Crypto World
South African lawmakers propose draft rules on cross-border crypto transactions
South Africa’s Treasury and central bank are moving towards regulating the use of cryptocurrency for cross-border transactions.
The National Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank (SARB) released a draft rulebook on Monday that proposes that sending crypto offshore must be conducted through an authorized provider and reported to the central bank’s Financial Surveillance Department (FinSurv).
“The proposed regulatory measures seek to minimize the risk of regulatory arbitrage between regulated entities conducting cross-border activities, and to enhance the ability of the Financial Surveillance Department (FinSurv) to detect, deter and disrupt illicit financial flows,” Treasury and the Reserve Bank said in a joint statement.
The framework would not make crypto legal tender, nor do the rules distinguish between different digital assets.
The two bodies have invited comments from interested parties with a deadline for submission of Sept. 30.
The proposed rules build on previous National Treasury draft regulations issued in April, which would require crypto holders to declare assets above a certain threshold and hand over private keys to enforcement officers on demand.
A former supervisory FBI agent, Patrick Steven Yaroch, has been charged after prosecutors said he used internal agency systems to obtain credentials for cryptocurrency wallets linked to an adversarial country and then routed funds to his own accounts. The case, detailed in a U.S. federal court filing, highlights how quickly sensitive access credentials can become a direct vector for financial theft in the crypto era.
According to the filing referenced in court documents, Yaroch admitted to 10 unauthorized transfers carried out between late 2024 and early 2025, involving an estimated total of about $1 million in digital assets. Prosecutors said some of the stolen funds were deposited into Suilend to generate yield.
Key takeaways
- Prosecutors allege Yaroch used FBI internal systems to obtain wallet credentials tied to an adversarial country.
- Yaroch admitted to 10 unauthorized crypto transfers between late 2024 and early 2025, totaling roughly $1 million.
- Authorities reportedly recovered devices, seed phrases, and a Trezor wallet used to access accounts on Suilend and on the Kraken exchange.
- Roughly $925,000 was transferred to government-controlled wallets with Yaroch’s cooperation.
- The filing also describes Yaroch using ChatGPT for investment-related advice in May, underscoring the role of opportunistic decision-making amid ongoing access misuse.
Unauthorized wallet access and yield strategy
The court filing says Yaroch’s actions centered on obtaining the ability to access cryptocurrency wallets associated with an adversarial state and using those credentials to move funds to his own crypto wallets. The alleged scheme did not stop at transferring assets—prosecutors say he also placed at least some of the proceeds into Suilend to earn yield.
By admitting to the transfers, Yaroch effectively confirmed that the conduct was not limited to a one-time theft. The admissions, which prosecutors characterize as a sequence of unauthorized moves spanning several months, indicate he maintained control long enough to interact with decentralized finance infrastructure rather than simply cashing out immediately.
The court documents also describe that after Yaroch self-reported the incident, he was placed on administrative leave, later terminated, and then arrested within days.
How investigators say the scheme was executed
Authorities reportedly retrieved multiple items from Yaroch’s Virginia residence, including devices, seed phrases, and a Trezor wallet. Prosecutors said these materials were used to access accounts on Suilend and a crypto exchange, Kraken.
In the course of the case, investigators moved roughly $925,000 in funds into government-controlled wallets with Yaroch’s cooperation. That figure is important for investors and builders to understand: when access to wallet infrastructure and recovery material exists, the “blast radius” can be quickly reduced if authorities can act fast and gain control of the relevant custody or recovery pathways.
While the filing provides the core mechanics of access and recovery, it also implicitly underscores a broader risk for crypto systems: credential theft can be as damaging as direct hacking. If internal credentials are compromised—whether by insiders or those who obtain privileged access—the attacker’s path to funds can be short and highly efficient.
ChatGPT appears in the timeline
Prosecutors say that in May, Yaroch used ChatGPT for advice after posing a scenario about having “a million dollars” and asking how to invest or spend to maximize profit and return. The filing attributes a specific response to ChatGPT about “building a slower-living vineyard/agricultural lifestyle in places like Cilento or Portugal’s Dão region.”
Even though the exchange itself is not a prosecution theory of how the theft occurred, its inclusion in the court filing paints a picture of decision-making during a period when Yaroch had already—or soon after—secured access to assets he could control. For readers, the key takeaway is not the AI recommendation; it is the fact that illicit access can coexist with attempts to rationalize next steps using whatever tools are available.
A pattern of agent-linked crypto theft
This case adds to a small but notable series of prosecutions in which federal officials and agents are accused of misusing crypto access for personal gain.
Earlier, in 2015, former DEA special agent Carl M. Force diverted about $700,000 in Bitcoin before pleading guilty and receiving a six-and-a-half-year prison sentence, according to a DOJ statement referenced in the coverage. That case was linked to the investigation involving the dark net marketplace Silk Road.
The DOJ similarly reported that former U.S. Secret Service special agent Shaun W. Bridges stole about $350,000 in BTC in 2015, then pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in prison. Like the Force case, it was tied to the Silk Road investigation.
In this context, the Yaroch matter appears less like an isolated “crypto crime” and more like a recurrence of a specific vulnerability: when law-enforcement-linked access overlaps with crypto custody mechanisms—wallets, seeds, exchange accounts, and yield platforms—there is an opportunity for misuse that can be difficult to detect until after damage is done.
Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph highlighted “fake police raid” tactics connected to a $1M Bitcoin transfer, illustrating how both insider and external coercion routes have been used to move large crypto balances. Taken together, these stories suggest that crypto theft continues to evolve along two parallel tracks: technical attacks and social/credential abuse, sometimes involving high-access individuals.
What to watch next
With the alleged transfers spanning late 2024 through early 2025 and authorities already moving a large portion of funds into government control, the immediate focus will likely shift to how the court evaluates Yaroch’s admissions, the role of credential misuse, and the extent of any additional assets or counterparties involved. For crypto market participants, the practical lesson remains clear: insider credential access and wallet recovery material can convert administrative or investigative power into direct custody of funds, making rapid investigation and wallet-level response essential.
Crypto World
BTC price rises as Coldcard exploit, Strategy sales recede. ADA advances: Crypto Markets Today
Bitcoin rose 1.6% over the last 24 hours, climbing as high as $64,160 to the highest since July 31 before retreating. The rebound followed a selloff spurred by an exploit that targeted a cold wallet over the weekend and bitcoin sales by the world’s largest corporate holder .
Roughly 1,816 BTC, about $114 million, was removed from more than 5,200 addresses since July 30, according to researchers tracking the cold wallet hack, which exploited a flaw in the Coldcard wallet’s firmware.
In addition, Strategy (MSTR) sold 1,638 bitcoin between July 27 and Aug. 2 at an average price of $63,957, its third sale of the year and below the company’s $75,419 average cost. Strategy uses the proceeds to fund dividends and buybacks on its preferred stock, STRC.
The Crypto Fear & Greed Index has dropped to “extreme fear” at 25. Spot bitcoin ETFs saw $61.5 million outflows last week, while $170 million came in yesterday. Ether ETFs saw $27.4 million inflows last week, with another $11.4 million leaving on Monday.
Heading into its August 26 earnings, the Nvidia stock looks strong. Nearly every analyst covering the stock rates it a buy. The shares have been higher over the past week, month, and year, and the company is expected to almost double its profit.
Nothing on the surface says caution. Yet the real risk is not on the price chart at all. It sits inside the demand everyone is celebrating, and Michael Burry, the investor who called the 2008 housing crash, has put a number on it.
The Nvidia Setup Looks Bulletproof
The tape gives the bulls everything they want. Nvidia (NVDA) has gained nearly 11% this year, bouncing from a spring low around $164 to roughly $208, even if it sits below the $236 record it set in May. The direction matters most.
The stock is now climbing into the report (starting July 29) rather than sliding into it, which usually signals the market expects good news.
The analysts are just as committed. Of the 37 firms covering Nvidia, 36 rate it a buy, one sits at hold, and not one says sell, which lands the stock at a rare Strong Buy consensus.
Their price targets point the same way. The average sits near $309, roughly 49% above where the stock trades now. The forecasts run from a low of $250 to a high of $500. Two heavyweight firms went further, as Bernstein and Wells Fargo both reiterated $315 targets days before the report.
Wall Street also expects the company to nearly double its earnings from a year ago. Moreover, the options are pricing an expected move of nearly 6% around the print.
Our look at Nvidia stock in July found the same optimism. With almost everyone already positioned for good news, even a solid quarter can fall flat. All of it rests on one assumption, that the demand is real. That is the assumption Burry attacks.
The Risk Is Inside the Results
Burry looked at where Nvidia’s demand actually comes from. The company has reportedly moved to backstop around $250 billion of debt tied to OpenAI’s data centers, helping fund the very customers who buy its chips. Put simply, it is like a shop lending you the money to buy its own goods, so the sale still counts as revenue even though the cash came from the seller.
Want more insights like this? Sign up for Editor Harsh Notariya’s Daily Newsletter here.
Burry warned that this is circular spending reaching biblical proportions, a loop in which Nvidia’s sales and its own guarantees quietly feed each other.
The uncomfortable part is who agrees.
Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon, whose firm still rates the stock a buy at $315, has flagged the same circular-financing concern.
When the loudest bull and the loudest bear describe the same machine, the revenue line on August 26 gets harder to take at face value. The strain echoes OpenAI’s chip financing troubles from earlier this year.
Two smaller cracks sit underneath. China still holds up to $5 billion in sales that one policy shift could erase, and insiders sold roughly $410 million in stock over the past three months while the price ran high. Financing is only half the worry. The other half is whether Nvidia’s technology lead is as safe as it looks.
The Threat to Nvidia’s Lead?
DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng argued in remarks that spread online that new tools could lower the barriers to CUDA, the software ecosystem that keeps developers locked to Nvidia hardware. He pointed to Huawei’s Atlas 950 system as a way to take over some Nvidia workloads, though even that case admits Huawei trails by roughly two years.
Add the custom chips Google, Amazon and Meta are building in-house, and Nvidia’s dominance faces a slow squeeze rather than a sudden break.
It is the same doubt that recently weighed on beaten-down semiconductor stocks. And yet the money has not run, which turns this into a standoff rather than a verdict.
What the Big Money Is Still Doing with Nvidia Stock
Even as the warnings pile up, the flow data tells a calmer story. The Chaikin Money Flow reading, a gauge of whether institutional cash is moving into or out of a stock, shows Nvidia in accumulation rather than retreat.
This means buyers are still stepping in. Also, at press time, it is one of the two chip stocks getting institutional money.
The stock is also trading on its own terms. It has been lagging the broader SOXX semiconductor index on relative strength. In plain terms, big investors keep buying Nvidia on its own merits even as skeptics question the chips. And that split is the whole story heading into the print.
Nvidia has beaten estimates for years and its demand is still enormous. Yet, the stock trades above 30 times earnings with no room for error, and it is climbing into the report rather than hiding from it.
That is exactly when a small crack does the most damage. On August 26, the real question is not whether Nvidia beats. It is whether the demand behind that beat is as solid as 36 buy ratings make it look.
The post 36 Analysts Share Their NVIDIA Stock Forecast Before August Earnings appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Crypto World
The bitcoin (BTC) price has plenty of reasons to freak out, yet volatility remains low: Crypto Daily
For now, some factors seem to favor the bear case. For instance, institutional demand remains anemic. The U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETFs posted $61.53 million in outflows last week, snapping a three-week streak of tepid inflows. Moreover, USDT’s market capitalization, the largest among dollar-pegged stablecoins, fell to the lowest level since October, while USDC’s also remains in a downtrend. (check the Daily Signal).
Real or inflation-adjusted returns on longer-duration Treasury notes have risen to the highest since 2008, denting the appeal of investing in emerging technologies and risk assets. Further, the U.S. Clarity Act’s passage remains uncertain.
Still, at least one data point suggests limited downside. That is tied to the number of BTC acquired around current price levels.
“Approximately 155,000 BTC moved into the $62,000-$65,000 cost-basis range, indicating that selling was absorbed by buyers near current prices. This concentration now represents 0.7 percent of circulating supply and could keep BTC range-bound until a stronger catalyst emerges,” analysts at Bitfinex said.
Stay alert!
Read more: For analysis of today’s activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto Markets Today . For a comprehensive list of events this week, see CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
What’s trending
Google Gemini AI predicts a structural rally for Bitcoin, and this price prediction frames the setup as a perfect storm rather than a single catalyst. Trading at $63,500, Bitcoin is positioned for a move toward $95,000 to $115,000 by year end 2026.
The bull case stacks five forces together. The delayed supply squeeze from the 2024 halving is still working through the market. Sustained spot ETF institutional inflows keep arriving.
Corporate and sovereign treasury adoption keeps expanding. Global M2 liquidity is resurging as central banks ease policy. Post election regulatory clarity adds a final layer.
Gemini frames these as converging at once, which is what separates a structural rally from a speculative spike in the model’s own framing.
The bear scenario is described as mild but specific. Sticky inflation could delay monetary easing, and macro friction could suppress ETF momentum, potentially forcing a brief retest of the $48,000 to $52,000 support zone before long term institutional buying resumes.
Bitcoin Price Prediction: BTC USD RSI Has Been Stuck At The Same Level For Eight Months, So is Copilot AI Predicts Realistic?
Bitcoin topped near $97,000 in January before a sharp February collapse dragged price down to $60,000 in a matter of weeks. That crash set off a slow, uneven recovery that carried price back to $82,000 by May, only for a second decline to erase most of those gains by June.
Since that June low near $57,000, price has spent two months grinding sideways in a tight band, unable to build any real momentum in either direction. Price closed today at $63,406, down 0.08%, in a session ranging between $63,270 and $64,176.
Support sits at $60,000, the level defended through both the February and June lows. Resistance stacks first at $68,000, then $73,000, then the far heavier ceiling near $82,000 where the May rally failed outright.
RSI currently reads 47.19 with the signal line just above at 49.69. That is a small negative gap, and what stands out on the chart is how close both lines have stayed to the neutral 50 mark for nearly the entire year, rarely straying far in either direction.
Momentum here is essentially flat, neither building toward a breakout nor collapsing toward the bear case Gemini describes. For the $95,000 target to move from thesis to reality, Bitcoin needs to first clear $82,000, a level that has already rejected one full rally attempt this year.
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The post Google Gemini AI Predicts the Price of Bitcoin by The End of 2026 appeared first on Cryptonews.
Flare’s FXRP token has been approved as collateral in an institutionally curated Morpho vault on Ethereum, letting XRP holders borrow Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin without selling. It is the first time an XRP-based asset has been accepted in a major on-chain lending market.
Summary
- Flare’s FXRP, a bridged version of XRP on Ethereum, has been approved as collateral in Sentora’s RLUSD Main vault on Morpho, allowing XRP holders to borrow Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin without selling their tokens.
- The integration is the first time an XRP-based asset has been accepted as collateral in an institutionally curated Ethereum lending market, a milestone for an asset that has been almost entirely absent from DeFi.
- XRP is the fourth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization at approximately $70 billion, yet its utilization in on-chain lending, borrowing, and liquidity provision has been negligible compared to assets like ETH, WBTC, and stablecoins.
- Ripple has been building RLUSD as an enterprise-focused stablecoin since August 2024, securing NYDFS approval in December 2024 and a Mastercard settlement integration in July 2026.
- The Morpho Blue lending protocol uses isolated markets designed to contain risk if problems arise with a specific collateral asset, a structure that makes it possible to onboard newer assets like FXRP without exposing the broader protocol to systemic risk.
Introduction
XRP is one of the most widely held cryptocurrencies in the world. At roughly $70 billion in market capitalization, it trails only bitcoin, ether, and Tether’s USDT. It has millions of holders, deep liquidity on centralized exchanges, and a history that predates most of the DeFi ecosystem. And yet, until this week, there was no major lending market on Ethereum where XRP holders could borrow against their position.
The reason is infrastructure, not demand. XRP runs on the XRP Ledger, a separate blockchain with its own consensus mechanism and token standard. Ethereum-based DeFi protocols cannot natively interact with XRP. To use XRP in Ethereum lending markets, someone needs to build a bridge, create a wrapped token, and convince a risk team to underwrite it. That process took years for bitcoin (resulting in WBTC), and it has now happened for XRP through Flare’s FXRP token.
On August 3, Flare announced that FXRP has been approved as collateral in Sentora’s RLUSD Main vault on Morpho. XRP holders can now convert their tokens to FXRP, bridge to Ethereum, deposit as collateral, and borrow Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin. This is not just a technical milestone. It is a test of whether XRP can become a productive DeFi asset after years of sitting idle in wallets.
How the FXRP to RLUSD lending flow works
The process involves four steps, each handled by a different protocol.
Step one: XRP to FXRP conversion. XRP holders convert their native XRP tokens into FXRP, Flare’s bridged representation of XRP. Flare is a layer 1 blockchain that has built cross-chain data infrastructure, including the ability to create asset representations that can move between chains.
Step two: bridge FXRP to Ethereum. The FXRP token is bridged from Flare to Ethereum, where it becomes an ERC-20 token that Ethereum-based protocols can recognize and interact with.
Step three: deposit FXRP as collateral on Morpho. The Ethereum-native FXRP is deposited into Sentora’s RLUSD Main vault on Morpho Blue. Sentora, formerly known as IntoTheBlock, serves as the vault curator, meaning it reviews and approves which assets can be used as collateral. Sentora reviewed FXRP’s market behavior, oracle design, liquidity, and liquidation mechanics before granting approval.
Step four: borrow RLUSD. With FXRP deposited as collateral, the user borrows RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin. The loan is overcollateralized, meaning the value of the FXRP deposit must exceed the value of the RLUSD borrowed. Because this is a loan against collateral and not a sale, the borrower retains exposure to XRP’s price movements.
Flare CEO Hugo Philion described the significance in terms of institutional credibility: “XRP is now collateral that an institutional risk team underwrites on Ethereum mainnet, which is a stronger form of recognition than another bridge listing.”
Why XRP has been absent from DeFi
XRP’s absence from DeFi is not accidental. It reflects three structural factors that have kept the asset isolated from the composable lending and borrowing ecosystem that Ethereum-based tokens take for granted.
Separate blockchain architecture. The XRP Ledger uses a different consensus mechanism (the XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol) and token standard than Ethereum. Unlike ERC-20 tokens, which can be natively deposited into any Ethereum smart contract, XRP requires a bridge and a wrapped representation to interact with Ethereum DeFi. Building that bridge securely takes time and auditing resources. The XRP Ledger was designed for payments, not for programmable smart contracts, which means the tooling and standards that Ethereum DeFi relies on do not exist natively on XRPL.
Regulatory uncertainty. The SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple, filed in December 2020 and not fully resolved until 2024, created a chilling effect on DeFi integration. Protocol teams and vault curators were reluctant to add XRP-based collateral when the token’s regulatory status was unclear. DeFi protocols have their own compliance considerations, and adding a token that the SEC claimed was an unregistered security was a risk most teams chose to avoid. The resolution of that case removed the legal overhang but did not immediately produce DeFi infrastructure.
Limited DeFi ecosystem on XRPL. The XRP Ledger has a built-in decentralized exchange and an automated market maker, but its DeFi ecosystem is small compared to Ethereum, Solana, or even newer L2 networks. Most DeFi activity, lending, borrowing, yield farming, and derivatives, happens on Ethereum and its rollups. For XRP holders to participate, they need to leave the XRPL, which until FXRP was not straightforward. The result is that a $70 billion asset has been almost entirely absent from on-chain credit markets, a gap that is disproportionate to its size and liquidity on centralized venues.
The WBTC parallel
The closest analogy to what Flare is doing with FXRP is Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), which has been operating on Ethereum since 2019. WBTC lets bitcoin holders wrap their BTC into an ERC-20 token, deposit it as collateral on Aave, Compound, and MakerDAO, and borrow stablecoins against it.
WBTC demonstrated that non-native assets can become productive DeFi collateral if the bridge is trustworthy and the lending market is deep enough. At its peak, WBTC had over $15 billion in total value locked. It proved that bitcoin holders wanted to borrow against their positions rather than sell.
FXRP aims to replicate this model for XRP. The key differences are scale (WBTC had years of liquidity building, FXRP is just launching) and custody model (WBTC relies on a centralized custodian, BitGo, while Flare uses a decentralized bridge). Whether FXRP achieves WBTC-level adoption depends on whether XRP holders are willing to bridge their tokens and whether additional lending vaults beyond Sentora add FXRP as collateral. The bridging step is a genuine friction point: WBTC holders only needed to interact with a single custodian, while FXRP holders must navigate Flare’s cross-chain infrastructure before reaching Ethereum. Reducing that friction through improved tooling and wallet integrations is as important to adoption as the lending market itself.
What RLUSD is and why it matters here
RLUSD is Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, designed for enterprise use cases including cross-border payments and institutional settlement. Ripple began testing RLUSD on Ethereum and the XRP Ledger in August 2024 and received approval from the New York Department of Financial Services in December 2024.
RLUSD is not trying to be USDC or USDT. Ripple has positioned it as a compliance-first stablecoin for regulated financial institutions. The Mastercard settlement integration announced in July 2026 is an example: Mastercard will support settlement of regulated stablecoins including RLUSD, USDC, and SoFi’s SoFiUSD. Zand Bank in the UAE began using RLUSD for cross-border payments in early 2026. Ripple has also expanded into Latin America, bringing Bitso’s Mexican peso-backed stablecoin MXNB onto the XRP Ledger in June 2026.
The FXRP/RLUSD lending integration adds a new use case: on-chain borrowing. XRP holders who want dollar liquidity without selling can now borrow RLUSD against their position. If RLUSD is accepted at more venues and payment rails, the utility of borrowing it increases. This creates a flywheel where RLUSD adoption in payments makes RLUSD borrowing more attractive, which drives more FXRP deposits, which deepens the lending market.
The stablecoin landscape itself is shifting rapidly. Circle recently brought USDC to the XRP Ledger, meaning XRPL now supports both RLUSD and USDC natively. This multi-stablecoin approach on XRPL means XRP holders have more options for accessing dollar liquidity, and the FXRP/RLUSD lending market on Ethereum adds yet another path. For Ripple, the strategic play is to make RLUSD the default borrowing currency for XRP-collateralized loans, creating a use case that USDC does not serve.
Why Morpho Blue’s isolated market design matters
Morpho Blue is a lending protocol that uses isolated markets instead of the shared pool model used by Aave and Compound. In a shared pool, all depositors share risk: if one collateral asset fails, losses can spread across the entire protocol. In Morpho Blue’s isolated markets, each collateral-borrow pair operates independently. A problem with FXRP would affect only the FXRP/RLUSD market, not other lending pairs on the protocol.
This design is what made it possible for Sentora to approve FXRP as collateral. A shared pool protocol would likely have rejected a newly bridged token with limited on-chain history. Morpho Blue’s isolation means the risk is contained, and the vault curator (Sentora) bears the responsibility for evaluating it.
Sentora’s CTO Jesus Rodriguez described the approval as a deliberate expansion of on-chain credit: “XRP is one of crypto’s largest and most liquid assets. Yet it remains surprisingly underused in onchain credit. That changes today.” The framing is significant: this is not a DeFi experiment. It is an institutional risk team making a calculated underwriting decision.
The isolation model also creates a natural price discovery mechanism for FXRP risk. Because each vault has its own interest rate curve determined by utilization, lenders are effectively pricing the specific risk of FXRP collateral rather than having that risk diluted across a shared pool. If the market perceives FXRP bridge risk as elevated, rates in FXRP-collateralized vaults will rise relative to vaults backed by native Ethereum assets. This transparency gives both lenders and borrowers real-time information about how the market values the bridge and custody mechanisms that underpin FXRP.
The $70 billion question
XRP has roughly $70 billion in market capitalization. If even 5% of that value migrates into DeFi collateral positions (as happened with bitcoin through WBTC), the result would be $3.5 billion in new collateral available for borrowing. At 10%, it would be $7 billion.
For context, Morpho Blue’s total value locked across all markets is roughly $4 billion. A meaningful flow of XRP into the protocol would make it one of the largest collateral assets on the platform. Whether this happens depends on XRP holder behavior, FXRP bridge trust, and RLUSD utility. But the infrastructure is now in place for the first time.
The peso-backed stablecoin integration on XRPL through Bitso and the USDC expansion to XRP Ledger through Circle show that Ripple is building a multi-stablecoin ecosystem around XRP. The FXRP/RLUSD lending market extends this ecosystem into Ethereum DeFi, bridging two worlds that have historically operated separately.
The comparison to Ethereum’s DeFi trajectory is instructive. When WETH first became available as collateral on Aave and Compound, it took approximately 18 months before the cumulative value locked in ETH-collateralized lending exceeded 5% of ETH’s market capitalization. XRP faces a steeper adoption curve because its holder base skews more retail, with a lower proportion of technically sophisticated users who are comfortable with bridge mechanics and vault management. The institutional channel through Sentora’s curated vaults could accelerate adoption, but institutional allocators typically require six to twelve months of live market data before committing significant capital.
What scale adoption would look like
The WBTC adoption curve provides a template for projecting what FXRP could achieve over a multiyear period. When WBTC launched in January 2019, it began with a few million dollars in total value locked. It took roughly 18 months to reach $1 billion, and another year to reach $10 billion as DeFi activity surged through 2020 and 2021. At its peak in late 2021, WBTC held over $15 billion in total value locked across Aave, Compound, and MakerDAO, representing roughly 1.5% of bitcoin’s market cap at the time.
FXRP starts from a different baseline. XRP has no DeFi history to build on, while WBTC launched when bitcoin holders already understood the concept of using cryptocurrency as collateral and had watched earlier DeFi protocols develop lending markets. But XRP’s size, $70 billion in market capitalization, means even a small adoption rate translates to significant absolute TVL. If FXRP captures 0.5% of XRP market cap in collateral, that is $350 million. At 1%, $700 million. At the WBTC peak rate of roughly 1.5%, it would be more than $1 billion.
For Morpho Blue, these numbers are material. The protocol’s total value locked across all markets is roughly $4 billion. A $500 million FXRP collateral pool would represent more than 10% of Morpho’s total market size, making FXRP a top-tier collateral asset and attracting market makers, liquidation bots, and additional vault curators who see FXRP liquidity as worth their infrastructure investment.
The institutional framing matters here. Sentora’s approval is not just a permission to participate; it is a credentialing signal. DeFi protocols are understandably skeptical of bridged assets because bridge exploits have caused billions in losses. An institutional risk team reviewing oracle design, liquidity profiles, and liquidation mechanics before granting approval lowers the barrier for the second and third curator approvals. Morpho’s isolated market architecture means curators can observe how the FXRP/RLUSD market behaves before committing their own vaults, using Sentora’s early data as evidence.
Ripple’s existing institutional relationships give FXRP a distribution channel that WBTC did not have at launch. RLUSD is already integrated with Mastercard settlement, live in Zand Bank UAE, and present on the XRP Ledger alongside USDC. If Ripple’s enterprise payment partners begin borrowing RLUSD against FXRP positions for working capital or treasury management, the institutional use case extends beyond retail speculation. A $10 million working capital facility backed by XRP collateral, accessed through the FXRP bridge and Morpho, is precisely the kind of product that Ripple’s enterprise sales network can take to existing RLUSD clients. That commercial distribution path distinguishes FXRP from purely retail-driven bridged tokens and gives the collateral market a demand source that does not depend on DeFi sentiment cycles.
The risk of bridge-based DeFi collateral
The FXRP model introduces risks that native Ethereum tokens do not carry. Every step in the flow, XRP to FXRP conversion, bridging from Flare to Ethereum, oracle pricing, and Morpho vault liquidation, represents a potential failure point.
Bridge exploits are the most expensive category of smart contract hacks in crypto history. Cross-chain bridges have caused over $4 billion in losses since 2021, including the Ronin ($624 million), Wormhole ($326 million), and Nomad ($190 million) exploits. Each of these hacks targeted the trust assumptions that allow assets to move between chains. The FXRP bridge uses Flare’s decentralized infrastructure, which is architecturally different from the compromised bridges, but the risk category is the same: any vulnerability in the bridge could result in unbacked FXRP tokens on Ethereum, which would make the Morpho collateral worthless.
Oracle risk is the second concern. The Morpho vault needs an accurate, manipulation-resistant price feed for FXRP to trigger liquidations at the right time. If the oracle diverges from the true market price of XRP, two outcomes are possible: premature liquidations that harm borrowers, or delayed liquidations that leave lenders with bad debt. Sentora reviewed the oracle design before approving FXRP, but the limited on-chain history of the token means the oracle has not been tested under extreme market conditions.
Liquidity risk is the third factor. If a borrower’s FXRP collateral needs to be liquidated, there must be sufficient FXRP liquidity on Ethereum for liquidators to sell the seized tokens. A thin FXRP market could result in liquidators being unable to recover the full value of the loan, creating losses for RLUSD lenders. This is a bootstrapping problem: liquidity improves as adoption grows, but adoption depends on liquidity being sufficient from the start.
Historical precedent suggests bridge exploits follow a pattern. The Ronin bridge lost $625 million in March 2022 when attackers compromised validator keys. The Wormhole bridge lost $320 million a month earlier through a signature verification bypass. In both cases, the underlying assets on the source chain were unaffected, but the wrapped representations on the destination chain became worthless. For FXRP holders using Morpho vaults, a Flare bridge compromise would mean their collateral evaporates while their loan obligations remain. The asymmetry between borrower and lender risk in a bridge failure scenario is one of the least discussed aspects of cross-chain DeFi collateral.
What would invalidate this thesis
The bullish read is that FXRP opens a new chapter for XRP in DeFi. The bearish read is that XRP holders have shown little interest in DeFi historically, and a bridged token on an unfamiliar protocol will not change that behavior.
If FXRP deposits remain below $50 million after six months, the integration was a technical success but a commercial failure. If the FXRP bridge suffers a security incident, trust in the model collapses. If RLUSD itself fails to gain traction beyond a few institutional partnerships, the borrowing side of the market dies. And if XRP’s price drops significantly, FXRP collateral positions get liquidated, creating negative feedback loops that discourage further deposits.
Regulatory risk adds another dimension. If regulators classify FXRP as a derivative or synthetic asset rather than a direct representation of XRP, the compliance burden on institutional vaults could make the product uneconomical. The SEC has not issued guidance on wrapped or bridged tokens as a distinct category, and enforcement actions in adjacent areas suggest the regulatory framework remains uncertain. A single enforcement action against a bridged asset product could freeze institutional participation across the entire category.
What to watch
FXRP total value deposited on Morpho. The single most important metric. If deposits reach $500 million within six months, XRP holders are adopting DeFi collateral use cases. If deposits stall below $100 million, adoption has failed.
RLUSD circulating supply growth. Track whether the lending integration drives new RLUSD minting. If borrowing demand increases RLUSD supply, the flywheel is working.
Additional vault curators adding FXRP. Sentora is the first. If other curators like Gauntlet, Block Analitica, or Steakhouse Financial add FXRP vaults, the collateral is gaining broader institutional acceptance.
Flare bridge security. Any exploit or significant downtime on the FXRP bridge would damage trust in the model. Track audit reports, bridge volume, and incident history.
XRP DeFi TVL relative to market cap. Currently near zero. Bitcoin’s WBTC TVL as a percentage of BTC market cap reached roughly 1.5% at peak. If FXRP reaches even 0.5% of XRP market cap ($350 million), it would represent meaningful DeFi adoption.
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Frequently asked questions
What is FXRP?
FXRP is Flare’s bridged version of XRP that operates as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. It allows XRP holders to use their tokens in Ethereum-based DeFi protocols without selling the underlying XRP.
What is RLUSD?
RLUSD is Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, designed for enterprise use cases including cross-border payments and institutional settlement. It was approved by the New York Department of Financial Services in December 2024 and launched on Ethereum and the XRP Ledger.
How does XRP lending on Morpho work?
XRP holders convert XRP to FXRP on Flare, bridge FXRP to Ethereum, deposit it as collateral in Sentora’s RLUSD vault on Morpho Blue, and borrow RLUSD against their position. The loan is overcollateralized and retains the borrower’s exposure to XRP price movements.
Why has XRP been absent from Ethereum DeFi?
XRP runs on a separate blockchain (the XRP Ledger) that cannot natively interact with Ethereum smart contracts. The SEC lawsuit against Ripple also discouraged DeFi protocol teams from integrating XRP-based assets until the case was resolved.
What is Morpho Blue?
Morpho Blue is a lending protocol that uses isolated markets instead of shared pools. Each collateral-borrow pair operates independently, containing risk and making it possible to onboard newer assets like FXRP without exposing the broader protocol.
How is FXRP different from WBTC?
Both are bridged representations of non-Ethereum assets. WBTC uses a centralized custodian (BitGo) to hold the underlying bitcoin, while FXRP uses Flare’s decentralized bridge. WBTC has years of liquidity history and widespread DeFi integration; FXRP is just launching.
What is Sentora’s role?
Sentora (formerly IntoTheBlock) is the vault curator that reviewed and approved FXRP as collateral for the RLUSD lending market on Morpho. Curators evaluate collateral assets for market behavior, oracle design, liquidity, and liquidation mechanics before granting approval.
Could this model expand to other assets?
Yes. The FXRP/Morpho model could be replicated for other non-Ethereum assets that have large market capitalizations but limited DeFi presence. The success or failure of the FXRP integration will likely influence whether curators approve similar bridged tokens in the future.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. The information presented is based on publicly available reports and announcements as of August 3, 2026. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions.
Former hedge fund manager and CNBC “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer said he plans to sell all his Bitcoin due to quantum computing fears.
“I’m going to sell mine [Bitcoin],” said Cramer during a Friday Mad Money episode, citing quantum computing concerns that IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna had raised in on his show the previous day.
During Thursday’s episode, Krishna told Cramer that he should get “paranoid” about quantum computing’s threat to cryptocurrencies in the next three to four years.
Bitcoin’s (BTC) price was up roughly 1.7% on Tuesday to trade above $63,500, but was down 27% year-to-date, according to TradingView data.
Some crypto investors celebrated Cramer’s remarks, referencing the popular “inverse Cramer” meme and investment philosophy, which ironically seeks to capitalize on the opposite of the investment calls made by the former fund manager.
“If Cramer is selling, it’s time to start buying,” commented GRIT Trading Academy founder Archie Spencer.
“Every time Cramer says sell, I add to my position. Been doing it since 2018. The inverse Cramer index remains undefeated,” wrote pseudonymous crypto investor Bitcoin & Barbells.
BTC/USD, year-to-date chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Whale wallets start selling as trading activity declines
Meanwhile, large investors are selling their Bitcoin holdings as crypto market liquidity is drying up.
On Monday, whale wallet ‘bc1qpt’ transferred its entire holdings of 16,400 Bitcoin, worth about $1 billion, to a new wallet address following seven months of inactivity, according to blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain.
The transfer occurred shortly after daily cryptocurrency trading activity across the leading 44 spot crypto exchanges fell to $15 billion last week, marking the lowest level of 2026, according to data from crypto intelligence platform Kaiko shared by the Kobeissi Letter.
Source: The Kobeissi Letter
“This marks a -70% decline from January peak levels, ” wrote the Kobeissi Letter in a Tuesday X post, adding that “crypto market liquidity is drying up.”
Related: Nearly 10% of Bitcoin supply is ‘structurally unsafe’ from quantum breakthrough: Glassnode
Industry watchers divided over quantum threat’s timeline
Industry watchers are divided over the timeline of a quantum computing breakthrough. In November 2025, Blockstream CEO Adam Back said that Bitcoin faces no meaningful quantum threat for at least the next 20 to 40 years.
In contrast, analysts at Bernstein said that Bitcoin has about three to five years to prepare for a post-quantum security upgrade, in an April report.
“Back’s assessment is the more accurate and measured view: practical quantum threats capable of breaking Bitcoin’s cryptography remain highly unlikely within the next decade,” Lacie Zhang, research analyst at Bitget Wallet, told Cointelegraph.
Magazine: Bitcoin’s quantum upgrade path: What BIP-360 changes and what it does not
Yamaha Motor shares surged 13.40% on Tuesday to close at 1,511 yen (roughly 9.62 dollars), after record first-half results forced the company to raise its annual guidance.
The rally stood out in a Japanese market still rattled by last week’s coordinated currency intervention.
The Record Numbers Behind the Rally
Operating profit measures earnings from core business activities before interest and taxes, a cleaner gauge of operational health than net income alone.
Yamaha’s revenue reached 1.498 trillion yen (~$9.54 billion) during the January to June period, up 17.2% year-over-year. Operating profit climbed to 158.5 billion yen (~$1.01 billion), an 88.6% increase. Attributable net profit performed even better. The figure hit 113.9 billion yen (~$725 million), representing a growth of 114.7%.
Motorcycles drove the expansion. European and American markets led demand, supported by a weaker yen through most of the period and improved cost management. Structural changes accompanied the results. The company announced reforms to its off-road leisure vehicle business and raised its full-year forecast.
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Investor response was immediate. Trading volume exceeded 30 million shares, reflecting unusually strong interest in the stock.
The broader index offered only modest relief. The Nikkei 225 advanced 0.32% to 63,957.53 points, partially recovering from sharp declines in previous sessions.
Japanese markets have endured severe volatility since late July. The yen weakened to levels unseen in 40 years before Tokyo and the US Treasury executed a joint yen-buying intervention.
Why the Risks Have Not Disappeared
The subsequent currency rebound created its own problem. Exporters faced profitability concerns, triggering heavy selling across the index.
Washington is now pushing for additional tools. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly asked the Federal Reserve to expand its FIMA repo facility. The mechanism matters considerably. It allows foreign governments to obtain dollars by using Treasury bonds as collateral, thereby supporting interventions without straining American debt markets.
Risks remain firmly in place, however. Analysts warn the real pain may still be ahead for Japanese equities. Two threats stand out. A possible Bank of Japan rate hike in September, combined with a yen still prone to strengthening, would squeeze export-dependent companies.
Kioxia Holdings illustrates that vulnerability. The memory chip maker already missed its first-half guidance and suffers directly from yen appreciation, given its reliance on foreign sales.
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The contrast defined Tuesday’s session. While the Nikkei managed only a timid rebound, Yamaha demonstrated that exceptional results still command investor attention.
Sustainability remains an open question. Further yen strengthening or a more aggressive decision by the Bank of Japan in September could pressure exporters again. For now, the market rewarded execution over macro anxiety. Whether that holds depends on decisions in Tokyo rather than corporate boardrooms.
The post Yamaha Shares Explode 13% on Record H1 Results, Defying Japan’s Market Crisis appeared first on BeInCrypto.
In the latest XRP News, Ripple announced strategic equity investments in two UK-based firms, Zilo and Licuido, on August 3, 2026, converting existing commercial partnerships into ownership positions to complete a full-lifecycle institutional capital markets stack on the XRP Ledger.
The move targets the gap that has stalled most institutional tokenization pilots: minting a token is straightforward; financing, pledging, and settling it with the same reliability as a conventional holding is not.
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The Problem: Tokenized Assets That Sit Idle
Institutional RWA tokenization has exhibited a consistent structural failure: tokenized fund shares are issued and then parked.
The ownership record, issuance rail, and settlement mechanism have historically been handled by separate, often incompatible legacy systems that were never designed to interface with on-chain collateral markets.
Ripple’s framing of the deal is explicit on this point. The company described the investments as addressing constraints in which collateral sits idle, settlement takes longer than necessary, and institutions have no reliable path to unlock liquidity from tokenized positions.
The Zilo and Licuido stakes are designed to close those three gaps simultaneously on XRPL.
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XRP News: What Zilo and Licuido Each Provide
Zilo handles transfer agency and fund administration – the regulated record of who owns what, extended to cover tokenized share classes as funds move on-chain. Before any lender will extend credit against a tokenized fund position, they need a legally reliable ownership register; Zilo supplies that layer. Its client roster, which includes Citi, Fidelity International, and State Street, provides Ripple with a direct bridge into incumbent custody and TA infrastructure.
Licuido, an FCA-regulated platform, manages issuance, distribution, and execution, allowing traditional financial assets, including fund shares, to move as digital collateral through on-chain atomic settlement.
— Arthur (@XrpArthur) August 4, 2026
Ripple invested in two regulated capital markets firms. Today.
ZILO — digital transfer agency for asset managers. On XRPL.
Licuido — FCA-regulated issuance and collateral platform. On XRPL.
Partners already building on this infrastructure :
Aviva Investors. Franklin… https://t.co/8vOjuu87UP
Trades settle on the XRPL in three to five seconds. Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, functions as the regulated cash leg for delivery-versus-payment transactions, so asset transfer and payment settle simultaneously rather than sequentially.
Together, the three-part stack – Zilo for regulated record-keeping, Licuido for issuance and collateral mobility, RLUSD for the cash leg – gives institutions a single operating model for tokenized fund assets from issuance through financing. Neither company’s financial terms were disclosed.
Nigel Khakoo, Ripple’s SVP of Trading and Markets, characterized the infrastructure role of both firms in the official press release: “ZILO and Licuido provide core capabilities that are essential to further scaling this shift: regulated digital transfer agency infrastructure and liquidity for issuance and collateral mobility.”
Building on Live Deployments, Not Pilots
The stakes are not speculative bets on unproven vendors. Ripple confirmed that both investments build on pre-existing partnerships, and Licuido was already in production as the tokenization infrastructure for the Aviva Investors USD Liquidity Fund, the first tokenized fund structure approved by the Central Bank of Ireland on a public blockchain, which went live on XRPL on July 29, 2026.
BNY holds the underlying assets; Komainu provides digital asset custody.
The institutional pipeline extends further. Ripple’s parallel push into institutional infrastructure also encompasses a September 2025 memorandum of understanding with Franklin Templeton and DBS to list Franklin Templeton’s sgBENJI tokenized money market fund on the DBS Digital Exchange alongside RLUSD, with a stated path toward using sgBENJI as repo collateral.
The collateral-mobility thesis Ripple is industrializing through Zilo, and Licuido is the same structure that the partnership was designed to test.
On the network side, Ripple reported that XRPL has processed more than four billion transactions since 2012 and is maintained by 120 independent validators. A major protocol upgrade, xrpld 3.3.0, targeting improvements in XRPL infrastructure and institutional finance functionality, was expected to be released within days of the announcement.
Ripple is also one of 54 firms on a UK government task force formed to build live tokenized wholesale financial market use cases over the next 12 months, alongside Circle, Coinbase, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Morgan Stanley. The first target is the tokenized repo. Ripple’s expanding regulatory positioning in Europe provides additional runway for the institutional tokenization push built on XRPL.
The practical test for the Zilo and Licuido stack is whether tokenized fund shares generate genuine secondary liquidity and serve as working collateral in live credit markets over the next 12 to 24 months – or whether they remain a more sophisticated form of the same idle token problem Ripple is explicitly trying to solve.
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The post XRP News: Ripple Takes Equity Stakes in Zilo and Licuido to Fix Idle Tokenized Assets appeared first on Cryptonews.
The 230-ft. Falcon 9 lifted off from launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 15, 2025, packed with a pair of spacecraft bound for the moon. One of them, the Blue Ghost lander, built by Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Texas, landed on the moon on March 2, 2025, becoming the first privately built ship to pull off a completely successful lunar touchdown. The other, the Resilience lander, built by the Japanese company ispace, wasn’t so fortunate, crash-landing on the moon on June 5, 2025, after its laser range-finder failed. At the beginning of their missions, once the ships had climbed to near-Earth space, both of them relied on the Falcon 9’s 45-ft. upper stage to blast them away from the Earth and outward to the moon. After releasing the two lunar landers, that Falcon stage was supposed to fall harmlessly away, but instead it’s hung around.
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