Crypto World
Cosmos EVM vulnerability drains MANTRA, TAC and KiiChain in cross chain attacks
Cosmos Labs has disclosed that attackers exploited a critical Cosmos EVM vulnerability across six blockchain networks between Aug. 20 and Aug. 25, converting stolen tokens into about $5.72 million in assets through decentralized and centralized exchanges.
Summary
- Attackers exploited a critical Cosmos EVM flaw across six networks between Aug. 20 and Aug. 25, converting stolen tokens into about $5.72 million in other assets.
- Cosmos Labs first received the vulnerability report in April but initially concluded that production networks were not at risk and handled the fix through its silent patch process.
- MANTRA lost 720.9 million tokens worth about $3.6 million, while TAC and KiiChain later suffered separate attacks using the same method.
- The first attack began about 20 hours after patched Cosmos EVM versions were released without a vulnerability specific advisory to network operators.
- Cosmos Labs coordinated with 40 chains during the response and helped 13 networks patch or halt before they could be attacked.
Cosmos Labs said in a technical post-mortem published Friday that the flaw had first been reported through its bug bounty program on April 25, nearly four months before the attacks began. Its testers were unable to reproduce the exploit against configurations used by known production Cosmos EVM networks and concluded at the time that live user funds were not at risk.
Based on that assessment, developers handled the vulnerability through a silent public patch instead of privately distributing a security fix to affected chains. Cosmos Labs merged the fix in May without telling network operators which vulnerability it addressed.
The assessment later proved incorrect after independent researchers established in early August that the bug affected all Cosmos EVM chains. Cosmos Labs then obscured the fix to make reverse engineering more difficult and released patched versions at 7:01 p.m. ET on Aug. 19.
Release notes referred to “important” security fixes without describing the vulnerability. The first known attack began at 3:06 p.m. ET on Aug. 20, about 20 hours after the patched software became available.
Cosmos EVM flaw allowed attackers to drain large accounts
The vulnerability involved an integer underflow in Cosmos EVM, the ecosystem’s Ethereum-compatible framework built from the open-source Evmos codebase.
An attacker could first create an account containing locked tokens and delegate more tokens to a validator than the account was able to spend. Subtracting the delegated amount caused the balance to fall below zero, making the value wrap around to the maximum possible figure of 2^256-1 base units.
The attacker could then use the inflated balance against another account. Sending the amount to a target pushed its recorded balance past the same numerical ceiling, causing an overflow that wrapped the value back down and left the attacker holding the target’s tokens.
No additional tokens were created through the process, according to Cosmos Labs, and total token supply remained effectively unchanged. MANTRA said the exploit changed its supply by only one base unit, the smallest divisible denomination of the token.
Cosmos Labs said attackers targeted accounts holding large balances, including burn addresses and multisignature wallets created when networks launched. Its advisory classified the flaw as critical and identified Cosmos EVM releases before v0.6.2 and v0.7.2 as vulnerable.
The incident followed another security disclosure involving Cosmos software earlier this year. Crypto.news previously reported that a researcher had disclosed a CometBFT flaw in April that could cause nodes to stall during block synchronization. The CVSS 7.1 issue did not allow direct asset theft.
Networks had about 20 hours after the patch
Once independent researchers confirmed the Cosmos EVM flaw could affect production chains, Cosmos Labs prepared the security releases that went live on Aug. 19.
Network operators were not given a vulnerability-specific warning explaining what the upgrade fixed. MANTRA later said 20 hours was not enough to assess, build, test and coordinate a state-breaking upgrade across its 38 independent validators.
“Twenty hours was not a realistic window in which to assess, build, test and coordinate a state-breaking upgrade across 38 independent validators, particularly without a vulnerability-specific advisory,” MANTRA wrote in its post-mortem.
Another disclosure occurred before the first theft. At 3:16 a.m. ET on Aug. 20, a Push Chain developer publicly submitted a code change describing the vulnerability and its exploitation path. The filing credited the finding to an audit by security firm Hacken and listed versions considered vulnerable.
The submission said no released version contained the fix, though its version table omitted v0.6.2 and v0.7.2, which Cosmos Labs had published roughly eight hours earlier.
Cosmos Labs described publication of an exact exploitation path by a downstream developer as “highly unusual” and said such disclosures can raise the risk that a vulnerability will be exploited.
MANTRA placed the public security finding 11 hours and 45 minutes before the attacker’s first probe. However, the attacker’s wallet had been funded almost four hours before the finding was filed.
“We state the timing as fact and draw no conclusion from it,” MANTRA said.
A withdrawal of 472.70 MANTRA from a customer account at a centralized exchange funded the gas fees used throughout the attack, according to the network.
MANTRA lost $3.6 million before halting its chain
MANTRA suffered the largest publicly disclosed loss from the attacks, with 720.9 million MANTRA tokens then valued at about $3.6 million taken from two addresses.
One was the network’s burn address. The second was a dormant multisignature wallet left from an earlier incentive campaign.
No automated warning was generated when tokens first moved from the burn address because MANTRA’s monitoring systems treated the address as immovable and did not watch it for outgoing transactions.
The attack remained undetected for almost four hours, giving the attacker time to drain the dormant multisig wallet.
MANTRA halted the network at 7:13 p.m. ET on Aug. 20. About 38 million stolen MANTRA remained frozen in the attacker’s wallet, but 94.7% of the stolen tokens had already been transferred to one centralized exchange deposit address through 15 transactions.
The chain remained unable to process transactions for roughly 30 hours. Crypto.news reported during the interruption that MANTRA halted transactions while engineering and security teams investigated the incident and exchanges suspended deposits and withdrawals.
Validators later deployed patched software and resumed block production without rolling back the chain or altering user balances. Version 8.4.0 included the Cosmos EVM security fix.
MANTRA had added native EVM support to its mainnet in September 2025 alongside CosmWasm compatibility, allowing Solidity applications and Cosmos-native smart contracts to operate on the network.
No stolen MANTRA tokens had been recovered as of Aug. 28, according to the project.
Its circulating supply increased by about 720.9 million tokens because assets held in accounts previously classified as unspendable, including the burn address, became tradable after being moved by the attacker.
TAC and KiiChain were hit after MANTRA
The same method was used against TAC on Aug. 22, according to Cosmos Labs. Nearly 3 billion TAC were taken from the network’s staking pool.
TAC is designed to bring decentralized finance applications to TON and Telegram users. Around 1.2 billion of the stolen tokens were sold on BNB Chain for roughly $950,000.
KiiChain was attacked that evening, losing approximately 148 million KII. About 64.6 million tokens were sold for roughly $1.6 million.
Cosmos Labs estimated that around 54% of the stolen KII remains recoverable onchain if the network is restored.
In its Aug. 23 technical post-mortem, KiiChain criticized how the vulnerability had been communicated to downstream networks. The project said Cosmos Labs did not provide advance notice, identify the release as security critical or initially tell affected chains to halt.
“A patch takes days to review, build, test and roll out across a validator set. A halt takes minutes,” KiiChain wrote. “The only measure that would have contained the risk immediately was a clear instruction to stop producing blocks, and that instruction came after the damage was done.”
Cosmos Labs recommended that vulnerable networks halt on Aug. 22, after MANTRA, TAC and KiiChain had already been hit.
KiiChain disputed part of the technical assessment as well, saying three upstream defects were needed to carry out the exploit and that only the underflow had been publicly patched.
MANTRA reached a different conclusion after testing the fix against a working reproduction of the exploit. Its post-mortem described the underflow repair as “the control that closes this attack path.”
Cosmos Labs described two chained vulnerabilities but did not address KiiChain’s claim that another upstream defect remains unresolved.
Three other Cosmos EVM networks were attacked
Three further chains were exploited with the same method, though Cosmos Labs did not identify them in its report.
Nesa may have been one of the affected networks. Bitvavo suspended NES deposits and withdrawals on Aug. 24, citing a critical consensus vulnerability that had been exploited to make vulnerable nodes accept invalid blocks.
Blockchain analytics firm Bubblemaps identified Nesa as one of the affected chains in an Aug. 26 analysis. The firm said an attacker bought about $250,000 worth of NES, bridged it to Nesa, used the flaw to increase the balance about 200-fold and transferred roughly $50 million in NES back to Ethereum.
Most attempted swaps suffered extreme slippage as liquidity was removed from trading pools, leaving the attacker with about $60,000 in profit, according to Bubblemaps.
The wallet had originally been funded through Monero. Bubblemaps said differences in the funding method and the attacker’s behavior meant a separate party may have been responsible for the Nesa exploit.
The remaining two affected chains have not been publicly identified.
Cosmos Labs said it coordinated with 40 networks during its response and worked with 13 others to patch the vulnerability or halt before they were attacked.
The firm said it does not maintain a complete registry of the more than 115 public blockchains operating across the Cosmos ecosystem. Its response uncovered 11 Cosmos EVM deployments that had not previously been registered with the team.
MANTRA, meanwhile, is being acquired by existing backer Inveniam Capital Partners, which had made a $20 million strategic investment in the project in August 2025. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2026, with MANTRA Chain, its token and related infrastructure set to continue operating under Inveniam’s ownership.
Flow-based DeFi lending protocol More Markets suffered a reserve drainage of about $9.3 million in digital assets, according to security firm Blockaid. Blockaid said the attacker extracted roughly 15.5 million Wrapped Flow (WFLOW) tokens from the protocol’s mFlowWFLOW lending reserve on the Flow EVM network.
The incident, outlined in a Monday post on X by Blockaid (see Blockaid’s report), highlights how lending platforms that support liquid staking tokens can be vulnerable when borrowing mechanics are combined with liquidity and efficiency-mode features.
Key takeaways
- $9.3 million worth of WFLOW was reportedly drained from More Markets’ mFlowWFLOW lending reserve on Flow EVM.
- Blockaid attributes the attack to the use of ankrFLOW (Ankr Staked FLOW) and Aave V3 E-mode overborrowing conditions.
- The exploitation contributed to total crypto hack losses of $139.7 million in August 2026, per DefiLlama.
- While August thefts remain the third-largest month of 2026 so far, they are far below $254 million stolen in July, according to DefiLlama data.
- More Markets has not publicly confirmed the incident or disclosed potential user losses as of publication.
How Blockaid says the Flow EVM exploit worked
In its analysis, Blockaid linked the theft to the borrowing and collateral logic used inside the protocol. The security firm said the attacker used Ankr Staked FLOW (ankrFLOW), a liquid staking token, together with E-mode—a feature associated with Aave V3.
E-mode (short for efficiency mode) is designed to increase borrowing power for certain asset pairs when their prices are expected to move together. Blockaid’s explanation focuses on the relationship between a liquid staking token and its underlying asset: if the tokenized staking position (ankrFLOW) behaves closely to the underlying FLOW, then the protocol may assign more favorable risk parameters under E-mode.
According to Blockaid, the attacker leveraged those assumptions to overborrow from the mFlowWFLOW reserve and drain liquidity. Blockaid’s public figures point to 15.5 million WFLOW tokens being pulled from the reserve and valued at about $9.3 million in the incident.
What the reserve drainage means for DeFi risk management
Incidents like this tend to raise a difficult question for DeFi lenders: how to balance the capital efficiency benefits of supporting liquid staking derivatives against the edge cases that can emerge when borrowing rules are pushed to their limits.
E-mode is meant to reflect a correlation between assets, but the way correlation is enforced on-chain can be exploited if attackers can find a path where collateral valuation, liquidity availability, or borrowed asset dynamics allow them to extract value faster than the system can correct risk exposure. In this case, Blockaid specifically cited E-mode plus the use of a liquid staking token to achieve an outcome that resulted in reserve depletion.
For users, the immediate practical takeaway is less about the specific tokens involved and more about the mechanics. When a lending market supports efficiency-mode pairings between liquid staking tokens and their underlying assets, traders and depositors should watch for whether the platform can demonstrate robust controls under volatile or abnormal borrowing conditions.
Hack totals for August remain elevated—yet down from July
The Flow EVM theft adds to the broader picture of crypto security losses in 2026. Blockaid’s report comes as overall monthly totals have remained high.
DefiLlama data shows that losses from cryptocurrency hacks reached $139.7 million in August, making it the third-largest month by value stolen so far in 2026. Even so, August’s total represents a substantial drop from $254 million stolen during July, according to the same DefiLlama dataset on hacks (see DefiLlama’s hacks dashboard).
That comparison matters for risk perceptions. A decline from one peak month does not imply fewer vulnerabilities overall—it may instead reflect differences in the types of exploits that surfaced, the speed of mitigation once attacks begin, or the particular concentration of high-value DeFi targets in each month.
Other network disruption: Cronos pauses after Tectonic exploit
Blockaid’s account of the More Markets drainage arrives amid other DeFi-related security actions. On Sunday, Cronos halted its network after a reported $75 million exploit targeting the DeFi lending protocol Tectonic, according to earlier coverage from Cointelegraph (see that report).
Taken together, the two incidents underscore how quickly lending infrastructures can draw attention from attackers and how governance and incident response—whether pausing a chain or adjusting protocol controls—can become a determining factor in whether additional losses are contained.
Unanswered questions for More Markets users
As of the time of publication, More Markets had not publicly confirmed the incident or disclosed whether any user losses occurred. Cointelegraph attempted to obtain additional details by contacting Blockaid, but received no response by publication. The outlet also was unable to reach More Markets for comment.
Readers should watch for a formal More Markets statement, any post-mortem describing which reserve controls were bypassed, and whether the platform (and related integrations) plans to adjust E-mode or liquid staking collateral parameters to reduce the chance of a repeat.
Bitcoin began the new business week with a dip below $77,000 as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East escalated amid new attacks, but has since managed to shrug off the losses.
The same cannot be said about most larger-cap alts. ETH is still struggling at $2,500, while BNB is below $700. XRP has seemingly lost the $1.40 support. XMR is among the few exceptions.
BTC Rebounds
After gaining $15,000 in 48 hours, bitcoin was due for a correction last weekend and dropped below $75,500. However, the bulls quickly resumed control of the market and initiated a couple of major legs up as the previous business week progressed, driving the asset to $81,000 and $81,500, respectively.
This meant that BTC had reached its highest price tag in over three months. However, its attempt on Thursday was met with a sharp rejection, perhaps due to the hawkish stance taken by Fed Chair Kevin Warsh during the Friday speech at Jackson Hole, and bitcoin slumped to under $77,000.
It managed to rebound over the weekend and even climbed past $79,000. However, then came the new attacks in the Middle East, and the cryptocurrency dipped to just under $77,000 on Monday morning.
It has reacted swiftly by recovering nearly two grand ahead of another major macro week. As a result, it trades close to $79,000 once again, with its market cap jumping back to $1.580 trillion, while its dominance over the alts has rocketed to over 58.5% on CG.
XMR Pumps
Monero’s XMR is today’s top performer, having surged by almost 10% to well over $520. UNI and MNT follow suit, with increases of 6-7%. In contrast, most other large-cap alts remain in the red.
ETH is still just under $2,500, BNB has failed to reclaim $690, while XRP, despite the major ETF inflows from last week, is well below $1.40. SOL, TRX, HYPE, and DOGE are down by up to 2.5%, while RAIN has plummeted by 8.6% to $0.016. PUMP is the other big loser today, slumping by 9% to $0.0044.
The cumulative market cap of all crypto assets has recovered over $50 billion since this morning’s low and is up to $2.7 trillion on CG.
The post BTC Recovers Swiftly and Eyes $79K Again, XMR Surges Above $500: Market Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Crypto exchange Bitrue is approaching its 8th anniversary in 2026, and it’s launching a new interface designed to help traders make informed decisions using AI. But is it any good?
Bitrue AI is pitched as a beginner-friendly trading copilot. It scans live markets, proposes a strategy, sets entry and exit parameters and can manage a position through predefined take-profit and stop-loss levels.
Each recommendation includes Bitrue’s account of the market conditions, technical signals, risk classification, and reasoning used to construct it.
The product spans eight real-time strategies across three risk profiles: Aggressive, Growth and Stable. It also supports futures markets including BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP.
Bitrue says strategies refresh every few minutes as conditions change, rather than remaining static until a trader intervenes.
How Bitrue AI Works
The workflow begins with a market, risk preference, and time horizon. The system then generates a complete setup instead of asking the user to assemble one parameter by parameter.
Bitrue lists grid trading, DCA position scaling, RSI reversals, breakouts, double-top and double-bottom patterns, and multi-indicator strategies among its approaches.
Live technical data and large language models feed into proposed entries, exits and risk parameters, with indicators including RSI, Bollinger Bands, volatility and support and resistance levels.
Once a strategy is produced, the user sees the proposed trade alongside its rationale. Bitrue’s 24/7 market watch can then monitor the position and execute pre-set take-profit or stop-loss levels. Analysis, configuration, execution, and monitoring therefore sit inside one decision loop.
Explainable AI for XRP Traders
XRP is a test case because Bitrue has built much of its identity around the asset. For example, consider XRP is trading near $1.01 and a seven-day range extending to about $1.08.
Imagine a grid strategy calibrated around that $1.00-$1.08 band. Repeated movement inside the range can suit the strategy, with orders placed across successive price levels.
A sustained break above $1.08 changes the premise: grid spacing, profit targets, and potentially the strategy itself may warrant reassessment.
Bitrue AI is designed to revisit those assumptions as fresh data arrives. A strengthening trend could favour a breakout or momentum setup; deteriorating momentum could support a more conservative configuration.
The recommendation also shows the evidence the system says informed it, allowing the trader to inspect the assumptions behind the setup.
“An AI system that can’t explain its own trade recommendation isn’t really assisting anyone, it’s just automation with better marketing. With Explainable AI Strategies, someone who has never traded before can see exactly why a strategy was recommended, not just be told to trust it.” – Bitrue Research Institute.
Explainability exposes the assumptions behind a trade, but profitability still rests on whether those assumptions survive the market. A neat account of RSI, momentum and support can make a recommendation intelligible without making the future predictable.
An Overview of Bitrue AI
| Feature | Bitrue AI | Typical fixed/manual bot |
| Strategy generation | Generated from live analysis | Parameters configured by the user |
| Market response | Reassessed every few minutes | Often adjusted manually |
| Decision context | Conditions and rationale shown | Primarily parameters or signals |
| Explainability | Reasoning accompanies recommendations | Usually limited |
| Capital deployment | Parameters adapt with the setup | Allocation follows preset rules |
Who Bitrue AI Is Built For
- Beginners: Traders who want structured setups without building strategies manually.
- Busy traders: Users who cannot monitor crypto markets around the clock.
- Less disciplined traders: Those who want predefined risk levels and exit points before entering a trade.
- Intermediate traders: Users who may want a second opinion or an additional signal alongside their own analysis.
Bitrue AI Review
Bitrue AI makes automated reasoning legible before capital is committed, combining strategy generation, execution and monitoring with an explanation of each setup.
The unresolved issue is performance across changing market regimes. A well-explained strategy can still fail, particularly in leveraged crypto markets where volatility can invalidate a setup quickly.
Bitrue presents the tool as a copilot and advises users to review the reasoning, understand the risk and make the final trading decision themselves. The tool is currently free to use.
Verdict
Bitrue AI has a clearer use case than many crypto products carrying an AI label. Its main strength is the way it turns market data into a structured trade setup while showing users the reasoning and risk assumptions behind it.
That makes it most useful as a decision-support tool for newer or time-constrained traders rather than a replacement for trading judgment.
Its bigger test will be whether those strategies remain useful across different market conditions. Without longer-term performance data, the quality of the interface and explanations can be assessed more easily than the quality of the trading outcomes themselves.
For traders comfortable reviewing AI-generated setups rather than following them blindly, Bitrue AI offers a relatively accessible way to experiment with automated strategy generation. Futures trading still carries substantial risk, regardless of how clearly a recommendation is explained.
The post Bitrue AI Review 2026: How Its Free AI Trading Copilot Works appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Traditional economists typically begin with the presumption that private, competitive markets are efficient and the desirable way to provide ordinary goods like groceries. Government should stick to where it is needed, these economists believe, like providing defense and environmental regulation.
But over the past 50 years, this presumption has been totally undermined, as we’ve come to understand better the many ways in which markets “fail,” especially in the presence of imperfect information. Even in the simple area of groceries, market incentives direct consumers to more profitable but less nutritious foods, contributing, for instance, to the childhood diabetes crisis. Public grocery stores, whose objective is to provide better, more affordable goods for all citizens—rather than just maximizing profits—hold out the promise of a healthier population and a more productive labor force.
The argument for private markets begins with unrealistic assumptions about perfect markets, with perfect competition and perfect information. Even seemingly competitive markets like grocery stores are better described by monopolistic competition than perfect competition. In a series of papers, I showed that the market equilibrium in such markets was not, in general, efficient. This is true even if profit margins of grocery stores are thin. Indeed, part of the problem is that to maintain even these thin margins, grocery stores often have to engage in exploitative activities that encourage the consumption of high-margin and often less-nutritious foods at the expense of lower-margin foods that would be better for everyone’s health.
Crypto World
Solana ETFs Hit 9 Straight Days of Inflows While the Chart Cools Off: Is $100 About to Break?
In the latest Solana News, Institutional money keeps arriving even as the chart cools off, and that mismatch is defining the setup right now.
SOL is trading around $101.59 after shedding roughly 3% the previous session, putting the $100 psychological support level under direct scrutiny.
The token is holding that line while SOL-focused ETFs booked $153.87 million in inflows last week, extending their streak to 9 consecutive days of net buying.
That demand signal contrasts sharply with a daily chart where momentum indicators are easing. Institutional flows keep arriving even as the RSI retreats from overbought territory. Whether that combination resolves into bullish consolidation or a further decline depends on how the price behaves around nearby support and resistance levels in the next few sessions.
Solana News: Institutional Demand Meets Supply-side Changes
The $153.87 million weekly inflow figure lands alongside a governance shift on the network itself. Solana validators voted to double the disinflation rate to 30% and establish a new governance framework, a move aimed at better structuring disinflation and supporting long-term growth.
A separate proposal to introduce usage-based fees, which could have pushed daily SOL burns to almost 9,000 tokens, failed to pass.
The governance outcome leaves the disinflation measure in place without the proposed usage-based fee mechanism.
Supplementary reporting said US spot Solana ETFs recorded $60.91 million in daily inflows on August 27, describing it as their best daily inflow result of the year to date. The same report said August inflows had surpassed $134 million before the month closed.
Make Your Prediction Count With $25 For Free on Kalshi
Solana News: Why ETF inflows do not settle the $100 question
Strong ETF inflows typically project confidence in long-term growth and can fuel demand from large-wallet and retail investors as risk appetite improves. That is the constructive read on the nine-day streak, reflecting sustained capital flows into SOL-focused ETF products.
What it does not do is override the technical picture sitting directly beneath the price. The daily RSI has eased to 67 from overbought levels, suggesting buying pressure is cooling even as ETF inflows remain positive.
The MACD is edging lower toward its signal line, reinforcing that the pace of upside is slowing rather than accelerating.
Inflows are a supportive context for a price level, not a mechanism that guarantees it will hold. The weekly ETF figure alone does not determine whether SOL can maintain support near $100 following the previous session’s decline.
The $98.02 support and $116.88 barrier
SOL remains above its 50-day EMA at $85.05, its 100-day EMA at $82.77, and its 200-day EMA at $89.71. With all three averages below the market, the broader technical structure remains constructive despite easing short-term momentum.
Immediate downside support sits at the February 1 low of $98.02. A break below that level shifts attention to the 200-day EMA at $89.71, then to the 50-day EMA at $85.05.
On the upside, the next notable hurdle is $116.88, the December 18 low. The level represents a significant structural barrier to an extended rally.
If SOL holds the $98.02 low and stays above $100, the existing EMA structure remains intact, and $116.88 becomes the level to watch for a possible extension of the move higher. That scenario keeps the institutional-demand narrative in focus alongside the technical setup.
A break below $98.02 shifts attention toward the 200-day and 50-day EMAs as the next support levels and would indicate that ETF inflows have not offset broader selling pressure. A sustained move through $116.88 would clear the named structural barrier, while the cooling RSI and MACD keep attention on whether buying pressure can strengthen again.
The interaction between ETF flows, governance developments, and the technical levels around $100 will remain central to SOL’s near-term setup.
The Best Traders Around Use It: AI Copy Trading Bots From CryptoHopper
Solana Has the Demand. LiquidChain Is Building Where That Liquidity Can Travel Next.
Nine straight days of ETF inflows show that fresh capital is still willing to enter Solana even as price tests support. The bigger opportunity may be what happens when that capital starts moving beyond a single ecosystem.
LiquidChain is building for exactly that.
Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana still operate as separate liquidity environments. Moving between them means bridges, duplicated deployments, added fees, and fragmented execution. LiquidChain is building a single execution layer designed to connect all 3, allowing one deployment to reach multiple ecosystems without rebuilding the same application chain by chain.
That means LiquidChain does not need Solana to lose for its thesis to work. The more activity grows across major chains, the more valuable seamless execution between them becomes.
The presale is currently priced at $0.01454 with just over $920,000 raised, leaving the project at a stage where relatively modest inflows can still materially change its valuation.
Gain Special Access to Layer 3 Trading Here
The post Solana ETFs Hit 9 Straight Days of Inflows While the Chart Cools Off: Is $100 About to Break? appeared first on Cryptonews.
XRP is changing hands around $1.37 as the token grinds through a second week of consolidation after August’s rally and news faded. The bulls haven’t lost the plot entirely, but the chart is asking a question few want to answer yet: Is this a pause or the start of something worse? What happens at the next support test could set the tone for September.
The last 48 hours have been dominated by a post-rally pullback narrative. One market report noted XRP remains up 31% for August despite shedding 8% in a single week, pressured by heavy Binance sell-side volume and hawkish Jackson Hole commentary.
The general crypto sentiment remains choppy heading into September, with macro headlines doing as much damage as any XRP-specific news. That backdrop matters for where the price goes next.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
Can XRP Price Hit $1.5 This Week Amid Bearish Jackson Hole News?
XRP trades at $1.37, off 2% intraday, sitting just above the critical $1.35 support shelf that’s held for over a week. Volume has thinned since the late-August run, a sign that conviction is missing on both sides. Momentum indicators lean neutral-to-bearish, with the token still down nearly 7% on the weekly timeframe despite the monthly gain holding.
The best case would need XRP to reclaim $1.40–$1.43, opening a path toward $1.47–$1.50, especially if ETF flow data keeps surprising to the upside. Most likely scenario is a continued chop between $1.35 and $1.40 while the market digests macro signals.
What the bulls don’t want is a clean break below $1.35, which would expose $1.30–$1.32, with $1.26 as the next line of defense. None of these outcomes is locked in; the setup is watch-and-wait, not commit-and-hope.
Trade XRP on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT Airdrop
Maxi Doge Targets Early Mover Upside as XRP Tests Key Levels
Holding XRP through this chop hasn’t been fun, and the reward for patience so far has been sideways price action, not a breakout. At the current market cap, even a strong reclaim of $1.43 only nets double-digit percentage moves, respectable, but not the kind of asymmetric setup that changes a portfolio. That’s the gap early-stage plays are built to fill.
Enter Maxi Doge ($MAXI), a meme token built around a 240-lb canine mascot channeling 1000x-leverage trading energy and gym-bro humor into a community-driven presale.
Current price sits at $0.0002836, with $4.8 million raised so far and a huge 65% APY staking live for early holders. Standout features include holder-only trading competitions with leaderboard rewards and a Maxi Fund treasury earmarked for liquidity and partnerships.
Research Maxi Doge before the raise closes further.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
The post XRP News: Price Faces Crucial Support Test After August Rally Loses Steam appeared first on Cryptonews.
U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs turned negative at the end of last week, ending a nine-day inflow streak that had brought in a total of $2.8 billion. Meanwhile, Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s head of digital assets, said the CLARITY Act is less critical for Bitcoin than for the rest of the crypto market.
That places more attention on altcoins, DeFi, and other complex crypto categories, where the regulatory picture remains unsettled. For Bitcoin, Mitchnick said institutional investors are not treating additional legislation as part of their base case, viewing regulatory progress as potential upside rather than a requirement.
Mitchnick told CNBC that Bitcoin’s rally while equities struggled reflected its distinct risk and return drivers rather than old risk-on behavior. He said the move could not be explained as an equity-beta trade, pointing to Bitcoin-specific flows and the debasement trade.
Investors concerned about global debt and deficits are increasingly drawn to Bitcoin, according to Mitchnick, while younger demographics are favoring it over gold for a store-of-value role. He characterized that as Bitcoin’s long-term narrative.
The ETF data provides a measure of current demand. IBIT led last Thurday’s inflows with $277 million. Mitchnick said the fund continues to resonate with institutional investors, financial advisers, and direct investors. Cumulative net inflows stood at $55 billion, while total net assets reached $98.6 billion as Bitcoin traded near $78,500.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
CLARITY Act Status and Where the Regulatory Gap Matters
Mitchnick said the CLARITY Act matters more for assets connected to DeFi and other complex crypto categories. Those areas remain part of a broader regulatory picture that he described as unsettled, in contrast with Bitcoin’s comparatively broader regulatory acceptance.
Trade Bitcoin on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT Airdrop
BlackRock has also expanded its crypto product lineup to Ethereum with non-staking and staking products. The firm added a Bitcoin premium income product this summer that is designed to let investors retain most of Bitcoin’s upside while generating an annual yield and moderating volatility.
On stablecoins, Mitchnick said BlackRock sees growth opportunities beyond crypto trading, including cross-border payments and capital markets, with Genius Act implementation approaching.
Congress.gov lists H.R. 3633, the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, as having passed the House. Its latest listed action is an August 8, 2026, Senate cloture motion on the motion to proceed to the measure. The bill had not reached the enacted-into-law stage in the available record.
Mitchnick’s distinction remains that Bitcoin’s institutional case does not depend on further legislation as a base-case assumption, while the regulatory picture for DeFi and other complex crypto categories remains unsettled.
The post CLARITY Act Lags as Bitcoin ETFs Slip appeared first on Cryptonews.
Crypto World
Bitcoin’s Best Month of 2026 Is Digesting: Rising Exchange Reserves Say Setup Getting Riskier
Bitcoin’s rally is digesting, and the coin everyone actually wants exposure to right now is not Bitcoin at all.
BTC is trading at $78,000, still holding onto most of a rally that made August 2026 its strongest month of the year.
The headline number, a roughly 24% August gain that briefly pushed BTC above $80,000, masks a deteriorating internal picture. Binance’s Bitcoin reserves climbed to approximately 687,000 BTC, the highest level recorded in 2026, up sharply from near 617,000 BTC in late April.
Combine that with shrinking exchange stablecoin reserves and thinner dry powder, and the setup looks less like accumulation and more like distribution waiting for a bid.
A macro shock added to the pressure. Hawkish comments from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh at Jackson Hole raised the odds of a September rate hike, sending BTC below $78,000 intraday and dragging Ethereum, Solana, and XRP down alongside it on Friday.
The rally is not dead. It is just digesting. And that digestion is exactly the kind of environment where attention starts drifting toward the Layer 2 building on top of Bitcoin instead.
Can Bitcoin Price Hit $80K Again This Week?
BTC’s weekly range tells a story of chop, not conviction.
The week opened near $77,000, rallied to $81,455, slid to an intraday low of $76,877, and closed around $77,838. Current price of $78,243.77 sits right in the middle of that range.
Total crypto market cap ticked up to roughly $2.63 trillion, but 24-hour volume fell nearly 45% to about $184.44 billion, a classic post-volatility hangover.
Support sits in the $76,800 to $77,000 zone, with resistance clustering at $80,000 to $81,500. Analysts have flagged a hidden bearish divergence on BTC, suggesting reclaiming those highs will not come easy without a reset first.
ETF inflows resuming sends BTC back toward $81,500. Consolidation between $77,000 and $80,000 into September Fed commentary is the base case. A break below $76,800 opens a retest of the low $70,000s.
Standard Chartered’s $100,000 year-end target still stands. Getting there cleanly looks unlikely.
Make Your Prediction Count With $25 For Free on Kalshi
Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early Mover Upside as BTC Tests Key Levels
BTC at $78,243.77 near a 24% monthly gain still means anyone buying now is chasing an asset with a market cap north of $1.5 trillion. The upside math simply doesn’t work the same way twice.
That’s the gap Bitcoin Hyper (HYPER) is built to exploit, a presale positioned as the first Bitcoin Layer 2 with full SVM integration, aiming for execution speeds faster than Solana itself.
The project has raised $33,090,943.21 so far, with tokens priced at $0.0136855 and staking rewards offered at a high APY. Its core pitch: solve Bitcoin’s slow transactions and lack of programmability via a decentralized canonical bridge, while inheriting BTC’s underlying security.
Full presale details and fundraising progress are public, presale tokens carry no guaranteed value and remain high-risk until mainnet delivery. Worth a look for traders comfortable with early-stage exposure: research Bitcoin Hyper directly.
Gain Access to New Bitcoin Layer 2 Early Here
The post Bitcoin’s Best Month of 2026 Is Digesting: Rising Exchange Reserves Say Setup Getting Riskier appeared first on Cryptonews.
Berlin authorities have refused to meet an alleged 30 Bitcoin ransom demand after a cyberattack hit two state agencies, while officials have yet to confirm the amount of data claimed to have been stolen.
Summary
- Hackers reportedly demanded 30 Bitcoin, worth roughly €2 million, after a cyberattack affected two Berlin state agencies.
- The attackers threatened to publish stolen information, while Berlin officials have refused to pay and have not confirmed the reported ransom amount.
- Berlin initially said only public information was compromised but later acknowledged that non-public data had been affected.
- Rhysida reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack and said it obtained sensitive files, though Berlin authorities have not verified the full extent of the alleged theft.
The Berlin Senate Chancellery said it would not disclose details about the attackers, their demands or the information potentially taken from government systems while the investigation remains active. A Senate spokesperson told German news agency dpa that officials could not comment “for investigative reasons” at this stage.
The position leaves several details of the attack unconfirmed by the state government, including reports that the ransomware group Rhysida obtained sensitive files and threatened to publish them unless Berlin paid roughly 2 million euros in Bitcoin.
Berlin has refused the reported 30 Bitcoin demand
Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner confirmed after a special Senate meeting on Friday that the state was facing an extortion attempt following the cyberattack.
“The state of Berlin will not allow itself to be blackmailed,” Wegner said.
He did not publicly identify the attackers or disclose the amount demanded. Interior Senator Iris Spranger joined Wegner in briefing the public following the meeting, while authorities continued examining what information had left government systems.
German magazine Der Spiegel reported that Rhysida was behind the attack, citing information posted by the ransomware group on its dark web leak site. Security sources cited by the publication reportedly identified Rhysida as the group responsible for the extortion attempt.
The attackers demanded 30 BTC and threatened to release the information if Berlin did not pay, according to the report. At current prices, the demand was worth roughly 2 million euros.
Rhysida reportedly claimed to have taken almost six terabytes of data. The alleged files include information from tens of thousands of administrative offense proceedings, contracts, passwords, login credentials, emergency plans and documents related to critical infrastructure.
Berlin authorities have not independently confirmed the amount of data claimed by the group or the full list of compromised records.
The distinction has become important to the official account of the incident because the government’s assessment changed after the attack was discovered. Officials initially said only publicly accessible information had been taken before the Senate Chancellery acknowledged last Wednesday that non-public data was affected.
Cyberattack forced two Berlin agencies off the state network
The attack became public on Aug. 14 and affected Berlin’s Senate Department for Urban Development, Building and Housing and the Senate Department for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment.
Both agencies were temporarily disconnected from Berlin’s state network as officials worked to contain the incident.
The separation lasted for about a week and disrupted some administrative services. German reports said residents were temporarily unable to apply for or receive housing benefits while the affected systems remained isolated.
Investigators are still determining when the intrusion began and how much information left the network. Reports citing the investigation said data may have been extracted between Aug. 7 and Aug. 12, several days before officials detected the attack.
The Berlin State Criminal Police Office and prosecutors are investigating the breach. Wegner said state and federal security authorities were working to identify the perpetrators while officials continued checking which files had been accessed or removed.
Spranger said the attack had not compromised preparations for Berlin’s Sept. 20 state election, describing the election infrastructure as fully secured.
The ransomware case follows another government cyberattack involving a Bitcoin demand reported by crypto.news in July. Hackers took control of Kenyan President William Ruto’s official website and demanded 5 BTC while threatening to disclose unspecified information.
Kenyan authorities temporarily restricted access to the website and opened an investigation. The country’s ICT Authority said at the time that investigators had found no evidence that sensitive information had been accessed, stolen or lost.
Rhysida has operated as a ransomware group since 2023
Rhysida emerged in 2023 and has been linked to attacks against government bodies, healthcare organizations and other institutions in several countries.
The group has previously targeted organizations including the British Library and the Chilean Army. Its operations generally combine network intrusion with demands for payment, while the threat of publishing stolen information can be used to pressure victims.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have repeatedly featured in ransomware cases because attackers can direct payments to blockchain addresses without using conventional bank accounts.
Public blockchain transactions can still be followed. A crypto.news report on blockchain forensics detailed how investigators can trace cryptocurrency movements between addresses and use transaction patterns and other information to connect funds with services or individuals.
Law enforcement agencies have recovered cryptocurrency from ransomware operations in previous cases. In August 2025, U.S. authorities seized $1.09 million in cryptocurrency linked to the BlackSuit ransomware group alongside four servers and nine domains.
BlackSuit had been linked to more than 450 known U.S. victims and over $370 million in ransom demands since 2022. One victim paid 49.3 BTC in 2023 after an attack, with investigators later recovering part of the payment, according to the Justice Department.
A separate U.S. case in July involved a suspected member of the Scattered Spider hacking group. Federal prosecutors charged 19-year-old Peter Stokes over an alleged corporate intrusion and an unsuccessful $8 million cryptocurrency ransom demand.
The Justice Department said Scattered Spider-linked intrusions had resulted in more than $100 million in ransom payments, with attackers using techniques including phishing and impersonating employees when contacting corporate help desks.
Berlin has not confirmed Rhysida’s data claims
Berlin’s investigation remains focused on establishing the extent of the breach while the government withholds details that officials say could affect the inquiry.
Rhysida’s claims about the stolen material originate from the group’s dark web communications and have not been fully verified by the Berlin government. Officials have confirmed that non-public information was affected, reversing the initial assessment that the compromised material was limited to publicly accessible data.
The Senate Chancellery has not disclosed whether investigators have verified the reported 30 BTC demand, the nearly six terabytes allegedly taken or the individual categories of information Rhysida claims to possess.
Wegner said authorities at the state and federal levels were working to identify the group responsible, while the Berlin State Criminal Police Office and prosecutors continued their investigation into the attack.
DeFi lending infrastructure has suffered another high-value breach on Flow EVM, with Blockaid reporting that the protocol More Markets lost roughly $9.3 million in assets from a lending reserve. The incident, described in a Monday post by Blockaid on X, centers on an overborrow strategy using a liquid staking token.
Blockaid said the attacker drained about 15.5 million Wrapped Flow (WFLOW) tokens—valued at approximately $9.3 million—from the mFlowWFLOW lending reserve. The exploit reportedly involved Ankr Staked FLOW (ankrFLOW), together with Aave V3’s “efficiency mode” (E-mode), to expand borrowing capacity beyond what the reserve should allow.
Key takeaways
- Blockaid attributes the More Markets Flow EVM reserve drain to an overborrowing approach using Ankr Staked FLOW (ankrFLOW) and Aave V3 E-mode.
- About 15.5 million Wrapped Flow (WFLOW), worth around $9.3 million, were taken from the mFlowWFLOW lending reserve.
- The month-to-date total losses from crypto hacks reached $139.7 million in August, placing the month as the third-largest by stolen value so far in 2026.
- The August figure is sharply lower than July’s $254 million in stolen funds, suggesting either fewer major breaches or reduced impact from exploits.
- Cronos paused its network on Sunday following a separate reported $75 million exploit tied to the Tectonic DeFi lending protocol.
How the More Markets reserve was drained
According to Blockaid’s account of the event, the attacker targeted More Markets’ lending reserve that holds mFlowWFLOW. Blockaid said the stolen amount consisted of 15.5 million Wrapped Flow (WFLOW) tokens, which it valued at approximately $9.3 million based on blockchain data it shared publicly.
Blockaid further claimed that the exploit depended on two linked mechanisms: the use of Ankr Staked FLOW (ankrFLOW) and Aave V3’s E-mode. E-mode is designed to increase borrowing power for specific asset groups when their values are expected to move together—commonly a liquid staking token and its corresponding underlying token.
In practical terms, this means that when the protocol’s configuration treats certain pairs as sufficiently correlated, the borrowing limits can become more permissive. Blockaid’s report indicates the attacker leveraged that increased borrowing power to overextend against the reserve, resulting in the loss of WFLOW tokens from mFlowWFLOW.
E-mode designed for correlation—what this incident suggests
E-mode in Aave V3 is intended to make capital more efficient by rewarding users when asset prices track each other closely. Blockaid’s description of this exploit highlights a recurring risk in DeFi: when an attacker can obtain collateral exposure through a token wrapper or staking derivative, the assumed relationship between the assets may be insufficiently protective during the exploit window.
Blockaid specifically tied the strategy to Ankr Staked FLOW (ankrFLOW) in combination with E-mode for correlated assets. While E-mode is not inherently wrong—its goal is to reflect genuine market linkage—incidents like this underscore that protocols still need robust defenses around liquidation mechanics, borrowing limits, and whether the collateral’s behavior under stress matches the assumptions baked into risk parameters.
For investors and users, the takeaway is not that E-mode should be avoided, but that reliance on correlated asset groups can raise the stakes for monitoring. Protocol teams typically need to ensure that their accounting, oracle choices, and validation logic remain resilient when liquidity conditions change quickly.
Broader hack landscape: August losses mount
Blockaid’s reported loss adds to a fast-moving set of crypto-security events. DefiLlama’s data on hacks shows that total cryptocurrency losses from hacks reached $139.7 million in August, making it the third-largest month by value stolen so far in 2026.
The same DefiLlama dataset cited in the reporting indicates a meaningful change from earlier in the year: July saw approximately $254 million stolen. While August has a lower total than July, the ongoing frequency of incidents—spanning multiple ecosystems and chains—suggests that attackers remain active and that DeFi lending remains a frequent target.
Another DeFi lending event: Cronos halts after Tectonic exploit
Alongside the More Markets issue, the market also digested another major DeFi lending-related disruption. On Sunday, Cronos halted its blockchain network following a reported $75 million exploit targeting the DeFi lending protocol Tectonic.
That earlier incident, reported by Cointelegraph, involved a sizable compromise that prompted an emergency network pause by Cronos. Together, the two stories emphasize how quickly lending platforms can become central points of failure—especially when borrowing configurations intersect with token derivatives and liquidity-linked assumptions.
At the time of publication, More Markets had not publicly confirmed the incident or disclosed whether users suffered losses. Cointelegraph said it contacted Blockaid for more details but did not receive a response by publication, and it was unable to reach More Markets for comment.
Readers should watch for follow-up disclosures from More Markets regarding the affected reserve, whether funds were fully recovered, and any post-incident changes to collateral or E-mode configuration. For the wider DeFi community, the key uncertainty is how closely future risk models will account for real-world token behavior during fast-moving market or liquidity conditions.
Blockaid Flags $9.3M Lending Reserve Drain via Ankr Tokens, E-Mode
The 8 Greatest Fantasy Movie Masterpieces of the 1960s
Dolly Parton laid to rest alongside husband in Nashville
-
Crypto World5 days agoSpaceX stock could rise 75% to $240, JPMorgan says
-
Fashion3 days agoWeekend Open Thread: Maeve – Corporette.com
-
Crypto World3 days agoBitcoin’s 22% rally now needs real demand to outlast Treasury liquidity boost
-
Crypto World5 days agoWarsh Jackson Hole keynote puts financial innovation first
-
Crypto World6 days agoA $30 Billion AI Fund Implodes, Now the SEC Is Investigating Wall Street’s Role
-
Business3 days agoSalesforce Stock Soars 19% as Blowout Earnings and Agentforce AI Growth Silence Software Skeptics
-
Crypto World5 days agoDid Trump Just Move SpaceX Stock With One Truth Social Post?
-
Crypto World4 days agoElon Musk Grok Bot Promise: We Will Make You Whole if AI Loses Your Money
-
Business3 days agoApple Confirms September 9 Keynote and Reveals Its Full Pre-Order Schedule
-
Business5 days agoWalmart takes aim at younger shoppers with new fashion brand
-
NewsBeat5 days agoLindsay Clancy jury braces for closing arguments as judge tells court: ‘You’ve heard all the evidence’ – Live updates
-
Crypto World2 days agoBitcoin price tests $82K resistance as Brandt stays long
-
Business2 days agoOnto Innovation Stock: AI’s Next Bottleneck Is Yield (NYSE:ONTO)
-
Business5 days agoThailand’s Eastern Economic Corridor Capital City (EECiti): Key Developments and Investment Opportunities
-
Crypto World4 days agoNVIDIA revenue hits $96.2B as AI demand doubles
-
Business7 days agoModerna CEO warns China is pouring state money into mRNA technology
-
Business6 days agoNVIDIA Stock Drops Nearly 2 Percent to $210 on Seventh Losing Day Ahead of Critical AI Earnings
-
Business3 days agoiPhone 18 Pro Pre-Orders Could Shift to Saturday as Apple Reportedly Avoids September 11 Anniversary
-
NewsBeat5 days agoTrump’s trade truce with China faces test with Iran effort
-
Crypto World5 days agoNvidia Q2 Earnings Reveal $96.2 Billion Beat, So Why Is NVDA Falling?
You must be logged in to post a comment Login