While most market participants were resting, the crypto industry continued to live a busy life. I analyzed the key events of the last 24 hours to highlight the main trends and events that will shape sentiment in the coming days.
Bitcoin and major altcoins: moderate optimism
By the morning of August 28, bitcoin (BTC) consolidated near the $79,815 mark, showing a 1.28% gain over the day. The trading range was quite wide — from $78,600 to $81,200, indicating persistent volatility and a battle between bulls and bears for control of the $80,000 level.
Ether (ETH) looked more restrained: the price remained virtually unchanged, adding only 0.14% and settling at $2,498. Over the day, the asset fluctuated within $2,480–$2,535. This dynamic suggests that investors are not yet ready to bet on an ether upgrade, waiting for clearer signals.
In the top 25 by market capitalization, most coins ended the day in positive territory. The growth leaders were Solana (SOL) with a 5.48% gain, Monero (XMR) — 2.73%, and Gram (GRAM) — 1.95%. Only a few ended in the red zone: Canton (CC) fell by 2.6%, Litecoin (LTC) — by 0.94%, and Bitcoin Cash (BCH) — by 0.71%.
Fund flows and liquidations
The dynamics of spot ETFs deserve special attention. Inflows into bitcoin funds amounted to $242.24 million, into Ethereum products — $234.51 million, and into Solana ETFs — $60.91 million. This is a clear signal of institutional interest that supports the current upward momentum.
Over the past 24 hours, positions totaling $424.84 million were liquidated. Interestingly, the main blow fell on short positions — $253.77 million versus $171.08 million for longs. This is a classic sign of a short squeeze, which often precedes further growth. The largest liquidation order was executed on Binance for the ETHUSDT pair at $12.40 million.
Corporate news: partnerships and security
South Korean company Dunamu, which operates the Upbit exchange, has entered into a strategic partnership with Visa. The parties intend to jointly develop stablecoin payments, international transfers, and AI services. In the future, the integration of the dollar stablecoin OUSD under the Open Standard is being discussed. This is an important step for legitimizing cryptocurrencies within Asia's traditional financial system.
Meanwhile, the OneKey Anzen team reported reproducing a transaction substitution attack in the Ethereum application of Ledger version 1.22.1. The essence of the vulnerability: due to a conflict between the display logic and the transaction buffer, an attacker can rewrite the operation while the user is reviewing a legitimate one. As a result, the user confirms one transaction, but the device signs another. Ledger has already released bulletin LSB 023, confirming the issue in the Secure SDK. The fix was released in SDK version 26.6.1, but users need to update their applications through Ledger Live. No signs of exploitation of the vulnerability in real attacks have been detected so far.
Against this backdrop, UAE National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan and his partners received 49% in WLTC Holdings, created for the future World Liberty Financial bank. About 38% belongs to a structure linked to the Trump family. Earlier, the sheikh had already invested $500 million in World Liberty Financial in January 2025. The bank received preliminary approval from the OCC to establish a national trust bank that will issue the USD1 stablecoin.
My view: Dunamu's partnership with Visa and ETF inflows are fundamental drivers that could provide the market with sustainable support in the medium term. However, the vulnerability in Ledger reminds us that even the most secure wallets are not immune to SDK errors. I recommend hardware wallet users to update their applications immediately and remain vigilant when signing transactions.