Rate options traders are reworking their Federal Reserve bets after a run of weaker U.S. economic data. While long-dated Treasury yields remain near multi-year highs, investors have started positioning for future rate cuts and using options to hedge against a slowdown. Recent data showed softer July inflation and consumer demand, an unexpected drop of 23,000 jobs in the nonfarm payrolls report, the biggest decline in retail sales in more than a year, and weaker consumer sentiment. That shift is showing up across rate markets. Some investors are unwinding earlier wagers on Fed hikes in September and December and moving into trades tied to cuts before mid-2027. In the SOFR options market, recent activity has included contracts betting the Fed will leave rates unchanged in September, along with call options expiring in March and June 2027. Swaps now imply only about 9 basis points of tightening at the September meeting and roughly 40 basis points of cumulative tightening by June 2027. Prediction markets Polymarket, Kalshi, and Myriad are also clustered around a 74% to 75% chance that the Fed stands pat in September.

Prediction market traders are still leaning toward a relatively near-term launch for OpenAI’s next major model, Astra, the company’s internal name for GPT-6, even after OpenAI said it had slowed the rollout over cybersecurity concerns. On Polymarket, contracts tied to a Sept. 15 release imply 59% odds, while contracts for a launch by Sept. 30 imply roughly 72%. A separate weekly market points to the Aug. 31 to Sept. 6 window at 39%. Those bets run against OpenAI’s own statement from Aug. 7, when the company said it had delayed Astra because of cybersecurity risks. In its preparedness disclosure, OpenAI said internal evaluations showed 「significant advancements in agentic coding and cybersecurity」 and that it could not rule out 「critical cyber capabilities」 under its safety framework. By OpenAI’s definition, a model at its Critical threshold could find and build working zero-day exploits across many hardened systems without human help. On Myriad, operated by Decrypt parent company Dastan, traders are less aggressive on the earlier dates. The market gives Sept. 30 a 31% chance, Sept. 15 a 19% chance, and Aug. 21 a 5% chance, though that last figure was described as rising.

Prediction markets are pricing a 72% chance that OpenAI’s next model, Astra, internally known as GPT-6, will be released by Sept. 30, and a 59% chance of a release by Sept. 15. OpenAI has not announced a formal launch date. On Aug. 7, the company said internal tests showed Astra made notable gains in autonomous coding and cybersecurity, but it could not rule out “critical cyber capability,” so it slowed the rollout. Under OpenAI’s safety framework, that level means a model could, without human help, find and build usable zero-day exploits against multiple hardened systems. Polymarket shows trading volumes of about $27,600 on the Sept. 15 contract and about $35,600 on the Sept. 30 contract, while Myriad traders put the Sept. 30 deadline at 31%. OpenAI also said Astra was not involved in the Hugging Face incident.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has canceled a public meeting that had been set for Friday morning, where its three commissioners were expected to vote on whether to release the agency’s first crypto-specific rule proposal for public comment. Reuters reported the cancellation on Thursday, citing a formal Sunshine Act notice signed by SEC Secretary Vanessa Countryman that said only the meeting "has been cancelled" and did not provide a new date. An SEC spokesperson later told reporters the session would be moved to a later date because of an "unforeseen scheduling issue," without giving more detail. The proposal under consideration would have outlined exemptions allowing crypto startups to raise capital without fully complying with traditional securities offering rules. The vote itself would not have created binding rules, but it would have marked the SEC’s first direct attempt to write crypto-focused regulations instead of relying on existing securities law. The postponement came days after the U.S. Senate left for a five-week recess without advancing the Clarity Act, leaving both the legislative and regulatory tracks stalled for now. Meanwhile, the CFTC is still set to hold its Innovation Advisory Committee meeting on August 20.

Tx said an attacker drained nearly 200,000 XRP, valued at about $202,000, from its bridge with the XRP Ledger on August 9 after exploiting a flaw in the bridge’s deposit-detection software. The company said the bug caused the bridge to treat transactions that had not actually delivered XRP as valid deposits, then mint bridged XRP on Tx Chain against those false records. According to XRPL, an independent XRP Ledger trading and analytics platform, the bridge released about 199,916 XRP across 94 payments in 97 minutes, with each payment signed off by 17 of the bridge’s 28 relayers. XRPL also pushed back on an early theory that “rippling” was involved, saying native XRP cannot be moved that way and that the bridge’s own multisig approved every payment. In a separate X post, Reza Bashash said the stolen XRP was swapped into Ethereum, routed to Ethereum through THORChain, and then sent to Tornado Cash. Tx said it has halted the bridge, fixed the affected code, traced the stolen funds, filed a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, and brought in blockchain forensics specialists while the bridge remains offline.

U.S. inflation slowed in July, but Bitcoin barely reacted. Data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the Consumer Price Index rose 0.1% month over month after a 0.4% decline in June, while the headline annual rate came in at 3.4%, matching expectations. Shelter accounted for roughly two-thirds of the monthly increase, while energy prices fell 1.5% as gasoline became cheaper. Excluding food and energy, prices rose 0.2% in July and 2.5% over the past year. In theory, softer inflation tends to support risk assets because it strengthens the case for lower interest rates. This time, though, the crypto market largely ignored the print. Bitcoin rose only about $209, or 0.33%, to around $63,750, with a daily range of just 1.5%. The total crypto market cap slipped from $2.19 trillion to $2.17 trillion. Decrypt said the main reason was simple: the market had already priced in the outcome. Spot Bitcoin ETFs drew about $854 million over five straight sessions last week, their strongest stretch since May, as bets on additional rate hikes faded. The report also pointed to weak chart structure, with Bitcoin stuck between roughly $62,000 support and $67,000 resistance, while Myriad traders showed limited response to the CPI release.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is scheduled to hold an open meeting on Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. ET to consider whether to propose a new rule that would let certain crypto projects raise capital without registering securities. According to a Sunshine Act notice posted Aug. 10, the agency will review a release outlining a tailored framework for some digital-asset offerings. If the proposal is opened for public comment, it would mark the SEC’s first durable rule for the crypto sector rather than another nonbinding staff statement. The effort follows months of work under SEC Chair Paul Atkins, who has backed a “Regulation Crypto Assets” approach centered on exemptions instead of enforcement. In prior remarks, Atkins described a startup exemption that could last up to four years, giving developers time to move toward decentralization. The proposed framework is also expected to include an off-ramp from SEC jurisdiction once founders are no longer actively managing their projects. The move comes after the Senate left for its August recess without advancing the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.

Solana is trading at $75.06, down 1.22% on the day, as the token sits just above its 50-day exponential moving average after retreating from a late-August spike near $90. Decrypt said the broader market backdrop remains soft, with Bitcoin stuck between roughly $62,000 support and $67,000 resistance and Ethereum pulling back to the $1,825-$1,850 area after failing to hold higher levels. That weakness in the two largest crypto assets is limiting how far any rebound in SOL can run. Two potential catalysts are in focus. The first is Solana’s planned Alpenglow consensus upgrade, which is intended to reduce finality to 100-150 milliseconds. It has entered community validator testing and is targeted for mainnet activation in August, though the date is still a target rather than a fixed event. The second is SGP-0003, a tokenomics proposal that combines SIMD-0553 and SIMD-0550 to tighten supply. According to the report, the changes could lift daily SOL burns from about 650 SOL to 7,500-9,000 SOL and bring forward the 1.5% inflation floor from 2032 to 2029. On the chart, RSI sits at 50.5 and ADX at 11.9, pointing to neutral momentum and weak trend strength. Decrypt framed the setup as a bounce within a downtrend, not a confirmed reversal, with $77.50, $85, $72, $70.58, and roughly $65 acting as key levels.