Leeds' resilience against Brentford highlights their potential to challenge stronger teams, impacting their Premier League survival prospects.

The post Leeds United draws 1-1 against Brentford in Premier League match appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Martinelli's move to Al-Hilal highlights the growing financial influence of the Saudi Pro League, reshaping global football transfer dynamics.

The post Al-Hilal finalizes €70M deal to sign Gabriel Martinelli from Arsenal appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Pump.fun's rapid growth highlights the potential volatility and dependency on market sentiment, posing risks to sustainability and token stability.

The post Pump.fun app surges to $50M daily volume and 905K transactions appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The global economy's resilience amid US-Iran tensions may foster diplomatic negotiations, despite ongoing military and economic pressures.

The post Global economy resilient amid US-Iran conflict, benefits Trump family appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bessent's G20 diplomacy could reshape U.S.-Iran relations, impacting global markets and signaling potential shifts in international alliances.

The post US Treasury’s Bessent faces G20 diplomacy test amid Iran conflict, bond turmoil appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Cools Off After $3 Billion ETF-Driven Surge 

Bitcoin slid Friday afternoon, cooling down after a phenomenal run following huge investment from U.S. ETF buyers. 

The leading cryptocurrency was trading for $77,379 on Friday afternoon in New York after dropping more than 3% over a 24-hour period. 

Bitcoin hit a high this week of $81,281 but slowed down after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh gave his first major speech as head of the central bank — saying on Friday that he had “more work to do” to fight inflation. 

The Bitcoin price has in the past dropped when the Federal Reserve thinks inflation is too high because it means less chance of a rate cut; the leading cryptocurrency typically does better in a low-interest rate environment. 

Bitcoin started surging last week after the U.S. Treasury would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. The announcement last week hurt the dollar but non-yielding assets have benefited. 

Exchange-traded funds, managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, and Grayscale have received net positive inflows for nine days in a row, according to Farside Investors data. Last week was their best week since October — when bitcoin hit a new all-time high — and that run has continued into this week. 

Since August 17, investors have thrown over $3 billion at the funds. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust received the lion’s share of the investment, but Morgan Stanley’s new Bitcoin Trust — which debuted this year — also experienced significant inflows. 

Analysts have said that the so-called debasement trade — when investors buy an asset as a way to hedge against a currency losing value — was leading investors to eye-up bitcoin again. 

Investors taking part in the trade think that bitcoin, gold and other precious metals are a good way to protect themselves from excessive government spending. 

Total U.S. debt crossed $40 trillion for the first time this month. 

This post Bitcoin Cools Off After $3 Billion ETF-Driven Surge  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Debasement Trade Is Here Thanks to Government Debt — And Bitcoin Will Benefit: Grayscale

The debasement trade is back — and will benefit bitcoin. 

That’s according to asset manager Grayscale’s crypto research team, who wrote in a note this week that the U.S. government debasing its currency would lead to cash hitting digital assets. 

“Unchecked government debt growth undermines the credibility of fiat currencies and drives investors to seek out alternative stores of value like physical gold and certain cryptocurrencies,” the note by the firm’s head of research, Zach Pandl, read, adding that primarily bitcoin would benefit. 

The so-called debasement trade is when investors buy an asset as a way to hedge against a currency losing value. The trade was hot last year, and helped bitcoin’s run, but the digital asset’s run lost steam after October as traders turned their attention to stocks related to artificial intelligence. 

But since last week, bitcoin has benefited from news that the U.S. Treasury would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. The announcement last week hurt the dollar but non-yielding assets have benefited. 

“That buybacks are needed at all is the problem: heavy growth in government debt is driving up the cost of borrowing,” the note continued. “The Treasury is treating the symptoms (rising bond yields) because they cannot cure the disease (structural deficits).” 

The note added that on the same day last week as the buyback announcement, the Treasury also said the U.S. public debt exceeded $40 trillion for the first time.

As debt and interest payments grow, the government needs to either raise taxes, cut spending, or issue more debt. 

Bitcoiners see the more politically likely path as expanding the dollar supply — which is ultimately bad for the dollar, and good for scarce assets like bitcoin. 

After bitcoin started surging last week, the dollar had its worst week of August and was trading at a three-month low. 

Bitcoin was trading for $77,493 on Friday afternoon in New York after hitting a high this week of $81,281. Over a 24-hour period, the coin now sits unmoved, but over a 30-day period, it has jumped by more than 20%. 

This post Debasement Trade Is Here Thanks to Government Debt — And Bitcoin Will Benefit: Grayscale first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin’s Moment Has Come for the Far East, Says Metaplanet CEO

Bitcoin’s time has come in Asia — especially with a changing regulatory landscape — and its people and companies should take advantage. 

That was the message Metaplanet CEO Simon Gerovich gave at this year’s Bitcoin Asia conference, where on Friday he spoke of how his company went from failing to the third biggest bitcoin treasury in the world. 

Bitcoin Asia kicked off on Thursday in Hong Kong, bringing the biggest names in the space to Hong Kong to talk about everything from treasury companies to building apps from scratch. 

“The previous cycles belonged to the West, and the first Asian cycle has already started,” Gerovich said. “The only question left is who builds it. Will you?”

Often dubbed Asia’s answer to Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin treasury Strategy, Metaplanet pivoted from its core hotel and technology business to buying Bitcoin in 2024. The Tokyo Stock Exchange now holds 43,000 bitcoins worth about $3.3 billion at today’s prices.

Gerovich said in his speech that his company was small and going nowhere fast until it started putting bitcoin on its balance sheet, basically allowing investors to buy exposure to the biggest digital coin via its regulated shares. 

He said that the strategy is a major opportunity for Asian companies, which can now capitalize on the changing regulatory landscape and the growing interest in Bitcoin.

Asian nations, including Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, are making regulatory changes to support digital assets.

Gerovich noted that Japan in particular is a country where its citizens have saved like no other part of the world — and that capital can now be put to good use. 

“Hoarding cash has stopped making sense, and every household in Japan can now feel it,” he said. 

“Japanese households hold roughly 14 trillion dollars in financial assets. About half of that sits in bank deposits, earning almost nothing, and that’s just Japan, add Korea, Southeast Asia, and the wealth managed out of this place, Hong Kong, and you’re looking at the deepest pools of patient savings on Earth. 

“And for the first time in a generation, these savings are looking for somewhere to go.”

Gerovich added that Asian companies, institutions, and savers should take advantage of the current market conditions and build the Bitcoin infrastructure in their own regions.

“The end of the cash hoarding strategy and new rules are arriving at exactly the same time, and together, they set up what I think is the single biggest opportunity in Asian markets today,” he added. 

This post Bitcoin’s Moment Has Come for the Far East, Says Metaplanet CEO first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Capital B Raises €21M From Adam Back and TOBAM To Buy More BTC

Capital B, the Euronext Growth-listed company that bills itself as Europe’s first bitcoin treasury company, has raised €21 million ($24 million) in a private placement backed by Blockstream’s Adam Back and asset manager TOBAM — money it says could buy 270 more bitcoin and push its stack to roughly 3,415 BTC.

The company said Friday that a total of 36,219,070 shares were sold at €0.58 each as part of the deal, a 6.45% discount to Wednesday’s closing price.

Capital B said the net proceeds are expected to reach about €19.9 million after fees and transaction costs.

Capital B is the 27th biggest publicly traded bitcoin treasury in the world, according to Bitcoin Treasuries, with a total of 3,145 bitcoins in its stash — worth $245 million at today’s bitcoin price of $77,960. 

Capital B, which describes itself as Europe’s first bitcoin treasury, built much of that position through fundraising rounds during the first half of 2026. 

In May, it acquired 192 coins for €13 million after completing three capital raises.

Capital B’s announcement as other treasuries look to raise funds and accelerate their buys. Just this week, NYSE-listed AI-powered education company Genius Group said it was aiming to build parallel AI and bitcoin treasuries worth a combined $1.6 billion, after the company sold its entire bitcoin reserves to repay $8.5 million in debt. 

Bitcoin treasuries have faced headwinds since 2025 when the price of the leading cryptocurrency took a hit. A number of companies in the space have had to liquidate their holdings, including the biggest corporate holder of bitcoin, Nasdaq-listed Strategy.

This post Capital B Raises €21M From Adam Back and TOBAM To Buy More BTC first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Drops Before Shrugging Off Fed Chair’s Inflation Comments 

Bitcoin dropped, then popped after Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh gave his first major speech as head of the U.S. central bank and said he had “more work to do” to fight inflation. 

The leading cryptocurrency was recently trading for $79,474 after dropping as low as $78,630 before quickly rising again. 

Bitcoin has typically done well in a low interest rate environment but the Federal Reserve has been reluctant to lower borrowing costs due to sticky inflation in the world’s biggest economy. 

“But on the price-stability side of our mandate, the numbers are more concerning,” Warsh said after talking about employment. 

He added: “We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do.”

Bitcoin has in the past dropped on news that the Federal Reserve thinks inflation is too high because it means less chance of a rate cut. Following Warsh’s speech, traders priced in a 50% chance of rate hike in September. 

But Bitcoin has appeared to — at least for now — shrug off the speech. 

Bitcoin’s started surging last week after the U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the department would double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks. 

The news sent yields down lower, and the dollar slid while non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold jumped. 

Positive regulatory news also helped the coin: President Donald Trump last week said that the long-awaited crypto Clarity Act was a “very, very powerful” piece of legislation, and urged lawmakers to get it over the line. 

The proposed law will establish a framework for distinguishing between digital assets that are securities, commodities or payment stablecoins — legislation that the crypto industry has long called for. 

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City is on Friday holding the annual event at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where central bankers, Federal Reserve officials, policymakers and academics will gather to discuss “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy.”

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City website, this year’s event will touch on how “recent years have seen a dramatic increase in innovation in financial intermediation and payments,” including new technologies such as “cryptocurrencies and stablecoins.” 

This post Bitcoin Drops Before Shrugging Off Fed Chair’s Inflation Comments  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

OCEAN Mining has completed a buyout of co-founder and 16-year veteran Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr, ending his ownership and three leadership roles at the Bitcoin mining pool.

Dashjr resigned as chairman, chief technology officer and director, while OCEAN repurchased all of his equity, according to an Aug. 29 joint statement. Holding those board, technical and executive positions had placed him at the center of both OCEAN's governance and its mining-policy decisions.

The private company did not disclose the repurchase price, its remaining ownership structure or successor appointments. OCEAN said it will continue operating its transparent, non-custodial pool, while Dashjr will pursue a new mining venture called CONVOY.

At the reporting cutoff, CONVOY had not published enough to verify an operating pool. Its public profile and the announcement disclosed no endpoint, codebase, participating miners, infrastructure, fees or block-template policy. They also disclosed no transfer of miners, staff other than Dashjr, or infrastructure from OCEAN.

OCEAN still represents a measurable share

A Mempool.space snapshot at 07:07 UTC on Aug. 30 attributed four of the previous 163 Bitcoin blocks to OCEAN, equal to 2.45%. Applying that share to the endpoint's network hashrate estimate produced a block-share-derived estimate of about 24.57 exahashes per second.

The longer window was similar. Mempool.space attributed 29 of 1,007 trailing-week blocks to OCEAN, or 2.88%, while its latest weekly hashrate row put the pool at 25.33 EH/s and 2.86% of the network.

Across both windows, OCEAN remained within a broad 2.5% to 3% band that makes miner departures measurable without turning a single block into a trend.

Those figures describe hashpower directed to OCEAN, not mining machines owned by the company. A trailing 24-hour window can also move quickly as blocks enter and leave the sample, making it a snapshot rather than durable market share.

The joint statement said the separation reflected different visions following recent protocol developments, but it did not name BIP-110, Bitcoin Knots, a proof-of-work change or another proposal as the cause.

OCEAN added dedicated BIP-110 and no-signal endpoints in July, then returned its default endpoint to the non-BIP-110 chain on Aug. 9 while keeping both choices live. OCEAN said its DATUM system let participating miners control block construction. CryptoSlate's earlier coverage detailed the surrounding fork and proof-of-work dispute, but the separation statement did not tie a specific development to the buyout.

A functioning CONVOY pool, published mining instructions or a sustained change in OCEAN's share would provide the first measurable evidence that miners and template policy are moving. The corporate split alone does not.

The post Veteran Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr exits OCEAN pool – Will hash power follow him to new pool? appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Treasury’s proposed rules under the GENIUS Act, the new US stablecoin law, would let US exchanges and other digital-asset service providers keep offering some foreign-issued payment stablecoins, but only if they can defend why they trusted the issuer’s promise to comply with lawful US orders.

Under the proposed rule, a provider could rely on a foreign issuer’s representation that it has the technology and intent to comply with lawful orders, such as valid orders to freeze or seize tokens where applicable, and reciprocal arrangements only after conducting reasonable due diligence. Reliance would be barred when the platform knows, has reason to know or should know that the representation is false or the issuer cannot or will not comply.

Treasury says that diligence should, at minimum, confirm the issuer is not subject to a public GENIUS Act prohibition on secondary trading. That check would not be enough on its own. Platforms would also need to consider all reasonably available information about the issuer.

That standard shifts the access decision to the businesses that list, sell, custody or otherwise make stablecoins available to US customers. The proposal does not identify qualifying tokens or decide whether USDT or any other named stablecoin can remain available.

Two gates for foreign issuers

The proposal has two timing points. Treasury expects the Act’s general regime to take effect on Jan. 18, 2027, unless final implementing rules trigger an earlier date under the statute. A stricter offering limit would begin July 18, 2028.

From that later date, a covered provider generally could offer or sell a payment stablecoin to someone in the US only if it came from a permitted US issuer or a foreign issuer meeting Section 18 requirements. A qualifying foreign issuer would need supervision under a regime Treasury finds comparable, registration with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and sufficient reserves at a US financial institution for US customer liquidity unless a reciprocal arrangement provides otherwise. Its jurisdiction also could not be under comprehensive US sanctions or designated a primary money laundering concern.

Those issuer-level tests would sit alongside the platform’s diligence over lawful-order compliance. Even a foreign issuer with a potential Section 18 route would not receive an automatic pass from the exchange carrying its token.

The proposal is not a blanket ban on holding or directly transferring foreign stablecoins. Its exemptions include lawful direct transfers between individuals without an intermediary, certain same-parent transfers between an individual’s US and foreign accounts, and transactions through software or hardware wallets used for the individual’s own custody.

What counts as adequate platform diligence remains unsettled. Treasury is asking whether the final rule should require written or regularly updated issuer representations, record retention, smart-contract review, or checks of seize, freeze and burn functions. Those are questions, not current mandates.

Comments on the Federal Register proposal close Oct. 19, 2026. Until Treasury finalizes the standard and regulators make issuer-specific decisions, US availability will depend on categories and compliance evidence rather than a published list of approved foreign stablecoins.

The post Treasury proposed GENIUS change forces US exchanges to audit foreign stablecoin or face delisting appeared first on CryptoSlate.

A White House speech insider who worked as a teleprompter operator must surrender $107,539.02 in prediction-market profits after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission found that he traded on advance access to presidential speeches.

The settled administrative order also requires Gabriel Perez to pay a $65,000 civil monetary penalty, cease and desist from further violations and accept a three-year trading ban. The CFTC said the penalty was substantially reduced because of Perez’s exemplary cooperation. The cited materials describe a civil regulatory settlement and do not report a criminal conviction.

How the White House speech insider gained a trading edge

The CFTC found that Perez traded presidential “mention market” contracts between December 2025 and February 2026 while working as a White House teleprompter operator. The event contracts, which the regulator describes as swaps, settled on whether the President would use particular words or phrases during speeches.

Perez saw the speeches before they were delivered, according to the order. The CFTC said he misappropriated that material nonpublic information in breach of a duty of trust and confidence, converting knowledge of the prepared text into more than $107,500 in profit.

Other traders were pricing the probability that a phrase would be spoken. Perez already had access to text that would help determine the outcome, giving him an information advantage built into the contract’s settlement question.

The CFTC release announces settled charges against Perez and separately says the agency appreciated KalshiEX’s assistance. It does not announce charges against the exchange or say the agency found a surveillance failure.

The Associated Press reported in July that Kalshi enforcement head Robert DeNault said the exchange’s surveillance team “promptly flagged, investigated and referred” the trades to the CFTC. AP noted that his public statement did not name Perez. The CFTC’s final release confirms assistance but does not disclose the detailed timing of Kalshi’s review or referral.

That record reflects two distinct policing roles. A February CFTC advisory says designated contract markets have an independent duty to maintain audit trails, conduct surveillance and enforce rules against prohibited practices. The CFTC retains authority to investigate and prosecute illegal trading and says it coordinates with exchanges on referrals.

Kalshi later added controls intended to move some policing ahead of the trade. In June, the exchange announced risk scoring for markets with heightened insider or manipulation risk, employment verification for some participants and expanded whistleblower tools. Those measures came after Perez’s December-to-February trading period, and the available sources do not establish whether they would have blocked his activity.

The settlement shows exchange referral and regulatory enforcement converging after the profits were made: Kalshi was credited with assistance, and the CFTC imposed disgorgement, a penalty and a market ban. It does not, by itself, show that the safeguards were timely or sufficient to prevent the trades.

The post White House aide turned secret speech text into $107k on prediction markets before CFTC stepped in appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Coinbase’s new B20 stock tokens on Base place Apple, Alphabet, Meta and Nvidia-linked exposure on a blockchain that keeps trading through the weekend.

AAPLc, GOOGLc, METAc and NVDAc confer beneficial claims on underlying shares held within Coinbase’s tokenization structure; they are designed for eligible users outside the United States and differ from ordinary US-listed shares.

Coinbase describes continuous secondary transferability, while Base presents the assets as building blocks for decentralized finance. That DeFi pitch includes a prominent borrowing example. Base says a holder could use tokenized Nvidia exposure as collateral on Aave, creating an obvious risk question when the token continues trading and the underlying equity market is closed.

A Sunday review of the official Aave V3 Base address book found no reserve for any of the four tokens. The weekend therefore produced two separate findings: secondary-market prices were observable, while Aave lending behavior had no verified live B20 market to measure.

At 05:45–05:47 UTC on Aug. 30, the four leading Aerodrome USDC pools traded within roughly 0.6% of Chainlink reference values last updated Friday. Those held references make the measurement a snapshot of weekend token pricing against the last available equity-linked values. They do not provide a continuously refreshed estimate of the underlying shares.

Coinbase stock tokens held close to Friday reference values

Coinbase stock tokens separate continuous token trading from the operational rails behind the claim. Coinbase’s product page says primary minting and redemption are handled by KYC-onboarded institutional partners and Authorized Participants. Once issued, Base says the tokens can be transferred without wallet whitelists and traded through always-on automated market makers. A trader can therefore buy or sell tokenized exposure even while the primary US equity market is closed.

A snapshot of the leading Aerodrome pools at 05:45 UTC showed about $6.07 million in aggregate displayed liquidity and $7.08 million in aggregate 24-hour volume. DEX Screener defines pool-liquidity and volume fields for its live endpoint, but displayed liquidity remains a rough depth indicator. It does not promise that a trade of a particular size will clear near the quoted price.

The four official Chainlink feed proxies at 05:47 UTC returned Friday update times: 17:01:55 UTC for AAPL, 15:59:21 for GOOGL, 19:10:19 for META and 18:50:11 for NVDA. Comparing those held values with DEX Screener’s rounded dollar prices produced this Sunday snapshot:

All four gaps were smaller than 0.6% at the cutoff. This supports a dated statement about prices in those pools, rather than a durable peg, an issuer-solvency test or a guaranteed arbitrage relationship. Prices, volumes and pool balances can change after the timestamp. The comparison also says nothing about the execution price available for a large order.

The small gaps are still informative. Traders had a weekend market and chose prices close to the held equity references, despite the lack of fresh primary-market discovery. That behavior kept the first measured dislocation contained. Its relevance to collateral depends on a second layer: the rules a lending application uses when its reference feed stops advancing.

A callable oracle can still carry a held price

Base’s B20 integration guide says the launch assets use Chainlink 24/5 total-return feeds. Each value is derived from the underlying equity price and a multiplier, rather than the token’s DEX price. On weekends and holidays, the feed holds the last value and its updatedAt timestamp stops advancing. The Friday timestamps observed on Sunday were consistent with that documented behavior.

The weekend state reflects the feed’s schedule. It is distinct from an oracle outage. Chainlink’s equity-stream documentation describes extended market coverage and market-status data, while Base tells integrators to inspect updatedAt, apply staleness bounds and avoid settling or liquidating against a frozen value. Data delivery supplies the inputs; an application’s contracts still decide whether collateral can be deposited, borrowed against or liquidated.

That separation becomes important when the DEX market moves during a closed reference window. A sharp rise in the token price would not automatically lift a feed calculated from the held equity value. A sharp decline would require equally explicit handling so that a lending protocol does not rely on stale information for liquidations.

The Sunday prices remained close enough that this hypothetical pressure never emerged in the measured pools, yet the schedule mismatch remained present for roughly 35 to 38 hours at the snapshot.

Coinbase’s public page says primary creation and redemption are limited to KYC-approved institutional partners and Authorized Participants. The NVDA prospectus separately gives a “Vested Holder” a redemption right subject to prescribed instructions, compliance checks and operational acceptance.

The prospectus contains no categorical weekend bar on submitting an order. It defines a business day to exclude Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, and cash or stablecoin settlement requires the issuer to sell the underlying shares after validating a request. The terms also allow rejection, delay, suspension or modification in specified circumstances. Accordingly, the underlying sale and settlement process cannot be assumed to provide instant weekend arbitrage even while the token itself keeps trading.

For Coinbase stock tokens, this is the core 48-hour gap: the onchain secondary market remains available, the equity-linked feed follows a 24/5 schedule, and underlying execution and settlement retain business-day dependencies. A tight Sunday spread reduces the observed dislocation at one point in time. The different operating clocks remain in place.

Aave collateral controls remain prospective

The official Aave V3 Base address book contained no reserve, aToken, variable-debt token or Aave oracle entry for AAPLc, GOOGLc, METAc or NVDAc at the Sunday review. That finding is limited to the official V3 deployment list. It does not rule out every unrelated or unindexed contract anywhere on Base, yet it is the authoritative record for evaluating whether the marketed Aave use case had current V3 reserve parameters.

The forward-looking record points to work still ahead. An Aug. 3 Aave governance proposal said the initial assets, oracle configuration, risk framework and deployment contracts for V4 on Base would be finalized and published later. The proposal establishes direction, while leaving the B20 asset list and its risk controls unresolved.

No defensible live values were therefore available for a B20 loan-to-value ratio, liquidation threshold, supply cap, borrow cap or outstanding borrowing. There was also no verified Aave B20 liquidation activity from which to infer closed-market behavior. Base’s reference to Aave describes an integration goal; a live lending market requires deployed reserves and inspectable parameters.

Those eventual parameters will determine whether the timing mismatch becomes manageable collateral infrastructure. A lending deployment would need explicit oracle-freshness checks and a policy for deposits, borrowing and liquidations during closed reference periods. Conservative LTVs and liquidation thresholds could provide buffers. Supply and borrowing caps could bound exposure. None of those controls can be credited to the four tokens before the contracts and settings exist in the verified market.

The first weekend nevertheless supplied a useful baseline. Four active Aerodrome pools generated about $7.08 million of 24-hour volume and stayed within roughly 0.6% of held Friday values at the timestamp. That is evidence of orderly secondary-market pricing during one closed-market window. Its limits are equally concrete: the reference feeds were carrying Friday information, the prospectus preserved business-day dependencies for underlying sales and settlement, and the promoted Aave collateral layer lacked a verified live reserve.

Coinbase has made the market-hours mismatch visible onchain. The decisive stress test will begin only after a lending venue publishes its B20 reserve configuration and users place debt against the tokens. Until then, this weekend’s record belongs to the DEX and oracle layers, with collateral safety still awaiting deployed controls.

The post Crypto stock tokens barely move over weekend, revealing markets become illiquid when Wall Street goes offline appeared first on CryptoSlate.

The US Treasury expects to borrow $739 billion from July through September while paying investors to hand back some of its older bonds. The pairing looks self-defeating because both transactions involve the same issuer. However, they are on separate ledgers and solve separate problems: auctions finance the government and create liquid benchmarks, while buybacks retire selected old issues or help Treasury manage its cash balance.

Treasury's Aug. 3 borrowing estimate assumes a $950 billion cash balance at the end of September, then projects another $628 billion of borrowing from October through December. Its August refunding statement authorized as much as $38 billion of liquidity-support purchases and $25 billion of short-dated cash-management purchases during the current quarter.

Treasury widened the program on Aug. 19, lifting the maximum size of each buyback in the 10-to-20-year and 20-to-30-year sectors from $2 billion to at least $4 billion for operations from Sept. 9 through Nov. 4.

The announcement kept the regular auction schedule intact and confirmed that purchased debt will generally be replaced through new issuance, giving the government room to sell and buy bonds during the same financing cycle. Because the expansion came later, the earlier $38 billion quarterly figure isn't a final ceiling for long-end purchases.

New bonds get the benchmark treatment

Treasury sells bills, notes, bonds, floating-rate notes, and inflation-protected securities to fund the gap between federal receipts and spending, refinance maturing debt, and maintain its cash balance. Bills mature within a year and are generally sold at a discount, while notes and bonds usually pay interest every six months across maturities from two to 30 years. “Coupon” is the old name for that periodic interest payment, inherited from the paper certificates whose interest slips investors once clipped by hand.

An auction can introduce a new security or reopen an existing one, with competitive bids establishing the market-clearing yield and price. A new 10-year note receives a fresh CUSIP and becomes the current benchmark, while a reopening adds supply to that same security at a later auction. The August refunding, for example, comprised a $58 billion three-year note, a $42 billion 10-year note and a $25 billion 30-year bond, producing $28.7 billion of new cash once maturing securities were accounted for.

The newest security in a maturity bucket becomes the on-the-run issue, usually trading more frequently and at tighter bid-ask spreads than comparable older bonds. Traders and institutions use it for hedging and price discovery, giving Treasury a reason to keep benchmark auctions large and predictable even when its cash balance can support buybacks.

Once a new security replaces it, the previous benchmark becomes off-the-run while retaining the same federal guarantee and scheduled payments. Trading migrates toward the fresh issue and the pool of natural buyers narrows, leaving dealers to use more balance-sheet capacity when they warehouse the older bond. Investors can then face a wider selling spread, and small price gaps can open between securities with nearly identical interest-rate exposure.

Across a debt market measured in tens of trillions of dollars, small trading frictions become expensive when volatility consumes dealer capacity, and investors crowd into the newest issues. An old Treasury can retain the same credit quality and cash flows while becoming inconvenient to sell, which is why a liquidity-support buyback gives dealers and other holders a regular outlet for selected off-the-run supply.

Treasury buys the bonds the market leaves behind

Treasury announces an eligible maturity bucket and a maximum purchase amount before each operation, then approved counterparties submit competitive offers through FedTrade, with the New York Fed acting as Treasury's fiscal agent. Sellers specify the security and price, and Treasury evaluates those offers using market prices and relative value across eligible issues, according to its buyback guidance.

It can accept less than the published maximum when prices look unattractive, preserving the discipline of an auction rather than guaranteeing every seller an exit.

Liquidity-support operations focus on older coupons whose trading can benefit from a regular buyer, with Treasury retiring accepted securities as scheduled auctions keep building the current benchmarks. Josh Frost, then Treasury's assistant secretary for financial markets, described the program as a tool for ordinary market functioning that can reduce fragmented supply and free dealer capacity between operations.

Cash-management buybacks address a different problem because tax receipts, spending, maturities, and auction settlements arrive in uneven waves.

Treasury can buy securities that are close to maturity when its cash balance would otherwise run higher than desired, smoothing upcoming redemptions and giving debt managers more control over near-term cash needs. That flexibility also reduces the need for abrupt bill-auction adjustments around large payment dates.

Treasury's own borrowing estimates exclude a large net effect from the program because every repurchased dollar has to be financed somewhere else, all else equal. If Treasury sells $100 billion of new securities to private investors and buys back $4 billion held by private investors, privately held debt has increased by $96 billion. Reaching a $100 billion net borrowing target alongside that purchase would require roughly $104 billion of gross issuance.

That also lets sales and purchases expand together because the Treasury can deepen a current benchmark, remove a slice of older supply and still raise the net cash in its financing plan. The federal deficit determines the net financing need, while buybacks alter the age, composition, and maturity profile of debt held by the public.

The TGA carries the cash through the system

Auction proceeds and buyback payments pass through the Treasury General Account, the federal government's operating account at the Fed. When private buyers settle a Treasury auction, money moves toward the TGA and reserve balances in the banking system generally decline, all else equal. Federal spending and Treasury buybacks send funds back toward private accounts, generally adding reserves along the way.

The Fed's Aug. 27 H.4.1 release showed the TGA averaging $950.7 billion during the week ended Aug. 26 and standing at $959.4 billion on Wednesday, while reserve balances averaged $2.92 trillion. Treasury expects the account to finish September near $950 billion, reach roughly $1.05 trillion, plus or minus $50 billion, in late October and settle near $850 billion at year-end.

A $4 billion buyback can therefore put cash into sellers' hands on settlement day, and a larger auction can pull cash toward the TGA on another day. Taxes and federal outlays add more movements, so the reserve path depends on the full calendar rather than the headline maximum attached to one operation. Timing can loosen or tighten dollar availability for several days even when the quarter's net borrowing estimate barely moves.

The source of the money separates Treasury buybacks from quantitative easing because the Fed creates reserve balances when it purchases securities for its own portfolio, adding reserves to its liabilities and bonds to its assets. Treasury spends an existing TGA balance and replenishes that balance through taxes or debt sales, while repurchased securities are retired instead of joining a monetary-policy portfolio.

Those balance sheets give the two programs different effects because removing off-the-run duration can free dealer capacity, narrow relative-value gaps, and make long bonds easier to transact, while surrounding Treasury issuance can absorb cash and add duration elsewhere. Accepted offers, auction demand, settlement dates and maturity buckets determine the combined result.

Treasury preserves that two-sided structure because shrinking benchmark auctions whenever cash-management needs fluctuate would make issuance less predictable, fragment current securities, and risk higher financing costs over time. Regular auctions give investors dependable supply, while selective purchases let debt managers address older pockets of inventory without rebuilding the entire calendar around temporary cash swings.

Long-dated bonds are the most price-sensitive securities in the regular auction schedule, and warehousing them consumes more dealer risk capacity when yields move sharply. Older 20- and 30-year issues can linger once demand concentrates in a fresh benchmark, so doubling the per-operation ceiling gives Treasury more room to buy attractive offers while retaining the option to stop below the cap.

Treasury's formal objective is ordinary market functioning, and the agency hasn't announced a target for long-term yields. Purchases can still affect relative prices at the margin because they remove duration from selected issues and give dealers another buyer, which makes intent and market effect separate parts of the analysis. A $4 billion operation can ease a local pocket of illiquidity, while its scale stays small beside a Treasury market measured in tens of trillions of dollars.

For Bitcoin, the connection runs through reserve availability, long-term yields, collateral markets, and dealer capacity, all of which influence the cost of carrying risk across asset classes. CryptoSlate has tracked how Treasury yields can transmit stress into Bitcoin, and buybacks enter that channel by easing selected bond inventories while auctions move cash toward the TGA.

A well-received long-bond buyback could ease a local dislocation and lower one source of cross-market strain, while a heavy auction week or a rapid TGA build could absorb cash at the same time. Bitcoin can benefit when yields settle and dollar availability improves, though the size and timing of those effects have to be measured across the whole financing schedule. Treating every purchase ceiling as an equal injection assigns the program a power its funding mechanics don't provide.

The larger long-end operations begin Sept. 9, and the next quarterly refunding announcement arrives Nov. 4. Accepted purchase amounts, offered prices, demand for the new benchmarks, and the TGA path around settlement will show how much Treasury has improved trading in old bonds while continuing to finance the government through new ones.

The post How $739B in new US debt could absorb crypto’s liquidity before buybacks even reach Bitcoin appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin ran 26% in under two weeks, tagged $81,455, and then stopped at the exact price that killed the last rally. That is not a coincidence.

As of Sunday 30 August at 11:37 UTC, BTC/USD trades at $78,019 on Bitstamp, down 0.12% on the day. The weekend has been quiet. The week before it was anything but.

Why Did Bitcoin Correct After Hitting $81,000?

The trigger was macro, not crypto.

On Friday 28 August, new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered his first Jackson Hole keynote. He pointed at PCE inflation still running 3.7% year over year, and a hotter 4.1% annualised over the previous six months. The message: the Fed still has work to do.

Markets repriced fast. September rate-hike odds on CME FedWatch jumped to roughly 56% from 35% a day earlier, touching 60% intraday. Gold fell 2.4%, US equities gave up early gains, and Bitcoin dropped from $81,455 to a low of $76,845 before closing near $77,800.

The leverage flush did the rest. CoinGlass logged around $486 million in liquidations across roughly 95,731 traders, with longs taking $368 million. Altcoins took it harder: $Ethereum closed at $2,443 (-2.70%), $Solana at $104.13 (-4.65%), $XRP at $1.3833 (-4.80%).

What Do Bitcoin ETF Flows Say About Institutional Demand?

US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $201.81 million in net outflows on 28 August, snapping a nine-day inflow streak that had pulled close to $3 billion into the funds since 17 August.

ARK 21Shares ARKB drove it with $114.9 million out, followed by Bitwise BITB at $49.7 million and BlackRock IBIT at just $33.4 million. Morgan Stanley's MSBT was one of the few with fresh money at $9.3 million in.

That distribution matters. IBIT's small share of the redemptions suggests profit-taking after a fast rally, not a broad institutional exit. August month-to-date inflows still sit above $3.1 billion, the strongest month of 2026, and the funds collectively hold more than a million bitcoin. The reversal came one day after the complex crossed $100 billion in net assets.

Ether ETFs went the other way entirely, adding $102 million on the same day for a tenth straight session of inflows.

Still, ETF creations force funds to buy spot and redemptions force them to sell. If the outflows extend this week, the market loses the bid that held $80,000.

What Does the Bitcoin Chart Show Right Now?

$Bitcoin bottomed near $62,277 in mid-August, went near-vertical, cleared the 200-day EMA at $72,170 in days, and ran straight into $78,670. It is now sitting on that line, unable to close above it.

The problem is that $78,670 is the same level that capped the early May rally. Back then BTC consolidated just under it for two weeks, failed, and collapsed to the low $60,000s by June. The current structure is a near-perfect echo, with one key difference: in May the 200 EMA was overhead and falling. Today it sits below price at $72,170 and has started to flatten.

Momentum is cooling. Daily RSI reads 71.03, overbought, and has already crossed below its own moving average at 74.90.

One more detail most analysis misses: the move up was fast enough to leave a volume vacuum between roughly $68,000 and $76,000. Air like that cuts both ways.

What Are the Upside Bitcoin Price Targets?

Everything hinges on a daily close above $78,670 with volume behind it.

• $81,455 is target one, the 28 August high and effectively the same zone as the 50-week moving average near $81,000. That average has separated bull and bear phases through most of Bitcoin's history, making it the most important level of this cycle. A breakout needs genuine spot demand rather than short covering to hold above $82,000.
• $88,000 is next, the first clean structural resistance above it.
• $100,000 remains the stretch case. Standard Chartered's Geoff Kendrick has said his year-end call may now be too low, but that needs the Fed narrative to flip on a soft inflation print before 16 September.

What Are the Downside Bitcoin Price Targets?

If $78,670 rejects a second time, the levels below are clean.

• $74,450 is first support and the most likely landing zone for an ordinary pullback. Holding here keeps the uptrend intact.
• $72,170, the 200-day EMA, is the real line. Losing it means the August rally was a bear market rally.
• $66,803 to $65,000 is the shelf $BTC built through July and early August. A drop here erases most of the move but leaves the structure repairable.
• $62,277 is the rally origin. A full round trip back would be a textbook failed breakout.
• $58,000 is the bear case. Glassnode has warned that sellers look exhausted but buyers are absent, and that a break of $58,500 opens a deeper decline. Michael Terpin has flagged an October bottom near $57,000. This needs a September hike to actually land.

For context, Bitcoin has already fallen around 54% from its high this cycle, shallower than either 2018 or 2022.

Which Bitcoin News Could Move BTC Next?

The CLARITY Act remains stuck in the Senate, with bank lobbying pushing Circle and Coinbase shares lower on 28 August. A proposed SEC crypto custody rule, RIN 3235-AN46, entered White House review on 25 August. XRP ETFs advanced in two new US filings, and Grayscale launched the first spot Zcash ETP under ticker ZCSH on NYSE Arca.

Sentiment is the risk. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index hit 72 on 28 August against a 30-day average of 42. When positioning gets that crowded that fast, small catalysts produce outsized selling. Friday proved it.

Bitcoin Price Prediction: What Should Traders Watch?

Bitcoin is at a decision point, not in a confirmed trend.

The bull case needs a daily close above $78,670, ETF flows back in net inflow this week, and the $76,700 to $77,300 area holding on a retest. Get all three and $81,000 falls, with $88,000 open behind it.

The bear case needs one thing: a second rejection here followed by a loss of $72,170. That reopens $65,000 fast, given how little volume sits in between.

The base case is chop. Overbought into resistance, strong but cooling structure underneath, and a genuinely uncertain Fed three weeks out. Ranging between $74,450 and $78,670 while RSI cools is the healthiest outcome for the bulls, and it is what the chart points at right now.

Watch the ETF prints Monday through Wednesday. That is the tell.

Ethereum spent most of 2026 as the market's punching bag. Then, in the space of six trading sessions, it went from forgotten altcoin to the best performing major asset in crypto. ETH is trading at $2,453.79 as of August 30, and the question every trader is now asking is simple: was that the start of something, or just a very expensive short squeeze?

Here is the full Ethereum price analysis, what drove the move, what the chart says right now, and where the realistic bullish and bearish ETH price targets sit.

What happened to the Ethereum price in 2026 so far?

To understand the current setup, you need the wreckage that came before it.

$Ethereum opened June at roughly $1,988 and then fell apart, crashing to a low near $1,512 and closing the month around $1,558. That is a drawdown of about 22% in a single month, driven by a combination of Ethereum Foundation restructuring uncertainty and persistent ETF outflows. At that point $ETH was down more than 65% from its all time high of roughly $4,953 set in August 2025.

July brought a slow, grinding recovery. ETH clawed back to around $1,760 by early July and $1,953 by the end of the month. Through the first half of August it did almost nothing, holding just below $1,950 in a tight range that had been capping price for weeks.

Then came August 19.

Why did the Ethereum price explode in August 2026?

Three things stacked on top of each other in the same week, and that is why the move was so violent.

1. A macro catalyst. On August 19 the US Treasury announced it would at least double the maximum size of its buybacks of longer dated government bonds, from around $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation for 10 to 30 year securities, starting September 9. Long term yields fell on the news, financial conditions loosened, and risk assets caught a bid.

2. A brutal short squeeze. Months of ETH underperformance had built up a mountain of bearish positioning, and the Treasury headline detonated it. ETH jumped roughly 20% in a single session on August 19, its largest one day gain since May 2025. Short liquidations hit approximately $265 million in 24 hours and around $1.69 billion over three days. In one 24 hour window, $237 million in shorts were wiped out against just $65 million in longs.

3. Real institutional money, not just forced buying. This is the part that separates this rally from a standard squeeze. US spot Ethereum ETFs pulled in $697.2 million in net inflows across the five sessions through August 21, their strongest week of 2026 and their best showing since early October 2025. And it did not stop there. BlackRock's iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) attracted roughly $1.02 billion across nine consecutive sessions from August 17 to August 27 with zero days of net selling, capturing about 72% of all US spot Ethereum ETF inflows in that window. The broader category added another $102.1 million on August 28.

Squeezes fade. Nine straight days of ETF accumulation is a different signal entirely.

What does the Ethereum chart say right now?

Looking at the ETHUSD daily chart, here is the current technical picture.

• Price: $2,453.79, essentially flat on the day at -0.16%, with the session ranging between $2,451.74 and $2,468.15. ETH ran from roughly $1,900 to a local high near $2,550, and it has now been chopping sideways just below the highs for about a week.
• The 200 EMA is the big one. The 200 period exponential moving average sits at $2,158.88, and price is now well above it after months of rejection. That blue line spent April through August acting as a ceiling. It is now a floor. That flip is the single most important structural change on this chart.
• RSI is cooling off, which is healthy. The daily RSI reads 70.28, down from readings in the high 70s and low 80s during the peak of the breakout. That is still technically overbought, but the fact that RSI is bleeding lower while price holds sideways is textbook time based consolidation. Momentum is resetting without a price collapse. That is what you want to see after a vertical move.

The levels that matter:

• $2,430 is immediate support and the line ETH is currently sitting on. This was resistance through April and May. It needs to hold.
• $2,200 is the next major support, and it lines up closely with the 200 EMA zone at $2,158.
• $1,800 is the last line of defence, the level that capped the July recovery.
• $2,750 is the first significant overhead resistance, the supply zone that capped price back in May.
• $3,330 is the big structural target sitting well above current price.

Volume tells a supporting story. The breakout sessions printed the heaviest turnover since the June selloff, which is exactly what was missing during the four failed attempts to clear the moving averages earlier in the summer.

What is the latest Ethereum news? Glamsterdam explained

The biggest fundamental story around Ethereum right now is not the price, it is the Glamsterdam hard fork, the network's most significant protocol change since The Merge.

Glamsterdam combines the Gloas consensus layer upgrade with the Amsterdam execution layer upgrade, and both must activate together. It is built around two headliner proposals:

• EIP-7732 (Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation) moves block building on chain and is projected to cut MEV extraction by up to 70%.
• EIP-7928 (Block-Level Access Lists) enables parallel transaction processing, with a target of pushing the gas limit from around 60 million toward 200 million and throughput toward 10,000 transactions per second.
• A gas repricing package (EIP-7904) is projected to cut Layer 1 fees by roughly 78.6%.

The timeline has slipped repeatedly. Glamsterdam was originally targeted for the first half of 2026, then Q3, and developers have now pushed the mainnet target to Q4 2026. The Ethereum Foundation launched a dedicated public testnet called Platåberget on August 13, running around 50,000 validators across roughly 50 nodes, with the Glamsterdam fork activating on that testnet on August 20 before it moves to Sepolia and Hoodi.

There is a warning attached. The Foundation's Protocol DevOps team has said that wallets, indexers and gas estimation tools that assume a hardcoded maximum gas limit or a single gas dimension will break after the upgrade. EIP-8037 introduces a separate state gas dimension, meaning transfers to new accounts will cost more than the flat 21,000 gas that developers have assumed for a decade. Regular ETH holders need to do nothing, but stakers and node operators must update both consensus and execution layer clients before activation.

For price, the read is straightforward: a delayed upgrade removes a near term catalyst, but a successfully shipped Glamsterdam in Q4 with 78% lower fees would be the strongest fundamental narrative Ethereum has had in years.

What are the bullish Ethereum price targets?

The bull case runs like this. ETH has reclaimed every major moving average on the daily chart, the 50 EMA has crossed above the 100 EMA, ETF demand is running at the highest sustained pace since October 2025, and staking plus ETF absorption is steadily shrinking the liquid float.

Bullish ETH price targets:

• $2,550 to $2,600. The immediate ceiling and the local high from the breakout. A daily close above this range is the first confirmation that supply near $2,500 has been absorbed rather than sold into.
• $2,750. The May supply zone marked on the chart, and the logical first real target if $2,600 gives way. Several analysts have flagged the $2,700 to $2,800 region as the natural extension of this move.
• $3,000. A widely watched psychological level. Market commentators have argued a weekly close above the $2,500 to $2,550 zone opens a direct path here.
• $3,330. The upper structural target on the chart. This is not a September story. It would require ETF inflows to continue through Q4 and Glamsterdam to ship cleanly, but it is the level that defines the next range if the breakout matures into a trend.

For September specifically, forecasts cluster around a $2,450 to $2,950 band with a $2,800 central target, conditional on ETH clearing $2,500 and consolidating above it while the overbought reading unwinds.

What are the bearish Ethereum price targets?

Now the other side, because the risks here are real and they are not small.

Positioning is crowded. Retail traders are heavily long, with reports of roughly 70% long positioning on major venues, while top traders sit closer to 57% long. That gap between the crowd and larger accounts is a classic setup for a flush. Futures open interest ballooned to around $31.8 billion during the rally, and rising open interest into an extended move means leverage risk is stacking, not clearing.

There is also the honest structural point: a meaningful share of this rally was forced short covering. Once bearish positions are cleared, that buying pressure disappears. Squeezes historically revert.

Bearish ETH price targets:

• $2,430. Losing this on a daily close is the first crack. It flips the current consolidation from a base into a lower high.
• $2,300 to $2,350. The breakout zone. If price cannot hold here, the August move starts looking like an overshoot rather than a trend change.
• $2,200 and the 200 EMA at $2,158. This is the line that decides everything. A sustained break back below the 200 EMA invalidates the entire breakout thesis and puts ETH back inside the range it spent all summer trapped in.
• $1,800. Worst case. Only relevant if ETF flows reverse hard and the broader macro bid disappears.

Macro is a wildcard too. Firmer US inflation data has revived talk of tighter Fed policy, and speculative assets like ETH are the first to feel that pressure.

What should Ethereum traders watch next?

Three things, in order of importance.

• ETF flows. The moment BlackRock's ETHA streak posts a session of net redemptions, the strongest pillar under this rally weakens. Sustained inflows through September would carry far more weight than one strong week tied to a macro headline.
• The first real pullback. Watch the volume on the way down. Light volume on a dip means profit taking inside an uptrend. Heavy selling into a decline means distribution near $2,500 and a very different picture.
• The $2,430 to $2,550 box. ETH is coiled between support and resistance. Whichever side breaks on strong volume sets the direction for September.

Ethereum remains roughly 50% below its August 2025 all time high near $4,953. That is either the bear case or the opportunity, depending on how much you believe the institutional bid is real.

Until 3 September 2026, 01:00 UTC, the Sushi DAO is voting on how much of the protocol's fee income still reaches xSUSHI holders. The proposal caps buybacks at 1 percent of protocol fees plus 1 percent of perpetuals revenue. Everything above that moves into a newly created protocol reserve and to the operations team. Anyone staking SUSHI has until that date to act on it.

The process has drawn little coverage so far. This text therefore relies on the voting record itself, on independent fee data, and on an own measurement of the voting-power contract taken on 30 August 2026 at 06:37 UTC. Every figure below was recorded at that moment.

What the 3 September vote decides about Sushi staking yield

The proposal on the table is SUSHI Tokenomics Restructure: SUSHI Reserve, Revised xSUSHI Buybacks, and Protocol-Deployed Liquidity Deployment to Robinhood Chain, filed in the governance space sushigov.eth. It opened on 27 August 2026 at 01:00 UTC and closes on 3 September 2026 at 01:00 UTC. Three options are on the ballot: for, against, abstain. In DAO parlance, filings of this kind are proposals: drafted texts that a protocol's community votes on under fixed rules.

xSUSHI is the token you receive when you deposit SUSHI in the so-called Sushi Bar; it represents your share of the pot from which the protocol funds buybacks. Protocol fees are the trading fees the protocol charges the users of an exchange and then distributes under fixed rules. Those rules are exactly what the proposal changes.

In the proposal's own wording, revenue has so far flowed primarily toward xSUSHI buybacks. A fixed split is to apply in future, and in it stakers are the smallest of the three items.

What tokenomics means and why the fee rule concerns your money

Tokenomics is the full set of rules by which a crypto project issues, distributes and reclaims its tokens: supply, distribution, buybacks, lock-up periods. For you as a holder it is the difference between a token that is continuously assigned revenue and one that carries nothing but voting rights. What a protocol pays out in staking rewards is therefore a question of allocation, of how income is divided, and not a question of technology.

A DEX such as Sushi is an exchange without a central custodian: prices form in liquidity pools, contract balances that other users contribute as liquidity providers. Those users earn from the trading fees. What is passed on to stakers on top of that is a pure governance decision, not a technical property of the protocol. That is why a vote can change it.

This is the point at which a DAO formality becomes a question about your portfolio. Anyone budgeting for staking income should know that at many protocols the payout rests on a resolution rather than on a contract that guarantees it. How widely the models differ is clear from the comparison of staking platforms.

The new split of protocol fees: 1 percent, 4 percent, the rest

The proposal fixes three streams. First, 1 percent of protocol fees plus 1 percent of all revenue from the perpetuals business goes into monthly xSUSHI buybacks. Second, 4 percent of protocol fees goes into weekly SUSHI purchases for a newly created SUSHI Reserve, whose holdings remain protocol-owned and are to be disclosed through a public dashboard. Third, all remaining protocol fees, migration fees and other income goes to Sushi Ops, meaning development, incentives, partnerships, liquidity programmes, security and operations.

Perpetuals are futures contracts with no expiry date, in which a recurring settlement payment between the long and short side keeps the price anchored to the spot market. For Sushi they are a separate revenue stream, and the proposal treats them separately from trading fees. What matters most for holders is that this revenue stream, too, feeds the buybacks at only 1 percent.

One point of context: the reserve is described in the proposal text explicitly as a treasury function, not as a means of supporting the SUSHI price. No commitment to holders comes with it.

Why the cut applies retroactively to fees already accrued

The proposal is not limited to future income. It names explicitly all protocol fees already accrued and held by or for Sushi that have not yet been distributed. According to the text, the same applies to accrued perpetuals revenue as well as to migration fees and other protocol income.

In practice this means that a balance still awaiting distribution under the old rule today would, if the proposal passes, be distributed under the new split. Anyone who assumed accrued fees would still reach stakers under the previous formula should be aware of this paragraph. Historical claims from the MasterChef LP migration remain expressly unchanged under the proposal text; they are unaffected by the switch.

Who decides the proposal: 26.8 percent of voting power at one address

A signal vote, a non-binding sounding of opinion, ran ahead of the binding ballot. That preliminary stage closed on 25 August 2026 at 20:00 UTC with 5,213,018.14 votes in favour, none against and no abstentions, cast by seven wallets.

Of those, 5,200,299.37 votes came from a single address, 0xFf467361cC46dB493588cCd60733e391e856E492. That is 99.76 percent of the result. The remaining six wallets contributed 12,718.77 votes between them.

That order of magnitude can be checked independently of Snapshot. Voting power in the space is measured through the contract 0x62d11bc0652e9D9B66ac0a4c419950eEb9cFadA6 on Ethereum. An own query of that contract on 30 August 2026 returned a balance of 5,200,299.37 units for the address in question against a total of 19,399,067.14 units, the total supply of the voting right. That equals 26.81 percent of all voting power.

Concentration of this kind is not unusual in DAOs with low participation and is no accusation in itself. The finding says nothing about the intentions behind the address and nothing about whether the proposal is good or bad on the merits. It describes the mechanics alone. How consequential those mechanics can become when voting power and participation diverge was shown by the governance attack on the BONK DAO, in which a formally correct vote moved 20 million dollars out of the treasury.

Why the quorum of 5,000,000 votes is the real lever

A quorum is the minimum number of votes that must be gathered for a ballot to be valid at all. In the Sushi space it stands at 5,000,000 votes.

From the two measurements above follows the statement that carries the whole process: the address holding 5,200,299.37 votes meets the quorum on its own, at 104 percent. Without it, a vote in this space comes together arithmetically only if a great many small holders join forces.

A look at the space's voting history supports this. The four closed proposals that preceded the current one in the same space ended at 5,200,359, 5,215,215, 5,342,865 and 5,216,119 total votes. All four sit just above the quorum threshold and in the order of magnitude of this one address. That is an observation drawn from public voting data, not a claim about coordination.

How the live vote stands four days before the close

The binding implementation vote stood on 30 August 2026 at 06:37 UTC at 12,289.49 votes in favour, none against and no abstentions, cast by two wallets. That is 0.25 percent of the quorum.

The large address from the signal vote had not voted at that point. Two things follow, and both are relevant to you as a holder. First, four days before the close the proposal is far from valid. Second, a single vote would clear the quorum in one move.

The difference between a signal vote and an implementation vote is no formal aside here. The first measures sentiment, the second puts the rule into force. The proposal has already cleared the first stage.

How much yield actually reaches xSUSHI holders today

Sobriety pays here, or the news turns into scaremongering. Independent fee data put Sushi's protocol fees over the past 30 days at 1,331,834.81 US dollars, and at 6,690.43 US dollars over the past 24 hours. The portion of that reaching holders as revenue came to 9,098 US dollars in the same 30-day window, 2,492 US dollars over the past seven days and 199 US dollars over the past 24 hours.

What counts, then, is less the size of the fees than the part of them that lands with xSUSHI holders as a distribution. For SUSHI holders who keep their SUSHI tokens unstaked in a wallet, the proposal changes nothing directly.

The ratio is the actual finding: around 0.68 percent of protocol fees have lately been reaching holders. The proposal fixes 1 percent. The honest summary is therefore less dramatic than the headline of the process suggests: the vote largely cements a state of affairs that already applies in practice, and shifts the rest permanently and explicitly to the reserve and to operations.

For a sense of scale: total capital held in the protocol stood at around 95.9 million US dollars, with the SUSHI price at 0.1952 US dollars. What the resolution does to the price is expressly not stated here; this text makes no price forecast.

What risks staking carries, far beyond Sushi

The case works as an object lesson because it shows three risks that sit in almost every staking model and have nothing to do with the token's price.

Rule-change risk. A payout introduced by resolution can be cut by resolution. Anyone calculating a yield over years is calculating a rule that can go to a vote at any time.

Participation risk. When two to seven wallets decide over a protocol holding capital in the tens of millions, your voting right as a small holder is effectively without force. The right remains formally intact and loses its economic effect.

Expectation risk. Between the advertised yield of a staking offer and what actually flows there can be a gap you only see in the raw data. At Sushi it was lately 199 US dollars in a day, spread across all stakers combined.

On the tax and regulatory side, who offers the staking and under which licence it happens matters on top of all this.

Is staking worth it when the payout hangs on a vote

There is no blanket answer, but the question can be sharpened. Staking is worth it where the payout is tied to a durable revenue source and the rule cannot be toppled by a simple majority of a handful of wallets. Both are checkable before you deposit.

Check first where the returns come from: from genuine protocol fees or from the issuance of new tokens. Check second how many wallets carried the quorum in recent votes. Check third whether the payout rule sits in the contract or in a governance resolution. And check fourth how long your capital is locked up should you want to exit while a process is running.

Anyone working through those four points on an offer has learned more about their risk than any advertised annual yield could teach them.

What the liquidity move to Robinhood Chain has to do with it

The same proposal contains a second resolution point that is easily missed. It authorises the protocol to shift part of its protocol-owned liquidity from existing EVM networks to Robinhood Chain, starting with an ETH-USDG position in the V3 model. The text names a target of roughly 10 to 20 million US dollars of protocol-owned capital on that chain, executed in tranches and limited to the protocol's own pools.

For you as a holder this is notable for two reasons. For one, it moves capital into an ecosystem whose use you would have to assess separately. For another, this point sits in the same proposal as the fee cut: whoever votes on the yield votes on the move at the same time. The procedure makes no provision for a separate decision.

How to check your xSUSHI position before 3 September

Concretely and without haste: open the ballot page first and see whether the quorum has been reached in the meantime; the state of play may change within minutes once the large address votes. Then check in your wallet whether you hold xSUSHI or have SUSHI sitting unstaked in circulation, because only the staked position is affected by the buyback rule.

Next, record what your position actually returned over recent weeks. That figure, not the advertised yield, is the yardstick for the decision. And document deposits and withdrawals cleanly, because staking income is recorded for tax purposes and reconstructing it later is laborious.

Checking your xSUSHI position: what to take away

1. Put 3 September 2026, 01:00 UTC in your calendar and look at the vote before then. Until then it remains open whether the cut of xSUSHI buybacks to 1 percent takes effect. If you are comparing staking offers anyway, the overview of staking platforms helps in placing the terms.
2. On every staking offer, check who can change the payout rule. The Sushi case shows that a few wallets can be enough. If your interest lies more with the fee models of trading venues, the overview of perp DEX providers is worth a look.
3. Record your staking income as it accrues rather than once a year. With amounts that change monthly, clean record-keeping is the only route to a dependable tax return; suitable tools are set out in the comparison of tax and portfolio tools.

The primary sources to read up on: the voting record in Sushi's governance space and the accompanying forum post on the proposal.

(As of August 30, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The Ethena fee switch is close to approval, and the Ethena Foundation will still not buy back a single ENA for now. The reason has been missing from the coverage of the past few days: the buybacks only begin once the circulating supply of the synthetic dollar USDe reaches $7.5 billion. On August 30, 2026 it stands at roughly $4.07 billion. That leaves a gap of just over $3.4 billion to the first tier, about 84 percent of growth.

Anyone searching for “Ethena fee switch buyback” wants that one number. This article gives it, explains the four-tier schedule behind it, shows where the money for the ENA buybacks comes from, and sets out what two members of the Risk Committee have calculated in their own analyses.

Ethena Fee Switch Explained: What the Protocol Actually Switches

A fee switch is a governance decision that redirects part of a protocol’s revenue away from its current recipients and into purchases of the protocol’s own token. For Ethena that means a fixed share of gross revenue goes to the Ethena Foundation, and 95 percent of the foundation’s net income flows into open-market ENA buybacks. This is revenue sharing in its most direct form: protocol revenue turned into buying pressure for the governance token. The proposal names the basis explicitly as gross protocol revenue, the top line before any distributions are deducted.

Three terms make the arithmetic legible. USDe is Ethena’s synthetic dollar, which holds its value through hedged positions on derivatives exchanges and draws most of its yield from the funding rates on those positions, the balancing payments between the long and the short side. sUSDe is the staked version that passes this yield on to holders. sENA is the staked form of the governance token ENA. How the USDe mechanism works in detail, and what BaFin’s wind-down of the German offering means for it, we took apart in our explainer on the Ethena USDe yield.

The proposal comes from Ethena Labs Research and was published in the foundation’s governance forum on August 27, 2026 at 13:59 UTC. It explicitly replaces every parameter the Risk Committee had put forward before. The old framework from late 2024 set three success criteria that were meant to be met before a fee switch was discussed at all: USDe circulating supply above $6 billion, cumulative protocol revenue above $250 million, and USDe distribution across the five largest centralised derivatives exchanges. That hurdle now falls away and gives way to a pure supply schedule.

When Does the ENA Buyback Start? The Threshold Is 7.5 Billion USDe

The short answer: on the day USDe circulating supply clears the $7.5 billion mark. Nothing happens before that, whatever the vote decides. Blockworks Advisory puts it plainly in its own forum statement: at today’s supply of $4.07 billion the schedule takes nothing, so no part of the document has any immediate effect.

Circulating supply here is neither a price target nor market capitalisation. It is simply the sum of all USDe issued. The figure grows when users mint new units and shrinks when they redeem them. That is exactly what makes the metric checkable for you: Ethena publishes the running numbers on its own transparency dashboard, and independent data providers such as DefiLlama measure the same quantity daily.

For context, $7.5 billion is no invented mark. Circulating supply has passed that level before, first on July 27, 2025 according to Blockworks Advisory. The proposal openly targets a return to the region of $15 billion and names more than $100 billion within five years as its longer horizon. Whether that growth arrives is an open question, and it is the question that decides whether the fee switch ever moves any money at all.

The Schedule of Levy Rates: 5, 10, 15 and 20 Percent of Protocol Revenue

The proposal ties the levy rate to USDe circulating supply. The larger the stablecoin, the larger the share of gross revenue that goes to the foundation and from there into ENA buybacks. The schedule reads as follows in the statements from Blockworks Advisory and OAK Research, both members of the Risk Committee:

OAK Research converts the tiers into dollars using an assumed protocol yield of 6 percent. At 7.5 billion USDe that equates to annual gross revenue of roughly $450 million, of which $22.5 million would go into the buyback pot. At 10 billion it is $600 million of revenue and $60 million of levy, at 15 billion $900 million and $135 million, at 20 billion $1.2 billion and $240 million. Treat these as model values: every line depends entirely on the assumed yield of 6 percent actually materialising.

The schedule follows a stated logic that the proposal calls growth mode. The low entry rate is meant to avoid slowing protocol growth, because a high levy at small supply would make USDe more expensive against competing stablecoins. Only with scale does the share that reaches ENA holders rise.

What matters for understanding ENA tokenomics is that the levy applies to gross revenue, and not to a surplus. The money is not ownerless: it already has recipients today. Who those recipients are decides how expensive the fee switch makes the USDe product.

The Snapshot Vote Runs Until September 2, 2026, 13:59 UTC

The vote is being held in the Snapshot space ethenagovernance.eth under the title “ENA Fee Switch”. Snapshot is a voting tool in which voting power is derived from token holdings at a fixed block of the blockchain; casting a vote itself costs no transaction fees. Voting opened on August 27, 2026 at 13:59 UTC and closes on September 2, 2026 at 13:59 UTC.

The interim result shows how little tension the matter itself carries. Queried through the Snapshot programming interface on August 30, 2026, 17,014,325 ENA stood in favour, zero against and zero abstentions, spread across 76 votes cast. The quorum, the minimum voting power without which a proposal fails whatever the result, sits at 5,000,000 ENA and is therefore more than three times covered. The three Risk Committee members who have spoken up in the forum back the proposal as well: Blockworks Advisory, OAK Research and Kairos Research.

For you that means two things. If you hold ENA and want to object, the window runs only until September 2 at 13:59 UTC. And if you are minded to react to a price move that recent coverage has pinned on the word buyback, it is worth knowing that this vote triggers no buyback at all and merely fixes the conditions for one. Between the decision and the first token bought lie $3.4 billion of growth.

Where the Money Comes From: sUSDe Yield, Partner Payouts and the Aave Line

Blockworks Advisory has disclosed which pots the levy is drawn from. Over the past 30 days the protocol distributed an annualised $175 million across three running lines: 34.3 percent to sUSDe staking, 34.3 percent to partner payouts and 31.4 percent to the Aave liquid leverage line. The levy is deducted proportionally from all three. On this calculation a rate of 10 percent takes $6.0 million a year out of the sUSDe distribution and $11.5 million out of the two reward lines combined.

Blockworks puts the total withdrawal per tier at $8.8 million a year at 5 percent, $17.5 million at 10 percent, $26.3 million at 15 percent and $35.1 million at 20 percent, each based on the distribution of the past 30 days. Minting fees of $8.4 million a year are not included; they make up 4.7 percent of gross revenue and are carried as a line of their own.

Savers should hold on to a distinction that coverage regularly gets wrong. The levy works proportionally: on the Blockworks reading, a rate of 10 percent lowers the sUSDe APY, the annualised yield on staked USDe, by one tenth of whatever its value happens to be, regardless of how the distribution looks in detail. At an assumed yield of 8 percent, roughly 7.2 percent would remain. There is no deduction of 10 percentage points.

That holds equally at every tier. If you spread your stablecoin yield across several providers anyway, a look at our comparison of the best staking and rewards platforms is worth the time before you reallocate; the gaps between the offers are wider than the deduction discussed here.

Blockworks names one side effect that the proposal itself omits. Across the 118 days on which the schedule would have been active in the backtest, the levy pushed the sUSDe yield below that of the competing sUSDS product on eleven days. The analysts therefore recommend publishing this figure on an ongoing basis, while judging a hard floor more expensive than the benefit it would bring. Anyone who switches provider on the strength of such comparisons should watch the supervisory side; our overview of regulated crypto exchanges shows which venues in Germany operate under regulation.

What the Buyback Achieves Against the $512 Million Unlock Overhang

An unlock is the scheduled release of tokens that were previously locked for team, investors or programmes; the selling pressure that results from it is known as the overhang. That is precisely the measure of whether a buyback programme amounts to more than a headline.

Blockworks Advisory ran the draft over 705 days, from September 19, 2024 to August 24, 2026, day by day with the revenue that actually accrued and the prices that actually applied. The result: during the active phases the schedule captures $52.7 million a year, and averaged across the whole period $8.82 million. Set against an ENA market capitalisation of $1.57 billion, that is a buyback yield of 3.36 percent in the active state and 0.56 percent on average.

Against those amounts stand planned gross releases of $512 million a year through to April 2028. On the Blockworks calculation the buyback absorbs roughly one tenth of that in the active state, and less than 2 percent across the full cycle. That is the most honest number in the whole exercise, and it comes from a supporter of the proposal: the fee switch shares protocol revenue with token holders, and it was never built to hold up the ENA price.

The 14-Day Average: Why a Single Mint Should Not Trigger a Tier

A schedule that reads the daily value of circulating supply can be jumped with one large mint. OAK Research states the problem clearly: a single dollar then decides between an annual buyback budget of around $30 million and one of around $60 million, and the moment of crossing becomes visible to the market in advance.

Blockworks Advisory therefore proposes a rolling 14-day average as the measure, meaning the mean of circulating supply over the preceding two weeks in place of the daily close. In the backtest this window would have started the buyback seven days after the $7.5 billion mark was first crossed; a 90-day window only 34 days after. At the same time the shorter window captures more revenue, $8.82 million against $7.66 million per panel year, without triggering additional tier changes. OAK Research has since withdrawn its own proposal of a 30-day ramp and supports the 14 days.

For you as an observer that is the decisive reading aid: if USDe circulating supply briefly jumps above $7.5 billion at some point, the buyback is not yet triggered. Only a two-week average above the mark counts, assuming the vote is implemented in this form.

What the Vote Leaves Open: Continuity Reserve, sENA and a Reference Rate

The vote under way decides on the supply thresholds alone. Everything that carries the mechanism through daily operation has so far only been announced, by OAK Research, as a series of separate proposals over the coming weeks. Five points are outstanding:

• A reference rate for stablecoin yields. Until now the competitiveness of USDe has been measured against a single competing product. OAK considers that open to challenge, because one provider can move its own rate in its own interest, and wants instead to publish a basket of several interest-bearing dollar products as a median.
• A continuity reserve. A buyback programme that pauses at every dip in revenue creates more volatility than no programme at all, in the analysts’ assessment. The reserve would be filled in the good phases and drawn down step by step in the bad ones.
• An sENA rewards programme. The proposal directs the full captured amount into purchases on the open market and settles nothing about what holders of staked ENA get out of it.
• A public dashboard. What is asked for is the current levy rate, the quantity of tokens bought, the average purchase price, transaction identifiers and the share of the coming releases that the purchases cover.
• The question of what happens to the tokens. Whether purchased tokens are burned, locked, held or passed on is nowhere written down in the proposal.

Ethena points to its own transparency dashboard for tracking. Until the points above are settled, the fee switch remains an approved framework whose operating manual has yet to be filled in.

What the Fee Switch Means for You as an ENA Holder — and What It Does Not

The mechanism ties the value of ENA to the protocol’s business volume in a binding way for the first time. That is a genuine change to the ENA tokenomics, and it is publicly verifiable, because the trigger quantity, USDe circulating supply, can be measured at any moment. Until then the plain position holds: no revenue share, no purchases.

Keep three things apart. First, the vote on thresholds is no buy signal, because the lowest tier sits around 84 percent of growth away. Second, the levy costs sUSDe part of its yield, which works in opposite directions for savers and for holders. Third, the captured amounts come out small measured against the coming token releases, even in the active state.

None of these statements is a price forecast, and none of the analyses quoted names a price target. If you are reviewing your holdings anyway, watch the tax side: buyback programmes change nothing about your holding periods, but every reallocation does. Anyone who reallocates repeatedly should record each move with its date and its value, or the tax return turns into reconstruction work.

Ethena Fee Switch: What to Take Away

1. Remember the number 7.5 billion rather than the voting date. The decision itself moves nothing; the buybacks are unlocked only once a two-week average of USDe circulating supply sits above that mark. Keep your eye on the supply figure and let the headline pass. If you first need a venue with decent data for that, our comparison of the best crypto exchanges helps with the choice.
2. Set the levy against your own yield. Anyone holding sUSDe or a comparable product helps pay for the buyback through a lower distribution, proportionally to the levy rate on the Blockworks calculation. Compare that with the terms of other providers in our overview of staking and rewards platforms before you reallocate.
3. Wait for the outstanding proposals before you judge the mechanism. The reference rate, the continuity reserve, sENA participation and the dashboard are all still to come, and they decide how dependable the programme turns out to be. Keep your positions cleanly documented until then, for instance with the tax tools and portfolio trackers from our comparison.

You can read the primary sources yourself: the running Snapshot vote “ENA Fee Switch” with its interim result and quorum, and the proposal together with the Risk Committee statements in the Ethena governance forum.

(As of August 30, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

If you hold tokens on a smaller blockchain, your balance depends on two things: on that blockchain, and on the software it shares with many others. August made exactly that visible. A flaw in a shared building block called Cosmos EVM was exploited on six blockchains between August 20 and 25, 2026. Around $5.72 million drained away, three chains halted operations, and Cosmos Labs says it contacted 40 networks. On August 28 the team published a post-mortem that describes the sequence openly. This article sets out what happened, why the damage figures in circulation diverge so widely, and what you can check if you hold tokens on an affected chain.

The Cosmos EVM vulnerability at a glance: $5.72 million from six chains

Cosmos EVM is a software module that extends a Cosmos blockchain with an Ethereum-compatible execution environment. A module in this sense is a finished code package that a chain team builds into its own blockchain instead of writing the function itself. The advantage is speed. The price is a shared dependency: a flaw in the module is a flaw in every chain that uses it.

The vulnerability carries the identifier GHSA-7g4w-cg88-2cq2 and is classified as critical by Cosmos Labs itself. According to The Hacker News it was published without a CVE number, without a vulnerability classification and without a CVSS score. Affected are the versions below 0.6.2 as well as those from 0.7.0 up to but not including 0.7.2; the flaw was fixed in v0.6.2 and v0.7.2, which appeared on August 19, 2026.

Not affected is the Cosmos Hub with its token ATOM, which runs without this module. If you are looking for the price page on it, you will find it in our ATOM price prediction. The risk of confusion is real, because the word Cosmos appears in the name of both things, and it explains part of last week's uncertainty.

Balance reconciliation and overflow: how the Cosmos EVM gap works technically

The flaw sits at the seam between two sets of books. A Cosmos blockchain keeps balances in the x/bank module, while the Ethereum environment keeps them in parallel in its own state database, the StateDB. Both have to show the same figure after every transaction, and that reconciliation is where things jammed.

According to The Hacker News, the problem arises when a so-called vesting account delegates more than its freely available balance allows. A vesting account is an address whose tokens are released only on a schedule; part of the holding is locked, part is available. When writing back after the delegation, the code subtracted the full delegated amount from the smaller available amount, without checking whether the result could be positive at all.

What follows is a classic of computer arithmetic. Subtract more from an unsigned number than it contains and it does not go negative but jumps to the top end of its value range. A tiny shortfall turns into a balance on the order of 2 to the power of 256. The attacker could then either withdraw funds from this overflowed account or send another account an amount calculated so that the reconciliation destroyed that account's holding.

What a shared module in a blockchain is

A shared module is program code that several independent blockchains draw from the same source and build into their own software. For you as a holder this means the question of whether your chain is secure cannot be answered from the reputation of its team alone. It also depends on which external building blocks that team uses and how quickly it applies updates.

Why vesting accounts were the way in

Vesting accounts are widespread in young networks, because teams, investors and early contributors usually receive their allocations in stages. They are therefore a regular account type that almost every new chain maintains, not a marginal special case. That is one reason Cosmos Labs recommends, among other things, that affected networks temporarily reject the creation of new vesting accounts.

Four months between report and alarm: the timeline from the post-mortem

The sequence comes from the post-mortem that Cosmos Labs published itself on August 28, 2026, and from the trade reports that evaluated it. It is the actual reason the case is being discussed beyond the individual incident.

On April 25, 2026 the report came in through the bug bounty programme. It was assessed at the time as posing no risk to funds on productive networks. On May 15, according to CryptoSlate, a correction flowed into the main branch as a silent public patch, meaning without being marked as security-critical. On August 13 the team confirmed internally that all Cosmos EVM chains are affected, regardless of their decimal configuration.

On August 19 the corrected versions appeared. On August 20 at 07:16 UTC a first public description of the attack route became accessible; the same day at 19:06 UTC the first unauthorised operation ran on MANTRA. The first private notification of affected chains went out, by this reconstruction, on August 21 at 03:36 UTC, roughly two hours after MANTRA had reported the incident. The public call for validators to halt their chains followed on August 24.

Nominal value versus proceeds: why the damage figures for the Cosmos EVM hack diverge

Anyone reading through the coverage comes across amounts between just under two and well over nine million dollars. That is a question of what is being measured and no contradiction; the distinction is worth making, because it recurs in every exploit report.

The frequently cited sum of around $5.72 million refers to what the attacker actually turned into money: about $2.87 million through decentralised exchanges and about $2.85 million through centralised trading venues, calculated at the rates of August 19. The considerably higher figures, by contrast, represent the nominal value of the drained tokens at the price before the incident.

The difference arises from the selling pressure itself. At KiiChain, according to the report by Protos, the chain names 148,326,583.15 KII as having drained away, with a face value of around nine million dollars, while selling them brought in about 1.6 million. Anyone reading such reports should therefore always check whether the subject is stolen tokens or realised proceeds.

MANTRA, KiiChain and TAC: what happened on the three known chains

Three of the six exploited networks have been named publicly so far. MANTRA halted its chain on August 21 at block 17,449,398 and resumed block production on August 22 with version 8.4.0. Figures between 03:38 and 05:30 UTC are circulating for the restart time; we described the event on August 22 in our report on the MANTRA chain halt and the frozen withdrawal, using the earlier of these two values. The team stated that user balances were not altered and that two addresses under its own control were affected. CryptoSlate, by contrast, puts the MANTRA side of the incident at around $3.6 million in nominal value across 720.9 million tokens. Both figures stand side by side, and we are not smoothing them over.

KiiChain halted at block 9,355,723. By its own account the same technique was applied there eighteen times in succession. TAC stopped on August 22 at block 24,671,475, according to the team after an account had been emptied. In both cases the chain teams traced the cause to the shared Cosmos EVM code rather than to their own logic.

Beyond the three named, Cosmos Labs reported that 13 further potentially affected chains were updated, halted or secured before an attack occurred. Eleven installations of the module were not known to the team at all before the incident and were found only in the course of the review.

The chain halt as an emergency brake: why Cosmos Labs advised validators to stop

A chain halt means validators cease block production; the network processes no more transactions until it restarts in a coordinated way. To outsiders that looks like a loss of control. In this case it was the conservative choice.

The reason lies in the sequence. A regular network upgrade through a governance vote takes hours to days, and during that time the gap would stay open while the attack route was already publicly described. Cosmos Labs therefore advised operators to update immediately to v0.6.2, v0.7.2 or later, and, if that was not immediately possible, to halt block production rather than attempt a coordinated vote. In addition the team recommended rejecting the creation of vesting accounts in the ante handler, checking the fix in exported as well as non-exported code paths, and registering a security contact.

For you as a holder this has a practical consequence that is easily missed: a halted chain is a warning signal about the state of the software, but it is not automatically a signal about your account balance. Whether your holding was altered is a separate matter from whether blocks are currently being produced.

Silent patch and bug bounty: what the case shows about disclosure processes

The programming error itself is undisputed among those involved. What is being debated is the order in which it was made public. A silent patch is the common practice of applying a fix inconspicuously so that attackers do not learn from the notice itself where to strike. This practice works only under one condition: the operators running the code have to know beforehand that they need to act.

KiiChain put this point plainly in its own post-mortem. Publishing a security fix openly before the chains running that code have been informed privately and given time to update, it argued, passes the vulnerability on to anyone who reads the commit. As causes the chain named the lack of advance notice, the failure to mark the fix as critical and the delay in communication. That is the value judgement of an affected party, and we reproduce it as such.

Cosmos Labs points in its own bounty rules to initiating emergency measures where there is immediate or network-wide risk. The post-mortem describes how the standard route for cases without loss of funds was chosen instead. How that assessment came about is the open question the document raises, and it cannot be conclusively judged from outside. The sequence is documented; the evaluation remains a matter for the teams involved.

What holders of affected tokens should check right now

If you hold OM, KII, TAC or another token on a Cosmos EVM chain, the first concern is clarity about the state of things, not a quick reaction in the market. In order.

As a first step, check the network status. A public block explorer for the chain in question shows you whether the block height is still rising or has stopped at a value. If it is standing still, the chain is producing no blocks, and no transaction is confirmed during that time.

As a second step, check the version your chain is running and whether the team has announced a restart on one of the corrected releases. Chain teams usually publish this through their status page or their official channels. If such a statement is missing, that in itself is information.

As a third step, and separately from the above, check whether your trading venue has released deposits and withdrawals for the affected token. These two states are connected but not the same, and that is exactly where most misjudgements arise. If you want to keep your holding available independently of an exchange, the route runs through self-custody; which devices come into question is shown by our comparison of crypto hardware wallets.

Three states you have to keep apart

The first state concerns the chain: is it producing blocks? The second concerns your balance: does your address still show the amount you expect? The third concerns the trading venue: can you deposit and withdraw? A running chain alongside a frozen exchange withdrawal is a common combination, because trading venues decide independently after an incident when to reopen their gateway. Conversely, a halted chain can carry unchanged balances.

How to tell whether a blockchain depends on a shared building block

You can settle this question before buying, and it costs a few minutes. The first indication is the chain's documentation: if it says the chain builds on a framework such as the Cosmos SDK and obtains EVM compatibility through a module, it shares code with other networks.

The second indication is the public code repository. Blockchains as a rule publish their software openly, and the dependency files name which external packages are included in which version. You do not need to be able to read the code; it is enough to see the version number and compare it with the currently recommended one.

The third indication is the communication route. Does the chain have a status page, a security contact and a history of earlier incidents with follow-up analysis? The present case shows how much depends on this: eleven installations of the module were not even known to the publisher, which means it could not have warned their operators in an emergency either. The technical description of the gap can be read in security advisory GHSA-7g4w-cg88-2cq2, and the placing of the timeline in The Hacker News reconstruction.

Tax and evidence: what to document after a chain halt

A network halt is initially no event for tax purposes. As long as nothing about your holding changes, neither a disposal nor a loss you could claim arises. It becomes relevant only once you actually sell in response to the incident, or once tokens disappear from your address.

In practice this means: secure the records now, while they are within reach. That includes screenshots of your account balance with date and time, the transaction identifiers of the operations concerned, your exchange's status notice on the frozen gateway, and the chain team's public statement. If you later close a position at a loss, or have to explain to the tax authorities why a holding no longer exists, the evidence is only as good as what you captured at the moment of the incident.

One note on placing this, because the question comes up regularly: whether a holding lost through an exploit is deductible for tax purposes depends on the individual case and is not settled in blanket terms. This assessment is no substitute for tax advice, and we are not asserting a legal position here that does not exist as such.

Checking the Cosmos EVM vulnerability: what to take away

The case is less a story about a single flaw than one about shared dependencies and about how quickly information reaches its recipients. Three steps you can draw from it:

1. Check the state of your chain and of your exchange separately from each other. Block height in the explorer, balance at your address and gateway status at the trading venue are three readings that measure different things. If in the process you notice that your provider communicates poorly after incidents, our overview of regulated crypto exchanges helps you place it.
2. Before your next purchase, look at which external building blocks a chain uses. Framework, module version and a registered security contact say more about a network's resilience than its announcements do. For storage outside an exchange you will find the options in the comparison of software wallets.
3. Keep holdings you do not actively trade outside anyone else's control. A frozen exchange gateway affects only what is sitting there. Which devices are suitable and what distinguishes them is covered in the hardware wallet comparison.

(As of August 29, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

More than 100 AI, security, finance, and technology organizations want governments and industry to prepare for attacks powered by increasingly capable models.

The Vermont senator warned that the surveillance company's 120,000-plus AI cameras are pushing the US toward a "surveillance state," adding a prominent voice to a growing bipartisan backlash.

Galaxy Research shows coins untouched for 10-plus years moving at an unusual pace in 2026, with six ancient wallets shifting $40 million in a single 10-day stretch this month.

The roughly $42.5 million cash-and-stock deal adds derivatives, structured products and capital-markets capabilities, while letting NYDIG focus on its power and data-center business.

BTC gave back some of its gains after Fed Chair Kevin Warsh talked tough on inflation, but prediction market traders are still leaning bullish.

AI agents push XRPL into a 105% wallet imbalance, swapping volatile XRP for stable RLUSD as microtransaction costs spike.

A crypto developer narrowly escaped malware from a fake Claude AI link, only to find a poisoned backup file ready to reinfect his clean laptop.

Shiba Inu burn rate sharply rose 1020% as million of tokens get sent to dead wallets.

Shiba Inu is still playing its own game, but the magnitude of its market movements might decrease quite soon.

Bitwise CEO’s reaction to $1B Solana ETF milestone exposes the structural bottleneck keeping XRP funds out of the billion-dollar elite.

Key Highlights

• August employment data releases Friday, potentially shaping the Federal Reserve’s September policy decision
• Market expectations for a September rate increase climbed to 60% following Fed Chair Kevin Warsh’s Jackson Hole remarks
• Technology giants Dell, Broadcom, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise scheduled to announce quarterly performance
• Apple’s leadership transition becomes official as Tim Cook transfers CEO responsibilities to John Ternus
• Consumer-focused retailers including Lululemon, Five Below, and Victoria’s Secret set to unveil financial results

Investors face a consequential trading week featuring pivotal employment statistics, significant corporate earnings announcements, and a historic leadership transition at one of America’s most valuable companies.

Equity markets begin the period trading approximately 1% below all-time peaks. Last week brought optimism from Nvidia’s impressive quarterly performance and improved oil transportation through the Strait of Hormuz, which Goldman Sachs estimates has reached roughly two-thirds of volumes seen before recent conflicts.

Central bank policy remains the dominant concern for market participants. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh delivered remarks at Jackson Hole Friday that, despite lacking explicit policy guidance, were interpreted as tilting toward monetary tightening.

Following Warsh’s address, the CME FedWatch tool indicated September rate hike probabilities surged to 60%, a substantial increase from 35% recorded the previous day. Warsh emphasized that inflation continues exceeding targets and suggested existing monetary policy lacks sufficient restrictiveness.

Rick Rieder from BlackRock characterized the speech as leaning “hawkish” while cautioning that a September increase remains uncertain, contingent upon forthcoming inflation metrics and employment figures before the next Federal Reserve meeting.

Employment Report Commands Attention

Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET brings the August Employment Situation Report. July’s data revealed a surprising contraction of 23,000 positions. The unemployment rate registered 4.1%, exceeding projections, while workforce participation hovers near five-year lows.

James Knightley, economist at ING, anticipates a moderate rebound with approximately 65,000 positions added in August. He attributes continued hiring weakness to tariff uncertainties and elevated financing costs that should persist through year-end.

Declining labor participation stems partially from reduced immigration flows and workers either abandoning job searches or choosing early retirement.

Technology and Retail Earnings Calendar

Among technology companies, Dell releases results Tuesday. Previous quarter results showed AI-optimized server revenue skyrocketing 750% annually, prompting upgraded forecasts. Broadcom and Hewlett Packard Enterprise both announce Wednesday, with robust AI infrastructure demand anticipated as a common thread.

Palo Alto Networks reports Tuesday after market close. The cybersecurity provider exceeded estimates in its latest quarter and provided optimistic guidance.

Within consumer retail, Five Below announces Wednesday. The value retailer surpassed projections this spring as budget-conscious consumers across demographics gravitated toward affordable options. Lululemon follows Thursday, though shares suffered in June after the company reduced projections. Incoming CEO Heidi O’Neill, recruited from Nike, assumes leadership September 8.

Historic Leadership Change at Apple

This week marks Tim Cook’s official transition of CEO responsibilities to John Ternus. Cook expanded Apple’s valuation from $350 billion to between $4 trillion and $5 trillion throughout his leadership. Ternus, who previously served as senior vice president overseeing hardware engineering, now assumes command.

Additional events include the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book publication Wednesday, and Tesla’s Thursday presentation in Austin, Texas, where additional autonomous Cybercab taxi information is anticipated.

The post Markets Brace for August Jobs Data, Fed Signals, and Major Tech Earnings appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• NIO’s Q2 2026 financial results are scheduled for release on September 1, prior to the opening bell.
• The company delivered 107,658 electric vehicles in Q2, representing 49.4% year-over-year growth, though missing internal projections of 110,000-115,000 vehicles.
• Wall Street forecasts a per-share loss of 7 cents on $4.78 billion in revenue, showing substantial improvement versus last year’s 32-cent loss.
• The critical metric for shareholders is whether NIO can achieve non-GAAP profitability for three consecutive quarters.
• Shares are trading near $4.38, representing a 14% decline year-to-date.

Trading at approximately $4.38, NIO stock approaches its Q2 2026 financial disclosure scheduled for Tuesday morning, September 1. The announcement will precede market opening, followed by a management conference call at 8:00 am ET.

NIO Inc., NIO

The Chinese EV manufacturer’s shares have experienced significant turbulence throughout the year. After hitting a low of $3.14 in early 2025, the stock rocketed to $6.87 by April following the company’s inaugural quarterly net profit. However, Q1 2026’s return to losses triggered another sharp decline.

The Q4 2025 profitability announcement sparked an immediate 20% rally. The momentum continued for several weeks, ultimately reaching gains of 45.6%. The subsequent Q1 2026 loss swiftly erased those advances.

This volatility places significant importance on Tuesday’s earnings announcement.

Analyst consensus points to a 7-cent per-share loss alongside $4.78 billion in revenue. These figures would mark an 80% revenue surge compared to the prior year and substantial progress from Q2 2025’s 32-cent loss.

The company’s Q2 vehicle deliveries totaled 107,658 units, climbing 49.4% year-over-year. This figure underperformed NIO’s internal forecast of 110,000-115,000 vehicles. April registered the weakest performance with 29,356 deliveries, while May and June showed recovery at 37,705 and 40,597 units respectively.

Non-GAAP Profitability Remains Central Focus

Deutsche Bank projected in early June that NIO would sustain non-GAAP profitability during Q2, supported by higher-margin SUV offerings. The bank anticipated non-GAAP net income of approximately 180 million yuan.

First quarter 2026 results showed adjusted operating profit of 66.8 million yuan alongside an overall gross margin of 19.0%, marking the company’s strongest margin performance in four years. Revenue climbed 112.2% year-over-year to 25.53 billion yuan.

NIO has surpassed EPS projections in three of its last four reporting periods, delivering an average positive surprise of 53.3%.

Vehicle margins are anticipated to moderate to 17-18% in Q2, down from Q1’s 18.8%. Management previously indicated that escalating costs across memory chips, lithium carbonate, battery components, copper and aluminum would create margin headwinds.

Product Portfolio Breakdown

The third-generation ES8 represented 31% of Q2 deliveries at 33,474 units. The newly launched ES9, introduced May 28, added 11,703 units. Firefly accounted for 17,589 vehicles, while ONVO reached 29,124 units, climbing 70.5% year-over-year.

NIO’s trailing twelve-month revenue currently sits at $14.3 billion. First-half 2026 deliveries totaled 191,123 vehicles, up 67.4% compared to the prior year period.

The automaker currently maintains over 3,900 battery swap facilities and 28,000 charging locations. NIO’s forward price-to-sales multiple of 0.5 trades below competitors Li Auto and XPeng.

Market participants will closely monitor management’s Q3 delivery projections, revenue outlook, and any commentary regarding full-year profitability objectives.

The post NIO (NIO) Stock: Q2 Earnings Preview Ahead of September 1 Report appeared first on Blockonomi.

Quick Overview

• Broadcom’s Wednesday earnings call anticipates $3.24 EPS with $29.4 billion revenue, fueled by artificial intelligence demand
• Dell’s Tuesday report follows explosive 750% year-over-year growth in AI server sales from previous quarter
• Palo Alto Networks delivers Tuesday results amid continued robust cybersecurity market conditions
• Lululemon’s Thursday announcement projects 42% earnings decline compared to prior year
• Tesla showcases autonomous Cybercab taxi developments at Thursday’s Austin presentation

Broadcom’s AI-Powered Quarter

Broadcom unveils its fiscal third-quarter performance Wednesday following market close. Financial analysts project earnings near $3.24 per share with revenue approaching $29.4 billion.

Artificial intelligence momentum should account for the majority of revenue expansion. The semiconductor giant provides networking solutions and specialized AI accelerator chips to leading cloud service providers, positioning itself as a key collaborator with Nvidia in AI infrastructure development.

Following Marvell’s significant post-earnings decline, market participants will scrutinize Broadcom’s forward guidance regarding custom silicon products and hyperscale cloud investment trends.

Dell Technologies’ Server Momentum

Dell announces results Tuesday. Previous quarter data revealed AI-optimized server revenue jumped 750% compared to the same period last year, propelling the company past analyst estimates and prompting upward forecast revisions.

Wall Street forecasts second-quarter revenue near $45.2 billion, representing over 50% year-over-year growth. Adjusted earnings per share estimates hover around $4.91.

Options market activity suggests approximately 10% stock movement following earnings release. The critical question centers on whether AI server demand can sustain anything close to current growth rates.

Palo Alto Networks’ Security Position

Palo Alto Networks posts results Tuesday after trading hours. Previous quarter performance exceeded expectations with management issuing above-consensus forward guidance.

Cybersecurity expenditures remain durable as enterprises migrate operations to cloud environments and implement AI applications. Market watchers will concentrate on subscription revenue metrics and leadership commentary regarding AI-driven security requirements.

Impressive recent performances from CrowdStrike and Okta have elevated expectations. Palo Alto Networks might require more than meeting estimates to generate positive stock momentum.

Lululemon Athletica’s Challenges

Lululemon releases earnings Thursday. Projections indicate approximately 42% year-over-year earnings contraction to roughly $1.80 per share.

The athletic wear retailer lowered its forecast in June. Intensified competition and softer consumer spending patterns have created additional headwinds since that revision.

This announcement precedes former Nike executive Heidi O’Neill’s September 8 CEO transition. Management’s assessment of domestic market demand will receive particular attention from investors.

Tesla’s Autonomous Vehicle Showcase

Tesla doesn’t release quarterly results this week, but Thursday’s Austin gathering carries significant market implications. The electric vehicle manufacturer plans to provide expanded information about its Cybercab autonomous taxi initiative.

Self-driving technology has gained prominence in Tesla’s investment thesis as shareholders evaluate opportunities beyond electric vehicle manufacturing. Any concrete information regarding Cybercab production schedules or commercial deployment strategy could influence share price.

Friday’s August employment data introduces additional market dynamics. Disappointing job figures might reduce Federal Reserve pressure heading into its September policy meeting, affecting overall market trajectory.

The post This Week’s Market Movers: Key Earnings Reports from Broadcom (AVGO), Dell (DELL), and Palo Alto (PANW) appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Since 1969, Realty Income has maintained an unbroken streak of 674 monthly dividend distributions, with 135 increases since going public in 1994.
• UBS Asset Management dramatically expanded its position by more than 22,000%, acquiring an additional 10.3 million shares valued at approximately $641.6 million during Q2.
• Second quarter revenue reached $1.55 billion, marking a 9.7% increase from the previous year, while EPS of $1.09 aligned with analyst projections.
• The REIT announced a $0.271 monthly dividend per share for September 15 distribution, delivering an approximate 5.2% yield.
• Wall Street consensus leans toward “Moderate Buy” with analysts projecting an average share price of $67.42 compared to the current $62 level.

Shares of Realty Income began Friday’s session at $62.03, trading beneath both its 50-day simple moving average of $63.31 and 200-day moving average of $63.16. The real estate investment trust commands a market capitalization of $58.69 billion, trades at a price-to-earnings multiple of 45.28, and has fluctuated between $55.86 and $67.93 over the past year.

Realty Income Corporation, O

On August 5, the REIT disclosed its second quarter financial results. Revenue totaled $1.55 billion, exceeding the $1.40 billion analyst consensus by a significant margin. The company delivered earnings of $1.09 per share, precisely matching Wall Street estimates and improving from $1.05 recorded in the comparable period of the prior year.

Management issued forward guidance for fiscal 2026, projecting earnings per share in the $4.44 to $4.45 range. The analyst community currently forecasts $4.43 per share for the full year.

UBS Asset Management executed one of this quarter’s most remarkable institutional moves. The investment firm expanded its Realty Income holdings by an extraordinary 22,000-plus percent, acquiring 10.3 million additional shares. The firm’s total position now stands at 10.35 million shares with an estimated value of $641.6 million, representing a 1.09% ownership stake.

Additional institutional investors have joined the buying activity. Danske Bank expanded its holdings by 20.3% during the fourth quarter. Nomura Asset Management increased its position by 0.7%. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management grew its stake by 5.4%. Collectively, institutional shareholders control 70.81% of outstanding shares.

Uninterrupted Dividend Legacy

Realty Income has distributed 674 uninterrupted monthly dividends dating back to its 1969 establishment. This represents the lengthiest documented monthly dividend payment record among publicly traded corporations.

Since debuting on the New York Stock Exchange in 1994, the company has implemented 135 dividend increases, encompassing 115 straight quarters of growth. The monthly distribution has expanded at a 4.1% compound annual growth rate throughout this timeframe.

The upcoming dividend of $0.271 per share will be distributed on September 15 to shareholders registered by August 31. The ex-dividend date falls on August 31 as well. The annualized yield currently stands at roughly 5.2%.

While the payout ratio calculates to 237.23% based on net income, the REIT evaluates its distributions against adjusted funds from operations, where the metric remains below 75%.

Wall Street Perspectives and Target Prices

Analyst sentiment trends favorably. Freedom Capital elevated its rating from hold to strong buy this past May. Royal Bank of Canada assigns an outperform rating alongside a $70.00 price objective. Stifel Nicolaus maintains a $70.75 target on shares. Robert W. Baird holds a neutral stance with a $65.00 target, revised upward from $64.00. Mizuho similarly rates the stock neutral with a $66.00 projection.

Among 17 analysts monitored by MarketBeat, one assigns a strong buy rating, eight recommend buy, seven suggest hold, and one advises sell. The consensus price target of $67.42 implies approximately 9% appreciation potential from Friday’s opening level.

Realty Income additionally unveiled a strategic partnership with Cloud Capital earlier this year, pledging over $6 billion toward data center investments, establishing a fresh growth avenue beyond its traditional retail and industrial real estate holdings.

The post Realty Income (O) Stock: Should You Buy After UBS’s Massive $641M Investment? appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Shares of Walmart have fallen 24% since reporting Q1 2026 results in May, now priced at $103.09
• Second-quarter revenue reached $187.94 billion, representing 5.9% annual growth and surpassing forecasts, while EPS hit $0.81 versus the $0.74 consensus
• The company’s Q3 sales forecast of 3% to 3.75% expansion fell short of expectations, causing the steepest single-session decline since 2022
• The price-to-earnings multiple has declined to 37, approaching its five-year historical average, while the dividend yield of 0.95% trails the S&P 500’s 1.04%
• Wall Street maintains a “Moderate Buy” consensus with a $131.88 average target, though multiple analysts have lowered their price objectives recently

Shares of Walmart began Friday’s session at $103.09, representing approximately a 24% decline from the 52-week peak of $135.15. The retreat commenced following the release of Q1 2026 financial results in May, with downward pressure persisting through subsequent months.

Walmart Inc., WMT

The equity currently trades beneath both its 50-day moving average of $111.90 and its 200-day moving average of $120.45. The company maintains a market capitalization of approximately $820 billion.

Second-quarter performance exceeded expectations. Walmart delivered earnings per share of $0.81, surpassing the analyst consensus of $0.74. Top-line results of $187.94 billion also beat projections of $186.64 billion, marking 5.9% growth compared to the prior year.

The concern centered on forward guidance. Walmart forecasted net sales expansion of only 3% to 3.75% for the third quarter. This outlook fell significantly short of the 6.6% revenue acceleration achieved during the first half of fiscal 2027.

The disappointing forecast sparked the stock’s sharpest one-day decline in two years. Market participants had been willing to pay elevated multiples for superior growth rates, and those growth expectations now appear to be moderating.

Examining Current Valuation Metrics

The price-to-earnings multiple reached 49 earlier in 2024. It has now contracted to 37, bringing it near Walmart’s five-year historical average. However, this doesn’t necessarily indicate the stock is undervalued. The multiple has dipped below 30 on multiple occasions during the past five years.

The current dividend yield of 0.95% falls short of the S&P 500’s 1.04% average, diminishing its attractiveness for yield-seeking portfolios. Walmart has increased its dividend for 53 straight years, achieving Dividend King distinction, yet the yield alone isn’t compelling investors to accumulate shares at current prices.

Net income during the initial two quarters of fiscal 2026 totaled $11.7 billion, reflecting modest 2% year-over-year growth. Fluctuations in the fair value of equity investments negatively impacted this figure.

Institutional Holdings and Price Targets

Institutional investors and hedge funds control 26.76% of outstanding Walmart shares. Pure Financial Advisors established a new stake valued at $8.1 million during Q2. Major holders including State Street, Geode Capital, and Bank of America have either increased existing positions or initiated new ones in recent reporting periods.

Regarding insider transactions, EVP Daniel Danker divested 50,644 shares at $105.35 on August 26th, generating approximately $5.3 million. The transaction occurred under a pre-established Rule 10b5-1 trading plan designed to satisfy tax liabilities related to vested equity compensation.

Wall Street analysts have reduced price objectives lately. JPMorgan lowered its target from $137 to $125 while retaining an “overweight” recommendation. Telsey decreased its target from $140 to $130 while keeping an “outperform” stance. Raymond James and KeyCorp have similarly maintained constructive ratings.

The Street consensus stands at “Moderate Buy” with an average price objective of $131.88. Walmart has issued Q3 2027 EPS guidance ranging from $0.62 to $0.64, alongside full fiscal 2027 guidance of $2.80 to $2.87 per share.

Digital commerce expanded 23% while advertising revenue surged 38% during Q2, demonstrating that the company’s higher-margin business segments continue to deliver strong results.

The post Is Walmart (WMT) Stock a Bargain After Its 24% Decline From Peak Levels? appeared first on Blockonomi.

Strategy’s co-founder and former CEO, Michael Saylor, took it to X earlier today to post another cryptic comment, which the community is trying to decipher.

Alongside a chart showing that the company’s over 110 BTC purchases made in the past six years, Saylor said, “We’re ₿ack.” Naturally, most comments below the post speculated that the firm has resumed its bitcoin accumulation spree after a two-month pause.

We’re ₿ack. pic.twitter.com/ciqOaCa908

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) August 30, 2026

Recall that Strategy’s latest announced bitcoin purchase came on June 22, as it was completed in the week between June 15 and 21. It paused its BTC accumulation strategy for the following two months and even announced a couple of sales.

It focused primarily on rebuilding its USD reserve, which climbed above $6.5 billion last week after the latest initiatives. The second came in the form of establishing a new program, called USD Cash, which now consists of $1.59 billion, alongside its regular greenback reserve of $5.1 billion.

In addition, Strategy continued repurchasing its STRC shares. The high-yield variable-rate preferred stock slumped far away from its par price of $100 to $75 a few months ago, but it recovered significantly to over $97 last week.

While some users anticipate a new purchase to be announced on Monday, others warned that Saylor’s latest message refers to something else: his company’s position turning green.

Bitcoin’s price recovered significantly in the past week and a half, surging from under $65,000 to over $78,500 as of press time. Given Strategy’s average accumulation cost of $75,653 per BTC, this means that the firm is now in profit for the first time since May. Its position was deep in the red (on paper) of over $10 billion until several weeks ago.

On the topic of when Strategy will start buying bitcoin again, the current CEO, Phong Le, recently shed some light, indicating that this could occur by the end of the year, without providing more details.

The post ‘We’re Back,’ Says Saylor: Is Strategy About to Buy Bitcoin Again? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s major rally from under $65,000 to over $81,000 within a week or so changed the broader market sentiment from fear to greed, with analysts initially rushing to call the end of the bear phase.

However, its inability to push through the $81,000 resistance and the two rejections, alongside the Fed’s hawkish stance on Friday, added further doubt, both from a technical and a macro perspective. The good news is that whales have returned in full force.

$3B in BTC

Citing data from Santiment Intelligence, popular analyst Ali Martinez noted that these large market participants have accumulated roughly $3 billion worth of bitcoin in the past week alone. Adding more than 39,150 BTC in just seven days signals that this crucial cohort of investors continues to show interest in the primary cryptocurrency, alongside ETF buyers, who poured over $920 million into the funds in the past week.

In a separate post, Martinez doubled down on the whales’ growing activity, arguing that the recent rally was driven primarily by them. In contrast, retail investors have remained mostly on the sidelines or in the opposite corner, as further on-chain data suggests they have actually been selling.

$3 BILLION IN BITCOIN BOUGHT BY WHALES

Whales accumulated more than 39,154 bitcoin:native over the past week, signaling continued interest by large investors. https://t.co/JbIrOvfw8F pic.twitter.com/vEPbSJiv73

— Ali Charts (@alicharts) August 30, 2026

But More Pain Ahead?

Following the Friday Jackson Hole speech by new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh, in which he displayed a more hawkish stance, analysts are not so adamant that the bear market is completely over.

Rekt Capital warned earlier that BTC’s real test begins after the strong weekly close. He argued that if the latest surge is ultimately a bear-market relief rally, the cryptocurrency could pull back in the following few weeks. It now stands to demonstrate sustained strength at these elevated levels rather than immediately giving back the breakout.

Crypto Haris presented a considerably more bearish scenario, describing the move from $65,000 to $80,000 in days as a potential bull trap. Moreover, the analyst expects BTC to decline to $74,000 at first, before another leg down takes it back to the $67,000 region.

In general, Haris believes the cryptocurrency will first fall back to $62,000 before it eventually pumps to $90,000.

The post Bitcoin Whales Just Bought $3B in BTC: Why Analysts Still Warn of More Pain Ahead? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded another highly impressive week, attracting over $900 million, but Friday changed the landscape after Kevin Warsh’s hawkish speech at Jackson Hole.

Meanwhile, the funds tracking the largest altcoin continue to see only green, and their actual inflows are quite close to those of their BTC counterparts.

BTC ETFs Gain Over $900M Weekly

CryptoPotato reported the significant change in investor behavior when it comes to the spot Bitcoin ETFs as they poured in nearly $2 billion, the highest since the October 2025 crash. This came after the US Treasury Department’s pivot in its monetary policy, which resulted in a substantial uptick in the entire crypto market.

The trend extended during the new business week as BTC’s price challenged the $80,000 resistance on a couple of occasions. Investors inserted $337.56 million on Monday, another $314.37 million on Tuesday, $232.12 million on Wednesday, and $242.24 million on Thursday. Thus, the BTC ETFs saw nine consecutive days of net inflows only.

However, the streak was snapped on Friday, perhaps due to the hawkish stance taken by the new Federal Reserve Chairman, Kevin Warsh. Net outflows dominated, with $201.81 million leaving the funds.

Nevertheless, the week still ended well in the green, with $924.48 million in net inflows. The funds have attracted almost $3 billion in the past two weeks alone. The cumulative total net inflows have risen from under $52.8 billion on August 14 to $54.63 billion on August 28.

ETH ETFs Keep Seeing Green

Unlike the spot Bitcoin ETFs, which ended Friday in the red, the Ethereum counterparts attracted just over $102 million on that day, which extended their impressive streak. The funds have not seen a single red day since August 11. Overall, the week ended with more than $824 million in net inflows.

Thursday was the most notable day, with $234.51 million entering the ETFs. Another $192.35 million went in on Wednesday, $179.80 million on Thursday, and $115.57 million on Friday. The cumulative total net inflows are up from $11.44 billion on August 11 to nearly $13 billion on August 28.

The underlying asset’s price rocketed from $1,900 to over $2,500 within the same timeframe, where it was ultimately stopped and now sits inches below it.

The post Over $900M Pours Into Bitcoin ETFs While Ethereum Funds Extend Impressive Streak appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin (BTC) has risen about 26% from its mid-August low after a short-liquidation event accelerated the rebound. Glassnode said the August 19 move produced the largest one-day liquidation event since 2019.

Short positions accounted for most of the liquidations across the major centralized exchanges. The actual total was likely higher because the dataset excludes Hyperliquid.

ETF Demand and Large Holders Add Support

The squeeze cleared much of the liquidation liquidity around Bitcoin. Glassnode now sees short-liquidation levels above the market and a smaller pool of long-liquidation levels below.

The rebound was not driven only by forced closures, as spot demand also supported the move. US spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $2.23 billion of net inflows over seven days, with no outflow days and their strongest weekly intake of 2026. The period included the largest ETF creation session since mid-January.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin continued moving away from exchanges as wallet groups changed their holdings. Entities holding between 1,000 and 10,000 BTC reduced their balances by 50,500 BTC since June 30.

In contrast, entities holding more than 100,000 BTC added 59,100 BTC. This group includes exchanges, custodians and ETF-related wallets.

During the squeeze week, the custody group added 31,500 BTC. Glassnode said the amount was similar in scale to weekly ETF creations, but the data does not show that the same coins moved directly into ETFs.

Every wallet-size cohort also moved into net accumulation on Glassnode’s 30-day trend score. The firm called it the most persistent all-cohort buying since late 2024.

Bitcoin Now Faces a Tougher Test

Leverage has not returned at the same pace as Bitcoin’s price, with futures open interest falling 11% in BTC terms. Perpetual funding remained near neutral and later turned negative, suggesting limited pressure from new leveraged long positions.

Beyond accumulation and leverage, on-chain data places recent buyers beneath price, while long-term holders provide the main supply zone above it. Bitcoin is now trading between these groups, creating a key market test for demand.

Several indicators point to a similar supply area overhead, including cost-basis levels, ask liquidity, options positioning and remaining liquidation clusters. A sustained move through that zone would show whether buyers can absorb the available supply.

The post From Record Short Squeezes to Massive ETF Inflows: Everything Driving Bitcoin Right Now appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s gradual price recovery after Friday’s dip below $77,000 continues into the weekend, with the asset barely moving past $78,000 today.

Most larger-cap alts have posted minor gains as well, but ETH remains below $2,500, BNB is still beneath $700, and XRP keeps fighting for $1.40.

BTC Taps $78K

The price explosion that took place within 48 hours in the middle of the month drove bitcoin out of its slumber, surging from under $65,000 to $80,000. Although the asset was stopped there at first and slipped below $75,500 last weekend, the bulls returned during the business week.

This time, they managed to push it beyond $80,000 and even $81,000 on a couple of occasions. The last attempt was on Thursday morning when BTC reached $81,500 for the first time in 15 weeks. However, its ascent was halted at this point, and it retraced hard on Friday to under $77,000.

This correction occurred after Kevin Warsh’s first speech at Jackson Hole, in which he maintained a hawkish stance. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency has managed to reclaim some ground since then, rising above $77,000 yesterday and up to $78,150 as of press time on Sunday morning.

Its market capitalization has increased by roughly $15 billion in a day and is up to $1.570 trillion on CG. Its dominance over the alts is also on the rise, touching 58% on the same data aggregator.

PI Above $0.09, UNI Rockets

Ethereum is slightly in the green and now sits above $2,450, but it’s still below the key $2,500 level. BNB eyes $700 once again, while XRP can’t reclaim the $1.40 line. SOL, TRX, and HYPE are also slightly in the green, while ZEC is up by 3.5% to $830.

UNI has rocketed the most from this cohort of assets, surging by 11% to $4.9. CC and PUMP follow suit, while ENA has dumped the most, losing 3.3% of value.

Pi Network’s native token slipped below the crucial $0.09 support on Friday but has managed to defend it and now trades above $0.091.

The total crypto market cap has added around $30 billion daily, and is up to $2.740 trillion.

The post Pi Network’s PI Defends a Critical Support, Bitcoin (BTC) Reclaims $78K: Weekend Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.