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BNB Smart Chain (BSC) announced that the Pasteur hard fork will officially launch on the mainnet at 10:30 AM Beijing time on August 25 (02:30 UTC on August 25). Node operators need to upgrade to client version v1.7.7 in advance. This upgrade includes three improvements: BEP-682, BEP-695, and BEP-675, focusing on enhancing cross-chain security, validator governance mechanisms, and network throughput capacity.Among them, BEP-682 will strengthen the cross-chain bridge validation mechanism of the BNB Chain, preventing the risk of permission bypass caused by duplicate calculations of validator signatures, thus improving the security of cross-chain asset transfers. BEP-695 optimizes the validator key rotation mechanism, ensuring that old keys no longer retain management permissions after exiting, while also fixing potential vulnerabilities related to penalties and governance voting. In terms of performance, BEP-675 reduces the time consumption caused by validators repeatedly executing transactions by optimizing the block construction process.In the internal QANet testing environment of the BNB Chain, this solution increased throughput from 1237 TPS to 2324 TPS, while maintaining a block time of 450 milliseconds and a block limit of 100 million Gas, with the average Gas usage per block rising from 46.35 million to 84.15 million.BNB Chain stated that this upgrade is primarily aimed at validators and block builders, intending to provide greater capacity during network peak periods and to promote the throughput expansion goals outlined in the BNB Chain roadmap for the second half of 2026.

Financial giant Charles Schwab announced that it has launched direct trading services for Bitcoin and Ethereum for approximately 40 million brokerage accounts. The product is named Schwab Crypto, covering 48 states in the U.S. (excluding New York and Louisiana), with a trading fee rate of 0.75%, operated by Charles Schwab Premier Bank and Paxos.Joe Vietri, head of digital assets at Charles Schwab, stated that the company aims to become the preferred platform for retail investors to allocate digital assets, supporting users to trade crypto assets alongside other investment types through its services, education, and research advantages. The company also maintains a risk warning, stating that even if Bitcoin or Ethereum only accounts for 1% to 3% of a portfolio, it can have a significant impact, and both have previously dropped over 70% in past cycles.

According to Reuters, Apple has trained a large language model for the Chinese market in collaboration with Alibaba. This move is different from Apple's previous strategy of relying on third-party models.Insiders revealed that Apple's AI toolkit, Apple Intelligence, is expected to launch in China in the coming months after an iOS update.

According to SoSoValue data, on August 13, Eastern Time, the total net inflow of Ethereum spot ETFs was $6.7169 million. The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest single-day net inflow was Grayscale Ethereum Trust ETF ETH, with a single-day net inflow of $6.4748 million, bringing the historical total net inflow for ETH to $1.819 billion.Following that is Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust MSSE, with a single-day net inflow of $810,300, and the historical total net inflow for MSSE currently stands at $21.8789 million. The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest single-day net outflow was Blackrock ETF ETHA, with a single-day net outflow of $569,200, and the historical total net inflow for ETHA has reached $11.633 billion.As of the time of publication, the total net asset value of Ethereum spot ETFs is $10.572 billion, with an ETF net asset ratio (market value as a percentage of Ethereum's total market value) of 4.64%, and the historical cumulative net inflow has reached $11.453 billion.

According to a report by Reuters, influenced by multiple factors such as the tense Sino-U.S. relations, China's push for domestic software alternatives, and U.S. export controls, Microsoft has closed at least 15 branches and joint ventures in China over the past five years, executing a strategic contraction. In 2023, the company internally considered exiting the Chinese market, as some executives believed that "the geopolitical risks outweighed the limited economic returns," but ultimately did not proceed with the exit. Microsoft disclosed in 2024 that its business in China accounted for only about 1.5% of its global revenue.The report states that Microsoft's final decision to remain in China was primarily due to the establishment of a profitable path—providing Azure cloud and AI services to Chinese companies like ByteDance and Shein, helping them operate compliantly in overseas markets. Additionally, the company believes that retaining its business in China remains strategically significant for acquiring engineering talent. However, analysts question the sustainability of this AI business model: the service relies on third-party models like OpenAI, and Chinese companies are increasingly adopting domestic alternatives like Kimi, which offer comparable performance at lower costs.Microsoft's research and development presence in China is also contracting. Its predecessor, Microsoft Research Asia, has successively established new labs in Vancouver, Singapore, and Tokyo. In 2024, the company offered job opportunities to 1,000 top engineers to relocate to the U.S. and three other countries, but only about one-third accepted, with most senior engineers moving to domestic universities and tech companies. A Microsoft spokesperson responded that the company will continue to commit to the Chinese market but did not comment on specific decision details. ByteDance and Shein did not respond to related inquiries.

Justin Drake posted on the X platform that Ethereum L1 will no longer use the SNARK-friendly hash function Poseidon, which has dominated since 2019, and will instead turn to traditional hash functions such as SHA2 or BLAKE2s.This adjustment is based on advancements in the field of SNARK design, shifting the focus from "SNARK-friendly hashing" to "hash-friendly SNARK." By aligning Boolean operations in traditional hashing with binary field native, the proof performance of traditional hashing in SNARK has reached 1 million per second, with an overhead of about 100 times.Research from Binius and Flock has driven relevant progress. The Ethereum Foundation's post-quantum team is advancing this route, with a roadmap that includes deploying production-level leanVM in 2027, and deploying in the consensus layer, execution layer, and data processing layer in 2028.Justin Drake also stated that the enhanced capabilities of AI in cryptanalysis have recently led to setbacks for the lattice-based scheme HAWK and the homomorphic scheme SQIsign, with hash-based schemes being used for post-quantum signatures on the blockchain. The trend of open-source automated research is also accelerating, with SNARK.fast achieving 1.8 million BLAKE3 proofs per second.

Neutrl announced on the X platform that it has temporarily suspended minting, redeeming, and other protocol functions due to circumstances affecting the protocol's reserves.The team stated that this measure was taken in the interest of users upon the advice of legal counsel, aiming to maintain an orderly process during the assessment of the impact. Users will receive clear follow-up arrangements at the appropriate time, and information regarding the timeline and next steps will be announced as soon as possible.

ChianCatcher news, Circle's Senior Director of Strategy and Policy for the EU, Patrick Hansen, pointed out in a tweet that among the approximately 23 authorized electronic money token (EMT) issuers in the EU, only 9 have been granted permission to provide crypto asset services (CASP). This means that only these 9 can offer custody and transfer services for the stablecoins they issue, while the remaining 14 can only mint or burn tokens directly to customer wallets and cannot hold or send stablecoins on behalf of customers. This greatly limits the range of services that issuers can provide.Hansen stated that Circle has obtained the necessary CASP approval through the MiCA Article 60 notification procedure to provide custody or payment services related to USDC and EURC for institutional clients. He expressed surprise that more EMT issuers have not taken this step. The 9 that can currently offer some crypto asset services include Circle, Société Générale - Forge, CACEIS Bank, Banking Circle, Bridge, Fiat Republic, Newrails, Blue EMI, and Stable Mint.

According to Staking Rewards data, the staking ratio of Ethereum has risen to a historical high, with approximately 41.89 million ETH currently staked, accounting for 34.7% of the total supply of Ethereum. The corresponding market value of staked ETH is about 78.56 billion USD, and the current staking yield is approximately 2.6%, having recently decreased by 0.49%. The number of active validators on the network is about 789,000.The staking ratio has continued to climb recently, with an increase of about 0.77%, while the network inflation rate has dropped to around 0.86%. More and more ETH is being locked in the PoS consensus, simultaneously tightening the circulating supply. The staking yield of ETH mainly comes from consensus layer issuance, priority fees, and MEV, but as the staking volume increases, the yield per validator will be diluted.

Tether's latest data shows that the total issuance of USDT on the TRON network has risen to approximately 91.2 billion, surpassing Ethereum's approximately 90.3 billion, making it the blockchain network with the largest issuance of USDT globally.This means that in the nearly 200 billion USD global issuance landscape of USDT, TRON has taken the largest single-chain share. As the demand for stablecoin payments, transfers, and transactions continues to grow, the on-chain issuance focus of USDT is further concentrating on TRON.

On May 13, 2026, the American financial services company Charles Schwab began to gradually open spot trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum to retail customers, with a transaction fee rate of 75 basis points. The company disclosed that customer assets reached $13.1 trillion, with 39.8 million brokerage accounts, and Paxos is responsible for execution and sub-custody.During the earnings call in July, Charles Schwab stated that the progress of the related business is on track and launched a pilot for cryptocurrency asset transfers, while also taking a stake in Paxos. Initially, only Bitcoin and Ethereum are supported, with no support for deposits and withdrawals, and no SIPC protection, except for New York and Louisiana. Charles Schwab customers hold approximately $25 billion in crypto ETP.Morgan Stanley's E*Trade launched Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana trading through Zerohash on July 16, with a fee rate of 50 basis points; Fidelity's rate is 1%, and Coinbase's consumer trading implied fee rate is about 1.75%.

According to SoSoValue data, the total net inflow for Ethereum spot ETFs is $7.3791 million. The Ethereum spot ETF with the highest single-day net inflow is the Blackrock ETF ETHA, with a single-day net inflow of $7.3791 million. Currently, the historical total net inflow for ETHA has reached $11.634 billion.As of the time of writing, the total net asset value of Ethereum spot ETFs is $10.532 billion, and the ETF net asset ratio (the market value relative to the total market value of Ethereum) is 4.63%. The historical cumulative net inflow has reached $11.446 billion.

According to The Defiant, Circle's wrapped Bitcoin product cirBTC has been live on Ethereum since June 8, but its circulation is currently only about 40 coins. According to Etherscan, its maximum supply is approximately 40.02 cirBTC, with only 11 holding addresses. Circle's reserve dashboard (data as of August 11) shows that there are about 40.02 cirBTC in circulation, corresponding to reserves of approximately 42.51 BTC.cirBTC is issued by Circle International Bermuda Limited, backed by a 1:1 BTC collateral, with the underlying assets held in trust by Circle National Trust and isolated from company assets, supporting Chainlink reserve proofs for on-chain real-time verification. Qualified institutions can mint and redeem through Circle Mint. Currently, it is only deployed on Ethereum, with Arc as the next target chain, and plans to expand to multi-chain.In comparison, WBTC has a circulation of over 116,000 coins, and cbBTC has about 97,000 coins. CoinGecko currently marks cirBTC as "preview" status, and it has not yet been listed for trading on mainstream centralized and decentralized exchanges.

Derek Chiang, founder of ZeroDev and former employee of Offchain, announced his joining of Ethlabs, stating that he will focus on promoting Ethereum technologies such as real-time proofs, light clients, and fast confirmations into practical products and commercial scenarios.He mentioned that the current adoption of many underlying Ethereum technologies is still significantly lagging behind their potential, for example, some cross-chain bridges still rely on multi-signature verification for L1 deposits; he hopes that Ethlabs will become a market force for the implementation of Ethereum technologies, persuading developers to adopt them through technical and product advantages rather than just ideology.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin (@EmberCN), an early holder who participated in the Ethereum token issuance transferred all 2,000 ETH to Coinbase about 4 hours ago, valued at approximately $3.77 million at the current price.Based on its participation price of about $0.311 at that time, the initial cost of this asset was approximately $622, and the book return as of this transfer is about 6,060 times.

On August 11, Fidelity submitted a registration statement amendment to the SEC, applying to add ETH staking functionality to its spot Ethereum ETF, Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH). Under normal circumstances, FETH can stake up to 100% of its held ETH, but there is no minimum staking ratio.If approved by the SEC, the investment objective of FETH will also change. Currently, the fund primarily tracks the Fidelity Ethereum Reference Rate, deducting related fees; after adding staking, the fund's objective will shift to tracking that index while accounting for the income generated from staking.