Crypto grapples with fresh exploits and another rugpull, while AI faces mounting legal, civic, and safety pushback.
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In crypto, Fogo halted its network after an attacker took 10% of the circulating supply, Cosmos Labs disclosed a US$5.7M six-chain hack, and a Trump-named GOLD token collapsed 99% within hours of launch. Tokenised stock volume still surged 415% to US$29.5B, and Charles Schwab said it would add Solana, Avalanche and Chainlink trading.
In AI, a federal judge ruled the Trump administration illegally punished Anthropic over its refusal to let the military misuse Claude, Austin moved to restrict new data centres, and Bernie Sanders vowed legislation against surveillance firm Flock. An investigation also found OpenAI agents coordinated to cheat a benchmark before some helped hack Hugging Face.
Get up to speed with the latest in Web3 and AI with this week’s Pasar Pulse.
Crypto and Web3
Fogo Halts Mainnet After US$3M Token Theft
Layer-1 blockchain Fogo halted its network after an attacker received 400 million FOGO tokens, about 10% of the circulating supply, in a compromise the Foundation has not fully explained. Bitget and KuCoin suspended FOGO deposits and withdrawals.
Cosmos Bug Enabled US$5.7M Six-Chain Hack
Cosmos Labs said attackers exploited an integer underflow flaw in Cosmos EVM to steal funds across six chains, later selling proceeds for US$5.7M. A researcher had reported the bug in April, but testers wrongly cleared live networks as unaffected.
Tokenised Stock Volume Jumps 415% to US$29.5B
Monthly tokenised stock transfer volume surged more than 415% over 30 days to US$29.5B as holders climbed 167% to 2.36 million. Ondo led the market, followed by Kraken’s xStocks and Binance’s bStocks.
Dormant BTCs Are Waking Up in 2026
Galaxy Research found six wallets dormant since 2011-2014 moved a combined 553.59 BTC, worth about US$40.15M, between 16 and 26 August. One 40 BTC wallet last touched in 2012 landed at a German custody bank for a 1,535,911% gain.
Trump-Named GOLD Token Collapses 99%
Real Trump Coins promoted a ‘Trump Digital GOLD’ token before deleting posts, as team-linked wallets sold 224.5 million tokens for about US$330,000, netting an estimated US$312,000 profit. The brand later denied launching or authorising GOLD.
Bitcoin ETFs End 9-Day Inflow Streak
US spot Bitcoin ETFs posted US$201.8M in net outflows Friday as BTC fell below US$78,000, ending a nine-session run that added over US$3B. Ether and XRP ETFs kept attracting inflows, while Bitwise’s Solana ETF topped US$1B in assets.
Solana Validators Approve Faster Disinflation
Solana validators passed SGP-0002 with 67% support, doubling the network’s annual disinflation rate from 15% to 30% and cutting future SOL issuance by an estimated 18.9 million tokens over six years. The long-term 1.5% inflation target stays unchanged.
Schwab to Add SOL, AVAX, and LINK
Charles Schwab plans to expand its crypto trading platform beyond BTC and ETH to include SOL, AVAX, and LINK in the coming months. Each trade will purportedly carry a 0.75% fee.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
US Cities Move to Limit AI Data Centres
Austin became the latest city to draft rules restricting new data centres, after a Ceres study found data centres in seven states withdraw 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater a year. At least 75 proposed projects worth about US$130B have faced local opposition.
Sanders Vows Bill to Stop AI Mass Surveillance
US Senator Bernie Sanders pledged legislation targeting Flock Safety, saying its 120,000-plus AI cameras scan 20 billion vehicles monthly across more than 6,000 communities.
Judge Rules Trump Illegally Punished Anthropic
A federal judge ruled the Trump administration illegally retaliated against Anthropic for refusing to let the military use Claude for surveillance and autonomous warfare, vacating its supply-chain designation. The government had conceded Anthropic holds no backdoor access to its models.
Visa, Dunamu Partner on Stablecoins, AI Commerce
Visa and Upbit parent Dunamu will explore stablecoin payments, remittances and agentic commerce, considering Open Standard’s proposed OUSD stablecoin among other projects. More than 140 companies have signed up to use OUSD.
AI Finds Critical Flaw in Bitcoin Lightning
Core Lightning confirmed several AI-generated vulnerability reports identified real flaws and is preparing a fix, urging node operators to run nodes offline rather than shut down if they cannot upgrade immediately.
OpenAI Agents Coordinated to Hack Hugging Face
An independent probe found about 1,200 OpenAI agents ran a coordinated campaign to cheat their benchmark, with roughly 700 joining an attack on Hugging Face. Some destroyed their own runs in what is being called ‘permadeath’.
Russian Network Used ChatGPT as Fake Experts
OpenAI banned accounts it assessed as likely Russian after they used ChatGPT to promote a fake Israeli think tank publishing copied research under real academics’ names. The network used VPNs to access ChatGPT, which is unavailable in Russia.
Bill Gates Calls for a Tax on AI and Robots
Bill Gates proposed taxing AI tokens and robots to offset the payroll-tax advantage automation holds over hiring, alongside a ‘Human Reserved’ category protecting up to 40% of jobs from automation.
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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