MANTRA has halted its blockchain after an incident affecting its Cosmos EVM module, sending its native token to a new all-time low on August 21.

The team says two wallet addresses were affected, no user funds were exploited, and a patched release is being tested before a possible network restart later today.

MANTRA Freezes Chain as It Tests a Fix

MANTRA initially said it had halted the chain as a precaution while investigating an incident, with all endpoints and transactions frozen. Deposits and withdrawals to and from MANTRA Chain were also temporarily affected.

A status update later said the network remained halted while developers prepared and tested a remediation. Transactions, transfers and staking operations were unavailable, although MANTRA said user funds were unaffected by the halt itself.

The team has since identified the root cause, saying the incident was isolated to the Cosmos EVM module and affected two wallet addresses before the threat was contained.

“No user funds were exploited,” the team repeated.

They also said they had taken a full network snapshot before beginning the restart process. Its patched v8.4.0 release addresses the underlying vulnerability and is being tested on the DuKong testnet, with the project targeting a coordinated mainnet upgrade and restart later in the day, provided testing finishes cleanly.

Validators have also been told to keep their mainnet nodes offline until the restart is announced.

The native token, formerly known as OM, now trades under the MANTRA ticker after the project completed a 1:4 non-dilutive redenomination and ticker change in March this year, meaning holders received four MANTRA tokens for each former OM token without changing their overall value at the time of conversion.

After the chain was halted, the token plunged more than 18%, going from about $0.0050 to $0.0041 to set a new all-time low.

However, at the time of writing it had managed to claw back some of that value and was changing hands near $0.0046, which still put MANTRA about 82% below its March 4 all-time high of $0.02627.

OM Collapse Still Hangs Over MANTRA

Recall that OM fell from above $6 to below $1 in less than an hour on April 14, 2025, wiping out roughly 90% of its market value, with liquidations exceeding $70 million.

At the time, CEO John Patrick Mullin blamed the collapse on what he described as “reckless forced closures” by centralized exchanges.

The fallout continued into January 2026, when MANTRA announced staff cuts across several teams. The company said its rapid expansion through 2024 and early 2025 had left its cost base too high after a difficult market period and the events surrounding the token’s collapse. Mullin also pledged to burn 300 million OM tokens after the April 2025 crash, with the burn completed later that month.

MANTRA says a full post-mortem will follow. For now, the chain remains paused while the patched software undergoes testing, leaving users with limited information beyond the team’s update.

The post MANTRA Freezes Blockchain After Cosmos EVM Incident as Token Hits New Low appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Two Solana meme coins climbed on Friday after a viral X (Twitter) post pulled a flood of token pitches into its replies. Jimothy The Raccoon (JIMOTHY) rose 41% in 24 hours.

Bullshit Coin (BULLSHIT), a Solana token built on self-aware jokes about meme coin culture, gained 21% over the same window. Neither move followed a project announcement.

How One X Post Moved Two Solana Meme Coins

Nate Esparza, a senior technical product manager for ads at SpaceXAI, wrote on Friday morning that the crypto community on X is “insane.”

SpaceXAI is the company Elon Musk formed in February by folding his artificial intelligence venture xAI into SpaceX.

The viral post saw traders answer with raccoon images, green bull graphics and direct pitches for their tokens.

JIMOTHY trades near $0.0096 with a market cap of about $9.7 million, according to Coingecko data. BULLSHIT sits near $0.0038.

Volume told the sharper story. BULLSHIT turned over roughly $4.7 million in 24 hours, more than its entire market value. Thin Solana meme coin markets often trade that way.

Meanwhile, the wider sector has leaned on the same loop all year. Attention arrives first and liquidity follows. Neither token carries a roadmap, a treasury or a product, which leaves social reach as the only visible driver.

Why the Jimothy Meme Keeps Pulling Bids

Jimothy is a real raccoon in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood with short spine syndrome, a congenital condition that leaves him short and rounded. Marketing specialist Kiana Hall filmed him in July, and the clip drew millions of views.

City recognition, a mural and a token followed. The Solana token launch rode that fame to a 186% gain in July.

Musk has amplified the theme before. On August 8, he posted a raccoon video that sent JIMOTHY up 331% within hours. He has not posted about Friday’s exchange.

Friday’s move was smaller and arrived without him. That gap matters, because it suggests the reply machine now moves the Jimothy price chart without a headline account attached. Whether these gains survive the weekend will show how much of the bid was attention and how much was conviction.

The post SpaceXAI Manager Calls Crypto ‘Insane’: 2 Solana Meme Coins Jump Up to 40% appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Bitcoin jumped roughly 25% to a two-month high above $77,000 within hours of the U.S. Treasury doubling its long-dated bonds buyback operations on August 19.

Falling Treasury yields triggered a short squeeze estimated $3.5 billion across crypto derivatives.

The move raises a pointed question: did Bitcoin catch a genuine liquidity tailwind, or trade a one-day signal that the bond market itself partially reversed within 24 hours?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s move came a day after the 30-year Treasury yield hit 5.34%, its highest level since 2007, amid a global bond selloff tied to inflation worries, an escalating U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran, and mounting concern over the U.S. fiscal trajectory. Total U.S. debt outstanding crossed $40 trillion the same day the buyback announcement landed.

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What the Buyback Actually Buys

Treasury will double the size of its 10- to 30-year buyback operations to at least $4 billion per operation, up from $2 billion previously, effective September 9 through November 4.

That adds at least $14 billion of additional liquidity support this quarter, bringing maximum repurchases in the current window to $83 billion, measured against a $32.2 trillion Treasury market and $5.5 trillion in outstanding 20- and 30-year bonds.

The announcement worked in the way it was designed to, at least initially: the 30-year yield fell to 5.184% from Tuesday’s high, and the 10-year yield dropped roughly six basis points to 4.66%.

Dan Gottlander, global head of USD and CAD swaps trading at Citi, told Reuters the move would have a huge impact on the long end, though he cautioned that Treasury would still need to issue elsewhere to cover the shortfall.

“It does not change deficits, obviously, and if you are going to buy back the long end, you still will need to issue. They may issue more bills, or also in the five-year to 10-year sector.”

That distinction matters for anyone reading the move as quantitative easing. A Treasury buyback is financed by issuing new short-term bills to retire older, harder-to-trade long bonds, a refinancing operation that swaps one liability for another without expanding the money supply, unlike the Federal Reserve’s own bond purchases under QE, which credit new bank reserves into existence.

Conflating the two overstates how loose the operation actually makes financial conditions.

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Why the Relief Didn’t Last

By August 20, Bessent said he might increase buyback sizes even further. “We’re going to increase the size of the buyback,” he said. “I would note that it could be more than the $4 billion per issue.” He argued that yields didn’t reflect the underlying strength of the economy, tying the spike partly to the Iran conflict.

The bond market wasn’t fully convinced. The 30-year yield climbed back to 5.24% by August 20, retracing roughly half of the prior day’s drop, while the dollar clawed back most of its post-announcement losses. According to Bit.com’s market analysis, Bitcoin gave back the $70,000 level within hours, settling into the high-$60,000s after Fed minutes reintroduced rate-hike risk.

Thomas Simons, chief U.S. economist at Jefferies, told Reuters the surprise buyback announcement broke with Treasury’s tradition of predictable debt issuance, calling the move “shot from the hip.”

Evercore ISI analysts framed it more charitably, crediting Bessent’s tactical skill in catching bond shorts off guard during thin August liquidity, but questioned whether the impact would hold given the “tidal wave” of maturing debt and deficits still to be financed.

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Bitcoin Just Traded a Policy Surprise: Kalshi Lets Traders Position Before the Next One Hits.

The Treasury buyback showed how fast crypto can reprice when a macro decision catches the market off guard. Bitcoin surged, shorts were squeezed, yields fell, and then part of the move unwound as the bond market reassessed what had actually changed.

Kalshi gives traders another way to approach that kind of setup.

The platform offers markets around economic data, Fed policy, politics, crypto, and other real-world events that can move risk assets. Instead of waiting for Bitcoin to react to the next Treasury announcement, rate decision, or inflation print, traders can take a position on the underlying outcome itself.

That distinction matters when the asset reaction is messy. Bitcoin can move on leverage, positioning, dollar strength, and liquidity all at once. An event market lets traders isolate the question they actually have conviction on.

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The post Treasury’s $14 Billion Buyback Triggered a $3.5 Billion Crypto Short Squeeze appeared first on Cryptonews.

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Market watchers say sudden sharp price spikes and forced short liquidations are the classic signs of a bottom, though macro risks still remain.

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Ethereum price climbed 3% to about $2,397 on Aug. 21 after reaching an intraday high near $2,448, extending a breakout driven by ETF inflows, short liquidations and stronger risk appetite.

Summary

• Ethereum price reached $2,448 after gaining more than 20% over the past week.
• US spot Ether ETFs attracted $189 million on Aug. 19, their largest inflow since October.
• The daily RSI reached 86, placing ETH deep inside overbought territory.
• A weekly close above $2,450 could expose the $2,500 and $3,000 levels.

Ethereum price action today

According to data from crypto.news, Ethereum (ETH) price opened at $2,327 on Aug. 21 before climbing to $2,448 and settling near $2,397 at the time of writing. The 3% daily increase followed a much larger move that carried ETH from below $2,000 to more than $2,300 within two sessions.

The rally pushed Ethereum through several levels that had limited gains since April, including the $2,000 psychological barrier and the $2,250 resistance area. ETH also cleared the $2,375 Murrey Math level on the 4-hour chart, although the price was struggling to hold above it after its rejection near $2,450.

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Momentum remained strong on the shorter timeframe. The 4-hour Awesome Oscillator rose to 329.16 and printed an expanding series of green bars, indicating that upward momentum had not yet weakened meaningfully.

However, the daily chart showed that ETH had moved far outside its previous trading range. The price was trading about 5.5% above the upper Bollinger Band at $2,272, while the indicator’s middle band remained near $1,957.

What is driving the Ethereum rally?

US spot Ether ETFs recorded $189 million in net inflows on Aug. 19, their strongest daily intake since October 2025, according to SoSoValue data. BlackRock’s ETHA accounted for about $122 million of that total.

The ETF purchases arrived as Ethereum broke above $2,000, forcing traders with leveraged short positions to close their bets. CoinGlass data cited by Invezz showed that more than $1 billion in Ether shorts were liquidated during the initial breakout, contributing to a wider crypto liquidation event that exceeded $3 billion.

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The supplied one-week CoinGlass heatmap shows how ETH moved rapidly through liquidation clusters between $1,900 and $2,300. Forced purchases associated with short liquidations likely added to the speed of the advance, although the breakout also coincided with new spot demand from US-listed funds.

Macro conditions provided another catalyst after the US Treasury announced that it would at least double the maximum size of buybacks for longer-dated nominal securities from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation. The change will begin on Sept. 9 and remain in place through Nov. 4.

Investors interpreted the announcement as support for bond-market liquidity. Treasury yields and the US dollar subsequently weakened, helping Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other risk assets extend their gains.

Ethereum faces overbought signals below $2,500

Ethereum’s immediate resistance sits between $2,448 and $2,500. The lower boundary marked the Aug. 21 intraday high, while the Murrey Math chart identifies $2,500 as the next major resistance level.

A sustained break above $2,500 could expose $2,625, followed by $2,750. The chart places stronger reversal risk near $2,875, although ETH would need additional demand to reach those levels after such a steep move.

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Daily momentum presents the main short-term risk. Ethereum’s 14-day relative strength index jumped to 86.12, well above the 70 level commonly associated with overbought conditions. The reading does not guarantee a reversal, but it shows that prices have advanced much faster than their recent trend.

The CoinGlass heatmap identifies nearby liquidation concentrations between approximately $2,270 and $2,350. A failure to clear $2,450 could therefore send ETH back toward $2,375, followed by the $2,300–$2,250 area.

The $2,000 level remains the larger breakout support. The daily Bollinger Band midpoint near $1,957 and a dense heatmap cluster around $1,990 strengthen that zone, although a decline that deep would erase much of the latest advance.

Analysts watch the $2,450 weekly close

Crypto analyst Ted Pillows identified $2,450 as Ethereum’s next resistance zone. He said a weekly close above that area could open a move toward $3,000, making the upcoming close important for confirming whether the breakout can continue.

Market analyst Rain said ETH gained 17.1% during the initial daily surge and pushed its weekly advance beyond 20% after clearing resistance between $1,980 and $2,000. Rain also reported that 30-day realized volatility rose from 39.6 to 62.6 in one day, showing how quickly the earlier compression ended.

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Ethereum just delivered one of its sharpest moves of the year.

But the breakout is only the first part of the story.$ETH surged 17.1% in a single day and has since pushed above $2,370, taking its weekly gain beyond 20%.

The move followed weeks of tightening consolidation,… pic.twitter.com/dbWq01KK7Y

— Rain (@raintures) August 21, 2026

Rain said Ethereum must now prove that $2,000 can function as support. Holding well above that level would preserve the new market structure, while a deeper reversal would suggest that liquidations contributed more to the move than sustained spot demand.

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US regulation adds to Ethereum’s market catalyst

The rally also followed the SEC’s Regulation Crypto Assets proposal, published on Aug. 18. The proposed framework would introduce tailored registration exemptions for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets, including fundraising exemptions of up to $75 million annually.

The proposal has not become law and does not change Ethereum’s regulatory status immediately. However, the SEC said it aims to give crypto issuers clearer pathways under federal securities laws, adding to the improved regulatory backdrop for US investors.

Ethereum’s next move now depends on whether ETF demand and spot buying can absorb profit-taking near $2,450. A confirmed breakout would bring $2,500 into focus, while rejection could produce a cooling period toward $2,375 or $2,300 as the overbought daily RSI resets.

Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.

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Kalshi daily crypto perpetual-futures open interest reached a record $17.98 million. The reading puts attention on Kalshi’s CFTC-regulated perpetual futures, which allow traders to take leveraged positions on crypto prices without buying the underlying assets.

Perpetual futures, or perps, are derivative contracts that let traders take a position on an asset’s price without owning the asset itself. A trader can take a long position when expecting a price rise or a short position when expecting a decline. Unlike traditional futures, perpetual futures do not have an expiration date, although positions require sufficient collateral to remain open.

Kalshi’s perpetual-futures guide says the company became the first in U.S. history to offer CFTC-regulated perpetual futures on May 29, 2026. The guide describes crypto perpetual futures as a way to trade price movements in assets, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP, without crypto changing hands.

Leverage allows collateral to control a larger position, amplifying both potential gains and potential losses. A price move against a leveraged position can lead to liquidation if losses consume the required collateral. Kalshi’s guide also says its contracts use a funding rate charged every eight hours, a mechanism intended to keep perpetual-futures prices aligned with the underlying spot market.

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Perpetual Futures and Prediction Markets Are Different Products

Kalshi offers both perpetual futures and prediction markets, but the products serve different purposes. A perpetual future is a directional position on the price of an asset with no fixed end date. A prediction-market contract concerns the probability of a specified event and resolves YES or NO on a specified date.

The distinction is important when assessing activity on the platform. The reported $17.98 million figure concerns crypto perpetual-futures open interest, rather than prediction-market activity. It should not be treated as a measure of event-contract trading.

Perpetual futures can be used for either rising or falling price views. They also carry risks that differ from spot crypto purchases: traders do not own the underlying token, face funding costs and may have positions liquidated if market moves exhaust their collateral.

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Kalshi Crypto Perpetual-Futures Offering

As of June 3, 2026, Kalshi’s guide listed 13 CFTC-approved crypto perpetual-futures contracts. The guide listed maximum leverage of 5.9x for Bitcoin, 4.5x for Ethereum, and 2.0x for Shiba Inu, alongside contracts tied to other crypto assets.

Kalshi describes an isolated margin as an arrangement in which the collateral assigned to a specific trade is at risk if that trade is liquidated. Its guide contrasts this with cross margin, where an account balance can back open positions. The same guide says funding payments occur every eight hours.

Bitcoin (BTC)

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These features make the record open-interest report a measure of activity in a product designed for leveraged crypto price exposure under CFTC oversight.

Kalshi’s reported record remains small beside major crypto perpetual-futures venues. Comparing Kalshi with Hyperliquid, which had $11.7 billion in daily open interest across 377 pairs. The comparison underscores the difference in scale between Kalshi’s crypto perpetual-futures activity and a large established market for perpetual contracts.

Kalshi’s guide frames its offering around regulated access to perpetual futures in the United States. Its contracts combine leverage, periodic funding payments, and liquidation risk with CFTC oversight. For traders, that means the product remains distinct from both spot crypto ownership and the platform’s event-based prediction markets.

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Record Open Interest Suggests Traders Are Already Testing Kalshi’s New Crypto Market

Kalshi no longer needs to explain whether U.S. traders want regulated access to crypto perpetuals. The $17.98 million open-interest record is beginning to answer that question for it.

For traders, the appeal is straightforward: take long or short positions on major crypto assets, use leverage where appropriate, and do it through a CFTC-regulated platform without buying the underlying tokens.

That puts Kalshi in an unusual position. The same platform already lets users trade event outcomes, while its perpetual-futures market now adds direct exposure to crypto price moves. One account can express a view on what happens and, separately, where the market goes next.

The market is still far smaller than offshore giants such as Hyperliquid, but record activity suggests traders are starting to explore the regulated alternative.

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The post Kalshi’s Crypto Perpetual Futures Reach $17.98 Million Open Interest appeared first on Cryptonews.

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Bitcoin is on a roll, as we might have mentioned a few times in the past couple of days. But let’s recap quickly: BTC traded below $65,000 for weeks when all hell broke loose on Wednesday afternoon. Since then, the asset has skyrocketed by 25% and neared $80,000 earlier today for the first time in three months.

The obvious question on everyone’s mind is: Who is responsible for this spectacular rally? What’s the reason behind it? Well, after reviewing tons of online material, we have finally reached a definitive conclusion.

Did He Do It Again?

Analysts, experts, market commentators, media websites, and our mothers: we have all speculated in the past 60 hours on what could be the driving force behind this mind-blowing surge to $80,000.

And our conclusion shows clearly: It’s not the US Treasury Department’s announcement, it’s not the major White House crypto meeting, it’s not Trump’s words that the US has to lead in crypto and might accumulate BTC, it’s not the renewed ETF inflows, it’s not the de-escalating war developments. None of those have the impact that the actual reason has. And that reason has a name: Jim Cramer.

Let’s rewind the clocks a few weeks. The man himself interviewed IBM CEO Arvind Krishna about the potential quantum threat and, after hearing Krishna’s argument, announced on national TV that he would sell his bitcoin.

“Arvind Krishna knows Bitcoin and quantum. And I am going to sell mine [Bitcoin].”

On the question of whether that was a sufficient reason to dispose of his crypto assets, Cramer justified his decision by explaining that IBM’s CEO is “the man” when it comes to quantum.

Examples

I mean, how much clearer than that could it have been? The signs were all there. We were just too blind to listen and follow through. Cramer has all the right history, showing that whatever he says is the absolute truth, whether we know it or not yet. Oh, wait, it was the other way around.

Just a few examples: he created a PARC basket in July 2025 as a solid portfolio and added Coinbase (COIN) to it. A year later, COIN was down by over 60%. In late 2022, just after BTC had tumbled below $17,000, he advised investors to sell all of their crypto holdings. He said XRP, DOGE, ADA, and MATIC were going to zero. Needless to say, that was the end of the bear market at the time. Oh, and none of those went to $0.

He has been so on-point with his major predictions that it has led to the creation of an “Inverse Cramer” X account that bets against all of his calls. That account has more than 1.4 million followers on X due to its success.

Disclaimer: Obviously, this was a humorous article. The actual (possible) reasons are listed above. But the reality is that something has changed in the market. Trading volumes are 3x higher than this time last week, prices have rocketed, and legacy traditional media is back to covering crypto. Hopefully, more good times are ahead. Unless Cramer buys more BTC and announces it on national TV, of course.

The post The Real Reason Behind Bitcoin’s Mind-Blowing Surge to $80K? One Word: Cramer appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $606.29 million in net inflows on August 20, marking a fourth consecutive day of inflows. The total is the largest single-day haul the funds have seen since May 1.

Spot Ethereum (ETH) ETFs added $221 million the same day, also extending a four-day inflow streak. The dual demand landed as bitcoin traded at $75,524, continuing a market-wide rally that has run through the week.

Bitcoin ETFs Extend a Four-Day Run

Thursday’s inflow followed $517.19 million on August 19, $189.30 million on August 18, and $297.56 million on August 17. Combined, the four-day run has pushed cumulative net inflows for the category to $53.40 billion.

The last time Bitcoin ETFs booked a bigger single day was May 1. That day, the funds pulled in $629.73 million, and total net assets crossed $100 billion for the first time.

BlackRock’s IBIT led the day’s inflows with $502.99 million, more than 80% of the day’s total. The broader crypto market rally that has lifted Bitcoin this week has coincided with a wave of short liquidations squeezing bearish positions across the market.

Ethereum Demand Builds Alongside Bitcoin

Ethereum ETFs have moved in step with their Bitcoin counterparts. The category booked $189.15 million on August 19, its largest single-day inflow in 10 months, before adding a further $221 million on August 20.

The simultaneous four-day streaks in both categories suggest institutions are building positions across both assets rather than rotating between them. Total value traded across Bitcoin ETFs reached $5.41 billion on August 20, and total net assets stood at $90.16 billion.

Whether the pace holds into next week may depend on the rally itself. Four straight days of buying could give way to profit-taking if momentum stalls.

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