Aptos has already processed 2.4 billion transactions this year, ranking as the fourth most active layer-1 blockchain.
Aptos (APT) has processed 2.4 billion transactions since the start of the year, making it the fourth most active layer-1 blockchain by total transaction count, according to data from Token Terminal.
A high-performance layer-1 blockchain network built using the Move programming language, Aptos is designed for high throughput and low transaction costs.
Layer-1 blockchains are foundational networks that process and settle transactions directly, rather than running on top of another blockchain.
Where Aptos ranks among its peersInternet Computer leads the year-to-date rankings with 85.5 billion transactions, followed by Solana at 55.9 billion and BNB Chain at 3.7 billion.
Aptos sits in fourth place with 2.4 billion, just ahead of Tron and Chainflip, each at 2.3 billion, and comfortably ahead of Polygon, Stellar, Sui, and Avalanche.
Aptos ranks fourth among Layer 1 blockchains by year-to-date transaction count.
Token Terminal
Measured against the combined transaction count of all layer-1 blockchains tracked, which totals 161 billion so far this year, Aptos currently holds a 1.5% market share.
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Trending on TheStreet Roundtable:Dogecoin slides after Elon Musk says he got carried awaySomeone is sending Bitcoin to Satoshi NakamotoPopular exchange sued within hours of its shutdown announcementThe daily transaction data shows Aptos's activity has grown steadily throughout the year rather than arriving in a single burst, climbing from a smaller daily base in January to a meaningfully higher and more consistent level by July.
Aptos has processed 2.4 billion transactions year to date, accounting for a 1.5% share of Layer 1 activity.
Token Terminal
That kind of gradual, sustained growth typically points to increasing real usage of the network rather than a short-lived spike tied to a single event or promotion.
The growth comes during one of the more difficult stretches the crypto market has faced in some time.
Bitcoin slid sharply this year as U.S.-Iran military tensions escalated and oil prices spiked, dragging down sentiment across risk assets broadly.
Several crypto companies have responded to the pressure by cutting staff or shifting focus entirely, with Bitcoin miners like TeraWulf and Hut 8 pivoting toward AI data center infrastructure, and blockchain firms like Polygon Labs announcing fresh rounds of layoffs as part of a broader business transformation.
Against that backdrop, Aptos landing among the top four networks by transaction count is a notable signal that real usage on the network kept building even as the wider industry pulled back.
Aptos (APT) continued to face downward pressure on Friday, marking a fresh decline after a bearish pennant pattern followed a significant sell-off. While the ecosystem has seen ongoing development and upgrades, buyers have been unable to reverse the broader downtrend, even as activity on the network remains steady during this consolidation phase. Technical indicators, including the Relative Strength Index (RSI), are being closely monitored by traders as the price contracts and market participants weigh the possible breakout direction.
Price Movement and Market MetricsAt press time, Aptos traded at $0.6132, down 2.14% over the previous 24 hours. Over the last week, the token has edged up by 0.27%. CoinMarketCap reported a 24-hour trading volume of $36.55 million and a total market capitalization of $518.39 million.
Analyst Crypto With Gopal described a bearish pennant formation in Aptos after the substantial price drop, a pattern typically reflecting consolidation ahead of a further directional move. Volatility remained limited as the token’s price contracted within the pennant boundaries, with bulls failing to establish the momentum needed for a reversal. A decisive move below the declining lower trendline could prompt additional selling, while a clear breakout above resistance levels, backed by volume, may counter current bearish expectations.
APT’s reduced volatility inside the pennant signals that the bullish camp has yet to show sufficient strength to mount a reversal. Sellers are closely watching the declining lower trendline, as breaching it could accelerate downside momentum.
CoinGlass data indicated an 8.15% increase in APT futures trading volume to $71.14 million, as open interest declined 2.66% to $73.52 million. The OI-weighted funding rate held at a positive 0.0062%, reflecting net payments from holders of long positions to their short counterparts.
RSI values, according to TradingView, stood at 46.80, yet remained below the critical 50 mark, suggesting that buying momentum has not fully recovered. However, the RSI’s position above its moving average of 43.88 hinted at some improvement. The MACD line was recorded at -0.010, sitting above the signal line at -0.014, and the histogram showed a positive 0.004. These figures suggest that bearish strength is waning as these indicators edge toward the neutral zero level.
Ecosystem Advances: AIP-146 and On-Chain TradingDespite the price weakness, development activity within the Aptos ecosystem remains robust. The Aptos Foundation recently introduced AIP-146, a proposal designed to enable unlocked staked APT tokens to unlock higher transaction limits needed for demanding workloads. Target applications include liquidations, advanced decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, and comprehensive on-chain risk management systems.
The initiative aims to provide developers with significant capabilities to create fully on-chain financial markets, eliminating the necessity for off-chain infrastructure. Increasing transaction limits focuses on supporting complex transactions rather than simply boosting transactional speed.
Under AIP-146, staking APT tokens grants access to increased transaction limits, allowing sophisticated DeFi workloads such as liquidations and risk management to operate efficiently directly on-chain.
Alongside AIP-146, Aptos has seen the rollout of DecibelTrade, a natively on-chain trading platform emphasizing transparent settlement and intra-day trading activities. DecibelTrade debuted with the “First Trade on Us” campaign, encouraging engagement and providing incentives for early adopters.
While watching closely for key resistance levels and technical signals such as the RSI and MACD crossovers, investors are increasingly utilizing multi-currency portfolio management tools and timely price alerts to navigate market shifts. CryptoAppsy, which requires no account creation hassle, combines your crypto investments with real-time prices, detailed charts, and multi-currency portfolio management on a single screen. With this all-in-one financial assistant, you can instantly seize opportunities by setting up smart price alerts, filter news specific to your coins, discover newly listed altcoins without missing them, and always stay one step ahead of the market with critical macroeconomic data such as Fed interest rates.
These ongoing ecosystem enhancements highlight developers’ focus on expanding Aptos’s technical capacity and trading infrastructure, even as market participants closely watch near-term price action and key support areas.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Sandy Kaul, @FTDA_US head of digital assets and innovation at Franklin Templeton, argues that autonomous AI agents represent a structural shift in how economic activity flows, and that legacy payment infrastructure is not built to keep up.
Why Traditional Payment Rails Fall Short The core problem is one of economics. Standard card networks charge roughly 2% to 3% plus a flat fee per payment, making tiny machine-to-machine transactions commercially unviable. Card networks also settle in one to three business days, a timeline that is simply incompatible with software agents transacting in seconds at near-zero cost. Legacy payment rails with high fees and slow settlement times do not work for micropayments. AI agents also face a more fundamental barrier: they cannot open bank accounts or access financial services that carry strict KYC requirements.
Kaul's argument is that blockchain networks fill that gap directly. Blockchains can settle sub-cent transactions in seconds and automatically record them, making them the natural infrastructure for an agent-driven economy. She singles out @solana, @Aptos, and @BNBCHAIN as networks already suited to that role. Those networks settle transactions in seconds, faster than the one-to-three business-day settlement time of the Visa network.
Early Data Confirms the Pattern The activity is already showing up in on-chain data. The x402 protocol, incubated by Coinbase and Cloudflare and now stewarded by the Linux Foundation, has processed roughly $15 million in adjusted volume across 109.6 million transactions since its May 2025 launch. On x402, the average payment is a fraction of a cent, and a fixed card fee on a transaction that small would cost far more than the payment itself.
A joint report from Visa and Artemis, titled "Agentic Payments from the Ground Up," frames the moment as an inflection point. The report found that AI agents are initiating a foundational change in commerce, but current infrastructure gaps are limiting mainstream adoption. The volume figures are still modest by any macro standard, but the transaction frequency tells a different story. Tiny money, enormous frequency.
For investors, Kaul's broader point is a strategic one. Estimates suggest agentic commerce could reach $3 to $5 trillion by 2030, and the playbook of buying shares in AI-aligned companies may not capture that opportunity the same way exposure to the underlying blockchain rails could.
Sources:
Franklin Templeton: Agentic AI, The Killer Use Case for Blockchain and Crypto
Visa and Artemis: Agentic Payments from the Ground Up
CoinTelegraph: Agentic AI is Next Killer Use Case for Blockchain, Franklin Templeton
Franklin Templeton, a leading global asset management firm overseeing over $1.5 trillion in assets, has identified artificial intelligence agents as the next major growth area for blockchain and cryptocurrency. Sandy Kaul, the firm’s head of digital assets and innovation, outlined this vision in a recent post on X.
AI agents and blockchain infrastructureAccording to Kaul, the emergence of an AI-driven agent economy will generate significant demand for blockchain protocols capable of supporting machine-to-machine micropayments. She noted that legacy payment networks, including widely used card systems, face challenges meeting the fast and low-cost requirements of automated digital agents.
Kaul highlighted the limitations of established card networks, with fees and settlement speeds unsuited for the high-frequency, micro-level transactions typical of automated AI agents. In her view, most investors today focus on acquiring shares of companies aligned with the AI sector, but she questioned whether this approach will remain effective as agentic AI becomes prevalent.
Most investors today buy shares of AI-aligned companies to access the AI growth opportunity, but it remains uncertain if that strategy will hold as agentic AI evolves.
She pointed to blockchain networks including Aptos, Solana, and BNB Chain as well-positioned for this new digital landscape. These platforms can settle transactions within seconds, offering a sharp contrast to the one-to-three business day settlement times seen in systems like the Visa network.
Payment industry leaders have recently examined this topic as well. Payments giant Visa and research platform Artemis published a joint report last week, concluding that traditional cards—designed for infrequent, human-driven transactions—are not adequate for the needs of AI agents. They argued that to support agentic micropayments on a commercial scale, networks require both instant settlement and minimal fees.
Mini dictionary: Agentic economy, a digital ecosystem where AI agents autonomously perform transactions or tasks, often interacting with other machines, users, or protocols without direct human intervention.
Industry response and adoption trendsWithin the past few months, several major players have launched tools targeting the intersection of AI and payments. Visa’s crypto division and Tempo, supported by Stripe, both unveiled AI-driven solutions in March. Visa’s new function grants AI agents the ability to process same-day payments.
Meanwhile, new protocols facilitating machine payments are seeing early signs of traction. The x402 payment protocol, a system created by Coinbase, reportedly processed $15 million in adjusted volume through over 109 million adjusted transactions since its introduction in May 2025, according to the joint analysis by Visa and Artemis.
Protocol/NetworkSettlement SpeedRecent UsageAptosSecondsPositioned for agentic AISolanaSecondsPositioned for agentic AIBNB ChainSecondsPositioned for agentic AIVisa Network1–3 business daysTraditional card usagex402 (Coinbase)Seconds$15 million, 109M transactions since May 2025Visa launched its machine-to-machine payments tool to strengthen its presence as the pace of agentic transactions accelerates, while adoption data from Coinbase illustrates practical engagement with the technology in live environments. This suggests interest is building in infrastructure that can support the complex and rapid settlement needs of AI-driven economies.
Visa and Artemis found that traditional payment cards are not built for the frequency or scale required by agentic AI transactions, reinforcing the shift toward blockchain alternatives.
The increasing experimentation and support for agentic AI payments by both blockchain networks and major payment industry companies reflect a growing recognition of the role digital assets may play in powering next-generation automated commerce.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Aptos Labs CEO Avery Ching said that digital asset regulations being discussed in the US Congress could pave the way for a significant transformation in the financial sector. According to Ching, the enactment of the CLARITY Act, in particular, could act as a major catalyst, accelerating the entry of financial institutions and large companies into the digital asset market.
Appearing on the YouTube channel “3PROTV,” Ching stated that comprehensive cryptocurrency regulations in the US would not only reduce legal uncertainties in the sector but also allow institutional investors to enter the market more securely. Ching emphasized that current regulatory efforts are critical to the long-term growth of the digital asset ecosystem.
Aptos CEO Ching stated that the GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act, currently on the US agenda, will be two fundamental legal building blocks shaping the future of the sector. According to Ching, these two bills will form the most important legal framework supporting the development of the digital asset market and contribute to the widespread adoption of blockchain-based financial applications.
Ching stated that the biggest trends that will transform financial markets in the next five years will be the digitalization of assets and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence technologies, adding that a period is approaching where US Treasury bonds, money market funds, stocks, and other traditional financial products can be traded more efficiently as digital assets through blockchain infrastructure. This transformation is expected to reduce transaction costs, speed up clearing processes, and increase global investor access.
On the other hand, the Aptos ecosystem continues to grow with new collaborations. The Aptos (APT) blockchain network developed by the company has been selected as one of the core blockchain partners for the next-generation stablecoin project OpenUSD (OUSD). This partnership aims to strengthen OpenUSD’s technical infrastructure and expand the enterprise use cases of the Aptos network.
Experts believe that if a comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto assets is implemented in the US, the interest of banks, investment firms, and large institutional investors in the digital asset sector could significantly increase. This is expected to both accelerate the adoption of blockchain-based financial applications and support the inflow of new capital into the sector.
*This is not investment advice.
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On April 21, 2026, Coinbase’s Quantum Advisory Council released a position paper naming Aptos and Algorand as the two blockchain networks best positioned to handle the cryptographic challenges that quantum computers will eventually bring. Its advisory group includes Scott Aaronson from UT Austin and Dan Boneh from Stanford University, two of the most cited names in cryptography and quantum computing research.
What makes Aptos different here Most networks today secure wallets using elliptic curve cryptography. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could, in theory, reverse-engineer private keys from public ones.
Aptos was built with this transition in mind from day one. Launched in 2022, it runs on the Move programming language and uses a modular cryptographic infrastructure. If Aptos needs to swap out its signature scheme, it can do that in a single transaction without asking users to create new accounts or move their assets anywhere.
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The Coinbase council’s paper specifically highlighted this crypto-agility as Aptos’s central advantage. Crypto-agility means a system’s ability to swap cryptographic primitives without disrupting the broader network.
In December 2025, the network proposed integrating SLH-DSA, a post-quantum signature scheme that has been formally standardized by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
Algorand’s approach and why the council cited both Algorand earned its spot in the paper through a different but complementary set of choices. The network has implemented Falcon signatures within its State Proofs, and it offers native key rotation as a built-in feature. Falcon is a lattice-based cryptographic scheme, which is one of the algorithm families that NIST has identified as resistant to quantum attacks.
Researchers from the Ethereum Foundation were also listed among the advisory council’s contributors.
What this means for the market The council’s paper is explicit that immediate threats are not imminent. The point is about preparation time horizons, specifically that the window between “quantum computers become theoretically capable” and “quantum computers become practically deployable” may be shorter than the time required to retrofit major blockchain networks.
Being named in a paper co-authored by cryptographers from Stanford and UT Austin, distributed under Coinbase’s advisory brand, is a different category of validation than a marketing announcement or a partnership press release.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Interactive Brokers, one of the largest electronic brokerage firms in the US, has added Aptos (APT) to its cryptocurrency trading platform as part of a broader nine-token expansion. The move gives IBKR’s substantial client base, which skews heavily toward active traders and institutional participants, direct access to the Layer 1 blockchain token without needing to leave their existing brokerage accounts.
What IBKR is actually offering The July 14 integration brought APT alongside other tokens including AAVE, LDO, NEAR, and UNI to IBKR’s crypto trading desk. That’s a meaningful expansion from the brokerage’s early, cautious steps into crypto, which began back in 2021 with limited offerings routed through Paxos.
Commissions for crypto trades on the platform range from 0.12% to 0.18% of the transaction value, with a minimum fee of $1.75 per order. No additional custody fees or spreads are tacked on. If you buy $10,000 worth of APT, you’re paying somewhere between $12 and $18 in commissions.
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The backend infrastructure relies on a partnership with Zerohash for trade execution, while Paxos Trust Company and Zero Hash LLC handle custodial services.
Why Aptos specifically matters here Aptos was built by a team of engineers who previously worked on Meta’s Diem project (formerly Libra), the stablecoin initiative that regulators effectively killed before it could launch. The Aptos mainnet went live on October 18, 2022, with a genesis date of October 12 that same year. Its core selling point is speed: the network achieves sub-second finality on transactions. APT serves as the native token powering staking, governance, and network operations across the ecosystem.
The blockchain was designed from the ground up with scalability and security as primary engineering goals. That focus has attracted increasing institutional interest throughout 2026, with network-level security enhancements and tokenomics proposals continuing to evolve in the background.
The bigger picture: TradFi keeps absorbing crypto By keeping commissions between 0.12% and 0.18% with no hidden custody charges, IBKR is making a play to undercut many crypto-native platforms that rely on wider spreads or tiered fee structures. The $1.75 minimum per order applies to all crypto trades on the platform.
What this means for investors For APT holders and potential buyers, the IBKR listing represents a meaningful expansion of the token’s addressable market. IBKR’s client base includes hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, financial advisors, and sophisticated retail traders — segments that often have significant capital to deploy but have historically been reluctant to open accounts on crypto-native exchanges.
APT remains a relatively young blockchain competing in a crowded Layer 1 landscape against established players like Solana, Avalanche, and Ethereum’s expanding rollup ecosystem. Getting listed on IBKR doesn’t change the fundamental competitive dynamics.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Pact Labs just landed $7 million in Series A funding led by Tether, and the money has a very specific job: build the pipes that connect a regulated stablecoin to the mundane but massive world of payroll and payments.
The round, announced on July 14, is designed to accelerate Pact Labs’ integration of USA₮, Tether’s US-regulated dollar-backed stablecoin, into a broader suite of financial tools. Think earned wage access, credit products, and payment rails, all running on the Aptos blockchain.
What Pact Labs actually does Pact Labs operates the PACT Protocol, an on-chain lending and securitization platform that takes traditional lending processes, like issuing a loan and then packaging that loan for investors, and runs them on a blockchain instead of through legacy banking software.
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PACT Protocol has facilitated nearly $2 billion in on-chain loans, serving roughly 500,000 users through seven fintech partners.
The $7 million from Tether will fund development of wallet infrastructure, data tools, payment systems, and smart contracts that bridge the PACT Protocol to fintech platforms.
Why Aptos, and why now PACT Protocol migrated to the Aptos blockchain on February 20, 2025, following incubation support from the Aptos Foundation. That migration was not a soft launch. Over $1 billion in assets moved from its previous home on Celo to Aptos on the very first day.
Aptos runs on the Move programming language, which was originally developed at Meta for the now-defunct Diem project. The blockchain offers sub-second transaction finality and high throughput.
USA₮ and the regulated stablecoin race USA₮ is not to be confused with USDT, Tether’s flagship stablecoin that dominates global crypto trading volume. USA₮ launched on January 27, 2026, and was developed through Anchorage Digital Bank, making it a US-regulated product.
Tether’s decision to lead a funding round for infrastructure that specifically supports USA₮ signals that the company views regulated stablecoins as a growth market. By investing in the plumbing that makes USA₮ useful for payroll and credit, Tether is essentially creating demand for its own product.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Tether just wrote a $7 million check to Pact Labs, the company building on-chain financial plumbing on the Aptos blockchain. It’s a Series A round, and it tells you exactly where the world’s largest stablecoin issuer thinks the next wave of crypto adoption is headed: not trading floors, but payroll systems, lending desks, and payment rails.
The investment, announced on July 14, is designed to accelerate the integration of Tether’s USA₮ stablecoin into Pact’s growing suite of credit and fintech products.
What Pact Labs actually does Pact Labs operates the PACT Protocol, a permissioned lending and securitization platform focused on asset-based finance. The protocol launched on Aptos on February 20, 2025, and hit the ground sprinting. It onboarded over $1 billion in assets from day one.
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Since then, the numbers have kept climbing. Pact Labs has facilitated nearly $2 billion in on-chain loans. It serves roughly 500,000 users through partnerships with seven different companies.
Joshua March, who serves as President of Pact Labs, has pointed to Aptos’s architecture as a key reason the company chose to build there. The blockchain’s high throughput and low transaction costs make it particularly suited for the kind of high-volume, low-margin financial transactions that define lending and payroll.
Pact didn’t start on Aptos, though. The company previously built on Celo before migrating its infrastructure.
Why Tether is making this bet The USA₮ stablecoin, which is the specific asset being integrated into Pact’s ecosystem, represents Tether’s push into regulated stablecoin territory. By embedding USA₮ into payroll, payments, and lending products, Tether creates organic demand for the token that doesn’t depend on crypto market cycles.
What this means for investors Pact Labs has stated its ambition to scale lending capabilities to $10 billion in loans, targeting the private credit market. That’s a five-fold increase from current volumes, and it positions the company squarely in one of the hottest sectors in both traditional and decentralized finance.
The Tether backing adds a layer of credibility that shouldn’t be underestimated. Its stablecoins facilitate trillions in annual trading volume. Having Tether as a strategic investor signals to other potential partners and investors that Pact’s infrastructure has been vetted by one of the industry’s most consequential players.
For the broader Aptos ecosystem, this investment represents validation of the chain’s positioning as infrastructure for financial applications. The combination of Tether’s stablecoin integration and Pact’s lending volume gives Aptos a concrete narrative around real-world financial utility.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Cwallet, a renowned crypto wallet, has partnered with Aptos, a popular L1 blockchain. The partnership underscores a noteworthy step toward enhancing blockchain-driven financial services to benefit consumers across the globe. As Cwallet pointed out in its X announcement, the development reaffirms Cwallet’s endeavors to make crypto more accessible via reliable and advanced blockchain infrastructure. Hence, the integration is poised to fortify the crypto network’s efficiency while also preparing for key innovations in the future.
Cwallet is partnering with @Aptos 🤝
We believe the future of crypto belongs to everyone — and getting there means building with the best infrastructure in the space.@Aptos delivers the speed, scale, & reliability of a top-tier L1 to make that real.
This is just the beginning.… pic.twitter.com/OQiAE8xwO4
— Cwallet (@CwalletOfficial) July 9, 2026 Cwallet and Aptos Alliance Drives Scalable Blockchain Expansion with Robust Wallet Services The collaboration between Cwallet and Aptos highlights a rising market trend where wallet providers are integrating high-capacity blockchain ecosystems to improve user experience. In this respect, the move stresses a mutual effort to make blockchain technology and digital assets widely available to a wider audience. In an attempt to make crypto’s future inclusive, the development permits consumers from diverse backgrounds and regions to leverage effective financial tools.
Apart from that, Aptos has become a leading L1 blockchain that pays notable attention to high throughput, reliable network activities, and low latency. The blockchain is set to process transfers rapidly while maintaining decentralization and security. The respective abilities have increasing appeal for Aptos among decentralized applications, Web3 projects, and developers looking for the infrastructure that can back broadening increasingly complicated blockchain apps and user bases.
At the same time, for Cwallet, this move could deliver the technological basis required to unveil more streamlined crypto wallet and payment experiences. Greater ecosystem efficiency and transfer processing can help enhance services like payments, asset transactions, and other key blockchain-native financial activities. Amid the continuous blockchain adoption around the world, dependable infrastructure has become more significant for entities serving both institutional and retail consumers.
Establishing Basis of Cutting-Edge Web3 Services According to Cwallet, such partnerships enable companies to enhance performance along with strengthening their position for further Web3 developments. While the usage of digital assets is expanding into payments, tokenized applications, and decentralized finance, wallet platforms require infrastructure that can support consistent growth. Thus, this collaboration marks the commencement of developing more advanced blockchain solutions. As a result, consumers can anticipate further updates concerning new features and network initiatives.
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Umair Younas is a cryptocurrency-related content writer linked with this work since 2019. Here, at Blockchainreporter, he serves as a news and article writer. He is a crypto, blockchain, NFTs, DeFi, and FinTech enthusiast. He has strong command over writing authentic reviews about brokers and exchanges and he has collaborated with our education team to write educational content as well. He has a dream to raise awareness among people about digital currencies. His works are well-researched and brimmed with information hence they provide fresh insights. Stay tuned to his posts if you want to stay up-to-date with the crypto-verse.
Aptos (APT) price is up 3% at press time on Thursday after three consecutive days of weakness earlier this week. The recovery is likely linked to a crucial blockchain bug fix that exposed its entire Total Value Locked (TVL) of over $100 million at risk. Despite mixed retail activity with rising Open Interest and declining trading volumes, on-chain transactions continue to advance, indicating steady network demand.
Technically, APT should clear the overhead trendline near $0.6475 and potentially target the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $0.7088.
Crucial bug fix secures over $100 million on AptosAptos blockchain patched a crucial bug discovered by ethical hackers on Wednesday, which could have exposed the value of its entire network, over $100 million.
Charles Guillemet, Chief Technical Officer at Ledger, mentioned in his social media post that the vulnerability enabled a multi-block exploit with an almost 90% success rate. In addition, Guillemet stressed that AI has significantly reduced the cost of discovering deep bugs, underscoring the need for base-layer cryptographic guarantees over trusted caches to prevent such systemic risks.
Post-resolution, the APT token shows a minor recovery on Thursday, diverging from most altcoins moving lower.
Network strength and mild retail demand support recoveryAptos shows a steady recovery in network strength while retail demand lags. DeFiLlama data show TVL stabilizing above $100 million after a steep outflow from $189 million in early June. At press time, Aptos’ TVL is down 1.50% over the last 24 hours to $108.86 million, while weekly transactions reached 137 million, indicating growth in network activity.
On the retail front, CoinGlass data show that APT futures Open Interest is up over 3% in 24 hours to $80.13 million, indicating a bullish positional buildup, while funding rates at 0.0098% imply that traders are willing to buy long positions at a premium.
However, the volume has dropped by 14% over the same period to $107.54 million, indicating reduced activity. A bullish positional buildup despite declining volumes suggests increased leverage exposure, which could lead to heightened long liquidations if prices reverse to the downside.
Aptos DeFi metrics. Source: DeFiLlama
APT derivatives data. Source: CoinGlassAptos eyes a bullish setup breakoutAptos is up 3% on Thursday, extending a mild constructive near-term trend despite a broadly bearish structure. APT tests the overhead trendline of a falling channel pattern, near $0.6475, capped below the 50-day and 200-day EMAs at $0.7088 and $1.2883, respectively.
A decisive close above $0.6475 could confirm a breakout from the falling channel, with potential targets including the 50-day EMA at $0.7088, followed by an overhead supply zone between $0.7900 and $0.8070.
The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) and signal line maintain a weak but upward trend, while the Relative Strength Index (RSI) at 46 rises toward the midline, signaling an ease in selling pressure. Together, the indicators hint at a mild recovery in upward momentum.
APT/USD daily price chart.Looking down, the key support aligns with the recent swing low from June 30 at $0.5550, followed by the descending support trendline near $0.5350.
(The technical analysis of this story was written with the help of an AI tool. Know more.)
Aptos just posted its biggest single-day transaction count of the quarter. The Layer-1 blockchain processed over 16 million transactions in a single day in early July, a number that doubles as evidence that its April governance overhaul is doing exactly what it was designed to do.
That governance upgrade was, frankly, a big deal. Aptos raised gas fees tenfold, instituted a hard supply cap of 2.1 billion APT, cut staking rewards, and mandated that 100% of transaction fees be burned. The Aptos Foundation also permanently locked 210 million APT.
The numbers behind the milestone Despite the tenfold gas fee increase, average transaction costs held at $0.0005.
In June 2026, Aptos recorded 83.7 million transactions in a single week, its strongest weekly performance of the year.
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The token burn numbers are becoming material. In the 30 days leading up to this report, 235,200 APT were burned. Since the mainnet launched in October 2022, cumulative burns have reached 1.4 million APT.
Monthly emissions from staking sit at roughly 1.6 million APT. The current burn rate is offsetting approximately 15% of that.
Staking rewards were also trimmed as part of the April upgrade, coming down to approximately 2.6%.
Why the governance changes matter beyond the headline The April 2026 upgrades essentially borrowed a page from Ethereum’s EIP-1559 playbook, where base fees are burned rather than paid to validators or a treasury, creating a direct mechanical link between network demand and token supply reduction.
The hard cap of 2.1 billion APT puts a ceiling on total supply that did not exist before. Combined with the Foundation’s decision to permanently lock 210 million APT, the circulating supply trajectory has changed in a way that is difficult to reverse.
Aptos launched its mainnet in October 2022 with a Move programming language and a parallel transaction execution model. The April governance vote addressed the economic side of that equation.
What investors should watch from here Monthly emissions of 1.6 million APT remain higher than the current burn rate, meaning the net supply is still growing. The crossover point, where burns exceed new issuance, depends entirely on sustained or growing transaction volumes.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Hexens found a critical flaw in Aptos that was patched before any funds moved. The bug could have let an attacker forge assets and push them across bridges. Aptos disputes the severity, yet Polygon’s CTO validated the proof-of-concept. The case revives the argument for on-chain circuit breakers on fast L1s. A security firm has revealed that Aptos, one of the faster layer-1 blockchains, carried a critical flaw for months before it was quietly fixed. On July 4, Hexens went public with a bug it had reported privately to Aptos back on February 25, a weakness in the engine that runs the chain’s smart contracts that, by its own estimate, put as much as $70 billion of theoretical risk in play across bridges, stablecoins and connected exchanges. Aptos Labs had patched it within hours of that first report, and no user funds were ever touched.
So why does a five-month-old patch make news now? Two reasons. The number, obviously. But also the detail sitting underneath it: the thing Aptos markets hardest is raw speed, and raw speed is exactly what turns $70 billion from a scare headline into a defensible estimate.
A record-throughput brag, one day after the story broke On July 5, barely 24 hours after the report, the project’s official account went ahead with its scheduled monthly tokenomics update, reporting 232,500 APT burned over the past 30 days, more than 16 million transactions in a single day for a fresh quarterly high, and an average fee of $0.0005 following a tenfold fee increase, all under the tagline “the full stack for markets and machines at work.” The post reads very differently once you have the Hexens disclosure in front of you, because the near-free transactions and enormous throughput that Aptos is promoting are the exact same properties a security researcher weighs first when calculating how much a single bug in the chain’s core could actually cost.
Every transaction on Aptos burns $APT. New month update:
• 232.5K APT burned in the Last 30D
• 1.4M total APT burned since mainnet
• +16M transactions in a day—a new quarterly high
• $0.0005 avg tx fee since 10x fee increase
The full stack for markets and machines at work. pic.twitter.com/gPEuWzD1Qf
— Aptos (@Aptos) July 5, 2026
The bug lived below the code most audits check Aptos is built on Move, a programming language designed specifically to make this kind of attack hard. Move treats tokens and other digital assets as protected items and checks, at the moment a transaction runs, that nothing is being handled as the wrong type of thing. That safety promise is a big part of why Aptos and Sui both pitch Move as safer than older environments.
The Hexens flaw slipped underneath that promise instead of breaking it head-on. In simple terms, the system briefly worked from outdated information and ended up mistaking one kind of on-chain item for another. Security people call that “type confusion,” an old software problem where a program reads something as the wrong type and walks straight past the checks meant to stop it. On a blockchain, that mix-up is dangerous: an attacker could disguise a malicious item as a legitimate one and trick the network into misreading who owns an asset and who is allowed to move it.
Polygon CTO Mudit Gupta reviewed the proof-of-concept independently and told CoinDesk it ran as claimed, with the caveat that a few conditions had to line up first. Coming from the security chief of a rival chain, that carries more weight than anything Aptos or Hexens could say on their own.
Why cheap fees and huge volume make the bug worse Throughput stops being a marketing line here and starts behaving like a risk multiplier. Hexens ran the attack against a cluster of more than 30 validator nodes, set up to mirror the real network, on a server rig that cost about $3,000 and stood in for roughly a third of the validator set. It worked 17 or 18 times out of 20, with no insider access or special permissions required.
Fold in the live figures and the picture sharpens. At a fraction of a cent per transaction, flooding the chain with malicious payloads is close to free. At 16 million transactions a day, with blocks confirming in seconds, an attacker who could forge assets would need only a short window to create them and move them out before anyone reacted. Speed is neutral. The same engine that clears legitimate volume in seconds would clear a fake mint-and-transfer run at the same pace, and the humans running the network cannot react that fast.
That is the part the burn-metrics post accidentally underlined.
Two very different numbers, and why the gap matters Two figures came out of this, and treating them as one is how the story gets distorted. The smaller one is around $250 million, the value held in Aptos DeFi apps that independent firm Grego AI judged to be at direct risk. The larger one is the $70 billion, and it only appears once you follow the flaw outward through cross-chain bridges like Wormhole and LayerZero, stablecoin systems, and the exchanges that trade APT and its wrapped versions.
Bridges are the soft spot. They pool assets from several chains at once, so a forged-asset event that starts on Aptos could, in the worst modeled case, drain money that originally came from Ethereum. The $70 billion is a worst-case total built on a stack of assumptions, not cash that was ever sitting there to grab in one clean move.
Figure What it represents Source $250M Value in Aptos DeFi apps at direct risk Grego AI $70B Worst-case systemic risk across bridges, stablecoins, exchanges Hexens $3,000 Server cost to simulate roughly a third of validators Hexens $1M Maximum Aptos bug bounty payout tier Aptos bug bounty program Aptos Labs does not dispute the report itself. It confirms the February 25 notification through the bug bounty program and says the issue was already being worked on internally. What it contests is the severity, arguing that real network conditions made the exploit much harder to pull off than the test setup implied, and putting real-world exploitability at “extremely low.” That claim runs straight into Gupta’s independent validation, and the two positions have not been reconciled in public.
There is a second gap worth flagging, and it is about incentives rather than code. The bounty caps at $1 million. An exploit of this kind would fetch many multiples of that on the black market, and Hexens disclosed anyway, which is the entire point of running a bounty.
The systemic-threat reading The resilience reading A $3,000 setup could threaten a top-tier layer-1 Patched within hours, no network disruption A core bug hints at category risk for Move chains Aptos says real conditions made exploitability very low One flaw could reach bridge and stablecoin assets The bounty steered a white-hat outcome over a sale What the APT chart is doing while the debate runs Traders have mostly shrugged this off. On the 4-hour Aptos/USD chart from Coinbase, pulled via TradingView, APT changed hands near $0.635 on July 7, holding above its 50-period moving average at $0.6061 and its 100-period line at $0.6147, while running into the 200-period average at $0.6410 as resistance overhead. A moving average is just the average closing price over that many candles, and this layout points to a real bounce that has not yet cleared the bigger downtrend, the one that dragged APT from roughly $1.00 in mid-May to about $0.55.
The RSI, a gauge of buying pressure that runs from 0 to 100, sat at 58.77, above the neutral 50 mark but nowhere near the 70 line that signals an overheated market. CoinMarketCap had APT up 9.91 percent on the week at $0.6339, so the disclosure looks like a weight on sentiment rather than a trigger for real selling.
The fix that outlasts this news cycle Builders carry the near-term load. Anyone running an app on Aptos has a reason to re-check how their code handles the kind of edge case Hexens found, and big investors may keep a slightly higher risk premium on Move-based tokens like APT and SUI while they take another look at the network’s foundations.
Two things, though, are likely to stick around after the coverage fades. The first is the bounty ceiling. A $1 million cap looks increasingly small next to the value it is meant to protect, and projects competing with black-market buyers may have little choice but to raise it. The second is a shift in the question researchers actually ask. For years the bragging rights were about how many transactions a chain can push through. This incident nudges the focus toward the opposite skill: how quickly a network can stop itself. Fast chains increasingly need automatic “kill switches” that freeze cross-chain transfers the instant something looks wrong, because once a human notices, the transactions have already gone through.
Aptos is about to run that experiment on itself. A proposal to hide transaction details until after they confirm, which would make front-running harder, is already moving through community voting, while other upgrades chase even faster confirmation times. Every one of those adds speed and adds value at stake, the same combination the Hexens disclosure showed can turn a single bug into a systemic one. Whether Move’s next security moment reads as reassurance or repeat comes down to one thing: whether these upgrades ship with the kind of built-in safeguards this episode made the case for.a
The crypto market will welcome tokens worth more than $776.3 million in the second week of July 2026. Major projects, including Pump.fun (PUMP), Aptos (APT), and RedStone (RED) will release significant new token supplies.
These unlocks could introduce market volatility and influence short-term price movements. So, here’s a breakdown of what to watch.
1. Pump.fun (PUMP) Unlock Date: July 12 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 82.5 billion PUMP Released Supply: 430 billion PUMP Total Supply: 1 trillion PUMP Pump.fun is a Solana-based platform that lets anyone create and trade meme coins instantly for a fee. It uses a fair-launch model with bonding curves that price tokens by demand, removing pre-mines and early allocations.
The protocol will unlock 82.5 billion PUMP tokens into the market on July 12. Moreover, the supply is worth approximately $134.65 million. It represents 29.23% of the released supply.
PUMP Crypto Token Unlock in July. Source: TokenomistThe team will receive 50 billion tokens. Meanwhile, existing investors will get 32.5 billion PUMP.
2. Aptos (APT) Unlock Date: July 12 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 11.31 million APT Released Supply: 1.71 billion APT Total supply: 2.56 billion APT (Y2035) Aptos is a Layer-1 blockchain platform designed for scalability, security, and efficiency in decentralized applications (dApps) and Web3 ecosystems. It utilizes the Move programming language to enable high-throughput transactions and smart contract execution.
Aptos will release 11.31 million tokens on July 12. The tokens are worth $7.15 million. It represents 0.66% of the released supply.
APT Crypto Token Unlock in July. Source: TokenomistThe team will award 3.96 million APT to core contributors. The community and investors will get 3.21 million and 2.81 million tokens, respectively. Additionally, Aptos will allocate 1.33 million altcoins to the foundation.
3. RedStone (RED) Unlock Date: July 6 Number of Tokens to be Unlocked: 40.85 million RED Released Supply: 416.6 million RED Total Supply: 1 billion RED RedStone is a modular blockchain oracle protocol that feeds trusted, real-time external data into smart contracts and decentralized finance (DeFi) applications across multiple blockchains.
The team will release 40.85 million tokens on July 6. The tokens are worth $4.16 million. Furthermore, they account for 9.8% of the released supply.
RED Crypto Token Unlock in July. Source: TokenomistThe team will split the unlocked supply four ways. Early backers will get 26.42 million tokens. Core contributors will receive 5.56 million RED.
Furthermore, the team will allocate 5.54 million altcoins to the ecosystem and data providers. Lastly, it will direct 3.33 million tokens towards protocol development.
In addition to these three, Linea (LINEA), Babylon (BABY), and Movement (MOVE) will also see new supply enter the market in the second week of July.
BNY Mellon: Urgency for further Federal Reserve tightening has diminished.
Jeff, Senior Macro Strategist at the Bank of New York Mellon, pointed out that weak U.S. labor data and improved inflation metrics have reduced the urgency for the Federal Reserve to implement further monetary tightening. However, this does not resolve lingering questions about whether the growth slowdown is within a controllable range or whether policy expectations have been overly adjusted. He remarked, “The global narrative is growing less unified.” In the U.S., the key question is whether the Federal Reserve can maintain patience without inflation risks reemerging; in Europe, meanwhile, the focus of discussions has shifted from urgent inflation management to issues including economic growth, fiscal credibility, and defense financing.
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Recently, only two whales on Hyperliquid have completed position building for MU, with the average entry price for long positions standing at $1,019.
According to Hyperinsight’s monitoring, following the U.S. stock market’s closure for Independence Day last Friday, U.S. stock trading volumes slowed sharply over the weekend, with MU’s 24-hour volume reaching just $99 million. Only one whale built and held a MU (Micron Technology) position on Hyperliquid over the weekend. This whale’s address (0x93c) was created three days ago and currently only engages in long MU trades on Hyperliquid. Approximately three hours ago, the address opened another long position of 1,319.5 MU with 7x leverage, worth roughly $1.33 million, at an average entry price of $1,002 and a liquidation price of $904. Separately, only one whale also opened a MU position during last Friday’s market closure and has held it since. This whale currently holds a long position valued at approximately $8.31 million, with an average entry price of $1,036, and is currently in a slight unrealized loss.
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DeFi protocol Summer Finance hacked, $6 million in losses
According to Blockaid's monitoring, DeFi protocol Summer Finance is under ongoing attack, with approximately $6 million in assets stolen so far.
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JPMorgan said in a report that uncertainties surrounding Tencent’s WeChat AI Agent include whether it can fully integrate into the WeChat platform, the extent of its transaction permissions, and whether Tencent can build a supply system accessible to AI Agents without relying on existing e-commerce platforms to open inventory. With Tencent launching the beta test for WeChat AI Agent in June, the bank has significantly boosted its confidence in the agent’s value creation framework. The Agent service is now sufficiently visible, enabling a clear distinction between its existing components and areas still under development. This has shifted WeChat AI Agent from an AI initiative with no clear timeline to a phased rollout project with observable milestones. The bank believes the initial impact of WeChat AI Agent’s launch on Tencent’s stock price will likely stem from a reduction in risk premium and higher valuation multiples, rather than short-term earnings per share growth. It assigned Tencent an "Overweight" rating, with a target price of HK$690.
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South Korea is pushing forward civil enforcement rules for virtual assets, with plans to allow courts to seize and liquidate crypto assets.
South Korea’s Supreme Court has issued a legislative notice for the Partial Amendment to the Civil Execution Rules, which will for the first time bring virtual assets under the scope of civil compulsory enforcement. Following a public comment period, the amended rules are set to take effect on October 1, 2026. Key provisions include: Compulsory enforcement of claims for digital asset transfers (courts may launch enforcement via seizure orders, barring third-party debtors like trading platforms from transferring assets to the debtor, while restricting the debtor from disposing of such claims); Compulsory enforcement of digital assets themselves (courts may seize virtual assets held by the debtor, which will be taken over by enforcement officers, with the debtor prohibited from disposal); Liquidation methods: Seized digital assets can be monetized via transfer orders or auction orders. For assets with low liquidity, conversion into other digital assets prior to auction is allowed.
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Garret Jin increases his short position on ZEC, with the position valued at $14.9 million.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, Garret Jin, agent of the "BTC OG Insider Whale", has increased his ZEC short position to 32,759.57 ZEC, worth $14.9 million. Garret still holds a 5x leveraged BTC long position valued at $80 million, currently with a loss exceeding $16.38 million.
PANews news, July 5 — Token Unlocks data shows that tokens including PUMP, HYPE, APT and others will see large unlocks next week, specifically:
Pump.fun (PUMP) will unlock approximately 82.5 billion tokens on July 12 at 10:00 PM Beijing time, representing approximately 29.23% of the circulating supply and worth approximately $125 million;
Hyperliquid (HYPE) will unlock approximately 452,000 tokens on July 6 at 8:00 AM Beijing time, representing approximately 0.2% of the circulating supply and worth approximately $30.9 million;
Aptos (APT) will unlock approximately 11.31 million tokens on July 12 at 10:00 PM Beijing time, representing approximately 0.66% of the circulating supply and worth approximately $6.9 million;
RedStone (RED) will unlock approximately 40.85 million tokens on July 7 at midnight Beijing time, representing approximately 9.8% of the circulating supply and worth approximately $4.1 million;
Movement (MOVE) will unlock approximately 165 million tokens on July 9 at 8:00 PM Beijing time, representing approximately 4.29% of the circulating supply and worth approximately $2 million;
Linea (LINEA) will unlock approximately 1.08 billion tokens on July 10 at 7:00 PM Beijing time, representing approximately 3.63% of the circulating supply and worth approximately $2.7 million;
io.net (IO) will unlock approximately 13.29 million tokens on July 11 at 8:00 PM Beijing time, representing approximately 3.61% of the circulating supply and worth approximately $2.3 million.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
A blockchain that processes billions in daily transactions came within a few hundred dollars of a potential catastrophe. Aptos Labs patched a critical flaw in its Move virtual machine after security researchers demonstrated that a simulated attack could succeed nearly 90% of the time using nothing more than a modest server setup.
The vulnerability, a so-called stale-cache bug, was reported by blockchain security firm Hexens on February 25, 2026. Aptos deployed a fix to mainnet within hours, followed by a public pull request on February 27 that documented the patch and its relationship to the company’s bug bounty program.
What the bug actually did The flaw sat inside the Move virtual machine, the execution environment that processes every smart contract on the network. The bug allowed an attacker to potentially hijack on-chain structs and authority resources, meaning someone could manipulate the core data structures that define who owns what on the blockchain.
Hexens researchers demonstrated proof-of-concept attacks using a server setup costing roughly $3,000, with individual attack attempts running into the low hundreds of dollars. The success rate in simulations hit nearly 90%.
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Hexens estimated the systemic risk at $70 billion, accounting for stablecoins, cross-chain bridges, and DeFi protocols built on or connected to Aptos. Bridges are particularly sensitive targets because they hold pooled assets from multiple chains, meaning a single successful exploit can drain funds that originated elsewhere.
Polygon’s CTO Mudit Gupta independently reviewed the researchers’ proof-of-concept and validated their findings.
Aptos’s response and the dispute that followed No user funds were lost during the incident. Aptos Labs moved from discovery to mainnet patch in hours.
Aptos disputed claims about the bug’s exploitability under actual mainnet conditions, arguing that real-world constraints would make a successful attack harder than the simulated environment suggested. That position sits in tension with Gupta’s independent validation of the proof-of-concept.
The public pull request on February 27 documented the technical fix and formalized the connection to Aptos’s bug bounty program, which offers rewards of up to $1 million for critical vulnerability disclosures.
What investors and builders should watch The $70 billion systemic risk figure represents the maximum theoretical exposure if an attacker could chain together every vulnerable pathway simultaneously. A $3,000 server and a few hundred dollars per attempt is a low barrier for an adversary targeting a high-value network. Protocols that rely on Aptos for settlement, particularly cross-chain bridges, should treat this disclosure as a prompt to audit their own dependencies.
The Aptos bug bounty ceiling of $1 million for critical finds is competitive, but given that this particular bug carried a theoretical exposure in the tens of billions, a researcher who could have sold this vulnerability on a grey market for significantly more chose responsible disclosure instead.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Blockchain security firm Hexens has disclosed a critical vulnerability in Aptos’ Move virtual machine, detected in February this year, that theoretically could put roughly $70 billion in crypto assets at risk. However, the Aptos team patched the mainnet within hours of the vulnerability being disclosed, with no user funds lost. Hexens said the flaw stems from a "stale-cache" issue in the Move VM, which can cause type confusion, letting attackers seize critical permissions including stablecoin minting, cross-chain bridges, and DeFi protocols. In simulation tests, the research team used only a ~$3,000 server to set up the environment, hitting a ~90% attack success rate without requiring validator node permissions or internal access. Aptos responded that it fixed the issue rapidly after receiving the report through its bug bounty program, adding that the vulnerability has very low exploitability in real-world networks and poses no actual harm to users or funds. Hexens warned that malicious exploitation could extend risks beyond the Aptos ecosystem to infrastructure like cross-chain bridges, stablecoins, and centralized exchanges. Independent security firm Grego AI estimates that roughly $250 million in total value locked (TVL) on the Aptos chain was directly affected, with the overall theoretical risk exposure peaking at around $70 billion.
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Ethical hackers from security firm Hexens discovered a flaw in the Aptos blockchain that was patched but could have put up to $70 billion in digital assets at systemic risk, including stablecoins and cross-chain bridges.Researchers simulated the attack with a over-90% success rate under real network conditions, using a well-provisioned server setup that cost just $3,000 to simulate about 1/3 of the validator network, and the attack required no insider access or special permissions.The vulnerability was reported through emergency security channels on Feb. 25, and a patch was deployed within days to prevent any funds from being lost.A $3,000 server was enough for a blockchain security researcher to simulate an attack path they say could have put as much as $70 billion in crypto infrastructure at risk.
At the center of the disclosure was a flaw in Aptos, a layer-1 blockchain built on Move, the smart contract language used by Aptos and Sui, that stems from Facebook’s shelved Diem project.
In late February, researchers at the blockchain security firm Hexens reported a critical vulnerability in the Aptos Move virtual machine, the execution environment that processes smart contracts on the chain, to the project’s development team. Hexens identified what it described as a "stale-cache bug" leading to a type-confusion vulnerability, a condition in which software can be tricked into treating one type of onchain resource as another.The
Aptos team did patch the vulnerability when it was flagged, and no funds were lost.
“Aptos Labs was notified of a potential issue through our bug bounty program on February 25 that was already being triaged internally at the time," an Aptos spokesperson told CoinDesk. "A fix was developed, tested, and deployed to mainnet within hours of discovery. No users or funds were impacted at any point."
The Aptos spokesperson also disputed the practical exploitability of the bug to CoinDesk. "Our analysis determined the bug would have extremely low exploitability in real world conditions."
However, the details of what researchers found offer a sobering look at how close the ecosystem came to a potentially industry-altering event.
The sensitivity of this class of bug comes down to how the Move language handles authority. Protocol permissions in Move, including the right to mint a stablecoin, control a bridge, or administer a lending market, are often stored directly as onchain resources. If those resources are compromised, the damage does not stop at one protocol. It extends to everything that trusts them.
Hexens' researchers offered a practical analogy to the bug: it is roughly comparable to a bug on an Ethereum-style chain that would allow attacker-controlled code to write into storage belonging to other contracts, bypassing the type-system guarantees that Move was specifically designed to uphold.
Mudit Gupta, CTO at Polygon, independently reviewed the proof-of-concept materials and said the exploit held up. "It ran as claimed, and the exploit made sense," he told CoinDesk. "It required a few conditions to be met, which it seems like they did on the mainnet."
Meanwhile, Grego AI, which independently verified Hexens' proof-of-concept, calculated that approximately $250 million in Aptos-native TVL was directly at risk based on the near-90% success rate, separate from broader cross-chain exposure.
The $70 billion riskThe vulnerability, discovered by Vahe Karapetyan, CTO and co-founder of Hexens, could, if left unchecked, have exposed a far larger systemic risk surface across bridges, stablecoins, DeFi protocols and centralized exchanges, costing billions and creating a crisis far beyond Aptos itself.
And all it would've taken was a few thousand dollars' worth of servers.
The total cost to spin up the infrastructure needed to run this experiment was approximately $3,000 for a server that simulated an environment designed to approximate Aptos mainnet conditions. Although if a malicious attacker were to actually go through the exploit, it would have required considerably less, without requiring validator access, insider knowledge or privileged protocol permissions.
The team ran the exploit path roughly 20 times in a simulated environment and succeeded 17 or 18 times. The two or three failed attempts didn't stop the network, meaning the attacker could have simply had another window to try again.
The simulation was built to closely approximate real network conditions, using a cluster of more than 30 validator nodes, a mainnet-shaped stake distribution, organic transaction traffic and heavy execution contention. The Hexens team also tested what they call "non-armed calibration techniques": dry runs that measured mempool and block-construction conditions before committing to an armed attempt. The firm said those steps materially reduced the uncertainty introduced by the exploit's probabilistic elements, making the attack path more reliable in practice.
Based on public data collected at the time of reporting, Hexens assessed direct and first-order protocol exposure on Aptos, covering DeFi protocols, tokenized assets, stablecoin infrastructure and liquid-staking systems, at low single-digit billions.
In such exploits, however, the broader risk could've been greater, as blockchain-level compromises rarely stop at the affected chain.
Hexens assessed that the broader first-order systemic risk was approximately $70 billion — a huge number that includes value accessible through bridges, cross-chain messaging systems, stablecoin administration flows and centralized exchanges.
Grego AI noted that the exploit could also be used to steal protocol capabilities, including those held by LayerZero, Wormhole and USDC's CCTP. "If malicious actors had access to this bug, they would have been able to take all [the] TVL that they want[ed]," said Justus Hanna, CEO at Grego AI.
The simulation shows the industry remains vulnerable to hidden bugs in the blockchain technology.
If an attacker had actually found and exploited the bug, in theory, it could have easily dwarfed the massive $1.5 billion stolen in a Bybit hack last year. Most recently, in June, Zcash (ZEC) plummeted 38% after developers revealed a critical bug that had lurked undetected in its privacy pool for four years, one that could have allowed an attacker to print unlimited counterfeit tokens without anyone knowing. Before that, nine-figure bridge hacks and protocol exploits drained liquidity pools and rattled confidence in the infrastructure underpinning the broader market.
It’s worth noting that $70 billion is an estimate based on minting a mammoth amount of USDC stablecoin and using Circle's Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) to move it across chains. If a malicious attacker did this, and given how large the number is, it’s also likely a company like Circle would halt USDC transfers, although that has come under scrutiny recently as the stablecoin issuer said it doesn't freeze assets without legal authorization. So, in theory, if everyone stepped in, the entire $70 billion figure likely wouldn't be achieved—but it would still have rocked the industry nonetheless.
What this proof-of-concept testing demonstrated was access to the kinds of authority that sit at the top of cross-chain systems: bridge capabilities, signer capabilities, master-minter roles and protocol accounting state. Researchers said they validated a takeover of a master-minter-style role and demonstrated the use of a legitimate administration path, stopping short of actually minting tokens but showing why such roles belong in the threat model. The dominant vector into the broader surface runs through centralized exchanges, specifically the Aptos bridge pathways that connect onchain activity to exchange deposit crediting.
Response and disclosureThe same day Hexens filed its report, a "SEAL911" emergency warroom was opened to coordinate the response. SEAL911 is a volunteer security group that has become a key first-responder layer across the crypto ecosystem.
The vendor was notified hours after the warroom opened, and four major downstream projects were alerted that afternoon, each receiving local-runnable proof-of-concept material and analysis of relevant authority patterns.
A public pull request reflecting the patch became available on February 27. Aptos stated that a private-validator patch had been deployed before the public commit.
Hexens, meanwhile, says it has not received a technical rebuttal or evidence-based argument disputing the demonstrated impact classes. The firm claims that the main concern relayed back to the researchers involved the probabilistic aspects of the exploit, precisely what the team's calibration work was designed to address.
While no funds were stolen, the simulation showed that in a blockchain-level compromise, rate limits, issuer freezes, bridge controls, exchange monitoring and validator patches are not secondary safeguards. They can become the boundary between a contained bug and a market-wide exploit.
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Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Jun 30, 2026
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Why it matters:
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Aptos Labs has joined more than 140 companies, including Visa, Mastercard, Coinbase, and BlackRock, in backing the launch of Open USD, a new stablecoin designed to solve persistent cost and access problems in global payments. The @Aptos network is listed alongside other blockchain infrastructure providers as one of the platforms on which the token will eventually be available.
A New Economic Model for Stablecoins Open USD charges no fees to mint or redeem, even at scale, eliminating a cost barrier that has slowed institutional stablecoin adoption for treasury and payments teams operating at high volume. That is a deliberate break from existing products. Revenue from reserve economics is shared with companies that grow adoption, with most revenue generated from reserves returned to participants after a small management fee, inverting the standard issuer-capture approach in which the issuing company retains float income on dollar-backed assets as its primary revenue stream.
The token, ticker OUSD, will be operated by Open Standard, an independent company whose board is composed of the stablecoin's partners. Zach Abrams, co-founder and CEO of Stripe-owned stablecoin infrastructure company Bridge, leads Open Standard as its founding CEO.
Broad Industry Coalition and Market Context Payment networks and processors including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Stripe, and Adyen are involved, alongside major global banks such as BlackRock, BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia. Technology companies including Google, Samsung Electronics, IBM, and Shopify have also signed on, as has a broad swath of the crypto industry, including Aptos Labs, Solana, Coinbase, Ripple, Aave, and Fireblocks.
Open USD is planned on four blockchain networks, including Solana, Polygon, Aptos Labs, and Stellar, when it goes live later in 2026. The launch arrives as the broader stablecoin market continues to expand. The total stablecoin market cap has surpassed $300 billion, reflecting growing demand for blockchain-based payment infrastructure from both crypto-native companies and traditional financial institutions.
Circle was the news's clearest casualty, with CRCL stock falling to a four-month low and closing down 17.55% on the day of the announcement. The reaction reflects how directly Open USD's model threatens Circle's core business, which relies on retaining the interest earned on USDC's reserves rather than sharing it with distributors.
Sources:
The Block: Visa, Stripe, Coinbase and more join Open USD stablecoin that shares reserve revenue
Blockhead: Visa, Stripe, BlackRock among 140 firms backing new Open USD stablecoin
CoinLaw: Open Standard Launches Open USD Stablecoin Backed by 140 Companies
PANews, June 26 – According to TheStreet, stablecoin-native payment company Daya has completed a $2.4 million Pre-Seed funding round led by Hivemind Capital, with participation from Lattice, Alliance, Globelink, and Aptos Foundation. Daya was co-founded by Nigerian entrepreneurs Aleph L and Paul Joe, who previously co-founded Helicarrier (an early African crypto exchange and stablecoin remittance platform) and have held roles at Circle, Microsoft, and Lyrik Ventures.
It is reported that Daya aims to build a financial operations layer for cross-border businesses in Africa, integrating local banks, foreign exchange, crypto on/off ramps, and payment processors through a single dashboard to automatically route the optimal payment path.
A Central African nation with a GDP of roughly $12 billion just signed a deal to manage environmental assets potentially worth eight times that figure. The Republic of Chad inked a Memorandum of Understanding with Luxembourg-based Xange.com on June 25, designating the Aptos blockchain as the verification backbone for what could become a $100 billion-plus pipeline of sovereign climate credits.
What the deal actually involves The partnership centers on Xange’s two core products. The first is its digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification system, known as dMRV. The second is its Unified Environmental Market Infrastructure Solutions platform, or UEMIS. Together, they’re designed to track, verify, and manage environmental assets at the sovereign level.
The technical mechanism here involves something called Immutable Metadata Digital Certifications, or IMDCs. These are cryptographically verifiable records hosted on the Aptos blockchain, designed to ensure that mitigation data remains auditable and resistant to manipulation.
Aptos was chosen as the verification layer for a straightforward reason: throughput. The blockchain is built for high-speed transaction processing, which matters when you’re trying to manage potentially millions of individual environmental data points across a country spanning over 1.2 million square kilometers.
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The Decibel Foundation rounds out the partnership by providing on-chain market infrastructure. An earlier collaboration announced on May 6 between Xange, Aptos Labs, and Decibel established the IMDC standard itself, making this Chad MoU the first major sovereign deployment of that framework.
The $100 billion number, in context The projected pipeline of Internationally Transferable Mitigation Outcomes, or ITMOs, is valued at over $100 billion. ITMOs are essentially the currency of Article 6.2. When Country A reduces emissions beyond its own targets, it can sell those surplus reductions to Country B, which can then count them toward its own Paris Agreement commitments.
For perspective, the global voluntary carbon market was valued at roughly $2 billion in recent years. The compliance market is much larger, but sovereign ITMO trading under Article 6.2 is still in its infancy. A $100 billion pipeline is aspirational. It represents the theoretical ceiling, not a guaranteed outcome.
What this means for investors For the Aptos ecosystem specifically, this partnership adds a layer of real-world utility narrative. Being selected as the verification infrastructure for sovereign-level climate assets is a fundamentally different value proposition than hosting another DeFi protocol or NFT marketplace.
This project is still in its initial phases, focused on deploying infrastructure rather than issuing or trading assets. There’s no immediate revenue generation here. No tokens are being minted against Chad’s forests tomorrow.
Several blockchain projects have positioned themselves in the environmental asset space, including Toucan Protocol on Polygon and KlimaDAO. But sovereign-level partnerships are rare. Most blockchain climate projects operate at the project level, verifying individual reforestation plots or clean energy installations.
Sovereign partnerships carry political risk that project-level deals don’t. Chad ranks among the world’s most fragile states by multiple governance indices. A Memorandum of Understanding is not a binding contract, and the path from MoU to functioning infrastructure to actual ITMO trading is long and uncertain.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Aptos, BNB Chain and 14 Blockchains Can Freeze User Funds Bybit researchers found that 16 major chains include mechanisms that allow accounts to be frozen, raising new questions about decentralization and protocol-level control.
(Photo of Shubham Dhage on Unsplash)
Posted November 13, 2025 at 8:47 am EST.
Blockchain researchers at Bybit’s ‘Lazarus Security Lab’ have found that 16 blockchains have the ability to freeze user funds.
Five chains, including BNB Chain and VeChain, were hardcoded with freezing capabilities at the protocol level.
Prominent layer 1 blockchains Aptos, EOS and Sui were among the 10 networks with a config-based freezing capability, meaning validators or foundations can restrict accounts.
This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.
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Bybit’s research also suggested that an additional 19 blockchains, including Arbitrum, Cosmos, Axelar, Babylon, Celestia, and Kava, could easily implement these controls if desired.
“The presence of these mechanisms fundamentally challenges the foundational principles of a decentralized ecosystem and necessitates further discourse within the blockchain community, but it has prevented hackers from stealing funds,” noted the researchers.
PANews reported on November 19th that Binance's Earn Earn program has added five new tokens to its list: Tron (TRX), Aptos (APT), IOTA (IOTA), ApeCoin (APE), and MultiversX (EGLD). With these additions, the tokens currently supporting Earn Earn Earn are: BNB, SOL, TRX, ADA, SUI, TON, NEAR, APT, POL, ALGO, IOTA, S, APE, EGLD, and AXS. To earn Earn Earn Earn rewards, users must meet the minimum holding requirements for each token. There is also a cap on the amount of holdings eligible for earnings; holdings exceeding this cap will not earn additional rewards.
A crypto rally is happening today, with Bitcoin and most altcoins being in the green.
Bitcoin (BTC) price jumped to $68,000, while the market capitalization of all coins rose by 6% to over $2.34 trillion.
Filecoin (FIL) rose by over 25% to $1.10, while Polkadot (DOT) jumped by 21%. Other tokens like Aptos (APT), Morpho (MORPHO), Uniswap (UNI), and Avalanche (AVAX) soared by over 15%.
Bitcoin and these altcoins jumped as investors embraced a risk-on sentiment across the board. For example, American stocks, including the Dow Jones, Nasdaq 100, and S&P 500, rose by 250, 260, and 35 points, respectively.
The risk-on sentiment happened as investors bought the dip as they waited for the Nvidia earnings, which will come out after the US market closes. NVIDIA is the most influential American company because of its size and role in the artificial intelligence industry.
Additionally, the tokens jumped as the futures open interest rebounded cautiously, a sign that demand is rising. Open interest rose by over 6% in the last 24 hours to $99.4 billion, much higher than this week’s low of $93 billion.
Filecoin’s open interest rose to $154 million, while Morpho soared to over $34 million. The futures open interest of other tokens like Aptos and Polkadot continued soaring.
Still, it is too early to determine whether this is the start of a new crypto bull run or whether it is just a dead-cat bounce. In the past, most crypto market rallieshave turned out to be dead-cat bounces.
A dead-cat bounce is a situation where an asset in a free-fall rebounds temporarily and then resumes the downtrend.
The Frax community has approved a proposal to use BlackRock’s Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL) as collateral for its upcoming frxUSD stablecoin.
The proposal, identified as FIP-418, received unanimous support after a six-day voting period.
The Increasing Demand for BlackRock’s BUIDL FundBlackRock’s BUIDL fund manages over $648 million in assets and provides yield-generating opportunities for frxUSD holders. Achieving this approval is a significant step for the Frax Protocol.
BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, with over $10.4 trillion in global assets. So, being backed by its tokenized fund can potentially minimize counterparty risk for the stablecoin’s collateral.
Frax Portocol’s Proposal Receives 100% Votes to Use the BUIDL Fund. Source: SnapshotAlso, this move reflects a growing trend among stablecoin projects to introduce yield-bearing options that reward holders financially while maintaining stability.
Securitize, the brokerage firm managing the BUIDL fund, initially proposed the idea on December 22. The frxUSD stablecoin will be pegged to the US dollar at a 1:1 ratio and backed by US government securities through BUIDL.
Meanwhile, other projects have also adopted BUIDL as collateral for stablecoins. Ethena Labs launched the USDtb (USDTB) stablecoin on December 16, backed by the BUIDL fund. The asset’s current market capitalization is $70 million.
In November, Curve Finance enabled users to mint Elixir’s deUSD (DEUSD) yield-bearing stablecoin using BUIDL as collateral.
Distribution of BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund. Source: DeFilLamaThe Rise of Real-World Asset TokenizationIn late 2024, BlackRock expanded BUIDL to five major blockchains. This included Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, and Polygon.
These developments align with BlackRock’s broader digital asset strategy, which includes initiatives like the IBIT Bitcoin ETF and tokenized funds.
Overall, the adoption of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) continues to grow. In 2024, several major players achieved milestones in this area, setting the stage for further developments in 2025.
For example, Tether plans to roll out its Hadron RWA tokenization platform by February. This will offer institutional investors direct access via APIs.
Also, Hedera has integrated Chainlink Data Feeds and Proof of Reserve mechanisms to enhance its DeFi and RWA capabilities.
RWA Tokenization Global Market Overview. Source: RWA.XYZIn short, the Frax community’s decision to integrate BlackRock’s BUIDL fund into its stablecoin highlights the increasing overlap between traditional finance and blockchain-based innovations.
This shift reflects the potential for real-world asset tokenization to transform the stablecoin industry.
A new report from Taraxa claims that many leading blockchain projects have dramatically overestimated their throughput. The study shows that major blockchain networks like Sonic, Solana, and Aptos have a significant gap between theoretical TPS (transaction per second) and the actual max TPS on the mainnet.
The findings suggest a massive overestimation of network efficiency and speed for these networks.
Most Blockchains Overestimate EfficiencyTaraxa, a Layer-1 blockchain, conducted an extensive analysis of several leading blockchains. It’s evident that most networks publicize new advances in their blockchain’s throughput, but many of these tests are conducted in ideal conditions. This study wished to observe how the most ‘bullish’ claims compare to regular operating conditions.
“Investors, developers, and users deserve transparency. The blockchain industry has long been obsessed with theoretical performance figures, but numbers generated in a lab mean little if they can’t be replicated in real-world conditions,” Taraxa co-founder Steven Pu said in an exclusive press release shared with BeInCrypto.
This investigation sought to assess these real-world conditions through a metric called “TPS per dollar.” Taraxa compared a blockchain’s transactions per second to the actual cost of running a validator node and used that to determine actual throughput.
This would be a more accurate way to determine how well these firms can live up to expectations.
Case in point, the study looked at the highest-ever recorded throughput on several blockchain projects, with a few important caveats. Permissioned and sharded networks were excluded, and some specific transactions (like voting transactions) were discarded to avoid number inflation.
Then, these figures were compared to developer-provided TPS claims:
Blockchain Projects Overestimate Throughput. Source: TaraxaThe results of this test revealed extremely high exaggeration. Sonic (formerly Fantom) reported blockchain throughput over 100x its actual capabilities, but the industry average was 20x. The L1 blockchain space is full of fierce competition, providing a clear incentive for this systematic inflation.
“Our research also shows that many networks require expensive hardware just to achieve modest transaction rates, which is neither technically impressive nor decentralized. By focusing on verifiable data from live networks, we can shift the conversation toward meaningful performance metrics,” Pu added.
Comparing TPS to dollar costs also provided interesting data. Solana had the highest costs by far, but it used these resources efficiently to maintain a high blockchain throughput. Taraxa also claimed that it had the best ratio in the entire industry by wide margins, which may impact its reasons for conducting the study and using this metric.
Regardless of the firm’s desire to market its own capabilities, blockchain throughput estimations seem heavily inflated across the whole industry. Taraxa has been analyzing several crucial Web3 sectors, such as the AI industry, and its results seem valuable.
Hopefully, some hard data here will encourage more realistic reporting from these projects.
A newly created wallet withdrew 17,675 ETH from Binance, valued at $28.58 million.
According to monitoring by Onchain Lens, a newly created wallet withdrew 17,675 ETH from Binance, valued at $28.58 million.
5 minutes ago
JPMorgan Chase raised its S&P 500 target to 7,800 points, while warning of an overcrowded AI trade.
JPMorgan Chase has raised its year-end outlook for U.S. stocks, while cautioning investors that the overcrowding in AI-related momentum stocks is becoming the market’s most vulnerable segment. The JPMorgan strategy team led by Dubravko Lakos-Bujas lifted its 2026 year-end target for the S&P 500 from 7,600 to 7,800 points, citing continued upward revisions to corporate earnings expectations and nearly doubling of AI-related capital expenditures. The bank noted that consensus earnings expectations for both 2026 and 2027 have been revised up by roughly 10% since the start of the year, a magnitude typically only seen in the recovery phase after a recession or major shock. However, JPMorgan does not interpret this upward revision as a risk-free rally. The bank pointed out that low-quality growth stocks, speculative growth stocks, and second- and third-tier AI-related concept stocks have become "extremely overcrowded," and a pullout of capital could trigger a rapid correction. The strategists also noted that rising equity supply in the coming quarters and potentially tight monetary policy could cap further valuation expansion. On the allocation front, JPMorgan recommends a barbell strategy: holding high-quality growth stocks and stocks directly benefiting from AI on one end, and low-volatility, high-quality stocks as a portfolio buffer on the other. The bank remains bullish on tech, select industrials, utilities, defense, banks, and some healthcare growth stocks, but believes the market’s upward trajectory will not be linear.
5 minutes ago
Preview: The U.S. May core PCE data will be released at 20:30 tonight, and is projected to hit its highest level since October 2023.
The Fed’s key inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, will be released at 20:30 tonight, with markets expecting a sharp rise in May inflation that could reignite rate hike bets. The headline PCE year-over-year growth rate is projected to hit 4.1% in May, up from 3.8% in April and marking its highest level since 2023. Core PCE, which excludes food and energy, is forecast to rise to 3.4% year-over-year, up from 3.3% in April and its highest reading since October 2023. Core PCE has remained above the Fed’s 2% inflation target since 2021. The recent short-term inflation uptick was driven mainly by surging gasoline prices amid the Iran conflict in May. Oil prices have since edged lower following the signing of a peace deal between the U.S. and Iran, but core inflation has strengthened in tandem, indicating that price pressures are not solely tied to geopolitical oil shocks. Data from the CME FedWatch Tool shows that as of Wednesday, markets are pricing in a 34% probability of a 25 basis point rate hike in July. Aditya Bhave, U.S. economist at Bank of America Securities, noted that the recent inflation rebound stems in part from tariffs and one-off disruptions, but successive supply shocks have eroded the Fed’s patience, while deflationary room in the housing sector has largely been exhausted. Data shows that core PCE dipped to 2.6% in April, its lowest level since 2022, but annualized core PCE growth over the past three and six months has hovered near 3.8%.
5 minutes ago
SK Hynix plans to list on NASDAQ on July 10: A crypto whale opens 90% of its bullish positions in a single day, with all $21.27 million in long positions in unrealized profit.
According to Hyperinsight’s monitoring, SK Hynix officially announced its U.S. listing date today, targeting a July 10 debut on the NASDAQ. The company had previously disclosed a over $29 billion listing fundraising plan yesterday afternoon. Driven by listing optimism, SKHX surged 14% intraday, hitting $1930 at press time, with a daily trading volume of $407 million and open interest of $237 million. Since the news broke yesterday, 10 whales have built positions in SKHX on Hyperliquid, 9 of which opened long positions totaling around $21.27 million, at an average entry price of ~$1797.8 and average unweighted liquidation price of ~$1390.6. With price gains, all 9 long positions are now in unrealized profit. Market data shows that positions of over $1 million amount to roughly $140 million, with a long-short ratio (longs/shorts) of ~0.715. The average entry price for longs is ~$1672, while shorts average ~$1640. The nearest short liquidation threshold stands at $2149, just $200 away from the current price, mounting short-side pressure. -HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your Telegram group, set it as admin (enable message sending permission) to auto-sync on-chain updates.
5 minutes ago
The "Retail vs. Wall Street" concept-linked token WEN continues its strong run, rising over 18% in after-hours trading.
According to Bitget market data, Wendy's (WEN) rallied 25.66% in the regular trading session, then climbed an extra 18.96% in after-hours trading, now changing hands at $9.35. Earlier reports noted that Serenity took to Twitter to mock the latest meme stock movement unfolding on Reddit's high-risk trading communities, targeting U.S. fast-food chain Wendy's. The Reddit community's meme warning reads: "If Wendy's goes bankrupt, we'll all be out of jobs, and after losing all our trading money, we'll have to work behind Wendy's trash cans." Serenity later clarified that they hold no positions, only found the activity amusing, and added they were unsure if the campaign would succeed. Wendy's holds a special cultural status on Reddit's WallStreetBets community; for years, "working behind Wendy's trash cans" has been a staple joke among retail investors mocking their trading losses.
5 minutes ago
Danske Bank: Federal Reserve may raise interest rates at least twice
Danske Bank senior analyst Kirstine Kundby-Nielsen and chief analyst Jens Peter Sorensen stated in a report that they expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to raise interest rates twice, in December 2026 and March 2027 respectively, bringing the federal funds rate to 4.00%-4.25%. "However, we emphasize there is a risk that rate hikes could come earlier and that the number of hikes may exceed two," they said. The first Federal Reserve meeting led by Kevin Warsh sent a clear signal that the Fed is increasingly moving away from forward guidance surrounding future monetary policy decisions. "All signs indicate that (the Fed) is leaning toward having greater discretion in future policy decisions," the Danske Bank analysts added. Source: Jin10
With over four years of experience in covering and tracking the financial markets, Sneha Agrawal is a dedicated Crypto Journalist and Editor with passion for researching and writing the crypto pieces. She is currently leading the Block of Fame, here at CoinGape. She likes to keep track of political, legal and financial happenings all around the world - without which she deems her day incomplete. Apart from her Journalistic endeavours, she is a solo traveler, museum goer, and a keen reader of books.
Vertalo, an SEC-registered transfer agent that has spent the better part of a decade building infrastructure for tokenized securities, has added Aptos to its platform. The Layer-1 blockchain now sits alongside Ethereum and Tezos as a supported chain for Vertalo’s Securities Protocol, which handles cap table management, transfer agency functions, and multi-chain tokenization for issuers and fund managers.
What Vertalo actually does, and why this matters Vertalo has been tackling exactly that problem since its founding in 2017. The company achieved SEC registration as a transfer agent in November 2019, operating under File No. 084-06663. Vertalo is one of the few platforms legally authorized to serve as the official record-keeper of who owns what in a tokenized securities structure.
The platform exposes over 1,000 GraphQL API endpoints, giving issuers and fund managers granular programmatic access to cap table data, investor management tools, and compliance workflows. It has partnered with more than 100 issuers over its lifetime, and its own first use case was tokenizing its own equity back in 2018.
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Adding Aptos to this stack means that issuers using Vertalo can now choose to deploy their tokenized securities on a high-throughput Layer-1 network built with the Move programming language, a language originally developed at Meta that was designed with resource safety and formal verification in mind.
Aptos keeps collecting institutional credibility tZERO announced Aptos as a preferred execution layer for tokenized assets on May 12, 2026. DigiShares made a similar move on April 7, 2026, integrating Aptos into its own tokenization platform.
BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, which was approximately $350 million as of late 2025, has exposure to Aptos. Franklin Templeton has similarly shown support for the network.
The RWA tokenization landscape is getting crowded Ethereum still dominates in terms of total tokenized asset value and ecosystem depth. But the fact that multiple regulated platforms are actively adding alternatives tells you something about where the market is heading: multi-chain by necessity, not by ideology.
Vertalo’s approach of supporting multiple chains through a unified Securities Protocol, with consistent cap table management across all of them, is essentially a bet that the future of tokenized securities won’t be a single-chain winner-take-all scenario.
What this means for investors The clustering of integrations from tZERO, DigiShares, and now Vertalo within a compressed timeframe — three major platforms onboarding within roughly six weeks — suggests the network is becoming a default option for compliance-minded builders.
The risk to watch is fragmentation. Multi-chain tokenization can create liquidity silos where the same asset class exists across multiple chains with limited interoperability. Vertalo’s unified cap table approach addresses part of this problem, but cross-chain settlement and secondary market liquidity remain unsolved challenges.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Updated May 29, 2026, 9:15 a.m. Published May 29, 2026, 8:19 a.m.
2 min read
Another targeted attack, this time directed at programmers. (Boitumelo/Unsplash)Summary
A newly discovered supply-chain campaign called TrapDoor has planted more than 34 malicious packages across npm, PyPI and Crates.io to target crypto and cloud developers.The packages, disguised as mundane developer utilities and security tools, were designed to steal SSH keys, wallet files, AWS credentials, GitHub tokens, browser data and other sensitive configuration files.Researchers say the attackers also abused AI configuration files like .cursorrules and CLAUDE.md with hidden instructions, aiming to hijack future AI coding sessions to run fake security scans that exfiltrate secrets.A new crypto-theft campaign is targeting the developers most likely to have wallet keys, cloud credentials and production access sitting on their machines.
Researchers at security firm Socket said earlier this week they identified a supply-chain attack called TrapDoor spread across three major open-source programming registries, with more than 34 malicious packages and hundreds of related versions and artifacts.
A key takeaway is that attackers are becoming more focused. In addition to social engineering, which targets individuals holding key information, supply-chain attacks are built not to catch random retail users but developers. Those are the very people who may have wallet files, SSH keys, GitHub tokens, cloud credentials and production access on the same machine they use to build crypto and AI tools.
Socket did not identify victims or stolen funds, but said the packages were live across npm, PyPI and Crates.io and contained payloads that could steal wallet data, exfiltrate credentials, test AWS and GitHub tokens and leave behind files to keep access active.
The packages programmed in JavaScript, Python and Rust were disguised as developer helpers, security scanners, wallet tools, Solidity utilities, AI prompt packages and Sui or Move build helpers.
Boring by design The names were boring by design. Packages were named "wallet-security-checker," "defi-risk-scanner," "solidity-build-guard," "move-compiler-tools" and "llm-context-compressor," looking like the kind of small utilities a crypto or AI developer might install without much thought.
Once installed, however, the payloads tried to pull far more than package data.
In the npm packages, the malware searched a developer’s machine for private keys, passwords, GitHub tokens and cloud logins. It also tested some stolen credentials, tried to move into other systems through SSH keys and left behind files that could keep the infection active.
SSH keys are login files that developers use to access servers, code repositories and other machines. If stolen, they can let an attacker move from one compromised laptop into a company’s wider infrastructure.
The attack also uses files such as .cursorrules and claude.md, which allow developers to give project-specific instructions to AI coding tools. Socket said the campaign planted hidden instructions using zero-width Unicode characters, apparently trying to make future AI assistant sessions run fake “security scans” that collected and exfiltrated secrets.
That turned the attack from a normal package stealer into something closer to developer-environment malware. The package install is only the first step, with the real target being the workstation, such as wallets, repos, browser data, cloud keys, SSH access and whatever AI coding tools read next.
The Rust packages used malicious build.rs scripts to run during compilation, targeting sui and move developers. PyPI packages executed remote JavaScript on import. Packages on npm used postinstall hooks.
Socket said it reported the packages to affected registries and classified the campaign packages as malicious. The company also warned that the attacker opened pull requests to AI and developer projects, trying to add .cursorrules and CLAUDE.md files through normal open-source contribution paths.
PANews reported on June 4th that Echo Protocol, the Bitcoin infrastructure protocol, announced the full restoration of all its services on Aptos, including lending, strategy, liquidity staking, vault, and other related protocols. The team stated that they have completed a security audit of all contracts deployed on Aptos, focusing on the contracts themselves and administrator permission configurations, and found no potential contract-level risks.
Danske Bank: Federal Reserve may raise interest rates at least twice
Danske Bank senior analyst Kirstine Kundby-Nielsen and chief analyst Jens Peter Sorensen stated in a report that they expect the U.S. Federal Reserve to raise interest rates twice, in December 2026 and March 2027 respectively, bringing the federal funds rate to 4.00%-4.25%. "However, we emphasize there is a risk that rate hikes could come earlier and that the number of hikes may exceed two," they said. The first Federal Reserve meeting led by Kevin Warsh sent a clear signal that the Fed is increasingly moving away from forward guidance surrounding future monetary policy decisions. "All signs indicate that (the Fed) is leaning toward having greater discretion in future policy decisions," the Danske Bank analysts added. Source: Jin10
12 minutes ago
SK Hynix's stock price rise widened to 15.4%, while Samsung Electronics gained 6.3%.
According to Bitget data, SK Hynix’s stock price gain has widened to 15.4%, with Samsung Electronics up 6.3%.
12 minutes ago
The entire cryptocurrency market is down across the board; funding rates indicate BTC remains in bearish territory, while ETH’s bullish sentiment is significantly stronger than BTC’s.
According to HTX market data, Bitcoin is currently trading at $61,684.51, down 1.88% in the past 24 hours; Ethereum is at $1,647.36, down 1.48% over the same period. Current funding rates on major centralized exchanges (CEXs) show a clear divergence between BTC and ETH: BTC rates across all platforms have fallen back into bearish territory, while ETH rates on most platforms remain above the neutral range, indicating significantly stronger bullish sentiment for ETH than BTC. BlockBeats Note: Funding rates are fees set by cryptocurrency trading platforms to maintain the balance between contract prices and underlying asset prices, typically applicable to perpetual contracts. They serve as a fund exchange mechanism between long and short traders; platforms do not collect these fees, instead using them to adjust the cost or return of traders holding contracts, so that contract prices stay close to the underlying asset prices. A funding rate of 0.01% is the benchmark. A rate above 0.01% indicates broad bullish market sentiment, while a rate below 0.005% signals widespread bearish sentiment.
12 minutes ago
South Korea's KOSPI index climbs back above the 9,000 mark, up 6.25% on the day.
According to Bitget data, South Korea’s KOSPI index has returned to the 9,000 level, gaining 6.25% on the day.
12 minutes ago
Silver plunged 6% intraday, breaching the defense of long positions, as a smart money entity reaped $2.16 million in shorting profits.
According to Hyperinsight’s monitoring, the Silver (SILVER) contract on Hyperliquid is currently priced at $56.78, down 6.34% over 24 hours, with a trading volume of $263 million, ranking first in the precious metals sector. Driven by gold prices falling below $4,000 and safe-haven funds flowing back into chip stocks, short sellers have reaped significant profits. Notably, smart money address 0x49e has been shorting Silver on 3x leverage since April 29 at a high of $78.79, holding a position worth $5.77 million, and has already booked a precise profit of $2.16 million (+81%). On-chain Silver whales are overall bearish: the nominal position size of short sellers is approximately 1.5 times that of long positions. The average entry price for short positions is around $65.05, and the current price is 12.7% lower than this level. Long positions are overall trapped, with an average entry price of about $59.75, roughly 5% above the current price. Current short sellers have sufficient safety margins: the nearest short liquidation line stands at $77.18, some 36% above the current price, meaning short sellers face almost no liquidation pressure. Address: 0xe9ffe7698f46f96f980f2877e18c43f5b4165903-HyperInsight Bot is now live. Add @HyperInsightBot to your TG group and set it as an admin (enable message sending permission) to automatically sync on-chain updates.
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China's Supreme People's Procuratorate announced a major drug-related money laundering case: Li Moubo laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after combined punishment for multiple crimes.
On June 25, China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference. Miao Shengming, SPP’s deputy procurator-general, stated that procuratorial organs are thoroughly investigating both self-money laundering and third-party money laundering crimes, and vigorously promoting the recovery of drug-related assets to ensure full coverage in the investigation and punishment of drug-related money laundering offenses. From January 2025 to May 2026, procuratorial bodies nationwide prosecuted more than 1,200 individuals for drug-related money laundering crimes. A notable example is the major cross-border case of drug smuggling, trafficking, transportation and money laundering involving Li Moubo and others, which was supervised by the SPP and handled by Chongqing’s procuratorial organs. Li laundered over 48 million yuan via virtual currency and was sentenced to death after receiving combined punishment for multiple crimes in accordance with the law. (Xinhua News Agency)
Aptos Foundation, HashKey MENA, and Pan-African infrastructure provider Daya launched a pilot program on June 4 to build a regulated B2B stablecoin payment corridor connecting the MENA region with Africa, with settlement happening natively on the Aptos Layer 1 blockchain.
How the corridor actually works HashKey MENA, which operates under the regulatory oversight of Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), anchors the Middle Eastern side of the corridor. On the African end, Daya provides the infrastructure that makes blockchain settlement practical for real-world commerce. Its platform supports fiat on-ramps and off-ramps, including virtual Naira accounts for Nigerian businesses.
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The pilot allows corporations to test compliant settlement solutions. The architecture is designed to address high costs, slow processing times, and chronic liquidity shortfalls.
Why this corridor, why now It’s a B2B corridor with licensed entities on both ends, operating within existing regulatory frameworks. Enterprise adoption of stablecoins has consistently been bottlenecked by compliance concerns rather than technical limitations.
Aptos as the underlying settlement layer is a deliberate choice. The blockchain was built with a focus on throughput and low transaction costs. Its Move programming language, originally developed at Meta’s defunct Diem project, was designed with financial applications in mind from the start.
What this means for investors Aptos ecosystem tokens climbed 5.1% following the announcement, pushing the network’s market capitalization to $4.03 billion. Transaction volumes and concrete adoption metrics have not been disclosed.
The risk calculus is straightforward. Pilot programs fail all the time. Regulatory environments in both MENA and Africa can shift quickly. African regulatory frameworks vary dramatically by country, and scaling beyond Nigeria will require navigating a patchwork of compliance regimes.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
PANews reported on June 7th that, according to Token Unlocks data, tokens such as HOME, WET, and ME will undergo significant unlocking next week, including:
HOME (HOME) will unlock approximately 750 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on June 10th, representing approximately 19.79% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $40.2 million.
HumidiFi (WET) will unlock approximately 256 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on June 9th, representing approximately 111.4% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $14.5 million.
Magic Eden (ME) will unlock approximately 172 million tokens at 8:00 AM Beijing time on June 10th, representing approximately 33.99% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $10.4 million.
Aptos (APT) will unlock approximately 11.31 million tokens at 12:00 PM Beijing time on June 12th, representing about 0.67% of the circulating supply, with a value of approximately $7.6 million.
