Articles by Khal
Latest from Khal
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Coinbase Bullish on CLARITY Act as Passage Odds Plummet to 24%
Coinbase Vice Chair Ryan VanGrack told CBS News the CLARITY Act remains on track for passage before August recess, even as prediction markets show odds plummeting from 57% in June to 24% amid Senate Democratic delays.
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Spotify hits 300M paid subscribers despite price hikes in Q2 2026
Spotify crossed 300 million premium subscribers in Q2 2026, adding 7 million during the quarter despite price hikes across several regions. Revenue grew 14% year-over-year to €4.8 billion as the company expands into AI tools, fitness, and audiobooks.
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Hashdex shuts down Bitcoin ETF after failing to gain traction
Hashdex is liquidating its U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF (ticker: DEFI) after the fund accumulated only $14.7 million in assets under management. Trading will end August 17, with cash distributions to shareholders expected by August 28.
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Wells Fargo launches tokenized deposits for corporate payments
Wells Fargo will offer tokenized deposits to select corporate and commercial clients later this year, starting with dollar-to-pound transactions on its proprietary blockchain, joining JPMorgan and Citi in the institutional tokenization race.
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Fortitude Surpasses 60 MW Power Milestone With Nebraska Data Center Acquisition
Barry Silbert's DCG-backed mining platform Fortitude acquired a 12.5 MW data center in Nebraska for $4.7 million, pushing its total power portfolio beyond 60 MW. Silbert has stated that privacy coins like Zcash could achieve outsized returns if institutional adoption increases.
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Anthropic signs $10B compute deal with Volta and Bitdeer for Norway data center
Anthropic agreed to spend $10 billion on computing capacity from Volta Infra and Bitdeer Technologies over six years, securing access to a 133-megawatt Norwegian data center equipped with Nvidia's latest Vera Rubin chips. The deal underscores intensifying competition for AI infrastructure as Anthropic pursues an IPO.
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Dinari launches tokenized U.S. stocks for American investors
Dinari launched its blockchain-based stock offering to eligible U.S. investors, allowing them to trade 724 tokenized equities including all S&P 500 companies using USDC across multiple blockchains as competition in tokenized securities intensifies.
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Arizona, Pennsylvania, Illinois halt data center tax incentives over energy concerns
Three major US states have reversed or paused data center tax incentives, citing strain on energy grids and fairness concerns as hyperscalers expand operations nationwide.
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Runware Sonic Inference Pod deploys AI data center in three weeks
Runware unveiled the Sonic Inference Pod, a containerized compute unit housing over 1,000 GPUs that deploys in three weeks—roughly 50 times faster than traditional data centers. The company raised $50 million in its Series A, bringing total funding to $66 million.
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Apple's Vulnerability Cap Blocks $200K macOS Exploit Report
A Milan cybersecurity startup discovered a critical macOS privilege escalation worth $100K–$200K on the criminal market but couldn't file it after Apple capped submissions to combat AI-generated false reports.
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Binance delists ten crypto pairs in August citing low liquidity
Binance announced the removal of ten spot trading pairs in two waves this August, citing poor liquidity and trading volume. Four pairs delist August 7; six additional tokens follow August 17, with futures contracts settling August 8.
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Coldcard Firmware Flaw Exposes $114M Bitcoin Theft, Accelerates ETF Shift
A firmware vulnerability in Coldcard hardware wallets, active since March 2021, enabled attackers to drain over $114 million from more than 5,200 users by early August 2026. The incident is driving institutional and retail investors toward spot Bitcoin ETFs and regulated custodians as safer alternatives to self-custody.
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Tether Gold reserves surge 9.5% despite gold's worst quarter since 2013
Tether Gold's physical bullion backing grew 9.5% in Q2 even as gold fell 14.1%—its steepest quarterly decline since 2013. The tokenized commodity holder base expanded 6.5% to 253,000 users, signaling sustained demand during market weakness.
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BNY Mellon taps Galaxy for staking on crypto custody platform
Bank of New York Mellon has selected Galaxy to integrate staking capabilities into its digital asset custody service, allowing institutional clients to earn rewards on held assets pending regulatory approval.
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Treasury Secretary Bessent urges Fed rate cuts as core inflation cools to 2.6%
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says core inflation is cooling and the Federal Reserve should cut rates to sustain economic growth. Core CPI dropped to 2.6% in June, down from 2.9% in May, with service inflation also easing.
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Brent crude falls on U.S.-Iran deal optimism; energy prices stabilizing
Brent crude futures declined over 1% as markets price in a potential U.S.-Iran agreement, reducing geopolitical risk premiums tied to Middle East supply disruptions. Analyst Bessent expects energy prices to gradually normalize, though the process typically takes time.
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Wells Fargo launches tokenized deposits for corporate clients this fall
Wells Fargo plans to roll out tokenized deposits for corporate and commercial clients this fall, supporting US dollar and British pound transactions. The move follows similar efforts by JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup.
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BlackRock Tokenizes $311B European Money Market Funds on Ethereum
BlackRock launched tokenized share classes for European money market funds holding $311 billion, minting tokens on Ethereum through J.P. Morgan's Kinexys. The offering targets professional investors across 13 jurisdictions and enables round-the-clock peer-to-peer settlement.
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Michael Saylor: Personal Bitcoin Holdings Never Sold
Strategy Chairman Michael Saylor reaffirmed he has never sold any of his personal Bitcoin holdings, distinguishing his personal stance from the company's $104.73 million sale of 1,638 BTC last week. Bitcoin critic Peter Schiff questioned the clarity of Saylor's messaging.
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Genspark open-sources GenOffice, first AI office suite built from scratch
Genspark released GenOffice, a fully open-source AI office suite built for macOS and Windows, under the Apache License 2.0. The company claims a single engineer created the Alpha version in one week for around $10,000 in AI tokens.
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Crypto VCs shift billions to AI and robotics, retreating from tokens
Paradigm and peers like a16z are deploying billion-dollar funds into robotics and AI startups as traditional equity plays, marking a strategic pivot away from cryptocurrency-native investments and likely inflating valuations across hard-tech sectors.
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Boltz Bitcoin bridge shuts down after AI-assisted security attacks
Bitcoin bridge Boltz shut down its swap service after months of AI-assisted probing and exploits, illustrating how automated attacks are pushing smaller crypto teams toward centralized custodians. Security now demands resources only large players can afford.
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FBI supervisor pleads guilty to $1M crypto theft from adversarial nation
Former FBI supervisory agent Patrick Steven Yaroch pleaded guilty to stealing approximately $1 million in digital assets from an adversarial country using internal systems, forfeiting roughly $925,000 to government wallets.
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Coldcard Phishing Surge: $130M in Losses as Trezor, Foundation Warn
Following a Coldcard firmware exploit, Trezor and Foundation warned of a phishing campaign where fake "coordinated hardware audit" emails direct victims to a cloned site that installs remote-access software. Galaxy Research confirms losses above $100 million, with total theft potentially reaching $130 million.