What to Watch Next
Ethereum opens Glamsterdam’s early public testing phase
On August 17, Ethereum introduced Platåberget, a short-term public testnet intended to run for several months and expose problems with the Glamsterdam upgrade before it advances to Sepolia, Hoodi and eventually mainnet.
Glamsterdam includes enshrined proposer-builder separation, block-level access lists, gas repricing and higher limits for contract and initialization-code size. The Ethereum Foundation warned that tools relying on a hard-coded maximum gas limit—including wallets, indexers and gas estimators—will need to be updated. Platåberget gives application developers, validators and infrastructure operators an early environment in which to identify those compatibility problems.
Explore the Platåberget testnet
FASB proposes a path for some stablecoin holdings to qualify as cash equivalents
On August 18, the Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a proposal adding illustrative examples for evaluating whether certain digital assets may qualify as cash equivalents under U.S. GAAP. The proposal would not change the existing definition of a cash equivalent or automatically classify stablecoins as cash.
Under the proposed examples, the holder would need an on-demand contractual right to redeem directly with the issuer for a known amount of cash, without significant fees or restrictions. The issuer would also need to maintain segregated reserves of at least one-to-one in short-term, highly liquid assets. Even when these conditions are met, presenting the asset as a cash equivalent would remain an accounting policy choice rather than a requirement. Public comments are due by November 19, 2026.
HSBC and Standard Chartered complete Swift ledger’s first live interbank transaction
On August 19, HSBC and Standard Chartered announced the first live cross-border interbank transaction executed using Swift’s blockchain-based ledger. Payment messages were exchanged through the ledger, while the resulting obligations were recorded on HSBC’s Tokenised Deposit Service and Standard Chartered’s separate tokenised-deposit infrastructure.
Swift’s ledger acted as the orchestration layer, matching and netting the banks’ obligations before final settlement took place through existing systems. The transaction therefore demonstrates interoperability between two bank-operated tokenised-deposit platforms, rather than the replacement of conventional settlement rails. It follows Swift’s July announcement that 17 banks across six continents were preparing to pilot live transactions on the ledger.