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Western Union has launched a Visa card based on its own dollar-pegged stablecoin, USDPT, issued on Solana. Cardholders can make payments in USDPT at Visa merchants worldwide, while stablecoin card infrastructure provider Rain supports the mobile app, embedded wallet and card infrastructure.

Fortitude, Digital Currency Group’s ZEC mining subsidiary, has acquired a 12.5-megawatt mining facility in Prosser, Nebraska, with the company expecting the deal to lower its ZEC mining costs, The Block reported. The acquisition, which includes the land, buildings and a substation, involved about $4.7 million in actual cash outlays. Prosser is Fortitude’s third facility in Nebraska, and the company now has more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites in four states. Power costs at the Prosser site are estimated at about $0.045 per kilowatt-hour, which Fortitude said could lower its mining cost to around $40 per ZEC.

Prediction market platform Polymarket is seeking to raise $1 billion at a $20 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported. Polymarket was said to have been valued at about $15 billion in a Series E funding round held around March.

Ondo Finance (ONDO) announced the launch of USDY, a yield-bearing stablecoin linked to U.S. Treasuries, on BNB Chain (BNB).

U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune must begin procedural steps by today if the Senate is to take up the CLARITY Act before the August recess, with a vote on whether to open floor debate set for Aug. 4, Crypto in America reported. If that vote secures 60 votes, the chamber can begin debate on the bill and review amendments.

Russia’s Federal Security Service is pushing a plan to require cryptocurrency exchanges to install the country’s SORM surveillance system, local outlet The Bell reported. If implemented, the platforms would have to share user information with the FSB in real time. The FSB proposed requiring crypto exchanges to hand over customer data shortly after the war in Ukraine began, according to the report, though a SORM installation mandate was not discussed at the time. SORM is a system that Russian internet service providers, including telecom operators, messengers, social media platforms and banks, are required to install. An FSB official said that even after 10 years since the relevant law took effect, data storage and lawful interception infrastructure is only about 80% complete. Some in the industry, however, said that figure appears overstated.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent said in a CNBC interview the U.S. could reach an agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as soon as Aug. 5.

Wells Fargo plans to launch its own blockchain-based deposit token this fall Wells Fargo plans to roll out a tokenized deposits service for corporate and commercial clients this fall, The Wall Street Journal reported in an exclusive. The U.S. bank, the country’s fourth-largest by assets, said customers will be able to use tokenized deposits for 24/7 fund transfers, programmable functions and payments. At launch, Wells Fargo plans to support U.S. dollar- and British pound-based deposit tokens for cross-border payments, with plans to expand to more countries and currencies next year depending on demand. The deposit token will run on Wells Fargo’s in-house blockchain platform.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said on X, "economic security is national security" and urged the U.S. to pass the CLARITY Act. Meanwhile, the White House has yet to issue an official position on a compromise proposal related to the bill’s ethics provisions put forward last week by Senators Thom Tillis and Ruben Gallego.

NYSE-listed French semiconductor company Sequans Communications (SQNS) said today it sold 344 BTC. The sale lowered Sequans to 73rd place among global listed companies by Bitcoin holdings, leaving it with 314 BTC. Sequans announced in May it was ending its Bitcoin accumulation strategy and plans to sell its remaining holdings to simplify its capital structure and focus on its IoT business and strategy.

Coldcard, the crypto hardware wallet hit by a hack linked to a code flaw that has so far resulted in losses of about 1,816 BTC ($114 million), said in an update on its official X account that the security threat remains in place and recommended users install the security update, generate a new seed, and move their funds. Galaxy Research had previously estimated that losses from the Coldcard incident could rise to as much as 2,055 BTC.

Galaxy Digital Head of Research Alex Thorn said at least 15 attackers are currently believed to have taken part in the theft of Bitcoin by exploiting a vulnerability in Coldcard hardware wallets. Earlier, Onchain Lens said the Coldcard incident is estimated to have resulted in the theft of a total of 1,816 BTC ($114 million) so far.

On-chain analyst Specter said additional Bitcoin wallets likely tied to the so-called Qian Zhimin case, which allegedly involved large-scale money laundering between China and the UK, have been identified, holding a combined 28,555 BTC worth $1.8 billion. Specter said a wallet that had been dormant since 2017 moved 1,020 BTC several weeks ago and then split the funds across multiple addresses, a pattern resembling the kind of dispersion seen in money laundering. Tracing those transfers led to addresses that UK investigative authorities had linked to the Qian Zhimin case, Specter said, adding that most of the addresses have remained largely dormant since June 2021. Specter added that on-chain evidence alone cannot determine whether the wallets are still under the control of the same entity, have been transferred to another custodian, or are already under law enforcement control. Separately, Qian Zhimin was sentenced in the UK to more than 11 years in prison on charges of laundering Bitcoin proceeds from an investment fraud in China that targeted around 130,000 people. UK police previously seized 60,000 BTC in connection with the case.

Spot CVD tracks order-book activity for the BTC/USDT spot trading pair. The upper panel shows a volume heatmap, while the lower panel shows cumulative volume delta, or CVD. - The volume heatmap in the upper panel tracks trading volume by price range. The background becomes brighter when the price stays in a specific range for an extended period or moves sharply. Brighter zones may act as support or resistance levels. - The CVD indicator in the lower panel reflects buy and sell orders by order size. As buy orders increase, the line for the corresponding color rises. The yellow line represents orders between $100 and $1,000, while the brown line represents large orders between $1 million and $10 million.

DWF Labs founder Andrei Grachev said rumors that the firm orchestrated price manipulation in DEXE were baseless, adding that all trades were executed on centralized exchanges and could be verified by those venues through the firm’s UID. Grachev said DWF Labs bought a large amount of DEXE in 2024 and sold part of its holdings in 2025 to raise cash. He added that the firm bought a large amount of DEXE again around Oct. 10, when last year’s crypto crash began, and took a hedge position on first-half profits this year. Grachev said DWF Labs later closed its short position when funding rates in the futures market turned negative, then sold its spot DEXE holdings to complete the cash-out. Meanwhile, Choc, an influencer with Chinese roots, recently alleged that DWF Labs was behind manipulation in DEXE, which has fallen more than 90%. Choc claimed DWF Labs made about $40 million in profit through DEXE price manipulation and said retail investors’ money flowed into the firm’s pockets. Choc also alleged that DWF Labs was deeply involved in manipulating the prices of coins including ESPORTS and SIREN, while no one was held accountable.

Asset switching is spreading in Seoul’s housing market despite the government’s tough lending curbs, with buyers selling existing real estate and financial assets such as cryptocurrencies to purchase homes, Maeil Business Newspaper reported in an exclusive. According to the report, citing an analysis by South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport based on home purchase financing plans submitted to the office of People Power Party lawmaker Kim Jong-yang across 17 cities and provinces, proceeds from sales of stocks, bonds and cryptocurrencies accounted for 7.6% of home purchase funds used by individual buyers in Seoul from January through May, up from 2.9% in 2021. Funds from gifts and inheritances also rose to 6.4% from 3.8%, while proceeds from real estate sales accounted for 32.6%. The share funded by loans from financial institutions stood at 22.7%, with little change in recent years.

Deribit retained the largest share of the cryptocurrency options market in the first half, according to CoinGlass. BTC and ETH options volume across five major crypto options exchanges reached about $864.6 billion in the first half. Deribit led with a 49.3% market share, followed by Bybit at 22.3%, Binance at 13.4%, and OKX at 13.3%. Those four exchanges accounted for more than 98% of the overall options market. Deribit’s monthly market share also fell markedly to 41.8% from 56.3% in January, while Bybit overtook Deribit to rank first in ETH options trading volume.

Onchain Lens said on X that thefts targeting users of Coldcard hardware wallets are continuing, with total losses now estimated at 1,816 BTC, or $114 million. The analytics firm said a fourth attack matching the pattern of the first three left an additional 462 users affected and led to the theft of 388.93 BTC. The hacker has not yet moved the stolen funds to other addresses, according to Onchain Lens, while new transfers were still occurring from addresses tied to the attack as recently as a few minutes ago. Galaxy Research had earlier estimated total losses from the Coldcard incident could rise to as much as 2,055 BTC.

South Korean crypto exchange Upbit announced the addition of Squid (QUID) for KRW, BTC and USDT trading at 2:00 p.m. UTC today.

Two Democratic U.S. senators sent a formal letter to the U.S. SEC urging an investigation into possible illegal conduct and fraud involving President Donald Trump’s meme coin Official Trump (TRUMP), CNN reported. Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal delivered the letter to SEC Chairman Paul Atkins on Aug. 3, local time, according to the report. In the letter, the senators raised the possibility that TRUMP could amount to a rug pull. Separately, blockchain analytics firm TRM Labs said TRUMP does not appear to have been designed for a rug pull, but its high concentration of insider-held supply warrants close oversight. TRM Labs added that early buyers and token issuers made profits, while most investors who bought later suffered heavy losses, and said a structure in which nearly 1 million retail investors were left holding losses could increasingly appear problematic over time even if it does not qualify as a rug pull. Trump is also known to have collected about $636 million in royalty income tied to TRUMP last year alone.

South Korean exchange Upbit announced it will temporarily suspend deposits and withdrawals on the STEEM, SBD, HIVE and HBD networks from 1:00 p.m. UTC on Aug. 12 for a wallet upgrade.

Binance announced it will delist four spot trading pairs — QNT/BTC, RPL/USDC, SIGN/BNB and SKL/USDC — at 3:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 7, according to a notice on its official website.

Coinbase BTC premium stays negative for record 78 straight days The Coinbase Bitcoin Premium Index has remained in negative territory for 78 consecutive days from May 19 through today, according to CoinGlass. As of 9:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 4, the latest reading stood at -0.1145%. The previous longest stretch of negative premium lasted 40 days, from Jan. 16 to Feb. 24 this year. With buying pressure from U.S. investors relatively subdued, the duration of the negative premium has continued to set new records. Historical data show that extended periods of negative premium have often coincided with slower buying by U.S. investors and weaker institutional demand.

Bernstein said valuations for Texas-based Bitcoin miners and AI infrastructure companies with secured power capacity are likely to rise as the U.S. state of Texas begins auditing grid interconnection projects for data centers, The Block reported. Citing growing political opposition to new data centers and potential limits on new power supply under state regulations, Bernstein said the scarcity value of already approved megawatts would increase, making it reasonable to expect higher returns per MW. Based on that view, the investment bank maintained its outperform rating on Cipher Mining (CIFR), CleanSpark (CLSK), Core Scientific (CORZ), IREN (IREN), Riot Platforms (RIOT) and TeraWulf (WULF), while assigning a market-perform rating to MARA Holdings (MARA).

Bitcoin is showing on-chain indicators similar to those seen in past bottoming phases from a four-year cycle perspective, according to an analysis by crypto analyst Crypto Dan. Crypto Dan said the share of coins held for one week to one month based on Bitcoin’s realized market capitalization has fallen to around 5%, while the price has been moving sideways after a correction. Crypto Dan added that it is still too early to be certain a cycle bottom has formed, but, as in past bottoming phases, investor participation has clearly weakened and market interest has cooled. If a new upcycle resumes in 2027, the current range could be viewed as undervalued, Crypto Dan said.