Crypto World
Wall Street Notches Records, Then Bonds Slam Stocks Back Down
Bonds are slamming stocks just days after Wall Street set fresh records. A global bond selloff is now pushing borrowing costs to multi-decade highs.
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite fell to two-week lows on Tuesday. In contrast, long-dated Treasury yields jumped to their highest levels in nearly two decades.
Records, Then a Reversal
The S&P 500 closed at a record 7,798.99 on Aug. 13. Cooling inflation data and strong AI-linked earnings had powered that rally.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average had also set an AI-earnings record close alongside the S&P 500 on Aug. 5. However, the mood flipped just days later.
The Nasdaq Composite slid to a two-week low as semiconductor stocks tumbled, denting a record-setting 2026 rally.
How Bonds Are Slamming Stocks
The US 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.748%, its highest since January 2025. The 30-year yield reached 5.33%, its highest level in 19 years.
The rout is not just American. Japan’s 10-year government bond yield reached a 30-year high of 2.945% this week.
The gap between short-term and long-term US yields is now the widest in four years. That steepening signals investors are demanding more compensation for long-run risk.
Renewed doubts over a Middle East peace deal pushed oil prices higher, fanning inflation fears. Meanwhile, a record wave of corporate bond issuance is competing with government debt for investor cash.
Issuance has totaled nearly $1.7 trillion so far in 2026, according to SIFMA data. That pace is on track to top last year’s record of $2.2 trillion.
A Moving Market is Worth a Look
Meanwhile, South Korea’s KOSPI fell 1.5% and Japan’s Nikkei dropped 2.5% in sympathy. The Philadelphia SE Semiconductor Index tumbled 5% as investors reassessed AI-linked valuations.
In contrast, the pullback lends weight to Fundstrat’s Tom Lee. He has said a 10% market correction may be needed before the S&P 500 can sustainably clear 8,000.
Wednesday’s Federal Reserve minutes may decide whether this pause holds or the selloff deepens. Investors are already positioning for that Fed minutes preview, the next major catalyst for both stocks and bonds.
The post Wall Street Notches Records, Then Bonds Slam Stocks Back Down appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Many self-made billionaires conceal their humble beginnings. CJ Wang has put his front and center of his penthouse Hong Kong office: a small stone mill for grinding soybeans.
Mao Zedong’s tumultuous Cultural Revolution was just winding down when Wang started school in what is today Yantai city of China’s eastern Shandong province. (Where, incidentally, TIME founder Henry Luce was born in 1898.)
Like most neighborhood kids, Wang was obliged to help with household chores after class, especially churning soymilk by endlessly hauling his uncle’s giant stone mill around. It was labor that made the young Wang’s arms ache, though the eventual payoff would be a business empire worth tens of billions of dollars.
After graduating in electrical engineering from Beijing Jiaotong University, Wang became a teacher like his parents. “It was what my family did so I just naturally fell into teaching,” he says, gazing out at sweeping views of Victoria Harbour. “But I always wanted to do something bigger and carve my own path.”
In 1994, as Chinese reformer Deng Xiaoping’s market liberalization unleashed a heady entrepreneurial spirit across the People’s Republic, Wang quit his job at a vocational college and invented the world’s first automatic soymilk maker. “It was far from perfect, and wasn’t an ideal product, but it was already a huge leap forward,” Wang says.
That same year Wang founded Joyoung, which soon became a household name in China for low-cost, dependable consumer products from blenders to rice cookers. While Americans may not recognize Joyoung, they are probably familiar with Wang’s other major venture: SharkNinja, which he acquired in 2017 and today serves as chairman, having transformed the Massachusetts-based firm into a $26 billion trailblazer for disruptive household appliances.
“I really saw SharkNinja as an American version of Joyoung,” he says. “I really felt like I understood the business.”
In our interview, Wang’s first ever with international media, he comes across as shy and softly spoken, betraying none of the performative bravado of many billionaire founders. He is, he confesses, a very private person, whose few passions outside of work include Macallan whisky and golf. (He has a 15 handicap). So why has he decided to chat today?
“I just want to be ahead of the curve to proactively tell my story to mitigate any speculation,” he says. “Because there’s just not much out there about me.”
In an age of relentless scrutiny, even immense wealth offers no refuge from the public eye. The elephant in the room is the dire state of U.S.-China relations, with tariffs and export restrictions casting a pall on what had once been a synergistic business climate. Chinese investment into the U.S. grew steadily until peaking at $46.5 billion in 2016, with Chinese investors hoovering up everything from Smithfield Foods and AMC Theatres to New York City’s Waldorf Astoria hotel.
However, re-tightened capital controls in China and expanded CFIUS regulatory reviews in the U.S. dovetailed to bring the honeymoon to an end. Last year, Chinese foreign direct investment into the U.S. was just $2.5 billion—down 94% from its peak—with the investment climate further chastened by ongoing geopolitical friction, supply chain reshoring, and tit-for-tat import duties.
U.S. lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have increasingly framed capital flows from China into U.S. farmland, manufacturing, and technology as national security vulnerabilities rather than economic opportunities. Last year, President Donald Trump promised “new rules” to “stop China from buying up America.”
In today’s febrile political environment, the risk Wang faces is that his Chinese background and natural introversion could be misinterpreted as shadowy or even sinister—a notion he is at pains to dispel.
“SharkNinja is a very American company,” says Wang. “But people just start making assumptions. I want people to know who I am and my motivations for the good of the company, so there’s no speculation about that.”
If today’s political climate is problematic, popular culture hasn’t been much kinder. The 2019 Netflix documentary American Factory relished in the culture-clash antagonisms between American workers and Chinese managers of the Fuyao auto-glass factory in Dayton, Oh., which took over a long-shuttered GM plant.
Then there is Chinese fast-fashion phenomenon Shein, whose direct-to-consumer sales have been blamed for decimating high streets and sparked protests and legal objections across Europe and North America over its alleged labor abuses and environmental footprint.
However, Wang argues the experience of SharkNinja—the Shark half produces household appliances and beauty products; Ninja does kitchen gadgets—offers a stark counterpoint as an example of a successful “refounding” to clarify and reenergise a company’s mission statement and propel it to new heights.
After more than two decades of building Joyoung into a trusted brand in China—as well as establishing an eponymous philanthropic foundation—Wang started to cast his eyes overseas. However, Joyoung was virtually unknown in the West. Rather than spend years building recognition abroad, he chose a faster route: buy an established player.
Wang looked at several options but was captivated by SharkNinja. After a quick trip to Boston, he saw a company that felt reassuringly familiar: strong products, entrepreneurial leadership, and plenty of room to grow. Wang was especially impressed by CEO Mark Barrocas, whom he asked to remain after the acquisition—a condition that helped smooth the deal. (Original founder Mark Rosenzweig also still regularly consults for the company.)
Given that Barrocas is renowned for micromanagement, Wang’s hands off style led to a very amicable partnership. One manager told TIME that Wang turns up at the firm’s U.S. headquarters with such little fanfare that it takes baffled reception staff a few minutes to work out that the guy in front signs all their paychecks.
“My role is always from a very high-level, strategic standpoint,” says Wang. “All the day-to-day stuff is the American team. I’ve had a really good working relationship with Mark from the very beginning.”
But SharkNinja also had clear weaknesses. Its product range was narrow: Shark depended heavily on vacuums, while Ninja relied largely on blenders. Its sales model leaned on fading television infomercials, with little social-media presence or diversified distribution. And its manufacturing was concentrated among only a few Chinese suppliers, limiting flexibility and innovation.
Wang believed Joyoung’s experience could unlock the company’s potential. His plan centered on three moves: broaden the product portfolio, strengthen the supply chain, and modernize sales channels. Today, the company funnels around 10% of revenue into advertising, including celebrity endorsements from the likes of Tom Brady and Kevin Hart.
Imaginative marketing is very close to Wang’s heart. After debuting his first soymilk maker, Wang personally hawked his fledgling creation in markets and malls. But then a friend who worked in the media suggested he publish an article about how people can now make soy milk in a matter of minutes in their own home. “That gained a lot of attention, and I realized the power of marketing to sell your products,” Wang recalls. That friend, meanwhile, “became my wife,” he grins.
Wang also wanted SharkNinja to adopt his passion for engineering by building its own R&D capabilities. At the time of the acquisition, SharkNinja’s innovation model was thin. Its leaders could identify product opportunities, but design and engineering were largely outsourced to a small group of Chinese suppliers, who had a “stranglehold” on development, says Wang. The company had little in-house industrial design or research capability—and therefore limited control over how quickly ideas became products.
Wang had the manufacturing chops and contacts to change that. Today, SharkNinja employs roughly 1,200 R&D staff across Boston, London, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou. That investment has helped expand the business from a handful of core appliances into more than 40 product categories, with two or three added each year. Shark moved beyond vacuums into beauty and broader home-care products; Ninja grew from blenders into a full kitchen portfolio.
Behind those products is a simple discipline: start with consumer frustration. SharkNinja mines reviews and complaints to find friction, then engineers around it. Innovation does not end at launch. Teams keep refining cleaning, convenience and usability—turning each solved problem into a better product, and each better product into another platform for growth.
The hits followed. The Foodi combined pressure cooking and air frying in one appliance. The CREAMi brought homemade ice cream into the home while sparking a viral “Can it CREAMi?” craze of TikTok stars competing to produce ever more wacky recipes, featuring Dr Pepper, dill pickles, and even tomato soup. The Ninja SLUSHi was a similar sensation for frozen drinks, selling out 10 times in the U.S., with a global waitlist of over 170,000. A post featuring the Shark TurboBlade fan, meanwhile, received more than 75 million views on TikTok and Instagram.
“One of the keys to success is innovation,” says Joe Derochowski, vice president of home and home improvement for market research firm Circana. “The second key is you’ve got to tell people about that innovation in their language—how it fits into their lives.”
There have been setbacks, of course. SharkNinja recently settled lawsuits with competitors Dyson and iRobot over alleged patent infringements. Over 1.8 million Foodi units were recalled last year after a malfunction led to 106 reports of burn injuries and multiple lawsuits. In November 2024, short seller Grizzly Research accused Wang of “taking advantage of the company to the detriment of public shareholders” and presiding over “some of the worst practices of old-school China hustle stock.” The market didn’t buy it, however, and the firm’s value has more than doubled since.
“He’s been an absolutely extraordinary partner for the business over the last nine years,” Barrocas says of Wang. “He’s very thoughtful, asks a lot of questions, very strategic, and takes a very long-term view of things. He wants to build a sustainable, lasting business.
Barrocas’s praise of his boss is, of course, unsurprising. Not least when Barrocas—who retains a 1% stake in SharkNinja—just last week took advantage of its stellar stock performance to net himself over $100 million pretax by divesting nearly 600,000 shares.
Still, an objective case for Wang’s positive influence doesn’t want for evidence. Today, SharkNinja has over 4,100 employees centered on the U.S. but also spanning the globe—up fourfold from when Wang took over. Annual revenue, meanwhile, has soared from $1.3 billion to $6.4 billion over the same period.
Wang hopes that SharkNinja will continue to ease American consumer friction long into the future, and that his Chinese nationality won’t be a hitch. “Nobody wants to see U.S.-China relations improve more than me,” he says.
Recent signs haven’t been hopeful. In June, the U.S. designated several more Chinese firms including BYD—the world’s top EV maker—as “Chinese military companies.” The accusation rests on alleged links to Chinese industrial-policy agencies and a military-civil-fusion industrial zone. No evidence was provided that BYD directly supplies the People’s Liberation Army.
While BYD is also primarily a consumer-focused firm, Wang is quick to draw a distinction with SharkNinja, which, despite his 36.9% controlling stake, is both listed and headquartered in the U.S. “I don’t think we’ll suffer much from trade restrictions, or become a blacklisted company,” says Wang. “But we always remain diligent and continue to adapt the business to make sure that everything is smooth.”
But like any responsible business leader, Wang is preparing for the worst: nearly all of SharkNinja’s U.S. inventory is now sourced outside China, principally from Southeast Asia. “The company is diversifying to make sure we can continually supply consumers with products at the right price and right quality to keep up with shifting political trade restrictions,” says Wang.
Not that extricating supply chains from China is sufficient in today’s nativist political climate. Following Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement in April last year, which imposed a 10% baseline tariff on nearly all imports and proposed steeper levies on major trading partners,
SharkNinja’s stock plunged more than 20% as even its diversified supply chain faces a barrage of new import duties.
The following month, Barrocas revealed the firm was scouting a U.S. factory to produce certain low-labor products, such as coolers and certain vacuum cleaners, though February’s Supreme Court striking down of Trump’s emergency tariffs has reduced the imperative of reshoring.
“The risk for SharkNinja is not existential as it is for companies like Shein that are impacted by tariffs in a big way,” says Ravi Dhar, a professor at the Yale School of Management. “[Because] the product is more than manufacturing—it is design, deep consumer insights into pain points and unmet needs and that will remain valuable.”
Trump has nevertheless offered conflicting signals. In January, he welcomed Chinese companies willing to build U.S. plants and hire American workers. “If they want to come in and build a plant and hire you and hire your friends and your neighbors, that’s great,” Trump told the Detroit Economic Club. In May, he separately defended Chinese investment in American farmland, provoking a backlash from his MAGA base.
Wang can only hope that this tentative embrace of collaboration sticks. “SharkNinja has experienced tremendous growth, which I see as the power of Chinese and U.S. business cultures coming together to create a company that plays on the strengths of both countries,” says Wang. “It’s a very positive story of the combination of China and the U.S.”
Bitcoin has risen above $64,600 after U.S. President Donald Trump said Washington is not holding talks with Iran, while conflicting claims over the Strait of Hormuz kept oil above $91 per barrel.
Summary
- Bitcoin traded at $64,611 after moving between $64,005 and $64,926 during the session.
- Trump said no U.S.-Iran talks are underway or scheduled as the conflict enters its sixth month.
- Iran maintained that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until Washington meets its interim commitments.
- Strategy reported no Bitcoin purchases or sales last week after selling BTC for two consecutive weeks.
In an Aug. 18 Truth Social post, Trump said the United States and Iran were not holding discussions and had no negotiations scheduled, contradicting recent reports that diplomatic contacts could produce another temporary agreement.
“The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating,” Trump wrote.
The president also said all water mines in the strait had been removed or detonated. Iran disputed his account, with chief negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf saying Tehran would keep the waterway closed until the United States fulfilled conditions contained in a June interim agreement, according to Reuters.
According to Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Tehran’s conditions include lifting the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, removing oil sanctions, releasing frozen Iranian assets, and ending U.S. military threats and operations. The memorandum, signed on June 17, established a 60-day period for negotiations toward a broader agreement that would include Iran’s nuclear program.
Its negotiating window has now expired without an extension.
Trump says Hormuz is open as Iran rejects the claim
Trump’s account of normal operations in the Strait of Hormuz remains at odds with shipping activity and statements from Tehran.
Although some vessels continue to pass through the route, Reuters reported limited traffic and a recent incident in which a ship was struck by an unidentified projectile. Data cited by Fox News showed 28 confirmed crossings from Friday through Sunday, compared with an average of about 130 ships per day before the war began in February.
Iranian officials have said passage will remain restricted until Washington honors the June agreement. Trump, however, said on Aug. 17 that Iran wanted a deal but would not accept the terms he considered necessary.
The dispute followed an earlier Truth Social post in which Trump shared a map labeling the strait as “New U.S. Territory.” Iran rejected the territorial claim, while Trump maintained that U.S. naval forces controlled the passage.
U.S. and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran in late February, starting a conflict that is approaching its sixth month. According to Reuters, Tehran adopted what one senior official described as a “fully offensive” position on Aug. 17 after diplomacy failed to produce another agreement.
No new major Iranian attack had been reported immediately after the statement.
The Strait of Hormuz carried roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies before the conflict. Any sustained restriction therefore affects crude availability, shipping costs, and energy prices paid by American households and businesses.
Bitcoin price recovers while oil stays above $91
Bitcoin (BTC) was trading at $64,611 at the time of writing, up about 0.6% from its previous close. The cryptocurrency had moved between an intraday low of $64,005 and a high of $64,926, placing the psychological $65,000 level within reach.
The advance came even as oil prices increased for a third consecutive session. Reuters reported that Brent crude rose 0.7% to $91.46 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate gained 0.9% to $85.25.
Earlier in August, Bitcoin faced downside pressure when attacks on tankers near Hormuz lifted energy prices and strengthened demand for the U.S. dollar. BTC fell as low as $62,466 on July 31 after failing to hold above $65,000, while its four-hour chart placed the $62,000–$63,000 area at the center of the market’s next move.
The current recovery has brought Bitcoin back toward the same resistance region. A sustained break above $65,000 has not yet occurred, with Tuesday’s high stopping at $64,926.
For U.S. investors, the oil move matters because higher fuel and transport costs can feed into inflation data. Federal Reserve officials consider inflation when deciding interest rates, while elevated borrowing costs can reduce investor demand for assets such as Bitcoin and technology stocks.
U.S. equities remained under pressure during Tuesday’s session. The Nasdaq Composite fell about 1.4%, the S&P 500 lost 0.6%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%, according to The Wall Street Journal. The publication also reported that the 10-year Treasury yield reached 4.72%, while the 30-year yield climbed to 5.33%, its highest level since 2007.
Strategy pauses Bitcoin sales after two weeks
Bitcoin also received relief from the absence of another sale by Strategy, the largest publicly traded corporate holder of the asset.
According to an Aug. 17 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Strategy made no Bitcoin purchases or sales between Aug. 10 and Aug. 16. Its holdings remained unchanged at 840,447 BTC, acquired for an aggregate $63.36 billion at an average price of $75,385 per coin.
As crypto.news reported on Monday, the company raised $333.7 million by selling 3.46 million common shares during the week but did not use the proceeds to acquire more Bitcoin.
Strategy’s filing ended two consecutive weeks of BTC disposals. During the previous week, the company sold 1,690 BTC for about $108.6 million after selling roughly $105 million of Bitcoin one week earlier.
Because Strategy trades on the Nasdaq under the MSTR ticker, its Bitcoin decisions affect U.S. shareholders who use the stock as an indirect form of crypto exposure. The company’s latest filing also showed that its average Bitcoin purchase price remained above BTC’s current market value.
Strategy used its recent financing activity to increase its U.S. dollar reserves and repurchase preferred shares. Its Aug. 17 filing said the company bought back about $132.2 million of STRC preferred stock during the week.
White House meeting puts U.S. crypto rules in focus
Washington’s digital-asset policy calendar has supplied another point of interest for Bitcoin traders.
A White House meeting scheduled for Aug. 19 is expected to include representatives from Coinbase, Ripple, a16z, Chainlink, Paradigm, Kalshi, and the Digital Chamber. SEC Chair Paul Atkins and CFTC Chair Michael Selig are also expected to participate, according to people familiar with the plans.
The administration had not published a formal agenda or confirmed the final participant list at the time of reporting. Trump’s attendance had also not been officially announced, although Semafor reported that he was expected to take part.
The White House gathering comes as the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act remains stalled in the Senate. The legislation would divide federal oversight of digital assets between the SEC and CFTC, placing qualifying digital commodity spot markets under the CFTC while keeping crypto securities within the SEC’s authority.
The House passed its version in July 2025 by a 294–134 vote. Senate progress has slowed over disagreements involving government ethics, decentralized finance, stablecoin rewards, and financial crime controls.
Polymarket traders placed the bill’s chance of becoming law in 2026 at about 20% on Aug. 17, down from more than 80% earlier in the year. Separately, the platform’s odds of at least one Federal Reserve rate increase in 2026 fell to 49% from a recent level above 60%.
Earlier in August, rate-hike odds reached 64% after Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari warned that inflation remained too high. The Federal Reserve held its target range at 3.50%–3.75% in July, when three officials supported a quarter-point increase.
This is no ordinary nap. As I drift off, vibrations strum my fingertips, and low tones play in the earbuds. Between these stimuli, strange thoughts move through my semi-conscious mind, the kind of free association that feels normal in sleep and bizarre in life. Names, words, rabbits, phone booths, train announcements—but just when I start to go under, the lights, tones, and vibrations kick in and wake me back up. I try to keep responding; after a long, dark interval, I am so tired that I stop, and then I am dreaming.
I am with my son, digging in the back garden of a brick row house. We are burying something in the lawn. I respond to a few stimuli, then I have the impression that someone in a position of authority—a man with a mustache?—is reprimanding me for failing to keep something level. Then I am awake. The electrodes taped to my face are suddenly palpable.
The new map, signed into law by DeSantis in May 2026, redrew 21 of the state’s 28 districts, looking to reduce the number of Democratic-leaning districts from eight to four—affecting Democratic incumbents like Kathy Castor in Tampa, as well as Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Mokowitz in South Florida.
While District 7 was not radically redrawn, Aubrey Jewett, professor of political science at the University of Central Florida, says that since this new map favors Republicans, flipping the 7th District could help offset any losses elsewhere in the state.
Elijah will go up against Democratic candidate and military veteran Bale Dalton in November, who is endorsed by Pete Buttigieg. Jewett says Dalton could be a viable candidate.
And if Dalton were to win, he says: “That might help not only the Florida congressional delegation pick up a Democratic seat, but of course, yeah, maybe at the national level, might offset some of these losses that they’re expecting.”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has unveiled proposed rule changes aimed at giving clearer regulatory treatment to certain crypto assets that the agency views as investment contracts. The announcement comes after Congress failed to advance a major market-structure bill before lawmakers entered a month-long recess, leaving the industry to navigate overlapping agency approaches.
In a Tuesday notice, the SEC said it is proposing a “clear and fit-for-purpose framework” for specific investment contracts involving crypto assets. The regulator framed the proposal as a “tailored securities offering regime” designed to let compliant issuers raise capital while maintaining investor protections.
Key takeaways
- The SEC’s proposal would create a tailored offering pathway for some crypto-related investment contracts, emphasizing investor protection obligations.
- There is no “innovation exemption” in the proposal—an element some market participants had expected to be included for tokenized or crypto-adjacent equity products.
- The SEC outlined token issuance limits under exemptions and stated that issuers would need to provide financial statements and ongoing reporting.
- The comment period is set at 60 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register.
- The announcement lands amid stalled progress on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, raising the prospect of continued regulatory patchwork.
SEC proposes a tailored securities offering regime for certain crypto assets
The SEC said the rules are intended to offer a “clear and fit-for-purpose framework” for “certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.” According to the agency, the approach would preserve investor protections while providing a more defined compliance route for issuers.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins linked the SEC’s rulemaking effort to the need for legislation, arguing that durable “rules of the road” require congressional action rather than agency-driven fixes that could later be overturned. In remarks cited alongside the proposal, Atkins said legislation remains “indispensable” for future-proofing regulatory guidance.
No innovation exemption—and new rules arrive as CLARITY stalls
A notable omission from the SEC’s proposal is an “innovation exemption” that had been expected by some observers, including in reporting about a possible carve-out for innovation-related structures tied to tokenized stock trading. The absence of that exemption makes the new SEC approach feel more incremental: rather than relaxing classification risk for a broader class of crypto-linked products, the proposal concentrates on providing a structured securities offering pathway where the SEC views investment-contract risk as present.
The timing also matters. The SEC’s notice followed closely after the U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, a bill widely discussed as a way to clarify how federal agencies would oversee and regulate crypto. With that legislation not moving forward, agencies have less congressional direction and more room to pursue their own frameworks—often creating uncertainty for market participants.
Exemptions, token issuance limits, and reporting obligations
According to the proposal, the SEC would provide exemptions for entities that issue tokens under defined caps. The notice describes limits of up to $5 million in tokens over a four-year period and up to $75 million during a 12-month period.
In addition, the SEC said it would include a safe harbor meant to exempt cryptocurrencies from being treated as “investment contracts.” While the details of how that safe harbor would apply are central to investor and issuer decision-making, the SEC’s stated goal is to reduce classification uncertainty for at least some categories of assets.
The SEC also indicated that token issuers would be required to make financial statements and would be subject to ongoing reporting requirements. For issuers evaluating whether they can structure token offerings in a way that reduces regulatory risk, these recurring disclosure duties could be as important as the stated issuance limits.
The SEC’s proposal is open for public feedback: the agency said the public will have 60 days to comment after the rules are published in the Federal Register.
Regulatory coordination pressure: SEC proposal before CFTC crypto meeting
The SEC’s action arrives ahead of a scheduled meeting of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on crypto, AI, and prediction markets. The CFTC has said it planned to address areas where regulatory action can “complement” future congressional legislation.
This sequencing underscores the current dynamic in U.S. crypto regulation: when Congress does not deliver comprehensive market-structure reforms, agencies fill the gap—sometimes in ways that are difficult for issuers and exchanges to anticipate or map to a consistent national framework.
SEC Chair Atkins had been scheduled to speak at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium on Tuesday, but canceled amid the SEC announcement. Separately, White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt told attendees at the event that regulators could act more aggressively if Congress cannot move forward on CLARITY—another signal that the regulatory environment may continue shifting even without new statutes.
CLARITY prospects as Senate calendar narrows
As the SEC moves forward with its own rulemaking, the prospects for the CLARITY Act depend on a tight legislative window. Before the Senate broke for August state work periods, Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture to take up the CLARITY bill when lawmakers return in mid-September.
After the August recess, senators reportedly have just 14 days in session before another break ahead of the November election. If a floor vote cannot be secured within that timeframe, the Senate would have another 22 days in session before 2027, when new members of Congress would be sworn in. That calendar structure could affect how quickly—if at all—CLARITY is resolved during the current Congress.
What to watch next
Issuers and investors should focus on how the SEC justifies the boundaries of its safe harbor, the mechanics behind the token issuance caps, and what ongoing reporting the proposal would require. With CLARITY still uncertain and comment periods now looming, the next signals to watch are how industry participants respond in filings—and whether the CFTC’s upcoming agenda further clarifies how crypto markets will be regulated across agencies.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says the CLARITY Act is key to linking crypto and traditional markets.
Andrew Yang, the 2020 presidential candidate, renewed his call for an AI tax on CNBC’s Power Lunch. He argues the government should tax artificial intelligence (AI) instead of payroll.
Yang co-founded the Forward Party and now runs Noble Mobile as chief executive. He said firms skip payroll taxes and healthcare costs by choosing AI over new hires.
Andrew Yang’s AI Tax Push
Yang built his political brand on automation warnings during his 2020 campaign. He proposed a universal basic income plan he called the Freedom Dividend. He also backed cryptocurrency adoption and clearer digital asset rules as a candidate.
His comments echo remarks from March, when he told CNBC’s Squawk Box the government should stop taxing labor. That debate has also drawn similar AI job displacement concerns from sitting US senators.
Yang pointed to Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei, who floated a 3% AI revenue tax in 2025. Amodei said the levy would apply each time a model generates revenue.
Yang said the same logic should apply broadly. However, he argued it would force firms to weigh AI costs against payroll costs.
What the Data Shows
A CNBC and Generation Lab survey published August 13 polled Americans aged 18 to 34. It found 45% expect AI to hurt their careers, while only 10% expect it to help.
Bridgewater Associates executives Greg Jensen and Nir Bar Dea wrote a New York Times opinion piece. They estimated AI could displace 18% of current US jobs within five years.
The pair used that estimate to back their own AI token tax proposal, echoing Amodei’s earlier idea. Meanwhile, the shift is already visible in customer service. The sector employs roughly 2.9 million Americans, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Yang proposed sending the tax revenue directly to workers as checks. He said retraining programs rarely help displaced workers find new careers. He pointed to past efforts aimed at coal miners and warehouse staff as examples that largely failed.
The post Ex-Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang Pushes for AI Tax Over Payroll Tax appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Taken as a whole, the methodology rewards what can be observed from the outside. Capital raised, deals done, and marquee portfolio names are all visible; the money actually returned to limited partners, for the most part, is not. Firms that are big, busy, and prominent will therefore do well, and on the whole they deserve to. But the ranking is best read as a measure of franchise strength rather than of skill per dollar invested.
Every ranking methodology reflects the objectives of its creators. I also co-created a methodology for assessing VC firms, with an emphasis on the economically relevant portions of the net profits generated by individual VCs’ investments. What the two lists agree on is as informative as where they part. Both put the same handful of firms, which have been prominent for a decade or more, at the very top; firms such as Sequoia, a16z, and Lightspeed. That agreement is real: the elite of the American VC industry is very select, relatively stable, and well capitalized. Below that, of the roughly 110 firms in TIME’s top 200 that do not appear in ours, only fifteen are ones we rule out by definition: accelerators such as Plug and Play, angel networks, corporate vehicles, asset managers. We include some VC firms that are ineligible for TIME’s ranking (Meritech, Dragoneer, Addition, and Inflection Ventures all place in our top 100). We agree on the other firms: we simply score them lower. In other words, the industry has reached consensus on its top performers but not on the tier beneath it. For a founder or an allocator, that is the practical lesson: past the first twenty names, “top firm” is a claim about which yardstick you picked.
Bybit intercepted more than $700 million in potential user losses between January 1 and June 15, blocking over 30,000 suspicious withdrawal requests and protecting close to 20,000 users, according to a risk and security report it published on August 18.
That compares with $300 million intercepted across the whole of 2025 under what the company then called a new AI-driven risk framework. CryptoPotato reported the earlier tally alongside the 3 million credential-stuffing attempts Bybit said it blocked that year, when its recovery work covered roughly 4,000 users.
The company said the metrics should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or as a comparative ranking of exchanges.
“The cybersecurity arms race has entered an era of minutes,” said David Zong, Head of Group Risk Control and Security at Bybit, who noted that human judgment remains “at the center of critical security decisions.”
AI-Assisted Auditing
Bybit said AI-assisted auditing identified high-severity vulnerabilities at three to five times the rate of manual review, and that automation cut the time from security assessment to testing from about two weeks to two hours.
An automated red-team platform assessed 1,489 public-facing assets and flagged more than 100 high-severity vulnerabilities, with discovery to first penetration test down to under 24 hours. More than 100,000 alerts were processed with AI assistance. Monitoring now reaches 100% of business-relevant on-chain activity, including listed token contracts and the exchange’s cold, warm, and hot wallets. Also, the initial risk reviews averaged 4.7 minutes, with 95% finished within 10 minutes.
Bybit said it handled 10 incidents involving listed token projects with no platform losses, completing emergency responses ahead of other major exchanges in eight and detecting two before the affected projects did.
Lawsuit Freezes $30.5 Million
This comes shortly after Bybit sued North Korea, its Reconnaissance General Bureau, and the Lazarus Group in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, announcing on August 8 that it had secured a preliminary injunction freezing identified stolen assets.
It has recovered about $48.4 million and frozen more than $30.5 million across over 28 exchanges and custodians.
“Our focus has never changed: protect our users first, recover what we can, and make sure the people behind these attacks are held accountable,” stated Ben Zhou, Co-founder and CEO of Bybit.
In February 2025, attackers drained roughly $1.46 billion, by Bybit’s count, after compromising a cold wallet signing process. As reported, the FBI attributed the theft to the Lazarus Group, which US agencies valued at $1.5 billion and traced to more than 41,000 ETH.
Security firm Blockaid counted $1.1 billion stolen across 212 incidents marketwide in the first half of 2026.
The post Bybit Intercepts $700 Million in Potential User Losses During First Half of 2026 appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Crypto World
Arthur Hayes’ New Token Will Airdrop Before Its Blockchain Exists: What Do Holders Get?
Arthur Hayes says he is ending his retirement to lead Flop Labs, a new startup building a token for AI agents. The FLOP airdrop lands in Q4 2026, while the blockchain behind it only arrives in Q1 2027.
In other words, the token will exist before the chain it runs on. Almost nothing else about the project is on paper yet.
Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens
FLOP Airdrop Comes Before the Blockchain
Hayes revealed the plan on X (Twitter) on Tuesday, hours after the official Flop Labs account introduced the project. He also rewrote his bio to read CEO of Flop Labs.
Flop Network calls itself a proof-of-useful-inference protocol. In plain terms, AI agents would pay FLOP for computing power and memory. Miners supply that power, while validators check the work, according to the project’s website.
Here is the catch. The airdrop arrives a full quarter before the network’s first block. Until then, recipients would hold a claim on a chain that does not exist.
The paper trail is just as thin. The project has published one landing page, three application forms, and one overview graphic. There is no whitepaper, no supply schedule, no named chain, and no audit. Meanwhile, Hayes brings roughly 806,000 X followers to a Flop Labs account that counted 570 at launch.
Fair Launch Promises and Missing Details
The pitch leans on the absence of insiders. No presale, no venture capital (VC) allocation, and a 100% fair launch. It echoes Bittensor (TAO), the best-known AI network to launch without investors.
Yet one group already knows how it will get paid. Key opinion leaders (KOLs) will earn FLOP based on their communities’ activity. That role is the most detailed part of the project so far.
Hayes also carries heavy history into this launch. He co-founded BitMEX in 2014 and co-created the perpetual swap, the contract that now dominates crypto trading volume. He pleaded guilty to a US Bank Secrecy Act charge in 2022 and received a presidential pardon in 2025.
BitMEX announced its closure in July after an 11-year run, and BeInCrypto examined why BitMEX shut down. Hayes’ retirement therefore lasted less than a month.
His recent trades add tension. In June, tracking firm Lookonchain tied a $2.09 million Hyperliquid (HYPE) purchase to Hayes days after he sold the token. He denied the disputed HYPE buyback.
The problem FLOP targets is real, however. Deutsche Telekom is helping build AI agent payment rails, and Hayes himself has warned an AI credit bust could reshape markets.
For now, FLOP is a promise attached to a famous name. The next tests are simple. Publish a whitepaper, name the chain, and show what airdrop recipients actually receive.
The post Arthur Hayes’ New Token Will Airdrop Before Its Blockchain Exists: What Do Holders Get? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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