Flash News

TREE NEWS update: Hongguo Short Drama issued a warning about fraudulent activities conducted under the guise of its name and its ‘Thousand-Show Plan’. The company urged the public to stay alert to such scams and to avoid participating in any activities falsely presented as its own.

TREE NEWS reports: Identity thefts linked to Revolut have renewed scrutiny on how crypto and fintech firms store customer KYC documents. Zero-knowledge technology could let companies verify users’ identities without holding copies of passports or other ID files, yet it is not standard practice. The thefts highlight the risk of centralized identity data, the report said.

TREE NEWS update: The FCA published guidance for crypto firms two weeks before the UK’s authorization window opens, warning that overseas companies serving UK retail customers must also be authorized. Firms will not be able to trade under the new regime before October 2027. The guidance sets out how both domestic and foreign firms should prepare for the UK’s crypto licensing process.

TREE NEWS update: Kraken’s parent company plans to offer permissioned Hyperliquid perpetual futures to US traders, with Bitnomial set to deploy, administer, clear and settle the proposed markets. NinjaTrader Clearing would carry approved customer accounts under the arrangement.

TREE NEWS reports: With Senate lawmakers failing to advance the Clarity Act, Bernstein expects the SEC and CFTC to drive crypto rulemaking. The firm said the legislative setback allows stablecoin rewards on idle balances to continue.

TREE NEWS update: Deutsche Bank has confirmed it will launch custody services for bitcoin and ether, holding clients’ wallets and private keys on their behalf. The service remains subject to regulatory approvals. Among the stablecoins on its launch list is one from a venture part-owned by DWS, Deutsche Bank’s majority-owned asset manager.

TREE NEWS reports: Bernstein said the SEC and CFTC are expected to pursue aggressive rulemaking to compensate for time lost negotiating the CLARITY Act, after the bill’s cloture vote failed on Tuesday. The federal agencies will publish new regulations in place of the stalled legislation, the firm said.

TREE NEWS update: The Clarity Act failed to pass its vote after every Democrat voted ‘no,’ leaving the crypto market bill short of approval. Crypto majors, altcoins and memes all sold off in the wake of the outcome, which had been expected given the odds. The vote marks another setback for US crypto market-structure legislation.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin is trading around $76,000, with analysts arguing that dollar liquidity rather than the Clarity Act will determine the floor from here. The debate over the crypto market structure bill’s impact has been sidelined by the view that Fed-driven liquidity conditions matter more for price direction.

TREE NEWS update: Nearly 99% of ZEC holders voted to reduce Zcash block times to 25 seconds while keeping ZEC issuance and halving schedules unchanged. The governance vote sets the network on a faster block cadence without altering its supply curve. No date was given for implementing the change.

TREE NEWS update: Circle’s Arc mainnet is now live, using USDC to pay transaction fees. The network supports more than 20 fiat stablecoins and connects to over 20 blockchains. The launch makes the stablecoin issuer’s own chain operational, with USDC serving as its native gas token rather than a separate token.

TREE NEWS reports: More than 1.8 million ETH is waiting to enter Ethereum’s validator set as of September 16, with an estimated activation wait of about 32 days. The backlog stems from the protocol’s Churn Limit, which caps new stake at 256 ETH per epoch, or roughly 57,600 ETH a day. Queued ETH earns no protocol rewards until validators turn active; the exit queue is far shorter.

TREE NEWS update: The endowment built from unclaimed 2016 DAO money has opened a second $1.8 million funding round for Ethereum security work. It is asking the companies that benefit from that work to help pay for it, in a year whose first half already set a record for the number of crypto hacks.

TREE NEWS update: CME Group said its email system outage was caused by a service disruption at Salesforce. The exchange operator attributed the disruption to the third-party cloud provider, without giving a timeframe for full restoration. Email services at the derivatives exchange were affected.

TREE NEWS update: Zcash coinholders voted overwhelmingly to speed up the network and preserve its bitcoin-style halving schedule, settling the scope of NU7, the next major upgrade. Roughly 2.4 million ZEC took part out of about 3.6 million eligible at the snapshot — around two-thirds, well above the 1 million ZEC organizers required. The vote clears the way for 25-second block times.

TREE NEWS reports: Bitcoin dropped about 4% on Tuesday to below $76,000, trading near $75,900 early Wednesday, after the failure of the Clarity Act. Markets are pricing a 92% chance of a Federal Reserve rate hike, with the FOMC announcing at 2 p.m. ET Wednesday.

TREE NEWS update: Balancer Labs co-founder Marcus Hardt has proposed an orderly winddown of the Balancer protocol, halting new business development and moving pools to withdrawal-only mode from October 30. The proposal, pending a Snapshot vote on September 25-29, would end the bug bounty and contributor notice period on October 31, and distribute at least $9 million in DAO treasury assets to BAL holders who burn their tokens, with the first redemption window expected in late May 2027.