Cryptocurrency and Blockchain

Digital asset investment firm RockawayX has acquired crypto hedge fund Relayer Capital to launch a directional long-short strategy and expand its presence in the United States. Relayer will be rebranded as the RockawayX Liquid Opportunities Fund, targeting undervalued tokens and cryptocurrency-related equities. RockawayX manages approximately $2 billion in assets and operates across venture, market-neutral, and infrastructure verticals. Relayer founder Austin Barack will join RockawayX as chief investment officer of the new fund. The vehicle is targeting $150 million in external capital. Relayer reported an estimated net return of approximately 70% in 2026 through August 21.

Bitcoin surged past $79,000 this week, gaining 23.6% in its second-strongest week since early 2021, after the U.S. Treasury announced it would expand its buyback operations on long-dated government bonds. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's move to expand purchases pushed yields lower, making interest-free bitcoin more attractive relative to yield-bearing Treasuries. The catalyst triggered a liquidation of roughly $4 billion in bearish crypto positions. Spot Bitcoin ETFs captured $1.92 billion in net inflows for the week—their largest weekly haul in nearly 10 months—with BlackRock's IBIT fund accounting for $1.33 billion of that. The rally also benefited from a weaker dollar, which fell below its 200-day average, and from President Trump's renewed push for the CLARITY Act on the same day the Treasury announced its buyback expansion. Bitcoin's move above its 200-day moving average has raised the prospect of a "golden cross" technical pattern. Analysts cautioned that the buyback program, while modest in size, functioned as a signal rather than quantitative easing, but the move underscored how sensitive crypto remains to shifts in long-term yields and dollar strength. Despite the week's strength, spot Bitcoin ETFs remain down $2.91 billion year-to-date, having suffered $4.51 billion in outflows during June alone.

Mirae Asset Financial Group plans to build a 150 trillion won ($109 billion) digital asset business around its newly acquired exchange Digital X. Founder and chairman Park Hyeon-joo outlined the expansion strategy at a recent employee event in Seoul, targeting profitability for the platform by 2027. The roadmap centers on cryptocurrency, stablecoins, real-world assets, and security token offerings, including plans to tokenize physical commodities like gold, silver, and electricity. Mirae acquired a 97.15% stake in the exchange, formerly known as Korbit, for 141.4 billion won in July, marking the first time a South Korean financial affiliate has taken control of a domestic crypto platform. Digital X accounted for 0.5% of South Korea's crypto trading market in 2025 according to the Fair Trade Commission, and recently initiated a zero-fee trading policy running through August 2027.

Bitdeer Technologies Group has agreed to deploy 28 megawatts of Bitcoin mining equipment at Soluna Holdings' Project Kati 1 in South Texas. The deal adds approximately 1.93 exahashes per second of hash rate capacity to the wind-powered data center, with operations scheduled to begin in September 2026. Under the co-mining arrangement, Soluna provides the physical site, power infrastructure, and turnkey operations, while Bitdeer supplies and owns its Sealminer A2 Pro Air machines. Both companies will share the proceeds generated by the deployment in the site's K1BC phase. Project Kati 1 is an 83 MW facility located in Willacy County that posted its first gross profit in the second quarter of 2026. Soluna operates 192 MW of total data center capacity across Kentucky and Texas alongside a 6.3 gigawatt development pipeline.

DeFi Development Corp. launched State of Solana on August 26, a real-time public dashboard consolidating the network's market trends, staking yields, and validator performance into a single interface. The Nasdaq-listed firm trades under the ticker DFDV at roughly $4.58 per share with a market capitalization near $142 million. Management operates the business as a Solana treasury vehicle, holding 2,311,523 SOL tokens worth approximately $223 million as of August 2026. That asset base leaves the equity trading at a discount to its net asset value, pressured by a 67.9% decline over the trailing twelve months. Beyond passive holding, the company deploys capital through its dfdvSOL liquid staking derivative, which supports up to 92% loan-to-value ratios on Jupiter Lend. The newly released platform attempts to tie that balance-sheet exposure directly to underlying network health indicators like total value locked, which sat at roughly $10.15 billion as of August 2026.

CNBC.com reports that an entity backed by UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan holds a 49% stake in WLTC Holdings, the holding company for the Trump family's planned crypto bank. StringZ Holding RSC represents Tahnoon and his co-investors in the venture, while an entity affiliated with the Trump family owns an additional 38%. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted World Liberty preliminary conditional approval this month to establish a federally chartered national trust bank to issue, redeem, and safeguard its dollar-backed stablecoin, USD1. This transaction follows a separate January 2025 deal where Tahnoon and other investors deployed $500 million for a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, directing $263 million to Trump family entities. World Liberty spokesman David Wachsman stated the firm operates as a private American financial technology company with separate governance and receives no special treatment. The arrangement has drawn scrutiny due to Tahnoon's government role amid separate U.S. administration negotiations with the UAE regarding advanced artificial-intelligence chip sales to the Tahnoon-controlled state-backed AI company G42.

Bitfinex Securities raised $50 million in a tokenized capital raise for Alkemya Metacore, marking its largest raise to date. The offering issues ALKN, a security representing limited partnership interests in the Luxembourg-based platform, which holds a $1.6 billion stockpile of high-purity nickel wire in Switzerland. The blockchain-based structure wraps the industrial metal into a tradable financial product to unlock collateral use cases and continuous hedging for traders. Alkemya will use the proceeds to commercialize engineered nickel products for semiconductors, aerospace, defense, and green hydrogen applications through its subsidiary, Green Transitional Metals. Alkemya's ALKN token remains available for primary subscription to eligible investors until Oct. 15 under El Salvador's digital asset regulatory framework.

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