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The latest report from the Bitcoin Policy Institute shows that due to the Iran conflict, the annual blockchain transaction volume in the Middle East and North Africa is expected to reach $350 billion in 2025-2026, more than three times the approximately $100 billion in 2022. The report points out that regional conflicts typically accelerate capital outflows, but the Iran conflict presents a different dynamic: an increasing amount of capital is shifting towards digital assets, highlighting the growing role of cryptocurrencies (especially Bitcoin) as a hedge against economic and geopolitical uncertainty.The report states that after the outbreak of the conflict, Bitcoin initially fell in sync with other risk assets, but then investors shifted from higher-risk cryptocurrencies to Bitcoin, raising its market capitalization share to a one-month high of 64.8%. In countries like Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran, due to currency devaluation, more people are increasingly using Bitcoin and dollar-pegged stablecoins to preserve value. Meanwhile, Gulf countries like the UAE and Bahrain are attracting crypto firms and institutional investors by establishing regulatory frameworks.Chainalysis data also shows that after the US-Israel airstrikes from February 28 to March 2, approximately $10.3 million left Iranian crypto exchanges. The report believes that in countries suffering from sanctions, conflict, or currency instability, cryptocurrencies have become tools for preserving and transferring value outside the traditional financial system, while regulated Gulf markets continue to attract institutional capital.

The cryptocurrency exchange Gate has launched an on-chain trading product called "Gold Dog," covering multiple public chains such as Robinhood, SOL, ETH, Gate Layer, BSC, Base, SUI, ARB, World Chain, AVAX, Polygon, LINEA, ZK, OP, and Berachain, supporting on-chain assets like Meme and small tokens.The buying and selling fees for this product are both 0.5%. Users trading Robinhood Chain on-chain assets can enjoy a limited-time exemption from network fees. Users can directly use their Gate account assets for on-chain trading without the need to create or connect a wallet, frequently transfer assets, or switch networks, and can check real-time market data and K-line charts through token names or contract addresses."Gold Dog" will also support features such as Callout rankings, KOL rankings, and active account displays.

On September 1, Anthropic released Claude Fable 5.1 and Claude Mythos 5.1, marking the first update to this model series since the launch of Fable 5 on June 9. Anthropic claims that the new models are the most advanced for programming and knowledge work. In the Terminal-Bench-Science 0.1 benchmark, Fable 5.1 recorded a pass rate of 52.6%, more than doubling Fable 5's 24.7% and surpassing Opus 5's 29%; in Terminal-Bench 4, Fable 5.1 scored 55.8%, higher than Fable 5's 42% and Opus 5's 52.3%.Fable 5.1 and Mythos 5.1 share the same underlying model, differing only in their safety filters. Fable 5.1 is available to all Claude accounts, while Mythos 5.1 remains restricted to professionals vetted through Anthropic's network security verification program and life sciences verification program. In terms of pricing, Fable 5.1 charges $10 per million tokens for input and $50 for output, which is double that of Opus 5. Cache read costs have decreased by 75%, and typical workload costs can drop by about 25%, with high agentic workloads decreasing by up to 45%.

According to official news, Etherscan has officially released a new toolkit for AI, allowing developers and agents to directly access reliable on-chain data that is the same as that on the Etherscan website.The toolkit covers more than 60 EVM-compatible chains and provides structured, certified real-time data access capabilities for AI agents through three methods: MCP, CLI, and Skills.Among them, Etherscan MCP supports mainstream programming agents like Claude and Codex to query on-chain information in natural language; the CLI tool can output clean JSON, table, or CSV results in the terminal and is equipped with an interactive interface; the Skills module includes professional skills such as Orchestrator, contract review, transaction debugging, and workflow orchestration, helping agents efficiently complete complex tasks.Etherscan stated that these tools are designed to lower the barriers for AI to interact with blockchain data, allowing developers to quickly get started by directly pointing to the official documentation, while also welcoming user feedback on their experience or sharing innovative applications built using these tools.

Solana validators have voted to approve the "Dual Deflation" proposal numbered SGP-0002, increasing the network's annual deflation rate from 15% to 30%, while maintaining a long-term inflation target of 1.5%. According to the final voting results, the proposal received 67% support, 25.16% opposed, and 7.84% abstained, with a participation rate of 60.7%. The new plan is expected to bring SOL to a terminal inflation rate of 1.5% in about 2.8 years, while the original plan would take approximately 5.7 years, with an expected reduction of about 18.9 million SOL issued over the next six years.This vote marks Solana's first binding governance process, which also approved the proposed Solana Constitution while rejecting another proposal regarding resource and inclusion fees. The positions of major participants have diverged: the largest voter, Figment, holding 17.1 million SOL, cast all opposing votes, while Helius and Jupiter overwhelmingly supported it. The U.S. exchange Kraken briefly cast an opposing vote at 12:33 UTC during the voting process, causing the support rate to dip below the threshold, but ultimately over 90% of its approximately 8.9 million SOL voting position turned to support.Meanwhile, Bitwise's Solana ETF has surpassed $1 billion in assets under management, becoming the first Solana ETF to reach this milestone. According to Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas, U.S. Solana ETFs have seen a cumulative net inflow of about $1.7 billion since their launch, with almost no sustained outflows.

Crypto analyst Ali Charts posted on platform X that Bitcoin's current trend is highly similar to the bottoming pattern in 2023. In 2023, Bitcoin broke the downward trend and tested the previous high in August, then retraced to around $20,000 before starting to rise.It seems that a similar structure is forming now, with a key observation level near $83,000 around the high in May 2026.

IREN's revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026 was $137.2 million, which was basically in line with expectations; adjusted EBITDA was $19.2 million, about 53% lower than expected. AI cloud service revenue increased from $33.6 million to $70.5 million quarter-over-quarter, while Bitcoin mining revenue decreased from $111.2 million to $66.7 million.The company currently operates an ARR of approximately $1 billion, with capacity for 2026 nearly sold out, corresponding to a contracted ARR of about $4 billion, and has signed a multi-year contract with a frontier AI lab. Recently, the three-year contract revenue per IT MW exceeded $20 million, with some negotiation prices around $25 million.IREN plans to increase its cumulative IT capacity from approximately 0.3GW in 2026 to about 0.8GW in 2027; existing cash, committed GPU financing, and customer prepayments total approximately $14 billion.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa), the mysterious entity "7 siblings" has sold a total of 26,265.2 ETH since August 21, worth approximately 62.47 million USD.This entity last built its position a week ago (just before this round of surge), buying 2,179.22 ETH at an average price of 1,852 USD (about 4.03 million USD), continuing its consistent operational style of "buying the dip during crashes and selling during price increases." Currently, the total value of ETH held in its on-chain wallet exceeds 768 million USD.

According to on-chain analyst Ai Yi's monitoring, 7 siblings (0x28a...A6b0) have cumulatively sold 26,300 ETH since August 21, worth 62.47 million USD.The entity's latest position was established a week ago, just before the price increase, and currently holds ETH worth over 768 million USD.

HTX global advisor Sun Yuchen stated that HTX has officially upgraded its security architecture in response to the community's demand for stronger security guarantees, claiming to keep user assets 100% SAFU. The upgrade includes enabling a multi-address withdrawal system, with hot wallet assets distributed across multiple addresses; withdrawal addresses are automatically rotated regularly, with old addresses immediately deactivated and no longer controlled after new addresses are activated; single address risk exposure has been minimized.Sun Yuchen mentioned that even in the event of extreme security incidents, the potential loss limit is below $1 million, fully covered by an insurance fund, and users will not lose any funds. He also reminded that withdrawal addresses will be changed regularly as part of normal security mechanisms, and users must verify the actual on-chain receipt situation. HTX stated that it will take every user feedback and every bit of user assets seriously.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, a whale/institution named "7 Siblings" bought after ETH dropped more than 10% in a short period and sold after it rose more than 10% in a short period. In February and June of this year, after ETH experienced declines of over 10% on two occasions, this whale/institution made purchases, with the buying price in June being $1789.In the last day and a half, ETH rose over 20%, and 7 Siblings (0x28a...a6b) began to sell; in the past 6 hours, they sold 9,000 ETH, exchanging it for 21.04 million USDT, at an average price of $2338.

According to the Nikkei News, individual investors in the Japanese stock market are accelerating their use of leverage to bet on AI trends. As of July, the amount of credit trading by individual investors in the Japanese stock market reached 123 trillion yen (approximately 1.09 trillion yuan), doubling since the beginning of the year and reaching the highest level since related statistics began in 2016.Data shows that in June, the scale of credit trading by Japanese individual investors hit a historical high, and in July it continued to maintain a high level. At the same time, the proportion of credit trading in the overall trading amount of individual investors rose to 83%, also setting a new record.AI concept stocks have become the main driving force behind the surge in credit trading, among which the credit buy balance of AI storage concept stock Kioxia reached 13.23 million shares as of August 7, making it one of the popular targets.Benefiting from the recent rise in the Japanese stock market, the overall performance of leveraged investors has been decent. The floating yield of credit trading investors briefly turned positive in June, although it fell back to a loss of 8.4% by the end of July, it is still better than the average loss level of the past 10 years (-10.2%).

According to official news, Circle Gateway has implemented a programmable authorization model by supporting ERC-1271 signatures, allowing smart contracts and smart contract wallets to directly use the Gateway.Developers do not need to set up additional delegated approvers and can access a unified USDC balance system through existing smart contract authorization logic.

According to Cointelegraph, the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) investigation shows that the cryptocurrency ownership rate in Canada has risen from 10% in 2023 to 25% in 2026. The survey was conducted from December 2025 to January 2026 with 2,360 respondents aged 18 and older, finding that 59% of respondents are aware of crypto assets, and 25% own crypto assets.The survey also indicated that investors' risk awareness has increased, but industry awareness remains limited—about 50% of holders check whether a platform is registered before using it, but many investors have misunderstandings about regulation, insurance protection, and trading capabilities. The Canadian federal government proposed a bill in April to ban political donations in crypto assets and crypto ATMs.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin dismissed the CFTC's request for a preliminary injunction to prohibit Wisconsin from enforcing sports-related event contracts on platforms such as Kalshi, Coinbase, Robinhood, Polymarket, and Crypto.com. The court found that the CFTC failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on its claim—that the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) defines "swaps" to include sports event contracts—and that gambling regulation falls within the traditional police powers of the states, with federal law not clearly indicating an intent to preempt state law.Additionally, the court also denied the intervention requests from Kalshi, Crypto.com Derivatives North America (CDNA), and the American Gaming Association (AGA). The substantive litigation between the CFTC and the state of Wisconsin will continue to proceed.

According to a report released by CryptoQuant's research director Julio, the current open interest in cryptocurrency perpetual contracts is approximately $65 billion, down about 20% from the peak of around $80 billion in September 2025 and early 2026, reflecting some deleveraging rather than new capital inflows. The market is highly concentrated, with Binance dominating with about 39% market share, the top three platforms accounting for about 63%, and the top five making up about 81%, indicating that capital is highly concentrated in leading exchanges.The report states that, at the same time, TradFi perpetual contracts for metals, crude oil, and stocks have become a growth highlight. This 24-hour, round-the-clock product has doubled in scale to over $2 billion since the end of May, allowing crypto trading to compete directly with traditional trading venues, although its size currently accounts for only about 3% of the crypto perpetual market. TradFi perpetual contracts are also dominated by leading platforms, with Binance, Gate, and Bybit at the forefront, showing that platforms with mature infrastructure and liquidity are extending their advantages into traditional asset tracks.

According to official news, the decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch has officially launched the shared liquidity protocol Aqua for all users. Aqua allows users to support multiple liquidity positions simultaneously with just a token balance, without the need to deposit assets into a liquidity pool. The assets remain in the user's wallet, and only when a transaction is actually executed does the protocol call the corresponding tokens from the wallet through a single atomic transaction to complete the settlement, returning the received tokens and fees to the wallet.1inch stated that this new model, known as "shared liquidity," is expected to address current issues in DeFi liquidity, such as long-term idle liquidity, low capital utilization, and asset custody risks. The protocol was opened to developers last November and is now officially launched for all users, supporting 13 EVM-compatible chains including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, Robinhood Chain, and BNB Chain.1inch indicated that there are several structural issues with current DeFi liquidity. Although many protocols have a high total value locked (TVL), a large amount of liquidity remains in inactive price ranges for extended periods, failing to earn trading fee revenue while also bearing market volatility risks. Additionally, liquidity providers (LPs) typically need to split limited funds across different protocols, trading pairs, and price ranges, leading to decreased capital utilization. Furthermore, traditional models require users to deposit assets into liquidity pools, which not only loses other uses of the assets but also means relinquishing asset custody rights and facing risks such as JIT (Just-In-Time) liquidity bots seizing fees. Aqua enhances capital efficiency by registering wallet balances as a shared liquidity source, allowing the same asset to support multiple liquidity positions without transferring asset ownership; when the wallet balance is insufficient to cover a transaction, the protocol will not execute that transaction, thus keeping the user's actual risk always limited by the wallet holdings.

According to a report by The Paper, the Intermediate People's Court of Xilin Gol League in Inner Mongolia upheld the original verdict in the second trial of the case involving Ma for illegal business operations. This case is part of a series of cases where the Sifang payment platform provided funding and payment settlement for gambling platforms. Some defendants in this case were accused of receiving commissions or rebates in the form of virtual currencies such as USDT.It was found that from May 24, 2022, to October 18, 2023, Ma and four others illegally collected and paid funds through third-party payment accounts, and received USDT virtual currency and bank card payments through virtual wallets. They settled amounts exceeding 2.95 billion yuan through 105 merchants of 10 third-party payment companies.Ultimately, the court determined that Ma was guilty of illegal business operations, sentencing him to four years and six months in prison and imposing a fine of 3 million yuan. The five individuals who turned themselves in have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 3 to 6 years for illegal business operations.