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.
Key Highlights The German banking giant intends to roll out regulated cryptocurrency custody services in late 2026, awaiting final regulatory clearance Supported digital assets will include Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDC, EURC, and EURAU for enterprise-level clients With $2.217 trillion in managed assets as of June 30, Deutsche Bank represents significant institutional entry into crypto BaFin authorization remains a prerequisite before the platform becomes operational The bank’s crypto journey began in 2015, with a strategic Taurus partnership formed in 2023 Deutsche Bank, a leading European financial institution, has revealed its intention to launch regulated digital asset custody solutions for institutional investors by the end of 2026.
The Germany-headquartered institution confirmed that its platform will accommodate Bitcoin, Ethereum, and multiple stablecoins such as USDC, EURC, and EURAU. Institutional customers won’t need to develop proprietary technology stacks. The bank will handle wallet administration, private key security, and external transaction processing.
With assets under management totaling $2.217 trillion as of mid-year, and an operational history dating back to 1870, Deutsche Bank represents one of the most established financial entities entering the cryptocurrency custody sector.
Germany will serve as the initial launch market. The service will cater to clients from Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Banking and Investment Banking segments, encompassing institutional asset managers, alternative investment funds, brokerage firms, custody providers, and governmental entities.
According to Gerald Podobnik, Co-Head of Corporate Bank at Deutsche Bank, digital assets should be viewed as an extension of conventional finance rather than a substitute.
Technical Safeguards and Platform Architecture The custody platform will implement hardware-secured key management and maintain distinct hot and cold wallet infrastructures. Additional protective measures include multi-signature authorization protocols and comprehensive backup and disaster recovery systems.
Third-party technology vendors will contribute to certain infrastructure elements. While the bank hasn’t disclosed all partners publicly, Taurus and Bitpanda have been associated with the initiative in previous reports.
The digital asset portfolio may expand following launch. Any new cryptocurrency additions will undergo rigorous vetting, including market demand assessment, internal product authorization, risk evaluation, and compliance verification.
Years in Development Deutsche Bank’s blockchain exploration began nearly a decade ago in 2015. The institution became part of the R3 blockchain consortium in 2016 and had cryptocurrency custody under internal consideration by the close of 2020.
A pivotal partnership with Swiss technology provider Taurus was established in 2023 for custody infrastructure development, coinciding with the bank’s application for German digital asset custody licensing.
Meanwhile, DWS, the bank’s majority-controlled asset management subsidiary, advanced its own initiatives. The Allunity project obtained BaFin e-money authorization in July 2025 and introduced EURAU, the euro-denominated token now included in Deutsche Bank’s custody offering.
Tokenized securities and other financial instruments are under consideration for future phases, though no specific deployment schedule has been announced.
The service remains in pre-launch status. Final authorization under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulatory framework is outstanding. Launch timing, geographical availability, and asset coverage remain subject to modification.
Deutsche Bank isn’t pioneering this territory among European banks. Standard Chartered and BBVA currently provide institutional cryptocurrency custody. Commerzbank obtained its BaFin crypto custody authorization in 2023.
However, Deutsche Bank’s institutional footprint elevates the significance of this development. When a financial institution managing more than $2 trillion begins offering Bitcoin and Ethereum custody, it represents meaningful progress in integrating cryptocurrency into established institutional finance.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin says local artificial intelligence (AI) is close to handling a large share of everyday tasks. He ran Alibaba’s Qwen3.8-Flash-Next on his own laptop and posted the speed results.
Unlike ChatGPT, that setup never contacts a cloud server. The model sits on the machine, and the machine answers the request by itself.
Vitalik Buterin’s Local AI Test Shows Usable SpeedHis laptop uses AMD’s Strix Halo chip. Most computers split the work between a processor and a separate graphics card, and each one keeps its own pool of memory. Strix Halo puts both on a single piece of silicon and lets them share one pool instead.
That design matters because an AI model has to fit into memory before it can run at all. A typical graphics card offers 8 to 24 gigabytes, far too little for a model of this size. Strix Halo machines ship with as much as 128 gigabytes that either half of the chip can use. One laptop can therefore hold a model that until recently needed server hardware.
The speeds he posted are quick enough for ordinary work. Short prompts came back at a comfortable reading pace. Output slowed once a prompt ran to tens of thousands of words, so very long documents remain the weak spot.
Alibaba published the open weights on August 26. The team says the model holds 125 billion parameters yet activates only six billion at a time, which keeps memory demands modest.
Buterin named it Qwen3.8-Flash, though Alibaba ships the downloadable version as Qwen3.8-Flash-Next. Its larger sibling, Qwen3.8-Max, drew strong benchmark scores in August.
Qwen 3.8 flash is truly impressive, and llama.cpp has been rapidly getting better and better at processing it
This is on my laptop (strix halo). I think we're very close to the point where you… pic.twitter.com/v5Ze4Fv5Wr
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 17, 2026 Vitalik Buterin. Source: XWhy Privacy Changes the CalculationButerin sees a second payoff beyond raw speed. A local model answers on the device, so no provider ever receives the request.
For more demanding work, he proposes a split. The local model would handle what it can, then strip the sensitive details out of anything it passes to a larger hosted system.
“use your local model to orchestrate queries to powerful models so your queries don’t leak your personal information”
In practice, the local model would pull names, wallet addresses or private code out of a prompt, then pass on only the remaining question. Such screening would cut what leaves the device. It would not guarantee that nothing sensitive slips through.
Comparison graphic, local AI on your laptop versus a cloud service. Source: BeInCryptoThat pitch matches his record. He has warned about surveillance during the EU chat control fight, and crypto users have pushed for tighter limits on agents for similar reasons.
A class action filed in May accuses OpenAI of sharing ChatGPT user queries with Meta and Google.
Cloud providers still own the frontier. Yet every gain in local performance moves more routine work off their servers, and cheap shared-memory hardware keeps spreading.
The open question is how much capability people will trade for control.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin does not believe that improving artificial intelligence will eventually make cybersecurity essentially unwinnable.
Buterin is confident that the opposite could ultimately happen: AI may give defenders the tools needed to build software that is significantly harder to exploit in the first place.
"It's an increasingly common take that AI hacking means cybersecurity is doomed. I disagree," Buterin wrote in a lengthy and characteristically substantive social media post on Wednesday on the X social media network.
HOT Stories
According to the Ethereum co-founder, cybersecurity should naturally favor defenders once developers begin taking full advantage of formal verification.
You Might Also Like
Buterin also tied this belief directly to his own exposure to cryptocurrency, revealing that roughly 90% of his net worth remains in crypto.
Anyone who continues to hold substantial amounts of cryptocurrency, he argued, is implicitly betting that sufficiently secure digital systems can be built despite increasingly sophisticated attackers.
"If AI can prove Navier-Stokes and FLT, then AI can prove the statement 'this program is secure' as a mathematical theorem," Buterin wrote, referring to the Navier-Stokes problem and Fermat's Last Theorem.
His argument is based on formal verification, a method of mathematically demonstrating that software satisfies specific properties.
Buterin explored the same idea extensively in his May essay, in which he described AI-assisted formal verification as a hugely transformative tool for security-critical software. However, proving that such software is secure might prove to be challenging.
The definition problemButerin used the encrypted messaging app Signal as an example to show why this could be difficult.
An attacker might attempt to forge messages, stop them from arriving, replay old messages, compromise a server, manipulate the process used to discover another user's public key, or exploit a vulnerability in the operating system.
Other problems might arise from corrupted databases, malicious libraries, compilers, or even hardware-level information leaks.
Even if the content of a conversation remains encrypted, an attacker might still learn who is communicating. As a result, the mathematical definition of what "secure" actually means could itself become extremely complicated.
"So ... even definitions can be over a thousand lines of code, and need deep careful thought to figure them out," Buterin wrote.
Attacker and defender Without a doubt, more capable AI systems could make finding vulnerabilities easier.
However, the same improvement in machine reasoning could also dramatically lower the cost of formally proving that software behaves according to carefully constructed security specifications.
Leading cryptocurrencies lifted late on Wednesday after a House Committee moved forward with a bill to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve.
Crypto Market’s Late RallyBitcoin surged late in the evening as the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill passed the House Financial Services Committee for congressional consideration. Ethereum and other altcoins also recorded a spike.
Cryptocurrency-related stocks also fell, with Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR) and Bitmine Immersion Technologies Inc. (NYSE:BMNR) closing down 2.64% and 3.35%, respectively.
Over $330 million was liquidated from the cryptocurrency market in the last 24 hours, with $185 million in bearish short bets evaporated, according to Coinglass data.
Bitcoin’s open interest rose 0.68% over the last 24 hours, in line with the spot price increase. Smart money sentiment, which refers to the collective outlook and capital allocation of institutional investors, turned "extremely bullish."
Top Gainers (24 Hours)
Cryptocurrency market capitalization sits at $2.58 trillion after a 0.79% drop in the last 24 hours.
Read Next
Stocks Slide After Rate HikeThe stock market sank deeper on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 631.21 points, or 1.21%, to close at 51,461.90. The S&P 500 fell 0.45% to end at 7,551.81, while the Nasdaq Composite closed 0.01% lower at 25,978.42.
Trending
As widely expected, the Fed raised the federal funds target range by 25 basis points to 3.75%-4.00%, marking its first rate hike since 2023.
The Federal Open Market Committee noted “elevated” inflation in its policy statement.
What’s the Next ‘Major’ Accumulation Zone?Ali Martinez, a widely followed cryptocurrency analyst and trader, said they’re not panicking due to the rate hike. Instead, they viewed the Short-Term Holder Realized Price near $71,200 as the “next major accumulation zone.”
“If the market gives me that opportunity, I’ll be ready,” he added.
On-chain analytics firm Santiment noted that crowd sentiment for BTC has moved from “FOMO” back into “Fear.”
“But when expectations become this one-sided, remember that markets typically always move in the opposite direction of the extreme group-think,” the firm added.
PANews, September 17 — According to SoSoValue data, the Fed's rate cut has landed, and the crypto market has rebounded broadly, with the PayFi sector performing strongly, rising 5.03% in 24 hours. Among them, Zcash (ZEC) rose 23.28%, and Dash (DASH) rose 17.21%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) rose 1.28%, breaking through $76,000; Ethereum (ETH) rose 1.63%, fluctuating narrowly around the $2,400 mark.
In other sectors, the Layer2 sector rose 4.91% in 24 hours, with Lisk (LSK) up 31.79%; the Layer1 sector rose 3.71%, with NEAR Protocol (NEAR) up 14.64%; the DeFi sector rose 3.49%, with Bedrock Token (BR) up 177.57%; the Meme sector rose 1.97%, with Bulla (BULLA) up 46.68%; the CeFi sector rose 1.96%, with Aster (ASTER) up 5.77%.
The GameFi sector, which surged sharply yesterday, saw a pullback, falling 8.10% in 24 hours. Within the sector, Akedo (AKE) dropped 32.24%.
The crypto sector indices reflecting historical sector performance show that the ssiAI, ssiLayer2, and ssiDeFi indices rose 6.02%, 4.98%, and 3.77%, respectively.
Russia’s largest Moscow stock exchange (MOEX) plans to launch Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP and TRON (TRX) perpetual futures next week. This comes following Russia President Vladimir Putin signed crypto law to allowed regulated crypto trading.
Russia’s Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX) Joins Crypto Perpetual Futures Push Moscow Stock Exchange (MOEX), Russia’s largest stock exchange, will launch perpetual futures linked to its Bitcoin, ETH, SOL, XRP and TRX indices on September 22. This marks a groundbreaking development amid a rise in crypto demand in the country.
While it is not a green light for spot crypto trading, the contracts are quoted in US dollars, settled in Russian rubles, and limited to qualified investors. It added that the delivery is not in the underlying crypto assets.
“The launch of perpetual digital currency futures is an important milestone in the development of the Russian derivatives market. We see strong investor demand for digital asset derivatives. Providing access to such instruments within the Russian legal framework is crucial,” a statement reads.
Moscow Stock Exchange already offers monthly and other cash-settled crypto derivatives since last year. The crypto products recorded more than 72,000 traders and total transaction volume exceeded 600 billion rubles.
As CoinGape reported earlier, Russia’s crypto law took effect earlier this month. It legalized licensed crypto trading, custody, and select cross-border settlements.
Bitcoin, ETH, SOL, XRP and TRON Prices Jump Crypto prices have bounced despite the US Fed raising rates by 25 bps. This indicates confidence in the crypto industry over an upcoming rally in the coming weeks. Bitcoin jumped more than 1%, with the price currently trading around $76,600. Trading volume dropped as the CLARITY Act failed to secure Senate votes.
On the other hand, ETH is trading strongly compared to Bitcoin. The price surged more than 2% to $2,450 over the past 24 hours. Solana (SOL) also trades more than 3% higher, rebounding above $100 again.
Meanwhile, XRP price has reclaimed $1.30 after an almost 1% jump. The 24-hour low and high are $1.25 and $1.31, respectively. However, trading volume decreased by 38% in the last 24 hours, indicating traders remains cautious.
TRX price trades near $0.335, moving mostly sideways. Justin Sun’s TRON token has rallied 20% this year, holdings gains amid upgrades and ETF launches.
While Moscow Stock Exchange’s contracts are cash-settled and restricted to qualified domestic investors, retail traders looking to speculate on digital asset price action typically turn to the best crypto futures trading platforms which offer direct token exposure and flexible margin terms.
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.
Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) is ranging around $2,400, with traders watching whether a bigger correction toward $1,800 could play out.
Why ETH Failed To Make A Higher HighCrypto trader CrediBULL Crypto said Tuesday that Ethereum initially produced a "decent reaction" from its local demand zone around $2,440, but the bounce failed to establish a higher high.
The subsequent decline broke below that demand area, putting a cluster of equal lows around $2,360 back in focus.
CrediBULL sees a potential silver lining if Ethereum sweeps those lows.
Taking out the downside liquidity now could make the next upside move more sustainable, he said.
Instead of first rallying toward $2,800 or higher and then suffering a larger correction, Ethereum may simply be getting that deeper pullback "out of the way now."
How Low Could Ethereum Go?Heavily-followed trader, Crypto Patel also flagged further downside risk after ETH rejected the $2,550 to $2,660 resistance zone and retreated from its recent high.
Trending
Patel said failure to reclaim and sustain above $2,670 keeps his bearish scenario active.
He identified three potential downside levels, with $1,800 a key area to watch if the correction deepens.
The analyst, however, separated the short-term setup from his longer-term outlook, maintaining an eventual ETH target of $10,000 to $15,000.
Highlighting Ethereum’s strength, trader Lucky pointed to its wide lead in total value locked and DEX activity over rivals including Solana (CRYPTO: SOL), Base and BNB Chain.
"This is what 17+ years of dominance looks like," he said, citing Ethereum’s entrenched position across decentralized finance and on-chain trading.
Ethereum slipped under the $2,400 mark following renewed selling pressure brought on by the Senate’s failure to pass the CLARITY Act, a regulatory proposal aimed at providing clearer guidelines for digital assets. The unsuccessful 49–50 vote sparked a wider downturn in cryptocurrencies, causing technical momentum across major assets to weaken and shifting investor focus to the Federal Reserve’s upcoming signals.
Market reversal after CLARITY Act defeatOnly a few days before the vote, Ethereum had touched $2,600, with traders eyeing a potential move toward $3,000. This reversal marks a significant change in sentiment, as ETH broke through a key support level that had previously helped steady the market during downturns.
The failed CLARITY Act vote also impacted Bitcoin, which dropped below $75,000 amid the regulatory setback. The legislation was intended to clarify legal standards for the treatment of cryptocurrencies in the United States.
Mini dictionary: CLARITY Act, a proposed US law designed to bring regulatory clarity to the crypto sector by defining digital asset classifications and establishing clearer compliance standards for market participants.
A bout of volatility followed, with approximately $300 million in leveraged long positions across various cryptocurrencies being liquidated within minutes. Ethereum was affected as part of this broader leverage reset.
Investment vehicles tracking digital assets also saw sharp outflows. Combined Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs registered $592 million in net outflows on September 15, with Ethereum funds alone accounting for $141 million.
ETFNet Outflows (Sept. 15)Bitcoin ETF$451 millionEthereum ETF$141 millionTotal$592 millionFrom bullish momentum to renewed cautionThe recent outflows reversed a trend observed just a week ago, when inflows to Ethereum funds were rising and exchange balances continued to decline. This dynamic had fueled optimism among some market participants, who speculated that Ethereum might be running low on short-term sellers.
Despite ongoing constraints on supply, persistent near-term selling has outweighed bullish factors for now. Technical analysts are watching whether ETH can reclaim the $2,400 level as a first step toward stabilizing its price.
Short-term selling has taken precedence, with technical strength remaining weak after Ethereum fell through major support.
Should ETH regain control above $2,400, resistance between $2,465 and $2,526 comes into play. Sustained movement through this range would improve the outlook for another run at $2,600.
If the asset stays below $2,400, increased selling could continue to pressure the price towards lower support zones, with particular focus on the $2,300 area.
In brief U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $450.4 million Tuesday, their largest single-day outflow since June 24. The Senate voted 49 to 50 against invoking cloture on the Clarity Act, a crypto market-structure bill that needed 60 votes to advance, effectively ending its chances in 2026. Ethereum ETFs lost another $142.3 million the same day, while XRP funds stayed flat. U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs shed $450.4 million on Tuesday, their largest single-day outflow since June 24, according to Decrypt's Bitcoin ETF tracker.
ETFs, or exchange-traded funds, are products that let ordinary investors buy exposure to an asset, such as Bitcoin, through a regular brokerage account, without ever touching a crypto wallet. They’ve been extremely popular since first launching two years ago and have become a proxy for overall market sentiment as money flows in and out of them daily.
Myriad: Where does Bitcoin go next? Click to make your prediction.Fidelity's FBTC led the exodus Tuesday with $214.8 million pulled out. BlackRock's IBIT lost $161.7 million, Grayscale's GBTC shed $44.1 million, and ARK 21Shares and Bitwise's funds saw smaller withdrawals.
Bitcoin ETF data. Image: DecryptEthereum ETFs bled another $142.3 million the same day, and XRP funds, smaller and newer, held flat after pulling in $11.3 million the day prior.
Ethereum ETF data. Image: DecryptCombined, the three asset funds lost close to $593 million in a single session—the sharpest one-day pullback crypto ETFs have seen since June, when Bitcoin funds posted their worst month on record.
The trigger wasn't a hack or a market crash. It was, apparently, Congress.
Why the Senate vote matteredThe Senate failed Tuesday to invoke cloture—the procedural vote that lets a bill move to formal debate, requiring 60 of 100 votes—on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.
Senators voted 49 to 50 against it. Senate Banking's ranking Democrat, Elizabeth Warren, opposed the bill on the floor, warning it would spark a "crypto-fueled economic crash."
The Clarity Act would have given crypto its first real rulebook, splitting oversight between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission and effectively legalizing most crypto trading in the United States.
Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), the bill's lead negotiator, called Tuesday's failure a likely death sentence: "It's over," she said just prior to the vote. Once the failed vote was confirmed she attacked her colleagues on the other side of the aisle. “The Democrats are now anti-American. Sad,” she posted on X.
This afternoon, Senate Democrats proved they were never truly serious about protecting consumers and preserving American leadership. I sat at the table with Senate Democrats working in good faith to get this done while they played games.
For over a year, they presented demands…
— Senator Cynthia Lummis (@SenLummis) September 15, 2026
Regulatory clarity is what lets pension funds and banks treat Bitcoin like a normal, legal financial product instead of a legal gray zone. Without that clarity, institutional money tends to sit on the sidelines. Tuesday's outflows may be a sign of that hesitation showing up in real dollars. That said, today's forthcoming Federal Reserve decision, widely believed to be the first interest rate hike in three years, may be just as much—if not more—of a factor at the moment.
It's also worth noting that Congress isn't necessarily done trying on the Clarity Act. About 22 working days remain on the Senate calendar before midterm campaigning consumes the fall session, and the Digital Chamber, a crypto trade group, called Tuesday's result a "setback" rather than a defeat.
Barring a late revival, the SEC and CFTC's own rulemaking process—the fallback Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has already pointed to—is now the closest thing U.S. crypto markets have to a regulatory roadmap for the rest of 2026.
Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
BitMine Immersion Technologies, Inc. (NYSE:BMNR) has accumulated enough Ethereum (CRYPTO:$ETH) to own nearly 1 in every 20 ETH in existence. The company now holds 5.96 million ETH as of Sept. 13. That’s 4.9% of Ethereum’s 122 million-token supply, putting Tom Lee’s most ambitious crypto accumulation target within striking distance.
The next milestone is no longer theoretical: It is 5%.
BitMine’s ETH is worth roughly $15 billion at the company’s reported ETH price of $2,513. The holdings represent 4.9% of the total supply, and BitMine says it is 98% of the way toward its "Alchemy of 5%" goal.
At 5% of a 122 million ETH supply, the target would be about 6.1 million ETH. That leaves BitMine roughly 144,000 ETH short of the milestone based on the company’s latest figures.
That gap is small relative to the scale of the accumulation already completed. BitMine has gone from building an Ethereum treasury to potentially controlling a 5% stake in the network’s entire supply — a distinction that increasingly defines the investment case around BitMine.
Read Next
More Than an ETH TreasuryBitMine said 5,067,309 ETH was already staked as of Sept. 13, representing more than 85% of its Ethereum holdings. At the reported ETH price, that staked position was valued at about $12.7 billion.
Trending
BitMine’s broader crypto, cash, marketable securities and "moonshot" holdings totaled $15.8 billion, including $549 million of cash and marketable securities, 212 BTC and stakes in Beast Industries and Eightco Holdings.
That structure gives BitMine exposure not only to ETH’s price, but also to staking economics and the company’s ability to keep expanding its Ethereum position.
The 5% Test MattersThe 5% threshold is BitMine’s strategic objective, not an arbitrary market benchmark. The company has repeatedly framed the goal as accumulating 5% of Ethereum’s total supply, with Lee serving as chairman.
Reaching 5% would therefore mark a shift from an accumulation story to an execution milestone. Investors would then have a different question to answer: What does BitMine do with an Ethereum position that represents one-twentieth of the entire network?
The closer BitMine gets to 6.1 million ETH, the less the story is about whether the company can build a massive Ethereum treasury — and the more it becomes about what that treasury can generate.
BitMine is now only about 144,000 ETH away from the 5% target that sits at the center of Lee’s strategy. The milestone is close enough that the next accumulation updates could matter as much for the stock’s narrative as changes in ETH itself.
The key catalyst is no longer simply another ETH purchase; it is whether BitMine can cross the 5% line.
Read Next
Tom Lee created by artificial analysis via DALL-E; and Dow Jones Industrial Average, via Shutterstock
Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) dropped below $76,000 as Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH), Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) and Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) and XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) struggle to hold key levels after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points.
Cryptocurrency market analyst Ray Salmond said that the legislative “setback” is unlikely to derail crypto’s broader growth and adoption.
Why Is The Failure Is A ‘Setback,’ Not A ‘Derailment‘Salmond argued in a Schwab Network interview on Wednesday that the regulatory story now shifts from legislation to rule making.
The SEC and CFTC are positioned to fill part of the regulatory void after the CLARITY Act failed to advance.
Trending
However, industry executives and analysts have cautioned that agency rules may be more vulnerable to political changes and legal challenges than legislation passed by Congress.
Salmond expects regulators to continue moving forward regardless of whether the Clarity Act returns next year or later.
That could keep Wall Street’s crypto expansion moving.
He added that a clearer framework like the CLARITY Act would give U.S. crypto companies stronger legal footing while making it easier for offshore firms to re-headquarter in the U.S., raise capital and integrate with TradFi.
He expects firms including BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), ARK Invest and Fidelity to lean further into potential SEC frameworks for tokenization, paving the way for more tokenized securities, 24-hour trading and deeper integration between traditional financial markets and crypto platforms.
Warsh Announces First of Several Potential HikesElsewhere, the Federal Reserve delivered the widely-anticipated 25 basis points hike, with another hike projected until year-end. Gold and equities dived on the announcement, which is widely perceived as the start of a fresh hiking cycle going into 2027.
Image: Shutterstock
Read Next
Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs
Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) is “the big daddy” of smart contracts, Raoul Pal told the Milk Road podcast Wednesday, but Sui (CRYPTO: SUI) is the bet he is sizing up for the agentic AI economy.
Why Ethereum Still LeadsPal joined the Milk Road podcast to make the bull case for Ethereum with one question: if you pulled the plug on Ethereum tomorrow, how much value would you destroy?
His answer runs into the trillions. Ethereum controls roughly 70% of the global stablecoin market, dominates DeFi, and holds nearly all high-end digital art value.
Banks building on-chain are overwhelmingly choosing Ethereum-compatible infrastructure, and that installed base is not going anywhere.
Trending
He also pushed back on the idea that Layer 2 networks are parasitic. They are businesses built on top of infrastructure, and as long as value transacts across the Layer 1, Ethereum captures that activity.
Why He Is Concentrated in SuiSmart contract networks historically consolidate around three to five leaders, Pal argued, with Ethereum and Solana (CRYPTO: SOL) already proven.
He sees Sui as the third slot, built specifically for machine-speed transactions that existing chains cannot match.
Sui’s programmable transaction blocks allow up to 1,024 different actions within a single blockchain slot, letting complex agentic workflows settle as one transaction rather than many.
Free stablecoin transactions are a deliberate design choice to remove friction for machine-to-machine payments.
One data point stood out to Pal: during the recent market drawdown, only three chains maintained economic density as measured by TVL per active user. Ethereum ranked first, Sui second, and Solana third, despite Sui being the newest of the three.
How He Constructs the PortfolioPal told Milk Road his approach is simple: own the infrastructure layer and do almost nothing.
His last purchase was three months ago, adding Ethereum, Solana, Sui, and Zcash (CRYPTO: ZEC).
He holds most of his Ethereum exposure through high-end digital art NFTs for double convexity, owns Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) as a separate store-of-value position, and sizes Sui as his highest-conviction growth bet.
One warning he flagged: global excess liquidity is running at only 3% to 4% versus a historical average of 11%, which is why crypto has struggled despite strong on-chain fundamentals across the ecosystem.
Is ‘liquidity’ the catalyst for Ethereum to lead the next risk-on rally?
According to data from DeFiLlama, ETH has the largest stablecoin liquidity base by far on L1s, accounting for 50% of the $300 billion market; therefore, ETH has a deep liquidity war chest to rotate into risk assets when the market turns risk-on.
More importantly, liquidity rotation seems to have already started.
According to Token Terminal, Ethereum processed over 203 million transactions in Q2, up 68.4% from Q2 2025. The result? ETH has emerged as one of the top performers among large caps, gaining 52% so far in Q3.
In essence, the strong network activity seen in Q2 is now translating into price action.
Source: Token Terminal ETH’s rally has come alongside a recovery in the stablecoin market.
From a technical perspective, the stablecoin market cap turned positive in August after three consecutive months of net outflows and has remained positive so far in September.
This indicates that the market liquidity is on the path of recovery. Notably, this is where Ethereum’s Q2 setup becomes interesting.
With the network activity already picking up, renewed liquidity could potentially add another layer of bullish momentum to ETH’s price action.
Should the trend continue, Ethereum [ETH] could have the liquidity to drive the next risk-on move. That said, one of the first signs of such a rotation could already be taking place.
Ethereum’s liquidity setup could shape the next risk-on move Ethereum’s stablecoin market seems to be witnessing a critical change.
USDC is gradually overtaking USDT and becoming the most popular stablecoin on Ethereum. Sure, USDT still holds the largest share of stablecoins on the L1, equal to 49.6%, while USDC accounts for 31.8%.
However, USDT’s lead is narrowing rapidly, down from 34.2 percentage points in November 2024 to just 17.8 percentage points now.
The key takeaway? The shift is being driven by USDC’s faster growth than by a major USDT exit. In particular, since November 2024, the supply of USDT has grown by 22%, while the supply of USDC has increased by 83%.
In 2026, the trend continued. While both decreased in supply, the decline for USDT was more significant, reaching 15.5% compared to 2.9% for USDC.
Source: CoinMarketCap In essence, Ethereum’s liquidity setup is becoming more balanced.
Why does this matter? With a more balanced stablecoin mark-up, Ethereum is not relying on a single issuer for liquidity. If stablecoin supply on Ethereum begins to rise again, this could provide additional room for capital to flow into ETH and add fuel to its risk-on setup.
Strong network activity makes this proposition even more attractive. With the stablecoin market recovering and Ethereum activity high, ETH could well have the liquidity and network demand to fuel another powerful Q4.
Final Summary USDC is closing the gap with USDT, making Ethereum’s stablecoin liquidity more balanced. If liquidity keeps growing and network activity stays strong, ETH could get more fuel for a Q4 risk-on move.
The companion app connects to the ERA hardware wallet to add portfolio management, swaps, and dApp access across 14 networks — while private keys never leave the device. The release follows a full independent security audit by Cure53, and lands alongside a major update to ERA Lens, ERA’s on-device scam-warning system, plus new hardware-side capabilities including Bitcoin multisig and on-device 2FA.
ERA, the maker of the air-gapped ERA hardware wallet, today announced the launch of the ERA Software Wallet, a companion mobile app for iOS and Android that turns its air-gapped hardware device into a full self-custody ecosystem. The move addresses one of the most common trade-offs in crypto self-custody: hardware wallets are secure but often clunky to use day-to-day, while software wallets are convenient but hold keys online.
ERA’s model keeps the two roles separate by design — the phone prepares transactions, the hardware device signs them, and the private keys never touch the phone at all.
“People don’t abandon self-custody because they don’t believe in it – they abandon it because it’s inconvenient,” said Alex Devyatkin, founder and CEO of ERA. “The Software Wallet doesn’t change what secures your assets. It changes how easy it is to actually use that security every day.”
What’s in the ERA Software WalletThe app gives users a single interface to manage assets across 14 networks – Bitcoin (SegWit, Taproot, and Legacy address types), Ethereum, Solana, Tron, Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche, Gnosis, zkSync, Kaia, and Aurora – while every transaction is still confirmed and signed on the ERA hardware device via QR or NFC.
Inside the app, users can:
View portfolio balances across all supported networks, with each token clearly tagged by network
Send and receive assets, with a network guard that prevents funds from being sent to the wrong chain
Buy and sell crypto through integrated providers, with automatic KYC/country detection and side-by-side rate comparison
Swap and bridge across chains in a single flow, powered by Rango’s routing, with a full quote shown before signing
Connect to dApps via WalletConnect, with sessions still requiring hardware-signed approval
Get proactive protection: warnings on unused token approvals, a spam-token filter, alerts on pending or stuck transactions, and full transaction history
App-level security includes PIN and biometric unlock (Face ID / Touch ID / fingerprint), auto-lock when the app is backgrounded, and screen-privacy protections that hide app content from the system app switcher and block screenshots and screen recording.
Backed by an Independent Security AuditAhead of launch, ERA commissioned a full white-box security audit from Cure53, a cybersecurity firm with an established track record auditing wallets and crypto infrastructure. Cure53 was given access to source code, builds, documentation, and internal components, and tested the mobile app, API, transaction construction, and QR/BC-UR signing flows. Every finding was fixed by ERA’s team and then retested by Cure53 to confirm the fix held.
The summary and full technical reports are public:
Summary report (PDF)
Full pentest report (PDF)
The Headline Device Update: ERA Lens’s New Scam-Warning SystemThe main update on the device side is to ERA Lens, ERA’s built-in transaction-decoding layer, which translates what a transaction actually does into plain language before signing rather than showing raw hex data.
This release adds a new scam-warning display, expands coverage to more DeFi and bridging protocols (including Rango, imToken, Rabby, MetaMask Portfolio Bridge, Mayan, Squid, LayerSwap, Stargate V2, GasZip, and Magpie), and can now decode newer, harder-to-read transaction formats such as EIP-7702, ERC-7821, and Safe multicalls — flagging unlimited approvals to unfamiliar addresses automatically.
The team also added 37 real transactions drawn from known incidents – including Bybit, WazirX, Radiant, Inferno Drainer, and PREMINT – to its automated test suite, so every new firmware release is checked against these attack patterns before shipping.
Extended Protection, Built Into the AppOn the mobile side, the Software Wallet adds extended protection aimed at scams that target wallet users directly rather than the underlying blockchain. The home screen now surfaces a plain-language warning for unused token approvals, with a dedicated screen showing exactly which contract can spend how much of which token, in which network, revocable in one confirmation.
The app also guards against address poisoning — fake transaction records designed to trick users into copying a lookalike address from their own history. Between July 2 and August 1, 2026, ERA tracked 66 such fake entries across 24 poisoned addresses, spanning 8 wallets and 8 networks; if a recipient address is a near-identical copy of one of a user’s own addresses, sending is blocked outright, with no override.
Also New: Progressive Security on the Hardware DeviceAlongside the software wallet launch, ERA is rolling out further capabilities to the hardware device itself, continuing its “wallet you never outgrow” model — meaning users can move to more advanced security setups without switching devices.
Bitcoin multisig support – the ERA device can act as one cosigner in a Bitcoin multisig setup, for example holding one key in a 2-of-3 arrangement, removing any single point of failure.
On-device two-factor authentication – TOTP authentication codes can now be stored directly on the ERA hardware device, adding a second layer of digital security on the same hardware that protects private keys.
Device authenticity verification – separately from how transactions are signed, the ERA device can prove it is a genuine, unmodified unit by signing a one-time challenge with a factory-burned key, a check that takes under a minute.
About ERAERA (HWLT FZE) is a Dubai-based digital security company building the ERA Wallet ecosystem: an air-gapped hardware wallet, a companion multichain software wallet, and a built-in transaction-protection layer, ERA Lens.
Disclaimer
This third-party press release is published substantially as received and does not reflect BeInCrypto's editorial views. BeInCrypto has not independently verified its claims or assessed the suitability, legality or appropriateness of any referenced asset, product or service; publication is not an endorsement. The content is general information, not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, a personal recommendation, offer or solicitation. Verify all information and seek professional advice where appropriate before acting. Crypto-assets may result in total loss.
Mutsamudu, Comoros, September 16, 2026 – MEXC, a pioneer in 0-fee digital asset trading, has released its July–August 2026 security report. The report shows that MEXC successfully intercepted all 215 reports involving risk-related funds during the period, covering approximately 38.66 million USDT. The total balance of the Futures Insurance Fund rose to 792 million USDT. Meanwhile, the reserve ratios for BTC, ETH, USDT, and USDC all remained above 100%.
In July and August 2026, the crypto industry recorded 184 security incidents, with reported losses totaling approximately $535 million. Phishing and fraud incidents, together with endpoint and supply-chain security incidents, accounted for approximately 48% of the total. At the same time, a growing number of attackers are using AI to auto-generate phishing content and help write malware, increasing the efficiency of their attacks. As attack methods become more diverse, promptly identifying and intercepting risk-related funds and strengthening cross-platform investigation have become increasingly important to reducing user losses.
All 215 Reports of Risk-Related Funds Successfully Intercepted, Covering 38.66 Million USDT In July and August, MEXC assisted with 215 reports involving externally stolen or fraud-related funds flowing into the platform. All 215 cases were successfully intercepted, covering 38,655,490 USDT. Of these cases, 42 involved assistance with judicial freezes. Compared with the previous reporting period, the number of successfully intercepted cases increased by approximately 2,971%, while the value of intercepted funds increased by approximately 12,646%.
In tracking and handling risk-related funds, MEXC shared suspicious addresses with major industry participants, assisted in identifying fund flows, and supported verification and freezing procedures under established joint-investigation and law-enforcement cooperation procedures.
Over 20,000 Risk-Related Accounts Identified and Restricted, With More Than 600,000 USDT in Misdirected Assets Returned In account risk identification, MEXC identified and restricted 20,752 accounts associated with risk-related activities during the period, an increase of 118.03% from the previous reporting period. The platform identified 5,288 risk groups, up 20.35%. By region of origin, these groups were concentrated primarily in the Commonwealth of Independent States (1,803), Nigeria (1,099), and Indonesia (976).
For user asset recovery, MEXC manually processed 818 applications for the return of misdirected assets, returning the equivalent of 602,225 USDT, an increase of 75.31% from the previous reporting period.
Futures Insurance Fund Reaches 792 Million USDT, Strengthening Protection Against Negative Balance Risk As of September 1, 2026, the total balance of the MEXC Futures Insurance Fund reached 791,696,422 USDT, an increase of 5.44% from the previous reporting period.
The Futures Insurance Fund covers negative balances that may arise during liquidation, providing a risk buffer during extreme market conditions and helping reduce the likelihood of auto-deleveraging (ADL). When a liquidated position is closed at a price better than the bankruptcy price, the remaining funds are credited to the fund. Users can view the real-time balance on the MEXC Proof of Trust page.
Reserve Ratios for Four Major Assets Remain Above 100%, With BTC at Approximately 288% According to the proof of reserves disclosed for this period, MEXC maintained reserve ratios above 100% for four major assets, as follows:
Bitcoin (BTC): reserve ratio of approximately 288%, with total wallet assets of 12,312.75 BTC against 4,282.20 BTC in user assets; Ethereum (ETH): reserve ratio of approximately 113%, with total wallet assets of 66,227.79 ETH; USDT: reserve ratio of approximately 115%, with total wallet assets of approximately 1.940 billion USDT; USDC: reserve ratio of approximately 114%, with total wallet assets of approximately 194.85 million USDC. The on-chain addresses corresponding to these reserve assets have been disclosed, allowing users to verify through the Merkle Tree whether their individual account balances were included in this proof of reserves.
As an additional layer of user asset protection, the MEXC Guardian Fund maintains a dual-reserve structure of USDT and BTC: USDT provides immediate liquidity support, while BTC serves as a long-term reserve asset across market cycles. MEXC plans to expand the fund from $100 million to $500 million, continuing to strengthen user asset protection. The relevant holding addresses are listed below:
Guardian Fund Wallet Addresses:
USDT: 0x469AfE803C54A36674C55231489Cf4b61da8c1bC BTC: 1MDVjZdX8QD212pT8Z8EMP7DuFQHKqN3mx MEXC CEO Vugar Usi said, “Trust is the true reserve currency of this industry. Protecting user assets means moving decisively the moment risk emerges, while giving users something they can verify for themselves, not just our word for it. We will continue to strengthen our ability to identify and intercept risk-related funds, deepen cooperation across platforms and with law enforcement, and help affected users recover their losses wherever possible. Our bi-monthly security reports are part of that commitment, allowing our security performance to be measured and tracked over time.”
About MEXC
Founded in 2018, MEXC is a leading global multi-asset trading platform built as your 0-fee gateway to infinite opportunities. Serving users across 170+ markets, MEXC provides simple and efficient access to crypto, stocks, tokenized assets, derivatives, and a growing range of TradFi-linked opportunities through one account and one gateway.
With 0 trading fees, deep liquidity, broad asset coverage, and a high-performance trading experience, MEXC is designed for retail users who want to discover earlier, act faster, and trade with fewer barriers. As crypto and traditional finance continue to converge, MEXC is committed to making global opportunities more accessible, helping users trade freely and MEXCmize every opportunity.
MEXC Official Website｜ X ｜ Telegram ｜How to Sign Up on MEXC
The endowment built from unclaimed 2016 DAO money is asking the companies that benefit from Ethereum security work to help pay for it, in a year whose first half already set a record for the number of crypto hacks.
TheDAO Security Fund opens round two
Posted September 16, 2026 at 6:47 am EST.
TheDAO Security Fund opened the second round of its ETHSecurity Initiatives program on Tuesday, publishing a crowdsourced board of 10 Ethereum security projects requiring about $1.77 million in funding and asking the companies that benefit from the work to co-fund it.
In round one, more than 20 ecosystem funders and 3,934 donors put over $1.6 million into security projects, TheDAO said, adding that it has coordinated funding of more than 1,000 ETH to 135 security projects since inception.
“The first round spread funds widely; this round will instead go deep,” the team said. “We will source important security initiatives, post them publicly, and coordinate the funding & execution of the best of them. Think of it as Ethereum’s security to-do list, and anyone can add initiatives to the list!”
Co-Funding as the Filter Initiatives arrive as RFPs, with a budget and draft milestones but no team, or as grants, which name the team up front. Live now are a $600,000 grant to the Vyper Foundation for an end to end formally verified compiler and $300,000 for a privacy-preserving endpoint detection tool from Auditware. At least a third of every budget must go to adoption milestones, and payment on each one is withheld until an independent reviewer, picked and named in the agreement before any work starts, marks it a pass, though teams can draw up to half of the first milestone in advance, TheDAO curator Griff Green said.
“Co-funding is the filter,” Green wrote in the post. If the teams that would benefit will not chip in, he added, the work is either wrong, not urgent, or overpriced.
A Record Year for Attacks TRM Labs counted 207 attacks in the first half of 2026, “the highest number TRM has recorded in any six month period,” even as total losses fell by more than half. The firm put the year past **$1.2 billion** across 276 incidents after the Coldcard exploit in late July.
The rise of exploits, particularly ones targeting long undiscovered bugs in code, has come with the advancement of AI tools for debugging. Anthropic’s Frontier Red Team reported in December that AI agents “developed exploits collectively worth $4.6 million” in simulation against contracts hacked after the models’ training cutoffs, and uncovered “two novel zero-day vulnerabilities” the same way. Green told teams in Tuesday’s announcement that draft milestones can be rewritten, “especially given the speed of development we’re seeing now in the age of AI.”
Unchained reported in January that unclaimed money left over from TheDAO, most of it crowdsale overage never collected after the hard fork that followed the 2016 DAO hack, would seed a $220 million endowment. “We have 69,000 ETH staked, earning ~5 ETH a day to support Ethereum security,” Green wrote Tuesday.
Two hundred ETHSecurity Badge holders will rank whatever is still unfunded in mid-November, and the highest-ranked get completed from the treasury. The round closes at the end of January, and anything that misses closes with it.
“We hope ETHSecurity Initiatives becomes a Schelling point for discovering and co-funding the security holes most of us don’t even know we have,” Green wrote in the post.
Related Listen: The Chopping Block: ColdCard’s $100M RNG Hack, AI-Powered Security & Ethereum’s Staking Yield Taper
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
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.
U.S. spot Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) ETFs bled a combined $591.80 million Tuesday, their worst single-day outflow in months ahead of Wednesday’s Fed decision.
What the ETF Data ShowsBitcoin ETFs led the retreat with $450.33 million in net outflows, their largest single-day withdrawal since June 25 according to SoSoValue. The breakdown by fund:
Bitcoin ETF trading volume climbed to $4.35 billion despite the outflows. Combined net assets now sit at $95.72 billion with cumulative net inflows at $54.86 billion.
Meanwhile, Ethereum ETFs posted their largest single-day outflow in 155 trading sessions at $141.47 million.
Trending
BlackRock’s ETHA (NASDAQ:ETHA) drove most of the damage at $97.97 million, with Bitwise’s ETHW (NYSE:ETHW) losing $34.40 million.
Why the Fed Decision Makes This TrickyCoinDesk reported Wednesday that Brookings Institution senior fellow Robin Brooks warned Wednesday’s Fed meeting is a “nightmare” for Chair Kevin Warsh.
Markets have fully priced in a 25-basis-point hike to a 3.75% to 4% target range, and nearly every major investment bank expects at least one more hike before year-end.
The problem is that Warsh cannot realistically deliver a message hawkish enough to match what markets have priced in.
“Tomorrow’s Fed meeting is a nightmare for Warsh. There’s no way he can live up to all the hikes priced, so the press conference will likely disappoint markets. The dollar is likely to fall and long yields likely to rise,” Brooks said.
A weaker dollar typically supports Bitcoin and gold, both of which carry a well-documented negative correlation to the US Dollar Index.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Analysis: Key Levels to WatchBitcoin holds around $76,000 Wednesday, pulling back under pressure from two back-to-back catalysts: the CLARITY Act’s Senate defeat Tuesday and today’s Fed rate decision at 2:00 p.m. ET.
The 20-day EMA at $76,866 sits just overhead as immediate resistance, with RSI at 49.19 showing a bearish divergence that formed when price hit $82,000 in early September while momentum failed to confirm.
Ethereum holds at $2,402 with the Supertrend flipping bearish right at current price, adding to the cautious setup ahead of the Fed.
BTC and ETH levels to watch: BTC: $76,866 resistance (20-day EMA), $73,551 support (50-day EMA) ETH: $2,431 resistance (20-day EMA), $2,350 trendline support Photo via Shutterstock
Ethereum attracted considerable large-holder demand as whales acquired millions in ETH as the broader market structure continued recovering.
As per a Lookonchain report, one whale rotated considerable Bitcoin exposure into Ethereum during the recent accumulation wave.
In particular, the whale swapped 512 WBTC, valued at roughly $38.64 million, alongside 354 cbBTC worth $26.73 million. These transactions secured around 26,924 ETH worth nearly $64.57 million.
Additionally, institutional activity strengthened the accumulation outlook after Abraxas Capital purchased another 13,700 ETH for $34.24 million. Both transactions combined represented roughly $100 million in fresh Ethereum purchases.
Rising Binance inflows test the fresh demand The accumulation coincided with a sharp increase in Ethereum inflows into Binance, creating a counterweight to the large-holder demand.
The inflows into Binance hit approximately 709,400 ETH, reflecting the highest daily inflow level since June. Notably, the earlier inflow spikes remained significantly smaller throughout much of the July and August period.
The surge placed considerably more ETH within Binance, expanding the amount potentially available for trading. Generally, a higher exchange inflow can increase the sell-side pressure, although the transfers alone do not imply immediate selling.
More importantly, the spike developed while whales and institutions acquired sizable Ethereum positions elsewhere. That contrast, as a result, created a clear demand-versus-supply test for Ethereum.
Source: CryptoQuant MVRV reset strengthens the recovery picture Beyond the wallet and exchange activities, Ethereum’s MVRV outlook showed how market conditions had changed significantly since the June-July price correction.
In particular, the MVRV Ratio had fallen towards the 0.70 level during that decline, placing the metric well beneath its neutral 1.0 threshold. These levels implied that the aggregate market value had declined beneath the realized value, suggesting substantial unrealized losses across holders.
Notably, Ethereum later recovered its MVRV ratio towards 1.0 as its price rebounded. More importantly, ETH reclaimed its realized price near the 2,300 price level and remained above that basis for several sessions.
This recovery suggested that the market had moved away from the deeper capitulation conditions visible during the earlier price contraction. The large purchases, meanwhile, reinforced that reset by showing renewed capital deployment after the price recovery.
Source: CryptoQuant Final Summary Nearly $100 million in whale accumulation could help absorb rising Binance supply during ETH’s range consolidation. ETH’s broader market structure points to a recovery.
Ethereum price rebounded toward $2,420 after a sharp sell-off, but weak capital flows and resistance near $2,465 leave ETH exposed to another correction.
Summary
Ethereum price fell below $2,400 before recovering to about $2,421 during Tuesday’s session. The daily RSI dropped to 52.09 as momentum weakened from its recent overbought reading. 4-hour Supertrend resistance stands at $2,526, while Chaikin Money Flow remains negative. Analysts see downside toward $2,143 or lower if ETH loses its weekly support. Ethereum price action today Ethereum (ETH) price was trading near $2,421 on Sep. 16 after recovering from an intraday low of $2,382.70, according to Binance data shown on TradingView. ETH opened the current daily candle at $2,398.26 and rose about 0.95%, partially reversing the previous decline.
The rebound followed a broader sell-off that briefly pulled ETH below the $2,400 psychological level. Market pressure intensified after the Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act failed to advance in the U.S. Senate.
The bill’s cloture motion reportedly failed in a 49-50 vote, short of the 60 votes needed to proceed. Its defeat weakened expectations that Congress would soon establish clearer divisions between the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Ethereum was particularly vulnerable because the pullback followed several failed attempts to remain above the $2,500 area. The token recently traded as high as roughly $2,660 before sellers pushed it back toward its current range.
Derivatives added to the pressure. Ethereum accounted for about $250 million in liquidations during the broader market decline, as the loss of $2,450 forced leveraged long positions to close.
Technical indicators point to fading momentum Ethereum’s daily chart shows that the recovery remains below the Bollinger Bands’ middle line at $2,464.49. That level now forms the first technical barrier above the market.
Ethereum price daily chart — Sep. 16 | Source: crypto.news The upper Bollinger Band sits at $2,544.69, placing the broader resistance zone between approximately $2,465 and $2,545. A daily close above that range would strengthen the case that the correction has ended.
ETH is also holding just above the lower Bollinger Band at $2,384.30. Buyers defended that level during Tuesday’s decline, with the session low reaching $2,382.70 before price recovered.
The daily relative strength index stands at 52.09. Although the reading remains above the neutral 50 mark, it has fallen below its moving average of 61.02 after retreating from overbought territory. The decline shows that bullish momentum has faded since ETH’s late-August rally.
Conditions look weaker on the 4-hour chart. Ethereum trades below Supertrend resistance at $2,526.61, while the indicator’s former support near $2,441.90 has been lost. ETH would need to reclaim both levels to weaken the short-term bearish setup.
Ethereum price 4-hour chart — Sep. 16 | Source: crypto.news Chaikin Money Flow stands at minus 0.07 on the same timeframe. The negative reading indicates that selling pressure is slightly stronger than buying pressure, limiting the conviction behind the latest rebound.
Ethereum must defend the $2,380 support zone The immediate support area lies between $2,380 and $2,400. Both the daily lower Bollinger Band and Tuesday’s intraday low fall within this range, making it the first level buyers need to defend.
A sustained breakdown below $2,380 could expose the August breakout region near $2,300. The weekly chart shared by analyst Ted Pillows identifies another support zone around $2,230, with a lower level near $2,056 if selling accelerates.
The bullish path begins with a move back above the daily Bollinger midpoint at $2,464. ETH would then need to clear the psychological $2,500 level and 4-hour Supertrend resistance at $2,526.
Further gains could place the recent $2,550-$2,660 rejection zone back in focus. Acceptance above that supply area would invalidate much of the current bearish structure and open a possible move toward $2,800.
Ethereum’s one-week liquidation heatmap shows ETH trading near $2,420 after sweeping several leveraged positions during its drop from above $2,500. The closest liquidity is concentrated around $2,420-$2,450, while additional clusters appear near $2,500 and $2,625-$2,660. Below the market, liquidity is visible around $2,350-$2,400, leaving ETH vulnerable to further volatility if either side is breached.
Ethereum liquidation heatmap | Source: CoinGlass Analysts warn of a deeper Ethereum correction Crypto analyst Ted Pillows said ETH was testing its 50-week exponential moving average. He warned that a weekly close below the indicator could produce an 8% to 10% correction.
An 8% decline from approximately $2,420 would place Ethereum near $2,226, closely matching the first weekly support zone on his chart. A 10% pullback would take the token toward $2,178.
Crypto Patel offered a more bearish scenario after ETH was rejected from the $2,550-$2,660 resistance zone. The analyst identified $2,143, $2,000, and $1,870 as possible downside targets, with $1,800 as a deeper level to monitor.
Patel said the bearish scenario would remain active unless Ethereum reclaimed and held above $2,670. His longer-term outlook remains bullish, with targets between $10,000 and $15,000, although the forecast is speculative and depends on future market conditions.
US rate expectations and ETF outflows weigh on ETH The CLARITY Act setback arrived as U.S. investors were already preparing for the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision. The probability of a 25-basis-point increase at about 80%, although the final decision will determine whether that expectation was justified.
Higher interest rates and Treasury yields can pressure crypto assets by increasing the return available from lower-risk instruments. Ethereum could therefore remain sensitive to changes in Fed expectations even if its technical support holds.
U.S. spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds also recorded approximately $141.5 million to $142.3 million in net outflows during the reported session. BlackRock’s ETHA accounted for about $98 million, while Bitwise’s ETHW recorded around $34.4 million in withdrawals.
Roughly 140,000 ETH, valued at about $350 million, was reportedly withdrawn from exchanges over recent days. Lower exchange balances may reduce immediately available selling supply, but the daily and 4-hour charts show that ETH must reclaim $2,465-$2,526 before buyers regain firm control.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Ethereum blocks have traditionally been a one-builder affair. One entity assembles the transactions, one entity wins the auction, one entity gets the slot. As of September 16, that changed. Multi-party block construction, or MPBC, is now running on the Ethereum mainnet, allowing multiple builders to contribute transactions to a single block without requiring any changes to the underlying protocol.
The initiative was coordinated by the Blockspace Forum, which spent much of 2026 herding an impressive coalition of block builders toward this moment. The early numbers are modest but meaningful: roughly 3% of Ethereum blocks in the first 24 hours were constructed using the multi-party approach, and more than 20,000 transactions have been included faster since testing began in late August.
What MPBC actually does To understand why this matters, you need to understand how Ethereum blocks get built today. After the Merge in 2022, Ethereum adopted a system called proposer-builder separation, or PBS. Validators propose blocks, but specialized builders actually assemble them. Builders compete in an auction, and the winner’s block gets included.
MPBC changes the model so that multiple builders can each contribute transactions to a single block, creating multiple inclusion paths rather than funneling everything through one entity. The result is blocks that are fuller, more diverse, and faster at confirming pending transactions.
Advertisement
The gains in the early data are striking. Some multi-party blocks have included up to 810 additional transactions compared to what a single builder would have produced. In certain cases, gas usage jumped nearly 14-fold.
How we got here This didn’t happen overnight. The Blockspace Forum ran a series of workshops throughout 2026, culminating in a meeting in Cannes that brought together 32 teams. Those teams collectively account for over 95% of out-of-protocol block contributions on Ethereum.
Foundational research published in May 2026 laid out the design principles. The key constraint was that MPBC had to be strictly additive. No protocol changes, no hard forks, no consensus-level modifications. The system works entirely at the builder and operator layer.
Notably, the design doesn’t depend on relays for its core function. By sidestepping that dependency, MPBC introduces a parallel path that reduces the chokepoint risk.
Alongside the mainnet launch, the team released comprehensive public documentation and a live dashboard tracking multi-party block metrics. Performance indicators, participation rates, and transaction inclusion data are all visible in real time.
Why block construction centralization matters The current PBS model has structural issues that compound over time. When one builder wins each auction, they effectively control transaction ordering within that block. Builders can prioritize transactions that generate profit for themselves, sandwich trades, front-run orders, or simply exclude transactions they don’t find economically interesting.
MPBC doesn’t eliminate these dynamics entirely, but it dilutes them. When multiple builders contribute to the same block, no single entity has full control over transaction ordering or inclusion. Service transactions get additional pathways into blocks rather than competing for space in a single builder’s priority queue.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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.
SparkLend, the lending arm of the Spark ecosystem, has seen its total market size climb 55% since the start of the year to reach $7.39 billion in September. The protocol is fully deprecating its Gnosis Chain deployment as of September 14, 2026. Any outstanding loans on that chain become eligible for liquidation after the cutoff.
The numbers behind the growth SparkLend’s $7.39 billion total market size figure represents the combined value of assets supplied to the protocol. The actual TVL, as tracked by DefiLlama, sits at approximately $4.96 billion, with roughly $2.436 billion in active loans outstanding.
Advertisement
At the close of May 2026, TVL stood at roughly $3.6 billion, meaning the protocol added over $1.3 billion in locked value in just a few months over the summer.
For context, that $4.96 billion TVL figure makes SparkLend the third-largest lending protocol tracked by DefiLlama. The protocol launched on Ethereum in May 2023 and within months briefly became the second-largest DeFi money market by TVL.
Why Gnosis had to go The decision to shut down SparkLend on Gnosis Chain came down to low usage and cost inefficiencies. Nearly all of the protocol’s activity has been concentrated on Ethereum. Borrowers who don’t migrate or repay before the September 14, 2026 deadline face their positions being liquidated.
Ethereum-first strategy and what it signals SparkLend operates as a non-custodial protocol with unique rate mechanisms that differentiate it from competitors. Its lending portfolio focuses on blue-chip assets including ETH, stablecoins such as USDS and USDT, and wrapped Bitcoin products. SparkLend is linked to the broader Sky (formerly MakerDAO) protocol, which acts as an on-chain capital allocator providing integration with Sky’s stablecoin reserves and liquidity layer.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The Crypto market fell 1.65% over 24 hours, reducing its total value to $2.59 trillion on Wednesday ahead of the FOMC decision.
The Fear and Greed Index reads 63, showing greed despite the latest market corrections.
Bitcoin price hovered near $75,000, Ethereum remained below $2,400, and XRP slipped beneath $1.30. That backdrop has kept market participants increasingly defensive.
Crypto Market Dip Ahead of FOMC Decision as Rate Hike Fears Rise The Federal Reserve will make its decision at 2:00 p.m. ET, and then Warsh will speak 30 minutes later.
According to FedWatch data, there’s a 92.5% chance of a 25-basis-point increase. That move would lift the target range from 3.50%-3.75% to 3.75%-4.00%.
Fed watch data Higher rates typically squeeze speculative assets, drive up the cost of borrowing and increase the appeal of safer assets.
A hold would indicate relief buying, while strong calls for more gains would lengthen the Crypto Market Slide.
The outlook is further complicated by crude oil prices pushing above $100.
Persistent Middle East tensions have supported oil, strengthening arguments for tighter monetary policy.
CLARITY Act Senate Setback Deepens Regulatory Uncertainty On September 15, the Senate voted 49-50 to reject cloture on the CLARITY Act. Approval of the proposal required 60 votes to go to a full debate.
The failure left the hopes of near-term trading and oversight of digital assets hit a setback.
XRP was more impacted by policy-sensitive tokens, which saw an 8.18% drop during the general sell-off in the Crypto Market.
CLARITY Act failed, but crypto isn’t stopping.
We have 2 more important crypto bills today:
🇺🇸 Crypto Tax Bill:
Could make small crypto transactions and fees easier to use without triggering taxes.
🇺🇸 Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Bill:
Could lock the US government’s…
— Ash Crypto (@AshCrypto) September 16, 2026
The measure lives on a procedural level but has been whittled down in its chances before the November midterm elections.
House committees will now be considering two very different measures that may provide some support.
Qualifying transaction fees of $10 or less would be exempt under the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act.
The American Reserve Modernization Act will leave approximately $25 billion worth of Bitcoin in government hands, at least for 20 years.
BTC, ETH and XRP ETFs Show Weakening Institutional Demand U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $450 million in net outflows on Tuesday. One day earlier that was reversed by $160 million in inflows.
Ethereum took a loss of approximately $141 million after moving in for a sum of $121 million on Monday and $216 million on Friday.
XRP ETF trading volume did not see any notable activity since the ETFs garnered approximately $11 million worth of trading volume last session.
According to SoSoValue data, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs saw total net outflows of $450 million on September 15 Eastern Time, led by Fidelity’s FBTC with a net outflow of $215 million. Meanwhile, spot Ethereum ETFs recorded total net outflows of $141 million, led by BlackRock’s ETHA… pic.twitter.com/pgvStAykyH
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 16, 2026
They continue to receive $1.71 billion in total inflows and $1.41 billion in assets under management.
Some short-term pressure can be expected to increase in the Crypto Market due to more and more redemptions, which can affect the support of institutions.
Bitcoin, ETH, and XRP Price Predictions: Key Levels to Watch Bitcoin price needs to protect the 75,000 to ensure that the momentum does not go to low support areas.
A recovery of over 76,000 would manage to stabilize sentiment before traders can test harder resistance.
Ethereum price must regain $2,400, which has shifted from support to near-term resistance.
A drop below that might leave Ethereum vulnerable to further fall since the liquidity is still hesitant.
XRP price has to regain lost ground around $1.30 following a sharp decline on Monday around the $1.50 mark.
Coin 360 data If the token is not secured, it remains at risk, particularly if there is continued uncertainty in Washington.
If the dovish camouflage becomes a reality, it could lead to any of the three assets having rebounds.
However, a hike paired with hawkish guidance may extend losses and increase volatility throughout the Crypto Market.
As cryptocurrency adoption continues to grow worldwide, Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, has announced it is preparing to launch a cryptocurrency custody service for its corporate and business clients later this year.
Deutsche Bank Offers Cryptocurrency Custody Service to Corporate Clients! Deutsche Bank announced in an official statement that it is preparing to offer digital asset custody services to its corporate clients in Europe.
According to the statement, the service will be available to initial customers after the necessary regulatory processes are completed. The bank, however, emphasized that the exact launch date has not yet been determined and that the launch depends on the relevant regulatory requirements.
Bitcoin and Ethereum Included! According to Deutsche Bank, the service will initially support Bitcoin and Ethereum, as well as select stablecoins. These include USDC, EURC, and EURAU. However, the bank states that the scope of supported digital assets may be expanded in the future.
Under the new system, Deutsche Bank will manage wallets and private keys on behalf of clients. This will eliminate the need for institutional clients to establish and operate their own in-house cryptocurrency custody infrastructure. Clients will also be able to transfer their stored digital assets to third parties.
Who Can Benefit? The service’s initial target audience will not be individual investors, but rather Deutsche Bank’s corporate and business clients. The bank is targeting diverse client groups within the scope of the service, including corporations, asset managers, hedge funds, custodians, brokerage firms, and government agencies.
Customer acceptance will be carried out in accordance with the bank’s criteria, due diligence requirements, and risk assessments.
*This is not investment advice.
Follow our Telegram and Twitter account now for exclusive news, analytics and on-chain data!
A recent working paper from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS argues that many of the headline figures used to describe cryptocurrency and decentralized finance activity can mislead more than they illuminate.
Drawing on roughly 100 billion records from Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron, the researchers conclude that widely cited indicators of transfer volume, market size and on-chain usage are highly sensitive to how raw blockchain data are cleaned and interpreted.
As a result, they say these numbers should be treated as noisy approximations rather than precise gauges of real economic activity.
The most striking illustration involves Bitcoin.
Because the network uses an unspent-transaction-output model, a typical payment often returns unused funds to the sender as change.
Whether that change is counted as economic transfer value, excluded, or treated under a conservative lower-bound rule produces monthly estimates that can differ by as much as a factor of six.
Unadjusted totals therefore risk inflating the impression of how much value is actually changing hands between distinct economic parties.
Conventional market-capitalization figures can also diverge sharply from realized capitalization, which values coins at the price of their last movement; at times the gap has reached a factor of four.
Ethereum presents a different set of problems.
Programmability allows a single transaction to trigger many contracts and emit numerous events, making it hard to separate genuine economic use from technical by-products.
Researchers classified about 13 million active contracts, including some 1.4 million tokens, yet tens of millions of additional contracts defied straightforward categorization.
Token tickers themselves are unreliable: thousands of contracts have used the “USDT” symbol without any connection to the well-known issuer.
Trading remains highly concentrated and heavily oriented around stablecoins, further complicating attempts to read raw volumes as a map of underlying demand.
Stablecoins illustrate the cross-chain comparability problem. The same token can play different roles depending on the network.
On Ethereum, a sizable share of USDT has sat inside smart contracts, consistent with use in lending, liquidity pools and other DeFi operations.
On Tron, holdings have more often remained outside contracts, pointing toward simpler transfer and store-of-value motives.
Aggregating activity across chains without accounting for these differences can therefore mix distinct economic functions and overstate, or mischaracterize, overall usage.
Earlier related work on Ethereum stablecoin event logs reached a similar conclusion: a large fraction of recorded transfers occur inside complex, multi-step transactions rather than as standalone payments.
Treating every transfer as an independent payment therefore overstates both counts and volumes.
The authors identify three structural sources of divergence: how transactions are aggregated on a given chain, the open-ended nature of smart contract code, and the difficulty of comparing use cases across networks.
Simple sums, they argue, frequently blend genuine economic activity with technical artefacts.
For researchers, market monitors and policymakers, the practical implication is caution. On-chain dashboards remain valuable, but only when accompanied by explicit methodological choices and an understanding of what those choices leave out.
Strict editorial policy that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality
Created by industry experts and meticulously reviewed
The highest standards in reporting and publishing
Strict editorial policy that focuses on accuracy, relevance, and impartiality
Morbi pretium leo et nisl aliquam mollis. Quisque arcu lorem, ultricies quis pellentesque nec, ullamcorper eu odio.
Geneva, Switzerland — September 16, 2026 — The Office of Justin Sun today announced the establishment of the Justin Sun Prize, a zero-trust, decentralized academic bounty mechanism based on a “problem list,” with breakthroughs in fundamental disciplines and machine formal verification as the criteria for awarding prizes, and a top prize of up to US$1 million for a single problem. The prize seeks to redefine scientific rewards in the AI era and accelerate fundamental scientific research through collaboration between humans and AI.
The first list of Justin Sun Prize winners was also announced, recognizing solutions and formalized proofs involving 66 mathematical problems. The top prize, worth US$1 million, was awarded to the OpenAI research team in recognition of its solution and formalized proof for the Existence and Smoothness of the Three-Dimensional Navier–Stokes Equations problem. According to information published by OpenAI, the relevant proof was produced by its internal model, and the Lean formalization and verification were completed by GPT‑6 Astra.
This problem concerns the Navier–Stokes equations, which describe the motion of fluids and are commonly abbreviated as the N–S equations. The equations were developed in the 19th century by French physicist Claude-Louis Navier, Irish-born British mathematician George Gabriel Stokes, and others, and have a history of approximately two hundred years. In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute listed the Navier–Stokes Existence and Smoothness problem as one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems and offered a US$1 million reward for its solution.
The Justin Sun Prize does not use traditional nominations or credential thresholds as barriers to entry, nor does it operate on a four-year cycle or the rhythm of lifetime achievement. Instead, it ties the prize directly to mathematical problems and machine-verifiable formalized proofs. Anyone can receive the prize as long as they are the first to achieve a qualifying breakthrough.
The vision of the Justin Sun Prize is to become the “Nobel Prize of the AI Era,” responding to the profound transformation of scientific research and incentives in the new era in a more decentralized, formalized, and machine-driven way. The repository of mathematical problems and formalized code will be maintained and publicly updated on an ongoing basis. Once a problem is listed, it is locked in: problems can be added only, never removed; awarded prize funds do not need to be returned under any circumstances.
The current problem list already includes formal verification of the Poincaré Conjecture, the Riemann Hypothesis, Goldbach’s Conjecture, and a large number of unsolved problems proposed during the lifetime of the late mathematician and Wolf Prize laureate Paul Erdős.
In addition to the prize, winners will also receive a certificate and a medal. The edge of the medal is inscribed with the Latin phrase “Quod probatur, solvitur,” meaning “Proved, then paid.”
The Justin Sun Prize adheres to three core principles: openness, public benefit, and open source. It is open to all eligible contributors, with no restrictions based on nationality, institution, or identity, and makes no distinction between humans and AI; funds are used exclusively for prize awards and open initiatives and are not intended for profit; the problem list, confirmation standards, proofs, and verification materials are all made available to the public through GitHub, while prize disbursement records are recorded on-chain for permanent traceability and immutability.
“An award named after a person is the least political thing in the world,” said Sun. “More importantly, it gives me an answer to myself—my wealth is rooted in mathematics. It came from mathematics, and it will return to mathematics.”
According to public records, Sun has donated more than US$45 million across technology, environmental protection, disaster relief, and other fields. The Justin Sun Prize will become a central focus of Sun’s philanthropic efforts, continuing to support breakthroughs in fundamental science through an open and verifiable model.
The prize will be paid out in either USDT on TRON (TRC-20) or USDC on Ethereum (ERC-20) based on the recipient’s choice. For more information, please visit www.hejustinsun.com/prize.
About the Office of Justin Sun
The Office of Justin Sun supports Justin Sun’s global business, philanthropic and public initiatives across technology, blockchain, artificial intelligence, scientific research, investment, art and space exploration.
Justin Sun is the Ambassador and former Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization and the Founder of TRON. TRON is the leading blockchain for the stablecoin revolution, processing over $13 trillion in volume since its inception. In the world’s emerging markets, people rely on USDT on TRON to access the global financial system.
A protégé of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Sun has been recognized internationally for his work in the digital asset industry, including a Forbes cover profile in April 2025 and multiple appearances on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. In August 2025, he flew aboard Blue Origin’s NS-34 mission, becoming the 712th person in history to travel to space. His broader interests span technology, investment, philanthropy, art, gaming, and space exploration.
The Justin Sun Prize is an academic initiative established by Justin Sun to support advances in mathematics, formal verification, and AI-assisted scientific discovery. The prize is decentralized and built around the principle that mathematical work should be judged by the strength, rigor, and verifiability of the proof itself, not the prestige or reputation of those submitting it.
Justin Sun established the prize in his own name as a long-term commitment to return wealth created through mathematics and technology back to mathematics itself. Its legacy is intended to be defined by the body of work it recognizes and the laureates whose discoveries stand the test of time. The prize links clearly defined mathematical challenges to machine-verifiable proof. Its guiding principles are openness, public benefit and open-source access.
Visit https://www.hejustinsun.com/prize for more information.
Deutsche Bank, one of Europe’s largest banks with $1.7 trillion in assets, on Wednesday said it plans to launch a crypto custody service later this year. The offering will initially cover Bitcoin, Ethereum and selected stablecoins such as USDC for institutional and corporate clients.
Deutsche Bank Announces Crypto Custody Launch in 2026 The German multinational investment bank is set to launch its digital asset custody solution this year, according to an official announcement on September 16. The new custody service is still pending regulatory approval.
The bank will provide institutional and corporate clients in Europe with secure and regulated custody services for digital assets. At launch, Deutsche Bank will support Bitcoin and Ethereum as well as selected stablecoins or e-money tokens, including USDC, EURC and EURAU.
The bank plans to widen the crypto assets over time, with tokenized financial instruments on the roadmap. The crypto custody service will further grow based on client demand, regulatory requirements and the bank’s risk appetite.
“Digital assets are not a replacement for the traditional financial system but an important complement to it. We see them as new rails that can coexist with existing market infrastructures while benefiting from the trust, security and safeguards,” said Gerald Podobnik, co-head of corporate bank at Deutsche Bank.
Deutsche Bank will hold wallets and private keys on clients’ behalf. That is meant to prevent institutions from building and running their own custody stacks while keeping the service inside a regulated bank framework.
The Bank Joins Global TradFi’s Push into Bitcoin, Ethereum and Stablecoins The initial target market is clients of Deutsche Bank’s Corporate Bank and Investment Bank in Europe. That includes corporates, asset managers, hedge funds, custodians, brokers and sovereign institutions. Onboarding will follow the bank’s existing due diligence and risk standards.
Since MiCA came into force, several major European financial institutions have expanded their crypto custody, trading or tokenization initiatives. This includes BBVA, Société Générale-FORGE, Deutsche Bank, DekaBank, and Standard Chartered, which also secured MiCA approval.
$3 trillion Wall Street giant Citi is preparing institutional digital asset custody services later this year, starting with Bitcoin. Moreover, the US SEC sent its proposed crypto rules for investment firms to the White House, addressing how these firms can custody crypto assets.
Notably, Deutsche Bank made a case for Bitcoin earlier, stating that the US Strategic Bitcoin Reserve could offset national debt. US House Committee will markup the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve bill today, with a slight amendment proposed by Representative Bryan Steil.
Here are the best institutional custody solutions for tokenized assets, RWAs, and securities in 2026, with the top 8 providers reviewed by us.
Geneva, Switzerland — September 16, 2026 — The Office of Justin Sun today announced the establishment of the Justin Sun Prize, a zero-trust, decentralized academic bounty mechanism based on a “problem list,” with breakthroughs in fundamental disciplines and machine formal verification as the criteria for awarding prizes, and a top prize of up to US$1 million for a single problem. The prize seeks to redefine scientific rewards in the AI era and accelerate fundamental scientific research through collaboration between humans and AI.
The first list of Justin Sun Prize winners was also announced, recognizing solutions and formalized proofs involving 66 mathematical problems. The top prize, worth US$1 million, was awarded to the OpenAI research team in recognition of its solution and formalized proof for the Existence and Smoothness of the Three-Dimensional Navier–Stokes Equations problem. According to information published by OpenAI, the relevant proof was produced by its internal model, and the Lean formalization and verification were completed by GPT‑6 Astra.
This problem concerns the Navier–Stokes equations, which describe the motion of fluids and are commonly abbreviated as the N–S equations. The equations were developed in the 19th century by French physicist Claude-Louis Navier, Irish-born British mathematician George Gabriel Stokes, and others, and have a history of approximately two hundred years. In 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute listed the Navier–Stokes Existence and Smoothness problem as one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems and offered a US$1 million reward for its solution.
The Justin Sun Prize does not use traditional nominations or credential thresholds as barriers to entry, nor does it operate on a four-year cycle or the rhythm of lifetime achievement. Instead, it ties the prize directly to mathematical problems and machine-verifiable formalized proofs. Anyone can receive the prize as long as they are the first to achieve a qualifying breakthrough.
The vision of the Justin Sun Prize is to become the “Nobel Prize of the AI Era,” responding to the profound transformation of scientific research and incentives in the new era in a more decentralized, formalized, and machine-driven way. The repository of mathematical problems and formalized code will be maintained and publicly updated on an ongoing basis. Once a problem is listed, it is locked in: problems can be added only, never removed; awarded prize funds do not need to be returned under any circumstances.
The current problem list already includes formal verification of the Poincaré Conjecture, the Riemann Hypothesis, Goldbach’s Conjecture, and a large number of unsolved problems proposed during the lifetime of the late mathematician and Wolf Prize laureate Paul Erdős.
In addition to the prize, winners will also receive a certificate and a medal. The edge of the medal is inscribed with the Latin phrase “Quod probatur, solvitur,” meaning “Proved, then paid.”
The Justin Sun Prize adheres to three core principles: openness, public benefit, and open source. It is open to all eligible contributors, with no restrictions based on nationality, institution, or identity, and makes no distinction between humans and AI; funds are used exclusively for prize awards and open initiatives and are not intended for profit; the problem list, confirmation standards, proofs, and verification materials are all made available to the public through GitHub, while prize disbursement records are recorded on-chain for permanent traceability and immutability.
“An award named after a person is the least political thing in the world,” said Sun. “More importantly, it gives me an answer to myself—my wealth is rooted in mathematics. It came from mathematics, and it will return to mathematics.”
According to public records, Sun has donated more than US$45 million across technology, environmental protection, disaster relief, and other fields. The Justin Sun Prize will become a central focus of Sun’s philanthropic efforts, continuing to support breakthroughs in fundamental science through an open and verifiable model.
The prize will be paid out in either USDT on TRON (TRC-20) or USDC on Ethereum (ERC-20) based on the recipient’s choice. For more information, please visit www.hejustinsun.com/prize.
About the Office of Justin SunThe Office of Justin Sun supports Justin Sun’s global business, philanthropic and public initiatives across technology, blockchain, artificial intelligence, scientific research, investment, art and space exploration.
Justin Sun is the Ambassador and former Permanent Representative of Grenada to the World Trade Organization and the Founder of TRON. TRON is the leading blockchain for the stablecoin revolution, processing over $13 trillion in volume since its inception. In the world’s emerging markets, people rely on USDT on TRON to access the global financial system.
A protégé of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Sun has been recognized internationally for his work in the digital asset industry, including a Forbes cover profile in April 2025 and multiple appearances on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list. In August 2025, he flew aboard Blue Origin’s NS-34 mission, becoming the 712th person in history to travel to space. His broader interests span technology, investment, philanthropy, art, gaming, and space exploration.
About Justin Sun Prize The Justin Sun Prize is an academic initiative established by Justin Sun to support advances in mathematics, formal verification, and AI-assisted scientific discovery. The prize is decentralized and built around the principle that mathematical work should be judged by the strength, rigor, and verifiability of the proof itself, not the prestige or reputation of those submitting it.
Justin Sun established the prize in his own name as a long-term commitment to return wealth created through mathematics and technology back to mathematics itself. Its legacy is intended to be defined by the body of work it recognizes and the laureates whose discoveries stand the test of time. The prize links clearly defined mathematical challenges to machine-verifiable proof. Its guiding principles are openness, public benefit and open-source access.
Visit https://www.hejustinsun.com/prize for more information.
Disclaimer
This third-party press release is published substantially as received and does not reflect BeInCrypto's editorial views. BeInCrypto has not independently verified its claims or assessed the suitability, legality or appropriateness of any referenced asset, product or service; publication is not an endorsement. The content is general information, not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, a personal recommendation, offer or solicitation. Verify all information and seek professional advice where appropriate before acting. Crypto-assets may result in total loss.
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) spot ETFs shed a combined $592 million on September 15. Both products posted their deepest single-day outflows in months.
The outflows landed as the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the US Senate. The setback pulled prices lower, and capital followed them out.
Ethereum ETFs Record Their Worst Session Since JanuaryEthereum (ETH) funds lost $141.47 million, their largest daily outflow since January 30, according to SoSoValue data.
Nothing in that stretch came close. The worst session in between drained $136.4 million on March 19.
The selling followed four straight weeks of inflows. ETH products took in $1.94 billion over that run, peaking at $824.4 million in late August.
Bitcoin funds gave up $450.33 million, their worst session since June 25. Outflows hit $462.7 million last week, the heaviest since early July, after three weeks of heavy buying.
Trading volume told the same story. Bitcoin products saw turnover of $4.35 billion, compared with a 30-day average of $2.74 billion. Ethereum volume more than doubled its own baseline.
Follow us on X to get the latest news as it happens
Altcoin Funds See Mixed PerformanceHyperliquid (HYPE) was the only altcoin product to record an outflow. Its funds lost $3.89 million, extending a September decline of $18.04 million.
Four funds drew money in. Solana (SOL) ETFs led with $1.35 million. Tron (TRX), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Hedera (HBAR) added less than $500,000 each.
Crypto ETFs’ Performance on September 15. Source: BeInCrypto/SoSoValueSix funds recorded no activity at all. BNB (BNB) XRP (XRP), Chainlink (LINK), Avalanche (AVAX), Polkadot (DOT), and Litecoin (LTC) all logged zero flows. The 11 altcoin funds ended the day with a combined net outflow of $1.66 million. They hold $3.55 billion between them.
Both ETH and BTC ETFs still sit in positive territory for September. Bitcoin funds hold a $17.1 million net gain month to date, while Ethereum funds carry $307.4 million. One session, however heavy, has not erased the month.
The Federal Reserve announces its rate decision on Wednesday, a second policy test within 24 hours.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch leaders and journalists provide expert insights
Alongside its fast-moving short-term contracts, Zoomex Prediction Markets has always carried a deep Long-Term category, a full slate of event contracts that let traders take a position on some of the industry’s most debated multi-month and multi-year questions.
That category is a direct expression of Zoomex’s core philosophy, giving users a platform that is Easy to Use, Transparent by Design, and built on Fair Access & Rule-Based Execution, whether they are trading derivatives, spot, or real-world outcomes.
A Marketplace Built Across Every Time HorizonZoomex’s Prediction Markets are organized into four time horizons: 5 Minute, 15 Minute, 4 Hour, and Long-Term. Across the platform, 70 markets are currently live, with the Long-Term category alone accounting for 49 of them, by far the largest segment.
That balance reflects where user interest concentrates: away from pure short-term speculation and toward markets that track how the crypto industry evolves over the coming year and beyond.
Prediction Markets Source: ZoomexThe shorter time frames still play an important role in the Zoomex ecosystem. The 5 Minute “Up or Down” markets, for instance, let traders react instantly to price momentum on major assets. At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s 5-minute market showed 28% sentiment toward Up with $11M in trading volume, the most active market on the board.
Ethereum and XRP each sat at 13% Up, with $356K and $55K in volume, respectively. Solana and Dogecoin were both trading at 6% Up, on $154K and $13K in volume, while HYPE stood out with 56% sentiment toward Up on $533 in volume. These fast-moving markets are a useful entry point, but they are only a fraction of what Zoomex offers.
Long-Term Markets: Where the Real Conviction Trades HappenThe Long-Term category is where Zoomex Prediction Markets show their real depth, giving users a rule-based way to express views on questions that will take months or years to resolve, all settled transparently against clear, published criteria rather than opaque or discretionary outcomes.
Long Term Markets. Source: ZoomexSeveral markets illustrate the breadth of what is now tradable on Zoomex:
Will HYPE flip SOL by December 31? Currently pricing Yes at 9%, this market has already attracted $224K in trading volume as traders weigh whether Hyperliquid’s native token can overtake Solana by market capitalization before year-end. Will China unban Bitcoin by 2027? One of the platform’s largest Long-Term markets by volume at $1M, priced at just 2% Yes, reflecting how unlikely traders view a near-term reversal of China’s crypto policy stance. Bitcoin vs. Gold vs. S&P 500 in 2026, a multi-asset market with $917K in volume, where Bitcoin is priced at 19% and Gold at 25% for their respective Yes outcomes, giving users a direct way to position on which asset class performs best over the year. Will MicroStrategy announce bankruptcy before 2027? Priced at 3% Yes with $203K in volume, this market lets traders express a view on the durability of one of the most closely watched corporate Bitcoin treasury strategies. Adam Back confirmed to be Satoshi by December 31? and the broader Will Satoshi’s identity be proven? market, priced at 2% Yes each, with volumes of $23K and $2M respectively, show that even crypto’s oldest mystery now has a liquid, tradable market attached to it. Each of these markets displays a live probability gauge alongside simple Yes/No or Up/Down entry buttons and a running trading volume figure, giving users full visibility into market sentiment before they trade. That level of transparency is central to how Zoomex designs every product on the platform, prediction markets included.
To put the payoff structure in concrete terms, each Long-Term contract is priced as a share of its eventual full payout, so the entry price effectively sets the potential return. A trader who commits roughly €100 to the China unban Bitcoin by 2027 market, currently priced at 2% Yes, would be positioned for a payout near €5,000 if the outcome resolves Yes, reflecting how thin the market judges that probability to be. The same €100 stake on the MicroStrategy bankruptcy market, priced at 3% Yes, would target a payout close to €3,233 in profit, while a position on the HYPE flip SOL by December 31 market, priced at 9% Yes, would return roughly €1,011 in profit on the same stake. On the three-way Bitcoin vs. Gold vs. S&P 500 in 2026 market, a €100 stake on Bitcoin’s 19% Yes price would target about €426 in profit, compared with roughly €300 on Gold’s 25% Yes price.
It is worth noting that these figures are illustrative, based on the price at the moment a position is entered, and do not account for fees or spread, so they should not be read as a guaranteed outcome. Because Zoomex Predict World lets users adjust or exit their prediction shares before an event resolves, actual returns depend on how a trader manages the position over time, not solely on the final Yes or No result, another expression of the platform’s Fair Access & Rule-Based Execution standard.
Why Long-Term Prediction Markets Fit the Zoomex ModelPrediction markets are a natural extension of Zoomex’s positioning as a platform Focused on Derivatives. Just as futures and perpetuals let traders express a view on price direction, Long-Term prediction contracts let them express a view on the events that ultimately drive those prices, regulatory shifts, competitive dynamics between assets, corporate solvency, and even the unresolved lore of the industry itself. Instead of forcing users to piece together multiple instruments to hedge or speculate on these themes, Zoomex consolidates them into single, clearly priced contracts.
That consolidation is only useful if the execution behind it can be trusted, which is why every Zoomex Prediction Market runs on the same Fair Access & Rule-Based Execution standard that governs the exchange’s core trading products. Odds update in real time based on actual market activity, not a black box, and settlement follows clearly defined resolution criteria rather than subjective judgment calls. Combined with the platform’s Refined Brand & Trading Experience, traders move between derivatives, spot, and prediction markets inside one unified interface, without needing to learn a separate tool or manage liquidity across disconnected venues.
About Zoomex
Founded in 2021, Zoomex is a global cryptocurrency trading platform focused on derivatives trading. The platform serves over 3 million users across 35+ countries and regions, offering access to 700+ trading pairs. Built around easy to use, transparency, fairness, and speed, Zoomex provides a clear and efficient trading experience for users worldwide.
Through its high-performance matching engine, clear asset and order displays, and transparent fee and rule mechanisms, Zoomex helps users better understand their account status, order execution, trading costs, and results. Zoomex maintains registrations, licenses, and regulatory statuses across multiple jurisdictions, including the U.S. MSB, Canada MSB, U.S. NFA, and Australia AUSTRAC, and has completed security audits conducted by blockchain security firm Hacken. The platform also continues to strengthen its trust framework through Proof of Reserves, Security & Transparency, Compliance Information, and Fees / Rules Transparency initiatives.
Beyond trading, Zoomex builds a refined brand experience through elite sports partnerships, including the TGR Haas F1 Team, World Cup-winning goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, and world-class tennis events such as Wimbledon. The values of speed, precision, discipline, fair play, and rule-based execution are closely aligned with Zoomex’s approach to derivatives trading.
At Zoomex: Easy to Use. Transparent balance. Fair access to your earnings.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Zoomex? Zoomex is a global crypto derivatives platform founded in 2021, serving over 3 million users across more than 35 countries and regions with 700+ trading pairs. How does Zoomex work? Zoomex operates through a high-performance matching engine with transparent asset and order displays, allowing users to execute trades and track outcomes with full visibility into their balances and results. What can you trade on Zoomex? Zoomex offers 700+ trading pairs spanning cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, and SOL, as well as stock-linked contracts like NVDA and AAPL and gold exposure through XAUT. How does Zoomex compare to other exchanges? Zoomex differentiates itself by not issuing a platform token, avoiding venture capital or incubation deals, and holding security certifications from Hacken alongside regulatory licenses in multiple jurisdictions, positioning the platform around transparency and fund safety rather than token incentives. Where is Zoomex headquartered? Zoomex operates as a global cryptocurrency exchange with regulatory registrations including Canada MSB, U.S. MSB, U.S. NFA, and Australia AUSTRAC, reflecting its multi-jurisdictional compliance approach. Is Zoomex available in my country? Zoomex serves users across more than 35 countries and regions. Availability can vary by local regulation, so traders should check the official Zoomex website for country-specific access and requirements. Disclaimer
This third-party press release is published substantially as received and does not reflect BeInCrypto's editorial views. BeInCrypto has not independently verified its claims or assessed the suitability, legality or appropriateness of any referenced asset, product or service; publication is not an endorsement. The content is general information, not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, a personal recommendation, offer or solicitation. Verify all information and seek professional advice where appropriate before acting. Crypto-assets may result in total loss.
A self-custodial wallet with more than 77 million users on the Telegram-linked TON blockchain is expanding to Bitcoin, Ethereum and four other networks.
Tonkeeper rebrands to Keeper, adds Bitcoin, Ethereum and four more chains
Posted September 15, 2026 at 4:21 pm EST.
Tonkeeper, the wallet built for the Telegram-linked TON blockchain, has rebranded to Keeper and expanded into a multichain wallet, the company announced on Tuesday. The wallet, which the company says has more than 77 million registered users, now supports six additional networks alongside TON: Bitcoin, Ethereum, TRON, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum and Base.
The wallet was built as a dedicated home for TON, the blockchain tied to Telegram. But holders increasingly keep assets on several chains at once, which usually means moving funds across different apps, bridges and gas tokens. Keeper is pitched as a single place to hold and move funds across all seven networks while users keep their own keys.
New owner, new name The rebrand caps a change in who runs the wallet. The Open Platform, the company behind Wallet in Telegram, said last month that it had assumed day-to-day control of the product, while co-founders Oleg Andreev and Oleg Illarionov kept equity in it. Andrew Rogozov, who founded and runs The Open Platform, oversaw the handover.
“Keeper is the next chapter: taking the simplicity we’re known for beyond TON and into the broader crypto economy,” Rogozov said in a statement. Rogozov said the company’s ambition is “to build the default self-custodial wallet for a multichain world.”
Gasless, for now Keeper keeps the feature Tonkeeper called Battery, which covers a transaction’s network fee so the user does not have to hold the gas token native to each chain. Keeper says someone can move USDT and other tokens without first acquiring TRX or TON to pay the fee.
The bulk of the roadmap is still ahead. The Open Platform plans to extend Battery across every supported network and add native DeFi, cross-chain swaps, a built-in browser for onchain apps and, eventually, perpetual futures within the next year.
The launch pushes a wallet with tens of millions of users into a crowded field of multichain products. It also ties Keeper more tightly to The Open Platform, which has pitched itself as the infrastructure layer for crypto inside Telegram’s billion-plus user base. MetaMask, meanwhile, is splitting into a standalone company as consumer wallets increasingly compete as full financial products rather than storage.
Related Listen: Zcash, Ethereum, Aztec, Canton and More: Which Chain Will Win the Privacy Race?
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
Keeper, previously known as Tonkeeper, has announced its rebranding and expansion into a multichain cryptocurrency wallet. The company said the new version now supports seven networks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, TRON, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, and Base, alongside the original TON blockchain. Keeper reportedly serves more than 77 million registered users.
Broader multichain access and user controlOriginally created as a dedicated wallet for the TON blockchain, Keeper now aims to address the growing trend of users managing assets across several networks. Existing crypto wallets often require moving funds between multiple apps, navigating bridges, and handling different gas tokens. With the expanded support, Keeper positions itself as a unified solution that allows users to hold and move funds across all compatible networks while maintaining full control of their private keys.
The company stated that these changes are part of its effort to simplify multichain asset management and make self-custody more accessible. Users can transfer digital assets seamlessly without needing to switch between wallets or services.
Management handover and ongoing developmentKeeper’s rebrand concludes a recent transition in operational leadership. The Open Platform, the company behind ‘Wallet’ in Telegram, took over day-to-day management from the original founders, Oleg Andreev and Oleg Illarionov, who continue to hold equity in the product. The Open Platform is a project aimed at building crypto infrastructure for Telegram’s vast global audience. Andrew Rogozov, its founder and CEO, directed the operational transition.
In an official statement, Rogozov described the rebrand as “the next chapter: taking the simplicity we’re known for beyond TON and into the broader crypto economy.” He outlined the company’s goal “to build the default self-custodial wallet for a multichain world.”
Battery feature and upcoming roadmapKeeper retains its signature feature, previously called Battery. This mechanism covers transaction fees on behalf of users, allowing them to send assets such as USDT without needing to hold the specific gas tokens required by each supported network, for example TRX for TRON or TON for the TON blockchain.
Mini dictionary: Battery, a feature in Keeper that pays blockchain transaction fees for users so they do not need to own network-specific gas tokens for each transaction.
Rogozov expressed that the ambition behind Keeper is to become the primary self-custodial wallet for an interconnected, multichain crypto environment, emphasizing the expansion of existing user-friendly features like Battery beyond TON.
Looking ahead, The Open Platform plans to extend the Battery feature to every supported network and introduce additional tools, including built-in decentralized finance (DeFi) options, cross-chain swaps, an integrated browser for onchain applications, and, within the next year, perpetual futures trading.
Competitive landscape and industry contextKeeper’s multichain launch positions it among an increasingly competitive field of cryptocurrency wallets offering similar services. The move also strengthens Keeper’s integration with The Open Platform, which markets itself as the infrastructure layer delivering crypto experiences to Telegram’s audience of more than a billion users worldwide.
MetaMask, another major player in the sector, has recently started transitioning into a standalone company as many consumer wallets look to provide comprehensive financial products rather than solely serving as crypto storage solutions.
WalletSupported NetworksSignature FeatureKeeperTON, Bitcoin, Ethereum, TRON, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, BaseBattery transaction fee coverageMetaMaskEthereum, BNB Smart Chain, Arbitrum, Polygon, and othersBrowser extension, DeFi integrationThe company’s push for multichain compatibility and enhanced user experience is part of an evolving effort among wallet providers to support a broader range of assets and financial services.
The teams behind rival plans to build account abstraction into the base layer, Ethereum’s EIP-8141 and Base’s EIP-8130, have given up trying to converge, so wallet developers may end up supporting two transaction formats across the two networks.
Ethereum, Base abandon shared wallet standard as talks break down
Posted September 15, 2026 at 4:57 pm EST.
Ethereum and Base have given up on building one shared account-abstraction standard for both networks and will ship competing designs instead, Ethlabs developer Derek Chiang said in a post on Monday. Chiang co-authored one of the two proposals and founded the wallet-infrastructure firm ZeroDev.
The effort tried to reconcile Base’s EIP-8130 with Ethereum’s EIP-8141, two proposals that make account abstraction native to the base layer, letting people pay network fees without holding ETH, sign with a phone passkey, and rotate keys. Talks ended the week before after the two sides found no design that served both.
“While we identified a number of technical solutions, they all required one side or the other to compromise at least a little bit on their core goals,” Chiang wrote. The two chains want different things: Ethereum weights censorship resistance, privacy and security; Base is built for scale, customization and compliance.
Two Formats for Wallets to Carry The proposals take different routes. EIP-8130, written by Coinbase engineer Chris Hunter, pairs a new transaction type with an onchain “Keystore” and makes each transaction name the authenticator that validates it, giving nodes predictable costs. EIP-8141, or Frame Transactions, splits a transaction into “frames” that let an account define its own validation and gas payment in code, which is more flexible but heavier for high-throughput chains. It carries a “must-ship” designation for Hegotá, a coming Ethereum hard fork.
The cost of the split lands on wallets, which may have to support both formats, though EIP-8130 accounts can still reach other chains through the existing ERC-4337 standard. “So separate ways we went, putting the burden on wallets to deal with the fragmentation that ensues,” Chiang wrote, though he argued that software can hide the difference from users.
Related Listen: Should Stock Tokens Be Limited to KYC’d Users? Or Be Tradeable by Anyone?
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
Ethereum (ETH) and Base developers have ended a months-long attempt to merge two competing account abstraction designs into a single standard. The talks, which sought to reconcile Base-led EIP-8130 with Ethereum’s EIP-8141, known as Frame Transactions, collapsed last week.
Both networks will now ship their own native account-abstraction models instead of a shared format.
Account abstraction is meant to make wallets easier to use. In practice that means users can pay gas without holding ETH, sign with a phone passkey, and batch several actions into one transaction.
For years, the EVM’s common account model and transaction type let the same wallet work across Ethereum and its Layer 2s.
Developers hoped a common native standard would extend that experience to smart accounts, including future post-quantum accounts.
The collaboration failed because the two sides no longer want the same thing from the protocol.
Ethereum Layer 1 is optimizing for censorship resistance, privacy, security, and long-term extensibility.
I'm sad to report that the AA collab between 8130 and 8141 (Frames) broke down last week, and Base and Ethereum are now going separate ways to implement different AA standards.
I want to share some reflections on this collab and on the future of the EVM.
For a long time, the…
— Derek Chiang | Ethlabs (@decentrek) September 14, 2026
Frame Transactions treat a transaction as a sequence of programmable “frames,” or contract calls, that can handle validation, gas payment, privacy proofs, and other features without constantly rewriting the transaction envelope.
Ethereum core developers have already marked EIP-8141 a must-ship item for the upcoming Hegotá upgrade.Base and other Layer 2s are optimizing for throughput, customization, and compliance.
EIP-8130 introduces a new transaction type and an on-chain keystore that records which authenticators an account allows.
That structure makes transactions easier for a sequencer to inspect and constrain, which helps with performance and policy rules.
Base has been testing the design on its vibenet environment and has positioned it as a fit for the OP Stack.
Ethlabs developer Derek Chiang, who helped coordinate the talks, said the teams found several technical bridges.
Every option required at least one side to give up part of its core goal.
“Ethereum wanted to be the best version of Ethereum, and Base wanted to be the best version of Base,” he wrote.
Interoperability mattered, but not enough to override those priorities.
If both proposals go live as planned, wallet and app teams will have to support two native transaction formats.
Chiang argued that the split is not automatically a failure.
Forcing one design onto both networks could have left each worse at serving its users.
Separate paths let Ethereum and Base innovate more freely.
If wallets hide the differences well, end users could still get a smooth experience.
The episode also highlights a broader tension.
The EVM has long been the shared layer that kept Ethereum and its rollups aligned.
As Layer 1 and Layer 2 priorities pull apart, that layer is under strain.
Chiang sketched two responses: a wider coordination process that gives Layer 2s a real voice in EVM decisions, or acceptance that fragmentation is inevitable and investment in wallets that paper over it.
He now leans toward the second path.
The outcome does not end account abstraction.
It ends the idea that one protocol-level design will serve both Ethereum mainnet and a high-volume, compliance-conscious Layer 2 without compromise. Wallets, not core protocol teams, will now carry most of the cost of keeping those worlds usable together.
Bitcoin, Ethereum and XRP hit fresh selling pressure following the failure of the U.S. Senate to pass CLARITY Act. A process vote on the bill was unsuccessful with fewer than 60 votes. The defeat follows months of talks between Republicans and Democrats on the digital-asset market structure bill. According to the latest market data,
XRP Takes The Heaviest Hit As Bitcoin, Ethereum Also Dip As of writing, Bitcoin price hovered near $75,976.10 with a 3.7% dip, while Ethereum plunged 5.2% and stood at $2,404.20. Furthermore, XRP saw a huge drop of 7.3%, currently trading at $1.31 at the time of writing.
Bitcoin price chart today. Source: TradingView For context, the CLARITY Act Senate vote failure came as it was just 11 short of the 60 votes required to advance with 49 Yes votes and 50 No votes. Four Republicans joined their Democratic colleagues in opposing the measure.
Not invoked, 49-50: Motion to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to Cal. #423, H.R.3633, Clarity Act.
— Senate Cloakroom (@SenateCloakroom) September 15, 2026
One point of contention was the ethics language of the bill. Democrats pointed out that the provisions didn’t go far enough to protect the interests of federal officials in the crypto market, especially those of Trump and his family.
Before the vote, Republicans had added ethics restrictions and enforcement changes. But negotiations fell short of securing necessary support for the procedural motion.
Crypto Liquidations Surge To $669.71 Million The crypto market’s bearish move led to massive liquidations across the industry. According to CoinGlass, total 24-hour liquidations of $669.71 million as the CLARITY Act stalled. Long positions totalled $571.64 million and short ones $98.06 million. During the period 116,199 traders were liquidated.
Crypto market liquidations data today. Source: CoinGlass On its liquidation heatmap, it also revealed that there were approximately $231.63 million in Bitcoin-related liquidations and approximately $220.77 million in ETH-related liquidations.
Meanwhile, the 4-hour liquidation was $28.76 million, with $24.23 million representing long liquidations.
For regulatory-compliant crypto trading, visit our page on Best Regulated Crypto Exchanges in the USA.
The CLARITY Act failed to advance in the US Senate on Tuesday, September 15, dealing a major setback to the crypto industry’s biggest regulatory push in years.
Senators voted 49-50 on a procedural motion to move forward with the bill. It needed 60 votes. The vote was on whether the Senate should begin considering the legislation, rather than final passage.
So why did it fail?
1. Democrats Wanted Trump to Sell Large Crypto Holdings
This became the biggest disagreement in the final hours.
Republicans made a major concession before the vote. Their final bill required senior officials with a “significant financial interest” in certain crypto companies to either sell that interest or place it in a qualified blind trust.
Democrats wanted to go further.
Their final counteroffer would have required officials with a “very large interest” in a crypto company to sell it, removing the blind-trust option for those holdings. Democratic negotiator Angela Alsobrooks said divestment was the major unresolved issue before the vote.
The difference is simple. Under the Republican proposal, an official could remain financially invested through a blind trust. Democrats wanted very large interests sold completely.
Crypto billionaires have spent nearly $300M on the midterm elections.
Meanwhile, Trump and his family have pocketed more than $1.4B from crypto deals.
Now the crypto industry wants Congress to do its bidding by passing the corrupt CLARITY Act.
The Senate must say NO.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 15, 2026
2. Democrats Wanted the Rules to Cover Trump’s Children
The Republican bill covered senior elected officials, federal judges and their spouses. Democrats wanted the ethics restrictions expanded further, including to children of covered officials.
That was particularly relevant because Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Barron Trump have links to World Liberty Financial.
The Democratic counteroffer also sought tighter restrictions around paid crypto promotions.
Republicans rejected those additional changes on Tuesday morning. Sen. Cynthia Lummis’ office argued Democrats were repeating demands Republicans had already considered during months of negotiations.
Today, I voted no on the Clarity Act, legislation meant to regulate cryptocurrency in America.
The ethics provisions in this bill are simply too thin. President Trump, his children, and his Cabinet are making billions of dollars in the crypto space, in part from bilking everyday…
— Sen. Elissa Slotkin (@SenatorSlotkin) September 15, 2026
3. Democrats Still Had Concerns About Who Would Enforce the Rules
Republicans had already moved considerably on enforcement.
Earlier versions gave the US attorney general the main enforcement role. Democrats argued that created an obvious problem: a Justice Department controlled by the president could be responsible for enforcing ethics rules against that same president.
The final Republican bill gave state attorneys general a role in enforcement, one of the concessions President Trump accepted before the vote.
Democrats still argued that the mechanism left too much authority inside the federal administration and could make enforcement difficult in practice.
Hot take: Trump coin, World Liberty, USD1, and Melania coin are why CLARITY failed.
An unprecedented $1.3 billion pocketed. More than all past U.S. presidents made during their terms combined.
— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) September 15, 2026
4. Banks and Crypto Companies Were Still Fighting Over Stablecoin Rewards
Ethics was the final major obstacle, but another fight remained unresolved.
Banks have warned that stablecoins paying rewards could pull deposits out of traditional banks. That could particularly hurt smaller community banks that rely on deposits to fund loans.
The final CLARITY draft gave the Treasury secretary temporary authority to restrict stablecoin rewards if they caused damaging deposit outflows.
Some lawmakers still wanted stronger protection for banks. Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the Republicans who opposed advancing the bill, raised concerns about community banks.
The CLARITY Act didn't advance in the Senate today, which was a disappointment. While it's possible bi-partisan conversations continue and it lives to fight another day, we can't wait on Congress anymore.
The SEC and CFTC have the tools they need to create clear rules under…
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) September 15, 2026
5. Illicit Finance and DeFi Rules Were Still an Issue
Democrats also wanted stronger protections around money laundering, national security and illicit finance.
The latest Republican draft made changes to DeFi regulation and anti-money laundering requirements. However, lawmakers including Elizabeth Warren argued that more work was still needed.
These issues contributed to the wider disagreement, although divestment and presidential ethics were the clearest final sticking points.
Crypto Prices Fell Before the Vote Was Even Over
The reaction has been clearly negative, especially in assets most exposed to U.S. crypto regulation. Bitcoin fell more than 5% during Tuesday’s sell-off, while Coinbase and Circle shares fell as much as 10%. Ethereum dropped more than 6%, while XRP lost roughly 12% at one point.
Part of the decline began before the Senate vote.
Markets could see negotiations breaking down during the morning. That meant traders were already reducing risk before senators officially voted.
CLARITY was also only one source of pressure.
US Treasury yields climbed above 5%, oil prices surged above $100 and markets were preparing for a Federal Reserve interest-rate decision on September 16. Higher interest rates generally make risk assets such as crypto less attractive.
Will Crypto Prices Keep Falling?
Further losses are possible, although CLARITY alone may have already caused most of its immediate damage.
Dennis Porter, co-founder of Satoshi Action Fund, made this argument to BeInCrypto more than a month before the vote.
“I think failure is priced in right now,” Porter told BeInCrypto.
At the time, Polymarket gave CLARITY only around a 16% chance of becoming law in 2026. Porter argued that a failed vote could therefore have less impact on crypto prices than many investors expected.
He also said clear rules could encourage larger institutions to make longer-term crypto investments. He expected that benefit to appear gradually rather than produce an immediate Bitcoin rally.
So far, that argument has partly held up.
Bitcoin suffered a meaningful decline after negotiations collapsed, but there has been no CLARITY-driven market crash on the scale that might occur after a completely unexpected regulatory shock.
Assets more directly exposed to US crypto regulation were hit harder. XRP fell much more sharply than Bitcoin, while Coinbase suffered a double-digit decline.
The next major market driver is now likely to be the Federal Reserve.
If rates rise and the Fed signals further tightening, crypto could face more pressure. A softer message could instead help risk assets recover.
What Happens to the CLARITY Act Now?
The bill is stalled, but there is still a route to revive it.
September 15: The Senate failed to invoke cloture, with the vote ending 49-50.
Before October 5: Senators could reopen negotiations and attempt another procedural vote if Republicans and Democrats reach a new compromise.
October 5-November 6: The Senate is scheduled for a state work period covering the November 3 midterm elections.
After November 6: Congress could try again during the post-election session.
December 18: The Senate’s current schedule lists this as its target adjournment date.
January 2027: If Congress does not pass the legislation before the current Congress ends, lawmakers would have to introduce legislation again in the next Congress.
There is one important procedural detail.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis switched his vote to “no” at the end of Tuesday’s vote, preserving a route to seek reconsideration later. That means another attempt remains possible if negotiators can find enough votes.
For now, the biggest question is whether Republicans and Democrats are willing to reopen the ethics negotiations.
Without a compromise on divestment and enforcement, CLARITY still does not have the 60 Senate votes it needs to move forward.
Disclaimer
BeInCrypto is committed to unbiased, transparent reporting. This news article aims to provide accurate, timely information. However, readers are advised to verify facts independently and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content. Please note that our Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, and Disclaimers have been updated.
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 Bank for International Settlements working paper has found that estimates of Bitcoin onchain transfer value can differ by as much as sixfold depending on how researchers treat transaction outputs.
Summary
BIS researchers found Bitcoin onchain transfer estimates can vary sixfold depending on transaction measurement methodology. Bitcoin market capitalization has at times measured four times realized capitalization during sharp price surges. Researchers classified 13 million Ethereum contracts while more than 54 million remained outside study categories. USDT smart-contract holdings exceeded 20% on Ethereum, while Tron remained near 1% most periods studied. Visa filters bots, bridge routing and exchange activity when calculating adjusted stablecoin transaction volume estimates. The Bank for International Settlements working paper, titled Hidden by complexity? Measuring stablecoin, crypto and decentralised finance ecosystems, was written by Timothy Aerts, Ronald Heijmans, Jan Paulick and Violeta Vuletic and published in September 2026. The research uses data from Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron collected through Mercurius, a project operated by De Nederlandsche Bank and developed with the BIS Innovation Hub and Deutsche Bundesbank. Read BIS Working Paper 1377
Across the three networks, the Mercurius dataset contains 100 billion records. The paper cautions that the figure represents data points stored through its processing system and should not be read as 100 billion distinct blockchain events. Ethereum and Tron records can overlap between base-layer and smart-contract data, while information can appear at several stages of the processing pipeline.
Bitcoin onchain transfer estimates depend on change handling For its Bitcoin analysis, the study examined data covering 2009 through 2026, including approximately 1.3 billion transactions and 3.6 billion transaction outputs. Researchers tested three ways of calculating transfer value because Bitcoin’s unspent transaction output, or UTXO, model can return unused funds to the sender as change.
The paper’s upper estimate counts the value of all outputs. An adjusted measure removes outputs sent back to the sending address, which researchers treated as likely change. A conservative lower estimate removes identified self-transfers or, when none can be identified, subtracts the transaction’s largest output under the assumption that smaller outputs represent the economic transfer.
Applying the different methods produced gaps of as much as sixfold in monthly estimates of Bitcoin onchain transfer value. Figure 5 in the study shows raw, adjusted and lower-bound estimates diverging sharply during several periods, especially when Bitcoin activity and prices increased.
Researchers cautioned that their lowest estimate is a conservative heuristic, not a mathematically certain measure. CoinJoin transactions can contain several change outputs, while mixers, spam activity and intermediary transfers create other classification problems that the model does not attempt to remove. The paper found that self-transfer exclusions became more pronounced from March 2016 as address reuse increased.
The authors said commonly quoted metrics can convey “a degree of accuracy that is not supported by the nature of the underlying data.”
Bitcoin market cap changes under alternate valuation methods The same measurement problem appears when valuing Bitcoin’s supply. The study compared conventional market capitalization with measures that account for long-dormant coins and the price at which individual outputs last moved.
Standard market capitalization applies the current Bitcoin price to all outstanding supply. One alternative in the paper removes UTXOs that have remained untouched for more than 15 years. Using that threshold excluded just over 1.8 million BTC from the calculation, although the researchers stressed that inactivity cannot prove private keys have been lost.
Their data show approximately 3.5 million BTC had remained dormant for more than 10 years, while 1.8 million BTC had not moved for more than 15 years. Yet nearly 24,000 BTC eventually moved after sitting dormant for over a decade, including close to 3,000 BTC that moved after 15 years. The researchers cited those movements as evidence that age-based lost-coin estimates remain uncertain.
A separate measure, realized capitalization, values each unspent output using the Bitcoin price recorded when that output was created after its previous spend. The BIS analysis found conventional market capitalization reached as much as four times realized capitalization during periods of rapid price appreciation. During Bitcoin’s sharp 2022 decline, realized capitalization temporarily stood above conventional market capitalization because older outputs retained their previous valuation.
In related coverage, a crypto.news explainer on Bitcoin realized price describes realized capitalization as the basis for calculating the market’s aggregate onchain cost basis. Crypto.news reported in August that Bitcoin’s realized capitalization rose by more than $4.6 billion during one seven-day period, based on CryptoQuant data. Read the related Bitcoin realized-cap report
Ethereum and USDT create different data problems Ethereum presented a different challenge because a single transaction can call several smart contracts and generate information across transaction inputs, execution traces and event logs. The BIS researchers examined 67.5 million deployed and active Ethereum contracts and could not place more than 54 million into their technical categories.
Among contracts they could classify, close to 12 million were proxies, 1.4 million were fungible-token contracts and approximately 100,000 were NFT contracts. Researchers used bytecode and standards such as ERC-20 and ERC-721 for classification but warned that adherence to a technical standard does not establish a contract’s economic purpose.
Naming created another source of noise. The paper identified the USDT symbol across roughly 7,000 Ethereum token contracts even though only one represented Tether’s official Ethereum issuance contract. Its analysis excluded the genuine Tether contract when studying imitation or potentially spurious USDT-labelled tokens.
Cross-chain USDT data showed a separate contrast. On Ethereum, the proportion of USDT held in smart contracts climbed above 20% in 2022 and stayed mostly between 15% and 20% until late 2024 before falling into a roughly 10%–15% range. On Tron, smart-contract accounts held around 1% of USDT during most periods examined.
The researchers associated Ethereum’s smart-contract balances with activities including liquidity provision, lending and other DeFi uses. They described Tron USDT as appearing more frequently in transactional and store-of-value activity, while warning that account type remains an imperfect proxy because externally owned addresses can represent payments, exchange custody, remittances or holdings.
In related coverage, crypto.news reported that Tron processed $2.1 trillion in USDT transfers during the second quarter of 2026, citing Messari data, while its USDT supply ended the quarter at $87.9 billion. Read the crypto.news Tron USDT report
BIS favors ranges as Visa filters stablecoin activity For future measurement work, the authors recommend supplementing single-number estimates with bounded ranges that disclose protocol-specific uncertainty. Their framework calls for technical contract classification, explicit assumptions and separate treatment of an asset’s identity and the blockchain infrastructure on which it operates. The authors described onchain indicators as “noisy approximations rather than direct measures of economic activity.”
The publication is a BIS Working Paper and does not itself introduce a regulation, compliance deadline or reporting requirement. BIS states that Working Paper views belong to their authors and do not necessarily represent the institution or its member central banks.
A comparable filtering process is already visible in the Visa Onchain Analytics dashboard, developed with Allium Labs. Visa separates total stablecoin activity from an adjusted measure designed to filter high-frequency trading, bots, bridge routing, centralized exchange activity, minting and burning, and other transfers that may not resemble ordinary settlement.
A Sept. 16 dashboard snapshot carried by TradingView from Cointelegraph showed $6.4 trillion in total stablecoin transaction volume over the preceding 30 days and $313.1 billion after Visa’s adjustments. The live Visa methodology states that its single-direction filter counts only the largest stablecoin transfer within one transaction, reducing duplicate internal movements generated by complex smart-contract calls.
Visa’s address filter includes transfers in adjusted volume when the activity meets its economic criteria and an address has not sent more than 1,000 transactions or $10 million in volume during a 30-day period. The dashboard classifies activity across payments, DeFi, centralized exchanges, investment and trading, store of value, minting and burning, short-term routing and infrastructure, while transactions below $250 that pass its adjusted filter are classified as retail-sized.
Leading cryptocurrencies tumbled on Tuesday as investors reacted to the CLARITY Act’s failure in the Senate and growing expectations of an interest-rate hike
Crypto Market PlungesBitcoin sank below $74,000, alongside a 27% drop in 24-hour trading volume. Ethereum dived below $2,400, while XRP and Dogecoin plunged sharply.
The CLARITY Act died for 2026 in the Senate, falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance.
Cryptocurrency-related stocks bled, with Strategy Inc. (NASDAQ:MSTR) and Bitmine Immersion Technologies Inc. (NYSE:BMNR) closing down 5.36% and 8.39%, respectively.
Over $660 million was erased in cryptocurrency liquidations in the past 24 hours, with $566 million coming from bullish long positions, according to Coinglass data.
Bitcoin’s open interest fell 0.72% over the last 24 hours. Interestingly, retail and whale derivatives traders increased their long exposure to BTC after the dip.
The market sentiment shifted from “Greed” to “Neutral,” according to the Crypto Fear & Greed Index.
Top Gainers (24 Hours)
The global cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $2.58 trillion, down 3.07% in the last 24 hours.
Read Next
Stocks Fall Ahead of Potential Fed Rate HikeThe stock market moved lower on Tuesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 28.09 points, or 0.63%, to close at 52,093.11. The S&P 500 shed 0.45% to close at 7,585.73, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.78% to settle at 25,981.57.
Trending
Investors are focused on the Federal Reserve’s rate verdict expected on Wednesday, with the CME FedWatch tool pricing in a 92% chance of a rate hike.
‘Attractive Accumulation Zone’Ali Martinez, a widely followed cryptocurrency analyst, said that Bitcoin’s short-term holder cost basis—the estimated average price paid for BTC by investors who have held their coins for less than 155 days—has historically provided “attractive accumulation zones.”
“Each time BTC touched or briefly fell below its short-term holder cost basis, it created a macro buying opportunity before the bull market resumed,” the analyst added.
Martinez said they’re waiting for a pullback to the level, currently around $71,200, before buying BTC again.
Popular cryptocurrency commentator Michaël van de Poppe expressed growing interest in the $74,000 zone as his preferred support area.
“Sweep of the lows done, fear is in the markets, and we most likely get a ton of short liquidity in the markets now too,” he added.
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.
PANews, September 16 – According to SoSoValue data, affected by factors including the failure of a key procedural vote on the CLARITY Act, the crypto market is generally trending downward. The PayFi sector fell 8.44% in 24 hours, with XRP (XRP) and Stellar (XLM) dropping 10.38% and 10.66% respectively. Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 3.17%, briefly dipping below $75,000 during the session before recovering to $75,600; Ethereum (ETH) fell 4.88%, dropping below $2,400. In addition, the GameFi sector remained relatively resilient, rising 9.65% against the trend in 24 hours, with Akedo (AKE) surging 76.22%.
In other sectors, the CeFi sector fell 1.74% in 24 hours, with Cronos (CRO) down 6.70%; the Layer1 sector fell 3.44%, with major public chains generally weakening, Solana (SOL) down 5.65%, and Injective (INJ) down 13.07%; the Layer2 sector fell 4.04%, with Arbitrum (ARB) performing strongly, up 10.71%; the Meme sector fell 4.24%, with Pump.fun (PUMP) down 7.59%; the DeFi sector fell 5.25%, with Curve DAO (CRV) down 9.72%.
As the self-custody wallet market matures beyond a single selling point, traders holding Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP and other cryptocurrencies are evaluating meaningfully different wallet architectures, each with genuine trade-offs.
For most of crypto’s history, the case for self-custody fit into four words: not your keys, not your coins. In 2026, that argument is largely won. The harder question for traders managing Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins such as USDT and USDC, and other digital assets is now: which wallet, and why?
The numbers tell two stories at once. Fifty-nine percent of crypto wallet users globally say they prefer non-custodial solutions, but Ledger estimates that only 30 million of 400 million crypto users worldwide actually practise self-custody, and just 10 million do so securely.
The gap between stated preference and practice has a cause: friction. Non-custodial swap volumes still rose more than 340% year-over-year through early 2026, hardware wallet sales reached $560 million in 2025, and the non-custodial wallet market is projected to grow from $4.8 billion to $18.3 billion by 2033.
The infrastructure being built to close that friction gap is also what makes the differences between today’s self-custody wallet options important for Bitcoin, Ethereum and altcoin traders.
Five wallets currently represent meaningfully different approaches.
Vymopay: Telegram-Native Self-Custody With AML Screening
Vymopay is a Telegram-native non-custodial wallet that requires no separate application download. It is built around a problem most self-custody options leave unaddressed: what happens to a trader’s wallet identity at the moment Bitcoin, Ethereum or another cryptocurrency is withdrawn from a centralized exchange.
Its Shield Address feature generates an intermediate receiving address. Funds sent to that address are automatically screened for AML risk and then forwarded to the user’s actual wallet without disclosing the final destination to the sender or originating exchange.
The feature is designed to reduce the risk of directly linking on-chain activity to a CEX-verified identity while keeping compliance controls intact.
Vymopay’s main features include:
Shield Address: Private forwarding with automatic AML screening; the user’s actual wallet address is not disclosed to the sender or exchange. Exchange: Market and limit orders executed from the same interface, with instant fill notifications. Crypto loans: Stablecoin liquidity against crypto collateral without requiring the immediate sale of the underlying asset. Staking: Users can stake and unstake supported crypto assets directly from the bot, with rewards tracked in one place. Up to 500 dedicated deposit addresses per asset: Per-customer or per-transaction attribution without manual reconciliation. Freeze Alert: Continuous wallet monitoring with real-time alerts and recurring AML reports. The trade-offs are also real. Vymopay has a shorter track record than MetaMask or Ledger, its distribution is dependent on Telegram, and its blockchain coverage is narrower than Trust Wallet’s.
MetaMask: A Leading Wallet for Ethereum and EVM Networks
MetaMask is the default entry point for activity on Ethereum and other EVM-compatible networks. It has more than 30 million monthly active users and deep integration across decentralized finance protocols.
Private keys are stored locally in the browser extension or mobile application, and no account registration is required.
Its primary limitation is structural. MetaMask is EVM-focused by default, provides no built-in AML screening and does not address the wallet-linkage issue that arises when a user withdraws Ethereum or another supported asset from a centralized exchange. The destination address remains recorded by the exchange.
Trust Wallet: Broad Support for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Altcoins
Trust Wallet covers the broadest blockchain range among the mobile-native options included in this comparison. It supports more than 100 blockchains, including major networks used for Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL) and a wide range of altcoins.
The wallet reports approximately 220 million users and provides built-in access to decentralized exchanges. Its fast setup process is one reason it is commonly among the first wallets encountered by traders leaving centralized exchanges.
The trade-off is similar to MetaMask’s. Trust Wallet does not provide built-in compliance tooling or a mechanism that separates a trader’s on-chain activity from an exchange-verified identity during the withdrawal process.
Ledger: Offline Storage for Bitcoin and Ethereum Holdings
Ledger hardware wallets keep private keys entirely offline. This is why they remain a standard recommendation for the long-term storage of high-value Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrency holdings.
Ledger Live supports most major blockchain networks and allows users to access features such as staking through the same interface.
The cost is ergonomic. Signing a transaction requires access to the physical device. For traders actively managing multiple positions, that additional friction can accumulate quickly.
The device may also be lost, damaged or confiscated. These risks exist in a different form from those associated with software wallets.
Exodus: Accessible Multi-Chain Desktop and Mobile Wallet
Exodus provides a multi-chain desktop and mobile wallet experience with built-in exchange and staking features. No account registration is required, and its design prioritises accessibility over technical depth.
Private keys are stored on the user’s device rather than dedicated hardware, placing Exodus below Ledger on the cold-storage security spectrum.
Exodus does not include dedicated compliance tooling, and its developer ecosystem is narrower than MetaMask’s for decentralized finance integrations.
What Bitcoin and Ethereum Traders Should Check Before Leaving an Exchange
No single self-custody wallet dominates across every category.
Cold-storage security points toward Ledger. Broad blockchain support and mobile accessibility point toward Trust Wallet. Ethereum-native and EVM-based DeFi integration point toward MetaMask. A multi-chain desktop experience with an accessible interface points toward Exodus.
Business-grade address management, private forwarding and integrated AML tooling point toward Vymopay, alongside the important caveat that a newer platform has less historical evidence showing how it performs under prolonged market and security pressure.
Before withdrawing Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins or altcoins from a centralized exchange, traders should therefore consider:
How and where private keys are stored. Which blockchain networks and crypto assets are supported. Whether the wallet provides AML or transaction-risk screening. Whether the withdrawal address becomes permanently connected to a CEX-verified identity. How recovery phrases and account recovery are managed. Whether the wallet is intended for active trading or long-term storage. The platform’s security history, audits and operational track record. Whether staking, exchange and lending features introduce additional smart-contract or counterparty risks. The right wallet ultimately depends on how the trader balances security, privacy, blockchain coverage, compliance requirements and ease of use.
About Vymopay
Vymopay is a non-custodial digital asset platform built inside Telegram. It is designed for individuals, traders, businesses and payment providers that need to manage, exchange, protect and grow digital assets, including widely traded cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, without switching between multiple applications.
Users retain control of their keys and funds at all times. AML compliance tools are integrated directly into the platform rather than being added as a separate external process.
Follow our Telegram and Twitter accounts now for exclusive news, analytics and on-chain data.
Follow our Telegram and Twitter account now for exclusive news, analytics and on-chain data!
