The United States government is offering rewards in cryptocurrency for information relating to the operations of enemy state-backed hackers or suspected terrorists. The U.S. State Department's new “Rewards for Justice” platform allows informants to submit anonymous tips and information in return for rewards in digital assets. The platform was promoted at the Black Hat USA event — which ran from July 31 to August 5 in Las Vegas — with users able to submit tips via an unsecured Wi-Fi network called #Rewardsnotransoms. The open network was purposely set up to encourage attendees to log in and access the RFJ website, according to CNN.

According to data from eth.btc.com，ethereum network's hashrate is584,680.30 GH/s，mining difficulty is7,758.62T. ETH's price ：$ 3,037.10 Avg Gas Price：21.20Gwei Pending Txs ：171888

Blockchain security firm CertiK has concluded a $24-million-dollar funding round as part of its ongoing efforts to expand its product and security offerings for the decentralized finance, or DeFi, sector.  The funding round, which was co-led by Tiger Global and GL Ventures, comes on the heels of the successful launch of Skynet Premium, an active monitoring platform for DeFi applications. Since its inception, Skynet has monitored over 2 million smart contract addresses and over 2 billion on-chain transactions. Related: Blockchain security firm CertiK raises $37M to combat DeFi and crypto risks

Decentralized finance protocol Poly Network has offered the person behind a $610 million hack an advisery position and $500,000 — whether they like it or not.  In a Tuesday update, the Poly Network team said, in a seeming attempt to gain access to the hacker’s expertise, that it would be inviting them to the position of chief security adviser. In addition, the project will be sending a $500,000 bounty for the attacker, whom Poly dubbed "Mr. White Hat," despite the fact they have previously refused any payment. “Poly Network has no intention of holding Mr. White Hat legally responsible, as we are confident that Mr. White Hat will promptly return full control of the assets to Poly Network and its users,” said the team. “As we have stated in previous announcements and encrypted messages that have been made public, we are grateful for Mr. White Hat’s outstanding contribution to Poly Network’s security enhancements.”

Two members of the United States House of Representatives have petitioned the heads of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to work with participants in the crypto space for transparency and regulatory clarity. In a Monday tweet, Representative Glenn Thompson said he had submitted a letter with Representative Patrick McHenry to the CFTC and SEC, urging the agencies to "establish a joint working group on digital assets.” Thompson and McHenry requested SEC Chair Gary Gensler and acting CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam to “promote an active dialogue” between federal regulators and participants in the crypto market. “A working group on digital assets would enable both the SEC and CFTC to explore how to effectively use their current jurisdiction cooperatively,” said the letter. “Such a working group can foster transparent engagement with innovators in the digital asset ecosystem. As Congress contemplates additional legislation to address regulatory gaps, this work could provide us with additional information and clarity as we make these important policy decisions.”

The last-minute cryptocurrency provisions added to the U.S. infrastructure bill sought to “capture DeFi,” argues Compound’s general counsel Jake Chervinsky. Appearing on the Bankless State of the Network podcast on August 17, Chervinsky — who is also DeFi Chair of the Blockchain Association — said the industry had been “blindsided” by the infrastructure bill’s crypto tax provisions which were announced just nine days prior to when it was expected to pass through the senate. While Chervinsky seemed willing to give most elected officials the benefit of the doubt, noting that previous discussions surrounding the infrastructure bill had “nothing to do with crypto,” he attributed more sinister motives to the Treasury Department’s role in influencing the legislative process.

Fidelity’s plan to corner the cryptocurrency market appears to be more ambitious than previously imagined, as the asset manager looks to provide more institutional pathways to digital assets.  In a recent interview with the Boston Globe, Christine Sandler, head of sales and marketing for Fidelity Digital Assets, said that institutional interest in crypto is growing. For most investors, the primary entry into crypto has been Bitcoin (BTC) and, to a lesser extent, Ether (ETH). Tom Jessop, who heads Fidelity Digital Assets, said the pandemic was a major motivator for investors to finally get into crypto:

The SushiSwap decentralized exchange has narrowly avoided becoming the latest DeFi hack victim thanks to assistance from a white hat hacker. A security researcher from venture capital firm Paradigm known on Twitter as “samczsun” has managed to save SushiSwap and its MISO platform from a potential loss of as much as 109,000 ETH. In a blog post published on Aug. 17, the programmer described how he began examining the smart contract code for the BitDAO token sale at SushiSwap’s token launchpad platform, MISO.

The Untold Festival, scheduled to be held in Romania next month, has partnered with the Elrond network to allow concert goers to pay for their tickets in cryptocurrency. In a Tuesday announcement, Untold said that tickets for its 2021 festival could be purchased using Elrond eGold (EGLD). The festival reported that it would be allowed to have an unlimited number of attendees despite the ongoing pandemic (the number of daily reported COVID-19 cases in Romania has been under 1,000 since June.) Following the rollout of the ticket purchases with EGLD for Untold, Elrond CEO Beniamin Mincu said the project would be exploring “a festival economy running on semi-fungible tokens” as well as artists dropping nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, to fans from the stage. However, Untold attendees will also be able to accept NFTs from the festival “at a later time.”

Decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch has announced its deployment on the Optimistic Ethereum, or OE, mainnet, highlighting a considerable reduction in user transaction fees and confirmation delays. Sergej Kunz, co-founder of the 1inch Network stated “the 1inch launch on Optimistic will facilitate a dramatic increase in transaction speed." While deposits utilizing the OE network are set to be credited almost instantly, withdrawals will require a waiting period of 7 days. These wait times are expected to improve in future when fast withdrawal service is enabled.

The team behind mining software NBMiner claims to have partially cracked Nvidia’s anti-mining limitations. Back in June Nvidia implemented an algorithm called Lite Hash Rate, or LHR, on all graphics cards from its RTX 30 series in an attempt to curb crypto mining. The limiter works on both the BIOS and driver level detecting mining algorithms to drastically reduce its mining power by up to 50% of its original capability. At the time, the company claimed that miners were disrupting its supply chain, consequently increasing the price of its graphics cards due to low supply. Nvidia prioritized its gaming user base stating that “this additional step will get more GeForce cards at better prices into the hands of gamers everywhere.”

Cryptocurrency mining company Argo Blockchain announced Tuesday that it has reached an important milestone in its climate strategy, sending a strong signal that environmental sustainability remains one of its primary focuses.  The company claimed that its crypto operations have become “climate positive” for Scope 1, 2 and 3 greenhouse gas emissions. According to Carbon Trust, a global advocacy group for environmental sustainability, Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from a company’s owned or controlled sources; Scope 2 covers indirect emissions through the purchase of electricity; and Scope 3 includes all other indirect forms of emission that occur in a company’s value chain. Argo intends to become carbon neutral and plans to go even further “by mitigating emissions through support of projects outside of Argo,” the company said. As part of its Climate Positive Strategy, Argo became a signatory to the Crypto Climate Accord and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

After several years of nearly total media silence, the Dogecoin Foundation is coming back to support core developers and projects benefiting the meme-based cryptocurrency. In a Tuesday announcement, the Dogecoin Foundation said it would be reestablishing itself in an effort to support the Dogecoin (DOGE) community as well as promote the future of the blockchain. The foundation said it would be announcing new projects in the coming weeks encouraging the adoption and utility of DOGE “that increase Dogecoin uptake at a grassroots level.” “The Foundation holds the Dogecoin mark and the Dogecoin Logo and will maintain them for the community,” said the announcement. “This will mean the Foundation can continue to protect the Dogecoin Brand and allow (under a very liberal license) the ability to use it for Dogecoin-related memes, projects and fun. — We’ve got your back on this one.”

Mike Novogratz’s crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital Holdings has posted a second-quarter loss of $175.8 million. The figure provides a stark contrast to the firm’s first-quarter report that booked $860 million in comprehensive net profit earlier this year. Galaxy Digital posted its financial results as of June 30 on Monday, with the firm attributing the $175.8 million Q2 loss to asset price declines after FUD-inducing narratives fueled the crypto downturn in May.

The latest central bank digital currency (CBDC) initiative from the Bank of Ghana (BoG) has been met with skepticism as Afroblocks, an in-house independent association, speculates the lack of clarity on the central bank’s intentions.  Afroblocks (previously Blockchain Society Ghana) has warned the BoG to steer away from “old traditional siloed financial thinking” while planning and developing its digital currency. Rather, Afroblocks co-founder Omar Majdoub said that the success of a CBDC in Ghana will be in its ability to emulate modern-day cryptocurrencies — i.e., being borderless and decentralized.

Columbia Investment Management Company president and CEO Kim Lew thinks that cryptocurrencies are here to stay.  “I think it will have profound effects,” she said in a recent interview, adding, “There are many different avenues that it can go.” Lew explained that people could build many new things within the crypto ecosystem, such as stablecoins and nonfungible tokens. “I think clearly it’s going to play some role. Not clear what role it would play,” she added.

Creator of the beloved, sometimes controversial Pepe the Frog meme, Matt Furie requested that a frog-themed NFT project worth $4M be removed from OperSea fo copyright infringement. The “Sad Frogs District” is an NFT project containing 7000 programmatically generated Sad Frog NFTs from a selection of around 200 traits. The artwork depicted in the NFTs may draw some inspiration from Furie’s character Pepe. According to OpenSea’s Community-help Discord channel on Aug. 17, numerous members had asked why the verified NFT project had been delisted as they could no longer access the Sad Frog NFTs on the platform.

According to data from eth.btc.com，ethereum network's hashrate is585,024.92 GH/s，mining difficulty is7,884.29T. ETH's price ：$ 3,021.87 Avg Gas Price：21.20Gwei Pending Txs ：168439

Digital asset exchange and service provider, Crypto.com, has launched withdrawals via U.S. dollar bank transfers for institutional clients across more than 60 countries. According to an August 18 announcement, the expanded fiat functionality for institutional account holders has been enabled by its partnership with Circle. Institutional customers are now able to withdraw dollars from their Crypto.com USD Coin (USDC) wallet via bank at a 1:1 basis using a unique code provided by Circle. Bank transfers are expected to be processed within three business days. Kris Marszalek, CEO and co-founder of Crypto.com, stated:

A glossy looking documentary series centered on the history of money and cryptocurrency premiere on August 19th at 7:00 am UTC, and features interviews from a long list of top crypto figures. The 12 episode video series is somewhat confusingly called “Coins Podcast” and the first two episodes  drop on YouTube today. The show is hosted by Patrick Mclain of blockchain accelerator Mousebelt, and narrated by actor Robert Davi, who has played roles in Die Hard, James Bond: License to Kill and Predator 2. The docu-series features interviews with crypto proponents and key figures in the sector such as FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, ShapeShift CEO Erik Vorhees, Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, founder/CEO of Global Macro Investor Raoul Pal, and Celsius CEO Alex Mashinsky to name a few.