Crypto projects are spending hundreds of millions buying their own tokens. But are buybacks creating lasting value — or just making tokens look more valuable than they really are? As the industry matures and borrows more pages out of TradiFi’s playbook, crypto projects are starting to adopt some of the behaviors of public companies. The latest craze rocking cryptoville is token buybacks: using revenue to buy back your own token. So far in 2026, crypto projects have spent about $640 million on the practice, up around 17% from the same period the year prior, and an order of magnitude more than the $366,000 spent in 2024. Hyperliquid and Pump.fun accounting for almost 90% of the current spend.
Kalshi’s US web traffic climbed more than 1,500% in less than a year, while trading volume grew even faster and legal scrutiny of its sports contracts intensified. Major prediction market platform Kalshi has seen its US web traffic explode over the past year, underscoring the platform’s rapid growth while regulators and courts scrutinize its expanding event-contract business. Kalshi recorded 15.4 million visits from the United States in July, up about 1,520% from just under 1 million in August 2025, according to Similarweb traffic estimates reviewed by Cointelegraph on Friday. US traffic accounted for nearly 80% of Kalshi’s traffic in July, up from 72.8% in August 2025, showing that its growth has remained heavily concentrated in the country.
Trezor said an additional 67,000 US users were affected by its shipping provider’s data breach, opening the path to potential phishing attacks and social engineering scams. The impact of hardware wallet provider Trezor’s data breach was larger than initially estimated, expanding to an additional 67,000 US customers. The breach may endanger more US users who ordered between November 2019 and August 2021, Trezor said in a Friday X post, citing the latest update from its shipping provider, ShipMonk. These customers had their full details exposed, including name, email, number, shipping address and order specifics. Trezor blamed the shipping provider for not deleting the data from these orders, despite saying it had received written assurances from ShipMonk.
South Korea’s financial regulator introduced a three-phase roadmap for the issuance of tokenized assets, as the country prepares to adopt its first tokenized securities framework in February 2027. South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (SFC) introduced a three-phase roadmap to develop infrastructure for tokenized securities issuance, for assets including stocks, bonds and funds. Starting Feb. 4, 2027, tokenized securities will be legally recognized as digitized forms of securities after an update to the Act on Electronic Registration of Stocks and Bonds is scheduled to take effect, the FSC revealed in a Friday press release. The first phase will offer tokenized securities legal recognition, including for institutional money market funds, bonds, unlisted stocks and fractional investmen…
AMC’s CEO criticized Robinhood’s tokenized stock offerings for being unregulated in the US and said he will request an investigation from an external securities counsel. Adam Aron, the CEO of AMC Entertainment Holdings, criticized Robinhood’s tokenized stock offerings that provide economic exposure to AMC shares, stating the company has no affiliation and that it will have a securities counsel investigate the matter. Robinhood’s stock tokens are not registered under US securities laws and are an “outrageous” offering with no affiliation to AMC, Aron wrote in a Friday X post, adding that the company will request an investigation from its outside securities counsel. Aron added that these stocks may not be offered to US investors and that they are subject to restrictions in several other juri…
US Bitcoin ETFs drew $730.9 million on Thursday as Bitcoin reclaimed $80,000, though CryptoQuant flagged weak fresh demand and a key $83,000 test. US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) notched their biggest inflows in nearly eight months as BTC reclaimed $80,000. Bitcoin ETFs recorded $730.9 million in net inflows on Thursday, the largest daily haul since Jan. 14, when the funds attracted $843.6 million, according to SoSoValue data. The surge followed $101.2 million inflows on Wednesday and came as Bitcoin reclaimed the $80,000 level after trading in a range between roughly $76,000 and $81,000 this week, according to CoinGecko.
The IMF attributed Bitcoin added since June 2025 to private donations, addressing questions raised after El Salvador reported a $100 million acquisition. El Salvador used no public resources to accumulate Bitcoin after the first review of its International Monetary Fund (IMF) financing program in June 2025, according to the lender. In a Thursday statement, the IMF said documents supplied by Salvadoran authorities verified that the accumulation came from private donations. According to the lender, the increase in El Salvador’s holdings therefore did not reflect additional Bitcoin purchases financed with government resources. The IMF also said majority ownership and operational control of the Chivo wallet had been transferred to a private operator, while the government retained a minority…
The agreement includes parallel investigations and information sharing, with US and UK authorities planning a private-sector disruption operation in London in October. The United States and United Kingdom have formed a joint law enforcement alliance targeting scam centers involved in crypto and cyber-enabled investment fraud. On Thursday, the US Department of Justice announced that the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, the Crown Prosecution Service of England and Wales and the UK National Crime Agency had signed a memorandum of understanding. The DOJ described it as the “first-of-its-kind” international cooperation agreement aimed at disabling such scam centers. Under the agreement, the agencies will conduct parallel investigations into common targets, share information o…
Thai businessmen sue Tether over $42M frozen USDT tied to pig butchering scam, Aussie crypto firms face big fines unless they meet licensing deadline. THAILAND Two Thai businessmen have sued stablecoin issuer Tether in a New York district court, claiming it illegally froze $42.4 million in Tether USDt (USDT) in October, as part of a broader case tied to a pig butchering scheme. The plaintiffs claimed that Tether illegally froze the $42 million without a warrant in October 2025, following an informal request from US Homeland Security Investigations.
The CFTC’s lawyers called the lawsuit “much ado about nothing,“ claiming that the CME Group lacked standing to file and argued against its claims over crypto perpetual futures. The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a motion to dismiss a civil suit filed by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) Group, which claimed that the regulator’s treatment of cryptocurrency “futures” as “swaps” went against Congress. In a Wednesday filing in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, lawyers representing CFTC Chair Michael Selig and the commission requested a hearing to address the motion to dismiss the CME lawsuit, claiming the group lacked standing. CME filed suit against the CFTC in June after the commission approved perpetual futures contracts tied to the spot pric…
Mantle has added Paxos-issued USDG as a natively minted stablecoin while joining the network’s reward-sharing structure. Paxos-issued stablecoin USDG has launched natively on Mantle, with the Ethereum layer-2 network joining the Global Dollar Network as a partner, according to a Thursday announcement. The integration makes USDG one of the first stablecoins to be natively minted on Mantle and brings the network into USDG’s reward-sharing structure. As a partner, Mantle can receive a share of the rewards generated by USDG activity, joining a network of more than 150 partners, including Kraken and Robinhood. USDG has a market capitalization of about $3.18 billion, making it the seventh-largest stablecoin tracked by DefiLlama. The stablecoin is issued by Paxos and operates under regulatory fra…
Kalshi previously said it had been placed in an “impossible position” after federal authorities directed the company to ignore a Michigan restraining order issued in June. Update (Sept. 3, 9:20 pm UTC): This article has been updated to include a statement from Kalshi. Michigan’s attorney general announced that a state court had ordered a preliminary injunction against Kalshi, blocking the prediction markets platform for residents amid what officials called “sports betting … masquerading as an investment opportunity.” In a Wednesday notice, Attorney General Dana Nessel said that the Circuit Court for the 30th Judicial Circuit in Ingham County approved an order blocking Kalshi from offering event contracts to state residents. The company could be fined up to $500,000 per day for violations.
Bitcoin rallied 5% to reclaim $80,000 as the US dollar weakened amid a suspected Bank of Japan currency intervention, though analysts remain split on the impact. Bitcoin (BTC) rallied 5% during US trading hours, reaching $81,000. Key points: At the time of writing, BTC stands at $81,000, near the highs seen during last month’s surprise upside.
The integration lets Bybit users spend digital assets directly from their exchange balances across Mesh-powered platforms. Bybit Pay, the payments arm of crypto exchange Bybit, has integrated with crypto payments infrastructure provider Mesh, allowing users to make payments and fund accounts on supported platforms directly from their Bybit balances. The integration lets Bybit users select Bybit Pay at checkout or when funding an account without first withdrawing or transferring assets to another platform. For businesses already integrated with Mesh, Bybit Pay can be added as a payment option through their existing integration, giving them access to Bybit’s claimed 80 million users. Bybit said the integration also supports programmable settlement options, allowing businesses to control how…
The UK political party and its leader, Nigel Farage, have accepted contributions from figures tied to the crypto industry, raising questions about potential influence on policies. Records from the UK’s Electoral Commission showed that BitMEX co-founder Ben Delo’s contributions to the country’s Reform party made up about three-quarters of the $7.3 million it received in the second quarter of 2026. As of Thursday, the Electoral Commission showed that Delo had made two separate contributions to Reform UK of 1 million and 3 million pounds — about $1.3 million and $4 million, respectively — in April. While the political party also received significant contributions from entities and individuals between April and June 2026, Delo’s donation amounted to 74% of all funds reported in the second quar…
The deal will bring SoFiUSD to Kraken, connect Payward to SoFi’s 24/7 dollar settlement network and give SoFi access to digital asset liquidity through Kraken Prime. Kraken parent Payward has partnered with SoFi in a deal that will bring SoFiUSD to Kraken and connect the crypto platform to SoFi’s 24/7 dollar settlement network. Under the partnership, SoFi will use Kraken Prime as an additional source of digital asset liquidity, while Payward will join the SoFi Exchange Network (SEN) and gain access to SoFi’s business banking services. The companies said qualified custody services could be added as the partnership expands, while Kraken’s institutional and business clients will gain access to SEN for round-the-clock US dollar settlement.
Crypto recovery specialists reveal how lost wallets, passwords and seed phrases can sometimes be recovered — but that’s of no help if the money was never there in the first place. When a client named Rusty contacted crypto recovery specialist Chris Brooks in 2021, he said he and two others had won 5,000 Bitcoin in a court case, worth around $53 million at the time. They immediately set up a Zoom call to discuss the case. “There were three guys on the call, and one of them holds up a phone. It has like $53 million in a Bitcoin address,” says Brooks, founder and chief executive of CryptoAssetRecovery.com.
VARA and Securitize signed an MoU to foster more tokenization innovation in Dubai and explore how tokenized financial innovation should be regulated in the region. Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) and BlackRock-backed tokenization platform Securitize signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to advance tokenization and digital asset infrastructure across the United Arab Emirates and Dubai. The MoU will establish a collaborative framework to support regulated tokenization initiatives, foster institutional participation and strengthen Dubai’s digital asset ecosystem, the companies said in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph. VARA and Securitize seek to support tokenization initiatives in Dubai, including projects initiated by VARA, to attract more talent and…
Nvidia agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, gaining a platform used by more than 18 million developers to share and deploy AI models. Update (Sept. 3, 1:30 PM UTC): This article was updated to clarify details of the acquisition. Nvidia has agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, extending its reach into the software and tools developers use to build artificial intelligence. The chipmaker agreed to acquire Hugging Face, which serves more than 18 million developers and hosts over 3 million models, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a Thursday announcement.
Pencil Finance said that its first-of-a-kind loan offered financing to 6,600 students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders. Student loan real-world asset (RWA) protocol Pencil Finance completed a $1 million onchain student loan cycle, offering financing to thousands of students in Southeast Asia who were underserved by traditional lenders. Pencil said it completed its first fully onchain student loan cycle on the blockchain, where the platform deployed $1 million in capital as a lender that was repaid by borrowers to the bundle’s funders with yield, the company revealed in a Thursday announcement shared with Cointelegraph. The bundle was funded in July 2025 by Animoca Brands, Open Campus and New Campus, structured as a senior tranche with fixed returns and a junior…
