BeInCrypto Global

A federal appeals court just handed the Pentagon a major win in its ongoing war with a leading AI company. The ruling could reshape who controls America’s military AI going forward.
A three-judge panel sided 2-1 with the Defense Department, upholding its decision to blacklist Anthropic from military contracts entirely.
Confirmed: @AnthropicAI = Supply Chain Risk.The @DeptofWar does what is right for the Country and our Warriors. https://t.co/xERtGRh6Kc
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth) September 25, 2026
The Fight That Split Two Federal Courts
The dispute traces back to February, when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth demanded Anthropic strip safeguards blocking Claude from fully autonomous lethal weapons and mass domestic surveillance. Anthropic publicly refused on February 26, just hours before Hegseth’s deadline expired.
Hegseth formally designated Anthropic a national security risk on March 3. That designation canceled the company’s existing military contracts and barred other Pentagon contractors from using its technology as well.
According to the court’s decision, an Anthropic executive had separately questioned a contractor’s use of Claude during a specific military operation.
Media reports in the case record identified that mission as the January 3 operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says of the Maduro capture and Caracas attacks: “When Trump tells you he’s going to do something, he means it . . ” So let's look at five other things he's recently promised to do 👇 pic.twitter.com/tikAKlv5B0
— BeInCrypto (@beincrypto) January 4, 2026
Defense officials cited that episode as evidence that Claude’s behavior remained too unpredictable for military reliance.
Judge Gregory Katsas, joined by Judge Neomi Rao, wrote the majority opinion. He said the Pentagon had “ample support” for its conclusion. Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson dissented.
Why Anthropic Says This Fight Isn’t Over
A separate California court reached the opposite conclusion just last month. Judge Rita Lin ruled a broader, parallel Trump administration ban unconstitutional, calling it retaliation meant to make “a public example” of Anthropic.
🚨BREAKING: ANTHROPIC WINS. PENTAGON BLACKLIST RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL.Federal judge in California just ruled:>Pentagon's effort to blacklist Anthropic violated the First Amendment>violated Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment>Supply chain risk designation: VACATED… pic.twitter.com/pKtbTCe5Fu
— NIK (@ns123abc) August 28, 2026
Anthropic responded firmly to Friday’s ruling. “We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision,” a spokesperson said, cited by CNBC. “Another federal court has already held the government’s parallel designation unlawful.”
Whether Anthropic seeks rehearing or takes the fight to the Supreme Court next remains unclear, leaving America’s newest AI battleground unresolved across two contradicting federal courts.

FC Barcelona launched Barça Fan Lab this week, a Cardano-based digital platform that lets fans earn verifiable credentials by participating.
The project was developed together with technology partner Andamio. It aims to transform the way millions of fans interact with the club.
.@FCBarcelona has just launched Barça Fan Lab, developed with @Andamio_teams using Cardano.Fans will be able to learn about Barça’s history and values, take part in community activities, and gain verifiable digital credentials that will be stored in their own Cardano-based… https://t.co/ikfznNr0Yj pic.twitter.com/P0YZInTM5Q
— Cardano Foundation (@Cardano_CF) September 25, 2026
What Barça Fan Lab Actually Offers Fans
Fans access the platform through BarçaID, the club’s existing digital identity system. Signing in automatically creates a personal Cardano wallet tied to that profile and stores credentials earned along the way.
The program covers four areas:
One focuses on club history and values.
Another covers sustainability and inclusion themes.
A third bridges physical fan communities into digital participation.
The fourth explores Web3 apps like collectibles and loyalty systems, though the club stressed these remain experimental rather than confirmed features.
FC Barcelona Fan Token (BAR) Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto
Notably, Cardano’s own community grant program, Catalyst Fund 13, helped fund the project. That funding source explains part of why FC Barcelona chose this specific blockchain over rivals.
Why Did FC Barcelona Choose Cardano for This Project?
Sports clubs partnering with crypto projects has become a familiar playbook, one that has produced mixed results elsewhere. Fan tokens tied to major clubs have occasionally struggled with weak liquidity and underwhelming actual utility once initial hype faded.
FC Barcelona isn’t new to this space either. In 2025, Barça Media launched Barça.Pass, a separate Web3 wallet built with Futureverse, reaching over 11 million existing BarçaID users at the time.
ADA, Cardano’s native token, traded near $0.2526 at the time of writing, up 1% over the past 24 hours. The token remains roughly 92% below its all-time high of $3.09, reached on September 1, 2021.
Cardano (ADA) Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto
Whether Barça Fan Lab delivers meaningful fan engagement, or simply adds another underused digital wallet, will likely depend on adoption numbers the club has not yet disclosed.

Bitget has confirmed that attackers stole $387.5 million from its exchange wallets on September 24. Withdrawals still remain suspended, while the company says its protection fund covers the loss.
Mandiant and SlowMist are investigating. CEO Gracy Chen suspects North Korean involvement, although the initial entry point remains undisclosed.
So, how did the hack potentially take place? BeInCrypto has structured a timeline based on publicly available info.
September 24, 18:31 UTC: Bitget Detects Unauthorized Transfers
Bitget says its security systems detected the transfers at 18:31 UTC and activated emergency procedures within minutes.
The breach affected parts of its hot and warm wallets, which support exchange operations. Its offline cold wallets remained secure, according to the company. The detection time does not establish when attackers first gained access.
最新的进展同步一下：我们正在与独立第三方专家 @Mandiant 和 @SlowMist_Team 合作，对此次事件进行全面调查。 其他几点都是说过的，我再强调一下：-我们的首要任务是保障用户。用户余额保持完整，Bitget 用户保护基金将覆盖此次平台层面事件造成的影响。 -Bitget Wallet 为自托管钱包，运行于与… https://t.co/pZM4XzFolp
— Gracy Chen @Bitget (@GracyBitget) September 25, 2026
19:57–21:06 UTC: Unusual Trades Raise the Alarm
At 19:57, analyst DCF GOD flagged a fresh wallet spending $19.67 million in USDT0 to buy 7,111 ETH in six minutes. It reportedly paid up to 5% above market prices.
The behaviour suggested someone prioritized moving funds quickly. Their motive was still unclear.
By 21:06, Bubblemaps reported roughly $180 million moving from Bitget wallets to a common receiving address, then splitting into several wallets.
21:30 UTC: Chen Confirms the Breach
Chen’s security notice put the initial loss at $351.6 million and confirmed that withdrawals were paused.
The notice came almost three hours after Bitget’s stated detection time. That gap leaves questions about its response, but does not prove funds kept leaving throughout that period.
September 25, 00:43 UTC: The Suspected Method Emerges
Chen said attackers compromised a critical backend system, meaning software that manages wallet operations behind the scenes.
They supplied false transaction data and triggered Bitget’s authorization process. In simple terms, its own system approved fraudulent transfers.
Chen said private-key theft had been ruled out. How attackers entered the backend, and which checks failed, still requires a detailed public explanation.
Tough day for Bitget. I expect and know @Binance, the @BNBCHAIN ecosystem, and the community will do everything we can to help.Stay SAFU! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/cyAEHdSi1S
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) September 25, 2026
14:03 UTC: The Loss Reaches $387.5 Million
Bitget revised its estimate after including affected Zcash and TRON assets. It said the increase reflected a fuller accounting of the original theft.
The company says the vulnerability has been fixed. It promised a withdrawal-plan announcement by September 26 at 04:00 UTC, without committing to reopening withdrawals then.
Why Investigators Suspect North Korean Involvement
Chen cited IP behaviour and blockchain activity consistent with North Korean groups. Several features resemble the February 2025 Bybit theft, which the FBI attributed to North Korea.
Manipulated approvals: Bitget describes false instructions reaching its authorization system. At Bybit, a compromised interface tricked signers into approving a malicious transaction. The mechanisms differ, but both exploited the approval process.
Rapid asset conversion: Bitget-linked funds quickly bought ETH. The FBI documented rapid conversion of Bybit’s stolen assets into other cryptocurrencies.
Splitting funds across wallets: Bubblemaps identified several receiving wallets. Bybit’s proceeds spread across thousands of addresses, according to the FBI.
Using THORChain: MistTrack reported Bitget proceeds entering the protocol and identified its earlier use to move stolen Bybit funds.
These parallels support further investigation. They do not independently identify Bitget’s attackers.

Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) is proposing daily dividends across STRF, STRC, STRK, and STRD. The company wants its preferred shareholders to earn cash income every calendar day, a model that is unusual in the US stock market.
A dividend is simply money a company pays investors for owning its stock. Under MicroStrategy’s proposal, that income would build up every day, including weekends and holidays, with payment made on the next business day.
The total return would stay the same. The change is mainly about how often investors receive it.
Strategy is proposing daily dividends on $STRF, $STRC, $STRK, and $STRD, accruing every calendar day, including weekends and holidays, and paid the next business day, with economics unchanged. The proposed changes aim to support price stability, liquidity, and demand. pic.twitter.com/N0wkXzi1gl
— Michael Saylor (@saylor) September 25, 2026
Note: Preferred stock is a special type of company share designed mainly to pay investors regular income. Regular stock, like MSTR, gives investors more exposure to the company’s gains and losses, so its price can move much more.
STRC is Becoming an Income Product, Not a Bitcoin Stock
STRC currently pays a 12% annual dividend on its $100 stated value. In simple terms, an investor holding one $100 share would receive around $12 a year at the current rate.
Daily dividends would not increase that amount. They would spread the same income across much smaller, more frequent payments.
Think of it like getting part of your monthly salary every working day instead of receiving one larger payment at the end of the month.
That could make STRC more attractive to investors who care about regular income. Strategy also says the change could support liquidity and price stability.
There are Risks
STRC is designed very differently from MSTR, the company’s flagship stock that tracks Bitcoin movements.
MSTR can rise or fall sharply because investors largely treat it as a leveraged bet on Bitcoin. STRC is built around income and Strategy’s effort to keep its price close to $100.
Daily dividends could reinforce that difference, but they cannot remove the risk.
If Bitcoin falls sharply and investors become concerned about Strategy’s finances, STRC can still trade well below $100. It happened in June, when Bitcoin dropped below $60,000, and STRC dropped to $75.
STRC 6-Month Price Chart. Source: Yahoo Finance
Its dividend also depends on Strategy having enough cash to keep paying it.
What It Means for MSTR Investors
For MSTR shareholders, the impact is more indirect.
Preferred shareholders sit ahead of MSTR holders in Strategy’s capital structure and must be paid before common shareholders receive anything.
So, the difference between the two products is becoming clearer.
MSTR remains the higher-volatility Bitcoin-linked trade. STRC increasingly looks like Strategy’s income product: lower upside, regular cash payments and a structure designed to keep the price relatively stable.

Selected altcoins — WhiteBIT Coin (WBT), Hyperliquid (HYPE), and Venice Token (VVV) — all set new all-time highs (ATH) between September 21 and 23. Each now trades between 4% and 12% below those peaks heading into the weekend.
WBT and HYPE return to the list after breaking their earlier records. However, bearish RSI divergence on all three charts suggests the next leg higher may not come easily.
WBT Sits 4.7% Below Its Record
WBT broke out above the 0.618 Fibonacci retracement at $62.48 in late August. It then climbed to its previous peak near $75.
From September 7, the token extended its rally inside an ascending parallel channel. Price reached the first target at the 1.272 Fibonacci extension near $84 and set a new record at $87.99.
WBT daily chart / Source: TradingView
WBT has since pulled back to that target, which now aligns with the channel’s lower boundary. A bounce could open the way toward the 1.618 extension at $95.37, roughly 13.5% higher.
Meanwhile, volume is fading, and the Relative Strength Index (RSI) has cooled to 67. Early bearish divergence has also appeared. A channel breakdown could send WBT back toward $75, around 11% lower.
HYPE Needs 6.1% for a New Peak
HYPE has already reached its first target at the 1.272 Fibonacci extension of $92.37. The next target sits at the 1.618 extension near $111.93, about 21% higher.
However, the chart shows a strong bearish divergence. RSI peaked at 82 on August 23, when HYPE traded near $82.50. Price has since climbed above $92, while RSI has dropped to 63.
HYPE daily chart / Source: TradingView
This mismatch suggests buying momentum is weakening. A correction could first retest the previous ATH near $77, about 17% below the current price.
Below that, an ascending trendline from late January offers support near $61. The 0.618 Fibonacci retracement at $55.41 forms a deeper support confluence.
VVV Faces the Longest Climb to a Record
VVV needs an 11.7% rally to reclaim its $34.61 record. RSI stands at 68, which keeps the bullish structure intact.
The first target sits at the 1.272 Fibonacci extension of $36.76, around 19% above the current price. A move there would also mean a new ATH. The next target lies at the 1.618 extension near $46.26.
VVV daily chart / Source: TradingView
On the downside, the former record at $29.29 should now act as support. If it fails, the June 3 high near $21.47 forms another strong support confluence.
Overall, WBT has the shortest path to a new record. HYPE shows the clearest warning signal, while VVV offers the most upside but faces the steepest climb.

Both institutional and speculative demand are rising for Litecoin price. However, derivatives data suggests leverage, not spot buying, is driving most of the rally.
Open Interest Nears 2026 Peak
Litecoin’s futures open interest (OI) climbed to around $670 million, just below its yearly peak of roughly $690 million set in January. OI added about $140 million in two days and has more than doubled since the June low.
Litecoin Open Interest / Source: Coinglass
The increase is not just a result of rising prices. Measured in LTC, open interest grew by roughly 25% over the past week, according to Glassnode. This confirms that traders are opening new positions.
The last time leverage reached these levels, it did not end well. In January, OI peaked as LTC rolled over from above $80. Over the following weeks, the price dropped to around $53.
ETF Holdings Hit Record High
Meanwhile, US spot Litecoin ETF balances tracked by Glassnode reached a record of about 175,000 LTC. Canary Capital’s LTCC added roughly 39,000 LTC in its largest inflow to date, and its holdings have nearly doubled since January.
Litecoin ETF Balances / Source: Glassnode
Notably, ETF balances rose even during the June crash to $41.
Still, scale matters. The latest inflow is worth about $2.8 million, while open interest grew by roughly $270 million over the same week. ETF demand is growing, but it is too small to carry the price alone.
Litecoin Price Analysis: Bulls Test Key Resistance
On the daily chart, LTC broke above the 0.5 ($62.09) and 0.618 ($67.47) Fibonacci retracement levels in a single candle. The price then tested the 0.786 zone near $75, where it broke down in late January.
LTC daily chart / Source: Tradingview
The move above the May high around $60 marks the first higher high since the February–May range, following a series of higher lows since June.
The Relative Strength Index (RSI) stands at 81, its highest reading this year. There are no signs of bearish divergence, but overbought conditions raise the odds of a short-term cooldown.
What’s Next for LTC?
A daily close above $75 could open the way toward $80 and the January high of $84.89.
In case of a correction, $67.47 acts as the first support. Below, the $60–62 zone, where the 0.5 level meets the former May high, should serve as strong support. A daily close below $56.70 would put the breakout in doubt.
With leverage near yearly highs, a pullback before the next leg up remains a realistic scenario.

Inflation now tops family offices’ list of concerns, yet stocks remain their favorite destination for new capital. Some 46% raised public equity exposure over the past year, according to Citi Wealth’s 2026 Global Family Office Report.
The survey covered 351 family offices in 41 countries. For the next year, 37% expect to add developed-market equities, against 3% for digital assets.
Inflation Climbs the Worry List While Stocks Collect the Cash
Citi’s report shows 63% of respondents named inflation their top concern, up from 37% in 2025. Tariff worries, which led last year, fell to 18% from 60%.
Those concerns have not translated into equity selling. The survey shows only 12% of family offices cut public equity exposure in the past 12 months.
The net increase in public equity allocations was also 23 percentage points larger than in the 2025 survey. Over the next 12 months, only 5% of family offices plan to reduce their allocation to global developed equities.
Alexandre Monnier, head of family office advisory at Citi Wealth, told CNBC that allocations had not shifted as sharply as inflation fears.
“I think family offices are becoming more sophisticated and see risk management as something more active that allows you to stay invested during periods of uncertainty, instead of having to retrench the way they might have done it historically,” he said.
US household balance sheets show a similar lean toward stocks. Equities make up 39.9% of household net worth, the largest share in Federal Reserve records.
Home equity slipped to 19.3% in the same quarter, leaving a 20.6-point gap between the two measures.
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Crypto Clears the Barrier Test but Misses the Shopping List
Digital assets have not shared in the equity appetite. Against the 3% planning increases, 14% of family offices expect to cut digital asset holdings over the next year.
Those planned cuts come even though 46% of respondents told Citi they see no significant barriers to raising allocations. The most cited obstacle was a lack of internal expertise or governance frameworks, named by 27%.
North American offices flagged that gap most often, at 34%. Citi acknowledged that the low barriers have not yet lifted allocations in any meaningful way.
Citi’s next annual survey will show whether those planned cuts took place.
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President Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and tech CEOs will reportedly meet on artificial intelligence (AI) on September 29, according to the latest reports.
The meeting comes at a time when the AI safety debate has gained traction. Leading AI companies have warned of the technology’s risks, while other industry leaders question calls to slow down.
Anthropic’s Call Meets a Cybersecurity Skeptic
Earlier this month, Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon resigned, alleging that Anthropic and OpenAI were not acting responsibly. His colleague Evan Hubinger put the risk of AI killing all humans within a decade at more than 10%.
Days later, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay urging the industry to slow how fast AI capabilities improve. OpenAI’s Sam Altman and SpaceX’s Elon Musk backed the call.
However, Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora questioned the motive. On X, he described the slowdown push as a stealthy commercial strategy. He later told CNBC he believed the labs wanted sympathy from regulators and a way around liability.
Arora now calls pacing unrealistic, arguing that some developers will keep building at the frontier.
“I think more than likely that some people will jump the gun, and you’ll have still people developing at the frontier, which means we shouldn’t try and stop the frontiers because they’re the most responsible people,” Arora said.
Arora also dismissed the 10% extinction estimate as highly unlikely.
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Are AI Labs Actually Pumping the Brakes?
Amodei’s essay said pacing would not mean halting training, and the labs that backed it have kept releasing models since.
Anthropic itself launched Claude Opus 5.5 on September 22, calling it its first model since urging a slower frontier. The company said outside evaluators, including METR, tested it before release.
OpenAI released GPT-6 Sol and Luna the same day. The pair followed the flagship GPT-6 Astra, which launched on September 4.
Google has also kept shipping. It released Gemini 3.8 Live and Gemini 3.8 Live Extended Thinking on September 15. Separately, DeepMind’s Koray Kavukcuoglu revealed that Gemini 4 has entered post-training.
As those models reach users, the Trump administration has weighed in on who should answer for their safety. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said AI developers should take responsibility instead of expecting a federal liability shield.
That stance leaves little room for the liability protection Arora suspected the labs wanted. No full guest list or detailed agenda for the September 29 meeting has surfaced so far. That leaves open whether talks will center on regulation, industry safeguards, US competitiveness, or some mix of them.
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Japan’s 30-year bond yield climbed to a record 4.223% on Friday. That is the highest level since Tokyo first sold the maturity in 1999.
Borrowing costs are rising across the curve. The 10-year yield reached 3.055% on Thursday, its highest point since August 1996.
Why Japan’s 30-Year Bond Yield Keeps Climbing
BREAKING 🚨: JapanJapan's 30-Year Yield just jumped to its highest level in history 📈 🤯 👀 pic.twitter.com/t9UyOypo8R
— Barchart (@Barchart) September 25, 2026
Monetary policy is the first driver. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) raised rates to 1.25% on September 18, the highest level since 1995. The board split 7-2, yet the central bank signaled that further hikes remain on the table, according to its statement.
Fiscal strain adds to the pressure. Government ministries requested a record ¥143.1 trillion for fiscal 2027, Reuters reported. Debt servicing alone accounts for ¥36.64 trillion. Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry raised its assumed borrowing rate to 3.8% from 3%.
Selling abroad has also spilled into Tokyo. The US 10-year Treasury yield broke 5% on September 15 during a global bond sell-off. The Federal Reserve then lifted its target range to between 3.75% and 4%.
However, the yen has not benefited. The currency slid toward 158 per dollar after the BOJ decision. A similar split appeared when Japan’s 2-year yield hit a 31-year high in August.
Katsutoshi Inadome of Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management linked the two trends.
“Japanese bond yields are facing upward pressure as inflation concerns grew on a weaker yen.”
What Japan’s Record Yield Means for Bitcoin
🚨THIS IS INSANEJapan's 30-year bond yield just hit 4.223%, its highest level ever in history.Japan is now paying over 4% to borrow for 30 years – a historic reversal from decades of ultra low rates. pic.twitter.com/rR5om8SOil
— Bull Theory (@BullTheoryio) September 25, 2026
Higher safe returns raise the bar for risk assets. A 30-year Japanese bond now pays more than 4%, which could draw capital away from crypto.
The larger threat sits in the yen carry trade. Investors borrow cheap yen and buy higher-yielding assets abroad. A sharp yen rally would make those loans costlier and could force selling.
Historically, that risk has hit crypto hard. During the 2024 yen shock, Bitcoin and Ethereum fell roughly 20% as positions unwound.
For now, Bitcoin (BTC) trades near $84,033, down 0.5% in 24 hours, according to BeInCrypto data. The wide gap between US and Japanese rates keeps the carry trade open.
Therefore, the yen may be the signal to watch. A sudden reversal in USD/JPY would suggest carry positions are closing, and Bitcoin could feel it quickly.

A wallet linked to Hyperliquid Strategies has purchased 494,200 Hyperliquid (HYPE) tokens, worth $45.8 million.
The latest buy extends a month-long run. The token behind that treasury has also sharply outpaced Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) this year.
HYPE Did the Heavy Lifting in Fiscal 2026
According to Lookonchain, the wallet has bought 5.51 million HYPE, worth $476 million, over the past month. That averages 183,574 tokens, or $15.86 million, a day.
The firm now holds 35.1 million HYPE worth about $3.2 billion. That is up from roughly 29.3 million tokens when its fiscal year closed on June 30.
Hyperliquid Strategies booked $305.5 million in net income for the fiscal year, largely from HYPE price gains, its full-year profit report showed. Unrealized gains on its holdings came to $709.9 million, per the company’s results.
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HYPE Outruns Bitcoin and Ethereum
The accumulation has come during a strong year for the token. HYPE has climbed 280% so far in 2026, according to market data.
In contrast, Bitcoin has lost 5.42% this year, while Ethereum is down 10.98%.
Year-to-date Performance of HYPE, Bitcoin and Ethereum. Source: TradingView
Artemis data shows how that split has played out for treasury firms. Hyperliquid Strategies holds $2.7 billion in unrealized gains, second only to Strategy. Ethereum-focused BitMine sits at the other end with the largest unrealized loss.
Unrealized P&L Of Digital Asset Treasury Companies. Source: Artemis
Shareholders are also paying a premium for that exposure. DWF Ventures’ latest report places Hyperliquid Strategies among 4 of the top 20 treasury stocks trading above their holdings.
Its market-value-to-net-asset-value ratio stood at 1.17x on DWF’s count. Since July, the stock has outperformed HYPE by 31%. However, DWF found the token stayed the better bet over periods longer than 3 months.
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Zcash co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson has backed Shielded Bitcoin, a proposal that adds private transfers to Bitcoin’s base layer. He also says Zcash (ZEC) is on track to hit his $5,000 year-end target.
Ben-Sasson, who also co-founded StarkWare, co-wrote the Zerocash paper that preceded Zcash. His original goal, he says, was to bring that privacy to Bitcoin.
Shielded Bitcoin Brings Zcash-Style Privacy to Layer 1
Research firm Alloc Init published the proposal on September 24. Its authors are Misha Komarov, Aleksei Moskvin, and Clara Shikhelma.
According to the whitepaper, the design combines encrypted notes, public nullifiers, and zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. Nullifiers stop the same hidden coins from being spent twice. It needs no soft fork, BitVM, or consensus change. Instead, it relies on Bitcoin PIPEs, a tool built on witness encryption. As a result, all protocol data lives on Bitcoin itself, the team says.
That matters because standard Bitcoin payments stay visible on-chain and can reveal sensitive business payment details to outsiders.
Ben-Sasson admits he has not read the paper yet. Still, he welcomed the direction and hopes to see ZK privacy and scaling reach Bitcoin’s base layer.
I love this direction, our original intent with Zerocash paper (the whitepaper preceding Zcash) was to bring privacy to Bitcoin. Haven't read this one, but would love to see our vision of privacy and scalability via ZK materialize on Bitcoin L1. https://t.co/e9qrjX8NmN
— Eli Ben-Sasson | Starknet.io (@EliBenSasson) September 24, 2026
Ben-Sasson Predicts $5,000 ZEC After Earlier Call Held
On September 9, Ben-Sasson predicted ZEC would trade above $1,200 by September 25. That call has held. ZEC now trades at $1,545.89, up 1.44% in 24 hours. It has gained nearly 291% over 90 days. The token ranks ninth by market capitalization.
Reaching $5,000 would still require a gain of roughly 223%. Meanwhile, he says more whales now ask him what drives the rally. He admits he has no answer and has asked followers for theirs.
Zcash (ZEC) 90-Day Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto
Several catalysts have surfaced in September, however. Zcash spot funds drew $98.2 million in one week through September 18, the largest inflow among 14 crypto products. Ledger also added private Zcash balances to its desktop app. At the same time, the rally has punished traders shorting ZEC, with one position closing at a $10.68 million loss.
Ben-Sasson frames his target as a personal bet, not investment advice. Whether ETF demand holds through December could decide if ZEC gets close.

The Japanese yen posted its steepest daily gain in over two weeks on Friday, strengthening as much as 0.6% to 157.95 per dollar after Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama’s latest warning kept traders wary of intervention.
Katayama said US President Donald Trump raised concerns about the weak yen directly with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during a meeting in New York this week, a detail that adds unusual weight to Tokyo’s usual verbal warnings.
Why This Warning Hits Differently
Katayama’s comments follow a script Tokyo has used for months. What changes the calculation this time is the apparent involvement of the White House.
She added that she will keep coordinating with US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has separately signaled support for a stronger yen.
Moh Siong Sim, a strategist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp, framed the shift bluntly:
“Intervention risk should put a ceiling on further JPY weakness. More importantly, the JPY may be nearing a turning point as Trump’s concerns over its weakness point to deeper US-Japan coordination to support the currency.”
The Yen continues to strengthen against the dollar. Image Source: Trading View
That marks a reversal from earlier this month’s rally, when the yen touched multi-month highs on bets on BOJ tightening. Renewed dollar strength since then has pushed USD/JPY back toward 160, reviving Friday’s intervention debate.
The 160 Line Traders Keep Watching
The dollar’s push toward 160 yen revives memories of this summer, when Japan and the US carried out their first coordinated yen-buying intervention since 1998. Japan spent a record 15.4 trillion yen, about $97.4 billion, defending the currency in the month through August 26.
Officials have stopped short of naming a trigger level, framing their concern instead around how fast and chaotic the yen’s swings become. But the market treats 160 as the threshold where intervention becomes likely again.

Kelp DAO has sued LayerZero and its co-founder Bryan Pellegrino, blaming the cross-chain protocol for the $292 million rsETH bridge exploit in April.
The restaking protocol argues LayerZero hid flaws in its own technology. It also claims LayerZero failed to stop attackers from infiltrating its security systems.
Inside the $292 Million rsETH Exploit
On April 18, attackers drained about 116,500 rsETH, Kelp DAO’s liquid restaking token, through its LayerZero bridge. The theft became the largest DeFi exploit of 2026. LayerZero later tied the attack to Lazarus subgroup TraderTraitor.
LayerZero said the attackers took over enough remote procedure call (RPC) nodes to feed false data to the bridge’s verifier. These servers relay blockchain data to applications.
As a result, the verifier approved an rsETH burn that never happened. The Ethereum contract then released funds against it.
LayerZero, however, pointed at Kelp’s setup. The bridge relied on a single verifier operated by LayerZero Labs, a 1-of-1 configuration.
The damage spread quickly. Aave’s total value locked (TVL) fell $8.45 billion within two days, and DeFi TVL dropped broadly across major chains.
Kelp DAO Sues LayerZero After Months of Blame
Kelp now says LayerZero and Pellegrino spent months publicly blaming the protocol. In contrast, the team says LayerZero reviewed and endorsed its deployment and configuration in writing.
The protocol has published the complaint and wants LayerZero and Pellegrino held accountable for harm to Kelp and the wider DeFi ecosystem.
The team adds that user security remains its top priority. Since the hack, Kelp says it has been moving rsETH’s bridge to a more secure cross-chain standard. The protocol previously named Chainlink CCIP as replacement, a rival cross-chain messaging system.
https://t.co/D17UbUbixh
— Kelp (@KelpDAO) September 25, 2026
Meanwhile, recovering the stolen funds has also landed in court. In May, a US court order blocked Arbitrum DAO from moving 30,766 ETH it had frozen from the hacker.
Kelp says it looks forward to a day in court. Therefore, by suing LayerZero, Kelp DAO could turn the case into an early test of how far infrastructure providers answer for exploits on client deployments.

The White House has asked OpenAI and Anthropic to withhold new AI models from the UK’s AI Security Institute (AISI). It wants US review first, according to a person familiar with the matter and a senior administration official.
The request came from the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director, its top cybersecurity policy arm. It puts labs in the position of choosing AISI’s early access over Washington’s approval.
Anthropic Already Complies
Anthropic appears to have already fallen in line. The company withheld its newest model, Claude Mythos 5.1, from AISI’s pre-release testing. It limited initial access to a set of US organizations.
AISI has previously assessed Mythos’s advanced cyber capabilities.
Anthropic addressed the gap in a blog post announcing the model.
“We’re coordinating with the U.S. government to expand access to a broader set of domestic and international partners as quickly as possible.”
— Anthropic
We Must Pace the Frontier: I’ve written a new essay on why the AI industry should slow down, with a three-part plan for doing so.Anthropic is unilaterally committing to the first of these steps. We’ll provide third-party evaluators with permanent, employee-level access to our…
— Dario Amodei (@DarioAmodei) September 12, 2026
AISI Director Henry de Zoete addressed the gap in a letter to a UK parliamentary committee this month. He said the institute still has prerelease access to some of the industry’s most capable systems. De Zoete pointed to AISI’s recent review of OpenAI’s GPT-6 Astra ahead of its release.
UK Pushes Back
Since its 2023 founding, AISI has routinely tested frontier models before their public release. The institute disclosed in August that a Mythos-based agent faked identities during testing. Prime Minister Andy Burnham wants AI central to the UK’s G20 presidency next year.
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband this week called for continued visibility into how AI models are tested. A UK government spokesperson said AISI continues working closely with OpenAI and Anthropic despite the access gap.
In Washington, the burden may fall on the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI). CAISI is the US body tasked with vetting frontier models before release.
CAISI currently operates without a permanent director and just a few dozen staff. Meanwhile, reports of AI systems breaching live networks during testing keep mounting. An Australian government website hack this week is the latest example.
The standoff could harden into lasting policy, or ease as CAISI scales up. Either way, the outcome may decide how much warning US allies get before the next wave of frontier models.

Utexo CEO Viktor Ihnatiuk says he met Morgan Stanley in Washington to discuss USDT on Bitcoin. According to Ihnatiuk, the talks covered Utexo working with the bank on adoption in Europe and globally.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino reshared the post on X. He wrote that USDT is “coming home” to Bitcoin, the network where the stablecoin first launched in 2014.
Tether first issued USDT through the Omni Layer, a protocol built on top of Bitcoin, before most of its supply moved to Ethereum and Tron. The company later ended support for the Omni version in 2023.
USDT on Bitcoin. It's coming home https://t.co/JnUo8og7Vv
— Paolo Ardoino 🤖 (@paoloardoino) September 24, 2026
Why Morgan Stanley’s Interest Matters
Utexo builds the infrastructure behind USDT on Bitcoin, letting wallets, exchanges, and custodians move the stablecoin over the Lightning Network. It relies on RGB, a protocol that issues assets on Bitcoin while keeping transaction data off-chain.
Tether led the startup’s $7.5 million seed round alongside Big Brain Holdings and Portal Ventures, the RGB Protocol Association says. Franklin Templeton joined the round too.
In August, Utexo added its RGB Lightning module to Tether’s Wallet Development Kit (WDK), a toolkit developers use to build self-custody wallets. Ihnatiuk founded the software firm Boosty Labs before Utexo.
Morgan Stanley, for its part, has pushed deeper into crypto this year. The bank launched its own spot Bitcoin ETF in April. It then opened E*Trade crypto trading in May.
What Still Stands Between USDT on Bitcoin and Users
However, the product is not yet live for most users. Utexo named UniSat, a wallet popular for Bitcoin Ordinals and tokens, as its next launch partner. UniSat serves more than 1 million weekly active users, the team says. Neither firm has shared a release date.
Tether first announced its RGB plans in August 2025. At the time, Ardoino framed the move as a privacy and scaling upgrade.
“Bitcoin deserves a stablecoin that feels truly native, lightweight, private, and scalable.”
Paolo Ardoino, Tether
The RGB protocol has since reached Bitcoin mainnet.
The push also fits Ardoino’s wider strategy. He has ruled out a Tether blockchain, favoring existing networks instead.
Europe could prove harder, though. Tether rejected a bank-deposit rule in the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, which has limited USDT’s reach in the bloc.
Morgan Stanley has not announced a formal partnership with Utexo. Therefore, the UniSat rollout may offer the first real test of demand for USDT on Bitcoin.

Only 4 of the top 20 crypto treasury stocks trade above the value of their holdings, DWF Ventures found.
The firm also found that most top treasuries have trailed the tokens they hold since inception. These digital asset treasuries (DATs) are listed companies built around buying and holding crypto.
Why Crypto Treasury Stocks Lost Their Shine
Market-value-to-net-asset-value (mNAV) compares a DAT’s market capitalization with the value of its crypto holdings. A reading below 1 means the shares trade at a discount to those holdings.
DWF’s September 24 report puts Bit Digital at the top with 1.49x, using data as of September 21. Strive, Hyperliquid Strategies and BitMine follow at 1.21x, 1.17x and 1.02x.
Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin (BTC) holder, sits at 0.97x on DWF’s count. SovereignAI ranks last at 0.22x. DWF noted that these mNAV figures exclude debt and preferred stock.
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Top 20 Crypto Treasury Companies Ranked by mNAV. Source: X/DWF Ventures
The report blames these discounts on a shrinking access premium. Institutions once paid extra for DAT shares because regulated funds struggled to own crypto directly.
That door has since opened, as institutions can now use exchange-traded funds (ETFs), regulated private funds and custody services.
“However, as SEC proposed to quicken the listing process by over 75% for ETFs, the access premium has reduced significantly over the years. Institutional buyers have a lot more assets to choose from for ETFs, regulated private funds and custodian infrastructure allowing for direct deployment – which was not possible before,” the report read.
A Catch-Up Trade With a 3-Month Shelf Life
Since inception, DWF found investors were mostly better off holding the token. The few DATs that beat their assets did so by margins too thin for the risk.
Shorter windows look different, with shares outrunning tokens by 15% to 40% since July. Over that span, mNAV ratios rose from lows of 0.5x to 0.8x to between 0.7x and 1.0x.
Hyperliquid Strategies (PURR), which holds Hyperliquid (HYPE), gained 31% more than HYPE. Zcash (ZEC) treasury Cypherpunk Technologies (CYPH) beat its token by 38%. Tokens per share barely moved, so DWF read the rally as sentiment. Beyond 3 months, however, the token stayed the better bet.
Going forward, DWF expects boards and capital structures to increasingly shape how DATs are valued. It pointed to Strategy, which ranks debt holders first and carries steady preferred dividend obligations.
Those payments could force Bitcoin sales that dilute shareholders, the report warned. Once confidence cracks, DWF said, Strategy’s mNAV could enter a downward spiral.
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Bitget CEO Gracy Chen said North Korea was “very likely” behind the $350 million Bitget hack. The attackers breached a backend system and never obtained private keys, she added.
Withdrawals remain suspended after the September 24 breach. DefiLlama data now ranks it as the largest crypto hack of 2026.
Chen Follows a VPN Trail to North Korea
Chen addressed the hack during a live Q&A on X after the incident. She pointed to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
“But we’ve identified some IP addresses that match the VPN choices by a certain DPRK group. So we think this is very likely to be attacked by North Korean,” she said.
Chen did not name the group. However, on-chain analyst Specter said the stolen XRP (XRP) was bridged and links directly to AFX Trade exploit funds.
AFX lost about $24 million in July. Specter noted that the attack had been attributed to TraderTraitor, a Lazarus-linked unit. LayerZero tied the KelpDAO bridge exploit to the same unit in April.
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Regarding who is behind the hack:I present to you THE LAZARUS GROUP.just linked this hack to the AFX hack, which stole $24M in July and was specifically attributed to TraderTraitor.The stolen XRP from Bitget was bridged and can be directly linked to the funds stolen in the… https://t.co/3CgWFaXF1i pic.twitter.com/cRPdhhdpjQ
— Specter (@SpecterAnalyst) September 25, 2026
How the Bitget Hack Bypassed Private Keys
Chen said the hackers never obtained private keys for Bitget’s hot, warm, or cold wallets. They also did not fake user withdrawal requests. Her later post described the method in more detail.
“The attacker compromised a critical backend system within our wallet infrastructure, used it to spoof transaction data, and triggered our authorization process to move funds out,” she explained.
She said losses are contained, and no further unauthorized transfers can occur. Lookonchain’s breakdown shows the attackers took 9 different assets.
XRP made up the largest share, with about 102.9 million tokens worth roughly $157.5 million. Bitget’s confirmed loss is about double the roughly $176 million seen in initial on-chain reports.
The exchange says its User Protection Fund, now above $464 million, covers the full loss.
BITGET HAS A $464M EMERGENCY FUND FOR HACKSThe exchange holds around 5,500 BTC in its Protection Fund, designed to cover users in case of hacks or stolen assets. Bitget launched the fund in 2022 and previously committed to keeping it above $300M.At the end of August, it held… https://t.co/RmyH9VeseG pic.twitter.com/RNkAEo7jyk
— BeInCrypto (@beincrypto) September 24, 2026
The Biggest Crypto Heist of 2026 Lands at Bitget
DefiLlama data ranks the Bitget theft as the largest crypto hack of 2026 so far. It edges out Liquid Network’s $320 million incident in September and the $295 million Drift breach in April.
The tracker logs about $2.2 billion lost across 281 incidents this year. Bitget alone accounts for roughly 16% of that total. The incident also makes September the costliest month of 2026 so far, ahead of April’s roughly $648 million.
North Korean groups drove most of 2026’s early losses. TRM Labs found they accounted for 76% of crypto hack losses through April, mostly via the Drift and Kelp attacks. In 2025, Lazarus carried out the $1.5 billion Bybit hack, the year’s largest.
Chen has promised a full technical report once investigators confirm how the intrusion happened. That report should show whether forensic evidence backs the North Korea attribution.
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The average 30-year fixed US mortgage rate jumped 19 basis points to 7.45% on Thursday. Mortgage News Daily recorded the move in its daily survey of brokers and lenders.
The jump tracks a broader selloff in US government bonds. For crypto markets, the Treasury yield at the center of that selloff carries the clearer signal.
Treasuries Drag the 30-Year Mortgage Rate Higher
The 30-year rate had sunk as low as 5.99% in late February, according to CNBC. It began rising once the Iran war started, then accelerated after the Federal Reserve (Fed) raised rates in September.
Mortgage News Daily Chief Operating Officer Matthew Graham traced the climb since September 10 to three drivers. He pointed to Fed commentary, higher oil prices, and stronger economic data.
However, Graham could not find a clear catalyst for Thursday afternoon’s bond selloff.
“No obvious catalyst. Explanations require concocting narratives and then defending them. There’s no objective, irrefutable way to connect the dots today. Sellers decided to sell… a lot,” he said.
That selloff matters because mortgage rates tend to track longer-dated Treasury yields. The 10-year yield closed at 5.18% on Thursday, up from 4.96% on Tuesday, according to the Treasury.
The Kobeissi Letter blamed inflation for the bond rout. It cited Brent crude above $105 a barrel and record diesel prices. It also noted consumers expect inflation near 4.6% over the next year.
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Crypto Pays the Price of Higher Yields
For crypto, the key link runs through those yields. When government debt pays more, holding Bitcoin (BTC) carries a higher opportunity cost.
That pressure showed on Wednesday. Bitcoin fell below $84,000 after strong US business activity data pushed the 10-year yield past 5%.
Bitcoin (BTC) Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto Markets
By Friday, BTCtraded at $84,590, posting a modest gain over the past 24 hours, BeInCrypto Markets data shows. Altcoins moved faster in the rebound. Solana (SOL) gained 2.2%, and XRP (XRP) added 3.4% over the same period.
This leaves an open question. Can crypto buyers keep absorbing pressure from a Treasury market paying more than 5%?
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Securitize (SECZ) shares jumped more than 15% Friday, extending a sharp recovery just as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened a new legal pathway for tokenized stock trading.
The company, which builds infrastructure for real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and serves as transfer agent for BlackRock’s tokenized BUIDL fund, a blockchain-based money market fund, traded at $16.53. Shares are up 77% over the past five trading days and 158% over the past month.
The Rule Behind the Rally
The exemption follows a stretch of rapid growth for tokenized real-world assets, from funds and private credit to equities represented onchain. On September 17, the SEC issued a five-year Innovation Exemption. It lets tokenized securities venues operate without registering as an exchange.
SECZ has risen over the past 5 days. Image Source: Trading View
The exemption also frees certain liquidity providers from registering as dealers. This applies when they supply tokenized stock to automated market maker (AMM) pools.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins framed the exemption as a temporary bridge.
“in a permissioned environment today while the commission considers the need for additional action to facilitate onchain trading”
Paul Atkins, SEC chair, said
The order builds on a January statement from the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). That statement classified tokenized securities and said tokenization changes a security’s form, not its legal status.
Securitize’s Bet on Onchain Equity
Securitize went public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in July through a merger with Cantor Equity Partners II. It tokenized $295 million of its own SECZ shares on Solana and Avalanche the same day. That made it the largest issuer-sponsored tokenized stock launch on record.
Securitize’s six-month, year-to-date, and one-year returns all sit near 50%. Its one-month gain alone is 158%, meaning almost the entire year’s advance happened in recent weeks.
Regulatory clarity removes one obstacle for tokenization platforms. However, it does not guarantee investor demand for a business still working toward consistent profitability. Therefore, whether this rally holds may depend on that answer.

Copper futures touched a fresh record of $6.95 a pound on September 22. The move revived talk that the industrial metal could start closing the gap with gold as a store of value.
The rally caps a year in which the two metals have moved in opposite directions.
Copper Outpaces Gold’s Flat Year
This year’s nearly 20% climb puts copper on track for one of its strongest years on record. Over the past year the gain widens to more than 46%. The rally has been buoyed by Michael Burry’s copper bet and tightening supply.
Copper is up 22% in the last 6 months. Image Source: Trading View
Gold has barely moved by comparison, adding just 0.02% over the same stretch.
That gap hides gold’s wilder ride. The metal spiked above $5,600 an ounce in late January 2026 on safe-haven demand. It then crashed within days and has spent months clawing back toward flat.
Copper’s strength has different roots. Shanghai warehouse stocks of copper cathode fell to 43,900 tonnes, the lowest level since 2023. London Metal Exchange (LME) inventories available to the market fell to 133,725 tonnes.
Earlier in September, a stalled US tariff plan briefly knocked almost 8% off the price. The metal has since erased that pullback and gone on to set fresh records.
Not Quite Digital Gold Yet
CNN reported that tightening supply, tariff uncertainty and demand tied to artificial intelligence (AI) are pushing copper toward record levels.
Burry raised a related point last week, noting that new copper deposits take roughly 18 years to reach production. AI data centers, by contrast, add fresh demand within two to three years. That gap was central to his pick of a copper miner over AI stocks.
None of this makes copper a monetary metal like gold, which central banks still hold as a reserve asset. Gold’s global stock is worth close to $30 trillion, dwarfing copper’s much smaller market.
Still, the 2026 divergence suggests AI-driven industrial demand is reshaping which commodities investors treat as scarce.
Washington now holds the next catalyst. A long-delayed Commerce Department ruling on tariffs for refined copper imports is still pending. Traders expect the decision to move prices sharply once it lands.
For now, copper is winning the growth argument even if gold still wins on size.