The incident highlights the critical need for robust security measures in blockchain systems to prevent significant financial vulnerabilities.

The post Blockstream confirms bridge nodes patched, funds safe to return after $320M Liquid Network exploit appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Real Madrid's squad depth issues could impact their Champions League performance, testing Mourinho's adaptability and strategic acumen.

The post Real Madrid faces selection crisis ahead of Champions League opener against Inter Milan appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The new bridge strengthens Russia-North Korea ties, offering Pyongyang an alternative trade route and Moscow a strategic ally amid sanctions.

The post North Korea and Russia complete first road bridge linking countries appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

China's indium phosphide export controls threaten global semiconductor supply chains, potentially delaying AI infrastructure expansion.

The post IQE CEO warns of indium phosphide supply risks amid China export controls appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bilibili Gaming's consistent dominance in LPL finals positions them as a formidable force for future international competitions, notably Worlds 2026.

The post Bilibili Gaming qualifies for fifth consecutive final in LPL appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Alleged White-Hat Hackers Withdraw 4,000 bitcoin from Blockstream’s Liquid Network Federation Reserves

The Liquid Network said Sunday that purported white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 bitcoin, worth about $320 million, from the federation wallet that backs L-BTC. Bridge nodes were disabled, and the sidechain was paused. Other issued assets, including USDT, DePix and RWAs, were unaffected, the official account said on X.

The Liquid Network is a federated sidechain of Bitcoin, founded by Adam Back’s Blockstream. The Liquid chain issues a variety of assets such as LBTC, which it backs with BTC on the Bitcoin main chain, held in a large multisig of 15 corporate and known members. 11 of the 15 members need to sign a valid multi-signature transaction to move coins from the treasury. Before the hack, the treasury held over 4200 BTC; after the hack, Blockstream’s proof of reserves page reports a little over 207 BTC left. 

The hackers withdrew 4,019.4 BTC from the reserve address in a peg-out transaction using the SideSwap Peg-out Authorization Key. SideWap is a bridge exchange and a member of the Liquid Federation. While details on the mechanism of the hack are not confirmed yet, it appears an inflation bug on the LBTC side chain was exploited by the hackers to create over 4,000 LBTC that did not exist before, and cash them out for on-chain bitcoin from the federation. Because the transaction appeared as valid, given the consensus bug, the federation members’ HSM security servers signed the BTC withdrawal transaction, worth roughly 320 million at the time. 

The hacker moved the funds to an address ending in 6gyqjlte, from which they quickly signed a new transaction with a message on the OP_RETURN arbitrary data field saying “we are whitehats. contact us on chain.” Those coins were still at that address at the time of writing.

A small mainnet transaction to the hacker address followed by an OP_RETURN saying “Please contact security@blockstream.com”, presumably from a Blockstream public address, though that remains unconfirmed. A later OP_RETURN spend from the hacker address carried “Please contact us on Signal @m671aw.70”, however, this may be spam and does not share a link to the address with the stolen funds.

In response to the breach, exchanges were told to pause L-BTC deposits and withdrawals. Bridge nodes on the Liquid Network have been paused, limiting access to the side chain, which continues to produce blocks. 

JAN3 CEO Samson Mow said Aqua’s Liquid features were affected and that on-chain bitcoin still worked. Other wallets in the industry that use the Liquid Network are expected to be affected. Users holding LBTC now effectively have their savings at risk, since the underlying BTC is currently not redeemable. Given the private nature of the Liquid chain, user onchain analytics are scarce and not much public information is known about how much LBTC is held by retail users versus corporations of Blockstream itself. Nevertheless, should the funds not be returned, it would be a heavy blow to the Liquid Network’s user base.

Users of LBTC don’t have many options but to wait for conversations with the hackers to resolve. Given the size of the hack, it would be difficult for the hackers to get away with stealing all that bitcoin, though perhaps not impossible. What may happen is that the hackers ask for a finder’s fee and return the majority of the funds. 

This post Alleged White-Hat Hackers Withdraw 4,000 bitcoin from Blockstream’s Liquid Network Federation Reserves first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Juan Galt.

Bitcoin Magazine

Hargreaves Lansdown Reverses Course, Rolls Out Bitcoin Trading 

British financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown is letting retail investors buy bitcoin — nearly one year after it said the cryptocurrency was “not an asset class.” 

The Bristol, UK-based investment firm’s website said it was offering bitcoin and other crypto exchange-traded notes to investors. ETNs are investment funds which trade on stock exchanges and track the prices of digital assets. 

It comes after the firm, which manages nearly £173 billion (over $233 billion) in assets, last year warned customers about buying bitcoin. 

“While longer-term returns of Bitcoin have been positive, Bitcoin has experienced several periods of extreme losses and is a highly volatile investment — much riskier than stocks or bonds,” the firm said at the time. 

“The HL Investment view is that Bitcoin is not an asset class, and we do not think cryptocurrency has characteristics that mean it should be included in portfolios for growth or income and shouldn’t be relied upon to help clients meet their financial goals.” 

Now, a number of ETNs tracking the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are available. The firm warns users that “crypto ETNs are considered high-risk and may be volatile.”

U.S. regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2024 approved bitcoin exchange-traded funds for investors after a decade of saying no to the products. 

The funds had the most successful debut in the history of ETFs as investors previously unable to buy exposure to the asset class rushed in to buy the products. 

Run by top asset managers and banks like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Morgan Stanley, the investment vehicles now collectively manage over $100 billion in assets. 

This post Hargreaves Lansdown Reverses Course, Rolls Out Bitcoin Trading  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Trezor Breach Worse Than Reported: Another 67,000 US Customers Exposed

Hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor has said that a data breach first announced last month is worse than originally reported. 

The Prague, Czech Republic-based company said Friday that an additional 67,000 U.S. customers had their names, emails, phone numbers, shipping addresses and order numbers leaked. The leaked data came from orders made between November 2019 and August 2021, according to Trezor. 

Trezor first announced in August that data from 11,742 customers from the U.S., UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal had been exposed — with names, emails, phone numbers and shipping addresses leaked. 

Another 1,947 customers just had their names, cities and emails exposed in the breach. 

In Friday’s announcement, Trezor said that its third-party fulfillment partner, ShipMonk, had falsely reassured the company about deleting customer data. 

“Throughout our entire relationship with ShipMonk, we repeatedly requested and received written assurance confirming the deletion of the data, in line with our contract, data policy, and past communications,” Trezor wrote. 

“We are very disappointed that, despite receiving this confirmation, the data was not deleted in their systems.”

Neither Trezor nor ShipMonk immediately responded to Bitcoin Magazine’s questions. 

Trezor first announced in August that the data had been leaked because ShipMonk experienced “unauthorized access to their systems containing customer data.” 

The company added that it had directly emailed all customers involved in the breach. Trezor’s parent company, SatoshiLabs, told Bitcoin Magazine last month that it was investigating the incident. 

Trezor is one of the most popular Bitcoin hardware wallet solutions, and also has support for storing other cryptocurrencies. 

Bitcoiners’ personal data has been targeted by cybercriminals in the past: back in 2020, an unauthorized party accessed popular hardware manufacturer Ledger’s e-commerce and marketing database, leaking over 1 million email addresses and the personal contact data of nearly 10,000 customers. 

At the start of this year, customers reported receiving emails from Global-e, Ledger’s payment partner, that a data breach at its cloud systems leaked sensitive customer data. 

This post Trezor Breach Worse Than Reported: Another 67,000 US Customers Exposed first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

El Salvador Isn’t Buying Bitcoin With Public Money, Says IMF 

El Salvador has not used public funds to accumulate bitcoin since the International Monetary Fund’s last review of its loan program, the fund said Thursday. 

In a report Thursday, the body said that the Central American country had instead received bitcoin from private donations, citing documentation from the government. It added that “no further Bitcoin accumulation beyond the documented donations is expected.”

El Salvador made headlines in 2021 when it became the first country in the world to make bitcoin legal tender. Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele in 2022 said the country would buy one bitcoin per day but it was never clear where the money was coming from — or if he was actually buying at all. 

“Documentation has been provided verifying that Bitcoin accumulation since the first review reflects private donations and that no public resources were used,” the IMF release said. 

“Understandings were also reached on steps to modernize the legal, regulatory, and supervisory framework for digital assets and to further strengthen the governance and risk-management arrangements for public-sector crypto-asset holdings. Going forward, no further bitcoin accumulation beyond the documented donations is expected.”

The report added that public participation in the government-sponsored bitcoin wallet has been largely wound down, with majority ownership and operational control handed to a private operator. 

El Salvador in 2021 debuted a state-sponsored wallet called Chivo for its citizens as part of its plan to increase bitcoin adoption in the country. 

“IMF staff thank the Salvadoran authorities for the constructive discussions and excellent collaboration,” the report added. 

The IMF El Salvador entered a $1.4 billion loan agreement at the end of December but the fund asked for the country to scale back certain aspects of its bitcoin strategy. 

Institutions like the World Bank and the IMF have long criticized President Bukele’s Bitcoin law, which also asked businesses to accept the cryptocurrency if they had the technological means to do so. 

President Bukele in 2024 admitted that Salvadorans weren’t using the cryptocurrency to buy things as expected, but always boasted that the government was still stacking sats. 

Since launching a crime crackdown to tackle the country’s notorious crime gangs, murder rates in El Salvador have plunged. The country was once the most dangerous place in the Americas but President Bukele is now trying to turn it into a tech hub. 

Crypto companies like Tether have since relocated to its capital, San Salvador. 

This post El Salvador Isn’t Buying Bitcoin With Public Money, Says IMF  first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Dips Below $80,000 on Strong US Jobs Report

Bitcoin slid Friday after a better-than-expected labor report showed that the U.S. job market accelerated in August. 

The leading cryptocurrency was recently trading for close to $79,764 after dropping as low as $78,706 earlier in the morning in New York. It’s currently down over 1% over a 24-hour period. On Thursday, the coin soared above $82,000. 

The Federal Reserve is typically more likely to raise interest rates when the labor market is strong, because more people employed means more spending, and more spending can push inflation up. 

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh last week gave his first major speech as head of the U.S. central bank and said he had “more work to do” to fight inflation. Bitcoin has typically done well in a low-interest rate environment. 

Traders currently view a U.S. Federal Reserve interest rate hike at the upcoming September 15–16 policy meeting as roughly a 50% to 60% probability. 

But U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday demanded the Federal Reserve slash interest rates. 

Writing on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said: “Lower the interest rates because the U.S.A. is a much stronger credit than it was just a short time ago!”

He added: “We should have the LOWEST RATE of any country in the World, like ‘the old days.'”

Bitcoin has decoupled from stocks recently as investors have renewed concerns around dollar debasement. 

The cryptocurrency started surging last month, after the U.S. Treasury Department said it would more than double the size of its government debt repurchases. The coin had its best run in three years and third best August ever.  

The much-talked about debasement trade is back in the spotlight, and bitcoin has been trading in lockstep with gold, according to analysts. The so-called debasement trade is when investors buy an asset as a way to hedge against a currency losing value. 

News dropped last month that U.S. public debt exceeded $40 trillion for the first time too. Excessive debt also undermines confidence in the dollar, making assets like bitcoin and gold attractive. 

This post Bitcoin Dips Below $80,000 on Strong US Jobs Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Vitalik Buterin sees a 60% chance that advanced cryptography becomes cheap enough to reshape Ethereum privacy.

On Sept. 6, the Ethereum co-founder said there is a 60% probability that SNARKs, fully homomorphic encryption and indistinguishability obfuscation will eventually operate at less than 10 times the cost of ordinary computation. He put the odds at 33% that all three could approach near-zero additional overhead at sufficient scale.

The forecast reaches well beyond hiding transactions.

Cheap SNARKs could make private proofs easier to generate. Fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) could let applications compute directly on encrypted data. Indistinguishability obfuscation (iO) aims to let software run without exposing its internal logic.

Together, the technologies could move privacy from a specialized feature toward a default layer for financial and computational systems.

Buterin’s timeline is more cautious than the probability headline suggests. He said there is a good chance that at least one of the three, probably SNARKs, reaches single-digit overhead by the end of the decade. He did not assign a probability to that specific deadline.

Ethereum can improve privacy before the big breakthrough

Ethereum does not need all three technologies to become cheap before meaningful privacy improvements arrive.

Its roadmap separates privacy into private reads, private writes, and private proving, allowing progress in one area without waiting for a universal cryptographic cost collapse.

Anonymous RPC systems, private information retrieval, oblivious RAM, and light clients can improve how users access blockchain data without exposing as much information about who they are or what they are querying.

Private transactions have their own constraints. A transfer can still be censored before inclusion, linked through its fee payer or correlated through sequential account nonces.

Ethereum researchers have proposed frame transactions that separate fee payment from the account performing an action, inclusion lists that force builders to include eligible transactions seen by validator committees, and keyed nonces that make activity harder to correlate. Those mechanisms remain proposals rather than guaranteed upgrades.

Application-specific zero-knowledge systems are further ahead.

SNARKs already allow users to prove that a private computation or statement is valid without revealing the underlying information.

Ethereum’s existing design patterns can support uses such as anonymous voting, private claims, and shielded withdrawals, though privacy can still leak through wallet reuse, RPC providers, public inputs, or weak anonymity sets.

That makes SNARKs the most mature part of Buterin’s three-way bet.

FHE and iO could take privacy beyond transactions

The more consequential leap for decentralized finance would come from making FHE substantially cheaper.

Unlike application-specific proofs, FHE allows multiple users to interact with shared data while keeping that state encrypted.

That capability is essential for applications such as private automated market makers, confidential lending pools, and sealed-bid auctions, where the system must process several users’ inputs without revealing them.

However, the obstacle is cost.

One 2026 benchmark required multi-gigabyte cryptographic artifacts and more than six hours of encrypted computation for a small BERT workload. The result reflects a single application rather than a universal performance measure, but it illustrates how far some FHE workloads remain from ordinary computation.

Developers can work around those constraints with specialized coprocessors, narrower workloads, or threshold-decryption systems. Those approaches can make encrypted applications practical today, but they add infrastructure and, in some cases, new trust assumptions.

Bringing FHE into single-digit overhead would change that tradeoff. Shared encrypted state could become a routine application primitive rather than something reserved for specialized systems, making confidential financial applications cheaper and easier to deploy.

The third technology, indistinguishability obfuscation, pushes that idea further.

FHE seeks to keep data private while it is being processed. iO aims to conceal the program itself, allowing users to execute software and verify its behavior without exposing the underlying logic.

That capability remains much further away. Buterin has previously described this rigorous approach as carrying “galactic” runtimes, while newer methods remain promising but unproven.

If practical iO eventually emerges, software could begin performing roles now assigned to trusted intermediaries without revealing how it makes decisions internally. Potential applications include more coercion-resistant voting, tightly controlled encrypted protocols and systems that disclose only authorized outputs.

Those possibilities extend beyond the private-read, private-write and private-proving tools currently emphasized in Ethereum’s privacy roadmap. They also broaden the implications beyond Ethereum itself.

Christopher Inks, founder of Texas West Capital, said cheaper cryptography could allow proprietary financial models to run on outside infrastructure without exposing private data, model mechanics or intellectual property.

He argued that such systems could eventually weaken the role of intermediaries including auditors, custodians, clearinghouses and exchanges, whose businesses partly depend on serving as trusted observers or validators.

The progression is therefore from hiding user data to hiding shared financial state and, eventually, the logic of the programs operating on it. If the cost of those protections falls far enough, the result could be a new class of financial infrastructure rather than simply more private blockchain transactions.

The privacy roadmap does not depend on one outcome

Ethereum’s privacy path is therefore better understood as a progression rather than a single breakthrough.

Anonymous access, censorship resistance, shielded transfers and specialized proofs can advance with technologies that already exist. Cheaper SNARKs would expand those capabilities. FHE would determine whether confidential shared-state applications can become practical at scale. iO would open a much more distant class of encrypted software.

Buterin’s 60% scenario would accelerate all three layers, potentially making privacy far cheaper and more composable.

The remaining 40% does not imply Ethereum privacy fails. It means progress would likely stay uneven, with useful protections arriving through specialized systems while general encrypted computation remains expensive.

The post Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin puts 60% odds on a cryptography breakthrough that could weaken Wall Street middlemen appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Changpeng Zhao’s September 5 visit to Kyrgyzstan’s crypto council came as President Sadyr Japarov set a three-month deadline for new regulations and officials discussed the risks posed by international sanctions. The decisions put the limits of domestic crypto policy in focus: approval at home does not ensure access abroad.

Zhao, known as CZ, said in a post that he attended in person and praised progress including a circulating KGST stablecoin. His post did not name USDKG, the separate gold-backed, dollar-pegged project whose issuer is on the UK sanctions list.

USDKG provides a concrete example of the limits of government backing. Its published framework combines a state-owned issuer, reserve management and administrative token controls. Yet its own FAQ reserves direct redemption for institutional clients, while UK-facing services have separate legal obligations. For a retail holder, the practical exit route is a trade with an available counterparty.

Kyrgyzstan sets regulatory deadlines

According to the National Agency for Virtual Assets’ account, Japarov chaired the third council meeting in Cholpon-Ata on September 5. Participants discussed regulation, security and risks from international sanctions and restrictions affecting the country’s virtual-asset market.

The agency, known as NAVA, received two three-month assignments: secure adoption of a package of secondary regulations and work through possible amendments to the virtual-assets law and related legislation.

The timetable extends beyond legislation. The State Tax Service was given two months to review tax regulation. NAVA has one month to determine the cost and funding sources for a digital licensing and supervision platform, with pilot testing planned from Jan. 1, 2027. Kabar, citing the presidential press service, also reported those directions.

The central bank has a separate assignment to develop and pilot a basic digital-som platform by Dec. 31, 2026, followed by real-world testing from 2027 and phased national deployment.

The projects should remain distinct. In a Nov. 6, 2025 statement, the Finance Ministry said USDKG was separate from KGST and the digital som, with different goals, mechanisms and backing.

State ownership does not determine foreign access

For USDKG, the state connection is through its issuer. The ministry’s November 2025 statement said it owned 100% of OJSC Virtual Asset Issuer. USDKG’s May 22, 2026 announcement continued to describe the issuer as a state-owned entity under the Finance Ministry.

Four days later, the UK designated the issuer under reference RUS3618. Its May 26 sanctions notice identifies the entity through names including USDKG. The current designation record lists an asset freeze, trust-services sanctions, director disqualification and internet-services sanctions.

The UK’s stated rationale is that it has reasonable grounds to suspect the issuer obtained a benefit from or supported Russia’s government through business of economic significance to that government.

For financial sanctions, the relevant boundary includes both location and legal identity. OFSI guidance says the rules apply to persons within UK territory and territorial sea, as well as UK persons worldwide, including entities established under UK law and their branches.

The internet-services measure addresses another part of access. Specified services must take reasonable steps to prevent users in the UK from accessing content, websites or applications provided by the designated issuer.

These restrictions do not amount to proof of a worldwide shutdown of USDKG transfers. They show why domestic authorization cannot settle every access question: a foreign service may have legal duties that Kyrgyz state ownership does not remove.

USDKG redemption depends on holder eligibility

USDKG’s current redemption FAQ makes the holder distinction explicit. Retail users are directed to supported exchanges for liquidity. Direct minting and redemption are available only to institutional clients, subject to identity and anti-money-laundering checks and issuer-defined procedures. Gold redemption is handled case by case.

For retail holders, the reserve asset and the immediate source of liquidity are therefore different things. Gold may support the issuer’s backing model, but the published retail route relies on somebody else being willing and able to buy the token.

The issuer’s December 2025 tokenomics explanation describes tokens being issued after gold enters custody and is verified. It also describes a fiat liquidity buffer intended to support redemptions without requiring immediate gold sales.

That arrangement depends on reserve management and the execution of issuer procedures. USDKG’s transparency page says its gold valuation uses prices at the audit date and displays a 2025 fourth-quarter report.

The available market observations are limited. A CoinGecko market page on September 6 displayed Ethereum Uniswap V3 and Curve USDKG market rows flagged inactive, indicating no trades in the preceding three hours on those displayed rows.

Likewise, the May 22 issuer announcement said USDKG/USDT was available to professional investors through OSL HK’s over-the-counter platform.

Token ownership still sits inside an administrative system

Access also depends on the token’s design. USDKG’s current project documentation assigns the owner the ability to pause transfers and issue tokens. It assigns compliance administrators the ability to blacklist addresses and burn balances held by blacklisted accounts. The documented redemption function burns tokens from the owner’s own balance.

Those are distinct powers with different consequences. A transfer pause concerns token movement, while a blacklist targets addresses. Direct redemption remains an issuer process subject to the eligibility conditions described in its FAQ. Possession of tokens alone does not remove those dependencies.

The Ethereum contract page labels its source an exact verified match and exposes administrative functions including pausing, blacklisting, issuance and redemption in its published interface. That corroborates the existence of the interfaces.

The January 2025 Consensys Diligence audit reviewed a specific code revision and described substantial trust in administrators. Its historical findings should not be treated as a complete account of every current deployed permission, or as evidence of present reserve solvency.

The documented controls add a separate dependency to the exit process. Eligibility determines who can redeem directly; counterparties provide retail liquidity; administrators retain specified powers over token movement.

Japarov’s September deadlines now create concrete milestones for Kyrgyzstan’s domestic framework: secondary regulations, possible legislative amendments and the licensing-platform pilot. Those measures can shape how the country supervises virtual assets.

For USDKG holders, the practical test is whether those services connect to an exit they can use. A retail sale still needs a counterparty, institutional redemption still requires issuer approval, and UK-facing services still have sanctions obligations. The next regulations will shape domestic supervision; access depends on how those separate conditions are met.

The post CZ’s Kyrgyzstan visit highlights why state backing cannot guarantee a stablecoin exit appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Router Protocol will shut down all remaining operations by Sept. 30 after failing to build a sustainable bridge business.

The cross-chain infrastructure project said it spent the past year exploring commercialization, licensing, and acquisition opportunities, including talks with teams that could take over parts of its technology stack.

However, none of this process produced an outcome that could support the protocol team.

Router blamed the economics of cross-chain infrastructure, where bridge fees have compressed while the cost of running always-on systems remains largely fixed. It explained:

“Much of crypto's demand revealed itself to be dopamine wearing a painkiller's clothes: when the speculative tide went out, the fee pool that was supposed to sustain the infrastructure went with it. A business that has to run painkiller-grade infrastructure on vitamin-grade revenue inside a dopamine-driven market is structurally upside down.

That is the honest post-mortem, and it applies to most of our category, not just to us. Bridging economics are thin, compressing fees against costs that never sleep, and the sector has run net negative for a long stretch. We felt every basis point of it.”

It also said activity has concentrated on fewer blockchains and that capital has increasingly shifted toward artificial intelligence.

Indeed, the protocol's current usage reflects the challenge. DefiLlama showed Router Nitro processing about $677 in bridge volume over a 24-hour period on Sept. 7, while ROUTE’s market capitalization stood at roughly $56,600.

Meanwhile, this closure ends a project that raised more than $4 million in 2021 from investors including Coinbase Ventures before launching its own Layer 1 network in 2024.

Router had already begun retreating from that model last year when it proposed shutting Router Chain and shifting resources toward its Open Graph Architecture. The Sept. 4 announcement goes further, ending the remaining protocol operations altogether.

Holders and developers face separate shutdown deadlines

The Sept. 30 closure does not create a single withdrawal deadline for every ROUTE holder.

Router said users holding tokens on centralized exchanges should follow the timetable set by each venue. KuCoin suspended ROUTE deposits on Sept. 5, while final trading and withdrawal schedules remained dependent on individual exchanges.

That leaves token holders exposed to different deadlines depending on where they keep their assets.

On the other hand, developers face a broader operational problem.

Router’s products include an app, API, and widget built around its Open Graph Architecture. The closure announcement did not provide a service-by-service shutdown schedule, meaning projects that depend on Router infrastructure will need to identify those connections and migrate before the protocol disappears.

Router said it will not launch any new ROUTE programs and plans to open-source selected components of its technology, though it has not identified which parts or provided a release date.

The project also plans to permanently burn 303.3 million ROUTE held in its treasury, equivalent to roughly 30% of the token’s nearly 1 billion supply.

The post A Coinbase-backed crypto bridge is shutting down after its business model stopped working appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Liquid Network was effectively halted after nearly $320 million in Bitcoin left its federation reserve through an abnormal peg-out.

The incident began Sept. 6 when a customer submitted 4,000 L-BTC to SideSwap’s peg-out service, which converts Bitcoin represented on Liquid back into BTC on the main network.

SideSwap said the request passed the normal authorization process and prompted the Liquid Federation to release about 3,996 BTC. The Bitcoin later moved to an address that held roughly 3,998.5 BTC at the latest check.

Liquid disabled its bridge nodes after the withdrawal, while SideSwap suspended swaps, peg-ins, and peg-outs. Exchanges also paused or prepared to pause L-BTC deposits and withdrawals as operators investigated the incident.

The actors controlling the Bitcoin subsequently identified themselves through on-chain messages as “whitehats” and said they intended to return most of the funds once the underlying bug had been fixed across the network.

That prospect could limit the eventual financial loss. However, it does not resolve the more important question of how almost 4,000 BTC left the federation without an apparent key compromise.

The withdrawal appears to have followed the rules

Liquid and SideSwap say the incident did not involve stolen signing credentials.

The withdrawal used SideSwap’s valid Peg-out Authorization Key, or PAK, and Liquid said neither that key nor other federation keys were compromised.

Instead, SideSwap said Blockstream traced the 4,000 L-BTC presented for redemption to a flaw in Elements, the software underlying Liquid.

If that explanation is confirmed, the problem occurred before the Bitcoin transaction was signed.

Liquid is designed to maintain one BTC in its federation reserve for every L-BTC in circulation. During a normal peg-out, L-BTC is burned, and an equivalent amount of Bitcoin is released.

In this case, SideSwap says a software bug created L-BTC without corresponding Bitcoin backing. Those tokens nevertheless entered a valid peg-out process, after which federation functionaries treated the withdrawal as legitimate and released real BTC.

Blockchain security firm Bitslab said at least 11 of Liquid’s 15 functionaries ultimately signed the transaction.

That points to a different type of failure from a conventional bridge exploit. Secure keys provide limited protection if every signer is presented with the same invalid state and accepts it as legitimate.

No independent technical postmortem or detailed patch description was public at the latest check, leaving the precise cause attributed to Liquid and SideSwap.

Whitehats want the bug fixed before returning Bitcoin

Meanwhile, the actors holding the funds have been communicating with Blockstream through Bitcoin transactions carrying OP_RETURN messages.

Galaxy Digital research head Alex Thorn said Blockstream first sent a message asking the holder to contact its security team. The holder later responded that it planned to send “most” of the Bitcoin back to the federation.

A subsequent message added a condition that Blockstream should fix the bug first and ensure every node is patched before returning the funds.

That puts Liquid’s next steps beyond simply recovering the Bitcoin.

The federation must identify and remediate the Elements flaw, distribute the fix across affected nodes, and establish that another batch of invalid L-BTC cannot pass through the same authorization process.

It must also reconcile the reserve.

The allegedly bug-created L-BTC was burned during the peg-out, but about 3,996 real BTC still left Liquid’s federation wallet. Until those funds return or the accounting is otherwise restored, the network still has to demonstrate that legitimate outstanding L-BTC remains backed one-for-one.

Liquid’s bridge nodes remain disabled while that work continues.

While the incident may ultimately end with most of the Bitcoin recovered, the harder task is proving that the system which authorized its release cannot make the same mistake twice.

The post A whitehat hacker is holding $320 million in drained Bitcoin until developers prove they patched a fatal network flaw appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Arbitrum's Watchdog Committee, a grant oversight body, has given three DeFi projects until a tentative Sept. 10 deadline to answer high-severity misuse findings and return funds it considers unresolved, or face separate votes on permanent exclusion from future DAO programs.

The cases name Good Entry, Limitless and APX Finance, formerly ApolloX. Their cited figures add to 457,553 ARB, but that total combines different findings rather than representing one amount established as stolen, outstanding or recoverable.

As of Sept. 5, no response from any of the projects appeared in the proposal thread. The committee described the schedule as tentative and said a vote would follow only if a project's explanation is unsatisfactory and its respective funds are not returned within the one-week window. No ban has been approved.

For Good Entry, the committee said on-chain analysis found 142,839 ARB was distributed to 1,032 ineligible users during and after the Short-Term Incentives Program. It also alleged self-farming by wallets connected to team addresses and said the project refused to provide clarification. Good Entry's grant application requested 200,000 ARB, so the watchdog figure covers part of the grant and describes distributions rather than a remaining balance.

Limitless is accused of swapping 75,000 ARB into USDC and transferring the funds to Base. The watchdog said team members could not be reached for clarification or recovery. The figure matches the 75,000 ARB requested in the project's LTIPP application.

The APX Finance finding is less cleanly reducible to a repayment figure. The committee tied 239,714 ARB to overlapping issues, including an unspecified substantial portion left unutilized in treasury addresses. It also cited late transfers to distributor contracts and alleged team-linked Sybil activity. APX had requested 525,000 ARB in its application, but the proposal did not break down the 239,714 ARB by issue.

What the proposed bans can enforce

Each project would face its own off-chain Snapshot vote. The proposal says a ban involving an operating project would cover founders, current team members and affiliated contributors. For projects no longer operating, it would apply only to founders.

The votes would seek social consensus and require no on-chain action. Their stated consequence is that covered projects or people would become ineligible for future programs run by the Arbitrum DAO. That makes the measure a governance-access sanction; it would not itself execute a wallet freeze or disable a protocol.

The watchdog said that, as of Sept. 2, the broader program had received 90 reports, recovered about 532,000 ARB and distributed about 268,000 ARB in reporter bounties. The next signal is whether any of the three projects answers before Sept. 10, followed by whether the committee proceeds with its tentative Snapshot timetable.

The post Three DeFi projects face possible exclusion from future Arbitrum DAO programs appeared first on CryptoSlate.

On the Liquid Network, the best-known Bitcoin sidechain, around 4,000 Bitcoin drained out of the shared reserve on September 6, 2026. The network has been halted since then, L-BTC currently cannot be swapped back into real Bitcoin, and several trading venues have stopped deposits and withdrawals of the token. If you hold L-BTC or use a wallet that supports Liquid, your most important task today is taking stock rather than trading.

The incident is unusual because no key was stolen. The payout was cryptographically valid. That is precisely what makes the case interesting for anyone who holds Bitcoin through a second layer.

What happened on the Liquid Network on September 6

According to several specialist outlets, between 3,998.5 and 4,019.4 Bitcoin were withdrawn from what is known as the federation wallet of the Liquid Network. At the time of the outflow the value stood at roughly $319 million to $320 million. The range arises because individual newsrooms draw the boundaries of the movement differently: tftc.io counts 3,998.5 BTC based on the on-chain data, while Bitcoin Magazine cites 4,019.4 BTC. The Liquid team itself officially speaks of around 4,000 Bitcoin.

Cryptopolitan dates the decisive transaction to Bitcoin block 965,783, confirmed on September 6, 2026 at 14:28:56 UTC. According to the analysis by tftc.io, 207.275 BTC remained in the federation wallet afterwards. Before that there were around 4,200 BTC. So roughly five percent of the reserve was left standing.

Shortly afterwards the network pulled the emergency brake. The bridge nodes were shut down, and new deposits and withdrawals between Bitcoin and Liquid are blocked. The sidechain itself continues to produce blocks, but the route back into the Bitcoin network is closed. No date for a restart has been given so far.

Peg-out, federation and PAK: how the Liquid Bitcoin bridge normally works

To understand why this case is different from an ordinary exchange hack, you need three terms.

A sidechain is an independent blockchain that is docked onto a main chain and represents its coins in wrapped form. L-BTC is the Bitcoin proxy on Liquid: a token that is meant to be backed one to one by real Bitcoin held jointly by a group of companies. That group is called the federation, and it is the actual custodian.

The way in is called a peg-in, the way out a peg-out: you lock real Bitcoin, are credited with the same amount of L-BTC, and can reverse the process later. In a peg-out the L-BTC on the sidechain are destroyed and the federation releases the real Bitcoin in return. So that no single party can do this alone, Liquid requires, as tftc.io describes it, a multisignature from eleven of the fifteen federation members plus authorisation via an allow list, the Peg-out Authorization Key, or PAK for short. A PAK is therefore the registered key that determines which Bitcoin address may be paid out to at all.

On September 6 the payout ran through the PAK of the SideSwap service. The network stresses that this key was not compromised, and that no key otherwise fell into the wrong hands. The signatures were genuine, the authorisation formally correct, and the federation did what it was built to do. The gap sat one layer earlier.

The flaw was in the software, not in the keyring

Several reports trace the process back to a bug in Elements, the open-source software Liquid is built on. The accounts differ in detail, and that difference is worth knowing rather than skimming past.

Bitcoin Magazine describes an inflation bug: more than 4,000 L-BTC are said to have been created without real Bitcoin behind them, and these were then paid out via the SideSwap PAK. A second reading, quoted in several reports, describes the sequence as an apparently regular process in which L-BTC were properly burned and just under 4,000 real Bitcoin were released as a result. Both variants lead to the same outcome: the sidechain's accounting and the federation's actual Bitcoin holdings no longer matched.

A conclusive technical post-mortem by the operators was not available at the time of writing. As long as it is missing, any statement about the exact place in the code is conjecture, and we treat it as such here.

"We are whitehats": what this on-chain message actually proves

In a follow-up transaction the other side left the message "we are whitehats. contact us on chain". In IT security a white hat is someone who finds a vulnerability and discloses it instead of exploiting it. Here the label is a self-description, no more than that.

What can be established: according to consistent reports, the Bitcoin are sitting untouched at the receiving address. Blockstream and the Liquid team are trying to make contact through signed on-chain messages. One of the reports states that the other side has held out the prospect of returning most of the sum once the Elements vulnerability is closed network-wide. That undertaking is not confirmed, and no repayment has been made to date.

For you as a holder, the choice of words changes nothing. Whether someone calls themselves a white hat does not decide whether your money comes back. Only the actual return decides that.

L-BTC is frozen: what holders should check right now

The unpleasant news first: anyone holding L-BTC can do little at the moment. The peg-out is blocked, so a swap into real Bitcoin is not possible for the time being. There is no button that solves the problem for you.

An orderly stocktake still makes sense. Open your wallets and look at whether there is any Liquid balance among them at all. The wallets mainly affected are those that support Liquid, such as SideSwap, Blockstream Green or Aqua, along with balances at trading venues that list L-BTC. If you are unsure whether a holding sits on Liquid or on the Bitcoin base layer, a look at the address format and the block explorer used will help. Note down the position with date and time so that you have a solid starting figure later, should any settlement arrangement come about.

Refrain from attempting new peg-ins now. As long as the bridge nodes are switched off, the best case is that you are sending Bitcoin into a queue whose resolution nobody can schedule. And treat offers that promise you a quick payout of your L-BTC for a fee with caution. Situations like this tend to attract fraud attempts posing as support.

USDt, DePix and RWAs on Liquid: why these assets are affected differently

Liquid carries more than wrapped Bitcoin. The official network account has stated that other issued assets are unaffected, among them the stablecoin USDt, the Brazilian DePix and tokenised real-world assets.

That is technically plausible: these tokens do not hang on the federation's Bitcoin reserve, and their backing sits with the respective issuers. The outflow from the federation wallet therefore does not touch them. In practice a problem remains, because as long as the network is halted you can move these assets only to a limited extent as well. Being unaffected and being freely available are two different things at the moment.

Exchanges halt L-BTC deposits and withdrawals: where to check the status

Several trading venues have suspended deposits and withdrawals of L-BTC or announced that they will. What counts here is solely the status page of your own provider together with its announcements, and not the summary in a news feed. That is where you will find whether only transfers are affected or trading too, and whether withdrawals in real Bitcoin remain possible by another route.

In a situation like this, pay particular attention to which networks a provider supports for deposits and withdrawals at all, and how quickly and openly it communicates about disruptions. Anyone with balances spread across several venues should go through this check today for every one of them, and not only for the one they use daily.

Sidechain, bridge, wrapped token: the counterparty risk behind every wrapped Bitcoin

The sentence that sticks from this case comes from the analysis by tftc.io: L-BTC holders had no direct claim on the underlying Bitcoin, and their risk was against a consortium of companies rather than against the Bitcoin protocol.

This is not a peculiarity of Liquid. It applies to every wrapped Bitcoin on every foreign chain. A wrapped token is a placeholder that represents on one blockchain the quantity of a coin held somewhere else. Its value hangs on two conditions: the backing has to exist, and redemption has to work. If either falls away, you hold a claim whose enforceability you may well not know.

Sidechains and bridges buy you something with real advantages in return: faster and cheaper transfers, confidential amounts, applications that do not run on the Bitcoin base layer. Anyone using them should make that trade deliberately rather than in passing. A useful rule of thumb: what sits on a second layer is working capital. What is meant to stay put for the long run belongs on the base layer in your own custody, as we described after the Coldcard incident in our assessment of the hardware wallet choice.

What the case means for your own custody

The key difference between this incident and a classic theft is the point of attack. Storing good keys well was of no help here, because the keys were fine. What broke is the rule that decides when those keys are allowed to sign.

From that follows an uncomfortable insight: the security of your holdings does not end at your own wallet. What matters is the whole chain of systems standing between you and the base layer. For a Bitcoin in your hardware wallet that chain is short. For an L-BTC in a software wallet, backed by a federation, secured through an allow list, paid out via a service with its own registered key, it is long.

In practice that means three things. Keep the amount on second layers small enough that a total loss does not knock you off course. For every wrapped token, check who the custodian is and whether one is even named. And document your holdings regularly, so that in an incident you have figures rather than memories.

What remains open

Three points were unresolved at the time of writing. There is no date for the network to restart. There is no commitment from the operators on how L-BTC balances will be handled if the Bitcoin do not come back. And there is no independent confirmation that the other side will actually repay. Anyone telling you today that the case is settled knows more than can be evidenced.

Liquid peg-out and checking your L-BTC: what to take away

1. Establish and document your holdings. Open every wallet and every account today and record whether and how much L-BTC or other Liquid balance is sitting there, with date and time. Our crypto exchange comparison helps when you reconcile the networks and withdrawal routes of your trading venues.
2. Send nothing new into the blocked bridge. Avoid peg-ins as long as the bridge nodes are switched off, and read the status exclusively at your provider and at the network operator. Which wallet supports Liquid at all, and how transparently it discloses that, is shown in our software wallet comparison.
3. Bring long-term holdings onto the base layer. Separate working capital from reserves and self-custody the part that is meant to stay put. Which devices come into question and how to tell them apart is in our hardware wallet comparison.

(As of September 7, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Filecoin's vesting of Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Foundation ends on October 15, 2026. It is the largest inflow channel for new FIL since mainnet launched, and it dries up completely on that day. Gross emission, meaning the volume of FIL that enters circulation each year, falls by roughly 75 percent as a result: from about 88 million to about 22 million tokens a year. As a holder you need to do nothing on that date. No deadline expires, no swap is required. What changes is the mechanism behind it, and that is worth understanding before the day arrives.

The Filecoin price stood at $0.8173, or €0.7034, on September 7, 2026 at 06:36 UTC, up 1.69 percent over 24 hours, with a market capitalisation of around $676 million (source: CoinGecko API, own query at that time). Circulating supply was 826,950,326 FIL. That figure is the denominator for everything that follows, because emission numbers say little without a reference to circulating supply. If you hold FIL or want to build a position, what matters most is where you buy and how cheaply you get in: our comparison of the best crypto exchanges shows which venues list FIL and what they charge in fees.

What happens to Filecoin vesting on October 15, 2026

Vesting describes a lock-up period over which allocated tokens are released step by step instead of becoming available all at once. At Filecoin it covers the allocations to the development team Protocol Labs and to the Filecoin Foundation. The official documentation states the period in plain terms: a defined share of the FIL minted at genesis is released to Protocol Labs teams and the Filecoin Foundation over six years, and to SAFT investors over three years (docs.filecoin.io).

Six years from the mainnet launch land in precisely this October. Mainnet started at epoch 148,888, which corresponds to October 15, 2020 at 14:44 UTC. The announced end date therefore follows straight from a schedule that has sat in the protocol since 2020. Nothing about it is new except the fact that it now comes due.

Where new FIL has come from so far: vesting and block rewards

New FIL arises from two sources at Filecoin. One is block rewards, the payments storage providers receive for supplying and proving storage capacity. The other is that vesting. According to figures from the project source FilecoinTLDR, vesting from Protocol Labs and the Filecoin Foundation contributes around 66.7 million FIL a year, block rewards around 21.7 million. Together that is just under 10 percent of circulating supply per year, as the source puts it.

Measured against current circulating supply, the figure holds up: 66.7 million equals 8.07 percent of 826,950,326 FIL, and the 22 million from block rewards equal 2.66 percent. Together, 10.73 percent. For anyone who prefers a daily number: at 88.4 million FIL a year that works out at roughly 242,000 new FIL per day, after which about 60,000 remain. The difference of some 182,000 FIL a day was worth about €128,000 on September 7.

Why gross FIL emission falls by roughly 75 percent

The arithmetic behind it is unspectacular. Of the two inflows, the larger one disappears and the smaller one stays. 66.7 out of 88.4 million is a good 75 percent, and that is exactly how the primary source states it: on October 15 this source dries up and cuts gross emission by about 75 percent. What remains is block rewards alone, around 22 million FIL a year, or a little over 2 percent of circulating supply.

Gross emission here refers exclusively to the inflow: everything that newly enters circulation, without netting off what leaves it. This distinction is the heart of the whole topic, and it gets lost in most headlines.

Vesting, emission and circulating supply: the terms kept apart

Three terms are regularly thrown together around this date. It helps to pin each of them down.

Circulating supply is the volume of FIL that is freely tradable. On September 7 that value stood at 826,950,326 tokens. Total supply of all FIL ever minted is 1,957,088,873 tokens, so roughly 42 percent of it is in circulation. Emission describes the speed at which new tokens are added. And net supply is emission less whatever disappears from circulation.

Only emission changes on October 15. Circulating supply does not fall that day; it simply grows more slowly afterwards. Anyone waiting for a jump in the statistics in October will wait in vain. The effect shows up as a flatter curve over months rather than as an edge on a single day.

Why lower emission does not automatically mean less FIL supply

This is where the real stumbling block lies, and the project source spells it out itself: the end of vesting changes what comes into circulation, but not what circulating supply does afterwards. Burns and the locking of collateral decide the rest.

That is not a footnote but the condition attached to every statement about future supply. A network can halve its emission and still have more liquid tokens in the market if locked holdings are freed at the same time. The reverse also holds: available supply can shrink at unchanged emission when more tokens are locked or destroyed than are added.

Collateral locking and burns: the other side of the FIL supply calculation

Two mechanisms continuously withdraw tokens from Filecoin circulation. The first is collateral locking: storage providers have to post FIL as collateral before they may offer storage capacity, and that pledge stays locked for the term of the storage commitment. As long as the volume of offered storage rises, the locked balance grows with it. The second mechanism is burns: part of the network fees is destroyed permanently, and collateral is forfeited when storage commitments are breached.

Both quantities depend on actual use of the network, and they move independently of the vesting calendar. That is why the October 15 date supports no statement about how the freely tradable volume of FIL develops afterwards. What can be said is this: the one large factor that has so far pulled reliably in a single direction falls away, and the remaining calculation is settled by demand.

What the FIL supply simulation says and what it expressly is not

On future net supply, FilecoinTLDR cites a range from its own tokenomics simulator: depending on the state of the network, daily net growth in supply could sit some 86 to 119 percent below the August 2026 level by the end of 2027. At the upper end of that range the daily balance turns negative, meaning more FIL would leave circulation than enters it.

The source flags these figures in the same breath as modelled scenarios and expressly not as forecasts. The outcome hangs on factors such as demand within the network, block rewards, collateral and burns. Anyone passing this range on as a price target has suppressed the source's own framing. We therefore reproduce it exactly as it stands there: an arithmetic exercise under assumptions, and no statement about the market.

That caution is the exception in the German-language space. On the emission date itself there is so far practically nothing in German, while search results on Filecoin are dominated by chart technicals and price targets. Precisely for that reason, the distinction between mechanism and forecast matters more here than any single number.

FIP-0118 Solstice: the second change to Filecoin economics in Q4

The vesting date is not the only change to the economics of the network this quarter. The improvement proposal FIP-0118, named Solstice, was accepted in September and is waiting to be scheduled into a network upgrade. The state of the specification we refer to here is that of September 1, 2026, and details may still change before delivery.

Substantively it concerns the question of what block rewards are paid out for. Today storage providers receive rewards based on their storage performance, regardless of whether anyone pays for that storage. Under Solstice a share of block rewards would flow to services that bring paying usage into the network, and that share would only be paid out if the payment volume settled through Filecoin Pay reaches targets set in advance. If the targets are missed, the corresponding share is burned instead of paid. In addition, the human review in the Fil+ process would fall away: every new sector would start automatically with the tenfold quality-adjusted power multiplier.

For the supply side this means a further part of emission would be tied to actual demand, with burning as the fallback. Whether and when this arrives is still open.

How demand for Filecoin storage is developing right now

Because future net supply hangs on usage, the figures the project publishes on it are worth a look. The annualised run rate of Filecoin Pay, through which payments in the network are settled, rose from $663 in January to $59,327 at the end of August 2026, according to FilecoinTLDR. The number of actively paying addresses grew from 73 to 119 over the same period, and the number of active settlement channels stood at 865 in August.

That is growth from a very small base, and it should be read that way: a run rate in the low five-figure dollar range sits against a market capitalisation of around $676 million. Alongside it, Fil One has offered an S3-compatible object store since June, priced at $4.99 per terabyte per month with no charges for outbound data transfer. Whether that turns into paying demand on a scale that noticeably drives burns is open, and it can be tracked through exactly these figures.

How to check the date and the FIL emission yourself

You do not have to take any report on trust to verify the date. Filecoin writes a block every 30 seconds, and these blocks are numbered consecutively. Epoch 0 falls on August 24, 2020 at 22:00 UTC. From the current block height, any date can be calculated in either direction.

On September 7, 2026 at 06:36 UTC the chain stood at height 6,348,552, retrieved via the public Glif node. Counting up from epoch 0 at 30 seconds per block lands exactly on that time, so the calculation holds to the second. October 15, 2026 at 00:00 UTC corresponds to epoch 6,457,200. Between the two points lie 108,648 epochs, or 37.7 days. If you want to follow the number yourself, pull the block height and divide the difference to the target moment by 30 seconds.

The second verifiable quantity is circulating supply. Note it down today and compare it in November: at an emission of around 88 million FIL a year, circulation grows by about 7.4 million a month, and at 22 million a year by only some 1.8 million. You will see that difference in the data set of any major market data source within a few weeks. We have described at length how to recalculate such release volumes yourself instead of trusting an aggregator, using one concrete unlock as the example: recalculating a token unlock. The method is the same here, only the direction is reversed.

Do FIL holders need to act before October 15?

No. There is no deadline that expires for you, no swap, no registration and no freeze on deposits or withdrawals. The date concerns the release of tokens to the team and the foundation behind the project, and not the holdings of investors. Anyone with FIL sitting on an exchange or in their own wallet can do exactly the same on October 15 as on the 14th.

This is the point where the date differs from those events that do create pressure to act. With an announced trading halt or a withdrawal deadline at an exchange you have to react, otherwise your balance is blocked. Here it works the other way round: doing nothing costs you nothing. It is still worth knowing the difference between the two cases, because headlines tend to treat them alike.

What the date means for custody and tax

Indirectly there are two points of contact. The first concerns custody. If you want to hold FIL for years because the supply mechanism convinces you, the question becomes where those tokens sit. Holdings on a trading platform belong to you economically but carry the platform's risk. Anyone who wants to separate the two holds their own coins and needs a wallet that supports FIL at all. Not every device does, and the differences lie less in the price than in which networks the manufacturer maintains.

The second point is tax. In Germany, selling crypto assets after a holding period of more than one year is tax-free for private individuals, and within that period the exemption limit for private disposal transactions applies. Anyone reallocating because of an expected supply squeeze may trigger a taxable event by doing so, regardless of whether the expectation is borne out. Clean records of acquisition dates are therefore the precondition for knowing what a sale actually costs.

How this date fits the run of FIL supply events

At many projects, releases and lock-ups shape supply more strongly than any partnership announcement. Usually the subject is additional tokens coming to market, as with the monthly releases we last worked through using LayerZero and its ZRO token. Filecoin now stands at the other end of that pattern: here an inflow ends that ran reliably for six years.

For context that means two things. First, the effect is structural and works over months, whereas a single unlock is measurable on one day. Second, the end of an inflow is the weaker of the two statements, because it touches only one half of the equation. What counts in the end is the balance of inflow, locking and burning, and at Filecoin that balance depends more heavily on network usage from mid-October than ever before.

Filecoin vesting: what to take away

1. Check the date yourself instead of taking it over. The block height and the 30-second epochs give you the date to the second, and circulating supply will show you from November whether emission has actually flattened. If you need a venue that lists FIL for this, you will find the terms in our crypto exchange comparison.
2. Keep emission and supply apart. The 75 percent refers to the inflow, and not to the tradable volume. Anyone holding for the long run should set up custody accordingly; the differences between devices are in our hardware wallet comparison.
3. Factor in tax before you reallocate. If you sell on a supply expectation, you should know the holding period of each individual purchase. Tools that track this automatically are in our comparison of tax tools and portfolio trackers.

(As of September 7, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

Bitcoin's oldest sidechain just lost almost everything it was holding, and the person who took it is asking politely how to give it back.

On Saturday, 6 September 2026, roughly 4,000 $BTC worth about $320 million left the federation wallet that backs Liquid Network, the Blockstream-built Bitcoin sidechain that has been running since 2018. The wallet held around 4,200 BTC before the incident. It now holds a little over 200. That is about 95% of every Bitcoin ever pegged into Liquid, gone in the space of 23 minutes.

Then things got strange. The attacker attached a message to a Bitcoin transaction announcing himself as a white hat and inviting Blockstream to get in touch. Blockstream did. The two sides have spent the weekend negotiating a $320 million return in public, one small Bitcoin transaction at a time.

What Actually Happened In The Liquid Network Hack?

The timeline is unusually clean, because most of it is on the Bitcoin blockchain.

At 14:05 UTC on 6 September, a customer sent 4,000 L-BTC to SideSwap's peg-out service. SideSwap is a Liquid Federation member and a normal, approved route for converting L-BTC back into real Bitcoin. It processed the order like any other: the L-BTC was burned on Liquid, a valid peg-out authorisation was attached, and 23 minutes later the federation paid out roughly 3,996 BTC on the Bitcoin mainchain.

Nothing about that transaction looked wrong. It was confirmed in Bitcoin block 965,783 at 14:28:56 UTC, and the coins landed in a single address holding just under 4,000 BTC.

Shortly afterwards, that same address broadcast a tiny second transaction carrying an OP_RETURN message: the sender identified himself as a white hat and asked to be contacted on-chain. Blockstream replied the same way, sending 1,000 satoshis to the address in block 965,822 with a message pointing to its security contact. The conversation has since moved into PGP-signed notes passed back and forth.

Liquid disabled its bridge nodes and paused the network. Exchanges were notified, and several have suspended L-BTC deposits and withdrawals.

How Did The Elements Bug Let 4,000 BTC Out?

This is the part that should worry people more than the missing money.

Liquid's security model looks solid on paper. The Bitcoin backing L-BTC sits in an 11-of-15 multisig controlled by vetted federation members, and peg-outs back to Bitcoin are gated by a second layer called Peg-out Authorisation Keys. Neither of those layers broke. No key was stolen, no signer was phished, no hardware security module was tricked.

Instead, Blockstream has attributed the incident to a software bug in Elements, the open-source codebase Liquid runs on. Independent analysis points to a consensus-level inflation bug in how confidential transaction rangeproofs were cached. A cache key that left out asset and script context meant a previously verified proof could be reused, which let unbacked L-BTC be created out of nothing and accepted by a subset of nodes.

From there the attacker did not need to hack anything else. He simply redeemed his counterfeit L-BTC through the front door. SideSwap has said it had no way to tell the exploit-created coins apart from real ones, so it treated them the same, and the federation's HSMs signed a withdrawal that was perfectly valid under Liquid's consensus rules at the time.

The uncomfortable footnote: a fix had reportedly already been merged into the Elements repository days earlier, but had not yet shipped in a tagged release.

Is The Liquid Network Hacker Really A White Hat?

He says he will return most of the funds once the bug is patched and every node has updated. He has not said how much "most" means, has not given a deadline, and has not revealed who he is. As of Monday, the Bitcoin has not moved.

Plenty of people in the industry are not buying the framing. Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet pointed out that genuine white hats disclose a flaw before moving hundreds of millions in collateral, not after, and compared the situation to the Ronin bridge hack and the Euler Finance attacker's post-exploit change of heart. Draining a bridge and then asking for a chat looks less like responsible disclosure and more like leverage.

Former Blockstream CSO Samson Mow added another wrinkle, saying a Signal contact request that surfaced during the negotiation did not come from the address actually holding the coins. Which is a good reminder that in a public negotiation with an anonymous counterparty, anyone can pretend to be either side.

What Does This Mean For Bitcoin And L-BTC Holders?

Bitcoin itself is fine. The exploit never touched the base layer, and BTC has been sitting comfortably near $80,000 through the whole episode. This was a bug in a system built on top of Bitcoin, not in Bitcoin.

The damage is concentrated where you would expect: L-BTC liquidity, and any business or token that depends on Liquid as a settlement layer. Liquid exists to give exchanges fast settlement by issuing L-BTC against locked Bitcoin, and a reserve that is 95% empty is not a functioning peg. Until the coins come back, or the federation explains how it will cover the hole, L-BTC redemptions are stuck.

There is also a broader point about federated bridges. Liquid's federation did nothing wrong in the sense that everyone followed the rules. The rules themselves were wrong for a few blocks, and that was enough. For anyone holding assets through a bridge, custodian, or wrapper, a protocol-level bug in a shared reserve is a risk no amount of personal opsec can audit away.

What Happens Next?

Three things to watch:

• A confirmed return transaction. Nothing else counts. Until Bitcoin moves from that address back to the federation, the promise is just text in an OP_RETURN field.
• Blockstream's post-mortem. The company has not yet published a full technical account, including exactly how the peg-out cleared normal controls and why the Elements fix had not shipped.
• Reconciliation. Even in the best case, someone has to explain the gap between 4,000 BTC and "most" of 4,000 BTC, whether any of it is being kept as a self-awarded bounty, and how the remaining reserves are accounted for.

This story is not over when the hacker says nice things. It is over when the Bitcoin is back and the numbers add up.

Gifting bitcoin to children: the tax rules that apply in Austria

Transferring bitcoin to your own children is generally possible in Austria without the gift alone triggering income tax on any price gain accrued up to that point. There is no general gift tax either.

Even so, a larger transfer is not automatically without tax consequences. For one thing, a gift reporting obligation can arise. For another, in the case of a genuine gift the child generally takes over the tax history of the bitcoin, including the parent's acquisition costs.

The 50,000 euro threshold applies to parents and children

Children belong to the circle of relatives covered by the Austrian gift notification rules.

Gifts between relatives are generally exempt from the reporting obligation as long as the fair market value of the transfers between the same persons within one year does not exceed 50,000 euros in total. If that threshold is exceeded, the gift generally has to be reported.

Example:

• A parent gifts bitcoin worth 30,000 euros: generally no report on the basis of this gift alone.
• Later in the same relevant period, further bitcoin worth 25,000 euros follow.
• Total value: 55,000 euros.

The reporting threshold may thus have been exceeded.

Which bitcoin value counts?

For the gift reporting obligation, what generally counts is the fair market value at the time of the transfer. With bitcoin this can regularly be determined from a traceable market price.

• The following should therefore be documented:
• date and time of the gift,
• the amount of BTC transferred,
• the euro price used,
• the price source,
• wallet addresses,
• transaction ID.

This data can also help later on to demonstrate the origin of the bitcoin to the tax office.

The child does not get a new tax cost base

The later taxation is particularly important.

A genuine gift does not mean that the bitcoin market value on the day of the gift automatically becomes the new acquisition cost. Under the Austrian income tax guidelines, the recipient instead continues the acquisition costs of the donor.

Example:

• The parent bought bitcoin for 10,000 euros.
• At the time of the gift they are worth 30,000 euros.
• The child later sells them for 40,000 euros.
• The tax base value generally remains 10,000 euros, not 30,000 euros.

With taxable new holdings this can produce a gain of 30,000 euros on the later sale.

Legacy holdings also remain relevant for tax

The same principle makes the date of acquisition particularly relevant. If the transferred bitcoin were already acquired before March 1, 2021, their status as legacy holdings for tax purposes can likewise remain significant. A gratuitous transfer generally does not simply reset that history. Parents should therefore hand the child not only the bitcoin but also the historical purchase records.

Three months to file the report

If the reporting threshold is exceeded, the gift generally has to be reported within three months. If the threshold is only exceeded through several transfers, the deadline starts with the gift that pushes it over the line. The report is generally filed with the Austrian tax office, regularly via FinanzOnline. Wilfully failing to report can carry consequences under fiscal criminal law.

Conclusion

Bitcoin can generally be gifted to children in Austria without the gift alone realising a bitcoin price gain. With larger amounts, however, the gift reporting obligation has to be observed. For relatives the relevant threshold is generally 50,000 euros within one year. More important still for a later sale: in the case of a genuine gift the child generally takes over the parent's acquisition costs for tax purposes. Purchase date, cost basis and transaction history should therefore be documented together with the bitcoin.

Harmony is giving up its own blockchain. On September 6, 2026 the team behind the network announced that it will shut down the mainnet it launched in 2019 and reissue the ONE token as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum. For you as a holder, one point matters above all: if your ONE sit inside a smart contract, meaning a liquidity pool, a multisig wallet or a DeFi position, you have to pull them out beforehand. Those positions do not travel with the migration. Balances in an ordinary wallet and on an exchange, by contrast, are captured by a snapshot and credited again on Ethereum without you having to apply for anything.

The window is tight. Reports name both September 9 and September 10, 2026, and they do not name them consistently. Anyone affected should therefore not wait until the last day.

Harmony mainnet shutdown: what happens on September 9 and 10, 2026

A mainnet is the productive main network of a blockchain, where real balances and real transactions live, as opposed to a testnet. Harmony runs such a mainnet as an independent layer 1 chain. Layer 1 describes a blockchain that settles and secures its transactions itself instead of attaching itself to another chain.

That independence is now ending. According to the announcement, the final blocks are to be processed on September 9, 2026; validators may shut down their nodes afterwards. On the exact cut-off date the available reports diverge, and you should know that rather than have it smoothed over: The Block writes that users should exit all smart contracts before September 10, 2026, and names September 10 as the day validators are allowed to cease operations. ETHNews describes September 9 as the day of the final blocks and September 10 as a hard boundary after which funds in certain positions are lost. The Chinese-language industry outlet WuBlockchain names September 9 in its summary as the deadline for exiting smart contracts.

In practice the spread means this: anyone holding a position on Harmony has until September 8 to unwind it safely. After that it depends on whether the chain is still producing blocks, and that is not something to rely on when money is at stake.

Why Harmony is abandoning its own chain: the cross-shard exploit of August 12

The trigger lies four weeks back. On August 12, 2026 Harmony was attacked through a flaw in what is called cross-shard verification. Harmony splits its network into shards, several parallel sub-chains that settle transactions among themselves via receipts. The attacker was able to have valid receipts redeemed more than once. The result was new ONE with no offsetting entry: the attack touched not a single smart contract. It struck one level deeper, at the consensus layer, the place where the network's nodes agree on the valid state.

The scale is the reason an in-flight repair was ruled out. The first confirmed wave covered around 4 billion ONE, which against a total supply of roughly 15.01 billion works out at about 26 percent. Reconstructing the full attack, the security firm Verichains arrived at roughly 3.01 trillion forged ONE. The two figures do not contradict each other; they describe different stages of the post-mortem.

Harmony then opted for a rollback, winding the chain back to a state before the attack. Shard 0 was reset to block 92,730,034 and shard 1 to block 94,978,278; both checkpoints carry the same timestamp, 23:25:37 UTC on August 11, 2026, shortly before the first confirmed forgery. More than 141,000 consecutive blocks and over 109,000 regular transactions were discarded, 109,441 exactly according to ETHNews, along with several hundred staking operations. What such a reversal means for your own holdings and for your holding period is set out in our explainer on the blockchain rollback after an exploit.

The reasoning behind the current shutdown reaches beyond this single case. In the project's words: “The threats posed by state actors and AI agents are too great.” That is the team's assessment, not a verified fact, and it stands that way in the announcement.

Snapshot and airdrop: how ONE becomes an ERC-20 token on Ethereum

A snapshot is a point-in-time record of all balances at a defined block. Harmony intends to take that record at the chain's final block and then distribute new ONE as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum to the same addresses. ERC-20 is the standard on which the vast majority of tokens on Ethereum are built; it defines how a token is transferred and queried, so that wallets and exchanges can support it without special handling.

For the majority of holders that is the good news: there is no claim process, no form, no redemption deadline. Anyone holding ONE in a self-custodied wallet whose address also works on Ethereum will be credited the new tokens there automatically. Total supply and issuance rate are to remain unchanged. Newly issued tokens are to be allocated to Harmony's own new venture, an initiative around AI-assisted video production that the team describes as a “remix economy”. Whether that pivot carries is an open question, and not a decisive one for the deadline at issue here.

Not every address is alike: the difference between the ONE and Ethereum formats

Harmony uses two notations for addresses: the familiar Ethereum format beginning with 0x, and its own format with the prefix one1. Both denote the same key, merely encoded differently. If you hold your ONE in a wallet where you own the private key or the seed phrase yourself, that is uncritical for the migration, because the same key also controls the matching 0x address on Ethereum.

It becomes critical somewhere else: with addresses that belong to a program and not to a key. That is exactly what the next section is about.

Balances on an exchange: why you usually have nothing to do here

If your ONE sit on a centralised trading platform, the address belongs to the exchange, not to you. According to the announcement the snapshot also captures holdings on centralised exchanges, and Harmony intends to switch the listings over to the new token. In that case the exchange credits you the ERC-20 token once it has worked through the changeover.

Even so, you should not rely on that blindly. A chain shutdown is a separate operation for every platform: it has to halt deposits and withdrawals on the old network, add the new contract and trigger the credit. Experience shows that exchanges announce this in their announcements section, often only a few days in advance, and that the suspension of deposits usually comes first. So check your platform's notices, and move no ONE to or from it in the days around the cut-off. If in doing so you find that your exchange does not list the token at all, or that its communication stays thin, a sober look at the alternatives helps: our comparison of the best crypto exchanges shows which providers handle changes of this kind cleanly on a regular basis.

Liquidity pools, multisig and DeFi: what the migration leaves behind

This is where the actual work lies. According to the announcement, multisig safes, liquidity pools and on-chain applications cannot be migrated. Users are told to exit all smart contracts before the cut-off date.

A liquidity pool is a contract into which several users deposit two tokens so that others can swap between them for a fee; your share of it is represented by a dedicated pool token. A multisig safe is a wallet that requires several signatures for a payout, technically also a contract rather than an ordinary address. What both have in common is that program code sits behind the address instead of a private key. That is precisely why a snapshot can allocate nothing to you there: on Ethereum that contract does not exist, and no one can rebuild it for you.

The task is therefore clearly defined. Go through the applications in which you have ever deposited anything on Harmony, and pull the holdings back to an address whose key you hold yourself. That applies to pool shares as much as to collateral posted in lending contracts, to wrapped tokens and to anything you brought onto the chain via a bridge. If you no longer remember where everything sits, the chain's block explorer helps: it lists all token balances for your address and the contracts you have interacted with.

For the wallet you pull everything back into, one plain rule applies: it has to be an address whose seed phrase you own. An address inside an application that has never shown you the private key is not a safe choice for this purpose.

Staking delegations and validators: where the rewards end up

Anyone who has staked ONE has as a rule delegated them. Delegation means assigning your tokens to a validator who takes part in consensus on your behalf, without you giving up control over them. The validator in turn is the operator of a node that proposes and confirms blocks and is rewarded for doing so.

A special rule applies to these holdings, and it is the point at which many holders are likely to be unpleasantly surprised: delegated stakes and rewards not yet claimed are not to flow directly to wallets, but into governance treasuries, referred to in the announcement as governor vaults. A treasury in this context is a jointly managed pot whose use the community decides on. Your delegated ONE will therefore not land automatically in your wallet as a freely available ERC-20 token.

If you want to keep control, undelegate before the cut-off date and claim your outstanding rewards, so that both sit as ordinary balance on your own address. Bear in mind that unwinding a delegation carries a waiting period on many networks. Check in your wallet menu how long yours runs before you count on the final day. Harmony has pledged to support validators in moving into roles within the new venture; for you as a delegator that is no substitute for exiting yourself.

ONE in trading: what our count of trading venues on September 7 shows

This analysis was carried out by cryptoticker.io itself on September 7, 2026. At 03:50 UTC we retrieved CoinGecko's public dataset on Harmony (HTTP 200) and counted every trading pair listed there, each with its trading venue, currency pair and reported daily volume.

The result is sobering, and directly relevant to the question of how you act now. Thirty trading pairs across 23 trading venues were recorded. The price stood at $0.00073244, or €0.0006309, the market capitalisation at around €9.38 million, rank 1168. For comparison: before the attack ONE was still traded as a project with a billion-dollar valuation. The dilution from the forged tokens and the rollback have all but wiped out the market value.

Two things stand out when you look at the venues. First, volume is heavily concentrated: Binance accounted for around $481,000 in daily volume with ONE/USDT and around $212,000 with ONE/TRY, followed by Pionex, OKX, Gate, KuCoin and MEXC in the mid five-figure to low six-figure range. Second, there is almost no euro access: among the 30 pairs we found exactly one euro pair, ONE/EUR on OKX, with a reported daily volume of around $533. Providers through which German investors usually trade did not appear in the list at all.

What we could not check belongs here too: we did not evaluate the announcement pages of the individual trading venues one by one, so we cannot say which exchange has already committed to the switch to the ERC-20 token. Three entries were flagged as anomalies in the dataset and one more as stale; we left them in the count but did not use them as a reliable volume figure. And the volume figures come from the trading venues themselves, they are not independently audited.

What follows for you is above all an expectation: selling larger holdings in euros will founder on these volumes. Anyone wanting to sell has to go via a stablecoin, and anyone unwilling to do that holds the position and waits for the migration.

Tax and holding period: what the swap can trigger for German investors

Caution is warranted here, and in both directions. The framework is settled: in Germany, gains from selling crypto assets held as private assets count as a private disposal transaction under section 23 of the Income Tax Act, with a holding period of one year, after which a disposal gain remains tax-free. The Federal Ministry of Finance last set out the cooperation and record-keeping obligations for crypto assets in more detail in its circular of March 6, 2025.

What is not settled is how this particular event is classified. Whether crediting a new ERC-20 token after the original chain is shut down is to be treated for tax purposes as a swap that starts a fresh holding period, or as a mere continuation of the same asset, has not been decided for this case. We are not asserting a legal position that does not exist in this form. What you can do in practice is document: record which holdings you had at which point in time on which address, when the credit occurred and at what price. Without those records, any later classification, whichever way it falls, is barely traceable. Only a tax adviser can give you binding advice on your own case.

Layer 1 shutdown as a risk: how to spot an endangered chain early

The Harmony case stands at the end of a development that is visible across several smaller chains. From the sequence of events you can derive markers that you can check on any chain where you hold meaningful balances.

How many validators actually carry the network?

A rollback across 141,000 blocks presupposes that a manageable number of operators can agree on a new version within days. That is practical when an attack has to be repelled, and at the same time it shows how narrow the circle is that decides on the valid state. Check how many independent validators there are and how much stake falls to the largest among them.

How much of your holdings sits in contracts rather than in a wallet?

The expensive part of this migration hits positions in smart contracts and nothing else. Anyone simply holding a balance in a self-custodied wallet gets through by doing nothing. This asymmetry applies to almost every chain wind-down. On a small chain the extra yield from a liquidity pool is rarely worth the risk of no longer being able to pull it out when it matters.

How quickly do the trading venues react?

For most holders the exchange is the real lifeline, because it goes through the snapshot and handles the changeover. The fewer venues list a token, the greater the chance that nobody takes on the work. Our count above shows how thin that cover has become for ONE.

Is there a bridge, and where does it end?

A bridge connects two blockchains and gives you on the destination chain a claim on a holding that is locked on the origin chain. If the origin chain is switched off, the value of that claim depends on whether anyone can still release the lock. Wrapped tokens are therefore among the positions you unwind first.

Checking the Harmony shutdown: what to take away

1. Open your wallet today and look for contract positions. Pool shares, collateral in lending contracts, wrapped tokens and multisig holdings all go back to an address whose seed phrase you hold yourself. If you notice in the process that your current wallet setup does not even show you what you have deposited where, that is the real finding: our software wallet comparison ranks the common applications by exactly that question.
2. Undelegate your staking positions and claim outstanding rewards. Delegated holdings and unclaimed rewards are to go into governance treasuries, not into your wallet. Factor in the waiting period when unwinding. For amounts you then want to hold longer term, separate custody is the soberer choice; which devices are suited to it is covered in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Check your exchange's notices and move nothing in the days around the cut-off date. Deposits and withdrawals on the old network are, in experience, halted first, and a transfer that falls into that window is the most common way to lose holdings. If your platform is regularly late or silent on changes like this, the exchange comparison lists the providers that handle it more reliably.

You can read the announcement itself in the project's own channel: Harmony on X, September 6, 2026. A detailed write-up of the figures on the rollback and the compensation has been published by ETHNews; it also puts a number on the compensation of $1.372 million, which is to be paid out over four quarters.

(As of September 7, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

The attacker built 293 separate vaults for the stolen Bitcoin and is emptying them in order of size, largest first.

Blockstream and the hackers are engaging with each other through PGP-signed messages in Bitcoin transactions.

Early testers spent OpenAI's launch weekend pushing Astra through 3D cities, playable games, Bach chorales and research papers.

The multi-year deal will place the XRP logo on the field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium starting this season, extending Ripple's push into college athletics.

With a growing number of institutions exploring stablecoins, the bottleneck is regulated infrastructure they can trust.

Ripple appears to be deflating the supply of RLUSD on the XRP Ledger while pumping the supply on Ethereum, as a massive cross-chain movement involving the stablecoin was noticed.

Shiba Inu gets head start with Japan’s crypto ETF door finally opening.

The privacy-orientated asset pushes away ChainLink from the top-10.

Whales front-run the Sep. 15 vote on Binance as XRP futures hit a 6-month high and institutional ETF inflows build a solid floor at $1.40.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has rejected a prediction that artificial intelligence could undermine Bitcoin’s security badly enough to trigger a 50% price crash.

Bitcoin is holding the $79,000 area, Solana is hovering around $100, and Apeing is moving toward its planned September 8 presale. These three cryptocurrencies offer very different stories for the market. Bitcoin brings deep liquidity and institutional attention. Solana has a growing ecosystem and major network developments ahead. Apeing is taking a much earlier route, building its meme coin identity around community, planned utility and a growing whitelist.

For anyone searching for the next 100x crypto, Apeing is becoming an interesting name to watch. The project is still approaching its presale stage, which creates a very different setup from established cryptocurrencies. The possibility of catching a second chance before a wider crowd arrives, or finding a 10000x-style crypto sensation, is exactly what keeps early-stage projects in the spotlight.

Next 100x Crypto: Why Apeing Is Drawing Attention?

The next 100x crypto conversation gets more intriguing when attention moves from established assets to upcoming presales. Apeing is a meme coin brand centered on culture, community, energy and planned utility, with an audit-first approach built into its development strategy. More than 18,000 people have already joined the Apeing whitelist, giving the project a growing community before its official presale begins.

For anyone searching for the next 100x crypto, getting early access to project updates can be especially appealing. Apeing whitelist members are expected to receive presale notifications, updates and participation details, helping them stay informed before the broader market gets involved. With the community already expanding, Apeing is positioning itself as an emerging project worth watching closely.

Apeing Presale Countdown: Two Days Left for the Next 100x Crypto?

Apeing is attracting fresh attention as its planned presale draws closer, with just two days left for the current countdown. Stage 1 is planned at $0.0001 per $APEING, while the stated listing price is $0.01, creating a 100x difference between the two levels. With Stage 1 expected to have a limited token allocation, the growing whitelist is becoming an important part of the next 100x crypto story.

The numbers make the early pricing easy to understand. A hypothetical $5,000 at $0.0001 would equal 50 million tokens, which would have a theoretical value of $500,000 at $0.01. That represents a $495,000 difference and a 9,900% gain. Similarly, $1,000 would equal 10 million tokens and a theoretical $100,000 value at the stated listing price. With only two days left, the Apeing whitelist is becoming increasingly relevant for those tracking the next 100x crypto space.

How to Get the Apeing Whitelist Before September 8

Joining the Apeing whitelist is designed to be simple. For anyone tracking the next 100x crypto, the process begins on the official Apeing website.

• Visit the official Apeing website.
• Find the whitelist registration section.
• Enter an email address.
• Confirm the registration through the email received.

The whitelist is the main route for staying informed about the planned Stage 1 presale. With more than 18,000 people already reported on the list and September 8 approaching, the timing is becoming a major part of the Apeing story.

Bitcoin Price Prediction: Can BTC Build Momentum Toward $100K?

Bitcoin is holding the $79,000 support zone after briefly slipping below it, keeping market attention on whether buyers can build a stronger base. Global economic conditions, oil prices, geopolitical tensions, and U.S. monetary policy expectations continue to shape sentiment. If BTC reclaims $80,000 with solid buying pressure, $85,000 and $90,000 could become the next targets, while $100,000 remains the bigger psychological milestone for the market.

Bitcoin’s current price action also highlights why support and resistance matter when studying price predictions. A strong defense of $79,000 could help reinforce the recovery structure and encourage buyers to target higher levels. However, continued weakness around this zone could change the market setup. The key question is whether Bitcoin can transform $79,000 into a durable foundation for its next upward move.

Solana Price Prediction: Can SOL Break $117 and Target $300?

Solana is hovering near the key $100 level, with the $98 to $100 range acting as an important support zone and $117 standing as the next major hurdle. The latest SOL price prediction points to $120 to $145 if buyers can defend support and push SOL through $104 to $110 before reclaiming $117. A stronger market recovery could put longer-term targets around $180 to $250 in focus, while $300 would require a much stronger burst of momentum.

The SOL price prediction also gets support from Solana’s network development and growing institutional interest. The planned Agave v4.3 rollout adds a potential catalyst, while continued ETF demand keeps SOL in the market spotlight. Holding $98 to $100 would preserve the current recovery structure, but a sustained break below that zone could shift attention toward $80 to $85. For now, $117 remains the key level that could decide whether Solana’s next move is another breakout attempt or a deeper pullback.

Conclusion

Based on the latest research and the market trends, Bitcoin remains centered on the $77,000 to $80,000 range, while the SOL price prediction continues to watch the $98 to $100 support zone and a potential breakout above $117. Apeing presents a different early-stage story, with its upcoming presale putting the project firmly in the next 100x crypto conversation. More than 18,000 people have reportedly joined the whitelist, adding momentum to the growing community.

Apeing‘s planned Stage 1 price of $0.0001 and stated listing target of $0.01 create a 100x price difference, making the upcoming launch a closely watched event. With the presale approaching and the whitelist window moving toward its close, joining now provides a direct way to stay updated on official announcements, participation details and the opening of Stage 1.

For More Information:

Website: Visit the Official Apeing Website

Telegram: Join the Apeing Telegram Channel

Twitter: Follow Apeing ON X (Formerly Twitter)

Frequently Asked Questions for Next 100x Crypto

What is the next 100x crypto to watch in 2026?

Apeing is attracting attention as a potential next 100x crypto because Stage 1 is planned at $0.0001, while the stated listing target is $0.01. The two prices represent a 100x price multiple.

Which crypto could 100x next?

The next 100x crypto could come from an emerging project with a small starting valuation and strong community growth. Apeing is currently attracting attention because of its growing whitelist, planned presale and early-stage positioning.

What is the next 100x crypto in 2026?

Apeing is one of the emerging projects being discussed in the next 100x crypto category. Its planned September 8 presale, reported 18,000+ whitelist members and limited Stage 1 allocation have increased interest around the project.

How do you join the Apeing whitelist?

You can join the Apeing whitelist by visiting the official website, entering an email address in the whitelist section and confirming the registration through email. Whitelist members can stay informed about presale updates and participation details.

When does the Apeing presale start?

The Apeing presale is planned to begin on September 8, 2026. Stage 1 is planned at $0.0001, with a stated listing price of $0.01 and a limited token allocation planned for the opening stage.

The post SOL Price Prediction: SOL Eyes $117 as Apeing Moves Toward Launch as the Next 100x Crypto Presale – 10,000% ROI Coming in 48 Hours appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Investment bank projects crude could climb to $120 per barrel if maritime attacks in Middle East worsen
• Alternative scenario forecasts Brent falling to $80 if regional supply routes stabilize
• Analysts favor natural gas and diesel positions over direct crude exposure
• Brent crude currently hovering near $97.55, gaining more than 1% in latest session
• Beijing’s import behavior expected to moderate crude prices but not gas or refined products

Goldman Sachs analysts have issued a stark warning that crude oil prices may climb as high as $120 per barrel should maritime attacks throughout the Middle East persist and intensify. The financial institution simultaneously outlined a bearish scenario where prices retreat to $80 should regional tensions ease and export operations normalize.

During a weekend interview with Bloomberg Television, Daan Struyven, who serves as co-head of global commodities research at Goldman, emphasized that recent developments underscore genuine concerns about expanding shipping disruptions across the region.

The escalating situation revolves around the Strait of Hormuz, an essential chokepoint for worldwide petroleum shipments. American military forces have recently conducted strikes against Iranian oil tankers, while Tehran has declared a newly restricted maritime zone adjacent to this critical waterway.

Reports indicate US naval assets are enforcing a blockade targeting Iranian port facilities. These forces are simultaneously providing protection for commercial vessels departing from neighboring oil-exporting nations as they transit through contested waters.

Crude benchmarks have rallied to levels unseen since mid-summer. Brent crude futures reached $97.55 per barrel, representing a 1.32% gain, while West Texas Intermediate climbed to $92.64, advancing 1.28%.

Natural Gas and Diesel Preferred Over Crude Exposure

Goldman Sachs isn’t advocating for straightforward crude oil purchases. The firm instead advises clients to establish long positions in international natural gas markets and refined petroleum products such as diesel fuel.

According to Struyven, disruptions affecting these specific markets typically prove more dramatic than those impacting crude itself. Diesel valuations have surged by over 100% year-to-date, while natural gas has similarly outperformed crude during this timeframe.

The ongoing conflict, now extending beyond six months, has elevated energy costs across the board. Yet refined products and natural gas have substantially outpaced crude’s appreciation, creating what Goldman views as superior opportunities.

This strategic positioning reflects Goldman’s assessment that investors stand to capture greater returns through exposure to these alternative energy markets rather than concentrating solely on oil futures contracts.

Beijing’s Influence on Energy Markets

Struyven indicated that Chinese purchasing patterns will probably serve as a dampening mechanism within crude oil markets. When prices escalate, China historically reduces its import volumes, effectively limiting upward price momentum.

Goldman’s analysis suggests this moderating influence won’t extend to natural gas or refined petroleum products. This dynamic leaves those markets significantly more vulnerable to price volatility should regional hostilities continue.

The $120 projection represents Goldman’s bullish scenario rather than its baseline expectation. This outcome would require sustained deterioration in shipping security and prolonged supply constraints from the region.

Currently, petroleum markets remain highly sensitive to developments. The unfolding crisis surrounding the Strait of Hormuz continues to evolve, with market participants closely monitoring indicators that might signal either intensification or resolution of the standoff.

The post Goldman Sachs Projects Crude Oil May Surge to $120 Amid Growing Middle East Maritime Threats appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• August’s CPI data arriving Friday may influence the Federal Reserve’s decision on rate adjustments at its upcoming September gathering
• August employment figures showed 162,000 new positions, significantly surpassing the anticipated 55,000
• Oracle stock has declined approximately 20% year-to-date as investors worry about leverage from aggressive data center investments
• Diesel fuel costs reached a historic peak of $5.85 per gallon, fueled by Middle Eastern tensions and reduced Russian exports
• Apple prepares to launch the iPhone 18 Pro lineup and a foldable device under newly appointed CEO John Ternus

The August Consumer Price Index release on Friday stands as this week’s most critical event for market participants. Analysts project inflation will hold at 3.4% on an annual basis, consistent with July’s reading. Core inflation is anticipated to climb 2.4%, marking the most moderate advancement since March 2021.

Recent employment strength complicates the Federal Reserve’s calculus. August’s job creation totaled 162,000 positions, nearly tripling forecaster expectations of 55,000. This robust labor market performance diminishes arguments for the central bank to maintain its current policy stance.

Market participants currently assign a 60% probability to a rate increase at the Fed’s September 15-16 policy meeting. Chairman Kevin Warsh has consistently emphasized inflation control as a primary objective, warning against assumptions that price stability will maintain itself without intervention.

Thursday’s Producer Price Index data will provide preliminary insight into inflationary dynamics ahead of Friday’s consumer figures. Economists anticipate PPI will register a 5.2% annual increase.

Oracle’s Quarterly Report Takes Center Stage

Oracle delivers its quarterly results on Thursday. The technology giant’s stock has tumbled nearly 20% year-to-date and approximately 30% over the trailing twelve months. Investor apprehension stems from substantial borrowing undertaken to finance aggressive data center expansion.

Bank of America’s Tal Liani maintains an optimistic outlook. His analysis projects infrastructure-as-a-service revenue will surge 116% compared to the prior year. Liani contends the market is undervaluing Oracle’s expansion trajectory as key data center projects reach completion.

Adobe releases results the same day, following its recent leadership transition. Macy’s quarterly announcement also arrives Thursday, offering perspectives on consumer spending patterns.

Software stocks have recently outpaced semiconductor equities. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF has advanced 15% since July, contrasting with an 18% decline in the semiconductor index during the identical timeframe.

Diesel Costs Reach Unprecedented Levels

Diesel prices across the United States have climbed to an unprecedented $5.85 per gallon. This surpasses the prior peak of $5.816 established in June 2022.

Escalating tensions involving Iran have disrupted refined petroleum exports from Persian Gulf terminals. Meanwhile, Ukrainian strikes targeting Russian refining facilities have further constrained worldwide availability.

Domestic distillate reserves have fallen to unprecedented lows for this calendar period. East Coast supplies sit at record-low levels precisely as winter heating demand approaches.

“Record diesel will start funneling down into the economy,” said Patrick de Haan of GasBuddy.

Apple conducts its product presentation on Wednesday. Expectations center on the introduction of iPhone 18 Pro models, a Pro Max variant, and a foldable iPhone design. This marks the inaugural product launch under CEO John Ternus, who assumed leadership from Tim Cook on September 1.

Financial markets remained closed Monday in observance of Labor Day.

The post Markets Brace for CPI Data, Oracle (ORCL) Earnings, and Apple Product Launch appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• South Korea’s Kospi benchmark surged 4.6% on Monday, propelled by gains in semiconductor stocks
• SK Hynix shares climbed 8.3% while Samsung Electronics advanced 5.7% on artificial intelligence chip momentum
• DRAM industry revenue reached $154.73 billion during Q2 2026, representing a 59.5% sequential increase
• The two South Korean giants command approximately 64% of worldwide DRAM market share
• Industry analysts project DRAM pricing will increase 13% to 18% during Q3 2026

South Korean equities experienced substantial gains on Monday as market participants demonstrated confidence in the ongoing expansion of artificial intelligence technologies, delivering significant upside to memory semiconductor manufacturers.

The Kospi index concluded trading with a 4.6% advance. Samsung Electronics climbed 5.7% while SK Hynix surged 8.3%, with both companies reaching their highest closing levels in several months. SK Hynix finished at 1.783 million won per share, and Samsung settled at 270,000 won.

SK hynix Inc., SKHY

Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark similarly posted gains, advancing 2.1%. The CSI 300 in mainland China rose 0.6%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index declined 0.9%.

Friday’s robust U.S. employment data likely contributed momentum to the regional rally. The United States added 162,000 jobs during August, significantly exceeding analyst projections.

European indices failed to mirror Asia’s positive sentiment. The Stoxx 600 declined 0.2% during early sessions. Germany’s Dax also fell 0.2% following a right-wing party’s victory in a state election. American markets remained closed for the Labor Day holiday.

Memory Chip Market Delivers Impressive Revenue Expansion

The rally in South Korean technology stocks coincided with fresh industry data revealing robust expansion in worldwide DRAM markets. Total sector revenue climbed to $154.73 billion during Q2 2026, marking a 59.5% sequential jump, based on findings from TrendForce research.

Samsung maintained its position as market leader with DRAM sales of $60.98 billion, representing a 63.4% quarter-over-quarter increase. The company’s market dominance expanded from 38.5% to 39.4%. Samsung has been aggressively scaling production of its sixth-generation high-bandwidth memory technology, designated as HBM4.

SK Hynix recorded DRAM sales of $38.59 billion, climbing 37.9%. Despite revenue growth, its market position contracted from 28.8% to 24.9%. This decline reflects the characteristics of HBM supply agreements, which involve extended contract periods that delay the recognition of price adjustments.

Micron Technology secured third position, achieving revenue growth of 65.5% to reach $36 billion. The American company’s market share expanded from 22.4% to 23.3%, reducing its gap behind SK Hynix.

Constrained Supply Meets Intensifying AI Requirements

Memory chip inventories continue to run lean throughout the sector. TrendForce anticipates supply expansion will remain constrained during Q3, maintaining upward momentum on pricing. DRAM prices are projected to climb between 13% and 18% in the upcoming quarter.

Certain personal computer and smartphone manufacturers may find it challenging to accommodate these price increases, potentially moderating the rate of future gains.

Wall Street projections for Samsung’s Q3 operating profit have increased 12% during the last three months to 114.19 trillion won. Estimates for SK Hynix have risen 4% to 78.80 trillion won.

Appetite for AI-optimized memory chips is projected to remain robust as technology companies persist in developing increasingly sophisticated models and more powerful computing infrastructures.

The post AI Boom Propels Samsung and SK Hynix to Record Gains as Memory Chip Market Explodes appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• The company achieved its 80th Starlink deployment of 2026 on Sunday, launching 27 satellites into low-Earth orbit from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.
• Falcon 9 launches are being discontinued in favor of Starship, with all Florida-based Starlink missions now utilizing the next-generation rocket exclusively.
• Q2 financial results showed revenue reaching $7.81 billion, representing 92% growth year-over-year, while EPS of -$0.09 exceeded projections of -$0.26.
• K5 Global Advisor LLC established a massive $6.59 billion stake in SPCX, now representing the firm’s only disclosed investment.
• Shares ended Friday’s trading session at $147.95, while Wall Street analysts maintain a collective price objective of $221.20 with a “Moderate Buy” consensus.

SpaceX successfully executed its 80th Starlink mission of 2026 this past Sunday, placing 27 satellites into low-Earth orbit from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. The deployment utilized a Falcon 9 booster as the aerospace manufacturer advances toward a pivotal transformation in its satellite launch strategy.

SPCX shares concluded Friday’s session at $147.95, gaining 3% over the week. The equity has fluctuated between $104.83 and $225.64 over the trailing 12-month period.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., SPCX

The aerospace company is systematically retiring its Falcon 9 platform in favor of the substantially more capable Starship vehicle. According to SpaceX VP of launch Kiko Dontchev’s statement last month, Falcon 9 has conducted its final Starlink deployment from Florida facilities.

“From here on, Starlink missions out of Florida will fly on Starship. The West Coast team will continue regularly launching Starlink from Vandenberg,” Dontchev wrote on X.

This strategic pivot extends beyond operational considerations. Starship offers complete reusability, enhanced payload capacity, and operates on liquid methane rather than kerosene fuel, potentially delivering substantial reductions in launch economics.

The company recently submitted documentation for its 14th Starship test mission, identifying September 15 as a prospective operational commencement date.

Quarterly Performance Exceeds Expectations

SpaceX delivered Q2 revenue totaling $7.81 billion, reflecting 91.9% year-over-year expansion. The company posted EPS of -$0.09, significantly outperforming analyst projections of -$0.26.

These results benefited from accelerating Starlink subscription growth, increased connectivity demand, and emerging AI-compute infrastructure revenue streams. Full-year EPS projections currently stand at -$0.15.

Notwithstanding ongoing losses, institutional appetite for the stock has intensified. K5 Global Advisor LLC revealed a substantial $6.59 billion SPCX position acquired during Q2, accounting for roughly 0.30% of outstanding shares. The position now constitutes K5’s entire disclosed portfolio.

Additional institutional buyers emerged during Q2. Hyperion Asset Management initiated a $201 million position, Bond Capital Management contributed $180 million, and Value Aligned Research Advisors acquired $100 million in shares.

Wall Street Projections and Headwinds

The average analyst price target for SPCX currently registers at $221.20. Bank of America maintains a buy recommendation with a $235 objective. Clear Str elevated the stock to strong buy status in July.

Not every analyst shares this optimism. Piper Sandler reduced its target from $156 to $140 and maintained a neutral stance following the Q2 earnings release. The rating breakdown includes two strong buy recommendations, 25 buy ratings, eight hold positions, and seven sell ratings.

A potential headwind looms with a scheduled share unlock on September 9, which may introduce selling pressure from insider shareholders and early-stage investors.

The company’s quarterly expenditure reached $18.4 billion, incorporating $15.8 billion allocated to AI infrastructure development. SpaceX continues generating GAAP losses, prompting some market observers to question whether current valuations adequately reflect anticipated long-term expansion.

Technical indicators show the stock’s 50-day moving average at $136.15, with the company’s market capitalization approximating $1.93 trillion.

The post SpaceX (SPCX) Stock Gains Momentum as Starship Era Begins: Analysts Project 50% Growth appeared first on Blockonomi.

Popular analyst Ali Martinez outlined that more than 116,000 ETH were withdrawn from crypto exchanges in just two days. The stash was worth roughly $300 million at current prices.

This has reduced the amount of ETH immediately available for trading, potentially easing sell-side pressure. Although exchange withdrawals alone do not necessarily indicate accumulation, as assets can also be moved for staking, custody, or other purposes, the timing is peculiar, as ETH is making another attempt to break above the $2,500 threshold.

What’s the Next Target?

In a separate analysis also dedicated to ETH’s performance, Martinez noted that the asset has traded between $2,370 and $2,530 since its breakout during the last week of August. Recall that Ethereum, alongside the rest of the market, exploded after August 19, surging from $1,900 to the aforementioned upper boundary.

However, it was unable to break through despite trying on several occasions, and each subsequent rejection drove it south toward $2,400 or slightly below. The analyst believes ETH is now gradually rebuilding momentum for its next move, and the direction should be confirmed by an hourly close outside that range. The current structure, he added, appears to favor buyers.

If the largest altcoin is indeed able to break through $2,530, Martinez noted that the next immediate target would be $2,700. The one after that would be at $2,822, where more than 10 million tokens were last transacted, making it a major supply zone that could trigger “a rejection or, at the very least, slow advance.”

Ethereum is sitting on a major support zone around $2,475, where roughly 2.86 million ETH have previously changed hands.

As long as this level holds, the path toward $2,722 remains relatively clear.

The real test comes between $2,723 and $2,822, where more than 10 million $ETH… https://t.co/kwLrVWl186 pic.twitter.com/ffwai9aOpn

— Ali Charts (@alicharts) September 7, 2026

ETF Still Green

The other piece of good news for ETH investors comes from the ETF net inflows. As reported yesterday, the past week was also quite beneficial for the funds tracking the altcoin, as they gained $218.41 million. In the past two weeks alone, the net inflows have skyrocketed to well over $1 billion.

Moreover, the Ethereum ETFs have been in the red only once weekly since the beginning of July, and even that streak-breaker was quite modest, with net outflows of just $2.26 million.

The post Ethereum Breakout Incoming? $300M in ETH Leaves Exchanges as Analyst Eyes Next Big Target appeared first on CryptoPotato.

XRP futures trading had a much busier August as volume climbed to its highest level in six months. This marked the strongest activity since February, according to data shared by CryptoQuant.

The jump was not limited to one exchange.

August Volume Surges

Activity increased across some of the biggest names in crypto, which brought more liquidity and interest back into the XRP derivatives market. CryptoQuant found that Binance dominated the market. The exchange recorded roughly $37 billion in XRP futures volume during August. Bybit was a distant second at around $14.54 billion, followed by OKX at approximately $12.88 billion.

These three exchanges alone handled more than $64.6 billion worth of XRP futures trades during the month.

The change is especially noticeable as XRP futures activity had been running at lower levels, but August brought traders back in a much bigger way. The stronger price action around the crypto asset likely played a role here. It climbed nearly 30%, rising from $1.06 at the start of the month to a high of $1.50 on August 24 before ending at $1.35.

Alongside futures, spot trading volume also reached its highest level since February. Binance, as usual, accounted for the biggest share, posting around $7.28 billion in XRP trades. Next up was Upbit with $4.68 billion, while Bithumb Korea posted nearly $2.59 billion. Bybit, Gate.io, and KuCoin trailed with roughly $1.4 billion, $1.33 billion, and $1.23 billion, respectively. Bitget and Coinbase each came in just below the $1 billion mark.

However, the technical picture is less convincing. Crypto analyst ChartNerd noted that XRP has stayed below its 50-week WEMA for three straight weeks, while the weekly Stoch RSI remains overbought. The 20-week WEMA at $1.29 is now the support level. A continued break below the 50 could lead to a deeper correction.

Weekly Slowdown

On the institutional front, the XRP ETF market remained positive for another week, but the pace of inflows clearly slowed. The funds attracted nearly $19 million over the latest period, and extended their winning streak to eight consecutive weeks.

That result was a sharp step down from the previous week, when inflows topped $110 million and were the strongest weekly performance of 2026.

After $5.64 million entered the funds on August 31, inflows jumped to $14.38 million on September 1. The momentum then broke on Wednesday, when investors pulled $7.2 million from the products. It was the first day of net outflows since August 5. Thursday brought some relief as another $6.14 million flowed into the funds. Friday, however, produced no movement at all.

The post XRP Futures Just Posted Their Biggest Month in 6 Months: Here’s What Changed appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin tried to take down the coveted $80,000 level once again on Monday morning but was denied once again, dipping below $79,000 before it found some support.

Ethereum remains inches away from $2,500, while XRP fights for the $1.40 support. LINK, TAO, MNT, ICP, and WLD have marked major gains from the larger caps.

BTC Fails at $80K

The primary cryptocurrency’s attempts to surge past $80,000 and $81,000 have been halted every time, starting from the middle of the last full week of August. At the time, it tried twice, only to be pushed south to under $77,000 on Friday after the hawkish speech by Kevin Warsh.

Nevertheless, it rebounded over the previous weekend and tapped $79,000 last Sunday before the resumed strikes in the Middle East resulted in another leg down to $77,000. The selling pressure built on in the following days, and BTC slipped to $76,400 on September 2/3.

This is where the bulls stepped up and didn’t allow another leg down. Instead, bitcoin went on the offensive on Thursday and skyrocketed by several grand to $82,400, the highest level reached since mid-May. Another rejection followed, though, after the strong US jobs report on Friday, and BTC dived to $78,800.

The weekend was less eventful, with BTC spending it trading sideways between $79,000 and $80,000. It tried to overcome the upper boundary on Monday morning, but it was stopped at $80,500 and pushed south to just under $79,000. It has rebounded to just over that level now, with its market cap remaining at $1.6 trillion on CMC.

PI Above $0.09, ARB Falls

Most large-cap alts have marked minor losses over the past 24 hours, with ETH struggling below $2,500, BNB dipping beneath $750, and XRP fighting to stay above $1.40.

In contrast, LINK has soared by 9% to well over $13, TAO is up by 14% to $267, MNT sits at $0.635 after a 7.5% daily jump, ICP has gained 12.6%, and WLD has rocketed by over 14.5%. ARB, on the other hand, was rejected at $0.20 and now sits 13% lower than its peak yesterday.

Pi Network’s native token remains well above the $0.09 support and even challenged the key $0.095 resistance, but it remains inches below it as of press time.

The total crypto market cap has remained at essentially the same spot as yesterday at $2.710 trillion on CMC.

The post Pi Network’s PI Remains Above Key Resistance, Bitcoin (BTC) Fails at $80K: Market Watch appeared first on CryptoPotato.

The altcoin market may be approaching a turning point after several major gauges broke out of year-long downtrends, according to analyst Matthew Hyland.

His charts suggest smaller cryptocurrencies are gaining ground against Bitcoin and traditional risk assets, although rising leverage also increases the odds of a painful correction.

Altcoin Gauges Break Long Downtrends

In a post published on September 7, Hyland said ETH, Total 2, Total 3, and OTHERS had all confirmed the end of their year-plus declines by forming higher highs. Let’s break that down a bit.

Total 2 tracks altcoins excluding Bitcoin, while Total 3 removes both BTC and Ethereum. OTHERS excludes the top 10 cryptocurrencies and therefore focuses more heavily on smaller tokens.

Hyland questioned whether the moves were simply a “bear market rally,” then followed up with a more bullish assessment.

In another post, the market watcher wrote, “The largest #Altcoin Bull Run of all time is loading,” and argued it could be “much larger than 2020-2021.” The accompanying OTHERS.D/SPX chart provided the basis for that view. It compares the dominance of cryptocurrencies outside the top 10 to that of the S&P 500.

The ratio has been falling for years after reaching a major peak during the 2017-2018 ICO period, and the chart places the current reading near the lower end of that long decline. A lower oscillator on the chart has also moved into an oversold area around 20-30, and the setup is being compared with the overbought reading near 80 seen in 2017.

But that does not prove that a new altcoin cycle has started. It does show why Hyland believes the market may be approaching a period of relative strength for smaller tokens.

There are already signs of increased trading activity, with data from Coinalyze showing altcoin perpetual futures open interest had overtaken Bitcoin’s for the first time since December 2024.

Leverage Adds Another Side to the Trade

The shift comes as altcoins outside the top 10 have pushed their combined market capitalization to $213 billion, up nearly 12% since the start of September.

Zcash has been one of the dramatic examples. Yesterday, as CryptoPotato reported, it surpassed $1,200, up 370% from its early-June low. Its market cap also moved above $20 billion, putting it ahead of Hyperliquid (HYPE) and Dogecoin (DOGE), both of which were still at the time of writing, having gained over 11% in 24 hours.

DOGE itself and BNB also posted strong moves in that period, with the former climbing 12% from its Friday low to $0.094, while BNB went close to $780, its highest level since early February.

But there’s a warning. ZEC perpetual futures open interest reached $2.7 billion per CoinGlass, while its move above $1,200 triggered $24 million in liquidations in the last 24 hours, more than $17 million of that being shorts, and historically, similar shifts in derivatives positioning have come right before corrections in mid-cap tokens.

That leaves two competing signals: the breadth of the altcoin move is improving, and several long-term charts have broken higher, but at the same time, leverage is building quickly. However, as things stand, Hyland sees the first as evidence that the market could be entering a much larger altcoin phase.

The post “Largest Altcoin Bull Run of All Time Is Loading,” Analyst Says as Key Charts Break Out appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Bitcoin Layer 2 network Liquid Network has reported a security incident in which purported white-hat hackers withdrew approximately 4,000 BTC, worth $320 million, from the Liquid Federation wallet.

Blockstream is attempting to contact the parties involved through a signed on-chain message.

Network Bug Must Be Fixed First

In an update, Liquid said the funds were withdrawn using the SideSwap PAK (Peg-out Authorization Key) but stated that the key itself was not compromised and that no other keys were in jeopardy. Crypto exchanges have been informed and have already suspended, or are preparing to suspend, LBTC deposits and withdrawals.

Liquid said other assets on the network, including USDT, DePix and real-world assets, were not affected. The network has also temporarily disabled its bridge nodes, meaning new transactions cannot be submitted. As a result, the sidechain is effectively paused while the issue is being addressed.

“Liquid wallets will be impacted, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience. Federation members are actively working on resolving this so we can restore normal network activity.”

The public back-and-forth between Blockstream and the party claiming to be the white-hat hacker behind the withdrawal is continuing on-chain. According to Samson Mow, the hacker appears to prefer communicating publicly rather than via email, and is posting messages via Bitcoin transaction data.

They even asked Blockstream to make contact on Signal at @m671aw.70″

The exchange began at 11:30 AM PDT, when the hacker wrote, “we are whitehats. contact us on chain.” Blockstream responded at 12:31 PM on September 6 and asked the hacker to contact its security team by email. Later, Blockstream sent an encrypted, PGP-signed message to the hacker’s key.

The discussion between @Blockstream and the white-hat hacker (WHH) regarding the ~4000 BTC from @Liquid_BTC is happening in public. It seems to be their preference over email. As it’s hard to follow the chain of messages in OP_RETURN, here’s a summary with links.

11:30 AM PDT -… https://t.co/IEXyFpBITx

— Samson Mow (@Excellion) September 7, 2026

At 7:20 PM, the hacker said they planned to send most of the funds back and asked whether a specified address was acceptable. About an hour later, they said the bug needed to be fixed first, and added,

“The chain is under risk at latest commit right now. Make sure every node is patched. Then we will transfer the money back safely after confirming the fix.”

Blockstream replied, “Yes, thank you,” at 8:30 PM. As of 9:12 PM PDT, around 3,998.5 BTC remained unmoved. There were no further messages from either side.

Unusual Hacker Behavior

Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet was skeptical of the white-hat claim and pointed out that legitimate security researchers would not typically drain a bridge and then ask to be contacted on-chain.

He drew parallels with the Ronin hack, in which attackers stole around $625 million after compromising validator keys, and the Euler exploit, where the attacker sought to negotiate the return of funds after the theft.

The move to Signal also did little to change Guillemet’s opinion that the behavior was unlike usual white-hat activity. Despite this, the exec noted that criminal groups do not typically reach out to their victims either.

The post Supposed White-Hat Hackers Drain $320 Million in BTC From Liquid Network, Say They’ll Return It After Fix appeared first on CryptoPotato.