CoinPhoton

Crypto wallets linked to North Korea’s state-affiliated Lazarus Group moved about $30 million in digital assets through decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, according to blockchain data analyzed by Arkham.
The wallets reportedly sent Bitcoin to Hyperliquid and HyperUnit, converted the funds into Ether or Solana, and then bridged the assets to the Ethereum, Solana and Tron networks.
The funds were ultimately transferred to several centralized exchanges, including KuCoin, Kraken and LBank, as well as unidentified Tron-based services.
Lazarus Group has been linked to some of the largest crypto thefts on record, including the $1.4 billion Bybit hack in 2025. North Korea-linked hackers were also tied to at least $578 million of the $634 million stolen in crypto-related incidents in April.

Two Thai businessmen have sued Tether in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York over the freezing of approximately $42.4 million in USDT.
According to attorney Ariel Givner, the plaintiffs allege Tether froze their wallets in October 2025 following an informal request from Homeland Security Investigations, despite there being no warrant or court order at the time.
A federal seizure warrant was reportedly issued only in February 2026, directing the tokens to be burned and reissued to a US government-controlled wallet. The funds are allegedly connected to a $61 million “pig butchering” money-laundering case.
The lawsuit does not primarily contest the underlying criminal allegations. Instead, it challenges whether Tether had the legal authority to freeze the USDT before receiving a court order and whether the later warrant authorized the company to burn and reissue the tokens to the government.

Remixpoint, Japan’s second-largest listed digital asset treasury company after Metaplanet, has sold all of its altcoin holdings and shifted to a Bitcoin-only treasury strategy.
The company said it sold approximately 901.45 ETH, 13,920 SOL, 1.19 million XRP and 2.80 million $DOGE
on Sept. 1 for a combined 879 million yen, generating a profit of about 118 million yen.
Following the transactions, Bitcoin is now Remixpoint’s only remaining crypto asset, with the company holding approximately 1,506 BTC.
Remixpoint said the portfolio consolidation is part of a broader strategy to focus its future crypto holdings and operations around Bitcoin. $BTC

Robinhood Chain saw record trading activity in RWA-related tokens, with daily volume reaching $390 million, according to data from @adam_tehc.
Memecoin–stock pairs accounted for a record $217 million in volume, while tokenized stocks generated an all-time high of $127 million. The total market capitalization of tokenized RWA assets on Robinhood Chain has also surpassed $84 million.
The figures highlight a growing convergence between crypto speculation and traditional finance, with memecoin activity increasingly helping generate liquidity, trading volume and TVL for tokenized stocks onchain.

Hyperliquid Strategies has increased its equity facility with Chardan Capital Markets from $1 billion to $2.5 billion, giving the HYPE treasury company significantly more capacity to raise capital through share sales.
Under the amended agreement, Hyperliquid Strategies can periodically sell newly issued shares to Chardan, subject to pricing and trading-volume conditions. The expanded $2.5 billion facility represents maximum fundraising capacity rather than capital already raised, and further use of the facility could dilute existing shareholders.
The company previously raised about $647 million through the program and expanded its treasury to roughly 29.3 million HYPE tokens.
The move comes amid renewed interest in Hyperliquid. HYPE gained more than 20% in August after US President Donald Trump said CFTC Chair Michael Selig was working toward bringing the decentralized trading platform into the US under a compliant regulatory framework. Hyperliquid Strategies says it is independent and not affiliated with the Hyperliquid protocol. $HYPE

The UK’s National Crime Agency has reportedly frozen £10 million ($13.5 million) as part of an investigation into blockchain-based fantasy sports company Sorare over allegations of unlicensed gambling.
According to The Sun, the funds were frozen following a January 2025 court order to prevent them from being moved while authorities investigate potential links to alleged third-party criminal activity.
Sorare, known for its blockchain-based digital sports trading cards, signed a four-year, $162 million partnership with the Premier League in 2023, but the agreement ended after last season.
The investigation comes amid broader UK scrutiny of sports sponsorships involving crypto and financial companies. In June, the Financial Conduct Authority warned Premier League clubs about “questionable sponsorship deals” involving firms not authorized to operate in the country.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a major overhaul of transfer-agent rules as blockchain-based recordkeeping and tokenized securities gain traction in US financial markets.
The proposal would modernize requirements for registration, recordkeeping, asset safeguarding and securities transfers, while introducing new standards addressing cybersecurity, operational resilience and the use of third-party service providers.
The SEC specifically highlighted growing demand for “onchain” transfer agents, tokenized fund administration and cross-chain systems, saying existing rules — largely written in the late 1970s and early 1980s — are not designed for today’s digital market infrastructure.
The agency is seeking public feedback, with comments due 60 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register. The move is part of a broader SEC effort to simplify and modernize securities regulation, including proposed changes to public-company reporting and crypto custody rules.

Binance is expanding further into traditional finance by launching options trading on more than 1,000 US stocks and ETFs for eligible users outside the United States.
The service will be offered through Binance’s Abu Dhabi-regulated broker-dealer, Nest Trading, with trades executed, cleared and custodied by US-registered Alpaca Securities. Unlike equity-linked perpetual futures, the options are physically settled, allowing exercised contracts to result in delivery of the underlying shares.
The launch builds on Binance’s existing offering of more than 7,000 US stocks and ETFs. Demand for traditional financial products on the platform has surged, with TradFi perpetual futures volume reaching about $433 billion in August, roughly 15 times January’s level.
The broader tokenized equity market is also growing rapidly. Distributed value has climbed to about $2.6 billion from $346 million a year ago, while monthly transfer volume reached $25.1 billion and the number of holders approached 2.5 million. $BNB

Core DAO is coordinating an emergency hard fork after a small group of validators claimed significantly more CORE rewards than the protocol was intended to issue.
Core said the incident has been contained and the affected validators can no longer collect excess rewards. The upcoming fork will be a forward-only upgrade, meaning the blockchain will not be rolled back and previously confirmed transactions will remain unchanged. User assets were not affected, according to the project.
Several exchanges restricted CORE transfers following the incident. Coinbase paused sends and receives on the Core network, while Bithumb, Coinone, Bitget and LBank suspended CORE deposits and withdrawals.
Core has not disclosed how much excess CORE was issued, how long the issue persisted, whether the tokens entered circulation, or the vulnerability that allowed validators to claim the additional rewards. The project said it will publish a technical postmortem.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $3.52 billion in net inflows in August, their best month of 2026, as Bitcoin surged about 25% — its strongest monthly gain since November 2024.
The August inflows cut year-to-date ETF net outflows by roughly 66%, from $5.29 billion to $1.77 billion. Total ETF assets climbed 31% month-over-month to $99.61 billion, while trading volume rose nearly 49% to $58.63 billion.
Momentum weakened at the start of September, with US spot Bitcoin ETFs posting $236.46 million in net outflows on Tuesday as BTC briefly dropped below $77,000. Ether and XRP ETFs remained positive, attracting about $11 million and $14.4 million respectively.
$BTC

OpenSea Adds Solana NFT Trading as Marketplace Expands Multi-Chain Support
OpenSea has added support for Solana NFTs, allowing users to buy, sell and trade Solana-based digital collectibles directly on the marketplace.
The integration follows OpenSea’s earlier Solana NFT beta in 2022 and the addition of Solana fungible-token trading through OS2 in 2025. Solana is now OpenSea’s first non-EVM blockchain supported for NFT trading since the original beta ended.
Users can access major Solana collections including Claynosaurz, Mad Lads, BoDoggos, Collector Crypt and Phygitals.
The expansion comes amid a prolonged NFT market downturn. Monthly NFT marketplace volumes, which reached billions of dollars during the 2021–2022 boom, have fallen to only a few hundred million dollars, while platforms including Binance NFT, Nifty Gateway, Kraken NFT and X2Y2 have shut down their services.

Robinhood Chain DEX Volume Hits Record $989M as TVL Nearly Doubles
Robinhood Chain recorded a record $989 million in daily DEX trading volume on Friday, while total value locked reached an all-time high of $708 million, nearly doubling month over month.
Stablecoin supply on the network also climbed 47% to around $770 million as trading activity shifted from memecoins toward utility and infrastructure tokens.
Launchpad PONS saw its market capitalization surge from about $20 million to more than $200 million in August. Meanwhile, memecoins paired with tokenized stocks now account for roughly 25% of stock-linked trading volume on Robinhood Chain.
Several infrastructure projects, including Delta, UP and NetNet, also saw their valuations increase roughly 10-fold during August.

Bitcoin Holds Near $78K as US Bond Yields Approach 20-Year Highs
Bitcoin traded around $78,000 on Monday, gaining roughly 1% as investors reacted to renewed pressure in the US bond market.
BTC briefly rebounded after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the government had not yet begun buying long-term bonds, despite plans to at least double Treasury debt buybacks to $4 billion from September.
The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.76%, while the 30-year yield reached 5.269%, approaching its highest level since 2007. Rising yields continued to pressure risk assets, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq both down around 0.4%.
Bitcoin remained above its key 50-week EMA near $77,269, while August gains approached 25%, its strongest August performance since 2017.
However, analysts warned of weakening momentum. Rekt Capital identified a hidden bearish RSI divergence on the daily chart, with Bitcoin’s RSI at 70.7, still in overbought territory.

Mystery Bitcoin Holder Burns 107 BTC After $1M Custodian Round Trip
Blockchain analysts are investigating a mysterious early Bitcoin holder who deliberately burned 107 BTC, worth about $8.5 million at the time, by sending the coins to an unspendable address.
Chainalysis found five wallets showing strong signs of common ownership, with most of their funds traceable back to Mt. Gox. All five were funded in April 2014 and later interacted with the same large centralized crypto custodian.
One wallet had remained dormant for nearly 12 years before sending its entire 20 BTC, worth about $1 million, to the custodian in March. Almost exactly the same amount was returned three weeks later, minus roughly $3 in fees. Seven weeks later, the Bitcoin was permanently burned.
Another wallet made 60 transfers between 2022 and 2024, with 58 transactions worth roughly $10,400 each, suggesting a possible fixed-dollar liquidation strategy.
However, neither Chainalysis nor independent researchers can explain why the owner retrieved the long-dormant Bitcoin from the custodian only to destroy it weeks later. Theories range from custody testing and privacy considerations to a wealthy holder intentionally reducing Bitcoin’s circulating supply. $BTC

Strive Buys 1,800 Bitcoin, Becomes Fifth-Largest Corporate BTC Holder
Strive purchased 1,800 BTC for approximately $143 million between Aug. 24 and Aug. 28 at an average price of $79,431 per Bitcoin.
The acquisition lifted Strive’s total holdings to 23,156 BTC, making it the fifth-largest publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holder, surpassing Bullish.
The company has accelerated its accumulation recently, buying 1,110 BTC for $81.5 million the previous week. Its latest purchase increased its Bitcoin holdings by roughly 8.4% in five business days.
The buying comes as Bitcoin has rebounded more than 23% since Aug. 19, recently trading above $81,000. Strategy also resumed accumulation, purchasing 4,603 BTC for $370 million.$BTC

Russia’s Regulated Crypto Trading Volume Could Hit $46.4B in First Year
Russia’s regulated domestic crypto exchanges could generate around 4 trillion rubles ($46.4 billion) in trading volume during the first year after legalization, according to estimates from Sber.
Sber Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov said regulated crypto trading volume could rise to about 7.5 trillion rubles by 2029, although a significant share of activity is expected to remain on platforms outside Russia’s regulatory framework.
The forecast comes as Russia’s new crypto market rules take effect on Sept. 1. The Bank of Russia has proposed allowing assets including Bitcoin, Ether and USDT to trade publicly under the new regime.
Non-qualified investors will be allowed to purchase up to 300,000 rubles worth of crypto per year through each intermediary, while qualified investors will face no purchase limits for eligible crypto assets.

Solana Fees Near 9,200 $SOL
as Network Activity Hits Record High
Solana’s network fees climbed to a seven-day average of nearly 9,200 SOL on Aug. 27, up more than 80% from three months earlier, as onchain activity continued to accelerate.
Seven-day non-vote transactions reached a record 191 million, more than double the 88 million recorded a year ago. Meanwhile, Jito validator tips averaged 2,073 SOL per day over the past week, rising 26% week over week.
At the same time, Solana’s SGP-0002 “Double Disinflation” proposal passed with 67.001% support. The change is projected to reduce staking yields from around 5.25% to 2.25% by year three.
Lower inflation rewards could put pressure on validators that depend heavily on staking issuance rather than transaction-fee revenue, particularly smaller independent operators.

Japan FSA Seeks Tax Filing Exemption for Trust-Type Stablecoins
Japan’s Financial Services Agency has proposed exempting trust-type stablecoins from certain mandatory tax reporting requirements beginning in fiscal year 2027.
The FSA argued that these stablecoins circulate among large numbers of users, are frequently transferred and do not generate income simply from being held, making beneficiary-by-beneficiary trust reports unnecessarily burdensome.
If approved by lawmakers, the exemption could take effect on April 1, 2027.
The proposal comes as Japan continues integrating crypto into its traditional financial framework. In July, parliament approved revisions classifying crypto assets as financial assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.

Ireland Excludes Crypto From New Tax-Advantaged Investment Accounts
Ireland plans to launch a new tax-advantaged retail investment account in 2027, allowing residents to invest in stocks, bonds, ETFs and other investment funds under a preferential tax structure.
However, cryptocurrencies and derivatives will be excluded, with the Department of Finance classifying them as “highly complex and risky” products.
The government has not yet disclosed the applicable tax rate or tax-free threshold, with those details expected in Budget 2027.
The exclusion highlights Ireland’s continued cautious stance toward digital assets even as the country expands its regulatory oversight of the crypto sector.

Crypto Token Buybacks Hit Record $638M in 2026, Led by Hyperliquid and Pump.fun
Crypto projects have spent a record $638 million on token buybacks so far in 2026, surpassing $545 million during the same period last year, according to Allium Labs data cited by the Financial Times.
Hyperliquid and Pump.fun accounted for nearly 90% of the total, with Hyperliquid spending roughly $370 million on HYPE buybacks and Pump.fun nearly $200 million on PUMP.
The strategy has coincided with strong token performance. HYPE has gained 145% year-to-date and PUMP 109%, while Bitcoin is down about 10% and the overall crypto market capitalization has fallen 11.9%.
Hyperliquid directs about 99% of its revenue toward token buybacks, while Pump.fun allocates roughly 50% of net protocol revenue. The trend is spreading across the industry, with Ethena recently proposing to use 95% of net revenue from its core businesses to repurchase $ENA $PUMP
tokens. $HYPE