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Donald Trump’s Official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin distributed a total of $1 million worth of TRUMP tokens to 10 U.S. companies under the roughly three-month America First Business Challenge program, although questions have been raised about whether it provided meaningful support. The program was first announced in April at an event President Trump held at the Mar-a-Lago resort, and about 616 companies applied, with 36 ultimately approved. Among them, the top vote-getter received $250,000 worth of TRUMP, while six companies each received $100,000 and three companies each received $50,000 worth of the token. BeInCrypto pointed out the use of a memecoin as corporate support funding was unusual, while participating companies had to hold TRUMP tokens to qualify for the grants. In effect, companies had to buy TRUMP first and were then rewarded in TRUMP, according to BeInCrypto. The outlet added TRUMP has no separate use case, meaning companies would ultimately need to sell the token to use the support as actual funds.

South Korean crypto exchange Upbit operator Dunamu said on Aug. 28 it signed a strategic partnership with global payments company Visa to drive innovation in next-generation finance and payments built on stablecoins and artificial intelligence. The two companies unveiled a detailed roadmap for the partnership on Aug. 27 at Visa’s Global Market Support Center in Mission Rock, San Francisco, according to Dunamu. They plan to combine Dunamu’s digital-asset technology with Visa’s global payments network to explore stablecoin-based payments and cross-border remittances, while also extending cooperation in future finance and payments services using AI.

Coinbase, the largest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, announced it is delaying the listing of Dolphin (POD) spot trading pairs that had been scheduled for this week. Coinbase added "POD is still on our listing roadmap, and we will continue to provide updates on the launch of trading."

Crypto asset manager 21Shares has renamed its existing Polkadot ETF as the Polkadot Staking ETF and registered the ticker TDOT with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, Crypto Briefing reported. The changes take effect on Aug. 27. The ETF directly holds spot DOT and stakes 40% to 95% of its holdings through validators. Staking yields will be distributed to shareholders on a quarterly basis.

A first-ever quantum-resistant transaction has been processed on the Bitcoin mainnet, but around 7 million BTC with already exposed public keys could still be vulnerable to potential quantum computing attacks, CryptoSlate reported. The outlet stressed that the quantum-resistant transaction method used in this case cannot protect Bitcoin whose public keys have already been exposed. It also noted the approach adopted for quantum resistance in the transaction has not been standardized and remains costly. As a result, broader protocol-level solutions are needed to protect the entire Bitcoin network from quantum computing attacks. CoinNess reported yesterday that StarkWare, the developer of Ethereum layer-two Starknet (STRK), completed the first quantum-resistant transaction on the Bitcoin mainnet without changing consensus rules.

U.S.-listed crypto custody firm BitGo (NYSE: BTGO) announced on Aug. 27 that it acquired Bitcoin financial services provider NYDIG’s institutional trading business and related assets. Through the acquisition, BitGo plans to expand trading services for institutional clients and strengthen its capabilities in derivatives, structured products, financing, and capital markets. As part of the deal, about 30 NYDIG employees and institutional clients were also transferred to BitGo. Specific terms of the transaction, including the purchase price, were not disclosed.

Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in a recent report that rising stablecoin use could weaken the ability of countries facing financial and currency crises to enforce capital controls. The report said demand for dollar-pegged stablecoins has been seen rising in countries undergoing currency crises. It said stablecoins allow individuals to access dollars without going through domestic banks, which could reduce the effectiveness of measures governments have traditionally used to control capital flows. The researchers added that with the stablecoin market already exceeding $300 billion and expected to grow to the trillions of dollars in the coming years, capital controls could become even harder to enforce in future currency crises.

A U.S. Treasury official said Treasury yields will decline over time as inflation slows and the government is focused on lowering long-term Treasury yields, Walter Bloomberg reported.

TradFi-linked products have overtaken Bitcoin in trading volume on Binance’s perpetual futures market, Unfolded reported, citing crypto research firm K33 Research. The 30-day average trading volume for perpetual futures tied to traditional finance assets recently reached $15.59 billion, about double the $7.39 billion recorded for BTC perpetual futures over the same period. As of mid-August, products linked to traditional finance assets accounted for more than one-third of Binance’s total perpetual futures trading volume. Their volume has also risen sharply, climbing from about $3 billion at the start of the year, while BTC volume fell after at one point reaching $16 billion. Unfolded said the trend suggests market interest is shifting toward altcoins and perpetual futures tied to traditional finance assets. In the near term, direct catalysts to push Bitcoin prices higher appear limited, while product diversification on the Binance platform could accelerate.

Aave said via its official X account early today that total value locked in V4, the fourth-generation version of its crypto lending protocol, has surpassed $800 million to reach a record high. Aave added that V4’s TVL has risen about 30% over the past seven days. Launched on mainnet in early May, Aave V4 has expanded its TVL 16-fold in about four months. According to CoinMarketCap, AAVE was trading at $128.24, up 3.13%, at the time of writing.

Virtu Financial, M1X Global and Tradeweb have completed an on-chain repurchase agreement transaction backed by digital bonds from the Marshall Islands, Cointelegraph reported. The transaction was processed on the Canton Network and used the USDM1 stablecoin issued by M1X Global in cooperation with the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

Strive (ASST) CEO Matt Cole said Bitcoin will top $500,000 within the next four to five years. According to BitcoinTreasuries, Cole added in an interview that the dollar’s value will decline faster over the next four to five years than it did over the past 15 years.

The three major U.S. stock indices closed higher today. - S&P 500: +0.72% - Nasdaq: +1.57% - Dow Jones: +0.20%

U.S. consumer advocacy nonprofit and think tank Public Citizen claimed President Donald Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures have caused investors to lose at least $4.7 billion since 2022, Cointelegraph reported. Public Citizen cited the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial governance token WLFI, Trump NFT Trading Cards launched in 2022, the TRUMP memecoin, and Trump Media’s digital asset fund. The report said most of the estimated losses came from memecoin investments, putting those losses at $3.2 billion, while losses tied to investment in WLFI’s stablecoin USD1 were limited.

A UAE royal holds a 49% stake in the banking venture of the Trump family’s crypto project World Liberty Financial, the Wall Street Journal reported. The royal is Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE national security adviser known as the "spy sheikh," and the report described Sheikh Tahnoon as a key backer and shareholder of the U.S. bank WLFI is preparing to launch. Earlier, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a U.S. bank regulator, conditionally approved a bank charter for World Liberty Trust, a WLFI unit.

Fidelity macro director Jurrien Timmer said on social media that a combination of loose fiscal and monetary policy is clearly bullish for Bitcoin. Timmer said last week’s U.S. Treasury move to buy back long-term bonds and increase issuance of short-term bills was meaningful in that it weakened the dollar and drove sharp gains in both gold and Bitcoin. He said the market is sensing a precarious moment centered on fiscal dominance and the possibility that the Fed could lose its independence. The underlying assumption, Timmer added, is that the Treasury would need to significantly expand its buybacks to succeed in keeping interest rates low. That, he said, could push the Fed to align with those Operation Twist measures and ultimately lead down a path of currency debasement. He said the combination of loose fiscal and loose monetary policy is clearly negative for the dollar, which is sitting on its long-term trendline, and clearly positive for gold and, by extension, Bitcoin. Timmer also said gold and Bitcoin had been laggards in this year’s upward momentum, but are now rapidly narrowing that gap, adding that both still have ample room to rise further.

Strategy’s perpetual preferred stock STRC has risen above $98 for the first time in 12 weeks, BitcoinTreasuries reported. With the stock now just $2 below $100, Strategy could resume raising funds for additional BTC purchases if it reaches that level.

Solana has sharply reduced on-chain storage costs on its testnet, lowering fees under the SIMD-0437 proposal from 6,960 lamports per byte to 696 lamports per byte, Crypto Briefing reported. The change cuts token account maintenance costs to about one-tenth of the previous level and is currently being implemented on the testnet.

Connecticut has filed a lawsuit seeking to halt prediction market platform Kalshi’s sports event betting service, as a broader conflict between state governments and federal authorities intensifies in the U.S. The Connecticut attorney general said the event contracts amount to gambling in substance and argued state law must apply to protect minors and prevent gambling addiction. Kalshi pushed back strongly, saying the action was arbitrary enforcement targeting Kalshi while leaving other prediction markets untouched. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is also pursuing countersuits against state governments, arguing they are infringing on the authority of federally regulated exchanges. With nearly half of U.S. states split against the federal government and court rulings evenly divided, the dispute is expected to head to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final decision soon.

Grayscale CEO Peter Mintzberg said in a Fortune op-ed that the crypto winter is entering a thawing phase and institutional investors are paying closer attention to digital assets. Mintzberg said this cycle, unlike those in 2014, 2018 and 2022, was supported by institutions, which helped keep the downturn relatively limited compared with past cycles. He added that 73% of institutional investors plan to increase their digital-asset allocations this year, while 60% of Fortune 500 executives are actively pursuing blockchain-related projects.

Dylan LeClair, Metaplanet’s head of Bitcoin strategy, said on X that just 10 weeks ago some people had argued the case for investing in Bitcoin was over, Strategy’s MSTR would eventually be fully liquidated, and macro capital would never return, adding that those views should no longer be taken seriously.

Whale Alert reported that 272,040,846 USDC has been transferred from Coinbase Institutional to Coinbase. The transaction is valued at about $272 million.

Call options delivered stronger returns than a high-leverage Bitcoin perpetual futures strategy during Bitcoin’s roughly 25% surge over the past week, according to Crypto Briefing. The outlet said Bitcoin jumped from about $62,000 to nearly $80,000 on Aug. 25, adding the move amounted to a stress test for virtually every trading product in the crypto ecosystem. In a simulated comparison between call options and a high-leverage strategy, buying call options generated a 582% return, while the same premium-based high-leverage strategy produced a 450% return, Crypto Briefing said. The 132 percentage point gap was significant and suggested a structural shift in how traders respond to sharp price swings, according to the outlet.

NFT marketplace OpenSea has partnered with AI search engine Perplexity to directly supply real-time transaction data from more than 25 blockchain networks to Perplexity’s AI engine. The integration means users searching crypto market trends now receive answers based on live marketplace trading signals rather than outdated price data. To support the partnership, OpenSea built an MCP server, a data access protocol designed for AI, and is expanding beyond a marketplace into an onchain data infrastructure company. The move is expected to sharply lower barriers to market analysis for traders and developers by addressing data fragmentation.

Taiwanese legislator Ko Ju-Chun is committed to pursuing the adoption of a Bitcoin strategic reserve, former Bitcoin Magazine editor Pete Rizzo said, citing remarks Ko made at the Bitcoin Asia conference in Hong Kong on Aug. 27 local time. Ko stressed he would keep pushing the effort forward. In May, Ko submitted a report on introducing a Bitcoin strategic reserve to Taiwan’s prime minister and central bank governor during a Legislative Yuan meeting.