Labor Day 2026 was the most expensive Labor Day at the pump in American history, with US gas prices averaging $4.15 a gallon.

Donald Trump took the occasion to reiterate his “below $2” promise that he’s repeated for two years.

This time, unlike in 2024 and many times over the past two years, he’s made his promise contingent on winning the war in Iran.

Trump posted his new forecast on Monday: “Three Dollars a gallon, but ultimately, below Two Dollars a gallon,” which has the same target that he has failed to achieve since 2024.

In reality, Americans are paying record prices for gasoline this week above $4, breaking even higher than a 2012 Labor Day crisis of $3.82.

From campaign rallies to his State of the Union address to posts to Truth Social, Trump has repeatedly promised cheaper gasoline. For two years, numbers on the pump have moved the other way.

Donald Trump promised $2 a gallon gasoline to win votes

By late 2024, the $2 a gallon promise was already a Trump campaign trail catchphrase.

On August 19, 2024, Trump told rally attendees that gasoline would “drop by more than 50% within the first 12 months” of his presidency. It hasn’t.

By September 2024, at the Economic Club of New York, he promised gasoline below $2 a gallon. Everything else, from utility bills to groceries to housing, was supposed to follow.

All of those household expenses have become more expensive.

At a Wilmington, North Carolina rally that September, he told voters, “We will cut your energy prices in half. Mark it down, you can get very angry at me if we don’t do it, within 12 months, your energy prices will be cut in half.”

Gasoline averaged $3.29 a gallon in the first week of September. GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan gave Trump’s $2 pledge “a zero percent chance.”

In May 2025, Trump inaccurately insisted, “Gasoline just broke $1.98 a Gallon, lowest in years.” Fact-checkers noted that no state averaged below $2.60 at the time of that claim, with most US drivers paying above $3.

In October 2025, Trump predicted, “You’re gonna see $2 gasoline pretty soon.”

At his February 24, 2026 State of the Union speech, Trump declared gasoline “is now below $2.30 a gallon in most States and, in some places, $1.99 a gallon. And when I visited the great State of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline.”

The actual average was near $3 that week. Only eight of roughly 150,000 stations sold gas under $2 per gallon.

TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence company focused on investigations and compliance, has more than doubled its valuation to $2 billion after expanding its Series C funding round. The round was led by Blockchain Capital, according to an announcement released Wednesday. TRM did not disclose the amount raised in the latest expansion.

The company says its annual recurring revenue has quadrupled over the past three years. The funding expansion builds on a separate Series C tranche announced in February, when TRM raised $70 million, also led by Blockchain Capital.

Key takeaways

• TRM Labs’ valuation rises to $2 billion following an expanded Series C led by Blockchain Capital.
• The company did not disclose the expansion’s size, but reported annual recurring revenue is up fourfold over three years.
• TRM says its tools are used by 600+ institutions across 75 countries, including government agencies.
• Recent U.S. government work and procurement scrutiny form part of the broader backdrop to the company’s growth.
• TRM links demand to rising digital crime, citing FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center totals and its own AI-crime metrics.

Valuation jump and what TRM says is driving growth

TRM’s valuation increase comes after a series of milestones that the company frames as evidence of rising demand for investigation-grade blockchain analytics. In its announcement, TRM said its AI-powered products support investigations into fraud, money laundering, sanctions evasion, and other forms of digital crime.

The firm also positioned its business performance as a key factor behind the new valuation. Prior to the February Series C, data compiled by Traxcn put TRM’s valuation at $930 million. TRM later crossed the $1 billion mark in the round that included investors such as Citi Ventures and Galaxy, and the current expansion takes it to $2 billion.

For investors and customers, the more notable detail is TRM’s operating momentum: the company stated that its annual recurring revenue has quadrupled over the past three years. That figure suggests growth that is not limited to one-off government or enterprise contracts, but instead tied to ongoing subscriptions for investigation and compliance workflows.

Funding momentum: from February’s $70 million to the expanded Series C

The latest valuation update is tied directly to the expanded Series C. In February, TRM said it secured $70 million in that funding round, again led by Blockchain Capital. The Wednesday announcement confirms the Series C is being expanded, but TRM did not provide the dollar amount for the additional capital.

While the funding size is undisclosed, the valuation and revenue statements indicate the company wants to anchor this raise in measurable performance rather than only strategic partnerships. TRM’s claim of quadrupled annual recurring revenue over three years—paired with its valuation doubling—would be central to how the market interprets the round’s implications for the blockchain intelligence sector.

Who uses TRM, and how it links demand to AI-related crime

TRM said its platform is used by more than 600 government agencies and private-sector institutions across 75 countries. The company’s emphasis on investigative use cases highlights a continued shift in the crypto-adjacent compliance market toward tooling that can assist with cases involving illicit finance, fraud patterns, and cross-border enforcement.

TRM also cited broader criminal activity trends to justify its focus. It pointed to reported losses submitted to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, saying these rose to $21 billion in 2025 from $16 billion in 2024. Separately, TRM referenced its own AI-in-Crime Adoption Index, claiming criminal adoption of AI has increased by 40% year over year in 2026.

For readers tracking the sector, the important nuance is that TRM is attempting to tie market demand to both macro indicators (higher reported losses) and a forward-looking thesis (accelerating AI adoption by criminals). Whether that AI-crime acceleration translates into sustained procurement budgets will be something to watch in upcoming contract awards and renewals.

Government contracts and the lawsuit challenging a procurement decision

TRM’s recent trajectory also intersects with U.S. government contracting. The valuation update arrives about two months after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded TRM a roughly $95 million, one-year contract for forensic software and support services for Homeland Security Task Force investigations.

That contract was not without controversy. Later that month, rival blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis challenged the sole-source award in federal court, alleging ICE’s decision was “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.” The dispute adds a layer of uncertainty around how quickly TRM’s government revenue streams could stabilize or expand, particularly in procurements where alternative vendors can contest contract awards.

Even so, the fact that TRM secured a major contract—followed by an expanded funding round at a higher valuation—signals that, at least from the perspective of backers and the company’s leadership, the business case remains intact despite regulatory and legal scrutiny.

As TRM works to convert funding into continued revenue growth, the next signals for the market will likely include follow-on government awards, any developments in the Chainalysis legal challenge, and whether TRM’s AI-crime adoption metrics continue to translate into new enterprise and public-sector deployments.

Ripple’s stablecoin has grown 1,278% this year while XRP shed more than a quarter of its value. The network is busier than ever, but the token capturing that activity has a dollar sign and a peg.

The numbers tell two contradictory stories about the same network. XRP started 2026 near $1.90, slid to a July low of $1.06, bounced to $1.55 in August, and then drifted back to $1.36. Down 27% on the year. That is the kind of chart that makes retail traders close their apps and check back in six months.

But the infrastructure underneath that falling price is having its best year. The XRP Ledger is settling more transactions than at any point since the 2021 bull run. RLUSD, barely seven months old, already ranks among the ten largest stablecoins by market capitalization. Ripple signed deals with payment processors that move $190 billion per year. The Bank for International Settlements published a working paper using the XRP Ledger for cryptographic proof of integrity.

None of this lifted the token price. And that contradiction is the story worth unpacking, because it reveals something about XRP that the community has been reluctant to confront: the network’s success and the token’s performance may no longer be the same story.

The stablecoin that ate the narrative

RLUSD launched in late 2025 as a compliance-first stablecoin designed to slot into existing banking infrastructure. Ripple positioned it as the settlement layer for cross-border payments, the exact use case that XRP was supposed to own. The company argued the two assets were complementary. Seven months of market data suggest otherwise.

The growth curve speaks for itself. RLUSD crossed $1 billion in market cap in the spring, then $2 billion on August 25, and sits at $2.32 billion today. Cumulative trading volume has passed $9 billion. The growth rate, 1,278% year to date, is the kind of number that would dominate crypto headlines if it belonged to a token people could speculate on. But a stablecoin pegged to one dollar does not generate the same excitement, even when it is quietly absorbing the utility that once justified XRP’s existence.

The listing trajectory tells its own story. Binance added RLUSD in January 2026. OKX followed on April 29. Gate.io on June 15. All four Korean Big 4 exchanges, Upbit, Bithumb, Coinone, and Korbit, now carry it. That is not a niche product limited to Ripple’s partner network. That is distribution at scale, across every major trading region, in under a year.

Arbitrum’s Watchdog Committee has proposed permanently excluding three DeFi projects from future DAO programs after flagging cases involving 457,553 ARB, valued at roughly $76,000.

Arbitrum grant cases involve three different findings

The Sep. 3 governance proposal said Good Entry, Limitless, and APX Finance, formerly ApolloX, had been linked to what the Watchdog Committee classified as high-severity misuse of DAO funds.

According to the committee, high-severity cases involve large and deliberate misuse of money allocated by ArbitrumDAO. Examples can include fabricated work and theft, although the findings differ across the three projects under review.

The cited amounts add up to 457,553 ARB, worth about $76,000 at the valuation used in the proposal’s coverage. However, the total does not represent one confirmed theft or a single balance owed to ArbitrumDAO. It combines separate findings involving distributions to ineligible accounts, funds moved away from Arbitrum, and grant tokens that were allegedly left unused or distributed late.

Good Entry received 200,000 ARB through the first round of Arbitrum’s Short-Term Incentives Program. On-chain analysis reviewed by the committee found that 142,839 ARB went to 1,032 users deemed ineligible during and after the incentive period.

Wallets connected to the Good Entry team also showed signs of self-farming, according to the proposal. When investigators sought an explanation, the committee said the project refused to cooperate. Good Entry has since stopped operating, so any approved ban would apply to its founders rather than an active team.

Arbitrum has used community funding for several years to attract users and developers. In November 2023, three funding programs allocated a combined 500,000 ARB through retroactive funding, matching grants and prizes for grant-related tools.

Limitless allegedly moved its entire grant to Base

Limitless faces a separate finding tied to the Long-Term Incentives Pilot Program. The project received 75,000 ARB but later exchanged the full grant for the USDC stablecoin and transferred the funds to Base, according to the Watchdog Committee.

Investigators classified the case as suspected theft because the conversion and cross-chain transfer removed all the grant money from the Arbitrum ecosystem. The committee said it could not contact any Limitless team members for an explanation or to recover the funds.

Limitless also appears to have stopped operating since its participation in the incentive program. Under the proposed enforcement policy, a permanent ban would therefore apply to its founders.

The committee has not said that transferring assets to another blockchain is automatically improper. Its findings center on the alleged use of funds assigned for an Arbitrum incentive program and the team’s failure to explain or return the money.

Base is an Ethereum layer-2 network incubated by Coinbase, while Arbitrum operates as a separate Ethereum scaling ecosystem. Moving the grant to Base placed the assets outside the network they had been provided to support, according to the proposal.

APX Finance faces overlapping concerns over 239,714 ARB

APX Finance received approval for 525,000 ARB under the Long-Term Incentives Pilot Program, but the watchdog’s findings concern 239,714 ARB rather than the entire award.

On-chain analysis found that a large share of the grant remained in APX Finance treasury addresses instead of moving to distribution contracts. Investigators also identified transfers to distributor contracts after the required period and a suspected Sybil cluster connected to team addresses.

Sybil activity generally involves one operator controlling several wallets to obtain a larger share of incentives intended for separate users. The committee described APX Finance’s case as a combination of unreturned funds, late distributions and suspected self-Sybil activity.

Investigators were unable to reach APX Finance team members for clarification or recovery, according to the filing. APX later combined with Astherus, with the merged platform adopting the Aster brand.

Unlike Good Entry and Limitless, the proposed language could cover more than APX Finance’s founders if the DAO considers the project or its successor operation active. The committee’s proposed ban on an operating project includes founders, current team members, and affiliated contributors.

Aster’s operations have become more closely associated with BNB Chain since the merger, while the disputed incentive allocation relates to APX Finance’s earlier participation in an Arbitrum program.

Separate votes would decide each Arbitrum ban

Each named project has been given one week from the proposal’s publication to answer the findings in the governance forum. The committee set Sep. 10 as the tentative response deadline, though the published timeline remains subject to change.

If an explanation does not satisfy the committee and the relevant funds are not returned within the same period, ArbitrumDAO will hold three separate Snapshot votes. Token holders will be able to vote for a ban, oppose it, or abstain in each case.

No project has been banned at this stage. The committee has proposed individual votes because the evidence, amounts, and operating status differ among Good Entry, Limitless, and APX Finance.

Snapshot voting will seek social agreement from the DAO without executing a blockchain transaction. As no on-chain action is required, an approved ban would not freeze project wallets, remove deployed smart contracts, or prevent users from trading related tokens. It would make the affected people and projects ineligible for future ArbitrumDAO programs.

Arbitrum created the Watchdog Program to encourage reports backed by evidence and improve oversight of ecosystem grants. As of Sep. 2, the program had received 90 reports, recovered about 532,000 ARB, and distributed roughly 268,000 ARB in rewards to reporters.

The figures indicate that the program has recovered more ARB than the combined amounts cited across the three cases, although each investigation uses its own findings and recovery status.

U.S. investors have indirect exposure through Robinhood

For U.S. investors, the proposed bans carry no stated trading restrictions or changes to access. Their more direct relevance lies in how ArbitrumDAO controls treasury programs and infrastructure tied to companies serving the American market.

Nasdaq-listed Robinhood uses Arbitrum’s Orbit software for Robinhood Chain. As crypto.news reported in July, chains covered by the Arbitrum Expansion Program send 10% of net protocol revenue back to the ecosystem, with eight percentage points going to the DAO treasury and two funding the Arbitrum Developer Guild.

Robinhood Chain had generated more than $2 million in cumulative revenue after its July 1 launch, sending about $200,000 to the Arbitrum ecosystem under that arrangement. The revenue link gives shareholders of a U.S.-listed company an indirect reason to monitor how ArbitrumDAO governs treasury money and handles alleged misuse.

DAO governance can also raise legal questions for U.S. participants. A recent DAO governance explainer noted that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Ooki DAO case established that governance participants can face liability for a DAO’s conduct under certain circumstances.

The pending Arbitrum measures differ in scope because they seek eligibility restrictions through off-chain votes. The proposal does not announce a referral to the CFTC, Securities and Exchange Commission, Justice Department, or any other U.S. authority.