Bitcoin held near $63,600 after Wednesday’s in-line U.S. inflation print proved enough to calm nerves, but not enough to move markets decisively in either direction.

The largest cryptocurrency has added 0.30% since midnight UTC, while the broader crypto market capitalization dropped 0.54% over 24 hours to $2.18 trillion.

July CPI came in at 3.4% year over year, matching forecasts. Core inflation also eased, with the annual reading slipping to 2.5% from 2.6%. The producer price inflation figure due at 12:30 UTC may provide more impetus to a lackluster market.

As for U.S. equities, S&P 500 index futures gained 0.13% while Nasdaq 100 futures were little changed.

Derivatives positioning

• Futures market churn continues: 24-hour volume stands at $147 billion, up 6% on the day, but cumulative open interest (OI) across all cryptocurrency futures has held flat near $116 billion.
• XRP positioning stays elevated: XRP futures OI is perched at 2.67 billion tokens, the most since October, for a third straight day. The 24-hour cumulative volume delta (CVD) remains negative, pointing to bearish bets being executed at market prices more than bullish ones. These paint a bearish picture, flagging a possible drop below $1. There’s a silver lining, though: The annualized perpetual funding rate is near 8%, pointing to a bias toward bullish bets.
• ADA and BCH show heavy bearish tilt: Both coins are seeing funding rates of -10% or lower, pointing to a clear investor preference for bearish positions. They both also show negative 24-hour CVD, indicating aggressive selling. This is particularly notable for ADA, whose OI remains just shy of the recent record high of 2.79 billion tokens, suggesting traders are adding fresh short exposure near record participation levels, not just unwinding old longs.
• AVAX flips from gainer to loser: Avalanche’s AVAX, one of the top OI gainers earlier this week, is the biggest OI loser of the past 24 hours. Others include LTC, LINK and SOL.
• Implied volatility stays muted: Options-based implied volatility for bitcoin and ether remains near its recently hit year-to-date lows, suggesting traders aren’t expecting a big move in the short term.
• Upside bets still surface: In BTC’s case, someone bought a large number of call options at the $65,500 strike, paying $1.07 million in initial premium. This is an ultra-short-term bullish bet; the calls expire Aug. 15.

Token talk

• XMR is up 3.15% since midnight UTC at around $404, extending its weekly run of more than 11% as the privacy coin continues to outperform the broader market.
• HYPE is up 1.75% since midnight at $57, continuing a steady grind higher with a 2% gain on the week.
• FET is up 0.84% since midnight, while NEAR added 0.94%, as a handful of mid-cap altcoins outperform the two largest coins, bitcoin and ether.
• CRV is giving back some of Wednesday’s surge, falling 8.38% over 24 hours to 25 cents. Still, it remains up more than 22% on the week after breaking above a months-long descending trendline.
• DeFi token MORPHO was one of the weaker performers, losing 1.51% since midnight.

Compounding the issue, many DAT firms have consistently favored issuing debt to fund purchases of BTC. That strategy raises the question of how different they are from governments that borrow heavily to fund investments that fail to generate adequate returns. Both, ultimately, lead to high indebtedness relative to income. As we have noted before, bitcoin lacks inherent yield, return or cash flow.

For now, however, the market doesn’t appear to be worried about these dynamics. BTC continues to trade between $62,000 and $66,000, as it has for weeks, with today’s price action largely below $64,000.

Some analysts say they remain optimistic that the bear market has run its course, pointing to a price range that corresponds with the previous bull-cycle high.

“The peaks of the 2021 bull market were close to these levels,” Alex Kuptsikevich, the chief analyst at FxPro, said in an email. “Three years ago, Bitcoin’s decline generally halted at $20K, which was close to the peak of the previous bull market at the end of 2017. This supports our view that the decline may have run its course, with bearish momentum fading as Bitcoin approaches the 200-week moving average.”

Other analysts have turned their focus to August’s Jackson Hole symposium of central banks and economic data for trading cues. Stay alert!

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

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

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

Volume on the marketplace, which Figure launched in June 2024, increased 262% from the same period last year. The company also added 102 loan-origination partners during the quarter, bringing its total to 489. 

CEO Michael Tannenbaum said weekly loan applications surpassed $1 billion in July. Figure expects consumer loan marketplace volume of between $4.8 billion and $5.2 billion in the third quarter. 

Bernstein analysts predicted in May that Figure would post record second-quarter volume, citing live blockchain data that they said could increasingly allow investors to track the company’s lending activity in real time. 

Related: Tokenized RWA market grows 420% since 2025 on regulatory clarity, access

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Dubai and a question of civility

Figure Technology Solutions (FIGR), the blockchain lending firm co-founded by former SoFi CEO Mike Cagney, more than doubled its revenue in the second quarter as lending activity surged across its marketplace

The company reported $226 million in net revenue for the quarter ended June 30, up 113% from a year earlier. Net income climbed 192% to $87 million, or 35 cents per diluted share, while adjusted EBITDA more than doubled to $119 million.

Growth was driven by Figure’s Consumer Loan Marketplace, where volume reached $4.3 billion, up 132% from a year ago. Figure Connect, its marketplace connecting loan originators with capital providers, accounted for $2.8 billion, or about 65%, of that total.

FIGR shares rose roughly 5% in premarket trading on Thursday, extending Wednesday’s 10% gain.

Figure is one of the more established publicly traded companies trying to move lending and capital-market activity onto blockchain rails. Its platform connects loan originators with investors, using blockchain infrastructure to support the origination, financing and trading of assets such as home-equity loans.

Ethena has appointed FalconX as an institutional lending partner, adding an overcollateralized stablecoin credit facility to the assets backing its synthetic dollar business.

Ethena said in an Aug. 14 announcement that the agreement will place stablecoins into overcollateralized lending arrangements managed through digital asset prime broker FalconX.

Ethena has partnered with FalconX, a leading digital asset prime broker, as an insitutional lending partner.

As part of the partnership, Ethena will invest in stablecoin lending arrangements to @FalconXGlobal on an overcollateralised basis as part of our institutional lending… pic.twitter.com/NzoVveXFSC

Advertisement

— Ethena (@ethena) August 13, 2026

Under the transaction, FalconX can use Ethena’s capital to expand lending activity on its balance sheet. Ethena, in turn, expects to receive terms supported by FalconX’s loan-origination and secured-lending operations.

The protocol described the expected terms as more attractive on a risk-adjusted basis than other available channels. Neither party disclosed the amount committed, the expected return, the loan duration, or the assets eligible as collateral in the initial announcement.

How the Ethena-FalconX lending facility works

Rather than issuing a standard bilateral loan directly to FalconX, Ethena will provide warehouse financing through a dedicated lending structure.

According to an Aug. 4 legal review from LlamaRisk, Ethena will serve as lead lender on a revolving senior secured credit facility extended to FalconX International Lending Opportunities SPC. The Cayman Islands company will act for FalconX International Lending Opportunities SP 1, a segregated portfolio designed as a bankruptcy-remote vehicle within the FalconX group.

Using the facility’s proceeds, the vehicle can acquire crypto-backed institutional loan receivables from two FalconX originators. The receivables and the vehicle’s other assets will then be pledged to Ethena as collateral.

LlamaRisk said Ethena will receive a first-priority security interest over all assets held by the vehicle. Other debt at the vehicle will rank below Ethena’s claim, while special-purpose-entity and separateness covenants are intended to limit exposure to financial problems elsewhere in the FalconX group.

Daily reporting forms another part of the arrangement. The legal review said Ethena will receive loan-level information every business day and will be able to check the related collateral against the wallet addresses holding it.

Public documents do not identify the borrowers, the credit limit, collateral ratios, or pricing provisions. LlamaRisk said commercial thresholds, portfolio parameters, and individual contractual terms remain confidential.

Overcollateralization limits Ethena’s borrower exposure

Overcollateralization requires borrowers to pledge assets worth more than the stablecoins they receive. The buffer gives a lender room to liquidate collateral if its value falls toward the outstanding loan amount, although the structure cannot remove market, operational, or counterparty risk.

In its framework for reviewing institutional lending agreements, LlamaRisk said collateral terms represent the most important protection for USDe reserve assets. Its checks cover eligible collateral, valuation methods, minimum collateral ratios, margin procedures, custody arrangements, and liquidation rights.

The risk adviser also examines whether collateral includes illiquid tokens, private receivables, or assets with limited secondary-market depth. Where another party can reuse or pledge the collateral elsewhere, the review considers whether Ethena retains a senior and enforceable claim.

LlamaRisk said liquidation rights should not depend on extended notice periods, court proceedings, or cooperation from a distressed borrower because rapid market moves could reduce the collateral buffer before a sale occurs.

FalconX describes its lending operation as offering customized institutional credit structures with different durations, collateral types, and notice periods. Its financing platform includes margin loans, over-the-counter lending, prime brokerage credit, and yield arrangements for institutional clients.

The companies already have an operating relationship. In September 2025, FalconX added support for USDe, allowing approved institutional clients to trade and hold the synthetic dollar, access OTC liquidity, and use it as collateral for credit or derivatives positions, crypto.news previously reported.

Institutional lending has become part of USDe backing

FalconX joins an institutional lending program that Ethena began building earlier in 2026. Governance records show that the protocol finalized its first agreements with Anchorage Digital, Maple Institutional, and Coinbase Asset Management during March and April.

Under Ethena’s structure, off-chain lending positions are included in its proof-of-reserves reporting and transparency dashboard. New lending counterparties also require separate review rather than gaining automatic access through an existing approval.

Institutional lending accounted for about $310 million, or 6.9%, of USDe backing on July 3, according to Ethena’s June governance report. The report placed the estimated annual percentage yield on that segment between 4% and 7%.

DeFi lending made up the largest share at roughly $2 billion, or 46%, across Aave, Morpho, Kamino, and Jupiter. Liquid stablecoins represented another 35%, while tokenized real-world assets accounted for 11.2%. Crypto basis positions, once central to Ethena’s model, had fallen to about $39 million, or 1% of the backing portfolio.

At the time of the report, Ethena recorded a backing ratio of 101.59% and a reserve fund of about $62 million. Its dashboard also showed around $1.2 billion in stablecoins available for redemptions, including USDtb, PYUSD, USDC, and USDT.

Institutional distribution has expanded alongside the changes to USDe’s reserves. In June, BlackRock integrated USDe with its Aladdin investment platform, while Ethena selected BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized money market fund as the primary reserve asset for a white-label product.

Days earlier, StablecoinX reached Nasdaq following its merger with TLGY Acquisition Corp. The Ethena-focused company began trading under the ticker USDE with about 3.03 billion ENA tokens, valued at approximately $275 million using the 30-day average applied before closing.

U.S. rules depend on the FalconX entity involved

For U.S. institutions, the FalconX name covers several affiliated companies with different regulatory positions. The CFTC’s registered swap dealer list, current as of Jan. 15, includes FalconX Bravo Inc., which is also an approved member of the National Futures Association.

FalconX Delta operates as a trading platform for U.S. institutional clients and is registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network as a money services business, according to the company’s licensing disclosures. State money-transmitter requirements also apply where listed by the company.

However, Ethena’s credit facility is being extended to a Cayman Islands segregated portfolio rather than FalconX Bravo or FalconX Delta. LlamaRisk’s review therefore examined the identity and jurisdiction of the contracting vehicle, the position of Ethena’s claim, the enforceability of its collateral rights, and the separation of the portfolio from other FalconX businesses.

The entity distinction follows earlier U.S. scrutiny of another FalconX affiliate. In May 2024, the CFTC settled charges against Falcon Labs, a Seychelles company, for acting as an unregistered futures commission merchant while giving U.S. customers access to digital asset derivatives platforms between October 2021 and March 2023.

The regulator ordered Falcon Labs to pay about $1.18 million in disgorgement and a $589,504 civil penalty. The CFTC said the reduced penalty accounted for the company’s cooperation and remedial work, including improved controls used to identify customer locations.

Bitmine Immersion Technologies, described by its latest disclosures as the largest corporate holder of staked Ether, has pushed its staking balance beyond the 5 million ETH mark. In an announcement released Monday, the company reported holdings of 5.81 million staked Ether, projecting roughly $257 million in annualized revenue from staking-related income.

The update arrives as Ether treasury firms are increasingly using staking to generate recurring cash flows—while still confronting the risk that reduced spot prices can erode margins and mark-to-market results. Recent figures underscore the tension: Cointelegraph reported that Ether staking accounted for about 98% of Bitmine’s revenue for the fiscal quarter ending May 31.

Key takeaways

• Bitmine says it has 5.81 million staked ETH, estimating $257 million in annualized staking revenue.
• According to Bitfinex analysts cited by Cointelegraph, staking drove ~98% of Bitmine revenue in the quarter ending May 31.
• Ether’s staking income is often treated as steadier than spot price exposure, but it depends on ETH price, staking yield, and operational constraints.
• Ether treasury companies face mounting paper losses when ETH spot falls; SharpLink reported $391 million in unrealized crypto losses in Q2 2026.
• As of current staking-network data, Ether staking shows an APR of 2.61%, with 34%+ of supply staked across 897,064 validators.

Bitmine’s staking jump and what it funds

Bitmine’s Monday announcement is framed around a milestone: it has moved past 5 million ETH in staked tokens. The company tied the scale of its staking position to an estimated $257 million in annualized revenue.

Cointelegraph also cited analysis from Bitfinex exchange showing how concentrated Bitmine’s income has become. For the fiscal quarter ending May 31, staking generated $45.7 million out of $46.5 million in total revenue—about 98%.

“It funds operations and its share buyback program: 19.1 million shares repurchased since July against a $4 billion authorisation, without Bitmine having to sell any Ether.”

That last detail matters for how investors may evaluate treasury strategies. If a company can finance buybacks and operating needs without liquidating volatile crypto holdings, it may reduce the need to sell during unfavorable price regimes—at least in principle.

Why Ether is finding a treasury role—and the limits of staking income

Bitmine’s milestone has reinforced a broader trend: Ether staking is increasingly discussed as a way for corporate balance sheets to earn native yield. Cointelegraph quoted Alvin Kan, chief operating officer at Bitget Wallet, arguing that Ether can function as a yield-bearing treasury asset, while Bitcoin is more commonly framed as an asset held for balance-sheet appreciation.

However, Kan stressed that staking revenue is not risk-free. Ether’s yield can vary and treasury operators must manage multiple layers of exposure beyond “headline APR.”

“The revenue is annualized, depends on ETH price and staking yield, and comes with operational, liquidity, validator and regulatory considerations.”

This distinction is important for market participants comparing corporate crypto strategies. Staking can smooth some income—but it does not eliminate the need for disciplined treasury planning. The income model should be viewed as an enhancement to broader capital management rather than a simple replacement for traditional risk controls.

Even where recurring staking income is valued as a “buffer,” the underlying economics remain sensitive to ETH market conditions. Cointelegraph cited an opinion piece from July 28 on Seeking Alpha by Yiannis Zourmpanos, which argued that annualized staking receipts can be modeled with less direct dependence on spot ETH prices. Still, the approach depends on assumptions about yield persistence and the operational ability to sustain staking over time.

Falling ETH spot prices amplify unrealized losses

While staking can generate recurring income, treasury firms are not insulated from valuation impacts when Ether trades lower. The source notes that Ether’s spot price fell roughly 23% during the second quarter of 2026, a move that pressures margins and increases unrealized losses for entities holding large crypto reserves.

SharpLink, identified as the second-largest Ether treasury company, illustrates the problem. Cointelegraph reported that SharpLink posted a $394 million net loss for Q2 2026, driven largely by $391 million in unrealized crypto losses.

That contrast with Bitmine’s staking-heavy revenue highlights a key asymmetry. A company can generate staking proceeds without selling—yet its financial statements may still reflect spot-driven mark-to-market declines on the underlying holdings. For investors, the practical question becomes whether staking income is sufficient to offset these valuation moves on a reported basis, and how much of the exposure is unrealized versus realized.

How much Ether is staked—and who leads among corporate holders

The staking activity behind Bitmine’s model is supported by broader network participation. According to data from Validatorqueue, Ether staking currently offers an APR of 2.61%. The same dashboard shows that over 34% of the total Ether supply is staked across 897,064 validators.

In corporate terms, the data cited in the source points to a clear leader-follower dynamic. Cointelegraph stated that Bitmine is currently the largest corporate Ether holder at 5.54 million ETH (worth about $9.4 billion at the referenced valuation), while SharpLink ranks second with 863,000 ETH (about $1.46 billion), according to information from the StrategicEthReserve data site.

Taken together, the figures suggest why staking is drawing attention from corporate treasuries: it can be scaled, monitored, and used to generate ongoing returns. But the same scale also magnifies reporting effects when ETH’s market price drops, increasing the importance of underwriting assumptions around yield durability and liquidity management.

Next, investors should watch whether corporate staking earnings remain stable as network conditions and ETH yield dynamics shift, and whether reported losses from spot declines continue to overwhelm staking proceeds—or eventually stabilize as prices and staking economics realign.

Tether has moved to put a new layer of third-party scrutiny around its finances, completing an independent audit of its annual financial statements. KPMG US issued a clean, or “unqualified,” opinion on Tether’s 2025 accounts, covering the company’s balance sheet, income statement, and cash flows for the year ended Dec. 31, 2025.

In its announcement, Tether said the audited results show reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.814 billion, and it emphasized that the engagement went beyond its long-running quarterly reserve attestations by examining broader financial statements and supporting evidence.

Key takeaways

• KPMG US issued an unqualified opinion on Tether’s 2025 annual financial statements under US accounting standards.
• The audit covered assets backing issued tokens and the liabilities those tokens represent, including transactions, systems, and ownership records.
• Tether reported that reserves exceeded liabilities by $6.814 billion in the audited period.
• KPMG’s work included physical inspection and counting of Tether’s gold holdings, not just reliance on custodian documentation.

A full annual audit replaces “attestation” level scrutiny

For years, Tether has published quarterly reserve attestations intended to provide visibility into the backing of its stablecoin. The new audit is designed to be broader and more demanding: rather than focusing only on reserve composition at a point in time, KPMG reviewed the company’s full annual financial statements and the underlying materials that support them.

According to Tether, the independent review examined not only the balances reflected on the statements, but also the evidence behind them—such as transaction records, valuations, counterparties, and internal systems used to produce the financial reporting. Tether said the audit subjected the company’s year-end financial position to examination in the same way an external auditor would assess any public-facing US financial report.

Under the audit’s findings, KPMG concluded that Tether’s financial statements fairly present the company’s financial position, results, and cash flows “in all material respects,” using US accounting standards—an outcome typically read by markets as a strong baseline for reporting reliability.

What the audit found: reserves over liabilities

Tether’s announcement ties the audit’s headline takeaway to a simple balance-sheet relationship: it reported that audited reserves exceeded audited liabilities by $6.814 billion for the year ended Dec. 31, 2025.

While the specific arithmetic is confined to the audited statements themselves, the practical implication is straightforward for readers following stablecoin solvency narratives: an independent auditor reviewed the accounts and did not issue qualifications that would suggest material misstatement under the applicable framework.

Tether also indicated that the audit covered key components investors often track in stablecoins—namely, how the assets held by the issuer relate to the liabilities created by issued tokens.

Physical verification of gold highlights a key diligence point

One notable detail Tether highlighted is that KPMG physically inspected and counted Tether’s gold holdings as part of the audit. Tether said the verification process involved checking each bar, rather than depending solely on records from custodians.

In the context of stablecoins that hold commodity exposures, this kind of verification matters because it reduces reliance on third-party documentation in isolation. Instead, it introduces an additional layer of direct confirmation tied to the asset itself—particularly relevant when discussions about reserve transparency can otherwise focus on what is visible on paper versus what is independently verifiable.

Why the audit matters for stablecoin users and markets

Since launching USDt (USDT) in 2014, Tether has grown into one of crypto’s dominant financial rails. The stablecoin remains the core of the company’s business, and its market size is frequently cited as a key driver of stablecoin liquidity across exchanges and on-chain markets.

The scale of Tether’s footprint is reinforced by broader market metrics. According to DefiLlama data cited in the article, USDT’s market capitalization is roughly $183 billion, representing about 61% of the total stablecoin market of roughly $301 billion. The same comparison puts Circle’s USDC at roughly $72 billion in market capitalization.

In that environment, an annual independent audit can be more than a compliance step—it can affect how counterparties, institutional allocators, and auditors approach risk management. Quarterly attestations help, but a full annual audit is typically seen as a higher standard because it focuses on financial statements holistically rather than only on reserve snapshots.

Tether has also continued to expand its broader business beyond plain stablecoins. In 2025, Tether reported more than $10 billion in net profit, and it has disclosed additional activity tied to tokenized gold products (Tether Gold, XAUt) and other investments. These moves matter because they increase the range of claims investors might want to understand through consistent, auditable reporting.

At the same time, Tether’s executives have not signaled a near-term plan to list the company publicly. The article notes that in June 2025, CEO Paolo Ardoino posted on X, “No need to go public,” in response to speculation about a potential IPO. For markets, that context can influence expectations: if the issuer doesn’t pursue public-market scrutiny, an annual audited statement can function as an alternative transparency anchor.

What to watch next

With KPMG’s unqualified opinion now attached to Tether’s 2025 annual accounts, the next question for investors and stablecoin users is whether future years continue to follow the same audited approach and how Tether’s audited reserve picture evolves as its product lineup grows. In the meantime, the combination of physical asset verification and a full-statement audit offers a clearer baseline for assessing the issuer’s reported financial health.

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.