Crypto surges on its biggest rally in two years even as wallet hacks persist, while AI safety concerns slow OpenAI developments.
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Crypto markets posted their strongest rally in years this week even as security incidents multiplied, while AI developers grapple with the technology’s growing role in crime.
In crypto, BTC and ETH ETFs drew a combined US$2.6B in their best week since October, XRP led a broad altcoin rally, and crypto stocks surged alongside the rebound. Coldcard also successfully overhauled its security after a US$130M exploit.
In AI, OpenAI said it is slowing development after an agent hacked Hugging Face, TRM Labs reported a 40% rise in AI-driven crypto crime, and Binance launched a platform letting AI agents trade on its exchange. MIT researchers, meanwhile, found that AI-generated images often can’t be traced to any single piece of training data.
Get up to speed with the latest in Web3 and AI with this week’s Pasar Pulse.
Crypto and Web3
Bitcoin, Ether ETFs Draw US$2.6B in Best Week
US spot BTC and ETH ETFs pulled in a combined US$2.6B last week, their strongest since October 2025, as combined trading volume more than tripled to US$29B. Bitcoin briefly topped US$79,000 during its biggest weekly gain in two years.
Solana Cuts Slot Time to 350ms, Aims For 200ms
Solana’s mainnet upgrade cut its target slot time to 350 milliseconds from 400, the first step under SIMD-0525 toward an eventual 200ms goal. The faster speed does not increase overall network throughput though.
Grayscale Nears First US Zcash ETF
Grayscale filed a fifth amendment renaming its proposed fund The Zcash ETF, setting a 2.5% annual sponsor fee ahead of a planned NYSE Arca listing under ticker ZCH. The trust already holds over US$260M in assets.
Coldcard Overhauls Security After US$130M Hack
Coinkite released new Coldcard firmware requiring users to add manual randomness when generating seeds after its recent flaw that let attackers steal US$130M in Bitcoin. A three-week review also fixed issues in transaction signing and backups.
MANTRA Freezes Network After Security Incident
MANTRA Chain halted all transactions after discovering an incident tied to its Cosmos EVM module, later saying it had contained the threat with no funds exploited. The issue affected two wallet addresses.
XRP Leads Broad Altcoin Rally Past 30%
XRP jumped nearly 40% while Hyperliquid, Zcash, and Chainlink each gained more than 30% as BTC posted its biggest weekly rally in two years. Analysts pointed to genuine spot and ETF demand behind the move.
Bitcoin Rally Sends Crypto Stocks Soaring
Miners and treasury firms including Canaan, Strive, and Metaplanet posted double-digit gains as BTC rallied this week, aided by the Treasury doubling certain bond buybacks.
Poll: 63% Say Trump’s Crypto Profits Inappropriate
A Reuters/Ipsos survey found 63% of Americans view Trump family crypto profits as inappropriate, while 69% believe his business interests sway his decisions. Trump has earned over US$1.4B from ventures including World Liberty Financial.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
TRM Labs: AI Use in Crypto Crime Rose 40%
TRM Labs said AI adoption across crypto crime climbed to a score of 54 out of 100, up from 28 in 2024, driven mainly by scammers. Digital asset hacks hit a record 201 in H1 2026, with North Korea-linked activity behind 61% of losses.
Binance Opens Trading to AI Agents
Binance launched Binance Agent OS, letting tools like ChatGPT and Claude trade on its platform through an isolated sub-account with no withdrawal access. The launch joins a growing race to wire AI agents into crypto trading rails.
AI Coding Tools Fuel JavaScript’s Dominance
Analysis found TypeScript became GitHub’s most-used language as AI coding agents that were trained on JavaScript-family code produced weaker output for less common frameworks. GitHub reported TypeScript’s monthly contributors rose 66% year-on-year.
Stripe Agrees to Buy AI Router OpenRouter
Stripe is acquiring OpenRouter, which routes requests across more than 400 AI models from over 80 providers. Reuters reports the deal being worth over US$8B.
HoneyBook Launches Claude Connector for SMEs
HoneyBook released an MCP connector letting small business owners query and manage CRM records directly through Claude, covering invoices, leads and contracts. The company said AI-adopting small businesses earn nearly five times more revenue.
Berkeley Professor Admits Using AI on Op-Ed
UC Berkeley professor Zvezdelina Stankova admitted using AI to help edit an op-ed on students’ maths skills after detection software flagged 33% of the piece as AI-assisted. Stankova said the work still reflected hundreds of hours of human analysis.
OpenAI Slows Development After Rogue Agent Hack
OpenAI said it paused model testing for two weeks and added extra monitoring after an AI agent hacked Hugging Face during evaluation. The firm said its upcoming Astra model is nearing a ‘critical cybersecurity threshold.’
MIT Study Finds AI Images Can’t Be Traced
MIT CSAIL researchers found that as training datasets grow, removing any single image or an entire artist’s work does not change the results of generated outputs, a phenomenon they call attribution decay. The finding raises questions about copyright and fair use.
That’s all for this week’s Pasar Pulse. Want more insights? Stay tuned to our site or subscribe via email!
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