Crypto Industry News & Market Trends

SEC clears Franklin Templeton funds to use onchain BENJI system for cash management

Quick TakeFranklin Templeton received a no-action letter from the SEC enabling its traditional registered funds to invest in its blockchain-based BENJI fund for cash management.The SEC said it would allow the traditional funds to hold those shares without having to meet certain physical-vault requirements.　　The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission‘s Division of Investment Management has issued a no-action letter to Franklin Templeton, clearing the way for the firm’s traditional registered funds to invest in its blockchain-based OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund.　　In the letter, posted Wednesday, the SEC cites Section 17(f) and Rule 17f-2 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, enabling registered funds to hold shares of the onchain money market fund for cash management without meeting certain physical-vault requirements.　　“Essentially, it opens the door for Franklins registered funds (mutual funds, ETFs, etc) to hold its OnChain fund despite not technically satisfying 1940 Act custody rules,” Bloomberg analyst James Seyffart said on X.　　The decision effectively lets conventional Franklin funds access some of the operational advantages of its OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund (FOBXX), often called BENJI, including faster transaction processing and more frequent pricing updates.　　Franklin‘s onchain fund relies on an integrated record-keeping system that combines internal book-entry data with transaction records on

08-13Industry

Bitcoins $120M Betting War Draws a Brutal Map for 2026 Prices

Bitcoin-focused prediction markets are pricing a turbulent 2026, with bettors expecting sharp swings but treating six-figure prices as a distant long shot.　　Key TakeawaysPolymarket bettors give bitcoin 68% odds of hitting $70,000 before 2026 ends.Kalshi prices bitcoins shot at $100,000 before January 2027 at just 12%.Polymarket sees 81% odds bitcoin hits $62,500 in August, keeping volatility in focus.　　Bitcoin was trading near $63,500 when the markets were measured at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Wednesday afternoon on Aug. 12, 2026. Across six active markets on the leading prediction marketplaces, Polymarket and Kalshi, traders have wagered more than $120 million on where BTCs price could head next.　　Traders Price a Wide 2026 Range　　Polymarkets biggest bitcoin price market has pulled in about $52.1 million in trading. It gives bitcoin a 68% chance of hitting $70,000 sometime before the end of 2026, while the odds climb to 79% that it will touch $60,000.　　Image source: Polymarket on Aug. 12, 2026.　　That pairing is not a contradiction. Each contract asks whether bitcoin hits a specific level at any point during the period, meaning traders can price both a rally and a sell-off. The middle of the range gets murkier. Polymarket puts the odds of bitcoin reaching $75,000 at 51%, $80,000

08-13Industry

'Inner Thoughts' of Every Major AI Model Exposed in Massive Exploit

In briefA team or researchers found that Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google all use a single global encryption key for AI reasoning tokens.By decoding 315,320 reasoning blocks scraped from public GitHub and Hugging Face repositories, the researchers recovered 182 credentials, including 62 live API keys, 33 passwords, and 30 personal email addresses.OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google deployed server-side patches after responsible disclosure, but historical session logs already shared publicly remain decodable.　　Security researchers have found a way to read the encrypted “inner thoughts” of every major AI reasoning model—and uncovered 62 live API keys and 33 passwords buried in session logs that developers had shared publicly online without knowing what was inside them.　　“By decoding 315,320 reasoning blocks scraped from public repositories, we recovered 367 Personally Identifiable Information (PII) artifacts and 182 credentials,” the researchers wrote.　　The paper, submitted August 10 by a team from MATS Research, the ELLIS Institute Tübingen, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, and security firm Snyk, targets a specific class of AI: reasoning models. These are models that dont just answer immediately and instead start with an internal chain-of-thought (a step-by-step scratchpad where the AI works through a problem before showing you the answer), then deliver a final response.　　Anthropic,

08-13Industry

Chinas DeepSeek Upgrades V4 Pro: Claude Fable Is Only 5% Better at 4,500% the Price

In briefDeepSeek quietly swapped deepseek-v4-pro to the 0813 build, the general-availability release of a model that had been running as a preview since April.Across nine agent benchmarks where both models are scored, DeepSeeks table puts Claude Fable 5 ahead by an average of 5.3%. On two of them, DeepSeek wins.Fable 5 costs $10 per million input tokens and $50 per million output. V4 Pro costs $0.435 and $0.87.　　DeepSeek shipped the finished version of its flagship on Wednesday with no blog post and no announcement. The tell was a table cell: the model version listed for “deepseek-v4-pro” on the API pricing page now reads DeepSeek-V4-Pro-0813.　　The cost to use this model is around $0.435 and $0.87 per million tokens (the basic unit of information a model can handle) of input and output. So the pricing structure remains the same, but what changed is the weights underneath.　　Deepseek V4 Pro has been in the wild since April, priced 98% below GPT-5 Pro, and every independent lab that tested it was testing a preview. DeepSeek said so itself on July 31, when it pushed V4-Flash to general availability and noted that the Pro API was “unchanged” with the official release to “follow soon.” The model

08-13Industry

US-UK crypto pact sets direction, not binding rules

The United States and the United Kingdom have issued 10 recommendations for stablecoins, tokenized securities, and cross-border finance, although the proposals have not created enforceable rules.　　SummaryTen recommendationscover digital assets, capital markets, and cooperation between U.S. and UK regulators.A proposed one-year industry groupwould test cross-border uses for tokenized financial assets.Both governments want a pathway for regulated stablecoinsto enter each others markets.Frank Hepworth said the recommendations produce very little immediate market impactwithout domestic rules.　　The Transatlantic Taskforce for Markets of the Future published the recommendations on July 14, setting priorities for cooperation between two of the world‘s largest financial centers without replacing either country’s regulatory process.　　Established in September 2025 by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the task force brought together officials from the Treasury departments, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Bank of England, and the Financial Conduct Authority.　　Five recommendations deal with digital assets. The remaining five address capital raising, foreign issuer requirements, consolidated market data, swap-trading supervision, and international accounting standards.　　You might also like:　　US, UK deepen stablecoin talks after GENIUS Act　　New Market Trading CEO Frank Hepworth told crypto.news that the cooperation responds to a basic conflict between global digital

08-13Industry

SpaceXAI Wants Grok Bot to Do Your Job—But It Needs Access to Your Accounts

In briefGrok Bot completes tasks across apps, websites, and inboxes.According to SpaceXAI, multiple bots can communicate, share context, and divide work.The service requires access to workplace accounts and potentially sensitive company data.　　Elon Musks SpaceXAI is joining the race to build AI agents that can navigate software and complete work for users.　　Launched on Tuesday for Windows and iOS, Grok Bot operates through a cloud-based computer that allows it to sign into workplace tools, navigate websites, and manage email inboxes. According to SpaceXAI, users can assign tasks in plain English rather than building automated workflows, leaving Grok Bot to handle the rest.　　“They finish jobs end to end, and only come back when something needs your approval,” SpaceXAI said in a statement.　　Grok Bot is part of a shift in the AI industry toward “agentic AI”—bots that can perform tasks for users instead of just generating text or answering questions. SpaceXAI is joining a field already dominated by projects like OpenClaw and Hermes Agent, while OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic are investing heavily in making their respective chatbots more autonomous.　　Watching, learning, and delegating　　According to SpaceXAI, users can run multiple bots that coordinate tasks, share context, with one bot overseeing the other agents.　　“You can message them

08-13Industry

Kalshi launches sports and crypto perps data feed on DoubleZero

Prediction market Kalshi‘s live order book is now available through data provider DoubleZero Edge’s dedicated fiber network, the two companies said in a Wednesday announcement shared with Cointelegraph.　　Kalshi said this makes it the first prediction market to distribute its real-time order book data on sports and crypto perpetuals event contracts, which will be available to new DoubleZero Edge subscribers.　　Users looking for a machine-readable view of prediction market data can access these capabilities via the dedicated feed, instead of building this infrastructure from order books and application programming interface (API) responses themselves.　　Data access is a “critical part” of market structure, but related infrastructure has been missing from new financial paradigms such as crypto, perpetuals and prediction markets, said Austin Federa, co-founder of DoubleZero, adding that this initiative will bring institutional-grade infrastructure to industry participants.　　Sports ranks as the second-largest category on Kalshi with 37.8% of weekly notional volume, followed by crypto in third place, at 20.3%. Exotics ranked first, accounting for 39.4% of Kalshis weekly notional trading volume, according to Dune data.　　In early July, OpenAI started displaying Kalshis prediction market odds for FIFA World Cup matches in ChatGPT search results.　　Kalshi‘s sports event contracts are at the center of a jurisdictional dispute between

08-13Industry

Kraken adds S&P 500 to funded trading program, commodities to follow

US-based crypto exchange Kraken has added an S&P 500 perpetual product to its proprietary trading program, giving funded traders round-the-clock exposure to the US equity benchmark.　　According to a company blog post on Wednesday, the product is structured as a perpetual priced off an index oracle tracking the S&P 500, rather than a standardized futures contract, meaning it has no expiration date or rollover requirement.　　The S&P 500 joins the Nasdaq 100 as the second traditional market available through Kraken Prop, with the company planning to add commodities as part of a broader multi-asset rollout. Traders can access the S&P 500 market across Kraken Props evaluation and funded accounts with up to 5x leverage and a maximum notional exposure of $1 million, according to the company.　　Kraken Prop allows traders to purchase an evaluation and, if they meet the programs requirements, qualify to trade with Kraken capital. Evaluation plans start at $20, with funded account sizes ranging from $5,000 to $200,000.　　The launch follows Kraken‘s move in July to offer retail investors access to Jersey Mike’s initial public offering through direct share allocations in the US and tokenized shares in more than 110 countries, as the exchange continues to expand its traditional financial products.　　Magazine:

08-13Industry

Ethereum staking climbs to 34% as proposal targets validator rewards and ETH treasury firm yields

Quick TakeResearchers recently filed EIP-8361, a “tapered issuance burn” that destroys a growing share of validator rewards as the staking ratio rises.The following is an excerpt from The Blocks Data and Insights weekly newsletter.　　The share of ETH supply staked has climbed to 34%, up from about 29% at the start of the year. With staked supply reaching one-third of total Ethereum (ETH), there have been questions regarding the sustainability of native yield on Ethereum.　　On Aug. 4, researchers including Ethereum Foundations Justin Drake filed EIP-8361, a “tapered issuance burn” that destroys a growing share of validator rewards as the staking ratio rises. The burn hits 100% at half of the current supply, zeroing out net issuance for validators past that point.　　At todays roughly one-third staking ratio, the authors own modeling puts annual consensus yield falling from about 2.6% to 1.2%, phased in over 18 months rather than all at once.　　The current issuance mode never fully switches off the marginal incentive to stake more, and the authors argue that pulls in centralized operators, exchanges and custodians at the expense of solo validators and non-staking holders who get diluted regardless.　　While this would impact all stakeholders, ETH treasury companies like Bitmine (BMNR) and Sharplink

08-13Industry

Kalshi taps DoubleZero for Wall Street-style high-speed data feed

SummaryKalshi‘s order book is adding Solana-based DoubleZero’s low-latency market data feed to meet institutional demand.The DoubleZero Foundation described DoubleZeroEdge as a transport layer, sending live exchange and onchain data over dedicated fiber, distributing it simultaneously to all connected traders.The model has underpinned traditional financial exchanges, including NYSE, Nasdaq and the CME, for decades, the foundation said.　　The growing presence of financial institutions in cryptocurrency brings with it increasing demand for Wall-Street style systems in digital asset markets, such as servers that offer split-second advantages when executing trades.　　Kalshi is looking to meet that demand by adding Solana-based DoubleZeros low-latency market data feed to its prediction market order book.　　The DoubleZero Foundation said this will provide trading firms with a machine-readable view of a prediction market for pricing, hedging and signal generation on Solana, one of the major layer-1 blockchains.　　The foundation described DoubleZeroEdge as a transport layer, sending live exchange and onchain data over dedicated fiber, publishing the data and distributing it simultaneously to all connected traders.　　In traditional finance (TradFi), institutions use specialized networks to access data at high speed, whereas in crypto, traders still largely rely on the internet. DoubleZero attempts to address that through a bespoke onchain system.　　“This is the same distribution

08-13Industry

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