The Polylog Crypto Intelligence Brief

Morning Edition · Thursday, August 13, 2026

Crypto

Attacker Mints 4 Billion Harmony ONE Tokens and the Network Weighs a Rollback

Harmony paused its bridge to LayerZero and asked exchanges to freeze four addresses tied to the attacker, but researchers estimate that roughly 97 percent of the fraudulent tokens had already reached trading venues.

4 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Aztec Discloses a Critical Flaw That Lets a Forged Proof Pass Verification

Core contributors found the defect on 27 July through internal artificial-intelligence-assisted auditing, and say funds, applications and contract state on the V5 alpha network are exposed.

3 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Coinbase, Block and BitGo Ask Artificial-Intelligence Labs to Unlock Frontier Models for Bitcoin Security Work

More than 40 organizations argue that safety guardrails block defenders from the same code-analysis capability attackers already use without restriction.

3 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Nearly 40 Wall Street Firms Ran Tokenized Stocks and Treasuries Through a Live Blockchain Trial

The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation says the commercial launch is set for October, while public-market tokenization firm Securitize fell 20 percent on a revenue miss.

3 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Strategy Sells Bitcoin for a Fourth Straight Week as Metaplanet Denies a $322 Million Sale

Strategy has realized more than $102 million of losses on 2026 sales to fund preferred dividends, while Metaplanet says a 5,014 bitcoin transfer was an internal custody move.

4 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Russia's Central Bank Picks Bitcoin, Ether and Tether for Licensed Trading and Caps Retail at 300,000 Rubles

The draft directive admits only assets with at least five years of pricing history on foreign exchanges, excludes XRP, and is open for comment until 24 August.

3 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Bank Regulator Says It Is Open for Business as Zerohash's Charter Bid Is Returned

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has issued conditional approvals to several digital-asset firms, but sent back Morgan Stanley partner Zerohash's application as materially deficient.

3 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Bridge Losses Keep Coming From Systems That Worked Exactly as Specified

Rekt News case files on Ostium, AFX Trade and VerusCoin describe roughly $55 million lost through compromised validator signatures and a bridge import path, not through broken contract code.

3 sources
Corroborated

Crypto

Ethereum Researchers Take On Staking Delegation and the Cost of Proving

A new proposal would move delegation into the protocol with operator families and a concentration reserve, while separate work targets multidimensional gas accounting and hashing that consumes 58 percent of prover time.

2 sources

Crypto

Privacy Chains Rebuild Around Recovery and Compliance Controls Rather Than Anonymity Alone

Miden is packaging account recovery, multisignature security and configurable disclosure into one layer, while Cypherpunk Technologies booked a $46 million gain on Zcash that turned an operating loss into $39.4 million of profit.

3 sources

Crypto

Blockstream Details a Hardware Wallet That Protects a PIN Without a Secure Element Chip

Jade splits the ability to decrypt a wallet between the device and a second party, an architecture that trades chip-vendor trust for dependence on an external service.

2 sources

Crypto

Goldman Sachs Pays $2.25 Billion for NEOS as Bitcoin Funds Compete on Option Income

The acquisition lifts Goldman's exchange-traded fund platform to $130 billion in assets, while BlackRock's income fund offset less than 30 percent of its crypto losses with option premiums.

4 sources