WuBlockchain’s weekly Top 10 roundup covered a broad set of crypto stories, led by another delay to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s tokenization “innovation exemption,” a proposed Russian framework for retail crypto purchases, and the quiet beta launch of UMX, a crypto-friendly securities platform incubated by Avenir Group.
SEC pushes back tokenization “innovation exemption” again
According to crypto reporter Eleanor Terrett, the SEC has delayed its tokenization “innovation exemption” once more, and details are not expected in the near term. People familiar with the matter said one reason may be that tokenization language in Section 10505 of the Clarity Act is still being negotiated among stakeholders. If the SEC were to move ahead through an exemption before that process settles, it could disrupt compromises forming around the bill.
For that reason, the exemption may stay on hold until the legislative path for the Clarity Act becomes clearer. The SEC still plans to hold a public meeting at a later date to discuss new rules and exemptions for financing transactions involving crypto assets under what it calls Regulation Crypto Assets.
Based on the current outline, the exemption could allow listed companies to object to third parties tokenizing their shares. It could also require relevant trading venues to be U.S. entities and tighten anti-money laundering controls.
The SEC had originally planned to release the exemption in May, but postponed it after hearing from securities exchanges, listed companies, and other market participants. At the same time, the Clarity Act had been slowed by partisan disputes over ethics restrictions tied to public officials’ crypto business activity. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has submitted a cloture motion ahead of a procedural vote expected in mid-September.
Russia proposes capped crypto purchases for non-qualified investors
Russia’s central bank published draft rules for crypto purchases that would allow non-qualified investors to buy up to 300,000 rubles, or about $3,645, in crypto assets each year through each broker, crypto exchange service, or asset manager.
The assets currently included are BTC, ETH, and USDT. Screening standards include market capitalization, average daily trading volume, and at least five years of overseas price history. Qualified investors would face no purchase limits for crypto assets traded on exchanges or in over-the-counter markets.
All investors would need to complete a risk test before trading. Public consultation on the draft runs through Aug. 24.
Bitcoin miners’ fee income share nears a 10-year low
Glassnode data shows transaction fees now account for just 0.69% of Bitcoin miner revenue, still close to the 10-year low of 0.52% recorded in April this year. The fee share has remained below 1% for nearly a year, leaving miners more dependent on the 3.125 BTC block subsidy.
Checkonchain data shows Bitcoin network hashrate has fallen from a peak of 1.3 ZH/s in October 2025 to 861 EH/s, a drop of about 33%. The average production cost for one BTC is currently estimated at $78,254, roughly 23% above the spot price at that time.
Strategy sold 1,690 BTC to repurchase STRC
Strategy sold 1,690 BTC between Aug. 3 and Aug. 9 at an average price of $64,262, generating about $108.6 million. The company said all of the proceeds were used to repurchase STRC.
During the same period, Strategy sold 6.59 million MSTR shares and raised about $653.1 million. Of that total, $650 million was used to increase its U.S. dollar reserves to $4.65 billion.
Strategy now holds 840,447 BTC acquired at a total cost of about $63.36 billion, with an average purchase price of $75,385.
Executive Chairman Michael Saylor also shared data from the company’s BTC Credit model. The model uses a 10% annualized BTC yield, a BTC price of $63,701, and 40% volatility as reference assumptions, and marks credit spreads across investment-grade, high-yield, and distressed categories.
Under that model, Strategy’s BTC reserves are valued at $53.54 billion, while its dollar reserves stand at $4.65 billion. For STRC, the BTC floor price is $16,184, meaning collateral would become insufficient below that level. Its BTC risk is 8.84% and its credit spread is 115 basis points. Across the company as a whole, debt and preferred stock total $21.952 billion in notional size, with an overall BTC floor price of $20,587.
Chief Executive Officer Phong Le said in an interview that although recent sales of part of the company’s holdings drew market attention, Strategy plans to resume accumulating Bitcoin later this year. He said the company has bought about 175,000 BTC so far this year and sold about 7,000 BTC, putting purchases at roughly 25 times sales. He added that the recent BTC sales were mainly used to support preferred share dividends, stock buybacks, and dollar reserves, and that buying is expected to resume within the year as priorities shift.
Fidelity seeks staking and quarterly cash distributions for Ethereum ETF
Fidelity plans to add ETH staking and quarterly cash distributions to the Fidelity Ethereum Fund, or FETH, which has net assets of $898 million.
Under normal conditions, the fund may stake up to 100% of the ETH it holds, though it does not set a minimum staking ratio. It would keep part of its ETH available for redemptions, fees, and other liquidity needs.
The fund would retain 85% of gross staking rewards, while the remaining 15% would go to the sponsor, custodian, and node operators. Net staking rewards would first be used to pay fund expenses, and any remainder would be distributed in cash each quarter. If needed, the fund may sell part of its ETH holdings to raise cash for those distributions.
Anthropic signs $9.1 billion AI compute deal with Riot
Anthropic has reached a long-term cloud computing agreement worth about $9.1 billion with Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms to secure the compute capacity needed for Claude. Riot will provide 191MW of data center capacity from its Rockdale campus in Texas under a 20-year contract.
The deal adds to Riot’s shift from Bitcoin mining toward AI data center operations.
Separately, Bitcoin miner MARA completed two loans on Aug. 4 with Coinbase Credit and Two Prime Lending, pledging 18,750 BTC as collateral. The pledged assets were worth about $1.2 billion at the time, and the transactions brought in about $600 million in new funds.
The two loans total $750 million in principal. Coinbase’s $450 million loan includes a refinancing of an existing $150 million credit line, leaving actual new capital from that facility at $300 million. Two Prime provided another $300 million loan.
The Coinbase loan currently carries an interest rate of about 7.5%, while the Two Prime facility has a fixed rate of 7.65%. Both mature in 2028. MARA said the proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes, including energy asset acquisitions and expansion of Bitcoin mining, AI, and high-performance computing infrastructure.
UMX enters invite-only beta as a crypto-friendly securities platform
UMX, short for The Unified Market Exchange, has started an invite-only public beta. The platform was incubated by Avenir Group, which is tied to Li Lin. According to official information, UMX positions itself as a “crypto-friendly securities platform” and plans to offer both crypto asset trading and trading in actual U.S. equities on the same platform.
From the details released so far, the product is built around capital transfers and capital efficiency between crypto markets and securities markets. For users active in both, traditional brokerages and crypto trading venues usually keep accounts, balances, and margin systems separate. UMX is trying to place those trading and funding rails inside one platform.
Its current framework looks closer to a unified account system that combines brokerage functions, crypto trading, and cross-market treasury management, rather than simply listing crypto assets and U.S. stocks side by side.
UMX said the beta is now live by invitation and reservations for the formal release have opened at the same time. Users with beta codes can register through the official website or app and access currently available features depending on their region, account qualifications, and product access requirements.
Functions open during the beta include U.S. stocks, ETFs, U.S. equity options, crypto asset trading, cross-asset transfers, and conversions between crypto and stock positions.
Wintermute plans $1 billion investment in HFT and AI infrastructure
Crypto market maker Wintermute plans to invest about $1 billion over the next five years in high-frequency trading and AI data center infrastructure. The company expects to fund the expansion from retained earnings while broadening its business into equities, commodities, foreign exchange, and prediction markets.
Chief Executive Officer Evgeny Gaevoy said daily trading volume has fallen from about $15 billion last year to $10 billion this year. About 10% of revenue now comes from non-crypto markets, and the target is to lift that share above 50% by the end of 2027.
Wintermute’s U.S. affiliate has registered as a broker-dealer, allowing it to trade stocks and stock options and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products. The company also plans to double its New York headcount from 17 next year and expand its global workforce by 40%.
Andre Cronje says pure DeFi no longer exists
Andre Cronje, founder of Flying Tulip and a core Fantom developer, said in a recent program that most decentralized finance protocols are no longer truly decentralized. In his view, “real DeFi” requires decentralization, immutability, and the absence of intermediaries, and most live protocols no longer meet that standard.
He said the addition of circuit breakers, emergency controls, decision-makers, curators, and risk committees has brought traditional banking structures into the sector. What used to be called DeFi has instead evolved into a new model he described as “onchain finance,” or open finance, with some loss of the original immutability and decentralization.
DefiLlama data shows total value locked in DeFi has fallen by half over the past 10 months, dropping from $167 billion in early October 2025 to $75 billion.
GSR says crypto bull market needs cooler AI flows and Fed rate cuts
Spencer Hallarn, head of markets at GSR, said in a recent interview that the crypto market remains subdued in part because investors and capital are moving heavily into AI. Equity fundraising tied to AI infrastructure by large technology companies has also tightened liquidity across the broader market.
Under current conditions, he said clients are showing much stronger demand for long-term budget planning, over-the-counter hedging structures, and real-world assets, or RWA.
On tokenization, Hallarn said many closed tokenization platforms with heavy KYC requirements lack meaningful trading activity. The real opportunity, in his view, is not simply wrapping assets into tokens but fixing the underlying rails used by traditional banking and settlement systems.
He said Bitcoin could find support if AI-related investment cools and the Federal Reserve begins cutting interest rates, allowing liquidity to return.
Notable fundraising events this week
- Kalshi’s valuation may rise to $40 billion, with Sequoia and Wellington discussing a new investment round.
- Former Bitcoin miner Firmus raised $2 billion to accelerate construction of an AI data center in Australia.
- Spatial data DePIN project Vangrid completed a $9 million seed round and plans to expand its Physical AI data network.
- Crypto travel infrastructure company Entravel raised $7.5 million to build a stablecoin settlement system.
More industry fundraising events are available at crypto-fundraising.info.