Autor Cointelegraph By Brayden Lindrea

Strategy executive chairman Michael Saylor and Blockstream CEO Adam Back have doubled down on their opposition to BIP-110, a proposed temporary fork to limit non-monetary transactions on the Bitcoin network.Bitcoin Improvement Proposal-110 was introduced in December 2025 to stop nonfungible token-like Ordinals inscriptions and other arbitrary data from “spamming” the network and to preserve Bitcoin’s main use as a peer-to-peer cash system.While critical of Ordinals activity, Saylor and Back fear a fork could do more harm than good to the network’s credibility. “There are 110 things more dangerous to Bitcoin than spam,” Saylor said in a post to X on Saturday, adding that BIP-110 could invalidate ordinary transactions on the network.Source: Michael SaylorBIP-110 is one of the more notable protocol-level disputes in the Bitcoin development community since the Blocksize Wars between 2015 and 2017, when ecosystem participants debated whether it was worth risking a chain split to raise the block size limit for scalability. BIP-110 was introduced by pseudonymous Bitcoin developer “Dathon Ohm” with the support of Ocean protocol founder Luke Dashjr. BIP-110 is a long shot from activatingBIP-110 won’t be activated unless 55% of Bitcoin nodes validating blocks are in support of the proposal across a Bitcoin block “period.”In the last period, period number 475 between block 955,584 and 957,599, only 1% of blocks were BIP-110-supportive.The dispute comes at a time when Ordinals activity is at near all-time lows, with fewer than 10,000 Ordinals inscribed into the Bitcoin blockchain on a daily basis over the last month, down massively from the more than 400,000 seen during its peak in August 2023.Change in daily Ordinals inscriptions since December 2022. Source: Dune AnalyticsMeanwhile, Back offered a deeper critique of BIP-110, describing it as a “quest to police other people.” Related: Bitcoin doesn’t need Ethereum-style yield, says Strategy’s Michael Saylor He said Bitcoin’s decentralization should mean “you can’t impose your views on others,” calling it incompatible with Bitcoin’s cypherpunk ethos of permissionless, censorship-resistant money.Dashjr and other BIP-110 proponents have called Ordinals-driven bloat a “serious threat” to the network, prompting the need for an imminent fix.They have also argued BIP-110 wouldn’t cause a chain split, as many fear, while adding that the BIP-110 fork imposes a temporary one-year limit and thus wouldn’t invalidate fee-paying transactions over the long term.Features: From Bitcoin critics to blockchain believers: The 5 biggest crypto backflips 

Shares in Bitcoin treasury company Empery Digital rose on Friday after the firm disclosed it had sold nearly half its Bitcoin holdings to fund an AI data center project and pay down debt.Empery Digital (EMPD) shares popped 4.2% to $3.95 within the first 35 minutes of trading on Friday after the company revealed that it sold 1,400 Bitcoin (BTC) at an average of $62,200 a coin for roughly $87.1 million over the past two months. Empery, which previously operated as an electric powersports vehicle manufacturer, said some of the proceeds funded its 25% stake in a Hunt Properties-affiliated venture, which is acquiring an industrial site to be converted into an AI data center. Another $10 million was also used to pay off outstanding debt.While EMPD retraced to $3.86 — closing up 1.58% on the day — the initial pop suggests that investors viewed the Bitcoin sale favorably at a time when confidence in Bitcoin treasury strategies is fading and capital is flowing toward AI instead. EMPD’s change in share price over the last five trading days. Source: Google FinanceEmpery’s Bitcoin sales follow months of pressure from Tice P. Brown, a near-10% shareholder in the company, who called on the firm to abandon its Bitcoin-buying strategy and demanded that the CEO and entire board resign. Empery had pivoted to a Bitcoin-centric treasury strategy in mid-2025 when Bitcoin was pushing towards its all-time high of $126,080 set in October.The Bitcoin sales trimmed Empery’s holdings by 48% to 1,514 Bitcoin, worth $97 million at current prices.Related: Bitcoin miners’ AI pivot faces investor scrutiny over insider sales Empery held a company-high 4,081 Bitcoin at its peak before offloading some of the holdings in March and April.Strategy sold more BTC after STRC incidentEven Strategy — the largest corporate Bitcoin holder — sold 3,588 Bitcoin worth $216 million earlier this month, parting from its previous “never sell your Bitcoin” position in a move that actually saw shares in the company rise.Strategy said it used the Bitcoin sale to cover dividend payments for investors in its top perpetual preferred stock offering, Stretch (STRC), which broke below its $100 par value to below $75 last month, raising fears that its dividend model was unsustainable. Features: Bitcoin nearing late stages of bear market: Jamie Coutts, Real Vision Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Robinhood said eligible US-based customers will soon be able to connect third-party AI agents to make crypto trades on their behalf, marking the latest expansion in autonomous trading after the company rolled out a similar product to equities and options traders in May.“You can work with an agent to create a strategy with specific guardrails and not need to be constantly monitoring your account,” a Robinhood executive said during a presentation on Friday.Robinhood didn’t set a date for when it would roll out the product to eligible US crypto traders but noted that its UK customers would be next in line to access the offering.Equities traders can already ask AI agents to invest in crypto mining stocks on their behalf. Source: RobinhoodThe push for autonomous crypto trading adds to Robinhood’s broader crypto strategy, which has primarily focused on real-world asset tokenization and the company’s Ethereum layer 2 Robinhood Chain, which launched earlier this month.Robinhood’s senior vice president and general manager of crypto, Johann Kerbrat, said the new blockchain processed 17 million transactions from nearly 350,000 wallet addresses in its first week.Meanwhile, over 70,000 agentic accounts have already been created by Robinhood equities and options traders since late May, when the platform launched a beta version of the product.AI agents serve to even the playing fieldDuring the presentation, the Robinhood executive said the AI agents would enable retail users to base trades on data that they would have otherwise missed, putting them on a more equal playing field with institutions:“This is another big step towards giving retail investors every advantage that institutions have enjoyed for decades.”Robinhood offers the agentic accounts through several third-party AI companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX’s Grok.Robinhood is also enabling eligible users to have credit card purchases made on their behalf by AI agents.It comes as crypto industry executives like Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire have tipped that AI agents will become the dominant users of blockchain payments in the next few years. AI agent crypto payment integrations are also taking placeSeveral notable integrations advancing AI agent-driven stablecoin spending have emerged in recent months, including one by Amazon Web Services in May when it integrated Coinbase’s x402 payments protocol into Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, allowing agents to transact in the USDC (USDC) stablecoin. Related: Robinhood Venture Fund invests $75M in OpenAI In April, crypto wallet startup Oobit launched a Visa-supported virtual card for AI agents to make online purchases in USDt (USDT) on behalf of businesses. AI agent payments adoption laggingDespite the integrations, data shows that AI-agent transaction activity on the blockchain remains relatively small, with Artemis data showing that only $2 million in transaction volume was facilitated through the AI agent-supported x402 protocol in June.Features: The 5 types of real world assets being tokenized fastest onchain 

The US Department of Justice is reportedly moving to drop charges against the founder of BitClub Network, a purported crypto mining platform that allegedly defrauded investors of $722 million between 2014 and 2019.A court filing shows Matthew Goettsche’s attorneys wrote to New Jersey district court Judge Claire Cecchi on Wednesday, stating that the parties “reached an agreement in principle” to resolve the pending charges “but need time to finalize the terms.”Goettsche’s attorneys’ letter to New Jersey district court Judge Claire Cecchi. Source: Bloomberg LawThe filing came after the deputy attorney general’s office in Washington reportedly ordered the New Jersey attorney general’s office to dismiss the case against Goettsche with prejudice, according to a report on Friday from Bloomberg Law, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Goettsche was indicted in December 2019 and was set to face trial in October for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and selling unregistered securities. A reversal would mark one of the more notable changes in US crypto enforcement history, particularly given that three of his former colleagues, Silviu Balaci, Joseph Abel and Gordon Beckstead, have pleaded guilty for their involvement in the scheme.The potential reversal follows an April 2025 memo from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who directed the DOJ to end its “regulation by prosecution” strategy against the digital asset industry.Cointelegraph reached out to the DOJ for comment but didn’t receive an immediate response.BitClub operated from April 2014 to December 2019, claiming to be a Bitcoin mining pool where investors could buy shares and earn passive returns. BitClub allegedly falsified earnings values to investors and fabricated mining data to entice more investors into the scheme.Related: Acting AG Todd Blanche confirms ‘code is not a crime’ in DOJ pivot Past court filings show Goettsche once described his model as one built “on the backs of idiots.”DOJ is still taking down crypto’s bad actorsIn April, California man Evan Tageman was sentenced to 70 months in prison for his role in a criminal enterprise that stole about $263 million worth of crypto from victims through social engineering scams and burglary. The DOJ also froze over $700 million in crypto tied to investment scammers targeting Americans in April, while in February, it seized nearly $580 million in crypto linked to a criminal scam group operating in Southeast Asia.Features: Will the crypto lobby’s $189M campaign get CLARITY over the line? Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

Blockchain security experts are urging crypto protocols to reaudit their smart contracts as AI tooling is making it easier for hackers to identify vulnerabilities more quickly than ever before. “Our data argues for continuous review rather than a one-time audit,” TRM Labs head of policy Ari Redbord told Cointelegraph, adding that “attack techniques are moving faster than a single audit from launch day can account for.”“An audit built for last year’s attack patterns leaves a protocol exposed to this year’s as bad actors are changing up.”CertiK reported Monday that hackers stole another $1.32 billion in the first half of 2026 and have adopted increasingly sophisticated strategies in response to strengthened security measures across the industry.One of those strategies has been to revisit old codebases, CertiK said, adding that the attacker’s efforts have likely been “aided by improved automated tooling for identifying latent vulnerabilities at scale.”One of the most recent incidents involved privacy-focused blockchain Zcash, where Shielded Labs security engineer Taylor Hornby found a major security vulnerability using a custom auditing agent powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8. The bug has since been patched.The security vulnerability, which existed for four years, could have enabled undetectable counterfeiting inside the Orchard shielded pool, one of the network’s key privacy features.“The window of maximum vulnerability does not close after launch,” CertiK warned. “Projects operating legacy infrastructure should treat reauditing as a recurring operational requirement rather than a one-time exercise conducted at deployment.”In December, Anthropic conducted a study finding that AI agents found $4.6 million worth of exploitable vulnerabilities in smart contracts. Meanwhile, there is more than $72.3 billion worth of crypto locked across hundreds of DeFi protocols, giving hackers plenty of incentive to exploit vulnerable smart contracts.SlowMist’s estimate of total crypto losses from blockchain hacks. Source: SlowMistDefunct crypto protocols targetedOn June 14, hackers exploited a smart contract vulnerability to steal $2.1 million from the Aztec Connect, which had been shut down since March 2023.Five days later, a smart contract on the decentralized exchange mySwap was exploited for $300,000, even after the mySwap user interface had been closed to new liquidity deposits for more than six months.A more fortunate event took place in May, when a white hat, known as “0xflorent,” helped recover 1,003 Ether (ETH) worth over $1.72 million from 48 investors involved in the Hong Coin (HONG) initial coin offering in 2016.Related: ‘All DeFi unsafe’ claim sparks AI security debate after April hack surge The ICO failed to launch after missing its funding target, and the funds remained locked in the smart contract due to a bug in the auto-refund function. Reaudits only part of the equation, TRM saysThe work doesn’t stop with hardening the codebase and infrastructure, Redbord said, explaining that the broader industry and regulators need to continue finding ways to mitigate malicious cyberactivity from North Korea and disrupt Chinese money laundering networks:“Protocols can lock their doors, but someone still has to go after the actor breaking in.”Features: DeFi hacks shake institutional confidence as risks outpace yields