Wu Blockchain

Plume Vault’s nOPAL is now available through Bybit RWA Earn, allowing Bybit users to access yields linked to Brazilian credit card receivables through an RWA vault managed by BlackOpal. i.bybit.com/ajkabi6

Arthur Hayes: Why Did BitMEX Choose to End Its Operations? On August 22, 2026, BitMEX co-founder @CryptoHayes said in an interview that BitMEX’s decision to cease operations was not due to a hack or regulatory pressure, but rather a decision made voluntarily by the team. He revealed that after discussions among the three founders, they concluded that the company was no longer profitable and was instead continuing to consume resources, leading them to decide to shut down operations. Arthur Hayes stated that BitMEX’s ownership had remained unchanged throughout its 13-year history, and the board ultimately reached a unanimous decision to end the business, with the team choosing to leave on their own terms.

Pumpfun Expands Beyond Solana With HyperEVM Token Trading Pumpfun said its app now fully supports HyperEVM, allowing users to trade any HyperEVM token with USDC. The dominant Solana memecoin launchpad charges 0% trading fees on Solana and 0.1% on HyperEVM, Robinhood, BNB, Base and other supported markets.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $232 million in net inflows on Aug. 26, led by BlackRock’s IBIT with about $201 million, while spot Ether ETFs drew $192 million, with BlackRock’s ETHA accounting for roughly $116 million. BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, led inflows across both major U.S. spot crypto ETF categories.

Bitcoin Options Price $69K-$89.7K One-Month Range, Signaling Cautious Outlook Bitcoin has rebounded about 26% from its mid-August low, but options markets are not pricing a further one-way surge, according to Glassnode, a leading crypto on-chain analytics firm. By the Sept. 25 expiry, the middle 70% of implied outcomes spans roughly $69,000 to $89,700, with the median close to spot. Glassnode said $81,000-$86,000 forms a major resistance zone where long-term holder supply, sell orders, negative dealer gamma and remaining short-liquidation levels converge.

Core Lightning Tells Node Operators to Upgrade or Go Offline Over AI-Reported Bugs Core Lightning maintainers have warned node operators to install an upcoming security release or otherwise run their nodes offline, as the team works through multiple AI-generated vulnerability reports received in recent weeks. Details of the fixes remain under a roughly two-week disclosure embargo, with no public CVE or full security advisory released yet.

BlackRock’s Mitchnick Says $40 Trillion U.S. Debt Strengthens Bitcoin’s Long-Term Case BlackRock digital-assets head Robbie Mitchnick said rising U.S. debt and persistent fiscal deficits are returning as a core market risk, pushing some investors toward alternative stores of value such as Bitcoin and gold as federal debt reached about $40.05 trillion on Aug. 18. Mitchnick said fiscal sustainability matters more to Bitcoin’s long-term valuation than the pending CLARITY Act, whose impact would be greater across areas such as DeFi.

StarkWare Researcher Executes First Quantum-Safe Bitcoin Transaction on Mainnet StarkWare researcher Avihu Levy’s Quantum-Safe Bitcoin (QSB) scheme has completed its first confirmed transaction on the Bitcoin mainnet, demonstrating a way to protect transactions from Shor-algorithm attacks without a soft fork or changes to Bitcoin’s consensus rules. QSB shifts transaction security away from elliptic-curve cryptography toward hash-based assumptions, though it remains experimental, requires roughly $75–$150 in off-chain GPU computation per transaction.

Web3 Domain Giant Unstoppable Drops ICANN Plans for .Crypto, .Wallet Unstoppable Domains founder Matthew Gould said the company did not apply to bring Web3-native domains including .crypto, .wallet, .NFT, .Bitcoin, .DAO and .ZIL into ICANN’s 2026 gTLD round and will refund eligible customers. Gould said compliance, application and potential bidding costs would exceed expected sales, describing the Web3 domain market as “small” and “niche.” The domains will continue functioning as on-chain assets for crypto payments but will not enter the traditional DNS system for now.

NVIDIA Q2 Revenue Reaches $96.2 Billion, Q3 Guidance Set at $108.0 Billion NVIDIA reported fiscal Q2 2027 revenue of $96.2 billion, up 106% year over year and above the $92.2 billion consensus estimate. Data Center revenue reached $89.0 billion, up 117% and above the $85.8 billion estimate, while non-GAAP diluted EPS came in at $2.22, beating expectations of $2.10. Non-GAAP gross margin was 75.0%, in line with estimates. NVIDIA guided fiscal Q3 revenue to $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2%, above the $104.2 billion consensus estimate, with the outlook assuming no Data Center compute revenue from China. The company said its Vera Rubin platform has entered full production and returned about $26.0 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and cash dividends during the quarter.

Chainalysis: Global On-Chain Taxable Crypto Activity Reached at Least $457 Billion in 2025 Chainalysis estimates that global on-chain potentially taxable crypto activity reached at least $457 billion in 2025, led by the United States at $112.6 billion. The total includes realized gains on CEXs and DEXs, income from mining, staking and lending, and crypto payments. Chainalysis said the figure is a conservative lower bound because off-chain activity within centralized exchanges is not visible on-chain. It also estimates that only about 14% of global on-chain taxable activity falls within the practical scope of the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, leaving most DEX, P2P, self-custody, on-chain income and payment activity outside its coverage.

Sui Co-Founder Kostas Kryptos Unveils Regulated Exchange Havenex as Series A Nears Close Sui co-founder Kostas Kryptos said Havenex is currently raising a Series A round that is close to completion and has already applied for the licenses required for its planned operations. The platform is being built as regulated infrastructure for financial institutions to offer both digital and traditional financial assets, with a focus on verifiable custody, continuous proof of solvency, multisig security, quantum-resistant keys, hardware-based two-factor authentication, and self-custody and key-loss protection mechanisms. Havenex plans to use Sui technology where appropriate while also integrating assets, infrastructure and bridges from other ecosystems. Kostas said he will advise Havenex but will remain focused on Mysten Labs and Sui.

An Insider's Account: I Worked at Three Exchanges That All Imploded? A former employee of WebSea, JuCoin and CoinUP told WuBlockchain that some small and mid-sized exchanges rely on rising platform-token prices, discounted token purchases, high-yield products, copy trading and agent networks to attract user funds and keep them within the platform. He said WebSea allowed employees to withdraw while ordinary users were unable to do so during a 2024 crisis; JuCoin targeted users in lower-tier markets through mining products and a complex multi-level agent system; and some CoinUP team leaders or agents were required to purchase its CPX platform token, which later suffered a severe price collapse. He said ordinary users could face withdrawal restrictions while employees, agents and other insiders could sometimes withdraw more easily. At JuCoin, withdrawals exceeding deposits were less likely to be approved and profits could be deducted. Dougao argued that in a bear market, some smaller exchanges may increasingly turn to platform tokens, high-yield products and lower-tier user acquisition, highlighting the risks behind “principal protection,” high returns and discounted token purchases.

Solana Proposals Could Sharply Increase SOL Burns and Cut Issuance by $1.4B-$1.5B Over Six Years According to 21Shares, Solana is advancing two governance proposals, SIMD-550 and SIMD-553. SIMD-550 would double the annual disinflation rate from -15% to -30%, moving Solana’s path to its 1.5% terminal inflation rate from around 2032 to H1 2029, while nominal staking yield is projected to fall to about 2.25% by year three. SIMD-553, approved and merged on July 20, introduces a burn fee on requested compute units from financial activity. Based on current network activity, daily SOL burns could rise from about 600-800 SOL to roughly 7,500-9,000 SOL. Together, the two proposals are projected to reduce issuance by about $1.4B-$1.5B over six years. The final impact still depends on the SIMD-550 vote and SIMD-553 validator fee design.

SEC Prepares Crypto Custody Rule Overhaul for Investment Advisers and Funds According to Bloomberg, the SEC sent a new proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget on Aug. 25 to clarify the custody framework for crypto assets held by investment advisers and investment companies. The proposal also seeks to remove certain existing custody requirements that the SEC says have become “outdated” due to market evolution and current trading and holding practices. Full details will be released after OMB review, followed by an SEC vote and a public comment period, typically lasting at least 60 days.

HPC and trade[XYZ] Recommend that the CFTC Allow Energy Perpetual Contracts into the U.S. Market The Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) and trade[XYZ], a third-party market deployer on Hyperliquid, have submitted a comment letter to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). They recommend establishing a regulated U.S. market access pathway for crude oil and natural gas perpetual contracts, and support 24/7 trading. The two parties also recommend allowing stablecoins and tokenized traditional assets to be used as margin, and recognizing on-chain infrastructure for trading, clearing, and settlement.

Bernstein Sees Bitcoin at $150K by Mid-2027, Cuts Strategy Price Target to $350 Bernstein analysts expect Bitcoin to reach roughly $125k by the end of 2026, a new high of $150k by mid-2027 and a cycle peak of around $300k in 2029 under their base case. If currency debasement accelerates institutional inflows, Bitcoin could reach $200k by mid-2027 and $500k in 2029. Bernstein maintained its long-term forecast of approximately $1 million by the end of 2033. The firm maintained its Outperform rating on Strategy but cut its price target from $450 to $350, citing a revised Bitcoin cycle outlook and accelerated equity dilution.

Upbit to List NCT/KRW Trading Pair According to an official announcement, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, Upbit, will list the NCT/KRW trading pair, with trading scheduled to begin at 9:00 p.m. local time on Aug. 26. PolySwarm is a malware detection platform that uses crypto assets to power security scanning.

CME CEO: Hyperliquid Is Driving U.S. Markets Toward 24/7 Trading On August 20, CME CEO Terry Duffy said at a CFTC meeting that CME wants to launch a 24/7 oil trading market in the U.S., because similar markets on decentralized finance platforms are already beginning to influence traditional finance. He noted that even if these markets are not legal for U.S. participants, users can still access them through VPNs, and their impact on traditional financial markets is already being felt.Duffy believes 24/7 trading will eventually become the norm across financial markets.

CryptoQuant: Bitcoin Bull Score Jumps From 30 to 80 in One Week, Signaling Early Stage of a New Bull Market CryptoQuant said Bitcoin has gained 24% since Aug. 17 and reached $80,000, while its Bull Score surged from 30 to 80 — the most bullish reading since Oct. 6, 2025 — with eight of 10 indicators now flashing bullish. Apparent spot demand is growing at its fastest monthly pace since late December, while spot and futures demand are expanding together for the first time since early October 2025. CryptoQuant said the market has entered the initial phase of a new bull market, but a close above the 365-day moving average near $83,000 is still required for confirmation. Near-term overheating risks remain: traders’ unrealized profit margin rose to 20.5%, the highest since June 2025; whales realized a record $614 million in profits on Aug. 20; and rising BTC, ETH and XRP exchange inflows point to potential short-term selling pressure.

Hyperliquid Officially Activates "AQAv2" to Buy Back and Burn HYPE with USDC Reserve Yield Hyperliquid announced the activation of its "AQAv2 (Aligned Quote Asset v2)" framework starting August 26, which directs yield generated from USDC reserves toward programmatic market buybacks and burns of the native HYPE token. Under the structure—supported by Circle as technical deployer and Coinbase as treasury manager—approximately 90% of reserve yield is shared with the protocol and transferred in 30-day cycles to the Assistance Fund (AF) to execute HYPE buybacks and permanent burns. Yield accrual begins on August 26 with the inaugural payout and execution scheduled for October 3.

According to SoSoValue, spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $314 million in net inflows on August 25 (ET), marking 7 consecutive days of net inflows. Spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $180 million in net inflows, also extending their streak to 7 consecutive days. x.com/WuBlockchain/status/2092…

Japan to Explore 24/7 Blockchain Settlement for Bonds and Stocks According to Nikkei, the Japanese government, the Bank of Japan (BOJ), and financial institutions plan to develop a next-generation blockchain-based financial settlement infrastructure, aiming to enable 24/7 real-time settlement for assets such as government bonds and stocks. The Financial Services Agency (FSA), Ministry of Finance, BOJ, and relevant financial institutions will establish a study group this summer and plan to formulate a development plan in early 2027, covering blockchain architecture and how the government, central bank, and financial institutions will collaborate. Japan has previously conducted several blockchain-based financial experiments, but this is the first project with a clear implementation timeline.

Bitcoin Payments in El Salvador Have Practically Dried Up Jon Atack, a Bitcoin Core contributor residing in El Salvador, reported that a restaurant in El Zonte (known as "Bitcoin Beach") told him his lunch bill was the establishment's only bitcoin transaction for the entire month, with staff noting that everyday BTC payments have significantly declined in favor of card payments. Analysts attribute the drop in merchant velocity to a prevalent "HODL" mindset—where holders view Bitcoin as a long-term store of value rather than transactional cash—alongside high asset volatility. Following revisions under its IMF loan agreement, El Salvador also made merchant acceptance of Bitcoin voluntary rather than mandatory.

Michael Saylor: The Single Most Important Thing Right Now Is to Fix the Credit Business At Strategy's Q2 2026 investor Q&A, livestreamed on Aug. 17, regarding the company's future business blueprint and capital allocation strategy, Executive Chairman Michael Saylor @saylor stated that Strategy aims to be the JPMorgan of digital assets, though without copying traditional banking models. He emphasized that building on holding 4% of the global Bitcoin supply, the key lies in developing products on top of Bitcoin, such as digital equity MSTR and digital credit STRC. The single most important task right now is fixing the digital credit business, as fixing credit will expand equity premiums and drive the company's valuation toward hundreds of billions or even a trillion dollars.