Crypto World
Bitcoin’s BIP-110 fork is 300 blocks behind BTC and six years from fixing itself
Bitcoin’s ledger is a chain of blocks, each one a batch of transactions added by miners, firms running warehouses of specialised computers that compete to produce the next one. They are paid in newly issued bitcoin plus the fees attached to those transactions, and a block arrives roughly every ten minutes.
That ten-minute pace is not automatic. The network sets a difficulty level, which is how much computing work a miner must do to produce a valid block, and recalculates it every 2,016 blocks. If blocks have been arriving too fast, the work gets harder. Too slow, and it gets easier.
At normal speed, 2,016 blocks takes about two weeks.
Two blocks were produced on that chain. Then it stopped, because mining it costs exactly what mining bitcoin costs — as both chains having inherited the same difficulty when they parted, while paying in a coin that has no market, no exchange listing and no buyers.
It also cannot make mining easier on itself without first completing 2,016 blocks at its current pace. A live monitor now estimates that adjustment at 6.3 years away, up from 350 days on Sunday.
The number is calculated from recent block times, so every idle hour pushes it further out. Bitcoin’s next adjustment is due in 12 days.
Node provider BTCPay Server said Tuesday it is funding a bounty for the return of bitcoin stolen from merchants last week, offering 10% of whatever is recovered up to a maximum of 3 BTC, worth roughly $190,000 at current prices.
The offer is open to anyone with useful information, including the attacker. The project asked people to write to its security address and said secure channels are available on request.
If several reports lead to a recovery, the bounty will be split with the victims according to how much each lost and how useful the information proved.
We’re donating 0.21 BTC to @craigraw and 0.21 BTC to the Bitcoin Red Team for their responsible security disclosure of the recent critical vulnerability.
In addition, friends and supporters of the BTCPay Server project have committed to funding a bounty to recover the stolen… pic.twitter.com/qhs8zwoCvM
— BTCPay Server (@BtcpayServer) August 10, 2026
The project is also paying the researchers who found the flaw, donating 0.21 BTC each to developer Craig Raw and to the Bitcoin Red Team fund.
Attackers exploited the vulnerability last week to obtain credentials for LND, the most widely used software for running a Lightning node, and to drain the wallets associated with it.
Hardware-wallet maker Foundation and the bitcoin publication Citadel21 both reported losing funds. Neither BTCPay nor the victims have published a total so far.
[PRESS RELEASE – London, UK, August 10th, 2026]
CT3 has announced the start of comprehensive preparations for the future listing of the CT3GB token. The company has begun scaling its data storage infrastructure, building financial and infrastructure reserves, and preparing its own tokenized economy, in which CT3GB will become the platform’s primary settlement asset. At the same time, the transition to a new data storage architecture based on specialized smart contracts is underway, while an independent audit of the entire core smart contract infrastructure will be conducted ahead of the listing.
Over the past several months, CT3 has significantly expanded the capabilities of its platform. One of the most important milestones was the implementation of automatic backup technology, following which demand for data storage services increased substantially. The growth in data volumes confirmed the platform’s readiness to support continuous data storage scenarios and became a signal to move on to the next stage of ecosystem development.
The company notes that further scaling cannot be considered separately from the platform’s economy. For this reason, preparations for the CT3GB listing began before the token enters the open market.
Transition to an In-House Settlement System
Today, most internal CT3 operations are carried out using the Polygon infrastructure. Following the launch of CT3GB, the company plans to transition all major financial processes within the platform to its own token.
CT3GB will be used to pay for data storage services, settle payments with infrastructure owners, distribute rewards, facilitate internal settlements between network participants, and carry out other operations required for the functioning of the CT3 Cloud ecosystem.
Thus, the token will become not merely an additional means of payment, but a fundamental element of the platform’s economy, facilitating the flow of value between users, storage infrastructure, and CT3 services.
Preparing the Economy Before the Listing
According to CT3, the sustainability of a tokenized economy is determined not by the moment of listing itself, but by the degree to which the infrastructure is prepared to operate after the listing.
That is why the company has already begun expanding its data storage network, increasing available computing capacity, and building reserves that will enable the platform to continue scaling without compromising performance.
Part of this strategy is being implemented through the Storage Contracts program. The company views it not as a separate stage of product development, but as one of the tools for building financial and infrastructure reserves. This approach makes it possible to gradually increase the network’s capacity while maintaining a high level of commercial utilization and, at the same time, creating the resource buffer required for the continued growth of the ecosystem after the listing.
A New Network Architecture
In parallel, CT3 continues to modernize its technology platform.
One of the key areas of development is the segmentation of the storage infrastructure into separate specialized smart contracts. Instead of relying on a single architecture, different products within the ecosystem are gradually being assigned their own contracts with independent capacity limits and resource accounting.
According to the company, this model will enable more efficient platform scaling, improve transparency in infrastructure utilization, and provide greater flexibility for developing new services without affecting products that are already operational.
Independent Audit Before the CT3GB Launch
Another mandatory stage of the preparation process will be an independent audit of the smart contracts.
Before CT3GB enters the public market, the company plans to complete a comprehensive review of the smart contract infrastructure that will support the token and the platform’s key services. The audit will focus on verifying the security of the contracts, the correctness of their business logic, and compliance with industry standards.
CT3 notes that the audit is considered an essential part of preparing for the public launch of the project’s economy and one of the factors that can help strengthen trust among users, partners, and cryptocurrency exchanges.
The Next Stage of CT3’s Development
The preparation for the CT3GB listing is part of CT3’s long-term development strategy aimed at creating a fully autonomous data storage infrastructure with its own economic model.
Once the preparations are complete, CT3GB will become the platform’s primary settlement asset and will be used for all internal operations across the ecosystem. At the same time, the value of the token will be driven not only by market demand but also by its practical utility in the day-to-day operation of CT3 Cloud services.
Infrastructure expansion, reserve creation, the implementation of a new storage architecture, and preparation for an independent audit are all part of a unified strategy designed to ensure that CT3GB launches within an ecosystem that is already prepared for further scaling and growth.
About CT3
CT3 is a technology company developing next-generation decentralized data storage infrastructure. The company’s ecosystem combines a distributed storage network, NFT-based access keys, automatic backup technologies, and a scalable smart contract architecture. CT3 solutions are designed for both individual users and the corporate sector, providing secure long-term data storage, backup, and protection of digital information.
The post CT3 Begins Preparing Its Ecosystem for the Launch of the CT3GB Economy appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Onchain investigator ZachXBT named a US-based threat actor, Tiffany Milanovich, who is tied to at least $5 million in crypto theft through fake support calls.
According to his findings, Milanovich worked as a “caller,” phoning victims while posing as support staff and talking them into surrendering access to their funds. He said she recorded herself taunting victims after draining them.
How the Impersonation Scheme Worked
Milanovich worked as part of a group. As the caller, she impersonated the hardware wallet and centralized exchange support.
A separate actor using the aliases “bled” and “harm” supplied the phishing-panel infrastructure, according to the report.
In June 2026, a victim lost $1.2 million in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) after the group drained the victim’s Trezor wallet. The attack began with a spoofed BitcoinIRA email sent under the alias “Patricia Massie.” ZachXBT said the bulk of the stolen funds remain dormant onchain.
An earlier theft in October 2025 cost a victim $500,000 in Bitcoin after the group drained a Coinbase account. ZachXBT said Milanovich complained about her cut and posted a screenshot of the withdrawal herself.
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How Milanovich Spent the Stolen Crypto
Milanovich openly displayed stolen proceeds, luxury purchases, and casino gambling on social media, the investigator said. She allegedly gambled a victim’s funds at a casino. He added that some “flex” videos appear to have been altered to inflate the apparent size of the thefts.
The report also ties Milanovich to John “Lick” Daghita, whom ZachXBT exposed in January for allegedly stealing crypto seized by the US government. Daghita was later arrested in Saint Martin in March.
“Tiffany, who was already close to John, recorded him on a call and shared it to troll him. In retaliation, John posted her name in his public Telegram channel,” the crypto sleuth said.
These scams sit within a growing wave of impersonation fraud. FBI data logged more than 80,000 tech-support and government-impersonation complaints in 2025, with losses above $2.9 billion. Chainalysis separately reported that crypto impersonation scams jumped nearly 1,400% that year.
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The post ZachXBT Traces $5M Crypto Thefts to US-Based Support Impersonation Scammer appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Twelve Nasdaq 100 stocks have more than doubled in 2026, and none of them belong to the Magnificent Seven.
The Magnificent 7 stocks all have different primary focuses, even though they are grouped together as large, influential tech-adjacent powerhouses heavily tied to trends like artificial intelligence. But the biggest leaders was SanDisk, up 411% year to date, while Micron and Intel also more than doubled this year.
All 12 Nasdaq 100 Stocks That Doubled
The rest of the list skews heavily toward companies that build AI infrastructure hardware rather than software platforms.
- Sandisk (SNDK) +406%
- Micron (MU) +207%
- Intel (INTC) +175%
- Arm Holdings (ARM) +159%
- Marvell Technology (MRVL) +157%
- Western Digital (WDC) +152%
- Lumentum (LITE) +142%
- AMD (AMD) +126%
- Nebius (NBIS) +125%
- Applied Materials (AMAT) +110%
- Fortinet (FTNT) +101%
- Astera Labs (ALAB) +101%
The Magnificent Seven Are Sitting This Out
Returns vary widely inside the group. Amazon leads with a 20% gain this year, followed by Nvidia at 14%, Apple at 13%, and Alphabet at 12%.
Microsoft has managed just a 4% gain. Meta has fallen 10%, and Tesla is down 27%, the group’s weakest performer. The S&P 500 has gained roughly 13% over the same period.
Ed Yardeni, founder of Yardeni Research, has tracked the reversal for months.
“The Impressive-493 has outperformed the Magnificent-7 since last November.”
Nvidia and Amazon are the only members keeping pace with the broader market this year with much expected from Nvidia as it continues to propel the AI chip market.
The gap leaves five of the seven trailing the broader index. It also leaves them behind the semiconductor suppliers that once traded in their shadow.
Why This Is Happening
Investors have rotated out of the Magnificent Seven and into companies building the physical AI infrastructure. Semiconductor and memory suppliers have absorbed capital that once flowed straight into mega-cap tech.
Wall Street’s own strategists have pushed the trade further. Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan have all said in recent weeks that the group’s underperformance has gone too far.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s chief investment officer, Lisa Shalett, still called the semiconductor rally “meaningfully overbought.” She argued investors should now rebuild diversified exposure to the Magnificent Seven as AI infrastructure winners.
Why the AI Trade Moved Downstream
Most of these winners sell the physical building blocks of the AI boom. Sandisk and Western Digital make flash memory chips that AI servers, phones, and hospital scanners are now competing for.
That shortage has pulled in retail traders. Buyers kept adding to AI memory stocks even during a summer selloff in the sector.
Wall Street is split on how to trade the theme. JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley disagreed in July over the AI chip trade.
Jim Cramer took a side. He named five chip suppliers as the market’s preferred AI bet over Big Tech platforms.
The split leaves the Magnificent Seven trailing hundreds of smaller stocks in the S&P 500 this year. Whether that gap closes likely depends on how upcoming earnings treat AI hardware demand versus AI capital spending.
The post 12 Nasdaq Stocks Doubled in 2026, But None Are Magnificent Seven appeared first on BeInCrypto.
OpenAI has released GPT-5.6-Cyber, a cybersecurity-specific model that gives approved defenders tools for exploit development and vulnerability research.
The company positioned the launch around a shrinking window for defense. It argues that threat actors will increasingly use AI to run attacks at greater speed and scale, including in fully autonomous ways.
OpenAI Gives Trusted Defenders Frontier Cyber Tools
GPT-5.6-Cyber is built on GPT-5.6 Sol, OpenAI’s standard model. Notably, the model reduces refusals for requests involving exploit chain development, authentication bypass, privilege escalation, and other advanced cybersecurity scenarios.
OpenAI says it completes 95% of these requests, compared with 1.5% for its general-purpose GPT-5.6 Sol model.
The company said the model found two vulnerabilities in the V8 engine that powers Google Chrome. It reported them to Google as CVE-2026-15903. The model also surfaced more than 400 kernel vulnerabilities linked to privilege escalation.
Meanwhile, OpenAI said it’s expanding Daybreak to two access tiers. Daybreak Blue offers general-purpose models with defensive safeguards. Daybreak Red provides access to purpose-trained cybersecurity models, including GPT-5.6-Cyber.
“Our answer is to put frontier intelligence in the hands of trusted defenders everywhere before attackers deploy offensive AI capabilities at scale,” the team said.
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Rogue AI Incidents Sharpen the Stakes
The release lands shortly after AI models breached outside systems during testing at three companies. OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta each disclosed such an incident.
OpenAI’s agents escaped a sandbox and broke into AI startup Hugging Face. Anthropic said its Claude models reached three organizations’ systems.
Meta confirmed one of its models breached an outside company’s systems. OpenAI stresses that GPT-5.6-Cyber was not involved in the Hugging Face breach.
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The post OpenAI Ships GPT-5.6-Cyber Through Gated Daybreak Red Access Tier appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Polymarket odds have collapsed from 82% to 16%. The Senate returns on September 14 with 14 working days, eight missing Democratic votes, and an ethics fight over a president who made $1.4 billion from crypto. If the bill dies, markets face a 15 to 30% correction and at least another year of regulation by enforcement.
Summary
- Polymarket traders now give the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act a 16% chance of becoming law in 2026, down from an 82% peak in February, after the Senate adjourned for its August recess without scheduling a floor vote.
- The bill needs 60 votes to clear the filibuster. Republicans hold 53 seats but are expected to lose Senators Hawley and Paul, meaning at least eight Democrats must cross over. Only two did so in committee.
- The core sticking point is an ethics provision targeting President Trump, who disclosed more than $1 billion in crypto related income in 2025. Democrats call the enforcement mechanism toothless; Republicans say the constraint is already unprecedented.
- Bernstein projects a 10 to 25% near term pullback for bitcoin if the bill fails, testing the $55,000 to $60,000 range, with altcoins facing steeper drawdowns of 15 to 30%.
- Failure would leave the industry under the current patchwork of SEC enforcement actions and CFTC guidance until at least 2027, while 65% of institutional allocators say they need regulatory clarity before increasing crypto exposure.
The biggest piece of crypto legislation in a decade is running out of road. The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act passed the House in July 2025 by a comfortable 294 to 134 vote, promising to draw the line between which tokens the SEC oversees and which fall to the CFTC. Fourteen months later, the bill has not reached the Senate floor, prediction markets are pricing in failure, and the window to act before midterm politics consume Washington is measured in days, not months.
The Senate adjourned on August 7, 2026 without voting on the CLARITY Act. Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed just before recess, a procedural move that starts the clock but guarantees nothing. Senators return on September 14 with roughly 14 working days before midterm campaign season makes any controversial vote politically radioactive. What happens in those two weeks will shape how crypto is regulated in the United States for years.
What the CLARITY Act actually does
The bill creates a classification framework for digital assets. Tokens that function like traditional investment contracts remain under SEC jurisdiction. Sufficiently decentralized digital commodities move to the CFTC. Stablecoins get their own category. The framework applies registration requirements to exchanges, brokers, and custodians, replacing the current system where the SEC pursues enforcement actions based on case by case determinations that often contradict each other.
Two provisions deserve more attention than they receive. Section 20216 protects self custodied assets from state abandonment laws, which means that inactivity or dormancy is not grounds for seizure. This is federal preemption, meaning it overrides any state law. The bill also closes what regulators call the DINO loophole, short for Decentralized In Name Only, which has allowed platforms to claim decentralization to avoid anti money laundering requirements.
The math that does not work
Clearing the Senate requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. Republicans hold 53 seats. Senators Josh Hawley and Rand Paul have publicly stated they will vote against the bill, reducing the effective Republican count to 51. That means nine Democratic or independent votes are needed.
The track record is poor. When the Senate Banking Committee advanced the bill in May, only two Democrats crossed over: Ruben Gallego of Arizona and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland. On the floor, seven additional crossovers are required. No Democratic senator has publicly committed to voting yes since the committee markup.
The obstacles are not purely ideological. Several Democratic senators who privately support market structure legislation have told reporters they are reluctant to hand the crypto industry a win before midterm elections, given the sector’s growing political spending and the unresolved ethics questions around the presidency.
The ethics provision nobody can agree on
The single biggest obstacle to passage is not the token classification framework or the DeFi provisions. It is a section that did not exist in the House version: ethics rules governing government officials and cryptocurrency.
President Trump disclosed more than $1 billion in crypto related income in 2025. The Senate version of the bill includes a provision that would prohibit sitting presidents, federal officials, and certain public figures from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. The White House has called this an unprecedented concession and urged Democrats to accept the constraint as sufficient.
Democrats disagree sharply. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat on the Banking Committee, called the bill “a corrupt piece of legislation that will do a lot of harm.” The core objection is enforcement: the provision would be overseen by a Department of Justice led by presidential appointees, creating what critics describe as a conflict of interest that renders the restriction meaningless.
This is not a technical disagreement that staff can resolve in markup. It is a structural problem that touches the separation of powers, and neither side has shown willingness to move.
What prediction markets are pricing
The deterioration in Polymarket odds tells a clear story. In February 2026, traders assigned an 82% probability that the CLARITY Act would become law by December 31, 2026. That figure dropped to 37% when Senate leadership acknowledged the bill would not reach the floor before the July 4 recess. After the August recess confirmation, odds collapsed to 16%.
More than $5.5 million in trading volume has moved through the contract as of August 9, making it one of the most liquid political prediction markets of the year. The current price implies that sophisticated bettors, many of whom have direct exposure to the bill’s outcome, see passage as unlikely but not impossible.
The 16% figure is worth interrogating. It is not zero, and for good reason. The September window is real. Thune filed cloture before recess, which means the procedural machinery is in place. If an ethics compromise emerges during recess negotiations, the bill could move quickly. The market is pricing a narrow path, not a dead end.
What happens to markets if the bill fails
The immediate impact would be a sentiment driven correction, not a structural crisis. Bernstein, the Wall Street research firm, expects bitcoin to test the $55,000 to $60,000 range if the CLARITY Act fails, representing a 10 to 25% pullback from current levels near $65,000. Altcoins would face steeper drawdowns of 15 to 30%, with tokens that benefit most from regulatory clarity, such as exchange tokens and DeFi governance tokens, bearing the heaviest losses.
The deeper damage is institutional. A 2026 survey of institutional crypto allocators found that 65% cite regulatory clarity as a prerequisite for increasing exposure. Spot bitcoin ETFs continue to attract more than $400 million in daily inflows, but the next wave of institutional products, including tokenized securities, on chain derivatives, and crypto lending platforms, depends on the legal framework that only legislation can provide.
Without the CLARITY Act, the SEC continues to regulate through enforcement. The CFTC continues to operate under limited authority. And every new crypto product launches into a legal environment where the rules depend on which regulator decides to act first.
The case that it does not matter
The strongest counterargument deserves its full weight. Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan has argued that crypto grew from a $100 billion market to a $2 trillion market entirely without comprehensive legislation. Bitcoin ETFs were approved. Spot ether ETFs followed. XRP ETFs launched. None of these required the CLARITY Act.
The industry has also shown an ability to route around regulatory uncertainty. Offshore exchanges serve US customers through VPNs. DeFi protocols operate without registration. Stablecoin issuers have established banking relationships under existing money transmitter laws. A failure to pass the CLARITY Act does not freeze the industry. It freezes the regulated, onshore version of the industry.
This argument has limits. The absence of legislation did not prevent growth, but it constrained its shape. Every major US exchange operates under constant legal risk. Coinbase has spent more than $200 million on legal costs since 2023. Circle delayed its IPO multiple times over regulatory uncertainty. The cost of operating without rules is real, even if it has not yet proved fatal.
What September actually looks like
The Senate returns on September 14. The procedural vote on the motion to proceed, the vote that determines whether the bill reaches the floor, could happen as early as September 15. If cloture fails, the bill is effectively dead for 2026.
Three scenarios are plausible.
The deal. During recess, staff negotiate an ethics compromise that satisfies enough Democrats to reach 60 votes. The bill passes in late September with amendments. This is the 16% scenario that Polymarket is pricing.
The delay. The cloture vote fails, but leadership keeps the bill on the calendar for a lame duck session after the November midterms. This extends the uncertainty through year end and probably into 2027, as the new Congress would need to restart the legislative process.
The death. The cloture vote fails, and Senate leadership moves to other priorities. The CLARITY Act joins the growing list of crypto bills that passed one chamber but never became law. Comprehensive market structure legislation is pushed to the 120th Congress in 2027.
What would prove this analysis wrong
If six or more Democratic senators publicly commit to voting yes before September 14, the math changes entirely. Watch for public statements from senators on the Banking or Agriculture committees, particularly those in states with significant crypto industry presence. A credible ethics compromise announced by both parties before the recess ends would be the single strongest signal that passage is possible.
Conversely, if the September 15 cloture vote fails by more than five votes, the bill is not coming back in 2026 regardless of what leadership says.
What to watch
The cloture vote count on September 15. Passage requires 60. If the motion to proceed clears, the bill will likely pass. If it falls short by three or fewer votes, negotiations continue. If it fails by five or more, the bill is dead for 2026.
Ethics provision language during recess. Any public statement from both Republican and Democratic negotiators indicating a new framework for the presidential crypto conflict provision is the strongest positive signal available.
Polymarket contract price. The current 16% implied probability is the market’s real time assessment. A move above 30% before September 14 would indicate that behind the scenes negotiations are succeeding. A move below 10% means the smart money has given up.
Institutional flow data in September. If bitcoin ETF inflows slow materially in the two weeks before the vote, institutions are hedging against failure. If flows hold steady, the market has already priced the risk.
SEC enforcement activity. Paradoxically, an uptick in SEC enforcement actions against crypto firms in August or September could signal that the agency expects the bill to fail, accelerating its own rulemaking to fill the vacuum.
What is the CLARITY Act?
The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, formally H.R. 3633, is a bill that would create a federal framework for regulating digital assets in the United States. It defines when tokens are securities under SEC jurisdiction, when they are commodities under CFTC oversight, and how exchanges, brokers, and custodians must register. The House passed it in July 2025 by a 294 to 134 vote.
Why has the Senate not voted on it yet?
The primary obstacle is the 60 vote filibuster threshold. Republicans hold 53 seats but need Democratic crossovers. Negotiations have stalled over ethics provisions targeting presidential involvement in cryptocurrency, with Democrats calling the current enforcement mechanism insufficient and Republicans arguing the constraint is already unprecedented.
What happens to crypto prices if the bill fails?
Analysts at Bernstein project a 10 to 25% near term pullback for bitcoin, testing the $55,000 to $60,000 range. Altcoins could face 15 to 30% drawdowns. The correction would be sentiment driven rather than structural, as bitcoin ETFs and existing regulated products would continue operating under current law.
Does the bill affect bitcoin ETFs?
Existing spot bitcoin ETFs would not be directly affected by the bill failure, as they were approved under current SEC authority. However, the next generation of crypto investment products, including tokenized securities and on chain derivatives, depends on the regulatory framework that the CLARITY Act would provide.
What is the ethics provision controversy?
President Trump disclosed more than $1 billion in crypto related income in 2025. The Senate version includes a provision prohibiting sitting presidents and federal officials from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. Democrats argue the enforcement mechanism is toothless because it relies on a DOJ led by presidential appointees. This disagreement has been the single largest obstacle to securing the Democratic votes needed for passage.
When is the next vote scheduled?
Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture before the August recess, setting up a procedural vote as early as September 15, 2026. The Senate returns on September 14. If the cloture vote on the motion to proceed fails, the bill is effectively dead for 2026.
How many votes does the bill need?
The bill needs 60 votes to overcome the filibuster. With 53 Republican seats and two expected Republican defections (Hawley and Paul), at least nine Democratic or independent votes are required. Only two Democrats voted yes in committee.
Could the bill pass in 2027 instead?
If the CLARITY Act fails in the current Congress, the legislative process resets. A new bill would need to be introduced, pass committee, and clear both chambers of the 120th Congress. The timeline for that process is typically 12 to 18 months at minimum, meaning comprehensive crypto market structure legislation would not become law before mid to late 2028 at the earliest. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile and carry significant risk. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions. Published August 10, 2026.
TRON processed $2.1 trillion in USDT transfers during the second quarter of 2026 as its stablecoin market reached a record $89.2 billion, according to Messari’s Aug. 10 report.
Summary
- TRON processed $2.1 trillion in USDT transfers during Q2 as stablecoin supply reached record levels.
- USDT supply ended Q2 at $87.9 billion, giving TRON the largest circulating balance among blockchains.
- Network fees rose 15.9% quarterly to $699.4 million, reversing declines after the 2025 fee cut.
- Bitnomial launched regulated U.S. TRX futures in July after introducing spot trading during the quarter.
- Canary amended its staked TRX ETF filing in July, targeting Cboe BZX under ticker TRXS.
USDT accounted for $87.9 billion, or 98.5% of stablecoins on the network, putting TRON ahead of Ethereum’s $78.7 billion USDT balance at quarter end.
The quarter also brought a broader U.S. route into TRX. Binance.US restored spot trading, Bitnomial added TRX to its regulated U.S. markets and Canary Capital continued work on a proposed staked TRX exchange traded product. After the quarter, Bitnomial added TRX futures and Anchorage Digital opened institutional staking access.
TRON USDT supply moved above $90 billion after Q2
Average daily USDT transfer volume rose 4.3% from the previous quarter to $22.8 billion, reversing the decline recorded in Q1. Total stablecoin capitalization increased 4.1%, while TRON accounted for 47.6% of tracked USDT supply at the end of June, Messari found.
Growth continued after the quarter closed. TRON’s official milestone page records USDT circulation on the network surpassing $90 billion on July 9. That extends the trend discussed inearlier stablecoin coverage, when TRON was already widening its USDT lead over Ethereum.
Network usage has also remained elevated. TRONSCAN currently reports an average of about 12.07 million daily transactions over the latest 30 days. As crypto.news reported in arecent network milestone, lifetime transactions crossed 15 billion in early August while circulating USDT remained above $90 billion.
Higher activity lifted fees while TRX supply kept growing
TRON generated $699.4 million in network fees during Q2, up 15.9% in dollar terms. Fees measured in TRX increased 2.1% to 2.10 billion TRX. Messari said it was the first quarterly fee increase since an August 2025 governance change cut the network’s energy unit price. Average transaction cost increased 5.4% to $0.65.
Higher fees did not return TRX to net deflation during the quarter. Circulating supply increased by about 87 million TRX to 94.85 billion as token creation continued to exceed burns. Total staked TRX also fell 0.9% to 45.7 billion, while the staking rate declined to 48.2%.
The inflationary pattern has continued into August. TRONSCAN data shows total supply at roughly 94.898 billion TRX on Aug. 10. About 3.92 million TRX were generated that day against 3.32 million burned, producing a net increase of roughly 598,000 TRX. Daily figures can vary, but supply remains above its Q2 closing level.
U.S. access widens for TRX through exchanges and staking
Binance.US restored TRX on April 16 with TRX/USD and TRX/USDT trading pairs and native deposits and withdrawals, according to its notice. The listing reversed the exchange’s 2023 removal of the asset, covered in past Binance.US coverage.
Bitnomial then added spot TRX during Q2 before launching exchange traded TRX futures on July 27. Its release says eligible U.S. traders and institutions can use the CFTC regulated contracts to hedge or take exposure to TRX. Bitnomial president Michael Dunn said six months of regulated futures history “meets a key milestone” for potential spot ETF eligibility, although that statement does not amount to SEC approval of any TRX product.
Institutional custody access expanded as well. Anchorage Digital said in a July 14 announcement that clients can now stake TRX while keeping assets within its regulated custody framework.
Canary ETF filing and U.S. compliance remain next tests
Canary Capital’s proposed staked TRX product provides another U.S. development to watch. A July 24 amended SEC filing identifies Cboe BZX as the planned exchange and TRXS as the ticker. Canary anticipates staking at least 90% of the trust’s TRX under normal circumstances. However, the prospectus remains preliminary and says the shares are “expected to be listed” subject to the required conditions. The registration statement must become effective before securities can be sold under the offering.
The network’s growing stablecoin footprint also keeps U.S. compliance scrutiny in view. On July 1, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added 131 TRON addresses to its ISIS K designation in an official update.
Chainalysis separately said in its analysis that Tether froze balances across all 131 addresses. The wallets had received more than $1.4 million since 2023, according to the blockchain analytics firm. The episode was detailed in earlier sanctions coverage.
TRON has also continued upgrading its infrastructure. The mandatory GreatVoyage v4.8.2 Pyrrho release arrived July 15, followed by the nonmandatory v4.8.2.1 Heraclitus update on July 31. For the second half of 2026, the main measurable developments are whether USDT circulation and transaction activity hold their recent levels, whether TRX supply returns to net deflation, and how the proposed U.S. ETF process develops.
Fireplace, the prediction markets trading terminal that raised $1.5 million in February, told users on August 10 that it is shutting down and gave them until September 30 at 23:59 UTC to close positions, withdraw funds, and export their accounts.
“We’re shutting down Fireplace,” the company posted. “To everyone who traded with us and supported us along the way, thank you. It was a hell of a run.” No reason for the closure appears anywhere in the announcement, and a reply asking whether the problem was volume drew no response from the company. Fireplace asked anyone building in prediction markets and interested in its technology to contact the team directly. The terminal stays online until September 30 at 23:59 UTC.
We’re shutting down Fireplace.
To everyone who traded with us and supported us along the way – thank you. It was a hell of a run.
The site stays open until the end of September so you can close positions, withdraw funds, and export your account. Please do it before September…
— fireplace (@fireplacegg) August 10, 2026
Closure
Fireplace launched publicly on January 27 and announced its pre-seed round on February 18, putting 195 days between the launch and the wind-down.
Frachtis led the round, joined by White Star Capital and syndicate rounds on Legion and Echo. Fireplace said at the time that it had more than 30,000 traders on a waitlist, over 10,000 followers on X, and the Polymarket builders badge.
The terminal aggregated markets, liquidity, and execution across venues, with real-time data, wallet and whale tracking, advanced charting, and smart order routing. “Prediction markets are one of the most powerful financial primitives, but the user experience hasn’t caught up,” said Sumer Malhotra, Co-Founder and CEO. Co-Founder and CTO Akshay Rajagopal stated that prediction markets “needed their own Bloomberg Terminal.” Fireplace was “building the professional interface that markets like Polymarket have been missing,” noted Xavier Meegan, CIO of Frachtis.
A Few Prediction Venues Keep Raising Billions
Kalshi closed a $1 billion Series F on May 7 at a $22 billion valuation, led by Coatue alongside Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Paradigm, Morgan Stanley, and ARK Invest. The exchange said its annualized trading volume climbed from $52 billion to $178 billion over six months and that it handles more than 90% of US prediction market activity.
Polymarket is in talks to raise $400 million at a valuation near $15 billion, and NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange has committed about $2 billion to the company across two investments. It’s worth knowing that Fireplace routed orders into Polymarket and Kalshi, the two platforms CryptoPotato ranks first and second among the best prediction markets.
Venture firms invested roughly $4 billion across 355 crypto and blockchain deals in the first quarter of 2026, a 50% drop in capital quarter over quarter and a 16% fall in deal count, according to Galaxy Digital.
The post 195 Days and Done: Why This Crypto Prediction Platform Just Shut Down appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Trump Media & Technology Group reported a $238.1 million net loss for the second quarter on Aug. 10 as falling digital asset and securities valuations continued to weigh on its balance sheet.
Summary
- Trump Media posted a $238.1 million Q2 loss, with $190.4 million from unrealized asset losses.
- Bitcoin holdings rose to 14,139 BTC by July 31 after Trump Media bought additional coins.
- The company pledged 2,077.34 BTC for options and 4,260.73 BTC against convertible notes in June.
- Trump Media terminated its planned CRO treasury venture days before announcing a revamped treasury framework.
- Q2 revenue rose 89% to $1.67 million, while quarterly operating cash use reached $13.7 million.
The Truth Social operator simultaneously announced plans for a “more disciplined digital asset treasury management framework” aimed at retaining long term crypto exposure while reducing volatility and making its assets more productive.
The U.S. listed company remains closely linked to Donald Trump through its ownership structure. Its latest annual report said the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, of which Trump is sole beneficiary, held about 41.1% of TMTG’s voting power as of Feb. 25. Donald Trump Jr. serves as sole trustee.
Trump Media Q2 loss reflects crypto markdowns
Trump Media’s Aug. 10 filing put quarterly revenue at $1.67 million, up 89% from $883,300 a year earlier. The increase came from advertising services under a barter agreement, subscriptions to the Truth+ Patriot Package and management fees from Truth.Fi funds. Lower advertising revenue at Truth Social partly offset those gains.
The much larger change came from the investment portfolio. Trump Media recorded $116.7 million in realized and unrealized losses on digital assets and pledged digital assets during Q2, alongside investment losses tied to securities. Its release placed combined unrealized losses across digital assets, pledged assets and equity securities at $190.4 million. It also reported $25.6 million in legal expenses and $13.7 million of cash used by operating activities.
Management said legacy legal matters have been substantially resolved and “expects” those costs to decline materially. The expected reduction remains a forward looking company assessment rather than a reported saving. General and administrative expenses actually rose to $35.9 million during Q2 from $28.6 million one year earlier.
The result follows the $405.9 million first quarter loss covered in earlier earnings coverage, when falling Bitcoin and Cronos valuations produced another large noncash hit to Trump Media’s accounts.
Bitcoin holdings jumped to 14,139 BTC in July
Trump Media held 9,477.16 BTC at June 30, carrying a fair value of about $557.1 million against a cost basis of roughly $1.01 billion. It also held about 756.1 million CRO valued at $40.6 million. The Bitcoin balance was slightly below the 9,542.16 BTC reported at the end of 2025.
The picture changed sharply after quarter end. Trump Media sold $159.6 million of equity securities invested in Bitcoin related products during July and used the proceeds to purchase Bitcoin directly. By July 31, the company reported approximately 14,139 BTC, including pledged coins, worth about $890.5 million at the $62,982 reference price used in its accounts.
That official figure provides a firmer baseline than wallet movements alone. In earlier Bitcoin transfer coverage, onchain analysts flagged large transfers to Crypto.com but the report cautioned that exchange deposits did not prove completed sales. The new filing confirms the July 31 balance, although it does not determine whether a separate Aug. 2 transfer of 2,628 BTC was later sold, pledged or moved for another purpose.
Trump Media is using Bitcoin for options and yield
The treasury is also more complex than a passive Bitcoin holding. Trump Media reported that 4,260.73 BTC, worth about $250.5 million at June 30, backed convertible notes. Those coins face withdrawal restrictions tied to the debt agreement through no later than May 29, 2028. Another 2,077.34 BTC was pledged to support the company’s Bitcoin options strategy.
The company also disclosed for the first time that it has placed some Bitcoin with third parties through lending, placement and other yield arrangements. Its SEC filing warns that these activities create counterparty credit, insolvency, liquidation and custody risks. Some counterparties may rehypothecate the Bitcoin, while deployed assets do not receive government insurance protections similar to qualifying bank deposits.
Trump Media has not disclosed new numerical limits for those strategies in its Q2 announcement. Its promised “more disciplined” framework therefore remains a broad policy direction for now. Future filings will show whether the company reduces pledged Bitcoin, changes its use of options, lowers third party exposure or simply adjusts how those positions are managed.
CRO exit window and TAE merger are next
The strategy change arrives days after Trump Media abandoned another major crypto expansion. On Aug. 7, the company terminated the proposed Trump Media Group CRO Strategy business combination and associated agreements. The development followed plans for a multibillion dollar Cronos treasury vehicle involving Crypto.com and Yorkville, as detailed in recent CRO treasury coverage.
Trump Media’s existing CRO balance remains separate from the canceled venture. Under the purchase terms disclosed in its filing, the company becomes eligible on Aug. 26 to sell up to 68,442,704 CRO during the following six months. That creates the next concrete date to watch as management reshapes its crypto exposure.
Attention is also shifting toward the proposed merger with fusion company TAE Technologies. Trump Media says it is targeting the fourth quarter of 2026 for completion, but the timetable is “subject to customary regulatory and closing conditions.” An Aug. 7 SEC report continued to state that the company intends to file a Form S-4 covering the transaction. Shareholder approvals and other closing conditions also remain outstanding steps.
Meanwhile, Trump Media is seeking more revenue outside its investment portfolio. Truth API launched Aug. 1 and the company says it has signed more than 10 customer agreements and is “already generating revenue.” Since the service launched after June 30, none of that revenue formed part of the Q2 figure. The product and related U.S. regulatory questions were examined in previous Truth API coverage.
Bitdeer (BTDR) stock fell to its lowest level since March 31, after the crypto miner reported a wider second-quarter loss and revenue that missed Wall Street forecasts.
The Nasdaq-listed miner lost $0.37 per share, wider than the $0.32 expected by analysts. Revenue of $228.8 million also trailed the $231.16 million consensus.
Earnings Miss Overshadows Revenue Growth
Bitdeer’s net loss widened to $92.3 million from $62.9 million a year earlier. The company also swung to a gross loss of $8.5 million from a $12.0 million gross profit, according to its reported results.
The shortfall extended a difficult stretch that followed a $159.5 million deficit in the first quarter. Revenue still climbed 47% to $228.8 million from $155.6 million.
However, the cost of revenue outpaced that gain, rising to $237.3 million on electricity and depreciation charges.
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Mining Output and AI Push Continue
Operationally, the quarter told a stronger story. Self-mining revenue nearly tripled, from $59.3 million to $168.4 million. The gain came as Bitcoin (BTC) mined jumped to 2,694 from 565 a year earlier.
Adjusted EBITDA improved sharply to $31.1 million from $4.6 million over the same period. Bitdeer is also pushing deeper into artificial intelligence infrastructure.
AI Cloud revenue reached $14 million, up from $1.3 million. The CFO framed the period as measured progress.
“Our AI Cloud revenue continues to scale, alongside our mining business as our SEALMINER fleet comes online. Together, these results show the advantage of owning the fully integrated vertical stack, from power, to hardware, and infrastructure,” Michael G. Potter said.
Bitdeer Stock Erases Its Q2 Rally
Meanwhile, the results weighed heavily on the stock. BTDR fell 20.08% on Monday, closing at $8.70, a four-month low.
The slide capped a sharp reversal. BTDR gained roughly 83% in the second quarter, outpacing the broader Bitcoin market.
Since July, however, the stock has dropped 43.7%, and Monday’s decline erased what remained of those gains. Bitdeer’s next earnings update is due in November.
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The post Bitdeer Stock Craters 20% Following Wider Second-Quarter Net Loss appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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