加密城市 Crypto City

（Twitter）How exactly does the For You algorithm decide whether a post should go viral? Which matters more: likes, comments, or reposts? Can time spent really increase traffic? Does “not interested” actually work? If you post too many times in a day, will it end up competing with your own traffic?
These long-standing problems that have plagued X creators for years now have answers that can be found directly in the official code.
On August 13, X significantly updated the official open-source “x-algorithm” repository, adding key configuration parameters for the For You recommendation system, including how various user behaviors are converted into post scores, as well as system components like Visibility Filtering that determine whether a post can enter the recommendation feed.

Binance hands over user data to Russia; donations to Ukraine become evidence for terror financing charges.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is again embroiled in controversies over data privacy and geopolitics. Russian law-enforcement documents obtained by Reuters show that Binance previously provided Russian investigators with a customer’s identity and transaction information, which was later used to prosecute Russian IT expert Yuri Belenkiy for donating to organizations related to Ukraine via cryptocurrency.
Belenkiy is accused of donating more than $700 to organizations associated with the Ukrainian military, including the Azov Brigade, which Russia lists as a terrorist organization. Russian authorities have classified the donations as involving “funding terrorism,” a charge that carries a maximum prison sentence of up to 20 years.

According to reporting by the UK’s Financial Times citing people familiar with the matter, Wall Street giant JPMorgan Chase had fully terminated its banking relationship with the prediction market Polymarket as of October 2025, and issued a “go away” order, asking the company to find another safe harbor to park its funds.
Since then, Polymarket has transferred its funds accounts to another financial institution, but the true identity of the taking-over bank (Financial Times) has not yet been confirmed. (Reuters) also cited statements from anonymous sources, independently verifying the account closure incident.
However, Wall Street’s算盘算得很精。（report revealed that）although JPMorgan Chase has cut off Polymarket’s basic banking services, if this prediction market platform were to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in the future, JPMorgan Chase still hopes to win the role of underwriter. In response to the rumors above, JPMorgan Chase declined to comment.

Today, fake receipts generated by AI account for 71% of all flagged expense fraud cases. A year ago, this figure was 0, and at present, most of this kind of fraud is still carried out by humans.
Now, we have AI agents that can discover services and make payments through x402, all without any manual approval. The ensuing challenge is how to verify what these agents have actually purchased. OpenAI recently released a practical guide with solutions for receipt verification in the payment flow and for reconciling accounts with third parties.

After Buffett’s succession, making big moves and handily ending Berkshire’s streak of net selling for 14 consecutive quarters
After “the stock god,” Warren Buffett, stepped down as CEO, his successor, Greg Abel, has been gradually leaving his own capital allocation style behind. In the second quarter of 2026, Berkshire Hathaway reversed its conservative approach from the past several years, made a major push into the U.S. stock market, and clearly increased its exposure to homebuilders and airlines.
The latest filing shows that in the second quarter, Berkshire bought about $23.5 billion worth of stocks and sold about $3.7 billion during the same period, ending its record of net selling for 14 consecutive quarters. The company also spent about $4.5 billion to repurchase its own shares, while its cash position fell from roughly $380 billion to about $365 billion.

On August 18, a new project called “Flop” quickly drew attention from the crypto community on social media, with memecoin enthusiasts scrambling to apply.
Behind the scenes, the operator was none other than crypto veteran Arthur Hayes. That evening, Hayes suddenly posted on X announcing that he would “end his retirement” and take on the role of CEO of the new project Flop Labs. Having once led the crypto derivatives giant BitMEX, after stepping away from frontline operations, he became more active in the market as an investor and crypto commentator, continuously offering judgments on the macroeconomy and industry trends. Now back in the fray, Hayes did not return to the trading track he knows best; instead, he turned his attention to the AI Agent economy.

Has the bear run gone? Coinbase CEO: Bitcoin could rise above $400,000 by 2030
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, a U.S.-listed crypto exchange executive, recently made an optimistic prediction in an interview on the (Fox Business) program, saying that by 2030 Bitcoin is «very likely» to reach the $300,000 to $400,000 range.
Armstrong pointed out that after roughly a year of a bear market in the Bitcoin spot trading market, the timing is now quite close to the historical bear market average correction cycle of 370 to 380 days. The market broadly expects the bear market is entering its final phase and that a new bull market is about to begin.

Stablecoins and the Agents business have been discussed the most over the past two years, but the ones who truly have to make trade-offs for them on the balance sheet are not the group that issues stablecoins, nor the group that builds agents—they’re the card networks. Others may treat both of these as business opportunities, but before card networks can commercialize them, they must first answer a harder question: if money no longer moves along my rails, what do I have left?
On the same day, Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach answered three questions: how money moves, who is buying, and how to make decisions.
On the stablecoin question, he said that daily spending has “no issues needing to be resolved.” On the Agents business question, he said the cards will win. On the AI question, he said the winners are the companies that hold proprietary data. The three answers sound unrelated, but they all involve the same move: settlement can be multi-track, and trust and security must be won.

The CLARITY Act remains stuck; the CFTC is preparing to initiate backup plans.
The U.S. (the CLARITY Act) continues to stall in Congress. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has begun preparing regulatory drafts. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig said on August 20 that if Congress ultimately fails to pass the (CLARITY Act), the CFTC will use existing legal authority to independently advance structural rules for the crypto-asset market.
Selig said at the first meeting of the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee that he has asked staff to begin researching relevant rules, with the aim of using the CFTC’s existing authority to build a regulatory framework applicable to the crypto-asset market.

Bitcoin briefly broke through $75,000, rising more than 7% over 24 hours.
Bitcoin rebounded strongly this week. On the morning of August 21, it briefly surpassed $75,000, reaching a high of about $75,528. According to CoinGecko data, as of around 10 a.m., Bitcoin was trading at about $74,784; over the past 24 hours, it was up about 7.3%. During the period, the price ranged from $68,898 to $75,528. In a short time, it surged by more than $6,000, setting the highest level since June.
Source: CoinGecko. Bitcoin briefly broke through $75,000 in the morning, reaching a high of about $75,528.

Recently, an old video featuring U.S. Vice President Vance—before he became vice president—has gone viral again. In the video, Vance raises a question that few people in Washington dare to ask: if the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency, does it truly benefit the United States only?
Vance said that when the U.S. dollar is strong, American consumers can indeed find imported goods cheaper; but at the same time, American factories and products are not as competitive in the international market. The privileged status of reserve currency looks glamorous, but the costs behind it are not small.
More than 60 years ago, economist Triffin pointed out a fundamental contradiction: a country’s own currency must both serve the domestic economy and also serve the whole world as a reserve currency—and sooner or later, this will cause problems. In 1971, the United States was forced to delink the dollar from gold because it had printed too many dollars and didn’t have enough gold to redeem them. But after the decoupling, the contradiction did not disappear. Now, the whole world depends on buying U.S. Treasury bonds to obtain dollars, while the U.S. relies on taking on debt to buy back goods—essentially still the same old problem.

Bitcoin breaks above $73,000, and crypto concept stocks move higher in tandem
Bitcoin’s strong rebound lifted U.S.-listed crypto concept stocks broadly higher. Bitcoin ($BTC) rose from around $64,000 at the start of this week, breaking through $68,000, $70,000, and $72,000 in sequence. As of August 21, it has climbed further to above $73,000. Over the past 7 days, it has gained more than 15%.
As Bitcoin prices surged rapidly, publicly traded companies holding large amounts of crypto assets, trading platforms, and stablecoin-related businesses were also pulled in by fresh inflows. Stocks such as Strategy (MSTR), Coinbase (COIN), Circle (CRCL), American Bitcoin (ABTC), BitMine (BMNR), and Nakamoto (NAKA) all climbed one after another, with the rally in crypto assets quickly spreading to the U.S. stock market.

Bitcoin breaks through $75,000, hitting a new three-month high
Driven by strong buying in the derivatives market, the cryptocurrency market saw a sharp rebound. This morning (8/21), Bitcoin ($BTC) once briefly surged back above the $75,000 mark. During the session, it peaked at $75,720, setting a new high in nearly three months.
According to statistics, Bitcoin’s 24-hour rise reached 7.44%, while its overall market cap climbed to $1.49 trillion. Meanwhile, Ethereum and Ripple also rose by 4.8% and 16%, respectively, with weekly gains proving especially impressive.
Of note, Bitcoin has for the first time since last November reclaimed the 200-day moving average (200 MA), seen as the bullish/bearish dividing line. This suggests the prior downward correction trend is gradually weakening, and the technical picture is showing signals of structural strengthening.

MediaTek shares have fallen 10% over five days, at one point losing support at the monthly moving average line
MediaTek (2454) shares have fallen for three consecutive trading days. As of intraday on Aug. 20, the stock briefly dropped 4.42% to 3,675, losing support at the monthly moving average line. Over the past five trading days, the cumulative decline has reached 15.91%, with its market capitalization eroding by more than NT$70 billion. However, on today (8/21) at the open, the stock rebounded slightly, once climbing back to 3,795. It is currently quoted at 3,775, and the five-day decline has narrowed to about 10%.
Market participants linked this wave of the downturn with news about the massive cooperation between Marvell and Google, as well as rumors that AMD has secured orders for Google’s TPU designs.

Under the leadership of Elon Musk, the social media platform X is taking another key step toward the cryptocurrency space. To address cross-border payment pain points for global content creators, X is actively exploring the introduction of stablecoins as a new channel for revenue sharing and distribution.
(CoinDesk) cited an insider as saying that X is evaluating how to use stablecoins such as USDC to pay content creators and users who publish content on the platform in exchange for revenue-sharing compensation.
This insider also said they are currently helping other social media platforms test stablecoin payment features. They noted that discussions within X regarding stablecoin payment functionality are still ongoing.

Crypto ETFs attracted $706 million in net inflows in a single day, and institutional funds re-entered the market
The crypto market continues a strong rebound, with institutional funds returning as well. According to data from Farside Investors, U.S. spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs combined recorded net inflows of approximately $706 million on the day, becoming an important source of momentum behind this market uptrend.
Source: Farside Investors. The U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF saw a net inflow of about $517 million on the day, the highest single-day net inflow in over 3 months.
Among them, the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF saw net inflows of about $517 million on the day, setting a record for the highest single-day net inflow in more than three months. Out of 12 products, 8 saw capital inflows. BlackRock’s IBIT led with about $285 million, ARK 21Shares’ ARKB attracted approximately $77.7 million, and Fidelity’s FBTC drew about $62.4 million.

A well-known YouTuber, “Yi Jia Yi” (壹加壹), has announced that it invested 200,000 NTD and spent nearly half a year developing a subtitle tool, “What’Sub,” specifically for users of Traditional Chinese in Taiwan. It has officially launched, addressing the most troublesome subtitle editing work faced by video creators. The tool focuses on high-accuracy AI language recognition, intelligent sentence splitting, and an intuitive editing experience, improving the efficiency of video creators when producing subtitles.
What Sub solves the challenge of Traditional Chinese subtitles
When making videos, the stage that consumes the most time for content creators is often typing and adding subtitles. Due to the lack of Traditional Chinese tools on the market, Lean has incorporated years of post-production experience into the underlying technological framework to solve creators’ pain points.

【The following content is provided by ETHTaipei】
ETHTaipei 2026, Taiwan’s annual Ethereum developer conference, will be held September 13–14 at the PopoP Taipei (Nangang Bottle Cap Factory) in Taipei. Now entering its fourth year, this year the event is curated as a two-day program for the first time: on September 13, Cryptonative Day is aimed at Ethereum developers and the technical community; on September 14, Institution Day is designed specifically for banks and financial institutions, extending from core protocol research and on-chain finance all the way to custody, real-world assets (RWA), and institutional-grade applications.
“Encrypted technology and the real world are intersecting, and making all of this real is the research and engineering behind it. This is the core of ETHTaipei 2026.” said the ETHTaipei main organizing team Martinet.

OCC pushes to finalize rules in November, as stablecoin regulation moves into the implementation stage
The U.S. stablecoin regulatory framework is accelerating toward practical implementation. On August 19, Jonathan Gould, Comptroller of the Currency (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, OCC), said that the OCC aims to complete the main final rules for the (GENIUS Act) by November this year, establishing a more comprehensive federal regulatory regime for payment-type stablecoins.
At the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium held in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Gould said that the OCC has already begun drafting the relevant rules in advance. It is currently compiling industry feedback on the proposals, with the goal of completing the final version according to the established schedule.

FTX case wraps up: Ellison and Wang hit with CFTC trading bans
Two former core senior executives who previously assisted U.S. prosecutors in bringing down FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) have now reached an important regulatory development. On August 19, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) completed its civil enforcement proceedings against Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wang, a co-founder of FTX. Both face multi-year trading and registration bans.
Pursuant to a supplemental consent order approved by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, both Allison and Wang Zixiao are prohibited from trading commodities and related products under the CFTC’s jurisdiction for five years. Allison also faces a 10-year CFTC registration ban, while Wang Zixiao faces an eight-year ban.