ChainGPT AI News

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella landed a record $96.5 million compensation package for fiscal 2025 — a nearly 22% jump from last year’s $79.1 million — reflecting the board’s strong vote of confidence in his AI-and-cloud strategy. What the payout looks like - Total: $96.5 million - Stock awards: more than $84 million - Cash bonuses: about $9.5 million - Base salary: $2.5 million Microsoft says roughly 95% of Nadella’s target pay is performance-based, and nearly 70% of the payout is tied to stock awards — underscoring that his pay is aligned with long-term company performance. Why the big payout Microsoft’s compensation decision comes amid solid top-line momentum. The firm posted 15% year‑over‑year revenue growth and a 17% rise in operating income. Microsoft Cloud was a major driver, with cloud revenue up 23% to $169 billion and Azure growing more than 34% for the fiscal year while generating over $75 billion. What it means for markets — and crypto investors The board’s move signals confidence that Microsoft’s heavy investments in AI infrastructure and cloud services are paying off. Wall Street has been broadly bullish, and there’s a reasonable case that the strong results and continued capital deployment into AI could help lift the stock. For crypto and Web3 audiences, Microsoft’s ramp in cloud and AI spending matters: many blockchain projects, exchanges, and institutional crypto services depend on scalable cloud infrastructure (and AI tools) for security, data analysis, and product development. Continued growth at Azure and Microsoft Cloud can therefore be a tailwind for crypto firms that rely on enterprise-grade hosting and AI services. What to watch next Investors will be watching Microsoft’s next earnings release for confirmation that growth is sustainable — the company’s next report is expected around late October 2026 — and any guidance about AI-related capital spending that could affect both equities and cloud-dependent crypto businesses. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has taken a new step to modernize how crypto assets are held and managed, filing a rule proposal this week aimed squarely at updating custody requirements for the digital-asset era. What the SEC proposed - In a rule change submitted Tuesday, the SEC said it wants to “improve and modernize the regulations” governing custody of crypto assets. - The draft rule would “clarify the framework for the custody of crypto assets” for investment advisers and investment companies and remove “burdens from certain outdated provisions that are no longer needed to provide investor protection given the evolution in the markets and security trading and holding practices,” the proposal states. Why it matters Custody rules determine how funds and advisers hold client assets — a core element of investor protection. Modernized custody guidance tailored to crypto could reduce regulatory uncertainty for advisers and funds, and better align oversight with current blockchain custody and security practices. Context: policy push continues despite stalled legislation - The SEC moved while a congressional vote on the Crypto Clarity Act (often styled the CLARITY Act) remains stalled. That bill seeks broader regulatory clarity and investor protections for the crypto sector. - The agency has nonetheless been actively pursuing crypto-friendly initiatives in recent weeks. Notably, the SEC is preparing an “innovation exemption” that could permit 24/7 trading of tokenized stocks on the blockchain — a move that would expand trading hours and market structure options for tokenized securities. Political and regulatory signals - Last week, the president urged lawmakers to pass the Crypto Clarity Act, and SEC Chair Paul Atkins has said he is “committed to supporting Congress in advancing” the bill. - Still, the SEC’s new custody proposal is narrower in scope than the CLARITY Act. But it fulfills the agency’s stated intent to press forward with targeted crypto rulemaking even if broader legislation stalls. What’s next The custody proposal must go through the SEC’s rulemaking process — including public comment and potential revisions — before any final rule is adopted. If enacted, the changes could provide clearer guardrails for advisers and investment companies custodying crypto, and would be another sign of the regulator’s increasing engagement with crypto-market infrastructure. Bottom line: With Congress gridlocked on comprehensive crypto legislation, the SEC is using its rulemaking powers to push incremental, targeted updates that could materially affect how institutional players hold and trade digital assets. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Tornado Cash developer Roman Storm won’t face a retrial on the two counts a jury deadlocked on until April 26, 2027, after U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla pushed the proceeding more than six months. The order, entered Tuesday in the Southern District of New York, also revises the pretrial schedule: expert disclosures are due February 5, 2027, and a final conference is set for April 20. Failla excluded the intervening time under the Speedy Trial Act, noting Storm’s pending motion for acquittal and “his related request to continue the retrial to a date in late April 2027,” a date the defense proposed. Background and procedural tug-of-war Federal prosecutors in the SDNY, under U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, had sought an October 2026 retrial (proposing Oct. 5 or 12), but Storm’s lawyers argued that was premature while the acquittal motion remained pending. A Manhattan jury in August 2025 convicted Storm of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business, while deadlocking on counts of conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions—the two counts the government now plans to retry. Those two counts carry a combined maximum sentence of 40 years. Storm has not yet been sentenced on the money transmitting conviction, which carries up to five years. Storm’s reaction and defense themes Storm publicly framed the case as an industry-targeting example. He tweeted that “A jury deadlocked on the two most serious counts against me. And still SDNY won’t stop. It’s about setting an example,” and noted that the filings and exhibits he’s posted are public. He also flagged trial material that, he says, shows blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis once operated a Tornado Cash relayer that generated fees, and complained that the jury never heard that testimony after a Chainalysis witness invoked the Fifth Amendment. Chainalysis declined to comment. Broader context and industry fallout The Storm prosecution has drawn support from privacy advocates, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and high-profile figures such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who said in January he is “an active user of privacy tools, including those developed by Roman.” The case is part of a wider wave of criminal actions tied to crypto-mixing and related services. In the Netherlands, Tornado Cash developer Alexey Pertsev was convicted of money laundering in May 2024 and sentenced to 64 months; he was released to electronic monitoring in February 2025 while appealing. The Ethereum Foundation has pledged $1.25 million to help fund Pertsev’s defense. In the U.S., Samourai Wallet co-founders Keonne Rodriguez and William Lonergan Hill pleaded guilty to conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and were sentenced in November 2025 to five and four years, respectively. In December, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump told Decrypt he would “take a look” at a possible pardon for Rodriguez. Policy friction inside DOJ Storm’s conviction sits awkwardly alongside a change in Justice Department policy. Days after his guilty verdict, Matthew Galeotti—then acting head of the DOJ criminal division—said prosecutors would not approve charges under the statute Storm was convicted under in cases where the software at issue is decentralized and non-custodial, specifying that policy would guide charging decisions going forward. What’s next With the retrial now set for April 26, 2027, and pretrial deadlines moved into early 2027, the case is likely to remain a flashpoint for debates over privacy tools, developer liability, and how regulators and prosecutors treat decentralized software. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Morning Minute — Tyler Warner (views are his own) LayerZero just revealed ATLAS, a new back-end trading and settlement engine that aims to be the neutral “plumbing” beneath exchanges rather than a rival front-end. Announced Tuesday, ATLAS is a headless system: it has no app or user interface. Instead, trading venues plug into the engine, keep their own UX and customer relationships, and offload matching, clearing, settlement and risk systems to LayerZero. Why that matters - By decoupling the settlement layer from exchange front-ends, ATLAS addresses a key institutional concern: firms won’t put their core business on rails operated by a competitor. LayerZero says ATLAS can power any market—spot, perps, tokenized stocks, bonds, commodities, and prediction markets—around the clock with industry-leading performance. - LayerZero will ship two versions: one tailored for crypto apps and prediction markets, and another for firms that need to enforce proprietary rules on the same shared engine. ZRO’s role and token economics - ZRO is integrated into ATLAS’s economics. Venues stake ZRO to earn fee rebates (20%–65%). - After those rebates, 75% of the remaining fees buy and burn ZRO; the remaining 25% goes to the market creator. That design effectively turns ZRO into a claim on trading volume—explaining why the token, trading near $1 earlier in the session, surged more than 20% on the announcement. Context: rebuilding after a rough spring LayerZero’s timing is notable. In April, attackers drained roughly $292 million from Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered bridge, triggering a wave of departures. Major assets migrated away, including BitGo’s $7.7 billion in wrapped Bitcoin and Wyoming’s state stablecoin projects—about $15 billion in total—contributing to a significant exodus from the ecosystem. What’s next Despite that setback, the ATLAS launch signals renewed ambition: LayerZero is positioning itself as the neutral settlement backbone for perps, tokenized stocks, prediction markets and broader real-world assets in the next cycle. The critical question now is whether exchanges, institutional counterparties and other potential partners will plug in—and how quickly they’ll trust the rebuilt rails. Corporate Treasuries & ETFs | Meme Coin Tracker Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Headline: Ethereum devs draft overhaul of deposit contract to make staking “quantum-ready” Ethereum developers have put forward a draft proposal to rebuild the deposit contract every validator touches when entering staking — the first concrete infrastructure move aimed at preparing the network’s $100B+ staking layer for post-quantum cryptography. What’s changing - The current deposit contract is hardcoded for BLS12-381 sizes (48-byte public keys, 96-byte signature metadata), leaving no room for the much larger post-quantum public keys and signatures. - The proposed replacement lets deposits include keys and credential metadata up to 8,192 bytes each, and requires each deposit to declare which “credential scheme” it uses. Scheme 0 will represent BLS; no other scheme definitions are included in this draft. - The contract supports three modes: disabled, BLS enabled, and BLS retired. If a system call retires BLS, authors say it cannot be re-enabled later. - The proposal carries the larger deposit data through to the consensus layer but deliberately defers specifying the post-quantum cryptography itself to a future EIP. - Implementing the change will require a coordinated fork across both the execution and consensus layers. Status and authorship - The change is submitted as a draft pull request to the EIP repository and awaits EIP editor review. Deployment address, activation timestamps and other activation details are undecided. - One of the three authors, Thomas Coratger, publicly highlighted in a Twitter thread how unsettled the underlying post-quantum cryptography choices remain, summarizing a talk by Stanford cryptographer Dan Boneh about the practical challenges. Why this matters - Many promising post-quantum signature schemes are far larger than current elliptic-curve signatures. Stateless hash-based schemes that NIST-standardized candidates point toward tend to require on the order of ~8 KB per signature — roughly the new contract’s ceiling — while smaller “compact” PQ schemes often introduce operational pitfalls (e.g., counters that, if misused, can leak private keys). - The Ethereum Foundation assembled a team last year to plan a post-quantum transition. A May report from quantum-security firm Project Eleven estimated better-than-even odds of a machine capable of breaking elliptic-curve signatures by 2033 (with 2030 possible). The report also noted more than 65% of ETH sits in addresses whose public keys are already revealed onchain — increasing potential exposure. Bottom line This proposal is a pragmatic, low-level infrastructure step: it doesn’t pick a post-quantum algorithm, but it unblocks the protocol by widening fields and adding a credential-scheme mechanism so a future EIP can plug in post-quantum key formats. If adopted, it will make the staking entry path ready to accept the much larger keys PQ crypto demands — but it will require coordinated action across Ethereum’s layers and more cryptographic decisions to come. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Bitfire rolls out Hong Kong’s first compliant crypto quant strategy as RWA AUM tops HK$2bn Hong Kong-listed Bitfire Group (HKEX: 01611) has launched what it calls the city’s first compliant crypto-asset quantitative strategy, marking a major step in the company’s push into real-world assets (RWAs). The move comes as profit-contributing assets under management (AUM) tied to the group — including Japan-based BitTrade’s asset management services — have recently climbed past HK$2 billion, an 851% increase from pre-transformation levels. What Bitfire is launching - The new strategy is a market-neutral, quantitative approach that uses RWA structures as its core to capture arbitrage opportunities across crypto and AI-related assets. - Returns generated by the strategy will be packaged into asset-management products for professional and institutional clients, designed to provide exposure to crypto- and AI-linked returns without forcing investors to take on the underlying market volatility directly. - This product is the first to roll out under Bitfire’s expanded “full-stack” RWA operator business, which combines RWA issuance, asset management, trading and market-making, and custody. Growth since restructuring - After changing strategy at the end of August 2025, Bitfire said it has added nearly 2,000 clients — including listed companies and executives, family offices and ultra-high-net-worth individuals — an increase of more than 100x from before the restructuring. - The company says profit-contributing AUM have surpassed HK$2 billion. Why Bitfire is pitching a compliant RWA model CEO Livio Weng said many RWA products on the market “lack compliant frameworks and genuine asset backing, with insufficient disclosure,” which can create liquidity stress when markets turn volatile. “When volatility intensifies, liquidity crises and even collapses occur,” he said. Weng argued that long-term development of digital assets will require greater emphasis on compliance, transparency and risk management, and that future competition in Hong Kong’s regulated crypto market will hinge on integrated capabilities across custody, trading and asset management. How the strategy will work - Bitfire plans to link native crypto assets, tokenized U.S. equities and traditional alternative assets via RWA structures. - Support services will include custody, quantitative asset management, trading and market-making, all aimed at professional and institutional investors seeking cross-asset allocation through a regulated structure. - The company defines RWA tokenization as representing traditional assets such as equities and bonds on blockchain networks so they can be traded, settled and programmed on-chain, and says the new strategy will convert quant-generated returns into investible products inside a compliant framework. Context: Bitfire’s recent moves and the broader Hong Kong tokenization wave Bitfire has previously signalled a broader pivot toward stablecoins and institutional services in Hong Kong. In May, the company warned its net loss for the six months through March could reach HK$245 million — versus HK$12.3 million a year earlier — with roughly HK$152 million of that expected loss attributed to declines in the value of crypto assets it held. CEO Weng has described compliant Hong Kong stablecoins as central to the city’s Web3 infrastructure and said Bitfire planned to integrate them into clearing and settlement systems after seeing demand from institutional and high-net-worth clients onboarded during the 2025 restructuring. The launch comes amid growing institutional tokenization activity in Hong Kong this year: - On July 10, HSBC completed a tokenized structured-product issuance using U.S.-dollar digital notes in a private placement for institutional investors, with Marketnode handling blockchain issuance and payment flows. - On June 12, Hong Kong Mortgage Corporation priced an HK$12 billion digital bond — then billed as the world’s largest tokenized bond — drawing orders of about HK$24 billion equivalent from more than 100 institutional accounts. - On July 22, Payward (Kraken’s parent) said it would expand its xStocks tokenized-equities platform into international markets starting with Hong Kong, partnering with infrastructure provider GTN. What this means Bitfire is positioning itself to operate across both issuance and circulation of tokenized assets: issuance and RWA asset management, secondary-market trading and market-making, and custody. By marrying quant strategies with tokenized RWAs inside a regulated framework, Bitfire aims to offer institutional-grade exposure to a converging set of crypto, tokenized equities and alternative assets — while emphasizing compliance and liquidity protections that, in the company’s view, are often missing from the current RWA landscape. Weng described the expansion as the company’s next stage after a year of client and asset growth, with compliance, custody, trading and asset management forming the core operating components of its new RWA business. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Binance has added tokenized Trump Media & Technology Group securities (ticker: DJTB) to its list of eligible margin collateral, expanding how traders can use bStocks inside leveraged accounts. Key points - Launch timing and eligibility: DJTB became eligible as margin collateral on Aug. 26 at 12:00 UTC, available to VIP 3 users and above in approved jurisdictions. Users can deposit DJTB as collateral via cross margin, Unified Account Mode and Unified Account Pro. - Margin trading and borrowing: Binance opened margin trading for the DJTB bStocks pair, but DJTB itself cannot be borrowed — it currently functions only as collateral to back other eligible margin positions. - Collateral rules and risk: Binance will apply a collateral ratio to DJTB to calculate how much of its market value counts toward borrowing capacity. That ratio and other risk parameters can be changed as market conditions evolve. Because DJTB used as collateral can trigger liquidations if its price falls and margin levels slip below maintenance requirements, using it in margin accounts differs materially from holding it in a spot wallet. - VIP access and thresholds: The product remains limited to VIP 3+ customers. Binance recently lowered the VIP 3 asset threshold from $3 million to $1 million; traders may also qualify via trading volume or BNB holdings. - What DJTB represents: DJTB provides price exposure tied to Trump Media (Nasdaq: DJT) but is not the same as a conventional share. Holding DJTB does not put an investor on the company’s shareholder register or create an official affiliation with Trump Media. Binance says bStocks holders may receive economic exposure to price moves and eligible distributions per product documentation, while any conversion, redemption or corporate action is governed by the issuer’s terms and jurisdictional restrictions. - How this differs from Trump Media’s reward token: DJTB is distinct from the nontradable shareholder reward token announced by Trump Media earlier in 2026 (which had a February record date for eligible DJT shareholders). - Spot listing, fees and withdrawals: Binance opened DJTB/USDT spot trading at 12:00 UTC on Aug. 26 and enabled algorithmic spot trading bots. Withdrawals were scheduled to open at 13:00 UTC. Binance offered zero maker fees on DJTB/USDT until Aug. 31 (23:59 UTC) and enabled fee-free conversions via Binance Convert. - Related products: This margin expansion followed Binance’s debut of a DJTUSDT perpetual contract on Aug. 25 (up to 20x leverage). Binance has also launched other stock-linked perpetual contracts (including references to Trump Media and Moderna) with up to 20x leverage. - Regulatory and jurisdictional limits: Binance markets bStocks under a prospectus approved within Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM); its ADGM entities operate under Financial Services Regulatory Authority permissions for exchange, clearing, custody and investment activities. bStocks are not offered publicly outside ADGM and are available only to eligible users in approved jurisdictions. DJTB has not been registered under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933 or state securities laws, and Binance prohibits distribution of DJTB to U.S. persons (including entities acting for their account or benefit). - Market footprint: Binance’s bStocks suite has surpassed roughly $610 million in tracked value but remains unavailable to U.S. investors. - No timetable for broader access: Binance has not announced when (or if) DJTB borrowing will be enabled or when access will be expanded beyond current VIP and jurisdictional limits; future changes will depend on exchange announcements, collateral updates and applicable securities rules. Bottom line: Binance’s move brings tokenized Trump Media exposure into the margin toolkit for high-tier users in approved regions, but DJTB today is strictly collateral — not a loanable asset or a direct share — and carries the usual leveraged-trading risks and jurisdictional restrictions. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Bitcoin is heading into a potentially turbulent Friday as roughly $6.44 billion worth of BTC options on Deribit expire at 08:00 UTC on Aug. 28 — a deadline that could amplify short-term volatility after the cryptocurrency’s blistering climb from about $62,000 to the $80,000 area. Key expiry facts - Notional value: ~$6.44 billion - Contracts: ~81,700 (each contract = 1 BTC) - Calls: 44,639; Puts: 37,061 (put-to-call ratio = 0.83) - Biggest call concentrations: $75,000 strike (~$236 million) and $80,000 (~$157 million) - Deadline: Friday, Aug. 28 at 08:00 UTC Market context At the time of reporting Bitcoin traded near $78,970, down roughly 1.4% over 24 hours but up about 22.9% on the week. The intraday range ran roughly from $77,955 to $80,194. Many call strikes that sit below current levels are now in the money and could be exercised at expiry, making the clustered strikes around $75k and $80k particularly important for dealers managing hedges. Why dealers’ hedging matters Options dealers hedge their books by buying or selling Bitcoin, futures or other instruments. As price approaches a heavily populated strike, the sensitivity of options (gamma) rises and dealers must adjust hedges more aggressively — a process called gamma hedging. That hedging can either pin price near a strike if dealers trade to offset moves, or it can amplify momentum if hedges require trading in the direction of a breakout. Deribit’s view Deribit Chief Risk Officer Shaun Fernando noted that more than $500 million of notional value sits within 5% of Bitcoin’s market price and said the concentration “should result in increased gamma hedging in the build-up to expiry.” He warned this could produce “unusual pinning around key strikes or accelerate moves through them,” though he emphasized these are scenarios, not certainties, because aggregate open-interest data don’t reveal full dealer positioning. Volatility and skew signals - Almost 20% of Deribit’s BTC options open interest is set to expire. - The Deribit Bitcoin Volatility Index (DVOL) rose about 30% over the prior week. - The volatility term structure shifted from backwardation (near-term vols higher than longer-dated) to contango (longer-dated vols now higher). - Call-put skew flipped from negative to positive, indicating relatively higher implied volatility for calls — consistent with elevated demand for upside exposure after Bitcoin’s rapid recovery. Price drivers and technical notes Bitcoin’s rally accelerated as U.S. spot ETF inflows jumped — roughly $1.1 billion across Aug. 19–20 — helping push price above $76,000 and later topping out above $81,200 before momentum cooled. Reported liquidation clusters sit near $78,000 and between $81,000–$82,000. The options “max pain” level — where aggregate options losses would be maximized — is around $68,000, roughly $11,000 below current price; however, max pain is not a reliable target because it ignores hedging, off-exchange positions and other market forces. What traders will watch Traders will monitor whether Bitcoin pins near $80,000, drifts back toward the $75,000 cluster, or breaks decisively through those populated strikes as expiring positions are closed or rolled. Large expiry size raises the odds of bigger intraday swings, but it doesn’t by itself determine direction. Volatility may also subside after settlement once near-term hedging demand eases. Bottom line Friday’s expiry is large enough to influence short-term flows and market structure (gamma, skew, volatility), especially around the $75k–$80k strikes. Expect heightened activity and guardrails around those levels, but remember that dealer hedging and broader market forces will ultimately dictate whether price pins, breaks out, or simply grinds sideways after the dust settles. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Shinhan Financial inks deal with Visa to build stablecoin payments and settlement rails South Korea’s Shinhan Financial Group has struck a strategic agreement with Visa to begin building stablecoin payment and settlement infrastructure — a move that expands Shinhan’s crypto experiments into more production-oriented pilots and brings Visa’s global payment capabilities into the mix. What the partnership covers - Initial focus: testing the full stablecoin lifecycle — issuance, transfer/remittance and redemption — using Visa’s existing stablecoin platform and technology. - Localisation: jointly designing a model that fits South Korea’s financial system and regulatory requirements, rather than leaving work confined to isolated blockchain proofs of concept. - Payments and settlement pilots: plans include integrating stablecoins into Shinhan’s payment services and card settlement pilots, plus exploring AI-powered payment models and new consumer and business services. - Participants: Shinhan will pull several core subsidiaries into the work, including Shinhan Bank, Shinhan Card and Jeju Bank; Visa contributes its international payment network and digital-payment tech. Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Jin Ok-dong framed the deal as an expansion of an existing relationship with Visa into “the broader digital finance sector.” The financial group reported net income of 1.82 trillion won (roughly $1.3 billion) for the latest quarter, underscoring its capacity to invest in this push. How this builds on Shinhan’s recent blockchain activity The Visa collaboration reinforces and scales up experiments Shinhan and its units have already been running: - In April, Shinhan Card partnered with the Solana Foundation to test stablecoin payments on Solana’s testnet, simulating merchant‑customer flows to evaluate throughput, security and non‑custodial wallet performance. That trial also explored a hybrid architecture connecting legacy payment rails with decentralized finance tools and used oracle feeds for smart contract triggers while maintaining monitoring and governance. - Shinhan joined eight other Korean banks in a government program testing tokenized bank deposits for public spending; South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance plans to pilot the system in Sejong City in Q4 2026. - In August, Shinhan Asset Management signed an MoU with the Solana Foundation, Etherfuse and decentralized exchange Orca to trial a Korean won–denominated tokenized fund, signaling expansion beyond payments into tokenized investment products. Institutional rails and strategic partnerships Shinhan has also been engaging with institutional blockchain infrastructure: - In June, Shinhan Asset Management and Shinhan Investment & Securities each signed agreements with the Canton Foundation to study tokenized financial products, South Korean digital-asset rules, and ways to make Korean assets accessible to international investors via Canton Network. Canton is a public-permissioned blockchain aimed at regulated financial institutions, with tooling for tokenized assets, settlement and privacy/compliance controls. - Shinhan later added an investment dimension: in July the financial group and Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures joined a $365 million funding round for Digital Asset (the company behind Canton Network), with Shinhan contributing $10 million. - Visa has separately tested stablecoin settlement on Canton Network in a pilot with Brale’s SBC stablecoin, exploring private, compliant blockchain-based settlement for financial institutions. Regulatory backdrop: rules still in flux All this activity is occurring while South Korean policymakers continue to negotiate a legal framework for stablecoins and broader digital-asset activities. Key points under discussion: - The proposed Digital Asset Basic Act is expected to cover stablecoins, digital asset service providers, disclosure and internal control rules, and possibly cross-border stablecoin rules and amendments to allow spot crypto ETFs. - The Bank of Korea favors a bank-led approach for won‑pegged stablecoins, supporting consortium structures in which regulated financial institutions take the lead. It has proposed a statutory oversight body to coordinate regulators and agencies. - Industry and think-tank proposals (including a July report from Hashed Open Research and the Solana Policy Institute) have floated interim licensing guidance and hybrid ownership models where banks hold majority stakes while fintechs handle operations. - The Financial Services Commission is working on consolidating multiple pending digital-asset bills, potentially creating a unified government-backed framework in 2026. Central bank experiments Shinhan is also participating directly in central-bank tokenization tests. In the latest phase of the Bank for International Settlements’ Project Agora, Shinhan Bank — together with NongHyup Bank — participated in a domestic trial that transferred 20 million won in tokenized central-bank reserves. The Bank of Korea issued, transferred and redeemed the funds on the project’s platform. Why it matters The Shinhan–Visa partnership signals a shift from isolated blockchain proofs toward integrated payment and settlement pilots backed by established financial players and global payment infrastructure. If pilots succeed and regulatory frameworks align, Korea could see bank-led, compliant stablecoin rails that interoperate with both legacy payments and tokenized financial products. However, final design choices — issuer eligibility, reserve oversight, and regulatory authority — remain unresolved and will shape how quickly such initiatives scale. Expect more pilots and policy debate in Korea through 2026 as banks, payment networks and regulators try to define practical, compliant pathways for stablecoins and tokenized finance. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Headline: Cryptex ETF Filing Mentions XRP “Additional Releases” — But Escrow Rules, Silence from Ripple Keep Questions Open Cryptex Finance’s Aug. 24 amendment to its S-1 for the proposed Digital Market Cap ETF has stirred debate by stating that Ripple “may release additional XRP from escrow” if Congress passes the CLARITY Act. The filing assigns XRP a 4.88% weighting in the proposed fund (ticker: BAGZ), after eligibility screens adjusted the token’s 4.36% share of the underlying index as of Aug. 17. What Cryptex actually said — and why it matters - The S-1 notes that Ripple historically returns 60%–80% of its monthly XRP releases to escrow and then adds a forward-looking sentence suggesting Ripple “has indicated that, if regulatory clarity is established … it may release additional XRP from escrow to support on-ledger liquidity in stablecoin and FX pairs.” - That wording is attributed to “the company” but the filing provides no source, date, or named Ripple representative. It is a disclosure drafted by Cryptex and submitted to the SEC — not an SEC finding and not a Ripple announcement. - Crypto legal observers flagged the lack of attribution. Attorney Bill Morgan publicly questioned where Cryptex obtained the claim, saying he didn’t recall Ripple making such a statement. Why a literal “early release” is unlikely on-chain - The XRP Ledger enforces time-based escrows at the protocol level. Official XRP Ledger docs state an EscrowFinish transaction will fail if the programmed FinishAfter time has not elapsed. That mechanism prevents anyone — including Ripple — from unilaterally withdrawing locked escrows ahead of schedule. - Ripple originally created 55 escrow contracts of 1 billion XRP each, with one batch becoming available monthly. When a release occurs, Ripple can spend some of that XRP and re-escrow the remainder with new release dates, or transfer portions to third parties. Ripple’s own market reports note it sometimes transfers XRP to third parties and returns a smaller portion to escrow after releases — which could explain what Cryptex meant by “additional” releases, but that interpretation is inference, not confirmation. The regulatory angle: CLARITY Act and timing - Cryptex ties its hypothetical to the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, legislation aiming to clarify federal oversight of digital assets between the SEC and the CFTC. - The bill advanced out of the Senate Banking Committee (15–9) in May, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the motion to proceed. Senate floor procedures list a cloture vote to “ripen” on Sept. 15 — a procedural step, not final passage. The bill would still need further Senate action and possibly another House vote before becoming law. What to watch next - The clearest verification would be a direct public statement from Ripple confirming any change to its escrow distribution policy, or on-chain evidence showing a sustained reduction in the percentage returned to escrow after monthly releases. - Cryptex may further amend its S-1 during SEC review. The current amendment is a pre-effective filing — its presence in the SEC database does not mean the ETF is approved. Bottom line Cryptex’s filing introduces a potentially market-relevant scenario — more XRP staying in circulation if federal clarity arrives — but the claim lacks attribution and conflicts with how the XRP Ledger’s escrow mechanics work in practice. Treat the statement as an issuer’s assertion rather than proof of an imminent change to XRP supply until Ripple confirms it or on-chain activity demonstrates otherwise. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

PolySwarm’s NCT token shot higher after South Korea’s biggest crypto exchange, Upbit, announced a won trading pair — pushing the token into the spotlight ahead of the market open. What happened - Upbit said on Aug. 26 it will list NCT in its KRW market, with NCT/KRW trading scheduled to begin at 21:00 KST. The exchange used the previous BTC-market close (0.00000006 BTC, roughly 6.55 won) as the reference price for early order controls. - Following the announcement, NCT vaulted roughly 200% over 24 hours, trading near $0.0146 at 19:43 KST. CoinGecko data showed 24-hour volume around $15.36 million and a market cap near $24.28 million; prices in the period ranged from about $0.004626 to $0.01384. Upbit’s opening controls and fees - To manage volatility and thin liquidity, Upbit will: - Block buy orders for about five minutes after the KRW market opens. - Block sell orders priced 10% or more below the reference price. - Allow only limit orders during the first two hours of trading. - Upbit warned the launch “may be postponed” if deposits and withdrawals don’t provide enough liquidity; if delayed, the fee promotion will start when trading actually opens. - Trading fees for standard NCT/KRW orders will be reduced from 0.05% to 0% for the first 24 hours (from 21:00 on Aug. 26 to 20:59:59 on Aug. 27 KST unless the launch is postponed). The waiver covers standard order fees but doesn’t remove risks from rapid price swings or thin markets. Deposit, network and compliance notes - Upbit will support NCT deposits and withdrawals only via Ethereum. Supported contract: 0x9e46a38f5daabe8683e10793b06749eef7d733d1 (matches addresses shown on Etherscan and market-data providers). - Transfers on unsupported networks may not be credited automatically. - Users must comply with Upbit’s Travel Rule checks and personal-wallet ownership verification. About PolySwarm and NCT - PolySwarm is a decentralized threat-intelligence marketplace where security engines compete to identify malicious files and earn NCT as rewards. - NCT is an ERC-20 token that grants access to platform-generated threat intelligence. The token has a fixed maximum supply of about 1.886 billion NCT, with nearly all tokens reported as circulating. Market context and what to watch - The pre-listing price jump followed Upbit’s announcement, but market data alone can’t prove causation. NCT already trades on other venues including Bithumb, Coinbase and Gate. - Korean exchange listings have a history of triggering sharp short-term price moves — for example, Upbit’s GRVT listing saw a 23% advance before trading opened. - Key metrics to watch now: the official NCT/KRW opening price, early trading volume and whether Upbit extends or tightens its initial restrictions. Disclosure: This report is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Taurus plugs into SWIFT’s shared ledger to power 24/7 tokenized deposit payments Swiss digital-asset infrastructure provider Taurus has integrated its custody and tokenization stack with SWIFT’s blockchain-based shared ledger, giving banks a ready route to use bank-issued tokenized deposits for round-the-clock cross-border payments. What the integration does - Taurus has connected SWIFT smart contracts to its Taurus‑CAPITAL (issuance/management of tokenized deposits) and Taurus‑PROTECT (custody, programmable wallets and key management) on permissioned blockchain infrastructure. - Taurus‑PROTECT supplies governance rules, approval workflows, API automation and key-management for programmable wallets. Taurus‑CAPITAL issues and controls tokenized bank money while the underlying deposits stay on the issuing bank’s balance sheet. - The integration supports three deployment paths: (1) existing Taurus customers can extend live production infrastructure, (2) banks that run Besu or any EVM‑compatible node can hook their nodes up, and (3) banks without blockchain infrastructure can use Taurus’s managed Hyperledger Besu + EVM connectivity. Why it matters - SWIFT’s shared ledger acts as an orchestration layer that coordinates transfers of tokenized deposits between participating banks; final settlement still happens via existing rails (RTGS and other settlement systems). That means banks can offer 24/7 cross-border payments without ripping up their current settlement and compliance frameworks. - Tokenized deposits remain one-to-one with deposits on an issuing bank’s balance sheet, distinguishing them from stablecoins and keeping transactions inside the regulated banking system. Market context and adoption - SWIFT moved the ledger into initial deployment in July after about nine months of development. Dozens of global banks were involved in the design phase — Taurus says more than 40 institutions contributed — and SWIFT’s broader network already connects over 11,500 institutions in 200+ markets. - At the ledger’s early rollout, some 17 banks across six continents were preparing to test tokenized deposit payments. Named participants have included HSBC, Citi, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ, DBS and Standard Chartered. Standard Chartered and HSBC have also completed the ledger’s first live cross‑border transaction, linking separate tokenized deposit systems via SWIFT. Taurus’s wider product ecosystem - The SWIFT connection extends Taurus’s existing digital-asset stack, which combines custody, tokenization, blockchain connectivity and staking services. In June Taurus added institutional staking through a P2P.org integration, giving banks access to validator infrastructure while retaining custody and control. That staking connectivity covers Ethereum and multiple proof‑of‑stake networks (Solana, Polkadot, Cosmos, NEAR, Cardano, Tezos). - Taurus counts institutional clients such as State Street, Deutsche Bank, Santander and CACEIS. Deutsche Bank also participated in a $65 million funding round for Taurus and continues to collaborate with the firm on custody infrastructure. - Taurus has been expanding chain support — for example, Taurus‑CAPITAL was extended to Solana in February 2025 — and opened a New York office in October 2025 as it grows in the U.S. market. How quickly banks can connect Taurus says existing customers can add SWIFT ledger connectivity to production infrastructure in a matter of days. The company expects the first client connections within days and initial distributed‑ledger transactions using the integration within weeks. Taurus co-founder Lamine Brahimi summarized the value proposition as enabling financial institutions to extend digital-asset capabilities into tokenized deposits and cross‑border payments “while retaining control over their infrastructure” — effectively allowing banks to pilot and scale tokenization without overhauling their back‑office settlement or compliance arrangements. Bottom line The integration gives banks a turnkey route into SWIFT’s shared ledger for tokenized deposits, pairing SWIFT’s coordination layer with Taurus’s custody, tokenization and wallet tooling — a practical step toward broader, around‑the‑clock cross‑border payment rails built on tokenized bank money. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

The SEC has moved a major crypto custody rewrite into the White House review process, advancing a rulemaking that could reshape how investment advisers and funds hold digital assets. What happened - On Aug. 25 the Securities and Exchange Commission sent a proposed overhaul of its custody rules for registered investment advisers and investment companies to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB). That starts the required executive review before the SEC can publish the proposal and seek a commission vote. - Full text and specifics remain confidential while OMB conducts its review. Once returned — potentially with edits — the SEC’s three current Republican commissioners would vote on whether to publish the proposal for public comment. What the proposal aims to do - Clarify how advisers and funds may custody crypto assets while complying with existing custody rules under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. - Address gaps and uncertainty that arose because current custody regulations were written before crypto became a routine part of investment products and advisory portfolios — for example, when ownership and control hinge on private keys and blockchain-based custody systems. - Potentially remove some legacy custody requirements the SEC now views as outdated due to changes in markets and modern asset-holding practices. - Be classified as “economically significant” on the federal regulatory agenda, meaning the SEC will evaluate expected costs, benefits and other economic effects as it develops the rule. Why this matters to the industry - The proposal could clarify which custodians and custody arrangements meet the SEC’s requirements for advisers and funds — a critical question for crypto custodians and the advisers that rely on them. - A prior approach, the Safeguarding Advisory Client Assets rule first proposed in March 2023 under former Chair Gary Gensler, would have broadened custody obligations to cover more client assets (including crypto) and generally required qualified custodians. That draft was withdrawn in June 2025 after industry concerns that many crypto custody providers did not meet the proposed “qualified custodian” definition. - The new custody amendments are a fresh rulemaking under Chair Paul Atkins and are not a continuation of the withdrawn Gensler-era proposal. Specifics on qualified custodians, custody arrangements and the SEC’s treatment of crypto assets will not be public until the proposal is published. Regulatory context and next steps - The custody rule is one of several crypto-focused items the SEC has placed into formal rulemaking under Atkins. In July the agency added three crypto-related proposals to its 2026 regulatory agenda covering: exemptions and safe harbors for crypto assets; how broker-dealer rules apply to firms handling digital assets; and market-structure rules for trading crypto on alternative trading systems and exchanges. - The custody proposal arrives as Congress negotiates the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (the House passed its version, the CLARITY Act, in 2025). Senate talks in 2026 have focused on dividing authority between the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). Atkins has said the SEC will continue to act on issues that fall within its statutory powers even as lawmakers work on legislation where congressional authority is required. - The OMB review must finish before the proposal returns to the SEC. If commissioners vote to publish the proposed rule, it would typically be open for at least 60 days of public comment. The SEC staff would review comments, possibly revise the proposal, and then the commission would vote again on any final rule. Bottom line This custody rulemaking could deliver long-awaited regulatory clarity for how advisers and funds hold crypto — and it comes amid broader SEC efforts to put digital-asset rules on a formal track. Industry participants, custody providers and lawmakers will be watching OMB’s review and the SEC’s next move closely, since the details could materially affect custody practices, qualified custodian definitions, and the options available to advisers who manage crypto on behalf of clients. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Headline: New accounting and GENIUS Act rules could make compliance the deciding factor in institutional stablecoin adoption, Aquanow CEO says The Financial Accounting Standards Board’s (FASB) recent proposal and the Treasury’s GENIUS Act implementation push are raising the bar for stablecoin issuers — and could determine which tokens win institutional business, Aquanow CEO Phil Sham tells crypto.news. What FASB proposed - On Aug. 18, FASB issued a proposal clarifying when certain digital assets can be treated as cash equivalents under existing accounting rules. The proposed criteria focus on assets that demonstrate price stability, liquid reserves, and contractual rights that let holders redeem directly with the issuer for cash on demand. - The proposal does not automatically label every stablecoin as cash. Instead it aims to reduce accounting uncertainty for qualifying tokens, which could make them easier to use in treasury, payments and settlement workflows and change how firms report liquidity on balance sheets. How the GENIUS Act ties in - The FASB move came a day after the U.S. Treasury asked for public comments on rules to implement Section 3 of the GENIUS Act. Together, the accounting and regulatory efforts would raise standards for redemption, reserves and risk controls, and could narrow the field of compliant issuers in the U.S. - Under Treasury’s framework, payment stablecoin issuers would need an appropriate federal or state license to operate in the U.S. after Jan. 18, 2027. A later restriction, effective July 18, 2028, would bar digital-asset service providers from offering payment stablecoins to U.S. customers unless those coins are issued by a licensed issuer. Foreign issuers would also face conditions, including the ability to comply with lawful U.S. orders. Why this matters to institutions - Accounting recognition could remove a major barrier for banks, funds and corporations by making qualifying stablecoins simpler to integrate into financial operations. But Sham warns it won’t instantly convert stablecoins into bank deposits or replace traditional cash across every institutional use case. - Even if a stablecoin meets FASB’s cash-equivalent test, firms will still need to clear regulatory capital rules, internal risk limits, collateral requirements and contractual constraints. Many loan agreements and credit facilities define “cash” themselves; lenders may need to approve using stablecoins to satisfy liquidity covenants. Custody and legal rights will be decisive - A critical nuance: the same on-chain token can be treated differently in accounting depending on the holder’s legal rights. Direct purchases from an issuer that include contractual redemption rights are likelier to meet the cash-equivalent standard than tokens held through an exchange — where the holder often has a claim only against the platform, not the issuer. - Custodial structures that pass enforceable redemption rights to beneficial owners, or bankruptcy-remote trusts, could produce different outcomes. “The same stablecoin could be fungible on-chain but treated differently depending on the holder’s contractual rights,” Sham said. Operational, legal and credit checks remain essential - Institutions will assess custody, issuer exposure, secondary-market liquidity and the ability to redeem under stress. Sham summarized the practical concerns: who legally owes the dollar, where it’s held, and how quickly it can be recovered during stress. A 1:1 reserve claim alone won’t suffice; firms want confidence in consistent redemptions at par even when liquidity deteriorates. - Governance, cybersecurity, business continuity, AML and sanctions controls will also influence whether an issuer can win institutional business. Winners and losers: scale and compliance matter - The combination of tougher accounting and licensing requirements may channel institutional activity toward a smaller group of large, well-connected issuers that can absorb regulatory and operational costs, boast deeper liquidity, and have established banking and distribution relationships. - Sham says this dynamic will favor incumbents but won’t shut out newcomers entirely. Smaller issuers may find niches — regional payments, industry-specific settlements, or underserved markets — but they’ll need robust legal frameworks, clear redemption terms and an ecosystem ready to support their tokens. “Compliance earns the right to compete; utility and ecosystem readiness drive usage,” he noted. Next steps and expectations - Both FASB’s proposal and the Treasury’s implementation rules are still in rulemaking. Treasury has asked for public comments within 60 days of the proposal’s Federal Register publication. - If adopted largely as proposed, the market’s competition could shift from being driven mainly by supply, yield and exchange listings to being centered on legal claims, reserve access, and the issuer’s ability to return dollars reliably during a crisis. Bottom line: Accounting clarity and licensing will not solve every legal, credit or operational issue, but they can significantly reshape which stablecoins are acceptable to institutional players — and likely concentrate liquidity and usage around issuers that can prove enforceable redemption rights, robust reserves and resilient operational controls. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Nvidia’s next quarterly report — due August 26, 2026 — has Wall Street braced for one of the company’s biggest quarters in years, and that matters to crypto firms as much as traditional investors. Analysts’ models are being pushed higher as demand for Nvidia’s GPUs continues to outpace expectations, powering not just AI but the trading, analytics and infrastructure tools increasingly used across crypto. The numbers analysts are circling are eye-popping. Consensus forecasts from FactSet and Wedbush sit around $91.85 billion to $92.06 billion in revenue for the quarter ended in late July — roughly a 97% jump from a year earlier. EPS estimates are clustered at $2.08–$2.09, almost double last year’s figure and about a 98–99% year-over-year rise. A separate industry estimate lands near $92.2 billion, aligning with those projections. Nvidia’s recent track record supports the bullish tone: it’s missed Wall Street targets just twice in the last 22 quarters, and in May 2026 it posted $81.62 billion in revenue with $1.87 of adjusted earnings per share. Wedbush analyst Matt Bryson expects Nvidia to beat again, citing supply-chain dynamics rather than end-demand as the current limiting factor: “component and material access, not end demand, is defining shipments.” The core driver is data-center demand. Data-center revenue hit a record $75.2 billion in Q1 2026 — up 92% year over year — as hyperscalers race to add AI capacity. Nvidia now controls an estimated 85%–92% share of the AI accelerator market as of mid-2026. CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly framed the opportunity as massive — a cumulative $1 trillion GPU market through 2027 — and analysts have revised targets higher as that momentum persists. Street sentiment reflects that momentum. Most analysts rate the stock Buy or Strong Buy (reports show between 37 and 62 analysts in those camps), with an average price target roughly in the $304–$308 range; Bryson’s target is higher at $330. Yet the share price through a crypto lens tells a different story: Nvidia is only up about 19% over the past year, roughly tracking the S&P 500, even as its core business accelerates. Using a fiscal 2027 EPS consensus of $9.02, the stock trades at about 23.6 times forward earnings — a multiple that some analysts argue understates how much growth is baked into the numbers. That growth-and-expectation loop has been self-reinforcing: analysts have raised forward estimates after each of the last four earnings reports, driven by AI demand and platform momentum (including the Rubin platform and reports that SpaceX plans to build exclusively on Nvidia hardware). For crypto companies that rely on high-performance compute for algorithmic trading, node indexing, or AI-driven analytics, that supply-demand squeeze and platform adoption are worth watching closely. Market positioning ahead of the print is mixed. A Stocktwits poll on August 25 showed over 76% of retail respondents expect Nvidia to beat, yet the stock slid in the prior week and options traders are pricing in about a 5.5% move either way on the announcement. Given Nvidia’s history of outperformance and continuing demand, many investors see a solid case for holding through the report — even if the near-term reaction is volatile. Bottom line: the August 26 earnings release will test whether Nvidia’s rapid AI-driven expansion keeps accelerating or if the market had already priced in the gains. For crypto infrastructure and trading shops tracking compute costs and availability, the results will be more than just market noise — they’ll help signal how tight the GPU market will remain into 2027. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

BlackRock has slashed the minimum size required to convert Bitcoin into shares of its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) via in-kind swaps — cutting the threshold from $25 million to $1 million as of July 2026, Bloomberg reported Aug. 25. That 96% drop makes the swap program available to a much wider set of wealthy investors and institutions. What changed and who else followed - BlackRock’s move follows a similar tweak at Bitwise, which reduced its in-kind conversion threshold from $100 million to $3 million, Bloomberg says. - Important: these thresholds are for in-kind creations and redemptions with the trust’s authorized participants — they are not the minimum to buy IBIT shares on an exchange through a broker. How the transactions work - The swaps use an in-kind creation process: an eligible holder transfers Bitcoin into the ETF structure and receives IBIT shares that represent equivalent exposure. That avoids selling Bitcoin for cash and then buying shares. - Only authorized participants (brokers, trading desks, or other qualified intermediaries) can create or redeem directly with the trust. Ordinary investors still buy and sell IBIT on Nasdaq like any other ETF. Scale and mechanics - BlackRock’s digital-assets team says IBIT has processed more than $5 billion in these in-kind transactions (up from about $3 billion in October). - As of Aug. 25, IBIT held roughly $60.65 billion in net assets. The fund charges a 0.25% sponsor fee and used about 22.65 BTC per creation basket; that basket was valued at roughly $1.79 million on the same date (basket values move with Bitcoin’s price). Why this matters - In-kind settlements can reduce trading spreads and prevent the fund from having to buy or sell spot Bitcoin whenever shares are created or redeemed, improving operational efficiency. - They can also help some holders defer realizing capital gains by transferring Bitcoin into the fund rather than selling and repurchasing. But that tax outcome is not automatic or universal — it depends on the investor’s jurisdiction, legal structure, and the intermediary used. The SEC’s decision to allow in-kind processes in July 2025 focused on fund efficiency, not special tax treatment. Custody trade-offs and adoption drivers - BlackRock’s head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, notes some holders are reconsidering self-custody after high-profile hacks and other security incidents. ETFs eliminate the hassles of seed phrases and private-key management, but investors give up direct control of coins — IBIT shares can’t be withdrawn as underlying Bitcoin or used for payments. - Lower conversion thresholds could make the trade-off more attractive to large holders, but broader adoption will hinge on intermediary access, transaction costs, tax outcomes, and whether investors prefer regulated, custodial exposure over direct ownership. Bottom line Reducing the entry point for in-kind Bitcoin-to-ETF swaps lowers a practical barrier for large holders and could accelerate flows into spot Bitcoin ETFs — but it doesn’t change the core trade-offs about custody, control and tax treatment. Investors considering a conversion should consult intermediaries and tax advisors to understand implications for their specific situation. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Kalshi has sold roughly $1.12 billion of equity since April, a U.S. securities filing shows, leaving about $380 million available under a nearly $1.5 billion offering. The SEC Form D filed Aug. 25 reveals the prediction-market operator has raised $1.12 billion through equity sales since April, while listing the total offering at about $1.5 billion and roughly $380 million still unsold. The filing does not itemize which financings make up the amount already sold; Form D simply reports offerings that rely on exemptions from full SEC registration. Where the money came from - The $1.12 billion likely includes Kalshi’s previously disclosed $1 billion Series F in May, sources said. That round was led by Coatue and included participation from Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, IVP, Paradigm, Morgan Stanley and ARK Invest, valuing Kalshi at $22 billion. - The Series F doubled the company’s valuation from about $11 billion just months earlier. Earlier fundraising rounds had previously valued Kalshi at roughly $5 billion after a $300 million raise. Rapid growth in trading and revenue - Kalshi has posted dramatic growth in activity: annualized trading volume jumped from $52 billion to $178 billion over six months, and institutional trading volume rose about 800% in the same window. The company reported more than two million monthly users and an annualized revenue run rate of about $1.5 billion around the time of the Series F. - Trading volume continued to climb through the summer: monthly volume was about $16.8 billion in May (up from $14.8 billion in April) and reportedly reached roughly $40 billion in July. For context, rival Polymarket’s combined volumes were far lower over comparable months. - By July, reporting suggested Kalshi’s annualized revenue run rate had topped $4 billion, with spikes tied to major sporting events such as the FIFA World Cup and NBA Finals. Product expansion: crypto perpetuals and sports-driven volumes - Kalshi has expanded beyond event prediction contracts into regulated perpetual futures, launching U.S. Bitcoin perpetuals and adding Ethereum contracts, with filings for XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Hyperliquid and other assets. Within about two weeks of launch, perpetual futures volume exceeded $5.5 billion. - Sports-related contracts have become a dominant source of activity; company figures cited at industry events placed sports at roughly 85–90% of trading volume. Ongoing fundraising chatter and IPO prep - Despite the recent round, investor talks have continued. The Financial Times reported in June that Kalshi was seeking fresh funding at a roughly $40 billion valuation, potentially closing as early as Q3 2026. The Information later said Kalshi was in advanced talks to raise at least $750 million at that $40 billion valuation, with Sequoia and Wellington Management reportedly discussing co-leading. - The Aug. 25 Form D does not confirm whether any future raises — including the $750 million reported by The Information — are part of the nearly $1.5 billion offering, nor does it identify prospective investors or state whether the remaining $380 million will be sold. - Kalshi has also held informal IPO discussions with banks, though it has not committed to a timeline. Reports indicated an annualized revenue run rate north of $2 billion during those early IPO conversations. Regulatory friction - Kalshi operates as a designated contract market regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), an arrangement that allows it to offer event contracts under federal derivatives rules. - That federal designation has not ended friction with state authorities. Several states contend that sports-linked markets are subject to local gambling laws; those disputes have led to lawsuits in states including Illinois and New York as Kalshi defends its CFTC-based authority while continuing to expand its derivatives and prediction-market offerings. Bottom line Kalshi’s Aug. 25 Form D confirms about $1.12 billion raised since April and a remaining ~$380 million available under a nearly $1.5 billion offering, while the company is riding surging trading volumes, expanding into crypto perpetuals, and continuing high-level fundraising and IPO discussions amid mounting state-level legal challenges. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Zerohash has quietly restarted its push for a federal banking charter, filing a second application for a U.S. national trust bank on Aug. 19 — roughly a month after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) returned its initial submission. What was filed - The OCC’s public record lists the proposed institution as Zerohash National Trust Bank, to be headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, and organized under a holding company structure if approved. - The agency opened a 30-day public comment window on Aug. 18; comments must be received by Sept. 17. The OCC currently shows the new filing as “received” but has not indicated approval, denial or other regulatory action. - The second application was issued a new OCC control number and proposed charter number. Why Zerohash reapplied - The OCC first received Zerohash’s charter bid on March 2 and returned that filing on July 17. A returned application is not a merits-based denial — it typically means the submission did not advance in its original form. - Zerohash says the initial return was “in coordination with the OCC” and “not a substantive decision on the merits,” and that the new filing narrows its request to “a more focused approval of national trust activities aligned with our intended rollout timeline.” The OCC has not publicly confirmed those descriptions, and neither party has specified which activities were removed or tightened. What a national trust bank charter would mean - A national trust bank charter would place Zerohash under direct OCC supervision. Limited-purpose trust banks historically can offer custody and approved trust services without operating as full-service commercial banks that take FDIC-insured deposits or make conventional loans. - In April 2026, the OCC clarified its national bank chartering rule to state that national trust banks may conduct trust company operations and related activities, including certain nonfiduciary services. - Zerohash already operates under multiple regulated entities: Zerohash Trust Company (a nondepository trust company chartered by the North Carolina Commissioner of Banks) and Zerohash LLC (which holds money transmitter licenses and a New York BitLicense). A national charter could centralize federal supervision for approved activities but would not automatically authorize every service currently offered across these separate entities and licenses. Business footprint and industry context - Zerohash provides crypto trading, custody, and stablecoin infrastructure to financial and technology firms. Publicly disclosed partners include Morgan Stanley, BlackRock, Stripe, Franklin Templeton and Interactive Brokers. - Crypto.news previously reported Zerohash as the infrastructure provider for Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana trading on E*TRADE; Morgan Stanley plans to migrate that service into its own proposed national trust bank later in 2026, though no firm transition date has been announced. - Zerohash’s renewed filing arrives amid a broader wave of digital-asset firms seeking OCC trust-bank charters this year. The OCC has issued conditional approvals to several players, including Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets and Paxos. Conditional approval is an interim step; applicants must still satisfy capital, governance, compliance and operational requirements before receiving final authorization. Potential scrutiny and next steps - Zerohash is defending a separate California lawsuit from former chief compliance officer Edgar Guerra, who alleges he was fired after raising compliance concerns. The company has not been found liable and the claims remain unresolved. While the litigation and the prior application return could attract regulatory scrutiny, the OCC has not publicly tied the lawsuit to its earlier decision to return the filing. - After the Sept. 17 comment deadline, the OCC may seek additional information, impose conditions, approve, or reject the application. No schedule for a final decision has been published. How to weigh in - Interested parties can submit comments through Sept. 17 under OCC control number 2026-Charter-347313. The OCC notes that comments become part of the public record and may include support, objections or requests for specific licensing conditions. This resubmission keeps Zerohash in the middle of the ongoing debate over how federal banking charters should apply to crypto-native services — and whether a national trust bank charter will become the preferred path for firms seeking a single, federal regulator for custody and trust activities. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Judge delays Roman Storm retrial to April 26, 2027 — Rule 29 motion still pending A U.S. federal judge has pushed the retrial of Tornado Cash co‑founder Roman Storm to April 26, 2027, delaying the second go‑round by roughly six months. The postponement, ordered Aug. 25 by U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla, comes while Storm’s motion to overturn an earlier conviction remains undecided. Why the delay - Storm’s defense asked for a later date citing scheduling conflicts and the pending Rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal. Prosecutors had preferred an October 2026 trial date, but Judge Failla adopted the defense’s request and reset pretrial deadlines around the new timetable. - Expert disclosures are now slated for early 2027, and a final pretrial conference is set for April 20, 2027 — six days before jury selection. What’s unresolved - The Rule 29 motion, filed by Storm on Sept. 30, 2025, argues that prosecutors presented insufficient evidence to sustain his conviction for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money‑transmitting business. Failla heard oral arguments on April 9, 2026, but has not ruled. - If granted, the motion would vacate Storm’s conviction on that count. If denied, that conviction would stand as prosecutors retry two counts the first jury deadlocked on: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions. Recap of the first trial - Storm’s summer 2025 trial in Manhattan covered three charges tied to his role in Tornado Cash, an Ethereum‑based privacy protocol he co‑founded. - On Aug. 6, 2025, jurors returned a split verdict: guilty on the unlicensed money‑transmitting conspiracy (maximum five years’ imprisonment) but deadlocked on the money‑laundering and sanctions conspiracy counts (each carrying up to 20 years). Judge Failla declared a mistrial on the two unresolved counts and prosecutors opted to retry them. - Storm warned that convictions on both unresolved counts could expose him to as much as 40 years in prison. He also said the first four‑week trial had exhausted his legal resources. Prosecutors’ case and earlier narrowing - The indictment dates to August 2023 and names Storm alongside co‑founder Roman Semenov. Prosecutors allege Tornado Cash processed more than $1 billion in proceeds, including funds linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, and claim the founders continued developing, promoting and profiting from the protocol despite knowing illicit use. - In May 2025 prosecutors narrowed part of their money‑transmission theory by dropping an allegation tied to failure to register under 18 U.S.C. § 1960(b)(1)(B), a move they said aligned with a Justice Department policy memo advising against using technical registration charges to police crypto. Sanctions and legal context - The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned Tornado Cash in August 2022 for alleged use in laundering billions, including funds tied to Lazarus. That designation later became the subject of separate litigation. - In November 2024 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that immutable Tornado Cash smart contracts could not be treated as property under IEEPA, because they could not be owned or controlled. Treasury removed the OFAC designation on March 21, 2025. The sanction changes did not end the criminal case against Storm. - A Coin Center lawsuit related to the designation was closed after the government stopped defending the designation. Central legal question: developer liability - At the heart of the prosecution and defense is a thorny question for crypto law: how much control or involvement by a developer turns open‑source work into criminal facilitation? - Prosecutors say Storm and other founders went beyond publishing code, maintaining parts of the project, promoting its use and profiting while knowing about illicit flows. Storm’s lawyers counter that Tornado Cash operates via immutable smart contracts, that developers don’t control or custody funds, and that users transact directly with contracts. Community response and funding - The case has drawn attention and financial support from parts of the Ethereum community. In January 2026, Ethereum co‑founder Vitalik Buterin publicly urged leniency and argued that privacy tools have lawful uses and open‑source development alone should not be criminal. - Storm’s legal defense has raised more than $6.3 million, with the Ethereum Foundation having pledged up to $1 million in matching support. Storm remains free on bond pending further proceedings. What’s next - Judge Failla has not yet ruled on the Rule 29 motion. If denied, the retrial on the money‑laundering and sanctions counts will proceed beginning April 26, 2027, following the April 20 pretrial conference. If granted, one of Storm’s convictions could be vacated, potentially narrowing or changing the government’s path forward. Implications - The case continues to test how U.S. criminal law applies to decentralized protocols and the liabilities of developers who create privacy‑preserving tools. The outcome of the Rule 29 motion and the April 2027 retrial will be closely watched by the crypto industry, developers and legal observers. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

Headline: Bitcoin faces $6.44B Deribit options expiry Friday — gamma hedging could amplify volatility Lead: Bitcoin traders are bracing for roughly $6.44 billion of BTC options to expire on Deribit at 08:00 UTC on Friday, Aug. 28 — about 81,700 contracts that could meaningfully influence intraday moves as dealers adjust hedges following the coin’s fast climb from near $62,000 to the $80,000 area. Snapshot - Expiry size: ~$6.44 billion in notional value, covering ~81,700 contracts (each contract = 1 BTC). - Timing: 08:00 UTC, Friday, Aug. 28. - Current price (at reporting): ~ $78,970 (down ~1.4% 24h, up ~22.9% 7d); daily range ~ $77,955–$80,194. Key positioning - Calls vs puts: 44,639 calls and 37,061 puts (put-call ratio ≈ 0.83), so calls outnumber puts — but that ratio alone doesn’t guarantee bullish sentiment. - Concentrated strikes: $75,000 (~$236M in calls) and $80,000 (~$157M in calls) hold the largest call clusters. Calls below current price are in-the-money at expiry, potentially exercisable profitably after premiums. Why dealers’ hedging matters - Options dealers typically delta- and gamma-hedge by buying or selling BTC, futures or related instruments. As price approaches heavily populated strikes, the sensitivity of options to price moves (gamma) rises and dealers must trade to remain hedged. - This can produce two main dynamics: “pinning” (price stays near a large strike as hedges offset moves) or acceleration (if hedges require trading with the move, amplifying it). The net effect depends on dealers’ hidden net positioning, not just aggregate open interest. What the desk says - Deribit Chief Risk Officer Shaun Fernando noted more than $500 million in notional value sits within 5% of spot, which “should result in increased gamma hedging in the build-up to expiry.” He warned the positioning “may result in unusual pinning around key strikes or accelerate moves through them.” - Fernando added nearly 20% of Deribit’s BTC options open interest is set to expire and reported a ~30% jump in the Deribit Bitcoin Volatility Index (DVOL) over the prior week. Volatility and skew shifts - Vol term structure flipped from backwardation to contango: longer-dated options now have higher implied volatility than near-term contracts, a sign of changing demand after recent moves. - Call-put skew moved from negative to positive, indicating traders are assigning relatively higher implied volatility to calls — consistent with rising demand for upside exposure following Bitcoin’s rebound. Market backdrop and risks - ETF flows helped fuel the rally: U.S. spot funds pulled in roughly $1.1 billion across Aug. 19–20 as BTC broke out. - The rally later faltered above ~$81,200; traders noted liquidation clusters near $78,000 and between $81,000–$82,000. - Max-pain from the expiry sits near ~$68,000 (the level that would leave the most options worthless). Bitcoin trades about $11,000 above that level — reaching $68,000 by Friday would require a sizable move. Max-pain is watched but is not a reliable price target because it ignores hedging, positions on other venues, spot demand and macro moves. What to watch into expiry - Whether BTC stays near $80,000, drifts toward $75,000, or breaks through the clustered strikes. - Signs of pinning vs. accelerating moves as dealers adjust hedges. - Near-term implied volatility: it can spike into expiry and drop after settlement as hedging demand fades. Bottom line: The sizeable Deribit expiry increases the odds of larger intraday swings, but it doesn’t dictate direction. Traders will be watching price action around the $75k–$80k strike cluster and dealer flows as positions are closed or rolled into later expiries. Impact: 8/10 — large expiry with concentrated strikes could meaningfully affect short-term volatility. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news