The controversy highlights ongoing challenges in VAR's interpretation of offside rules, impacting trust in officiating and game outcomes.

The post Lisandro Martínez calls Haaland goal decision an injustice after controversial Manchester derby appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Canada's financial aid to Ukraine underscores a strategic commitment to EU relations and long-term support for Ukraine's integration and stability.

The post Canada boosts Ukraine financial aid to strengthen EU ties: FT appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The incident may escalate tensions, influencing global support dynamics and potentially altering military aid strategies for Ukraine.

The post Russian drone strikes Ukrainian train after Boris Johnson’s travel on same route appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The postponed talks heighten regional instability, impacting global oil markets and diminishing prospects for diplomatic resolutions in the near term.

The post Gulf states and Iran meeting postponed, delaying Strait of Hormuz talks appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

The bond market's push for rate hikes highlights ongoing inflation concerns, influencing broader economic conditions beyond fuel prices.

The post Bond market pushes for Fed rate hikes despite limited impact on gas prices appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin’s ‘Unusual Mix’: Bearish Inflation Print, Bullish Buyback Failure

Bitcoin’s path higher just got harder in the short term, but the setup further out may be improving, according to a new report. 

In a Friday note, European asset manager CoinShares’ Head of Research, James Butterfill, said firmer-than-expected core inflation raises the odds of tighter Fed policy and could cap bitcoin below $80,000 for now. 

But the longer-term case, he argued, rests on the U.S. Treasury’s bond buyback programme failing to bring down long-end yields — a failure that could ultimately feed the debasement narrative that has supported both bitcoin and gold.

“The result is therefore a somewhat unusual policy mix for Bitcoin,” the report read. “Today’s CPI data is negative at the margin, increasing the probability of tighter monetary policy and potentially limiting the immediate upside. 

“But the apparent failure of the Treasury’s current buying programme increases the likelihood of much more substantial intervention further ahead.”

It continued: “If that happens, it could become one of the more powerful medium-term catalysts for Bitcoin.”

Data on Friday revealed that the consumer price index, excluding food and energy, climbed 0.3% in August from a month earlier — higher than expected. 

According to CME’s FedWatch tool, traders think there is a 85% chance interest rates will be higher after the Federal Reserve meets next week. Bitcoin has typically performed well in a low interest rate environment. 

But the U.S. Treasury’s expanded bond buyback programme has so far failed to materially suppress long-term yields. 

If yields stay stubbornly high, Butterfill said, pressure will build on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to escalate to a much larger, “bazooka-style” buying programme aimed at forcing borrowing costs down.

Bitcoin in August had one of its best runs in years after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the department would double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks. 

The announcement and subsequent price surge has led some to say the much talked-about debasement trade is back. The so-called debasement trade is when investors buy an asset as a way to hedge against a currency losing value. 

Bitcoin and gold have both benefited as part of the trade as the dollar weakens. 

This post Bitcoin’s ‘Unusual Mix’: Bearish Inflation Print, Bullish Buyback Failure first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Blockstream Tells Hackers To Return Remaining Bitcoin Stolen in Liquid Theft

Bitcoin infrastructure firm Blockstream has refused to negotiate further with hackers who last week stole 4,000 bitcoins from its Liquid network. 

Writing on X Friday, Blockstream said that the hackers still had time to return the funds before the company would work with law enforcement. 

White-hat hackers on Sunday withdrew about $320 million from the federation wallet that backs Liquid, a sidechain by Blockstream. After negotiating with Blockstream, they returned most of the funds but kept 598.5 coins worth over $46 million — demanding it as ransom. 

“Blockstream will not pay a ransom for the return of stolen funds,” the post read. “Taking assets without authorization and withholding their return is a crime, not responsible disclosure. It is not white-hat activity. It is theft.”

It added: “We will work with law enforcement, exchanges, service providers, forensic specialists, and other relevant parties to trace and recover the assets and identify those responsible.”

“We will not pay for the return of stolen property. We will not abandon our users. The Bitcoin community will not stop pursuing the funds.”

Liquid, or L-BTC, is a layer-2 created by Blockstream that allows users to fast move assets backed 1:1 with bitcoin. One of the assets, LBTC, is a token backed by bitcoin that allows for quick settlement — a bit like the Lightning Network. 

Hackers were able to get the funds by exploiting an inflation bug on the Liquid sidechain to create over 4,000 LBTC that did not exist before and cash them out for real, on-chain bitcoins. 

The hackers then had an exchange with Blockstream via messages written into Bitcoin blocks. 

In one message, the white hats wrote: “Please fix the bug first. 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.”

In the latest message, the hackers slammed Blocksteam as “delusional, greedy, and arrogant,” and threatened to reveal all of Blockstream’s encrypted messages in the exchange unless the company allowed thieves to keep 10% of the bitcoins. 

“You SHALL pay 10% using your own money as bug bounty or you will cause all your holders a 15% loss for your irresponsibility and stinginess,” the message read. 

The Bitcoin community is still reeling after hackers in July were able to steal over 1,800 bitcoins worth close to $140 million from Coldcard wallet holders. 

Users of the popular hardware wallet, created by Coinkite, were targeted because the product’s manufacturer did not use a true random number generator, allowing hackers to essentially guess investor seedphrases. 

This post Blockstream Tells Hackers To Return Remaining Bitcoin Stolen in Liquid Theft first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Italy’s Second Biggest Bank UniCredit Is Weighting up Crypto Custody: Report

Italy’s second largest bank is considering expanding into digital asset offerings, including custody, according to reports. 

According to a Friday Bloomberg report citing people familiar with the matter, Milan-based UniCredit is selecting a technology provider that would allow it to build the infrastructure needed to hold digital assets and facilitate their buying and selling. 

Bloomberg’s reporting added that tokenized investment products and fixed-income securities, the use of stablecoins and exposure to cryptocurrencies were all on the cards. 

The news comes as other banks in Europe expand crypto offerings. Spain moved first on retail, with BBVA rolling out bitcoin trading and custody to all customers via its app, using its own custody infrastructure rather than a third party; Santander’s Openbank followed with its own trading service.

Cecabank — a Spanish custodian with over €400bn under management that acts as backbone for 100+ financial institutions — went live with crypto custody in June via a partnership with Bit2Me.

And in Germany, Deutsche Bank is building custody with Bitpanda’s technology arm, while Taurus and DZ Bank got BaFin approval in January for its meinKrypto platform. 

New regulation in the European Union — Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) — gives banks a legal definition, a supervisor, and a familiar set of obligations to launch crypto services. 

UniCredit is one 37 lenders across 15 European countries working together to create a company called Qivalis with the aim of issuing a euro-denominated stablecoin.

Last year, the bank said it was offering professional clients a structured product tied to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund, with full protection against losses.

This post Italy’s Second Biggest Bank UniCredit Is Weighting up Crypto Custody: Report first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Government Defeated as Lords Back UK Digital Assets Strategy

The UK government suffered a defeat in the House of Lords on Wednesday as peers backed an amendment requiring the Treasury to draw up a national strategy for regulating digital assets.

The upper chamber approved the measure by 194 votes to 138, with Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers combining against a near-solid bloc of Labour votes. Baroness Neville-Rolfe, a Conservative former Treasury minister, moved the amendment to the Financial Services and Markets Bill.

The new clause, titled “Digital assets strategy,” would require the Treasury to prepare, publish and consult on a strategy for regulating and developing digital assets and related digital financial market infrastructure in the UK.

The regulation of digital assets includes “cryptoassets, qualifying stablecoins, Central Bank Digital Currencies, tokenised securities and other digital and tokenised financial assets,” according to the draft. 

The UK is in the process of drafting a sweeping new crypto bill. The country’s Financial Conduct Authority finalised its regulatory framework for cryptoassets in June, with the regime due to take effect on 25 October 2027. The authorisation gateway for firms opened on 30 September and runs to 28 February 2027. 

Britain is trailing behind Brussels and Washington with digital asset regulation. The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation has applied to service providers since 30 December 2024. 

And the U.S. under President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law in July 2025, establishing a federal framework for dollar-backed tokens. Broader market-structure legislation remains unfinished: the Clarity Act cleared the House in July 2025 by 294-134 but has been stuck in the Senate over DeFi, stablecoin yield and ethics provisions, with a procedural vote set for next week. 

This post Government Defeated as Lords Back UK Digital Assets Strategy first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Bitcoin Magazine

Bitcoin Price Spikes, Shrugs off Hot US Inflation Data

Bitcoin’s price rose on Friday — despite data revealing that U.S. inflation had risen. 

The biggest cryptocurrency by market cap was recently trading for close to $78,749 after jumping 2% over a 24-hour period. At one point on Friday morning in New York, bitcoin rose as high as $79,607. 

Bitcoin’s price spike came after news dropped that U.S. consumer prices accelerated in August, reinforcing ​expectations that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week.

The consumer price index, excluding food and energy, climbed 0.3% in August from a month earlier, which was higher than expected. 

Inflation in the U.S. has been difficult to tame due to the war with Iran, which has lifted oil prices, in turn raising the costs of food, gasoline and other goods. 

Higher inflation typically means the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates, which in turn could stop bitcoin’s price climbing higher. 

According to CME’s FedWatch tool, traders think there is a 85% chance interest rates will be higher by next week. The Federal Reserve will meet next week and reveal what it will do with borrowing costs. 

Bitcoin has typically performed well in a low interest rate environment because it means people can buy more of the cryptocurrency with increased liquidity. 

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh, who took the helm in January, last month gave his first speech as head of the U.S. central bank and said he had “more work to do” to fight inflation. 

The U.S. is currently in the grips of an affordability crisis and rising oil prices are a hot topic ahead of the midterm elections. 

U.S. President Donald Trump has reassured voters that prices will get under control and repeatedly put pressure on the central bank to lower interest rates. 

Bitcoin in August had its biggest run in years following positive regulatory news and an announcement from the U.S. Treasury. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the department would double the size of its long-dated bond buybacks, helping non-yielding assets like bitcoin and gold. The cryptocurrency then benefited from President Trump urging lawmakers to get key crypto legislation, the Clarity Act, over the line. 

This post Bitcoin Price Spikes, Shrugs off Hot US Inflation Data first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Mathew Di Salvo.

Coinbase’s new partnership with payments platform Moov gives community banks and credit unions a route to offer stablecoin services through the financial relationship they already have with businesses. The local institution can remain the customer’s front door, while Coinbase supplies the disclosed custody and transaction infrastructure behind it.

Moov CEO Wade Arnold framed the demand bluntly: business customers asked to accept stablecoins currently go outside their primary financial institution. Moov and Coinbase want that service to appear inside the institution’s existing payments experience. The arrangement could preserve the bank’s customer connection. Control of the economics, data and operational risk remains unresolved until the companies disclose their terms.

How the split stack would work

Under the partnership announced Sept. 10, Moov will integrate Coinbase’s stablecoin payments infrastructure into its existing platform for financial institutions. Coinbase said its CDP Custodial Wallet accounts will provide fund custody and its Payments API will orchestrate stablecoin movement. Moov will connect those functions to the systems used by its bank and credit-union customers.

That division places three parties between a business and the stablecoin rail. The bank or credit union owns the primary customer interaction. Moov supplies the payments-platform connection. Coinbase provides the announced crypto custody and movement components. The customer may experience one bank-facing product even though the underlying service spans multiple providers.

Coinbase’s announcement said Moov has a customer base of more than 1,000 community banks and credit unions. The figure describes Moov’s potential distribution footprint. Live, contracted and pilot institutions remain unquantified, and the companies gave no implementation timetable.

The disclosed architecture gives Coinbase a material role behind the interface. Its standard payments documentation describes a custodial-account stack in which crypto can enter an account, be held and reconciled there, and leave through fiat or crypto transfers. Separate custodial wallet documentation says Coinbase provides custody for assets in those accounts on behalf of the CDP entity.

Those documents cover Coinbase’s standard platform. The partnership record leaves each institution’s supported stablecoins, networks, custodial-balance ownership and fiat-settlement route unspecified. It also leaves fees, revenue sharing, transaction-data access, compliance allocation and liability out of public view.

The result is a split form of control. Community institutions can keep the account relationship and present the service to customers. Coinbase and Moov remain essential to the disclosed technology chain. The bank’s economic and operational leverage will turn on its authority over pricing, settlement destinations, customer data and risk decisions. Coinbase holds a material infrastructure role within a payment chain that also depends on Moov and participating institutions.

Insurance and deposits follow different rules

A bank-facing interface leaves the payment stablecoin’s legal status unchanged. Customer protection and bank balance-sheet exposure follow the legal claim represented by the balance.

In an April 2026 proposed rule, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said deposits held at banks as reserves for a payment stablecoin would be insured as corporate deposits of the stablecoin issuer, subject to applicable limits. Stablecoin holders would receive no pass-through deposit insurance under the proposal.

The same proposal draws a boundary around tokenized deposits. An instrument that meets the statutory definition of a bank deposit remains a deposit regardless of the technology or recordkeeping used. A payment stablecoin and a tokenized deposit can therefore give customers a digital-dollar experience while representing different legal claims.

For a community institution, the distinction reaches beyond consumer disclosure. A qualifying tokenized deposit remains the issuing bank’s liability. Access to a third-party stablecoin can keep the payment experience inside a bank channel while the customer’s converted funds may cease to be a deposit at that bank.

Deposit effects remain conditional rather than following an automatic dollar-for-dollar path. A Federal Reserve analysis published in December 2025 said stablecoins can reduce, recycle or restructure deposits. The outcome depends on who buys them, what assets are converted and where stablecoin issuers place their reserves.

Domestic customers converting transaction-account balances can reduce deposits, especially when issuers hold reserves outside banks. If issuers keep reserves in bank deposits, more funding can stay in the system, though it may move from dispersed retail accounts toward concentrated, uninsured wholesale balances. The effect on any one community bank also depends on whether reserve money returns to that institution or is concentrated with larger custodial and settlement banks.

The Fed identified partnerships, custody services, settlement accounts and white-label infrastructure as possible ways banks can stay connected to digital payment flows. It also described a deeper structural tension: stablecoins may separate the payment relationship from the deposit-funded lending model that banks have historically used to serve households and businesses.

The Moov arrangement puts both possibilities in one product design. A bank may keep the customer conversation and gain a service that would otherwise require its own crypto stack. Coinbase may gain transaction and custody activity while customers access stablecoins through their primary institution. The destination of deposits and revenue remains unsettled.

Deployments will reveal who controls the economics

The first bank deployments will provide the evidence missing from the announcement. Adoption counts will show whether Moov’s network converts into actual demand. Supported assets, account ownership and settlement paths will show whether stablecoin activity returns value to the same institution or routes it elsewhere.

Commercial disclosures will be equally important. Pricing and revenue sharing determine whether the bank earns from the new service or mainly supplies distribution. Data access and compliance responsibilities determine who can deepen the customer relationship and who bears the burden when monitoring or processing fails. Liability terms determine how operational control translates into financial risk.

Coinbase has offered community banks a bridge into stablecoin payments, with its custody and payment infrastructure underneath. That structure may stop the bank from disappearing from the customer’s view. The next test is how much of the payment relationship, balance-sheet value and decision-making power stays with the bank when the customer gains stablecoin access through it.

The post Coinbase gives community banks a stablecoin bridge while supplying infrastructure underneath appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Bitcoin payment processor BTCPay Server has warned that bots are probing exposed Lightning nodes for a potential route to administrative control.

The activity follows a separate critical BTCPay vulnerability that attackers exploited a month ago to obtain credentials protecting LND nodes and drain merchant wallets.

BTCPay subsequently disabled external access to LND, a widely used implementation of Bitcoin’s Lightning Network, in its standard Docker deployment. The project now says automated systems are targeting servers where operators manually restored that access, repeatedly calling an LND password-change endpoint.

The latest mechanism differs from the vulnerability exploited in August but could lead to a similar outcome: an attacker obtaining credentials that can control an LND node.

BTCPay said the opening appears during a short interval after LND restarts, while its wallet remains locked. During that period, the targeted password-change method does not require a macaroon, the credential LND normally uses to authorize administrative actions.

Older BTCPay LND wallets compounded the risk by using a shared default password. An attacker who could reach the interface before BTCPay’s internal unlocker could potentially submit that password first, replace it, and request an administrator macaroon that gives control over the node.

BTCPay has not reported a successful takeover through the newly observed activity or linked the bots to the attackers behind the August thefts.

BTCPay hardens nodes after August theft

The renewed probing extends a difficult security stretch for BTCPay, which acknowledged on Aug. 7 that attackers had exploited a vulnerability affecting all versions before 2.4.2. That flaw allowed unauthenticated attackers to obtain LND macaroon files and use them to move funds. BTCPay’s standard on-chain wallets were unaffected.

Days later, the project and its supporters offered a bounty equal to 10% of recovered bitcoin, capped at 3 BTC, then worth about $190,000. BTCPay also enlisted exchanges, blockchain analytics firms, and law enforcement in efforts to trace the stolen funds.

Version 2.4.4, released Sept. 7, now addresses the conditions behind the latest attack path. New LND wallets receive unique random passwords, while older installations using the shared credential are migrated and have their passwords rotated.

BTCPay’s standard reverse proxy also blocks unauthenticated wallet setup and unlock methods, closing the restart-time opening through its managed public network path.

Those controls cannot secure infrastructure operators configure independently. Administrators who created their own reverse proxy or otherwise exposed LND publicly can still bypass BTCPay’s protections.

BTCPay has urged administrators to install version 2.4.4 and remove manually exposed LND routes. A route-control change merged Sept. 11 provides a supported option for remote access while keeping LND and Core Lightning interfaces disabled by default.

That leaves custom deployments as the immediate concern. Operators using them must audit their proxy rules and migrate remote connections behind BTCPay’s managed controls while automated systems continue searching for reachable nodes.

The post Malicious bots are actively probing exposed Bitcoin payment servers to steal master administrative keys appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Ledger's status page continued to list Cosmos (ATOM) as a major outage on Sept. 13, leaving users unable to view ATOM balances or transaction history and unable to submit transactions through Ledger Wallet more than four days after the incident began.

The company opened the incident at 19:41 CEST on Sept. 8. As of press time, its latest update, posted at 16:12 CEST on Sept. 10, said restoration work was continuing and that the affected features remained unavailable. Ledger has not disclosed a cause or an estimated restoration time.

The continuing warning does not mean Cosmos Hub is still halted. It shows that Ledger Wallet's service path for retrieving account data and sending ATOM transactions has not recovered with the network itself.

Cosmos Hub recovered before Ledger Wallet

QuickNode reported that Cosmos Mainnet stalled at block 32,878,318 at 18:12 UTC on Sept. 8. The infrastructure provider said its nodes had returned to the chain tip by 14:26 UTC on Sept. 9, then marked its incident resolved at 00:24 UTC on Sept. 12.

The Cosmos Hub RPC endpoint was above block 32.9 million on Sept. 12 and reported that the node was not catching up. That placed the chain tens of thousands of blocks beyond the height in QuickNode's initial alert.

Together, those readings separate two layers of the problem. Cosmos Hub resumed producing blocks, while Ledger Wallet access remained unavailable. Users may therefore see missing balances or history in Ledger Wallet even though the network is processing new blocks.

QuickNode's resolution applies to its infrastructure, while Ledger's separate incident remains identified. Those states can coexist because a wallet interface can stay unavailable after network nodes have caught up. Ledger has not said which part of its service path is responsible.

For users who need to move ATOM urgently, Ledger's incident notice points to its alternative-methods guide. The company lists Cosmostation and Keplr as compatible third-party interfaces that can connect to a Ledger device.

Ledger's Keplr instructions tell users to open the Cosmos app on their device and choose Keplr's hardware-wallet connection option. That route uses another interface to access the same blockchain account while keeping the Ledger device in the transaction flow.

The safety distinction is critical: connecting a hardware wallet is not the same as importing its recovery phrase. Ledger's security guidance says users should never enter the phrase into a computer or smartphone and should never share it, including with Ledger.

Users who do not need to transact urgently can continue monitoring Ledger's status page. Because the incident remains open and could change without notice, its status should be refreshed before any workaround is attempted.

The post Cosmos is back online after outage, but Ledger users still can’t see or send their ATOM appeared first on CryptoSlate.

This weekend, on Sept. 12, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for coordinated limits on the advance of frontier AI and laid out a three-stage plan. Anthropic plans to begin by inviting external evaluators into the company with access mostly comparable to its internal risk teams.

The proposed review team would receive company equipment, workspace access and opportunities to speak with employees. Its contract would permit publication of key findings without Anthropic controlling the conclusion, subject to defined legal, security, privacy and commercial constraints. Outsiders could then test whether the company's safety commitments shape real training and deployment decisions.

Access inside one lab cannot slow a competitive field. Anthropic may open its systems to review while rival companies and governments continue to accelerate. Amodei's second stage therefore calls for regulation and government-mediated coordination across a critical mass of U.S. frontier developers. His third seeks verifiable agreements among states, with democracies preserving enough strategic room relative to China to pace development.

The nationalization-versus-decentralization debate merges three different powers. Public ownership changes who receives the economic gains and influences corporate decisions. Independent access determines who can inspect frontier development. A legally enforceable halt directly constrains how fast a covered system may advance.

Anthropic's governance already gives its directors room to weigh more than shareholder returns. The company operates as a Public Benefit Corporation, and Delaware law requires its directors to balance stockholders' pecuniary interests, the interests of people materially affected by the business and its specified public benefit. Its Long-Term Benefit Trust holds board-selection powers intended to support the company's mission.

A public-benefit charter can authorize safety-minded decisions inside Anthropic. It cannot bind a competitor that rejects the same trade-off. Amodei's proposal addresses that gap with common rules and international verification rather than a transfer of company ownership.

Ownership and control are different levers

A June 2026 proposal from Sen. Bernie Sanders illustrates what partial nationalization could look like. His American AI Sovereign Wealth Fund would take a 50% public stake in the largest U.S. AI companies, with an independent commission exercising the voting rights. The measure remains a proposal, not enacted law.

Public equity could redirect part of the industry's gains and give the commission influence over company decisions. Capability thresholds, outside verification and enforceable stop orders would still require separate legal rules.

An August 2026 legal paper by Yonathan Arbel, Simon Goldstein and Peter Salib separates economic claims from control over decisions that ordinary rules did not anticipate. The authors propose a narrow, discretionary and temporary government power to halt frontier training or deployment when catastrophic risk or what they call “hard” corporate power is involved. They favor conventional regulation or taxation for monopoly, inequality and other harms.

A halt order reaches the pacing decision more directly than public equity. The state would not need to own every model or operate every laboratory before suspending covered training or deployment. Clear statutory triggers, technical competence, independent review and limits on discretion would be needed for that authority to claim democratic legitimacy.

Government control creates its own concentration risk. Moving every frontier laboratory under state ownership could place model development and the decision to stop it in the same institution. A bounded halt power leaves companies in private hands while reserving an emergency intervention for defined extreme risks.

Open-weight models press in the opposite direction by widening access. Researchers can inspect and adapt systems without relying on a handful of corporate gatekeepers. The U.S. National Telecommunications and Information Administration concluded in 2024 that the available evidence did not justify blanket restrictions on widely available model weights.

Frontier capability changes the enforcement problem. The European Commission requires providers of general-purpose models with systemic risk to evaluate and mitigate risks, report serious incidents and maintain cybersecurity even when a model is open-source. The Commission warns that mitigation can become harder after an advanced model has been released openly.

Open release can expand outside scrutiny and complicate later enforcement at the same time. Replication across jurisdictions makes mitigations harder to apply consistently. Distributed auditing gives more institutions the ability to challenge a captured regulator or company; unrestricted distribution of frontier weights can weaken the control points a lawful pause would need.

The public brake needs plural oversight

California and the European Union demonstrate how public rules can govern privately owned developers. California's SB 53, signed in September 2025, requires large frontier developers to publish safety frameworks, provides a channel for reporting potential critical safety incidents and protects whistleblowers. The EU imposes risk-management duties on providers of systemic-risk models, including open models.

Amodei's proposed evaluators would provide deeper access for testing whether comparable duties affect internal decisions. A narrow, temporary halt power would give public authorities an enforcement option when a covered system crosses a legally defined risk threshold.

In this hybrid structure, governments would set binding rules for systemically significant developers, external evaluators would verify compliance and public authorities could pause specified training or deployment. Researchers, whistleblowers and regulators in multiple jurisdictions would retain separate routes for contesting the evidence.

The brake would need public intervention criteria tied to demonstrated capabilities or safety failures, review outside the office invoking it, and explicit expiry and renewal rules. Evaluators would need freedom to report unfavorable findings, with redactions limited to legitimate legal, security, privacy and narrowly tailored commercial needs. Those safeguards would reduce the chance that a temporary safety intervention becomes permanent political control over general-purpose research.

Private development could continue inside a common regulatory boundary for as long as frontier systems remain identifiable and enforceable control points remain available. Independent institutions would inspect compliance and expose either corporate or regulatory capture.

A public stake can redistribute AI's wealth and boardroom influence, but ownership does not specify when training must stop. Open distribution can broaden access and scrutiny, but it cannot supply an enforceable stopping rule after frontier weights have spread.

Credible pacing therefore requires every covered frontier developer to face the same public boundary. Democratic legitimacy requires independent evaluators, researchers, whistleblowers and regulators to inspect the evidence and contest both the line and any order to halt.

The post Why AI faces an immediately difficult choice: Nationalize or decentralize – AI’s 2026 slowdown dilemma appeared first on CryptoSlate.

Lightning Development Kit, a toolkit for building Bitcoin Lightning applications, released v0.2.6 on Sept. 9 with fixes for bugs that could divert small amounts of a node’s funds or prevent saved channel state from loading.

LDK packages a Lightning implementation as a software development kit for uses including mobile wallets and payment-service infrastructure. The update gives developers maintaining affected applications fixes for both a financial risk and a condition that can disrupt normal node restarts.

A splice lets a node add funds to or remove funds from an existing payment channel. LDK’s API documentation describes this as spending the channel’s funding output and replacing it with a new one. In practical terms, it changes the money committed to the channel through a replacement funding transaction.

That transaction has costs shared between the participants. The initiating node pays fees for specified common parts, along with its own contributed inputs and outputs. The fee calculation therefore affects how much of the node’s money pays for the operation.

The splice flaw could let a malicious peer cause excess fee allocation, with the excess going to that peer’s output. The release describes a small amount of funds at risk when a node initiates a splice, without specifying a numerical ceiling.

The separate security flaw involved two payment contracts sharing the same payment hash. After one had been successfully forwarded, receiving and immediately rejecting a bogus one could leave ChannelManager state unable to load.

ChannelManager is LDK’s component for managing channels and payments. Restarting an existing node involves reading its saved state back into memory, a process called deserialization. If that saved state is rejected during loading, the application cannot complete its normal restart. Rejecting the bogus payment does not, by itself, avoid this particular failure.

For wallet builders, the two fixes address different parts of keeping a payment service running: allocating funds correctly when a channel changes and retaining state that can be loaded after a shutdown.

LDK’s architecture documentation explains that its core implementation is compiled into applications. Developers choose the surrounding storage, wallet, networking and blockchain-monitoring components. Incorporating the patched toolkit into those applications is therefore the relevant maintenance step for affected integrations.

The release notice reports no observed losses or exploited applications. Its description establishes the vulnerabilities and fixes, rather than a measured toll on users. With v0.2.6 available, the immediate task for affected application teams is to bring those fixes into the software they operate.

The post Critical Bitcoin Lightning bugs exposed nodes to fund theft and restart failure appeared first on CryptoSlate.

If you keep Zcash in a shielded address, there is a fair chance that since late July your balance has been sitting in a part of the blockchain the network has decommissioned. Checking takes a few minutes: bring the wallet up to the current version, let it sync fully, and see whether the app reports a migration in progress. While one is running, do not send your full balance anywhere.

The background is unusual. On July 28, 2026, Zcash brought a new shielded pool into service and sealed the old one at the same moment. Around 3.66 million ZEC were sitting in it at that point, the equivalent of about 1.7 billion US dollars according to CoinDesk. The network does not move that money on its own; every owner triggers the transfer in their own wallet. Anyone who has not opened their wallet since then has simply not triggered it.

Zcash Migration: What Has Happened to Your ZEC Since the Ironwood Upgrade

The network upgrade goes by the name Ironwood and took effect at block height 3,428,143. We retrieved that block ourselves on September 13, 2026 through the public interface of Blockchair: it carries the timestamp July 28, 2026, 14:07:23 UTC. Since then the chain has been running with two shielded areas side by side, the old Orchard pool and the new Ironwood pool.

For you, none of this changes anything about your keys. You need no new address, no new seed phrase and no token swap. According to the technical specification, the key material you have been using to access shielded amounts applies equally to both pools. What changes is where your balance sits, and the route by which it gets there.

That route is called the turnstile. Every amount has to pass through it individually, and every passage is triggered by the wallet holding the funds. There is no switch in the protocol that moves all balances across at once.

Orchard, Sapling and Ironwood: An Overview of the Zcash Shielded Pools

A shielded pool is the part of the Zcash money supply whose amounts and participants sit encrypted in the blockchain and are readable only with the matching key. Its counterpart is the transparent area, where addresses and amounts lie open as they do with Bitcoin.

In practice you come across two kinds of address. A transparent address begins with a t and behaves like an ordinary crypto account. A shielded address begins with a z and conceals both amount and counterparty. Only the second case is affected by this migration.

Zcash has renewed its shielded technology several times over the years. Sprout from 2016 was followed by Sapling in 2018, Orchard was added in 2022, and Ironwood has existed since July 2026. Each of these stages is a pool of its own with its own bookkeeping, and balances do not move between them by themselves.

For everyday use that means your wallet can hold amounts in several pools at once without you noticing. The balance shown adds them together. Only when a pool is decommissioned does it become apparent that the total is made up of parts.

The Orchard Bug: Why Zcash Needed a New Shielded Pool

The trigger was a discovery by security researcher Taylor Hornby. As CoinDesk reported it, the proving circuit of Orchard contained a flaw that would have allowed counterfeit ZEC to be created without leaving any trace of it in the blockchain. On that account the flaw had been in the code since Orchard launched in May 2022, so for around four years.

The gap was found before it was demonstrably exploited. No damage has been evidenced so far. That, though, is exactly the problem with a weakness of this kind: a counterfeiting operation that leaves no trace also cannot be ruled out after the fact. So matters did not stop at fixing the flaw. The project rebuilt the entire bookkeeping of the shielded area from scratch.

The reasoning is set out in the specification of the upgrade. The purpose of NU6.3, it says there, is to strengthen confidence in the integrity of the Zcash money supply following the remediation of the Orchard vulnerability. The turnstile, it continues, ensures that the total supply remains bounded. Since a substantial share of all ZEC was sitting in the Orchard pool at the time of the fix, the move into a new pool was necessary.

At the core of the procedure is a reversal of the burden of proof. Everything that crosses into Ironwood through the turnstile is recorded openly and can therefore be reconciled. Whatever potentially counterfeit holdings may have arisen in Orchard stay there and do not come across.

Ironwood additionally brings a property that reaches beyond the present occasion: the specification names the recoverability of balances in the event that powerful quantum computers break today's cryptography. For holdings in the old pools, that protection expressly does not apply.

The Turnstile Explained: How the Crossing Between the Pools Works

A turnstile is a crossing between two pools in which the amount being moved sits openly in the blockchain, so that anyone can reconcile the total supply. Inside a pool, amounts stay hidden. When crossing between two pools, they become visible.

How a wallet is to carry out this crossing is governed by the document ZIP 318, titled "Orchard to Ironwood Migration". It describes no button for you to press, but a schedule your wallet works through. That distinction explains most of the confusion that has grown up around the migration.

At the level of the consensus rules, something has shifted in parallel that barely shows up in everyday use but explains why the old pool is described as sealed. Since the upgrade, outputs into the Orchard pool may only go to addresses for which the creator of the transaction can authorise the spend themselves. Translated: the old pool no longer accepts payments from third parties. It can only be emptied.

Is Your ZEC Still in the Orchard Pool? How to Check in Your Wallet

The check works much the same way in every serious Zcash wallet. It costs you a few minutes and a look at the version display.

Step 1: Bring the Wallet Up to the Current Version

A wallet that does not know the new pool cannot move to it either. Cake Wallet, for one, introduced support for Ironwood in version 6.4.0 according to its own documentation. Check your app's version number before you do anything else. Which software is suited to which purpose at all is broken down in our comparison of software wallets.

Step 2: Let It Sync Fully

Shielded balances are detected locally, by the wallet scanning through the blockchain. Before that sync is complete, your app does not reliably know which pool your money is in. After a longer break, this can take quite a while.

Step 3: Look for the Migration Notice

Wallets that support the transfer display it, usually as a progress indicator or as a notice in the account area. If you find nothing there and your balance is fully available, it is already in the new pool. If the app reports an operation in progress, you are one of the people who still has something in transit.

Two things should be made clear at this point, because scams form around every migration. There is no official website on which you have to enter your seed phrase to rescue your balance. And there is no support agent who will ask you to do so. The entire process runs in your wallet and without outside involvement. If you hold larger amounts, the question of custody is the more important one anyway. Our hardware wallet comparison shows which devices keep the key away from the computer.

How Long the Zcash Migration Takes and Why Your Wallet Deliberately Stretches It

Anyone expecting one click to be enough and the matter to be settled after two confirmations will be disappointed. The transfer drags on for hours or days, and that is by design.

The reason lies in the visibility of the turnstile. A single crossing with an odd amount would be a fingerprint by which a wallet could be recognised again over time. ZIP 318 counters that with three precautions your app implements in the background.

First, the wallet breaks your balance into fixed denominations. Permitted are amounts of the form one, two or five times a power of ten, so 100, 50, 20, 10, 5, 2, 1 or 0.5 ZEC for example. Each of these partial amounts goes through the turnstile as its own transaction and thereby merges with the partial amounts of many other users.

Then it spreads those transactions over time and draws the cryptographic anchors from network-wide uniform boundary heights. This creates groups of users whose crossings blend together. Finally, the specification separates syncing from sending: a wallet may not do both in the same background session, because otherwise an observer could connect the two.

In practical terms, that means your balance appears split for a while. Part of it is already in the new pool, part still in the old one. This is neither an error nor a loss, but the normal state during the transfer.

Three Mistakes That Slow Down the Migration of Your ZEC Balance

The App Stays Closed

The transfer only makes progress while the wallet is open and synced. Close it and the transfer pauses. The specification is explicitly reserved on this point: background execution is to be attempted on a best-effort basis at most, and wallets are not obliged to send a crossing without user involvement. Anyone who opens their app once a month extends the process accordingly.

The Entire Holding Is Sent Mid-Transfer

Cake Wallet's documentation expressly advises waiting with a payment until the migration is complete, and that applies particularly to any attempt to send the whole balance at once. During the transfer, parts of your balance are tied up in prepared transactions. A payment for the full amount can therefore fail or throw the schedule out of order.

The Wallet Is Restored on a New Device

This point is the one most likely to be overlooked. Under ZIP 318, a running migration need not be resumable on another device, nor after a restore from the seed phrase. A wallet that discovers unspent Orchard holdings after such a restore may treat the situation as a new migration and start over. If you want to change devices anyway, let the transfer finish first.

How Far the Zcash Migration Has Come: The Figures From Late June to Late August

How much is still outstanding can be quantified. The following values come from the third-quarter 2026 report by Pine Analytics, which shows the pool holdings week by week.

• June 30, 2026: the Orchard pool holds 3.77 million ZEC. Shielded holdings total 4.42 million ZEC, which corresponds to 26.3 percent of the circulating supply.
• July 28, 2026: Ironwood goes live. The Orchard pool holds around 3.66 million ZEC.
• August 17, 2026: a cumulative 3.08 million ZEC have flowed out of the old pool.
• August 24, 2026: the cumulative outflow reaches 3.73 million ZEC.
• August 31, 2026: the Orchard pool still holds 470,000 ZEC, the Ironwood pool 3.84 million. Total shielded holdings have risen to 4.86 million ZEC, up 9.9 percent on the end of June.

In five weeks, then, around 87 percent of the old pool has taken the route through the turnstile. In the final week of August, however, only 46,000 ZEC were added. What is left is evidently not a backlog that clears itself, but a residue of wallets nobody opens.

A comparison with earlier pool changes shows how unusually quickly the field was cleared. When Sapling launched in 2018, 8 percent of the predecessor pool had moved after five weeks and 54 percent after a year. With Orchard in 2022 it was 1.2 percent after five weeks. Anyone still in the old pool today belongs to a small minority, and nobody builds tools for small minorities any more.

The price gives a sense of the magnitude. We retrieved it on September 13, 2026 via the public price interface of CoinGecko: 1,093.69 US dollars or 941.86 euros per ZEC. The 470,000 ZEC remaining at month-end therefore correspond to around 443 million euros. For context: at the time of that retrieval, Zcash stood ninth among the largest crypto-assets with a market capitalisation of a good 18 billion US dollars, after a rise of 124.6 percent over 30 days and a fall of 7.9 percent over the last seven days.

What the Turnstile Reveals About You: The Privacy Downside of the Migration

The specification names the price of the procedure openly. The turnstile, it says, discloses the amounts moving between the pools, including the amounts migrated to Ironwood. So anyone bringing their shielded holdings across publishes their size in the blockchain.

Hence the denominations. If your balance goes through the turnstile in portions of 10 or 50 ZEC and thousands of other wallets use the same portion sizes, the individual crossing says little about you. A one-off crossing of 137.42 ZEC, by contrast, is a marker that can be found again later.

From this follows a recommendation that runs against the first impulse: do not take the process into your own hands. Anyone who grows impatient and pushes their holding across in a single large transaction saves a few days and gives up in exchange the amount concealment that is the whole reason for using a shielded address.

An important point of context: the vulnerability that was found concerned the bookkeeping, not the confidentiality. According to the specification there is no reason to assume that key material of existing addresses could have been compromised by it. Your old addresses have therefore not become insecure.

ZEC on an Exchange: Why the Pool Migration Mostly Does Not Concern You There

If you hold your ZEC at a trading venue, you have no access to the pool in any case. There, the provider decides in what form it holds customer balances, and it carries out its own transfer if it is affected. For you that is a question of provider quality, not a task.

Two points are still worth a look. Check on your provider's status page whether deposits and withdrawals for ZEC are open before you plan a withdrawal. And check whether your provider is still listing the coin at all. Privacy coins are under regulatory pressure in the EU, which we have broken down in our overview of the planned trading ban on privacy coins. Anyone who needs a second point of access just in case will find the regulated alternatives in our comparison of crypto exchanges.

When you bring holdings from a trading venue into your own wallet, they land there transparent or shielded depending on the type of address. Shielded incoming amounts go into the new pool today. Under the changed consensus rule, the old one no longer accepts payments from others.

What Happens If You Leave Your Orchard Balance Where It Is

In the short term, nothing happens. There is no deadline in the calendar on which Orchard holdings expire, and by all accounts the transfer is voluntary and user-initiated. Nor had the project named an announced shutdown date for the old pool as at September 13, 2026.

The direction is nonetheless unambiguous, and it is stated in the specification itself. It says there that recovery would not be possible for funds still located in the Sprout, Sapling or Orchard pools; all such funds would be inaccessible once the respective protocols are shut down. They should be migrated into the Ironwood pool in order to benefit from the new property. That is the phrasing of a technical document, and it describes a state that arises if the network one day switches off the old protocols.

On top of that comes a practical point that bites sooner than any shutdown. Tools, wallets and help pages follow the majority. With a residual holding of under three percent of the shielded supply, support for the old pool does not get better but worse. Anyone who can get the transfer done today with a progress bar might have to rebuild it by hand in two years.

In passing, because it coincides in time: a coin holder vote on the shape of the next network upgrade, NU7, is currently running, with a deadline of September 14, 2026 at 19:00 UTC. How to take part in it we have described in a separate article on the NU7 vote. That process has nothing to do with the pool migration; it merely lands on the same calendar.

Checking the Zcash Migration: What to Take Away

1. Open your Zcash wallet and check the version. Only a wallet that knows the Ironwood pool can carry out the transfer. Which software manages it and where its limits lie is set out in our comparison of software wallets.
2. Leave the app open until the process has run through. The migration only makes progress while the wallet is open and synced, and it deliberately spreads itself over hours or days. Do not send your full balance during that time. Anyone wanting to keep the key on a separate device while doing so will find the devices in the hardware wallet comparison.
3. Check your trading venue separately. Holdings at a provider are not something you migrate yourself. What counts there is whether deposits and withdrawals are open and whether ZEC is still listed. An overview of the regulated providers is given by our comparison of crypto exchanges.

The technical basis of this transfer is open to inspection. The rules for wallets are in ZIP 318, the changed consensus rules and the rationale for the upgrade in the ZIP 229 document on the version 6 transaction format. Both texts are technical, but they are the source every wallet relies on.

(As of September 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

For the current year, your crypto exchange will for the first time report to Germany's Federal Central Tax Office what you have bought, sold and swapped. That report, however, contains not a single figure describing your profit. What it contains are aggregated gross amounts per crypto-asset: the sum of your purchases, the sum of your sales and the market value of every swap from one cryptocurrency into another. Anyone who reshuffles thirty times a year shows up there with a volume that is a multiple of their own portfolio value, while what is left at year-end may be a three-digit gain.

The legal basis is called the Kryptowerte-Steuertransparenzgesetz, KStTG in officialese. It transposes the European DAC8 directive into German law and obliges providers of crypto-asset services to transmit data about their customers to a central federal authority, which passes it on to the tax authorities of the federal states. Under the application provision in Section 21 KStTG, these duties apply for the first time to the 2026 calendar year. The year now running is therefore the first one on the books.

This article explains which details the report contains, why the sums named in it are systematically larger than anything you have ever owned, and how to keep your own records so that they line up with that report.

What Does Your Crypto Exchange Report to the Tax Office?

The catalogue of details to be reported is set out in Section 11 KStTG and is surprisingly concrete. It falls into two parts: details about you as a person, and details about your transactions.

On the personal side, the provider reports your name, address, tax identification number and the country or countries in which you are tax resident. Your place of birth is added where the provider is obliged under domestic law to obtain it. These details come from the tax self-certification your provider asks you to complete.

The second part is the interesting one. It is drawn up separately for each type of crypto-asset, once for one cryptocurrency, once for the next. For each type, the provider reports:

• for purchases against a fiat currency, the aggregate gross amount paid, the number of units and the number of transactions,
• for sales against a fiat currency, the aggregate gross amount received, again with units and transaction count,
• for purchases against other crypto-assets, the aggregate fair market value, the units and the number of operations,
• for sales against other crypto-assets, the same three details,
• for retail payment transactions, meaning payments to merchants, likewise market value, units and count,
• for other transfers to you or from you, the aggregate market value, the units and the count, broken down by type of transfer where the provider knows it.

Two terms are worth unpacking. Aggregate means that individual operations are not transmitted; what is transmitted is the annual total per crypto-asset and direction. The fair market value is the value a crypto-asset had on the market at the moment of the transaction, expressed in a fiat currency; it is needed because a coin-to-coin swap moves no euro amount that could be reported.

What is missing from that list matters as much as what is in it: no acquisition date per purchase, no acquisition price per individual unit, no gain, no loss, no holding period.

Why the Reported Gross Total Is Larger Than Your Portfolio

A gross amount is the full amount of a transaction, with no acquisition costs, fees or losses netted off. That is exactly how the reporting works. And because purchases, sales and swaps are each added up separately, the reported total grows with every movement while your wealth can stay unchanged.

The reason lies in how the law is built. The authority is meant to be able to see that there is something at your end worth examining. Working out the tax remains your job.

A Worked Example With Its Assumptions on the Table

Suppose you transfer 5,000 euros to your exchange in January and buy Bitcoin with it. Over the year you shift back and forth between two cryptocurrencies twenty times, each time with a counter-value of around 5,000 euros. In December you sell back into euros for 5,800 euros.

The report will then say roughly the following: 5,000 euros in gross amount paid on purchases against euros, 5,800 euros in gross amount received on sales against euros, and on the swaps an aggregate market value in the order of 100,000 euros, spread across both crypto-assets involved. Your actual increase is 800 euros. The largest figure in the data set is about a hundred and twenty times the size of your gain.

The numbers in this example are set, not measured. Their only purpose is to show the arithmetic mechanics. Anyone who trades actively should expect their own report to contain magnitudes that look wrong without an explanation.

Coin for Coin: Why Every Swap Lands in the Report With a Market Value

Many people regard switching from one cryptocurrency into another as an operation inside their own portfolio. For tax purposes it is nothing of the kind. Under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act, a swap counts as a disposal of the asset given up and at the same time as an acquisition of the one received. For the holding period that means the clock for the new coin starts at zero.

The reporting duty maps this operation twice. The crypto-asset given up appears as a sale against other crypto-assets, the one received as a purchase against other crypto-assets. In both cases the market value at the time of the transaction is applied, converted into a single fiat currency, and under Section 11(3) KStTG the provider must carry out that conversion consistently in the same way throughout.

From this follows a practical consequence that is easily overlooked: one and the same swap generates two entries, and anyone working with four different crypto-assets spreads their annual volume across four separate positions in the data set. Your own statement therefore has to be kept per crypto-asset as well, otherwise it cannot be reconciled with the report at all. Tools that produce exactly this breakdown automatically can be found in our comparison of crypto tax software and portfolio trackers; what matters there is less the range of features than whether the tool documents the market value at the time of the swap cleanly.

For the tax itself, the exemption threshold from Section 23(3) sentence 5 of the Income Tax Act continues to apply: gains remain tax-free if the total gain from private disposal transactions in the calendar year is below 1,000 euros. An exemption threshold is not an allowance. Once it is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable, and not merely the part above it.

What Happens to Transfers to Your Own Wallet?

This point concerns everyone who moves holdings off an exchange. A self-custodial wallet is a wallet whose private key you hold yourself and which is not assigned to any provider. If your exchange transfers coins to such an address, it reports under Section 11(1) no. 2(b) the aggregate market value and the number of units for transfers to addresses about which it does not know whether they are linked to a provider or a financial institution.

The decisive clause is: about which it does not know. As a rule, your exchange has no idea that the destination address belongs to you. From its point of view, value is leaving the house. The data set arriving at the authority therefore shows an outflow with a market value, without the information that the coins still belong to you.

For you that means nothing more than that you have to be able to evidence this transfer. The proof consists of the outgoing entry at the exchange and the incoming entry at an address assigned to your wallet. Anyone moving their holdings into self-custody anyway should document the receiving addresses from the start; which devices are suitable for that is shown in our hardware wallet comparison.

Which Providers Fall Under the KStTG and Which Do Not

The scope is set out in Section 2 KStTG and distinguishes two groups. Covered first are crypto-asset service providers whose home member state, within the meaning of the European regulation on markets in crypto-assets, is the Federal Republic of Germany. The home member state is the EU country in which a provider obtained its authorisation.

Covered second are so-called crypto-asset operators with a domestic nexus, meaning providers without European authorisation that are tax resident in Germany, have their registered office or management there, or carry out their regular business activity there.

Double reporting is ruled out. Subsections 2 to 5 of Section 2 exempt an operator from the German duties where it already fulfils comparable duties in another EU member state or in a qualified third country. For you as a user that changes little: whether the data travels via Germany or via another country, it ends up at the tax office responsible for you, because the states involved exchange the data sets. That is precisely the purpose of the underlying EU Directive 2023/2226.

Not covered is whatever takes place without a provider. A decentralised exchange with no operator, a direct transfer between two self-custodial wallets, a swap through a pure protocol: for such operations there is nobody the law could put under an obligation. That does not make them tax-free. All that is missing is a third party's report. Your duty to declare to the tax office exists regardless of whether a third party transmits the same data. Anyone deliberately preferring regulated providers, because documentation and authorisation are settled there, will find the overview among the regulated crypto exchanges.

When Reporting Starts and Which Deadlines Count for You

The reporting period is the calendar year, under Section 10 KStTG. Reporting takes place annually under Section 9(1), by 31 July at the latest for the preceding reporting period. Together with the application provision from Section 21, that yields the first date: the 2026 data goes to the Federal Central Tax Office by 31 July 2027.

Two further deadlines concern you directly. For business relationships entered into up to 31 December 2025, the provider must have completed the due diligence duties under Section 7(2) by 1 January 2027; this is why many providers are currently sending out requests for tax self-certification. If you do not respond, Section 8 kicks in: the request is followed by a reminder and a formal notice, and after 90 days at the latest, though not before 60 days have elapsed, the provider has to prevent you from carrying out reportable transactions. What that means day to day we have described in detail along the course of this block: self-certification at the crypto exchange and the looming account block.

Section 13 is the more pleasant one. Under it, your provider must inform you before the first report that data is being collected and passed on, and do so early enough for you to exercise your rights. That notification is no marketing letter. In it the provider discloses what is being transmitted about you, and that is the best moment to lay your own figures alongside.

Who the Fines Hit

Section 18 KStTG makes a series of breaches punishable as administrative offences, in the more serious cases with fines of up to fifty thousand euros. The addressee of that provision is the provider, not the private user. An investor who fails to submit a self-certification risks the trading block under Section 8 rather than this fine. The tax consequences of an incomplete return continue to follow the Fiscal Code.

What the Report Does Not Say About You

Your tax liability cannot be calculated from the catalogue in Section 11. Four details needed for that are missing.

The acquisition date of the individual unit is missing. What is reported is the number of transactions in the year, not the day of each one. Whether a unit that was sold met the one-year holding period of Section 23 of the Income Tax Act therefore does not appear in the data set.

The acquisition costs of the specific unit disposed of are missing. What is reported is an annual total of all purchases, from which it cannot be derived which purchase belongs to which sale.

The holding you had at the start and at the end of the year is missing. And any link between your accounts at different providers is missing, because each provider knows only its own figures.

That makes it clear who has to fill the gap. Your return is the only place where aggregated gross amounts turn into a traceable gain. And it stands or falls with records you have secured yourself, before a provider halts trading or closes an account. Why that is no theoretical worry is shown by our piece on exporting your transaction history before an account is closed.

How to Make Your Own Statement Match the Report

The goal is a modest one: if somebody lays the reported totals next to your statement, the two sides should fit together. For that you need six details per crypto-asset and per calendar year.

• the sum of your purchases against euros, with the number of operations,
• the sum of your sales against euros, likewise with the count,
• the market value of all swaps, separated by incoming and outgoing side,
• all coin deposits and withdrawals with date, quantity and destination address,
• for each unit disposed of, the acquisition date and the acquisition costs,
• the holding as at 1 January and as at 31 December.

The first three lines establish the reconciliation with the report. The last three are what the report precisely does not contain and what determines your tax.

Which Order You Assume

FIFO stands for first in, first out and means that on a sale the units acquired first count as the ones disposed of first. The tax administration expects a method you apply uniformly per wallet or account and consistently across the years. Anyone switching method mid-year produces a statement that can no longer be audited.

Common Misunderstandings About the Crypto Reporting Rules

The Tax Office Now Knows My Profit

No. It knows gross totals per crypto-asset and the number of operations. The profit only emerges from acquisition dates and acquisition costs, which are absent from the report.

If I Stay Below the Exemption Threshold, Nothing Is Reported

That does not hold either. The provider's reporting duty does not depend on whether any tax arises at your end. Reporting happens as soon as reportable transactions have taken place, whatever your result.

A Transfer to My Own Wallet Is Invisible

The opposite is the case. Transfers to addresses not assigned to any provider are precisely the ones reported under Section 11 with market value and unit count. What is invisible, at most, is that the address belongs to you, and that is exactly the circumstance you have to evidence yourself if it comes to it.

Checking the Crypto Reporting Rules: What to Take Away

1. Pull your annual statement while you still can. Download the full trading history for the current year from every provider and store it away from the exchange. A tool that turns it into an auditable statement per crypto-asset can be found in our comparison of crypto tax software.
2. Answer your provider's self-certification before the deadline runs. Tax identification number and residence belong in the data set anyway; anyone who fails to respond loses access to reportable transactions after 60 to 90 days. How the providers are set up for this is shown in the overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
3. Document every withdrawal to an address of your own. Note the date, the quantity and the receiving address, and record which device the address belongs to, so that a reported outflow remains explainable later as a move rather than a sale. Which devices are suitable for that is covered in the hardware wallet comparison.

(As of September 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

You sent bitcoin out of your wallet, the wallet shows the transaction, and for hours it has displayed the same word: unconfirmed. The short answer first: in the vast majority of cases nothing is lost, and you have two tools to sort the matter out yourself. They are called Replace-by-Fee and Child Pays For Parent, and which one you need depends on whether you are allowed to replace the transaction yourself or have to push it along from behind.

The reason this issue is hitting so many users right now lies in a technical change that entered the Bitcoin software in October 2025, and whose consequences have only become fully visible across the network this year. Since then, transactions paying fees below one satoshi per vByte can be relayed at all. Those transactions form today's backlog, the one many users are stuck in.

Bitcoin Transaction Stuck: What Is Really Happening in the Mempool

The Bitcoin price stood at roughly $76,700, or about 66,100 euros, on September 13, 2026 (CoinGecko, retrieved 09:52 UTC). The price is a side issue for this topic, but the market situation is not: when a lot of investors move their holdings off trading venues into self-custody after a pullback, the number of transfers on the network rises, and competition for space in the blocks gets tougher.

We measured instead of guessing. At the time of the survey, the Bitcoin network's waiting area held 75,903 unconfirmed transactions totalling 38.6 million vBytes. A block holds roughly one million vBytes. The backlog therefore amounted to about 38 blocks, or some six to seven hours of work for the miners if nothing new arrived. Something new arrives constantly.

Why a Full Mempool Still Does Not Mean Expensive Fees

The usual rule of thumb says: full mempool equals high fees. That rule no longer holds at the moment. The rate recommended by the common fee estimators for a prompt confirmation was a single satoshi per vByte, the lowest value those estimators ever output. A full mempool and a minimum fee are no longer mutually exclusive today, and anyone unaware of that draws the wrong conclusions.

Mempool, Feerate and sat/vByte: The Three Terms You Need

Before this gets practical, three definitions the rest of it rests on.

Mempool: The mempool is the waiting area in which every Bitcoin node holds the transactions that have been broadcast but not yet included in a block. It is not a central location; it exists thousands of times over in parallel on all the nodes of the network, which is why different providers display slightly different figures.

Feerate: The feerate is the price you pay per unit of data in your transaction, not per amount transferred. A transfer of 20 euros and one of 20,000 euros cost exactly the same if their data size is identical.

sat/vByte: A satoshi is one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin. The vByte is the measure of a transaction's size. The figure sat/vByte therefore says: this many hundred-millionths of a bitcoin per unit of size. Miners sort the waiting transactions by that number and take from the top, because their space in the block is limited. Bid too little and you slide backwards, a little further with every new transaction that bids more.

What Makes a Typical Transaction Large

The data size depends on how many earlier inputs your payment is assembled from. Anyone who has received many small amounts over the years drags all of those fragments along with every outgoing payment and pays accordingly more. How to bundle such holdings cheaply during a quiet phase is described in our piece on consolidating UTXOs while the network fee is low. That no longer helps with an acute stuck payment, but it helps a great deal in preparing the next one.

Our Measurement: 99.7 Percent of the Backlog Sits Below One Satoshi per vByte

cryptoticker.io carried out this analysis itself on September 13, 2026. Method: retrieval of the public interfaces of mempool.space on September 13, 2026 between 09:50 and 09:55 UTC; we evaluated the fee distribution of the entire waiting area as well as the fifteen most recently found blocks, from height 966,789 to 966,803. Objects examined: 75,903 waiting transactions spread across 167 fee brackets, and 15 blocks.

The result is clearer than we had expected:

• Of the 38.6 million vBytes in the waiting area, 38.4 million vBytes sat below one satoshi per vByte. That is 99.7 percent of the entire backlog.
• Above the mark of one satoshi per vByte, only 109,893 vBytes were waiting, or 0.3 percent. That is a good tenth of a single block.
• The highest fee bracket in the entire waiting area was 1.31 satoshis per vByte. Above that, the mempool was practically empty.
• All 15 blocks examined were more than 99 percent full, with an average of 5,281 transactions per block.
• In 11 of those 15 blocks, transactions below one satoshi per vByte were confirmed. The lowest floor observed was 0.286 satoshis per vByte, in block 966,802.

For you as a sender, that leads to a statement which contradicts appearances: an apparently overcrowded waiting area barely stands in your way as long as you bid above one satoshi per vByte. Only those 0.3 percent are ahead of you. Bid less and you place yourself behind almost forty blocks' worth of competition that keeps renewing itself.

What we could not verify: the measurement shows a point in time, not a trend. It rests on a single provider's view of the network, and other nodes may hold differing inventories, because every node is free to set its own acceptance rules. We were also unable to establish what share of the backlog originates from individual large senders.

Why Sub-Satoshi Fees Have Been Possible at All Since Bitcoin Core 30.0

Until recently there was an invisible floor. The default setting of the most widely used node software simply rejected transactions below one satoshi per vByte and did not relay them. Version 30.0, released on October 10, 2025, changed that. The release notes state verbatim that the default values for the minimum relay fee and the incremental fee have been changed to 0.1 satoshis per vByte; the minimum block fee has stood at 0.001 satoshis per vByte since then. You can read it in the official release notes for Bitcoin Core 30.0.

The developers placed a warning right next to it: as long as these lower values are not adopted network-wide, neither relay nor confirmation is guaranteed for transactions paying such low fees. That sentence describes precisely the problem now landing on many users' screens. The wallet is allowed to offer a very low fee, the network accepts it, and then nothing happens for a long time.

What That Means for Your Wallet Setting

If your wallet has a fee slider and proposes something in the range of 0.2 to 0.5 satoshis per vByte as its lowest step, that is no malfunction. It is the new reality. That step is meant for transfers where a confirmation within days is good enough. For anything that should still arrive today, it is currently the wrong choice.

Is Your Transaction Really Stuck? How to Check in Two Minutes

Before you repair anything, establish whether anything is broken at all. You need the transaction ID for that, a long string your wallet displays under details and which can usually be copied with a single tap.

Enter that ID into a public block explorer. Three pieces of information matter to you there:

1. The feerate of your transaction in sat/vByte. If it is above one satoshi per vByte, our measurement says you have barely any competition ahead of you and should simply wait.
2. The currently recommended feerate. If your rate is well below it, that is the reason for the delay.
3. The replaceability flag. Explorers show whether a transaction is marked as replaceable. Which of the two tools you use in the next step depends on it.

A transaction does not simply vanish, by the way. If it goes unconfirmed for days, it eventually drops out of the nodes' waiting areas, and the bitcoin show up as available in your wallet again. Nothing is lost in the process, because an unconfirmed transaction never truly left your balance.

Replace-by-Fee (RBF): Replacing the Transaction With a More Expensive One

Replace-by-Fee is a node rule under which an unconfirmed transaction in the waiting area may be replaced by another one that spends at least one of its inputs and pays a higher fee. This is not about a second payment. You submit the same payment once more with a better offer, and the old version is discarded.

Two points are worth knowing before you press the button. First, under the widely used rule from BIP 125, the new version must pay both a higher feerate and a higher absolute fee, as the Optech compendium on Replace-by-Fee records. Making the transaction smaller is therefore not enough. Second, replacement has not been tied to a special flag since 2024: change set 30493 made general replaceability the default in August 2024, and in November 2024 the corresponding switch disappeared entirely.

How to Proceed in Practice

In most self-custody wallets you will find an entry such as Increase Fee, Accelerate or Bump Fee on an unconfirmed transaction. The wallet builds the replacement version itself and proposes a new rate. Following our measurement, set it above one satoshi per vByte; in the current environment a normal transfer needs no more than two satoshis per vByte. The additional fee is usually deducted from the change, and the recipient's amount stays the same.

A word on security: for this procedure your wallet has to sign the transaction again. On a hardware wallet that means confirming on the device once more. Check the recipient address just as carefully as you did the first time. Which devices handle this process cleanly and which leave you in the dark is shown by our comparison of crypto hardware wallets. If this is the first time in a while that you are handling your recovery words, it is a good moment to check that they are still complete and legible.

Child Pays For Parent (CPFP): When the Second Transaction Drags the First Along

Child Pays For Parent is a procedure in which you spend an output of the stuck transaction onward in a new transaction carrying a high fee, so that miners take both into a block together. The trick lies in the ordering rule of the blockchain: a transaction can only be confirmed if the transaction before it is in the block as well. So whoever wants the child has to take the parent along.

Miners therefore calculate with the combined fee rate of parent and child. If that average is attractive, both move into the block together. This sounds more cumbersome than RBF, yet it has one decisive advantage: you do not need to be allowed to touch the original transaction.

When CPFP Is the Tool of Choice

Two cases come up often in practice. The first: you are the recipient. Someone sent you bitcoin with too low a fee, and you are waiting for it. You may not replace other people's transactions, because that would require the sender's keys. You can, however, spend the output addressed to you onward and push the payment along that way. The second case: your wallet does not support raising the fee but does offer to spend an unconfirmed input.

CPFP has its limits too. Nodes cap how many connected unconfirmed transactions they keep in their memory; a long chain of parents and children eventually runs into those barriers. And if your child pays a high fee while the parent is very large, the child has to bring correspondingly more to lift the combined average.

Exchange Withdrawal Stuck: Why RBF and CPFP Will Not Help You There

If you have triggered a withdrawal at a trading venue and it is stuck, the situation looks different. The transaction belongs to the provider, not to you. The keys sit there, so only the provider can replace it. CPFP is out as well, as long as the bitcoin have not yet reached you and you cannot spend the output.

What remains is knowing the mechanics. Many trading venues bundle withdrawals into batch transactions and set their fee at their own discretion. The fee deducted from you at withdrawal often has little to do with the network charge actually paid; how far apart those two figures can be is something we looked at in our analysis of withdrawal fees and the real network fee. If a withdrawal makes no progress for hours, support is the right address, and the transaction ID belongs in the first message. Which providers handle their withdrawals promptly and transparently is one of the criteria in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

Which Fee You Should Really Set Today

A simple orientation can be derived from the measurement, although it applies only to the situation measured and you should re-check it before every larger transfer.

For a payment that should arrive promptly, a value just above one satoshi per vByte is currently enough. That places you ahead of 99.7 percent of the waiting volume. Two satoshis per vByte is generously judged and costs only a few cents on a simple transfer of around 140 vBytes in size.

For a payment where days are good enough for you, you may use the new low steps. But then expect it to genuinely take days, and choose a wallet that lets you raise the fee later. Without that option you sit the waiting time out.

The Mistake That Costs the Most

The most expensive mistake is the panic that follows a low fee, rather than the low fee itself. Anyone who sees a stuck transaction and promptly sends a second payment to the same address risks both being confirmed in the end, leaving the recipient with double the amount. Check first, then raise the fee or push the payment along, and under no circumstances send blindly again.

What RBF and CPFP Cannot Do: The Limits of Both Tools

Both procedures accelerate a transaction that is already on the network. They do not reverse it. You can indeed replace a payment with another via RBF and in theory change the recipient too, as long as nothing is confirmed; once a confirmation exists, the process is final. No technology brings back a transfer that was sent to the wrong address and confirmed.

They are equally useless for a transaction that your wallet displays but that never reached the network. If the block explorer cannot find the ID at all, it was not relayed. The right step is then to reconnect the wallet and repeat the send, instead of fiddling with fees.

The Tax Angle in One Sentence

A transfer between two of your own wallets is not a sale and triggers no taxable event in Germany. The network fee paid is not a deductible item in this case either. The details are in our article on whether the network fee counts for tax purposes when sending between wallets.

How to Speed Up a Bitcoin Transaction: What to Take Away

1. Check your feerate first, before you do anything at all. If it is above one satoshi per vByte, our measurement puts only 0.3 percent of the backlog ahead of you, and waiting is the right decision. If it is below, the delay is explained. Anyone who wants to run such checks regularly on their own device will find the differences between the models in our comparison of crypto hardware wallets.
2. Use RBF when the transaction is yours, and CPFP when it comes from someone else. When raising the fee, the new version has to pay both a higher rate and a higher total fee. When pushing a payment along, the combined rate of parent and child is what counts. Whether your wallet offers fee bumping at all is a selection criterion like any other, and it likewise appears in the comparison of crypto hardware wallets.
3. For a stuck withdrawal from a trading venue, turn to the provider. The keys are there, so the leverage is there too. How quickly and how transparently the individual houses process withdrawals can be looked up in the comparison of the best crypto exchanges before you open your next account.

(As of September 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

When your Sparkasse starts offering Bitcoin in October, you will not be buying coins that you then move to a wallet of your own. You receive a position in your securities account, and the cryptographic keys behind it stay with the bank. That is the central difference between what a high-street bank offers and an account at a crypto exchange, and it decides what you can actually do with your holdings later on.

This article takes on exactly that point. It explains what custody in a bank account means in practice and in law, which obligations an authorised custodian has to meet under the EU regulation MiCAR, which three public registers let you look up who really holds your crypto-assets, and which questions you should settle before your first purchase. The launch timetable and the cost question we have covered elsewhere.

Crypto powered by Deka: what custody in a bank account actually means

The Sparkassen offering is called Krypto powered by Deka. It was developed by DekaBank, the securities house of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, and it runs inside the Sparkasse app rather than in a separate application. For trading and the technical infrastructure, DekaBank works with Börse Stuttgart Digital. According to the reports available so far, a launch from mid-October 2026 is planned, with an internal test phase in September and a rollout in waves. Each of the roughly 370 regional Sparkassen decides for itself whether and when it switches the feature on. There is therefore no nationwide launch date, and the question of whether your own institution is taking part is answered only by your own institution.

What this construction lacks is the part many investors take for granted: the withdrawal of the coins you bought to an address that belongs to you. The holdings stay in central custody. You see them in your account, you can sell them, and you can hold them. A transfer to the outside is so far not part of what the high-street banks offer.

The difference from an ETN and a fund unit

A crypto ETN tracks a price and is legally a debt security issued by its issuer. The bank offering works differently: what is bought is the crypto-asset itself, it is simply held in custody for you. Economically the coin is yours, but the party able to dispose of it is the custodian. This split between economic ownership and actual control is the core of every custody model, and it applies in exactly the same way at a centralised crypto exchange.

Private key, wallet and custody position: the three terms kept apart

A private key is a secret sequence of numbers that allows transactions on a blockchain to be signed. Whoever holds it can move the associated holdings. Whoever does not hold it cannot, regardless of what an account overview says.

A wallet is not a purse with coins inside it but the management of those keys. The coins themselves exist only as entries on the blockchain. A hardware wallet is a device that generates the key and never lets it leave, so that it cannot be skimmed off an infected computer. If you want to see how the common devices differ, our hardware wallet comparison is a place to start.

A custody position, finally, is an entry in your bank's books. It states that a certain holding is due to you. It says nothing about which blockchain address that holding sits on and who can move it. This is exactly where the bank offering differs from self-custody, and anyone who confuses the three terms underestimates either the risk or the convenience.

Why the Sparkasse makes no provision for a transfer to an external wallet

From the provider's point of view several reasons speak for the bank model, and none of them is arbitrary. A payout to any address of the customer's choosing turns the provider into a transfer service and brings obligations from anti-money-laundering supervision with it, among them checks on the origin and the recipient of crypto-asset transfers. It also creates sources of error that a bank serving a mass-market clientele is reluctant to carry: a mistyped address, the wrong network, a loss with no way back.

For you as an investor that has two consequences. The first is convenient: you need no seed phrase, there is nothing you can misplace, and if something goes wrong you have a counterparty with an address in Germany. The second is inconvenient: you are tied to the institution. Moving to another provider means selling and buying again, not transferring. Anyone planning such a move triggers a sale that matters for tax, and that is something entirely different from shifting coins between two addresses.

What a sale instead of a transfer triggers

On a transfer between your own addresses, the acquisition date does not change. On a sale followed by a fresh purchase, the period under Section 23 of the German Income Tax Act starts again, and any gain is assessed in the year of the sale. That is no argument against the bank account, but it belongs in the calculation before you settle on a provider.

MiCAR Article 75: the obligations of the custodian holding your crypto-assets

Since Regulation (EU) 2023/1114 on markets in crypto-assets, MiCAR for short, the custody of crypto-assets is no longer a legal vacuum. In its guidance note on crypto-asset services, BaFin lists ten services that require authorisation. First among them is the custody and administration of crypto-assets on behalf of clients, defined as the safekeeping or control of crypto-assets or of the means of access to them. Anyone offering this commercially needs an authorisation.

Article 75 of the regulation describes what such a custodian has to deliver. Four points are relevant to you as a customer:

• There has to be an agreement with you that sets out at least the identity of the parties, the nature of the service, the security procedures applied, the fee structure and the applicable law.
• The custodian keeps a register of positions and of every movement of crypto-assets it holds on your behalf.
• Client holdings are segregated from own assets. That segregation applies on the blockchain as well: own holdings sit on different network addresses from client holdings.
• Under the national law applicable in each case, the crypto-assets held in custody should also stand legally separate from the service provider's own estate, so that its creditors cannot reach them in an insolvency.

That is considerably more protection than an unregulated provider offers, and it is the real reason banks are taking on this business at all. A guarantee against every loss it is not. The regulation sets obligations, it does not replace a deposit guarantee scheme, and crypto-assets are not covered by the statutory deposit protection that applies to balances in current accounts.

Insolvency of the custodian: why segregating client holdings counts

The question of what happens to your holdings in a worst case is decided at a single point: are they assigned to the custodian's estate or to yours. Where segregation is clean, they do not fall into the insolvency estate but are due to the clients. That is exactly what the segregation duty in Article 75 MiCAR aims at, and exactly why it is not red tape but the core of consumer protection in this model.

In practice that means the institution's credit standing matters less in a custody model than its organisation. What counts is whether client holdings are kept separate technically and legally, and whether the record-keeping stands up to scrutiny in case of doubt. A provider who does not answer these questions when asked has already given you an answer.

Three questions you can put to your institution

1. Who is the custodian of the crypto-assets, and under which authorisation does it operate?
2. Are client holdings kept separate from own holdings, and does that apply on the blockchain too?
3. Which documents do I receive on acquisition date and acquisition cost, and in what format?

Checking CASP authorisation: Bundesanzeiger, the BaFin database and the ESMA register

In the language of the regulation, an authorised provider of crypto-asset services is a CASP, in full a crypto-asset service provider. On its page on crypto-asset services, BaFin names three registers in which you can look up an authorisation: the Bundesanzeiger, the BaFin company database and the MiCAR register of the European securities regulator ESMA. All three are public and free of charge.

This check is worth doing not only at your own bank, where the outcome will hardly be a surprise, but above all at every other provider you are looking at alongside it. If you are weighing a regulated trading platform as an alternative to the bank account, our overview of regulated crypto exchanges lists the providers that operate in the EU with an authorisation. Querying the register does not replace that overview, it adds to it.

How to spot a sloppy claim

It becomes conspicuous when a provider advertises a registration that is not an authorisation at all, when it names a permission for a service other than the one actually offered, or when the name in the register differs from the one on the website. Group structures are a frequent stumbling block here: what is authorised is often a particular company, not the brand.

What stays closed to you without a key of your own

The practical limits of the bank account are concrete and can be assessed in advance:

• No self-custody. The phrase "not your keys, not your coins" describes exactly this position. You carry the custodian risk, not the risk of losing your own backup.
• No staking and no lending. Anyone holding Ethereum in a bank account does not take part in validation and receives no staking rewards, as long as the provider does not explicitly offer it.
• No on-chain use. Paying, applications in decentralised finance, signing a message with your own address: all of that presupposes control over the key.
• Trading only in the provider's hours. Blockchains run around the clock, bank offerings do not necessarily. Which trading hours apply is set out in the terms.

Against that stand advantages that should not be talked down. Settlement runs through an account you already have. There is no separate onboarding, no additional identity check and no payout address you can enter wrongly while setting things up. For beginners with small amounts that is a genuine gain in safety compared with a first attempt at running a wallet.

Holding period under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act: securing acquisition data in a bank account too

For private disposals of crypto-assets, Germany currently applies the one-year holding period of Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Hold for longer than a year and you dispose of your holdings tax-free. Sell before that and you pay tax on the gain at your personal rate, provided the exemption threshold is exceeded. So that the tax office can follow this, you need two pieces of information per position: the acquisition date and the acquisition cost.

In a bank account you get both from your institution, and that is a convenience advantage over records you keep yourself. Even so, you should not rely on it alone. Save the statements as you go and in a format you will still be able to read after changing provider. A tax and portfolio tool helps above all where you hold assets in several places, because otherwise the allocation quickly becomes hard to follow.

On top of that comes an open building site in 2026: a draft bill from the Federal Ministry of Finance would treat gains on crypto-assets as investment income in future, with a cut-off date for new acquisitions. Nothing has been decided, and today's rules continue to apply unchanged. We have written up the state of play on grandfathering and the cut-off date separately. For the custody question that means one thing above all: complete acquisition data is becoming more important rather than less.

Inheritance, power of attorney and account freezes: where the bank account has the edge

Self-custody has a weak spot that is rarely discussed: it works only as long as the holder is able to act. If the backup is lost, the holding is gone, and gone for good. If the holder dies without anyone being able to reach the backup, the same applies. In a bank account, by contrast, the familiar mechanisms take effect: heirs prove their entitlement, a lasting power of attorney has effect, and a court-appointed guardianship is recognised.

Conversely, the bank model has one case that self-custody does not know: the freeze. If an account is temporarily blocked as part of an anti-money-laundering check or on suspicion, you cannot reach your holding even though it is due to you. Both models therefore carry a risk of failure, it simply sits in different places. Those holding larger amounts often split them deliberately across both routes.

Bitcoin and Ether at launch: why the coin list differs from source to source

On the question of what is to be tradable at launch the statements diverge, and that should be said openly. In early September 2026 the Sparkassen- und Giroverband Hessen-Thüringen set out the launch for the 46 Sparkassen in Hesse and Thuringia, naming Bitcoin and Ether. Industry reports on the same project speak of a broader initial selection that, alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum, also covers XRP, Solana and Polygon.

Both can be true, because a rollout in waves means exactly that: what a single regional association announces for its own institutions need not be the full scope of the overall offering. For your decision the list is secondary in any case. What matters is what actually appears in your own institution's app on launch day, and that is settled only then. For the timetable as a whole we have gathered the detail in our assessment of the planned October launch, and the cost side in our analysis of commission and spread.

What the statements on custody still leave open

What is publicly documented so far is the division of roles between DekaBank and Börse Stuttgart Digital, along with the fact that customers receive a custody position and not a key of their own. What is not publicly documented is how the record-keeping is organised in detail, whether there is a register of holdings at individual customer level, and which evidence customers receive in a dispute. Those questions are answered only by the contract documentation, which has to be available to you before your first purchase. Read it before you agree, not afterwards.

Checking Sparkasse custody: what to take away

1. Establish before buying who holds the assets and under which authorisation. The contract documents name the custodian, the three public registers confirm it. If you are considering a trading platform alongside, apply the same yardstick and take a look at our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.
2. Decide deliberately between a bank account and self-custody. For small amounts and for inheritance cases much speaks for the bank account; for amounts you want to hold long term and control yourself, much speaks for a device of your own. The differences between the common models are set out in our hardware wallet comparison.
3. Secure the acquisition date and the acquisition cost from your first purchase onwards. File the statements in a readable format and bring them together if you hold assets in several places. Which tools deliver that is set out in our overview of tax tools and portfolio trackers.

For further reading at the source: BaFin describes the crypto-asset services that require authorisation in its guidance note on crypto-asset services under MiCAR, and the authorisation of an individual institution can be looked up in the BaFin company database.

(As of September 12, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

At 13:15:45 UTC on September 23, 2026, the largest token lock-up in Humanity Protocol's history to date comes to an end. According to the emissions model, 292,857,143 H are released from six separate buckets in that single minute. Two days later, at 14:00 UTC on September 25, the exchange Kraken closes withdrawals for H and HUMANITY for good. Anyone holding H in a Kraken account therefore has to act in exactly the window in which, on paper, the largest additional supply in the project's history reaches the market.

The two dates have nothing to do with each other. One is a vesting date set by the project, the other a business decision by an exchange. For you as a holder they still fall in the same weekend, and that turns two footnotes into a task with a deadline.

The practical core of this is a custody question, not a price question. Tokens sitting in an exchange account follow that exchange's deadlines: when a trading pair is discontinued, the operator decides how long you have to move your holdings out and what happens to them afterwards. Anyone holding in self-custody does not have that problem, but has another one instead: they need to know the correct contract address. At Humanity there have been two of them since June.

This article recalculates the unlock from the emissions dataset itself rather than passing on the figure in circulation, shows which part of it can actually reach the market, and then walks through checking your own holdings. All figures were gathered first-hand on September 13, 2026.

What happens at Humanity Protocol on September 23, 2026

Humanity Protocol is an identity network: users prove by biometric means that there is a human being behind an account, and are paid in H for doing so. The token runs as an ERC-20 contract on Ethereum. Like almost every project of this kind, Humanity issued only a fraction of its total supply at launch; the rest is spread over years and released step by step.

In that schedule, September 23 is not an ordinary monthly date but a cliff: a cut-off date on which an amount that was fully locked until then becomes available all at once. Our own analysis of the DefiLlama emissions dataset (retrieved September 13, 2026, HTTP 200) shows six buckets carrying the same timestamp, 13:15:45 UTC on September 23, 2026. Those six tranches add up to 292,857,143 H.

At the price of $0.0833 that the same provider's price interface reported for the current contract at 06:21 UTC on September 13, that works out to roughly $24.4 million. For now that number is an arithmetic figure and nothing more. Whether any of the released tokens will actually be offered on the market is a different matter, and further down we resolve which part of the tranche is realistically in question.

Token unlock, cliff and vesting: the three terms behind the date

Vesting is the contractually fixed release of tokens over time. A project splits its total supply into buckets, such as team, investors and ecosystem, and sets for each bucket when tokens become available from it and at what pace.

A cliff is the lock-up period before a bucket's first release. Until the cliff date nothing is available; on the cliff date the accrued share is released in a single step. That is precisely what makes cliffs significant for the market: where a linear release produces a trickle, this produces a step.

A token unlock is the event itself, the moment locked tokens become transferable. One distinction matters here that headlines almost always drop: released only means transferable. Whether a team holds its released tokens, moves them into the project treasury or offers them on the market is not written into any contract.

At Humanity the release runs through Sablier streams, meaning on-chain contracts that handle the payout themselves. That has a practical advantage for you: the schedule is publicly visible and therefore verifiable. We have shown in detail how to reconcile such calendars against project documentation and resolve contradictions, using another token as the example: recalculating a token unlock.

The six tranches of the H unlock, broken down one by one

Quoting only the total gives away the real information. The six buckets behave completely differently, because different recipients sit behind them. Our own analysis of the emissions dataset produces this breakdown for September 23, 2026:

The largest single item is the team bucket at a good 105 million H, followed by the investors. Together the two make up more than half the tranche. That is the part market watchers usually call insider supply, because the recipients received their tokens on terms not available to a buyer on the open market.

The Identity Verification Rewards are the bucket from which users are paid for completed verifications. Those tokens therefore go out broadly to a great many small recipients, which suggests different behaviour from a concentrated allocation to a handful of addresses. The Ecosystem Fund finances development and incentive programmes.

Why the investor tranche in particular is uncertain

This is where it gets interesting, and where the widely quoted figures depart from what can actually be evidenced. The emissions dataset lists the investor tranche at 55,555,556 H under the same timestamp as the other five buckets. The Humanity Foundation, however, restructured the investor part of its vesting in April 2026.

As the trade publication crypto.news reported on April 24, 2026, the foundation gave its investors a choice until 09:00 UTC on April 26: either an extended schedule with a cliff on September 25, 2026 followed by twelve quarterly tranches, or immediate release at a 3:10 discount, under which 16,666,666 H were replaced by 5,000,000 H and paid out as early as June 25, 2026. Early backer Trix Ventures publicly opted for the discount, according to the same report.

Two things follow that a careful article has to keep apart. First, the foundation names September 25 for the extended investor schedule, while the emissions dataset carries September 23. Second, part of the investor allocation was already settled in June, which makes the 55.56 million H held in the model for that bucket an upper bound rather than an expectation.

How many investors chose which option has not been published so far. No reliable breakdown could be found in this research step; the question could only be settled conclusively against the vesting contracts on chain. This uncertainty belongs on the record rather than written away: if you come across the round figure of 292 million H somewhere as confirmed additional supply, at least a sixth of it carries a question mark.

Circulating supply: how large the inflow actually is

Of the six buckets, the data provider explicitly lists two as non-circulating: Strategic Reserve at 26,388,889 H and Foundation Operational Treasury at 12,500,000 H, together 38,888,889 H or an arithmetic $3.24 million. Those amounts move into the foundation's treasury and are not counted as freely tradable supply in the circulation model.

That leaves 253,968,254 H, roughly $21.2 million on paper, that can actually affect circulating supply. Set against the amount released in total to date, our own analysis puts the previously released supply at 3,698,214,286 H. The tranche therefore amounts to 7.92 percent of that supply, the circulating portion to 6.87 percent. Measured against the maximum supply of ten billion H held in the model, it is 2.93 percent.

This framing is the difference between a headline and a calculation. A number like $24 million sounds enormous as long as nobody writes down what it refers to next to it. An inflow of just under seven percent on the supply already released is substantial, but it is a different order of magnitude from what the absolute number suggests.

The Kraken withdrawal deadline at 14:00 UTC on September 25

Independently of the vesting calendar, a clock of its own is running at Kraken. In its notice on Humanity, last updated June 26, 2026, the exchange states: for H and HUMANITY, trading and deposits are switched off, only withdrawals are supported, and those close at 14:00 UTC on September 25, 2026. Both tickers are slated for delisting.

That is the sharper of the two deadlines, because it demands an action from you. An unlock happens without you doing anything; a closed withdrawal, by contrast, separates you from your tokens. We described the constellation in detail on September 5, at the time looking at the four affected tickers at Kraken: the Kraken withdrawal deadline on September 25.

Forced liquidation from September 28: what happens to holdings left behind

For holdings still sitting in the account after the deadline, Kraken announces a liquidation period from September 28 to October 2, 2026. The exchange is unusually clear about what that can mean: liquidation prices could be substantially below recent reference prices and in some cases, because of insufficient market liquidity, yield minimal proceeds or none at all. Kraken explicitly recommends acting before the deadline rather than relying on the liquidation.

For you that means the liquidation is an emergency exit with an open outcome. Which currency the proceeds are credited in is likewise made dependent on market conditions by the exchange, and is not committed to in advance. Anyone who lets the date pass trades a known position for an unknown result.

Legacy H and HUMANITY: why many holders have two positions in the account

The second pitfall has nothing to do with the unlock and is still the more common source of mistakes. Following the events of June 2026, the Humanity team rolled out a new contract and issued a new token. Kraken continues to list the old holding under the ticker H and the new one under the ticker HUMANITY, to keep the two distinguishable.

According to the Kraken notice, the contract addresses are 0xcf5104D094e3864CfCBDa43B82e1cEFD26A016eB for the old token and 0xE76c5b78f93909d34404E9eb4C1f19e7582a5dE1 for the new one. The emissions dataset the unlock figures above come from refers to the second of those addresses, that is, to the new token.

On top of that comes a risk of confusion that Kraken points out itself: the new token can still be displayed as H on chain and on other platforms. The two tokens can therefore only be told apart reliably via the contract address.

Anyone holding a position on the cut-off date received the new token automatically. Kraken gives the snapshot time as 17:25 UTC on June 8, 2026 and the airdrop date as 14:00 UTC on July 1, 2026, at a one-to-one ratio. Anyone who acquired H only after the snapshot is not eligible for this airdrop and is referred by Kraken to the Humanity team's claims portal, in which the exchange says it is not involved.

The practical consequence: the same account can hold two positions that both expire in the same minute. Withdraw only one of them and the other runs into the liquidation.

Self-custody or another exchange: where the tokens can go

When a withdrawal deadline is running, there are two destinations. One is your own wallet, where you control the private key. The other is an account at a different trading platform that still lists the token.

The two routes carry different risks. Self-custody removes counterparty risk and in exchange puts the responsibility for securing the recovery words on your shoulders; an overview of the devices and how they differ is in our hardware wallet comparison. Moving to another platform keeps the convenience and merely defers the problem, should a delisting be pending there too.

Two technical points decide between success and loss: the destination address has to support the network the token sits on, and it has to carry the correct contract address. An Ethereum address can in principle receive any ERC-20 token, but for it to show up in your wallet you may have to add the contract there manually. A token missing from the overview is not lost because of that; usually it is only the entry that is missing.

Check the withdrawal fee and the minimum amount in advance as well. On small residual holdings the fee can exceed the value of the position, and then the honest answer is that moving it is not worth it. That is a decision you should take deliberately rather than let a deadline take for you.

How to check your H holdings in five steps

The following sequence takes a few minutes and covers both dates.

1. Open the account balance. Check in the exchange account whether H, HUMANITY or both are sitting there. Both positions fall under the same deadline.
2. Reconcile the contract address. Note the contract address for each position and compare it with the two given above. That tells you whether you hold the old or the new token.
3. Prepare the destination address. Set up the receiving address and check with a small test amount that it works before you send the full holding.
4. Trigger the withdrawal. Build in a buffer. Withdrawals can go into review, and the deadline at 14:00 UTC on September 25 ends with no grace period.
5. Confirm arrival. Check in the block explorer that the transaction is confirmed, and add the contract in your wallet if the holding is not displayed.

A note on sequencing: do not do these steps on September 25. When the unlock goes through on September 23, things can get busier at the network level and in support queues. Moving in the days before that is the calmer option.

Tax: why even a forced sale is a disposal

One point regularly overlooked in delistings: a forced liquidation is, for tax purposes, a sale. The fact that you did not trigger it changes nothing about that. When the exchange realises your holding and credits you with proceeds, that creates an event you have to carry in your records.

A plain move from the exchange into your own wallet, by contrast, is not a sale but a transfer between two addresses of the same owner. What matters is that your records carry the acquisition date through that transfer, so that it remains traceable later when and at what price you acquired the holding. Tools that do exactly that are in the comparison of tax and portfolio tools.

Whether and how a gain is taxable depends, in Germany, among other things on the holding period and on your personal situation. The airdrop of the new token in July is a separate event with a valuation question of its own. That is precisely why these cases belong with a tax adviser and not in a classification by gut feeling.

What a token unlock does to the price, and what cannot seriously be said

The honest answer to the most common question is: nobody knows. What can be said is what mechanism sits behind the question.

A cliff raises the available supply abruptly. Whether that turns into selling pressure depends on what the recipients do, and that is not predictable. On top of that, a publicly known date can be priced in by professional market participants long before it arrives. In its April report, crypto.news describes exactly this pattern for Humanity: vesting contracts visible on chain, hedging trades in advance, and market participants positioning themselves ahead of the date.

The same outlet cites Starknet and ApeCoin as comparison cases, whose prices fell markedly after extended release schedules. That is that outlet's framing and not a statement about Humanity, and two examples do not make a rule. You will therefore not find price forecasts in this article; what you will find is the number at issue and a note on which part of it is uncertain.

More useful in practice than any forecast is the question of what you would do anyway. If you want to keep your holding, moving it into self-custody is the task. If you do not want to keep it, the question is where you can hand it over at a price you know, rather than in a liquidation at a price nobody promises you. For the trade itself you need a platform that still lists the token; which venues offer which terms is shown in the exchange comparison.

Four mistakes that make this date expensive

Withdrawing only one of the two positions. Anyone holding in June has held two tickers since July. Both expire in the same minute, and the balance shows them as separate lines.

Relying on the liquidation. Kraken itself warns that it can produce minimal proceeds or none at all. Anyone mistaking that for an orderly sale is planning with a price nobody has promised.

Taking the aggregator figure at face value. The 292 million H from the unlock calendars include just under 39 million H listed as non-circulating, and an investor tranche that is probably smaller because of the April restructuring. Anyone calculating with the gross figure overstates the inflow.

Waiting until the last day. Withdrawals can go into review, and support does not answer in minutes. A buffer of several days costs nothing.

H unlock and the Kraken deadline: what to take away

1. Check today whether H or HUMANITY are sitting in an exchange account, and withdraw both before 14:00 UTC on September 25. Where to is a decision you take afterwards; the safe option is your own wallet, and the models are set side by side in the hardware wallet comparison.
2. Record the process cleanly. Transfer, airdrop and a possible liquidation are three different things for tax purposes; a tool from the tax and portfolio comparison takes the allocation off your hands before the records go missing.
3. Recalculate unlock figures before you believe them. Separate circulating from non-circulating tranches, and check whether a trading platform still lists the token at all; the exchange comparison shows where it is traded.

Sources for further reading: Kraken's notice on Humanity with all dates and contract addresses, and the crypto.news report on the vesting restructuring from April 2026. The unlock figures come from DefiLlama's emissions dataset and were aggregated first-hand for this article on September 13, 2026.

(As of September 13, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)

TRM examined roughly $52.7 million across 198.9 million settlements using the x402 protocol. Most of it isn’t coming from AI agents, it says.

The fintech company fulfilled a fraudulent information request sent from a government agency's own email domain, exposing ID documents and full crypto transaction histories for a "limited" number of users.

A week after launch, complaints are rolling in from users that GPT-6 Astra has been nerfed. OpenAI's last model went through the same cycle in July.

Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne each gave £36 million, and between them beat what every UK party raised last year.

The surveillance mod on GTA V brings the privacy fight to Los Santos, where players can demolish the cameras tracking them.

Senate Democrats are holding a last-minute caucus meeting as the Clarity Act heads toward a high-stakes procedural vote that will require bipartisan support to advance.

Bitcoin locks in a historic $65,000 long-term support floor, as cycle mathematics may prevent future drops below this key threshold.

Bloomberg's Mike McGlone warns Bitcoin's tight correlation with S&P 500 and pending Fed hikes spark sell signals targeting a potential drop to $10,000.

XRP targets a 20% breakout as the tightening hourly triangle pattern nears its final apex resolution.

Whale monopolization locks 94.68% of Shiba Inu (SHIB) supply as triangle pattern forces price squeeze.

TLDR:

• CRCL stock outlook centers on $90 support after shares closed at $90.60. They gained 0.31% Friday but lost 11.22% weekly.
• CME FedWatch placed quarter-point hike odds near 87%. The Federal Reserve announces its decision after the September 15–16 meeting.
• Circle reported $668 million in second-quarter reserve income. Higher USDC circulation partly offset a 66-basis-point drop in reserve yield.
• Failure at $90 may expose $87.14. Sustained buying above $100 could reopen $103 to $105 before traders assess $107 and $110.

CRCL stock outlook turns cautious after Circle shares closed Friday at $90.60, up 0.31% during the session. The stock traded between $90.14 and $95.80, then finished near the lower end of that range. Market data show a full 11.22% weekly decline, extending the recent pullback.

CME FedWatch priced roughly 87% odds of a quarter-point Fed rate hike before Wednesday’s decision. That prospect creates competing pressures, as higher short-term rates may lift Circle’s reserve returns. 

However, tighter financial conditions could weaken crypto demand, equity valuations, and investor risk appetite during a policy-heavy week. Nearby price levels now frame the immediate debate.

CRCL Stock Outlook Weighs Fed Rate Hike and Reserve Income

The Federal Reserve meets September 15–16 and releases its decision Wednesday. CME FedWatch probabilities come from futures prices, so they can shift before the announcement.

August core consumer prices rose 0.3% monthly, above the 0.2% estimate. Headline inflation increased 0.4% monthly and 3.4% yearly. Those readings, alongside oil above $100, strengthened the Fed rate hike case.

For Circle, higher policy rates can improve yields on cash and short-term Treasury assets backing USDC reserves over time. The benefit is not automatic or immediate.

Circle reported $668 million of second-quarter reserve income, or about 95.3% of total revenue and reserve income. The figure rose 5.3% yearly as USDC circulation increased 25.2%. However, the average reserve yield fell 66 basis points, offsetting much of the balance growth.

This earnings mix keeps the CRCL Stock Outlook tied to both interest rates and USDC adoption. A quarter-point increase could support future reserve returns as holdings reprice. Conversely, tighter liquidity may reduce crypto activity or slow stablecoin circulation, limiting that potential gain.

The CRCL stock outlook also faces equity-market pressure from rising Treasury yields. Higher discount rates often weigh on growth shares with elevated earnings expectations. Circle’s business can gain from yields while its valuation faces pressure from the same move.

Investors will therefore watch the rate decision, projections, and Chair Kevin Warsh’s guidance. One increase may help near-term yield expectations. Signals of prolonged tightening could produce a harsher response across technology, fintech, and digital-asset shares.

Key Price Levels and Crypto Events Set the Next Move

Price action places $90 at the center of the CRCL stock prediction. Friday’s $90.14 low attracted buyers, but the finish near $90.60 kept downside risk visible. A decisive close below $90 would weaken the short-term structure and expose $87.14, an earlier closing pivot.

Bulls first need to reclaim $95, which limited Friday’s rebound before the $95.80 session high. The psychological $100 mark forms the next test. Sustained buying above $100 could reopen $103 to $105, followed by $107 and $110. Repeated rejection below $95 would leave sellers controlling the near-term range.

The CRCL stock outlook also includes Tuesday’s procedural Senate vote on the CLARITY Act. Senators need 60 votes to advance debate, and the vote does not enact the bill. The legislation seeks clearer boundaries for digital assets and their regulators. Its progress may affect sentiment toward Circle, USDC, exchanges, and other crypto-linked companies.

Digital-asset performance adds another variable to the CRCL stock prediction. Stronger crypto activity can support stablecoin transfers and circulation. Sharp declines can reduce risk appetite, even when reserve yields improve.

The CRCL stock outlook now hinges on rates, policy news, and whether buyers defend the $90 area. Holding $90 would preserve the immediate base.

Failure at $90 would shift attention toward $87.14. Investors would then assess Treasury yields, USDC circulation, and the Fed’s guidance before pricing the next range. A break above $100 would place $103 to $105 back in view, with $107 and $110 beyond.

The post CRCL Stock Outlook Weighs Reserve Upside Against Fed Hike Risk appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• The Anthropic IPO could list on Nasdaq, while the Claude developer targets October under plans that still depend on market conditions.
• Anthropic confidentially submitted a draft S-1 on June 1, but its share count, price range, audited figures, and public prospectus stay undisclosed.
• Reuters reports the company could raise up to $100 billion at approximately $2 trillion, although both targets are still under discussion.
• Nvidia may invest up to $10 billion as an anchor, while investors weigh a $65 billion revenue run rate against reported 2025 losses.

Anthropic has reportedly selected Nasdaq for its potential public debut, placing an October listing window under scrutiny. According to Reuters, the Anthropic IPO would give Nasdaq another major technology listing after SpaceX’s market debut earlier this year.

However, neither Anthropic nor Nasdaq has publicly confirmed the exchange decision. The company’s final timing, valuation, share count, and offer price also stay unsettled. Anthropic has only confirmed its confidential draft registration, leaving investors without a public prospectus or audited financial details for now. Those disclosures will guide investor scrutiny.

Anthropic IPO Moves Toward an October Nasdaq Debut

Anthropic announced June 1 that it confidentially submitted a draft S-1 to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing gives Anthropic an option to proceed after the regulator completes its review. Anthropic said market conditions would determine whether the offering moves forward. Anthropic said it had not set the share count or price.

The confidential submission differs from a public prospectus revealing audited accounts, risks, ownership, and offering terms. Anthropic has not published that filing. It reported that financial disclosures must appear at least 15 days before investor marketing.

Reuters places the roadshow in mid-October at the earliest. Sources expect the listing to finish shortly before the November midterm elections, although the timetable could change. Sources expect Anthropic to publish the filing in late September, leaving investors limited time to review Anthropic IPO documents.

A Nasdaq listing would strengthen the exchange as a technology venue. The exchange hosted SpaceX’s 2026 debut, while the New York Stock Exchange competes for other large offerings. However, exchange selection alone does not determine post-listing performance.

Nasdaq and NYSE use different systems for establishing an opening price on a stock’s first trading day. That distinction may matter for a transaction carrying unusually high demand and trading volume. Still, valuation, allocation, earnings quality, and market conditions will probably shape the Anthropic IPO more directly.

Anthropic has not confirmed an October date. Investors face a reported target, not a fixed timetable. Regulatory review or weaker markets could shift the offering into a later window.

Valuation, Nvidia Talks and Financial Risks Take Focus

As reported earlier, Anthropic is seeking up to $100 billion at a valuation near $2 trillion. Those figures could produce the largest IPO ever, but sources warned discussions could change.

Nvidia is considering an investment of up to $10 billion as a potential anchor investor, Reuters reported. It would deepen the relationship between Anthropic and a major supplier of graphics processors used for AI workloads.

Anthropic raised $65 billion in May at a $965 billion post-money valuation. Its annualized revenue run rate exceeded $65 billion by July’s end, rising from roughly $9 billion in late 2025. That measure estimates recent sales activity and does not equal recognized annual revenue.

Reported losses sharpen the test for the Anthropic IPO. Anthropic reportedly posted a net loss near $42 billion in 2025 amid high computing expenses. The prospectus should show whether margins, cash usage, and customer concentration improved during 2026.

Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Citigroup are among banks working on the transaction, Reuters reported. Final roles could determine distribution, pricing, and stabilization responsibilities during the Anthropic IPO.

Investors will also assess dependency on outside cloud and chip providers. Amazon and Google already back Anthropic and supply computing resources. Recent safety warnings also place Anthropic’s model governance and risk disclosures under closer scrutiny before the listing.

The Nasdaq report advances the Anthropic IPO process, suggesting the public filing is the next measurable step. That document should clarify voting control, major shareholders, dilution, legal exposure, and financial results before any roadshow begins.

The post Anthropic IPO Chooses Nasdaq as October Listing Plans Take Shape appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Takeaways

• Futures markets indicate an 80% to 85% probability the Federal Reserve will implement a 25 basis point interest rate increase on Wednesday
• Retail sales figures for August will be released Wednesday morning, potentially influencing monetary policy expectations
• Crude oil surged past $100 per barrel following drone strikes that disabled a critical Saudi pipeline, intensifying inflation worries
• The yield on 10-year Treasury notes approached 5%, creating headwinds for equities and interest rate-sensitive investments
• Salesforce begins its Dreamforce event on Tuesday, featuring Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei among scheduled presenters

Wall Street’s attention turns squarely to the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy meeting this week. The Federal Open Market Committee convenes Tuesday, with the rate announcement scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at 2 p.m. ET.

Market participants are assigning approximately an 80% to 85% likelihood to a quarter-point rate adjustment. These odds intensified following robust employment reports and persistent inflation readings well above the central bank’s 2% objective.

The August Consumer Price Index showed a 3.4% annual increase, identical to July’s figure. Meanwhile, the Producer Price Index revealed wholesale inflation exceeded forecasts.

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh is scheduled to address the media at 2:30 p.m. ET following Wednesday’s announcement. Market participants will scrutinize his remarks for indications regarding the trajectory of monetary policy.

While a standalone rate adjustment might not significantly disturb markets, any suggestion from Warsh of additional tightening ahead could trigger selling in technology shares and sectors vulnerable to borrowing costs.

Yields on 10-year Treasury securities approached the 5% threshold during the previous week. This bond market movement has already created challenges for equities, especially high-valuation technology enterprises.

Consumer Spending and Energy Markets Complicate Outlook

Prior to the Fed’s announcement, the Census Bureau will publish retail sales statistics for August at 8:30 a.m. ET Wednesday. Consumer expenditures declined 0.6% between June and July on a non-inflation-adjusted basis.

Surprisingly, robust consumer activity could prove detrimental to equities. Such data might reinforce the Fed’s rationale for continued monetary tightening.

Conversely, disappointing numbers might relieve bond market tensions but spark questions about whether elevated prices are constraining household budgets. Regardless of the outcome, Wednesday appears positioned to deliver the week’s most significant market swings.

Oil prices represent an additional wildcard. Crude prices jumped beyond $100 per barrel, driven by escalating Middle Eastern instability.

An important Saudi pipeline transporting approximately 4 million barrels daily was taken offline following drone assaults. This supply interruption may sustain elevated energy costs for an extended period.

Elevated crude prices amplify inflationary pressures, creating additional complexity for Fed policymakers. Energy sector equities stand to gain, whereas airlines and consumer-facing businesses confront mounting operational expenses.

Salesforce Conference and Corporate Earnings in Focus

Salesforce launches its annual Dreamforce gathering on Tuesday. Chief Executive Marc Benioff will deliver the primary presentation from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET, emphasizing artificial intelligence partnerships.

Dario Amodei, who leads Anthropic, appears on the Dreamforce agenda. Whether he joins Benioff’s keynote or presents independently remains unconfirmed.

The company has also scheduled an investor and analyst briefing during the conference on Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET.

Regarding quarterly results, homebuilder Lennar releases earnings Wednesday following the closing bell. Elevated mortgage rates have created challenging conditions in residential real estate, making the company’s order activity and forward guidance particularly significant.

Carnival posts results Thursday, offering insight into consumer appetite for travel spending. Thursday also brings weekly unemployment claims and the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing survey.

Equity markets concluded the previous week with losses. The Dow Jones Industrial Average retreated 1.6%, while the S&P 500 maintains approximately 12% gains year-to-date.

The Federal Reserve’s forward guidance on its policy path will probably carry greater weight than Wednesday’s immediate decision.

The post Fed Decision, Retail Data, and $100 Oil: Critical Week for Investors Ahead appeared first on Blockonomi.

Key Highlights

• Q2 core revenue reached $209.9 million, representing a 103% year-over-year increase
• Cloud revenue under GAAP surged 281% to $126 million during the same period
• Secured a massive multiyear partnership with OpenAI exceeding $20 billion in value
• Updated full-year core revenue forecast to a range of $880 million to $890 million
• Analyst consensus leans Moderate Buy with a $299.90 average target against current levels near $191

Cerebras Systems delivered impressive Q2 results with core revenue hitting $209.9 million, marking a 103% climb compared to the prior year period. The cloud and services segment stole the spotlight, as GAAP-reported cloud revenue skyrocketed 281% to reach $126 million.

Cerebras Systems Inc., CBRS

The business model is evolving from one-time hardware transactions to subscription-based cloud services, a shift that typically creates more stable revenue streams. Early indicators suggest this strategic pivot is working.

Executives increased their full-year core revenue projection to a range spanning $880 million to $890 million. Additionally, management forecasts revenue will expand by more than 300% by 2027.

Remaining performance obligations totaled $25.4 billion at quarter end, offering visibility into potential future earnings streams assuming customers fulfill their commitments.

The Landmark OpenAI Partnership

The centerpiece announcement involves a multiyear collaboration with OpenAI carrying a valuation surpassing $20 billion. The arrangement calls for OpenAI to utilize 750 megawatts of Cerebras computational infrastructure.

The company’s chips are currently running an ultrafast version of OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol model. This demonstrates real-world deployment rather than experimental testing.

However, significant customer concentration exists. Should OpenAI decide to adjust its strategy or reduce infrastructure investment, the financial impact on Cerebras would be substantial.

Latest Technology Release and Client Expansion

The firm unveiled its latest CS-4 system recently. According to company specifications, it achieves over 4,400 tokens per second per user on specific large-model tests and operates up to 30 times quicker than GPU-powered alternatives in certain scenarios.

Energy efficiency has improved with the CS-4, delivering superior throughput per watt versus earlier models. The company claims its architecture sidesteps the high-bandwidth memory and advanced packaging bottlenecks affecting competitors in the AI semiconductor space.

Production capabilities are projected to expand more than tenfold throughout 2026.

The client roster extends beyond OpenAI. Cerebras collaborates with Amazon and AMD on inference solutions. Current customers span CrowdStrike, Figma, Block, Cognition, Lovable, AlphaSense and GSK.

Diversifying the customer base is critical. The investment thesis hinges on demonstrating that Cerebras’ performance advantages deliver value across numerous enterprises, not merely a handful of major players.

Price Metrics and Wall Street Perspective

Coverage from thirteen analysts yields a Moderate Buy rating. The distribution includes one Strong Buy, nine Buy ratings, two Hold recommendations and one Sell rating.

The consensus 12-month price objective stands at $299.90. With shares recently changing hands around $191, this suggests potential appreciation of approximately 57% if analyst projections prove accurate.

The company commands a market capitalization near $45 billion. Measured against 2026 revenue estimates, shares fetch roughly 50 times anticipated annual sales.

Profitability remains elusive at this stage. The current valuation reflects expectations for flawless execution of the OpenAI agreement, sustained cloud segment expansion and increasing market share in AI infrastructure.

Wall Street’s mean 12-month price forecast of $299.90 compares to the recent market price hovering around $191.

The post Cerebras (CBRS) Stock: Is This AI Chip Maker’s Rally Sustainable? appeared first on Blockonomi.

TLDR:

• Dark Defender’s XRP/ETH chart targets 0.002238, implying about 306% relative upside from 0.000551.
• XRP’s $86B market cap remains far below Ethereum’s $300B and Bitcoin’s roughly $1.55T valuation.
• The XRP/ETH ratio must first reclaim the 0.0006487 to 0.0007773 zone before the Wave 5 case strengthens.
• Bitwise and Canary XRP ETFs expand regulated U.S. access as the token’s relative-value setup develops.

XRP could significantly outperform Ethereum if a long-term technical structure identified by crypto analyst Dark Defender reaches its projected fifth-wave target. In a September 13 post, Dark Defender said XRP could eventually dominate Bitcoin and Ethereum.

However, the underlying chart specifically measures XRP’s performance against Ether. The 10-day XRP/ETH chart places the ratio near 0.00055 and labels the current formation as an Elliott Wave fourth-wave correction.

Source: X

The projected fifth wave extends toward 0.002238 ETH per XRP. That move would represent about 306% appreciation from roughly 0.000551. Therefore, the chart describes relative performance rather than forecasting a fourfold increase in XRP’s dollar price.

XRP/ETH Ratio Defines the 306% Outperformance Case

Independent market data broadly supports the chart’s starting point. Investing.com recorded the XRP/ETH ratio at 0.000539 on September 11. The ratio had declined from 0.000570 on September 8, leaving it below several levels highlighted in Dark Defender’s technical structure.

His chart identifies intermediate Fibonacci levels near 0.0006487 and 0.0007773 before the larger 0.002238 extension. Those levels provide measurable reference points for the relative-price setup. Importantly, the ratio can rise under several different market conditions.

XRP could appreciate while Ether remains unchanged, or both assets could rise at different rates. It could also increase if both decline but Ethereum falls faster. Consequently, a higher ratio measures relative strength rather than absolute price appreciation.

The 0.002238 target is about 4.06 times the chart’s 0.000551 level. That calculation produces the approximately 306% relative gain underlying Dark Defender’s forecast. However, the technical projection does not establish that XRP will exceed either rival by total market capitalization.

Market-Cap Gap Shows Why a Flip Is a Separate Question

Recent market data placed XRP around $1.37, with approximately $86 billion in market capitalization and 62.87 billion tokens circulating. Meanwhile, Ethereum traded near $2,458 with a market value around $300 billion.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, remained substantially larger at approximately $1.55 trillion while trading near $77,230. Based on those figures, XRP’s market capitalization would need to reach roughly 3.5 times its current level to surpass Ethereum, assuming Ethereum remained unchanged.

Nonetheless, overtaking Bitcoin would require an increase to roughly 18 times its current valuation under the same assumption. Those comparisons also explain why relative-price performance and market-cap rankings should be treated separately.

Market capitalization equals an asset’s price multiplied by circulating supply. It does not directly represent the amount of investor capital deposited into an asset. Therefore, a $1 billion valuation increase does not require $1 billion of inflows.

Meanwhile, institutional access has expanded through U.S.-listed products. SEC filings show that the Bitwise XRP ETF and Canary XRP ETF hold the token to provide regulated exposure.

The technical call also arrives during weaker global risk conditions. Investors recently withdrew $15.52 billion from equity funds amid rising oil prices and tighter-policy expectations.

For the relative-performance case, the immediate measurable area remains 0.0006487 to 0.0007773. The projected 0.002238 level represents the analyst’s fifth-wave extension, not a confirmed market outcome.

The post XRP to Outperform Bitcoin and Ethereum? Analyst Maps 306% Wave 5 Rally appeared first on Blockonomi.

Bitcoin is consolidating around $77.3K after a powerful breakout from the $67K area. While the broader structure has improved significantly, BTC is now facing an important resistance cluster near $80K-$82K. Meanwhile, the latest Coinbase Premium reading suggests that US spot demand has yet to fully confirm the recent advance.

Bitcoin Price Analysis: The Daily Chart

The daily chart shows a significant structural recovery. After falling to the $60K demand zone in June, Bitcoin spent several months building a broad base before breaking decisively above the $67K resistance area in late August. The subsequent rally carried BTC rapidly through the $72K-$74K zone and toward the $80K area.

The $72K-$74K region has now become the first major support zone. A successful retest of this area would preserve the bullish structure established by the recent breakout. Below it, the $67K zone is a more important structural support, as it previously capped the market for several months. A deeper correction could bring the $60K demand zone back into focus.

On the upside, BTC is approaching the $80K-$82K resistance zone. The price has already tested this area several times but has failed to establish a sustained breakout above it. A daily close above $82K would therefore be significant, as it could open the way toward the $90K mark or even higher.

BTC/USDT 4-Hour Chart

The 4-hour chart provides a clearer view of the latest move. Bitcoin spent much of the summer trading sideways between roughly $60K and $67K before staging a sharp breakout. The move through the $67K resistance zone accelerated dramatically, taking BTC through $74K.

After reaching the $80K-$82K area, however, the rally has lost momentum. BTC is currently trading around $76.8K and has formed a relatively broad consolidation below resistance. This can be interpreted as a potential continuation range following the breakout, provided the lower boundary remains intact.

The immediate support is located around the same daily $72K-$74K zone. This area is particularly important because it represents the previous resistance zone that BTC cleared during the breakout. Holding it would maintain the sequence of higher highs and higher lows on the 4-hour timeframe.

The main resistance remains $80K-$82K. A clean breakout and sustained trading above this zone would signal that buyers are regaining control and could bring the next major daily resistance around $95K into consideration. Conversely, repeated rejection followed by a break below $72K could trigger a deeper retracement toward $67K.

On-Chain Analysis

The Coinbase Premium Index provides an important caveat to the technical picture. The metric measures the price difference between Bitcoin on Coinbase and other major exchanges and is commonly used as a proxy for US-based spot buying pressure. Positive readings generally indicate stronger demand on Coinbase, while negative readings suggest comparatively weaker US spot demand.

The latest reading on the chart is around -0.02, with the index back in negative territory. This is notable because BTC has simultaneously remained well above the levels seen before the late-August breakout.

The divergence suggests that the recent price strength has not been accompanied by a sustained surge in Coinbase buying pressure. In other words, while the technical structure has improved, the latest premium data does not yet provide strong confirmation of aggressive US spot accumulation.

Historically, within the period shown, the Coinbase Premium spent considerable time below zero during BTC’s decline toward the $60K area, while stronger positive readings appeared during several recovery phases. The current negative reading, therefore, warrants some caution as Bitcoin approaches the $80K-$82K resistance zone.

For the bullish scenario to strengthen, a renewed move of the Coinbase Premium into positive territory alongside a breakout above $82K would provide more convincing confirmation. If BTC instead loses $72K while the premium remains negative, it would increase the probability that the recent rally is undergoing a deeper correction rather than immediately transitioning into another leg higher.

The post Bitcoin Price Analysis: BTC Faces a Make-or-Break Week – What’s the Most Likely Scenario? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Although the upcoming vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act is not a final passage vote, it still holds significance for the broader crypto market as senators will decide whether to advance debate on the legislation. Cloture requires 60 votes, meaning that even if all Republicans support it, they would still need assistance from some Democrats or independents.

XRP could be among the most intertwined crypto assets with the bill, which is why a potential failure could weigh on its price quite considerably. As such, we asked ChatGPT about its take on the matter and what could happen to the cross-border token.

Why CLARITY Matters for XRP

The bill aims to create a comprehensive federal crypto market structure, including clearer responsibilities for the two main watchdogs – the SEC and the CFTC, and rules for exchanges, brokers, dealers, and digital commodities. This is particularly relevant for the cross-border token following Ripple’s years-long regulatory battle with the SEC.

After the conclusion of the lawsuit that began in late 2020, the regulator identified XRP as a digital commodity. As such, the legislation would make the broader regulatory framework more durable by codifying it into federal law, since history has shown that the SEC’s allegiance shifts quickly with each new administration.

Overall, even though a failure on the CLARITY Act’s vote next week would remove a potential bullish catalyst, it wouldn’t erase all of XRP’s regulatory progress experienced in the past year and a half.

But Still – Will XRP Tumble?

From a technical standpoint, XRP is currently near $1.40, above the key support at $1.34-$1.35, but it hasn’t reclaimed the crucial resistance at $1.40. If cloture fails but BTC and the broader crypto market remain stable, ChatGPT envisioned a 7% to 10% initial reaction for Ripple’s token, which would materialize with a dip to $1.20-$1.25.

A more aggressive selloff could drive the asset south toward $1.10, especially if markets interpret the result as evidence that comprehensive US crypto legislation could be delayed well after the midterms.

The dark horse comes a day later, when the Federal Reserve will conclude its September 15-16 FOMC meeting. A failed CLARITY Act vote followed by a hawkish Fed decision could turn an XRP-specific regulatory disappointment into a broader crypto selloff. In that scenario, the AI platform predicted a more painful decline toward $1.00.

On the plus side, ChatGPT said a lack of progress on the CLARITY Act alone wouldn’t be as strong a catalyst to drive XRP below $1.00.

The post What Happens to XRP if the CLARITY Act Vote Fails on September 15? AI Maps the Downside appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Inflation is heating up again, as evidenced by the PPI data that came out on Thursday. Treasury yields are approaching 5%, and the US government is trying to stabilize the bond market while proposing another trillion-dollar stimulus program.

The immediate implications for bitcoin are bearish. However, the longer-term picture is considerably more complicated.

Bad For BTC (For Now)

August producer prices rose 5.4% year-over-year, which was just slightly over expectations. At the same time, Brent crude jumped past $100 this week as the situation in the Middle East sees no actual improvement and supply disruptions continue. The probability of a rate hike after the conclusion of the FOMC meeting on September 16 is over 70%, according to futures markets and some prediction platforms.

The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to just under 5%, despite the Treasury’s ongoing efforts to improve liquidity in long-dated government debt. Higher yields typically mean tighter financial conditions, a stronger incentive to hold relatively safe government debt, and, unfortunately for the bitcoin bulls, less appetite for speculative assets.

This helps explain why BTC’s initial rally that drove it from under $65,000 to $82,000 hit a brick wall, and the asset has been unable to push through in the past few weeks. However, that’s only half the story.

Bullish Long Term

As previously reported, the Treasury initially doubled the long-term buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation on August 19, which triggered the first BTC leg up. At the same time, long-term yields immediately dipped, and the dollar weakened.

The Treasury Department went a step further earlier this week, increasing the purchases to $6 billion. Now, though, there’s President Trump’s proposition to give every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of Congress in November. According to estimates, this could cost somewhere between $1.20 trillion and $1.35 trillion and would require congressional approval.

The analysts at the Kobeissi Letter described this as an “unprecedented” situation. We have inflation remaining too high for the Fed to ease monetary policy, while massive deficits and rising interest costs are simultaneously creating pressure for lower borrowing costs.

The Kobeissi Letter argued that these forces will favor asset owners and specifically pointed to BTC, gold, and stocks. However, this doesn’t guarantee that BTC will automatically thrive in the current economic structure. In fact, the path forward could be painful at first.

If inflation keeps rising and the Fed responds with additional rate hikes, BTC could face more pressure as yields climb. The bullish narrative emerges later if fiscal stress eventually forces policymakers toward heavier intervention, looser financial conditions, or policies that expand normal spending.

The post US Bond Market Is Flashing a Major Warning: Is This the Setup Bitcoin Was Built For? appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Ripple veteran David Schwartz recently said quite convincingly that XRP could eventually overtake bitcoin by market capitalization. However, he outlined the significance of the right conditions and that such a development wouldn’t come from BTC’s deterioration.

As such, we decided to go a bit deeper into the numbers and see what actually has to happen for Ripple’s token to emerge ahead of the current market leader.

Can XRP Overcome BTC?

The cryptocurrency community has long been dabbling with the question of whether (at least) one altcoin can replace BTC as the largest digital asset by market cap. For almost a decade, that alt representative was Ethereum (ETH), which didn’t exactly come close several years ago, but there was speculation about a potential Flippening. However, it never materialized.

The focus has now switched to Ripple’s XRP. During a recent X Spaces discussion, longtime Ripple exec and XRP Ledger architect David Schwartz said he believes it’s possible for the cross-border token to surpass BTC in terms of market cap. Moreover, he noted that such a wild scenario wouldn’t transpire because bitcoin had collapsed; instead, he argued that it would unfold under significantly different conditions.

At first, the broader crypto market would have to be dramatically more successful. Second, XRP would grow considerably faster than BTC due to the XRP Ledger’s functionality, adoption, and real-world usage.

A Loooong Way to Go

Let’s go directly to math and see where the issue stems from, as the numbers are daunting at current prices. BTC’s market is at about $1.55 trillion today, compared with approximately $87 billion for XRP. This makes the market leader around 18 times larger.

If we presume that bitcoin’s valuation remains unchanged, XRP would need to climb toward a $1.55 billion market cap simply to level the playing field. At today’s circulating supply, that would imply a mind-blowing surge to $24-$25 from the current $1.40 levels.

Schwartz’s scenario makes that hurdle even bigger, as he doesn’t believe BTC will remain stagnant. Instead, he noted that the entire crypto market could expand exponentially, meaning that BTC would most likely continue appreciating as well.

It’s worth noting that XRP has actually been closer to BTC in the past. A lot closer. And still couldn’t do it. Back in early 2018, XRP’s market cap had risen to $120 billion as the asset rocketed to its then-ATH. BTC’s market cap, on the other hand, was a more modest $250-$260 billion.

In other words, XRP was worth almost 50% as much as BTC at the time. Today, that ratio is down to 5%-6%, which makes Schwartz’s scenario even harder to materialize. But then again, nothing is impossible, right?

The post Could XRP Actually Flip Bitcoin? Former Ripple CTO Says Yes – But the Math Is Brutal appeared first on CryptoPotato.

For the first time since the breakout week in mid-August, the spot Bitcoin ETFs turned red, with more than $460 million leaving the funds over the past four business days.

The same cannot be said about the Ethereum counterparts, as they continue to gain significant net inflows as the underlying asset tries to extend its rally.

BTC ETFs See Red

The exchange-traded funds tracking the performance of the largest cryptocurrency registered their best week in months between August 17 and 21, attracting over $1.9 billion as BTC’s price soared from under $65,000 to almost $80,000 within days. The following couple of weeks were also quite bullish, with $924 million and $986 million in net inflows.

However, the trend changed last week. Monday was a non-trading day (Labor Day), and the net outflows began on Tuesday, with $46.65 million in net withdrawals. $120.24 million followed on Wednesday, $282.56 million on Thursday, and $13.29 million on Friday – the day that the CPI numbers came out.

Consequently, the total net outflows for the week reached $462.73 million. The total net inflows declined from $55.62 billion at the end of the previous business week to $55.15 billion on September 11.

BTC’s price had a volatile end to the week as well, dropping from $77,000 to $76,000 before it surged to $79,800, then returned to its starting point. Next week is expected to be even more eventful, as the CLARITY Act will get its moment in the US Senate, and the Fed will announce its next rate move a day later.

ETH ETFs Keep Gaining

The spot Ethereum ETFs also began the business week with investors withdrawing $24.29 million. Wednesday was more positive, as investors poured in $34.75 million. However, sellers were back in control with another $29.76 million taken out on Thursday.

Friday is what changed the entire week. Data from SoSoValue shows that the net inflows for the day hit a two-week peak of $216.41 million, which is quite a contrast to the BTC ETFs.

ETH’s price experienced massive volatility on that day. It traded at $2,440 just after the CPI announcement, but skyrocketed by over 8% within an hour or so, surging to $2,670 for the first time since late January. However, it was rejected there and returned to just over $2,500, where it has remained since.

Thus, the Ethereum ETFs extended their green streak to four in a row. Moreover, only one out of the previous 10 weeks has been in the red, and the outflows were quite modest, at just $2.26 million. Within this timeframe, the total net inflows have recovered from under $10.89 billion to $13.39 billion.

The post Ethereum ETFs Stay Strong as Bitcoin Funds Lose $460M in a Week appeared first on CryptoPotato.