Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office has helped 35 victims of cryptocurrency ATM scams secure full refunds totaling $171,332, according to ChainCatcher. The refunded money came from transactions that victims were induced to make through fraud, and the reimbursements covered all fees tied to those transactions. Under Arizona law, mandatory full refunds are available only to new customers who have used a given ATM operator for fewer than 10 days. Victims must also contact the operator and either law enforcement or the attorney general’s office within 30 days of the transaction date, and they must submit an official report confirming that the transaction was fraud-induced. FBI data cited in the report shows that Arizona recorded 460 complaints involving cryptocurrency kiosks in 2025, with adjusted losses of $14.53 million. Nationwide, the total reached 13,460 complaints, with adjusted losses of more than $388.98 million. Of that amount, people aged 50 and older accounted for more than $302 million in losses.

A commentary published by Foresight turns the current wave of AI-agent infrastructure into a set of direct tests rather than a sales pitch. It opens with a simple problem: major firms are now giving software agents the ability to hold stablecoin wallets, operate under spending budgets, and use payment protocols. Cloudflare has rolled out a stablecoin wallet for AI agents, Coinbase has integrated x402 and stablecoin wallets into AWS agent environments with enterprise budget and governance controls, and Google has released an agent payment protocol. Once software can place orders, sign deals, and move money, the question is no longer whether the tooling works. It is who carries the consequences when something goes wrong. The article then shifts to real-world assets and argues that the recent growth in onchain RWA is real but concentrated in financial products, not industrial assets. As of Aug. 7, 2026, total onchain RWA market value stood at $37.94 billion, with 1.6294 million holders, up 55.34% from the prior month and more than 560,000 net new holders in a single month. Yet the assets driving that growth are Treasuries, money market funds, private credit, gold, fund shares, and equities. Machine tools, production lines, and supply-chain orders are still largely offchain. The final challenge is social scoring: if influence can be priced and AI agents can work around the clock to build relationships, does the resulting score still measure the person, or the machine working on that person’s behalf? The piece leaves those questions open and ties them to an Aug. 22 event at Suzhou University of Science and Technology.

Andre Cronje, the creator of Fantom and founder of Flying Tulip, said on Cointelegraph’s Chain Reaction X Spaces that DeFi, outside of a very small niche, no longer exists. In his view, a protocol only qualifies as true DeFi if it is decentralized, immutable and free of intermediaries, a standard he said very few live systems now meet. Instead, he argued, the sector has shifted into what he calls onchain finance or open finance, where companies, decision-makers, vault curators and risk committees have taken over roles once associated with traditional banking. The report ties that argument to recent market structure and governance data. It notes that curator-led lending vaults now direct capital allocation and risk settings while depositors absorb tail risk, and points to the November 2025 collapse of Stream Finance, which hit three lending platforms and pushed utilization on multiple Morpho and Euler vaults to 100%. It also cites a March 26 working paper from the European Central Bank that found the top 100 governance token holders controlled more than 80% of supply in Aave, MakerDAO, Ampleforth and Uniswap. Separately, DefiLlama data showed DeFi total value locked fell from $167.1 billion on Oct. 8, 2025 to $75.1 billion at the time of writing, a 55% drop over 10 months.

Hawaii will ban crypto kiosk operators from accepting cash deposits to sell digital assets starting Oct. 1 under Act 224, signed by Governor Josh Green on July 9. The measure amends the state’s consumer protection law and treats each prohibited transaction as a separate offense. It does not shut the machines down outright: kiosks may still exchange one digital asset for another, and they may still let customers sell digital assets for U.S. dollars. The line lawmakers drew centers on fraud, especially scams aimed at older adults who are persuaded to send crypto to wallets controlled by criminals. A committee report cited investigations by the attorneys general of Washington, DC and Iowa that found more than 93% of reviewed kiosk transactions were scam-related. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded 92 kiosk-related complaints from Hawaii residents in 2025, with adjusted losses of $3.85 million, nearly four times the prior year. CoinATMRadar lists about 57 crypto ATMs across four Hawaiian islands, while Texas and Delaware are also considering or advancing similar restrictions.

Bitcoin’s quiet tape may be the bigger signal. In a market note cited by ChainCatcher, SpecialistXBT argued that BTC is not short on headlines but short on participation, with weekly trading volume at its lowest level since 2023 and Deribit’s BTC DVOL touching a recent bottom. The note points to options data showing stronger demand for near-term downside protection, with 25 Delta Skew in positive territory across one-, three- and six-month tenors and a key gamma flip zone around $61,000 to $60,000. Above that range, dealer hedging may keep volatility contained; below it, the same hedging flow could amplify downside. The piece also questions a bullish reading of two recent developments: Michael Saylor’s sale of BTC worth several hundred million dollars, equal to about 0.13% of Strategy’s holdings, and STRC’s rebound from around $73 to $95.45. In the author’s view, those moves may not show that bad news has been absorbed. They may instead reflect a market too thin to process large spot exits. Strategy’s recent actions — adding $650 million in dollar reserves and repurchasing $109 million of STRC, with the two-week buyback total put at about $190 million — helped lift STRC, but did not solve the central issue. As long as issuance through the ATM program begins near $100, the report argues, sellers and short sellers still have an incentive to lean against that level.

Arizona's crypto ATM law has helped 35 scam victims recover a combined $171,000, the state attorney general's office announced Wednesday. Under the law, a victim who spots a fraudulent transfer must file a report with both the ATM operator and local law enforcement within 30 days of the transaction. The refund is released only after officials review and verify the claim. The legislation took effect on Sept. 26, 2025 and imposes a daily transaction limit of $2,000 for new customers — defined as users who have used crypto ATMs for fewer than 10 days. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes urged victims to report immediately, stressing that refund eligibility depends on completing the filing inside the 30-day deadline. Victims who miss the deadline may not qualify for reimbursement under the statute. Cointelegraph first reported the announcement, and Techub News carried the update. The figures were provided by the attorney general's office.

Hawaii will implement a ban on cryptocurrency ATMs on October 1, becoming the fourth U.S. state to adopt such a restriction. According to ChainCatcher, the measure is aimed at addressing the heavy losses caused by digital asset scams. Three other states had already enacted similar bans before Hawaii's move.

Strategy disclosed in an 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it sold 1,690 BTC between Aug. 3 and Aug. 9 at an average price of $64,262, generating about $108.6 million in proceeds. After the sale, the company’s bitcoin holdings fell to 840,447 BTC, worth about $54.7 billion at current prices. Strategy said its average purchase price stands at $75,385 per bitcoin, with total acquisition costs of roughly $63.4 billion including fees and expenses, leaving it with an unrealized loss of $8.7 billion. The company also raised $653.1 million last week by selling 6,585,682 shares of MSTR through its at-the-market equity program. It said most of that capital was used to repurchase 1,152,020 shares of preferred stock STRC, while also increasing dollar reserves by $650 million. As of Aug. 9, Strategy’s U.S. dollar reserves had reached $4.65 billion. Strategy has also introduced a new Digital Credit Capital Framework, under which dollar reserves will be used mainly to pay preferred dividends and interest. The company approved up to $1 billion in digital credit securities repurchases, initially focused on STRC, alongside a separate share buyback plan of up to $1 billion. It also expanded its bitcoin monetization plan, allowing sales of up to $5 billion in BTC to support reserves, dividends, interest payments and securities repurchases.