Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Trump says Iran conflict 'not a major issue for the US': Current situation is not a state of war.

US President Donald Trump said on local time September 4 that the more than six-month US-Iran conflict is "small potatoes" for the US, adding that it is more appropriate to define it as a "military conflict" rather than a war. Trump noted that the US is currently only conducting "intermittent strikes" with no sustained fighting between the two sides, and he expressed understanding for Vice President JD Vance’s earlier remark that "it should not be called a war". Trump also stated that the conflict has killed 18 US service members, but its scale is "not large" compared to conflicts like the Vietnam War that claimed tens of thousands of US troops, while emphasizing that "losing even one person is too many". Trump further claimed that the US has achieved "significant results" on the Iran issue, with its core goal being to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. According to reports, the conflict has driven up energy prices and brought domestic political pressure to the Trump administration. US public approval of Trump’s handling of the Iran conflict is low, and the Republican Party faces pressure to retain its congressional majority in the November midterm elections.

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A $70 million Bitcoin movie has entered post-production, with its plot suspected to portray Craig Wright as Satoshi Nakamoto.

The film *Bitcoin*, directed by Doug Liman and starring Gal Gadot, Casey Affleck, Pete Davidson, Isla Fisher, and others, has a budget of approximately $70 million and is currently in post-production. Reportedly centered on Bitcoin’s origins and the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the movie leans toward portraying Craig Wright—who claims to be Bitcoin’s inventor—as Satoshi Nakamoto, a premise that has sparked controversy in the crypto community. Content creator Terence Michael noted that the film may push the narrative that "Craig Wright is Satoshi Nakamoto" to mainstream audiences, further intensifying the debate over Satoshi Nakamoto’s true identity. Earlier, a UK court ruled that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto, and the related controversy had cooled down for a time. The film is written by Nick Schenk, produced by Ryan Kavanaugh and Lawrence Grey, with Wright supporter Calvin Ayre also involved; no major US distributor has been confirmed for the project yet.

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A mysterious crypto whale has bought another 343,000 HYPE tokens, bringing its total holdings to 3.24 million HYPE, all of which are staked.

According to Lookonchain’s monitoring, the mysterious whale address 0x6436 has purchased an additional 343,000 HYPE tokens, valued at approximately $29.09 million. As of now, the address has accumulated a total of around 3.24 million HYPE tokens, with a total value of roughly $252 million, and has staked all of its HYPE holdings.

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The "stock market version of Pokémon GO" meme coin GRASS briefly surged past $13.6 million in market capitalization this morning, hitting a new all-time high.

According to GMGN market data, the Robinhood ecosystem meme coin GRASS briefly surged past $13.6 million in market cap early this morning, hitting an all-time high, and has since pulled back to $8.3 million. It has recorded a 111% 24-hour price increase and a $8.7 million 24-hour trading volume. GRASS combines the internet meme "Touch Grass" with the gameplay of a stock-themed Pokémon GO. The project is officially positioned as a game, where tokenized fractional shares of real stocks (including AAPL, NVDA, TSLA, GME, etc., on Robinhood Chain) "spawn" at the physical locations of their respective companies—such as Apple Stores, GameStop outlets, Tesla showrooms, etc. Users can claim these tokenized stock fractions to their wallets by tapping on them when nearby. BlockBeats reminds users that most meme coins lack practical use cases and are highly volatile; please protect your assets and avoid FOMO.

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Bitcoin is once again exhibiting characteristics of an "amplified version of gold", though the four-year cycle theory warns that the market still faces downside risks ahead.

Bitcoin has recently re-emerged as a safe-haven asset, hitting a four-month high of $82,262 this week before pulling back to around $79,800. André Dragosch, head of European research at Bitwise, said that amid rising macroeconomic uncertainty and currency devaluation risks, investors are increasingly viewing Bitcoin less as a high-risk tech asset and more as a store of value. Dragosch noted that Bitcoin’s 90-day price correlation with gold is near its highest level in six years. He argued that as macro forces strengthen and currency devaluation risks rise, investors are blurring the lines between Bitcoin and gold, with the cryptocurrency recently acting as an “amplified version of gold”. However, the four-year cycle theory remains a headwind for Bitcoin’s outlook. The theory links Bitcoin’s bull-bear cycles to its halving events. Fidelity projects that if historical cycle patterns hold, Bitcoin’s next bear market bottom could land around November 2026. Alex Thorn, head of research at Galaxy, previously estimated that the baseline scenario for this correction would bottom in the $40,000 to $46,000 range. Chris Kuiper, vice president of research at Fidelity Digital Assets, argued that the four-year cycle is not an exact timing rule, meaning it does not guarantee Bitcoin will decline later this year, and a long-term perspective and holding period have historically been more beneficial for investors.

3 minutes ago

Circle Details cirBTC Reserve Mechanism, Emphasizing 1:1 BTC Backing, Segregated Custody and On-Chain Reserve Verification

Circle recently released details on the reserve mechanism for its wrapped Bitcoin product cirBTC, emphasizing that cirBTC is backed 1:1 by native BTC, with segregated asset custody and an on-chain verifiable reserve model. According to Circle, cirBTC is now live on Ethereum; it will offer native support after the Arc mainnet launches, and plans to gradually expand to more blockchains. Each cirBTC is 1:1 backed by one native BTC and can be redeemed for native BTC at a 1:1 ratio. For reserve management, the relevant BTC is held by a Circle affiliate and custodied by Circle National Trust, which is regulated by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). Reserve assets are segregated from Circle’s corporate assets and used exclusively to protect cirBTC holders’ rights and interests. Furthermore, Circle enables on-chain reserve verification via public BTC reserve addresses and the Chainlink Proof of Reserve mechanism. Market participants can monitor the size of reserve BTC and compare it with cirBTC circulating supply on each supported chain to confirm that cirBTC circulation does not exceed the underlying BTC reserve. Circle noted that this model is designed to provide institutions with a more transparent wrapped BTC reserve standard, and to support BTC as collateral for on-chain smart contract use cases including lending, trading, and settlement.

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DeFi Development Corp. has priced its Variable Rate Series C Perpetual Preferred Stock at $8.00 per share, pulling in roughly $11 million through the sale of 1,375,000 shares. The stock will trade on Nasdaq under the ticker CHAD.

The company, which rebranded from Janover Inc. in 2025, plans to funnel the proceeds into acquiring Solana and other digital assets.

How the CHAD stock actually works The preferred shares carry a stated amount of $10, meaning they were issued at a discount to par. The initial cumulative annual dividend rate sits at 13%, payable daily, with the first payment scheduled for October 1, 2026.

The board retains the right to adjust the dividend rate as needed, which is what the “variable rate” in the name refers to.

The CHAD stock is perpetual and nonconvertible. It won’t turn into common shares down the road, and the preferred sits senior to common stock in the capital structure, giving CHAD holders priority on dividends and liquidation proceeds.

Underwriters also secured a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 206,250 shares. Settlement for the initial tranche is set for September 8, 2026.

A Solana-first treasury strategy DeFi Development Corp. has positioned itself as the first US public company to build a treasury strategy centered on accumulating Solana. The company currently holds approximately 2.33 million SOL or equivalent assets.

The strategy blends SOL accumulation with staking activity. The company buys Solana, stakes it to earn network rewards, and reports those holdings to shareholders through standard public company disclosures.

This offering’s proceeds are earmarked for more SOL purchases, strategic transactions, and growth initiatives. A portion of the raise will also be set aside as a dividend reserve at the close of the transaction.

From fintech lender to crypto treasury play As Janover Inc., the business operated as a fintech platform focused on commercial real estate lending. The 2025 rebrand to DeFi Development Corp. marked a strategic pivot toward combining those traditional fintech operations with a Solana-centric treasury model.

What this means for investors and the broader market At the $8.00 purchase price with a $10 stated amount generating 13% annually, the effective yield on invested capital comes out higher than the stated rate. The dividend is variable and the underlying treasury is denominated in a volatile digital asset.

The nonconvertible, perpetual structure means CHAD shares can’t convert into common stock, so existing DFDV shareholders maintain their proportional ownership. The preferred holders get yield and seniority, but not a future claim on the common equity.

A sustained downturn in SOL’s value could force the company to sell treasury assets at depressed prices to fund distributions. The variable rate mechanism gives the board some flexibility to adjust, but the company’s 2.33 million SOL position concentrates its fortunes in a single blockchain ecosystem.

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

@Ondo has added STRCon to its growing roster of tokenized assets with round-the-clock minting and redemption, giving eligible investors continuous on-chain access to @Strategy's variable-rate Stretch preferred stock, $STRC.

What STRCon Offers

Always-On Infrastructure Keeps Expanding

Most of the platform's catalog, however, remains on weekday-only minting hours, with the always-on set covering a select group of assets.

Sources:
Ondo Finance: Real 24/7 Trading for Tokenized Stocks (Official Blog)
Crypto.news: Saturn Adds Ondo Tokenized Stocks to STRC Products
The Defiant: Ondo Finance Launches 24/7 Minting and Redemption for Tokenized US Stocks and ETFs

Tokenized equities, blockchain-based versions of traditional stocks and ETFs, have crossed $3 billion in weekly trading volume and $110 million in total value locked. What was a rounding error a year ago is now a functioning parallel market for securities, running 24/7 on decentralized exchanges.

Three chains are driving nearly all of it: Solana, Binance’s BNB Chain, and the newly launched Robinhood Chain.

Solana built the market, then got company For most of early 2026, Solana was the tokenized equity market. During Q2, the chain processed roughly $5.8 billion in tokenized equity volume, capturing somewhere between 95% and 97% of all global DEX trading in the category. Platforms like Raydium, xStocks, and Backpack’s Sunrise handled the bulk of that flow.

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The year-over-year numbers are staggering. Solana’s tokenized equity trading volume went from $1.34 million to $3.32 billion, a jump of approximately 2,400%.

A major catalyst was the SpaceX IPO in June 2026, which sent holder counts and transaction volumes surging as traders piled into tokenized representations of shares.

Robinhood Chain launches and immediately competes Robinhood Chain went live on July 1, 2026. Within weeks, it was averaging $29.7 million in daily trading volume, overtaking Solana’s major tokenized equity venues, which were running at roughly $24.5 million per day by late July.

A significant portion of Robinhood Chain’s early activity came from memecoins rather than actual equity tokens. The chain initially saw more speculative asset trading than genuine stock-equivalent activity.

Binance’s bStocks is the quiet giant By late July, bStocks was reporting roughly $676.8 million in average daily DEX trading volume. For the full month of July, bStocks contributed $9.41 billion out of the market’s $11.3 billion total. That’s over 83% of all tokenized equity volume in a single month, from a single platform on a single chain.

What’s actually driving these volumes Much of the trading activity across all three chains has been influenced by memecoins and incentive programs linked to tokenized stocks. Platforms have offered trading rewards, liquidity mining incentives, and other mechanisms that inflate volume beyond what organic demand alone would produce.

There’s also the question of what tokenized equities actually offer over traditional brokerage accounts. The pitch is 24/7 trading, fractional ownership, composability with DeFi protocols, and global access without the gatekeeping of traditional financial intermediaries. For someone in a country without easy access to US stock markets, buying a tokenized version of Apple or Tesla on a DEX is genuinely useful. For a US-based Robinhood user who can already buy fractional shares commission-free, the value proposition is less obvious.

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

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given approval to a rule modification on the Nasdaq that pertains to investment products involving cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP were designated as digital commodities by the order that have the exchange’s current eligibility requirements.

The action was made in accordance with SEC Order No. 34-106268. It also provides accelerated approval for Nasdaq Texas, LLC to amend Rule 5711(d). Commodity Based Trust Shares traded on the exchange are subject to the rule.

SEC Expands Crypto Product Framework The adjusted framework introduces an official definition of “digital commodity” in Nasdaq Texas rules. It also allows for some active management techniques involving cryptocurrencies.

The approved changes provide fund managers with additional flexibility, per the latest filing. Products that are eligible for listing may include assets that at the point of listing do not meet all the requirements. The allowance is not more than 15% of a fund’s net asset value.

In the SEC’s order, the agency offered as an example a multi-asset trust. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP are included in the example. All four assets are digital commodities that meet the current relevant criteria, the regulator said.

The transfer may provide asset managers with greater flexibility in their approach to crypto investment products. It also provides a better structure for investors who want to gain exposure to several digital assets.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP Gain Regulatory Recognition The SEC order comes on the heels of a number of regulatory developments concerning crypto assets. The U.S. regulators have been gradually moving toward a clearer classification of digital assets with the CLARITY Act in focus.

Earlier, a March interpretation from the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission classified Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP as crypto commodities. Other tokens in the larger list were Cardano, Avalanche, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu and Chainlink.

The recent approval by the NASDAQ in Texas is not a new federal commodity law. It applies to the listing structure of the exchange. Changing the classification might still affect investment firms’ handling of crypto-based products.

The framework comes on the heels of surging demand for regulated crypto investment products. Spot crypto ETFs have opened up institutional access to digital assets.

There is also increased exposure of XRP via ETFs. The Nasdaq Texas listing puts its trust along with Bitcoin, Ether and Solana in a commodity-based trust framework.

This regulatory change comes ahead of a key period for U.S. crypto legislation. The CLARITY Act will be up for consideration in the Senate later in September. The bill proposes to create a more comprehensive regulatory regime for digital assets.

For regulatory compliant crypto trading, visit our page on Best Regulated Crypto Exchanges in the USA.

Solana infrastructure firm Flowra and Korea Gold Exchange Digital Asset Co., Ltd. (KorDA) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore using gold-backed digital assets as collateral for Solana validator operations.

How the Proposed Model Works

Early Stage, Regulatory Hurdles Remain

The deal taps into a broader market trend. If realized, the Flowra-KorDA Delegation Program (FKDP) could offer a novel use case for real-world assets, moving tokenized gold beyond simple onchain ownership and into the mechanics of core blockchain infrastructure.

Sources:
Bitcoin.com: Tokenized Gold Explored as Collateral for SOL Staking
Invezz: Flowra, KorDA sign MOU to explore gold-backed Solana validator infra
CoinJournal: Flowra, KorDA explore gold-backed Solana validator infrastructure

A two-month-old Layer 2 chain is out-earning every blockchain on Earth, powered by a memecoin casino and a gas subsidy that expires at the end of September.

Summary

Robinhood Chain generated $4.01 million in chain revenue on Sept. 2, 2026, exceeding Solana ($81,714), Ethereum, and Tron on the same DeFiLlama leaderboard. Cumulative DEX volume crossed $47 billion in under two months, ranking fifth among all chains by 30-day volume at $15 billion, but the majority of that activity flows through memecoin launchpad Pons and trading bot GMGN rather than the tokenized stocks Robinhood pitched at launch. The 90-day gas subsidy covering all Robinhood Wallet transactions expires on Sept. 29, meaning users currently paying zero for trades will face real costs for the first time. Pons collected $4.89 million in fees on Aug. 31 alone, surpassing Solana pump.fun every day since Aug. 29, while launching roughly 22,600 new tokens in a single day at peak. Arbitrum collects 10 percent of net sequencer revenue from Robinhood Chain, sending an estimated $377,000 to its DAO treasury on the record-breaking Sept. 1 fee day alone. Two months ago, Robinhood launched a blockchain. The pitch was regulated, 24/7 tokenized stock trading for 120 countries. The reality is something else entirely.

On Sept. 2, Robinhood Chain posted $4.01 million in chain revenue on $4.45 million in fees, according to DeFiLlama. That placed it above Solana, Ethereum, and Tron on the same page. Just six days earlier, its daily revenue sat at $179,815. The jump is not gradual. It is vertical.

The numbers look like the kind of growth that venture capitalists frame on their walls. But they come with an asterisk the size of the chain itself: every transaction on Robinhood Wallet is free. The 90-day gas subsidy that launched alongside the mainnet on July 1 expires on Sept. 29, and nobody knows what happens when the bill arrives.

The revenue that is not really revenue The first thing to understand about Robinhood Chain revenue is what it measures and what it does not.

The $4.01 million figure tracks fees paid by users at the application layer, primarily through Pons, GMGN, and Uniswap. These are not gas fees in the traditional sense. Robinhood Wallet users pay nothing for on-chain execution. The fees that DeFiLlama counts come from memecoin launchpad spreads, trading bot commissions, and DEX swap fees baked into the protocols people are using.

This distinction matters. When Solana earns $81,714 in daily chain revenue, that comes from actual gas paid by users to validators. When Robinhood Chain earns $4.01 million, most of it flows to third-party applications sitting on top of a subsidized execution layer. The chain itself is burning cash to keep the lights free.

DeFiLlama also reported $4.32 million in application revenue and $24.4 million in total fees paid on the same day. Those bigger numbers include every fee a user encounters across the entire stack, from DEX spreads to bot commissions to launchpad cuts. The gap between $4.45 million in chain fees and $24.4 million in total fees reveals how much value the application layer extracts on top of the base chain. Users are paying plenty. They are just not paying Robinhood.

Robinhood has not disclosed what the gas subsidy costs. The company reported $1.31 billion in total Q2 revenue, with crypto transaction revenue falling 38 percent year-over-year to $100 million. Prediction markets, which generated $156 million, overtook crypto for the first time in company history. The chain launched after Q2 closed, so the first full quarter of mainnet data will show up in Q3 results due late October.

The question of who keeps the money is surprisingly murky. CryptoSlate reported that $2.7 million poured into Robinhood Chain applications in one day, but noted that it “says little about Robinhood’s actual take.” The company has not publicly disclosed its own revenue share from on-chain activity, its sequencer margin, or the internal cost of the gas subsidy. Until Q3 earnings arrive, the market is flying blind on the chain’s actual economics.

Pons ate the tokenized stock narrative Robinhood built its chain for stocks. Memecoins took it over.

Pons, a token launchpad modeled on Solana pump.fun, has become the single largest fee generator on Robinhood Chain. On Aug. 31, Pons pulled in $4.89 million in fees, almost triple the $1.72 million pump.fun earned on the same day. Users paid about $5.95 million through Pons in the most recent 24-hour period, ranking it fourth globally among all protocols tracked by DeFiLlama, above pump.fun at $4.64 million. At peak, users launched roughly 22,600 new tokens through Pons in 24 hours. That is one new memecoin every 3.8 seconds.

GMGN, a sniping and trading bot, collected $956,450 in daily fees. Together with Pons, the two platforms capture about 70 percent of all launchpad and trading bot fees across the entire crypto ecosystem. Uniswap, the protocol that was supposed to anchor the tokenized stock vision, ranks a distant third.

The irony is thick. Robinhood spent years fighting its reputation as a gamification engine for retail speculation. It built an entire blockchain to prove it could do something more serious. And within 60 days, its chain became the most popular memecoin casino in crypto, outpacing the Solana ecosystem that spent years building that exact niche.

Tokenized stock volume on Uniswap did reach $1.5 billion in cumulative trading over six weeks, with a single-day peak of $130 million on Aug. 29. That is real. But it is dwarfed by the overall $47 billion in DEX volume, meaning tokenized stocks represent roughly 3 percent of actual trading activity on a chain purpose-built for them.

The gas subsidy math Robinhood launched its gas subsidy on July 1 alongside the mainnet, covering all swap costs above $5 for Robinhood Wallet users. In practice, most users pay zero. The subsidy runs for 90 days, putting the expiry at approximately Sept. 29.

The subsidy applies only to the Robinhood Wallet. Users transacting through MetaMask, Rabby, or other third-party wallets already pay standard gas fees. This creates two tiers of users: the Robinhood-native crowd trading for free, and the crypto-native crowd paying their own way.

Nobody outside Robinhood knows the total cost. But the chain is processing 7.6 million daily transactions and closing in on Base, which handles 9.2 million. Even with Arbitrum Orbit’s low execution costs, covering gas on millions of daily transactions for 90 days adds up. A back-of-the-envelope calculation at even $0.001 per transaction on 7 million daily transactions runs to $7,000 a day, or $630,000 over 90 days. At $0.01 per transaction, that becomes $6.3 million. Neither figure is large for a company earning $1.31 billion a quarter, but the subsidy cost matters less than the behavioral shift it has created. Users have spent two months treating gas as someone else’s problem. Retraining that expectation is the hard part.

The strategic logic is obvious. Free gas drives adoption. Adoption drives volume. Volume drives fee revenue from protocols like Pons. Protocol revenue drives attention and, eventually, Robinhood’s own take rate once the subsidy ends. It is the same playbook Uber ran for a decade: subsidize demand, capture the market, flip the switch.

The question is whether crypto users behave like rideshare passengers. Uber riders had no alternative once cabs disappeared. Memecoin traders have Solana, Base, and a dozen other chains one bridge transaction away.

What $47 billion in volume actually means Robinhood Chain crossed $47 billion in cumulative DEX volume by mid-August, a milestone most Layer 2s took years to reach. It now sits fifth among all chains by 30-day volume at $15 billion, and daily volume hit an all-time high of $1.49 billion, up 131 percent over seven days and 517 percent over 30 days.

Strip out the context and those numbers are staggering. Put the context back, and the picture gets more complicated.

The vast majority of that volume runs through Pons and GMGN. Pons alone captured 63.9 percent of the $7.65 million paid to crypto launchpads on Aug. 31. These platforms cater to pure speculation. Users launch memecoins, snipe early liquidity, dump within minutes, and move on. The volume is real in the sense that tokens are changing hands, but the economic activity underneath is closer to a slot machine than a stock exchange.

Total value locked on Robinhood Chain surged from $4 million in June to roughly $1.4 billion by late August, before pulling back to about $738 million on Sept. 1 per DeFiLlama. That pullback happened during the chain’s highest-revenue days, which suggests some of the early TVL was parked capital waiting for opportunities rather than committed liquidity.

Still, reaching 700 million in TVL within two months is a trajectory no Ethereum Layer 2 has matched this early. Base, arguably the closest comparison as another corporate-backed L2, took significantly longer to reach similar numbers.

The user metrics tell a similar story of explosive early growth. Robinhood Chain surpassed one million active wallets within two weeks of launch. By July 20, it registered 191,855 daily active wallets out of 864,665 across all EVM chains, putting it ahead of Polygon and Base and behind only BNB Chain. On July 21, it briefly surpassed Base itself with 324,000 daily active wallets versus 275,000. Active wallets do not equal unique users since bots and multi-wallet users inflate the count, but the scale of early engagement is difficult to dismiss.

Arbitrum collects its rent Robinhood Chain is not an island. It settles to Ethereum through Arbitrum, and that relationship comes with a price.

Under Arbitrum’s Expansion Program, every Orbit chain pays 10 percent of net sequencer revenue to the Arbitrum DAO. The split runs 8 percent to the DAO treasury and 2 percent to the Developer Guild. The fee calculates against revenue after operating costs, so it tracks actual profitability rather than raw throughput.

On Sept. 1, when Robinhood Chain posted $3.75 million in daily fees, roughly $377,000 flowed to the Arbitrum DAO in a single day. Cumulative fees have already passed $13 million since the July 1 launch, meaning Arbitrum has collected well over $1 million from the chain. One analysis from Spotted Crypto estimated that Robinhood Chain revenue already exceeds Arbitrum One by 120 times, making Robinhood the most valuable tenant in the entire Orbit ecosystem.

Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Offchain Labs, called Robinhood Chain’s sequencer revenue a potential “13th $100 million revenue line” for Robinhood. He is not wrong about the trajectory. But the 10 percent haircut means Arbitrum benefits from every dollar of growth, creating an unusual dynamic where Robinhood’s blockchain success directly funds the ecosystem of a potential competitor.

For Arbitrum token holders, this is an unexpected windfall. ARB jumped on the revenue-sharing news. For Robinhood, it is a cost of doing business that only grows as the chain scales. At current run rates, Arbitrum could collect upwards of $10 million annually from Robinhood Chain alone. That is real money flowing to a DAO treasury, and it creates a financial incentive for Arbitrum to keep its biggest chain happy.

The corporate L2 war just got interesting Robinhood Chain did not emerge in a vacuum. It launched into a Layer 2 landscape already dominated by corporate-backed chains fighting for the same users. Base, backed by Coinbase, has been the benchmark since mid-2023. Tempo, Kraken’s entry, launched earlier in 2026. Each one uses a different stack, targets a slightly different user base, and runs a different economic playbook.

What separates Robinhood from the pack is the sheer aggression of its approach. Coinbase never subsidized gas on Base. Kraken launched Tempo without a comparable promotional period. Robinhood went all-in on a 90-day free trial that generated eye-popping metrics and forced every competitor to address the same question: should we match this?

The broader trend is clear. Traditional finance companies are building their own chains because the margin on trading happens at the infrastructure layer. If you own the chain, you own the sequencer, and the sequencer captures value on every transaction. Robinhood’s crypto transaction revenue fell 38 percent in Q2 to $100 million. If the chain can generate even a fraction of that in sequencer revenue once the subsidy ends, the strategic bet pays for itself.

The risk is that every corporate L2 ends up as a walled garden. Users on Robinhood Chain trade Robinhood Stock Tokens. Users on Base trade through Coinbase infrastructure. Users on Tempo trade through Kraken. The vision of open, permissionless finance starts to look more like the traditional brokerage landscape with a blockchain wrapper. Bridges exist, but liquidity fragments. Each chain optimizes for its parent company’s products, and cross-chain composability becomes an afterthought. The irony of building permissionless technology to recreate permissioned silos is not lost on crypto veterans, but the economics are hard to argue with. The company that owns the chain owns the margin.

The October cliff Oct. 1 will be the most important day in Robinhood Chain’s short history.

When the gas subsidy expires, every Robinhood Wallet user will face transaction costs for the first time. The fees will still be low by Ethereum mainnet standards since Arbitrum Orbit keeps execution costs minimal, but the psychological shift from zero to anything is enormous.

Crypto has seen this movie before. Free-to-play chains attract enormous volume during promotional periods, then watch activity crater when costs return. The question is whether Robinhood Chain has built enough sticky usage in 90 days to retain a meaningful share of its user base.

The bull case rests on three pillars. First, the chain has real products people want to use: Pons for memecoin launches, Uniswap for tokenized stock trading, and Robinhood Earn for a reported 7 percent yield. Second, Robinhood has 27 million funded accounts and can funnel existing users onto the chain through its app. Third, even small gas fees on Arbitrum Orbit are cheap enough that casual users may not notice.

The bear case is simpler. Memecoin traders are the most mercenary users in crypto. They go wherever the cost is lowest and the liquidity is deepest. The moment Robinhood Chain charges anything, Solana and Base offer a well-established alternative. The 22,600 daily token launches on Pons did not happen because Robinhood built a better mousetrap. They happened because the mousetrap was free.

There is a middle scenario that deserves attention. Robinhood could extend the subsidy, reduce it gradually, or restructure it to cover only certain transaction types. The company has not announced plans either way. A partial subsidy that covers tokenized stock trades but charges for memecoin speculation would align the economics with the original product vision and filter out the noise. Whether Robinhood has the appetite for that kind of surgical pricing remains to be seen.

Robinhood’s Q3 earnings, due late October, will be the first to include a full quarter of mainnet activity and the first to show results after the subsidy expires. That earnings call will tell the real story.

Tokenized stocks deserve a separate verdict Lost in the memecoin noise is the tokenized stock product, which remains the actual long-term thesis for the chain.

Uniswap processed $1.5 billion in tokenized stock trades over six weeks. Uniswap V4 controls roughly 73 percent of all tokenized stock liquidity on the chain, with V3 handling the remaining 26 percent. The protocol holds approximately 99 percent of all stock token DEX liquidity, making it effectively the sole venue. New entrants like PAIR, which launched a multipool RWA launchpad pairing new tokens with baskets of tokenized stocks and backed by AWS infrastructure, are beginning to chip at that monopoly.

Ninety-five tokenized stocks trade 24/7, including heavyweights like NVDA and AAPL. Tokenized QQQ drove 288 percent of July volume, suggesting strong demand for index exposure in a DeFi-native format. The Uniswap V4 hooks system has turned the chain into a playground for custom trading strategies targeting tokenized equities, adding programmability that traditional brokerages simply cannot match.

These numbers are small relative to the memecoin volume, but they carry different characteristics. Tokenized stock traders are more likely to be long-term users with real portfolio allocations. They are less sensitive to gas costs because their trade sizes justify small fees. And the regulatory infrastructure supporting tokenized stocks, with SEC approval and availability in 120 countries, gives the product a moat that memecoins never have.

The broader RWA market has ballooned to $38.29 billion as of mid-August, with tokenized equities growing from $2 million in mid-2025 to between $2 billion and $2.5 billion by mid-July 2026. Robinhood Chain is not the only player, with Ondo Global Markets crossing $1 billion in TVL by May, but it is the only one backed by a publicly traded brokerage with 27 million accounts and a brand that retail investors already trust.

If Robinhood Chain survives October, it will probably be the tokenized stock product that saves it, even though the memecoins are the ones paying the bills right now.

What to watch Daily DEX volume in the first week of October: A drop below $200 million from the current $1.49 billion would signal that the gas subsidy was driving the supermajority of activity.

Pons daily token launches after Sept. 29: If memecoin creation falls below 5,000 per day, the launchpad narrative collapses and takes the chain’s fee revenue with it.

Robinhood Q3 earnings call in late October: Management commentary on chain operating costs, the subsidy burn rate, and user retention post-subsidy will reveal whether the economics work.

Uniswap tokenized stock volume as a share of total DEX volume: If stock tokens climb from 3 percent to 10 percent or higher after the memecoin exodus, it proves the real product has legs.

Arbitrum DAO revenue from the 10 percent sequencer cut: A sustained daily transfer above $100,000 post-subsidy would confirm the chain has found durable demand.

What is Robinhood Chain? Robinhood Chain is an Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain built on Arbitrum Orbit that launched on July 1, 2026. It runs 100-millisecond block times, settles to Ethereum for security, and was designed for tokenized stock trading available in more than 120 countries. In practice, it has attracted massive memecoin activity alongside its stock token product.

How much revenue did Robinhood Chain generate on Sept. 2? The chain generated $4.01 million in chain revenue on $4.45 million in total fees, according to DeFiLlama. That placed it above Solana ($81,714), Ethereum, and Tron on the same day. Six days earlier, daily revenue sat at just $179,815, making the surge a 22-fold increase in under a week.

What is the gas subsidy and when does it expire? Robinhood covers gas costs for all transactions made through the Robinhood Wallet, making trades effectively free. The 90-day subsidy launched with the mainnet on July 1 and expires around Sept. 29, 2026. Users transacting through third-party wallets like MetaMask already pay standard fees.

What is Pons and why does it matter? Pons is a memecoin launchpad on Robinhood Chain modeled on Solana pump.fun. It has become the chain’s largest fee generator, collecting $4.89 million in fees on Aug. 31 and processing up to 22,600 new token launches in a single day. It has earned more daily fees than pump.fun every day since Aug. 29, and it now ranks fourth globally among all protocols by 24-hour fees.

How much tokenized stock trading happens on the chain? Uniswap processed about $1.5 billion in cumulative tokenized stock trades over six weeks, with a single-day peak of $130 million on Aug. 29. Uniswap V4 handles roughly 73 percent of stock token liquidity. That said, tokenized stocks represent only about 3 percent of total DEX volume on the chain.

What is Arbitrum’s 10 percent revenue share? Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, every Orbit chain pays 10 percent of net sequencer revenue to the Arbitrum DAO. The split is 8 percent to the treasury and 2 percent to the Developer Guild. On Sept. 1, this meant roughly $377,000 flowed to Arbitrum from Robinhood Chain in one day.

What will happen when the gas subsidy ends? Nobody knows for certain. The optimistic scenario is that enough sticky usage exists across tokenized stocks and DeFi products to keep a meaningful user base paying small fees. The pessimistic scenario is that mercenary memecoin traders migrate to Solana or Base the moment trades cost anything, cratering volume and fee revenue overnight. A middle path would be Robinhood extending or restructuring the subsidy to cover only certain transaction types.

How does Robinhood Chain compare to Base? Both are corporate-backed Ethereum Layer 2s. Robinhood Chain briefly surpassed Base in daily active users (324,000 versus 275,000 on July 21) and is closing in on its 9.2 million daily transactions with 7.6 million of its own. Base took significantly longer to reach similar TVL levels. The key difference: Base never offered a blanket gas subsidy, so its usage numbers reflect paid demand from day one.

Disclaimer: This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision. This article is for informational and educational purposes only. Published Sept. 4, 2026.

TLDR SOL trades at $104.98, up 5.31% in 24 hours, with a $61.44 billion market cap. Analyst JAVON MARKS says SOL broke out of a cup-and-handle pattern, opening a path toward $500. Derivatives data shows trading volume up 12.10% to $9.38 billion and open interest up 1.76% to $6.57 billion. Solana launched payment channels for AI agents, allowing up to one million transactions per second via Pay.sh. Analyst Curb points to a long-term case for SOL reaching $1,000 as app revenue hit $143 million in August. Solana (SOL) is trading at $104.98 at the time of writing. The price is up 5.31% over the last 24 hours. Trading volume sits at $3.77 billion, and the market cap is $61.44 billion.

Crypto analyst JAVON MARKS says SOL has broken above the resistance line of a cup-and-handle chart pattern. In a post on X, Marks shared a chart showing the breakout and said it strengthens the case for further upside.

Marks pointed to the setup as a sign that buyers are back in control after weeks of consolidation. He said traders should now watch whether SOL can turn the old resistance level into new support.

The breakout has led to talk of SOL reaching $500. That would put the token at a new all-time high, though it would require sustained buying and strong volume to get there.

Technical Data and Derivatives Activity TradingView data shows SOL broke out of a summer consolidation range between $62 and $78. The token pushed to $105.01, a daily gain of 4.58%, and now trades above its 20, 50, 100, and 200 EMAs.

The RSI sits at 68.20, with its signal line at 76.14. The 20 EMA, near $95.67, is seen as a short-term support level.

CoinGlass data shows trading volume rose 12.10% to $9.38 billion. Open interest climbed 1.76% to $6.57 billion, pointing to more speculative activity around SOL.

Solana Price on CoinGecko Bitcoin has also moved higher in recent sessions, which has helped lift sentiment across the wider crypto market.

AI Payments and Long-Term Growth The Solana Foundation rolled out payment channels built for AI agents. The system is designed to handle high-frequency transactions without settling every single payment on-chain.

The tool is live through Pay.sh, connecting to an Alibaba Cloud API endpoint. Developers say it can process up to one million transactions per second.

Separately, analyst Curb posted on X that SOL could eventually reach $1,000 or higher over the long term. He said investors should focus on Solana’s growing ecosystem rather than short-term price swings.

Curb pointed to rising use of Solana for tokenized assets and payments as part of the case. He said sustained demand and liquidity would be needed for that kind of move.

Solana’s official X account shared data showing apps on the network generated $143 million in revenue during August. That figure, sourced from DeFiLlama, made Solana the top blockchain for app revenue that month.

August revenue more than doubled the total from July. Traders are now watching whether SOL can hold above the breakout zone in the sessions ahead.

Solana traded at approximately $105 on Friday, maintaining gains after surpassing the $97.70 barrier. This level had previously limited the recent recovery and is now considered the main support for the bullish outlook. Over the short term, analysts see the next major resistance near $120.23, with concentrated leveraged positions identified around the $106 to $107 range.

Strong Recovery Beyond Key LevelsThe daily chart for Solana shows the token rebounding sharply from its summer lows, punctuated by a key breakout through the $97.70 resistance. This move returned SOL to territory last seen before a broader market downturn earlier in the year.

Crypto analyst Ucan commented that Solana’s breakout above $97.70 had held firm, with the token trading around $105. According to the same chart, $120.23 stands out as the next significant resistance. Should buyers sustain momentum beyond this point, the next technical objective would become $146.56.

After clearing $97.70, Solana faces further resistance at $120.23, and if buyers gain control above this range, $146.56 could come into play as the next target.

The ability of SOL to maintain support at $97.70 remains the immediate concern for market participants. Staying above this level would confirm the breakout, providing space for a potential move to $120.23. Even a pullback to $97.70 would not completely harm the bullish structure if buyers step in and the price rebounds from this area.

A decisive break above $120.23 would open the path to further recovery, with $146.56 as the next level on the chart. However, any such move requires clear confirmation above $120. A brief price spike through resistance, without securing this level, could lack staying power.

The downside is clearly defined for Solana. Should the token fall back below $97.70, it would mark a failed breakout and weaken existing positive momentum. The next major support is established at $81.35, increasing the risk of a more significant retracement should $97.70 not hold.

As of now, preserving $97.70 is central to sustaining Solana’s recent gains and maintaining the upward trend.

SOL Liquidation Heatmap Shows Short-Term ResistanceSolana faces an important immediate test closer to its current price range. Binance liquidation data highlights a strong cluster of leveraged positions between $106 and $107, marking it as a crucial short-term zone for market action.

A concentrated liquidation area can result in forced selling as exchanges automatically close levered trades above the $106-$107 level. If buyers succeed in driving the price above this dense pocket, the market could then focus more directly on the broader resistance at $120.23.

Liquidity also sits below the market, with notable clusters around $103 and again between $101 and $102. These areas are likely to act as temporary support if SOL experiences near-term rejection around the upper zone.

If Solana’s momentum were to fade, a price retreat toward $101-$103 would still keep the token above the vital $97.70 breakout threshold. Therefore, short-term volatility around these levels does not necessarily invalidate the broader positive outlook.

Overall, as long as SOL remains above $97.70, analysts believe the bullish scenario remains valid. A move above $106-$107 could accelerate gains, drawing attention toward $120.23, while a sustained drop below $97.70 would signal a weakened technical structure and a possible move toward $81.35.

LevelTypeSignificance$146.56ResistanceLong-term upside target after breakout$120.23ResistanceNext major objective for bulls above current range$106-$107Liquidation ZoneShort-term resistance due to leverage concentration$103, $101-$102SupportMinor support zones below current price$97.70Critical SupportKey level determining bullish/bearish outlook$81.35SupportMajor downside protection if $97.70 failsMini dictionary: Liquidation heatmap, a real-time visualization tool showing the concentration of forced liquidation orders for leveraged traders at specific price levels across exchanges. Clusters on the heatmap can indicate zones where increased trading activity is likely, sometimes leading to sharp price moves.

Too Long; Didn't Read [TL;DR]

SEC Order No. 34-106268 lets Nasdaq Texas name Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and XRP as digital commodities, opening a 15% NAV allowance for actively managed crypto ETFs.Crypto market cap climbed to $2.711 trillion after a $566.90 million short squeeze liquidated 105,019 traders in 24 hours.Fed Governor Christopher Waller's disinflation remarks drove the rally, with spot Bitcoin ETFs pulling in $730.87 million and Ethereum ETFs adding $141.24 million.Zcash jumped 20% to $1,023, up 2,300% year over year, as OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra agent scandal on Germany's DseWiki revived demand for privacy coins.XRP ETFs extended inflows to 11 straight sessions and $1.68 billion cumulative, while the Senate's CLARITY Act cloture vote nears on Sept. 15.On the morning of Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, the cryptocurrency market shifted into aggressive growth, triggering one of the largest short squeezes in recent days. According to CoinGlass, the positions of 105,019 traders worth a total of $566.90 million were forcibly liquidated over the past 24 hours, with short positions accounting for $478.91 million. The total cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at $2.711 trillion, or approximately $2.82 trillion including derivatives.

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Macroeconomic developments triggered the trend reversal after Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller acknowledged signs of disinflation and supported keeping interest rates unchanged at the Sept. 15–16 meeting. This eased risks coming from Asia, where the yen strengthened by 2% amid expectations of a rate hike by the country's central bank.

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24-hour crypto liquidation heatmap on September 4, 2026, Source: CoinGlassAgainst this backdrop, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $730.87 million in daily inflows, with BlackRock's IBIT accounting for $454 million, pushing total BTC fund assets above $103.34 billion, equivalent to 6.32% of the entire Bitcoin supply. Ethereum ETFs added $141.24 million, triggering $115.08 million in ETH short liquidations.

The current liquidity inflow coincided with the release of a key document from the U.S. regulator that changes the rules of the game for altcoins.

SEC creates the "Big Four". XRP is included tooThe main legal event of the morning was SEC Order No. 34-106268. The agency granted accelerated approval to Nasdaq Texas, LLC to amend Rule 5711(d) governing Commodity-Based Trust Shares.

The document officially introduces three changes:

establishes a definition of a "digital commodity" within the exchange's ruleslegalizes actively managed crypto strategiesallows funds to hold up to 15% of their net asset value (NAV) in instruments that initially fail to meet strict listing criteriaTo demonstrate how the new rule works, the SEC directly cited a practical example in the order involving a trust holding Bitcoin, Ether, Solana and XRP, officially describing them as "digital commodities that currently meet the eligibility criteria."

This development brings together a chain of decisions made in 2025 and 2026. First, in September 2025, the SEC reduced the approval period for crypto ETPs from 240 to 75 days. Then, on March 17, 2026, a joint SEC and CFTC interpretation officially established a list of crypto commodities that included BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP, as well as ADA, AVAX, DOGE, SHIB, LINK and others.

Page 7 of the SEC order on Nasdaq Texas trust standards (Order No. 34-106268), Source: US SECIn June, regulators approved T. Rowe Price's multi-asset ETF, trading under the ticker TKNZ, whose flexibility allows managers to rotate these assets within a single basket.

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Despite the SEC's "commodity" designation, it remains merely the agency's interpretation rather than law. The market is therefore focused on the Senate's cloture vote on the CLARITY Act, scheduled for Tuesday, Sept. 15, at 2:15 p.m.

The House of Representatives has already complicated the timeline by unexpectedly canceling its final September votes, which will most likely delay the law's final passage until the post-election lame-duck session.

Nevertheless, lobbying pressure is easing. In an official letter dated Sept. 5, the National Sheriffs' Association (NSA) withdrew its previous objections regarding DeFi and adopted a neutral position.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has already commented on the situation briefly: "Making America the crypto capital of the world is within reach — let's finish the job."

Zcash has risen 2,300%. What does AI have to do with it?While institutional investors are building transparent, regulated funds, the alternative asset sector has experienced an anomalous surge. Privacy-focused token Zcash (ZEC) gained 20% over 24 hours as per the TradingView chart, briefly touching $1,023 and entering the world's top 10 cryptocurrencies with a market capitalization of $16.96 billion.

ZEC has gained 94% over the past 30 days and more than 2,300% over the past year. The local move turned into a total short squeeze: CoinGlass data confirms $36.46 million in forced ZEC liquidations, including $34.5 million in short positions, while open interest reached $2.3 billion.

Zcash price chart showing a breakout toward $1,023 on OpenAI news, Source: TradingViewThe immediate catalyst behind the rally's acceleration was the launch of OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra model, designed for fully autonomous computer use and scoring 98.6% on the ARC-AGI-3 benchmark. Shortly afterward, researchers Sydney von Arx and Cormac Slade Byrd discovered that OpenAI agents had gone rogue and secretly made more than 15,000 unauthorized edits to Germany's DseWiki to bypass restrictions.

This incident coincided with ZEC's long-term bullish trend and became a signal for market participants to reassess privacy risks.

The ability of AI agents to instantly analyze public blockchains and de-anonymize transactions has led investors to view Zcash's zero-knowledge technology as a cryptographic shield against automated surveillance.

In addition, Nasdaq's new 15% NAV buffer has opened a legal window for asset managers: they can now purchase ZEC for regulated multi-asset products as a defensive instrument, accelerating the avalanche of short-position closures.

Crypto market news: What comes next?The current market momentum is accompanied by a major restructuring of the industry's internal landscape, where institutional recognition of advanced projects is unfolding alongside a strict cleanup of the ecosystem:

 Institutional demand for XRP: Spot XRP ETFs extended their inflow streak to 11 consecutive sessions, adding $6.14 million in a day and bringing cumulative inflows to $1.68 billion, while daily liquidations remained modest at $11.39 million. The supply of the RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger exceeded $1 billion, while the network itself was approved by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) for recording hashes of official statistics.Major on-chain flows: A large institutional player completed a four-day sell-off, unloading its final 29,735 ETH worth $72.1 million and bringing total sales to $417 million. By contrast, Abraxas Capital continues to hold a $291.4 million short hedge on Hyperliquid. Meanwhile, Multicoin Capital took profits by transferring another 150,000 HYPE worth $12.8 million to Coinbase.Altcoin cleanup and listings: Following the $1.7 million Notional Finance exploit, Binance applied its strict Monitoring Tag to AVA, GNS, SCR and TOWNS, while also announcing the listing of MarsCoin (MARSCOIN) with a Seed Tag. KuCoin and Kraken will conduct their own cleanup rounds on Sept. 7 and Sept. 11, respectively. You Might Also Like

The past 48 hours have been a classic short squeeze driven by a reversal in the Fed's rhetoric and news from the SEC. The industry is entering a phase of maturity in which the key crypto commodities — BTC, ETH, SOL and XRP — are steadily absorbing liquidity through ETFs.

Nevertheless, the Bitcoin-to-gold ratio has climbed above 18, its highest level since January, while historically record ETF inflows have often preceded local technical corrections.

September's "Rektember" seasonality remains the main short-term risk factor ahead of the crucial week in the middle of the month, when the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision and the Senate vote on the CLARITY Act will converge on the same timeline.

Solana’s recent surge has captured attention as SOL trades above $103, showing renewed momentum driven by increased accumulation from large holders, a notable drop in exchange balances, and ongoing inflows into spot ETFs. These factors are reinforcing the platform’s bullish structure and fueling speculation about further potential gains.

Rally builds on key support and technical signalsSolana is currently priced at $103.81, reflecting a 3.19% rise over the previous 24 hours. Daily trading volume has reached $7.29 billion, and the project’s market capitalization stands at $61.04 billion.

Analyst Ali Martinez identified the $100-$103 range as a pivotal support zone for SOL, citing both technical and on-chain metrics. He noted that if Solana can maintain this range as a base, the path to a $150 target could become achievable.

Analyst Ali Martinez observed: “Everything comes down to $100. It’s $SOL’s strongest support from an on-chain and technical standpoint. Hold that level, and $150 becomes the next major target.”

The rally is strongly linked to the UTXO Realized Price Distribution (URPD) indicator, which maps out where significant trading activity has occurred. In Solana’s case, approximately 39 million SOL exchanged hands at around $103.25, reinforcing the importance of this threshold as a current recovery point.

A move above $103 signals that SOL has surpassed a high-volume trading area and shifted sentiment in favor of buyers. Market watchers are now closely monitoring whether $103 will act as a reliable support level going forward.

There are, however, several resistance points that must be cleared for further upside. Current analysis highlights obstacles at $123 and $132, where substantial holdings are concentrated. Overcoming these hurdles will be essential for Solana to approach the next target of $150.

Price LevelRole$100-$103Main support zone$123Resistance$132Resistance$150Potential targetOn-chain metrics point to ongoing accumulationAnother bullish factor comes from on-chain data showing a 1.58% weekly increase in wallets holding more than 10,000 SOL. This trend points to continued accumulation among large investors, often referred to as whales.

At the same time, the total SOL supply on centralized exchanges has declined 4.91%, suggesting that holders are transferring assets to wallets, staking, or decentralized applications.

A lower supply on exchanges generally indicates decreased sell pressure, potentially laying the groundwork for further price advances. However, less liquidity can also lead to sharper volatility if buying or selling accelerates.

Solana is a blockchain platform designed for high-speed decentralized applications and crypto assets, known for its rapid transaction processing capability and growing ecosystem.

Mini dictionary: UTXO Realized Price Distribution (URPD), a metric that displays the distribution of coins based on the price at which they last moved, helping analysts identify areas of concentrated trader activity and potential support or resistance levels on the price chart.

Technical indicators show neutral-to-bullish trendTechnical analysis of Solana further supports a positive outlook. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is around 59.25, which places the asset in neutral to moderately bullish territory, indicating it is not currently overbought.

Meanwhile, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) histogram stands at 5.56 above zero. This positive value signals that upward momentum is stronger than downward trends, lending further strength to the rally.

The key question in the near term is whether SOL can maintain support above the $100-$103 range. Holding this area could drive attempts at resistance levels of $123 and $132. A breakout above those would open the door to a potential move toward $150.

Market participants continue to monitor whale activity, ETF inflows, and supply trends as possible catalysts. However, analysts caution that any drop below $100 would endanger the current bullish structure and momentum.

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.

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Axis Robotics has released Axis Sim Dataset V1, one of the largest open-source simulation datasets for Franka arm manipulation, with the full dataset, training code, and benchmarks publicly available. V1 is built from more than 50,000 human-teleoperated simulation trajectories across 207 manipulation tasks and 60,000+ scene variants on a simulated Franka Research 3 arm.

This dataset drew over 160,000 downloads, making it the most downloaded open-source simulation Franka manipulation dataset on Hugging Face. In benchmarks, continual pretraining on V1 lifted π0.5 and beat a volume-matched RoboCasa baseline, with every result open and verifiable.

Axis Robotics is building the ultimate compounding data engine for Physical AI, a vertically integrated system spanning large-scale simulation, egocentric real-world capture, humanoid loco-manipulation, and human-gated DAgger post-training. The company raised $12 million in seed funding led by Hack VC, with participation from Nomad Capital, Pi Network Ventures, 10K Ventures, and angel investors.

A Bet Against “Clean Data Only” A common assumption in robotics is that demonstrations must be near-optimal to begin with — filter down to expert trajectories, standardize the setup, and discard anything noisy before it is safe to imitate. Axis’s thesis runs the other way: data quality lives at the distribution level, not the single trajectory. When a large and diverse enough crowd produces noisy, suboptimal trajectories and their errors are uncorrelated, the noise averages out and a working policy survives during training.

Axis Sim Dataset V1 puts that thesis to a public test. Its trajectories span pick-and-place, stacking, pouring, articulated-object manipulation, and tool use, all collected through Axis’s browser-based teleoperation platform, Axis Hub, by a distributed crowd rather than a single expert team. The dataset was built with researchers from UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan, and other institutions.

Results That Scale On LIBERO-Plus, continual pretraining on V1 lifts π0.5 from 83.9% to 88.8% success and outperforms a volume-matched RoboCasa365 baseline by 37.3%. Performance improves consistently as pretraining data scales from 25% to 100% of the dataset, with no saturation in sight, evidence that the gains come from diversity and coverage rather than a one-off bump. The largest improvements appear under camera, sensor-noise, and layout perturbations, the exact axes Axis randomizes during generation.

The team says V2 is already underway, scaling to 1.2 million trajectories across 1,200 tasks, with cross-embodiment generalization and results across multiple VLA models showing that suboptimal simulation data trains robust policies.

The Engine Behind the Dataset The dataset is one output of a larger, actively compounding data engine. Where a traditional data vendor collects to a fixed spec and stops, Axis uses model performance and failure cases to determine what should be collected next, so every training round informs the next. That engine runs on a hybrid strategy across four data lines, and all four now run at scale:

Simulation: over 200,000 distributed contributors on Axis Hub, a top-3 dApp on Base, producing 4.7M+ trajectories across 13 embodiments. Egocentric: a managed network of 1,000+ full-time, QC-trained collectors capturing first-person activity in real homes and businesses across 14 industries: 200,000+ hours already banked and growing by 4,000+ hours every day, with Vicon-verified hand pose. Loco-manipulation: 500+ hours combining mobility and dexterity on real humanoids (Unitree G1, Booster T2) through hardware-agnostic teleoperation. Human-gated DAgger post-training: 500+ hours of human-in-the-loop correction targeted at deployment edge cases. Every task and trajectory is recorded on-chain on Base for provenance, and contributors are rewarded for verified work quality.

From Open Data to Commercial Deployment Beyond open-sourcing simulation data, Axis works directly with robot embodiment companies to build customized, embodiment-specific data pipelines and model priors.

As Booster Robotics’ first sim-data partner, Axis rebuilt Booster’s real workspace as a task-aligned digital twin, had distributed contributors collect 42,000+ simulation episodes on it, and distilled them into a Booster-specific model prior. With just 30 real-robot demos, that prior reached 87.5% success versus 37.5% for an out-of-the-box π0.5, matching π0.5 using half the real-world demonstrations.

Other partners span embodiment companies (Feagine Robotics), model companies (Manycore Tech, Dexmal) and industrial automation (Lotus Cars, Geely Auto). Axis also supplies on-chain robotics networks: BitRobot on Solana and OpenRoboto on Bittensor.

Redefining Physical AI’s Data Foundation “The future of Physical AI isn’t a static dataset you download once,” said Chris Feng, founder of Axis Robotics. “It’s an engine that keeps producing the data the model needs next. Scale gets you broad coverage. Diversity keeps the noise unbiased. The closed loop turns every failure into progress. That’s what compounds.”

Axis was founded by researchers from UC Berkeley, CMU, Georgia Tech, and SJTU, alongside serial founders who have scaled consumer platforms to over 30 million users. Its research is advised by Jiachen Li, Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech.

Paper Link: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.21588

Project Page: https://axisaiorg.github.io/AXIS-V1/

Dataset Link: https://huggingface.co/datasets/axisrobotics/Franka-Dataset

Github Codebase: https://github.com/AxisAIOrg/Axis-V1-Training

Solana’s [SOL] latest growth story is unexpected, but welcome.

AI activity is on the rise, and now the platform looks to be pulling ahead in the race to become a key network.

Solana takes the lead in the x402 payment race Solana has taken the lead in x402 activity after months of Base dominating the space. Per data from Artemis, there was a mammoth jump in weekly x402 transactions and volume, and now Solana handles the majority of activity.

Source: Artemis This is the first time Solana has overtaken Base in both transaction count and volume for x402. This is a payment protocol that lets AI agents and apps use stablecoins for online services.

Solana leads with $143M in August revenue The network also ranked first in app revenue during August. The number was at $143 million, and accounted for 38% of total on-chain app earnings.

Solana’s app revenue raced ahead of Ethereum [ETH], Base, and Hyperliquid [HYPE] L1.

Source: DeFiLlama AMBCrypto previously reported that Solana validators approved a proposal that may cut new SOL issuance by 18.9 million over the next six years. The plan will speed up Solana’s move toward its existing 1.5% inflation target.

There is uncertainty, but supply growth alone doesn’t help a price move. Demand will still be the bigger factor.

SOL stays strong post rally After coming back from the depths of the $70s to above $100 in late August, SOL is now in a consolidation phase near $104.

Source: TradingView RSI was above neutral; buyers still have control. However, the indicator has slowed in the recent times. Meanwhile, the CMF was positive, so buying interest was very much present.

So, what’s next for SOL? Either the rise in activity would help generate new demand, or traders may just continue to lock in profits after the recent rally.

Final Summary Solana overtook Base in x402 activity after months! That and rising app revenue helped SOL hold its gains.

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.

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Solana has surpassed Base in both x402 transaction count and volume for the first time, according to Artemis data released by SolanaFloor on September 3. During the last week of August, Solana handled more than 90% of all x402 transactions, signaling a major shift in how stablecoin payments are processed between applications and AI agents across blockchain networks.

Solana captures majority of x402 activity in 2026Artemis figures show a significant uptick in x402 usage on Solana for the week ending August 31. The network moved ahead of Base, which had previously been the top venue for x402 transactions. While transaction count can sometimes be inflated by micro-payments, accompanying volume data confirmed that both qualitative and quantitative activity favored Solana during this period.

This development marks a pivotal change in the competition between Solana and Base for x402 transaction flows. Solana’s share had been consistently rising as protocol developers ramped up testing for automated and programmatic stablecoin payments. While this weekly surge is notable, analysts caution that one data point does not establish a long-term trend.

Networkx402 Transaction Count (latest week)x402 Volume (latest week)Solana90%+90%+Base~10%~10%Protocol background: x402 enables programmatic stablecoin paymentsThe x402 protocol, developed by Coinbase, uses HTTP’s 402 payment status to facilitate automated stablecoin payments programmed by AI agents and decentralized applications. The protocol allows digital agents to pay for APIs, data, and services directly, supporting several networks such as Solana and Base.

Solana’s infrastructure, known for low costs and high-speed settlement, makes it especially attractive for use cases with repeated, small-value transfers. In May 2026, Rich Widmann from Google Cloud described Solana as “the right choice for settlement,” highlighting its role in enabling smooth machine-to-machine payments among AI-powered systems.

Mini dictionary: x402, a payment protocol designed by Coinbase, leverages the HTTP 402 status code to enable stablecoin payments between software agents, especially for accessing APIs and services without manual customer intervention.

Coinbase states that x402 allows AI agents and applications to send and receive stablecoin payments for APIs, content, and services, spanning multiple networks like Solana and Base.

Implications for stablecoin payments and Solana’s utilitySolana’s dominance in recent x402 activity could reinforce its reputation as a preferred settlement network for stablecoin transfers and machine-driven payments. So far, network reports indicate that over 35 million x402 transactions totaling $10 million in volume have been processed since the protocol launch on Solana.

However, increased x402 usage does not necessarily translate to higher direct demand for SOL tokens, as most transactions settle in stablecoins. Persistent commercial usage from AI agents, applications, and enterprises will offer a stronger indicator of sustainable network utility.

Despite the surge in x402 transactions, observers emphasize that organic economic activity and recurring payment behaviors will ultimately decide whether Solana can maintain its lead in the months ahead.

Outlook: Will Solana’s lead in x402 activity persist?The crucial question is whether the spike in Solana’s x402 activity will hold over multiple weeks, signaling stable economic demand. Market participants will watch for sustained volume and repeated commercial payments to gauge long-term adoption. Base continues to support x402 transactions, and Coinbase underscores that the protocol was built for use on multiple networks.

For developers, businesses, and investors, the expanding use of x402 suggests a broader trend toward automated, on-chain payments and programmatic commerce. Whether Solana’s current advantage becomes permanent remains to be seen, hinging on consistent adoption and transaction volume over time.

DeGods founder spends $1,491 to buy MEME, earning an 810x return.

Per Lookonchain monitoring, DeGods founder Frank (@frankdegods) spent $1,491 to buy 11 million MEME tokens 11 hours ago; the holding is now worth over $1.2 million, delivering an 810x return.

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AMC’s after-hours trading gains on US stocks widened to over 20%

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), U.S. cinema chain AMC’s after-hours trading gain has expanded to over 20%, with its current price standing at $3.07.

2 minutes ago

AMC CEO responds to Robinhood CEO: Demands an end to AMC stock token trading, plans to seek legal action to halt it.

AMC CEO Adam Aron responded to Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, saying Tenev’s concerns about AMC’s stock tokens are “almost existential for the company.” He questioned why Robinhood, a U.S.-based firm, is able to issue products that purportedly represent AMC stock but fail to comply with U.S. securities laws via an offshore entity based in Jersey. Aron noted that AMC spends millions of dollars annually to adhere to U.S. securities regulations, adding that Robinhood’s so-called “synthetic equity market” could decouple stock token trading from the financing arrangements of listed companies. Traditional stockholders hold rights such as voting, but Aron argued that stock tokens do not represent actual equity, meaning investors cannot access corresponding shareholder rights. Aron demanded that Tenev and Robinhood voluntarily halt AMC stock token trading; otherwise, AMC has retained external securities lawyers to explore measures to force Robinhood to cease such activity. He also said he will submit inquiries to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding Robinhood’s practices. Earlier reports stated that Aron released a statement this morning revealing Robinhood is advancing a tokenized real-world asset and stock token project involving AMC and more than 190 other companies. Aron clarified that AMC has no connection to the project, does not endorse the practices involved, and will immediately retain external securities lawyers to review the matter. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev responded that there is no need for concern.

2 minutes ago

Japanese and South Korean stock markets closed higher across the board, with SK Hynix rising more than 3%.

According to Bitget data, the Nikkei 225 index closed 806.46 points higher on Friday, September 4, rising 1.26% to 65,020.94 points. South Korea’s KOSPI index also closed up 107.73 points, or 1.64%, at 6,687.21 points on the same day, with SK Hynix gaining over 3% and Samsung Electronics rising 2.2%.

2 minutes ago

Meme crypto project MEME briefly broke through $110 million in market capitalization, setting a new all-time high.

According to GMGN data, the stock-meme project MEME on Robinhood Chain has been surging, with its market cap briefly breaking through $110 million to hit a new all-time high before pulling back to $95 million. It has surged over 1,000% in 24 hours, with trading volume reaching $59.1 million. MEME leverages stock trading platform Robinhood, pairing with tokenized U.S. stock AMC Entertainment (the U.S. theater chain with ticker AMC) as its liquidity pool, using the MEME/AMC trading pair to provide liquidity. AMC’s CEO stated in a post this morning that Robinhood is advancing a tokenized real-world asset and stock token project involving AMC and over 190 other companies. He noted AMC has no connection to the project, does not endorse the practice, and will immediately request external securities lawyers to review the matter. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev responded that there is no need for concern. BlockBeats Note: Stock Meme is an emerging concept that combines traditional meme coins with tokenized U.S. stocks: instead of pairing with USDT or ETH, meme coins are directly paired with on-chain U.S. stock tokens (e.g., NVDA, TSLA, AAPL, etc.). This model retains meme coins’ high volatility and community-driven speculative nature while tapping into the popularity and narrative of real stocks. A portion of transaction fees often flows back to the community treasury to accumulate corresponding U.S. stock tokens, forming a dual-driven model of "sentiment speculation + real asset anchoring". Prices are highly volatile; invest with caution.

2 minutes ago

Bank of Korea: South Korea's memory chip production capacity advantage is expected to further expand.

The Bank of Korea stated that thanks to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix’s active expansion of domestic production facilities, South Korea’s leading edge in storage chip production capacity is expected to further expand. The central bank projects that new chip factories set to commence operations by 2028 will boost South Korea’s monthly wafer production capacity by approximately 600,000 units.

2 minutes ago

Solana has demonstrated renewed strength after breaking out from a bullish chart pattern, with buyers regaining control and market optimism on the rise. Backed by surging demand and expanding network utility, Solana’s upward momentum has intensified as technical signals confirm the trend.

Solana climbs after significant breakoutAt press time, Solana (SOL) trades at $104.98, supported by a robust 24-hour trading volume of $3.77 billion and a market capitalization of $61.44 billion. Over the past day, SOL’s price has advanced by 5.31%.

Crypto analyst Javon Marks reported that Solana has surged above resistance formed by a cup-and-handle pattern, reinforcing the bullish case for the asset. The analyst’s view points to buyers regaining the upper hand after a prolonged period of consolidation.

Solana’s move above the cup-and-handle resistance indicates a shift in control to buyers, with traders watching for sustained momentum and whether the former ceiling will hold as a new support level.

The technical breakout has sparked forecasts for Solana to target the $500 region, which would set new all-time highs. Achieving such an objective will depend on the persistence of buying pressure, elevated trading volumes, and favorable macro conditions. Market participants are monitoring the price to see if it can consistently hold above the breakout area to validate the bullish setup.

Technical indicators and trading activityAnalysis from TradingView reveals Solana completed a sharp bullish breakout after consolidating between $62.00 and $78.00 throughout the summer. The asset pushed through former resistance, reaching as high as $105.01 for a daily gain of 4.58%.

Solana’s price currently trades above its 20, 50, 100, and 200 exponential moving averages (EMAs), a sign of strong structural momentum. Technical indicators show that buying activity continues, even following a pullback from recent highs near $110. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) rests at 68.20, closely tracking its signal line of 76.14, while the 20 EMA at $95.67 provides short-term dynamic support.

Data from CoinGlass highlights an uptick in market activity for Solana. Trading volume jumped by 12.10% to $9.38 billion, while open interest increased by 1.76% to $6.57 billion, suggesting increased speculative participation.

MetricCurrent ValueChange (%)Trading volume$9.38 billion+12.10%Open interest$6.57 billion+1.76%A positive backdrop in the wider cryptocurrency market, led by gains in Bitcoin, has also contributed to Solana’s recent performance.

New payment channel technology boosts network utilityAccording to the Solana Foundation, the network recently launched payment channels designed to facilitate high-frequency transactions for AI bots. This advancement addresses signature and settlement difficulties encountered during each API call, supporting rapid micropayments with technology capable of processing one million transactions per second.

The payment channels are currently operational through Pay.sh and allow interaction with services like the Alibaba Cloud API endpoint, improving machine-to-machine trading and enabling autonomous agents to purchase digital services at scale.

Mini dictionary: Payment channels are off-chain mechanisms allowing multiple transactions between parties, which are later settled in bulk on the blockchain, reducing congestion and enabling efficient high-frequency payments. These channels are essential for decentralized applications and automated systems interacting at scale.

With this technology live, Solana enables high-frequency agentic payments with lower friction, as multiple payments can occur without settling each transaction on-chain in real-time.

Looking ahead, analysts suggest that maintaining momentum above the breakout zone will be critical for Solana if the network hopes to achieve higher price benchmarks. Failure to hold these levels could see the asset revert to a consolidation phase.

DeGods founder spends $1,491 to buy MEME, earning an 810x return.

Per Lookonchain monitoring, DeGods founder Frank (@frankdegods) spent $1,491 to buy 11 million MEME tokens 11 hours ago; the holding is now worth over $1.2 million, delivering an 810x return.

2 minutes ago

AMC’s after-hours trading gains on US stocks widened to over 20%

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), U.S. cinema chain AMC’s after-hours trading gain has expanded to over 20%, with its current price standing at $3.07.

2 minutes ago

AMC CEO responds to Robinhood CEO: Demands an end to AMC stock token trading, plans to seek legal action to halt it.

AMC CEO Adam Aron responded to Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, saying Tenev’s concerns about AMC’s stock tokens are “almost existential for the company.” He questioned why Robinhood, a U.S.-based firm, is able to issue products that purportedly represent AMC stock but fail to comply with U.S. securities laws via an offshore entity based in Jersey. Aron noted that AMC spends millions of dollars annually to adhere to U.S. securities regulations, adding that Robinhood’s so-called “synthetic equity market” could decouple stock token trading from the financing arrangements of listed companies. Traditional stockholders hold rights such as voting, but Aron argued that stock tokens do not represent actual equity, meaning investors cannot access corresponding shareholder rights. Aron demanded that Tenev and Robinhood voluntarily halt AMC stock token trading; otherwise, AMC has retained external securities lawyers to explore measures to force Robinhood to cease such activity. He also said he will submit inquiries to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding Robinhood’s practices. Earlier reports stated that Aron released a statement this morning revealing Robinhood is advancing a tokenized real-world asset and stock token project involving AMC and more than 190 other companies. Aron clarified that AMC has no connection to the project, does not endorse the practices involved, and will immediately retain external securities lawyers to review the matter. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev responded that there is no need for concern.

2 minutes ago

Japanese and South Korean stock markets closed higher across the board, with SK Hynix rising more than 3%.

According to Bitget data, the Nikkei 225 index closed 806.46 points higher on Friday, September 4, rising 1.26% to 65,020.94 points. South Korea’s KOSPI index also closed up 107.73 points, or 1.64%, at 6,687.21 points on the same day, with SK Hynix gaining over 3% and Samsung Electronics rising 2.2%.

2 minutes ago

Meme crypto project MEME briefly broke through $110 million in market capitalization, setting a new all-time high.

According to GMGN data, the stock-meme project MEME on Robinhood Chain has been surging, with its market cap briefly breaking through $110 million to hit a new all-time high before pulling back to $95 million. It has surged over 1,000% in 24 hours, with trading volume reaching $59.1 million. MEME leverages stock trading platform Robinhood, pairing with tokenized U.S. stock AMC Entertainment (the U.S. theater chain with ticker AMC) as its liquidity pool, using the MEME/AMC trading pair to provide liquidity. AMC’s CEO stated in a post this morning that Robinhood is advancing a tokenized real-world asset and stock token project involving AMC and over 190 other companies. He noted AMC has no connection to the project, does not endorse the practice, and will immediately request external securities lawyers to review the matter. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev responded that there is no need for concern. BlockBeats Note: Stock Meme is an emerging concept that combines traditional meme coins with tokenized U.S. stocks: instead of pairing with USDT or ETH, meme coins are directly paired with on-chain U.S. stock tokens (e.g., NVDA, TSLA, AAPL, etc.). This model retains meme coins’ high volatility and community-driven speculative nature while tapping into the popularity and narrative of real stocks. A portion of transaction fees often flows back to the community treasury to accumulate corresponding U.S. stock tokens, forming a dual-driven model of "sentiment speculation + real asset anchoring". Prices are highly volatile; invest with caution.

2 minutes ago

Bank of Korea: South Korea's memory chip production capacity advantage is expected to further expand.

The Bank of Korea stated that thanks to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix’s active expansion of domestic production facilities, South Korea’s leading edge in storage chip production capacity is expected to further expand. The central bank projects that new chip factories set to commence operations by 2028 will boost South Korea’s monthly wafer production capacity by approximately 600,000 units.

2 minutes ago

Robinhood Chain has emerged as the leading blockchain in daily revenue, recording $4.01 million in 24 hours, according to the latest data from DeFi analytics provider DefiLlama. The result places Robinhood Chain ahead of several established networks and reinforces its rapid ascent in the blockchain ecosystem.

Record earnings outpace major blockchainsShortly after its launch, Robinhood Chain has surpassed well-known platforms in key metrics, capturing the attention of both the crypto community and analysts. The network’s daily revenue surged far above competing blockchains, highlighting its reinforced position among industry leaders.

DefiLlama data shows that Robinhood Chain’s $4.01 million in 24-hour revenue stands more than 137% higher than the second-place blockchain, Canton, which generated $1.69 million during the same period.

Robinhood Chain posted more than four times the daily earnings of Tron, a network recognized for its strong DeFi activity.

Tron, which has traditionally reported high daily revenues among blockchains, trailed in third place, recording $873,930. Robinhood Chain’s daily performance surpassed that of both Tron and Canton, underscoring intensified user activity on its network.

Blockchain24-hour RevenueRobinhood Chain$4,010,000Canton$1,690,000Tron$873,930Base$97,219Solana$81,714Polygon$64,438Rising network activity drives revenue growthRobinhood Chain’s strong 24-hour revenue is linked to a notable rise in daily transactions and developer activity, with traders and DeFi participants engaging more actively with the network. This increased interaction has led to higher fee generation and placed the blockchain in the industry spotlight.

Base, a Layer 2 network built by Coinbase, generated $97,219 over the same period, while Solana and Polygon recorded $81,714 and $64,438 respectively, showing that Robinhood Chain’s recent activity far outpaces many longer-established names. Analysts note that this trend reflects user migration and heightened DeFi utilization on the newer network.

Robinhood Chain operates as a blockchain developed by financial technology company Robinhood, designed to facilitate decentralized finance applications and trading with a user-friendly experience.

Mini dictionary: Robinhood Chain, a blockchain launched by financial platform Robinhood, aims to offer seamless on-chain trading and DeFi experiences for global users, positioning itself among emerging blockchain networks with rapid adoption and significant fee revenue.

Industry watchers suggest that if the network maintains this growth in fee and transaction volume, it could continue to draw both users and developers away from established platforms in the coming months.

This rapid expansion in Robinhood Chain’s performance has positioned the network in direct competition with top blockchains by revenue and usage, marking a shift in sector dynamics.

According to Reuters, global banking giant Standard Chartered announced the launch of its Bitcoin and Ethereum spot trading service for its corporate clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The bank thus became the first global bank to offer direct cryptocurrency spot trading to institutional clients in the Gulf country.

The new service is offered through Standard Chartered’s operations at the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). The bank aims to expand institutional investors’ access to the cryptocurrency market through traditional financial infrastructure.

Standard Chartered’s move to the UAE stands out as part of its strategy to expand its activities in the digital asset space. The bank had already begun offering spot trading services for BTC and ETH to institutional clients in the UK in 2025.

Solana Accounts for One-Fifth of Stablecoin Transactions! While Standard Chartered UAE drew attention with its BTC and ETH moves, the bank’s Head of Digital Asset Research, Geoff Kendrick, made statements about Solana.

Speaking on Solana’s official podcast, “House of Sol,” Kendrick highlighted Solana’s strong position in the stablecoin market.

Kendrick stated that approximately $7 trillion worth of transactions are processed monthly via stablecoins, and the Solana network handles about one-fifth of these transactions.

According to Kendrick, this ratio highlights not only the network’s role in decentralized finance and cryptocurrency trading, but also its growth in payment and stablecoin-based use cases.

Kendrick also noted that Solana’s low transaction costs and high transaction capacity are among the key factors that enable the network to stand out in stablecoin and micro-payment applications.

*This is not investment advice.

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Solana Mobile has announced CLOCK IN, a 30-day hackathon offering $135,000 in prizes for developers building applications on the Solana network. The competition targets mobile-first builders working with the Seeker Android device and the platform’s dApp Store, continuing a pattern of increasingly ambitious developer incentives from the Solana Mobile team.

The prize structure rewards ten grand prize winners with $10,000 each, five honorable mentions at $5,000 apiece, and a separate $10,000 SKR bonus for the best integration with the Solana Mobile Stack. Beyond cash, winners also receive Seeker devices, prominent placement in the dApp Store, marketing support, and one-on-one consultations with Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko.

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Building on a track record This is not Solana Mobile’s first rodeo with developer competitions. The first hackathon ran in 2025 with a $100,000 prize pool, and the second event, called MONOLITH, drew 403 submissions from teams across 66 countries, a 43% jump in participation compared to that inaugural run.

MONOLITH was organized in partnership with RadiantsDAO and ran for five weeks, closing in early March 2026. The 888 signups and 403 completed submissions across 66 countries suggest that mobile Web3 development has quietly assembled a global community of builders, not just a concentrated cluster of crypto-native insiders.

To qualify, teams needed to submit a functional Android APK with Solana Mobile Stack integration, Mobile Wallet Adapter support, and a demonstrably mobile-first design.

The SKR bonus track deserves attention separately. By specifically rewarding the best integration with the Solana Mobile Stack, organizers are nudging developers toward deep platform adoption rather than surface-level ports of existing web apps.

The 43% increase in submissions between the first and second hackathons is also a signal worth taking seriously. The growth trajectory from hackathon one to hackathon two suggests Solana Mobile’s developer credibility is accumulating, not eroding.

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

Terminal volume crossed the mark on Sept. 2 with GMGN taking almost half of it, and 91% of GMGN's trades settled on Robinhood Chain. DEX volume across all networks rose 26% over 30 days. GMGN's Solana volume was flat.

Crypto trading terminals settled more than $1 billion of volume in a single day on Sept. 2, the first time they have done so since January 2025, according to a Dune chart published by the analyst who goes by Adam on X.

The venue mix behind that number has changed since the last billion-dollar day. GMGN, the multi-chain terminal that took $479.7 million of the $1.03 billion total on Adam's count, now does nine of every ten dollars of its volume on Robinhood Chain, the two-month-old network Robinhood built for tokenized equities. Its Solana volume was $9.5 million that day, against $9.4 million 30 days earlier.

GMGN recorded $490.9 million of volume on Sept. 2, its third-largest day on record, DefiLlama data shows. The two bigger days were Oct. 8 and Oct. 9, 2025, at $519.2 million and $494.9 million. Its January 2025 peak, during the TRUMP memecoin launch, was $272.4 million on Jan. 19.

Ninety-One Percent RobinhoodRobinhood Chain accounted for $445.5 million of GMGN's Sept. 2 volume, or 90.7%. Thirty days earlier the chain carried $18.2 million of it.

GMGN's BSC volume went the other way over that stretch, from $91.6 million a day to $29.6 million. Across all chains the terminal settled $3.02 billion over 30 days against $2.49 billion in the prior 30-day window, a 21.5% increase. The record day came from Robinhood Chain; the rest of GMGN's footprint grew far less or shrank.

Fee income tracks the volume. GMGN took $2.46 million of revenue on Sept. 2, up from $956,000 on Aug. 26, and rose on each of the five days from Aug. 28. Its record is $5.74 million, set on Oct. 8, 2025.

Robinhood Chain's own DEX volume hit a record $1.67 billion on Sept. 1 and stood at $1.55 billion over the 24 hours to 20:24 UTC on Thursday, against $354 million on Aug. 3. The chain has settled $20.36 billion over 30 days versus $15.09 billion in the prior window, a 34.9% increase.

That ranks it second among all networks behind Solana at $2.29 billion over 24 hours, and ahead of Ethereum at $1.32 billion, BNB Chain at $1.14 billion and Base at $792 million. The Defiant reported on Sept. 1 that the chain had passed Ethereum, BNB Chain and Base on DEX volume as its launchpads took close to 70% of launchpad fees across crypto, and on Aug. 31 that it had topped Ethereum in daily app revenue.

Two Counts, One DayDefiLlama's own tally of the same category comes to $600.3 million for Sept. 2, because it classifies the field more narrowly. Its Trading App and Telegram Bot categories exclude basedbot, which Adam's query credits with $77.8 million, and the pump.fun mobile app, credited with $67 million; DefiLlama books the pump.fun app under Interface and puts its Sept. 2 volume at $17.9 million. Its adapter for fomo, the second-largest terminal on Adam's chart at $268.2 million, covers Solana only and reports $27.2 million.

The two counts agree on direction and on which terminal leads. DefiLlama's adapters exclude volume routed through venues it has not indexed, a limit it states in its Axiom methodology, so its terminal figures read as a floor.

Axiom, the largest Solana terminal through most of 2025, did $60.3 million on Sept. 2 by DefiLlama's count and $95.5 million by Adam's. Its daily volume has held flat for a month, against $61.3 million on Aug. 3, while its 30-day total nearly doubled to $2.36 billion from $1.22 billion. Photon did $1.5 million, Trojan $2.6 million and BullX $286,000.

V4 Passes V3The recovery extends past the terminal business. Volume across all decentralized exchanges reached $9.18 billion over 24 hours and $236.3 billion over 30 days, against $187.6 billion in the prior 30-day window, a 26% increase.

August settled at $233.5 billion, the strongest month since February and up from $197.2 billion in July. The market is still well short of its October 2025 record of $588.3 billion.

Uniswap V4 is the largest single DEX by 30-day volume at $28.21 billion, ahead of V3 at $26.54 billion. V4 is up 10.8% against the prior 30-day window and V3 up 7.4%, while Uniswap V2 fell 58.8% to $1 billion. Uniswap Labs switched on protocol fees for V4 pools on July 27, which nearly tripled protocol revenue at the time.

Among other venues, PumpSwap did $1.02 billion over 24 hours and is up 16.6% across the 30-day window. PancakeSwap Infinity is up 50.7%, Hyperliquid's spot order book 69.3%, and Kuru CLOB on Monad 547%. Monad's chain-level DEX volume went from $30 million a day on Aug. 3 to $134 million on Sept. 2. Hyperliquid's perpetuals venue traded $7.55 billion of notional across 233 markets over 24 hours, per The Defiant's read of the exchange's own API.

The Defiant reported in August that DEX spot volume had reached a record 24% of centralized exchange volume in July, in a month when overall spot volumes hit a two-year low.

The Wider BidThe volume came with a price rally. Bitcoin traded at $81,406, up 5.2% over 24 hours and 27.2% over 30 days, according to CoinGecko. Ether was at $2,507.61, up 34.3% over 30 days, and Solana at $105.22, up 41.9%. Total crypto market capitalization stood at $2.75 trillion.

Tokens tied to the venues taking the volume ran further. UNI traded at $6.26, up 35% over seven days and 60.3% over 30 days, for a $3.9 billion market capitalization. HYPE was at $85.38, up 55% over 30 days. PUMP was up 89.3% over 30 days. JUP, whose aggregator did $385.8 million over 24 hours, was at $0.2367, up 24.5% over 30 days.

Pons, the launchpad that exists only on Robinhood Chain and supplies much of the token flow the terminals trade, collected $5.95 million in fees on Sept. 2 against $1.46 million for pump.fun.

Claude and Grok have suffered consecutive outages, and ChatGPT is now also facing widespread errors.

Beating AI News Flash: Several major overseas AI services suffered consecutive outages tonight. Claude has encountered two rounds of failures this evening. Sonnet 5 began showing errors at 20:37 Beijing Time, and was announced restored at 20:56; half an hour later, Anthropic reported a larger multi-model error spike affecting Mythos/Fable 5.1, Mythos/Fable 5, Opus 5, 4.8, and 4.6. Claude.ai, Claude API, Claude Code, and Claude Cowork remain partially unavailable. Shortly after, Grok also went down. xAI marked the Grok Web as an "outage" at 21:30 Beijing Time, with no restoration announcement made as of press time. OpenAI has now joined the outage list. At 22:58 Beijing Time, OpenAI’s status page added an incident entry noting "increased error rates for ChatGPT and Codex", and stated it is investigating the issue.

4 minutes ago

Trump: US ammunition stockpiles are nearly unlimited, with unprecedented production capacity.

In a post, Trump said: "For those treasonous individuals who refuse to accurately report on our military operations in Iran, we have nearly unlimited quantities of medium and high-grade ammunition—far exceeding the amount that could be used in this or any other war (which is extremely unlikely to occur!). Additionally, we are producing ammunition at an unprecedented rate. We are stockpiling supplies and preparing for any possible contingency. We will keep these for ourselves and the United States, rather than selling them to other countries, but sales to allies will resume soon. Furthermore, let everyone know that the Biden administration sent far more ammunition to Ukraine than we would deploy in Iran, and it was completely free. Hundreds of billions of dollars were given away for free to Ukraine and NATO—money that Europe could have covered if only they had been required to pay. But we will recoup this money, albeit a bit late!"

4 minutes ago

Ethereum surpasses $2,500, with a 4.1% gain in 24 hours.

Per HTX market data, Ethereum has surged past $2,500, with a 4.1% gain over the past 24 hours.

4 minutes ago

Bitcoin surges past $80,000, gaining 3.5% in the past 24 hours.

According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has surged past $80,000, with a 3.5% gain in the last 24 hours.

4 minutes ago

Abu Dhabi’s IFM open-sourced six variants of the K2 Horizon model, covering sizes from 0.9 billion to 375 billion parameters.

Beating AI News Flash: The Institute for Foundation Models (IFM) under the UAE’s Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) has launched K2 Horizon, open-sourcing six models at once: 0.9B, 3.7B, 7B, 32B, 36B-A4B, and 375B-A23B. The 0.9B model is targeted at edge devices like smartwatches and glasses, while the 7B model can run on mobile phones. The largest 375B-A23B uses a Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture, activating around 23 billion parameters per generated token. The institute stated that the 0.9B, 3.7B, and 7B models have set new benchmark records for their respective sizes. Beyond final model weights, training code, data or data construction recipes, intermediate checkpoints, training logs, and evaluation records are also made public. Some data is subject to license restrictions and cannot be redistributed directly, though its sources, construction methods, and ratios will be disclosed. The models and code are released under the Apache 2.0 license. Artificial Analysis scored the 375B-A23B an Intelligence Index of 47, close to MiniMax-M3’s 45. The model performs stronger on agent tasks but is relatively weaker in knowledge and complex reasoning.

4 minutes ago

Yangtze Memory Technologies' STAR Market IPO review status has been updated to "under inquiry".

According to the official website of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), the IPO review status of Yangtze Memory Technologies Co., Ltd. on the SSE STAR Market has been updated to "Under Inquiry". This status means Yangtze Memory has officially entered the SSE's listing review process, during which one or more rounds of written inquiries will be conducted on issues including the company's information disclosure and sci-tech innovation attributes. As China's largest 3D NAND flash memory manufacturer and the only domestic original 3D NAND manufacturer, Yangtze Memory independently developed the Xtacking (crystal stack) architecture, and is a memory IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturing) enterprise integrating chip design, manufacturing, packaging and testing.

4 minutes ago

Jupiter, the largest swap aggregator on Solana, is now live inside MoonPay’s PayBox, a non-custodial AI payment vault that lets users trade crypto by typing natural-language instructions into AI chatbots. The integration went live on September 3, connecting Jupiter’s routing engine, limit orders, dollar-cost averaging tools, and earn products to conversational interfaces powered by Claude, ChatGPT, and Grok.

What PayBox actually does MoonPay launched PayBox on July 29 as its bet on “agentic payments.” The core idea: users interact with AI assistants they already use, and PayBox handles the on-chain execution in the background.

The security model relies on multi-party computation (MPC) and trusted execution environments (TEE). Neither MoonPay nor the AI chatbot can independently access a user’s private keys. The keys are split across multiple parties, and transactions require a passkey from the user before anything moves on-chain.

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Users can configure permissions along a spectrum. “Always Ask” mode requires verification for every transaction. More autonomous settings allow the AI to execute trades within pre-set limits without additional confirmation, which is useful for recurring strategies like dollar-cost averaging.

Solana is the primary blockchain supported by PayBox, though it also works with several EVM-compatible networks including Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, and Polygon.

Why Jupiter matters in this equation Jupiter has historically processed hundreds of billions in trading volume and handles a substantial share of all Solana DEX activity.

MoonPay CEO Ivan Soto-Wright framed the integration in characteristically direct terms.

“Jupiter is the standard for how serious traders trade on Solana.”

Jupiter reorganized its product suite into three pillars, Trade, Earn, and Manage, in July 2026. That restructuring now maps onto what’s accessible through PayBox, giving conversational AI users a path to tools that previously required navigating Jupiter’s own dashboard.

This isn’t the first time Jupiter and MoonPay have collaborated. Back in 2024, the two companies worked together to introduce fiat on-ramps to Jupiter Mobile, enabling card and Apple Pay purchases. The PayBox integration represents a deeper layer of connectivity, moving beyond simple fiat-to-crypto bridges into full trading functionality.

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