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Figure’s second-quarter revenue more than doubled from a year earlier to $226 million, while net income jumped 192% to $87 million, driven by rapid growth in its blockchain-based lending marketplace. Consumer loan volume rose 132% year over year to $4.3 billion in the second quarter, with Figure Connect, which links capital providers and loan originators, accounting for about 65% of the total. CEO Michael Tannenbaum said weekly loan applications topped $1 billion in July. Issuance of the yield-bearing stablecoin YLDS also increased sharply to $556 million, while the company’s acquisition of real estate lender Kiavi is proceeding smoothly with completion targeted for the second half of 2026.

The three major U.S. stock indices opened higher today. - S&P 500: +0.29% - Nasdaq: +0.12% - Dow Jones: +0.26%

Hardware wallet maker Trezor said on X that a security incident at a shipping provider exposed the personal data of 13,689 customers. Of that total, 11,742 had names, email addresses, phone numbers and shipping addresses exposed, while 1,947 had names, cities and email addresses disclosed. The affected users were new customers who received products in the United States, the UK, Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy and Portugal during the 90 days before Aug. 8. Trezor said its own systems and devices remain secure and urged users to watch for phishing attempts that may misuse the leaked personal data.

CryptoInsightUK warned XRP could face further losses, with key downside targets at $0.88-$0.925 and a potential drop to $0.77 if selling pressure intensifies, according to The Crypto Basic. The analyst said XRP is showing a bearish structure with consistently lower highs and lower lows, while $0.93 remains the first key price level to watch.

On-chain data visualization platform Bubblemaps warned of risks tied to memecoin XST, which has been heavily promoted on TikTok. According to Bubblemaps, 74% of the token’s total supply is concentrated in a small number of addresses, pointing to very high centralization risk and characteristics typical of a rug-pull project. The token’s market capitalization currently stands at around $70 million, and Bubblemaps strongly urged investors to avoid the project and ignore related content even if it appears in TikTok recommendation feeds.

Lombard announced it will shift LBTC’s yield-generation model from Babylon Bitcoin staking to a covered-call options strategy managed by Bitwise, targeting a 2.5% annual net APY in BTC terms. Up to 60% of LBTC collateral assets will be allocated to the strategy, while the related Bitcoin will be held in custody by Anchorage Digital Bank and Kraken Institutional. Lombard plans to begin with a $10 million pilot allocation during the week of Aug. 17 and complete the full allocation in September. Existing LBTC holders do not need to take any action.

A Top7 analysis found that 41 major cryptocurrency services and companies generated more than $2 million in revenue over the past month, with Tether and Circle alone bringing in more revenue than the other 39 combined. The firms listed by Top7 were as follows: - Tether: $482 million - Circle: $192.5 million - Canton Network: $52.05 million, based on fund flows - Pump.fun: $37.88 million - GMGN.ai: $21.21 million - Polymarket: $17.2 million - Axiom Exchange: $16.27 million - Grayscale: $14.41 million - World Liberty Financial: over $10 million - Paxos: $8.58 million - Phantom: $6.02 million - DexScreener: $4.15 million - Jupiter: $3.81 million - Securitize: $2.75 million - Fidelity: $2.48 million

Neutrl said it has temporarily suspended minting, redemptions and other protocol functions after a situation emerged that affected its asset reserves. The DeFi protocol said the move was taken on the advice of its legal counsel as it works to address the matter, adding that it is assessing the exact scope of the impact and plans to provide users with a clear and orderly processing procedure in a future notice once details and next steps are finalized.

Bit Digital buys $20M in ETH in Q2

About 41.89 million ETH, or 34.7% of Ethereum’s total supply, is staked, marking a record high, according to Staking Rewards data. The total value of staked ETH stands at about $78.56 billion, while the staking yield has recently fallen 0.49% to around 2.6%. There are about 789,000 active validators.

SharpLink, one of the corporate holders of Ethereum, will stake $200 million worth of ETH in Lido, the largest liquid staking protocol on Ethereum. In return, the Nasdaq-listed company, trading under SBET, will receive wstETH, a token that reflects staking rewards, with the asset to be held in custody by institutional custodian Anchorage Digital. The move is intended to help SharpLink maintain its ETH exposure while generating additional on-chain yield and further diversifying its treasury. CEO Joseph Chalom described it as a step to diversify the company’s ETH assets more productively while maintaining institutional-grade risk standards. Kean Gilbert, head of Lido Institutional, added that the move represents a standard model for large institutions seeking to maximize ETH yield without giving up liquidity.

Garrett Jin, the BitForex founder accused of profiting from insider trading ahead of last October’s largest-ever forced liquidation event, opened a roughly $100 million BTC long position at an average entry price of $76,117, according to Arkham. The position is currently showing an unrealized loss of $16 million, and Jin has also paid $1.2 million in funding fees.

Strategy founder Michael Saylor outlined a “digital asset monetary spectrum” that classifies digital assets by volatility, return potential and transactional utility. In a post on X, Saylor described BTC as "Digital Capital," STRC as "Digital Credit," SR-strcUSX as "Digital Money," and USDT as "Digital Currency." He said volatility and return potential decline while stability and transactional utility rise as assets move from BTC toward USDT. Saylor added BTC serves as the ultimate store of value, while stablecoins such as USDT function as the ultimate medium of exchange, with digital credit and digital money linking the two.

Bullish said second-quarter revenue rose 62% from a year earlier to $92.6 million, while adjusted EBITDA climbed to $29.5 million from $8.1 million and adjusted net income improved to $14.3 million from a net loss of $6 million a year earlier. Digital asset revenue, however, fell to $23.6 billion from $58.6 billion, and the company posted a net loss of $280 million. Bullish plans to build an integrated platform supporting the full process for security tokens, from issuance, listing and trading to tracking, after completing its acquisition of securities services provider Equiniti.

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.