Author: John Smith

Cumulative stablecoin card spending has surpassed $10.9 billion, according to Paymentscan data cited by payment provider RedotPay on Aug. 25. Summary Paymentscan data cited by RedotPay placed cumulative stablecoin card spending above $10.9 billion worldwide overall. July 2026 produced a record month, with card spending exceeding $1 billion for first time. RedotPay predicts annualized spending will reach $50 billion by 2028, but independent confirmation remains unavailable. RedotPay reported more than eight million users and over $14 billion in annualized payment volume. Visa has expanded stablecoin-linked card access through its network spanning more than 175 million location. Paymentscan recorded more than…

Solana Foundation Vice President of Technology Jacob Creech outlined several upcoming Solana upgrades on Aug. 30. Transaction V1 is scheduled for Sept. 9, while the first stage of a network rent reduction is expected during the week beginning Aug. 31. Summary Solana plans to activate Transaction V1 on September 9, increasing transaction size to 4,096 bytes. The first rent reduction stage begins next week, starting a five-step path toward 90% savings. Solana already cut target slots to 350 milliseconds, with 300, 250 and 200 planned later. Alpenglow remains targeted for October, with Solana aiming for approximately 150-millisecond finality after mainnet…

Sberbank plans to expand its crypto-backed lending business by accepting Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether’s USDT as collateral, Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov told TASS on Aug. 28. Summary Sberbank plans to accept Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT as collateral after required regulatory approval arrives. Russia’s new crypto market framework takes effect September 1, 2026, under formal central bank supervision. Non-qualified investors may purchase 300,000 rubles annually through each intermediary after passing mandatory knowledge tests. Sberbank completed a Bitcoin-backed loan pilot with Russian mining company Intelion Data during December 2025. Cryptocurrency payments for goods and services remain prohibited within Russia despite the expanded…

NFT sales volume fell 44.70% to $63.33 million over the past seven days, even as the number of buyer and seller addresses increased sharply across the market. Summary NFT sales fell 44.70% to $63.33 million, while transactions declined 14.13% to 802,330. Buyer addresses rose 30.48% to 227,316, while seller addresses climbed 54.64% to 247,373. Ethereum led with $35.56 million in sales despite recording a 49.01% weekly decline. Bitcoin placed second with $8.68 million as sales fell 59.53% and buyers rose 41.11%. Courtyard led collections with $6.09 million, while a Bitcoin NFT sold for $2.14 million. According to data from CryptoSlam,…

Eight years after the ICO boom, the regulator is offering a path that the market already abandoned. The capital it is trying to regulate now flows through channels the proposal does not touch. Summary The SEC proposed a framework allowing crypto projects to raise up to $75 million annually through public token sales without full securities registration, using an expanded version of existing Regulation A+ exemptions. The proposal arrives roughly eight years after the 2017 to 2018 ICO wave that prompted it, during which projects raised over $20 billion through unregistered token sales before the SEC began systematic enforcement. In…

A research paper published this week quantifies what happens when bank deposits move at blockchain speed. The number is large enough to reshape how banks fund the economy, and the crypto industry is building the pipes without acknowledging the consequences. Summary A research paper published on August 25 found that tokenized deposits could reduce U.S. bank lending capacity by $580 billion if the technology reaches widespread adoption, roughly 5% of total bank lending. The mechanism is straightforward: banks lend against stable deposits, and if deposits can move on chain in minutes instead of days, the deposit base becomes less stable,…

The Bank of Russia is building a surveillance apparatus for digital assets at the same time the Russian state relies on those assets to circumvent Western financial restrictions. The contradiction reveals how governments actually think about crypto. Summary The Bank of Russia added 2,600 crypto wallets to a monitoring system used by banks and law enforcement after more than 1 billion rubles flowed into the addresses during the first half of 2026. More than 74% of pyramid schemes identified by the regulator used cryptocurrencies to attract funds, down from 84% in 2025 but still the dominant payment channel for financial…

Two U.S. fund filings dated Aug. 27 and Aug. 28 have listed three XRP-linked ETFs, adding fresh evidence of the token’s growing presence across regulated investment products. Summary ProShares’ filing lists its unlevered XRP ETF and the 2x leveraged Ultra XRP ETF. Morningstar Funds Trust’s amendment includes a live fund combining S&P 500 stocks with XRP exposure. Seven U.S. spot XRP ETFs had attracted $1.57 billion in cumulative inflows by Aug. 24. XRP traders face an escrow unlock on Sept. 1 and a Senate procedural vote on Sept. 15. Two filings submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission identify…

President Donald Trump has announced an oil agreement that would give the United States a 55% effective output share in a new venture controlling 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves. Summary The planned venture covers 17 Venezuelan oil fields with an estimated 65 billion barrels. A U.S. official said the United States would receive equity and rights to buy crude at cost. Venezuela expects the projects to attract $100 billion in investment and generate $209 billion in taxes. Damaged infrastructure, political uncertainty, and unresolved legal questions could delay any production increase. According to Trump’s Truth Social announcement, Secretary of State…

Hyperliquid has received its first reported builder-deployed HIP-4 outcome exchange after OUT completed deployment through the network’s permissionless market framework. Summary OUT has become the first reported outcome DEX deployed through Hyperliquid’s HIP-4 framework. Deployers can create YES/NO markets using templates approved by Hyperliquid validators. HIP-4 contracts are fully collateralized and operate without leverage, funding payments or liquidations. Hyperliquid’s current developer documentation lists permissionless deployer actions as available on the testnet. Hyperliquid’s block explorer shows that a successful on-chain transaction registered the Outcome DEX under the name OUT through the HIP-4 deployment framework. The transaction confirms OUT’s deployment but does…