Binance-linked entities and stablecoin payments card provider RedotPay are sparring over whether a Singapore legal case tied to their wider Hong Kong dispute is winding down after a hearing held on Aug. 7.

RedotPay told Cointelegraph that it expects Binance to discontinue the Singapore proceedings following that hearing and said it will seek legal costs if the claimant withdraws. Binance, however, pushed back, telling Cointelegraph that reports claiming it is withdrawing its Singapore claims are false and that it is continuing to pursue its case.

Key takeaways

• RedotPay expects Binance-linked parties to discontinue the Singapore proceedings after an Aug. 7 hearing.
• Binance says it is not abandoning its Singapore claims and has notified the court and RedotPay accordingly.
• The Singapore dispute is part of a broader, parallel legal battle that includes a Hong Kong case seeking nearly $473 million.
• The parties’ next steps will likely hinge on whether the Singapore case is formally withdrawn and how costs are handled.

Dispute over whether the Singapore case is ending

The disagreement is the latest turn in a cross-jurisdiction fight that has already drawn attention for its size. According to a RedotPay spokesperson, RedotPay expects Binance to stop the Singapore proceedings after the Aug. 7 hearing. In that scenario, RedotPay said it would request legal costs stemming from the discontinuance and that the parties would attempt to reach an agreement on those costs.

Binance’s response is direct. In comments to Cointelegraph, a Binance spokesperson said the claim that Binance would withdraw its Singapore case is incorrect. Binance stated that it is “not abandoning its claims” and that it has informed both the court and RedotPay of its position.

While both sides reference the same Aug. 7 hearing, their public descriptions of what follows diverge—one side treating discontinuance as the likely outcome, the other insisting the case remains active. For market participants, this matters because procedural developments can affect timelines, litigation exposure, and leverage in related negotiations, particularly when disputes are running simultaneously across regions.

Hong Kong lawsuit seeks nearly $473 million in damages

The Singapore action forms part of a broader legal fight between Binance-affiliated entities and RedotPay, including a separate case in Hong Kong. Earlier coverage from Bloomberg, as cited by Cointelegraph, reported that Nest Trading, DistributedTechnologies and Chaintecs Consulting Singapore had filed a petition in Hong Kong against RedotPay’s co-founders.

The Hong Kong plaintiffs allege that RedotPay diverted more than 470,000 Binance Card users. Their core claim is that RedotPay allowed Binance Pay funds to be used for stablecoin card top-ups outside the terms of a commercial agreement. Damages were estimated at $472.8 million, based on a claimed lifetime customer value of $925 per user.

In parallel, Chaintecs pursued related proceedings against RedotPay affiliates in Singapore, where a hearing had been scheduled for Aug. 7—prompting the current exchange about discontinuance and costs.

RedotPay has rejected the allegations. It told Cointelegraph it would defend itself through the legal process, characterizing the claims as “unfounded allegations” at the time they first surfaced.

What the Binance Pay and RedotPay partnership enabled

RedotPay and Binance’s connection in this dispute traces back to their partnership announced in December 2023. RedotPay said at the time that it had established Binance Pay functionality, allowing Binance Pay users to make direct deposits to RedotPay cards.

Binance later ended support for the integration. RedotPay told Cointelegraph that Binance discontinued the Binance Pay support as of April 3, 2026, citing a review of its merchant partners. That operational change occurred months before the legal controversy gained mainstream attention.

In disputes like these, contract implementation details and timing often become pivotal. The plaintiffs’ theory in the Hong Kong matter centers on whether RedotPay used Binance Pay funds in a way allegedly inconsistent with the commercial agreement. The fact that Binance later ended the integration after reviewing merchant partners adds another dimension, even though it does not, on its own, resolve the underlying contention over what was permitted during the partnership period.

Why the Singapore procedural fight matters

Even without a final decision on the merits, the question of whether the Singapore proceedings continue—or are discontinued—can influence how both sides manage risk and strategy across the broader dispute. If Binance were to discontinue in Singapore, RedotPay’s statement suggests it would treat the matter as a cost event that could become a negotiation point between the parties.

Binance’s statement, on the other hand, signals that it does not view the Singapore claim as concluded. That stance implies further litigation steps may follow, at least unless the court records and filings later reflect a withdrawal.

Until the Singapore case’s status is clarified through court action, filings, or formal orders, the public accounts remain in tension: RedotPay expects a discontinuance and costs discussion, while Binance says it has no plans to withdraw its claims.

Readers should watch for official court documentation in Singapore after the Aug. 7 hearing—particularly any formal discontinuance order or cost determination—and for whether the procedural posture there shifts the momentum in the parallel Hong Kong damages case.

Privacy has emerged as a key barrier to bringing more financial activity onchain. Public blockchains expose transaction histories, balances and counterparties by default, a level of transparency that is difficult to reconcile with how businesses and financial institutions operate.

Trading firms don’t want to reveal positions, companies can’t publish payroll and treasury activity and individuals may not want their financial lives visible on a block explorer. Privacy infrastructure aims to bring the confidentiality of traditional finance onchain while preserving crypto’s programmability and verifiability.

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a steady value, typically by tracking the U.S. dollar. They have become a key piece of crypto infrastructure, providing a bridge between traditional money and blockchains while enabling faster payments, trading and settlement without the volatility of assets like bitcoin BTC$63,726.88 or ether ETH$1,889.28.

Miden sees USDCx as the foundation for a broader category it calls “PriFi,” spanning private institutional trading, B2B payments, payroll, cross-border payments and corporate treasury management.

The company spun out of Polygon as an independent project in April 2025 and is backed by a16z crypto, 1kx, Hack VC and others.

Read more: The future of crypto payments won’t include on-ramps or bridges, Fun CEO says

Prediction market infrastructure is getting a more institutional-style upgrade. Kalshi says its live order book for event contracts is now available through data provider DoubleZero Edge’s dedicated fiber network, allowing subscribers to consume real-time market depth in a machine-readable form.

The companies announced on Wednesday that the arrangement will be the first of its kind for a prediction market supplying its real-time order book data on sports and crypto perpetuals event contracts through that dedicated distribution channel. Instead of assembling market data from order books and API responses, users can subscribe to a purpose-built feed designed to reduce the engineering effort required to integrate prediction-market liquidity.

Key takeaways

• Kalshi’s real-time order book for sports and crypto perpetuals event contracts is now distributed via DoubleZero Edge’s dedicated fiber network.
• DoubleZero Edge positions the feed as a turnkey, machine-readable alternative to building infrastructure using raw order books and API responses.
• Sports is Kalshi’s second-largest category by weekly notional volume, with crypto in third place, according to Dune data.
• The move comes as Kalshi remains embroiled in ongoing US jurisdiction disputes over whether its sports event contracts are regulated as derivatives or treated as wagers.

Dedicated fiber distribution for prediction-market order books

At the center of the announcement is how market data is delivered. DoubleZero Edge provides a dedicated fiber network and a corresponding data feed, which the companies say will stream Kalshi’s live order book information for relevant contracts.

From a user perspective, that matters because prediction markets often require low-latency, structured data pipelines to support faster market analysis, algorithmic trading strategies, and more reliable execution. The companies’ messaging emphasizes that data access is a “critical part” of market structure, and they argue that the broader ecosystem has lacked similar distribution-grade infrastructure as crypto, perpetuals, and prediction markets have expanded.

DoubleZero co-founder Austin Federa framed the initiative as bringing “institutional-grade infrastructure” to industry participants. In practical terms, the pitch is less about changing the underlying contracts and more about improving how market participants can ingest and process market depth at scale.

Where Kalshi’s volume sits across sports, crypto, and exotics

The announcement also highlights Kalshi’s product mix. According to Dune data shared in the original coverage, exotics lead Kalshi’s weekly notional trading volume at 39.4%, followed by sports at 37.8%. Crypto ranks third at 20.3% in the same weekly notional-volume breakdown.

Sports being the second-largest category helps explain why the order book distribution focus includes sports event contracts. It also signals that demand for structured, low-latency access isn’t limited to crypto-linked products; it spans the broader set of markets Kalshi operates.

These percentages are based on weekly notional volume and are attributed to Dune via a referenced query on its platform. (See: Dune data.)

Regulatory pressure remains: sports contracts and competing jurisdiction claims

The new data distribution capability lands in the middle of a regulatory fight that has been escalating for months. Kalshi’s sports event contracts have become the subject of a jurisdictional dispute involving state regulators and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

State authorities have argued that Kalshi’s sports contracts amount to wagers and should therefore fall under state gambling laws. Kalshi and the CFTC counter that the contracts are derivatives, placing them under the CFTC’s exclusive authority.

Legal actions cited in the reporting illustrate how unsettled the status remains. In late June, a Michigan judge temporarily blocked Kalshi from allowing residents to place bets on sporting events. Around the same time, Kentucky filed suit against multiple prediction market platforms—including Kalshi and Polymarket—alleging they operate unlicensed sports betting services.

Nevada also issued a temporary ban on Kalshi earlier in March, according to the same reporting. Meanwhile, the CFTC has taken the opposite tack by suing several states. The agency’s argument, as described in earlier coverage, is that federally regulated event contracts fall under its exclusive jurisdiction.

For market participants, these disputes are more than legal background—they can affect where contracts are accessible and under what compliance frameworks traders can operate. Even as the infrastructure for order book delivery improves, the ability to participate may still depend on jurisdiction-specific rulings and enforcement outcomes.

Broader visibility for Kalshi markets

The story also connects Kalshi’s markets to broader consumer-facing visibility. Earlier in July, OpenAI began displaying Kalshi’s prediction market odds for FIFA World Cup matches in ChatGPT search results, according to prior coverage.

This kind of display can increase public awareness of event markets and may expand the audience beyond traditional traders and developers. However, it also underlines that prediction markets are increasingly part of mainstream information flows—an environment where legal clarity becomes even more important.

What to watch next

Kalshi and DoubleZero Edge’s dedicated fiber feed could make it easier for institutions and serious builders to integrate prediction-market order books without custom plumbing, but the larger question for users is whether contract access will remain stable as courts and regulators continue to argue over jurisdiction. Watch upcoming rulings and any further adjustments to where and how sports event contracts can be offered.

Bitcoin’s mining economics are looking increasingly subsidy-driven as transaction fees sink to levels last seen in the late stages of the decade. At the same time, multiple analysts point to a shift in miner strategy toward AI and high-performance computing (AI/HPC), coinciding with a noticeable decline in network hash rate.

Onchain analytics and mining cost estimates show fees make up just 0.69% of miner revenue, while the broader pressure on margins continues as Bitcoin’s price weakens and electricity costs remain a critical factor for operators. The resulting question for investors is whether miners’ AI pivot will stabilize long-term operations—or introduce new volatility to the network’s security parameters.

Key takeaways

• Glassnode data indicates Bitcoin fees are contributing only 0.69% of miner revenue, returning close to decade-low territory.
• Fees were reported as low as 0.52% in April, leaving miners more dependent on the fixed block subsidy.
• Checkonchain estimates show hash rate fell about 33% from an October 2025 peak of 1.3 ZH/s to 861 EH/s.
• Analysts argue the industry’s shift toward AI/HPC has contributed to reduced mining activity as difficulty adjustments evolve.
• Estimated mining production costs remain above current spot price, intensifying profitability pressure for marginal operators.

Fees fade as miner reliance on subsidies grows

According to Glassnode, transaction fees now represent just 0.69% of miner revenue—near the lowest levels seen in years. Glassnode co-founder Rafael Schultze-Kraft previously highlighted that fees had stayed below 1% of miner revenue for almost a year, with the share falling to 0.52% in April.

In a post on X, Schultze-Kraft said that “Bitcoin was below $400 the last time fee share was this low.” While that comparison is meant to contextualize the current environment, the practical impact is straightforward: when fee revenue collapses, miners lean more heavily on the block subsidy to cover operating expenses.

That matters because the subsidy is fixed in BTC terms—currently 3.125 BTC per block—but its value in US dollars depends on Bitcoin’s price. The article notes Bitcoin has fallen nearly 50% since its October 2025 all-time high, which would reduce the USD value of each subsidy payment and squeeze margins unless operational costs fall or fee rates rebound.

Cost pressure stays high: production estimates outpace spot

The mining picture is also constrained by profitability math. Checkonchain’s mining analytics put the estimated average cost to produce one Bitcoin at $78,254 as of Tuesday—about 23% above the current spot price referenced in the source.

Even if these are “estimated” costs rather than audited figures for every operator, the direction is what counts for the market: when production costs exceed spot value, miners are incentivized to either optimize aggressively, consolidate, or exit. That dynamic tends to hit smaller players first, potentially concentrating hash rate among operators with more capital flexibility and better power procurement.

Investors should also consider that production costs are influenced by variables outside the chain itself, especially electricity prices and hardware efficiency. In periods where fees remain weak, any non-chain cost increase can accelerate the churn in mining capacity.

Hash rate drops 33% since October 2025 peak

Network security metrics reflect the mining sector’s changing behavior. Checkonchain estimates hash rate declined from a peak of about 1.3 ZH/s in October 2025 to roughly 861 EH/s, a drop of 33%.

Hash rate is an important indicator not because it alone determines security, but because sustained decreases can signal reduced competitive participation. If the network’s mining base becomes less active, difficulty and mining economics may adjust over time—but the transition itself can be disruptive for operators and for the incentives that sustain long-run security.

Analysts warn AI/HPC pivot could be a concerning shift

Beyond the numbers, several analysts argue the decline in hash rate is linked to a strategic redeployment of compute resources. Independent analyst William Clemente, in an analysis published at the weekend and shared on X, acknowledged the downturn while arguing that automated difficulty readjustments would have offered a window for miners to increase activity. With difficulty reported as rising again, he suggested that miners’ move toward “more lucrative AI computing” has become more visible.

“There is no other way to slice it, hash rate has been in a decline,” Clemente wrote, pointing to margin compression after 2022 and higher energy prices, but also emphasizing a pivot by “many into AI/HPC.” He characterized these AI-related moves as “prudent business decisions” for publicly traded companies that pursued them.

The broader claim is not simply that miners are diversifying; it’s that the timing and direction of the shift could reduce mining participation during a period when fees are already contributing less than 1% of revenue. In an environment where the subsidy is already under pressure from Bitcoin’s price drawdown, a reduction in mining activity could widen the gap between operational realities and long-term security assumptions.

Cointelegraph previously reported that CleanSpark refocused on AI, shifting toward operating data centers after missing profit targets. Another example cited in the source is Keel Infrastructure, which shut down all US mining operations after revenue fell 50% in the second quarter. These cases support Clemente’s argument that operators facing weaker mining profitability may look to alternative compute markets.

Charles Edwards of Capriole Investments also linked hash rate declines to miners’ AI pivot, describing it as a “concerning Bitcoin development in 2026” and noting acceleration since April.

What to watch next as incentives keep shifting

With fee revenue near decade-low levels and estimated mining costs exceeding spot value, the next signal will be whether hash rate stabilizes as difficulty adjusts—or whether additional miners continue reallocating capital toward AI/HPC. Investors may also want to monitor how quickly fee share recovers, since sustained low fees increase the network’s dependence on the subsidy at exactly the moment when operators appear to be changing how they deploy compute.

Prediction market Kalshi’s live order book is now available through data provider DoubleZero Edge’s dedicated fiber network, the two companies said in a Wednesday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

Kalshi said this makes it the first prediction market to distribute its real-time order book data on sports and crypto perpetuals event contracts, which will be available to new DoubleZero Edge subscribers.

Users looking for a machine-readable view of prediction market data can access these capabilities via the dedicated feed, instead of building this infrastructure from order books and application programming interface (API) responses themselves.

Data access is a “critical part” of market structure, but related infrastructure has been missing from new financial paradigms such as crypto, perpetuals and prediction markets, said Austin Federa, co-founder of DoubleZero, adding that this initiative will bring institutional-grade infrastructure to industry participants. 

Sports ranks as the second-largest category on Kalshi with 37.8% of weekly notional volume, followed by crypto in third place, at 20.3%. Exotics ranked first, accounting for 39.4% of Kalshi’s weekly notional trading volume, according to Dune data.

In early July, OpenAI started displaying Kalshi’s prediction market odds for FIFA World Cup matches in ChatGPT search results. 

Kalshi’s sports event contracts are at the center of a jurisdictional dispute between state regulators and the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).  State authorities argue that the contracts are wagers subject to state gambling laws, while the CFTC and Kalshi contend that they are derivatives subject to the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction. 

On June 29, a Michigan judge temporarily blocked Kalshi from allowing residents to place bets on sporting events. Days earlier, Kentucky sued five prediction market platforms, including Kalshi and Polymarket, accusing them of operating unlicensed sports betting platforms. Nevada also issued a temporary ban on Kalshi earlier in March. 

The CFTC also sued several states, arguing that federally regulated event contracts fall under its exclusive authority. 

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U.S. inflation in July was in line with expectations, leaving expectations for another Federal Reserve rate hike broadly unchanged.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 0.1% in July from the previous month, compared with economists’ forecast for a 0.1% increase and June’s 0.4% decline.

On a year-over-year basis, CPI rose 3.4%, in line with forecasts and slightly lower than June’s 3.5% reading.

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, rose 0.2% month over month in July, compared with forecasts for a 0.2% increase and an unchanged reading in June. On a year-over-year basis, core CPI rose 2.5% as expected by analysts and edging lower from June’s 2.6%.

Bitcoin BTC$63,520.23 fell from $64,400 to $64,080 in a knee-jerk reaction before stabilizing, still largely flat over 24 hours. Nasdaq 100 futures traded 0.7% higher.

Treasury yields remained under pressure, maintaining pre-CPI weakness. The two-year hovered at 4.19%, down 3.6 basis points on the day, and the 10-year yield stood at 4.66%, also down three basis points.

Already a key data point for markets, July’s CPI report took on added importance after a weaker-than-expected U.S. employment report showed that the economy unexpectedly shed 23,000 jobs in July.

Standard Chartered-led Anchorpoint Financial has started a limited rollout of HKDAP, its Hong Kong dollar-backed stablecoin, four months after securing one of the city’s first two issuer licences.

The initial rollout will focus on institutional payments and settlement before adding more access channels and cross-border applications.

HashKey Exchange and OSL Group joined as authorized distributors, allowing eligible institutions and professional investors to obtain HKDAP through their apps and other supported channels, according to separate announcements.

HashKey said it had completed its first minting and redemption transaction for the token, including conversions between HKDAP and fiat currency.

Anchorpoint, a joint venture between Standard Chartered, Animoca Brands and HKT, plans to use distributors and commercial partners to bring the token into payments, settlement and other financial applications. HKDAP stands for “Hong Kong dollar at par.”

Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies with values pegged to an external reference such as fiat currencies. Stablecoins are widely used to finance crypto trading, serve as a means of payment and facilitate cross‑border capital flows. The combined market cap of all stablecoins was nearly $287 billion as of this writing.

The latest issue started with a bad internet route from Teraswitch’s Miami facility that then spread to data centers across Europe and Asia, cutting off validators in London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Singapore and Tokyo. North America stayed online. The company fixed the issue in about 10 minutes, and traffic was flowing again by 4:16 a.m. UTC.

One single network operator, identified as AS2032, controlled more than a quarter of all the tokens people had locked up to secure the network, which was more than the Solana-prescribed safety limit. Almost all of those tokens went offline at the same time. Other companies lost another 14 million tokens in the same short period. Most of the affected validators, including the big one called Helius, stayed offline for the full 33 minutes because their backup systems never switched on.

This whole event is a clear warning: if more than one-third of the network’s tokens ever go offline at once, the entire blockchain freezes for every single person holding SOL, and there is no quick way to fix the bigger damage that would follow.