Until now, that meant finding a lab that conducts the test and waiting days for the results. Soon, you”ll be able to do it yourself at home. LymeAlert is the first at-home test for ticks that can detect whether they carry the bacterium Borrelia berdorferi that causes Lyme. To test your tick, you place it in the kit’s container, drop in the included solution, put on the lid, crush the tick by twisting the top and grinding it up, and insert a test strip. Within 30 minutes, the strip tells you whether it detected any Lyme-causing bacteria in your tick. The kit is available for $49.99 to pre-order on the company’s website and will ship at the end of August.

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Will the solar eclipse be visible from the U.K. and Ireland?

HTX has been hit with sanctions from the European Union and the United Kingdom’s Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office.

In the wake of these measures, TRM Labs highlighted that HTX had started rapidly rotating through addresses on-chain, making it harder to identify its holdings.

This problem was compounded by HTX choosing to change its proof-of-reserves, obscuring the location of its reserves in a new “ThirdParty” category that’s supposed to describe funds held at third-party custodians.

HTX claims that users can still verify the funds by reaching out to the custodians in question, but HTX has failed to respond to our requests for the identity of that custodian.

Read more: HTX moved $1.3 billion from reserves to undisclosed ‘ThirdParty’

Before these transitions, HTX published a proof-of-reserves that contained a variety of addresses.

Protos has attempted to track the stETH in one of those addresses to its final destination and believes that this path may revealing something about how HTX has been functioning.

Let’s start with the May 1 proof of reserves, which noted there were 71,853.22 stETH, at today’s price worth about $135 million, in the address 0x18709e89bd403f470088abdacebe86cc60dda12e.

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On May 30, shortly before HTX was due to generate its June proof-of-reserves where funds were moved to “ThirdParty,” these funds were moved to 0x7C103bbAE0DA51AE929dE97A98633668ddE80d04.

Moments later, they were transferred to 0x8fCA4adE3a517133fF23ca55CdAea29C78C990b8, an address labeled on Etherscan as Poloniex 7.

Shortly after, they were transferred again to 0x29065a4C1f2F20d1E263930088890d6F49Fe715a, an address that Etherscan labels as Poloniex 10.

Finally, moments later, they were transferred to 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132, an address labeled on Etherscan as Poloniex 9.

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This address, 0x176F3DAb24a159341c0509bB36B833E7fdd0a132, used to be labeled as “Justin Sun 4” on Etherscan before being listed as a Poloniex address.

This pattern of transactions shows a large quantity of funds moving from HTX to a Poloniex address where they have been commingled with the Poloniex reserves.

Read more: Poloniex and the $1.3B bitcoin question

The wrapped BTC wrinkle

This isn’t the first time that HTX has relied heavily on Poloniex to hold certain assets.

Often, more than half the BTC held at HTX has been in a tokenized form, specifically a tokenized form that seemed to be held by Poloniex.

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This often represented hundreds of millions of dollars worth of value.

Poloniex was unwilling to disclose the addresses where it presumably (hopefully) holds that BTC to Protos.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on X, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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The CLARITY Act’s delay until September could briefly pressure crypto prices before removing a major source of uncertainty, according to Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan.

What happened

Senate leaders have postponed consideration of the CLARITY Act until September, ending efforts to advance the crypto market structure bill before the August recess.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the chamber would not vote on the legislation before lawmakers left Washington. He said the bill would be prepared for consideration after senators return.

The delay followed several days without a cloture filing, the procedural step needed to limit debate and move toward a floor vote. As reported by crypto.news, Thune filed cloture on spending legislation, nominations and a college sports bill but not the CLARITY Act.

Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said the delay could produce a brief negative market reaction as traders adjust their expectations.

“If the Polymarket odds break solidly lower into the teens at least so we can put the uncertainty behind us,” Hougan wrote.

Hougan said crypto prices could “wobble for a minute” before the market potentially recovers during the fall.

Why the CLARITY Act delay matters

The CLARITY Act would establish a federal market structure for digital assets and divide oversight responsibilities between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

For U.S. crypto companies and investors, the bill could replace parts of the current enforcement-led system with statutory rules covering token classifications, trading platforms and digital-asset intermediaries.

However, Republicans need Democratic support to advance it. The Senate’s cloture threshold requires 60 votes, while Republicans hold 53 seats. That means at least seven Democrats must support the procedural motion if every Republican votes in favor.

Negotiations have focused on ethics restrictions for elected officials and their families, illicit-finance safeguards, stablecoin rewards and protections for noncustodial software developers.

Sen. Cynthia Lummis said lawmakers had spent 11 months working on the legislation and continued negotiating daily. Crypto.news reported that Lummis had pushed for a vote before the recess but acknowledged that several provisions remained unresolved.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren also said she supports passing crypto legislation but opposes the current CLARITY Act. She cited concerns involving political conflicts of interest, consumer protection, national security and financial stability.

Crypto market reaction remains limited

Crypto prices showed no immediate broad sell-off following the delay. Bitcoin remained above $64,400, while Ethereum held above $1,900 and XRP traded near $1.05 at the time covered by the initial report.

Prediction markets had already priced in much of the legislative risk before Thune confirmed the postponement. Polymarket’s probability of the bill becoming law in 2026 fell from above 70% earlier in the year to around 17% as the recess approached.

That decline followed repeated Senate scheduling setbacks. Crypto.news previously reported that the bill was absent from the Aug. 4 floor schedule, while no cloture motion had been filed.

Hougan’s comments suggest another drop into the teens could bring a final repricing of the near-term legislative outlook. His view differs from a warning issued earlier in the week by Bernstein, which said a failed vote or delay could trigger another crypto sell-off before a later recovery.

What Comes Next for the CLARITY Act

Senators are expected to continue negotiating during the August recess before returning in September.

Thune has said the bill will be placed near the top of the Senate agenda, but lawmakers must still reach a bipartisan agreement, file cloture and secure 60 votes before beginning full consideration.

The Senate could also amend the House-passed version. Any changes would require the House to approve the revised text before the bill could reach President Donald Trump.

A crowded September calendar and the approaching midterm elections leave lawmakers with a narrower window. Until a bipartisan deal or cloture filing emerges, passage in 2026 will remain uncertain.

Ethereum researchers just wanted to reduce staking incentives. Instead, they sparked one of the biggest debates over the network’s economics since the Merge.

Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-8363, or “Tapered Issuance Burn,” would gradually reduce staking rewards as more and more Ether is locked up to secure the network — eventually cutting new protocol issuance to zero once 50% of ETH’s supply is staked.

Its authors, including Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake and Ethereum Community Conference (ETHCC) co-founder Jerome de Tychey, argue that Ethereum has reached the point where additional staking provides diminishing security returns, while diluting holders who choose not to stake.

In other words: Ethereum should stop paying for security it no longer needs.

There’s just one problem, a lot of people hate the idea.

From DeFi builders to staking providers and institutional investors, critics argue it could weaken decentralization, disrupt Ethereum’s lending markets and undermine confidence in the network’s monetary policy. As Ether.fi founder Mike Silagadze puts it:

“This is so disappointing on every level. […] This is bad for decentralization, this is bad for Ethereum adoption, and this is bad for the credibility of the network.”

Dr. Steve Berryman, Bitwise’s head of client partnerships for Ethereum, tells Magazine:

“Institutional adoption requires certainty and playing with the issuance at the margin would cause uncertainty and institutions hate uncertainty.”

So is Ethereum really paying too much for security, or is EIP-8368 a solution in search of a problem?

Is Ethereum over-staked?

Ethereum currently has around 41.5 million ETH staked, earning 2.67%, and representing 34.07% of the entire supply, according to the Ethereum Validator Queue.

EIP-8363, Tapered Issuance Burn. Source: Jerome de Tychey

While more ETH locked up generally makes the network harder to attack, EIP-8368’s authors argue those security gains become increasingly marginal while Ethereum continues issuing rewards to validators.

EIP-8363 would gradually remove that incentive, and the authors argue Ethereum should stop subsidizing additional staking once the network is sufficiently secure.

Yet not everyone agrees that the problem even exists in the first place. It’s certainly true that the amount staked has increased substantially in 2026, up 15% since the start of the year.

Berryman argues that market forces are already slowing participation without the need to change Ethereum’s issuance policy.

“We will come to a natural ceiling probably by the end of this year,” he says, arguing that yields falling to around 2% are unlikely to attract significantly more ETH to be locked up in staking. “People need a certain amount of liquidity,” he says.

Related: Ethereum Foundation adds SEAL 911 co-founder to board as privacy focus grows

Berryman says recent growth has largely been driven by institutional entrants such as Bitmine and BlackRock, but argues that once those players complete their staking allocations, participation is likely to plateau again.

Source: Validatorqueue.com

Ethereum commentator Leo Lanza, who also opposes the proposal, challenges the core assumption that issuance on Ethereum represents a meaningful “stealth tax” on non-stakers.

Ethereum’s annual inflation remains below 1%, he says, arguing that even gold, widely viewed as the world’s premier monetary asset, expands its supply by roughly 1% to 2% annually:

“The free market already solves this […] Let the market adjust.”

Could the cure be worse than the disease?

Supporters of EIP-8368 argue the change would curb unnecessary issuance and discourage staking from becoming overly concentrated among large custodians and liquid staking providers. But critics say the proposal risks creating bigger problems than it’s trying to solve.

Greg Koumoutsos, technical research lead at the Lido Labs Foundation, says today’s staking ratio of around one-third of ETH supply does not appear unhealthy, though he agrees it is reasonable to think proactively about excessive staking.

More importantly, he argues the proposal oversimplifies what Ethereum’s issuance is actually paying for:

“Ethereum is not only paying for slashable ETH; it is paying for decentralization, operator diversity, censorship resistance, and network resilience.”

Koumoutsos says lower issuance is not automatically a better security policy unless those broader trade-offs are also taken into account.

Another factor to consider is that liquid staking is now deeply integrated into Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem, and staking derivatives are widely used as collateral and in lending and yield strategies.

“It will obviously kill a huge chunk of DeFi which is built around the staking ecosystem,” Silagadze argues.

Stani Kulechov, founder of Aave, Ethereum’s largest decentralized lending protocol, says that reducing staking rewards risks undermining that broader ecosystem.

“My concern is… those who are fine with ETH beta and yield might also sell ETH for other yielding assets […] Ethereum should not be punished for its growth.”

Related: Ethereum, Solana led crypto hack losses in H1 2026: Blockaid

Smaller validators will bear the cost

Another concern with the proposal is that lowering staking rewards could actually increase concentration among the largest participants.

“I stand firmly opposed to this EIP.” Source: Leo Lanza

That’s because independent validators do not benefit from the economies of scale that larger staking businesses, exchanges or institutional operators do. Lower protocol rewards could make solo staking uneconomical while larger organizations continue operating. Koumoutsos says:

“A solo validator has real costs: some ideological solo stakers may remain, but many marginal solo validators will not, and fewer new ones will enter, if any.”

He adds that centralized platforms also stake for reasons beyond yield, such as customer retention, regulatory positioning and product integration, which makes them less likely to reduce their participation.

Koumoutsos also warns that even within delegated staking, lower rewards could favor centralized custodial products over onchain staking protocols, which face higher maintenance, governance and upgrade costs.

A debate over more than staking

Supporters say lower issuance would strengthen Ether’s long-term monetary profile. But critics argue that continually adjusting Ethereum’s monetary policy undermines its claims to be predictable and reliable.

Berryman argues institutions value predictability more than marginally higher yields, and that changing the curve creates yield governance risk. “Institutional investors will price accordingly,” he says.

He also says institutions value staking not because the yield is especially high, but because it provides a predictable return while they hold ETH:

“It’s not broken, why try and fix it?”

Silagadze agrees, saying, “Any nation state or large institution looking at this will justifiably have a dramatic loss of confidence in the governance and stability of Ethereum.”

The proposal’s rollout also drew criticism for being published just two days before the Aug. 6 deadline for proposals to be considered for the next Ethereum network upgrade.

Silagadze says that a change with “far reaching implications for all of DeFi” should not have been published on such a short timeline.

The fierce backlash has shown how difficult it has become to change Ethereum’s economics, especially when every adjustment creates winners and losers across staking, DeFi and institutional markets.

Magazine: Ethereum’s much-hated staking ‘tax’ may already be obsolete