Crypto World
Ripple raises $275 million in senior notes for prime brokerage push
Ripple Prime’s inaugural senior notes carried an investment grade rating and drew institutional investors across key financial markets.
“The U.S. side should abandon the Cold War mentality and foster an open, fair and non-discriminatory environment for educational, scientific and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States,” it added.
Here’s what to know about the raft of policies aimed at curbing institutional ties to China.
Order targets primarily Chinese institutions
The foreign institutions the U.S. seeks to blacklist were identified by the Pentagon last month. Eighty-eight of the 130 institutions are in mainland China, while the remaining institutions are in Russia and Iran. The list has been updated annually since an earlier version was first released in 2023. It was established under Section 1286 of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which was enacted during President Donald Trump’s first term.
While some Chinese universities on the list have more explicit ties to the military, others are prominent civilian institutions with extensive international research partnerships. These include Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The updated list also added a number of other Chinese institutions with varying links to China’s defense and security establishment, including Shandong University, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Shenyang Aerospace University, and the University of International Relations.
Target earnings easily beast fiscal second-quarter earnings views early Wednesday, while revenue, same-store sales and guidance also were strong. But TGT stock tumbled in premarket trade. TJX Cos. (TJX) earnings are also due before the markets open. Among other retail earnings, Walmart (WMT) and Ross Stores (ROST) follow on Thursday. Target Earnings Target earnings doubled to $4.11 a share, crushing…
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Japanese BTC treasury company Metaplanet has disclosed a deal that will put a man Bloomberg describes as “Tokyo’s King of Death Spiral Financing” on both sides of the takeover.
Metaplanet wants to take control of Nasdaq gaming company Super League Enterprise in a $135 million deal.
Once the takeover is complete, Evo Fund, a Cayman islands fund launched by Princeton graduate and former Barings trader Michael Lerch, will pick up warrants for up to 10 million Super League shares.
It also financed Metaplanet’s BTC buying in Tokyo, putting Lerch on both sides of the deal.
Moreover, Evo’s fund bought into Super League in September 2025 via a “$10 million strategic equity investment.”
That infusion helped Super League, which will change its name to Superplanet once the deal passes shareholder approval, regain compliance with Nasdaq’s equity rules.
Read more: MetaPlanet tanking 35% sparks fury: ‘Short squeeze them to Valhalla!’
Evo Fund’s warrants dilute shareholders
Japanese business press has nicknamed Lerch the “mysterious alchemist” for how his fund’s warrants dilute companies.
Indeed, Evo is Japan’s largest buyer of floating-strike equity warrants. Bloomberg describes Lerch as synonymous with the death spiral financing trading strategy.
Specifically, his warrants often price using a moving, rather than static, strike price. As a result, rights built into clauses of Lerch’s contracts allow Evo to exercise convertability into stock at a lower price as shares fall.
Each exercise dilutes existing holders even more as the price declines.
For scale, consider that Evo’s 2025 warrant transactions in Japan exceeded ¥1 trillion, or roughly $6.3 billion. That captured more than 80% of the country’s floating-warrant market.
On the Super League side, Evo is now a named counterparty. Lerch’s fund will probably receive warrants under the filing that hands Metaplanet control.
Super League’s disclosure lists two subscription agreements dated the same day.
Metaplanet’s Florida subsidiary, Metaplanet Holdings, subscribes for 44,859,400 common shares at $3 each. It also gets 100 shares of convertible preferred stock and four 10-year warrants covering up to 381 million shares.
Evo’s agreement grants two two-year warrants for up to 10 million shares, at fixed prices of $3 and $5.55. That is, and somewhat uncharacteristic for the “Tokyo’s King of Death Spiral Financing,” not a floating strike on this deal.
Sadakazu Osaki, a researcher at Japan’s Nomura Research Institute, warned that floating-strike warrants like Evo’s are “the last financing resort for underperforming companies.”
Metaplanet has used exactly that instrument, at enormous scale, to fund its BTC purchases.
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Telegram has applied for its own top-level domain. Founder Pavel Durov said approval would give the app’s one billion users a personal web address like yourname.gram.
Durov posted the news on X. The filing entered ICANN’s 2026 round, the first such window since 2012.
What the Telegram .gram Domain Would Unlock, and When
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) governs the internet’s address system. Its 2026 application window closed on August 12 after 15 weeks.
ICANN counted more than 1,600 primary applications in that round. Applicants filed a further 1,100 requests for backup strings. Therefore, .gram now waits in a crowded queue.
Durov built the pitch around Telegram usernames. Holders could claim yourname.gram, then publish an interactive site that Telegram hosts. Those usernames already work as identity across the app. A matching web address would carry that handle beyond chat.
Moreover, he promised that a single artificial intelligence prompt would generate those pages. The plan stretches Telegram’s TON blockchain push from payments into web publishing. Telegram would run the hosting itself. That setup keeps users off outside providers and inside the app’s orbit.
Brand top-level domains already exist, and Google and Amazon run their own. Telegram’s version would differ, since it opens the space to ordinary account holders.
ICANN has approved nothing yet. The body will publish the list of cleared strings by mid-October. Evaluation, contention resolution, and contracting follow. Those stages can take months.
Durov cannot set a launch date, because ICANN controls the schedule. On that path, a working .gram address looks unlikely before 2027. He also gave no word on whether every account would receive one for free.
GRAM Trades 84% Below Its Record
Gram (GRAM), the token Durov rebranded from Toncoin in June, changed hands near $1.32. It has shed about 35% over the past 90 days, though it edged up 0.7% on the day.
That level sits 84% under the record high of $8.25 from June 2024. The token still holds a $3.65 billion market value and ranks 25th by size. Its full trading range runs from $0.52 to $8.25.
So far, traders have shown little conviction since the post. The ecosystem keeps widening regardless. Telegram pledged a native non-custodial wallet inside every app this summer, and it now runs the network’s largest validator.
Meanwhile, Durov fights on another front. Russia charged him with facilitating terrorism in July, and he rejected Moscow’s surveillance demands in a public reply.
Durov spent 2026 expanding the Telegram ecosystem on his own terms. A green light would hand every user a personal corner of the web, built from a single prompt.
The post Telegram .gram Domain Bid Could Give 1 Billion Users a Website in One Prompt appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Nexo Australia launched crypto-backed credit lines after becoming a credit representative under Australia’s National Consumer Credit Protection Act, the company said in a Tuesday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
The new credit lines allow eligible clients to borrow Australian dollars or stablecoins by using their cryptocurrencies as collateral without having to sell them.
Funds are generally available within 24 hours with flexible repayments, with no fixed term or origination fees. Interest rates range from 0.9% to 21.9%, depending on the credit line and the client’s loyalty tier.
Clients can choose between Smart and Standard credit lines, Peter Stanhope, general manager at Nexo Australia, told Cointelegraph.
“The main differences are in rates, asset selection, and how client collateral is managed if their [loan-to-value ratio] rises,” Stanhope said.
Nexo said borrowing against digital assets carries margin-call and liquidation risks, meaning clients could lose some or all of their collateral if its value falls.
The milestone makes Nexo one of the few crypto platforms to offer regulated crypto-backed credit lines to Australian users. In May 2026, Block Earner became the first crypto company in Australia to secure its own Australian Credit License from ASIC.
Nexo Australia is registered with the country’s anti-money laundering watchdog, AUSTRAC, as a virtual asset service provider and is a member of the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA).
Magazine: Why Australia’s $17B crypto opportunity depends on regulation
BTC volatility has dropped to multi-year lows as surging Treasury yields rattle equities and traders await the Fed’s July meeting minutes for clues on the interest-rate path.
The SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets includes a conditional safe harbor that could allow a crypto asset to be delinked from an investment contract with which it was once associated. The proposal pairs that safe harbor with new exemptions designed for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.
Earlier today, the SEC proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, a proposed framework for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. It includes two exemptions from registration under the Securities Act of 1933 and a conditional safe harbor related to the term investment contract.
With our new proposal, the SEC is taking the most historic step yet to modernize federal securities regulations for crypto assets. — Paul Atkins (@SECPaulSAtkins) August 18, 2026
As the Crypto Capital of the World, the U.S. must and will lead. Regulation Crypto Assets will ensure that we do. 
pic.twitter.com/z0MmDF4doV
The startup exemption would permit offerings of up to $5 million during a four-year period. The fundraising exemption would permit offerings of up to $75 million during each 12-month period. Under both exemptions, issuers would provide principles-based narrative disclosures.
The proposal states that issuers would remain subject to the federal securities laws’ antifraud and antimanipulation provisions. It also would preempt state securities-law registration and qualification requirements for offers and sales of securities issued under a Regulation Crypto Assets exemption, as well as certain secondary-market transactions.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
The Crypto Conditional Safe Harbor from the SEC
Alongside the exemptions, the proposed rules include a conditional safe harbor from the term investment contract in the definitions of security under the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. If the safe harbor’s conditions are satisfied, a crypto asset would be deemed not to be subject to an investment contract for purposes of those definitions.
Commissioner Hester M. Peirce described the safe harbor as a way for an issuer of an investment contract to delink a crypto asset from the investment contract with which it was once associated. The condition described by the SEC is that the issuer has completed or permanently ceased all essential managerial efforts it represented or promised it would take under an investment contract.
The proposal follows the SEC and CFTC’s March 2026 interpretation addressing how federal securities laws apply to certain crypto assets and transactions involving crypto assets. The SEC has presented the proposed rules and earlier interpretation as part of a tailored securities offering regime for crypto assets.
The safe harbor is conditional, and the proposal is not presented as a framework for every crypto-asset model. Peirce said the exemptions and safe harbor will not fit every model and invited public feedback on the proposal.
Peirce also requested input on facilitating a role akin to equity for crypto assets, allowing token holders to share in the growth and value of the enterprise that builds a crypto network. That issue is an area for feedback, rather than a feature established by the proposal.
The proposal’s two exemptions are limited by their respective offering caps and disclosure conditions. The safe harbor, meanwhile, is tied to completion or permanent cessation of the issuer’s essential managerial efforts under the investment contract.
Trade Crypto on Bybit and Get a Chance to Win Our $1,000 USDT Airdrop
Congressional Context and Public Comment
The SEC said Regulation Crypto Assets comes as Congress works to establish a lasting regulatory framework. SEC Chairman Paul S. Atkins said the proposal seeks to provide crypto-asset entrepreneurs and market participants with pathways to raise capital under federal securities laws while those broader efforts continue.
The proposal is now subject to public comment. The SEC says the comment period will remain open for 60 days after publication of the proposing release in the Federal Register.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
The post SEC Unveils Two Crypto Funding Exemptions and Token Safe Harbor appeared first on Cryptonews.
The feature, which follows earlier moves into financial transactions, is not yet being tested anywhere, a spokesperson said.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro signed Executive Order 2026-05 on August 18, changing the way the state reviews permits for data centers with peak demand exceeding 25 MW.
The order takes effect immediately and creates two review tracks, depending on whether a developer signs a binding agreement with state regulators.
How Pennsylvania Will Review Data Center Permits
Developers who commit to the Governor’s Responsible Infrastructure Development requirements can sign a consent order with the Department of Environmental Protection. Those developers receive a rolling review of their applications.
Developers who decline wait until every application is filed and reviewed. They also lose access to two state programs that guarantee permit turnaround times.
Both tracks share one gate. DEP cannot issue permits, or for non-signers begin review, until a developer shows the project matches the local comprehensive plan and holds all municipal approvals.
The order also removes every data center from the Fast Track permitting program.
“…if the local community doesn’t approve a project, the state won’t approve it either,” Governor Shapiro said.
The order cites reports of more than 100 proposed facilities statewide. DEP has received permit applications tied to 20 facilities.
Cost pressure sits behind the move. Data centers drove $29.4 billion in capacity charges to ratepayers across PJM Interconnection’s last four base residual auctions, or 46% of total auction costs, according to the PJM Independent Market Monitor. PJM serves all or parts of 13 states and Washington, DC.
Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens
State Backlash Spreads Against AI Data Centers
Pennsylvania joins a widening group. In July, New York’s Governor paused state environmental permit issuance for up to 1 year.
Texas subsequently ordered an audit of all data centers, with projects failing to meet the requirements set by the PUCT and ERCOT barred from connecting to the state’s power grid.
The growing scrutiny extends beyond regulators. Communities and the wider public have also raised concerns about the rapid expansion of AI data centers.
Gallup found that 70% of Americans oppose having an AI data center built near where they live. On July 18, a national day of protest against data centers saw 142 demonstrations across 42 states.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch leaders and journalists provide expert insights
The post Pennsylvania Just Added One Gate That Every Data Center Developer Has to Clear appeared first on BeInCrypto.
My family could never have imagined that eight months later, she would be among the 32 people killed in her classroom on April 16, 2007, coming home in a mortuary van.
In the years since, mass violence has become a recurring nightmare in American life. Yet every August, millions of parents still make that same drive, entrusting their children to colleges and universities across the country. No parent should have to make that journey wondering whether their child will come home safely.
We have learned a great deal since 2007. We know more about recognizing warning signs, responding to mental health crises, and building stronger safety protocols on campus. We know more about what proactive prevention requires. The problem is that knowing what works and consistently doing it are two different things.
As another academic year begins, we cannot rely on prayers or goodwill to keep our students safe. While most colleges and universities spend phenomenal budgets emphasizing sports, campus events, and academics, parents need to ask the most important question: how safe is my child? We need sustained, measurable, and accountable action from lawmakers, university leaders, and citizens.
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