Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Prediction market protocol Trueo has announced it is migrating from Base, Coinbase's Ethereum Layer 2 network, to the Ethereum mainnet. The move has drawn a public endorsement from Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who welcomed the project as a new competitor in decentralized prediction markets.

Why Trueo Is Moving to Ethereum Mainnet The team cited Ethereum's network effects, deeper liquidity, integration potential, and stronger decentralization guarantees as the driving rationale.

For existing users, the transition is designed to be frictionless.

Buterin Praises the Project's Approach

The endorsement fits a broader stance Buterin has taken on the prediction market sector. He has also argued that prediction markets are drifting toward pure speculation, and Trueo's focus on decentralized, permissionless infrastructure appears to align closely with that vision.

The migration adds to a broader narrative of projects returning to Ethereum's base layer as the network's fee environment and developer tooling continue to mature. For Trueo, landing on Layer 1 with the public backing of Buterin himself is a notable early signal as it competes for users and liquidity in an increasingly crowded prediction market space.

Sources:
PANews: Trueo migrates from Base to Ethereum mainnet, Vitalik praises commitment to decentralization
ChainCatcher: Prediction market platform Trueo to migrate from Base to Ethereum mainnet
Crypto Briefing: Vitalik Buterin engages with Trueo prediction market amid oracle design debate

Thousands of identical $5,500 trades on Kalshi’s ether futures market have triggered accusations that the exchange inflates its crypto volume. Kalshi denies wash trading.

Kalshi is a US exchange regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It runs prediction markets and, since June, futures contracts tied to crypto prices.

Kalshi Wash Trading Claims Center on One Order SizeBeni, a former quantitative trader and co-founder of research firm Stealth Neolab, pulled trade records from Kalshi’s public data feed. One order size dominated the tape.

uh guys

I’ve been made aware that if @Kalshi itself participated in, directed, or knowingly incentivized the kind of activity described in my post below, it could potentially amount to fraud or market manipulation

Congratulations

We did it

(I am still not done tho) https://t.co/SC4OcbLN30

— Beni (@beniduboss) September 21, 2026 He counted roughly $539 million of 24-hour volume in the ether perpetual market against about $3.1 million of open interest. Open interest measures the value of positions still held open.

“On ETH the exact same $5500 trade size keeps appearing over and over again… it literally made up 48%-58% of ALL ETH PERP volume on 4 separate days,” said Beni.

Those numbers cannot be rebuilt exactly after the fact because the trading data changes by the second. Beni said he saved copies before publishing.

Kalshi Says Two Separate Products Were ConfusedKalshi’s head of crypto, who posts as IcoBeast, said Beni had blurred prediction markets with crypto perpetual futures contracts.

“We don’t do rebates for crypto prediction markets… All exchanges run rebate and incentive programs to help provide better liquidity on the exchange for traders. CME does it. So does Hyperliquid and Binance,” they challenged.

He also denied that Kalshi hand-picks the firms allowed to clear their own trades, saying fair access is a regulatory requirement.

Kalshi updated its temporary perpetual rebate program in a filing certified by the CFTC on 16 September. It rebates crypto perp taker fees down to 0.003% of trade value for self-clearing members, and leaves makers netting the same.

The same filing excludes any fees paid on trades that result from, or are under investigation for, self-matching, wash trading or pre-arranged trading. Kalshi’s chief regulatory officer can revoke a firm’s place in the program.

Regulators flagged the wider risk in August. CFTC staff warned that steep volume-based rewards can push participants to trade only to reach targets.

No enforcement action has been announced against Kalshi over the claims. Wash trading, where one party buys and sells with itself to fake activity, already breaks US commodities law.

BeInCrypto reported in June that Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual market cleared $1 billion in days, a level its prediction markets took 40 months to reach.

Beni said lawyers are reviewing further material before he publishes it.

TLDR: Bitmine ETH holdings reached 5.98 million tokens, representing 4.9% of Ethereum’s total supply. Bitmine staked 5.07 million ETH, representing about 85% of its total Ethereum holdings. The company reported $17.1 billion in combined crypto, cash and investment assets. Bitmine purchased another 27,562 ETH as it moves closer to its 5% supply target. Bitmine ETH holdings reached 5,983,940 tokens as of September 20, 2026, according to a company announcement. The NYSE-listed company, ticker BMNR, reported combined crypto, cash, and investment holdings of $17.1 billion.

Bitmine now controls 4.9% of the 122.1 million ETH supply. It bought 27,562 ETH last week and has purchased ETH weekly since June 30, 2025. The purchases bring the firm 98% of the way toward its 5% ETH supply target within 15 months.

Bitmine ETH Holdings and Staking Position The company’s crypto holdings include 5,983,940 ETH valued at $2,688 per token, based on Coinbase pricing. Additionally, Bitmine holds 212 BTC, a $180 million stake in Beast Industries, and a $105 million stake in Eightco.

Eightco, listed on NASDAQ as ORBS, offers indirect exposure to OpenAI. Total cash and marketable securities stand at $714 million.

Bitmine has staked 5,067,309 ETH, worth $13.6 billion at the same price. That amount covers 85% of Bitmine ETH holdings. A portion of the stake runs on MAVAN, the Made in America VAlidator Network.

Institutional investors and custodians can also use the platform. According to Chairman Tom Lee, Bitmine has staked more ETH than any other entity.

Projected annualized staking revenue for Bitmine ETH holdings stands at $357 million. If all holdings were staked, projected annual rewards would reach $421 million. The $421 million estimate uses a 7-day annualized yield of 2.62%.

Bitmine ETH holdings remain the largest of any Ethereum treasury worldwide. Its total crypto holdings rank second among global treasuries, behind Strategy.

Furthermore, institutional backers include ARK’s Cathie Wood, MOZAYYX, Founders Fund, Bill Miller III, Pantera, Kraken, DCG, and Galaxy Digital.

Market Standing and Tom Lee’s Outlook Bitmine was added to the Russell 1000 Large-cap index on June 26, 2026. Its Series A Preferred Stock trades on the NYSE under the symbol BMNP.

Meanwhile, BMNR averaged $1.2 billion in daily dollar volume over five days through September 18. That ranked the stock 100th among 5,704 US-listed stocks, per Fundstrat.

Lee said Bitmine believes a crypto bull market began in late June. He cited the rotation from AI back to crypto and stronger fundamentals around tokenization and AI.

He also pointed to the end of the four-year cycle. Management compares the GENIUS Act and SEC Project Crypto to the 1971 action that ended Bretton Woods.

Lee said ETH is the best-performing macro asset of the third quarter so far. ETH has outperformed the S&P 500 by 6,519 basis points. He described the gap as a possible prelude to a stronger move in the fourth quarter.

Lee expects institutions to raise their crypto exposure during the final three months of 2026. He said institutions have underweighted crypto this year, partly due to early AI stock outperformance. Separately, Lee will deliver a keynote at Korea Blockchain Week in Seoul on September 30.

Ethereum’s validator queues are telling a pretty clear story right now: everyone wants in, and almost nobody wants out. The ratio of ETH waiting to enter staking versus ETH waiting to exit has hit 13.6x, a lopsided figure that reflects just how eager holders are to lock up their tokens.

At one point in July 2026, the exit queue dropped to literally zero ETH. Meanwhile, the entry queue ballooned to approximately 2.48 million ETH, creating a wait time of roughly 43 to 45 days for anyone trying to become a validator.

The entry queue peaked even higher earlier in the year, reaching around 3.4 million ETH in May 2026. Even by late September, it hovered around 1.8 million ETH, still implying a 32-day wait. The exit side, by contrast, has been a ghost town for months.

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This wasn’t always the case. Back in September 2025, the exit queue swelled to approximately 2.67 million ETH. Then something shifted. By early January 2026, exit demand had collapsed by more than 99.9%.

Why the bottleneck exists in the first place Ethereum doesn’t let validators flood in or out at will. The protocol rate-limits both entries and exits to a maximum of roughly 256 ETH per epoch, which works out to about 57,600 ETH processed each day. Right now, that bottleneck is almost entirely one-directional. Entry demand is creating massive backlogs while exit requests barely register.

What’s driving the rush to stake Total staked ETH has surged to a record high of approximately 41 million ETH. That represents roughly 33.5% to 34% of Ethereum’s entire supply. The validator count tells the same story, with the network now supported by somewhere between 885,000 and 900,000 validators.

Large staking operators have been a significant force behind the entry demand. Entities like BitMine have been contributing materially to the queue, reflecting institutional-scale appetite for staking exposure. The Pectra upgrade has also played a role in propelling staking demand, and the data suggests it had exactly that effect.

Supply dynamics and market implications When a third of a network’s token supply is locked in staking, the math for available liquidity changes dramatically. Every ETH staked is an ETH that isn’t sitting on an exchange order book, isn’t being used as collateral for a leveraged trade, and isn’t available for immediate sale.

The 13.6x ratio also serves as a sentiment indicator. The September 2025 exit surge of 2.67 million ETH coincided with a period of broader market uncertainty. Its near-total reversal within a few months suggests that whatever concerns drove that wave of unstaking have been resolved in the minds of most participants.

Combined with the daily processing cap of 57,600 ETH, even if sentiment shifted tomorrow, exits would take weeks to materially impact the staked total of 41 million ETH. That built-in lag acts as a buffer against sudden supply shocks.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Robinhood Chain has collected roughly $4.5 million in transaction fees on Sept. 3 while spending an estimated $398 to post data and proofs to Ethereum, illustrating how little Layer 1 settlement cost can accompany heavy activity on an Ethereum Layer 2.

Summary

Robinhood Chain collected $4.5 million in fees on September 3 while paying Ethereum just $398. Bitquery counted 597 million transactions through September 3 and roughly $23 million in cumulative fees. Ethereum blobs provide Robinhood Chain data availability while ETH remains the network’s native gas token. L2Beat says only two whitelisted actors can challenge Robinhood Chain state updates on Ethereum today. Arbitrum receives 10% of Robinhood Chain net protocol revenue under its Expansion Program license terms. Bitquery reported that Robinhood Chain charged users $4,503,705 that day, while approximately $396 went toward Ethereum data posting and another $2 toward proving results. Its calculation produced a fee-to-settlement-cost ratio of roughly 11,400 to one.

The figures support part of an analysis published Sept. 20 by South Korea’s Digital Asset, which argued that rapid Layer 2 growth does not necessarily create proportional economic value on Ethereum mainnet. The publication’s conclusion is an analysis, however, while the underlying fee, architecture and settlement figures can be checked separately.

Robinhood Chain generated $4.5M while settlement stayed cheap Bitquery examined Robinhood Chain from its first block on April 30 through Sept. 3 and counted approximately 597 million transactions across 54 million blocks. By the end of that period, the network had generated roughly $23 million in cumulative transaction fees.

Most of the revenue arrived late in the period. Bitquery found that around 70% of cumulative fees came from Aug. 24 onward as the network’s base fee moved away from its 0.02 gwei floor. Daily fees jumped from $54,701 on Aug. 22 to $4.50 million on Sept. 3 as gas consumption roughly tripled.

The Sept. 3 Ethereum bill was far smaller. Bitquery calculated an exact execution-layer component and estimated blob charges after sampling 24 batch receipts across the day. It arrived at approximately $396 for posting data and $2 for proof-related costs. Even pricing every sampled blob batch at the highest rate observed that day would have left the settlement bill far below Robinhood Chain’s user fees.

Bitquery cautioned that the difference should not be read as Robinhood’s profit. Its calculation excludes staff, hardware, infrastructure, development, compliance and other operating expenses that are not recorded directly in the chain’s transaction ledger.

Nor does the $398 represent revenue received by an entity called Ethereum. It measures Robinhood Chain’s cost of using Ethereum for settlement-related activity. Ethereum’s fee mechanics distribute or burn different components according to protocol rules.

Digital Asset separately cited roughly $49,000 in cumulative on-chain costs paid to Ethereum since late April, averaging close to $370 per day over the period it examined. The publication used that comparison to argue that L2 transaction growth and Ethereum’s direct fee capture can diverge sharply.

Cheap Ethereum blobs are working as designed Robinhood’s own technical documentation describes Robinhood Chain as an Arbitrum Layer 2 built on Ethereum. It uses ETH as its native gas asset and publishes transaction data through Ethereum blobs.

Ethereum’s documentation describes EIP-4844 blobs as deliberately inexpensive temporary data space created mainly for rollups. Blobs use a separate fee market from ordinary execution gas and allow Layer 2 systems to publish compressed transaction information at much lower cost.

Ethereum therefore designed the mechanism to reduce rollup settlement costs. Its Proto-Danksharding documentation says cheaper blob storage is intended to lower Layer 2 costs while letting those networks continue using Ethereum for data availability.

The Sept. 3 gap between $4.5 million of Layer 2 fees and roughly $398 of Ethereum settlement costs is consistent with that architecture. It does not by itself demonstrate a malfunction in Ethereum’s scaling model.

Digital Asset’s author took a different economic question from the same data. The analysis argued that if most user payments remain on a company-operated L2 while Ethereum supplies cheap data availability, higher transaction volume does not automatically create a similar rise in Ethereum mainnet fees or ETH burned through Layer 1 execution.

Ethereum still supplies a function Robinhood currently uses directly. L2Beat says all data needed to construct Robinhood Chain’s state and proofs is published on Ethereum using blobs or calldata, while the chain maintains a challenge period of six days and eight hours.

The current design is not technically locked to every feature forever. A future operator could change some chain parameters through upgrades, but Robinhood’s live documentation currently specifies Ethereum for data availability and ETH for gas.

As previous Robinhood Chain architecture coverage reported, the public mainnet launched July 1 using Arbitrum technology, with tokenized stocks and DeFi products among its principal uses.

Robinhood Chain keeps control over sequencing Low settlement costs are only one difference between activity on Robinhood Chain and transactions executed directly on Ethereum.

L2Beat currently classifies Robinhood Chain in its “Others” category because fewer than five external actors can challenge state updates. Its current risk analysis says only two whitelisted validators can submit challenges against an incorrect state root.

Robinhood Chain has a centralized sequencer with priority over transaction ordering. L2Beat says the operator can extract MEV through that position, while an ArbOS transaction-filtering feature lets an authorized filterer cause selected transaction hashes to fail even if users try to force their inclusion through Ethereum.

The same assessment states that contracts can be upgraded without a user exit window in some configurations. L2Beat labels those characteristics according to its own maturity framework and explicitly says its stages are an opinionated assessment, not a direct security rating.

At the same time, the network does publish the data required for proof construction to Ethereum. L2Beat lists Ethereum as Robinhood Chain’s data-availability layer and reports no ongoing data-submission anomaly at its latest check.

Current activity remains high. L2Beat showed Robinhood Chain securing roughly $2.99 billion in value at the latest check, with about 114 user operations per second during the preceding day. Its value-secured figure is not the same metric as DeFi TVL and should not be presented interchangeably with deposits reported by other data providers.

Robinhood publicly opened the mainnet on July 1 after earlier restricted activity. The company said Uniswap, Pleiades, Alchemy, BitGo and Chainlink were among the ecosystem and infrastructure providers supporting the network.

That timing explains why Bitquery can measure transactions back to April 30 even though Robinhood’s official public-mainnet launch occurred two months later. L2Beat records July 1 as the date Robinhood removed the transaction-access whitelist.

As recent Robinhood Chain activity coverage reported, RWA-related trading reached a record $390 million in early September, with tokenized stocks and memecoin-stock pairs contributing to the activity.

Arbitrum captures revenue that Ethereum does not One part of the original value-capture argument needs another qualification: the spread between Robinhood Chain user fees and Ethereum settlement costs does not all remain with Robinhood.

Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, Robinhood Chain must return 10% of its net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem because it uses Arbitrum technology while settling outside Arbitrum One. The arrangement directs 8% to the ArbitrumDAO treasury and 2% to the Arbitrum Developer Guild.

Arbitrum’s Sept. 2 financial update provided evidence that this revenue-sharing arrangement is operating. The Foundation said Expansion Program licensing fees reached $360,000 in July and accounted for 35% of ArbitrumDAO income that month, Robinhood Chain’s first month on public mainnet.

The license applies to net protocol revenue, not gross transaction fees. The $4.5 million Bitquery measured on Sept. 3 therefore cannot simply be multiplied by 10% to determine Arbitrum’s payment without first calculating the applicable net-revenue base.

As earlier Robinhood revenue-share coverage explained, the Arbitrum arrangement gives a separate ecosystem an economic claim on Robinhood Chain activity even though the L2 settles to Ethereum.

Bitquery’s latest fee investigation identified another reason the Sept. 3 number rose so quickly. Eight contract addresses produced 79% of the increase in gas demand from the preceding period, including a swap router, an order-settlement contract, ERC-4337 entry points and aggregators.

One swap router handled 1.7 million transactions and paid approximately $1.1 million in fees on Sept. 3. A group of 31 wallets linked through common funding sent nearly 695,000 transactions to an order-settlement contract and paid roughly $692,000. Bitquery described the transaction patterns as consistent with heavy automated trading, while noting that blockchain flows alone do not establish who controls the addresses.

By Sept. 10, Robinhood Chain gas revenue had fallen to roughly $944,000 even though transaction counts remained close to early-September levels, according to later network reporting. The change showed that the Sept. 3 fee total was not a stable daily run rate.

However, Ethereum’s direct settlement bill, Robinhood Chain’s sequencer economics and Arbitrum’s licensing revenue therefore measure three different parts of the same stack. Bitquery’s Sept. 3 data shows a very large gap between the amount users paid on the L2 and the cost of posting its activity to Ethereum; it does not establish that the entire difference became Robinhood profit or that Ethereum received no economic benefit from the network.

Ethereum just delivered its best third-quarter performance in history, gaining roughly 60.62% as of mid-September 2026. For an asset that spent the first six months of the year bleeding value, that’s the kind of comeback that makes you wonder if the market has a flair for the dramatic.

The rally didn’t happen in a vacuum. Spot Ethereum ETF inflows crossed $10 billion cumulatively during the quarter, corporate treasuries scooped up more than $15 billion worth of ETH, and the DeFi ecosystem swelled to approximately $88 billion in total value locked across Ethereum and its Layer-2 networks. Bitcoin, by comparison, posted a relatively sleepy 6-10% gain over the same stretch.

From freefall to face-ripper Context matters here. Ethereum entered Q3 2026 carrying the bruises of two consecutive losing quarters: a 29.26% decline in Q1 followed by a 25.28% drop in Q2.

The average historical Q3 return for ETH sits at around 12.28%. Posting a 60.62% gain doesn’t just beat that average, it quintuples it. The quarter’s performance ranks as the second-best Q3 ever for ETH, trailing only the 66.55% gain recorded in Q3 2025 and edging past the 59.5% rally in Q3 2020.

Price action told the story vividly. ETH traded above $4,000 at various points during the quarter and even approached the psychologically important $5,000 level before a late-September pullback brought it back to the $2,400-$2,623 range.

Institutional money showed up in force The most structurally significant development wasn’t the price chart itself but what was happening underneath it. Spot Ethereum ETF inflows exceeded $10 billion on a cumulative basis, with nearly $4 billion of that arriving in August alone.

Corporate treasury purchases added another layer. More than $15 billion in ETH was acquired by corporate entities during Q3.

DeFi’s quiet contribution While ETF flows grabbed the headlines, the DeFi ecosystem did its part to reinforce the fundamental case. Total value locked across Ethereum and its associated Layer-2 networks reached approximately $88 billion by the end of Q3. That figure represents the combined capital deployed across lending protocols, decentralized exchanges, liquid staking platforms, and a growing number of real-world asset applications.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Ethereum [ETH] surged by 6.5% in the last 24 hours to trade at $2,618.67 at press time. This is a level the altcoin last saw back in January 2026. The timing here is interesting since the global cryptocurrency market cap also climbed to $2.88 trillion following gains of 4.6%. 

Source: X What is also interesting is that the said recovery followed several developments that would normally put significant pressure on risk assets.

For context, over the past week, the CLARITY Act failed to advance in the Senate and the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points. Additionally, the Bank of Japan also raised rates while the U.S. Dollar Index (DXY) moved back above 100 and and oil prices increased.

Not just a price playdate And yetm Ethereum saw a surge in whale transactions. This, and its holder base, continued to expand, with a record 207.17 million non-empty wallets. Staking is another major factor that has supported long-term ETH demand.

With more than 40 million ETH currently staked, there has been a significant removal of ETH from immediately available market supply. 

Source: Santiment At the same time, Ethereum has remained a major hub for decentralized finance (DeFi), securing roughly $50 billion in TVL across lending platforms, decentralized exchanges, stablecoin applications and liquid-staking protocols. 

Finally, ETH ETFs also flipped the three-day outflow streak with $143.7 million in inflows. 

Source: Farside Investors Other altcoins also surfed the bullish momentum Needless to say, besides Ethereum, Bitcoin [BTC] moved back above $80,000, while several major altcoins recorded more significant gains.

Source: Santiment For instance, Solana [SOL] and Hyperliquid [HYPE] hiked by more than 10% and Uniswap [UNI] gained by around 16%.

Is there still some uncertainty around? However, not everything may be as rosy as it seems. The Ethereum Foundation transferred approximately $2.45 million worth of ETH to an unlabeled Gnosis Safe, a type of smart contract wallet commonly used for managing funds collectively or securely.

Source: Arkham Now, because the receiving wallet is unlabeled, it is not yet clear whether it is directly controlled by the Ethereum Foundation or belongs to another entity.

The transfer, therefore, does not necessarily mean that the foundation is selling ETH or reducing its holdings. This, because on-chain data reportedly shows that the Foundation still holds around $235.46 million worth of ETH and $23 million in USDC.

Final Summary Ethereum’s recent gains were recorded despite several negative developments that would have impacted its bullish momentum. Besides ETH and BTC, several altcoins saw massive surges, with some seeing weekly hikes of over 45%. 

US spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $433 million in net inflows on September 18, while spot Ethereum ETFs added $144 million on the same day. Both figures represent a meaningful rebound from mixed and negative flow sessions that preceded them.

Fidelity’s FBTC was the standout performer on the Bitcoin side, attracting $311 million of the day’s total. BlackRock’s IBIT contributed $108 million. On the Ethereum front, the roles reversed: BlackRock’s ETHA led with $114 million, while Fidelity’s FETH added roughly $26 million.

The numbers behind the flows The $433 million Bitcoin ETF inflow day arrived against a backdrop of total Bitcoin ETF assets under management reaching $102.532 billion, a figure that now represents 6.29% of Bitcoin’s entire market capitalization. Cumulative historical net inflows into these products have hit $55.161 billion since their launch.

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Ethereum ETFs, while smaller in absolute terms, are growing at a pace that demands attention. Total AUM for spot Ethereum ETFs now stands at $16.719 billion, representing 5.2% of Ethereum’s market cap. Cumulative inflows have reached $13.250 billion.

The gap between 6.29% market cap penetration for Bitcoin ETFs and 5.2% for Ethereum ETFs is narrower than many expected at this stage.

Fidelity vs. BlackRock: different days, different leaders Fidelity dominated Bitcoin flows with $311 million out of $433 million total, capturing roughly 72% of the day’s inflows into FBTC. BlackRock took a back seat with $108 million into IBIT.

Flip to Ethereum, and the script reverses completely. BlackRock’s ETHA absorbed $114 million of the $144 million total, roughly 79% of all Ethereum ETF inflows for the day. Fidelity’s FETH picked up $26 million.

What this means for the market Bitcoin ETFs controlling 6.29% of the total market cap creates structural dynamics where every inflow day effectively removes a portion of circulating supply from the open market and parks it in cold storage under institutional custody.

With cumulative inflows of $55.161 billion for Bitcoin ETFs and $13.250 billion for Ethereum ETFs, the aggregate capital committed to these products now exceeds $68 billion.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Fake YouTube tutorials promoting AI-powered crypto arbitrage bots have tricked 224 victims into deploying malicious smart contracts that stole 274.6 ETH worth about $517,000.

Summary

Nine similar YouTube videos directed users to compilers controlled by the scam operators. Victims deployed 234 contracts and funded them through transactions they approved themselves. A malicious backend replaced the code shown to users with contracts designed to steal ETH. Stolen funds moved to six collection addresses, with the median victim losing 1 ETH. TRM Labs said in a Sep. 14 report that the operation disguised malicious Ethereum contracts as automated trading tools built with Anthropic’s Claude, allowing the scammers to steal funds without relying on conventional phishing links or suspicious wallet approvals.

The blockchain intelligence firm traced 234 contracts deployed by victims, although the campaign affected 224 people because some participants created more than one contract. Funds taken through the contracts eventually reached six collection addresses controlled by the operators.

Based on ETH’s value when the transfers occurred, the 274.6 ETH stolen was worth approximately $517,000. TRM calculated a median loss of 1 ETH per incident, showing that the total did not depend on a single large victim.

Fake AI trading bot tutorials turned victims into contract deployers Rather than sending users to a page that immediately requested access to their wallets, the operators presented the scheme as an educational process. Victims found the videos, followed the instructions, and took each onchain step themselves.

TRM identified nine nearly identical YouTube tutorials presented under different creator identities. AI-generated virtual hosts and voiceovers gave the videos the appearance of independent guides, while each tutorial promised to help viewers create a fully automated crypto arbitrage bot using Claude.

During the videos, users were told to copy code and open a compiler website selected by the presenter. Some of the websites copied the design of Remix, a commonly used browser-based development environment for writing and deploying Ethereum smart contracts.

Victims then connected their wallets, compiled what appeared to be trading software, and deployed the resulting contracts. Because the users initiated and approved each action, the transactions looked different from attacks in which a fraudulent site asks for a direct token allowance or an unclear signature.

Funding the newly deployed contracts completed the trap. Users believed they were supplying capital that the bot would use to exploit price differences between trading venues, but TRM found no arbitrage system or AI function in the malicious contract variant it examined.

The malicious contracts drained deposits above 0.05 ETH In one version of the scheme, a backend script ignored the source code that victims pasted into the compiler. The website instead retrieved a separate contract from a server operated by the scammers and prepared the replacement for deployment.

As a result, the clean code displayed in the browser was never placed onchain. Victims saw one program on their screens while their wallets deployed another, preventing them from verifying the real contract through a visual check of the compiler window alone.

The replacement contract could accept ETH deposits, matching the expected behavior of a trading bot that needed funds to operate. Once its balance exceeded 0.05 ETH, however, the contract was set to transfer the money to an address controlled by the operators when the user selected either the Start or Withdraw function.

Both buttons therefore served the same purpose despite carrying labels associated with normal bot controls. Pressing Start did not activate a trading strategy, while pressing Withdraw did not return the deposited funds to the user.

No AI model interacted with the deployed contract, according to TRM’s findings. The Claude branding formed part of the sales pitch, while the onchain code only received deposits and moved qualifying balances to the scammers.

The method also reduced the chance that common wallet protections would interrupt the process. A wallet could accurately show that its owner was deploying a contract, sending ETH to it and later calling one of its functions, yet still lack the context needed to determine that the tutorial and compiler had misrepresented the code.

AI trading bot scam bypassed common phishing defenses Traditional crypto phishing campaigns often depend on copied domains, poisoned search results or prompts that request broad token permissions. Blocklists and wallet simulations can sometimes identify a known malicious address, deceptive domain, or transaction that grants an attacker control over existing assets.

The AI trading bot operation used a different path because each victim became the deployer of a newly created contract. A fresh address would not necessarily appear on an existing blacklist, and the wallet owner authorized the deployment and funding transactions without surrendering a seed phrase.

In July, crypto.news explained how drainers commonly abuse legitimate blockchain permissions. Such tools often convince a user to approve a malicious contract, which can then transfer tokens while the blockchain processes the action as authorized.

The campaign described by TRM moved the deception one step earlier by controlling the code-generation and deployment process. Instead of asking victims to trust an existing contract, the tutorials convinced them that they were creating the software themselves.

A separate Hyperliquid phishing case in August showed how online advertising can also direct crypto users toward malicious infrastructure. One user lost about 550,000 USDC after a sponsored Google result led to a fake Hyperliquid website linked by security firm Salus to the Inferno drainer ecosystem.

Salus said the infrastructure in that incident automatically divided stolen funds among addresses connected to the operation. Investigators linked related groups to approximately $52.74 million in losses, showing how backend services can handle theft, swaps, consolidation, and revenue sharing while separate operators focus on attracting victims.

U.S. users can report crypto losses through the FBI For U.S. users, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center accepts reports involving cryptocurrency fraud and other cyber-enabled crimes. The bureau says complaint data can help investigators identify connected cases, follow emerging methods and, in some situations, freeze stolen funds.

The FBI recorded $16.6 billion in reported internet-crime losses during 2024, up from $12.5 billion in 2023, according to figures published by the center. The agency advises victims to file reports even when they are unsure whether a complaint meets a specific crime category because submissions may be shared with federal, state, local, or international law enforcement agencies.

Onchain security groups have also increased their focus on attacks that use valid user actions to execute theft. In February, the Ethereum Foundation backed a Security Alliance engineer assigned to track and disrupt wallet drainers targeting Ethereum users.

Security Alliance cited data placing drainer-related losses at $84 million in 2025, the lowest level on record. Its security network includes MetaMask, Phantom, WalletConnect, and Backpack, which share threat intelligence designed to identify phishing campaigns and other malicious infrastructure.

Coinbase

Coinbase has announced a partnership with Stablecore, enabling community and regional banks, as well as credit unions, to offer digital asset custody, exchange activity, and stablecoin payments through their existing platforms. This collaboration aims to integrate digital asset services into traditional banking infrastructures, potentially broadening the adoption of cryptocurrencies. The development coincides with the upcoming Ethereum Institutional forum in London, which will focus on Ethereum’s future and security. This dual focus on institutional and retail integration could be indicative of a broader shift towards mainstream acceptance and utilization of digital assets.

The partnership between Coinbase and Stablecore appears to enhance the accessibility of digital asset services through well-established banking channels in the U.S. This integration is viewed by market participants as a significant step in increasing the adoption of cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, potentially impacting its market value positively. In related prediction markets, the probability of Ethereum reaching higher price thresholds by the end of 2026 is being closely monitored for indications of increased confidence among participants.

Key Takeaways The partnership between Coinbase and Stablecore suggests a move towards integrating digital asset services into traditional banking platforms. Market pricing indicates that this development may be supportive of increased cryptocurrency adoption and investment, particularly for Ethereum. The Ethereum Institutional forum in London is poised to discuss Ethereum’s role in financial infrastructure, which may influence market sentiment. What to Watch Observers should monitor further institutional collaborations and announcements from the Ethereum Institutional forum in London on November 12 for potential impacts on Ethereum’s market perception. Additionally, any regulatory developments affecting digital asset integration in traditional banking systems could have significant implications for market pricing. The continued evolution of these partnerships and forums may indicate scenarios where Ethereum’s price targets become more attainable.

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Term Structure

Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h December 31, 2026 1.5% +0.1¢ — View market → December 31, 2026 1.8% 0.0¢ $123 View market → December 31, 2026 3.1% 0.0¢ $1K View market → December 31, 2026 4.5% +0.5¢ $3K View market → December 31, 2026 8% -0.5¢ $4K View market → January 1 2027 25% +0.5¢ $2K View market → January 1 2027 5.5% 0.0¢ $15K View market → January 1 2027 1.7% 0.0¢ $406 View market → January 1 2027 2.1% +0.2¢ $3K View market → January 1 2027 3.5% 0.0¢ $64 View market → January 1 2027 5.6% 0.0¢ $2K View market → January 1 2027 13.5% -0.5¢ $3K View market → January 1 2027 13.7% 0.0¢ $2K View market → January 1 2027 3.9% 0.0¢ $163 View market → January 1 2027 1.7% -0.1¢ — View market → January 1 2027 8.5% 0.0¢ $92 View market → January 1 2027 49.5% 0.0¢ $283 View market → January 1 2027 69.5% -0.5¢ $3 View market → January 1 2027 16% -1.5¢ $9K View market → January 1 2027 2.3% 0.0¢ — View market → January 1 2027 31.5% -3.5¢ $500 View market → January 1 2027 58% -3.5¢ $49K View market → Updated 1min ago

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Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade clears rehearsal for a big jump in capacity. (Ethereum)Summary

Ethereum’s Glamsterdam upgrade continued confirming blocks under new block-building rules, clearing a key test before a proposed Oct. 6 deployment on the Sepolia public test network.Nethermind’s execution software completed all 2,302 performance tests, demonstrating block-level access lists designed to enable parallel processing and support greater network capacity.Glamsterdam tested a 200 million block gas limit to accommodate more transactions and reduce fee spikes, though the setting is not yet planned for Ethereum’s main network.Ethereum’s latest rehearsal for its Glamsterdam upgrade continued confirming blocks after adopting new block-building rules earlier this week, clearing a key test before a proposed October 6 rollout on the Sepolia public test network.

Nethermind, software used by computers that run Ethereum, followed on Wednesday with a performance test covering one of Glamsterdam’s biggest changes.

Its client completed all 2,302 tests while processing 570.7 billion gas in three minutes and 15 seconds, an average of about 2.9 billion gas per second.

The benchmark measured Nethermind’s execution software rather than the speed of the full network. It tested block-level access lists, which tell Ethereum computers which accounts and stored data a block will use before they begin processing it.

That advance notice lets the computers fetch data and check unrelated transactions at the same time. Ethereum currently processes much of that work in sequence, limiting how much activity it can safely fit into each block.

Glamsterdam raised its block gas limit from 60 million to 200 million about an hour after going live on the testnet. Gas measures the computing work required by transactions, so the higher ceiling creates room for more payments, token swaps and other activity in each block.

How that helps EthereumA 200 million limit would let Ethereum absorb more activity before users begin outbidding one another for block space, which could make fee spikes less severe when trading surges or a popular token launch clogs the network.

Larger blocks are also harder to check and could leave smaller operators unable to keep up. Glamsterdam is Ethereum’s attempt to gain that extra capacity without making the chain prohibitively expensive to run.

Specialized builders package transactions, while validators check the resulting blocks and secure the chain. Glamsterdam would place that handoff and the accompanying payments inside Ethereum’s own rules, reducing dependence on outside relay services.

The change also extends the time available to spread block data across the network from about two seconds to nine seconds. That gives validators longer to receive and check the larger blocks Glamsterdam is designed to support.

As such, the 200 million limit remains a test setting rather than a commitment for Ethereum’s main network. Devnet-11 was also designed as a controlled rehearsal without deliberate attacks.

12345678910The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific

The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific

As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.

Sep 15, 2026

As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.

Why it matters:

As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.

JPYC Inc., the issuer of Japan’s yen-pegged stablecoin, suspended issuance reservations on both Ethereum and Polygon on September 17 after discovering a glitch in its minting process. The timing could not have been worse: the pause landed on the same day South Korean exchange Upbit began listing the token, creating a perfect storm of surging demand and frozen supply.

The result was predictable. Secondary market prices for JPYC, a token designed to trade at 1 JPY, reportedly spiked to approximately 3 JPY.

What happened and why it matters JPYC Inc. initially paused issuance reservations only on Ethereum after confirming the glitch. Shortly after, the company extended the freeze to the Polygon network as well, signaling the problem was not isolated to a single chain deployment.

The company issued a public apology to users and said it was actively investigating the root cause. As of the announcement, no technical explanation for the disruption had been provided.

JPYC operates through its JPYC EX platform, which allows users to mint and redeem tokens at a 1:1 ratio with the Japanese yen. Each issuance request is capped at 1 million JPY per transaction, roughly $6,700 at current exchange rates. When that minting pipeline gets shut off, anyone wanting fresh JPYC has to turn to the secondary market, where prices are set by whatever buyers are willing to pay.

The Upbit listing opened JPYC trading against KRW, BTC, and USDT, though only Ethereum-based deposits and withdrawals were accepted. Trading kicked off at 18:00 KST after initial delays, pouring Korean retail demand into a market where new supply had been temporarily switched off.

The Upbit listing adds fuel to the fire With JPYC’s minting mechanism offline on both Ethereum and Polygon, the only tokens available were those already circulating. New demand from Korean traders had nowhere to go except into existing liquidity pools and order books, pushing prices well above the intended peg.

A stablecoin trading at three times its peg signals that the arbitrage mechanism keeping the token anchored to its reference currency has broken down. Normally, if JPYC trades above 1 JPY, arbitrageurs would mint new tokens at the 1:1 rate and sell them at a profit, pushing the price back down. With minting suspended, that pressure valve was effectively sealed shut.

JPYC’s regulatory position and multi-chain footprint JPYC Inc. is registered with Japan’s Financial Services Agency for funds transfer businesses, making it one of a relatively small number of stablecoin issuers operating within a clear regulatory framework.

JPYC is deployed across several EVM-compatible blockchains, including Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, and Kaia. The multi-chain strategy is designed to give users options for lower transaction costs and faster settlement times. But it also means that a glitch affecting the issuance system can cascade across multiple networks, as happened here when the Polygon pause followed the Ethereum one.

The fact that Upbit only accepted Ethereum deposits and withdrawals for JPYC added another layer of complexity. Users holding JPYC on Polygon or other chains could not easily move their tokens to the exchange where demand was hottest, further fragmenting liquidity across the token’s ecosystem.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Hyperliquid, the perpetual futures-focused Layer-1 blockchain, now holds more circulating USDC than Solana. According to data from the Hyperliquid ecosystem tracker hl.eco, the network’s USDC supply has reached approximately $6.73 billion, narrowly exceeding Solana’s $6.72 billion.

That makes Hyperliquid the second-largest chain by circulating USDC, trailing only Ethereum.

How Hyperliquid got here The bulk of Hyperliquid’s USDC, roughly $6.28 billion, comes from native issuance on HyperEVM, the chain’s Ethereum-compatible execution layer. A smaller legacy pool of about $453.6 million remains bridged from Arbitrum, a holdover from Hyperliquid’s earlier architecture.

USDC now accounts for approximately 98% of Hyperliquid’s total stablecoin supply, which sits at $6.85 billion. USDC functions as the primary collateral for Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures markets, with the protocol’s entire margin system built around it.

Partnerships with Circle and Coinbase, established around May 2025 to 2026, have supported the minting and treasury infrastructure that enabled this scale, giving Hyperliquid direct access to USDC issuance pipelines rather than relying solely on bridged supply from other networks.

Solana’s USDC dip adds context In late August 2026, Solana’s USDC supply had surged to approximately $8 billion after Circle processed roughly $11 billion worth of mints that month alone. That number has since pulled back to $6.72 billion.

The HYPE flywheel Hyperliquid’s protocol design creates a feedback loop with its native HYPE token. The platform routes a portion of yield generated from USDC reserves toward HYPE token buybacks and burns. More USDC deposits mean more reserve yield, which means more buying pressure on HYPE.

What this shift means for stablecoin distribution Hyperliquid represents a chain where nearly all stablecoin activity serves a single vertical. It’s not trying to be a general-purpose smart contract platform. It’s a derivatives exchange that happens to be its own blockchain, and traders are parking billions in USDC there to use it.

For Circle, the USDC issuer, having significant USDC supply distributed across Ethereum, Hyperliquid, Solana, and other chains reduces concentration risk and expands the stablecoin’s utility across different market segments.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

17h35 ▪ 7 min read ▪ by Mikaia A.

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Russia does not shut the door on crypto. It rather chooses who can open it, how far, and especially for what purpose. After a new wave of European sanctions this summer, Moscow accelerated its regulatory project. Putin signed the law, investors now have a regulated market, and the digital ruble has just scaled up. Behind this closely monitored opening lies a fairly clear line: protecting the Russian currency at home, finding more financial freedom elsewhere.

In brief Russia authorizes certain international settlements in digital assets, while maintaining the ban on cryptocurrency payments for purchases made on its territory. Russia authorizes certain international settlements in digital assets, while maintaining the ban on cryptocurrency payments for purchases made on its territory. The digital ruble recorded 87,000 opened accounts and more than 50,000 transactions during its first ten days of large-scale deployment. The Bank of Russia fears that stablecoins will compete with the ruble and simultaneously strengthens tax identification, transaction monitoring, and control of regulated platforms. Sanctions are giving bitcoin a new job in Russia The timeline helps to understand the movement. On July 23, the European Union adopts its 21st sanctions package. Notably targeted are 94 banks and major financial institutions, 33 additional Russian entities subject to transaction bans, and 14 exchanges related to crypto established in third countries. The cross-border A7 network is also under European scrutiny.

Moscow was already looking for other channels. Russian companies can use digital assets for certain international settlements under an experimental regime supervised by the Bank of Russia. Deputy Kaplan Panesh straightforwardly described the purpose of the arrangement: to allow Russian companies to pay foreign partners while bypassing sanctions-related restrictions.

Bitcoin finds here a use that Moscow still does not grant it in Russian shops. It can circulate in certain foreign exchanges, without becoming a daily currency inside the country.

This wide gap is not an ideological conversion. Russia is looking for additional rails as several traditional rails become more difficult to access. Putin does not need to like cryptocurrencies to find the plumbing interesting.

Can the digital ruble win over russians at home? On September 1, another piece arrived on the chessboard: the digital ruble. This time, no decentralized network nor private issuer. The new currency circulates on the Bank of Russia’s platform and represents a third form of the ruble, alongside cash and bank money.

The launch attracted the curious. In ten days, 87,000 accounts were opened and more than 50,000 transactions made. Elvira Nabiullina herself acknowledges that part of the users are still testing the service:

Many people are simply testing to see how it works. We hope they will appreciate the convenience and the free services. 

Major banks must offer this infrastructure since September. Large merchants concerned must also accept these payments.

The project thus offers Putin and the authorities a domestic counterweight to private stablecoins. Crypto can enter the scene; the ruble intends to keep the boss’s chair.

Why Moscow won’t let crypto challenge the ruble Thirteen days after the massive launch of its CBDC, the Bank of Russia cooled the atmosphere. On September 14, its document dedicated to the development of the financial market for 2027-2029 lists digital currencies among risks to watch.

The contentious word is not really bitcoin. It is mainly stablecoins that worry. If Russians start using them as substitutes for the ruble, monetary sovereignty can erode. The regulator also mentions the possibility of total loss for investors and difficulties posed by assets circulating beyond national legal borders.

Regulated crypto will therefore have a short leash. Non-qualified investors can purchase up to 300,000 rubles per year per intermediary. Bitcoin, Ether, and USDT are among the assets selected for regulated exchanges. Domestic payments in cryptocurrencies remain prohibited.

Rosfinmonitoring also gains visibility. Opening an account with a Russian digital custodian now requires a tax number INN.

The law signed by Putin thus opens the market without handing over the house keys. At home, the ruble still does not share its throne.

Can crypto give Russia more room to maneuver abroad? Here is the most pragmatic side of the strategy. Russia monitors crypto at home, while allowing certain uses for foreign trade. This compartmentalization responds to a rather down-to-earth reality: an economy under sanctions continues to import, export, and search for partners willing to settle their affairs.

The European Union perfectly understood this. Its July package does not only target Russian banks. It also affects digital asset providers based in Georgia, Panama, the United Arab Emirates, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus. Brussels can now further target foreign providers used to circumvent its restrictions.

The battle therefore far exceeds Putin, Moscow, and a few exchanges. It concerns the payment infrastructures themselves: who controls them, who can use them, and under what rules?

Russia has some trading partners and is naturally looking for channels less dependent on Western banks. Digital assets can provide a piece of the puzzle, not a magic wand.

Perhaps this is the whole Russian subtlety: crypto becomes acceptable when it helps cross a border, much less when it threatens to undermine the ruble’s border.

Some numbers that better tell the Russian pivot Since September, non-qualified individuals can purchase up to 300,000 rubles worth of digital assets per year and per intermediary. The massive launch of the digital ruble generated 87,000 new accounts and more than 50,000 transactions in ten days. The European package of July 23 targets notably 94 banks and major financial institutions as well as 14 platforms related to digital assets. Bitcoin, Ether, and USDT are among the three assets offered by the Bank of Russia for the new regulated market. Since September, concerned merchants with annual revenues over 120 million rubles must accept the digital ruble. Putin thus seems to have found his balance: letting crypto breathe when it serves foreign exchanges, while strengthening the digital ruble at home. Europe watches the same chessboard from the other side. France pushes the Twenty-Seven to develop euro stablecoins alongside the digital euro, facing the weight of tokens backed by the dollar. Behind Moscow as behind Brussels then returns an old question in new clothes: who will control the currency that will circulate tomorrow?

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Mikaia A.

La révolution blockchain et crypto est en marche ! Et le jour où les impacts se feront ressentir sur l’économie la plus vulnérable de ce Monde, contre toute espérance, je dirai que j’y étais pour quelque chose

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The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.

PANews, September 15 - According to The Block, on-chain confidentiality protocol Zama will open deposits for 16 confidential vaults on Morpho, covering assets such as USDC, USDT, AUSD, and TGBP. Its first vault launched in June in collaboration with Morpho and Steakhouse Financial, adopting Steakhouse's USDC Prime strategy, with total value locked growing from zero to $40 million within seven weeks. Steakhouse will manage some of the vaults, while Armitage by Wintermute, Flowdesk, RockawayX, and Bitwise will also serve as managers. Users can confidentially access 12 Morpho vaults on Ethereum that already have non-confidential versions, with an additional 4 created specifically for confidential deposits.

Zama also launched the Zama Swap Protocol, allowing depositors to confidentially exchange cUSDC, cUSDT, cAUSD, and cTGBP as well as confidential vault shares on Ethereum without disclosing trade sizes or intentions. Zama stated that positions, balances, and strategies on public blockchains are visible to competitors and front-runners, posing a structural barrier to large-scale institutional deployment. The vaults will first go live via Zama's own application, with Utila, Zerion Wallet, and Yield.xyz set to integrate within the coming weeks.

Solana has introduced its new Transaction V1 format, increasing the maximum transaction data capacity to 4,096 bytes from the previous 1,232 bytes. The update went live Tuesday at around 01:00 UTC, according to the Solana Foundation, aiming to address longstanding limitations that restricted more complex use cases on the network.

Expanded capabilities to challenge competitorsWith the launch of Transaction V1, Solana looks to bolster its position against rivals like Ethereum. Historically, Solana has offered faster speeds and lower costs, but developers faced a strict 1,232-byte cap per transaction. In contrast, Ethereum allows much larger, more data-intensive transactions, provided users pay proportionally higher fees.

By more than tripling the transaction data ceiling, Solana can now accommodate instructions, digital signatures, and additional metadata in a single operation. This change affects only the amount of data per transaction, not the network’s overall processing speed.

The previous data limit forced developers to compress sophisticated operations or split them into several transactions, which could be inefficient and unwieldy. Now, complex processes such as multisignature company wallets and zero-knowledge proofs—which require significant data for verification and multi-party authorization—can be handled more efficiently within a single transaction.

Enabling advanced, all-or-nothing operationsLarger transactions allow developers to execute multi-step actions as an atomic unit, where every part must succeed or the entire process is rolled back. Previously, developers bundled several transactions to mimic such behavior, but these methods lacked complete network-level assurances.

The Solana Foundation noted that these enhancements particularly benefit use cases demanding secure verification or collective approval, supporting new types of applications that were previously impractical on the network.

Expanding the maximum transaction size removes a key bottleneck, allowing for more sophisticated operations like multisig wallets and zero-knowledge proofs to be executed securely within a single transaction, according to the Foundation’s design proposal.

Compatibility and integration challengesTo take advantage of Transaction V1, applications and data services must update their systems to recognize and process the new transaction format. Services that manage blockchain data for wallets, trading applications, and analytics tools need to support V1. Otherwise, queries for individual transactions or entire blocks containing these transactions could fail.

Despite the changes, Solana maintains backward compatibility. Applications can continue using older transaction formats for sending data, but updates are required to read new V1 transactions. The Foundation emphasized that current compatibility warnings are not evidence of network-wide outages, but precautionary measures as the ecosystem adjusts.

This upgrade comes as the digital asset sector accelerates its adoption of real-world assets via tokenization. While developers monitor market impact and technical requirements, the broader industry is seeing a major transformation.

While traditional markets rely on complex brokers, a massive shift is happening with Wall Street moving toward Web3. Investors are increasingly using platforms like 1stepSwap to store shares of major U.S. companies, gold, and silver directly in their crypto wallets. By tokenizing real-world assets and instantly finding optimal market prices, these platforms eliminate intermediaries entirely.

Looking ahead, the Solana Foundation stated that it will continue to observe network stability and developer adoption as the new transaction format becomes widely implemented. Market participants should monitor both technological upgrades and broader trends in asset tokenization for further developments.

Apps that do not recognize V1 transactions may encounter failures when processing individual transactions or blocks that include the new format, but older transaction types remain fully functional for now.

Grayscale handed financial advisors a ready-made crypto allocation on Monday, and XRP (XRP) took 26.11% of it. The token is the second-largest holding in the firm’s new Digital Assets Next Gen model portfolio.

A model portfolio is a published recipe. Grayscale picks the assets and the weights, and an advisor copies that mix into client accounts using the firm’s exchange-traded funds.

Today, Grayscale launched Model Portfolios.

Four strategies built around distinct investment objectives:

• Digital Assets Core Plus: Broad exposure to established assets, including $BTC, $ETH, $SOL, and $LINK
• Digital Assets Leaders: Exposure to the five largest eligible… pic.twitter.com/p62Gqrlkko

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) September 14, 2026 XRP Sits Second in a Portfolio Built Without BitcoinThe Next Gen model leaves Bitcoin out and held seven funds as of August 31. Ether leads at 42.34%, XRP follows at 26.11%, and Solana takes 21.09%.

Grayscale’s New Crypto Portfolios. Source: GrayscaleThose three fill roughly 89% of the basket. Hyperliquid, a trading-focused blockchain whose Grayscale fund listed only in June, takes 5.76%. Chainlink, Avalanche, and Sui split what is left.

Grayscale caps any one asset at 40% and resets the weights every three months. Ether has already drifted past that cap since the model started on July 27.

The Funds Behind It Have Been Losing MoneyXRP trades near $1.42, up about 5% on the day and fifth by market value. The Grayscale XRP Trust ETF, however, sits 38.51% below its launch price.

BeInCrypto reported in August that the same trust sold $180 million in tokens during the first half of the year at a realized loss. Six of the model’s seven funds trade below where they started.

The model itself shows a 30.69% net gain since July 27. That is five weeks of history built on one strong August, and the rest of the return table is empty.

Grayscale Returns on Model Portfolio. Source: Grayscale “Advisors are increasingly looking for ways to bring digital assets into client portfolios without having to build and maintain allocations asset by asset,” Laurie Katz, Grayscale’s Global Head of Distribution, framed the launch around convenience.

Grayscale charges no separate fee for the models, and the underlying funds average 0.23%. Whether advisors read Next Gen as emerging assets or as a large ether and XRP bet under a different name will decide how much money follows.

The effort to unify how Ethereum handles account abstraction just hit a wall. A collaboration between Base, Coinbase’s Layer 2 network, and Ethereum core developers to reconcile two competing proposals ended last week, according to Derek Chiang of Ethlabs, the founder of ZeroDev.

The two sides will now advance their respective standards independently: Base with EIP-8130, and Ethereum’s Layer 1 with EIP-8141, known as Frame Transactions. Both remain listed as active drafts in the official Ethereum Improvement Proposal registry, which means the ecosystem now has to grapple with two parallel paths to solving the same problem.

What account abstraction actually means, and why it matters Account abstraction lets wallets do things that currently require clunky workarounds: sponsoring someone else’s gas fees, batching multiple transactions into one, logging in with a passkey instead of memorizing a seed phrase, and using custom authentication methods.

The existing standard for this, ERC-4337, works by layering these features on top of the Ethereum Virtual Machine rather than baking them into the protocol itself. Both EIP-8130 and EIP-8141 aimed to move account abstraction from that overlay approach to embedding it natively into the protocol layer.

The two proposals agreed on the core use cases. Gasless transactions, passkey-based wallets, transaction batching: all on the shared wish list. Where they diverged was on the values underlying the architecture.

The L1 vs. L2 philosophical rift Ethereum’s Layer 1 developers prioritized censorship resistance, value capture, and privacy. EIP-8141 reflects that ethos, focusing on flexible transaction primitives designed for broad extensibility and post-quantum readiness. It remains in draft form and is expected to ship as part of Ethereum’s upcoming Hegotá upgrade.

Base and the broader Layer 2 camp had different priorities. Scalability and customization topped their list. EIP-8130 is already being tested on Base’s vibenet devnet and is designed for adoption across the OP Stack, the modular framework that powers Optimism, Base, and a growing number of rollups. The proposal claims up to a 63% reduction in gas costs for certain transfer types compared to the existing ERC-4337 approach.

Chiang acknowledged that while a unified standard would have created a more consistent multichain smart account experience, the fragmentation could still produce productive outcomes. Different chains have different needs, and forcing a single standard onto both L1 and L2 may have resulted in a compromise that satisfied nobody.

What fragmentation means for developers and users The immediate practical consequence is that developers building smart account infrastructure now need to think about which standard they’re targeting. An application built on EIP-8130’s assumptions for Base or another OP Stack chain won’t automatically work the same way on Ethereum mainnet if EIP-8141 ships with different transaction primitives.

Account abstraction sits at a particularly sensitive layer of the stack because it governs how users authenticate, authorize, and pay for transactions. Fragmentation here ripples outward into wallet design, dApp interfaces, and cross-chain bridging.

The counterargument, and the one Chiang appears to lean toward, is that parallel innovation produces better outcomes than premature consensus. If EIP-8130 proves that native account abstraction can cut gas costs by 63% on L2s while EIP-8141 delivers quantum-resistant flexibility on L1, the ecosystem ends up with two strong tools rather than one mediocre compromise.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Harmony has formally proposed shutting down its independent Layer 1 blockchain and moving its native ONE token onto Ethereum. In a September 6 post, the project said pressure from state-backed attackers and AI agents had become too severe to keep operating a standalone network.

Mainnet went live in 2019.

After years of patches, incidents, and community effort, the team now argues it is time to retire the chain entirely.

The announcement is framed as a non-binding proposal.

Harmony did not name a final block height or confirm that validator governance will vote under existing rules. Still, the operational calendar is specific.

Validators may stop running nodes from 7 a.m. Pacific Time on September 10, 2026.

The team said it would cover the emission-reward gap between each node’s last produced block and the network’s last block.

A separate one-time pool of $1.372 million would go to validators and their delegators who shut down on schedule, sign an agreement, keep their stakes, and take “governor” roles in the successor project.

Payments would be split across four quarters.

Harmony said that figure matches network-wide rewards issued in the year before the August 11 incident.

Validators are also being invited to stay as governors, become AI-video operators, or work as affiliates.

Token migration is designed to require little from ordinary holders.

At the final block, Harmony would snapshot ONE in wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts, and centralized exchanges.

New ERC-20 ONE would then be airdropped to the same addresses on Ethereum.

No claim process is planned. Delegated stakes and unclaimed rewards would go to individual governor vaults.

Total supply and the emission rate would stay the same; future issuance would fund the new product, subject to governor input.

https://t.co/BfoN0OnpvX

— Harmony (@harmonyprotocol) September 6, 2026

The team said it would publish the ERC-20 contract, vault contract, snapshot math, and airdrop scripts for audit.Some assets cannot move.

Multisig safes, liquidity pools, and other on-chain applications are excluded. Users have been told to leave those contracts before September 10.

The successor product is branded “The Remix Economy for AI Video.”

Harmony’s public account already uses that line in its bio.

The model is built around open prompts and source material that fans can fork. AI agents would then expand each remix into more clips.

In year one, Harmony said it would subsidize operator GPU costs and aim for up to $1 million in combined operator revenue, tied to staking and uptime.

Affiliates would earn a recurring 30 percent commission on $10 monthly subscriptions sold through referrals.

Advertising, the team has suggested elsewhere, could scale if the audience grows large enough.

The timing matters. In mid-August an exploit forged a huge quantity of unauthorized ONE.

Harmony first prepared a rollback that would have discarded more than 100,000 transactions.

Weeks later, the conversation has shifted from repairing the chain to ending it as a sovereign Layer 1 and rebuilding on Ethereum around AI video.

For holders, the practical next step is leaving contracts that will not migrate.

For validators, it is deciding whether to shut down on the stated date and accept the governor path. The proposal itself is still only a proposal. Execution, exchange listings, and community consent remain open questions.

TLDR: Uniswap price rose 4.55% to $6.39 as the protocol reported $70.6 billion in 30-day trades, exceeding PancakeSwap, BisonFi, and Meteora combined. Robinhood Chain supplied about $26 billion of the monthly total, ahead of Ethereum at roughly $23 billion, concentrating activity in two networks. StablePair Hook launched on v4 with USDC/USDG and USDC/USDT pools, varying fees as prices drift from reference rates and using Dutch auctions for corrections. UNI faces $6.45–$6.50 resistance and $6.30 support; a close below $6.10 shifts focus toward the $5.82 retracement level before the Fed decision. Uniswap price traded near $6.40 in 24 hours on September 13 as Bitcoin and the broader crypto market traded nearly flat. The move focused attention on Uniswap’s DEX lead, stablecoin liquidity tools, and fee-related UNI mechanics. Uniswap said it processed more than $70 billion during the previous 30 days.

That total exceeded the combined activity of PancakeSwap, BisonFi, and Meteora. The reported $70.6 billion figure was 38% above Uniswap’s $51.1 billion monthly average from January through July. Traders watched StablePair Hook and governance discussions around UNI burns. These developments put Uniswap price levels under scrutiny.

Uniswap Price Follows $70B DEX Volume Lead and UNI Burns Uniswap DEX volume reached $70.6 billion over the latest 30-day period, Crypto Briefing reported. Robinhood Chain contributed roughly $26 billion, its largest reported source of activity. Ethereum followed with about $23 billion, while Base, BSC, and Arbitrum supplied the remaining share. Robinhood could choose another provider or build an AMM.

PancakeSwap processed $29.8 billion during the same period. BisonFi handled $8.9 billion, while Meteora posted roughly $5.9 billion. Together, those three venues recorded about $44.6 billion. Raydium reported $5.9 billion in DEX volume.

Uniswap’s cumulative DEX volume is near $3.7 trillion since its 2018 launch. Cumulative fees were about $5.1 billion in early August. The exchange recorded 28.9 million swaps during a single late-August week. It also reported recent USDC activity above the combined volume of other decentralized exchanges.

The Uniswap price gain overlaps with renewed attention to fee-switch tokenomics. Market discussion links revenue-based burn mechanisms to UNI supply. A reported September 4 UNI burn exceeded $1 million, with Robinhood Chain activity driving most volume. One tracked wallet doubled its UNI balance to 595,000 tokens.

Those observations do not identify wallet ownership or prove a direct cause for the gain. Uniswap price trades above the $6.30 daily pivot after reaching $6.39.

Uniswap price meets immediate resistance between $6.45 and $6.50, combining the 23.6% Fibonacci level and seven-day moving average. A close above $6.50 would strengthen recovery momentum.

A drop below $6.10 could expose $5.82, the 38.2% retracement level. A weekly chart analyst identified a rounding-bottom breakout.

StablePair Hook Changes Stablecoin Fees on Uniswap v4 Uniswap Labs launched StablePair Hook on September 10 with USDC/USDG and USDC/USDT pools on Ethereum mainnet. The v4 design adjusts pool fees as prices drift from a reference rate. Within a narrow band, it quotes a fixed bid-ask spread. It targets stablecoin markets, where small deviations create repeated arbitrage opportunities.

Outside the band, swaps that push a price farther from parity pay no fee. Corrective swaps enter a Dutch auction, beginning at a higher fee that falls each block. The design routes more pricing value to liquidity providers. Static fees can leave that spread for arbitrage traders.

Uniswap Labs said stablecoin-to-stablecoin swaps reached $43.4 billion during the second quarter. It said the total exceeded the next three onchain venues combined. StablePair Hook is upgradeable through Uniswap Governance. Governance can alter fee logic and pool parameters without forcing provider migration.

StablePair Hook joins DualPool, Permissioned Pools, and LitePSM in the v4 hook ecosystem. Liquidity providers can move positions into the listed stablecoin pools. Traders can use the pools through the Uniswap web app and wallet. The design ties market-making terms to measured drift rather than a fixed permanent fee.

The Federal Reserve announces its rate decision on September 16, the next broad macro event for UNI. Policy expectations can influence risk appetite across digital assets and decentralized finance. A daily Uniswap price close above $6.50 would validate the recovery structure. A close below $6.10 would refocus the chart on $5.82.

Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) price briefly surged to its highest level since January 31, as the crypto market remained resilient amid the escalating crisis in the Middle East and rising odds that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week. ETH has formed key bullish patterns, pointing to further upside as ETF inflows rise.

Ethereum ETF Inflows Rise Despite Elevated RisksETH price rose briefly above a crucial resistance level as American investors continued their buying spree. Spot Ethereum ETFs had $216 million in inflows on Friday, bringing this month’s increase to over $327 million. 

BlackRock’s ETHA ETF added over $148 million in assets on Friday, bringing its assets under management to $9.1 billion. Bitwise’s ETHW had $29 million in inflows, while BlackRock’s ETHB added $18.3 million. These funds now hold over $16.3 billion in assets under management.

More data shows that investors are continuing to buy ETH. Ethereum’s staking ratio has jumped to 35.2%, with the staking market capitalization has jumped to over $109.47 billion. Over 43.11 million tokens have been staked. This is important since investors who have staked their tokens tend to have a long-term view. 

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Tom Lee’s BitMine (NASDAQ:BMNR) has continued buying Ethereum and is now nearing its 5% target. It has bought 123,960 coins in the last 30 days and now holds over 5.92 million coins. All Ethereum treasury companies now hold coins worth over $20 billion.

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These developments have led to a significant drop in Ethereum supply in exchanges. There are now 11.72 million tokens in exchanges, down substantially from last year’s high of 17.85 million. Falling exchange supply is a sign that investors are holding their tokens for the long term. 

All this is happening as concerns about the US economy remain. US inflation remains stubbornly above the 2% target, while bond yields have surged to the highest level in years. 

Ethereum Price Has Formed Key Bullish PatternsTechnicals suggest that ETH price may be on the cusp of a strong bullish breakout. It has formed a bullish flag pattern, which is characterized by a vertical line and a horizontal channel. 

ETH has also formed a golden cross pattern as the 50-day weighted moving average has crossed the 200-day moving average. This crossover suggests that there is a shift from a downward trend to a bullish one. 

ETH has also jumped above the crucial resistance level of $2,461, its highest level on April 17. Therefore, these technicals suggest that the coin will have a strong bullish breakout, potentially to $3,000. This view will become invalidated if the coin drops below the lower side of the flag at $2,360.

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BlackRock’s Ethereum ETF just had another massive day. The firm’s iShares Ethereum Trust, trading under the ticker ETHA, pulled in roughly $149 million in net inflows on September 11, accounting for nearly 69% of the $216 million that flowed into US spot Ethereum ETFs that session.

The purchase pushes ETHA’s cumulative net inflows to $13.013 billion, a figure that cements BlackRock’s position as the dominant force in the Ethereum ETF space. Total sector net assets now sit at approximately $16.305 billion, meaning BlackRock alone is responsible for the vast majority of capital that’s entered these products.

One fund, most of the market This kind of concentration isn’t new. BlackRock pulled a similar trick with its spot Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, which routinely dwarfed competitors in daily inflow volume after launching in early 2024.

The September session also continues a broader trend of institutional money flooding into Ethereum through regulated vehicles. August 2026 saw $1.75 billion in cumulative inflows across the entire spot Ethereum ETF sector. ETHA contributed over $1 billion of that total during a notable nine-day inflow streak.

Beyond holding: the staking expansion In March 2026, the firm launched ETHB, a staked Ethereum ETF that lets investors earn yield on their holdings. Staking involves locking up ETH to help validate transactions on the Ethereum network, earning rewards in return. By packaging this into an ETF wrapper, BlackRock gives traditional finance clients access to native crypto yields without requiring them to run validator nodes or manage private keys.

What this means for Ethereum’s market structure The January 2026 precedent is worth noting. Earlier this year, BlackRock-linked wallets recorded a significant ETH purchase of roughly $149 million in a single day, a figure that almost exactly mirrors the September 11 inflow.

The risk cuts both ways. If market sentiment shifts or a macro shock triggers broad de-risking, the same ETF structure that channels billions in becomes a conduit for billions out. Redemption flows would force selling of the underlying ETH, potentially amplifying downside moves.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.