Crypto Biz: Bitcoin miners face tariff hit, blockchain courts Wall Street

The Bitcoin mining industry is getting wrecked by Trump's trade war—public miners like CleanSpark and IREN just got slapped with invoices from US Customs totaling $185M and $100M in potential tariffs, all because their rigs are allegedly from China. And get this: a Trump-backed mining firm somehow snagged 16,000 Bitmain rigs duty-free. Talk about favoritism! On top of that, mining revenues are tanking, with fees dropping below 1% of block rewards. July was a grind: IREN and Mara each mined over 700 BTC, while CleanSpark and Cango pulled in 600+ BTC apiece.

Polkadot just dropped a bombshell—they're launching a capital markets arm in the Cayman Islands to woo Wall Street bigwigs. Dubbed Polkadot Capital Group, this move is all about riding the wave of institutional crypto demand, fueled by recent US regulatory wins. They're gonna hype up DeFi, staking, and real-world assets, helping trad-fi players dive into crypto for asset management and banking. With a market cap around $6B, Polkadot's ranked 24th, but they're aiming way higher.

In a plot twist no one saw coming, China might be softening its crypto ban—Reuters says Beijing's considering greenlighting yuan-backed stablecoins to boost the currency's global clout. This is a massive U-turn from their 2021 crackdown that nuked crypto trading and mining. Meanwhile, stablecoins are exploding globally, with the US passing the GENIUS bill and total circulation hitting $288B, mostly USD-backed tokens. China's playing catch-up in the digital currency race.

SharpLink, the sports betting firm that's all-in on ETH, just went on a shopping spree, scooping up 143,595 ETH worth $667.4M as prices neared ATHs. That bumps their total stash to 740,760 ETH—a cool $3B at current rates. But they're not the top dog; BitMine still leads with 1.52M ETH valued at $6.5B after a massive buy on Monday. ETH's dipped this week but is still up nearly 200% since April, making it a crypto superstar.

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