Cointelegraph.com
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Cointelegraph.com - 07:38 Aug 06, 2025
China’s security agency warned that biometric data collection by crypto firms, including iris scans, may endanger personal privacy and be exploited for espionage. China warned of the increasing use of biometric data by crypto-linked projects, cautioning that iris-scanning programs operating under the guise of digital asset distribution may threaten personal privacy and even national security. In a public security bulletin published Wednesday, China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) outlined several emerging risks associated with biometric recognition technologies, including facial, fingerprint and iris data collection. The MSS cited an unidentified overseas company that, “under the guise of issuing cryptocurrency tokens, scanned and collected iris information from users worldwide and then transferred the data source.” Officials said this posed “a threat to personal information security and even national security.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 00:21 Aug 06, 2025
Base blamed a 33-minute outage on Aug. 5 on an unprepared sequencer and said it has fixed the issue to ensure any chosen sequencer will be ready to process transactions. Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 blockchain Base stopped producing blocks for 33 minutes on Tuesday after switching to a backup sequencer that wasn’t set up properly to process transactions. The incident began at 6:07 am UTC when the active sequencer started falling behind on block production, prompting Conductor — Base’s system for managing sequencer availability and reliability — to switch sequencers. However, it switched to an “unhealthy mainnet sequencer” that was still being set up and thus wasn’t able to produce blocks, Base Build’s X account said in a post on Tuesday. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 23:21 Aug 05, 2025
Institutions may now have a clearer footing to build products around liquid staking tokens and unlock new market segments, according to industry executives. The crypto industry is hailing the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s latest guidance on liquid staking as a rare regulatory win, with stakeholders calling it a major step forward for decentralized finance and institutional adoption of digital assets. Released Tuesday, the SEC staff issued a guidance on liquid staking, writing that under certain conditions, liquid staking activities and the receipt tokens they generate do not constitute securities offerings. “Institutions can now confidently integrate LSTs into their products which is sure to drive new revenue streams, expand customer bases, and enable the creation of secondary markets for staked assets,” Mara Schmiedt, CEO of blockchain developer company Alluvial told Cointelegraph. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:26 Aug 05, 2025
Commissioner Caroline A. Crenshaw warns that the SEC’s statement offers little clarity for liquid staking providers. US SEC Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw sharply criticized a staff statement released on Tuesday by the regulator’s Division of Corporation Finance that praised the SEC’s position on liquid staking activities, saying it created more confusion than clarity. “Some things are better left unsaid,” began Crenshaw’s rebuttal, in which she argued that the staff statement “only muddies the waters” by relying on unverified assumptions. Crenshaw said the statement creates a “wobbly wall of facts without an anchor in industry reality,” warning liquid staking entities to proceed cautiously: “Caveat liquid staker.” Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:14 Aug 05, 2025
The developer tool offers customizable wallets, USDC rewards and deeper integration with Coinbase’s Base app, aligning with recent pro-crypto legislation. Crypto exchange Coinbase is launching a developer tool aimed at simplifying wallet onboarding and boosting technical capabilities, as self-custody gains momentum in the United States following the passage of pro-crypto legislation earlier this month. Offered through the Coinbase Developer Platform (CDP), the Embedded Wallets tool gives developers access to the same infrastructure that will power Coinbase’s forthcoming decentralized exchange, the company disclosed Tuesday. The toolkit offers native rewards in USDC (USDC), the stablecoin issued by Circle. Users can earn 4.1% APY on USDC balances held within the wallets, without requiring staking. According to the Coinbase Developer Platform, this APY can either be retained by developers or passed on to users. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 22:10 Aug 05, 2025
Bitcoin has outperformed Berkshire and its top holdings in 2025, highlighting the cost of ignoring BTC as a hedge or growth asset. Key takeaways: Berkshire could have made $850M from Bitcoin with just a 5% allocation. Bitcoin has outperformed Berkshire stock and its top holdings in 2025. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:57 Aug 05, 2025
The State of Michigan Retirement System has nearly tripled its Bitcoin ETF holdings, signaling rising institutional confidence in digital assets. Michigan’s state pension fund has significantly increased its exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) via the ARK 21Shares (ARKB) exchange-traded fund, highlighting how ETFs are streamlining access to digital assets for institutional investors. By the end of the second quarter, the State of Michigan Retirement System owned 300,000 ARKB shares, worth $10.737 million, according to regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This marks a notable increase from the 110,000 shares it held in the previous year. ARKB is one of the 11 spot Bitcoin ETFs approved by the SEC in January 2024, offering direct exposure to the cryptocurrency. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 21:43 Aug 05, 2025
The move follows significant gas fee reductions after the Dencun upgrade, and comes amid intensifying competition across blockchains. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and developer Anders Elowsson have introduced EIP-7999, a proposal to streamline Ethereum's transaction fee structure. Released on Tuesday, the proposal seeks to establish a unified multidimensional fee market, allowing users to specify a single aggregate maximum fee for multiple resources. The proposal, if adopted, would eliminate the need to estimate and manage multiple fee components when submitting transactions and let users specify one all-encompassing maximum fee, making paying for transactions simpler and more predictable. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 20:07 Aug 05, 2025
If a bill to create a BTC reserves passes in Brazil's House of Representatives, it will require Senate approval before being signed into law or vetoed by the country's president. Brazil’s House of Representatives will hold a hearing on Aug. 20 to discuss a bill proposing the creation of a national Bitcoin reserve in the country. According to the House website, at least six institutions are slated to participate, including the Central Bank of Brazil, the Ministry of Finance, a crypto advocacy association and representatives from fintech companies and the banking sector. The bill, introduced in November 2024, seeks to allow up to 5% of the country's treasury funds to be used to buy Bitcoin, which translates to a potential investment of roughly $15 billion, assuming the central bank’s total reserves of about $300 billion as of February. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 19:46 Aug 05, 2025
After failing to retrieve a hard drive with 8,000 BTC, James Howells is turning the lost coins into the basis of a new DeFi project. Twelve years after accidentally throwing away a hard drive containing 8,000 Bitcoin (BTC), James Howells is abandoning his long-running effort to excavate it from a Newport landfill. Instead, he plans to launch a new token inspired by the lost coins. Howells, whose quest included legal battles, drone surveys and a 25-million British pound offer ($33.3 million) to buy the landfill outright, told Cointelegraph he’s shifting focus from physical recovery to a blockchain-backed project. Rather than trying to dig up the stash, he aims to turn the story of the lost Bitcoin into a DeFi token — symbolically “vaulting” what can no longer be accessed. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 17:33 Aug 05, 2025
In a new staff statement, the SEC clarifies that certain crypto liquid staking practices do not constitute securities offerings, marking a step toward clearer digital asset regulation. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has clarified that certain cryptocurrency liquid staking activities do not constitute securities offerings, a notable step in the agency’s ongoing effort to provide clearer guidance on digital asset regulation. “The statement clarifies the division’s view that, depending on the facts and circumstances, the liquid staking activities covered in the statement do not involve the offer and sale of securities,” the regulator said Tuesday, referring to key sections of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In its Staff Statement, the SEC defined liquid staking as the process of staking digital assets through a protocol and receiving a “liquid staking receipt token,” which serves as evidence of the staker’s ownership. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 16:26 Aug 05, 2025
Three months into its full Bitcoin mining pivot, Chinese company Cango mined 450 BTC in July. Three months after divesting its auto financing unit to focus on Bitcoin mining, Chinese conglomerate Cango (CANG) has significantly ramped up crypto production, indicating that its acquisition of Bitmain mining rigs is enhancing its capacity amid intensifying industry competition. Cango produced 650.5 Bitcoin (BTC) in July, a sharp increase from 450 BTC in June, according to data from Farside Investors. Farside also noted it has added Cango to its miner dashboard while removing Hut 8 due to a lack of monthly production disclosures. As Cointelegraph reported, Cango mined a combined 954.5 BTC in April and May — the first two months following its full transition into Bitcoin mining. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 16:14 Aug 05, 2025
Bitcoin is facing selling near $115,000, but LTC, CRO, ENA and MNT are bucking the trend and showing strength on the charts. Key points: Bitcoin is facing significant selling at $115,000, indicating that bears are trying to take charge. If Bitcoin maintains above $112,000, LTC, CRO, ENA, and MNT could resume their up move. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 15:20 Aug 05, 2025
Increased demand for downside protection reflects macro risks, not an imminent Bitcoin price collapse, which could help BTC avoid a trip down to $110,000. Key takeaways: Bitcoin futures premium stays in neutral range despite higher demand for price protection. Global economic uncertainty drives interest in hedging, not direct bets on falling BTC prices. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 15:00 Aug 05, 2025
Five years after our last global crypto policy review, America leads a pro-crypto shift while China retreats, and new “sovereign innovators” like El Salvador chart bold paths. Opinion by: Zack Kelman Five years ago, during our last Global Taxonomy of Crypto Policy, global banking insiders at the International Monetary Fund unveiled a strict new regulatory framework as the US president publicly (if skeptically) addressed crypto for the first time. Outsiders began sporadically banning Bitcoin (BTC), and exchanges relocated to offshore experimenters like Malta as crypto became irreversibly intertwined with global politics. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 14:39 Aug 05, 2025
Bitcoin lacks upward momentum as eyes fall on old all-time highs near $109,000 — can upside liquidity provide the springboard bulls need? Key points: Bitcoin bulls face multiple resistances as price stays stuck, but some see upside liquidity sparking a short squeeze. BTC price forecasts continue to see lower levels closer to $109,000 in the short term. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 14:30 Aug 05, 2025
If ETH can break above $4,200, it will “rip like 2021” says one analyst, but options data indicates a 10% drop for SOL. Trade Secrets. Welcome to Trade Secrets Bitcoin and Ether price predictions from top analysts, along with options data, sentiment analysis and prediction markets to determine what they can tell us about the months and years ahead. XRP is gearing up for a massive 160% surge by the end of 2025, predicts Shubh Varma, co-founder and CEO of Hyblock Capital. Varma tells Magazine that XRP could hit $7.50 by the end of 2025 if the momentum sustains. His forecast comes after XRP reached a year-to-date high of $3.66 on July 18 but fell short of retesting its official all-time high of $3.84 from January 2018. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 14:05 Aug 05, 2025
Switzerland’s fully open LLM merges transparency, sustainability and Web3 utility designed for research, DeFi and AI compliance. ETH Zurich and EPFL’s open-weight LLM offers a transparent alternative to black-box AI built on green compute and set for public release. Large language models (LLMs), which are neural networks that predict the next word in a sentence, are powering today’s generative AI. Most remain closed, usable by the public, yet inaccessible for inspection or improvement. This lack of transparency conflicts with Web3’s principles of openness and permissionless innovation. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 13:56 Aug 05, 2025
Paying rent in Bitcoin is easy, secure and gaining popularity among tenants. Many cities globally now have tech infrastructure to facilitate Bitcoin payments. Remote workers and digital nomads can now pay rent in Bitcoin across major cities and coastal hubs. Blockchain-powered rental platforms and smart contracts simplify lease management, reduce disputes, and enable secure, near-instant settlements. Tenants and landlords can choose direct or indirect Bitcoin payments, with stablecoins, intermediaries or escrow services helping mitigate volatility and compliance risks. Read more -
Cointelegraph.com - 13:52 Aug 05, 2025
Public markets provide new fundraising avenues for blockchain companies, enabling them to tap into capital from traditional markets. Figure Technology Solutions, a fintech company focused on transforming financial services through blockchain technology, has filed confidentially for an initial public offering (IPO) with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, joining a growing list of crypto-related companies preparing to enter traditional financial markets. Figure Technology submitted a confidential IPO filing with the SEC related to its equity securities offering expected in 2025, the company announced on Monday. The number of shares and the price range have yet to be determined, subject to market conditions and the completion of the SEC’s review process. The IPO filing was made under a new SEC clause that enables confidential filing ahead of a final public offering. Read more
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