US Treasury sanctions Iran’s Hormuz Strait Insurance Network for using Bitcoin to evade sanctions.

According to the Financial Times, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh will attend and speak at the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium this Friday for the first time in his role as Fed Chair. Markets are closely watching how he will reassure investors and elaborate on the Fed’s new policy communication framework. Recent U.S. economic stress signals have mounted, with U.S. public debt crossing $40 trillion this week and long-term U.S. Treasury yields hitting 19-year highs. Meanwhile, Trump announced that reciprocal tariffs on Canada will take effect in weeks, and the U.S. has threatened an "economic D-Day" against Iran—both developments could further exacerbate downward pressure on the U.S. economy. Against this backdrop, Warsh and U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent are facing growing pressure on policy communication. Some investors argue that Bessent’s surprise announcement this week to expand the U.S. Treasury’s repurchase program has undermined the credibility of the Treasury’s policy guidance. Meanwhile, since taking office, Warsh has significantly reduced policy communication between the Fed and investors, slashing policymakers’ guidance on future interest rate paths. As a result, markets are paying close attention to his Jackson Hole speech, where Warsh is expected to explain his streamlined communication approach and the policy framework behind it. Market participants believe Warsh’s speech will not only influence investors’ judgments on the Fed’s future interest rate policy, but also serve as a key window to stabilize market expectations amid the current backdrop of slowing U.S. economic growth and rising fiscal pressure.

According to Bitget market data, South Korea’s KOSPI index opened 50.77 points lower, down 0.73% to 6862.18 points. SK Hynix gained nearly 3%, while Samsung Electronics dropped 4%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index opened 153.79 points lower, down 0.23% to 65862.57 points.

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, Wintermute has transferred 1,279.99 BTC worth approximately $98.68 million to Binance via 8 transactions over the past 18 hours. The latest transfer amounts to 90.1 BTC, valued at around $6.97 million. Previous data indicates Wintermute has been continuously moving BTC to trading platforms recently; this week, its total BTC inflow to Binance has reached 3,834.3 coins, worth about $256.8 million. Large deposits on trading platforms are generally viewed by the market as a potential sell pressure signal, but for market makers like Wintermute, such transfers may also be used for liquidity management, market making or cross-platform trading. On-chain transfers alone cannot confirm their actual selling activity.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed that he will formally unveil the details of "unprecedented economic isolation" measures against Iran on the 24th. In an article published in the Financial Times, Bessent stated, "We are entering the decisive phase. At dawn, an economic 'D-Day' targeting Iran is approaching — this is the largest financial offensive ever launched against an adversarial power." Bessent also threatened that any country providing financial support to the faltering Iranian regime should expect to face the same isolation. The U.S. aims to cut off every economic lifeline propping up the regime until Tehran is left completely isolated, he added. Per signals Bessent has previously released, the U.S. will deploy all law enforcement tools to impose secondary sanctions on countries and enterprises maintaining business ties with Iran, focusing on three key economic activities: purchasing Iranian oil, transferring funds to Iran, and maritime ship-to-ship transfers of Iranian crude oil. Notably, when outlining the sanctions, Bessent specified that "large-scale military operations are no longer expected to be necessary."

According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, market maker Wintermute has recently continued depositing funds into Hyperliquid and expanding its short positions. Its total short exposure has risen from the previous $146 million to $191 million, adding approximately $44.58 million in short positions. Currently, its top five short positions are: ETH (~$53.02 million), BTC (~$30.66 million), SOL (~$22.62 million), HYPE (~$11.43 million), and XRP (~$10.19 million). The address currently has an unrealized loss of roughly $5.85 million. Additionally, Wintermute is transferring large amounts of funds to centralized exchanges such as Binance; the scale of its CEX perpetual contract positions remains to be further observed.

AI content detection firm Originality.ai recently released a study analyzing 2034 recently published religion and faith-related books sampled from Amazon, finding that 1272 of them, or roughly 63%, were judged as "likely AI-generated". Among these, books on witchcraft, Hinduism, and Taoism had the highest proportion of AI-generated content, reaching 78%, 76%, and 74% respectively. Researchers also found that among the witchcraft-related books flagged as AI-generated, around 53% of verifiable factual claims may be incorrect. However, the firm emphasized that AI detection results only represent the probability that a text is "likely written by AI" and are not final conclusions. Since different AI detection tools may produce false positives or even conflicting results, the relevant findings remain subject to some debate.