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UK FCA enters settlement talks with HTX over illegal crypto promotion suit The UK Financial Conduct Authority is in settlement talks with crypto exchange HTX, formerly Huobi, over a lawsuit alleging illegal financial promotions, Wu Blockchain reported, citing media outlet CNA. The FCA sued HTX in October last year, alleging the exchange violated crypto financial promotion rules introduced in 2023 and illegally promoted related services to UK consumers. London’s High Court has paused the case to allow both sides to reach a voluntary settlement by the end of August. Neither the FCA nor HTX has issued an official statement on the talks.

TRON had about $88 billion worth of USDT in circulation as of the end of the second quarter, while USDT transfer volume on the network reached $2.1 trillion over the same period, Cointelegraph reported.

Sonic co-founder Andre Cronje said most DeFi protocols are no longer truly decentralized finance and are now better described as onchain finance or open finance. Cronje said true DeFi should have characteristics such as decentralization, immutability and the absence of intermediaries, but many current protocols have companies taking on roles traditionally held by financial institutions, including decision-making and risk management. He added that some protocols are still delivering genuine DeFi innovation.

Bybit announced the addition of KII to its spot market, with trading set to begin at 1:00 p.m. UTC on Aug. 14.

Bloomberg Intelligence said in a recent report that Bitcoin’s investment appeal has weakened sharply as it generates no cash flow. Among numerous cryptocurrencies worth billions of dollars yet lacking traceable intrinsic value, Bitcoin is in a position akin to a melting ice cube, Bloomberg said. The report said Bitcoin, which produces neither interest nor dividend income even when held and remains highly volatile, is facing major macro headwinds. It identified as the biggest headwinds the yield on 30-year U.S. Treasuries, which has reached its highest year-end level in 25 years, and the ratio of U.S. stock market capitalization to government debt. Bloomberg assessed that Bitcoin, as a risky asset with no cash flow, has become less attractive between risk-free high-yield Treasuries and a stock market drawing massive capital, leaving it at a disadvantage against both.

UK-listed Bitcoin treasury strategy firm B HODL is generating revenue from its BTC holdings through a partnership with Lightning wallet ZEUS, BitcoinNews.com reported. The company is providing BTC as payment liquidity on the Lightning Network and collecting transaction-routing fees in return. The two sides initially committed 1 BTC and plan to review a possible expansion after assessing results over the next three months.

MUFG is preparing a proof of concept to test real-time settlement of Japanese government bond trades using blockchain, CoinDesk reported. The Japanese financial group plans to use Canton Network (CC) to process on-chain settlements around the clock in real time, replacing a process that typically takes one to three days. The initiative is aimed in particular at improving operational and capital efficiency in repurchase agreement, or repo, transactions that use government bonds as collateral.

Binance Web3 Wallet’s meme coin launchpad feature, 'Meme Rush,' has begun supporting Pools Trade, a new Uniswap-based launchpad platform on Robinhood Chain. The addition gives Binance Wallet users easier access to and trading in new meme coin projects launched through Pools Trade within the Robinhood Chain ecosystem.

Brazil-listed OranjeBTC plans to launch DIGY11, an ETF investing in Strategy’s Bitcoin-linked preferred stock STRC and Strive’s perpetual preferred stock SATA, CoinDesk reported. DIGY11 is set to list on Brazil’s B3 exchange in early September, with an initial portfolio made up of 95% STRC and 5% SATA. The fund will trade in Brazilian real and make monthly distributions. Michael Saylor said "Digital Credit" is expanding into global markets. The term refers to Saylor’s concept for credit instruments such as preferred shares designed around Bitcoin.

A Bitcoin user paid a 1.6 BTC fee, or about $102,800, on Aug. 12 for a transfer of 0 BTC after an automated script malfunctioned, BeInCrypto reported. The report said the user’s automated script kept raising the fee bid every second with Replace-by-Fee, or RBF, enabled, eventually draining the wallet’s entire balance. SpiderPool, the mining pool that mined the block, received the unexpected windfall, and the fee accounted for about 88% of the block’s total fees of roughly 1.82 BTC.

Stablecoin market cap on TRON rises $1B in 7 days, more than 10x other chains The stablecoin market capitalization on the TRON blockchain increased by $1 billion over the past seven days, marking growth more than 10 times higher than the increase seen on other blockchain networks over the same period, according to on-chain data analytics platform Token Terminal.

XRP fell to around $1, its lowest close since November 2024, but the drop has not been accompanied by an influx of new users, according to a Santiment analysis. Santiment said XRP closed at about $1 on Aug. 12, marking its lowest level since November 2024 and leaving it down about 69% from its January 2025 peak of $3.3. The firm added that XRP’s network averaged about 35,700 daily active addresses so far in August, up roughly 33% from about 26,400 in July, while average daily new addresses stood at about 2,260 in August, little changed from July. That suggests user activity has increased through existing users rather than an expansion of the new user base. According to CoinMarketCap, XRP was trading at $1.01, down about 4.11% over the past seven days.

Robinhood’s nominal cryptocurrency trading volume fell to $10.9 billion in July, down 33% from the previous month and 62% from a year earlier, The Block reported. Crypto trading volume within the Robinhood app dropped 74% from a year earlier to $4.3 billion, while volume at subsidiary crypto exchange Bitstamp declined 45% to $6.6 billion.

Taiwanese singer Jeffrey Huang, also known as Machi Big Brother, sold BAYC NFT #5717 for 8.3 ETH ($15,600) after buying it for 34.17 ETH three years ago, according to Lookonchain. Lookonchain said the proceeds were likely used to maintain Huang’s ETH long position and added that much of Huang’s available capital appears to have been depleted, noting that Huang recently withdrew 1,540 USDC from Binance. Huang currently holds a 2,800 ETH ($5.3 million) long position with a liquidation price of $1,863.08.

Copper’s U.S. entity, Copper Markets, has obtained a broker-dealer license from the U.S. SEC and secured membership in the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, according to Cointelegraph. Copper was registered with the SEC as a broker-dealer on Aug. 7, according to Cointelegraph, allowing the company to offer custody, staking, financing and over-the-counter trading services to U.S. institutional investors.

According to CoinGlass data, a drop in BTC below $62,859 would trigger the liquidation of about $516.39 million in long positions across major centralized exchanges. A move above $64,094 would liquidate about $209.26 million in short positions.

Axel Adler Jr. said Bitcoin’s price and mining profitability have deteriorated sharply, but the relatively limited drop in hash rate suggests the mining industry has not yet entered a full capitulation phase. Adler said BTC fell 49% to $63,400 from a peak of $124,700 in October last year, while the seven-day moving average hash rate declined 23% to 886 EH/s from a peak of 1,150 EH/s over the same period. The 30-day moving average share of transaction fees in mining revenue also dropped to 0.71%, a level last seen in December 2015, underscoring pressure on miners’ profitability. Even so, Adler said the hash rate has been declining gradually around 900 EH/s, indicating the sector is still adapting to weaker profitability rather than undergoing a sharp shutdown. He added the industry could be seen as emerging from the current profitability squeeze only if the share of fee revenue remains above 1% and the hash rate starts rising again.

South Korea’s sovereign wealth fund Korea Investment Corporation has newly invested in stablecoin issuer Circle, Digital Asset reported, citing filings with the U.S. SEC. According to documents dated Aug. 12, Korea Investment Corporation held 65,443 shares of Circle in the second quarter this year, valued at $4,098,695. This marks the fund’s first-quarter investment in Circle. Before that, its crypto-related equity investments had included Strategy, Coinbase, Block, Robinhood and Riot Platforms. In the second quarter, Korea Investment Corporation reduced its holdings in Strategy, Coinbase and Riot, while increasing its positions in Block and Robinhood.

Hyperliquid Foundation announced it will open access to its low-latency on-chain data nodes to eligible infrastructure providers for less than $1,000 a month. Jeff, Hyperliquid’s founder, said Hyperliquid generates large volumes of order, trade and open-interest data per second, while foundation-operated nodes are more stable. Jeff added that direct node connections had previously required users to meet criteria including staking 10,000 HYPE, and the foundation now plans to allow node access for infrastructure providers that meet requirements such as operating for more than one year and serving more than 100 customers. As a result, more teams and individuals are expected to gain access to Hyperliquid’s low-latency on-chain data through providers using those nodes.

South Korea may find it difficult to fully adopt a system allowing each crypto exchange to partner with multiple banks, despite industry calls to broaden investor choice, the Seoul Shinmun reported. According to a report on second-stage virtual asset legislation and measures to strengthen anti-money laundering rules for stablecoins by South Korea’s Financial Services Commission, the Korea Institute of Finance said a full allowance for multiple-bank partnerships requires caution, as it could weaken money-laundering monitoring and further strengthen the market dominance of large exchanges. Instead of a full rollout, the institute proposed a phased approach, including a model in which exchanges can partner with several banks while each user is allowed to choose only one bank for trading.

YZi Labs says crypto payments are spreading in Bhutan for fuel, visas

An anonymous whale address beginning with 0x66f8 opened a roughly $136 million 40x BTC short position on Hyperliquid (HYPE), according to The Data Nerd. The address is holding the short at an average entry price of $63,851 and a liquidation price of $64,595. The position is the largest short position on Hyperliquid, The Data Nerd said.

Metaplanet, a Japan-listed Bitcoin accumulation company, said it posted a first-half mark-to-market loss on BTC of 184.297 billion yen ($1.25 billion), while announcing a BitBonds program to issue unsecured corporate bonds to support its Bitcoin strategy and broaden its investor base. The company said the first BitBonds issuance will total about 200 million yen ($1.25 million), with a maturity of about three years and an annual interest rate of 4.0% to 4.3%. Metaplanet said it will decide whether to carry out additional BitBonds offerings and determine their size based on market conditions, funding needs and investor demand, while planning over the medium to long term to build a public bond issuance framework. The company added the first-half BTC valuation loss mainly reflected an accounting adjustment tied to temporary price fluctuations. Metaplanet currently holds 43,000 BTC worth $2.8 billion, making it the world’s third-largest corporate Bitcoin holder among listed companies.

CryptoQuant CEO Ki Young Ju said Bitcoin traders on exchanges have posted their largest unrealized gains of the current cycle. In a post on X, Ki added that unlike in the past, spot ETFs and accumulating companies, "DAT," served as exit liquidity for exchange traders, and their structural buying gave traders profits. Ki said the scale of unrealized gains recorded by exchange traders is around three times the 2021 peak.

South Korea’s People Power Party plans to submit another bill to delay the start of taxes on cryptocurrency investment income by two years, Edaily reported. While the government and ruling Democratic Party plan to proceed with taxation from January next year, the People Power Party intends to push bills either to scrap the tax or delay it by two to three years. Kim Sang-hoon of the People Power Party plans to introduce this month a partial amendment to the income tax law that would push back the start of the tax on cryptocurrency investment income from Jan. 1, 2029, to Jan. 1, 2031. The bill is currently under review by the National Assembly Secretariat’s legislative office. Separately, People Power Party lawmaker Jeong Seong-guk on Aug. 10 first proposed a bill calling for the tax to be delayed until January 2030. If a standing committee meeting is held at the National Assembly this month, a clash between the ruling and opposition parties is expected.