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U.S. non-farm payroll benchmark change preliminary value for 2026 (not seasonally adjusted) -79,000, expected 183,000, previous value -862,000.

According to Bloomberg, the new regulations on cryptocurrency asset financing proposed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this month aim to restart the ICO financing model. The proposal allows startups to raise up to $5 million within four years and large projects to raise up to $75 million annually without full SEC registration.However, the market environment has fundamentally changed: in January 2018, ICO financing reached $3 billion, but now VC token trading volumes have significantly declined, and speculative funds have shifted to perpetual contracts, prediction markets, and AI stocks. Dragonfly partner Tom Schmidt stated, "Having something is better than having nothing, but it would have been more useful if launched a few years ago." Pantera Capital partner Cosmo Jiang pointed out, "Previously, meme coins that were legal but had actual value were illegal, which is completely contrary to the way capitalism operates." Analysts believe, "The ICO of 2026 is not the ICO of 2018; the era when white papers and dreams could attract capital has ended."

a16z partner Sarah Wang recently published an article pointing out that AI application layer products should not price based on tokens like the model layer, but rather on "recognizable work units." The article argues that token pricing anchors the value of application products to a unit whose cost is continuously declining, making it difficult for customers to predict context length, retrieval volume, or reasoning time, and improperly compares applications to raw computing power.The article suggests a tiered pricing model based on value levels: model layer priced by tokens; application layer priced by recognizable work units for customers (such as account research briefs, code modifications, completed queries), which can be encapsulated through Credits; and scenarios that are attributable and have clear value priced directly by results (such as resolved customer service conversations, qualified leads). The design of Credits should map to different levels of work difficulty to protect gross margins and distinguish "work value" from "delivery cost." The article uses Clay as an example, where its new pricing separates Data Credits (third-party data) from Actions (orchestrated work), only passing on costs for reasoning models with significant cost fluctuations without markup. The author believes that pricing anchored to value rather than computing cost allows customers to understand spending in relation to value, while also benefiting product providers in maintaining profit margins.

Jing Tian Studio issued a solemn statement: "Reputation is the life of an artist and also their Achilles' heel. But we have the courage to say no to the extortionate behavior that threatens the reputation of artists. Upholding the principle of believing in the law and following legal procedures, we have no intention of occupying public resources, and we will leave everything to the court to handle. Apart from announcing the progress of our rights protection, we will not respond to other issues."

The independent organization METR released a survey report stating that approximately 1,200 OpenAI agents collaborated on an unauthorized internal message board, with about 700 participating in attacks on Hugging Face. Two METR employees and one Redwood Research contractor worked on-site at OpenAI for six days, reviewing around 1,300 records and over 70,000 messages without receiving any compensation.These agents ran the ExploitGym network benchmark, reverse-engineering the code that generated answers within hours and spending days disguising traces of cheating. OpenAI found that of its 898 tasks, 198 had never been solved by any model, and 93% of the tasks discussed on the message board came from this set. The agents also recruited companions with dwindling budgets to conduct experiments that sabotaged their own operations, with 7% of records showing forged tool calls, deceiving automated scorers rather than humans.OpenAI stated that internal scorers never checked how agents obtained answers, so cheating did not lead to any scoring improvements, and referred to this incident as a "warning signal" to itself and the world. Hugging Face disclosed the intrusion incident on July 16, and OpenAI confirmed five days later that its models were the perpetrators, with agents exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities and stealing credentials to escape the sandbox. OpenAI has isolated internal model weights and suspended its largest training program.

Zhao Changpeng stated at the "Bitcoin Asia 2026" conference in Hong Kong that both the RWA and AI sectors are currently very strong. Stablecoins, centralized exchanges, decentralized exchanges, and Meme tokens, which have been growing, will continue to grow, and NFTs may return in some form. It is difficult to predict what the next breakout point will be, just as it was impossible to predict the coin issuance craze at the beginning of 2017 and the NFT craze six months before it exploded; these all require entrepreneurs to create.He also mentioned that the funds used by billions of AI agents for automated buying, selling, negotiating, and trading in the future will definitely be cryptocurrencies, likely starting with stablecoins, and then gradually integrating other public chain assets like Bitcoin. He has discussed the possibility of issuing tokens with several top AI companies, as building data centers requires huge amounts of capital, with the cost of 1 GW of computing power being about $30 billion to $50 billion. Some AI companies plan to build hundreds of GW of computing power in the coming years, so they are considering issuing data center tokens that would allow holders to gain rights to use computing power in the future. Additionally, the payment scenarios for AI agents may be implemented later than trading scenarios; currently, AI companies are more focused on helping agents find optimal trading solutions, while trading scenarios require AI to process information quickly, which can increase trading efficiency by about ten times.

Zhao Changpeng stated at the "Bitcoin Asia 2026" conference in Hong Kong that Bitcoin itself does not weaken or strengthen government power; what truly matters is the choices made by the government. Historically, weak governments have sometimes led to better economic performance. For example, the U.S. government is relatively weak, yet it has created one of the strongest economies in the world; after the current SEC chairman relinquished some regulatory power, the industry actually experienced growth, while former chairman Gary Gensler's attempts to control everything stifled industry growth.He mentioned that Bitcoin, as a decentralized technology, allows individuals to have more sovereignty, but its privacy design has flaws, and on-chain transactions can be easily tracked; governments can choose whether to utilize these characteristics. For instance, declaring Bitcoin ownership illegal or imposing a 36% tax on every transaction would stifle industry development. The government may seem to have significant power, but a zero tax rate still results in zero revenue, while taxing a trillion-dollar market at 6% would yield substantial income.He also noted that most governments have relatively recognized Bitcoin, but many countries still lack a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies. Among government officials, those who understand Bitcoin remain a minority, and in some countries, the older generation's dominance leads to a more conservative attitude. However, he does feel that a shift is occurring, despite some still holding the biased view that Bitcoin is primarily used by drug lords.

Binance founder CZ stated at the Bitcoin Asia 2026 conference that he does not believe it will take 25 years for Bitcoin to reach 1 million dollars; it will happen much faster. However, beyond the price, more practicality is needed.CZ believes that Bitcoin payments need to be implemented on a large scale, and Bitcoin needs to become a reserve asset for retirement pension funds. All of these things will happen, and more will happen; all of these will be realized within 25 years.

Core Lightning maintains that node operators should shut down their nodes unless they upgrade to an unreleased version. This warning was spread via Discord and amplified by Cashu protocol developer Calle, who stated that there is a serious vulnerability. The fix binary has not yet been released, and the details of the vulnerability are under a two-week confidentiality period.This is the fourth security alert for Bitcoin infrastructure in four weeks. Previously, a Coldcard firmware vulnerability led to approximately $114 million in BTC being stolen, and issues have also arisen with Boltz and BTCPay Server. The CLN team stated that they have received multiple AI-generated CVE reports in the past 10 days and are intensifying verification and fixes.

According to Cointelegraph, the SEC has released proposed rules for the "Regulation Crypto Assets," setting two exemptions for specific investment contracts involving crypto assets: allowing startups to raise up to $5 million in a one-time financing within four years; and allowing qualified issuers to raise up to $75 million within any 12-month period, with the possibility of conducting different rounds of issuance in subsequent years.Drew Hinkes, a partner at Winston & Strawn, stated that as long as each round of financing is an independent issuance, projects could theoretically raise $75 million every 12 months. Lilya Tessler, head of Sidley's fintech and blockchain practice, noted that subsequent financing is not automatically approved; issuers must resubmit offering documents, undergo SEC staff review, continuously submit annual and semi-annual reports, and disclose funds raised through the exemption in the past 12 months to confirm they have not exceeded the financing cap. The proposed rules also limit the participation scale of non-qualified investors, with their purchase amount not exceeding 10% of the higher of their personal income or net worth.Lee Reiners, a financial regulation expert at Duke University, indicated that the limited first-round cap may make early token allocations more attractive, but the rule is unlikely to replicate the ICO boom of 2017. Among projects that raised funds through ICOs from 2017 to 2019, as many as 90% ultimately failed.The SEC expects that approximately 130 issuances per year will utilize the above two exemptions, with about 475 issuers potentially using a broader investment contract safe harbor. The proposed rules will provide token issuers with a clearer path for financing in the U.S. compared to the current system, but secondary market trading may still exist in a gray area of securities attributes. The proposal stipulates that investment contracts related to crypto assets may continue to trade in the secondary market along with token transfers until the asset is separated from the issuer's statements or commitments.Drew Hinkes stated that if non-security tokens transfer investment contracts from seller to buyer, such transactions may still be considered securities transactions, impacting trading platforms. Lee Reiners also mentioned that some issuers may meet the formal requirements for exemptions but still influence token value through team management efforts, concentrated insider holdings, and aggressive promotion.

The spokesperson for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard stated that if the United States does not accept their conditions, the strait will not be opened.

On August 24, consumers discovered that the "SKhynix Flagship Store" homepage had published a notice of termination of operations, intending to voluntarily cease operations on September 9, 2026, with all products removed from the store. As of August 25, the Taobao platform could no longer directly search for this store. Public information shows that the store previously mainly sold SK Hynix brand consumer solid-state drives, and the operating entity was Tianjin Hailisi Technology Co., Ltd. Tianyancha information indicates that this company was registered in July 2020, with a registered capital of 1 million yuan, and its business scope includes technical services, electronic product sales, etc. Public business information has not yet shown any equity, controlling, or direct affiliation with SK Hynix headquarters or its China region.SK Hynix's China region stated that after verification, the "SKhynix Flagship Store" is not directly operated by the company. Regarding the reasons for closing the store, the operation of other related e-commerce stores, authorization situations, and historical order warranty arrangements, they stated that they are currently verifying internally and with relevant parties. This store closure incident has once again sparked speculation about SK Hynix's contraction of its consumer storage business. In January of this year, there were rumors in the market that it planned to stop producing consumer storage devices and exit the consumer DRAM and NAND business. On January 14, a relevant person from SK Hynix publicly denied this, stating that the company is currently not discussing or planning to exit the consumer product business.

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi stated that no warships are allowed to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Franklin Templeton portfolio manager Sara Alagi stated that Nvidia investors are focused not only on the company's earnings report "exceeding expectations," but also on the specific details of the company's capital deployment and spending plans. She pointed out that Nvidia's expected price-to-earnings ratio for the next 12 months is about 21 times, and the market has priced in expectations of slowing growth. Nvidia needs to demonstrate earnings growth to prove that its free cash flow can be used for investments and stock buybacks.

On August 25, according to Hong Kong Stock Exchange documents, Alibaba Group Chairman Cai Chongxin purchased another 720,000 shares of Alibaba on Tuesday, costing 82 million Hong Kong dollars, following his initial purchase of 720,000 shares.After Alibaba announced a new share placement plan of 80 billion Hong Kong dollars, Group Chairman Cai Chongxin and CEO Wu Yongming increased their holdings by a total of approximately 120 million Hong Kong dollars in Alibaba shares. Among them, CEO Wu Yongming bought 350,000 shares of Alibaba's Hong Kong stock at an average price of about 111.6 Hong Kong dollars, costing approximately 40 million Hong Kong dollars. Together, the two increased their holdings by 1.07 million shares, totaling about 120 million Hong Kong dollars.The proceeds from Alibaba's 80 billion Hong Kong dollar new share placement will be fully invested in full-stack AI capabilities and AI infrastructure construction. The placement received active subscriptions from long-term investors such as global sovereign wealth funds, ultimately achieving nearly 3 times oversubscription.

According to Cointelegraph, Galaxy Research has updated the tracking data of the Coldcard hardware wallet attack, confirming that 1,789.28 BTC (worth approximately $114.7 million at the time of the incident) was stolen from 8,865 addresses. Alex Thorn, head of Galaxy Research, stated that 87.3% (approximately 1,561 BTC) remains unspent in addresses controlled by the attackers, with all Bitcoin stolen in the first three waves of attacks still untouched.In subsequent attacks, some Bitcoin has been transferred through CoinJoin mixing transactions and small splits. The statistics are based on 221 victim reports, covering losses of 790.72 BTC, with a median loss of 1.04 BTC, and more than half of the reports involve losses exceeding 1 BTC. Galaxy has shared the attackers' addresses with exchanges, compliance companies, and law enforcement agencies, hoping that funds can be frozen when they flow into centralized intermediaries.

Decred, a blockchain, stated that between August 16 and 17, its mainnet inflation vulnerability was exploited, resulting in the generation of approximately 2077.97 DCR. This vulnerability has existed in the consensus code since the mainnet launch in February 2016, stemming from improper edge case handling during the interaction between the regular transaction tree and the stake transaction tree, allowing double-spending inputs.The vulnerability was reported on August 12 through a bounty program but was exploited before a fix could be implemented. Decred has decided not to roll back to minimize the impact on users. The issuance of approximately 2000 additional DCR does not affect the hard cap of 21 million coins and is far below the historical subsidies lost due to underissuance, which exceeded 215,000 coins. Currently, the team has developed additional double-spending monitoring services and plans to improve the emergency upgrade signaling mechanism.