Category: Business

“If these processes can become faster and more efficient, U.K. businesses could unlock working capital sooner and make it easier to finance international trade,” Jacobsson said in an interview over LinkedIn.

The BOE named NOBO Finance, Dun & Bradstreet, a global provider of business decisioning data, analytics, and credit-rating services, and Polygon Labs, a software and blockchain company, as participants in its Digital Pound Lab.

The project will be the first time the Digital Pound Lab tests how public stablecoins and central-bank money work in a single payment flow alongside a portable credit identity for small businesses. The lab uses no real customers or money and does not signal any decision to issue a digital pound.

NOBO, a U.K.-based fintech building digital trade finance infrastructure that helps small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) become visible, verifiable, and bankable, was already involved in Phase 1. During the first phase, NOBO helped demonstrate conditional business-to-business escrow payments relevant to trade finance workflows.

A first workstream will build an SME “bankable profile.” NOBO, Dun & Bradstreet and Polygon plan to combine wallet transaction data, open-finance information and business intelligence to create a reusable credit assessment. Polygon will provide smart contracts intended to record the verified outcome and manage consent.

Alameda Research, the cryptocurrency arm of the bankrupt FTX, has moved a significant amount of Solana ($SOL) holdings again after nearly five years. According to information reported by the on-chain data platform Onchain Lens, Alameda unlocked 201,740 $SOL, removing it from its staking position, and then transferred a total of 201,780 $SOL to a BitGo-owned custodial wallet.

The transfer has reinforced expectations that Alameda is preparing to divest its long-dormant $SOL holdings. On-chain data suggests the transaction may have been conducted for over-the-counter (OTC) sale via BitGo, rather than a direct sale of the tokens on exchanges.

OTC transactions stand out as a preferred method, especially for selling large amounts of crypto assets. Since conducting large-scale transactions directly in open markets can create sudden selling pressure on prices, institutional investors and large portfolio owners often utilize OTC markets.

Alameda’s release of $SOL assets that had been staked for approximately five years also increases the significance of the transfer. Releasing assets locked in staking transactions allows their owners to reuse or sell them.

While it’s stated that the transfer doesn’t necessarily mean a sale, the movement to BitGo’s custodial wallet is being closely watched in the crypto market. The liquidation of assets in the Alameda and FTX bankruptcy proceedings continues to be a significant topic in the crypto market in recent years.

Large $SOL transfers, in particular, can be interpreted by market participants as an indicator of potential selling pressure. Whether Alameda will actually sell these assets via OTC is yet to be confirmed.

*This is not investment advice.

Not Swaps, and Not Preempted Even If They Were

U.S. District Judge Vernon D. Oliver’s ruling rests on a threshold point rather than preemption: for the CFTC’s exclusive jurisdiction to attach, a contract must be a swap traded on a designated contract market. Oliver held it is the judiciary’s role, not the agency’s, to decide what counts as a swap, rejecting Kalshi’s argument that any such challenge must be brought against the CFTC itself.

On the statute, Oliver read “the occurrence, nonoccurrence, or the extent of the occurrence of an event” to concern whether an event happens and to what degree, not its outcomes. He adopted the reasoning of the District of Nevada in a case brought by a Crypto.com-owned exchange – which found that dictionaries treat “event” as meaning “outcome” only in an archaic sense. A boxing match can occur, not occur, or run three rounds; who wins is an outcome of the event, not a separate event. Oliver expressly declined to decide whether contracts on whether a game reaches overtime or a series reaches a seventh game would fare differently, since neither was in the record.

His second ground was the requirement that the event be associated with a potential financial, economic, or commercial consequence. That connection must be embedded in the event itself, Oliver held, not created by endorsement contracts, bonus provisions, side wagers, or other downstream arrangements made by independent actors. A sporting event has consequences built in through ticket sales, broadcast rights, and advertising; who wins it does not. He also noted Kalshi’s own concession in earlier litigation before the D.C. Circuit that contracts on games are unlikely to serve any commercial or hedging interest.

Between 80% and 90% of the contracts listed on Kalshi’s exchange were sports-event contracts, responsible for a similar portion of company revenue. The CFTC has not subjected a single one to review under the special rule, let alone prohibited any. Kalshi was valued at roughly $11 billion at February’s hearing and has about 24,000 Connecticut users.

Oliver reached preemption anyway and rejected it on both theories. The special rule at § 7a-2(c)(5)(C), which lets the CFTC bar contracts involving gaming or activity unlawful under state law, reflects an intent to preserve state authority rather than displace it. Federal impartial-access rules bar discriminatory access criteria; they do not require a DCM to offer contracts nationwide. And he was unwilling to read Dodd-Frank as handing exclusive authority over sports betting to a financial regulator with no history in the field, noting that Congress has never appropriated funds to the CFTC for that purpose.

Kalshi also lost on irreparable harm. Its asserted injuries were largely monetary, and to a significant extent self-inflicted, given that it kept listing the contracts through repeated regulatory warnings and adverse rulings. Because Kalshi is already building geofencing for other states, Oliver found Connecticut compliance unlikely to add much cost. He noted Kalshi has issued no warnings to users while advertising itself as the first app for legal sports betting in all 50 states.

The crypto exposure runs through a separate five-page order. Coinbase Financial Markets began offering Kalshi’s contracts through its platform in January 2026 as a futures commission merchant rather than a DCM, and Connecticut never directed any enforcement at it. Oliver denied the motion “largely in line with” the Kalshi order and attached that opinion as an exhibit. Connecticut’s December sweep had also named Robinhood Derivatives and Crypto.com: DCP announced all three orders on Dec. 3, with Gaming Director Kris Gilman saying a prediction market wager is not an investment, and Commissioner Bryan T. Cafferelli saying the platforms would violate other state laws even if licensed, including by taking wagers from people under 21.

Oliver’s order counted 14 suits Kalshi has filed against states, with federal courts split and every state court to rule so far ruling against it. He cited KalshiEX LLC v. Cox, decided in Utah on Aug. 4, and went further than Minnesota’s judge, who blocked that state’s ban while treating a World Cup winner contract as likely a swap. Massachusetts, Nevada, and Michigan state courts have all ordered geofencing; Kalshi pledged to implement it in Nevada by Aug. 12 and faces the same date in Michigan.

A Kalshi spokesperson told Sports Betting Dime (a Sportradar subsidiary) the company respectfully disagrees with the decision and is considering all legal options. Oliver ordered the parties to file their Rule 26(f) report by Aug. 24, with Connecticut’s response to the complaint due Aug. 31.

Spritehood has sold 42,956 paid NFTs on Robinhood Chain in about 53 minutes, generating nearly $1.28 million for Pudgy Penguins co-founder Cole Villemain.

Spritehood $NFT sale reached $1.28 million

The Defiant reported that Villemain launched Spritehood on Aug. 11 after previously being removed from the founding team of Pudgy Penguins, with the paid portion of the sale selling out in less than one hour.

On-chain analyst 0xlaplaced calculated that the mint generated about $1.2829 million, or approximately 684.28 $ETH, based on the price of Ether during the sale. The final total came in well above an earlier estimate of roughly $755,000 that circulated before the mint had finished.

According to the analyst’s transaction review, buyers minted 37,430 NFTs for $17 each, producing $636,310 in proceeds. A second group of 5,526 NFTs sold for $117 each, adding another $646,542.

Combined, the two paid tiers generated $1,282,852 from 42,956 tokens. The deploying address had already distributed 1,488 NFTs at no charge through 20 zero-price transactions before the public sale, taking the full reported supply to 44,444 items.

Although the available figures show how many tokens moved at each price, the supplied report did not identify what determined whether a buyer paid $17 or $117. It also did not provide details about any benefits, future access, or other features attached to the collection.

Unverified code limits review of Spritehood’s mint

Spritehood’s contract appears with an “unverified” label on Robinhood Chain’s Blockscout explorer, according to The Defiant. An unverified contract can still operate and record transactions on-chain, but its human-readable source code has not been matched publicly with the deployed bytecode through the explorer.

Without that verification, buyers cannot use Blockscout to inspect the complete source code governing Spritehood’s pricing and distribution process. The label does not establish that the contract is malicious or faulty, though it reduces the information available for independent review through the explorer.

The reported mint figures instead come from an analysis of completed blockchain transactions. Since every paid tier can be calculated separately, the on-chain totals explain why the final proceeds exceeded the figure shared while the sale was still underway.

No information in the supplied report indicates that Robinhood organized, promoted or endorsed the Spritehood launch. Robinhood describes its network as a permissionless Ethereum Layer 2, meaning independent developers can deploy applications and tokens without each project representing an official Robinhood product.

Robinhood Chain has attracted speculative assets

Spritehood arrived about six weeks after Robinhood opened its Layer 2 network to the public. As crypto.news reported in July, Robinhood Chain launched as an Arbitrum-based Ethereum scaling network designed for tokenized stocks and decentralized finance applications.

The mainnet debuted with integrations involving infrastructure providers, including Alchemy, BitGo, and Chainlink. Robinhood also introduced Stock Tokens for eligible users outside the United States, while decentralized exchanges and lending applications supplied on-chain trading functions.

Despite its stated focus on financial assets, permissionless deployment has allowed unrelated tokens and speculative projects to enter the network. A July network review found that memecoin trading had become a major source of early activity, even though Robinhood built the chain around tokenized equities and real-world assets.

The network’s early activity also produced a gap between trading volume and available liquidity. Another July analysis found $570 million in launch-week trading volume against $21.68 million in liquidity, with incentive-backed decentralized finance deposits and speculative tokens driving much of the activity.

More recent figures cited by Bitmine Chairman Tom Lee placed Robinhood Chain’s cumulative decentralized exchange volume near $9 billion. Lee said the chain could expose Robinhood’s 27 million customers to Ethereum-based services, although the figure represented the company’s funded customer base rather than confirmed users of the blockchain.

$ETH functions as Robinhood Chain’s native gas token, while network transactions settle through Ethereum. Buyers therefore need $ETH to pay transaction fees when directly using applications deployed on the chain, including $NFT contracts such as Spritehood.

Pudgy Penguins history follows Villemain’s new mint

Villemain, also known online as ColeThereum, helped create Pudgy Penguins with three other founders in 2021. The original collection contained 8,888 penguin profile-picture NFTs and sold out shortly after launch.

An earlier Pudgy Penguins history published by crypto.news said the initial mint priced the NFTs at about $90 each and generated more than $800,000. The collection later became one of the most recognized projects from the $NFT market’s 2021 expansion.

Pudgy Penguins holders voted Villemain out of the founding team in January 2022. The removal followed community allegations that he had misused project funds and failed to deliver on parts of the project’s roadmap.

The claims remained allegations, and the supplied report said Villemain was not prosecuted over them. Entrepreneur Luca Netz later acquired control of the Pudgy Penguins brand in April 2022 for 750 $ETH, taking over its leadership after the original team’s removal.

Under its new ownership, the project expanded beyond blockchain collectibles into physical toys, licensing deals, and the PENGU token. Pudgy Penguins has also continued to register periods of high secondary-market activity, including a 247% weekly sales increase to $9.3 million in July 2025.

What the Spritehood sale means for US buyers

Robinhood is a U.S.-listed brokerage, but use of its public blockchain does not mean an $NFT carries Robinhood’s approval or the protections attached to a brokerage account. The company’s official disclosures describe Robinhood Chain as a permissionless and separate blockchain from its regulated financial services.

For U.S. buyers, the tax treatment of $NFT purchases also differs from buying assets inside a standard brokerage account. The Internal Revenue Service treats digital assets as property, and its guidance requires taxpayers to report taxable gains or losses when cryptocurrency is sold, exchanged or used to acquire property, including an $NFT.

Paying for a Spritehood $NFT with $ETH may therefore create a taxable disposal for a U.S. buyer if the Ether changed in value between acquisition and use. Any later sale of the $NFT may produce another reportable gain or loss based on the difference between its cost basis and sale proceeds.

Federal securities treatment depends on the economic facts surrounding an offering rather than the $NFT label alone. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Impact Theory over an $NFT offering that raised about $30 million, while Stoner Cats 2 agreed to settle charges tied to an $8 million $NFT sale.

Neither the supplied report nor the cited on-chain review said a U.S. regulator had examined Spritehood or alleged that its NFTs were securities. The report also did not identify any passive-income rights, revenue-sharing terms, or promises of returns attached to the collection.

According to tx, the bridge’s software registered transactions as deposits even though they never delivered $XRP to the bridge. That gave the attacker bridged $XRP on the tx chain without the real $XRP that was supposed to back it. Those unbacked tokens then went back through the bridge, and the attacker withdrew real $XRP from the reserve.

The drain began at 19:16 UTC. Each payout was authorized by 17 of the bridge’s 28 relayers, a majority signing off exactly as designed, because the bridge’s own records told them the deposits were real.

Relayers are programs that watch both blockchains and approve transfers when the bridge’s records say a withdrawal is owed.

The specific failure sat one layer down, however, as the relayer code processed payments carrying the bridge’s memo without first verifying the destination address.

tx confirmed the deposit-detection flaw in an update, saying the attacker exploited software that incorrectly recognized transactions that delivered no $XRP to the reserve.

The project added it has identified and fixed the vulnerable code, engaged blockchain forensics specialists and filed a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. It has not said how affected holders will be made whole.

Meanwhile, the stolen $XRP did not stay put. Onchain tracking shows most of it moved onward within hours through several other addresses.