Live Feed

Chainalysis’ government services unit has sued the U.S. government over what it says was a sole-source procurement contract awarded to rival TRM Labs without a standard competitive bidding process, Wu Blockchain reported. The complaint centers on a contract involving the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Chainalysis asked the court to halt the contract’s progress, while TRM Labs joined the case as a defendant-intervenor supporting the U.S. government. Oral arguments are scheduled for Sept. 2, according to the report.

Curve Finance founder Michael Egorov criticized Solana-based memecoin issuance platform Pump.fun (PUMP) as a casino that brings together scam memecoins. In a post on X, Egorov said the Solana Foundation does a strong job supporting its ecosystem, but its flagship examples do not seem particularly compelling. Egorov added that connecting Phantom, Solana’s largest wallet, to a hardware wallet was very difficult and that, although the connection ultimately worked, the user experience was far worse than MetaMask.

Investors are beginning to evaluate crypto tokens based on fundamentals such as actual usage and tokenomics rather than market-cap rankings, CoinDesk reported. Hunter Horsley, CEO of spot Bitcoin ETF issuer Bitwise, said the era of CoinMarketCap ranking tables is fading as investors shift their focus to market size, adoption levels, and whether projects capture value. Based on his conversations with asset managers that recently won approval to enter the crypto market, those firms often do not even know where a given asset ranks by CoinMarketCap market capitalization, and the ranking does not matter to them, he said. Jasper De Maere, an OTC trader at Wintermute, added that perpetual futures volumes have recently far exceeded spot trading volumes for most major tokens, while funding rates, positioning, and liquidation flows are shaping intraday market sentiment. Those capital flows have concentrated in major cryptocurrencies and some revenue-generating tokens, and it is difficult to separate fundamentals from money flows when the former narrows the investment universe and the latter drives prices, he said.

CoinMarketCap’s Altcoin Season Index came in at 46, down one point from yesterday. The index, published by the cryptocurrency market data platform, is based on a comparison of price performance between Bitcoin and the top 100 coins by market capitalization, excluding stablecoins and wrapped coins. Altcoin season is identified when 75% of the top 100 coins outperform Bitcoin over the past 90 days, while the opposite is considered Bitcoin season. A reading closer to 100 indicates stronger altcoin-season conditions.

Garrett Jin, founder of the fraudulent crypto exchange BitForex, deposited 17 million WLFI worth $1.01 million to Binance six hours ago, according to an analysis by on-chain analyst EmberCN. EmberCN added that an address believed to belong to Jin withdrew 313 million WLFI worth $31.89 million from Binance in February, when WLFI was trading near $0.10. If the tokens deposited today are sold, the move would amount to cutting losses at about a 40% loss. According to CoinMarketCap, WLFI was trading at $0.05952, up 3.38%, at the time of writing.

Stable releases version 2.0 white paper, says 82% of STABLE supply to unlock from Dec. 2027 USDT-focused layer-1 blockchain Stable released its version 2.0 white paper through its official channel. In the document, Stable said its mainnet will use USDT as the native gas token and primary payment asset, while also supporting PYUSD. Stable added it is positioning itself as a stablecoin payment infrastructure platform for institutional investors, with a focus on AI agent payments, business-to-business settlements, and cross-border payments. The white paper also included details on its STABLE token. Stable said 18% of the total STABLE supply is currently in circulation, while the remaining 82% will begin unlocking gradually from the end of 2027, with all tokens set to be in circulation by December 2029. However, if the 30-day volume-weighted average price, or VWAP, of STABLE falls under $0.025, the unlock schedule for part of the supply may be delayed by as much as nine months.

Michael Saylor, founder of Strategy (MSTR), said Bitcoin is the only casino where everyone can win. In a post on X, Saylor stressed, "Bitcoin is the winning horse, and the only casino where we can all win."

10x Research says BTC volume, volatility have plunged to pre-surge lows Bitcoin trading volume has shrunk to a fraction of the levels seen around U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration and at the October peak, while volatility has fallen to its lowest level in months, according to a weekly report from crypto research firm 10x Research. The firm said such low volatility and trading volume have historically not lasted long, adding that the current market may be the calm before the storm.

According to data from Tokenomist, the major token unlocks scheduled for the third week of August are as follows: - ZK: 173 million tokens ($1.3 million), representing 2.59% of circulating supply, at 8:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 17 - SOLV: 609 million tokens ($1.38 million), representing 12.9% of circulating supply, at 8:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 17 - KAITO: 32.6 million tokens ($11.48 million), representing 7.63% of circulating supply, at 10:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 20 - MBG: 27.15 million tokens ($2.85 million), representing 6.16% of circulating supply, at 12:00 p.m. UTC on Aug. 22 - SOON: 20.24 million tokens ($3.85 million), representing 3.76% of circulating supply, at 8:30 a.m. UTC on Aug. 23 - MET: 7.33 million tokens ($1.18 million), representing 1.34% of circulating supply, at 1:00 p.m. UTC on Aug. 23

CryptoQuant said monthly trading volume for stock token perpetual futures on major crypto exchanges reached about $250 billion in July, up 17-fold from roughly $15 billion in April. According to CryptoQuant, Binance handled about $193 billion in stock token futures volume in July, accounting for about 76% of the overall market. CryptoQuant said the market’s rapid growth was driven by sharp gains in AI- and semiconductor-related stocks, with trading concentrated in those names, including SOXL, Micron (MU), SK Hynix and SanDisk (SNDK).

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said cryptocurrency is the most suitable currency for AI agent-based finance, or AiFi. Armstrong added that running AI agents effectively and efficiently requires a form of money that is programmable, global, enables instant transactions and carries low fees, and cryptocurrency fits those requirements.

An anonymous Ethereum whale wallet beginning with 0x8447 has just withdrawn 5,300 ETH worth about $10 million from Kraken, according to an Onchain Lens analysis. Exchange outflows are generally interpreted as more likely to signal holding rather than selling. Onchain Lens said the whale withdrew 357.1 ETH worth about $566,000 from Kraken last month and then staked 224 ETH. After the latest withdrawal, the wallet now holds 5,430 ETH worth about $10.25 million, and the transfer may also be intended for staking. According to CoinMarketCap, ETH was trading at $1,872, down 0.43%, at the time of writing.

Major global macro events for the third week of August are as follows, based on Korea Standard Time: - U.S. crude oil inventories at 2:30 p.m. UTC on Aug. 19 - Minutes from the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting at 6:00 p.m. UTC on Aug. 19 - U.S. weekly jobless claims at 12:30 p.m. UTC on Aug. 20 - U.S. August manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) and services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) at 1:45 p.m. UTC on Aug. 21

Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said the biggest concern about Hyperliquid is U.S. regulation, adding that the platform will ultimately need to implement KYC to comply and may have to become increasingly centralized to compete with traditional markets such as CME and Nasdaq, according to an interview with Wu Blockchain. Gaevoy said Hyperliquid has performed well in tokenized real-world assets, commodities, and stock token trading, but faces two long-term issues: regulation and throughput.

The spot CVD chart is an order-book analysis chart for the BTC/USDT spot trading pair. The upper panel shows the volume heatmap, while the lower panel shows cumulative volume delta, or CVD. - The volume heatmap tracks trading volume at each price level. The background becomes brighter when the price stays in a specific range for an extended period or makes a large move. Brighter areas may act as support or resistance levels. - The CVD indicator in the lower panel reflects buy and sell orders by capital size, and the line for each color rises as buy orders increase. The yellow line represents orders between $100 and $1,000, while the brown line represents large orders between $1 million and $10 million, among other categories.

CoinMarketCap’s in-house Crypto Fear and Greed Index came in at 36, unchanged from yesterday, indicating the market remained in fear territory. The index signals extreme fear as it moves closer to zero and extreme optimism as it approaches 100. CoinMarketCap calculates the index based on price moves among the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, market volatility, derivatives-market indicators such as put-to-call ratios, the stablecoin supply ratio, or SSR, and CoinMarketCap’s own search data.

Binance founder Changpeng Zhao transferred about $965,000 in tokens from a public wallet to Giggle Academy today, according to on-chain analytics platform Arkham. The transfer included 1,440 BNB worth about $872,000 and 182,620 BNB Life tokens worth about $93,000. A day earlier, Zhao said he planned to donate the remaining BNB and BNB Life tokens in a wallet previously used for Trust Wallet testing to Giggle Academy, then stop using the address and effectively turn it into a burn address. Giggle Academy is a free online education platform founded by Zhao.

Research found that crypto permanently lost from mistyped address transfers on Ethereum and BNB Chain alone totaled about $575 million, according to CryptoPotato. A study led by researchers from Peking University and Zhejiang University in China identified 65,340 cases of address misuse across two address types on Ethereum and BNB Chain: contract accounts and externally owned accounts. Losses tied to contract account-related misuse reached 22,738.41 ETH and 8,681.41 BNB, while externally owned account-related losses totaled 104,224.53 ETH and 9,045.29 BNB. The researchers collected more than 10 million addresses and over 16 million exposed private keys, then examined about 2.5 million transactions on Ethereum and BNB Chain. The study found that address input errors linked to testnet addresses, reused contract addresses, and exposed private keys were major causes of permanent crypto losses.

Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm argued on X that, by the logic used by U.S. prosecutors in the case against Tornado Cash, Google and OpenAI could also face scrutiny over Gemini and ChatGPT. Storm said recent reports show Gemini and ChatGPT have been misused by North Korean IT workers posing as legitimate hires, and the wages they earn are used to support North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Storm added Google and OpenAI have known about the issue for years, yet have not faced charges of aiding crime and their founders have not gone to prison. Storm said Tornado Cash created a neutral tool that was misused by criminals, while developers rather than criminals are being prosecuted. On that basis, Storm said prosecutors would also have to charge all Google and OpenAI employees if they are taking issue with Tornado Cash.

Core Scientific director Jeff Booth said an IT professional with about 20 years of experience spent roughly 15,000 hours trying to break Bitcoin’s network security but ultimately failed, according to BeInCrypto. Booth, a director at crypto miner Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) and a founding partner at Bitcoin ecosystem-focused venture firm Ego Death Capital, said in a recent interview he was not a Bitcoin believer from the outset. Booth said Booth questioned whether a decentralized system designed as a solution to state abuses of power could endure, then ran a node and modeled attack methods that could be used by governments, competitors, and large mining companies. After spending more than 15,000 hours trying to find a way to break Bitcoin’s security, Booth said every scenario still produced blocks as scheduled and the attacks failed.

Scams targeting crypto holders by posing as “legal exchanges” have surged since the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, or MiCA, took full effect in July, CoinDesk reported. CoinDesk warned that after MiCA took effect, more than 1,700 unlicensed crypto platforms had to stop serving EU customers and direct them to migrate to other platforms. At the time, only 323 firms held MiCA-compliant licenses, and as many as 10 million users were told they needed to move assets from their existing exchanges. CoinDesk said the process created a major opening for impersonation scams, with fraudsters copying real exchange migration notices and posing as regulators to steer victims to fake platforms before stealing funds.

SafePal said on its official X account that the personal information of about 39,798 customers was exposed, including names, email addresses, shipping addresses, phone numbers, and purchase histories. SafePal said the exposed data involved customers who placed orders between March 2, 2025 and April 11, 2026. The company attributed the breach to a code flaw in an order-tracking plugin and said it has fixed the issue and completed additional security measures. SafePal added that wallet systems, seed phrases, and private keys remain securely protected, while affected users should stay alert for phishing or impersonation attempts.

Strategy CEO Phong Le said on X that the cryptocurrency market has been quiet in late summer, but is likely to regain momentum in the fall. Le added that key variables for the market could include the introduction of regulatory innovation exemptions, progress on the Clarity Act, broader BTC adoption by banks, growth in digital credit and digital money markets, macroeconomic stability, easing geopolitical tensions, and the U.S. midterm elections. Le also said the crypto market remains in its early stages. Meanwhile, Strategy recently sold around 3,327 BTC over the past two weeks. According to CoinMarketCap, BTC was trading at $62,684.23, down 0.64%, at the time of writing.

Cardano unveils 'Dijkstra' hard fork roadmap, targets Q4 2026 code completion Layer-one blockchain Cardano (ADA) has released a phased hard fork roadmap for the Dijkstra Era through its official channel. The first phase targets completion of code development by the fourth quarter of 2026 and the end of preparations for a mainnet upgrade. The process is set to include an upgrade of the protocol to version 12 and the introduction of related features. The second phase targets activation of Ouroboros Peras through an internal hard fork in the second quarter of 2027, with the aim of increasing transaction finality speed. Cardano added, however, that the timeline targets code completion and mainnet launch readiness, while actual mainnet deployment will require approval through on-chain governance.

Ethereum spot ETFs have outpaced Bitcoin spot ETFs in inflow rates relative to fund size since June, according to an analysis by crypto market maker DWF Labs. DWF Labs said spot Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs recorded a combined $1.1 billion in net inflows over the past week, marking the largest weekly net inflow since April 13. Of that total, BTC ETFs saw $865 million in net inflows, while ETH ETFs drew $243 million. While BTC posted the larger absolute inflow amount, ETH led BTC in relative inflow rates when measured against fund size. DWF Labs added that in June, ETH ETFs posted a net outflow rate of -4.65% relative to fund size, lower than BTC's -8.09%. In July, ETH ETF net inflow rates reached +3.19%, exceeding BTC's +0.34%. While spot ETF inflows declined in May amid broad institutional investor indifference toward ETH, DWF Labs said recent weeks have shown signs that this trend is beginning to reverse.