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OpenAI has urged a federal judge to dismiss Apple’s trade-secrets lawsuit. On Wednesday, the company made the plea, arguing that the case is a cover-up for its inability to retain engineers and ship AI. The motion to dismiss claims that OpenAI and two former Apple employees took confidential information and tried to steal trade secrets while recruiting interviews.
The 31-page filing uses variations of the word “fail” about 50 times and frames the dispute as Apple lashing out over its problems. “Apple should not be permitted to use a baseless and pretextual lawsuit to make up for its shortcomings in the market for talent and retaining its employees, and its failures to integrate AI into its products,” the motion says. The central claim in the lawsuit filed by OpenAI is that Apple created the mess. Apple told staff to use their personal iCloud accounts to route work, blurring the line between corporate and personal data and leaving departing employees with access they never asked for, says OpenAI.
OpenAI claims the case is a cover-up
According to the filing, two former employees were mentioned in the case. Chang Liu’s last day at Apple was January 22, 2026. Tang Tan is a design executive who OpenAI says spent more than 24 years at the company. On August 3, OpenAI published a blog titled “Apple is getting this wrong,” in which the AI company alleged that it had iMessages between Liu and his former Apple colleagues asking Liu to help them locate files and complete transfers after he had already left.
One message from an Apple employee reads, “I found a 64GB drive. Do you think that will work,” followed later by “Still copying.” Liu was contacted by Apple staff, not the other way around, says OpenAI. “Residual access” is how the company describes Liu’s ongoing access to Apple systems. Apple doesn’t always disable accounts when people leave. On Tan, OpenAI says it told its team bluntly that it won’t touch proprietary material from other companies. In addition, OpenAI’s blog post refutes Apple’s version of the events leading up to the lawsuit.
Apple said it reached out to OpenAI in February and got no response. OpenAI says Apple now admits its outside lawyers sent an email to the wrong person after confusing two Asian last names and only admitted the mistake after OpenAI called them out. Apple also said it had a discussion with general counsel for OpenAI. The company later acknowledged to OpenAI that it never happened. In earlier contact, Apple never raised the specific allegations in the suit, OpenAI said, and at one point said it was “resolving any issues” and then went quiet for five months before filing, the tech giant said.
On Monday, Apple filed for a preliminary injunction, a court order that would prevent OpenAI from using the disputed trade secrets while the case is ongoing. OpenAI describes the request as baseless and pointless. It says it has no interest in Apple’s secrets and does not possess any. Apple’s lawsuit alleges that more than 400 former employees now work at OpenAI and that the company used internal Apple code names to lure confidential details from job candidates.
Apple has reportedly lost researchers from its Foundation Models team to Meta, OpenAI, xAI, and Cohere, including team lead Ruoming Pang, who left for a Meta package above $200 million, as Cryptopolitan has reported. In July, Elon Musk publicly championed Apple and exchanged insults with Sam Altman on X.
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Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest has announced that it bought about $17.3 million of Circle stock and ~$20 million of SpaceX stock. Both buys landed on the same day SpaceX plunged 13.6% on a jump in AI spending. Ark Invest bought 273,343 Circle shares split among the Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK), the Ark Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), and the Ark Blockchain & Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF).
Circle closed nearly flat that day, up 0.05% to $63.28, meaning the stake was worth around $17.3 million. According to disclosures, Ark Invest sits ninth in ARKK’s holdings with a 3.68% weight worth $223.4 million. Ark limits any one position to 10% of a fund, so it’s diversified across its ETFs, and there’s still room to add. In the second quarter, total revenue and reserve income for Circle reached $701 million, a 7% increase year-over-year. The figure was less than the $712 million to $718 million analysts had modeled. CRCL dropped about 3% in premarket trading before bouncing back.
Ark Invest makes huge Circle and SpaceX stock buys
According to reports, adjusted earnings were 18 cents a share, versus a consensus of 16 cents, and net income from continuing operations was $48 million. Adjusted EBITDA was up 8% to $143 million. Total USDC in circulation grew 19% to $73.3 billion, with onchain transaction volume increasing 151% to $14.8 trillion. Circle’s reserve income, which is the money it earns on the assets backing USDC, was $668 million, up 5% from a year ago.
However, the yield on those reserves fell 66 basis points. Circle is sitting on more reserves and making less from each dollar of them. Circle’s Arc blockchain is scheduled to launch on the public mainnet on September 16, with BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, and Mastercard listed among founding validators. Ark Invest bought 181,830 SpaceX shares in ARKK, the Ark Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ), ARKW, and the Ark Space & Defense Innovation ETF (ARKX), amounting to a ~$20 million stake.
That order came as SpaceX dropped 13.6% to $108.27, below its $135 IPO price. Earnings coverage from Cryptopolitan said revenue had soared 92% year over year to $7.8 billion, along with a $541 million net loss. Investors were spooked by spending after capital expenditures rose to $18.4 billion, a sixfold increase in the quarter, mostly to build out AI infrastructure. SpaceX expects $1 trillion in annual revenue by 2030, or possibly 2029, ahead of an earlier 2031 target, Elon Musk told the call.
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Circle announced it has acquired key assets from IBM’s blockchain portfolio, making the company the largest holder of blockchain patents in the United States.
The transaction adds more than 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 issued patents worldwide to Circle’s intellectual property portfolio, according to the company’s announcement. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and neither company confirmed whether IBM retained any licensing rights related to the transferred patents.
The acquired portfolio extends beyond blockchain technology and includes patents covering banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply chain verification, and secure cloud operations. Circle said the intellectual property strengthens its long-term strategy as it continues expanding products built on blockchain infrastructure.
Sarah Wilson, Circle’s general counsel and corporate secretary, said IBM has been a pioneer in technological innovation. She added that intellectual property remains critical to advancing the company’s “mission and expanding adoption of on-chain infrastructure.”
Patents strengthen Circle products and enterprise services
Circle said the newly acquired patents will support several existing products, including USDC, the Circle Payments Network, and Arc, its enterprise blockchain platform. The company also stated that the portfolio will contribute to financial tools designed for AI agents, an area it has continued developing through its Agent Stack offerings.
Both companies also indicated they intend to explore additional commercial opportunities together following the transaction.
The acquisition changes the ranking among major blockchain patent holders in the United States. Patent analytics firm PatSnap reported in December 2025 that IBM held 790 blockchain patents, placing it alongside Advanced New Technologies and Bank of America. By acquiring most of IBM’s blockchain portfolio, Circle now moves ahead of those competitors.
Circle received its first blockchain-related patent in December 2023 for parallel blockchain data processing. The company also previously joined the LOT Network, an organization created to protect members from patent assertion entities.
Market response and regulatory momentum
The announcement generated modest gains in premarket trading. Circle shares rose 2.5%, while IBM shares increased 1.6%.
The market reaction follows a challenging period for Circle’s stock performance. Yahoo Finance reported that CRCL had declined 66% over the previous 12 months to $62.36, while IBM had fallen 18% to $214.19 as of July 27. Circle’s shares experienced significant volatility during 2025, climbing from about $81 to a peak near $293 before surrendering most of those gains.
The acquisition also follows recent regulatory progress for Circle. On July 10, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted final approval for Circle National Trust to operate as a national trust bank providing digital asset custody services. Earlier in May, Circle raised $222 million through the sale of Arc tokens before the blockchain’s launch, resulting in a network valuation of $3 billion.
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Strategy shares climbed after the company disclosed a major increase in its cash reserves, extending coverage for dividend and interest obligations while continuing to adjust its capital allocation strategy ahead of its upcoming quarterly earnings release.
Strategy increases cash reserve through share sale
Strategy Inc. disclosed in a Form 8-K filed on Monday that it increased its cash reserve by $525 million during the past week. The company sold 5.4 million MSTR shares, generating proceeds of $544.5 million. During the same period, it also repurchased 288,930 shares of its STRC preferred stock for $25 million.
Executive Chairman Michael Saylor confirmed the update on X, stating that Strategy has now secured 2.1 years of coverage for dividend and interest payments. According to the filing, the company now holds a total USD Reserve of $3.75 billion.
Saylor had hinted at the announcement a day earlier by posting the company’s familiar tracking chart alongside the comment, “We’re gonna need another color.” Similar posts had previously been followed by announcements of Bitcoin purchases. However, Monday’s filing instead detailed an expansion of the company’s cash reserve.
The latest disclosure also confirmed that Strategy did not purchase any Bitcoin during the reporting period. That marked the fifth consecutive week without a Bitcoin acquisition.
Bitcoin holdings remain unchanged as criticism emerges
We’re gonna need another color. pic.twitter.com/AqZO5UeXDx
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) July 26, 2026
Strategy continues to hold 843,775 BTC, valued at approximately $54 billion. Based on the reported figures, the company’s Bitcoin position currently reflects paper losses exceeding $8 billion.
Long-time Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff criticized the company’s latest financing decision. In a post on X, Schiff argued that selling MSTR shares was the wrong approach and claimed Strategy should have sold Bitcoin instead of what he described as “discounted MSTR shares.”
He wrote, “So, another week when you chose to destroy common shareholder value by selling discounted MSTR shares (thereby reducing Bitcoin per share) to raise cash and buy back STRC rather than sell Bitcoin.”
Schiff further argued that repeated sales of common shares reduce the justification for investors to own MSTR.
MSTR rises ahead of quarterly earnings report
MSTR traded at $97.46, representing a daily gain of 6.44% following the announcement. The share price advanced as investors assessed the company’s strengthened cash position and capital management activities.
MSTR price chart. Source: Yahoo Finance.
Strategy is scheduled to report its second-quarter earnings on Thursday, July 30. The company’s earnings are expected to increase by 6.40% to $121.88 million.
The consensus price target for MSTR stands at approximately $360, representing an implied upside potential of more than 290% based on current trading levels.
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Boltz has announced that its swaps have been suspended indefinitely. The non-custodial service that lets users move Bitcoin between the Lightning Network and Bitcoin’s base layer made the announcement on Monday, telling users a rising wave of AI-assisted attacks had made it unsafe to keep running. Lightning users and the small open-source teams hold much of Bitcoin’s payment plumbing.
Boltz says the problem is how quickly attackers can operate now. Boltz said in posts on X that swaps are off “until further notice,” with no timeline for any possible return. “To be clear: this is not a response to a single incident,” the Bitcoin bridge builder said. Over the past few months, it had seen a steady increase in automated, AI-assisted probing of its systems and had dealt with several exploits, each of which was contained. “Attackers now iterate faster than a team our size can find and patch,” Boltz said. The recent security scans left the company unable to responsibly turn swaps back on while “being actively targeted by what appear to be multiple resourceful groups while we race to deploy fixes.”
Boltz blames major shift in Bitcoin operating services for move
The company described the change as “a major paradigm shift for Bitcoin services operating on an open source stack.” It told users, “Do not expect swap services to resume shortly.” Boltz confirmed that no one lost funds, as it never takes control of customer coins. The swaps are done via hashed timelock contracts, a mechanism that either completes a trade in full or reverses it within a single block.
Swaps move value between regular BTC, Lightning BTC, and Liquid Network BTC. “No user funds were ever at risk,” Boltz said. It continued, “Losses were ours alone.” Boltz has not revealed its transaction volumes, while DeFiLlama showed its total value locked at ~$262,000. The API is still running and operational, so users can process cooperative refunds, and unilateral refunds work anyway, as they don’t depend on Boltz infrastructure.
Bull Bitcoin told users that Lightning payments and Liquid-to-Bitcoin swaps in its wallet would now “fail without explanation” while it searches for a fix. Aqua Wallet issued a similar notice and said it was working with Boltz to find an alternative route for Lightning swaps. The shutdown is a warning to anyone building on an open stack with a small headcount. AI attackers are getting more sophisticated, and the cost of maintaining enterprise-grade security “will price out many innovative startups” working on services tied to client funds, even non-custodial ones, said Swan co-founder Yan Pritzker.
AI software has been connected to a seed-phrase exploit of Coldcard, a hardware wallet implicated in more than $100 million in stolen Bitcoin. Cryptopolitan also reported the same trend in DeFi, where GoPlus Security said more than $1.5 million was drained in four smart-contract attacks in 48 hours. A16z crypto found the success rate of an off-the-shelf AI agent exploiting known vulnerabilities jumped from 10% to 70% once it was fed structured attack knowledge.
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Three Missouri men who attempted to steal Bitcoin via a home invasion in 2024 have been charged by authorities. According to federal prosecutors, the men plotted to break into a Connecticut home and force the occupant to turn over stolen Bitcoin. The latest defendants are involved in a kidnapping case linked to a crypto theft worth ~$245 million.
Sedric Louis, John Davis, and Martel Williams each face one count of conspiracy to interfere with commerce by robbery, a charge under the Hobbs Act that carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. U.S. Attorney David X. Sullivan for the District of Connecticut announced the charges Tuesday. All three pleaded not guilty. The men were brought in by the people coordinating an earlier kidnapping and told to raid a Connecticut home, threaten the person inside, and make him move stolen Bitcoin into wallets that the coordinators controlled, investigators say.
Authorities charge three over attempt to steal Bitcoin
According to prosecutors, the group drove to the state over four days in late August 2024, rented vehicles, picked up air rifles and walkie-talkies, and then spent two days watching the target and his parents. The three left, worried the home’s security cameras had recorded them and unable to contact their co-conspirators. Then a different crew from Florida came out to try and pull off the robbery instead.
As Cryptopolitan reported earlier, a resident of Washington, D.C., was scammed out of 4,100 Bitcoin, worth about $245 million, via a social-engineering scam perpetrated by Veer Chetal and two others who posed as support personnel for Google and a crypto-exchange. Chetal’s family was caught in the crossfire of a fight between Chetal and an alleged associate of Adam Iza at a Miami nightclub in mid-2024. Six men from Florida rammed Sushil and Radhika Chetal’s Lamborghini SUV near Danbury High School on August 25, 2024, blocked it with a van, and dragged the couple out.
Sushil Chetal was beaten with a baseball bat. According to court records, both parents were bound with duct tape, Cryptopolitan reports. Police in Danbury, aided by an off-duty FBI agent who happened to be in the area, chased the van until it crashed and arrested all six. Several people connected with the case have entered guilty pleas. Adam Iza, a 25-year-old businessman from California known as “The Godfather,” pleaded guilty in June to the same Hobbs Act conspiracy and is scheduled to be sentenced on August 12, reported Cryptopolitan.
The six Florida men involved in the kidnapping have also pleaded guilty, and two have already received sentences of 11 years. The three Missouri defendants were charged in a second superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in New Haven on May 22, 2026. Louis and Davis have been in custody since their arrests on June 25 and entered their pleas on July 30 in federal court in Bridgeport. Williams showed up on July 17 and was released on bond.
According to Cryptopolitan, blockchain security firm CertiK reported 34 verified “wrench attacks” in the first four months of the year, a term used to describe the use of physical force to gain access to Bitcoin, marking a 41% increase from the same period in 2025. Losses totaled about $101 million. CertiK predicts the number of attacks will hit ~130 by the end of the year.
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Coldcard exploit losses have affected Canadian Bitcoin holders most heavily among tracked regions. Chainalysis estimates that about 25% of attributed losses belong to owners in Canada.
The analytics firm linked affected addresses to likely regions using on-chain records and exchange connections. It said Coldcard gained local adoption through influencer campaigns and Canada’s early Bitcoin culture.
The United States and Thailand also recorded significant losses during this week’s attacks. Estimates place the value of stolen Bitcoin between $110 million and $150 million.
Coldcard Exploit Prompts Wider Security Response
The incident has triggered a coordinated effort to identify similar weaknesses across Bitcoin software. A group called the Red Team is conducting AI-assisted audits of wallets, libraries, tools, and infrastructure.
Rob Hamilton, chief executive of AnchorWatch, is leading the initiative. The team has spent more than $20,000 on model tokens and secured further funding.
So far, the Red Team has scanned 150 code repositories and contacted relevant project teams. It has also approached OpenAI about using Cyber Harness for deeper vulnerability testing.
Researchers have used the free Kimi K3 model to examine cryptocurrency codebases. The audits highlight how cheaper models can support both defensive research and malicious discovery.
The Red Team says its reviews are finding about one serious or critical vulnerability each hour. Its testing systems have reached several Bitcoin projects within the past 12 hours.
Multiple Attackers Target Exposed Wallets
On-chain evidence indicates that the Coldcard theft involved several entities rather than one attacker. Alex Thorn, head of Firmwide Research, said the activity occurred in multiple waves.
The first wave caused the largest losses. Onchain Lens reported that attackers removed more than 1,816 BTC from 5,200 affected addresses.
Most stolen funds remain in destination wallets. This differs from many cryptocurrency attacks, where criminals move assets through mixers within hours.
One wallet holding about 64 stolen BTC appears to have started early mixing activity. It mixed 10 BTC and transferred the remaining 54 BTC elsewhere.
Law enforcement agencies have tagged most destination addresses. However, mixing services can make portions of the funds harder to trace and recover.
Owners Urged to Replace Wallet Seeds
Coldcard users have received advice to do more than install firmware updates. Security guidance recommends creating a new wallet seed and moving funds immediately.
Users have also been urged to apply higher transaction fees. In some cases, owners recovered funds by outbidding and front-running pending attacker transactions.
The exploit has affected broader Bitcoin sentiment and renewed concerns about self-custody risks. It also shows how quickly multiple attackers can exploit publicly known weaknesses.
The Red Team’s work aims to reduce similar incidents by auditing critical components before attackers locate flaws. Its current campaign covers software used throughout the Bitcoin ecosystem.
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Singapore, August 5, 2026 — Chainstack, a Web3 infrastructure platform serving 100K+ developers across 70+ blockchain networks, has added Robinhood Chain support across three deployment models: Global Nodes, Dedicated Nodes, and Chainstack Self-Hosted. Robinhood Chain mainnet went live on July 1, 2026. Chainstack endpoints are live for mainnet (chain ID 4663) and testnet (chain ID 46630).
What Robinhood Chain is
Robinhood Chain is a permissionless, EVM-compatible Ethereum layer 2 built as an Arbitrum Orbit chain running the Nitro stack, purpose-designed for finance and tokenized real-world assets. It produces blocks every 100 milliseconds with sub-second soft confirmations, uses Ether (ETH) as its gas token, and posts data to Ethereum using blobs. Full Ethereum finality follows roughly 13 minutes after a batch is posted to layer 1. The network exposes standard Ethereum JSON-RPC, so Foundry, Hardhat, ethers.js, viem, and web3.py work unchanged, and Solidity contracts deploy without modification.
One detail matters for trading workloads: the sequencer orders transactions first come, first served by arrival time, so a higher priority fee does not move a transaction ahead of the queue. Endpoint latency, not fee strategy, determines ordering outcomes — making node placement an execution concern, not a cost concern.
Three deployment paths, one control plane
Global Nodes Dedicated Nodes Chainstack Self-Hosted Infrastructure Elastic, load-balanced Isolated node instance Customer’s own cloud, on-premises, or bare metal Requests Metered in request units Unlimited Unlimited Control Standard Full node configuration Full stack Data residency Chainstack-operated regions Chainstack-operated regions Customer-controlled Best for Wallets, DApps, scaling production Trading desks, indexers, high-throughput RWA protocols Regulated issuers, sovereignty requirements
Global Nodes are auto-scaling, load-balanced RPC endpoints; Dedicated Nodes are isolated high-performance instances with unlimited requests. Chainstack Self-Hosted is a Kubernetes-native control plane for running nodes inside the customer’s own environment, handling deployment, monitoring, updates, and recovery, with one-click deployment, self-healing, and snapshot bootstrapping that brings new nodes online without a full sync from genesis. Chainstack is among the first infrastructure providers to offer a self-hosted path for Robinhood Chain.
Why the third path matters
Tokenized-equity infrastructure splits three ways. A proprietary trading firm needs latency guarantees. A wallet integrating tokenized equities needs cost-predictable throughput. A regulated issuer or licensed broker-dealer frequently cannot place customer-linked transaction data on third-party infrastructure at all, regardless of the provider’s certifications.
“RWA teams can get the token model and compliance framework right and still be blocked by infrastructure policy,” said Eugene Aseev, CTO and co-founder of Chainstack.
“For a regulated issuer, where the node runs can decide whether the product ships at all. With managed and self-hosted deployments on the same control plane, teams can bring infrastructure into their own environment without rebuilding the stack.”
Availability
Robinhood Chain joins Chainstack’s 70+ supported networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Hyperliquid — one platform, one billing relationship, and one observability layer for cross-chain RWA flows. Chainstack also operates a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that lets developers query on-chain data and deploy nodes from Claude, Cursor, and ChatGPT.
Endpoints are live now. Create a Chainstack account, deploy a node on mainnet or testnet, and use the HTTPS or WSS endpoint with chain ID 4663 or 46630. Testnet tokens are available through the Chainstack faucet, and free-tier access is available for teams evaluating the network.
About Chainstack
Chainstack is a Web3 infrastructure platform serving 100K+ developers across 70+ blockchain networks, holding SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certifications. Chainstack provides low-latency RPC access, dedicated node deployments, and self-hosted node infrastructure for teams building trading, DeFi, fintech, and RWA applications worldwide.
Disclaimer: The content within the Sponsored Insights and Press Release category has been provided by our partners and sponsors. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of our website. While our team takes care to share valuable and reliable content, we do not take responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or validity of any claims made in these sponsored articles and Press Releases. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and due diligence before making any decisions based on the information provided in Sponsored Insights.
The post Chainstack adds Robinhood Chain support across managed and self-hosted node deployments first appeared on Coinfea.

A new Chinese robotics startup, AI² Robotics, is considering going public in Hong Kong, after a recent funding round that doubled its valuation to nearly $3 billion in June. Some people with knowledge of the matter revealed Tuesday that AI² Robotics is currently in talks with an adviser for an initial public offering, expected to take place next year.
The Shenzhen-based unicorn is only three years old, founded in early 2023. The CEO, Yandong Guo, had disclosed last September that the company aimed to go public within one or two years. AI² Robotics has not formally confirmed a filing for a Hong Kong listing. However, it’s worth noting that it conducted a joint-stock restructuring in April, which is usually seen as a structural precursor to public listings. Two months after the reform, the company raised nearly 5 billion yuan ($736 million), pushing its valuation past 20 billion yuan (over $2.9 billion).
AI² Robotics pursues plans to go public after $736 million raise
The firm builds wheeled humanoid robots, which it calls AlphaBot, paired with an in-house vision-language-action system named Alpha Brain, which Guo says is their “key advantage.” According to Guo, AI² Robotics has been a unicorn even in the last year. In September, he told Reuters that the company was “looking at 10 times growth (in revenue) pretty much every year.”
AI² Robotics is now on the growing list of Chinese robotics startups pursuing a listing in Hong Kong, as capital needs for scaling manufacturing continue to rise. In fact, Caixin Global reported Tuesday that up to 50 Chinese robotics startups are currently looking to list in Hong Kong or the Chinese mainland. Among these companies are leaders such as Unitree Robotics and AGIBOT.
Earlier in July, Cryptopolitan reported that Unitree Robotics had been cleared for its planned IPO this August. The company is expected to be valued at more than 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) following the debut. AGIBOT, the largest Chinese robot vendor, plans to list in Hong Kong later this year. The company targets a valuation of HK$40 billion to HK$50 billion ($5.14 billion to $6.4 billion), according to people familiar with the matter.
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The new report maps the illicit and legitimate uses of crypto privacy tools, drawing on data from TRM Labs, Chainalysis, the RAND Corporation, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Statista, and U.S. Treasury Department disclosures. It argues that the current regulatory focus is aimed at the wrong layer of the transaction stack.
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent and the Grenadines — Today, ChangeNOW, a cryptocurrency super app, and CoinRabbit, crypto asset management platform, announced the joint release of “Financial Privacy in the Digital Age,” a research report that looks at the use, abuse, and regulation of privacy-preserving technology in cryptocurrencies.
Balancing Legitimate Need Against Illicit Exploitation
In order to determine whether privacy technology does more harm than good, the research pits the actual volume of illicit exploitation against the urgent necessity for discretion in the real world. The findings are clear: on-chain privacy has moved from a specialized preference to an essential safety measure.
Today, it protects:
Individuals: Shielding high-net-worth holders from physical extortion and targeted kidnapping.
Business: Preventing corporate rivals from spying on treasury movements and sensitive financial deal flow.
Humanitarian Efforts: Allowing civilians in conflict zones and sanctioned regions to receive medical payments, while keeping journalists and activists operational.
Rethinking the Regulatory Approach
The report’s central finding is that privacy and compliance are not a zero-sum trade-off: across every category examined, the decisive enforcement vulnerability sits at the fiat off-ramp, where crypto converts into spendable currency, rather than in the transactional privacy infrastructure further upstream.
“Privacy is a basic expectation in everyday life, but public blockchains leave all transactions in the open. Finding a balance here is simply about making digital capital safe to use. With that in mind, we at CoinRabbit believe it’s important to contribute to the conversation and share our research with the industry”, says Walter Barrett, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer at CoinRabbit
Key findings include and Threat Assessment
Pig-butchering fraud produced an estimated USD 75 billion in cumulative losses between 2020 and 2024.
Physical & Violent Extortion, CertiK data indicates that $124.1 million in cryptocurrency was targeted in 52 verified physical “wrench attacks” in the first half of 2026 alone, a 33% increase in incidents and an nearly elevenfold surge in financial exposure compared to H1 2025.
Crypto payments linked to human trafficking networks in Southeast Asia grew 85% in 2025.
Corporate data exposure remains a major threat: 36% of corporate board members cite internal financial data becoming publicly accessible as a top governance concern, with the average data breach now costing USD 4.44 million.
These real-world cases starkly illustrate how rapidly both on-chain visibility and off-chain data leaks translate into physical threats.
Industry Solutions for Compliant Privacy
“Financial privacy isn’t a feature request, it’s a baseline that every other financial system already provides,” said Pauline Shangett, Chief Strategy Officer at ChangeNOW. “The question the industry needs to answer isn’t whether privacy should exist on-chain. It’s whether we build it responsibly or let bad actors define what it looks like by default.”
The report also profiles two working examples of privacy architecture designed to preserve AML compliance: ChangeNOW’s Private Crypto Transfers, which breaks the deterministic link between sender and receiver without pooling user funds, and CoinRabbit’s custodial model, which uses dynamic per-user deposit addresses to prevent end-to-end reconstruction of a client’s holdings from public blockchain data.
A Path Forward for Policymakers
The report closes with five recommendations directed at regulators, industry, analytics firms, and policymakers, centered on shifting enforcement resources toward fiat off-ramps and cross-jurisdictional intelligence sharing rather than restricting transactional privacy for general users.
Access the Report
The full report, “Financial Privacy in the Digital Age,” is available online.
About ChangeNOW
ChangeNOW is a personal crypto super app that gives clients a fast, simple, and secure way to access Web3 finance.
About CoinRabbit
CoinRabbit is a crypto asset management platform built for long-term capital preservation. Since 2020, it ensures 100% reserve, keeping clients’ funds safe and never reused.
Disclaimer: The content within the Sponsored Insights and Press Release category has been provided by our partners and sponsors. The views and opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of our website. While our team takes care to share valuable and reliable content, we do not take responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or validity of any claims made in these sponsored articles and Press Releases. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research and due diligence before making any decisions based on the information provided in Sponsored Insights.
The post ChangeNOW and CoinRabbit Release Joint Research on Financial Privacy in Digital Assets first appeared on Coinfea.

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin has encouraged stakeholders of the network to consider a protocol fund for investment. It would hold NEAR tokens, earn yield, and spend some of that yield on security and other public goods. He floated the idea on the NEAR governance forum Monday with a timeline of two weeks for community members to share their input.
“This is very much a proposal and not a mandate,” he wrote. “I believe our ecosystem belongs to all of us and is not truly resilient or decentralized if the founder is calling all the shots,” he continued. He wants to hear from validators and token holders voting through House of Stake and the community before anything moves forward. NEAR is getting ready to begin its sixth year of Mainnet. Polosukhin called the first five years a bootstrapping phase. Recent groundwork, he says, includes inflation falling by half in late 2025, a fee switch that directs revenue from NEAR Intents to token buybacks, and NEAR charging for AI inference.
NEAR co-founder wants community input on his proposal
According to the forum post, the proposed treasury would be funded by NEAR’s existing protocol treasury and the protocol revenue collected to date and in the future. The fund would hold it in NEAR and put the tokens to work. A portion of the revenue share would fund the Validator Support Program, MPC providers, and other similar services. The fund would launch with ~30 million NEAR, or about $53 million at current prices. Participation by delegates in NEAR’s stake-weighted governance system, House of Stake.
He mentioned that it will be carried out through mechanisms that are already set up. Over time, Polosukhin suggested, NEAR could redirect a growing share of emissions into the fund. That would reduce effective inflation, and validators and stakers would still be paid. Sovereign wealth funds and university endowments turn one-off or cyclical income into a permanent asset base that pays out yield year after year. Polosukhin cited Norway and Singapore. Singapore’s fund is 45 years old, and Norway’s is 36, evidence that the structure can survive market cycles.
Crypto revenue is just as cyclical as oil or land sales, he stated, so putting it into a productive fund is better than paying bills directly. He drew a sharp distinction between this process and the burning of tokens, a mechanism NEAR’s community has discussed in the past. Burning offsets inflation for a moment, he said, but the effect washes out in a volatile asset, and once inflation switches off, there is nothing left. He likes simple math; the same tokens are lent out on yield, and the principal continues to generate funding.
Polosukhin turned down a proposal in early July to burn tokens held by the Foundation, saying that a one-time burn was “a blunt instrument” and instead pointing to the possibility of a Bitcoin-style hard cap on the supply of NEAR. The fund helps that. If the yield can eventually cover network security and public goods on its own, he wrote, NEAR “could move towards a fixed supply.”
The Near Foundation co-founder acknowledged that yield carries risk. The plan is to diversify and hedge it, and any inflation adjustment should still keep validator and staking incentives intact. NEAR was trading at $1.74, up 1.4% on the day but down 29.6% over the year, according to CoinGecko data.
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Uniswap won a rug pull lawsuit after UNI was cleared in one of the lawsuits filed against the firm in the U.S. federal court, after the court dismissed all the claims against the company.
This decision has ended a protracted suit instituted by investors who claimed that the protocol facilitated fraud. UNI increased approximately 6% to almost $3.92 as traders reacted to a lower legal risk.
Federal court dismisses investor claims with prejudice
The case was never opened again, and a federal judge dismissed the suit against Uniswap Labs with prejudice.
The plaintiffs would not be able to reintroduce the identical claims to court.
The lawsuit was filed in April 2022 by investors.
They claimed that the platform ought to become part of the losses associated with rug pulls and pump-and-dump schemes.
The assertions centered on tokens that were exchanged on the Uniswap protocol.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla said that it was not demonstrated that the company was directly involved in the so-called scams.
According to her, the court did not have the power to impose liability on the firm through fraud due to the provided record.
The court established that the majority of complaints and e-mails were filed after the challenged trades.
Such timing undermined allegations that the company was aware of certain scams prior to them.
The judge observed that the overall knowledge of fraud in cryptocurrency markets does not indicate that people know about particular wrongdoing.
The court before it threw out the case with prejudice and put an end to the case.
The ruling eliminated a significant legal cloud that had lingered concerning the protocol.
Court draws line between developers and third parties
The decision supported one of the main principles of the developers of decentralized finance.
According to the court, the creators of open-source software cannot be made liable for third-party misuse.
The judge likened the activities of Uniswap to those of an ordinary exchange.
Not all the listed companies are created or managed by a stock exchange.
On the same note, Uniswap is not the creator or manager of every token that is traded on its protocol.
Investors had claimed that the company was making a fortune from the transaction charges as scams took place.
They argued that this was against state consumer protection laws.
According to the court, that was an invalid rationale and that it was unreasonable to hold developers responsible for the behavior of unknown token creators.
The plaintiff’s statements have also been mentioned by the judge.
They accepted that the scam tokens were produced and advertised by unknown individuals.
The court ruled that any fraud was caused by those actors, but not the protocol developers.
The ruling can have an impact on other cases dealing with decentralized platforms. It elucidates that the act of writing code is not equal to promotion or triggering criminal activities among the users.
UNI rallies as legal uncertainty fades
UNI did respond promptly when the ruling was announced.
The token increased by an approximate of 6% with the traders.
The price rose to approximately 3.92, and it then leveled between 3.92 and 3.95.
The case had taken years and made the situation unpredictable.
Other investors were afraid that an adverse verdict would lead to financial fines or the tightening of regulations.
That risk precluded enthusiasm in the token even when protocol activity was continuing.
After the dismissal, the market participants re-evaluated the prospects.
The result was seen by many as decreasing regulatory and legal risks to the project. New buying interest was backed by increased confidence.
The observers in the industry feel that now the team can work on product development and partnerships.
The more evident legal stance can contribute to the long-term development and the expansion of the scope of decentralized finance.
Uniswap defeats rug pull lawsuit, where UNI earns 6% marks, is a huge milestone for the platform and the entire DeFi industry.
The decision draws the line between fraudsters and protocol builders and portends more concrete legal demarcations of open systems.
The post Uniswap cleared in rug pull lawsuit as UNI gains 6% first appeared on Coinfea.

Aave has had a fresh governance look after the Aave Will Win proposal was voted through with a very slim margin of 52.58% Temp Check.
The proposal will make V4 the technical base of the protocol.
Immediately, ACI founder Marc Zeller appealed the decision on grounds of tampering by Aave Labs-related addresses.
The off-chain vote had 622,300 votes, 497,100 votes, and 64,200 votes not voting, respectively.
Zeller asserts that getting rid of votes associated with Aave Labs makes the outcome a denial.
The proposal has now taken to the Aave Request for Final Comment phase. In this case, pre-permanent on-chain vote terms can be updated.
Aave Labs applied up to 42.5 million stablecoins and 75,000 AAVE tokens to finance its operational expenses, previously financed by the revenue of its products.
Vote highlights governance tensions
The close call highlights the growing tension between Aave Labs and Aave Chain Initiative regarding transparency of control and funding.
The proposal seeks tokenholders to vote in favor of the redirection of all product revenue to the DAO treasury.
The sources of revenue are Aave swaps, mobile app, Aave Card, enterprise tools, and the Horizon RWA market.
Aave Labs would cease to fund its operations, both in product development and business, independently by remitting 100% of its revenue to the DAO.
After the vote, Aave co-founder Stani Kulechov affirmed on X that the vote that passed propels the protocol nearer to a fully token-centric one.
Governance, power, and funding concerns
Zeller also expressed the fear of Aave Labs getting governance weight due to the allocation of 75,000 AAVE tokens.
Other users of the forums also raised questions about the risks of ACI to control the daily operations while having fewer tokens.
On February 25, Zeller released an audit that signaled ROI on historical funding of Aave Labs totaling to $86 million.
The report credited the team with the development of V1 to initial V3.0 developments, but indicated that much growth in revenue came after the upgrading of service providers.
Aave Labs retorted with its own report highlighting a range of innovations, including liquidity pools, Flash Loans, the Safety Module, and V3 Efficiency Mode, all developed before the service-provider architecture of the DAO.
BGD labs exit and foundation proposal
BGD Labs stated that it was not renewing its participation in AaveDAO past April 1, concluding four years as the primary technical partner.
The company mentioned centralization issues and intense marketing of V4 as some of the causes fo quiting.
The proposal will also propose the establishment of a Foundation to store Aave trademarks and intellectual property on behalf of the DAO.
This is to alleviate the issue of exclusivity in terms of ownership by Aave Labs. Information on the organization and management of the Foundation will be presented in another proposal.
The current controversy shows how difficult it is to strike a balance between governance, transparency of funds, and control over operations in large DeFi projects.
The Aave Labs and ACI are now under greater scrutiny with the DAO nearing completion of its funding and architectural decisions.
The post Aave Faces Governance Controversy as ACI Challenges Voting Outcome first appeared on Coinfea.

Cryptocurrency exchanges establish emergency measures when the situation in Middle East bases escalates and poses a security threat to employees in the region.
Some key platforms also deployed contingency plans as threats of missiles and military interventions got worse over the weekend.
The measures will secure the employees and will not interfere with trading services.
Exchanges activate staff safety measures
Cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Bybit, and Bitget made available to the teams in the Middle East shelter guidance and emergency responses.
Remote working guidelines and evacuation assistance were also verified through internal communications and communicated to the public.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen told the community that the exchange would protect the 2, 204 employees in the region.
The company made a commitment to pay full salaries irrespective of the disruption in its operations.
It also promised to provide temporary accommodation, transportation, emergency rations, and medical treatment.
The company indicated it would pay airfare and relocation expenses in case there is a need to relocate it.
The employees were advised at all costs to work at home and report on a daily basis to ensure they were safe.
The founder of Binance, Changpeng Zhao, made a post on X where he wrote that he is confident in the UAE leadership and the defense system.
He encouraged the community to be on guard during times of overheated tensions.
Bitget’s CEO, Gracy Chen, shared safety protocols for staff as Middle East tensions spilled over from the weekend.
Binance allegedly issued a March 1 announcement advising UAE-based employees to adhere to the official government advice on safety.
The local alerts were suggesting people take shelter in the nearest areas and not to be around the windows or open areas since the missiles might hit them.
Lots of people reached out. All good, and very calm here actually, considering the circumstance. UAE citizens and tourists have a lot of confidence in the country's leadership, and defense system. Seen a few smoke in the sky and heard a few booms.This seems to be the most… https://t.co/7DmtPwTLqr
— CZ BNB (@cz_binance) February 28, 2026
Transactions focused on communication with local governments and in-house security organizations.
Regional presence increases operational focus
The Middle East is now one of the main centers of digital assets companies.
The UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia launched laws that brought international transactions.
Binance affirmed plans to set up its base in the UAE last year. OKX, Rain, and CoinMENA continue to have strong operations within the area.
OKX said that its risk teams were keeping a close eye on the developments.
The exchange declared that it would be able to recreate financial records and keep obligations when the systems are disrupted.
The conventional financial institutions responded in a timely manner.
The Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group of Japan are said to have delayed coming to the region and joined Standard Chartered in giving advisories.
In the meantime, the UAE Capital Market Authority gave notice of the shutdown of the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange and the Dubai Financial Market, no later than March 3, 2026. Authorities gave the reason of continued security threats.
Crypto markets operate as tokenized gold surges
The markets of digital assets responded instantly because of their continuous trading nature. Bitcoin dropped to $62,938 on the weekend but has since recovered to be above $66,000.
Ether declined to $1,783 and then started climbing past $1,900.
The tokenized commodities experienced high demand with the traditional exchanges closed.
Tether Gold was nearly $5,500 and registered over $1 billion of trading transactions per day. Pax Gold overcame $5,500 of approximately $900 million turnover in a day.
The majority of the action was done on centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges.
The spurt was an indication of investor demand for gold-correlated assets when the geopolitical environment was strained.
The other test of resilience is the one that is now facing crypto exchanges.
Their international structure and past experience of managing crises can assist them in overcoming the uncertainty and also focus on the safety of the staff.
The post Crypto exchanges set up emergency plans as tensions rock Middle East bases first appeared on Coinfea.

Volume in DEXs increased to the highest point of February 2020, even amidst the widespread market cooldown.
The month of trading has recorded over $284 billion, the highest trading record ever recorded in 2025.
DEX activity had its best February performance since 2020, breaking the 2025 record. | Source: Dune Analytics
The performance presents the long-term need for decentralized trading venues despite the decline in overall sentiment.
DEX volumes remain elevated despite a monthly decline
In February, the volumes of DEX increased to over $284 billion.
This figure was more than the last 2025 monthly record of $239 billion.
It further surpassed activity during sections of the 2021 to 2022 bull cycle.
This was the outcome after a drastic decline as early as January. DEX trading was down by over 37%. relative to the previous month.
January had recorded over $402 billion in volume, and it was hard to match.
Nevertheless, the February 2026 performance was the best in February since 2020. Activity was also above February 2025.
The information is indicative of resilience in the decentralized markets in a softer trading environment.
Weaker performance was also registered in centralized exchanges.
Volumes there went down to five-month lows. Conversely, DEX platforms were more active in relation.
Various decentralized platforms added revenue-sharing programs in the month.
These activities were to be used to lure traders and money providers.
The programs contributed to the solution of a portion of the general market slowdown.
Meme tokens and prediction markets drive trading flows
The changing trader interests in February were reflected in DEX volumes. Meme token activity facilitated keeping the momentum going.
Other meaningful flows were made by decentralized prediction markets.
Uniswap dominated the total trading. PancakeSwap and PumpSwap were placed in the second and third places.
Kalshi and Polymarket were also in the top ten in volume.
HumidiFi provided additional action by its dark liquidity pools.
Hyperliquid continued to be a major derivatives trading source that was decentralized.
Despite the decrease in its volumes compared to previous heights, the platform achieved a good foundation.
Hyperliquid is a leader in yearlyized revenue and the variety of users of such markets (Artemis data).
Hyperliquid is also one of the perpetual futures platforms. It is among the few non-centralized applications that are approaching the centralized exchange volumes in that sector.
This stance highlights the ongoing demand of on chain derivatives.
In recent months, traders have become more discriminating. Liquidity is now focusing on established platforms and trending assets.
Fewer participants run to provide liquidity to each new token.
Confidence was also supported by security innovations on key DEX platforms.
Minimized hacking cases made users more confident.
Consequently, the decentralized venues were still managing numerous trending assets in February.
Network health and token performance are tied to DEX strength
The DEX activity was prominent in network performance in the month of February.
Decentralized exchange trading and finance were implemented on Ethereum to strengthen staking demand.
Higher requirements of the collateral stimulated the additional staking of ETH.
This movement made networks safer and minimized supply in the market.
Powerful DEX earnings are currently serving as a measure of ecosystem well-being.
High volumes of trading are indicators of extended on-chain participation.
The fact that Solana had active token markets also worked to its advantage. PIPPIN was the best performer in the month of February, surging by 129.4%. Raydium is a vital liquidity provider and trader to the token.
Raydium pools were operated by large holders to cause price fluctuations.
This cycle increased Solana-based liquidity and increased DEX volumes even more.
Combining centralized and decentralized listings, other dominant tokens maintained momentum.
Niche markets were still able to commoditize even in the face of the general market weakness.
These parts would tend to be independent of overall trends.
According to the DEX statistics of February, decentralized trading has been a fundamental aspect of the crypto market structure.
The post DEX Volumes Post Strongest February Since 2020 Amid Shifting Market Trends first appeared on Coinfea.

Railgun activity remained elevated in February, despite the overall market witnessing a downturn. The mixer remains one of the key products in the Ethereum ecosystem, which may see growth in the coming years amid concerns about privacy in the cryptocurrency industry. Currently, Railgun holds a peak value locked, indicating robust activity as one of the most widely used mixers.
The rise of Railgun offers an alternative to Tornado Cash for regular activity and has been adopted by DeFi users to disguise positions. Total value locked on Railgun expanded to over $113M, with most of the value on the Ethereum network. Polygon, Arbitrum, and BNB Chain make up the small remainder. As Cryptopolitan reported, Ethereum is seeking to upgrade its ecosystem, seeking AI assistance and viable use cases.
Railgun registers peak value locked in February
Railgun achieved $269K in fees for February, slightly lower compared to March. However, the size of transfers is also expanding, showing that larger DeFi clients trust the protocol. Vitalik Buterin has used Railgun on multiple occasions, though some of his latest transfers are not anonymized. Railgun is also expanding through dedicated wallets and a privacy toolkit, which can be integrated into DeFi apps.
Railgun claims to offer privacy for legal users. However, threat actors also adapted and expanded their usage of mixers. According to the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance, mixing is back after the end of sanctions against Tornado Cash. According to the researchers, sanctions reshaped the mixing ecosystem. While Tornado Cash was the leader in the 2020-2022 period, sanctions led to a diversified mixer market.
Other protocols had the advantage of not tainting funds, as exchanges may still be reluctant to accept funds linked to Tornado Cash. Railgun emerged as the leading protocol, with a share of 13% in 2022 and over 71% in 2025. The main funds moving through Railgun are WETH, USDT, USDC, and DAI, showing the influence of DeFi as the main driver. Railgun scans the funds at entry based on a database of tainted wallets.
However, this approach has failed to catch funds from recent exploits, as hackers now shift their haul much faster. Other pools check for the origin of funds when withdrawing assets. For now, Railgun has managed to see acceptance, allowing counterparties to move funds to exchanges without revealing previous transaction details. Meanwhile, RAIL tokens slid to $1.02, erasing over 46% in the past month. RAIL is unraveling from a previous rally that boosted privacy tokens.
Despite the project’s prominence and promotion, RAIL lacks listings on major exchanges. As the token relies on DeFi liquidity, its price reflects the market sentiment directly. RAIL has also been immune to concentrated pumps from centralized exchanges. The mindshare of RAIL is also down by 46% recently, as the token does not offer immediate signs of rallying.
The post Railgun hits peak value locked in February first appeared on Coinfea.

X now permits paid crypto promotions under its updated labeling policy. On Sunday, X mentioned that cryptocurrency and gambling are cleared for paid partnerships, creating potential revenue for content creators. The move comes as X prepares to roll out new features in the coming months, including X Money.
In view of this development, industry influencers can now engage in paid partnerships to promote crypto products and services, provided they follow X’s labeling rules and clearly disclose sponsorships. Influencers are also responsible for ensuring that paid crypto content is blocked or not visible in regions where such promotions are restricted due to local regulations. The update essentially overturns a ban that dates back to at least June 2024. Still, in major markets, the restrictive measure is still in effect in the UK, Australia, and the EU.
X clears crypto and gambling promotions
The news was reported by analyst DeFi Ignas, who mentioned that digital assets are no longer listed under Prohibited Industries for paid promo on X. However, despite the recent exclusion, pharmaceuticals, tobacco, weapons, and diet-related products were added to the ban list. In addition, promotions for sex products and services, alcohol, dating platforms, and recreational and prescription drugs remain restricted.
The platform’s head of product, Nikita Bier, insists the updated ad policies are designed to help creators stay compliant and transparent with their audiences. He noted, “X’s core value is providing an authentic pulse on humanity. While we want to encourage people to build their businesses on X, undisclosed promotions hurt the integrity of the product and lead people to distrust the content they read on X.”
That means paid collaboration posts must show the “Paid Partnership” label. Additionally, influencers must ensure their content complies with applicable laws, including FTC rules. They must also clearly show the product, service, or CTA in the content, without requiring the user to follow extra links. Still, the updated policy sets a clear boundary between Paid Partnerships and routine ads.
X Money to enter external beta phase
The development permits some content to run through X Ads even if it wouldn’t be allowed in a partnership. However, users who violate X’s paid partnership policy may have their posts removed or their accounts suspended. Meanwhile, X Money is heading towards an external beta after completing its internal private beta. Founder Elon Musk revealed, “For X Money, we’ve actually had X Money live in closed beta within the company. We expect in the next month or two to go to a limited external beta, and then to go worldwide to all X users.”
He added that the goal is to make X indispensable for communications, news, or X Money, noting, “you could live your life on the X app.” What X Money is, he added, is a solution for all financial transactions — and, if it works together with XChat and more powerful communication tools, could change the way users engage with the platform, leading to growth to more than one billion daily users.
Overall, X Money supports Musk’s ambition to transform the platform into an all-in-one app for messaging, payments, and day-to-day activities. Although the company has yet to reveal concrete plans to integrate crypto assets into X Money. Earlier, former CEO Yaccarino had stated that X would add investment and trading capabilities, suggesting that digital assets could become part of its financial offerings.
The post X Money beta nears launch as platform reopens crypto promotions first appeared on Coinfea.

Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin has said he hopes artificial intelligence could help the company fast-track the Ethereum roadmap. In his statement, Buterin mentioned that AI assisted them in creating the 2030 roadmap in just two weeks, a process that would normally take years.
In his post on X, Buterin called the experiment “impressive,” noting that the technology speeds up coding. However, he cautioned that anything built within such a short period, without the Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), could have shortcomings, with some features existing only as incomplete stubs. Even with the mistakes, he said, the real takeaway should be in the AI trend itself.
Buterin hails the assistance from AI
In the post, Buterin explained that he experimented with agentic coding on his blog software and completed it in only an hour, stressing that the best way to use AI is to balance its benefits, accelerating development while enhancing security through test-case generation, formal verification, and multiple implementations. He also claimed that AI can help with formal verification and generate far more test cases.
The Ethereum founder also noted that AI speeds up coding, but it doesn’t eliminate the need to fix bugs and inconsistencies. But he expects that the Ethereum 2030 roadmap will be completed much faster with artificial intelligence, because those challenges can now be tackled more quickly. “People should be open to the possibility (not certainty! possibility) that the Ethereum roadmap will finish much faster than people expect, at a much higher standard of security than people expect,” he said.
Buterin also contended that there is still the prospect of error-free software, something most people once saw as an unrealistic dream. He also emphasized that that type of software would be critical for trustless systems, though total security cannot exist because it would mean your code perfectly mirrors all the information in your mind. Meanwhile, Buterin also shared on Saturday that Ethereum would implement account abstraction in the Hegota upgrade within a year.
Ethereum reveals new plans as part of Hegota upgrade
He recalled that the concept dated back to discussions in 2016. He explained that EIP-8141 is an all-encompassing proposal designed to resolve the remaining issues with account abstraction, with deployment scheduled for this year. In addition, he asserted they’ve been working on the project for over a decade, thus implementing it within a year. He also assured the community that the core framework is deliberately simple and broadly functional and will be centered on frame transactions.
He also pointed out that users could settle gas fees in other tokens through paymaster contracts or automated decentralized exchanges. The Ethereum founder added, “Intermediary minimization is a core principle of non-ugly cypherpunk Ethereum: maximize what you can do even if all the world’s infrastructure except the Ethereum chain itself goes down.”
He also highlighted that privacy-focused platforms like Railgun and Tornado Cash could replace public broadcasters, which he described as a major source of user experience friction. Additionally, he noted that the new framework could be applied to existing Ethereum accounts, enabling them to perform batch transactions and support sponsored fees. His remarks come at a time when ETH is 60% below its 2025 high, with some analysts warning the asset could drop below its $2,000 support this month.
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Six anonymous accounts on Polymarket won almost $1.2 million after placing accurate bets that the United States would strike Iran. The development occurred just hours before real bombs began to fall on Tehran and other locations in Iran on February 28.
Bubblemaps, a blockchain analytics company, investigated and located those six accounts. In its revelation, the majority of cryptocurrency wallets received funding within the day before the assaults. When the market asked if the United States would attack Iran by February 28, 2026, these consumers piled up on “Yes” shares.
Insider claims trail suspicious bets on Polymarket
A newly created wallet, dubbed ‘Roeyha2026’ in Lookonchain’s analysis, was funded just 11 hours before placing a $50,000 ‘Yes’ bet on the U.S. striking Iran by March 1, 2026, yielding nearly $97,000 in profit as the market resolved positively shortly after the strikes. Another took nearly 150,000 shares at 20 cents and made a solid six-figure gain. Interestingly, none of these wallets had done anything else, and they’ve all been drained since.
The total volume on that one contract hit almost $90 million. Bubblemaps even put out a visual map linking the wallets through similar funding paths and labeled the group as “suspected insiders.” The latest spark in what is becoming a complete nightmare for prediction markets is the Polymarket frenzy over those U.S.-Iran attacks. These platforms are now making billions of dollars in transactions annually, but this expansion has sparked a contentious debate.
Currently, there are at least 20 federal lawsuits in motion, primarily targeting Kalshi and Polymarket. The central issue in all of them is whether these sites count as legit CFTC-regulated exchanges or unlicensed gambling ops that should have to follow state sports-betting laws, including licensing fees, age checks, taxes, etc. States are not standing idly, as Nevada temporarily blocked Polymarket and others.
In addition, Massachusetts received a preliminary injunction against Kalshi’s sports contracts from a judge, and states like Connecticut, New York, and Tennessee have added cease-and-desist orders or lawsuits. State regulators, who claim that these platforms are operating illicit betting operations, and the businesses themselves, who argue that federal law grants them complete autonomy and states cannot intervene, are engaged in a heated battle.
Regulators are now paying attention
Regular players are also now filing class-action lawsuits, claiming that the ease with which money may be made and the absence of appropriate safeguards are promoting gambling addictions without enough cautions or limitations. The platforms are facing an increasing amount of moral and user-protection criticism in addition to the legal dispute. Regulated spots like Kalshi point out that they already ban war-related contracts to avoid exactly these headaches.
Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour responded directly to Senator Murphy on X: “Senator, regulated prediction markets are not allowed to do war markets. The market you’re posting to is unregulated and offshore.” With trading volumes going parabolic, like when Kalshi alone cleared over $1 billion just on Super Bowl Sunday, the whole thing could end up reshaping whether prediction markets become a mainstream way to “forecast” the future or get reined in as unregulated speculation loopholes.
To stop what he claims are dishonest and unstable prediction markets, Senator Chris Murphy is advancing his own legislation. The CFTC’s role in protecting jurisdiction, encouraging innovation, and combating unfair practices was highlighted by Chairman Mike Selig. However, unfair tactics in these markets are still unregulated. The major platforms themselves are divided. Shayne Coplan, Polymarket CEO, told CBS News’ 60 Minutes: “It’s the most accurate thing we have as mankind right now, until someone else creates some sort of a super crystal ball.”
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Bitcoin dev tests the network limits with on-chain image as BIP-110 debate rages. One developer, a Slovak, coded a 66KB image into one Bitcoin transaction.
This action questions the suggested anti-spam laws and has re-established the confrontation within the community.
The image was directly written on the blockchain of Bitcoin by Martin Habovštiak in a single entry.
He claimed that the test was meant to look at the practical implications of BIP-110.
The proposal aims to attach constraints to non-payment-based information on Bitcoin payments.
The picture depicts a proponent of the move, Luke Dashjr, crying.
According to Habovštiak, a BIP-110-compliant fork could view the image as a single transaction on-chain, which has its value written in one contiguous block.
BIP-110 proposal and ongoing dispute
In October 2025, it was renamed to BIP-110 and was added under the previous name of BIP-444.
The proposal presents a soft fork to minimize blockchain spam.
It consists of seven new rules of transaction validity and restrictions on certain scripting functions.
The plan would impose a limit on OP_RETURN outputs of 83 bytes.
It would also limit pushes of individual data to 256 bytes. Some opcodes would be outlawed under the scheme proposed.
Proponents claim that random information presents legal and operational threats to the node operators.
They feel that non-financial writings do not focus on the main role of Bitcoin as money.
As early as 2023, Luke Dashjr, CTO of the Ocean mining pool and creator of Bitcoin Knots, expressed his dislike of such data being spam.
Habovštiak did not use OP_RETURN, OP_IF, and Taproot in his test. Instead, it used SegWit v0. It was observed by many that these omissions are at the heart of BIP-110 restrictions.
Technical claims and counterarguments
Habovshiak claimed that his deal shows how BIP-110 rules might be defied.
He claimed that the picture was encoded as a neighboring file in the witness information.
He further argued that the BIP-110 fork might view the file as a full transaction.
A X user contested this statement by saying the protocol-level transaction was not contiguous.
Habovštiak replied that the critic had made use of a limited meaning of the word.
He also said that he developed an alternative version of the transaction that did not exceed BIP-110 limits.
To him, that version had been considerably bigger than the original one.
He said that the limitations would not trim the total blockchain data down, but may create more of it.
Habovshtiak clarified that he decided to give the idea a trial on the mainnet to put more weight on his argument.
According to him, the demonstration of the validity of the proof in the conditions of the live networks was more significant than the theoretical demonstration.
Rising tensions between the core and knots
The experiment came at a time of incessant tension between the supporters of Bitcoin Knots and Bitcoin Core.
The point of contention is on the types of data that are allowed in the network.
According to the statistics of The Bitcoin Portal, approximately 8.8% of the nodes support BIP-110 today.
In the meantime, the number of Bitcoin Knots nodes has grown by at least ten times since the beginning of the previous year.
According to Habovshtiak, the transaction was a single proof of concept. He claimed that he made the code secret to deter the use of NFTs.
His positioning was also depicted as being against blockchain spam but against what he continues to perceive as false statements.
The larger discussion on how restricted the data in Bitcoin is will probably persist because node operators will evaluate the effectiveness and intention of the proposal.
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