Cryptoccino — Monday 24 August 2026

XRP logs its biggest weekly gain in 21 months XRP is on course for its strongest weekly performance since late 2024, with traders citing Treasury buyback activity and renewed speculation about yield-curve control as catalysts. The asset has attracted positioning from macro funds treating it as a proxy for a potential US rate-suppression regime. Gains have outpaced BTC on a weekly basis, which is drawing scrutiny given the specificity of that thesis. coindesk

Abraxas Capital runs a $783M Hyperliquid short hedge The fund has built substantial short positions on Hyperliquid while simultaneously withdrawing $173M in ETH, a structure that reads as a large-scale delta-neutral or basis trade rather than a directional bear bet. The positioning is notable for its scale given Hyperliquid’s still-maturing liquidity profile. Market watchers are monitoring whether this unwinds cleanly or creates a crowded-exit event. cryptobriefing

Hyperliquid clears $6M in daily fees, beating major L1s The protocol generated more daily fee revenue than five of the top blockchains combined, driven by heightened perp trading volume. That figure lands on the same day a large institutional player is running a nine-figure short against it, which is either healthy price discovery or a stress test depending on how the next few sessions play out. cryptobriefing

Crypto card spending crosses $1 billion as stablecoin use broadens Aggregate spending via crypto-linked payment cards has passed the $1 billion mark, with stablecoins accounting for a growing share of everyday transactions rather than just exchange settlements. The data point supports the AI-agent payment thesis separately reported this cycle: stablecoins are moving toward programmable, real-world rails. Merchant acceptance, not consumer willingness, remains the main constraint. coindesk

Pendle’s Morpho USDC vault pulls $50M in under two weeks Pendle’s yield-tokenisation vault on Morpho has accumulated $50M in deposits since launch, a rate that signals genuine institutional appetite for structured yield products inside modular lending infrastructure. The speed of inflows tests whether Morpho’s risk framework scales as single-asset concentration grows. This is the kind of TVL build that moves from interesting to systemic risk territory quickly. cryptobriefing

Phantom cuts Sui support with a 24 September user deadline Phantom is sunsetting its Sui wallet integration, giving users until 24 September to migrate assets before support is dropped entirely. The decision reflects the commercial calculus that multi-chain maintenance costs are not justified by Sui’s user contribution to Phantom’s base. Sui users will need to move to a native wallet; assets will not be at risk but the migration window is tight. cryptobriefing

Tether’s $120M Uruguay mining project collapsed over a power contract dispute State utility UTE cut power to Tether’s Uruguayan mining sites in July 2025 after Tether representatives failed to attend the signing of a revised supply contract, according to a Reuters report. The project, which had been billed as a major sovereign-adjacent mining play, is now effectively defunct. It is a notable operational stumble for a company with Tether’s treasury resources. theblock

Term Finance drained of ~$8.5M via governance exploit An attacker exploited Term Finance’s Meta Vault governance mechanism, removing nearly all deposited ETH before the protocol’s seven-day delay and LP veto controls could intervene. Term has permanently shut down the affected vaults. The incident is a clean case study in governance controls failing under adversarial conditions even when the safeguards looked adequate on paper. cointelegraph_defi theblock

Ledger patches a signing-flow vulnerability in its Ethereum app Ledger has shipped a fix for a vulnerability affecting how the Ethereum app handled signing flows, a category of flaw that can enable transaction manipulation without obvious user-facing signals. No confirmed exploits have been reported. Hardware wallet users should verify their Ledger Ethereum app is on the latest version. cryptobriefing

World Liberty Financial gets a preliminary national bank trust charter The Trump-affiliated DeFi project has received preliminary approval from banking regulators for a national bank trust charter, a significant structural elevation that would give it formal banking standing. Analysts note this could complicate Senate work on the Clarity Act, as legislators will need to reckon with a Trump-connected entity already inside the regulated perimeter. The approval is preliminary, not final, and the political optics are already drawing attention. cryptobriefing cryptobriefing

Trump says CFTC is exploring a regulatory path for Hyperliquid in the US The president indicated the CFTC is working on a framework that would allow Hyperliquid to operate domestically, and HYPE moved 41% on the news. If accurate, it would represent one of the first instances of a major perp DEX receiving explicit executive-branch support for a US regulatory on-ramp. CFTC has not independently confirmed the scope or timeline. cryptobriefing

Coindesk: crypto regulation has arrived as a governing reality A State of Crypto overview from CoinDesk frames the current moment as a turning point where regulatory frameworks are no longer pending but operational, affecting product decisions, fundraising, and hiring across the sector. The piece does not break specific legislative news but serves as a useful orientation for operators mapping their compliance posture to the current landscape. coindesk

What else is grinding?

• AI agents as crypto’s next major user cohort is getting more serious treatment, with stablecoin payment rails cited as the most viable path to agent-native commerce. coindesk
• SoftBank is planning a record ¥1 trillion bond sale to fund its OpenAI position, a leverage structure that puts even more systemic weight on OpenAI’s valuation trajectory. cryptobriefing
• UK fintech investment has fallen to its lowest level since 2016, with capital rotating toward AI-native startups rather than payments and lending infrastructure. cryptobriefing
• Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan has been sentenced to life in prison, deepening China’s property sector crisis and further denting offshore investor confidence in Chinese real assets. cryptobriefing
• Nvidia is reportedly in funding discussions with Perplexity AI at a $30 billion valuation, a deal that would deepen the chipmaker’s direct stakes in the inference layer. cryptobriefing

Last sip. The Treasury buyback that everyone is trading against has no confirmed end date, and nobody quite agrees on what happens to the fiscal-hedge thesis when it stops.