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According to Reuters, Bank for International Settlements (BIS) General Manager Pablo Hernández de Cos said at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium that stablecoins are not a credible means of payment at scale, while tokenized deposits offer a more compelling way to harness tokenization. He said the two could coexist, but tokenized deposits should handle most everyday payments, with stablecoins serving more specialized purposes.
De Cos said stablecoins could lower government borrowing costs by increasing demand for U.S. Treasuries, but the migration of funds from bank deposits to stablecoins could also raise bank funding costs and borrowing rates for ordinary customers. He also cited limited interoperability and difficulties in consistently enforcing anti-money laundering controls. The growing adoption of dollar-pegged stablecoins in some jurisdictions could weaken monetary sovereignty and the effectiveness of domestic monetary policy. Tokenized deposits must also overcome interoperability, governance, and legal challenges.

According to Bloomberg, ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel said central banks should bring central-bank money onto blockchain infrastructure and use the programmability of distributed ledgers to modernize monetary-policy implementation, collateral management, and liquidity provision.
The ECB plans to launch its Pontes initiative next month to connect DLT platforms with existing TARGET services, while a blueprint for its longer-term Appia initiative is expected in 2028. Schnabel said the ECB is still assessing different models, including a unified ledger or connecting multiple ledgers.

CZ: I Wouldn't Advise Young People to Sell Their Home and Go All In on Crypto
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said during the Binance Clubhouse Bali 2026 Community Q&A on August 23 that he would not advise young people to sell their home and go all in on crypto, especially if the property represents most of their wealth.
CZ said he sold his apartment to buy Bitcoin in 2014 because he had strong confidence in BTC's long-term growth, and even if Bitcoin had gone to zero, his lifestyle would not have been affected. But not everyone can afford that outcome. For most people, he recommends regularly investing just 1%–10% of their income in leading crypto assets they believe in.

Solana’s first round of on-chain governance voting has concluded, with SGP-0001, “The Solana Constitution,” and SGP-0002, “Double Disinflation,” passing, while SGP-0003, “Resource and Inclusion Fee,” failed. SGP-0001 received 85.97% support, while SGP-0002 passed with 67.00%, narrowly clearing the two-thirds approval threshold. SGP-0003 received 53.90% support. All three proposals met quorum.
SGP-0002 proposes doubling SOL’s annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30%, shortening the time needed to reach the 1.5% terminal inflation rate from approximately 5.7 years to 2.8 years and reducing SOL emissions by about 18.9 million over six years. SGP-0003 had proposed restructuring the current base transaction fee into a fixed base inclusion fee and a resource fee based on requested transaction cost, with the latter fully burned. GitHub

Avici said its card-issuing partner Rain identified a vulnerability in a version of a Solana card contract used by Avici and a small number of other programs. The contract has since been upgraded across all programs, with no further unauthorized activity observed. Avici said only the separate Solana contract holding card balances was affected, while funds in users’ self-custodial Solana and EVM wallets remained safe. A total of 1,685 users were affected, representing $500,859.22 in card balances. All affected users will receive full refunds, and Avici has filed a report with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

According to CNBC, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said recent PCE and CPI readings were better than expected but did not show that underlying inflation trends had meaningfully improved. He stopped short of signaling a specific rate path or policy reaction function, instead calling for a “quieter Fed” with less reliance on forward guidance and saying markets should not look primarily to the central bank for their next trade.

U.S. Treasury liquidity expectations and rising debt strengthened Bitcoin’s macro case, while Solana advanced proposals to reduce token issuance and increase burns. This week also saw Coinbase expand its Agentic Finance roadmap, U.S. sanctions extend further into digital assets, Trump-linked crypto ventures face an estimated $4.7 billion in investor losses, and the on-chain RWA market reach a record $44.9 billion.

DWF Ventures said in a research report on social trading that as trade execution and fees become increasingly commoditized, the competitive advantage of trading platforms is shifting away from low costs toward network effects, trader relationships and proprietary information layers. It argued that social trading lowers the barrier to participation through public trade calls, verifiable positions and one-click following, creating a reinforcing flywheel in which successful traders attract attention, followers enter their trades, and the traders’ reputations grow further. DWF Ventures also expects the social-trading experiences of crypto and mainstream equities to increasingly converge over time.
At the same time, DWF Ventures warned that the same flywheel is a double-edged sword. Followers piling into a public trade can push prices in the trader’s favor, making some calls partly “self-fulfilling,” while traders may also be able to use their followers as “exit liquidity.” Citing data from Fomo, the report said that only 6.16% of roughly 292,000 wallets analyzed over the past three months recorded realized profits, while just 25 wallets generated net profits of more than $10,000. DWF Ventures added that even verifiable positions do not fully eliminate information asymmetry, as traders may still front-run publicly visible positions through undisclosed wallets. In its view, the platforms most likely to build durable moats will be those that own the strongest discovery and distribution layers and can develop proprietary social networks around high-value information.

1. Arthur Hayes: US Treasury to Keep Injecting Liquidity; New Bitcoin Bull Market Has Started link
Arthur Hayes has published his latest article “Same Old Wine in New Bottles”. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is suppressing yields by expanding long‑term US Treasury buybacks and other measures, essentially creating more US dollar liquidity for the market, with Bitcoin set to benefit first. Hayes argues that in the most aggressive scenario, the Treasury Department may even implement quasi‑yield curve control when the 10‑year US Treasury yield breaks above 5%. A more probable path is to gradually scale up buybacks and deploy around $1 trillion in TGA funds. He believes Bitcoin has entered a new bull market with substantially heightened volatility, noting that Maelstrom is currently at “maximum risk exposure”, with major bets on BTC, ETH, ENA and ETHFI.
GSR’s latest weekly report shows that Bitcoin broke out of its seven‑week $60,000‑$70,000 range last week, peaking at approximately $79,000 and surging roughly 25% for the week, marking its strongest weekly performance of the year. Total market short liquidations reached around $4.6 billion from Wednesday to Friday. GSR states that this rally is driven by fresh external capital re‑entering the market rather than capital rotation within the crypto space, with funds heavily skewed toward BTC and ETH. Only 33% of the top‑100 altcoins outperformed BTC during the period, indicating a full‑blown “altcoin season” has not yet arrived. Markets will keep a close eye on US PCE data, NVIDIA earnings and Jackson Hole. Relative strength in BTC and ETH could persist should long‑end Treasury yields remain subject to policy intervention and inflows into ETFs and stablecoins hold steady.
In its market update, Wintermute says its outlook has turned moderately optimistic as BTC broke out of its six‑week trading range, with spot ETFs for BTC and ETH recording net inflows of approximately $1.92 billion and $693 million respectively over the past week. Nevertheless, the rally came alongside around $2.7 billion in short liquidations, and sustained ETF inflows will prove critical going forward. Wintermute notes it will revert to a cautious stance should BTC ETFs post a weekly net outflow and BTC closes back below its former range of $67,000. Wintermute also cites the US Treasury’s announcement to raise the per‑operation buyback size for 10‑ to 30‑year Treasuries from a maximum of $2 billion to at least $4 billion effective September 9 as a key backdrop for shifting market liquidity expectations.
2. BlackRock: US Debt Tops $40 Trillion; Bitcoin’s Fiscal‑Risk Hedge Thesis Strengthens link
Robbie Mitchnick, Head of Digital Assets at BlackRock, states that US debt and fiscal deficits have re‑emerged as core market risks, driving some investors toward alternative store‑of‑value assets such as Bitcoin and gold. As of August 18, US federal debt stood at approximately $40.05 trillion. Mitchnick argues that fiscal sustainability matters more for Bitcoin’s long‑term pricing than the ongoing CLARITY Act, while regulatory clarity will exert a greater impact on other crypto segments including DeFi. BlackRock has previously noted that rising government debt and persistent fiscal deficits could reinforce Bitcoin’s long‑term allocation thesis as a hedge against fiat currency debasement.
3. US Treasury Mulls Using $950 Billion TGA Funds for Long‑Term Treasury Buybacks link
According to CNBC citing two senior US Treasury officials, the Treasury is considering deploying approximately $950 billion from the Treasury General Account (TGA) to support expanded long‑term US Treasury buybacks. The US Treasury has recently raised the per‑operation buyback size for 10‑ to 30‑year Treasuries from $2 billion to at least $4 billion, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has stated that actual volumes could expand further. Deploying TGA funds would furnish the Treasury with a larger funding pool for buybacks, though officials have not disclosed specific usage amounts or timelines.
4. Coinbase Outlines Its Agent‑Driven Finance (AiFi) Ecosystem Roadmap link
Coinbase published an article outlining its “Agentic Finance (AiFi)” ecosystem layout, pointing out that constrained by business hours, legal identity verification and human intervention, the traditional financial system cannot meet the economic demands of 24/7 autonomously‑running AI agents. Cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, featuring round‑the‑clock availability, programmability and low‑cost micropayments, are emerging as the core underlying infrastructure for AiFi. Coinbase states that its current AiFi product suite includes Coinbase Advisor, an SEC‑registered investment advisory tool for agent‑led trading; Coinbase for Agents, which enables sandbox operations for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and other models; x402, an open micropayment protocol; and Coinbase Business, which allows enterprises to collect USDC directly from AI agents.
5. Solana Inflation Proposal Seeks Lower Token Issuance; Staking Rewards May Halve in Two Years link
Solana is advancing two governance proposals, SIMD‑550 and SIMD‑553. SIMD‑550 seeks to raise the annual deflation rate from ‑15% to ‑30%, bringing forward Solana’s timeline for reaching its terminal inflation rate of 1.5% from around 2032 to the first half of 2029, with nominal staking yields projected to drop to roughly 2.25% in the third year. SIMD‑553 was approved and merged on July 20. It introduces burn fees for compute units consumed by financial‑activity requests. Based on current network activity estimates, daily SOL burns will rise from approximately 600‑800 SOL to 7,500‑9,000 SOL. The two proposals are expected to reduce issuance by about $1.4‑1.5 billion over six years; actual impacts remain contingent on the SIMD‑550 vote outcome and the validator fee design of SIMD‑553.
Eugene Chen, CEO of Ellipsis Labs, has criticized Solana’s SGP‑0003 fee‑reform proposal, arguing it could significantly harm Solana applications reliant on market microstructure. He contends that altering the on‑chain cost model without sufficient input from application developers would erode developer confidence in deploying businesses on Solana. Solana co‑founder Anatoly Yakovenko subsequently suggested switching signature fees to compute‑unit‑based charging while keeping average fees roughly unchanged. Chen expressed in‑principle support but noted further evaluation of the mechanism is required.
6. Hayden Adams, Uniswap Founder: AMMs Are on a Clear Path to Dominate Global Finance link
Hayden Adams, founder of Uniswap, published an article stating that amid the advancing real‑world‑asset (RWA) tokenization wave, automated market makers (AMMs) are presented with a clear path toward dominating global financial markets. Adams points out that traditional market makers secure high‑profit margins via vertical integration and pursue costly delta‑neutral hedging, while blockchains decouple execution, custody and settlement, drastically lowering market‑making barriers. Within the on‑chain ecosystem, liquidity naturally gravitates toward correlated pairs, with only a small number of highly‑liquid bridge pairs such as SPY/USD and ETH/USDC required to connect to fiat‑dollar channels. Since market makers holding correlated assets bear lower inventory risk, passive AMMs can displace expensive traditional market‑making strategies at extremely low capital costs.
7. Zhou Guren, Top Backer of Trump‑Family Tokens, Listed as Dishonest Debtor with Millions in Liabilities Across Six Cases link
UAE‑based investment institution Aqua 1 Foundation previously spent $100 million purchasing tokens of World Liberty Financial (WLFI), the crypto project backed by the Trump family. It surpassed Justin Sun, whose cumulative investment stood at $75 million, to become WLFI’s largest mystery buyer. Investigations reveal that the long‑enigmatic beneficial owner behind Aqua 1 is Guren Zhou, born in Shanghai in 1984, drawing widespread scrutiny over the source of his capital. Reports indicate that Guren Zhou remains listed as a dishonest person subject to enforcement on China’s Judgment Enforcement Information Disclosure Network, involved in six cases with total outstanding debts amounting to tens of millions of Chinese yuan. Furthermore, indictments released by the UK Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) show that Guren Zhou is also implicated in a money‑laundering case originating in the United Kingdom.
8. US Expands New Iran Sanctions to Digital Assets, Warns of Risks for Related Businesses link
The US Treasury Department announced expanded sanctions against Iran, imposing secondary sanctions covering five sectors: digital assets, technology, aviation, gold and shipping, to target Iran’s overseas revenue streams. It warned foreign institutions continuing business with Iranian‑related entities may face US sanctions. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated the new measures would heighten sanction‑related risks for such engagements. Previously, the United States had sanctioned Nobitex, Iran’s largest crypto exchange, alleging its involvement in sanctions evasion, terrorist financing and transactions linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. US authorities said they had seized nearly $1 billion in Iran‑related crypto assets as of May this year. The latest round of sanctions also targets multiple digital‑asset addresses, including a Bitcoin wallet identified by the US Treasury as controlled by Arman Kahzadian.
9. Trump‑Linked Crypto Businesses Inflict at Least $4.7 Billion Losses on Investors link
Public Citizen, a US consumer‑advocacy organization, released a report on August 27 stating that crypto‑related businesses tied to Donald Trump and his family have inflicted at least $4.7 billion in investor losses since 2022, mostly unrealized losses stemming from NFT trading cards, WLFI, TRUMP, USD1, and Trump Media’s crypto‑asset‑holding strategy. According to the report, TRUMP accounts for the largest share of estimated losses at $3.2 billion. Nansen data shows that roughly 1 million out of about 1.6 million Solana wallets that purchased TRUMP are sitting on unrealized losses. Public Citizen further estimates that WLFI generated at least $1 billion in losses, and Trump Media’s holding of 9,477 BTC carried approximately $450 million in unrealized losses as of the end of June 2026. Trump reported earning at least $1.4 billion from these crypto‑related ventures in his 2025 financial disclosure.
10. On‑Chain RWA Market Capitalization Hits $44.9 Billion, a New All‑Time High link
The on‑chain market capitalization of RWA (excluding stablecoins) has hit an all‑time high of $44.9 billion. Tokenized US Treasuries represent the largest asset category at $15.3 billion, followed by yield/active strategies worth $8.8 billion and credit funds at $6.3 billion.
Fundraising
Crypto tax‑and‑accounting infrastructure provider FinTax has closed its Seed round led by YZi Labs at a $40‑million valuation. link
Sui co‑founder Kostas Kryptos is co‑building compliant trading platform Havenex, with its Series A financing nearing completion. link
City Protocol announced combined seed and Pre‑A round financing totaling $11 million. link
Hivemind secured $17 million in strategic financing led by M&G Investments. link
Learn more, check out crypto-fundraising.info.
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CoinDesk reported that USDC issuer Circle Internet Group has become the new main shirt sponsor of Premier League club Chelsea FC, with the USDC logo set to appear on the front of the team’s jersey. The new kit is expected to debut in Chelsea’s home match against Brighton on Sunday. Financial terms were not disclosed. Earlier reports said Chelsea had been seeking around £65 million ($88.3 million) per year for the sponsorship slot, though that figure has not been confirmed as the value of this deal. CoinDesk said this marks the first time a crypto financial services firm has become the principal front-of-shirt sponsor of a Premier League club.

CoinShares said global digital asset investment products saw $1.65 billion in inflows during the first three trading days of the week, following $2.94 billion the previous week, the largest weekly inflow of the year. Bitcoin and Ethereum drew $976 million and $478 million, respectively, while total crypto ETP assets under management rose to about $155 billion and year-to-date flows returned to a positive $3.4 billion. CoinShares also expects AI-related revenue to rise from roughly 30% to about 70% of listed Bitcoin miners’ revenue by year-end as U.S. data-center grid constraints increase the value of existing powered infrastructure.

Evernorth said the SEC has declared effective its Form S-4 registration statement for the proposed merger with Armada Acquisition Corp. II, with a shareholder vote scheduled for September 30. If approved and completed, the combined company is expected to list on Nasdaq under the ticker XRPN as an XRP-focused treasury company. Evernorth previously said it had secured more than $1 billion in gross proceeds and committed capital from investors including Ripple, SBI Group, Pantera Capital and Kraken.

California lawmakers have passed AB 2409, a bill that would prohibit public officials and public employees from issuing meme coins. Beginning January 1, 2027, digital asset service providers would also be barred from listing for California residents meme coins issued on or after that date that are offered by, or in partnership with, federal, state or local public officials. The bill has entered the enrolled stage and now awaits action by the governor.

South Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit will halt Synthetix (SNX) trading at 3:00 p.m. local time on Sept. 28. The affected pair is SNX/BTC. Upbit said SNX has unresolved issues around supply-plan changes, business authenticity, sustainability and progress that could harm users. The token was placed on a warning list on Aug. 7. Withdrawals will remain open for 30 days after delisting, until Oct. 28.

Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl said Bitcoin’s 90-day correlation with the Nasdaq 100 has fallen from over 60% to roughly 33%, while its correlation with gold has risen from near zero at the start of the year to above 50%.
Pandl said the shift may reflect renewed investor focus on Bitcoin’s scarcity, monetary independence and role as a store of value. With U.S. federal debt surpassing $40 trillion and persistent fiscal deficits bringing the “debasement trade” back into focus, he argued that Bitcoin and other scarce digital assets may be entering a more favorable market regime.

According to Galaxy Research, Bitcoin rose from $62,818 to $77,593 last week, from Aug. 17 to Aug. 23, for a weekly gain of $14,775 — the largest weekly dollar increase in its history. On a percentage basis, the gain was 23.5%, ranking 41st all-time and marking the biggest weekly percentage increase since March 2023.

On Aug. 27 (ET), U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $242 million in net inflows, extending their streak to nine consecutive days. Spot Ethereum ETFs saw $235 million in net inflows, also marking nine straight days of inflows. Spot SOL ETFs recorded $60.91 million in net inflows, while spot HYPE ETFs saw $24.42 million in net inflows.

Dunamu, the operator of South Korea’s largest crypto exchange Upbit, has entered a strategic partnership with Visa to explore stablecoin payments, global remittances, and AI-driven financial services.
The two sides are also considering business models based on the Open Standard dollar stablecoin OUSD. The specific service structure has not yet been determined.