Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, Solana’s Shanghai event was “abruptly” suspended, an OpenAI research model used funds from a crypto wallet despite questioning whether it should and a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that former Trump crypto adviser Bo Hines retained a financial stake in a firm that benefited from a Tether deal while he helped advance US stablecoin legislation.

Solana’s Liu says Shanghai event postponed over registration surge

The Solana Accelerate event in Shanghai was postponed after pre-registration exceeded the event cap set by local authorities, according to Lily Liu, president of the Solana Foundation.

Event registration quadrupled overnight following publicity for the event, Liu wrote in a Friday X post, adding that organizers decided to postpone the event to “comply with local requirements.”

Earlier on Friday, X users claimed that the event was “abruptly suspended” as law enforcement officers were stationed at the venue.

In October 2025, a Solana event in Shenzhen was also cut short due to venue capacity and public-safety concerns, Solana’s Chinese-language community account announced then on X.

Shanghai was scheduled to open Solana’s four-city Accelerate China tour, followed by Hangzhou on Sunday, Shenzhen on Tuesday and Beijing on Thursday, according to the event’s website.

The postponement followed Solana executives’ promotion of a new Shanghai office earlier this week.

OpenAI model helped itself to testnet crypto, then kept quiet about it

An internal research model at OpenAI accessed a funded crypto wallet without authorization, using testnet Ether to deploy smart contracts on the Sepolia network and later omitting the spending from its final task summary. 

OpenAI said the model, which was part of its GPT-5.6 Sol family, was given the task of updating a crypto trading prototype and deploying compatible contracts. After failing to obtain testnet ETH through faucets, the model derived accounts from publicly known developer recovery phrases, checked 362 wallet addresses and selected one with enough funds to proceed. 

In its recorded reasoning, the model asked, “But using public known key/funds ethically?” It then argued that the funds were “effectively abandoned/test ETH” and that Sepolia ETH had no value, before using the wallet’s private key to sign and broadcast a deployment transaction. The transaction succeeded, with fees charged to the account.

OpenAI said the incident showed how an AI model could decide on its own that using someone else’s funds was acceptable, even without permission. The company discovered the incident while reviewing earlier model activity and has since introduced safeguards to prevent live internet access in similar situations.

Former Trump adviser retained stake in firm that benefited from stablecoin law

Former White House crypto adviser Bo Hines retained a one-third stake in an investment firm that received millions of dollars from Tether while he was helping advance landmark US stablecoin legislation, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation.

The report found that Nxum, an investment company Hines co-founded, received $6.3 million through an agreement with Tether, with the first payment arriving while Hines was still serving in the Trump administration.

Hines reportedly remained in contact with Nxum partners through Signal, sharing updates on the GENIUS Act and encouraging them to criticize Republican lawmakers who opposed the legislation.

The GENIUS Act, which established a federal regulatory framework for payment stablecoins, was signed into law in July 2025. Hines left the administration shortly afterward, joining Tether as a strategic adviser in August before becoming CEO of its US operations.

The revelations add to scrutiny of financial ties between Trump administration officials and the cryptocurrency industry. Several former regulators have also moved into senior industry positions, including former CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger, who became CEO of the Blockchain Association.