Bitcoin Knots developer Luke Dashjr said major exchanges are now selling “fake bitcoins” after a Bitcoin hard fork split his BLAKE2b chain from the network. According to BeInCrypto, he blamed platforms that did not run their own full nodes and called the SHA-256 chain “Spamcoin,” while the broader market has largely treated the forked chain as dead. No major exchange has listed the forked coin, and support for the BIP-110 fork peaked at 2.53%, far below the 55% threshold. Bitcoin (BTC) was trading near $80,670, up 3.83% in 24 hours.

According to the BBC, the US Open has accredited about 100 influencers and content creators for the tournament in New York, double last year’s total, prompting debate over how to attract new audiences without disrupting play. During Naomi Osaka’s first-round match on Arthur Ashe Stadium, a group in a hospitality suite used a portable ring light while she was serving, drawing a reprimand from the umpire, and officials later reminded spectators several times to stay quiet. Coco Gauff said the sport can benefit from a new demographic but added that guests should respect tennis etiquette. Osaka said the crowd was unusually noisy during her return match on Thursday and that the interruptions may also have affected her opponent. Daniil Medvedev said he sees “a lot more upside than downside” in efforts to raise tennis’s profile, while Frances Tiafoe praised the diversity of the New York crowd. Jessica Pegula said some of the behavior was disrespectful and that it had become “a little too much this year.” The US Open introduced free fan movement in 2024 and expanded to 15 days a year later, with the week before the singles draw now marketed as “Fan Week.” Tournament chief executive Craig Tiley said the event is trying to reach new audiences through creator credentials, and the United States Tennis Association said it wants fans to enjoy the tournament without interfering with action on court.

Bitcoin traded over $81,000 in Asian morning hours Friday, up about 4% over 24 hours, after the rates market did the work.Traders now put the odds of a Federal Reserve rate increase this month at roughly even, down from above 63% earlier in the week, per CME FedWatch. Softer expectations pulled bond yields back and sent buyers into risk assets across the board.Waller Gave the Move Its TriggerFed Governor Christopher Waller supplied the catalyst, saying he would support holding rates steady if price pressures kept easing. Treasuries and gold held the gains they made in the New York session that followed.The comment carries weight beyond its content. Waller said earlier this week that the jobs picture is in "satisfactory shape" — language that read as clearing the path for a hike by removing labor as an obstacle. A governor who set labor aside on Tuesday signalling comfort with a hold on Thursday is a meaningful shift in tone from the same voice.It also cuts against Chair Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole framing, which built the hawkish case entirely on inflation and described financial conditions as not restrictive. Three FOMC members had already voted for an increase at the previous meeting.The Odds Have Now Round-Tripped TwiceThe September pricing has moved more than the underlying data has.Odds sat around 35% before Warsh spoke at Jackson Hole, climbed through 56% and 63% as oil pushed above $90 on the Iran conflict, peaked near 70% Thursday, and have now returned to an even split. The timeline for a second hike also pushed out — from December 2026 to March 2027.Rates have held at 3.50%-3.75% since December 2025 following three cuts in 2025. A September increase would be the first since July 2023.August payrolls land Friday at 8:30 a.m. ET with consensus in the 53,000-65,000 range depending on the survey, following July's 23,000 loss. The reaction function is inverted this cycle: a strong print hardens the hike case, and a soft one removes it.Zcash Extends a Run That Has Left the Market BehindZcash was the standout, up nearly 15% in 24 hours and 20% on the week — extending a run that has left it well clear of the rest of the market.Hyperliquid's HYPE added about 6% and XRP nearly 6%. Ether, BNB and Dogecoin each gained between 4% and 5%, while Solana rose nearly 3% and TRON managed just over 1%, the weakest of the majors.Privacy tokens have been leading for several sessions now. Dash rose 17% and Zcash 16.5% on Thursday as Bitcoin first cleared $80,000. That cohort tends to outperform when speculative appetite returns rather than when institutional flows dominate — it is retail-heavy and moves on sentiment more than allocation decisions.The Seven-Day Picture Is Far More MutedThe daily gains flatter the week considerably.Bitcoin is up roughly 1% over seven days. Ether and XRP sit close to flat. Solana and TRON are both down nearly 3%.That gap says Friday's move was a recovery of ground lost earlier in the week rather than a breakout. Bitcoin was rejected repeatedly at $80,000 through Tuesday and Wednesday, and the Iran strikes drove a broad risk selloff that hit the high-beta names hardest — Solana and TRON gave up more than 3% in a single session Tuesday.Zcash is the exception. Its 20% weekly gain against a market that is broadly flat is genuine outperformance rather than mean reversion.ETF Flows Have Not Yet Confirmed the BidUS spot Bitcoin ETFs took in about $731 million Thursday on provisional figures, following four sessions that alternated between inflows and outflows.That alternating pattern is the constraint. The funds have yet to string together a run of buying that would confirm the bid rather than a one-day rebound — and a single fund has driven both the largest outflow and the largest inflow of the past week, which points to one large desk repositioning rather than broad allocator conviction.The Yen Move Is the Bigger Asian StoryGlobal equities extended their advance, with MSCI's Asia Pacific gauge climbing nearly 1% and the All Country World Index rising for a third day. The dollar steadied after sliding to its lowest since May, and an index of Asian currencies reached levels last seen in October 2024.The yen took most of the attention, strengthening about 2% Thursday and erasing a month of gradual decline. Traders raised their bets on Bank of Japan rate increases and stayed alert to the risk of official intervention. It pared some of that move to trade near 156.35 per dollar, having touched 155.30 in the prior session.That reverses a slide that had carried the yen past 160 earlier in the week — a level where strategists placed intervention triggers at 161 and then 162-163. The July 31 coordinated US-Japan operation, the first joint yen buying since 1998, had seen more than half its gains unwind before this week's turn.For crypto, the yen matters through the carry trade. Yen-funded positions in US stocks and Treasuries unwind when the currency strengthens sharply, which sells the dollar assets the trade was funding. A 2% move is significant but orderly. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described recent moves as "pretty well contained" while warning that a disorderly market could feed through to higher US rates.

Vermont business owners, including a ski-resort operator, a cheesemaker and a seller of snow-grooming equipment, called for an end to the trade war with Canada, according to Bloomberg. They said the tariffs are hurting their businesses.

EU Military Committee Chairman Seán Clancy said hybrid activity is now the European Union's most serious threat and that higher EU defense spending is strengthening ties with the United States, according to Bloomberg. Clancy made the remarks in Brussels in an interview with Bloomberg's Oliver Crook.

According to Jin10, Stifel raised its target price for Microsoft (MSFT.O) to $530 from $450.

Zhenro Properties (06158) said its cumulative contracted sales, including those from joint ventures and associates, rose 13.4% year on year to about RMB329 million in August 2026, according to ETNet. Contracted sales area for the month was about 17,330 square metres, with an average contracted selling price of about RMB19,000 per square metre. For the first eight months to August 31, 2026, cumulative contracted sales fell 6.32% year on year to about RMB2.802 billion, with contracted sales area of about 173,000 square metres and an average selling price of about RMB16,200 per square metre.

Hui Ka Yan, the founder of China’s fallen real estate giant Evergrande, has gone from one of Asia’s richest men to a life prisoner after a Chinese court convicted him of large-scale financial fraud and embezzlement.

Taiwan plans to introduce nine new crypto regulations, including detailed stablecoin rules, as early as Q1 2027 under its new Virtual Asset Service Act. The rules will require crypto firms and stablecoin issuers to meet stricter licensing, reserve, audit and disclosure requirements, while banks and businesses explore stablecoins for cross-border payments and trade.

Market structures can rewrite historical patterns, and bottoms can only be confirmed in hindsight. What we can confirm right now is that BTC is in the later stages of a cyclical bear market, but whether the bottom has ultimately been reached remains unclear due to insufficient evidence.

HyperEVM, Unveiled: How Does HyperEVM, the Number One Arbitrage Robot, Work? Golden Finance, What's Next?

Sam Altman says 38,000 ChatGPT queries use about as much water as producing one California almond, but researchers say the figure is difficult to verify and conflicts with his earlier estimate.

Justin Sun’s reputation in China appears to be taking a serious hit after a week of increasingly controversial public posts turned a personal dispute into a broader reputational crisis.

Is the BTC cycle lengthening? Jinse Finance: Is the BTC cycle clock slowing down?

Ben Delo gave Reform UK £4 million ($5.4 million) in April, accounting for about three-quarters of the party’s £5.55 million ($7.5 million) donations in Q2 2026. The BitMEX co-founder has now donated £8 million ($10.8 million) to Reform this year, as another major crypto-linked donor, Christopher Harborne, made no contribution during the quarter.

What exactly is Lighter? What makes it so special? How powerful is it now? What has Robinhood brought to Lighter?

Computing power, artificial intelligence, and the new GPT-6 platform have caused large models to crash? Golden Finance: Increasingly powerful models do not equate to perpetually online service.