Bitcoin defenders want what hackers have

August 13, 2026

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Reading time: 5 minutes

Metaplanet didn’t sell. Its Bitcoin risk got louder

Key points:

  • Metaplanet said a 5,014 BTC transfer was purely custodial, leaving its holdings unchanged at 43,000 BTC.

  • The company launched unsecured “BitBonds” as its Bitcoin-heavy balance sheet carried roughly $1.5 billion in unrealized losses.

News - A $320 million Bitcoin transfer briefly put Metaplanet’s treasury under the microscope, but the suspected sale never happened. CEO Simon Gerovich said the 5,014 BTC movement was a routine shift between custodial addresses, with no Bitcoin sold and holdings still at 43,000 BTC.

The clarification redirected attention to a bigger balance-sheet question. As of end-June, Metaplanet was sitting on about $1.5 billion in unrealized Bitcoin losses, while Strategy reported an $8.2 billion paper loss last month. Together, the two companies carried nearly $10 billion in unrealized Bitcoin losses.

Debt joins the toolkit - Metaplanet also unveiled “BitBonds,” a continuous bond issuance program, after privately placing four unsecured senior bond series worth about 200 million yen, or $1.3 million. The roughly three-year securities pay 4% to 4.3% annually and add fixed-rate debt alongside the company’s shares, equity-linked securities, and preferred stock.

Fixed coupon, floating risk - The bonds are unsecured, unrated, not principal-protected, and offer no guaranteed liquidity before maturity. Repayment depends on Metaplanet’s creditworthiness, while the issuer’s financial position remains heavily exposed to Bitcoin price swings.

That distinction matters: the 5,014 BTC transfer did not reduce Metaplanet’s crypto exposure. It simply left investors looking at the same 43,000 BTC pile through a broader financing structure.

Bitcoin defenders want AI’s locked toolbox

Key points:

  • Over three dozen crypto firms want vetted Bitcoin and open-source security researchers to gain trusted access to frontier AI models.

  • The coalition argues public safety filters can obstruct legitimate vulnerability research while attackers can turn to open models, stolen access, or purpose-built tools.

News - The crypto industry is not asking AI labs to remove cybersecurity guardrails for everyone. It wants a separate lane for the people trying to find vulnerabilities before attackers do.

An open letter organized by the Bitcoin Policy Institute and backed by firms including Coinbase, Block, BitGo, Blockstream, and ARK Invest says Bitcoin Core developers and other open-source maintainers are often excluded from specialist cyber programs. Public frontier models can also block legitimate security work, pushing researchers toward less capable open-weight alternatives.

Five asks, one access gap - The signatories want early access to the strongest cyber-capable models, sufficient compute, secure environments for private code, eligibility for small and independent maintainers, and direct communication with AI lab security teams. Access would remain controlled and limited to vetted defenders.

The argument already has a test case - BTCPay Server recently disclosed a critical flaw that attackers had already exploited to drain merchants’ Lightning nodes. A volunteer Bitcoin Red Team using AI-assisted reviews helped surface the vulnerability that led to BTCPay’s patch.

The group has since reported thousands of potential findings across hundreds of Bitcoin-related projects, although automated results still require human verification.

AI cuts both ways - The coalition’s case is ultimately about timing. Powerful models can accelerate code review for defenders, but offensive capabilities can also spread through public models, compromised corporate access, and purpose-built hacking tools.

The question is whether trusted researchers get comparable capability before the next flaw is exploited.

Trezor’s wallets stayed safe. Customer data didn’t

Key points:

  • A ShipMonk breach exposed personal data belonging to 13,689 Trezor customers across seven countries.

  • Trezor says its systems, devices, private keys, and wallet backups were untouched, but exposed contact details could enable more targeted scams.

News - The breach never reached a Trezor wallet, but it exposed something attackers can still weaponize: who bought one and where thousands of them live.

Shipping partner ShipMonk told Trezor on August 10 that an unauthorized party had accessed systems holding customer records. Of the 13,689 people affected, 11,742 had their names, emails, phone numbers, and full shipping addresses exposed. Another 1,947 lost only their names, cities, and emails.

The affected orders were delivered between May 10 and August 8 across the U.S., U.K., Sweden, Colombia, Brazil, Italy, and Portugal.

The keys stayed offline - Trezor said its own infrastructure, products, services, devices, private keys, and wallet backups were not compromised. Its 90-day retention requirement also limited the breach because older order records had already been deleted or anonymized.

The threat moved elsewhere - Full contact and address data can make phishing or impersonation attempts more convincing. Trezor warned affected customers to distrust unexpected contact, verify communications through official channels, and never enter or share a wallet backup.

Shipping becomes the security layer - Trezor is bringing forward an Anonymous Delivery option using locker pickup, neutral packaging, generic sender details, and automatic deletion of shipping identifiers, targeting the EU by September and the U.S. by year-end.

The device remained intact. The exposed delivery trail is now the part customers have to defend.

Crypto’s valuation test is turning into revenue

Key points:

  • Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan says crypto valuations could double or more if stronger links between protocol revenue and token value persist.

  • Hyperliquid, Uniswap, and Aave show different ways fees are being routed toward token purchases or burns, but tokens still lack shareholders’ legal claims.

News - Crypto’s old valuation problem was simple: a protocol could thrive while its token captured little of that economic activity. Hougan argues that gap is starting to narrow as projects increasingly use revenue to buy back or burn native tokens.

His forecast is ambitious but conditional. If the connection between protocol revenue and token value keeps strengthening, Hougan said valuations could “double or more,” and he expects DeFi applications and Layer 1 networks to expand revenue-capture mechanisms over the next 12 to 24 months.

Hyperliquid sets the benchmark - The exchange generated more than $800 million in revenue last year and directed about 99% of fee revenue toward HYPE purchases and burns. Since HYPE launched in November 2024, roughly $1.3 billion worth has been bought and burned, according to Hougan.

One trend, different mechanics - Uniswap activated protocol fees and UNI burns after its December 2025 UNIfication overhaul. Aave, meanwhile, bought more than 205,000 AAVE during the first 10 months of its buyback program, while work on a more automated mechanism continued.

Revenue is not equity - Hougan acknowledged the limit of the comparison with stocks. Token holders generally have no contractual claim on profits, assets, or distributions, and governance can alter token economics.

So, revenue may be becoming a stronger valuation input. Whether markets ultimately assign higher valuations to revenue-linked tokens remains the unproven part of Bitwise’s thesis.

Apple’s Starlink Update Sparks Huge Earning Opportunity

Apple just secretly added Starlink satellite support to iPhones through iOS 18.3.

One of the biggest potential winners? Mode Mobile.

Mode’s EarnPhone already reaches 490M+ users that have earned over $1B, and that’s before global satellite coverage. With SpaceX eliminating "dead zones," Mode's earning technology can now reach billions more in unbanked and rural populations worldwide.

Their global expansion is perfectly timed, and investors like you still have a chance to invest in their pre-IPO offering at $0.52/share.

With their recent 32,481% revenue growth and newly reserved Nasdaq ticker, Mode is one step closer to a potential IPO.

Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation A+ Offering.

Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.

The Deloitte rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.

Interesting facts

  • Some crypto miners took “underground” literally: In 2024, officials in Russia’s Dagestan region released footage of investigators entering an illegal crypto-mining installation built inside a makeshift underground cavern, complete with dozens of fans to cool the hardware as miners sought to evade detection.

  • A $50.6 million NFT came back five minutes later: In January 2022, a Meebit sold for about $50.6 million in crypto on LooksRare, then was sold back to the original seller roughly five minutes later for about $49.6 million. Reuters found it among dozens of NFTs repeatedly moving between small groups of anonymous wallets, meaning the blockchain could show the round trip but not whether different people actually controlled the wallets.

  • Your browser cookie can undo a crypto payment’s privacy: Princeton researchers found that shopping sites can leak enough purchase information to third-party trackers to connect a cryptocurrency payment with its blockchain transaction, browser cookie, and potentially the buyer’s real identity. Their peer-reviewed study found that linking two purchases could even expose a wider cluster of addresses and transactions despite the use of CoinJoin.

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Top 3 coins of the day

Cosmos (ATOM)

Key points:

  • ATOM turned its latest pullback into a breakout, clearing both Chande Kroll Stops as price surged to $1.50.

  • MACD flipped constructive again, while expanding volume strengthened the case that buyers had returned with conviction.

What you should know:

ATOM turned its latest pullback into a breakout, surging to $1.50 after defending the $1.40 area. Price cleared both Chande Kroll Stops, including the upper stop at $1.47, while MACD regained a bullish setup with the 0.017 line above the 0.013 signal line and the histogram back positive.

The move also followed Cosmos Hub’s shift toward protocol-revenue-funded ATOM buybacks and programmatic burns, adding a fresh tokenomics backdrop to the recovery.

Volume expanded sharply on the breakout. $1.47-$1.48 is the first support zone to defend, while $1.50-$1.52 remains the immediate resistance area. Losing the breakout zone puts $1.40-$1.41 back in focus.

Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL)

Key points:

  • VIRTUAL’s surge above $0.60 was quickly rejected, shifting the focus to whether the breakout can hold around its $0.581 9 SMA.

  • EWO remained strongly positive at 4.14, though shrinking bars showed that the initial burst of bullish momentum had begun cooling.

What you should know:

VIRTUAL’s breakout met its first real stress test after a near-vertical rally from the $0.54 area briefly pushed price above $0.60. The rejection pulled price back toward the $0.581 9 SMA, but the latest candle recovered to $0.587.

The repricing came alongside a 119% jump in 24-hour trading volume to more than $104 million. EWO stayed firmly positive at 4.14, although momentum had cooled from its breakout peak.

$0.578–$0.582 now acts as the nearest cushion for price action. If buyers continue to defend this band, momentum can extend back toward $0.595–$0.60, with a further push opening the $0.605–$0.61 region. Losing this level would shift attention back down to the broader support pocket around $0.54–$0.55.

Hyperliquid (HYPE)

Key points:

  • HYPE climbed toward $58 as CMF surged to 0.24, confirming a sharp reversal from the deeply negative money flow seen days earlier.

  • The latest Bollinger Bar held near its high at $57.78, while improving volume supported the multi-candle recovery from the $54-$55 area.

What you should know:

Money flow became the clearest confirmation behind HYPE’s recovery. CMF swung from roughly -0.40 to 0.24 as price advanced steadily from the $54-$55 area to $57.78, while recent volume also improved.

The move coincided with Hyperliquid Policy Center engagement with the CFTC over frameworks for U.S. on-chain derivatives access. Separately, the Hyperliquid Foundation opened non-validating data-node access for under $1,000 per month, replacing a previous 10,000 HYPE staking requirement.

$57.8-$58 is the immediate ceiling to watch. Clearing it brings $58.5-$59 into focus, while $56.8-$57 is the first support zone. A deeper retreat shifts attention toward $55.5-$56.

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