Category: Business

A trio of former executives from Danish digital bank Lunar has decided that spreadsheets and human-only bookkeeping have run their course. Together with a professional auditor, they’ve raised €8.2 million to build Repodo, a startup betting that artificial intelligence can finally break into the notoriously conservative audit market, starting with small businesses in Denmark rather than the multinational giants that dominate the industry today.

Key takeaways

• Repodo raised €8.2 million to launch an AI-powered audit firm, with the round led by Hedosophia and Seed Capital.
• The company was founded by three former Lunar executives alongside professional auditor Anders Houmann.
• The global audit market is worth roughly €80 billion, with Europe accounting for about €74 billion of that total.
• Repodo is targeting small and medium-sized enterprises in Denmark first, with plans to expand across Europe.
• The Big Four firms have poured billions into AI tools but remain focused on large corporate clients, leaving SMEs largely underserved.

Launch of Repodo and Its Founders

Repodo’s arrival answers a simple question: what happens when people who scaled a challenger bank turn their attention to auditing? The company launches with fresh capital and a founding team that blends fintech experience with formal audit credentials, an unusual pairing in a profession built on regulatory caution.

Funding and Investors

The €8.2 million funding round was led by Hedosophia and Seed Capital, two firms that also backed Lunar during its earlier fundraising rounds. That continuity matters. Investors who watched Lunar grow from a Danish challenger bank into a company that has raised more than €500 million since 2015, with over one million customers, are now placing a similar wager on the audit sector. It’s a signal that backers see repeatable playbooks between digital banking disruption and reshaping how audits get done.

Founding Team Composition

Three of Repodo’s founders previously held executive roles at Lunar. Joining them is Anders Houmann, a professional auditor whose presence addresses a structural reality of the industry: audit is heavily regulated, and no software, however advanced, can substitute for the legal requirement that a qualified human sign off on the final result. Repodo’s pitch rests on dividing labor sensibly, letting machines handle volume while licensed professionals retain accountability.

Repodo’s AI Approach to Auditing

Repodo describes itself as “AI-native,” a label meant to draw a sharp line between its technology and the bolt-on chatbots that legacy audit firms have added to existing workflows. The distinction is strategic as much as technical: it positions Repodo as built for automation from day one, rather than retrofitted for it.

AI Capabilities and Auditor Roles

The company’s AI is designed to handle the repetitive, time-consuming parts of an audit, data collection, transaction analysis, and pattern matching, tasks that traditionally eat up junior staff hours. Licensed auditors then step in for the parts of the job that genuinely require professional judgment, keeping the human sign-off intact while freeing up time that would otherwise go toward manual review.

Distinct AI-Native Strategy

This division of labor is central to why Repodo believes it can compete. Rather than promising to replace auditors outright, an approach that would run headlong into regulatory reality, the company frames AI as a way to compress the grunt work so human expertise can be applied more efficiently. That framing matters for a heavily regulated profession where trust and compliance carry as much weight as speed.

Market Context and Strategic Focus

Why does any of this matter beyond one startup’s funding round? Because the numbers behind the global audit market suggest a sizable gap between where big accounting firms have pointed their technology investment and where the actual demand for faster, cheaper audits sits.

Global and European Audit Market Size

The global audit market is valued at approximately €80 billion, and Europe alone accounts for around €74 billion of that figure. Those numbers put the European opportunity for SME audit Europe services in sharp relief: it’s a market nearly as large as the global total, concentrated on a continent with dense populations of small and mid-sized businesses that need audit services but often lack the budget or attention of top-tier firms.

Targeting SMEs and Expansion Plans

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Denmark represent Repodo’s initial focus, with expansion throughout Europe planned for later phases. That sequencing isn’t accidental. Building for smaller businesses first, then scaling into other markets, mirrors the approach Lunar’s founders used when they started as a Danish challenger bank before pushing into other Nordic markets. It’s the same playbook, applied to a different balance sheet problem.

Comparison with Big Four Firms’ Market Focus

The Big Four accounting firms, Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG, have collectively invested billions in AI and automation tools over recent years. Yet their attention tends to skew toward large enterprise clients, the companies with the budgets and complexity that justify heavy technology spending. That focus leaves the SME segment relatively underserved by cutting-edge tools, even though small and mid-sized businesses make up the bulk of Europe’s economic activity.

This is where Repodo’s bet becomes strategically interesting rather than merely opportunistic. If the Big Four are optimizing for scale and complexity, a startup built around Lunar founders AI expertise and lean automation could carve out a segment that larger competitors have effectively priced themselves out of. Whether that gap stays open long enough for Repodo to establish itself, especially once larger firms notice the opening, is the question that will determine whether this funding round becomes a footnote or the start of a genuine shift in how SMEs get audited.

FAQ

Who founded Repodo and what is their background?

Repodo was founded by three former Lunar executives and professional auditor Anders Houmann.

What is Repodo’s approach to auditing with AI?

Repodo’s AI handles data collection, transaction analysis, and pattern matching while licensed auditors perform the expert judgment required for sign-off.

Which market segment does Repodo initially target?

Repodo initially targets small and medium-sized enterprises in Denmark, with plans to expand across Europe.

How does Repodo’s market focus differ from Big Four firms?

While the Big Four firms focus their AI investment on large enterprise clients, Repodo aims to serve SMEs with AI-driven audits, a segment it argues has been left behind by the industry’s biggest players.

Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.

The boundary between crypto-native trading venues and traditional brokerage desks is becoming harder to locate. Binance has spent months layering traditional finance assets onto a platform built for digital asset derivatives, and the latest read suggests the strategy is producing more than a product announcement cycle.

According to the original report, Binance’s effort to bring TradFi assets onto its crypto-native platform is showing clear signs of traction. The framing points to a multi-asset strategy, but the update does not provide granular volume figures or a detailed asset-by-asset breakdown. That leaves market participants reading the move through product structure rather than hard data.

What a TradFi Perpetual Changes for Traders

Perpetual contracts tied to traditional assets are not a new concept, but the way a major crypto exchange packages them matters. For a trader already using Binance’s perpetual infrastructure, the structural appeal is straightforward: a familiar order book, an established liquidation engine, and the ability to manage exposure without leaving the venue. That is different from opening a separate account with a broker or navigating fragmented TradFi execution.

The product design question is whether those contracts become genuine alternatives to traditional futures or function as synthetic exposure for crypto-native capital. Binance’s signal suggests it believes the demand is broad enough to support both. If that holds, the venue starts to look less like an exchange for digital assets and more like a cross-asset derivatives destination.

Liquidity, Collateral, and the Multi-Asset Push

Multi-asset strategy in derivatives usually means one collateral pool doing more work. That has benefits and complications. On the benefit side, capital efficiency improves when traders can post one type of margin against different exposures. On the risk side, the venue has to prove that its risk systems can handle the interaction between crypto volatility and more conventional asset prices.

The current push also lands at a moment when real-world asset tokenization is becoming a measurable flow rather than a narrative. As BlockchainReporter covered in its Weekly Tokenization Roundup, on-chain RWA activity has passed $20 billion, and live settlement arrangements are moving from test cases to operational infrastructure. Binance’s TradFi perpetuals are part of the same convergence, even if the contract structure is different from tokenized ownership.

Institutional demand for alternative exposure is not confined to tokenized Treasuries. Sui’s recent run-up on institutional staking demand showed how quickly product narratives can harden into capital flows, as noted in this Sui institutional staking update. The parallel matters because it indicates that allocators are willing to test non-native yield and exposure when the venue architecture is credible.

Why the Timing Matters

Exchange expansion into TradFi products is not happening in a regulatory vacuum. The US legislative picture remains unsettled, and major industry fights are still playing out in Washington. Banks were pressing for last-minute changes to a significant crypto bill just days before a Senate vote, a dynamic covered in this crypto bill update. That uncertainty makes offshore and global product rollouts more sensitive, because the same venue can face very different rules across jurisdictions.

What remains uncertain is whether the traction Binance reports translates into durable market share in TradFi-facing derivatives or simply reflects early experimentation by crypto-native traders. Without disclosed volumes, open interest, or product-level liquidity, the market cannot separate genuine adoption from promotional momentum. The next data points to watch are whether more traditional counterparties participate, whether margin efficiency improves, and whether the product attracts traders who were not already active in crypto perpetuals.

For now, the report offers a directional signal: Binance is treating TradFi perpetuals as core infrastructure, not as a side project. Whether that bet reshapes how traditional asset exposure is traded depends on execution details the market has not yet seen.

Ripple’s $RLUSD has crossed the $2 billion market-cap milestone this month, which now puts the stablecoin much closer to PayPal USD ($PYUSD), which has a market value of about $2.9 billion.

But market capitalization alone doesn’t show which stablecoin is used more. On-chain activity suggests $PYUSD still has the larger user base and generates more transfer volume. Meanwhile, $RLUSD shows a different pattern: fewer active addresses but high activity relative to its supply.

$RLUSD Is Smaller, But Its Supply Is Moving

As of August 24, RWA.xyz data puts $RLUSD’s market cap at about $2.02 billion, with 84,514 holders. Its monthly transfer volume stands at roughly $11.60 billion, generated through 1.28 million transfers and 7,982 active addresses.

That means $RLUSD’s monthly transfer volume is roughly 5.7 times its circulating supply. The figure is significant because it shows the $2 billion supply is not simply sitting in wallets.

$RLUSD also has a relatively high number of transfers per active address. Dividing its 1.28 million monthly transfers by 7,982 active addresses produces roughly 160 transfers per active address.

That points to a network with a relatively small active user base but frequent activity.

$PYUSD Has the Bigger User Base and More Volume

$PYUSD remains ahead on almost every broad usage metric. RWA.xyz currently puts $PYUSD’s market cap at about $2.89 billion, with 160,889 holders and 59,657 monthly active addresses. Its monthly transfer volume is approximately $27.5 billion across 957,693 transfers.

On a supply-adjusted basis, $PYUSD moves about 9.7 times its circulating supply each month, considerably higher than $RLUSD’s roughly 5.7x turnover. $PYUSD also has more than seven times as many monthly active addresses as $RLUSD.

Interestingly, $RLUSD records more monthly transfers despite having far fewer active addresses. That gives $RLUSD a much higher transfer frequency per active address.

The difference is partly reflected in the average size of recorded transfers. $RLUSD’s monthly volume divided by its transfer count works out to roughly $9,100 per transfer, compared with about $29,300 for $PYUSD.

Chain Distribution Tells Another Story

$RLUSD’s supply is concentrated primarily on Ethereum and the $XRP Ledger. RWA.xyz shows approximately $1.03 billion of $RLUSD on Ethereum and about $988 million on XRPL, meaning the two networks account for virtually the entire current supply.

$PYUSD is more broadly distributed. Current RWA.xyz data shows roughly $1.96 billion on Ethereum, $708 million on Solana, $220 million on Arbitrum, and nearly $8 million on Stellar.

That wider distribution gives $PYUSD access to more ecosystems, particularly Solana, where cheap transactions have made the token attractive for payments and DeFi applications.

DeFi Gives $PYUSD a Broader Footprint

$PYUSD is used across DeFi venues including Aave, Curve, Morpho, and Kamino, with Solana playing an important role in its expansion.

$RLUSD also has a growing DeFi presence. On Ethereum, for example, Sentora operates an $RLUSD lending vault on Morpho, and FXRP was recently added as collateral, allowing users to borrow $RLUSD against an $XRP-linked asset without selling their $XRP.

A Curve USDC-$RLUSD pool has also reached tens of millions of dollars in liquidity, showing that $RLUSD is developing a meaningful secondary market inside DeFi.

Exchange Liquidity Favors Neither on Every Measure

CoinMarketCap currently shows $RLUSD trading volume at roughly $510 million over 24 hours, while $PYUSD is closer to $42 million. That snapshot suggests $RLUSD can see much heavier exchange activity during periods of increased demand or liquidity shifts.

Both tokens are also available through major trading venues including Kraken, ByBit, OKX, and Bitget.

The Real Difference Is the Use Case

The strongest distinction may not be raw transaction numbers but what each issuer is trying to make the stablecoin do.

$PYUSD has a natural distribution advantage through PayPal and is designed for payments, transfers, and conversions within the PayPal/Venmo ecosystem. PayPal also allows eligible users to earn rewards on $PYUSD balances.

Meanwhile, $RLUSD serves institutional settlement, cross-border payments, and financial-market infrastructure, while Ripple’s broader ecosystem includes institutional custody, trading, and lending applications.

The takeaway is that $PYUSD currently has the broader user and transaction footprint, while $RLUSD is concentrated around high-frequency and higher-value financial activity.

As both approach the same $2 billion-plus market-cap neighborhood, the more important battle will therefore be over how efficiently each dollar of stablecoin supply is actually put to work, rather than simply which token has the bigger supply.

Related: How $XRP Holders Can Borrow $RLUSD Without Selling—and the Risks of FXRP Lending

Bitcoin’s price revival that began last Wednesday culminated, at least for now, a few hours ago when the asset soared past $80,000 for the first time since mid-May and tapped a multi-month peak above $81,000.

Analysts were quick to pick up the move and outline the next short-term targets of up to $88,000. $BTC’s surge also led to an increase in liquidated short positions as the total value exceeded $260 million in the past 4 hours.

On a daily scale, the liquidations are up to $650 million, with the lion’s share coming from shorts again. Bitcoin is responsible for half of that amount, according to data from CoinGlass.

Thus, the primary cryptocurrency gained over $16,000 from its starting point of under $65,000 last Wednesday to just over $81,000 earlier today.

Some of the reasons behind this major resurgence include the US Treasury Department’s announcement from last week, the Crypto Summit in the White House, renewed ETF appetite, and Jim Cramer. Oh, wait, the last one might be a joke.

Some altcoins have followed $BTC on the way up today, including ETH, which has neared $2,500 once again. Although the asset has soared by 32% in the past week, the $2,500 barrier appears too strong at the moment. XRP, on the other hand, fights for the $1.50 resistance.

SOL has surged the most from the larger-cap alts today, pumping by over 7.5%. It now trades above $100 for the first time in months as well.

Solana’s gains come as validators vote on two proposals that would cut SOL’s supply, as CoinDesk reported, one slowing new issuance and one raising daily burns to as much as $800,000. Voting closes Thursday.

Zcash extended its run, up over 1% to $846 and 66% on the week, the strongest weekly performance among the top dozen tokens. Dogecoin edged up to 9 cents for a 32% weekly gain, and tron rose half a percent to just under 35 cents, the only major without a double-digit week at 4%.

Hyperliquid’s HYPE was the sole decliner, off marginally at $81, though it holds a 36% weekly gain.

The rally traces to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s plan to step up bond repurchases, which revived talk of the debasement trade, the idea that holding assets outside government control protects against a currency losing value.

Bessent added nothing further on Monday, saying the department will continue its regular programme of sales and signalling no changes before the next quarterly refunding announcement in November.

Morgan Stanley estimated the Treasury has between $80 billion and $200 billion of spare cash it could put toward larger buybacks, according to interest-rate strategist Martin Tobias.

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh speaks at Jackson Hole on Wednesday, his first appearance there since taking the job. Central bankers gather at the Wyoming resort each August, and the chair’s speech is where policy shifts have historically been signalled before they arrive, which is why traders treat it as a rate event in itself.

Bitcoin’s $BTC$80,733.47 recent staggering price rise has some traders paying millions for upside exposure.

On Monday, one or more traders bought 2,000 bitcoin call-option contracts with an $82,000 strike price expiring on Sept. 4, according to data tracking platform Laevitas. The trade effectively bets that bitcoin’s spot price, currently near $80,000, will rise above $82,000 on or before Sept. 4.

Think of it like buying a lottery ticket – the buyer pays a relatively small upfront amount for the chance of a much larger payout if the bet pays off. In this case, the call buyers spent $2.9 million in premium, the maximum they stand to lose if bitcoin remains below $82,000 through the Sept. 4 expiry.

This bullish options flow comes amid a renewed upswing in Bitcoin. $BTC is currently trading around $80,000, up from roughly $64,000 a week ago, a 25% gain over seven days, according to CoinDesk data.

The rally appears to have been driven by the U.S. Treasury’s bond-buyback announcement, continued inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs, and short liquidations that likely accelerated the move higher.

Caution persists

Broadly speaking, the multi-billion dollar options market listed on Deribit continues to showcase caution.

Weekly cryptocurrency trading volume surged to $37 billion last week, doubling within five days, according to data from The Block. The sharp rebound follows a period of subdued activity, yet the figure remains far below the 12-month high of $105 billion recorded in mid-October, just after the market-wide selloff began.

August Volume Lags July

On a monthly basis, August has so far generated $490 billion in trading volume, a significant drop from July’s $670 billion. This slowdown suggests that while short-term momentum can spike, sustained participation has yet to return to earlier levels. The Block’s data highlights that the current cycle is notably different from past ones: the emergence of spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) has redirected a portion of investment demand away from centralized exchanges (CEXs).

However, analysts note that the majority of altcoin demand is still funneling through CEXs, indicating that decentralized venues or direct ETF exposure have not fully replaced traditional exchange activity for smaller tokens. This dynamic could shape liquidity patterns and fee revenues for major platforms in the coming months.

Why This Matters for Traders

The volume recovery, while modest, offers a glimpse into market sentiment. A doubling in five days often signals renewed interest, possibly driven by macroeconomic news or specific token catalysts. Yet the persistent gap from October’s peak suggests caution among institutional players, who may prefer regulated products like spot ETFs over direct exchange trading.

Impact on Exchange Revenue and Liquidity

For exchanges, lower monthly volume translates into reduced trading fee income. The shift toward ETFs also means that some trading activity that would have occurred on CEXs now happens off-exchange, potentially thinning order books for certain assets. Altcoins, however, remain a bright spot for CEXs, as their higher volatility and broader retail appeal continue to drive activity.

Conclusion

Last week’s volume spike is a positive sign for crypto markets, but it does not yet signal a full recovery. With August tracking below July and the shadow of October’s high still looming, traders and platforms should watch whether ETF adoption continues to reshape demand patterns. The data underscores a market in transition, where centralized exchanges retain their grip on altcoin trading while spot products capture a growing share of mainstream investment.

FAQs

Q1: Why did weekly crypto volume double in five days?
Short-term catalysts, such as favorable regulatory news or a sudden price rally, often trigger a burst of trading activity. The exact driver isn’t specified, but volume spikes typically reflect increased participation from both retail and institutional traders.

Q2: How do spot ETFs affect centralized exchange volume?
Spot ETFs allow investors to gain exposure to cryptocurrencies without holding the assets directly, reducing the need to trade on centralized exchanges. This shifts some volume away from CEXs, particularly for major coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Q3: Will altcoin trading remain on centralized exchanges?
Yes, for now. Most altcoins lack ETF products and have thinner liquidity on decentralized platforms, so traders continue to rely on CEXs for these assets. This trend is likely to persist unless regulatory changes or new financial products emerge.

Strategy, the world’s largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder, did not make any purchases this week, as has been the case for some time.

The company, which has been making headlines in recent weeks with its $BTC sales, currently holds 840,447 $BTC.

The Week of Rise Was Wasted!

According to a statement by Strategy founder Michael Saylor, Strategy neither bought nor sold Bitcoin last week.

“…As of 23/08/2026, Strategy owns approximately 4% of the total $BTC supply and uses 0% net leverage.”

Instead, the company announced it had increased its USD reserves to $5.10 billion and created an additional $1.59 billion in USD cash reserves.

According to information shared by Strategy, MSTR generated $2 billion in capital through its sales.

“…USD Cash strengthens our Digital Credit Capital Framework and is separately reserved for general Bitcoin Treasury Corporation purposes; these purposes include $BTC purchases, preferred dividends and interest payments, MSTR/preferred stock buybacks, convertible bond redemption, and increasing the USD Reserve.”

According to the announcement, the company also repurchased STRC shares worth $136 million. The statement said, “These transactions further strengthen STRC,” and noted that the period for making dividend payments using dollar reserves has been extended by 414 days, bringing the total to 3.9 years.

Saylor Sends a Message of Confidence in Bitcoin for the Next Ten Years!

While Strategy also spent the past week without making any $BTC purchases, the company’s founder, Michael Saylor, made a noteworthy assessment regarding Bitcoin’s long-term investment potential.

In his post, Saylor stated that investors should think like billionaires, and that to measure the value of an asset, they should consider “whether someone richer than them would want to buy that asset 10 years from now.”

Saylor argued that Bitcoin meets this standard, which he described as the “Bernard Arnault test.” According to him, this measure shows that Bitcoin is an asset that wealthy individuals will want to buy not only today, but even a decade from now.

*This is not investment advice.

Bitcoin’s vocal advocate and founder of the world’s largest Bitcoin treasury firm, Strategy, has sparked fresh debate on Bitcoin amid the persisting buzz surrounding the asset’s recent breakout.

In a recent post shared by Saylor, the Bitcoin veteran shared a video that addresses the popular Bernard Arnault test, with claims that Bitcoin perfectly fits the criteria.

Saylor Explains How to Think Like a Billionaire

Saylor highlighted the Bernard Arnault test, describing it as how wealthy investors should make their investment decisions when in a dilemma about what asset to buy.

According to Saylor, Bitcoin passes the Bernard Arnault test, which was formed and named after the CEO of LVMH, one of the world’s wealthiest individuals.

While the test only categorizes assets that would still be considered desirable and in demand many years in the future for wealthy investors, Michael Saylor believes that Bitcoin fits into the category.

In essence, Saylor recommends Bitcoin for anyone who thinks they have a lot of money and wants to invest it, suggesting that it is a way to think like a billionaire.

Saylor Retains “Buy Bitcoin” Theory

Following his statement, Michael Saylor extended his longstanding position that investors should not only ask whether an asset can make them richer, but whether there will still be a strong market of buyers willing to acquire it from them years later.

This explains his relentless acquisition of the world’s largest crypto asset by market capitalization, regardless of whether the market is bullish or bearish.

The founder continues to recommend Bitcoin as a preferred asset for long-term investment, emphasizing its scarcity and price potential in years to come.