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The Nasdaq’s intraday gain on U.S. markets widened to 2.73%. The S&P 500 was up 1.92%, while the Dow Jones was higher by 1.87%.

Coinbase, Visa, Mastercard and other major investors in OpenStandard said OpenUSD is designed to complement, not replace, USDC, and they plan to support multiple stablecoins rather than back a single token, according to CoinDesk. The remarks came after Circle’s market capitalization fell by billions of dollars following the launch of OpenUSD, or OUSD, by OpenStandard, a group involving more than 140 payments and crypto companies including Visa and BlackRock. During last week’s second-quarter earnings call, Coinbase highlighted its close relationship with Circle. Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas said the company had already met the terms required to renew its business agreement with Circle and would continue expanding the USDC ecosystem. Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said the company’s role is not to pick winners. Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach said Mastercard already supports USDC and USDG, and described OpenUSD as another coin the company plans to support for use across its network.

Robinhood weathered the crypto market slowdown by successfully diversifying into prediction markets, while Coinbase posted weaker second-quarter results, The Block reported. Robinhood’s cryptocurrency trading revenue fell 37.5% from a year earlier to $100 million in the second quarter, but growth in options, equities and prediction markets helped keep total transaction-based revenue at a record-high $776 million. Its prediction-markets business in particular generated $156 million in revenue on the back of 13.6 billion contracts traded, surpassing its crypto segment for the first time. By contrast, Coinbase’s total second-quarter revenue came to $1.22 billion, its lowest since the third quarter of 2024. Total trading volume fell 24% from the previous quarter to its lowest level since the third quarter of 2023, with institutional and retail volumes both declining by the same rate. The divergence was seen as reflecting Robinhood’s success in reducing its reliance on crypto and broadening revenue sources through products tied to sports and political events.

Telegram was temporarily removed from Apple’s App Store after a user distributed illegal pornographic material in a public group chat, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said on his personal channel. Durov said Apple temporarily took Telegram off the App Store after what he described as an organized reporting attack. He said the attacker edited existing posts to secretly insert AI-altered illegal pornographic material into a public group, then reported it directly to Apple. He added that the tactic was a typical extortion scheme in which operators of public groups are asked for money and, if they refuse, illegal content is planted and then reported to platform operators.

A proposal in the Ethereum community to cap staking rewards at 0% if half of ETH’s total supply is staked could backfire on the ecosystem, Aave founder Stani Kulechov said. He said the proposal could end up hurting the Ethereum ecosystem rather than delivering its intended effect. Under the proposal, staking rewards would be capped at 0% if more than 50% of the total ETH supply is staked. Kulechov said that would make staking yields harder to predict, which could push institutional investors that value stable cash flow toward other blockchain networks instead of ETH. He added the DeFi ecosystem would also face significant effects, as most strategies using ETH as loan collateral would lose profitability if staking rewards fall to 0%, while ETH-based lending and interest income models would also shrink sharply. In his view, the proposal could reduce Ethereum’s appeal as an investment and limit its growth potential.

A U.S. federal appeals court in New York upheld the fraud and conspiracy conviction of Sam Bankman-Fried, tied to the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX he ran. Bankman-Fried was previously sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2024 in the same case.

U.S. SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce expressed optimism that the Clarity Act will pass, while saying the SEC will do its best regardless of the outcome and still has plenty it can do even if the bill does not pass. Peirce added that the agency will continue pushing for cryptocurrency regulatory reform and said clearer rules for crypto are needed, with a well-defined market structure helping the U.S. remain competitive in the sector and reduce long-term uncertainty for the industry.

On-chain investor demand for tokenized U.S. Treasuries is rising სწრაფly, pushing the market capitalization of on-chain U.S. Treasury funds to a record $16.2 billion, up 77% from the start of the year, The Kobeissi Letter said. A key driver of the growth was an increase in investors seeking to generate on-chain yield by using short-term U.S. Treasury bills as collateral. Investors are actively depositing tokenized U.S. Treasuries, borrowing stablecoins against them, and deploying those funds into DeFi protocols.

Questions have emerged over whether Coinkite co-founder and CTO Peter Gray wrote the LibNgU code blamed for a Coldcard hardware wallet vulnerability tied to losses estimated at more than 1,800 BTC, Bitcoin News reported. LibNgU was known to have been written by an anonymous developer using the handle "switck," according to the report. However, Gray’s GPG key was found to have signed dozens of code commits under the switck account, raising the possibility that the two are the same person. Bitcoin developer James O’Beirne claimed he urged Coinkite in May last year to remove the LibNgU code, saying its random number generator implementation looked questionable. The company was said to have replied at the time that any issue would likely already have been discovered if one existed. If accurate, the account suggests the author of code linked to the theft of more than 1,800 BTC had received a direct warning more than a year before the vulnerability was disclosed that the random number generation method could be flawed, but did not act on it.

The S&P 500 index rose above 7,700 for the first time on record.

Bitcoin’s low volatility is not a bearish signal but part of a setup for the next major trend, on-chain analyst Sykodelic said. Sykodelic said the market is currently building a base and that low volatility should not be mistaken for a sign that Bitcoin has lost momentum. Instead, Sykodelic said strength has been building over the past 60 days for the next major move. Whether an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern is completed or BTC sees a pullback to the $60,500 support level, Sykodelic said it would not materially affect the longer-term trend. Sykodelic added the next major trend is likely to be upward and may begin this month.

Coldcard users are moving Bitcoin at a pace close to the level seen during the FTX collapse, according to CryptoQuant. CryptoQuant said transfers of under 1 BTC by users of the Coldcard crypto hardware wallet reached 39,600 BTC on July 31, days after the hack was disclosed, citing local time. That was close to the 39,900 BTC moved during the FTX collapse in November 2022. CryptoQuant added that small holders had not moved funds on this scale in nearly four years. Coldcard has so far reported hack-related losses of about 1,816 BTC, worth $114 million, due to a code flaw.

Average daily trading volume on decentralized perpetual futures exchanges fell 34% over the past six months, while open interest declined 10%, according to Unfolded. Data cited by Unfolded showed average daily volume on perp DEXs dropped to $21.4 billion from $32.4 billion, even as open interest edged down to $14.8 billion from $16.4 billion. Over the past year, volume on decentralized perpetual futures exchanges fell sharply while open interest saw little change.

Dinari, a securities token platform, is partnering with Circle (CRCL), the issuer of the USDC stablecoin, to support blockchain-based stock token trading for U.S. investors, Fortune reported. The offering will initially support 724 stock tokens, including all S&P 500 constituents.

Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining rig maker Canaan said on Aug. 4 it plans to sell part of its cryptocurrency holdings to fund share buybacks. Canaan said the proceeds will be used for an American depositary share, or ADS, repurchase program approved by its board in December 2025. The company added it may sell additional cryptocurrency later depending on its share price, market conditions and operating cash needs. Based on Aug. 3 market prices, Canaan’s cryptocurrency holdings were valued at about $130 million. The company said its current market capitalization is below the combined value of its cryptocurrency holdings and cash-equivalent assets.

The three major U.S. stock indices opened higher today. - S&P 500: +0.53% - Nasdaq: +0.9% - Dow Jones: +1.49%

Detailed plans for a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz are expected to be announced within hours or on Aug. 5, according to Al Arabiya TV.

Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the recent hack of the Coldcard hardware wallet could make spot Bitcoin ETFs look like a better option for some investors, including long-term BTC holders. In a post on X, Balchunas said ETF issuers and custodians could be seen as having an advantage over small firms like Coldcard, which has five employees, because they are large financial institutions that have managed client assets for decades. He added there is no guarantee investors would avoid losses if an ETF custodian were hacked, but such an incident would at least be likely to trigger an immediate regulatory probe and investigation. Earlier, about 1,816 BTC in losses was reported due to a code flaw at Coldcard, and the company urged users to install a security update, generate a new seed, and move their funds, saying the security threat remains in place.

Yellow Card said it has raised $40 million in new investment, according to an announcement on its official blog. Participants included SC Ventures, a unit of Standard Chartered, Sony Innovation Fund, Polychain Capital and Blockchain Capital. The latest round brings Yellow Card’s total funding to over $120 million. Yellow Card plans to use the proceeds to expand its "Global USD Accounts" service for businesses and strengthen its connectivity with markets worldwide.

BitGo will replace LayerZero with Chainlink’s CCIP as the exclusive cross-chain infrastructure provider for Wrapped Bitcoin, moving about $15 billion worth of WBTC from LayerZero to Chainlink, CoinDesk reported. The switch is part of a security-focused move taken after a $292 million hack involving KelpDAO’s LayerZero-based bridge earlier this year.

Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission plans to apply the Travel Rule from October to cryptocurrency transfers between local virtual asset service providers, BlockTempo reported. For single transfers over NT$30,000 ($1,320), individuals will be required to submit their date of birth and address, while corporations must provide an official identification number and registered address. Receiving providers will also have to verify whether the transmitted information matches existing customer records. For transactions of NT$30,000 or less, basic information including the sender’s and recipient’s names and a wallet address or transaction identification number will still be shared. Taiwan’s authorities plan to first apply the rule to transfers between local providers and then expand it to transfers involving overseas providers by the end of 2027. The revised measure, however, must still go through a 30-day administrative notice period, so the October rollout has not yet been finalized.

BNY to add institutional staking to crypto custody platform BNY, the world’s largest custodian bank and formerly Bank of New York Mellon, is adding staking to its cryptocurrency custody platform in partnership with Galaxy Digital, CoinDesk reported. Subject to regulatory approval, institutional clients will be able to earn staking rewards on crypto held at BNY without transferring those assets to an external provider. Galaxy will provide the staking infrastructure and support BNY’s broader expansion of blockchain-based services. BNY has offered cryptocurrency custody services since 2022 and plans to introduce tokenized U.S. Treasuries on its private blockchain and conduct pilot transactions by the end of this year.

Western Union has launched a Visa card based on its own dollar-pegged stablecoin, USDPT, issued on Solana. Cardholders can make payments in USDPT at Visa merchants worldwide, while stablecoin card infrastructure provider Rain supports the mobile app, embedded wallet and card infrastructure.

Fortitude, Digital Currency Group’s ZEC mining subsidiary, has acquired a 12.5-megawatt mining facility in Prosser, Nebraska, with the company expecting the deal to lower its ZEC mining costs, The Block reported. The acquisition, which includes the land, buildings and a substation, involved about $4.7 million in actual cash outlays. Prosser is Fortitude’s third facility in Nebraska, and the company now has more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites in four states. Power costs at the Prosser site are estimated at about $0.045 per kilowatt-hour, which Fortitude said could lower its mining cost to around $40 per ZEC.

Prediction market platform Polymarket is seeking to raise $1 billion at a $20 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported. Polymarket was said to have been valued at about $15 billion in a Series E funding round held around March.