Author: NBTC

BitMEX recorded 39,449,400 XBTUSD contracts of open interest at 01:55 UTC on Aug. 10 as the exchange approached a two-stage shutdown. BitMEX will block new positions on Aug. 26 and force-close anything still open when exchange services end on Sept. 23. XBTUSD is an inverse Bitcoin perpetual whose contracts do not expire during normal trading. BitMEX’s contract specification sets each contract at $1 of Bitcoin, so the Aug. 10 count represented $39.45 million of face value, or about 605.45 BTC at the reported mark price of $65,156.99. The instrument data is a timestamped snapshot of one market. The $39.45 million…

A Record-Low Rial and a New Sanctions Wave Iran’s open-market exchange rate slid to roughly 2.02 million rials per dollar earlier this week, down from 1.53 million during Q1 this year. The slide came the same week the Trump administration launched Operation Economic Outcast, a sweeping sanctions package first announced on August 19 that added more than 60 entities to the Treasury’s blacklist. Most notably, he named digital assets as a sanctionable sector for the first time alongside technology, gold, aviation and shipping. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the goal is to force Iran’s state-run Bank Melli to go “shuttered…

US equity markets moving toward 23-hour, five-day trading still leave 53 hours each week without a national quotation, creating a pricing gap for continuous markets. Pyth covers more than 220 US equities on a 24/5 basis, while Hyperliquid uses discovery bounds and Pyth constructed indices to support weekend pricing. HIP-3 markets have exceeded $540 billion in volume, with 407,000 traders and more than $4 billion in open interest. US equity markets are moving toward 23-hour trading, five days a week, but that still leaves 53 hours without a national quotation. Hyperliquid and Pyth are positioning their infrastructure around that remaining…

American Bitcoin Corp., the Bitcoin miner co founded by Eric Trump and majority owned by Hut 8, reported a $57.2 million net loss for the second quarter on Aug. 3. The result included a $71.2 million loss on digital assets, even as the company delivered record production and expanded its reserve to approximately 8,002 $BTC, according to its official quarterly results. The loss narrowed from $81.8 million in the first quarter. Revenue increased from $62.1 million to $67 million, while adjusted EBITDA remained negative at $45 million, compared with a $91.3 million loss three months earlier. American Bitcoin’s asset loss…

MSX, a real-world asset (RWA) platform, has officially opened buyback applications for Anthropic and Polymarket, the two projects in its second pre-IPO tranche. The move allows early investors to exit their positions at current market valuations, with Polymarket’s reference price having surged to $202.67 per share from its original subscription price of $152—an estimated return of 33.3%. How the Buyback Process Works Users who subscribed to these pre-IPO tokens can now apply for redemption based on the latest market price. Upon approval, they receive settlement in $USDT (a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar), effectively locking in their gains. Alternatively,…

Cryptocurrency asset management company Grayscale has launched a new exchange-traded product (ETF) in the US, offering investment in the privacy-focused altcoin Zcash ($ZEC). The company’s Zcash ETF, ZCSH, began trading on the NYSE Arca today. Created by converting the Grayscale Zcash Trust into an ETF, ZCSH is the first exchange-traded product in the US to focus on $ZEC. According to shared data, as of August 24, the fund had approximately $314 million in assets under management, with approximately 387,200 $ZEC in its portfolio. The annual management fee for ZCSH has been set at 2.5%. Grayscale also announced that revenue from…

Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 markets have grown tremendously both in terms of volume and open interest ever since going live on mainnet last year in October. This weekend saw HIP-3 markets notch up another milestone as they closed above $4 billion in open interest for the first time. A month ago the figure stood at $3.67 billion, meaning the last four weeks saw a rise of 9.8%. Rewinding back to the start of the year, it was $259.33 million. That is a 1,454% increase in a little over seven months. Source: ASXN Hyperliquid Dashboard The timing of it is what makes the…

$BNB Smart Chain (BSC) activated its Pasteur hard fork on Tuesday, closing bridge verification and validator authorization gaps while introducing a new route intended to fit more transactions into each block. In a Tuesday post, $BNB Chain confirmed that Pasteur was live on the BSC mainnet. The team said the upgrade strengthens the network’s bridge, staking and governance security while giving blocks more capacity without changing its 450-millisecond block time. The upgrade combines three $BNB Evolution Proposals. BEP-682 rejects duplicate validator entries during cross-chain light-block verification, while BEP-695 tightens controls involving validator key rotation, slashing and governance voting. Furthermore, BEP-675…

A wallet associated with Strategy (MSTR) has transferred 299.84 $BTC, valued at approximately $18.91 million, according to blockchain tracking service Lookonchain. The transaction, which occurred about nine hours ago, has drawn attention from market observers due to the company’s history of selling Bitcoin during specific windows. Context and Recent Activity Lookonchain noted that the last time Strategy moved $BTC was between July 1 and July 5, when the firm sold 3,588 $BTC worth roughly $216 million. This latest transfer, while smaller in scale, could signal a continuation of the company’s treasury management strategy or potential preparation for a sale. Strategy,…

$RLUSD Supply Crosses $2 Billion Ripple USD ($RLUSD) surpassed $2 billion in market capitalization last week. On Aug. 25, Ripple shared the milestone in a post on X: “$RLUSD crossed $2B in market cap last week, with close to $1B issued on the $XRP Ledger. Live since December 2024, built for real-world utility and designed for enterprise use cases. “ Each $RLUSD token is designed to maintain a value of $1 through reserves containing cash and permitted cash equivalents. Ripple’s $RLUSD documentation states that reserves are held in segregated accounts and include short-term U.S. Treasury bills, government money market funds,…