Heightened US-Iran tensions could lead to stricter airspace regulations, impacting regional military and aviation operations significantly.

The post Iranian attack damages US fighter jets at Jordan airbase: CBS News appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The increased Chinese demand for Russian oil amid supply constraints could drive global oil prices higher, impacting economic stability.

The post Chinese demand for Russian oil surges amid supply constraints appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The claim highlights ongoing tactical shifts in the conflict, impacting market perceptions and strategic assessments in the region.

The post Russia claims control of Zarubinka in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The push for the Clarity Act highlights the urgency for a robust regulatory framework, potentially solidifying the U.S.'s leadership in crypto.

The post Treasury Secretary urges Senate to prioritize Clarity Act for crypto regulation appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Iran's barter trade with China may bolster its economic resilience, reducing immediate conflict risks but affecting global market dynamics.

The post Iran dodges sanctions using barter system to buy billions of dollars of Chinese goods appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ‘Strongly Urges’ Senate To Pass Clarity Act

U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent urged lawmakers to move forward with the crypto Clarity Act when they return from recess next week. 

Writing on X Wednesday, Bessent said that the bill would stop “bad actors” from exploiting important digital asset tech. 

Lawmakers were hoping a crucial vote on the long-awaited crypto market structure bill would go ahead in August before their five-week recess. But it was delayed and the Senate will now vote on it next week. 

“When the Senate returns from August recess, I strongly urge everyone to remain at the negotiating table, agree to the motion to proceed, and continue the legislative process,” he said. 

“Failing to do so would send a troubling signal to our allies and adversaries alike that America is unwilling to lead on the future of digital assets and willing to forgo enhanced national security tools to combat their misuse.”

Just in July, Bessent said lawmakers had to pass the Clarity Act if they wanted to be “on the side of American Exceptionalism” — and quoted Satoshi Nakamoto in another social media post. 

“America will lead or America won’t,” he wrote at the time “It’s not more complicated than that. I believe Satoshi once said it best: ‘If you don’t believe me or don’t get it, I don’t have time to try to convince you, sorry.'”

First passed last year by the House of Representatives, the Clarity Act drafts a framework to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

The digital asset industry has long been calling for such rules to be set in stone. 

But the draft legislation has largely been stalled this year, mostly because the banking lobby clashed with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield. 

A new draft tackling the issue of ethics started circulating in July, banning government officials from promoting or making money from crypto — something Democrats have criticized President Trump’s family for doing. 

Despite the changes, a group of Democrats said the bill fell short and wanted amendments. 

President Donald Trump has urged lawmakers to get the legislation over the line. In August, he said that in order for the U.S. to remain the “undisputed leader in Bitcoin and crypto,” they had to pass the “very, very powerful legislation.”

This post US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ‘Strongly Urges’ Senate To Pass Clarity Act first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Jack Dorsey’s Block Becomes Latest Bitcoin-Focused Company To Apply for Banking Charter

Bitcoin-focused Block Inc. has become the latest company to apply for a U.S. banking charter. 

The company, which manages Square, Cash App, and Bitkey, said Wednesday that it had submitted an application to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A.

Block joins a long-list of digital asset firms that have received conditional approval or are awaiting approval from the regulator to have the license. The charter would allow companies — if fully approved — to have certain banking powers, such as custody assets and move client funds.  

“Building on Block’s experience in the digital asset space, our history with Square Financial Services, and the deep banking expertise of the team we’ve assembled, we believe Builders Bank is well positioned to support Block’s broader vision of economic empowerment,” Lee Woolley, who would serve as President and CEO of Builders Bank, said in a statement. 

Block said that, if approved, Builders Bank would operate as a federally regulated national trust bank under OCC supervision and provide custody and related fiduciary services, including for bitcoin and stablecoins. 

A number of top crypto companies have received conditional approval, including Coinbase, Circle, Crypto.com, and Paxos.

Decentralized financial protocol World Liberty Financial, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, also received approval this year. 

Block CEO and founder Jack Dorsey, a Bitcoin maximalist, has been pushing for the biggest and oldest cryptocurrency to become everyday money. 

His point-of-sale products, Square, last year rolled out bitcoin acceptance for millions of eligible U.S. small businesses, with no setup required and transactions instantly converted to dollars at checkout. 

This post Jack Dorsey’s Block Becomes Latest Bitcoin-Focused Company To Apply for Banking Charter first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Steak ‘n Shake Says Sales Grew Double Digits Since Bitcoin Adoption

Burger restaurant franchise Steak ‘n Shake has said that accepting bitcoin payments has helped the company grow. 

Writing on its X account Tuesday, the Indianapolis, Indiana-based company said since accepting the largest cryptocurrency, it has achieved double-digit same-store sales growth. 

It added: “And this quarter has been extraordinary, with franchise-partners same-store sales gaining 19%.”

The firm last year started accepting Bitcoin payments, using the Lightning Network to do so. 

It added that it would add the cryptocurrency to its balance sheet and announced in January that it had added $10 million in Bitcoin to its strategic reserve.

Back in April, Steak ‘n Shake Chief MAHA Officer Michael Boes told attendees at the Bitcoin 2026 Conference that Bitcoin has become a core driver of the chain’s business performance. 

Same-store sales rose 11% quarter over quarter in Q2 2025 and accelerated to 15% in Q3 2025, outpacing major rivals including McDonald’s, Taco Bell, and Domino’s. 

He called it the highest same-store sales growth of any restaurant in the industry — and all because bitcoin on Lightning is cheaper and faster than traditional electronic payment methods. 

It works like this: When customers pay with bitcoin instead of a credit card, Steak ‘n Shake saves roughly 50% on processing fees. Traditional credit card processors charge merchants between 2.5% and 3.5% per transaction. 

“Bitcoin is real money made with real energy,” Boes said at the time. 

The company last year also toyed with the idea of accepting other cryptocurrencies but scrapped the idea after a poll on X revealed people thought that only bitcoin was needed. 

This post Steak ‘n Shake Says Sales Grew Double Digits Since Bitcoin Adoption first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Iran Continues Using Bitcoin To Keep Economy Stable: Report

Iran is continuing to use bitcoin as a way to skirt around sanctions as the country’s central bank turns a blind eye, according to reports. 

The Financial Times on Wednesday reported that the Middle Eastern country was using cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, to settle cross-border transactions through Iranian crypto exchanges after the central bank advised its countrymen to do anything necessary to help the economy. 

Citing conversations with businesses, regime insiders and analysts, the newspaper said that the central bank had “quietly encouraged traders” to get money flowing to help its struggling economy. 

Bitcoin is proving to be a tried and tested way of doing so. 

One business insider reportedly told the newspaper that the central bank doesn’t ask any questions about how money is transferred. 

Iran has been sanctioned for decades, and a sharp escalation beginning in late 2025 — UN snapback, EU measures and expanded U.S. energy sanctions — was compounded by war with the U.S. and Israel starting in February 2026 and a naval blockade that has cut oil exports by more than 80%.

The country also has one of the highest rates of inflation in the world. 

Iran started a bitcoin-backed insurance service for its counties shipping companies earlier this year.

The U.S. in July said that it had frozen crypto linked to the Iranian regime, mostly in the form of Tether’s stablecoin. 

Stablecoins like Tether’s USDT can be frozen by the company that issues the asset but bitcoin, being decentralized and having no single issuer, cannot. 

The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control in July said Iran had been dodging sanctions by accepting pay in bitcoin from ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. 

OFAC said at the time that Hormuz Safe, developed by Iran’s Ministry of Economy, “accepts payment in Bitcoin and other digital assets” so it can bypass sanctions. 

The U.S. and Israel struck Iran in February 2026. Fighting has continued in phases since, punctuated by a Pakistan-brokered ceasefire in April and a short-lived memorandum in June. 

Both ended up collapsing, and there is currently no ceasefire in place. 

This post Iran Continues Using Bitcoin To Keep Economy Stable: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

VerifiedX Launches $15 Million Financing Round to Deploy Institutional Bitcoin Infrastructure

VerifiedX (verifiedx.io), the programmable financial operating system for Bitcoin and intelligent assets, today announced that its Foundation has launched a $15 million financing round and the first institutional investors have already invested. Initial capital will fund VerifiedX’s institutional Bitcoin distribution.

Cantor Fitzgerald is serving as VerifiedX’s investment banking partner in connection with the financing. The Foundation is not yet disclosing the identities or terms of the initial investors.

Part of the capital is allocated to expand custody relationships with partners including BitGo, the digital-asset custodian listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which will hold vBTC (VerifiedX’s Bitcoin-collateralized token) and vBTC.b (its counterpart on Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network). BitGo is a qualified custodian, meaning U.S. custody rules allow registered investment advisers to hold client assets there.

The capital also funds listings. Tier-one centralized exchanges will be listing vBTC and VFX, VerifiedX’s native token, with a first announcement expected within weeks. The round also supports borrow-and-lend programs: facilities that let a holder borrow against Bitcoin, or lend it out for a return, without sacrificing ownership or locking redemption rights.

“Nearly every way to put Bitcoin to work on-chain today asks the holder to swap it for someone else’s IOU. It’s the reason less than 1% of all Bitcoin held by institutions is earning any yield. vBTC is a game-changer in that regard, and this round funds the custody, exchange and lending rails that will allow institutions to use vBTC and natively turn their Bitcoin into productive financial capital,” said Brian May, a member of the VerifiedX Foundation.

With a wrapped Bitcoin token, the industry’s usual route, the holder hands Bitcoin to a custodian, or to a small group of signers acting together, and receives an off-chain representation on another network. The stand-in is only as good as whoever holds the Bitcoin behind it.

vBTC is built the other way around. When a holder creates a vBTC token, the VerifiedX network generates a unique native Bitcoin address inside each token and the holder deposits Bitcoin to their own self-custodial deposit address. The Bitcoin stays in that address, visible on Bitcoin’s own ledger and never leaves the Bitcoin ecosystem. Deposits and withdrawals are authorized by threshold signatures spread across VerifiedX’s validators, so no single party holds the key, and a holder that would rather not rely on the network’s validators can run its own and restrict signing to their own validators exclusively. The holder can redeem to native Bitcoin at any time. A holder can use vBTC for payments, trading, as collateral, in lending or in treasury. vBTC.b puts the same design on Base, so the asset can be used in applications there non-synthetically.

About VerifiedX

VerifiedX is a financial operating system for Bitcoin, intelligent, and alternative assets, enabling self-custodial ownership, instant settlement, programmable finance, native Bitcoin utility, and agentic financial infrastructure. Through products including vBTC, BFLY, and PulseXAI, VerifiedX connects institutions, users, and autonomous systems through a unified blockchain ecosystem framework.

Its ecosystem includes:

• vBTC & vBTC.b (BTC)
• BFLY payments and click to earn infrastructure
• SwitchBlade wallet technology
• PulseXAI generative and tokenized intelligence
• Institutional settlement architecture
• Consensus driven programmability
• Canonical interoperability systems

Further VerifiedX Inquiries:

Website: https://verifiedx.io/

Discord: https://discord.gg/7cd5ebDQCj

X: https://twitter.com/vfxblockchain

Github: https://github.com/verifiedxblockchain

Email: info@verifiedx.io

PulseXAI and BFLY are trademarks of VerifiedX. Copyright 2026 VerifiedX. All rights reserved.

This post VerifiedX Launches $15 Million Financing Round to Deploy Institutional Bitcoin Infrastructure first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Bitcoin Magazine.

Osmosis has frozen 22.65 BTC after a flaw in Nomic’s custom forwarding system allowed a double-spend that left the allBTC asset partly unbacked by Bitcoin.

allBTC is issued against a basket of Bitcoin variants held on Osmosis, including nBTC from the Nomic bridge. The official allBTC dashboard showed 110.57 allBTC in circulation and 39.84 nBTC in the basket at the reporting cutoff.

Osmosis said the nBTC was created from false vouchers, putting 36.03% of allBTC’s backing in question and leaving about 70.73 BTC-equivalent of other backing.

The statement also noted that neither its chain nor the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol was compromised, and the bug was in Nomic’s forwarding logic.

SlowMist’s incident database also described the event as a Nomic bridge double-spend.

The public disclosure came more than two months after the apparent exploit activity. On-chain researcher Rarma traced the principal minting to June 25 and said 22.65060846 allBTC created during July 17 activity remained unmoved when the trace was published.

Nomic and allBTC inflows and outflows have been frozen, while allBTC minting and redemption are paused. Those restrictions block entry and exit through the affected functions while the backing gap remains unresolved.

Governance now carries the recovery of the Bitcoin balance

The frozen BTC has not been seized or returned to the basket. Osmosis said it plans to ask governance to confiscate the 22.65 BTC and use Bitcoin accumulated in the community pool to cover the remainder.

If governance recovers the full frozen amount, it would still need about 17.19 BTC to replace the 39.84 BTC impairment. No matching seizure or recapitalization measure appeared among the latest 20 on-chain proposals as of Sept. 9.

Osmosis governance administers the allBTC contract, while a 3-of-6 moderator subDAO can pause the pool or mark a constituent asset as corrupted. Nomic’s Bitcoin custody documentation separately says reserve disbursals require signatures representing more than 90% of its signatory set’s voting power.

Until enough valid backing is restored, allBTC holders remain collectively exposed because claims on the basket exceed its valid BTC-equivalent assets.

That does not establish a realized haircut for any holder, but redemption at full parity now depends on the governance decision and the size of any community-pool contribution.

The post Osmosis freezes 22.65 BTC after Nomic forwarding bug compromises Bitcoin reserves appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Tether is pushing USDT into the private-credit market as defaults and withdrawals strain the $3 trillion industry.

On Sept. 9, the stablecoin issuer and London-based Fasanara Capital launched StableFund with $400 million in combined sponsor capital and plans to raise up to $3 billion more from institutional investors.

Fasanara will manage the portfolio, while Tether will help originate USDT-linked financing opportunities and provide settlement and treasury infrastructure.

The expansion takes Tether beyond a crypto lending market it already dominates and closer to financing businesses and consumers in the real economy. Galaxy Research estimates that Tether controlled around 60% of the $23 billion centralized crypto-lending market at the end of June, giving it roughly $13.5 billion of outstanding secured loans.

StableFund therefore represents an attempt to extend Tether’s existing credit operation into a much larger asset class, at a time when regulators and investors are scrutinizing private credit more closely

Private credit's boom is running into a tougher test

StableFund arrives after years of rapid growth turned private lending into one of Wall Street's most sought-after businesses, but the credit cycle is becoming less forgiving.

An August Wall Street Journal analysis found worsening loan health and investor returns across publicly traded funds overseen by Ares Management, Blackstone, Blue Owl Capital and Golub Capital. Defaults at those vehicles reached their highest levels since at least 2021, while Blue Owl's default rate rose to 2.8% in the second quarter, its highest in at least five years.

Large managers have pushed back against suggestions that the deterioration signals a broader crisis, arguing that portfolio credit quality remains resilient. Default rates also remain below levels reached during more severe episodes such as the Covid-19 shock.

Still, the deterioration comes alongside redemption pressure from investors and concern about heavily indebted borrowers, including software companies facing possible disruption from artificial intelligence.

That makes the timing notable for Tether, which is entering the market with ambitions to draw billions of dollars from the same institutional capital base increasingly focused on credit quality and liquidity.

In May, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) warned that private credit has yet to be tested through a prolonged economic downturn and highlighted weaker borrower quality, high leverage, opaque valuations and growing links between private funds, banks and insurers as potential vulnerabilities. It also pointed to the rising use of payment-in-kind arrangements and rising defaults as evidence of borrower stress.

The watchdog specifically flagged the growth of funds offering redemption options, saying liquidity pressures could amplify stress when investors seek their money back.

StableFund is structured as an evergreen vehicle, allowing it to continue raising and deploying capital rather than winding down at a predetermined maturity, though Tether and Fasanara have not publicly detailed its redemption terms.

That does not mean StableFund carries the same risks already emerging elsewhere in private credit. Its strategy differs from much of the corporate direct lending highlighted in recent stress reports.

Fasanara, which manages more than $6 billion, plans to deploy the fund into short-duration, asset-backed loans across a fintech network spanning more than 60 countries. The portfolio will include financing for small and medium-sized businesses and consumers, as well as trade receivables and supply-chain credit.

Tether's share of the downside remains unclear

What separates StableFund from a conventional Fasanara vehicle is Tether's position near the front of the financing pipeline.

The USDT issuer will act as co-sponsor, originator, and adviser, sourcing opportunities linked to its stablecoin network while supplying on- and off-ramp connectivity and treasury rails.

That extends Tether beyond providing a token borrowers and lenders can use for settlement and gives it a role in identifying where capital could be deployed.

Fasanara, however, remains the investment manager with responsibility for deploying the portfolio. The announcement does not say Tether will make final underwriting decisions, nor does it establish that USDT will serve as loan principal, collateral, or the fund's denomination.

Therefore, the bigger unanswered question is how much financial risk Tether is assuming alongside that operational role.

The companies described the $400 million anchor as a joint commitment but did not divide it between the sponsors. They also did not disclose fund leverage, fees, or whether either sponsor's capital will absorb losses before money raised from third-party institutions.

Those terms become more consequential if defaults continue rising across private markets. A large junior commitment from Tether would create a different risk profile than a smaller investment alongside outside institutions on equal terms.

The post Tether is pushing USDT into a cracking $3 trillion Wall Street debt machine as defaults hit five-year highs at major funds appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The US Treasury has set a $6 billion ceiling for a Sept. 10 buyback of older long-dated bonds, giving dealers more room to offload inventory. For Bitcoin, the question is whether that relief can extend beyond bond trading into broader financing conditions.

The tentative schedule published Sept. 9 targets nominal Treasury securities with 10 to 20 years remaining. The ceiling is triple the previous $2 billion limit and exceeds the minimum expansion Treasury announced Aug. 19, when it promised at least $4 billion in operations.

The operation is scheduled for 1:40 p.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern, with settlement on Sept. 11. Eligible maturities span Sept. 11, 2036, through Sept. 10, 2046. The final securities list is due at 11 a.m. Eastern on operation day.

Treasury’s buyback rules describe liquidity support as a predictable outlet for selling off-the-run securities, meaning older issues. This differs from cash-management buybacks, which smooth government cash balances and bill issuance.

A May 2025 IMF working paper by Jing Zhou found modest improvements in Treasury trading liquidity and reduced dealer holdings, with stronger effects when inventories were high. That suggests an outlet for older bonds can ease the burden of carrying them and make intermediation easier.

Treasury retires purchased bonds at settlement rather than lending them back into the market, so the potential benefit is less inventory for dealers to carry.

The ceiling is a maximum face amount, with no minimum purchase commitment. Treasury may accept less or nothing, depending on offers. Repurchases can use debt-sale proceeds and general-fund money, so the amount alone does not create net liquidity or constitute Federal Reserve quantitative easing.

The evidence Bitcoin’s thesis needs

A large purchase would show bonds changing hands, but it does not directly measure dealers’ remaining balance-sheet pressure. A small one would require looking at offered prices before declaring the operation ineffective.

Next comes market functioning: narrower gaps between buying and selling prices, and less strained pricing of older bonds relative to comparable newer issues. Those measures are more directly relevant to the program’s purpose than a fall in yields alone.

For Bitcoin, the hypothesis needs to be strengthened to reach broader funding conditions, including borrowing secured by securities. Easier dealer intermediation would be a plausible first link, while persistent bond or funding strain would leave that proposed relief unestablished.

The Sept. 10 accepted purchases and Sept. 11 scheduled settlement are separate milestones. The stronger signal for Bitcoin’s liquidity thesis would be sustained improvement in bond trading and funding after the operation.

The post Treasury’s $6 billion bond intervention creates a stealth test for Bitcoin’s next move appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin’s on-chain sell-side risk has fallen to less than half its August peak, easing one measure of potential selling pressure even as a large block of older coins remains held at acquisition prices above the market.

Analytics firm Glassnode’s Sept. 9 report, using on-chain observations through Sept. 7, puts its Sell-Side Risk Ratio at 7 basis points per day on a seven-day basis, down from 16 basis points at August’s peak.

Long-term holders also accounted for 47% of realized profit, compared with 88% at the August peak. Older holders are contributing less of the market’s realized profit, although that percentage does not measure their share of all Bitcoin sales.

The Sell-Side Risk Ratio adds on-chain profits and losses and divides the total by realized capitalization. It measures value realization relative to that capital base, indicating potential selling pressure.

A ratio below half its earlier level does not mean the volume of Bitcoin sold on exchanges has halved.

Glassnode separately reports that the realized-profit spike on Sept. 3 was less than half the size of August’s spike. That compares profit spikes, distinct from the seven-day risk measure. Together, the findings describe quieter realization and a changed mix of holders taking profits.

The report identifies roughly 1.07 million BTC acquired between $83,000 and $86,000, almost all held by long-term holders, and says that block barely changed over 30 days.

The holdings remain potential supply, while the realization data describe what holders have recently been doing.

Exchange demand is a separate test

Reports noted negative exchange spot flow in Sept. 8. Spot cumulative volume delta (CVD) remained negative despite improving, meaning aggressive exchange selling still outweighed aggressive buying in that measure.

CVD tracks the balance of executed trading, and sell-side risk tracks on-chain profit-and-loss realization relative to realized capitalization. A lower reading in the latter does not require the former to turn positive.

Bitcoin holders are realizing less profit and loss relative to the capital base, while the overhead coins remain largely in place. Treating that entire block as immediate selling pressure would overstate the evidence.

A sustained advance would still require buyers to absorb the supply that actually comes to market.

The post Bitcoin sell pressure reaches one-month low as long-term holders slow down profit taking appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP token left nearly 80% of traders underwater within hours despite being pitched as an answer to memecoin grift. Hunter Biden is the son of former US President Joe Biden.

Data from Bubblemaps showed that 12,151 of the token’s 15,206 traders lost money, while only 3,026 were profitable and 29 were at break-even or held positions that could not be priced.

Most of the losses were relatively small, with 11,311 wallets down less than $1,000. But 726 traders lost between $1,000 and $10,000, another 112 lost between $10,000 and $100,000, and two were down between $100,000 and $1 million.

The other side of the trade was far more concentrated. Just 10 wallets made between $100,000 and $1 million, while another 78 earned between $10,000 and $100,000.

Those 88 traders collectively generated about $5.57 million in profit, helping leave aggregate trader P&L slightly positive at roughly $178,000 despite almost four out of every five participants losing money.

The outcome cuts directly against one of Biden’s main arguments for launching the token. He had criticized President Donald Trump’s TRUMP memecoin for leaving nearly 1 million wallets with what he described as about $3.8 billion in collective losses, while promising that LAPTOP would include an airdrop for some of those burned investors.

“I understand the cynicism,” Biden said before the launch, questioning why he would support an industry product that had been “misused by grifters.” He added:

“You should not expect me or anyone else to make this token more valuable for you.”

However, LAPTOP had created another sharply divided group of memecoin winners and losers within minutes.

LAPTOP’s anti-grift pitch met a two-minute peak

LAPTOP began trading on Base at about 8:02 a.m. ET and peaked roughly two minutes later, blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence said.

The token’s fully diluted valuation briefly flashed about $144 billion even though the liquidity pool contained only around $48,000. The valuation did not mean investors had poured anywhere close to $144 billion into LAPTOP.

The thin liquidity meant relatively small trades could move its quoted price dramatically and produce an enormous theoretical valuation.

LAPTOP dropped more than 95% over the following half hour as the market struggled to establish a price.

Arkham later identified two principal on-chain trading pools. The official Aerodrome pool contained about $83,000 in USDC, while a Uniswap pool held roughly $380,000.

The latter liquidity appeared to have been deployed in a range that did not become active until LAPTOP had already fallen about 90% from its opening surge.

That structure created dramatically different outcomes depending on when traders entered the market.

Blockchain analysis firm Lookonchain identified one trader who spent just 900 USDC to acquire 2,268.56 LAPTOP at about 40 cents each, then rapidly sold the position for 251,270 USDC at an average price near $111. The trade generated more than $250,000 in profit, roughly a 278-fold return.

Another wallet spent 100 ETH, then worth about $249,800, to buy 9,124 LAPTOP before selling 8,480 tokens for 472 ETH, worth about $1.18 million. The address still held 644 LAPTOP when Lookonchain reviewed the trade, taking its realized and unrealized gains above $1 million at the time.

For traders arriving seconds or minutes later, the economics were reversed.

One wallet withdrew $250,000 from Binance before the launch and spent $200,000 buying 919 LAPTOP at an average price around $218. Lookonchain later valued the position at roughly $3,000, an unrealized loss of about $197,000.

Fresh wallets add another question to LAPTOP’s launch

Bubblemaps found an unusual feature among LAPTOP’s largest holders: roughly 60% were “fresh wallets,” addresses funded within the previous 10 days that showed no earlier activity.

Most were funded on the day LAPTOP launched.

That does not, by itself, show the wallets were coordinated, controlled by insiders, or had advance information. Newly created addresses are common around token launches, particularly when traders separate activity across wallets.

However, the concentration adds scrutiny to a launch in which getting into the market even minutes earlier produced radically different financial outcomes.

It also complicates Biden’s attempt to distinguish LAPTOP from the political memecoins he criticized.

The project has a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens. Its website shows 20% allocated across two community airdrops, although the first distribution gives only 2% of the total supply to wallets that lost money trading TRUMP. Another 30% goes to founders, including Biden, with those tokens locked for six months and vesting over two years.

An additional 30% is tied to 30 predetermined political, crypto, and cultural outcomes. Tokens associated with predictions that come true are permanently burned, while those attached to failed predictions are earmarked for charity. Another 5% of supply is allocated directly to charity.

Biden also explicitly warned buyers before trading began that neither he nor anyone else should be expected to increase the token’s value. He framed ownership as an expression rather than an investment and said the project was intended to reclaim the laptop episode that dominated years of coverage of him.

Biden wrote:

“They turned laptop into a weapon. I turned it into a token.”

That token now faces a different test. The founders’ allocation remains locked, removing an immediate source of insider selling, but LAPTOP must build substantially deeper liquidity to avoid the extreme price dislocations that defined its first hours.

The post Hunter Biden launched LAPTOP to cure memecoin grift and created a whole new batch of losers appeared first on CryptoSlate.

If your LSK sits directly on the Lisk Chain or is locked up in staking there, you have to bridge it to Ethereum before October 31, 2026. Whatever is still on that chain on the day is unreachable afterwards. If your LSK is already on Ethereum or with an exchange, there is nothing for you to do at all.

That is the short answer. The longer one matters more, because it contains a date that appears in no headline. Leaving the Lisk Chain means clearing two waiting periods, and they run one after the other rather than side by side: unlocking staked tokens takes three days, and the bridge transfer to Ethereum that follows takes at least seven. Lisk therefore tells holders explicitly to start no later than ten days before the shutdown. Your actual deadline is October 21, 2026.

Coverage of the shutdown appeared at the end of August and correctly described what the company intends to do. The calculation that decides the outcome for holders does not appear in those reports. This article closes that gap. It shows which of the three possible places your tokens can sit demands which action, why the seven days cannot be shortened by any technical means, where the clock actually starts running, and what you should record for your own bookkeeping.

What Lisk shuts down on October 31, 2026 and what keeps running

Lisk is one of the oldest names in the industry. The project launched in 2016 with a network of its own, moved to a layer-2 architecture in 2024, and announced in August 2026 that it would refocus the business entirely on payment and treasury software for companies. A layer-2 chain is a network in its own right that bundles its transactions and writes the proofs for them into Ethereum; security therefore comes from Ethereum, while execution happens alongside it. That chain is now being closed.

Three things are being shut down: the Lisk Chain itself on October 31, 2026, the Lisk DAO together with its voting contracts and governance forum, and the programs running on the chain, such as the DAO fund. For development teams operating applications on the Lisk Chain, Lisk has opened a migration path together with the Celo team; it is not mandatory.

The token keeps running. LSK continues to exist, keeps its existing contract on Ethereum, and takes on the role of a loyalty point in the new business model: companies are meant to receive rewards in LSK and later pay fees with them. There is no token swap, no change to the denomination, and no new contract. Anyone holding LSK will hold the same token after October 31 as they do today, simply in a different place. Base joins Ethereum as a second main network going forward.

The pattern is a familiar one by now. We have seen it in the same form across several chains recently and summarised the general chain of actions in a separate article: Blockchain shut down: what happens to your coins and what to check now. Lisk is the most recent case in that series, and because of the staking it is the most laborious.

Exchange, Ethereum or Lisk Chain: where your LSK sits decides everything

Before you do anything, settle a single question: which network is your LSK on right now? There are three answers, and they call for completely different responses.

First, LSK on a trading platform. If your tokens sit in an account with a trading platform, there is nothing for you to do. The contract on Ethereum stays unchanged, and the burn of 100 million tokens is a single on-chain event rather than a migration, which is why existing trading pairs keep working. Lisk names Binance, OKX and Kraken as well as decentralised venues on Ethereum as places where LSK trades, and states explicitly that listings will be preserved. A residual risk remains all the same: a platform can delist a token at its own discretion at any time. If your holdings sit there, it is worth checking your platform's announcement page before you rely on the process running itself.

Second, LSK on Ethereum in your own wallet. Here, too, there is nothing to do. The contract on Ethereum carries the address 0x6033f7f88332b8db6ad452b7c6d5bb643990ae3f and remains untouched. If your wallet shows the token under the Ethereum network, you are done.

Third, LSK on the Lisk Chain or in staking. Only in this case does timing become critical. On the Lisk Chain, LSK carries a different contract address than on Ethereum, namely 0xac485391eb2d7d88253a7f1ef18c37f4242d1a24. The token uses the same address on Base, which makes the two harder to tell apart in a wallet menu. What counts is therefore the network selection in your wallet. If it says Lisk, you need to act.

The special case that affects most people: anyone staking LSK through the Lisk portal necessarily holds those tokens on the Lisk Chain. Staking and rewards continue until the shutdown day, but they do not end automatically with a repayment. Nobody sends your tokens back to you. You have to unlock them yourself and move them across yourself.

Why the bridge to Ethereum takes at least seven days

The waiting period is not an arbitrary choice by the provider but a consequence of how the chain is built. The Lisk Chain is what is known as an optimistic rollup, based on the OP Stack and part of the Optimism ecosystem. An optimistic rollup initially assumes transactions are valid and writes them to Ethereum; only afterwards does a window open in which any observer can submit a fraud proof. That window is called the challenge period and lasts seven days on practically every chain of this design.

While the window is open, a withdrawal to Ethereum is not final, and the bridge therefore does not release the tokens yet. That applies to every withdrawal through the canonical bridge, regardless of the amount and regardless of how busy or quiet the chain happens to be. Canonical means the bridge consists of the contracts that belong to the chain itself rather than the offering of a third party. Nothing shortens those seven days within the canonical bridge.

The clock on the seven days starts only at the prove step

This is where the mistake sits that actually causes people to miss the deadline. A withdrawal through a canonical bridge consists of three separate transactions, and you have to trigger all of them yourself.

1. Initiate the withdrawal. You connect your wallet to the bridge, set the direction to Lisk to Ethereum, select LSK and the amount, and confirm.
2. Submit the prove transaction. Roughly an hour later you return to the bridge and submit the proof for your withdrawal on Ethereum. The seven days start running at this point, not at the first step.
3. Claim the withdrawal. Once the challenge period has expired you send the closing transaction and your LSK is credited on Ethereum.

Anyone who forgets the second step, or catches up on it days later, pushes the entire deadline back by exactly that much. And anyone unaware of the third step will believe after a week that the money has vanished, when it is merely waiting for a confirmation. All three steps require gas fees on both chains, so steps two and three need ether in the same wallet. Anyone holding only LSK and no ether gets stuck at the proof step, and in practice that costs more missed deadlines than any technical problem.

Unstaking LSK: a three-day wait and a penalty fee that still stands

For stakers, a second clock runs before the bridge one. Staked LSK is locked, and releasing that lock carries a waiting period of three days before you can even reach the tokens. Only then can you trigger the first bridge step.

On top of that comes a point that decides real money and that may change over the coming weeks. Lisk has put a resolution on winding up the DAO to its own community, which among other things proposes scrapping the penalty fee for early unstaking entirely. As of September 10, 2026, the official help pages still state that the fee continues to apply for now and will only fall away once the resolution has been adopted and the staking contract updated; the company says it will announce the date through its own channels.

That leaves an uncomfortable trade-off, and it is the reason this article does not offer a blanket recommendation. Unstake immediately and you may pay a fee that disappears within days. Wait, and you burn time from a window that only leaves ten days of buffer to begin with. Lisk itself advises stakers to wait for the fee to be abolished and then start straight away. What is right for you depends on the size of your holdings: with small amounts, the fee can be lower than the risk of missing the deadline.

In practice that means setting yourself a reminder for October 1. If the fee has not fallen away by then, unstake regardless. What is left of the buffer will still cover both waiting periods and one failed attempt.

How to calculate the real deadline: why October 21 is the date that counts

The arithmetic is simple, which is exactly why it stands out that nobody has written it down. Three days of waiting after unstaking, at least seven days of challenge period, ten days in total. Ten days before October 31, 2026 is October 21, 2026. A staker who starts on that day has, on paper, not a single day of buffer left.

Realistically you should start earlier. The seven days are a floor, not a promise. Network congestion on Ethereum, a forgotten prove transaction, a wallet without the ether for the gas fee, or simply a weekend in between all stretch the process out. For holders who are not staking, the same logic applies with seven days instead of ten, which puts the last possible start date at October 24.

A comparable case from our own archive shows how tight such windows become in practice: when the Harmony mainnet was shut down, the chain of actions ran along similar lines, though without the three-day staking lock. The process is documented step by step in Harmony is shutting down its mainnet. The difference with Lisk is the second waiting period, and it turns a one-week deadline into a ten-day one.

Step by step: moving LSK from the Lisk Chain to Ethereum

The full process, in the order you work through it:

1. Check your holdings. Open your wallet and switch to the Lisk network. Note the amount sitting there and whether any part of it is staked.
2. Prepare gas. Make sure the same wallet holds ether on Ethereum and a small amount of ether on the Lisk Chain. Without both you will come to a halt halfway through.
3. Unstake. Release the lock in the Lisk portal and wait out the three-day period. Skip this step if you have not staked.
4. Initiate the withdrawal through a canonical bridge. Lisk points to the bridge overview in its own portal and recommends the canonical routes there, specifically Superbridge and Lisk Bridge.
5. Do not forget the prove transaction. Return roughly an hour after initiating and submit the proof. The seven days run from here.
6. Claim and verify. After the challenge period, send the final transaction and check in your wallet under the Ethereum network that the full amount has arrived.
7. Decide on custody. Only now does the question arise of where the tokens belong permanently. Anyone planning to hold a larger position for years is safer with a hardware wallet than with a browser extension; we have broken down the differences between the devices in our hardware wallet comparison.

What happens if you miss the deadline

Lisk leaves no doubt about this. The help page on the chain shutdown states in as many words that LSK still sitting on the Lisk Chain after October 31, 2026 becomes inaccessible and that there is no way to withdraw or recover it. There is no grace period, no application form and no customer service desk that resolves it after the fact. That is why this article insists on the arithmetic at such length.

Canonical bridge or third party: what the faster route costs

Alongside the canonical bridges there are providers that settle withdrawals from optimistic rollups in minutes rather than days. Technically these providers do not shorten the challenge period. Instead they front you the amount on Ethereum out of their own funds and collect the withdrawal themselves once the seven days are up. You pay a premium for that, and it varies with utilisation and amount.

This shortcut has a price beyond the fee: you swap the waiting period for counterparty risk. Between your deposit and the credit, your money depends on the solvency and the contract quality of a third party. For small amounts that can be a defensible trade-off when time is running short. For a position that matters to you, with six weeks left on the clock, there is no reason to take that risk.

A third option is often overlooked in discussions and is the simplest one for many people: some trading platforms accept deposits directly on the Lisk Chain. Where that works, you send the tokens there and have bypassed the bridge. Check it beforehand in the deposit menu of the platform in question, though, and never send tokens on spec to an address whose network you have not confirmed. A deposit on the wrong network is the second most common way to lose tokens for good.

What burning 100 million LSK means for the circulating supply

The winding-up resolution has a second part that concerns the token. 100 million LSK from the DAO treasury are to be burned permanently, cutting total supply from 400 million to 300 million. Around 47 million LSK are to pass to Lisk Ltd. Small residual balances in older contracts may, according to the company, remain permanently inaccessible. No further burns are planned, according to the help pages.

What that means for the price, nobody knows, and this article does not claim otherwise. What can be said is how the order of magnitude fits together. On September 10, 2026, CoinGecko data put around 233.1 million LSK in circulation at a price of roughly 0.098 euros and a market capitalisation of just under 23 million euros. The burn hits balances that had been sitting in the organisation's treasury and were not being traded at all. What it affects is future supply; the amount circulating today is untouched.

The history belongs in the picture as well: LSK reached its all-time high on January 6, 2018 at around 29 euros. Anyone who bought in back then and has left the tokens on the Lisk Chain ever since loses more than a residual value if they miss the deadline. They also lose the ability to document the loss for tax purposes at all.

What to record for your own bookkeeping

Moving between two networks creates transactions on both chains, and those turn up later in every reporting tool. Whether such a bridge transfer is to be treated as a disposal for tax purposes or as a mere relocation between your own addresses is a question of assessment that a tax adviser answers on the facts of your specific case. This article expressly does not make that call.

Regardless of that: what you do not record today, you will not reconstruct in two years, because the chain will be switched off by then and its block explorer may well have disappeared too. So note down when you unstaked, how much LSK was moved, which transaction hashes on the Lisk Chain and on Ethereum belong to it, which fees were incurred and which bridge you used. A dated screenshot of the bridge overview costs you a minute. If you want to capture this kind of activity on an ongoing basis, our overview of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers lists the usual suspects.

One note on holding periods, because the question is bound to come up: whether a bridge transfer restarts a holding period depends on how the transaction is classified for tax purposes. That question, too, belongs in expert hands.

The three most common mistakes when a chain shuts down

The calendar mistake. The published date is read as the date to act on. In fact it is the date by which everything has to be finished. With Lisk there are ten days between the two.

The halfway mistake. The first bridge step is triggered, the confirmation appears, and the job is considered done. The prove transaction and the claim are missing, and the tokens are stuck. On a chain with a shutdown date, that is the most expensive mistake of all.

The gas mistake. The wallet holds only the token that is meant to move, but no ether for the fees on Ethereum. The process stops halfway, and topping up usually only works through a platform whose own deposit can again take days.

Checking your Lisk exposure: what to take away

1. Check today which network your LSK is on. If it is on Ethereum or with a trading platform, you are done and need do nothing further. If you are tidying up your custody arrangements anyway while you are at it, our crypto exchange comparison helps you line up the terms.
2. Mark October 1 as your start date if you have staked. If the penalty fee has been dropped by then, unstake immediately; if it has not, weigh the fee against the deadline risk and act anyway. For the question of where the tokens go afterwards, the hardware wallet comparison is worth a look.
3. Work through the bridge in three transactions and document each one. Initiate, prove after about an hour, claim after seven days. The records belong in the same file as the rest of your evidence; which tools automate that is covered in the overview of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

The evidence for all deadlines and procedures in this article comes from the company's announcement, Introducing the New Lisk, and from the official help pages on the LSK token, which describe the three-stage withdrawal route and the waiting periods in as many words.

(As of September 10, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

If a message titled "Critical Security Alert: STM32 Entropy Vulnerability" landed in your inbox this week, apparently from Trezor, telling you that one in four devices shipped with a defective chip and inviting you to run an entropy check in your browser, stop. Do not click anything in it. Trezor did not send it.

The company confirmed on Wednesday that attackers had gotten into its email infrastructure and used it to blast a fake security warning to customers. The email is a seed harvester dressed up as an apology, and it is one of the more convincing phishing attempts the hardware wallet space has seen in years.

What Does the Fake Trezor Security Alert Actually Claim?

The email opens with the tone of a company confessing to a disaster. It claims Trezor's engineering team found a hardware-level defect in the STM32 microcontrollers inside its devices, that the flaw was baked in at the factory, and that roughly one device in four is affected. It says the bug produces recovery phrases with as little as 40 bits of entropy, leaving seeds open to brute-force cracking.

It then does something clever. It tells the reader never to enter a recovery phrase on a website or share it with anyone. Two paragraphs later, it invites that same reader to click a link and run an "entropy check tool" that verifies BIP-39 checksums across 12, 18 and 24-word phrases, validates SLIP-39 shares, and exports extended public keys.

That contradiction is the entire scam. The warning buys credibility, then the tool collects exactly what the warning told you to protect. Anyone who works through that checker hands over enough material to drain their wallet, and in the case of an xpub export, hands over a full map of their addresses and balances even without the seed.

Why Did Trezor Users Fall For The STM32 Story?

Because a nearly identical bug was real six weeks ago, just at a different company.

Starting on 30 July 2026, attackers exploited a firmware flaw in Coinkite's Coldcard wallets. A regression shipped in March 2021 caused affected devices to generate seed phrases using a weak software randomness source instead of the hardware random number generator, cutting effective entropy from around 128 bits to as low as 40 bits on some models. Attackers drained roughly 1,816 BTC, close to 116 million dollars, from more than 5,200 addresses across four waves. Later tallies pushed the figure past 130 million dollars.

Read that against the phishing email again. Forty bits of entropy. Seeds generated before a cutoff date. Brute-force exposure. Migrate to a new seed. The scammers did not invent a threat model. They copied a documented one, swapped the brand name, and sent it to a customer list that had spent August reading about exactly this failure mode. That is why it worked on people who normally spot phishing at a glance.

How Did The Phishing Email Come From A Real Trezor Address?

This is the part that stripped away the usual defences. The message did not arrive from a lookalike domain with a swapped character. It arrived through Trezor's own legitimate sending infrastructure after attackers compromised a third-party email provider.

Trezor said it took down the domain used in the attack and is investigating how the attackers gained access to its legitimate domain. The company has said wallets, private keys and recovery backups stored on devices were never exposed. The compromise sat in the marketing pipeline, not the product.

The problem may be wider than one brand. Casa co-founder Nick Neuman said he had heard of the same campaign hitting Bitbox users and suggested a shared marketing email provider had been compromised.

What Should Trezor Owners Do Right Now?

If you only opened and read the email, nothing has happened to your funds. Delete it and move on.

If you clicked the link and entered any portion of your recovery phrase, a SLIP-39 share, or your device PIN into that page, treat the seed as burned. Generate a fresh seed on a device you trust and move everything to the new addresses immediately. Do not wait to see whether anything happens, and do not reuse the old backup for anything.

If you exported an extended public key, your funds are not directly at risk, but the attacker can now watch your balances and link your addresses. That makes you a target for follow-up scams, including phone calls and physical letters, both of which Trezor customers have already reported this year.

Going forward, the rule is unchanged and it is the only rule that matters. No legitimate wallet manufacturer will ever ask you to type your recovery phrase into a browser, for any reason, including a check that claims to protect you. Verify announcements on trezor.io or the verified Trezor account on X, and treat unexpected email as hostile regardless of what address it appears to come from.

Is This Part Of A Bigger Pattern In 2026?

It is, and the pattern is not about broken devices.

This is the third failure at a Trezor vendor in four weeks. An August incident at ShipMonk, the partner handling Trezor order fulfilment, pushed the number of exposed customers above 80,000 by early September, leaking names, phone numbers and home addresses. Trezor had already warned 66,000 users after a support portal breach in 2024, and rival SafePal leaked close to 40,000 records last month.

The hardware keeps holding. The companies sitting around the hardware, holding customer contact details, keep leaking. Combine a leaked customer list with a compromised sending domain and a real vulnerability at a competitor, and you get a phishing email that reads like the genuine article.

For anyone holding coins on a hardware wallet, the practical takeaway is that your device being secure and your data being secure are now two separate questions, and only one of them is in your hands.

Hunter Biden launched a memecoin on Wednesday morning built around the laptop that made him a political punchline, pitched it as a corrective to the political token grift, and watched it lose nearly all of its value before the first hour of trading was out. The irony was not lost on anyone.

What Is The $LAPTOP Memecoin And Why Did Hunter Biden Launch It?

$LAPTOP went live on Base, the Coinbase-built Ethereum layer 2, at 8:00 AM ET on 9 September 2026, with a fixed supply of one billion tokens.

Biden framed it as reclaiming a symbol. "They turned laptop into a weapon. I turned it into a token," he posted, while explicitly warning holders not to expect him to support the price. He pitched the project as a memecoin built around resilience, redemption and recovery, and aimed a direct shot at the incumbent political token, arguing that close to one million wallets had lost a combined 3.8 billion dollars holding $TRUMP.

The structure was unusual for a celebrity launch. Thirty percent to founders including Biden, locked for six months and vesting over two years. Twenty percent to airdrops. Ten percent to liquidity. Five percent each to a foundation treasury and to charity. And thirty percent tied to a list of public predictions, including a Democratic win in 2028, a new Bitcoin all-time high, and $LAPTOP flipping $TRUMP by market cap. Tokens tied to predictions that come true get burned. Tokens tied to predictions that fail go to charity.

On paper, that is a more thoughtful design than most political tokens get. It did not survive contact with the order book.

How Fast Did The $LAPTOP Price Actually Crash?

Very fast, and the exact numbers depend on which pool you were watching.

By one widely cited account the token fell from a high near 199 dollars to an all-time low of 1.36 dollars in 90 minutes, a 98% wipeout. Other data put the peak at 190.81 dollars with a low of 3.70 dollars inside the first hour, settling near 4.77 dollars. DEXScreener showed a spike as high as 316.75 dollars within minutes of launch, with the token near 6 dollars by midday UTC.

The valuations in that window were pure arithmetic fiction. Arkham data showed the fully diluted valuation briefly touching 144 billion dollars while the liquidity pool held around 48,000 dollars. The Block reported a peak market capitalisation near 110 billion dollars before a decline of more than 99%.

That gap is the whole story. Multiply a thin, illiquid float by a headline supply of one billion and you can print any market cap you like. It means nothing. With only 10% of supply allocated to liquidity against a 35% unlock at launch, a handful of sell orders from airdrop claimants was always going to be enough to break the price.

Did $LAPTOP Really Compensate The $TRUMP Losers?

This is where the viral framing falls apart, and it is worth correcting because it is being repeated everywhere.

The headline was "20% airdropped to people who lost money on $TRUMP." The actual breakdown is different. Of that 20%, only 2% of total supply was earmarked for traders who lost money on Trump's memecoin, distributed through partner exchanges setting their own eligibility rules. Another 8% went to subscribers of Biden's Substack as of 6 September. The remaining 10% is a discretionary later round, with timing and recipients decided by the foundation.

So the compensation slice was one tenth of what the headline implied, routed through exchanges with unpublished methodology and no confirmed claim path for a wallet that simply held $TRUMP down from its January 2025 peak. Meanwhile the largest single airdrop tranche went to Biden's own newsletter list.

The second 10% is arguably the bigger issue for anyone still holding. A discretionary, undated airdrop is not a distribution schedule, it is supply overhang that can land whenever the foundation decides.

Who Was Actually Positioned Before The Launch?

On-chain data from the first day paints an uncomfortable picture.

A multisig wallet tagged by Arkham as belonging to the project received 100 million tokens, one tenth of supply, a week before launch, and had offloaded roughly 42.5 million of them. Four days before launch, 15.5 million tokens went to market maker GSR through an intermediary address, and around 14.5 million tokens, the largest single pre-launch allocation, went to an unidentified wallet roughly two hours before trading opened.

The buyer side looked much worse. Bubblemaps found that more than 80% of wallets that bought the token were underwater after launch, over 11,500 wallets in total, and that roughly 60% of the top holders were fresh wallets funded within the previous 10 days.

None of this has been established as wrongdoing, and pre-launch allocations to market makers are standard practice. But the shape is familiar: insiders and market makers holding inventory before the open, retail buying the first green candle, and a liquidity pool far too shallow to absorb what came next.

Is This The End Of Political Memecoins?

Probably not, though the half-life keeps shrinking.

$TRUMP took months to complete its drawdown from a January 2025 peak above 73 dollars to a current level near 2.22 dollars. $LAPTOP did the equivalent in roughly the time it takes to make coffee. At least 14 copycat tokens appeared within an hour of launch across other chains, some posting absurd valuations against almost no volume, which is its own signal about who is still playing this game.

The genuinely interesting question is whether the prediction-burn mechanism does anything over time, since 30% of supply sits in a structure that either retires tokens or sends them to charity depending on real-world outcomes. That is at least a novel attempt at something other than launch-and-leave. Whether anyone is still holding by the time those events resolve is a separate matter.

For now, the lesson is the one memecoin traders keep relearning. A token that promises to fix the last grift is still a token with 10% liquidity, a 35% day-one unlock, and no mechanism that makes the price go up.

Bitcoin Loan Liquidated: The Tax Consequences of a Forced Sale in Austria

Pledging Bitcoin as collateral to raise a loan: as long as the coins merely serve as security and are not disposed of in economic terms, there is generally no Bitcoin sale yet. The picture changes once the price falls and the lender liquidates the collateral.

If the pledged Bitcoin are sold or finally realised to settle the claim, a taxable realisation event can arise in Austria. The fact that the investor did not trigger the sale voluntarily generally offers no protection from taxation. Austrian crypto rules capture sales for fiat money in particular, as well as swaps for other assets or services.

A Liquidation Can Trigger a Bitcoin Gain

An example:

• Bitcoin acquisition cost: 15,000 euros
• the Bitcoin are pledged for a loan
• the market falls
• the lender liquidates the BTC at a value of 35,000 euros

If the liquidation is treated as a disposal for tax purposes, acquisition costs of 15,000 euros are set against a realisation value of 35,000 euros.

The possible taxable gain is:

35,000 - 15,000 = 20,000 euros

Taxable new crypto assets are generally subject to the special tax rate of 27.5 percent.

Bitcoin Tax Can Arise Even Without a Payout

The awkward part is that in a liquidation the investor often receives no money in their bank account at all. The lender sells the Bitcoin and uses the proceeds directly to repay the outstanding loan debt. For tax purposes a realisation can still have occurred. What matters is not whether euros are paid out afterwards, but whether the Bitcoin were given up in economic terms in exchange for another value.

That can create an uncomfortable situation. The investor loses their Bitcoin and has to account for a taxable capital gain at the same time.

An Example With Residual Loan Debt

Assume:

• original Bitcoin purchase price: 10,000 euros
• loan: 25,000 euros
• Bitcoin value at liquidation: 40,000 euros

If Bitcoin worth 40,000 euros are realised to service the loan, a capital gain of 30,000 euros may in principle have arisen. Exactly which consideration has to be recognised for tax purposes depends on the specific contract and liquidation structure.

The Loan Terms Decide the Tax Treatment

Not every Bitcoin loan model works the same way.

The following points are particularly relevant for the tax assessment:

• Who remains the beneficial owner during the term of the loan?
• When may the lender realise the collateral?
• Are the BTC actually sold?
• Are they transferred to the lender?
• Is only part of the holding liquidated, or all of it?
• How is the liquidation value determined?
• Which amount is offset against the loan debt?

A blanket answer based on the word "liquidation" alone is therefore not enough.

A Bitcoin Capital Loss Can Arise as Well

Not every liquidation leads to a gain.

Example:

• acquisition cost: 40,000 euros
• liquidation value: 30,000 euros

In that case a realised tax loss of 10,000 euros can arise.

Provided the general conditions are met, it can be offset against certain other investment income of the same calendar year.

Documentation Matters Especially After a Liquidation

Once a liquidation has happened, investors should secure:

• the loan agreement,
• the collateral agreement,
• the liquidation statement,
• the time of realisation,
• the quantity of BTC liquidated,
• the Bitcoin price used,
• the amount of loan debt repaid,
• the original acquisition cost,
• wallet and blockchain data.

Without these details, working out the gain later can become difficult.

Conclusion

In Austria a Bitcoin liquidation can have the tax effect of a disposal. If the pledged collateral is sold or used in economic terms to repay the loan, a taxable Bitcoin gain can arise, even where the investor never wanted to sell the coins. Whether a realisation has occurred, and at what amount, depends on the specific contractual arrangement and on how the liquidation was carried out.

If you sent a transaction on the Cronos chain on August 30, 2026 between 12:38 and 14:33 UTC, it no longer exists today. Your balance stands at the value it held before that window. For most holders this is not expropriation but a complete reversal: whatever went out in that period was never debited either. There are cases, though, in which it does turn into real damage. This article shows you exactly which time window is affected, how to check your own transaction in a few minutes, and where the all-clear stops.

What happened on the Cronos chain on August 30

On September 8, 2026 the team behind Cronos published its post-mortem on the attack against the lending protocol Tectonic. A post-mortem is a project's after-the-fact investigation report into an incident. Only there do the hard numbers appear that had been missing until then.

The sequence, as the trade publication Cointelegraph relays it from the report: the attacker drove the price of the TONIC token up almost three hundred fold on thinly traded venues. A lending protocol lends out funds against posted collateral and values that collateral continuously through a price feed. That valuation is exactly where the attack landed. Against the artificially inflated collateral, the attacker borrowed $120.4 million across nine lending markets, spread over eleven transfers. The initial stake was around $5 million.

The incident was detected at 12:49 UTC, according to the report. At 14:32:47 UTC the network came to a standstill. The developers describe it as “a hard decision, taken together with the validators, weighing the finality users expect from a chain against the funds at risk”. A validator is an operator that proposes and confirms blocks; on a chain with a few dozen such operators, a coordinated agreement is technically feasible.

We described the network halt itself on August 31 in Cronos halts the chain after the Tectonic exploit. That article ended at the standstill, because the post-mortem was still outstanding at the time. This one supplies the resolution.

Which time window was erased

A block is a package of transactions that a blockchain records in fixed order. A rollback is the coordinated reset of a chain to an earlier block: everything confirmed after that point is discarded, and the chain is rebuilt onward from there.

By its own account, Cronos discarded 10,961 blocks. That amounts to one hour and 54 minutes of chain history. What matters for you is the sentence that appears in the reporting on the post-mortem: every transaction in that window was reversed, regardless of whether it had anything to do with the attack. Open positions in running applications were repriced when the chain restarted.

In terms you can orient yourself by: the reset point sits at the block carrying the timestamp August 30, 12:38:55 UTC. The standstill began at 14:32:47 UTC. Everything in between is discarded. Block production only resumed at 23:49:01 UTC the same day, a good eleven hours after the reset point.

Is your balance gone after the rollback?

In the basic case the answer is no. Your balance was reset to its state as of August 30, 12:38:55 UTC. A transfer you sent at 13:10 UTC has vanished, and with it the debit. A swap you executed at 14:00 UTC never took place, so you hold the original token again. Funds that sat at your address before 12:38:55 UTC are still sitting there unchanged.

The all-clear has edges, though, and those are the real reason for this article:

• You received a payment in that window and delivered on the strength of it. The payment no longer exists; your delivery does.
• You bridged value to another chain in that window and the counterpart arrived there. A rollback does not retrieve what has left the chain.
• You held an open, leveraged position. It was revalued at changed prices when the chain restarted.
• You deposited to an exchange in that window. A separate set of books applies there, more on which below.
• You documented a tax-relevant disposal that does not exist on today's chain. Your records then no longer match the chain.

The post-mortem names one important practical limitation itself: according to Cronos, the reversed transactions can only be traced through archived records, no longer through the public block explorers. Anyone who needs proof should therefore build it from their own documentation.

How to check your Cronos transaction in a few minutes

The check requires no expertise and no extra tooling. A block explorer is a website that makes the current contents of a blockchain searchable. Important for understanding it: it shows you the chain as it stands today, meaning the rebuilt version.

Step one: open your own address

Call up the official Cronos block explorer and enter your receiving address. You need neither connect your wallet nor enter a key. An address is a public identifier; whoever searches for it can move nothing.

Step two: narrow down the period

Look at the transaction list around August 30, 2026. The window that counts runs from 12:38:55 to 14:32:47 UTC. Convert it to your own time zone; in Central European Summer Time, two hours ahead, the window falls between roughly 14:39 and 16:33.

Step three: match up what is missing

If you find no entries in that window, your address was not affected. If you do remember a movement in that period and it is missing, then it was discarded. The funds it would have moved are back where they were before.

Step four: secure your own proof

Save the transaction hash, the unique identifier of your transfer, along with the timestamp and amount from your wallet history or from a confirmation email. These records are the only proof left to you if you have to explain to a trading counterparty, an exchange or the tax office why an event is missing from the chain.

What a rollback technically cannot retrieve

The limit of such a reset runs exactly along the chain boundary. A blockchain can rewrite only its own history. Once value has moved across a bridge to another chain, an independent and valid event sits there, out of reach of the resetting chain. A bridge is an application that transfers value from one blockchain to another by locking on one side and issuing on the other.

That is precisely what happened here. According to the post-mortem, $9.19 million had already left the chain before the halt, 7.6 percent of the affected sum. Those funds count as not recovered. Cointelegraph, citing the data service Bitquery, puts the share traced onto the Ethereum blockchain at $8.3 million. The reversal therefore undid $111.2 million and failed on the remainder.

For you as a holder, a sober rule follows: a reset protects you only as long as the event has not left the chain. How such an intervention works in principle and which cases it covers is something we described in general terms in what happens to your tokens when a chain is rolled back. The Cronos case is the first major application of that mechanism this year.

The gap is measurably present in the chain itself

You do not have to take the project's figures on trust. The event leaves an imprint that anyone can measure with a simple query. We did so on September 10, 2026 at around 00:40 UTC via the chain's public access point.

The chain ID was 25, the Cronos mainnet, and the height stood at 92,926,013 blocks. The block numbered 90,896,189 carries the timestamp August 30, 12:38:55 UTC. The block immediately following it, 90,896,190, carries the timestamp August 30, 23:49:01 UTC. Between two consecutive blocks there is thus a gap of 11 hours, 10 minutes and 6 seconds, where a few seconds would normally sit. That jump is the standstill.

The second measurement is more telling still. The block numbered 90,907,150, the height at which the chain was halted according to the report, carries the timestamp August 31, 05:59:27 UTC on today's chain. It was therefore created a good 15 hours after the attack. These block heights have demonstrably been produced anew. The branch that users saw as confirmed on August 30 has disappeared from today's chain.

Anyone wanting to check the arithmetic needs neither an account nor a subscription. Two block numbers and their timestamps are enough, and both can be retrieved from any public explorer.

If your exchange deposit fell inside the window

Trading venues keep their own books and credit a deposit once a set number of confirmations is reached. After that they post internally without consulting the chain again for every movement. If the chain is subsequently reset, a credit can be left standing without the transaction it rests on. Conversely, a withdrawal that reached you can be missing from the chain.

Stick to three sober points in that case. First: send nothing again before the position is clarified. Duplicate payments are the most common knock-on damage after an incident like this. Second: secure the transaction hash, timestamp and amount before you write to customer support. Third: compare today's position in your exchange account against your own last record from before August 30. If you buy regularly through a trading venue, our comparison of the best crypto exchanges sets out how many confirmations each provider requires for a credit.

One note on context, so that nobody draws the wrong lesson: the incident is an event of the chain, not the failure of an individual provider. An exchange that corrects a deposit after a rollback does so because the underlying booking is missing.

Finality against rescued funds: the conflict Cronos names itself

Finality is a chain's promise that a confirmed transaction will not be reversed. That promise is the reason a blockchain is fit to serve as a settlement layer at all. A rollback suspends the promise for a defined window.

What is notable is that the project names this conflict openly itself. In the passage quoted above, Cronos explicitly sets the finality users expect against the funds at risk and calls the decision a hard one. The trade-off is therefore on the record, rather than disappearing behind a success notice.

Whether a chain whose operators can roll back its history by agreement still credibly honours the promise of finality is a matter of judgement. The numbers alone cannot settle it, and this article does not settle it. What can be recorded is the verifiable fact: the intervention was possible, it was carried out, and it worked for around $111 million. Anyone deriving an expectation for future incidents from that is making their own assessment, not stating a finding.

What the case means for your own custody

The obvious lesson would be that self-custody was of no help here. That is true, and it also shows what self-custody actually protects against. Whoever holds their own keys is protected against the insolvency of a custodian and against third-party access to their account. No key protects against a rule change on the chain the value sits on, because the key proves only entitlement, not the state of the chain.

Two things follow in practice. For one, it is worth not leaving larger holdings permanently on a single chain with a manageable circle of operators. For another, your own bookkeeping counts for more than many assume: transaction hashes, timestamps and wallet statements are the only proof that survives an intervention like this. If you keep your keys separate from your everyday device, our hardware wallet comparison sets out the differences between the devices.

And one more point that gets lost in the excitement: after a network halt the chain is unreliable for hours. Time-critical payments over a chain that has just been stopped are an avoidable risk in the first days afterwards.

Checking the Cronos rollback: what to take away

1. Check first whether you are affected at all. Open your address in the explorer and see whether any entries sit in the window from August 30, 12:38:55 to 14:32:47 UTC. If you deposited to a trading venue during that time, reconcile the position there against your own record; which providers require how many confirmations is set out in the exchange comparison.
2. Secure your records before you do anything else. Transaction hash, timestamp and amount from your wallet history are the only proof after a reset, because the discarded events no longer appear in the public explorers. Where your keys, and with them your history, sit most safely is shown by the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Spread larger holdings across more than one chain. The incident shows that the risk does not sit only with the custodian but in the chain itself. Which wallet cleanly runs several networks side by side, and where the day-to-day differences lie, is set out in the software wallet comparison.

(As of September 10, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The hardware wallet maker said a fake security alert claimed a hardware flaw could expose users’ recovery phrases.

The Fields medalist points to a real race between OpenAI and Anthropic as proof: AI can now flatten a hard problem the moment someone starts working on it.

Crypto advocates and community bankers are targeting lawmakers in their home states as the Senate prepares for a September 15 procedural vote.

The company's first fall keynote under new leadership paired a Gemini-powered Siri overhaul with Apple's first 2-nanometer chip, plus a $1,999 foldable iPhone that won't ship until October.

Blockchain sleuths at Elliptic traced the money, Treasury sanctioned the marketplace, and Xinbi—which ran $24 billion through a Telegram scam bazaar—called the freeze unfair.

While Ethereum waits for 2029, XRP Ledger plans to immunize wallets against quantum threats by 2028 without changing user addresses.

Binance announces delisting of once major stablecoin Pax Dollar.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have posted a second consecutive day of outflows.

Trezor users have been hit by an unusually sophisticated phishing campaign after attackers breached a third-party email provider.

Market's main goal is extend recent recoveries, but key resistance levels and increasingly stretched momentum could determine what comes next.

TLDR

• Brian Armstrong says US crypto rules could arrive even if the CLARITY Act fails its Senate vote on Sept. 15.
• The SEC and CFTC are ready to publish their own crypto rulemaking if Congress does not act.
• Ethics rules for elected officials remain under negotiation, but Armstrong says the two sides are close to a deal.
• Armstrong stands by his $400,000 Bitcoin price target for 2030 and says the market bottom is in.
• Coinbase is expanding beyond crypto trading into stocks, commodities and payments made by AI agents.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong says the crypto industry could get clearer federal rules whether or not the CLARITY Act passes a key Senate vote next week. He made the comments in an interview with CNBC published Thursday.

The Senate is set to hold a procedural vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act on Sept. 15. The vote needs 60 votes to move forward and is not the final vote on the bill itself.

Armstrong said a win either way is likely. If the bill passes, he said, the industry gets legislation. If it fails, he expects the SEC and CFTC to publish their own rules within days.

“We’re going to get regulatory clarity one way or another on the 15th or the day or two after,” Armstrong said.

The bill would split oversight of digital assets between the SEC and CFTC. Tokens treated as securities would fall under the SEC, while assets like Bitcoin would fall under the CFTC.

Senate Vote Still Faces Hurdles

Armstrong said the bill has drawn support from crypto firms, banks and law enforcement groups. He said Coinbase’s earlier concerns with the legislation have been resolved.

Republicans need Democratic or independent votes to reach the 60-vote threshold. A short congressional calendar ahead of the November midterms has added pressure to get the bill through.

Ethics rules for elected officials remain one of the last unresolved pieces. Armstrong said the White House has offered what he called a strong ethics provision, while Democrats want stronger rules, including divestiture.

“They appear to be very close to a solution,” Armstrong said of the two sides.

Parts of the banking industry have pushed back on the bill’s stablecoin provisions. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has criticized Coinbase over the issue. Armstrong said firms with large payments businesses have a competing interest in the outcome.

Coinbase Looks Beyond Crypto Trading

Coinbase has been growing its business outside of crypto spot trading, which Armstrong said has been down for the past year. The company now offers stocks, commodities and foreign exchange trading alongside stablecoin and custody services.

Coinbase reported second quarter revenue of $1.2 billion, down from $1.5 billion a year earlier. The company posted a net loss of $359.5 million for the quarter, compared with a profit in the same period last year.

Armstrong also pointed to payments made by AI agents as a growing part of the business. He said more than 90% of roughly 165 million agent payments so far have run through Base, the blockchain built by Coinbase, using the USDC stablecoin and the x402 payment protocol.

Coinbase shares have fallen nearly 23% this year. Armstrong tied some of that pressure to the slowdown in crypto trading volume.

Armstrong repeated his long term Bitcoin price target of $400,000 by 2030. He also said he believes the bottom is in for Bitcoin in the current market cycle.

The Senate’s cloture vote on Sept. 15 will show whether the CLARITY Act can move forward. If it fails, Armstrong expects the SEC and CFTC to begin their own rulemaking within days of the vote.

The post Coinbase CEO Says CLARITY Act Vote Won’t Decide Crypto Rules Alone appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• ACHR shares declined 5.66% on Wednesday, ending the session at $5.50, without any company-specific catalysts behind the move.
• Surging Treasury yields (10-year reached approximately 4.84%, marking a near three-year peak) triggered a risk-off sentiment affecting growth-oriented equities.
• Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest acquired 575,700 ACHR shares on September 8, representing approximately $3.35 million in value.
• The stock has declined approximately 27% since the beginning of the year and 14.1% following its most recent quarterly earnings disclosure.
• Analyst community maintains a Strong Buy rating on ACHR with a mean price target of $11.60, suggesting potential upside exceeding 110%.

Shares of Archer Aviation experienced a 5.66% decline on Wednesday, settling at $5.50 per share. The downturn occurred without any adverse company-specific developments.

Archer Aviation Inc., ACHR

Market-wide dynamics drove the selloff. The Nasdaq Composite declined 0.6% while the Russell 2000 tumbled 1.37% as elevated oil prices and ascending Treasury yields prompted investors to retreat from higher-risk positions.

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note climbed to approximately 4.84%, reaching its highest closing mark in close to three years. This movement followed the Treasury Department’s $6 billion bond buyback announcement, which fell short of market expectations.

Elevated yields disproportionately impact nascent growth enterprises. Archer exemplifies this category as the company maintains substantial investments in aircraft engineering, FAA regulatory approval processes, and market launch initiatives, while generating minimal passenger-related revenue.

ACHR has surrendered roughly 27% of its value year-to-date. The shares have also retreated 14.1% from their August 10 earnings announcement, when the company reported a $0.34 per share loss alongside $5 million in revenue, significantly surpassing the $1.94 million analyst consensus.

Cathie Wood’s Firm Adds Shares

Amid the market pressure, Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest took an opportunistic stance. The investment firm acquired 575,700 ACHR shares on September 8 via its flagship ARK Innovation ETF, representing a transaction value of approximately $3.35 million based on Tuesday’s closing price.

While this purchase preceded Wednesday’s price drop, it demonstrates ongoing conviction from a major institutional holder of the equity.

From an operational perspective, Archer recently launched its “No Roads” nationwide flight demonstration program featuring its Midnight aircraft. The initiative included a piloted round-trip journey between Salinas and Hollister, California, as part of the company’s strategy to broaden practical flight operations.

Additionally, Archer is progressing with its acquisition of three Boeing subsidiaries: Wisk Aero, Insitu, and SkyGrid. Boeing will obtain a 16.75% ownership position in Archer as consideration. This transaction is anticipated to enhance Archer’s technological infrastructure and operational capabilities.

Wall Street Perspective

The analyst community maintains a generally optimistic stance on Archer. Six analysts have published ratings within the last three months, collectively assigning ACHR a Strong Buy consensus rating with a mean price objective of $11.60. This target represents potential appreciation exceeding 110% from Wednesday’s closing level.

Price targets span from $12.00 at Canaccord Genuity to $18.00 at Wells Fargo. Both HC Wainwright and UBS reaffirmed Buy-equivalent assessments on August 11.

However, sentiment isn’t universally positive. Weiss Ratings maintains a Sell recommendation on the stock. When aggregating all tracked analysts, the consensus shifts to “Hold” with an average target of $11.50.

Insider activity has attracted attention as well. During the past 90 days, company insiders disposed of approximately $1.14 million in stock, including transactions by CFO Priya Gupta and insider Eric Lentell, though certain sales were executed for tax obligations related to equity award vesting.

ACHR shares traded approximately 1.4% higher in pre-market activity on Thursday.

The post Archer Aviation (ACHR) Stock Drops 6% as ARK Invest Adds to Position appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Solana (SOL) trades at $102.78, down 0.57% over the last 24 hours.
• SOL sits above all four major daily EMAs, keeping the broader trend positive.
• Open interest fell from a peak of $7.5 billion to roughly $6.6 billion.
• Short liquidations near $100 million hit around August 20 during SOL’s rally.
• The Solana Foundation announced an October 5 institutional event in London.

Solana (SOL) is trading at $102.78 today. That marks a 0.57% drop over the last 24 hours.

The token remains above its 20-day, 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day exponential moving averages. This keeps the broader trend positive despite slower momentum.

The 20-day EMA sits at $99.21. The 50-day, 100-day, and 200-day EMAs are at $90.52, $86.13, and $91.37.

Solana’s RSI reading is 60.74, below its recent average of 67.73. This shows August’s strong momentum has cooled, though the reading stays in bullish territory.

Open Interest and Liquidations Point to Cooling Leverage

Open interest climbed from about $4.4 billion in early August to a peak near $7.5 billion late in the month. It has since dropped to roughly $6.6 billion, according to Coinglass data.

The largest liquidation event happened around August 20. Short liquidations reached close to $100 million as SOL moved quickly away from the $70s range.

Forced buying from those short liquidations may have added extra upward pressure during the rally. Liquidations continued in smaller bursts after the breakout, hitting both long and short positions.

Trading volume also spiked during the rally. Daily volume reached $12 billion to $15 billion on several days, with a peak near $17 billion.

That volume has since fallen back, even as SOL holds between $100 and $105. Traders are watching whether new volume returns as price moves.

Solana Foundation Plans October Event in London

The Solana Foundation announced an event called Solana & Suits on X. It is a closed, invite-only forum set for October 5 in London.

Speakers will include representatives from Standard Chartered, State Street, Société Générale, Baillie Gifford, and Allfunds. The foundation framed the event by asking, “What will the world’s financial system look like in ten years?”

It added that the forum is “not a debate about whether change is coming, but how it gets built.” The event centers on the future of capital markets and onchain financial infrastructure.

There is no data linking the announcement directly to SOL’s recent price moves. It does point to growing interest from banks and asset managers in Solana’s underlying technology.

Bulls now need to defend the $99.21 level tied to the 20-day EMA. A drop below $92.10 could open the door to a deeper pullback toward $74.57.

On the upside, $105.20 is the first resistance level, followed by $110. A break above $110 with rising volume would suggest the August rally still has room to continue.

At writing time, SOL trades near $102.78, holding within its recent range between key support and resistance levels.

The post Solana (SOL) Price: What the $99.21 EMA Level Means for Bulls appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• U.S. Bank completed a live USBDC cross-border payment between its North American and European entities.
• USBDC operated on Stellar while remaining connected to the bank’s finance, risk, and compliance systems.
• The pilot tested minting, redemption, freezing, and clawback functions through U.S. Bank’s Digital Asset Platform.
• U.S. Bank is exploring liquidity management, collateral mobility, and cross-border treasury uses after this pilot.
• U.S. Bank disclosed the Stellar issuer address but provided no transaction value or launch date.

U.S. Bank has completed a live cross-border payment using USBDC, its own dollar-backed stablecoin. The bank announced the transaction on Sept. 9. It moved value between U.S. Bank entities in North America and Europe.

The transfer ran on the Stellar public blockchain. U.S. Bank did not share the amount transferred, the settlement time, or the transaction hash. It also did not disclose the reserve structure behind the token.

This was a test of internal infrastructure, not a commercial rollout. U.S. Bank has not said whether retail customers or outside institutions can acquire, hold, or redeem USBDC. The token stays closed to the public for now.

How the Pilot Worked

The transaction connected Stellar to the bank’s finance, risk, and compliance systems. U.S. Bank’s Digital Asset Platform handled the issuance, transfer, and redemption of USBDC throughout the process.

The platform also tested freezing and clawback tools. These functions let an issuer restrict transfers or recover tokens in certain situations, such as fraud or sanctions cases.

U.S. Bank did not say whether it used these controls during the pilot. It also did not explain how it would govern such powers in a larger deployment.

The bank published the Stellar issuer address tied to the pilot. This lets outside parties monitor the account. It does not reveal USBDC’s supply or reserve value.

USBDC was used for a transfer between U.S. Bank’s own entities, not a payment to an outside customer. The pilot focused on whether a bank-controlled digital dollar could move across borders while staying linked to standard banking oversight.

Public blockchains run continuously, unlike systems tied to banking hours. U.S. Bank said USBDC could support transfers at any time. It did not confirm whether this particular test happened outside normal hours.

The bank did not compare the pilot to its existing cross-border payment systems. No figures were given for cost, foreign exchange fees, or speed gains.

U.S. Bank called USBDC one of the first bank-issued stablecoins deployed on a public blockchain. That description depends on how the bank defines those terms.

The project builds on U.S. Bank’s ongoing work with the Stellar Development Foundation. The two groups are looking at how public blockchain systems could support regulated banking services.

What Comes Next for USBDC

U.S. Bank said it is exploring uses such as liquidity management, collateral mobility, and cross-border treasury operations. None of these are confirmed products yet.

Liquidity management could mean moving funds between accounts outside normal hours. Collateral mobility could speed transfers of tokenized assets between approved parties.

The bank gave no timeline for further testing or a public launch. It did not name any clients or banking partners for future trials.

Any wider rollout would likely need to meet U.S. stablecoin rules and European payment requirements. Reserve backing and redemption rights would also need to be spelled out.

For now, the pilot shows U.S. Bank’s platform can issue and move a proprietary token through Stellar. It does not confirm a public stablecoin launch.

The post USBDC Stablecoin Tested by U.S. Bank Using Stellar Blockchain appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Shares of Pinterest tumbled over 9% Wednesday, marking the stock’s weakest intraday performance since May.
• At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, CEO Bill Ready refused to provide guidance updates while highlighting emerging international challenges.
• European regulatory changes targeting Asian cross-border merchants are pressuring third-quarter performance.
• CFO Julia Brau Donnelly’s planned departure on October 30 has intensified investor concerns.
• Analysts maintain a Moderate Buy rating on PINS with an average target price of $28.82, suggesting 57% potential gains.

Shares of Pinterest (PINS) plunged over 9% during Wednesday’s trading session, reaching their weakest intraday level in months. The sharp decline followed CEO Bill Ready’s appearance at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, where his remarks failed to reassure anxious investors.

Pinterest, Inc., PINS

Ready began his presentation by stating explicitly that he would not be “updating or addressing guidance,” emphasizing that the company refrains from providing intra-quarter performance updates. This cautious approach immediately dampened investor expectations.

The CEO highlighted emerging challenges in overseas markets, specifically citing new regulatory frameworks in Europe that are constraining Asia-based cross-border merchants. Ready drew parallels to “what happened in the U.S. with tariffs,” noting that Pinterest is now recalibrating its international advertising strategy to mirror its domestic approach. However, he cautioned that this transition would generate “near-term pain” before delivering any meaningful benefits.

This geographical revenue imbalance remains a persistent challenge for Pinterest. While international users comprise over 80% of the platform’s total user base, they generate merely 20% of overall revenue.

Third-Quarter Forecast Disappoints

Pinterest projected third-quarter revenue between $1.19 billion and $1.21 billion, representing year-over-year growth of 13% to 15%. This forecast marks a deceleration from the 18.2% expansion achieved in the second quarter and merely meets analyst expectations. Company executives attributed the slowdown to Prime Day calendar shifts, diminished foreign exchange benefits, and the European regulatory impact on Asian sellers.

During the second quarter, Pinterest generated $1.18 billion in revenue, marking an 18% annual increase, while monthly active users reached an all-time high of 640 million, climbing 11%. Despite these robust figures, the company’s forward-looking projections disappointed market participants.

Adding to investor anxiety is the upcoming CFO transition. Julia Brau Donnelly revealed plans to depart on October 30 for another opportunity. Pinterest emphasized that her exit was unrelated to financial reporting or operational issues, appointing Vikram Naidu as interim chief financial officer. Ready informed Goldman analysts that the incoming CFO will need to oversee an expanded portfolio of products and geographic markets following the tvScientific acquisition.

Market Valuation and Competitive Landscape

PINS currently commands a price-to-earnings multiple of 57.5, substantially exceeding the Communication Services sector median of 16.82. This valuation premium provides minimal cushion for operational missteps.

Competitive pressures from Meta and Google, both advancing their visual search and content discovery platforms, are compelling Pinterest to increase investments in GPUs and related infrastructure. These capital expenditures are compressing profit margins in the near term.

The company has been expanding its AI-powered advertising platform, Performance+, and recently finalized a $4 billion partnership with Amazon Web Services to enhance its computer vision technology and advertising capabilities. Monthly active users have surpassed 600 million, with particularly strong engagement among Generation Z users.

Wall Street analysts currently assign PINS a Moderate Buy consensus rating, derived from 11 Buy recommendations and 13 Hold ratings issued over the last three months. The consensus price target stands at $28.82, indicating approximately 57% upside potential from present trading levels.

The post Pinterest (PINS) Stock Plummets 9% as CEO Warns of Global Advertising Challenges appeared first on Blockonomi.

President Donald Trump has proposed a $5,000 “dividend” payment to every adult US citizen if Republicans hold Congress after the midterm elections.

Crypto traders picked up on it almost instantly, with at least one well-followed account framing the idea as the kind of liquidity shock that helped kick off the last major bull run.

Trump’s $5,000 Proposal Draws Crypto Attention

The president’s proposal would apply to roughly 245 million US citizens aged 18 and above, putting the estimated cost at about $1.2 trillion. The last time a stimulus of this magnitude was deployed was during the pandemic, when close to $4 trillion in fiscal support went out during lockdown.

Mark Chadwick, posting on X, focused on what the payment could mean for crypto:

“If this happens, and it’s a big IF –  but if it does it would ignite the most insane Alt Season imaginable,” he wrote.

He compared the potential effect with the 2021 crypto market, calling it a “2021 Covid stim type catalyst” layered onto a bull market he already sees building. He closed with a nod to the president, saying, “Well played, Mr. Trump. Well played.”

But not everyone read it the same way, one of them being economist Peter Schiff, who dismissed the plan as an attempt to buy votes, writing that Trump was offering “a $5,000 bribe in exchange for their votes,” and warning that printing the money would push inflation well past anything seen under the Biden administration.

The Altcoin Setup Already Looks Shaky

Whether or not the payment materializes, it lands at an interesting moment for altcoins. Analyst Matthew Hyland has spent the past week pointing out that charts including ETH, Total 2, Total 3, and OTHERS have all broken multi-year downtrends, leading him to conclude that “the largest Altcoin Bull Run of all time is loading.”

As CryptoPotato reported earlier, that thesis leans on a ratio comparing coins outside the crypto top ten against the S&P 500, which has spent years sliding from a 2017 peak and now sits near the bottom of that range with an oversold reading to match.

The leverage building underneath that story looks less convincing, though. Altcoin perpetual futures open interest overtook Bitcoin’s this week for the first time since December 2024, with Zcash alone carrying roughly $2.4 billion in open derivatives positions, with investor Michael Bucella comparing the setup to October 2025, right before a market-wide liquidation event.

The post Trump’s $5K Proposal Could Ignite an ‘Insane’ Altcoin Season: Analyst appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Dubai, UAE, September 10th, 2026]

Zamanat Fund CEIC Limited is the company’s first live proof point for regulated fund tokenization on ZIGChain focused on GCC private credit.

Zamanat today announced its sponsorship of Zamanat Fund CEIC Limited (the “Fund”), a DIFC-domiciled tokenized private credit fund with a target size of up to USD 100 million. The Fund targets the GCC’s estimated $250 billion SME financing gap, with only 11 percent of SMEs across the region having access to credit.

Closing a $250 billion structural gap in GCC SME credit

Across the GCC, SMEs are central to economic growth yet remain significantly underserved by traditional financing. In the UAE, SMEs generate more than half of GDP and employ the majority of the private-sector workforce, yet receive less than 10 percent of total bank lending.

The Fund will invest in private credit across the region, directing capital towards strong homegrown companies whose financing needs are not fully met through traditional lending channels. The strategy supports national ambitions to expand SME participation, private-sector growth and access to alternative financing, including priorities set out under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and the UAE Centennial 2071.

“Strong businesses across the GCC still struggle to access growth capital despite sound fundamentals. Zamanat sponsored the Fund to create a credible route between those businesses and institutional capital. With a target size of up to USD 100 million and interests issued as Investment Tokens, it is our first live proof point for bringing GCC private credit into a regulated digital structure for Professional Clients,” said Umair Tariq, Founder and CEO of Zamanat.

Bringing GCC private credit into digital markets

Tokenization expands the infrastructure around traditionally hard-to-access private-market assets without changing the underlying investment or credit profile.

The Fund combines a regional private credit strategy, a DIFC fund structure, institutional administration and digital issuance on ZIGChain. It provides a first live demonstration of how regional private credit can be brought into a DFSA-regulated tokenized structure for Professional Clients.

The Fund is a DFSA-regulated closed-ended fund registered as an Exempt Fund and classified as a Credit Fund. It is managed by Truleum Venture Partners Limited and administered by Apex Group. Fund interests will be issued as ZM1 Investment Tokens on ZIGChain within a regulated, whitelisted environment.

As sponsor, Zamanat brings its regional private credit, investment structuring and institutional partnership expertise to the Fund’s development. Truleum retains responsibility for all regulated fund-management activities.

The ZM1 Investment Token structure provides a blockchain-native ownership and settlement layer within the Fund’s regulated framework. It also allows qualifying investors who meet the DFSA Professional Client criteria to participate alongside institutional investors.

Zamanat is backed by Disrupt.com, a MENA-based, operator-led AI-native venture builder and lead investor in the business.

Building the global market for Digital Shariah Assets

Global Islamic finance assets are projected to reach $9.7 trillion by 2029, yet demand for digital and Shariah-aligned assets is growing faster than the institutional infrastructure connecting them with global capital.

Zamanat continues to build the global market for Digital Shariah Assets. Its wider operating model combines investment structuring, Shariah expertise, regulated partner routes and digital distribution to bring real-world assets to market through traditional and digital channels.

The DIFC-domiciled Fund evidences the regulated fund-tokenization, digital ownership and partner-orchestration capability within that wider build. Zamanat is progressing a separate pipeline of Digital Shariah Assets across private credit, receivables, real estate and other asset classes.

Institutional partnerships

Apex Group acts as Fund Administrator, providing institutional fund administration and controls from the outset.

“Zamanat is supporting the creation of a new category in Digital Assets. Bringing institutional structure and digital distribution together within a DFSA-regulated framework sets the standard for how this market should be built, and this fund shows the model working at institutional scale. We are proud to support the infrastructure behind it, and we look forward to partnering further on the projects Zamanat already has in motion,” said Peter Hughes, Founder & CEO, Apex Group.

The global market for Digital Shariah Assets does not yet exist as an institutional category. Zamanat is building it.

Notes to Editors

Sources

LSEG and ICD, 2025 Islamic Finance Development Indicator Report, 14 October 2025 (global Islamic finance assets projected to reach $9.7 trillion by 2029); World Bank, Competition in the GCC SME Lending Markets: An Initial Assessment (estimated $250 billion GCC SME credit gap; 11 percent of SMEs with access to credit); Kearney, GCC Retail Banking Radar 2024.

Investor notice

This communication as related to Zamanat Fund CEIC Limited is approved by Truleum Venture Partners Limited in the DIFC (DFSA License Number: F008013).

This release is for information only. It is not an offer, invitation or recommendation to subscribe for interests in Zamanat Fund CEIC Limited or acquire ZM1 Investment Tokens. Any participation will be made only through the Fund Manager, final offering documents and applicable Professional Client eligibility requirements. For avoidance of doubt, this communication is intended for and directed only to investors who meet the requirements to be considered Professional Clients as specified under the Dubai Financial Services Authority Conduct of Business Rulebook, Rule 2.3.3. The Fund is an ‘Exempt Fund’. Accordingly, the ZM1 Investment Tokens are available only to Professional Clients.

This release and the information contained herein does not constitute, and is not intended to constitute, a public offer of securities in any other jurisdiction and accordingly should not be construed as such. The ZM1 Investment Tokens are only available to a limited number of investors from the DIFC. The ZM1 Investment Tokens have not been approved by or licensed or registered with any other relevant licensing authority or governmental agency. No transaction will be concluded in onshore UAE outside the DIFC.

The Fund is not an Islamic Fund and is not marketed as Shariah-compliant. References to Shariah in this release relate to Zamanat’s broader platform and market ambition and not to the Fund.

About Zamanat

Zamanat is building the global market for Digital Shariah Assets. The company connects asset originators with global capital through investment structuring, Shariah expertise, regulated partner routes, tokenization and distribution across traditional and digital channels.

Zamanat also sponsors and develops institutional investment products through appropriately licensed partners. Each product follows its own legal and regulatory framework and, where presented as Shariah-aligned, its own product-specific Shariah review and governance process. Website: www.zamanathq.com

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[PRESS RELEASE – Dubai, United Arab Emirates, September 10th, 2026]

Tech entrepreneur and angel investor Alessio Vinassa today announced the expansion of his investment framework focusing on the convergence of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, applying strategic risk-mitigation model lessons derived from managing high-pressure financial turnarounds to emerging enterprise technologies. Before he began investing across artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, Web3 and innovative finance, he faced a financial collapse that changed how he understood risk.

Alessio reached a point where approximately €180,000 was due while only about €2,200 remained in his bank account. The situation left him facing the possibility of bankruptcy and forced him to confront the consequences of growth without sufficient protection, diversification or structural discipline.

The experience became more than a difficult chapter in his entrepreneurial career. It influenced how he would later evaluate businesses, support founders and approach emerging technology.

Today, Alessio has more than fifteen years of operating and investment experience and has backed more than 40 ventures across cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, Web3 and innovative finance. His current work reflects a strategic reality that businesses can no longer afford to ignore artificial intelligence and cybersecurity are becoming increasingly intertwined.

Artificial intelligence is changing how companies interpret information, automate work and make decisions. Each capability can also introduce another form of dependence. Systems require access to data. Automated tools may influence customer interactions, financial activity and internal operations. The more authority companies give these technologies, the more important security, transparency and accountability become.

For Alessio, this is where innovation must meet discipline.

“AI should amplify executive judgment, not replace it,” he says.

Technology can increase speed and capability, but leaders remain responsible for determining how that capability should be used, which risks are acceptable and where human oversight must remain.

Cybersecurity provides part of the foundation for that trust. As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in important business processes, security extends beyond protecting networks from external threats. Companies must also understand who can access information, how automated actions are monitored and what happens when a system produces an unexpected result.

Businesses that address these questions early may be better positioned to earn the confidence of customers, investors and commercial partners. Those that treat security as an addition after adoption risk allowing operational exposure to grow alongside their success.

Alessio’s technology and investment perspective was shaped by learning what can happen when momentum is mistaken for stability. His financial collapse revealed that creating value and protecting it require different capabilities. A company may appear successful while becoming increasingly dependent on favourable conditions, concentrated decisions or systems that have not developed at the same rate as its growth.

The same lesson applies to emerging technology. A product can attract attention and investment before proving that it can operate securely, respond to failure or sustain customer trust.

Alessio evaluates opportunity through more than technical novelty. His approach considers whether a technology addresses a meaningful problem, whether customers can adopt it consistently and whether the company has the governance required to support expansion. In his published investment commentary, he has identified cybersecurity, artificial intelligence governance, identity solutions and enterprise automation as areas where technology is addressing essential infrastructure needs.

The leadership teams behind these products are equally important. Alessio has spoken about the value of founders who can identify where their businesses are exposed, explain how their systems will respond under pressure and recognise which evidence would require them to change direction.

“Good governance makes companies faster, not slower,” Alessio says.

Governance is sometimes treated as a restriction on innovation. Alessio views it as the structure that allows innovation to scale responsibly. Clear decision rights, reliable reporting and defined accountability enable companies to move without depending on one person to resolve every issue.

This perspective has particular relevance as businesses adopt artificial intelligence at increasing speed. Competitive pressure can encourage companies to introduce tools before they fully understand the information those tools access or the decisions they influence.

Alessio does not argue that innovation should slow by default. His position is that speed becomes commercially valuable only when the systems supporting it can be trusted. The objective is not to eliminate every possible risk. It is to understand exposure before customers, employees and operations become dependent on the technology.

His progression from financial collapse to investing across emerging technology also informs his broader work on leadership. The lesson was not simply that an entrepreneur can recover after losing money. Recovery became meaningful because it changed the structures and decisions that followed.

Alessio is developing these ideas further in his book, No One Is Coming: The Mental Operating System for Leaders Under Pressure. The book examines how founders, executives and operators make consequential decisions when certainty is unavailable and responsibility cannot be transferred to someone else.

As artificial intelligence and cybersecurity continue to converge, that responsibility will extend beyond technology teams. Investors will need to examine the security behind innovation. Boards will need to understand the systems on which their organisations depend. Founders will need to build trust as deliberately as they build capability.

The €180,000 turning point gave Alessio’s investment philosophy a personal foundation. It taught him that unmanaged exposure can remain hidden while confidence is high and growth is still visible. His work today applies that lesson to a new technological era: innovation creates lasting value only when the structures protecting it are built to endure.

About Alessio Vinassa

Alessio Vinassa is an entrepreneur, angel investor, technology builder and author with more than fifteen years of experience across cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, Web3, innovative finance and business leadership. He has backed more than 40 ventures and works with founders and executives on investment, strategy, organisational development and leadership under pressure. He operates between the UAE and Europe.

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Citing data from Santiment Intelligence, popular analyst Ali Martinez showed a chart indicating that Bitcoin whale holdings have remained almost completely unchanged at roughly 5.23 million units over the past week.

Perhaps the most evident reason for this is what comes in the next ten days or so, as BTC, alongside all financial markets, braces for a major impact.

10 Days of Chaos

The analyst noted that the lack of accumulation or distribution from whales suggests these large market participants are staying on the sidelines waiting for two particularly important events coming in the next week or so – the US inflation report and the subsequent Federal Reserve meeting.

The inflation data is split: the first batch, the August Producer Price Index (PPI), arrives today, while the considerably more important Consumer Price Index (CPI) comes out a day later. Inflation has already become a major talking point after the stronger-than-expected US employment report substantially increased expectations for a new Fed rate hike.

Current odds show a 60% probability of a September rate uptick, even though a Reuters poll found that most economists still expect the central bank to remain on hold. Consequently, Friday’s CPI Reading could play a major role in breaking that disagreement.

Although these two macro events will indeed have some impact on the digital asset market, there are others. The crypto-specific catalyst arrives on September 15, when the Senate is scheduled to hold its procedural vote on advancing the CLARITY Act. Previous progress or delays have typically influenced the market.

A day later comes the aforementioned Federal Reserve decision about its rates, accompanied by Kevin Warsh’s press conference and updated economic projections. Next week will conclude with the Bank of Japan’s announcements about its own rates, with another hike potentially adding pressure to global bond and currency markets.

BTC Below $80K

Whales’ hesitation mirrors BTC’s broader price action as the asset has remained sideways between $77,500 and $80,000 for roughly a week. Each breakout attempt has been halted in its tracks at the upper boundary, while the lower one has provided the necessary support during the subsequent pullbacks.

However, this market uncertainty will likely change in the next just over a week. With PPI, CPI, CLARITY Act voting, the Fed’s move, and the BOJ’s decision arriving almost back-to-back, bitcoin is expected to break out of its consolidation phase, which has continued for weeks after the mid-August pullback.

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The Core Team outlined the introduction of Pi Desktop 0.6.3, carrying several important updates to SoloHost in another attempt to provide a further glimpse into the project’s plans to expand Pi Nodes far beyond blockchain validation.

In addition, the team announced a naming change as future releases will be referred to as Pi Desktop versions rather than Pi Node versions after the implementation of 0.6.3.

SoloHost Pushed Forward

SoloHost is the framework allowing Pioneers to run self-hosted applications directly from their computers. Community apps on it will now be ranked based on the number of people currently running them. According to the team, this has the potential to make the ecosystem’s most-used applications easier to find.

Developers are also getting a new “My Apps” section to manage their published products, alongside improved Docker Compose support for testing and troubleshooting.

Another introduction comes from a readiness probe designed to determine whether SoloHost apps are properly responding before they are available to users, reducing intermittent connectivity-related errors.

But perhaps the most anticipated and interesting addition from the latest batch is a new SoloHost repository specifically structured to be easily understood by AI agents. The team said this should allow AI tools to more effectively assist developers in creating such apps.

The new update also fixed an issue that could cause SoloHost login tokens to expire after Pi Desktop had been running for several days.

More Than Blockchain Infrastructure

As recently reported, Pi Network added self-hosted applications including OpenClaw and the Atlassian MCP Server, showing how Pi Desktop can be used for local AI agents and AI-integrated professional workflows. Moreover, the Core Team previously completed its first distributed-computing test through SoloHost, in which five volunteer Node operators successfully received, processed, and returned computing jobs using their own devices.

Pi has noted in the past that its longer-term goal is to enable third-party applications to tap into spare computing capacity from its network of more than 420,000 claimed Node operators, with participating Pioneers potentially receiving portions of the native token in exchange.

Although the latest update doesn’t achieve all of that, it provides another piece of infrastructure for the broader effort to transform the Pi Nodes from blockchain validators into a platform for self-hosted apps, AI, and, eventually, distributed computing.

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