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Hester Peirce, a commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), stated at the SIFMA Digital Assets Conference that regulators should reconsider traditional financial monitoring methods, shifting from "collecting more data" to utilizing new technologies for more precise verification.Peirce mentioned that technologies like zero-knowledge proofs can verify whether users meet requirements such as age, citizenship, accredited investor status, or sanctions lists without disclosing underlying personal information like names, income, or addresses.Hester Peirce suggested that the federal government and regulatory agencies adopt attribute-based verification when technically feasible and allow registered entities to rely more on third-party identity verification to reduce the redundant collection and storage of sensitive information.Peirce also stated that public blockchains have permanent, public, and auditable transaction records, and combined with blockchain forensic tools, they are expected to enhance the ability to track illegal activities while reducing unnecessary data collection.

Bitget announced an upgrade to its Proof of Reserves (PoR) system, expanding the covered assets from the original 4 cryptocurrencies to 19 major assets, including new tokens such as XAUT, SOL, BNB, and USDGO. This upgrade also expands the scope of platform-level reserve disclosures and personal asset proof verifications. Users can view the reserve ratios, scales, and on-chain distributions of various assets through the PoR page, and independently verify whether their personal holdings are included in the reserve snapshot using a Merkle Tree.Since December 2022, Bitget has been releasing monthly reserve reports, and by August 2026, it has released 45 issues consecutively, with the latest overall reserve ratio at 122%. Bitget CEO Gracy stated that as the variety of assets supported by the platform continues to increase, the transparency and verification capabilities of the reserves also need to be expanded simultaneously, allowing more users to independently verify their asset situations and further enhance the platform's transparency.

The founder of TRON, Justin Sun, announced the establishment of the "Justin Sun Award," which currently focuses only on mathematics. He stated that the award follows the problem rather than the individual, with no annual meeting, nominations, or age restrictions; each problem has two columns for signatures, one for the prover and one for the person who formalizes the proof and writes it into the machine. Both can be the same person, or they can be a person, AI, or a person using AI. The condition for triggering the prize is that the machine verifies the proof from the first line to the last line without error. Once verification is passed, the names in the two columns become the prize owners for that problem.The rules also include: before machine verification, if the mathematical community has accepted a human proof, it can be listed first, with the prize remaining unchanged, and the status being "Proven, awaiting formalization." The prize in the proof column is only awarded to problems that are solved after being listed; for problems that were already solved at the time of listing, the prover is still credited, but the prize is only awarded to the person who completes the formalization, not retroactively for the history of mathematics. The list of problems is determined by Justin Sun's signature for the listed problems and pricing; once listed, the price can only increase, and money can only be exchanged, not refunded. Mistakes in the problems will still be paid, and they will be re-listed afterward; beyond pricing, verification, payment, and naming, he does not participate in voting.Justin Sun stated that the focus of public welfare will shift to this award, with the initial prize pool already deposited into the blockchain, with the address and balance made public. He only retains the right to continue injecting funds; the award proof and prize distribution will also be made public on the chain. He mentioned that naming it after a person is to avoid name changes due to institutional changes and expressed that wealth comes from mathematics, hoping to "come from mathematics and return to mathematics."

Liquid Network has released the latest update stating that the emergency version Elements v23.3.4 is now online. Functionary nodes have immediately begun upgrading and all Liquid node operators are advised to synchronize updates. This version addresses the previously discovered Proof verification cache vulnerability and strengthens the cache keys used for Range Proof.Regarding network recovery, Blockstream states that it is still formulating a recovery plan, which is expected to proceed in three phases: restoring block production while continuing to suspend Peg operations; replaying verified valid transactions; and restoring Peg operations after the network status is fully restored and funds are confirmed to be returned. Currently, the first two phases are being tested in parallel, and any phase will only advance once safety is confirmed. Liquid Network indicates that Elements v23.3.4 has completed multiple rounds of internal and external reviews, with participants including the Bitcoin Red Team, Alpen Labs, and other teams.At the same time, Liquid Network reminds users to be vigilant against fraudulent upgrade websites exploiting this incident. Information should only be obtained through official Liquid Network and Blockstream channels, and users should never send funds to strangers or disclose private keys or recovery phrases.

According to the latest Merkle Tree Proof of Reserves (PoR) data from Huobi HTX, as of September 1, 2026 (UTC+8), the reserve ratios of various mainstream assets on the platform remain above 100%, continuously ensuring the safety of user assets with sufficient reserves and committing to 100% redemption, ensuring that users can trade and withdraw at any time. As one of the earlier platforms in the industry to continuously disclose Merkle Tree Proof of Reserves, Huobi HTX has publicly disclosed PoR data for 47 consecutive months, enhancing platform transparency in a long-term and verifiable manner.The specific updated reserve ratios are as follows: BTC (104%), ETH (102%), TRX (109%), USDs (102%), HTX (103%), XRP (104%), DOGE (101%), SOL (103%). Users can visit the "Assets - Proof of Reserves Report" page on the Huobi HTX official website to view.It is worth mentioning that starting from April this year, to further enhance the visual representation of US dollar asset reserve data, Huobi HTX has unified and aggregated USDT, USDC, and other US dollar stablecoins as "USDs" for display. The asset data of each currency remains independently recorded and verified to ensure that the reserve information is authentic, clear, and traceable.In the future, Huobi HTX will continue to adhere to the 1:1 reserve principle, using verifiable data, traceable on-chain assets, and a regular information disclosure mechanism to continuously enhance asset transparency, allowing users to see reserves, verify assets, and use them with greater peace of mind.

On September 2, the Wyoming Stable Token Committee announced the adoption of Chainlink Proof of Reserve as the exclusive on-chain reserve verification layer for the Frontier Stable Token (FRNT), with reserves and supply balances audited by The Network Firm published to on-chain readable feeds. The current scale available for verification is not large: according to CoinGecko data, the total supply of FRNT is 967,900 tokens, with a unit price of approximately $0.99884, which only accounts for about 0.2% of the base scenario estimate (508.7 million tokens) submitted by the committee to the state legislature's budget meeting materials; the 24-hour trading volume is $160, all occurring on Kraken.The announcement separates the two products, with only Proof of Reserve currently online. The Proof of Reserve Secure Mint component, which programmatically prevents minting when reserves cannot cover total supply, is said by the committee to still be in the "adoption process." The committee previously published daily proofs on its official website, and this adjustment changes the method of data delivery rather than the update frequency. Committee Executive Director Anthony Apollo stated that adopting Chainlink's reserve proof provides transparent and verifiable confirmation that FRNT is fully backed by high-quality reserve assets; Chainlink Labs Chief Business Officer Johann Eid remarked that this demonstrates that governments can utilize the Chainlink platform to put trustworthy, fully verifiable on-chain financial infrastructure into production.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has intensified its scrutiny of companies behind so-called Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). According to informed sources, SEC examiners have been requesting registered investment advisors to provide evidence that their SPVs actually own or hold shares in the private companies they claim.Some insiders have indicated that, ahead of the highly anticipated initial public offerings of SpaceX and Anthropic's planned listing, such funds have ramped up their marketing efforts, while complaints from investors have also increased, prompting regulators to decide to strengthen their scrutiny. According to one of the insiders, the SEC's current reviews typically include document requests, and some reviews also involve on-site interviews. The review process can last anywhere from several weeks to a year.

The Zcash full node client team, Zakura, has released Zakura Common, a set of cryptographic and protocol libraries for the Zcash ecosystem. Official benchmarks show that the proof generation speed on mobile has increased by over 14 times (over 5 times on desktop), Sinsemilla hash speed has increased by over 21 times, decryption trial speed has increased by over 1.5 times, and zk-SNARK verification speed has increased by 4 to 8 times; in many cases, the waiting time for wallet transaction creation can be reduced from over 3 seconds to under 200 milliseconds.This upgrade does not require a network upgrade and has been open-sourced under the MIT/Apache 2.0 dual license. Zakura 1.3.0 will switch to this technology stack.

The decentralized perpetual contract protocol Lighter announced that its average block proof time has decreased from about 5.3 minutes to about 1 minute over the past month. This progress was achieved through two independent optimizations launched on July 23 and August 23. Lighter can now complete block verification faster, thereby increasing processing capacity, reducing infrastructure costs, and creating space for further expansion.The first optimization is the Heavy/Light decomposition. This solution splits the transaction circuit into light circuits and heavy circuits, allowing simple quote updates, which account for the vast majority of transactions, to only pay for light constraints, thus halving the proof time. The second optimization comes from the Prover backend optimization brought about by the proof competition held in collaboration with Eigen Labs, which again halves the proof time under the same circuit conditions. The first batch of optimizations went live on August 23, with more batches still in progress. Additionally, on August 10, all Schnorr signature verifications were incorporated into a single Plonky3 proof for each block, resulting in approximately a 20% improvement.The above optimizations are orthogonal and their effects are cumulative. The remaining competition optimizations are expected to bring about an additional 2x improvement, potentially reaching a total of about 10x compared to mid-July. Currently, Lighter's sustained processing capacity has exceeded historical peak loads, and the finality limit for withdrawals has been reduced from about 21-22 minutes to about 16-17 minutes, maintaining stability during peak traffic periods.

Websea officially announced the launch of the Proof of Reserves (PoR) mechanism on August 18, using a Merkle tree scheme to publicly disclose platform reserve data, while also opening up open-source verification tools. Users can view verification dates, covered currencies, user asset balances, on-chain wallet balances, wallet address files, and historical reports, as well as download personal verification data to locally verify whether their assets are fully accounted for in the platform reserves.According to the introduction, the reserve ratio is the ratio of the platform's on-chain assets to the total user assets, and a reserve ratio of no less than 100% means that the assets held on-chain by the platform are not less than the total amount of user assets. Websea stated that it will continue to update reserve data periodically, promoting asset transparency and the construction of a user self-verification mechanism.

The Offchain Labs research team has released advancements in zero-knowledge proof technology, covering areas such as proof acceleration, verifiable AI, and recursive security. Among them, the vector commitment scheme has reduced the proof generation time for 64,000 data entries from about 2 minutes to 32 milliseconds, achieving a speedup of approximately 4000 times; the new proof system Zaratan has achieved native full succinct proofs for integers for the first time, which can reduce the computational overhead of operations like RSA by about 5000 times; in terms of verifiable AI, a lightweight verification protocol can shorten the inference verification time for large models from several minutes to milliseconds.Arbitrum is exploring a multi-prover architecture that combines ZK proofs with fraud proofs and TEE to eliminate single points of failure and shorten L1 settlement cycles.

Bitcoin News posted on the X platform that Luke Dashjr stated that the developer meeting is "progressing smoothly," and related plans are being advanced, aiming to change Bitcoin's proof-of-work algorithm through a hard fork.The developers are expected to announce the selected hash algorithm tomorrow and enable RTDS starting from the first block. Discussions are also underway regarding block size reduction and replay protection. At the time of this announcement, reports indicated that Dashjr is no longer a licensed user of the BIP content repository. If this proposal is implemented, the change in the proof-of-work algorithm will create an independent blockchain and essentially form a new altcoin, with existing BTC holders receiving tokens on the forked chain.

ChianCatcher news, the blockchain game studio and on-chain technology company Proof of Play announced on August 4 that it will cease operations. The company stated that it initially believed that games utilizing blockchain technology had the potential to open up a new decentralized internet, but ultimately failed to create scalable products and a sustainable business to validate this concept.Proof of Play will open source its code and art assets as much as possible for future builders to use, including applications related to Pirate Nation, smart contracts, founder NFTs, and IP (under CC0 license), etc. The Pirate Nation Foundation, independent of Proof of Play, will continue to support the $PIRATE token, and the foundation's website will remain operational; Proof of Play points are non-redeemable. Additionally, Shiba Story Go! has been acquired by a third party and is operating independently.

The security company Project Eleven has launched a post-quantum proof technology aimed at helping users prove ownership of Bitcoin wallets after quantum computers can derive private keys and generate valid signatures. Project Eleven CEO Alex Pruden stated that the technology uses wallet key derivation paths, allowing users to prove their control without disclosing the parent key, which is used to distinguish legitimate owners from attackers.The solution was developed in collaboration with Jim Posen, the main maintainer of the open-source Binius zero-knowledge proof system, based on the "signature amplification" technique proposed by Alon Sattath and Robert Wyborski. Project Eleven indicated that the prototype has not yet been audited and requires blockchain protocol support before being put into use, primarily targeting users who missed the migration to quantum-resistant addresses in the future.

Bitget's licensed RWA protocol Reality has released its latest Proof of Reserves (PoR) report. The report shows that Reality's reserve ratio has reached 100%, and its issued tokenized stocks, rToken, are all pegged 1:1 to the underlying US stock assets.The reserve data is updated daily and independently audited by the American auditing firm The Network Firm. The assets are custodied with the FINRA-registered and SIPC-protected US brokerage Alpaca Securities LLC, regulated under New York state law, forming a transparent structure with independent parties for issuance, auditing, and custody.The US stock token rToken issued by Reality has been deeply integrated into the Bitget ecosystem and can be used for core scenarios such as unified account margin and collateral lending. Previous data showed that the assets under management (AUM) of Bitget's stock token rToken surpassed $100 million one month after its launch.

According to a report by etoday, the first-level administrative region of Gyeonggi Province in South Korea officially announced that it will launch a stablecoin proof of concept (PoC) project in August 2026 to explore the feasibility of stablecoins in local currency, government public subsidies, and livelihood payment systems.The first phase of testing will focus on verifying three core technologies: programmable payments, zero-knowledge proof privacy technology, and a reserve proof mechanism that matches the issuance of stablecoins with reserve assets in real-time, completing the technical verification of the entire process of stablecoin issuance and circulation.If the first round of testing goes smoothly, the project will enter the second phase of expansion testing from October to December, focusing on assessing fund abuse prevention, transaction privacy protection, business adaptation screening, and collecting feedback from residents and merchants on actual usage, to accumulate practical experience for the subsequent large-scale application of stablecoins.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published the proposal "The Extremely Lean Chain," demonstrating how to radically compress the state requirements of the Ethereum consensus chain in the context of the "Lean" upgrade. This plan shifts responsibility to validators, who manage and periodically prove their state through ZK proofs, thereby eliminating the processing burden for each epoch and potentially supporting millions of validators.The core mechanisms include: removing the validator public keys from the on-chain state, storing only the deposit tree index; canceling real-time reward and penalty processing, with validators generating daily STARK proofs of their participation and updating balances; completely re-randomizing validator identities daily, achieving strong anonymity through ZK-STARK, with withdrawal addresses exposed only at the time of withdrawal and not publicly linked to deposits or on-chain activities. Vitalik stated that based on upgrades such as single-slot finality and quantum-resistant signature aggregation, the state requirement per validator could be compressed from approximately 180 bytes to 6 bytes. The daily proof cost for a single validator requires processing about 5400 Merkle branches, which can be completed within 1 hour on ordinary hardware, and the on-chain burden can be reduced through aggregated proofs. Additionally, this design can achieve a "virtually free" single secret leader election function, with 1 day as the conservative cycle length and 1 hour as the lower limit.

The founder of DefiLlama, 0xngmi, announced the launch of a new off-chain proof/verification service, which will be used to verify and audit off-chain data, including information such as bank account balances, to help projects achieve reliable verification of real-world assets and other off-chain data.