Crypto World
Berkshire Piles $17 Billion More into Google: Why Is Michael Burry Worried?
Berkshire Hathaway disclosed a $17 billion jump in its Alphabet stake for the second quarter. The move makes Google’s parent Berkshire’s third largest equity holding.
The disclosure came days after investor Michael Burry criticized new CEO Greg Abel’s spending. Berkshire’s latest 13F filing also showed its first net stock buying in 14 quarters.
Alphabet Becomes a Core Holding
Berkshire now owns almost 106 million Alphabet (GOOGL) shares. The stake spans Class A and Class C stock. It is worth around $36.6 billion.
That places Alphabet just ahead of Coca-Cola’s $35.1 billion stake. It still trails Apple’s $69.7 billion position. American Express remains larger too, at $51.9 billion.
About 60% of the new shares came through a private placement. Alphabet and Berkshire announced that $10 billion deal in June. Berkshire bought the remaining $7 billion worth on the open market.
Berkshire also lifted its Delta Air Lines stake by 44%, adding about $1.6 billion. The bet reverses Warren Buffett’s long-standing skepticism toward airline stocks. Berkshire exited four carrier stocks at a loss back in 2020.
Berkshire’s Macy’s stake jumped 142%, adding about $100 million. It also added $280 million to homebuilder Lennar. The same quarter, Berkshire announced a $6.8 billion Taylor Morrison acquisition.
Burry Sounds the Alarm
Michael Burry predicted the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. He wrote on Substack that he has soured on Berkshire.
“My biggest fear for Berkshire Hathaway was that when Warren finally stepped down, the successor would be too old and otherwise not Warren, so would not have his patience for the fat pitch. I believe this fear has come true.”
Source: Yahoo Finance
Burry acknowledged that Abel has spent only some of the cash pile. The pile hit a record $397 billion in the first quarter. It fell to roughly $360 billion in the second. Burry still called the remaining pile large.
He said Abel’s early moves look like “framing moves,” not real investments. He is not recommending anyone short the stock. Still, Burry has previously flashed red market warnings alongside Buffett.
Both share classes fell more than 3% this week. The drop came despite Berkshire’s first major buyback in two years. Alphabet shares have also recently pulled back on unrelated AI departures.
Abel’s moves could reflect a genuine strategic shift. Or they could be the cautious first steps Burry described. Berkshire’s next moves with its remaining cash may clarify which is true.
The post Berkshire Piles $17 Billion More into Google: Why Is Michael Burry Worried? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Europe’s stock market has a reputation problem. Investors have long treated the region as an afterthought next to Wall Street and fast-growing Asian markets, yet its benchmark index has quietly kept pace with, and at times beaten, the S&P 500.
That reputation is not entirely undeserved. Europe has fewer high-growth companies, shallower capital markets, and a long-term earnings outlook that has rarely rivaled the U.S. or Asia’s fastest-growing tech hubs, which is part of why its recent run has gone largely unnoticed.
Europe’s Underappreciated Rally
The Stoxx 600, which tracks 600 large, medium and small-cap companies across 17 European countries, is up 11% so far in 2026, trailing the S&P 500’s record run of 13.2% over the same stretch. That figure covers 2026 alone, though.
Widen the lens to include 2025, when a surge in government spending across the continent jolted European markets back to life, and the comparison flips.
Goldman Sachs argued in an Aug. 10 note that the market has misjudged Europe for years on exactly this basis. Since 2022, the bank said, European banks have significantly outpaced the Magnificent Seven, the group of dominant U.S. tech companies including Apple, Microsoft and Nvidia.
And despite a tariff shock and an energy supply crisis, the Stoxx 600 has still come out ahead of the S&P 500 since the start of 2025.
Performance [in Europe] has been far more mixed than the market narrative, or most investors realize.
The bank also pushed back on the idea that Chinese competition threatens European equities broadly. Financials, pharmaceuticals, technology, energy, utilities, telecoms, and aerospace and defense make up the bulk of the index and face little exposure to low-cost Chinese imports.
Autos, the sector most associated with that threat, account for just 1% of Europe’s total market capitalization, though the Stoxx 600 rally has largely bypassed the group. The Stoxx Autos index has fallen 16% this year, with Volkswagen down 27.6% and Stellantis down 51.9%, as slowing electric vehicle demand and higher borrowing costs weigh on the sector.
AI Trade Positions Europe as a Hedge
BNP Paribas sees opportunity precisely where the pain has been sharpest. Sophie Huynh, a portfolio manager and strategist at the firm, told CNBC that Europe is more likely to benefit from artificial intelligence adoption than to develop the technology itself, with autos among the sectors positioned to gain.
It’s about trying to understand when markets are going to start talking about this because you can sit on these deep value sectors for one or two years before the market consensus starts to realize it’s going to work.
Huynh added that strong U.S. consumption is largely priced in already, suggesting American momentum may be cooling just as Europe’s recovery gains traction, a dynamic that has also shaped recent European stock ETF inflows.
Goldman acknowledged Europe lags on data center buildouts and frontier AI model development, risks that could weigh on long-term productivity. Still, the bank framed that gap as a potential hedge for investors wary of AI-related risks, particularly around China, rather than a straightforward weakness.
Whether that lag becomes a lasting advantage may depend on how quickly the market starts pricing in Europe’s AI-adjacent sectors rather than penalizing them.
The post How Europe’s Unpopular Stock Market Is Quietly Beating Wall Street appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Blockchain analytics company Chainalysis has sued the United States government over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) decision to award a sole-source contract to competitor TRM Labs.
On July 27, Chainalysis Government Solutions filed the challenge in the US Court of Federal Claims. The relevant motion became publicly accessible through CourtListener’s RECAP archive on Sunday.
A federal award notice values the contract at about $94.6 million and says it covers forensic software and support services for Homeland Security Task Force investigations. The one-year award runs from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027.
Chainalysis alleged that ICE’s decision was “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.” It said it had submitted a capability statement in response to ICE’s notice of intent to obtain forensic software and support services from TRM, but that its economic interests would be affected by the decision.
Both companies provide blockchain analytics tools that government agencies use to trace cryptocurrency transactions and investigate crime.
According to the motion, the complaint remains under seal because it contains Chainalysis’ confidential and proprietary information and trade secrets. The court granted Chainalysis permission to maintain the complaint under seal on July 31.
TRM intervened in the case on July 28. The court has scheduled responses from the government and TRM for Friday and oral argument for Sept. 2. The government requested a decision by Sept. 10. The public filings do not detail Chainalysis’s specific objections or requested remedy.
TRM Labs declined to comment. Chainalysis and ICE did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
Magazine: Data of 54,000 wallet users leaked, CLARITY odds just 10%: Hodler’s Digest
SanDisk (NASDAQ: SNDK) stock rose nearly 14% on August 13 after the company disclosed a $93.9 billion customer backlog and set a target of 80% non-GAAP gross margins through fiscal 2030 at its Investor Day.
Speaking in Manhattan, Chairman and CEO David Goeckeler framed the event as proof that his 18-month turnaround plan is finally paying off, addressing skepticism that had built up after a rough six weeks for the stock.
The Spinoff Behind SanDisk Stock’s AI Boom
SanDisk completed its split from Western Digital in February 2025 and began trading independently in late February, becoming a standalone NAND flash and solid-state drive maker just as artificial intelligence (AI) data centers began driving unprecedented demand for high-speed storage.
The latest news and stock pop comes from customers that have already signed contracts to buy $93.9 billion of SanDisk’s chips over the next several years. This is prompting Goeckeler to target a 80% gross margin, meaning SanDisk aims to keep $80 of every $100 in sales as profit.
The stock is up more than 571% so far this year, even after a sharp July pullback that briefly wiped out much of the SanDisk stock margin target optimism BeInCrypto covered days before this rally.
That surge tracks a broader memory shortage that has also lifted Micron Technology AI demand and partner SK Hynix AI milestone reports, as hyperscalers lock in supply years in advance.
Goeckeler Says the Payoff Is Just Starting
At the Investor Day, SanDisk disclosed $93.9 billion in total contract value from eight customers, with $91.1 billion still to be recognized. Management is targeting non-GAAP gross margins near 80% and operating margins near 75% through fiscal 2030, a structural shift meant to insulate the business from the boom-and-bust pricing cycles that have historically defined NAND flash.
Goeckeler cast the past 18 months as groundwork rather than reward. He told investors on the Investor Day call that he finally feels like he has reached the starting line of where the company’s real value creation will happen.
Sixteen analysts rate the stock a buy, three call it an outperform, and three hold. Their average price target sits roughly 34% above the stock’s closing price after the Investor Day pop, the widest gap on record for the stock.
Not every model agrees the framework justifies that gap. Some analysts argue the valuation already prices in years of sustained 80% margins, leaving little room for error if NAND demand cools.
Whether SanDisk’s new contracts actually smooth out that historical cycle may not be clear until the next industry downturn tests them. For now, the backlog gives investors a rare thing in the memory business, a multi-year revenue floor they can point to.
The post SanDisk Stock Locks In $94B Backlog, Targets 80% Margins by 2030 appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Whales pulled Uniswap (UNI) tokens off Binance at the fastest pace in five years, a sign of conviction among the token’s largest holders.
The price has moved in the opposite direction, with UNI down 18% over the past week. The withdrawals suggest large holders are looking past the slide rather than joining it.
Whales Pull UNI From Binance at Record Pace
Analyst Darkfost tracked the daily outflows generated by the 10 largest transactions on Binance. The monthly average hit 7,300 UNI leaving the exchange each day through those transactions. This marked a five-year high.
“It was notably when UNI’s price recently approached $3 that the average outflow from the ten largest daily transactions on Binance hit record highs,” the post read.
At the same time, an average of 5,600 UNI still move out daily through the same group of transactions.
“Despite a tough environment for altcoins, some are still drawing attention, particularly those being accumulated most aggressively by whales,” the analyst said.
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Standard Chartered Raised Its Outlook, The Market Did Not Follow
Large holders are buying into a supply story that a major bank has endorsed. Standard Chartered told clients last week that Uniswap burns had roughly doubled.
Geoffrey Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital assets research, put the pace near $90 million a year. He then lifted his long-term view.
“I fear my 2030 UNI target of USD100 is too low!” he said.
Yet, the market has not followed that confidence. UNI posted the steepest weekly decline among the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. At press time, it traded near $3.3.
Exchange balances point the same way. UNI held across all venues rose from about 103 million on August 11 to 110.3 million, a gain of roughly 7%.
The two readings measure different things. Darkfost tracks the largest transactions on Binance, while the reserve figure covers every exchange CryptoQuant monitors.
That leaves whales and the wider market moving in opposite directions. The next few sessions will show which flow sets the tone.
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The post UNI Price Sinks 18% While Whales and Exchanges Move Opposite Ways appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Asian stocks drifted sideways on Monday as investors weighed a renewed climb in oil prices against a global equity rally that hit fresh records just last week.
The lack of progress in ending the Iran war has kept crude elevated, raising the question of whether the recent bounce in Asian equity markets can hold.
A Rally Built on Rate-Cut Hopes
Japan’s Nikkei edged 0.4% higher in early morning trading Monday, but soon fell back to its Friday close. Meanwhile the MSCI Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan was flat and Australia’s resources-heavy shares slipped 0.3%. South Korea’s markets were closed for a public holiday.
The broader rally, which lifted the S&P 500 to a record high last week, has been driven by fading expectations that the Federal Reserve will hike rates next month, now priced at a 69% probability of holding steady after soft US retail sales and consumer sentiment data. S&P 500 futures added 0.1% Monday, and Nasdaq futures gained 0.2%.
Investors are now watching China’s July activity data and the August S&P Global PMI report this week for signs of whether the mid-year acceleration in US business activity, and the broader risk-on mood across Asia, can be sustained against a backdrop of rising energy costs.
Ten-year US Treasury yields slipped 1 basis point to 4.684%, while gold held at $4,381 an ounce.
Oil Climbs as Diplomacy Stalls
Peace talks and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remain frozen. Iran called on the United States on Saturday to accept defeat. Meanwhile President Donald Trump urged Americans to accept higher gasoline prices while the conflict continues.
At least 11 people were killed in Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon on Saturday. It was among the deadliest incidents since the country agreed to a US-mediated peace framework with Israel.
Brent crude held steady at around $89 a barrel after rising 6% last week. Meanwhile US crude slipped 0.3% to $82.12, having gained 5.4% over the same stretch. Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP, said the current backdrop keeps the market on edge.
“While there is still no resolution to the Iran/Hormuz impasse, our base case remains that oil prices will stay in a $70-$100 range with Iran preventing it going lower and the U.S. moving to try and calm things down whenever it gets above $100.”
Oliver added that a lack of a durable peace deal, combined with Middle East oil flows still running 10% to 15% below normal levels, could push prices higher as reserves are drawn down.
Whether Monday’s calm holds may depend less on the Fed than on what happens next in the Gulf.
The post Asian Stocks Stall as Oil Risk Grows: Is the Rally Over? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
With the US Congress entering the final stretch of its legislative calendar, the odds of the proposed CLARITY Act have dropped sharply—according to Galaxy Digital’s Alex Thorn, down to just 10% for passage in 2026 from a much higher estimate in May. The change underscores how fragile the bill’s political pathway has become, and what could follow if lawmakers fail to deliver “rules of the road” for crypto markets.
As the clock tightens, attention is shifting toward regulatory contingency plans. If CLARITY does not advance, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) are expected to move independently—while crypto firms and major industry stakeholders continue pushing for coordinated outcomes. Separate threads are also unfolding across cyber defense, prediction-market oversight, Ethereum’s post-quantum roadmap, and stablecoin auditing.
Key takeaways
- Galaxy Digital cut its CLARITY Act passage estimate for 2026 to 10%, down from 75% in May, citing unresolved political issues and limited Senate time.
- The Senate reconvenes on Sept. 14 with only 14 days in session, making the bill’s timeline dependent on near-immediate procedural momentum after return.
- If CLARITY fails, the SEC and CFTC are positioned to issue their own crypto-market frameworks, raising the risk of overlapping or inconsistent rules.
- Crypto companies have asked frontier AI labs for earlier access to more capable cybersecurity models for Bitcoin developers, amid continuing wallet breach incidents.
- Regulation of prediction markets remains fragmented, with the CFTC pushing back against state restraints while courts and local bodies challenge the boundaries of federal versus state authority.
CLARITY timeline tightens as passage chances fall
Galaxy Digital’s research head Alex Thorn said the probability of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 is now “just 10%.” In May, Thorn’s estimate was far higher at 75%, reflecting how quickly political momentum has eroded as negotiations encountered unresolved issues.
One core constraint is the Senate calendar. According to the reporting cited in the source, the Senate will have only 14 days in session after reconvening on Sept. 14. That leaves little room for delays unless lawmakers move quickly on procedural steps, including an initial motion to proceed immediately upon return. Thorn’s view, as stated, is that the bill would need to effectively take over the working session to pass within the window.
The stakes are not only legislative but regulatory. If CLARITY does not advance, the SEC and CFTC plan to step in with their own rulemaking for crypto markets—an outcome Thorn and others appear to view as less desirable than a single comprehensive framework. The SEC, for its part, had scheduled an open meeting to outline a path toward clearer “rules of the road,” but the meeting was canceled due to an “unforeseen scheduling issue,” according to the source.
There are also indications of political sensitivity around the sequencing of agency action. The White House was reportedly unhappy that the SEC might effectively go “rogue” on crypto rules, potentially complicating delicate negotiations to get CLARITY over the line.
High-level coordination attempts to keep CLARITY alive
Despite the reduced odds, stakeholders appear to be mobilizing around a final push. The source notes that SEC Chair Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump, and representatives from major crypto-adjacent institutions—including Coinbase, a16z, Ripple, Chainlink, NYSE, and Nasdaq—are expected to meet at the White House on Wednesday to discuss crypto regulation and ways to advance the bill.
The following day, the CFTC is scheduled to convene its new Innovation Advisory Committee to discuss regulation of crypto alongside AI and prediction markets. In practice, these parallel calendars reflect a dual-track posture: one aimed at passing CLARITY, and another preparing for continued regulatory work irrespective of whether Congress succeeds.
For investors and market participants, the immediate question is not whether enforcement will continue, but how predictable it will be. A comprehensive statute could reduce uncertainty around classification and jurisdiction. A patchwork approach—created by separate SEC and CFTC rulemaking—could increase compliance complexity, particularly for businesses straddling securities and commodities characterizations.
Cybersecurity push grows as more AI-enabled threats emerge
Beyond Washington, the crypto ecosystem is responding to evolving threat models—especially those shaped by increasingly capable AI systems. Multiple cryptocurrency firms, including Anchorage Digital, BitGo, Bitwise, Blockstream, Ledger, and Trezor, urged frontier AI labs to provide Bitcoin developers with early access to top-tier models.
The push is described in an open letter published by the Bitcoin Policy Institute. The letter argues that public frontier systems may impose guardrails that restrict defenders, forcing developers to rely on less capable open-weight models rather than tools closer to what attackers can use.
“Without dedicated access programs, defenders may lack the tools needed to keep pace with evolving threats to the infrastructure they maintain.”
The source links this urgency to recent incidents, including a reported $116 million theft from Coldcard hardware wallets, followed by a “Bitcoin Red Team” effort that used AI to identify thousands of potential cybersecurity issues using open-source Chinese models. It also points to ongoing data exposure risks affecting wallet users.
According to the source, Trezor reported a data breach involving personal details of roughly 14,000 users through its shipping provider ShipMonk, with customers at higher risk for phishing attacks if they received products in multiple listed regions between May 10 and Aug. 8. Separately, SafePal disclosed a breach affecting nearly 40,000 users’ order information, including names, addresses, and purchasing data, and reported taking down fraudulent websites and phishing links tied to the incident.
What to watch here is whether the request for AI access translates into concrete programs for defenders—because the gap between attacker capability and defensive tooling can directly affect the speed at which vulnerabilities are identified and mitigated.
Prediction markets face continued federal-state friction
Prediction market regulation remains a live battlefield between federal oversight and state restrictions. The CFTC ordered prediction market platform Kalshi to disregard a restraining order in New York and continue operating normally, calling New York’s enforcement action a “market emergency” because it could prevent Kalshi from operating nationally.
The CFTC’s reasoning, as cited in the source, centers on the view that the Commodity Exchange Act requires a uniform national derivatives market. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said Congress did not intend derivatives exchanges to face a “patchwork” of state gaming laws.
However, the regulatory conflict is far from settled. A Washington state judge later ordered Kalshi to stop operating in Washington and rejected Kalshi’s argument that federal commodities law preempts Washington’s gambling law. The source says Kalshi was ordered to implement IP-address and residency-based geofencing by Aug. 19 and a GeoComply multi-source geofencing system by Sept. 2.
Meanwhile, local-level scrutiny is also growing: the New York City Council launched an investigation into prediction market firms to examine whether influencer-driven marketing uses “false and deceptive” tactics targeting young adults, according to the source.
For platforms, compliance strategy may increasingly hinge less on one-time legal outcomes and more on the operational reality of jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction constraints—especially where geofencing becomes a workaround rather than a definitive legal solution.
Ethereum narrows its post-quantum choices and refocuses Hegotá scope
On the network development front, the Ethereum Foundation is adjusting its post-quantum architecture. Researcher Justin Drake said the foundation is moving away from the Poseidon hash function in its plan, instead leaning on established alternatives such as SHA or BLAKE.
The source frames the rationale around recent progress: Poseidon is designed to work well with zero-knowledge proofs and can help compress post-quantum signature sizes, but Drake argued that developments mean SNARKs can be tailored to work better with existing hash functions.
According to the same reporting, Ethereum is targeting a production-ready “leanVM” for 2027, with deployments across Ethereum’s consensus, data, and execution layers in 2028. Separately, developers are reviewing 66 proposals to narrow scope for the next major upgrade after “Glamsterdam,” referred to as Hegotá.
The source notes that the censorship-resistance proposal FOCIL is currently the only Ethereum Improvement Proposal scheduled for inclusion, with several other EIPs focused on privacy. Developers are aiming to ship Hegotá next year, while Glamsterdam is expected in the coming months.
Tether completes first full financial audit with clean KPMG opinion
In stablecoin auditing, Tether announced it has completed the first full independent audit of its annual financial statements. The source says KPMG US issued a clean opinion on Tether’s 2025 accounts, covering the year ended Dec. 31, 2025, including balance sheet items, income statement figures, cash flows, and the assets purportedly backing issued tokens.
Tether also stated that the audited statements showed reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.814 billion. The source emphasizes that this full audit differs from Tether’s quarterly reserve attestations by subjecting broader financial statements and underlying evidence to independent examination.
For market participants, the practical value is not in the audit’s existence alone but in what an audited process adds to transparency: independent verification of the evidence and the full set of financial statements, rather than periodic reserve-focused attestations.
Looking ahead, the biggest variable remains congressional timing: whether CLARITY can gain enough procedural momentum before the Senate’s short September window closes. At the same time, the regulatory direction agencies choose if Congress falls short—and how quickly firms respond with security and compliance tooling—may matter as much to real-world operations as any eventual statute.
CLARITY odds narrow as bill enters the final straight
Galaxy Digital has lowered its estimate of the CLARITY Act’s chances of passing in 2026 to just 10%. In May it had estimated the chance of passage at 75%.
Multiple political issues remain unresolved and the Senate only has 14 days in session to pass the bill after it reconvenes on Sept. 14.
Unless an initial motion to proceed vote occurs immediately upon lawmakers’ return to Washington, there would only be enough time for the CLARITY Act to pass if it “dominates basically the entire working session,” wrote Galaxy head of research, Alex Thorn.
If the bill doesn’t pass, the SEC and CFTC plan to step into the breach by issuing their own rules for crypto markets. The SEC scheduled an open meeting on Friday to unveil its “clear rules of the road” but then cancelled it due to an “an unforeseen scheduling issue.” The White House was reportedly unhappy that the SEC going rogue on crypto rules could anger Democrats and scuttle the delicate negotiations underway to pass CLARITY.
SEC chair Paul Atkins, President Donald Trump and a series of big wigs from Coinbase, a16z, Ripple, Chainlink, NYSE and Nasdaq will meet at the White House on Wednesday to discuss crypto regulation and explore ways to get the bill over the line.
The following day the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s new Innovation Advisory Committee will meet to discuss regulation of crypto, AI and prediction markets.
Crypto companies seek access to frontier AI cybersecurity capabilities as fears of more hacks grow
Cryptocurrency companies including Anchorage Digital, BitGo, Bitwise, Blockstream, Ledger and Trezor have urged frontier artificial intelligence (AI) labs to give Bitcoin developers early access to their most capable models.
An open letter, published by the Bitcoin Policy Institute said Bitcoin Core devs and other crypto developers are being blocked by guardrails on publicly available frontier systems, leaving them to rely on less capable open-weight models.
“Without dedicated access programs, defenders may lack the tools needed to keep pace with evolving threats to the infrastructure they maintain.”
The threat from AI identified exploits has become a key focus after $116 million was stolen from Coldcard hardware wallets. The Bitcoin Red Team subsequently used AI to identify thousands of potential cybersecurity issues using open source Chinese models.
New threats to hardware wallet owners have continued to emerge over the past few days, with the personal details of more than 50,000 users leaked in two separate incidents. Trezor reported a breach of personal data affecting about 14,000 users through its shipping provider, ShipMonk. Users who received its products from the US, UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal between May 10 and Aug. 8 are now at high risk from potential phishing attacks using their personal information.
Cryptocurrency wallet provider SafePal has also just disclosed its own data breach that saw unauthorized access to almost 40,000 customers’ order information, including names, addresses and purchasing data. It has since identified and taken down more than 30 fraudulent websites and phishing links tied to the breach.
CFTC and states battle over who gets to regulate prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has ordered prediction market Kalshi to ignore New York’s restraining order and continue operating normally.
The CFTC said that New York’s enforcement action against Kalshi for operating an illegal gambling business constituted a market emergency as it would bar Kalshi from operating prediction markets nation-wide. It believes the Commodity Exchange Act requires the CFTC to provide a uniform national derivatives market. CFTC Chair Michael Selig said that Congress did not intend derivatives exchanges to face a “patchwork of state gaming laws.”
A few days later a Washington state judge ordered prediction market platform Kalshi to stop operating in the state and rejected its argument that federal commodities law preempts Washington gambling law. Kalshi has been ordered to implement IP-address and residency-based geofencing by Aug. 19 and a GeoComply multi-source geofencing system by Sept. 2.
Even the New York City Council wants to regulated prediction markets and it has launched an investigation into prediction market firms to examine if they are using “false and deceptive marketing” through influencers to target young adults.
Ethereum Foundation revamps post-quantum plan and narrows scope for Hegota hard fork
The Ethereum Foundation is moving away from the Poseidon hash function in its planned post-quantum architecture, according to researcher Justin Drake.
On Thursday, Drake said the foundation would instead rely on established and battle tested alternatives such as SHA or BLAKE.
Poseidon is a relatively new hash function tailored to work better with zero knowledge proofs, which will help compress large post quantum signatures sizes. However, Drake said new developments mean that SNARKS can be tailored to work better with existing hash functions.
A production-ready leanVM is targeted for 2027, followed by deployments across Ethereum’s consensus, data and execution layers in 2028.
Ethereum developers are also reviewing 66 proposals to narrow them down as part of scoping the next major Ethereum upgrade to follow Glamsterdam called Hegotá
Censorship resistance proposal FOCIL is currently the only Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) scheduled for inclusion. A number of other EIPs are focused on privacy.
Core developers aim to ship the Hegotá upgrade next year, while Glamsterdam is expected in the coming months.
Tether completes first full financial audit, receives clean KPMG opinion
Tether completed the first full independent audit of its annual financial statements, with KPMG US issuing a clean opinion on the stablecoin issuer’s 2025 accounts.
The audit covered Tether’s balance sheet, income statement and cash flows for the year ended Dec. 31, 2025, including the assets backing its issued tokens and the liabilities they represent. Tether said the audited statements showed reserves exceeding liabilities by $6.814 billion.
Unlike Tether’s quarterly reserve attestations, which it has published for years, the full audit subjected the company’s broader financial statements and underlying evidence to independent examination, including transactions, systems, ownership records, valuations and counterparties.
Winners and Losers
At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is down 3.3% to trade at $62,842, Ethereum (ETH) is down 2.3% to trade at $1,872 and XRP (XRP) is down 4.2% to 99 cents. The total market cap is at $2.16 trillion according to CoinMarketCap.
Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin winners of the week are Velvet (VELVET) with a 131% gain, Ether.fi (ETHFI) on 31%, and Chainlink (LINK) on 14%.
The top three altcoin losers of the week are Uniswap (UNI) which was down 18%, Aptos (APT) down 12% and Pepe (PEPE) down 11%.
Top Prediction of the Week
Bitcoin could bottom in October, altcoins are ‘basically dead,’ Swan CEO says
Bitcoin could bottom in October before recovering to around $130,000 ahead of the 2028 halving, according to Swan Bitcoin CEO Cory Klippsten.
He argued that Bitcoin has so far bottomed about 12 months after each previous bull market peak, and the previous peak was in October last year.
He told Cointelegraph that Bitcoin could fall to $57,000, or even $53,000, before a quick recovery, and could reach around $130,000 ahead of the 2028 halving.
Top FUD of the Week
Bitcoin to $1M by 2030 is ‘mathematically impossible’ says Markus Thielen
The numbers behind the oft-cited prediction that Bitcoin will reach $1 million by 2030 simply don’t add up, according to Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research.
“It’s mathematically impossible,” Thielen told Trade Secrets, arguing that Bitcoin would need to attract another $15 trillion in capital to reach a per Bitcoin price of $1 million. This is equivalent to roughly 25% of the US stock market’s total value flowing into Bitcoin over the next four years.
“We have seen $1 trillion US dollars of inflow to bring the market cap really to $1 trillion. To $1 million [per] Bitcoin. It’s 15x, I think, from here.”
Bitcoin price-metric basket sees longest capitulation since FTX blow-up: Glassnode
Bitcoin is seeing its longest capitulation since the end of the 2022 bear market, onchain analytics platform Glassnode reported on Monday.
The firm said that forty-five Bitcoin (BTC) price metrics it tracks under the Bitcoin Cycle Position Heatmap show the longest “capitulation” phase since the collapse of FTX in late 2022. But it warned that aggregate readings will have to get even worse to match areas that marked previous bear-market bottoms, says creator Rafael Schultze-Kraft.
“Today it sits in its coldest stretch since FTX: late in the bear, but not yet the unanimous deep blue that previously marked a floor,” he commented.
Missouri trio charged over alleged Bitcoin kidnapping plot
Three Missouri men were charged over an alleged August 2024 plot to kidnap a Bitcoin holder and steal his holdings.
Sedric Louis, John Davis and Martel Williams were allegedly hired to kidnap and force a Bitcoin holder to transfer cryptocurrency to accounts controlled by organizers, according to a Tuesday press release by the US Attorney’s Office. They traveled from St. Louis to Connecticut, where they rented vehicles and obtained air rifles to stake out the victim.
After staking out the intended target for two days, they abandoned the plan for fear of being caught on home security cameras. Shortly afterward, another crew from Florida arrived to carry out the plan.
Top Magazine Features of the Week
Five years after El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, the experiment has fallen short of its original promises for locals, but it’s been great for Bitcoin’s global profile.
Suspected North Korean IT workers joined a fake crypto startup — without realizing their every move was being tracked to extract valuable intel.
Solana’s proposed fee overhaul would make resource-heavy transactions more expensive while cutting costs for simpler activity, and it increases the amount of SOL burned.
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South Korea’s Seoul Southern District Court has sentenced Delio CEO Jeong Sang-ho to 15 years in prison after finding him guilty of fraud involving nearly 70 billion Korean won ($49.2 million) in customer crypto assets. The 11th Criminal Division, presided over by Judge Jang Chan, handed down the sentence on August 13.
The court also ordered Sang-ho to be detained due to concerns that he could flee.
15 Years Behind Bars
The prosecution had initially sought a 20-year prison term, but the court rejected some of the prosecution’s evidence after accepting arguments from Sang-ho’s side that the search and seizure of the server of outsourcing company Gabia was conducted unlawfully.
According to the court, prosecutors failed to guarantee Delio’s right to participate in the search and did not provide a list of seized items, which rendered the company’s database information and related secondary evidence inadmissible.
Upon sentencing, the court stated,
“The defendant committed a crime of embezzling a large amount of money from numerous victims, and considering the circumstances and details of the crime, the means and methods used, and the scale of the damage, the nature of the offense is very serious. He has not received forgiveness from the victims who suffered serious economic losses as a result of this case.”
At the same time, the court acknowledged that external factors had contributed to the case and noted that Sang-ho did not have a prior criminal record involving a punishment greater than a fine. The ruling represented a significant reduction from the prosecution’s original case, which alleged fraud involving approximately 250 billion won (worth around $176 million) and around 2,800 customers.
After excluding evidence related to the larger allegation, the court instead found Sang-ho guilty under the prosecution’s alternative indictment involving approximately 70 billion won and over 1,078 victims.
Crisis Linked to Haru
Delio used to offer high returns on cryptocurrency deposits and promoted itself as a digital asset bank. Its subsequent collapse was closely linked to the downfall of crypto yield platform Haru Invest. Delio had reportedly placed a portion of customer assets with Haru to generate returns, which left the South Korean lender exposed when the latter abruptly suspended withdrawals in June 2023 after citing problems involving its service provider, B&S Holdings.
This forced Delio to halt withdrawals shortly afterward, which ended up triggering a liquidity crisis that ultimately contributed to its bankruptcy.
The post Delio’s Jeong Sang-ho Handed 15-Year Sentence Over 70B Won Crypto Scandal appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Coinbase and Ripple executives will join President Donald Trump at the White House next week. The meeting brings together major crypto companies and top financial regulators. It sets the stage for a broader push on digital asset policy.
Brian Armstrong and Brad Garlinghouse Lead the List
Brian Armstrong of Coinbase and Brad Garlinghouse of Ripple top the expected attendee list. Both executives have spent months pushing lawmakers toward clearer crypto rules. Their companies rank among the most vocal supporters of pending legislation.
Semafor first reported the details of the upcoming gathering. The outlet named several firms beyond Coinbase and Ripple as likely participants. Executives from a16z, Chainlink, Paradigm, and Kalshi are expected to attend as well.
The meeting arrives just one day before a separate but related event. Officials will use the gathering as a lead-in to a bigger regulatory session. That timing suggests the administration wants continuity between private talks and public policy work.
Regulators and Prediction Markets Join the Conversation
President Trump plans to attend the meeting alongside two key regulators. CFTC Chair Mike Selig and SEC Chair Paul Atkins are both expected to appear. Their presence signals that regulatory coordination sits high on the agenda.
The gathering also doubles as a kickoff for the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee. That committee holds its first official meeting on August 20. Participants there will cover crypto regulation, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets in one session.
Prediction market platforms have grown increasingly relevant to federal regulators this year. Kalshi’s inclusion in the meeting reflects that shift in focus. Crypto and prediction markets now sit closer together in policy discussions than before.
The full agenda for the White House meeting remains undisclosed. Still, industry context points toward legislative priorities shaping the conversation. Coinbase and Ripple have both pressed the Senate to act quickly.
Clarity Act Odds Continue to Slide
Momentum behind the CLARITY Act has weakened in recent weeks. Polymarket data shows just a 19% chance the bill becomes law this year. That figure marks a renewed drop after previous signs of progress.
Galaxy Research cut its own projection even further, down to 10%. The firm pointed to unresolved legislative issues as a central concern. It also noted the Senate has limited working days before the midterm recess begins.
Armstrong has pushed back against pessimism surrounding the bill’s prospects. He remains confident that lawmakers can still pass the legislation this year. His comments came despite the bill stalling during the Senate’s August break.
Regulatory agencies appear ready to act independently if Congress does not. The SEC and CFTC could offer clarity without new legislation. Both agencies have signalled openness to guidance-based approaches this year.
The SEC recently cancelled a scheduled crypto meeting of its own. It also paused its proposed Innovation Exemption guidance for now. Officials likely want to avoid overlapping with ongoing legislative efforts.
These moves suggest agencies are timing their actions around Congress. Regulators seem to be waiting for legislative clarity before advancing new rules. The coming weeks will show whether that patience produces results.
The White House meeting therefore carries weight beyond a single afternoon. It links private industry input with public regulatory planning. Outcomes from the session could shape crypto policy for months ahead.
Bitcoin (BTC) trades at half its record price. XRP (XRP) has lost roughly 73% from its own peak. Four events this week could decide whether either one escapes that range.
Both drifted lower again over the past seven days. Washington delivers a presidential crypto meeting, Federal Reserve minutes and a debut regulator panel. Japan adds two data prints.
1. Trump Meets Crypto Leaders at the White House on Wednesday
Trump is expected to attend in person. The heads of both US market regulators are also expected. Paul Atkins runs the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Michael Selig runs the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Executives from Coinbase, Ripple, Kalshi and Polymarket are on the guest list. The last two run prediction markets, where users trade contracts on real-world outcomes.
One stalled bill sits under the whole agenda. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act would settle which regulator polices which token.
The House passed it on July 17, 2025, by 294 votes to 134. No Republican opposed it, and 78 Democrats backed it.
That support has not carried to the Senate. The bill needs 60 votes there. Lawmakers broke for the August recess without scheduling one, pushing the decision to September.
XRP has tracked the bill more closely than any other major token. Its record high of $3.65 landed roughly ten minutes after that House vote.
The token has fallen about 73% since. It now holds the $1 level by a single cent.
2. Fed Minutes Could Reset the Rate Path for Bitcoin and XRP
Minutes from the July meeting arrive at 2 p.m. ET on Wednesday. They cover the session where the Fed left rates at 3.5% to 3.75%.
The vote was 9-3. Three officials wanted a quarter-point increase instead, which is a rare split for a single meeting.
Traders are not convinced they will get one. Fed funds futures put the odds of a September hike near 32%.
Minutes showing wider support for tightening would move that number. Higher rates pull money out of risky assets, and crypto sits at the far end of that queue.
A second read follows on Friday. S&P Global publishes flash surveys of US business activity at 9.45 a.m. ET, meaning early estimates built on partial responses.
Weak numbers would revive slowdown talk. Strong ones would back whatever hawkish signal the minutes carry.
3. The CFTC Opens Its First Crypto Panel on Thursday
The agency’s Innovation Advisory Committee meets at 1 p.m. ET in Washington. The session streams live and is the committee’s first.
Its 35-member roster explains the stakes. Crypto chiefs from Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken and Gemini sit beside the heads of CME Group, Nasdaq and Intercontinental Exchange.
Ripple boss Brad Garlinghouse holds one of those seats. How the panel discusses digital commodities therefore feeds straight into XRP’s status.
That label is not casual. The SEC and CFTC sorted crypto into five buckets in March, and digital commodities was one of them. Tokens in that bucket answer to the CFTC rather than the SEC.
“For far too long, American builders, innovators, and entrepreneurs have awaited clear guidance on the status of crypto assets under the federal securities and commodity laws,” read an excerpt in the statement, citing Michael Selig, CFTC Chairman.
Both agencies acted without waiting for Congress. That precedent matters now, because it shows regulators can move while a bill sits still.
Bitcoin has less riding on Thursday. Regulators have treated it as a commodity for years, but the stakes are higher for XRP.
4. Japan Bookends the Week With Growth and Inflation Data
Japan reports second-quarter growth on Monday. ING expects 0.5% against the previous quarter.
July inflation follows on Friday. ING forecasts 2.0%, which would put Japan back at its central bank’s target.
Both prints feed one decision. The Bank of Japan raised its rate to 1% in June, the highest since 1995. It meets again on September 18.
Traders price roughly 80% odds of another hike, according to Reuters. That is more than double the odds they give the Fed.
Higher Japanese rates lift the yen. That squeezes the carry trade, where investors borrow cheap yen and buy higher-returning assets elsewhere.
The pattern has bitten before. Bitcoin fell between 20% and 31% after each recent BOJ hike.
Not everyone still buys the link. Apollo Global Management argues the old rule tying the yen to rate gaps has broken down. Bitcoin barely moved this month when the yen jumped more than 5% in two sessions.
What Would Have to Break
Bitcoin trades near $63,000, about half its October record of $126,080. XRP slipped below $1.00, sixth by market value. Both slipped over the past week. Bitcoin lost 3.2% and XRP 3.8%.
Neither has escaped its range in weeks. Four catalysts now have five sessions to hand traders a reason.
The post 4 Reasons This Could Be the Most Important Week of August for Bitcoin and XRP appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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