Former Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao has been transferred from FCI Lompoc II to the RRM Long Beach halfway house in California, sparking confusion among X users who mistakenly believed he had been released.
Despite the change in his location, CZ remains incarcerated.
The RRM Long Beach facility, categorized as a ‘residential reentry management (RRM) field office,’ is designed to assist inmates nearing their release but does not equate to a full release. InmateAID – which is a Federal inmate communications provider – describes this facility as one with voluntary compliance requirements rather than a high-security environment, though strict house rules must be followed.
The misinterpretation of CZ’s transfer has been compounded by a previous mix-up about his release date.

The Dencun upgrade in March 2024 was a significant milestone for Ethereum, but it also brought about unforeseen challenges, particularly for Layer 2 networks.
Christine Kim, a researcher at Galaxy, highlighted that this upgrade inadvertently led to an increase in transaction failures across these networks.
Ethereum’s Layer 2 Networks Face Challenges
Kim’s August 21 analysis, titled “150 Days After Dencun,” revealed that since the fee-reducing upgrade, there has been a notable rise in failed transactions and bot activity on Layer 2 networks.
The report highlighted that after the activation of EIP-4844, Ethereum L2’s daily transactions more than doubled, growing by 6.65 million within 150 days. However, this increase in transaction activity has also been accompanied by a

Binance plans to hire 1,000 new employees this year, with a substantial focus on compliance roles. A large portion of these hires is specifically aimed at expanding the company’s compliance team from its current 500 members to 700 by the end of 2024.
CEO Richard Teng, who is currently in the US for discussions with monitors and officials, shared these hiring targets in an interview with Bloomberg News in New York on Wednesday.
Focus on Compliance
Bloomberg’s report revealed that Binance is estimated to allocate over $200 million this year solely for regulatory compliance, including expenditures related to the US plea agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other agencies.
The 55-year-old exec disclosed plans that Binance has seen a surge in requests from law

McDonald’s Instagram page was reportedly hacked on August 21, leading to a significant scam involving a Solana-based meme coin.
The perpetrators exploited the fast-food chain’s social media account to promote a fraudulent token named “Grimace,” referencing one of McDonald’s fictional characters featured in its advertisements.
Bubblemaps’ findings reveal that the hacker acquired 75% of the Grimace token’s total supply using the Solana meme coin deployer pump.fun. The attacker leveraged multiple addresses to purchase the token simultaneously and then distributed the accumulated supply across approximately 100 different wallets.
The hackers reportedly siphoned over $700,000 in Solana during the scheme. Screenshots from X revealed that the McDonald’s Instagram page was altered

Terraform Labs (TFL) – the bankrupt cryptocurrency firm co-founded by Do Kwon – is set to face a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization hearing on September 19.
The hearing will be crucial in shaping the company’s future as it navigates the aftermath of the Terra ecosystem’s dramatic collapse in 2022, which triggered extensive legal and financial challenges.
Fallout from TerraUSD and LUNA Collapse
The court’s ruling will essentially decide if Terraform Labs can successfully restructure and potentially recover from bankruptcy or if it will be compelled to liquidate its assets and shut down operations permanently.
Terraform Labs is the company behind the Terra blockchain, which is known for its ill-fated algorithmic stablecoin TerraUSD (UST) and LUNA. On May 9, 2022, UST began

The TON blockchain recorded yet another milestone as the number of active addresses on the project’s Masterchain has surged to an all-time high of 946 daily.
According to CryptoQuant’s latest analysis, this marks a more than sevenfold increase since July 2021, highlighting the growing popularity and adoption of the network.
New Milestone for TON
While 946 active addresses might initially seem modest, it’s crucial to understand that the TON architecture is designed with multiple “workchains” that handle the bulk of data, leaving the Masterchain primarily responsible for message routing and transaction coordination.
This increase in active addresses has several implications, as per the analyst’s findings. Firstly, their growth indicates a surge in network activity, with more

TeraWulf’s second-quarter earnings report, released earlier in August, demonstrated mixed performance.
While the company produced less BTC than in the same period in 2023, its revenue increased modestly compared to the estimated figures.
TeraWulf’s Q2 Results
The report revealed that TeraWulf mined 699 BTC across its Lake Mariner and Nautilus Cryptomine facilities, a 21% decrease from the same period last year.
The firm’s revenue for the quarter, on the other hand, was $35.6 million, marginally exceeding the estimated $35.4 million. Despite this, TeraWulf posted a loss of $0.03 per share, worse than the estimated $0.02 loss per share.
It also witnessed a dramatic 243% rise in the cost of mining Bitcoin, with expenses climbing from $6,688 per Bitcoin in Q2 2023 to $22,954

Police are actively searching for four Chinese nationals believed to have broken into a luxury home in Pathum Thani, one of the central provinces of Thailand, and forced the resident to transfer $2 million (70 million baht) in crypto assets.
The break-in took place around 2 AM on Wednesday in Tambon Ban Mai in the Muang district.
Crypto Heist
According to police reports, six residents, including three men and three women, occupied the house at the time of the incident. Ke Jibao, a 35-year-old Chinese businessman, reported that he and his wife were asleep when the four masked suspects, armed with guns and knives, entered the property.
The intruders reportedly restrained Ke, his wife, and a maid, tying their hands and feet. They then coerced him into contacting a relative in

The British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC) has determined that the cryptocurrency trading platform ezBtc and its founder, David Smillie, defrauded investors of approximately $9.5 million, equivalent to 13 million Canadian dollars, in crypto assets.
The BCSC’s investigation uncovered that ezBtc and Smillie engaged in misleading and deceptive practices, misappropriating funds intended for customer accounts.
Crypto Funds Diverted for Gambling
According to the official press release shared by the Canadian regulatory agency, ezBtc began accepting customer deposits in December 2016 and ceased operations permanently around September 2019. During this period, customers deposited over 2,300 BTC and more than 600 ETH into their ezBtc accounts.
Despite claims that all crypto

Texas-based Bitcoin mining company Core Scientific has announced the pricing of its increased offering of $400 million in 3.00% convertible senior notes due in 2029. The initial size of the offering was $350 million, which has been upsized due to favorable market conditions.
Scheduled to settle on August 19, 2024, the notes will be issued privately to qualified institutional buyers. The initial buyers will be granted an option to acquire an additional $60 million in notes.
Core Scientific Launches $400M Senior Notes Offering
According to the official press release, these unsecured notes, accruing interest semi-annually, will mature on September 1, 2029, unless previously converted, redeemed, or repurchased.
“Core Scientific will settle conversions by paying or delivering,

As the market navigates the largest downturn of this cycle, investor sentiment in the digital asset market remains uncertain.
Beneath the surface, however, Glassnode has found that there are clear signs of a resurgence in HODLing and accumulation.
Signs of Accumulation
Glassnode’s analysis of the on-chain investor response to these volatile market conditions indicates a growing inclination towards HODLing. Since bitcoin’s price reached an all-time high in March, the market experienced a prolonged phase of supply distribution involving wallets of varying sizes.
Over the past few weeks, however, this trend has started to reverse, notably among the largest wallets, often linked to ETFs. This cohort of investors seems to be transitioning back to a phase of accumulation.
BTC

Coinbase submitted its third comment letter highlighting significant flaws in the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) cost-benefit analysis of the proposed rule. The letter argued that the agency has failed to assess the rule’s economic impact on efficiency, competition, and capital formation.
Despite acknowledging a lack of critical information on decentralized exchange (DEX) operations and compliance costs, Coinbase said the SEC has proposed vague benefits that may not materialize, especially if DEXs are driven out of the US market.
SEC Rulemaking Under Fire
The author of the letter and Coinbase’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, stated that the SEC should withdraw the proposal and redo it after conducting thorough research.
The crypto exchange’s letter also

Ethereum has seen the greatest advantage from the recent market downturn as investors appeared to have viewed the price weakness as a buying opportunity.
In fact, data suggests that Ethereum has managed to attract $155 million in inflows over the past week. According to CoinShares, the latest round of inflows boosted its year-to-date total inflows to $862 million, the highest since 2021, primarily fueled by the recent introduction of US spot-based ETFs.
Inflows Rebound
Besides Ethereum, the positive sentiment is evident for other crypto assets as well. Bitcoin, for one, saw a significant increase in inflows toward the end despite initial outflows at the start of the week, bringing the weekly total to $13 million.
On the other hand, short Bitcoin ETPs recorded their largest

Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings has announced plans for a $250 million offering of convertible senior notes due in 2031. The latest private offering is targeted at “qualified institutional buyers.”
The firm aims to use the proceeds for the acquisition of Bitcoin as well as corporate growth.
The company also has the option to increase the offering by an additional $37.5 million, depending on market conditions. These notes, which will be unsecured and senior obligations of the company, are set to mature in 2031 with interest payments starting in 2025.
Expanding Bitcoin Holdings
According to the official press release, Marathon intends to use the proceeds from this offering to acquire additional Bitcoin and for other corporate purposes, such as strategic

Toronto-based Bitcoin mining company Bitfarms reported a total revenue of $42 million, marking a 16% decline quarter-over-quarter.
This decrease is attributed to the reduction in block rewards resulting from the BTC halving event on April 19, 2024.
Q2 Financial Result
Bitfarms reported a net loss of $27 million, or $0.07 per share, which includes a $1 million non-cash expense for revaluing warrant liabilities from financing activities in 2021 and 2023. This compares to a net loss of $6 million, or $0.02 per share, in Q1 2024, which included a $9 million non-cash gain from revaluing warrant liabilities.
According to the official press release, the company generated 614 BTC in the second quarter of 2024 with an average direct production cost of $30,600 per BTC, up from

Binance’s venture capital and incubation arm – Binance Labs – announced investing in the Solana-based restaking network, Solayer.
Solayer plans to deploy the new capital infusion from Binance Labs to grow its team, onboard additional protocols into its ecosystem, and solidify its role as a crucial part of the Solana blockchain.
According to the official press release, the team will also prioritize researching ways to mitigate Solana’s network congestion through the use of restaking infrastructure.
Solayer is preparing to launch a full system soon, which will enable stakers to use SOL to secure Solana, while dApps will be able to secure network bandwidth and transaction throughput. Additionally, the platform will target general asset restaking to secure external AVS

Binance has announced that its security team has successfully recovered or frozen more than $73 million in user funds from external hacks as of July 31 this year.
This latest figure exceeds the roughly $55 million recovered in all of 2023.
Binance’s 2024 Security Efforts
As per the official press release shared with CryptoPotato, Binance asserted working closely with the public sector to ensure affected users receive the necessary assistance.  About 80% of these recoveries and freezes are linked to external hacks, exploits, and thefts, while the remaining 20% involve scams that occur outside the Binance platform.
Jimmy Su, Chief Security Officer at Binance, said,
“Binance has cultivated a crypto user-focused culture that defines every aspect of our operations. This

Former President Donald Trump, now a presidential candidate, has made Bitcoin a central focus of his campaign, promising to make the US a global crypto leader.
Building on his father’s recent pivot toward crypto, Donald Trump Jr. is developing a new decentralized finance (DeFi) platform to address banking access inequality.
Trump Jr Targets the Debanked
On August 8, in a Q&A session hosted on Locals, Trump Jr., the eldest son of presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump, revealed that he’s working on a crypto platform to challenge the banks rather than launch a meme coin. He didn’t elaborate further but highlighted that the platform would target the banking sector.
“What we want to do is take on a lot of the banking world. I think there has been a lot of

Stablecoin issuer Tether intends to double its workforce within the next year to strengthen areas such as compliance. By mid-2025, the company behind the USDT stablecoin anticipates expanding its headcount to approximately 200 employees, according to Chief Executive Officer Paolo Ardoino.
Tether also plans to increase staffing in its finance department, which oversees the $118 billion in assets backing USDT.
Tether’s Workforce Expansion
With a relatively small team, Tether has grown into a financial giant, raking in a net operating profit of $1.3 billion in the second quarter of 2024, fueled by its leading stablecoin. In comparison, major crypto exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase employ large workforces.
Commenting on the same, Ardoino told Bloomberg in an interview on

OKX is all set to deactivate accounts involved with sanctioned entities, including crypto mixer Tornado Cash and Moscow-based crypto exchange Garantex.
On August 9th, OKX CEO Star Xu highlighted the platform’s strict adherence to compliance with international sanctions and clarified that such users will not be able to open accounts on the platform.
OKX Enforces Strict Compliance
For those who have already opened accounts, any transactions involving deposits from or withdrawals to sanctioned entities, such as Garantex and Tornado Cash, will activate the platform’s compliance risk controls and terminate their accounts.
In a post on X, the exec reassured users that while sanctions are crucial for regulatory adherence, they largely do not impact the average user, who need not

Bitcoin briefly tumbled below $50,000 earlier this week as the market saw the sharpest correction since the FTX crisis. The subsequent recovery, though, pushed the asset’s price above $57,000.
Despite the chaos in the broader market, bitcoin’s technical charts show a bullish flag, while on-chain data reveals rising buying pressure, reinforcing the bullish outlook.
Strong Bullish Forecast
According to the latest post by CryptoQuant, a promising bullish signal for BTC has emerged with the crypto asset forming an ascending flag pattern on technical charts since March this year. This classic pattern often precedes significant upward movements, suggesting that bitcoin might experience a breakout in the coming months.
Supporting this technical analysis, CryptoQuant’s Onchain

XRP has decoupled from the broader crypto market, outperforming all top assets in terms of daily gains. While the rest of the market struggles, XRP experienced a sharp price increase of nearly 20% in the past day, reaching $0.64 on Thursday before slightly retracing to $0.61.
As a result of the continued uptrend, XRP has managed to post an impressive 42% in monthly gains. This bullish trend is backed by a certain group of whale wallets that have accumulated a significant stash of tokens, thereby clinching a new record.
XRP’s Bullish Signs
XRP’s market cap soared by 23% within the past 24 hours. According to Santiment’s latest findings, this rapid growth has coincided with a notable accumulation by whales, as wallets holding between 1 million to 10 million tokens on the XRP

After 11 years of dormancy, a Bitcoin wallet belonging to a miner, dating back to the Satoshi era in 2010, has come back to life.
This entity suddenly became active on August 7 and transferred 250 BTC, worth approximately $13.95 million, to five new wallets.
Historic Bitcoin Wallet From 2010 Awaken
According to the latest update by popular on-chain tracker Lookonchain, the wallet originally earned 250 BTC through mining in May 2010 when Bitcoin was hovering below the $1 mark. Notably, the entity sits on an unrealized profit (at least for now) of over $14 million in 2024.
The latest transfer saw the earnings being distributed across five separate wallets, with amounts ranging from 10 BTC to 60 BTC each. The unexpected activation of this long-dormant address has sparked

Ethereum investment products experienced net outflows of $146 million globally last week, largely due to $169.4 million in outflows from US spot Ethereum ETFs. This figure masks $430 million in net inflows into new Ethereum ETFs, overshadowed by $603 million in outflows from Grayscale’s ETHE fund.
Additionally, there were minor outflows observed in European ETPs, according to CoinShares’ report.
Bitcoin experienced massive outflows of $400 million, marking the first time in five weeks of inflows. On the other hand, short-Bitcoin saw its first notable inflows since June, amounting to $1.8 million. Solana faced weekly outflows of $2.8 million, while XRP and Litecoin recorded modest inflows of $0.4 million and $0.2 million during the same period, respectively.
Blockchain

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Nader Al-Naji with orchestrating a multi-million-dollar fraudulent crypto asset scheme involving the social media platform BitClout and its native token BTCLT.
The securities regulator’s complaint revealed that Al-Naji raised over $257 million through unregistered offers and sales of BTCLT in November 2020. In the process, the exec allegedly misled investors by claiming the funds would not be used for his or other BitClout employees’ compensation.
However, the complaint accuses Al-Naji of spending over $7 million of these funds on personal expenses, including renting a mansion in Beverly Hills and giving lavish cash gifts to family members.
According to the complaint released

Prominent on-chain sleuth ZachXBT has recently uncovered compelling evidence linking convicted UK hacker Gurv – whose real name is Gurvinder Bhangu – to the recent compromises of American actress Sydney Sweeney’s and ‘Breaking Bad’ actor Bob Odenkirk’s X accounts.
This resulted in over $530,000 stolen through Solana meme coin scams.
SWEENEY Pump and Dump
On July 2nd, Sweeney fell victim to a SIM swap attack, and a link to a fraudulent meme coin based on Solana called SWEENEY, was posted from her account, causing the coin’s price to spike and then plummet.
According to ZachXBT’s latest findings, team wallets from the SWEENEY scam sold off more than $515,000 worth of the coin before cashing out. Following the incident, the hacker appeared to have brazenly trolled social

Futu Securities International – the largest online broker in Hong Kong – has started offering retail cryptocurrency trading in the city-state.
The latest move involves attracting investors with shares of Alibaba Group Holding and Nvidia. Residents of Hong Kong can now trade bitcoin and ether on the brokerage platform with Hong Kong or US Dollars. Futu has partnered with HashKey Exchange, one of the only two licensed cryptocurrency exchanges in Hong Kong, to offer crypto trading services.
Futu Attracts Investors with Alibaba and Nvidia
According to the report by South China Morning Post, investors in Hong Kong who open accounts in August and deposit HK$10,000 (worth around $1,280) for a period of 60 days can receive either HK$600 worth of Bitcoin, a HK$400 supermarket

XRP climbed to $0.66 on Wednesday, surging by 8% over the past 24 hours from $0.60, a level last seen in the third week of March.
The latest upward price action comes amidst important developments in the XRP ecosystem and renewed investor optimism in the market as the accumulation trend intensifies.
XRP Accumulation
There has been a significant surge in the number of wallets holding at least 10,000 XRP over the past five weeks. According to the latest data shared by Santiment, this figure has reached a six-month high of 279.4k addresses.
This sharp increase in high-value wallets signaled a growing accumulation trend among investors, potentially reflecting bullish sentiment toward XRP.
Notably, the correlation between these large holdings and XRP’s market value has been

21Shares – which is part of 21Shares AG – has announced the integration of Chainlink Proof of Reserve on the Ethereum mainnet. It improves the transparency of the Ethereum reserves backing the 21Shares Core Ethereum ETF (CETH), which is physically backed by Ether and tracks its performance.
The Zurich-based financial institution said that the latest move aligns with its broader goals to expand its US product lineup and strengthen its presence in the US market.
Boosting Visibility for 21Shares’ Spot Ethereum ETF (CETH)
21Shares said it chose Chainlink as its decentralized computing platform due to the latter’s proven track record in enabling over $12 trillion in value for on-chain markets. By integrating Chainlink’s Proof of Reserve (PoR), 21Shares asserted that it ensures

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) plans to amend its original complaint against Binance, which might eliminate the need for the court to decide on tokens that were previously classified as securities.
The joint filing comes amid increased efforts by presidential candidates to attract pro-crypto voters in the United States.
SEC Moves to Amend Complaint
The SEC’s filing on July 30th reveals that it has notified Binance, its US affiliate, and founder Changpeng Zhao of its intention to amend its complaint, particularly with regards to the ‘Third Party Crypto Asset Securities,’ thereby negating the need for a court ruling on these allegations at this time.
“The SEC informed Defendants that it intends to seek leave to amend its Complaint, including with respect to