The U.K. government announced on Aug. 18 that a London court had wound up Key Coin Assets Ltd. a week earlier. An investigation by the Insolvency Service, the U.K. government agency that investigates corporate misconduct and insolvency, found no evidence that the company carried out any of the crypto trading it advertised.
Nine people who took their complaints to Action Fraud, the U.K.’s national fraud and cybercrime reporting center, paid the company more than £300,000 between them.
Unauthorized investment schemes remain a live risk for U.K. savers, with Britain’s full crypto authorization regime still more than a year away. The company told investors it could guarantee returns ranging from 40% to 100%, while one online promotion claimed “0 Fees, 0 Risks.”
Insolvency Service Chief Investigator Mark George said:
“Key Coin Assets Ltd promised guaranteed returns but delivered nothing. Their behavior displayed all the hallmarks of a Ponzi-style scheme.”
Money from newer investors appeared to have gone toward paying off earlier ones rather than into any investment, the Insolvency Service noted.
Funds Moved Into Director’s Personal Account
Bank records examined by investigators showed customer funds were often transferred into the company director’s personal account within hours or on the same day they arrived. The money then became difficult to trace, while accounting records requested by the Insolvency Service were not provided during the investigation.
The company repeatedly changed its official address, at one point listing a flat whose occupants had never heard of the firm. Filings at Companies House claimed assets reaching £42 million, a figure investigators found far above the level suggested by the company’s actual banking activity.
Fake customer testimonials went up online without the permission of the people named in them. Moreover, investors were instructed to avoid terms such as “crypto” and “investment” in bank payment references.
Fraud against individuals and businesses cost the U.K. economy £14.4 billion in 2023-24 and ranks as the country’s largest crime type, according to the government’s 2026-2029 Fraud Strategy. The strategy commits more than £250 million between 2026 and 2029 to combating it.
FCA Had Previously Flagged the Firm
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) added Key Coin Assets to its list of unauthorized firms on Sept. 12, 2024, nearly two years before the court order. The FCA warning on Key Coin Assets states that the firm was not authorized and could be targeting U.K. consumers.
Anyone dealing with an unauthorized firm is not protected by the Financial Ombudsman Service, which handles complaints against financial firms, or the Financial Services Compensation Scheme, which can compensate customers if an authorized firm fails.
The regulator has also stepped up enforcement elsewhere in the sector, including raids on eight premises linked to suspected illegal peer-to-peer crypto trading. That April operation marked its first coordinated enforcement action of that type and resulted in cease-and-desist letters as authorities examined potential unlawful activity.
What Investors Should Check Before Paying
The Insolvency Service and the FCA urge anyone weighing a crypto investment to look up the firm on the FCA’s Firm Checker and its list of unauthorized firms. Guaranteed high returns, a request to leave normal payment references off a transfer, and pressure to recruit other investors are the warning signs both bodies name.
A common crypto scam warning sign is an unusually high return advertised alongside little or no apparent risk. Investigators found that exact combination in the material Key Coin Assets put in front of its customers.
Wider UK Crypto Rules Take Effect in 2027
Crypto firms carrying on regulated crypto asset activities in the U.K. will answer to the FCA the way banks and brokers already do, under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Cryptoassets) Regulations 2026. The regulations were finalized in February 2026, according to an HM Treasury policy note on the cryptoasset regulations.
The final framework covers businesses including exchanges, custodians, staking providers, and lenders, with an Oct. 25, 2027 effective date outlined in the U.K.’s final crypto rulebook. Firms can begin applying for authorization from Sept. 30, 2026, creating a transition period before the broader rules take effect.
Separately, U.K. lawmakers opened a July inquiry into crypto banking access, asking whether banks are cutting off legitimate crypto companies. The Crypto and Digital Assets All-Party Parliamentary Group wrote to major bank executives on Aug. 11 and is gathering evidence through Aug. 31.
The Official Receiver, a government official who handles the affairs of companies wound up by the court, has been appointed liquidator of Key Coin Assets following the High Court order.
A notable development has occurred in Bitcoin’s technical outlook. The cryptocurrency’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) rose to the 84-86 range, pushing Bitcoin into its strongest overbought zone since November 2024. This rise in the technical indicator has attracted investor attention following Bitcoin’s recent sharp gains.
Bitcoin recently broke above its trading range of $62,000 to $71,000. Following this breakout, the cryptocurrency surged by up to 12% in just one to two days, coming very close to the $80,000 level at one point. This sharp price movement also led to a significant liquidation of short positions in the market.
According to the data, over $3 billion in short positions were liquidated within 24 hours during Bitcoin’s surge. These forced position closures caused investors who had taken short positions to exit the market, and the resulting liquidations contributed to a further acceleration of the upward movement.
In the short term, the $77,000 level stands out as an important support point for Bitcoin. Analysts believe that the price remaining above this level is critical for maintaining the uptrend. Conversely, it is noted that a loss of the $77,000 support level could strengthen short-term selling pressure.
In Bitcoin, the RSI approaching its highest overbought region in two years indicates that strong momentum coexists with the risk of a potential correction.
John Oliver took a close look at what he called a “less-covered story from this week” on Sunday’sLast Week Tonight: a reality show from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy called The Great American Road Trip.
Duffy debuted a trailer for the show in May. At the time, a press release stated that the series “asks: Who are we? Following U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his family, this five-part journey encourages Americans to step away from their screens for a vital civic experience. From small towns to iconic landmarks, the series captures the unscripted moments and shared values that prove to love America, you have to see America. The series will be released for free on YouTube, allowing every American family to follow along.” The show was timed to debut during this year, the nation’s 250th anniversary.
“So the motto is to love America is to see America,” Duffy explains to President Donald Trump in the trailer. He continues in voice-over: “It’s more than a road trip. It’s a civic experience. It’s one of the most powerful ways to understand the vast, beautiful, complicated place we call home.” (Watch it below.)
Said Oliver of the trailer: “OK, lots not to like there — from the generic ‘hey ho’ folk rock to Trump giving insane grandma’s new boyfriend vibes to the very conspicuous close up of the Toyota logo to the seemingly AI-generated images of cars, which makes sense. No one’s ever thought to film a real car before.”
At the time the show was announced, Duffy’s wife, Fox News Channel host Rachel Campos Duffy, “even claimed it was a solution to what ails us as a nation,” Oliver said.
“I’m going to be really honest, we live in a Pornhub world,” Rachel said in a Fox News clip shown by Oliver. “This is really wholesome, good family stuff. This is what families need to do is just get together. That’s what our kids want from us.”
Replied Oliver: “Is it? Because I think what every kid really wants is for their mum not to say the word ‘Pornhub’ on national TV. Also, she clearly hasn’t spent a lot of time on that site, or she’d know, families getting together is very much its own category.”
However, the road-trip series drew controversy for a few reasons: the high cost of gas, the fact that Sean was out filming a reality series when he had an important government job to do, and who was paying for the show. Regarding the latter, Sean said that it wasn’t funded by taxpayer money; instead the series was funded through a nonprofit production company called Great American Road Trip Inc. However, that organization’s website lists 17 sponsors, many of which are companies that the Department of Transportation oversees and regulates.
“Yeah, that’s not great,” said Oliver. “The only worse answer to who pay for this than ‘the American taxpayer’ is ‘a bunch of companies I oversee and regulate.’ Actually, I suppose an even worse answer would be a bunch of companies I oversee and regulate, and also my close personal friend Jeffrey Epstein.”
The show was supposed to be released in June, but “all the scrutiny seemed to delay it,” Oliver noted, and all six episodes were “quietly dumped on YouTube” last week.
Oliver said that it’s no surprise that Sean, a former star of MTV’sThe Real World: Boston, wanted to return to reality TV. (He also met his wife on Road Rules: All Stars.) But Oliver pointed out some discrepancies in how Duffy recalled his time on those shows over the years. For example, in Road Trip, he visits the house that the Real World: Boston cast stayed in while filming and “tries to rewrite some history,” the Last Week Tonight host said.
During the segment, Sean reflects on the tension between him and housemate Kameelah Phillips, denying he called her a “bitch.” But Oliver showed a clip from The Real World in which Duffy says, “I walked up ahead of the group and I called her a bitch.”
“You did call her that,” Oliver said. “Call me CVS, Sean, because I will always bring the receipts.”
As for Sean’s claim that the show is “a nationwide storytelling movement that invites Americans to explore the open road, connect with their communities,” Oliver said, “That’s not really what it is at all, because it turns out it’s basically just an expensively produced test run of a Duffy family reality show with each episode featuring a bare minimum about travel or America, but a ton of manufactured reality TV drama around the Duffys doing stuff like planning a family party or over the course of several episodes watching their daughter decide which college she’ll attend.” As for that lattter point, Sean and Rachel are seen talking to their daughter about her desire to go to Harvard, which they evidently don’t support because they believe Harvard has “professionalized figuring out how they can take good young girls like you and I think corrupt their minds,” Sean tells his daughter in the show while the two are chatting in their kitchen.
Replied Oliver: “What the fuck are you talking about? First, this was supposed to be a road trip. Why are we still in your kitchen? Second, is there anything less relatable than a family whose conflict is, how do I tell my daughter she can’t go to Harvard because we did too good a job raising her?”
He continued: “And finally, please don’t be worried that Harvard’s going to corrupt your daughter’s mind. Be worried that if she goes there, like every other Harvard grad, she’s never gonna shut the fuck up about it. One of this show’s writers went to Harvard and guess how I know that? Exactly. I don’t know where any of the others went.”
Oliver then said that it’s no surprise that “hardly anyone” seems to have watched the show, based on the number of viewers available on YouTube. It also received very little promotion.
“I don’t really give a shit if Sean Duffy and his wife want to become the next Duggars or Jon and Kate [Gosselin] or Alec and Hilaria Baldwin,” Oliver said, citing other families who’ve starred in reality TV shows. “What’s concerning is them doing it on the back of the Department of Transportation because it feels ethically dubious on so many levels, which may be why at this point everyone involved in The Great American Road Trip seems like they’d rather just sweep it under the rug.”
He continued: “[H]aving watched all three hours of this god-awful show, from gender reveals to the Duffys renewing their vows for no clear reason, it feels less like the country’s been taken on a road trip by Sean Duffy and a lot more like we’ve all been taken for a fucking ride.”
The LA Phil has played with plenty of pop and rock acts before, but it may have taken Foo Fighters to really put the dude in Dudamel.
And not a moment too soon, with this being famed conductor Gustavo Dudamel‘s final weekend at the helm of Los Angeles’ primary house symphony. The Phil’s hookup with Dave Grohl and company Saturday night was the middle act in a three-night local finale for Dudamel — a delectable dip into what old-school symphony buffs would once have considered low culture. The entire weekend, though, was about asking Beethoven to roll over, as it were, for some of the maestro’s less classical loves. The Foos collab was sandwiched in between Friday and Sunday concerts where the focus was on acknowledging Dudamel’s connections to Latin American and specifically Venezuelan music.
Understandably, Grohl had to make it at least a little about himself, too, or more to the point, this being a milestone for his 32-year-old band. “ This is a first,” he told the sold-out crowd at the outset. “First of all, I don’t know if you know, but Foo Fighters has never played the Hollywood Bowl before… Usually in this part of the program I ask the audience if they love rock ‘n’ roll music… But tonight, i’m gonna ask this question for the first time: Do you love Dudamel? Me too. so let’s play some rock ‘n’ roll for Mr. Dudamel. That’s what we came here to do.”
For a while, it seemed as if this show might really mark a serious first: Grohl, who tends to pepper his stage banter with the F-word at least once in every sentence — used as an exclamation, adjective, adverb, noun, verb and preposition — seemed to be inspired by the occasion, and by the presence of dozens of the world’s finest musicians in formalwear, to be deliberately abstaining from profanity. But if that was indeed a goal, finally, toward the end, he couldn’t help himself. “Ladies and gentlemen, on an evening like tonight, I don’t really know how to say goodbye, because I wish that we could do this every fucking night for the rest of our lives with all of these amazing people.”
A quick, unscientific survey of Foo fans suggested that not one of them would have a problem with that (in, you know, the theoretical world where Grohl could outspend and out-prestige the New York Philharmonic, where Dudamel is headed next). Fans online — those who’d been at the concert and those just tracking it from afar — immediately began clamoring for a commercial release of Saturday’s show. That desire was well-justified. When some bands do symphonic hook-ups, it makes for a satisfying experiment, but not necessarily one you need to hear endlessly. The arrangements here were so well-balanced, and so in keeping with what made these tracks feel as dramatic as they did in the first place, that you could imagine recordings from the show taking the place of the originals in some fans’ streaming playlists, indefinitely if not for all time.
Some artists who do Bowl shows with the LA Phil or its sister symphony, the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, run through something close to their normal set and require whoever is assigned to do the orchestrations to follow suit. Fortunately, Grohl took a broader view of what catalog material might benefit most from the augmentation, even if it meant narrowing down the length of the setlist, since orchestral players by definition don’t work rock ‘n’ roll hours.
“Listen, tonight we’re gonna play as many things as we can before we have to stop,” the singer said early in the hour-and-40-minutes performance. “You know, we usually play for three hours a night. But tonight, we picked the best songs that we could perform with our friends in the LA Phil and Mr. Gustavo Dudamel. Some of these you may have never heard before. So sit back and enjoy a song called ‘A320.’”
Foo Fighters and Gustavo Dudamel (third from left) take a bow at the close of Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl: Foo Fighters with the LA Phil and YOLA, at the Hollywood Bowl August 22, 2026
Timothy Norris/Los Angeles Philharmonic
Now, pretty much the only people who’ve been holding out for “A320” to rejoin the Foos’ set after a quarter-century of absence are the half-dozen people still clutching to their CDs of the 1998 “Godzilla” soundtrack, where it first lived and kind of died a quiet death. But, as one of the rare songs to have included string arrangements on the original record, it was prime territory for revival here. (And the band has also been trying it out at a few non-orchestral tour stops this year, maybe with the thought of getting it ready for the Bowl.) As on the age-old original, the first half of the six-minute track was sweeping in its use of orchestral augmentation, and then the second half put aside both strings and vocals to turn into a pure band jam. That’s counterintuitive, since it would be more common to start a song without orchestration and then add it in, rather than the reverse. But the band fury is as climactic as anything that could be done continuing to have the full ensemble play… and Dudamel looked happy enough to put his baton down, turn around and just watch the group play for a few minutes. (The Phil was present at points on every one of the 15 songs song, but there were plenty of stretches within those songs where they took five.)
HB26 Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl: Foo Fighters with the LA Phil and YOLA – August 22, 2026
Timothy Norris/Los Angeles Philharmonic
The band’s most faithful followers may be happy to hear “Times Like These” played for the 894th time (according to setlist.fm), but having “A320” come into the set early was a sign that this would really be a night to make the hardcore happy. And there ended up being three more rarities to set fans aflutter: “I Should Have Known,” being played live for the first time since 2012; “Razor,” being performed for the first time since 2006; and “Home,” getting a live airing for the first time since 2007 (and only the fifth performance overall). What these surprise additions meant, in human terms, is that Grohl understood the assignment, when it came to joining forces with another powerful institution: you find the songs that have been waiting for that moment.
Of course, he also considered some of the band’s greatest hits to be in that category. “This was made for the Hollywood Bowl, I think,” Grohl said, prefacing “My Hero.” It was hard to argue with that assessment, when the song took on a healthy dose of brass that sounded noble enough for a military funeral… not to mention a surprise solo harp for just a few seconds when the rest of the onstage complement dropped out for a dramatic pause.
But it really was some of the lesser known or slightly less celebrated songs making bigger impressions. A choir came out on two songs in the middle of the set, both of them highlights. First among them was “The Sky Is a Neighborhood” (the title of which lets you know that Grohl does have a poetic side, however much his stage banter falls into the category of basic-bitch). The frontman did some of his punkiest scream-singing of the night, content to know that the dozen or so berobed figures surrounding him could keep up the melodious quotient of the tune; Chris Shiflett turned in a short, sweet and rare guitar solo over some of that choral wailing, as the band thunderously pounded it out in 6/8 time. Maximalism doesn’t come much more maximal than that, and it was genuinely musical as well as bombastic.
HB26 Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl: Foo Fighters with the LA Phil and YOLA – August 22, 2026
Timothy Norris/Los Angeles Philharmonic
Then, taking it way down, members of the participating YOLA (the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles), identifiable by their shirts (and by their, duh, youth), did a somber string opening for “Run,” replicating or replacing the studio version’s extended acoustic guitar intro, before the rock and the choir kicked in — another certain highlight, despite the tune not being on the list of internationally approved classics.
More expected standouts included “Aurora,” which Grohl has been faithfully dedicating nightly to Taylor Hawkins, with the orchestra again going silent during the final stretch so that the core band could use the hypnotically interesting riffage to send a former comrade into the afterlife with 17,000 phones aglow.
It didn’t seem as if it would get much more sentimental than that, yet it did, as the unlikely penultimate pick turned out to be “Home,” of which Grohl said, “We’ve only done this song once.” (He was off-count by about three instances, according to the online stats, but close enough.) Taking a stool for the most sedate of his ballads, Grohl explained that he was never previously able to get through the 2007 song “because it’s such a meaningful song to me that whenever I heard it, I couldn’t stop from crying. And whenever we played it, there’s no way I could make it through the entire song without just bursting into tears. But what I’ve found is that while you’re singing it, if you think of other things, you can actually make it to the end without crying.” There was a pause, while the audience waited for Grohl to explain if he was picturing the audience naked, or something. “I’m not gonna tell you what I was thinking about,” he then announced. “But we got to the end of the fucking song, so there you go.”
There might have been other reasons to wonder whether Grohl would make it through the set, early on — like, right, at the very beginning, when the set started with a slow and stark couple of verses of “Times Like These,” and the singer’s voice cracked when he sang that high, introductory “I…” And the same thing happened when that note came around again. Was it an inauspicious way to start the set, revealing a voice that was tour-ravaged… or was Grohl faking us out with some exaggerated emotion? Whichever was the case, he quickly rallied, or otherwise revved up to speed, and there were no worries about whether his howl would survive this hot night from then on. But he had us going for about half a minute there.
A good thing he turned out to deceptively be in top shape after all; this will go down in many fans’ books as one of the group’s all-timers. Whether the show is memorialized through some sort of commemorative recording or just cameraphone videos, it’s some of the little things that stick in memory, at least initially: the way that the horns filled in the space between the lines of verses on “All My Life” with frenetic stabs, or how, on “Learn to Fly,” the strings played slightly off the beat in the dramatic coda, versus the straightforward slamming of the band. And the fake endings … so many fake endings. But Grohl is showman enough to know: when a fast song leaves ’em wanting more, it doesn’t hurt to seem to quit and then actually give a little more.
Dudamel did not do much talking; if he has any sentimental feelings he wants to share with the L.A. audience about taking leave of them, presumably he will do it during Sunday night’s true swan song. But he did speak while introducing what amounted to the evening’s opening act — a 15-minute border-crossing suite, composer Aldemaro Romero’s “Fuga con Pajarillo,” which segued back and forth between the full orchestra and Venezuelan musicians, including Eduardo Betancourt, Jorge Glem and Moisés Torrealba. The main reason for the night was, as Grohl said, “to give Gustavo one more big rock show before he has to leave this wonderful city.” But even then, he couldn’t leave Venezuela out of it. New York will be blessed to have someone so faithful to his truest loves.
Which definitely do include rock. Dudamel’s performance conducting with Foo Fighters Saturday made you wish the LA Phil, or future employers, would dedicate one of the venue’s big screens solely to a Gustavo Cam, so everyone could see how headbanging really should look, when it’s being done by a pro.
Dave Grohl and conductor Gustavo Dudamel perform as part of Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl: Foo Fighters with the LA Phil and YOLA – August 22, 2026
Timothy Norris/Los Angeles Philharmonic
Setlist for Foo Fighters with the LA Phil, Gustavo Dudamel and YOLA at the Hollywood Bowl, August 22, 2026: Times Like These All My Life The Pretender Walk A320 My Hero Learn to Fly The Sky Is a Neighborhood Run I Should Have Known Razor Aurora Best of You Home Everlong
Gustvavo Dudamel with Venezuelan musicians backstage at Celebrating Gustavo at the Bowl: Foo Fighters with the LA Phil and YOLA – August 22, 2026
PI Network [PI] has declined by a double-digit percentage, showing that the asset is on the downside and has lost 15%.
Market sentiment shows that while bears may be dominating, there hasn’t been sufficient data to suggest that a massive decline may be coming. If anything, it’s the other way around.
PI’s real test is below
The market structure data shows that PI has been trading within a bullish triangle pattern, and the recent drop is a decline toward the support line of the chart.
The support line is the diagonal trendline, and this level has prevented a market decline on three different occasions, pushing the asset higher.
This is the second attempt price has made to trade lower toward the support level, although there hasn’t been a breakdown below this level yet. If a breakdown occurs, then the price could find support at the horizontal support level of $0.085.
Source: TradingView
Ideally, the price could consolidate within the channel before a breakout to the upside, above the resistance, which could lead to a new high on the chart. If this happens, possible near-term targets for price would be $0.103 and $0.110, as marked on the chart.
Still, there’s a possibility that the price will continue to consolidate along this line before a breakout to the upside.
Capital flow isn’t favorable
Investors aren’t particularly bullish on price, and this could restrict capital flow into the market. At the time of this report, the Accumulation/Distribution indicator, as well as the Money Flow Index (MFI), has moved lower on the chart.
The A/D indicator has been on the downside and remains on the sidelines, while the MFI is in the bearish zone, below 50.
Source: TradingView
The Accumulation/Distribution indicator is a volume-weighted tracker used to determine whether there is buying or selling pressure, while the Money Flow Index tracks overall buying and selling in the market.
On the last two occasions when price traded into the support level on the chart, marked by the red line, the A/D indicator and MFI were both trending higher. This isn’t the case at present.
Notably, the MFI needs to rally above 50 before the market can be considered bullish. A cross above this zone would imply that investors are likely to continue rotating capital into the market. Likewise, the A/D would need to move further higher for the bulls to establish dominance.
Funding and market are still good
There has been clear bullish sentiment across exchange activity. The Funding Rate and Open Interest in the market have remained bullish.
The Funding Rate is at 0.0050 on the chart, implying that there are more long positions in the market and showing that traders are still buying the asset. At the same time, Open Interest has a reading of $2.3 million in the market.
Source: Coinalyze
The Funding Rate would play a key role in helping the asset maintain its bullish outlook, especially in the near term.
Funding Rate
PI is testing a key triangle support level after its 15% decline, with a breakdown potentially exposing the $0.085 support.
Bulls need stronger capital inflows and a move above $0.103 to strengthen the case for a rally toward $0.11.
John Oliver is an outspoken fan of reality TV — but not this former “Real World” star.
On Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight,” the political pundit took aim squarely at Sean Duffy, President Trump’s Secretary of Transportation and former congressman and “The Real World: Boston” cast member. You see, on Wednesday, Duffy dropped all six episodes of “The Great American Road Trip” to YouTube. Though it bills itself as a reality show celebrating America’s 250th anniversary, its travel and its people, as Oliver pointed out, “It’s basically just an expensively-produced test run of a Duffy family reality show with each episode featuring a bare minimum about travel or America but a ton of manufactured reality-TV drama around the Duffy’s doing stuff like planning a family party or, over the course of several episodes, watching their daughter decide which college she’ll attend.” (Duffy’s wife is Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, who he met on MTV’s “Road Rules: All Stars.”)
In a clip from the show that was widely mocked online, while discussing whether his daughter can go to Harvard, Duffy remarked, “If I send you there, I think what happens is they have professionalized figuring out how they can take good, young girls like you and, I think, corrupt their minds.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” exclaimed Oliver. “First, this was supposed to be a road trip — why are we still in your kitchen? Second, is there anything less relatable than a family whose conflict is, how do I tell my daughter she can’t go to Harvard because we did too good of a job raising her?”
Duffy claimed that the show was shot over seven months and that no taxpayer money was used; rather, the show was funded by the independent company Great American Road Trip Inc., which listed 17 sponsors, Boeing, Toyota, Shell and United Airlines among them, all companies overseen and regulated by Duffy’s Department of Transportation.
“That’s not great! The only worse answer to ‘Who paid for this?’ than ‘The American taxpayer’ is ‘a bunch of companies I oversee and regulate,’” cracked Oliver.
And, when Duffy was pressed about the conflict of interest in Congress, he replied, “Don’t you want to celebrate America?” adding, “It’s our birthday!”
“It’s our birthday? You sound like a fucking child!” exclaimed Oliver. “You do get that just because it’s America’s birthday doesn’t mean you get to do an ethics violation, right? Grow up, Sean!”
The show was supposed to come out in June but Duffy said it needed to be re-edited so it abided by ethics rules. And Duffy, of course, is a reality-TV veteran.
“[Duffy] has long loved being on camera. He was actually on ‘The Real World: Boston’ in the late-90s, where he presented himself as deeply horny,” explained Oliver. “In his audition, he reportedly said that he wanted to be on the show because of his interest in ‘cute girls,’ and when asked by a producer how many times he’d had sex in the last six months, he — and I’m quoting here — flashed a big smile and said, ‘Three times. Three different individuals, yeah. And three different times,’ adding, ‘I’m sort of starving right now, guys.’”
Cue Oliver: “And I’ve got to say: I had sex with three different women, none of whom were interested in an encore, says a lot more about you than I think you wanted to reveal there.”
What’s worse, during his time on “The Real World: Boston,” Duffy “got attention for annoying the fuck out of his Black castmate Kameelah, who he fought with over affirmative action, complaining he would have gotten into a better college ‘if I were a Black male,’ and at another point, ‘compared [her] to Adolf Hitler while accusing her of reverse racism,’” Oliver offered.
As for “The Great American Road Trip,” its YouTube views are dwindling in the thousands and its YouTube page has less than 3K subscribers at time of writing.
“Everyone involved in ‘The Great American Road Trip’ seems like they’d rather sweep it under the rug,” Oliver maintained. “Since it came out, the Duffy’s have barely promoted the show and the Department of Transportation hasn’t posted about it at all… But even if everyone involved wants to move on and act like it never happened, I’m not sure the rest of us should, because the appearance of a conflict of interest here is not going to go away.”
Oliver then cited how the Department of Transportation has two open investigations into Waymo, which is featured in the series, including for striking a child in the vicinity of a school.
“Having watched all three hours of this godawful show, from gender reveals to the Duffy’s renewing their vows for no clear reason, it feels less like the country’s been taken on a road trip by Sean Duffy and a lot more like we’ve all been taken for a fucking ride,” he concluded.
Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio said growing debt, weakening demand for government bonds, and monetary expansion could erode currencies while supporting scarce assets. In an Aug. 21 LinkedIn analysis, he stated:
“I expect non-government-produced monies like gold and bitcoin to do relatively well.”
Bitcoin’s potential role rests partly on its predetermined issuance and maximum supply of 21 million coins. Its store-of-value characteristics include scarcity, portability, self-custody, and resistance to monetary debasement, although substantial volatility prevents it from providing consistent short-term stability.
Dalio’s support remains measured rather than unconditional, reflecting his continued preference for gold as the more established monetary asset. In May, he argued that bitcoin’s correlation with technology stocks weakens its safe-haven appeal when investors sell volatile holdings to cover losses elsewhere.
US Debt Could Reach $60 Trillion
Federal finances already reflect several pressures highlighted in Dalio’s debt-cycle framework, including persistent deficits and rising interest costs. The Congressional Budget Office projected a $1.9 trillion fiscal 2026 deficit, with federal outlays of $7.4 trillion, revenue of $5.6 trillion, and debt held by the public reaching 120% of gross domestic product by 2036.
America’s debt accumulation has continued at a rapid pace, strengthening arguments that scarce assets could provide protection against long-term currency depreciation. Total public debt outstanding reached $40.05 trillion as of the close of business Aug. 18, passing $40 trillion for the first time, Treasury figures released Aug. 19 showed.
Debt growth had already been running fast ahead of that milestone, adding nearly $1 trillion within five months. Dalio said current projections imply another substantial increase over the coming decade as deficits require continued borrowing and interest expenses consume more federal revenue. The investor wrote:
“After taking the recently passed budget reconciliation bill into account, most of the independent assessors of the situation project that the debt in 10 years will be $55-60 trillion.”
A full debt crisis could arrive in three years, give or take two, if the country’s fiscal course does not change, Dalio guessed. He set out that timing alongside the debt projection in a summary of his book, “How Countries Go Broke: The Big Cycle.”
Treasury Buybacks Reinforce Debt-Cycle Concerns
The U.S. Department of the Treasury added another signal when it expanded long-term liquidity-support buybacks on Aug. 19. The department increased the maximum purchase size for certain 10- to 30-year securities from $2 billion to at least $4 billion per operation, effective Sept. 9 through Nov. 4.
The expansion revived discussion of the debasement trade, under which investors reduce exposure to currencies and bonds while favoring scarce assets. Bitcoin advanced as the Treasury buyback announcement drew attention to dollar weakness, although Treasury repurchases do not constitute Federal Reserve quantitative easing and do not create money by themselves.
Where Dalio Sees Bitcoin Falling Short of Gold
Dalio also recognizes risks that could limit bitcoin’s monetary role despite its fixed supply and borderless network. He has identified potential vulnerabilities in bitcoin’s code, government controls, transaction transparency, and the possibility that central banks may remain unwilling to treat it as a reserve asset.
His current position represents a shift from 2020, when he questioned bitcoin’s usefulness as money and warned that governments could restrict it if it became threatening to sovereign currencies. Dalio nevertheless acknowledged that he could be wrong about bitcoin and invited proponents to address his concerns.
The Bridgewater Associates founder ultimately favors broad diversification while reducing exposure to debt assets and allocating some capital to non-government money. He advised:
“As general advice, I suggest diversifying well in asset classes and countries that have strong income statements and balance sheets and are not having great internal political and external geopolitical conflicts, underweighting debt assets like bonds, and overweighting gold and a bit of bitcoin.”
“Having a small percentage—maybe 10-15%—of one’s money in gold can reduce a portfolio’s risk, and I think it would also raise its return,” he concluded.
Zondagrypto, which used to be the leading cryptocurrency platform in Eastern and Central Europe, has vanished after both its top managers have disappeared and hundreds of thousands of users are blocked from accessing their funds.
The incident serves as a reminder to the crypto industry, which is still struggling for recognition, about how swiftly people’s trust can disappear if they do not know what happens to their investments.
The damage is not limited to Poland and Estonia, where the exchange has its roots. Cryptocurrencies have gained political and institutional acceptance in part due to President Donald Trump, whose family-owned cryptocurrency venture reportedly made $1.4 billion, as noted by the New York Times (Times).
Nevertheless, Zondacrypto demonstrates that the old fraud problem in the business still matters. Its ZND token has lost 99.9% of its value, CoinMarketCap data shows, while the platform where it keeps customer deposits has been offline since April.
Two bosses gone in four years
The platform started as BitBay in 2014 in Katowice, which was founded by Sylwester Suszek, who was a miner’s son and was called a “crypto king” by the media in Poland. As per earlier reports by Cryptopolitan, Suszek vanished in March 2022 at the age of 34 after going to a fuel depot close to Katowice to meet his associate, Marian Wszolek.
His family believes he was kidnapped and killed. Polish prosecutors later charged Wszolek with organized-crime membership, large-scale VAT fraud, money laundering, and unlawful deprivation of liberty tied to Suszek’s disappearance. Wszolek later vanished as well, the Times reported.
The attorney representing Suszek, Przemyslaw Kral, has now taken control of affairs. The last communication from him was via social media on April 16, 2026, in which he told all clients to keep calm. It has been four months since then, although the Times alleged several sightings of him in places such as Israel, Botswana, and Dubai.
Robert Nogacki, a lawyer from Warsaw acting on behalf of those clients who are unable to access their property, stated that:
“It was a fraud from the first day.”
The wallet only a missing man could open
Kral assured anxious clients that Zondacrypto possessed 4,500 Bitcoins, which had a value of about $336 million at that time, with only Suszek in possession of the keys.
However, this was not true according to blockchain forensics company Recoveris. Their investigation indicated that Zondacrypto’s major Bitcoin hot wallet has shown a 99.7% drop in holdings from the recorded maximum monthly average of 55.7 $BTC in August 2024 to 0.18 $BTC in March 2026. As of April 1, Zondacrypto had 0.086 $BTC remaining, worth around $9,700.
According to Recoveris, similar European exchanges had an average of 308 $BTC in their primary hot wallets. Recoveris pointed out that the company had initiated the transfer of 511 transactions from Zondacrypto wallets to a deposit address at Kraken between mid-December 2025 and the beginning of April, worth approximately $21 million.
The exchange refused to disclose wallet addresses as proof of its cold reserves and cited the MiCA and DORA rules of the European Union. Both regulations do not prohibit the disclosure of the information.
Estonia pulls the license, Brussels’ clock runs out
On June 29, 2026, the license of BB Trade Estonia OÜ, the parent company of Zondacrypto, was cancelled by Estonia’s Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). Earlier, on May 18, the FIU had already temporarily suspended some of the company’s licenses, preventing it from accepting new clients.
The agency added that its capacity is limited since its purpose is to supervise compliance of anti-money laundering laws, but not to check whether customers’ funds actually exist and are safely kept.
The collapse’s timing added to its drama. Article 143 of MiCA mandates that providers operating according to pre-existing national regimes can continue to operate only up to July 1, 2026, or till their application gets approved or denied by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA). Zondacrypto’s Estonian license disappeared just two days before the deadline.
Prosecutors fold it into an organized-crime case
According to a statement issued on August 3, the Zondacrypto investigation by the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Katowice has been integrated with the investigation by the National Prosecutor’s Office run by the organized crime and corruption department in Silesia region.
Prosecutors have a number of inquiries into the creation and functioning of BitBay and Zondacrypto, including the investigation related to the disappearance of Suszek.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland has accused Zondacrypto of being connected to Russian crime syndicates and intelligence agencies, pointing out the company’s financial connections to right-wing politicians and events in Poland.
Speaking at the Sejm on April 17 he stated that Zondacrypto’s rise to success had begun “with the money of the Russian mafia.”
For now, its customers are only concerned about two issues: the fate of their deposits and the future of the two missing executives.
A fast-moving wildfire near Reno, Nevada, has forced 42,000 people to evacuate and put another 45,000 on alert. Six people have been injured and several homes burned. Officials say the fire was human-caused and is under investigation.
