A dairy farm in southern Brazil (Fazenda Engenho Velho, in Imbituva, Paraná) secured a R$100,000 (~$19,400) loan using ten AI-monitored dairy cows as blockchain-verified collaterall, the first tokenized livestock loan on Brazil's B3 stock exchange, and a world first. The cows wear Cowmed sensor collars tracking health and location in real time, creating encrypted digital identities that prevent double-pledging and let each animal serve as movable collateral. The live monitoring cuts lender risk enough to support a tight 1.2 collateralization ratio. The pitch: small farmers are getting squeezed by bank lending limits, and tokenized livestock bypasses that. Four more farmers are already under evaluation by Target FIDC, with the group targeting R$5M (~$971K) in credit through the model by year-end. B3 is also building a broader tokenization platform and a stablecoin for 2026.

On July 24, the same day BitMEX confirmed it will shut down September 23 after 11 years, it was hit with a proposed class action seeking the return of 622.66 BTC (~$40.7M). Filed in the SDNY by BKX Services and trader David Namdar, the suit alleges BitMEX rigged its liquidation system to retain customer collateral and funnel leftover Bitcoin into its insurance fund, BKX claims ~305.81 BTC lost to forced liquidations, Namdar ~316.85 BTC, plus insider-trading allegations naming the founders (Arthur Hayes again among them). BitMEX denies it, calling it "another opportunistic claim without merit." Some outlets frame the damages closer to $60M once rigged-liquidation claims are included.

The odds that Congress passes the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act this year have collapsed to a record-low ~32% on Polymarket, down from more than 70% earlier in 2026. The obstacle is arithmetic: the bill needs 60 Senate votes, meaning a united Republican caucus plus at least seven Democratic crossovers, and the committee stage produced only two, leaving five more to find in an election year on a bill Trump has personally claimed as a priority. The specific deadlock is over ethics provisions that would bar presidents and federal officials from issuing crypto; Democrats object to the Justice Department enforcing the rule and to the GOP making it temporary, and some earlier supporters now vow to oppose the revised draft. With the Senate breaking for recess around August 7, lawmakers have roughly three weeks to debate, amend, and vote, making early August the last realistic window before the bill likely slips to 2027.

Max spent the week connecting all the ZK proving into the Kona framework, and an internal ZK devnet is spinning up shortly. Once testing and validation there hold up, Hemi will either move testnet to ZK or, more likely, stand up a separate, isolated ZK testing devnet (probably based on the Hoodi network) for people to play with. Several work streams are converging here.

Oxygen, Hemi's framework for ZK proving Bitcoin, is being migrated into the Hemi network repo and will be open sourced relatively soon, arriving in pieces as it clears code review. It folds Bitcoin's data structure into something Ethereum-like (one state root for the whole system) so you can ZK-prove essentially anything about Bitcoin — UTXOs, spend status, fees, chain geometry, transaction existence, full execution. Max walked through the design space it unlocks: native Bitcoin-settled derivatives and loans, proof-of-reserves, censorship-resistant light clients, cross-chain DEXs, and a "diet hVM" you could run on other chains. Still pre-audit, but ready to test against soon.

Marco landed more performance improvements on the ordinals indexer over the past week, and the team is now hammering it with contrived "denial-of-service" style blocks to make sure it holds up for every scenario, not just normal mainnet traffic. Once ready, it heads to the new separated testnet to start exercising the new hVM precompiles.

Aragon is deployed to Hemi and in final testing. Expect a staged rollout: the first vote (likely a low-stakes "show of hands" to confirm participation) in roughly four to six weeks, starting with things like community funding before graduating to ZK verification parameters, pop rewards, and revenue allocation. Governance will also split rewards, vote directly and you get 100%; delegate and your delegate takes somewhere in the 10–20% range while you keep 80–90%. Final numbers still being set.

HAIRgames Season 6 Continues

Season 6 is here and Max Pro Fishing 2026 is in full swing. This season, the games will continue until a snapshot is taken randomly on July 28, 2026.

Reminder: NFT holders (Hemi FIRE Hatchlings & Hemi 1st Anniversary NFT) still benefit from the 1.25x score multiplier!

Play here: https://game.hairtoken.xyz/

Join Hemi’s Discord for your chance to win and become part of Hemi’s growing community.

Midweek with Max covers ongoing engineering, community, and marketing updates.

Catch the full recap.

Join Hemi’s Discord to send questions for Max ahead of next week’s AMA.

To become more widely accessible, Protocol Engineering Office Hours are shifting from Discord to streaming on X, YouTube, and LinkedIn, to be held every other Wednesday at 8:00 AM PDT, 11:00 AM EDT, and 15:00 UTC.

Watch the last session.