Filtering the noise: Aug. 6, 2026

Important news for today:

Crypto

• Sam Blackshear, the co-founder and chief technology officer of Mysten Labs, has announced he will be stepping down to join Anthropic to work on defensive security research.
• Shaw Walters, founder of Eliza Labs and the open-source ElizaOS agent framework, said the ELIZAOS token is finished and its foundation is closing.
• Circle will open the public mainnet of its Arc blockchain on September 16, and named a founding validator cohort drawn almost entirely from traditional finance. BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Global Payments, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation and Visa will secure the network alongside Circle.
• Plume has introduced Plume Vaults, a unified platform for its tokenized RWA yield products, consolidating the ecosystem under a single brand while maintaining support for existing Nest Credit users. The platform currently secures $178 million in TVL, has processed over $706 million in transaction volume, and has facilitated the minting of more than 195,000 RWAs.

Corporate

• Circle reported $701 million in total revenue and reserve income, up 7% year-over-year, according to its announcement. It also reported net income from continuing operations of $48 million, marking a $530 million year-on-year increase.
• Coinbase launches 24/5 trading for nearly 4,000 US stocks in the UK.
• Payward is changing its approach to how holders of tokenized equities can participate in corporate governance. While xStocks holders previously had no voting rights for the underlying shares, a collaboration with Broadridge will now allow eligible investors to submit proxy voting preferences

Regulations

• Russia’s President Putin has signed Russia’s first comprehensive law regulating crypto exchanges, digital depositories, and digital asset custody.

Fundraising and M&As

• ZIGChain raised an undisclosed amount in a strategic round led by Laser Digital. ZIGChain is a L1 blockchain focused on unlocking financial opportunities for everyone.
• InvestiFi raised $20M on a strategic round led by Vibe Credit Union (Lead), BankTech Ventures, Coastal Credit Union, Idaho Central Credit Union (ICCU), Mid Minnesota Credit Union, and Navari. InvestiFi is a white-label crypto investing infrastructure for banks and credit unions.
• Magne.AI raised $2.64M in a strategic round led by Gaea Ventures, Titan Ventures, and Go2Mars Labs. Magne.AI is a decentralized artificial intelligence platform for building and deploying Web3 AI agents.
• JPYC raised $6.35M on an extended series B round led by AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings. JPYC is the Japanese Yen-pegged stablecoin which complies with Japanese law.
• Sapiom, an AI-agent infrastructure startup founded by ex-Shopify engineering director Ilan Zerbib, has closed a $35M Series A led by crypto VC Dragonfly, lifting its total funding past $50M.

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Follow me here and on Twitter/X for more aggregated daily news, research, fundraising reports and more.