XRP futures volume surged to a six-month high in August. Binance, Bybit, and OKX together processed $64.6 billion in XRP contracts. The rally pushed XRP up nearly 30% for the month.

Binance Leads Record XRP Futures Volume

Binance processed roughly $37 billion in XRP futures during August. That figure represents about 57% of total volume across three exchanges. Bybit followed with $14.54 billion, while OKX cleared $12.88 billion.

Price action fueled much of the surge in XRP trading. XRP climbed from $1.06 early in August to $1.50 by August 24. The token then settled near $1.35 as the month closed.

Spot markets mirrored the futures rally and confirmed the trend. Spot XRP volume also hit a six-month high across major exchanges. Binance again led spot activity, followed by Upbit and Bithumb.

Institutional Interest Shifts Toward Regulated XRP Venues

CME overtook Binance as the largest venue for XRP open interest. CME open interest reached near $530 million, compared with Binance at $510 million. Offshore exchanges, however, still dominate raw XRP trading volume.

Institutional players continued to build positions in XRP-linked products. Citadel expanded its bullish XRP ETF holdings during the second quarter. Goldman Sachs also reclaimed its spot as a top XRP ETF holder.

Combined spot XRP ETF assets stood near $1.48 billion by month-end. Cumulative inflows into XRP ETFs approached $1.7 billion during the period. These flows gave trading desks reason to hedge and warehouse inventory.

Crowded Positioning Raises Risk for XRP Traders

Rising volume alone does not confirm a bullish direction for XRP. Analysts note that turnover can reflect covering, new shorts, or hedging activity. Traders must therefore separate raw volume data from actual positioning.

XRP’s leverage ratio on Binance reached 0.213, a seven-month high. Open interest grew crowded near $3.4 billion to $3.5 billion in size. That concentration adds risk ahead of a key regulatory vote.

Ripple re-locked 700 million XRP after its scheduled monthly unlock event. This escrow move reduced near-term sell pressure on XRP supply. Meanwhile, the XRPL 3.3.0 upgrade advances toward mid-September activation.

The US Treasury’s planned $22 billion debt buyback added a macro tailwind. Broader crypto markets turned bullish alongside the XRP derivatives buildup. The Senate’s CLARITY Act cloture vote on September 15 looms next.

Robinhood has agreed to take equity stakes in Crypto.com and its newly spun-off prediction markets platform, OG.com, in a multi-year arrangement designed to bolster Robinhood’s event-contract infrastructure in the United States. The move links Robinhood’s expanding prediction markets business to OG.com’s CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange and clearinghouse.

As part of the deal, Robinhood will route retail event contracts through OG.com’s infrastructure. A rollout is set to begin Tuesday for eligible US customers, according to Robinhood’s announcement carried by PR Newswire.

Key takeaways

• Robinhood will use OG.com’s CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange and clearinghouse to process retail event contracts.
• Robinhood is taking equity stakes in both Crypto.com and OG.com, but the companies did not disclose the size or value of the holdings.
• The equity stakes are priced using valuations established by an earlier Citadel Securities investment in the platforms.
• The agreement arrives shortly after OG.com’s spin-off from Crypto.com and follows recent reporting that Robinhood was exploring ways to expand prediction markets.

Robinhood’s event-contract routing shifts to OG.com

The core operational change is straightforward: Robinhood plans to route retail event contracts through OG.com’s CFTC-regulated derivatives exchange and clearinghouse. In the PR Newswire announcement, Robinhood described OG.com as its infrastructure partner for prediction market event contracts, with the initial rollout beginning Tuesday for eligible customers in the US.

This matters for participants because event-contract trading depends not only on market access and product availability, but also on the plumbing—exchange execution, clearing, and regulatory oversight. By centering that plumbing on OG.com’s CFTC-regulated setup, Robinhood is effectively tightening the link between its prediction-market offering and a regulated derivatives framework.

Equity stakes accompany the infrastructure deal

In addition to becoming a customer of OG.com’s infrastructure, Robinhood will receive initial equity stakes in both Crypto.com and OG.com under the multi-year agreement. The announcement states that the stakes are priced at the valuations set by an earlier investment from Citadel Securities. However, neither Robinhood nor the counterparties disclosed how much Robinhood will receive or the dollar value of the holdings.

The equity component is a notable feature of the arrangement. Many infrastructure partnerships are structured around service fees rather than ownership participation. Here, ownership ties can align long-term incentives for both product expansion and operational reliability—especially for a business area where regulatory permissions and market structure are central to scalability.

OG.com independence—and a broader push into derivatives

OG.com recently spun off from Crypto.com at a $5 billion valuation, and Robinhood’s agreement arrives less than two months after reports that Robinhood had been in talks with Crypto.com to expand its prediction markets offering.

OG.com will operate independently from the crypto exchange. CEO Kris Marszalek said the company plans to expand beyond prediction markets into futures and perpetual contracts. That direction is consistent with the idea that regulated event-contract infrastructure can serve as a stepping stone toward more generalized derivatives products, though the specific pace and regulatory pathway for futures and perps would still depend on applicable jurisdictional requirements.

Why prediction markets remain a legal flashpoint

Robinhood’s expansion efforts are happening in parallel with a widening legal dispute about how US states should be allowed to regulate event contracts—particularly sports-related ones.

Robinhood launched its prediction markets hub in March 2025 with CFTC-regulated exchange Kalshi, later expanding its prediction market infrastructure. Cointelegraph previously reported on developments in this space, including partnerships and platform expansion plans. The business has also grown quickly: Robinhood said event contracts generated $156 million in revenue in the second quarter of 2026, up more than tenfold from a year earlier. In the same reporting cycle, Robinhood indicated that its equities transaction revenue was $129 million and that crypto contributed $100 million—figures from the company’s investor relations release.

Analyst estimates cited in the original reporting add another layer to the stakes: Bernstein analysts projected in July that Robinhood’s revenue, including prediction markets, could reach $1.7 billion by 2028. At the same time, those projections sit against uncertainty driven by regulatory and court fights.

Several legal challenges have targeted the classification of prediction-market event contracts. In April, a Nevada judge extended a ban preventing Kalshi from offering event contracts in the state without a gaming license, ruling that the products were effectively indistinguishable from traditional betting. The decision rejected Kalshi’s position that the contracts should be treated as swaps governed exclusively by CFTC oversight.

The dispute has escalated further. Last week, New Jersey petitioned the US Supreme Court to consider whether states can regulate sports contracts offered on CFTC-regulated prediction markets. In a post tied to the move, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said companies such as Kalshi argue they can offer legal sports betting nationwide while refusing to comply with state gambling laws, and she urged the Supreme Court to resolve the jurisdictional conflict.

For investors and traders, these cases are more than abstract legal drama. Platform operators often rely on regulators and courts to define the product boundaries—whether a state can apply gambling rules to event contracts even when the market structure is built within CFTC-regulated derivatives frameworks. Any shift in legal interpretation could affect product listings, market access, and compliance costs.

What to watch next as infrastructure and regulation converge

With Robinhood routing retail event contracts through OG.com’s CFTC-regulated exchange and clearinghouse beginning Tuesday, the immediate operational question is how quickly eligible customers can access the expanded flow. Just as important, the next watch item is the broader legal trajectory around state authority over sports-related event contracts—because the infrastructure build-out may face constraints or redesigns depending on how courts ultimately define the regulatory boundaries.

Kalshi has lost an emergency injunction request at the 10th Circuit, leaving Utah free to enforce its gambling laws while the prediction market operator pursues its appeal.

Utah can enforce its gambling laws against Kalshi

Legal analyst Daniel Wallach said in an X post that the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had denied Kalshi’s emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal.

Kalshi sought temporary protection after a federal judge allowed Utah to apply its gambling restrictions to the platform’s sports event contracts. The requested order would have stopped the state from bringing civil or criminal proceedings while the appeal remained before the 10th Circuit.

With the request denied, Wallach said Utah may enforce its laws during the appeal. The appellate court’s decision does not settle Kalshi’s challenge to the earlier ruling, but it removes the temporary protection the company sought against state action.

Kalshi initially sued Utah earlier in 2026 as the state prepared to tighten its restrictions on prediction markets. The company argued that Utah could not regulate contracts listed on an exchange registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

In August, U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby rejected Kalshi’s request to prevent enforcement. According to the Associated Press, Shelby found that the federal law cited by the platform did not stop Utah from applying its gambling rules.

Utah Attorney General Derek Brown said after the district court ruling that his office intended to enforce state law, although officials were still considering their available options. Utah’s rules prohibit proposition betting on events within a game, a category that accounts for an important part of the sports products offered by prediction markets.

Kalshi disagreed with Shelby’s decision and moved the dispute to the 10th Circuit. Its emergency filing sought protection during that process, rather than a final appellate ruling on whether federal derivatives law overrides Utah’s restrictions.

Kalshi argues that sports contracts fall under CFTC control

Kalshi’s legal position rests on its status as a CFTC-regulated designated contract market. The company classifies its sports products as event contracts or swaps governed by the federal Commodity Exchange Act, rather than wagers controlled by individual states.

State regulators dispute that description. Their lawsuits and enforcement actions generally argue that contracts tied to game results, player performance, and other sporting events function as sports bets, requiring operators to follow state licensing, age-limit, and consumer-protection rules.

The distinction determines whether Kalshi can provide the same sports markets across the United States or must change its products according to local gambling laws. State victories could require geofencing, product removals, or licensing in jurisdictions that classify the contracts as wagers.

For American users, the unresolved issue means access may depend on where they live. As crypto.news previously reported, 38 active prediction-market cases were pending across 21 states as of Sep. 8, while exchanges had received cease-and-desist letters in at least 10 jurisdictions, according to Casino.org’s Prediction Market Litigation Tracker.

Court orders have already produced different rules among states. Washington directed Kalshi to restrict contracts covering sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, technology, and science, while allowing markets tied to commodities, climate, economics, and finance to remain available.

In Michigan, a preliminary injunction required Kalshi to keep sports contracts unavailable to residents. The Michigan court order exposed the platform to possible fines of $500,000 for every day a court found it out of compliance.

States extend their winning run in federal courts

Wallach said the Utah order extended a run of 12 consecutive federal court decisions favoring states over prediction market operators since a Minnesota ruling had gone the other way.

In the Minnesota case, a federal judge granted preliminary relief that blocked the state’s proposed prediction-market ban shortly before it was due to take effect. Later decisions, however, have increasingly allowed regulators to apply state gambling laws while the underlying cases proceed.

One of the most important rulings came from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 28. A unanimous panel concluded at the preliminary stage that Kalshi’s sports products were likely bets rather than swaps, allowing Nevada regulators to enforce their gaming requirements.

“The CFTC is not a national gambling regulator,” Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson wrote in the 9th Circuit opinion.

The Nevada appellate decision conflicted with an April ruling from the 3rd Circuit in Kalshi’s case against New Jersey. In that dispute, a divided panel kept an injunction in place and found that Kalshi had shown a reasonable likelihood of proving that its sports event contracts qualify as swaps under federal law.

According to Wallach, states have prevailed in 35 of 41 rulings involving requests for preliminary injunctions, temporary restraining orders, stays, or injunctions pending appeal. The figure represents an 85% success rate for states in those procedural contests.

Such orders do not always decide the full legal merits of a case. Courts considering emergency or preliminary relief assess factors including the applicant’s likelihood of success, possible irreparable harm and the public interest before the underlying litigation is complete.

Supreme Court petition could settle the jurisdiction dispute

New Jersey has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 3rd Circuit decision that favored Kalshi. Filed on Sep. 2, the state’s petition asks whether the Commodity Exchange Act prevents states from applying sports-gambling laws to contracts offered through a CFTC-registered market.

The Supreme Court petition argues that Congress did not clearly remove state authority over sports wagering when it passed the Dodd-Frank Act. New Jersey also disputes the 3rd Circuit’s finding that the contracts may qualify as swaps covered by the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction.

Kalshi has maintained that federal oversight preempts conflicting state restrictions. Addressing New Jersey’s filing in a statement previously shared with Front Office Sports, the company said it remained confident in the lower courts’ rulings and that the petition had not changed its position.

The Supreme Court has not agreed to hear the case. Kalshi may respond to the petition before the justices decide whether to grant review, a step that requires support from at least four members of the court.

Polymarket traders were assigning a 31% probability that the Supreme Court would accept a sports event contract case by the end of 2026, according to market data cited in the original report. A prediction-market price represents participants’ trading positions rather than a judicial forecast or confirmation that the court will act.

Investigators in Mexico say two suspects charged in the killing of four people allegedly targeted a “cold wallet” they believed held millions of dollars in Bitcoin. The case has drawn renewed attention to the growing trend of violent “wrench attacks,” in which criminals use coercion—often physical attacks or threats—to obtain crypto wallet access.

According to La Jornada, prosecutors in the State of Mexico (FGJEM) allege that Diego Sebastián and Gerardo—surnames withheld—were involved in the Sept. 2 murders in Atizapán de Zaragoza. A court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, where a judge will decide whether sufficient evidence exists to continue criminal proceedings.

Key takeaways

• FGJEM alleges the suspects sought access to a Bitcoin cold wallet believed to contain millions, after entering the victims’ home.
• The case centers on the killings of Jonathan Meléndez, his pregnant wife, their daughter, and an employee, with the family’s dog also reported killed.
• If convicted, FGJEM statements reported by La Jornada suggest each homicide victim could carry a sentence ranging from 25 to 70 years.
• Blockchain security firm CertiK reports a rise in wrench attacks in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.
• Chainalysis estimates indicate wrench attacks have generated more than $30 million in stolen crypto during H1 2026.

A domestic attack allegedly driven by expectations of large Bitcoin holdings

La Jornada, citing an FGJEM update, reports that two suspects were arrested following the Sept. 2 killings of Jonathan Meléndez, a keyboardist for rock band Camilo Séptimo; his pregnant wife; their daughter; and an employee at their home. The outlet also reports that the family’s golden retriever was killed during the incident.

The FGJEM announcement of the arrests was posted on X on Sept. 2, according to the case coverage referenced by FiscalíaEdomex. Prosecutors described a motive that, in this instance, appears tied directly to crypto custody: La Jornada says the suspects believed a “cold wallet” contained millions in Bitcoin.

Earlier reporting in the same case indicates prosecutors allege one suspect had a business relationship with one of the victims and used that connection to enter the home. Mexico’s security secretary, Omar García Harfuch, made similar points in a Sept. 2 X post, according to his account.

Next court step in Mexico’s State of Mexico case

As described by Diario de México, the two defendants are scheduled for a Wednesday hearing. At that session, a judge will decide whether there is enough evidence to proceed with criminal charges.

La Jornada also reports that, under FGJEM’s statements, the suspects could face penalties equivalent to 25 to 70 years in prison per homicide victim if convicted. The severity underscores how investigators are framing the alleged crime not only as murder but also as an effort to coerce access to cryptocurrency holdings.

Violence and coercion remain a major risk for crypto holders

This Mexican case fits a broader pattern known as “wrench attacks,” a term used in blockchain security reporting to describe violence or threats aimed at forcing victims to hand over cryptocurrency or provide access to their wallets.

Crypto security firm CertiK told Cointelegraph that the first half of 2026 included 20 publicly reported home invasions targeting crypto owners, up sharply from just a single incident reported in the same period in 2025. CertiK also identified 52 wrench attacks worldwide in H1 2026, up 33.3% from 39 incidents during the same timeframe in 2025.

Those figures align with other analytics estimating real-world losses. According to Cointelegraph reporting that cites Chainalysis estimates, criminals stole more than $30 million in crypto through wrench attacks in the first half of 2026.

Where the threat appears to be heading

CertiK’s reporting, referenced in the same coverage, also indicates wrench attacks increased in the prior year. It states that wrench attacks rose by 75% in 2025, reaching 72 verified cases worldwide. In that breakdown, France recorded the most incidents in 2025 with 19 confirmed cases, while Europe accounted for about 40% of global attacks.

Looking at the longer arc of coercion, Cointelegraph notes earlier cases involving wallet access demands after kidnappings and killings. For example, Russian outlet Fontanka reported in late 2025 on the murder of convicted crypto fraudster Roman Novak and his wife following an apparent kidnapping and demands for wallet access, as described by Fontanka.

While these incidents differ in geography and circumstances, the recurring theme is consistent: when criminals believe crypto is stored in a form that can be compelled—whether via a physical wallet setup or credentials that can be coerced—violence becomes a tool, not a byproduct.

For readers following the intersection of crypto and real-world security, the Wednesday hearing in Mexico will be the immediate development to watch. Beyond the court outcome, the larger question for the industry remains whether wrench attacks will keep expanding in frequency—and whether victims and wallet holders will adapt custody and security practices quickly enough to reduce the risk of criminals targeting physical access points to funds.

The $LAPTOP token will go live on Base with 1 billion tokens, a six-month founder lockup, and conditional burns tied to the 2028 election. The 20% airdrop targets wallets that bled money on $TRUMP, Substack subscribers, and the mailing list of Channel 5 journalist Andrew Callaghan.

On a Sunday evening in early September, Hunter Biden posted two words and a date to X: “$LAPTOP September 9.”

No whitepaper. No Medium thread explaining the vision. No staged Twitter Spaces with a rotating cast of influencers nodding along to vague promises about community. Just a ticker symbol ripped from the most infamous piece of consumer electronics in American political history, a launch date, and an image of the laptop that nearly ended his father’s presidential campaign.

Two days before the token goes live on Base, the announcement has already done what it was designed to do: make everyone talk about it. Dozens of copycat tokens have flooded Base, Solana, and Robinhood Chain, with the largest reaching a $1.3 million market cap before the real thing has even minted. The political memecoin market, a category that did not meaningfully exist 20 months ago, is about to get its most provocative entry yet.

The $LAPTOP token is not just another celebrity cash grab wearing a blockchain as a costume. Or at least, that is the argument its backers want you to hear. The tokenomics include a six-month founder lockup, a two-year vesting schedule, and a burn mechanism tied to 30 real-world events that could destroy nearly a third of the supply. The 20% airdrop targets a very specific audience: the roughly one million people who bought Donald Trump’s memecoin and watched it crater 97% from its January 2025 peak. Whether $LAPTOP is a genuine experiment in political tokenomics or an elaborate troll that happens to come with a smart contract, it has already become the most talked-about token launch of the fall.

The tokenomics: what Biden is actually selling

The $LAPTOP token has a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens on Base, the Ethereum layer-2 network built by Coinbase. The allocation breaks down into four tranches that tell you exactly what kind of project this is trying to be.

Founders, including Hunter Biden, hold 30% of the supply. Those 300 million tokens are locked for six months after the Sept. 9 launch and then vest linearly over two years. That means the earliest any founder token can hit the open market is March 2027, and the full allocation will not be unlocked until September 2028. By political memecoin standards, where insider dumps within hours of launch are the norm, that is a comparatively aggressive lockup. By the standards of any serious DeFi protocol, it is table stakes.

Twenty percent of the supply, or 200 million tokens, is reserved for airdrops across two rounds. The first round targets wallets that are underwater on the $TRUMP memecoin. The second goes to Biden’s Substack subscribers and the mailing list run by Andrew Callaghan, the video journalist behind Channel 5 on YouTube. The airdrop does not appear to require any purchase or swap. If you lost money on Trump’s token, or if you subscribe to Biden’s writing or Callaghan’s newsletter, you qualify.

Another 20% covers operations: exchange listings, market-making, liquidity provision, charitable donations, and legal and accounting costs. That is a broad bucket, and the lack of granularity here is worth flagging. “Operations” can mean almost anything, and the project has not published a detailed breakdown of how those 200 million tokens will be deployed.

The remaining 30%, or 300 million tokens, sits in a conditional burn pool tied to 30 preset events. If the conditions are met, the tokens are destroyed. If they are not met, they go to charity. The founding team does not get them back either way.

Why Base, and why now

The choice of Base over Solana is a deliberate break from the political memecoin playbook. Every major political token launched since January 2025, from $TRUMP to $MELANIA to Eric Adams’s ill-fated NYC token, landed on Solana. The chain’s low fees and fast finality made it the default for speculative token launches, and its culture of degenerate trading gave political tokens a ready-made audience.