Important News
Tether and Circle have minted a combined total of $1.25 billion in stablecoins yesterday, marking a significant development in the cryptocurrency market. According to data from Lookonchain, Tether issued 1 billion USDT while Circle produced 250 million USDC. Over the past month, the total minting of stablecoins by both companies reached approximately $8.75 billion. The surge in freshly minted stablecoins typically points to a rising demand in the market, reflecting increased user engagement and often indicative of bullish market sentiment, suggesting more capital is entering the cryptocurrency ecosystem.
Ark Invest Expands Holdings
Ark Invest has boosted its stake in Bitmine Immersion (BMNR), acquiring an additional 339,000 shares valued at $15.6 million. This adjustment occurred across three of their funds, with significant increases in shares—ARKK added 227,569 shares worth $10.475 million, ARKW increased by 70,991 shares valued at $3.267 million, and ARKF added 40,553 shares worth $1.866 million. Despite the investment, market data revealed that BMNR’s stock price closed at $46.03, reflecting a 7.85% drop, which further declined by 2.22% in after-hours trading.
0xinfini Founder Allegedly Sells ETH
Christian, the founder of 0xinfini, is reportedly involved in a transaction where he sold 2,477 ETH, equating to roughly $11.66 million. This sale occurred around ten hours ago, coinciding with peak market prices. On-chain analysis revealed that 1,257 ETH were traded via Cowswap at an average price of $4,777.6, while another 1,220 ETH were deposited into Binance. Should this transaction finalize, Christian’s wallet will be entirely devoid of ETH.
Korean Trio Arrested for Memecoin Scam
In South Korea, police have apprehended three individuals accused of defrauding investors out of approximately $4.1 million through a fraudulent memecoin scheme. As reported by News1, the suspects allegedly misled 129 victims by promoting a memecoin named GCV, claiming it would provide memberships to prestigious Asian golf courses between December 2023 and June 2024.
Project Updates from Yesterday
Hyperliquid has introduced a new method for calculating mark prices for pre-market perpetual contracts, leading to a significant spike in the funding rates for WLFI and XPL tokens. WLFI’s annualized funding rate surged from 11% to an astonishing 100%, while XPL’s rate skyrocketed from 11% to 800%. Current market prices indicate that XPL is trading at $0.66 on Hyperliquid, reflecting a 22.6% premium over Binance’s price of $0.538, whereas WLFI is priced at $0.292, representing a 13.6% premium over Binance’s $0.257.
NVIDIA has reported its Q2 revenue for the 2026 fiscal year at $46.7 billion, surpassing market expectations of $46 billion. However, the company’s stock fell by 5% in after-hours trading due to a less optimistic forecast for Q3 revenue, which is projected at $54 billion. This decline in stock performance also caused Bitcoin to dip 1.25%, briefly falling below the $111,000 mark, while Ethereum experienced a slight drop to $4,482 before recovering to $4,513.
Circle is expanding its USDC payment services in Europe and Africa through partnerships with Mastercard and Finastra. Mastercard will facilitate USDC and EURC transaction settlements for acquirers and merchants across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, with the first users being Arab Financial Services and Eazy Financial Services. Finastra will incorporate USDC into its Global PAYplus platform, which handles over $50 trillion in cross-border transactions per day.
Pumpfun has successfully repurchased more than $58 million in PUMP tokens, which constitutes around 4.26% of the circulating supply. This repurchase, occurring between August 20 and 26, accounted for almost all of the platform’s revenue during that timeframe.
Sandbox Founder Restructures Leadership
The Sandbox’s founders, Arthur Madrid and Sébastien Borget, have stepped back from their day-to-day roles, with Animoca Brands CEO Robby Yung stepping in as the new CEO. Borget will take on the role of global ambassador, while Madrid transitions to non-executive chairman. Amid these changes, the company has laid off over 50% of its workforce and plans to shut down its Lyon office, with further layoffs anticipated in Paris as part of a strategic pivot from its metaverse focus to broader Web3 applications.
Updates from Linea Team
Members of the Linea team, led by @DeclanFox14, recently revealed the LXP and witch distribution map, highlighting that over 50% of users with less than 2000 LXP are classified as witches, a term used for low-tier users. This percentage declines sharply for those exceeding 2000 LXP. The witch identification analysis was conducted in collaboration with the Nansen team.
Bitplanet’s Bitcoin Treasury Initiative
At the BITCOIN ASIA 2025 conference, Paul Lee, co-founder of Lobo Ventures, announced that Bitplanet is forming a Bitcoin treasury company with plans to acquire $40 million in Bitcoin.
AI Chatbot Used in Cyber Attacks
A report from AI infrastructure firm Anthropic revealed that its AI chatbot, Claude, is being employed by cybercriminals for large-scale cyberattacks, with ransom demands ranging between $75,000 and $500,000. Despite stringent security measures, criminals have managed to exploit vulnerabilities through social engineering tactics, allowing them to bypass restrictions. One example involved a hacker utilizing Claude to extract sensitive information from multiple organizations while demanding Bitcoin as ransom.
Strive Funds Plans Major BTC Purchase
The CEO of Strive Funds, Matt Cole, indicated that the company aims to acquire over $700 million in Bitcoin following its public listing, as reported by BitcoinTreasuries.NET.
Shun Tai Holdings Invests in Cryptocurrencies
Shun Tai Holdings has announced an investment of HKD 70 million in cryptocurrencies, which may include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Coin, and Filecoin. The company has created a specialized team to oversee its virtual asset investments while employing strict risk management protocols.
American Bitcoin to Launch on Nasdaq
American Bitcoin, a mining operation backed by President Trump’s sons, is preparing for a public listing on Nasdaq in September. This initiative follows a merger with Gryphon Digital Mining, with Hut 8 owning the majority stake in the venture.
Investment and Financing Updates
Metafyed, a platform focusing on tokenized real assets, has secured $5.5 million in funding with contributions from Block Tides and other investors. CIMG Inc., a digital health company, raised $55 million through a stock placement and intends to purchase 500 Bitcoins. Ledn and Sygnum, a Swiss crypto bank, have completed a $50 million refinancing deal for a Bitcoin mortgage, which was oversubscribed.
The Clearing Company, founded by former Polymarket team members, recently completed $15 million in seed funding with backing from Union Square Ventures and others. The company aims to create a regulatory-compliant prediction market platform. Crypto card issuer Rain has raised $58 million in Series B funding, while European venture capital firm Lakestar successfully raised $265 million for a continuation fund.
AirNet Technology announced it has raised about $180 million through share placements, with proceeds in Bitcoin and Ethereum. M0, a stablecoin infrastructure company, finished a $40 million Series B financing round, and aPriori, a trading infrastructure startup, has garnered $20 million in funding to enhance its operations.
Portal to Bitcoin secured $50 million in financing led by Paloma Investments to bolster its BitScaler project, which facilitates native Bitcoin scaling without wrapped tokens. Hut 8 has obtained $330 million in credit for infrastructure projects in the U.S. while holding over 10,000 Bitcoins as liquidity reserves.
Regulatory & Policy Updates
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is set to adopt Nasdaq’s market monitoring system to improve oversight of the digital asset market. This initiative aims to provide real-time data analysis to detect potential market manipulations. Concurrently, discussions are ongoing regarding the “Clarity Act,” which would grant the CFTC exclusive authority over blockchain commodities.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that interviews for potential candidates for the Federal Reserve chair will commence on September 1, with a final list to be submitted to President Trump. Additionally, initial jobless claims in the U.S. dropped to 229,000, slightly below market forecasts.
Pyth Network has been selected by the U.S. Department of Commerce to assist in the verification and distribution of economic data. However, discrepancies have emerged between the GDP public chains released by the Department of Commerce and those published by Chainlink.
The SEC is organizing a roundtable on September 18 to discuss prohibiting trade-through rules, while China National Petroleum is exploring the use of stablecoins for cross-border settlements.
Meme Popularity Rankings
As of August 29, the most popular Ethereum tokens over the past 24 hours include HOKK, KUMO, LINK, SATOSHIT, and MHRD. The leading Solana tokens are Lenda, LIPEPE, LBRETT, DOPE, and DOPE, while the top Base tokens are ZORA, GIGABRIAN, VIRTUAL, CLIPPY, and Farcaster.
Must-Read Articles
Recent articles discuss the significant legislative progress cryptocurrency has made in Wall Street, the evolving competition among exchanges, the importance of mnemonic phrases in securing crypto assets, and the ongoing lobbying efforts in Washington regarding cryptocurrency regulation.
