Daily Crypto Brief · September 2nd

Core DAO is gearing up for an emergency hard fork after validators pulled in excess rewards. This situation underscores some of the vulnerabilities that can crop up in complex blockchain systems. It’s a reminder that even the most robust networks can face hiccups that might shake investor confidence and impact the overall stability of tokenomics.

This hard fork is meant to address the issue and restore balance, but it also raises questions about the governance and oversight mechanisms in place. If you’re watching the Core DAO ecosystem, this is definitely a moment to keep an eye on.

For listeners who want low-fee crypto exposure, our markets partner Kraken supports Core DAO — link in show notes.

Core DAO is moving ahead with an emergency hard fork after some validators managed to claim more CORE rewards than intended. They’ve assured everyone that the situation is under control and that this upgrade won’t roll back any transactions or affect user assets. So, no panic there.

The issue was limited to reward issuance, and Core noted that “malicious validators” can no longer access those excess rewards. They plan to provide a technical postmortem to clarify what happened, but details on how much CORE was issued or how long this went on are still under wraps.

In response to the incident, several exchanges like Coinbase, Bithumb, and Coinone have paused transfers and withdrawals for CORE, citing security concerns. Bitget and LBank have also put a hold on deposits for various reasons related to the incident.

It’s a bit of a mess right now, but Core DAO is working to ensure everything is safe moving forward. For listeners who want low-fee crypto exposure, our markets partner Kraken supports CORE — link in show notes.

Wall Street logged its third consecutive losing session Tuesday. Fresh U.S. strikes on Iran sent oil surging, and CNBC’s Jim Cramer says three forces now keep the market, including Bitcoin, volatile. The Dow fell 419 points and the Nasdaq dropped 1%. Both slides reflect geopolitical shocks, bond market stress, and a hawkish new Fed chair. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to 4.79%. Three Forces Rattling Wall Street The first of the three factors is Iran. Renewed U.S. strikes near the Strait of Hormuz pushed Brent crude up 4.6% to $95.70 a barrel Tuesday evening. U.S.

Strategy is buying Bitcoin (BTC) again, but according to President and CEO Phong Le, the decision has little to do with where Bitcoin’s price sits. Le said the math behind Strategy’s renewed purchases comes down to cost of capital, not market timing. Why Bitcoin Buying Comes Down to Capital Costs Strategy’s resumed Bitcoin purchases followed a 10-week pause spent shoring up its balance sheet. Le compared the underlying calculation to financing a data center buildout. Land and energy costs have climbed, he said, even as the cost of raising capital stayed low.

Cryptocurrency-based prediction platform Polymarket now gives Democrats better-than-even odds of sweeping both chambers of Congress in November. Trump’s approval ratings are sliding, and gas prices just hit a fresh record. The odds have moved fast. A Democratic sweep sat at just 26% a year ago and 45% one month ago. Democrats Gain Ground as Trump’s Support Slides Polymarket’s 2026 midterms market, called Balance of Power, puts the odds of a Democratic sweep at 51%. The House looks decided, with Democrats holding 89% odds. The Senate is closer, with Democrats at 51%.

The Pocket Bitcoin breach exposed more than email addresses and support conversations for 291 customers, the company said. Some copied records linked real-world identities to public Bitcoin activity. The finding expands the scope described in the Swiss non-custodial Bitcoin service's Aug. 21 disclosure. In an Aug. 31 update, Pocket Bitcoin said correspondence with partner banks contained varying combinations of names, postal addresses, Bitcoin addresses used for transactions, identity-document copies and source-of-funds records.

MoonPay has launched PayBox, a payment tool designed to let crypto transactions happen directly inside Grok AI chatbot workflows. It is a neat little glimpse of where consumer crypto may be heading. Not another standalone wallet app. Not another checkout page buried three clicks away. The idea is much simpler: let users move from chat to transaction inside the same flow. That does not mean MoonPay has suddenly turned Grok into a crypto exchange, and it should not be treated as an official xAI partnership unless MoonPay says that directly.

Three blockchain networks stopped producing blocks within four days. Each blockchain halt used different emergency powers, and Cronos alone also replaced part of its canonical history. Cronos said validators halted the network by consensus after an exploit affected Tectonic, restored the chain to state from before the incident, and resumed production from block 90,896,189. The action replaced state as well as stopping production. Transactions and state changes that existed only after the chosen restore point no longer belonged to the restarted canonical chain.

Adjusted USDC transfer volume reached $32 trillion in 2026 through Coin Metrics' August measurement, with each dollar of supply turning over 741 times at an annualized rate. Those figures signal reach and settlement intensity. Circle's second-quarter revenue, however, remained dominated by yield on the assets backing USDC. For the three months ended June 30, reserve income supplied $667.7 million of Circle's $701.3 million in total revenue and reserve income, or 95.2%. Transaction revenue was $5.3 million.