This week, “Deconstruction” focuses on Russian banks’ demands on crypto companies, Tether’s first independent audit, the threat of Solana blockchain halting, rising computation costs in the AI industry, and Bitcoin’s positioning issues.
Crypto Company Checks in Russia
Russian banks have started demanding crypto companies to confirm their inclusion in a yet-to-be-established Central Bank registry. This is linked to de-risking ahead of September 1, when cryptocurrency settlements for foreign trade will shift from an experimental mode to a permanent practice. Businesses will face strict compliance, increased costs, and the threat of liability for illegal exchanges.
The situation indicates that the transition period has begun early, with the main task being to transform manual checks into a transparent procedure for legal settlements.
Tether’s First Independent Audit
Tether has undergone a full audit by KPMG US for the first time, receiving an unqualified opinion on its 2025 financial statements’ compliance with US standards. Auditors verified the balance sheet and physically counted gold reserves, which, along with other assets, exceeded the company’s liabilities by $6.81 billion.
Although the opinion does not provide indefinite guarantees, it marks a significant shift towards transparency in the stablecoin market and a potential new industry standard for all major issuers.
Hidden Vulnerability in Solana
The Solana blockchain was on the brink of a complete halt due to a routing failure at provider TeraSwitch. Validators with 28.83% of staked SOL were simultaneously disconnected, bringing the network close to the critical threshold (33.34%) where transactions cease to finalize.
The issue was resolved in 33 minutes, but the incident highlighted the risks of centralized infrastructure, drawing criticism from institutional investors.
Economic Paradigm Shift in AI
The potential acquisition of startup Decart by Anthropic for $6 billion and reshuffles at Google have exposed the main issue in AI — the colossal cost of maintaining models.
Competition is shifting from creating algorithms to the battle for GPUs, infrastructure, and optimization technologies (inference). In the long term, this significantly raises the entry barrier in the industry: those who can effectively manage product economics at scale will prevail.
Bitcoin’s Identity Crisis
Bitcoin is experiencing an identity crisis amid miners’ revenue from fees dropping to a minimum (0.69%) and a hash rate decline due to competition with AI for energy resources.
Although funds like BlackRock are accumulating the asset, Bitcoin has stopped correlating with stocks and gold, failing to live up to its “safe haven” status during crisis shocks. The coin has outgrown its speculative status, but it is still searching for its real macroeconomic role.
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