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Rapha Zagury, CEO of Twenty One Capital and founder of Elektron Energy, stated during his speech at Bitcoin Asia 2026 that the Bitcoin network is experiencing its first-ever bear market in hashrate. The hashrate of the Bitcoin network was close to 1.3 ZH/s at the end of last year, but has since been slowly declining, with the duration of this decline from the historical peak now setting a record. Zagury believes that Bitcoin mining is not simply a "good business" or "bad business"; it largely depends on where the mining company stands on the cost curve. Mining companies with lower energy costs and higher machine efficiency can maintain higher profit margins, while those with high energy costs and low equipment efficiency may be forced to shut down.Currently, while the Bitcoin hashrate price has improved compared to before, it is still at a relatively low level when measured against historical standards. When the price of Bitcoin rises faster than the growth of the network's hashrate, mining is more likely to outperform BTC. For companies, he believes that the best risk-adjusted allocation is not simply choosing to "buy BTC" or "mine," but rather a combination of both; however, if only $1 can be allocated, he suggests prioritizing the purchase of BTC. Regarding energy issues, Zagury stated that energy consumption itself does not imply waste; energy is the foundation of economic development and human progress. He believes that one of the greatest characteristics of Bitcoin mining is its highly flexible load, as mining machines can quickly turn on and off based on energy supply, thus helping the grid absorb idle or surplus electricity and enhancing grid stability to some extent. Additionally, he believes that Bitcoin mining is generating "option value" that was not previously apparent, including aspects such as energy utilization, market share, proximity to the Bitcoin protocol, and infrastructure. With the growing demand for AI and high-performance computing (HPC), the existing energy and data center infrastructure of mining companies may also gain additional application scenarios such as AI computing power. Currently, among large publicly listed mining companies, there are fewer and fewer that can continue large-scale Bitcoin mining, and the industry is at a critical stage where the energy revolution intersects with the Bitcoin revolution.

According to CoinDesk, the DeFi protection protocol Firelight Protocol announced the completion of $8 million in financing, led by Gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from Maven 11, Metalayer, Joint Effects, and Tribe Capital.Firelight is incubated by the DeFi infrastructure provider Sentora (managing assets totaling $2.4 billion) and plans to officially launch in September this year.

According to CoinDesk, U.S. Treasury Secretary Yellen has reportedly urged Japan to raise interest rates to curb the continuous depreciation of the yen, highlighting how traditional monetary policy is susceptible to government and external factors.In contrast, Bitcoin's monetary policy is pre-set by code, with new coin issuance following a fixed rhythm and halving approximately every four years, providing higher predictability. However, Bitcoin still struggles to escape the impacts of traditional financial markets in the short term.If Japan's interest rate hike leads to a rapid appreciation of the yen, long-accumulated low-interest yen financing trades may be closed out, potentially triggering sell-offs in stocks, bonds, and crypto assets. In August 2024, the Bank of Japan's interest rate hike strengthened the yen and put pressure on risk assets, including Bitcoin.From a technical perspective, the BTC 50-day moving average is currently trending upward and is close to crossing above the 200-day moving average, which may form a "golden cross." However, analysts believe that moving averages have a lagging nature, and the historical predictive effectiveness of the golden cross as an independent indicator is not stable.

Bitcoin News posted on the X platform that Core Lightning version 26.06.7 has been released, fixing multiple vulnerabilities disclosed responsibly over the past three weeks. The AI-generated security reports for the open-source Bitcoin project have recently increased, and specific vulnerability information will be kept confidential for two weeks to allow node operators to complete upgrades before the technical details and source code are disclosed.Developers warn that immediate disclosure of the fixes could allow attackers to reverse-engineer the vulnerabilities and subsequently attack nodes that have not yet been updated. All Core Lightning node operators should upgrade immediately. Currently, the Docker image is not available, and developers explicitly warn users not to wait for the Docker image.

According to Gate quotes, both WTI and Brent crude oil rose slightly by $0.5, with WTI crude oil reaching $82.43 per barrel and Brent crude oil reaching $87.86 per barrel.

Liquid Capital founder Yi Lihua stated that Bitcoin has not yet broken through the resistance level around $81,000 and is expected to experience a slight pullback in the next few days, followed by a continued rise and a breakthrough in that area. The next resistance level to watch is around $86,000.He plans to close long positions when Bitcoin rises to around $86,000, as that position may face a significant pullback. However, he still believes that the bull market trend has arrived; even if the price enters a resistance area and appears bearish in the short term, he will only choose to close long positions and will not establish short positions.

According to CoinDesk, the developers of the Bitcoin Lightning Network payment software Core Lightning (CLN) issued an urgent warning to node operators after the team received a large number of AI-generated security reports, revealing several real vulnerabilities. The development team advised operators not to directly shut down the machine power but to restart the software in "--offline" mode, which stops communication with other Lightning Network nodes while still keeping it operational to continuously monitor the Bitcoin blockchain and protect the funds in the payment channels.The Core Lightning team began receiving a large number of AI-generated vulnerability reports since early August, some of which have been confirmed to be valid. Developers will keep the details confidential for two weeks to complete the patch development and plan to release a signed patch version for operators to verify the source. The source code and vulnerability details will be made public after the confidentiality period ends.This is the second AI-related security incident in the Lightning Network this month. Earlier in early August, BTCPay Server experienced a vulnerability that led to the leakage of credentials for some Lightning Network nodes and theft of funds. Additionally, the "Bitcoin Red Team," composed of 16 developers, used AI models to scan 390 Bitcoin code repositories at the end of July, discovering nearly 5,000 issues, 85 of which were rated as critical.

On August 27, U.S. tech and space concept stocks rose slightly after hours, with active trading in Nvidia and SpaceX concept tokens. According to data from the Gate platform, Nvidia (NVDA) is currently priced at $209.95, reaching $219.59 after hours, an increase of 4.59%; SpaceX (SPCX) is currently priced at $139.57, reaching $140.52 after hours, an increase of 0.68%.According to Coinglass data, the open interest for Gate NVDAX contracts is $10.44 million, with a trading volume of $25.18 million, both ranking first among centralized exchanges; the open interest for Gate SPCX contracts is $112 million, ranking second, with a trading volume of $135 million, ranking third.

Reto Cueni, Chief Economist of St. Gallen Group, stated in a report that the market may slightly raise expectations for an interest rate hike at the Federal Reserve's September meeting. However, he pointed out that the market still mostly expects that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates, and St. Gallen Group itself currently does not believe there will be a rate hike.Cueni stated, "At present, we still maintain the judgment that the Federal Reserve will not further raise interest rates in the second half of this year." According to LSEG data, the money market currently estimates a 65% probability that the Federal Reserve will keep interest rates unchanged at the September meeting.

Core Lightning maintains that node operators should shut down their nodes unless they upgrade to an unreleased version. This warning was spread via Discord and amplified by Cashu protocol developer Calle, who stated that there is a serious vulnerability. The fix binary has not yet been released, and the details of the vulnerability are under a two-week confidentiality period.This is the fourth security alert for Bitcoin infrastructure in four weeks. Previously, a Coldcard firmware vulnerability led to approximately $114 million in BTC being stolen, and issues have also arisen with Boltz and BTCPay Server. The CLN team stated that they have received multiple AI-generated CVE reports in the past 10 days and are intensifying verification and fixes.

According to Gate market data, U.S. stocks closed lower on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.2%, the S&P 500 index down 0.02%, and the Nasdaq down 0.08%. Tesla fell 1%, Oracle rose 2.8%, Nvidia dropped over 1%, and SK Hynix fell nearly 1%. The Nasdaq Golden Dragon China Index closed down 0.6%, with iQIYI falling over 4%.

According to Bitcoin.com, blockchain analysis company Chainalysis announced the results of "Operation Lighthouse": this multinational operation focused on networks related to Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) crimes, investigating 29,120 cryptocurrency addresses and digital identifiers, covering over 100 surface web and dark web platforms, forums, and distribution networks, generating 14,300 investigative leads, and identifying over 7,700 suspicious accounts and associated suspects across 125 countries.The operation was organized by the National Cyber-Forensics and Training Alliance in New York, involving at least 9 law enforcement agencies, more than 13 private entities and non-profit organizations, including Europol, the Australian Federal Police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the National Crime Agency of the UK. Chainalysis stated that the related leads may subsequently result in account restrictions, arrests, and prosecutions, with law enforcement outcomes expected to continue until 2027, and plans to expand this collaborative model to other cryptocurrency crime activities.

The decentralized perpetual contract protocol Lighter announced that its average block proof time has decreased from about 5.3 minutes to about 1 minute over the past month. This progress was achieved through two independent optimizations launched on July 23 and August 23. Lighter can now complete block verification faster, thereby increasing processing capacity, reducing infrastructure costs, and creating space for further expansion.The first optimization is the Heavy/Light decomposition. This solution splits the transaction circuit into light circuits and heavy circuits, allowing simple quote updates, which account for the vast majority of transactions, to only pay for light constraints, thus halving the proof time. The second optimization comes from the Prover backend optimization brought about by the proof competition held in collaboration with Eigen Labs, which again halves the proof time under the same circuit conditions. The first batch of optimizations went live on August 23, with more batches still in progress. Additionally, on August 10, all Schnorr signature verifications were incorporated into a single Plonky3 proof for each block, resulting in approximately a 20% improvement.The above optimizations are orthogonal and their effects are cumulative. The remaining competition optimizations are expected to bring about an additional 2x improvement, potentially reaching a total of about 10x compared to mid-July. Currently, Lighter's sustained processing capacity has exceeded historical peak loads, and the finality limit for withdrawals has been reduced from about 21-22 minutes to about 16-17 minutes, maintaining stability during peak traffic periods.

UPBIT will launch Lighter (LIT) on August 24 at 13:00 and support KRW trading. LIT is an Ethereum-based utility token primarily used for staking and liquidity participation in the Lighter protocol.

According to Gate market data, the three major U.S. stock index futures opened slightly lower on Monday.

According to monitoring, "Maji" brother Huang Licheng has started to reduce his ETH long positions to take profits, with a slight reduction of about 1.02 million USD this time. The remaining ETH long positions are still valued at 68.77 million USD, with an opening price of 2,357 USD and a liquidation price of 2,189.8 USD, resulting in an unrealized profit of 1.59 million USD on the remaining positions.Maji also holds HYPE long positions, with a position value of about 20 million USD and an average entry price of 79.35 USD; he holds PUMP long positions, with a position value of about 11 million USD and an average entry price of 0.00524 USD.

According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's monitoring, the largest long position address on Hyperliquid closed half of its ETH long position after holding for about 4 months, with the highest unrealized loss reaching 120 million USD, and after breaking even and making a slight profit. The address closed 60,000 ETH at an average price of 2,514 USD half an hour ago, realizing a profit of about 14.88 million USD.Currently, the address still holds 3,000 BTC (approximately 235 million USD) and 60,000 ETH (approximately 151 million USD) in long positions, with unrealized profits of about 47.45 million USD.