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What happened in crypto in the past week? This week about how Bitcoin may overtake gold this bull run, according to CZ. Fear and Greed index is now at 79. USDT is Shariah compliant. I found a way to expose myself to BTC via BlackRock, using Freetrade. Feel free to check them. What else? Read below:

• Bitcoin: The 10X Research head Markus Thielen argued that Bitcoin reaching $1M by 2030 is a mathematical impossibility and it is quite unrealistic. More down-to-earth analysts are predicting $180K to $360K by 2030. Will this happen, though? Strategy raised $333M by selling MSTR common shares, instead of buying and selling Bitcoin, with an US dollar reserve that rose to $4.8B. Metaplanet used Bitcoin to buy a US Nasdaq company, Super League Entertainment, paying 2100 BTC and $2.5M in cash. Citigroup is adding BTC custody for institutional clients this year. One interesting week right, as BTC surged above $68K first on August 19, after the Treasury announcement on the doubling of bond buyback operations for longer-dated securities. Bitcoin ETFs August inflows are reaching one billion this month. Then, as BTC hit $72K, $3.1B in crypto short positions were liquidated. Next, Bitcoin is hovering around $80K, and everybody is waiting for the next dip. CryptoQuant's bull score went from 30 to 80 in a week, highest reading saince October 2025. A $83K is needed to confirm a full bull market.
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• Ethereum: Initially we were told that Bitmine was buying ETH despite billions in paper losses. They have 5.84M ETH - 4.8%, and are 187K ETH away from hiting their 5% target. Who's laughing now, as ETH just jumped more than $500? ETH surged 28.33% last week, while BTC only went up 24.31%. ETH and BTC ETFs had their best week in months, pulling a combined $2.6B this week. Ethereum developers filed a draft proposal on August 26 to replace the validator deposit contract, for a future-proof staking.
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• Altcoins and stablecoins: Ripple said that September is the crypto legislation's last chance for this year, as they launched equity derivatives for institutional clients. HYPE gained 11% after Trump said on August 19 that CFTC Chair is working to bring Hyperliquid into the US under a compliant framework. Injective became a SEC-registered transfer agent, to record securities ownership and process transfers on-chain. AI agents are turning to crypto for payments. Optimism redirected user airdrop tokens to its own fund, with a governance proposal, with some sketchy last minute vote. ZEC hit its highest price since 2018. Grayscale's Zcash ETF went live on August 25 on NYSE Arca. Stablecoin cards are now paying for groceries and rides, with countries like Brazil having up to 35% of the groceries, and Argentina with food accounted for 41% of the payments. Solana completed a mainnet upgrade on August 22, and it is now faster and further to go. LayerZero announced ATLAS on August 25, a headless trading and settlement system build on its Zero blockchain, supporting crypto, perpetuals, stocks, bonds, and prediction markets. Kalshi raised $1.12B from 71 investors since April, according to SEC. Ethena overhauled its token economics from top to bottom.
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• NFTs and blockchain games: On Splinterlands Escalation - the latest mini-set from the Conclave Arcana collection is now closed. Axie seems to get some cool upgrades, but they are still not convincing me.

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• Good news: Tokenized stock holders numbers doubled in a single month up to 1.31M. The US Treasury opened a stablecoin comment period to clarify what it means to issue a payment stablecoin in the US. The CFTC also wants a public input on AI compute futures. The SEC proposed two new ways to raise crypto capital, one for a startup exemption that allow token offerings up to $5M over four years, another one for $75M annually with ongoing financial disclosures. CashApp's 59M users can now buy more crypto, with ETH, SOL, XRP and USDT being available. Bitwise launched Automated Token Portfolios on August 25, letting investors hold stock portfolios in their own wallets. Charles Schwab added SOL, AVAX and LINK to its platform on August 27, and 40M clients may benefit from it.
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• Bad news: Safepal confirmed on August 10 that a data breach exposed names, physical addresses, and contact details for approx. 40.000 customers who placed orders between March 2025 and April 2026. A whole financial year, right? JPMorgan dropped Polymarket and then chased its IPO. Europe handed out its first MICA fine to Bitpanda, making them pay $70K Euro for submitting a required whitepaper with fewer than 20 days notice. Tokenized stocks could repeat Wall Street's worst crisis from 1960, as once again we have distribution speed without resolving ownership record keeping. Pakistan opened its licensing portal on August 23. Brent Kovar was convicted on August 25 of running a $24M ponzi scheme through Profit Connect, falsely claiming to mine crypto using AI software on a supercomputer.
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• Joke of the week: In a strange turn on events, Trump's stablecoin company got a federal bank charter for World Liberty Trust Company, which can now operate as a national trust bank, pushing fraud to a global level never seen before. Trump urged the Congress to pass Clarity Act, framing the bill as essential to keep the US ahead of Chine. SEC already sent a proposed overhaul of crypto custody rules to the White House.

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All the best,

George

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Why not...

...have fun and win rewards on my favourite blockchain games (Splinterlands- a Hearthstone-like card game) (Golem Overlord - a Play2Earn game on Hive) (Holozing - a Pokemon-like game)and ( Chain of Legends - with a hint of Heroes of Might and Magic).

...get crypto while writing on the Publish0x blog. I am also writing for crypto on Hive.