Sandisk (SNDK) and Western Digital (WDC), two of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI storage boom, were both 10% lower in pre-market trading Thursday, despite reporting strong quarterly results.

Sandisk posted record fourth-quarter revenue of $8.97 billion and non-GAAP EPS of $39.25, comfortably beating expectations. Western Digital also delivered a double beat, reporting revenue of $3.75 billion, up 44% year over year, while its gross margin surged to 54.4%. Despite those results, both stocks are now trading roughly 50% below their all-time highs.

The problem was guidance. Sandisk’s first-quarter outlook came in below expectations, with projected revenue of $10.7 billion versus the $11.2 billion analysts had estimated. Its EPS guidance also fell short. Western Digital’s first-quarter outlook was solid, but after a 500% run, investors were looking for another blowout beat.

Sandisk and Western Digital have gained more than 3,000% and 550%, respectively, over the past 12 months, propelled by the AI boom and leaving assets such as crypto and precious metals in the rearview mirror.

In addition, Sandisk’s board of directors has also approved an additional $14 billion share buyback program, bringing the total authorization to $15.5 billion.

Bitget has signed a cooperation agreement with Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority to establish a local presence and pursue a Financial Services Licence under the city’s virtual asset framework.

According to Bitget, the agreement provides a framework for the exchange to establish a legal entity in Gelephu Mindfulness City (GMC), prepare an application for a Financial Services Licence under the regulatory framework administered by the Gelephu Financial Services Office (GFSO), and collaborate with the Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority (GMCA) on operational, regulatory and ecosystem development workstreams. The company said the cooperation remains subject to the required regulatory approvals.

Bitget plans legal entity and license application in Bhutan

Under the announced framework, Bitget intends to establish offices in GMC over time and hire locally as part of its long-term presence in Bhutan. The company said the local setup will support talent development, knowledge transfer and capability building alongside its exchange operations.

Gracy Chen, chief executive officer of Bitget, said Bhutan combines long-term planning, renewable energy resources and a regulatory framework that supports digital assets. She added that the company intends to contribute exchange infrastructure, operational experience and local talent development as the ecosystem develops.

The agreement also commits both parties to cooperate on regulatory processes and ecosystem-building activities tied to GMC’s financial services framework rather than limiting the relationship to licensing alone.

Gelephu Mindfulness City requires licensed virtual asset firms

Located in southern Bhutan, Gelephu Mindfulness City is being developed as a Special Administrative Region with ambitions to become an international financial and innovation hub.

Its virtual asset regime operates under the Financial Services Act 2025 and related rulebooks. Under that framework, companies providing regulated financial services or virtual asset activities in or from GMC must obtain a Financial Services Licence from the GFSO before operating.

Jigdrel Singay, board director of Gelephu Mindfulness City, said the city’s objective is to develop a digital asset ecosystem built on regulation, institutional standards and long-term economic value. He said partners such as Bitget contribute international expertise while helping strengthen local capabilities and the financial ecosystem.

The announcement also referred to Bhutan’s Bitcoin Development Pledge announced in December 2025, which presented the country’s strategy for integrating digital assets into economic development while promoting institutional participation and regulatory oversight.

Bhutan has already drawn attention within the digital asset industry for using surplus hydropower to support environmentally powered Bitcoin mining as part of efforts to diversify the economy, create employment opportunities and retain young professionals.

Bhutan agreement extends Bitget’s jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction strategy

The Bhutan announcement follows several regulatory moves by Bitget across different markets during the past few weeks.

Earlier this month, the exchange announced that it would withdraw services for residents of Japan instead of seeking local authorization. New account registrations have already been suspended, while account restrictions are scheduled to begin on Nov. 1. Bitget also said any positions that remain open on Dec. 31 will be closed automatically.

The Japan withdrawal came after repeated warnings from Japan’s Financial Services Agency in 2023 and 2024 over operating without registration. In June 2025, the Kanto Local Finance Bureau also issued a warning to BTG Technology Holdings Limited, identifying the company as operating under the Bitget name while allegedly soliciting certain online derivatives transactions without registration.

Outside Japan, the exchange has continued applying for registrations and approvals where it plans to maintain a local presence.

In July, Bitget completed registration on New Zealand’s Financial Service Providers Register across five financial service categories, including foreign exchange, client asset custody, domestic and cross-border money transfers, portfolio management, and execution of financial products. The company also joined New Zealand’s Insurance and Financial Services Ombudsman dispute resolution scheme.

New Zealand’s Companies Office has stated that registration on the FSPR does not itself constitute government approval or active regulatory supervision. Depending on the activity involved, separate authorization from the Financial Markets Authority or the Reserve Bank of New Zealand may still be required.

Local licensing remains central to Bitget’s expansion plans

Bitget has adopted a market-by-market regulatory approach rather than offering identical services across all jurisdictions.

During July, the exchange confirmed that Singapore remains a restricted jurisdiction because it is not licensed, approved, registered or supervised by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. The company said it neither offers services to nor targets residents in the country.

The exchange is also preparing for a return to the United States. As previously reported by crypto.news, Bitget plans to establish an independent U.S. entity before launching services and will first pursue money-transmitter, broker-dealer and derivatives approvals. She said the company’s U.S. expansion will proceed regardless of whether Congress ultimately passes the CLARITY Act.

Alongside its regulatory work, Bitget has continued expanding its tokenized investment products. Chen previously said tokenized traditional assets accounted for between 20% and 30% of the exchange’s spot trading volume during the previous quarter, while 52% of Bitget users held both cryptocurrencies and stocks.

Stolen funds tied to the Coldcard hardware wallet exploit are showing early signs of laundering, but blockchain security researchers say most potential copycats have not yet moved large amounts of the victimed crypto. According to CertiK, about 64 Bitcoin (worth roughly $4.17 million) and 200 Ether (worth about $380,000) linked to the attack were routed into well-known mixing services—Wasabi for BTC and Tornado Cash for ETH.

The Coldcard incident has quickly become one of the largest crypto hacks of the year. Galaxy Digital previously put confirmed losses at least at $100 million in Bitcoin across three waves, and it also flagged a possible fourth wave that could raise total losses to around $130 million.

Key takeaways

• CertiK says roughly 64 BTC linked to the Coldcard exploit were sent to Wasabi, and 200 ETH were moved to Tornado Cash.
• Mixing services typically pool funds and obscure onchain linkages, reducing the odds of recovery for victims.
• TRM Labs’ tracing suggests most victim balances remain concentrated in a small set of attacker-controlled addresses with limited mixing activity.
• Analysis of transaction patterns across attack waves indicates the exploit may involve more than one actor.

Mixing services enter the Coldcard laundering picture

CertiK’s blockchain monitoring connected specific transfer activity to the Coldcard exploit and mapped part of the flow into privacy and obfuscation tooling. In its reporting, CertiK indicated that the Bitcoin transfer—sourced from address bc1q0—was sent to the Wasabi mixing protocol on Tuesday, using CertiK’s address data shared with Cointelegraph.

On the Ethereum side, CertiK stated that 200 ETH were sent to Tornado Cash on Wednesday, pointing to an X post from its account as the basis for the observation.

Crypto mixers like Tornado Cash operate by pooling deposits from multiple users and then releasing funds in a way that breaks straightforward onchain tracking from original sender to final recipient. That feature is precisely what makes tracing more difficult and asset recovery less likely—especially when attackers move quickly and fragment funds across multiple addresses and services.

Why this matters: laundering momentum vs. copycat behavior

CertiK’s spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the activity could be linked to a smaller exploiter, adding that “there’s likely a few copycats after the initial exploit.” The implication is straightforward: if additional parties used the same weakness, their onchain movement could help or hinder investigators depending on whether they follow up with laundering at scale.

That’s where TRM Labs’ findings become important. In a Thursday report titled “The largest hardware wallet exploit of 2026: inside the $116 million Coldcard hack”, TRM Labs said its onchain tracing indicates most victim funds were still pooled in a limited number of attacker-controlled addresses and that mixing attempts appeared restrained.

TRM Labs also highlighted that “differences in transaction construction” between each wave suggest multiple attackers. In other words, even if the underlying vulnerability was shared, the operational playbook may not be identical—an asymmetry that can be useful for investigators trying to separate participant identities, funding sources, and laundering pathways.

Coldcard hack scale and the “waves” pattern

Galaxy Digital previously characterized the Coldcard exploit as the third-largest cryptocurrency hack of 2026 so far, based on confirmed activity. In its assessment, Galaxy put drained losses at at least $100 million in Bitcoin across three verified attack waves involving 7,300 victim wallets. Galaxy also pointed to a suspected fourth wave that could lift total losses to roughly $130 million in BTC, according to earlier coverage from Cointelegraph.

Those wave-based findings matter for how analysts interpret laundering. If attackers are not distributing funds aggressively—or if only one portion of the stolen assets has been moved into mixers—then the time dimension becomes critical: investigators may still be waiting for broader follow-through as additional actors or additional batches of stolen funds begin to move.

Galaxy’s earlier analysis, also cited by Cointelegraph, suggested at least 15 different attackers exploited the vulnerability. This lines up with TRM Labs’ point about differences in transaction construction between waves, reinforcing the idea that what may look like a single incident could actually be a coordinated (or at least parallel) operation with distinct participants.

The technical weakness behind the exploit

TRM Labs’ report attributed part of the vulnerability to a firmware bug from March 2021 that weakened seed randomness on some Coldcard wallets. According to TRM Labs, the bug effectively reduced key strength to 40 bits from 128 bits, making it “brute-forceable without physical access.”

Other commentary around the fix has emphasized the low cost of better security hygiene. Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi wrote that approximately “$2 of AI hardening” could have prevented the Coldcard exploit, referencing social media reports that some AI models rediscovered the vulnerability quickly—though those claims are framed as commentary rather than formal technical findings.

For investors and builders, the core takeaway is less about any single price tag and more about how quickly weaknesses can be weaponized once public knowledge spreads. When a vulnerability can be exploited remotely and at scale, incident response needs to account for both immediate attackers and longer-tail copycats.

Going forward, readers should watch whether additional attacker-controlled addresses begin pushing larger portions of stolen balances into mixing services, and whether the “suspected” fourth wave confirmed by Galaxy develops further. As more funds move—or fail to move—onchain, investigators will gain clearer signals about how many actors are involved and how successfully they’re managing to break traceability.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed legislation that lays out a regulated framework for cryptocurrency markets in Russia, marking a significant shift from the country’s largely restrictive posture toward a formal rules-based approach for licensed crypto activity.

The law, identified as bill No. 1194918-8 and titled “On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights,” was signed on Tuesday, according to official records from the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. It sets out requirements for major categories of crypto market participants, including exchanges, brokers, custodians, and other service providers.

Key takeaways

• Russia has moved toward a regulated crypto market through bill No. 1194918-8 (“On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights”).
• Crypto exchanges must meet regulatory conditions and join a financial market self-regulatory organization.
• Retail investors will be limited to purchasing only approved digital assets via intermediaries, with a 300,000 ruble annual cap per intermediary.
• Qualified investors are expected to face fewer restrictions and be able to buy any cryptocurrency.
• The law keeps Russia’s ban on using crypto assets to pay for goods and services domestically.

What the law changes for Russian crypto activity

At the center of the new bill is a licensing and oversight model intended to bring Russia’s crypto market into a clearer regulatory structure. The legislation defines rules for key participants across the crypto ecosystem, including trading venues (exchanges) and intermediary services such as brokerage and custody.

Under the framework, operators of crypto exchanges are required to comply with regulatory requirements and become members of a financial market self-regulatory organization. That combination suggests that, beyond direct supervision, exchanges will likely be subject to additional industry-level governance through the self-regulatory body.

Limits for retail investors, flexibility for qualified investors

A major practical feature of the law is how it differentiates between types of market participants. The bill limits retail investors’ access to cryptocurrencies by requiring intermediaries to sell only approved crypto assets and by imposing a quantitative ceiling on purchasing activity.

Specifically, the law sets an annual cap of 300,000 rubles (about $3,700) per intermediary for retail investors. Qualified investors, by contrast, will be allowed to purchase any cryptocurrency without the same restrictions.

For everyday users and smaller investors, the implication is straightforward: access to the broader crypto market could become more fragmented and filtered through intermediaries—while larger or more formally designated investors may be able to maintain wider exposure.

Regulatory oversight and the approval process

According to the law as reported through official parliamentary records, the Bank of Russia will be responsible for overseeing the regulated crypto market. That includes issuing related regulatory rules and determining which crypto assets licensed intermediaries can offer to investors.

In late July, the State Duma approved the legislation after final readings, an earlier step referenced in separate coverage at Cointelegraph. With the signing now completed, implementation becomes the next critical phase—particularly because different parts of the law take effect at different times.

When rules take effect—and what stays prohibited

Timing matters for investors, exchanges, and service providers because regulatory obligations rarely arrive all at once. The core provisions of the law take effect on Sept. 1, 2026. Some elements—including rules covering non-resident digital depositories—are scheduled to begin on July 1, 2027.

The law also preserves an existing prohibition on using crypto assets to pay for goods and services within Russia. That means the new regulatory structure is aimed at governance of crypto market participants and investor access, rather than enabling everyday crypto spending domestically.

Why this framework could reshape Russia’s crypto market

This legislation matters beyond legal formality because it defines who can participate, what assets can be offered through licensed channels, and how investors access those markets. By placing responsibility on the Bank of Russia to issue rules and approve which assets intermediaries may provide, the law effectively creates a gatekeeping mechanism—one that could influence liquidity, available trading pairs, and the list of cryptocurrencies that reach retail customers.

The retail investment cap per intermediary may also affect product design for brokers and custodians, since their compliance exposure would be linked to both approved asset lists and distribution limits. Meanwhile, the distinction between retail and qualified investors suggests that market access will not be uniform: segments of the investor base could experience different levels of flexibility and risk exposure depending on their classification.

As the implementation dates draw closer, market participants will likely focus on how the Bank of Russia translates the law into operational guidance—especially around licensing conditions, asset approval procedures, and the treatment of non-resident digital depositories.

Investors and builders should watch closely for the Bank of Russia’s rulemaking and for how “approved” crypto assets are selected, since those decisions will determine what retail users can realistically access before the Sept. 1, 2026 start date.

“When volatility is cheap, traders can build directional positions and hedges at relatively low cost. If the market then moves through a level with concentrated positioning, dealer hedging can accelerate the move,” Adam Haeems, head of asset management at Tesseract Group, which manages $500 million in client assets, said in an email.

“The practical implication is that low volatility should not be mistaken for low risk. It is a reason to be careful with leverage, particularly when trading volumes and market depth are subdued.”

For now, BTC remains choppy below $65,000 with some green shoots.

According to Paul Howard, a senior director at market-making firm Wincent, demand for puts, or downside protection, has weakened. At the same time, there is a lack of strong bids for upside exposure.

“It indicates that the bear market is close to trading at its lowest price range for this cycle, arguably over the coming weeks,” he said in an email.

“The asymmetry is not a bid for puts; it is the disappearance of the call bid. Nobody is paying for upside, and nobody is paying much for downside,” Glassnode said.

According to Howard, the next big catalyst would be “some positive regulatory news such as with the Clarity Act, which would likely manifest as institutional ETF inflows.”

What Clarity declines to do is impose customer identification duties on software that has no customers. Software that takes no custody and controls no transactions is in no position to identify anyone. Requiring KYC on code does not create a compliance obligation on intermediaries; it creates a prohibition on publishing code.

Tokenized securities

The last worry is that stocks will migrate to decentralized shadow markets with few investor protections. As clearly stated in section 10505, a security does not cease to be a security simply because it settles on a blockchain. Securities remain under SEC authority, and Section 10301 is the provision that reaches whoever exercises control over the venue where that trading happens.

But notice what the editorial does with tokenization across four paragraphs. When banks issue and settle tokenized stocks and bonds, it removes friction, lowers costs, and merits support. When the same instruments trade somewhere else, it is a shadow market inviting regulatory evasion. The technology did not change between those two passages. The identity of the firm using it did.

That pattern runs through the piece: nobody needs to explain to the Journal’s editorial page what it looks like when an established industry asks Washington to slow down a competitor. That is usually the argument it makes in the spirit of free and open markets, which is why this latest editorial is so disappointing. The editorial suggests Republicans are rushing this bill through before leaving town. It ignores that market structure legislation has been in the works for years. The House passed it a year ago with overwhelming bipartisan support. Senate Banking reported it in May. It has been on the Senate calendar since June and is not yet on the floor schedule this week. Haste is not the problem.

Cointelegraph is committed to providing independent, high-quality journalism across the crypto, blockchain, AI, and fintech industries.

All news, reviews, and analyses are produced with full journalistic independence and integrity. For more details on our standards and processes, please read our Editorial Policy.