<h2>Strategy Targets September STRC Recovery After $8.22B Bitcoin Loss&nbsp;</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Strategy reported an $8.22 billion loss, sold Bitcoin to strengthen cash reserves and prioritized restoring STRC to par before restarting aggressive accumulation.</li><li>Coinbase missed revenue and EBITDA estimates as weaker trading activity pressured earnings, leaving Wall Street divided over when volumes and the stock could recover.</li><li>Tether’s excess reserves fell from $8.2 billion to $4.1 billion, while weaker investment performance pushed first-half results negative despite continued USDT adoption growth.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>Reports show Strategy&nbsp;<a href="https://www.strategy.com/press/strategy-announces-second-quarter-2026-financial-results_07-30-2026">posted</a> an $8.22 billion second-quarter loss, driven by an $8.32 billion&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> markdown, while MSTR fell 6.14% from $97.59 to $91.60. Holdings reached 843,775&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">BTC</a> at a $75,531 average price after selling roughly 3,600 BTC for liquidity. Its mNAV slipped to 1.03x. Strategy rebuilt dollar reserves from $871 million to $3.75 billion, covering about 2.1 years of obligations, and authorized $1 billion in preferred-stock buybacks. STRC recovered from $74.57 to about $89, with management targeting $99-$100 by September 8 before resuming aggressive Bitcoin accumulation and digital-credit issuance to repair its dividend funding engine.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Coinbase Misses Q2 Estimates as Wall Street Splits on Recovery&nbsp;</h2><a href="https://coin360.com/review/coinbase">Coinbase</a>’s second-quarter results missed nearly every estimate, with $1.22 billion in revenue and $208 million in adjusted EBITDA as weak crypto prices and trading volumes pressured transactions and subscriptions. Third-quarter guidance also trailed consensus, sending shares down 6% premarket and prompting estimate and price-target cuts. Coinbase captured a record 10.3% of global crypto trading volume, its third consecutive quarterly gain, while derivatives volume stayed flat as the broader market fell double digits. Prediction markets exceeded a $100 million annualized revenue run rate, and Coinbase One surpassed one million subscribers, but analysts remained divided on recovery timing.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Tether Excess Reserves Halve as Q2 Loss Tops $4 Billion&nbsp;</h2><a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt">Tether</a> reported that excess reserves halved to $4.1 billion from $8.2 billion quarter over quarter, while first-half financial results turned negative by $3.2 billion. The figures imply a second-quarter loss exceeding $4 billion after $1 billion in first-quarter profit, despite $1.5 billion in net operating profit, down from $4.9 billion net profit a year earlier. Bitcoin holdings fell to $5.8 billion from $6.6 billion, and precious-metals assets declined to $18.8 billion from $19.8 billion despite adding 14 tons of gold. Secured lending exposure decreased by $2.4 billion, while&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt">USDT</a> users surpassed 650 million globally during Q2.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Three-System Crypto Vault Robot

Strategy, Coinbase and Tether Q2 Results Expose Crypto’s Liquidity Squeeze 

<h2>Sanctions cover Dubai money flows and Strait of Hormuz shipping payments</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>A Dubai-based network allegedly moved about $4 billion through the unlicensed Shelbit crypto exchange.</li><li>U.S. sanctions targeted Iranian maritime entities accused of collecting Bitcoin payments from ships crossing the Strait of Hormuz.</li><li>Investigators linked the networks to sanctioned Iranian institutions and IRGC-associated wallets, though Shelbit’s direct IRGC control was not established.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>The United States has intensified pressure on Iran-linked cryptocurrency operations after investigators traced about $4 billion through a Dubai-based exchange and the Treasury Department sanctioned a separate maritime payment program accused of collecting&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> and other digital assets from ships using the Strait of Hormuz.Details published on July 31, 2026, outlined two alleged sanctions-evasion models. One centered on Shelbit, an unlicensed cryptocurrency exchange operated by Iranian expatriate Siavash Kayvanpour. The other involved maritime “insurance” policies that U.S. officials said generated revenue for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps by requiring commercial vessels to pay for protection against risks associated with passage through the Strait of Hormuz.Shelbit&nbsp;<a href="https://www.reuters.com/investigations/illicit-iranian-gambling-network-helped-pull-off-4-billion-sanctions-dodge-2026-07-31/">allegedly</a> operated as a central crypto hub connecting illegal gambling businesses, the Central Bank of Iran, sanctioned Iranian entities and international digital-asset markets. Investigators characterized the operation as one of the largest Iranian sanctions-evasion networks uncovered since 2016, when the United States dismantled an approximately $20 billion IRGC-linked gold-for-oil operation based in Turkey.A separate U.S. enforcement action in May 2026 resulted in the seizure of $1 billion in cryptocurrency from Iran.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Dubai exchange linked to gambling and sanctioned entities</h2>A large illegal gambling network headquartered in Dubai allegedly became one of Shelbit’s principal customers and transferred millions of dollars in cryptocurrency through the exchange. The network comprised more than 2,000 platforms and ranked among the world’s largest known illegal online gambling operations.John Wojcik, a former researcher at Infoblox and senior analyst at TRM Labs who spent seven years investigating illegal gambling for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said: “This is by far the biggest Iranian illegal gambling network ever discovered and one of the biggest in the world.”Shelbit allegedly provided the gambling network, the Central Bank of Iran and other sanctioned Iranian entities with access to international crypto liquidity and infrastructure that would otherwise be difficult to reach through conventional banking channels.The Central Bank of Iran has been sanctioned under U.S. counterterrorism authorities since 2019 over its alleged support for the IRGC, the IRGC’s Quds Force and Hezbollah.<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/blockchain">Blockchain</a> investigators traced direct interactions between Shelbit and the Central Bank of Iran, wallets linked to the IRGC by the Israeli government and Nobitex, an Iranian cryptocurrency exchange sanctioned by the United States earlier in 2026 following an investigation into its government connections.Some cryptocurrency entering Shelbit allegedly came from an Iranian Bitcoin-mining operation that generated newly issued digital coins, according to two investigative firms. Those assets entered the network without first passing through a bank, fiat on-ramp or foreign exchange provider.Shelbit allegedly transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to major global cryptocurrency companies, including&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/binance">Binance</a>.Binance said Shelbit had never held an account directly on its platform and that transactions associated with the exchange were not initially categorized as high risk. Binance said it later reviewed users connected to Shelbit, froze relevant accounts and reported them to law-enforcement authorities.Rich Sanders, an independent&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/blockchain">blockchain</a> researcher and investigator focused on Iran, said: “It’s an IRGC operation, and that’s plain as day.”Investigators did not establish that the IRGC directly controlled Shelbit or the Dubai gambling network. The financial and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a>-level connections therefore did not resolve whether the organization exercised direct operational command over either entity.The IRGC was founded in 1979 and is accountable directly to Iran’s supreme leader, identified in the information as Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Treasury sanctions alleged maritime payment scheme</h2><a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0581">U.S. sanctions</a> imposed on Wednesday, July 29, 2026, targeted the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and the HormuzSafe Marine Services Authority, also known as Hormuz Safe.The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control accused the two Iranian entities of operating a maritime payment mechanism that generated revenue for the IRGC by pressuring commercial vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz to purchase insurance payable in Bitcoin and other digital assets.U.S. officials characterized the arrangement as extortion rather than conventional maritime insurance because the policies covered vessel seizures and other dangers largely created or controlled by Iran.The Treasury Department said the risks “are overwhelmingly created by Iran itself.”Commercial vessels allegedly had to purchase the policies to obtain safer passage through the Strait of Hormuz. The route is a strategically important corridor for international energy shipments.Iran’s Ministry of Economy developed Hormuz Safe, according to the Treasury Department. The platform accepted Bitcoin and other digital assets as part of the Iranian government’s efforts to bypass Western sanctions and avoid reliance on correspondent banks, dollar-clearing systems and other conventional financial intermediaries.The Persian Gulf Strait Authority approved the policies. The United States identified the authority as IRGC-backed and sanctioned it in May 2026.The Treasury Department designated the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and Hormuz Safe under an executive order covering Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical sectors.The restrictions prohibit U.S. individuals and companies from transacting with the designated entities. Foreign businesses may also face secondary-sanctions exposure for dealing with them, including when payments are made in Bitcoin or another digital asset.“Violations of U.S. sanctions may result in the imposition of civil or criminal penalties on U.S. and foreign persons,” the Treasury Department said.The Treasury Department added: “Non-U.S. persons are also prohibited from causing or conspiring to cause U.S. persons to wittingly or unwittingly violate U.S. sanctions, as well as engaging in conduct that evades U.S. sanctions.”Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: “With its economy in freefall and inflation in the triple digits, the regime is desperate for cash.”“The United States will not allow Iran to hold global commerce hostage or use international shipping to finance the IRGC’s terrorism, aggression, and repression,” Bessent said.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Bitcoin insurance proposal preceded sanctions</h2>The maritime program had surfaced on May 18, 2026, when state-linked accounts described an Iranian Economy Ministry proposal to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz using marine insurance policies settled in Bitcoin.Hormuz Safe’s website displayed only a landing page at that time. It could not be independently verified whether the platform was operational or whether cargo owners had purchased policies.State-linked accounts claimed the insurance model could generate more than $10 billion. They did not provide the methodology or assumptions supporting that projection, leaving the amount as an attributed claim rather than a verified revenue estimate.Crypto scam messages offering safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for digital-currency payments began circulating in April 2026. Those solicitations culminated in an attack on a tanker northeast of Oman, although the information did not establish who carried out the attack or conclusively connect it to the sanctioned companies.Shipping traffic through the Strait declined during several weeks of U.S. strikes on Iran. Military tensions and reduced vessel traffic kept oil prices elevated because of the route’s role in global energy transportation.The maritime program combined digital-asset settlement with insurance documentation, IRGC-backed authorization and alleged coercion involving physical shipping traffic. The Shelbit network used a different structure, aggregating funds from gambling platforms, sanctioned institutions, mining operations and other sources before transferring assets into larger international markets.Both operations allegedly connected cryptocurrency activity to the IRGC. Shelbit interacted with IRGC-linked wallets and sanctioned entities, while the Treasury Department said proceeds from the maritime insurance arrangement were intended to finance the organization.Direct IRGC ownership or operational control was not established for Shelbit or the gambling network. The Treasury Department, however, directly identified the Persian Gulf Strait Authority as IRGC-backed and alleged that the maritime arrangement directed revenue to the IRGC.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Oil Rig Robot at Strait Checkpoint

U.S. Targets Iran-Linked Crypto Networks Moving Billions

<h2>State approval complements Circle’s newly authorized federal trust bank</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>NYDFS approved a limited-purpose trust charter for Circle New York Trust on July 31, 2026.</li><li>The New York entity is expected to handle USDC issuance under state supervision.</li><li>Circle National Trust will operate separately under federal oversight for fiduciary digital-asset custody.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>Circle Internet Group&nbsp;<a href="https://www.circle.com/pressroom/circle-granted-trust-charter-by-the-new-york-department-of-financial-services">secured</a> approval from the New York Department of Financial Services to establish a limited-purpose trust company tied to its&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/usd-coin-usdc">USDC</a> operations, adding state supervision to a regulatory structure that also includes a newly authorized federal trust bank.The company announced the approval for Circle Internet Trust Company LLC, which will operate as Circle New York Trust. The charter creates a New York-regulated entity within Circle’s U.S. operating structure and supports the company’s plans for USDC issuance under NYDFS oversight.Circle said the authorization strengthens the regulatory foundation supporting USDC in New York, where the company maintains its global headquarters. The approval also extends Circle’s relationship with NYDFS, which began when the company became the first recipient of a BitLicense in 2015.Jeremy Allaire, co-founder, chairman and chief executive of Circle, said the company had pursued the state charter for years.“Earning a New York trust charter has been a longstanding objective for Circle given the regulatory clarity that comes with it,” Allaire said.Allaire also pointed to NYDFS’ broader influence over digital-asset regulation and Circle’s presence in the state.“NYDFS is an international standard setter for digital asset regulation, and New York is Circle’s global headquarters,” he said. “This charter reflects over a decade of regulatory commitment and positions USDC within a strong, respected framework as digital dollars become central to the global financial system.”<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>State and federal entities serve different roles</h2>The New York approval follows the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s final authorization for Circle to establish First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A., which will operate as&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/circle-occ-trust-bank-approval">Circle National Trust</a>.The OCC granted that approval on July 10, 2026. Circle National Trust will operate under federal supervision and provide fiduciary custody services for digital assets.The two approvals cover separate legal entities and functions. Circle New York Trust is expected to serve as the state-regulated entity associated with USDC issuance, while Circle National Trust will initially focus on safeguarding digital assets for clients through federally supervised fiduciary custody.Circle’s original national trust-bank application included plans for the federal entity to manage the assets backing USDC. That responsibility was deferred to a later phase and is not part of Circle National Trust’s immediate authorized role.The structure gives Circle regulatory coverage at both the New York state and federal levels without assigning identical responsibilities to the two entities. USDC issuance and fiduciary custody will remain divided across their respective regulatory frameworks.Circle describes its broader business as a regulated&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoin</a> network built around USDC, the Circle Payments Network and the Arc&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/blockchain">blockchain</a>. USDC is the second-largest U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin behind&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt">Tether</a>’s&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt">USDT</a>.The New York charter marks another step in Circle’s effort to place its stablecoin and custody infrastructure within formal state and federal supervisory systems while maintaining separate entities for issuance, custody and potential future reserve-management responsibilities.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Secure Vault Robot at Work

Circle Wins New York Trust Charter for USDC Operations

Industrial Entropy Containment Lab

Coldcard Flaws Expose Bitcoin Wallets After $38 Million Drain

Cubic Robot Between Institutions

CLARITY Act Stalls as Senate Deadline Narrows

<h2>Civil enforcement targets platform controls as Pavel Durov faces a separate criminal charge</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Australia’s online safety regulator sued Telegram over alleged failures to remove publicly accessible pro-terror content.</li><li>Russia charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activity and issued an international arrest warrant.</li><li>GRAM fell 12% for the week as Durov faced parallel legal proceedings in Russia and France.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>Australia’s online safety regulator has filed&nbsp;<a href="https://www.esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media-releases/esafety-commences-civil-penalty-proceedings-against-telegram-over-alleged-failings-to-tackle-terror">civil proceedings</a> against Telegram over alleged systemic failures to detect and remove pro-terror material, while Russia has separately charged founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activity. The Australian case carries a potential penalty of up to A$54.6 million, and Russian authorities announced an international arrest warrant for Durov on July 29, 2026.The Australian proceedings were announced on July 30, 2026, following a year-long investigation into Telegram’s compliance with the country’s Online Safety Act. The regulator alleges that Telegram allowed publicly accessible extremist material to remain available after the company had received regulatory notices and reports from Australian users.The material cited in the case included videos showing terrorist executions, mass shootings and other extremist violence. Some content reported by Australian users allegedly remained accessible for up to three weeks after the reports were submitted.The regulator also accused Telegram of failing to proactively identify copies of previously documented terrorist material, including footage from the March 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings and the May 2022 Buffalo mass shooting. Some of the known footage allegedly remained on the platform for nearly three months before removal.The Australian lawsuit extends beyond individual posts. The regulator alleges that Telegram failed to adequately remove or restrict related accounts, groups and channels, allowing the infrastructure used to distribute the material to remain active.Telegram was also accused of failing to maintain terms of service that consistently prohibited pro-terror material across all areas of the platform. The regulator further alleged that Telegram did not inform users about the outcome of reports they submitted against the disputed content.eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the proceedings concerned material connected to widely known acts of extremist violence.“This case concerns content linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history,” Inman Grant said.Inman Grant linked the enforcement action to Australia’s domestic security environment following the Bondi terror attack and cited the country’s terrorism threat level as “probable.” She also referenced ASIO Director General Mike Burgess’ assessment that online radicalization was becoming increasingly prominent in the agency’s investigations and often involved interactions with strangers online.Telegram reports having more than 1 billion users worldwide. Australians visit the service an average of approximately 1.5 million times per month, according to figures cited by the regulator.Telegram groups can include as many as 200,000 users, while broadcast channels do not have a stated maximum audience. Those distribution features form part of the regulator’s concern that prohibited material can move between accounts, bots, groups and channels rather than remaining limited to a single post.The Australian case is a civil enforcement proceeding, and the allegations have not been established by a final court ruling. The Federal Court had not issued a liability decision or ordered Telegram to pay the maximum penalty described in the proceedings.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Russia accuses Durov of facilitating terrorist activity</h2>Russia’s Federal Security Service said it&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/pavel-durov-russia-terrorism-charge">charged</a> Durov with facilitating terrorist activity and accused Telegram of failing to remove channels, chats, bots and other material allegedly used for hostile activity inside Russia.The FSB alleged that Ukrainian intelligence services, terrorist groups and extremist organizations used Telegram to coordinate attacks, recruit operatives and conduct cyber fraud. Russian authorities also linked the disputed material to alleged efforts involving sabotage and mass killings.The Russian allegations concern Durov and Telegram’s handling of content posted by users. They do not accuse&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/gram-gram">GRAM</a>, the token’s&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/blockchain">blockchain</a>, validators or&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a> infrastructure of financing terrorism.The information accompanying the announcement did not provide evidence supporting the FSB’s allegations or identify the specific Telegram channels, bots, operators or incidents connected to the charge.Russian authorities described the warrant as international but did not identify the wanted-person mechanism being used. A review of Interpol’s public Red Notice database on the morning of the announcement did not show Durov among its listed records.Telegram did not publish a written response addressing the new accusations. Its official X account instead posted an image showing Durov making an obscene gesture.Russian authorities opened the underlying criminal investigation against Durov in February 2026 over alleged terrorism links. Durov responded by accusing the government of using the legal system to pressure Telegram and limit access to private communications.“Each day, the authorities fabricate new pretexts to restrict Russians’ access to Telegram as they seek to suppress the right to privacy and free speech,” Durov said.Durov said in April that Russian authorities appeared to be accusing him of defending constitutional protections for free speech and private correspondence. He said he was proud to be guilty of defending those protections.Russia has attempted to restrict Telegram since 2018, although government agencies, officials, military-linked communities and other state-associated users have continued to use the platform for public and operational communications.Russian authorities reportedly delivered a summons to a former&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/wallet-address">address</a> associated with Durov during the same month as his comments. Durov has not lived in Russia for more than a decade.Durov holds Emirati and French passports. A May 16 Telegram post placed him in Dubai, while a July 23 update suggested he was in Georgia and expected to return soon.No foreign government was reported to have arrested Durov, opened extradition proceedings or publicly recognized the Russian warrant.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>French investigation remains active</h2>Durov also remains under criminal investigation in France over alleged illegal activity conducted through Telegram and the platform’s level of cooperation with law enforcement.French authorities detained Durov at Paris Le Bourget Airport in August 2024. The detention produced a substantially larger immediate market reaction in the token then known as&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/toncoin-ton">Toncoin</a>.French authorities lifted Durov’s travel restrictions earlier in 2026, allowing him to leave the country while the investigation continued. The change did not end the investigation.The French and Russian cases concern different allegations. France is examining suspected criminal activity facilitated through Telegram and the platform’s alleged failure to cooperate adequately with law enforcement, while Russia is focusing on wartime security, terrorism-related claims and alleged use of the platform by Ukrainian intelligence and extremist organizations.The Australian action adds a separate legal issue directed at Telegram’s content-moderation systems and statutory obligations rather than Durov’s personal criminal liability.Neither the Australian nor Russian allegations state that Telegram created the disputed material. Both cases focus on whether the platform detected, removed, restricted or responded adequately to content distributed by users.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>GRAM falls as founder-related legal risk returns</h2><a href="https://coin360.com/review/coin360-dex">COIN360</a> data showed the GRAM price declined in early trading after the Russian announcement and was down 12% for the week. The weekly move included trading before and after the charge, meaning the decline cannot be attributed entirely to the Russian action.The initial GRAM price reaction was smaller than Toncoin’s decline following Durov’s detention in France, when the asset fell sharply and lost billions of dollars in market value.The more limited move was presented as a possible sign that investors had already incorporated recurring legal risk linked to Durov into the token’s valuation. That explanation remained an observation rather than a confirmed cause of the market movement.Toncoin was rebranded as GRAM in 2026, reviving the name associated with Telegram’s abandoned blockchain token project. The rebranding tied the asset’s identity more closely to Durov’s history and long-term vision.Telegram and Durov have promoted plans to distribute a native, non-custodial GRAM wallet through Telegram applications, using the messaging service’s global audience as a potential distribution channel.The Russian charge does not accuse the GRAM network, its validators, its wallet technology or token holders of participating in the alleged conduct.Telegram continued operating following the Australian and Russian developments, and no authority was reported to have ordered a global shutdown of the platform.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Cube Robot at a Legal Crossroads

Telegram Faces Terror-Content Cases in Australia and Russia

<h2>International warrant adds another legal front as GRAM extends weekly losses</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Russia’s Federal Security Service charged Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activity and issued an international arrest warrant.</li><li>The FSB accused Telegram of failing to remove content allegedly used to coordinate attacks, recruitment and cyber fraud inside Russia.</li><li>GRAM fell 12% over the week, though its initial reaction was smaller than after Durov’s detention in France.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>Russia’s Federal Security Service <a href="https://www.interfax.ru/russia/1106228">said</a> on July 29, 2026, that it had charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activity and issued an international warrant for his arrest, escalating an earlier Russian criminal case as the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/gram-gram">GRAM token</a> extended its weekly decline.The FSB alleged that Telegram failed to remove channels, chats, bots and other material used by Ukrainian intelligence services, terrorist groups and extremist organizations for activity inside Russia. Russian authorities said the disputed content was used to coordinate attacks, recruit operatives and conduct cyber fraud. The allegations also covered purported efforts to organize sabotage and mass killings.The accusations remain allegations by the FSB. The available information did not include evidence supporting the claims or identify the Telegram channels, bots, suspected operators or specific incidents involved.Interfax reported the FSB’s announcement but did not identify which international wanted list Russian authorities were using. A review of Interpol’s public Red Notice database on the morning of the announcement did not show Durov among its listed records.Telegram did not publish a written response addressing the latest accusations. Its official X account instead posted an image showing Durov making an obscene gesture.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Russian case builds on earlier criminal investigation</h2>Russian authorities had opened a criminal case against Durov over alleged terrorism links in February 2026. Durov confirmed the existence of that investigation and accused the government of creating legal pretexts to pressure Telegram and restrict access to the platform.“Each day, the authorities fabricate new pretexts to restrict Russians’ access to Telegram as they seek to suppress the right to privacy and free speech,” Durov said.Durov said in April that Russian authorities appeared to be accusing him of defending constitutional protections for free speech and private correspondence. He said he was proud to be guilty of defending those protections.Durov has not issued a written public response to the formal charge or reported warrant.Russia has attempted to restrict Telegram since 2018, while government agencies, officials, military-linked communities and other state-associated users have continued using the platform for public and operational communications.Reports preceding the charge said Russian authorities delivered an April summons to a former Russian&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/wallet-address">address</a> connected to Durov. He has not lived in the country for more than a decade.Durov holds Emirati and French passports. His location at the time of the Russian announcement was not confirmed. A May 16 Telegram post placed him in Dubai, while a July 23 update suggested he was in Georgia and expected to return soon.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>French investigation remains unresolved</h2>Durov also remains under criminal investigation in France over alleged illegal activity conducted through Telegram. French authorities detained him at Paris Le Bourget Airport in August 2024, triggering a substantially larger immediate market reaction in the token then known as&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/toncoin-ton">Toncoin</a>.The French investigation concerns Telegram’s alleged failure to cooperate adequately with law enforcement and suspected criminal activity facilitated through the platform. Russia’s case differs by centering on wartime security, terrorism-related allegations and the purported use of Telegram by Ukrainian intelligence and extremist organizations.French authorities lifted Durov’s travel restrictions earlier this year, allowing him to leave the country while the investigation continued.The Russian action therefore creates a separate legal front involving different allegations and a more severe terrorism-related charge. No foreign government was reported to have arrested Durov, begun extradition proceedings or publicly recognized the Russian warrant.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>GRAM faces renewed founder-related pressure</h2>GRAM declined in early trading after the Russian announcement and was down 12% for the week. The weekly move covers trading before and after the charge and cannot be attributed entirely to the July 29 development.<figure class="image"><img alt="chart.webp" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/chart_0161508cf9.webp"></figure>The initial reaction was smaller than the decline following Durov’s French detention, when Toncoin fell sharply and lost billions of dollars in market value. The more limited move was presented as a possible sign that investors had already priced some recurring legal risk linked to Durov into the token.Toncoin was rebranded as GRAM in 2026, reviving the name associated with Telegram’s abandoned&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/blockchain">blockchain</a> token project. The change tied the asset’s identity more closely to Durov’s long-term vision and reduced the perceived separation between his legal exposure and the token’s market narrative.The Russian allegations did not accuse GRAM, its blockchain, validators or&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a> infrastructure of financing terrorism. The charge concerns Durov and Telegram’s alleged failure to remove content used by hostile or extremist actors.Telegram and Durov had also promoted plans to distribute a native, non-custodial GRAM wallet through Telegram applications. The platform was reported to have more than 1 billion users, giving the planned wallet broad potential distribution.The case leaves Durov facing parallel investigations in Russia and France while Telegram continues operating and pursuing deeper integration with GRAM. Further developments would depend on whether Durov responds, Russian authorities release formal legal documents, Interpol publishes a notice or another jurisdiction acts on the warrant.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Blue Message Sorting Facility

Russia Charges Telegram Founder Pavel Durov With Facilitating Terrorism

<h2>Abu Dhabi launch is moving forward, while Binance.US must first secure federal authorization</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Binance is adding USDT-settled gold and silver options through its regulated Abu Dhabi exchange.</li><li>Retail traders may buy the contracts, while approved institutions and liquidity providers may also write them.</li><li>Binance.US plans to seek CFTC authorization to operate its own regulated prediction market.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr><a href="https://coin360.com/review/binance">Binance</a> is expanding into regulated derivatives beyond cryptocurrency trading, launching gold and silver options through its Abu Dhabi operation while&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/exchange/binance_us">Binance.US</a> prepares to seek federal approval for a prediction market. The metals products will operate through an existing regulated exchange, while the U.S. initiative remains a proposed application rather than an approved service.Binance said the contracts will track gold and silver prices and settle in&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt">USDT</a>, allowing customers to gain exposure to price movements without receiving or storing physical metal.The options will be listed through Nest Exchange Limited, Binance’s regulated exchange entity in the Abu Dhabi Global Market. Nest Exchange Limited operates as a Recognized Investment Exchange regulated within the financial center.The products are derivatives tied to metal prices rather than&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/blockchain">blockchain</a> tokens representing direct ownership of bullion. Traders may use the contracts to speculate on or hedge against movements in the underlying markets, but settlement will occur through USDT instead of physical delivery.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Retail Losses Limited to Option Premiums</h2>Retail users will be permitted to buy the options but will not be allowed to write or sell option contracts. Binance said the restriction is intended to limit a retail buyer’s possible loss to the premium paid for the contract.Eligible institutional customers and approved liquidity providers will be allowed to write the options. Those participants can collect premiums and provide market liquidity while assuming the obligations and greater risks associated with selling contracts.The launch follows Binance’s introduction of gold and silver&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/perpetual-futures">perpetual</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/futures-contract">futures</a> in January 2026, extending the exchange’s regulated commodity-derivatives offering beyond perpetual products.Crypto companies have pursued different methods of bringing precious-metal exposure into digital markets. Binance is using derivatives linked to commodity prices, while other businesses have issued blockchain assets backed by physical bullion.<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt">Tether</a><a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-gold-xaut"> Gold</a>, which trades under the ticker&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-gold-xaut">XAUt</a>, represents exposure to one troy ounce of gold stored in Swiss vaults. The product recently received Shariah certification from Amanah Advisors, supporting its use by Islamic financial institutions and investors seeking Shariah-compliant assets.Abu Dhabi Global Market recognized XAUt as an accepted spot commodity earlier in July 2026, permitting regulated firms within the financial center to offer services connected to the tokenized gold asset.Tokenized commodities had approximately $4.56 billion in distributed value when the information was released. Tether Gold and Paxos Gold together accounted for more than 90% of the sector, showing that tokenized bullion exposure was concentrated among the two issuers.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Binance bStocks Expands Tokenized Asset Reach</h2>Binance bStocks reached 500 million dollars in assets under management within seven weeks of its June 11 2026 launch. The offering expanded from five assets to more than 46 tokenized stocks and spot exchange traded funds, including Apple, Amazon, Goldman Sachs, PayPal, Dell Technologies and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. Eligible users receive trading access and instant fee free conversions between tokenized assets and underlying shares.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.binance.com/en/square/post/07-29-2026-binanace-news-binance-bstocks-crosses-500-million-in-seven-weeks-a-new-generation-is-making-its-first-stock-market-investment-through-crypto-349929565573153">Binance data</a> showed that 41.5 percent of users made their first traditional asset investment through bStocks, while Generation Z produced 44 percent of trading volume. After United States stock exchanges closed, 58 percent of Binance equity linked trading volume shifted to bStocks. Weekend trading volume reached 2 billion dollars. The exchange also said 58.5 percent of holders used at least one Binance product. Shunyet Jan, Head of Exchange and Trading at Binance, said users want constant access and closer integration between traditional and digital assets.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Binance.US Plans CFTC Application</h2>Binance.US separately plans to apply to the Commodity&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/futures-contract">Futures</a> Trading Commission for registration as a Designated Contract Market, which would provide a regulated route for offering prediction-market contracts to U.S. customers.Binance.US CEO Steve Gregory announced the plan at the Rare Evo blockchain conference. Gregory said the exchange expects to submit its Designated Contract Market application sometime in August 2026.Approval would allow Binance.US to establish its own prediction market and potentially compete more directly with event-contract platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket.No Binance.US application appeared in the CFTC’s public records when the plan was announced. The initiative therefore remained an intention to seek authorization, rather than an approved market or confirmed product launch.CFTC guidelines state that a Designated Contract Market may trade “futures or option contracts based on any underlying commodity, index or instrument.” Event contracts may operate within that derivatives framework when offered through an eligible and compliant venue.Applicants must comply with 23 CFTC core principles. Those requirements include maintaining system safeguards, preserving records and implementing procedures for identifying and addressing conflicts of interest.The registration process would require Binance.US to demonstrate that its technology, governance, documentation, surveillance systems and market-integrity controls satisfy federal derivatives-market standards.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>U.S. Plan Follows SEC Case Dismissal</h2>The proposed CFTC application follows a change in Binance.US’s legal position after the Securities and Exchange Commission dismissed its lawsuit against Binance, Binance.US and former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao more than one year before the prediction-market announcement.The SEC case had included allegations that the Binance entities misused customer funds. Its dismissal does not constitute CFTC authorization because the proposed prediction-market registration would undergo a separate review under commodities and derivatives rules.The two Binance initiatives are at different regulatory stages. The gold and silver options are proceeding through Nest Exchange Limited, an existing regulated entity in Abu Dhabi, while the Binance.US prediction market depends on an application that had not been filed when the plan was disclosed.The products also serve different markets. The Abu Dhabi contracts provide regulated exposure to precious-metal prices, while the proposed U.S. venue would offer derivatives tied to the outcomes of future events.Risk controls differ between the two projects. Binance’s metals offering separates retail and institutional permissions by limiting retail customers to buying options, while the Binance.US proposal would require compliance with federal operating, governance and market-safeguard standards before launch.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Golden Robot Exchange Vault

Binance Expands Regulated Derivatives With Metals Options and U.S. Prediction-Market Plan

<h2>Event contracts become a leading revenue stream while crypto transaction revenue declines</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Robinhood posted record quarterly revenue and net income as transaction-based revenue increased across several product lines.</li><li>Prediction-market event contracts generated more revenue than cryptocurrency or equities trading during the quarter.</li><li>Crypto transaction revenue declined even as Bitstamp expanded Robinhood’s trading volume and the company launched new blockchain products.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>Robinhood&nbsp;<a href="https://investors.robinhood.com/static-files/2f42ce10-59b7-4880-8371-7d52ede7c22e">reported</a> record second-quarter 2026 revenue and earnings on July 29, as rapid growth in prediction markets outweighed a sharp decline in cryptocurrency transaction revenue. Event contracts became a larger revenue source than both crypto and equities trading, while Robinhood continued expanding through&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/exchange/bitstamp">Bitstamp</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/robinhood-chain-tokenized-stocks-crypto-expansion">Robinhood Chain</a>, tokenized stocks and decentralized lending.Total net revenue rose 32% year over year to $1.31 billion. Net income increased 48% to $573 million, while transaction-based revenue climbed 44% to $776 million.Chief Financial Officer Shiv Verma said the company reached new highs across several trading categories. “We delivered record revenues and drove new highs across equity, option, and event contract volumes, as we continue to win market share,” Verma said.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Prediction markets surpass crypto and equities revenue</h2>Prediction-market event contracts produced the most revenue among the three disclosed trading categories. The quarterly comparison showed how quickly the business expanded after Robinhood entered event contracts through election-related products and later established a dedicated prediction-markets hub.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Trading category</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Quarterly revenue</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Year-over-year detail</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Prediction-market event contracts</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$156 million</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">No comparison provided</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Equities trading</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$129 million</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">No comparison provided</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Cryptocurrency trading</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$100 million</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Down 38% from approximately $160 million</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>Event contracts exceeded equities revenue by $27 million and crypto transaction revenue by $56 million. Prediction-market revenue was about 21% higher than equities revenue and 56% higher than crypto revenue.The three categories generated a combined $385 million, representing about 49.6% of transaction-based revenue. Crypto accounted for approximately 12.9% of that total, event contracts represented about 20.1%, and equities contributed approximately 16.6%. Other transaction products, including options, made up the remaining revenue.Robinhood entered prediction markets in October 2024 with contracts tied to the U.S. presidential election. The company launched a dedicated prediction-markets hub in March 2025, turning event contracts into an ongoing product category rather than an election-specific offering.Robinhood sources event contracts from Kalshi and ForecastEx, the event-contract market operated by Interactive Brokers. The company added its own regulated infrastructure in June 2026 with the launch of Rothera, a Commodity&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/futures-contract">Futures</a> Trading Commission-licensed exchange and clearinghouse independently managed through a joint venture with Susquehanna International Group.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Bitstamp drives more than half of crypto volume</h2>Robinhood recorded $40 billion in total crypto notional trading volume during the quarter. Bitstamp generated the majority of that activity after becoming part of Robinhood’s consolidated crypto operation.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Platform</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Crypto notional volume</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Share of combined volume</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Bitstamp</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$22 billion</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">55%</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Robinhood app</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $18 billion</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">45%</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>Bitstamp processed approximately $4 billion more crypto volume than the Robinhood app. Robinhood acquired the global crypto exchange in June 2025, expanding its international and institutional digital-asset operations.The trading-volume figures and transaction-revenue figures measure different parts of the business. Robinhood’s combined crypto volume remained substantial after the Bitstamp acquisition even though the revenue generated from cryptocurrency transactions declined from the prior-year quarter.Robinhood also completed its acquisition of WonderFi, a Canadian crypto platform, and said it plans to broaden its crypto products in the United Kingdom.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Robinhood Chain expands the company’s onchain business</h2>Robinhood launched the public mainnet of Robinhood Chain earlier in July 2026. The&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/layer-2">Layer 2</a> network uses the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/arbitrum-arb">Arbitrum</a> technology stack and went live with ecosystem partners including&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/uniswap-uni">Uniswap</a>.Robinhood Chain held approximately $325 million in total value locked as of Tuesday, July 28, 2026. Decentralized exchanges operating on the network had processed more than $12 billion in trading volume since launch.Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/blockchain">blockchain</a> had seen “great initial traction.” He also pointed to its early transaction count.“It was also the fastest chain to get 100 million transactions. I think we’re well north of 150 million transactions at this point,” Tenev said during the earnings call.The disclosed decentralized-exchange volume was approximately 37 times the network’s reported total value locked. Trading volume measures cumulative activity, while total value locked reflects assets held within&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/decentralized-application">decentralized applications</a> on the network.Robinhood also introduced&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/robinhood-tokenized-stock-holders">tokenized U.S. stocks</a> to eligible users across more than 120 countries. The product extended access to blockchain-based representations of traditional equities through Robinhood’s international platform.The company launched Robinhood Earn, its first decentralized lending product, adding another onchain service alongside centralized crypto trading, tokenized securities and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/Decentralized-Crypto-Exchange-dex">decentralized exchange</a> activity.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Agentic Trading reaches nearly 100,000 accounts</h2>Nearly 100,000 customer accounts enrolled in Robinhood’s Agentic Trading product. Those accounts represented more than $100 million in assets under custody.The figures imply an average of more than approximately $1,000 in custody per enrolled account, although individual account balances may differ.Robinhood shares fell approximately 3.15% during regular trading before the earnings release. The stock declined about 3% after hours to $86.89 following the results.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Green Voxel Factory Assembly Line

Robinhood Posts Record Quarter as Prediction Markets Outpace Crypto

<h2>New system moves shareholder books onchain while preserving traditional fund infrastructure</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>BNY introduced blockchain-based ownership records for a transfer-agency business servicing 7.6 million accounts.</li><li>Baillie Gifford is working with BNY on a fully native, U.K.-regulated tokenized fund.</li><li>BNY will continue operating its existing systems as conventional and blockchain-based funds coexist.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>According to Financial Times, BNY <a href="https://www.bny.com/corporate/global/en/about-us/newsroom/press-release/bny-launches-global-digital-transfer-agency-capabilities-extending-leadership-in-fund-servicing-to-digital-market.html">disclosed</a> on July 29, 2026, that it is moving the ownership records behind its $8.6 trillion fund transfer-agency business onto&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/blockchain">blockchain</a> infrastructure, applying the technology to the regulated books that track fund shareholders rather than tokenizing all of the underlying assets.Transfer agents maintain the authoritative records showing who owns shares in a fund, how many shares each investor holds and how those positions change through subscriptions, issuances, transfers, redemptions and payouts. BNY’s system is intended to create a single digital ownership record for this activity, reducing the need for financial institutions to maintain and reconcile separate versions of the same shareholder information.“We think of BNY as modernizing a function that sits behind every single fund transaction by bringing the books and records onchain,” Carolyn Weinberg, BNY’s chief product and innovation officer, said.The project places blockchain technology inside a core fund-administration function rather than limiting its use to a standalone digital-asset product. BNY has more than $59 trillion in assets under custody and administration, making the initiative part of one of the world’s largest custody and asset-servicing operations.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Blockchain record does not mean every fund is tokenized</h2>The migration concerns the recordkeeping layer used to document fund ownership. It does not mean every fund, security or portfolio asset connected to the business has been issued as an onchain token.A blockchain shareholder register changes how ownership information is maintained. A tokenized fund goes further by representing the fund interests themselves as blockchain-based tokens. BNY’s infrastructure can support those products while also recording positions in funds that continue to use conventional issuance and distribution structures.The shared ledger is designed to reduce administrative fragmentation among fund managers, custodians, distributors, transfer agents and other service providers. Those participants traditionally may hold separate records that must be compared to ensure subscriptions, redemptions and ownership balances match across their systems.Authorized parties using a common record could instead work from a consistent ownership ledger. The initiative is intended to reduce repeated reconciliation and duplication within fund servicing, although no measured cost savings or processing improvements were included.BNY is not immediately replacing its traditional transfer-agent infrastructure. Emily Portney, BNY’s global head of asset servicing, said the bank expects legacy systems to remain necessary because “trillions and trillions of dollars’ worth of funds” will continue operating on traditional rails.The bank is pursuing a hybrid model in which conventional systems and blockchain-based records operate alongside one another. That structure allows BNY to continue servicing existing funds while supporting clients that introduce blockchain-native investment products.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Baillie Gifford tests native tokenized fund infrastructure</h2>Baillie Gifford is among the asset managers preparing to use the blockchain-based service. The firm manages more than $261 billion and is working with BNY on what the companies call the first fully native, U.K.-regulated tokenized fund.The “fully native” structure means the fund is intended to use blockchain-based issuance and recordkeeping rather than creating a token that merely mirrors an interest primarily maintained on a separate traditional ledger.BlackRock is also expected to use BNY’s infrastructure for planned fund products. Dreyfus, BNY’s money-market and cash-management business, is expected to use the system for planned funds as well.The infrastructure connects BNY’s recordkeeping modernization with regulated investment products instead of leaving the project as an internal technology test. Baillie Gifford was already testing or preparing to use the system when the initiative was announced.The deployment also aligns with BNY’s work on blockchain-based tokenized deposits and other tokenized products. The bank has outlined plans to support continuous settlement of tokenized U.S. Treasury products in 2027.That work covers separate but related components of tokenized finance, including fund ownership records, blockchain-native investment interests, tokenized deposits and settlement infrastructure.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Onchain records enter regulated financial operations</h2>The transfer-agency project moves blockchain into the authoritative books-and-records layer behind investment funds. Investors may continue interacting through familiar subscription, redemption, statement and distribution channels while the underlying ownership records operate on new infrastructure.The system could provide a chronological record of ownership changes that authorized participants can verify. A shared ledger also could reduce inconsistencies between records maintained by separate institutions.BNY recognizes that the infrastructure carries operational and cybersecurity risks. Smart-contract bugs can produce unintended behavior, while bridges connecting blockchain networks can create additional attack surfaces.A single ledger may reduce reconciliation complexity while concentrating reliance on the security, governance and availability of the network and associated software. The available information does not establish whether BNY will use public blockchain infrastructure, a permissioned network, a proprietary platform or a combination of systems.Edwin Mata, CEO and founder of tokenization platform Brickken, has estimated that Wall Street could operate entirely on blockchain technology by 2030. That forecast is Mata’s estimate and is not BNY’s implementation target.JPMorgan, Citi and Bank of America have also been reported as planning a shared tokenized-deposit network for the first half of 2027. That initiative is separate from BNY’s transfer-agency system and is intended partly to help traditional deposits compete with&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoins</a>.BNY’s immediate step is narrower and more defined: place fund ownership books onchain, support selected tokenized products and continue using traditional infrastructure for funds that remain on existing rails.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

BNY Ledger Consolidation Machine

BNY Puts $8.6 Trillion Fund Recordkeeping Business on Blockchain

Vault Guardian Redirects the Data Flow

Hong Kong Banks Score Low on Quantum Security Readiness

<h2>Self-Custodial System Lets One Wallet Balance Support Multiple DeFi Positions</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>1inch publicly launched Aqua on July 28, 2026, across 13 EVM-compatible chains.</li><li>Aqua lets liquidity providers keep assets in their wallets while backing multiple trading positions.</li><li>The rollout includes up to $1.37 million in proposed incentives and follows eight independent security audits.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr><a href="https://coin360.com/coin/1inch-1inch">1inch</a> publicly launched&nbsp;<a href="https://1inch.com/aqua">Aqua</a> on July 28, 2026, opening its self-custodial shared-liquidity protocol across 13&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a><a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/ethereum-virtual-machine"> Virtual Machine</a>-compatible chains after making its developer tools available in November 2025. Aqua allows liquidity providers to use one&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a> balance to support several trading positions without depositing separate amounts into conventional liquidity pools.The public launch introduces an interface through which liquidity providers can connect a wallet, approve token balances and configure positions describing the assets, pricing conditions and strategies they are prepared to support. Aqua operates as a registry rather than a conventional custody pool, meaning approved assets remain in the provider’s wallet until a qualifying swap is ready to execute.1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz said the protocol allows tokens to remain “in your wallet, under your control” while the same balance supports several positions and strategies instead of being divided among separate smart-contract deposits.When an incoming swap matches a provider’s configured conditions, Aqua requests only the tokens needed for that transaction. The swap, asset transfer and fee settlement then occur together through an atomic transaction, which either completes in full or fails without partial execution.Tokens remain in the provider’s wallet while no matching trade is available. The structure is intended to reduce the capital fragmentation created when liquidity providers must divide assets among separate protocols, pools, token pairs and price ranges.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>One Balance Can Back Several Liquidity Quotes</h2>Aqua allows a single wallet balance to support multiple concurrent liquidity quotes because providers do not need to reserve a separate copy of the underlying capital for every advertised position.1inch illustrated the model with a wallet holding $100,000 that could support three positions quoting a combined $300,000 in liquidity. The larger quoted amount does not represent borrowed capital or additional assets. Each executed transaction remains limited to the tokens actually available in the wallet.Aqua checks the wallet balance when a swap attempts to execute. A trade cannot use a position when the available assets are insufficient to cover the order. When one transaction consumes part of the balance, later transactions must be evaluated against the assets that remain.The design therefore reuses idle capacity across conditional positions rather than creating leverage or allowing the same assets to settle multiple obligations simultaneously.Aqua supports Ethereum,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/arbitrum-arb">Arbitrum</a>, Base,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/binance-coin-bnb">BNB</a> Chain and Robinhood Chain among its covered networks. All supported networks use&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/ethereum-virtual-machine">EVM</a>-compatible infrastructure.The public interface supports full-range positions that provide liquidity across an entire pricing range, concentrated-liquidity positions focused on narrower price intervals and pegged positions designed for assets expected to trade near a reference value.Liquidity providers can also use batch position creation, position visualizations, cross-chain provider profiles and sub-wallets to separate strategies, permissions or operational balances.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Research Finds Most Concentrated Liquidity Underused</h2>Research commissioned by 1inch tracked concentrated liquidity across major decentralized exchanges during the first half of 2026 and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2026/07/18/here-is-why-a-massive-usd1-6-billion-in-crypto-liquidity-is-sitting-idle-and-wasting-away">found</a> that a large share of the capital was not being used efficiently.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Metric</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Finding</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Meaning</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Concentrated liquidity tracked</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $1.84 billion</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Capital measured across major decentralized exchanges</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Estimated underutilized liquidity</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Roughly 85%, or approximately $1.6 billion</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Capital that was not consistently used for executable trading</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Average share outside active ranges</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">29.5% over 26 weeks</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Liquidity unable to earn trading fees while market prices remained outside configured ranges</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Average weekly capital outside active ranges</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $542 million across four protocols</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Capital unavailable for active swaps during a typical week</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Estimated missed annualized fees</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $150 million</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Potential fee income associated with capital outside active trading ranges</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>The broader underutilization estimate and the average-week figure measure different conditions. The first covers capital judged to be used inefficiently during the measured period, while the second counts liquidity that remained completely outside active price ranges during a typical week.Concentrated-liquidity positions earn fees only when market prices fall inside their configured ranges. Aqua is designed to make an underlying wallet balance available to other eligible strategies when a particular position is not using it.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Incentive Program Could Reach $1.37 Million</h2>The public rollout includes a liquidity incentive program distributed through Merkl and led by Degensoft.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Contributor</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Allocation</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Status or Value</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">1inch Foundation</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">10 million&nbsp;1INCH tokens</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Valued at approximately $870,000 at the time of publication</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">1inch&nbsp;DAO</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">500,000&nbsp;USDC</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Proposed for a three-month program and subject to a governance vote</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>The total incentive package could reach the stated combined value if the DAO allocation receives approval. The value of the foundation’s contribution can change with the market value of 1INCH.The rewards are intended to encourage liquidity providers to create Aqua positions and establish market depth across the supported networks and strategies.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Aqua Completed Eight Security Audits</h2>Aqua underwent eight independent security audits before the public launch. The firms named in connection with the reviews included OpenZeppelin, Nethermind, Hexens and Theori.Aqua does not continuously hold providers’ tokens because approved assets remain in their wallets until an eligible transaction calls them. Providers can revoke Aqua’s token approvals, preventing new fills once the revocation transaction receives on-chain confirmation.The self-custodial structure does not eliminate financial or technical risk. Liquidity providers remain exposed to token price movements, impermanent loss, smart-contract vulnerabilities and losses associated with the ranges, prices or trading pairs they select.Swap fees are also not guaranteed. Providers earn fees only when eligible trades execute against their positions, with returns depending on trading activity, position availability and pricing conditions.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>FAQ</h2><h3>What is Aqua?</h3>A self-custodial liquidity protocol allowing one wallet balance to support multiple&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/decentralised-finance">DeFi</a> positions.<h3>When did Aqua launch publicly?</h3>Aqua launched publicly on July 28, 2026.<h3>How many chains does Aqua support?</h3>Aqua supports 13 EVM-compatible chains.<h3>Does Aqua hold liquidity providers’ assets?</h3>No. Assets remain in provider-controlled wallets until an eligible swap executes.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Industrial Token Vault Robot

1inch Launches Aqua Shared Liquidity Protocol Across 13 Chains

<h2>New products add staking rewards after the firm’s Bitcoin fund drew strong demand</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Morgan Stanley launched Ethereum and Solana exchange-traded products on July 28, 2026.</li><li>MSSE and MSOL charge industry-low fees and will pass staking rewards to shareholders.</li><li>The expansion follows strong asset growth in Morgan Stanley’s earlier Bitcoin product.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>Morgan Stanley launched exchange-traded products tied to&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ether</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/solana-sol">Solana</a> on July 28, 2026, expanding its digital-asset lineup after its&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> fund attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. The Morgan Stanley&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a> Trust, trading under MSSE, and the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust, trading under MSOL, provide regulated exposure to the two assets without requiring investors to buy or custody tokens directly.The products were scheduled to trade on NYSE Arca. MSSE tracks the CoinDesk Ether Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate, while MSOL tracks the CoinDesk Solana Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate. The benchmark structures are designed to reflect the market value of their respective underlying assets through exchange-traded securities.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Product</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Ticker</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Annual fee</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Benchmark</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">MSSE</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">0.14%</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">CoinDesk Ether Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Morgan Stanley Solana Trust</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">MSOL</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">0.14%</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">CoinDesk Solana Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>Morgan Stanley positioned both products as the lowest-fee spot Ethereum and Solana exchange-traded products available at launch. The fee was below the 0.15% charged by Grayscale’s Mini Ethereum Trust and the 0.19% charged by Franklin Templeton’s Solana ETF. The Morgan Stanley charge is equivalent to about $14 annually for each $10,000 invested, excluding performance and other costs.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Funds will distribute staking rewards</h2>Morgan Stanley said it intends to stake part of the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">ETH</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/solana-sol">SOL</a> held by the funds. Rewards earned through staking are expected to be passed through to shareholders rather than retained by Morgan Stanley, adding a potential income component alongside exposure to movements in the underlying assets.The structure differs from direct token ownership. Investors receive shares representing exposure through an exchange-traded product rather than crypto assets that can be transferred onchain, used in&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/decentralized-application">decentralized applications</a> or independently delegated to validators.Morgan Stanley Global Head of ETFs Ally Wallace placed the launch within the firm’s wider exchange-traded fund business. “Since introducing our first ETFs in 2023, we’ve built a diversified suite of ETFs and ETPs that now exceed $14 billion in assets under management,” Wallace said.“The addition of MSSE and MSOL reflects the natural evolution of our product suite, which seeks to provide simplified access to digital assets through the ETP wrapper,” Wallace added.Morgan Stanley Head of Digital Asset Strategy Amy Oldenburg said crypto assets were taking a larger role in portfolio construction. “Digital assets are becoming an increasingly important component of diversified investment portfolios,” Oldenburg said.“As client interest in digital assets continues to grow, we’re focused on providing a range of digital asset solutions that allow investors to diversify their portfolios across traditional and decentralized asset classes while also adhering to Morgan Stanley’s standards for governance, infrastructure and risk management,” Oldenburg added.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Bitcoin fund provides expansion base</h2>The launch follows the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, which trades under MSBT and tracks the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark Rate. Morgan Stanley introduced that product earlier in 2026 before expanding its offering to two proof-of-stake assets.MSBT had accumulated more than $381 million in assets under management through July 16. Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas separately characterized its assets as approximately $400 million gathered within four months, despite the product launching during a bearish market.<figure class="image"><img alt="tweet_2082094083288224193_20260728_231343_via_10015_io.webp" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/tweet_2082094083288224193_20260728_231343_via_10015_io_42c5d1c67d.webp"></figure><a href="https://coin360.com/news/top-12-crypto-headlines-of-2024">U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs</a> began trading in January 2024, followed by the expansion of exchange-traded crypto products into Ether and additional digital assets. Morgan Stanley entered the Ethereum and Solana segments roughly two and a half years after BlackRock, Fidelity and other firms introduced the first U.S.-based spot Bitcoin ETFs.Solana had developed into an increasingly competitive exchange-traded fund category by the time of Morgan Stanley’s launch. Eight Solana ETFs were already listed and collectively held $889.3 million in net assets. A separate rounded measurement placed cumulative Solana ETF assets at more than $900 million.About one week before Morgan Stanley’s announcement, Solana and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/hyperliquid">Hyperliquid</a> ETFs generated nearly 80% of exchange-traded fund volume outside Bitcoin and Ether products. Other issuers had also introduced products linked to&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/xrp-xrp">XRP</a> and&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/hyperliquid-hype">HYPE</a> as the market expanded beyond its initial focus on Bitcoin and Ether.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Distribution spans advised and self-directed clients</h2>Morgan Stanley can distribute MSSE and MSOL through a wealth-management operation that includes approximately 16,000 financial advisers overseeing more than $9 trillion in client assets.The firm also owns&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/morgan-stanley-etrade-crypto-trading-050-fee">E*TRADE</a>, providing access to millions of self-directed investors alongside clients served through Morgan Stanley’s financial-adviser network. The two channels allow the products to reach investors using both advised wealth-management accounts and self-directed brokerage platforms.The new funds combine exposure to major proof-of-stake assets with low annual fees, benchmark-based pricing and the planned distribution of staking rewards. Their launch broadens Morgan Stanley’s digital-asset lineup from Bitcoin into Ethereum and Solana through investment products available within traditional securities accounts.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Futuristic crypto factory with robotic worker

Morgan Stanley Launches Low-Fee Ethereum and Solana Funds

Futuristic robot in a digital facility

Robinhood Leads Tokenized Stocks by Users, Trails Rivals in Capital

<h2>Brian Armstrong sees crypto as financial infrastructure for autonomous software agents</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong rejected the idea that crypto and artificial intelligence must compete for corporate attention.</li><li>Armstrong said AI agents will need programmable financial infrastructure to hold money, trade and make payments independently.</li><li>Coinbase is building an agentic-finance stack around x402, Base, USDC and accounts designed for autonomous software.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr><a href="https://coin360.com/review/coinbase">Coinbase</a> CEO Brian Armstrong&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/brian_armstrong/status/2081504081902780564">said</a> crypto companies should not abandon blockchain projects to pivot toward artificial intelligence, arguing that AI will increase demand for programmable financial infrastructure rather than make crypto less relevant.Armstrong published the remarks on X on Sunday, July 26, 2026. He challenged recurring advice that companies operating in crypto should reposition themselves as AI businesses, writing: “If you’re in crypto, pivot to AI. I used to hear versions of this, and it’s the wrong way to think about the world.”Armstrong called the crypto-versus-AI framing “zero-sum, scarcity thinking.” He compared crypto with foundational infrastructure such as electricity and the internet, arguing that infrastructure technologies can support newer applications rather than compete with them for relevance.“It’s an ‘and,’ not an ‘or,’” Armstrong said.His argument places AI and crypto in separate but complementary roles. Artificial intelligence provides automated decision-making and execution, while crypto can provide the payment, asset ownership and settlement systems needed for software agents to conduct financial activity without continuous human involvement.Armstrong said the AI “megatrend” does not make crypto less important. Instead, he said it “makes crypto more important” because autonomous systems will need financial infrastructure designed for software.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>AI agents need programmable money, Armstrong says</h2>Armstrong said AI agents could eventually complete “far more per day than all humans combined,” referring to the volume of transactions that autonomous programs may be able to execute.Traditional banking systems are designed around human customers, national jurisdictions, account-opening procedures and delayed settlement, Armstrong said. An AI agent cannot independently establish residency, open a conventional bank account or wait several days for a wire transfer to clear.Such agents will therefore need “their own financial infrastructure,” Armstrong said, including “real time programmable money” that software can hold, transfer and manage through predefined rules.Crypto assets,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoins</a> and blockchain-based payment systems can provide that infrastructure by allowing software to operate continuously and interact directly with digital applications. Armstrong said autonomous agents could maintain wallets, receive funds, authorize payments and purchase resources without requiring a person to enter banking or payment information for every transaction.He outlined several potential financial functions for AI agents, including trading assets, advising users, raising or borrowing money for projects, planning taxes, rebalancing portfolios and paying bills.Armstrong referred to the broader model as “Agentic Finance,” or “AiFi,” and said Coinbase intends to provide infrastructure for that market.Coinbase’s proposed system combines the x402 payment protocol, the Base blockchain and Circle Internet’s&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/usd-coin-usdc">USDC</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoin</a>. X402 was developed by Coinbase to support internet-native payments, including transactions in which software agents pay automatically for digital resources. Governance later moved to the x402 Foundation.Base supplies the blockchain environment for execution and settlement, while USDC provides a dollar-linked payment asset. Together, the components are intended to let autonomous agents trade, spend, receive funds and accept payments in real time.Coinbase deployed AI-agent accounts in June 2026 that can trade and spend. The company later said Coinbase Business users would be able to accept payments from AI agents through x402, creating a payment route between autonomous software and businesses.The structure could allow an agent to identify a digital product or service, receive a payment request and settle the transaction through a stablecoin without a person manually entering payment details.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Coinbase integrates AI without abandoning crypto</h2>Armstrong’s position distinguishes between using AI inside an existing crypto business and discarding blockchain operations to pursue an unrelated AI strategy.Coinbase had cut 14% of its staff months earlier as part of an effort to make the company more AI-native. The company’s strategy pairs greater internal AI adoption with the development of crypto infrastructure intended specifically for AI-driven financial activity.Armstrong’s remarks also came as&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> mining companies redirected energy, data-center and computing capacity toward AI and high-performance computing workloads. Digital asset treasury companies and other crypto-focused businesses have also adjusted investments, corporate messaging or operations around AI opportunities.Corporate adoption of popular technology language has previously produced short-term market reactions. Historical data cited in the provided information showed that companies adding fashionable terms to their names recorded average short-term share-price gains of more than 50%.Armstrong argued that crypto companies should instead focus on how blockchain becomes more useful as autonomous systems expand. Under that approach, AI agents could become users of blockchain infrastructure even when their human customers do not directly interact with wallets, tokens or settlement networks.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Industry responses highlight speed and trust</h2>Tory Green, CEO of decentralized network&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/io-net-io">io.net</a>, responded to Armstrong’s post on Monday, July 27, 2026, and said autonomous agents will require systems that operate at machine speed.“Agents don’t just need money, but they need money that moves at machine speed,” Green said.Green said existing financial systems were built around people rather than continuous machine-to-machine activity. “Our whole financial stack has evolved for the human interface,” he said.He added that payments represent only one part of the infrastructure autonomous systems may require.“Money’s just the first rail that has to catch up. Same story coming for compute, data, all of it,” Green said.NeoSoul AI raised concerns about granting autonomous software control over financial assets before systems for accountability and trust are established.“Building the rails is cool, but giving an agent capital without a track record is wild,” NeoSoul AI said.The project said payment infrastructure alone would not support a broader autonomous economy. “The transition from agentic payments to an agentic economy needs a missing layer: reputation and memory,” NeoSoul AI said.Reputation systems could record whether an agent previously completed transactions reliably or followed spending restrictions, while memory could allow prior conduct to inform future trust decisions.“You can’t trust a blank slate with a crypto&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a>,” NeoSoul AI said.Those concerns center on the speed and autonomy that make agentic finance attractive. Software errors, manipulated instructions or compromised agents could trigger repeated transactions before a person intervenes, creating demand for controls that govern how much an agent can spend and which counterparties it can interact with.Armstrong’s position is that AI does not replace the need for crypto infrastructure. Instead, autonomous software could become a new category of blockchain user that relies on programmable money, digital wallets and continuous settlement to participate in the economy.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Old banking to modern crypto rails

Coinbase CEO Says Crypto Firms Should Not Abandon Blockchain for AI

<h2>The USDC issuer adds enterprise, payments and infrastructure technology to its intellectual-property portfolio</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Circle acquired foundational assets from IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio on July 27, 2026.</li><li>The transaction covers more than 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 issued patents worldwide.</li><li>Circle said the portfolio will support USDC, Circle Payments Network, Arc and other onchain financial products.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>Circle&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/circle/status/2081714971939926460">acquired</a> foundational assets from IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio on July 27, 2026, taking control of more than 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 issued patents worldwide and becoming the largest blockchain patent holder in the United States.<figure class="image"><img alt="tweet-2081714971939926460.webp" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/tweet_2081714971939926460_e6c2904bea.webp"></figure>The acquired intellectual property spans foundational blockchain technology, banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply-chain verification and secure cloud operations. The portfolio also covers blockchain transaction processing and technologies that can be used in onchain payment, settlement and agentic financial systems.Circle said the acquisition will support its effort to build an internet financial system around&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/usd-coin-usdc">USDC</a>, Circle Payments Network, Arc and a growing collection of onchain products and agentic financial tools. Agentic financial tools were identified as artificial intelligence-powered systems capable of independently initiating or completing certain financial actions without requiring a person to authorize every operational step.“The portfolio comprises over 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 issued patents worldwide, spanning foundational blockchain technology, banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply chain verification, and secure cloud operations,” Circle said.The portfolio was also characterized as containing over 1,000 patents. Circle’s own announcement used the narrower formulation of nearly 1,000 issued patents worldwide. Patent families group related applications covering the same or connected inventions in different jurisdictions, while the issued-patent figure counts individual patents.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Acquisition reshapes Circle’s patent position</h2>The transaction moves Circle from a limited historical patent position to the top of the U.S. blockchain patent rankings. Circle received its first patent in December 2023 for a method involving parallel blockchain data processing, which allows multiple groups of blockchain data or transactions to be processed or verified simultaneously.IBM previously held the leading domestic position. Patent analytics data showed that IBM controlled 790 U.S. blockchain patents as of December 2025, compared with approximately 200 held by Bank of America.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Portfolio measure</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Figure</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Context</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">IBM’s earlier estimated blockchain portfolio</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately 1,450 patents</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">The acquired estate represents close to 70% of that estimate.</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">IBM blockchain patent applications</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">More than 500</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Filed during 2018 and 2019.</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>IBM ranked among the leading recipients of blockchain patents during 2019 after a multiyear push into distributed-ledger technology. The company publicly declared that blockchain was “open for business” in 2016, reflecting the enterprise focus behind the portfolio later acquired by Circle.IBM’s blockchain patent filings declined in subsequent years as the company shifted toward patents regarded as higher quality and more commercially monetizable rather than maintaining the earlier filing volume.Patents give their owners legal control over protected inventions, including the ability to determine whether another party may use the technology and under what licensing conditions. Circle joined the LOT Network before the IBM transaction, placing the company in a patent-protection coalition intended to shield members from litigation initiated by patent assertion entities, commonly known as patent trolls.“Intellectual property is critical to advancing our mission and expanding adoption of onchain infrastructure,” said Sarah Wilson, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Circle.“IBM has been a pioneer in technological innovation, and this acquisition expands Circle’s ability to advance the infrastructure that powers global, internet-native finance,” Wilson added.Circle said the enlarged intellectual-property position will directly support its core infrastructure. USDC is the company’s dollar-backed&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoin</a> used for payments, savings, trading, settlement and international transfers. Circle Payments Network is intended to connect financial institutions, payment providers and other participants moving regulated digital money.Arc is Circle’s payment-focused blockchain for institutional financial activity involving&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/stablecoin">stablecoins</a> and tokenized assets. Circle said the portfolio will also support future onchain products beyond the company’s existing stablecoin and payment operations.“The expanded&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/story-ip">IP</a> position directly supports Circle’s foundation for building the internet financial system, including USDC, Circle Payments Network, Arc, and a growing suite of onchain products and agentic financial tools,” Circle said.Circle and IBM did not disclose the financial terms of the transaction. The companies said they plan to explore additional commercial opportunities after the patent transfer.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>IBM retains ties to a competing stablecoin initiative</h2>IBM remains a confirmed participant in Open Standard, the consortium behind Open USD, despite transferring the blockchain patent estate to Circle.Open USD launched on June 30, 2026, with more than 140 participating backers. Named participants include Visa, Mastercard, Google, BlackRock, Stripe,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/review/coinbase">Coinbase</a> and IBM.Open USD is structured to distribute reserve-generated income to participating distributors rather than retaining all reserve revenue at the issuer level. The structure is designed to give wallets, exchanges, payment companies and other distribution partners an economic incentive to support the stablecoin.The model competes with the reserve-income structure used in Circle’s stablecoin business, where interest can be earned from the cash and short-term assets backing tokens in circulation. IBM’s participation in Open Standard and its sale of blockchain patents to Circle represent separate commercial arrangements.Circle shares, which trade under the ticker CRCL, rose 2.57% on the day of the announcement. The acquisition gives the company control of a large collection of enterprise blockchain inventions developed during IBM’s mid-2010s expansion into distributed-ledger technology.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Futuristic vault transfer in progress

Circle Acquires IBM Blockchain Patents, Becomes Largest U.S. Holder

<h2>Three treasury companies take different approaches to liquidity, token accumulation and share repurchases</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Strategy kept its Bitcoin holdings unchanged for a fifth week while expanding its cash reserve.</li><li>Bitmine added Ethereum, increased its common-share buyback and kept most of its holdings staked.</li><li>Strive reached a 20,000 BTC treasury after purchasing another 79 BTC.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>Strategy, Bitmine Immersion Technologies and Strive reported sharply different digital-asset treasury moves on July 27, 2026, with Strategy prioritizing cash reserves, Bitmine continuing its weekly&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">Ethereum</a> purchases and Strive raising its&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> holdings to 20,000&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">BTC</a>. Strategy made no Bitcoin purchase for a fifth consecutive week, while Bitmine added nearly 10,000&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">ETH</a> and repurchased more common shares than it had during the previous week.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Strategy builds cash while Bitcoin holdings remain unchanged</h2>Strategy disclosed through a Form 8-K that it added $525 million to its U.S. dollar reserve, lifting the balance from $3.225 billion to $3.75 billion. The reserve is intended to support dividends on the company’s preferred securities and interest payments on outstanding debt.Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said the expanded reserve provided approximately 2.1 years of dividend coverage. Strategy financed the increase primarily through sales of MSTR common stock rather than through the disposal of Bitcoin or the issuance of preferred shares during the reporting period.<figure class="image"><img alt="tweet_2081711984936915201_20260728_020814_via_10015_io.webp" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/tweet_2081711984936915201_20260728_020814_via_10015_io_eb8b6c11dc.webp"></figure>Strategy held 843,775 BTC as of July 26, extending its purchasing pause to five consecutive weeks. Its most recent acquisition occurred on June 22, when the company purchased 520 BTC.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Strategy Bitcoin metric</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Reported figure</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Aggregate acquisition cost</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$63.69 billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Average acquisition price</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$75,476 per BTC</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Share of Bitcoin’s maximum supply</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">More than 4%</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Market value shown by Saylor’s treasury tracker</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $54.36 billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Difference from acquisition cost</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately 14.84% below cost</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Implied unrealized loss</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Roughly $9.47 billion</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>Strategy sold 5,429,160 MSTR shares through its at-the-market program, generating approximately $544.5 million in net proceeds. The company did not sell preferred shares through its at-the-market programs during the same period.The company retained substantial issuance capacity across its common and preferred securities programs.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Security program</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Remaining issuance capacity</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">MSTR</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $22.98 billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">STRC</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$17.51 billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">STRD</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $4.01 billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">STRK</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$2.10 billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">STRF</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$1.62 billion</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>The five programs provided approximately $48.22 billion of combined remaining capacity. Strategy also repurchased 288,930 STRC preferred shares for approximately $25 million under the Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program announced on June 29, 2026.Strategy retained approximately $975 million under that preferred-securities repurchase authorization. A separate MSTR common-stock repurchase program had $1 billion available, although the company did not buy back MSTR shares during the week. Strategy also made no repurchases of STRF, STRK or STRD securities.Thomas C. Chow, Strategy’s executive vice president and general counsel, signed the filing under Item 7.01 of the Exchange Act. MSTR later rose more than 6% and reached $97.59 during morning trading.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Bitmine increases ETH purchases and common-share buybacks</h2>Bitmine Immersion Technologies&nbsp;<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bitmine-immersion-technologies-bmnr-announces-eth-holdings-reach-5-79-million-tokens-and-total-crypto-and-total-cash-holdings-of-11-8-billion-302834876.html">acquired</a> 9,946 ETH during the preceding week, extending a sequence of weekly Ethereum purchases that began when the company launched its ETH Treasury Strategy.The purchase was larger than the 7,430 ETH acquired one week earlier. The difference amounted to 2,516 ETH, representing an approximately 33.9% increase from the prior weekly purchase.Bitmine’s total treasury rose to 5,787,414 ETH, valued at approximately $11.3 billion. Its holdings represented about 4.8% of Ethereum’s total supply.Chairman Tom Lee said, “Bitmine has bought ETH every week since the inception of the ETH Treasury Strategy on June 30, 2025.”Bitmine also increased its common-stock repurchases, buying 6.1 million shares during the latest week after acquiring 5.5 million shares during the previous period. The increase amounted to 600,000 shares, or approximately 10.9%.“Bitmine repurchased 6.1 million shares of common stock in the past week, an increase from the 5.5 million purchased the week prior,” Lee said.The two weekly transactions brought Bitmine’s cumulative repurchases to 11.6 million common shares under a $4 billion authorization.Lee tied the accelerated repurchases to the company’s view of cryptocurrency market conditions. “We increased our equity buyback as we view the rising ETH/BTC ratio, despite the falling odds of passage of the Clarity Act in 2026, as a sign crypto prices are strengthening,” he said.Bitmine reported that 4,917,189 ETH was staked, equivalent to approximately 85% of its treasury. The difference between the company’s total and staked holdings amounted to about 870,225 ETH.The staked holdings were projected to produce approximately $254 million in annualized revenue, equivalent to roughly $21.2 million per month if divided evenly across a full year. The annualized projection represented approximately 2.25% of the stated market value of Bitmine’s Ethereum holdings.<a href="https://coin360.com/review/coin360-dex">COIN360</a> data showed the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">ETH price</a> was approximately 4% higher at $1,959.30 as of 10:05 a.m.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Strive reaches 20,000 BTC after latest acquisition</h2>Strive purchased 79 BTC between July 20 and July 24, raising its corporate Bitcoin treasury from 19,921 BTC to 20,000 BTC.The acquisition cost approximately $5.2 million at an average of $65,723 per BTC. Multiplying the number of coins by the stated average price produces approximately $5.19 million, broadly matching the reported transaction amount.Strive’s resulting Bitcoin treasury was valued at roughly $1.3 billion and placed the company seventh among publicly traded corporate Bitcoin holders. The latest acquisition represented approximately 0.4% of the company’s total holdings.Strive adopted Bitcoin as a treasury asset in September 2025 and reached its latest holdings milestone about 10 months later. Part of the treasury came from its January 2026 merger with Semler Scientific, through which Strive absorbed more than 5,000 BTC.The merger consideration was paid entirely in Strive stock and did not use cash. Strive also raised capital through sales of ASST and SATA shares and authorized a program of up to $4.2 billion, with plans to convert the resulting capital into Bitcoin as funds became available.Strive reported $157.4 million in cash reserves, up from $154.1 million. The increase amounted to approximately $3.3 million, or about 2.1%.The company also recorded a quarterly net loss of $393.6 million. That loss was approximately 2.5 times the size of its reported cash reserve.Strive’s stated objective is to increase Bitcoin per share faster than Bitcoin’s spot price. Its approach evaluates purchases, mergers, equity issuance and other financing transactions according to their effect on the amount of BTC attributable to each share.Strive became publicly traded through a 2025 reverse merger involving Asset Entities. Matt Cole became chief executive officer following that transaction, and Strive’s shares trade on Nasdaq.Other corporate Bitcoin treasury companies had taken different approaches. Satsuma Technology sold 579 BTC in December and voted in July 2026 to sell its remaining 668 BTC. Metaplanet had paused purchases, while Smarter Web Company, Nakamoto and several other firms had reduced portions of their digital-asset reserves.Strategy remained the largest corporate Bitcoin holder with more than 843,000 BTC. Twenty One Capital held more than 43,500 BTC, while Metaplanet held approximately 43,000 BTC.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>FAQ</h2><h3>Why did Strategy increase its dollar reserve?</h3>The reserve supports preferred-security dividends and interest payments on outstanding debt.<h3>How long has Bitmine purchased ETH weekly?</h3>Bitmine has bought ETH every week since launching its treasury strategy.<h3>How much of Bitmine’s ETH is staked?</h3>Approximately 85% of its Ethereum treasury was staked.<h3>How did Strive obtain part of its Bitcoin?</h3>Strive absorbed more than 5,000 BTC through its merger with Semler Scientific.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robotic guardian of the financial city

Strategy Pauses Bitcoin Buying as Bitmine and Strive Add Crypto

Cyberpunk factory control hub scene

Storj, BitMart and Poolin Join Broad Crypto Retrenchment

Robot managing crypto assets factory

Strategy Rewrites Bitcoin Metrics as Treasury Model Faces Pressure

<h2>Allowlisted trading embeds securities compliance into automated market maker infrastructure</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Uniswap introduced Permissioned Pools for regulated tokenized funds, stocks, ETFs and other securities.</li><li>The Uniswap v4 framework restricts trading and liquidity provision to wallets approved by participating asset issuers.</li><li>Securitize, Superstate and Dowgo are working with Uniswap as the protocol expands into tokenized real-world assets.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr><a href="https://coin360.com/coin/uniswap-uni">Uniswap</a> has introduced&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.uniswap.org/introducing-permissioned-pools-on-uniswap-v4">Permissioned Pools</a>, a Uniswap v4 framework that allows regulated tokenized assets to trade through its automated market maker while limiting swaps and liquidity provision to approved wallets. The initiative, announced on July 23, 2026, is being developed with Securitize, Superstate and Dowgo for tokenized funds, equities, exchange-traded funds and other securities that require investor screening and compliance controls.The framework gives issuers authority to determine which wallets can interact with a pool. Before an investor can complete a swap or deposit liquidity, the pool checks whether the issuer has approved the&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a>. Sanctioned entities can be flagged and automatically blocked, allowing regulated assets to use Uniswap’s trading infrastructure without opening participation to every blockchain&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/wallet-address">address</a>.Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams said the initiative is intended to bring “regulated assets onchain.”“Uniswap protocol is infrastructure for all onchain trading. Some regulated tokens and use cases require permissioned trading. Uniswap v4 can now more easily support these use cases through this new hook,” Adams said.Uniswap v4 hooks allow developers and issuers to add programmable functions around pool activity. Permissioned Pools use that architecture to place eligibility checks inside the liquidity pool rather than relying entirely on a website, application interface or separate offchain access system.Ken Ng, head of ecosystem at Uniswap Labs, said the framework “gives issuers a flexible way to enforce their own compliance rules without building separate trading infrastructure.”“The next generation of value coming onchain, and it’s trading on Uniswap,” Ng said.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Compliance rules move into Uniswap liquidity pools</h2>Permissioned Pools introduce controlled participation within Uniswap’s broader open infrastructure. The restrictions apply to individual pools created for regulated assets rather than to every Uniswap market or user interaction.Eligible investors can trade or supply liquidity through Uniswap’s automated market maker, while each issuer retains control over investor qualification, sanctions restrictions and other applicable requirements. Different issuers can apply separate allowlists and participation rules based on the structure of their assets.Robert Leshner, CEO of Superstate, said tokenized-securities compliance had previously operated primarily through applications placed between investors and the underlying market.Leshner called that model “a gate standing in front of the market.”“Permissioned Pools move those rules into the pool itself, so a regulated asset can tap real&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/Automated-Market-Makers-AMMs">AMM</a> liquidity without the issuer giving up the controls securities law requires,” Leshner said. “That’s the piece of plumbing tokenization has been missing.”The framework is designed to let issuers use automated execution, blockchain settlement and smart-contract-based liquidity while preserving the controls required for regulated securities. It also reduces the need for each issuer to build an independent trading venue, access-control interface or liquidity system.Securitize and Superstate issue tokenized investment products, while Dowgo operates a European digital-securities platform. Their involvement positions the initial pools around regulated assets that cannot trade through unrestricted public markets.The initiative follows a broader shift among decentralized finance protocols seeking to support institutional assets.&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/aave-aave">Aave</a> has introduced Horizon, an institutional lending venue for tokenized assets, while Uniswap is developing liquidity infrastructure through its existing exchange protocol.Large asset managers including BlackRock, Apollo, Franklin Templeton and VanEck have also launched tokenized investment products. Brokerages and exchanges are expanding tokenized-stock offerings, increasing demand for infrastructure that can combine blockchain settlement with investor-eligibility controls.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Tokenized-market estimates highlight institutional opportunity</h2>Separate estimates cited for the tokenized-securities sector use different market scopes and projections.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Measurement</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Estimate</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Timeline</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Current tokenized-asset market</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$36 billion</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Current estimate</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Projected tokenized-asset market</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$11 trillion</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Over the next four years</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Citi tokenized-securities projection</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$5.5 trillion</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">By 2030</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>The estimates should be treated separately because they may rely on different definitions and methodologies. Both point to a potentially large market for protocols that can provide liquidity and settlement infrastructure to regulated onchain assets.Uniswap had already begun supporting institutional tokenized products before the Permissioned Pools rollout. BlackRock’s BUIDL tokenized money-market fund, issued by Securitize, became tradable through Uniswap in February 2026. BlackRock also disclosed an investment in&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/uniswap-uni">UNI</a>, Uniswap’s governance token.Uniswap later recorded additional activity on Robinhood Chain, where tokenized-stock trading contributed to increased protocol traction. Permissioned Pools expand that strategy by giving regulated issuers a standardized mechanism for enforcing wallet-level participation rules.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission applies a technology-neutral approach to tokenized securities, meaning blockchain-based versions remain subject to requirements that apply to conventional securities. Disclosure, monitoring, investor-protection and market-conduct obligations do not disappear solely because an asset is issued or traded onchain.Traditional exchanges and market operators, including Citadel Securities, have opposed efforts to provide decentralized finance platforms with exemptions or reduced legal liability for tokenized-securities activity. Their position is that applicable responsibilities should extend to entities handling tokenized securities regardless of whether the underlying venue is custodial or non-custodial.Permissioned Pools provide Uniswap with a way to support those assets without making every regulated market fully permissionless. Issuers continue to control access, but the rules are executed through smart-contract infrastructure connected to Uniswap liquidity.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Protocol fees and UNI burns</h2>Uniswap has activated protocol fees across several versions and blockchain networks as it seeks to retain a larger share of trading activity. Most historical trading fees have gone to liquidity providers rather than directly to the protocol.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Protocol metric</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Reported figure</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Cumulative fees generated</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $5.6 billion</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Protocol revenue</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $27 million</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">UNI burned during 2026</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Between 6 million and 8 million UNI</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Average burn pace</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately 1 million UNI per month</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>Additional tokenized-asset trading could increase Uniswap volume and fee generation if issuers and eligible investors adopt the new pools. Greater protocol-fee collection could also provide more revenue for UNI buybacks, subject to the protocol’s fee structures and governance decisions.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>UNI holds above long-term moving average</h2>UNI’s recent market gains were linked to increased Uniswap activity on Robinhood Chain. The July 24, 2026, market assessment identified a bullish technical structure but also outlined levels that would invalidate the setup.The technical levels represent market scenarios rather than guaranteed outcomes. The available information connected UNI’s broader July advance primarily to Uniswap’s Robinhood Chain traction, while the Permissioned Pools launch added to expectations that tokenized assets could generate more trading activity and protocol revenue.The product’s adoption will depend on issuers deploying pools, approved investors using them and regulated assets attracting enough liquidity to compete with centralized and purpose-built tokenized-securities venues.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robotic asset management hub design

Uniswap Opens Permissioned V4 Pools to Regulated Tokenized Assets

<h2>Class action alleges premature liquidations, retained collateral and privileged internal trading</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>BKX Services Inc. and David Namdar accuse BitMEX and former executives of wrongfully taking 622.66 BTC through forced liquidations.</li><li>The proposed U.S. class action alleges BitMEX retained excess collateral and operated an undisclosed internal trading desk with access to customer data.</li><li>BitMEX plans to end trading on Sept. 23, 2026, following a wind-down that restricts new positions beginning Aug. 26.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>BitMEX, its corporate affiliates and several former executives face a proposed U.S.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2026/07/gov.uscourts.nysd_.668997.1.0.pdf">class action</a> alleging the exchange improperly liquidated leveraged&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">Bitcoin</a> positions, retained customer collateral and used privileged trading information for its own benefit as the platform prepares to permanently end trading operations.BKX Services Inc. and former BitMEX client David Namdar filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. They seek to represent eligible U.S. customers who traded BitMEX products beginning July 23, 2018. The court has not ruled on the claims, and the allegations remain unproven.The defendants include BitMEX co-founders Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed and Benjamin Delo; former Business Development Director Gregory Dwyer; HDR Global Trading, which owns and operates BitMEX; and several affiliated entities.The plaintiffs are seeking the return of disputed Bitcoin, financial compensation and punitive damages. Their individual claims are outlined below.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Plaintiff</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Alleged Bitcoin loss</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Claimed cause</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">BKX Services Inc.</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">At least 305.81&nbsp;BTC</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Forced&nbsp;liquidation of Bitcoin&nbsp;perpetual swap positions</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">David Namdar</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">More than 316.85 BTC</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Bitcoin removed through BitMEX’s liquidation process</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Plaintiffs challenge BitMEX liquidation system</h2>BitMEX allowed customers to trade with leverage of up to 100 times their deposited collateral, increasing both potential returns and the likelihood that relatively small adverse market movements could trigger liquidation. The complaint alleges that BitMEX closed some positions before customers had exhausted all available collateral, leaving Bitcoin in their accounts beyond the amount needed to cover losses at the time of liquidation.The plaintiffs claim positions could be closed when unrealized losses reached approximately half of the collateral provided, even when the remaining margin was allegedly sufficient to protect the exchange from further losses. They allege that BitMEX did not return the excess collateral after closing those positions and instead transferred it into the exchange’s insurance fund.BitMEX’s insurance fund was intended to absorb losses arising from liquidations. The complaint alleges, however, that the fund also received customer collateral retained beyond the losses associated with liquidated positions. The plaintiffs contend that BitMEX generated revenue from this process and benefited financially whenever customer positions were forcibly closed.A central part of the lawsuit concerns an alleged internal operation identified as the “Insider Trading Desk.” The plaintiffs claim the desk traded against BitMEX customers while possessing information that was unavailable to ordinary market participants.The complaint alleges that the internal operation could access customer accounts, open positions, hidden orders, margin conditions and liquidation data. It also claims the desk could view customer liquidation levels despite BitMEX assurances that confidential trading information was not visible to other market participants.According to the filing, BitMEX used specialized software to identify price movements that would trigger liquidations across the largest possible number of customer positions. The internal unit then allegedly placed trades intended to help generate the market movements required to reach those liquidation thresholds.The plaintiffs also accuse the desk of using anonymous trading accounts connected to generic email addresses to conceal that BitMEX controlled the transactions. They further allege that the exchange influenced prices on external reference markets used to calculate liquidations on its own platform.Under the plaintiffs’ account, BitMEX could identify customer liquidation thresholds, trade in the direction needed to reach them and benefit after affected collateral moved into the insurance fund. The court has not determined whether the internal operation existed or whether it possessed the capabilities alleged in the complaint.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>March 2020 outage forms key part of complaint</h2>The lawsuit revisits the market disruption of March 13, 2020, when BitMEX went offline for approximately 25 minutes during extreme cryptocurrency volatility. Around $800 million in positions were liquidated during the period surrounding the interruption.BitMEX initially attributed the outage to a technical issue involving its cloud provider and later said distributed denial-of-service, or DDoS, attacks caused the disruption. The plaintiffs reject those explanations and allege the outage was intentional.According to the complaint, the interruption prevented customers from reducing exposure, closing positions or adding protection while their leveraged trades remained vulnerable. The plaintiffs claim BitMEX’s internal trading operation could continue trading while regular users were unable to access the platform.The filing argues that the alleged access imbalance gave BitMEX an advantage during sharp market movements and allowed the exchange to benefit when locked-out customers were liquidated. It also states that affected users were not compensated for losses associated with the disruption.Similar claims appeared in a separate class action filed in 2020 by&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/exchange/altcoin-trader">trader</a> Brett Messieh and other plaintiffs, who cited alleged Commodity Exchange Act violations. Court records referenced in the current action show that the earlier case was voluntarily dismissed without prejudice on June 30, 2025, leaving no final determination of its underlying claims.BitMEX had not issued a detailed public response to the specific allegations in the new complaint at the time of the July 24, 2026 reporting.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Exchange sets September trading shutdown</h2>The legal action comes as BitMEX prepares to<a href="https://coin360.com/news/bitmex-september-2026-shutdown">&nbsp;permanently stop exchange trading</a> at 04:00 UTC on Sept. 23. HDR Global Trading said the decision followed a strategic review of the company’s operations and conditions across the broader digital-asset market.BitMEX has stopped accepting new account registrations. Existing customers will no longer be allowed to open new positions starting Aug. 26 and will enter a reduce-only period in which they can lower or close existing exposure but cannot increase positions or begin new trades.The exchange plans to gradually close outstanding contracts during the wind-down. Positions still open at the final deadline will be liquidated automatically under the platform’s closure procedures.Contracts with limited liquidity may be settled before the final shutdown when maintaining an orderly market is not practical. BitMEX said customers would receive advance notice when early settlement is required.Trading access will end after the shutdown, but users will retain account access to withdraw assets and review balances and transaction records. BitMEX said its reserves remain above customer liabilities and directed customers to its proof-of-reserves and proof-of-liabilities records.The exchange also warned that scammers could exploit the closure through phishing campaigns or fraudulent withdrawal assistance. BitMEX said it does not operate a priority withdrawal service.Funds left on the platform after closure will be subject to a monthly charge of $50 or an annual fee equal to 1% of the account balance, whichever is higher.The closure follows senior management turnover. Stephan Lutz was replaced as chief executive, while chief financial officer Ina Steiner and chief growth officer Raphael Polansky also left the company. Former chief operating officer and global general counsel Peter Wilkinson later became chief executive.BitMEX had also considered a potential sale, but no transaction was announced before the exchange confirmed its shutdown.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Regulatory history precedes new civil claims</h2>BitMEX’s regulatory problems escalated in 2020 when Hayes, Delo and Reed stepped down after U.S. authorities brought anti-money laundering-related charges.Hayes, Delo and Reed pleaded guilty in 2022 to charges involving violations of U.S. anti-money laundering requirements and the Bank Secrecy Act. The proceedings resulted in multimillion-dollar penalties and reputational damage to the exchange.The founders later received presidential pardons. BitMEX nevertheless did not regain the market position it held during the earlier years of the cryptocurrency derivatives sector.The current civil action adds allegations concerning customer liquidations, retained collateral, platform outages and internal trading practices to the exchange’s prior compliance proceedings. The central issue before the court is whether BitMEX applied its disclosed leveraged-trading rules or improperly closed positions, retained excess collateral and used confidential customer information to trade for its own benefit.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>FAQ</h2><h3>Who filed the lawsuit?</h3>BKX Services Inc. and David Namdar filed the proposed class action.<h3>Who is named as a defendant?</h3>BitMEX affiliates, Arthur Hayes, Samuel Reed, Benjamin Delo, Gregory Dwyer and HDR Global Trading.<h3>What did the plaintiffs allegedly lose?</h3>They claim combined losses of 622.66 BTC through forced liquidations.<h3>When will BitMEX stop trading?</h3>Trading is scheduled to end at 04:00 UTC on Sept. 23, 2026.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Robot guarding BTC vaults in factory

BitMEX Sued Over 622.66 BTC as Exchange Prepares to Shut Down

<h2>Pantera-led financing targets enterprise and AI proof-of-human integrations</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>World Foundation completed a Pantera Capital-led locked WLD token sale to fund wider use of World ID.</li><li>Bain Capital Crypto and Eightco Holdings also participated in the financing.</li><li>World is shifting its focus from expanding the network to integrating proof-of-human infrastructure into enterprise software and AI agents.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>World Foundation&nbsp;<a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260723247977/en/World-Foundation-Raises-%2452.5-Million-to-Expand-Its-World-ID-Infrastructure-as-AI-Transforms-the-Internet">raised</a> $52.5 million through a locked&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/worldcoin-wld">WLD</a> token sale led by Pantera Capital, with Bain Capital Crypto and Eightco Holdings participating, according to an announcement released July 24, 2026. The foundation plans to use the financing to expand World&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/space-id-id">ID</a> integrations across enterprise platforms and AI agents as the World Network moves from building its user base toward increasing the utility of its proof-of-human infrastructure.World Foundation is the independent nonprofit steward of the World protocol, which was previously known as&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/worldcoin-wld">Worldcoin</a>. The protocol seeks to create a network of verified humans using World ID credentials, custom biometric hardware called the Orb and WLD as its native ecosystem token.The Orb scans a person’s eyes to establish that the user is a unique human. The protocol presents the resulting World ID as a privacy-preserving credential that can verify a person’s humanity without requiring the user to publicly reveal conventional identity information.World Foundation said the project is moving from “building the network” to “scaling the utility.” The shift places greater emphasis on embedding World ID into third-party products and enterprise software rather than focusing primarily on network registrations and Orb deployments.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>World targets enterprise software and AI agents</h2>World plans to position its verification technology as an identity layer for consumers, enterprises and AI agents. The infrastructure is intended to help digital services distinguish unique humans from automated accounts while allowing users to verify their humanity without publicly disclosing who they are.The strategy addresses the increasing use of automated accounts, synthetic identities, deepfakes and autonomous agents across digital platforms. World is seeking to extend World ID beyond enrollment and use the credential for recurring verification across external applications, including authentication, access control, fraud prevention, payments and interactions involving AI systems.Pantera Capital General Partner Cosmo Jiang tied the investment to the accelerating development of artificial intelligence and demand from businesses.“The need for Proof of Human is becoming acutely clear with the acceleration of AI development, and we see this in the influx of enterprise traction,” Jiang said.Tom Lee, an Eightco Holdings board member who also serves as the chairman of Bitmine, said World’s verification technology could become a core component of digital infrastructure.“World’s technology and proof of human and variations are among the most important building blocks to secure and verify interactions in an increasingly digital driven world,” Lee said.World introduced what it called its most significant World ID upgrade in April 2026. The upgrade positioned World ID as “full-stack proof of human” infrastructure designed for consumers, enterprises and AI agents, spanning the hardware, protocol and integration layers used to deploy verification services.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>World Network reports expanding usage</h2>World reported that its network had attracted more than 39 million participants, including more than 18 million people verified through an Orb. Joining the network and completing Orb-based proof-of-human verification represent separate stages of participation.The network had also generated more than 475 million World ID proofs since launch. That total equates to more than 26 proofs for each Orb-verified participant based on the reported figures, reflecting repeated use of World ID credentials rather than one-time enrollment.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Network metric</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Reported amount</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">What it measures</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">World Network participants</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">More than 39 million</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">People who had joined the network</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Orb-verified humans</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">More than 18 million</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Participants verified as unique humans through an Orb</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">World ID proofs</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">More than 475 million</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Proof-of-human credential uses recorded since launch</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Proofs per verified participant</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">More than 26</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Average derived from the reported proof and verification totals</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>World said it has been increasing network capacity while rolling out enterprise-ready infrastructure. The foundation is seeking to make World ID available as an embedded service within software operated by outside platforms rather than limiting verification to World-operated applications.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Financing follows an earlier WLD token sale</h2>World previously raised $135 million through a private WLD token sale to a16z and Bain Capital Crypto in May 2025. That transaction was identified as World Network’s first funding round.Bain Capital Crypto participated in both financing events. Together, the two disclosed WLD sales raised at least $187.5 million, with the latest round equal to about 38.9% of the size of the earlier transaction.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Financing</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Participants</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Structure</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Latest funding round</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Pantera Capital, Bain Capital Crypto and Eightco Holdings</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Locked WLD token sale</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">First funding round</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">a16z and Bain Capital Crypto</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Private WLD token sale</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>WLD price was approximately $0.37, while the token’s coin&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-cap">market cap</a> was just over $1.3 billion at the time covered by the funding announcement. Using that market price as a mathematical reference, the latest financing would represent about 141.9 million WLD and roughly 4% of the token’s&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/market-cap">market capitalization</a>, although those comparisons do not establish the transaction’s actual token price or allocation.The locked structure means the tokens sold to investors are subject to restrictions rather than becoming immediately transferable. World Foundation plans to direct the new capital toward scaling proof-of-human utility and integrating World ID across enterprise and AI-driven applications.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Futuristic industrial robot in action

World Foundation Raises $52.5 Million in Locked WLD Sale

<h2>Home invasions overtake other attack methods as France becomes the global center</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>CertiK verified 52 physical attacks against crypto holders during the first half of 2026.</li><li>Recorded financial exposure reached $124.1 million as residential invasions became the leading attack method.</li><li>France accounted for 33 verified incidents, while authorities reported a broader domestic total of 77 cases.</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr>CertiK&nbsp;<a href="https://www.certik.com/certik-report/intel3d/intel3d-wrench-h1-2026">verified</a> 52 wrench attacks worldwide during the first six months of 2026, as criminals increasingly used home invasions, kidnappings and physical coercion to force cryptocurrency transfers or obtain&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a> credentials. The blockchain security firm said recorded financial exposure reached about $124.1 million during the period, while France accounted for nearly two-thirds of the verified incidents.CertiK released its Intel3D H1 2026 Wrench Attacks Report on July 22, 2026. The firm defines a wrench attack as an incident involving physical violence, kidnapping, confinement, threats or another form of coercion used to compel a victim to transfer cryptocurrency, reveal wallet information or pay a ransom. CertiK summarized the change in criminal tactics with the statement, “Crypto crime has gone physical.”Verified incidents increased 33.3% from 39 during the corresponding period of 2025. CertiK previously recorded 72 cases across all of 2025, a 75% increase from 2024. The latest six-month total equaled about 72% of the previous full-year count and represented an average of roughly 8.7 verified attacks per month, compared with six per month during 2025.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Metric</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">H1 2025</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">H1 2026</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Recorded financial exposure</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$10.5 million</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $124.1 million</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Average exposure per incident</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $270,000</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">$2.39 million</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Home invasions</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">One</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">20</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Kidnappings</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">12</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">16</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Robberies</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Five</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">One</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Murders</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">One</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">One</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>CertiK’s public summary rounded the exposure total to $124.2 million. The firm said recorded financial exposure does not represent only cryptocurrency confirmed as permanently stolen. The calculation may include completed transfers, ransom demands, failed demands, frozen funds, recovered assets and other amounts connected to an incident, making it a measure of value exposed or demanded rather than a net-loss total.Home invasions accounted for approximately 41% of verified incidents and became the largest individual attack category. CertiK called the increase the “defining shift” of the period, as criminals targeted victims inside their residences rather than relying primarily on robberies or remote compromise. The attacks placed victims’ relatives, personal information, routines and homes within the security perimeter criminals sought to penetrate.The change also allowed attackers to bypass technical controls by coercing the person authorized to approve a transaction. A hardware wallet can prevent remote access, but it does not stop an owner from being forced to unlock it. A concealed seed phrase faces the same weakness when a victim or family member is threatened.CertiK said the verified figures likely understate the scale of the problem because victims may avoid public reporting over fears of retaliation, additional targeting, reputational damage, exposure of their wealth or danger to relatives.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>France accounts for most verified attacks</h2>Europe recorded 39 of the worldwide cases, or about 75% of the verified total. France alone accounted for 33, equivalent to approximately 64% globally and about 85% of the European count. The rest of the world recorded 19 verified incidents.CertiK linked France’s concentration partly to its large and visible cryptocurrency community, which creates identifiable targets among founders, executives and investors. The firm also pointed to personal information exposed through breaches involving France Travail and ANTS, as well as commercially or publicly available records that could connect identities and residential addresses with actual or perceived crypto wealth.Criminal groups increasingly combine leaked databases, exchange-related information and blockchain activity into detailed “target packages,” according to CertiK. Transparent transaction histories can expose estimated holdings when a wallet is linked to a real person, helping attackers assess potential ransom value before planning an operation.CertiK described a layered criminal structure in which organizers purchase personal data, choose targets and coordinate logistics while remaining separated from the people carrying out the physical attack. Young operators may be recruited through messaging applications and treated as disposable participants responsible for surveillance, abductions, residential intrusions or intimidation.The security firm’s narrower French total differs from the broader count used by national authorities because the methodologies cover different sets of incidents. CertiK included publicly reported cases it could independently verify, while French authorities counted crypto-linked kidnappings, extortion attempts and completed extortion cases more broadly.French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said on July 2, 2026, that authorities had recorded&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/news/france-crypto-kidnappings-2026">77 such cases</a> during the first half of the year. That surpassed the 45 recorded throughout 2025 by 32 cases, an increase of roughly 71% before the second half of the year began.<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">French enforcement measure</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Reported figure or action</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Arrests linked to emergency measures</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">200</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Suspects charged by April 2026</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">88 across 12 investigations</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Minors among charged suspects</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">More than 10</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Prevention response</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Dedicated platform, rapid-alert system and home security assessments for executives</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>Authorities’ response reflected the growing use of relatives as leverage. Attackers have targeted spouses, parents and other family members even when those individuals did not directly control the cryptocurrency sought by the criminals.One of the most prominent cases occurred in January 2025, when Ledger co-founder David Balland and his wife were kidnapped in France. The kidnappers severed one of Balland’s fingers while attempting to secure a multimillion-euro ransom. Police later freed the couple.French authorities arrested six people, including one minor, in February 2026 after a magistrate and her mother were abducted during an attempted crypto-ransom operation. The case showed that targeting extended beyond public crypto executives to people selected because of perceived financial access or family connections.Two teenagers were charged in another case after allegedly trying to abduct the wife of&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/the-sandbox-sand">The Sandbox</a> co-founder Sébastien Borget outside Paris. The attackers reportedly carried a fake handgun and restraints. Neighbors intervened, causing the group to flee before completing the abduction.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>CertiK recommends custody controls that withstand coercion</h2>CertiK recommended security structures that prevent one threatened person from releasing an entire balance. The measures included multisignature arrangements requiring several approvals, multiparty computation systems that distribute the signing process and withdrawal delays that create time to stop suspicious transfers.The firm also advised spending and withdrawal limits, geographically separated signers and family duress protocols. Physical separation can prevent attackers controlling one residence from obtaining every authorization needed for a transfer, while coded warnings or predetermined emergency procedures can help trusted contacts identify instructions issued under coercion.The findings place personal-data protection, residential security, custody architecture and family preparedness alongside conventional cybersecurity. CertiK’s data showed that attack frequency, financial exposure and residential targeting all rose during the same period, while the difference between independently verified cases and the broader French government total indicated that public reporting captured only part of the activity.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Secure room in a tense standoff

Crypto Wrench Attacks Expose $124.1 Million in H1 2026

<h2>x402 Connects Autonomous Software With USDC Commerce</h2>TL;DR<ul><li>Coinbase Business customers can accept USDC payments from AI agents through the x402 protocol.</li><li>The rollout connects merchant payments, agent wallets, trading tools and developer infrastructure.</li><li>Coinbase called agentic payments one of its “most high-conviction bets.”</li></ul><hr>Trade smarter on Jupiter, Solana’s leading DEX built for fast execution and deep liquidity.&nbsp;Swap tokens at competitive rates, route across multiple liquidity sources automatically, and access perpetuals, DCA, and advanced trading tools — all in one place!<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://jup.ag/?ref=g33ohytogabt" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Trade on Jupiter!</a></div></div><hr><a href="https://coin360.com/review/coinbase">Coinbase</a> announced on July 23, 2026, that Coinbase Business customers can begin&nbsp;<a href="https://x.com/coinbase/status/2080322207645863979">accepting payments</a> directly from AI agents through x402, an open internet payment standard developed and incubated by the exchange. The rollout adds a machine-compatible checkout path to the company’s existing business platform and forms part of a broader effort to provide payment,&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/glossary/crypto-wallets">wallet</a>, trading and development infrastructure for autonomous software.The capability is rolling out during the week of the announcement. Coinbase said businesses can allow AI agents to pay in&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/usd-coin-usdc">USDC</a> without completing additional setup, allowing merchants to make their existing products and services accessible through an agent-friendly checkout flow powered by Coinbase Payments.Siddharth “Sid” Coelho-Prabhu, Head of Coinbase Business, said the company is adding agent payments to the same product businesses already use for transactions with human customers.“A business owner can now sell their stuff to agents online,” Coelho-Prabhu said.“It’s not any extra work. They can already sell their products, goods and services to humans today using Coinbase Business; we’re just going to add a separate lane in the same product for agents,” he added.The system is designed so autonomous software can identify a paid service, understand the payment requirement, access a wallet, transfer funds and continue carrying out its assigned task without navigating a checkout flow built for a person.“Agents can come in and speak machine-friendly language, consummate the transaction and move on to the next task,” Coelho-Prabhu said.Coelho-Prabhu compared the structure with a conventional retail payment, where a customer arrives with a credit card and bank account while the merchant operates a point-of-sale system connected to its own account.“We are delivering that experience for the new online agentic economy,” he said.“Agents, on one side of the transaction, will go and read the Coinbase developer docs, create a wallet for themselves, and are ready to shop,” Coelho-Prabhu said. “Then we empower businesses so that everything in their inventory is now available on the internet through this agent-friendly checkout flow.”<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Coinbase Builds Both Sides of Agent Commerce</h2>Coinbase’s strategy covers businesses receiving payments, customers using autonomous trading tools and developers creating services that agents can access. The company considers agentic payments one of its “most high-conviction bets,” based on its expectation that autonomous software will become a significant category of internet participant.“We saw the writing on the wall starting two or three years ago, or even earlier, that this would be one of the big story arcs of the internet,” Coelho-Prabhu said. “And we started to invest.”<figure class="image"><img alt="tweet_2079252507868729632_20260724_023343_via_10015_io.webp" src="https://prod-coin360-cms.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/tweet_2079252507868729632_20260724_023343_via_10015_io_597752ea16.webp"></figure>The payment launch follows the first anniversary of Coinbase Business, which debuted in June 2025. Coinbase reported the following operating figures for the business unit:<div class="raw-html-embed"><table style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 100%;"> <thead> <tr> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Metric</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Reported figure</th> <th style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; text-align: left; color: #fff;">Scope</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Customers</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately 5,000</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Coinbase Business customers since launch</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Combined activity</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately $1 billion</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Payments and trading volume during the unit’s first year</td> </tr> <tr> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Team size</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Approximately 12 employees</td> <td style="border: 1px solid #fff; padding: 8px; color: #fff;">Coinbase Business staff</td> </tr> </tbody> </table></div>Coelho-Prabhu had worked at Coinbase for almost nine years when the company announced the expansion. Before leading Coinbase Business, he led the Coinbase Wallet team, which he called his first “0-1” product at the company. Coinbase Wallet has since been rebranded as the Base App.The completed payment flow allows an autonomous agent to read Coinbase Developer Platform documentation, create an agent wallet, receive funding, identify a merchant using Coinbase Business and pay that merchant in USDC. Settlement can occur on Base or other supported blockchains.The structure removes the need for an autonomous agent to enter card information, interpret a visual checkout interface or rely on a person to approve each individual purchase. Instead, x402 communicates payment requirements in a format software can process directly.Coinbase said AI agents are already completing payments for operating businesses, with early adoption concentrated among digital infrastructure providers whose services can be purchased and consumed online.Current use cases include buying OpenRouter credits, obtaining domain names and paying for Amazon or Google Cloud storage. Those services allow software agents to acquire model access, web infrastructure and computing resources while completing assigned tasks.“Those are the earliest adopters of agentic commerce,” Coelho-Prabhu said.“Beyond that, the next wave — we are very, very close, I think, to seeing an explosion of more normie commerce,” he added.Agentic-payment volumes have remained relatively muted, but Coinbase cited traffic to the Base blockchain’s technical documentation as an indication that autonomous software is already interacting with its developer infrastructure. Beginning in June 2026, approximately 53% of traffic to the documentation came from agentic visitors, according to a Coinbase spokesperson.<hr>We’ve launched the all-new COIN360 Perp DEX, built for traders who move fast!Trade 130+ assets with up to 100× leverage, enjoy instant order placement and low-slippage swaps, and earn USDC passive yield while climbing the leaderboard. Your trades deserve more than speed — they deserve mastery.<div class="raw-html-embed"><div style="box-sizing: inherit; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: white; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;"><a href="https://dex.coin360.com/" ref="noopener nofollow noreferrer" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: white; text-decoration: none; cursor: pointer; background-color: #4CAF50; padding: 5px 30px; text-align: center; font-size: 16px; margin: 5px 2px; border-radius: 5px;">Start Trading on COIN360 Today!</a></div></div><hr><div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Natural-Language Trading Tools Extend the Agent Strategy</h2>Coinbase is also expanding Coinbase for Agents, a set of tools that lets users integrate AI agents into cryptocurrency trading, market monitoring, investment research and portfolio workflows.The product includes a live order list that streams open and active orders in real time. Users can view each order’s status, price and size while an agent monitors market conditions or carries out a trading instruction.Coinbase said customers can give agents directions in natural language instead of writing code or configuring a conventional automated trading system.“Tell it what you want in plain English – ‘buy&nbsp;<a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">ETH</a> if it dips 5%,’ ‘sell when my order fills’ – and it watches the market and executes for you,” Coinbase said.The tools allow an agent to access real-time market information, watch for a condition defined by the user and act when that condition is met. The live order interface gives the user a direct view of the agent’s activity throughout that process.“The same WebSocket data that powers institutional desks is now accessible through natural language,” Coinbase said.The natural-language interface is designed to connect user instructions with the same live data stream used for institutional trading operations. Users can supervise active orders while delegating continuous market observation and conditional execution to an agent.Coinbase has also announced Coinbase Advisor, an AI-powered financial-advisory product registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Coinbase Advisor is intended to provide tailored investment advice and market commentary, extending the company’s AI products beyond payments and trade execution.<div class="page-break" style="page-break-after:always;">&nbsp;</div><h2>Developer Kit Adds Agent Payments to Online Services</h2>Coinbase is releasing an x402 software development kit through Coinbase Developer Platform to help builders add agent-compatible payments to APIs, Model Context Protocol servers and web services.Coinbase said developers can integrate the payment capability with as few as three lines of code. The kit is designed to reduce the work required to make a digital service discoverable and purchasable by autonomous software.A service using x402 can provide its payment requirement in a machine-readable form. An AI agent can then interpret the price, complete the payment and retrieve the requested data, resource or service programmatically.Support for Model Context Protocol servers applies the same payment model to infrastructure that connects AI systems with outside tools, services and information sources.Coinbase’s combined product structure provides agents with access to documentation, wallets and funding; gives businesses a way to receive USDC payments; lets users issue natural-language trading instructions; and gives developers a packaged method for adding machine-readable payments to online services.USDC serves as the initial payment asset for the business checkout system, while Coinbase-supported blockchain networks provide settlement. The earliest applications center on digital products that an agent can purchase and use without human intervention, including cloud resources, domains, model-routing credits and API-based services.This article has been refined and enhanced by ChatGPT.

Futuristic payment hub with robotic agent