US July CPI data matches estimates
The US reported July headline CPI at 3.4% year over year on an unadjusted basis, in line with expectations of 3.4% and below the prior reading of 3.50%. Seasonally adjusted CPI rose 0.1% month over month, matching the 0.1% forecast, after a previous reading of -0.40%.
July core CPI on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis came in at 0.2%, in line with the 0.20% estimate and up from 0.00% previously. Unadjusted core CPI for July was 2.5% year over year, matching the 2.50% forecast and down from 2.60%.
Solana staking outage neared the finality failure threshold
Marinade, a Solana liquid staking protocol, said a routing failure at infrastructure provider Teraswitch temporarily pushed 28.83% of staked SOL offline, affecting about 90 validators. The network loses the ability to finalize if the offline staking ratio reaches 33.34%, leaving the incident about 4.5 percentage points away from that level.
According to Marinade, AS20326 carries about 119 million staked SOL, equal to 27.34% of all staked SOL on the network, and roughly 94% of that went offline at the same time during the disruption. Another 14.10 million SOL at other infrastructure providers was also offline during the same period. Traffic recovered about 33 minutes later, and impacted validators lost roughly 333 SOL in rewards.
Wintermute sets $1 billion plan for 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 capital is expected to come from retained earnings, and the firm is expanding into equities, commodities, foreign exchange and prediction markets.
Chief Executive Officer Evgeny Gaevoy said the firm’s average daily trading volume has fallen from about $15 billion last year to $10 billion this year. At present, around 10% of revenue comes from non-crypto markets, and the goal is to lift that share to more than 50% by the end of 2027.
Its US affiliate is registered as a broker-dealer, allowing it to trade equities and equity options and act as an authorized participant for exchange-traded products. Wintermute also plans to double its New York headcount from 17 next year and increase its global workforce by 40%.
Fidelity seeks staking and quarterly cash distributions for FETH
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 has not set a minimum staking ratio. It will keep part of its ETH available for redemptions, fees and other liquidity needs.
The fund will retain 85% of total staking rewards, while the remaining 15% will be paid to the sponsor, custodian and node operators. Net staking rewards will first be used to cover fund expenses, and any remainder will be distributed in cash on a quarterly basis. If needed, the fund may sell part of its ETH to raise cash for distributions.
Strategy releases BTC Credit model figures for STRC
Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor disclosed 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.
The model shows Strategy’s BTC reserves at $53.54 billion and dollar reserves at $4.65 billion. For STRC, the BTC floor price is $16,184, meaning under-collateralization would begin if BTC falls below that level. Its BTC risk is listed at 8.84%, with a credit spread of 115 basis points.
The company’s combined notional amount of debt and preferred stock totals $21.952 billion, and the overall BTC floor price stands at $20,587.
Harmony says it is freezing abnormal funds and studying a rollback
Layer 1 blockchain Harmony said it is working with its team and relevant exchanges to block and freeze abnormal funds, while also developing a patch and studying rollback options.
Earlier, on-chain analyst Juiceberg said Harmony was suspected to have been exploited through unauthorized minting of about 4 billion ONE via empty blocks, equal to roughly 26% of supply. About 2.8 billion ONE then moved quickly to exchanges, and the price of ONE fell sharply. Harmony has not yet disclosed the cause of the incident, the exact losses or details of any rollback plan.
Harmony launched its mainnet in 2019, and its native token is ONE. The network was once one of the more active chains in cross-chain and DeFi. Its Horizon Bridge was attacked in 2022, with losses of about $100 million.
SEC may unveil tokenized securities exemption as early as Friday
The US Securities and Exchange Commission plans to advance two crypto-asset regulatory measures in the coming days. One is a public meeting scheduled for Friday to discuss a tailored issuance framework for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets. The other is a proposed "innovation exemption" for tokenized securities trading.
People familiar with the matter said the exemption could be announced as early as Friday and could help clear a path for 24/7 on-chain trading of tokenized stocks. The latest proposal may allow listed companies to object to third parties tokenizing their shares, and it may require relevant trading platforms to be US entities and strengthen anti-money-laundering controls.
The SEC had originally planned to release the exemption in May, but delayed it after hearing from stock exchanges, listed companies and other market participants. At the same time, the Clarity Act had previously been held up by partisan disputes over ethics limits tied to crypto business activity by public officials. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has now filed a cloture motion to prepare for a procedural vote in mid-September.
Russia’s central bank proposes capped crypto access for non-qualified investors
The Bank of Russia has released draft rules on cryptocurrency purchases. Under the proposal, non-qualified investors would be allowed to buy up to 300,000 rubles, or about $3,645, in crypto assets per year through each broker, crypto exchange service or asset manager.
The assets currently allowed under the proposal are BTC, ETH and USDT. The screening criteria include market capitalization, average daily trading volume and at least five years of overseas price history. Qualified investors would face no monetary limit when buying crypto assets on exchanges or in over-the-counter markets. All investors would have to complete a risk test before trading, and public comments on the draft are open through Aug. 24.