ETHTaipei 2026 will take place on Sept. 13-14 at POPOP Taipei in Nangang, marking the fourth edition of the annual Ethereum-focused developer conference in Taiwan. This year’s event will be split into two themed days for the first time: Cryptonative Day on Sept. 13 for Ethereum developers and technical communities, and Institution Day on Sept. 14 for banks and financial institutions. The first batch of speakers includes teams from Polymarket, Uniswap, the Ethereum Foundation, ChainSafe, LINE NEXT, CertiK, OneSavie Labs, Quantstamp, Across Protocol and PIF12. Organizers said the agenda will span core protocol research, DeFi, Layer 2 scaling, zero-knowledge and privacy, wallets, account abstraction, security, cross-chain systems, RWA, tokenized U.S. stocks, institutional custody, stablecoin risk management and AI Agent-driven machine finance. The event is backed by corporate and institutional sponsors including BSOS, DADRC, Sigmarket, Taishin Shin Kong Financial Holding, Quantstamp and KlickKlack. Registration is now open through the event’s official website.

SEC’s Q2 13F deadline on August 14 brought Wall Street’s crypto positions back into view, and the data showed a clear mismatch with price action. Bitcoin fell about 14.2% in the quarter, yet reported institutional BTC holdings rose 7.5% to about 536,000 coins, even as total ETF holdings declined. Bank-level filings were even more striking: Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan both expanded ETH exposure faster than BTC, while several firms shifted from spot holdings into options. The quarter also showed growing divergence in crypto-linked equities, with Strategy, Circle, Coinbase, and Robinhood drawing very different allocation decisions. Some institutions kept adding, others paused, and a few were already rotating into new products such as Solana and XRP funds.

Pharos’ consumer credit vault hit its $50 million deposit cap within 48 hours of launch, with about $35 million in committed deposits when it went live. The article argues that the real story is not a new DeFi lending pool, but the early state of on-chain consumer credit itself: a $21 trillion global market in 2025 that still lacks standardized, institution-ready products onchain. What is missing, it says, is the middle layer — asset selection, credit structuring, ratings, legal documentation, and distribution — not the blockchain rails alone.

Anthropic is enlarging its revolving credit facility ahead of a closely watched IPO, and the target size is now expected to top roughly $10 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The AI company, best known as the developer of Claude, has drawn interest from a range of banks that want a bigger role in the offering. Proposed loan commitments vary by participation level, with the most active banks being asked for about $1.25 billion each, followed by roughly $1 billion for the next tier and as low as $750 million or less for others. The people familiar with the matter did not disclose further details.

Hong Kong police have disclosed a cryptocurrency investment scam targeting older residents. An 80-something retired man clicked a fake link in a pop-up ad in June, downloaded a counterfeit app posing as a crypto platform called "Trust Wallet," and was later contacted by scammers pretending to be customer service. They lured him with promises of "high returns" and "making big money." According to police, he withdrew cash from banks, exchanged it for cryptocurrency at a crypto exchange shop, and over the following month and a half transferred ETH worth more than HK$5 million to wallets controlled by the scammers. He only realized he had been cheated after he could no longer withdraw funds from the fake app and the fake customer service cut off contact. Police urged families to pay attention to older relatives' internet habits and financial situations and to share anti-scam information proactively.

Citi said it will roll out a Bitcoin custody service later this year for institutional investors, folding the offering into its Custody+ platform rather than requiring separate systems for traditional and digital assets. The bank said clients will be able to process asset servicing transactions through a single flow, with near-instant visibility and execution across servicing, settlement, foreign exchange, cash, and data. Citi had first announced plans for a digital asset custody product last year and said at the time that development had already been underway for several years. The move adds to the bank’s broader digital asset push, which also includes Citi Token Services for real-time cross-border payments using tokenized deposits. Since last year, Citi has also been working with Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America to explore a stablecoin product. Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser said last week that the bank was a leader in digital assets and called for a workable version of the Clarity Act, a bill that would define which tokens fall under securities rules and which are treated as commodities. Lawmakers are set to vote on the measure in September.

Crypto’s boom-era funding model is now showing up in a wave of shutdowns, bankruptcies and disappearances, according to Global Settlement Network CEO Ryan Kirkley. CoinDesk, citing RootData, said more than 100 crypto projects have closed, filed for bankruptcy or effectively vanished in 2026 so far. Kirkley argued that inflated valuations, weak revenue and token-driven fundraising incentives left many projects exposed once prices fell and venture funding tightened. He also said decentralized governance can slow down struggling protocols, while investors are now favoring stablecoins, neobanks and institutional settlement infrastructure over social tokens, memecoins and parts of Web3 gaming. On bitcoin, Kirkley called $61,200 a critical support level and said a break lower could open the way toward $41,000. At the same time, he said adoption is happening, with governments and institutions showing interest in blockchain infrastructure even if they are not embracing crypto’s original decentralized vision.

Visa is searching for a new partner to handle stablecoin settlement after BVNK, which previously filled that role, was acquired by Mastercard earlier this year, according to documents reviewed by CoinDesk. The payments company’s request for product calls for a firm that can support swaps across multiple stablecoins and provide settlement services for the newly introduced Open USD project. Visa is specifically seeking a settlement and over-the-counter partner with cryptocurrency exchange licenses in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Singapore, a requirement that narrows the list of candidates. The documents say the partner would support Open USD, a project backed by Stripe, Visa and Mastercard that is designed to work with more than one stablecoin. The search comes as stablecoins remain a key battleground for major payments companies even while other parts of the crypto market stay subdued. CoinGecko data cited by CoinDesk puts the sector’s total market capitalization at about $300 billion. The report also points to Stripe’s late-2024 acquisition of Bridge for $1.1 billion as a move that increased competitive pressure. Last month, Visa launched its Visa Stablecoin Platform, with OUSD as the first supported token. Visa declined to comment.