OKX has introduced pre-IPO derivatives tied to OpenAI and Anthropic alongside 100 tokenized stock markets for eligible European traders.

The Sep. 10 announcement from OKX said its new pre-IPO X-Perps allow eligible European customers to trade changes in the implied valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic before either company goes public.

Traders can open long or short positions at any time and apply leverage of up to 10x. However, the contracts do not represent shares in either private company or give their holders an economic claim against the referenced business.

Prices may also differ from valuations set during private funding rounds or from any price established through a future initial public offering. According to the company’s product disclaimer, an IPO could be delayed, canceled, or never take place.

OKX pre-IPO markets track private company valuations

Unlike a direct private-market investment, an X-Perp is a derivative through which traders speculate on the direction of a referenced company’s implied value. Opening the products with OpenAI and Anthropic gives European customers exposure to two closely followed private technology companies without placing their names on a shareholder register.

OKX said traders can enter and exit positions at any time, while each market will open with liquidity intended to support larger trades. Additional pre-IPO contracts will be introduced when the company considers them relevant.

Although the products extend access beyond conventional private markets, leverage raises the potential size of both profits and losses. OKX warned that customers trading X-Perps could lose part or all of their invested funds, particularly when leveraged positions move against them.

Erald Ghoos, CEO of OKX Europe, said pre-IPO markets have generally remained unavailable to most European traders through traditional brokerages and regulated platforms. He linked the launch to rising demand for the exchange’s perpetual products following the end of Europe’s MiCA transition period in July.

“X-Perps volume in Europe has grown fourfold since MiCA’s transition period ended in July, and these markets are built for those same traders,” Ghoos said.

According to Ghoos, the company intends to give European users enough liquidity to trade larger positions without requiring them to move to an unregulated venue. OKX did not provide a trading-volume figure or the initial implied valuations assigned to OpenAI and Anthropic in its announcement.

Tokenized stocks add 100 round-the-clock markets

Alongside the pre-IPO contracts, OKX has opened 100 tokenized stock and exchange-traded fund markets. The initial list includes products linked to SpaceX, Google, Nvidia, and Palantir, as well as the SPY and QQQ ETFs.

Customers can buy, sell, or convert the tokens and trade them continuously, including when the traditional markets for their referenced assets are closed. Supported order types include limit, market, stop, time-weighted average price, and Iceberg orders.

Stock tokens can also operate inside OKX’s dollar-cost averaging and Grid trading bots. For customers using multiple products, eligible tokenized positions may serve as collateral for X-Perps, allowing the same account balance to support stock-linked and crypto-linked derivatives.

On-chain transfers give the products another feature not normally available through a standard brokerage account. OKX said supported tokens can be deposited to the platform or withdrawn to external addresses, including self-custody wallets.

Round-the-clock access does not remove the pricing issues created when traditional exchanges are closed. OKX’s disclosure states that the tokens track the price of a referenced share, but holders do not directly own that share and receive no shareholder voting rights.

Company names used for the products do not indicate a partnership or endorsement, the disclosure added. Stock-token holders, therefore, gain price exposure through the instrument issued or supported by the platform rather than membership in the shareholder base of Google, Nvidia, Palantir, or another referenced company.

Ownership rights remain central to tokenized stocks

The distinction between price exposure and direct share ownership has become a central issue as trading platforms list more third-party stock tokens.

In September, crypto.news previously reported that AMC Entertainment objected to a Robinhood token linked to its shares. AMC CEO Adam Aron said his company had neither approved nor participated in the product, while Robinhood maintained that it stood behind its stock-token service.

Robinhood’s product documents described its tokens as debt securities issued by a Jersey entity rather than shares issued by the companies they follow. Buyers received economic exposure but no ownership, voting rights, or direct claim against AMC, creating a distinction similar to the one stated in OKX’s disclosure.

OpenAI raised a related concern in July 2025 after Robinhood distributed tokens offering exposure to the private company. OpenAI said at the time that it had not partnered with Robinhood, did not endorse the tokens, and had not approved a transfer of its equity.

For traders, the structure of each product determines whether a token represents an actual security, a contractual claim against an issuer, or a derivative that follows a reference price. Counterparty and insolvency risks can also differ from those attached to shares held through a conventional regulated broker.

OKX’s pre-IPO disclaimer states that its X-Perps provide no ownership or economic claim in the private company being referenced. Its tokenized stock disclosure separately says those instruments confer neither direct ownership nor shareholder rights.

US regulators are considering a different model

The OKX products have been launched for eligible European traders, leaving American investors outside the stated rollout. In the United States, regulators have been considering how round-the-clock tokenized equity trading could operate under federal securities rules.

On Aug. 17, earlier coverage detailed work by the Securities and Exchange Commission on a limited exemption that could allow selected platforms to test tokenized securities. No final eligibility criteria or implementation date had been announced when that report was published, and existing federal securities requirements remained in force.

SEC staff has distinguished between tokens issued with the involvement of the company whose shares they represent and third-party instruments that merely track a security or provide a claim against another issuer. According to the agency’s position covered in that report, placing a stock on a blockchain does not remove it from U.S. securities law.

Ownership records, custody, disclosures, market surveillance, and investor claims during issuer insolvency remain among the matters U.S. regulators are assessing. Trading outside regular exchange hours also raises questions about price discovery and execution when the underlying cash market is closed.

A regulated model has already entered limited testing in the United States. In March, Nasdaq received SEC approval for eligible participants to trade certain securities in either conventional or tokenized form.

Nasdaq’s pilot covers eligible Russell 1000 stocks and major index-linked ETFs. Under the approved structure, the traditional and tokenized versions carry the same pricing and shareholder rights, unlike products that only follow a company’s market value.

For European customers, OKX has placed the new instruments in the same account as its crypto spot, X-Perps, trading bots, Earn, and Pay services. Users can apply the platform’s order types, automated strategies and margin balance across the supported products without maintaining a separate brokerage account.

Financial instruments and related investment services are offered through OKX Europe Markets Ltd., which the company said is authorized and regulated by the Malta Financial Services Authority under Malta’s Investment Services Act.

Truflation has forecast that annual U.S. headline inflation will remain at 3.4% in August as higher gasoline prices, tariffs and producer costs threaten to keep price pressure above the Federal Reserve’s target.

Truflation said in its August inflation report that the softer July CPI reading was driven mainly by falling energy prices rather than a clear easing of underlying costs. The company expects the reversal of that energy decline, along with tariffs and higher input prices, to shape Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics release.

The Cleveland Federal Reserve and market consensus also forecast an annual headline CPI of 3.4% and a core CPI of 2.4%. However, both expect headline prices to rise 0.4% from July, compared with Truflation’s 0.3% estimate. All three forecasts place monthly core inflation at 0.2%.

July headline CPI rose 0.1% month over month after falling 0.4% in June, while the annual rate eased from 3.5% to 3.4%. Core CPI increased 0.2% during the month and slowed from 2.6% to 2.5% year over year.

Energy has kept headline CPI above core inflation

Gasoline provided the clearest source of new pressure in Truflation’s August data, rising 3.4% from July and 27.6% from a year earlier. The report attributed the increase to high crude prices, tight fuel inventories, and limited spare capacity at refineries.

Retail gasoline remained above $4 per gallon and moved past $4.10 in early September, according to the report. Truflation said crude prices and supply risks in the Middle East could prevent consumers from receiving material relief unless oil prices fall or U.S. inventories recover.

“The principal reason headline inflation is running above core is the renewed pressure from energy,” Oliver Rust, head of data at Truflation, told crypto.news.

Food and non-alcoholic beverage prices added another 0.5% in August and rose 2.8% over the year. Restaurant prices led the monthly increase, with food away from home climbing 0.7% as operators passed on costs tied to ingredients, wages, utilities and property.

Grocery prices increased more slowly, although Truflation said tight beef supplies and high wholesale food costs limited the decline. Higher gasoline prices could also raise transportation and distribution expenses, adding another source of food-price pressure.

Apparel and communications provided some relief. Clothing prices fell 1% during August as retailers used back-to-school and end-of-summer discounts, while communications prices dropped 0.9% amid competition among mobile carriers and lower effective data costs.

Services costs have remained high despite lower core CPI

Although core inflation is forecast at 2.4%, U.S. service companies continued to report high operating costs. The ISM Services Prices Index increased from 70.3 to 72.6 in August, reaching its highest level since August 2022.

Rust said businesses were paying more for labor, logistics, energy, and other operating needs, but the increases did not pass directly into consumer prices. Productivity has offset part of the wage pressure by allowing companies to produce more with each hour of work.

“While compensation may be growing around 3.5%–4.0%, productivity growth of approximately 2.0%–2.5% means that the increase in labor costs per unit of output can be closer to 1%–2%,” Rust said.

Technology and artificial intelligence have improved output per worker in some industries, he added, reducing the inflation effect of higher wages. Truflation therefore expects services inflation to remain persistent rather than accelerate sharply.

Housing produced a mixed reading. Truflation’s measure rose 0.15% in August but remained 2.32% lower than a year earlier. Rental inflation increased as the supply of newly built apartments started to slow, while high mortgage rates continued to limit home purchases and transactions.

Owned housing prices remained under pressure from weak affordability, elevated listings, and price cuts. Rental concessions stayed common, especially in Sun Belt markets, although the report said slower construction could allow asking rents to rise faster than effective rents.

Tariffs have raised the risk of higher goods inflation

Costs entering the production chain were running well above consumer goods inflation. Goods producer prices rose 6.5% year over year in July, while core goods PPI, which excludes food and energy, increased 4.9%.

Nonfuel import prices advanced 0.4% during July and 4.5% from a year earlier, their strongest annual increase since 2022. Imported capital goods rose 0.9% for the month, goods from China added 0.8%, and prices for imported vehicles and parts increased 0.2%.

Manufacturers also faced high raw-material costs. The ISM Manufacturing Prices Index stood at 71.1 in August, extending a run of rising prices to 23 consecutive months. Truflation linked the pressure to steel, aluminum, petroleum products, imported goods, and tariffs.

The average statutory tariff rate reached about 11% in August and is scheduled to rise to 11.8% by year-end, according to the report. Truflation said importers could delay the effect on consumers by accepting lower margins, selling inventory purchased before the tariff increases, changing suppliers, or negotiating lower prices.

As older inventories are replaced, Rust expects more of the higher landed costs to enter retail prices. Truflation’s analysis found that the effective tariff rate had its strongest correlation with core goods inflation when tariffs led prices by about four months.

U.S. tariff policy has already affected digital-asset markets. A Sep. 4 report on trade policy noted that an earlier tariff announcement covering 60 trading partners had sent Bitcoin below $65,000 as Treasury yields rose and leveraged long positions absorbed most crypto liquidations.

Truflation data have led BLS CPI by 41 days

To construct its U.S. inflation measure, Truflation collects more than 15 million price observations from over 40 data partners. The company maps the observations into BLS spending categories and then applies the weights used in the official CPI.

The resulting index serves as the input for Truflation’s BLS forecasting model. According to Rust, the company’s data have led movements in official CPI by approximately 41 days, or about six weeks.

Since 2011, Truflation’s measure and the BLS CPI have recorded a correlation of 0.955. Moving Truflation’s data forward by 41 days raises the correlation to 0.962, although Rust said the exact lead varies by inflation environment and spending category.

Since the company began publishing BLS CPI forecasts, its estimates have recorded an average absolute deviation of 0.09 percentage points from the eventual government releases, Rust said.

The August reading will also influence expectations for the Federal Reserve’s Sept. 15–16 meeting. A recent Bitcoin market report found that BTC had fallen below $78,000 as hotter producer inflation and rising expectations of a September rate increase reduced demand for risk assets.

August headline producer inflation reached 5.4%, slightly above the 5.3% forecast, while core PPI increased to 4.6%, its highest level since June. CME FedWatch data cited in the report placed the probability of a quarter-point September rate increase at about 60%.

Truflation expects headline inflation to remain around 3.3%–3.4% during the quarter, with monthly readings ranging from roughly 0.2% to 0.4%. By year-end, the company projects a possible decline into the 2.8%–3.2% range if energy prices ease, housing disinflation continues, and businesses pass higher goods costs to consumers gradually.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said before the payroll report that the next inflation release would carry considerable weight in his September decision. The BLS is scheduled to publish August CPI data on Sept. 11, five days before the Federal Open Market Committee announces its interest-rate decision.

Ripple Treasury has expanded its GSmart platform with policy-controlled AI tools for forecasting, liquidity, risk, reconciliation, and reporting, as 60% of eligible customers use its Risk Insights feature.

According to a Ripple Treasury announcement, the updated GSmart system uses specialized AI agents to examine treasury data while enforcing controls set by each company.

Rather than allowing AI models to calculate financial results and act on them without review, the platform separates the underlying calculations from the AI layer. Deterministic engines handle the financial calculations, while GSmart reads company policies, identifies patterns in treasury data, and explains its recommendations.

Finance teams retain control over each transaction because the system requires a person to approve any financial action. Ripple Treasury said the setup gives companies access to more automated analysis without handing final authority to an AI agent.

Ripple Treasury keeps humans in control of transactions

GSmart’s agents focus on defined treasury functions, including cash forecasting, liquidity management, financial risk, account reconciliation, and reporting. Each agent examines information related to its assigned function instead of operating as a general-purpose assistant across the company’s financial systems.

When an agent detects activity that may breach an internal rule, it can alert the treasury team and identify the policy behind the recommendation. Users can then review the relevant clause and the supporting data before deciding whether to proceed.

Ripple Treasury said the feature is designed to make AI recommendations easier to trace. Instead of giving users an unexplained warning or proposed action, GSmart can show which internal control produced the result.

Knowledge Studio acts as the governance layer for the agents. Treasury teams use it to define the policies, permissions, and internal controls that guide how GSmart examines financial information.

Within Analytics Studio, Ask GSmart provides a conversational tool for treasury data. Users can submit questions in everyday language and retrieve information without creating a separate report or manually reviewing several data sets.

The company said its system does not give AI final control over payments or other financial transactions. GSmart can find an issue, explain the supporting policy, and recommend an action, but an authorized employee must approve the transaction.

GSmart adoption reaches 60% for risk monitoring

The expanded features are already available across Ripple Treasury’s enterprise customer base rather than being tested through a limited pilot, according to the company.

Ripple reported that 60% of customers eligible for Risk Insights have activated the feature. Risk Insights searches for unusual exposures and possible policy breaches, giving treasury teams a way to examine issues before approving related activity.

Forecast Insights has reached 44% of eligible customers. The feature compares expected cash flow with actual results and identifies differences that may affect a company’s liquidity planning.

By examining those gaps, the platform can bring potential cash shortages or excess balances to the attention of treasury staff. The employees responsible for the company’s finances can then assess the information and decide whether to move funds, adjust forecasts, or leave existing plans unchanged.

Reconciliation tools form another part of the update. Ripple Treasury said GSmart can help users find differences between financial records while its reporting functions organize treasury information for review.

The company has presented the agents as tools for specific work processes, with policy controls applying across the recommendations they produce. Its approach places automated analysis before the approval stage rather than allowing software to authorize and complete transactions on its own.

AI governance concerns drive demand for policy controls

Ripple Treasury introduced the update as companies increase their use of autonomous software across finance and other business functions.

Citing Gartner research, the company said an average Fortune 500 business could operate more than 150,000 AI agents by 2028. Yet only 13% of organizations believe they currently have the governance needed to manage such agents properly, according to the same research cited in the announcement.

Ripple Treasury positioned GSmart’s policy references and approval requirements as controls for finance departments that must explain how decisions are reached. The model gives employees a record of the policy used by an agent before they accept or reject its recommendation.

“Every CFO is under pressure to embrace AI,” Ripple Treasury Senior Vice President Renaat Ver Eecke said.

Ver Eecke added that financial decisions also need to be explainable, governed, and compliant. GSmart’s design addresses those requirements by keeping the AI interpretation separate from the engines that calculate financial results.

Finance departments often work with payment instructions, liquidity forecasts, debt positions, foreign exchange exposure, bank balances, and other sensitive records. Under Ripple Treasury’s stated model, agents can examine such data and flag an issue, but the company’s authorized staff remain responsible for approving the related action.

Ripple builds GSmart on its GTreasury business

Ripple Treasury grew out of GTreasury, the treasury management software company that Ripple acquired in 2025. Following the purchase, Ripple renamed the business and placed its established corporate treasury operations under the Ripple Treasury brand.

The company said the platform handled more than $13 trillion in transaction value during 2025 across over 1,000 customers. The figure covers activity recorded through the former GTreasury business and does not represent XRP settlement volume.

Separating the figures is important because Ripple Treasury serves corporate finance functions that extend beyond blockchain payments. Its platform covers cash management, forecasting, reconciliation, risk oversight, reporting, and other treasury processes, while Ripple operates separate digital-asset and payment services.

The GSmart expansion adds governed AI functions to those existing treasury workflows. Ripple said the product is already active among enterprise customers, as shown by the adoption rates reported for Risk Insights and Forecast Insights.

In the United States, Ripple Treasury plans to demonstrate the expanded system at Sibos 2026, scheduled for Sep. 28 through Oct. 1 in Miami. The event is expected to bring together banks, payment companies, and corporate treasury teams for discussions covering AI, payments, and digital finance.

Aviation sanctions target Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Turkey, and UAE-based firms 

Coinbase has restored the Coinbase Wallet name just over a year after replacing it with Base App, positioning the self-custodial product around multichain trading, perpetual futures, prediction markets and tokenized stocks.

Coinbase confirmed through its official Google Play listing that the Base App has returned to the Coinbase Wallet name as the product focuses on multichain trading, transfers, and earning features.

Ryan Kass, head of Coinbase Wallet product, said in a statement that the wallet would function as a “test kitchen” for products and assets that Coinbase may not list on its centralized exchange. Long-tail tokens will appear once they are minted on supported networks, while the company plans to connect additional chains after they launch.

Trading inside the wallet takes place onchain, according to Kass. Users can also follow selected traders and view their activity, a feature he said may help them find trading opportunities.

Coinbase will keep the product self-custodial, meaning customers retain control of their private keys and assets. According to Kass, the wallet automatically identifies and hides tokens classified as scams or malicious assets.

Coinbase Wallet puts trading ahead of social features

Coinbase renamed Coinbase Wallet as Base App in July 2025, combining trading and payments with messaging, social feeds and mini-apps. The company promoted the product as an “everything app” built around its Base layer-2 network.

After the social features failed to attract the expected use, Coinbase began rebuilding the app around financial products. CEO Brian Armstrong said in March that the company’s social experiment “didn’t quite work,” while Base creator Jesse Pollak later acknowledged that creator-focused products had fallen short.

In July, Pollak handed leadership of the app to Jordan “Cobie” Fish and returned his attention to the Base blockchain. As crypto.news reported, Pollak said demand for social products had “disintegrated completely,” leaving Base behind competitors in prediction markets and perpetual futures.

Kass said Coinbase can change direction quickly when a product strategy fails to deliver the intended result. He described Base App as an “opinionated experiment” and said the restored name better explains its place within Coinbase’s product lineup.

“The Coinbase Wallet name better captures the product’s role as Coinbase’s self-custodial front door to the ‘everything exchange,’” Kass said. “While Base app was an opinionated experiment, Coinbase Wallet gives users access to all of onchain finance.”

Although the app is taking back its old name, Coinbase is retaining trading and financial features developed during the Base App period. Messaging and other selected functions will also remain available.

Hyperliquid perpetuals lead the trading push

Perpetual futures powered by Hyperliquid are the first example of the wallet’s testing-ground model. Coinbase added the integration in August, giving eligible users access to more than 290 markets and leverage of up to 50 times on certain contracts.

The Hyperliquid perpetuals launch covered contracts tied to Bitcoin, Ethereum, stocks and commodities. Hyperliquid executes the trades while users open and manage positions through the Coinbase interface.

Perpetual contracts allow traders to take leveraged long or short positions without owning the referenced asset. Unlike traditional futures, they do not expire, while funding payments between traders help keep contract prices close to spot prices.

Coinbase said the integration is unavailable in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, among other restricted markets. Leverage also depends on the selected asset, so not every contract carries the advertised 50x maximum.

For American customers, Coinbase operates a separate regulated futures service through Coinbase Financial Markets, a futures commission merchant registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and a member of the National Futures Association. The regulated service is separate from Hyperliquid trading inside Coinbase Wallet.

Under the new branding, Coinbase is promoting the wallet with the phrase “no KYC, no waiting, and no borders.” Its website states, however, that individual products remain subject to location-based limits, making access dependent on a user’s jurisdiction.

Coinbase earns revenue from trading and product fees inside the wallet. The company did not provide details about the fee structure or figures showing whether the trading focus has increased user numbers.

Tokenized stocks and prediction markets face product reviews

Coinbase Wallet also gives eligible customers access to prediction markets and tokenized stocks. According to Kass, Coinbase applies “vigorous product and compliance reviews” before adding a new market or asset class to the app.

Individual tokens follow a different process. Assets become available by default after they are minted on a supported chain, although the wallet’s detection system can hide tokens linked to scams or harmful activity.

Coinbase brought four tokenized U.S. stocks to Base in August, offering eligible non-U.S. investors onchain exposure to Apple, Nvidia, Meta and Alphabet. The 1:1-backed stock tokens were issued through a Coinbase-controlled company in the Abu Dhabi Global Market.

Each token represents a beneficial interest in an underlying share held through a segregated custody arrangement, according to the product prospectuses. The securities are not registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 and cannot be offered or sold to U.S. persons.

Prediction markets carry separate access questions in the United States. Coinbase Financial Markets has argued that federally regulated event contracts fall under the CFTC’s authority, but several states have challenged sports-related contracts under their gambling laws.

In August, a federal judge denied Coinbase relief against enforcement by Michigan officials. The preliminary ruling left the underlying lawsuit unresolved while allowing the state to continue defending its sports betting authority.

Coinbase Wallet adds Robinhood Chain and Monad

Following the name change, Coinbase Wallet supports Base, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, BNB Chain, Optimism, Arbitrum, Polygon, Avalanche, Monad, and Robinhood Chain. Robinhood Chain and Monad were not included on the Base App’s previous list of supported networks.

Multichain support reduces the app’s earlier focus on Coinbase’s own layer-2 network, although Kass said Base would remain central to the wallet. Assets issued on Base may appear as they gain market attention, alongside tokens from other supported networks.

“Base remains central to Coinbase Wallet, and you’ll see Base assets naturally appear in the app as they trend,” Kass said.

According to Kass, displaying Base assets beside products from other networks will give users additional ways to discover tokens available through the self-custodial app.

With the growing popularity of the tokenization of sovereign debt on public blockchain platforms, the discussion around the XRP debt case is getting more and more popular. The data available now, however, separates practical activity on blockchain platforms and speculations related to the possible usage of XRP by governments.

According to the measurements provided by RWA.xyz and conducted on August 20, 2026, the amount of tokenized non-U.S. sovereign debt on the Stellar platform is about $490 million. Stellar emphasizes that it has become a leader in this particular type of activity and outperformed even Ethereum in this area.

The point is that Stellar leads in terms of non-U.S. government debt, while Ethereum remains a leader in the market of tokenized Treasuries. In addition, Stellar reports the development of its entire RWA ecosystem.

According to Stellar, in June 2026, tokenized RWA reached $3 billion. They included sovereign bonds, Treasury products, investment funds, credit instruments, and gold.

XRP Is Being Accused in Relation to the U.S. National Debt

The debate about XRP revolves around another possible application of the asset. XRP advocates have argued that this token can eventually be applied within the U.S. financial infrastructure in areas such as payments, liquidity, or settlements.

Some online debates have gone even further and proposed that XRP could be involved in strategies linked to the U.S. national debt. However, there is no policy evidence showing that any such program exists.

The Vice President of the United States, JD Vance, has talked about economic growth and the establishment of a sovereign wealth fund while speaking about the economy of the United States. This discussion did not reveal any XRP-based strategy to manage or repay the national debt.

This distinction is important because the presence of a big national debt does not prove that some specific cryptocurrency will be used to address this problem. Tokenization of the national debt involves presenting an already existing financial instrument on blockchain technology.

XRP and Tokenization Tell Two Separate Tales

The market is continuing to keep an eye on XRP regarding institutional adoption of blockchain technologies. The price of XRP is currently around $1.40, and the recent market data is showing support at around $1.32 and resistance at around $1.46.

But price levels alone cannot confirm adoption by the government or any particular use case associated with debt obligations. A better example would be something that shows actual use and adoption by institutions.

For example, Stellar is giving us a glimpse of how assets, like Mexican CETES or Brazilian government bonds, among others, are being utilized on blockchain networks to give access to selected sovereign assets.

But the case of institutional adoption for XRP would remain somewhat prospective. Possible applications of XRP would include cross-border payments, liquidity, settlement, and other infrastructure applications. Any confirmation from a government or another institution of a debt-based strategy for using XRP will confirm or refute such assumptions.

Therefore, the tokenization trend is demonstrating blockchain adoption by traditional finance, but this alone cannot prove XRP usage in relation to U.S. national debt.

Liquid Network has resumed block production without processing transactions after a $320 million Bitcoin withdrawal forced the sidechain to halt operations.

Liquid Network said in a Thursday update that its functionary nodes were again producing blocks as intended, but the network would operate “without transactions” while developers monitored its condition.

The limited restart allows Liquid to test its updated infrastructure without reopening transfers or exposing the peg system to new activity. According to the network, keeping transactions disabled will help operators “confirm full stabilization” before they restore other services.

Functionary and bridge nodes have received the required software changes, Liquid added. Its functionaries can now sign and validate blocks, though users cannot yet send regular transactions or move funds between Bitcoin and Liquid.

Peg operations also remain suspended, including withdrawals approved through Peg-out Authorization Keys, or PAKs. Liquid said the restrictions would stay in place while it works to restore the reserve that supports Bitcoin issued on the sidechain as L-BTC.

Liquid Network has restarted with transactions disabled

Block production represents only one part of Liquid’s return to service because its transaction and bridge systems remain unavailable. The network has not provided a date for reopening either function.

Under normal conditions, users deposit BTC into the federation-controlled peg and receive an equal amount of L-BTC for use on Liquid. Holders can later burn L-BTC through an approved peg-out service to release the corresponding Bitcoin on the base layer.

Operators stopped that process after an actor created unbacked L-BTC by exploiting a proof-verification flaw in Elements, the open-source software behind Liquid. The actor then submitted the tokens through SideSwap’s authorized peg-out service, prompting the federation to release real Bitcoin.

As crypto.news previously reported, the transaction removed about 3,996 BTC and reduced the federation wallet from approximately 4,205 BTC to about 202 BTC. The withdrawal represented roughly 95% of the Bitcoin held in the wallet at the time.

Liquid described the actors as “purported white-hat hackers” after they identified themselves as white hats through messages attached to Bitcoin transactions. Their claim did not establish that they had permission to create the L-BTC or withdraw the underlying Bitcoin.

SideSwap said a customer had sent 4,000 L-BTC to its peg-out service, which processed the request under its normal system. Liquid and SideSwap said the key used to authorize the transaction had not been compromised.

Elements update changes proof-verification cache

One day before restarting block production, Liquid released an emergency Elements update designed to address the flaw connected to the withdrawal.

Elements v23.3.4 changes the cache keys used when validating range proofs, according to Liquid. Range proofs allow the network to confirm that a hidden transaction amount is valid without publicly revealing the amount, forming part of Liquid’s confidential transaction system.

The affected software stored successful proof-verification results so nodes could reuse them instead of repeating the full calculation. Previous reporting found that the cache did not include enough transaction context, allowing a valid proof result to be reused where it should have failed.

By exploiting that weakness, the actor created L-BTC without first locking an equal amount of Bitcoin in the federation wallet. Functionary nodes running the affected code accepted the tokens, while SideSwap’s peg-out process treated them as valid L-BTC and processed the withdrawal.

Liquid said version 23.3.4 hardens the cache keys associated with range proofs. Functionary and bridge nodes received the update before block signing restarted, although the network is still withholding transactions while operators check the deployment.

Liquid’s federation uses functionary nodes to confirm sidechain blocks and control the Bitcoin held behind L-BTC. The system relies on 15 rotating functionaries and requires 11 signatures to move funds from its multisignature wallet, according to an earlier technical account of the incident.

No federation signing key was reported stolen during the withdrawal. The failure instead involved the software used to decide whether the L-BTC submitted for redemption was valid.

Hackers returned 3,400 BTC after nodes were patched

Communication between Blockstream and the actors took place through messages embedded in Bitcoin transactions. In one message, the actors said they would return the assets after the vulnerable nodes had been repaired.

“Please fix the bug first,” the message said. “Make sure every node is patched. Then we will transfer the money back safely after confirming the fix.”

Blockstream later sent a signed message stating that its bridge nodes had been patched and that the Bitcoin was “safe to return.” Following that confirmation, the actors transferred 3,400 BTC back to the federation wallet.

The 3,400 BTC repayment restored about 85% of the withdrawn funds. At the time of the transfer, the returned Bitcoin was worth approximately $270 million.

About 598.5 BTC remained in the withdrawal-linked address after the repayment. The outstanding balance was worth roughly $46 million based on the Bitcoin price cited in the supplied report, though its dollar value changes with the market.

No public agreement has identified the remaining Bitcoin as an approved security bounty. The actors have not publicly stated whether they plan to return another portion, while Blockstream has not announced terms allowing them to keep the balance.

Ledger Chief Technology Officer Charles Guillemet questioned the white-hat label after the partial repayment. In an X post, he argued that retaining about 600 BTC without publicly disclosed terms looked more like extortion than a standard security reward.

L-BTC holders await restoration of peg services

Liquid operates as a federated Bitcoin sidechain that allows exchanges, trading firms and other users to transfer BTC-linked assets with shorter settlement times than Bitcoin’s base layer. Blockstream launched the production network in 2018 using Elements software.

L-BTC depends on Bitcoin held in the federation wallet to maintain its one-to-one backing. Until Liquid restores peg operations, holders cannot use the normal bridge process to redeem L-BTC for native Bitcoin.

A previous bridge security explainer described how systems that lock assets on one chain and issue linked tokens on another depend on their custody, validation, and message-processing controls. A failure in any part of that process can suspend redemptions even when the underlying blockchain continues to operate.

For U.S. users, the current effect is limited to access and operations rather than a stated change in federal policy. American L-BTC holders face the same transaction and peg restrictions as users elsewhere, while BTC held directly on Bitcoin’s base layer remains separate from the Liquid system.

No U.S. regulator or law enforcement agency has announced an action connected to the withdrawal. Liquid also has not given a timetable for restoring transactions, PAK-authorized peg-outs, or other bridge operations.