiss the CME lawsuit, claiming the group lacked standing.&

CME filed suit against the CFTC in June after the commission approved perpetual futures contracts tied to the spot price of Bitcoin (BTC) for prediction markets platform Kalshi and issued a no-action position for similar products on cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. The June complaint argued that Selig had unilaterally acted without a full panel of five commissioners, going against the Commodity Exchange Act by treating “futures” as “swaps” with expiration dates.

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Mantle has added Paxos-issued USDG as a natively minted stablecoin while joining the network’s reward-sharing structure.

Paxos-issued stablecoin USDG has launched natively on Mantle, with the Ethereum layer-2 network joining the Global Dollar Network as a partner, according to a Thursday announcement.

The integration makes USDG one of the first stablecoins to be natively minted on Mantle and brings the network into USDG’s reward-sharing structure. As a partner, Mantle can receive a share of the rewards generated by USDG activity, joining a network of more than 150 partners, including Kraken and Robinhood.

USDG has a market capitalization of about $3.18 billion, making it the seventh-largest stablecoin tracked by DefiLlama. The stablecoin is issued by Paxos and operates under regulatory frameworks in Singapore and the European Union, with Paxos publishing monthly reports on its reserves.

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Kalshi previously said it had been placed in an “impossible position” after federal authorities directed the company to ignore a Michigan restraining order issued in June.

Update (Sept. 3, 9:20 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from Kalshi.

Michigan’s attorney general announced that a state court had ordered a preliminary injunction against Kalshi, blocking the prediction markets platform for residents amid what officials called “sports betting [...] masquerading as an investment opportunity.”

In a Wednesday notice, Attorney General Dana Nessel said that the Circuit Court for the 30th Judicial Circuit in Ingham County approved an order blocking Kalshi from offering event contracts to state residents. The company could be fined up to $500,000 per day for violations.

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Bitcoin rallied 5% to reclaim $80,000 as the US dollar weakened amid a suspected Bank of Japan currency intervention, though analysts remain split on the impact.

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied 5% during US trading hours, reaching $81,000.&

Key points:&

At the time of writing, BTC stands at $81,000, near the highs seen during last month’s surprise upside.&

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The integration lets Bybit users spend digital assets directly from their exchange balances across Mesh-powered platforms.

Bybit Pay, the payments arm of crypto exchange Bybit, has integrated with crypto payments infrastructure provider Mesh, allowing users to make payments and fund accounts on supported platforms directly from their Bybit balances.

The integration lets Bybit users select Bybit Pay at checkout or when funding an account without first withdrawing or transferring assets to another platform.

For businesses already integrated with Mesh, Bybit Pay can be added as a payment option through their existing integration, giving them access to Bybit’s claimed 80 million users. Bybit said the integration also supports programmable settlement options, allowing businesses to control how and when payments are settled across different markets.

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The UK political party and its leader, Nigel Farage, have accepted contributions from figures tied to the crypto industry, raising questions about potential influence on policies.

Records from the UK’s Electoral Commission showed that BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo’s contributions to the country’s Reform party made up about three-quarters of the $7.3 million it received in the second quarter of 2026.

As of Thursday, the Electoral Commission showed that Delo had made two separate contributions to Reform UK of 1 million and 3 million pounds — about $1.3 million and $4 million, respectively — in April. While the political party also received significant contributions from entities and individuals between April and June 2026, Delo’s donation amounted to 74% of all funds reported in the second quarter.

Source: UK Electoral Commission

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The deal will bring SoFiUSD to Kraken, connect Payward to SoFi’s 24/7 dollar settlement network and give SoFi access to digital asset liquidity through Kraken Prime.

Kraken parent Payward has partnered with SoFi in a deal that will bring SoFiUSD to Kraken and connect the crypto platform to SoFi’s 24/7 dollar settlement network.

Under the partnership, SoFi will use Kraken Prime as an additional source of digital asset liquidity, while Payward will join the SoFi Exchange Network (SEN) and gain access to SoFi’s business banking services.

The companies said qualified custody services could be added as the partnership expands, while Kraken’s institutional and business clients will gain access to SEN for round-the-clock US dollar settlement.

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Crypto recovery specialists reveal how lost wallets, passwords and seed phrases can sometimes be recovered — but that’s of no help if the money was never there in the first place.

When a client named Rusty contacted crypto recovery specialist Chris Brooks in 2021, he said he and two others had won 5,000 Bitcoin in a court case, worth around $53 million at the time.

They immediately set up a Zoom call to discuss the case.

“There were three guys on the call, and one of them holds up a phone. It has like $53 million in a Bitcoin address,” says Brooks, founder and chief executive of CryptoAssetRecovery.com.

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VARA and Securitize signed an MoU to foster more tokenization innovation in Dubai and explore how tokenized financial innovation should be regulated in the region.

Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) and BlackRock-backed tokenization platform Securitize signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance tokenization and digital asset infrastructure across the United Arab Emirates and Dubai.

The MoU will establish a collaborative framework to support regulated tokenization initiatives, foster institutional participation and strengthen Dubai’s digital asset ecosystem, the companies said in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

VARA and Securitize seek to support tokenization initiatives in Dubai, including projects initiated by VARA, to attract more talent and explore how tokenized financial products should operate under Dubai’s regulatory framework.

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Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, gaining a platform used by more than 18 million developers to share and deploy AI models.

Update (Sept. 3, 1:30 PM UTC): This article was updated to clarify details of the acquisition.

Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, extending its reach into the software and tools developers use to build artificial intelligence.

The chipmaker agreed to acquire Hugging Face, which serves more than 18 million developers and hosts over 3 million models, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a Thursday announcement.

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Pencil Finance said that its first-of-a-kind loan offered financing to 6,600 students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders.

Student loan real-world asset (RWA) protocol Pencil Finance completed a $1 million onchain student loan cycle, offering financing to thousands of students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders.

Pencil said it completed its first fully onchain student loan cycle on the blockchain, where the platform deployed $1 million in capital as a lender that was repaid by borrowers to the bundle’s funders with yield, the company revealed in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The bundle was funded in July 2025 by Animoca Brands, Open Campus and New Campus, structured as a senior tranche with fixed returns and a junior tranche with variable returns and first-loss risk.

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Standard Chartered said it is the first major global bank to offer institutional access to spot Bitcoin and Ether trading in the UAE region.

London-headquartered multinational bank Standard Chartered has launched spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), through its entity regulated by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).

The move makes Standard Chartered the first global bank to offer institutional digital asset trading in the region and the first Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) with a similar offering, the bank said in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Eligible institutional clients will be able to access spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) trading through Standard Chartered’s electronic trading channels integrated into the bank’s existing platforms.

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The third-wave Coldcard exploiter moved about 10% of stolen funds through THORChain as researchers traced the assets to a new Ethereum address.

A hacker linked to the third wave of Coldcard wallet thefts has started swapping stolen Bitcoin for Ether through THORChain.

Galaxy head of research Alex Thorn took to X on Wednesday to report that the third-wave exploiter moved about 10% of the stolen funds, with 90% remaining untouched. Thorn said it marked the first time funds from any of the three waves had moved onchain from the original hacker addresses.

“The hacker appears to be having some issues swapping all the funds through THORChain — they keep getting refunded and he keeps retrying,” he said.

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Kalshi reportedly plans to file for approval of a WTI crude oil perpetual futures contract that would trade around the clock five days a week without an expiration date.

Prediction market operator Kalshi will reportedly seek regulatory approval for a West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil perpetual futures contract that never expires.

The contract could be filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) as soon as next week, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. It would trade 24 hours a day, five days a week, according to Reuters.

If approved, it would be the first oil-linked perpetual futures product to trade on a regulated US platform.

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ASIC has recorded more than 45 digital asset-related license applications as its temporary enforcement relief approaches Sept. 30 expiration.

Australian crypto companies relying on temporary regulatory relief have until Sept. 30 to apply for a financial services license or risk penalties, including fines reaching 10% of their annual turnover.&

On Wednesday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) said businesses requiring an Australian Financial Services license must apply for one or seek changes to an existing license before the deadline. Firms requiring market or clearing and settlement licenses must also notify the regulator and hold a pre-application meeting.&

Starting Oct. 1, companies that require authorization but have not met the conditions of ASIC’s no-action position could be operating in breach of financial services law. The regulator said they may face civil and criminal penalties.&

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Ether ETFs posted $48 million in outflows after attracting $1.62 billion over 12 trading days, while XRP funds ended an 11-session inflow run.

US-listed spot Ether and XRP exchange-traded fund (ETF) inflow streaks ended on Wednesday, marking a reversal after sustained demand.

Spot Ether ETFs recorded $48 million in net outflows on Wednesday, ending 12 consecutive trading days of inflows, according to SoSoValue data. The funds had attracted $1.62 billion during the streak.

BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA) led Ether fund outflows with $53.4 million, while the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH) lost $26.2 million and the Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF (ETHE) shed $23.5 million, according to Farside Investors data. BlackRock’s staked Ether ETF (ETHB) partially offset those withdrawals with around $53 million in net inflows.

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Hyperscale Data’s Bitcoin holdings have fallen about 79% since late July to 215 BTC as it redirects capital toward its Michigan AI data center.

Hyperscale Data has ended all Bitcoin mining operations at its Michigan facility as it prepares the site for an artificial intelligence data center customer.&

On Wednesday, the company said that all Bitcoin miners at the facility were switched off following an inspection by the unidentified California-based neocloud provider. Hyperscale said it intends to sell the associated mining equipment.&

Hyperscale said the AI customer has contracted for 20 megawatts (MW) of computing capacity under a 10-year master services agreement with two optional five-year extensions. The agreement may generate more than $1.2 billion over the maximum 20-year term. An additional 32 MW option could lift potential revenue above $3 billion, while the site is expected to support 340 MW.&

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Federal authorities and private-sector partners were part of an operation to disrupt malware that redirected about $150,000 in crypto over the last eight years.

Federal law enforcement officials, working with cybersecurity technology company CrowdStrike, announced action against entities behind malware that enabled the theft of $150,000 in cryptocurrency.

In a Tuesday notice, the US Justice Department said it had disrupted the Sality botnet and malware in an international effort with Bulgarian, Hungarian and Romanian officials, as well as private sector partners CrowdStrike and the Shadowserver Foundation. US officials said that Sality was responsible for installing malware on compromised devices since 2003, resulting in crypto theft and cyberattacks.&

CrowdStrike reported that in the previous eight years, the entities behind Sality used EggJagger, a “clipjacking tool that monitors the clipboard for cryptocurrency wallet addresses and silently replaces them with addresses controlled by the operator,” to steal at least 12.1 million rubles, or about $150,000, in cryptocurrency. According to the company, the value of the “never-spent” digital assets peaked at about $1.5 million in January 2025.

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Coinbase is offering eligible Canadian traders perpetual and dated futures with up to 10x leverage as major US trading platforms expand their crypto presence in Canada.

Coinbase has launched crypto derivatives trading in Canada, giving eligible users access to perpetual and dated futures tied to Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL) and other assets.

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New Jersey’s Attorney General and gaming authorities filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court over Kalshi offering sporting event contracts to residents.

New Jersey’s Attorney General and the state’s interim director for the Division of Gaming Enforcement have officially petitioned the US Supreme Court to hear a case aimed at resolving whether state authorities or federal agencies have jurisdiction over prediction market companies.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and gaming enforcement interim director Mary Jo Flaherty filed a petition for a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court over New Jersey’s enforcement against prediction market platform Kalshi over sporting event contracts. Officials cited civil cases brought by gaming authorities in “at least 20 states,” seeking the highest court in the US to decide whether prediction market companies could be in compliance with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) while violating state laws.

“Companies like Kalshi claim to offer legal sports betting in all 50 States, but they refuse to follow the gambling laws of any State,” said Davenport. “These companies have no right to offer their sports bets without following state law, which is why dozens of States across the ideological spectrum have opposed them [...] We’re calling on the Supreme Court to resolve this issue and recognize that Congress did not silently make the sports-betting industry immune from state law.”

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Wyoming is using Chainlink to bring near-real-time reserve verification onchain for FRNT as the oracle provider expands its footprint across tokenized financial markets.

The US state of Wyoming is adding near-real-time onchain reserve verification to its state-issued Frontier Stable Token through an expanded integration with blockchain oracle network Chainlink.

The Wyoming Stable Token Commission said Wednesday it adopted Chainlink Proof of Reserve to publish verified data on FRNT’s reserves and token supply onchain. The system combines independent examinations by The Network Firm with Chainlink’s infrastructure to make the data available in near real time.

Wyoming already publishes daily reserve attestations for FRNT, while the GENIUS Act requires monthly disclosures of reserve composition and outstanding stablecoin supply. The commission said the integration will provide more timely visibility into changes in FRNT’s backing between reporting periods.

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Ondo says existing US securities laws can accommodate perpetual futures tied to individual stocks as regulators look to bring more derivatives activity onshore.

Ondo Finance is urging US regulators to bring perpetual futures tied to individual stocks onshore, arguing that the products can already operate under the country’s existing security futures framework without new rules.

In three Aug. 24 comment letters to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Ondo argued that existing rules can accommodate perpetual stock futures while also accounting for modern margining practices and onchain market data.

Ondo said its Panama-based affiliate already offers stablecoin-settled perpetual futures on individual US-listed stocks outside the United States, with the platform recording $8 billion in cumulative trading volume as of Aug. 14, around six weeks after its launch.

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One of Bitcoin’s onchain demand indicators turns negative again after a brief August rebound, as BTC price slipped below $77,000 amid a broader bond and equities sell-off.

Bitcoin (BTC) sold off into the early European trading hours on Wednesday to hit local lows of $76,400, per data from CoinGecko.

Key points:&

The move in BTC came after US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded outflows of $236 million the day prior. Data from CryptoQuant now shows Bitcoin’s apparent demand turning negative once more after a brief reprieve during the August rally.&

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Officials in the G20, under the US’ presidency, recognized that digital assets could support “broad-based economic growth” and called for improvements in cross-border transactions.

Member nations of the Group of 20 (G20) agreed on policies supportive of the potential of digital assets in “broad-based economic growth.”

In a speech released by the US Treasury Department on Tuesday, the G20, currently chaired by the United States, said that all members had agreed with statements recognizing the “transformative role” of digital asset innovation. The body also called on countries to improve cross-border payments and facilitate the transmission of financial services-related data.&

“We commit to advancing responsible and effective regulatory and supervisory frameworks that preserve financial stability, support economic growth, and establish clear pathways for sound digital financial and digital assets innovation, while considering cross-border opportunities and challenges as appropriate,” said the G20 statement.

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Full Sail is shutting down after an attacker removed about $91,000 from three vaults during a security incident linked to oracle provider Switchboard.

Full Sail, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol on the Sui blockchain, plans to shut down after a security incident involving oracle provider Switchboard resulted in user losses.

Full Sail took to X on Tuesday to announce that the protocol is winding down, immediately disabling new deposits and liquidity provider (LP) reward claims. Regular pools will move to withdrawal-only mode after final security checks, with compensating users the protocol’s top priority, Full Sail said.

The decision follows a security incident last week that affected Full Sail’s automated vaults following a suspected compromise of Switchboard’s oracle infrastructure.

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Arthur Hayes says Bitcoin is going to grind higher from here, but Ethereum is his number one pick due to its potential to increase “3x to 5x pretty quickly.”

Bitcoin has all the factors in place to a seven-figure price over the next four years, according to BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes.

But he’s buying ETH right now, because he believes it could easily do a “3x to 5x pretty quickly.”

On the latest episode of Trade Secrets, Hayes says the collapse of the AI bubble, “massive” money printing, and potential US yield curve control are among some of the reasons why Bitcoin could go to $1 million by 2030

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Hashkey joined the DTCC’s working group on tokenization innovation as the first Asian crypto service provider to join with over 100 financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

Hashkey joined the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) Digital Assets Advisory Services Industry Working Group as its first Asian digital asset service provider.&

Hashkey joins over 100 other global financial institutions and asset managers to help define how tokenized assets are issued, settled and safeguarded at an institutional scale. Other participants include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the company revealed in a Wednesday announcement.

DTCC is a core post-trade infrastructure provider in traditional financial markets. Its working group was formed to connect traditional finance with decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. DTCC plans to launch access to tokenized securities in October, in conjunction with the working group. DTCC custodies $114 trillion in liquid assets, including stocks and exchange-traded funds.

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The plaintiffs didn’t dispute their involvement in the pig butchering scam, but claimed that Tether did not have the authority to freeze the $42 million at the time.

Two Thai businessmen sued stablecoin issuer Tether in a New York district court, claiming it illegally froze $42.4 million in Tether USDt (USDT) in October, as part of a broader case tied to a pig butchering scheme.

In a Monday court filing, the plaintiffs claimed that Tether illegally froze the $42 million without a warrant in October 2025, following an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations.

Authorities in the Eastern District of North Carolina only issued a seizure warrant for the funds later in February 2026, as part of a $61 million pig butchering case. The warrant directed the burn and reissuance of the tokens to a government wallet.&

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Remixpoint sold $5.5 million in ETH, SOL, XRP and DOGE, booking a $736,000 net gain as it narrowed its crypto strategy to focus on Bitcoin.

Remixpoint, one of Japan’s largest corporate Bitcoin holders, sold all its altcoins, leaving about 1,506 BTC ($115 million) as its only cryptocurrency holding as it concentrates its crypto strategy around Bitcoin.

Remixpoint sold its Ether (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP) and Dogecoin (DOGE) holdings for a combined 878.8 million yen ($5.5 million), generating a 117.8 million yen ($736,000) gain, according to a Wednesday company disclosure.

The company recorded gains on its ETH, SOL and XRP sales but sold its DOGE holdings at a 3.26 million yen ($20,000) loss. The company completed the sale on Tuesday and expects to book the gain in the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 2027.

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Thailand adopted a crypto Travel Rule requiring digital asset operators to verify control of self-custodial wallets and retain transaction data for five years.

Thailand is tightening oversight of crypto transfers, including transactions involving self-custodial wallets, as it moves to align with global Anti-Money Laundering (AML) standards.

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued new Travel Rule regulations requiring digital asset operators to collect information about parties involved in crypto transfers, the regulator announced Wednesday.

The rules will take effect on Feb. 27, 2027, giving crypto businesses nearly six months to develop systems for transmitting, receiving and monitoring transaction information.

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Grayscale, a16z, and the CCI asked the SEC to preserve existing classification rules and avoid treating novel exchange-traded products as a single category, while proposing different routes to clearer and faster reviews.

Crypto industry participants urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to avoid a blanket restriction on “novel” exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and instead evaluate products based on their individual risk parameters.

Venture capital firm a16z asked the SEC to evaluate novel products according to their underlying characteristics, coordinate fund-registration and exchange-listing reviews and adopt more predictable timelines. Digital asset investment manager Grayscale and the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI) supported optional confidential pre-filing processes.

All three opposed changing existing investment-company classifications in ways that could automatically sweep products holding non-securities into the Investment Company Act framework.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs reduced their year-to-date net outflows by 66% as Bitcoin gained about 25% in August, while Ether ETFs turned positive YTD at $732 million and XRP ETFs reached $502 million.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) capped their best month of 2026 alongside Bitcoin’s biggest monthly gain since November 2024.

Bitcoin ETFs attracted $3.52 billion in net inflows in August, their highest monthly total of 2026 and a sharp increase from just $172 million in inflows in July, according to SoSoValue data.

Bitcoin (BTC) gained about 25% in August, its strongest monthly performance since a 37.29% rally in November 2024, according to CoinGlass.

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The Nasdaq-listed company previously raised $647 million through the facility and accumulated about 29.3 million HYPE tokens.

HYPE treasury company Hyperliquid Strategies increased its equity facility with Chardan Capital Markets from $1 billion to $2.5 billion, giving the company additional capacity to raise capital through share sales.

In a Tuesday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Hyperliquid Strategies said it amended its October 2025 Chardan Equity Facility purchase agreement to increase the aggregate gross purchase price of newly issued common shares.&

The agreement allows Hyperliquid Strategies to periodically direct Chardan, a New York-based investment bank and broker-dealer, to purchase shares subject to pricing, trading volume, and other conditions. Chardan can subsequently resell the shares in the public market.&

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Core says the incident is contained and its planned forward upgrade will not roll back the network or reverse previously confirmed transactions.

Core DAO is coordinating an emergency hard fork after validators claimed more CORE rewards than the blockchain intended to issue.&

In an update, Core said the incident had been contained and that “malicious validators” could no longer draw excess rewards. It said the fork would be a forward upgrade and would not roll back the network or reverse any previously confirmed transactions.&

This followed an earlier status update on Monday, in which Core said a small number of validators had accrued rewards significantly above the protocol’s intended issuance. It said the incident was limited to reward issuance and that user assets remained safe, adding that it would publish a technical postmortem.&

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The $189,000 in media spending to support Representative Jake Auchincloss marked Fairshake’s latest attempt to influence the 2026 elections with funds from the crypto industry.

An affiliate of the political action committee (PAC) Fairshake, which was responsible for pouring more than $130 million in ads and media in the 2024 election cycle, is supporting at least one candidate in Tuesday’s primary in Massachusetts.

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records as of Tuesday, the Protect Progress PAC, a Fairshake affiliate, spent just over $189,000 on media to support Representative Jake Auchincloss running for reelection in Massachusetts’ 4th congressional district. Some of the funds, according to Democratic candidate Jason Poulos, were used to create “AI-generated slop mailers” supporting Auchincloss ahead of the Massachusetts primary, scheduled for Tuesday.

In an Aug. 16 letter, Poulos called on the Democratic lawmaker to “publicly renounce” Protect Progress’ efforts to potentially influence the primary and general election. The candidate claimed Auchincloss had accepted $77,500 directly from “crypto-industry sources” since 2020, pointing to the Massachusetts lawmaker’s record in voting for the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act in July 2025 — a market structure bill not signed into law as it awaits consideration in the Senate.

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The launch gives eligible non-US users access to physically settled options on more than 1,000 US stocks and ETFs through a single Binance account.

Binance is expanding further into traditional finance by launching options trading on more than 1,000 US stocks and exchange-traded funds for eligible users outside the United States.

The options will be offered through Binance’s Abu Dhabi-regulated broker-dealer, Nest Trading, with orders routed to US-registered Alpaca Securities for execution, clearing, settlement and custody.

The launch builds on Binance’s existing equities offering of more than 7,000 US stocks and ETFs and adds to a growing lineup of traditional financial products available through the platform.

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UK authorities froze $13.5 million in cash following a January 2025 order from the Westminster Magistrates’ Court as part of an investigation into Sorare.

The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has reportedly frozen 10 million pounds, or about $13.5 million, as part of an investigation into online sports company Sorare.

According to a Monday report from UK news outlet The Sun, the NCA was conducting a probe into Sorare over claims of unlicensed gambling. The company is behind digital trading cards on the blockchain and signed a four-year, $162-million partnership deal with the Premier League in 2023, which was terminated at the end of last season.

The Sun reported that the NCA froze $13.5 million in cash following a January 2025 order from the Westminster magistrates’ court. A spokesperson reportedly said that the order was intended “to prevent dissipation of the funds while the NCA investigates any potential links between those funds and alleged third-party criminality.”

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The proposal would modernize rules largely unchanged since the 1980s, addressing blockchain-based recordkeeping, tokenized securities and increasingly automated market infrastructure.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed overhauling decades-old rules governing transfer agents as blockchain-based recordkeeping and tokenized securities become more prominent in US markets.

The proposal would update requirements covering registration, recordkeeping, safeguarding and securities transfers, while introducing new rules aimed at risks emerging from increasingly digital and automated market infrastructure.

“Market participants are actively seeking to bring blockchain-native, or ‘onchain’ transfer agents into the U.S. market,” the SEC said, pointing to models for blockchain-based recordkeeping, tokenized fund administration and cross-chain interoperability.

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The prediction platform permanently banned George Santos and issued a three-year suspension for Laurie Buckhout after investigations into using insider information on event contracts.

Update (Sept. 2, 4:00 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from Melinda Roth.

Prediction market platform Kalshi announced action against US House of Representatives candidate Laurie Buckhout and ousted Republican lawmaker George Santos over using insider information for trading on event contracts, in one of the first lifetime bans the company has imposed since its launch in 2021.&

In separate notices of settlement of disciplinary action announced on Friday, Kalshi’s compliance department said it had permanently suspended Santos from trading on the prediction markets platform and imposed a $71,356 penalty. Buckhout received a three-year suspension and a $2,590 penalty.

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The planned venture will initially focus on a US dollar stablecoin before expanding to other G7 currencies, with a euro-denominated offering next.

A group of 21 major financial institutions plans to establish a new company to develop and issue stablecoins, offering another sign of traditional finance’s push into digital dollars as regulatory frameworks take shape.

The consortium, announced Tuesday, includes Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citi, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Santander, MUFG and Fidelity Investments. It plans to launch a US dollar-denominated stablecoin in the first half of 2027, subject to the company’s formation and other conditions.

According to the announcement, the group ultimately plans to expand into stablecoins denominated in other G7 currencies, with a euro offering identified as its next priority.

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The self-custodial app brings USDe into everyday payments, savings and cross-border transfers, with annualized rewards of up to 6%.

Ethena has launched a global money app built around its USDe synthetic dollar, expanding the crypto-native asset into everyday payments, savings and cross-border transfers.

According to Tuesday’s announcement, the self-custodial Ethena Pay app allows users to hold USDe through a dollar-denominated balance, earn as much as 6% in annualized rewards and spend funds through a payment card, while supporting fiat onramps.

The beta rollout includes 48 countries across Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and other regions, though the initial rollout is limited to 400 users, with access set to expand weekly, Ethena said in a Tuesday thread on X. Avalanche will serve as the exclusive settlement layer for payments and transfers.

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Global bond yields hit multi-decade highs today as Japan’s 10-year JGB yield reached a 30-year peak, keeping Bitcoin steady near $78,000.

Global long-term bond yields are now at the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis as major long-dated sovereign bonds continued to sell off into trading on Tuesday.

The sell off comes only days after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent made headlines by announcing that the maximum size of debt buyback transactions would be increased to $4 billion from September.& &

While the Treasury does not conduct monetary policy, some commentators have compared this to a form of yield curve control. This has brought the debasement narrative, keenly followed by Bitcoin and precious metal investors, back into the spotlight.&

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RevStealer targets more than 50 crypto wallets alongside browser passwords, cookies, messaging data and selected documents.

A fake Claude desktop application is reportedly being used to distribute RevStealer, a Windows malware strain built to steal crypto, password and browser data.

According to a Monday report by cybersecurity company Morphisec, RevStealer was previously distributed through GitHub repositories and game-cheat-themed sites but the most notable is a fake “Claude Opus 5 Free Desktop” project that impersonates AI developer Anthropic and promises free access to Claude.

The researchers noted that the malware is designed to leave few traces and searches browser databases, cookies, password-manager records, VPN and remote-access settings, messaging data, screenshots and selected documents. RevStealer also targets over 50 cryptocurrency wallets.

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Crypto is showing signs of life again, but its biggest wins look different from what early believers imagined. After a decade of building, has it all been worth it?

Sentiment in crypto has dived lower than a snailfish in the Mariana Trench in recent months.

Miners are capitulating to AI, cold wallets are getting exploited, and you can hardly fire up LinkedIn without reading another message from a newly unemployed crypto journalist searching for new opportunities. Even for an industry that’s endured nation-state bans, exchange blowups, and years of regulatory pressure, morale has rarely felt this low.

With business models failing and public interest dropping, many long-term crypto fans have begun to question whether we’ve all wasted a decade of our lives on a pipe dream.

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Ripple was among the latest blockchain companies to sign a strategic partnership to build more custody and tokenized asset management solutions for Asian institutional participants.

Blockchain enterprise solutions provider Ripple has partnered with digital asset infrastructure company SettleMint to offer financial institutions solutions for custody, issuance and management of tokenized assets across their full lifecycle.

The strategic partnership will integrate Ripple’s institutional digital asset custody infrastructure, Ripple Custody, and SettleMint’s Digital Asset Lifecycle Platform (DALP) to offer institutions a less complex way to secure digital assets, Ripple announced on Tuesday.

A day earlier, digital asset service provider Coincheck Group partnered with wallet infrastructure provider DFNS to build digital asset wallet technology and custody services in Japan.

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Kast aims to onboard between 1,000 and 5,000 active businesses to its new platform by the end of 2026.

Stablecoin payments company Kast has launched a platform combining business accounts, payment cards, cross-border transfers and yield-bearing balances on stablecoin rails.&

Kast said its KAST Business platform allows companies to receive funds through fiat virtual accounts provided by regulated partners, deposit supported stablecoins and crypto, issue virtual cards and make local payouts in more than 20 currencies. The company said it serves more than 170 countries, although availability varies by jurisdiction.&

The platform offers up to 8% annual percentage yield on idle balances, which Kast says is generated through short-term US Treasurys and stablecoin yield, alongside up to 3% cashback on purchases.&

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Crypto wallets linked to the OFAC-sanctioned Lazarus Group moved $30 million in digital assets through Hyperliquid, weeks after regulators said they were working on a path to introduce the exchange into US markets.

Crypto wallet addresses linked to the North Korean state-affiliated hacker collective Lazarus Group moved $30 million in digital assets through the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid.

The Lazarus-tagged wallets sent funds to Hyperliquid and HyperUnit via Bitcoin (BTC), traded them into Ether (ETH) or Solana (SOL) and bridged them out to Tron, Solana or the Ethereum network, according to blockchain data shared by Arkham analyst Emmett Gallic in a Monday X post.

Ultimately, the deposits were sent to crypto exchanges KuCoin and Kraken, as well as Lbank, along with several unlabeled services based on the Tron network.

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The London bourse operator is seeking to offer 24/5 exposure to UK-based tokenized equities, as more TradFi institutions explore tokenized equities offerings.

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) and cryptocurrency exchange Kraken are reportedly launching tokenized stock trading on the stock market operator’s new night-time trading venue.

The LSE has partnered with Kraken’s parent company, Payward, to launch access to tokenized stocks tracking the value of leading UK equity products starting in 2027, Payward’s chief commercial officer, Mark Greenberg, told the Financial Times according to a Tuesday report.

The tokenized stocks will be listed on LSE’s new night-time trading venue, LSE 24, that will offer 24/5 trading, operating from Mondays to Fridays, the company announced on July 21.

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Five equity-backed notes issued through Luxembourg’s ORO II fund will trade against dollars, USDT and Bitcoin for eligible non-US investors.

Bitfinex Securities, the tokenized investment platform associated with crypto exchange Bitfinex, has listed five tokenized notes giving eligible investors exposure to Strategy, Metaplanet and other publicly traded Bitcoin treasury companies.&

The trading platform announced that the products track the economic performance of shares in Strategy, Metaplanet, Sweden’s H100 Group and France’s Capital B. Bitfinex Securities also listed Strategy’s variable-rate perpetual preferred stock, STRC.

Bitfinex Securities described the launch as the first time such products have been made available for secondary trading on a regulated tokenized securities exchange.&

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Singapore is considering allowing jointly issued cross-border stablecoins into its regulatory regime, revisiting its earlier decision to restrict the framework to domestic issuance.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is reconsidering its earlier restriction on stablecoins issued across multiple jurisdictions, proposing a route for some jointly issued tokens to qualify under its regulatory framework.

MAS opened a public consultation on Tuesday, covering legislative amendments to implement its stablecoin framework and additional policy proposals reflecting developments since 2023.

Under one proposal, stablecoins jointly issued by a Singapore issuer and a foreign issuer could be regulated under the framework and labeled “MAS-regulated stablecoins,” provided that the associated risks are sufficiently mitigated.

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Donald Trump Jr.-linked 1789 Capital will reportedly lead a $1 billion investment round into Polymarket, which would value the platform at $21 billion, just below Kalshi’s $22 billion valuation.

Donald Trump Jr.-linked investment firm 1789 Capital is reportedly investing about $300 million in Polymarket, a blockchain-based prediction market.

1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, will make the $300 million investment as part of a $1 billion round that would value Polymarket at $21 billion, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal on Monday.&

The investment would bring 1789 Capital’s total investment in Polymarket to about $500 million and make it one of the platform’s largest backers.

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Ether ETFs extended their inflow streak to 11 trading sessions, while XRP and Solana funds each logged a 10th consecutive positive session.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) returned to inflows on Monday, led almost entirely by BlackRock, while Ether, XRP and Solana funds continued attracting capital.

SoSoValue data showed that Bitcoin ETFs recorded $216.7 million in net inflows on Monday, reversing the $201.8 million in withdrawals recorded on Friday.&

The Friday outflows ended a nine-session run that brought more than $3 billion into the funds. Bitcoin (BTC) was trading near $78,700 at the time of writing, up about 1.5% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.&

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Thailand’s SEC seeks comments on rules requiring retail-accessible overseas crypto derivatives to trade on qualifying, centrally cleared exchanges.

Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed allowing intermediaries to facilitate retail access to certain digital asset derivatives traded overseas.&

Under the proposal, eligible products would need to resemble crypto derivatives traded in Thailand, including their underlying assets, maturity, leverage and settlement methods.&

The products must also trade on an exchange that uses a central counterparty for clearing and is overseen by a regulator belonging to specified international regulatory or exchange groups.&

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Ireland’s planned investment accounts will offer tax benefits for stocks, bonds and ETFs, while excluding crypto and derivatives as higher-risk products.

Ireland’s Department of Finance has unveiled plans for a new tax-advantaged investment account to encourage more retail investing, but crypto will be excluded from the preferential structure alongside derivatives, underscoring regulators’ ongoing cautious approach to digital assets.&

In a roadmap published Monday, the department said the accounts will allow investments in stocks, bonds, exchange-traded funds and other investment funds. Crypto assets and derivatives will be excluded, with the government classifying them as “highly complex and risky” products.

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The brokerage is adding digital assets alongside stocks, ETFs and options as Canadian crypto ownership rises and regulators move toward clearer industry rules.

Webull, a self-directed brokerage and trading platform, is expanding its Canadian offering to include cryptocurrencies, adding Canada to a crypto footprint that already includes the United States, Australia and Brazil.

The company announced Monday that its Canadian crypto offering will run on Coinbase’s Crypto-as-a-Service infrastructure, with Coinbase providing the underlying trading and custody services. Webull’s Canadian website currently displays 10 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL), while indicating that additional assets are also available.

The addition of crypto broadens Webull’s Canadian offering beyond stocks, exchange-traded funds and options, bringing digital assets alongside the traditional investments already available to its retail clients.

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Bitcoin price action saw sharp moves within its local range as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent addressed US bond yields.

Bitcoin (BTC) gyrated around $78,000 at Monday’s Wall Street open as US bond yields neared 20-year highs again.

Key points:

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Bitmine has bought Ether for 65 consecutive weeks, maintaining its accumulation strategy through a prolonged crypto downturn and $5.1 billion in paper losses.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies extended its Ether buying streak to 65 consecutive weeks, adding 53,501 ETH last week as a broader crypto market recovery lifted the value of its burgeoning digital asset portfolio despite sizable unrealized losses.

The latest purchase brought Bitmine’s holdings to more than 5.9 million ETH, valued at roughly $14.8 billion based on an Ether price of $2,511 as of Sunday. The company now owns 4.9% of Ethereum’s 120.7 million circulating supply, putting it within striking distance of its stated goal of owning 5%.

Bitmine’s chairman, Tom Lee, said Ether, Bitcoin (BTC) and Solana (SOL) have been the three best-performing major assets since June 30, with ETH leading the gains.

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Strive’s latest Bitcoin purchase lifted its holdings to 23,156 BTC, making it the fifth-largest publicly traded corporate holder as crypto markets rebound.

Strive, a publicly traded asset manager and Bitcoin treasury company, added 1,800 Bitcoin to its holdings last week, accelerating an accumulation strategy that has propelled it into the ranks of the world’s five biggest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holders.

The company purchased the Bitcoin (BTC) for approximately $143 million between Aug. 24 and Aug. 28, paying an average price of $79,431 per BTC, including fees and expenses. CEO Matt Cole confirmed the acquisition on Monday.

The purchase brought Strive’s total holdings to 23,156 Bitcoin, up from 21,356 BTC a week earlier. As Cointelegraph reported, the company had purchased 1,110 BTC the previous week for roughly $81.5 million at an average price of $73,409 per coin.

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Regulated cryptocurrency exchanges may see more than $46 billion in crypto trading volume during the first year after legalization, according to estimates from the country’s largest bank.

Cryptocurrency trading in Russia is expected to bring 4 trillion rubles ($46.4 billion) in trading volume for regulated domestic exchanges in the first year after legalization, according to estimates from Sber, the country’s largest bank.

Domestic crypto trading volumes on regulated exchanges could grow to about 7.5 trillion rubles by 2029, Sber’s Deputy Chairman, Anatoly Popov, told Tass in a Saturday report.&

Popov attributed the conservative forecast to the fact that a large share of crypto transactions will continue to be conducted through cryptocurrency exchanges that are not regulated in Russia, bypassing trading on organized platforms.

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The million dollar question is what prompted a Bitcoin OG to send 20 BTC to a custodian, retrieve it back, and then deliberately burn it?

In March, someone moved $1 million worth of Bitcoin through a large crypto custodian. Three weeks later, almost exactly the same amount came back. Incredibly, less than two months after that, the Bitcoin was deliberately destroyed.

The wallet had been dormant for almost 12 years before it suddenly sprang back to life. Bitcoin educator Bennet noted it sent 20.00010537 BTC to “a custodian of some kind” before receiving it back again (minus $3 or so).

The mystery BTC transaction is part of a wider enigma surrounding 107 BTC burned in May, worth roughly $8.5 million at the time.

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Japan’s FSA requested to exempt trust-type stablecoins from mandatory tax filings starting in fiscal year 2027, arguing that it would improve their use as transaction tools.

Japan’s Financial Services Agency (FSA) submitted a request to exempt trust-type stablecoins from mandatory tax filings starting in fiscal year 2027.

Japan’s FSA urged regulators to exempt trust-type stablecoins from submitting beneficiary-by-beneficiary trust reports and calculation statements that include the beneficiaries’ names and income, as part of its tax-reform request for the new fiscal year, issued on Saturday.

The agency argued that trust-type stablecoins circulate among a broad number of users, are used for frequent and numerous transactions and that users can not earn income from holding these assets.

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The Japanese Bitcoin treasury company has transferred 10,270 BTC to Coinbase Prime this week, an amount equal to more than 29% of its reported holdings.

Metaplanet, the fourth-largest corporate Bitcoin treasury, moved 4,800 BTC worth nearly $377 million to Coinbase today, triggering speculation about the company selling its holdings.

According to Arkham Intelligence data, Metaplanet transferred 4,800 BTC to Coinbase Prime today, following the company’s transfer of 2,000 BTC worth $155.5 million two days ago, another series of transfers three days ago totaling 3,331 BTC worth nearly $266 million and lastly a transfer from six days ago moving 139 BTC worth $11.1 million. In total, those deposits amounted to 10,270 BTC worth approximately $806.3 million this week alone.

Blockchain data-specialized X profile Onchain Lens shared the data suggesting that Metaplanet moved the Bitcoin “likely to sell.” Another market observer claimed that the company may be using the exchange as a custodian instead. Cointelegraph found no conclusive evidence of the company intending to sell the Bitcoin or not.

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Strategy added to its BTC treasury for the first time in two months, while continuing to bolster its cash reserves and buy back its perpetual STRC preferred stock.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy acquired 4,603 Bitcoin for $370 million, marking the first acquisition from the largest corporate Bitcoin holder in two months.

Strategy acquired 4,603 Bitcoin (BTC) at an average purchase price of $80,318, pushing its holdings to 845,050 BTC, acquired for a total of $63.3 billion at an average price of $75,413, according to a Monday 8-k filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Bitcoin purchase was funded by the net proceeds of a 602 million MSTR common stock sale. The company used $30 million of the net proceeds to increase its USD Cash reserve and $151.8 million to repurchase its preferred STRC stock.

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Crypto projects spent a record $638 million on token buybacks so far in 2026, as more protocols are turning their revenue into buybacks to return more value to token holders.

Decentralized exchange Hyperliquid and memecoin launchpad Pump.fun reportedly accounted for nearly 90% of the record $638 million in token buybacks carried out by cryptocurrency projects so far in 2026.

Crypto projects spent a record $638 million to repurchase their own cryptocurrencies year-to-date, up from $545 million during the same period in 2025 and $366,000 in 2024, according to Allium Labs data cited by the Financial Times in a Monday report. Of the $638 million, Hyperliquid accounted for roughly $370 million and Pump.fun for nearly $200 million.

Token buybacks are similar to share buybacks by publicly listed companies, which buy back their own stock to support their share prices and increase returns for existing shareholders.

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Bitcoin approached the August monthly close below key resistance with markets once again pricing in a Federal Reserve interest-rate hike in September.

Bitcoin (BTC) heads into September still battling key resistance as markets flip hawkish on Federal Reserve policy.

Key points:

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Blockaid said an attacker used an Ankr liquid staking token and E-mode to overborrow from More Markets and drain about $9.3 million in WFLOW from a lending reserve.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) vault infrastructure protocol More Markets had a lending reserve drained of about $9.3 million in digital assets on Flow EVM, according to Web3 security platform Blockaid.

The attacker drained about 15.5 million Wrapped Flow (WFLOW) tokens, valued by Blockaid at approximately $9.3 million, from the mFlowWFLOW lending reserve, according to blockchain data shared by Blockaid in a Monday X post.

Blockaid said the attacker used Ankr Staked FLOW (ankrFLOW), a liquid staking token, alongside E-mode to overborrow from the reserve.

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Bitcoin moves toward a post quantum future, Solana validators agree to curb rampant inflation and the bull case from Bernstein is for Bitcoin to peak at $500K this cycle.

Despite considerable skepticism among Bitcoiners about how close the quantum threat to Bitcoin actually is, two stories this week highlighted the progress being made toward upgrading the blockchain and protecting outputs from attack.

StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy tested an experimental quantum-resistant transaction on the Bitcoin mainnet that protects it during the brief period when public keys are exposed in the mempool.

Onchain data shows that StarkWSare spent a 10,000-satoshi output protected by Levy’s Quantum Safe Bitcoin (QSB) scheme. It combines hash-based one-time signatures with computational searches that bind an authorization to a specific transaction. While it works, it’s more of a last resort than a practical measure, as each transaction takes hours and costs between $150 to $200.

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Michael Saylor’s “We’re Back” post hints Strategy may resume Bitcoin buying after a two-month pause to strengthen its balance sheet.

Strategy’s Michael Saylor said “We’re Back” in his latest signal on X (formerly Twitter) of the company’s likely return to Bitcoin buying.

For market watchers, the post could be a strong psychological signal as Saylor has a track record of dropping cryptic weekend teasers that precede official Monday morning treasury purchase announcements.

Should that record, and community interpretation, hold true, his post points to the resumption of corporate Bitcoin accumulation following a notable summer hiatus.

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Russia’s largest bank, Sber, plans to accept USDT and Ether alongside Bitcoin as loan collateral as the country introduces regulated crypto trading under a new law.

Russia’s largest bank, Sber, plans to expand its crypto-backed lending to accept Tether’s USDt stablecoin and Ether as collateral alongside Bitcoin, according to a senior executive.

Sber will adapt its existing products and gradually expand its offerings as Russia’s new crypto law takes effect, Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov said, according to a Friday TASS report. The bank plans to add the assets as collateral after the Bank of Russia permits them for public trading, he said.

The plans come as Russia rolls out a regulated crypto market under a law signed by President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 4, with core provisions taking effect Sept. 1.

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Trump-linked Real Trump Coins said it never authorized GOLD or any digital token as questions persisted over its X account, associated domains and the concentrated token supply.

Real Trump Coins has denied launching, promoting or authorizing the Trump Digital GOLD token that briefly appeared across its online presence before collapsing, blaming the promotion on “third-party bad actors.”

The denial came after the Real Trump Coins X account promoted the Solana-based token on Saturday and directed users to RealTrumpCoins.com, where GOLD was also advertised. The X posts were later deleted, while the account now links to a separate domain, TrumpCoins.com.

“Trump Coins has not authorized and will not launch, promote, or authorize any digital token,” Real Trump Coins said in an X post on Saturday, adding that it was working with authorities to investigate the matter.

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The vulnerabilities posed denial-of-service and validator resource risks but were patched before Polygon publicly disclosed them.

Polygon has disclosed several previously private security vulnerabilities that could have disrupted its proof-of-stake network, after deploying fixes through two recent hard forks.

The vulnerabilities affected Polygon’s Bor and Heimdall clients and included denial-of-service risks, validator resource exhaustion and flaws affecting checkpoint and milestone processing, according to a Thursday disclosure from Polygon Labs’ Validators Support Team.&

Polygon said the flaws were fixed through the Austin and Kyoto hard forks, which were deployed privately and tested before being activated on mainnet and publicly disclosed.

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Stellar’s real-world asset market has expanded rapidly this year as institutional adoption and tokenization activity grow across the network.

The value of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) on Stellar has climbed roughly 360% in 2026 to nearly $4 billion, up from $868.8 million at the end of last year, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard maintained by Stellar.

The network’s RWA market cap stood at $3.996 billion as of Aug. 29, spread across US Treasurys, private and public credit, non-US government debt and other tokenized asset classes.

The market is concentrated among a handful of issuers. Spiko accounted for $1.55 billion of Stellar’s RWA value as of Aug. 27, followed by Realiz at $559 million, Tradable at $548 million, Franklin Templeton at $546 million and Ondo at $535 million.

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Tokenized equities saw a sharp rise in onchain activity as active addresses and holders more than doubled over the past month.

Tokenized stock activity surged over the past 30 days, with monthly transfer volume climbing more than 415% to $29.5 billion, according to data from RWA.xyz.

Monthly active addresses rose more than 209% to around 1.3 million, while the number of tokenized stock holders climbed 167% to 2.36 million over the same period. The total value of tokenized stocks distributed onchain also rose 1.45% over the past 30 days to $2.54 billion, up roughly 637% from $344 million a year ago.

Tokenized stock activity accelerated in August. Source: RWA.xyz

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Real Trump Coins promoted GOLD before deleting related X posts, while team-linked wallets sold 224.5 million tokens as its market value fell about 99%.

Update Aug. 30: This article has been updated to include Real Trump Coins’ denial that it launched or authorized GOLD and to clarify references to associated domains.

A Solana-based token promoted by a Trump-linked coin brand collapsed within hours of its launch, raising questions over who was behind it and its unusual trading activity.

Real Trump Coins, a brand US President Donald Trump publicly promoted in 2024, touted the “Trump Digital GOLD” token on X before deleting related posts on Saturday, according to blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain.

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BIS chief Pablo Hernández de Cos said stablecoins lack credibility for payments at scale, while a new FSI study highlights sharp differences in issuer rules.

The Bank for International Settlements is renewing its criticism of stablecoins, questioning their credibility as everyday money as governments worldwide build regulatory frameworks around the tokens.

BIS General Manager Pablo Hernández de Cos, a candidate to succeed European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde next year, argued that stablecoins do not credibly function as a means of payment at scale. He said tokenized bank deposits offer a stronger alternative, Reuters reported on Friday.

“Tokenised deposits offer a more direct path to harness tokenisation while preserving the monetary system’s foundations,” de Cos said.

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US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $201.8 million in net outflows Friday, led by ARK 21Shares, as total fund assets slipped back below $100 billion.

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) ended a nine-day inflow streak as Bitcoin fell below $78,000, while several altcoin ETF categories continued to see inflows.

Bitcoin ETFs recorded $201.8 million in net outflows on Friday, ending nine consecutive trading sessions of inflows, according to SoSoValue data.

The reversal followed more than $3 billion of net inflows during the nine-session run, while August flows remained positive at $3.3 billion with one US trading session left in the month. Total net assets fell to $97.6 billion after topping $100 billion on Thursday.

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The approved proposal doubles Solana’s annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30%, reducing future SOL issuance while leaving its long-term inflation target unchanged.

Solana validators have approved a proposal to double the network’s annual disinflation rate, reducing future SOL issuance.

According to finalized voting results, the proposal received 67% support, with 25.16% voting against and 7.84% abstaining. Overall participation reached 60.7% of eligible stake.

The proposal, known as SGP-0002 or Double Disinflation, increases Solana’s annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30%, while leaving the network’s long-term inflation target of 1.5% unchanged.

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According to Circle, the USDC stablecoin name will appear on the front of club jerseys for Chelsea’s upcoming football season.

Update (Aug. 28, 8:30 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include information about the FCA’s oversight of stablecoins.

Update (Aug. 29, 12:00 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from Circle.

Circle, the issuer behind the USDC stablecoin, will be the latest sponsor for the Chelsea Football Club just months after the UK’s financial watchdog warned about “questionable sponsorship deals with unauthorized financial firms,” including crypto companies.

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The institutional crypto exchange is providing $100 million in stablecoin liquidity to support loans backed by AI computing infrastructure.

Institutional crypto exchange operator Bullish has provided USD.AI with a $100 million stablecoin-based debt facility to finance loans secured by GPU infrastructure, the companies announced Friday.

USD.AI will use the facility to lend to AI infrastructure operators, with the loans secured by the underlying GPU hardware rather than the borrowers’ broader corporate assets.

USD.AI is an onchain financing platform developed by Permian Labs that provides financing backed by AI computing hardware, connecting stablecoin liquidity with demand for GPU infrastructure financing.

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Bitcoin failed to make a decisive break above $80,000 as traders digested Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole keynote speech, which remained wary of US inflation trends.

Bitcoin (BTC) saw volatility after Friday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to US Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh’s comments on future monetary policy.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD dipping to $78,442 on Bitstamp in volatile trading conditions, down around 1% at the time of writing.

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Bitcoin’s $80,000 rebound lifts crypto stocks as Circle, Strategy and Solana show how capital markets, stablecoins and onchain growth are driving crypto’s recovery.

Bitcoin’s return above $80,000 is exposing just how much the crypto industry now runs through traditional capital markets. Michael Saylor’s Strategy needs a receptive market to finance its Bitcoin machine (BTC), Circle’s outlook increasingly resembles a bet on the growth of dollar-denominated financial infrastructure and Treasury bond buybacks helped provide the backdrop for the latest surge in crypto equities.

This week’s Crypto Biz looks at how that relationship is reshaping the companies, balance sheets and networks behind the market’s rebound.

Bitcoin’s rally above $80,000 lifted crypto stocks as miners and digital asset treasury companies posted double-digit gains, tracking a broader recovery fueled by the US Treasury’s plan to double certain long-dated bond buybacks.

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If your personal AI agent goes rogue and causes harm or financial damage in the real world, can you be held liable?

Autonomous AI agents can behave in highly unpredictable ways. Give an AI Agent a goal such as passing a test of its capabilities, and it might just decide the best way to score highly is to break containment and hack into a competing company in search of the answer sheet.

That’s what happened when a swarm of agents created using Open AI’s GPT-5.6 Sol hacked into Hugging Face last month. Anthropic and Meta subsequently admitted their models had also escaped testing sandboxes to hack third parties too.&

But who is legally liable for agents that have minds of their own? OpenAI didn’t intend for the model to go rogue, and issued no instructions for it to do so. If your personal AI agent decides on a course of action that results in harm or financial damage in the real world, can you be held liable if it’s something you could have reasonably foreseen?”

Magazine spoke with Rikka Law Group owner and CEO Charlyn Ho to find out the state of play in this emerging legal field.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Polish Olympic Committee president Radosław Piesiewicz faces charges as prosecutors investigate his ties to collapsed cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto.

Polish prosecutors charged the head of the Polish Olympic Committee in an investigation linked to defunct cryptocurrency exchange Zondacrypto.

Authorities detained the committee’s president, Radosław Piesiewicz, in connection with the Zondacrypto probe, Poland’s Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Waldemar Żurek announced in an X post on Thursday.

Żurek later said prosecutors charged Piesiewicz under two provisions of Poland’s Penal Code, involving allegations of influence peddling and favoring some creditors over others while facing insolvency.

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The bill seeks to prohibit the listing of memecoins issued by federal public officials to California residents, citing conflicts of interest and “pay-to-play arrangements.”

California lawmakers passed a bill restricting public officials’ involvement with memecoins, citing concerns around conflicts of interest and “pay-to-play arrangements.”

The California Senate passed Assembly Bill 2409 in a 40-0 vote on Wednesday, according to Legiscan data. The Assembly subsequently voted 78-0 to concur in the Senate’s amendments. The bill entered the enrolled stage and awaits the governor’s signature.

The bill would prohibit digital asset service providers from offering California residents memecoins issued on or after Jan. 1, 2027, that are offered by or in partnership with federal public officials or state or local public officers. The bill defines memecoins as digital assets whose value is derived primarily from public interest, speculation or community engagement.

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The French Bitcoin treasury firm’s private placement drew support from Adam Back and TOBAM, with warrant exercises potentially unlocking another $158 million.

French Bitcoin treasury company Capital B announced that it raised €21.0 million ($24.5 million) through private share placement.

According to an Aug. 28 announcmeent, the fundraise was conducted at €0.58 per ABSA — one share bundled with four share-subscription warrants — without pre-emptive subscription rights. The raise saw the participation of legendary cypherpunk and Bitcoin-centric blockchain development firm CEO Adam Back as well as asset manager TOBAM.

If all the issued warrants were to be exercised, Capital B would see a further €135.8 million ($158 million) capital injection through the issuance of 144,876,280 ordinary shares. The company reserves the right to trigger an accelerated warrant exercise period if the volume weighted average price of its shares over the previous 20 trading days exceeds 130% of the exercise price of the relevant warrant tranche.

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Bitcoin profitability data produced a bear-market reversal signal that was also present at the start of 2023.

According to some metrics, Bitcoin (BTC) has ended its bear market as a composite BTC price indicator flips bullish for the first time since October 2025.

Key points:

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The Ethena Foundation proposed buying the token supply held by major early investors and revealed a fee switch to turn 95% of net protocol revenue into ENA buybacks.

The native token of the synthetic dollar protocol Ethena (ENA) registered double-digit gains after the Ethena Foundation unveiled four ecosystem changes, including a proposal for revenue-funded token buybacks and a completed buyout of locked tokens held by some early investors.

The Ethena Foundation opened a vote on a fee-switch proposal under which 95% of the net revenue paid to it from Ethena’s core business lines would be used to purchase ENA once the circulating supply of USDe reaches the first proposed milestone of $7.5 billion, the foundation said in a Thursday blog post.

Tokenholders have until Sept. 2 to cast their votes. At press time, 65 votes representing about 14.4 million ENA in voting power had been cast, all in favor of the fee-switch proposal, according to Snapshot.

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BitGo completed its acquisition of NYDIG’s institutional trading business, adding about 30 employees and expanding its derivatives and financing capabilities.

BitGo has acquired the institutional trading business of Bitcoin infrastructure company NYDIG, adding derivatives and financing capabilities as it expands services for institutional crypto clients.

BitGo said it completed the acquisition of NYDIG’s institutional trading business under a definitive agreement, the company announced Thursday. The transaction includes NYDIG’s institutional client trading relationships and about 30 employees who joined BitGo. The companies did not disclose financial terms.

The acquired business provides derivatives, structured products, financing and capital markets services to clients including asset managers, hedge funds and companies. BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said the acquisition will “meaningfully scale” the company’s trading and infrastructure capabilities and allow it to serve a broader range of institutional clients.

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OneKey said it reproduced an exploit against an older version of the Ledger app in its lab environment, which Ledger fixed in its Ethereum app 1.22.2, with no user funds lost.

The in-house security team at open-source wallet provider OneKey said it successfully reproduced an exploit targeting an outdated version of Ledger’s on-device Ethereum application in a test environment.

OneKey founder and CEO Yishi Wang said they executed a “transaction replacement attack” against Ledger Ethereum app 1.22.1 by exploiting a previously patched vulnerability that lets attackers overwrite the transaction waiting to be signed while the user is still reviewing the legitimate transaction.

Ledger said exploiting the vulnerability required control over communications between the device and its host, such as through malware, compromised wallet software or a hostile webpage. Ledger added app-level safeguards with Ethereum app 1.22.2 released on Aug. 13, before fixing the underlying issue in Secure SDK 26.6.1 on Aug. 21.

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Visa and Dunamu will explore stablecoin payments and remittances, with Open Standard’s proposed OUSD among several projects under review.

Visa and Dunamu, the parent company of South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit, have formed a strategic partnership to explore stablecoin payments, cross-border remittances and artificial intelligence-powered commerce.

The companies will combine Dunamu’s digital asset technology with Visa’s global payments network to explore payment, remittance and settlement services in major markets, according to a Friday announcement from Dunamu.

“The spread of AI, stablecoins and tokenization is a key trend that will change how finance and commerce operate,” Dunamu CEO Oh Kyung-seok said, adding that the partnership aims to connect digital assets with traditional finance.

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Eligible holders on Base and BNB Chain will receive Ethereum-based SAND from the project’s treasury, with claims expected to open within two weeks.

Blockchain gaming platform The Sandbox has pledged to repay eligible SAND holders 1:1 after an Aug. 21 bridge exploit drained 14.744 SAND, worth about $700,000, from an Ethereum vault.&

On Thursday, the company published a post-mortem, saying users who legitimately held bridged SAND on Base or BNB Smart Chain before the attack will receive an equal amount of Ethereum-based SAND. Compensation will come from The Sandbox treasury, with no new tokens minted.&

The claims process is expected to open within two weeks and remain open for another two weeks. Two centralized exchanges hold more than 72% of eligible balances and will distribute compensation directly to their affected customers, according to The Sandbox.&

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Sheikh Tahnoon’s group reportedly backs a 49% stake in the holding company behind World Liberty’s conditionally approved US trust bank.

An Abu Dhabi royal and his co-investors reportedly back the largest stake in the holding company behind World Liberty Financial’s proposed US trust bank.&

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s group is behind StringZ Holding RSC, which owns 49% of WLTC Holdings. An entity affiliated with US President Donald Trump’s family owns another 38%, one person told WSJ.

If it receives final approval, the planned bank would bring the issuance, redemption and custody of World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin under the federally supervised venture.&

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The transaction used the Marshall Islands-issued USDM1 bond as collateral and completed the full repo cycle on the Canton Network in under 10 minutes.

Virtu Financial, M1X Global and Tradeweb completed an onchain repo transaction using a sovereign digital bond as collateral, with the full transaction settling on the Canton Network.

The transaction used USDM1, a US dollar-denominated sovereign bond issued onchain by the Republic of the Marshall Islands and backed 1:1 by short-term US Treasurys. The bond pays a coupon while being used as collateral and is structured under New York law as a fully collateralized sovereign obligation.

Both companies said it was the first repo to combine natively issued sovereign collateral with fully onchain atomic settlement.& Executed between regulated counterparties on Tradeweb, the full repo and repurchase cycle was completed in under 10 minutes.

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While investors in World Liberty Financial‘s USD1 stablecoin “haven’t suffered major losses,” many lost billions of dollars in other Trump ventures, according to Public Citizen.

The nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen reported that US President Donald Trump “left investors at least an estimated $4.7 billion underwater” since 2022 through his and his family’s digital asset ventures.

According to Public Citizen, investors lost billions of dollars through the Trump family World Liberty Financial governance token, the president’s nonfungible token (NFT) trading cards launched in 2022, his memecoin Official Trump (TRUMP) and Trump Media’s digital asset treasury.&

The bulk of the estimated losses, according to the organization, came from investors in the TRUMP memecoin, with $3.2 billion lost, while buyers of World Liberty Financial‘s USD1 stablecoin “haven’t suffered major losses.” Public Citizen said that in the case of the memecoin, the losses represented “wealth transferred to a small group of early buyers rather than money that simply vanished.”

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The South Korean financial group plans to build a $109 billion digital asset business spanning crypto, stablecoins and tokenized assets, according to The Korea Times.

South Korean financial group Mirae Asset plans to build a 150 trillion won ($109 billion) digital asset business around Digital X, the crypto exchange formerly known as Korbit, according to The Korea Times.

The report said Digital X will focus on crypto, stablecoins, real-world assets and security token offerings, with plans to tokenize physical assets including gold, silver and electricity.

The expansion plans follow Mirae Asset Consulting’s acquisition of a 97.15% stake in Korbit in July for a cumulative 141.4 billion won.& The exchange was subsequently rebranded as Digital X, marking the first time an affiliate of a South Korean financial group acquired control of a domestic crypto exchange.

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ZEC has climbed roughly 19-fold in a year, yet Grayscale says its sub-1% share of Bitcoin’s market cap leaves room for further upside.

Zcash could emerge as a meaningful challenger to Bitcoin’s dominance among digital assets as the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence puts a premium on financial privacy and fuels concerns over AI-powered surveillance, according to Grayscale.&

In a new research report, Grayscale head of research Zach Pandl said Zcash (ZEC) has “second mover advantages” that could help it challenge Bitcoin’s (BTC) entrenched network effects, something previous alternatives such as Litecoin (LTC) have failed to achieve.

Central to Pandl’s argument is financial privacy. Zcash can shield transaction information, which Grayscale argues could become increasingly valuable as AI systems become better at analyzing financial activity at scale.

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Bitcoin and crypto joined US stock markets in fresh gains after Nvidia Q2 earnings beat expectations by around $4 billion.

Bitcoin (BTC) rebounded toward $81,000 around Thursday’s Wall Street open as Nvidia earnings boosted US stocks.

Key points:

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The financial services giant plans to expand Schwab Crypto beyond Bitcoin and Ether just months after rolling out direct crypto trading to retail clients.

US financial services giant Charles Schwab plans to add Solana (SOL), Avalanche (AVAX) and Chainlink (LINK) to its crypto trading platform in the coming months, expanding its direct cryptocurrency offering beyond Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

Schwab Crypto began rolling out to retail clients in May, initially offering direct Bitcoin and Ether trading alongside traditional investments through Schwab’s website, mobile app and thinkorswim platform.

The brokerage said it planned to add more cryptocurrencies and digital assets over time, though it did not specify which assets it is considering or provide a timeline beyond the three newly announced tokens.

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Canaan, American Bitcoin and Cango jumped as much as 67% as renewed crypto demand showed BTC exposure can still drive mining equities despite the industry’s AI push.

Bitcoin’s August rally has revived some of the mining sector’s most beaten-down stocks, reversing a trend that has favored miners pivoting toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing and suggesting investors may once again be rewarding direct exposure to Bitcoin.

In its latest Miner Weekly newsletter, BlocksBridge Consulting reported that Bitcoin’s (BTC) roughly 23% rally over the past week outpaced most AI-linked infrastructure stocks.

Three beaten-down Bitcoin mining companies — Canaan, American Bitcoin and Cango — gained between 41% and 67%. By comparison, CoreWeave rose about 21%, Nebius gained 17% and IREN advanced 15%, while some miners with heavier exposure to AI and HPC were flat or declined.

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About 17,600 people in the UK reported a combined $1.9 billion in gains tied to crypto in the 2024 to 2025 tax year, with 240 each declaring more than $1.4 million.

The United Kingdom’s tax reporting agency said that 240 people claimed more than 1 million British pounds ($1.4 million) in capital gains from digital assets in the previous tax year.&

According to data from HM Revenue and Customs released on Thursday, 240 people reported about $975 million combined from capital gains tied to cryptocurrency in the 2024 to 2025 tax year, with each reporting more than $1.4 million. This data included 17,600 individuals who reported digital asset gains over the same period, amounting to $1.9 billion, and $18.7 billion in “disposal” from selling or trading assets.

“Taxes are due on cryptoasset gains just like any other gains, and we want to make sure people making gains from crypto know about what taxes they owe,” said James Murray, Financial Secretary to the UK Treasury and Paymaster General.

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Institutional clients can access total return swaps across linked to US-listed equities, indexes and digital assets and cross-margin exposures.

Ripple Prime, Ripple’s multi-asset prime brokerage business, launched a Delta One service for institutional investors, expanding into US equity derivatives.

The offering allows clients to execute total return swaps linked to US-listed equities, indexes and digital assets, Ripple said in a Thursday announcement.

Total return swaps provide exposure to an asset’s returns without requiring ownership of the underlying asset.

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The UK plans to expand the Bank of England’s remit to support digital payments innovation, including stablecoins, while keeping financial stability first.

The UK is moving to put stablecoins at the center of a new Bank of England mandate aimed at supporting innovation in digital payments.

The government plans to give the Bank of England, the UK’s central bank, a secondary objective to support innovation in payment systems and emerging forms of digital money, HM Treasury announced on Thursday.

The mandate will cover payment systems that use digital settlement assets such as stablecoins, while financial stability will remain the BoE’s primary objective.

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