Category: Business

Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe, evaluating the recent technical outlook for Ethereum ($ETH), stated that the bullish scenario is becoming increasingly stronger. According to the analyst, the high lows and high highs formed on $ETH’s daily chart highlight the possibility of an upward breakout.

Van de Poppe noted that Ethereum’s daily chart “is starting to look better day by day,” and highlighted the $1,870 and $2,000 levels in the current market structure.

According to the analyst, if $ETH loses the $1,870 level, the decline could be quite rapid due to the high liquidity zones below the price. In such a scenario, it is possible for $ETH to fall below $1,700 and then recover.

However, Van de Poppe believes that the current technical structure supports an upward movement rather than a downward one. Noting the continued formation of higher lows and higher highs in the Ethereum price, the analyst therefore sees a higher probability of an upward breakout.

$2,000 is a Critical Threshold for Ethereum

According to Van de Poppe, if Ethereum clearly surpasses the $2,000 level, the upward movement could become quite sharp. The analyst stated that after such a breakout, he doesn’t expect $ETH to linger at significant resistance levels for long, and a surge similar to some of the rapid price movements seen in 2025 could occur.

Van de Poppe noted that $ETH might encounter short-term resistance around $2,200 during its rise, adding that this could be an intermediate level within a larger move.

The analyst’s main upside target is the $2,800 level. Accordingly, a strong break above $2,000 could bring Ethereum’s price first to the $2,200 level and then to the $2,800 region.

On the other hand, the $1,870 level stands out as a critical support in a downward scenario. Van de Poppe warns investors that if this level is lost, a rapid liquidity movement towards below $1,700 could occur.

*This is not investment advice.

Prediction markets are converging on the same forecast for the Federal Reserve’s September meeting: don’t expect anything to change.

Polymarket’s “Fed Decision in September?” market puts the odds of no change at 74%, with a quarter-point hike at 25% and a cut near 1%, on $33.9 million in volume. CFTC-regulated exchange Kalshi lands almost identically at 73.5%, backed by close to $10 million wagered, while Myriad, the prediction platform run by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, has “No Change” trading around 71%.

The spread across all three is tight enough to read as consensus.

Traders and investors track Fed decisions so closely because the federal funds rate ripples through nearly every corner of financial markets. The rate sets the baseline cost of borrowing money, which in turn shapes how much investors are willing to pay for riskier bets.

When the Fed hikes, borrowing gets pricier and safe assets like Treasuries offer better returns, pulling money away from speculative corners of the market. When it cuts, cheap money tends to flow back into risk assets such as tech stocks and crypto.

That dynamic has played out repeatedly this year. Bitcoin and Ethereum have wavered around recent Fed holds, and prices slid earlier in the year as a strong jobs report cast doubt on rate cuts. Traders have also been bracing for a surprise hike even with a hold as the base case.

The calm reflects the backdrop. At its July meeting, the FOMC held the rate at 3.50%–3.75% in a divided 9–3 vote, with three members pushing for a hike. A Reuters poll found nearly 70% of economists expect no change through the rest of 2026.

The FOMC meets September 15–16, with its statement due September 16.

World Liberty Financial has received preliminary OCC approval to establish a national trust bank that would issue $USD1, manage its reserves, and provide digital asset custody across the United States.

World Liberty bank cannot open until conditions are met

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said in its Aug. 14 decision that it had granted preliminary conditional approval for World Liberty Trust Company, National Association. The proposed bank would operate from Bay Harbor Islands, Florida, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Delaware-registered WLTC Holdings LLC.

Preliminary approval permits the company to organize the bank but does not allow it to start operations. The OCC said World Liberty Trust must complete its preopening requirements and obtain final authorization under federal banking law before conducting business.

Until final approval is issued, the regulator can modify, suspend, or withdraw its decision if new information raises concerns. World Liberty Trust must also apply for stock in a Federal Reserve Bank, maintain at least $20 million in eligible capital, and receive the OCC’s written confirmation that all opening conditions have been met.

Under its proposed business plan, World Liberty Trust would issue and redeem the dollar-backed $USD1 stablecoin for institutional clients across the country. The bank would also maintain reserves, offer custody services, and let custody customers convert approved stablecoins into $USD1 using assets already held with the institution.

World Liberty Trust would not operate as a standard commercial bank. Its proposed charter does not cover ordinary retail deposits or conventional lending, with the business instead limited to trust, custody, reserve, and related payment services.

Citing the National Bank Act and the GENIUS Act, the OCC said national trust banks may provide digital asset custody and issue payment stablecoins. The agency also reported that uninsured national trust banks under its supervision held $7.2 trillion in assets under administration as of March 31, including $1.7 trillion in custody and safekeeping accounts.

$USD1 operations would move from BitGo

Once authorized to open, World Liberty Trust plans to replace BitGo Bank & Trust as the exclusive issuer and custodian of $USD1. The OCC said the proposed bank would acquire the token’s reserve assets and assume the liabilities tied to them.

Federal rules governing transactions between banks and their affiliates could apply to the transfer. However, the agency approved an exemption from certain limits, collateral rules, and restrictions on low-quality assets under Regulation W as part of its review of the new institution.

BitGo will remain responsible for $USD1 issuance and custody until the proposed bank completes the OCC’s conditions. World Liberty Trust would need additional regulatory clearance if the final structure of the reserve transfer triggers other federal bank merger requirements.

For American institutions using $USD1, an operating national trust bank would place issuance, reserve management, and custody under direct OCC supervision. Federal status would also let the bank provide its approved services nationwide under one regulator instead of securing separate state permissions.

World Liberty Chairman and President Zach Witkoff said the structure would put $USD1’s main functions under the same federal supervisor.

“A national trust bank brings $USD1 issuance, custody, and reserve management together under OCC supervision, examined on the same standards that have governed banks for generations.”

Witkoff also said the company welcomed “continuous scrutiny from federal regulators.”

World Liberty has joined several crypto companies pursuing federal trust structures. The OCC conditionally approved applications involving Circle, Ripple, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos in December 2025, while Coinbase, Crypto.com, and Stripe-owned Bridge later received similar decisions.

Circle completed its preopening requirements and obtained final authorization for its national trust bank in July. The process shows that conditional approval alone does not permit a proposed institution to begin banking operations.

Trump family ties trigger a Senate bill

Political scrutiny has followed the application because President Donald Trump and his three sons are affiliated with World Liberty. The company’s website has said that a Trump family-linked entity controls about 38% of its equity interests.

Trump nominated Comptroller Jonathan Gould in 2025, leading several Democratic lawmakers to question whether the regulator could review the application independently. Before the decision, Senator Elizabeth Warren asked the OCC to delay its review until Trump gave up his financial interest in the company.

As crypto.news reported in June, Warren challenged Gould during a Senate Banking Committee hearing and argued that the application presented conflict-of-interest and national security concerns. Gould said the agency would follow its legal duties and handle the review through a nonpartisan process.

Addressing the issue in its approval, the OCC said, “the Comptroller and staff acted consistently with their statutory duties and ethical obligations with respect to the Application.” Career agency employees reviewed the filing, while nonpolitical examiners would supervise the bank, according to the decision.

The OCC also disclosed that it received seven comments from four commenters. Two questioned whether the proposed activities fit the legal powers of a national trust bank, while three argued that the public lacked enough information or time to comment.

Agency officials rejected both objections. The decision said World Liberty submitted the required public and confidential information on time, and the comment period complied with federal rules.

After the approval, Warren and nine other senators introduced the Ending Presidential Corruption in Banking Act. The proposal would prevent a president, vice president, their spouses or their children from owning or controlling a bank.

Senate Banking Committee Democrats said the measure would require federal agencies, within 60 days of enactment, to review banking applications approved after Jan. 20, 2025. Regulators would have to terminate an approval issued while a person covered by the bill owned or controlled the applicant.

“This is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen — and Congress cannot allow it to stand,” Warren said.

The legislation is backed by Senators Chris Van Hollen, Angela Alsobrooks, Chris Murphy, Bernie Sanders, Richard Blumenthal, Jack Reed, Andy Kim, Tammy Duckworth, and Ruben Gallego.

UAE investment remains under congressional review

Congressional questions also cover World Liberty’s foreign investors and its transactions involving $USD1. An Abu Dhabi company backed by UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan reportedly purchased a 49% interest in World Liberty for $500 million through an agreement signed in January 2025.

In June, five Democratic senators requested congressional hearings into the transaction. Their letter asked whether the investment affected subsequent Trump administration decisions involving UAE arms sales and access to advanced artificial intelligence chips.

The OCC said it considered public comments about World Liberty’s non-US investors. Its decision found that the foreign investors were not principal shareholders of the proposed bank, while several investors signed agreements promising not to control or influence its operations.

StringZ Holdings, DT Marks SC, and AMGUS made those commitments in July. Under the agreements, the investors cannot appoint bank employees, seek board seats, obtain material nonpublic information, or influence management decisions, pricing, personnel, and operations.

Eric Trump signed the commitment for DT Marks in his role as president of the Trump family-linked entity. Any voting interest of 10% or more must remain an investment, while voting power above 9.9% would be exercised through a proxy using the same proportion as votes cast by other shareholders.

Separate scrutiny has centered on MGX, another Abu Dhabi entity chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon. MGX used $2 billion in $USD1 for an investment in Binance in May 2025, helping increase the stablecoin’s circulation.

A February report on $USD1 cited Arkham Intelligence data showing that Binance-controlled wallets and customer accounts held about $4.7 billion of the token, equal to nearly 87% of its $5.4 billion supply at the time. Binance said exchanges commonly hold large amounts of listed assets, while World Liberty and the exchange denied having an improper relationship.

President Trump later pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao. A White House spokesperson has repeatedly rejected allegations that Trump’s investments create conflicts, saying his assets are held in a trust managed by his children and that administration decisions are made independently of family business activities.

Benjamin Cowen, a well-known analyst in the cryptocurrency market, made striking assessments regarding Bitcoin and general market dynamics in his latest analysis video published on his YouTube channel.

Benjamin Cowen stated that Bitcoin is currently trading sideways and with low volume in the $62,000 to $63,000 range. Arguing that interest in the market has significantly decreased, the analyst pointed to a decline in social risk metrics and content viewership rates within the crypto world.

Cowen stated that the price is stuck between the 200-week moving average and the bear market resistance band, arguing that a downward breakout, similar to past cycles, is highly probable.

The analyst, also addressing the divergence between traditional stock markets and the crypto market, noted that the stagnation of Bitcoin despite US stock indices hitting new records has created unease among investors. He pointed out that this situation is not historically unusual, recalling a similar scenario during the 2014 and 2018 US midterm elections. According to Cowen, Bitcoin follows its own four-year cycle independently of stock markets.

Cowen stated that market volatility has fallen to historically low levels, with the 60-day volatility rate at 1.47%. Pointing out that sharp movements usually occur in the market after such periods of consolidation, the analyst said he expects a significant increase in volatility in the coming weeks. He added that a final downward wave could completely wipe out on-chain indicators, potentially marking the bottom of the market cycle.

Cowen, speaking optimistically about the future of the sector, believes we are currently in the 10th month of a bear market expected to last approximately 12 months. He suggests that a new bull market could begin after the approaching bottom of the cycle, arguing that the crypto industry should now focus on fundamentally maturing by leaving behind negatives such as the memecoin craze and security vulnerabilities, rather than simply attracting capital.

*This is not investment advice.

The Aug. 17 target date for starting Agave 4.2 mainnet feature activations arrived without a confirmed delivery update. Agave is Anza’s validator client for the Solana network.

Anza’s v4.2 release schedule still shows Aug. 17 as the tentative start date but left the delivery field blank. The empty field does not prove a delay or rule out a later update. It means the target date alone cannot establish that a feature gate is live.

Anza recommended Agave 4.2 for general mainnet adoption on Aug. 11. Its feature tracker separately continued to classify the first 4.2 slot-time gates as pending on mainnet, distinguishing software adoption from the staged protocol rollout.

Agave 4.2’s biggest changes remain staged

Anza’s Agave 4.2 feature-gate tracker, last updated Aug. 14, listed the gates for 350-millisecond and 300-millisecond slots as pending mainnet activation. The tracker recorded their testnet activation epochs as 1000 and 1002, respectively, and their devnet activation epochs as 1115 and 1118. It did not list a mainnet activation epoch for either gate.

The 250-millisecond gate was still pending on devnet after activating on testnet at epoch 1004, while the final 200-millisecond gate remained pending on testnet. Solana’s slot-time plan calls for four separate 50-millisecond reductions from the current 400-millisecond target, with the network able to pause if block skip rates rise.

In the Agave 4.2 rollout, rent follows a five-gate path. Solana plans to reduce lamports_per_byte, the constant behind the refundable balance required for onchain storage, from 6,960 to 696. The intermediate values are 6,333, 5,080, 2,575 and 1,322. The Solana Foundation’s rent overview said all five gates were inactive when accessed on Aug. 17, so the advertised 90% cut describes the completed sequence rather than the first step.

The available material also lacked a confirmed activation for the transaction change. Solana’s v1 transaction plan raises the maximum payload from 1,232 bytes to 4,096 bytes only for the new format. Legacy and v0 transaction limits remain unchanged.

Agave 4.2 includes code needed to test Alpenglow, but the consensus overhaul is not part of the 4.2 mainnet activation. The Solana Foundation’s release overview says Alpenglow is expected in Agave 4.3, targeted for October 2026.

For users and developers, the Aug. 17 date does not make the 90% rent cut, 4,096-byte transactions and 200-millisecond slots live as one package. A confirmed gate and its mainnet activation epoch would establish which part of the roadmap has actually moved into production.