Cryptopolitan

Uniswap’s founder, Hayden Adams, has shared that the company collects roughly $5.2 million in fees per day. Data from DefiLlama backs the figure at $5.16 million over the past 24 hours.
The surge is largely thanks to Robinhood’s two-week-old blockchain, which now accounts for most of that fee flow. Meanwhile, a key governance vote is underway that could extend UNI token burns to v4 pools.
Why is Robinhood Chain so important for Uniswap?
Uniswap’s CEO, Hayden Adams, has revealed through a post on X that it is raking in over $5 million in fees every day, with Robinhood’s new blockchain, which launched on July 1, accounting for most of that money.
Of the $5.16 million in fees Uniswap collected over 24 hours, DefiLlama attributes $4.38 million to Robinhood Chain. In comparison, Ethereum, which used to be the protocol’s core market, contributed only about $296,000. Base was close behind at roughly $288,000.
Robinhood Chain, built on Arbitrum’s technology, went live on July 1. The trading activity on the blockchain has exploded since then, with more than 220,000 daily traders and cumulative volume hitting $1 billion in just nine days.
For UNI token holders, this could mean more token burns if a current “snapshot” vote regarding extending its fee-and-burn mechanism to v4 pools passes.
Uniswap was integrated as the main automated market maker from day one. Its v2, v3, v4, and UniswapX products were all deployed at launch. Over seven days, Robinhood Chain accounts for $10.98 million of Uniswap’s $20.1 million total weekly fees.
UNI is trading around $3.62, up roughly 35% from its early-July low of about $2.70. However, it remains about 92% below its all-time high of $44.97 reached in May 2021.
Across all 47 chains it operates on, Uniswap logged $2.112 billion in 24-hour DEX volume, more than five times the next-largest exchange, PancakeSwap.
The company’s CEO, Hayden Adams, posted on X that the protocol was out-earning every crypto project except the stablecoin issuers behind USDC and USDT.
However, it is important to note that these “fees” are not the same as protocol income. DefiLlama shows Uniswap’s 24-hour revenue at just $73,454. The bulk of the $5.2 million flows to liquidity providers, not to the treasury or token holders directly.
How will the snapshot vote affect users?
Cryptopolitan previously reported that Uniswap Labs is running a “Snapshot” vote from July 7th to the 12th. The vote is regarding whether or not to extend its fee-and-burn mechanism to v4 pools.
This mechanism is part of the UNIfication program approved in December 2025 that requires anyone who wants to claim fees from the protocol to first burn an equivalent value of UNI tokens. The burned tokens are permanently removed from circulation.
Early Snapshot results indicate over 93% approval, with about 13.9 million UNI votes in favor. If passed, binding on-chain votes are expected the week of July 13.
The proposal would activate fees on three families of v4 pools across 11 different blockchain networks, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Polygon. This expansion would broaden the burn engine to its largest scope yet.
Uniswap holds a record of burning 186,000 UNI in a single day last month, surpassing the previous daily high of 134,000.
However, liquidity providers have warned that the v4 fee switch could drive them away. Protocol fees are taken from the amount that LPs earn, so fee-enabled pools will offer slightly lower returns than those with zero fees.
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Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (NYSE: TSM), Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930) and SK Hynix (KRX: 000660) now make up more than 30% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.
Their combined share is close to the Magnificent Seven’s weight in the S&P 500. Technology now covers about 45% of the emerging-market gauge. These three chipmakers are worth $4.4 trillion, giving a very small group enormous influence over emerging-market stock returns.
Some funds are spreading money beyond AI. JPMorgan Asset Management and Grantham Mayo Van Otterloo are studying gaming, energy and consumer companies, including a Vietnamese dairy producer. JPMorgan is also searching across India and China to rely less on one Taiwanese company and two South Korean giants.
Fund managers broaden their bets as Samsung and chip shares lose steam
Chip stocks have been falling because investors think cloud companies may have built more AI systems than the market needs right now. Some AI firms are also working on their own chips, which could reduce future orders for outside suppliers. Spending could keep climbing even if real demand does not grow at the same pace.
Samsung posted strong earnings last week, but its shares did not take off. Investors were more worried that companies are spending too much on AI before usage catches up. South Korea’s Kospi is now down 20% from its June high. Selling became so intense that circuit breakers stopped trading several times.
GMO still owns SK Hynix, but the stock is also one of the biggest positions the firm holds below the index level in its $1.9 billion Emerging Markets Equity Strategy. Portfolio manager Tom Chiang said the fund owns less SK Hynix than the benchmark does. The memory-chip company is now worth close to $1 trillion, and its share price has climbed about thirteen times since the start of 2025. Tom said that rise is much bigger than the company’s business results support.
SK Hynix depositary receipts began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday. They climbed 14% above the sale price after the company raised $26.5 billion, the largest US listing ever completed by a foreign company.
Retail cash is still entering emerging-market funds. The Avantis Emerging Markets Equity ETF (NYSE Arca: AVEM), which manages about $25.4 billion, recorded its biggest weekly inflow in four months. It is the largest actively managed ETF tracking emerging-market shares. In Hong Kong, Alibaba Group (HKEX: 9988; NYSE: BABA) gained more than 13%, while Tencent Holdings (HKEX: 0700) rose over 4%.
Chinese shares rise while Zhipu trades on a very small public float
Regional rankings have flipped. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index is the top performer this month, while the Kospi sits last. The Korean gauge had gained about 116% this year at its peak, but that increase has now narrowed to roughly 72%.
Hong Kong spent much of the year under pressure. Worries about China’s economy and weak e-commerce earnings pushed several indexes into bear markets. Lower prices left Chinese shares cheaper. The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index trades at about 8.9 times expected earnings, compared with 13 times for the MSCI Asia benchmark. Tencent earlier traded at a record-low multiple of 11.
Despite the fact that the Kospi continues to appear cheap from certain perspectives due to revised upward earnings forecasts for chip makers, investor caution was heightened following the 200%-plus runs made by Samsung and SK Hynix at their respective peak levels this year.
The problem with Zhipu lies in its own area. The Chinese artificial intelligence firm, officially called Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC Ltd., aims to generate $4 billion by offering its shares on the stock exchange, but this offering won’t add much to the available shares to trade.
Zhipu announced 19.8 million shares on Thursday, after almost 26 million locked shares had also became available last week, though only about 13.5% of issued stock will trade freely.
The shares rallied as much as 20% on Friday and closed 19% higherm cinching a 1,650% surge since January, the biggest gain in the entire Hang Seng Composite Index.
Now this rally depends on few available shares while global doubts grow over whether AI companies can turn their products into lasting profit.
Only about 4% of Zhipu’s shares could be traded before its six-month IPO lockup ended. More shares usually become available once that restriction expires, but major early investors said they would keep what they own.
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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) still has not said whether Americans trading World Cup contracts on prediction platforms should pay tax as gamblers or investors. The lack of such an answer means that two people who supported a specific match will end up paying vastly different amounts of tax on it.
A gambler is expected to report his winnings to a sportsbook. The user of the prediction markets can claim that he won money via a financial transaction.
The US federal tax laws are more favorable towards many types of investments as opposed to betting. The classification of an investment will allow the bettor to claim the total loss incurred and in a more assertive approach to tax, he can ask for a reduced tax rate on some portion of his gains. The classification of a gamble will limit the deductions.
Prediction platforms use financial contracts while tax law still looks at the actual bet
As you may be aware, companies offering such prediction markets have claimed that their services are not typical bets. Instead, the users are buying and selling pre-set contracts relating to an outcome in the future. The deal goes through the channels designed for financial trading. This way, the person placing the money does not just make a bet with the bookmaker until he gets the result.
The opponents, on the other hand, emphasize the customer’s actions. The money is spent on something that cannot be known ahead of time, and the client wants more if his bet is correct. This type of analysis has been done many times in courts and by the IRS; they do not necessarily accept the name of the activity but its essence.
White & Case has said gambling proceeds fall under IRC Section 61 as ordinary taxable income. The firm also noted that IRC Section 165(d) limits gambling-loss deductions to the amount of gambling winnings. A foreign person who places a U.S. wager can also create American-source income, with a 30% withholding charge applied under the relevant rules.
The rules become harsher for U.S. taxpayers from the 2026 tax year. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act allows people reporting gambling income to use only 90% of their losses against their winnings. That means someone who wins and loses the same total could still owe tax on part of the activity.
Regulators leave traders with three possible tax paths and no direct IRS answer
Kalshi rejects the casino label and says its products are futures contracts overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Its contracts settle at fixed values based on whether the listed event ultimately happens. BRC has said the final tax result may depend on the contract itself. A filing could fall under gambling rules, capital-gain rules, or IRC Section 1256.
Section 1256 uses yearly mark-to-market accounting. It treats 60% of a net gain as long-term and the remaining 40% as short-term, even when the position lasted only a brief period. That split can produce a lower bill than ordinary income treatment for some taxpayers.
Still, a CFTC connection does not guarantee access to Section 1256. Monaco CPA has said a contract must trade on a qualified board or exchange before that section can apply. Registration with the regulator, by itself, is not enough.
Such products have been called “binary options,” which constitute swaps by the CFTC, a phrase that might allow these products to fall within the exemption provided under Section 1256(b)(2)(B). Congress included this exemption to ensure that certain swap contracts did not qualify for the 60/40 rule.
The absence of any guidance on the prediction market issue is not similar to what has been issued regarding the tax instructions on other individuals who participated in the tournament. As of April 1, the IRS issued instructions on withholding agents on the 30 percent withholding requirement on compensation earned from U.S. sources by foreign athletes and foreign entities.
An agreement was later concluded between the agency and Canada Revenue Agency on June 10th. The two authorities agreed that the revenue earned by players and teams be split among host countries according to where the game is taking place. There has not been any comparable statement regarding prediction agreements for the World Cup matches.
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The liquidity pools behind quite a number of tokens in the Sui ecosystem were emptied on Saturday, July 11. The liquidity pools are tied to BlueMove, a decentralized exchange on the Sui blockchain, and onchain observers are now accusing the DEX of pulling the funds through a planted backdoor.
One of the voices that has been active in calling out BlueMove and Sui is Tyler Simpson, founder of Quantum Void Labs, who posts as @quantumvoidlabs.
Simpson wrote that BlueMove “pulled all of the TVL in every single pool” and put the loss at more than 700,000 SUI, adding that “charts are destroyed pools drained entirely.”
In the late hours of July 11, Simpson had called out BlueMove for draining their “locked” liquidity pools.
The Quantum Void Labs founder later wrote, “All tokens on BlueMove DEX — aka, any token launched on MovePump Launchpad. All pools were drained to $0.”
What are other observers saying about the BlueMove liquidity pool drain?
Defimon Alerts, another onchain monitoring account on X, referenced an onchain message that mentioned a drained BlueMove pool of about 400,000 dollars. The message read like a negotiation aimed at whoever took the funds.
The sender wrote, “You drained the BlueMove DEX pool (~$400k). Keep 30% as a white hat bounty and return 70% within 48h to our Sui address: 0x85bf745a737a34bf73f360c22d5c8aea1f1767f3c458f5269a7c2f821b9d3781.”
The sender stated that they will consider treating the matter as resolved if the funds are returned, but they would pursue all available legal and recovery actions if the account fails to return the funds.
The tokens hit were those that launched and bonded through the MovePump curve, a bonding-curve launchpad used by smaller and older meme projects on Sui.
An X user with the account @saksidasaksi stated that BlueMove was removing the liquidity pools on its app and that the Beeg Blue Whale project held its primary liquidity in the MovePump contract, and it has seen its liquidity drop significantly.
In a follow-up, the same account stated BlueMove “stopped development a long time ago” and was now stripping out pools that projects had treated as locked.
Did BlueMove know about the backdoor that drained LPs?
Simpson wrote on X, “BlueMove team shipped the backdoor themselves.” He added that “they upgraded the package on May 31 (by the upgrade cap holder)” and also shared the transaction block address.
According to Simpson’s account, a version he labeled v12 added a function for returning added liquidity along with a double-mint mechanism that inflated LP tokens, and the package was made immutable immediately afterward.
Defimon Alerts also noted that a backdoor had been reported. However, the figures cited here come from the observers and range from about 400,000 to 550,000 dollars, alongside the separate 700,000 SUI estimate.
BlueMove has form for winding down without much runway. In August 2023, the project announced it would cease operations on Sei Network within 72 hours, citing trading volume below expectations and asking users to delist their NFTs first.
The BlueMove incident also adds fuel to the ongoing complaint about Sui itself. Two days before the drain, Simpson wrote that Mysten Labs and the Sui Foundation had “pushed away” most of the projects built on the chain, sparing only a handful such as WAL and DEEP.
He said in his Saturday thread that he had warned the network about BlueMove “three times.”
As of publication, BlueMove had not posted a public response to the accusations.
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A São Paulo court has ordered Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) to return roughly $100,000 to a customer whose crypto disappeared from a Coinbase Wallet.
The court rejected the exchange’s argument that self-custody shields it from liability when user funds are stolen.
Court throws out Coinbase defense
Brazilian courts may begin holding wallet software makers responsible for user security after the São Paulo State Court (TJSP) told Coinbase to repay about 507,000 reais ($100,000) to an investor called Joubert.
Joubert moved his crypto from other exchanges into Coinbase’s app, and the funds later vanished with no prior authorization from him.
Coinbase’s defense was that it didn’t have the private keys to the wallet and that it had no power over transactions recorded on the blockchain.
Magistrate Ju Hyeon Lee applied Brazil’s Consumer Protection Code, under which Coinbase had to prove that Joubert had actually authorized the transfer; it could not.
The company also couldn’t prove that the drained wallet had basic security measures like blocking tools and two-factor authentication.
The judge further criticized the company for submitting complicated technical records without translating them into terms the court could understand.
Coinbase was ordered to repay the full sum along with legal. It also has to pay court costs equal to 10% of the claim.
Could Coinbase’s case set a precedent?
Raphael Souza, a lawyer who focuses on digital law, said the court’s ruling destroys two arguments crypto platforms often use in court.
The first argument is that self-custody products carry no liability for the maker.
“Anyone who develops and puts a product on the market is responsible for its security, regardless of how the technical architecture works behind it,” Souza said.
The second argument is that companies can bury judges in technical documents submitted as case files and expect them to figure it out alone.
Brazil’s legal system has been moving toward stronger consumer protection. The country’s Superior Court of Justice already has cases holding crypto platforms responsible for fraud if they cannot prove proper security.
Brazil’s central bank also reclassified virtual asset service providers as Type 3 institutions under Resolution 580/2026, placing them under the same rules as securities brokerages starting January 1, 2027, Cryptopolitan reported. The country processed about $318 billion in crypto transactions from mid-2024 to mid-2025.
What other security problems has Coinbase faced?
Apart from the Joubert case, the exchange has been having security-related problems involving fraud. Cryptopolitan reported in December 2025 that on-chain investigator ZachXBT traced roughly $2 million in thefts to a single scammer posing as Coinbase support.
Separately, Brooklyn prosecutors charged a 23-year-old man with stealing $16 million from about 100 Coinbase users through impersonation calls.
Many of those scams were a result of a May 2025 breach in which bribed overseas support agents leaked customer data. Coinbase disclosed that attackers demanded a $20 million ransom and threatened to publish records on nearly 70,000 customers.
The company’s CEO Brian Armstrong said the company put that same $20 million toward a bounty instead.
Now, Coinbase could either appeal the court’s decision or pay the assigned fees.
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LAB fell about 56% after a wallet first funded by the LAB team sold 18.4 million tokens worth roughly $18.3 million through Aster. On-chain investigator ZachXBT said the sales happened over 48 hours and dragged LAB from about $1.20 to $0.55.
The crash occurred just before token drops were supposed to begin, and although the team blamed “large market participants,” Zach connected the selling wallet to an older group of tokens that had been distributed by the project.
The wallet holds 81.5 million LAB. Zach traced its activity back to April 2026 and connected it with his May report on private lending, discounted sales, supply control, changed lockups, and unusual market-maker activity.
ZachXBT traces 196 million LAB through Bitget and Aster
Zach said the entity received more than 196 million LAB from the project in April. On April 8, it sent 100 million LAB into two Bitget accounts. The deposit addresses were 0xe39f91a0daffc5547ada79a09be30b8556f7dfba and 0x77156a0a621d2ac7a075c0ac3172707c2e4aa191.
A second batch followed from April 23 through April 25. The entity placed another 96 million LAB into two different Bitget addresses: 0x6593aa6c31c88397c37f71259625ec92fe4ee0bf and 0xdd77bfbdc11cd37fd255ae35a4ac39df1f9d570a.
Some 100 million LAB were moved out of Bitget between May 11 and May 12 into ten wallets. According to Zach, the trading history from that period does not show any external party building such a big stake. He thus concluded that both transactions belong to one party.
From July 10 through July 11, the holder began sending LAB to three Aster accounts: 0xaad30cab22f772c1658b7845b5837d35bf3a467a, 0x76ccfde9819500204985580d235dd8326fa0b241, and 0x628dd74f428a81cd34ece11331a7f1593f76047a. Zach said spot sales on the decentralized exchange pushed the price down another 54%.
His Telegram warning said the wallet was “initially funded by the LAB team” before it placed the 18.4 million tokens on Aster.
“It is disappointing no action was taken by Bitget, Binance, or Gate for allowing blatant market manipulation on tokens against users,” said Zach.
Earlier findings cover hidden supply, loans, and discounted LAB sales
Zach’s May report said LAB reached a $6 billion fully diluted value while data still gave no firm answer on the circulating supply. CoinGecko, RootData, and CoinMarketCap showed different figures, and the project’s papers did not explain how tokens were divided. His wallet review placed more than 95% of LAB under insider control.
Vova Sadkov and Mark created LAB as a trading platform and held its token launch in October 2025. Their earlier project, Eesee, used the token symbol ESE. Some investors said the founders left that project behind when they started working on LAB.
The listed backers were Lemniscap, OKX, Animoca Brands, GSR, Gate, KuCoin, Mirana, and Amber Group. Several also ran trading venues where LAB was available.
The report said the team changed Legion sale terms without a vote. Buyers had a three-month waiting period, but an email shared by one participant showed that period had become nine months. Content creators also said they had waited for months for campaign payments and received no clear answer.
One private contract offered 7.5% interest each month for six months. The borrower was The Lab Management Ltd., a British Virgin Islands company, and Vladimir Sadkov signed as director. If the firm failed to repay, the agreement allowed payment in LAB at the market price.
The borrower wallet, shortened as 0xf09c, was also used for public LAB buybacks. Zach linked it to 0x3185, an address tied to a Wildcat loan. He said LAB funds reached exchange accounts allegedly belonging to Vova. Those accounts had also received Eesee-related deposits before LAB existed and were tied to his ENS name and NFT collection.
Private offers had circulated since January 2026. Mark looked for OTC buyers in a public Telegram chat. Other buyers received WhatsApp terms that included loans at 5% a month, LAB at a 60% discount with a five-month lock, a 25% monthly reset discount, and another block sold 20% below market.
A KOL Capital offer cut the price by 80%. Half the tokens were due on August 14 and the rest on September 15. Buyers had to post support several times before receiving the tokens or face a blacklist. Zach said these deals created token releases that ordinary buyers could not see, while deeper discounts appeared as LAB climbed.
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During an interview with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said the company discussed closing after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued it in 2020.
Brad said Ripple could have divided its XRP supply among shareholders, declared that it held no tokens, and ended the dispute, but they decided not to because hundreds of employees could have lost their jobs.
Ripple instead spent four years in court and about $150 million on lawyers. Its U.S. business stalled for about five years. The SEC also targeted Brad over XRP he sold. Regulators offered to drop his case for a fine while continuing against Ripple. He refused.
Ripple CEO discusses XRP, SEC lawsuit
Brad said an XRP transaction usually settles in about four seconds and costs a fraction of one cent. Ripple sells software to banks and financial institutions, not individual users.
He compared XRP with Bitcoin. One Bitcoin transaction can cost around $10 and take about 10 minutes. XRP serves another purpose. It handles payments faster, charges less, and supports more activity. Ripple uses the open-source XRP Ledger in its products.

Asked why the SEC (specifically under Gary Gensler and Joe Biden) was angry, Brad joked, “They’re jerks.” He said the issue was applying old financial laws to new technology.
Brad entered the internet industry in 1994. He pointed to rules passed in 1996, with help from Al Gore, that gave internet companies and investors clearer legal boundaries. According to Brad, the crypto companies had been asking for similar laws since most members of the industry were ready to comply but required clear limits.
The SEC insisted that XRP was a security and not a currency or commodity. Brad noted that a security tends to give its holder rights within the business entity. XRP buyers received no Ripple shares, votes, board powers, or dividends.
Brad’s biggest SEC claim
Ripple remains private. It raised venture capital in 2012, 2015, and 2016 by selling actual equity. Brad compared that equity with owning Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock.
Ripple owns substantial XRP, but Brad said it cannot command the network because the code is open source. He placed XRP closer to Bitcoin than corporate equity.
The SEC said Ripple sold unregistered securities. Brad said the matter was civil, not criminal, though the possible penalty was enormous.
In his visits to the SEC office in 2017, 2018, and 2019, Brad did not have legal representation. A Harvard Business School alumnus, Brad never treated XRP as a security but only explained the Ripple system to the SEC office personnel.
“Not once did someone say to me, Brad, we think XRP might be a security,” he said.
When the agency later sued both him and Ripple, Brad questioned whether its theory meant every XRP holder who sold tokens had also broken securities law. He said the personal charge was meant to pressure him.
Brad called the SEC’s conduct “distasteful” and “maybe unethical.” Ripple repeatedly asked for clear guidance, yet regulators gave none before suing.
Ripple won after four years, but the former SEC chair planned an appeal. Brad said Trump later appointed a new chair who adopted a different approach and engaged crypto companies directly during the final years of the fight.
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Elon Musk woke up very happy three days ago when Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) sued OpenAI over claims that the AI giant took private hardware knowledge for new consumer devices.
Since then, Elon has been publicly displaying his support for Apple in the case, on X, as one does. As Cryptopolitan reported previously, Apple says more than 400 former employees later joined OpenAI, naming former design executive Tang Tan as a key figure.
Apple said Tang had asked employees seeking positions at OpenAI to bring genuine components, prototypes, and hardware to meetings where they can be demonstrated to others. Apple maintains that the components involved include circuits and designs for various pieces of hardware related to artificial intelligence products which are not yet available to consumers.
Elon uses Apple’s lawsuit to attack Sam over OpenAI’s past
Elon jumped on the allegations and said Sam had taken scamming to a “whole new level.” He later changed Sam’s name to “Scam Altman” and wrote, “He’s taken fraud to a whole new level.”
Elon also brought back a photo from Sam’s May 2023 Senate hearing. Sam told lawmakers, “I do it because I love this work,” while explaining that he led OpenAI without salary or equity. Elon twisted that line into another insult. He wrote, “When he says ‘this work,’ he means fraud. He probably enjoys scamming more than anyone else in the world.”
Sam answered by calling Elon “homeboy” and going after SpaceX’s planned data centers in orbit. He wrote, “You’re the one selling ‘pop-up shops’ like space data centers to public market investors.”
The reply targeted Elon’s plan to place solar-powered AI computing systems in space. One way around the problem of electricity usage and heat generation is through SpaceX’s proposal. Besides, this would help SpaceX boost its valuation if the company manages to prove orbital computing as scalable technology. Sam has his reservations about whether this business can ever make it into anything real.
Elon replied, “We start flying them next year. Maybe you can come see them if your parole officer approves.”
He then added, “After stealing an open source AI charity, you then stole all of Apple’s phone technology! Wow. What do you plan for an encore? That’s tough to beat.”
The fight goes back to OpenAI’s early years. Elon was the main financial supporter when the group still operated as a nonprofit. By 2018, he had become unhappy with how slowly the work was going and tried to take control. Sam and the board rejected him. Elon then left the organization, and the relationship never recovered.
Sam questions Elon’s space plan as OpenAI and xAI release new models
OpenAI had released GPT-5.6 for ChatGPT around the same period that Elon’s xAI launched Grok 4.5. The two companies were already competing over model quality, users, talent, and computing power before Apple’s lawsuit added hardware theft claims to the mix.
Sam promoted OpenAI’s new system and used Elon’s attention as part of his pitch. He wrote, “There is plenty of evidence suggesting this new model is the best AI model out there, but the clearest sign is that Elon Musk is once again obsessed with me.”
Another X user then pulled Apple into the personal fight. The account iliketeslas posted, “Sam Altman wasn’t afraid of Elon but he is terrified of Apple. You can tell by all his posting today.”
Sam denied that claim. He replied, “i am not afraid of Apple, but i have tremendous respect for them. s-tier company.”
Nikita Bier, X’s head of products, answered with a joke aimed at the lawsuit. He wrote, “Incredible trade secrets as well, some of the best.”
Elon responded by laughing at Nikita’s post.
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Kevin Warsh will face Congress for the first time as Federal Reserve chair while lawmakers press him on rates, prices, and central bank independence. His first month in the job has been quiet. Kevin has said little about the economy.
The House Financial Services Committee will question Kevin at 10 a.m. in Washington on Tuesday, after the Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes June consumer inflation figures. On Wednesday, he will appear before a Senate panel after the agency releases producer price data during both scheduled appearances this week.
Lawmakers press Kevin for answers as rate expectations climb
The Atlanta Fed Market Probability Tracker puts the chance of a rate increase by September at 70%. Treasury yields have risen since January, while traders have priced in higher borrowing costs.
Kevin has refused to give the usual clues. Earlier this month, he said, “I said I’m not going to give forward guidance because we’re meeting in six weeks, but I have an update for you, we’re meeting in four weeks.”
He said debate inside the Fed would stay behind closed doors. “I want us to have a good family fight … When we get into that room and shut the door, we’re going to have a good debate, but I don’t have much more for you than that.”
Friday’s Fed report said inflation is still too high. Higher energy costs linked to the Middle East conflict remain part of the problem. Tariffs have raised prices for household goods. Strong demand for chips and other parts used in data centers has added more pressure.
Service prices have gone up too, though officials said they do not expect that rise to last.
One Fed policy formula points to a federal funds rate above the current 3.5% to 3.75% range because inflation has climbed. Officials warned against reading it literally.
“However, the prescriptions shown here ignore that the economy would have evolved differently if the policy rate had followed one of the paths prescribed by the rules, and, hence, these prescriptions should be interpreted with care,” the report said.
Congress questions Kevin on inflation, AI, and Fed independence
The June Consumer Price Index is expected to show annual inflation at 3.8%, down from 4.2% in May. Lower oil prices are expected to help. Those prices fell after Trump reached an agreement with Iran, though that deal now appears to have lost much of its value.
Core inflation, which removes food and energy, is expected at 2.8%, compared with 2.9% a month earlier. Kevin will almost certainly be asked what those figures mean for rates. His recent style suggests he may keep the answer narrow.
Minutes from the Fed’s June meeting showed two possible paths for the rest of the year. If inflation cools, officials could keep rates where they are or cut them. If price pressure stays stubborn, they could raise rates again.
Kevin can be more relaxed talking about the five task forces that he set up. One will evaluate the communication strategy of the Federal Reserve with the public. The other one will look into the balance sheet policy. The other three will evaluate data quality, inflation forecasting, and the impact of artificial intelligence on employment and productivity.
Lawmakers are expected to test Kevin on whether the White House can influence the central bank. Trump has pushed for lower rates, while the Fed is trying to control inflation.
Kevin addressed that issue last week. “We’ve been an independent central bank for a very long time. We’re going to be an independent central bank at this moment, and you’re going to see no changes on that.”
AI will be another topic. Congress may ask whether spending on chips, power, and data centers could add to inflation. Kevin did not give a firm answer last week. He said AI is already showing up in demand and added that he is “confident we’re going to see it in supply at some point.”
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Polymarket has added a sports feature that lets traders place several predictions inside one combined position. The product is called combo trading, and it became available around June 10.
Each selection inside the package has to finish in the trader’s favor. One wrong result wipes out the whole ticket. That setup gives users a chance at a bigger return than entering every market separately.
The first version only covers sports. Traders can build combos from moneyline, spread, and total markets. Polymarket announced the release on X with the line, “combos are now live.” The company has not given a date for political contests, breaking news contracts, or other event markets to join the product. Those categories remain outside the system.
Polymarket routes combo orders through live quotes instead of its regular order book
The combo orders take advantage of an arrangement that is available in the standard marketplaces of the platform, so Polymarket does not place these orders on its regular open order book. Instead, it makes use of a request-for-quote, which is referred to as an RFQ process.
After submission, market makers get 400 milliseconds to quote. The trader then has five seconds to take the best price. A market maker can also activate Last Look. When that option is on, the liquidity provider gets a final one-second window to accept or reject the fill.
Price providers answer in less than half a second. Users then receive a five-second decision period. Last Look, when available, adds one second before the order becomes final.
RFQ trading is often used in traditional finance when an instrument is harder to price or does not trade well through passive matching. Polymarket is handling combos in a similar way by assigning liquidity providers to price the whole group of outcomes at once.
The company has also opened a public combo-markets API endpoint. Developers do not need the normal authentication tied to Polymarket’s central limit order book to access it. Outside analytics services, trading dashboards, and other software can pull combo information without using the standard order-book login process.
Traders may group the events they think are connected. People with one perspective on wider sports can put their thoughts into practice via one trade as opposed to putting many trades and monitoring them individually. The structure may also be interesting for people who understand sportsbook parlays but have never tried prediction markets.
Polymarket limits the sports rollout while pricing and settlement questions remain open
Some important information regarding the first release is yet to be known by the traders. For example, Polymarket users will have to make sure which sports contracts can be added in a combo. The company still has to clarify some issues regarding how fees would be applied through multiple legs, and the settlement procedure when one outcome settles before others.
There is also a possibility that the liquidity for the packages would be less than in previous single-outcome markets. As the number of market makers will be lesser, there could be less liquidity for the package, resulting in wide bid-offers and poor execution.
Adding politics and other events would widen the product. Polymarket has not said when that could happen. The sports-only setup gives the company room to test pricing, settlement, liquidity, and demand before opening combos across the rest of the site.
This move comes amidst a second controversy that arose almost a month back. Polymarket had been checking whether Kalshi, another platform, was copying their business model after creating a document named ‘Copycat’.
The document was said to contain around 12 items. Polymarket believed Kalshi had released products that looked close to its own offers, sometimes soon after Polymarket introduced them. The platform has hosted contracts tied to sports, weather, and the war involving Iran, giving both companies topics to compete over.
Matthew Modabber, Polymarket’s head of marketing, confirmed the review during a phone interview with The Post. “There have been a couple too many coincidences,” Matthew said.
Shayne also accused the rival of acting on purpose. “There is bad intention in how they copy us. They’re breathing down our neck,” he said. A published image showed Shayne applauding beside the Polymarket logo at the New York Stock Exchange.
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Nigeria now leads this year’s global stock table after its main equity index delivered a 67% return in dollar terms. That puts it just ahead of South Korea’s Kospi, which gained 66%. Bloomberg compared 92 exchanges, making Nigeria the strongest performer.
South Korea had led as investors chased artificial intelligence shares. That trade later cooled and pushed the market into bear territory. Nigeria took first place as local stocks kept rallying, the naira gained 4% from January, crude prices stayed firm, and foreign currency became easier to access.
Economic reforms and better dollar access keep Nigerian shares rising
As we hinted, the rally has several drivers. The government carried out broad economic reforms. Oil income improved as crude prices rose. Banks and investors also found more foreign exchange, which matters because global funds need to convert naira and send proceeds abroad without long delays.
Currency strength added to the return. A local stock gain can vanish for a foreign buyer when the home currency drops. That has not happened this year. The naira’s 4% increase lifted the dollar value of profits already made on Nigerian shares.
However, a proposed upgrade of the index has further made it worth watching for investors. This is because, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices, which is a subsidiary of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI), Nigeria is set to be upgraded back to being a frontier market. At the moment, Nigeria belongs to the standalone classification.
Source: Bloomberg Terminal
Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission has started work meant to keep the review on course. The regulator plans to form a committee that will monitor each condition S&P DJI wants before reaching its final decision.
The committee will publish certified reports every quarter. Those files will cover trade settlement, how long foreign investors wait to repatriate money, market liquidity, and other figures requested during the review.
SEC Director-General Emomotimi Agama said the review “represents the country’s most significant opportunity in a decade to regain global investor confidence and attract increased foreign portfolio investment.”
“The reform programme is complete; the evidence programme now begins,” Emomotimi said.
IMF forecasts put Nigeria ahead while global growth loses speed
The stock surge is happening beside a better forecast for the wider economy. The International Monetary Fund expects Nigeria to grow by 4.1% in 2026 and 4.3% in 2027.
Those figures appeared in the IMF’s July 2026 World Economic Outlook Update, released on Wednesday and titled Global Economy in Crosscurrents of War and Technology.
The same report expects worldwide growth to ease from 3.5% in 2025 to 3.0% in 2026. It then sees growth reaching 3.4% in 2027.
The IMF linked Nigeria’s outlook to steadier economic conditions, better trade terms, and recent policy changes. It also warned that rising prices for food and other basic goods are still hurting households.
“Nigeria is supported by improved macroeconomic stability and favourable terms-of-trade effects, though higher prices for essentials are expected to further aggravate poverty and food insecurity,” the IMF said.
The global outlook remains difficult. The IMF pointed to conflict in the Middle East, inflation pressure, and unequal gains from new technology. Artificial intelligence is creating business growth, but the benefits are not reaching every economy at the same rate.
The United States shows a similar split between markets and everyday economic conditions. Economists said growth has been weaker than the stock rally. Many consumers and investors expect both to rise and fall together, but that has not happened.
The S&P 500 rose almost 10% in the first half of 2026. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained nearly 9%, its strongest first half since 2021.
That followed three large yearly gains for the S&P 500. It rose 24% in 2023, 23% in 2024, and 16% in 2025. That was its second-best three-year run since 2000.
Meanwhile, according to the Surveys of Consumers from the University of Michigan, consumer confidence had fallen to an all-time low in May due to fears about inflation. There was some improvement in June, yet the survey described sentiment as unfavorable.
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The Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI), a nonprofit research group, has officially stepped in to fight a lawsuit that seeks to claim ownership of about 3.7 million Bitcoin.
The case, filed in New York County Supreme Court, argues that Bitcoin left untouched for years should be treated as “abandoned property” under state law. The plaintiffs, led by a person called Noah Doe, are using New York’s lost-and-found law, Article 7-B of the Personal Property Law, to get a judge to declare them the owners of roughly 39,000 wallets that haven’t moved funds in years.
BPI joins fight for Bitcoin founder’s coins
The Bitcoin Policy Institute (BPI) announced through a post on X that it filed to intervene as a defendant in a case concerning 3.7 million bitcoin.
This includes about 1.10 million BTC from Satoshi-era addresses and nearly 80,000 BTC tied to the 2011 Mt. Gox hack.
The plaintiffs argue that they “found” dormant wallet addresses, reported them to the NYPD, sent on-chain messages using Bitcoin’s OP_RETURN field to try to contact owners, waited 90 days, and then asked a court to declare the wallets abandoned.
The Bitcoin Policy Institute, represented by the law firm White & Case, has submitted a proposed answer, 15 affirmative defenses, and plans to file a motion to dismiss.
The case has since been paused by Judge Kathy J. King until a hearing on July 14. Two amicus briefs have already been filed against the plaintiffs’ claims, one from attorney Ian Cohen and another from the Digital Chamber, a blockchain trade group.
Galaxy Research valued the targeted coins at nearly $274 billion in late May. However, the plaintiffs may never get to receive that money as analysts have flagged their claim as unenforceable.
Cryptopolitan reported back in May that Bitcoin has no mechanism to reassign funds without a wallet’s private key. The plaintiffs have admitted that they don’t have these keys.
Galaxy Research Director Alex Thorn noted that the plaintiffs had already dropped 44 addresses from the case after those wallets moved coins following the lawsuit’s filing. This alone disproves the claim that these wallets are truly abandoned.
Who else is gunning for the coins?
Before the Bitcoin Policy Institute intervened to kill the case, a pseudonymous defendant calling himself John Doe 33 filed a verified answer and affirmative defenses on July 8, appearing pro se and saying his portfolio topped $80 billion when the case was filed.
John Doe 33 argues that public Bitcoin addresses are not legal persons and cannot be sued. The plaintiffs simply copied public address data onto a USB drive, and that does not amount to finding or possessing anyone’s coins. He went on to point out that OP_RETURN messages are a poor method of notice because many wallets never display them, and cold-storage users have no reason to check. He also alleges that an identified owner had already contacted plaintiffs’ counsel by phone, disproving the claim that owners were unknown and unreachable.
Two amicus briefs also preceded the institute’s move. Attorney Ian Cohen filed the first on May 29, arguing the dormant coins cannot be treated as lost or abandoned property under New York law, as that only applies to physical objects like jewelry or cash.
The blockchain trade group Digital Chamber filed the second on July 7 with help from consulting firm CahillNXT and Brown Rudnick attorney Stephen Palley.
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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin argues that a lot of the public argument over advanced AI comes from both sides holding assumptions they never actually share.
Buterin’s kill switch proposal for all AI applications has been met with criticism as the tech community engages in yet another debate regarding how fast AI will progress and what that means for the workforce.
What is driving the AI debate?
In a post on X, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the clash between supporters of the “AI 2040” scenario and its critics comes down to how fast and how significant AI progress will be.
The AI 2040 framing assumes superintelligence of some kind will appear by 2040 unless strong measures stop it. Meanwhile, the critics believe that AI 2040 supporters are underestimating the capacity of human coordination and threatening freedom, but they do not see superintelligence itself as a power concentration risk.
Buterin admitted he does not know which scenario is closer to reality. “If I was confident that (present-day-style) AI is normal technology, I would be in the detractor camp. If I was confident that superintelligence is coming in 2030 by default, I would be closer to the AI 2040 camp,” he wrote.
But the cofounder remains open to slowing or pausing AI development if risks become significant.
The debate pulled in AI researcher Yann LeCun, author Daniel Jeffries, and policy analyst Adam Thierer.
Yann LeCun, Meta’s (NASDAQ: META) chief AI scientist, argues that AI safety is fundamentally an engineering problem that can be solved through careful iterative design, much like jet engines were made reliable.
LeCun pointed out that “it took 50 years” to make aircraft truly safe, and that the fear of AI is premature when we are yet to create a system capable of human-level intelligence. He has consistently argued that large language models are limited “autocomplete machines” that lack reasoning and causal understanding.
Harry Hawk, posting as @hhawk, said he aligns with Yann LeCun and believes future AI systems would be engineered for safety like aircraft are. He also said he does not believe AI and robots will do everything, leaving no work or jobs.
Buterin replied that that perspective denied the existence of an “AI so powerful that AI alone can perform any task,” which he calls ASI.
How can powerful AI systems be controlled?
Buterin suggested a “plan A,” which proposes a wide-reaching rule that forces everyone to be open about what they are building, plus an emergency off-switch that can slow down or stop large AI training if things get dangerous.
He added that “naive well-meaning intellectuals” who think they can pick and choose which AI uses are okay and which are not will push back against this plan.
Romeo Dean, who prompted part of Buterin’s thread, called the approach “pretty reasonable” but said its triggers would arrive too late under his worldview. He added that he does not grasp the “massive downsides” critics attach to plan A.
Buterin admitted there is no perfect solution. “I see zero plans for how to deal with an ASI transition that are not naive,” he wrote. “Perhaps humanity is stuck with a choice between naive and naive squared.”
The AI 2040: Plan A report came from former OpenAI employee Daniel Kokotajlo’s AI Futures Project.
The report says the US and China should work together to push back superintelligence until 2040. Both countries would have to share all their research openly. It also includes a system based on nuclear war logic, where both sides can destroy each other’s computing power if needed. They call this “mutually assured compute destruction.”
Richard Ngo, an AI researcher, said the report is too worried about AI arriving soon. He also said it does not think enough about how much political trouble AI could cause inside each country.
Are open source models the solution?
Running underneath the whole debate is the status of open source models. LeCun wrote on July 9 that AI’s biggest risk is the “concentration of power” in a few dominant companies. He also wrote that “the only solution to AI sovereignty is open source foundation models.” His post drew more than 2,900 likes and over 430 reposts.
Author Daniel Jeffries, writing the same day, said open source models underpin American technology and warned against “short-sighted safetyists and hawks” seeking to restrict it.
Policy analyst Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the R Street Institute and author of a prominent House AI Task Force report submission, has warned that US AI governance is at a “critical crossroads.”
He pointed out that Congress currently employs a messy, random, and secretive process for reviewing AI. He warned that if this informal system grows and progress is blocked behind special approvals, it will destroy open source AI.
Instead of heavy rules, Thierer proposes a “permissionless innovation” approach, where people will be allowed to build and release AI freely. He suggests that existing laws should be used to punish harm when necessary, and also supports things like testing zones for new AI, requiring some models to stay open, and putting more money into AI research.
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An attacker has drained more than $5 million from the Hedera network in an exploit that occurred on July 11, with the stolen funds already routed onto Ethereum.
Onchain investigator Specter initially flagged on X what he stated to be an active hack of Hedera.
Specter put the early tally above $3.7 million and, within hours, reported that the figure had crossed $4 million and then finally wrote, “Total loss now 5M+.”
The attacker, according to Specter, had bridged the proceeds to Ethereum using LayerZero and was converting Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) into Ether (ETH).
Blockchain security firm PeckShieldAlert then corroborated Specter’s account and added more detail, stating that $5.25 million had already been moved from Hedera Mainnet to Ethereum.
The attacker’s starting funds were traced to 1 ETH withdrawn from Tornado Cash, and the wallet now holds around 2,360 ETH, which PeckShieldAlert put at $4.25 million, and 15.58 WBTC, which is valued at around $1 million.
A third account, from onchain observer @0xNox, also reported that over $4 million had been bridged to Ethereum through LayerZero, with the funds cycling through WBTC-to-ETH swaps.
Is tracing hacked funds easy on the Hedera blockchain?
Hedera does not use a conventional blockchain. Instead, it runs on a hashgraph consensus system built by the network’s founders, Dr. Leemon Baird and Mance Harmon, and its native token HBAR pays for transactions and secures the network through staking.
That architecture has drawn criticism over how difficult it is to audit. Responding to Specter’s thread, investigator ZachXBT wrote that “Hedera is basically a privacy chain because it’s block explorer is so bad,” a jab at how difficult the network is to trace during an incident like this one.
Could this exploit impact Hedera beyond the stolen funds?
Hedera is governed by a council of large enterprises, and it has spent 2026 recruiting brand-name members. McLaren Racing joined the Hedera Council in March, and Accenture joined in April, with both organizations citing the network’s governance model and enterprise focus as part of their reasons for joining.
On its X account bio, it has written, “The world’s leading Fortune 1,000 organizations choose Hedera as the trust layer of the digital economy.”
With such clientele and positioning, a theft that was discovered on-chain while it was happening still hit the platform, posing questions to its security narrative.
Hedera has not made any statement regarding the exploit, but users and industry observers will be looking forward to it and the overall post-mortem.
HBAR currently trades around $0.068 as of the time of reporting, a decline of about 4% in the past 24 hours. It has a market capitalization of around $2.98 billion, having declined by over 3.9% in 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap.
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Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday in a federal court in Northern California, accusing the artificial intelligence company of stealing its trade secrets to build its own line of consumer devices. The filing lands just days before OpenAI is set to show off a new piece of hardware of its own on July 15.
In its court filing, Apple did not hold back. “This much is clear, however: at every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information,” the company wrote.
The lawsuit marks a sharp turn for two companies that were close partners not long ago. Back in 2024, Apple built ChatGPT directly into the iPhone’s software, a deal announced with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman making a trip to Apple’s campus for the occasion. That goodwill began to fade last year once OpenAI made clear it wanted to build its own hardware, a move it backed by buying IO Products, the startup founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive, for $6.4 billion.
Apple has since moved away from OpenAI too. The redesigned Siri launching this fall will run on Google’s Gemini models rather than OpenAI’s technology.
Much of what Apple is alleging centers on former staff who left to interview with or join OpenAI. The company claims OpenAI’s hardware chief, Tang Tan, a former Apple vice president, pushed Apple employees who were interviewing at OpenAI to hand over company secrets during the process.
Tan is named as a defendant in the case. According to the filing, he told job candidates who were still working at Apple to bring “actual parts” from the company to their interviews for “show and tell” sessions, which Apple says gave him and his team a way to pull out even more confidential details.
Apple names ex-staffer as defendant
Apple also claims OpenAI walked departing staff through ways to get around Apple’s security checks on their way out the door.
One former employee, Chang Liu, who later joined OpenAI, is accused of taking an Apple laptop with him. Liu is also named as a defendant. Separately, Apple says it believes OpenAI has been asking outside manufacturing partners to use a metal finishing process that Apple developed, all while letting those partners think Apple had approved it.
OpenAI has not said exactly what its hardware plans look like, though Altman mentioned back in November that early prototypes were already finished.
The timing is rough for OpenAI
OpenAI is dealing with the suit while also preparing for what is expected to be a massive public stock offering.
The case also comes about two months after OpenAI came out on top in a legal fight with Elon Musk. As reported by Cryptopolitan previously, a federal jury decided Musk waited too long to sue the company over claims that Altman, co-founder Greg Brockman and OpenAI broke early promises to run the lab as a nonprofit. Musk has said he plans to appeal that ruling.
Meanwhile, OpenAI’s next hardware reveal has nothing to do with Ive’s project. A short teaser posted on X shows a small, square gadget covered in buttons, built for Codex, OpenAI’s coding tool, with the caption, “Your favorite Codex shortcuts are getting an upgrade.”
OpenAI built the device with Work Louder, a company that makes programmable keyboards and macro pads for developers and designers. The shape in the teaser looks a lot like Work Louder’s existing Creator Micro 2 pad, which lets users assign shortcuts and commands to physical keys. Full details on pricing and features are expected around the July 15 launch.
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OpenAI has once again reset the usage limits for its Codex coding agent and the newly launched ChatGPT Work, which reflects the growing strain that AI agents have been creating on the computing infrastructure.
On July 11, Codex engineering lead Thibault Sottiaux took to X and announced that usage limits for both products would be restored completely to all users within about 30 minutes. He thanked the community for “pushing our systems to the absolute limit,” adding that OpenAI had “never seen traffic increase so quickly.”
Repetitive resets indicate a larger challenge that goes beyond momentary service issues. While OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft deliver advanced workplace agents, they are also facing the high processing demand posed by such systems. These agents are much costlier to operate because they also conduct lengthier and more complex tasks compared to conventional chatbots.
On Friday, another reset was recorded just a day prior. On July 10, Sottiaux stated that OpenAI had already increased the limits of usage of Codex and ChatGPT Work while assuring of another reset related to the company’s rollout updates.
Hello beautiful people! We have reset usage limits across Codex and ChatGPT Work. And another one will come later in the day. Rejoice.
Now that I have your attention, a quick update on ChatGPT Work, Codex and all the updates we shared yesterday.
We’ve spent the last 24 hours…
— Tibo (@thsottiaux) July 10, 2026
The timing is worth mentioning since ChatGPT Work has only been recently launched. According to Fox Business, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Work on July 9, a GPT-5.6-based enterprise-focused agent that works in conjunction with workplace apps to generate reports, spreadsheets, presentations, and other business materials. The release of such a compute-intensive product at a time when the existing infrastructure is already under stress can help explain why users are facing repeated quota resets.
Inside the Codex bug
The new series of resets comes in the wake of troubles that came to light in the last week of June, when many paying users of Codex noticed that their credits were disappearing much faster than anticipated.
As Cryptopolitan reported, OpenAI attributed the problem to a malfunction in its fraud-prevention system that erroneously applied rate limits to certain accounts while using up developer credits. Some users claimed that the rate of credit consumption climbed by a factor of 10 to 20 times, while those on the $200-per-month Pro plan claimed that they watched about $40 in credits vanish in a few hours.
Sottiaux went on to explain that his team worked through the weekend in what he called a “war room” where they combed through the logs and found the problem. OpenAI made three resets of quotas from June 28-29 before making one more reset to clients who were affected.
As it turned out, there was no single reason for the incident. Business Insider noted that Codex was doing a lot more than anticipated. Automated code reviews, helper subagents, and retry mechanisms may have run several times after an error, consuming excess resources each time. At the same time, the usage dashboard showed an activity that was never even charged, thus adding to the mess.
“All fixes are now deployed,” Sottiaux said after the occurrence, adding that OpenAI has established monitoring systems in order to inform the company if there are any issues in the future. However, July’s latest resets suggest that while the bug has been fixed, capacity issues are persisting.
The whole sector is metering harder
OpenAI is not the only AI firm that has restricted access in recent times due to increased demand.
Earlier in the year, Anthropic lowered Claude usage caps while service was in high demand, and one issue with Claude back in March interrupted developers who had begun to rely on the assistant for programming tasks. The trend now across the industry is that companies are avoiding unlimited access to their services as demand for such has outgrown available computing power.
The study sheds light on the matter. In an April study authored by the Stanford Digital Economy Lab, researchers found that agentic coding jobs require approximately 1,000 times more tokens than conventional coding conversations, with input tokens being largely responsible for that cost. They also found that performing the same task several times can result in significant variation in token usage of up to 30 times despite the fact that the increased amount of tokens did not necessarily improve the result.
Those findings highlight why it remains problematic to charge for AI agents. Since the cost of computing different tasks can be so variable, providers have very few alternative ways other than usage caps, quotas, or periodic resets to control usage.
For developers, however, those measures bring a different set of problems. Many of them are now organizing their work based on quotas instead of deadlines. OpenAI says it will continue monitoring usage and provide further updates if needed, but the repeated resets underscore a challenge facing the entire industry: today’s AI agents are becoming more capable faster than companies can build the infrastructure required to support them.
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A bipartisan measure relating to housing that includes a ban on a US central bank digital currency (CBDC) was enacted into law on Friday (July 10) after US President Donald Trump refrained from signing it. This brings a significant victory for supporters of cryptocurrency and advocates of privacy, who have been pushing for it for more than a year already.
The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act reached the White House after passing Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in votes of 358-32 in the House and 85-5 in the Senate. Those margins proved decisive. Under the Constitution, a bill becomes law without any signature or veto from the President after 10 days while Congress is still in session, and that’s exactly what happened here.
Why Trump didn’t sign
On Thursday, Trump said he would not put his name on the Housing Bill, saying the refusal was tied to another election proposal and not to the legislation itself.
“I will not sign the Housing Bill, which has been fully approved by Congress and sent to the White House, in PROTEST over the fact that the United States Senate is not capable of passing THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” he said on Truth Social.
Trump has consistently pleaded with Congress to approve the SAVE America Act, requiring proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
Trump’s only chance to prevent the act would have been to use a veto before Friday’s deadline, but even then, it was impossible to shift the results since everyone had already voted for it in both the Houses with margins large enough to override a presidential veto.
What the ban actually does
Although the legislation is centered on housing affordability, one provision has drawn particular attention from the crypto industry.
The law bars the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the regional Federal Reserve banks from issuing or creating a central bank digital currency, either directly or indirectly through an intermediary. At the same time, it makes clear that nothing in the legislation should prevent an “open, permissionless, and private United States dollar-denominated currency” designed to preserve privacy protections similar to those of physical cash.
The restriction will continue until the end of 2030. This ban is not permanent; however, it is the first time that Congress has made it illegal for the Federal Reserve to issue a retail digital currency. If policymakers are keen to pursue a digital dollar before the ban comes to an end, the law must first be amended or repealed.
This considerably alters the political scenario. For many years, the Federal Reserve has held the position that it will not issue a CBDC unless it is authorized by Congress. Now, Congress has taken the matter a step further by completely taking that option away from them. This means that the lawmakers–not the Fed–will be the source of any future discussions regarding a digital dollar.
In fact, the Federal Reserve was not even close to introducing a retail CBDC. The discussion paper released by the Fed in 2022 covered the pros and cons of a digital dollar, and their officials have repeatedly said that no decision would be made without first securing the backing of both Congress and the executive branch. According to PYMNTS, neither the Fed nor Congress had made any real progress in advancing a CBDC before the lawmakers added the limitation to the housing package.
The road to the CBDC ban
The idea of a CBDC provision did not arise from housing legislation.
For over a year, Republican lawmakers pushed for laws that would stop the Federal Reserve from adopting a digital version of the dollar. The debate gained traction during deliberations over the GENIUS Act, which would create a regulatory environment for payment stablecoins. Several of the Republican legislators argued that encouraging the use of privately issued dollar-backed stablecoins while allowing the federal government to issue its own version creates contradictory policy incentives.
The difference of opinion succeeded in bringing those negotiations to a halt, but it did not bring that matter to a close. Legislators were able to find other terrain in which they could work by passing the CBDC provision in the bipartisan housing bill. In this way, we can say that one of the most important decisions of Congress in relation to cryptocurrencies took place via legislation that was primarily intended to facilitate affordable housing.
Besides the crypto provision, the ROAD to Housing Act aims to reduce regulatory hurdles for home construction, improve access to financing, and limit large-scale institutional ownership of residential real estate.
Industry groups welcomed the inclusion of the CBDC language. After the Senate approved the measure in March, Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone said any decision to authorize a central bank digital currency should remain with Congress and the American people because of the implications for financial privacy.
The backing of legislation reached far beyond the digital asset space. Senate Banking Committee chair Tim Scott called the package a product of negotiations undertaken by bipartisan teams involving both Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren and House members, while organizations involved in housing, banking and community development commended the bill as an important step in dealing with many existing problems of affordability.
The CBDC restriction will be void after 2030 unless action is taken by Congress. Nevertheless, the housing bill changes the discourse regarding a digital dollar in the USA. Any US administration or Federal Reserve leadership that wants to discuss the topic of a digital dollar before Congress lifts the ban must convince Congress to reopen the issue.
The case shows how intertwined the issues of regulation of stablecoins and usage of CBDCs are now in Washington. An argument about the regulation of stablecoins resulted in the adoption of the first law of the country that prohibits the use of CBDCs, which indicates that the questions of CBDC and stablecoin regulation will be increasingly discussed together.
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On July 10, Lighter burned 15,638,702 LIT tokens it had amassed through its automated buyback program by the end of the second quarter of 2026.
The importance of the action stems not from the quantity of tokens that are being destroyed, but from the fact that it signifies a bigger trend within the crypto industry. After having practically vanished amid years of regulatory uncertainty, templates for revenue-based buybacks and the burn of tokens have regained popularity in 2025 and 2026. A report by Tiger Research published in November 2025 cites Hyperliquid and Pump.fun as among those working on similar approaches.
Lighter’s buyback model
Lighter has joined that exclusive group after successfully completing a buyback cycle. After confirming the burn on X, the protocol also made the Ethereum transaction public, so anyone can check on-chain that the tokens purchased through trading revenues are now permanently out of circulation.
We’ve executed the burn of 15,638,702 LIT, permanently removing these tokens from circulation.https://t.co/nPt4gZlNYr https://t.co/tSY5WTs7tZ
— Lighter (@Lighter_xyz) July 10, 2026
The tokens were neither minted nor allocated by the team in any way. Lighter, instead, gradually bought LIT from the public markets using trading profit, executing purchases via the continuous 24-hour time-weighted average price (TWAP) order process. The day prior to the burn, the protocol assessed that it would be able to burn approximately 15.5 million LIT tokens, which accounted for everything it repurchased during Q2. Ultimately, the final burn scorched a total of 15.64 million tokens.
LIT was launched on the market on December 30, 2025 with 250 million tokens, which is 25% of the total supply, distributed to early users of the protocol via an airdrop.
The recent burn significantly cuts the amount of tokens circulating. As per an earlier report by Cryptopolitan, Lighter had already bought back approximately 12.5 million LIT, which was about 5% of the total amount of LIT that was in circulation back then. Accordingly, the completion of the burn in Q2 elevated the total amount of tokens removed from circulation.
What distinguishes Lighter from others is its buyback mechanism. Instead of buying tokens sporadically, the protocol utilizes its trading fee income to make buy-side limit orders at the market price or 10 percent below, per the same report by Cryptopolitan. After the tokens are bought, they are neither distributed, nor staked, nor kept in custody, but simply destroyed.
This methodology stands in contrast to that of other perpetual futures protocols, where buybacks are typically designed mainly for recycling purposes within the token ecosystem. In this respect, Lighter generates buying advantage as a result of trading activity and reduces token supply via burning the tokens on a regular basis.
Why the market is watching perps
The timing is particularly significant for the decentralized perpetual futures platforms, which seem to be one of the fastest-growing sectors in crypto. Lighter works on its proprietary zero-knowledge rollup (zkLighter) and competes with Hyperliquid, Aster and edgeX with its offering of self-custodial perpetual trading with execution speeds comparable to centralized exchanges.
As of May, the total value locked in the protocol came to more than $488 million, with over $1.6 trillion completed in perpetual futures volumes. Its annualized revenues reached $26.3 million.
These figures help to explain how Lighter has been able to sustain its buyback program. More trading activity leads to higher volume of fees and therefore more tokens bought ahead of each scheduled burn.
The approach taken by this model is representative of a bigger trend occurring in perpetual exchanges. This trend is one where incentives for users are not limited only to staking rewards and token emissions, but also operational revenue to improve the token economy. Lighter implements this trend in a more effective manner by permanently removing every repurchased token from circulation, with the buybacks and burning process being verifiable as well.
Big-time investors also own substantial amounts of LIT. According to a report, a wallet, which is reputed to be owned by the founder of Tron, Justin Sun, was estimated to possess around 13.2 million LIT back in January. There were also plenty of other whales that were holding sizable amounts of tokens. High concentration can help stabilize prices, but it may also have an adverse impact in case someone with a big amount of tokens decides to offload them.
Why buybacks are back
The re-emergence of revenue-driven buybacks also reflects an evolving regulatory landscape. According to Tiger Research, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) used to believe that the use of token buybacks funded by protocol revenues was similar to that of dividends, which raised questions as to whether these activities would qualify as securities transactions. The early report elaborates that the U.S. agency’s latest initiative, named Project Crypto, which is based on the level of token decentralization, led to the revival of interest in buyback programs in the market.
The return of revenue-funded buybacks is an indication of the changing regulatory environment. Tiger Research points out that the SEC used to consider token buybacks financed by revenue generated by a protocol as equivalent to dividend payments, thus raising concerns that they could cause tokens to be regarded as securities. However, with the SEC’s implementation of the Project Crypto initiative, which focuses on the degree of decentralization of a token, interest in buybacks has been revived across the industry.
As the transaction conducted on Ethereum has already been made public, the investors have the chance to check the burn process themselves by seeing on-chain data, which once again confirms the transparency of Lighter’s buyback process. The next point of concern is whether Lighter continues to burn tokens quarterly and whether competing perpetual exchanges will take similar initiatives as competition grows.
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OpenAI has lost its top safety systems executive as the company heads toward a possible blockbuster IPO. Johannes Heidecke, who led that work, told employees this week that he is leaving. His exit follows an internal overhaul that brings safety staff closer to the researchers building the company’s newest models.
The departure comes during a busy period for OpenAI. The company has released GPT-5.6, changed senior roles, and entered a legal fight with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). It is also pushing into consumer hardware.
OpenAI entrusts Mia Glaese with overseeing research and safety
According to WIRED, Chief Research Officer Mark Chen told staff that Mia Glaese will now lead research and safety. She had served as vice president of research and head of alignment. Her new title is vice president of research and safety, and all safety teams will answer to her.
Saachi Jain will serve as interim head of safety systems. Saachi previously ran safety groups inside OpenAI and will report to Mia. WIRED reviewed the staff memo announcing the new setup.
Mark said the company trains models more often and now releases them on shorter schedules. “The demands on safety continue to increase,” he wrote, adding that faster development has created “bigger coordination challenges around safety today than ever before.”
Johannes was appointed at OpenAI as an AI safety analyst in 2021. In 2024, Johannes was appointed head of safety systems after Lilian Weng stepped down. Later on, Lilian formed Thinking Machines Lab with other OpenAI ex-researchers.
Mark believes that the safety team should get involved much earlier when employees decide on models and product releases. “We’re grateful for Johannes’ contributions to OpenAI,” he said. He added that frontier model development and safety work must stay closely linked under Mia.
GPT-5.6 was launched by OpenAI earlier this week, calling it their most powerful model yet for agentic programming but also confessing that the system showed troubling misaligned behavior compared to previous versions.
Greg Brockman keeps product duties while Apple takes OpenAI to federal court
Greg Brockman will keep overseeing products and major business projects after Fidji Simo stepped back because of chronic illness. Fidji led product and business for about one year. She began medical leave in April and said Thursday that she would remain as a part-time adviser.
Greg handled her product duties during that leave. The OpenAI cofounder, who started the company with Sam Altman and others in 2015, will continue in that position, per claims from CNBC. “I am deeply grateful for all Fidji has done for OpenAI,” Greg wrote on X Friday.
On Friday, Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) filed a federal lawsuit in Northern California. The iPhone maker accused OpenAI of taking protected company information to create consumer devices.
Apple said the alleged conduct involved technical employees, the chief hardware officer, and outside business partners. Its filing accused OpenAI of “stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information.”
The court fight puts two recent partners against each other. In 2024, they worked together to add ChatGPT to the iPhone operating system.
Sam visited Apple’s headquarters for the announcement.
Their relationship later soured after OpenAI entered hardware. Last year, it bought IO Products, the startup founded by former Apple designer Jony Ive, for $6.4 billion.


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