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South Korea has approved the integration of Ripple into the country’s banking system on the same day a media watchdog voted to cut off access to the prediction market Polymarket. Regulators in South Korea have joined a widening crackdown against Polymarket while approving Ripple’s partnership with Jeonbuk Bank.
Ripple (XRP) has announced that Jeonbuk Bank will run cross-border business remittances over Ripple Payments, making it the first regional lender in the country to adopt the service. Traditional transfers have to be routed between intermediary banks on the SWIFT network, and this process can make transactions take days to clear. However, Ripple offers a route that settles in seconds to minutes and runs around the clock. The service is aimed at the bank’s importers, exporters, IT startups and online content creators. Jeonbuk is Ripple’s third Korean partnership of 2026, following a tokenized government-bond trial with Kyobo Life Insurance and a custody and wallet deal with internet-only Kbank.
South Korea votes to cut off access to Polymarket
Despite these partnership announcements in South Korea, XRP slipped under $1 to 98 cents in Asian morning trading on Tuesday, its weakest level since November 2024 and the worst performer among major coins over the day and week. The decline might be due to RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, which now does much of the institutional settlement work. Tokenized real-world assets on the XRP Ledger are worth roughly $1.38 billion, and $845 million of that is RLUSD, representing more than three-fifths of the total value.
RLUSD’s circulating supply reached approximately 1.71 billion tokens, with a market capitalization of around $1.71 billion. Ripple minted another 10 million RLUSD on the XRP Ledger on August 17. Despite the drop in XRP’s price, traders are still leaning long, with futures open interest near $2.78 billion. On the same day that the Ripple deal advanced, the Korea Media and Communications Standards Commission, another regulator in South Korea, voted to block domestic access to Polymarket, stating that the platform facilitates gambling under the Criminal Act and the National Sports Promotion Act.
The commission explained that because payouts hinge on events users cannot control and winners take the entire pot, the design “fuels gambling psychology.” It also noted the fact that Polymarket sets the markets, runs the settlement rails, and collects trading fees. Polymarket argued it had removed Korean-language services and won-denominated payments and therefore fell outside Korean law, but the regulator rejected that, saying technical features cannot exempt a platform providing “a real illegal gambling environment to domestic users.”
Cryptopolitan has been tracking the situation since the Korean police opened the country’s first criminal investigation into local Polymarket bettors after heavy trading around the June 3 national election. The commission began deliberations on July 6 after referrals from the National Police Agency. Beyond South Korea, more than 30 countries, including Italy, Indonesia, and Argentina, have blocked or limited Polymarket.
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OpenAI has started rolling out a version of ChatGPT built specifically for Teens aged 13 to 17. The rollout comes after OpenAI has been dragged through the courts over lawsuits tying ChatGPT conversations to teen suicides.
OpenAI is rolling out a new version of its flagship chatbot, ChatGPT, which will automatically place users aged 13 to 17 in the teen version. Users under 13 are barred from ChatGPT entirely. Even if teens try to trick the system by signing up with a fake birthdate, the system will consider signals such as the topics an account discusses, the hours it is active, and how long it has existed, in order to decide if a user is under 18 or not. Users who are still wrongly sorted can get their age verified through Persona, a third-party firm that reviews a government ID or a live selfie and deletes the upload within seven days.
OpenAI VP details benefits of new model to teenagers
Ann O’Leary, OpenAI’s vice president of global policy, said the goal is to stop exposing teens to material “they shouldn’t be exposed to.” Parents who link an account to a teen user can lock access to the chatbot at chosen times. They also receive alerts in limited high-risk cases, although OpenAI says the controls do not let them read a teen’s messages. OpenAI also said the teen ChatGPT version brings together its existing safety features rather than create new ones.
For instance, the age prediction feature has existed since the start of the year, while OpenAI’s parental controls and study mode were launched roughly a year ago. The company first revealed its plans for a teen tier in September 2025. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also made an official inquiry into OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, xAI, Snap and Character.AI over how they protect minors around that period. The FTC specifically targeted “companion” chatbots following multiple tragic incidents, including the suicide of a 16-year-old who had interacted extensively with ChatGPT.
A 2025 study from Common Sense Media found more than 70% of U.S. teens have used AI chatbots for companionship, and half use AI companions regularly. A separate study found that ChatGPT would, when asked, tell 13-year-olds how to get drunk and high, hide an eating disorder, or draft a suicide note. Sam Altman has called emotional overreliance on the technology “a really common thing” among young people.
The teen experience will be available for eligible accounts on either free or paid personal plans. From August 18, the teen version will be available for eligible accounts with no restrictions for free accounts. The company is also planning a full rollout in Australia, expected by September 8.
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HTX-linked transfers have raised concerns after several wallets received USDT from addresses associated with the exchange.
Users fear the transactions could trigger compliance reviews, account freezes, or blocked activity across centralized and decentralized platforms.
Multiple wallets reportedly received small transfers linked to HTX, formerly Huobi. A token contract for a new HTX asset interacted with thousands of addresses on BNB Smart Chain. Other users reported receiving USDT from an address identified as HTX48.
An HTX ambassador said the exchange did not intentionally distribute assets and described such behavior as inconsistent with normal operations. Justin Sun, TRON founder and HTX owner, had not responded to questions about the reported spam activity. Sun has focused on artificial intelligence projects, including bonus tokens and access to a new model.
HTX Transactions Prompt Compliance Concerns
The activity has been described as compliance poisoning rather than a traditional dust attack. Standard dust attacks often attempt to confuse users into sending funds to incorrect addresses.
Exchanges in the European Union and other regions increasingly screen wallets and trace links to sanctioned entities. Binance has not confirmed whether it will specifically screen dust transfers. However, users remain concerned that interaction with HTX-linked addresses could trigger checks.
Some users said traders and crypto influencers may be particularly exposed to such reviews. Several key opinion leaders and industry participants have reported exchange accounts being frozen after receiving the transfers during recent reported activity.
Dusting History Shows Different Enforcement Outcomes
Similar incidents occurred after the United States sanctioned Tornado Cash. In one case, a user spent $50,000 sending dust transactions to multiple addresses connected with prominent individuals.
Those transfers did not result in all affected wallets or exchange accounts being banned. The US Office of Foreign Assets Control later determined that passive receipt of immaterial funds did not make recipients participants in sanctioned activity.
Recent HTX-linked transfers are larger than typical dust transactions, reaching as much as 12 USDT. The reported activity also involves genuine tokens rather than newly created or counterfeit assets.
Wallet Screening Practices Vary Across Platforms
Compliance procedures differ among exchanges and brokerage platforms. Binance has applied strict controls in some cases, including freezing accounts after suspicious transactions. Other platforms may flag incoming transfers while allowing users to move the assets back to self-custodial wallets.
The source states that wallets withdrawing from HTX after May 26 are considered sanctioned. It also says Hyperliquid and some decentralized finance protocols have started blacklisting related addresses.
HTX was included in a wider sanctions-related exchange crackdown. Binance froze transactions involving HTX, Exmo, and 14 other exchanges. Critics argue such measures may burden legitimate users while diverting resources from investigations into actual on-chain crime.
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Uniswap 创始人海登·亚当斯表示，自动化做市商（AMMs）可以在代币化重塑市场的过程中发挥核心作用。
随着对始终在线基础设施的需求不断增长，且更多资产被转移到基于区块链的交易系统上，他的论点也随之而来。
亚当斯认为，区块链通过将执行、托管和结算分离为不同层级来实现这一点，而不同于传统做市商将这些功能合并在一起。他认为，这种结构可以通过避免公司管理交易各环节的需要来降低进入门槛。

Pando Rings oracle exploiter activity returned on August 18 after the wallet remained inactive for two months.
The address linked to the 2022 hack swapped 3 million DAI for about 1,570 ETH through CoW Protocol. Blockchain tracker Onchain Lens reported that roughly 800 ETH, valued near $1.52 million, then moved to Tornado Cash across eight transactions.
The renewed activity follows years of intermittent movement from funds connected to the exploit. It came three days after Pando announced that its protocol would be sunset and its DeFi products placed into maintenance mode under Mixin oversight.
Pando Rings Hack Began With Oracle Manipulation
The original attack occurred on November 5, 2022, when the exploiter manipulated the price of the sBTC-WBTC liquidity provider token on 4swap. The distorted oracle price was used in an effort to withdraw about $70 million in crypto.
Before the team intervened, around $21.9 million in ETH, EOS, and BTC had already left two Mixin wallets controlled by the attacker. Pando later worked with Mixin Network and cybersecurity company SlowMist to freeze remaining assets.
Those frozen holdings included 2,022,662 EOS, then worth about $2.36 million, alongside other tokens valued above $50 million. Pando suspended Pando Rings, 4swap, Pando Leaf, and Pando Lake while the oracle issue was addressed and said customers would be reimbursed.
Exploiter Converts DAI Into Ether
The same address has resurfaced periodically since the hack. Lookonchain reported on June 6 that the wallet used 10 million DAI to purchase 6,243 ETH at an average price of $1,602.
The tracker commented that “even the hacker is buying the $ETH dip.” This week’s transaction again converted stablecoins into Ether, but part of the ETH was subsequently transferred through Tornado Cash.
Tornado Cash remains watched because it can make transaction links harder to follow. However, mixer activity can still draw attention from blockchain investigators monitoring known exploit addresses and fund movements.
PANDO RINGS EXPLOITER MOVES AFTER 2 MONTHS The Pando Rings exploiter became active again after two months, swapping 3M $DAI for 1.57K $ETH (~$3M) via CoW Protocol. It has since sent 800 $ETH (~$1.52M) to Tornado Cash across eight transactions. Pando Rings was exploited for… pic.twitter.com/r0rbP2zyjB
— Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens) August 18, 2026
Pando Winds Down While Old Funds Move
Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the US Treasury in August 2022. It was removed from the sanctions list on March 21, 2025, after a federal appeals court ruled that immutable smart contracts could not be treated as property under sanctions law.
Pando announced on August 15 that it was discontinuing the protocol and moving its DeFi products into maintenance mode. Pando Rings now supports only loan repayments and collateral withdrawals.
Immunefi data shows oracle-related ecosystem attacks have become less common. Such incidents fell from nearly 19% of DeFi loss cases in 2022 to under 1% in 2025. The latest transactions show that funds tied to older exploits can remain inactive for years before moving again.
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xAI challenges Minnesota’s HF 1606, restricting AI tools generating sexual images of identifiable people.
Attorney General Keith Ellison urged a federal judge Friday to reject xAI’s effort, calling Grok Imagine technology, not protected speech. The hearing is Wednesday.
Ellison said xAI is unlikely to win its constitutional claim or show irreparable harm. He wrote, “With Grok Imagine, X.AI has created an unparalleled marketplace for digital sexual violence, and the state would be defenseless from the start unless it could direct its laws at the technology itself.”
HF 1606 Targets AI Providers Directly
HF 1606 bars companies from enabling realistic images showing intimate parts absent from an identifiable person’s original photograph, or producing them. Violations can reach $500,000 per image, and depicted people may sue.
Unlike many deepfake laws, including the federal Take It Down Act, Minnesota requires neither knowledge nor intent. Texas contacted operators in 2025 when owners knew consent was absent or ignored takedown notices.
The House passed HF 1606 by 132 to 1 and the Senate 65 to 0 after reports that a man created sexual images of over 80 women he knew. Signed in April, it took effect August 1.
xAI sued July 27 and sought a temporary restraining order July 29. Judge Donovan Frank denied it July 31, saying the nearly three-month delay and three-day timing showed “harm is not immediate.”
xAI Argues Law Reaches Consensual Content
xAI accepts Minnesota’s interest in preventing nonconsensual imagery but says the statute goes further. It says Minnesota borrowed an intimate-part definition from bodily-contact crimes covering breasts and inner thighs, potentially reaching swimsuits and satire.
Page 19 cites a May 1 AI image Trump shared on Truth Social showing JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Doug Burgum, an unidentified woman, and the men shirtless in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool as a repair-cost joke. xAI says newly depicted breasts could make it unlawful.
“Even if subjects gave their consent, generated the images themselves or never shared them, there is no safe harbor for good-faith efforts by the provider of general-purpose AI creative tools,” xAI said. It calculated ten violations could cost $5 million and 100,000 violations $50 billion.
Grok Abuse Scale Draws Wider Scrutiny
xAI’s July filing showed 52,222 suspensions and 73,604 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, producing at least 244 arrests in 2026.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate estimated Grok created about 3 million sexually explicit images from December 29 to January 8 after Musk endorsed editing features, including about 23,000 appearing to depict children.
California opened an investigation January 14 and issued a cease-and-desist two days later. Thirty-five attorneys general issued a joint demand January 23. Ellison cited a class action by five children and federal suits from two Arkansas families. The European Commission opened an investigation January 27, while Malaysia and Indonesia banned the chatbot.
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ByteDance and the Motion Picture Association have signed a memorandum of understanding to build copyright guardrails into the company’s Seedance and Seedream AI generators, the first deal of its kind between Hollywood’s main studio lobby and an AI firm, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The truce ends a dispute that broke out approximately six months ago. The controversy dates back to a clip created purely by AI of Tom Cruise trading blows with Brad Pitt, built with Seedance, and then spreading widely all over the internet. On February 20, MPA global general counsel Karyn Temple wrote to ByteDance general counsel John Rogovin, the Los Angeles Times reported, arguing that Seedance 2.0 had been trained on protected material and was turning out unauthorized clips of characters such as SpongeBob SquarePants alongside a recreated scene from “Stranger Things.”
ByteDance ends feud with MPA with copyright deal
Variety reported that the trade group accused ByteDance of “disregarding well-established copyright law that protects the rights of creators and underpins millions of American jobs” on a supposedly “massive scale.” Disney and other studios also objected to tools that could reproduce Marvel and Star Wars figures without permission, The News reported. The MOU then announced on Monday that it has created a structure covering ByteDance’s generative products, reaching users through TikTok, its separate U.S. TikTok app, CapCut, and Dreamina.
The MPA did not release the details of the specific barriers and deterrents in the deal to the public, the Los Angeles Times reported. Both companies have, however, pointed to newer releases as evidence that these safeguards have been initiated, with ByteDance claiming both Seedance 2.5 and Seedream 5.0 Pro, shipped last month, carry stronger IP protections. “Today’s agreement illustrates our belief that copyright is a cornerstone of the film and television industry,” MPA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement.
He also added that the deal “reflects our shared determination to continue our work together to further fortify those guardrails.” ByteDance general counsel John Rogovin said the company “respects the intellectual property rights that underpin creative industries around the world” and said the MOU was “an important framework for continued collaboration as the technology evolves.” ByteDance is not the first AI company the MPA has pressured into concessions on its AI product.
The association had initially gone after OpenAI’s Sora before the firm added limits, according to Variety, with OpenAI eventually shutting Sora down earlier this year after a similar wave of unauthorized character videos. However, instead of fully retreating and shutting down its products, ByteDance is taking a different path, pouring more funds into Seedance, which is reportedly one of the most advanced video models available, alongside Google’s offerings.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Seedance has gained ground with independent filmmakers who find it cheaper than rival tools, a development that gives ByteDance a commercial reason to keep the studios afloat instead of completely disengaging from the market.
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Unitree Robotics revealed its ‘Superman’ humanoid robot on Monday, with a reported top running speed of 12.66 meters per second and a two-meter standing jump, beating every human on record. The reveal comes only two days before Unitree starts publicly trading in Shanghai, after one of the most oversubscribed tech listings the market has seen.
Superman cleared a two-meter standing high jump on legs measuring 0.85 meters, and hit 12.66 m/s, which is equal to 45.6 km/h in speed. The human marks the robot beat for the respective actions are a 1.8-meter standing jump and a 12.4 m/s sprint. Usain Bolt reached a max speed of 12.42 m/s during his 2009 world-record race, meaning the ‘Superman” robot is faster than the world’s fastest man ever managed, if Unitree’s figures hold.
Unitree Robotics’ Superman robot hits record top speed
The robotics company has, however, not released any independent verification for these figures, with the numbers all coming from a company video and not an independently measured event. Unitree also stated that its engineers built the robot in a little over three months, and that the humanoid robot’s current hardware leaves plenty of room for improvement. The company’s founder, Wang Xingxing, hinted at the possibility back in March at the Yabuli China Entrepreneurs Forum.
He predicted that humanoid machines would break human sprint limits by mid-2026, referring to cheaper parts and better algorithms as the reason for such a possibility. The robotics company had introduced the As2W some weeks before, a wheeled quadruped robot built for cargo. The As2W weighs 25 kilograms, can carry a recorded max load of 180 kilograms, and can move a cargo of up to 16 kilograms continuously.
Unitree priced its coming IPO listing at 150.8 yuan and raised about 6.1 billion yuan, almost $905 million, in a deal that places the company’s valuation at about $9 billion. The IPO was oversubscribed by over 5000 times, and the company raked in 45% more than the 4.2 billion yuan it had initially targeted.
Real revenue also adds to the valuation, as sales hit 1.7 billion yuan last year, more than four times the 2024 figure, with net profit of 591 million yuan. Unitree sold over 5,500 humanoid units across all its G1, H1, and R1 units in 2025, with most of these going to research labs and entertainment buyers instead of factories and manufacturers.
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美国总统唐纳德·特朗普预计将于周三在白宫接待加密公司和预测市场企业，双方将就监管进行闭门会谈；现场预计会有多位业界重要人士。唐纳德·特朗普预计将在此次聚会上发言，而美国商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）主席迈克·塞利（Mike Selig）也计划向参会者致辞。
预计将参与的公司包括Coinbase、a16z、Ripple、Chainlink、Kalshi、Paradigm以及Digital Chamber。Paradigm是Kalshi的投资者之一。负责特朗普数字资产总统顾问委员会的Patrick Witt也预计将出席。白宫会议将于周四美国商品期货交易委员会（CFTC）召开其新成立的、由35名成员组成的创新咨询委员会首次会议前一天举行。此前，美国财政部下属的货币监理署（Office of the Comptroller of the Currency）已就与World Liberty Financial相关的一家国家信托银行申请，授予有条件的初步批准；World Liberty Financial是特朗普与其家族成员共同推出的加密业务。

苹果现在会在 iPhone 的锁定屏幕上向它认为是间谍软件（spyware）目标的人发出警报。对于经常受到这些攻击影响的记者、活动人士和官员而言，这一点非常重要。它把高风险的警报放在他们无法忽视的位置。周四的最新一轮通知已覆盖 110 个国家的用户。
此前，苹果一直使用电子邮件以及登录 Apple 账户后的横幅，向用户提醒威胁。现在，“Apple 威胁通知”（Apple Threat Notification）会出现在锁定屏幕和“设置”内部。该功能与更早的电子邮件和账户页面警报并行工作。该消息会告知用户：苹果“检测到了一次针对你的 iPhone 的雇佣间谍软件攻击（mercenary spyware attack）。你可以立即采取一些措施来帮助保护你的数据和设备。”苹果也调整了体验，让用户能更快地进入下一步该做什么的指导。

比特币的经济能量是迈克尔·塞勒（Michael Saylor）关于货币、稀缺性以及长期价值保全的最新论点的核心。
策略主席于8月15日发表了一篇文章，概述他为何相信，比特币比黄金或法定货币更能保全经济价值。
与罗伯特·布里德洛夫（Robert Breedlove）合著并题为《什么是货币？》，该文将金钱描述为一种用于储存劳动价值的技术。文章还解释了这种价值如何能够跨越时间与距离流动。赛勒（Saylor）将这种被储存的价值称为“经济能量”，并提出货币体系在多大程度上能有效地保全它的问题。

DeFiLlama 创始人 0xngmi 表示，他故意允许一个用于从已资助的钱包中提取加密货币的欺诈性应用上架。此举制造了证据，证明该冒充应用正在从用户手中偷走资金。
据 0xngmi 称，Apple 在收到相关证据后几天内移除了这款假冒应用。该移除是在通过 Apple 的滥用举报与商标举报渠道提交了数月投诉之后发生的。
这位化名创始人在 2026 年 8 月 15 日于 X 上分享了该事件的细节。他表示，相关报告指出存在商标侵权和冒充行为，但该应用列表仍然保持可用。

灰度研究负责人扎克·潘德尔将以太坊的发行情况与最小国家的财政进行对比。
在一条标注为“关于 $ETH 发行的准头脑风暴（Quasi brainstorm on $ETH issuance）”的 X 帖子中，潘德尔将以太坊描述为一个通过新创建的 ETH 来为安全提供资金，而不是通过征税的系统。
潘德尔表示，以太坊“类似于一个最小的国家形态”，其主要责任只有一项：保护财产权并促进价值交换。他补充说，“以太坊不会通过征税来为政府服务提供资金”，从而强调网络安全的融资方式。

Robinhood Chain 正在受到关注。Robinhood Crypto 的高级副总裁 Johann Kerbrat 强调，重心在于基础设施建设，而非推出原生网络代币。
Kerbrat 表示，该公司代币化计划“才刚刚开始”，同时开发仍以技术基础为核心，并面向股票代币进行推进。
该网络提供 24 小时的链上股票版本，涵盖 Nvidia 和 Apple 等公司。这些产品在不赋予持有人对底层股份的法律请求权的情况下，提供经济敞口。产品覆盖超过 120 个国家，但对美国人士仍不可用。

Lido DAO 已发布 NEST 的详细概述——这是它正在构建的自动化计划，用于回购自身的 LDO 治理代币。该计划直接回应 LDO 代币的表现：自 2021 年以来，LDO 价值已下跌超过 95%。
“网络经济支持代币经济学（NEST）”计划是 Lido DAO 针对协议所赚取的收入与其代币价值之间日益拉大的长期解决方案，且该问题此前已持续数月被其警示。Cryptopolitan 报道称，NEST 旨在以自动化机制运行。它与 DAO 在 3 月提出的一次性动议完全不同——该动议是直接动用财政金库资金购买 LDO。公司已设定年度营收基准 4000 万美元（约 10.9 万美元/天）。如果协议在某一天获得的收入超过该基准，则其中多出来的收入的 50% 将被发送到 NEST 计划，用于买入 LDO。

Nvidia 已宣布对 SpaceX 进行一项非常巨大的投资。根据最新文件，这家芯片制造商目前在埃隆·马斯克的公司中持有 1.228 亿股 A 类股份。按这些股份的当前价值计算，该持仓价值约为 210 亿美元——这来自其向美国证券交易委员会提交的最新文件。
Nvidia 只披露了一个更大的投资，那就是其持有英特尔的股份。周五披露消息传出后，盘后交易并没有太多戏剧性。SpaceX 股票上涨 0.35%，而 Nvidia 股价下跌 0.12%。不过，它们的整体表现差异很大。Nvidia 截至 2026 年迄今已上涨近 20%，而 SpaceX 自 6 月进入公开市场以来已经跌近 7%。散户交易者也在用不同的方式看待这两家公司。Stocktwits 显示市场对 NVDA 的情绪较为中性，发帖量保持在正常水平。对于 SPCX，情绪极为看涨，同时讨论量也维持在正常水平。

Apple opened a training center in its new Houston factory on Wednesday. According to reports, the site will begin assembling Mac mini computers by the end of 2026. The factory has been shipping AI servers for months, with Apple making its production methods available free of charge to small manufacturers.
It took Apple less than nine months to go from picking the Houston site to running a working plant. “In less than nine months, we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars into this Houston facility. “We stood up a factory, started production, and shipped the first advanced AI servers off the line,” said Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook. During Apple’s August 13 announcement, he said the production of the Mac mini will begin “later this year.”
Apple set to build first US-made Mac mini at the new site
The new site is called the Advanced Manufacturing Center. It occupies 20,000 square feet of the Houston plant. It provides free sessions to small and medium-sized businesses on the techniques Apple uses in its own lines, from machine-learning quality checks to sophisticated automation. Apple designed the curriculum to emphasize hands-on work.
On opening day, the first group of business leaders assembled and laser-etched a product themselves, working with a holographic table and factory-floor equipment. Sessions will cover printed circuit board design and final-assembly principles. Apple says it will open the center to local college students in the future. It is the company’s second such facility, following the Apple Manufacturing Academy that debuted in Detroit in August 2025 and has since trained close to 1,000 workers and entrepreneurs.
As Cryptopolitan reported at the time, Apple announced last September that it would spend $600 billion on US manufacturing over four years, which includes about 79 factories. That pledge also included a $2.5 billion expansion of Apple’s glass partnership with Corning in Kentucky and chip work with Taiwan Semiconductor, Texas Instruments, and Applied Materials. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Houston Mayor John Whitmire, Senator Ted Cruz, and other officials attended the Houston opening.
“This opening is an important step in Apple delivering on its promise to bring its manufacturing back to America,” Lutnick said. The company previously said firms that manufacture within the US are exempt from a 100% tariff on imported semiconductors. Apple has promised to start Mac mini production in Houston in 2026 but has not disclosed a shipping date, unit target, or price for a US-assembled model.
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特斯拉股价在周五上午上涨了3%，原因是有报道称这家汽车制造商计划在8月推出备受期待的Roadster，具备飞行能力。2026年期间特斯拉股价一直呈下行趋势，因此这一消息对投资者来说是一个令人欢迎的进展。
特斯拉需要兑现其承诺并交付Roadster。截至本加密观察者（Cryptopolitan）报告，特斯拉（纳斯达克：TSLA）交易价格为350.34美元。相较于周四收盘的339.96美元，上涨了3%。目前其股价在342.01美元至351.10美元之间交易；不过，它仍远低于498.83美元的高点，并且更接近其在2026年的最低点297.38美元。特斯拉目前的市值为1.10万亿美元。

A South Korean court has sentenced Delio’s chief executive Jeong Sang-ho to 15 years in prison for virtual-asset deposit fraud. The sentencing comes roughly three years and two months after Delio abruptly froze customer withdrawals in June 2023.
The 11th Criminal Division of the Seoul Southern District Court, with Presiding Judge Jang Chan on the bench, has sentenced Delio’s chief executive, Jeong Sang-ho, to 15 years in prison, even though prosecutors originally sought 20 years. Delio accepted Bitcoin and Ethereum deposits and paid interest, advertising guaranteed annual returns of around 10% and branding itself as a “crypto bank.” The court found that the marketing was dishonest about the product’s safety.
South Korean court slams Jeong with a 15-year term
Delio assured its depositors that it earned money through arbitrage and coin-collateralized lending while hiding early business deficits and operating losses. The South Korean court also found Jeong submitted falsified loan records worth 2 billion won to siphon roughly 1 billion won from an investment fund, and that he inflated the firm’s coin holdings by 47.6 billion won in an audit report used to complete its virtual-asset business registration.
Jeong was convicted under the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, among other charges. He was accused of defrauding around 2,800 South Korean customers of roughly 250 billion won ($175 million) when he was indicted by prosecutors without detention in April 2024. However, the court only convicted him of taking about 70 billion won from 1,078 victims. That gap is due to an evidence dispute between Jeong’s side and the prosecutors.
Jeong’s lawyers argued at last month’s final hearing that the prosecution’s search and seizure had been unlawful, and the court agreed the investigators’ search was flawed, noting that investigators handed Delio no seizure list even though the company owned the server database in question. It ruled the seized electronic data and any evidence derived from it inadmissible. Despite the reduced amount, Jeong’s crime was described as severe.
Many South Korean residents had reportedly petitioned for a heavy sentence and faulted him for consistently trying to push blame onto other companies. Cryptopolitan recently reported that South Korean lawmakers cleared a rule change that gets rid of the 1 million won reporting threshold for crypto transfers and adds financial-health tests for exchange operators. Registration provisions take effect August 20, while the expanded Travel Rule follows in February 2027.
From August 20, controlling shareholders of virtual-asset service providers (VASP) will face a new vetting system based on legal history, finances and social standing. Operators will be required to keep enough anti-money-laundering staff and give 30 days’ notice before ownership changes. New entrants must hold a debt-to-equity ratio at or below 200%. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) also said it plans an on-site visit to Bithumb after altcoin withdrawals at the exchange were delayed for more than 13 hours.
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Monaco is making an attempt to scrap the Principality’s 2022 crypto law and rebuild its rules for crypto-asset service providers around the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). The government filed Bill No. 1131 in early August, and if approved, it would change the licensing requirements for firms that offer crypto services, while the regulators will receive wider powers.
Monaco has filed Bill No. 1131, which would repeal the 2022 law that split crypto and digital-asset work into issuance and operational services cleared by the State Minister, and crypto-linked investment services authorized by the Commission de Contrôle des Activités Financières (CCAF). Under the 2022 law, providers were forced to register a company inside Monaco, and foreign firms were banned from cold-marketing to residents.
Monaco wants to join EU’s MiCA regime
The proposed change would require any firm wanting to offer crypto-asset services to gain clearance from the CCAF, but before that, the firm would have been reviewed by the Autorité Monégasque de Sécurité Financière and the Agence Monégasque de Sécurité Numérique. The bill lists exactly which crypto services are allowed in Monaco and sets clear rules for how companies must run their operations, manage risks, and behave professionally.
It also gives the CCAF more power to oversee and penalize firms, which the government says will help stop money laundering and other financial crimes. Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs found that firms that have not been authorized by MiCA are far more likely to carry a high or severe risk rating. Monaco has sat on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list since the summer of 2024, and was added to the European Commission’s list of high-risk money-laundering jurisdictions more than a year ago.
The country’s alignment with MiCA is in the hope that it gets taken off these lists, as designations like this can result in slow international transactions, raised compliance costs and even increased borrowing costs for local businesses. However, only 281 of 1,343 crypto service providers operating across the European Economic Area have secured MiCA authorization.
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