Zcash miner Fortitude taps former Hut 8 CEO to lead ahead of public listing

Fortitude Mining has appointed former Hut 8 CEO Jaime Leverton as chief executive as the Zcash-focused miner prepares to go public through a proposed merger with HeartSciences. Leverton will succeed Andrea Childs as CEO on Sept. 21, with Childs moving to chief operating officer.  Fortitude mined 72,696 ZEC in the first half of 2026, accounting for about 28% of the networks total production during the period. The company reported revenue of $20.9 million for the second quarter.  It operates more than 60 megawatts of power capacity across seven sites in South Dakota, Nebraska, Texas and New York, and in July agreed to purchase 9,000 Bitmain Antminer Z15 Pro machines, which are expected to add 7.56 GSol/s of equihash hashrate. Shipments are expected in the fourth quarter.  Fortitude, wholly owned by Digital Currency Group, has mined ZEC since 2019 and launched as a vertically integrated mining platform in 2025.  The company announced its proposed combination with HeartSciences in June, with the transaction expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026 and bring Fortitude to the public markets. The combined company is expected to trade on Nasdaq under the ticker TUDE, subject to approval.  Leverton previously served as CEO of Hut 8, where she oversaw the

09-18انڈسٹری

Ric Edelman: Buying Bitcoin Is Like Buying Amazon In 1999

Top financial advisor Ric Edelman has compared buying bitcoin today to Amazon back in 1999.  Edelman, founder of Edelman Financial Engines, told Bitcoin Magazine TV on Thursday that he also expects the price of the leading cryptocurrency to hit $500,000 by 2030.  The leading cryptocurrency was recently priced at nearly $76,522 after jumping 1% over the past day. The coin had its best run in years in August after months of trading below $65,000 — significantly below its October record of $126,080.  “Back in 1999, people were arguing over whether to invest in Amazon,” Edelman said. “Nobody has that argument — everybody owns it, and Bitcoin will have the same trajectory in the future.”  Regarding price, Edelman said that while he expects bitcoin to hit $500,000, it should reach a higher price if people end up allocating more than 1% of their assets to the coin.  Edelman said: “If everybody in the world allocates 1% of assets to bitcoin, that translates to a $500,000 price — its really that simple.”  “You don‘t have to go to a website and look at that arithmetic, and there’s nothing that I see thats going to interfere [with my price prediction] — in fact, just the opposite.”  JUST IN: $337 billion

09-18انڈسٹری

BoE recap: A cautious stance amid rising inflation risks

The Bank of England left Bank Rate unchanged at 3.75% but delivered a distinctly hawkishmessage as its inflation outlook deteriorated sharply. Three policymakers voted for an immediate increase to 4%, while Governor Andrew Bailey warned that a prolonged Middle East conflict and wider second-round effects could require tighter policy.  A divided MPC and policy tightening on the cards  The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted 6-3 to maintain the Bank Rate at 3.75%, in line with expectations. Chief Economist Huw Pill and external members Megan Greene and Catherine Mann preferred a 25-basis-point increase to 4%, highlighting the growing concern about persistentprice pressures. The MPC also voted unanimouslyto continue unwinding its gilt holdings.  Discover more  News  NEWS  FINANCE  The inflation projections were the most striking part of the decision. The BoE now expects consumer price inflation to exceed 4% in early 2027, compared with a previous forecast for a 3.2% peak in October-November 2026. Although the bank repeated that there was still little evidence of material second-round effects, it acknowledged that inflation risks were tilted to the upsiderelative to its July forecast.  Bailey said policy might have to tightenif the Middle East conflict persisted for an extended period and the risk of second-round effects increased. Energy prices remain the immediate

09-18انڈسٹری

WisdomTree and MoonPay Link Tokenized Funds to Stablecoin Reserves

Alexander Zdravkov is a crypto journalist and market analyst specializing in digital assets, blockchain technology, and the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency market. He entered the industry more than four years ago, drawn to the speed of innovation in crypto and the potential of blockchain-based financial systems to reshape traditional markets.  His work focuses on understanding the forces behind crypto market movements, from Bitcoin and altcoin cycles to institutional adoption, regulation, exchange-traded products, stablecoins, DeFi, and emerging blockchain ecosystems. Rather than simply following price action, Alexander looks at liquidity, investor positioning, market structure, and macroeconomic conditions to identify developing trends and explain what they could mean for digital assets.  With a degree in International Relations, he brings a broader perspective to cryptocurrency coverage by connecting developments in the sector with monetary policy, geopolitics, regulation, and global capital flows. This allows him to examine crypto not as an isolated market, but as an increasingly interconnected part of the global financial system.  Over the course of more than five years in financial journalism, Alexander has written over 5,000 articles covering cryptocurrencies, blockchain, traditional markets, and the global economy. His reporting spans Bitcoin, Ethereum and altcoins, DeFi protocols, institutional crypto adoption, regulation, market infrastructure, security incidents, and major

09-18انڈسٹری

Kennedy Center Director Tells Court Building Closed For A Week For ‘Structural Assessments’

Topline  The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is shuttered for at least a week to assess alleged “safety risks,” its director told a federal court Thursday, after opponents of the Trump administration‘s takeover of the venue called for an emergency hearing over the building’s sudden closure—and President Donald Trump suggested the Kennedy Center could be “ripped down.”  A security guard stand next to a scaffolding and a large protective tarp covering part of the facade of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC, on September 15.  AFP via Getty Images  Key Facts  The government submitted a court filing Thursday after Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, asked the court to schedule an emergency hearing over the Kennedy Center being closed to the public on Wednesday.  The sudden closure, which the Kennedy Center‘s spokesperson confirmed on social media, came amid broader fears of the Trump administration tearing down the historic venue, as the president told reporters Wednesday night that if he didn’t get “recognition” at the Kennedy Center, “its going to close, it will end up being ripped down.”  Discover more  NEWS  Fintech  Merchant Services & Payment Systems  In its court filing Thursday, the Trump administration alleged the building was being only temporarily closed due to “acute risks

09-18انڈسٹری

'Tokenization Is Coming to America': Robinhood CEO Hails SEC's Historic Ruling

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved a five-year regulatory framework for the “Innovation Exemption.” The decision legalizes, for the first time, the trading of blockchain-based tokenized stocks in the United States.  Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev commented on the regulators decision on X with a succinct phrase: “Tokenization is coming to America.”  According to him, U.S. investors will finally gain access to the benefits of on-chain infrastructure: 24/7 trading, instant settlement, and fractional stock ownership by default. Robinhood has already confirmed its support for the initiative.  The SECs approval came in response to the prolonged impasse in Congress, which has failed to pass the relevant CLARITY Act. Instead of waiting for a comprehensive legislative framework, the commission created a controlled, temporary “sandbox” for testing the technologies.  Under the new rules, qualified platforms (Tokenized Securities Venues) are allowed to move traditional NMS stocks into an on-chain environment. Trading will be conducted through automated market makers (AMMs) and liquidity pools.  Robinhood CEO clashed with businesses over “pirate” stocks. The SEC made peace but left a loophole  The SECs reform also brings an end to the high-profile public dispute Vlad Tenev had with traditional businesses during the first half of September.  Earlier, AMC CEO Adam Aron criticized the

09-18انڈسٹری

Vitalik Buterin Challenges AI Cybersecurity Doom Narrative

Vitalik Buterin believes that advanced AI will improve cybersecurity through formal verification.Ethereum uses AI agents to detect software vulnerabilities.Anthropic has observed increased AI capacity in offensive cybersecurity tactics.  Vitalik Buterin dismissed all allegations concerning the ability of AI hackers to render cybersecurity indefensible due to advancements in artificial intelligence technology. Buterin said that AI could help improve the cybersecurity system by means of formal verification. This involves using mathematical proofs to assess the security properties of software. However, Buterin admitted that verification could not safeguard the system from bugs that developers had omitted in their specifications. In a similar manner, Ethereum has emphasized the necessity of comprehensive security specifications. Moreover, Buterin has indicated that about 90 percent of his net worth is in cryptocurrencies.  Its an increasingly common take that AI hacking means cybersecurity is doomed.  I disagree. I think cybersecurity is naturally defense-favoring once people get their shit together. And anyone who continues to hold cryptocurrency (including me, ~90% of my net worth) is implicitly…  Combining AI with Security Research Has Become Routine for Ethereum  AI agents are already used by Ethereum scientists to analyze the protocol code and reproduce vulnerabilities on their own. The Foundation announced that coordinated AI agents helped detect actual

09-18انڈسٹری

'Major Breakthrough': Saylor Reacts to SEC's Big Crypto Move

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has taken one of its biggest steps yet toward bringing Wall Street stocks onto public blockchains.  It has unveiled a temporary regulatory framework that will allow certain tokenized U.S. equities to trade using infrastructure borrowed directly from decentralized finance.  Former Strategy CEO Michael Saylor has described it as a “major breakthrough.”  Why it is a big deal  Tokenized stocks themselves are not entirely new. Platforms outside the United States have already experimented with blockchain-based representations of publicly traded companies.  The SEC is opening a path for actual secondary-market trading to take place using mechanisms closely associated with crypto and decentralized finance.  A TSV can provide automated market maker liquidity pools in which approved participants buy and sell tokenized shares. AMMs rely on smart contracts and pools of assets rather than the traditional order-book model used by major stock exchanges.  Even more notably, the SEC requires the smart contracts behind these venues to be public and auditable and to operate on a public, permissionless distributed ledger.  The SEC is allowing pieces of the public blockchain infrastructure developed by the cryptocurrency industry to become part of an experimental market structure for U.S.-listed stocks.  SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce and Atkins had previously floated precisely this possibility.

09-18انڈسٹری

Ripple Adds Stripe And Tempo AI Payment Standard

Ripple‘s developer arm RippleX released version 1.1 of the XRP Ledger AI Starter Kit on 15 September, adding support for two open standards that let artificial intelligence agents hold and spend XRP without custom key handling. The update makes the XRP Ledger a settlement rail for the Machine Payment Protocol, an HTTP-native payments standard co-authored by Tempo and Stripe, and brings the chain into the Open Wallet Standard, according to RippleX’s announcement.  Two open standards for agent payments  The Machine Payment Protocol, or MPP, lets a service return an HTTP 402 status with a price, the agent authorizes the payment, and the resource is delivered without an account or a checkout flow. The Open Wallet Standard is a local-first, multi-chain wallet specification that keeps an agents keys in a single encrypted vault at ~/.ows/, decrypted only long enough to sign. With XRP Ledger support, a single ows wallet create command now derives an XRPL address alongside every other supported chain, so agent frameworks do not have to write chain-specific key management code for XRP.  XRP as a settlement rail  The XRP Ledger is now a supported settlement rail for MPP, live in two payment modes covering XRP charges and payment channels. Developers also get

09-18انڈسٹری

S&P Global agrees to acquire blockchain security firm OpenZeppelin

S&P Global has agreed to acquire blockchain security company OpenZeppelin as the financial data and ratings provider expands its digital asset business into smart contract and onchain technology risk assessment.  SummaryS&P Global has agreed to acquire OpenZeppelin to expand its smart contract security and onchain risk assessment capabilities.OpenZeppelin has completed more than 900 security engagements, while its smart contracts have supported over $37 trillion in value transferred.OpenZeppelin will operate as a separate S&P Global business unit and keep its open source contracts library free and publicly maintained.The deal follows S&P Globals $110 million strategic investment round in crypto market data provider Kaiko earlier this week.  According to S&P Globals Sept. 17 announcement, the transaction is expected to complement its existing risk assessment and digital asset capabilities. Financial terms were not disclosed, and the acquisition remains subject to closing conditions.  OpenZeppelin will continue operating under its existing name as a separate S&P Global business unit. CEO Demian Brener will remain in charge of the company and report to S&P Global Ratings President Yann Le Pallec.  S&P Global said the transaction is not expected to have a material effect on its financial results.  S&P Global acquisition adds smart contract security capabilities  Founded in 2015, OpenZeppelin develops open source

09-18انڈسٹری
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