An amended complaint filed by Mintvest Capital against Energy & Compute, LLC (formerly Coinmint) alleges that the firm’s chief exec, Ashton Soniat, misappropriated BTC from the firm’s mining operations.

It also broadly alleges securities fraud and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) offences.

Specifically, the lawsuit claims that “on each occasion when new machines were added, Mr. Soniat told investors that production started on a later date than it actually did.”

“During the gap periods — between the actual start up and the announced startup — Mr. Soniat redirected all BTC Coinmint produced to his personal BTC wallet.”

The lawsuit alleges that, in total, “Mr. Soniat stole… 448.7193 BTC.”

Read more: Bitcoin mining industry mostly uninterested in spam controversy

To increase his take, Soniat allegedly “extended these ‘testing’ periods for weeks or months, taking all proceeds that should have been distributed.”

The suit further alleges that Coinmint was unable to provide financial reporting to investors, a pattern it claims is related to a “systematic failure to maintain proper financial records” that “appears deliberate, designed to obscure self-dealing transactions and prevent outside oversight.”

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Mintvest, an equity holder in Coinmint, claims that Coinmint “has generated profits exceeding $570 million” and argues its 18.2% equity holding means that it’s entitled to $104 million.

Read more: How major Bitcoin mining pools calculate pay-per-share

Furthermore, the suit alleges that when New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG), another named defendant, acquired Coinmint, it “did not compensate Mintvest as the agreement and plan of merger provides.”

This would effectively mean that NYDIG was working to exclude Mintvest from its ownership stake in Coinmint.

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Mintvest, in its prayer for relief, requests “compensatory damages of at least $104 million,” representing what it claims are withheld profits, as well as “compensatory damages of at least $47.1 million for the BTC stolen,” as well as other punitive and statutory damages.

This amended complaint is related to an earlier suit that had been dismissed without prejudice.

Coinmint has previously been engaged in other legal disputes, including a suit against Katena Computing and DX Corr related to a $150 million purchase of BTC mining rigs.

Protos has reached out to NYDIG for comment and will update this piece if we hear back.

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Kalshi has filed to list two dollar-settled perpetual futures tied to gold and silver, extending its no-expiry contract lineup beyond 18 cryptocurrencies for eligible U.S. traders.

Kalshi’s Sept. 9 regulatory filings with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission show that the company plans to list GOLDPERP and SILVERPERP through its registered derivatives exchange.

Under the proposed terms, each product would give traders exposure to changes in the relevant metal’s spot price without requiring delivery of physical gold or silver. Both contracts would settle in U.S. dollars and remain open indefinitely, according to the filings.

The company submitted the contracts under CFTC Regulation 40.2(a), which allows a designated contract market to certify that a new product follows the Commodity Exchange Act and the regulator’s rules. Unlike a formal approval proceeding, self-certification does not necessarily involve an affirmative vote by the commission on each contract.

Kalshi gold and silver perps will use Pyth prices

According to the contract terms, GOLDPERP will track the spot value of one troy ounce of gold in U.S. dollars. SILVERPERP will follow the corresponding U.S. dollar spot price for silver.

Kalshi identified Pyth Network as the price source for both products. Pyth publishes market data supplied by trading firms, exchanges, and financial institutions, which decentralized applications and trading platforms use to price assets.

Rather than ending on a set date, the contracts will use regular funding payments to keep their traded prices close to their reference markets. Depending on how a contract trades against its spot benchmark, traders holding long positions may pay traders holding short positions, or the payment may flow in the opposite direction.

The structure removes the need to move a position from an expiring futures contract into a later one. Traditional futures traders often conduct that process, known as rolling, when they want to maintain exposure beyond a contract’s settlement date.

In its filing, Kalshi said a perpetual structure could reduce rollover costs for market participants that keep long-running gold exposure. The company identified potential users, including financial institutions, refiners, bullion dealers, and companies that use the metal in their operations.

Because both products settle in cash, traders will not receive bars, coins, or other physical metal. The filings also state that contract holders cannot demand delivery from Kalshi when closing or settling a position.

Round-the-clock trading removes the usual expiry cycle

Under the submitted specifications, GOLDPERP and SILVERPERP will operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week. Kalshi’s proposed schedule includes weekends and holidays, when major U.S. commodity futures markets are normally closed.

The filed schedule goes beyond an earlier plan for 24-hour trading on five days each week. Around-the-clock access would allow eligible customers to adjust positions while standard U.S. metals venues are closed, although liquidity and price differences may vary outside regular market hours.

Perpetual contracts also introduce costs and risks that do not apply in the same way to unleveraged ownership of physical metal. Kalshi’s product design uses funding payments, while leveraged positions may face liquidation if the market moves far enough against the trader.

For U.S. investors, the contracts offer regulated derivatives exposure without requiring ownership of gold, silver or shares in a metal-backed exchange-traded fund. They also provide a different structure from listed options and dated futures, since neither contract requires the holder to select a monthly or quarterly expiration.

Kalshi said its silver filing accounts for conditions in the physical market, including supply deficits reported over several years and constrained availability during 2026. Since SILVERPERP cannot be converted into physical silver, the company said the contract would not permit holders to demand metal or place delivery pressure on its reference market.

Kalshi has expanded its perpetual futures lineup

The metal filings follow Kalshi’s rapid addition of cryptocurrency perpetuals. On Sept. 4, the company added five crypto perps tied to BNB, Cardano, Worldcoin, Aave, and Venice Token.

According to the platform’s product information, the five contracts are margined and settled in U.S. dollars, permit long and short positions, and carry different leverage limits. Maximum leverage reaches approximately 4.5 times for BNB and 1.9 times for Venice Token.

Including Bitcoin, Kalshi now lists perpetual futures connected to 18 cryptocurrencies. Its existing products include Ether, XRP, Solana, Hyperliquid, and Zcash, allowing users to trade their prices without holding the underlying tokens.

In June, the company also introduced an XRP perpetual after filing it under the same self-certification rule. The XRP contract filing specified a cash-settled product with no maturity date and a reference rate supplied by CME CF Benchmarks.

Kalshi took a different route with its first Bitcoin perpetual. The CFTC approved BTCPERP in May following a formal review, creating a regulated path for eligible U.S. traders to access a product that had previously been associated mainly with offshore cryptocurrency exchanges.

By June, Kalshi’s perpetual futures had generated more than $5.5 billion in trading volume, according to company data cited in previous reporting. Later that month, Cboe Global Markets was considering whether to convert its long-dated Bitcoin and Ether futures into perpetual products after Kalshi’s contracts recorded more than $8.5 billion in volume.

CME’s lawsuit challenges the CFTC’s treatment of perps

Kalshi’s expansion into metal-linked contracts comes while the legal treatment of U.S. perpetual futures remains contested. CME Group sued the CFTC in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on June 18, challenging the regulator’s decision to treat Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual as a futures contract.

CME argued that BTCPERP should be regulated as a swap, which would place it under a different legal framework. The exchange operator also claimed that the CFTC’s decision created a competitive disadvantage for established futures venues.

In September, the regulator sought the case’s dismissal, arguing that CME had not shown a concrete injury required to establish standing. The CFTC said CME could seek to list comparable perpetual futures through the same regulatory framework available to Kalshi.

The regulator also cited CME’s Bitcoin and Ether futures activity, arguing that the exchange’s volumes in June and August exceeded their May levels. According to the CFTC’s motion, the figures did not support CME’s claim that Kalshi’s Bitcoin contract had caused a measurable competitive loss.

CME may contest the regulator’s position in subsequent filings. The federal court has not ruled on the dismissal request or decided whether cryptocurrency perpetuals should be legally classified as futures or swaps.

U.S. Bank, the fifth-largest commercial bank in the United States, has completed a live cross-border payment using its proprietary USBDC stablecoin on the Stellar blockchain.

The pilot moved funds between U.S. Bank entities in North America and Europe, with USBDC issued and transferred on the public Stellar network. It also tested the stablecoin’s minting, redemption, freezing and clawback functions while integrating with the bank’s existing risk, compliance and operations systems.

The transaction validated U.S. Bank’s internally developed Digital Asset Platform, which connects tokenized assets with its traditional banking infrastructure, the bank said Wednesday. The Minneapolis, Minnesota-based bank is exploring additional uses including cross-border treasury operations, liquidity management and moving collateral onchain.

The pilot builds on U.S. Bank’s broader push into digital assets. In October 2025, the bank established a dedicated Digital Assets and Money Movement unit focused on stablecoin issuance, crypto custody, asset tokenization and digital money movement.

The country’s sixth-largest financial institution by assets, U.S. Bank has been testing custom stablecoin issuance on Stellar since at least November 2025, working alongside PwC and the Stellar Development Foundation.

Related: Jack Dorsey’s Block seeks US trust bank charter for Bitcoin, stablecoin

Banks deepen stablecoin push

While American banks have pushed back against allowing stablecoin issuers and crypto platforms to offer yield or rewards, some of the industry’s largest lenders are moving ahead with stablecoin projects of their own.

On Sept. 1, 21 major financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and UBS, announced plans to form a company to issue stablecoins.

The group plans to launch a US dollar-denominated stablecoin in the first half of 2027 before expanding to other G7 currencies. The token is expected to target wholesale, institutional and retail markets, including cross-border payments and digital asset settlement.

Fidelity also entered the market in February with its Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD), issued through Fidelity Digital Assets, its national trust bank, and available to retail and institutional investors. FIDD had about $50 million in circulation at the time of writing, according to DefiLlama data.

FIDD market cap. Source: DefiLlama

Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs has doubled its valuation to $2 billion following an expansion of its Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The company did not disclose the size of the latest investment but said its annual recurring revenue has quadrupled over the past three years, according to an announcement Wednesday.

The expansion follows a $70 million Series C in February, also led by Blockchain Capital. TRM provides blockchain intelligence and investigation software used by more than 600 government agencies and private-sector institutions across 75 countries, the company said.

Prior to the February round, the company was valued at $930 million, according to data compiled by Traxcn. It breached the $1 billion valuation mark in the round that included Citi Ventures and Galaxy among the investors.

TRM said its AI-powered tools are used to investigate fraud, money laundering, sanctions evasion and other forms of digital crime.

Digital crime losses reported to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center rose to $21 billion in 2025 from $16 billion in 2024, while TRM said criminal adoption of AI has risen 40% year over year in 2026, citing its AI-in-Crime Adoption Index.

The new valuation comes about two months after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded TRM a roughly $95 million, one-year contract for forensic software and support services for Homeland Security Task Force investigations.

Rival Chainalysis challenged the sole-source award in federal court later that month, alleging ICE’s decision was “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.”

Magazine: Is Bitcoin too volatile to risk your retirement on?

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U.S. Bank has completed a live cross-border payment that uses its proprietary USBDC stablecoin on the Stellar blockchain, the bank announced this week. The pilot transferred funds between U.S. Bank entities in North America and Europe, with USBDC issued and moved on Stellar’s public network.

Beyond the transfer itself, U.S. Bank says the exercise also tested core stablecoin capabilities—minting, redemption, and administrative controls such as freezing and clawback—while connecting the process to the bank’s existing risk management, compliance, and operational systems. The goal is to validate whether a stablecoin-based rail can support regulated banking workflows for cross-border treasury and settlement activity.

Key takeaways

• U.S. Bank executed a live cross-border payment using USBDC, a proprietary stablecoin issued and transferred on Stellar.
• The pilot also covered operational features: minting, redemption, freezing, and clawback, integrated with the bank’s risk and compliance infrastructure.
• The bank frames the test as proof of concept for its Digital Asset Platform, which is designed to bridge tokenized assets and traditional banking systems.
• U.S. Bank is building toward additional use cases such as cross-border treasury operations, liquidity management, and onchain collateral movement.

A live test of stablecoin rails across regions

According to U.S. Bank, the transaction involved moving value between bank entities located in North America and Europe. Instead of relying solely on conventional payment systems, the pilot used USBDC on the public Stellar network to effect the transfer.

The significance here is less about the fact that stablecoins can move value—many demonstrations have done that in various contexts—and more about whether a major bank can operationalize that movement under regulated controls. U.S. Bank says it validated the stablecoin’s end-to-end lifecycle functions, including minting and redemption, and exercised administrative mechanisms tied to compliance and risk needs, such as freezing and clawback.

In practical terms, these controls are often central to how financial institutions manage tokenized assets. By testing them alongside risk, compliance, and internal operational systems, U.S. Bank is positioning the pilot as closer to a production-grade workflow than a purely technical experiment.

Digital Asset Platform becomes the bridge to banking systems

U.S. Bank linked the pilot to its internally developed Digital Asset Platform. The platform, the bank says, is intended to connect tokenized assets with its traditional banking infrastructure, allowing stablecoin activity to fit within established procedures rather than operating as an isolated blockchain application.

That integration matters because banks typically face constraints that don’t apply to consumer-oriented crypto services: auditability requirements, operational controls, and governance processes that must connect to legacy systems. U.S. Bank’s announcement also points to the platform as a foundation for future expansion, including cross-border treasury operations, liquidity management, and moving collateral onchain.

From organizational focus to ongoing Stellar testing

This announcement follows U.S. Bank’s broader institutional push into digital assets. In October 2025, the bank created a dedicated Digital Assets and Money Movement unit focused on stablecoin issuance, crypto custody, asset tokenization, and digital money movement, according to the bank’s prior disclosure.

Separately, U.S. Bank has been testing custom stablecoin issuance on Stellar since at least November 2025. The bank said it worked alongside PwC and the Stellar Development Foundation during this testing phase, indicating that the current live payment is part of a longer-running effort rather than a one-off trial.

For investors and market observers, continuity is an important signal. Testing custom issuance and then moving into a live cross-border transaction suggests the project is progressing from design and experimentation toward operational validation.

Broader banking momentum in stablecoins

U.S. Bank’s move sits within a wider industry trend. While some parts of the U.S. banking and crypto ecosystem have raised concerns—particularly around stablecoin issuers and crypto platforms offering yield or rewards—large financial institutions continue to pursue stablecoin strategies of their own.

In early September, reports highlighted an effort by 21 major financial institutions, including names such as Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and UBS, to form a company intended to issue stablecoins. That initiative aimed to enable a U.S. dollar-denominated stablecoin in the first half of 2027, with plans to expand to other G7 currencies afterward. The intended focus included wholesale, institutional, and retail use cases, such as cross-border payments and digital asset settlement.

Meanwhile, other mainstream financial firms have already launched token products aimed at specific market segments. Fidelity, for example, entered the stablecoin market in February with Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD), issued through Fidelity Digital Assets and available to both retail and institutional investors. Data cited at the time referenced FIDD’s circulating supply of about $50 million, according to DefiLlama.

Taken together, these developments suggest banks are pursuing stablecoin infrastructure not only for settlement efficiency, but also as a regulated extension of existing money movement capabilities. U.S. Bank’s emphasis on compliance-driven features—minting/redemption and freeze/clawback—aligns with what many institutions will likely consider essential before scaling any onchain dollar representation.

What to watch next for USBDC and institutional stablecoins

U.S. Bank’s next steps, as described in its announcement, center on additional applications like cross-border treasury, liquidity management, and moving collateral onchain. The key question for the market is how quickly the bank can translate pilot controls and integrations into repeatable volumes and broader operational coverage, especially as institutional stablecoin efforts across the industry move from planning into deployment.