Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, New Jersey asked the US Supreme Court to settle whether states can regulate sports betting offered through prediction markets such as Kalshi. US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded their best month of 2026 with $3.52 billion in August inflows, while Core DAO announced an emergency hard fork after some validators claimed more CORE rewards than the protocol intended to issue.

New Jersey takes prediction market fight to US Supreme Court

New Jersey has asked the US Supreme Court to decide whether states can regulate sports betting offered through prediction markets such as Kalshi, escalating a nationwide fight over who has authority over the rapidly growing industry.

Attorney General Jennifer Davenport and state gaming officials filed a petition Wednesday seeking to overturn an April appeals court ruling that favored Kalshi. The Third Circuit found that federal commodities law likely gives the Commodity Futures Trading Commission exclusive authority over Kalshi’s sports event contracts, potentially overriding state gambling laws.

New Jersey argues that sports contracts offered by prediction markets are effectively wagers and should remain subject to state licensing, consumer protection and gambling regulations. Kalshi maintains that its contracts are federally regulated financial products and that the company cannot operate under 50 separate regulatory systems.

The dispute has intensified as courts weigh competing arguments over whether prediction markets fall under federal or state oversight. A Supreme Court ruling could ultimately determine whether the CFTC or individual states have authority over sports prediction markets nationwide.

Bitcoin ETFs notch best month of 2026 as BTC gains 25% in August

US-listed spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) capped their best month of 2026 alongside Bitcoin’s biggest monthly gain since November 2024.

Bitcoin ETFs attracted $3.52 billion in net inflows in August, their highest monthly total of 2026 and a sharp increase from just $172 million in inflows in July, according to SoSoValue data.

Bitcoin (BTC) gained about 25% in August, its strongest monthly performance since a 37.29% rally in November 2024, according to CoinGlass.

The August momentum quickly gave way to a weaker start to September, as ETF flows turned negative and Bitcoin briefly fell below $77,000.

Core DAO plans emergency hard fork after validators drew excess rewards

In an update, Core said the incident had been contained and that “malicious validators” could no longer draw excess rewards. It said the fork would be a forward upgrade and would not roll back the network or reverse any previously confirmed transactions. 

This followed an earlier status update on Monday, in which Core said a small number of validators had accrued rewards significantly above the protocol’s intended issuance. It said the incident was limited to reward issuance and that user assets remained safe, adding that it would publish a technical postmortem. 

Several exchanges restricted CORE transfers around the time of the incident. Coinbase paused sends and receives on the Core network, while Bithumb and Coinone suspended deposits and withdrawals, citing suspected or confirmed security concerns. 

Bitget also suspended CORE deposits and withdrawals, citing wallet maintenance, while LBank suspended deposits because of what it described as the project’s requirements. 

Core has not disclosed how much CORE was issued, how long the activity continued, or whether any of the additional tokens entered circulation. It also has not explained the vulnerability that enabled the validators to obtain the rewards. However, Core said it would publish a technical postmortem.

Cointelegraph contacted Core for further information but had not received a response by publication.