ESMA warns growing crypto ties could amplify risks to traditional finance
Europe’s securities regulator has warned that growing links between crypto and traditional finance could increase the risk of shocks spreading across the broader financial system. In its latest risk monitoring report published Thursday, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) called for closer monitoring of the “growing linkage between increasingly vulnerable crypto-asset markets and the broader financial system.” ESMA pointed to growing adoption of tokenized equities and recent decentralized finance (DeFi) exploits as areas that could deepen links between crypto and traditional markets and increase the potential for financial spillovers. ESMA risk indicators for EU financial markets. Source: ESMA The regulator said tokenized equities remain negligible compared with global stock markets but are gaining traction, potentially introducing new participants and infrastructure that could reshape market structure. ESMA also flagged prediction markets as an emerging risk, warning of heightened concerns around insider trading and market manipulation. The regulator said crypto use in prediction markets can make it harder to detect insider trading, wash trading and coordinated market manipulation. Prediction markets face regulatory battle in US ESMA’s warning comes as prediction markets face a growing regulatory battle in the United States over whether event contracts fall under federal derivatives law or state gambling rules. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has issued guidance for prediction markets throughout 2026 while defending what it says is its exclusive jurisdiction over federally regulated event contracts. Source: Mike Selig The agency has even sued several states, including Kentucky, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Illinois and Connecticut, after authorities sought to apply state gambling laws to prediction market operators. The dispute could ultimately reach the US Supreme Court. On September 2, New Jersey officials petitioned the court to decide whether states can enforce sports gambling laws against prediction markets registered with the CFTC, citing litigation over the issue across at least 20 states. Whether the Supreme Court takes up the issue remains unclear, but a future ruling could determine whether state or federal authorities have jurisdiction over prediction markets. Magazine: Is Bitcoin too volatile to risk your retirement on?
UK House of Lords backs mandatory digital asset strategy over Labour position
The UK House of Lords backed an amendment requiring the government to develop a digital asset strategy, in a 194–138 vote on Wednesday, despite the Labour government’s opposition to the measure. The amendment was added to the Financial Services and Markets Bill during its Report Stage on Wednesday. The bill is progressing through Parliament and would make broader changes to the UK’s financial services regulatory framework. Amendment 88, introduced by Conservative peer Baroness Neville-Rolfe, would require the Treasury to prepare, publish and consult on a digital asset strategy within 12 months of the Financial Services and Markets Bill becoming law. The strategy would cover cryptoassets, stablecoins and tokenized securities, while addressing issues including innovation, consumer protection and firms’ access to banking, payment and settlement services. The vote follows months of debate over the UK’s approach to digital assets. During a July debate, Treasury’s Minister for Investment, Lord Stockwood, pushed back on calls for a statutory framework, saying the government believed it already had a digital asset strategy and was executing it. The ruling Labour party opposed the amendment because they believed it did not adequately address the rapid development of digital assets and the need for a cohesive regulatory framework. The UK Cryptoasset Business Council, which said it worked with lawmakers on the amendment, welcomed the vote on Thursday, highlighting Lord Chris Holmes’ question of whether the UK is “simply regulating digital assets” or “building a digital assets economy.” The bill must still return to the House of Commons, where lawmakers can accept, amend or reject the Lords’ changes. Magazine: 10 of the greatest unsolved crypto mysteries
Liquid Network resumes block production after $320M exploit
The Liquid Network has resumed block production following a $320 million Bitcoin withdrawal, although transactions and peg operations remain suspended as recovery efforts continue. In a Thursday post on X, Liquid said block production had resumed “without transactions” as a precaution while the network is monitored to “confirm full stabilization.” Required updates to its functionary and bridge nodes have been deployed, with functionary nodes now signing and validating blocks as intended. Peg operations, including PAK-authorized peg-outs, remain suspended while the network works to restore its BTC/L-BTC reserve. A day earlier, Liquid released an emergency update to Elements, the software underlying the network, to address the proof-verification cache vulnerability linked to the incident. The update, Elements v23.3.4, hardened cache keys used for range proofs as part of the network’s recovery plan. Source: Liquid Network $270 million in Bitcoin returned after exploit Liquid paused operations on Sept. 6 after actors claiming to be white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 Bitcoin (BTC), worth roughly $320 million, from the network’s federation wallet. The withdrawal represented about 95% of the wallet’s roughly 4,200 BTC balance and involved L-BTC originating from a bug in Elements, the open-source software underpinning Liquid. The actors subsequently returned 3,400 BTC, worth about $270 million at the time, after Blockstream confirmed that affected bridge nodes had been patched. About 598 BTC, worth roughly $46 million at current prices, remained outstanding as of Sept. 7. Magazine: Token buybacks are booming. But are they good for crypto projects?
MoneyGram launches Visa stablecoin card as remittance rivals expand
MoneyGram is expanding its stablecoin activities, introducing a Visa-branded stablecoin debit card just weeks after a similar move by global remittance rival Western Union. The MoneyGram Card will initially debut as a virtual card in Colombia that can be used with Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, the company said in an announcement. It plans to introduce a physical card option as it expands to additional markets later this year. It is working with infrastructure provider Rain on the new card. Western Union is also working with the provider in the roll-out of its Stablecard, announced last month. In June, MoneyGram launched its MGUSD stablecoin on Stellar, as it deepened its push into blockchain-based cross-border payments, integrating MGUSD with its proprietary app through a self-custodial wallet. Last month, it announced a link with Solana wallet as it expanded its crypto ramps. The World Bank has identified stablecoins as a key tool in reducing the cost of global remittances. Its September 2025 analysis of trends in the cost of remittance services found that debit cards are the lowest cost instrument to receive remittances, at 3.61% of the transmitted amount. Related: US Bank tests proprietary stablecoin in cross-border Stellar transaction
EU finance groups push to remove tokenized securities cap
A coalition of European financial and tokenization groups has urged EU lawmakers to remove a proposed 100 billion euro cap ($116.3 billion) on tokenized financial instruments or raise it to at least 500 billion euro. The draft letter, dated Sept. 7 and addressed to EU Council members and the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, said the 500 billion euro threshold should serve as a baseline if lawmakers decide to retain a cap. Among the groups signing the letter were Nasdaq, Boerse Stuttgart Group, Securitize, the European Ethereum Institute and Axiology. The letter said some existing European projects already reach 350 billion euro in scale and plan further growth, arguing that the proposed 100 billion euro ceiling would be insufficient. The groups contrasted the proposed EU limits with the US, where “a dominant settlement platform is enabled to tokenise US equities and other assets without volume caps,” which they said could cover as much as 150 trillion euro in assets. European finance groups call for removal of DLT regime cap. Source: Industry draft letter The European Commission has proposed raising the current 6 billion euro limit to as much as 100 billion euro as part of its Market Integration and Supervision Package, which includes revisions to the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) Pilot Regime. The DLT Pilot Regime, which took effect in 2023, allows financial firms to test blockchain-based trading and settlement of assets such as stocks and bonds under exemptions from certain EU financial rules. The letter said the thresholds apply to the market value of financial instruments admitted to DLT infrastructure rather than their trading volume, making the proposed 100 billion euro cap relatively small compared with global equity markets. European firms ramp up pressure on DLT rules The letter follows months of pressure from financial and tokenization firms seeking changes to the EU’s DLT Pilot Regime. In April, 39 financial firms and industry groups, including Nasdaq and Boerse Stuttgart, urged EU policymakers to fast-track changes to the DLT Pilot Regime and raise its overall limit to between 100 billion euro and 150 billion euro. The April letter also called for broader asset eligibility and the removal of time limits on licenses issued under the regime. The April push followed a similar call in February from tokenization and market infrastructure firms including Securitize, 21X and Boerse Stuttgart, which warned that existing asset limits, volume caps and time-limited licenses were preventing regulated onchain markets from scaling in Europe. The February warning contended that without faster changes, liquidity could migrate to US markets as regulators there moved toward larger-scale tokenization and onchain settlement. The total value of distributed real-world assets (RWA) stands at about $39.15 billion, with US Treasury debt the largest category at roughly $15.8 billion. Distributed RWA value has reached $39.15 billion, excluding stablecoins. Source: RWA.xyz
Bumagsak ang Bitcoin dahil sa pag-overshoot ng US PPI habang ang ani ng 30-taong bond ay umabot sa bagong 19-taong mataas
Bumaba ang Bitcoin (BTC) sa ibaba $77,000 sa pagbubukas ng Wall Street noong Huwebes, habang ang mga asset na may panganib ay nahaharap sa muling pagbangon ng mga macro headwind. Maningi ang mga punto: Nakakita ang Bitcoin ng downside dahil sa mas mataas kaysa inaasahang US PPI inflation data, na umabot sa 5.4% noong Agosto. Ang mga welga sa Gitnang Silangan ay nagtulak sa WTI crude oil na umakyat sa mahigit $100 kada bariles sa unang pagkakataon mula noong Mayo. Ang US 30-year bond yield ay hindi pinansin ang $6 bilyon na buyback operation at umabot sa pinakamataas na antas nito mula Hunyo 2007. Nagtindi ang ani ng US bond sa kabila ng $6 bilyon na interbensyon Ipinakita ng data mula sa TradingView na ang BTC/USD ay patungo sa 2% na pagkalugi sa araw na iyon, matapos ang kahinaan sa mga US equities.
Ex-BoE deputy governor headlines trio of former central bankers joining Fnality
Fnality has named former Bank of England deputy governor Jon Cunliffe to chair its UK board as the blockchain settlement company develops euro and US dollar payment systems. The company said Thursday that Jochen Metzger, a former Deutsche Bundesbank director general for payments and settlement systems, had joined its European subsidiary’s supervisory board and was expected to chair it. Ron Berndsen, a former senior official at the Dutch central bank, also joined the board. Fnality’s sterling payment system launched in 2023 and is regulated by the Bank of England. It enables market participants to settle obligations using central bank money balances. The company said its blockchain settlement infrastructure is designed to support tokenized asset markets and banks’ activity in stablecoins and tokenized deposits. “As the tokenisation of financial markets gathers pace, settlement in the safest assets available will be crucial to maintaining financial stability,” Cunliffe said in the announcement. Fnality has established a subsidiary in Eschborn, Germany, to develop its proposed euro payment system. It has also set up Fnality Bank U.S. in Stamford, Connecticut, where it is developing plans for a dollar system and engaging with US regulators. The London-based fintech raised $136 million in a Series C funding round in September 2025, with participation by investors including Temasek, Euroclear and Goldman Sachs, according to data compiled by Traxcn.
Treasury Secretary Bessent urges CLARITY Act passage after Senate returns
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged lawmakers to pass the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act when the Senate returns from its August recess next week. “I strongly urge everyone to remain at the negotiating table, agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process,” wrote Bessent in a Wednesday X post, warning that failing to pass the bill would send a “troubling signal” about America’s leadership in the digital asset industry. The Senate is scheduled to return from its August recess next Monday, according to its legislative schedule. The CLARITY Act seeks to establish the first comprehensive regulatory framework for digital assets in the US. The remarks come a week after the National Sheriffs’ Association dropped its opposition to the crypto market structure bill on Sept. 3, changing its position on the bill to “neutral.” Galaxy has reduced its odds on the CLARITY Act’s passing in 2026 several times over recent months. Now at 10%, that’s down from 75% set on May 22. While the CLARITY Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May, most Democrats and the banking industry pushed back, arguing that it would allow crypto firms to offer yields on stablecoins without facing the same requirements as banks.
Hunter Biden denies profiting from memecoin after his LAPTOP crashes
Hunter Biden has denied profiting from his LAPTOP memecoin after its launch-day price crash, adding that neither he nor his team had sold tokens. Several X users accused the LAPTOP project of a “rug pull” after the memecoin lost more than 95% of its value in the first hour of trading on Wednesday. At the time of writing, the new token traded at $0.8562, according to CoinGecko data. “The team’s allocation is locked. Nobody on our side sold, and nobody could have,” Biden said in an X post Wednesday. “I, personally, have not made a single dollar.” Biden blamed the price action on insufficient liquidity and “snipers,” which are trading bots that quickly swoop up tokens when trading opens. The Base memecoin takes its name from a MacBook Hunter Biden reportedly left at a repair shop in 2019. Trump allies used the New York Post’s reporting on files purportedly from the device against him and his father, former US President Joe Biden, during the 2020 election. Before launching his own memecoin, Biden slammed the Trump family’s crypto ventures. In an Aug. 21 post, Biden said World Liberty Financial used political influence and leverage to benefit its founders. Biden did not respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment. LAPTOP team announces liquidity incentives and token burns The LAPTOP team defended the launch in a community update by claiming it held no token presale and made no allocations to investors or influencers. It said the contract address, token allocations, a Hacken security audit and a white paper were published before trading began. “There was no stealth deployment, no hidden supply, and no surprise to benefit insiders,” the team said in a Medium post. It claimed the initial pool launched at $0.05 per token, but the market maker’s liquidity was insufficient to meet demand. LAPTOP added it would deploy 4 million tokens, or 0.4% of the total supply, as liquidity incentives for Aerodrome pools, starting at midnight UTC on Thursday. It also announced plans to burn 10 million tokens within the first week of launch through its predictions program, equivalent to 1% of the original total supply. According to the project’s disclosures, founders are allocated 300 million tokens, or 30% of the 1 billion token supply. Those tokens are locked for six months and then vest monthly over the following 24 months. Another 30% is allocated to predictions tied to political, cultural and crypto events. Tokens are burned when specified outcomes occur and allocated to charity otherwise. The disclosures say prediction-related burns affect unvested tokens. The disclosures reserve 2% of the total supply for wallets that lost money on the TRUMP memecoin and 8% for eligible subscribers to Biden’s “Where’s Hunter” Substack newsletter. A separate 10% is allocated to future airdrops at the foundation’s discretion. Nansen tracks wallet losses as Bubblemaps flags fresh holders Nansen data shared with Cointelegraph on Thursday showed one LAPTOP wallet with an unrealized loss of $117,800 and another with a paper loss of $12,300. Two other wallets showed unrealized gains of $13,100 and $1,800. None of those four addresses had sold LAPTOP at the time of the snapshot. The analysis covered five selected wallets. Nansen also recorded 46,675 buy transactions and 16,038 sell transactions during the 24-hour period covered by its data, involving 20,085 unique buyers and 8,714 unique sellers. Meanwhile, blockchain analytics platform Bubblemaps said Wednesday that 60% of LAPTOP’s top-holder wallets had no prior activity. In a follow-up post, it defined “fresh” wallets as those funded within the previous 10 days and said most had been funded on launch day. Magazine: Is Bitcoin too volatile to risk your retirement on?
Bitcoin ETFs shed $167M after strongest three-week inflow run of 2026
US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $120.2 million in net outflows on Wednesday, bringing withdrawals across the first two sessions of the holiday-shortened week to $166.8 million, according to Farside Investors data. The ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF (ARKB) led Wednesday’s withdrawals with $78 million, followed by Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust ETF (GBTC) with $27.2 million and BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT) with $19.5 million. Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) was the only fund to record inflows, adding $4.5 million. Wednesday’s withdrawals followed $46.6 million in net outflows on Tuesday, marking the category’s first back-to-back outflow days since a three-day run ended on Aug. 14. Across the two sessions, GBTC lost $92.7 million, while ARKB and IBIT recorded net redemptions of $69.9 million and $8.8 million, respectively. The two-day pullback erased about 4.4% of the $3.8 billion attracted during the funds’ strongest three-week stretch of 2026. Bitcoin ETFs have recorded about $55 billion in cumulative net inflows since their launch, while their combined 2026 net flows amount to about $1.07 billion in outflows, according to Farside Investors. Ether and Solana ETFs return to inflows Meanwhile, US spot Ether ETFs attracted $34.7 million on Wednesday after recording $24.3 million in withdrawals on Tuesday, leaving the funds with $10.4 million in net inflows for the week. BlackRock’s ETHB led Wednesday’s Ether ETF inflows with $22.9 million, followed by its ETHA fund with $9.7 million. The 21Shares TETH fund added $2.1 million, while the remaining Ether ETFs reported no net flows. Spot Solana ETFs also reversed Tuesday’s outflow of about $700,000, attracting $11.2 million on Wednesday and bringing their two-session total to $10.5 million in net inflows. All Wednesday inflows went to Bitwise’s BSOL. Hyperliquid ETFs recorded net outflows for a second session, losing $5.3 million Wednesday after $13 million in Tuesday outflows, bringing the week’s total outflow to $18.3 million. The mixed ETF flows came as Bitcoin traded near $78,000 on Thursday, down from about $79,700 when the earlier three-week inflow figures were reported. Ether traded around $2,470, while Solana hovered near $101, according to CoinGecko. Magazine: 10 of the greatest unsolved crypto mysteries
Bitcoin sell-side risk returns to rare lows as $80K sellers fade from view
Bitcoin (BTC) sell-side risk remains near historic lows as August profit-taking cools, new data shows. Key points: Bitcoin’s sell-side risk ratio fell to seven from 16 in September, placing it among its lowest-ever readings. Selling pressure eased while Bitcoin held most of its 25% August gains. Bitcoin ETF investors have spent 229 sessions below their aggregate breakeven level near $86,000. Bitcoin hodlers are “selling less” in September, Glassnode says In the latest edition of Glassnode’s The Week Onchain newsletter, the crypto analytics platform said Bitcoin’s sell-side risk ratio (SSRR) had reset lower. Sell-side risk sums total onchain realized profits and losses and divides that figure by Bitcoin’s realized market cap. The result is a snapshot of the US dollar value realized over a given period relative to realized cap. Glassnode describes lower values as signals of “macro market bottoms, accumulation phases and relatively low sell-side risk environments.” SSRR reached 16 as Bitcoin’s price hit multimonth highs above $80,000 in late August. As of this week, however, the metric has more than halved to 7, one of the lowest readings on record. Bitcoin SSRR data. Source: Glassnode Glassnode said the August Bitcoin price rebound had “drawn little supply,” as measured by onchain activity. “At the July 2025 and October 2025 highs the same measure spiked to 35 and 23 basis points. Only a small share of days in the past year have run lower than today,” it noted. Data also shows that long-term holders — defined as wallet entities that hold a UTXO without spending it for at least six months — are realizing profits onchain at a lower rate this month. “Long-term holders’ share of realized profit has fallen to 47% from 88% at the August peak, and September’s realized profit spike on September 3, 2026 was under half the size of August’s,” Glassnode continued. “The sellers this month are recent buyers, and even they are selling less.” Bitcoin ETF buyers eye breakeven point The SSRR reading may ease concerns that even a modest Bitcoin price correction could trigger panic selling. Bitcoin investor cohorts have returned to aggregate profit after Bitcoin reclaimed $80,000, potentially increasing the temptation to sell if the price retraces further. As Cointelegraph reported, the spent output profit ratio (SOPR) has remained in net profit for its longest stretch of 2026. SOPR reflects the net profitability of spent coins, with 1 representing breakeven. Sustained readings above 1 can support a bullish long-term trend change. Glassnode added that US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) investors would return to aggregate profit at $86,000. Bitcoin has closed below that level for the past 229 sessions, with ETF investors’ paper losses currently around $3.9 billion. Bitcoin ETF profitability data. Source: Glassnode
India’s Arya.ag to put grain ownership records on Avalanche
Indian agricultural warehousing and lending company Arya.ag is testing a system to tokenize warehouse receipts for stored grain on a dedicated Avalanche layer-1 blockchain. Arya.ag is working with Finternet to connect grain deposits, warehouse receipts, collateral commitments and loan status through the network. Devika Mittal, Ava Labs’ head of India, told Cointelegraph that testing was underway and said each tokenized receipt would represent ownership of the stored commodity. The companies did not disclose an expected launch date or how much grain or lending the initial deployment would cover. Sanmesh Kalyanpur, a director at Finternet Labs, said Arya.ag’s samplers collect information about stored grain and enter it into the company’s portal. Finternet will combine farmer, commodity, warehouse and insurance information into what Kalyanpur called a “composite token” that banks can use when assessing collateral risk. Arya.ag stores about $2 billion in agricultural commodities across its warehouse network and supports approximately 120 billion Indian rupees (about $1.26 billion) in loans annually, according to the announcement. Its lending arm, Arya Dhan, issues about $230 million in loans each year. The figures describe Arya.ag’s existing business and do not represent assets or loans already brought onchain. Finternet concept traces back to 2024 BIS paper The Finternet concept was outlined in a 2024 Bank for International Settlements paper co-authored by Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani and then-BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens. The paper proposed interconnected unified ledgers for tokenized assets while emphasizing the need for supporting legal and regulatory frameworks. In January, Cointelegraph reported that the value of tokenized real-world assets on Avalanche exceeded $1.3 billion at the end of 2025, driven by loans and tokenized money-market funds. India expands warehouse-backed agricultural lending Electronic warehouse receipts allow farmers and agricultural businesses to borrow against commodities held in storage instead of selling them immediately after harvest. Arya.ag and Ava Labs said their system is designed to give lenders a shared record showing what grain is stored, who owns it, whether it is already pledged as collateral and what debt is outstanding. The system will still depend on accurate verification of the physical commodities represented by the digital records, according to the announcement. In 2024, the Indian government launched a 10 billion-rupee credit-guarantee program intended to encourage financing against electronic negotiable warehouse receipts, particularly among small and marginal farmers. Magazine: 10 of the greatest unsolved crypto mysteries
Unicoin sues Uniswap Labs, seeks to cancel UNI registration
TransparentBusiness Inc., which does business as Unicoin, sued Universal Navigation Inc., which does business as Uniswap Labs, in the Southern District of New York, seeking declarations that its UNICOIN mark does not infringe or dilute Uniswap’s claimed marks. TransparentBusiness argued in a complaint filed Tuesday that its UNICOIN mark does not infringe or dilute Uniswap’s claimed UNI, UNISWAP and UNICHAIN marks. It also asked the court to cancel US trademark registration for UNI. The complaint says Uniswap’s counsel sent three demand letters on June 3, July 17 and Aug. 14, accusing Unicoin of trademark infringement, dilution, cybersquatting and unfair competition, and threatening further legal action. The letters demanded that Unicoin stop using UNICOIN and other UNI-formative marks, transfer its unicoin.com and unicoin.org domains, provide an accounting of revenue and profits, and reimburse Uniswap’s legal fees. The complaint also seeks a declaration that unicoin.com and unicoin.org domains do not violate the federal Anti-Cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. Cointelegraph has approached Uniswap for comment on the lawsuit. At the time of writing, DeFiLlama ranked the Uniswap protocol first among decentralized exchanges by 24-hour volume, with more than $3.9 billion. The lawsuit was filed weeks before the Sept. 28 public launch date that Unicoin lists on its website for the UNCN token.
US sanctions Xinbi scam marketplace, restrains $52M in crypto
United States authorities restrained more than $52 million in crypto linked to Xinbi Guarantee and its vendor network as part of a coordinated operation against the scam marketplace. On Wednesday, the US Justice Department said its Scam Center Strike Force seized two wallets used by Xinbi to collect vendor payments containing about $12 million. Law enforcement also sought restraints against 47 additional wallets believed to be connected to money laundering across Xinbi’s network. The DOJ said the US District Court for the District of Columbia authorized the seizure of Telegram channels hosting the marketplace on Sept. 7. According to the unsealed warrant, vendors used the channels to advertise money laundering, custom scam-investment websites and recruitment services for scam compounds in Southeast Asia.