Ken Griffin’s Citadel reportedly bought a large proportion of the public stock portfolio of Situational Awareness, the hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner.

The Financial Times first reported Thursday that Citadel bought the portfolio holdings after heavy losses during July’s artificial intelligence stock market rout. 

The transaction followed Aschenbrenner’s fund falling about 67% in July, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing a person who saw a letter sent to investors. The letter said the fund remained up about 80% for the year. The Financial Times previously reported the fund was up 439% through June.

Those reports suggested Situational had approached existing investors and lenders for fresh capital and offered some investors the option to buy portfolio assets. The Journal also reported Situational needed cash to meet margin calls from its lenders and that the fund agreed late Wednesday to sell $3.5 billion of Anthropic shares to a group led by Greenoaks and Sequoia Capital before withdrawing from the deal Thursday morning.

Reuters separately reported the leveraged portfolio detail but said it could not determine whether formal margin calls had been issued before the sale. Reuters said Situational retained roughly $10 billion in stocks and private investments, including Anthropic. Situational had grown to about $24 billion in assets in under two years before the reversal, according to the FT’s follow-up profile.

AI holdings suffered steep July falls

Several stocks linked to the fund suffered sharp declines in July. Sandisk remained down about 44% for the month even after closing Thursday up 26%. CoreWeave fell nearly 26% in July, while Bloom Energy was down around 32%, Yahoo Finance data shows.

Related: Former OpenAI researcher foresees AGI reality in 2027

Situational’s US Securities and Exchange Commission filing showed direct share positions in all three companies as of March 31.

The same filing showed about $1.11 billion in shares of seven Bitcoin (BTC) mining companies, including Iren, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms and CleanSpark. Cointelegraph previously reported that the positions gave Situational exposure to miners expanding into AI and high-performance computing by repurposing their power supplies and data center sites.

It remains unclear what stocks were part of the transaction between Citadel and Situational or whether the fund retained any of its Bitcoin miner positions.

Related: Bitcoin miner Core Scientific shifts to AI with 1.5GW data center push

Aschenbrenner’s fund takes its name from his 2024 essay series, “Situational Awareness: The Decade Ahead,” which argued that artificial general intelligence could arrive by 2027 and drive enormous demand for computing power and electricity.

Before joining OpenAI, Aschenbrenner was a member of the FTX Future Fund’s five-person team and signed its November 2022 resignation notice as FTX collapsed.

Cointelegraph contacted Situational Awareness and Citadel for comment but had not received a response by publication.

Magazine: The 100x obsession: Fundamentals grow in importance as crypto matures

Japan’s central bank held interest rates steady at 1.0% on Friday after a reported major intervention in the yen.

Key points:

• Japan holds interest rates at 1.0%, following market expectations.
• Both Japan and South Korea’s central banks reportedly engage in currency interventions, as the JPY briefly gains 3.5% overnight.
• Bank of Japan warns of incoming CPI inflation headwinds in the second half of the year.

Yen rises up to 3.5% as Korea joins intervention

In its latest statement, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) revealed broad consensus among officials for holding rates at current levels — an outcome that markets had anticipated in advance.

“The Bank will encourage the uncollateralized overnight call rate to remain at around 1.0 percent,” it confirmed.

Eight out of nine members of the bank’s Policy Board voted for the outcome, with only Hajime Takata proposing a 0.25% rate hike.

Japan benchmark interest rate (screenshot). Source: BoJ

Japan’s benchmark rate remains at its highest levels since 1995, with the BoJ meeting result coming just hours after the yen saw snap volatility. Against the US dollar, the currency rose by as much as 3.5% on Thursday, per data from TradingView, in a move that has widely been attributed to central bank intervention

JPY/USD one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The BoJ did not officially comment on the latest moves, which coincided with a significant rebound in the South Korean stock market after days of heavy selling concentrated on semiconductor stocks. The Korean won was up by around 1% at the time of writing amid reports of a joint intervention between the BoJ and Korea’s central bank. Analysts referenced “tightly aligned” mutual interests of the two countries as facilitating the joint move.

“The interests of each country aligned. For Korea-Japan cooperation, the won and the yen are so tightly coupled that a joint intervention could double the impact,” Lee Min-hyuk, an analyst at KB Kookmin Bank, commented to local media outlet Straits Times.

The Nikkei newspaper earlier noted that the US had engaged in rate checks — a form of soft intervention which can precede a more pronounced operation — during Thursday’s trading session, resulting in speculation over a three-way coordinated move.

“The key signal from last night’s move is that MOF remains uncomfortable with excessive yen weakness. The line in the sand is probably better viewed as a zone around 162-165 rather than a specific level,” Masahiko Loo, senior fixed income strategist at asset manager State Street Investment Management, told CNBC.

BoJ sees CPI inflation headwinds increasing in 2026

As the yen came off its highest levels against the dollar since 1986, the BoJ warned of future upside in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation.

Related: Rate path still divides investors: Five things to know in Bitcoin this week

“The year-on-year rate of increase in the consumer price index […] is likely to accelerate to a level clearly above 2 percent from the second half of fiscal 2026,” it stated in its latest quarterly Outlook for Economic Activity and Prices report.

In addition to rising prices of durable goods, the report referenced “waning of the effects of high crude oil prices” due to the ongoing US-Iran war and closure of the Strait of Hormuz oil-transit route.

Gyrations in the yen have remained an important consideration in crypto trading circles ever since the “unwinding” of the yen carry trade sparked major Bitcoin and altcoin downside pressure in August 2024.

Earlier this year, Arthur Hayes, former CEO of crypto exchange BitMEX, suggested that the combination of a weak yen and rising Japanese bond yields may cause investors to move away from low-yielding US bond allocations. He linked central bank liquidity interventions to positive moves in crypto markets.

“This discussion of Japanese financial markets is important because for Bitcoin to exit its sideways funk, it needs a healthy dose of money printing,” he wrote in a blog post.

In December 2025, Hayes predicted that USD/JPY could rise as high as 200.

CLARITY Act passage odds have fallen to 25% as the White House reviews a bipartisan ethics proposal that could determine whether the Senate takes up the crypto market structure bill before its August recess.

Scaramucci expects Trump to approve ethics deal

SkyBridge Capital founder Anthony Scaramucci said he expects Trump to accept the revised ethics language negotiated by Republican Sen. Thom Tillis and Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego.

“If POTUS ultimately signs off, which I think he will, who will stand in the way of Clarity?” Scaramucci wrote on X. “If Dems (or GOPs in the pocket of bank lobby) stand in the way, they will regret it in November.”

Scaramucci’s statement represents his assessment of the negotiations. Neither Trump nor the White House has publicly confirmed acceptance of the proposal.

Tillis and Gallego reportedly sent the counterproposal to the White House on Thursday. The text has not been released publicly, but crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported that it would give state attorneys general a role in enforcing restrictions on federal officials’ digital-asset activities. Terrett’s report said the full scope of those state powers remained unclear.

Scaramucci also claimed in a now-deleted post that Trump’s children supported the compromise. That assertion has not been independently confirmed.

Ethics dispute remains central to CLARITY Act talks

Senate Democrats objected to an earlier Republican-backed ethics proposal because it reportedly placed enforcement authority solely with federal prosecutors.

The disputed language would restrict the president, vice president and other federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets while in office. Democrats have sought stronger enforcement mechanisms and broader protections addressing conflicts of interest linked to officials’ crypto businesses.

Giving state attorneys general enforcement authority could help attract Democratic votes. It could also address concerns raised by Tillis, who had withheld support without changes to the ethics section.

However, an agreement on ethics would not guarantee passage. Senators remain divided over other provisions involving stablecoin rewards, protections for blockchain developers, and the division of regulatory authority between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

The House passed its version of the CLARITY Act by a 294–134 vote in July 2025, with 78 Democrats supporting it. Any amended Senate version would still need approval from both chambers before reaching Trump’s desk.

CLARITY Act odds fall to record-low 25%

Polymarket traders now assign a 25% probability that Trump will sign the CLARITY Act into law before the end of 2026, down from 30% earlier this week. The decline reflects uncertainty over both the remaining negotiations and the limited Senate calendar.

Prediction-market probabilities represent traders’ positions rather than a formal legislative forecast. The odds can change quickly if the White House accepts the ethics compromise or Senate Majority Leader John Thune schedules floor proceedings.

Industry groups are also pressing lawmakers to act. Digital Currency Group, the parent company of Grayscale, sent a letter to Thune and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer requesting a vote before the recess. The company argued that continued regulatory uncertainty was driving US crypto investment and jobs overseas.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent issued a similar call this week, saying the Senate needed to vote on the legislation “now.”

Senate timetable remains uncertain

Sen. Cynthia Lummis said Thune has reserved space for the CLARITY Act on the Senate agenda and still intends to begin considering it before lawmakers leave Washington.

“Senator Thune has kept a place for the Clarity Act on the agenda before the August recess for many, many weeks now,” Lummis said. “I believe he does intend to go through with it.”

Still, no floor schedule has been confirmed. Nominations, government funding negotiations and votes concerning Iran and Russia-Ukraine sanctions are competing for the Senate’s remaining time. Lummis’ comments indicate that proceedings could begin within days, but they do not guarantee a final passage vote before the recess. Crypto.news previously reported that amendments and procedural votes could push final action into the post-recess calendar.

For US crypto companies and investors, the outcome will determine whether Congress advances a federal division of SEC and CFTC oversight this summer or leaves the regulatory framework unresolved heading into the November elections.

The largest tokenized securities platform cleared its SEC probe, secured FINRA authorization, and put BlackRock’s IVV onchain. Now it is shopping for a target worth up to half a billion dollars while the market it helped build outgrows it.

Ondo Finance spent the first half of 2026 clearing every regulatory hurdle that has historically killed tokenization platforms. It closed an SEC investigation without charges. It secured FINRA authorization for tokenized equities. It put BlackRock’s flagship ETF onchain under a framework the SEC itself endorsed. And now, with $2.5 billion in assets under management and a market that has tripled in eighteen months, it is looking to spend up to half a billion dollars on an acquisition that would transform it from a tokenization protocol into something closer to a financial conglomerate.

The acquisition report, first published by CoinDesk on July 30, described Ondo as exploring targets in wealthtech and adjacent sectors valued between $250 million and $500 million. The company’s response was carefully calibrated: “We are not in conversations with any party at this time.” The denial did not say the exploration was not happening. It said no specific target had been engaged. The ONDO token rose approximately 6% on the news, a move that valued the company’s circulating supply at roughly $1.5 billion.

The timing is not coincidental. Ondo has spent two years building infrastructure that most tokenization platforms never get close to completing. It has an SEC-registered broker-dealer. It has FINRA authorization. It has a custodial model that the SEC endorsed through formal guidance. What it does not have is the distribution network, advisory relationships, and client assets that a wealthtech acquisition would provide. The $250 million to $500 million price range suggests Ondo is looking at established platforms with existing customer bases, not early stage startups.

The regulatory clearance that changed everything

The most important development in Ondo’s 2026 was not a product launch. It was the closing of an SEC investigation that had been running since October 2023.

The probe, opened during Gary Gensler’s chairmanship, examined whether Ondo’s tokenized securities products constituted unregistered securities offerings. Under Chair Paul Atkins, the investigation was closed without enforcement action. The closure removed the single largest existential risk facing the company and cleared the path for everything that followed.

Within weeks of the probe closing, Ondo’s SEC-registered broker-dealer subsidiary, Oasis Pro Markets, received additional FINRA authorizations covering tokenized corporate equities, ETFs, and other investment products. The authorization expanded Oasis Pro’s permissions beyond its original scope, which had been limited to digital asset securities under Regulation D and Regulation S exemptions.

The FINRA authorization is significant because it addresses the distribution problem that has constrained every tokenization platform to date. Tokenizing a security is technically straightforward. Distributing that tokenized security to investors through regulated channels requires broker-dealer infrastructure that most crypto companies do not possess. Ondo now has that infrastructure at a level that only Securitize among its direct competitors can match.

The regulatory sequence matters. The SEC probe closure came first, establishing that Ondo’s existing products did not violate federal securities law. The FINRA authorization came second, expanding what Ondo could offer through regulated channels. The BlackRock IVV tokenization came third, providing the marquee product that validated the regulatory framework. Each step depended on the one before it. A company still under SEC investigation could not have received expanded FINRA authorization. A company without expanded authorization could not have tokenized a major ETF under the SEC’s endorsed model. The entire 2026 regulatory sequence was sequential by necessity, and Ondo executed it faster than any competitor.

Ondo also filed a confidential registration statement with the SEC for Ondo Global Markets, providing issuer-level disclosures for all investors. The confidential filing is a precursor to full public registration, a step that would make Ondo Global Markets subject to the same reporting requirements as traditional securities exchanges. No other tokenization platform has progressed this far toward full SEC registration for a tokenized securities marketplace.

On July 1, 2026, Ondo debuted what may be the most consequential product in the tokenization industry’s short history. It put BlackRock’s IVV ETF and Micron shares onchain under the SEC’s third-party custodial tokenization model. This was not an offshore workaround. It was not a synthetic exposure product. It was the actual security, tokenized under a framework the SEC had formally described in its January 2026 guidance. BlackRock’s IVV became the first major ETF to exist simultaneously in traditional brokerage accounts and on a blockchain, with identical investor protections and ownership rights in both formats.

Uniswap has launched Earn, a self-custodial lending product that allows users to deposit USDC, USDT, and ETH into Morpho vaults without leaving its app.

Uniswap Earn supports USDC, USDT and ETH

Earn is available through the Uniswap Web App and Wallet, extending the platform beyond token swaps and liquidity provision into onchain lending.

Users can select a supported asset, choose an amount and authorize the deposit with one signature. Deposits then earn interest paid by borrowers across lending markets selected by the underlying vault.

USDC, USDT and ETH are supported at launch, with all three vaults operating on Ethereum mainnet. Users can withdraw at any time because the product has no mandatory lockup or cooldown period, according to Uniswap’s launch announcement.

Uniswap does not charge a separate fee for using Earn. However, depositors remain responsible for standard Ethereum transaction costs, which can make smaller positions less economical when network fees rise.

Deposits appear alongside users’ other assets in the Uniswap portfolio interface. The dashboard displays the amount deposited, the current yield rate and total earnings, while recording deposits and withdrawals in the account’s activity history.

Morpho and Gauntlet manage the lending infrastructure

Morpho supplies the permissionless lending infrastructure behind Earn, while Gauntlet curates the vaults and determines how deposits are distributed across eligible markets.

Vault curation can reduce the need for depositors to compare individual lending pools, collateral types, and utilization rates. Gauntlet can set exposure limits and rebalance capital as market conditions change, but depositors still carry the risks associated with those allocation decisions.

Morpho currently reports about $11.79 billion in deposits and $4.15 billion in active loans across its network. The protocol previously said deposits increased from $5 billion at the beginning of 2025 to $13 billion by the end of that year’s third quarter.

Active loans rose from $1.9 billion to $4.5 billion over the same period. Annualized interest paid to Morpho lenders reached $227 million in 2025, representing a 400% increase from 2024, according to Morpho’s annual review.

Earn broadens Uniswap beyond token swaps

Earn gives Uniswap another way to retain users between trades. Instead of transferring unused stablecoins or ETH to a separate lending protocol, users can now access lending vaults through the same interface used for swaps and portfolio tracking.

The integration places Uniswap in closer competition with established lending platforms such as Aave and Compound. Its main distribution advantage is an existing base of traders who can move from swapping to lending without navigating to another application.

For US users, Earn is an onchain lending service rather than a bank savings account. Deposits do not carry FDIC insurance, and self-custody does not remove smart contract, collateral, liquidity, or stablecoin risks.

Vault yields are also variable. Rates can fall when lender deposits grow faster than borrowing demand, meaning the displayed annual percentage yield is not guaranteed for the duration of a deposit.

UNI price shows limited reaction to Earn launch

UNI traded near $4.30 at the time of writing, declining approximately 2.8% over the previous 24 hours. The token remained up about 12% over seven days.

Its market capitalization stood near $2.68 billion, while 24-hour trading volume reached roughly $376 million. The latest move does not establish a direct link between the Earn announcement and UNI’s price performance.

Adoption will depend on the yields offered by the Gauntlet-curated vaults, Ethereum transaction costs, and users’ willingness to accept lending-market risks. Uniswap has not announced that Earn revenue will flow directly to UNI holders, making deposits and user retention the main metrics to watch initially.

A new study from the Bank of Italy challenges a common assumption about stablecoins in cross-border payments: using stablecoin transfers for remittances may not automatically deliver better economics or faster delivery than established payment rails once the full cost chain is considered.

Researchers evaluated 200 remittances denominated in USDC across 10 bidirectional payment corridors connecting Italy with Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa. They compared end-to-end fees and settlement times against traditional remittance services, concluding that most expenses and delays were driven by fiat on- and off-ramp frictions rather than by blockchain execution itself.

Key takeaways

• In the tested corridors, exchange and currency-conversion charges made up the majority of total remittance cost, while blockchain transaction fees were only a small portion.
• Total stablecoin remittance costs ranged from 0.3% to nearly 9%, depending on the corridor, while settlement time was typically under 20 minutes where instant payment systems were available.
• Compared with the World Bank’s global average remittance cost benchmark of 6.65%, stablecoin transfers were cheaper in most corridors—but were cheaper than Wise in only three out of seven comparable corridors.
• The study argues that improvements to domestic instant payment infrastructure and reduced reliance on reconversion into fiat are likely to matter more than blockchain technology alone.
• Regulatory design strongly influences where stablecoin users transact, with overly restrictive regimes potentially pushing activity toward offshore or unregulated channels.

Stablecoin remittances: where the cost really comes from

The Bank of Italy study tested 200 USDC remittance flows across 10 corridors, designed to capture realistic friction across payment paths between Italy and several major regions. The researchers focused on the full journey—from conversion and routing through the on- and off-ramps used to turn fiat into stablecoins and back again—then compared results to traditional remittance offerings.

According to the report, the largest share of costs came from exchange fees and currency conversion. Blockchain fees represented only a small fraction of the total remittance cost, undermining the idea that “using a blockchain” by itself will guarantee cheaper transfers. In other words, even if the stablecoin transfer settles quickly on-chain, the conversion steps required to deliver value in the recipient’s usable currency can dominate the bill.

On the cost range observed in the experiment, total stablecoin remittance costs varied sharply by corridor—from as low as 0.3% to nearly 9%. That variability matters for investors and payment operators because it suggests that stablecoin remittance performance is not uniform; it depends heavily on the local availability and pricing of payment infrastructure and conversion services.

Speed depends on local payment rails, not just settlement time

The study also measured settlement times end-to-end. For stablecoin remittances, transfer settlement was reported as less than 20 minutes in corridors where instant payment systems were available. In corridors without those systems, settlement took one to two business days.

This finding is consistent with the broader logic of cross-border payments: on-chain settlement can be quick, but delivery is constrained by the speed of off-chain steps—such as how quickly funds can be credited to accounts after the stablecoin leg is completed. For users, that means stablecoins may improve speed only when the surrounding payment ecosystem can match the speed of the blockchain component.

How stablecoins compare to global benchmarks and mainstream providers

To contextualize the results, the Bank of Italy report used the World Bank’s global average remittance cost of 6.65% as a reference point. Against that benchmark, the stablecoin corridors examined were cheaper in most cases. However, the study’s comparison to major providers was more nuanced.

The report found that stablecoin transfers were less expensive than Wise in only three of seven comparable corridors. That asymmetry is important: it indicates that stablecoin-based remittances may undercut some traditional options in certain routes, but they do not consistently outperform competitive incumbents across the board.

For traders and builders watching stablecoin adoption, the implication is clear: performance will likely be route-specific until the conversion and settlement ecosystem improves. Stablecoin rails can reduce certain types of friction, but in practice they must be integrated into efficient on- and off-ramp systems to translate into sustained advantage.

Infrastructure investment and spending stablecoins directly

While the study found that blockchain transaction fees were not the primary cost driver, it argued that strategic investment in domestic instant payment infrastructure could improve the competitiveness of stablecoin-based cross-border payments. The authors emphasized that settlement speed depended heavily on the quality of local payment rails—so improving the “last mile” (and the corresponding conversion processes) is likely to yield the biggest gains.

The report also highlighted a structural bottleneck: stablecoins currently often require reconversion into local fiat to be usable by recipients. It suggested that meaningful economic advantages would increase if stablecoins could be spent directly in the real economy.

If stablecoins could be spent directly in the real economy, for goods and services, rents, or school fees, without reconversion into local fiat currency, the economic advantages of stablecoin-based transfers would be substantially higher.

Regulation: efficiency can improve or unravel depending on design

Beyond infrastructure and market mechanics, the study argued that regulatory design shapes remittance efficiency. In the Bank of Italy’s framing, prohibitionist regimes have not eliminated stablecoin demand; instead, they can redirect usage toward offshore platforms and other unregulated channels. Conversely, overly restrictive frameworks may increase operational complexity for retail users, potentially offsetting any intended consumer protections.

The study arrives as major jurisdictions tighten or implement frameworks for crypto assets and stablecoins. The European Union has implemented its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, and the United States enacted the GENIUS Act, which is intended to govern payment stablecoins. As these regimes take effect, the balance between compliance, accessibility, and the availability of regulated fiat on- and off-ramps may directly affect real-world remittance outcomes.

The broader stablecoin market context also matters. DefiLlama data cited in the article places stablecoin supply at about $307 billion, up roughly 16% over the past year. That growth underscores why policymakers and payment providers are focused on the operational and regulatory details—especially where remittances are concerned.

What to watch next is whether regulatory changes and domestic payment infrastructure upgrades reduce the conversion frictions that the Bank of Italy study identifies as the dominant cost and timing drivers. If stablecoin usage increasingly shifts toward corridors with strong instant payment rails and if more “spendable” pathways emerge, the potential for stablecoins to outperform traditional remittance services may become clearer—and more consistent across routes.