Cointelegraph

Japan’s financial regulator has asked crypto exchanges to introduce withdrawal delays and other safeguards as authorities respond to increasingly sophisticated scams involving digital assets.
On Thursday, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) said it had jointly requested the measures with the National Police Agency amid growing losses among crypto exchange users and cases where funds obtained through fraudulent schemes are being transferred to exchange accounts.
The request calls on exchanges to restrict crypto withdrawals for a specified period after customers deposit fiat currency or purchase digital assets. Platforms were also asked to require users to pre-register crypto withdrawal addresses and impose a waiting period before newly added addresses can be used.
The request was submitted to the Japan Virtual and Crypto Assets Exchange Association, the country’s self-regulatory body for crypto exchanges.
Other proposed safeguards include customer-specific withdrawal limits, stronger transaction and access-environment monitoring, phishing-resistant multifactor authentication and checks to ensure that the name of a bank remitter matches the crypto account holder’s name.
The measures are not binding rules. The FSA said exchanges should determine how to implement these based on their operations, services and exposure to misuse.

A bipartisan ethics proposal pitched to US President Donald Trump to secure passage of the crypto market structure bill in Congress could create a significant tax benefit for the president, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
The ethics addendum, which has not been made public, includes a provision requiring the president to divest from crypto-related businesses, according to people familiar with the matter. The proposal would reportedly allow Trump to defer capital gains taxes on any required divestitures, potentially leading to tax savings in the millions.
Democratic concerns over Trump’s crypto conflicts have been a central obstacle to passing the market-structure bill. Senators have been working on an ethics addendum meant to break that impasse, though the reported tax-deferral benefit could become another point of contention for Democrats to question whether the president’s financial interests are genuinely curbed.
Cointelegraph reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive an immediate response.
Trump’s annual financial disclosure report for 2025, released at the end of June, revealed the US president saw $1.4 billion in income from crypto-related ventures last year.
According to the 927-page disclosure, the licensing and sale of memecoins such as Official Trump (TRUMP) generated the most income for Trump, with about $635 million coming from “royalties” in a “license agreement with Celebration Coins.”
Meanwhile, the Trump family’s DeFi platform, World Liberty Financial, was the second-biggest earner, generating about $588 million from “proceeds from token sales.”
The disclosure also revealed that Trump earned $197 from the sale of an equity interest in a stablecoin venture.
Meanwhile, disclosures on World Liberty’s website show that DT Marks DEFI LLC, an entity affiliated with Trump and certain family members, owns “approximately 38% of the equity interests” in World Liberty’s parent company.
Magazine: CLARITY hopes fade, BitMEX shuts as lawsuit looms: Hodler’s Digest, July 26

Senate Republican leaders are expected to leave Washington, DC, for the August recess without voting on crypto market structure legislation, pushing the bill’s consideration to September, according to a report from Politico.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Friday reportedly confirmed a Politico report that the chamber was “punting” the vote until September and planned to tee up the legislation.
Citing two people with knowledge of the matter, Politico reported that the CLARITY Act lacks Democratic support. Negotiations remained underway, and the schedule could change if lawmakers reach a bipartisan breakthrough.
Thune may still file cloture before the recess. This procedural step could position the bill for a vote when senators return in mid-September, but it would not constitute a vote on the legislation, according to sources.
They said Democrats have declined to approve a time agreement that would expedite the Senate’s remaining pre-recess business and allow the crypto bill to reach the floor.
According to the report, Republican leaders would need unanimous consent from all 100 senators to complete the outstanding items without extending the session deep into next week,
Cointelegraph contacted Thune’s office to confirm the timetable and ask whether he plans to file cloture before the recess, but had not received a response by publication.

Wintermute’s US arm has registered as a broker-dealer, enabling the crypto trading firm to expand into traditional financial services in the US.
On Thursday, Wintermute announced its affiliate Wintermute USA LLC has registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The registration allows Wintermute USA to trade stocks and stock options and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products “including those tied to digital assets.”
Wintermute said the registration allows the firm to position itself for the emerging tokenized securities landscape.
“Our long-term conviction has always been that digital asset markets will evolve in more than one direction,” said Evgeny Gaevoy, founder and CEO of Wintermute.
“Digital assets and traditional finance will continue to develop in parallel, intersect in new ways, and ultimately integrate more deeply. As the landscape evolves, the firms that succeed will be those that have technical and operational know-how to operate in both.”
A broker-dealer is a financial entity that assists in the trading of securities on behalf of customers, on its own account, or both. Authorized participants are the capital market’s facilitators of the ETF creation and redemption process.

Brazil’s B3 stock exchange made headlines last month when its tokenized cows went viral.
A farmer in southern Brazil was able to use 10 cows as collateral for a 100,000 Brazilian real ($19,600) loan by virtually herding them into a blockchain based holding pen, demonstrating how farmers can literally milk their assets to access credit.
And it raises an obvious question: if cows can be tokenized, what can’t be?
From dairy cows to a year’s worth of farts, here are 10 of the strangest things to be tokenized onchain.
1. A year’s worth of farts
When BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink said every asset will eventually be tokenized, he probably wasn’t thinking about flatulence. Yet, that’s exactly what happened here.
Every bit as appealing as, well, a year’s worth of farts, it has to be a contender for the strangest thingever to make it onchain.
It was during the pandemic, when most people were baking bread or leveling up on Duolingo, that filmmaker Alex Ramírez-Mallis recorded his own farts and minted each one as a nonfungible token (NFT).
They say farts are like children, and you only love your own. But the novelty factor meant that Ramírez-Mallis was able to sell his for 0.05 ETH each (about $85 at the time), proving that every asset has its price.
2. Cows
Better known as a prime source of protein in Bitcoin circles, the idea of turning 10 Brazilian cows into tokenized cattle... er, tokenized collateral, is not the most obvious use case.
The deal was structured by Brazilian investment fund Target FIDC, giving each cow a unique digital token linked to an encrypted digital identity.
Larry Fink says every asset can be tokenized. Source: BlackRock
The first loan may have been worth just $19,600, but it was a proof of concept that shows the potential to eventually support around $80 million in livestock-backed financing across its farms.
While it sounds somewhat bizarre on first glance, the agriculture industry generated around $4 trillion in global value added in 2023, so watch out for tokenized sheep, goats and chickens as collateral next.
3. Whiskey barrels
When you think of sharing a whiskey, you probably have the liquid gold kind in mind, but whiskey barrels are a natural candidate for tokenization.
That’s because, like high-end art and collectibles, Scotch whisky typically increases in value as it matures — talk about lifting your spirits!
Several projects are experimenting with putting whisky casks onchain so investors can buy whole units or fractional ownership of tokenized whisky stored in bonded warehouses.
Just remember that if the market crashes, you can’t actually drink a digital JPEG of a barrel.
4. Racehorses
Racehorse ownership has long been reserved for the ultra-wealthy, those with deep enough pockets to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in breeding, training and upkeep, and a fancy hat to wear at the racetrack.
But tokenization is beginning to chip away at those elitist barriers, dividing ownership of real thoroughbred racehorses into digital shares.
Investors can buy a stake in an animal and share in any prize money, breeding income, or future sale proceeds, without purchasing an entire horse.
Own part of a racehorse. Source: Stablemans
A word of caution for would-be investors in this style of asset, though, whether its watches or whiskeys or large four legged animals, from Chris Turner, co-founder of impact investment firm KULA:
“Putting a collectible or luxury item on a blockchain doesn’t automatically make it more liquid or valuable if the legal rights, transfer process, and market structure remain unchanged.”
5. Uranium
If your mind turns to treasuries and private credit when thinking about tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), it might be a shift to consider uranium, the radioactive metal better known for its role in nuclear power.
But that’s what Tezos-backed metals.io is doing. Tezos co-founder Arthur Breitman says blockchain technology excels at building “reliable, auditable and cost-efficient financial rails for any asset,” but is particularly aligned with “technology-flavored commodities” like uranium.
Breitman says trading volume between November 2024 and July 2026 was $21.5 million over approximately 18,200 trades and around 7,400 unique wallets.
He acknowledges that growth remains modest, telling Magazine that institutional players have shown interest but are “still shy about tokenized rails.”
6. Fishy revenue
One of the most unusual proposals tokenization platform Brickken received came from a Chilean fish-processing company that wanted to issue tokenized debt with returns tied to the value of the fish it sold.
“The token represented the lender’s contractual claim, while the interest payable adjusted according to the company’s verified sales performance. In effect, it was a tokenized, revenue-linked debt instrument,” explains Edwin Mata, chief executive of Brickken.
Mata argues that the idea highlights an important principle:
“Almost any cash flow can support a tokenized financial instrument, provided the underlying rights and data can be independently verified.”
In the end, the fish never made it onchain. The underlying fish sales still relied on audits, commercial reporting and legal agreements that couldn’t yet be automated, proving that, sometimes, the biggest obstacle to tokenization isn’t the blockchain; it’s the real world.
7. Music royalties
Music royalties have also found their way onchain, with one of the earliest high-profile examples in 2021, when DJ and producer 3LAU gave fans 50% of the streaming rights to his single Worst Case through his blockchain platform Royal.
Then, in 2022, rapper Nas used Royal to sell streaming royalty rights to two of his songs, Ultra Black and Rare.
While the idea of onchain royalties gained traction during the NFT boom, tokenized music royalties have yet to become a mainstream asset class. Maybe that’s because the streaming platforms pay peanuts.
Nothing says “financial freedom” quite like owning 0.001% of a track and realizing it needs to be played five million times just to buy a cup of coffee.
8. Human Skin
If tokenizing farts and cattle wasn’t weird enough, what about parts of your own body? That’s exactly what Croatian tennis player Oleksandra Oliynykova did in 2021, when she auctioned the advertising rights to a 15-by-18-centimeter patch of skin on her right arm as an NFT.
The winning bidder paid 3 Ether (around $5,400 at the time) for the right to choose which tattoo she would wear during tournaments for a year.
Athletes have long sold sponsorship space on shirts, helmets and race cars. Oliynykova just took the idea one step further, giving a whole new meaning to having skin in the game.
9. A Burned Banksy
Most art collectors try to preserve masterpieces; crypto collectors set them on fire to make a point about “digital ownership.” In 2021, a group calling itself Burnt Banksy bought a Banksy print titled Morons (White) for around $95,000. They livestreamed themselves burning it, and then minted the destruction.
If that leaves you scratching your head, there was method in the madness; the idea was that while the physical artwork no longer existed, ownership would live on forever through the blockchain.
The NFT sold for around $382,000, sparking fierce debate over whether the group had destroyed a valuable work of art or simply transformed it into a new one. It was probably the first time in history someone made a 300% profit from a “fire sale.”
10. The first tweet
Also in the year of our NFT Lord, 2021, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey tokenized his first-ever tweet — “just setting up my twttr” — and sold it as an NFT to crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi for $2.9 million, quickly becoming a symbol of the NFT boom.
The first-ever tweet sold for $2.9 million. Source: Jack Dorsey
One year later, Estavi tried to resell it for $48 million, but only received bids worth a tiny fraction of the asking price, with the highest reported offer coming in at just $6,800.
While anyone can still read the tweet on X, only one person owns the blockchain certificate tied to it. Whether that’s valuable or not remains an open question. As Mata says:
“Tokenization can improve access, administration, settlement and transferability, but it cannot transform a poor investment into a good one.”
Magazine: The 100x obsession: Fundamentals grow in importance as crypto matures

Two groups affiliated with the cryptocurrency company-backed political action committee (PAC) Fairshake disclosed spending more than $1.5 million on media to support House of Representatives and Senate candidates in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming after suffering a primary loss in Michigan on Tuesday.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings as of Thursday, Fairshake PAC affiliates Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress spent a combined $1.5 million on ads for Republican and Democratic candidates, many of whom voted in favor of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act while serving in Congress.
In Alaska’s at-large congressional district, scheduled to hold a primary on Aug. 18, Defend American Jobs spent more than $500,000 on media supporting the re-election of Representative Nick Begich. The Super PAC spent about the same amount on Republican candidate Sydney Gruters in Florida’s 16th district, and Representative Harriet Hageman, running for the soon-to-be-vacant Wyoming Senate seat now occupied by Cynthia Lummis. Both US states will also hold primaries on Aug. 18.
The reported expenditures follow a primary loss for a Protect Progress-supported candidate in Michigan’s 13th Congressional District. On Tuesday, Democratic incumbent Shri Thanedar lost a primary to State Representative Donavan McKinney after the Super PAC poured more than $2 million into media supporting the former. The final day of Thanedar’s current term in Congress will be in January 2027.
On the Democratic side, Protect Progress reported spending more than $50,000 for the re-election of Lois Frankel in Florida’s 23rd district. Frankel, Begich and Hageman all voted in favor of the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act while serving in Congress, while Gruters did not appear to have made any public statements on crypto or blockchain, with the exception of saying she supported the crypto market structure bill in a questionnaire conducted by the advocacy organization Stand With Crypto.
The expenditures were the latest examples of Fairshake and cryptocurrency industry-aligned groups attempting to influence US elections through media. The Super PAC reported spending more than $170 million in the 2024 US election cycle on House and Senate races, potentially changing the makeup of the current Congress.
CLARITY votes to influence 2026 midterms?
While it was still uncertain as of Thursday whether the US Senate would hold a vote on the CLARITY Act before the chamber broke for a month-long recess, how lawmakers cast their ballots could affect whether the crypto industry actively supports or opposes their re-election bids. All 435 House seats are up for grabs in 2026, as are 33 seats in the US Senate.
In January, Stand With Crypto said that its “primary goal” in 2026 was getting crypto market structure legislation through Congress. The organization’s community director, Mason Lynaugh, told Cointelegraph in November that how lawmakers vote on the bill could impact their re-election chances. Stand With Crypto rates political candidates on a scale of “strongly supports crypto” to “strongly against crypto” depending on their voting records and public statements, which may be used by PACs and organizations deciding where to allocate funds.
Magazine: 10 weirdest things ever tokenized... including farts

Demand for US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has accelerated over the past week, with a string of daily inflows coinciding with the Coldcard wallet hack — timing that has prompted speculation about whether some investors are reconsidering self-custody.
According to Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), Bitwise Bitcoin ETF (BITB), ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) as well as Defiance Daily Target 2X Long MSTR ETF (MSBT) have recorded inflows every trading day since the weekend exploit, totaling roughly $620 million. The cumulative figure is consistent with Cointelegraph’s recent reporting on the ETF inflow streak.
The Coldcard exploit drained more than $116 million worth of Bitcoin from over 5,200 wallet addresses, according to blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs.
“I’m not saying it’s connected, we just don’t know,” Balchunas said in a post on X. “[Although] long-term I can’t imagine there aren’t some who migrate over.”
Source: Eric Balchunas
Coldcard exploit renews debate over self-custody risks
The Coldcard hack renewed concerns that even hardware wallet users can be exposed to firmware flaws and software vulnerabilities, highlighting the operational risks that come with self-custody.
The incident also reignited debate over the trade-offs between holding Bitcoin directly and gaining exposure through regulated investment products such as spot Bitcoin ETFs, where asset custody and security are handled by institutional providers.
Binance co-founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao also weighed in on the debate, arguing that storing crypto on centralized exchanges may now be “statistically safer” than self-custody, citing data from analyst Willy Woo that cumulative Bitcoin losses from self-custody incidents have surpassed those from exchange hacks.
Source: Changpeng Zhao
“Hack data is easier to collect on the CEX side, usually major news. It is harder on the self-custody side, where hacks, lost coins, etc are often not reported,” CZ said.
The debate comes as AI-assisted cyberattacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. On Monday, Bitcoin swap service Boltz suspended its non-custodial bridge, citing a steady rise in AI-assisted exploits that were allowing attackers to identify and exploit vulnerabilities faster than its team could patch them.
Magazine: Do the Coldcard attacks mean all hardware wallets are now insecure?

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a formal mandate upholding the conviction and sentence of former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried, reducing the number of potential opportunities for being released from prison early.
On Tuesday, the Second Circuit filed a mandate following its June 12 ruling affirming a lower court decision convicting the former CEO on seven felony counts and sentencing him to 25 years in federal prison. Three circuit judges disputed Bankman-Fried’s claims in appeals that FTX had “sufficient liquidity to ensure that investors were made whole and would not experience any losses” and also upheld a New York court’s $11 billion forfeiture order as part of the criminal case.
“As the district court recognized, any contention that Bankman-Fried lacked an intent to defraud because he intended to eventually repay his customers was legally misleading and prejudicial because the wire fraud statute encompasses temporary misappropriation of money or property,” said Circuit Judge Barrington D. Parker in the court opinion. “As the district court made clear, FTX customers were defrauded as soon as Bankman-Fried transferred their money to Alameda regardless of how strongly he believed he might later return the money.”
With the appellate mandate now official, Bankman-Fried has few legal routes to seek a potential early release from prison, including through a pardon from US President Donald Trump or an appeal to the Supreme Court. Trump said in January that he had no plans to issue a pardon, and last month the US Senate unanimously adopted a resolution opposing clemency for the FTX CEO.

Senator Tim Scott, who chairs the Senate Banking Committee, said that the chamber would vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act before it broke for an August recess, giving lawmakers just a few days to take action on the crypto bill.
In a Thursday Fox Business interview, Scott said that the Senate “should have the first vote” on the CLARITY Act before lawmakers leave for state work periods this week. He added that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has the authority to set the agenda and schedule floor votes, still had time to announce a cloture vote on the crypto bill in the next few days.
“The good news is we have the time to get it done,” said Scott.
The South Carolina lawmaker’s statement echoed comments from Senator Cynthia Lummis, who on Wednesday urged the Senate to take up a vote on CLARITY before the chamber’s August recess. Should Republican leaders schedule a vote, the bill would need support from 60 lawmakers to pass the Senate and advance in Congress.
Among the issues still under discussion as of Thursday were concerns from many Democrats regarding US President Donald Trump’s crypto investments and heads of the banking industry calling for the bill to address licensing and restrictions for crypto companies handling stablecoins. Should lawmakers reach an agreement on how to potentially adjust the CLARITY Act for these provisions and how to handle the Senate’s agenda before the recess, there could still be time to schedule a vote.

Bitcoin miners’ pivot into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) is reshaping their business models, but investors are no longer rewarding new infrastructure deals with the same enthusiasm they once did, suggesting the market has become more discerning as AI hosting strategies move into the mainstream.
According to new analysis by Blocksbridge Consulting published in TheEnergyMag’s Miner Weekly, the market reaction to AI infrastructure announcements has weakened significantly over the past two years. Reviewing 25 AI and HPC infrastructure deals announced between June 2024 and August 2026, the report found that the average announcement-day stock move fell from roughly 24% for the earliest deals to about 10% for the most recent ones. Median gains also dropped by roughly half over the same period, even as the size and value of the contracts increased.
The report found that annualized revenue per contracted megawatt has edged higher over time, indicating that AI hosting agreements are becoming more lucrative. However, as such deals become increasingly common, investors appear to be placing greater emphasis on execution, financing and long-term profitability than on headline contract values alone.
AI infrastructure deals are becoming more valuable, but less market-moving. Source: TheEnergyMag
That shift is evident in how the market has responded to major announcements. Core Scientific’s initial hosting agreement with CoreWeave sent its shares up more than 40%, while Applied Digital’s first CoreWeave lease gained nearly 49% and TeraWulf’s first Fluidstack deal surged almost 60%.
More recent mega-deals have drawn a much more muted response. TeraWulf’s 401-megawatt lease with Anthropic lifted its shares by about 5%, CleanSpark’s $6.6 billion AI hosting agreement gained nearly 9%, and Bitdeer’s new Tydal contract briefly pushed the stock up roughly 12% before those gains disappeared by the market close.
Bitcoin mining stocks reflect cooling AI enthusiasm
The performance of Bitcoin mining stocks that have embraced AI and high-performance computing workloads also reflects the market’s cooling enthusiasm.
TheEnergyMag’s TEM AI Infrastructure Growth Index, which tracks publicly traded companies developing AI data center and digital infrastructure businesses, is down roughly 28.5% from its June peak, suggesting investors have become more cautious even as AI infrastructure demand remains strong.
While the TEM AI Infrastructure Growth Index remains sharply higher over the past year, its momentum has slowed in recent months. Source: TheEnergyMag
The slowdown mirrors a broader pullback in AI infrastructure stocks, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index falling nearly 17% from its July peak.
Magazine: A quantum roadmap would push Bitcoin much higher: Charles Edwards

Bitcoin (BTC) stayed motionless at Thursday’s Wall Street open as analysis saw signs of reemergent US “stagflation.”
Key points:
Bitcoin stays below $65,000 as Iran tempers expectations over the Strait of Hormuz oil route reopening.
US PMI data analysis sees “stagflation” return as a potential future risk.
BTC price indecisiveness means that the market still lacks a “genuine breakdown,” says Bitfinex.
Iran cools market hopes of Hormuz deal
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD hovering above $64,000, down around 0.5% on the day, while US stocks opened flat.
BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Anticipation of a deal between Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz oil route did little to spark volatility — in the absence of US participation, it remained uncertain whether international shipping would fully resume.
“This understanding does not, in itself, mean that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said in an interview with the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), quoted by CNN.
US WTI crude oil was little changed on the day at $76 per barrel, having hit three-week lows of $74.30 the day prior.
CFDs on WTI crude oil one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
As markets awaited further geopolitical cues, trading resource The Kobeissi Letter turned to the latest US Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Services PMI and employment data. Released on Wednesday, this showed a divergence continuing, with PMI rising 0.1 point in July to 54.1, while employment dropped 3.6 points to 47.4, its lowest reading since March.
“At the same time, the prices paid index surged +2.6 points, to 70.3, near the highest since October 2022. Prices paid have now trended higher for over 2 years, rising +16.9 points since March 2024. In other words, the economy is increasingly under pressure from both rising prices and a weakening labor market,” it reported on X.
Kobeissi added that the odds of stagflation was thus “intensifying” based on the combined PMI readings.
US services PMI data. Source: The Kobeissi Letter on X.com
Analysis debates solution to BTC price paralysis
With Bitcoin failing to break beyond a local range in place since the start of June, onchain analytics platform Glassnode described BTC/USD as showing “boredom rather than capitulation.”
In its latest analysis on Thursday, Glassnode noted Bitcoin’s lack of reaction as gold hit its highest levels in six weeks and the S&P 500 reached all-time highs.
“The regime in one line: a compressed, under-owned market that global risk appetite has left behind, with bottom conditions assembling but incomplete,” it summarized.
BTC/USD vs. S&P 500 one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
Previously, Cointelegraph reported on bear-market comparisons seeing history repeating itself in 2026, with Bitcoin slowly eroding support before dropping to the cycle’s next macro floor.
Echoing Glassnode’s sentiment, Bitfinex Research, the analytics arm of crypto exchange Bitfinex, also saw the need for a more decisive macro bottom trigger than current conditions could produce.
“While macro developments and bitcoin’s underperformance compared with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 signal underlying stress, a genuine breakdown requires something more forceful, followed by volume-supportive price action,” it wrote in an update on Wednesday.

Step App, a move-to-earn platform, is shutting down after four years of operation, joining a growing number of crypto companies winding down amid an ongoing market slump.
The company announced Wednesday on X that it will wind down all services by Aug. 21, asking users to unstake locked tokens and manage their exchange positions before the date.
“We are incredibly proud of what Step App achieved — not just as a product, but as a movement,” Step App said.
The project’s governance and utility token, FITFI, continued to decline. At publishing time, FITFI traded at $0.0001624, down 99.9% from its all-time high of around $0.73 recorded in May 2022, according to CoinGecko data.
Step App (FITFI) all-time price chart. Source: CoinGecko
Cointelegraph contacted Step App for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Blockchain.com has secured a virtual asset service provider (VASP) license from the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority to offer custody services.
Granted on July 22, 2026, the license allows the cryptocurrency services company to provide regulated crypto custody services in the Cayman Islands, according to a Thursday announcement reviewed by Cointelegraph. The license followed a conditional approval issued by CIMA in December 2025.
The license also allows Blockchain.com to provide crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto exchange services. The company has held a VASP registration in the Cayman Islands since May 2022.
Lane Kasselman, co-CEO of Blockchain.com, said the CIMA license builds on the company’s recent regulatory milestones, including obtaining a Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation license in Europe and registering with the UK Financial Conduct Authority.
“We believe strong regulation is essential to the long-term development of digital assets, and these approvals further strengthen our ability to serve customers across the region,” Kasselman said.

Tokenized real-world asset (RWA) trading now accounts for more than 33% of the trading activity on decentralized exchange Hyperliquid.
HIP-3 RWA perpetual contracts saw their share of trading volume increase to 32.2% during the second quarter of 2026, up from 20.7% in Q1 and 1.8% in Q4 of 2025. RWA trading volume reached $213 billion during Q2 on Hyperliquid, according to its quarterly report published on Wednesday.
Hyperliquid said that RWA trading generated 6.6% of the protocol’s quarterly revenue of $169 million. Of that $169 million, the platform said it returned $141 million to token holders through Hyperliquid (HYPE) token buybacks. Hyperliquid reported over $1 billion in cumulative protocol revenue.
RWAs became Hyperliquid’s largest trading category for the first time last month, when RWAs accounted for 52% of Hyperliquid’s total weekly trading volume between July 13 and July 19, reflecting growing demand for tokenized assets on the decentralized exchange.
At the end of July, RWA perpetual futures reached 99.2% of Bitcoin (BTC) perpetuals volume on Hyperliquid.
RWA holders increased 56% to 1.6 million investors over the past month, while the total value of onchain tokenized assets rose 3.3% to $37.8 billion, according to data provider RWA.xyz.
Magazine: How Hong Kong is turning tokenized bonds into real market infrastructure

Zeus Wallet, a self-custodial Bitcoin Lightning Network wallet, took its infrastructure offline after a cybersecurity incident on Wednesday, and is auditing its systems before restoring services.
In an X post announcing the incident, Zeus said the attack did not put customer funds at risk and that it had no evidence the incident affected Lightning node software. “Based on our investigation so far, we believe this incident was limited to Zeus infrastructure,” Zeus founder Evan Kaloudis said in a company blog post.
According to Kaloudis, Zeus mitigated the attack within hours. He said that customers whose Lightning Service Provider (LSP) channels closed during the incident will receive replacement channels once services resume.
The company did not disclose the nature of the attack or provide a timeline for restoring operations. Zeus said the incident reinforces its work on trusted execution environments, also known as enclaves, and the Validating Lightning Signer (VLS) project to strengthen its infrastructure.
Zeus’ move follows its Monday announcement that it would disable swaps following Boltz’s decision to halt operations. Boltz, a non-custodial Bitcoin swap service, said that its platform would remain disabled until further notice.
Cointelegraph requested Zeus provide additional details about the incident but had not received a response by publication.

Criminals stole more than $30 million through physical attacks on crypto holders in the first half of this year, putting the year on pace to surpass the record $58 million stolen in 2025.
In a Chainalysis report released Thursday, the blockchain analytics firm said that 46 violent crypto-related incidents had been documented globally through late June, up from 40 during the same period in 2025. The incidents include kidnappings, home invasions and hostage situations, collectively known as “wrench attacks.”
The findings suggest wrench attacks are increasing, expanding the risks facing crypto holders beyond custody and asset management to their physical safety, homes and families.
According to the report, only 12 of the 46 attempts resulted in payment, giving attackers a 26% success rate, down from 49% in 2025. However, the report acknowledged that known cases likely understate the scale of the problem, as many attacks go unreported.
Chainalysis said the “tradecraft tends to be amateur at the point of violence, but professional at both ends,” with victims often selected through data leaks, social media or insider information before low-skilled crews carry out the attacks.
Success rate of crypto wrench attacks by year. Source: Chainalysis
France remains wrench attack hotspot
According to Chainalysis, France recorded 30 publicly known incidents by midyear, compared with 19 throughout 2025. The report noted that French authorities have counted more than 70 incidents, indicating the actual total may be substantially higher.
In July, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez put the first-half count at 77 kidnappings, extortions or attempted extortions, up from 45 in all of 2025. In response, the government has introduced a rapid-alert and protection system and promised greater intelligence-sharing and coordination with the crypto industry.
Chainalysis said in the Thursday report that the alleged misuse of French tax records was the likeliest driver of the surge. A French tax official allegedly accessed and sold information about crypto investors to criminals, while a separate breach at crypto tax-reporting company Waltio reportedly exposed data belonging to about 50,000 users.
Onchain activity also showed varying levels of sophistication. Some attackers sent stolen funds directly to centralized exchanges, while others used bridges, decentralized exchanges and laundering services. Chainalysis said the most advanced cases showed links to broader criminal networks.
Magazine: Do the Coldcard attacks mean all hardware wallets are now insecure?

Bitcoin (BTC) institutional investment vehicles have shed 10% of their BTC holdings since May as analysis warns of a “breaking” sector.
Key points:
Bitcoin institutional funds see a blanket 10% reduction in holdings over three months.
Analysis says that the Bitcoin treasury model is “breaking” as company valuations fall below net asset value.
Coinbase premium has been negative for a record 93 days.
Fund exposure drops as Bitcoin treasury companies face squeeze
Data from onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant shows that combined institutional BTC exposure, which includes trusts, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and closed-end funds, has fallen from 1.33 million to 1.20 million BTC over three months.
Bitcoin fund holdings. Source: CryptoQuant
The drawdown comes as another major Bitcoin institutional investment vehicle, corporate treasuries, faces upheaval. Business intelligence software company Strategy, which holds the largest Bitcoin treasury of any public corporation, sold 1,638 BTC last week.
“Bitcoin treasury companies once amplified demand through a reflexive financing loop. Their shares traded above the value of their Bitcoin holdings, allowing them to issue equity or debt, buy more Bitcoin and reinforce the premium. That mechanism weakens when market capitalisations fall below net asset value, and financing becomes dilutive,” contributing analyst Novaque Research commented.
CryptoQuant highlights the plight of several Bitcoin treasury companies with stock trading below the net asset value (NAV) of their BTC holdings. In Strategy’s case, the discount disappears according to the valuation methodology used.
Basic share count puts the discount at 0.7 as of Thursday, but once the company’s $8 billion debt and liquidation preference of its STRC preferred stock is factored in, the mNAV equals 1.03.
Strategy Updated mNAV. Source: Bitcoin Treasuries
“The on-chain evidence supports a loss of institutional demand, although it cannot directly isolate treasury companies,” CryptoQuant notes.
Coinbase Premium sees record negative stint
The drawdown in both fund exposure and Bitcoin treasury holdings comes as the Coinbase Premium index sees a record 93 days of negative readings.
As Cointelegraph reported this week, the Index, which measures the difference in price between Coinbase’s and Binance’s BTC/USDT pairs, has been negative since the start of May — a record streak.
Coinbase Premium Index. Source: CryptoQuant
Analysis sees the return of the Premium as a prerequisite for a BTC price recovery. This week, Web3 marketing platform FOUR argued that the genesis of the months-long negative reading did not lie in blanket US selling pressure.
“Until the premium flips positive, institutional buying from U.S. investors appears muted—suggesting this is more of a demand shortage than aggressive selling,” it told X followers.
In a note quoted by Reuters last month, Citi highlighted ETF flows in particular as an “important driver of prices” while cutting its BTC price forecast to $53,000 through 2027.

About 64 Bitcoin, worth $4.17 million, and 200 Ether, worth $380,000, linked to the recent Coldcard exploit were sent to cryptocurrency mixing protocols, according to blockchain security platform CertiK.
The Bitcoin transfer was from address bc1q0 to crypto mixing protocol Wasabi on Tuesday, according to blockchain data shared by CertiK.
“We think it might be a smaller exploiter. There’s likely a few copycats after the initial exploit,” a CertiK spokesperson told Cointelegraph. The 200 Ether (ETH) was transferred to Tornado Cash on Wednesday, according to CertiK’s X post.
Crypto mixing protocols such as Tornado Cash typically pool and then scramble the cryptocurrency from multiple users, breaking the publicly traceable onchain link between senders and recipients. This makes it difficult to trace the stolen funds, decreasing the chances of asset recovery.
In April, the hacker behind a $293 million Kelp DAO hack laundered about 75,700 Ether, then worth $175 million, primarily through THORChain, generating about $910,000 in fee revenue for the protocol. The attacker also used the Umbra privacy protocol.
The Coldcard exploit has now become the third-largest cryptocurrency hack so far in 2026. It drained at least $100 million in Bitcoin across three confirmed attack waves from 7,300 victim wallets, according to Galaxy Digital. The company also identified a suspected fourth wave that could bring total losses to about $130 million in BTC.
Source: CertiK
Most copycats haven’t moved stolen funds
Onchain tracing by TRM Labs showed that the majority of victim funds were still pooled in a small number of attacker-controlled addresses with limited mixing attempts, according to a Thursday report.
The blockchain intelligence company said that the “differences in transaction construction” during each attack wave hint at multiple attackers behind the exploit.
The analysis is in line with Galaxy’s previous findings that showed at least 15 different attackers who exploited the Coldcard vulnerability.
TRM Labs said that a firmware bug from March 2021 weakened seed randomness on some Coldcard wallets, cutting key strength to 40 bits from 128 bits, making it “brute-forceable without physical access.”
Dragonfly managing partner Haseeb Qureshi wrote that roughly “$2 of AI hardening” could have prevented the Coldcard exploit, citing social media reports that some AI models rediscovered the vulnerability that led to the attack in less than 20 minutes.
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Situational Awareness, the hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, reportedly invested $400 million in a privately held company days after it nearly collapsed under margin calls.
The fund invested $100 million in the same unnamed company in July, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. The latest investment was completed on Tuesday.
Cointelegraph has approached Situational Awareness for comment.
Assets at Situational Awareness fell about 78% in July, as an AI-stock sell-off triggered margin calls from Wall Street lenders.
The fund sought fresh capital and considered selling stakes in private companies, according to the Financial Times.
The fund subsequently sold most of its public equity portfolio to Ken Griffin’s Citadel, allowing it to repay lenders and retain its private holdings.
Situational Awareness had invested heavily in power and data centers supporting AI, including Bitcoin miners expanding into AI computing.
A May 18 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission covering holdings as of March 31 showed about $1.11 billion in positions across seven Bitcoin mining stocks, including IREN, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms and CleanSpark.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law creating a regulated framework for cryptocurrency markets in Russia.
Putin signed bill No. 1194918-8, titled “On Digital Currencies and Digital Rights,” into law on Tuesday, according to official records from the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament. The legislation establishes rules for crypto market participants, including exchanges, brokers, custodians and other crypto service providers.
The law requires crypto exchange operators to meet regulatory requirements and join a financial market self-regulatory organization. It limits retail investors to buying approved crypto assets through intermediaries, with an annual cap of 300,000 rubles ($3,700) per intermediary. Qualified investors will be allowed to purchase any cryptocurrency without such restrictions.
The core provisions of the law take effect on Sept. 1, 2026, while some measures, including rules for non-resident digital depositories, will take effect on July 1, 2027. The law also maintains a ban on using crypto assets to pay for goods and services inside Russia.
The State Duma approved the legislation after final readings in late July. Under the law, the Bank of Russia will oversee the regulated crypto market, issue related rules and determine which crypto assets licensed intermediaries can offer.