Trump says no negotiations are underway with Iran, naval blockade remains fully effective.

August 18 Update: #Bitcoin ETFs: 1D NetFlow: +4,436 $BTC(+$284.05M)?? 7D NetFlow: +13 $BTC(+$819.51K)?? #Ethereum ETFs: 1D NetFlow: +16,091 $ETH(+$30.46M)?? 7D NetFlow: +27,042 $ETH(+$51.19M)??

Arthur Hayes announced in a post that he is ending his retirement to return to lead Flop Labs, and is launching the FLOP token. He explained that FLOP will function as "the food for AI Agents", adding that the project will not conduct a pre-sale or secure venture capital (VC) funding, adopting a 100% fair launch model aimed at serving as a currency for the Agentic Economy. Hayes noted that more project details will be revealed later, with a large-scale airdrop expected in Q4 2026 and the genesis block set to launch in Q1 2027.

As the 60-day interim memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran technically expired, Iran announced that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed until the U.S. meets relevant conditions, adding that it has shifted to a "full offensive" strategic posture. Iran’s chief negotiator Kalibaf stated that the U.S. must lift its blockade on Iranian ports, remove oil sanctions, unfreeze Iran’s frozen assets, and completely halt military operations and threats across all fronts; until these demands are fulfilled, the Strait of Hormuz will not reopen. Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi said Iran will persist in its fight until the other side accepts its terms before agreeing to a ceasefire, noting that "Iran has won both the war and the diplomacy." For his part, Trump said no negotiations or talks are currently underway or scheduled between the U.S. and Iran, adding that the naval blockade remains fully effective, and claiming the Strait of Hormuz is open and operating normally, with all relevant mines either removed or detonated. Meanwhile, Iran is holding bilateral talks with Oman on the management of the Strait of Hormuz. Separately, Iranian media reported that Iran’s military is investigating commercial shipping networks that provide logistics support to the U.S. military, warning that companies or ship operators transporting materials for U.S. operations against Iran may face economic, legal, and retaliatory countermeasures.

Block’s payment application Cash App is expanding its cryptocurrency asset support beyond Bitcoin and USDC for the first time through an integration with crypto payment platform MoonPay. Eligible Cash App users in the U.S. can now use their Cash App balance to purchase a range of digital assets including Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, and USDT via MoonPay, and also top up wallets such as Ledger, BitPay, Trust Wallet, MetaMask, and Uniswap with their Cash App balance. Cash App has over 50 million users; it previously primarily supported Bitcoin transactions, adding USDC support earlier this year. The partnership with MoonPay means Block can meet user demand for more crypto assets without building its own multi-digital-asset transaction infrastructure. Morgan Kuntze, Block’s Head of Global Partnerships, noted that while Bitcoin remains the core of the company’s digital asset strategy, it aims to offer users more choices and payment flexibility.

Binance disclosed that its security team recently independently detected a malicious governance proposal targeting a project’s DAO, which put approximately $1.2 million worth of DAO treasury tokens at risk. The attack exploited a vulnerability in the project’s on-chain governance mechanism to bypass existing protocol requirements. When the threat was detected, less than 48 hours remained before the malicious proposal could be executed. Binance’s security team immediately contacted the project team and coordinated with other centralized exchanges listing the token to take preventive measures, suspending deposits of the relevant token to reduce the risk of potential stolen funds being transferred via exchanges. Ultimately, the project team voted down the malicious proposal in a timely manner, blocking the attack before execution and resulting in no financial losses. Binance’s Chief Security Officer Jimmy Su stated that this incident demonstrates security risks in the crypto industry are expanding beyond traditional smart contract vulnerabilities to areas including DAO governance mechanisms, user access permissions, and operational behaviors, underscoring the need for the sector to strengthen real-time monitoring and cross-platform security collaboration.

According to BIT (Bit.com) market data, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 5%, Marvell Technology (MRVL.O) dropped over 7%, Arm (ARM.O) and Intel (INTC.O) declined nearly 7%, Micron Technology (MU.O) fell 5.7%, and NVIDIA (NVDA.O) slid more than 2%. On the news front, Anthropic’s annual revenue missed market expectations, leading the market to question the AI growth slope. Bloomberg previously reported that Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate hit ~$65 billion as of end-July. Against a backdrop where some third-party data and AI sector optimism had pointed to over $80 billion, the $65 billion figure signals a slowdown in the growth slope.