Ahead of a pivotal initial vote next week, Senate Republicans released a revised version of the landmark Clarity Act cryptocurrency legislation that includes new rule language for “non-decentralized finance protocols.”

On Thursday, Sen. Cynthia Lummis and other fellow Republicans released a 630-page bill text.

“We have incorporated more than 114 separate provisions at my Democrat colleagues’ request, and as a result, this bill is a strong bipartisan product,” Lummis said in a statement. “Unlike rulemaking, legislation gives this industry a lasting solution that shields it from the whiplash of changes in the White House.”

Over the past year, the Senate has been trying to advance the Clarity Act — which would regulate the crypto industry for the first time at the federal level. The bill will have its first procedural vote on Sept. 15 as the Senate returns to Washington with limited time to advance the bill.

The Clarity Act faces a dicey path to President Donald Trump’s desk. The bill has been hit with one setback after another, including a battle between banks and crypto over the treatment of stablecoin rewards, concerns about illicit finance, and the latest big snag, which has yet to be resolved — how to address Trump’s growing crypto wealth, which has grown to hundreds of millions of dollars linked to World Liberty Financial and his TRUMP memecoin.

In July, Trump agreed to an ethics provision barring public officials, employees and their spouses from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. The provision would be enforced by the Justice Department, not state attorneys general, and would expire in January 2029. Democrats criticized the language as insufficient and have since sent, along with Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, another version of ethics language.

Politico reported that the latest version does not have any support from Democrats, which is crucial in passing the bill. The bill also does not include significant changes in its ethics portion, and still gives the Justice Department lead authority to enforce it.

New version

The new version included new rulemaking for those “non-decentralized finance trading protocols,” which it describes as a person or a group of people that “act in concert, has the authority, directly or indirectly, through any contract, arrangement, understanding, relationship, or otherwise, to control or materially alter the functionality, operation, or rules of consensus or agreement of the decentralized finance trading protocol.”

Those non-DeFi trading protocols would need to register with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and the bill directs the CFTC and Treasury to write rules. The new section was something Democrats wanted to see added, a crypto industry source told The Block.

The updated text also includes language that DeFi provisions just apply to “spot and cash digital commodity transactions,” which Lummis said was meant to address concerns from tribal governments about the Clarity Act’s impact on prediction markets. Clarifications were also made to how credit unions conduct crypto activities, Lummis said in her statement.

Lummis, who is set to leave Congress in January 2027 as she is not seeking another term, has posted on X repeatedly in a push to get Clarity passed.

“The Clarity Act allows the United States to write these rules instead of watching from the sidelines while Singapore or the UAE write them for us,” Lummis said in a post on Wednesday. “Our country has a long history of leading. We cannot break from that tradition.”

Ref: https://paykalken.com

This follows last month’s security breach at shipping provider ShipMonk, which exposed the personal information of 67,000 Trezor customers in the U.S.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Trezor #CryptoSecurity #Phishing #HardwareWallet #Cybersecurity #CryptoScam #WalletSecurity #Bitcoin #SelfCustody #CryptoNews

Cronos, a Layer 1 blockchain associated with Crypto.com, confirmed that roughly $9.19 million had left the chain during the Aug. 30 exploit and remains unrecovered.

In a post-mortem published Monday, Cronos said an attacker manipulated collateral on lending protocol Tectonic to borrow $120.4 million before validators halted the network at block 90,907,150.

Following validator consensus, the chain was rolled back to block 90,896,188 — the last block before the attack. The rollback restored affected balances to their pre-exploit state, reversing roughly $111.2 million in impacted value.

However, about $9.19 million, or 7.6% of the affected funds, had already been transferred off the network and could not be restored. “The $9.19 million that left Cronos before the halt has not been recovered and is beyond the restoration’s reach,” the team said.

The team noted that the rollback discarded 1 hour 54 minutes of chain history, or 10,961 blocks, meaning that transactions during the period were reversed regardless of whether they were related to the exploit.

“It was a hard decision, taken together with the validators, weighing the finality users expect from a chain against the funds at risk,” Cronos said. “The alternative, restarting without restoring state, would have left the borrowed assets in the attacker’s control.”

Price manipulation

The post-mortem also detailed the timeline of the attack. On Aug. 30, the attacker deployed contracts and drove up the price of TONIC, Tectonic’s thinly traded governance token.

About 10 minutes later, the attacker used the inflated collateral to borrow $120.4 million across nine markets. The Cronos team identified the malicious activity about 36 minutes after the attack, leading to subsequent suspension and rollback.

Cronos then resumed block production about 11 hours after the attack began, with balances back to their pre-exploit state, according to the post.

The team said that it is still working with exchanges, bridges, and other affected platforms to complete the necessary reconciliation on their systems, adding that no user action is required at this time. The block explorer is back online, and indexers, subgraphs, and public RPC endpoints are operational as well.

The post-mortem, however, did not name the attacker or say what will happen to the unrecovered $9.19 million. The Block has reached out to Cronos for further information.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Cronos #Tectonic #CRO #TONIC #CryptoHack #DeFiExploit #BlockchainSecurity #ChainRollback #CryptoSecurity #CryptoNews

The foundation named FOCIL (EIP-7805) and Frame Transactions (EIP-8141) as S-tier, “must-ship” proposals. It also announced that it aims to have Ethereum L1 fully quantum-resistant by December 2029. $ETH

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Ethereum #ETH #EthereumUpgrade #EIPs #Hegota #FOCIL #FrameTransactions #QuantumResistance #EthereumL1 #CryptoNews

Liquid Network said Sunday that purported white-hat hackers withdrew approximately 4,000 bitcoin, worth about $320 million, from its federation wallet, prompting the Bitcoin sidechain to pause network activity.

In a Sept. 6 post on X, Liquid said Blockstream, the network’s technology provider, was working to contact the parties responsible through an onchain signed message. The statement did not identify them or confirm whether the funds would be returned.

The withdrawal represented roughly 95% of Liquid’s reported bitcoin reserves, which stood at approximately 4,200 BTC before the incident.

“We are aware of a security incident on @Liquid_BTC,” the network wrote.

According to Liquid, the funds were withdrawn through the SideSwap PAK, or Peg-out Authorization Key. The network said that key had not been compromised, nor had any others. Liquid did not explain the root vulnerability that allowed the withdrawal.

An onchain message in a bitcoin transaction linked to the incident read: “we are whitehats. contact us on chain.”

Liquid said it had notified crypto exchanges which have either suspended deposits and withdrawals for LBTC, Liquid’s Bitcoin-backed token, or would do so. Liquid also disabled bridge nodes temporarily, preventing new transactions from being submitted to the network.

“Effectively, the Liquid sidechain is paused until this issue is resolved,” the statement said.

Other assets issued on Liquid, including USDT, DePix and real-world assets, were unaffected by the security incident, according to the network. However, Liquid warned that wallets would be impacted by the disruption.

Liquid is a Bitcoin sidechain designed for faster, confidential transfers and the issuance of digital assets. BTC locked on the Bitcoin network is represented as LBTC on Liquid, with federation operators responsible for securing the underlying bitcoin.

The network said federation members were working to resolve the incident and restore normal activity. Liquid did not disclose when it plans to restart the network or the details of its messages with the purported white-hat hackers

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#LiquidNetwork #Bitcoin #BTC #Blockstream #CryptoHack #WhiteHatHacker #BitcoinSecurity #CryptoSecurity #Sidechain #CryptoNews

UBS, Bank of Montreal and Jane Street have disclosed holdings in U.S. Hyperliquid ETFs, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence review of the funds’ first quarterly ownership disclosures.

Wealth High Governance Asset Management reported nearly $24 million in shares of 21Shares’ HYPE fund at the end of June. That put it ahead of UBS, Bank of Montreal and Jane Street in a list published Friday by Bloomberg Intelligence ETF analyst James Seyffart.

“Earlier this week i took a look at the Hyperliquid ETFs and their 13F reporting,” Seyffart wrote on X. “Here’s a look at all the known holders of the three ETFs.”

Wealth High Governance’s filing shows 632,614 shares in the 21Shares ETF, worth $23,948,236 on June 30. The next name on Seyffart’s list, OLP Capital Management, had $10.5 million in exposure.

At $7.5 million, UBS ranked third. Bank of Montreal was fourth with $6.7 million, and Jane Street fifth with $4.4 million. The list went on to name Discovery Capital, Brevan Howard, Balyasny and Boothbay.

The smaller entries included $22,068 from Royal Bank of Canada and $1,103 from Tower Research Capital. Wealth High Governance, OLP, UBS, BMO and Jane Street together reported $53 million. They accounted for 70.8% of the $74.9 million total, based on the figures in Bloomberg’s table.

The second-quarter filings won’t capture any subsequent sales, and bank holdings can include client money. Trading firms may also have hedges against the shares. Managers generally have to file a 13F once they meet the $100 million threshold for qualifying securities, so the reports aren’t a full count of ETF investors.

21Shares was first to bring a Hyperliquid ETF to market on May 12 with THYP. Bitwise’s BHYP began trading three days later, while Grayscale launched HYPG on June 3. Investors can buy the funds’ shares in brokerage accounts to get exposure to Hyperliquid’s HYPE token.

The funds have brought in $356.58 million in net inflows since launch through Sept. 4, per SoSoValue data. Friday’s $10.52 million inflow went entirely to Bitwise’s BHYP. The three funds held $480.86 million in net assets at the close.

Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange built on its own blockchain, best known for perpetual futures, contracts that have no expiry date. Its terms currently restrict U.S. users, though the Trump administration has said it wants to bring the platform into the country.

As Crypto Whale Data reported Friday, Kraken’s parent company Payward is working with the CFTC on access to certain Hyperliquid-linked perpetuals through regulated exchange Bitnomial. That could give U.S. customers a separate product using Hyperliquid’s infrastructure without opening the existing venue to them. The final structure has not been announced.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Hyperliquid #HYPE #CryptoETF #21Shares #Bitwise #Grayscale #UBS #JaneStreet #DeFi #CryptoNews

Perpetual futures contracts on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid have exploded in popularity over the past year, drawing traders with the ability to bet on crypto prices around the clock. However, Hyperliquid’s platform is not currently available to U.S. traders.

Now, President Donald Trump says his administration is working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States “in a fully compliant and legal fashion,” raising a deceptively simple question: How?

Last month, Trump said the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would work to bring Hyperliquid into the U.S. Then, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company said it was working with the CFTC to offer registered U.S. users access to a selection of crypto perps linked to markets on Hyperliquid and its underlying Layer 1 blockchain through Bitnomial, a CFTC-regulated platform.

That arrangement could allow Hyperliquid HYPE-2.04%HYPE-2.04%

$83.99

See Details to provide certain parts of the underlying technology, liquidity, or market design, without actually opening its existing venue to people in the U.S., said Nansen Research Analyst Nicolai Sondergaard.
“It would be a separate U.S. product built around Hyperliquid’s infrastructure, and the final structure has not yet been formally announced,” Sondergaard said in an email.

That distinction between Hyperliquid’s existing venue and a U.S. centric platform is important, Sondergaard added, because currently people in the U.S. can technically access Hyperliquid through the underlying chain, but Hyperliquid’s terms restrict people in the U.S.

“The proposed arrangement would provide a formal route through a regulated intermediary, with KYC [know your customer], sanctions screening, customer-fund protections and a clear legal entity responsible for the product,” Sondergaard said. “The trade-off is that U.S. users would probably get fewer markets, lower leverage and more conservative risk controls than users on the permissionless venue.”

Still, Sondergaard said he doesn’t think that should mean that Hyperliquid should be “fully KYC-gated.”

“Blanket KYC would mainly remove privacy and permissionless access for legitimate users while pushing liquidity offshore,” Sondergaard said. “A regulated U.S. access layer is more useful because it gives users a compliant option without requiring the entire global market to operate under one model.”

CFTC-SEC

Both the CFTC and its sister agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, would likely need to be involved in writing revised interpretive rules involving custody and mechanics around current routing standards, former SEC senior counsel Ashley Ebersole told The Block, ahead of news of Payward’s proposal. Ebersole is currently the co-founder and chief legal officer at real-world assets platform tx.

But the partnership between Bitnomial and Hyperliquid gives them a regulatory head start, Ebersole said.

“Partnerships of this type provide the regulatory infrastructure that would have added months or years to Hyperliquid’s US roadmap if pursued on its own,” Ebersole said. “The assets to be offered still need to be approved, but Kraken and Bitnomial’s involvement materially accelerates the timeline for launching them here.”

Some groups are pushing for both agencies to work together. In a letter last month, the Hyperliquid Policy Center urged the SEC and CFTC to adopt a harmonized framework for perpetual contracts.

The CFTC has already taken steps toward bringing perpetuals into regulated U.S. markets. In May, cleared the way for bitcoin perpetual futures contracts to be listed in the U.S when it greenlit KalshiEX and Coinbase to list the products. On Thursday, Coinbase said it filed a notice registration form with the SEC to get its sign-off to begin listing equity perpetuals.

Changing rules at the SEC and CFTC, however, is notoriously slow. Even if regulators moved quickly, revisions could take up to a year, Ebersole said.

Both the Trump administration and Trump himself have “very bullish views” on ensuring that the U.S. is the leader of the financial world, he said, but the 2028 presidential elections could shift those priorities.

“In a case like that, it really just becomes dependent on what the next administration’s appetite is if you can’t get it done in the remaining years of the Trump administration,” he said.

A new era for markets

For decades, U.S. markets have been built to operate largely from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET and are closed on holidays and weekends. But that model has increasingly come under pressure as exchanges and other market operators move toward around-the-clock trading. Major venues such as CME already offer liquidity nearly 24 hours a day, five days a week.

If Hyperliquid were to launch an operational U.S. venue, it could add pressure on traditional markets to accelerate that shift.

“If theoretically Hyperliquid came onshore and was up and running in the U.S. and available to U.S. persons, then that would be additional motivation for existing markets to move in the direction of the features being offered on that new competitor,” Ebersole said.

The growth of Hyperliquid and perpetuals has also raised concerns.

Mark Hays, associate director for cryptocurrency and financial technology with Americans for Financial Reform and Demand Progress, said the administration’s push for platforms like Hyperliquid “has a checkered history” and can lead to financial instability.

“The Trump administration’s efforts to pave the way for crypto firms like Kraken and Hyperliquid to get quick easy access to US markets isn’t surprising – given the long pattern of collusion between the administration and the crypto industry – but it does suggest regulators are failing to heed the lessons of the past – which could have far-reaching impacts across all US financial markets,” Hays said in an email.

CME CEO Terrence Duffy has repeatedly pushed back against crypto perpetuals, reportedly calling them a “disaster waiting to happen,” and also sued the CFTC over the agency’s approval of perpetual futures.

Legacy players want to defend their turf, said Ebersole, citing a brewing fight in Congress between banks and crypto over stablecoin rewards as lawmakers work to pass broader crypto legislation.

Those legacy stakeholders could do that by demanding that new entrants in perpetuals follow the current rules, he said.

“You can also take the regulatory angle and say those products shouldn’t be offered in any case because they don’t comply with the existing rulebook, which is why I think we’re seeing changes in that rulebook would likely be needed to allow something like this to happen,” Ebersole said.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Hyperliquid #HYPE #Trump #CFTC #SEC #CryptoPerps #PerpetualFutures #DeFi #CryptoRegulation #CryptoNews

Coinbase, the largest U.S. based crypto exchange, is seeking to list 24/7 equity products as perpetual gain momentum.

The company filed a notice registration form with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week to get sign-off to begin listing equity perpetuals, said Coinbase Chief Policy Officer Faryar Shirzad on Thursday in a post on X.

“Equity perps have proven demand internationally, and we’re excited at the prospect of a regulated pathway for U.S. investors,” he said.

Next, Coinbase would need the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s sign-off, Shirzad added. Coinbase launched perpetual futures in March, allowing people outside the U.S. to trade those assets on a set of specific stocks including Apple Inc., Microsoft, NVIDIA and Amazon.

Perpetuals, or perps, are a type of futures contract that don’t have an expiration date and allow people to bet on the price movement of assets without owning them directly. Much of the market currently operates on offshore exchanges that are not regulated in the U.S.

In May, the CFTC began allowing bitcoin perpetual futures contracts to list in the U.S. when its staff greenlit KalshiEX and Coinbase to list the products. A month later, the CFTC released a request for comment on crude oil perpetual contracts and 24/7 trading.

One exchange in particular has been thrown into the spotlight — Hyperliquid (HYPE). That platform became popular among crypto derivatives traders and came into the spotlight last month at the White House when President Donald Trump said that CFTC Chair Michael Selig was working to bring the perpetual trading platform Hyperliquid into the U.S. in a “fully compliant and legal fashion.”

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Hyperliquid Labs is seeking to go onshore in the U.S. through a deal with Payward, crypto exchange Kraken’s parent company.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Coinbase #SEC #EquityPerpetuals #PerpetualFutures #24x7Trading #CryptoDerivatives #StockTrading #CFTC #DigitalAssets #CryptoNews

Plaintiff Douglas Kim says he lost about $1.95M in Feb 2025 after impersonators used leaked details and lured him to enter his seed-phrase

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Ledger #CryptoSecurity #DataBreach #Cybersecurity #CryptoScam #SeedPhrase #HardwareWallet #CryptoNews #DigitalAssets #ClassAction

Kalshi and Polymarket saw their combined volume decline last month, the first month-over-month drop in a year, following a World Cup-driven surge.

According to The Block’s data dashboard, the combined monthly volume at Kalshi, Polymarket and Polymarket US fell 14.5% in August to $45.33 billion, marking the first decline since August 2025.

Specifically, Kalshi recorded $37.17 billion in volume in August, down 7.3% from $40.1 billion in July, while Polymarket and its U.S. platform saw a combined $8.16 billion, down 36.7% from $12.89 billion in July.

The August pullback followed a summer spike in prediction market activity driven by the World Cup, which ran from June 11 to July 19. Still, the August volume remained well above May’s $25.66 billion.

Polymarket, Polymarket US and Kalshi Monthly Volume (The Block)
Meanwhile, both Kalshi and Polymarket are facing increased scrutiny from state regulators in the U.S., particularly over sports-related contracts. Over a dozen states have taken enforcement action or filed lawsuits against Kalshi and Polymarket.

Last week, Connecticut sued Kalshi to block the platform from offering sports contracts, escalating the state’s months-long legal fight against the platform.

Despite escalating legal fights with state-level authorities, Kalshi is still expanding its footprint in sports.

It recently signed a deal with the U.S. Tennis Association to become the exclusive prediction market partner of the U.S. Open, whose main draw began Aug. 30.

Meanwhile, earlier this week, Kalshi permanently banned former U.S. Rep. George Santos from trading on the platform, marking its first-ever permanent ban. Santos violated its rules by trading a bet on whether he would attend the State of the Union, and was ordered to pay a fine of over $71,000.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Kalshi #Polymarket #PredictionMarkets #Crypto #SportsBetting #WorldCup #USRegulation #CFTC #DeFi #CryptoNews

Robinhood Chain recorded a record $989 million in single-day DEX trading volume on Friday.

Total value locked (TVL) clocked in at a record $708 million, a near 100% month-over-month increase. Stablecoin supply on the chain also stands at ~$770 million, a 47% month-over-month increase.

Alongside the absolute growth, the composition of projects and tokens that have grown in recent weeks, compared to the month prior, has changed.

In July, Robinhood Chain was dominated by memecoin beta, following the run and eventual Robinhood spot listing of CASHCAT. In August, tokens that have garnered the most attention and volume have been those related to utility and infrastructure.

The most notable example is PONS, one of the chain’s most dominant launchpads, whose market cap grew from $20 million to over $200 million this month alone.

Expand Chart

The chain’s other dominant launchpad is LONG (long.xyz), which facilitates tokens (mainly memecoins) paired against tokenized stocks, which remain Robinhood Chain’s key differentiator.

The largest stock-paired memecoin in the chain was launched from the LONG launchpad, with the ticker “AI,” short for Artificial Inu, paired against tokenized NVDA. The AI memecoin had grown from a $1.5 million market cap on Aug. 1 to a peak of $135 million on Aug. 30, as it now holds over ~$3.3 million of liquidity in its NVDA pool, more than triple the depth of its WETH pool.

Memecoins paired against tokenized stocks now account for roughly a quarter of all stock-linked trading volume on Robinhood Chain.

Other notable utility-related Robinhood Chain projects include Delta, a liquidity-layer protocol, UP, a ve(3,3) emissions project similar to Aerodrome on Base and NetNet, an OHM-style bonding project, all of which have 10x’d their valuations in August alone.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Robinhood #RobinhoodChain #DEX #DeFi #TokenizedStocks #RWA #Crypto #Stablecoins #Memecoins #CryptoNews

The bank also plans to issue loans secured by USDT, bitcoin, and ether once they are approved by the central bank, according to TASS.

#Sberbank #Russia #Bitcoin #Ethereum #USDT #CryptoTrading #CryptoLending #CryptoRegulation #CryptoNews #DigitalAssets

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) ordered a former White House teleprompter operator to pay more than $172,000 to settle charges that he used his advance access to President Trump’s speeches to profit from “mention markets” on prediction marketplace Kalshi.

The former employee, Gabriel Perez, was ordered to repay $107,539.02 in profits and pay an additional $65,000 civil fine. The order also bars him from trading on any CFTC-registered entity for three years.

Perez opened an account at Kalshi on Dec. 8, 2025, and traded between December 2025 and March 2026, according to the order. Perez allegedly read Trump’s prepared remarks roughly an hour before delivery and placed his trades on Kalshi mention markets, which attempt to predict specific words that public figures will use in addresses, based on the words in the text.

Perez consented to the order without admitting the findings. The CFTC said he received a roughly 40% reduction of the civil penalty after he voluntarily sat for an interview and accepted responsibility, which the agency called “exemplary cooperation”.

The CFTC credited KalshiEX for its assistance in the matter. Kalshi head of enforcement Robert DeNault said on X the exchange’s surveillance unit caught the trading.

“It doesn’t matter who you are: violate our rules or federal law and you will face the consequences,” DeNault wrote.

The Perez order is the agency’s second event contract settlement since late July. On July 31, former congressman George Santos agreed to pay the CFTC about $35,000 over Kalshi trades on a contract asking who would attend February’s State of the Union address. The agency found he made misrepresentations about his own attendance on social media while holding positions in the market.

Both orders carry three-year trading bans, and both grew out of Kalshi referrals, though Santos was charged for manipulating a contract under which he had influence, while Perez was charged for trading on insider information.

Private companies have also faced employees using insider information to trade on prediction markets. Federal prosecutors in May charged Google engineer Michele Spagnuolo with using internal search data to make about $1.2 million on Polymarket, and the CFTC filed a parallel civil complaint. House Oversight Chairman James Comer opened a probe in May into insider trading controls at Kalshi and Polymarket, requesting documents detailing how each platform verifies users’ identities, enforces geoblocks, and detects suspicious trading activity.

Both platforms had tightened those controls in March, adding screening tools and updated conduct rules. The CFTC has separately proposed a rules framework for prediction markets under Chair Michael Selig.

Also on Friday, the Ninth Circuit ruled against Kalshi in its fight with Nevada gaming regulators, holding that the company had not shown a likelihood that federal commodities law preempts the state’s gambling rules, arguably dealing a significant blow to Kalshi’s legal posture.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Kalshi #CFTC #PredictionMarkets #InsiderTrading #CryptoNews #EventContracts #MarketIntegrity #Trading #Regulation #FinTech

Connecticut has sued Kalshi to block the platform from offering sports-related event contracts, escalating the state’s months-long legal fight against the prediction markets platform.

In a statement released Wednesday, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said the state is seeking a court injunction requiring it to cease offering what it identifies as unlicensed sports wagers.

“Sports event contracts are no different than sports betting and are not magically shielded by federal law from Connecticut’s commonsense consumer protection laws,” said Tong.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said that Kalshi’s prediction markets put the state’s consumers and young people at serious risk.

“When we legalized sports wagering in 2021, the goal was to create a safe, responsibly regulated market for Connecticut consumers, not to open a free-for-all on sports betting,” Lamont added.

Jovy Dedaj, Kalshi’s head of litigation, wrote in a post on X that Connecticut’s move is “the latest in a line of arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement,” as the state is “okay with other prediction markets operating there in the meantime.”

“This unequal treatment is exactly why federal oversight is necessary,” said Dedaj.

The Block has reached out to Kalshi for further comment.

Legal battle

The case is Connecticut’s latest move in its months-long fight with Kalshi.

In December 2025, Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection ordered Kalshi, Robinhood, and Crypto.com to stop promoting and offering sports event contracts.

Kalshi fought back by filing a lawsuit against state officials the following day, arguing that its markets — which allow users to trade on outcomes of future events — are regulated derivatives products overseen by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Because the CFTC granted Kalshi designated contract market status in 2020, the company claims that Connecticut’s gambling laws do not apply and that the state is overstepping its authority.

Earlier this month, Judge Vernon Oliver denied Kalshi’s motion for preliminary injunction against state enforcement. The company has since appealed the decision to the Second Circuit.

Separately, in April, the CFTC sued Connecticut, Arizona, and Illinois, arguing that the states can’t outlaw CFTC-registered designated contract markets.

“The CFTC will continue to safeguard its exclusive regulatory authority over these markets and defend market participants against overzealous state regulators,” CFTC Chair Michael Selig said at the time.

Nationwide

Connecticut is among more than a dozen states that have taken enforcement action or filed lawsuits against Kalshi over its sports event contracts.

Earlier this month, a Washington court ordered Kalshi to stop offering prediction markets related to sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, technology and science in the state.

Also this month, Baltimore, the most populous city in Maryland, sued Kalshi and Polymarket, alleging that their sports-event contracts amount to illegal gambling.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Kalshi #PredictionMarkets #SportsBetting #CFTC #Crypto #Regulation #EventContracts #FinTech #Gambling #CryptoNews

Las Vegas businessman Brent C. Kovar was convicted by a federal jury for fraudulently obtaining $24 million from at least 400 investors through his cryptocurrency company, Profit Connect.

Kovar was found guilty on 11 counts of wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud and two counts of money laundering, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada said in a statement on Monday.

According to the statement, Kovar owned Profit Connect, a Las Vegas-based company that operated from late 2017 to July 2021. He told investors that the company used artificial intelligence software on a supercomputer to mine crypto and verify transactions.

Prosecutors said Kovar marketed the firm as a profitable venture, promising investors fixed annual returns of 15% to 30% and a 100% money-back guarantee. He also told investors that Profit Connect held hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency reserves and falsely claimed that their investments were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

The company, however, was not profitable, had no reserves, and could not pay the promised returns or honor the money-back guarantee, the statement said.

“The victims in this case thought they were engaged in revolutionary technological advancement, but it was merely a deception crafted by the falsehoods and trickery of Mr. Kovar,” said FBI Las Vegas Field Office Special Agent in Charge Christopher S. Delzotto.

Kovar faces a statutory maximum of 280 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 30, with a federal judge to determine the actual sentence.

Ref: https://www.paykalken.com

#Crypto #Bitcoin #CryptoFraud #CryptoScam #Fraud #MoneyLaundering #CryptoMining #AI #Investing #Blockchain

Bitcoin (BTC) just recorded its largest dollar-denominated weekly gain in history — gaining $14,264 to close the week at $77,387. This is a 22.7% gain in just seven days.

The current rally, triggered by the U.S. Treasury Department’s announcement last week of an expansion of its buyback program, has flipped investor apathy into FOMO. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index stands at 78 — on the brink of “extreme greed” and the highest it has been since December 2024.

The improved sentiment is also reflected in U.S. bitcoin exchange-traded fund flows. In the trading week ended Aug. 21, spot bitcoin ETFs reported $1.92 billion in total net inflows, the largest amount the funds have seen since the height of the last bull cycle in October 2025, according to SoSoValue data.

Matt Cole, Chairman and CEO of Strive, said bitcoin’s comparative performance against both the dollar and gold shows that the next bitcoin cycle “will be the strongest we have ever seen.”

Hunt for scarcity

“The growing hunt for scarcity in an AI-driven world of abundance both point toward a powerful structural tailwind for scarce assets,” Cole wrote, adding that this force will drive more capital toward scarce monetary assets such as gold, silver, and bitcoin.

The bitcoin-to-gold ratio currently stands at 16.73 ounces of gold per bitcoin, the highest level since May, according to Longtermtrends.

“What makes this week particularly interesting is that bitcoin has now broken out against both the dollar and gold. The breakout has been explosive,” Cole said. “Relative performance within that trade will help determine where incremental capital and liquidity flow. When bitcoin is the fastest horse, it will attract a disproportionate share of that capital.”

The Strive CEO said these structural forces have left him more bullish on bitcoin today than ever before, adding that while a short-term pullback is likely, buyers will step in aggressively to buy the dip.

BTC, ETH Price Performance (30D) / The Block
Rally to continue

Other analysts predict that the current upward momentum will likely continue in the near future.

“The rally will continue in the short term, fueled by the short renewed ETF inflows, and improving macro liquidity,” said Dominick John, analyst at Zeus Research. “With the CLARITY Act potentially advancing in September, institutional confidence could strengthen further, but some mid-term consolidation is likely before the next leg higher.”

BTC Markets Crypto Analyst Rachael Lucas told The Block that it is important to understand what is driving the gains of such historic magnitude.

“Momentum this sharp is often driven by a mix of short covering, spot demand and derivatives positioning rather than a single catalyst,” Lucas said. “The key thing to watch isn’t the headline number; it’s whether spot volume and ETF inflows are confirming the move or whether it’s being amplified by leverage.”

Lucas noted that spot-driven rallies offer stronger structural support for another leg up, whereas leverage-heavy moves leave the market vulnerable to a sharp unwind.

Watch the flows

Spot Bitcoin ETF Flows / The Block
The BTC Markets analyst said investors should watch spot bitcoin ETF flow data, which tends to lag, as it will show whether institutional demand is in line with market sentiment. Investors should also monitor derivatives positioning, funding rates and open interest, which will show how much leverage has built into this move, Lucas said.

“Overheated funding rates and elevated open interest after a move this size are often an early warning of a leverage-driven pullback,” Lucas added. “Broader macro risk, particularly any hawkish repricing in rate expectations or USD strength, could also cap enthusiasm.”

Lucas, however, noted that a fair amount of profit-taking and volatility is a normal part of price discovery, and should not be interpreted as a bearish signal in itself.

“The main target is to reclaim $80,000 and see how the market responds. If the breakout holds, I’d look toward $85,000-$90,000, with $100,000 possible if ETF inflows and macro liquidity remain supportive,” John of Zeus said.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Bitcoin #BTC #Crypto #BitcoinETF #BTCPrice #CryptoMarket #BullMarket #Liquidity #Gold #Macro

Grayscale is inching closer to launching its Zcash (ZEC) exchange-traded fund, filing its fifth amendment with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

The proposed ETF would convert Grayscale’s existing Zcash Trust, bringing the product closer to a spot ETF structure — and the first in the U.S. to directly track the privacy-related asset.

In its latest amendment, Grayscale said the trust would be renamed The Zcash ETF. A sponsor fee was also set at an annual rate of 2.5%, according to the latest filing.

The ETF would list on NYSE Arca, Inc. under the ticker symbol ZCH. The Bank of New York Mellon would serve as the transfer agent and Coinbase Custody Trust Company, LLC as the custodian.

“The Trust intends to issue Shares on a continuous basis and is registering an indeterminate number of Shares,” Grayscale said in the filing on Friday. “It is expected that the Shares will be sold to the public at varying prices to be determined by reference to, among other considerations, the price of ZEC and the trading price of the Shares on the NYSE Arca at the time of each sale.”

In its fourth amended filing earlier this week, Grayscale said that a Digital Currency Group subsidiary was in discussions to potentially contribute about 200,000 ZEC to the fund.

Grayscale has launched over a dozen crypto ETFs, including bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin and XRP. The company’s Zcash Trust has been running since 2017 and, as of Friday, has over $260 million in assets under management.

Zcash is the 12th-largest crypto by market capitalization, according to The Block’s data page. The digital asset was created in 2016 and is designed to be focused on privacy.

If the SEC greenlights Grayscale’s Zcash ETF, it would be the first of its kind in the U.S.

“Looks like they’re getting closer and closer to converting this thing into an ETF,” said Bloomberg Intelligence ETF Analyst James Seyffart on Friday in a post on X.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Zcash #ZEC #ZcashETF #Grayscale #CryptoETF #PrivacyCoin #Crypto #DigitalAssets #Altcoins #CryptoNews

Spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S. reported $517.19 million in net inflows on Wednesday amid a notable rebound in the cryptocurrency market.

According to data from SoSoValue, eight out of 12 bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows on the day, led by $284.7 million worth of inflows into BlackRock’s IBIT. Ark & 21Shares’ ARKB logged $77.7 million in inflows, and Fidelity’s FBTC reported $62.4 million.

Total inflows into the bitcoin funds were the largest since May 4 — three months and 16 days ago.

Analysts concurred that the sizable net inflows resulted from positive news that drove up the crypto market after months of downturn.

Buyback expansion

Yesterday, bitcoin (BTC) climbed above $69,000 for the first time in two months while ether (ETH) reclaimed $2,000 amid a broader crypto market rally attributed to a Treasury buyback expansion and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest crypto offering proposal.

“We’re not surprised by the $517 million inflow into bitcoin ETFs on Wednesday – it’s a natural reaction to the Department of Treasury’s buyback announcement,” Jeff Mei, COO of BTSE, told The Block. “When the Treasury signals it’s stepping in to cap Treasury yields, the dollar softens, risk appetites return, and bitcoin and crypto benefit.”

On Wednesday morning, the U.S. Treasury Department said that it will at least double the size of liquidity support buyback operations for longer-dated nominal coupon securities across the 10- to 30-year segment.

Earlier on Tuesday, the SEC proposed a rule that would create two tailored exemptions for certain crypto investment contracts: issuers could raise up to $5 million over four years or $75 million annually, subject to disclosure requirements.

No day traders

Rachael Lucas, crypto analyst at BTC Markets, said that expectations of improving liquidity have resulted in renewed institutional positioning, rather than “pure retail FOMO.”

“After the heavy outflows seen in May-June and more choppy flows through parts of July and mid-August, a print of this size signals that larger allocators are once again treating current levels as constructive entry points or adding on strength,” Lucas told The Block. “It is not opportunistic day-trading money; these are typically longer-horizon allocations from players who have the compliance frameworks and balance-sheet capacity to move size.”

However, both Lucas and Mei said that inflows are unlikely to continue at this magnitude.

“A lot depends on whether the buybacks are a one-off move or an ongoing initiative — This depends on inflation and how the U.S.-Iran conflict will evolve,” Mei said. “The catalysts we’re watching for are next week’s CPI data and any commentary from Bessent on whether this buyback strategy will be sustained over a longer period.”

Hyperliquid to US

The crypto market is continuing its rally today, with bitcoin up 8.3% in the past 24 hours at $69,564, and ether up nearly 18% at $2,251. XRP and Solana both rose around 10%.

Hyperliquid’s HYPE (HYPE) was among the day’s top gainers, fueled by President Donald Trump’s public comment that Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig is working to bring the perpetuals-focused trading platform into the U.S. in a “fully compliant and legal fashion.”

LIT (LIT), the native token of competing perp futures trading platform Lighter, added 23.5% in the past 24 hours to $2.84. The overall crypto market is up 8%.

“Overall, Wednesday’s print is a constructive data point that institutional demand remains very much alive and capable of absorbing supply when the setup improves,” Lucas said.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Bitcoin #BTC #BitcoinETF #Crypto #CryptoMarket #ETFInflows #BlackRock #IBIT #Institutional #CryptoNews

Tokenized stock’s market share has grown to 15%, up three times from the start of the year. It’s been one of the few RWA categories to see growth as interest in onchain equity trading has ballooned. Total market cap currently sits around $2.8 billion.

RWA transfer volume has also rocketed, doubling in August to $20 billion, up from $9 billion the month prior. Despite accounting for a relatively small share of the total RWA market, tokenized equities have drawn the most attention from retail investors and have become an entry point to onchain applications.

Three contenders have emerged in the race to bring stocks onchain. Ondo Finance, Binance (bStock), and xStocks have captured the majority of market share, collectively accounting for an impressive 77%. Ondo sits with the largest slice at $957 million, while bStocks and xStocks command $622 million and $600 million, respectively.

Expand Chart

All three leverage synthetic representations of underlying stock. While the specific mechanics vary, each aims to replicate the actual stock performance while giving the investor a derivative to transact or trade. Other builders such as Securitize and Superstate are working to bring actual equity onchain, where shares issued on the blockchain carry the same rights as conventional shares.

Tokenized equity companies are choosing between first-to-distribute and onchain native tokenization. While synthetic stocks are being traded more frequently, they lack the full ownership, governance and shareholder protections of the underlying asset.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#TokenizedEquities #RWA #Ondo #Binance #xStocks #Tokenization #DeFi #Crypto #Blockchain #OnchainFinance

JPMorgan Chase ended its banking relationship with prediction market Polymarket in October 2025, telling the company to find a new banking partner, the Financial Times reported on Friday.

Polymarket has since moved its accounts to a different lender, whose identity the FT could not establish. The bank nevertheless wants to remain in contention for an underwriting role if Polymarket eventually pursues an initial public offering, according to the FT. JPMorgan declined to comment to the outlet.

Reuters independently reported the account closure on Friday evening, citing a person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential information.

At the time of the October 2025 account closure, Polymarket’s original platform was not serving U.S. customers following a 2022 CFTC settlement. The agreement required the company to pay a $1.4 million penalty and wind down markets that did not comply with U.S. derivatives law.

Polymarket later re-entered the country through Polymarket US after acquiring QCX LLC, a derivatives exchange, and QC Clearing LLC, a clearinghouse, in a $112 million deal. The CFTC designated QCX as a contract market in July 2025 and amended that designation in November to permit intermediated trading.

The FT also reported that the CFTC has an ongoing investigation into Polymarket. A CFTC spokesperson told The Block in June that it cannot confirm or deny an investigation.

JPMorgan retains some ties to Polymarket

JPMorgan has retained other business with the company, per the report. The bank, along with wishing to remain in contention for a potential IPO underwriting role, invited Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan to speak at a conference for wealthy private banking clients in Miami in February, alongside former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, the FT reported.

“We maintain a close, active relationship with JPMorgan across multiple entities, operational integrations, and material handling of customer fund flows,” a Polymarket spokesperson told the FT.

“The strength of our relationship is highlighted by our CEO speaking at three of their flagship events in the past year alone. Any suggestion otherwise fundamentally mischaracterizes our relationship,” the spokesperson added.

Debanking in Washington

“Debanking” broadly refers to a financial institution’s restricting or ending services for a customer. Crypto executives and political allies have used the phrase “Operation Choke Point 2.0” for alleged government pressure on banks during the Biden administration. President Donald Trump signed an executive order in August 2025 directing regulators to investigate debanking claims and levy fines where appropriate.

JPMorgan has faced similar accusations from crypto executives. The bank closed the accounts of Strike CEO Jack Mallers and a ShapeShift executive in November 2025, telling Mallers only that it was not permitted to say why. Neither the FT nor Reuters reported that JPMorgan’s October 2025 decision to cut Polymarket was politically motivated or directed by regulators.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has said banks are limited in what they can disclose. “I think we should be allowed to tell you,” Dimon said on a podcast in January 2025, adding that the bank risks millions of dollars in fines if a crypto client goes wrong.

Prediction markets under scrutiny

Polymarket is in early talks to raise roughly $1 billion at a valuation above $20 billion, Reuters reported on Aug. 4. The company was valued at $9 billion in October 2025 after NYSE parent Intercontinental Exchange agreed to invest up to $2 billion.

Kalshi, Polymarket, and Polymarket US volume per The Block’s data.
Kalshi has pulled ahead on volume in recent months. Polymarket and Polymarket US recorded a combined $12.9 billion in July, compared with Kalshi’s $40 billion, according to The Block’s data.

Both platforms faced new hurdles this week. Baltimore sued Kalshi and Polymarket on Thursday over sports-related contracts, and a Washington state court ordered Kalshi the same day to halt most of its offerings there.

The New York City Council opened a probe on Wednesday into marketing practices at Polymarket, Kalshi, Coinbase and Gemini Titan. The CFTC has invoked emergency authority to keep Kalshi trading in New York and has sued several states to assert exclusive federal jurisdiction over event contracts.

Coplan is a member of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, which holds its first meeting Thursday, Aug. 20. Trump is expected to attend a White House session with crypto and prediction market executives the day before.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#JPMorgan #Polymarket #PredictionMarkets #IPO #Crypto #Banking #FinTech #CFTC #CryptoNews #Finance

President Donald Trump-backed World Liberty Financial secured preliminary approval to become a national trust bank on Friday.

In a letter, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted World Liberty Trust Company, National Association conditional approval, bringing it one step closer to a final approval for a bank charter.

“The OCC hereby grants preliminary conditional approval of your charter application upon determining that your proposal meets certain regulatory and policy requirements,” the regulator said in its letter.

Earlier this year, WLF created a new trust company in order to secure a banking license from the OCC that it said would allow it to offer stablecoin issuance and redemption, on-ramp and off-ramp services, and custody and conversion. WLF issues a stablecoin called USD1, which has a market capitalization of $4 billion and ranks as the fourth-largest stablecoin after Tether and USDC.

Earlier, WLF said it also plans to serve institutional customers, such as market makers, exchanges, and investment firms. The conditional approval means that WLF would still need final approval and that the OCC could rescind it.

On Friday, in a post on X, WLF CEO Zack Witkoff said the company wants to “build the most trusted and widely used digital dollar in the world while strengthening the role of the U.S. dollar across the global economy.” He is also the son of Trump’s Middle East special envoy, Steve Witkoff.

Other crypto firms have received conditional approvals over the past year, including Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple and Circle as the OCC takes a friendly stance toward the industry. The OCC’s top chief, Jonathan Gould, was previously a chief legal officer at Bitfury and has said that entities that engage in crypto and other novel technologies should “have a pathway to become federally supervised banks.”

WLF’s close ties to the administration have raised concerns among Democratic lawmakers. In January, Sen. Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Gould demanding that he stop the OCC’s review of WLF’s bank application until Trump divests from the company and halts conflicts of interest.

Financial disclosures released in June showed that Trump received millions of dollars connected to World Liberty Financial (WLFI).

“If the application is approved, you would promulgate rules that influence the profitability of the President’s company,” Warren said in the letter. “You would also be responsible for directly supervising and enforcing the law against the President’s company—and its competitors.”

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#WorldLiberty #WLFI #USD1 #Trump #Crypto #CryptoBank #OCC #Stablecoin #Banking #CryptoRegulation

Zama has listed its native token (ZAMA) for trading on Revolut across the European Economic Area on Monday, putting the blockchain-privacy project in front of the fintech’s customer base.

The listing opens ZAMA to Revolut’s more than 70 million customers, including the 15 million-plus who already trade crypto on the platform, the company said in a statement.

Existing Revolut users can buy and hold the token without opening a new account or completing additional identity checks, with trading fees starting at 0 in the main app. Revolut, which bills itself as the only banking app in the EEA offering onchain crypto transfers, will also let users withdraw ZAMA to a self-custody wallet.

Zama builds confidentiality tools using fully homomorphic encryption, a technique that lets balances, transactions and positions stay encrypted on public blockchains such as Ethereum without routing them through a separate privacy chain.

The company casts the approach as blockchain’s “HTTPS moment,” the point at which privacy shifts from optional to default.

“Privacy is something people expect everywhere else in their financial lives, but onchain they simply haven’t been able to have it,” said Rand Hindi, Zama’s co-founder and chief executive.

Zama’s big moves

The listing follows a run of production deployments that moved Zama’s technology past the research stage. The protocol now spans confidential lending, real-world asset tokenization and institutional token operations.

Zama partnered with Morpho and Steakhouse Financial in June to launch a confidential DeFi yield vault on Ethereum, and acquired TokenOps in May to bring encrypted token distributions to institutional issuers.

Additionally, Zama launched ZAMA in February after a sealed-bid Dutch auction that shielded more than $121 million on Ethereum, the first large-scale production use of the encryption method on mainnet.

ZAMA changed hands around $0.04 as of Aug. 11, The Block’s price page shows.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Zama #ZAMA #Revolut #Crypto #CryptoNews #Blockchain #BlockchainPrivacy #Privacy #FHE #FullyHomomorphicEncryption #DeFi #Ethereum #RWA #Tokenization #TokenizedAssets #Web3 #SelfCustody #DigitalAssets #CryptoAdoption #Fintech #Onchain #ConfidentialComputing #CryptoTrading #CryptoInvesting

Guren “Bobby” Zhou, the businessman behind Aqua 1’s $100 million purchase of World Liberty Financial (WLFI) governance tokens, was arrested in Britain in 2021 on suspicion of money laundering and remains connected to an active investigation, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Zhou has not been charged. A British court record filed last November accused him of participating with five other people in a money laundering operation dating to 2019, according to the Times. Two of his longtime employees were charged in the case last September, and one defendant has pleaded guilty. A trial for the charged defendants is scheduled for 2028.

Reuters first identified Zhou as the person behind Aqua 1, the Times noted. The Block reported in June 2025 that the little-known UAE-based fund had purchased $100 million of WLFI, making it one of World Liberty’s biggest known token buyers.

The Times, through a review of court records, confidential documents and interviews with Zhou’s former associates, found a history of failed ventures, disputed claims of prominent backers, and a sudden change in Zhou’s fortune after he moved from London to Abu Dhabi in 2024.

Source of $100 million remains unclear

Zhou previously ran a British flooring retailer that entered restructuring without repaying about $5 million owed to his father’s company, according to the Times. He later launched Caduceus, a crypto project whose token became effectively worthless by 2024 after the company spent about $7.6 million in funding.

Caduceus announced backing from China Merchants Securities UK and the Bin Zayed Group, which was founded by a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family. Both organizations told the Times that representations about their involvement were “unauthorized and materially false.”

After relocating to the UAE, Zhou led Web3Port, a crypto venture fund that announced a $10 million World Liberty investment shortly after Trump’s January 2025 inauguration. The Times reported that a Web3Port entity registered in the British Virgin Islands later changed its name to Aqua 1 GP Limited. Two weeks after the name change, Aqua 1 announced the $100 million WLFI purchase.

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence determined that a wallet controlled by Web3Port bought $20 million of WLFI in January 2025 and that a second wallet likely controlled by Aqua 1 purchased another $80 million in June, according to the Times.

Aqua 1 previously denied having a connection to Web3Port, following a report that linked the two operations. Aqua 1 did not specify which details of that earlier report it disputed.

The Times said it could not determine the source of the $100 million. Under World Liberty’s revenue-sharing arrangement, as much as $75 million from the purchase was distributed to a company controlled by Trump and his sons, the newspaper reported. The transaction also benefited the family of World Liberty co-founder Zach Witkoff, whose father, Steve Witkoff, serves as a Trump administration special envoy.

The Block previously reported that 75% of proceeds from WLFI token sales flow to DT Marks DEFI LLC, a Trump-controlled entity. Trump’s latest financial disclosure listed more than $65.6 million from the sale of equity in WLF Holdco and $236.25 million in distributed World Liberty token-sale proceeds, according to The Block.

World Liberty spokesperson David Wachsman told the Times that the company followed all applicable laws and regulations and maintained a compliance program that “meets or exceeds industry standards.” He declined to say whether World Liberty knew the source of Zhou’s funds. Wachsman also disputed the newspaper’s characterization of Zhou but did not identify any specific inaccuracies.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the newspaper that Trump had no conflicts of interest. Zhou did not respond to requests for comment from the Times.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#WorldLiberty #WLFI #DonaldTrump #TrumpCrypto #CryptoNews #Crypto #MoneyLaundering #AML #CryptoRegulation #DeFi #Web3 #Stablecoin #Blockchain #WorldLibertyFinancial #TrumpFamily #Aqua1 #GurenZhou #BobbyZhou #CryptoScandal #FinancialNews #USPolitics #Bitcoin #Ethereum

The U.S. Senate is delaying a vote on the Clarity Act, a landmark crypto market structure bill, until lawmakers return from their August recess next month.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) confirmed with The Block late Thursday that the Senate is pushing back a procedural vote for the Clarity Act until September.

“Well, the Dems are insistent on no Clarity vote. Anyway, I worked with sponsors of the bill,” Thune said. “Senator [Cynthia Lummis] was great, and we’re getting that queued up first thing when we come back.”

The Senate is set to leave on a month-long recess starting on Friday and will be back in Washington in mid-September for a few weeks. Attention is likely to be focused on, and will increasingly shift, to elections in November — leaving the few weeks in September pivotal to passing crypto legislation.

A source familiar with the matter said Senate Democrats were reluctant to take the vote due to its potential political implications ahead of the midterm elections and the crypto industry’s growing influence.

The delay gives lawmakers several more weeks to try to secure the 60 votes needed to advance the bill when the Senate returns in September, the source added.

The legislation would require Democratic support to clear that threshold, while Republican support for the bill has also wavered. If the Clarity Act clears the Senate, it would have to go back to the House for a vote before being sent to President Donald Trump’s desk.

“While this isn’t the result any of us hoped for when we began the week, the fight is far from over,” said The Digital Chamber CEO Cody Carbone in a statement. “The next few weeks, we will continue to work to find the last pieces of common ground needed to set up a successful vote when Congress returns in September.”

Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Ji Hun Kim said the delay is “disappointing” but the direction has not changed. “Our efforts will not stop here. CCI will keep working with Senators on both sides of the aisle, their staff, and the Administration until the Clarity Act is signed into law,” Kim added.

Contentious issues

Several contentious issues have slowed the bill’s progress over the past year. One early flashpoint was how to regulate stablecoin rewards, which allow users to earn interest on deposited funds. The debate quickly evolved into a broader clash between the crypto industry and the banking sector. In May, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon blasted Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong as “full of sh–,” in an interview with Fox Business.

Ethics concerns have also loomed over negotiations, particularly as Trump’s cryptocurrency holdings and business interests have expanded. His crypto ventures — from the launch of his memecoin to his family’s ties to World Liberty Financial — are now estimated to be worth millions of dollars.

Trump is now weighing the latest ethics proposal from Sens. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), which includes language that would allow state attorneys general to enforce a provision that would prohibit public officials and their spouses from issuing or sponsoring digital assets. It also includes language requiring him to divest from crypto-related businesses, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Concerns over illicit finance have also remained a recurring sticking point. Some lawmakers argue the Clarity Act does not provide law enforcement and consumer protection agencies with sufficient tools to police illicit activity, a characterization the crypto industry strongly disputes.

The story has been updated to include CCI’s comment.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#ClarityAct #CryptoRegulation #CryptoLaw #USSenate #DigitalAssets #CryptoNews #Bitcoin #Ethereum #Blockchain #Stablecoins #Web3 #Cryptocurrency #USPolitics #CryptoMarket #DigitalAssetRegulation

#MiCA #EU #CryptoScam #CryptoRegulation #Crypto #Blockchain #DigitalAssets #CryptoExchange #CyberSecurity #Fintech #CryptoNews #Europe #ScamAlert #Web3 #Regulation

Fortitude Mining Holdings, Inc., the Zcash mining subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, has completed its acquisition of a 12.5 megawatt facility in Prosser, Nebraska, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

This comes about a week after Fortitude announced it was bringing a 12 MW mining facility in Grand Island, Nebraska, online. That Nebraska facility was called Fortitude’s first self-developed mining site.

The Prosser site will be Fortitude’s third in Nebraska and adds to its owned power portfolio of more than 60 MW across seven sites in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas, and New York.

“The acquisition of our Prosser Facility is a significant step forward in scaling our owned-and-operated portfolio,” Fortitude CEO Andrea Childs said. “By pairing targeted acquisitions like Prosser with our own greenfield development, we are building a vertically-integrated platform designed to maximize the value of every megawatt we own.”

Fortitude said it funded the acquisition entirely using cash on its balance sheet of about $6.25 million for the property and improvements. However, the sticker price was reduced by a $985,000 hosting deposit credit and a $465,500 credit from the sale of about 1,400 T21 miners, resulting in a net cash outlay of approximately $4.7 million.

The deal includes the land, building, and an on-site 67 kV substation, as well as a 90-day construction warranty plus assigned manufacturer warranties. Owning the property will help Fortitude maintain long-term cost control and operational flexibility, according to CFO Erik Ellingson, who noted it was already listed as an “operating asset” that was “generating revenue at close.”

Prosser is estimated to provide low, stabilized power costs of approximately $0.045 per kWh, a rate that Fortitude previously said could reduce its mining costs to around $40 per ZEC (ZEC).

DCG spun Fortitude out of its Foundry bitcoin mining subsidiary in late 2025. Fortitude is planning to go public through a proposed merger with HeartSciences, and expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker TUDE pending approvals.

Last month, Fortitude announced plans to acquire 9,000 Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro miners for roughly $31.5 million, a move that could boost its Zcash mining capacity by 145%.

ZEC is trading at about $488, according to The Block’s price page. The cryptocurrency jumped from about $40 in September to a recent high of nearly $699 in November, before losing ground. The token is up over 94% over the last six months, up about 5.6% over the past month, and down 4.4% year-to-date, per TradingView

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#Zcash #ZEC #CryptoMining #DigitalCurrencyGroup #DCG #Fortitude #Blockchain #Crypto #Mining #Nasdaq #Bitmain #Antminer #CryptoNews #Nebraska #DataCenter

Exchange operator CME Group is asking the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to overturn a staff decision that conditionally approved Nasdaq PHLX’s proposal for cash-settled bitcoin index options, arguing that the contracts should fall exclusively under the jurisdiction of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

In a July 29 order, the SEC granted CME’s petition for review and kept the approval stayed while the full Commission considers the challenge. Written statements supporting or opposing the approval are due Aug. 24. The order does not indicate whether the commissioners agree with CME’s arguments.

Nasdaq first announced plans for bitcoin index options with CF Benchmarks in 2024. The proposed contracts differ from the options already trading on spot bitcoin ETFs, as the underlying instruments for those options are securities. Nasdaq’s contracts would instead reference an index tracking bitcoin itself, creating the jurisdictional issue at the center of CME’s challenge.

CME and Nasdaq did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Block.

CME disputes jurisdiction

The SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets approved Nasdaq’s proposal through delegated authority on May 22; however, Nasdaq could not begin trading the options without first obtaining exemptions from the CFTC.

The CFTC exemptions Nasdaq needs would allow would allow Nasdaq PHLX (formerly the Philadelphia Stock Exchange) to offer the contracts under concurrent SEC and CFTC oversight and permit the Options Clearing Corporation to clear them without registering as a CFTC-regulated derivatives clearing organization.

However, CME argued in its petition that bitcoin is a non-security commodity and that options based directly on its value are commodity option swaps under the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction. The exchange operator said the CFTC cannot use an exemption to give that jurisdiction to the SEC, nor can the SEC assume oversight of a product with no securities-related features.

CME also argued in its challenge that the Division of Trading and Markets exceeded its delegated authority by adopting a novel interpretation of Section 717 of the Dodd-Frank Act. It asked the full Commission to vacate the approval, warning that the decision could open the door for securities exchanges to list options or futures tied to other non-security commodities under SEC rules.

CME said in its petition that the SEC’s approval of the options would let Nasdaq’s product directly compete with CME’s offerings and could impose new regulatory costs on CME’s exchanges and clearing business.

Proposed options are tied directly to bitcoin

The proposed contracts, which would trade under the ticker QBTC, would track the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index divided by 100. The underlying index is calculated every 200 milliseconds using order-book data from qualifying bitcoin-dollar markets. The options would be European-style, meaning they could be exercised only at expiration, and would settle entirely in U.S. dollars rather than bitcoin.

The final settlement value would use the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate New York Variant, also divided by 100. That once-daily benchmark is based on bitcoin-dollar transactions during the one-hour window ending at 4 p.m. New York time.

Nasdaq has argued that the options would allow holders of spot bitcoin ETFs to hedge or modify their exposure on a national securities exchange and within the same margin regime as their ETF positions.

Ref: https://paykalken.com

#SEC #CFTC #Nasdaq #CME #Bitcoin #BTC #BitcoinOptions #CryptoRegulation #CryptoNews #DigitalAssets