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Minnesota Republican Congressman Tom Emmer was elected House Republican Whip after the midterm elections, securing the second-highest leadership position in the party. According to Politico, he defeated Texas Congressman August Pfluger in a closed-door vote of 103 to 76. Emmer previously served as the House Republican Majority Whip and will continue to be the number two in the party under the incoming Minority Leader Jim Jordan. The Democrats will take control of Congress in January next year.As Whip, Emmer will be responsible for rallying Republican votes, coordinating the party's legislative strategy, and maintaining party unity on key bills. Emmer has been a leading voice for the Republican Party on congressional digital asset issues. In March 2025, he announced the formation of a bipartisan Congressional Crypto Caucus with Congressman Ritchie Torres, aimed at garnering support for legislation on digital assets such as stablecoins and market structure.He is also the original co-sponsor of the CLARITY Act and introduced the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, which aims to clarify that blockchain developers and infrastructure providers who do not control customer funds are not considered money transmitters under federal law. Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis stated on X that Tom is one of the most steadfast advocates for digital assets in Congress, leading the fight against government-controlled CBDCs and speaking out for American innovators.

U.S. Republican Congressman French Hill won re-election in Arkansas's 2nd Congressional District, defeating Democratic challenger Chris Jones, a result confirmed by the Associated Press on Thursday. Hill currently serves as the Chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee and is an important ally for the cryptocurrency industry in Congress.Hill initiated the CLARITY Act and voted in favor of the GENIUS Act, receiving an A rating from the cryptocurrency advocacy organization Stand With Crypto, classified as a strong supporter of cryptocurrency. The cryptocurrency industry-supported super PAC Fairshake pledged $1 million in October to support his re-election campaign, aiming to keep crypto-friendly lawmakers in Congress.With the Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday's U.S. midterm elections, Hill is expected to lose his position as Chairman of the Financial Services Committee in January. According to Reuters, the current senior Democratic member of the committee, Maxine Waters, is the leading candidate to succeed him. The Democrats also gained control of both the House and Senate, creating uncertainty for U.S. cryptocurrency legislation, with the industry potentially facing stricter scrutiny. The cryptocurrency industry-supported super PAC spent over $176 million in this election cycle.

According to ABC News, U.S. President Trump stated that since the election ended, he has not spoken with Democrats Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries, but he said, "I think we can work together. If we can do that, it would be good for America. America has had enough."Trump stated, "After the midterm elections, I spoke with other Democrats, but not these two, rather with other Democrats who have been calling me. I also have friends within the Democratic Party."

Binance co-founder He Yi responded to rumors stating that she does indeed know Wan Hui, co-founder of the crypto venture capital firm Primitive Ventures, but there is no so-called situation of a close friend accompanying childbirth. She stated that even her own mother could not push a project to go live on Binance solely based on personal relationships; if a project succeeds solely due to personal connections, it indicates that Binance's own review capabilities are insufficient.He Yi also mentioned that there have been very few good projects in the cryptocurrency industry in recent years, with BNB being one of them, deserving of the trust of those who believe in Binance, but investment trading does not guarantee profits without losses. The era of 2017, where everything bought would rise, was a time of dividends, and very few remain now. The 2019 IEO was an exception because DEX had not developed at that time, and Binance had bargaining power; after DEX developed, Western VCs raised the prices of VC tokens.She further stated that Binance has never actively adopted unscrupulous methods to compete for market share in the past few years, and has always taken a straightforward defensive strategy in the face of competition. If anyone thinks they have not done well, they are welcome to criticize directly. Regarding IEOs, she said that at that time, market liquidity was concentrated on Binance, and the platform had a strong market dominance, which is why the issuance prices of new projects were generally low, giving participants the opportunity to gain profits.

Coinbilly, an early team member of Invisible Friends, announced that he has fully acquired the brand, covering smart contracts, intellectual property, remaining inventory, and After Effects files. He stated that he began working with the brand five years ago and has been pushing for the acquisition for more than the past two years, involving communication with multiple lawyers. The original artist, Markus Magnusson, created the initial artwork but will not participate in the subsequent operations.According to his review, Invisible Friends consists of 5,000 invisible characters that walk in a loop, with the audience only able to see the characters' clothing or the items they hold. In November 2021, the project released a teaser, with the early team consisting of Coinbilly, James Curran, and developer Mikker. On February 23, 2022, a charity auction raised $1.3 million and was distributed to 13 charities; subsequently, the public minting floor price was set at 12 ETH, approximately $30,000 at the time, with a trading volume of about 10,000 to 15,000 ETH before the reveal. The project also collaborated with Shopify, Snapchat, Sotheby's, and Kith.Coinbilly stated that the focus moving forward will be on physical products, character animations, experimental digital content, and brand collaborations, aiming to introduce the brand to users who have never encountered NFTs. Holders will receive priority benefits, and he plans to soon launch a commemorative open version for holders for free. He also mentioned that he will answer questions on Discord and X, and will livestream an explanation on Twitch at 1 PM Eastern Time the following afternoon.

Former President Donald Trump expressed gratitude to Elon Musk for the "National Airdrop." Trump stated that he sincerely thanks his "legendary friend" Musk for donating SpaceX stock to millions of American children through the TRUMP account.Trump mentioned that this aligns with the vision when establishing the TRUMP account, which is to bring together the private sector, Musk, and other forces to invest in American children, ensuring that every American child can have a piece of the American Dream.Previously, Musk announced that next year he would gift one share of SpaceX stock to every child in America, calling this the first of a series of similar initiatives in the future.

The cryptocurrency-friendly securities platform UMX (The Unified Market Exchange), incubated by Avenir Group under Li Lin, has officially launched. Since the public beta started on August 10, UMX has received a total of 788 product feedbacks, among which 89 demands have been implemented in this official version.According to reports, UMX is positioned as a cryptocurrency-friendly securities platform for global professional investors, focusing on trading real Hong Kong and U.S. stocks, ETFs, U.S. stock options, and cryptocurrency assets. It aims to address issues such as the separation of digital assets and securities assets into different account systems, the complexity of cross-market allocation processes, and the dispersion of purchasing power. Users can trade real securities and cryptocurrency assets under a unified account system and flexibly transfer funds between securities, cryptocurrency assets, and fiat currency, using a cross-asset unified margin.

Binance founder CZ commented on the smooth shutdown of the cryptocurrency CEX CoinEx, stating that at least during this winter's recent gradual closures of CEXs, users were able to withdraw their assets, which stands in stark contrast to the QuadrigaCX style from the previous cycle.CoinEx announced its shutdown after nine years of operation, with the withdrawal window open until December 22.

Vitalik Buterin stated that recent discussions around transaction formats, including EIP-8141, the "future state" proposal, UTXO, PBT, key-controlled randomness, and recursive STARK memory pools, have helped the Ethereum community better understand the concepts of "actions" and "dependencies" in transactions. Dependencies can be processed in parallel, and some dependencies that do not require state access can be validated at the memory pool layer, potentially further compressing execution and data costs through STARK.Vitalik believes that Ethereum's future scalability needs to strike a balance between a dynamically flexible execution model and a more easily statically analyzable constrained model, providing lower gas costs for transactions and state access that can be statically analyzed. If EIP-8141 is designed properly, it will not only be a milestone achievement in a decade of account abstraction work but also prepare for decentralized-friendly large-scale scalability in the coming years.

Huang Licheng posted, "I personally speculate that my proposal to acquire Friend.tech was blocked by Paradigm, so I withdrew my offer. If the project's founder Racer relaunches Friend.tech on the Robinhood Chain, I will support it."

Cointelegraph reported that the crypto-friendly bank Revolut has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to obtain a national bank charter in the United States.The company aims to launch related services by 2027, which will include loans, credit cards, custodial deposits, and cryptocurrency access services.

According to official news, Gate will launch the 15th phase of the Joint Earnings Coin event from September 3, 12:00 to September 23, 12:00 (UTC+8), with a total welfare prize pool of 500,000 USDT.During the event, users can open exclusive red envelopes and invite friends to register. After friends complete identity verification, designated deposits, and trading tasks, both parties can jointly receive USDT cash red envelope rewards, with a maximum of 100 USDT per transaction. The more invitations sent, the more red envelopes received, and there is no cap on individual cash rewards.

According to monitoring by Lookonchain, Huang Licheng (@machibigbrother) offered $1 million to acquire Friendtech after losing over $16 million on FRIEND, driving the price of FRIEND up nearly 30 times.The suspected insider wallet 0x2078, after being silent for 6 months, bought 2 million FRIEND for 1.88 ETH ($4,700) and sold it after the surge for a profit of 18.37 ETH ($46,000), achieving a return rate of nearly 10 times.

During an interview with Phoenix Technology, Sun Yuchen stated that the article "My Girlfriend Jing Tian," which is about 6000 words long, was something he "basically wrote over two nights without much sleep." Sun Yuchen mentioned that the reason for focusing on retrieving the betrothal gifts in this lawsuit is, first, due to his lawyer's advice, and second, he also wants to have "a bit of a sarcastic feeling," claiming this might be the only connection between him and Jing Tian.At the same time, Sun Yuchen stated that in the past he advocated for 100% following AI, but this time, after sending the article "My Girlfriend Jing Tian" to Claude, it was also the first time he had a disagreement with Claude.

Huang Licheng stated that the current market value of Friend.tech is less than $300,000, and he has made a $1 million acquisition offer to Friend.tech founder Racer and Paradigm. Huang Licheng mentioned that if the acquisition is completed, Friend.tech could be restarted by taking over the CTO through the community.As a result of this statement, the market value of Friend.tech has rebounded to over $2.2 million.

A man in Anshun, Guizhou, used the name of a virtual currency airdrop project as a pretext to lure friends into investing with the bait of guaranteed high returns, ultimately crossing the legal red line. The People's Procuratorate of Pingba District, Anshun City, Guizhou Province, filed a public prosecution, and the court sentenced Zhao to seven months in prison for fraud, along with a fine of 5,000 yuan.Zhao had been paying attention to the field of virtual currency investment for many years and had long been posting investment insights and financial management tips on social media platforms. Zhang was also a virtual currency enthusiast, and the two met on a social platform due to their common interests, gradually becoming friends and frequently discussing investment strategies online. Through long-term communication, Zhao gained Zhang's trust with seemingly professional investment analysis. Subsequently, Zhao proposed a joint investment, to which Zhang agreed. However, after a period of investment, Zhang experienced significant losses and expressed his intention to stop further investments.On August 23, 2025, Zhao claimed that a certain app had launched an airdrop project (to promote a new project, encourage user participation, or reward loyal users, distributing native tokens of the project for free to eligible users), persuading Zhang to invest the remaining funds in his account into this project, promising a return of 100 to 200 U coins (virtual currency) within two days. Zhao also guaranteed that if there were any losses during this period, he would bear the responsibility. To further alleviate Zhang's concerns, Zhao claimed that all investment funds would be transferred to a public chain (the public address of the virtual currency). Believing Zhao, Zhang exchanged 1,757 dollars in his account for Ethereum and completed the transfer according to the wallet link provided by Zhao. In reality, the wallet corresponding to that link was a personal account registered using his girlfriend's identity information, not a public chain. The agreed time for the return of funds had passed, but Zhao had not fulfilled his promise. Zhang urged for repayment multiple times, but Zhao evaded responsibility with excuses such as sending the wrong link and needing time to track it down. On September 7 of the same year, Zhang reported the situation to the police after noticing something was wrong.On April 2 of this year, the Pingba District Procuratorate filed a public prosecution against Zhao for suspected fraud. The procuratorial agency believed that Zhao deceived others out of property by concealing the truth, with a significant amount involved, constituting the crime of fraud. Given that Zhao truthfully confessed to the criminal facts after being apprehended, showed signs of remorse, and had fully compensated the victim for their losses while voluntarily admitting guilt, he could be punished leniently according to the law.

Documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show that Musk's close friend Gracia holds a passive stake of 6.5% in SpaceX (SPCX.O) as of June 30, 2026.

According to the Financial Times, Erebor Bank, a crypto-friendly bank co-founded by Oculus founder and Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, is seeking $1.5 billion in funding, with a pre-money valuation target of $8 billion. This valuation is nearly double the company's valuation of $435 million when it completed a $350 million funding round in December 2025.Currently, Erebor has received support from investment firms such as 8VC and Haun Ventures, and the new funding round is expected to attract participation from institutions like Lux Capital, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Human Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and SV Angel.As investment in AI infrastructure enters a phase of rapid expansion, Erebor is targeting the financing needs of AI companies. AI firms require substantial funds to procure GPUs, build data centers, and secure energy supplies, while traditional financial institutions are gradually exploring financing models for AI infrastructure assets. However, whether Erebor can maintain rapid growth after the cooling of cycles in the AI and crypto industries remains a key focus for the market. This funding round has not yet been finalized and is expected to be completed in the coming weeks.

According to Cointelegraph, crypto-friendly bank-as-a-service provider Cross River will provide banking infrastructure for X Money, supporting peer-to-peer payments, FDIC-insured interest-bearing accounts, and Visa debit card services. Cross River's banking platform and payment channels will support X's "super app" strategy and are designed to scale with more financial products over time. X Money will enter limited testing in May 2025 and expand to external testing in March 2026. X has obtained money transfer licenses in over 40 states in the U.S. and is registered with FinCEN to support platform peer-to-peer payments. The announcement did not mention support for cryptocurrencies or stablecoins.

According to Bloomberg, Nubank's parent company Nu Holdings, a crypto-friendly digital bank in Brazil, has been granted a formal banking license by Mexico's financial regulatory agency Comision Nacional Bancaria y de Valores, allowing it to conduct business such as payroll accounts, checking accounts, higher limit deposits, and more loan products locally.Since entering Mexico in 2019, Nubank has invested billions of dollars, and currently has over 15 million customers, accounting for about 15% of the local adult population. Founder and global CEO David Vélez stated that total investment in Mexico is expected to reach approximately $4.2 billion by 2030. Obtaining a full banking license is expected to help Nubank replace some wholesale financing with low-cost deposits and compete directly with large traditional banks in Mexico as well as fintech institutions like Revolut and Klar.