Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Key Highlights PUMP has gained 84% in the past week and 13% in the last 24 hours, significantly outperforming the broader crypto market which declined 1.9% The platform has executed over $1 million in daily token buybacks for three consecutive days Trading volume surged 43.68% to reach $781 million in 24 hours, demonstrating robust market engagement Critical resistance level is positioned at $0.0055, while RSI indicators show overbought conditions at 77.55 Planned Q4 2026 tokenomics overhaul may result in burning as much as 36% of the total PUMP token supply The PUMP token from Pump.fun has experienced an impressive 84% surge across the last seven days, climbing to $0.005136 while the wider cryptocurrency market declined by 1.9%. This performance positions the token among the top-performing digital assets in the current market cycle.

Pump.Fun (PUMP) Price The primary catalyst for this upward movement is Pump.fun’s active token buyback initiative. The platform allocates a percentage of its trading fees to repurchase PUMP tokens from the open market. Over the past three consecutive days, these buybacks have surpassed $1 million daily, with the latest 24-hour period recording $1.01 million in purchases.

This mechanism generates persistent buy-side pressure that’s fundamentally linked to the platform’s revenue generation, independent of broader market sentiment fluctuations.

The surge in price has been accompanied by proportional increases in trading activity. PUMP’s 24-hour trading volume jumped 43.68% to exceed $781 million, demonstrating that the price rally is supported by substantial market participation rather than low-liquidity price manipulation.

Technical Recovery From Extended Downtrend PUMP had been trapped within a persistent descending channel throughout much of the current year, bottoming out around $0.0011 in July. Following that low, the token has mounted a consistent recovery, successfully breaking through the descending trendline and recapturing the $0.00237 support level before continuing its advance.

This recovery phase has established a pattern of progressively higher peaks and troughs since late July, with the most dramatic acceleration occurring after August 19.

Cryptocurrency analyst CryptoKaleo weighed in on X, observing that the PUMP chart appears to be “speed running its way back to all time highs.” His observation captures the velocity of the rebound from the July lows.

The RSI indicator currently registers 77.55, signaling that PUMP has entered overbought territory. Meanwhile, the Ultimate Oscillator shows a reading of 60.08, maintaining positive overall momentum while simultaneously suggesting that rapid pullbacks remain possible given the magnitude of the weekly advance.

Future Price Targets and Development Roadmap The immediate resistance level to monitor is $0.0055. A decisive breach above this level, backed by sustained volume, could pave the way toward $0.0060 and subsequently $0.0065. Conversely, a rejection at this resistance would likely result in PUMP entering a consolidation phase between $0.0045 and $0.0055.

Source: TradingView Pump.fun has outlined plans for a decentralized bounty platform called GO, scheduled for Q3 2026, which is expected to increase on-chain activity and subsequently channel additional revenue into the buyback mechanism.

Looking toward Q4 2026, the project has scheduled a significant tokenomics revision that could eliminate up to 36% of the total PUMP token supply through burns. The same quarter will also see expansion efforts to Ethereum and Monad networks.

Current data confirms $1.01 million in PUMP buybacks during the previous 24-hour period, with the token maintaining support above the $0.0051 level.

The Treasury just doubled its bond buyback program while national debt crossed $40 trillion. Bitcoin responded with its best week since March 2024, gaining 27% as institutional money poured into spot ETFs at a record pace.

Summary

Bitcoin surged from $62,679 to $79,500 between Aug. 17 and Aug. 21, a 27% gain that coincided with U.S. national debt crossing $40 trillion for the first time. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent doubled the maximum per-operation buyback size from $2 billion to $4 billion for 10-to-30-year securities, effective Sept. 9, and hinted the ceiling could rise further. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) pulled in $606 million in a single session on Aug. 20, capturing 82% of all spot Bitcoin ETF inflows that day. Short liquidations across crypto derivatives exchanges totaled $3 billion in 24 hours, affecting more than 170,000 traders in the largest squeeze since November 2021. Ray Dalio warned that a U.S. debt crisis could arrive “in three years, give or take two” and recommended investors hold gold and “a bit” of bitcoin as hedges against fiscal deterioration. On the morning of Aug. 19, 2026, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it would at least double the size of its long-end liquidity support buyback operations. Within 12 hours, bitcoin had gained 8.2%, blowing through its 200-day moving average for the first time in nine months. By Friday, it was knocking on $80,000.

The surface narrative is simple: falling yields make non-yielding assets more attractive. But the rally that followed was not just a rate-trade reaction. It was a statement about what investors now believe the United States government will do when its borrowing costs become unmanageable. And the answer, delivered by the Treasury itself, was: print more liquidity.

That interpretation turned bitcoin from a speculative risk asset into a fiscal-fear trade, a bet that the world’s reserve currency issuer has entered a debt spiral it cannot exit through austerity alone. The mechanism connecting Treasury buybacks to bitcoin’s price is more direct than most investors realize.

What the Treasury actually did On Aug. 19, the Treasury Department raised the maximum per-operation size for its liquidity support buybacks from $2 billion to at least $4 billion. The change applied to securities in the 10-to-20-year and 20-to-30-year maturity sectors. The number of long-end operations also increased from two to four per quarter, with the new schedule taking effect on Sept. 9.

Bessent told CNBC on Aug. 20 that “there is every indication that the buybacks could exceed” the $4 billion ceiling. The phrasing was deliberate. The Treasury secretary was signaling that bond market intervention would scale as needed, with no preset upper bound.

This is not quantitative easing in the formal sense. The Treasury is not creating new reserves or expanding its balance sheet the way the Federal Reserve did between 2020 and 2022. Instead, it is buying back older, less liquid bonds and replacing them with newly issued debt. The mechanical effect, however, is similar: long-term yields fall, the dollar weakens, and risk assets rally.

The 30-year Treasury yield dropped 9 basis points in the hours following the announcement. The dollar index fell to its lowest level since June. Gold climbed 2.1%. Bitcoin did all of that and more.

The $40 trillion backdrop The timing of the buyback expansion was not coincidental. U.S. national debt crossed $40,047,425,768,420.22 on Aug. 18, 2026, one day before the announcement. That milestone arrived just five months after the debt passed $39 trillion in March, making it the fastest trillion-dollar increase in the country’s history.

The numbers paint a picture of structural deterioration. The federal government is spending roughly 40% more than it collects in revenue, with annual income near $5.5 trillion and expenses near $7.5 trillion. Interest payments on the debt have surpassed Medicare to become the second-largest line item in the federal budget, trailing only Social Security.

Total debt has more than doubled from the approximately $19.95 trillion outstanding when President Trump first took office in January 2017. The Congressional Budget Office projects annual deficits exceeding $2 trillion through at least 2034, assuming no recession intervenes. Each trillion now arrives faster than the last, a compounding dynamic that bond markets have begun to price with increasing urgency.

The day the debt clock ticked past $40 trillion, the Treasury held its regularly scheduled 20-year bond auction. Demand was tepid. The bid-to-cover ratio fell to its lowest level since February, forcing a higher yield to clear the sale. One day later, the buyback announcement arrived. The sequence was not subtle: the government struggled to sell new debt on Monday, then announced it would buy back old debt on Tuesday. The market drew its own conclusions.

For bitcoin holders, this arithmetic is the thesis. A government that cannot balance its books and cannot politically tolerate the austerity required to do so will eventually monetize its obligations. Whether that monetization arrives through formal quantitative easing, yield-curve control, or the quiet expansion of buyback programs does not change the destination. It only changes the pace.

How buybacks became a bitcoin catalyst The transmission mechanism from Treasury buybacks to bitcoin runs through three channels.

First, when the Treasury buys back older bonds, it compresses long-term yields. Lower yields reduce the opportunity cost of holding non-yielding assets like gold and bitcoin. Before the buyback announcement, the 30-year Treasury was offering 5.12%. After it, 5.03%. That 9-basis-point move may sound trivial, but in a market where trillions of dollars in capital allocation are benchmarked against the risk-free rate, it shifts the entire cost-of-capital equation.

Second, the buyback program injects liquidity into the bond market. Dealers who sell older bonds to the Treasury receive cash, which they redeploy into other assets. Some of that cash flows into equities. Some flows into crypto. The pathway is indirect but measurable: on the same day as the buyback announcement, spot bitcoin ETFs absorbed $517 million in net inflows, their strongest daily result since May.

Third, and most importantly, the buyback expansion signals a policy preference. The Treasury is telling the market that it will intervene to prevent long-term yields from rising to levels that threaten fiscal sustainability. That signal, more than any single operation, is what reprices bitcoin. It tells investors that the government will choose inflation over austerity when forced to pick.

The ETF plumbing underneath the rally The week of Aug. 17 to 21 produced one of the most concentrated bursts of institutional bitcoin buying since spot ETFs launched in January 2024.

On Aug. 20 alone, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded $606 million in net inflows. BlackRock’s IBIT captured $497 million of that total, an 82% market share that underscores its dominance as the vehicle of choice for institutional allocation. IBIT’s cumulative net inflows reached $62.43 billion, and total spot bitcoin ETF assets climbed above $90 billion.

The four-day stretch from Monday through Thursday saw approximately $1.9 billion flow into spot bitcoin funds. Eight of 12 listed products attracted positive flows, suggesting the buying was broad-based rather than concentrated in a single fund.

21Shares senior strategist Matt Mena argued that expectations of a weaker dollar helped drive institutional capital toward scarce assets. The framing is significant. When an ETF strategist at a major issuer describes bitcoin as a “scarce asset” in the same sentence as dollar depreciation, the narrative has shifted from speculation to macro allocation.

Tudor Investment disclosed an additional 109,446 shares of IBIT during the same period. UBS raised its IBIT position to $90 million. These are not retail traders chasing momentum. They are multi-billion-dollar allocators repositioning around a fiscal thesis.

The composition of the buying matters as much as its volume. When ETF inflows are dominated by a single product and concentrated in a two-day window, the pattern often reflects a macro catalyst triggering allocation model changes at large institutions. A retail-driven rally tends to spread across smaller funds and arrive over weeks, not hours. The Aug. 19-20 pattern looked institutional from the first print.

Sizing the buyback against bitcoin’s market Here is arithmetic that most coverage of the rally has overlooked.

The Treasury plans to execute at least four long-end buyback operations per quarter at $4 billion each, for a minimum quarterly volume of $16 billion. Annualized, that is $64 billion in long-end bond purchases.

Bitcoin’s total market capitalization at $78,000 is approximately $1.55 trillion. The $64 billion in annual buyback volume represents 4.1% of bitcoin’s entire market cap. That does not mean 4.1% of buyback proceeds flow into bitcoin. But it does mean the liquidity injection from this single program is large enough to move bitcoin’s price if even a small fraction of the freed-up capital rotates into crypto.

Compare that to spot bitcoin ETF inflows. In the 12 months through July 2026, U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs absorbed approximately $28 billion in net inflows. The Treasury’s buyback program is injecting 2.3 times that amount into the broader financial system every year. If just 5% of buyback-related liquidity ultimately reaches bitcoin markets, through ETFs, futures, or direct spot purchases, that would equal $3.2 billion per year in incremental demand, roughly equivalent to a full month of average ETF inflows.

This is a back-of-the-envelope calculation, not a precise forecast. But it illustrates why the market’s reaction was so violent. The buyback program is not a one-time event. It is a recurring liquidity injection that compounds over time, and its scale is large relative to bitcoin’s absorptive capacity.

Consider the comparison from the other direction. Bitcoin’s daily spot volume averaged roughly $35 billion during the rally week. The Treasury’s $4 billion per operation is 11.4% of a single day’s trading volume. Spread across a quarter with four operations, that is $16 billion in fresh liquidity entering a system where marginal price is set by a much thinner order book than headline volume suggests. The effective float, the coins actually available for sale at any given price, is a fraction of total supply. Most bitcoin sits in long-term holder wallets and does not move.

The Dalio endorsement and what it signals On Friday, Aug. 21, Ray Dalio published a LinkedIn post that amounted to the most explicit bitcoin endorsement of his career. The Bridgewater Associates founder warned that the U.S. government’s financial condition had reached “an inflection point” and recommended investors reduce bond exposure while holding 10% to 15% of their portfolios in gold and “a bit” of bitcoin.

Dalio’s framing was specific. He linked the Treasury’s buyback expansion directly to the broader debt trajectory, arguing that Bessent’s move was “a sign that a debt crisis is getting closer.” If the U.S. government were a business, Dalio noted, its debt service payments would total approximately $11 trillion, roughly 200% of annual revenue.

JUST IN: Coldcard wallets affected by security issue with reported losses

Roughly 594 $BTC valued at $38 million has been stolen from certain dormant single sig wallets pic.twitter.com/f3fk7kYXzM

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) August 1, 2026 The significance is not that Dalio likes bitcoin. It is that the most prominent macro investor of the past four decades now treats bitcoin and gold as complements in the same hedge. When Dalio says sell bonds and buy scarce assets, the audience is not retail. It is sovereign wealth funds, pension allocators, and family offices managing multi-generational capital.

The bitcoin-gold correlation rose to approximately +0.7 during the rally week, a level described by analysts as a return to “digital-gold-era” pricing. Both assets rose together because both were responding to the same signal: the United States government will choose monetary expansion over fiscal discipline.

The White House factor The Treasury buyback was not the only policy catalyst that week. On Aug. 19, the same day as the buyback announcement, President Trump convened a White House meeting with crypto executives and regulators to discuss the CLARITY Act, the most ambitious attempt at comprehensive crypto legislation in U.S. history.

The meeting produced no binding commitments, but it sent a signal that the administration views crypto as a policy priority. Bitcoin jumped more than 5% to trade above $68,600 within hours of the meeting’s conclusion. By Thursday, BTC had cleared $72,000 for the first time since early June.

The SEC added its own accelerant. On Aug. 18, the commission published its Regulation Crypto Assets notice of proposed rulemaking, offering the first formal framework for token offerings under existing securities law. The CFTC opened its inaugural Innovation Advisory Committee session on Aug. 20. Three regulatory bodies, all moving in the same direction during the same week, created a policy convergence that the market had not seen before.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune filed cloture on the CLARITY Act before the August recess, setting up a procedural vote for Sept. 15. If the bill clears that hurdle, it would create the first statutory line between digital commodities overseen by the CFTC and investment contract assets under the SEC. Bitcoin, along with ether, XRP, SOL, and DOGE, would be permanently classified as non-securities under the bill’s ETP grandfather clause.

The opposing case: why this rally could reverse Not everyone agrees that bitcoin has become a fiscal hedge. Several structural risks could undermine the thesis.

The CLARITY Act faces long odds despite the White House push. Polymarket traders give the bill only a 16% chance of becoming law in 2026, down from an 82% peak in February. The core sticking point is an ethics provision targeting presidential crypto income. If the September 15 cloture vote fails, analysts have warned of a 15% to 30% market correction as the industry faces another year of regulation by enforcement.

The rally itself was heavily amplified by leverage. More than $3 billion in short positions were liquidated across crypto derivatives exchanges, affecting 170,237 traders. Binance alone processed over $1 billion in liquidations. When that much of a move is driven by forced buying from liquidated shorts rather than organic demand, the price can reverse just as violently.

Bitcoin also remains 37% below its all-time high of $126,198 set on Oct. 6, 2025. The rally brought BTC back to levels last seen in May, but it has not yet proven it can sustain prices above $75,000 during a period of thinner weekend liquidity.

There is also the question of bitcoin’s own supply dynamics. The 2024 halving reduced block rewards to 3.125 BTC, tightening new issuance. But Strategy, the largest corporate bitcoin holder, has been a net seller in recent months. If large holders use the rally as an exit opportunity, supply could overwhelm the ETF bid.

Finally, the fiscal-hedge narrative requires bitcoin to behave differently than it has during prior stress events. In the first half of 2026, gold outperformed bitcoin by a wide margin, gaining roughly 32% while bitcoin fell nearly 46% from its August 2025 levels. Central banks continued to accumulate gold, not bitcoin, as their reserve hedge of choice. No central bank has added bitcoin to its official reserves. The correlation may be rising, but the track record is still mixed.

The week’s real lesson The most revealing aspect of this week was not bitcoin’s price. It was the market’s interpretation of why it moved.

In 2020, bitcoin rallied on stimulus checks and retail euphoria. In 2024, it rallied on ETF approval and halving-cycle anticipation. In August 2026, it rallied because the U.S. Treasury signaled it would absorb long-duration bond risk to keep yields from spiraling, and the market read that as a confession that the fiscal trajectory is unsustainable.

That is a different kind of rally. It suggests that bitcoin is beginning to price not as a technology bet or a speculative vehicle but as an instrument of fiscal dissent, a way for capital to express the view that sovereign debt is no longer risk-free.

Whether that view proves correct depends on variables that no one can forecast with precision: the path of interest rates, the outcome of the CLARITY Act vote, the willingness of Congress to address structural deficits, and the Federal Reserve’s response at Jackson Hole and beyond. But the fact that $1.9 billion in ETF inflows arrived in four days tells you something about where institutional conviction is landing.

The bitcoin price prediction models that project a base-case target of $75,929 by year-end now look conservative. If the buyback program expands further, if the CLARITY Act clears its September vote, and if the Fed signals rate cuts at Jackson Hole, the conditions for a sustained rally above $80,000 are in place.

The conditions for a reversal are also in place. That tension is what makes this a trade, not a certainty.

What to watch Sept. 9 buyback launch: The expanded Treasury buyback schedule takes effect. Watch whether the Treasury increases operation sizes beyond $4 billion, which would confirm Bessent’s hint and likely push yields lower.

Sept. 15 CLARITY Act cloture vote: A successful vote would remove the largest regulatory overhang on crypto markets. A failure would likely trigger the 15% to 30% correction analysts have warned about.

Jackson Hole commentary: The Federal Reserve’s annual symposium in late August will signal whether rate cuts are on the table for Q4. A dovish tilt would reinforce the fiscal-fear trade.

Weekly ETF flow data: Sustained inflows above $500 million per day would indicate the institutional bid is structural, not reactive. A sharp reversal in flows would suggest the rally was leverage-driven and vulnerable.

30-year Treasury yield: If yields fall below 4.90%, the opportunity cost of holding bitcoin drops further and the fiscal-hedge narrative strengthens. If yields climb back above 5.20%, the buyback program is failing to contain the bond market and risk assets face pressure.

Why is bitcoin rallying in August 2026? Bitcoin gained 27% between Aug. 17 and Aug. 21 after the U.S. Treasury doubled its long-term bond buyback program from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation. The move compressed yields, weakened the dollar, and triggered $3 billion in short liquidations across crypto derivatives exchanges. Spot bitcoin ETFs absorbed $1.9 billion in four days.

What is the Treasury buyback program? The Treasury’s liquidity support buyback program involves purchasing older, less liquid government bonds and replacing them with newly issued debt. On Aug. 19, 2026, the Treasury doubled the maximum per-operation size to $4 billion for 10-to-30-year securities and increased the number of quarterly operations from two to four.

How much money flowed into bitcoin ETFs during the rally? U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs recorded approximately $1.9 billion in net inflows from Aug. 18 through Aug. 21. BlackRock’s IBIT captured the largest share, pulling in $606 million on Aug. 20 alone, an 82% market share. IBIT’s cumulative net inflows reached $62.43 billion.

What did Ray Dalio say about bitcoin and the debt crisis? On Aug. 21, 2026, Ray Dalio warned that a U.S. debt crisis could arrive “in three years, give or take two.” He recommended investors hold 10% to 15% of their portfolios in gold and “a bit” of bitcoin, calling the government’s financial condition “at an inflection point.”

How large is the U.S. national debt? U.S. national debt crossed $40 trillion on Aug. 18, 2026, just five months after passing $39 trillion. Interest payments have surpassed Medicare as the second-largest federal budget item. The government spends approximately 40% more than it collects in revenue.

Is bitcoin a better hedge than gold? Bitcoin and gold rose together during the August rally, with their correlation reaching approximately +0.7. However, gold has outperformed bitcoin over the trailing 12 months by a significant margin, and central banks continue to favor gold for reserve allocations. The two assets serve complementary roles in a fiscal-hedge portfolio.

What is the CLARITY Act and why does it matter for bitcoin? The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act would create the first comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto in the United States, dividing oversight between the SEC and CFTC. A cloture vote is scheduled for Sept. 15, 2026. Passage would remove a major regulatory overhang; failure could trigger a 15% to 30% market correction.

How many traders were liquidated during the bitcoin rally? More than 170,000 traders were liquidated across crypto derivatives exchanges during the Aug. 19-20 rally, with total liquidations exceeding $3 billion. Short-position holders accounted for $2.74 billion in losses. Binance led with over $1 billion in liquidations, followed by Hyperliquid at $701 million. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Cryptocurrency investments carry significant risk, including the potential loss of principal. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions. Published Aug. 23, 2026.

Litecoin (LTC) is showing renewed technical strength after rebounding from a key long-term support level, with analysts signaling growing optimism for a potential major price rally. The introduction of smart contracts through its new layer-2 solution is extending the network’s utility, positioning Litecoin as a contender in the programmable decentralized finance space.

Key technical bounce and price outlookAt press time, LTC trades at $51.19, supported by a 24-hour trading volume of $474.74 million and a total market capitalization of $3.94 billion. The coin has recorded a 7.25% gain in the past day, further fueling expectations for a bullish reversal in the near term.

Crypto analyst Crypto Patel identified that Litecoin has maintained an eight-year ascending support trendline first established in 2017. LTC recently retested the $40 support, rebounding nearly 20% from that level. This technical move has revived conversation among market observers about a possible surge to price targets ranging between $500 and $1,000 in the next market cycle.

Historically, Litecoin demonstrated sharp rallies when bouncing from higher timeframe structural levels, posting gains of 812%, 6,671%, and 1,747% in major prior cycles. Market participants are also watching Litecoin’s halving event set for April 2027 as a possible catalyst for the next significant uptrend.

LTC has rebounded from the eight-year trendline, with analysts closely watching for a move towards the $1,000 level, especially as previous cycles have delivered substantial returns after similar setups.

Analysts state that technical targets around $400, $700, and $1,000 are now under consideration. The $100 zone is seen as a critical resistance; a clear break above could strengthen signals for a bullish reversal.

Smart contract integration and network evolutionThe Litecoin Foundation highlighted notable progress on LitecoinVM, a layer-2 scaling solution created to support smart contracts and advanced applications on the Litecoin network. According to the Foundation, LitecoinVM has processed over 250 million transactions on its testnet, Liteforge, marking a major step towards expanding Litecoin’s ecosystem beyond simple payments.

The surge in transaction activity and active wallet addresses during stress testing attracted significant interest among developers. These advancements come amid plans to launch the Liteforge mainnet, which is expected to further test DeFi capabilities on the network ahead of the 2027 halving.

By integrating Ethereum-compatible rollup technology, LitecoinVM allows for the creation of decentralized apps, tokenized assets, and AI-powered solutions using LTC. This move signals a shift in Litecoin’s positioning, from a payments focus to a broader Web3 platform.

Mini dictionary: Litecoin Foundation — A non-profit organization supporting Litecoin’s development, adoption, and education initiatives worldwide, including technical innovations such as layer-2 scaling solutions.

Outlook and upcoming milestonesWith the mainnet launch of Liteforge on the horizon, developers and users await further advances in smart contract utility on the Litecoin network. A sustained move above the $100 mark is regarded as an important confirmation for bullish momentum toward higher targets.

Current network expansion and price momentum have been bolstered by broader positive sentiment in the crypto market, with Bitcoin showing signs of upward movement. Observers are watching closely to see whether these developments can spark a sustained cycle rally for Litecoin as the market approaches the next halving event.

MetricCurrent ValueCycle TargetLTC Price$51.19$500 – $1,00024H Trading Volume$474.74 million–Market Cap$3.94 billion–Liteforge Testnet Transactions250 million+Mainnet under developmentHalving DateApril 2027Potential catalystDisclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

XRP gained more than 50% in five trading days, its strongest weekly performance in 21 months, as a Treasury buyback expansion, a White House crypto summit, and aggressive whale accumulation converged on the same narrow window.

Summary

XRP surged from approximately $1.00 on Aug. 18 to a high of $1.6963 on Aug. 22, 2026, a gain of roughly 56% that marks its biggest weekly move since November 2024. The U.S. Treasury doubled long-term bond buyback operations from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per session, triggering a rapid drop in benchmark yields and pushing capital into risk assets across crypto markets. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse attended a White House crypto policy summit on Aug. 19 alongside SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, advancing the CLARITY Act that would classify XRP as a digital commodity under CFTC oversight. Whale addresses holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP accumulated approximately 380 million tokens in one week, pushing tracked holdings from 16.05 billion to 16.36 billion XRP while exchange outflows exceeded 240 million tokens since summer began. Spot XRP ETFs attracted $39.78 million in net inflows for the week ending Aug. 22, bringing cumulative inflows since their November 2025 launch to $1.55 billion across seven approved funds. XRP closed the week of Aug. 18 as the best-performing asset among the top ten cryptocurrencies by market capitalization, beating Bitcoin by more than 40 percentage points and Ethereum by more than 45. The move was not a single-catalyst spike. It was a compressed sequence of macro, regulatory, and on-chain events that landed in the same five-day window, each one reinforcing the next. Understanding why each catalyst mattered, and why their convergence produced a move of this magnitude, requires looking at the specific mechanics of how they interacted.

The rally also marks the first sustained price advance since the SEC settlement that correlates with improving on-chain metrics rather than pure speculation. For seven months before this week, XRP traded between $0.90 and $1.10 while Ripple’s corporate fundamentals strengthened in the background. The disconnect between token price and business development had become one of the most discussed topics in crypto markets. That gap narrowed sharply over five days.

The Treasury buyback that unlocked the rally The catalyst that set everything in motion arrived on Aug. 19, when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced an expansion of long-term government bond buyback operations. The size of each buyback would double from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, starting Sept. 9. The announcement came after the 30-year Treasury yield spiked to its highest level since 2007, a move that had been pressuring risk assets across every market for weeks.

Buying back bonds pulls supply off the market, pushing bond prices up and yields down. The 30-year yield fell to 5.19% within hours. Traders described the dynamic as informal yield curve control, since the buybacks effectively cap how high long-end yields can climb without the Federal Reserve having to intervene directly.

The effect on crypto was immediate. Bitcoin jumped from $62,000 to $69,000 within 48 hours, its biggest weekly gain in two years. But the impact on XRP was disproportionate. More than $3 billion in crypto short positions were liquidated during the surge, and XRP’s lower market capitalization relative to Bitcoin made it more sensitive to the rotation. Leveraged short sellers who had been betting on a continued grind below $1 were forced to cover, and the resulting squeeze amplified the underlying move.

Lower yields make bonds less attractive relative to riskier assets, which frees capital to rotate into high-beta positions. XRP, with its pending regulatory catalysts and recent technical weakness, became the primary beneficiary of that rotation among large-cap altcoins.

The White House summit and the CLARITY Act On the same day the Treasury buyback was announced, a separate catalyst emerged from Washington. The White House hosted a crypto policy summit attended by Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, and members of Congress who had co-sponsored the CLARITY Act. President Trump publicly urged Congress to pass the legislation, which would classify XRP and similar tokens as digital commodities under CFTC oversight rather than securities under the SEC.

The CLARITY Act represents the most significant potential shift in U.S. crypto regulation since the Ripple settlement itself. If passed, it would give XRP the same regulatory classification as Bitcoin and Ethereum, removing the last remaining ambiguity about its legal status. The crypto.news analysis of the three conditions for XRP’s recovery identified regulatory clarity as the single most important factor, with 65% of institutional allocators surveyed saying they need this classification before increasing crypto exposure.

The bill faces a Senate procedural vote on Sept. 15. Polymarket prediction contracts currently give it approximately 16% odds of passing, reflecting the difficulty of moving any legislation through Congress in the current political environment. But the market responded to the optics of the summit itself, not the probability of passage. Brad Garlinghouse standing alongside the SEC chairman and the president, discussing a bill that would formalize XRP’s commodity status, sent a signal about the direction of policy that no probability model fully captures.

XRP price jumped roughly 30% in two days following the summit, breaking a year-long downtrend in the process. The move took the token from $1.00 to $1.31 before the additional catalysts pushed it higher.

Whale accumulation and the exchange drain The on-chain data tells a story that started before the price moved. According to crypto.news reporting on whale accumulation, addresses holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP accumulated approximately 380 million tokens over the week of Aug. 18. Total whale holdings rose from roughly 16.05 billion to 16.36 billion XRP, the highest level since the SEC settlement.

The accumulation was not limited to a single cluster of wallets. Whale transactions on the XRP Ledger surged 280% in 24 hours, with 38 large-value transfers exceeding $1 million recorded in a single trading day. The baseline for large-value XRP transactions in July and early August had averaged roughly 10 to 12 per day, making the spike to 38 a clear departure from normal activity.

More telling than the buying itself was the absence of selling. Whale transfers to Binance fell to their lowest level since 2021 during the same period, suggesting that large holders were accumulating and holding rather than flipping for short-term profit. More than 240 million XRP tokens left exchanges since summer began, reducing the available supply on order books and tightening the market.

The wallets involved in the accumulation include a mix of known institutional custodians and unidentified addresses. Analyst Ali Martinez noted that the accumulation pattern resembles the pre-rally positioning seen before XRP’s January 2026 high of $3.40, when whale addresses added similar quantities before the token rallied from $2.00 to its peak.

Ripple’s own escrow activity adds context. In August 2026, Ripple unlocked 1 billion XRP from escrow, valued at approximately $1.08 billion under its monthly program. Despite this regular supply injection, whale accumulation outpaced the new supply reaching the market, a dynamic that had not occurred since early 2025.

Spot ETF inflows and institutional re-engagement The seven U.S. spot XRP ETFs approved since November 2025 had a complicated first year. After a strong launch that saw them accumulate $1.3 billion in assets within two months, inflows collapsed through the summer. Weekly ETF inflows fell 93% to just $1.01 million for the week ending Aug. 8, down from $14.86 million the prior week. JPMorgan had predicted up to $8 billion in year-one inflows. The reality was $1.5 billion across eight months.

The week of Aug. 18 reversed that trajectory. Spot XRP ETFs attracted $39.78 million in net inflows, the strongest weekly pace since May. Bitwise Asset Management, Franklin Templeton, and Grayscale Investments led the buying. Cumulative inflows since launch reached $1.55 billion, with the funds now holding approximately 1.50% of total XRP supply.

The crypto.news coverage of ETF inflows crossing $1.55 billion noted that the timing aligned with a shift in macro sentiment following the Treasury buyback announcement. Institutional buyers who had paused allocations during the yield spike returned as soon as yields dropped, suggesting that the problem with XRP ETFs was never demand for the asset itself but the competing returns available in fixed income.

The ETF structure also matters for price mechanics. Unlike over-the-counter XRP purchases, ETF inflows require the fund to buy XRP on the open market or through authorized participants, creating direct buying pressure on the spot price. When $39 million in weekly inflows meets a market where 240 million tokens have already left exchanges, the price impact is amplified beyond what the dollar figure alone would suggest.

How this rally compares to every post-settlement XRP move XRP has produced four distinct rallies since the SEC settlement was finalized in May 2025. Each one differed in catalyst, duration, peak gain, and retracement depth. Mapping them reveals a pattern that this week’s move both follows and breaks.

Rally one: the settlement itself (May 2025). XRP jumped 42% in three days after the SEC formally withdrew its appeal and Ripple paid the reduced $50 million penalty. The catalyst was purely legal. On-chain accumulation was minimal because the news broke with no advance warning. The retracement was fast: XRP gave back 60% of the gain within two weeks as traders took profit on the news.

Rally two: the ETF approval wave (November 2025). Seven spot XRP ETFs received regulatory clearance, and XRP surged 85% over three weeks. This was the longest sustained move of the cycle, driven by genuine institutional inflows that totaled $483 million in December alone. The retracement was slower but deeper. XRP fell 65% from its January 2026 high of $3.40 to the $1.00 level it occupied before this week’s move.

Rally three: the Ripple Prime announcement (June 2026). Ripple announced conditional approval for a national trust bank charter and raised at a $50 billion valuation. XRP gained 28% in five days. The retracement was almost complete within ten trading sessions, as the market concluded that corporate milestones were not translating into token demand.

Rally four: this week (August 2026). XRP gained 56% in five days, making it the second-largest post-settlement move by magnitude. What distinguishes it from the previous three is the convergence of multiple catalyst types. The settlement rally was legal only. The ETF rally was institutional only. The Ripple Prime rally was corporate only. This week combined macro (Treasury buyback), political (White House summit), on-chain (whale accumulation), and institutional (ETF inflows) catalysts simultaneously.

The convergence matters because it creates feedback loops that single-catalyst rallies cannot sustain. Macro-driven yield drops pull capital into crypto broadly. Political catalysts direct that capital specifically toward XRP. Whale accumulation reduces available supply. ETF inflows create structured buying pressure. Each factor reinforces the others, making the rally more durable than moves driven by a single headline.

Whether this convergence produces a genuinely different outcome from the previous three rallies, all of which eventually retraced, is the central question for XRP holders heading into September.

The overbought signal and what it has meant before The Relative Strength Index on XRP’s daily chart reached 85.4 on Aug. 22, its most overbought reading since July 2025. The last time the RSI crossed 85, XRP retraced 18% within ten trading days. In three of the four previous instances where XRP’s RSI exceeded 80 since the SEC settlement, the token lost at least 15% of its value within two weeks.

The technical picture is further complicated by the death cross that formed earlier in August. The crypto.news analysis of the death cross erasure explained that while XRP’s daily candle closed above both the 50-day and 200-day exponential moving averages for the first time since the bearish crossover, the 50-day EMA remains below the 200-day line. A confirming golden cross has not yet formed.

The distinction matters because three previous breakouts above both moving averages failed to produce a golden cross, each time resulting in a return below the 200-day EMA within five trading days. The current move needs to hold for at least another week before the moving average crossover would confirm a genuine trend change.

A weekend flash crash on Aug. 22 added to the uncertainty. Approximately $500 million in XRP long positions were liquidated in minutes when the price dropped sharply from $1.69 to $1.43 before recovering to the $1.46 to $1.51 range where it traded into Saturday. The event showed how quickly leveraged positions can unwind even in the middle of a strong rally, and it reduced open interest enough to partially reset the overbought condition.

Ripple’s corporate momentum and the token disconnect The irony of XRP’s 2026 performance is that Ripple the company has never been stronger. The SEC case ended with XRP retaining full trading rights in the United States. Seven U.S. spot ETFs launched and now hold nearly a billion dollars in XRP. Ripple secured conditional approval for a national trust bank charter. The company raised at a $50 billion valuation. It spent roughly $4 billion on acquisitions. Most recently, Ripple Prime raised $275 million through a private placement of senior unsecured notes with a BBB rating from KBRA, an 8.25% coupon, and a 2031 maturity date.

Yet XRP the token spent the first seven months of 2026 trading between $0.90 and $1.10 while all of this happened. The crypto.news XRP price prediction page noted the base case of $1.80 to $3.20 by 2030, a range that assumed slow and steady appreciation from the $1.00 level. This week’s move has compressed months of expected appreciation into days.

The token’s disconnect from Ripple’s fundamentals is partly structural. XRP’s supply dynamics differ from tokens like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Ripple holds billions of XRP in escrow and releases them monthly, creating a persistent supply overhang that weighs on price even when demand increases. The monthly escrow release of 1 billion XRP in August alone exceeded the total whale accumulation for the entire week. The net effect on circulating supply depends on how much Ripple returns to escrow, a figure the company reports quarterly but not in real time. In previous months, Ripple has returned between 800 million and 900 million tokens to escrow, meaning the net new supply reaching the market each month is typically between 100 million and 200 million tokens. Even at the lower end of that range, the monthly supply addition partially offsets the accumulation pressure from whale buyers.

Ripple Prime’s integration with EDX Markets and Hyperliquid to expand institutional access to spot, perpetual futures, and decentralized liquidity creates new demand channels that did not exist during the first three post-settlement rallies. Whether these channels can absorb enough supply to offset the escrow releases is one of the structural questions that will determine whether this rally holds.

The CLARITY Act as a binary event The Senate procedural vote on the CLARITY Act scheduled for Sept. 15 creates a binary event risk for XRP that has no parallel in the token’s history. If the bill passes cloture and eventually becomes law, XRP would receive the same commodity classification as Bitcoin and Ethereum, removing the final barrier to full institutional adoption. If it fails, the market would need to reprice the probability of regulatory clarity arriving through legislation versus the current patchwork of court rulings and agency guidance.

The bill’s passage is far from certain. Polymarket gives it approximately 16% odds, and the Senate procedural calendar is crowded. But the White House summit on Aug. 19 moved the conversation from theoretical to operational. The presence of the SEC chairman at a meeting dedicated to advancing the bill suggests coordination between the executive branch and the regulatory agencies that would implement it.

For XRP specifically, the CLARITY Act would resolve the last remaining ambiguity from the Ripple settlement. While courts ruled that XRP traded on secondary markets did not constitute a securities transaction, certain institutional sales remained subject to securities law considerations. The CLARITY Act would eliminate that distinction entirely, making XRP legally identical to Bitcoin for regulatory purposes.

The market appears to be pricing in a higher probability of passage than the prediction markets suggest, or at least pricing in the optionality that the political environment has shifted enough to make some form of regulatory clarity likely within the next 12 months, whether through this specific bill or an alternative path.

https://twitter.com/cryptodotnews/article/2061436021380661610

What to watch The 200-day EMA retest. A daily close below the 200-day exponential moving average within five trading days would repeat the pattern of three previous failed breakouts and signal that the rally was a short squeeze artifact.

Weekly ETF flow data for the week ending Aug. 29. If inflows sustain or accelerate from the $39.78 million recorded this week, it would confirm that institutional demand is genuine and not a one-week reaction to macro headlines.

The Sept. 15 CLARITY Act cloture vote. The vote itself is binary, but the political dynamics in the weeks leading up to it will shape expectations. Watch for co-sponsor additions or withdrawals as a leading indicator.

Exchange reserve levels. If the drawdown of 240 million tokens from exchanges since summer continues or accelerates, it would tighten supply further and support the price. A reversal, with tokens flowing back to exchanges, would suggest whale profit-taking.

The 30-year Treasury yield. The yield fell to 5.19% after the buyback announcement. If it climbs back above 5.50%, the macro tailwind that triggered the rally would weaken, and the rotation into risk assets could reverse.

Why did XRP surge 50% in one week? XRP gained approximately 56% between Aug. 18 and Aug. 22, 2026, driven by a convergence of four factors: the U.S. Treasury doubling bond buyback operations, a White House crypto summit advancing the CLARITY Act, whale accumulation of 380 million tokens in a single week, and $39.78 million in spot ETF inflows. The combination created feedback loops that amplified the move beyond what any single catalyst could produce.

What was the Treasury buyback and why did it affect XRP? Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that long-term bond buyback operations would double from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per session starting Sept. 9. The buybacks pulled supply off the bond market, pushing yields down and freeing capital to rotate into risk assets including crypto. The 30-year yield fell to 5.19% within hours, triggering more than $3 billion in crypto short liquidations.

How much XRP did whales accumulate during the rally? Addresses holding between 1 million and 10 million XRP accumulated approximately 380 million tokens over the week of Aug. 18, according to on-chain tracking data. Total whale holdings rose from 16.05 billion to 16.36 billion XRP. Additionally, whale transactions exceeding $1 million surged 280% in 24 hours, with 38 large-value transfers recorded in a single trading day.

Is the XRP rally sustainable given the overbought RSI? The Relative Strength Index reached 85.4 on Aug. 22, the most overbought reading since July 2025. In three of four previous instances where XRP’s RSI exceeded 80 since the SEC settlement, the token retraced at least 15% within two weeks. However, the convergence of multiple catalyst types in this rally makes direct comparison to single-catalyst moves incomplete.

What is the current status of XRP spot ETFs? Seven U.S. spot XRP ETFs have been trading since November 2025, with issuers including Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale, 21Shares, Canary Capital, and Volatility Shares. Cumulative net inflows have reached $1.55 billion, with the funds holding approximately 1.50% of total XRP supply. The week ending Aug. 22 saw $39.78 million in inflows, the strongest weekly pace since May.

What is the CLARITY Act and when is the vote? The CLARITY Act is proposed legislation that would classify XRP and similar tokens as digital commodities under CFTC oversight. A Senate procedural vote is scheduled for Sept. 15, 2026. Polymarket prediction contracts give it approximately 16% odds of passing. If enacted, it would give XRP the same regulatory classification as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

How does this rally compare to previous XRP moves since the SEC settlement? This is the second-largest post-settlement rally by magnitude (56%) and the first to combine macro, political, on-chain, and institutional catalysts simultaneously. The settlement rally (May 2025) was legal only, the ETF wave (November 2025) was institutional only, and the Ripple Prime rally (June 2026) was corporate only. Each previous rally eventually retraced between 60% and 100% of its gains.

What is XRP’s current price and market capitalization? As of Aug. 23, 2026, XRP trades near $1.46 to $1.51, with a total market capitalization of approximately $91.5 billion. It ranks among the top five cryptocurrencies by market cap. The 24-hour trading volume stands at approximately $9.3 billion, reflecting the elevated activity from the weekly surge.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Cryptocurrency markets are highly volatile, and past performance does not indicate future results. Always conduct your own research before making investment decisions. Published Aug. 23, 2026.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on Aug. 23 that several developing economies increasingly rely on USDT for domestic commerce, international trade and dollar denominated savings.

Summary

Ardoino said USDT use is rising across Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia and Turkey amid monetary instability. Users increasingly hold USDT as digital dollars when local currencies weaken or cash dollars become scarce. Chainalysis ranked Venezuela eighteenth, Turkey fourteenth and Argentina twentieth for global crypto adoption in 2025. Chainalysis measured nearly $1.5T in Latin American crypto activity from July 2022 through June 2025. Tether said its technology served more than 570 million users worldwide as of March 2026. “The economies of several developing countries rely heavily on USDT, both for domestic and foreign trade,” Ardoino wrote in a post. He said Tether’s financial inclusion mission was becoming more important.

Ardoino cited Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia and Turkey as markets where people use the stablecoin in response to inflation, currency depreciation, limited access to dollars and restrictions within conventional financial systems.

His statement describes Tether’s view of adoption. No single public dataset measures how dependent entire national economies are on USDT. Independent blockchain research, central bank data and exchange activity nevertheless support the broader conclusion that dollar stablecoins have gained traction in those markets.

Currency instability is supporting USDT adoption USDT is designed to track the U.S. dollar, allowing users to obtain digital dollar exposure without holding a U.S. bank account. It can move between compatible wallets and exchanges at any time, although conversion options, costs and regulations vary by country.

The product can appeal to users whose local currencies are losing purchasing power. It also provides an alternative when physical dollars are scarce or cross border bank transfers are expensive and slow.

Turkey continued to face elevated inflation despite progress under its disinflation program. Consumer inflation fell from 49.4% in September 2024 to 30.9% in December 2025, according to an International Monetary Fund review. The IMF projected inflation of 23% at the end of 2026.

Argentina has also continued addressing inflation and foreign exchange pressures. The IMF reported that monthly inflation reached 3.4% in March 2026 following currency depreciation and weaker demand for pesos.

Stablecoin demand extends beyond those two markets. Chainalysis ranked Turkey 14th, Venezuela 18th and Argentina 20th in its 2025 Global Crypto Adoption Index. When adjusted for population, Venezuela ranked ninth worldwide.

Venezuela and Bolivia show commercial use cases In Venezuela, local businesses reportedly use USDT for retail payments and some import and export settlements. The stablecoin operates alongside bolivars, physical dollars and other digital assets within what local observers describe as a hybrid currency economy.

Chainalysis estimated that Venezuela received $44.6 billion in cryptocurrency value between July 2022 and June 2025. The figure covers all tracked crypto assets and does not represent USDT alone.

Bolivia provides a clearer official signal. The Central Bank of Bolivia publishes a reference USDT exchange rate based on weighted peer to peer activity on Binance. Its published data show how the stablecoin trades at a premium to the country’s official dollar rate.

The bank’s January financial stability report also identified foreign currency restrictions, higher inflation and low international reserves as continuing risks.

As previously reported, Bolivia moved toward recognizing USDT within its national payment system. Local banks already provide some USDT services, while businesses have used crypto for international payments and fuel related transactions.

The government has not completed a national framework making USDT equivalent to legal tender. Any description of formal payment status therefore remains forward looking.

Regional data support the broader trend Chainalysis measured nearly $1.5 trillion in Latin American crypto activity between July 2022 and June 2025. Argentina accounted for an estimated $93.9 billion, Venezuela $44.6 billion and Bolivia $14.8 billion.

Centralized exchanges processed 64% of regional activity, showing that users generally obtain digital assets through conventional trading platforms rather than decentralized protocols.

In related coverage, dollar stablecoins accounted for 40% of purchases by Bitso users during 2025, compared with 18% for Bitcoin. The exchange operates across several Latin American markets, so those figures should not be treated as Argentina only data.

Tether says its products served more than 570 million people by March 2026. That is a company supplied estimate rather than a count of fully identified individual users because one person can control several blockchain addresses.

The company’s reported USDT supply reached a record $188 billion during 2026, reinforcing its position as the largest dollar stablecoin.

Users still face issuer, regulatory, wallet and network risks. USDT represents a claim supported by Tether’s reserves, not a bank deposit, and availability can change when governments or exchanges introduce new stablecoin rules.

TLDR: Stellar developer activity hit an all-time high of 2,968 monthly active developers in June. XLM developer growth rose 125% year over year, led by Nigeria, India, Turkey and Brazil. Stellar RWAs crossed $3 billion as Q2 stablecoin transfer volume hit a record $11.4 billion. Analyst eyes XLM wave count with long-term targets near $4.21 and $33 in bull case. Stellar (XLM) developer activity has surged to record levels, positioning the network as one of the fastest-growing ecosystems in the crypto industry.

New data shared by Scopuly shows monthly active developers on Stellar reached an all-time high of 2,968 as of June 30, placing the network second globally and ahead of both Solana and Bitcoin in developer participation.

Stellar Developer Growth Outpaces Broader Market The Stellar network added developers even as many major blockchain ecosystems reported declines during the same period.

According to the data shared by Scopuly, developer activity on Stellar climbed 125% year over year, a pace that stands in sharp contrast to contraction seen elsewhere in the industry.

Most of the world's governments don't issue debt in dollars.

And that debt is starting to move onchain. 🌍

Stellar $XLM is now the #1 blockchain for tokenized non-US government debt, with roughly $490M in sovereign instruments, according to https://t.co/OVNq5vPxVi.

Stellar… pic.twitter.com/JxHbE9pswK

— Scopuly – Stellar Wallet (@scopuly) August 23, 2026

Much of this expansion is concentrated in specific regions rather than spread evenly worldwide. Scopuly noted that growth is centered in Nigeria, India, Turkey and Brazil, four markets known for active retail crypto adoption and payment-focused use cases.

This regional pattern suggests builders are targeting practical financial applications rather than speculative experimentation.

Funding activity has followed a similar trajectory. Scopuly reported that $5.5 million was distributed to 55 companies through Stellar Community Fund rounds, supporting projects across payments, stablecoins and tokenized assets. Real-world assets built on Stellar have also crossed the $3 billion mark, according to the same source.

Payment infrastructure metrics reinforce the developer growth story. Stellar’s stablecoin transfer volume reached a record $11.4 billion in the second quarter, Scopuly said, while active accounts on the network passed 10.7 million. Together, these figures point to expanding real-world usage rather than isolated technical interest.

Price Structure Points to Longer-Term Bullish Setup Beyond network fundamentals, technical analysts are watching XLM price structure closely. Analyst Aragorn Windbreaker highlighted that XLM near $0.19 aligned with a previously identified bottom target zone on the chart.

$XLM looked great since it hit my bottom target box.

So is the bottom in?

Well, since the May 22 bottom it made a strong 5-wave move in Wave 1, then completed Wave 2 correction, and is now in potential wave 1 of Wave 3, which is usually the strongest.

I would like to see a… https://t.co/tCZ86susCf pic.twitter.com/rvmzjuJcC7

— Aragorn Windbreaker (@AragornWindbrkr) August 22, 2026

The analyst outlined a wave count beginning with the May 22 low, describing a five-wave move higher that completed an initial impulse.

This was followed by a corrective phase, with XLM now potentially entering an early stage of a larger third wave, according to the analysis.

A confirmed entry point would require XLM to complete a sub-five-wave move higher, followed by a three-wave corrective pullback, the analyst explained. This transition zone between wave two and wave three was identified as the preferred entry area for a long position.

On a broader timeframe, the analyst placed the 2024 rally as part of a larger structure, with the current bear phase representing an intermediate correction.

Under this outlook, a minimum target for the next major upward wave was placed at $4.21, based on standard Fibonacci extension levels, with an extended scenario reaching toward $33.

Together, the developer statistics and technical outlook paint a picture of a network gaining traction on multiple fronts.

Rising builder participation, expanding real-world asset activity and record payment volumes all point toward sustained infrastructure growth for Stellar heading into the second half of the year.

Pendle’s new USDC vault on the Morpho lending protocol has vacuumed up 50 million USDC from 230 depositors in roughly a week and a half. For a vault that launched on August 4, that’s the kind of traction most DeFi products spend months hoping for.

The vault, co-curated with Armitage (Wintermute’s vault curation arm), quickly became the largest vault Armitage has ever managed. It funnels stablecoin deposits into Principal Token collateral markets on Morpho, solving a problem that’s quietly plagued Pendle’s ecosystem: there simply wasn’t enough liquidity on the borrowing side of PT-backed markets.

From zero to $50M in ten days The growth trajectory tells the story. Shortly after launch, deposits sat around $15 million. Within two days, that figure hit $25 million. By August 21, it crossed $35 million.

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Now, at roughly the 1.5-week mark, the vault holds $50 million from 230 individual depositors. That’s an average deposit north of $217K, suggesting this isn’t retail tourists chasing yield. It’s larger allocators who’ve done the math.

Nearly all of the capital, approximately 99.7%, flows into a single market: PT-reUSD/USDC.

The yield equation Depositors aren’t parking stablecoins out of charity. The vault distributes 7,500 PENDLE tokens per week as rewards on top of the base lending yield.

Early APY figures painted an attractive picture: 14.08% net yield, broken down as 4.75% base yield plus 9.32% from token rewards. More recent figures have settled into a range of roughly 7.15% to 7.88%, which makes sense as the denominator (total deposits) has grown significantly while the weekly token distribution has stayed constant.

Why this matters for Pendle and Morpho Pendle has carved out a niche as DeFi’s primary marketplace for trading future yield. Users can split yield-bearing assets into Principal Tokens (representing the underlying value at maturity) and Yield Tokens (representing the stream of income). Before this vault launched, borrowers who wanted to use PT as collateral on Morpho faced thin liquidity. Lenders weren’t showing up in sufficient numbers, which meant borrowing rates were volatile and capacity was limited. The vault acts as a coordinated supply-side solution, aggregating lender capital and directing it precisely where borrowers need it.

For Morpho, the success validates its modular lending architecture. Unlike monolithic lending protocols where governance committees decide every parameter, Morpho allows curators like Armitage to build targeted vaults with specific risk profiles and allocation strategies.

The partnership with Armitage, Wintermute’s curation division, also adds a layer of institutional credibility. Wintermute is one of crypto’s largest market makers, and having its vault curation arm involved signals that serious players see commercial opportunity in PT-backed lending markets.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

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X(구 트위터) : 라이터 공식 X

백서 : 라이터 공식 백서

✽ PC에서 해당 디지털 자산이 조회되지 않을 경우, 새로고침 (F5) 후 확인 부탁드립니다.

✽ 업비트 App에서 해당 디지털 자산이 조회되지 않을 경우, 더보기 > 화면설정 > 코인정보 다시 받기를 클릭 후 확인 부탁드립니다.

투자 위험 안내

• 디지털 자산 투자는 투기적 수요 및 국내외 규제환경 변화 등에 따라 급격한 시세 변동에 노출될 수 있습니다. 본 디지털 자산의 투자 판단의 책임은 본인에게 있으며, 발생 가능한 손실도 투자자 본인에게 귀속됩니다. 프로젝트 홈페이지 및 공시 자료 등을 면밀히 참고하시어 디지털 자산의 특성을 충분히 인지하시고 신중하게 거래해 주시기를 당부해 드립니다.

• 디지털 자산 거래의 특성상 국내외 거래소간 시세 차이가 지속적으로 발생하고 있습니다. 반드시 디지털 자산 투자 전 글로벌 거래소와의 시세 차이에 유의하시기 바랍니다.

• 업비트는 안정된 거래 환경 조성을 위하여 최소 주문 금액 제한 등 다양한 조치를 취하고 있으나, 과열된 투자 환경에 따라 일부 회원님에게는 주문 안정화 메시지가 노출 될 수 있습니다. 이는 먼저 주문한 회원의 주문을 처리하고, 안정적인 서비스를 위한 불가피한 조치이므로 이 점 유의하시기 바랍니다.

※ 가상자산은 고위험 상품으로 투자금의 전부 또는 일부 손실을 초래할 수 있습니다.

※ 가상자산의 투자 판단 및 그에 따른 원금 손실의 책임은 투자자 본인에게 있습니다.

※ 두나무 주식회사 준법감시인 심사필 제25-0156호 (25.09.22~27.09.21)

공유

21h58 ▪ 6 min read ▪ by Fenelon L.

Summarize this article with:

Justin Sun claims to have won a first round against World Liberty Financial. On August 20, a federal judge in California reportedly refused to send all of his claims to private arbitration. This decision comes just days after the conditional green light granted by the OCC to World Liberty Trust Company, which is set to resume issuing the USD1 stablecoin.

In brief According to Justin Sun, Judge James Donato refused to submit all his claims to private arbitration, maintaining his individual claims before the federal court. On August 14, the OCC granted preliminary conditional approval to World Liberty Trust Company, which plans to take over the issuance of USD1 and management of its reserves from BitGo. The fate of claims filed by Blue Anthem and Black Anthem remains to be determined. The written order regarding the August 20 hearing was not yet publicly available at the time of writing. Justin Sun obtains the maintenance of part of the case before the court The standoff between Justin Sun and World Liberty Financial has been going on for several months. The founder of Tron, who bought $45 million worth of WLFI tokens, brought the case before a federal court in San Francisco in April.

This dispute between WLFI and Justin Sun notably concerns the freezing of his tokens and the control powers that World Liberty would have integrated into the WLFI contract.

On June 2, World Liberty Financial asked Judge James Donato to force the plaintiffs to go through arbitration and to suspend the judicial procedure. The hearing on this request took place on August 20.

At its outcome, Sun stated that his personal claims would remain publicly reviewed before the federal court. In other words, World Liberty did not get the transfer of the entire dispute to a private procedure.

This distinction matters. Indeed, arbitration generally allows settling a conflict outside of public hearings and with much more limited visibility on exchanged documents.

However, nothing has yet been decided on the merits. Blue Anthem Limited and Black Anthem Limited, two companies also parties to the complaint, have their own claims. Their treatment remains under discussion. Importantly, the written order from the judge was not yet publicly available at the time of writing this article.

World Liberty prepares in parallel its bank for USD1 The timeline adds another dimension to the case. On August 14, six days before the hearing, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted a preliminary conditional approval to World Liberty Trust Company.

The future national trust bank is to take charge of issuing and redeeming USD1, as well as managing its reserves. It plans to take over these activities from BitGo, which currently serves this role.

But World Liberty Trust cannot start its operations yet. Final authorization depends on meeting several conditions imposed by the OCC.

The bank must notably have at least $20 million in Tier 1 capital. It must also maintain sufficient liquid assets to cover 180 days of operational expenses and notify the regulator before any significant changes to its business model.

The OCC also retains the possibility to modify, suspend, or withdraw its preliminary approval before the official opening of the institution.

Another element in the document deserves attention: World Liberty Trust will neither be able to issue, hold, nor trade WLFI tokens. However, the OCC specifies that World Liberty Financial and the future bank indirectly share some owners.

On paper, a clear boundary is thus drawn between the WLFI token and the banking activities related to USD1.

Previous token freezes fuel questions This separation comes as the control powers exercised over certain assets linked to World Liberty are already at the heart of several conflicts.

In June, World Liberty Financial froze some on-chain addresses associated with HTX as part of a sanctions compliance review. The crypto platform challenged this decision and suspended several pairs involving WLFI and USD1. It also announced the conversion of its users’ USD1 holdings into USDT.

A few months earlier, in September 2025, Justin Sun himself saw a significant portion of his WLFI tokens blocked after movements to exchange platforms. This episode notably led to the current dispute.

The legal battle is not limited to California. World Liberty also sued Justin Sun for defamation and market manipulation in a separate proceeding.

For now, none of these proceedings have concluded on the merits of the accusations.

The next steps should bring more clarity. On one side, Judge Donato’s written order will specify which claims will remain before the court and which might still be subject to arbitration. On the other, World Liberty Trust must meet the OCC’s requirements before obtaining its final authorization.

Two separate cases, but the same underlying question: how far does the control exercised within the World Liberty ecosystem extend, as USD1 is about to enter a federally regulated banking framework reinforced by the American legislation on stablecoins?

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Fenelon L.

Passionné par le Bitcoin, j'aime explorer les méandres de la blockchain et des cryptos et je partage mes découvertes avec la communauté. Mon rêve est de vivre dans un monde où la vie privée et la liberté financière sont garanties pour tous, et je crois fermement que Bitcoin est l'outil qui peut rendre cela possible.

DISCLAIMER

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.

Michael Saylor, executive chairman of Strategy, reiterated his perspective on Bitcoin as “digital energy,” emphasizing its role as a scarce, transferable form of economic value. Saylor described Bitcoin’s capacity to securely convert economic value into a new format that is accessible to individuals, corporations, institutions, and even governments.

Bitcoin holdings push treasury above cost basisOn August 16, Strategy reported holding 840,447 BTC, reflecting approximately 4% of Bitcoin’s total capped supply of 21 million coins. The company disclosed an average acquisition cost of $75,385 per Bitcoin, including all associated fees and expenses.

With Bitcoin trading around $77,175 on August 23, the estimated market value of Strategy’s Bitcoin holdings reached $64.86 billion. This positions the company’s Bitcoin treasury roughly $1.5 billion above its recorded purchase cost of $63.36 billion. The unrealized gain remains subject to rapid market changes, as Bitcoin’s price continues to fluctuate.

Saylor sees Bitcoin’s fundamental breakthrough in its ability to move economic value through a decentralized network, introducing digital scarcity that no central authority can alter. He pointed out that this quality allows holders to safeguard and transfer value securely across various economic actors.

Bitcoin’s most profound breakthrough is the ability to convert economic energy into digital form and bind it securely to a person, family, company, machine, or nation.

Despite recording significant paper gains, these valuations do not equate to distributable corporate profits. The company’s balance sheet must also account for debt obligations, taxes, operating costs, and preferred dividend commitments. A decline in Bitcoin’s price below the average purchase cost would result in unrealized losses, reinforcing the volatility that remains inherent in Strategy’s treasury model.

Strategy has structured its capital platform under the Digital Credit brand, offering products such as STRC, STRF, STRK, and STRD preferred shares. These financial instruments trade like traditional securities on exchanges including Nasdaq. However, investors in these preferred shares do not have direct claims on any particular Bitcoin within Strategy’s holdings.

The company’s STRC offering consists of variable-rate perpetual preferred stock, with each unit carrying a $100 stated value. The board manages dividend declarations monthly, and the market price can deviate from the stated amount based on trading activity.

Between August 10 and August 16, Strategy repurchased 1.39 million STRC shares for approximately $132.2 million using proceeds from its recent MSTR common-share sales. During the same period, the company brought in $333.7 million by selling around 3.46 million MSTR shares. Of these funds, $52.4 million went to STRC dividends, while the remaining $149.1 million was added to its dollar reserve, which stood at $4.80 billion as of August 16.

Strategy reported no Bitcoin purchases or sales during this timeframe. Chief Executive Phong Le has connected further BTC accumulation to STRC’s value aligning with its $100 stated amount, although no timeline has been given for additional Bitcoin purchases. Management decisions in coming weeks may involve new MSTR share issuances, further preferred share buybacks, or expansion of the company’s Bitcoin position.

Strategy’s next regulatory filings will clarify how these capital management moves align with both Saylor’s digital energy thesis and liquidity objectives. They will also detail any changes to the $4.80 billion reserve and whether Bitcoin acquisitions resume.

Mini dictionary: Strategy is a US-based technology company that has become widely known for its significant Bitcoin holdings, positioning itself as a corporate BTC investment pioneer.

DateBTC HoldingsAvg. Cost per BTCMarket Price per BTCAcquisition CostMarket ValueUnrealized GainAug. 16840,447$75,385$77,175$63.36 billion$64.86 billion$1.50 billion Bitcoin digital energy remains a metaphor highlighting both opportunity and risk, as actual returns depend on market volatility, operating costs, and corporate obligations.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Xaman Wallet, the self-custodial app built by XRPL Labs and the dominant wallet for the XRP Ledger ecosystem, has removed its 0.09 XRP minimum fee on trades. The stated goal is straightforward: less friction at the entry point means more people can actually use the network’s liquidity, including traders moving smaller amounts who were previously priced out by the floor.

It is a notable reversal for a wallet that only introduced its service fee structure in late January 2025, when it rolled out a 0.8% trading fee on swaps and decentralized exchange activity, paired with that 0.09 XRP minimum. For context, the XRP Ledger’s own base transaction cost sits at roughly 0.00001 XRP. Xaman’s minimum was, by comparison, orders of magnitude higher than the network itself charges.

Why the minimum fee mattered more than it looked Removing the floor does not eliminate Xaman’s service fees entirely. The 0.8% trading fee on swaps and DEX activity remains in place. What changes is the lower bound: trades that previously couldn’t make economic sense below a certain size now have a clearer path to execution without being penalized simply for being small.

Context: Xaman’s evolving fee structure Xaman, formerly known as XUMM, rebranded as part of a broader effort to expand its identity beyond a simple transaction signing tool into a full-featured financial interface for XRPL. The January 2025 fee introduction was the wallet’s first significant shift toward a revenue model that didn’t rely on its Pro subscription tier.

That Pro subscription was itself discontinued for new customers on January 30, 2026, a decision that closed off one monetization path and reinforced the platform’s reliance on transaction-based fees. Free payment options within the wallet were preserved.

The June 2026 launch of Xaman Swap added one-tap swaps directly inside the wallet interface. Dropping the minimum fee is, in that light, a logical complement to the Swap feature: make it easy to trade, then make sure small trades aren’t punished for being small.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

An artificial intelligence (AI) security firm went public with a Ledger Ethereum app bug. Ledger says it had already fixed the flaw quietly, two weeks earlier.

Chief technology officer Charles Guillemet called the disclosure fear-mongering. The patch shipped on August 12 with a one-line note and no security bulletin.

What the Ledger Ethereum App Bug Actually DidLedger sells one core promise. The screen shows you what you are signing. That promise has a name. Ledger calls it clear signing, and it turns raw transaction code into plain words on the device screen.

TestMachine says it found a way around that. The firm builds an AI agent called Azimuth that hunts exploits in smart contracts. On its own EVMBench benchmark, Azimuth catches 86.3% of known bugs with roughly 2.7% false positives.

Found by Azimuth during an autonomous scan of the Ledger Ethereum app. Validated on Flex. Shared and verified with the team. Declining any bounty. Same shared APDU/UI code across Nano X, Nano S Plus, Stax, Apex.

The power of always on securityhttps://t.co/fH5mO97Kkp

— TestMachine (@testmachine_ai) August 22, 2026
Here is the flaw in plain terms. A malicious website could send the device a second command while you were still reading the first one.

The channel between browser and device is called the Application Protocol Data Unit, or APDU. It kept listening during the review. So it accepted the swap.

You would read a small transfer on screen. Then you would tap approve. And you would actually sign an unlimited token approval to a stranger.

That last part is why this matters. Chainalysis has traced roughly $1 billion in crypto stolen through approval phishing since May 2021. Those victims signed the approvals themselves.

TestMachine says it confirmed the bug on a Ledger Flex. Ledger has sold more than 7 million devices across 180 countries.

Ledger’s Donjon Team Says It Got There FirstGuillemet flips the timeline. Donjon is Ledger’s in-house hacking team. He says it caught the bug with its own AI tools and shipped the fix first.

The public changelog backs the date. Version 1.22.2 landed on Aug. 12. Its entire security note says “Security issues.”

Donjon has published 22 numbered security bulletins. None of them covers this bug. The latest, dated June 4, deals with a Monero key-recovery issue instead.

That silence is the gap TestMachine walked into. Ledger closed the hole, then never told owners what it had closed.

Guillemet’s sharper complaint is about manners. He says TestMachine contacted the bounty program only after the patch shipped. It never spoke with the bounty team.

“…Then they published a thread implying the problem is unsolved. It is not. That’s not security research. That’s manufacturing fear for attention,” Charles Guillemet, Ledger CTO remarked.

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TestMachine praised the speed of the fix and turned down the reward. Ledger pays bounties in Bitcoin, at an amount it sets case by case.

AI Found the Bug Twice, But Humans Still FoughtBoth sides used machine learning to reach the same defect. That is the part worth watching.

Ledger has made this argument before. Its executives have said for months that AI attackers threaten wallets more than weak hardware does.

Guillemet drew his line at discipline.

“AI-speed research only makes the ecosystem safer if the people doing it still follow basic security principles. Disclose responsibly. Verify before you publish. Don’t confuse noise with a finding.”

The fight itself is familiar. Security firms have gone loud after hacking a Trezor device, and CertiK researchers fought Kraken over disclosure terms in 2024.

So is the flaw. Back in January 2021, Donjon disclosed that this same Ethereum app failed to show transaction data for unsupported assets. Same app, same lesson. What you saw was not what you signed.

AI now surfaces these bugs in hours. Vendors and researchers still coordinate at human speed. That gap is where this argument lives.

For owners, the fix is dull. Open Ledger Live, update the Ethereum app, and check that it reads 1.22.2.

Tether’s two Uruguay mining sites cost an estimated $120 million. A dispute with state utility UTE centered on how much electricity the sites could draw. UTE disconnected both facilities in July 2025 after bills went unpaid. Tether has continued pursuing Bitcoin mining elsewhere in South America. Tether’s attempt to establish Uruguay as a launchpad for a larger South American Bitcoin mining business ended with two abandoned facilities after a contractual dispute with state-owned electricity provider UTE. The sites, estimated by a person with direct knowledge to have cost about $120 million, lost power in July 2025, according to documents and interviews reviewed by Reuters, turning what began as a renewable-energy mining expansion into a costly example of how electricity contracts can determine the economics of industrial-scale Bitcoin production.

A Power Contract Became the Project’s Central Problem When Tether announced its Uruguay expansion in 2023, the country appeared well suited to the company’s mining ambitions. Uruguay offered political stability, a reliable electrical grid and a power system with substantial renewable generation.

The two facilities were built in the department of Florida, with a former contractor estimating investment of roughly $60 million in each site. Uruguay was intended to serve as a testing ground before Tether expanded further into countries including Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.

Operations initially generated revenue, according to former contractors interviewed by Reuters. The problem emerged as electricity requirements increased.

Tether and UTE interpreted a critical part of their electricity agreement differently. Tether understood the contracted power figure as a minimum allocation that could eventually be expanded. UTE regarded it as the maximum amount of electricity available to Tether’s local entity, Microfin.

That distinction became increasingly important as the mines scaled. Bitcoin mining facilities need a large and predictable electricity supply because their economics depend heavily on keeping specialized machines operating continuously. According to Reuters, insufficient supply sometimes left the sites without enough electricity for days.

Key stages in the Uruguay project May 2023
Tether announces Bitcoin mining operations in Uruguay.

November 2024
The electricity supply dispute is documented by UTE.

May 2025
Microfin stops paying its electricity bills.

July 25, 2025
UTE disconnects electricity to the mining sites.

November 2025
Tether notifies authorities that operations will cease and most employees will be laid off.

Why Negotiations Failed Despite a Revised Electricity Deal The disagreement did not immediately end the project. UTE and Tether attempted to renegotiate the arrangement, and the utility’s board approved both a memorandum of understanding and revised contract documents.

The agreement was never completed.

According to minutes cited by Reuters, Tether representatives did not attend the planned signing. By that stage, Microfin had already stopped paying electricity bills and had informed UTE in June that it intended to terminate the contracts.

With the revised agreement unsigned and bills outstanding, UTE cut electricity to the facilities on July 25, 2025. Microfin subsequently settled its outstanding debt in December, UTE told Reuters.

The chronology matters because the shutdown was not simply the result of Uruguay lacking enough renewable electricity. The underlying problem was whether Tether could secure sufficient power under terms that made expanding its mining operation commercially workable.

Uruguay Exposed the Economics Behind Tether’s Mining Strategy Bitcoin miners effectively convert electricity and computing capacity into BTC. That makes the cost and reliability of power fundamental to profitability.

The April 2024 Bitcoin halving made that calculation harder by reducing the block subsidy from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Unless higher Bitcoin prices, transaction fees or improved mining efficiency compensate for the reduction, miners earn fewer coins from the same amount of computational work.

Uruguay offered extensive renewable generation, but renewable electricity is not automatically cheap electricity.

Crypto mining specialist Nicolas Ribeiro told Reuters that Uruguay’s relatively high power costs make the country less competitive for Bitcoin mining, while its stable grid and internet infrastructure may be better suited to AI data centers. Mining operators have fewer reasons to remain in a particular jurisdiction when electricity becomes uneconomical because much of their computing hardware can be relocated.

That flexibility helps explain why the collapse of the Uruguay project has not ended Tether’s broader energy strategy.

Tether Has Already Shifted Mining Investment Elsewhere The failed project also needs to be viewed against the scale of Tether’s wider expansion.

CEO Paolo Ardoino said in June 2025 that Tether had invested more than $2 billion in energy and mining infrastructure across 15 sites in Uruguay, Paraguay and El Salvador, according to The Block. The company has pursued mining infrastructure as one component of a much broader investment portfolio.
Brazil has become one of the next areas of focus.

In July 2025, Tether and agricultural and renewable-energy producer Adecoagro signed a memorandum of understanding to explore using renewable electricity for Bitcoin mining. The proposed model centers on monetizing surplus electricity from Adecoagro’s renewable-energy portfolio rather than reproducing the same arrangement used in Uruguay.

Tether had previously acquired a controlling stake in Adecoagro, giving it a more direct connection to the underlying energy assets.

The distinction could prove significant. Greater control over energy generation may reduce some of the contractual dependency that affected the Uruguay sites, although it does not eliminate mining’s exposure to

Bitcoin prices, network difficulty, equipment efficiency and local electricity economics.

What Changes Next for Tether’s Bitcoin Mining Plans The Uruguay exit leaves Tether with a more fragmented South American mining strategy than originally envisioned. Instead of using one country as a regional testing ground and then replicating the model, the company is pursuing different energy arrangements across individual markets.

For the mining industry, the episode reinforces why headline renewable-energy capacity is not enough when evaluating potential jurisdictions. Large operators need contractual certainty over both electricity prices and how much power they can consume as facilities expand.

Tether’s next South American projects will therefore provide a clearer test of whether greater involvement in energy production can improve those economics. Its partnership with Adecoagro is particularly relevant because the companies plan to examine whether surplus renewable electricity can be converted into Bitcoin mining revenue, giving Tether a different operational model from the one that failed in Uruguay.

Bittensor (TAO) is maintaining its key support levels, as buyers continue to defend the long-term price structure. The project’s recent expansion to the Base network, facilitated by Chainlink‘s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), is bringing its decentralized AI technology closer to decentralized finance (DeFi) users and supporting growth in the onchain AI sector.

Bittensor price activity and growthAs of the latest data, TAO is trading at $232.32, with a 24-hour trading volume of $217.92 million and a market capitalization of $2.61 billion. The token’s price recorded a 5.78% gain in the past day, which analysts view as a sign of a potential bullish reversal supported by network expansion and resilient market structure.

Crypto analyst Etherealist noted that TAO consistently finds buyers near the $200 zone, even during extended periods of weak sentiment. This consistent support is seen as a key factor for a possible trend reversal. The analyst suggested that if TAO breaks past its current resistance level, further rallies toward $500 could become likely.

Analysts emphasized that while TAO often struggles to attract attention at current levels, a robust move toward $500 could change market sentiment, with $1,000 and even $1,500 becoming realistic targets if upward momentum continues.

ForeverMoney reported that Bittensor’s decentralized AI network now includes Base, connecting the project’s AI offerings such as compute, code, vision, and prediction with Layer-2 DeFi infrastructure and a rapidly expanding user base.

Deeper integration through Chainlink CCIPThe use of Chainlink CCIP enables secure and reliable cross-chain communication between Bittensor and Base. This integration allows Bittensor’s decentralized AI features to be more accessible for DeFi users and traders active on Base, broadening the project’s reach within the crypto ecosystem.

By bridging Bittensor and Base, Chainlink CCIP allows for transactions and data flow between the networks, enhancing interoperability between AI and DeFi sectors. The collaboration signals a growing intersection of blockchain interoperability, artificial intelligence, and decentralized finance.

Looking at market dynamics, traders are reminded that, in a landscape where a single Federal Reserve policy move or an unexpected altcoin listing can rapidly shift valuations, switching between multiple apps for price charts, news, and portfolio management creates missed opportunities. Increasingly, investors are using all-in-one platforms like CryptoAppsy, which offer privacy-first access to real-time charts, smart price alerts, coin-specific news, and macro data on a single screen, often without the need for an account.

Support levels and future outlookTAO’s key support remains at $200. If this level holds and the token breaks above the $500 resistance, the path toward higher targets, such as $1,000 and potentially $1,500, may open. However, falling below $200 would likely challenge any bullish reversal and signal renewed downward pressure.

Further integration with Base and continued network growth could strengthen adoption within the DeFi and AI ecosystems.

The collaboration between Bittensor, Base, and Chainlink CCIP could accelerate onchain AI use case development and enhance cross-chain connectivity, potentially supporting long-term value for the TAO token.

While current indicators point to a possible bullish trajectory, analysts caution that future rallies depend on sustained demand and broader market conditions. Investors are urged to remain vigilant in a volatile environment.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Cover image via U.Today Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Solana's RWA value has surpassed $4 billion, a new ATH for the network. The increase comes as the total supply of tokenized equities on Solana continues to grow.

This growth remains significant as what began as a negligible market in early 2024 has become a multibillion-dollar ecosystem spanning tokenized Treasuries, public equities, private credit, reinsurance, sovereign debt, commodities, liquidity funds, and stablecoin settlement infrastructure.

Tokenized equities are where Solana's RWA growth is accelerating fastest. As of late July 2026, 97% of all onchain tokenized equities spot volume to date had settled on Solana. This reflects Solana's increasing role as a leading venue for tokenized equity distribution and secondary activity.

RWA value doublesOne of the defining industry trends over the past year has been the growth of RWAs, with Solana sustaining its momentum. The recent increase of RWA value to $4 billion marks a nearly 100% increase from that seen at Q1 close. Solana non-stablecoin RWA value doubled, rising from $2.01 billion at the end of Q1 2026 to a current $4 billion.

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Solana currently has 347,944 RWA holders according to rwa.xyz data. The network has become a significant venue for tokenized Treasury products, with several large global issuers already on it.

These include Circle's USYC tokenized money market fund, one of the largest tokenized Treasury products worldwide, which launched on Solana in October 2025.

Others include BlackRock's BUIDL, the USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund, which expanded to Solana in March 2025 through Securitize.

Ondo Finance runs two Treasury-linked products on Solana. USDY is a tokenized note backed by short-term U.S. Treasuries and bank demand deposits, and OUSG provides exposure to short-term U.S. government bonds and is backed significantly by BlackRock's BUIDL fund.

VanEck's VBILL, a short-term U.S. Treasury product, launched on Solana in May 2025 via Securitize. Franklin Templeton's BENJI, the token of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX), the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to use a public blockchain as its system of record, launched on Solana in February 2025.

TLDR: The proposal could cut projected six-year SOL supply by 18.9M tokens, equal to about $1.81B at $95.70. Modeled staking yields could fall from 5.84% now to 4.34% after one year and 2.25% after three years. SGP-0002 needs one-third stake participation and two-thirds support, making it an early governance test. A 30% disinflation rate could bring Solana to its 1.5% inflation floor in 2029 instead of around 2032. Solana has opened an on-chain vote on SGP-0002, putting a token issuance change before validators and stakers. The proposal would double annual disinflation from 15% to 30%, accelerating how quickly new SOL issuance declines without changing the network’s 1.5% inflation floor.

⚡️LATEST: Solana’s proposal to double its disinflation rate from 15% to 30% is now live for governance voting.

If approved, $SOL inflation would fall twice as fast, meaning fewer new tokens entering circulation and less dilution for holders. pic.twitter.com/pPTt5iXQ5p

— CryptosRus (@CryptosR_Us) August 23, 2026

The vote is active under the network’s new stake-weighted governance framework, where validators and native stakers signal support or opposition. Delegators can override their validator’s choice, giving stakers a direct role in the outcome. The decision therefore combines monetary policy with an early governance test.

Solana Vote Puts 18.9M SOL Issuance Cut Before Stakers SGP-0002 is linked to SIMD-0550, authored by Lostin and 0xIchigo of Helius. Their June model placed the inflation rate at 3.82% under the existing schedule. At the current 15% annual disinflation rate, inflation would fall to about 3.24% after one year, reaching the 1.5% floor around the first half of 2032.

Source: X

However, the proposed 30% schedule would move faster. Inflation would decline to roughly 2.86% after one year and reach the same floor around early 2029. That acceleration would reduce cumulative issuance. The model projects total supply of 708.54 million SOL after six years, versus 727.43 million under the current schedule.

The 18.9 million-token difference equals about 2.6% of projected supply. At $95.70 per SOL on Aug. 23, that amount is worth about $1.81 billion. Nonetheless, the proposal does not immediately halve inflation. It only doubles the pace at which the inflation rate declines toward the unchanged long-term floor.

Lower issuance would also reduce staking rewards. At 68% modeled staking participation, nominal yield would fall from about 5.84% currently to 4.34% after one year. The model then places staking yield near 3.00% after two years and 2.25% after three years. Those figures exclude commissions, MEV, and block-related revenue.

Validator economics also weaken gradually. Among 738 validators, two additional operators become unprofitable or move from breakeven after one year. That number rises to 13 after two years and 30 after three years. Still, the authors modeled the overall validator impact as relatively limited.

Lower Staking Yields Put Validator Economics in Focus The economics have already drawn institutional opposition. Nasdaq-listed Solana Company said Aug. 21 that it would vote against SGP-0002. The company supports lower issuance as a long-term goal. However, it argued that changing established economics during the first governance cycle could reduce institutional predictability.

The vote also follows the failed SIMD-228 debate in 2025. That proposal sought dynamic issuance tied to staking participation rather than the existing fixed schedule. About 74% of staked SOL participated. However, only 61.4% of non-abstaining votes supported the proposal, below the required two-thirds threshold.

Under the new SGP process, at least one-third of network stake must participate. Two-thirds of participating stake must then vote in favor for passage. SGP-0002 therefore places two questions before the network. One concerns how quickly SOL dilution should decline, while the other tests whether governance can produce decisive consensus.

Fintech

23 August 2026 | 15:11 Pump’s full platform collected more fees than Hyperliquid in the latest snapshot, yet Hyperliquid sent more revenue into a HYPE buy-and-burn loop that directly shapes its token economics.

Key Takeaways Pump’s full stack generated $4.82M daily fees. Hyperliquid produced $2.37M in daily revenue. Eligible fees automatically purchase and burn HYPE. Both platforms monetise trading through distinct mechanics. Pump’s reported PUMP buybacks reached $941,387. Gross Fees Make a Misleading Headline The headline numbers suggest Pump is pulling far ahead of Hyperliquid, but raw fee totals mask a clear shift in actual protocol revenue.

DefiLlama’s Pump dashboard showed $4.82 million in 24-hour fees across its full platform, combining Pump.fun, PumpSwap, and Terminal. Over the same rolling window, Hyperliquid generated $2.94 million. On gross fees alone, Pump wins by roughly 64%.

Revenue flips the script. Hyperliquid’s dashboard listed $2.37 million in daily revenue, beating Pump’s $1.84 million by $530,000 (roughly 29%).

Revenue is the cleaner metric here. Pump’s gross fee total counts funds passed directly to liquidity providers and token creators. Meanwhile, Hyperliquid’s gross fees include builder fees that bypass its Assistance Fund. Neither headline fee figure reflects what the protocol retains or routes back to token holders.

Scope also distorts the conversation. Isolating the Pump.fun launchpad alone yields just $1.50 million in fees and $1.15 million in revenue, making Hyperliquid look much larger by comparison. Looking at the full platform vs. individual product streams keeps the playing field fair.

Protocol Fee & Revenue Comparison Matrix

Hyperliquid vs. Pump ecosystem metrics

Metric / Focus Hyperliquid Pump (Full Stack / Ecosystem) Gross Daily Fees $2.94 million $4.82 million (Full platform) / $1.50M (Launchpad alone) Daily Net Revenue $2.37 million $1.84 million (Full) / $1.15M (Launchpad alone) Token Buyback / Burn Mechanism Automatic daily purchase and permanent burn of HYPE via Assistance Fund (~$2.37M daily flow). PUMP buybacks executed from on-chain burns totaling $941,387. Core Engine & Model Perpetual derivatives, spot trading, and expanded builder markets (HIP-3). Token launches, bonding curves, and post-migration PumpSwap trading. ■ Protocol Revenue vs Fee Breakdown

 How Hyperliquid Converts Fees to HYPE Demand HYPE hit an all-time high of $82.43 on August 22 before settling near $79.22. Its tokenomics design is central to that price action.

Hyperliquid’s documentation details how its Assistance Fund automatically converts trading fees into HYPE as part of L1 execution. That acquired HYPE is then permanently burned, taking it out of total circulation.

DefiLlama routes 99% of qualifying perpetual fees (minus builder fees) and 99% of eligible spot fees into this fund. Its 24-hour revenue and holders-revenue readings sit aligned at $2.37 million, providing a direct live metric for the value entering the HYPE buy-and-burn mechanism.

At $79.22 per HYPE, that daily flow equals roughly 30,000 HYPE. While actual purchases fluctuate with live execution prices, the core mechanic remains fixed: qualifying trading revenue creates steady buying pressure, permanently locking those tokens out of circulation.

Separately, HYPE paid in successful HIP-1 token auctions is also burned. Because this is an episodic deployment cost rather than recurring trading revenue, it isn’t included in the daily $2.37 million run rate.

Spot Tokens vs. Perpetual Risk Pump is far more than a launchpad. Traders buy and sell tokens on its bonding curves from second one, continuing on PumpSwap post-migration. Its bonding-curve specs outline a 1.25% trading fee split between the protocol and token creators before liquidity transfers out.

Hyperliquid handles spot trading too, but perpetual derivatives are its real engine. Traders take leveraged long or short positions, settle funding, and manage liquidations without touching the underlying asset. Through HIP-3, third-party builders can deploy perp markets for equities, indices, ETFs, and commodities, running as USDC-margined contracts on Hyperliquid infrastructure via TradeXYZ.

Holding an Nvidia or gold perp on Hyperliquid isn’t equity ownership, it’s cash-settled price exposure backed by builder oracle rules. Pump users swap actual spot crypto tokens. This creates two entirely different business models: Pump monetizes token launches and spot volatility, while Hyperliquid extracts value from traders continuously repositioning leverage across broad markets.

Pump’s Own Buyback Machine Hyperliquid isn’t alone in supporting its token. DefiLlama tracks $941,387 in 24-hour holders revenue for Pump, reflecting PUMP buybacks executed from on-chain burns across its products.

The mechanics differ significantly. Pump’s reported buybacks combine multiple product activities and don’t sum directly with its $1.84 million revenue figure. Hyperliquid’s holders-revenue figure mirrors daily revenue directly because tracking models assign the full qualifying Assistance Fund flow straight to HYPE holders.

The reality? Both protocols actively buy back their tokens. Hyperliquid simply routes about 2.5 times as much value into its holder mechanism ($2.37 million vs $941,387) and burns the acquired HYPE automatically.

A Sustainable Trend, Not a Liquidation Spike Hyperliquid logged $6.84 billion in perpetual volume over the last snapshot, just 3% above its 30-day daily average of $6.65 billion ($199.5 billion total).

Liquidation data tells a similar story. Daily liquidations hit $55.06 million, comfortably below the protocol’s 30-day average of $78.5 million daily ($2.36 billion monthly total).

This proves the latest buy-and-burn volume wasn’t driven by a single liquidation cascade. Generating $39.74 million in revenue over the past month shows Hyperliquid’s buyback engine is backed by steady daily trading activity rather than short-lived volatility.

Pump took home more gross fees across its Solana ecosystem, but Hyperliquid generated more net revenue and directed a bigger slice straight into automated HYPE burns. While token burns aren’t the sole driver behind HYPE’s run to $82, the continuous, data-backed demand provides strong fundamental support.

Methodology: Figures were captured from DefiLlama’s live Hyperliquid, Pump and Pump.fun dashboards on August 23, 2026, at 12:00 UTC. Fee, revenue, volume and holders-revenue metrics are rolling measures and change continuously. The article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.

Author

Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.

XRP experienced a strong rally over the weekend, jumping to an intraday high of $1.6963 before retreating to $1.4578 as the recent upward momentum slowed. The move left Ripple’s token 47% above its 2026 low of $0.9905, reached on August 11 following a bridge exploit that briefly drove XRP below $1 for the first time since late 2024.

ETF inflows support XRP rallyXRP’s recent price gains were largely driven by a broader cryptocurrency market upswing, with Bitcoin approaching $80,000 and Ethereum extending its rally. Market optimism lifted most altcoins, including XRP.

The positive sentiment also resulted in a sharp increase in inflows to XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Data reveals that spot XRP ETFs attracted $39.7 million in new capital last week, a significant rise from the $2.25 million added the week before.

Cumulatively, XRP ETFs have now seen over $1.5 billion in inflows and currently hold more than $1.3 billion in net assets under management. The largest products in this segment are operated by asset managers such as Bitwise, Franklin Templeton, and Canary.

ETF inflows are seen by some analysts as a reflection of rising demand for XRP from both retail and institutional investors. This surge in demand came after market intervention by Scott Bessent, a prominent hedge fund manager, in response to a recent spike in 30-year US Treasury yields.

Mini dictionary: Scott Bessent is the founder of Key Square Capital Management and has previously served as chief investment officer at Soros Fund Management, making him a widely followed figure in financial markets.

The confluence of macroeconomic factors and ETF inflows amplified volatility in XRP trading during the week.

ETFLast week’s inflowCumulative inflowNet assetsSpot XRP ETFs$39.7 million$1.5 billion$1.3 billionRipple USD (RLUSD) and XRP Ledger expansionAnother factor contributing to XRP’s performance is the rapid growth in Ripple USD (RLUSD), Ripple’s own stablecoin launched in late 2024. RLUSD’s market capitalization has risen above $2.07 billion for the first time, cementing its status as a fast-rising competitor in the stablecoin market.

Trading volumes for RLUSD reached $753 million within 24 hours, underscoring its increasing utility. The Ethereum blockchain hosts the majority of RLUSD’s supply, while $988 million of the stablecoin now circulates on the XRP Ledger, approaching the $1 billion mark.

Mini dictionary: RLUSD is Ripple’s official US dollar-pegged stablecoin. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies designed to maintain a stable value, typically by being backed with traditional assets like the US dollar, and play a crucial role in providing liquidity across blockchains.

Analysts view RLUSD’s rapid expansion on the XRP Ledger as a sign that on-chain utility could further bolster XRP’s value in the months ahead.

Risks and technical signalsDespite the recent rally, concerns remain over possible market pullbacks. Some analysts warn that the broad-based surge could represent a dead-cat bounce, where assets rebound temporarily before resuming a downward trajectory.

Macroeconomic worries persist, with elevated inflation raising the possibility that the Federal Reserve may increase interest rates, potentially weighing on risk assets like cryptocurrencies.

Technical indicators show that XRP became highly overbought. The daily chart reveals a pronounced rebound after the formation of a falling wedge pattern, a setup often considered a bullish reversal signal. XRP broke above key resistance at $1.1580 and moved past both the 50-day and 100-day exponential moving averages, which are typically interpreted as signs of bullish momentum.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) for XRP surged to 85.50, signaling overbought conditions. Historically, assets with such high RSI readings often undergo corrections as traders take profits. A potential retest of the $1.1580 support could occur if profit-taking accelerates.

XRP’s latest price surge stands out within the broader altcoin market. However, the sustainability of this momentum will likely depend on the stability of macroeconomic conditions and ongoing inflows into ETFs and RLUSD.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Cover image via depositphotos.com Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Activity on the XRP Ledger is rapidly increasing, and one of the biggest increases is seen in a metric that is directly related to the level of network usage. The number of transactions per closed ledger has increased by 150.2%, to about 176.33. Transactions per ledger quantifies the amount of activity the network is actually processing during each ledger cycle, in contrast to metrics that may increase just because XRP's market price rises. 

XRP packing up more operationsTherefore, a 150% increase means that each ledger is now packing far more operations than it did previously. This is supported by the larger XRPL data. Successful transactions rose by an even greater 111.8% to 2.2 million, while total transactions increased by 78.9% to 2.6 million. 

XRP/USDT Chart by TradingViewPayments increased by 8.9% to approximately 605,400. Additionally, user data has improved. The active-user metric surged 224% to roughly 483,600, while active accounts increased 27.7% to 17,300. Approximately 2,600 new accounts were opened, a 28% increase. 

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It is more difficult to write off the transaction-per-ledger spike as a singular technical anomaly in light of these numbers. Additionally, value transferred via the network is increasing. While XRP burned through transaction fees increased by 81.3%, payment volume increased by 140.8% to roughly 739.8 million XRP. Another powerful element is activity connected to the DEX. 

How XRP's price is affectedOfferCancel operations increased 150.8% to 222,300, while OfferCreate operations increased 56.2% to roughly 965,700. This suggests much greater engagement with XRPL's in-house trading infrastructure. The network expansion coincides with a sharp change in the price of XRP. 

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XRP quickly broke through its major moving averages and is currently trading at about $1.48. With a sharp increase in trading volume, the token has passed the long-term moving average at $1.35. The daily RSI has reached about 85.9, placing XRP firmly in overbought territory. This is one clear short-term risk. A cooling-off period or retest becomes more likely as a result. 

However, the key difference is that XRP's surge is happening in tandem with a quantifiable increase in ledger usage. The network data would offer much more convincing proof that the move goes beyond speculative trading if transaction density and active-user numbers remain high after the initial price breakout subsides.

DeFi lending protocol Term Labs lost roughly $8.5 million on Sunday after a governance exploit impacted its Term vaults, blockchain security firm PeckShield reported.

The attacker pulled 2,843 Ethereum (ETH) and 1.68 million USDC (USDC) out of the protocol. Term Labs confirmed the incident and said a fuller account would follow its investigation.

How the Term Labs Attacker Moved the FundsPeckShield valued the ETH portion at $6.87 million and the stablecoin portion at $1.68 million. The attacker then swapped the USDC into roughly 1.68 million Dai (DAI).

The post highlighted that the wallet behind the attack was originally seeded with 2 ETH withdrawn from Tornado Cash. Mixer funding is a common precursor to onchain theft, since it breaks the link to an exchange deposit.

Term Labs runs fixed-rate lending through onchain auctions. According to DefiLlama, the vaults’ total value locked stands at $12.2 million, with $8.6 million of that on Ethereum.

The team has not yet named the specific governance function the attacker abused.

We are aware of a governance exploit impacting Term vaults.

We will share more details once it has been further investigated.

— Term Labs (@term_labs) August 23, 2026
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August Losses Keep Stacking UpThe exploit lands in an already heavy month. DefiLlama had logged 17 security incidents worth about $18.8 million in August before the Term Labs drain. The $8.5 million loss alone would push the month past $27 million.

August still trails July, when 38 incidents cost roughly $254 million. The Coldcard wallet firmware flaw accounted for $116 million of that total.

Other August victims include Harmony, where an attacker minted roughly 4 billion tokens without authorization. Payment processor Coinsbuy was also drained of $7.9 million. Sandbox contained a SAND bridge vulnerability on Saturday.

Governance failures stay rare but expensive. DefiLlama has classified five 2026 incidents as governance attacks worth $25.1 million combined, led by a $20 million malicious proposal against BonkDAO in July.

Term is also a repeat target. DefiLlama recorded a $1.65 million hit at Term Finance in April 2025, attributed to an oracle misconfiguration.

Across the wider market, SlowMist counted 182 incidents worth about $956 million in the first half of 2026, per its mid-year report.

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Solana (SOL), a prominent blockchain platform known for its high-speed and scalable network, surged by 25% over the past week, breaking above the $90 price mark for the first time in months. This sharp rally came after the US Securities and Exchange Commission introduced a new regulatory framework targeting cryptocurrencies.

Massive liquidations upend marketTrading activity in SOL intensified significantly as volume climbed nearly 50%, reaching $9.5 billion. This volume accounts for 17% of the total circulating market value of SOL, reflecting aggressive buying pressure and rising investor interest.

These developments triggered a wave of forced closures for traders betting on a price decrease. Over a three-day span, short positions worth $4.6 billion were liquidated across the crypto market. Notably, August 18 alone registered $2.9 billion in short liquidations, ranking as the eighth-largest single-day liquidation event in the sector’s history.

August 18 saw short positions worth $2.9 billion wiped out, one of the highest daily liquidations ever in the crypto market.

SOL not only broke past its 200-day exponential moving average (EMA), but also overcame long-standing price supply zones at $78 and $90, both previously acting as stubborn resistance. The asset closed at $93.72 on August 21, marking a daily gain of 6.94%.

The Kobeissi Letter, a widely followed financial analysis platform, noted that SOL moved above $100 for the first time since February 3, emphasizing renewed strength and rising momentum across digital assets.

On-chain signals and institutional inflowsA key on-chain indicator has reappeared, one with a track record of preceding rallies. The crossing of 30-day and 50-day moving averages for daily active users was last observed in June 2025, an event previously linked with SOL’s price soaring from $145 to $245 in a matter of months.

This same crossover is evident again according to blockchain analytics firm Santiment, who tracks address activity and user engagement on major blockchain networks.

Mini dictionary: Santiment, an analytics provider specializing in real-time blockchain and on-chain behavior analysis, offers data on metrics such as daily active addresses and sentiment shifts that help assess market dynamics.

Net inflows into SOL-linked exchange-traded fund (ETF) products rose to $38 million, the highest level since May, indicating a return of institutional capital to the network. During this period, the widely watched Crypto Fear and Greed Index climbed from 36 to 76, showing a sharp switch from neutral to highly optimistic investor sentiment.

MetricPrevious ValueCurrent ValueSOL price$73$91.89Trading volume$6.3 billion$9.5 billionETF net inflows–$38 millionFear & Greed Index3676Technical levels and short-term risksTechnical indicators show Solana is now in overbought territory. The daily candle features a considerable upper wick, suggesting increased selling near current levels as some traders take profits.

Analysts are now watching $83 as a potential support zone if a price pullback occurs, with the 200-day EMA also nearby and likely to serve as an additional floor. Before this recent breakout, SOL had previously failed to hold above $90 on two separate occasions. The closing price above that level signals potential for a sustained move higher if buying persists.

Technical analysts are monitoring the $83 support level, with the 200-day EMA closely aligned as further downside protection.

Should Solana manage to stay above $90, technical targets are projected in the mid-$120 range. Failure to hold this price could see the asset return to a pattern of declining highs. As of now, SOL trades at $91.89, down 9.15% on the day, indicating that the anticipated retracement may have begun.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Cover image via U.Today Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

The BNB Chain community is counting down with two days left until the Pasteur hard fork.  

In a recent post, the BNB Chain network launched a countdown to the Pasteur hard fork, adding that major upgrades, including stronger bridge verification, safer validator key rotation, and more room in every block, are coming to the network.

The Pasteur hard fork takes a slight turn from the last two upgrades, which were about speed. The Fermi hard fork, which activated in January this year, brought block times down to 0.45 seconds and was followed by the Osaka/Mendel hard fork in April, which steadied the network at that pace.

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BNB Chain developers note that Pasteur is about using that speed more fully and closing two ways a validator could hold onto power it should not have, with three proposals shipped in the fork, grouped under BEP-673.

3 days until Pasteur Hardfork.

Heavy upgrades are coming:
→ Stronger bridge verification
→ Safer validator key rotation
→ More room in every block

Node operators, upgrade to v1.7.7 before August 25.

Read the full upgrades 👇https://t.co/41QWQh1GGL

— BNB Chain (@BNBCHAIN) August 22, 2026 The upgrade introduces three changes: stronger bridge verification (BEP-682), validator keys that properly retire (BEP-695), and fuller blocks at the same speed (BEP-675).

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BEP-682 and BEP-695 harden the bridge, staking, and governance, while BEP-675 fills blocks more fully: 1,237 to 2,324 TPS in testnet benchmarks. BEP-675 lets a builder submit a block they have already executed. The validator checks it against consensus rules, signs and broadcasts, then finishes full verification afterwards.

The Pasteur hard fork has been live on the BSC testnet since July 21 and is expected to activate on the BNB Smart Chain mainnet at 02:30 AM UTC on August 25, 2026. Node operators are urged to upgrade to v1.7.7 before this date.

What's next?One of the three changes to be introduced in the Pasteur hard fork, BEP-675, is the capacity workstream in the H2 2026 roadmap.

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In the first half of 2026, BSC cut block intervals to 450 ms, brought in-memory finality down to 650 ms, and nearly doubled benchmark throughput to about 5,200 TPS. The H2 objective is to double mainnet throughput again, on a stated path toward a 10x improvement across BNB Chain.

The Pasteur hard fork is in line with the stated objective of doubling mainnet throughput, scaling toward a long-term improvement across BNB Chain. 

USDC just posted its busiest day on decentralized exchanges in over a month, hitting $2.8 billion in daily DEX trading volume on August 22. The milestone arrived the same week that total spot DEX volume punched through $10.9 billion, a threshold the market hadn’t seen since early June.

The numbers behind the spike The $2.8 billion daily figure represents a 30-day high for USDC on decentralized exchanges. It landed just two days after aggregate spot DEX volume hit $10.9 billion on August 20, the first time that benchmark had been eclipsed in roughly ten weeks.

USDC accounts for approximately 77% of total adjusted on-chain transfer volume year-to-date, with a cumulative $32 trillion settled through August 2026. Circle’s Q2 2026 earnings underscored the trajectory. The company reported $14.8 trillion in on-chain transaction volume for USDC during the quarter, a 151% year-over-year increase. Current USDC circulation sits at $73.3 billion.

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Much of this volume isn’t retail traders swapping tokens. The activity is heavily concentrated in liquidity provision, flash loans, and automated trading strategies.

Base and the infrastructure layer Coinbase’s Layer 2 network, Base, has emerged as a primary venue for high-concentration USDC activity. Two protocols in particular are driving volume: Aerodrome, the dominant DEX on Base that serves as the chain’s liquidity backbone, and Morpho, a lending protocol where flash loan facilities are generating significant transaction throughput.

Solana has also contributed meaningfully to the broader DEX volume recovery, consistent with its position as a leading chain for trading activity throughout 2026.

The two companies co-founded the Centre Consortium that originally governed USDC. While that entity was dissolved in 2023 with Circle taking full control, the strategic alignment remains obvious. Base gets deep stablecoin liquidity, and USDC gets a fast, cheap execution environment that attracts the automated strategies generating much of its volume.

Competitive positioning and what to watch USDC’s 77% share of adjusted on-chain transfer volume is a remarkable competitive moat, particularly given that Tether’s USDT still leads in raw market capitalization. USDT dominates centralized exchange trading and cross-border transfers, while USDC has carved out a commanding position in DeFi’s internal plumbing.

Circle’s 151% year-over-year growth in quarterly on-chain volume suggests this lead is widening rather than narrowing. The company’s regulatory positioning, including its status as a regulated financial institution in the US and its compliance-forward approach, has made USDC the default stablecoin for institutional DeFi participants who need auditable transaction trails.

Concentrated activity in automated strategies means volume can evaporate quickly if market conditions change or if yield opportunities dry up. Flash loan volume in particular can swing dramatically from day to day. The $2.8 billion daily figure is impressive, but the sustainability of that level depends on whether the underlying DeFi activity continues its current recovery or stalls out as it did in late June and July.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Uniswap recorded its highest daily UNI burn by dollar value on August 21. Ethereum remained the largest contributor, while Base and Robinhood Chain supplied a sizable share. Roughly 150,000 UNI were removed from supply during the session. UNI held near $4.34 after a sharp recovery from its mid-August lows. Uniswap recorded its largest single-day UNI burn by dollar value on August 21, removing roughly 150,000 UNI worth about $590,000 as protocol activity across Ethereum, Base and Robinhood Chain fed into its fee-driven burn system. The record matters because Uniswap’s current token economics connect network usage directly to UNI supply reduction, giving investors a measurable way to assess whether trading activity is translating into value accrual for the governance token.

Ethereum Led the Record Burn, but Base Added $165,000 Ethereum generated approximately $267,000 of the UNI burned on August 21, according to data reported by Wu Blockchain. Base contributed another $165,000, while Robinhood Chain accounted for roughly $87,000.

Daily blockchain token burns surged to nearly $600,000 at the latest peak, with Ethereum remaining a major contributor. The distribution is arguably more significant than the headline record. Ethereum supplied about 45% of the day’s dollar-value burn, meaning more than half came from other networks and sources.

That reduces the extent to which UNI’s burn rate depends exclusively on Ethereum mainnet trading activity.

The August 21 figures break down as follows: Total UNI burned: approximately 150,000 UNI Total burn value: approximately $590,000 Ethereum contribution: approximately $267,000 Base contribution: approximately $165,000 Robinhood Chain contribution: approximately $87,000 Remaining contribution: approximately $71,000 across other supported sources

The 150,000 UNI total was reportedly the second-largest daily burn measured in tokens, while the dollar value established a new record.

That distinction matters. A dollar-denominated burn record can be produced by a combination of higher UNI prices and greater token destruction, whereas the number of UNI removed provides a cleaner indication of the mechanism’s underlying activity.

How Uniswap Turns Protocol Fees Into UNI Burns Uniswap’s burn architecture is different from a conventional corporate buyback.

Protocol fees collected from supported Uniswap products are routed through fee adapters into an on-chain TokenJar. A specialized smart contract called a Releaser then determines how those accumulated assets can be extracted.

Under the Firepit mechanism, an external participant burns a specified amount of UNI to claim assets held by the system when doing so becomes economically worthwhile. The UNI used in the transaction is permanently removed from supply.

The economic sequence is therefore: Trading activity generates fees across supported Uniswap markets. Protocol fees accumulate in TokenJar contracts. A release becomes economically attractive once accumulated assets justify the required UNI burn. UNI is burned when those assets are released. Higher fee-generating activity can therefore increase the amount of UNI removed from supply.

UNI holders do not receive a direct proportional distribution of protocol revenue. The value-accrual mechanism instead operates through supply reduction, according to Uniswap’s documentation.

That difference is important when assessing the record. The $590,000 figure should not be interpreted as cash returned directly to token holders.

Cross-Chain Activity Is Becoming More Important to UNI Economics The burn system has expanded considerably beyond its original Ethereum footprint.

A governance proposal executed in March extended protocol fees across Base, Arbitrum, OP Mainnet and several other networks. Fees collected on supported Layer 2 networks can ultimately result in UNI being bridged back to Ethereum mainnet and permanently burned.

That architecture helps explain why Base could contribute roughly $165,000 to the August 21 record.
It also changes how UNI investors can evaluate Uniswap’s growth. Trading volume on an additional network is no longer relevant only as an ecosystem adoption metric. Where protocol fees are active and connected to the burn infrastructure, that activity can become part of UNI’s supply economics.

The next expansion is already under discussion. Uniswap governance currently has a temperature check concerning activation of v4 protocol fees, according to the governance forum.

If additional fee sources are activated, the relevant metric will not simply be whether Uniswap processes more volume. Investors will need to watch how much of that activity produces collectible protocol fees and how efficiently those fees translate into actual UNI destruction.

UNI Reclaims $4.30 After a Sharp August Reversal UNI was trading around $4.34 on the four-hour chart at the time of writing, after recovering sharply from approximately $3.20 in mid-August.

UNI trades near $4.34 after a strong rebound from the $3.20 region. Source: TradingView. The structure changed notably after August 19. UNI moved through $3.50, $3.70 and $4.00 in relatively quick succession before reaching the $4.40 area.

The latest candles show buyers attempting to hold those gains after a volatile rejection. One four-hour candle briefly fell toward approximately $3.70 before recovering, leaving a long lower wick. Price subsequently returned above $4.30.

The immediate technical levels are: $4.40-$4.45: The first resistance area, corresponding with the recent rally high. $4.20: Short-term support created during the latest consolidation. $4.00-$4.10: A more consequential support zone if the current advance loses momentum. Around $3.70: The recent volatility low and a deeper reference point for the recovery structure. A sustained break above the recent $4.40 region would establish a new short-term high. Failure to hold $4.20 would instead put the strength of the latest breakout under greater scrutiny.

The broader crypto market was weaker at the same time. Bitcoin traded around $77,036, down approximately 1.85% over 24 hours, while Ethereum changed hands near $2,423, down about 4.29%. UNI’s ability to remain near its recent highs despite that backdrop separates the token’s latest move from a simple market-wide advance.

The burn data now provides another metric against which that relative strength can be tested. One record session has limited influence on UNI’s overall supply by itself. A sustained increase in protocol-generated burns, particularly if contributions continue spreading across Ethereum, Base and other networks, would provide stronger evidence that the expanded fee architecture is producing recurring rather than episodic supply reduction.

Blockchain

22 August 2026 | 22:58 BitMart’s shutdown notice framed closure as a strategic response to difficult conditions. Four weeks later, its restructuring update places creditor distributions beside a possible return to business.

What changed since BitMart’s shutdown notice Then: BitMart described an orderly exit. Now: It is considering an alternative wind-down. New element: Distributions to unnamed creditor groups. Next date: A restructuring roadmap by September 9. The shutdown now has a claims question BitMart’s July announcement pointed to market and operating conditions, as well as the company’s future strategy. It read as a decision to leave an increasingly difficult exchange business.

The latest notice changes the frame. BitMart says it is working on a potential restructuring plan “as an alternative to a full wind-down,” which could pair selected operations with distributions to creditors.

That language introduces a financial question absent from the original announcement. When BitMart said it was closing, the focus was on services, deadlines and withdrawals. Its new update puts potential claims against the exchange at the centre of the next phase.

Keeping a business alive is not the same as restoring an exchange BitMart has not promised to restore the platform in its previous form. Its wording is limited to the phased resumption of “certain operations” in an orderly manner.

That distinction matters. A restructuring can preserve selected parts of a business without reopening every product, market or customer function. The notice does not identify which operations are under review, and it does not say that spot trading, futures, deposits or new registrations would return.

The story, therefore, is not that BitMart has reversed its shutdown. The exchange is testing whether part of the business can continue while a separate process addresses the claims created by the planned exit.

White & Case puts recovery before growth BitMart has hired White & Case as restructuring counsel to work alongside its other advisers. The firm will help evaluate the available options and develop a framework for any business resumption, according to BitMart’s official August 21 update.

The appointment does not reveal the size of any claims or establish how creditors would be treated. It does make clear that BitMart is dealing with more than product decisions. Any restart has to fit alongside a legal and financial plan for distributions.

BitMart has not named the creditor groups, the amount of any obligations, the source of funds for distributions or the process through which claims would be assessed. It would be wrong to assume that “creditors” refers only to users with balances on the platform.

Three answers stand between BitMart and a restart First, the roadmap needs to identify who has claims and how those claims would be handled. That is the difference between a broad reference to creditor distributions and a workable restructuring plan.

Second, BitMart needs to name the services it believes can resume. An exchange cannot regain trust through a vague promise of operations returning “in phases.” Users need to know what comes back, what stays restricted and what happens to existing accounts.

Third, the company needs to explain whether its original shutdown timetable still applies. BitMart’s latest notice sets September 9 as the date for a further update, but it does not state whether the earlier operational deadlines will change.

September 9 will show which story BitMart is telling A full wind-down has one direction: closure. BitMart’s new approach raises a harder possibility—preserving enough of the business to restart while organising distributions to the parties with claims against it.

The upcoming roadmap will show whether that is a genuine restructuring plan or simply a more controlled version of the shutdown already announced. Until then, “creditors” matters more than “resumption.”

Author

Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.