Category: Business

  • Ripple Engineer Clarifies Key XRP Ledger Update Metric: What’s Important?

    Ripple Engineer Clarifies Key XRP Ledger Update Metric: What’s Important?

    $XRP Ledger version 3.3.0 launched in the past week, with its upgrade progress across the entire network now in focus. In this context, RippleX software engineer Mayukha Vadari has provided an important clarification on an update progress metric.

    The conversation began when an X user posted that XRPL UNL validators have met the ‘Sufficiently Updated’ threshold of 80% on version 3.3.0 of XRPLD, hoping for amendment voting to gain traction.

    That prompted a question from $XRP community member @offledger, who asked whether the “Sufficiently Updated” consideration applies to the entire network rather than only validators.

    The original poster suggested that a set number rather than a percentage might be more appropriate for non-validating nodes, as software versions can vary considerably across that portion of the network. He cited XRPScan figures that showed 74 nodes on version 3.3.0 and 58 on version 3.2.1.

    Yeah this is the metric that most validators use. 80% of the UNL updating is the bare minimum, not the norm.

    — Mayukha Vadari (@msvadari) August 10, 2026

    Offledger clarified that the consideration has always been measured against the entirety of the network rather than only UNL validators; this implies about 32% of the network had updated to 3.3.0 while 68% of the network currently runs version 3.2.1.

    “A wee way to go yet,” Offledger said, suggesting that the broader network still has significant ground to cover before 3.3.0 reaches widespread adoption.

    Responding to the discussion over the ‘Sufficiently Updated’ threshold of 80%, Vadari said this is the metric that most validators use, adding that 80% of the UNL updating is the bare minimum, not the norm.

    $XRP Ledger consensus structure explained

    The X discussion highlighted an important distinction between UNL validators and the broader XRPL network.

    The xrpld is one of the two main types of server software that power the $XRP Ledger and can run in several modes depending on its configuration. One of these is P2P, which is the main mode of the server. This includes validators, which help secure the network by participating in consensus. A unique node list (UNL) is a server’s list of validators that it trusts not to collude with every $XRP Ledger server configured with a UNL.

    Hub servers relay messages between many other members of the peer-to-peer network, while the API server provides API access to read data from the shared ledger, submit transactions, and watch activity in the ledger.

    These form a peer-to-peer network that processes transactions and maintains the shared state of the $XRP Ledger.

  • Luke Dashjr Removed as BIP Editor After BIP-110 Bitcoin Fork Stalls

    Luke Dashjr Removed as BIP Editor After BIP-110 Bitcoin Fork Stalls

    In brief

    • Luke Dashjr has been removed as a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal editor and no longer holds editor or admin access to the BIPs repository.
    • Fellow editor Mark “Murch” Erhardt filed the motion on August 9, citing a conflict of interest over BIP-110, minimal contribution to the role, and a breakdown in coordination between editors.
    • Dashjr has continued to dispute the outcome and said on Monday he was taking a sabbatical from mining pool Ocean.

    Luke Dashjr has lost his role as a Bitcoin Improvement Proposal editor, days after the soft fork he championed split off a chain that mined two blocks and stopped.

    Fellow editor Mark Erhardt, who goes by Murch, put the motion to the Bitcoin Development Mailing List on August 9 and opened a pull request the same day as what he called a sample implementation of it.

    Erhardt gave four grounds, arguing first that Dashjr had exercised editorial authority “inconsistently with the established editorial process unfairly favoring the proposal he was involved in,” pointing to an attempt to assign BIP-110 a number publicly on X before it had been discussed on the mailing list, and to a merge completed within minutes of the pull request opening.

    He also said Dashjr had left “fewer than 1% of the BIP Editor comments” in the repository since additional editors joined in April 2024, and that the disputed merge was his first since May 2024. Championing a soft fork that “now appears to evolve into a hard fork” amounted to “a complete departure from the Bitcoin development ecosystem,” he wrote, adding that trust and coordination with the other editors had broken down.

    A role with no exit

    The request itself proposes deleting a single line, striking Dashjr’s name from BIP 3, the document that lists the editors. Backing for it has been registered in thumbs-up reactions and comments on the pull request.

    Dashjr has kept arguing the point on X since, writing that “Core isn’t supposed to have ANY control of the BIPs repo.” He still refuses to treat the majority chain as Bitcoin, calling it “Bpedo” and arguing that it is “guaranteed to fail.”

    He said on Monday that he was taking a sabbatical from Ocean, the mining pool that lists him as chairman and chief technology officer, adding that he would “turn my immediate focus to working on Bitcoin and open-source projects to support Bitcoin.”

    BIP-110 sought to temporarily bar non-financial data such as Ordinals inscriptions from Bitcoin transactions, and support for it peaked at 51 of 2,016 blocks in the period before the split, or 2.53%, against the 55% needed to activate.

    Not one block has signalled for the proposal since mandatory signalling began at block 961,632, according to BIP110 Monitor. Strategy’s Michael Saylor, among the proposal’s critics, tweeted that 99.85% of hashpower stayed with Bitcoin.

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  • XRP Invalidates Most Important Support Level of 2026

    XRP Invalidates Most Important Support Level of 2026

    $XRP‘s price is currently just above the psychological $1 mark, effectively invalidating one of its most significant support structures of 2025. The decline is particularly noteworthy because it occurs while $XRP Ledger activity is still comparatively high. After dropping below the $1.05-$1.07 range that had consistently offered support during the most recent consolidation, $XRP is currently trading at about $1.006.

    Short-term picture isn’t yet clear

    The short-term moving average, which is currently close to $1.065, strengthened this region. Rather than recovering it, $XRP has kept generating lower highs and lower lows. The obvious next issue is that $1 is now the first line of defense. A persistent break below $1 would be more significant than another typical daily decline.

    $XRP/USDT Chart by TradingView

    There isn’t much obvious support for $XRP below the current price. If selling picks up speed, the next possible demand area is around $0.95, followed by roughly $0.90. Moving averages support the negative framework. While the larger averages sit significantly higher at roughly $1.178 and $1.370, $XRP stays below the averages near $1.065 and $1.082.

    Since they are all positioned above the market, any attempt at a recovery will face several levels of resistance. Additionally, momentum is declining. The daily RSI has dropped to about 34.2, which is close to oversold territory but not quite at the traditional 30 threshold. This allows for more declines before $XRP becomes technically stretched.

    Network remains active

    It’s interesting to note that the weakness does not seem to be caused by declining network participation. According to $XRP Ledger data, there were roughly 207,028 active users on August 10. In general, activity has increased from about 100,000–120,000 users in the middle of July to about 200,000 or more recently.

    As a result, there is an obvious discrepancy between market performance and network usage. Spot demand has not increased enough to stop $XRP‘s decline despite more active users. Although network activity can bolster a longer-term fundamental argument, it does not ensure that the token will appreciate right away.

    For $XRP, the first significant indication that the most recent breakdown is being contested would be the recovery of $1.065–$1.082. Until then, the technical structure remains very bearish, with $1 being much more significant now that the previous support zone has failed.

  • Russia Takes Historic Step Regarding Bitcoin and Two Altcoins: A New Era Begins!

    Russia Takes Historic Step Regarding Bitcoin and Two Altcoins: A New Era Begins!

    According to the Russian news agency Interfax, the Central Bank of Russia has prepared a notable regulation for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Tether ($USDT).

    The Central Bank of Russia has released a draft regulation that would include Bitcoin, Ethereum, and $USDT in the list of cryptocurrencies that can be publicly traded on exchanges. However, the regulation is still in draft form. Comments and suggestions on the draft will be accepted until August 24, 2026.

    300,000 Ruble Limit on Cryptocurrency Purchases!

    According to the draft regulation, unqualified investors will be able to purchase designated crypto assets through each brokerage firm up to a maximum of 300,000 rubles per year.

    The Central Bank stated that the aim of this restriction is to protect investors from sharp and unpredictable price movements that may occur in the cryptocurrency market.

    The bank stated that only the most liquid cryptocurrencies would be offered to unqualified investors, with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether $USDT being among the prominent assets in this regard.

    No Limits for Qualified Investors!

    The statement noted that qualified investors would be able to purchase all cryptocurrencies traded on exchanges and over-the-counter markets without any quantity restrictions.

    However, the Russian Central Bank reminded investors that, regardless of their status, they should undergo necessary tests and be informed about the risks of investing in crypto assets before engaging in cryptocurrency transactions.

    “To protect unqualified investors from sharp and unpredictable fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices, they will only be offered the most liquid cryptocurrencies.”

    According to the law, when selecting cryptocurrencies, market capitalization, average daily trading volume, and price history on foreign exchanges (which must be at least five years for such an asset) are taken into account.

    Based on these criteria, the Central Bank of Russia has included Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether-$USDT in the list of cryptocurrencies that can be publicly traded on exchanges. Qualified investors will be able to purchase all cryptocurrencies traded on exchanges and over-the-counter markets without restriction.

    The bank has imposed limits on cryptocurrency purchases for unqualified investors. These investors will be able to purchase a maximum of 300,000 rubles worth of cryptocurrencies per year from each brokerage firm.

    The Editing is Still in Draft Stage!

    The regulation announced by the Central Bank is not yet final. Comments and suggestions regarding the draft will be accepted until August 24, 2026.

    Furthermore, Russia’s new comprehensive crypto regulation law was signed into law by Putin on August 4th and will generally come into effect on September 1st, 2026.

    *This is not investment advice.

  • Pokémon cards are becoming multibillion dollar market. Crypto wants to fix how they trade

    Pokémon cards are becoming multibillion dollar market. Crypto wants to fix how they trade

    “Access to JTCC’s supply, one of the world’s largest liquidity streams in the trading card space, gives Deadstock an unfair advantage most platforms can never reach: deep, continuously replenished real-world inventory at scale,” said Jang.

    The eBay question

    However, there is an important caveat to this model: liquidity.

    eBay remains the industry’s dominant source of price discovery and liquidity in the trading card sector. More than $2.62 billion worth of individual trading cards changed hands on the marketplace in 2025, according to GemRate data, including about $837 million of trading-card-game and non-sports cards. The tally doesn’t include sealed boxes, packs, sets or lots, meaning the broader card business conducted on eBay is even larger.

    Liquidity begets liquidity. A seller is naturally drawn to the venue with the largest number of potential buyers, while buyers benefit from a deep history of completed sales that can help establish a particular card’s actual value. That network effect gives eBay an advantage that newer tokenized marketplaces have yet to replicate.

    And that creates a chicken-and-egg problem for platforms such as Deadstock.

    Transferring ownership on a blockchain may allow a trade to settle almost immediately, but it doesn’t guarantee that someone will be on the other side of the transaction. A tokenized card trading among a small number of users could be less liquid — and harder to price — than the same card listed on an established marketplace.

  • Vitalik Buterin Says Ethereum Is Betting Its Future on Quantum Security and AI

    Vitalik Buterin Says Ethereum Is Betting Its Future on Quantum Security and AI

    In brief

    • Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum has elevated quantum security and privacy since its 2023 roadmap.
    • Ethereum researchers are increasingly relying on STARKs and AI-assisted formal verification.
    • The roadmap also includes native rollups and explores a future beyond the EVM.

    Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says quantum resistance, privacy, and AI-assisted security have become greater priorities for Ethereum since he published his 2023 roadmap.

    In a post on X on Monday, Buterin said he updated his 2023 roadmap to compare its original goals with Ethereum’s current “Strawmap”—a working outline of the network’s long-term technical priorities.

    “What’s most striking, however, is that some completely new things are in the strawmap that are not in this diagram, because they were not in the 2023 roadmap at all,” Buterin wrote. “These reflect changing priorities.”

    Among those priorities are stronger privacy and scaling designed for a post-quantum world, alongside efforts to push the “lean-ification of the spec,” or simplify Ethereum’s technical specifications.

    “A common theme in scaling, found in both state types and zkzk frames (both new ideas), is that instead of trying to maximally scale all Ethereum activity,” Buterin wrote. “We try to create specialized mechanisms that have more restrictive properties that make them more scaling-friendly, while supporting the heaviest loads incurred by users and applications today (eg. token transfers, swaps) and tomorrow (eg. privacy protocols).”

    According to Buterin, advances in AI are making it practical to apply the technique more extensively to Ethereum.

    Buterin said Ethereum is increasingly relying on STARKs, a cryptographic technology used to verify computations, and AI-assisted verification, to check that the protocol works as intended.

    “This can only be safe with formal verification, which is itself only feasible with modern AI tools,” he wrote.

    Buterin’s post comes as Ethereum has accelerated preparations for “Q-Day” and the potential threat posed by quantum computers.

    In January, Buterin urged developers to adopt quantum-resistant cryptography before the threat becomes immediate, and the Ethereum Foundation formed a dedicated post-quantum team. In February, Buterin outlined a phased plan to replace four potentially vulnerable components of Ethereum’s cryptographic architecture.

    In July, Buterin put quantum safety and privacy at the center of his proposed “Lean Ethereum” overhaul, which calls for replacing quantum-vulnerable cryptography with quantum-safe alternatives.

    “Ethereum will be quantum-safe. Ethereum will put users’ privacy first. Ethereum will be secure,” Buterin wrote. “Ethereum will be censorship-resistant. Ethereum will be highly performant and scalable while satisfying the above. And Ethereum will be Lean.”

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  • Worldcoin’s $1M liquidity cluster sets $0.40 target: What’s next as WLD surges 10%?

    Worldcoin’s $1M liquidity cluster sets $0.40 target: What’s next as WLD surges 10%?

    Worldcoin [$WLD] surged by over 10% in the last 24 hours and sustained the upward momentum for the fourth day in a row to cross the $0.34 resistance.

    The price move places $WLD at a critical point as buyers attempt to invalidate the bearish structure that has dominated price action since June.

    Besides, the current rally helped $WLD break out above the upper boundary of the pennant consolidation pattern, indicating the potential formation of a trend reversal. A daily candle close above $0.34 will confirm the breakout.

    Source: TradingView

    Worldcoin’s trading activity is also supporting the recovery

    That’s not all; Worldcoin’s trading volume has recorded a 150% increase to $211 million, suggesting a sharp increase in market participation as the token surges aggressively.

    The surge in volume provides stronger confirmation for the breakout because sustained buying activity can help prevent the move from becoming a short-lived price spike.

    Source: Santiment

    Derivative data is also sparking similar signals

    Worldcoin’s Open Interest gained by 10.44% to $169.4 million over the same period, indicating that traders are adding new positions as price momentum strengthens.

    The network’s rising Open Interest alongside a price rally suggests fresh capital is entering the market and could amplify $WLD’s upside if buyers maintain control.

    Source: Coinalyze

    Moreover, long positions currently account for approximately 60% of total $WLD market exposure, giving bulls a modest advantage. This positioning supports the bullish setup, although an excessively crowded long market could also increase liquidation risks if $WLD fails to sustain its breakout.

    Source: Coinalyze

    Is $0.40 next for the bulls?

    More than $1 million in liquidity remains concentrated between $0.37 and $0.40, creating a significant liquidity pocket above the current price.

    If buyers sustain momentum, $WLD could be drawn toward this zone as its price action hunts for the unmitigated liquidation clusters.

    Source: CoinGlass

    Final Summary

    • $WLD gained by more than 10% in 24 hours, breaking above $0.34 as buyers challenge the token’s recent bearish structure.
    • Rising volume, Open Interest, and $1 million-plus liquidity between $0.37 and $0.40 could support a move toward $0.40.
  • U.S. SEC sets meeting to propose Reg Crypto to support certain digital assets offerings

    U.S. SEC sets meeting to propose Reg Crypto to support certain digital assets offerings

    “We view this as the first of several rulemakings the SEC will undertake to provide regulatory certainty for crypto assets after the Senate failed before the August recess to advance the Clarity Act on crypto market structure,” TD Cowen analyst Jaret Seiberg wrote in a client note sent after the SEC’s notice.

    The proposal is expected to give a path to crypto firms enabling them to raise capital for projects without triggering SEC registration requirements, and the businesses are also expected to be provided an exit path for getting clear of the agency’s jurisdiction when they’re not engaged in hands-on management of the projects anymore.

    Before this, Atkins and the agency had rolled through a lengthy series of crypto policy statements meant to clarify its regulatory position on digital assets, but the staff statements have little long-term durability. A formal rulemaking would be more difficult to reverse in the future.

    But the rule will likely take further months to develop and finalize. This first stage will come with a comment period — typically two or three months — and be followed by a potentially lengthy rewrite.

    Reg Crypto would join some of the other significant steps the agency has taken or is still working on to foster the U.S. crypto industry. One of the major moves was a joint stance with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission on a “taxonomy” to define how they view various crypto assets and which jurisdictions they belong in. The agency is also still working on its tokenized securities approach, which Atkins routinely mentions as one of the SEC’s marquee crypto maneuvers.