Inflation's stabilization at elevated levels suggests a prolonged period of cautious monetary policy, impacting economic growth and market dynamics.

The post US PCE price index holds at 3.7% year-over-year in July 2026 as inflation stabilizes appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Vanguard's acquisition of Altruist could reshape wealth management by intensifying competition and potentially lowering industry fees.

The post Vanguard acquires Altruist in $4B bet on AI-powered wealth technology appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Unified regulation of perpetual contracts could streamline market operations, enhance liquidity, and challenge traditional exchanges' dominance.

The post Hyperliquid Policy Center and trade[XYZ] urge CFTC to allow energy perpetual contracts appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bessent's strategy highlights the challenges of managing national debt and interest rates, potentially prompting broader fiscal policy shifts.

The post Scott Bessent’s surprise moves show early signs of market impact appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The Iran-Oman deal could stabilize global energy markets by easing supply uncertainties, but hinges on US compliance and may face sanctions issues.

The post Iran and Oman strike deal on Strait of Hormuz management and revenue sharing appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Is Bitcoin Out of Its Bear Market? These Analysts Think So

Bitcoin is out of its bear market. But expect a possible pullback. 

That’s according to analysts at crypto research firm CryptoQuant, who say the coin is behaving like it has done in the past. CryptoQuant founder, Ki Young Ju, wrote on X Tuesday that the asset had “entered into the early bull phase.”

Ju Pointed to movements bitcoin made in its last cycle before entering a bull market, and said the coin was currently doing the same thing. 

CryptoQuant research shows that bitcoin flows to derivative exchanges have started again, confirming that traders have entered “risk-on” mode, which “has marked the start of a new bull cycle” in the past. 

And another analyst at the firm, Theophiluspep, wrote that while the coin was entering a bull market, “spot demand, ETF flows, and market momentum have turned decisively bullish, but elevated profit-taking, exchange inflows, and overbought conditions suggest a potential near-term cooldown.”

He added: “This looks increasingly like a genuine regime shift into the early phase of a new bull market, driven more by improving spot demand and institutional ETF buying than by excessive leverage.”

Bitcoin started surging last week. It is currently up 22% over a seven-day period and was recently priced at $78,716. It briefly touched $81,160 on Monday. 

Its rise comes after a sluggish June and July when it mostly traded below $65,000. 

U.S. investors last week reversed course and bought up shares in the bitcoin exchange-traded funds, which had their best week since October — the same time bitcoin notched its record of $126,080. 

Data from Farside Investors shows that the funds — managed by the likes of BlackRock, Fidelity, Grayscale, and Morgan Stanley — received $1.9 billion in new cash. 

The change in sentiment comes after the Treasury Department’s announcement last week to at least double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks.

Since the Treasury made the announcement, yields have gone down, while bitcoin and gold have shot up. The dollar last week was trading at a three-month low and on track for its worst week of August. Bitcoin, on the other hand, had its best week since 2023. 

Positive regulatory news coming out of the White House also helped: President Donald Trump held a meeting with crypto executives earlier last week, and urged lawmakers to get the Clarity Act over the line. 

This post Is Bitcoin Out of Its Bear Market? These Analysts Think So first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Breakout Could Be Around the Corner as Asset Is No Longer Oversold: Fairlead Strategies’ Katie Stockton

Bitcoin is no longer oversold but there’s still time to buy, according to Fairlead Strategies’ Katie Stockton. 

Speaking on Tuesday to CNBC, the financial research firm’s managing partner said that Bitcoin cleared its 200-day moving average back in May, meaning that a potential breakout could be coming. 

Bitcoin started rallying last week on news that the Treasury would at least double the size of its liquidity-support buyback operations. It’s up over 22% over a seven-day period, and was recently trading for $78,915. The coin traded above $81,000 on Monday. 

“It’s not overbought yet, so that’s the good thing,” said Stockton. 

“Whenever you see a breakout above a resistance level, it’s always better to have that immediate follow-through to essentially confirm the breakout.” 

Bitcoin was trading under $65,000 for most of June and July and experiencing its lowest volatility in its 17-year history. 

Its recent rally has some analysts saying that the so-called debasement trade could be hot again. The debasement trade is when investors buy assets when they think fiat money is losing value. 

And losing value it is: The dollar slid following the Treasury’s announcement last week. Gold and bitcoin have since rallied. 

Bitcoiners have long argued that the biggest cryptocurrency can work as a hedge against government printing, along with precious metals. 

U.S. investors last week piled back into Bitcoin exchange-traded funds; the investment vehicles had their best week since October, with nearly $2 billion in inflows. 

Bitcoin’s price was also helped after President Trump last week gathered with crypto executives at the White House and said that getting the Clarity Act over the line would keep the U.S. ahead of China. 

Lawmakers were hoping to get a vote on the crypto market structure bill, or Clarity Act, in August. A vote will now go ahead in September. The bill will establish a framework for distinguishing between digital assets that are securities, commodities or payment stablecoins. 

This post Bitcoin Breakout Could Be Around the Corner as Asset Is No Longer Oversold: Fairlead Strategies’ Katie Stockton first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Kraken Says ‘Dust Attack’ From Sanctioned HTX Wallet Locked Out Customers

Crypto exchange Kraken clients were reportedly locked out of their accounts after receiving tiny amounts of sanctioned digital coins. 

In a statement to Bitcoin Magazine, Kraken said the coins were transferred in what is known as a “dust attack” — when small quantities of cryptocurrency is sent to numerous wallet addresses to track and de-anonymize them.

Kraken said the aim of the transactions was to trigger compliance checks by spreading sanctioned funds onto other platforms. Bloomberg first reported the news. 

“We don’t know who is behind these attacks, but they likely expect that if sanctioned funds land in a client account, it triggers a full account lock, causing operational disruption for a large number of users,” a Kraken spokesperson said. 

The spokesperson added that its customers were briefly locked out of their accounts but its “compliance team mobilized quickly to restore access while continuing to hold the sanctioned funds as required.”

“We are working with authorities to ensure these attacks don’t have their intended impact,” the statement added. 

A total of 12,000 such transfers were sent from the wallet to addresses linked to Kraken between this month, Bloomberg reported, citing Arkham Intelligence. Arkham identified the wallet as linked to HTX based on addresses the exchange has publicly disclosed as part of its proof of reserves.

Chinese exchange HTX, formerly known as Huobi, is one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges. The European Union sanctioned it in July because it has, according to European authorities, helped ​Russians evade sanctions. 

“Recent dust attacks from HTX-owned wallets appear to be an attempt to spread UK- and EU-sanctioned funds to other platforms in order to discredit the broader industry,” the Kraken spokesperson continued. 

Dusting has been happening for years. Back in 2022, someone sent celebrities Ethereum from a Tornado Cash wallet one day after the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the coin mixing app used by North Korean state-sponsored hacking groups. 

Celebrities targeted in the 2022 dusting attack included comedian Jimmy Fallon, YouTuber Logan Paul and Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong. The feds said they wouldn’t prosecute the celebrities hit with sanctioned crypto. 

This post Kraken Says ‘Dust Attack’ From Sanctioned HTX Wallet Locked Out Customers first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

US Opens a New Front Against Iran’s Crypto Economy

The U.S. this week closed in on Iran, further targeting its crypto-related methods of dodging sanctions in a new economic campaign against the country. 

In a Monday announcement, the U.S. Department of the Treasury said it had placed Iran’s digital asset sector under the same sanctions authority it has long used against the country’s oil, banking and metals industries. 

The move, as part of Operation Economic Outcast, a campaign against the Islamic Republic dubbed “economic D-Day,” is a first, and a significant escalation in exposure for crypto businesses worldwide.

With the new action, the Office of Foreign Assets Control can sanction any person, regardless of where they are located. 

“The Iranian regime increasingly turns to cryptocurrency as a tool of choice for sanctions evasion, supporting transactions linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian regime insiders,” OFAC said in a statement. 

Foreign exchanges, OTC desks, payment processors and infrastructure providers that knowingly facilitate transactions supporting Iran’s digital asset sector are now exposed to designation themselves, along with the loss of access to the U.S. financial system that typically follows.

OFAC also designated members of a group within the Ministry of Intelligence and Security accused of hacking U.S. critical infrastructure on the regime’s behalf and published their wallets.

Group co-leader Behzad Mesri and members Keyvan Fayyaz Ghareh Blagh and Arman Kahzadian each had bitcoin, and other crypto addresses added to the Treasury’s sanctioned list. The three belong to a larger MOIS contingent that has pursued U.S. targets through data theft and intrusions against corporations and government offices.

Bloomberg first reported in May that Iran had started a bitcoin-backed insurance service for Iranian shipping companies.

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

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

This post US Opens a New Front Against Iran’s Crypto Economy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

The Human Rights Foundation Announces Support for 16 Projects Worldwide

The Human Rights Foundation has announced support for more projects around the globe, this time giving over 500 million satoshis — worth $396,854 at today’s prices — in grants to 16 projects based in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 

Coming from the HRF’s Bitcoin Development Fund, the grants will help projects that want to strengthen the Bitcoin protocol, expand practical Bitcoin access and facilitate secure messaging and community infrastructure for dissidents, among other things, according to the NGO. 

The grants are the second round of funding to come in 2026, after the NGO announced it had supported 26 projects in April. HRF said the funding works to reinforce Bitcoin’s role as a tool for financial freedom, enabling journalists, nonprofit organizations, and activists to more securely communicate, organize, and receive support globally through Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Payments

BitSpenda

Across Africa, cross-border money transfers are often slow, costly and rely on intermediaries. BitSpenda, a mobile money-to-bitcoin bridge, offers a non-custodial, account-free tool that lets people in Nigeria, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, and Ghana send bitcoin from a Lightning wallet directly to a mobile money account, where it is received in local currency. With HRF’s support, BitSpenda plans to expand its payment tools to make cross-border payments faster, cheaper, and more accessible in the region.

Project Island Resilience

In parts of the Caribbean, power outages and authoritarian repression can cut people off from both communication and access to money. Project Island Resilience builds on Flash, a Bitcoin and Lightning wallet created by Jamaican developer Dread. After Hurricane Melissa devastated Jamaica in late 2025, the app raised and distributed more than $10,000 in bitcoin within 72 hours. Now, the project plans to add offline payments to Flash using Bluetooth, near-field communication (NFC), and ecash, creating a model for how Bitcoin can continue working in adversarial conditions. HRF’s grant will support this next phase, helping build practical Bitcoin infrastructure that can be used during protests and internet shutdowns.

Bitzed

In Zambia, mobile money is commonly used, but buying bitcoin still usually requires banks or centralized exchanges that maintain identity records and control individuals’ assets. Bitzed, created by Bitcoin educator Humphrey, is an account-free platform that connects mobile money networks directly to Bitcoin in Zambia. Users can buy bitcoin using existing mobile money accounts and receive it straight to their own Lightning wallet. HRF’s funding will help expand this self-custodial path into Bitcoin for Zambians excluded from traditional banking and subject to financial repression.

Bitcoin Development

Libbitcoinkernel

Many Bitcoin applications have to rebuild the protocol’s most complex security rules from scratch, which increases the risk of catastrophic errors. Libbitcoinkernel is a software project pulling the core security and transaction rules directly from Bitcoin’s original code and turning them into reusable software modules. This will allow freedom tech developers to build more secure and independent wallets, services, and infrastructure without having to duplicate Bitcoin’s critical code. Support from HRF will help developer yuvicc continue this foundational work, strengthening the foundations of Bitcoin tools on which people under financial repression rely.

A Node in Every Wallet: Utreexo Wallet Integrations

Most Bitcoin wallets still rely on centralized servers to access balance and transaction history, compromising user privacy. Floresta is a lightweight version of a Bitcoin node that embeds directly into wallet apps, reducing the storage needed to verify Bitcoin transactions, so wallets can then check data locally and privately. This grant will support developer Luis Schwab in ensuring that wallets cut out the middlemen and interface directly with the Bitcoin network. 

BDK-Dart

In many authoritarian countries, mobile wallets are the most practical way to access Bitcoin. But building apps that give users full control of their funds without relying on a central authority remains a challenge. BDK-Dart is a toolkit that gives developers pre-built Bitcoin wallet-building blocks for Flutter, a popular framework to build apps for any device. The toolkit allows developers to more easily build secure, custodial Bitcoin wallets using a single, shared codebase across platforms. Supported by HRF, software developer John Osezele will make a major release of this software and a reference wallet, lowering barriers for developers to build self-custodial Bitcoin apps worldwide.

WalletScrutiny

Most Bitcoin users have no way to check whether a wallet app actually matches the open-source code it claims to run. WalletScrutiny is a project that audits Bitcoin wallets for transparency and verifies that the distributed software matches its source code. Funding will support expanded review of wallet dependencies and third-party frameworks, helping activists, journalists, and changemakers choose trustworthy Bitcoin applications in authoritarian contexts. HRF has supported WalletScrutiny before, and this grant continues that work as the recent Coldcard hack underscores the importance that the software running on a Bitcoin wallet is actually the software users expect.

Nostr

Vector Privacy: Privacy by Principle

In high-risk environments, private messaging requires more than just encryption; it also means avoiding account creation, metadata trails, and censorship. Vector is an open-source messenger built on Nostr (a decentralized communications protocol) that is permissionless and uses end-to-end encryption. HRF’s grant will help Vector launch on iOS and desktop, release encrypted voice and video calls, and provide journalists, activists, and whistleblowers with a stable, censorship-resistant tool to communicate and coordinate without fear of being tracked or silenced by dictators.

Flotilla Chat

Civil society groups and communities often rely on centralized communications platforms that can delete forums, remove users, or shut down networks with little warning. Flotilla Chat, built by the Nostr client Coracle, is a Discord-style platform built on Nostr that separates a user’s identity from the hosting provider. On Flotilla, organizers control their own infrastructure. Meanwhile, members keep portable identities across the network, reducing censorship risks. HRF’s funding will help develop features such as role-based access control, voice chat, and Bitcoin-native funding tools to make online assembly more resilient under autocratic regimes.

OpenAlert: Decentralized Critical Alerts for Nostr

Critical emergency alerts often depend on centralized push notification services — such as those run by Apple or Google — which can be easily blocked, monitored, or fail during a crisis. OpenAlert, created by software developers Fernando Diego Pergolini and Jorge Carlos Franco, is an alternative notification platform to deliver urgent alerts. Its main layer uses the decentralized Nostr network to issue alerts via anonymous text and audio messages, with end-to-end encryption and programmed self-destruction, protecting user identity from censorship and repression. HRF’s support will cover hardware and personnel costs to develop a tool that helps human rights defenders receive urgent alerts about what is going on around them.

0xchat

Activists and journalists need private, reliable communication tools, but many existing apps still expose users to surveillance and censorship. 0xchat, created by software developer water783, is a messaging app built on Nostr that offers fully encrypted chat, file transfer, voice, and video calls. It features an integration with Tor, a technology that masks internet traffic to protect a user’s physical location and identity. 0xchat also includes a built-in Cashu wallet for private Bitcoin payments. HRF’s support will help advance this communication tool so people can coordinate more safely without relying on platforms vulnerable to authoritarian intervention.

Bitcoin Mining

256 Foundation

Bitcoin mining hardware is still dominated by a few manufacturers using proprietary technology, which can limit participation and the way the network is secured. The 256 Foundation is a nonprofit working to break this oligopoly by open-sourcing every part of a Bitcoin miner: from the hardware to the software that runs them. Making mining tools more accessible and transparent reduces the network’s reliance on centralized manufacturers. Backing from HRF will strengthen network decentralization while also supporting one of the most private ways to acquire bitcoin under a dictatorship. 

Bitcoin Education

My First Bitcoin

Financial education is often shaped by state institutions, leaving little room to question how monetary systems work, let alone to explore alternatives. My First Bitcoin is an educational initiative providing free, open-source educational resources through a global education node network: a group of independent educators active in more than 40 countries, including India, Uganda, and Indonesia. HRF’s support will help grow the educators trained through their Educator Training Program, from roughly 60 to 120, with a focus on communities living under authoritarian rule achieving financial freedom.

Agora: Bitcoin Lightning Activation & Civic Infrastructure Pilot

In Venezuela, activists, independent journalists, and civic organizers face blocked platforms, surveillance, and difficulty receiving international support. Agora is a decentralized activist platform built on Nostr and Bitcoin that supports coordination, censorship-resistant communication, and peer-to-peer financial support for communities under authoritarianism. Agora includes a non-custodial Bitcoin fundraising component that enables people anywhere in the world to support individuals and causes directly, with contributions sent directly to recipients’ wallets. Developed in part through an HRF-supported hackathon, this grant will support Agora’s 9-month pilot deployment in Venezuela, demonstrating how Freedom Tech functions as practical civic infrastructure in an authoritarian environment.

HODL: Hands On Design Lab

Many Bitcoin tools remain hard to use because their interfaces do not clearly guide users through the critical steps of self-custody, privacy, and security. HODL: Hands On Design Lab  is an education initiative that runs structured cohorts for early-career designers in India. HODL prepares them to contribute to apps, projects, and tools across the Bitcoin ecosystem. This will help close a usability gap in Bitcoin by training UI and UX designers to directly improve how people interact with it in practice. Funding will support personnel and three cohorts over 12 months to help make Bitcoin easier for everyone to use.

Hack4Freedom

Women in Africa and Latin America often face exclusion from the education and technical training needed to contribute to freedom tech. Hack4Freedom, created by Evento founder Brianna Honkawa d’Estries, is a two-week developer education program that trains women in Africa and Brazil to build on Bitcoin and other open-source freedom tech projects. With cohorts in cities such as Lagos, Nairobi, and São Paulo, HRF’s grant will cover event and travel costs, creating new opportunities for women to participate in developing tools for financial and digital freedom. 

This post The Human Rights Foundation Announces Support for 16 Projects Worldwide first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

XRP is on course for its strongest monthly gain in more than a year after recovering from below $1, even as a fresh pullback and heavy whale activity test the durability of the rally.

CryptoSlate's data shows the token trading near $1.40 as of press time, down about 5% over the past 24 hours, after climbing as high as $1.70 during last week's broader crypto market surge.

This price performance contrasts with the fact that XRP is on track for a roughly 32% gain in August, per CryptoRank's data. This would mark its best monthly performance since July 2025, when it advanced about 35%.

The recovery has been accompanied by stronger demand for US spot exchange-traded funds and rising stablecoin activity on the XRP Ledger.

Large holders, however, have also moved billions of XRP through Binance in recent weeks, creating competing signals over whether whales are accumulating or preparing to sell into the rebound.

ETF inflows accelerate even as XRP retreats

Institutional demand has continued after the initial price breakout, with US spot XRP ETFs recording about $23.87 million in net inflows on Aug. 25.

The haul was the products' largest daily inflow since May 11, when they attracted $25.8 million, and extended their run of positive flows to nine consecutive trading sessions.

The funds have now pulled in more than $80 million of fresh capital during August, adding another source of demand after XRP spent much of the year under pressure.

The latest inflow took cumulative net subscriptions into US spot XRP funds to about $1.59 billion since launch, while their net assets stood at roughly $1.46 billion at the end of Tuesday's session.

The persistence of those flows contrasts with earlier periods when ETF demand failed to translate into stronger price performance.

XRP funds had already accumulated more than $1.47 billion of net inflows by late June even as the token slid toward $1, showing that ETF purchases alone have not historically been sufficient to establish a price floor.

This month's rebound has instead coincided with renewed fund demand and broader activity around XRP and its underlying network.

RLUSD growth adds another source of liquidity on XRPL

Dollar-denominated activity on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has also accelerated during the recovery, with Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin crossing $2 billion in circulating supply last week.

About $963 million of RLUSD was circulating on XRPL as of Aug. 25, with roughly $1.05 billion on Ethereum, putting nearly half of the stablecoin's total supply on the XRPL less than two years after its December 2024 launch. Monthly RLUSD transfer volume across the two networks reached about $11.8 billion.

The expansion stands out against a softer backdrop for the broader stablecoin market.

Evernorth, the largest public company holding XRP, said its analysis of ledger data last week showed RLUSD outstanding on XRPL had increased 39% since May 20 to about $934 million. Over roughly the same period, total stablecoin supply across platforms had contracted about 6% from its May peak, representing a decline of approximately $20 billion.

Activity within the XRP Ledger supply has also been substantial. Evernorth said about $450 million of RLUSD was issued on XRPL over the previous 30 days, with roughly the same amount redeemed. Ethereum recorded about $403 million of issuance and $177 million of redemptions over the comparable period.

Those flows point to increased stablecoin turnover on XRPL, though they do not translate directly into XRP purchases. RLUSD can be issued, transferred, and redeemed without creating equivalent demand for the ledger's native token.

Still, the expansion gives XRP's latest price recovery a broader network backdrop than price and ETF flows alone, just as large holders have become considerably more active.

Whale flows turn sharply two-way as the rally matures

XRP's largest holders have moved extraordinary amounts of the token both onto and off Binance during the rebound, complicating attempts to characterize whales as outright buyers or sellers.

In its latest report shared with CryptoSlate, CryptoQuant reported that daily whale inflows to exchanges surged to roughly 460 million XRP during the rally, their highest level since February. The increase placed a large quantity of XRP within reach of the exchange as the token's price accelerated.

However, more recent CryptoQuant data shows the trend extended beyond a single session. Whale inflows into Binance reached approximately 1.451 billion XRP over 30 days, the highest four-week total in four months, after declining through July and early August.

Exchange deposits can precede selling, but they can also reflect trading, collateral management or portfolio reallocation and do not establish that the transferred XRP was sold.

Meanwhile, the other side of the ledger has become equally pronounced.

Darkfost, CryptoQuant's analyst, pointed out that large XRP withdrawals from Binance surged to 231 million tokens by Aug. 21, more than four times the level recorded two days earlier and the highest in about six months. At recent prices, the movement was worth more than $330 million.

Large exchange withdrawals can reduce immediately available sell-side supply and are often associated with accumulation or movement into longer-term custody. Without net-flow and wallet-level evidence, however, the simultaneous surge in deposits makes the direction of overall whale positioning less clear.

The scale of the activity shows how rapidly large-holder behavior has changed as XRP recovered from below $1.

ETF investors have continued adding exposure, RLUSD supply on XRPL is approaching $1 billion, and whales are withdrawing unusually large amounts from Binance.

At the same time, the 460 million XRP daily inflow spike and 1.451 billion XRP accumulated deposits show that substantial supply has also been moving toward the exchange.

That two-way positioning leaves XRP approaching the final days of its strongest month since July 2025, with fresh demand still entering the market, but with large holders increasingly active on both sides of the trade.

The post XRP rebounds 32% from $1 as ETF money pours in and whales reposition appeared first on CryptoSlate.

At 8:30 a.m. ET on Aug. 26, Bitcoin’s seven-session spot ETF inflow streak faces a concentrated macro test as three U.S. reports land at the same minute.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to publish July Personal Income and Outlays, including the PCE inflation indexes, alongside its second estimate of second-quarter GDP. The U.S. Census Bureau will release July advance durable-goods orders at the same time.

Ahead of the data, CryptoSlate’s Bitcoin market data put BTC near $78,508, down about 2% over 24 hours but still up roughly 22.8% over seven days. The asset therefore enters the release window with substantial recent gains, but without evidence yet of how it will respond to a fresh move in yields or the dollar.

The ETF inflow streak is measurable. Farside Investors’ daily table shows seven consecutive positive U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF sessions from Aug. 17 through Aug. 25. Adding those daily totals produces $2.5697 billion in net inflows. However, fund-flow data do not identify end investors, so the aggregate cannot establish broad institutional participation on its own.

The latest session was also highly concentrated. BlackRock’s IBIT accounted for $284.4 million of the $314.3 million total on Aug. 25, or about 90.5%. That distribution makes the streak a strong aggregate net-inflow signal, but not a uniform one across funds.

The inflation hurdle is specific. The Cleveland Fed’s Aug. 25 nowcast estimated July headline PCE inflation at 0.15% month over month and 3.65% year over year. It put core PCE at 0.25% monthly and 3.29% annually. Those figures are model estimates, not official results, but they provide a reference point for the release.

The cross-asset starting line adds another constraint. The official Treasury curve put the 10-year yield at 4.64% on Aug. 25, while overnight quotes held near 4.65%. A delayed U.S. Dollar Index quote put DXY near 99.00 and slightly above its prior close.

A possible absorption test is straightforward. If hotter inflation or stronger growth coincides with rising yields and a firmer dollar, Bitcoin holding near its pre-release level would be consistent with ETF demand offsetting some of the pressure. A sharp decline would instead suggest that seven positive sessions provided support, not immunity.

Neither outcome can be claimed before the reports land. The starting markers are Bitcoin near $79,000, the 10-year yield near 4.65%, and DXY near 99 immediately before 8:30, followed by the first verified move across all three markets.

The post Three critical US reports arrive in 30 minutes as Bitcoin’s $2.5 billion ETF streak faces its first real test appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin's brief pullback below $78,000 triggered more than $300 million in crypto liquidations as traders took profits after a sharp $80,000 rally driven by Treasury developments, ETF inflows, and a squeeze on bearish positions.

Data from CryptoSlate shows that the largest cryptocurrency fell as low as $77,870 during the last 24 hours before recovering above $79,000 as of press time. The retreat spread across major cryptocurrencies, with XRP falling 4% to $1.43 and Solana sliding 3% to $97 after trading above $101.

Ethereum dropped to about $2,467, while Zcash declined 7% to $789. Cardano and Dogecoin each fell roughly 5%, with ADA trading around $0.20.

CoinGlass data showed that this price action led to about 80,000 liquidations over 24 hours, with losses totaling $324.4 million. Long positions accounted for roughly $270 million of the wipeout, marking a sharp reversal from last week's rally when bearish traders absorbed most of the forced selling.

The largest single liquidation was an $11.91 million Bitcoin position on Binance. Bitcoin longs lost about $109 million, while Ethereum longs accounted for roughly $70 million. XRP and Zcash long liquidations reached about $16 million and $11 million, respectively.

Long traders replace shorts in the firing line

The shift toward long liquidations shows leverage has quickly rebuilt on the bullish side after last week's surge forced bearish traders out of the market.

Crypto market maker Wintermute said short traders represented roughly 92% of liquidations during the previous advance, when Bitcoin broke through the top of its trading range, and crypto investment products attracted $2.6 billion.

The market maker turned constructive after ETF flows stabilized and Bitcoin held its range floor, but warned that the speed of the positioning shift resembled squeeze behavior. Once forced short covering runs its course, additional gains depend more heavily on buyers willing to enter at higher prices.

That risk has grown as traders increasingly position for further upside.

Alphractal CEO Joao Wedson said the probability of another Bitcoin long squeeze was rising as long positions became more concentrated and funding rates remained positive across several exchanges.

Positive funding generally means traders holding leveraged long positions are paying shorts to maintain their exposure, a sign that futures markets are tilted toward higher prices. A rapid decline can force some of those positions to close, adding selling pressure to the initial move.

Wednesday's decline delivered an early version of that process. Bitcoin's recovery toward $79,000, however, has so far prevented the liquidation wave from developing into a deeper reversal.

ETF and spot demand now face their first test above $80,000

With some of the short-covering fuel exhausted, the next phase of the rally increasingly depends on whether spot and ETF buyers continue absorbing profit-taking.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs entered the pullback after attracting more than $2.5 billion across a seven-session inflow streak, helping Bitcoin climb from roughly $62,000 earlier this month to above $80,000.

Wintermute said ETF flows now carry the burden of confirming that the advance has a more durable spot-market foundation. The firm would turn cautious if Bitcoin ETFs record a negative weekly flow while Bitcoin closes back inside its former range below $67,000.

Other demand indicators continue to support the bullish side of that argument.

CryptoQuant data showed spot and futures demand have been rising together, with total Bitcoin demand increasing by about 170,000 BTC over the past 30 days.

That synchronized growth has historically accompanied some of Bitcoin's stronger advances, though it also leaves the market vulnerable when futures exposure expands faster than spot buying.

Glassnode data also showed monthly capital flows have returned to positive territory. The analytics firm identified Bitcoin's short-term holder cost basis, currently near $70,000, as an important level during any deeper retracement.

A sustained influx of buyers above that level would allow recent holders to remain in profit and provide support during declines. Losing it would put a larger share of recent buyers underwater and raise the risk that profit-taking develops into broader selling.

For now, Bitcoin remains well above that threshold despite its retreat from this week's highs.

PCE, Nvidia and Warsh could determine what comes next

Meanwhile, the current pullback arrives just as a series of macro events threatens to test a rally initially accelerated by falling Treasury yields and expectations for greater liquidity.

The US Bureau of Economic Analysis is scheduled to release its second estimate of second-quarter GDP and July personal income and spending data on Wednesday, including the Federal Reserve's preferred PCE inflation gauge.

Inflation has become particularly important after higher energy prices and tariffs complicated the outlook for monetary policy. A stronger-than-expected core PCE reading could revive pressure on Treasury yields and risk assets after falling yields helped fuel Bitcoin's recent advance.

Nvidia will report fiscal second-quarter results later Wednesday, with results expected around 1:20 p.m. Pacific time before a conference call at 2 p.m. The chipmaker's outlook could influence broader risk appetite as artificial intelligence spending has become an increasingly important driver of equity markets and corporate borrowing.

Attention then turns to Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, who is scheduled to deliver keynote remarks Friday at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium. The gathering runs Aug. 27-29 under the theme “Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy.”

Warsh has offered little policy guidance since the Fed's July 28-29 meeting, leaving markets sensitive to any indication of how the central bank views inflation, long-term yields, and its next interest-rate decision.

Those events come before the Treasury's expanded long-term bond buybacks begin Sept. 9, followed by a planned CLARITY Act cloture vote on Sept. 15 and the Fed's next policy decision on Sept. 16.

Bitcoin's rebound from Wednesday's low suggests buyers have so far treated the decline as a retracement. Whether they continue to do so will determine whether the move below $80,000 clears excess leverage or marks the beginning of a broader unwind.

The post Why Bitcoin’s $80,000 rally just flipped from short squeeze to long squeeze appeared first on CryptoSlate.

A federal jury convicted Profit Connect owner Brent C. Kovar on 15 fraud and money-laundering counts after prosecutors said he obtained $24 million from at least 400 investors through false claims about an AI-powered crypto business.

The Justice Department said the verdict followed a nine-day trial, with jurors finding Kovar guilty of 11 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, and two counts of money laundering.

The Justice Department placed the conduct between late 2017 and July 2021, when Kovar marketed Profit Connect as a profitable technology business capable of generating the promised returns.

Kovar told investors that Profit Connect used AI software on a supercomputer to mine crypto and verify crypto transactions, according to the Justice Department. He represented the company as profitable, promised fixed returns of 15% to 30% APR and offered a 100% money-back guarantee.

He also claimed Profit Connect held hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto reserves. Prosecutors said the company was unprofitable, held no reserves, and lacked a legitimate source for the promised returns or guarantee.

The Justice Department said Kovar instead used investor money to operate Profit Connect, buy gifts for employees, purchase a house for himself, and repay investors, with those repayments presented as proceeds from mining and transaction verification.

From civil allegations to a criminal verdict

The SEC's 2021 civil action alleged that Joy and Brent Kovar had raised more than $12 million from at least 277 retail investors since at least May 2018 through Profit Connect Wealth Services. The regulator said they promoted 20% to 30% annual returns tied to a purported AI supercomputer.

CryptoSlate covered those allegations at the time. The numbers came from the SEC's civil case against Profit Connect and both Kovars, while the August 2026 jury verdict separately established Brent Kovar's criminal liability.

The Justice Department's $24 million figure is about twice the SEC's earlier figure of more than $12 million. The minimum investor count also increased from at least 277 in the SEC case to at least 400 in the criminal case, although both figures are lower-bound estimates.

The figures come from different cases and cover different periods, so they are not directly comparable. They show that the publicly reported scope of the scheme was larger by the time of Kovar's criminal conviction, while separate court or receivership records would be needed to determine investor losses and recoveries.

The verdict now moves the case to sentencing on Nov. 30, with prosecutors saying the convictions carry an aggregate statutory maximum of 280 years in prison, representing the legal ceiling across the counts. A federal judge will determine Kovar's sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

The post Profit Connect owner convicted over $24M AI crypto fraud scheme appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin's end-of-September options expiry holds 130,670 BTC of open interest, compared with 79,003 BTC for August, a headline gap large enough to look like traders are loading up before the Federal Reserve's Sept. 16 decision.

DWF Labs market insights lead Martin Lee said in a note that most of that gap has nothing to do with the Fed. September and December are the two quarterly expiries in Bitcoin options, and together they hold 59.3% of all open interest, since traders often roll positions into them.

The story sits in how the market has quietly repriced its own risk.

The September book is mostly a red herring

Lee found that the top five strikes account for 31% of September's open interest, the same concentration he sees in both December and March. If September were an aggressive, concentrated bet on the Fed, the book would probably look different from routine quarterly positioning elsewhere on the calendar.

The week of July's Fed meeting traded 14,983 contracts, a number the DWF market insights lead described as mid-range for the summer.

The jump came weeks later, when weekly volume tripled to 64,749 contracts around Aug. 19, the same week the US Treasury announced it would at least double its long-end liquidity-support buybacks, raising the maximum operation size from $2 billion to at least $4 billion starting Sept. 9.

Reports tied that announcement to easing long-end yield stress and a revived dollar-debasement trade that lifted both Bitcoin and gold.

Bitcoin ran from $64,100 to a close near $77,000 that week, clearing out roughly $4 billion of short positions along the way. Stanley Druckenmiller has separately criticized the expanded buybacks as damaging to Treasury's credibility, a tension that sits underneath the same rally now driving Bitcoin's options market.

A year of cheap calls just ended

Puts had been the richer side of Bitcoin's options market for close to a year. The December expiry printed a negative monthly median every single month from December 2025 through August 2026, with only three positive daily readings across 224 sessions.

End-September calls now trade 0.97 volatility points richer than puts, up from 4.96 points cheaper on Aug. 3, a swing of nearly six volatility points toward upside in under three weeks.

US-traded spot Bitcoin ETFs took in roughly $1.92 billion last week, their strongest weekly pace of 2026, giving traders a clear demand-side reason to chase that call bid.

September's largest call sits at $70,000 with 11,308 contracts, a number that looks bullish until the context arrives. Bitcoin already trades 9.8% above that level, which puts the position deep in the money.

Lee said those contracts are almost certainly legacy exposure from when Bitcoin traded in the low $60,000s.

Some 27% of September's open interest sits more than 30% away from spot, compared with 13% for the August expiry. A large share of the book sits in cheap, far-dated wings that carry little chance of ever coming into play.

The band most probably in live play sits between $78,000 and $82,000, where three separate lines together hold around 14,000 contracts, with $100,000 acting as a round-number magnet above it.

Which side of the Bitcoin book gets tested

Options positioning usually gets read by looking for the biggest wall, the largest concentration of calls or puts sitting above or below spot.

Lee's data points to the question, “Where does the book offer the least protection?”

September's book runs 1.8-to-1 in favor of calls, and the live upside positioning clusters between $78,000 and $100,000. The heavier downside protection sits at $60,000 and below, the kind of catastrophe insurance investors buy against a severe, disorderly decline.

Between roughly $60,000 and $75,000, the book thins out considerably. Lee said:

“A sharp move down into the low 70s would land in the thinnest part of the book.”

It is also the direction the market stopped paying a premium to protect against just last week.

The bull case has the debasement trade extending, with long yields easing further, the dollar staying weak, and ETF demand continuing at last week's pace.

In that scenario, Bitcoin pushes toward the $82,000 to $100,000 range, and the call-heavy skew gets validated by real spot demand. The $100,000 level becomes the market's next psychological magnet, drawing attention without functioning as anyone's price target.

The bear case has long yields rebounding, Fed rhetoric turning hawkish into the Sept. 16 decision, or the Treasury trade simply losing momentum, sending Bitcoin down into the $68,000 to $75,000 range.

That is precisely the zone Lee's data identifies as the book's weak point, sitting below the call-heavy upside positioning and above where the larger downside hedges cluster. The most disruptive outcome for current positioning would be an ordinary, sharp drop landing exactly where the September book offers the least protection.

Bitcoin's options market spent a year paying up for protection against exactly this kind of move. It has now stopped, right as the price gap between its upside bets and its catastrophe insurance leaves the low $70,000s as the one place few traders are covered.

The post Bitcoin traders hedged $60k and loaded up above $78k leaving the low $70k exposed appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Coinbase is withdrawing ten perpetual futures from trading on August 26, 2026. The contracts affected are those on Memecoin (MEME), The Sandbox (SAND), Moonbirds (BIRB), Blur (BLUR), Katana (KAT), SPX6900 (SPX), Zora (ZORA), Axie Infinity (AXS), Gensyn (AI) and LayerZero (ZRO). Anyone who leaves a position open does not sell it themselves: Coinbase settles it automatically, at an average price taken from the final hour of trading. Close it yourself and you set the price; wait and it is assigned to you. That is the whole difference, and on a thinly traded contract it decides real money.

The delisting is part of a series. In June, Coinbase ended six perpetual futures in the same way, and nine more follow on September 3. The procedure is therefore not an isolated case but a recurring part of an exchange's product maintenance. Anyone trading derivatives should have understood the process once, rather than learning it the first time round on their own account.

Coinbase Delisting on August 26: These Ten Perpetual Futures Are Going

According to the announcement, which several industry outlets reproduce consistently, trading ends in ten perpetual contracts. These are without exception smaller assets from the gaming, NFT, memecoin and infrastructure segments. The full list in the exchange's own notation: MEME-PERP, SAND-PERP, BIRB-PERP, BLUR-PERP, KAT-PERP, SPX-PERP, ZORA-PERP, AXS-PERP, AI-PERP and ZRO-PERP.

Liquidity as the Deciding Criterion

The common denominator is liquidity. Coinbase justifies such steps with an ongoing review of trading volume, market quality and regulatory requirements. A contract in which barely anyone trades is expensive for an exchange and dangerous for investors: the spread between bid and ask widens, and a larger order moves the price against whoever places it.

Important for context: the delisting concerns the futures contract, not the coin. What that means in detail is set out further down.

Perpetual Futures Explained: What Sets a Perp Apart From a Classic Future

A perpetual future, perp for short, is a futures contract without an expiry date, used to bet on the price of an underlying without owning that underlying. A classic future expires on a fixed day and is settled then. A perp runs on indefinitely as a matter of principle.

So that the price of a perpetually running contract does not drift away from the spot market, there is the funding rate. The funding rate is a periodic payment between the long and short sides that pulls the contract price towards the index price. If the perp sits above the index, long positions pay short positions, and the other way round.

The index price in turn is a reference price for the underlying composed from several trading venues. It is the bridge between derivative and spot market and, as will be seen shortly, also the basis of settlement on delisting. How this mechanism looks on decentralised venues we described in detail in the piece What is a perp DEX; a market comparison of the platforms is in the hub Best perp DEXs.

Two things follow for practice. First, a perp carries leverage, and leverage magnifies every price move in both directions. Second, the result depends not only on the price but also on the running funding payments, which over weeks become a cost block of their own.

Forced Settlement Instead of a Sale: How Coinbase Closes Open Positions

When a perpetual future is delisted there is no buyer to whom the position is handed over. The exchange ends the contract and credits or debits everyone involved with the calculated value. The announcement states that all positions still open after the suspension will be settled automatically.

The difference from selling yourself is greater than it sounds. In a sale you choose the moment and the order type; you can work with a limit and wait. In a forced settlement both fall away. The price is fixed as soon as trading ends, and you find out what it was afterwards.

Why an Open Order Is No Substitute for Closing

An unexecuted limit order offers no protection. As long as nobody trades on the other side, the order merely sits in the order book and expires at the end along with the contract. Only an executed order closes the position. In the final hours before a delisting, liquidity typically thins out because market makers withdraw as well. A limit that was still realistic yesterday can be out of reach today.

In earlier rounds Coinbase expressly reserved the right to suspend trading early as well and to set the final settlement price at a level it considers appropriate. Anyone stretching the deadline to the last minute is therefore relying on a moment the exchange is permitted to move.

We know the same pattern from the spot market: in the Kraken delisting with forced liquidation the exchange realised remaining holdings on its own initiative after the deadline had passed.

Settlement Price by Index: Why the Final 60 Minutes Decide the Outcome

The final settlement price is not a closing price and not the last traded price. It is the average index price of the 60 minutes immediately before trading is suspended. This construction has a good reason and an unpleasant side effect.

The good reason: an average over an hour is harder to manipulate than a single price in one second. In contracts with a thin order book in particular, a closing price would be an invitation to anyone wanting to push the last candle their way.

The side effect: the average also smooths out what would work in your favour. If the underlying rises sharply in the last half hour, you only get part of it. That is why the outcome of a forced settlement is almost never identical to the price you see on screen when trading ends. A premium or discount of a few percent is already a noticeable amount in a leveraged contract.

In practice that means anyone wanting to control the outcome closes well before the cut-off date, not in the final hour. Because it is precisely in that final hour that the price is formed at which everyone else is settled.

Funding Rate Set to Zero: What the Last Payment Period Means for You

One detail of the announcement is lost in most summaries: the funding rate for the last payment period is set to zero. For the final period before the delisting, then, no payment flows between the long and short sides any more.

That is a relief for the side that would have paid last, and a lost inflow for the other side. Above all, though, it takes an incentive out of the market: without a funding payment there is no longer any reason in the closing phase to trade the contract price towards the index. The perp can diverge from the index more strongly in the final hours than it otherwise would.

Because settlement nevertheless hangs on the index, anyone still trading in this phase is trading against a price that is not decisive for the final result at all. That is the second reason not to schedule your exit for the close.

13:00 UTC or 21:00: Why the Time Given in the Reports Differs

On the time of day the accounts differ, and that belongs in the open rather than smoothed over. Some reports give “around 21:00 on August 26”, others 13:00 UTC. Both figures come from the same announcement.

The most likely explanation is a time zone: 21:00 in East Asia corresponds to 13:00 UTC. The pattern of the neighbouring rounds supports this. The June round with six contracts ended at around 13:00 UTC, and 13:00 UTC is likewise given for the September round. This cannot be proved from the available sources; what is documented is the date, not the minute.

For you this has one plain consequence. What counts is the information in your own account and in the notice the provider sends you directly. A time of day from a news report is a guide, not an undertaking. When two figures are eight hours apart, you plan your exit before the earlier one, not before the later.

Coinbase Futures in Germany: Who Can Trade These Contracts at All

Without the European angle this would be a story for American accounts. But the angle exists: Coinbase extended its futures offering in the spring of 2026 to users of Coinbase Advanced in 26 European countries, Germany expressly included. The exchange announced this step in a post of its own (Futures Contracts Now Available on Coinbase in Europe), and trade media reported it independently.

MiFID or MiCA: Which Supervision Applies to Derivatives

The offering is carried by a European company holding an authorisation from the Cypriot securities regulator CySEC, which takes effect throughout the European Economic Area via the MiFID II passport. That is the decisive legal point of this article: such contracts are financial instruments under MiFID and therefore precisely do not fall under the European crypto regulation MiCA. Anyone sorting providers by their authorisation will find the systematics in the hub Best regulated crypto exchanges; classic broker offerings sit side by side in the hub Best crypto brokers.

Whether any particular one of the ten contracts was actually tradable in a given account cannot be established from outside. The product range differs by country, account type and activation. The reliable answer is in the contract list of your own account, not in a press release.

Spot Stays Tradable: What the Delisting Does Not Mean for SAND, AXS and Blur

A misunderstanding is expensive at this point. The delisting concerns the perpetual contracts alone. The coin itself does not thereby disappear from Coinbase or from other venues, and holdings in your own wallet are unaffected.

Anyone holding SAND, AXS or BLUR in the spot market need do nothing on account of this date. Something else applies to a delisting in the spot market, where withdrawal deadlines genuinely run. We took the difference apart in Delisting: what happens when a token can no longer be traded.

A second point for context, because the two coincide in time: The Sandbox had an incident at its cross-chain bridge in August, independently of this, after which the project shut down the bridges to two networks. We described the case in The SAND bridge exploit at The Sandbox. A connection with the Coinbase decision is not documented in the available publications, and we are not constructing one here.

Derivatives and Tax: Why Section 20 of the German Income Tax Act Applies and Not the Holding Period

For German investors the tax classification is the most important difference between a perp and a purchased coin, and it is regularly confused.

A forward transaction is a contract in which the gain arises from a cash settlement or from the value of a variable reference figure, not from owning an asset. That is exactly what the law says: under section 20 subsection 2 sentence 1 number 3 of the German Income Tax Act, the gain on forward transactions through which the taxpayer obtains a cash settlement or an amount of money or advantage determined by the value of a variable reference figure counts as income from capital assets.

Three things follow from this. First, the separate tariff for investment income under section 32d of the Act applies instead of your personal tax rate. Second, there is no one-year holding period here: the tax exemption after a year that many know from Bitcoin and Ethereum held privately comes from a different provision and does not apply to forward transactions. Third, forced settlement is treated for tax purposes like a closing-out, because what matters fiscally is the ending of the transaction, not its cause.

Annex KAP: What to Do Without a Domestic Paying Agent

With a provider that has no domestic paying agent, nobody withholds tax automatically. The income then belongs in Annex KAP of your tax return, and the burden of proof is on you. A clean transaction history is not a convenience here but the basis of the return. Which tools evaluate derivative positions cleanly at all is set out in the hub Crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers. How a forced ending works for tax purposes in the spot market we set out in Forced sale on a crypto exchange and tax.

Loss Offsetting on Forward Transactions: What Our Own Look at the Statute Shows Today

Forced settlements hit positions in the red disproportionately often, because those in profit mostly close of their own accord. That makes the question of what happens to a loss from a forward transaction an important one.

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on August 26, 2026. Method: we retrieved the official full text of section 20 of the German Income Tax Act at gesetze-im-internet.de (HTTP 200) and counted through subsection 6 sentence by sentence. Exactly one provision was examined, in the version published today.

Result: subsection 6 contains five sentences. Sentence 1 bars the offsetting of losses from capital assets against other categories of income, sentence 2 permits a carry-forward into later years within investment income, sentence 4 restricts share losses to share gains, sentence 5 requires a loss certificate for the offsetting. A separate offsetting circle for forward transactions no longer appears in it, and the character string for the former ceiling is nowhere to be found in the entire section.

This matches the legal position that tax portals have described since the 2024 Annual Tax Act: the separate loss-offsetting circle for forward transactions with its limit of 20,000 euros a year was abolished, retroactively and in all open cases. Losses from a perp have since been offset against investment income generally, not only against gains of the same kind.

What this analysis does not show belongs here too: the count says nothing about how an individual provider implements this in its annual tax statement, it is a snapshot of today's statutory text, and it is no substitute for tax advice in an individual case. What we examined was the wording of the law, not its application to your account.

Not the First Round: Coinbase Settled Six Perpetual Futures in June

On June 24, 2026 Coinbase ended six perpetual contracts: Spark (SPK), Zama (ZAMA), Gunz (GUN), Turbo (TURBO), Moo Deng (MOODENG) and Nomina (NOM). The procedure was identical to the present one. Open positions were settled automatically at the moment of suspension, and the settlement price came from the average index price of the preceding 60 minutes.

This repetition is the real news for investors. A procedure an exchange applies twice a quarter is routine, and routine can be prepared for. Anyone holding perpetual futures on smaller assets should assume that a delisting is possible at any time, and choose their position size accordingly.

Next Round on September 3: Kaspa, POPCAT and Seven More Contracts

The next date is already set. On September 3, 2026, at 13:00 UTC according to the available reports, Coinbase is withdrawing nine further perpetual futures: Espresso (ESP), DoubleZero (2Z), RedStone (RED), Aevo (AEVO), Aethir (ATH), Kaspa (KAS), Sky (SKY), Popcat (POPCAT) and Brett (BRETT).

Anyone exposed in one of these contracts therefore still has a good week and should use it rather than steering towards the cut-off date. The point from the section on timing applies here too: the figure in your own account trumps every report.

Reading a Delisting Announcement Properly: How to Spot a Hard Deadline

Delisting notices look alike and mean different things. Four points separate the harmless announcement from the expensive one.

First, the kind of ending. Does only trading end, or does the possibility of withdrawing the asset end as well? With a derivative as here there is nothing to withdraw, the position is settled in money. With a spot delisting, by contrast, a separate withdrawal deadline often runs on after trading closes, as recently in the Bitfinex delisting with a withdrawal deadline.

Second, the intermediate stages. Many exchanges switch into a mode before the end in which positions can only be reduced. Anyone missing that suddenly finds themselves in an account where a hedge can no longer be built.

Third, the price rule. Does the notice state an averaging window, a closing price or a reservation of discretion by the exchange? That decides how much control you have left at all.

Fourth, the scope. Does the measure hit the coin or only one product on it? This distinction is almost always lost in headlines. How differently it can turn out is shown by two current cases in the spot market: the OKX delisting of MAJOR and J and the Binance delisting of ICX, SCRT and STORJ.

Checking the Coinbase Delisting: Your Key Takeaways

1. Look at the contract list today, not at the headline. Open your derivatives account and check whether one of the ten positions is open. If something is there, close it well clear of the deadline, because the settlement price is formed in the final hour. If you are thinking about your trading venue anyway while you are at it, the market comparison in the hub Best crypto exchanges helps.
2. Place your provider's authorisation. With European providers, derivatives run under a securities authorisation pursuant to MiFID, spot trading by contrast under MiCA. Each means different rights and different supervision. Which provider operates under which authorisation is set out in the hub Best regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Secure the settlement records for your tax return. Download the settlement documents and the account statement while the contract can still be found in the account. Gains and losses from forward transactions belong in Annex KAP, and without records they become an estimate. Suitable evaluation tools are in the hub Crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers.

(As of August 26, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

If you still have a balance or an open position at BitMEX, four cut-off dates now apply to you. On August 26 at 04:00 UTC the operator imposes risk limits under which you can no longer open new positions and can only reduce existing ones. On September 2 at 12:00 UTC eleven perpetual swaps are settled early. On September 23 at 04:00 UTC the exchange ceases operations. After that you can still reach your balance, but you pay a monthly account fee for it. All four dates appear in the company's own notices, and all four are hard.

The Four BitMEX Closure Deadlines at a Glance

BitMEX announced the closure on July 23, 2026. Since then a staged wind-down has been running, which the operator itself describes as an orderly retreat. This overview summarises what happens on which date and what you should have dealt with by then.

The operator cites a strategic review as the reason: after reviewing the business and the wider crypto industry, the board of HDR Global Trading Limited, the owner and operator of the platform, decided on the closure. The exchange has not accepted new accounts since the announcement. We described how the end of a trading venue plays out in detail on July 23, 2026 in the article BitMEX shuts up shop: crypto exchange ends all operations after eleven years.

What Reduce-Only From August 26 Means for Your Open Positions

Reduce-only is an account mode in which an exchange accepts only orders that make an existing position smaller. A buy order on an existing long position is rejected, a sell order on the same position goes through. That is exactly the state BitMEX establishes through risk limits from August 26 at 04:00 UTC.

Two points here are easily overlooked. First, trading does not end at that moment: until Closure Time the platform remains in normal operation according to the operator, so you can continue to sell, close and withdraw. Second, the company expressly reserves the right to force-close open positions itself between August 26 and September 23 in order to wind the market down in an orderly way. In the same notice the operator points out that it accepts no responsibility for trading losses arising because users have not closed their positions themselves by then.

In practice that means the moment at which your position is closed out is, from today, no longer reliably in your hands. Anyone who still wants to determine their own exit price has to do it now. For contracts with thin liquidity the company additionally announces early settlement procedures, about which it will give notice through its usual channels.

The stock of open contracts gives an interesting picture here. Our article of August 22, 2026, BitMEX open interest four days before the block, reported that four futures contracts run past the closure date. Our own query of the operator's public trading interface on August 26, 2026 at 00:37 UTC confirms this: of five listed futures contracts, four expire only after Closure Time, the latest in March 2027.

On September 2 BitMEX Settles Eleven Perpetual Swaps Early

The second deadline is the less conspicuous one and still affects more accounts. On September 2, 2026 the operator withdraws eleven perpetual swap contracts from trading and settles them early. As justification the notice expressly cites the decision to close the exchange.

The schedule consists of two markers. Until 04:00 UTC, described in the notice as T start, the contracts trade normally. At that point the funding rate is calculated one last time from the preceding eight hours and then set to zero. At 12:00 UTC, the point termed T settle, the contracts expire. Trading ends, all open orders are cancelled, the last funding is settled, and all open positions are closed at the respective settlement price. According to the operator no fees are charged for this settlement.

What a Perpetual Swap Is and Why the Funding Rate Is Decisive Here

A perpetual swap is a derivative on a price which, unlike a classic futures contract, has no expiry date. So that its price nevertheless stays close to the spot price, holders on one side of the market pay a balancing payment to the other at fixed intervals. That payment is called the funding rate. When it is positive, long positions pay short positions; when it is negative, the payment runs the other way.

BitMEX introduced this product in 2014 and describes itself as the inventor of the perpetual swap with hundredfold leverage. Over eleven years it became the industry's most traded instrument and was adopted by countless other platforms. That the pioneer of this product is now the one winding it down early is the real turning point behind the announcement.

For your account three concrete consequences follow on September 2. The last funding is still settled, after which it ceases. Your position is closed not at your preferred price but at the settlement price, which the operator forms from a thirty-minute index. And the result accrued over the term moves to your Bitcoin balance if the contract was collateralised in Bitcoin, or to your Tether balance if it was collateralised in USDT. The contract then disappears from the position overview. Anyone holding a leveraged perpetual position should therefore do the maths themselves before September 2 rather than leaving it to the index price.

These Eleven Contracts Will Be Settled on September 2

The following list is taken verbatim from the operator's notice of August 18, 2026. The index serving as the settlement price is given in brackets in each case.

• SOLUSDT (.BSOLT30M) and SOLUSD (.BSOL30M) on Solana
• XRPUSD (.BXRP30M) and XRPUSDT (.BXRPT30M) on XRP
• BNBUSDT (.BBNBT30M) and BNBUSD (.BBNB30M)
• HYPEUSDT (.BHYPET30M)
• LINKUSD (.BLINK30M)
• SUIUSDT (.BSUIT30M)
• NEARUSDT (.BNEART30M)
• XAUTUSDT (.BXAUTT30M)

Our own measurement at the operator's public trading interface on August 26, 2026 at 00:37 UTC shows that 27 instruments in total stood at open at that point and that all eleven announced contracts were among them. All eleven therefore remain tradable for now, and anyone holding a position in them can still close it themselves. Those who want to keep working with perpetual contracts will find the decentralised alternatives in the comparison of the best perp DEXs.

What Closure Time on September 23 Means for Your Account

Closure Time is the end point of the exchange set by the operator: September 23, 2026, 04:00:00 UTC. From that moment BitMEX, by its own account, no longer provides trading services and merely holds the assets of those users who have not withdrawn by then. All positions still open at that point are immediately force-closed.

One detail concerns every holder of the in-house token: the operator has already unstaked all staked BMEX tokens, so they sit immediately available in accounts. Anyone still holding them there does not have to release them from a staking contract before withdrawing.

Access to the account remains in place after the cut-off date as well. According to the company, users can continue to log in, view their balance and transaction history and initiate withdrawals. That is no longer free of charge, however.

The Account Fee After the Cut-Off: 1 Percent a Year or 50 US Dollars

This is the point that sets the closure apart from an ordinary exchange announcement. Anyone who has verified their account and does not withdraw their assets by Closure Time will, according to the notice, be charged an account fee of 1 percent per year, billed monthly. For accounts whose balance amounts to no more than that sum, a flat charge of the equivalent of 50 US dollars applies instead. The fee runs until the balance has been withdrawn in full.

Two additions make the matter more unpleasant than the bare percentage sounds. The operator reserves the right to raise the fee over time, though it intends to announce this in advance. And anyone who does not withdraw by Closure Time is, by the wording of the notice, deemed to agree to this fee and to later increases. With a small residual balance of a few hundred dollars the flat charge therefore eats up the holding within a few months. That is precisely why it is worth taking small amounts and dust along now instead of leaving them sitting there.

Will BitMEX Still Exist After September 23?

Not as a trading venue. As a custodian for balances not withdrawn, yes, for the time being. The company announces that it will continue to contact users regularly who have not withdrawn their assets after the cut-off date, in order to move them towards withdrawal. The notice gives no end date for this phase, but it does state the intention to raise the fees over time.

On the coverage of customer balances the operator states that assets exceed liabilities, as its own page on proof of reserves and liabilities shows. Proof of reserves is a verification procedure by which an exchange is meant to demonstrate that it actually holds customer balances. That is a statement by the company about itself, not a third-party attestation. For you as a holder the conclusion stays the same regardless of how solid you consider this evidence: a balance on an exchange in wind-down is a claim, not possession.

Why Withdrawals Now Take Longer and How to Spot Phishing Campaigns

The operator expects delays itself and gives three reasons for them. It has introduced additional checks for all requested withdrawals. Under heavy demand, network limits can apply depending on the coin. And the confirmation times of some blockchains are simply long: with Bitcoin an hour is said not to be unusual, which together with a fixed pool of withdrawal addresses slows processing down. If your withdrawal shows the status in progress, it is in the queue according to the company and will be sent as soon as the next address becomes free.

A simple consequence follows: the closer September 23 comes, the fuller that queue gets. A withdrawal at the end of August is considerably more relaxed than one on the evening of September 22.

The second pointer in the notice is a security warning, and it deserves attention. The company expressly warns about phishing campaigns using the closure as a hook, and makes clear that there is no preferential or expedited withdrawal service. Any message promising you a faster withdrawal in exchange for a fee, through a link or against disclosure of access details is therefore identifiable as an attempted fraud. Wind-downs are attractive to attackers because they create genuine time pressure among those affected.

Crypto Tax: Secure Your Transaction History Before the Account Shuts

A forced settlement is not a neutral event for tax purposes. If your position is closed out on September 2 or September 23, a realised result arises whether or not you chose that moment. How this is to be classified in an individual case depends on the type of contract, on the rest of your investment situation and on the legal position at the time of assessment. That is a question for your tax adviser, not for an article.

What you can do now regardless is secure the evidence. The operator undertakes that the transaction history will remain viewable after the cut-off date. That undertaking is no guarantee over a span of years, and an account at a wound-down exchange is a poor filing place for records you will need in the following year's tax return. Export the full trading and withdrawal history while the platform is running normally, and put it where the rest of your crypto records sit.

Where to Move the Balance: Regulated Crypto Exchange, Perp DEX or Your Own Wallet

The answer depends on what you used BitMEX for. Anyone who only held positions there needs no derivatives platform as a replacement. Anyone who traded with leverage faces the choice between another centralised exchange and a decentralised alternative.

For holdings you only wanted to leave sitting anyway, a hardware wallet is the obvious address. The term describes a device that keeps your private key offline, so that it does not leave the device even when signing a transaction. The advantage in exactly this situation is plain: what sits in your own custody cannot be reached by any account fee of an exchange in wind-down.

For active trading, two routes are worth a look. A regulated trading venue gives you deposit protection and supervisory structures, in exchange for identification requirements and a narrower product range. A decentralised venue for perpetual contracts gives you product proximity to what you had at BitMEX, but shifts the risk from the company to the program code. Both routes have their place, and neither has to be decided tonight. What has to be decided today is only whether your position is still open.

Checking the BitMEX Deadlines: Your Key Takeaways

1. Close open positions yourself before the operator does. From August 26 at 04:00 UTC you can only reduce, and BitMEX may close out on its own initiative at any time from then on. If you want to keep trading with leverage, look at the best regulated crypto exchanges first.
2. Withdraw your entire balance before September 23, small amounts included. After that every remaining residue costs 1 percent a year or the equivalent of 50 US dollars, billed monthly. For holdings you want to keep longer, you will find the right device in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Export the transaction history while the platform is running normally. The forced settlement on September 2 and September 23 produces realised results that you have to document. The crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers in our comparison take the data directly.

The primary sources for all the dates named are the operator's notice on the closure of the exchange of July 23, 2026 and the announcement on the early settlement of the eleven perpetual swaps of August 18, 2026.

(As of August 26, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Germany's financial regulator BaFin issued a warning on August 24, 2026 about offerings on the website tresorbit(.)com. What is new in this notice is the addition: according to the regulator's findings, the case involves identity misuse at the expense of a real German company. The short answer for you is therefore this. A German company name, a German address and a clean legal form on a crypto website prove nothing at all. A provider is only verified once you have found it yourself in BaFin's company database.

According to BaFin, crypto-asset services are offered through the website without authorisation, specifically trading in crypto-assets. The regulator also names whose identity was used for this: Gesellschaft für Kryptoregisterführung mbH, based in Willich. BaFin states that this company has no connection to the operators of the website. Anyone who googles the company name and finds a genuine German commercial register entry has found the wrong confirmation.

The BaFin Warning of August 24, 2026: What the Regulator Said About tresorbit(.)com

The notice itself is short and consists of three statements, and every one of them matters for your own check. First: crypto-asset services are offered through the website without the authorisation required for them. Second: what is offered is specifically trading in crypto-assets. Third: there is identity misuse at the expense of the named Willich company, which has nothing to do with the operators.

BaFin bases the publication on section 10 subsection 7 of the German Crypto Markets Supervision Act. This is the provision that allows the regulator to inform the public about unauthorised crypto offerings and to name names and addresses in doing so. Such a notice is not a court decision and not a criminal conviction. It is official information about what the regulator has established. For you as an investor it is the most solid source available on an unknown provider.

What the notice does not contain is just as much part of the picture: no loss figure, no number of affected customers, no indication of how long the website has been running. Anyone quoting you such numbers on this case did not get them from BaFin.

Identity Misuse Explained: What the Term Means in Supervisory Law

Identity misuse in this context means that unknown operators use the name, the address or the register details of a genuinely existing company in order to give their own offering a respectable appearance, without that company knowing about it or being involved in it. In these cases the affected company is itself an injured party.

The difference from a freely invented shell company matters in practice. An invented company gives itself away as soon as you search for the name and find nothing. A misused name survives that first search: the company really exists, there is a commercial register entry, there is an address in Germany, and if in doubt there is even a website with a correct imprint. All of that belongs to a different firm from the one that would like to receive your money.

Why Crypto Offerings Are Particularly Exposed

The European MiCA regulation has applied in full since December 30, 2024, and anyone offering crypto-asset services in Germany needs authorisation to do so. German investors have grown used to looking for licences, and it is exactly that habit which is being exploited. An offering that lists a German company in its imprint looks more credible today than one with an address overseas. Misusing a real name is thus the answer to a regulation that works in principle.

Commercial Register, Imprint, Licence Number: Why These Three Documents Prove Nothing

The commercial register is a directory of merchants and companies registered in Germany and states that a firm legally exists. It says nothing about whether that firm holds a BaFin authorisation, and even less about whether the website using the name actually belongs to it.

The imprint works in a similar way. An imprint is a self-declaration by the website operator. Nobody checks before publication whether the company named there belongs to the operator. The same applies to licence or register numbers printed on a page: a number is a string of characters for as long as you do not look it up in the register itself.

The reliable route therefore always runs in the other direction. You do not look on the website for evidence of its own respectability. You look for the provider in the register, and then check whether the details held there match what is in front of you. Anyone using a regulated crypto exchange with verifiable EU authorisation largely avoids this problem, because the authorisation there is publicly documented and easy to find.

Crypto-Asset Service: What Requires Authorisation From 2026

A crypto-asset service is a commercial service around crypto-assets provided to a customer, such as operating a trading platform, exchanging crypto-assets for euros, executing orders or holding crypto-assets in custody for others. Anyone offering that in Germany needs authorisation from BaFin.

What you do for yourself does not fall under it. If you hold Bitcoin in your own wallet whose keys only you know, nobody is providing a service to you and nobody needs a permit for it. That distinction is also the reason why some wallet providers rightly operate without a licence and others do not; we covered the dividing line in detail in a separate piece on when wallet apps require authorisation.

The BaFin Company Database and the MiCA Register: How to Check a Provider

The BaFin company database is the public directory of all institutions and providers to which the regulator has granted a permit or authorisation. Access is free and requires no registration, and it is the only place where you genuinely verify a German permit.

The search is unspectacular and takes a few minutes. You open BaFin's company database and search for the exact name of the company given in the imprint. If you find no match, the matter is already settled. If you find a match, you compare the address and legal form with the details on the website, character by character: a differing legal form or a different city is not a detail but the actual finding.

For providers from other EU countries, the MiCA register of the European securities regulator ESMA takes the same role. It lists authorised crypto-asset service providers from all member states, each with the authority that granted the authorisation. A provider claiming a European licence and not appearing in that register does not have one.

Three Details That Have to Match

A register hit alone is not enough. The company name in the imprint, the register entry and the domain you are currently on all have to match. The case BaFin warned about on August 24 works through precisely that gap: the name exists, the company exists, the website does not belong to it. Reputable providers therefore state their domain in official documents and actively point out imitators.

Our Own Count: Five of 24 BaFin Consumer Notices Concern Crypto

cryptoticker.io compiled this analysis itself on August 25, 2026. Method: we retrieved BaFin's “News & Warnings” overview page, loaded every consumer notice from 2026 listed there individually, and assessed for each notice whether the text itself concerns a crypto offering and whether it names an identity misuse. The general explanatory block at the end of each notice, which lists the terms as a matter of routine, was cut off for this purpose.

Objects examined: 24 consumer notices, all retrieved with HTTP status 200. Result: five of them concern crypto offerings, dated August 18, August 19 (two notices), August 24 and August 25, 2026, and therefore all within a window of eight days. Exactly one of these notices, the one on tresorbit(.)com, expressly names an identity misuse.

What we could not check belongs here too. The overview page shows only a section of the year. The oldest entry listed there dates from May 4, 2026; notices from the months before that were not reachable through this page. The 24 are the state of that page on the day of the survey and not the annual total. The classification by notice text also has an edge to it: the warning of August 19 about the “NC Wallet” app concerns a wallet application, but its notice heading speaks only of financial services and it therefore does not fall into the crypto group under our rule.

Four More Warnings on August 24 and 25: What Sets the Cases Apart

On the same two days BaFin published four further consumer notices, and the comparison shows how different the patterns are. On auvelion(.)com the regulator states that financial and securities services as well as crypto-asset services are offered there without a permit; the operator merely appears under the designation Auvelion, with no legal form, no stated place of business and no imprint. That is the obvious case: quite simply everything is missing.

On rivolifinances(.)com the operators use the designations Rivoli S.A. and Rivoli Finances Sàrl according to BaFin and state a supposed place of business in France; the regulator's suspicion here concerns unauthorised banking business through the granting of loans. On navigatorpf(.)com the notice says the operators offer banking business and financial services without a permit and are not supervised by BaFin. The fourth notice, of August 25, concerns helvetickeystone(.)com together with emails from a similarly spelled sender address and revolves around overnight and fixed-term deposit offers.

Between the obvious case and the misused name lies a third level, which BaFin described on August 19 in connection with the “Crendel” app. A US company is named there as the developer according to the app's own statement, and by its own account the regulator has no findings as to whether that registered company actually has any connection to the app. The regulator words this more cautiously than in the Willich case, where it establishes the misuse.

How to Spot Identity Misuse on a Crypto Website

There is no reliable indicator to be drawn from the text of the website itself, because the details are correct precisely for the reason that they come from somebody else. What can be checked are the breaks between the details.

• The company name in the imprint has nothing to do with the platform's presentation in substance, for example a register-keeping or administration company behind a trading interface.
• The domain appears nowhere on the website of the company named, and conversely the platform never points to that company's original address.
• Email addresses run through a domain that resembles the official one without being identical to it. BaFin described exactly this constellation on August 25 in the case of helvetickeystone(.)com, where the sender address sat on a differing domain.
• The company is entered in the commercial register but is not listed in BaFin's company database as a provider of crypto-asset services.
• Withdrawals are tied to an additional payment, for example to a supposed tax, fee or unlocking charge. You know this pattern from our analysis of faked withdrawal demands.

The last point is the most important, because it works independently of any register check. An authorised platform never demands an advance payment in order to release your own balance.

Money Already Transferred: The Steps That Count Now

If you have deposited with a provider that BaFin now warns about, the order of steps is decisive. First you secure evidence: bank statements, transfer receipts, transaction hashes, screenshots of the platform and all correspondence. These documents are later the basis for every criminal complaint and every attempt at reimbursement, and they disappear as soon as access to the platform is switched off.

Then comes the route to your bank. With a SEPA transfer made only a few days ago, a recall can occasionally still work; with card payments a chargeback is conceivable. Both depend on deadlines, and both deadlines run from the day of payment, not from the day you become suspicious. In parallel you file a criminal complaint with the police, which is also possible online.

What regularly achieves nothing: a message to the platform's support, a demand for the money to be sent back, and above all every offer that promises recovery against an advance payment. Such offers are a business model of their own, and BaFin already warned about a website of this kind in 2026. If crypto-assets were moved in your own wallet, one more thing applies. As soon as you are under suspicion of having disclosed your access details, you move any remaining holdings to a freshly generated wallet whose keys have never been on a third-party device. Which devices are suitable for that is shown in our hardware wallet comparison.

What You Can Report to BaFin

BaFin is not an authority that recovers your money, and it does not represent individual investors. The regulator does accept tips about unauthorised business, however, and such tips are the basis for exactly the consumer notices at issue here. Reporting is therefore worthwhile even if you have suffered no loss yourself.

Distinguishing It From Phishing and Platform Series: Why This Is a Different Attack

In phishing the attacker targets your access details or your recovery phrase, that is, a secret you already possess. That applies to faked emails just as it does to the letters with a QR code that were warned about in August and that we described in our piece on wallet phishing by post. Identity misuse, by contrast, is about trust before the first deposit: you are meant to transfer voluntarily because the provider looks orderly.

The case also differs from the so-called platform series. There, many almost identical websites are operated under changing names and can be recognised by their wording and structure; we counted that structure in a separate analysis of the BaFin warnings on crypto platform series. Misusing a real company name is the more laborious route, because it works only once per victim company, but in exchange it survives a superficial check. A third variant is the plainly unlicensed app, as in the case of the BaFin warning on NC Wallet.

What the Case Means for Choosing a Provider

The practical consequence is uncomfortable but manageable: the check has to happen before the first deposit, because afterwards it prevents nothing. Two minutes in the company database cost less than any attempt at reimbursement.

Anyone who does not want to start from scratch with every new name reduces the problem through their choice of provider. A handful of trading venues authorised in the EU covers by far the greatest part of what private investors need; our comparison of the larger crypto exchanges ranks the common providers by fees and range of functions. And anyone who documents their movements cleanly anyway, for example with one of the tools from our overview of crypto tax and portfolio tools, already has the records together in the event of a loss that otherwise have to be gathered laboriously.

A final point concerns the opposite direction. Job offers are also used for unauthorised crypto business, when applicants are asked to forward payments through their own account and exchange them into crypto-assets; BaFin warned about this on August 18, and we described the pattern under the heading of the money mule trap. Anyone falling for it loses money and additionally comes into the sights of the prosecuting authorities.

BaFin Warning Over Identity Misuse: Your Key Takeaways

1. Check the provider in the register before you deposit. Search for the exact company name from the imprint in BaFin's company database and compare legal form and address character by character. If you want to save yourself the search, choose a regulated crypto exchange with documented EU authorisation from the outset.
2. Treat a German company name as a claim, not as proof. The case of August 24 shows that a commercial register entry and an imprint can be genuine and still belong to a different company. Compare providers by verifiable terms instead, for example through our crypto exchange comparison.
3. Keep holdings you are not trading in your own custody. What sits in a wallet whose keys only you know cannot be taken from you by any unauthorised provider. Which devices are suitable and what they cost is set out in our hardware wallet comparison.

(As of August 25, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Uniswap (UNI) changes hands at 4.39 US dollars on 25 August 2026, about 59.8 percent below the twelve-month high of 10.93 dollars set on 25 August 2025 and roughly 83.4 percent above the twelve-month low of 2.40 dollars printed on 11 June 2026. A gain of 34.2 percent over seven days has carried the token above both of its main moving averages for the first time in months. The question here is narrower than that move suggests: is Uniswap a good buy at the current price?

cryptoticker.io collected the underlying price data itself on 25 August 2026. Source: market data from CoinMarketCap. Method: 365 daily closing prices from 25 August 2025 to 24 August 2026 plus the current spot quote, with the exponential moving averages and the relative strength index derived from those closes using the standard formulas, the RSI after Wilder. A longer-dated view sits in our Uniswap price prediction.

Uniswap price analysis: where the UNI price stands and which levels matter

Three levels frame the picture. The floor is the twelve-month low at 2.40 dollars, printed on 11 June 2026 and now 83.4 percent below the market. The current zone around 4.39 dollars sits about 18.8 percent above the 50-day exponential moving average of 3.70 dollars and about 10.6 percent above the 200-day exponential moving average of 3.98 dollars. Overhead there is no nearby marker at all: the next reference point of any weight is the twelve-month high of 10.93 dollars, some 149 percent away.

That gap upward is the unusual feature of the chart: between 4.39 dollars and 10.93 dollars the token spent most of the past year falling rather than consolidating, which leaves little price memory in between. The more immediate reference is the pair of averages. The price reclaimed the 200-day line at 3.98 dollars during the advance rather than merely touching it, and the 50-day line at 3.70 dollars now sits below the market as well. Both are beneath the spot price for the first time in this cycle, and both can serve as support rather than resistance.

Is the Uniswap downtrend broken or only interrupted?

By the conventional definition, the downtrend in UNI is broken rather than interrupted. A market trading above both its 50-day and its 200-day average is not in a downtrend on any standard reading, and at 4.39 dollars against 3.70 dollars and 3.98 dollars that condition is met with room to spare.

One qualification belongs next to it. The 50-day average at 3.70 dollars still sits below the 200-day average at 3.98 dollars, the residue of the decline, and it takes weeks of higher prices to unwind. The price has completed the turn; the averages have not yet followed.

That gives a falsification test rather than an opinion. If UNI closes back below 3.98 dollars and holds there for more than a few sessions, the reclaim was a spike inside a continuing downtrend and the case made here is wrong. If the 50-day average instead rises through the 200-day while the price holds above both, the transition is complete.

What RSI and moving averages mean for a Uniswap entry

The 14-day relative strength index stands at 65.5, below the 70 conventionally treated as overbought but in the upper third of the range. An RSI in the mid-sixties after a 34.2 percent week describes a market that has already done most of its repricing in public.

The distance to the averages says the same in a different unit. A price 18.8 percent above its 50-day average of 3.70 dollars is stretched by any standard for this asset, and a return to that line from 4.39 dollars is a decline of roughly 16 percent that would leave the broken downtrend intact. The case for UNI improved materially when the price cleared 3.98 dollars; the case for buying at 4.39 dollars specifically is weaker, and the two are worth keeping apart.

What Uniswap trading volume reveals about demand

Volume is the check on whether a price move reflects real demand or a thin book. Over the past 24 hours UNI turned over about 292.6 million dollars against a twelve-month median of about 225.1 million, roughly 1.3 times normal. The seven-day average is more telling at about 339.8 million dollars, close to 1.5 times that median, against a 30-day average of about 242.0 million.

The rally was therefore accompanied by a sustained rise in turnover rather than a single spike, the pattern that distinguishes a repricing with participation from a drift on a thin book. Against a market capitalisation of about 2.74 billion dollars and rank 32, that liquidity is ample for retail-sized orders.

Which structural factors speak for Uniswap

Three structural features distinguish UNI from the wider field of mid-cap tokens. The first is the protocol behind it. Uniswap is the reference implementation of the automated market maker, the design that made decentralised spot trading work at scale, and it has held a leading share of decentralised exchange volume through several market cycles. Whatever is uncertain about the token, the software is used continuously by parties who are not speculating on it.

The second is the multi-chain footprint. The protocol was built on Ethereum and has since been deployed across the major layer-two networks, where fees make small trades economic in a way they are not on the base layer. That binds its growth to the scaling programme documented in the Ethereum roadmap.

The third factor is the sharpest open question, and it concerns the token rather than the protocol. UNI is a governance token, conferring voting rights over the protocol's parameters and treasury. Whether and how a share of the fees generated by trading activity should reach token holders has been a recurring subject of Uniswap governance rather than a settled feature, and a multi-year view on UNI is a view on how that resolves.

The regulatory frame is developing rather than fixed. In the European Union the markets in crypto-assets regulation governs how venues and issuers operate, and the supervisory position is set out by ESMA on its MiCA pages. A governance token of a decentralised protocol sits less settled under that framework than an asset listed and custodied by a regulated venue, which is a question about classification rather than an allegation about anyone.

What speaks for buying Uniswap at current prices

Three arguments carry weight at 4.39 dollars. The trend evidence is the strongest. The price stands above the 200-day average of 3.98 dollars and above the 50-day average of 3.70 dollars, and most assets that recover from a drawdown of this depth fail at the long average rather than clearing it.

The second argument is that the move is funded. At 339.8 million dollars of average daily turnover over seven days against a twelve-month median of 225.1 million, the advance has been accompanied by participation rather than by a vacuum.

The third is the starting point. At 59.8 percent below the twelve-month high of 10.93 dollars, UNI is priced well beneath its own recent range even after a 34.2 percent week. For an investor whose thesis rests on continued use of the protocol rather than on a near-term move, that discount is the substance of the case.

What speaks against buying Uniswap at current prices

Three arguments cut the other way, and the first two concern timing rather than the asset. Entry price is the immediate objection: a 34.2 percent gain over seven days, an RSI of 65.5 and a distance of 18.8 percent to the 50-day average of 3.70 dollars describe a market that has moved far in a short time, and a return to that line would cost about 16 percent without changing anything structural.

Market sentiment compounds that. The crypto fear and greed index stands at 81 out of 100, in the extreme greed band. The reading is not a forecast, but it describes the environment in which an entry at 4.39 dollars would be made.

The third objection is specific to the token. About 623.27 million UNI are in circulation out of a total supply of about 890.52 million, and no maximum supply is disclosed in the market data. That gap is a standing consideration for a multi-year position, and it sits alongside the unresolved question of how protocol fees relate to the token. Neither point argues that the protocol is weak; both argue that a claim on its success through UNI is less direct than it appears.

How to buy Uniswap at the current price

UNI is listed on effectively every large regulated exchange serving European investors, so the practical questions are cost, custody and the standing of the venue. On cost, the spread matters more than the headline fee at this liquidity: zero commission with a wider spread can be dearer than a few tenths of a percent charged explicitly. The terms sit side by side in our crypto exchange comparison, and those weighting supervision will find that criterion isolated in the comparison of regulated exchanges. The venues we have examined most closely are covered individually: our Kraken review, the Bitpanda review and the Bitvavo review.

On custody, the decision follows the holding period. For a position to be traded within weeks, exchange custody is a reasonable trade-off; for a multi-year holding it is a counterparty risk taken for no return, and hardware storage is the usual answer. The devices are compared in our hardware wallet comparison. One point is specific to UNI: holding the token confers governance rights, not a share of trading activity, and investors interested in decentralised trading itself may find our perpetual DEX comparison closer to what they want.

Is Uniswap a good buy at current prices, short term and long term?

On a short horizon the evidence argues for patience. An RSI of 65.5, a gain of 34.2 percent in a week, a distance of 18.8 percent to the 50-day average at 3.70 dollars and a sentiment index at 81 all point the same way: the immediate move is largely priced. That does not say the trend fails. It says an entry at 4.39 dollars pays for a repricing already made, and that a test of the 200-day line at 3.98 dollars, an ordinary event in a healthy uptrend, would offer the same exposure roughly 9 percent cheaper. The assessment is wrong if the market runs on without such a test.

On a multi-year horizon the picture is more favourable. A price 59.8 percent below the twelve-month high of 10.93 dollars, a protocol with measurable usage, and turnover at about 1.5 times its twelve-month median describe an asset with a working business behind it trading well below its own recent valuations. The conditions under which that view fails are specific: decentralised exchange volume migrating away from the protocol, or the governance question about fees resolving in a way that leaves the token disconnected from the activity it governs. Neither is visible on a chart.

Neither answer is a recommendation. UNI at 4.39 dollars is an asset in a repaired but stretched position, above its 200-day average of 3.98 dollars, far above its twelve-month low of 2.40 dollars and far below its twelve-month high of 10.93 dollars, with an open question at the token level.

Buying Uniswap: what to take away

1. The downtrend is broken but the entry is stretched. UNI at 4.39 dollars trades above the 200-day average of 3.98 dollars and the 50-day average of 3.70 dollars, with an RSI of 65.5 after a 34.2 percent week. The level to watch on a pullback is 3.98 dollars; the venues are set out in our crypto exchange comparison.
2. The move is funded by real turnover. Seven-day volume of about 339.8 million dollars against a twelve-month median of about 225.1 million separates this advance from the low-volume bounces that failed earlier in the year. Investors weighting supervision as heavily as cost will find that criterion in our comparison of regulated exchanges.
3. The open question sits at the token, not the protocol. With about 623.27 million of a total 890.52 million UNI in circulation and the link between fees and token holders still a matter of governance, a multi-year position needs a view on that and a custody arrangement to match; see our hardware wallet comparison.

Disclosure: Some of the providers mentioned in this article work with us through partner programmes. This has no influence on the price analysis or on the assessment of the chart situation; the price data comes from a public market data source and can be verified there.

(As of 25 August 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices, fees and terms change; check them with the provider before every purchase. Crypto assets are subject to high price volatility and a total loss is possible.)

If a letter arrives in your postbox urging an urgent security update for your crypto wallet and supplying a QR code for it, that is phishing. No manufacturer and no exchange announces a wallet update by post, and there is no legitimate process in which you type your recovery phrase into a website. The Federal Office for Cybersecurity BACS reported on August 18, 2026, in its weekly review for week 33, that it had received various reports about precisely such letters.

What is new about this wave is the delivery route rather than the ploy. Phishing normally arrives by email or text message, because both cost nothing. A letter costs printing, enveloping and postage, and anyone going to that effort is counting on a hit rate that justifies it. That is exactly why the postal route became interesting to attackers only once they had address lists they knew belonged to crypto owners.

Crypto wallet phishing by letter: what BACS reported on August 18

The sequence the authority describes is short. A letter calls on the recipient to download an urgent update for various crypto wallets. A QR code is enclosed for that purpose. Anyone who scans it lands on a phishing website on which the recovery phrase is to be entered. Anyone typing it in there hands over complete control of the crypto wallet concerned, according to BACS.

BACS names no number of reports and no individual provider in whose name the letters were sent. It speaks of various reports and of various crypto wallets. If you read a more precise figure in an article, check where it comes from: it does not appear in the official notice.

The origin of the warning matters for placing it in context. BACS is the Swiss federal authority for cybersecurity and reports what is reported to it from Switzerland. For you as an investor in Germany, it is relevant all the same, for a substantive reason: the wallet brands are the same, the address stocks come from the same data breaches, and a letter knows no national border if the address list does not. No German official notice with the same wording exists so far. That does not mean nobody here is affected; it means only that there is no documented German figure on it.

A brief prehistory belongs here. As early as July 31, 2026, the same authority had published its own notice about letters with QR codes. The weekly review of August 18 is therefore no first finding, but confirmation that the wave was still running three weeks later.

Why "quantum resistance" works as a pretext right now

The letter justifies the supposed update with the introduction of so-called quantum resistance. What is meant is encryption that still holds once a sufficiently large quantum computer can break the methods in common use today. This is no invented piece of vocabulary. The debate about what quantum computers mean for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has been running for years and is conducted by serious developers.

And that is precisely where the effect lies. A pretext works best when it is half true. Anyone who has heard the term before finds the letter plausible. Anyone who does not know it finds it technical enough not to ask questions. Both groups arrive at the same conclusion, namely that something important is happening here which had better not be ignored.

The difference between the real debate and the letter is banal and decisive all the same: a switch to quantum-resistant methods would be a change to the protocol and to the device software. Such a switch would never begin with users entering their recovery phrase somewhere. A phrase once typed into a web form is lost regardless of any encryption.

The recovery phrase explained: why those twelve or twenty-four words are everything

The recovery phrase, also called the seed phrase, is a sequence of usually twelve or twenty-four words from which all of a wallet's private keys can be calculated. This sequence of words is no supplement to login details and no second factor; it is the complete mathematical basis of your holdings.

Two things follow from that which are often confused in everyday use. First: whoever holds the phrase holds the balance, without your device, without your PIN and without you noticing anything. Second: you will not notice the theft immediately afterwards either, because the wallet on your device continues to look normal. An attacker who has copied down the phrase can wait weeks.

Why a device never asks for the phrase

A hardware wallet is a device that generates the private keys and holds them permanently in a sealed-off chip, so that they never leave the device. That is its entire purpose in life. If a piece of software, a website or a letter asks you for the phrase, it is asking for exactly what the device is built not to release. The request itself is the finding. How to store the phrase properly is described in our guide to storing your seed phrase safely.

QR code in a letter: why quishing bypasses the usual protections

Quishing means phishing via a QR code. The attack is effective because it defeats three layers of protection at once that would apply to an email.

A spam filter does not see a letter. A browser warning for known fraudulent sites often fails to apply, because freshly registered domains are not yet on any list. And the most important layer falls away entirely: with an email you can hover over the link and read the destination before you click. A QR code is meaningless to the human eye. You find out where it points only after scanning, and by then you are already there.

On top of that comes the change of device. The letter lies on the kitchen table; the scanning is done with the phone. With that, the process leaves the very device on which many people keep their security software and lands on the one whose screen truncates the address bar most severely. A domain name that looks wrong at once on a monitor often does not fit into view on a phone at all.

The Ledger letters from April to June 2026: the run-up to this wave

This ploy is not new in German-speaking countries. From late April 2026, customers of the French hardware wallet maker Ledger received printed letters demanding a quantum resistance security update. Cryptopolitan described the construction: professionally printed, with a QR code, and with the recipient's correct model number and order history. Ledger itself publicly confirmed in early June 2026 that the letters are forgeries, and pointed out that the company never asks for the 24-word recovery phrase.

Comparing the two waves shows what has changed. The Ledger letters were tailored to one brand and depended on recipients actually being customers of that brand. The letters BACS reported on in August run, according to the authority, on various crypto wallets. Anyone who has only learned to distrust letters bearing one particular brand name is no longer protected by that.

Where the senders get your postal address: data breaches at wallet retailers

A phishing letter needs an address, and one behind which a crypto owner lives with heightened probability. Lists like that do not come about by guessing. The origin lies wherever order data leaks from a retailer or a shipping service provider.

In the Ledger case, the trail leads, on Cryptopolitan's account, to the company's 2020 data breach, in which customers' names, addresses and telephone numbers were stolen. Those data have been in circulation ever since and age slowly, because people rarely move house.

More current is the material from this August. On August 13 we reported on a data breach at the shipping service provider ShipMonk involving Trezor customer addresses, and on August 20 on leaked order data at SafePal. Both are reports from our own coverage rather than from the BACS notice. No public proof exists that precisely these holdings sit behind precisely these letters, and it will hardly be possible to establish that from outside.

In practical terms: if you have ordered a hardware wallet online in recent years, your delivery address is a plausible component of such lists. That is no reason to panic and no security problem with your device. It is the reason why you of all people receive such a letter and your neighbour does not. If you are reconsidering your choice of device, the criteria are in our hardware wallet comparison.

Two weeks' grace instead of time pressure: why this letter is built differently

The most striking detail of the BACS notice is a deadline. The letter grants the recipient more than two weeks, according to the authority. That is unusual for attempted fraud, because attackers otherwise build up artificial time pressure so that nobody stops to think or ask.

The authority classifies the long deadline as something that increases credibility, and that is plausible. A letter leaving you fourteen days reads like an administrative notice rather than a threat. It even allows you to set the letter aside and come back to it later, which reinforces the impression of respectability.

For you, the characteristic therefore inverts. Until now, time pressure counted as a warning sign. With this type of letter, the calm is the warning sign, because no manufacturer attaches a two-week grace period to a security update. Genuine security notices tell you to act immediately, and they reach you in the app or on the manufacturer's website rather than in the postbox.

Genuine firmware update or phishing: how to tell the difference

Firmware is the software that runs on the wallet device itself. It is installed through the manufacturer's official management software, which addresses the device directly and checks the update's cryptographic signature. That route always begins with you, never with a prompt from outside.

Three checks follow from this, none of which requires technical knowledge.

The first is the channel. An update is displayed in the manufacturer's app. It is not announced by post, nor by text message, nor in an email with a call to action.

The second is the question about the phrase. No update process asks for it. Not even when a page claims merely to be "verifying" or "migrating" it.

The third is the address. When you visit a manufacturer's site, you type it in yourself or use your own bookmark. A QR code from an unsolicited letter is no substitute for that.

Related, though technically different, is the attack via fraudulent approval dialogues, in which you disclose no phrase at all but sign a transaction that does something other than what is displayed. How to read such dialogues is something we took apart in our piece on wallet drainers and signature approvals, along with a real manufacturer case in our analysis of the signature gap in the Ethereum app. Neither case has anything to do with the letter, except that both answer the same question: what really lies behind the thing I am confirming right now?

Hardware wallet, software wallet, exchange: whom this attack actually hits

The reach of the attack depends on where your holdings sit, and the three cases differ markedly.

With a hardware wallet, the attack hits you in full as soon as you enter the phrase. There is no body that recovers the transaction and no customer service that freezes the account.

With a software wallet on your phone or in the browser, the same applies. Here too the phrase is the master key. The only difference is that such a wallet sits on a device with internet access anyway and therefore has additional attack routes. An overview of the criteria is in our software wallet comparison.

If your holdings sit with a regulated exchange, by contrast, no recovery phrase exists for you at all, because the keys lie with the custodian. A letter asking for your phrase comes to nothing there. That offers no protection against other ploys, such as forged withdrawal demands, which we covered in a separate piece on phishing around exchange withdrawals.

What to do if you have already entered your recovery phrase

If you have scanned the QR code and typed in the phrase, speed counts, and the order matters.

First create a new wallet with a new phrase on a clean device. Then transfer the balance from the old wallet to the new one. In that order, because a transfer needs a destination, and the destination has to exist before you send.

The old wallet is permanently unusable afterwards. Changing a password, setting a new PIN or resetting the device do not help, because the phrase applies independently of the device. Whoever has it can set the wallet up again elsewhere at any time.

Expect tax consequences. A transfer between two of your own wallets is no sale in Germany, but it wants documenting, so that nobody later suspects an inflow where there was none. A theft, in turn, cannot readily be claimed as a loss for tax purposes. Both belong on the record, and the tools from our overview of tax tools and portfolio trackers are suited to that. Where actual financial damage has occurred, BACS expressly recommends filing a criminal complaint.

What you can report even without any damage

If the letter reached you but you did not act on it, the letter is worth something all the same. It proves that your address is on a list. Keep it, photograph it, and report it to the manufacturer in whose name it was sent. In Germany, the consumer advice centres and the Federal Office for Information Security accept such tip-offs. And treat future post to the same address with the same distrust, because an address list sold once gets sold on.

Crypto wallet phishing by letter: what to take away

1. Remember the one rule that covers every variant. The recovery phrase is never typed in anywhere, except when restoring a wallet on a device you are physically holding at that moment. No update, no verification and no migration needs it. If you are unsure which device maintains this separation cleanly, the hardware wallet comparison helps to place them.
2. Check your custody route, not just your postbox. Anyone holding everything in self-custody bears the full risk of this ploy alone. Anyone keeping part of it with a supervised provider shifts this particular risk, but takes on counterparty risk in exchange. Which providers are authorised in the EU is set out in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Document every move of your holdings straight away. If you switch to a new phrase on suspicion, transfers arise that you will not reconstruct from memory a year later. A tracker from the overview of tax tools and portfolio trackers takes that work off your hands while the data are still fresh.

The real finding of this week is unspectacular and therefore easy to underestimate. The attackers have learned nothing technical; they have learned something about trust. What they have noticed is that paper carries more credibility in a digital environment than an email does, and they are paying postage for it. As long as that pays off, the next wave will not come by email. How the market is developing alongside all this can be read in our Bitcoin price prediction; the price, however, has no bearing on the safety of your phrase.

(As of August 25, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

EURR has gone live for selected customers in Denmark, Poland and Portugal, with a Luxembourg subsidiary of Stripe holding the reserves.

The market liked the news, with ZRO up 10% and jumping nearly 50% off its local bottom.

Judge Katherine Polk Failla adjourned the retrial by more than six months, with Storm's motion for acquittal still undecided.

The 10-year project in Vermilion Parish will include five launch complexes and infrastructure for Starship missions.

XRP has given back two days of gains after a vertical recovery, and the charts say the bounce just met a wall.

Revolut announced the rollout of its first-ever euro-backed stablecoin as it continues to expand its footprint in the crypto ecosystem.

Ethereum’s next upgrade could break a small set of contracts, with a warning issued accordingly.

XRP is certainly not backpedaling from the bullish level, but recovery might stale a little.

A new SEC filing for Cryptex ETF suggests Ripple may release more XRP from escrow if the CLARITY Act passes.

Solana is working overtime in order to break the long-awaited threshold, but there's a good reason for key levels not being reached.

TLDR

• NuScale Power stock rises as new AI tools improve nuclear engineering workflows.
• SMR advances reactor development with faster access to critical technical data.
• NuScale partners with Nuclearn and NPX to enhance nuclear project execution.
• New nuclear AI technology helps NuScale reduce information search times by 80%.
• NuScale expands SMR deployment strategy through advanced engineering solutions.

NuScale Power Corporation (SMR) gained 8.40% to close at $9.81 after launching nuclear-focused AI tools for engineering operations. The stock extended momentum in pre-market trading, rising 2.36% to $10.03. The company is using new technology to improve information access as it advances small modular reactor deployment.

NuScale Power Corporation, SMR

NuScale introduced the initiative with Nuclearn and NPX to improve engineering workflows. The partnership combines nuclear expertise with specialized tools designed for technical information management. The system aims to help teams locate critical data faster across complex nuclear projects.

The company is applying the technology as it moves its NuScale Power Module toward wider deployment. The reactor system uses pressurized water reactor technology for nuclear energy production. NuScale continues developing smaller reactor solutions for future power generation needs.

NuScale Deploys Nuclear Engineering Tools to Improve Data Access

The new tools focus on engineering documents, licensing records, technical standards, and controlled information. They allow engineers to search through large volumes of project material more efficiently. Therefore, teams can access relevant information while maintaining regulatory requirements.

NuScale reported that an initial test reduced information search times by up to 80%. The system identifies important engineering methods and standards related to specific tasks. As a result, engineers can improve decision-making during complex development processes.

The technology uses nuclear-specific language and workflows instead of general search methods. This approach helps organize information based on nuclear industry requirements. NuScale expects improved efficiency across engineering and knowledge-management functions.

AI Partnership Supports Small Modular Reactor Development

NuScale’s partnership with Nuclearn and NPX supports the company’s efforts to advance nuclear deployment. Nuclearn provides the AtomAssist platform, while NPX contributes nuclear project implementation experience. Together, the companies are creating tools designed for nuclear engineering environments.

The initiative focuses on improving access to trusted technical information during reactor development. Engineers can connect information with original controlled sources through the system. This process supports accuracy when teams review designs, regulations, and safety materials.

NuScale continues to develop its NuScale Power Module for future nuclear facilities. The company designed each module to generate 77 megawatts of electricity. Multiple modules can combine into larger power plants with significant generation capacity.

SMR Stock Advances as NuScale Expands Nuclear Technology Strategy

NuScale’s stock movement follows renewed attention toward advanced nuclear energy solutions. The company is positioning small modular reactors as part of future energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, the latest technology partnership strengthens its engineering capabilities.

The company believes faster information management can support nuclear project execution. However, the tools are designed to assist professionals rather than replace engineering expertise. The focus remains on improving productivity while maintaining safety standards.

NuScale Power Corporation continues building its position in the advanced nuclear sector. The company is developing reactor technology aimed at supporting reliable electricity generation. The latest AI initiative marks another step in its broader deployment strategy.

The post NuScale Power Corporation (SMR) Stock: Gains Momentum After Launching AI Tools to Transform Nuclear Engineering appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Fiscal Q2 2027 earnings announcement scheduled for Wednesday, August 26 after market close
• Analyst consensus calls for $3.27 earnings per share and $11.32 billion in revenue, representing 11-12% annual growth
• Shares have climbed 35-41% since June bottom but remain 41% off peak levels
• Derivatives traders showing caution with 1.06 put-call ratio and downside target at $193
• Agentforce platform generated over $1 billion in annual recurring revenue with momentum continuing

Salesforce prepares to unveil its fiscal Q2 2027 financial performance Wednesday evening, August 26. Shares currently hover near $212, approximately 20% beneath the $266 yearly peak reached earlier.

Salesforce, Inc., CRM

Analyst projections point to $11.32 billion in quarterly revenue, marking an 11% increase compared to the prior-year period. Adjusted earnings per share should reach $3.27, up from $2.91 reported twelve months earlier. Gross margin on an adjusted basis is anticipated to maintain levels above 80%.

The stock has surged between 35-41% from June’s bottom, yet continues trading at only 14 times forward earnings estimates. This valuation sits beneath the S&P 500’s multiple of 20—a stark contrast to the premium CRM commanded prior to July 2025.

Meeting Wall Street’s baseline expectations alone might not satisfy the market. Shareholders are demanding tangible proof that artificial intelligence investments are expanding the business model rather than eating into existing revenue streams.

Agentforce Performance Under Scrutiny

Market participants will scrutinize Agentforce closely—Salesforce’s proprietary AI agent solution. The platform’s annual recurring revenue exceeded $1 billion during Q1 reporting and has expanded by more than 100% across the preceding nine-month stretch. The investment community seeks confirmation that pilot programs are transitioning into paid enterprise agreements.

The company has executed 15 acquisition transactions over the past 15 months. The most significant purchase was Informatica at $8 billion, bringing comprehensive data management capabilities into the fold. Another major deal came in June with the $3.6 billion acquisition of Fin, an AI-powered customer support platform.

CRPO Figures Will Tell the Story

Current remaining performance obligations—CRPO—represents the critical data point for this quarter. Wall Street forecasts growth exceeding 13%, reaching approximately $33.41 billion. Outperformance on this metric would indicate robust pipeline demand for the company’s subscription offerings.

Leadership previously indicated accelerating organic expansion during the latter half of fiscal 2027, elevating the importance of forward-looking guidance alongside current-quarter results.

Salesforce continues evolving its revenue structure. The enterprise has adopted a blended strategy combining conventional subscription contracts with usage-based billing. Additionally, it launched a “headless” platform variant tailored for AI agent deployments instead of traditional human workflows.

Options positioning reflects skepticism ahead of the announcement. Put-call ratios for August 28 expiration contracts stand at 1.06, indicating bearish sentiment. The downside strike concentration points to $193, suggesting potential for a 6%+ post-earnings decline.

CRM’s relative strength index currently registers in the mid-60s range, nearing overbought conditions.

Analyst consensus price targets for CRM average approximately $252. Wednesday’s fiscal Q2 disclosure represents a crucial milestone for validating whether those projections remain achievable.

The post Salesforce (CRM) Earnings Preview: What Investors Should Watch Wednesday appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Workers United initiated a consumer boycott titled “No Contract, No Coffee,” encouraging patrons to cease purchases until contract terms are finalized.
• More than 12,000 unionized baristas are seeking a baseline wage of $17 per hour, improved scheduling, enhanced staffing levels, and stronger employment protections.
• The labor organization asserts Starbucks leads modern U.S. corporations in labor law violations, citing over 550 pending unfair labor practice complaints.
• Shares of SBUX declined approximately 1.5% Tuesday while continuing to trade close to annual peak levels.
• The coffee giant delivered 7.9% U.S. comparable sales growth and a 70% surge in adjusted earnings year-over-year during its most recent fiscal quarter.

Workers United formally initiated a boycott effort Tuesday, urging consumers to halt Starbucks purchases until the corporation reaches a collective bargaining agreement with unionized employees.

The labor group, which represents over 12,000 baristas across the country, shared its position on X with a straightforward declaration: “No Contract? No Coffee.”

SBUX shares slipped roughly 1.5% during Tuesday’s session yet have remained positioned near their 52-week peak levels, indicating investors haven’t yet interpreted the boycott as a material business risk.

Starbucks Corporation, SBUX

The union’s demands center on establishing a $17 hourly minimum wage, guaranteeing additional work hours, bolstering store-level employee counts, and implementing fundamental workplace safeguards. Union representatives argue that escalating costs of living have significantly outpaced compensation increases for their membership.

Workers additionally criticized the company’s resource allocation decisions, charging that Starbucks has invested heavily in artificial intelligence and technological systems “that doesn’t work” while introducing what they characterized as “gimmicky drinks,” all while labor disagreements remain unaddressed.

Labor Organization Claims Extensive Legal Violations

Starbucks Workers United alleges the corporation has breached U.S. labor regulations more extensively than any contemporary American company. The union states that National Labor Relations Board proceedings and administrative law judges have identified numerous infractions, with over 550 unfair labor practice complaints currently awaiting resolution against Starbucks.

The labor organization characterized the company’s actions as “union-busting” tactics and suggested Starbucks is “banking on customers’ blind loyalty” to its cultivated brand image.

The coffee chain countered these allegations, emphasizing its provision of competitive compensation packages, sector-leading benefits programs, and advancement pathways. A company representative highlighted what Starbucks describes as the industry’s lowest employee turnover rate and annual receipt of over one million employment applications as evidence of its workplace attractiveness.

“As we have always been, we’re committed to engaging in productive bargaining,” the company said.

Financial Performance Remains Resilient

Despite ongoing labor tensions, Starbucks‘ business metrics continue improving under CEO Brian Niccol’s leadership. The company’s “Back to Starbucks” initiative, emphasizing enhanced customer service and operational streamlining, has demonstrated measurable progress.

During the fiscal third quarter, the coffee retailer achieved U.S. comparable sales expansion of 7.9%, representing its fourth straight quarter of positive comparable sales performance. Adjusted earnings reached 85 cents per share, reflecting a 70% increase from the prior-year period and surpassing analyst consensus estimates.

The unionized workforce comprises just a small portion of Starbucks’ complete U.S. retail employee base, which constrains its capacity to generate widespread operational disruption across the store network.

Starbucks has weathered boycott campaigns previously. Its extensive retail footprint, established customer routines, and robust loyalty program infrastructure have historically proven resistant to sustained traffic declines.

The 550+ outstanding unfair labor practice charges represent one of the most tangible pressure points confronting the company as collective bargaining discussions progress.

The post Starbucks (SBUX) Faces Union-Led Boycott Over Stalled Contract Negotiations appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• XRP whales withdrew 231 million tokens from Binance, the highest single-day total in six months.
• The $335 million outflow dwarfs the 90-day daily average of roughly $40 million.
• XRP futures volume hit $11.37 billion, marking a six-month peak for derivatives activity.
• XRP’s market cap rose $44 billion in three days as price gained more than 70%.

XRP whale withdrawals from Binance jumped to their highest level in six months this week. Large holders pulled more than 231 million XRP off the exchange in a single day.

The move coincided with a $44 billion jump in XRP’s market capitalization over three days. Traders now watch whether the token can extend its rally toward the $2 level.

XRP Whale Outflows Surge Past Six-Month Average

The 231 million XRP withdrawal translated to more than $335 million pulled from Binance in a single day. That figure stands out against the 90-day average outflow, which sits closer to $40 million, according to data shared by crypto commentator Darkfost.

The scale of the move marks a sharp break from recent patterns. Whale wallets rarely move this much XRP off an exchange within such a short window.

Separate data from trader Crypto Patel points to a similar trend. Withdrawals climbed 4.3 times over just 48 hours, reaching the same 231 million XRP figure. Futures volume tied to XRP also reached $11.37 billion, the highest reading in more than six months.

The heavy withdrawals and elevated derivatives activity suggest large holders are repositioning. Moving tokens off exchanges typically reduces available sell-side supply on the platform.

Market Cap Gains Track Price and Volume Shifts

XRP’s market capitalization grew by $44 billion over three days. The token’s price performance during that window topped 70%, based on figures cited by Darkfost.

CoinGecko data puts XRP’s price at $1.43 as of the latest reading. The token carries a 24-hour trading volume of roughly $3.5 billion.

That daily snapshot shows a 3.73% decline over 24 hours. Measured over the week, XRP is still up 40.20%, reflecting the broader rally rather than a single-day move.

Crypto Patel’s figures also point to a 45% rebound tied to the same stretch of trading. The rebound lines up with the surge in both futures volume and whale withdrawal activity.

Continued accumulation by large holders could keep pressure on available exchange supply. Whether that dynamic pushes XRP toward the $2 mark remains tied to how withdrawal trends develop in coming days.

The post XRP Whale Withdrawals Hit Six-Month High as Market Cap Adds $44 Billion appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Zoom exceeded Q2 expectations with adjusted EPS of $1.55 compared to the anticipated $1.48, while revenue reached $1.28 billion versus the $1.27 billion forecast.
• Shares declined approximately 6% during Wednesday’s pre-market session despite surpassing estimates, triggered by disappointing Q3 projections.
• The company’s Q3 revenue forecast of $1.275–$1.28 billion matched or fell short of analyst predictions.
• The video conferencing giant’s 0.31% ownership in Anthropic, previously estimated at $1.27 billion in April, may balloon to $6–$7 billion should Anthropic complete its anticipated IPO at a $2 trillion market cap.
• The enterprise segment posted 7.8% year-over-year growth, marking the strongest expansion in three years, while Virtual Agent adoption skyrocketed 256% compared to last year.

Shares of Zoom Video (ZM) experienced a roughly 6% decline in Wednesday’s pre-market session following the company’s fiscal Q2 2027 results, which, despite beating expectations, failed to impress investors seeking stronger forward guidance.

Zoom Communications, Inc., ZM

Pre-market activity showed the stock changing hands around $94.60, marking a retreat from Tuesday’s closing price near $100.92. Prior to the earnings release, ZM had demonstrated strength with approximately 22% gains year-to-date, setting elevated investor expectations.

The company delivered adjusted earnings per share of $1.55, representing an increase from the prior year’s $1.53 and surpassing the Wall Street consensus of $1.48. Total revenue climbed 4.9% from the same quarter last year to reach $1.28 billion, marginally exceeding the anticipated $1.27 billion.

While the quarterly results themselves were respectable, the market’s negative reaction stemmed from forward-looking statements.

Management’s Q3 outlook projected revenue between $1.275–$1.28 billion, accompanied by adjusted earnings per share ranging from $1.46 to $1.48. This fell short of analyst expectations calling for $1.50 EPS and $1.282 billion in revenue. The company’s full-year FY2027 revenue guidance received only a marginal increase to $5.085–$5.095 billion, essentially matching existing market projections.

Such modest guidance adjustments typically disappoint investors when stocks have already incorporated optimistic expectations into their valuations, and ZM proved no different.

Strong Performance in Enterprise Segment and AI Solutions

Despite the muted guidance, several bright spots emerged from the quarterly results. The enterprise division delivered 7.8% year-over-year revenue growth, representing the strongest performance in this segment over the past three years. Zoom Virtual Agent adoption demonstrated explosive growth with customer numbers surging 256% compared to the previous year, signaling meaningful progress in the company’s artificial intelligence product strategy.

Chief Executive Eric Yuan emphasized the company’s AI-driven momentum during the earnings conference call, although the Anthropic investment, which has captured significant investor attention, wasn’t addressed in detail. Additional information regarding this stake may appear in forthcoming regulatory filings.

Anthropic Investment Presents Significant Upside Potential

The company recorded a substantial $1.6 billion gain from strategic investments during the quarter, with the majority attributable to its approximately 0.31% ownership position in Anthropic. This holding carried an estimated value of $1.27 billion as of April, when Anthropic’s implied market value stood around $380 billion.

Recent reports from the Financial Times suggest Anthropic plans to pursue a public offering at a $2 trillion valuation by October. Should this materialize, Zoom’s stake could appreciate to somewhere between $6 billion and $7 billion. Any shares from such an IPO would typically face lockup restrictions extending several months beyond the offering date.

The company maintained a strong balance sheet, closing the quarter with $7.2 billion in cash and marketable securities while carrying minimal debt obligations. BofA analyst Matt Bullock, who renewed coverage with a Buy rating and established a $130 price target, noted that “return of capital is a central part of our bull thesis.”

Market conditions provided minimal support on Tuesday, with the Nasdaq Composite retreating 0.2% while the S&P 500 remained essentially unchanged. Fellow enterprise software company Intuit released its results during the same evening, contributing to sector-wide pressure.

Insider stock dispositions totaling approximately $95.7 million throughout the past twelve months presented an additional consideration for cautious investors.

The post Zoom (ZM) Stock Tumbles 6% Despite Strong Q2 Earnings Performance appeared first on Blockonomi.

Cardano’s native token has been on a tear over the past several days, but its rally stalled today (August 26) as the broader market pulled back a bit.

While most analysts remain bullish on the asset, some believe a double-digit decline from the current levels could also be on the horizon.

Bulls vs. Bears

ADA has soared by 22% over the past two weeks, following the market’s revival prompted by the monetary changes announced by the US Treasury Department, among other factors.

At one point, the asset rocketed to a three-month high above $0.25, but the past 24 hours have delivered a correction. As of press time, ADA trades at around $0.21, representing a 6% decline on a daily scale and is among the biggest losers within that timeframe.

X user SBlockSpy noted that the token got rejected around $0.22 and is closely monitoring the pullback. They claimed that the move shows sellers are active and predicted a deeper downtrend to as low as $0.164 if the dump continues. At the same time, the analyst believes that if buyers step up here, they might trigger an initial surge to $0.24, then $0.30.

Rand Group also recently chipped in. Earlier this week, the X user highlighted ADA’s strong breakout, claiming it has breached the main downtrend resistance. However, they remain uninterested in the asset until it consolidates above the $0.25 resistance.

For their part, More Crypto Online cast doubt on whether a certain “B-wave” pullback has begun, adding that as long as ADA holds above $0.157, the upside momentum remains and could push the price to the $0.314-$0.404 range.

Entirely Optimistic Forecasts

It is important to note that other popular X users stand firmly on the bullish side. Earlier this month, Lucky told their nearly two million followers that ADA is among their “hot picks,” envisioning a short-term ascent to almost $0.50. The last time the token traded that high was in November last year.

CW is another optimist. The analyst opined that ADA has broken through a major resistance line and transitioned into a bullish trend.

“The long downtrend is over. The real bull market has begun,” they added.

The post Cardano (ADA) Slips 6% in 24 Hours: Healthy Correction or the Return of the Bears? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

[PRESS RELEASE – Kwai Chung, Hong Kong, August 26th, 2026]

CoinMarketCap has obtained a SOC 2 Type 1 attestation report, following an independent examination of the controls protecting the systems behind its market data. CoinMarketCap also completed the SOC 1 Type 1 examination. Both reports add to the international certifications the company already holds for information security and privacy management.

SOC 2 is the assessment most often requested by enterprise buyers evaluating a technology vendor. Conducted in accordance with AICPA attestation standards, CoinMarketCap’s SOC 2 Type 1 report assesses the design and implementation of controls against the applicable Trust Services Criteria for Security. The SOC 1 Type 1 report covers controls relevant to internal control over financial reporting. Type 1 reports reflect controls as at a specified date rather than over a period of time, and both are available to partners and clients on request.

The reports add to the dual ISO certification CoinMarketCap obtained in June 2026. The company is certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2022 for information security management under certificate IS 838849, and to ISO/IEC 27701:2019 for privacy information management under certificate PM 838852, both independently assessed and awarded by the British Standards Institution. The certifications are maintained through a three-year cycle with annual surveillance audits, and both remain active.

The scope of the assessments spans the parts of the business that handle user and market information. That includes price tracking, market data, and the APIs that serve it; the cloud systems and operational processes underneath them; account management and the handling of personally identifiable information; and the CoinMarketCap applications on iOS and Android.

The distinction the company is drawing is between security that is asserted and security that has been examined. CoinMarketCap sits upstream of a large amount of crypto infrastructure, with its data feeding wallets, trading interfaces, research tools, and increasingly AI agents that query it programmatically. Buyers in that position rarely take a vendor at its word. Procurement teams, compliance functions, and institutional counterparties work from recognized frameworks and independent reports, and ISO certifications and SOC attestation reports are the credentials those teams already know how to read.

The privacy side of the program is covered by ISO/IEC 27701, an extension of ISO 27001 that governs how personal data is collected, processed, and protected, and which is designed to align with GDPR and other applicable global privacy regulations. For a platform with users across a wide range of jurisdictions, that alignment matters as much as the security controls themselves.

“Millions of people use CoinMarketCap to make decisions about their money,” said Rush, CEO of CoinMarketCap. “Trust in that data should be demonstrated rather than claimed. Independent assessors have examined how we run security and privacy, and documented it in a form our partners and clients can review.”

CoinMarketCap continues to expand its developer and enterprise business, including its market data APIs and agent-facing products. Compliance credentials are increasingly a prerequisite in those conversations rather than a differentiator, particularly for institutional clients whose own obligations require them to evidence the controls of the vendors they depend on. CoinMarketCap intends to maintain and extend its assessment program over time.

About CoinMarketCap

CoinMarketCap stands as the Home Of Crypto. With over 1 billion monthly page views and 53 million tracked cryptocurrencies, CoinMarketCap drives the industry forward by organizing and delivering comprehensive crypto intelligence. Major media outlets including Forbes, Bloomberg, CNBC, and The Wall Street Journal rely on CoinMarketCap as their primary source for crypto data.

The post CoinMarketCap Obtains SOC 1 & 2 Attestations and Dual ISO Certifications appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin’s rally that began a week ago culminated yesterday with a surge to over $81,000 for the first time since May, when the asset was halted and driven south by a few grand.

Most larger-cap alts followed a similar trajectory, with XRP slumping by over 4%, while ZEC dumped by more than 7% after the debut of Grayscale’s ETF.

BTC Stopped at $81K

The primary cryptocurrency exploded out of the gate last Wednesday. It stood below $65,000 for weeks before the bulls took over. At first, they pushed it to $70,000 within hours. After a brief retracement, BTC skyrocketed again and surged to almost $80,000 on Friday to mark a three-month peak.

This meant that it had gained over $15,000 in less than 48 hours. As such, it was almost inevitable to correct before the bulls could step on the gas pedal once again. This took place during the weekend when BTC slipped to $75,000. The next leg up started on Monday and culminated on Tuesday.

As reported yesterday, bitcoin surged past $81,000 for the first time in 15 weeks amid these macro factors. However, it couldn’t keep climbing and has dropped by roughly $3,000 since that local peak.

Nevertheless, it remains up by more than 22% on a weekly scale, while its market dominance sits inches below 58% and its market cap is at $1.575 trillion on CG.

XRP, SOL, DOGE Rejected

Ethereum failed at $2,500 once again and is now down to $2,450 after a 1.3% daily decline. BNB is below $700 once again, while Ripple’s XRP was rejected at $1.50 and now trades at $1.42 after a major 4.5% daily decline. SOL touched $100 yesterday, but it’s well below that level now.

Even more painful declines come from DOGE (-5%), ADA (-5%), XLM (-5%), and CC (-6%). ZEC has dropped the most from the larger-cap alts despite Grayscale’s ETF launch, and is under $790 now.

In contrast, RAIN has skyrocketed by more than 20% and now trades above $0.0175.

The total crypto market cap has declined by around $60 billion in a day and is down to $2.740 trillion on CG.

The post Bitcoin (BTC) Rejected at $80K, Ripple’s XRP Plunges Hard as Rally Cools: Market Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin (BTC) slipped back below $80,000 after testing the level again, with XWIN Japan pointing to profit-taking by existing holders as a major barrier on August 26.

The next move may depend less on another brief test of $80,000 and more on whether fresh demand can absorb units being sold by investors sitting on gains.

Profit-Taking Puts BTC’s $80K Test Under Pressure

XWIN Japan noted that nearly every Bitcoin investor group has returned to profit as the cryptocurrency approached $80,000. Its unrealized PnL reading stood at 21.1 for long-term holders, 13.4 for short-term holders, 13.9 for investors holding for one day to one month, and 5.3 for the newest buyers. That creates a familiar problem during a fast recovery: more profitable holders have a reason to sell.

The post also pointed to the SOPR Ratio, which compares profit-taking by long-term holders with that of short-term holders. The ratio briefly reached 1.4 as BTC neared $80,000, suggesting long-term holders were realizing profits at a higher relative rate. However, it has since fallen to 0.93, meaning short-term holders are now showing stronger realized performance relative to long-term holders.

As per XWIN, any sustained breakout above the $80,000 mark, coupled with rising ETF and spot demand, might be one way through which Bitcoin can reach the $88,000-$90,000 price point. However, it pointed out that the $75,000-$76,000 mark is the level to pay attention to if prices decline further. Failure at this level may make it difficult for the short-term holders to earn a profit, which, in XWIN’s opinion, could speed up the correction.

“The key question is not whether Bitcoin can briefly touch $80,000, but whether new demand can absorb selling from profitable holders,” the research firm concluded.

Momentum Has Cooled After a Huge Weekly Move

Another analyst, BorisD, also pointed to fading buying pressure at higher prices, noting that Binance’s volume delta, which tracks the difference between aggressive buying and selling, fell from $1.17 during Bitcoin’s move from $63,000 to $70,000 to about $350 million near $80,000.

The other major exchanges showed much flatter readings. BorisD argued that the market may need a period of consolidation before attempting another breakout. But the backdrop remains more supportive than it was a week ago.

As CryptoPotato reported, BTC climbed from below $65,000 on August 19 to above $81,000, helped by Treasury buyback plans, renewed ETF demand and more than $4 billion in short liquidations.

Nearly $2 billion entered US spot Bitcoin ETFs over five days, while Treasury buybacks of longer-dated debt were increased from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation.

Bitcoin was trading around $79,000 at the time of writing, down 2% over 24 hours but still up 23% in the last seven days and 21% over the month, even after a year that has left it down close to 28% and about 37% below its all-time high of over $126,000, set last October.

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[PRESS RELEASE – Willemstad, Curaçao, August 26th, 2026]

On August 26, the leading crypto casino BetFury launched a new title – BetFury Sugar Rush 1000. This game is a new version of Pragmatic Play’s high-volatility slot. It is another result of BetFury’s cooperation with one of the biggest iGaming providers, bringing the crypto casino’s visual identity to a proven game while keeping the mechanics players already trust.

BetFury Introduces Sugar Rush 1000 as Its Latest Branded Slot

Sugar Rush 1000 is among the most-played online slots on BetFury, popular with both regular users and VIP club members. Pragmatic Play built it as an upgrade to the original Sugar Rush, lifting the maximum win from 5,000x to 25,000x and raising the multiplier ceiling per grid position from 128x to 1,024x. That mix of a high win cap and compounding multipliers keeps the game in steady rotation across the community, which made it the natural pick for a branded version.

BetFury Sugar Rush 1000 Features and Gameplay

BetFury Sugar Rush 1000 keeps every mechanic of the original and changes only the design. The title runs at the 96.53% RTP and retains the full feature set:

• 7×7 grid with Cluster Pays – wins form from five or more connected matching symbols.
• Tumble feature (Cascading reels) – clears winning clusters and drops new symbols into the chain for further crypto wins.
• Multiplier Spots – build up as symbols are removed from the same position.
• Bonus Game – triggered by 3 to 7 scatters, awarding 10 to 30 Free Spins.
• Bonus Buy – gives direct access to the feature round.

Thus, players get the same math and volatility they know, now wrapped in BetFury’s own look.

“Sugar Rush 1000 was already one of the games our users return to most, so creating such a game was a decision the community made for us,” said Mike, CEO of BetFury. “Pragmatic Play has been one of our closest partners for years, and this release is a direct product of that work.”

BetFury Sugar Rush 1000 shows what these collaborations are built for a high-performing crypto game delivered under the operator’s brand, with the mechanics players’ trust kept fully intact.

About BetFury

BetFury is a leading crypto casino with 3.5M registered players and $11.5B wagered, founded in 2019. The platform offers over 13,000 games, 24 Original games with RTP up to 99.28%, and 80+ sports for betting with odds higher than the market average. Beyond gaming, BetFury provides a full suite of crypto tools: Crypto Staking with up to 60% APR, Futures, Crypto Swap, etc. Moreover, it has a BFG Staking for accumulating more native tokens or collecting payouts in BFG or USDT. BetFury continuously evolves based on user feedback and is committed to responsible gambling practices. Learn more at betfury.com.

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