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According to CoinDesk, the index provider MSCI has launched a new round of consultations, proposing to exclude so-called "non-operating companies" from its Global Investable Market Indexes. This classification will no longer use the proportion of crypto assets as the sole threshold but will adopt a two-step screening process: first, it will check whether operating assets exceed 50% of total assets; those that do not pass will then be assessed based on five financial ratios: operating asset intensity, expense intensity, cash flow, fair value intensity, and capital dependence. If at least four of these do not meet the standards, they will not qualify for inclusion.If the current data is applied to the MSCI ACWI IMI Index, Bitcoin-holding companies Strategy (MSTR), Metaplanet (3350), and uranium holder Yellow Cake will be excluded. Strategy has cumulatively held approximately 840,400 BTC since 2020, while Metaplanet holds about 43,000 BTC. MSCI's description of "non-operating companies" refers to businesses that create value by accumulating and holding non-operating assets, have limited operating cash flow, and rely on external financing for expansion.The consultation for collecting opinions will end on September 30, with results expected to be announced around October 16; even if approved, the related adjustments will not take effect until the index review in November 2026 at the earliest. Previously, a consultation in October 2025 regarding "digital asset treasury" companies, which set a standard of 50% for crypto asset proportion, had caused market fluctuations and industry opposition, ultimately being postponed.

On the evening of August 14, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that the "Regulation Crypto" rule proposal meeting originally scheduled for August 15 was canceled due to "unforeseen scheduling issues," and a new meeting date has not yet been announced. This rule is seen as the SEC's first significant rule-making attempt in the digital asset space, expected to provide a limited exemption framework for crypto securities issuance, allowing issuers to advance projects without triggering full registration requirements, and potentially allowing for a gradual exit from SEC oversight in later stages.SEC Chairman Paul Atkins had previously identified this rule-making as one of the core components of the digital asset regulatory agenda. The industry had also anticipated that the SEC would simultaneously advance the "tokenized securities innovation exemption," but this matter is also facing delays. Meanwhile, the legislative process for the Senate's "Digital Asset Market Clarity Act" remains unresolved, with negotiations between both parties and the White House yet to reach a consensus on crossing the 60-vote threshold. The two regulatory paths for the crypto industry, administrative rule-making and legislative advancement, are currently at a standstill.

Ukraine proposed a ceasefire in the Black Sea to Russia.

The founder of Strategy, Michael Saylor, proposed the concept of the "Digital Assets Monetary Spectrum," categorizing different types of digital assets based on volatility, potential returns, and trading functions.Saylor stated that the digital asset system can be divided into four levels: Bitcoin (BTC): Digital Capital (Digital Capital) STRC: Digital Credit (Digital Credit) SR-strcUSX: Digital Money (Digital Money) USDT: Digital Currency (Digital Currency).He believes that from left to right, asset volatility and potential returns gradually decrease, while stability and trading utility continuously increase. Saylor stated that Bitcoin is the "ultimate value storage asset," possessing high volatility, high potential returns, and the attributes of a digital asset that does not require third-party credit endorsement; whereas stablecoins are the "ultimate medium of exchange," emphasizing stability and payment functionality. In between the two, digital credit and digital currency serve as a bridge connecting capital and currency. Among them, STRC is defined by Saylor as "digital credit," characterized by relative stability, high fixed returns, and certain value storage attributes.He further stated that digital currency combines digital currency technology with digital capital economic attributes, possessing stability, earning capacity, trading convenience, and value storage functions. Saylor noted that digital capital belongs to bearer assets, while assets such as digital credit, digital currency, and digital cash are created and managed by digital financial companies, with their ownership layer corresponding to "Digital Equity." These components together form the future "Digital Finance Stack."

The proposed soft fork BIP-54 (Consensus Cleanup) specification for Bitcoin was completed in May 2026, aimed at fixing four consensus rule boundary issues without adding new Bitcoin features. Wang Chun, co-founder of the digital asset mining pool F2pool, stated that they do not support BIP-54 and mentioned that if the proposal obtains the required majority through the standard BIP-9 process, F2pool will upgrade its mining nodes but will not issue a support signal in advance.BIP-54 has been tested in the Signet-based testing environment Bitcoin Inquisition, and the mining pools MARA and ViaBTC have voluntarily produced compatible coinbase transactions; the formal activation parameters have not yet been determined, and the mainnet voting is still incomplete. Previously, BIP-110, which attempted to restrict certain non-financial data in Bitcoin transactions, did not receive enough support from miners and stalled around block height 961635; BIP-54 does not involve restricting general script functionality.

ENS DAO has voted to approve the proposal "Next Era of ENS DAO" and completed on-chain execution, officially establishing the ENS Foundation to promote the ENS ecosystem into a new governance phase.According to the proposal, the ENS Foundation will become a fully operational organization, equipped with a full-time executive director, a professional team, and a board of directors consisting of 5 members, responsible for undertaking institutional work related to ENS in areas such as law, policy, standard-setting, and brand protection.ENS stated that over the past nearly ten years, ENS has developed into an important infrastructure within the Ethereum ecosystem, with millions of registered domain names, and has been integrated by numerous wallets, applications, and Layer 2 networks. However, the DAO itself lacks legal entity status, making it unable to effectively participate in the governance of the internet naming system, sign institutional cooperation agreements, hire full-time employees, maintain trademark rights, or engage in regulatory discussions. The establishment of the ENS Foundation aims to fill this gap. In the future, the foundation will be responsible for:Representing ENS in internet standard organizations such as ICANN, IETF, and W3C, promoting the recognition and management of the ".ens" top-level domain (TLD);Participating in policy discussions as a legal entity, communicating with regulatory agencies and government departments;Holding and protecting ENS trademarks and intellectual property, combating phishing and impersonation;Hiring full-time employees responsible for ecosystem operations, funding programs, and fund management;Becoming a formal cooperation entity between traditional institutions such as registrars and standard organizations and the ENS ecosystem.

Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett posted on the X platform that although the U.S. Senate has postponed the key procedural vote on the CLARITY Act until September, regulators are preparing to advance their own cryptocurrency issuance rules framework. The Senate previously failed to complete the procedural vote on the CLARITY Act, and the related agenda has been postponed until September. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has submitted a procedural motion, and a new voting window is expected around mid-September.Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is preparing a new rule proposal for cryptocurrency asset issuance activities. Market participants believe that even if the legislative process for the CLARITY Act is delayed, regulators may still push for digital asset market structure reform through administrative rules.Analysts point out that in the coming months, the U.S. crypto regulatory path may see a "dual-track advancement": on one hand, Congress continues to push market structure legislation like the CLARITY Act; on the other hand, the SEC may establish a regulatory framework for token issuance, trading platforms, and digital asset service providers through rulemaking.

Fox Business crypto reporter posted on the X platform that the SEC will hold a public meeting on Friday at 10 AM Eastern Time to discuss whether to issue a notice proposing a customized issuance system for certain investment contracts involving crypto assets.

F2Pool co-founder Wang Chun stated that they currently do not support the BIP-54 proposal, but if the proposal is strictly advanced according to BIP-9 (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal activation mechanism) and reaches the required absolute majority signal threshold, their team will update the mining pool nodes. Chun indicated that they will not participate in the signal voting for BIP-54 until the formal activation conditions are met.BIP-54 is one of the protocol upgrade proposals recently discussed in the Bitcoin community, involving adjustments to Bitcoin's consensus rules. Wang Chun's statement reflects that some miners remain cautious about the proposal and prefer to promote the upgrade through the standardized BIP-9 process and community consensus.

Ethereum developers proposed a "Tapered Issuance Burn" mechanism, planning to gradually burn a portion of the idealized rewards for validators as the ETH staking ratio increases; when the staking amount approaches 50% of the total supply, the net issuance of ETH will drop to 0%. The author of the proposal stated that the ETH staking ratio exceeded one-third of the total supply in April; if not adjusted, Jerome de Tychey indicated that by January 2028, the staking amount could exceed 70 million, accounting for more than 55% of the supply.Supporters believe that excessive staking may cause small independent validators to lose economic viability first, leading to staking concentration among custodial institutions and large service providers; the plan is proposed to be implemented over 18 months, with an additional approximately 6 months reserved for preparation before potential network upgrades. Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that once the staking rate exceeds 50%, rewards will drop to 0%, and the uncertainty of returns may weaken institutional staking and DeFi demand. He pointed out that ETH lending strategies may be affected, and this proposal is still in its preliminary stage.

According to MBN, South Korea's People Power Party member Jeong Seong-guk plans to propose a bill to postpone the implementation date for taxing virtual asset income by three years, from January 1, 2027, to January 1, 2030. The member pointed out that by delaying the implementation date until a comprehensive review of related systems, including the taxation of virtual assets, is completed, a safeguard can be established to enhance taxpayer expectations and prevent system chaos.According to current regulations, starting from January 1 of next year, income generated from the transfer or lending of virtual assets will be classified as "other income" and will be subject to income tax. Therefore, the portion of annual profits exceeding 2.5 million won will be taxed at a rate of 22%, which includes 20% for other income tax and 2% for local income tax. Amid recent stock market turmoil and soaring real estate prices triggering public attacks on the government and ruling party, the People Power Party seems to be trying to gain public support by actively proposing legislation aimed at protecting the interests of virtual asset market investors. The People Power Party has consistently opposed the government, advocating for the abolition of this tax.

VeChain Foundation announced the entry into the next phase of the Renaissance roadmap, Interstellar. Previously, Galactica completed the EVM foundational upgrade, and Hayabusa completed the transformation of consensus and token economics. Interstellar aims to deepen the EVM compatibility of VeChainThor with the Ethereum ecosystem and expand developer capabilities.The first upgrade proposal, VIP-255, will introduce execution layer improvements compatible with Ethereum versions such as Cancun, Prague, and Osaka, including transient storage, MCOPY instruction, and cryptographic support for BLS12-381 and secp256r1. Voting will take place from August 10, 2026, 00:00 UTC to August 17, 2026, 00:00 UTC via the VeVote platform, allowing validators and eligible StarGate NFT holders to participate. This upgrade does not affect the VET and VTHO token economics, and regular holders do not need to take any action.

According to CoinPost, the Financial Services Agency and the National Police Agency of Japan jointly issued a request to the Japan Virtual Currency Exchange Association (JVCEA), asking all cryptocurrency traders to strengthen withdrawal restrictions to prevent fraud victims, proposing a total of 11 new measures.The main content includes: the introduction of a pre-registration system for withdrawal destinations, setting a certain period of withdrawal restrictions after depositing fiat currency or purchasing cryptocurrency, establishing withdrawal limits based on customer risk assessments, and enhancing transaction monitoring and information-sharing mechanisms with police in each prefecture. The background is that the damage from social media investment inducements and "pig butchering" scams continues to expand, with criminal methods becoming increasingly complex.

FlashRescue co-founder @DarcyAri posted on the X platform that recently, during a joint investigation with partners on a case, Tether experienced a transfer of funds from one address during the execution of a proposal to freeze addresses, resulting in a decrease in the frozen amount. Further review by FlashRescue revealed that this is not an isolated incident. As of August 3, 2026, through an analysis of 2,955 Tether freeze events on the Ethereum and Tron networks, it was found that among addresses involved in risks such as entity sanctions, fraudulent activities, money laundering, FATF blacklist jurisdictions, and malicious attacks: 60 addresses cleared their assets and completed front-running transfers before the formal execution of the freeze, with a total net outflow of 20,429,847 USDT, starting transfers an average of 13 minutes and 59 seconds after the freeze proposal was submitted, and completing the main fund transfers within 15 minutes and 15 seconds; additionally, 113 addresses transferred some assets before the freeze was executed, involving approximately 35,524,300 USDT.The average time from the submission of the freeze proposal to the formal execution of the freeze by Tether is 2 hours, 16 minutes, and 15 seconds, indicating a long time window between the public announcement of the freeze proposal and its actual execution. On July 3, a cluster of addresses transferred funds continuously within minutes and then split the transfers to the same address. The above cases suggest that some high-risk addresses may be actively monitoring Tether freeze proposals and utilizing the time difference between the public announcement of the proposal and the actual effectiveness of the freeze to implement front-running transfers. This mechanism leads to the failure of freezing the involved funds and undermines the actual effectiveness of sanctions, anti-money laundering, and law enforcement cooperation measures.

Lido Finance officially released a governance update, and Lido DAO has officially opened on-chain voting for the NEST automated buyback mechanism, with the voting window from August 5 to August 8 at 14:00 UTC.NEST is a set of automated, rule-based on-chain mechanisms that directly link the performance of the Lido protocol with the LDO token. The relevant design and parameters were approved through Snapshot voting in May. The core logic of NEST is to systematically buy back LDO tokens in decentralized markets through protocol revenue or liquidity controlled by the protocol, thereby continuously capturing the value growth of the protocol at the token level. The execution of the mechanism will revolve around the liquidity pair of LDO and wstETH, and specific implementation details are still being updated in the community forum.If this on-chain vote is approved, Lido will shift from a buyback plan driven by periodic governance to a continuous, predictable automated value distribution model.

ChianCatcher news, including Ethereum Foundation's Justin Drake and five other researchers and developers, proposed draft EIP-8363 (Tapered Issuance Burn), which aims to significantly reduce validator consensus layer rewards as the ETH staking ratio increases. When the staking amount approaches 60.25 million ETH (approximately 50% of the total supply), the deduction ratio will reach 100% and will be gradually implemented over 18 months.The proposal aims to address the current situation where the staking ratio has exceeded 33%, preventing ETH from being overly concentrated in large custodial institutions and liquid staking protocols, and reducing issuance dilution. Critics, including Aave founder Stani Kulechov and Ether.Fi CEO Mike Silagadze, argue that this move could force independent validators to exit, weaken institutional demand, and impact the DeFi market. The proposal is currently still in the early draft stage and has not yet been approved or included in an upgrade.

Regarding the EIP proposal submitted by the Ethereum community, Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov expressed opposition, stating that the proposal cannot achieve its intended goals and will instead harm Ethereum. He pointed out that the proposal would cap ETH staking rewards at 0% when the staking rate exceeds 50%, making staking rewards unpredictable and potentially unprofitable for many participants. This poses a negative factor for institutional buyers considering establishing ETH positions, as they may turn to other networks with more predictable cash flows, resulting in significant adoption costs.Stani Kulechov further stated that reducing rewards to 0 would make ETH lending strategies fundamentally unfeasible, effectively stifling ETH's lending and yield scenarios. At that point, the only reason to borrow ETH would be to short it; meanwhile, holders of ETH beta and yield may turn to other interest-bearing assets like stablecoins. He mentioned that from a personal perspective, this proposal would undermine the viability of ETH as an asset and limit its potential, hoping that the proposal would not advance. Otherwise, a large number of participants would shift their interest to other networks, emphasizing that Ethereum should not be penalized for its growth.