Crypto is colliding with AI, market pressure, and legal battles all at once. From a major Sui leadership exit to Galaxy’s earnings miss, Binance’s lawsuit, and rising demand for tokenized gold, here’s what’s shaping the industry right now.
Top gainers and losers of the week
- Cardano (ADA) – surged ahead with solid momentum, gaining 18.61% over the last seven days to push its price to $0.2016;
- Ethena (ENA) – picked up strong buying pressure, climbing 18.32% during the week to lock in at $0.09642;
- Pump.fun (PUMP) – extended its upward rally, rising 15.58% over the weekly stretch to reach $0.002328.
- Audiera (BEAT) – suffered a steep drop, shedding 46.06% of its value over the course of the week to settle at $2.23;
- Canton (CC) – faced noticeable market pullback, sliding 24.60% across the seven-day period to end at $0.08941;
- 币安人生 (币安人生) – closed out the week under selling pressure, dropping 16.09% to finish trading at $0.5369.
Sui Co-founder leaves Mysten Labs
Sam Blackshear, co-founder and CTO of Mysten Labs, is stepping down to join Anthropic, where he will focus on defensive security research. Blackshear helped establish Mysten Labs, the creator of the Sui blockchain, alongside four former Meta executives in September 2021. Mysten Labs CEO Evan Cheng will now take over the company's technical direction going forward.
I am leaving Mysten Labs and joining Anthropic to work on defensive security research.
— Sam Blackshear (@b1ackd0g) August 5, 2026
Blackshear cited a shifting balance between attackers and defenders in cybersecurity as a key motivation for the move. A turning point came when he used Anthropic's Claude to port a static analysis tool originally built at Facebook into Move, Sui's smart contract programming language. The AI completed the task and flagged potential vulnerabilities with a speed that genuinely surprised him.
"This is a new world we're in terms of the speed and capabilities," Blackshear said.
His departure reflects broader concerns across the crypto industry about AI-powered threats, including automated phishing campaigns and accelerated attacks on blockchain infrastructure. Major crypto firms are increasingly seeking access to frontier AI models to strengthen their defenses.
Solana Foundation CISO Michael Coates stressed urgency, noting that defenders must have access to the most capable AI models available, as attackers will inevitably reach similar capability levels.
Galaxy Digital posts $85 million loss
Galaxy Digital reported an $85 million net loss for the second quarter of 2026, citing falling cryptocurrency valuations across the period. The company posted a $0.09 loss per share, with revenue dropping 15% to $8.7 billion from $10.2 billion in Q1 2026, falling well short of analyst forecasts of $12.7 billion. Galaxy shares fell 6% in premarket trading following the announcement.
Despite the losses, Galaxy highlighted signs of operational resilience. The company recorded adjusted gross profit of $66 million and adjusted EBITDA of $11 million, representing a 34% quarter-over-quarter increase in adjusted gross profit. Galaxy said its earnings are becoming less reliant on digital asset price movements.
AI data centers provided an additional bright spot, generating $20 million in adjusted gross profit as Galaxy expanded capacity delivery to CoreWeave. The company secured $1.4 billion to grow its Texas Helios AI data center and expects its 15-year CoreWeave partnership to eventually generate $1 billion in annual revenue, offering a diversified revenue stream beyond crypto markets.
Binance sues RedotPay founders
Binance-affiliated companies have filed a lawsuit against the co-founders of Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency payments firm RedotPay, alleging they diverted more than 470,000 users from Binance Card in breach of a commercial agreement. The plaintiffs are seeking nearly $473 million in damages, calculating lifetime customer value at $925 per allegedly diverted user.
Binance affiliates Nest Trading, Distributed Technologies and Chaintecs Consulting Singapore filed the petition against RedotPay co-founders Gao Zhangpeng, Chan Wa Choi and Yao Chao. A related lawsuit was also filed in Singapore. Binance alleged that RedotPay allowed users to fund its stablecoin payment cards through Binance Pay outside agreed terms, boosting RedotPay's valuation ahead of a potential IPO.
RedotPay firmly rejected the allegations, stating it is "strenuously defending the proceedings" and that operations will not be affected. The company reported strong recent growth, with its user base rising over 33% in six months, alongside $180 million in annualized revenue and $14 billion in annualized payment volume.
The two companies had partnered since December 2023, but Binance ended support for Binance Pay features on RedotPay's platform in April 2026 following a merchant partner review.
Tether Gold Reserves Climb 9.5%
Physical gold reserves backing Tether Gold (XAUt) grew 9.5% in the second quarter, with Tether attributing the increase to rising demand for tokenized gold exposure, even as gold prices fell 14.1% during the period, their worst quarterly performance since Q2 2013.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said holders are actively using price dips to accumulate physical gold through XAUt, describing the product as "fully backed, transparent, portable and accessible onchain." The trend suggests investors view tokenized gold as a long-term holdings vehicle rather than a short-term price trade.
XAUt reserves had already surged 36% in the first quarter to 707,747 fine troy ounces, valued at $3.3 billion at quarter-end. Tether Gold remains the largest distributed tokenized commodity product, holding $2.4 billion in total value.
Broader tokenized commodity markets showed mixed signals, with total distributed value declining 4.2% to $4.58 billion over the past 30 days, while the number of holders rose 6.5% to 253,000, according to RWA.xyz data.
XAUt also received Shariah certification from Amanah Advisors in July, potentially opening access to Islamic financial institutions and further broadening its global investor base.
Tanya Petrusenko
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