The Polylog Crypto Intelligence Brief

Morning Edition · Saturday, August 1, 2026

Crypto

Coldcard Firmware Flaw Lets Attackers Drain 594 Bitcoin From Self-Custody Wallets

A weak key-generation routine present since 2021 made seed phrases guessable, and thieves drained roughly $38 million from about 500 devices in 25 minutes.

3 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Aztec Ships Alpha V5, Putting Private Smart Contracts Live on Ethereum

The privacy layer proves a fully confidential transaction in about 2.5 seconds on a laptop and cuts fees below five cents, with all proving done on the user's own device.

3 sources

Crypto

Tether Reports $1.5 Billion Quarterly Profit as Its Reserve Cushion Halves

The stablecoin issuer's excess reserves fell to $4.11 billion from about $8.23 billion three months earlier, even as Treasury income and gold holdings grew.

3 sources

Crypto

Aave Moves to Abandon Six Blockchains Earning Less Than $5,000 a Quarter

A risk-manager proposal would freeze new activity on the underused networks and redirect nearly all remaining interest revenue to the protocol treasury.

1 source

Tech

IBM Chief Says Quantum Computing Will Generate Real Revenue Before 2030

IBM chief executive Arvind Krishna's timeline adds urgency to a threat that major chains and custodians are already writing into their roadmaps.

1 source

Crypto

Circle Wins New York Trust Charter, Deepening the Regulated Path for USDC

The limited-purpose charter lets the stablecoin issuer offer fiduciary and custody services directly under New York banking law.

2 sources

Geopolitics

US Sanctions Two Iranian Firms That Took Bitcoin for Strait of Hormuz Shipping Insurance

The Treasury says the companies forced vessels to buy mandatory Revolutionary Guard-backed coverage, accepting crypto to evade sanctions.

2 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Uniswap Adds In-App Lending Through Morpho Vaults

The new Earn product lets users deposit USDC, USDT, and ETH into Morpho vaults without leaving Uniswap's self-custodial app.

1 source

Crypto

Miden Argues Practical Privacy Is the Gate to Blockchain's Next Phase

The team's new Guardian design frames client-side confidentiality with selective disclosure as a requirement for institutional on-chain use, not an afterthought.

2 sources

Crypto

Reward-Recycling Exploit Drains $578,000 From LULA as Smaller DeFi Hacks Persist

An attacker on BNB Chain abused the token's deflation logic, one of several mid-sized incidents cataloged this week.

2 sources

Crypto

Ondo Weighs a $500 Million Acquisition as Tokenized Securities Pass $36 Billion

The platform cleared an SEC probe, secured brokerage authorization, and put a large BlackRock equity fund on-chain before searching for a target.

1 source

Crypto

Strategy Posts $8.2 Billion Loss and Says It Will Keep Selling Bitcoin

The largest corporate bitcoin holder will no longer direct all new capital into purchases, a shift for the debt-funded accumulation model.

2 sources