Zelenskyy's claims highlight deep-seated mistrust, complicating peace efforts and prolonging geopolitical instability in Eastern Europe.

The post Zelenskyy accuses Putin of lying to Trump officials amid peace talks appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The untapped AI potential and need for adoption support could drive significant economic growth and reshape business strategies globally.

The post Anthropic CEO sees untapped AI potential, Salesforce calls for more adoption support appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Blinken's remarks may signal a U.S. policy shift, potentially influencing geopolitical dynamics and market optimism for Middle East peace.

The post Blinken emphasizes coexistence, hints at US policy shift on Israel-Palestine appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Rising diesel prices could exacerbate inflation, impacting freight costs and potentially driving crude oil to new highs amid geopolitical tensions.

The post US diesel prices hit record $6.27 amid Iran conflict, supply constraints appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Germany's expedited arms support for Ukraine may shift conflict dynamics, influencing military strategies and market perceptions globally.

The post Germany operates secretive unit to expedite arms to Ukraine: RT appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin, BTC-Related Stocks Tumble After Senate Blocks Clarity Act 

Bitcoin’s price tumbled — along with crypto-related stocks — following the blockage of the long-awaited Clarity Act. 

The price of the leading cryptocurrency recently stood at $75,939, down 4% over the past day, after dropping as low as $75,038 at one point on Tuesday. 

Lawmakers blocked the landmark digital asset market structure bill in a procedural vote Tuesday. Major companies in the digital asset space have long called for clear rules to be put in place to regulate the industry. 

Bitcoin wasn’t the only asset that dropped: BTC-related stocks such as Coinbase (NASDAQ: COIN) and Strategy (MSTR) were also down. 

America’s biggest crypto exchange’s stock dropped by more than 10%; Strategy, the largest corporate holder of bitcoin slid by over 5%. 

Major publicly traded bitcoin miners also dropped in price, with MARA, CleanSpark, and Core Scientific all slipping by 5% or more over the past day. 

Senators mostly voted against advancing the legislation — 49 for and 50 against — that the digital asset industry has long called for. 

The bill aims to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. 

President Donald Trump last month urged lawmakers to pass it, helping spur a bitcoin rally. But Republicans warned for months that Democrats were deliberately holding it back. 

And hold it back they did: anti-crypto senator Elizabeth Warren warned congress against voting for the bill on Tuesday, slamming the bill as “a massive risk to families.”

While Senator Bernie Sanders wrote on X that the bill was “corrupt.” 

Lawmakers had a problem with the bill because they said it unfairly allowed Trump to make money from the crypto industry. The president’s family has cashed in with numerous crypto ventures since Trump took office but the White House has always denied any wrongdoing. 

“Crypto billionaires have spent nearly $300M on the midterm elections,” added Sanders. 

“Meanwhile, Trump and his family have pocketed more than $1.4B from crypto deals.”

Pro-crypto senator Cynthia Lummis slammed Democrats for blocking the bill. 

Writing on X, the Republican said: “The once-proud Democratic party is anti-consumer and pro-illicit finance, anti-ethics, anti-free enterprise, anti-worker, anti-livable wage jobs, and pro-socialism. The Democrats are now anti-American.” 

This post Bitcoin, BTC-Related Stocks Tumble After Senate Blocks Clarity Act  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Strive’s Matt Cole: Bitcoin is Primed for 30% Growth into 2030

What happens when the Fed and Treasury finally step in to suppress long-end rates? Matt Cole says the dollar becomes the release valve and scarce assets rip. In this interview with Grace Remington and Sean Hagan, the Strive CEO lays out his three-part macro thesis on the dollar, long-end treasury rates, and Bitcoin reclaiming its role as the fastest horse against gold. He also shares his base case of roughly 50% annual Bitcoin returns into 2030.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Strive’s Matt Cole: Bitcoin is Primed for 30% Growth into 2030 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

Bitcoin Magazine

Lightning Lands on BitBox — And It Doesn’t Ask for a New Seed Phrase

Bitcoin wallet manufacturer BitBox is putting Lightning in users’ pockets. 

Owners of any BitBox hardware wallet can create a Lightning hot wallet inside the mobile BitBoxApp, fund it directly from their on-chain balance and pay invoices without bouncing between apps, wallets or third-party services, the company announced Tuesday. 

And users don’t need a new recovery phrase. The Lightning wallet is derived from the BitBox backup they already have, so there are no extra words to write down — the two wallets stay distinct. 

The Lightning side runs as a hot wallet built for small amounts and everyday spending — coffee, invoices, a quick transfer — while long-term savings stay locked behind the hardware device. 

Inside the BitBoxApp, users can scan and pay Lightning invoices, send and receive bitcoin, claim their own Lightning address, top up from their on-chain wallet, and sweep funds back again.

Under the hood, the feature runs on the Breez SDK, which now counts BitBox among more than 100 integration partners. Spark handles the plumbing that has long kept casual users off Lightning — no node to run, no channels to open, no liquidity to babysit. Custody stays with the user throughout.

Breez in August debuted Glow, an app that allows developers to see what’s working under the hood with the Lightning wallet so they can build their own products.

This post Lightning Lands on BitBox — And It Doesn’t Ask for a New Seed Phrase first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Senate Blocks Clarity Act, Likely Killing It for 2026

Lawmakers blocked the Clarity Act on Tuesday a procedural vote, with the long-awaited legislation missing the 60 votes needed to advance it.

Senators mostly voted against advancing the legislation — 49 for and 50 against — that the digital asset industry has long called for. 

The bill aims to formally divide oversight between regulators, distinguishing which digital assets are securities, commodities or stablecoins. President Donald Trump last month urged lawmakers to pass it but Republicans said that Democrats were deliberately holding it back. 

Bitcoin’s price dropped sharply on the news and was recently trading for $75,997, a 4% 24-hour drop. 

Both Republicans and Democrats blocked the bill but Democrats had mostly been accused of trying to deliberately stall it by pro-crypto lawmakers for months. 

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, of the crypto industry’s loudest critics, told congress ahead of the vote that the bill “posed a massive risk to families.” 

“This bill would put us all at risk of a crypto-fuelled economic crash,” she said, adding that the U.S. still needed proper crypto legislation. 

Warren’s biggest gripe — along with other lawmakers — is that Trump has unfairly benefited from deals in the crypto industry. 

President Donald Trump campaigned on a ticket to help the crypto space but some Washington lawmakers have criticized the way the Trump family has profited from digital asset ventures, such as the President’s memecoin, $TRUMP, and World Liberty Financial project. 

Trump and the White House have always denied any conflicts of interest. 

“Trump won big time on crypto,” Warren added. 

A revised draft circulated in July added an ethics title aimed at officials profiting from crypto. It would bar the president, vice president, members of Congress, federal judges and their spouses from issuing or sponsoring a digital asset for compensation. 

Late Sunday, a further draft gave state attorneys general power to sue to enforce those rules — alongside the Justice Department, which Democrats had argued could not be relied on to act against Trump.

Despite the bill being blocked on Tuesday, regulators are still pushing ahead with rules for the industry. 

The Clarity Act was passed by the House of Representatives last year but has mostly stalled in 2026, with the banking lobby frequently clashing with crypto companies over paying customers stablecoin yield. 

This post Senate Blocks Clarity Act, Likely Killing It for 2026 first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Why the Clarity Act Could Decide America’s Financial Future w/ John Deaton

The Senate is voting today, but not on what most people think. John Deaton joins Grace Remington and Sean Hagan to break down why the Clarity Act cloture vote is really a vote on whether to even debate the bill, and why 53 Republican senators aren’t enough to get there. He explains the math behind needing eight to ten Democrats, where Josh Hawley and Rand Paul stand, and what happens to American digital asset companies if Congress stalls again. Deaton also makes the case that the U.S. is still regulating blockchain with 1930s statutes.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this show are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of BTC Inc., Bitcoin Magazine, or any affiliated entities. This content is provided for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as investment, legal, tax, or accounting advice. Nothing contained in this show constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, endorsement, or offer to buy or sell any securities or financial instruments. Viewers should consult their own advisors before making financial or business decisions.

This post Why the Clarity Act Could Decide America’s Financial Future w/ John Deaton first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Patrick Green.

US prosecutors are seeking to seize $61 million in Tether’s USDT tied to alleged black-market Iranian oil sales.

On Sept. 14, the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York filed a civil forfeiture complaint targeting approximately 61.2 million USDT across 10 Tron addresses. Prosecutors allege the funds came from Iranian crude and petroleum sales intended to benefit the country’s government and military, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The tokens were already immobilized. Tether froze seven of the targeted addresses in June 2025 and another three in July. A seizure warrant issued this week now authorizes federal agents to move the value into government custody.

Executing that warrant would depend on Tether’s control over USDT. The stablecoin issuer would burn the frozen tokens and issue replacements of the same value for transfer to an FBI-controlled hardware wallet, according to the complaint.

The mechanism gives US authorities a route from identifying sanctioned funds on-chain to taking custody without obtaining the private keys controlling the original wallets. It also extends a growing enforcement relationship between US agencies and the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin.

Days before the Iran filing, Tether said the Justice Department credited it with assisting in a separate action involving more than $52 million linked to Xinbi Guarantee, an alleged money-laundering marketplace.

Tether says it has worked with more than 340 law-enforcement agencies across 67 countries and helped freeze more than $5 billion tied to suspected illicit activity.

The Xinbi action is unrelated to the Iranian case, but both developments show how issuer-controlled stablecoins can become enforcement chokepoints once authorities identify funds they want restrained.

Prosecutors trace $1.5 billion oil network through Binance

Meanwhile, the $61 million seizure represents a fraction of the wider network investigators described.

Prosecutors said a cluster of at least seven interconnected addresses, referred to as “Entity A,” received and distributed more than $1.5 billion in proceeds from alleged illicit Iranian oil sales. The addresses allegedly sent cryptocurrency to Iran-based exchange Nobitex and to Middle Eastern money transmitters investigators believe were IRGC fronts.

Hong Kong-incorporated Blessed Trust Limited and Hexa Whale Trading Limited allegedly helped convert oil-sale proceeds from fiat currency into cryptocurrency and move the funds through trading accounts at Binance, the largest crypto trading exchange. Blessed Trust presented itself as a wealth-management or digital-asset custody business, while Hexa Whale described itself as a commodities broker, prosecutors said.

The alleged network also touched conventional US banking channels. One unnamed company sent approximately $37.15 million to Hexa Whale through US correspondent accounts in March and April 2024, according to the complaint.

The same company allegedly sent another $443.49 million to Blessed Trust between November 2024 and March 2025 through correspondent accounts. Those transfers form part of prosecutors’ reconstruction of the wider financing network and are separate from the $61 million of USDT now targeted for forfeiture.

Binance is not accused of wrongdoing in the case, a distinction Chief Executive Richard Teng emphasized after the filing became public. He noted:

“This case was not filed against Binance and does not allege any wrongdoing by Binance.”

He said the exchange has “zero tolerance” for sanctions violations or illicit activity and had cooperated with law enforcement since the matter was first raised months ago. Binance investigates, restricts or freezes accounts where sanctions or illicit-finance risks emerge, offboards users when appropriate and reports them to authorities, Teng added.

His response draws a boundary between alleged actors using Binance accounts and the exchange knowingly facilitating their activity. It also highlights another enforcement point in the network: exchanges can restrict users and accounts, while Tether can immobilize the underlying stablecoins themselves.

The post Tether, Binance and a $1.5 billion Iran oil network converge in new US forfeiture case appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Crypto exchange CoinEx is shutting down after nine years, citing shrinking revenue and rising compliance costs as the reasons the exchange is no longer viable.

The centralized crypto platform said Sept. 15 that it will wind down operations in stages, ending spot trading on Sept. 29 before closing withdrawals on Dec. 22. New registrations have stopped, futures markets have moved to reduce-only mode, and other products, including margin trading, loans, Earn, and staking, are being phased out.

Founder Haipo Yang said CoinEx had failed to become one of the industry’s leading exchanges, leaving the company carrying security and compliance obligations that had become increasingly difficult to justify against the revenue it generated.

“Revenues can decline, responsibility does not,” Yang said in a statement. “Carrying unlimited risk for limited revenue is no longer a rational choice.”

CoinEx also cited a prolonged contraction in crypto trading volume and liquidity alongside rising regulatory requirements across major jurisdictions. The exchange had already surrendered access to one of those markets in 2023 after settling a case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The agreement required CoinEx to withdraw its platform and services from the US after New York accused it of operating without registering as a securities and commodities broker-dealer. The company agreed to refund more than $1.1 million to 4,691 New York investors and pay over $600,000 in penalties.

That combination of regulatory expense, security exposure and limited scale is becoming more visible across exchanges operating below the industry’s largest platforms.

BitMEX, once one of crypto’s dominant derivatives venues, will terminate exchange services on Sept. 23 after more than 11 years. Owner HDR Global Trading said in July that the decision followed a strategic review of the company and the broader crypto industry.

AscendEX has already gone further. The exchange ceased normal operations on July 1, citing the implementation of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework (MiCA) alongside financial and operational pressures. The company later said a recapitalization transaction had failed and has since been preparing for a possible formal insolvency process.

While the circumstances differ across the three companies, their exits are removing long-running venues from a market where trading activity is simultaneously recovering and becoming more concentrated among the biggest operators.

Trading rebounds as liquidity concentrates

Eleven major centralized exchanges tracked by CoinMarketCap handled $4.23 trillion in combined spot and derivatives volume during August, up 12.3% from July as crypto prices recovered.

However, the gains did little to loosen the largest venues' grip. Binance, OKX, MEXC, Bybit and Gate accounted for around 88% of all trading across CoinMarketCap’s cohort, while Binance alone captured a record 43.3% share for a third consecutive month.

Binance processed about $1.83 trillion during August, nearly three times the $681.3 billion recorded by second-ranked OKX. MEXC followed with $469.5 billion, Bybit with $410.3 billion and Gate with $314.7 billion. Concentration increased even as every venue in the dataset benefited from the rebound.

CoinEx was not among the 11 exchanges in CoinMarketCap’s sample, so the figures do not directly measure its loss of market share. They do, however, illustrate the environment Yang is leaving: trading revenue is recovering while a small group of platforms captures the overwhelming majority of activity.

That creates a difficult equation for exchanges operating further down the rankings. Compliance staffing, licensing, transaction monitoring, custody systems, and cybersecurity remain substantial obligations even when an exchange has a fraction of the volume available to Binance or OKX.

CoinEx now has to unwind those operations while hundreds of millions of dollars remain linked to its wallets.

Data from Nansen showed about $253.6 million sitting across CoinEx-labeled wallets following the shutdown announcement. Bitcoin accounted for more than half of the total, at roughly $134.4 million, while another $27.6 million was deployed through Aave. USDT and ETH together accounted for more than $50 million.

The balances do not necessarily represent customer liabilities because labeled exchange wallets can include operational funds and other assets. Their size still shows how much capital remains within CoinEx’s on-chain footprint as users move funds elsewhere.

CoinEx plans to keep withdrawals available until Dec. 22, giving customers almost three months after spot trading stops to remove assets. The exchange has said customer assets remain fully backed and has urged users to withdraw early to avoid congestion or delays as the deadline approaches.

The more immediate redistribution starts Sept. 29. Once CoinEx switches off spot markets, its remaining traders, market makers and token projects will need alternative venues, pushing another pool of crypto liquidity into a market where five exchanges already control nearly 88% of the trading measured by CoinMarketCap.

The post CoinEx quits after 9 years as crypto trading activity concentrates at biggest exchanges appeared first on CryptoSlate.

aelf, a blockchain network built around its AELF MainChain and tDVV dAppChain, has restored public node access and several core services after malicious smart-contract activity led to a controlled recovery. The incident halted block production for approximately one week, and the reopening remains incomplete.

The project's Sept. 14 recovery update said both public nodes were available again, alongside the aelfscan explorer, FairyVault transfers, Awaken trading, Forest NFT browsing and the TMRW DAO staking interface. On Sept. 15, the MainChain and tDVV status endpoints were reachable with advancing block heights, though those checks did not test whether users could submit transactions.

The aelfscan, FairyVault, Awaken, Forest and TMRW DAO frontends were also reachable. No end-to-end transfer, trade or reward claim was executed during those checks.

What remains incomplete

aelf said exchange deposits and withdrawals were resuming gradually and could differ by venue. Bithumb's updated notice scheduled ELF deposits and withdrawals to restart on Sept. 14 at 14:00 KST. MEXC scheduled its resumption for Sept. 5 and told users to generate new deposit addresses because previous ones were invalid. These announcements set venue schedules but do not prove live account-level availability.

INDODAX's Sept. 2 notice, meanwhile, still described ELF wallet deposits and withdrawals as closed. Because that notice is dated, it may not reflect a later change in account access, reinforcing the need for users to check each venue before moving funds.

The block-production pause also had a direct staking consequence. aelf said no network staking rewards were generated during the approximately one-week halt. Restoring the TMRW DAO interface does not change that outcome: there are no network rewards from the halted period to claim.

aelf's Aug. 26 incident update said investigators had identified 155 transactions associated with the malicious activity, including 127 on AELF and 28 on tDVV. It also described five unique .NET assemblies capable of interacting with host systems and node-related keys and configuration, raising risks beyond the smart contracts themselves.

aelf cautioned that those capabilities did not prove every payload executed, every targeted credential was obtained or data was successfully transmitted. Its evidence review had found no unauthorized transfers of ordinary users' assets or exposure of ordinary-user wallet keys as of Aug. 26, but that conclusion explicitly excluded unresolved node and infrastructure credential exposure.

The full post-incident review, technical appendix and final root-cause assessment remain unpublished. aelf said those materials would follow after the remaining work, including an independent review, is complete. Until then, restored services mark operational progress, not a final security all-clear.

The post 7-day blockchain outage wipes out a full week of staking rewards after emergency aelf shutdown appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin Core v32.0rc1 has turned the Sept. 14–Oct. 10 window into a concentrated compatibility test for node operators, wallet providers and services that depend on Bitcoin Core's RPC interfaces.

The candidate was tagged with a verified signature on Sept. 14. The live release schedule lists Oct. 10 as the aim for the final v32.0 tag, leaving a 26-day elapsed interval. CryptoSlate's August preview recorded a Sept. 10 RC1 target, while the live schedule now shows Sept. 14, creating a four-day discrepancy without establishing that an unchanged deadline was missed.

The v32.0rc1 tag identifies prerelease software, not a production-final upgrade. It also does not signal a new consensus-rule activation. One change tied to draft BIP 323 alters how Bitcoin Core treats signaling bits and unknown-deployment warnings, but the proposal itself remains in Draft status.

Operators can begin with the high-level pattern in Bitcoin Core's most recent RC testing guide: exercise regularly used features in separate temporary data directories and compare the candidate with the prior release. The official download page lists 31.1 as the current baseline. That comparison can expose differences in node startup, wallet behavior and RPC responses without treating the candidate as a routine production update.

The largest performance change in the draft v32 release notes is parallel prefetching of transaction outputs during block connection. The setting defaults to eight workers, supports up to 16 and can be disabled. Running disk-bound validation with multiple settings can reveal whether faster block processing comes with unacceptable CPU, memory or storage-latency costs on an operator's hardware.

Wallet and service integrations face a separate breakage risk. Four RPCs will default to PSBTv2, while other interfaces remove deprecated fields or reject arguments that older versions tolerated. Teams that create, convert or fee-bump PSBTs should therefore trace those transactions through their downstream parsers and signers.

Fee handling also needs failure-path coverage. The default estimatesmartfee path combines block-policy and mempool estimators, may return a lower estimate and can error if either component fails. Operators should observe startup and sparse or unhealthy mempool conditions, then confirm that monitoring and explicit block-policy fallbacks behave as expected.

The HTTP server rewrite broadens the test surface beyond the node itself. It adds an 8,192-byte header limit, stricter malformed-header handling, a default ceiling of 16 RPC connections, new REST cache controls and immediate disconnection of unauthorized client addresses. Those changes can surface in reverse proxies, health checks, client pools and error handlers.

Rollback deserves equal attention. A rebuilt transaction index uses less than half the disk space, but older releases cannot read the new format, so a downgrade can trigger another rebuild lasting hours. Privacy-focused operators should also reproduce private-broadcast failure paths around the Tor fallback fix, the 10,000-entry queue, the 1,000-attempt limit and relay behavior under load. With the final tag still only an aim, these edge cases are the practical work of the RC window.

The post Major Bitcoin Core update changes default wallet protocols, risking temporary disruption across popular apps appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate after a final round of bipartisan negotiations broke down and several Democrats who helped shape the bill refused to advance it.

The measure failed to secure the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed with H.R. 3633, preventing the most consequential US crypto market-structure proposal from reaching the Senate floor.

While the vote did not decide the bill’s final passage, falling short leaves the legislation off the floor and forces its sponsors to decide whether another round of negotiations is possible.

The outcome was particularly damaging because Democrats who had spent months working on the legislation opposed it. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Angela Alsobrooks and Catherine Cortez Masto all voted against moving forward.

Their defections followed an unsuccessful attempt to close remaining differences over ethics rules shortly before the vote.

Senate staff had reportedly met in the Capitol hideaway office of Sen. Thom Tillis to discuss possible final changes to restrictions governing crypto interests held by public officials. Staff working for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott later ended the talks without an agreement.

That left Republicans heading into the vote without the Democratic coalition they had spent months trying to assemble.

The setback came despite a major rewrite released over the weekend. Republicans said the 635-page final text incorporated 126 substantive changes Democrats sought, while President Donald Trump agreed to tougher restrictions on crypto-related financial interests held by senior officials.

However, those concessions were still not enough.

Ethics fight breaks the CLARITY Act negotiating coalition

The ethics package emerged as one of the decisive fault lines in the final hours before the vote.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin said she opposed the bill because its restrictions on crypto interests held by Trump, his family and administration officials remained too weak.

Slotkin aadded:

“The ethics provisions in this bill are simply too thin.”

She argued that Congress should impose rules strong enough to prevent any future administration, Democratic or Republican, from using public office to benefit from crypto ventures.

Slotkin also raised national-security concerns, saying lawmakers had more work to do on money laundering and financing channels linked to terrorist groups, North Korea and Iran.

She questioned whether agencies tasked with carrying out the new framework, including the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, had enough staffing and oversight capacity to enforce it effectively.

Her opposition was not a rejection of market-structure legislation altogether. Slotkin said the bill contained bipartisan provisions that could serve as the basis for another attempt and said she remained open to future negotiations.

Sen. Bernie Sanders took a broader approach, tying the legislation to the crypto industry’s political spending and Trump’s financial interests.

Sanders said crypto billionaires had spent nearly $300 million on the midterm elections while Trump and his family had collected more than $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures.

He accused the industry of seeking favorable treatment from Congress and urged senators to reject the legislation.

The failed vote leaves Republicans with a difficult choice. Reviving the CLARITY Act would likely require reopening provisions they had already presented as their final compromise, particularly the ethics rules that failed to retain some of the Democrats most closely involved in drafting the bill.

The post Trump ethics fight sinks CLARITY Act in dramatic Senate defeat appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The short answer first: LUNC burns are cutting Terra Classic's supply measurably, but slowly. Over the twelve months to September 15, 2026, roughly 39.78 billion LUNC were destroyed. Measured against the total supply of 6.449 trillion tokens that the chain itself reports on that day, that is 0.62 percent in a year. If that pace holds, the supply needs around 112 years to halve. This article walks through exactly that calculation step by step, with figures you can pull yourself.

The trigger is recent. On August 2, 2026, the Terra Classic community tripled its burn tax from 0.5 to 1.5 percent through governance proposal 12223, the biggest change to the token economics in more than a year. Six weeks on, it is possible for the first time to work out what that tripling actually delivered. The result is more sober than the announcement suggested.

How much LUNC is really in circulation today

Before talking about burns, you need the denominator. Terra Classic has two of them, and they get confused regularly.

The total supply is the number of all existing tokens. The chain publishes it directly through its public access node: 6,449,044,459,046 LUNC, retrieved on September 15, 2026. The circulating supply, or float, is the smaller figure. Market data providers deduct whatever counts as permanently locked. CoinGecko reports 5,518,614,884,728 LUNC for the same day, or 5.519 trillion.

The gap between the two comes to 930.43 billion LUNC, or 14.43 percent of total supply. Broken down, the largest item sits in staking: 906.57 billion LUNC are bonded to validators, which is 14.06 percent of all tokens. The chain's community pool, which pays for development and marketing, holds a comparatively modest 8.97 billion LUNC.

Staking here means that tokens are deposited with a validator, secure the chain and cannot be traded for an unbonding period of 21 days. Bonded therefore does not mean destroyed. That supply can come back at any time, which is why the float is the more honest denominator for the question of how much supply is weighing on the market. If you want to trade LUNC at all, the venue decides first: which exchanges list the pair, what fees they charge and which of them are regulated in Germany is covered in the comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

One value stands out immediately in the query: the inflation rate of the mint module sits at exactly zero. Terra Classic no longer creates new LUNC. That is the precondition for burns to have any effect at all. On a chain that is issuing new tokens at the same time, every burn calculation would be moot.

What the 1.5 percent burn tax actually removes on-chain

The burn tax is a levy charged on every LUNC transfer on the chain, and the burned share disappears irreversibly from supply. An exchange does not set this levy; the rate sits in the chain as a protocol parameter and can therefore be read directly. The node answers the query for that parameter with the value 0.015, that is 1.5 percent, retrieved on September 15, 2026.

The difference between collected and burned matters. Of the 1.5 percent, 1.2 percentage points are actually destroyed under the current resolution, and the remainder flows into other pools of the chain. In practice that means: anyone sending LUNC worth 1,000 euros from one address to the next pays 15 euros in levy, and 12 euros of that is permanently taken out of supply.

What the tax does not capture matters just as much. It falls due on movements on the chain. Trading inside a centralized exchange runs in its internal books and never touches the chain. This is where the weak point of the construction sits: the largest part of LUNC volume happens on trading venues, and that volume pays no burn tax.

Why tripling the burn tax did not triple the burn

Anyone who triples the tax rate expects roughly three times as much supply burned. That expectation has been testable since the beginning of August. The monthly figures come from the supply history that netsupply.org keeps for Terra Classic, retrieved on September 15, 2026.

In July 2026, the last full month under the old rate of 0.5 percent, 1.62 billion LUNC were burned. In August 2026, the first full month at 1.5 percent, the figure was 2.62 billion. That is an increase of 62 percent, not of 200. Arithmetically, the tripled rate should have produced around 4.86 billion. It reached 54 percent of that.

The comparison becomes more sobering still when the weakest single month is dropped as the yardstick. Across the eleven months from September 2025 to July 2026, before the increase, the average stood at 3.28 billion LUNC per month. Measured against that average, August 2026 comes in 20 percent below it, despite the tripled tax rate.

September puts the picture into perspective again. By the 15th of the month, 1.94 billion LUNC had been burned. Extrapolated to the full month that gives around 3.88 billion, 18 percent above the eleven-month average. This projection is explicitly a projection from half a month and not a monthly result.

Both readings lead to the same corridor. Whether August or the September projection is taken as the basis, the annual rate stays between 0.49 and 0.72 percent of total supply. The obvious explanation: a higher levy per transfer makes moving tokens more expensive, and more expensive moves happen less often. The tax base shrinks while the rate rises.

The Binance burn: 334.87 million LUNC and what they change in circulation

Alongside the burn tax there is a second, far more visible source: since late 2022 Binance has burned the trading fees accruing in LUNC spot and margin trading every month. On September 1, 2026, the exchange reported its 48th monthly burn of 334.87 million LUNC, calculated from the August fees. Cumulatively the exchange now stands at more than 87.76 billion LUNC; individual trackers arrive at figures of up to 89.5 billion, depending on which addresses they count.

334.87 million sounds like a lot. Set in proportion, it shrinks: measured against the float of 5.519 trillion LUNC it amounts to 0.00607 percent in a month. Extrapolated to a year, the Binance burn alone accounts for 0.073 percent of the float.

The dollar value makes it clearer. At a LUNC price of $0.0000493 on September 15, 2026, one million LUNC costs around $49. The entire monthly burn of the world's largest crypto exchange therefore carries a value of about $16,500. That is the amount destroyed by an event reported worldwide every month.

Binance accounts for around 10 percent of the total burn of the past twelve months. The remaining 90 percent comes from the chain's burn tax and from voluntary burns by projects and holders. Anyone who mistakes the attention paid to the monthly Binance report for its effect is looking at the smaller of the two levers. How heavily individual governance decisions in this series were charged up beforehand is shown by the look back at the vote that was meant to change the LUNC price.

Run the numbers: how long a halving of the circulating supply takes at today's pace

Now the calculation the reader's question is really about. Given are 39.78 billion LUNC burned in twelve months and a total supply of 6.449 trillion. That yields an annual rate of 0.617 percent.

At a constant rate the supply shrinks exponentially rather than linearly, because every burn acts on a smaller remainder. The halving period that follows from it comes to around 112 years. Taking the weaker August as the basis turns that into 142 years; taking the September projection, 96. The corridor therefore sits at roughly a century.

For context, a second calculation: for the float to fall to one trillion LUNC, which is what would bring the frequently quoted mark of one cent per token within arithmetic reach in the first place, more than 1,100 years would have to pass at the Binance pace. Across all burn sources together, the order of magnitude stays in the hundreds of years.

These figures are no price forecast and say nothing about where the price is heading, because that hangs on demand and not on supply alone. What they show is the order of magnitude of the supply effect, and that is the question that can be calculated at all. Whatever price expectations analysts derive from it is their assessment and belongs to them, not to the burn mechanism.

What has actually been burned since May 2022

The overall balance since the collapse in May 2022 comes out differently depending on the source. The range runs from around 452 to 457.5 billion LUNC, depending on which addresses are counted as burn addresses. The difference of a good five billion tokens looks large but changes nothing in the final result.

The cross-check works out: adding the burned 452 to 457.5 billion back onto today's total supply of 6.449 trillion gives an original supply of 6.901 to 6.907 trillion LUNC. The supply after the hyperinflation of May 2022 lay in exactly that order of magnitude. The two independently collected figures confirm each other.

From that follows the share: in four years and four months, 6.55 to 6.62 percent of the original supply has been destroyed. On average that is a good 104 billion LUNC per year, far more than the 39.78 billion of the past twelve months. The pace has slowed to roughly a third rather than picking up. The reason is plain: the big burns fell in the years with high trading volume and high attention.

Why deflationary and scarce are two different things

Deflationary for a token simply means that supply falls over time. Terra Classic meets that condition demonstrably: the chain creates nothing new, and burning goes on continuously. For the twelve months to mid-September 2026, the supply history shows a decline of 0.6 percent in total supply and 0.2 percent in the float.

Scarce is something else. Scarcity arises when the available supply is small relative to what buyers want of it. With 5.5 trillion tokens in circulation and a market capitalization of around $272 million, Terra Classic is the opposite of scarce, even after another decade of burning.

Both hold at the same time: supply is falling, and it is falling on a scale that does not carry the price. Anyone holding LUNC or looking to buy should therefore avoid pinning the decision on the burn mechanism. The mechanism works as described. It merely operates on a timescale that matches no investment horizon.

How to check the burn figures yourself in five minutes

Every figure in this article is openly available, and you need no account for it. That is the real advantage of a public chain over corporate accounts.

The total supply comes from Terra Classic's public access node through the supply query for the denomination uluna. The answer arrives in micro-LUNC, so you have to divide by one million to get whole tokens. The same node returns the tax rate through the burn tax parameter, currently as the value 0.015.

For the monthly figures, the supply history at netsupply.org works well, setting the burns per month against the change in supply. The circulating figure in turn comes from market data providers such as CoinGecko, and it is the only one of the quantities named that rests on a methodological decision instead of a chain value.

Three mistakes are common here. First, confusing total supply with circulating supply, which distorts the share of a burn by a good 14 percent. Second, equating the levy collected with the amount burned, although only 1.2 of the 1.5 percentage points are destroyed. Third, extrapolating a single strong month across a whole year, which produces the tenfold figures circulating in forecast pieces.

What a LUNC holding means for your taxes in Germany

For the tax office, a burn is initially a non-event. Your own tokens stay in your wallet, nothing is sold and nothing is allocated. A process that reduces the supply of other holders triggers no taxable event for you.

German tax law becomes relevant only on a sale or a swap. Under the tax authorities' view, crypto assets count as other economic goods; gains therefore fall under private disposal transactions per section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Anyone holding for longer than a year pays no income tax on the gain. Within the one-year period, a gain stays untaxed only if the sum of all private disposal transactions of the year stays below the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros. Exemption threshold means: one euro above it, and the entire amount is taxable.

The practically tricky part with Terra Classic is allocation. Anyone who has bought in tranches over the years has to evidence the sequence per wallet; the tax administration accepts the FIFO method for that, under which the tokens bought first count as sold first. The 1.5 percent burn tax on a transfer is a transaction cost and no loss you could claim separately. Which tools keep this history cleanly and produce a report that a tax adviser will accept is covered in the comparison of crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers. That replaces no tax advice, but it saves the reconstruction by hand.

LUNC burns: what you take away from this

1. Always measure the burn against supply, never in absolute numbers. 334.87 million LUNC a month is 0.006 percent of the float and around $16,500 in value. Check the denominator first on every burn report. Which venue lists which pair at which fees often decides your costs more than any burn: comparison of the best crypto exchanges.
2. Keep your purchase history for as long as you hold LUNC. The one-year period and the exemption threshold of 1,000 euros decide your tax burden, and both can be evidenced only with complete acquisition data. A tax tool with a portfolio tracker handles the FIFO allocation.
3. Separate custody from the trading decision. Anyone holding tokens over years to reach the holding period should avoid leaving them on an exchange permanently. Which wallet supports Cosmos-based chains such as Terra Classic is shown by the comparison of software wallets.

(As of September 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

AI crypto crime has moved out of its niche and onto the agenda of analysts and regulators. On August 21, 2026, The Block reported on the new “AI-in-Crime Adoption Index” from TRM Labs, which assesses the role of artificial intelligence in crypto-related crime in a systematic way. One caveat matters here: The Block summarises the TRM Labs analysis, but it supplies no independent global statistics on crypto fraud. According to TRM Labs, AI is increasingly used to run existing attacks faster, in more convincing language and with sharper targeting. More AI in cybercrime does not automatically mean that every crypto loss has grown to the same degree. This article sets out which forms of attack gain plausibility, where the data gaps sit and which protective measures still count.

What Is Behind the AI Crypto Crime Trend

AI crypto crime describes the use of artificial intelligence to prepare, personalise or automate criminal activity in the crypto space. In practice, AI generates or improves text, translations, images, voices, chat replies and variations of a lure. It does not necessarily replace known fraud models; more often it amplifies classic social engineering, in which attackers exploit trust, helpfulness, fear, time pressure or apparent authority so that victims hand over data, connect a wallet or sign a transaction themselves. According to TRM Labs, fraud is the most advanced category for the use of AI in criminal contexts within its own index.

Three AI Crypto Scams That Are Getting More Convincing

Fake Support

Contact usually starts with a comment, a direct message, a search ad or a fake profile. The supposed support agent then claims there is a security problem or that a “wallet verification” is required. AI can produce multilingual, professional-sounding dialogue and fast replies, which means a badly worded message no longer works as a reliable warning sign. The most important rule is unchanged: legitimate support never asks for a seed phrase, private key or password. As MetaMask sets out in its official support guidance, genuine support makes no unsolicited calls and never asks for the Secret Recovery Phrase. Anyone who hands over that data normally gives attackers full control of the wallet.

Voices, Videos and Apparent Authorities

Deepfakes are AI-generated or manipulated audio, image or video content that can imitate real people convincingly. In a crypto context that shows up as a faked video appeal from a founder, the cloned voice of an acquaintance reporting an alleged emergency, or a manipulated livestream with a giveaway and a wallet link. Not every odd-looking video is a deepfake; what matters is the source, an unusual call to action and the time pressure being built up.

Lures in Search and Social Media

Phishing tries to capture credentials and approvals through fake websites, login masks or wallet connections. AI can create many varied ads, posts and landing pages and tailor the language to a target group, which makes phishing more scalable without automatically making it more successful. Typical examples are paid search ads with fake download or support pages, lookalike domains, hijacked social media accounts and fake airdrops.

Why the Data on AI Crypto Crime Needs Careful Reading

TRM Labs is a blockchain analytics firm whose assessment is a valuable industry signal, though not a final measurement of global crypto crime as a whole. “AI-assisted fraud” describes the method behind an attack or the support it received, whereas a “confirmed rise in losses” requires comparable, traceable data on cases, damages and time periods. The data gaps are real: many victims never report an incident, the use of AI often cannot be established in an individual case, and losses are sometimes discovered late or categorised inconsistently. That methodological caution matches an assessment of generative AI by the German federal cyber security agency BSI, which finds that generative models enable convincing, automated phishing messages and fake profiles. That confirms the methodological risk, not a global loss rate.

Wallet Security Routines That Slow Attacks Down

A handful of fixed habits reduce the risk regardless of how convincing an attack looks:

• Never enter, upload or send a seed phrase, private key, password or recovery code to anyone claiming to be support.
• Open exchange and wallet sites from saved bookmarks or the official app, never through search ads, direct messages or comments.
• Before every wallet connection, check which website is being connected, and leave signatures you do not understand unconfirmed.
• With hardware wallets, check the recipient address, amount, network and permissions on the device display itself.
• Switch on two-factor authentication, where the BSI recommendation favours a security key or an authenticator app over SMS.
• With unusual calls, videos or urgent security warnings, open a second, known contact channel yourself instead of replying to the message.
• Treat time pressure as a warning sign: phrases such as “act now” or “your account will be locked” are typical fraud patterns.

For teams and companies one more rule applies: larger transactions should be secured with role-based permissions and a four-eyes principle.

AI Crypto Crime: Methods Change Faster Than Measurements

AI crypto crime is a real trend, and one that deserves a careful reading. TRM Labs supplies a relevant external assessment, according to which AI affects fraud, social engineering, deepfakes and automated campaigns in particular; on its own it is no evidence that all crypto losses have risen proportionally. For users, robust wallet security is what counts: safe contact routes, scepticism when time pressure appears and a careful check of every approval protect you even when an attack looks technically convincing.

The Senate is voting on the CLARITY Act today, and the crypto industry is holding its breath. It should not be.

Even in the worst case, US crypto is in a far better position than it was two years ago. Here is why a bad afternoon in Washington is not a bad decade for the industry.

What Is Actually Being Voted On in the CLARITY Act Vote?

Today's vote is a cloture vote on the motion to proceed, scheduled for 2:15 p.m. ET. It needs 60 votes. It is not a vote on whether the bill becomes law.

If it clears, the Senate moves to debate and amendments. If it fails, the 2026 path gets very narrow, with the midterms and a packed calendar eating the remaining floor time. Senator Cynthia Lummis has warned the next realistic window could be years away.

That is the bad news. Now the rest.

Do the SEC and CFTC Need the CLARITY Act to Write Crypto Rules?

No, and both agencies have already said so out loud.

SEC Chair Paul Atkins introduced a ruleset earlier this year that would apply the agency's existing authority to digital assets without new legislation. CFTC Chair Michael Selig has been even blunter, saying the commission is ready to set the rules of the road and defend its authority in court if Congress stays deadlocked.

The two agencies have also been actively harmonising their approach to crypto oversight. A failed vote slows the statute. It does not freeze US crypto regulation.

Does Trump Still Back the Crypto Market Structure Bill?

Yes. The President has publicly pushed the Senate to pass the bill and signed off on an ethics package covering officials' digital asset holdings, which a White House official called the most wide-ranging ethics provision in history. Democrats have argued it does not go far enough, and that fight is exactly what is holding the bill up.

The bigger point stands. The administration wants the US to be the global hub for digital assets, and that posture does not expire with one procedural vote.

Are Stablecoins Already Covered Without the CLARITY Act?

Yes. Stablecoins got their federal framework with the GENIUS Act in July 2025. That piece of the puzzle is already law and does not depend on what happens today.

Why Is US Crypto Regulation Still in a Good Spot?

Look at who is doing the lobbying. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent publicly urged senators to advance the bill, warning that walking away would signal America is unwilling to lead on digital assets. Atkins and Selig have both put their weight behind clearer crypto rules.

The biggest financial regulators in the country are campaigning for crypto legislation. A few years ago, those same offices were running regulation by enforcement and pushing builders offshore.

That era is over. Today's vote matters, and a win would matter more. But the floor under US crypto is already much higher than it used to be, and that is the real story.

Why Is Crypto Crashing Today?

The short version: the market spent the weekend pricing in a win for the CLARITY Act, and then spent Tuesday morning taking that bet back off the table.

$Bitcoin is trading around $76,010, down roughly 3.2% on the day and about 3.4% on the week. $Ethereum is at $2,414, off 3.7%. $Solana is barely hanging on to the $100 handle at $99.13. Almost the entire top 15 is red, and none of it is happening because of a hack, an exchange blowup or a whale dumping into thin liquidity. It is happening because of a procedural vote in the United States Senate scheduled for 2:15 p.m. ET.

Prediction markets tell the story better than any chart. Odds of the CLARITY Act passing this year had climbed above 30% during US trading hours on Monday, helped by reports that Republican revisions had won over hesitant Democrats. By Tuesday morning in Asia those odds had slumped to 18%, and by the time European desks were fully awake they had drifted closer to 11%. Bitcoin, which had reclaimed $78,400 on Monday, gave the entire move back.

This is what a binary event does to a leveraged market. Traders do not wait for the result. They de-risk into it.

What Is the CLARITY Act and Why Does It Move Bitcoin?

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is a 309-page bill that would finally draw statutory lines between the SEC and the CFTC on who regulates what in crypto. It sorts tokens into securities, digital commodities and stablecoins, and hands spot digital commodity oversight to the CFTC. That would be the single largest expansion of that agency's authority in its history.

The House already passed it in July 2025 by 294 votes to 134. The bottleneck has been the Senate, where disagreements over ethics provisions, illicit finance safeguards, DeFi developer protections and consumer safeguards have kept the bill parked on the calendar for over a year.

Here is the part that matters for today's price action. Tuesday's vote is not final passage. It is a cloture vote on the motion to proceed, meaning the Senate is voting on whether it is even allowed to start debating the bill. It needs 60 votes. Republicans hold 53 seats, so at least seven Democrats or independents have to cross the aisle, and analysts expect Senate leadership may lose one or two Republicans on procedural grounds anyway, which pushes the required Democratic crossover closer to nine.

So the best case today is: the Senate earns the right to argue about the bill some more. The worst case is that the bill dies for 2026, and with November midterms approaching, realistically until the next Congress.

Markets hate that asymmetry. A pass gets you a slow grind toward legislation. A fail gets you an immediate headline that says US crypto regulation is dead for years.

How Bad Is the Damage Across the Market?

The 24-hour numbers are ugly but not catastrophic. The year-to-date column is where it stings.

• Bitcoin: $76,010, down 3.22% in 24 hours, down 13.14% YTD
• Ethereum: $2,414, down 3.67% in 24 hours, down 18.64% YTD
• BNB: $717.51, down 0.57% in 24 hours, down 16.88% YTD
• XRP: $1.38, down 0.75% in 24 hours, down 24.58% YTD
• Solana: $99.13, down 2.58% in 24 hours, down 20.36% YTD
• Dogecoin: $0.08167, down 2.62% in 24 hours, down 30.37% YTD

Crypto equities are taking it worse than the coins themselves, which is exactly what you would expect from higher-beta instruments. Coinbase is down roughly 6.7%, Circle around 8%, Bullish 4.6% and Robinhood 3.6%. One market researcher put it plainly to CoinDesk: if CLARITY stalls, crypto equities give back more than Bitcoin does, because they carry the leverage to the regulatory outcome.

Over $200 million in crypto positions were liquidated in the twelve hours leading into the European session. Funding rates have drifted toward zero and futures premiums have compressed, which is another way of saying the leveraged longs have already been cleaned out ahead of the headline.

Is the Fed Making This Worse?

Yes, and this is the piece most people are ignoring.

The FOMC meets on 15 and 16 September, and this is not a debate about the size of a cut. Futures and prediction markets are pricing an 85% to 91% chance of a 25 basis point hike, which would lift the federal funds range off the 3.50% to 3.75% level that has held all year. Crude oil has rebounded to around $103 a barrel, reviving inflation concerns and giving the Fed cover to tighten.

Stack that on top of the CLARITY vote and you get two binary macro events resolving inside roughly 24 hours, both of which can go against risk assets. Bitcoin sitting at $76,000 with thin conviction is not a calm market. It is a market with its hands over its eyes.

Why Are Monero and Zcash Still Green?

This is the most interesting line in the table today, and it is not a coincidence.

Monero is up 4.27% over 24 hours at $516.17 and up 19.15% YTD. Zcash is down 2.08% on the day but still up 118.68% year to date at $1,115.52. Hyperliquid is down 2.84% today but up an absurd 227.26% YTD.

Privacy coins do not care whether the CFTC or the SEC wins a jurisdictional argument, because neither outcome changes their thesis. When the entire market is repricing regulatory exposure, the assets with the least regulatory exposure hold up best. That is the same reason Tether and USDC sit flat at the top of the table while everything with a US listing bleeds.

It is not a bullish signal for crypto broadly. It is a tell about what today's sell-off is actually made of.

What Happens After the Vote?

Three scenarios worth having in your head before 2:15 p.m. ET.

Cloture passes. Expect a sharp relief rally, likely amplified by a short squeeze given how aggressively positioning has been cut. But temper it. Passing cloture only opens floor debate, amendments and an eventual up-or-down vote, all of which have to fit into a legislative calendar that is competing with budget reconciliation and closing before the midterms.

Cloture fails narrowly. Negotiations continue, odds stay low, and Bitcoin likely chops in a range while the SEC and CFTC keep shaping policy through regulation rather than legislation. Not a disaster, but the sustained rally case gets pushed out.

Cloture fails badly. The bill is done for 2026 and probably until the next Congress. That is the scenario where the current 3% move starts looking like a warm-up, and where crypto equities lead the market lower.

Whatever happens, remember that the Fed decision lands the following day. Even a clean CLARITY win can be overwritten by a hawkish Powell press conference twenty hours later. Position sizes should reflect that.

As things stand, the digital euro will not be an unlimited account at the European Central Bank. The draft provides for a cap on the balance you are allowed to hold in digital euros, and this holding limit is exactly where the legislative process is currently stuck. The figures under discussion range from a few hundred to a few thousand euros per person, the balance would not pay interest, and anything above the cap is meant to flow on automatically to your ordinary bank account. For you as an investor, that means one thing: the digital euro will be a means of payment rather than an investment, and it competes with cards, wallet apps and euro stablecoins far more than with Bitcoin.

None of this is settled yet. On July 9, 2026 the European Parliament merely cleared its negotiating mandate, by 416 votes to 169, with 22 abstentions. Since then Parliament, Council and Commission have been negotiating the final text in what is known as the trilogue. This article sorts out what the text already fixes, what remains open, and which of it actually touches your account, your payments and your crypto holdings.

Digital Euro Explained: What Central Bank Digital Money Is

Central bank digital money is electronic money issued directly by the central bank rather than by a commercial bank. That is the decisive difference from the balance sitting in your current account today: that balance is a claim against your bank. If the bank fails, statutory deposit protection covers up to 100,000 euros. A digital euro, by contrast, would be a claim against the Eurosystem itself, and therefore as failure-proof as a banknote in your pocket.

The ECB stresses that the digital euro is meant to complement cash, not replace it. Its official answers on the project state explicitly that it would complement cash but not replace it. In practice you would use it through an app provided by your bank or by another payment service provider, in shops, online and between private individuals. Two variants are planned: an online function and an offline function that also works without an internet connection.

The political driver behind it is strategic rather than technical. A large share of European card payments runs through providers based outside the EU. The digital euro is meant to create a European alternative that still works if access to foreign payment infrastructure becomes harder for political reasons.

How High Will the Digital Euro Holding Limit Be?

The holding limit is the maximum amount of digital euros a single person may hold at any one time. To this day no binding figure appears in the legal text, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight: the number is to be set after the law is passed, so that it remains adjustable later on.

Two solid reference points offer some orientation. The ECB itself has modelled hypothetical caps of up to 3,000 euros per person in its technical analyses. And in the political process, according to netzpolitik.org, figures between 500 and 3,000 digital euros per person are circulating. The range is wide because it has to balance two opposing goals.

On one side, the digital euro is supposed to work for everyday life. Anyone wanting to pay for the weekly shop, a tank of fuel and the occasional larger piece of furniture will hit the ceiling quickly with a balance of 500 euros. On the other side stands the banks' fear of deposit outflows: if millions of customers shift several thousand euros each from their current accounts into failure-proof central bank money at the same time, banks lose precisely the cheap funding they use to issue loans. In a banking crisis, a high cap could encourage a digital version of the bank run, because moving the money costs no more than a few taps.

For your own planning, then, the realistic assumption is this: the digital euro will be a payment account on the scale of a well-filled wallet, not an overnight deposit account at the central bank.

Who Sets the Limit: Commission, Council or ECB?

The question sounds like procedural detail and is nonetheless the hardest point of contention in the entire dossier, because whoever sets the cap effectively determines how large the digital euro is allowed to become.

According to law firm Freshfields' analysis of the negotiating mandates, the positions line up as follows. Parliament wants the European Commission to set the cap by delegated act, meaning an act the Commission adopts on the basis of an ECB recommendation and which Parliament and Council can reject. The Council, by contrast, wants to keep the decision for itself, through an implementing decision by reinforced qualified majority, likewise on an ECB recommendation.

Both variants share one feature that critics see as the heart of the matter: the ECB recommends but does not decide on its own. In the Commission's original draft the central bank was considerably freer. During the process, as netzpolitik.org reports, the Socialist, Green and Left groups are calling for the decision to stay with the ECB, while the European People's Party and Renew want it with the Commission.

For you as a user the dispute has a very practical consequence. A cap set politically can also be changed politically, upwards as well as downwards. A digital euro whose limit could be lowered at short notice in a crisis is a different product from one with a stable, technically grounded ceiling.

What Happens to Amounts Above the Holding Limit? The Waterfall Function Explained

The waterfall function is the mechanism that automatically drains money from your digital euro holding to your linked current account as soon as the balance would exceed the cap. So if 2,000 euros of salary arrive in digital euros while your limit sits at 1,500 euros, the remaining 500 euros land in your bank account without any action on your part.

The reverse direction goes with it, known in the jargon as the reverse waterfall: if you want to pay 800 euros in digital euros but hold only 200, the system automatically pulls the missing amount from your current account. Without this mechanism the holding limit would be an imposition in daily use, because every larger payment would first require a manual top-up.

Both functions presuppose one thing: a linked account at a commercial bank. Anyone wanting to use a pure digital euro account without a banking relationship runs into a limit of the model here. Access through public bodies is envisaged for people without a bank account, but the waterfall logic only works to a limited extent there.

Is There Interest on Digital Euro Holdings?

No, and that is one of the few genuinely fixed points in the entire project. The ECB puts it this way in its answers on the digital euro: as with cash in your purse, digital euro account holdings would not bear interest.

It is built that way on purpose. An interest-bearing digital euro would compete with overnight deposits and would fuel the flight of deposits from the banking system further. The combination of a cap and zero interest is the double bolt with which legislators pin the digital euro to its role as a means of payment.

A simple calculation follows for the way you divide up your assets. Digital euro holdings lose real value under inflation, exactly as cash does. They suit day-to-day payments and a small reserve, not sums that sit still for months. Anyone already holding part of their money in Bitcoin or other crypto assets will have nothing to change on account of the digital euro: the two things solve different jobs.

How Much Privacy Does the Digital Euro Offer Online and Offline?

It pays to separate the two variants cleanly here, because in data protection terms they are two different products.

For offline payments the ECB describes the ambition as personal transaction data being known to only two people: the person paying and the person receiving the money. That comes close to a cash payment, because the amounts are stored locally on the device and no third party sees the transaction. For online payments the ambition is worded more weakly: users making or receiving payments are not to be identified by the Eurosystem. The payment itself, however, runs through a payment service provider, which is subject to anti-money-laundering rules as it is today and therefore does see the data.

In Parliament there were additional pushes for a genuine anonymity threshold for small amounts. As netzpolitik.org reports, MEP Martin Schirdewan called for a privacy threshold on smaller payments that would guarantee the highest possible anonymity, much like cash; MEP Markus Ferber put a concrete figure of 100 euros on it. Whether such a threshold makes it into the final text is open.

Anyone making data protection the yardstick should draw the comparison honestly. Measured against a card payment, the digital euro in its offline variant would be a step forward. Measured against cash it remains a step back, and measured against a self-custodied wallet on a public blockchain it is a different model altogether: there, every transaction is visible to everyone, but not automatically tied to a name.

Do Merchants Have to Accept the Digital Euro, and What Does It Cost You?

For private customers, use is meant to be free of charge. The ECB holds out the prospect of consumers paying in digital euros without fees, while a cap on fees is to apply to merchants.

A great deal of money hangs on that cap, which is why Parliament and Council pursue different models. Under the Freshfields analysis, Parliament wants ceilings at the level of the individual merchant, the Council instead wants national ceilings that apply where they fall below a uniform figure for the euro area. The duration of the transitional model for compensating banks is also contested: the Council wants to cap it at ten years, while Parliament considers a permanent solution possible if the Commission can demonstrate lower costs for merchants and higher efficiency.

The two sides agree on two points that count in daily life: the digital euro is to be available online and offline, and there is to be an acceptance obligation for merchants, from which certain groups such as very small businesses would be exempt. Anyone running a shop today and accepting crypto payments will therefore gain an additional payment rail in the medium term, one they cannot choose themselves.

Digital Euro and Euro Stablecoins: Where the Two Overlap

A euro stablecoin is a token issued by a private company that is meant to be backed one to one by euro reserves. Under the EU's MiCA regulation such tokens count as e-money tokens and need authorisation for that, in Germany through BaFin. The digital euro, by contrast, would be central bank money, with no private issuer standing behind it.

Functionally the two sit closer together than the legal classification suggests: fast euro payments, around the clock, without banking days. We have pulled apart the differences in liability, backing and insolvency in detail in our comparison of the difference between the digital euro and a stablecoin. What matters for you: a stablecoin is only as good as the reserve behind it and the supervision over it, and you check that best on a regulated platform with a European licence, of the kind we set side by side in our overview of the best regulated crypto exchanges.

The banking camp took up the competition long ago. As we reported on September 9, 2026, a consortium of 37 European banks is working on a joint euro stablecoin. If the digital euro only arrives in 2029, the private market will decide in the meantime which euro tokens provide the infrastructure for European payments.

Does the Digital Euro Change Anything for Bitcoin and Self-Custody?

The digital euro changes nothing about the Bitcoin protocol. It is a state-issued currency with central control over supply and rules, and Bitcoin is the opposite of that. Anyone holding Bitcoin as a scarce, independent store of value gains no new argument from a state means of payment, either for or against.

Two consequences are plausible all the same, and both concern the edges. First, the question of who controls money moves further into public awareness, which brings attention to the debate around self-custody. Second, a working European payment rail with an acceptance obligation could reduce the practical need to pay with crypto in shops; for everyday life, paying is not why most German investors hold crypto assets anyway.

A third worry that is often voiced cannot be supported by the text as it stands: that the digital euro is programmable and payments could be restricted in a targeted way. The ECB has repeatedly stated that no expiry dates and no restrictions on use are envisaged. That only becomes verifiable once the regulation is finished, and that text is the reason why following the trilogue is worth the effort.

Timeline: Trilogue by End of 2026, Pilot in 2027, Possible Issuance in 2029

The schedule is public and internally consistent, as long as the law is finished on time. The EU Council fixed its position in December 2025, Parliament followed on July 9, 2026, and the first trilogue round took place on July 13, 2026 according to the Freshfields account. All the institutions involved are working towards concluding the legislation by the end of 2026.

Technical preparation runs alongside it. The Deutsche Bundesbank describes the state of play as follows: since November 1, 2025 a phase has been under way that prepares for a possible issuance of the digital euro during 2029, and pilot operations with selected payment service providers are to start in the second half of 2027. For that pilot the ECB selected 36 payment service providers in July 2026, according to the Bundesbank.

One thing matters for judging any headline you meet in the coming months: until the regulation is finalised, every figure named for the holding limit is a negotiating position, not applicable law. And even after adoption, the ECB Governing Council decides separately whether the digital euro is actually issued.

Which Points Remain Open in the Trilogue

The two negotiating positions allow a fairly precise reading of where agreement will still chafe. Freshfields lists the following among the points of contention:

• Competence for the cap: a delegated act by the Commission as Parliament wants it, an implementing decision by the Council as the Council wants it.
• Holdings of legal persons: Parliament wants an almost complete ban written into the regulation, the Council wants to leave the limit to the ECB, down to zero.
• Compensation for banks: a fixed maximum duration of ten years for the transitional model, against the option of making it permanent.
• Merchant fees: ceilings per individual merchant against national ceilings.
• Data protection: the Council text regulates the authentication of offline payments in detail, while Parliament emphasises the line of the General Data Protection Regulation and technical safeguards.

What you can read from these points is the real character of the project. The digital euro will not fail on whether the technology works; it will stand or fall on whether banks, merchants and supervisors can agree on how the costs are shared.

What the Digital Euro Means for Your Current Account

Your current account is not going away. As the draft stands today, a second, small balance is added, docked to your existing account and kept connected to it by the waterfall function. The account is to be opened at your bank or another payment service provider, and the basic functions are to be free of charge for private customers.

Realistically, then, your daily routine changes less than the debate suggests. The difference becomes noticeable where no European alternative exists today: in payments meant to work without card infrastructure, and in payments without a network connection. The more interesting question for investors is which euro tokens will actually handle payments in practice by 2029, and how well supervised they are.

Digital Euro: What to Take Away

1. Treat the digital euro as a means of payment, not as an investment. Uninterest-bearing and capped, it suits running expenses. If you pay digitally anyway, compare the terms of what you use today, for instance in our overview of crypto credit cards.
2. Check who is liable behind every euro token. Worlds lie between an e-money token under MiCA and central bank money when it comes to liability and insolvency protection. Where you buy and store matters too; our comparison of the best crypto exchanges shows the differences in domicile, licence and fees.
3. Follow the trilogue through to the regulation text. Only there do the cap and the data protection rules become binding. Until then it is worth looking at which trading venues operate under European supervision, as we examined in our review of the best regulated crypto exchanges.

More background on the open questions in the legislative process is available at netzpolitik.org; the central bank's official answers are set out in the ECB FAQ on the digital euro.

(As of September 15, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Nearly every major bank now expects the Fed to raise rates for the first time in three years. Markets have mostly priced it in, but the political fallout could run deeper than one hike.

The Coinbase-backed Stand With Crypto will add senators’ votes to its scorecards as it rallies crypto voters ahead of November’s elections.

Greg Brockman says OpenAI delayed launches and reworked its processes after a pre-release model broke out of a sandbox and hacked into Hugging Face.

The Senate fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance the crypto industry's marquee bill Tuesday. Bitcoin dropped as the no tally mounted, but the move stopped well short of panic.

The crypto market structure bill failed to receive enough votes to advance in the Senate.

itcoin, XRP and Shiba Inu are plunging after the U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act in a 49-50 procedural vote.

The US Senate has rejected a procedural motion to advance the Clarity Act, leaving the proposed federal crypto market structure framework stalled.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse says crypto will ultimately prevail regardless of the Clarity Act’s fate, arguing that superior technology tends to win even as the landmark bill faces mounting pressure in the Senate.

A massive 851% order imbalance traps bears in a $2 million XRP short squeeze ahead of Washington’s key crypto decision.

XRP has seen its liquidity index on Binance surge to its highest level in about six months as momentum starts to return after the July dip.

TLDR:

• U.S. Bank tested USBDC, its dollar-backed stablecoin, for a North America to Europe payment.
• The pilot ran on the Stellar blockchain under a 2025 partnership between U.S. Bank and PwC.
• U.S. Bank joins Open USD, a stablecoin consortium spanning more than 140 banks and fintech firms.
• Cornerstone’s DeSanctis expects bank consortiums, not solo coins, to define stablecoin’s future.

U.S. Bank has completed a test payment using USBDC, its dollar-backed stablecoin. The transaction connected North America and Europe through the Stellar blockchain network.

It marks an early step toward broader stablecoin adoption among traditional banks. The Minneapolis-based lender built USBDC through a 2025 partnership with Stellar and PwC.

U.S. Bank also participates in Open USD, a growing global stablecoin consortium spanning more than 140 banks, fintechs and crypto companies.

U.S. Bank Broadens Its Stablecoin Push

The pilot moved digital assets across borders while staying inside U.S. Bank’s compliance framework. U.S. Bank first partnered with Stellar and PwC in late 2025 to build USBDC.

The stablecoin was minted, paid and redeemed entirely within the bank’s internal systems. The test signaled growing institutional interest in stablecoin use.

Jamie Walker, U.S. Bank’s digital assets lead, called the pilot “another step forward.” He said U.S. Bank’s focus is on solutions that “solve real client challenges” while maintaining safety and reliability.

Walker said USBDC works alongside the Open Standard and Zelle consortiums to address “distinct client needs and use cases.” He added that U.S. Bank keeps “a long-term focus on interoperability” across digital asset networks.

USBDC forms one piece of a broader U.S. Bank stablecoin strategy. The bank provides custody for Anchorage Digital Bank’s stablecoin platform.

It also offers bitcoin custody and a cryptocurrency ETF. U.S. Bank plans to keep working with GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoin issuers.

U.S. Bank is part of the Open USD consortium alongside more than 140 firms. Members include BNY, Huntington, Citizens, American Express, Visa and Mastercard.

Stripe, Adyen, Affirm, Klarna and Coinbase are also involved in the group. Stellar, citing American Banker, called the stablecoin “a faster and cheaper means” for cross-border payments.

Why Stablecoins Still Trail Bank Adoption

Stablecoins from crypto firms such as Circle and Tether still lead the market. Banks have largely waited for clearer regulation before issuing their own stablecoin products.

Stablecoin payments remain limited despite rising interest from financial institutions. Remittances, B2B payments and capital markets settlement are the most cited use cases.

McKinsey data shows stablecoins account for less than one percent of remittance volume. B2B and capital markets payments use stablecoins even less, below 0.01 percent.

Banks instead favor tokenized deposits, viewed as a less risky alternative. Research shows 24 of the top 50 banks now track tokenized deposits.

Tony DeSanctis of Cornerstone Advisors expects stablecoins to grow through scale and cooperation. He said stablecoins “will become a product of scale and interoperability.”

DeSanctis likened the outcome to Zelle’s rise as a shared network. He added that “a consortium of banks or payment processors” will likely be the end state.

Smaller stablecoin projects may struggle against larger, more interoperable consortium solutions. DeSanctis said “smaller consortiums or individual banks offering coins” are likely to lose ground.

He said larger solutions that “support multiple institutions” are positioned to prevail. U.S. Bank’s pilot shows how traditional lenders are testing these waters.

The post U.S. Bank Pilots USBDC Stablecoin for Cross-Border Payments on Stellar appeared first on Blockonomi.

PEPE once blasted to an all-time high of $0.00002803, but today it trades near $0.000003419, while Fartcoin sits around $0.1427 after tumbling from its own peak. Those numbers tell a familiar meme coin story: the biggest runs can happen fast, and arriving late can leave traders watching the party from outside the door. That is exactly why APEING’s live Stage 4 is pulling fresh attention in the best crypto presale 2026 conversation.

Now the spotlight is shifting toward a project trying to bring more than hype to the meme coin arena. APEING combines a live memecoin presale with staking, referral rewards, community competitions, and an Ethereum-based ecosystem built around participation. For anyone who watched previous moonshots fly past and thought, “not again,” APEING offers another early-stage setup before public exchange trading begins. With Stage 4 already live, the hunt for the best crypto presale 2026 is starting to feel less like a waiting game and more like a first-come race.

APEING: Stage 4 Brings a First-Come Opportunity to the Best Crypto Presale 2026 Race

Here is where the comparison gets spicy. PEPE and Fartcoin have already had their first big moments in the market, but APEING is still standing at the presale starting line. Its live Stage 4, called Banana Hoarders, puts the current $APEING price at just $0.0005, giving buyers access before the project’s stated $0.01 listing price. For anyone searching for the best crypto presale 2026, that difference is exactly the kind of early-stage setup that can make people stop scrolling and start paying attention.

Stage 4 carries a fixed 300 million-token allocation, while campaign figures show more than $93,000 raised and 445 million tokens sold overall. The important part is the structure. Apeing’s presale moves through scheduled stages, and earlier pricing does not hang around forever. Stage 4 is therefore less like an endless buffet and more like a banana basket with a fixed number of spots. Once this stage closes, the presale moves forward.

Michael Wrubel Spotlights APEING as the Next Big Crypto Contender, and the Stage 4 Math Is Hard to Ignore

APEING is not only trying to make noise through memes. Michael Wrubel, a well-known crypto creator with a strong focus on emerging investment opportunities, has discussed APEING as a project gaining attention in the search for the next big crypto. That kind of spotlight adds another layer to a presale already chasing momentum through its staged pricing, Ethereum foundation, staking system, referrals, and community competitions. The supplied campaign brief specifically highlights Wrubel’s attention as part of APEING’s growing narrative.

Then comes the number that can make even seasoned meme coin watchers raise an eyebrow: $0.0005 today versus a stated $0.01 listing price.

At Stage 4, $5,000 buys 10 million $APEING tokens. That makes the hypothetical post-launch scenarios especially eye-catching.

If APEING reached $0.50 after launch:

A $5,000 purchase during Stage 4, when APEING is priced at $0.0005, would secure 10 million $APEING tokens.

If the token were to reach $0.50 after launch, those 10 million tokens would have a hypothetical value of $5 million. That would represent a 1,000x increase from the Stage 4 price.

The gap between $0.0005 and $0.50 is substantial, so this should be viewed as a highly speculative scenario rather than an expectation. Still, it illustrates why early-stage pricing tends to attract so much attention when traders are evaluating a memecoin presale with significant upside potential.

If APEING reached $1 after launch:

The numbers become even more dramatic at a hypothetical price of $1.

A Stage 4 investment of $5,000 would still equal 10 million $APEING tokens, but at $1 per token, that position would theoretically be worth $10 million. Compared with the Stage 4 entry price, that works out to a 2,000x increase.

Reaching $1 would be an extremely ambitious outcome and would depend on factors such as market demand, token supply, exchange access, community growth, and broader crypto conditions. For people searching for the best crypto presale 2026, however, the appeal is often less about buying an established token and more about finding a project while it is still at an early stage.

How to Join APEING Stage 4 Before the Banana Hoarders Allocation Moves On

Getting into Stage 4 is designed to be straightforward, so buyers do not need to wrestle a crypto hippo just to participate. The official Apeing process follows a few simple steps:

• Visit the official APEING presale site
• Connect a compatible wallet
• Choose a payment method
• Enter your purchase amount
• Review and confirm the transaction

Stage 4 is first come, first served, with $APEING currently priced at $0.0005 against a stated $0.01 listing price. Once the Banana Hoarders allocation closes, the presale moves forward.

Want an early seat instead of another “wish I got in sooner” moment? Check Stage 4 and secure $APEING while Banana Hoarders is still live.

PEPE Price Stays 87% Below Its Peak as Trading Activity Keeps the Frog in Meme Coin News

PEPE is still one of the heavyweight names in meme coin news, but the chart has cooled hard from its glory days. CoinGecko puts PEPE near $0.000003419, about 87.8% below its $0.00002803 all-time high. Even so, its market cap remains around $1.44 billion, proof that the frog still commands a crowd when the meme market starts jumping.

The interesting part is the tug-of-war. PEPE has slipped about 5.1% over seven days, yet its scale and exchange reach keep it firmly on traders’ radar. That makes the PEPE price story less about discovering an unknown coin and more about asking whether an established meme asset can spark another major run. Bulls may still charge, but the easy peanuts are long gone. For readers scanning crypto presale opportunities right now, that mature profile creates a sharp contrast with a fresh memecoin presale where pricing is still moving through planned stages. Timing matters.

Fartcoin Price Slides 94% From Its High as Meme Coin News Watches for a Rebound

Fartcoin remains the kind of project that proves crypto can be weird, loud, and wildly memorable. The Fartcoin price is about $0.1427, while CoinGecko records an all-time high of $2.48. That leaves the token roughly 94.2% below its peak, with a market cap near $142.8 million. Its seven-day move is also deep in the red at roughly 21.6%.

Still, Fartcoin has not vanished into the meme graveyard. It continues to trade across major venues, and that visibility keeps it in meme coin news whenever speculative appetite returns. The setup, though, is very different from an early memecoin presale. Fartcoin holders are watching for a comeback from an established market price, not entering a staged sale before listing. Think of it as a penguin trying to climb an icy hill after a fast slide. The crowd may cheer a bounce, but the chart has already lived through its first hippo-sized cycle.

Conclusion

Based on the latest research and market trends, PEPE remains a giant but trades far below its historic peak, while Fartcoin is also wrestling with a steep drawdown from its high. Both can still make noise when meme coin news heats up, yet their stories now revolve around recovery and renewed momentum. APEING offers a different setup through a live, staged sale before listing. That contrast is pushing APEING deeper into the best crypto presale 2026 discussion as traders compare mature meme charts with earlier entry structures.

APEING is leaning into urgency with Stage 4, Banana Hoarders, priced at $0.0005 and tied to a fixed allocation that can close when its supply is taken. Its Ethereum foundation, staking, referral mechanics, Ape Wars, and memecoin presale give the project more to talk about than a meme alone. For readers who missed past runs and want the best crypto presale 2026 narrative with live-stage energy, this is the window APEING is selling. Visit the official presale, review Stage 4, and claim an allocation before Banana Hoarders moves on.

For More Information:

Website: Visit the Official Apeing Website

Telegram: Join the Apeing Telegram Channel

Twitter: Follow Apeing ON X (Formerly Twitter)

Frequently Asked Questions About the best crypto presale 2026

Is the APEING presale live in 2026?

Yes. Apeing’s official website identifies its crypto presale as live, while the latest campaign figures supplied for this article place the project in Stage 4, Banana Hoarders.

What is the APEING Stage 4 price?

The supplied Stage 4 price is $0.0005 per $APEING. Banana Hoarders has a stated allocation of 300 million tokens, while the planned listing price is $0.01.

How can buyers join the APEING presale?

The process involves visiting Apeing’s official presale site, connecting a compatible wallet, selecting a supported payment method, entering the desired amount, reviewing the transaction, and confirming the purchase.

What makes APEING different from PEPE and Fartcoin?

PEPE and Fartcoin are already publicly traded meme coins with established market histories. APEING is progressing through a staged presale and combines its meme identity with staking, referrals, competitions, and community-focused participation mechanics.

What would $5,000 of APEING Stage 4 equal at the stated listing price?

At $0.0005, $5,000 corresponds to 10 million tokens. If those tokens were valued at APEING’s stated $0.01 listing price, the resulting token value would be $100,000.

The post Leading Crypto KOL Spots APEING as the Best Crypto Presale 2026: Stage 4 Is Live With 1,900% ROI – Grab It Before It’s Gone! appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Intuitive Machines completes SXM-11 handover after successful in-orbit testing.
• SXM-11 strengthens SiriusXM’s satellite network and long-term service reach.
• The handover extends a partnership that has produced 13 spacecraft together.
• Recent acquisitions expand Intuitive Machines’ Build-Connect-Operate strategy.
• LUNR rises as SXM-11 adds another completed commercial satellite milestone.

Intuitive Machines (LUNR) stock gained after the company completed the SXM-11 satellite handover to SiriusXM. LUNR traded at $14.11, up 1.69%, after rebounding from late-morning lows toward intraday highs. The milestone strengthens a long-running satellite partnership and expands the company’s role in commercial space infrastructure.

Intuitive Machines, Inc., LUNR

Intuitive Machines Completes SXM-11 Satellite Handover

Intuitive Machines completed the SXM-11 handover after finishing successful in-orbit testing. The satellite now supports SiriusXM’s communications network as a fully operational geostationary platform. SpaceX launched SXM-11 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on June 28, 2026.

The satellite extends SiriusXM’s next-generation space network and follows the earlier SXM-9 and SXM-10 spacecraft. SiriusXM uses these high-powered satellites to strengthen service reach, reliability, and network resilience. The new spacecraft also supports the company’s premium in-car satellite radio services across its customer base.

Intuitive Machines and SiriusXM have worked together on satellite development for more than two decades. The companies have built 13 spacecraft through their long-running commercial relationship. The partners have also started work on the next satellite, extending the program beyond SXM-11.

SXM-11 Milestone Strengthens SiriusXM Partnership

The SXM-11 handover shows Intuitive Machines can deliver complex commercial spacecraft through full mission completion. The company handled design, manufacturing, testing, and final delivery requirements for the satellite program. This performance strengthens its position as a supplier of high-power satellite platforms for commercial operators.

SiriusXM continues to rely on the partnership as it modernizes its satellite network. The network supports broad coverage for audio services and connected in-car experiences. SXM-11 adds another operational asset that improves capacity and supports long-term service stability.

The project also adds another completed mission to Intuitive Machines’ growing space systems portfolio. The company serves commercial, civil, and national security customers across several mission areas. Its spacecraft work now reaches Earth orbit, cislunar operations, and broader deep-space infrastructure programs.

LUNR Expands Broader Space Infrastructure Strategy

Intuitive Machines has expanded its business through several recent acquisitions across the space sector. The company acquired KinetX, Lanteris Space Systems, Goonhilly Earth Station, and COMSAT. These deals add navigation, spacecraft, ground-station, and communications capabilities to its operating structure.

Management has organized these assets under a Build-Connect-Operate strategy for integrated space infrastructure. The model combines spacecraft production with communications networks and ongoing mission operations. That structure allows Intuitive Machines to compete for larger projects requiring several technical capabilities under one provider.

The SXM-11 delivery fits directly into this broader strategy and demonstrates existing execution in commercial satellite programs. Intuitive Machines continues building infrastructure for communications, exploration, security, and commerce beyond Earth. Its expanding capabilities support the company’s effort to operate as a full-service space infrastructure prime.

The post Intuitive Machines (LUNR) Stock: SXM-11 Satellite Milestone Strengthens SiriusXM Partnership appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Cisco expands Splunk AI with NVIDIA support for secure on-premises deployment.
• Splunk Tokenomics adds real-time tracking and forecasting for enterprise AI costs.
• Cisco adds observability tools to track agent behavior, performance, and risks.
• Splunk and AWS deepen product development around faster enterprise security tools.
• CSCO trades at $110.21 as Cisco broadens Splunk’s enterprise AI strategy further.

Cisco Systems (CSCO) traded at $110.21, up 0.13%, after pulling back from an intraday peak near $111.60. Meanwhile, Cisco expanded Splunk’s enterprise AI strategy through broader partnerships with NVIDIA and AWS. The company added tools for secure deployment, cost monitoring, observability, and faster security operations.

Cisco Systems, Inc., CSCO

Splunk Expands On-Premises AI With NVIDIA

Cisco expanded its NVIDIA partnership to bring self-managed Splunk AI into on-premises and air-gapped environments. The approach targets organizations that need tighter data control and stronger sovereignty protections. It also keeps sensitive information inside infrastructure already managed by enterprise customers.

Cisco AI POD for Splunk combines Cisco systems, NVIDIA computing, AI software, and Kubernetes architecture. The pre-validated system is available now for customers seeking local deployment of Splunk workloads. Wipro, bitsIO, and World Wide Technology can also support deployment on existing infrastructure.

Splunk AI Assistant already runs on the platform, while Agent Launchpad is expected later this year. Customers can also host selected open and proprietary models for Splunk Enterprise in their own environments. Cisco plans to add NVIDIA Nemotron models, giving organizations more options for local AI use.

Cisco Adds Tokenomics and Observability Tools

Cisco also expanded Splunk Agent Observability across Splunk Observability Cloud and Cisco Cloud Control. The service tracks agent behavior, model performance, and runtime activity across the AI stack. Cisco added guardrails designed to block inaccurate actions and reduce risks involving sensitive data.

New Tokenomics tools extend monitoring to token spending across AI agents and employee coding tools. The system tracks usage, assigns costs, and forecasts consumption before a billing period ends. Cisco designed the feature to connect AI spending with budgets and measurable business results.

Observability Studio helps teams build applications with monitoring available from the start. Meanwhile, Network Intelligence App adds Cisco network topology, device health, and events directly into Splunk. Cisco also introduced Essentials and Premier editions to simplify observability purchases and expand log analysis.

Splunk and AWS Expand Security Development

Cisco is also extending Splunk’s security strategy through a multi-year product development agreement with AWS. The companies plan to combine Splunk’s security platform with AWS cloud scale for faster threat response. Their work will support detection, investigation, and response as automated attacks become faster.

Splunk is expanding its Agentic SOC Workforce for detection, threat hunting, investigation, response, and policy tasks. These tools use enterprise telemetry across network, cloud, application, and identity systems to support faster decisions. Cisco also expanded Exposure Analytics with broader asset coverage, historical tracking, and business-specific risk context.

The strategy builds on Cisco’s 2024 Splunk acquisition, which strengthened its security and observability business. Cisco now uses Splunk as a core platform for AI operations, infrastructure visibility, and security automation. The broader strategy links local deployment, cost control, and security automation across Cisco’s enterprise software portfolio.

The post Cisco Systems (CSCO) Stock: Splunk Deepens NVIDIA and AWS Ties for Enterprise AI Tools appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR

• Oracle stock falls 1.34% as Java 27 launches with major security upgrades now.
• Java 27 adds post-quantum TLS protection for enterprise data and key systems.
• New Java tools improve AI workloads, cloud performance, and data processing.
• Oracle expands Helidon, JavaFX, and Jipher across its enterprise ecosystem.
• JDK 28 previews Valhalla and Leyden upgrades for faster Java applications ahead.

Oracle (ORCL) stock fell 1.34% to $142.85 after the company launched Java 27 with major security and performance upgrades. The release expands Oracle’s push into enterprise AI, post-quantum security, and modern application development. Oracle also introduced broader Java ecosystem updates covering microservices, user interfaces, cloud deployment, and regulated cryptography.

Oracle Corporation, ORCL

Java 27 Expands Post-Quantum Security

Java 27 adds hybrid post-quantum key exchange for TLS 1.3 to improve protection for enterprise communications. The feature targets future decryption threats while helping companies prepare applications for changing security requirements. It also supports secure data movement across APIs, cloud platforms, business systems, and distributed application environments.

Oracle added new cryptographic handling features to improve compatibility with modern security tools and certificate systems. Java Flight Recorder also gains in-process data redaction to reduce exposure of sensitive production information. These additions strengthen compliance support while preserving diagnostic value for large enterprise applications.

The release also advances post-quantum support across Oracle’s wider Java portfolio and regulated deployment tools. Oracle Jipher 20 now supports newer JDK releases and post-quantum algorithms through standard Java interfaces. Its inclusion in the Java Verified Portfolio gives enterprises clearer support and governance for regulated cryptographic environments.

Oracle Strengthens Java for AI and Enterprise Workloads

Java 27 includes performance tools designed for analytics, AI inference, scientific computing, and data-heavy business applications. The Vector API improves processing throughput without forcing developers to rely on specialized native code. Structured Concurrency also simplifies parallel workloads while improving error handling, cancellation, reliability, and observability.

Other changes improve code clarity and resource use across modern applications and large enterprise systems. Lazy Constants give developers more control over initialization timing while preserving application performance and correctness. New pattern matching features also make mixed primitive and object data easier to manage.

Oracle also enabled compact object headers by default to reduce Java Virtual Machine memory overhead. Meanwhile, the G1 garbage collector now becomes the standard option across all supported environments. These changes can improve application density, consistency, and infrastructure efficiency across cloud and microservices deployments.

Oracle Extends Java Ecosystem and Future Roadmap

Oracle introduced Helidon 27 with updates for lightweight microservices built on Java virtual threads. The framework adds declarative APIs, messaging support, and streamlined relational database access for cloud-native services. Oracle also aligned Helidon’s version numbering and release cycle with OpenJDK.

JavaFX 27 adds performance, usability, and accessibility improvements for rich desktop and enterprise client applications. The release includes a metal rendering pipeline on macOS and richer text editing controls. Oracle also includes JavaFX in the Java Verified Portfolio with commercial support.

Oracle highlighted JDK 28 early access as the next stage of Java platform development. Project Valhalla aims to improve data representation through value classes and more efficient object handling. Project Leyden targets faster startup, better peak performance, lower memory use, and future ahead-of-time compilation support.

The post Oracle (ORCL) Stock: Drops as Java 27 Launch Strengthens AI and Post-Quantum Security Push appeared first on Blockonomi.

The XRP Ledger’s Batch V1.1 amendment is one validator vote short of reaching the 80% threshold needed to begin its 14-day activation countdown, after a security rebuild that followed a critical flaw in the original version.

The revised code has gone through senior engineering review, adversarial testing, two external security reviews, and AI-assisted analysis before its current validator vote.

Batch V1.1 Reaches Final Vote Before Activation Countdown

RippleX developer Mayukha Vadari said the amendment shipped with xrpld 3.3.0 and is now up for voting. The update replaces Batch V1.0, whose signature-validation bug was found in February while the amendment was still pre-mainnet, meaning no funds were at risk.

The original flaw involved an early return in the checkBatchSign function. If a signer account did not yet exist on the ledger, validation could return success without checking the remaining signers. That could have allowed transactions to be executed on behalf of other accounts without their private keys.

Batch V1.1 removed that flaw and also addressed several other issues found during the rebuild. The process included review by four senior engineers, a Sherlock Batch Attackathon, a Halborn reassessment, a Common Prefix audit, Cantina AI scanning, and Devnet and testnet regression testing.

Vadari also said the team fixed additional bugs found through its newer AI red-teaming work. The changes include fixes for MPT validation bypasses, node crashes, path size validation, signature verification, signer ordering, and transaction hashing.

Validator sentiment is close to the required threshold, with one account, FrancisBovineSwift, describing the Batch voting as “nearly there,” with the most recent snapshot showing 27 trusted validators have voted for the amendment and eight against it, putting support at roughly 77% against the 80% threshold required to sign off on changes, with just one more vote needed to hit that mark.

Why the Batch Amendment Matters to XRPL Developers

Batch, also known as XLS-56, allows multiple transactions from different accounts to execute atomically in a single ledger close. If one transaction in an all-or-nothing batch fails, the entire operation reverts. The design does not require smart contracts.

The feature is intended for atomic swaps, coordinated settlements, and other transactions where multiple parties need to act together. It could also reduce the number of steps needed for NFT minting and transfers.

The security rebuild follows other recent XRPL scrutiny, after the network pulled its Permission Delegation amendment when a high-severity bug was found before mainnet deployment, with V1.1 undergoing additional review.

Furthermore, an XRPL testing dashboard launched this month has also made amendment testing more visible by tracking which transaction types, fields, and result codes have been exercised on Devnet.

The post XRP Ledger Batch V1.1 Nears Activation After Security Rebuild appeared first on CryptoPotato.

CoinEx is preparing to shut down its platform after nearly nine years as the weakness across the crypto market has made operations increasingly difficult.

The exchange said the broader industry has seen a significant contraction in trading volume and liquidity. It also cited rising regulatory requirements across major jurisdictions alongside higher compliance costs and operational uncertainties that it considers beyond reasonable boundaries.

Market Pressure Mounts

The wind-down process begins on September 15, 2026, and will follow a gradual schedule. Users can still withdraw funds from the platform until December 22, 2026. CoinEx’s decision also highlights the pressure facing established exchanges as the crypto industry moves through further maturity and consolidation.

BitMart and BitMEX also announced closures in July after operating since 2017 and 2014, respectively.  The pressure was spread across more corners of the crypto industry this year. DEX aggregator Odos wound down operations on July 30. Dango stopped running its L1 blockchain on August 13. Storj Labs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Previous Setbacks

Long before announcing its shutdown, CoinEx had faced its share of problems. Earlier this year, TRM Labs found over $3.84 billion in blockchain transactions between the exchange and sanctioned Iranian entities over more than seven years. TRM said CoinEx was the largest external counterparty of Nobitex.

More than $2.7 billion reportedly moved between the two platforms since late 2018. The report also linked it to over 60 Iranian crypto businesses. TRM further identified around $67 million from Iran’s central bank that reached CoinEx through a complex laundering structure between June 2025 and June 2026. Its founder, Haipo Yang, acknowledged that Iranian customers widely used the exchange but denied any relationship with the country’s government.

CoinEx also rejected claims that it knowingly helped sanctions evasion. While pushing back on the report’s findings, the exchange said Iran blacklisted it in 2021 and that it had never maintained an office there. It even questioned TRM’s volume calculations. Its troubles were not limited to regulatory scrutiny.

Back in 2024, the exchange suffered a $70 million hack after its hot wallet keys were compromised. The Lazarus Group was later reported as responsible. In 2023, it agreed to pay more than $1.7 million after a New York lawsuit.

The post CoinEx Calls Time After Nearly Nine Years as Crypto Market Pressure Mounts appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s price has plunged to slightly below $75,000 in minutes, losing more than 2.3% throughout the past 24 hours.

The sudden move comes immediately after it became evident that the Digital Asset Markets CLARITY Act will not get the necessary votes to advance without further debate.

The move also comes amid a massive uptick in liquidations, which soared by over 200% in the past day. The total number is currently around $760 million, where over $290 million of that were liquidated in the past hour alone, amid the serious volatility.

The rest of the market is also going through similar price action. Ethereum (ETH) is down by about 3.5%, Solana by 2.2%, TRX by 2.2%, HYPE by 3.8%, and so forth.

The failure of the Senate to advance the bill doesn’t mean that the legislation is essentially dead. Instead, it means that debates can continue, which will delay it further. Many sponsors have withdrawn their proposed legislation in the past following failure to advance at this stage, but whether or not this will happen to the CLARITY Act remains to be seen.

Keep in mind that tomorrow the US Federal Reserve will also convene to announce their decision on interest rates, which is also likely to cause substantial volatility in the markets.

The post Bitcoin’s Price Plunges to $75,000 as Senate Votes Against Advancing Crypto CLARITY Act appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Hyperliquid’s HYPE token needs to grow protocol earnings faster than its supply expands if it wants to hit the $319 price target laid out by Multicoin Capital, according to a breakdown shared by trader Crypto Patel on X today.

The post reframed Multicoin’s original valuation model, arguing that the real question isn’t whether Hyperliquid’s derivatives business keeps growing, but whether that growth can outrun token dilution.

The Math Behind $319

Multicoin’s base case, first published in June, projected Hyperliquid’s derivatives volume climbing from $2.9 trillion in 2025 to $20.2 trillion by 2028.

Apply a 20x multiple to the roughly $8 billion in annual earnings that volume would generate, and you get a $160 billion valuation. Divide that by an adjusted supply of 502 million tokens, and HYPE lands at over $319, more than four times its current price.

Patel framed the real question as, “Can Hyperliquid’s earnings growth outpace token dilution?” According to him, a bigger protocol does not automatically translate into a higher token price if new HYPE keeps entering circulation faster than revenue grows.

A companion chart from RR2 Capital, using data through September 10, layered Multicoin’s 2028 assumptions on top of more recent fee and volume figures, and it showed Hyperliquid currently pulling in about 3.30 basis points on gross perps fees, close to the 3.28 bps Multicoin used in its own model.

It also pegged Hyperliquid’s current share of decentralized derivatives volume at 30%, out of the 32% slice of the total futures market controlled by DEXs.

The scenarios aren’t static, either. Multicoin’s bear case, assuming slower derivatives growth and no meaningful contribution from newer products like HIP-4, puts HYPE closer to $109. Its bull case, built on a 50% CAGR for the derivatives market, gets to $689.

“The bull case depends on Earnings growth, market share, and supply discipline,” Patel wrote.

RR2 Capital shared his concern, pointing out that the risk is “whether earnings can outpace the growing token supply.”

Where Things Stand Now

HYPE has already had a strong year regardless of where the $319 target ends up. As CryptoPotato reported in August, the token hit a new all-time high above $82 late that month while Bitcoin cooled off from its own run.

It has since climbed further, touching $89.60 on September 6, and is now trading around $79, up nearly 38% over the past month and just under 50% in one year.

Meanwhile, Multicoin has been trimming its position even as it publicly backs the long-term thesis, selling 10% of its 4 million HYPE tokens in early September.

HYPE spot ETF flows have also cooled, with a net outflow of about $8 million reported last Friday and total net assets slipping to roughly $434 million from over $480 million earlier in the month as some of that money rotated back out.

The post Hyperliquid’s $319 Target Hinges on Token Dilution: Analyst appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The Senate has failed to advance the CLARITY Act. The necessary 60 votes were not reached, meaning that debate on the legislation will continue.

It is very important to understand that today’s vote wasn’t intended to pass the bill but rather to advance it further toward a final vote. This didn’t happen, which means that now the debate can continue, which will inevitably lead to further delays.

As we recently reported, the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act includes fundamental provisions that seek to establish a clear divide between what the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission regulate.

Moreover, the text introduces what it calls “ancillary assets,” network tokens whose value may depend on entrepreneurial or managerial efforts, while also treating the tokens as commodities and requiring specific disclosures.

The bill also seeks to address major issues plaguing the decentralized finance field. The latest revisions seek to require CFTC registration for relevant spot digital-commodity activity taking place on centralized DeFi protocols. This may sound controversial, but it essentially targets protocols that appear decentralized yet have identifiable parties who retain meaningful control.

In addition, the companies through which most Americans actually buy and sell crypto are also being put under consideration for regulation. The CLARITY Act seeks to bring exchanges, brokers, and dealers into a defined federal registration and supervision regime.

The post BREAKING: US Senate Fails to Advance Crypto CLARITY Act, Here’s What It Means appeared first on CryptoPotato.