CoinPhoton

The crypto industry’s next major wave of users may not be humans at all, but AI agents capable of autonomously buying data, computing power and online services.
Coinbase’s x402 payment protocol has already processed more than 165 million payments worth about $50 million, with Coinbase estimating roughly 99% of transactions use USDC. Most activity involves machine-to-machine payments for APIs, data and computing rather than consumer shopping.
Stablecoins currently have an early advantage because they enable 24/7 global settlement and very small payments that are often uneconomical through card networks. Coinbase’s disclosed figures imply an average x402 transaction of only about $0.30.
Other major companies are building similar infrastructure. Cloudflare is developing programmable wallets and payment tools that let AI agents spend within preset budgets, while Circle is testing USDC nanopayments. Visa and Mastercard are adapting card networks for agent purchases, and MoonPay’s PayBox supports both cards and crypto wallets.
The market remains tiny compared with traditional payments — x402 handled roughly $24 million during one 30-day period in July, about what Visa processes in roughly a minute.
Still, AI agents could fundamentally change online commerce by replacing subscriptions with high-frequency, pay-per-use transactions, where software automatically pays fractions of a dollar whenever it needs an API call, dataset, inference request or piece of content.
For now, stablecoins appear to be leading this emerging machine-to-machine economy, but cards and traditional payment networks are competing to ensure they remain part of the infrastructure used by autonomous AI.

Bitcoin’s sharp rebound toward $80,000 is showing several characteristics typically associated with a market bottom, although analysts remain divided over whether the recovery is sustainable.
Quantum Economics founder Mati Greenspan said bottoms often begin with a short squeeze, large green candles and breakouts above key technical levels, followed by FOMO as sidelined investors rush back into the market. He believes the odds of another major pullback are now relatively low.
The rally was heavily driven by derivatives. Analysts said aggressive short positioning had accumulated while Bitcoin traded below roughly $64,000–$66,000, and the subsequent breakout triggered cascading liquidations and algorithmic buying. LO:TECH researcher Adam Morgan McCarthy noted that more than half of one day’s 7.1% BTC gain occurred within a single hour, a pattern consistent with a short squeeze.
However, some analysts remain cautious. AdLunam co-founder Jason Fernandes said Bitcoin could lose momentum unless the market sees sustained spot ETF inflows and clearer monetary-policy easing.
Leverage is also becoming a risk. TBV co-founder Tobias Bauer said Binance processed around $1.26 billion in Bitcoin futures within a single 60-second period, while funding rates reached exchange maximums, making leveraged long positions increasingly expensive.
The key debate is therefore whether the rally marks a durable Bitcoin bottom or primarily a short-squeeze-driven surge that still needs stronger spot demand and macro support to continue. $BTC

Bitget CEO Gracy Chen expects Bitcoin to remain broadly near current price levels through the end of 2026, citing interest rates and wider macroeconomic uncertainty.
Chen said BTC could finish the year roughly $10,000–$20,000 above or below current levels, describing that range as a more responsible forecast than making a strong directional call.
She noted that Bitcoin has become increasingly connected to traditional financial markets, making it more sensitive to changes in interest rates and broader economic conditions.
Chen was also skeptical that the US government will directly purchase Bitcoin within the next two years. Although the Trump administration created a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve in March 2025 using BTC already held through government forfeitures, direct purchases would require a much larger political and policy decision.
The US government currently holds an estimated 328,372 BTC, with most of those holdings originating from seizures and asset forfeitures rather than market purchases. $BTC

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio has urged investors to overweight gold and some Bitcoin rather than bonds as he warns of a potential US debt crisis.
Dalio said investors could consider allocating around 10%–15% of their portfolios to gold to reduce risk, while also holding “a bit of Bitcoin.” He cited growing government debt alongside domestic political tensions and geopolitical conflicts as reasons to favor scarce assets over debt instruments.
The billionaire investor, whose net worth is estimated at more than $15 billion, said a US debt crisis could emerge in roughly three years, give or take two, unless the country changes its current fiscal trajectory.
Dalio remains more bullish on gold than Bitcoin and has previously argued that BTC cannot fully replace gold as a store of value. However, his recommended Bitcoin exposure has increased over time: in 2022 he described a 1%–2% allocation as reasonable, while in 2025 he suggested investors could hold as much as 15% combined in Bitcoin and gold.

The European Commission is considering whether crypto lending and borrowing, including DeFi lending vaults, should be brought under the EU’s MiCA regulatory framework.
MiCA currently leaves fully decentralized crypto services outside its scope, creating uncertainty for lending vaults that can direct billions of dollars into onchain credit markets without fitting traditional definitions of a lender, investment fund or crypto service provider.
Protocols such as Morpho highlight the problem. Its vault architecture splits control among owners, curators, allocators and risk-management roles, making it difficult for regulators to identify a single entity responsible for providing the lending service.
Legal experts warn against regulating all “DeFi lending” as one category because vaults can perform very different economic functions. Instead, regulation could focus on who actually controls a protocol, sets risk parameters and can alter users’ positions.
The European Commission opened its MiCA review consultation on May 20, 2026, covering DeFi, lending and other areas omitted from the original framework. The consultation runs until September 30, 2026.
The eventual outcome could determine whether decentralized lending vaults remain largely outside MiCA or become subject to a dedicated EU regulatory regime.

A Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland study found that crypto ownership is driven more by investors’ expectations about future returns and risk than by traditional factors such as age, income or gender.
Crypto owners surveyed expected an average 22% return over the following year, compared with just 7% among non-owners, while also viewing digital assets as less risky.
In a 2025 experiment, households shown Bitcoin’s previous 12-month performance increased their desired crypto allocation by about 2 percentage points — roughly 47% above the control group — while subsequent crypto purchases rose about 2.5 percentage points.
Researchers said the results suggest a potential feedback loop: Bitcoin gains attract new investors, their buying pushes prices higher, and those higher prices can attract even more participants.
The study concluded that wide disagreement and limited knowledge about crypto could keep volatility elevated, with past price performance itself playing an important role in shaping future retail demand. $BTC

Ripple has partnered with South Korea’s Jeonbuk Bank to deploy Ripple Payments, enabling 24/7 cross-border remittances with settlement in seconds to minutes.
The regional bank will use Ripple’s infrastructure to provide faster international payment services to clients including import-export businesses, IT startups and online content creators. Ripple contrasted the system with traditional SWIFT transfers, which can take days to complete.
Jeonbuk Bank is the first regional bank in South Korea to deploy Ripple Payments, according to the companies.
The agreement marks Ripple’s third South Korean partnership in 2026. In April, it partnered with Kyobo Life Insurance on tokenized government bond transactions using Ripple Custody and separately worked with Kbank on a proof-of-concept for onchain cross-border payments.
Ripple’s expansion in South Korea comes despite weaker activity in the country’s crypto market, where Upbit and Bithumb both reported revenue declines of nearly 50% in the first half of 2026. $XRP

IREN has delivered the first of four planned AI cloud deployments to Microsoft under a five-year, $9.7 billion agreement, marking another major step in the former Bitcoin miner’s shift toward AI infrastructure.
The Horizon 1 facility at IREN’s Childress, Texas, campus provides 50 megawatts of liquid-cooled IT capacity and uses Nvidia GB300 GPUs. Horizon 2 through Horizon 4 are expected to come online later in 2026, bringing the total deployment to 200 MW.
IREN said Horizon 1 also received Nvidia Exemplar Cloud status after testing of its GB300 NVL72 systems, recognizing the deployment’s performance and reliability for AI workloads.
The company is targeting 480 MW of AI cloud capacity in 2026 and as much as 1.2 gigawatts by 2027 as it continues diversifying away from Bitcoin mining.
IREN previously secured a $3.65 billion debt package backed by the Microsoft contract. The financing was designed to cover about 96% of the $5.81 billion in GPU spending associated with the project.
IREN shares rose about 2.6% to $45.22 on Monday, though the stock remained up less than 6% year to date.

Tokenized stocks have expanded to roughly 15% of the real-world asset market, triple their share at the start of 2026, as retail interest in onchain equity trading accelerates. The sector’s total market capitalization now stands at around $2.8 billion.
Overall RWA transfer volume has also surged, more than doubling in August to about $20 billion from $9 billion in July.
Ondo Finance, Binance’s bStocks and xStocks currently dominate tokenized equities, together accounting for roughly 77% of the market. Ondo leads with about $957 million, followed by bStocks at $622 million and xStocks at $600 million.
These platforms primarily offer synthetic representations designed to track the performance of underlying shares while allowing investors to trade them onchain. By contrast, companies such as Securitize and Superstate are working on structures where actual equity shares are issued on blockchain networks.
Synthetic stocks currently dominate trading activity but generally do not provide the same ownership rights, voting power or shareholder protections associated with directly holding conventional shares.

Robinhood Chain’s total value locked has climbed above $540 million, rising more than 45% in August, while its stablecoin market capitalization has reached roughly $640 million.
USDe has emerged as the main growth driver, with supply on the chain rising nearly 50% since the start of August to about $286 million. It now accounts for roughly 44% of Robinhood Chain’s stablecoin supply.
By comparison, USDG, the chain’s dominant stablecoin at launch, has largely stalled at between $330 million and $350 million. USDG represented 92.7% of stablecoin supply during Robinhood Chain’s first week.
Tokenized real-world assets have also grown, increasing 120% month over month to around $32 million. However, their share of total TVL has fallen sharply from nearly one-third on July 7 to just 6% currently.
The data suggests overall capital on Robinhood Chain has expanded roughly seven times faster than tokenized RWAs since launch, despite Robinhood positioning tokenized equities as one of the network’s flagship use cases.

Binance is reportedly preparing to apply for authorization from the UK Financial Conduct Authority as the country introduces a new regulatory regime for crypto companies.
The exchange’s UK arm, Binance Markets Limited, has been barred from conducting regulated activities in Britain since June 2021. Binance also stopped onboarding new UK users in 2023 following tighter FCA financial promotion requirements.
According to The Telegraph, Binance now plans to seek a UK license that could allow it to relaunch certain services for residents once the new framework takes effect.
Under the FCA’s timetable, crypto firms will be able to submit authorization applications from September 2026 through Feb. 28, 2027. The new regulatory regime is scheduled to take effect on Oct. 25, 2027.
The FCA has said crypto companies will be expected to meet standards similar to those imposed on other financial services firms. Binance declined to confirm the reported licensing plan, saying it does not comment on speculation regarding potential applications.

South Korea’s two largest crypto exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb, reported steep declines in revenue and profit in the first half of 2026 as weaker digital asset prices and shrinking liquidity hit domestic trading activity.
Upbit parent Dunamu said revenue fell 49.1% year over year to 408.1 billion won ($289 million), while operating profit plunged 79.7% to 111.5 billion won ($79 million). Net profit dropped 74.1% to 108.4 billion won ($77 million).
Bithumb’s revenue declined 48.7% to 168.8 billion won ($120 million), with operating profit falling 83.4% to 14.9 billion won ($11 million). The exchange swung to a net loss of 108.7 billion won ($77 million), compared with a $39 million profit a year earlier.
The downturn came as Bitcoin fell more than 30% during the first half of 2026 and Ether dropped from around $3,000 to roughly $1,600. Combined second-quarter trading volume across South Korea’s five fully licensed exchanges reportedly fell 49.5% year over year to $146.4 billion.
Capital also shifted toward South Korean equities as the KOSPI surged, supported by semiconductor stocks including Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.
Despite weaker results, both exchanges are pursuing major corporate restructuring. Dunamu is working on a share swap with Naver Financial that could eventually lead to a Nasdaq listing, while Hana Financial and Samsung affiliates have acquired stakes in the company. Bithumb is targeting an IPO in 2028 and is also expanding internationally, including through a partnership aimed at entering Vietnam.

Edward Zimbardi, the alleged mastermind behind a $165 million cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme, has been deported from Fiji to the United States to face federal fraud and money laundering charges.
US prosecutors allege Zimbardi operated “The Crypto Program” between June 2022 and August 2023, promising investors guaranteed monthly returns of 25%. Thousands of investors reportedly transferred more than $165 million in crypto to wallets under his control.
Authorities say Zimbardi instead lost more than $34 million through risky foreign currency trades, used funds from new investors to pay earlier participants, and spent at least $10 million on personal expenses, including a home, luxury vehicles and alimony.
Zimbardi was indicted on July 8 on 12 counts of wire fraud, 12 counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Prosecutors say he fled to Fiji after learning of the FBI investigation and remained there for more than a year before being deported.

Hyperliquid traders are valuing Unitree Robotics at nearly $38 billion ahead of its Shanghai stock market debut, more than four times the roughly $9 billion valuation implied by its IPO price.
Unitree priced its STAR Market IPO at 150.80 yuan ($22.37) per share, while pre-IPO perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid were trading around $92–$94, according to blockchain analytics firm Allium.
The huge premium reflects strong expectations for the Chinese robotics company, whose revenue reportedly rose 335% last year to $253 million, while humanoid robot shipments exceeded 5,500 units. Unitree’s IPO was also reportedly more than 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors.
However, the gap between the IPO price and Hyperliquid’s synthetic market creates significant liquidation risks. Allium estimated that even if Unitree opens at around $45 — twice its IPO price — the stock would still be about 52% below current perp prices and could liquidate roughly one-third of leveraged long positions.
Conversely, an opening near $128 could liquidate an estimated 53% of short positions. If the shares debut near the current $92–$94 perp price, neither side would face major forced liquidations.
The two Unitree pre-IPO markets on Hyperliquid have accumulated about $9.1 million in open interest and $59 million in trading volume. Positioning is almost evenly split overall, although smaller traders are notably bearish, with about 70% of positions under $50,000 short by value. $HYPE

DefiLlama delayed the launch of its official mobile app for months while trying to get Apple to remove fake phishing apps impersonating the crypto analytics platform from the App Store.
DefiLlama founder 0xngmi said the team wanted all fraudulent apps removed before launching its own app to reduce the risk of users being scammed.
According to 0xngmi, one malicious app remained available for months despite repeated reports. Apple removed it within days only after the DefiLlama team downloaded the app and documented how it drained funds from a small crypto wallet.
Fake crypto apps have repeatedly appeared on major app stores. Previous cases involved apps impersonating Rabby Wallet, Curve Finance and Ledger Live.
A fake Ledger Live app listed on Microsoft’s store in 2023 resulted in about $588,000 being stolen across 38 transactions.

Strategy has criticized MSCI’s proposed methodology for identifying “non-operating companies,” warning that the rules could remove the world’s largest Bitcoin treasury company from MSCI’s global equity indexes.
“Digital assets are assets. Index providers should measure markets, not decide which assets companies are allowed to own,” Strategy said, arguing that MSCI’s approach is out of step with regulators, markets and investors.
Under MSCI’s latest proposal, a financial-ratio screening method would be used instead of an earlier rule specifically targeting companies with large digital asset holdings. Applying the new methodology to May 2026 data would have excluded Strategy, Metaplanet and uranium investment company Yellow Cake from the MSCI ACWI IMI.
Strategy previously opposed an MSCI proposal that could have excluded companies if digital assets represented at least 50% of total assets.
The company maintains that it is an operating business rather than a passive Bitcoin investment vehicle, citing its software operations, active treasury management and Bitcoin-backed credit products.
Strategy concluded its latest response with a pointed message: “Bitcoin doesn’t need MSCI. Neither does Strategy.” $BTC

Crypto startups raised $11.2 billion across 377 disclosed funding rounds in the first half of 2026, with capital overwhelmingly concentrated in regulated businesses, according to research by Dubai-based crypto lawyer Irina Heaver and NeosLegal.
Payments and stablecoins led with $3.7 billion, followed by prediction markets at $2 billion and exchanges and trading platforms at $1.7 billion. Major deals included Kalshi’s $1 billion raise, Polymarket securing $600 million from NYSE owner ICE, and a $355 million round for Canton Network backed by Abu Dhabi’s ADIA, a16z, Apollo and HSBC.
Traditional financial giants including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Citadel and Nasdaq also invested in regulated crypto companies. Mastercard separately agreed to acquire stablecoin payments firm BVNK for $1.8 billion.
Investors increasingly view regulatory licenses as competitive assets because obtaining approvals such as VARA licenses or MiCA authorization can take years and cost millions of dollars.
However, industry executives cautioned that the trend does not necessarily mean permissionless crypto is disappearing. Bitget CEO Gracy Chen noted that retail users continue to generate substantial activity outside the regulated businesses attracting institutional capital.
The data suggests institutional crypto investment is increasingly shifting toward licensed companies with established revenue models, regulatory approval and stronger barriers to entry.

President Donald Trump is expected to attend a White House meeting on Wednesday with leaders from the crypto, prediction market and AI industries, according to people briefed on the plans.
Executives from Coinbase, Ripple, Gemini, Robinhood, Polymarket and Kalshi are expected to participate, alongside CFTC Chairman Mike Selig. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick may also attend.
The gathering will take place ahead of the first meeting of the CFTC’s new Innovation Advisory Committee on Thursday. The committee also includes executives from traditional financial firms such as CME Group, Nasdaq, Intercontinental Exchange and DTCC.
Thursday’s CFTC session will focus on crypto regulation and remaining challenges to establishing a durable U.S. federal market structure.
The meetings come as the Trump administration continues negotiations over the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, whose progress in the Senate has been complicated by disputes over proposed ethics restrictions related to Trump’s personal involvement in the crypto industry.

SafePal said a security flaw in its order-tracking system exposed the personal data of approximately 39,798 customers who made purchases between March 2, 2025 and April 11, 2026.
The leaked data included names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses and purchase details. SafePal said seed phrases, private keys, wallet passwords, payment card information and other wallet credentials were not affected, with no evidence that the breach directly compromised customer funds.
The company warned affected users to expect phishing attempts from scammers impersonating SafePal staff and offering fake firmware updates, refunds or replacement hardware wallets.
SafePal said it received the first potentially related report in early May but initially treated it as an isolated incident. Customers were publicly reporting highly targeted scam attempts by early July, while SafePal said it only recently confirmed the authorization flaw as the root cause.
The company has taken down more than 30 phishing websites and links associated with the campaign. The disclosure follows similar customer-data breaches affecting Trezor and Ledger, although in all three cases the companies said wallet private keys remained secure. $SFP

Attackers exploited a critical vulnerability in Apple’s Screen Sharing feature to take control of internet-exposed Macs and install Monero mining software, according to the Netherlands’ National Cyber Security Centre.
Apple patched the flaw on Aug. 6 in macOS Tahoe 26.6.1, Sequoia 15.7.9 and Sonoma 14.8.9. Unpatched Macs with Screen Sharing exposed to the internet remain vulnerable.
Security firm Huntress said the bug allows attackers to bypass authentication entirely, meaning changing Screen Sharing passwords does not mitigate the issue. Researchers identified tens of thousands of potentially exposed Macs, including many rented bare-metal machines operated by hosting providers.
U.S. authorities have rated the vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-65400, at a critical 9.8 out of 10 on the CVSS scale.
The attackers used compromised Macs for Monero cryptojacking, taking advantage of XMR’s ability to be mined on ordinary computers and its privacy-focused transaction model. Apple users who rely on Screen Sharing are advised to install the latest macOS security updates immediately.