The French crypto industry is once again in the spotlight. Reuters reveals that France is once again at the heart of European crypto debate, indicating that it could move to block licensed companies in other EU jurisdictions from operating within the country.

The regulatory warning issued on Monday by Marie-Anne Barbat-Layani, Chairman of the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF), highlights the deep fractures already manifested in the European Union’s groundbreaking market in the European Union’s Crypto Asset Regulation (MICA).

MICA, officially enacted by service providers in December 2024, was billed as the world’s first comprehensive digital asset rulebook.

This framework allows crypto companies to obtain permits in one member country and “passport” their licenses in all 27 countries.

The map is clear 246 days after MICA came into effect.

He leads with Areland 123’s Mica white paper.
Germany: 59
RieChtenstein: 36
Malta: 26
Netherlands: 21
France: 7
Spain: 3

246 days after Mica went live, our map shows where the code launches are taking place… pic.twitter.com/1d7y8wf30p

– Storm Partners (@storm_partners) September 2, 2025

However, since the scheme was rolled out, Ireland, for example, has so far received 17.5 times the number of crypto-passports as France.

For businesses, the passport mechanism is an award and an efficient gateway to the block’s single market. However, regulators like the AMF have made fault lines public for the past nine months.

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Barbat-Layani warned that companies are already “shopping” for their weakest jurisdictions, and have secured light touch licenses before expanding to larger markets such as France. “The possibility of denying an EU passport is not ruled out,” she told Reuters, comparing the option to “atomic weapons” that can be deployed if the director gap continues.

This comment is because France, Italy and Austria jointly seek the European Securities and Markets Agency (ESMA) to envisage direct surveillance of major crypto companies.

In a joint paper, three regulators argued that the implementation of the early MICA revealed a “major difference” in the way national supervisors interpret and enforce rules. They argue that the direct ESMA oversight they argue is essential to protect investors and ensure a level playing field.

That push follows stinging criticism of Malta’s licensing regime. In July, in a peer review of the ESMA, the Malta Financial Services Agency found that it “partially met expectations” when approving the crypto provider, highlighting a decline in risk assessments and slow follow-up of supervision.

Additionally, the report has encouraged concerns that smaller jurisdictions could become regulatory gateways for businesses seeking rapid EU access.

Discover: Best New Cryptocurrencies to Invest in 2025

Are there other reasons why crypto companies are escheating France?

The regulatory debate of the high stakes unfolds against the tense background in France’s own crypto ecosystem. Over the past few months, a series of violent intrigues targeting crypto entrepreneurs and their families has rattled the industry. French police have attempted to acquiring at least half a dozen of them to demand ransom for digital assets, including cases in which victims were cut off to put pressure on millions of payments.

Security experts warn that some of the new EU reporting requirements could make it easier for criminals to identify wealthy targets.

This double pressure, fragmentation of regulations at the EU level and rising domestic security concerns have put Paris in a difficult position as the summer season approaches.

AMF has spent years on blockchain startups that brand France as a jurisdiction of clarity and reliability, especially after granting a license to Binance’s French organization in 2022.

The interests are high for investors and businesses. If France unilaterally refuses to recognize licenses from other EU states, the single market promises supporting MICA could break before they become fully established.

However, it is important to understand that risk is not just reputation but structural. The divergence of EU oversight will undermine confidence at the moment Europe is considering whether Trump can provide a reliable alternative to America.

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The FBI has issued a FLASH alert warning that two threat clusters, tracked as UNC6040 and UNC6395, are compromising organizations’ Salesforce environments to steal data and extort victims.

“The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is releasing this FLASH to disseminate Indicators of Compromise (IOCs) associated with recent malicious cyber activities by cyber criminal groups UNC6040 and UNC6395, responsible for a rising number of data theft and extortion intrusions,” reads the FBI’s FLASH advisory.

“Both groups have recently been observed targeting organizations’ Salesforce platforms via different initial access mechanisms. The FBI is releasing this information to maximize awareness and provide IOCs that may be used by recipients for research and network defense.”

UNC6040 was first disclosed by Google Threat Intelligence (Mandiant) in June, who warned that since late 2024, threat actors were using social engineering and vishing attacks to trick employees into connecting malicious Salesforce Data Loader OAuth apps to their company’s Salesforce accounts.

In some cases, the threat actors impersonated corporate IT support personnel, who used renamed versions of the application called “My Ticket Portal.”

Once connected, the threat actors used the OAuth application to mass-exfiltrate corporate Salesforce data, which was then used in extortion attempts by the ShinyHunters extortion group.

In these early data theft attacks, ShinyHunters told BleepingComputer that they primarily targeted the “Accounts” and “Contacts” database tables, which are both used to store data about a company’s customers.

These data theft attacks were widespread, impacting large and well-known companies, such as Google, Adidas, Qantas, Allianz Life, Cisco, Kering, Louis Vuitton, Dior, and Tiffany & Co.

Later data theft attacks in August also targeted Salesforce customers, but this time utilized stolen Salesloft Drift OAuth and refresh tokens to breach customers’ Salesforce instances.

This activity is tracked as UNC6395 and is believed to have occurred between August 8th and 18th, with the threat actors using the tokens to target the company’s support case information that was stored in Salesforce.

The exfiltrated data was then analyzed to extract secrets, credentials, and authentication tokens shared in support cases, including AWS keys, passwords, and Snowflake tokens. These credentials could then be used to pivot to other cloud environments for additional data theft.

Salesloft worked with Salesforce to revoke all Drift tokens and required customers to reauthenticate to the platform.

It was later revealed that the threat actors also stole Drift Email tokens, which were used to access emails for a small number of Google Workspace accounts.

An investigation by Mandiant determined the attack originated in March, when Salesloft’s GitHub repositories were compromised, allowing attackers to ultimately steal the Drift OAuth tokens.

Like the previous attacks, these new Salesloft Drift data theft attacks impacted numerous companies,  including Cloudflare, Zscaler, Tenable, CyberArk, Elastic, BeyondTrust, Proofpoint, JFrog, Nutanix, Qualys, Rubrik, Cato Networks, Palo Alto Networks, and many more.

While the FBI did not name the groups behind these campaigns, BleepingComputer was told by the ShinyHunters extortion group that they and other threat actors calling themselves “Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters, were behind both clusters of activity.

This group of hackers claims to have originated from and overlap with the Lapsus$, Scattered Spider, and ShinyHunters extortion groups.

On Thursday, the threat actors announced via a domain associated with BreachForums that they planned to “go dark” and stop discussing operations on Telegram.

However, in a parting post, the hackers claimed to have gained access to the FBI’s E-Check background check system and Google’s Law Enforcement Request system, publishing screenshots as proof.

If legitimate, this access would allow them to impersonate law enforcement and pull sensitive records of individuals.

When contacted by BleepingComputer, the FBI declined to comment, and Google did not respond to our email.

Ostium Labs argues that Bitcoin’s uptrend remains intact after August’s reversal, but it draws a bright red line at $98,000. In its September 1 Market Outlook, the firm writes: “Closing below $98k on this timeframe would turn weekly structure bearish,” adding that “above $98k weekly structure is still bullish and therefore we should anticipate the formation of a higher-low.”

At publication time, Ostium referenced BTC around $108,017, with the August monthly candle settling “firmly red” after wicking through the record to roughly $124.5k and closing near prior resistance-turned-support around $108.2k.

Key Bitcoin Price Levels To Watch Now

On the monthly chart, Ostium sees no evidence of a 2021-style cyclical top. The note acknowledges some momentum divergence on RSI but stresses the absence of confirmation from the Awesome Oscillator: “AO has continued to point towards building momentum throughout the uptrend… I do not think this is even remotely similar to the 2021 top formation.”

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The bear case strengthens only if September “closes below the 2025 open at $93.3k and therefore below local trendline support.” For the bullish path, the team wants September to find support “above the yearly open, but likely much higher around the July lows at $105k,” and “ideally” finish the month green “above the August open at $115k,” a configuration they say would “set us up for expansion beyond the highs in October.”

Weekly structure, by Ostium’s read, “showed no exhaustion on the move higher” and has now reset toward 50 on RSI, a profile the firm says supports trend continuation. Should the market carve a higher low early in September and reclaim momentum, a weekly close “back above $112k leads to a retest of the August open and potentially $117.5k into FOMC with a retest of the highs before month-end.”

The daily timeframe remains the near-term hurdle. Ostium characterizes the pullback as “orderly,” with supports flipped to resistance on the way down and “the key level… obviously the $112k prior all-time high,” which served as support in early August and then “reclaimed resistance” on last week’s leg lower.

“A breakout and close above the trendline and back above $112k would look like the bottom is in,” they write. A failed probe—“wick above the trendline into $112k and reject”—would bias price toward “the June open at $104.5k, with the 200dMA below that at $101.3k being key demand.” In derivatives, CoinGlass liquidation heatmaps for Binance’s BTC/USDT pair over one week and one month show dense liquidation bands layered above the $114k cap and clustered below around the $120k region, while no significant levels are visible to the downside.

With a macro-heavy week ahead— ISM prints, JOLTS, the Fed’s Beige Book, jobless claims, ADP, ISM Services, and Friday’s Nonfarm Payrolls—Ostium lays out conditional tactical setups. For longs, they prefer evidence of exhaustion into support: trendline resistance respected, “today’s low” taken out via a liquidation wick into the June-open/200-day cluster, and bullish divergence forming there before bidding for a move back to the weekly open and the $112k retest. For shorts, they prefer a sharp early-week squeeze into $112k “with trend exhaustion… having not taken out today’s low around $107k,” fading the pop back into weekly lows with risk reduced if it unfolds ahead of NFP.

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Ostium also surveys positioning, pointing to snapshots across Velo and CoinGlass, three-month annualized basis, and the mix between Bitcoin and altcoin open interest, as well as one-week and one-month liquidation maps. While it refrains from headline claims on those dashboards, the note’s technical levels line up with the most concentrated liquidation density visible in the attached heatmaps, where stacked interest remains perched near the $112k pivot overhead and layered through the $105k–$101k demand shelf.

DXY As Tailwind For The BTC Price

The report extends beyond Bitcoin. The dollar backdrop, in Ostium’s framework, remains a tailwind for BTC into year-end. With DXY around 97.2, the firm says the current sequence rhymes with past cyclical drawdowns and expects “DXY to break below 96 and push towards at least 94.6, but more likely 93,” where a bottoming formation could emerge above the 200-month moving average. The secular DXY bull case is not dismissed; rather, Ostium situates the present leg as the final cyclical downswing before a higher-low and multi-year recovery, contingent on policy outcomes. A decisive monthly reclaim of 100 would invalidate the near-term bearish DXY view.

Across assets, the through-line of Ostium’s September map is clarity on thresholds. For Bitcoin, a weekly loss of $98,000 would be the first structural break of the cycle; a daily reclaim of $112,000 would strongly argue the local low is in; and a monthly hold above $105,000 with a close back over $115,000 would tee up fresh highs into October.

At press time, BTC traded at $110,610.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com

Tokenized stocks, a new breed of digital assets mirroring the prices of listed companies, could give investors a false sense of ownership and undermine market confidence, according to a top European regulator.

Natasha Cazenave, executive director of the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), cautioned that many tokenized stock products being marketed in the European Union fail to grant actual shareholder rights, such as voting or dividends.

She said that the lack of clarity in how these assets are presented could lead retail investors to believe they hold company shares when, in reality, they do not.

Shareholder rights absent

Unlike traditional equity purchases, tokenized stocks are often issued through special-purpose vehicles or intermediaries, and the tokens merely track the underlying stock’s price.

Cazenave stressed that while tokenization promises features like fractional trading and round-the-clock market access, the absence of ownership rights poses a “specific risk of investor misunderstanding.”

Her remarks come as platforms including Robinhood and Kraken expand tokenized stock offerings in Europe and other regions.

The World Federation of Exchanges last week echoed ESMA’s concerns, urging regulators to strengthen oversight before the sector grows larger. The group warned that without intervention, tokenized products could expose investors to unexpected risks and damage market integrity.

Efficiency gains still elusive

Advocates have argued that tokenization can modernize finance by lowering costs and broadening access to assets ranging from equities and bonds to real estate.

Cazenave acknowledged this potential but noted that most existing projects remain limited in scale, illiquid, and far from delivering the efficiency benefits touted by advocates.

For now, European regulators appear intent on balancing innovation with investor safeguards, signaling that tokenized stocks will remain under scrutiny as the technology develops.

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The company said criminals are using Claude not only for technical advice, but also to emotionally pressure victims, in a method it refers to as “vibe hacking”.

In an August 28 report titled Threat Intelligence, Anthropic’s security team, including researchers Ken Lebedev, Alex Moix, and Jacob Klein, explained that “vibe hacking” involves using AI tools to manipulate people’s emotions, gain their trust, and influence their decisions.

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For example, one hacker reportedly used Claude to help steal private information from 17 different targets, including hospitals, public safety agencies, government offices, and religious groups. The hacker then asked victims for payments in Bitcoin
BTC


$107,488.40

Claude was used to review stolen financial documents, suggest the amount of ransom to be demanded from each victim, and write personalized messages aimed at creating stress or urgency.

Although the attacker’s access to Claude was eventually revoked, the company noted that the situation showed how much easier it has become for people with limited knowledge to create effective malware and avoid detection.

The report also mentioned a separate case involving North Korean IT workers. Anthropic stated that these individuals used Claude to create false identities and pass job interviews for roles at major US tech firms, including some on the Fortune 500 list.

On August 13, ZachXBT revealed how a North Korean hacking group used fake identities and freelance job platforms to secure crypto-related roles. What did the blockchain investigator say? Read the full story.

The daily XRP chart has turned into a clean Elliott Wave case study, according to crypto technician “Charting Guy,” who argues the latest rebound was corrective rather than impulsive and likely precedes a deeper C-wave pullback toward August’s lows. In a post on X, he wrote: “August bounce from $2.72 to $3.38 was a 3 wave corrective move up unlike $OTHERS 5 wave impulsive move up, so I believe it was a B wave & we will likely revisit the August lows in the coming days/weeks for our C wave to end the correction that started late July.”

XRP Correction Isn’t Over Yet

The annotated chart (XRP/USD) plots a developing five-wave sequence with waves 1 and 2 completed in May and June, a vertical wave 3 peak into mid-July, and an unfolding A-B-C that would finalize wave 4. The A leg knifed off the wave-3 high, a B-wave recovery carried to $3.40, and the projected C leg descends into a Fibonacci cluster that coincides with the August trough. At the time of the snapshot, XRP was quoted around $3.02881 on the daily close, sitting between the 0.786 and 0.888 retracement rails.

Fibonacci scaffolding dominates the chart and defines the key levels the analyst is trading against. The retracement and extension ladder is printed as follows: 0 at $1.61184, 0.136 at $1.78405, 0.236 at $1.92231, 0.382 at $2.14363, 0.5 at $2.34100, 0.618 at $2.55653, 0.702 at $2.72195, 0.786 at $2.87293, 0.888 at $3.1273, and 1.000 at $3.4000.

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Above the prior high, the upside extensions that map the prospective wave-5 run are marked at 1.272 ($4.16533), 1.414 ($4.63105) and 1.618 ($5.39272). The B-wave stall unfolded beneath the $3.1273–$3.4000 resistance band (0.888–1.000), reinforcing that region as the ceiling the market must clear to confirm a finished correction.

Conversely, the proposed C-wave termination zone is anchored by the 0.786–0.702–0.618 stack at $2.87293 / $2.72195 / $2.55653, with the August pivot specifically highlighted at ~$2.72.

A downward-sloping magenta trendline from the wave-3 apex bisects the A-B-C, and the projected path drives price into a labeled “4” before turning sharply higher into a new advance.

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The terminal “5” marker is placed almost exactly at the 1.414 extension near $4.63105—consistent with the author’s own wording that this represents a conservative target zone—while the 1.618 print at $5.39272 frames an obvious stretch objective if momentum over-delivers.

Addressing community questions about his previous higher target of $8, the analyst replied, “is there anywhere in the post that says no more $8 target?” and, when asked about an extended move in November, he answered “maybe. Maybe.” On positioning, he cautioned that “dips are never guaranteed even if they seem likely,” adding: “hodl imo… use trading options or futures or a trading spot bag to make their short term gains.”

The immediate read is unambiguous: unless XRP can reclaim and hold above $3.1273 and then $3.4000, Charting Guy’s roadmap favors a retest of the August floor near $2.72195 to complete wave 4. Only after such a flush—or a decisive invalidation via resistance break—does his schematic open the door to the next impulsive leg targeting $4.16533 to $4.63105, with $5.39272 reserved for an extended fifth in late-September or early-October.

At press time, XRP traded at $2.96.

Featured image created with DALL.E, chart from TradigView.com

Bitcoin’s price rally has hit turbulence over the past 48 hours, and this has opened the door for bearish voices to resurface. After reaching a fresh high of $124,128 just three days ago, the leading cryptocurrency has since declined by about 4.8%, sliding back to the $117,000 to $118,000 price zone at the time of writing. This pullback has opened up a possibility that the much-anticipated macro top may already be in, and further downside may be possible if there is a lack of bullish momentum.

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Analyst Maps Out Bearish Bitcoin Wave Structure

Bitcoin showed signs of building on in early August after bouncing off a low around $112,000. However, after its latest high at $124,128, sellers quickly stepped in, pulling the price down. The decline has been accompanied by fading short-term momentum. Although it might be too early to conclude, relative strength index (RSI) readings are starting to point to a bearish divergence on the 4-hour candlestick timeframe chart.

Taking to the social media platform X, crypto analyst CasiTrades outlined what they believe could be the start of a larger ABC corrective structure for Bitcoin. According to the projection, Bitcoin may be entering Wave A, which consists of a five-wave corrective structure that could send the price to as low as $77,000 at the macro 0.382 Fibonacci retracement. 

The roadmap of this price crash envisions an initial Wave 1 drop to $112,000, a brief Wave 2 recovery back to $120,000, and then another Wave 3 decline into the $89,000 range. After this, the next step is a Wave 4 retest break of $100,000 before reversing into Wave 5, which brings the ultimate Wave A bottom at $77,000.

Chart Image From X: CasiTrades

The accompanying chart posted by the analyst shows the wave counts with subwave precision. Interestingly, the analyst also pointed out that the ultimate macro target for the end of this correction is at $60,000, right at the golden 0.618 Fibonacci retracement. This is at the macro level and can only come to fruition if the ABC corrective waves play out to completion.

A Bearish Tone Amidst Bullish Predictions

This analysis introduces a sobering counterpoint at a time when many forecasts continue to paint Bitcoin as being on track for $150,000 and beyond. Even though strong institutional inflows and technical milestones, such as the realized price flipping above the 200-day moving average are bullish indicators, the bearish scenario from CasiTrades could still be valid. 

If Bitcoin fails to reclaim bullish momentum, the current correction could change into something deeper, making the $124,000 high not just a pause but the macro top of this cycle.

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Although many cryptocurrencies have largely followed Bitcoin’s movements this cycle, CasiTrade’s analysis isn’t a bearish case for the entire crypto market. According to the analyst, if this bearish case plays out, it could cause the long-discussed capital rotation out of Bitcoin and into large-cap altcoins, some of which may surge to new all-time price highs even as Bitcoin retraces. At the time of writing, Bitcoin was trading at $118,203.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Litecoin delivered a clear warning for anyone navigating the crypto world: the era of truly decentralized, fairly launched, proof-of-work (PoW) coins without borders, premines, or venture capitalists is behind us. Amid increasing centralization and rising threat of attack, it pays to “choose your freedom money wisely.”

“It is basically impossible to duplicate the launch of a fully decentralized, fairly launched, no pre-mine, borderless, void of VC’s, hard capped PoW cryptocurrency like that of bitcoin or litecoin and not have it co-opted or attacked at this point. That ship has sailed, people..”

Why security and decentralization matter: the Monero attack

Recent events with Monero (XMR) help to illustrate Litecoin’s message. On August 12, 2025, Monero suffered a 51% attack after the Qubic mining pool gained majority control of its hash rate, reorganizing six blocks and orphaning approximately 60 others.

This temporarily threatened network security, forced Kraken exchange to suspend Monero deposits, and sent the price tumbling over 13% in a week. The attack highlighted a key vulnerability of PoW chains that lack critical mass (especially those that are privacy-focused with fewer miners), showing that even pioneering projects with solid privacy technology, like Monero, are not immune if their degree of decentralization is insufficient.

Proof of stake and the perils of co-option

While PoW chains like Bitcoin and Litecoin have stayed loyal to their launch principles, many newer chains have adopted the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus in a quest for reduced energy consumption and greater transaction speed.

PoS allows users to stake coins to help secure the network and earn rewards. However, the centralizing tendencies of PoS are well-documented. According to the academic study, Centralization in Proof-of-Stake Blockchains: A Game-Theoretic Analysis, by July 2025, more than 60% of staked Ethereum belonged to just five entities, including Lido and major exchanges.

This concentration led to governance votes where a small number of stakeholders wielded disproportionate power, influencing upgrades and protocol changes.

Solana’s validator and staking ecosystem is similarly dominated by a handful of well-capitalized entities. This exposes the network to outsized influence and increased risks of censorship or manipulation if those actors coordinate, are pressured, or compromised; “co-opted,” as Litecoin wrote.

While PoS is efficient and scalable, the system’s fate can hinge on large holders, making it vulnerable to regulatory capture, exchange outages, or orchestrated attacks. The same study revealed that the more centralized staking becomes, the greater the chance of network co-option, as opposed to the more resilient distributed mining models of classic PoW blockchains.

The value of “freedom money”

While there is arguably no second best, Bitcoin and Litecoin, both launched without VC money or pre-mines and with fixed supply caps, remain touchstones for true “freedom money.” Their reliance on open PoW mining, global distribution, and established security has shielded them from many co-option risks.

Widespread distribution of mining power, fixed supplies (21 million for Bitcoin, 84 million for Litecoin), and permissionless participation make them rare examples in an increasingly centralized crypto landscape.

With the rise of attacks on vulnerable PoW networks and increasing centralization of PoS chains, Litecoin’s advice couldn’t be more timely. Freedom money isn’t just about price; it’s about resilience, distribution, and the ability to resist capture from within or without, not only defining your portfolio, but your financial sovereignty.