WEEKLY: Bitcoin Loses ETF Support, Tether Gets Audited, AI Takes Mining Capacity

The crypto market spent the week without a strong impulse. The US dropped to around $63,000, although the CPI itself was not the worst: 3.4% year-over-year, the lowest level in four months.

The main topics of the week: BTC weakness, Strategy sales, Ethereum’s updated roadmap, Tether’s audit, a new lawsuit against Trump, the Coinsbuy and Harmony hacks, user data leaks involving hardware wallets, and a new wave of deals between AI companies and miners.

Bitcoin

After the inflation data was published, the asset dropped from $64,500 to $64,000, and by the end of the week fell closer to $63,000. The previous week was positive for spot Bitcoin ETFs, but from August 10 to 14 they recorded outflows of nearly $390 million.

When ETFs provide support but the price does not rise, it means the market lacks real demand. Glassnode also points to weak spot activity, a negative Coinbase Premium, and rising BTC reserves on Binance. In other words, some coins are once again closer to being sold than held for the long term.

Analysts call the area above $68,700 important. Without holding above it, BTC’s movement still looks more like weak stabilization than a confident reversal. A drop below $58,500, on the other hand, could quickly bring a much harsher mood back to the market.

Strategy sells BTC again

Strategy sold 1,690 BTC for $108.6 million and directed the funds toward repurchasing STRC preferred shares. At the same time, the company raised $653.1 million through MSTR sales and increased its dollar reserve to $4.65 billion. After these operations, it had 840,447 BTC remaining.

Strategy is increasingly balancing between its BTC reserve, shareholders, preferred shares, dollar liquidity, and market trust.

Metaplanet separately denied rumors about the sale of 5,014 BTC. The company said it was a routine account rebalancing, but the very fact that the market reacts so sharply to transfers by large BTC treasuries shows that trust in the DAT model is no longer automatic.

Additional pressure comes from MSCI, as the index provider once again raised the possibility of excluding companies that primarily accumulate investment assets instead of running an operating business. Strategy, Metaplanet, and other similar structures could be at risk.

Ethereum

The asset briefly rebounded on August 12, but by the end of the week it had fallen below $1,900 again. ETH funds had previously attracted $244.94 million, but that is still not enough to change the overall sentiment.

Fidelity filed an updated form with the SEC to add staking to its spot Ethereum ETF, FETH. If the mechanism goes live, such a fund will become more attractive to investors because it will provide not only exposure to ETH, but also potential yield.

Vitalik Buterin presented an updated Ethereum roadmap. The focus is on privacy, post-quantum protection, protocol simplification, gas and BLOB futures, as well as native rollups.

Standard Chartered separately issued a strong forecast for Chainlink. The bank believes LINK could rise to $200 by the end of 2030 if the tokenized asset and DeFi market truly reaches trillion-dollar volumes. RWA and tokenization once again remain among the main long-term themes.

Solana, TON, Sui and ENS

Solana narrowly avoided a serious technical incident. On August 12, a 28.83% share of staked SOL stopped participating in voting. The critical threshold for halting finalization is 33.34%, meaning the network was close to the danger zone. The problem was resolved within 33 minutes, and a routing failure in TeraSwitch infrastructure was named as the cause.

TON Strategy reported $15 million in staking income from Gram in Q2 and increased its reserve to approximately 230.5 million Gram. Almost the entire amount was staked.

Sui received Tessera from Mysten Labs, a tool for confidential corporate settlements where payment amounts are hidden from outsiders, while the necessary access for counterparties and regulators is preserved.

ENS Foundation received administrative control over approximately $65 million in assets and will be able to operate as a full-fledged operational structure.

Hacks, fake services and data leaks

Coinsbuy lost around $7.9 million following suspicious activity on wallets in TRON and Ethereum. The attacker began converting part of the funds into Monero, while another portion was frozen through ChangeNOW.

In Ukraine, cyber police exposed the fake crypto exchange Money 24/7. The organizers accepted cash to purchase crypto assets but failed to fulfill their obligations to clients. During more than 20 searches across seven regions, over UAH 20 million in cash was seized.

Harmony suffered another blow, as analyst Juiceberg reported an exploit that may have resulted in the unauthorized minting of around 4 billion ONE, approximately 26% of the token’s supply. Some of the coins were quickly transferred to exchanges, after which ONE collapsed by more than 50%.

A separate crypto investor lost around $25 million due to the likely compromise of a private key. Trezor reported a data leak affecting 13,689 customers after its logistics partner ShipMonk was hacked. SafePal also disclosed a data leak involving nearly 40,000 customers. Private keys were not affected, but such databases can become fuel for personalized phishing.

Tether, Trump and regulatory noise

Tether announced the completion of its first full independent audit of financial statements for 2025. The review was conducted by KPMG US, and the auditor issued an unqualified opinion. For the company, this is an important reputational step because transparency of reserves has been the main point of criticism for years.

A lawsuit was filed against Donald Trump’s administration over Truth API. It concerns paid early access to posts from the president and other accounts on Truth Social. The plaintiffs believe such a model violates the right to equal access to official information.

Another story surrounding Trump concerns World Liberty Financial. According to media reports, the project received $100 million from entrepreneur Guren “Bobby” Zhou, who is named in a UK investigation into a possible money laundering scheme. Part of these funds may have been distributed among entities controlled by Trump and his sons.

The White House is also planning a meeting with representatives of the crypto industry and prediction markets. This shows that crypto and prediction markets remain at the center of the US political agenda.

AI takes over infrastructure

Anthropic signed a $9.1 billion agreement with Riot Platforms. It is a 20-year contract for 191 MW of capacity from the miner’s campus in Texas. Following the news, Riot shares rose sharply, and for the mining sector this is another signal that electricity and data centers are increasingly being redirected from Bitcoin to AI.

Anthropic is also preparing for an IPO and, according to media reports, expects revenue of up to $200 billion in 2028. At the same time, the company is introducing labels for content generated by AI models.

Grayscale highlighted Ethereum, Solana, World, and Bittensor as blockchains that could serve the needs of the AI economy. Ethereum and Solana could become infrastructure for AI agent settlements, World for digital identity, and Bittensor for decentralized AI.

Wintermute plans to invest around $1 billion in high-frequency trading and AI data centers. Nvidia disclosed a $21 billion stake in SpaceX, while Stripe, according to media reports, signed a deal to acquire OpenRouter for more than $7 billion.

AI is no longer just competing with crypto for attention. It is taking capital, infrastructure, and part of the old mining resource.

Other important signals

BitMart was accused of withdrawal problems and insolvency after announcing the gradual closure of the exchange by the end of January 2027. The company’s CEO denies misappropriating assets and says the business is being wound down in an orderly manner.

Futures trading volume on centralized exchanges fell to its lowest level in 31 months. Over two months, USDT market capitalization decreased by $4 billion, while Bitwise cut 14% of its staff. Grayscale withdrew applications to launch three crypto funds in the US.

In the UK, the regulator plans to create a framework for tokenized gold. Companies have already started tokenizing metals, including those that have not yet been mined.

Kursoff Opinion

The market is now showing very clearly that one narrative is no longer enough. If a project lacks liquidity, security, a transparent model, and real demand, it quickly loses relevance. This is exactly what now separates strong infrastructure from noise.