Verus Protocol’s Ethereum cross-chain bridge was hit by a security incident in which attackers exploited a “notarization mismatch,” draining $7.44 million. The bridge, a core infrastructure component linking Ethereum with other chains, exposed a major flaw in its cross-chain validation logic. While the specific tokens taken were not identified, the loss occurred on the Ethereum mainnet side, weighing on confidence in cross-chain interoperability security across the ETH ecosystem.

In July 2026, Backpack dominated Solana-based tokenized equities, with its issued equities generating $1.06B in DEX trading volume and accounting for 73% of issuer volume for the month. Its volume was nearly unchanged from June, even as total issuer volume across the market fell 58%. The piece argues that fungibility and a credible redemption path are emerging as tangible market-structure advantages, reinforcing Backpack’s role as key infrastructure in the Solana ecosystem.

Donald Trump’s policy posts on social media have repeatedly sparked sharp moves across markets, including a 9.5% one-day jump in the S&P 500, a Bitcoin gain of more than 5%, and $374 million in single-day liquidations of crypto short positions. Reports say Trump Media is preparing to sell financial institutions a real-time, machine-readable policy data feed with pricing as high as $1.2 million per year. The episode highlights how valuable policy signals can be to high-frequency trading, where milliseconds can matter.

The U.S. Treasury said around Aug. 3, 2026 it imposed sanctions on several Iranian companies, accusing them of using Bitcoin to collect ship transit fees through the Strait of Hormuz. The move targets the use of BTC in a geopolitically sensitive payment context and alleges it was used to evade international financial sanctions. It underscores regulators’ focus on tracking and disrupting on-chain value transfers that bypass traditional systems such as SWIFT. The action is not tied to any technical vulnerability or market-data shift, but it reinforces policy uncertainty for Bitcoin use involving sanctioned entities.

A Coldcard hardware wallet user was hacked for about 30 BTC, with 17 BTC moved via THORChain and swapped into 229.72 ETH (about $445,000) before being deposited into offshore gambling platform Duelcom Casino. The victim and a researcher emailed all known Duelcom Casino addresses with transaction details and requested the funds be frozen. Duelcom Casino replied that it would only act if contacted directly by police. The incident highlights gaps in how downstream centralized services enforce KYC/AML and respond to cross-chain fund flows.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission paused its conditional approval of Nasdaq’s Phlx cash-settled bitcoin index options, ticker QBTC, which had been granted on an expedited basis in May. The move follows a petition from CME Group challenging whether the product should fall under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rather than the SEC. The SEC has opened a public comment period that runs through August 24, while the commission reviews the petition. QBTC is designed to track the Nasdaq Bitcoin Index, which is derived from the CME CF Bitcoin Real Time Index.

Security researcher Dustin Dettmer traced the COLDCARD hardware wallet’s firmware commit history to confirm how a flaw was introduced that has been described as one of the most serious bugs in Bitcoin self-custody in recent years. The issue directly affects users’ ability to maintain full control over their private keys. It also threatens the security of cold storage built on Bitcoin’s UTXO model, according to Dettmer.

BNB Chain said a former employee created a wallet address internally for a video tutorial and later used it to generate a token. After leaving the company, the individual allegedly retained unauthorized access to the address’s seed phrase and used it to generate a new private key and issue a meme token independently. BNB Chain said it did not create, authorize, promote, or participate in the token’s creation and has no control over the token or the wallet address. The company said it is pursuing legal action and is cooperating with relevant authorities.