According to the investigators, operators had tampered with electricity meters and tapped into the grid illegally to keep the rigs running. In total, the authorities determined that the miners stole over 40.38 million baht, down to 5.38 million baht in penalties for the electricity violations themselves and roughly 35 million baht in unpaid power charges. Thailand Deputy Government Spokesperson Lalida Periswivattana said they noticed abnormal electricity consumption patterns in the region and took an interest. Coupled with consistent power outages, the authorities were convinced that illegal mining was taking place in the region.

Thailand goes after illegal crypto miners in different regions

Isan is one of the less developed regions in Thailand, with cheaper land and less stringent utility oversight than in the country’s industrial centers. Such conditions make it an easy place for off-grid mining setups to go unnoticed for a while. Thailand has handled several such cases before. This recent arrest is at least the fourth documented meter-tampering bust in the region in the past 18 months.

In January, police in Chon Buri seized 996 mining rigs from a company called JIT Co. that had been running its meters straight during the day and switching to illegal taps at night. The authorities revealed total estimated losses in the hundreds of millions of baht. Smaller busts later followed in Nan and Pathum Thani earlier this year. In December, Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation also raided seven mining operations in Samut Sakhon and Uthai Thani, seizing 3,642 rigs valued at an estimated $8.6 million.

Investigators in Thailand also traced the operation to Chinese transnational scam networks operating out of Myanmar, with financial transactions totaling more than $143 million flowing through the setup. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime warned in April that transnational criminal groups across East and Southeast Asia are using illegal crypto mining as a tool to launder billions in illicit proceeds. The criminal groups are allegedly turning stolen power into “clean,” freshly mined coins.

The Mining rigs double down as a means to generate revenue while also integrating dirty money into the system through a process that, on paper, looks like ordinary network activity. Still, within South East Asia, Malaysia’s state utility, Tenaga Nasional Berhad, has reported that illegal crypto mining has drained roughly $1.1 billion worth of electricity from its grid over the past five years.

Malaysian authorities have started deploying drones with thermal imaging to track down hidden rigs and crack down on these illegal activities. Although Thailand has a well-developed framework for crypto exchanges and token offerings through its Securities and Exchange Commission, the physical infrastructure of mining largely falls outside that system’s reach.

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The platform said it was working with its Security Council and ecosystem partners to contain the incident. The Ethereum layer 2 project said they are pausing all affected systems and taking all necessary technical and legal actions. It urged users to withdraw from all bridges immediately, with further notice to follow once the situation stabilized. Shortly after, the team published a second post listing two attacker wallet addresses and requested that centralized exchanges halt all TAIKO deposits until they received official clearance from the protocol.

Taiko halts all operations amid $1.7M exploit

On-chain security firm Blockaid was the first to flag the ongoing exploit on Taiko’s ERC20 Vault on Ethereum. At the time, Blockaid estimated that total losses had already exceeded $1 million. Blockaid attributed the exploit to a weakness in Taiko’s bridge source-signal proof verification mechanism. According to Blockaid’s analysis, the system was manipulated to accept crafted proof messages as valid on the Ethereum L1.

The attackers created fake proofs that bypassed the bridge’s verification, enabling them to register fraudulent cross-chain messages and withdraw assets from the ERC20 vault. PeckShield later published its analysis, estimating the total loss to be approximately $1.7 million. On-chain tracking platform Lookonchain also noted that the attacker’s wallet had moved 1.99 million TAIKO tokens to an address on MEXC, worth about $189,000. According to Lookonchain, the rest of the estimated $1.7 million in stolen assets was still sitting in other wallets.

Taiko halted block production in the interim, creating a full network standstill designed to prevent further exploitation. South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Upbit and Bithumb, both suspended TAIKO deposits and withdrawals within hours of the incident going public, citing an unspecified issue on the mainnet. Both exchanges have since placed TAIKO on their delisting watchlists.

In 2026, total hackers have hit Gravity Bridge ($5.4 million), Axelar-Secret Network ($4.67 million), Hyperbridge ($2.5 million), and Alephium TokenBridge ($815,000). DeFiLlama’s tracker shows more than 20 crypto hacks in June alone. So far, the Taiko exploit ranks as the month’s most structurally significant. Taiko launched on mainnet in May 2024 after two years of development. Taiko uniquely relies on Ethereum’s own block validators to sequence transactions rather than a separate sequencer network.

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The project also made an appeal to the hacker to return the funds, saying, “If you are the white hat hacker behind this exploit, please get in touch with us.” The shielded pool that suffered the attack is known as the multi-asset shielded pool (MASP), and it is Namada’s core privacy feature, designed to let users hold and transfer multiple token types with encrypted balances. Following the exploit, Namada’s total value locked (TVL) crashed from around $600,000 to just $598 in the span of a day. Also, Namada’s block explorer appears stalled with the most recent indexed block dating to June 7.

Namada exploit shows a disturbing trend

The development has led to several questions about the chain’s data infrastructure and whether it was functioning normally before the attack. The Namada exploit came hours after a separate incident hit Secret Network, where an attacker drained $4.67 million in Axelar-bridged tokens by exploiting a missing validation check in a cross-chain smart contract. That vulnerability that was exploited had been existing, unpatched, in the deployed code since March 2023, according to blockchain security firm Common Prefix.

Ed, the founder of AirdropGlideApp, posted on X that the back-to-back incidents made it “worrying leaving assets” in the Cosmos ecosystem, pointing to the Axelar/Secret exploit and the Namada drain alongside an earlier attack on Saga. Security researcher fr1ko.eth noted that in the 24 hours ending June 20, both Namada and mySwap (a Starknet-based DEX) had been compromised, with the two hacks totaling roughly $900,000. The security failures compound what has already been a difficult year for the Cosmos ecosystem.

The network experienced an exodus of projects late last year, and that continued into the new year, per a Cryptopolitan report. Noble, a stablecoin infrastructure project that had processed billions in volume, left Cosmos for an EVM-based layer-1. Penumbra, a privacy-focused chain, shut down entirely. Comdex, Kujira, and Evmos halted development, while projects including Omniflix, Elys, and Jackal migrated elsewhere. Cosmos’s native token, ATOM, currently trades around $1.78 and is in the depths of a decline of over 96% from the all-time high it achieved in 2021.

Cosmos races against time to stabilize its ecosystem

Cosmos is not oblivious to the happenings and has taken steps to stabilize. In June, Cosmos Labs acquired the Mintscan blockchain explorer and opened a Seoul subsidiary to consolidate operations around the Cosmos Hub, Skip:Go, IBC Eureka, and Mintscan under one roof, according to a Cryptopolitan report. Leadership has also signaled plans to redesign ATOM’s tokenomics and pursue institutional use cases.

However, repeated exploits across Cosmos-linked chains undermine the effort. Bridge and smart contract vulnerabilities have been a persistent weak point plaguing the ecosystem. Namada launched with an unusual token structure that was unpopular before any exploit occurred. In August 2024, on-chain investigator ZachXBT noted that the NAM token shipped with 100% of supply unlocked at its token generation event, with no lockups for the 18.5% team allocation or the 32% investor share.

At the time, ZachXBT questioned how participants would stay motivated to build “when it’s a race to dump all tokens from day 1.” With the latest exploit, users now face limited visibility into what happened and what, if anything, remains recoverable. The Namada team has released neither a post-mortem nor an update on when it will restore services as of the time of publishing.

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“Bitcoin needs an easing cycle,” Novogratz has repeatedly emphasized in recent commentary. According to Novogratz, the Federal Reserve’s current stance has kept liquidity constrained, limiting Bitcoin’s ability to break through key psychological price levels. Still, he argues that if the U.S. Federal Reserve were to cut interest rates, the market might come back to see a more balanced picture of the cryptocurrency. Concerns about Bitcoin momentum were also raised by Anthony Scaramucci on the All Things Markets podcast, where he pointed to weakening indicators such as BTC’s Relative Strength Index (RSI), a widely watched measure of market momentum that has recently fallen to unusually low levels.

Galaxy Digital CEO urges BTC traders to be patient

Google searches for Bitcoin have declined in recent years, and market interest is at an all-time low. And people are increasingly concentrated in Bitcoin ownership. Scaramucci said that currently, 79% of Bitcoin’s circulating supply is owned by people who haven’t moved their coins in a long time. That’s a question of whether these trends were a sign of a market bottom or of Bitcoin becoming a “dead asset.” Novogratz rejected that view and urged investors to be patient. “You’ve got to give Bitcoin the benefit of the doubt,” the Galaxy Digital CEO said.

He also added that investors should wait until at least next year before deciding on the asset’s long-term future. The reason for Bitcoin’s recent weakness is that the market expects U.S. interest rates to stay high for a long time, Novogratz said. Investors have been expecting a more aggressive policy stance from the Federal Reserve as it transitions to the new Fed chairmanship. The markets have come to expect higher borrowing costs. And Novogratz said this has also weighed on Bitcoin and other assets, such as gold.

On Bitcoin, he thinks the situation would change if the US economy were weak enough to push the Fed to reverse course and cut interest rates. Low rates generally make risk assets attractive, as borrowing is cheaper and liquidity rises in the financial markets. Many investors may not realize that future rate cuts are likely, Novogratz said. The issue of debt and economic conditions can eventually push the Fed into a more accommodative policy, he said. Bitcoin may attract investors who are still seeking protection against currency debasement and inflation, restoring some of the momentum it has lost in recent months.

Despite his long-term optimism, the Galaxy Digital CEO admitted that the Bitcoin market currently lacks enthusiasm. He said there is little fresh demand entering the market and described the current environment as one with “no energy” and “no new buyers.” This lack of new capital has contributed to Bitcoin’s inability to sustain upward momentum. Novogratz also referenced challenges facing some Bitcoin-focused investment strategies.

The Galaxy Digital CEO pointed to concerns surrounding financing models associated with Strategy Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, whose company has become known for aggressively accumulating Bitcoin through debt and capital-raising programs. Even so, Novogratz remains confident that the broader Bitcoin story is not over. He believes investors should focus less on current market sentiment and more on the factors that could emerge over the next several months. According to him, the key catalyst remains a potential shift in Federal Reserve policy.

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Amazon MGM Studios confirmed on Thursday that it will not release “Artificial,” the director Luca Guadagnino’s film that chronicles Altman’s chaotic 2023 firing and rehiring at OpenAI. Mike Hopkins, who runs Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios, informed Guadagnino and his producing team that Amazon would walk away from the planned release. The decision comes months after Amazon committed $50 billion to OpenAI in a February deal that expanded on a $38 billion cloud computing agreement signed in November 2025.

Amazon pulls plug on Sam Altman biopic ‘Artificial’

“We believe that Artificial will be better served if it were released by a different studio and are working closely with the filmmaking team to find the film a new home,” an Amazon spokesperson said. Andrew Garfield stars as Altman in the film, which was written by Simon Rich. Yura Borisov played OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. Monica Barbaro portrays former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, while Ike Barinholtz plays Elon Musk. The cast also includes Cooper Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, Billie Lourd, Mark Rylance, and Chris O’Dowd.

Altman was reportedly painted in an unfavorable light in the early version of Rich’s script, with one scene featuring computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton calling Altman “one of the most manipulative people on the planet.” A source familiar with internal workings at Amazon told reporters that the finished film’s tone turned considerably darker than what was originally pitched, and this led Hopkins to halt the release after watching a cut. An early viewer reportedly stated that Altman and Musk are the two characters audiences would “like the least.”

The business relationship between Amazon and OpenAI predates this deal by years. Amazon was among OpenAI’s earliest investors in 2015. Altman and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have built a personal friendship over the past decade. Altman attended Bezos’s wedding to Lauren Sanchez in Venice in 2025. That friendship now sits alongside a corporate partnership worth tens of billions. Amazon’s February investment gave OpenAI access to Amazon Web Services infrastructure, including customized AI model development.

Jeff Bezos’ alleged influence and Altman’s legal tussle

With that much capital flowing between the two companies, releasing a film that portrays Altman as power-hungry and manipulative was always going to be an uncomfortable proposition. The film reportedly had a $75 million production and marketing budget. Amazon had reviewed every early iteration of the script before hiring Guadagnino to direct, meaning the studio knew the subject matter from the start. The shelved biopic adds to a public profile that continues to court conflict for the OpenAI CEO.

In May, a jury in Oakland rejected all of Elon Musk’s claims against OpenAI after a three-week trial. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed the first state-led lawsuit against OpenAI and Altman in June, calling ChatGPT a “dangerous product” and seeking potentially billions in penalties. Altman also has close ties with the Trump administration, adding a political dimension to his already complicated public image.

The film had been positioned for a late 2026 awards qualifying run followed by a wide release in early 2027. It would have competed with Aaron Sorkin’s “The Social Reckoning,” a sequel to “The Social Network” that also deals with tech industry power. But with the latest developments, that release strategy is now in limbo. With Amazon out of the picture, the studio is now shopping the project to rival distributors through talent agency CAA.

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Patel pointed out that crypto fraudsters have been scamming and exploiting the American people for too long. He also attached a video showing the magnitude of the problem crypto scammers are causing unsuspecting victims. Over the past few months, the FBI has ramped up its public stance on digital asset crime. Last year alone, Americans lost over $20 billion to cybercrime, with over half of that amount due to crypto-related fraud. Digital asset crime in the U.S accounted for $11 billion according to data from the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

FBI Director issues warning as crypto fraud continues to jump

Investment fraud, the broader bucket that includes most pig-butchering and fake-platform schemes, was the single costliest category at $10.7 billion. Elderly Americans were the most affected demographic, constituting over one-third of the total recorded losses. According to the reports, California, Florida, and Texas topped the list of states most affected by crypto-specific scams. FBI director Kash Patel said he prefers following the money trail over chasing individuals.

He credited the Trump administration’s new relationships with foreign governments, which have allowed the agency to conduct investigations in areas previously beyond its reach. He cited recent wins as proof that the approach works, including an operation earlier this year that led to roughly 300 arrests in Dubai tied to an estimated $4 billion in fraud. The bureau also froze more than 3,000 illicit crypto wallets to date and recovered more than $500 million. Patel’s latest statement shows plans to intensify the asset recovery process further.

Earlier, the UK’s National Crime Agency closed out Operation Atlantic, in collaboration with the US Secret Service, the Ontario Provincial Police, and the Ontario Securities Commission, which targeted “approval phishing.” A phishing scam in which victims are tricked into signing a transaction that grants the criminal direct control of their wallet. During the operation, more than 20,000 victims were identified across 30-plus countries, and $12 million was frozen.

Another $33 million in suspected fraud was flagged for further investigation, and over 120 scam-linked web domains were taken down. NCA Deputy Director of Investigations Miles Bonfield called it proof of what’s possible “when international agencies and private industry work side by side. U.S. Secret Service Assistant Director Brent Daniels applauded the operation, saying it denied criminals the ability to prey on unsuspecting victims.

The Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis estimates that crypto-based money laundering reached $82 billion globally in 2025, an eightfold increase since 2020. Chinese-language money laundering networks are reportedly now processing roughly a fifth of all illicit crypto flows over the past five years, according to Chris Skinner. A separate estimate from TRM Labs puts total illicit crypto activity even higher, at $158 billion for the year, a 145% jump from 2024.

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In a blog post published on June 17, Microsoft Threat Intelligence and Microsoft Defender experts exposed a malicious campaign that has been draining crypto wallets without victims noticing. Microsoft security experts laid out a mix of old-school USB worm tactics and modern anonymity tooling that made the malicious program undetectable for months. According to the researchers, the malicious campaign could execute clipboard theft, wallet address replacement, worm-like spreading, and Tor-based communication into a single program. The program also retained access to the local machine long after the malicious code was executed.

Microsoft flags new Windows crypto stealer program

In its detailed blog, Microsoft revealed that the infection began in the old-fashioned way, via a USB stick. The malware then accessed shortcut files dropped into removable drives. Once plugged into a machine, the worm component activates immediately. The worm component hunts down ordinary files like DOCs, spreadsheets, and PDFs on the device, hides the real ones, and replaces them with fake shortcuts carrying the same names.

Once this is done, the unsuspecting Windows users click on the shortcuts, thinking they are opening the typical Word or Excel file, but instead, the action triggers the malware. The malware then spreads itself to the machine’s USB drive and sets up scheduled tasks to keep it running after a reboot, and excludes itself from Microsoft Defender scans. When the actual clipper is activated in the second phase, the script-based payload leans on Windows ScriptHost and Active X objects rather than a typical installer, making it extremely hard to detect.

Once everything is set up, the malware launches a Tor client in a hidden window and generates a unique victim ID, registers itself with a command-and-control server hidden behind a Tor onion address. This way, the malware can successfully channel information through that hidden channel without being detected. The security team at Microsoft explained that the malware settles into a loop, polling its operators and scanning the clipboard roughly every half a second.

The program is specifically developed to recognize 12-or 24-word BIP39 seed phrases. The malware scans for Ethereum keys and Bitcoin WIF-format private keys, saves a local backup, and pushes it out to the attacker’s server over the Tor network. It is designed to retry the same sequence of events multiple times until the push is successful. The program then deletes the local copy, only upon a successful push, and takes multiple screenshots every second, giving the attackers a visual read of the victim’s wallet balance and activity.

If a wallet address shows up in the clipboard, the malware can swap it for one controlled by the attacker before the victim pastes it. Copy a Bitcoin address to send a payment, and what actually lands in the destination field might belong to someone else entirely. Microsoft Defender Antivirus now flags the threat as Trojan:Win32/CryptoBandits.A, and Defender for Endpoint watches for behaviors like suspicious JavaScript processes and curl-based data exfiltration.

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These new features address a growing pain point for large companies, as the cost of AI tools rises alongside broader employee adoption. Power users can burn through credits quickly, and these features will help administrators have better visibility into where the spending is going. The company’s Global Admin Console now consolidates ChatGPT and Codex credit usage into one dashboard, according to the OpenAI announcement. Administrators can filter consumption data by individual user, product, and AI model.

OpenAI unveils usage analytics and spending controls

The console also helps with data about trends over time, which would assist IT teams in spotting emerging usage patterns and identifying which employees are consuming the most credits. OpenAI also claims that the data is available to be programmed straight into companies’ financial systems through a unified Cost API. OpenAI first introduced per-role credit limits for custom roles earlier in 2026. The update extends that system further through three different levels.

Firstly, workspace-wide defaults let admins set a baseline credit cap that applies to every employee. Secondly, group-level limits allow different budgets for different teams. Then lastly, individual overrides give specific users higher capacity without raising limits for everyone else. On the employee side, workers can now see how much of their credit budget they’ve used and submit requests for more, including a note explaining what they need the additional capacity for.

Zipline co-founder Ryan Oksenhorn said the company has been using Codex since January 2026 and recently expanded the product’s adoption to the whole company. “We asked the team at OpenAI to build usage analytics to help find and train up folks who haven’t adopted Codex, and for granular usage controls to keep spend predictable,” Oksenhorn said in the OpenAI statement.

He added that the tools are helping Zipline “faster scale productivity of our employees while keeping safeguards in place.” The analytics and updated controls are available immediately to all ChatGPT Enterprise workspaces. Individual employees in those workspaces can view their own credit usage through their workspace settings.

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The lawsuits, filed in Franklin Circuit Court, add to a growing fight over whether online prediction markets should be regulated as federally supervised derivatives markets or as gambling products subject to state law. Coleman’s office alleges that Kalshi and Polymarket allow users to bet on game outcomes, betting odds, and individual player statistics while presenting those trades as “event contracts” to avoid Kentucky gambling rules, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader.

The attorney general’s office also said nearly 89% of Kalshi’s trading activity was tied to sports betting, generating more than $23 billion in contract trading volume in 2025. Kentucky said its claims are based on alleged violations of the state’s consumer protection laws, the Loss Recovery Act, and rules governing prediction markets. Coleman’s office is asking the court to impose penalties of up to $2,000 for each violation of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act and $10,000 for each violation involving consumers older than 60.

Kentucky initiates legal proceedings against prediction platforms

Kentucky also named Coinbase in the Kalshi-related case, alleging that the company acted as an affiliate or partner in unauthorized sports contracts, according to Spectrum News 1. The complaint argues that Kalshi used affiliate relationships to expand access to sports-event contracts while avoiding Kentucky’s sports-wagering licensing system. The state also accused the companies of failing to provide gambling addiction resources required under Kentucky law.

In Kentucky, only licensed horse-racing organizations can receive approval to operate sports wagering, with the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Commission serving as the regulator. Aside from that, a separate state law, the Wagering Consumer Protection Act, takes effect on July 15. It will prohibit licensed sportsbooks from contracting with prediction-market operators such as Kalshi or Polymarket. The third lawsuit targets VGW, the operator behind Chumba Casino, Global Poker, and LuckyLand Slots.

Coleman’s office said VGW runs sweepstakes casino sites that mimic slot machines and table games using virtual “Sweeps Coins,” which users can purchase with real money and exchange for cash prizes. The lawsuits filed by Kentucky are part of a broader state-federal showdown over prediction markets. Several states have moved against prediction-market operators, arguing that sports-event contracts and similar products amount to illegal gambling. The federal response has been aggressive.

CFTC goes after states for orders against prediction platforms

In April, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Arizona, Connecticut, and Illinois after those states issued cease-and-desist orders against prediction-market companies. Arizona had also filed criminal charges against Kalshi for alleged violations of state gambling law. A federal court later issued a temporary restraining order blocking Arizona’s criminal prosecution. The CFTC has since expanded its legal campaign. On April 28, the agency sued Wisconsin after the state filed civil actions against Kalshi, Polymarket, Crypto.com, Robinhood, and Coinbase.

The commission also sued New York, Minnesota, Rhode Island, and New Mexico to block those states from applying gambling laws to CFTC-registered contract markets. “States cannot circumvent the clear directive of Congress,” CFTC Chairman Michael S. Selig said in the Wisconsin filing. “If you interfere with the operation of federal law in regulating financial markets, we will sue you.” The CFTC argues that Congress gave it exclusive jurisdiction over event contracts traded on designated contract markets.

Under that argument, state gambling laws cannot override federal regulation of CFTC-approved markets. Kentucky is also facing a separate lawsuit from the prediction-market industry. A coalition including Kalshi, Crypto.com, Polymarket, and Robinhood sued the state on June 12 over Kentucky’s 14.25% excise tax on prediction-market transaction fees. The tax is the first targeted levy of its kind in the United States, according to the Associated Press. The Coalition for Fair Markets has argued that the tax discriminates against federally regulated derivatives markets.

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This comes following Tether’s focus on high-liquidity assets. aUSDT was created in June 2024 as a dollar-denominated stablecoin. The coin is minted by using Tether Gold (XAU₮) as overcollateralization (a case where more collateral is deposited than the tokens created to maintain solvency and price stability under market stress). The adoption of the asset has been limited. However, its market capitalization currently stands at about $1.2 million against 14.73 kilograms of gold valued at $2.2 million. Minting of the token has already been deactivated.

Tether deactivates its AUSDT project

Tether informed its users on June 17 that it had upgraded the Alloy by Tether platform to prevent the creation of new positions. Holders of aUSDT tokens will only be able to redeem their tokens and retrieve their XAU₮ collateral until September 17, 2026. The company said the decision followed a review of user activity, liquidity conditions, and strategic priorities.

In spite of the discontinuation of aUSDT from Tether’s list of available assets, XAU₮ still remains one of the most valuable cryptocurrencies within the Tether stablecoin group. XAU₮ represents a digital blockchain asset fully backed by gold bars, which can be redeemed according to certain rules. This asset reflects direct ownership of the precious metal. There are more than 22,000 kilograms of real gold backing XAU₮, while its market capitalization is estimated at $3 billion.

Moreover, the quantity of gold assets kept by Tether has risen as well. The increase happened in early 2026, when the amount of gold assets rose from 520,089 troy ounces to 707,747 ounces, and their value increased from $2.25 billion to $3.3 billion during the period from the end of 2025 until March 31. Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino had stated that tokenized gold demonstrates “seriousness, scale, and reserve discipline” similar to institutional-grade holdings.

The company plans to go bigger on XAU₮ and USDT

The tokenized gold market as a whole is also growing. Industry analysis suggests that adoption of blockchain-based gold is rising fast, with Tether Gold taking a big slice of the sector as tokenized commodities are taking off. aUSDT is just another in the series of products that Tether has ceased to produce. This happened back in February 2026 when Tether decided to stop producing its offshore Chinese yuan stablecoin CNH₮ due to low utilization and lack of demand for the product.

The process was similar to the current one, where the company first suspends production before allowing redemptions. This trend reflects the company’s move to focus on the most liquid and adopted products like USDT and XAU₮, and to retire experimental assets. Tether’s continued focus on tokenization through gold-backed instruments also comes amid the increased institutional demand for real-world asset digitization.

Bybit launched XAU₮ options on June 12, introducing what may be the first derivative instrument linked to a tokenized commodity listed on a reputable exchange. Also, Tether and the Dubai Multi Commodities Center (DMCC) inked a memorandum of understanding to tokenize other commodities using their large community of more than 26,000 member organizations. Earlier, Tether had also made an investment of $150 million in Gold.com (formerly A-Mark Precious Metals), with part of the capital used towards increasing XAU₮ holdings.

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