DeepSeek V4 Pro and xAI’s Grok 4.6 arrived on the same day, setting up a direct comparison across benchmark scores, pricing, and real task execution. DeepSeek V4 Pro posted strong results in CyberGym, AutomationBench, Terminal-Bench 2.1, and DeepSWE, in several cases beating Opus 4.8 and narrowing the gap with Fable 5. Grok 4.6, meanwhile, kept pace in broader capability rankings and moved ahead in several coding and knowledge-work evaluations, including GDPval-AA v2, AA-Briefcase, and Harvey LAB. Pricing became another focal point. DeepSeek listed output pricing at $0.87 per million tokens, compared with $6 for Grok 4.6, $30 for GPT-5.6 Sol, $25 for Claude Opus 5, and $50 for Fable 5. Early hands-on tests cited in the source showed the two models trading wins across website creation, design generation, frontend work, and game-building tasks. In one Flappy Bird comparison, DeepSeek used more than 20,000 tokens at a cost of $0.019, while Grok used about 5,000 tokens at a cost of $0.03. The resulting DeepSeek version was described as more polished. The source’s overall takeaway was that the two newly released models are now operating at roughly the same level.

An attacker has swapped all assets in a wallet—WBTC, cbBTC, LDO, USDS and CRV—for DAI and ETH, according to on-chain detective Specter. The same wallet suffered a $24.23 million theft in September 2023, with roughly 90% of the stolen funds eventually returned. The address is 0x8fEB...F95Ae.

xAI has rolled out Grok 4.6, the latest version of its flagship model, with Elon Musk announcing the release on X on Aug. 12 and describing it as “smarter, faster, and insanely cost-effective.” The company’s official account called it a major upgrade over Grok 4.5 while keeping pricing unchanged. According to benchmark results published by xAI, Grok 4.6 scored 61 on the AA Intelligence Index, matching OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol, and outperformed it on CursorBench, FrontierCode, and AA-Briefcase. Musk also said the model reached an ELO score of 1753. On pricing, xAI kept the Grok 4.5 rate of about $2 per million input tokens and $6 per million output tokens. The company said performance is roughly comparable to Fable 5 Max while costing about 15% as much, and said input and output pricing is about 80% and 88% lower than competing frontier models. xAI also said Grok 4.6 keeps the same 1.5 trillion-parameter V9 base model used in Grok 4.5, with gains coming mainly from post-training through supervised fine-tuning and reinforcement learning. The model is now available through the xAI API, Grok App, grok.com, and X Premium+ and SuperGrok subscriptions.

According to Coinglass data, if BTC falls below $60,638, cumulative long liquidation intensity on major CEXs would reach $1.46 billion. Conversely, if BTC breaks above $66,986, cumulative short liquidation intensity would reach $1.176 billion.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority is working on a regulatory framework for tokenized gold as Britain looks to digitize parts of the gold market without giving up London’s dominant position in global bullion trading. According to the Financial Times, the FCA has begun talking with financial institutions about how tokenized gold should be regulated and how such products could be used in wholesale financial markets. London’s over-the-counter market currently accounts for about 70% of global notional gold trading, making the issue strategically important for the UK as other markets, including China, expand their own gold trading infrastructure. The discussions go beyond simple digital wrappers for bullion. The FCA is seeking views on whether tokenized gold could be used as collateral in wholesale markets, which would widen its role from spot and derivatives trading into financing, collateral management and settlement. Key regulatory questions still need to be settled, including the legal link between physical reserves and on-chain tokens, custody arrangements, whether reserves are fully backed, the rights attached to token ownership, and how client assets would be handled if an issuer ran into financial trouble. The move fits into a broader UK push to bring tokenization and distributed ledger technology into wholesale finance. The government has said that financial market digitization, if implemented successfully, could add about £33 billion in annual economic output.

The UK's Crypto and Digital Assets APPG has written to the CEOs of all major British banks, asking them to explain their treatment of crypto and digital asset firms. Co-chairs Gurinder Singh Josan and Lord Vaizey of Didcot signed the letter, which poses six questions about banks' current policies, whether they serve crypto firms, restrictions on related transactions and what determines those decisions. The group also asked whether banks will adjust their practices after the FCA's regulatory regime takes effect. The letter highlights that many crypto firms still struggle to open UK bank accounts, with some banks restricting payments. It follows a parliamentary inquiry into banking access launched on July 21, with written evidence accepted until August 31. A January survey by the UK Cryptoasset Business Council estimated that around 40% of transactions to crypto exchanges are blocked or delayed by banks. HSBC, NatWest, Monzo and Nationwide cap monthly transfers to crypto exchanges at £5,000 to £10,000, while Starling and Chase UK ban such transfers entirely. Economic Secretary Lucy Rigby said the government does not want FCA-regulated firms to face banking restrictions solely because of their industry. The FCA finished its rules in June; the regime becomes mandatory in October 2027.

Two co-chairs of the UK Parliament’s Crypto and Digital Assets APPG have written to the CEOs of all major British banks, asking them to explain how they handle crypto and digital asset businesses. The letter contains six questions covering current banking policies, whether services are offered to crypto companies, what transaction restrictions are in place, and what factors shape those decisions. It also asks whether banks plan to change their approach once the Financial Conduct Authority’s new regulatory regime takes effect. The move follows a parliamentary inquiry into access to banking services launched on July 21, with written submissions open until Aug. 31. The group said many crypto businesses struggle to open bank accounts in the UK, while some banks also restrict related payments. A January survey by the UK Cryptoasset Business Council estimated that 40% of transfers to crypto exchanges were blocked or delayed by banks. HSBC, NatWest, Monzo and Nationwide cap monthly transfers to exchanges at £5,000 to £10,000, while Starling and Chase UK prohibit such transfers entirely.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is currently exploring how tokenised gold could be brought into wholesale markets, with one of the main questions being whether such assets can serve as collateral. The regulatory work is directed at institutional market participation, and any resulting rules may be made public in the coming months. This review arrives as London seeks to consolidate its standing as the world's leading venue for gold trading. Figures from the World Gold Council indicate that London handles approximately 70 percent of global gold trading volume, while Shanghai and Hong Kong are increasingly competing for a larger share of wholesale bullion business. HSBC, for its part, introduced a tokenised gold offering for retail clients in Hong Kong more than two years ago. The bank has reported cumulative transaction value exceeding $2.2 billion, spread across more than 276,000 individual transactions. The FCA's remit does not extend to direct oversight of physical gold trading. Instead, its supervision applies to gold derivatives and to exchange-traded products listed on public markets.