The Daily: Strategy resumes bitcoin buying, Hyperliquid seeks US entry through Kraken parent Payward, and more

The following article is adapted from The Block’s newsletter, The Daily, which comes out on weekday afternoons.

Happy Monday! Yogita here, filling in for James, with the latest from the crypto world.

Bitcoin is holding around $78,800. Strategy bought another 4,603 BTC for nearly $370 million after a 10-week pause in purchases, and Strive added 1,800 BTC to become the fifth-largest public bitcoin treasury. Bitmine also added another 53,501 ETH as Tom Lee called ether the "best performing macro asset."

Hyperliquid is reportedly seeking a U.S. foothold through a deal with Kraken parent Payward, while OpenSea is adding Solana NFT trading more than four years after its initial beta.

The Crypto.com-linked Cronos network halted following an exploit of lending protocol Tectonic, with losses estimated at $75 million.

In prediction markets, Kalshi reportedly became the US Open's exclusive prediction market partner. The platform also permanently banned former Rep. George Santos over State of the Union insider trading.

P.S. Don't forget to check out today's reader poll on a September Fed rate hike later in the newsletter.

Strategy resumes bitcoin buying with $370 million purchase

• Strategy bought 4,603 BTC for about $369.7 million between Aug. 24 and Aug. 30 at an average price of $80,318 per bitcoin.
• The purchase marks a return to bitcoin buying after Strategy paused acquisitions in recent weeks, with Michael Saylor posting "We're back" on Sunday.
• The latest purchase brings Strategy's holdings to 845,050 BTC, worth about $66.1 billion and equivalent to more than 4% of bitcoin's 21 million supply cap.
• Strategy funded the purchase through sales of MSTR shares, raising about $602.8 million last week.
• The company also spent $151.8 million repurchasing STRC preferred shares and $50.7 million on STRC dividends, with another $30 million added to its USD Cash account.

Hyperliquid seeks U.S. entry through Kraken parent Payward

• Hyperliquid Labs is reportedly working with Kraken parent Payward on a structure that could bring crypto perpetual futures linked to Hyperliquid markets to U.S. traders.
• Under the proposed arrangement, Payward subsidiary Bitnomial would offer registered U.S. users access to selected crypto perpetuals linked to markets on Hyperliquid's decentralized exchange and Layer 1 blockchain.
• Payward has presented the proposed structure to the CFTC but is still awaiting regulatory approval, Bloomberg reported.
• Former SEC senior counsel Ashley Ebersole told The Block that bringing Hyperliquid to the U.S. could require involvement from both the SEC and CFTC and take at least 10 to 12 months, even if the process moves quickly.

Cronos network halts after Tectonic exploit estimated at $75 million

• Cronos halted its blockchain after identifying an exploit affecting Tectonic, the network's largest lending protocol, which had about $122 million in total value locked before the incident.
• Onchain researcher Weilin Li estimated that roughly $75 million in assets were affected, though Tectonic and Cronos have not confirmed the amount or detailed the root cause.
• Li said the attacker manipulated the price of Tectonic's thinly traded TONIC token roughly 100-fold before using it as inflated collateral to borrow other assets.
• The attacker was able to bridge only about $6 million to Ethereum before Cronos halted the network, preventing most of the affected assets from leaving the chain, according to Li.
• Crypto.com CEO Kris Marsalek said the company's app and exchange were not compromised and that its security team is helping Cronos investigate the incident.

OpenSea set to launch Solana NFT trading more than four years after beta

• OpenSea is set to bring back Solana NFT trading this week, more than four years after first launching support in beta in April 2022.
  Once live, users will be able to buy, sell and trade Solana NFT collections including Claynosaurz, Mad Lads, BoDoggos, Collector Crypt and Phygitals.
• The initial 2022 beta covered 165 collections but gained limited traction, with Magic Eden and Tensor capturing most Solana NFT volume at the time.
• Solana will be OpenSea's first non-EVM blockchain for NFT trading since the earlier beta ended.
• The launch comes as NFT trading volumes remain far below their 2021 and 2022 peaks.

Kalshi permanently bans George Santos over State of the Union trading

• Kalshi permanently banned former U.S. Rep. George Santos for trading on whether he would attend the State of the Union, marking the platform's first permanent ban.
• Kalshi said Santos violated its rules and ordered him to pay a fine of just over $71,000.
• The action follows Santos' $35,000 settlement with the CFTC last month over the same trades. He did not admit or deny the agency's findings.

Next 24 hours 

• U.S. S&P Global manufacturing PMI, ISM manufacturing PMI and July job openings data are due Tuesday.
• Euro Area S&P Global manufacturing PMI, August inflation and July unemployment data are due Tuesday.
• Sui, Eigen, Ethena, ZetaChain and IOTA are among the crypto projects set for token unlocks.

Reader poll

🤔 Will the Fed hike on Sept. 16?

YES, IT HIKES

NO, IT HOLDS/CUTS

One click records your pick. We'll share the answer in a later edition.

*Some 61% of respondents in last Monday's poll agreed that altseaon is here!

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