Cryptopolitan

OpenAI staff were informed this week that the AI lab would be open to throttling the pace of its work in the most advanced areas of AI. Sam Altman extended the same proposition to AI rivals, including Anthropic, which also acknowledged the risks associated of AI development in a report that disclosed that scientists linked to state institutions attempted to use its Claude models for biological weapons research.
OpenAI said it has already paused some internal training runs and eased parts of model development over safety concerns.
The serial arrival of the disclosures is stoking the fire around the debate about whether the industry is moving too fast ahead of the public offerings, both firms continue to tease.
Why does Altman want to slow down AI development?
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, at a company-wide meeting, informed those present that the AI lab, along with other consenting labs, could slow down the pace of frontier model releases.
Due to the voluntary nature of any such arrangement, Altman conceded that not every company would be on board with the plan, according to sources cited by Bloomberg.
That skepticism comes with precedent. Three years ago, in March 2023, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and more than 1,000 others signed an open letter to halt advanced AI work for six months.
As outlets reported at the time, labs did not actually follow through with the moratorium they jointly agreed to.
The AI risk call also came out in a September 6 post by OpenAI chief scientist, Jakub Pachocki, which asked AI firms to coordinate “to slow down future development as needed.” Pachocki expressed hope that voluntary slowdowns would “become commonplace until shared safety bars are established.”
In July, Altman said he told White House officials about the need to throttle AI development. Along with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Altman also previously signed a one-line statement declaring AI a societal-scale extinction risk.
Can AI models be used to build bioweapons?
AI models have advanced to the stage that they may be capable of supporting biological weapons research. Just this week, OpenAI declared that its models had solved the Navier Stokes math problem, even if it came under contested terms.
Anthropic presented fresh fodder for that debate when the lab’s 154-page threat intelligence report, released on September 10, detailed five instances of what researchers attempts to use Claude’s capabilities to support their biological weapons work.
Anthropic said the attempts from “unsupported regions” tried to circumvent location restrictions and disguise the purpose of their work. The lab said it took down the accounts, but it did not name any countries and institutions.
Have AI risks now outweighed the benefits?
The reports arrived amid a run of public alarm from inside the labs. On September 8, researcher Jacob Coxon quit and accused both OpenAI and Anthropic of “gambling with our lives,” saying colleagues believe the technology could “kill us all by the end of the decade” and warning of human extinction by 2030.
His post drew more than 150 million views. Two days later, on September 10, former staff from Anthropic and Google’s DeepMind aired similar concerns and pressed for more transparency.
A late-July petition to create a mechanism for slowing development gathered signatures from more than 1,000 workers across the major AI companies.
OpenAI is now pushing Congress for mandatory, capability-based safety rules covering testing, independent evaluations, cybersecurity and incident reporting. “The prospect of AI-accelerated AI development demands more than voluntary commitments,” Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane wrote.
California moved first: Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 813 and AB 1405 on Wednesday, with a companion bill, AB 1864, aimed at guarding against AI-enabled biological threats.
In Washington, Senator Bernie Sanders introduced legislation to pause advanced AI and ban artificial superintelligence, telling the BBC that ignoring scientists’ warnings would make someone “a moron.”
President Donald Trump pushed back, saying on Thursday he worried that “if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position.”
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A New Mexico lawyer defending against a murder conviction case used ChatGPT. He then submitted a brief to the New Mexico Supreme Court that contained made-up police statements and witness accounts.
The New Mexico Supreme Court found that attorney Stephen Aarons failed to verify the AI-generated material. The judges said the document “contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses.”
The court held Stephen in contempt Wednesday and ordered him to pay $5,000. His conduct will also go before an attorney disciplinary board. The judges said Stephen had “demonstrated a lack of remorse and a lack of concern for his client.”
Stephen said he used ChatGPT last year to condense the trial record after taking the appeal. He said he did not realize how far AI “hallucinations” could go or how confidently software could produce facts that never happened.
New Mexico judges punish Stephen after ChatGPT invents testimony inside Oscar’s murder appeal
Stephen, a private attorney based in Santa Fe, represented Oscar Renee Sandoval. Oscar pleaded not guilty to killing the mother of his children. He was later convicted and received life in prison last year. His appeal remains pending.
Stephen allegedly told reporters the error was an honest one. “I am remorseful but hopeful that the disciplinary board takes into account it was an honest mistake,” he said. “It is a lesson learned for all professionals who rely upon this powerful but sometimes unstable technology.”
A number of lawyers have already faced punishments for uncontrolled AI assistance. Cases have been brought against lawyers in both state and federal courts due to briefs that include fake cases, references, and misquoted legal provisions.
Stephen’s application stands out in this category as it includes false testimonies of witnesses in an appeal process.
Oscar’s case moved to Kim Chavez Cook, a New Mexico public defender, on September 2. Kim is now handling the appeal while the case remains open.
Tiru’s family sues OpenAI as Florida officials examine 16,000 ChatGPT chats tied to the FSU shooting
The other court battle involves ChatGPT following the shooting at Florida State University. An attorney representing the family of the deceased, Tiru Chabba, has sued OpenAI, ChatGPT, and Phoenix Ikner in a Federal court.
The case was filed in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Florida on Sunday. It is claimed that OpenAI should have taken action in this situation.
The law enforcement officials in Florida have released the ChatGPT transcripts of Phoenix. This contains queries on how to operate a gun, media coverage, the busiest time on FSU, the Columbine shooting, and making oneself infamous.
Tiru’s family attorney, Bakari Sellers, said the exchanges go back about 18 months and total around 16,000 “disturbing chats.”
“This is the same person who asked, you know, how can he become infamous? He asked about the Columbine shooting. He asked about what time should he go to campus? What time are most people going to be there?” Bakari said.
“He literally utilized open AI and Chat GPT as his co-conspirator, utilized it as a resource to carry out mass murder,” Bakari added. “There was nothing in place to prevent that from happening and so lives were lost. That’s the inherent danger, there has to be something in place to prevent that from happening.”
OpenAI rejected responsibility for the shooting. Spokesperson Drew Pusateri said the company found an account believed to be associated with Phoenix after learning what happened and proactively shared the information with police. Drew said OpenAI is still cooperating with authorities.
“Last year’s mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime,” Drew said.
He said ChatGPT answered with factual material already widely available through public internet sources and did not promote illegal or harmful behavior. Drew also mentioned that hundreds of millions of people daily use ChatGPT for valid reasons.
According to Drew, OpenAI is constantly improving its tools that help in recognizing the intentions of the users, preventing misuse, and acting in case of any concerns about safety issues.
The current lawsuit came after a similar case in Florida. Attorney General James Uthmeier recently revealed that the criminal investigation was launched against OpenAI and ChatGPT by the Office of Statewide Prosecution.
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Moonshot AI wants to push its annualized revenue to $2 billion by the end of 2026, putting the Chinese startup on course for a huge increase from roughly $100 million a year earlier.
The Beijing-based company told investors that annual recurring revenue had already moved above $1 billion in August, compared with about $300 million in June.
The data were allegedly shared privately, and said that Moonshot expects another doubling before December as more individual customers pay for Kimi subscriptions and businesses use the AI models it hosts online.
Most of Moonshot’s latest growth came after Kimi K3 arrived in July. The model has 2.8 trillion parameters, basically the values it works with when reading information and coming up with answers.
K3 finished near the top on benchmark tests while costing far less to run than big US models. The launch also got Moonshot noticed outside China, with demand picking up fast there too. It is trying to win users in a packed AI market, where OpenAI charges more for its products and Chinese companies like DeepSeek compete with lower prices.
Moonshot is also raising fresh money at a valuation of about $50 billion before a possible Hong Kong IPO this year. That puts it close to the current market value of Z.ai (HKEX: 2513).
Kimi K3 brings in more money as Moonshot gets ready for a Hong Kong IPO
Moonshot wants its yearly sales rate to reach $2 billion before the end of the year. Revenue is coming from paid Kimi plans for regular users and online models sold to companies. It is also raising more cash before its planned stock market debut.
At the same time, Anthropic has accused Chinese AI companies of using Claude without permission while training their own systems. Anthropic said Thursday that it found and blocked activity tied to Moonshot, DeepSeek and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. (NYSE: BABA; HKEX: 9988).
Anthropic called the practice “illicit distillation.” That means one AI system takes answers from a stronger model and uses them to help train another one. Anthropic said the companies did this without approval.
Anthropic also said people linked to Alibaba used Claude answers while building Qwen models. It tracked more than 151 million exchanges connected to Alibaba between May and July, the biggest operation of this kind it said it had seen.
At its busiest point, the operation generated almost 3 million exchanges each day through more than 3,500 accounts Anthropic classified as fraudulent. Alibaba-linked researchers also used Claude for other AI work, including reinforcement learning and research into model architecture, the report said.
Anthropic says Moonshot sent Kimi customer requests to Claude and reused some exchanges for training
Anthropic also gave separate numbers for Moonshot. It said the company secretly passed some prompts submitted by Kimi users to Claude before returning Claude’s answers to customers who believed they were interacting with Kimi.
In one 10-day span, close to 300,000 customer prompts were transmitted to Anthropic. Majority of these were submitted to Claude Opus models. The data went through 5,380 accounts, which Anthropic referred to as fraudulent, mostly originating from Singapore and Japan.
According to the report, Anthropic added that Moonshot retained some of these discussions and gathered Claude’s transcripts for the purpose of training. In total, between May and July, more than 23 million discussions were credited to Moonshot.
Some of the prompts contained sensitive data. Anthropic said that it could not ascertain if Moonshot informed their clients about their data sharing with an external AI provider.
“Some of these exchanges included sensitive information, including from individual users, major multinational companies, and state-affiliated actors … These practices are likely inconsistent with privacy laws and the labs’ own terms of service,” Anthropic said in the report.
DeepSeek was accused of using a similar setup. Anthropic said the company transferred user exchanges to Claude without telling those customers. Over 14 days in July 2026, Anthropic recorded more than 12 million suspected distillation attacks linked to DeepSeek.
Anthropic’s report covered activity it said it disrupted from December 2025 through August 2026 and named several other large Chinese AI developers.
The cases were divided across seven categories: cyber operations, influence campaigns, surveillance, scams and fraud, biological misuse, conventional weapons development and AI model distillation.
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U.S. inflation refused to budge from 3.4% in August, leaving another Federal Reserve rate increase very much in play. Consumer prices climbed 0.4% from July, well above the prior month’s 0.1% increase, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures.
CPI-U was already rising drastically during the early part of the year. In February, the increase stood at 0.3%, 0.9% in March, 0.6% in April, and 0.5% in May before falling by 0.4% in June. In July, there was a minor rise of 0.1% followed by another jump in August. Yearly inflation remained unchanged from July at 3.4%.
Meanwhile, traders pushed the odds of another Fed hike to roughly 70% in morning trading, based on CME Group (NASDAQ: CME) FedWatch pricing. They also priced the likelihood of another increase in December at close to 60%.
Wholesale prices gave traders another reason to stay cautious. Producer prices rose 0.4% in August, exactly as expected, while July’s figure was revised higher to a 0.1% increase. That brought annual PPI inflation to 5.4%, a little above forecasts. Meanwhile, U.S. crude oil climbed past $100 a barrel.
Energy and food costs keep adding pressure to inflation across household spending
The prices for energy items increased by 2.1%, partially offsetting the previous month’s decrease of 1.5%. Prices for gasoline have increased 3.9% after seasonal adjustment and constituted one-third of the total CPI change.
Gasoline prices increased by 2.5% during August without seasonal adjustment, whereas the previous monthly changes were 0.8%, 21.2%, 5.4%, 7.0%, -9.7% and -2.9%.
Gasoline prices have now increased by 27.4% year-over-year basis. The energy index has increased 16.3%. Energy commodities prices have increased 4.2% in August and increased by 28% over the last 12 months. Prior to August, the changes for this category were 1.1%, 21.3%, 5.6%, 6.7%, -9.5% and -2.9%.
Fuel oil prices surged 10.1% in August and now sit 52% above their year-ago level. From February through July, monthly changes came in at 11.1%, 30.7%, 5.8%, 3.8%, minus 9.2% and minus 1.7%.
However, energy services fell by 0.4% in August and were still above last year by 4%. The previous readings for monthly changes were 0.2%, 0.4%, 1.6%, 0.4%, -0.7%, and 0.3%.
Food costs increased by 0.1% in August and were 2.7% above those of August last year. The previous monthly changes were 0.4% in February, 0 in March, 0.5% in April, 0.2% in May and June, and 0.1% in July.
Housing, travel and service costs continue pushing core inflation higher
Core inflation, which leaves out food and energy, increased 0.3% in August after a 0.2% rise in July. The yearly rate cooled slightly to 2.4% from 2.5%. Before August, monthly core readings came in at 0.2% in February, 0.2% in March, 0.4% in April, 0.2% in May, zero in June and 0.2% in July.
Housing costs rose 0.3% after gaining just 0.1% one month earlier. They are now 3% above where they stood a year ago. Housing had posted monthly increases of 0.2%, 0.3%, 0.6%, 0.3%, 0.1% and 0.1% from February through July. Rent increased 0.2% in August, and owners’ equivalent rent rose by the same amount.
Hotels and other short-term lodging became 2.4% more expensive after prices fell 2.8% in July. Communication costs climbed 2.3%, compared with 0.6% a month earlier. Airfares increased 2.7%, while education prices rose 0.8%.
Car prices also went up. Used cars and trucks became 0.4% more expensive, matching July’s increase, though prices remained 2.3% below their year-ago level. Earlier monthly readings were minus 0.4% in February, minus 0.4% in March, zero in April, 0.1% in May and minus 0.2% in June.
Before seasonal adjustment, the main CPI-U index stood at 334.980, with the 1982-84 period set at 100. It increased 0.3% during August before seasonal factors were included.
CPI-W, which tracks prices paid by urban wage earners and clerical workers, reached 328.481. It was 3.5% above its year-ago level and rose 0.4% during August before seasonal adjustment.
The chained C-CPI-U increased 3.3% from a year earlier and rose 0.3% during August on an unadjusted basis. Numbers covering the most recent 10 to 12 months can still be revised later.
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Geneva and Lisbon, Sept. 11, 2026 – TRON DAO (“TRON”) and Ethena Labs (“Ethena”) today announced that USDe and sUSDe are live on the TRON network, expanding access to Ethena’s digital dollar products across one of the world’s largest stablecoin settlement networks.
Users can now bridge USDe and sUSDe to TRON through Stargate Finance and hold or transfer both assets across the network. Support across TRON’s core DeFi applications, including JustLend DAO and SUN.io, is expected to roll out over the coming weeks, with broader adoption across wallets, exchanges, and payment applications to follow. USDe on TRON will also remain connected to liquidity across Ethena’s other supported networks, supporting interoperability across Ethena’s broader multichain ecosystem.
USDe brings an additional dollar-denominated asset to TRON, while sUSDe gives TRON’s global user base exposure to Ethena’s rewards-bearing digital dollar product. In turn, Ethena connects with TRON’s global base of over 403 million accounts, where dollar-denominated assets already move at significant scale.
“Millions of people rely on the TRON network every day to make payments, save, and move value globally,” said Justin Sun, Founder of TRON. “Bringing USDe and sUSDe to TRON broadens the options available to users and further strengthens the network as decentralized infrastructure for everyday use.”
“TRON has a massive user base that already holds and moves digital dollars in significant size,” said Guy Young, Founder of Ethena Labs. “Bringing USDe and sUSDe to that ecosystem means those users can hold a dollar that accrues rewards on the network they already use. This integration is the latest step in our effort to bring our digital dollar products to as many people as possible, and we look forward to continuing to work with the TRON DAO team to find new ways to bring value to TRON’s users.”
The integration marks the latest step in USDe’s multichain expansion, with the asset now supported across more than a dozen networks and integrated with leading centralized exchanges and DeFi applications.
About Ethena Labs
Ethena Labs is the development team behind USDe and USDtb and a contributor to the Ethena protocol. Ethena’s USDe is the fastest growing USD-denominated crypto asset in history, encompassing integrations across some of the largest centralized exchanges and major DeFi applications. Ethena is backed by Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Dragonfly, Binance Labs, Bybit, and OKX among others.
Media Contact
Nate Johnson
Ethena-August@AugustCo.com
About TRON DAO
TRON DAO is a community-governed DAO dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet via blockchain technology and dApps.
Founded in September 2017, the TRON blockchain has experienced significant growth since its MainNet launch in May 2018. Today, TRON hosts the largest circulating supply of USD Tether (USDT) stablecoin, which currently exceeds $94 billion. As of September 2026, the TRON blockchain has recorded over 403 million in total user accounts, more than 15 billion in total transactions, and over $28 billion in total value locked (TVL), based on TRONSCAN. Recognized as the global settlement layer for stablecoin transactions and everyday purchases with proven success, TRON is “Moving Trillions, Empowering Billions.”
TRONNetwork | TRONDAO | X | YouTube | Telegram | Discord | Reddit | GitHub | Medium | Forum
Media Contact
Yeweon Park
press@tron.network

The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) and Vermeg, a financial technology infrastructure provider, have chosen Delta Capita’s MACH distributed ledger technology (DLT) to support its integrated digital asset securities depository (DASD).
Delta Capita’s MACH distributed ledger solution allows financial institutions to unlock valuable opportunities for efficiencies, cost savings, improved regulatory compliance and enhanced security. It is a private permissioned DLT.
As per MACH, their DLT is designed with integration and interoperability in mind and offers seamless connectivity to traditional financial industry networks such as SWIFT (ISO15022/ISO20022) and emerging distributed ledger programming languages.
The solution will be delivered to the Central Securities Depository in the UAE, which was recently launched by the UAE’s central bank.
What is the tokenized securities depository MACH is building with CBUAE?
A tokenized securities depository is a digital infrastructure that uses blockchain or distributed ledger technology (DLT) to record, manage, and settle ownership of traditional financial assets like stocks, bonds, and funds.
As per the announcement, Vermeg was appointed by the CBUAE in April 2026 to design and deliver an integrated conventional and digital Central Securities Depository (CSD) platform supporting government debt and Sukuk, alongside a unified collateral management solution.
The DASD will enable capital, cost and revenue efficiencies through T+0 settlement, enhanced collateral mobilization and asset fractionalization. It is also designed to support the issuance of natively digital sovereign debt and Sukuk instruments, as well as the tokenization of existing financial instruments.
The move is part of the central bank’s strategy to strengthen the infrastructure of the UAE’s capital markets.
Back in April, when the Central Bank of the UAE announced it would be developing a tokenized securities depository, it stated that this was a strategic initiative designed to enhance the efficiency of post-trade operations while further strengthening the global competitiveness of the UAE’s financial markets.
The central bank wants to develop an integrated operating environment for liquidity management and settlement across digital and traditional custody activities, in accordance with the highest international standards, and enhance market readiness for future developments, particularly in the areas of digital assets and financial innovation.
Saif Humaid Al Dhaheri, Assistant Governor for Banking Operations and Support Services at the CBUAE, noted at the time, “The development of a Central Securities Depository represents a key cornerstone in building a more efficient and resilient financial infrastructure, directly supporting the growth of capital markets and reinforcing the confidence of international investors in the UAE.”
Badreddine Ouali, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Vermeg, had also noted: “We are honoured to have been selected by the Central Bank of the UAE as its strategic technology partner for this important initiative. CBUAE’s vision for advancing the UAE’s capital market infrastructure is both ambitious and forward-looking.”
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Oracle told investors on Thursday that customers prepaid $11.36 billion of its capital spending in the first quarter, a disclosure analysts said was a bullish signal for a company whose ballooning AI spending stoked a year of cash-burn worries.
The revelation yielded a smaller-than-expected cash shortfall and a larger-than-expected order backlog, and it sent Oracle’s beaten-down stock up 4% in after-hours trading.
Free cash flow fell $5.40 billion, well under the $9.56 billion forecast
Oracle reported a negative free cash flow of $5.40 billion for its fiscal first quarter, well short of the $9.56 billion shortfall analysts had penciled in, according to LSEG data.
That burn was more than the previous quarter, but nowhere near the negative free cash flow of $11.48 billion Oracle reported in the third quarter of fiscal 2026.
Revenue rose 30% to $19.3 billion, above estimates of $19.14 billion, and adjusted earnings of $1.92 a share topped expectations of $1.74.
Capital expenditure was $28.50 billion for the quarter, and Oracle said about $11.36 billion of that spending was funded by prepayments from its own customers and not its own cash.
Cloud infrastructure revenue, which Oracle‘s own press release attributed to “triple digit growth” for the quarter, jumped 121% to $7.39 billion.
Remaining obligations hit $664 billion, beating estimates
Oracle booked more than $30 billion of additional AI cloud contracts in the quarter, lifting its remaining performance obligations to $664 billion.
“And the vast majority of those new contracts were via pre-pay or bring-your-own-hardware or similar mechanic, so won’t require incremental capital from Oracle,” said Oracle CFO’s Hilary Maxson in the analyst call.
Oracle began to see a strong conversion from its backlog to revenue this quarter and anticipates about half of its existing backlog will convert to sales in the next 36 months, she said.
“The AI ROI story just got real for Oracle and its customers,” said Rebecca Wettemann, CEO of the research firm Valoir.
She continued, “Strong results mean Oracle’s customers are voting with their wallets, and Oracle needs to continue to ​push the narrative that backlog growth isn’t just an OpenAI story anymore.”
That’s a relief after a turbulent period for Oracle’s stock, which is down more than 21% this year and close to 25% since its June earnings report through Thursday’s close.
S&P Global cut Oracle’s credit rating in July, citing weak cash flow and increasing business risk. The company now carries $125 billion in debt.
Oracle and CoreWeave were singled out by Moody’s that same month as the two companies with the sharpest credit risk among six leading AI infrastructure spenders, with Oracle rated Baa2, with a negative outlook, two notches above junk.
Investors have also been following reports of delays tied to labor, permitting, and power availability at Oracle’s Stargate data center project.
Against that backdrop, Oracle kept its spending target for the year at $90 billion to $95 billion in reported capital expenditure, consistent with guidance provided by chief financial officer Hilary Maxson on the June earnings call.
On a net-cash basis, the plan still calls for about $70 billion to be spent this fiscal year, more than twice the $32 billion in operating cash flow Oracle generated in all of fiscal 2026.
Oracle also edged up its full-year adjusted earnings forecast slightly to $8.10 a share from $8.05, just above the $8.07 analysts had expected, and kept its revenue target at $90 billion or more.
A single five-year, $300 billion contract to supply OpenAI accounts for a large share of the backlog.
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Fred Ehrsam, who was a co-founder of Coinbase and is still a member of the board of Coinbase, has spent long months of his life living in one of the hotels of Caracas while dealing with the oil business in Venezuela. Ehrsam’s investment vehicle, called Primavera, has recently signed a production-sharing contract with PDVSA, which is the major producer of oil in Venezuela, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on September 10.
It’s unusual for a 38-year-old without experience in the oil and gas sector to take such a step. But the idea is not new: to find a challenging but proven investment opportunity with possibly huge returns. In addition, Ehrsam is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
For cryptocurrency investors, another aspect of the situation could prove to be more significant. In case Venezuela starts substantial oil production, such events will have an impact on crude prices as well as inflation and monetary policy—the same macro forces that affect liquidity and appetite for Bitcoin and Ether.
What Ehrsam is actually chasing in the Orinoco Belt
Ehrsam has been seeking control of at least three fields in the Orinoco Belt, home to the world’s largest concentration of extra-heavy crude. Earlier reports said his targets included fields operated by Alvorada Heavy Industries.
The latest WSJ reporting confirms that Primavera has secured production-sharing contracts with PDVSA, although the eventual size of its operating footprint remains unclear.
Why does Venezuela pull foreign money in
Why is Venezuela such a looked-after country in terms of oil production? It’s simple — size. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has estimated Venezuela’s crude oil reserves to be around 303 billion barrels as of 2023. This makes it the country with the highest amount of oil reserves in the world.
However, oil production in the country in 2023 was only around 783,000 barrels a day (bpd). This increased to 1.12 million bpd by July 2026, as estimated by the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The U.S. is also contributing to reshaping what the investment space looks like. North American Blue Energy Partners received rights to 17 fields comprising over 65 billion barrels of reserves, while the U.S. government acquired a 35% stake in the company. According to a later analysis by the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy, PDVSA characterized the contract as 25 years with the option to extend it, rather than as a 100-year concession.
Chevron is moving faster. The company plans to invest more than $7 billion over five years and more than double its Venezuelan production to around 600,000 bpd.
Venezuela Oil Revival: Reserves, Investment and Production Timeline
Why the bet could take a decade to pay off
The resource base is not the main problem. Execution is.
According to Rystad Energy, Venezuela’s crude production will likely grow by about 17% or 194,000 bpd from late 2025 to late 2028, mostly from existing fields.
“Execution, not geology, remains the key constraint.” — Rystad Energy
However, the outlook of Rystad Energy for a longer period looks much more cautious as significant new production in Orinoco is expected only around 2035.
“Expectations that significantly more oil from Venezuela will reach the market within just a few months are likely to be disappointed.” — Commerzbank
The risk should also be understood in the context of legal uncertainties. It is reported by OPIS that Commerzbank has raised questions about the legality of the deal, whereas Columbia has pointed out that the arrangement may be implemented more to protect the investors rather than Venezuela itself.
The feedback loop back into crypto
The connection between oil prices and cryptocurrencies cannot be traced to just one crude price point. In this case, the link is not anchored to the price of crude oil but issues like rising energy prices, which, in turn, can affect inflation and monetary policy.
According to the Federal Reserve’s research, a 10% increase in oil prices can raise the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by a total of almost 0.4%. In April 2026, Governor of the Federal Reserve Christopher Waller said the increase of Brent crude from $61 at the beginning of the year to approximately $95 was accompanied by an increase in the energy CPI of over 10.8% and the headline inflation of 3.3%.
Importantly, an increase in the Venezuelan supply will not necessarily mean an increase in Bitcoin and Ether prices. However, it might lead to reduced oil-driven inflation and reduce pressures on interest rates and other risk assets in the financial market. In the case of new supply disruptions, the situation will change dramatically.
Venezuela is already deeply connected to the crypto economy. Chainalysis estimated $44.6 billion in Venezuelan crypto transaction flows in 2025 and documented crypto’s dual role as both a household financial lifeline and a tool used in sanctions-linked oil trade.
This situation not only explains why Ehrsam’s transition is more than an unexpected shift from the cryptocurrency sector to the oil industry. Should Primavera succeed in converting the reserves of Venezuela into a sizeable output, the impact will ultimately be felt in energy cost, inflation, and global liquidity, exactly the same factors that facilitated the growth of the business that brought genuine riches to Ehrsam.
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Raydium, the decentralized exchange built on Solana, and its native token RAY is seeing parabolic growth over the past week. At the time of writing, RAY is up around 27% over the past 24 hours and 105% over seven days. The token is trading at $1.72, a price level not seen since November last year. Its market cap now sits at $465 million and it’s on the brink of breaking into the top 100 cryptocurrencies. The catalyst for this bullish momentum did not come from anything Raydium shipped.
Source: CoinGecko
StonkFun Routed Every New Launch to LaunchLab
StonkFun is a token launchpad on Solana with a unique pairing structure. The usual pairing in a launchpad are new tokens against SOL or USDC, whereas over here, the platform pairs against tokenized stocks, pre-IPO tokens, ETFs, currencies and other crypto assets.
Some StonkFun coins launch in reward mode, which puts a 1% or 3% tax on every transfer of that coin. The money collected here is redistributed to the holders, split by how much each person holds. The unique bit here is what they get paid in. These holders do not get paid in the coin itself but rather whatever the coin was paired against. For example, a token that’s paired against tokenized apple stock gets this payout.
That is the reflection meta in practice. The total amount of rewards distributed on StonkFun now stands at over $32 million with around $4.9 million in ZEC to holders of ZCAT.
Source: StonkFun
On September 5, StonkFun moved all new launches onto Raydium’s LaunchLab. This means every trade now settles through Raydium’s pools and everyone pays Raydium a fee.
The volume behind that switch is the part that matters. StonkFun has generated $5.88 million in revenue over the past seven days, second among all launchpads. Pons leads with $10.46 million. pump.fun, which has defined this category for two years, sits third at $4.73 million.
Source: DefiLlama
Twelve Percent of Every Fee Dollar Goes Into Buying RAY
Raydium takes 12% of all trading fees it collects and spends that money buying RAY on the open market. Not a pledge to buy at some point. Purchases that happen daily, at whatever the price is.
Think of it as a buyer who shows up every day with a fixed budget and no price target. The size of that budget depends on how much trading went through Raydium’s pools the day before. More launches bring more trades. More trades bring more fees. More fees hand that buyer a bigger wallet.
The second half is what happens to the RAY afterward. It goes into a protocol wallet rather than back onto exchanges. Every token bought is a token that can no longer be sold into the next day’s bid.
Buybacks Hit $640,788 on September 8
Source: Blockworks
On September 8, the protocol spent $640,788 buying RAY in a single day, the largest daily buyback since February 2025.
For most of 2026, daily buybacks sat in a flat band and barely registered on the chart. They picked up in August. The first week of September turned that slope vertical. LaunchLab itself now ranks ninth among launchpads with $886,612 in seven day fees.
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Ang Visa, Mastercard, at Ant International ay nakikipagtulungan upang lumikha ng isang karaniwang platform na tumutulong sa pagtukoy at pagpapatotoo ng mga AI agent na bumibili para sa kanilang mga may-ari. Nagbubukas ito ng mas malawak na tanong tungkol sa autonomous na software: kung ang sinuman ay makakapagpakita kung sino ang nagbigay ng mga tagubilin sa agent, ano ang pinahihintulutan para sa agent na gawin, at sino ang mananagot para sa mga maling aksyon ng agent?
Ito ay lalo na mahalaga para sa cryptocurrency. Ang mga autonomous agent ay posibleng lumitaw bilang bagong kategorya ng gumagamit ng blockchain dahil mahusay ang stablecoin payments at ang programmable, laging-on na mga network sa ganitong uri ng software.

9. septembril avaldatud artikli kohaselt suutsid üle 100 teadurist, kes kasutavad tehisintellekti koodimängijaid, vähendada Bitcoini vastu suunatud kvantrünnaku väga olulises osas ressursside skoori 86,1%. See areng ei ole läbimurre Bitcoini häkkimisel ega privaatvõtme taastamisel. Pigem näitab see, et ainult tarkvara optimeerimine suudab märkimisväärselt vähendada kvantressursse, mis on vajalikud elliptilise kõveraga aritmeetikaks.
Peamine probleem ei ole see, et „Q-päev“ on kiiresti lähenemas. Tegelik mure on hoopis see, et iga tehniline edasiminek, mis vähendab kvantarünnaku sooritamise hinda, annab Bitcoinile ja mitmetele teistele plokiahelatele vähem aega, et jõuda edukalt ja turvaliselt üle postkvantkaitsele.

Bitwise ຈະຢຸດຕິ Dogecoin ETF ໃນເດືອນຕຸລາ, ບໍ່ດົນຫຼັງຈາກທີ່ເລີ່ມຊື້ຂາຍ, ເຊິ່ງສະແດງວ່າ ເຖິງຈະເປັນກ້າວໜ້າໃນການໄດ້ຮັບການອະນຸມັດດ້ານກົດລະບຽບ ແລະການເຂົ້າເຖິງໜ່ວຍບໍລິການແນະນຳນາຍໜ້າ (brokerage firms), ແຕ່ມັນບໍ່ແມ່ນການຢັ້ງຢືນວ່າຈະມີຄວາມຕ້ອງການທີ່ຍືນຍົງສຳລັບກອງທຶນ crypto ທີ່ຈັດການພຽງແຕ່ໂຕເຄັນດຽວ.
Сᵃລະຍິ່ງທີ່ຊັດເຈນກວ່າແມ່ນການແບ່ງແຍກລະຫວ່າງ altcoins ທີ່ຍັງສາມາດດຶງການລົງທຶນຂອງ ETF ແລະຜູ້ທີ່ລະບົບນິເວດຂອງພວກເຂົາຍັງຈຸດສຸມຢູ່ກັບຊ່ອງທາງທີ່ເນັ້ນ crypto ເປັນຫຼັກ. Bitwise ຕອນນີ້ຖືກຈັດຢູ່ທັງສອງດ້ານ: BWOW ກຳລັງຢຸດລົງ, ໃນຂະນະທີ່ Hyperliquid ETF ຂອງມັນໄດ້ດຶງຄວາມສົນໃຈໃນລະດັບທີ່ສູງກວ່າຫຼາຍ.

Ngathi ngesikhathi uLwesine, i-Anthropic ithe ama-akhawunti axhumene ne-Alibaba enze okungaphezu kwezigidi ezingu-151 zokuhwebelana namamodeli ayo e-Claude phakathi kukaMeyi noJulayi 2026, okungumzamo omkhulu kunayo yonke eyake yawubona wokukopisha ngokungemthetho amakhono emodeli yase-US esezingeni eliphezulu.
Lesi simangalo sigxile eBgodini iThreat Intelligence Report ye-Anthropic yangoSepthemba 2026, echaza umsebenzi inkampani ethi iwubonile futhi yawumisela phakathi kukaDisemba 2025 no-Agasti 2026.
Uhlelo lwe-Alibaba lwalungolukhulu kakhulu emizamweni emihlanu ehlukene yokuncibilikisa (distillation) i-Anthropic ethe yayixhumanisa nezinkampani ze-AI ezise-China.

Apple plans to release at least seven new products in October. This will extend the company’s fall hardware boost well past this week’s iPhone launch and into a second launch window dominated by the first touchscreen MacBook.
Apple’s foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, was revealed at the “Surprise and Shine” event on September 9 but won’t ship until next month.
Four Apple devices held back from launch
This year’s Mac lineup already got a big refresh, with the MacBook Neo, an M5 MacBook Air, high-end M5 MacBook Pros, and updated Mac mini and Mac Studio models arriving earlier. Three more Macs are rumored for October.
The first product is a revamped MacBook Pro, carrying touch input and an OLED display, and pitched by some leakers under an “Ultra” name.
The lineup includes an M6 refresh of the 14-inch entry MacBook Pro and an M6 iMac, reportedly getting a faster chip and fresh color choices.
One of the products deliberately held back from the iPhone show, according to Mark Gurman in a post on September 9, was the touchscreen MacBook.
The long-rumored revamp of Apple’s Home hardware was also not mentioned this week, pushing its expected debut until October. The refresh is all about Siri and Apple Intelligence features that Apple is connecting to new hardware.
On the list is an Apple TV 4K running an A19 or A19 Pro chip and a new Siri Remote, a home hub with an integrated touchscreen that leakers are calling HomePad or HomePod Touch, a second generation HomePod mini with upgraded chip and audio tweaks and potentially a redesigned full-size HomePod. Among the devices that have yet to arrive are the home display, HomePod mini and Apple TV, Gurman said in a post.
An OLED iPad mini is coming this fall
An updated iPad mini is expected this fall with an OLED display and A19 Pro or A20 Pro chip.
There’s also a new entry-level iPad with the A18 chip, enough to support Apple Intelligence, in the works, but that one might not arrive until early 2027.
Apple has had three distinct events in the fall of 2020 and has had October shows in five of the past ten years, usually as a Mac overflow from September. Apple’s last standalone October event was in 2023.
Apple has lifted iPad and MacBook prices in 2026 over memory and storage costs, so the October hardware could come with heftier price tags than past cycles.
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A study documenting 84 cases of “agentic flooding” across 11 jurisdictions connects the surge to cheap AI-generated text.
87% of the surges trace to one capability
Complaints to the UK’s housing ombudsman more than doubled after the arrival of ChatGPT, going from 2,600 in 2022 to just over 7,000 in 2025.
The US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which manages complaints about banks and lenders, had five times as many complaints through the same window.
Excerpted from Figure 1 of Schmitz, Hammond and Chan’s paper Characterizing Agentic Flooding of Government Services, arXiv, showing UK housing ombudsman and US consumer complaint database submission volumes from 2018 to 2025, with the dashed line marking ChatGPT’s 2022 release.
Petitions to the Brazilian judiciary and the German parliament mounted in a similar fashion.
The paper, co-authored by Chris Schmitz with Lewis Hammond of the Cooperative AI Foundation and Alan Chan of GovAI, will be presented next month at the AAAI Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, October 12-14.
Also, the number of individual filings is growing quickly, and this is what the researchers stress about the most.
Quantitative flooding, more requests, and qualitative flooding, a single request growing longer and more complex, are not mutually exclusive. Of the 84 cases, 50 show quantitative flooding, 76 show qualitative flooding, and 42 show both.
One filing deposited with a German social court ran past 4,000 pages.
Normally daily submissions are capped to counter flooding. That doesn’t help when one person puts forward one huge document.
The same capability explains 87% of the surges in the sample. Language models can produce text cheaply and at scale.
There are no agents yet that go to agency websites by themselves.
14 of the 84 cases drew fees or IP blocks
The researchers commenced with 2,288 government services across twelve countries but retained only 84 that passed three tests simultaneously.
A case needed a plausible way for AI to have reduced the cost of applying, evidence that demand had actually shifted, and an explicit statement from officials or a credible third party that AI had been the cause.
Judicial and legal services crowned the list with 19, followed by regulatory complaints at 10 and welfare and social security at 9. In 58 of the 84 cases, a government official pointed the finger directly at AI.
Based on a matrix of 13 factors, the researchers ascertained that the sharpest near-term risk is in services that pay off when a claim succeeds and where complex paperwork has long held demand down, such as tax returns, small claims and property-value appeals. The paper is cautious about its limits.
Eighty-four cases do not prove causation or that services in general are affected. It’s a proof of existence, not a measurement.
Governments can dampen demand with fees, rate limits, or in-person requirements. Or add capacity with more staff, their own AI, or a redesigned intake.
In 14 of the 84 cases, agencies reached for friction, reinstating fees or blocking IP ranges. Australia has mooted bringing back fees for Freedom of Information requests.
But the catch, the paper warns, is that these fixes disproportionately impact poorer and less digitally literate applicants, closing the same door AI was opening.
The Bank of England has cautioned that autonomous artificial intelligence systems could pose a threat to financial stability, and early consumer agents have already gone wrong in the wild.
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On Thursday, the prediction markets were incorporated into trade.xyz’s Hyperliquid trading platform via the launch of Events. The platform already operated one of the largest perpetual businesses on the network. Therefore, traders can now trade prices, interest rates, or scores without the need of switching to a different prediction market platform.
This is important since trade.xyz does not have to start from scratch. Coin Metrics referred to trade.xyz as Hyperliquid’s top HIP-3 developer by opportunity trading and volume, allowing Events to immediately reach an already established group of traders in cryptocurrency.
Events runs on HIP-4, not a separate venue
Events is based upon Hyperliquid Improvement Proposal 4 (HIP-4) that permits the addition of fully collateralized outcome contracts to HyperCore. trade.xyz launches the markets under the venue name txyz. Each market uses a validator-approved template, but the deployer is responsible for choosing permitted parameters and for publishing how the outcome will be resolved.
The launch of Events is also in line with the larger goal of trade.xyz for this platform. In announcing Events, the company stated:
“vision of Hyperliquid as the universal exchange”
In effect, this innovation allows the company to incorporate prediction markets as another product in Hyperliquid’s overall trading portfolio rather than as a separate gambling venue.
The costs remain minimal during the launch phase. According to the documentation of trade.xyz, deployerFeeScale is currently set to zero, which means the company does not apply any additional deployer fee, while charging standard fees for outcome trading on Hyperliquid.
How the contracts settle, and where trust sits
The outcome contracts under HIP-4 are considered to be fully collateralized, which means that no leverage, funding payments, and liquidation are needed in this case. In a binary marketplace, when trading in Yes and No positions, one uses the same economic order book; thus, buying Yes for price p would be the same as selling No for 1-p.
The most significant problem here is settlement. trade.xyz breaks down the process of resolution into two steps. First, the published methodology determines the result based on the declared data source. Next, the result is uploaded into HyperCore by the txyz deployer or the designated settlement address. The data source performs no settlement on its own.
The Daily Up/Down markets utilize a five-minute average from Hyperliquid candle data, while the initial sports markets utilize ESPN unless specified otherwise. trade.xyz cautions that corrections, delays, or uncertain outcomes may cause delayed settlements, thereby ensuring the importance of resolution design and the integrity of the oracle to market risk.
A distribution edge most rivals lack
Coin Metrics reported that trade.xyz accounted for about 55% of Hyperliquid perpetual-market volume in August. As of its August 18 report, the platform had facilitated more than $460 billion in volume since January, roughly 30% of Hyperliquid’s total, while holding more than $4 billion in open interest. It also generated about $5 million in fees over the preceding month.
That footprint gives Events a built-in distribution advantage. Prediction contracts can be put in front of traders already using trade.xyz for crypto, equities, commodities and other perpetual markets.
Cryptopolitan reported on August 31 that Hyperliquid was opening prediction-market deployment to third parties, with trade.xyz preparing its own launch and a 500,000 HYPE bond required for outside outcome deployers.
The stakes for Polymarket and Kalshi
The market is already much larger than it was earlier this year. Galaxy’s June 9 analysis said combined prediction-market lifetime volume crossed $150 billion in April. That month, Kalshi recorded $14.81 billion in notional volume and Polymarket $9.01 billion.
The latest Artemis prediction-market data supplied for this article shows how quickly the sector has grown. Combined lifetime volume across the tracked venues has reached about $402.76 billion. In August 2026, the latest complete month in the dataset, Kalshi generated $40.03 billion in notional volume, compared with about $8.50 billion for Polymarket across its international and U.S. activity.
Kalshi retains the advantage of regulated U.S. exchange access, while Polymarket remains strong in consumer discovery. Hyperliquid is making a different bet: if event contracts become a routine line item beside perpetuals in the same account, prediction markets begin to look less like a niche and more like a standard part of onchain derivatives trading.
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NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has dismissed allegations that the semiconductor company is subsidizing its own AI demand, saying the company’s investments are immaterial when compared with the business they help create. At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Huang dismissed the theory that the growing investment ecosystem of NVIDIA constitutes circular finance.
Huang’s defense moves the debate on to bigger issue: as chipmakers, cloud companies and AI labs keep investing in each other, just how much of the demand in today’s world is organic — and how much financial risk is being created?
Why the “funding its own demand” charge sticks
One can read the worry easily. NVIDIA is investing in either an AI firm or a cloud computing company; that firm then buys certain NVIDIA hardware, and the revenue flows back to NVIDIA. This is not to say that the demand is not real, but the distinction between an investment and a sale becomes blurry.
One can read the worry easily. NVIDIA is investing in either an AI firm or a cloud computing company; this results in that firm purchasing certain NVIDIA hardware, bringing revenue back to NVIDIA. This is not to say that the demand is not real, but the distinction between an investment and a sale becomes blurry.
The companies in question include OpenAI and CoreWeave. NVIDIA is both a partner and investor in OpenAI. At the same time, CoreWeave is using the infrastructure provided by NVIDIA and is supported by NVIDIA. Cryptopolitan previously reported Huang’s opinion that NVIDIA does not use the money of its investments to sustain its customers’ business rather, it evaluates each investment on its own merits.
Where NVIDIA’s money actually flows
While the figures involved sound impressive, they refer to different types of investments. In January, NVIDIA put $2 billion into CoreWeave Class A shares at $87.20 per share and stated that it would also be working with CoreWeave to build more than 5 gigawatts of AI factories by 2030.
Then OpenAI put together the announcement of $110 billion in investments with a pre-money valuation of $730 billion. That includes $30 billion from NVIDIA, $30 billion from SoftBank, and $50 billion from Amazon.
How NVIDIA Is Financing the AI Infrastructure Boom
After that, NVIDIA expanded beyond direct investments in shares. On August 10, the company teamed up with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to create platforms aimed at mobilizing more than $500 billion in third-party capital for AI infrastructure. Note that this is a target for raising financing, not NVIDIA making the commitment of $500 billion.
“In AI, compute is revenue.” — Jensen Huang, NVIDIA CEO
Huang emphasized that GPUs have turned to be productive assets that can generate regular compute revenues instead of being regarded as hardware purchases. In addition, NVIDIA’s quarterly SEC documents proved the importance of customer concentration: the three direct customers made up 16%, 15%, and 13% of the revenues of the first half of the fiscal 2027 year.
Regulators start naming the loop
People are concerned not just about the investors anymore. The IMF revealed in its report released in April that investments in AI could face some difficulty in downturns and that many companies that make up the entire value chain of AI investments are increasingly making use of circular financing. However, the financial stability impact at this moment has been described as insignificant at the current stage.
Concerns expressed by BIS on September 10 have pointed to increased usage of debt and private credit for financing the capital outlays for AI projects. In case the returns are not aligned, the current investment boom is likely to result in a much bigger financial crisis.
Due to the size of the sector, it is not surprising that NVIDIA’s financing model has drawn attention. According to estimates from S&P Global, the five largest hyperscalers may spend an additional $5.3 trillion in capital expenditures until 2030. In addition, the 2026 AI Index from Stanford University estimates that global AI compute capacity has gone up to 17.1 million H100-equivalents, with NVIDIA being responsible for more than 60% of the total.
The debate predates the latest denial
Huang has been narrowing expectations for months. In February, referring to earlier discussions of an OpenAI investment of up to $100 billion, he said:
“It was never a commitment.” — Jensen Huang, NVIDIA CEO
He added that NVIDIA would invest “one step at a time,” as Cryptopolitan reported.
The differentiation is important beyond just NVIDIA. In the case where end-user demand supports the infrastructure at play that is currently financed, this could lead to an accelerated evolution of AI. On the other hand, if financing, orders, and valuations go hand in hand too fast compared to revenues, the consequence could mean trouble for the semiconductor industry, cloud companies, data centers, and any startups working with AI. This is the risk that markets are facing now.
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Blockstream’s sidechain Liquid resumed block production on Thursday, about four days after a person claiming to be a white hat hacker drained close to 4,000 BTC from its federation wallet and then handed back most of it. The restart is pertinent to anyone with Liquid Bitcoin (L-BTC) or stablecoins on the network.
Funds have been suspended since Sunday, and about 600 BTC still in the attacker’s hands represents a hole in the reserve backing those tokens.
SideSwap’s peg-out key was used but never stolen
In a status update posted at 10:00 UTC, the @Liquid_BTC account said that block production had resumed “without transactions” as a precautionary measure while the team monitors for full stabilization.
Bridge and functionary nodes of Liquid now have the requisite software patches live. Functionary nodes are signing and validating blocks as they ought.
Peg operations are switched off while the network rebuilds its BTC-to-L-BTC reserve.
It all commenced on Sunday, September 6, when hackers claiming white-hat status withdrew about 4,000 BTC, worth about $320 million, from the Liquid Federation wallet. That was about 95% of the wallet’s ~4,200 coin balance.
At the time, Cryptopolitan reported that the withdrawal was made using SideSwap’s peg-out authorization key, which was never stolen.
Blockstream later said the issue was induced by a flaw in Elements, the open-source software underpinning Liquid, that allowed the creation of invalid L-BTC and its redemption via the normal path as if it had been fully backed.
The team shipped an emergency fix, Elements v23.3.4, one day before restart, hardening the cache keys used for range proofs to close the proof verification vulnerability connected to the theft.
Adam Back promises the peg but not a timeline
After Blockstream signed an on-chain note saying, “Bridge nodes are patched, safe to return the funds,” the actors returned 3,400 BTC, about $269.2 million at the September 7 conversion rate. That left some 598.5 BTC outstanding, somewhere around $46 million to $47 million depending on the current price.
On September 9, the anonymous hacker publicly blasted Blockstream’s spending, claiming the company had allocated only $1.5 million to protect $5 billion in assets.
“Your dereliction of duty is obvious,” the hacker wrote, warning that the rest of the coins would stay missing unless a 10% bug bounty was paid.
“You SHALL pay 10% using your own money as bug bounty or you will cause all your holders a 15% loss for your irresponsibility and stinginess,” added the threat actor.
Blockstream founder and CEO Adam Back reassured holders that the L-BTC peg will be honored one-for-one, meaning users can redeem their tokens for the same amount of Bitcoin on the base layer.
“Do not panic sell OTC,” wrote Back on X.
He did not express how the ~600 BTC shortfall will be covered when peg-outs reopen or provide a timeline for restoring peg-in and peg-out services.
The network moved again about 10 hours later. A status update posted at 19:55 UTC verified that transactions had resumed, while peg-outs are unavailable.
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The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has said that Polymarket and Kalshi do not hold the authorization required to sell event contracts to users across the bloc.
Several countries are making moves to either regulate or outrightly ban prediction market platforms due to concerns about insider trading, manipulation and much more.
Why are prediction markets not authorized in Europe?
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has said that “the marketing and sale of event contracts in the EU generally requires an EU authorisation” which apparently the largest prediction market platforms, including Kalshi and Polymarket, currently do not hold.
ESMA said it is unclear why all EU member states are not blocked and went further to question whether the sites can realistically stop users from masking their location with a VPN.
Prediction contracts, depending on what they reference, can belong to one of three regimes.
For instance, in a situation where a contract’s payout hinges on a financial variable, ESMA treats it as economically close to a binary option, the all-or-nothing product the EU barred from retail investors years ago after heavy consumer losses. National intervention measures already ban the marketing, distribution and sale of those to retail clients.
If a contract uses blockchain technology but is not a financial instrument, it may fall under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules, and if it fits neither of the previous two categories, then it falls under national gambling laws, which differ from one EU country to another.
How EU regulators interpret prediction contracts
Back in July, ESMA already said that existing binary options rules cover event contracts that count as financial instruments. The law firm Norton Rose Fulbright traced this same logic back to MiFID II, the rulebook that defines what a financial instrument is. Analysts cited by the firm think prediction-market volumes could reach $1 trillion by 2030.
Do Europe’s insider trading rules apply to prediction markets?
Europe’s rules against insider trading only apply when a contract counts as a financial instrument.
Cryptopolitan reported that nine European gambling regulators moved against unlicensed platforms during the FIFA World Cup. Swiss authority Gespa director Manuel Richard’s reasons for acting against the platforms include insider trading, manipulation and money laundering, among other risks that these sites carry with no required safeguards.
France ordered internet providers to cut off Polymarket in July, adding to blocks from Switzerland, Poland, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Singapore and Brazil.
Spain’s Consumer Rights Ministry used ISP-level DNS and network blocks to temporarily ban both Kalshi and Polymarket in May due to their missing gambling licenses.
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