President Trump announced on August 19 that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is actively working to bring Hyperliquid, the decentralized perpetual futures exchange, onshore for US traders. The HYPE token responded the way you’d expect: it ripped approximately 19%, trading around $69 to $70 in the hours following the announcement.

Hyperliquid has spent its existence in a familiar crypto paradox: massively popular with traders, but operating outside US jurisdiction because no clear regulatory path existed. The platform offers non-custodial, fully onchain perpetual contracts, a product category that has become the backbone of crypto derivatives trading globally.

The groundwork for this announcement was laid in July 2026, when Hyperliquid’s Policy Center approached the CFTC seeking clarity on what compliance would actually look like for onchain software and derivatives. That conversation apparently went well enough that a sitting president felt comfortable putting his name behind the outcome a month later.

CFTC Chair Selig, appointed during Trump’s second term, has signaled that the agency intends to craft a tailored regulatory framework specifically for onchain perpetuals. Selig has emphasized that legacy rules, many of which trace back to the 1930s, are simply inadequate for governing decentralized finance protocols.

The CFTC has already been warming up to this space. The agency recently approved certain Bitcoin perpetual contracts as futures on registered exchanges, a decision that established important precedent for treating onchain derivatives as legitimate financial instruments.

What this means for Hyperliquid’s architecture

Hyperliquid’s core value proposition rests on being non-custodial and fully onchain. Users maintain control of their assets, and the exchange’s order book and matching engine operate transparently on its own Layer 1 blockchain. The framework under discussion would reportedly allow Hyperliquid to maintain its fundamental design while meeting compliance standards around areas like identity verification and market surveillance.

For US-based traders, the practical implication is straightforward: access to one of the most liquid decentralized derivatives platforms without the legal gray area that currently accompanies it.

Market reaction and broader implications

The 19% jump in HYPE reflects more than just excitement about one platform’s regulatory status. If Hyperliquid successfully navigates this process, it creates a template. Every other decentralized exchange offering perpetual contracts, from dYdX to GMX and beyond, will be watching closely to see whether the CFTC’s framework can be replicated or adapted for their own platforms.

For competing centralized exchanges that already hold US licenses, Hyperliquid’s potential onshoring adds a new dimension to an already crowded market. Platforms like Coinbase and Kraken have invested heavily in regulatory compliance as a competitive moat. A decentralized protocol receiving its own bespoke framework could reshape the competitive landscape in ways that incumbents might not welcome.

The details around identity verification, reporting requirements, and enforcement mechanisms will determine whether this feels like genuine regulatory modernization or just traditional finance compliance with a blockchain wrapper.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

The launch was announced by the two firms, which gives large crypto investors a new credit channel built around bank-style custody controls.

How will Falcon X and Ethena’s facility work? 

FalconX and Ethena have announced that they are partnering to release a $1 billion secured lending facility in which money would move through a dedicated special purpose vehicle (SPV) rather than a direct loan between the two companies. 

FalconX will maintain a role as the originator, servicer and collateral manager, while the collateral behind each loan sits with qualified custodians.

Ethena is the main lender in a revolving credit deal. The borrower is a FalconX company called FalconX International Lending Opportunities SPC, which is structured so its assets stay separate and safe even if FalconX goes bankrupt.

FalconX International Lending Opportunities SPC uses Ethena’s money to buy crypto loans from FalconX and then hands those loans over to Ethena as collateral, giving it a chance to get its money back first if there’s a problem. 

Ethena also gets daily updates on each loan and can see exactly which crypto wallets hold the backing assets. However, details about the interest rates, maximum loan amounts, and how much collateral borrowers must put up were not shared publicly.

Through the partnership, FalconX gets a new source of money to lend out to its big institutional clients while Ethena gets a new way to make money from the reserves that back USDe that doesn’t rely on futures trading. 

USDe maintains its one-dollar value by pairing crypto collateral with short futures positions, unlike stablecoins like USDC, which are backed by actual dollars and cash equivalents.

Notably, FalconX already started offering USDe support across its trading, derivatives and custody services in September 2025.

Cryptopolitan reported that Ethena partnered with Anchorage Digital, Maple Institutional and Coinbase Asset Management on lending deals in March and April.

In June, Coinbase Ventures bought Ethena’s token (ENA) and teamed up with Ethena on savings products. That same month, BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) added USDe to its Aladdin platform, which is used by big investors to manage their portfolios.

What are the terms of the overcollateralized loan? 

Borrowers under the facility must post assets worth more than the loans they draw, because it provides a cushion that lets the lender sell collateral if its value slides toward the outstanding balance. 

LlamaRisk, a risk adviser, said good collateral rules are the best way to protect USDe’s money. They warned that if crypto prices drop, liquidation rights should allow a lender to sell its collateral fast without having to deal with delays from lawsuits or official notices. 

Several crypto lenders have collapsed due to this in the past.

ENA has been trading around $0.085 this August with a market value of about $833 million, ranking 59th among all cryptocurrencies. That is far below its all-time high of $1.52 from April 2024. When the partnership was announced on August 13, ENA was still trading below its 200-day average of roughly $0.13. 

The companies said they expect the lending program to grow as borrowing demand increases. They called it one of the biggest uses of on-chain money in secured institutional lending so far.

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Traders betting against Bitcoin and the crypto markets are getting liquidated as BTC’s price pushes higher.

In the last 24 hours, a total of $1.93 billion in leveraged crypto bets have been liquidated, according to the market data tracker CoinGlass.

The vast majority of the liquidations hit traders going short, coming in at $1.75 billion. Long positions accounted for just $179.28 million.

Bitcoin led the wipeouts with roughly $1.15 billion liquidated, nearly all from short positions. Ethereum followed at about $516 million, also dominated by shorts.

Over 127,000 traders were forced out in total.

Bitcoin is now trading at approximately $68,344, up more than 5.6% in the last 24 hours.

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Somewhere between the chaos of the 2022 credit blowups and today’s maturing DeFi landscape, Maple Finance quietly rebuilt itself into the second-largest institutional crypto lender on the planet, trailing only Tether.

The platform currently holds active loans of around $1.9B, with total value locked ranging between $2.4B and $5B depending on how you count assets under management. Since launching, Maple has originated somewhere between $15B and $22B in cumulative loans, with a repayment rate exceeding 99% and no reported losses on overcollateralized positions.

From the ashes of uncollateralized lending

When crypto credit markets collapsed in 2022, the casualties included firms like Celsius, BlockFi, and Genesis, all of which had extended undercollateralized loans to counterparties that turned out to be far riskier than advertised.

Maple had its own exposure to the uncollateralized lending model, and the fallout was visible. CEO Sid Powell then made a deliberate, structural pivot: away from trust-based lending toward secured, overcollateralized positions. The kind of lending that, when a borrower defaults, there is actually something to recover.

Powell co-founded Maple and has been the public face of its institutional strategy, cultivating relationships with trading firms, market makers, and crypto-native funds. The borrower base is not retail. These are professional counterparties who need capital to run operations.

What Maple actually does

The core product is straightforward: Maple pools liquidity from institutional depositors, primarily in USDC and USDT, and lends it out to vetted borrowers at interest rates that reflect genuine credit risk. No token emissions inflating the yield figures. The interest paid to liquidity providers has now crossed $100M in total distributions.

The platform operates across Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, and additional chains. One of the more interesting expansion moves is the deployment on Plasma, a blockchain backed by Tether.

Then there is Syrup, Maple’s yield-bearing stablecoin wrapper product. SyrupUSDC and syrupUSDT are tokenized positions in Maple’s lending pools, allowing a broader audience to access the yields generated by institutional loan books.

Maple has also partnered with Cantor Fitzgerald, the Wall Street firm that has been increasingly active in digital asset markets.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Google AI Studio’s Build mode just got the feature that developers have been waiting for: a direct pipeline from GitHub. The platform now supports one-click importing of existing repositories into its app-building environment, along with bi-directional synchronization that keeps both sides in lockstep.

Previously, AI Studio Build could export code out to GitHub. Now the reverse trip is possible too.

What the update actually does

The new “Import from GitHub” button does exactly what it sounds like. Developers can pull an existing repository into AI Studio Build, where the platform normalizes the code for runtime compatibility within its environment.

Once imported, developers can iterate on the codebase using AI-assisted tools, including chat-based interactions and code annotations powered by Google’s Gemini models. The finished product can then be deployed to environments like Cloud Run.

The bi-directional sync is the real headline here. Changes made inside AI Studio Build flow back to GitHub, and updates pushed to the repository reflect inside the Studio.

The announcement came via Google’s official AI Studio channels and was highlighted by product lead Logan Kilpatrick.

Why this matters for developer workflows

The use cases are more practical than flashy. Got a hackathon project from six months ago gathering dust in a private repo? Import it, let the AI help clean it up, and deploy it. Onboarding a new teammate who needs to understand a codebase? Pull it into an environment where they can ask questions through a chat interface rather than spelunking through documentation.

For teams managing legacy code, the feature offers a path to incremental modernization. Instead of rewriting entire applications from scratch, developers can import existing code, make AI-assisted improvements, and push the changes back, all without leaving the Studio environment.

The normalization step is worth paying attention to. When code gets imported, AI Studio transforms it into a format compatible with its runtime. That means developers aren’t just viewing their code in a new interface. The platform is actively adapting it to work within Google’s infrastructure.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Core Scientific is billing customers for nearly 440 megawatts of AI computing capacity, beating its own delivery timeline. For a company that emerged from bankruptcy in early 2024 as a Bitcoin miner, that’s a remarkable second act.

The NASDAQ-listed company (ticker: CORZ) has been steadily transforming itself from a crypto mining operation into a high-density colocation provider for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads. Getting 440 MW online and generating revenue ahead of schedule suggests the operational side of that transformation is working.

From mining rigs to GPU racks

Core Scientific’s pivot wasn’t subtle. The company recognized that its existing power infrastructure, originally built to run thousands of Bitcoin mining machines, could be repurposed for something potentially more lucrative: housing the GPU clusters that AI companies desperately need.

The math is straightforward. Bitcoin miners need cheap power and cooling. AI data centers need cheap power and cooling. The real estate and electrical infrastructure overlap significantly, which gives former miners a head start over building from scratch.

What makes the 440 MW milestone notable isn’t just the number itself. It’s the “ahead of schedule” part. Data center construction timelines have become one of the industry’s biggest bottlenecks, with projects routinely slipping by months or even years. Delivering early is the exception, not the rule.

The company has a track record of beating deadlines. In 2024, it delivered 16 MW of capacity for CoreWeave more than a month ahead of schedule. That kind of reliability matters when your clients are AI companies racing to train and deploy models before competitors do.

Scaling up through acquisition and construction

Core Scientific isn’t relying solely on organic growth. The company completed its acquisition of Polaris DS LLC, a former competitor in the Bitcoin mining space, for approximately $444 million around mid-August 2026. That deal added roughly 440 MW of existing grid-connected power capacity to Core Scientific’s portfolio.

So in one move, the company essentially doubled its capacity profile. Buying operational power infrastructure is significantly faster than building it, especially when permitting and grid interconnection can take years.

The bigger ambition centers on Muskogee, Oklahoma. Core Scientific is expanding its campus there to approximately 1.5 gigawatts of gross power capacity, with around 1.0 GW available for leasing to clients. An initial 82.5 MW building is slated for delivery in Q4 2027.

To put 1.5 GW in perspective, that’s roughly the output of a large nuclear power plant. Concentrating that much power capacity at a single campus reflects just how electricity-hungry modern AI workloads have become.

Between its existing operations, the Polaris acquisition, and the Muskogee expansion, Core Scientific now claims more than 1,300 MW of contracted power. Future lease payments from AI clients are projected to exceed $6 billion.

The client roster and competitive landscape

CoreWeave remains one of Core Scientific’s anchor tenants, with contracts spanning several sites and exceeding hundreds of megawatts. CoreWeave itself went public in 2025 and has been on a spending spree to secure GPU capacity for its cloud computing platform, making it one of the most aggressive buyers of data center space in the market.

Core Scientific has also established a collaboration with AMD for potential capacity of up to 2.5 GW. That figure is enormous, roughly the equivalent of powering a small city, and signals how chipmakers are increasingly getting involved in securing the physical infrastructure their hardware will run in.

The market has responded favorably. When Core Scientific announced the Muskogee campus expansion plans in May 2026, shares jumped approximately 7%. That kind of reaction suggests investors view the company’s AI infrastructure play as credible rather than speculative.

The competitive field is getting crowded, though. Other former Bitcoin miners like Riot Platforms, Hut 8, and Cipher Mining have all explored or executed similar pivots toward AI hosting. Traditional data center operators like Equinix and Digital Realty still command dominant market positions. And hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google continue building their own facilities at a pace that dwarfs everyone else.

Core Scientific’s edge, at least for now, is speed. The company can point to existing power infrastructure that was already built and permitted, a proven ability to deliver on time (or early), and long-term contracts that provide revenue visibility. In a market where demand for AI compute far exceeds supply, being able to turn on capacity quickly is worth more than almost any other competitive advantage.

What to watch next

The $6 billion in projected future lease payments is an impressive pipeline number, but pipeline and revenue are different things. Execution risk remains real, particularly as the Muskogee campus scales from plans to operational reality.

Integration of the Polaris acquisition will also be worth monitoring. Absorbing $444 million worth of infrastructure while simultaneously building out new capacity requires disciplined capital allocation and operational focus. Companies in growth mode sometimes stumble when they try to do too much at once.

Power availability could become a constraint. Utilities across the US are struggling to keep up with data center demand, and some regions have begun pushing back on new large-scale power requests. Whether Core Scientific can secure reliable power at attractive rates for its full expansion pipeline will be a key variable.

For investors trying to gauge the AI infrastructure buildout, Core Scientific offers an interesting case study. The company went from bankruptcy to Bitcoin mining to billing 440 MW of AI capacity in roughly two years. Whether that trajectory continues upward depends on factors largely outside its control: how long AI spending remains elevated, whether hyperscalers keep outsourcing capacity needs, and whether the power grid can keep up with an industry that seems to have an insatiable appetite for electricity.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Cash Cat [CASHCAT] declined 15% over the past day as selling pressure overwhelmed market demand.

The decline followed the direction AMBCrypto reported earlier, when CASHCAT found support at the Lower Bollinger Band.

The report noted that a relief rally remained possible. However, unchanged market conditions could prevent a sustained recovery.

At present, the Perpetual Market continued recording heavy Capital Outflows.

Long liquidations were 397 times higher than short liquidations, compared with the previously reported 490-fold gap. The gap narrowed but remained heavily skewed against bullish positions.

The question is whether a repeatedly tested Demand Zone can outweigh continued derivatives weakness.

Can CASHCAT’s demand zone hold?

Chart analysis showed CASHCAT trading inside a critical Demand Zone between $0.093 and $0.087. This range triggered a rally on four previous occasions.

Source: TradingView

Another bullish reaction would require CASHCAT to reclaim the upper boundary at $0.093.

If demand remains insufficient, the price could continue ranging inside the zone or break below $0.087. Continued seller dominance could then expose CASHCAT to further losses.

Do CASHCAT indicators signal more losses?

The Aroon Indicator and Parabolic SAR showed that CASHCAT remained in a bearish phase.

Aroon Down stood at 85%, above the Aroon Up reading of 35%. These readings favored sellers, although the gap remained below an extreme 100-to-0 split.

Source: TradingView

Even so, the Parabolic SAR dots remained above price, showing that selling momentum persisted. This structure suggested continued downside pressure while CASHCAT struggled to reclaim $0.093.

Without stronger demand, the price could retest the Demand Zone’s lower boundary.

Why is CASHCAT demand still weak?

CoinGlass data showed that CASHCAT’s Perpetual Market continued recording Capital Outflows. Perpetual Netflow showed that $293,100 had left the market.

Source: CoinGlass

That amount represented more than 38% of the $764,880 Net Outflow recorded over seven days. The persistent imbalance suggested that equivalent demand had yet to return.

Previous rebounds began inside the current zone, but the present setup carries weaker derivatives support. This leaves leveraged longs exposed if CASHCAT loses $0.087.

Final Summary

• CASHCAT returned to a Demand Zone that previously triggered four separate rallies.
• Capital Outflows and bearish indicators could expose CASHCAT to further losses below $0.087.

Donald Trump spoke from the White House on Wednesday, urging the Senate to pass a crypto market structure bill to keep the country “ahead of China.”

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

President Donald Trump called on Congress to pass a “fair version” of the Clarity Act Wednesday, telling crypto and finance executives at the White House that market structure legislation is the next step in his administration’s digital asset agenda.

Trump’s comments come ahead of the inaugural meeting of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Innovation Advisory Committee on Thursday. CFTC Chair Michael Selig, Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins, and White House crypto advisor Patrick Witt joined Trump at Wednesday’s gathering.

Myriad: Will the Clarity Act be signed into law in 2026? Click to make your prediction.

“Now we need Congress to take the next step by passing the Clarity Act, a fair version of the Clarity Act,” Trump said. “It’s a very, very powerful structure legislation which will keep us ahead of China, keep us ahead of everyone else. We’ll open the door to the next wave of innovations and innovators.”

The Clarity Act, a sweeping crypto market structure bill that would establish federal rules for digital assets and clarify the SEC and CFTC’s respective authority over the industry, is expected to return to the Senate floor in September after lawmakers left for their August recess without holding a procedural vote. Republicans still need roughly six Democratic votes to reach the 60-vote threshold.

The meeting also included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman, Intercontinental Exchange CEO Jeff Sprecher, Kraken co-CEO Arjun Sethi, Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, Blockchain.com CEO Peter Smith, Gemini co-founders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and a16z crypto founder Chris Dixon.

“The people in this room are ensuring that the future of commercial markets is pioneered and perfected right here in the USA,” Trump said. “We're fighting a lot of other countries to control these markets, and to have these markets, and to profit, and all the jobs and everything else created. And we're doing well. We're leading in every aspect, including AI, and we're leading by a lot. And we want to keep it that way.”

Trump said clearer regulation was necessary to keep crypto companies and financial technology development in the U.S. He also criticized the Biden administration’s approach to crypto, accusing it of using regulation and enforcement to drive businesses overseas in Operation Chokepoint 2.0. He pointed to his administration’s strategic Bitcoin reserve, digital asset stockpile, ban on a U.S. central bank digital currency and the GENIUS Act as examples of policies adopted since he returned to office.

“We’re ensuring that America remains the undisputed leader, not only in Bitcoin and crypto, but also technologies like prediction markets, artificial intelligence, and much more,” Trump said. “And we’re leading in every single one.”

Trump also said Selig is working to bring decentralized perpetual futures exchange Hyperliquid into the U.S.

“I understand that Mike is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion,” Trump said. “Working very hard on that. We would really like to see it.”

The meeting comes as regulators move ahead with crypto policy while broader market structure legislation remains stalled in Congress. The SEC on Tuesday proposed rules that would exempt certain token offerings from securities regulations, potentially making it easier for crypto companies to issue tokens and raise money.

While Trump mentioned prediction markets, executives from major platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket were ultimately not invited. A person familiar with the event told Politico that the White House decided to focus the meeting solely on crypto.

Today in crypto, Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick said Bitcoin could climb to $100,000 by year-end as US Treasury bond buybacks improve liquidity, while spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds added $189 million to push August net inflows toward $1 billion. Meanwhile, the Financial Accounting Standards Board proposed guidance for classifying certain stablecoins as cash equivalents.

Standard Chartered analyst sees Bitcoin hitting $100,000 as Treasury boosts bond buybacks

Bitcoin surged more than 6% toward $69,000 on Wednesday as Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick said improving liquidity conditions could propel BTC to $100,000 by the end of 2026.

Kendrick identified $65,500 as a key technical threshold, arguing that a sustained break above it could confirm Bitcoin has already reached its cycle low.

His bullish outlook also follows the US Treasury’s decision to at least double the maximum size of liquidity-support buybacks for longer-dated government bonds. From Sept. 9 through Nov. 4, the Treasury plans to raise maximum buybacks of certain 10- to 30-year securities from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation.

The announcement pushed long-term Treasury yields lower after a sharp bond-market selloff. Kendrick said such liquidity interventions have historically been favorable for Bitcoin, while the cryptocurrency’s fixed supply may strengthen its appeal as protection against monetary debasement.

Bitcoin ETFs add $189M as August net inflows approach $1B

US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs drew $189.3 million in net inflows on Tuesday, lifting August net inflows to about $951 million.

The latest gains followed $297.6 million in net inflows on Monday, bringing the two-day total to $487 million, or more than half of the funds’ net inflows so far this month, according to SoSoValue data.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust led the day’s inflows with $143.6 million, while Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund added $23.9 million.

The rebound followed three consecutive sessions of net outflows from Aug. 12 through Aug. 14, when the funds shed about $250 million.

Cumulative net inflows into US spot Bitcoin ETFs stood at about $52.28 billion, while total net assets reached roughly $79.3 billion.

Meanwhile, spot Ether ETFs recorded $71.5 million in net inflows on Tuesday, bringing August net inflows to about $345 million.

US accounting board FASB proposes conditions for stablecoins as cash equivalents

The FASB has proposed guidance outlining when companies may classify certain stablecoins as cash equivalents under generally accepted accounting principles in the United States. 

On Tuesday, the FASB said the proposed Accounting Standards Update would add illustrative examples to the current definition, addressing inconsistent treatment of digital assets such as stablecoins. The definition itself would remain unchanged. 

The proposal says a qualifying digital asset would need an on-demand contractual redemption right, a direct redemption right with its issuer for a known cash amount and at least one-to-one segregated reserves held in short-term, highly liquid assets. 

One example said active secondary markets would not be enough if the holder lacks a direct issuer redemption right. Another example said reserves comprising crypto assets and gold would disqualify a token due to valuation risks. 

Companies would retain the choice of whether to present qualifying assets as cash equivalents and would need to consider relevant laws and regulations. 

FASB is accepting public comments on the proposed update until Nov. 19. The organization will set an effective date after reviewing stakeholder feedback. 

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

The United States and Canada are in active talks over a trade arrangement that would bring tariffs on some Canadian steel and aluminum exports down to 25%. That sounds like a lot until you consider where they are now: 50%, after doubling from the original 25% rate set back in March 2025.

The negotiations center on reviving tariff-rate quotas, or TRQs. Think of them as a volume cap with a discount: Canada could export a certain amount of steel and aluminum at a reduced tariff rate, but anything beyond that threshold would still face the steeper duties.

How tariffs got this high

The path to 50% tariffs on Canadian metals has been a slow-motion escalation rooted in Section 232, the national security provision the US has used to justify trade barriers on steel and aluminum imports. The initial 25% tariff went into effect in March 2025, covering Canadian steel and aluminum broadly.

By June 4, 2025, those tariffs had doubled to 50%. Canada didn’t exactly take it quietly.

Ottawa responded with 25% retaliatory tariffs on specific US steel and aluminum imports, measures that remain in force and are projected to extend into 2026 and 2027.

What’s on the table

The TRQ framework under discussion would give Canadian exporters a path to the lower 25% rate, potentially even less, in exchange for volume commitments or other concessions. One mechanism already in play: the US Commerce Department currently allows some Canadian and Mexican producers to apply for tariff reductions if they commit to expanding production capacity within the United States.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been vocal about the scope of the negotiations, insisting that metals can’t be carved out as a standalone issue. His position is that steel, aluminum, autos, and lumber all need to be part of a comprehensive deal that benefits both countries.

The talks are unfolding alongside a broader review of the USMCA, the trade agreement formerly known as NAFTA that governs commerce between the US, Canada, and Mexico.

The economic stakes

The deadline pressure is real. With August 19, 2026, marked as the cutoff for new or expanded tariffs, both sides have a ticking clock pushing them toward resolution. Canada is reportedly preparing to present formal proposals in the near term, which could accelerate the timeline.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Crypto proxies in the stock market are staging their sharpest one-day rally of the summer.

Bitcoin treasury Strategy, which trades as MSTR, led the pack, up 11.95% to $103.58, while Coinbase (COIN) climbed 9.05% to $159.47. Stablecoin issuer Circle (CRCL) rose 9.44% to $78.50 and Ethereum treasury BitMine (BMNR) added 9.68% to $20.05, rounding out the move across Wall Street's small cluster of crypto stocks.

Myriad: Bitcoin's next move? Click to make your prediction.

Each one touched a fresh intraday high along the way, with MSTR reaching $106.90 (+13.07% off its open), COIN $165.74 (+12.37%), CRCL $81.22 (+10.10%), and BMNR $20.90 (+12.79%), before paring some of those gains into the session's final stretch.

Each of the four are tied to crypto in different ways, but they move on the same lever: Bitcoin's price. Strategy holds Bitcoin directly as its corporate treasury, Coinbase earns fees off crypto trading volume, Circle issues the USDC stablecoin and collects yield on the reserves backing it, and BitMine stockpiles and stakes Ethereum, which also reacts to Bitcoin’s price as the most important altcoin in the market.

Wednesday's equity pop tracks Bitcoin's own short squeeze toward $70,000, which liquidated more than a billion dollars in bearish crypto bets in a single hour. The U.S. Treasury also announced it would at least double the size of its long-bond buyback program starting in September, a liquidity-easing move that lifted risk assets broadly Wednesday with the total crypto market growing more than 5% in the current trading session.

The move also came within hours of a White House meeting where President Trump is expected to sit down with SEC and CFTC leadership and crypto executives to discuss market-structure rules, plus the Federal Reserve's July meeting minutes, both due later Wednesday. Either event could add fresh volatility to the group before the closing bell.

Strategy and Coinbase carry extra significance here: both have ranked among the most shorted large-cap stocks on Wall Street, with Coinbase being currently the fifth most shorted stock in the financial sector. That means today's rally isn't just crypto derivatives traders getting squeezed—equity short sellers betting against these two names are being forced to cover into a rising market as well.

Strategy's own numbers show why its stock moves so closely with Bitcoin. The firm held 840,447 BTC and $4.8 billion in cash as of its most recent weekly filing, making its share price function almost like a leveraged bet on the coin it hoards. Bitcoin has been heavily bearish throughout the year, making short bets seem like a “safe” bet.

BitMine tells a similar story on the Ethereum side. The firm holds 5.82 million ETH tokens, worth roughly $11.4 billion and equal to 4.8% of Ethereum's circulating supply, chairman Tom Lee said this week, putting BMNR about as close to a pure Ethereum bet as a Nasdaq ticker gets.

Even after Wednesday's spike, Strategy, Coinbase, and BitMine remain deeply negative for the year, with analysts split on whether the move marks a genuine turn or another short-covering pop inside a longer downtrend. Follow-through volume on these assets over the next few sessions, alongside whether Bitcoin can hold the $70,284 resistance zone flagged on Wednesday's chart, will likely settle which read is right.

President Donald Trump stated that the Strait of Hormuz is open and that numerous vessels are passing through, despite the ongoing U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports. This development comes amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran, with maritime pressure escalating in the region. The President’s comments suggest a complex situation where the blockade remains effective but does not entirely disrupt transit. This statement has significant implications for markets pricing the complete closure of the Strait, impacting expectations around the likelihood of zero ships transiting.

Key Takeaways

• President Trump’s statement suggests that the likelihood of zero ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz has decreased, consistent with shifting market odds.
• Current market pricing reflects a 42.2% chance of zero ships transiting by August 31, down from previous levels.
• The assertion of an effective naval blockade yet open strait indicates a nuanced U.S. strategy and may influence future market movements.

What to Watch

Observers should monitor any official Iranian response or developments in the U.S.-Iran conflict, particularly regarding maritime actions in the Strait. Further statements by key actors, such as the IRGC or the U.S. Central Command, could significantly influence market perceptions. Additionally, any increase in vessel transit or changes in the blockade’s enforcement could shift market expectations, especially as the August 31 deadline approaches.

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Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Celtic Park was barely settled into its seats when LASK thought they had pulled off the ultimate smash-and-grab opener. The Austrian champions found the net within moments of kick-off on August 19, 2026, only for the linesman’s flag to cut the celebration short. Offside.

Rather than rattling the hosts, the disallowed goal seemed to wake them up. Celtic responded by taking firm control of proceedings, scoring twice before half-time to take a 2-0 lead in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League play-off round.

A tale of two halves (of one half)

A second LASK effort was also chalked off during the first half. Two goals disallowed in 45 minutes is the kind of stat line that would test any team’s composure.

Celtic broke the deadlock in the 35th minute, then doubled their advantage shortly after. By the time the referee blew for half-time, the scoreline was 2-0.

Martin O’Neill’s side looked every bit a team with unfinished business on the European stage. Last season, Celtic were eliminated at this exact point in the qualification pathway, falling to Kairat Almaty.

First meeting, contrasting legacies

This tie marked the first-ever competitive encounter between Celtic and LASK. Celtic’s European story stretches back decades, anchored by the 1967 European Cup triumph in Lisbon that made them the first British club to lift the continent’s biggest prize. LASK’s recent continental resume is considerably thinner, though their domestic title win in Austria earned them a seat at the table this summer.

O’Neill, who knows a thing or two about Champions League campaigns from his previous stint managing Celtic in the early 2000s, set his team up to absorb early pressure before unleashing them on the counter.

What the second leg looks like now

The return fixture is scheduled for later in August 2026, with LASK hosting in Austria. A two-goal deficit means LASK need to win by three goals to advance outright, or by two to force extra time.

For Celtic, the prize at the end of this two-legged tie is a place in the Champions League group stage, a destination the club hasn’t reached since their penalty elimination the previous season.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Geo founder Yaniv Tal has identified four weaknesses in online information that he says make AI answers unreliable: lost provenance, flattened authority, hidden disagreement, and repeated model-generated errors.

Geo founder Yaniv Tal told crypto.news that unreliable AI answers often begin with the material models receive, arguing that the internet was designed to distribute information rather than preserve its authority, origin, or accountability.

“AI doesn’t have a truth problem, the internet does,” Tal said.

According to Tal, information loses critical context as websites scrape and republish it. A claim may pass through several pages before entering a training set, leaving a model with the statement but no clear route back to its original source.

Authority also becomes difficult to measure when a research paper, company announcement, and anonymous forum post enter the same data pipeline as text. Tal said models may then treat material with different standards of evidence as if it carries similar weight.

“Provenance collapses. A claim gets scraped, restated, and re-scraped until the original source is unrecoverable,” he said.

Geo founder identifies four failures behind unreliable AI answers

Disagreement creates another problem because language models often combine competing positions into one response. Tal said such compression can hide genuine disputes among qualified experts, giving users a single confident answer without showing that credible alternatives exist.

The fourth weakness arises when AI-generated material returns to the data supply used by later models. Errors can survive repeated publication, while synthetic articles, posts, and summaries make it harder to locate the human-produced material from which a claim originated.

“Models increasingly train on output from other models, so errors don’t just persist, they amplify,” Tal said.

Independent research has documented a related risk. A 2024 Nature study examined what happens when generative models repeatedly learn from material produced by earlier models. Researchers described “model collapse” as a process in which systems gradually lose information about the original data distribution.

Less common material began disappearing during the early stages of the experiments, according to the paper, while later model generations produced distributions bearing little resemblance to the source data. Researchers said access to original, human-produced information remains important as AI-generated material spreads across the internet.

Tal does not classify the four weaknesses as failures confined to model design. In his account, models reproduce flaws already embedded in their training material, including missing sources and a lack of visible distinctions between evidence, opinion, and promotion.

Human verification would rank claims without removing disagreement

Geo’s proposed answer starts by separating a statement from its author and the evidence supporting it. Relationships between entries can show whether one argument supports another, contradicts it, or responds directly to a disputed point.

Once those links are recorded, Geo can order arguments by their assessed strength while retaining competing material beneath them, Tal said. The structure is intended to keep disagreement available without displaying every contribution as an undifferentiated comment feed.

“Pluralism doesn’t have to mean noise,” Tal said. “We think several well-structured competing perspectives is often the more honest answer.”

Geo organizes information through independent communities called Spaces. Its current website lists initial Spaces covering crypto, health, AI, education, world affairs, and US politics.

Members can contribute and participate in discussions, while people with relevant knowledge can apply to become editors. According to Geo, its curator program asks participants to evaluate sources, connect arguments, and add structured information to an open knowledge graph.

The model was developed from Geo Genesis, which entered early access in January 2025. As previously reported, its default governance structure divided participants into Editors and Members. Editors received voting authority, while Members could contribute information to individual Spaces.

Built on the Aragon OSx governance framework, Geo Genesis followed the release of GRC-20, a standard for representing connected knowledge. The Graph said in June 2025 that GRC-20 could let communities publish structured information onchain and retrieve it through subgraphs and Substreams.

Tal, who co-founded The Graph before starting Geo, said expertise would not be assigned by one central authority under the proposed system. Contributors would build a reputation through their work, and Geo intends for that record to follow a person between Spaces.

“Human judgment is the scarce input now, not the redundant one. Machines generate more content than people can process, and almost none of it has anyone accountable for its truth.”

Community governance still faces an identity problem

A human-run knowledge network must still determine whether contributors are genuine, qualified, and independent. Open governance systems can face Sybil attacks, in which one participant creates multiple identities to gain influence over voting, rankings, or rewards.

A June 2026 explainer examined how biometric checks, social trust networks, and zero-knowledge identity tools attempt to verify unique people. Each method involves trade-offs between privacy, attack resistance, accessibility, and control, while AI can help attackers create convincing personas at low cost.

Tal said Geo would rely on contribution records and domain-specific communities rather than allowing anonymous material to carry the same status as claims attached to people with public histories. Editors would apply through individual Spaces, and members would take part in governing the subjects they follow.

“Skin in the game without financial stakes changes the quality of what people are willing to put their name to,” Tal said.

The approach does not remove the need to decide who selects editors, how communities resolve coordinated manipulation, or whether expertise earned in one subject should carry weight in another. Tal described the gatekeeper issue as real but argued that independent Spaces would prevent one institution from controlling every field.

Human involvement has also gained attention in crypto security, where automated tools may detect malicious activity, but users still authorize transactions. In May 2026, a Ledger security report described manual verification and clear transaction displays as safeguards against AI-assisted phishing, fake interfaces, and automated scams.

Onchain records separate transactions from surrounding claims

Crypto is one of Geo’s first Spaces because blockchain activity offers a direct test of the difference between verifiable records and human interpretation, Tal said.

A blockchain can confirm that a transaction occurred at a recorded address and block. It cannot, without additional evidence, establish who controls the address, why funds moved, whether activity was organic, or what a project plans to do next.

“On-chain data is verifiable by construction. A transaction happened or it didn’t,” Tal said. “Everything wrapped around it is claims.”

Project announcements, partnership descriptions, market forecasts, and explanations of token movements therefore require separate treatment, according to Tal. Geo intends to attach such claims to named contributors and preserve their records, including earlier statements that proved wrong.

Promotional activity makes the distinction especially important in digital-asset markets, where teams may present selected metrics beside verifiable transaction data. Tal said a trustworthy knowledge layer should label the categories rather than presenting both in the same voice.

US guidance also calls for provenance and human review

For US developers and companies deploying generative AI, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has recommended several controls that overlap with parts of Tal’s argument.

NIST’s Generative AI Profile, published in July 2024, advises organizations to document training-data sources, monitor the origin of generated material, and evaluate feedback between provenance systems and human reviewers. The voluntary framework also calls for domain experts and affected communities to take part in certain assessments.

Content provenance standards offer another method for recording where digital material originated. The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity uses cryptographically signed Content Credentials to preserve information about who created or changed an asset and how it was edited.

Under the C2PA specification, however, validated provenance does not determine whether an attached claim is good, bad, or truthful. The standard verifies that assertions are connected to the underlying asset, correctly formed, and free from tampering.

Crypto exchange GMO Coin may suspend several Bitcoin services when eCash takes its first balance snapshot at block 963,648, expected around midnight Japan time on Aug. 23.

eCash is a new Bitcoin-derived chain that plans to credit holders with a separate ECX asset. Its live roadmap now describes this weekend's event as an Alpha stage issuing practice ECX, rather than the final mainnet launch.

GMO Coin's Aug. 7 notice says any suspension remains conditional, with both its start and end times undecided. The possible scope includes Bitcoin spot trading through GMO's dealer and exchange services, BTC/JPY crypto FX and leveraged trading, plus BTC deposits and withdrawals.

That gives customers a decision point without a confirmed shutdown. GMO has not said whether the Alpha snapshot will trigger a pause or how long any interruption could last.

eCash now shows three rollout stages

The current eCash roadmap places Alpha at block 963,648 around Aug. 23, Beta at block 967,680 around Sept. 20, and Mainnet at block 973,728 around Oct. 31. The dates are estimates because the stages are tied to Bitcoin block production.

Under eCash's current explanation, the Alpha and Beta snapshots credit practice ECX. Permanent ECX arrives at the mainnet snapshot, and practice units can be burned to redeem the permanent asset.

That description differs from the project's integration guide, updated Aug. 11, which still calls block 963,648 the fork point and describes a 1:1 ECX credit there. The guide labels itself pre-launch and says final parameters, including the fork height and replay scheme, would be published separately.

The known sequence is therefore clearer than GMO's response to it: the live site calls this weekend's event Alpha, but the exchange has not said whether its controls will treat that stage as requiring a service pause.

The revised schedule does not remove the technical concerns behind GMO's warning. The exchange and eCash materials say the new chain uses the same address formats as Bitcoin, while replay protection is opt-in. GMO said those features could create transfer risks. It also warned that volatility and thin liquidity could widen spreads or contribute to margin calls and forced sales, while early chain instability could lead to transaction reversals.

ECX is separate from the existing XEC asset and from BIP-110, a different Bitcoin soft-fork proposal whose timeline uses nearby block heights. GMO and eCash both say the ECX chain does not alter users' existing BTC.

For now, block 963,648 is a live planning point for GMO Coin rather than a confirmed freeze. The exchange's next notice, if one comes, will determine whether customers face an actual interruption and provide the missing start and end times.

This new change comes as on-chain activity on the Layer 1 drops to near record lows.

New name, same token

The Berachain Foundation announced the news on X, informing holders that HONEY, the network’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, will now officially be known as BUSD. 

However, current user balances will not be affected because the token retained the same contract address. The news didn’t get much of a response either, gathering about 117 likes and 14 reposts in its first hours.

According to Cryptopolitan, HONEY had always been a pillar of Berachain’s token structure since its launch, operating alongside sister tokens BERA for gas and staking and BGT for governance.

Berachain fees under a few dollars a day

The rebrand arrives as Berachain’s on-chain economy experiences a significant slowdown. According to DefiLlama, the network’s total value locked sits around $32 million, while its stablecoin market capitalization hovers near $62 million, with Tether making up roughly two-thirds of that supply.

Berachain network stats. Source: Defillama

Daily network activity is also starting to suffer, with Berachain bringing in just about $27 in chain fees and processing about 65,000 transactions from 3,329 active addresses. 

A Cryptopolitan report released in March also found that the network typically gets under $100 in daily fees, grouping it with other Layer 1 projects that raised lots of funding but lost engagement, developer interest, and liquidity over time.

From a $1.1 billion vault to a 99% decline

Berachain’s launch painted a massively different picture. Before the project’s mainnet was launched, its pre-deposit vault was well past $1.1 billion with support from over 127,000 depositors, including massive contributions from protocols like StakeStone.

Since then, market conditions have heavily repriced the project. The network’s BERA token has seen a steep decline from its previous all-time high, pulling its overall market valuation down significantly amid record-low trading thresholds.

According to CoinMarketCap, BERA is trading around $0.15, which is a 99% decline from its all-time record of $14.99 set in February 2025, leaving the project struggling with a market value of $47 million.

Where the rebrand fits

Berachain raised $142 million across two rounds from backers including Brevan Howard Digital, Polychain, Framework Ventures, and Samsung Next, according to DefiLlama. Its Proof of Liquidity design was originally introduced as a way to tie network security to liquidity provision and draw deposits away from rival chains.

Renaming the stablecoin to match the main brand gives Berachain a cleaner marketing identity, although the foundation did not link the change to any new yield program or incentive in their announcement. 

Nonetheless, whether a fresh label can successfully restart ecosystem deposits remains to be seen. The main thing to watch is whether Berachain’s stablecoin supply begins to climb or continues to stall in the coming weeks.

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Key Highlights

• Shares of Uber Technologies climbed 4.69% to reach $78.16 following robotaxi service introduction in Zagreb.
• Company debuts European autonomous vehicle operations through partnership with Verne and Pony AI.
• Croatian capital residents can now book self-driving vehicles via UberX and Comfort options.
• Pony AI delivers Gen-7 autonomous driving platform while Verne handles fleet and local management.
• Company announces intentions to scale autonomous ride services across additional European markets.

Shares of Uber Technologies (UBER) climbed 4.69% to $78.16 following the company’s announcement of autonomous vehicle service through its mobile platform in Zagreb. The stock experienced significant upward movement from approximately $74.66 during Wednesday’s session, demonstrating robust trading activity. This rollout represents the company’s inaugural European deployment where customers can book self-driving vehicles directly via the Uber application.

Uber Technologies, Inc., UBER

Zagreb Robotaxi Launch Drives Uber Stock Performance

Uber introduced the Croatian service through collaboration with Verne and autonomous technology provider Pony AI. Customers throughout designated zones, including downtown sections of Croatia’s largest city, can now book autonomous transportation. The collaborative partners anticipate broadening service hours and expanding operational boundaries as the program matures.

Human safety operators will initially maintain positions inside vehicles during the early deployment phase. The partners will transition toward removing onboard personnel once they complete validation milestones. This graduated implementation strategy enables the consortium to establish operational foundations before advancing to fully autonomous operations.

Uber manages platform integration and customer interface while leveraging its established ride-hailing infrastructure. Pony AI delivers the self-driving technology powering the vehicles throughout this collaboration. Verne maintains ownership of the vehicle fleet and oversees day-to-day operational management within the partnership framework.

European Autonomous Mobility Expansion Accelerates

This commercial deployment builds upon the partnership framework that Uber, Verne, and Pony AI established in March. The consortium has successfully transitioned from pilot testing to revenue-generating customer service. Zagreb now serves as a reference implementation that partners can replicate throughout other European metropolitan areas.

Verne had previously established robotaxi operations in Zagreb independently before integrating with Uber’s ecosystem. The operator has accumulated experience across thousands of autonomous journeys while providing regular service throughout the city. Integration with Uber’s platform now connects Verne to significantly expanded customer reach through the widely-adopted mobile application.

Pony AI supplies its Gen-7 Robotaxi platform to power autonomous operations throughout Zagreb. The technology handles self-driving capabilities while Verne maintains vehicle management and local coordination. The partnership framework establishes infrastructure designed to support broader autonomous transportation rollouts across the European continent.

Additional European Markets Targeted for Robotaxi Expansion

Zagreb serves as the initial European city launched through this autonomous mobility collaboration. The consortium plans to extend this operational framework into other European urban centers progressively. Additional market announcements are expected to follow within the coming months.

Uber maintains requirements that autonomous vehicles operating on its platform comply with relevant regulatory frameworks and proprietary safety standards. Consequently, service expansion will proceed incrementally as operational data accumulates from Zagreb operations. The staged approach also facilitates Uber’s strategic evolution toward operations without human safety monitors.

Uber anticipates that autonomous vehicles will complement rather than replace human drivers throughout its transportation ecosystem. Traditional drivers will continue fulfilling ride requests in areas where autonomous options remain unavailable or impractical. Robotaxi deployment could enhance Uber’s service portfolio as geographic coverage expands across additional metropolitan areas.

Customers can access Zagreb’s autonomous service by selecting UberX or Comfort categories within the Uber mobile application. When self-driving vehicles are available for assignment, the app displays vehicle details and passenger instructions. The European market entry reinforces Uber’s autonomous vehicle strategy while establishing another revenue channel within its mobility ecosystem.

SpaceX has initiated discussions with Cognition AI, the company behind the Devin AI coding agent, about a potential acquisition, according to Bloomberg. The timing is notable: SpaceX finalized its $60B all-stock acquisition of Cursor maker Anysphere on August 14, and apparently started shopping for its next AI coding target almost immediately.

There’s a wrinkle, though. Elon Musk may deny the reports, which adds a familiar layer of uncertainty to any deal involving the world’s most unpredictable dealmaker.

What we know so far

Neither SpaceX, Cognition AI, nor Musk has issued an official confirmation or denial of the acquisition talks.

What we do know is that Cognition AI has been on a steep valuation trajectory. The company was valued at $10.2B in 2025. Earlier in 2026, that figure jumped to $26B. And as of August 11, Bloomberg reported that Cognition is pursuing a funding round that could push its valuation to $40B or more.

Adding fuel to the speculation: Musk followed Cognition Labs’ official X account in mid-August 2026, right around the time the company was posting updates about Devin’s latest capabilities.

The Cursor deal sets the stage

The $60B acquisition of Anysphere, the company behind the AI-powered code editor Cursor, was finalized on August 14. It was an all-stock transaction, making it one of the largest acquisitions in the AI space to date.

Cursor and Cognition’s Devin occupy slightly different niches. Cursor is a code editor with AI features baked in. Devin is positioned as an autonomous AI software engineer that can handle entire coding tasks from planning to execution.

What a deal would mean for the AI coding market

If SpaceX does acquire Cognition at or near its $40B target valuation, combined with the $60B Cursor deal, Musk would have spent roughly $100B on AI development tools in a matter of weeks.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Trump spoke at a White House gathering of crypto and technology executives on Wednesday, August 19. He credited Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Michael Selig with leading the effort.

Trump Says Selig Is Clearing Hyperliquid’s Path Into the US

The president hosted executives from Coinbase, Ripple, and Nasdaq, according to Sinclair coverage of the event. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Paul Atkins and Selig also attended.

During his remarks, Trump singled out Hyperliquid, the dominant decentralized perpetual futures exchange. The platform blocks US users, treating them as restricted persons under its terms of use.

“I understand that Mike (Selig) is also working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion,” Trump said.

Selig, meanwhile, said he will provide more details on the regulatory path forward on Thursday.

That timing is no accident. The CFTC convenes its first-ever Innovation Advisory Committee meeting in Washington on Aug. 20, with an agenda covering crypto assets, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets.

Groundwork for this moment has been building for months. The Hyperliquid Policy Center and wallet provider Phantom jointly petitioned the CFTC in July, asking regulators to exempt DeFi protocols from legacy exchange rules.

How Will HYPE Price React?

Markets answered quickly. HYPE gained over 6% in the past 24 hours, trading near $68.19 at press time.

Hyperliquid (HYPE) Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto

The token’s market cap now sits at roughly $15.1 billion, ranking tenth among all crypto assets. HYPE first flipped Dogecoin in May to secure that top-10 position.

A legal US pathway would matter beyond sentiment. American traders represent the deepest derivatives market in the world, and onshore access could channel new volume and fees into the Hyperliquid ecosystem.

However, resistance persists. CME Group and NYSE parent ICE have reportedly lobbied for tighter scrutiny of the platform, citing manipulation and sanctions exposure concerns.

Compliance questions also remain unresolved. Registration, know-your-customer checks, and leverage limits do not map neatly onto a non-custodial, onchain order book.

Thursday’s committee meeting now stands as the immediate catalyst. Whether Selig offers concrete terms or broad principles could shape the next leg of the HYPE price outlook.

The post Trump Says CFTC Working to Bring Hyperliquid to US. How Will HYPE Price React? appeared first on BeInCrypto.

The United Arab Emirates announced a sweeping financial embargo on Iran on August 18-19, 2026, suspending all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Tehran indefinitely. The trigger: two ballistic missiles launched from Iranian territory that UAE air defenses detected heading toward the region’s maritime corridors before both fell into the sea.

Dubai was Iran’s economic oxygen supply

Official bilateral goods trade between the two countries hit approximately $6.2 billion in 2023, with UAE exports to Iran accounting for around $5.8 billion of that total. Those exports consisted mainly of consumer goods and electronics. Dubai accounts for roughly one-third of Iran’s annual imports, and informal trade through the emirate has historically served as a pressure valve that allowed Iranian businesses to work around layers of international sanctions.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs framed the embargo as a response to “rising regional tensions that undermine peace and security,” making clear there’s no timeline for lifting it.

Iran calls it a setup

Tehran isn’t taking the accusations quietly. Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson described the UAE’s claims as baseless and floated the possibility that the missile incidents were a false-flag operation designed to justify the embargo.

The missile alerts were the first reported incidents of their kind in months, and they landed during a period of already elevated tensions in the Gulf region. US pressure on Iran has remained persistent, diplomatic efforts between Washington and Tehran have stalled, and military confrontations in the broader Gulf theater have continued to simmer.

What this chokes off

Analysts view the embargo as one of the most significant economic measures taken against Iran outside of formal Western sanctions regimes. With that channel now formally closed, Iran faces a considerably narrower set of options for importing essential goods, compounding existing restricted access to global financial systems and constrained export revenues.

Market ripple effects and alternative channels

Energy markets are the obvious pressure point. While neither country’s oil production is directly disrupted by the embargo itself, the underlying missile threat to maritime traffic raises the specter of supply disruptions, with any escalation potentially sending crude prices sharply higher.

Historically, sanctions pressure on Iran has driven increased interest in alternative payment and settlement mechanisms, including digital assets. Cryptocurrencies have been used in the past to facilitate transactions that circumvent traditional banking restrictions. Increased utility as a sanctions-evasion tool tends to attract regulatory scrutiny, and compliance-focused exchanges and protocols may face renewed pressure to tighten screening procedures for transactions linked to sanctioned jurisdictions.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

UK inflation ticked higher in July, landing at 2.9% year-on-year, up from 2.6% in June. The increase was largely driven by energy costs, core measures stayed well-behaved, and the Bank of England now has a fairly clean runway to leave interest rates exactly where they are.

The Office for National Statistics published the data on August 19, and it landed almost precisely where economists had penciled it in. The monthly CPI increase came in at 0.3%, with housing and household services doing most of the heavy lifting thanks to an upward adjustment in the energy price cap that made gas bills notably pricier.

The energy price cap did what energy price caps do

Strip out the volatile energy component and the picture looks considerably more benign. Core inflation remained contained.

Analysts described the domestically generated inflation dynamics as broadly benign.

For context, UK inflation peaked at a bruising 11.1% in October 2022. The journey from there to 2.9% represents a dramatic cooldown, even if the destination is still a bit north of the BoE’s 2% target.

Rate decision: September and beyond

The Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee next convenes on September 17, and the consensus view among economists is straightforward: hold. The policy rate currently sits at 3.75%, where it has been parked through multiple recent meetings in 2026.

A solid majority of forecasters now expect the BoE to keep rates unchanged for the remainder of the year. The energy-driven component of the July uptick is exactly the kind of transient pressure that monetary policy is poorly suited to address.

Currency markets seemed to agree with that assessment. Sterling held firm following the data release.

Bond supply and fiscal realities

While the rate outlook appears settled for now, there’s a parallel story unfolding in the gilt market. Bond issuance continues to increase, reflecting ongoing fiscal financing needs as the UK government navigates a complicated budgetary environment.

The main wild card remains energy. Geopolitical developments in the Middle East continue to cast a shadow over global energy prices, and any significant disruption could push UK inflation meaningfully higher. The energy price cap mechanism means that wholesale price swings eventually flow through to consumer bills, creating a direct transmission channel from geopolitics to the inflation data that MPC members watch most closely.

The market’s base case appears well-anchored: the BoE holds at 3.75%, inflation gradually drifts back toward target as energy effects wash out, and the real action shifts to fiscal policy and bond supply dynamics.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

TLDR

• Workday stock rises 5.07% to $200.30 after new AI research unit launch.
• Workday, Inc. unveils Workday AI Research and a PhD fellowship.
• WDAY shares gap up sharply as the company deepens its enterprise AI focus.
• Workday AI Research targets agent memory, orchestration, and reliability challenges.
• Workday stock surge follows announcement of new AI research division launch.

WDAY shares climbed 5.07% to close at $200.30 on Wednesday. The stock jumped after Workday announced a new dedicated AI research division. Investors reacted quickly, pushing the stock from around $190 to above $200 within hours.

Workday, Inc., WDAY

The rally began mid-morning and continued through the trading session. Workday shares gapped up sharply and then held steady gains into the close. This pattern often points to strong market confidence rather than a fleeting news spike.

Workday, Inc. is the enterprise platform for HR, finance, and IT operations. The company serves large organizations seeking AI-driven workforce and financial tools. Wednesday’s announcement expands Workday’s ambitions beyond its existing product suite.

Workday Unveils New AI Research Division

Workday introduced Workday AI Research, a technical team focused on enterprise AI reliability. The division studies persistent agent memory, explainability, and multi-agent coordination. It also examines reward overoptimization and adaptive resource control in AI systems.

Workday researchers have already published findings at major academic conferences. Their work has appeared at machine learning and natural language processing gatherings worldwide. This academic presence strengthens Workday’s credibility within the broader AI research community.

Company leadership framed the division as a response to enterprise AI challenges. As AI agents take on more workplace tasks, companies need dependable and auditable systems. Workday, Inc. aims to build tools that organizations can trust at scale.

Workday Launches PhD Fellowship for AI Talent

Alongside the research division, Workday introduced a new PhD fellowship program. The Workday AI Research Fellowship supports doctoral students working on enterprise AI topics. Each fellow receives fifty thousand dollars annually through an unrestricted university gift.

Fellows also gain mentorship from Workday researchers and early career opportunities. This structure links Workday, Inc. directly with emerging academic talent in AI. The program strengthens the company’s long-term pipeline for specialized research staff.

Workday researchers have already reported measurable technical progress in recent studies. One method improved agent memory precision by twelve percent while running faster. Another approach showed multiple coordinated agents can improve both accuracy and compliance.

Market Reaction Reflects Broader AI Enterprise Trend

The Workday stock surge fits a wider pattern among enterprise software companies. Firms investing visibly in AI research often see immediate market interest. Workday, Inc. now joins peers positioning research credibility as a competitive advantage.

Trading volume increased noticeably during the announcement window on Wednesday. The stock’s steady climb after the initial jump suggests sustained buying interest. Analysts may revisit valuation models given Workday’s expanded technical research commitments.

Workday, Inc. continues to compete in a crowded enterprise software and AI market. Wednesday’s move signals the company’s intent to lead on AI trust and reliability. The coming quarters will show whether this research investment translates into product gains.

Key Highlights

• Merck shares soar 12.12% following breakthrough Phase 3 melanoma study success.

• Positive Phase 3 data released by Merck and Moderna for melanoma combination therapy.

• Combination of intismeran and KEYTRUDA demonstrates enhanced recurrence-free survival.

• Trial success represents groundbreaking achievement for personalized mRNA-based cancer therapies.

• Companies preparing to submit melanoma study data to regulatory agencies.

Merck & Company, Inc. (MRK) shares experienced a substantial 12.12% rally to $151.56 on Wednesday after the pharmaceutical giant announced successful Phase 3 melanoma clinical trial outcomes. The stock climbed significantly from intraday trading levels around $135.17. These results bolstered Merck’s oncology portfolio as its partnership with Moderna achieved a significant clinical breakthrough.

Merck & Co., Inc., MRK

Merck Shares Rally Following Melanoma Trial Breakthrough

Merck alongside Moderna announced successful topline data from the Phase 3 INTerpath-001 study. The clinical trial assessed intismeran autogene in combination with Merck’s KEYTRUDA immunotherapy in melanoma patients following surgical resection. Notably, the study successfully achieved its primary goal of improving recurrence-free survival.

Additionally, the combination therapy met an important secondary goal measuring distant metastasis-free survival. Data demonstrated statistically significant enhancements versus KEYTRUDA monotherapy. Furthermore, the collaborating companies observed clinically substantial benefits in patients with fully resected stage IIB through IV melanoma.

Study participants had not received prior systemic melanoma therapy before enrollment. Both Merck and Moderna will continue monitoring the trial while evaluating further secondary outcomes. These evaluations encompass overall survival, a critical indicator of treatment efficacy over extended periods.

Combination Therapy Achieves Significant Development Milestone

Intismeran represents a personalized mRNA-based neoantigen immunotherapy co-developed by Merck and Moderna. This therapy identifies and targets unique genetic mutations present in each patient’s specific tumor. Consequently, researchers engineered the treatment to stimulate immune system responses against malignant cells harboring these distinctive mutations.

These Phase 3 findings represent a pivotal achievement for personalized neoantigen cancer treatments. The study delivered the inaugural positive Phase 3 data for an individualized neoantigen immunotherapy. Additionally, it provided the first successful Phase 3 outcome for an mRNA-based oncology treatment.

Importantly, the therapy combination revealed no unexpected safety concerns throughout the clinical trial. The safety characteristics aligned with data from earlier studies examining intismeran combined with KEYTRUDA. Merck and Moderna intend to unveil comprehensive results during a forthcoming international medical conference.

Partners Broaden INTerpath Oncology Development Pipeline

Merck and Moderna have substantially expanded their INTerpath clinical development initiative encompassing multiple cancer indications and treatment stages. The comprehensive program currently encompasses nine Phase 2 and Phase 3 investigations. These studies examine intismeran combined with KEYTRUDA, alternative cancer therapeutics, and as monotherapy.

The partnership is investigating this therapeutic approach in melanoma, bladder carcinoma, renal cell carcinoma, and non-small cell lung cancer. Their extensive research portfolio additionally includes a preceding Phase 2b investigation involving melanoma patients. Moreover, another trial encompasses pancreatic, gastric, and non-small cell lung malignancies in various therapeutic settings.

Merck has established a substantial oncology franchise centered on KEYTRUDA, making continued therapeutic innovation strategically critical. The latest findings could potentially expand the company’s melanoma treatment portfolio pending future regulatory approval of the combination regimen. Merck and Moderna intend to submit the Phase 3 data to regulatory agencies for comprehensive evaluation.

Atlético Madrid gave their fans a rare photo op this week when the FIFA Club World Cup trophy showed up at the Riyadh Air Metropolitano. The gleaming hardware made its way pitchside before a match, giving players and supporters alike a chance to get up close with the prize they’ll be competing for this summer.

The trophy’s visit was part of FIFA’s global tour promoting the expanded Club World Cup, a revamped 32-team tournament set to take place in the United States from June through July 2025. For Atlético, it was more than a marketing exercise. It was a preview of what they’re playing for in what will be the club’s first appearance in the modern format of the competition.

A trophy on tour

The Riyadh Air Metropolitano was the second stop on the trophy’s international journey, following earlier appearances in cities like New York and Lisbon. FIFA has been shuttling the cup around in a glass-panelled van, making it visible to as many eyeballs as possible before the tournament kicks off.

The trophy arrived in Madrid on January 22 and stayed through January 23, 2025. During that window, it wasn’t just parked in a VIP lounge somewhere.

The club organized a pitch display where fans could snap photos with it. Beyond the stadium, the trophy also made stops at local sports centers, where roughly 300 youth players from Atlético’s academy system got their own chance to see it up close.

There was also a public appearance at Atlético’s Gran Vía store in central Madrid.

Atlético’s Club World Cup journey

This isn’t entirely uncharted territory for the club’s relationship with World Cup silverware. Back in August 2018, Atlético players posed with the senior FIFA World Cup trophy before a La Liga match, a nod to the French and other national team players on the roster who had lifted it that summer.

Atlético qualified for the tournament and were drawn into a group that includes Paris Saint-Germain and Seattle Sounders, among others.

The club finished the group stage with two wins and one loss, collecting six points while scoring four goals and conceding five.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Corporate treasurers have spent decades playing a waiting game with settlement windows. Kyriba, one of the largest treasury management system providers in the world, just decided that game is over.

At KyribaLive in Las Vegas, the company announced a collaboration with Circle to integrate USDC directly into its enterprise treasury platform. The integration gives corporate finance teams access to near real-time settlement for eligible cross-border and intercompany payments, 24/7 liquidity outside traditional banking hours, and real-time visibility of USDC balances alongside their conventional cash positions.

What the integration actually does

Kyriba’s platform serves over 4,000 customers globally, including a significant number of Fortune 100 companies. Those customers collectively facilitate roughly $51 trillion in annual payments.

The integration isn’t just a “pay with crypto” button bolted onto an existing dashboard. Kyriba is threading USDC functionality through its Trusted Agentic AI system, which the company calls TAI. In practice, that means AI-driven monitoring handles the operational layer: watching balances, executing policy-based transactions, and maintaining the approval workflows and audit trails that enterprise compliance teams demand.

Why stablecoin circulation numbers matter here

This partnership lands at a moment when USDC’s growth trajectory is hard to ignore. By the end of 2025, USDC circulation had reached $75.3 billion, representing a 72% year-over-year increase. Even more striking is the quarterly on-chain transaction volume, which hit $11.9 trillion, up 247% compared to the prior year.

The broader context for enterprise crypto adoption

Kyriba’s announcement didn’t happen in isolation. The company also highlighted collaborations with the Association for Financial Professionals (AFP) and J.P. Morgan Asset Management, signaling that the institutional appetite for digital asset integration extends well beyond crypto-native firms.

The agentic AI layer adds another dimension. Automated, policy-driven execution means that USDC transactions can be triggered by predefined conditions, like a subsidiary’s cash balance falling below a threshold, without requiring manual intervention.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

The latest move is that the digital asset-focused investment platform filed a fourth amendment to its Form S-3 registration statement for Grayscale Zcash Trust (ZEC) on August 18 to set the stage for what is to come. 

If it is cleared, it would be the first American ETF tracking a privacy coin, giving stock-market investors a regulated route to ZEC.

What changes are in the fourth amendment?

The filing, listed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), restates how shares of the trust are created and redeemed. 

According to the S-3/A, the trust will handle both creations and redemptions mainly through cash orders, while still allowing authorized participants to create shares in-kind by delivering ZEC. 

Redemptions in-kind are not permitted as of the filing date.

The trust is a Delaware statutory trust sponsored by Grayscale Investments Sponsors, LLC. 

Coinbase is the prime broker, and Coinbase Custody Trust Company holds the ZEC. The Bank of New York Mellon is acting as transfer agent and administrator, the filing states. 

The trust will be renamed by Grayscale once the registration takes effect and the shares begin trading on the exchange.

A DCG affiliate could seed the fund with 200,000 ZEC

The amendment also discloses non-binding talks between the sponsor and DCG International Investments Ltd, an indirect subsidiary of Grayscale’s parent, Digital Currency Group. 

Under the arrangement being discussed, DCG International Investments could buy shares through an authorized participant by handing over 200,000 ZEC.

Why a privacy-coin ETF is a first

ZEC is the token of the Zcash network, which lets users shield transaction details using zero-knowledge cryptography. 

Regulated investment products have been wary of tokens with privacy features like ZEC, and this is why the conversion of Zcash Trust into a listed fund would break new ground.

ZEC has risen by more than 9% in the 24 hours after the filing was disclosed. It is currently trading around $555 per CoinMarketCap data.

Demand for the existing trust has been building for months. In April, ZCSH averaged roughly $1.7 million in daily volume, which is more than double March’s level, and the growth is seen as a sign that institutional appetite for privacy assets has not waned. 

Over the same stretch, the share of ZEC sitting in shielded balances went up to nearly 30% of circulating supply, a record. The network’s Orchard pool grew from 1.92 million to 4.55 million ZEC over twelve months, according to data from The Block.

A privacy coin still recovering from a scare

While it has seen some growth, the year has been relatively rough for Zcash. After security researcher Taylor Hornby disclosed a flaw in the Orchard shielded pool in mid-2026 that could have let an attacker mint counterfeit ZEC, some investors lost faith in the token. 

ZEC fell from $602 to near $299 when the news broke in June. However, the flaw was patched by its developers within days. They said that they found no sign that it was exploited and followed up with the Ironwood upgrade to detect any counterfeit coins.

A regulated ETF built on that same network would hand traditional investors exposure to an asset whose privacy design cuts both ways.

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Prediction market operator Kalshi filed with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to launch perpetual futures tied to copper prices.

Filed August 18, the proposed COPPERPERP contract would track the spot price of copper in U.S. dollars per pound using a price feed from Pyth Network, a blockchain-based market data provider that aggregates pricing from exchanges, market makers, and other financial firms.

Myriad: Bitcoin next price move? Click to make your prediction.

The filing pushes Kalshi further beyond event-based prediction markets and comes less than a week after a Washington judge ordered the company to stop offering wagers on sports, elections, politics, and other events in the state.

Perpetual futures, or “perps,” differ from traditional futures because they have no expiration date, allowing traders to keep positions open without rolling into a new contract. Earlier this year, rival prediction market Polymarket said that it plans to offer customers perpetual futures, referencing companies like Nvidia and Coinbase.

According to the Kalshi filing, the Copper Perp contract would be settled in cash, with no physical copper changing hands. Periodic payments between long and short traders would help keep its price aligned with the underlying copper price.

Copper is a critical industrial metal used in power grids, construction, electric vehicles, electronics and the infrastructure supporting AI data centers. It is already actively traded through major futures markets, including CME’s COMEX, the London Metal Exchange and the Shanghai Futures Exchange.

The news comes after the CFTC in May approved Kalshi to offer Bitcoin perpetual futures, accelerating the prediction market’s expansion into derivatives.

Running a $70 billion hedge fund is hard enough without your co-founder becoming your adversary. John Overdeck, who co-founded Two Sigma Investments alongside David Siegel in 2001, disclosed during his divorce trial on August 19 that the firm lost a major investor as a direct consequence of the bitter rift between the two men.

A feud that became a regulatory disclosure

Two Sigma first flagged the deteriorating relationship to its investors back in March 2024, categorizing the co-founders’ disputes as a material risk to the business. By August 2024, the situation had escalated to the point where both founders stepped down as co-CEOs. Carter Lyons and Scott Hoffman were installed as their replacements.

Arbitration proceedings kicked off in January 2025, with the disputes centering on governance and compensation issues between Overdeck and Siegel.

The cost of internal warfare

Overdeck’s courtroom statement that Two Sigma lost a major investor because of the feud puts a concrete, if unnamed, price tag on leadership dysfunction. The identity of the departing investor hasn’t been disclosed, nor has the size of the redemption.

Two Sigma’s overall assets under management have remained relatively stable at around $70 billion throughout the entire saga.

Quant giant, very human problems

Two Sigma has long positioned itself as a technology company that happens to trade financial markets. Founded in 2001, the firm grew into one of the largest and most sophisticated quantitative hedge funds in the world.

The installation of Lyons and Hoffman as co-CEOs was meant to provide a clean break, and the firm has continued to operate and maintain its asset base through the conflict. The firm’s ability to hold $70 billion in AUM through this period is notable, but the arbitration between Overdeck and Siegel remains unresolved more than two years after the disputes first surfaced publicly.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

If you’ve ever aced a test only to bomb a retake with slightly reworded questions, you already understand the problem IBM just put a number on. The company’s research division has published a paper introducing BenchDrift, a tool designed to measure how much large language model benchmark scores shift when test prompts are rephrased without changing their meaning.

What BenchDrift actually measures

The core idea is deceptively simple. Take a benchmark question, rewrite it in a way that preserves its meaning and correct answer, then see if the model still gets it right. BenchDrift does this systematically across four distinct axes: linguistic, referential, pragmatic, and structural.

BenchDrift generates these variations at scale, then tracks what researchers call “bidirectional correctness flips,” instances where a model’s answer switches from right to wrong or wrong to right based solely on phrasing.

The research team, led by Shailja Thakur, Sungeun An, Chad DeLuca, and Hima Patel at IBM Research, tested eight models across three widely used benchmarks: GSM8K (grade-school math), MMLU (massive multitask language understanding), and MATH-Hard (advanced mathematical reasoning). Drift showed up everywhere.

Stronger models, bigger problems

Weaker models actually tended to benefit from rephrased questions, picking up correct answers they previously missed. Stronger models, meanwhile, showed increased vulnerability. They lost significantly more accuracy when questions were reworded, even when the underlying meaning stayed identical.

High confidence scores can deteriorate with minor changes in question length or style, meaning that even when a model appears certain about its answer, that certainty may be anchored to specific phrasing rather than actual comprehension.

Why benchmark fragility matters beyond the lab

BenchDrift joins a growing body of evidence suggesting this evaluation infrastructure has fundamental weaknesses. IBM’s own prior work includes projects like ITBench and BenchmarkCards, both aimed at improving transparency in AI assessment. BenchDrift extends that effort by providing a quantitative framework for what the researchers call the “wording effect,” the measurable gap between what a benchmark score claims and what it actually demonstrates.

The tool has been released as open source through a GitHub repository (IBM/BenchDrift), which includes the full pipeline code, Jupyter notebooks, and configuration files needed to generate question variations, validate that those variations preserve meaning, and detect correctness drift.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

His central thesis runs counter to conventional wisdom. The goal should never be to sell Bitcoin to fund a lifestyle, but to stay in the owner column rather than the consumer column.

Bitcoin: The Owner Column vs. the Consumer Column

Under the debt-based monetary system in place since 1971, money enters circulation through credit, and credit requires collateral. Owning even $1 of Bitcoin makes someone an owner who can borrow against it.

Selling, by contrast, triggers tax events, eliminates that collateral, and converts a long-term asset into short-term spending. He also challenges traditional retirement thinking.

The goal should not be freedom from work, he argues, but freedom to work on whatever someone actually chooses.

“…So the retirement path is that that Bitcoin appreciates and hopefully it continues at 30% per year. We already talked about that and so eventually it’s worth $1 million and then it’s worth $5 and $10 million $20 million. But if I sell it to get some of the money, I instantly take myself from the owner column back to the consumer column…,” Moss said.

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Moss points to billionaires and creators who stay active into old age, arguing they belong to the builder class rather than consumers dreaming of poolside leisure. He dismisses passive income and the FIRE movement, proposing instead what he calls retiring from assets.

The concrete strategy involves borrowing against Bitcoin with discipline: low loan-to-value ratios, multiple liquidity layers including checking accounts, cash equivalents, and income, with asset sales reserved as a last resort.

Understanding market cycles matters throughout that process, harvesting appreciation without abandoning ownership or triggering unnecessary taxable events.

Why Moss and Schiff Disagree Completely

Moss illustrates the danger of becoming a forced seller through his own history. In 2008, he built a property valued at $12 million, rejected an $11 million offer, then watched the bank sell it for just $4 million after the crash. It is worth roughly $20 million today.

Volatility was never the real problem, he explains. Becoming a forced seller at exactly the wrong moment was:

“…Everybody wants that financial freedom, the ability to live uh without being forced to work off of income, things like that. And so what I like to talk about is how people can have asset freedom. So there are certainly movements like my mentor Robert Kiyosaki talks about building passive income…,” the analyst noted.

Economist and longtime Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff offered a starkly different view. Writing on X, he argued that retiring on Bitcoin only works if someone bought it long ago and sells before a crash.

Moss sees Bitcoin as structural infrastructure for generating liquidity without abandoning ownership, even amid the current 26% yearly decline. Schiff insists that the only realistic path is to sell in time, before volatility erodes accumulated capital.

That leaves a genuine open question for holders. Is Bitcoin an asset to preserve and leverage indefinitely, or one that demands exiting before conditions turn too late?

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The post Bitcoin is a “Cheat Code” to Retire Without Selling, Analyst Explains Why appeared first on BeInCrypto.

Joe Rodon isn’t going anywhere. Leeds United announced on August 19, 2026, that the Welsh defender has signed a contract extension keeping him at Elland Road until the summer of 2030, adding two years to his previous deal.

From loan signing to long-term cornerstone

Rodon first arrived on a season-long loan from Tottenham Hotspur in August 2023, quickly establishing himself as a defensive anchor. Leeds made the move permanent in July 2024, paying Tottenham a reported £10 million. He signed a four-year deal at the time, running through 2028.

At 28 years old, Rodon has racked up 115 appearances in Leeds colors. The extension through 2030 means Rodon will be 32 by the time this deal expires.

A winding path to stability

Born in Swansea on October 22, 1997, he came through the Swansea City academy and broke into the first team before Tottenham came calling in 2020, paying £11 million for his services. Rodon struggled for regular playing time in north London. A loan spell at Rennes in France followed before the move to Leeds.

His contribution to Leeds’ promotion back to the Premier League was substantial.

What this means for Leeds’ Premier League ambitions

By securing Rodon through 2030, Leeds negotiated from a position of reasonable strength, extending two years before his previous deal was set to expire in 2028. Getting this done early avoids losing the asset for nothing or paying over the odds in the final year of a contract.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Federal Reserve officials have cautioned that further interest rate hikes could be necessary if inflation does not continue to decrease, according to recent statements. This comes as inflation figures remain above the Fed’s target, with July’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) showing a 3.4% year-over-year increase. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) minutes indicated that a majority of the members are prepared to implement policy tightening if inflation remains persistent. Despite the current federal funds rate being held at 3.50%–3.75%, the Fed’s stance suggests a potential shift in policy direction if inflationary pressures do not ease. The market reaction has been notable, with pricing on rate hikes by the September and October meetings showing some fluctuation.

Key Takeaways

• Recent warnings from Fed officials appear consistent with a potential rate hike if inflation remains elevated.
• Market pricing suggests a 28.5% probability of a rate hike by the September 2026 FOMC meeting, showing slight changes from recent days.
• The October meeting shows a 40.5% probability for a rate hike, indicating stronger market sentiment towards action later in the year.

What to Watch

Upcoming inflation data releases may influence the Fed’s decision-making process. A continuation of elevated inflation levels could support scenarios where the Fed opts for a rate hike in the upcoming meetings. Additionally, statements from key Fed officials, including Jerome Powell, may provide further insights into the central bank’s policy trajectory. The next FOMC meeting dates and their outcomes will be critical in determining the likelihood of rate adjustments.

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Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Four of the five candidates supported by ads funded by the cryptocurrency-aligned political action committee (PAC) Fairshake won their primaries or otherwise advanced on Tuesday, potentially a bellwether for the industry’s influence in the 2026 midterm elections.

On Tuesday, Democratic and Republican candidates supported by media funded by the Fairshake-affiliated PACs Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, respectively, notched wins across three US states. Altogether, the PACs spent about $3.6 million on House and Senate races in Alaska, Florida and Wyoming.

Democrat Lois Frankel won re-election in Florida’s 23rd congressional district after Protect Progress spent more than $150,000 on supportive media. Defend American Jobs also spent a combined $1.5 million on ads to support Republican Nick Begich in Alaska’s at-large congressional district, Republican candidate Sydney Gruters in Florida’s 16th congressional district and Representative Harriet Hageman for the US Senate in Wyoming. Gruters and Hageman won their primaries, while Begich is expected to advance in Alaska.

All four candidates will likely go on to face challengers in the 2026 midterms in November, but a Democrat in Florida’s 24th district also won despite being the target of more than $2 million worth of negative ads funded by Protect Progress. Oliver Gilbert defeated challengers Shevrin Jones and Kendrick Meek with 34.4% of the vote, in a race that addressed the potential influence of the crypto industry.

Florida’s 24th congressional district results for Democratic primary. Source: The New York Times

According to an Aug. 12 Miami Herald report, Gilbert said “[Donald] Trump’s tech billionaire buddies” were behind the “crypto con artists trying to buy a Democratic primary” through the Protect Progress ads. The news outlet said the ads included fake Miami Herald headlines misrepresenting Gilbert’s policy positions, though a spokesperson for the PAC claimed that “the underlying facts in our ad are true.”

The Fairshake PAC, which reported holding a $193 million war chest as of January, was responsible for funding more than $130 million worth of ads supporting candidates it considered pro-crypto in the 2024 election cycle and opposing many who spoke negatively about the industry or voted against its interests. As of June, the committee had spent more than $82 million on races ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Related: UK authorities continue probe into Nigel Farage’s crypto ‘gifts’ after by-election win

Gilbert did not mention the crypto industry or the ads in his Tuesday night acceptance speech. Fairshake spokesperson Geoff Vetter said that the PAC was “just getting started building the largest pro-crypto Congress in history” following the three state primaries and other candidates winning in 2026. 

Makeup of next Congress to impact crypto market structure law?

Both the US Senate and House of Representatives are on recess until September, when the former is scheduled to address a cloture motion on the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act, a bill expected to establish comprehensive regulations for digital assets. Although the legislation passed the House with bipartisan support in July on a 294-134 vote, many Senate Democrats have been pushing for stronger ethics provisions related to the Trump family’s crypto investments.

Following the 2026 elections, US Congress could shift from a Republican to Democratic majority depending on the outcome of key races potentially influenced by PACs like Fairshake. Lawmakers elected in November could advance or stymie legislation affecting the crypto industry, including CLARITY, if the current session does not address the bill before 2027.

Magazine: 200,000 fake AI ‘victims’ deployed to scam bait online fraudsters

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Nvidia is introducing companies that hold its GPUs to Nordic data center operators with room to house them, sources have told CNBC, a sign the chipmaker wants to increase its influence spanning the entire AI buildout well beyond just selling chips.

Chipmaker turned matchmaker

According to CNBC’s reporting, published Wednesday, Nvidia reached out to at least one data-center company to talk through potential “offtakers.” These are buyers who lock in compute capacity ahead of time through purchase or lease agreements. One of the sources claimed the introductions were a part of Nvidia’s “value proposition to GPU customers.”

The company is not limiting the effort to Scandinavia and Iceland, as Nvidia has also tried to link an AI infrastructure firm with GPU holders in the United States and Asia. The aim of the effort is to ensure buyers with cash and demand can find the physical space to run the hardware they want.

This “matchmaking” interest from Nvidia extends its reach past just chips and processors, into where those chips will be used. This step will be one deeper into the AI supply chain than the company has previously ventured.

DGX-Ready program certifying Nordic sites

The matchmaking revolves around Nvidia’s DGX-Ready Colocation Data Center program, which vets facilities to run its heaviest AI workloads. Three Nordic operators have met the standards set by Nvidia, and they include atNorth, Bulk Data Centers, and Borealis Data Center.

To earn this certification, a site has to prove it can support liquid cooling, pass component validation, and provide the ecosystem support required to keep deployments from stalling after a customer brings in hardware.

All three certified operators are said to run entirely on renewable energy, and their locations help to keep cooling bills lower as the surrounding air stays cold for most of the year.

Cheap power, cold environment pull projects further north

The Nordic region boasts a great pitch focused on power, land, and temperature. Iceland taps into geothermal power, while Norway and Sweden lean on large hydroelectric supplies. Generally, cool conditions all across the region mean cooling systems draw far less energy than they would in other warmer markets.

Pure DC said in July it would spend 1.5 billion euros on a 110-megawatt campus in Finland, and Microsoft also took additional capacity at an Nscale site in Norway in April.

Crusoe teamed up with atNorth in August 2025 to grow its ICE02 site in Iceland, a build that pairs Nvidia’s DGX GB200 NVL72 systems with Blackwell GPUs. In Norway, the OpenAI-backed Stargate project is targeting 100,000 Nvidia GPUs by the end of 2026.

Over in Iceland, a Verne and nScale effort is aiming to create Europe’s largest liquid-cooled AI GPU installation, running about 4,600 Nvidia Blackwell Ultra GPUs.

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Cross-chain DeFi took another hit this week. Maya Protocol, the Cosmos SDK-based liquidity network, suspended all operations after an attacker chained together six separate software vulnerabilities to drain roughly $1.7 million in Bitcoin and other assets from the platform.

The protocol’s native token, CACAO, did not take the news well. Its price collapsed 88.7% in a single day, falling from approximately $0.115 to as low as $0.013 before staging a partial recovery.

How the exploit worked

The attacker exploited a chain of six distinct software flaws that together allowed manipulation of the protocol’s liquidity pool accounting. By inflating the recorded balance of a pool, the exploit generated an artificial payout of roughly 49 million CACAO tokens into a low-liquidity environment.

From there, the attacker withdrew approximately 48.87 million CACAO and used that position to extract around 20.83 BTC, worth between $1.34 million and $1.4 million at the time, along with additional assets sent to external chains.

Aalux, Maya Protocol’s pseudonymous co-founder, confirmed the exploit’s mechanics publicly. The team moved immediately to halt all activity on the MAYAChain network to prevent further losses while the investigation proceeded. Security firm PeckShield also began monitoring on-chain activity tied to the incident.

The direct theft totaled roughly $1.7 million. But the broader damage to liquidity pools, amplified by the market reaction and CACAO’s collapse, pushed total losses across the protocol to an estimated $11 million in value.

Why cross-chain accounting is a recurring weak point

Maya Protocol is built as a non-custodial fork of THORChain, itself a Cosmos SDK-based network. The core pitch for both protocols is the same: let users swap native assets across blockchains without wrapping tokens or relying on bridges.

Cross-chain systems have to track balances across multiple independent ledgers simultaneously. When the accounting layer between those ledgers can be manipulated, the consequences compound fast. An inflated number on one side of the equation becomes real money extracted on the other side.

THORChain, Maya’s architectural predecessor, has experienced its own serious exploits. In 2021, the network suffered multiple attacks within a short window, losing millions across separate incidents.

What this means for Maya and the broader DeFi landscape

For liquidity providers on the platform, the situation is painful. An 88.7% single-day drop in CACAO means that any holdings denominated in the token lost the vast majority of their value before most users could react. The pool-level losses, estimated at $11 million when accounting for both the direct theft and the subsequent market dislocation, represent real capital that may not be fully recoverable depending on how the protocol structures any remediation.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Nvidia is in discussions to invest in Mercor, the AI data marketplace that connects companies with human experts who label and generate training data for AI models. The talks are reportedly taking place at a $20 billion valuation, which would represent a clean doubling of Mercor’s worth since its Series C round just nine months ago.

From $10B to $20B in nine months

Mercor raised $350 million in its Series C funding round in October 2025, which valued the startup at $10 billion. That round was backed by Felicis Ventures and Benchmark.

The discussions appear to be strategic rather than part of a broader fundraising round, which raises the possibility that Nvidia is positioning for deeper integration with Mercor’s services, or potentially eyeing future acquisition activity down the line. No specific deal terms have been confirmed, and there’s no indication the investment has closed.

The business behind the valuation

Mercor generated $614 million in gross revenue during just the first half of the year. By June 2026, its annualized gross revenue was projected to reach $2 billion.

Mercor was founded by Brendan Foody, Adarsh H., and Surya Midha, all of whom reportedly became some of the world’s youngest self-made billionaires following the October 2025 funding round.

The company originally built its platform around AI-powered hiring, then pivoted into AI training data services. The core idea: connect companies with human domain experts who can produce high-quality, specialized data that AI models need to improve.

Mercor’s client list includes OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia itself.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Mantle price rebounded more than 6% on Aug. 19 as MNT tested a key resistance level near $0.46, while liquidation data pointed to a larger pool of leveraged positions above the market.

Mantle price approaches a breakout level

According to data from crypto.news, Mantle (MNT) price traded around $0.455 after rising 6.6% during the daily session shown. The recovery extended a rebound that began after MNT reached approximately $0.39 at the start of August.

The token has since formed a series of higher lows and briefly reached $0.467 on Aug. 13. Sellers rejected that advance, but MNT held above $0.42 before returning to the upper end of its recent range.

The daily chart places immediate resistance at $0.4575, which matches the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement of MNT’s decline from $0.7149 to $0.3874. A daily close above that level would indicate that buyers have recovered the final Fibonacci barrier before the previous breakdown area.

Mantle price daily chart — Aug. 20 | Source: crypto.news

Momentum indicators support the rebound without showing an overbought market. The daily relative strength index stood at 58.46, above its signal average of 56.10 but below the 70 level commonly associated with overbought conditions.

The moving average convergence divergence indicator also remained positive. However, the small distance between its two lines showed that MNT still needed stronger momentum to confirm a sustained breakout.

Liquidation clusters could pull MNT toward $0.49

CoinGlass’ one-week liquidation heatmap showed several layers of leveraged positions immediately above MNT’s market price. The closest concentrations appeared between $0.46 and $0.47, while brighter and denser bands extended from around $0.475 to $0.49.

Mantle liquidation heatmap | Source: CoinGlass

Liquidation clusters do not guarantee that price will move toward them. They mark areas where leveraged positions could be closed if the market reaches their trigger prices, potentially adding forced buying or selling to an existing move.

A break above $0.4575 could therefore expose the first liquidity band near $0.47. If rising prices force traders holding short positions to buy back MNT, the resulting pressure could push the token toward the stronger $0.48–$0.49 cluster.

The heatmap showed the nearest large downside liquidity pool between roughly $0.412 and $0.418. MNT could revisit that region if it loses recent support and leveraged long positions begin closing.

MNT must defend $0.44 to preserve momentum

The 4-hour chart showed MNT reaching $0.4547, close to the upper Bollinger Band at $0.4561. Trading at the upper band reflects strong short-term momentum, although it can also leave the token vulnerable to a pullback if buyers fail to clear resistance.

Mantle price 4-hour chart — Aug. 20 | Source: crypto.news

The Bollinger Band midpoint at $0.4409 forms the first support level. Holding above it would preserve the short-term upward structure and allow MNT to make another attempt at $0.4575 and $0.467.

Chaikin Money Flow stood at 0.01, indicating that buying pressure had moved slightly above neutral. The reading did not show strong capital inflows, making confirmation through higher volume important if MNT attempts to break its August peak.

A close below $0.4409 would weaken the immediate setup and expose the lower Bollinger Band near $0.4257. Further selling could bring the Aug. 19 intraday low around $0.42 back into view, followed by the larger daily support at $0.3874.

On the upside, clearing $0.467 would open a path toward the liquidation concentrations at $0.48–$0.49. MNT would then face broader Fibonacci resistance at $0.5125, followed by $0.5511.

Mantle’s tokenized asset push adds fundamental support

The rebound comes as Mantle expands its decentralized finance and real-world asset operations. A Q2 report published by Nansen said the network’s DeFi total value locked exceeded $1 billion after growing 230% during the first half of 2026.

Nansen reported that RWA-focused DeFi TVL passed $90 million, while assets managed through Mantle Vault exceeded $200 million. The network’s stablecoin market capitalization reached $955 million, representing 120% year-over-year growth, according to the report.

Mantle also increased the number of tokenized equities on its network from 10 in April to 155 by the end of June. Its lineup included products linked to SpaceX and Franklin Templeton’s U.S. Equity Index ETF, although those tokens do not provide direct ownership in the underlying companies or funds unless their terms explicitly state otherwise.

The network’s Aave market was another source of growth. Mantle said the deployment reached $1 billion in 19 days, while Nansen reported that deposits had exceeded $1.45 billion by April.

For US investors, the presence of tokenized US equities does not establish that the products are available legally in the United States. Mantle’s xStocks announcement described access as available only where permitted, leaving eligibility dependent on each platform’s restrictions and applicable securities rules.

MNT’s immediate direction now rests on whether buyers can convert the ecosystem narrative into enough spot demand to break $0.4575. A confirmed close above that level would strengthen the case for $0.48–$0.49, while losing $0.44 would put the rebound at risk.

Denmark has spent the last two decades shrinking its banking sector at a remarkable clip. The country went from roughly 160 banks in 2005 to about 50 today, a consolidation story that rivals anything seen in European finance. Now, according to Jyske Bank CEO Lars Stensgaard Mørch, that story may be closing its final chapter.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Mørch argued that AI and shared technology platforms are dissolving the core logic behind bank mergers: the idea that you need to be big to survive. When smaller institutions can plug into shared infrastructure and deploy AI-driven services that once required armies of analysts, the competitive moat that size provides gets a lot shallower.

Why scale stopped being everything

The traditional case for bank consolidation was essentially a math problem. Fixed costs in compliance, risk management, and technology are brutal for small lenders. The only way to spread those costs thin enough to stay profitable was to get bigger, usually by absorbing a neighbor.

Jyske Bank’s own Q1 2026 interim report signaled how seriously the bank is leaning into this direction, citing a commitment to scaling AI applications across productivity and customer-facing advisory functions.

The deals that defined Denmark’s consolidation era

The recent wave produced some consequential transactions. Nykredit Realkredit acquired Spar Nord Bank for $3.5B in late 2024, one of the largest Danish banking deals in recent memory. Then in 2025, three separate lenders combined to form AL Sydbank, another significant reshaping of the competitive landscape.

Those deals reflected the old playbook: get big or get absorbed. Mørch’s argument is that the playbook is becoming obsolete, not because mergers are suddenly bad, but because the technological necessity driving them is fading.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Jefferies Credit Partners is raising approximately €1 billion, or about $1.16 billion, for a new fund targeting the private credit secondary market. The vehicle represents a bet that demand for liquidity solutions in private credit is only going to intensify from here.

The fund will pursue a dual strategy: snapping up loans from Jefferies’ existing credit portfolios while simultaneously writing new loans.

Why secondaries, why now

Jefferies Credit Partners already manages roughly $25 billion across direct lending and collateralized loan obligation strategies. Adding a dedicated secondaries vehicle is less a pivot and more a natural extension of infrastructure the firm has been building for years.

Evergreen funds, the open-ended vehicles that allow periodic redemptions, have faced mounting withdrawal requests as investors rebalance or seek cash. When those redemption queues get long, someone needs to step in and buy the underlying loans.

Jefferies Credit Partners operates as the private credit arm within Jefferies Finance, a 50/50 joint venture between Jefferies and MassMutual.

Building on recent momentum

The firm closed its Direct Lending Fund II with over $2.1 billion in commitments in 2023. A filing for Fund III appeared in early 2025, signaling a pipeline of new vehicles even before this secondaries fund entered the picture.

For context, the broader private credit market has grown rapidly over the past several years, with major players like Apollo, Ares, and Blackstone all scaling their lending operations into the hundreds of billions. Jefferies, at $25 billion in AUM, isn’t competing with those behemoths on raw size.

What this means for the market

One thing working in Jefferies’ favor is its existing portfolio. Because the fund will partly acquire loans from Jefferies’ own books, it has a built-in source of deal flow that doesn’t depend on winning competitive auctions against other secondary buyers.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.