Foundation and Citadel21 reported drained Lightning nodes, but the total amount stolen and number of affected operators remain unknown.

BTCPay Server has temporarily restricted public remote connections to Lightning Network nodes running Lightning Network Daemon (LND) software after attackers exploited a critical vulnerability to obtain credentials and move funds. 

BTCPay said the restriction prevents external wallets such as Zeus from connecting through a BTCPay Server domain or Tor onion address on Docker deployments. BTCPay said Lightning payments can continue and that it plans to restore the remote-access option when it considers it safe. 

Version 2.4.2 installs LND version 0.21.1 and automatically regenerates the macaroon credentials on standard BTCPay installations. The project advised operators to check for unauthorized payments, unexpected channel closures, unfamiliar peers and discrepancies in their onchain or Lightning balances.

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The deployment milestone tests whether enforcing nodes can sustain the change amid limited miner signaling and discussion of a hard-fork fallback.

Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 entered its mandatory-signaling phase at block 961,632 on Saturday, with miners signaling support in just 51 of the preceding 2,016 blocks, or 2.53%, well below the 55% threshold required for early activation, according to the BIP-110 monitor.

Starting at block 961,632, nodes enforcing BIP-110 began rejecting blocks that did not set version bit 4, while ordinary Bitcoin nodes continued accepting both signaling and non-signaling blocks. A minority BIP-110 branch subsequently emerged, but quickly fell behind the dominant chain.

The low signaling rate makes a sustained rival chain unlikely without substantially greater miner participation. With relatively little mining support, a BIP-110 branch could advance slowly or stop producing blocks altogether.

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Need to know what happened in crypto today? Here is the latest news on daily trends and events impacting Bitcoin price, blockchain, DeFi, Web3 and crypto regulation.

Today in crypto, the US Senate moved the CLARITY Act closer to consideration after Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture ahead of a September procedural vote. A US court backed Bybit’s efforts to trace funds stolen in the $1.5 billion North Korea-linked hack by granting expedited discovery. Meanwhile, Reform UK chair Lee Anderson called for an investigation into a political donation linked to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

US Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on a motion to take up the CLARITY Act, setting up a key procedural vote on the crypto market structure bill after lawmakers return in September.

The Senate is expected to vote after reconvening next month. Invoking cloture requires 60 votes, meaning Republicans will need Democratic support to clear the procedural hurdle and bring the legislation closer to Senate consideration. The vote is not on passage of the CLARITY Act and does not guarantee the bill will ultimately receive a final vote.

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The spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds registered their third-strongest showing since October as institutional demand showed signs of renewed momentum.

Demand for US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) rebounded sharply this week, signaling renewed investor appetite after months of uneven flows, even as uncertainty persists around digital asset regulation and the security of crypto self-custody.

On Saturday, Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the spot funds attracted roughly $1 billion in net inflows for the week, their strongest showing since April and third-best week since last October — a period he referred to as Bitcoin’s “silent IPO.”

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The procedural move puts crypto market structure legislation back on track as lawmakers continue negotiations over ethics and stablecoin provisions.

US Senate Majority Leader John Thune has filed cloture on a motion to take up the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, also known as the CLARITY Act, setting up a key procedural vote on the crypto market structure bill for September.

The vote is expected after the Senate reconvenes on Sept. 15, giving lawmakers several more weeks to resolve disagreements that prevented a deal before the August recess.

The Senate Daily Press confirmed that Thune filed cloture on the motion to bring the CLARITY Act to the Senate floor for consideration. Invoking cloture requires 60 votes, meaning Republicans will need Democratic support to clear the procedural hurdle.

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Crypto is growing up thanks to trading in real world assets, and Bitcoin will never dip below $60K again, says Nansen founder founder Alex Svanevik.

Crypto is finally shaking off the “get rich quick” reputation that has defined the industry for more than a decade according to Nansen founder and CEO Alex Svanevik — and it’s not just because nobody’s getting rich right now.

“Crypto assets have kind of been like the ‘toy world’ era of blockchains. And now we’re moving into the real-world era, where you see tokenized stocks, you see people trading indices like the S&P 500 and Hyperliquid,” Svanevik tells Magazine on the Trade Secrets show.

“I think the interesting spot that blockchains are in right now is that they are basically giving a lot of room for non-crypto assets,” Svanevik says.

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IMF first deputy managing director Dan Katz says users may favor digital dollars for their liquidity, network effects and cross-border acceptance.

Domestic-currency stablecoins intended to curb reliance on dollar-backed tokens could instead make it easier for users to move funds into digital dollars, according to a senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official.

On Friday, IMF First Deputy Managing Director Dan Katz said that once local and dollar stablecoins operate on the same blockchain infrastructure, users can convert between them through decentralized exchanges, liquidity pools or peer-to-peer swaps. 

In a speech at the University of Cape Town, Katz said the shift could move foreign exchange activity away from banks and currency dealers, reducing the friction that gives authorities tools to monitor and manage capital flows. 

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Expedited discovery allows the exchange to seek account identities, balances and transaction histories from platforms with US operations.

United States court records unsealed on Thursday show that a federal judge backed crypto exchange Bybit’s effort to trace assets stolen in the $1.5 billion North Korea-linked hack by granting the company expedited discovery. 

According to the records, Bybit filed the lawsuit under seal on June 18 against North Korea, its Reconnaissance General Bureau, the Lazarus Group and 20 unidentified defendants. The court granted Bybit’s request for expedited discovery on June 19.

The discovery authority gives Bybit a practical route to identify alleged intermediaries and pursue a small portion of stolen assets that remains traceable, rather than relying solely on a judgment against North Korea. 

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The president’s company will unwind an agreement with Crypto.com to create a multibillion-dollar CRO treasury and reportedly not integrate prediction markets onto Truth Social.

US President Donald Trump’s company, the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), is pulling back from a deal with the Crypto.com exchange to instead focus on a merger with energy company TAE.

First reported by Axios on Friday, TMTG interim CEO Kevin McGurn said that the company would pull back from two Crypto.com deals aimed at creating a $6.4 billion CRO treasury and integrating prediction markets into its Truth Social platform. The Trump media company, crypto exchange, and special purpose acquisition company Yorkville Acquisition Corp said “prevailing market conditions and shifting business and stakeholder priorities” led to the dissolution of the treasury deal.

TMTG announced the CRO treasury deal in September 2025, in which President Trump’s company would purchase billions of dollars worth of Crypto.com’s CRO tokens, potentially allowing Truth Social users to receive crypto rewards. The media platform followed with an October announcement that it planned to enable prediction markets under the service Truth Predict.

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The US government sanctioned an individual and two crypto exchanges it said facilitated money laundering for a combined $5 million in digital assets linked to Iran.

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced sanctions against two digital asset exchanges it said that “the Iranian regime relies on to launder billions of dollars” amid military actions between the two countries. 

In a Friday notice, OFAC said it had taken measures against crypto exchanges Shelbit and Aban Tether for “facilitating illicit cryptocurrency activity and sanctions evasion,” using the proceeds to support Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The government agency also sanctioned Iranian national Siavash Kayvanpour and crypto wallets and companies tied to him, one of which operates Shelbit.

“We will continue to increase the economic pressure,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “Whether in dollars, rials, or crypto, Treasury will hunt down and dismantle the illicit financial networks that keep the regime afloat.”

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The rollout gives X Layer users access to Circle-issued USDC and crosschain transfers as the stablecoin expands across major blockchain ecosystems.

Circle has launched its USDC stablecoin on X Layer, OKX’s Ethereum layer-2 network, extending the stablecoin to an ecosystem connected to one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges by trading volume.

Circle announced Friday that native USDC and its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) are now available on X Layer. The network is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing applications built for Ethereum to run on it with relatively few changes.

CCTP allows USDC to move between X Layer and other supported blockchains by burning the tokens on the source chain and minting an equivalent amount on the destination chain. The integration supports uses including payments, decentralized finance lending and borrowing, trading and crosschain transfers.

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As the chairman of the Reform UK calls for an investigation into a FTX-linked political donation, the party’s leader prepares to face voters amid his own crypto-related scandal.

The chairman of the UK’s Reform party has called for an investigation following reports of a $50,000 political donation linked to former FTX CEO Sam “SBF” Bankman-Fried.

According to a Friday report from the Telegraph, Reform UK chair Lee Anderson called for the parliamentary commissioner for standards to probe Defense Secretary Wes Streeting over reported $50,000 in donations from a think tank in 2022 and 2023. The reported donations came from Labour for the Long Term, whose founder reportedly accepted a $675,000 gift from Bankman-Fried before sending funds to Streeting.

Notably, Reform leader Nigel Farage is set to face voters next week in a by-election triggered by his resignation as a member of parliament amid his own crypto scandal. The UK politician received $6.7 million in donations from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne and financial assistance from George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster linked to a crypto casino. Farage claimed that the contributions were “gifts.”

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Bitcoin hit month-to-date highs above $65,000 as risk-assets gained on low US nonfarm payrolls data.

Bitcoin (BTC) hit new August highs into Friday’s Wall Street open as markets reacted to weaker US jobs numbers.

Key points:

Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD hitting $65,340 on Bitstamp, up 1.3% on the day, as fresh US labour-market data was released.

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Crypto business is converging with banking as stablecoin reserves, tokenized funds, Treasury income and balance sheet management become key profit drivers.

At first glance, this week’s biggest business stories could have come straight from Wall Street. BlackRock launched tokenized money market funds for stablecoin reserves. Tether generated another $1.5 billion in profit from its US Treasury holdings. Tokenized gold continued gaining traction, though its use in decentralized finance remains limited. Even Bitcoin (BTC) mining was defined by production costs, profitability and balance sheet management rather than the price of Bitcoin.

The digital asset industry’s business model is increasingly converging with traditional finance. Stablecoin reserves, tokenized money market funds and onchain collateral are emerging as some of the industry’s most important revenue drivers, signaling that blockchain’s next phase may be shaped as much by financial infrastructure as by digital assets themselves.

Asset manager BlackRock has introduced two tokenized money market products designed to help stablecoin issuers meet reserve requirements under the US GENIUS Act, expanding its push into blockchain-based financial infrastructure.

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Ethereum’s proposed EIP-8363 staking overhaul aims to reduce issuance, but critics say it could hurt DeFi, decentralization and institutional adoption.

Ethereum researchers just wanted to reduce staking incentives. Instead, they sparked one of the biggest debates over the network’s economics since the Merge.

Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-8363, or “Tapered Issuance Burn,” would gradually reduce staking rewards as more and more Ether is locked up to secure the network — eventually cutting new protocol issuance to zero once 50% of ETH’s supply is staked.

Its authors, including Ethereum Foundation’s Justin Drake and Ethereum Community Conference (ETHCC) co-founder Jerome de Tychey, argue that Ethereum has reached the point where additional staking provides diminishing security returns, while diluting holders who choose not to stake.

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Dice entropy may become the new gold standard after the Coldcard hack

In light of the catastrophic low-entropy bug in Coldcard hardware wallets, linked to publicly observed thefts beginning on July 30, Bitcoin holders have started to re-evaluate the trust assumptions in their hardware wallet setups. 

The Coldcard devices were equipped with apparently functional STM32 “true random number generators” (TRNGs) that rely on physical processes to produce an unguessable seed phrase.

However, after Coldcard creator NVK decided to initiate a firmware rewrite to switch from a GPL-licensed free software model to a read-only model, a serious vulnerability appears to have been introduced.

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Russia has shut down nine unregistered crypto exchanges in Moscow, with the FSB alleging they helped move scam proceeds abroad through Ukrainian call centers.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has raided nine unregistered crypto exchange services in Moscow over alleged money laundering involving fraud proceeds that authorities linked to Ukraine-based scam call centers.

The agency said it detained more than 20 employees at the Moscow International Business Center (Moscow City) as part of an operation targeting channels allegedly used to move illicit funds abroad through crypto assets, according to an official statement on Friday.

The FSB said the exchanges converted money stolen from Russian victims of phone scams into cryptocurrency and transferred it to accounts belonging to what it described as Ukrainian handlers.

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Perpetual futures trading volume on crypto exchanges fell to its lowest level in 31 months, while perpetual trading on decentralized platforms neared a one-year low.

Crypto perpetual futures trading volume on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges (CEXs) fell to $4 trillion in July, marking a 31-month low last seen in December 2023.

Binance led CEXs with $1.4 trillion in monthly perpetual futures volume, followed by OKX with $607 billion and Bybit with $300 billion, analytics platform CryptoRank said in a Friday X post.

Perpetual futures volumes briefly recovered between April and June before declining across all major venues in July.

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Binance saw a record divergence between daily spot and futures trading volumes, with the latter reaching nearly $58 billion.

Bitcoin (BTC) derivatives trading volumes are now nearly eight times higher than spot markets on Binance.

Key points:

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CleanSpark’s shares fell 5.5% on Thursday after the Bitcoin miner reported $138 million in quarterly revenue, narrowly missing Wall Street’s consensus estimate.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark reported $138 million in revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2026.

The $138 million represented a 30.5% year-over-year decrease from $198 million, according to its quarterly results published on Thursday.

CleanSpark also reported a net loss of $239 million, or $0.89 per basic share, for the three months ended on June 30, compared with $257 million in net income, or $0.90 per share, for the same period last year.

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Stripe-owned Bridge has entered the EU MiCA register following Luxembourg approval, joining regulated providers under the bloc’s crypto framework.

Bridge Building, the Luxembourg-based entity behind Stripe-owned stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge, has joined the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) register after receiving regulatory approval in Luxembourg.

Bridge’s inclusion brings the number of MiCA-authorized electronic money token (EMT) issuers in the EU register to 42, according to the latest European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) update published on Wednesday.

The addition came weeks after Bridge announced on July 2 that it had secured a Crypto-Asset Service Provider (CASP) authorization under MiCA and an Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence from Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier. Bridge’s Head of Product, Mai Leduc Blount, said the approvals allow businesses in the EU to build stablecoin and payment products under a regulated framework.

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Industry figures warned that continued legislative limbo could slow institutional adoption, revive regulation by enforcement and push innovation offshore.

The US Senate’s delay of a vote on crypto market structure legislation could give Hong Kong and Singapore more time to strengthen their positions as digital asset hubs, according to First Digital founder and CEO Vincent Chok.

On Friday, Thune’s office confirmed to Cointelegraph that the Senate would not vote on the legislation before the August recess. Thune cited Democratic opposition and said the bill would be a priority when senators return in September.

Chok, whose company issues the FDUSD stablecoin, said the delay could give jurisdictions with clearer regulatory frameworks an advantage in attracting capital and talent as US uncertainty weighs on institutional adoption. 

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The Coldcard exploit, which caused more than $100 million in losses, helped push July crypto thefts to $247 million, making it the second-worst month of 2026.

July emerged as the second-worst month of 2026 for cryptocurrency thefts, largely due to the recent Coldcard exploit.

Hackers stole $247.4 million in crypto in July, the most this year after the $644 million stolen in April, according to DefiLlama data. The total was more than triple the $75 million stolen in June and the $60 million stolen in May.

The Coldcard exploit was the month’s biggest exploit, with at least $100 million in Bitcoin (BTC) stolen from 7,300 wallets across three confirmed attack waves, according to Galaxy Digital. The company also identified a suspected fourth wave that could bring total losses to about $130 million. DefiLlama’s hack tracker estimates losses tied to the Coldcard exploit at $115 million.

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Japanese authorities called for address registration, customer-specific limits and stronger authentication as part of a broader push to curb misuse of exchange accounts.

Japan’s financial regulator has asked crypto exchanges to introduce withdrawal delays and other safeguards as authorities respond to increasingly sophisticated scams involving digital assets. 

On Thursday, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) said it had jointly requested the measures with the National Police Agency amid growing losses among crypto exchange users and cases where funds obtained through fraudulent schemes are being transferred to exchange accounts.

The request calls on exchanges to restrict crypto withdrawals for a specified period after customers deposit fiat currency or purchase digital assets. Platforms were also asked to require users to pre-register crypto withdrawal addresses and impose a waiting period before newly added addresses can be used.

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The latest bipartisan ethics proposal would reportedly require Trump to divest crypto businesses while allowing him to defer capital gains taxes on those sales.

A bipartisan ethics proposal pitched to US President Donald Trump to secure passage of the crypto market structure bill in Congress could create a significant tax benefit for the president, Bloomberg reported Thursday. 

The ethics addendum, which has not been made public, includes a provision requiring the president to divest from crypto-related businesses, according to people familiar with the matter. The proposal would reportedly allow Trump to defer capital gains taxes on any required divestitures, potentially leading to tax savings in the millions. 

Democratic concerns over Trump’s crypto conflicts have been a central obstacle to passing the market-structure bill. Senators have been working on an ethics addendum meant to break that impasse, though the reported tax-deferral benefit could become another point of contention for Democrats to question whether the president’s financial interests are genuinely curbed. 

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Crypto exchange Bitget has signed an agreement with Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority to pursue a regulated local presence.

Bitget has signed an agreement with Bhutan’s Gelephu Mindfulness City Authority to explore establishing a licensed local operation, as the crypto exchange seeks a foothold in the country’s developing digital asset sector.

The agreement could pave the way for Bitget to establish a legal presence and prepare its application for a relevant financial services license in GMC, a $100 billion autonomous economic zone backed in part by Bhutan’s national Bitcoin reserves that aims to create high-value roles in finance, tech and wellness.

“GMC is the emerging hotbed for digital finance, and Bitget looks forward to contributing exchange experience, infrastructure knowledge and local talent development as this ecosystem grows,” said Gracy Chen, CEO at Bitget.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the chamber was “punting” the vote until September.

Update (Aug. 7, 2026, at 6:20 am UTC): Added comments from Crypto Council for Innovation CEO Ji Hun Kim.

Senate Republican leaders are expected to leave for their August recess without voting on crypto market structure legislation, delaying consideration of the bill until at least September, according to a report from Politico. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune confirmed that the chamber would not vote on the legislation before the recess, citing Democratic opposition and saying it would be prioritized when senators return next month. 

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Bitcoin miner MARA posted its highest quarterly Bitcoin production in over a year, but was overshadowed by a 28% decline in the average price of Bitcoin.

Bitcoin miner MARA swung to a net loss of $611.3 million from a year-earlier profit in the second quarter of 2026, driven primarily by a change in the value of its Bitcoin holdings, despite reporting its highest quarterly Bitcoin production in more than a year. 

The net loss, equivalent to $1.60 per diluted share, is down compared to a net income of $808.2 million, or $1.84 per diluted share, in the second quarter of 2025, according to the company’s 10-Q SEC filing. MARA mined 2,422 Bitcoin in the quarter, 3% more than the prior year period, but higher production was more than offset by a 28% decline in the average Bitcoin price. 

“Two things defined Q2 for MARA. Bitcoin prices created a challenging revenue environment [and] we used the quarter to fundamentally transform our power portfolio and capital structure,” said MARA chief financial officer Salman Khan during an earnings call on Thursday.  

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Wintermute said the registration allows the firm to position itself for the growth of tokenized securities in the US.

Wintermute’s US arm has registered as a broker-dealer, enabling the crypto trading firm to expand into traditional financial services in the US. 

On Thursday, Wintermute announced its affiliate Wintermute USA LLC has registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). The registration allows Wintermute USA to trade stocks and stock options and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products “including those tied to digital assets.”

Wintermute said the registration allows the firm to position itself for the emerging tokenized securities landscape. 

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The Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress PACs reported spending more than $1.5 million on media for four House and Senate races ahead of Aug. 18 primary elections.

Two groups affiliated with the cryptocurrency company-backed political action committee (PAC) Fairshake disclosed spending more than $1.5 million on media to support House of Representatives and Senate candidates in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming after suffering a primary loss in Michigan on Tuesday. 

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings as of Thursday, Fairshake PAC affiliates Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress spent a combined $1.5 million on ads for Republican and Democratic candidates, many of whom voted in favor of the Digital Asset Market Clarity (CLARITY) Act while serving in Congress. 

In Alaska’s at-large congressional district, scheduled to hold a primary on Aug. 18, Defend American Jobs spent more than $500,000 on media supporting the re-election of Representative Nick Begich. The Super PAC spent about the same amount on Republican candidate Sydney Gruters in Florida’s 16th district, and Representative Harriet Hageman, running for the soon-to-be-vacant Wyoming Senate seat now occupied by Cynthia Lummis. Both US states will also hold primaries on Aug. 18.

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