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According to Decrypt, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated the Russian shadow banking network A7 Network as a significant transnational criminal organization, listing its relevant addresses in Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network has proposed a draft rule that aims to prohibit U.S. institutions from participating in any fund transfers involving the network's "sub-agent companies," covering convertible virtual currencies and not limited to fiat currencies, which is expected to affect approximately 348,000 institutions, including several cryptocurrency exchanges.The proposal is based on six special measures granted by Section 9714 of the Countering Russian Money Laundering Act, ultimately selecting the sixth measure, which is the fund transfer ban. The fifth measure, which restricts correspondent accounts, is considered to have loopholes: research by blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs shows that A7A5 transactions completely bypass the correspondent banking system, which the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network views as a core aspect of its business model. A7A5 is a ruble-backed token issued by Old Vector, registered in Kyrgyzstan, operating on Tron and Ethereum, with reserves held at the Russian state-owned defense bank Promsvyazbank.The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network stated that between February 2025 and June 2026, over 180 entities handled at least $17.91 billion in A7A5, which historically circulated almost entirely through the sanctioned exchanges Garantex and Grinex, often used as a non-frozen bridge to convert into USDT and then into fiat currency.

The Central Bank of the Philippines has implemented partial suspension measures on DCPay Philippines, the electronic money operating entity behind Coins.ph, prohibiting it from receiving external transfers through InstaPay and PESONet. This restriction targets DCPay's peso payment and settlement operations.The cryptocurrency trading business of Coins.ph is operated by another licensed entity, Betur Inc., which has not been directly suspended, but user deposits through local banks will be affected.The regulatory directive still allows DCPay to conduct outward transfers and QRPh merchant payments. The status page of Coins.ph shows that the related deposit services are under maintenance, while withdrawals are functioning normally.

According to The Defiant, BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure company under Mastercard, announced the addition of the Stellar network as a stablecoin payment channel. This integration has officially launched in over 130 markets, and more Stellar native assets will be supported in the future.BVNK is a stablecoin infrastructure company that was acquired by Mastercard for up to $1.8 billion.

The Cardano development company Input Output Group (IOG) issued a warning on its official X account, urging users to temporarily avoid interacting with its YouTube channel. The channel began streaming a video of Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson that is suspected to have been altered by AI, discussing a cryptocurrency giveaway event, and by the time of the report, the stream had been ongoing for nearly two hours.It is reported that the live stream encourages viewers to scan a QR code and promises to "double their wealth." IOG stated in the warning, "Please avoid interacting with the IO Group YouTube channel until further notice," and advised users not to click on links in the channel, not to transfer funds, or share personal information.

The attacker of Liquid Network has returned 3,400 bitcoins after the vulnerability attack on September 6, accounting for about 85% of the transferred assets. They currently still hold 598.5 bitcoins, worth over 45 million dollars. The digital asset infrastructure company Blockstream is responsible for maintaining Liquid Network and has refused to pay a ransom for the remaining assets, demanding the return of the related bitcoins.The network shows that there are 4,234.76 L-BTC in circulation, while the reserve bitcoins are only 3,632.23. The L-BTC to bitcoin exchange function has not yet been restored, and Sideswap indicates that redemption is currently not possible. Blockstream founder Adam Back stated that L-BTC will receive a 1:1 ratio of bitcoin reserve coverage and reminded holders not to sell L-BTC at a discount in the over-the-counter market. As of now, Blockstream has not released an announcement stating that "redemption is online."The attacker's wallet continues to receive on-chain messages and has encountered address poisoning attacks and scam information, with related attacks inducing transfers by generating visually similar addresses.

Column CEO William Hockey announced on September 16 the launch of four new products, covering stablecoin interoperability, full-stack issuance, global banking, and multi-currency accounts with local payments. Among them, USDC and USDT can fully interoperate with US dollars and American and international payment rails, available 24/7 instantly; issuance supports Mastercard and Visa; global banking services can issue accounts and cards in US dollars or local currencies; multi-currency accounts support foreign currency receipts and payments with instant conversion to US dollars, connecting to systems like SEPA Instant.Hockey stated that these products are built on proprietary financial primitives and are fully composable. Users can receive USDC and convert it to US dollars, completing distribution within seconds through FedNow, SWIFT, and card channels, without needing to stitch together multiple vendors; only Column is needed to build cutting-edge financial products.

According to BBX data, yesterday and in recent days, global listed treasury companies and digital asset trading platforms disclosed the latest developments in strategic mergers and acquisitions and fiat currency clearing infrastructure. The core information is as follows:Stack BTC plans to acquire precious metals dealer Direct Bullion for up to £12 million: Stack BTC, a Bitcoin treasury company under former UK Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng, announced that it has officially signed a non-binding letter of intent to fully acquire the well-known UK precious metals dealer Direct Bullion for up to £12 million (approximately $16 million). The company clearly stated that this acquisition aims to obtain ample and stable cash flow income through the physical precious metals sales business and plans to continuously use all net cash flow generated by this business to increase its Bitcoin holdings in the secondary market.Banking Circle deepens cooperation with OSL Group, adding five major mainstream currency channels: Next-generation financial infrastructure service provider Banking Circle announced further deepened strategic cooperation with Hong Kong-listed stablecoin payment and trading platform OSL Group (00863.HK). Based on the existing euro clearing business between the two parties, Banking Circle has officially added multi-currency payment and clearing channels for five major fiat currencies: Australian Dollar (AUD), British Pound (GBP), Hong Kong Dollar (HKD), Singapore Dollar (SGD), and US Dollar (USD) for OSL, fully supporting OSL in accelerating the expansion of its B2B cross-border payment landscape for global institutional clients.

HyperDash Chief Revenue Officer Hanson Birringer stated: TradeXYZ launched its first HIP-3 contract on October 13, 2025, and within months, these markets became Hyperliquid's largest user acquisition channels. Tracking all 356,886 wallets that have traded on the xyz market (excluding two manufacturing clusters), of which 173,794 had never traded on Hyperliquid before, accounting for 48.7%, with an increasing number coming from third-party builder code applications.The two removed clusters include 7,663 bot wallets on XYZ100 and 49,727 oil farm wallets; if included, the number of new wallets would increase from 173,794 to 231,184. The open interest of xyz rose from 0.2% at launch to 25.9% on September 8, peaking at 37.2%, even as the total open interest on the exchange increased from $7.4 billion to $14.3 billion. The share of first-time Hyperliquid users rose from 22% at launch to 60% during the semiconductor and storage boom, with 104 markets currently live, and the five major catalysts now account for a quarter of the exchange's open contracts and trading volume.

Jiang Zhuoer, the founder of the Liebit Mining Pool, posted on the X platform stating that Bitcoin is still operating within an upward channel, and a pullback is inevitable.If $82,300 is the previous high before the pullback, the pullback will show a "slow and back-and-forth wide fluctuation" trend. He is more optimistic about a rise to $83,000 to $84,000 before pulling back to $72,000.

According to Caijing, regarding the investment shares of DeepSeek, some intermediaries in the market have proposed a fee structure of "18% upfront and 35% backend," meaning that investors contributing 100 million yuan must first pay an upfront fee of 18 million yuan, and after receiving returns in the future, they must also share 35%. The report states that even if investors accept the high fees, they cannot guarantee that they will ultimately receive shares.DeepSeek will conduct a thorough identity verification of the investors participating in the financing and the limited partners behind the funds. The relevant investments have a five-year lock-up period during which transfers are not allowed. Except for the National Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, most external investors do not have voting rights and do not hold board seats, sharing financial returns only according to their investment proportion.At the same time, there are false shares and intermediary chaos surrounding DeepSeek's financing in the market. Some institutions claim to hold large investment shares but ultimately did not make it onto the investment list, and some investors have paid a "meeting fee" of 5 million yuan in an attempt to contact Liang Wenfeng but were unsuccessful.

According to RootData, among 3,244 cryptocurrency projects with financing records spanning no more than four years and amounts that can be accounted for, 1,617 have a cumulative financing amount of no more than $5 million, accounting for 49.8%. The median financing for this batch of projects is $2.5 million, with about 96% recording only one round of financing.In terms of sectors, DeFi, infrastructure, and gaming projects together account for 59.2%, with small-scale financing mainly flowing to protocol development, underlying technology, and consumer applications. However, a quarter of the projects in the sample have already ceased operations, indicating that while lower regulatory thresholds can improve financing efficiency, they cannot replace product demand and sustainable operational capability.Institutional participation is also higher than the market's usual perception of "small projects": 92.9% of the sample has identifiable investor records, and 83.5% disclosed at least two investors. Among them, Animoca Brands, Shima Capital, and Big Brain Holdings participated in 84, 69, and 67 projects, respectively.It is reported that the U.S. SEC officially proposed the "Regulation Crypto Assets" on August 18. The proposal aims to set up two tiers of issuance exemptions: projects can raise no more than $5 million in a single instance within four years; projects with greater financing needs can raise up to $75 million within each 12-month period, but must submit financial statements and fulfill ongoing reporting obligations. The proposal is currently in a 60-day public comment period and has not yet officially taken effect.

According to SemiAnalysis, Anthropic's ARR from indirect channels (Bedrock, Foundry, Gemini Agent Enterprise) in Q2 2026 has exceeded 40%, with API and B2B contributing the majority of new revenue. The monetization model for indirect channels differs from direct revenue; cloud service providers typically charge IaaS fees or revenue sharing. Laboratories account for gross ARR, but related costs are reflected in sales and marketing expenses. Indirect channels require precise computational resource allocation analysis at the individual transaction level.

The decentralized AI infrastructure project DGrid AI announced today that the $DGAI token airdrop claim channel officially launched on August 17, 2026, and the claim window will remain open until August 22 at 16:00. Eligible users can check their airdrop eligibility, select a claim option, and bind their exchange accounts through the official platform. Tokens will be directly distributed to the bound accounts on the day of the TGE.According to previous news, DGrid AI has completed a $5 million seed round financing, and its Genesis plan is expected to exceed $23 million in revenue in the first half of 2026.

According to the official announcement, Gate has officially launched SOL and XRP event contracts, simultaneously opening multi-cycle rise and fall trading channels. Users can log into the Gate App or the official website and enter the event contract section in the contract area to participate.Event contracts focus on rise and fall prediction trading, requiring no complex parameters such as leverage or margin, making the operational threshold low. The product covers four types of short cycles: 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, and 4 hours, currently supporting four major cryptocurrencies: BTC, ETH, SOL, and XRP. Users only need to predict the rise and fall of the asset during the corresponding period, choose to place a bullish or bearish order, and the system will automatically settle at the end of the cycle. Positions can also be closed early for flexible profit-taking and loss-cutting.

After the overseas CEX Apps like Bybit and OKX were removed from the local Google Play in South Korea, the country is further tightening the process of transferring crypto assets to overseas platforms. According to the latest amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Specific Financial Information Act, South Korean trading platforms will need to determine whether to allow transfers based on the risk level of the overseas platforms; when transferring to certain overseas trading platforms or personal wallets, users may be required to prove that the account belongs to them and explain the purpose of the transaction and the source of funds. If the information is insufficient, the transfer may be delayed or refused.Transactions reaching 10 million Korean won or more will also be included in the suspicious transaction monitoring system established by the exchanges, and the relevant regulations will be implemented six months after their announcement.

In response to rumors on social media about "Doubao recommending hotels for a fee," Liu Xing, the head of public affairs for Doubao at ByteDance, stated on the evening of August 10 that the related statements are inaccurate. He indicated that Doubao's life service business currently does not have paid promotions, and Doubao does not charge advertising fees for hotel recommendations; merchants cannot influence recommendations or rankings through payment, and only pay channel service fees after an order is completed.Liu Xing pointed out that some platforms adopt a "commission + advertising" charging model, while Doubao primarily charges based on completed transactions at this stage, making direct comparisons inappropriate. For merchants, the actual channel costs and the effects of new orders are more meaningful references. He also mentioned that Doubao's life service business is still in a very early exploratory stage.

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently issued an internal letter that explicitly exempts asset-backed securities (ABS) related to AI data centers from the core investor protection regulations established after the 2008 financial crisis, including the "risk retention" requirement that issuers retain a portion of the debt. The SEC determined that data centers are not financial assets that are liquidated over time, and therefore the securities linked to them should not be subject to the same regulatory constraints as ABS related to auto loans or mortgage loans.Although this move is not an official amendment to the law, the substantial impact should not be underestimated, as companies have previously adhered to relevant regulations out of compliance prudence. In terms of market size, the annual issuance of data center ABS has surged from $2.4 billion in 2020 to $15.5 billion in 2025, growing more than sixfold over five years, with the potential to set a new historical high in 2026.