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Upbit, a South Korean cryptocurrency exchange, announced the addition of PolySwarm (NCT) to its KRW trading pair.

The European Central Bank will launch Pontes, a tokenized finance project, in the third quarter, ECB Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said. The project centers on directly linking distributed ledger technology platforms used in financial markets with TARGET Services, the Eurosystem’s existing payment infrastructure. The plan is to enable DLT-based financial transactions to be settled in tokenized central bank money rather than commercial bank deposits or stablecoins.

Bernstein expects BTC to break above its all-time high and reach $150,000 by mid-2027, then peak at around $300,000 around 2029, The Block reported. The global investment bank attributed the outlook to the rise of the "debasement trade." Bernstein also maintained an Outperform rating on Strategy while cutting its price target to $350 from $450, citing its revised Bitcoin cycle outlook and faster stock-value dilution, according to the report. Bernstein has forecast since last year that BTC would rise to $150,000.

Long-term Bitcoin holders are moving more coins to exchanges as BTC approaches $80,000, increasing selling pressure, on-chain analyst Darkfost said. Darkfost said that for the first time this year, the amount of BTC released into the market by long-term holders has exceeded the amount newly accumulated. In early June, long-term holder balances were increasing by as much as a monthly average of 286,000 BTC, but that has now shifted to a net monthly average decline of 21,000 BTC, signaling a clear increase in selling pressure from long-term holders. Exchange deposit data showed the same trend, with inflows from long-term holders reaching their highest level this year as BTC neared $80,000. While market demand is recovering, Darkfost said selling pressure could intensify if long-term holders continue increasing sales.

About $114,000 worth of RED tokens was withdrawn from a vesting wallet, according to Onchain Radar. The wallet has previously shown a pattern of moving tokens to centralized exchanges after withdrawals and selling them, and RED fell about 5% shortly after the deposit was made.

Hyperliquid said it has launched HyperCore’s manual lending feature on its testnet. All lending functions on the mainnet remain limited to portfolio margin mode. HyperEVM smart contracts can now access HyperCore’s lending functions through CoreWriter and read-only precompile contracts.

USDC inflows to Binance topped $470 million, reaching their highest level in the past six months, according to CryptoQuant. The record came just after U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted their biggest weekly inflows in 10 months.

A filing submitted to the U.S. SEC suggests Ripple could release additional XRP from escrow if the U.S. Congress passes the CLARITY Act, potentially exceeding the company’s usual monthly XRP supply releases. Australian lawyer and XRP advocate Bill Morgan highlighted the point on X on Aug. 26 after reviewing the registration statement for the Cryptex Digital Market Cap ETF. The filing allocated about 4.88% of the portfolio to XRP. It also included language saying that if regulatory legislation such as the CLARITY Act is passed, Ripple may unlock additional XRP from escrow to support on-ledger liquidity for stablecoin and FX trading pairs. Morgan said he did not recall Ripple making such a statement and questioned the source of the information cited in the prospectus. He added that if the document is accurate, Ripple may be anticipating a surge in XRP demand after a clear regulatory framework is established.

A CoinNess analysis of CryptoSlate said the low-$70,000 range is emerging as the most vulnerable area for Bitcoin in the event of a decline in the options market. CryptoSlate said $70,000 call options for September-expiry Bitcoin contracts are the largest single concentration at 11,308 contracts. While that may appear to signal strong bullish positioning, the interpretation changes given that Bitcoin is already trading 9.8% above that level, the report said. It added those positions were likely built earlier, when Bitcoin was still hovering in the low $60,000s. The greater concern lies on the downside, according to the report. September Bitcoin options have 1.8 times more calls than puts, with bullish positions concentrated in the $78,000 to $100,000 range. By contrast, downside hedges are clustered below $60,000. That leaves relatively thin positioning between $68,000 and $75,000, and if Bitcoin falls quickly into that range, investors with current positions could face market moves they had not anticipated, CryptoSlate said.

BTC’s roughly three-month net outflow phase has ended for now as the realized cap HODL waves change indicator turned positive on Aug. 24, while Bitcoin’s 30-day SOPR has remained above one for six straight days, signaling renewed demand above new issuance, according to CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr. A CoinNess analysis found the absolute strength of those indicators still lags well behind past bull markets. The realized cap inflow rate, at +0.21%, remains near the lower end of the historical average of +3.24%, while the SOPR reading of 2.52 is also in the bottom 10% compared with the historical median of 7.65. Adler said the shift back to inflows and demand outpacing new supply are positive signals, but it is too early to conclude BTC has entered a strong new upcycle and further monitoring is needed to see whether the inflows persist.

An anonymous whale wallet starting with 0xa69 has accumulated 6,000 ETH at prices between $1,894 and $2,505 since Aug. 17, with unrealized gains now worth about $130,000, according to ai_9684xtpa. The address currently holds about $14.56 million worth of ETH.

Crypto-related stocks listed in the U.S. were broadly lower in premarket trading. Strategy (MSTR) fell 1.21%, Robinhood (HOOD) dropped 1.18%, Coinbase (COIN) declined 1.05%, Circle (CRCL) slipped 0.99%, and Bitmine (BMNR) was down 0.52%.

South Korean investors in overseas stocks sharply increased net buying of leveraged ETFs tied to Bitcoin and Ethereum as the crypto market rebounded, Maeil Business Newspaper reported, citing Korea Securities Depository data. The report said 2x leveraged ETFs backed by BTC and ETH ranked among the top net-buying picks for these investors, with key names including ETHU, BITX and BITU. Over the past week, ETHU rose 62.4%, while BITX and BITU each gained more than 47%.

Bitcoin briefly challenged the $80,000 level again but failed to hold it, with profit-taking by existing holders acting as a constraint on further upside, according to an analysis by on-chain analyst Xwin Research Japan. The analyst said inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs and falling U.S. Treasury yields were supporting buying demand, while existing holders were locking in gains and slowing additional upside. Most holders have moved back into profit based on on-chain indicators, the analyst said, adding that while broader investor profitability is improving, the volume of positions available for profit-taking has also increased. The analyst added that the SOPR ratio, which compares profit realization intensity between long-term and short-term holders, climbed to around 1.4 when Bitcoin approached $80,000. That indicated long-term holders were taking more profits than short-term holders at the time. If buying in ETFs and the spot market continues and Bitcoin decisively breaks above $80,000, the price could open the way toward the $88,000-$90,000 range, the analyst said. On the other hand, if support at $75,000-$76,000 breaks, short-term holder profitability could deteriorate quickly and deepen a price correction.

If BTC breaks above $79,938, about $798.56 million in short positions could be liquidated across major centralized exchanges, according to CoinGlass data. If BTC falls below $77,589, about $748.38 million in long positions could face liquidation.

Daily trading volume for tokenized real-world assets on Robinhood Chain, the proprietary blockchain of U.S. stock and crypto trading app Robinhood (Nasdaq: HOOD), reached a record $85.1 million on Aug. 25, Cryptopolitan reported. Stock token trading accounted for most of the total at $66 million. Cryptopolitan said the market structure of the Robinhood Chain-based RWA segment has changed significantly since the mainnet launch in late July. At that time, pair trading involving memecoins and stock tokens made up more than half of RWA volume, but in August that share fell to 12%, while regular stock token trading rose to 78%. The outlet said the rise in stand-alone stock token volume without memecoins suggests users are starting to use tokenized stocks as actual investment products rather than simple speculative instruments.

A South Korean National Assembly review found a bill that would require finfluencers to disclose their virtual asset holdings could restrict privacy and individuals’ right to control their personal information, Digital Asset reported. Kwak Hyun-jun, a senior specialist on the National Assembly’s Political Affairs Committee, made the assessment in a review report dated today on proposed amendments to the Virtual Asset User Protection Act. The bill, introduced by Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Seung-won, would create a new disclosure requirement for digital asset holdings by finfluencers. Kwak also said the scope of finfluencers subject to the disclosure requirement needs further review.

Strategy (Nasdaq: MSTR), the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin on a single-company basis, has released an investor guide outlining BTC’s characteristics, investment risks and historical returns by holding period. Based on BTC/USD prices from July 18, 2010 through Aug. 22, 2026, and returns calculated by shifting the purchase start date forward one day at a time, all 4,419 completed four-year holding periods ended above the initial purchase price, with the weakest interval still posting a total return of 32.6%. The share of holding periods that ended higher was 99.3% for three years, 84.0% for two years and 73.1% for one year, while the worst returns were -34.7%, -68.3% and -83.6%, respectively. Strategy stated that loss frequency declined as holding periods lengthened, while noting that past statistics do not guarantee future returns.

UK fintech firm Revolut has launched EURR, a euro-pegged stablecoin, Bloomberg reported. EURR will initially be offered to eligible users in Denmark, Poland and Portugal, with the service set to expand to other countries in the European Economic Area by year-end. Users will be able to trade cryptocurrencies in euros through the Revolut app. Issuance of EURR will be handled by Bridge, a stablecoin infrastructure company owned by Stripe.

The beneficial owner of Aqua 1 Foundation, a UAE investment firm that bought $100 million worth of governance tokens in Trump family crypto project World Liberty Financial (WLFI), has been identified as Zhou Guren, a China-born individual, Caixin reported. Aqua 1 became WLFI’s largest investor after surpassing Justin Sun, who invested $75 million. According to Caixin, Zhou, who is from Shanghai, is currently listed on a Chinese court’s public defaulter registry, with unpaid amounts across six related cases totaling tens of millions of yuan. A recently disclosed indictment from the UK Crown Prosecution Service showed Zhou was linked to a money laundering case in the UK. Separately, a Shanghai-based timber company for which Zhou had served as legal representative was previously involved in a smuggling case in China.

On-chain structured products infrastructure provider City Protocol announced it raised a total of $11 million in seed and pre-Series A funding. Participants in the round included Dragonfly Capital, Jump Crypto, CMT Digital, Stratified Capital, Adaverse and Mirana. City Protocol said it is developing structured products on blockchain through an integrated infrastructure that supports issuance, operations and underwriting across a tokenization layer, a vault layer, and an issuance and operations layer. It also operates its core platform, Venzo, and plans to launch thematic vaults through Venzo that will allow users to manage portfolios directly within their wallets.

Hyperliquid applied AQAv2, or Aligned Quote Asset v2, on Aug. 26, a framework that uses income generated from managing USDC reserves for HYPE buybacks and token burns, Wu Blockchain reported. About 90% of the reserve-management income is allocated to the protocol and transferred every 30 days to the Assistance Fund, which is used to buy HYPE on the market and permanently burn the tokens. Circle supports the technical implementation, while Coinbase manages the reserves. Income accrual began today, and the first HYPE buyback and burn using the proceeds is scheduled for Oct. 3.

Blockchain infrastructure firm Sign, together with BNB Chain, has unveiled a sovereign stablecoin framework for governments to issue stablecoins based on their national currencies. The framework is designed to let countries use blockchain for payments and settlement while retaining control over their currencies, financial systems and regulations. Under the model, governments and other public institutions would set issuer standards, reserve and redemption requirements, and supervisory systems, while licensed financial institutions and infrastructure providers would operate the actual system accordingly. Sign cited Kyrgyzstan’s national stablecoin KGST as a live use case. In that model, local financial institutions handle reserves and fiat-currency operations, Sign connects the related infrastructure, and BNB Chain settles transactions.

A $1.77 million liquidity hole has emerged at decentralized lending protocol Moonwell, and there appears to be no clear way to resolve it, CryptoSlate reported. Citing Moonwell’s real-time data, the outlet said utilization in the platform’s cbETH trading pair, Coinbase’s staked ETH receipt token, stood at 100.43% and liquidity had turned negative, suggesting lending liquidity providers were effectively blocked from withdrawing funds. CryptoSlate added that a recently announced reserve repayment plan by the Moonwell team did not present a way to fill the $1.77 million shortfall, leaving some liquidity providers still unable to withdraw most of their deposits.

The following are the 24-hour long/short ratios for BTC perpetual futures on the world’s three largest crypto futures exchanges by open interest: Overall: 48.26% long, 51.74% short - Binance: 48.05% long, 51.95% short - Bybit: 47.82% long, 52.18% short - OKX: 47.1% long, 52.9% short