Cryptoccino — Thursday 13 August 2026

Bitcoin drifts to $63,500 as in-line CPI buys the Fed patience, not a pivot. July CPI came in at 3.4% as expected, giving the Fed no reason to move in September. Bitcoin briefly held $64,000 on the print then faded, with analysts noting the read neither unlocks a cut nor forces a hike, leaving macro traders in a holding pattern until the next jobs data. coindesk theblock decrypt

Solana came within one routing failure of losing finality. A misconfigured default route at a single hosting provider knocked almost 29% of staked SOL offline, against a 33% liveness threshold. Marinade Finance described this as a near-freeze; the Solana Foundation maintained the network held, but the episode exposes infrastructure concentration risk at a level validators should be stress-testing for. coindesk decrypt

Securitize drops 20% after tokenisation revenue misses earnings targets. The tokenised-asset platform reported earnings that fell short of projections, sending shares down sharply and raising questions about how quickly institutional RWA pipelines actually convert to recurring revenue. The miss arrives at an awkward moment for the broader tokenisation narrative. coindesk

Bitwise cuts 14% of headcount as the downturn reaches ETF issuers. CEO Hunter Horsley confirmed the crypto asset manager trimmed its global team to roughly 155 people. The reduction mirrors Coinbase’s May cut and follows shutdowns at BitMEX and BitMart, suggesting the thinning is sector-wide rather than firm-specific. theblock decrypt

Goldman Sachs acquires NEOS for up to $2.25 billion, inheriting a ready-built Bitcoin income ETF. The cash-and-equity deal hands Goldman immediate scale in the options-income ETF niche, folding in NEOS’s roughly $1 billion Bitcoin covered-call fund alongside Ethereum and boosted Bitcoin variants. This is less a bet on crypto and more Goldman acquiring a distribution machine for yield-hungry retail allocators who already decided they want BTC exposure. coindesk theblock decrypt

Fidelity files to add staking and quarterly cash payouts to its $900 million Ethereum ETF. The amended S-1 would allow FETH to stake up to 100% of its ETH holdings and distribute rewards to shareholders each quarter, pending SEC sign-off. If approved, it sets a clear template for yield-bearing spot ETH wrappers and puts pressure on rivals to follow. coindesk decrypt

Franklin Templeton gets SEC no-action clearance to route traditional fund cash through its onchain BENJI system. The letter lets Franklin’s conventionally registered funds invest in the BENJI/FOBXX tokenised money-market fund, effectively bringing onchain settlement into mainstream fund operations without requiring a regulatory overhaul. It is the most concrete signal yet that the SEC is comfortable with tokenised cash rails inside regulated fund structures. theblock

Wintermute plans a $1 billion expansion into AI, moving well beyond its crypto market-making roots. According to Bloomberg, the firm intends to deploy capital into AI infrastructure and strategy over the coming years, a significant pivot for a business built on digital-asset liquidity. Whether this is genuine conviction or opportunistic diversification away from a compressed crypto market will become clear in how they structure the deployment. coindesk

Harmony exploit covered in the lead. See the lead item above for the full breakdown on the 4 billion ONE unauthorised mint and the rollback debate. theblock

XRP bridge drained after software accepted fabricated deposits as legitimate. An auditing flaw allowed an attacker to create unbacked balances and withdraw real XRP from the bridge’s reserves. The vulnerability survived multiple prior audits, underlining that deposit-validation logic in bridge contracts remains a persistent weak point. decrypt

Post-Coldcard migration: $15 billion in Bitcoin moved to alternative custody after the $130 million hardware wallet exploit. Casa’s CEO characterised the mass migration as evidence that distributed self-custody is working as designed, with holders dispersing keys rather than freezing. The speed and scale of the move does suggest the ecosystem’s incident-response muscle is stronger than it was in prior cycles. decrypt

Australian regulator ASIC takes down Yepbit as investors report blocked withdrawals. ASIC removed Yepbit’s websites and publicly denied the platform’s claim that the regulator itself had frozen customer funds, a tactic commonly used to stall withdrawal demands. Affected investors should file with ASIC directly. theblock

CFTC invokes emergency powers to keep Kalshi operating as New York attempts to shut it down statewide. New York’s lawsuit argues federally regulated event contracts constitute illegal gambling under state law. The CFTC’s emergency order directly escalates the jurisdictional clash, positioning the agency as Kalshi’s de facto protector and setting up a federal-vs-state confrontation that will shape the entire prediction market sector. cointelegraph_regulation decrypt

NYC Council opens its own probe into prediction market platforms for alleged deceptive marketing. Council Speaker Julie Menin sent letters to four operators serving New York residents, framing the inquiry around predatory practices rather than legality. Running parallel to the state’s lawsuit, the council probe adds a consumer-protection vector that could survive even if the gambling argument fails in court. theblock cointelegraph_regulation

Russia narrows retail crypto trading to Bitcoin, Ether, and USDT only. The proposed restriction would eliminate access to the long tail of altcoins for ordinary Russian retail traders while preserving the three assets most commonly used for cross-border settlement. The move is as much capital-flow management as investor protection. coindesk

Hawaii sets an October 1 enforcement date for its full crypto ATM ban. Hawaii becomes the fourth US state to prohibit cryptocurrency ATMs entirely, following Minnesota, Tennessee, and Indiana. Arizona, by contrast, is running a reimbursement scheme that has already returned $171,000 to 35 scam victims, illustrating the two regulatory approaches the country is splitting between. cointelegraph_regulation cointelegraph_regulation

What else is grinding?

• Standard Chartered-backed Anchorpoint has begun an institutional rollout of HKDAP, its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin, following regulatory approval. theblock coindesk
• EIP-8361 proposes a tapered issuance burn that would destroy a rising share of validator rewards as Ethereum’s staking ratio, now at 34%, continues to climb. theblock
• Polymarket hired ex-Bird and Uber executive Travis VanderZanden as chief growth officer as the platform looks to push well beyond its current user base. theblock
• BitGo posted Q2 revenue of $4.3 billion, up 80% year-on-year, but recorded a net loss of $19 million, reversing a $38.3 million profit from the same quarter last year. theblock
• Zerohash, the infrastructure partner behind Morgan Stanley’s crypto offering, was rejected in its application to become a US trust bank. coindesk
• A French couple who bought a former crypto millionaire’s rural home have now been targeted in three separate home invasions by attackers who apparently didn’t check the ownership records. theblock

Last sip. Harmony’s team hasn’t said when, or whether, they will roll back the chain, and every block produced since the exploit is one more transaction someone stands to lose.