Crypto World
Willem Dafoe Shines as a Postal Worker and Poet in the Luminous Late Fame
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How many lives can be packed into one? If we live long enough, most of us reinvent ourselves several times over, by switching careers, changing partners, having children, moving to a new place. What constitutes the essence of us, even when we can no longer identify ourselves as the thing we used to be?
That’s one of the questions Kent Jones’ intimate, wry little picture Late Fame tangles with. Willem Dafoe plays Ed Saxberger, a seventy-ish New York City postal worker who used to be, or may still be, a poet: In 1979 he published a reasonably well-received book of poetry—a pretty admirable feat by itself—but now he’s just a guy. By day he sorts letters; in the evenings he wanders down to his local watering hole to hang out with his geezer pals, MTA workers and the like, guys who do everyday jobs just like he does. As far as they’re concerned, there’s nothing fancy or special about him. He’s not just a regular, he’s regular.
For Saxberger, there’s nothing sad about that; it’s just the texture of his life. But one day, he’s alerted to the presence of a wiry, nervous-looking, well-dressed young man who’s been hanging around his modest but by no means depressive apartment building. Saxberger approaches him amiably. The kid introduces himself as Wilson Meyers—he’s played, with clean-cut bonhomie, by Edmund Donovan—and begins to gush over Saxberger’s single book, which he unearthed, he says breathlessly, at “Foyles on Charing Cross Road,” an unnecessary bit of information that telegraphs nearly all you need to know about this guy. Meyers tells Saxberger that he’s part of “an artistic community” of poets and intellectuals who gather occasionally at a local speakeasy, and they’re all huge fans of his work. Would he join them sometime? Unsure what, exactly, this crew might want from him, Saxberger at first demurs; then he relents.
The members of this group call themselves “The Enthusiasm Society,” refer to one another by last names only, and claim to loathe internet influencers. They’re mostly aimless and obviously well-off guys in their twenties and early thirties, fellows who clearly think it’s bourgeois to work and luckily don’t have to. Saxberger appears amused by their callow pretensions—they’re obviously hoping that hanging out with him will somehow turn them into poets too—but he does wonder, and eventually asks: “Are there any women in your group?” There is one, they assure him, though he’s not prepared for the bewitching creature who eventually swans in. Gloria (Greta Lee), a performer in every sense of the word, seems to have dropped in from another century. Her sentences tumble out in breathy, peacock-feather bouquets; she favors swirling capes and flirtatious, oddball cloches. She invites Saxberger to one of her intimate cabaret performances—she slinks through “Surabaya Johnny” with molten eroticism—and he watches in awe. She’s both unbearable in her excessive theatricality and unavoidably captivating. Saxberger is a goner. But then he also wonders, years after having given up writing, if he may still be a poet after all.
And that’s the central rib of Late Fame, which was adapted from a long lost and only recently published 1895 novella by Arthur Schnitzler. What makes a poet? Is it the act of writing, or a subterranean, unextinguishable quality that lives in the soul? Late Fame is Jones’ second fiction feature—his debut was the gentle-spirited 2018 drama Diane, starring Mary Kay Place—and though it’s deeply observant about what it takes, and what it costs, to be an artist, it also has the light touch of a comedy. Characters who begin as types gradually emerge as people: Donovan’s Meyers is the kind of spoiled rich kid who proves how easy it is to be a dilettante when you’ve got daddy’s dollars behind you—and still, there’s something sad about the way he grabs greedily at others’ gifts, because he knows what’s lacking in himself. Dafoe is terrific as Saxberger, a guy who’s made peace with what his life has become, only to find himself rattled by the idea that maybe he hasn’t. A scene in which he tries to introduce his bar pals to his old poetry cuts deep: they laugh because they can’t see him as anyone but their drinking buddy (though it’s also pointed out that he no longer drinks alcohol, for reasons we can intuit). Dafoe’s face, a map of scarred-over disappointments, shows him reckoning with a brutal truth: he’ll have to learn to live with the fact that these people he truly cares about can never truly understand him.
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But Lee’s performance may be the secret key to Late Fame. Gloria is a user, a poseur extraordinaire; her fluttery flamboyance, rooted in insecurity, summons another Gloria, the one from Sunset Blvd. And yet she’s the only member of the Enthusiasm Society who has ever taken a risk—as well as, clearly, the only one with any true artistic gift. As Lee plays her, she shifts seamlessly from hypertheatrical creation to fragile human being. And though other members of the group desire her, only Saxberger—intoxicated with her even though he knows it’s hopeless—sees the truth of her. Late Fame is all about the bitter, beautiful reality that no one is ever who they used to be. How could we be, if we’re doing the work of becoming? Is Saxberger still a poet, even when he finds it impossible to write new verse? What he and only he sees in Gloria is a new kind of poem, written on the wind if not on paper, but real even so.
BitMart, a cryptocurrency exchange, said Saturday it will begin an orderly wind-down of its trading platform, halting all trading on Aug. 26 and ceasing operations entirely on Jan. 31, 2027. The exchange attributed the decision to "a careful evaluation of the Company's operating conditions, market… Read the full story at The Defiant
Some 161,000 ETH sit idle in Grayscale’s $1.6 billion Ethereum Staking Mini ETF (ticker ETH). A new trust agreement aims to shrink that pile toward zero.
The rewrite makes staking the default for nearly every coin the fund holds. It also guarantees shareholders regular cash payouts, and it landed just before a key tax deadline.
Staking Becomes the Default, Not the Target
Grayscale signed the new trust agreement on August 6, according to an SEC filing. It was cutting things close. An Internal Revenue Service (IRS) deadline to make such changes expired August 10, four days later.
The IRS rules, published last November, let crypto funds stake without triggering fund-level tax. There is one big string attached. Rewards must flow out to shareholders at least quarterly.
Grayscale’s rewrite delivers that and more. Rewards will convert to cash, with monthly payments planned. Moreover, where conditions hold, the agreement states the trust shall,
“engage in Staking with respect to all of the Trust’s Ether at all times, except for a short list of carve-outs.”
Those cover practical needs like fees, redemptions, and network emergencies.
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Grayscale Ethereum ETF Already Stakes Most of Its Ether
Grayscale has form here. It became the first US issuer to switch on staking in its spot crypto funds in October 2025.
The bet has paid. The Mini ETF has earned $27.3 million in net rewards since then, per Grayscale data. Net staking rewards currently run at 2.61% a year after fees.
As of August 6, the fund had staked 80.8% of its 839,556 ETH. Roughly 161,000 ETH sits idle as a buffer for redemptions, fees, and daily operations.
Meanwhile, rivals are competing on cost and yield. Morgan Stanley launched Ethereum and Solana funds charging just 0.14%, undercutting Grayscale’s 0.15%. Institutions such as Intesa Sanpaolo have rotated toward staked Ethereum products this year.
Ethereum trades near $1,915, up 0.4% over 24 hours. Therefore, staking yield remains a modest but steady sweetener on top of price exposure.
Whether payouts grow now hinges on that idle buffer. If the staked share climbs from 80.8% toward full deployment, distributable rewards should rise with it. Upcoming disclosures will show how fast that happens.
The post 161,000 Idle ETH May Soon Be Staked: What Grayscale Just Changed appeared first on BeInCrypto.
A bipartisan ethics proposal aimed at unlocking progress on the US crypto market-structure bill could also produce a large potential tax advantage for President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported Thursday. The reported benefit centers on how taxes would be handled if the president is required to divest from crypto-related interests under the ethics plan.
According to Bloomberg, an ethics addendum that has not been made public would require Trump to divest from crypto-related businesses. The filing reportedly includes a mechanism that would allow the president to defer capital gains taxes tied to those divestitures, potentially resulting in tax savings in the millions.
Key takeaways
- Bloomberg reports the proposed ethics addendum would require presidential divestment from crypto-related businesses as a condition for advancing the market-structure bill.
- The same proposal reportedly includes a tax-deferral feature that could reduce capital gains taxes, creating a potential windfall for Trump.
- Democrats have raised conflict-of-interest concerns as a major barrier to passing the bill, and the reported tax benefit could renew scrutiny.
- Trump’s most recent financial disclosure (for 2025, released in late June) shows substantial crypto-related earnings tied to licensing of memecoin brands and token sales via World Liberty Financial.
Ethics rules meet a tax question
The market-structure legislation has faced political resistance, largely because of Democratic worries that Trump’s financial involvement in crypto could conflict with the White House’s position on the bill. In an effort to overcome the stalemate, senators have been working on an ethics addendum intended to clarify and narrow potential conflicts.
Bloomberg’s report suggests that the addendum goes beyond divestment requirements by also addressing the tax treatment of any assets the president would have to sell or transfer. “People familiar with the matter,” Bloomberg wrote, indicated the plan would permit Trump to defer capital gains taxes on mandated divestitures, which could translate into substantial savings.
That structure could become a point of contention. While divestment requirements are designed to reduce perceived conflicts, a tax deferral that benefits the president may lead Democrats to argue the ethics safeguards are not strong enough—or not strong in the ways they prefer—despite the divestment trigger.
Why Democrats’ concerns remain central
Democratic objections to Trump’s crypto relationships have been described as a key obstacle to moving the market-structure bill forward. The ethics addendum was reportedly conceived to address those concerns directly, but Bloomberg’s account indicates the reported tax angle may reintroduce doubt about whether the measures genuinely neutralize the president’s incentives.
For readers tracking the bill, the key issue is not only whether divestment occurs, but how effectively the proposed framework separates presidential actions from personal financial exposure—and whether the tax treatment is viewed as consistent with that separation.
Cointelegraph reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
What Trump’s filings show about crypto exposure
Trump’s disclosures provide context for why the ethics debate has been so politically combustible. His annual financial disclosure report for 2025, released at the end of June, showed Trump received about $1.4 billion in income from crypto-related ventures last year.
According to the 927-page disclosure, the largest share of income came from licensing and sales tied to memecoin activity. Trump reportedly earned roughly $635 million from “royalties” in a “license agreement with Celebration Coins,” with “Official Trump (TRUMP)” cited as an example.
The filing also identified World Liberty Financial as the second-biggest source, generating about $588 million through “proceeds from token sales.”
Beyond those major categories, the disclosure reportedly included $197 from the sale of an equity interest in a stablecoin venture.
Those numbers are likely to shape how lawmakers assess whether any divestment requirement would materially reduce Trump’s financial connection to crypto. If the president’s exposure is largely tied to licensing and token-sale-related income, divestment details—such as what must be sold, what can be retained, and how quickly—become crucial.
World Liberty ownership details add complexity
Alongside the financial disclosure, additional information connected to World Liberty Financial’s corporate structure appears to reinforce the idea that Trump-adjacent entities maintain significant involvement. Disclosures on World Liberty’s website indicate that DT Marks DEFI LLC, described as an entity affiliated with Trump and certain family members, holds “approximately 38% of the equity interests” in the parent company of World Liberty.
This matters for the ethics argument because divestment requirements—if they apply broadly—may need to cover not only direct business operations, but also equity stakes and other positions that could benefit from the success of crypto-related initiatives.
At the same time, the reported tax deferral mechanism highlighted by Bloomberg introduces a separate layer of complexity: even if divestment reduces future exposure, how taxes are handled in the transition could still be perceived as aligned with the president’s personal financial interests.
As senators continue negotiating the bill and the ethics addendum, the next thing readers should watch is whether the divestment and tax-handling provisions are finalized and publicly clarified—and whether Democrats, who have already questioned Trump’s conflicts, accept that the safeguards adequately change the underlying incentives around the market-structure legislation.
SpaceX stock surged 14% on Friday after an analyst upgrade, softer U.S. jobs data, and limited insider selling eased pressure on the recently listed company.
Summary
- SPCX climbed 14.09% to $131.06, extending its rebound from an August low near $105.
- Argus upgraded SpaceX to Buy and maintained a $160 price target.
- Up to 911.5 million insider shares became eligible for sale without triggering the feared sell-off.
- Weak U.S. payroll data reduced expectations for another short-term Federal Reserve rate hike.
SpaceX stock jumps after Argus upgrade
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. traded at $131.06 as of 3:26 p.m. EDT, up $16.14 for the session. The stock opened near $115 before rising above $120 and accelerating toward $131 during afternoon trading.
Friday’s rally followed a 6.1% gain on Thursday, reversing part of the 13.6% decline recorded after SpaceX released its first quarterly results as a public company.
Argus Research helped drive the latest move by upgrading SpaceX from Hold to Buy. The firm maintained a $160 price target, implying further upside from the stock’s Thursday close.
Argus pointed to SpaceX’s second-quarter performance despite concerns about its planned spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. The company reported $7.8 billion in revenue, up 92% from a year earlier and above the roughly $6.8 billion expected by analysts.
SpaceX also recorded $3.5 billion in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, exceeding Wall Street expectations of about $2.1 billion.
Lockup expiration fails to trigger heavy selling
Relief over SpaceX’s first post-IPO lockup expiration also contributed to the rally.
Up to 911.5 million shares held by employees and early investors became eligible for sale on Thursday. The expiration increased the potential public float from about 4.9% to 11.8%, raising concerns that additional supply would push SPCX lower.
That selling pressure did not immediately appear. SpaceX shares instead gained on Thursday and extended the move on Friday, suggesting the market had already priced in much of the unlock risk.
As such, the absence of large-scale insider selling removed a key overhang for the stock. However, more shares are scheduled to become eligible for trading in later lockup tranches.
Short covering may have amplified the rally. Short interest had risen ahead of the company’s earnings and lockup expiration, leaving bearish traders exposed when the anticipated sell-off failed to occur. The scale of short covering during Friday’s session has not been confirmed.
Weak jobs report lifts U.S. growth stocks
A softer U.S. labor report provided a broader market tailwind.
Nonfarm payrolls fell by 23,000 in July, compared with economist forecasts for an increase of about 86,000. The result reduced concerns that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates again in the near term.
Lower rate expectations tend to support growth companies because they reduce the discount applied to projected future earnings. SpaceX is particularly sensitive to changes in borrowing costs because of its planned spending on launch systems, Starlink infrastructure and AI computing capacity.
The Nasdaq Composite and semiconductor stocks also advanced during the session, indicating that at least part of the SPCX rally reflected a broader return to technology and growth shares.
ARK Invest added further support by purchasing 181,830 SpaceX shares after Wednesday’s decline. The position was valued at approximately $19.7 million based on that session’s closing price.
SPCX approaches key resistance at $131
SpaceX stock reached an important technical area following Friday’s advance.
The 4-hour chart places the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement near $130.67, close to the latest market price. A sustained move above that level could allow buyers to test the next retracement near $138.63.
SPCX also moved above the upper Bollinger Band near $128.20, showing strong short-term momentum but raising the possibility of a pullback if buyers fail to hold the breakout.
The 4-hour relative strength index rose to 59.93, above its signal average of 43.39 but below the 70 level generally associated with overbought conditions. Immediate support sits near $128, followed by the $119.34 Fibonacci level and the moving average around $115.24.
Despite the rebound, SpaceX stock remains well below its June peak above $225. The next test will be whether the shares can reclaim the company’s $135 IPO price while the market absorbs additional insider unlocks.
The unknown hacker behind June’s exploit against the Ethereum maximal extractable value (MEV) bot jaredfromsubway.eth continues to try to time the market with their ETH moves, but with negative consequences.
Using the proceeds they secured from the $7.7 million attack, the bad actor made some questionable decisions that actually cost them a portion of their loot.
Data from Lookonchain indicated that the exploiter sold 2,327 ETH at prices just under $1,700 after the hack. However, they changed their mind on Ethereum and started to accumulate earlier today, purchasing 2,063 ETH at an average price of $1,912 per token.
This meant that the perpetrator booked a $505,000 loss since they received $3.94 million for the sale following the hack and now spent the same amount just to receive 264 fewer tokens.
The Jaredfromsubway exploiter is terrible at trading.
A month ago, the exploiter stole $7.7M and swapped it for $ETH.
The exploiter later sold 2,327 $ETH($3.94M) at $1,695, then bought back 2,063 $ETH($3.94M) at $1,912 10 hours ago.
He lost 264 $ETH($505K).… pic.twitter.com/JRpFrOIkWG
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) August 7, 2026
The actual attack took place on June 20-21 when the perpetrator tricked the automated sandwich bot using fake liquidity pools and deceptive tokens, swiping around $7.7 million.
They started moving millions of dollars through Tornado Cash immediately, while the team behind the MEV bot offered a 50% bounty and a 48-hour deadline to respond, or would pursue “all available legal and law-enforcement remedies.”
There was no official response, but the hacker’s actions spoke louder, as they have not returned any of the funds, and the trade from above is the latest confirmation of a rejection.
The post Good at Hacking, Bad at Trading: MEV Bot Exploiter Makes Costly ETH Bet appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Agent Kim Reactivated, a Korean drama broadcast on SBS TV domestically and streamed on Netflix globally, has become one of the summer’s biggest hits. The thrilling action series follows an unassuming bank manager and single dad named Kim (So Ji-sub). When his teen daughter, Min-ji (Seo Su-min), disappears after a fight at school, Kim’s background and skillset as a secret agent is revealed as he stops at nothing to find her.
Agent Kim is aided by his two friends: taekwondo instructor Sung Han-soo (Choi Dae-hoon) and boisterous military man Park Jin-cheol (Yoon Kyung-ho). Like Agent Kim, Han-soo and Jin-cheol are former spies and current parents. In an effort to rescue Min-ji, the three middle-aged, bespectacled dads face off against criminal organizations and state intelligence entities as what starts as a clash between two teenagers disturbs a decade-long lull in intergovernmental espionage. The 10-episode drama about paternal anxiety and devotion wrapped up over the weekend. Here’s everything that happened in the final episodes of Agent Kim Reactivated.
Does Min-ji die?
The first few episodes of Agent Kim Reactivated imply that Kim’s beloved daughter Min-ji has died. At the end of Episode 1, Hye-ri (Yoo Ji-an), Min-ji’s classmate and the daughter of Juhak Construction group chairman Ju Gang-chan (Joo Sang-wook), hits Min-ji over the head with a brick. Min-ji loses consciousness, leading Hye-ri and Min-ji’s other bullies to assume she is dead. A panicked Hye-ri convinces local thug Golden Teeth (Jo Bok-rae) to take care of the body.
However, unbeknownst to both Hye-ri and Golden Teeth, Min-ji has survived the attack. She later wakes up in the cold storage warehouse where Golden Teeth has temporarily stashed her “body”, and escapes. This is just the beginning of Min-ji’s many efforts to get back to her father. Next, she is picked up by Ju Gang-chan while trying to hitchhike. Then, she is “rescued” by South Korea’s Special Missions Directorate (SMD), where director Kang Guk-cheol (Won Hyun-joon) ties her up and questions her for information about her father. It’s a foolish strategy. Agent Kim has kept his daughter in the dark about his dark past.
Agent Kim’s secret past
Agent Kim was born in North Korea, and was trained from a young age to be a special operative for his native government. However, when Kim is captured during a failed mission in South Korea, he has a choice to make: be disappeared by the SMD, or agree to work for them. He chooses the latter, and becomes friends with operatives Han-soo and Jin-cheol through their missions together.
Kim also meets and falls in love with a South Korean woman. When she dies in childbirth, he forces his retirement from the SMD in order to raise his baby. The SMD allows his freedom on one condition: he must lay low. If the North Korean government realizes their former operative is alive in South Korea, it will cause an international incident.
Kim gladly devotes himself to a quiet life as a father and office worker, and the SMD leaves him alone. But when Min-ji goes missing and Kim starts wreaking havoc across the city looking for her, North Korean Intelligence learns of his continued existence. The SMD and North Korean Intelligence both set out to capture Agent Kim.
Who is Agent 66?
The pseudonym “Agent 66” is first used by Park Yeong-gwang (TaecYeon), a North Korean spy who trained alongside Agent Kim. When Yeong-gwang dies during his and Agent Kim’s first mission to South Korea, betrayed by the North Korean agency that sent them, Agent Kim takes on the moniker.
When Agent Kim reappears on the North Korean government’s radar after years of being presumed dead, Park Yeong-gwang’s little brother, Gang Seong (Kim Sung-kyu), is sent to kill him. He too uses the name “Agent 66” as his codename. Though killing Kim may be Gang Seong’s orders, the mission is also personal for the new Agent 66, who has been told that Kim is responsible for the death of his big brother. When Kim dispels this lie, revealing that it was North Korean intelligence director Ri Eung-ryeong who betrayed them all, Gang Seong abandons his mission to kill Kim.
Later, after Ri Eung-ryeong spills his secrets to the South Korean government in exchange for asylum, Agent Kim kidnaps and hands Ri Eung-ryeong over to Gang Seong. Gang Seong brings Ri Eung-ryeong back to North Korea, where he is presumably punished for his defection.
The ending of Agent Kim Reactivated
Heading into the season finale, Agent Kim has managed to evade SMD capture by protecting defector Ri Eung-ryeong during the intergovernmental talks between North Korea and South Korea. With the completion of one final mission for the SMD, Kim has earned his freedom (again) and the promise of a normal life with Min-ji. He just has to stay alive to claim it. And, unfortunately, Ju Gang-chan—the former thug turned Juhak Construction chairman—is still gunning for him. He wants to see Agent Kim, Han-soo, and Jin-cheol suffer for besting him. To do so, Ju Gang-chan kidnaps Han-soo and Jin-cheol’s children. He holds the teens at gunpoint and forces Han-soo and Jin-cheol to fight Agent Kim.
The three friends initially go along with Ju Gang-chan’s orders to kill Agent Kim, but use their years of experience working together to come up with an out. They lure a boasting Ju Gang-chan closer to the fence of the cage in which they are fighting, and manage to knock it down onto the villain. They rescue their children, and hand Ju Gang-chan over to the authorities. Later, he is stabbed multiple times by Golden Teeth while being transported out of the hospital. Hye-ri, the spoiled daughter whose bullying acted as a catalyst for this entire sequence of events, has been sent abroad following the public humiliation of her family.
Agent Kim and Min-ji are reunited
The father-daughter relationship between Agent Kim and Min-ji is at the heart of Agent Kim Reactivated, and it’s at the heart of the finale, too. Following the action of the series, the two have grown closer after being forced apart. Min-ji now understands more about her father’s past and motivations, and no longer sees him as a timid man who would rather bow than fight.
In the final episode, they are reunited after Agent Kim fakes his death to escape international accountability for his past acts of espionage. The father and daughter start a new life together under new identities, with the help of the SMD. While they leave the identities of Bank Manager Kim and Kim Min-ji behind, they are somehow still in contact with Han-soo and Jin-cheol, who help the Kims move into their new home.
Will there be a Season 2?
It’s likely—the series has been one of the most successful Korean dramas of the year so far on Netflix and on broadcast television in Korea. According to The Chosun Daily, the production team is currently discussing the possibility of a second season.
If Agent Kim Reactivated does get more episodes, the story will most likely revolve around Agent Kim’s new job at Baekho Employment Agency. In the first season finale, Kim makes a deal with Lee Dong-kyu, a new and enigmatic character who agrees to take down Juhak Construction for our protagonist. The cost is implied to be Agent Kim’s employment at Lee’s mysterious company.
While we don’t learn much about Lee Dong-kyu in the Netflix series, the character is an important element of the webtoon on which Agent Kim Reactivated is based. In the webtoon, the Baekho Employment Agency, aka the White Tiger Job Center, is a mercenary organization founded and led by Tom Lee. The private company takes on high-risk, high-reward jobs–for the right price. If Agent Kim Reactivated continues for a second season, Agent Kim may find himself in even more dangerous scenarios due to his deal with Lee Dong-kyu.
SharpLink CEO Joseph Chalom has opposed an Ethereum proposal that could eventually eliminate issuance-based staking rewards, warning that the change may weaken ETH’s appeal to institutions and raise capital costs across decentralized finance.
Summary
- SharpLink opposes tapered issuance burn, arguing that native yield helps distinguish Ethereum from Bitcoin.
- Validator issuance rewards would fall to zero near a 50% staking ratio under the proposal.
- SharpLink stakes nearly all its ETH and has earned more than 18,000 ETH in rewards.
- Chalom supports controlling issuance but wants Ethereum to rely on its existing base-fee burn.
SharpLink challenges Ethereum staking proposal
Chalom said the proposed issuance model would damage one of Ethereum’s main economic advantages by gradually destroying part of the rewards paid to validators.
The SharpLink executive referred to the plan as EIP-8363. However, the mechanism he described matches EIP-8361, the Tapered Issuance Burn proposal previously covered by crypto.news.
EIP-8361 would burn a growing percentage of consensus-layer rewards as more ETH enters staking. The burn rate would reach 100% when approximately 60.25 million ETH, or about half of Ethereum’s current supply, is staked.
Validators would then stop receiving newly issued ETH but could continue earning transaction priority fees and maximal extractable value. The proposal includes an estimated 18-month transition intended to prevent an immediate decline in returns.
Chalom said Ethereum currently offers a variable staking yield of approximately 2.75%. According to his assessment, transaction-related earnings account for only about 15% of total validator rewards, leaving operators heavily dependent on issuance.
Zero ETH yield could pressure DeFi collateral
Chalom argued that Ethereum’s staking yield serves as a benchmark for interest rates across its on-chain economy. Liquid staking tokens use validator rewards to generate returns while allowing holders to deploy the underlying value across lending and other DeFi markets.
Around $35 billion is currently locked in liquid staking products, according to figures cited by Chalom. He warned that reducing issuance rewards to zero could increase the effective cost of capital and make returns negative after infrastructure expenses and other operational costs.
That pressure could cause collateral to move toward assets that continue producing yield. Independent validators and smaller staking operators may face the greatest impact because they lack the scale and additional revenue sources available to larger providers.
The proposal’s authors have taken a different view. They argue that Ethereum’s current issuance curve continues encouraging additional staking even after more deposits provide limited security benefits.
“The current issuance curve continues offering a yield of around 1.5% even if nearly all ETH is staked,” the authors wrote in the proposal.
EIP-8361 remains a draft and has not been approved for inclusion in an Ethereum network upgrade.
SharpLink says yield gives ETH an institutional edge
Chalom also argued that native yield is one reason institutions may choose Ethereum over Bitcoin. Bitcoin can provide price exposure and serve as a treasury reserve, but it does not produce protocol-native returns for holders.
That distinction is central to SharpLink’s own strategy. As reported by crypto.news, the Nasdaq-listed company had staked nearly 900,000 ETH and earned more than 18,000 ETH in cumulative rewards by April.
SharpLink has also expanded beyond basic validator returns. In May, it committed $100 million to a $125 million on-chain yield fund managed by Galaxy Digital. The fund plans to deploy capital across DeFi liquidity protocols while preserving SharpLink’s broader ETH exposure.
Chalom said issuance represents a transfer of value to validators that secure Ethereum rather than a cost paid to an outside party. Burning those rewards, in his view, would remove value from network participants instead of redistributing it within the ecosystem.
US Ethereum products have started distributing yield
The dispute comes as staking becomes more accessible to U.S. institutional investors. Grayscale completed the first staking-reward distribution by a U.S.-listed Ethereum exchange-traded product in January.
Its ETHE product distributed approximately $9.4 million in cash generated from staking activity. The structure allowed shareholders to receive Ethereum-linked income without operating validators or directly managing staked ETH.
Chalom said SharpLink agrees with the proposal authors’ goal of limiting excessive staking and supporting ETH scarcity. However, he argued that Ethereum should pursue that objective through its existing base-fee burn rather than changing the protocol’s issuance-based reward structure.
ETH traded near $1,916 at the time of writing, with no clear price reaction directly linked to SharpLink’s opposition. Debate over the proposal is expected to continue before developers consider whether it should advance toward a future network upgrade.
A Trezor phishing scam promoted through a Google-sponsored ad has reportedly drained one user’s life savings, the victim says. Elsewhere, BTCPay Server shipped an emergency patch for a critical flaw already under active exploitation.
The two incidents landed within roughly 24 hours of each other. Neither touched the Bitcoin (BTC) protocol itself, yet both put user funds at direct risk.
Google Ad Funnels Victims to Trezor Phishing Site
The victim, posting on X (Twitter) under the name David, blamed a sponsored search ad on Thursday. Based on the report, the ad placed a counterfeit Trezor page, hosted on Google Sites, above the wallet maker’s real website.
Anyone who typed a recovery seed into the page handed attackers full control of their wallet.
On-chain data shows the wallet flagged in the report received 24.04 BTC across 80 transactions. That haul equals roughly $1.6 million at Bitcoin’s current price near $65,172. However, nearly all of it has moved on, leaving about 0.04 BTC behind.
Trezor said it escalated the case internally and reported the page for takedown.
“For everyone reading: always verify that you’re using the official Trezor website and never enter your wallet backup into a website or form,” the team urged.
The hardware itself was never breached. The attack worked because the seed left the device. The playbook echoes a fake Uniswap phishing site that drained $400,000 from wallets in May.
BTCPay Server Rushes Out Patch for Exploited Flaw
Meanwhile, BTCPay Server, open-source software that lets merchants accept bitcoin payments directly, issued its own warning on Friday.
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The team told operators to update to version 2.4.2 immediately or power servers down until they can.
“This release contains fix of a critical vulnerability that is being actively exploited. You need to update as fast as you can,” the project’s release notes state.
The Bitcoin Red Team, a volunteer security research group, reported the flaw to developers.
However, patching alone does not end the cleanup. Operators must also refresh macaroons, the access credentials Lightning nodes rely on, plus auth strings for other backends.
Anyone who generated a hot wallet inside BTCPay should move those funds and recreate it. Integrators should also update NBXplorer, a companion indexing tool, to version 2.6.10.
Why Both Incidents Matter for Bitcoin Self-Custody
One attack exploited trust in search ads. In contrast, the other exploited code running on merchant servers. Both sidestepped Bitcoin’s security model and hit the software and habits around it instead.
Phishing remains the costliest threat in crypto. January’s crypto theft losses reached about $400.3 million, and one phishing attack drove over 70% of that figure.
Google has yet to explain how the fraudulent ad cleared review. How fast the page comes down, and how many BTCPay operators patch in time, will shape the damage.
The post Trezor Phishing Ad and BTCPay Exploit Hit Bitcoin Users: Are Funds Safe? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Coinbase said its new "Launches" tab is now available, letting users find and trade tokens on Base and Solana as soon as they go live onchain, according to a post from the exchange's official X account published Monday. The tab sits inside Coinbase's built-in decentralized exchange (DEX), which… Read the full story at The Defiant
Crypto World
SpaceX Stock Surges 12% as Lockup Overhang Finally Lifts: How High Could It Go in August?
SpaceX stock traded near $128 on Friday, up more than 11%. The rally came one day after the first insider lockup expiration made 911.5 million shares eligible for sale.
The wave of insider selling many investors feared has not appeared so far. An analyst upgrade and aggressive call buying now have traders asking how far the rebound can run.
Why SpaceX Stock Rallied Through the Lockup Expiry
Lockup agreements bar insiders and early investors from selling their shares for a set period after a listing. Rather than one 180-day cliff, SpaceX staggered its restrictions across nine tranches, the first tied to its debut earnings report.
Thursday’s expiration was the first and largest of those windows. It lifted SpaceX’s tradable float from 4.9% to 11.8% of shares outstanding, freeing stock worth roughly $100 billion.
Sellers had plenty of warning. SPCX had slid from its June record of $225.61 to lows near $105 this week. Its debut earnings and the approaching unlock drove the decline. Elon Musk even called the dip an opportunity before the $104 billion share unlock arrived.
That drawdown may have done the selling in advance. Morningstar analyst Nicolas Owens told Yahoo Finance that discounting was already visible in the price.
“A good deal of the recent slump…is precisely in anticipation of the dilution.”
Shares recovered 4% Thursday as the unlock took effect, then accelerated on Friday. Argus analyst Steven Silver upgraded SPCX from Hold to Buy with a $160 target. He cited early payback on the company’s heavy AI infrastructure spending.
The upgrade landed days after SpaceX’s first earnings beat, which showed revenue of $7.8 billion, up 92% year-over-year.
Wall Street remains split on what comes next. Morgan Stanley’s Adam Jonas framed the expiration as a buying opportunity, describing SpaceX as a potential generational compounder. In contrast, Bank of America’s Ron Epstein warned the added supply would likely weigh on shares near term.
How High Could SpaceX Stock Go in August?
Friday’s tape showed the reversal in full. SPCX dipped to $114.56 in early trading before buyers stepped in, pushing volume beyond 107 million shares by the afternoon.
Options positioning into the day’s expiration leans firmly bullish. OptionCharts.io data shows 1,031,939 open call contracts against 454,896 puts, a put-call ratio of 0.44.
One position stands out. Traders hold 563,419 call contracts at the $330 strike, more than half of all call open interest for this expiry. The block traces back to a $20 million options trade that pays only if SPCX nearly triples. Those contracts will likely expire worthless at the close.
The bullish tilt extends well beyond today. Across the August 14, 21, and 28 expiries, call open interest stacks up between $130 and $160, with the heaviest blocks near $150 and $160. Speculative calls reach as far as $200, $250, and even $450, while put interest thins out above $130.
![SPCX open interest by strike across the August 14, 21, and 28 expiries, showing calls clustered between $130 and $160, Source: OptionCharts.io]](https://assets.beincrypto.com/img/XlCDdfrHlj-SYfLWYG7SbQ-pOBo=/smart/ea8052ff6aa346a7b41dda8226999307)
Short sellers add another layer of fuel. Roughly 219.3 million SPCX shares were sold short as of July 29, worth $24.6 billion. That equals about 34% of the float, so a sustained move higher could force shorts to cover.
The chart below offers cleaner targets. SPCX has broken above the descending channel that defined its slide since mid-June, with the next resistance at $137.69. Beyond that sits the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement near $151, roughly where the stock began trading at its debut.
Clearing $165.23, the halfway mark of the entire decline, would put the $225.61 record back in view. Still, the relative strength index (RSI) reads 68.37, just below overbought territory, suggesting the bounce could pause before extending.
![SPCX 1-hour chart with Fibonacci retracement levels at $137.69, $150.98, $165.23, and the $225.61 all-time high, Source: TradingView]. Source: TradingView](https://assets.beincrypto.com/img/ehAnTbVMlDw4RL3NPvoxsR4nbDk=/smart/af2f6de5e9c149199b489d4f83c183ad)
However, a daily candlestick close below the immediate support at $126.88 could delay the upside, at least for the short term, with the stock risking a retest of the $108.09 low printed before the unlock.
Supply risk has not disappeared. Up to 40% of the company could become tradable by December 8, Musk’s own stake stays restricted until mid-2027. Whether new demand keeps absorbing those shares will decide if $160, or anything beyond it, stays within reach.
The post SpaceX Stock Surges 12% as Lockup Overhang Finally Lifts: How High Could It Go in August? appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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