News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Paul Atkins introduced the "Regulation Crypto Assets" proposal on August 18, covering issuance pathways, disclosure obligations, and safe harbor conditions. Atkins stated that tailored exemptions could attract crypto issuers and investment back to the United States while preserving core investor protections, and expressed support for Congress's push for the CLARITY Act. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce noted that the proposal was developed through public comment and staff engagement, with feedback from both industry supporters and critics shaping the framework's design. SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda pointed out that fixed thresholds and disclosure obligations could enhance issuers' compliance expectations; the proposal has not yet taken effect. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Banking giant Citigroup Inc. has announced plans to launch a Bitcoin custody service on its institutional platform Custody+ later this year, starting with Bitcoin custody. Clients will be able to use both traditional asset and crypto asset custody services within the same framework. Citi stated that its Single Event Processing system has enabled continuous processing of custody transactions, with over 80% of event volume completed in real-time and 96% of U.S. voluntary corporate actions processed within two hours. The platform also integrates settlement, foreign exchange, liquidity, tax, and market data services. Citi noted that its digital asset infrastructure supports the transfer of funds and securities beyond traditional market hours, and through Citi Token Services, enables near-instant, 24/7 movement of tokenized deposits in certain markets. In June, Citi also launched blockchain-based securities custody services representing shares of private companies. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Since the launch of Sui's Hashi Bitcoin lending protocol testnet on July 22, it has processed over 1.1 million Bitcoin deposits and 165,000 withdrawals within three weeks. As of last week, more than 25 institutions had participated in the system's stress testing. Participating institutions include digital asset custodian BitGo, trading firm Cumberland, as well as Swissborg, Fluid, and Ledger, covering areas such as trading, custody infrastructure, and wealth management platforms. Hashi allows users to deposit native Bitcoin, which is confirmed by Sui validators before minting hBTC for on-chain lending and stablecoin borrowing. Deposits utilize a 2-of-2 multi-signature mechanism with MPC validator signatures, while withdrawals require review by the Guardian Layer; the project team will proceed with the 2026 mainnet launch only after this security layer completes its security audit. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Binance Pay, the payment service under cryptocurrency exchange Binance, has integrated with the domestic QR code network of Bhutan's bank DK Bank, now supporting payment collection from over 3,700 merchants in Bhutan. Users scan existing merchant QR codes and make payments priced in Bhutanese Ngultrum, with transactions settled in USDT via automatic foreign exchange conversion. Applicable scenarios include tourism, accommodation, dining, and retail—covering all consumer spending supported by DK Bank's domestic QR code network. During the promotional period, users are not charged any additional fees, and this offer is expected to last until December 31. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: The Russian Central Bank has released a draft regulation stipulating that professional market participants, including brokers, trust management firms, forex dealers, and cryptocurrency exchanges, must include crypto assets in their equity calculations. Crypto assets approved for trading on exchanges may account for no more than 25% of total equity value. The draft requires that relevant crypto assets be registered with a crypto-asset custodian so that regulators can verify their existence. The Russian Central Bank stated that this ratio will be used to assess credit risk and market risk, ensuring that intermediaries have the capacity to cover potential losses. The Russian State Duma has approved a cryptocurrency regulatory framework that allows both qualified and unqualified investors to trade cryptocurrencies, though the latter are subject to an annual purchase limit of 300,000 rubles (approximately $3,800). Cryptocurrencies still cannot be used as a domestic payment instrument, but import and export enterprises are permitted to use them for cross-border settlements without restrictions. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News - Digital infrastructure company HIVE Digital Technologies' high-performance computing division, BUZZ High Performance Computing, has signed a five-year AI cloud services contract worth approximately $350 million with an undisclosed investment-grade enterprise client. The contract is expected to generate approximately $70 million in additional annual revenue, bringing BUZZ HPC's annualized revenue to approximately $180 million. BUZZ HPC will deploy 2,016 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs, utilizing the GB300 NVL72 system, NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking, and VAST Data storage. The cluster is expected to become operational later this year at Bell's AI Fabric facility in Merritt, British Columbia, Canada, which runs on renewable hydroelectric power and closed-loop liquid cooling technology. HIVE estimates the project's capital expenditure at approximately $185 million, which will be funded through previously announced financing and new equipment debt. The company expects daily revenue of approximately $500,000 from its HPC and AI business once the cluster is fully operational, and plans to achieve $200 million in annualized GPU cloud services revenue by year-end. The company holds approximately 400 megawatts of capacity in Canada, which can support over 120,000 GPUs over the next two years. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News, August 14 — The Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) announced a €70,000 fine against crypto asset trading platform Bitpanda. The FMA stated that this is the first legally binding penalty case under the MiCA framework. The FMA noted that Bitpanda violated Article 8 of MiCA by failing to notify the authority and submit a whitepaper at least 20 days before the relevant crypto assets were approved for trading. Additionally, Bitpanda issued marketing notices without first publishing the required whitepaper, in violation of Article 1 of MiCA. The FMA stated that MiCA has moved from mere regulation to the enforcement phase, emphasizing that even though Bitpanda is the first publicly penalized case, it will not receive special treatment. Markus Miller stated that a license can only build trust if the relevant rules are continuously complied with. (Bitcoin.com News)
: Digital asset firm Galaxy Digital has lowered the probability of the CLARITY Act passing this year from 75% in May to 10%. The bill proposes that two U.S. federal regulatory agencies each oversee crypto asset regulation separately. U.S. Senators will return to Washington on September 14, followed by a working period of approximately three weeks. According to the Senate schedule, the motion to invoke cloture to advance the bill will be eligible for a vote at 2:15 PM on September 15. The motion requires the support of at least 60 senators. Republicans currently control 53 seats; if all Republican senators support the bill, support from at least 7 senators from other parties would still be needed. Galaxy Digital stated that unresolved ethics concerns, declining Republican support due to banking lobbying, and the shorter legislative window in September constitute the main obstacles to the bill's passage this year. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: The BIP-110 fork branched off from the Bitcoin mainnet at block height 961,632 on August 8. Since then, the Roughnecks mining pool has mined only 4 blocks in 7 days, with on-chain progress stalled at block 961,635. BIP-110 supporters plan to switch the proof-of-work hash function from SHA-256 to Blake2b as early as September. The related development requires adjustments to block header validation, as well as upgrades to mining pools, wallets, block explorers, and indexing tools. The fork coin has not yet received support from trading platforms and currently has no market price, with over 400,000 transfers awaiting confirmation. Due to the lack of replay protection, a large number of these transfers were unintentionally generated by users. Tokens mined by Roughnecks require 100 confirmations before they can be used. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Bank Leumi, Israel's largest and oldest commercial bank, has announced a partnership with cryptocurrency company Galaxy Digital, planning to launch Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana trading services on the Leumi Trade investment app and mobile banking platform PEPPER in early 2027, subject to approval from the Bank of Israel. Customers will be able to buy, hold, and sell related crypto assets through their bank accounts, without needing to open accounts on separate exchanges or use personal wallets. Galaxy Digital will provide institutional trading platforms and custody infrastructure, while Bank Leumi intends to operate under a white-label model where customers do not hold private keys. Bank Leumi previously announced a partnership with Paxos in 2022 to offer crypto trading services, but it did not receive regulatory approval. Fees, trading limits, the asset list, and external wallet withdrawal rules for this service have not yet been disclosed, and custodied crypto assets do not enjoy the same deposit insurance coverage as shekel deposits. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has once again postponed its plan for a tokenization "innovation exemption." The framework was intended to allow companies to test blockchain-based tokenized trading of U.S. stocks without meeting full exchange and broker-dealer standards. The delay is tied to unresolved negotiations over Section 10505 of the draft CLARITY Act in the U.S. Senate. That provision stipulates that tokenized securities remain securities and requires the SEC to study custody, consumer protection, cross-border issues, and regulatory coordination. The SEC also postponed a vote scheduled for Friday on a proposed exemption for crypto startup fundraising, citing scheduling issues, with no new date announced. The House version of the CLARITY Act passed in July 2025, and the Senate Banking Committee version advanced by a 15-9 vote in May of this year. A procedural Senate vote is not expected before September 15. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Cryptocurrency market maker Wintermute plans to invest approximately $1 billion over the next five years in AI infrastructure and high-frequency trading systems, while expanding into equities, commodities, foreign exchange, and prediction markets. The company aims to increase non-crypto revenue to more than 50% of total revenue by the end of 2027. Wintermute founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said the company plans to fund the investment with retained earnings. Wintermute's average daily trading volume this year is around $10 billion, down from approximately $15 billion last year; non-crypto businesses currently account for about 10% of revenue. The investment projects will cover computing power, storage, network, and data center infrastructure, supporting quantitative strategies that rely on large-scale datasets and models requiring continuous training and retraining. Wintermute has already expanded into exchange-traded funds, real-world asset perpetual futures, and prediction markets. Wintermute's U.S. affiliate recently completed its broker-dealer registration, allowing it to trade equities and stock options for its own account and serve as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products. The registration provides a pathway for the company to enter regulated securities markets. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Bitcoin fell to $62,912 on Thursday before briefly recovering above $63,000, with its market cap dropping to $1.26 trillion, still down 0.5% on the day. The total amount of liquidations in the crypto market reached $227 million, with long liquidations at $122 million and short liquidations at approximately $105 million. Bitcoin long liquidations amounted to nearly $34 million, an increase of over $13 million from the previous day. AMINA Research noted in its macro analysis that geopolitical risks in the Strait of Hormuz have driven phased increases in energy prices, raising inflation risks and potentially delaying the Fed's rate cuts until late 2026. At the July 29 meeting, three regional Fed presidents supported a 25-basis-point rate hike. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has announced that it will fully shut down its platform at 4:00 (UTC) on September 23, 2026. BitMEX CEO Peter Wilkinson stated that the exchange has been operating for over 11 years and has never lost customer funds due to hacker attacks during that period. Peter Wilkinson noted that BitMEX failed to keep pace with its competitors, having long focused on derivatives business while failing to offer spot trading, yield products, custody, and stablecoin trading services in a timely manner. The exchange also entered the USDT market relatively late, in 2021. He stated that BitMEX once supported its founding team in pioneering perpetual swaps, a product that has since become one of the highest-trading-volume financial instruments in the crypto industry and is now widely used for leveraged cryptocurrency trading. (Bitcoin.com News)
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase will open access to over 170 derivatives contracts for eligible UK professional investors, covering cryptocurrencies, commodities, equities, and foreign exchange. Perpetual contracts support up to 50x leverage, with services rolling out gradually over the coming weeks to months. The product lineup includes futures, perpetual contracts, and cryptocurrency options. Perpetual contracts have no expiration date and support long, short, and neutral strategies; term futures offer up to 20x leverage with fixed settlement dates. Coinbase previously obtained UK investment services authorization in July, with the related derivatives business operating under CB Payments Ltd.'s investment services license. The initial phase is limited to eligible UK professional investors, and the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will impose requirements on financial soundness, capital, stress testing, and market integrity. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: The specification for Bitcoin's proposed soft fork BIP-54 (Consensus Cleanup) was completed in May 2026, aiming to fix four consensus rule boundary issues without adding new Bitcoin features. On August 10, Wang Chun, co-founder of digital asset mining pool F2pool, stated that he does not support BIP-54. He said that if the proposal obtains the required majority through the standard BIP-9 process, F2pool will upgrade its mining nodes, but will not issue a signal of support ahead of time. BIP-54 has been tested in Bitcoin Inquisition, a Signet-based testing environment. Mining pools MARA and ViaBTC have voluntarily produced compatible coinbase transactions; the official activation parameters have not yet been determined, and the mainnet vote has not been completed. Previously, BIP-110, which attempted to restrict certain non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions, failed to gain sufficient miner support and stalled around block height 961,635; BIP-54 does not involve restricting general script functionality. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Kostas Chalkias, co-founder and chief cryptographer of Mysten Labs, the development company behind the Sui blockchain, stated that he has leased a dedicated factory at a secret location and plans to scale up production of quantum-safe hardware wallet cards for Sui. The project aims to keep the cost of a single quantum card key under $10, with NFC quantum signing expected to take 1 to 2 seconds. Chalkias noted that the project is being advanced in his personal time outside of work and may include funding to provide cards for users who cannot afford them. The initiative is partly driven by a recent incident involving Coldcard hardware wallets, though the vulnerability was not a quantum attack. Coldcard manufacturer Coinkite disclosed that a firmware vulnerability in Coldcard, traceable to a 2021 update, bypassed the hardware random number chip and generated keys using a predictable software process linked to device serial numbers. Attackers have been moving funds since July 30, with losses climbing to approximately 2,055 BTC, affecting over 7,700 addresses and nearing a value of $130 million. At the protocol level, Sui plans to integrate two quantum-resistant signature schemes approved by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), designed for everyday accounts and high-value Move vaults, respectively. Existing accounts can be rotated to quantum-safe keys based on their original recovery phrases, without needing to migrate to new wallets. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: The U.S. Senate will hold a procedural cloture vote on a motion related to the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (CLARITY Act) at 2:15 PM ET on September 15. This marks the first full Senate vote on the bill since it passed the House in July 2025. The bill is numbered H.R. 3633 and was previously passed by the House with 294 votes in favor and 134 votes against. The vote concerns whether to limit debate on the motion to proceed with the bill; supporters need 60 votes to succeed. Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate. If all Republican senators vote in favor, they would still need 7 additional votes; any absence or opposition would increase the number of additional votes required. If the procedural vote passes, the subsequent debate time on the motion to proceed will be capped at 30 hours, after which the Senate will vote on the motion itself. Only if the motion is approved will the bill be formally considered, and the bill itself will still need to pass another 60-vote cloture motion. If the Senate amends the text, the revised version would need to be sent back to the House for a vote. (Bitcoin.com News)
According to Bitcoin.com, cybersecurity company Genians Security Center released an analysis report stating that the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau-affiliated hacker group Kimsuky is building and testing an AI-centric cyberattack tool suite. Researchers discovered traces of the deployment of three local AI platforms, Ollama, GPT4All, and Msty, in their infrastructure, as well as AI development framework components such as Microsoft Semantic Kernel and LLaMaSharp, indicating that the organization is systematically developing dedicated AI attack tools rather than just making temporary attempts. Since early 2026, Kimsuky has used high-quality documents created by generative AI for spear-phishing attacks targeting the virtual assets, financial investment, and game development sectors; AI-generated professional documents have significantly reduced the effectiveness of traditional phishing email identification. The attack vector consists of ZIP archives disguised as legitimate documents, containing malicious LNK files that can silently execute PowerShell commands in the background after being triggered.
Odaily News: UAE-based foundation Aqua1 Foundation purchased $100 million worth of governance tokens from decentralized finance project World Liberty Financial (WLFI) on June 26, marking the largest single publicly disclosed purchase of the token to date. The funds trace back to Chinese businessman Guren "Bobby" Zhou, with up to $75 million flowing to entities linked to the Trump family and World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff. WLFI tokens confer governance and voting rights and do not represent equity in the company. Zhou was arrested in the UK in March 2021 on suspicion of money laundering, with UK law enforcement investigations still ongoing as of late July 2026. Two of his long-time employees were indicted in September 2025, one of whom has pleaded guilty, with trial scheduled for 2028. Zhou has not yet been formally charged. Zhou met with Eric Trump in Dubai to discuss the investment and described it as participation in the "Trump family's crypto project." The source of the $100 million Aqua1 used to purchase WLFI remains unclear, and public information does not indicate any direct link between these specific funds and money laundering activities. (Bitcoin.com News)