What has been happening this week in the world of blockchain and cryptocurrencies? Current events and background reports in our weekly review.
Selected articles of the week:
Nine years after its first promise, Tether has delivered a full annual audit. Audit firm KPMG U.S. issued an unqualified opinion for the 2025 financial year and confirmed a reserve surplus of USD 6.814 billion. However, the difference from earlier quarterly attestations is considerable. Moreover, the auditors reviewed not only holdings on a cutoff date, but also financial statements, internal controls and valuations. In addition, they verified the 130 tonnes of physical gold on site, bar by bar. US government bonds form the largest reserve position at USD 141 billion. USDT in circulation stood at USD 186.5 billion at year end, while profit exceeded USD 10 billion. That figure is 23% below the prior year. The backstory explains the opinion’s weight. In 2018, accounting firm Friedman LLP ended its mandate without a result. Three years later, futures regulator CFTC fined Tether USD 41 million over false dollar-backing claims. Still, plenty remains open, because the audit covers only Tether International, S.A. de C.V., and the full report stays unpublished.
The Tether KPMG audit ended with an unqualified opinion for the 2025 financial year and confirmed a reserve surplus of USD 6.814 billion.
Senate officially delays the Clarity Act
The Senate this week postponed the vote on the Clarity Act to mid-September. Majority Leader John Thune filed the decisive procedural motion shortly before the five-week summer recess. The law splits oversight of digital assets between the SEC and the CFTC. Moreover, it defines when a token counts as a commodity and when as a security. Although the House of Representatives approved the text back in July 2025 by 294 to 134 votes, the math in the Senate is harder. Republicans hold 53 seats, yet the cloture hurdle requires 60 votes. At least seven Democrats would therefore have to join. In addition, only 36 session days remain before year end. Ethics rules for government officials, enforcement powers for state attorneys general and interest payments on stablecoins remain contested. Senator Cynthia Lummis warned that “death by a thousand cuts is as deadly as a bullet”.
The Clarity Act vote now falls on September 15, and Republicans need seven Democratic votes to clear the Senate cloture hurdle.
Goldman Sachs pays USD 2.25 billion for monthly crypto income
Wall Street’s big houses are not waiting for legislation. Goldman Sachs is acquiring ETF provider Neos Investments for up to USD 2.25 billion in cash and stock. Neos specializes in options-based income ETFs and manages over USD 30 billion across 19 products. Such funds sell options on their holdings and distribute the premiums monthly. The package includes three crypto ETFs worth more than USD 1.2 billion combined. The largest is the Bitcoin High Income ETF with over USD 1 billion. In addition, the deal brings a leveraged sister product and an Ethereum equivalent. The funds do not hold Bitcoin and Ethereum directly, yet gain exposure through exchange-traded products. However, the monthly distributions cap the upside. The purchase follows the takeover of Innovator Capital Management in April for around USD 2 billion. Goldman therefore manages over USD 130 billion on its ETF platforms and ranks eighth-largest among active ETF providers worldwide. Industry-wide, USD 180 billion sits in options income ETFs, while growth rates have exceeded 70% per year since 2021.
Goldman Sachs pays up to USD 2.25 billion for Neos Investments and gains three options income ETFs on Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Ordinals opponents fail with their own Bitcoin chain
While Wall Street packages Bitcoin into financial products, the protocol itself argued over its ground rules. Last weekend, the soft fork proposal BIP-110 triggered a chain split. The proposal sought to limit non-financial data in transactions for one year, above all Ordinals inscriptions. Activation without a split required 55% miner signaling, although support most recently stood at 2.53%. AntPool set off the break at block 961,632 with a block lacking the required signaling bit. Nodes running BIP-110 rules rejected it, and the mining group Roughnecks produced an alternative through Ocean Pool. Two chains then diverged. However, the minority chain did not get far. It produced two blocks, yet roughly 2,000 would have been necessary. Ocean’s hashrate on that chain fell 96.5% within a day, and Roughnecks halted mining the following day. Neither major exchanges nor custodians supported the split, and a tradable token never emerged. Supporters are now weighing a change of the proof-of-work algorithm, because that would let them escape the boycott by established pools.
The Trezor data breach at fulfillment provider ShipMonk exposed names, addresses and phone numbers of 13,689 customers.
The next hardware wallet data leak
In addition: an unauthorized third party accessed Trezor customer data at shipping provider ShipMonk. The breach affects 13,689 buyers of the SatoshiLabs hardware wallets across seven countries. For 11,742 of them, name, delivery address, phone number and email address lay open. Moreover, the orders in question date from May through August. Devices, private keys and wallet backups remained untouched, as did Trezor’s own systems. The company attributes the limited scope to a contractual 90-day retention period. However, the risk lies elsewhere. After the Ledger leak of 2020, 272,000 exposed records led to phishing waves and threats against those affected. Analytics firm Chainalysis counted 46 violent crypto robberies worldwide in the first half of 2026, up from 40 a year earlier. Shortly after the disclosure, Trezor therefore announced anonymous shipping to parcel lockers, available from September in the EU. Still, that does not help the 13,689 people already affected.
The Bitcoin BIP-110 split left the minority chain at two blocks, while the main chain kept mining and moved 111 blocks ahead.
