trade.xyz launches contract trading for Japanese storage stock Kioxia (KOXIA)
According to official announcements, trade.xyz has launched contract trading for Japanese storage stock Kioxia (KOXIA), supporting up to 10x leverage. The Kioxia (KIOXIA) product tracks the value of each common share of Kioxia Holdings Corporation, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (stock code: 285A). Its price conversion mechanism converts the underlying Japanese stock price from yen to U.S. dollars based on the current USD/JPY exchange rate. Kioxia manufactures NAND flash memory and solid-state drives (SSDs) for use in data centers, consumer electronics, mobile devices, and enterprise storage.
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Japanese storage chip manufacturer Kioxia's share price rose more than 12%
According to Bitget market data, the share price of Japanese storage chip manufacturer Kioxia Holdings (铠侠) surged by 12%.
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Coinbase secures Luxembourg’s MiCA license, to base its EU operations in Luxembourg.
According to an official announcement, Luxembourg has officially become Coinbase’s registered MiCA Home under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. Moving forward, Coinbase will use Luxembourg as its EU business hub to provide compliant crypto asset services for users across EU member states.
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The KyberSwap attacker has transferred another 2000 ETH to Tornado Cash, with over 80% of the stolen funds now laundered.
According to PeckShield’s monitoring, an address identified as the KyberSwap attacker has once again transferred 2,000 ETH to Tornado Cash. Over the past two years, this attacker has cumulatively transferred and mixed 16,100 ETH via Tornado Cash, equivalent to roughly $40 million at current prices, accounting for over 80% of the $48.8 million lost in the KyberSwap attack in November 2023. Some of the stolen funds have not yet been fully transferred.
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James Wynn closed out his 40x Bitcoin short position, netting $30,000 in profits, and shifted to opening a 50x S&P 500 short position.
According to monitoring by OnchainLens, James Wynn has liquidated his 40x leveraged Bitcoin (BTC) short position, pocketing roughly $30,000 in profit. He subsequently opened a new 50x leveraged S&P 500 (SP500) short position at a price of 334.42, betting on a future decline in the US stock market.
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Micron's conference call delivers strong signals: the memory shortage will continue until 2028, and AI long-term contracts are rewriting the industry cycle narrative.
Micron Technology (MU) revealed in its early-morning earnings call that its strategic customer agreements rose from 1 to 16 sequentially, covering roughly 20% of its DRAM shipments and around one-third of its NAND shipments. Of these deals, 14 calculated at minimum contract prices represent a cumulative remaining revenue of approximately $100 billion. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said these agreements will "fundamentally transform" the company’s business model. The key takeaway for the market is that Micron is being repositioned from a highly cyclical memory stock to an AI infrastructure provider with far greater revenue visibility. During the call, Micron disclosed it expects industry tightness to persist beyond 2027, and even as supply gradually improves in 2028, there is no clear timeline for supply to catch up with demand. Management attributed this gap to the large scale, complexity, and long lead times of new semiconductor fab construction. CFO Mark Murphy noted that DRAM revenue jumped 343% year-over-year to $31.3 billion, while NAND revenue surged 361% YoY to $9.9 billion. DRAM prices rose in the low-60% range, and NAND prices increased in the mid-80% range. He explained that the quarter’s earnings, which handily beat market expectations, were driven more by pricing power and supply-demand imbalances rather than just shipment volume. The company forecasts capital expenditure of roughly $10 billion this quarter, and $27 billion for full fiscal 2026. Fiscal 2027 quarterly capex will exceed the FY2026 fourth quarter level, with more than half allocated to cleanroom construction. However, the CFO also stated that free cash flow for the current quarter is expected to continue rising sharply. Overall, the call’s messaging sent three key signals to the market: persistent memory shortages, customer willingness to sign long-term agreements, and further upside for prices. This drove Micron’s (MU) shares to surge nearly 16% in U.S. post-market trading.
trade.xyz launches contract trading for Japanese storage stock Kioxia (KOXIA)
According to official announcements, trade.xyz has launched contract trading for Japanese storage stock Kioxia (KOXIA), supporting up to 10x leverage. The Kioxia (KIOXIA) product tracks the value of each common share of Kioxia Holdings Corporation, listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (stock code: 285A). Its price conversion mechanism converts the underlying Japanese stock price from yen to U.S. dollars based on the current USD/JPY exchange rate. Kioxia manufactures NAND flash memory and solid-state drives (SSDs) for use in data centers, consumer electronics, mobile devices, and enterprise storage.
1 minutes ago
Japanese storage chip manufacturer Kioxia's share price rose more than 12%
According to Bitget market data, the share price of Japanese storage chip manufacturer Kioxia Holdings (铠侠) surged by 12%.
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Coinbase secures Luxembourg’s MiCA license, to base its EU operations in Luxembourg.
According to an official announcement, Luxembourg has officially become Coinbase’s registered MiCA Home under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework. Moving forward, Coinbase will use Luxembourg as its EU business hub to provide compliant crypto asset services for users across EU member states.
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The KyberSwap attacker has transferred another 2000 ETH to Tornado Cash, with over 80% of the stolen funds now laundered.
According to PeckShield’s monitoring, an address identified as the KyberSwap attacker has once again transferred 2,000 ETH to Tornado Cash. Over the past two years, this attacker has cumulatively transferred and mixed 16,100 ETH via Tornado Cash, equivalent to roughly $40 million at current prices, accounting for over 80% of the $48.8 million lost in the KyberSwap attack in November 2023. Some of the stolen funds have not yet been fully transferred.
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James Wynn closed out his 40x Bitcoin short position, netting $30,000 in profits, and shifted to opening a 50x S&P 500 short position.
According to monitoring by OnchainLens, James Wynn has liquidated his 40x leveraged Bitcoin (BTC) short position, pocketing roughly $30,000 in profit. He subsequently opened a new 50x leveraged S&P 500 (SP500) short position at a price of 334.42, betting on a future decline in the US stock market.
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Micron's conference call delivers strong signals: the memory shortage will continue until 2028, and AI long-term contracts are rewriting the industry cycle narrative.
Micron Technology (MU) revealed in its early-morning earnings call that its strategic customer agreements rose from 1 to 16 sequentially, covering roughly 20% of its DRAM shipments and around one-third of its NAND shipments. Of these deals, 14 calculated at minimum contract prices represent a cumulative remaining revenue of approximately $100 billion. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said these agreements will "fundamentally transform" the company’s business model. The key takeaway for the market is that Micron is being repositioned from a highly cyclical memory stock to an AI infrastructure provider with far greater revenue visibility. During the call, Micron disclosed it expects industry tightness to persist beyond 2027, and even as supply gradually improves in 2028, there is no clear timeline for supply to catch up with demand. Management attributed this gap to the large scale, complexity, and long lead times of new semiconductor fab construction. CFO Mark Murphy noted that DRAM revenue jumped 343% year-over-year to $31.3 billion, while NAND revenue surged 361% YoY to $9.9 billion. DRAM prices rose in the low-60% range, and NAND prices increased in the mid-80% range. He explained that the quarter’s earnings, which handily beat market expectations, were driven more by pricing power and supply-demand imbalances rather than just shipment volume. The company forecasts capital expenditure of roughly $10 billion this quarter, and $27 billion for full fiscal 2026. Fiscal 2027 quarterly capex will exceed the FY2026 fourth quarter level, with more than half allocated to cleanroom construction. However, the CFO also stated that free cash flow for the current quarter is expected to continue rising sharply. Overall, the call’s messaging sent three key signals to the market: persistent memory shortages, customer willingness to sign long-term agreements, and further upside for prices. This drove Micron’s (MU) shares to surge nearly 16% in U.S. post-market trading.
PANews reported on December 31 that Hourglass announced early this morning that the second phase of its Stable pre-deposit program has ended, and deposits are now available for withdrawal. All users who received allocations in the second phase can now withdraw their funds through Merkl, and users with excess refunds can also withdraw through the Merkl dashboard. Users who were not approved to participate in the second phase can withdraw their USDC at any time through the application or directly from the underlying smart contract.
In a blog post on Tuesday, Binance Exchange, the largest crypto trading platform by volume, announced the automatic conversion of several delisted tokens to USDC.
This action will be executed based on the average token to USDC exchange rate within the conversion period.
What Binance Exchange Users Need To KnowAfter delisting 10 tokens from its catalog, Binance said in a follow-up message that it would convert them to USDC automatically, enabling holders to access their funds. After the conversion happens, the exchange will credit the stablecoin equivalent of the affected tokens to users’ wallets by April 28, 2025. The tokens include:
Vai (VAI) Tornado Cash (TORN) OMG Network (OMG) Waves (WAVES) NEM (XEM) BarnBridge (BOND) Dock (DOCK) Mdex (MDX) Polkastarter (POLS) Pundi X PURSE (PURSE) Read more: Binance Review 2024: Is It the Right Crypto Exchange for You?
Holders of these tokens should adjust their trading strategies accordingly to prepare for the upcoming changes. Failure to do so by October 28 would see them automatically converted to USDC, effectively phasing out the affected tokens from the exchange.
“During the Conversion Period [between October 29, 2024 and April 28, 2025], users will not be able to view the above tokens in their Binance wallets,” Binance articulated.
In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the history of Binance’s tokens delisting often inspires volatility. For instance, the exchange delisted six altcoins around mid-August, causing double-digit price drops for PowerPool (CVP) and Ellipsis (EPX). These tokens also featured among the delisted assets.
However, Binance is not only removing several tokens but also adding new ones to its platform. One of the notable additions is Scroll (SCR), a zkRollup scaling solution for Ethereum.
As per the announcement, SCR will be listed on October 11, with pre-market trading for the SCR/USDT pair set to open. This move supports Ethereum’s scalability by enabling faster, more efficient transactions while maintaining security and decentralization.
“Binance is excited to announce the 60th project on Binance Launchpool – Scroll (SCR), a Bytecode-level compatible zkEVM Rollup,” an excerpt in Binance’s announcement read.
Read more: What are Crypto Airdrops?
With this listing notice, Binance becomes the first platform to list Scroll’s powering token. The exchange will also airdrop 55,000,000 SCR, representing 5.5% of the total supply. Airdrop farming will start on Wednesday, October 9. The participants must lock their BNB and FDUSD to receive the SCR tokens.
PANews reported on May 18th that, according to PANews' monitoring, the Verus-Ethereum cross-chain bridge has had 103.6 tBTC, 1625 ETH, and 147,000 USDC stolen. The attackers exchanged the stolen assets for approximately 5402.4 ETH (about $11.4 million), which are currently stored in an address starting with 0x65Cb. The attackers' address received 1 ETH as initial funding approximately 14 hours ago via Tornado Cash.
TLDR: Blockaid’s exploit detection system identified an active attack draining $11.58M from the Verus-Ethereum bridge. Peckshield confirmed 103.6 tBTC, 1,625 ETH, and 147,000 USDC were stolen and swapped for 5,402 ETH. GoPlus found the attacker used a low-value transaction to trigger a batch-transfer of all bridge reserves. The attacker’s wallet was pre-funded with 1 ETH via Tornado Cash roughly 14 hours before the exploit began. The Verus-Ethereum bridge is under an active exploit that has drained approximately $11.58 million in digital assets. Blockchain security firm Blockaid identified the attack through its exploit detection system on Sunday.
The stolen funds included tBTC, ETH, and USDC. The attacker subsequently converted those assets into ETH. Multiple security companies have since confirmed the breach and traced the attacker’s on-chain activity.
How the Attack Unfolded Blockaid was among the first to publicly flag the exploit. The firm identified the attacker’s externally owned account as address “0x5aBb91B9c01A5Ed3aE762d32B236595B459D5777.” The drained funds were moved to a separate wallet at “0x65Cb8b128Bf6e690761044CCECA422bb239C25F9.”
🚨 Community alert:
Blockaid's exploit detection system has identified an on-going exploit on the @veruscoin Verus-Ethereum Bridge (https://t.co/HEwYZqFEfC).
~$11.58M drained so far.
More details in🧵
— Blockaid (@blockaid_) May 18, 2026
Peckshield provided a detailed breakdown of what was taken from the bridge. According to the firm, the attacker drained 103.6 tBTC, 1,625 ETH, and 147,000 USDC from the protocol. Those assets were then swapped for roughly 5,402 ETH, valued at around $11.4 million at the time.
Another security firm, GoPlus, shed light on the method used in the attack. The attacker sent a low-value transaction to the bridge contract and called a specific function. That function triggered the bridge contract to batch-transfer its reserve assets directly to the drainer’s wallet.
The exploit transaction has been publicly logged on Etherscan, providing a transparent on-chain record. The bridge contract address involved is “0x71518580f36feceffe0721f06ba4703218cd7f63.” Security researchers continue to monitor the addresses involved for further movement.
Attacker’s Funding Trail Points to Tornado Cash Peckshield also traced how the attacker initially funded their wallet before carrying out the exploit. The attacker’s address received 1 ETH through Tornado Cash approximately 14 hours before the attack began. Tornado Cash is a crypto mixer commonly used to obscure the origin of funds on-chain.
This funding method is a recognized pattern among on-chain bad actors seeking to hide their identity. By routing startup funds through a mixer, the attacker made it harder to link the exploit wallet to any prior history. Investigators typically watch for such patterns when tracing the source of stolen assets.
At the time of writing, the stolen funds remain in the drainer wallet identified by Blockaid. No confirmed recovery measures or protocol pause announcements had been publicly issued by the Verus team. The broader DeFi community has been alerted to avoid interacting with the bridge in the meantime.
The attack adds to a long list of bridge exploits that have plagued the crypto industry in recent years. Cross-chain bridges remain a high-value target due to the large reserves they hold and the complexity of their smart contract logic.
PANews reported on May 18 that Verus disclosed on its official Discord that the Verus-Ethereum cross-chain bridge was attacked at 23:55 UTC on May 17, 2026. The attackers transferred Ethereum, USDC, and tBTC assets from the Ethereum contract. The Verus network subsequently suspended operations, and most block-generating nodes have proactively gone offline to prevent further spread of the attack.
The project team stated that they are investigating the attack path and the extent of the damage, and that if the attackers return all funds, a bug bounty will be awarded and no further legal action will be taken. They also warned that anyone offering a "compensation plan" via private message is a scammer and should not interact with them.
The KyberSwap attacker has transferred another 2000 ETH to Tornado Cash, with over 80% of the stolen funds now laundered.
According to PeckShield’s monitoring, an address identified as the KyberSwap attacker has once again transferred 2,000 ETH to Tornado Cash. Over the past two years, this attacker has cumulatively transferred and mixed 16,100 ETH via Tornado Cash, equivalent to roughly $40 million at current prices, accounting for over 80% of the $48.8 million lost in the KyberSwap attack in November 2023. Some of the stolen funds have not yet been fully transferred.
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James Wynn closed out his 40x Bitcoin short position, netting $30,000 in profits, and shifted to opening a 50x S&P 500 short position.
According to monitoring by OnchainLens, James Wynn has liquidated his 40x leveraged Bitcoin (BTC) short position, pocketing roughly $30,000 in profit. He subsequently opened a new 50x leveraged S&P 500 (SP500) short position at a price of 334.42, betting on a future decline in the US stock market.
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Micron's conference call delivers strong signals: the memory shortage will continue until 2028, and AI long-term contracts are rewriting the industry cycle narrative.
Micron Technology (MU) revealed in its early-morning earnings call that its strategic customer agreements rose from 1 to 16 sequentially, covering roughly 20% of its DRAM shipments and around one-third of its NAND shipments. Of these deals, 14 calculated at minimum contract prices represent a cumulative remaining revenue of approximately $100 billion. CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said these agreements will "fundamentally transform" the company’s business model. The key takeaway for the market is that Micron is being repositioned from a highly cyclical memory stock to an AI infrastructure provider with far greater revenue visibility. During the call, Micron disclosed it expects industry tightness to persist beyond 2027, and even as supply gradually improves in 2028, there is no clear timeline for supply to catch up with demand. Management attributed this gap to the large scale, complexity, and long lead times of new semiconductor fab construction. CFO Mark Murphy noted that DRAM revenue jumped 343% year-over-year to $31.3 billion, while NAND revenue surged 361% YoY to $9.9 billion. DRAM prices rose in the low-60% range, and NAND prices increased in the mid-80% range. He explained that the quarter’s earnings, which handily beat market expectations, were driven more by pricing power and supply-demand imbalances rather than just shipment volume. The company forecasts capital expenditure of roughly $10 billion this quarter, and $27 billion for full fiscal 2026. Fiscal 2027 quarterly capex will exceed the FY2026 fourth quarter level, with more than half allocated to cleanroom construction. However, the CFO also stated that free cash flow for the current quarter is expected to continue rising sharply. Overall, the call’s messaging sent three key signals to the market: persistent memory shortages, customer willingness to sign long-term agreements, and further upside for prices. This drove Micron’s (MU) shares to surge nearly 16% in U.S. post-market trading.
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A poll shows that a majority of U.S. voters support federal unified regulation of prediction markets.
Two polls commissioned by the Coalition for Prediction Markets show that U.S. Republican and Democratic voters both prefer federal-level unified regulation of prediction markets over state-by-state oversight. Among Republican respondents, 48% support a federal regulatory framework, while only 27% back state-level regulation. For Democratic voters, 45% favor federal regulation, compared to 35% who support state-level rules. Only 8% of respondents believe prediction markets should be banned in the U.S., and a majority of voters support consumer autonomy to choose whether to participate in such markets. The survey also found that people under 35 have the highest acceptance of prediction markets, with more than half of young respondents expressing interest in using or having already used related platforms. Currently, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and prediction market platforms including Kalshi and Polymarket are in disputes with multiple state governments over regulatory authority, with the core focus being whether sports event contracts qualify as prediction market products subject to federal regulation.
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Analysis: Bitcoin miners face profit pressure, with around 20% of mining firms now operating below the break-even point.
Bitcoin miners' revenue continues to decline, with the current 7-day average daily income dropping to around $30 million, a notable pullback from the over $50 million level seen last summer. Meanwhile, on-chain transaction fee revenue has fallen to less than $250,000, accounting for an extremely small share of miners' total income. Data from JPMorgan Chase shows the average production cost is approximately $78,000, and Bitcoin’s price has remained below this level for five consecutive months — the longest such stretch in the current cycle. An estimated 20% of miners are already operating at a loss; some high-cost miners have begun frequently powering their mining rigs on and off in response to price fluctuations, leading to a stronger correlation between network hash rate difficulty and Bitcoin’s price. Additionally, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty was adjusted down by roughly 10% in the second week of June, marking the second pullback of the same magnitude this year. Publicly listed mining companies, meanwhile, are relying more on their balance sheets to sustain operations, selling over 32,000 BTC in the first quarter alone to cover operating costs. Analysts note that against the backdrop of continuously shrinking block subsidies and stagnant fee revenue, a recovery in miners’ profits will primarily depend on a rise in Bitcoin’s price.
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Japan and South Korea's stock markets opened higher, with South Korea's KOSPI index rising 2.9% and SK Hynix surging 11%.
According to Bitget market data, the Nikkei 225 index opened 1.4% higher at 70114.09. South Korea’s KOSPI index rose 2.9%. South Korean stocks SK Hynix gained 11%, while Samsung Electronics rose 5%.
Fluid cleaned up its share of the Resolv USR exploit bad debt the way a fast-moving team does: a single multisig pulled roughly $8M of USDC and USDT out of the shared liquidity layer through a pre-approved credit line, swept thousands of scattered bad-debt positions into one address, and balanced the books. The matching $8.2M treasury commitment that’s supposed to repay the credit line is locked in restricted positions that need a governance vote to unlock. That vote was posted to the forum days later, with the on-chain action already done.
The protocol stayed solvent. No user deposit was touched. TVL is holding around $970M. The cleanup worked.
Then an on-chain researcher started pulling the transaction trail apart, and the story stopped being about Resolv.
It is May 17, 2026 as I write this. The governance proposal is still being debated, the on-chain criticism is still landing on X, and the numbers below will keep moving for a while yet. The structural argument underneath them is what this piece is about.
Fluid is the lending-and-DEX protocol that grew out of InstaDapp, now operating under its own FLUID token and DAO. The architectural premise is a single shared liquidity layer that every Fluid subprotocol (lending vaults, DEX, DEX Lite) borrows from, rather than maintaining its own siloed pools. Suppliers deposit assets once and earn from utilization across every market that draws on the layer.
That design has obvious capital-efficiency upside. It also concentrates risk in a specific way: subprotocols that can pull from the layer hold permissioned credit lines, and a Guardian multisig can pause access in an emergency. The team multisig is the load-bearing piece in that setup.
The credit line at the center of this story was originally approved by governance for Fluid DEX Lite, a gas-optimized swap router launched in August 2025 that uses the liquidity layer as its inventory source. It is a permissioned, uncollateralized facility: an approved address can draw USDC and USDT out of the shared pool against the protocol’s credit rather than against posted collateral. In May 2026, the team multisig drew on this same facility to consolidate bad-debt positions left behind by the Resolv depeg.
The Underlying Incident: A Quick Recap In late March 2026, an attacker compromised Resolv Labs’ off-chain signing infrastructure and minted approximately 80 million unbacked USR through a broken completeSwap() flow. USR depegged hard, and roughly $25M of extracted value got dumped through DEX liquidity. The full breakdown is in our Resolv USR exploit post.
Fluid had about $100M of USR exposure when the depeg hit, mostly through lending markets where USR and its wrapped variants were supplied as collateral against USDC and USDT borrows. When USR collapsed, ~$21M of positions went underwater and turned into bad debt sitting against the protocol. Fluid’s own contracts were not exploited. Oracles, pricing logic, and validation were upgraded immediately after the incident. The damage was downstream of a counterparty failure, not internal.
On May 12, 2026, Fluid announced the resolution. The $21M loss was split three ways:
Resolv: ~$9.7M (the issuer absorbing the largest share) Fluid governance treasury: ~$8.2M Fluid core team: ~$1.5M, reimbursed from future protocol revenue Roughly $19.3M was repaid in full, with the team fronting its $1.5M slice in cash now and the protocol committed to reimbursing it from future revenue. The remaining malicious USR was burned at the contract level; healthy positions remained redeemable directly via Resolv.
The split itself was uncontroversial. Most observers treated it as a pragmatic outcome that kept users whole. The fight that broke out this week is about how the treasury’s $8.2M share got onto Fluid’s balance sheet on-chain.
The Proposal on the Table On May 11, 2026, the Fluid team posted “Post-Mortem, Treasury Actions, and Forward Strategy Following Resolv Incident” to the governance forum. It bundles four things:
A formal post-mortem of the Resolv incident, including the loss split. Treasury actions for the $8.2M contribution: transferring the treasury’s full balance of iETHv2 deposit tokens, plus ancillary positions like fGHO, from the treasury’s DeFi Smart Account to the team multisig so the multisig can liquidate them and repay the credit line it drew against the liquidity layer. Financial restructuring: an immediate halt to FLUID buybacks (the program had bought back roughly 1.3% of supply and was judged ineffective for price support), a significant reduction in FLUID emissions, and a four-month suspension of the $250k/month Foundation grant covering March through June 2026. Security and roadmap changes: a detailed oracle overhaul (per-key pricing, multi-leg feeds, deviation checks, per-token pause bits, sequencer-uptime guards on L2), legal agreements with asset issuers for enforceable claims in depeg scenarios, a delay on the DEX v2 launch, continuation of the Solana DEX v1 launch (~6 weeks out, audits wrapping), and a forward product slate that includes Liquidity-as-a-Service, fixed-rate borrowing, custodied collateral, and institutional onboarding. The proposal does not introduce new spending. It formalizes the asset movements needed to settle a position the team multisig already opened. As of writing, the forum thread has minimal direct engagement; the live debate has migrated to X.
What Actually Happened On-Chain The critique that ignited the past two days came from on-chain researcher @jpn_memelord, who walked the transactions and posted a step-by-step thread. The mechanics below are reconstructed from that thread and the founder’s reply on X; addresses called out in the original posts can be cross-checked against any Ethereum explorer.
The Resolv depeg left ~$8M of bad debt spread across thousands of individual lending positions on Fluid (collateral marked down faster than the loans against it). Cleaning this up position-by-position would have been slow, expensive in gas, and visible to users on a market-by-market basis. The team multisig instead drew USDC and USDT directly from the liquidity layer, using the pre-approved DEX Lite credit line, and consolidated the bad debt into a single address. The thousands of small unhealthy positions were repaid; one large debit sat against the multisig instead. The treasury’s own assets (the iETHv2 deposits and ancillary positions described in the proposal) were not immediately accessible at full value. iETHv2 sits in a vault currently subject to restrictions that effectively require governance action to fully liquidate. The treasury’s liquid balance was closer to $5.3M than the headline $8.2M figure. The May 11 proposal is the governance step that resolves that mismatch: move the restricted treasury assets to the multisig so they can be unwound and used to repay the credit line. The critique was never that any of this was hidden. The on-chain footprint was visible from the first block. The objection is that the credit-line draw happened before the governance vote that authorizes it. Until the treasury assets are unlocked and applied, the outstanding balance against the liquidity layer effectively sits on the shoulders of USDC and USDT suppliers, whose deposits are the source of the funds the multisig used.
Critics argue this constitutes a change in the risk profile that suppliers signed up for: they consented to lending into a credit facility scoped to DEX Lite expansion, not to short-term bad-debt cleanup. Net-neutral over the lifetime of the operation, yes. Risk-neutral at every point along the way, less obviously.
Why the Treasury Wasn’t Simply Available Much of the X argument turns on a detail that’s easy to miss: a DAO treasury denominated in productive assets is not the same thing as a treasury denominated in cash.
Most of Fluid’s treasury value sits in iETHv2 deposit tokens, claims against an ETH position in one of Fluid’s v2 lending vaults. That position was earning yield, which is the whole reason it was structured that way. But a deposit token isn’t a stablecoin you can hand over to repay USDC and USDT borrows; it has to be redeemed through the vault, and per the proposal that withdrawal path is currently restricted and needs governance unlock. Smaller positions like fGHO need to be converted to GHO and then routed.
You can defend either of two positions here.
Position A (team): pre-positioning treasury in productive assets is good capital management; nobody anticipated needing to pull eight figures of liquid stables in a hurry; the credit line was the cleanest tool to bridge the gap until governance can unlock the assets formally. Net effect: nothing leaves the protocol, the books balance, users are protected, and the multisig is acting as an intermediary on its own balance sheet rather than spending fresh money.
Position B (critics): a treasury that requires governance unlock to be deployed in an emergency is, for the duration of that unlock, closer to a designated future contribution than to ready cash. The $8.2M headline figure overstated what was actually available. Using a DEX-Lite-scoped credit facility to paper over the gap stretched the definition of “pre-approved” past what suppliers had reason to expect.
Both positions are defensible. The interesting question is which one the precedent set this week will look like, twelve months from now, when the next emergency lands.
The Founder’s Pushback Fluid founder Samyak Jain (@smykjain) responded on X, and the team-account @0xfluid backed the framing. The argument, in short:
The credit-line draw was internal accounting, not new spending. The multisig consolidated bad debt; assets balanced out at the protocol level; the move did not extract money from the system. The governance proposal had been drafted days earlier. The team accelerated its posting in response to the criticism rather than because the underlying plan changed. The DEX Lite credit line was a pre-existing governance grant, and using a multisig with permissioned access for an emergency cleanup was within the scope of how that role was designed. Some of the criticism, in the team’s read, is downstream of rival-protocol community politics rather than substantive risk analysis. The last point tends to land badly in DeFi governance. Accusing critics of bad faith is sometimes correct and almost always counterproductive. The substantive answer (“the multisig consolidated debt, nothing left the protocol”) is stronger on its own.
The Numbers Worth Holding On To Strip out the X noise and there’s a clean set of figures.
Item Value Pre-incident Fluid USR exposure ~$100M Bad debt from Resolv depeg ~$21M Resolv contribution ~$9.7M Fluid treasury contribution ~$8.2M Core team contribution (deferred) ~$1.5M Total repaid up front ~$19.3M Liquid treasury at time of cleanup ~$5.3M Treasury assets requiring governance unlock bulk in iETHv2 + ancillary fGHO Credit-line draw from liquidity layer ~$8M in USDC + USDT Foundation grant suspended $250k/month × 4 months FLUID supply previously bought back ~1.3% Current TVL ~$970M FLUID price drawdown from ATH ~93% from $24.40 The two figures that should make a careful reader pause are the liquid treasury balance ($5.3M) versus the headline treasury contribution ($8.2M), and the credit-line draw of roughly $8M in USDC and USDT against the liquidity layer. The first says the treasury was smaller than the announcement implied. The second says the gap was bridged through a pre-existing credit facility rather than a fresh authorization. Everything controversial about this story sits between those two numbers.
What This Says About DeFi Governance There’s a recognizable shape here, and we’ve written about it before in Aave’s governance crisis and the broader question of how decentralized “decentralized governance” actually is. An operationally competent core team holds the keys that matter. An emergency creates time pressure. The team acts. The formal process catches up afterward. And the resulting argument is about whether “catches up afterward” counts as governance at all.
The structural tension is real and not unique to Fluid. Modern DeFi protocols are not, in practice, governed by 14-day voting cycles on every operational decision. They are governed by a thin layer of permissioned roles that can move quickly, sitting on top of a broader DAO that ratifies, audits, or revokes those roles. The argument is over how thin that layer should be, what triggers it has to clear before acting, and how much of the post-facto ratification can be drafted by the same people who took the action.
A few honest observations:
The pragmatic case is strong. Distributed governance is slow. An $8M cleanup that requires a 14-day Snapshot vote is an $8M cleanup that gives the market 14 days to short the FLUID token and short USR-adjacent assets, while bad debt accrues interest on the protocol’s side. The team’s instinct to consolidate and balance the books before the news cycle peaked is operationally defensible. The transparency case is also strong. USDC and USDT suppliers consented to a credit facility scoped to one purpose. Repurposing it for another, even with the intent to repay, broadens what “permissioned access” can be used for without consulting the people whose deposits sourced the funds. Future suppliers will price that ambiguity into the yield they demand, or simply route capital elsewhere. Precedent compounds. If “pre-approved credit line, drawn by multisig, ratified later” lands as an acceptable emergency procedure, the boundary of acceptable emergency procedures has moved. The next protocol facing a similar choice can point at this one. Norms drift that way, one defensible decision at a time. Neither side of this debate is obviously stupid. Both are arguing about a real trade-off that hasn’t been satisfactorily resolved anywhere in DeFi.
Uncomfortable Questions Why did the team multisig hold this much operational authority in the first place? Pre-approved credit lines for specific subprotocols are not unusual. Pre-approved credit lines that can be repurposed for ad-hoc cleanup are a different category. If the answer is “the role was always intended to cover emergencies,” the role’s documented scope should say so. If the answer is “the scope was narrow but we used it broadly under stress,” that’s worth saying explicitly.
What is the actual unlock mechanism for iETHv2? The proposal references restricted treasury assets but does not detail the mechanics that prevent immediate access. For depositors and suppliers trying to reason about how much of any DAO treasury is genuinely available in a crisis, that mechanism matters more than the headline number on the dashboard.
Where does the precedent end? Could the same credit line be drawn against tomorrow for an emergency that the DAO would not have authorized in advance? The team’s answer is no, but the answer that matters is the structural one: what stops it?
How does this interact with the Fluid Foundation proposal? Fluid is in the middle of transferring IP and protocol assets to a Cayman Islands foundation, with InstaDapp employees on the board, governed by DAO votes. The foundation is the legal entity that will eventually hold the multisig keys. If the practical pattern is that the team acts and the DAO ratifies, the foundation structure makes that pattern legally cleaner, not more constrained. That’s either a feature or a problem depending on which side of this week’s argument you’re on.
What is the right design for emergency capital? The useful medium-term outcome of this incident would be a structured emergency facility: capped in size, scoped explicitly to bad-debt cleanup, refilled by a defined rule, and ratifiable in a single short vote. A facility like that would let future cleanups happen without re-litigating the boundaries of pre-approved roles every time. Whether the team or the community drives that work is itself a governance question.
What’s Likely to Happen Next The governance proposal will probably pass. The treasury actions described in it are the cleanest path to closing the credit-line draw and restoring the books to a fully governance-ratified state. Rejection would force a new proposal and leave the credit line drawn against the liquidity layer in the interim, which is a worse outcome for the suppliers the critics are nominally defending.
The buyback pause, emissions cuts, and Foundation grant suspension will likely face less debate. Pulling sell pressure off the token while confidence is fragile is what most protocols do after a drawdown like this. The four-month grant suspension also cuts near-term spending while the treasury rebuilds, which is part of why it’s easy to ratify.
The DEX v2 delay is a tell. DeFi spent April watching the KelpDAO rsETH exploit drain $292M out of Aave through a single forged LayerZero packet, and confidence in cross-protocol composability hasn’t fully rebuilt. Postponing a major DEX launch into that backdrop reads as cautious market timing, not a Fluid-specific weakness.
The longer-term consequence is harder to see. Fluid’s core product fundamentals are intact: the shared liquidity layer, the lending markets, the DEX integration. The protocol absorbed a nine-figure indirect hit from an upstream counterparty and emerged solvent, with users whole and TVL stable. That is a real engineering and operational achievement.
But the part that fed this week’s argument is not unique to Fluid and will not be the last time we see it. Speed versus process, permissioned credit lines used for purposes broader than their origin envisioned, governance votes that follow rather than precede the action they authorize. The next protocol to hit this kind of incident will look at how Fluid handled it, see that the cleanup worked, and either copy the playbook or build the structured emergency facility that makes the playbook unnecessary.
Which way that goes is the actual governance question. The proposal posted on May 11 only settles whether the iETHv2 actually moves.
A prominent analytics-providing platform, Phoenix Group, has recently provided a list of top DeFi projects based on weekly ETH burning. The list containing the ETH-burning DeFi projects includes Uniswap, 1inch, USD Coin, 0x Protocol, Metamask, Gnosis, Pendle, Kyber Network, Aave, and ParaSwap. The analytics provider provided the details of these projects in its latest X post.
Uniswap Leads the DeFi Projects Based on Weekly ETH Burning As per the data from Phoenix Group, Uniswap has dominated the DeFi sphere in terms of 7-day ETH burning. In this respect, Uniswap has reportedly burned 278.1 ETH. This figure equals a value of nearly $737.8K. Following that, 1inch has taken the 2nd position. The popular DeFi project has burned up to 31.3 ETH with a value of approximately $83.0K. Additionally, USD Coin has gained the 3rd spot with almost 30.0K ETH tokens burned.
These tokens have a value of nearly $79.6K. After that, 0x Protocol stands in the 4th place. It saw weekly $279 ETH coins burned. This denotes a value of almost $74.0K. Moreover, Metamask occupies the 5th spot with 27.1 ETH burned, equaling up to $71.9K. It precedes Gnosis which has recorded a token burn comprising $12.4 ETH. This figure accounts for $32.9K.
ParaSwap Bottoms the List with 2.9 ETH Burned The list places Pendle in the 7th position with 11.4 ETH burned. These tokens’ value is approximately $30.2K. Kyber Network secures the 8th spot with 8.1 ETH burned, equaling $21.5K. Aave’s 7-day token burn includes 5.8 ETH with a $15.4K worth. ParaSwap gets the last place on the list with 2.9 ETH burned, accounting for $7.7K.
AUTHOR
Umair Younas is a cryptocurrency-related content writer linked with this work since 2019. Here, at Blockchainreporter, he serves as a news and article writer. He is a crypto, blockchain, NFTs, DeFi, and FinTech enthusiast. He has strong command over writing authentic reviews about brokers and exchanges and he has collaborated with our education team to write educational content as well. He has a dream to raise awareness among people about digital currencies. His works are well-researched and brimmed with information hence they provide fresh insights. Stay tuned to his posts if you want to stay up-to-date with the crypto-verse.
PANews reported on April 3 that a "Circle USDC File" compiled by blockchain detective ZachXBT reveals that since 2022, Circle has been suspected of inaction or slow action in compliance handling of multiple incidents involving theft, hacking, or sanctioned entities, with the total amount involved exceeding $420 million. These include the failure to promptly freeze tens of millions of USDC in the $110 million Mango Markets hack and the $190 million Nomad Bridge hack; the freezing of addresses related to Lazarus Group was approximately 4.5 months later than other stablecoin issuers; and in the Ledger supply chain attack, stolen assets containing USDC remained in addresses for over 3 hours without being frozen.
Trader Maji was liquidated on his 25x leveraged long Ethereum position, incurring $1.9 million in losses, and subsequently opened a new position.
According to monitoring by OnchainLens, Stanley Huang, known as "Machi Big Brother" (@machibigbrother), has had his 25x leveraged long Ethereum (ETH) position fully liquidated, incurring a loss of approximately $1.9 million. Notably, he opened a new 25x leveraged long ETH position immediately after the liquidation. Machi Big Brother’s cumulative historical losses exceed $35.4 million.
5 minutes ago
Micron posted strong quarterly results, with its quarterly revenue and next-quarter outlook significantly exceeding market expectations. Its stock surged nearly 16% in after-hours trading, driving a broad rally across the storage sector.
According to its official financial report, Micron Technology (MU.O) reported Q3 fiscal 2026 revenue of $41.456 billion, beating market expectations of $35.423 billion and surging from $9.301 billion in the year-ago period. The company issued Q4 fiscal revenue guidance of $50 billion, against market expectations of $42.915 billion. Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra stated: "Micron’s record-breaking Q3 fiscal financial results and stronger Q4 outlook reflect the strategic value of memory chips in the AI era. We believe our multi-year strategic customer agreements will significantly enhance the durability and predictability of Micron’s strong financial performance." Micron’s Q3 report showed net profit of $28.24 billion, or $24.67 per share, up from $1.89 billion, or $1.68 per share, in the same period last year. Excluding certain one-time items, Micron reported adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $25.11, exceeding analysts’ consensus estimate of $20.86. Driven by the quarterly revenue and outlook that topped expectations, as of press time, Micron jumped 15.95% in post-market trading on the U.S. stock market, also lifting other memory stocks sharply: Seagate (STX) rose 10.21%, Western Digital (WDC) gained 12.31%, and SanDisk (SNDK) surged 15.77%.
5 minutes ago
Kalshi is reportedly seeking a new round of financing, with its valuation potentially rising to $40 billion.
According to a report from the U.K.’s Financial Times, prediction market platform Kalshi is in discussions with investors for a new funding round targeting a roughly $40 billion valuation, with a potential close as early as the third quarter of this year. The development follows Kalshi’s $1 billion financing round completed last month, which valued the firm at $22 billion, with backers including leading institutions such as Coatue, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Morgan Stanley. Data shows Kalshi’s trading volume last month surpassed $17 billion, a sharp jump from less than $5 billion a year prior, with approximately 65% of that volume stemming from sports-related prediction contracts.
5 minutes ago
Polymarket integrates with Telegram via TON, enabling users to participate in prediction markets directly within the messaging app.
Polymarket has been integrated into Telegram via Predict, a native decentralized application (dApp) of the TON ecosystem. Developed by the Getgems team, the app allows users to directly participate in prediction markets covering sports, politics, cryptocurrency, culture and other sectors within Telegram. Transaction results are settled on-chain, and users retain full control over their assets. Users can participate in trades using USDT on the TON network, and pay a small amount of GRAM for gas fees. The cross-chain infrastructure is powered by STON.fi’s Omniston protocol, enabling the prediction market service to seamlessly integrate into the Telegram ecosystem.
5 minutes ago
Rubio: US and Iran to continue technical consultations at the end of this month
Multiple foreign media outlets reported on the 24th that US Secretary of State Rubio said technical teams from the United States and Iran will hold further talks in Switzerland by the end of June. (Xinhua News Agency)
5 minutes ago
Over the past 24 hours, total crypto market liquidations hit $606 million, with more than 130,000 traders liquidated.
According to Coinglass data, the global cryptocurrency market recorded $606 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, including $542 million in long-position liquidations and $68.22 million in short-position liquidations. A total of 135,785 traders worldwide were liquidated in the same period, with the largest single liquidation order occurring on Binance’s BTCUSDT trading pair, valued at $12.0111 million.
MANTRA, the Layer 1 blockchain specially built for real-world assets (RWAs), has announced an easy way for the conversion of any EVM-based assets, especially $USDC and $USDT, through the Hyperlane Nexus Bridge. Hyperlane Nexus Bridge is a cross-chain interoperability solution that helps users move their assets and messages between different blockchains.
The @Hyperlane Nexus Bridge allows users to seamlessly bridge assets directly to MANTRA chain from any EVM chain, including USDC and USDT.
Watch the video or follow the step by step guide below to bridge USDC directly to MANTRA EVM.
🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/SCN9vAzOhA
— MANTRA | Tokenizing RWAs (@MANTRA_Chain) January 7, 2026 The main purpose of this step is to remove the hurdles that are faced by users during the conversion of any EVM-based assets directly into MANTRA Chain. The interesting thing about this news is that MANTRA Chain does not bind users to come with a certain EVM-based asset for conversion. MANTRA Chain has released this news through its official social media X account.
MANTRA Chain Simplifies USDC Bridging with a Clear Video Walkthrough MANTRA Chain is providing full and detailed information to users about the conversion steps and the interfaces in a clear, recorded video message. The method is very simple for everybody; users just need to bind the wallet to the selected network to which users want to bridge assets to MANTRA Chain.
Especially, for $USDC, fill in the amount and recipient address, and then proceed to the option continue. Review the transaction details, which include gas approximation, and after that, click to send MANTRA Chain. After the initiative, users just need to review and sign two transactions through their connected wallet. First, approve the transaction, followed by the transfer transaction.
MANTRA Chain and Hyperlane Simplify Cross-Chain Asset Transfers After the successful completion of these steps, users will receive a confirmation message of congratulations for user’ bridged $USDC to MANTRA EVM. The same process is for all other EVM-based assets for the conversion to MANTRA Chain.
MANTRA Chain and Hyperlane are going to solve the issue of users in terms of converting $USDC, $USDT, and any other EVM-based digital assets. Simultaneously, in this process, users will face a negligible fee on every transaction.
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Crypto journalist with years of experience providing in-depth analysis and news on blockchain and decentralized finance. With a keen eye for detail, Shahzaib delivers insightful articles that explore the latest trends, market movements, and innovations within the crypto and blockchain ecosystem. His work focuses on educating readers while offering expert commentary on the evolving landscape of digital assets, DeFi protocols, and the broader impact of blockchain technology.
Rubio: US and Iran to continue technical consultations at the end of this month
Multiple foreign media outlets reported on the 24th that US Secretary of State Rubio said technical teams from the United States and Iran will hold further talks in Switzerland by the end of June. (Xinhua News Agency)
7 hours ago
Over the past 24 hours, total crypto market liquidations hit $606 million, with more than 130,000 traders liquidated.
According to Coinglass data, the global cryptocurrency market recorded $606 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, including $542 million in long-position liquidations and $68.22 million in short-position liquidations. A total of 135,785 traders worldwide were liquidated in the same period, with the largest single liquidation order occurring on Binance’s BTCUSDT trading pair, valued at $12.0111 million.
7 hours ago
Bitcoin falls below $60,000
According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has fallen below $60,000, with a 4.3% drop in the past 24 hours.
7 hours ago
US Treasury Secretary: AI boom may boost productivity and help curb inflation.
US Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC in an interview that he hopes the Federal Reserve will remain "open-minded" about the inflation pattern after the reversal of Iran-related energy price hikes. Bessent noted that the U.S. could enter an economic environment marked by high GDP growth without a corresponding rise in traditional inflation. He cited that in the 1990s, Alan Greenspan foresaw that office modernization and the internet could drive non-inflationary growth, and allowed the economy to keep expanding. Bessent believes the U.S. has a strong chance of seeing a similar scenario again. When asked whether the Fed still needs to worry about potential inflation and whether interest rate cuts are possible this year or next, Bessent declined to comment. However, he argued that it is necessary to stay open-minded about the price or inflation impacts from the Iran conflict, and monitor inflation performance after those effects subside. Bessent also said an open mind is needed, as the AI boom could boost productivity and deliver disinflationary effects, helping inflation return to the Fed’s target level. He added that he believes Kevin Warsh will choose the optimal path that meets both the Fed’s inflation and growth mandates. Bessent also noted that Warsh previously took a hawkish stance on inflation.
7 hours ago
US stocks' intraday storage sector sees broad declines, with Western Digital and Seagate Technology both falling over 4%.
According to Bitget data, during U.S. stock trading hours, the storage sector saw broad declines: Western Digital (WDC) fell 4.47%, Seagate Technology (STX) dropped 4.17%, SanDisk (SNDK) declined 2.31%, and Micron Technology (MU) edged down 0.96%. Most optical communication concept stocks rose, with Corning (GLW) leading the gains at 9.75%, followed by Ciena (CIEN) up 3.24%, Coherent (COHR) rising 2.93%, Lumentum (LITE) gaining 2.61%, and Nokia (NOK) advancing 1.82%. Additionally, Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 2.59% and Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) declined 1.90%.
7 hours ago
During intraday trading in U.S. stocks, crypto-related concept stocks fell broadly, with MSTR dropping more than 7%.
According to Bitget market data, the three major U.S. stock indexes rose broadly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.94%, the S&P 500 increased 0.60%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.63%. Crypto-related stocks fell across the board, with declines as follows: Strategy (MSTR) down 7.33%; Circle (CRCL) down 4.35%; Bitmine (BMNR) down 3.97%; Coinbase (COIN) down 3.73%; Robinhood (HOOD) down 3.70%; Gemini (GEMI) down 3.27%; Bullish (BLSH) down 3.25%; Sharplink (SBET) down 3.19%.
BlackRock, in partnership with Securitize, has launched the USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL). This innovative offering aims to provide qualified investors an opportunity to earn US dollar yields by leveraging blockchain technology.
The fund’s debut took notice when a $100 million transaction involving USDC stablecoin was executed on the Ethereum network. As a result, BlackRock’s Ethereum address became a magnet for meme coins and NFTs.
BlackRock Now Holds Meme CoinsBlackRock introduced BUIDL, offering qualified investors a channel to earn returns on their US dollars via blockchain. This venture marks a significant departure from traditional investment mechanisms. Indeed, it promises to redefine the financial system.
“This is the latest progression of our digital assets strategy. We are focused on developing solutions in the digital assets space that help solve real problems for our clients,” Robert Mitchnick, BlackRock’s Head of Digital Assets, said.
The strategic maneuver into the crypto market was underscored by a notable transaction where $100 million in USDC. Presumably, the funds serve as the financial bedrock for BUIDL.
The crypto community’s response to BlackRock’s initiative was swift and vivid. Indeed, the fund’s Ethereum wallet, distinguished by its address 0x13e003a57432062e4EdA204F687bE80139AD622f, became a magnet for meme coins and NFTs airdrops. Among these digital assets, four meme coins have stood out:
DETF Token (DETF), with 250,000 tokens valued at $15,385.66, Realio Network (RIO), comprising 10,000 tokens worth around $13,800.10, unshETHing_Token (USH), totaling 500,000 tokens, estimated at $12,749.20, and Shina Inu (SHI), amounting to 9,197,214,541 tokens worth $9,165.50. Read more: 7 Hot Meme Coins and Altcoins that are Trending in 2024
BlackRock Crypto Holdings. Source: EtherScanAs BlackRock embraces a new era of investment, combining traditional finance’s rigor with blockchain technology’s dynamism, the decision to hold or sell these meme coins still awaits.
An address converts half of its APX to ASTER and deploys an APX/ASTER liquidity pool on PancakeSwap
PANews reported on September 22nd that according to Yu Jin, an address purchased 2.87 million APX tokens for 184,000 USDC at the end of November last year , at a price of approximately $0.064 per token . Three hours ago, the address converted half of the APX tokens into ASTER and established an APX/ASTER liquidity pool on PancakeSwap. The APX/ASTER assets are currently valued at $4.13 million, a 22- fold increase in value.
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Borrowing rates for USDC, one of the most liquid dollar-pegged stablecoin, remain high on Aave and Compound v2, two of the world’s top decentralized protocols. According to Kaiko, a blockchain analytics platform, rates have ranged from 4% to 15% on Aave and around 13% on Compound.
It should be noted that this surge is when the crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) scene is recovering after an extended “winter” that froze participation.
USDC borrowing rates on Aave and Compound | Source: Kaiko on X Kaiko notes that the utilization rate for USDC on Aave has remained close to optimal levels, indicating steady demand for the stablecoin among borrowers, mainly in the second half of November. Looking at trends, it is evident that borrowing rates in Aave v2 have been stabilizing between 4% and 15% over the past week.
AAVE prices trending sideways on the daily chart | Source: AAVEUSDT on Binance, TradingView Meanwhile, on Compound v2, borrowing USDC has been more expensive than others, including USDT and DAI. The USDC borrowing rate is around 13%, much higher than borrowing Ethereum-based DAI or Tether Holding’s USDT.
There is no precise reason to explain this divergence. However, the reason why demand is varying could be multifaceted. One of the key reasons is that after depressed activity in the better part of 2022 and 2023, activity is expanding as total value locked (TVL) not only in Ethereum but in other chains, including Solana, shows.
DeFiLlama says the total TVL is around $47 billion, up from approximately $38 billion registered in mid-October. Subsequently, with rising demand, USDC holders will likely want more yield from willing borrowers.
DeFi TVL rising | Source: DeFiLlama Beyond this, increasing borrowing rates could be due to users averse to using centralized exchanges opting to secure a stablecoin that’s fully audited, publishing attestation statements regularly.
In the case of USDC, these attestations are independent audits that verify whether Circle, the issuer, holds sufficient reserves to back every token in circulation.
Are Bulls Ready To Lift Crypto Prices Higher? While the high borrowing rates for USDC may make it less attractive for some borrowers, it also highlights the strong demand for stablecoins and their growing importance in DeFi. In the crypto market, the demand for stablecoins, such as USDC, can indicate the start of a bull run.
Stablecoins provide a gateway into crypto. When there is a higher demand for these tokens, the chances of the crypto market rising also increase. As the crypto and DeFi scene matures, stablecoins like DAI and USDT are expected to play a critical role.
Feature image from Canva, chart from TradingView
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Dalmas is an experienced journalist with over a decade in Forex, general finance, technology, and blockchain developments. He is currently a crypto reporter for Bitcoinist, where he covers DeFi, blockchain, DeFi, and latest industry news. His work and that of his partners have been featured in top news outlets, including Forbes, investing.com, CoinTelegraph, and Entrepreneur, among others. He is passionate about technology and politics and is always on the lookout for the latest trends in these fields. He also loves spending time with his family and friends, exploring nature, and traveling to new places. Connect on X: @Dalmas_Ngetich, or message him directly on Telegram here: @Dalmas_Ngetich.
PANews reported on May 12 that blockchain security firm SlowMist tweeted that Aurelion Labs' Diamond contract was compromised because the `initialize(address)` function in the SafeOwnable Facet was not protected. An attacker re-entered the initialization, altered the contract owner, and executed `diamondCut` to inject a malicious Facet containing `pullERC20`, thereby transferring authorized USDC assets. SlowMist stated that affected contracts include addresses such as 0x0adc63e7… (victim contract), 0x2e933518…, 0xa90714a1…, and 0xeced2d37…, while the attacker's address was 0x9f49591a3b…, resulting in a loss of approximately 455,003 USDC.
As Microsoft tightens access to its Bing Search APIs, privacy-focused search engine Presearch has launched a decentralized search API aimed at providing developers with a censorship-resistant and transparent alternative.
Backed by more than 40,000 active nodes, Presearch's new API is designed to serve as an open access tool for developers seeking privacy-first search solutions amid increasing restrictions from major providers.
The Presearch Search API operates on a decentralized infrastructure, offering fast, low-latency search results without user profiling or centralized control.
The API supports pay-as-you-go pricing in Bitcoin, Circle‘s USDC, Presearch's native PRE token, or fiat, and is accessible via Presearch's gateway system, which strips all personally identifiable information from user queries.
The launch arrives as developers face shrinking options for integrating search data.
Microsoft's API shutdowns and pricing hikes have reportedly forced thousands of developers to find new solutions, with over 50,000 apps estimated to have lost reliable search access since early 2024, according to a press release shared with Benzinga.
Also Read: Anthony Pompliano’s ProCap Buys Over 3,700 Bitcoin—What’s Driving The Aggressive Bet?
Presearch's decentralized system uses a blend of Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake models.
Node operators contribute compute power, stake PRE tokens, and earn rewards based on search demand.
According to the company, the infrastructure remained operational during a significant Big Tech outage in 2023, underscoring the resilience of its decentralized model.
The platform has attracted a growing user base, with over 390,000 active monthly users and more than 400,000 daily searches. Presearch also powers search-driven applications like Scout.click, which adopted the Presearch API after losing access to traditional providers.
Presearch CEO Tim Enneking said the platform's mission aligns with the core principles of decentralization and freedom of information.
"We believe freedom of information is just as important as freedom of money," he said.
The company's roadmap includes enabling Bitcoin payments, expanding developer integrations, and continuing to grow its decentralized node network to meet demand from developers building AI, productivity, and content applications.
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Presearch has publicly launched what it dubs the world’s first decentralized search API that does not profile its users. It also accepts payments in Bitcoin, PRE, and USDC.
According to a press release sent to crypto.news, the search API for Presearch.com is now live for the first time. It is powered by a decentralized physical infrastructure network or DePIN built with over 40,000 active nodes that process searches in real-time.
The Search API launch comes ahead of major tech firms like Microsoft which have decided to restrict user access to their search API, cutting off Bing data to focus on AI chatbot development. The shift has forced developers and web platforms seeking a new alternative, as over 90% of global web search is controlled by Google, Bing and Yandex.
Unlike other search engines, Presearch.com and its API both run on decentralized infrastructure that encrypts and anonymizes every search, making it a non-profiling decentralized search engine.
When a user taps into the search engine and submits a query, it will then pass through a gateway that removes all identifiable information belonging to the user. This means the browser is able to remove the user’s IP address and device metadata from the search query.
Additionally, the decentralized API is now accessible to users who wish to pay with crypto for its services, accepting major tokens like Bitcoin (BTC), Presearch’s native token PRE, USD Coin (USDC), and even fiat for non-crypto users.
CEO of Presearch, Tim Enneking, said that the team behind Presearch.com aims to drive forward freedom of information through its search engine and API, which it believes is “just as important as freedom of money.”
“That’s why we built the world’s first non-profiling, decentralized search API—and why we’re thrilled to offer Bitcoin payments as part of our mission-aligned infrastructure,” said Enneking in his statement.
Presearch is a decentralized search engine that protects user privacy, rewards node operators through its browser. So far, it has accumulated over 390,000 active monthly users, 13 million monthly impressions, and over 400,000 searches per day. The stack has managed to hold up, even against the major Big Tech outage back in 2023.
For years, Marinade Finance has been one of Solana’s most reliable staking operators, enabling $SOL holders to earn optimized yield on their stake.
Today, Marinade Finance expands its offering to include $USDC rewards. Joining forces with RockawayX and Kamino, Marinade is launching its proprietary stablecoin savings product, enabling users to earn up to 6% APY on $USDC deposits.
The launch echoes a wider trend playing out across the DeFi economy, wherein crypto natives are storing their wealth onchain regardless of market dynamics.
Marinade’s $USDC Vault to Target 4-6% APY The Marinade USDC Vault is a stablecoin savings product that lets users earn yield on $USDC without leaving the Marinade ecosystem. The vault targets a variable 4-6% APY on deposited $USDC, with yield subject to prevailing market conditions.
Moving out of staked $SOL into cash can be a cumbersome affair. Offramping to fiat costs the average user around 2% in compounded fees, and can sometimes take several days.
Seeing that around 75% of its unstakers are seeking to exit to USD, Marinade Finance has designed a stablecoin vault that seeks to capture this value flow. In one click, users can shift capital directly from staked $SOL into a yield-bearing $USDC vault, with fiat off-ramping expected in future updates.
Upon deposit to the Marinade vault, users receive an SPL share token representing their position, which remains transferable and redeemable at any time.
"Instead of losing users through a painful off-ramp process, we're giving them a reason to stay. With Kamino powering the infrastructure and RockawayX managing the strategy, users get solid yield with the simplicity Marinade is known for." - Michael Repetny, Marinade Finance CEO
In times of market uncertainty, Marinade’s stablecoin vault becomes a powerful tool for DeFi users who want to limit their exposure to volatile assets, while continuing to earn yield onchain.
RockawayX to Manage Vault Strategy Marinade’s $USDC vault is built on a three-layer stack, collaborating with some of the names in Solana DeFi.
RockawayX, an investment firm with deep ties to the Solana ecosystem, will manage the vault’s yield strategy. Overseeing the vault’s day-to-day operation, RockawayX will allocate and actively rebalance capital to ensure consistent yield.
At press time, RockawayX has communicated its intention to run a conservative mixed-market strategy, allocating funds across Kamino’s lending markets, Maple’s institutional credit markets, and various similar RWA products.
While RockawayX handles strategy, Marinade owns and controls the vault outright, with its Council multisig (3 of 5) holding ultimate authority. Marinade can add or remove modules, replace the vault manager, adjust configuration, or initiate a wind-down at any time, and RockawayX is unable to withdraw funds to external wallets.
“Our job is to underwrite every allocation properly and rebalance when conditions move. We've run market-neutral strategies through every major stress event since 2022 with zero defaults. That's the standard we're applying here.” - Nassim Alexandre, RockawayX Head of Onchain Asset Management and Curation
Kamino Finance provides the underlying infrastructure through the Kamino Buildkit, and is built upon Kamino’s Lend product, including smart contracts, lending markets, NAV accounting, and the share token mechanics. Solana’s biggest DeFi lender, Kamino has successfully completed 18 independent audits and suffered zero bad debt since the platform launched in 2022.
Solana Stablecoin Supply At All-Time Highs The launch of Marinade Finance’s stablecoin vault coincides with the emergence of a new trend in onchain markets. Previously, the end of a crypto bull cycle would typically result in an exodus of capital, with market participants moving their funds offchain to store their wealth in fiat.
That appears to be changing in 2026. While asset prices continue to slide amidst languishing market conditions, traders and investors are choosing to keep their funds onchain, taking advantage of a wealth of yield bearing opportunities in the stablecoin economy.
In the collapse of the 2021 bull market, Solana’s stablecoin supply remained largely unchanged as $SOL plummeted from $250 to around $30, before capitulating entirely towards the end of the year. This time around, Solana’s stablecoin supply has expanded in the face of declining asset value, suggesting market participants prefer to store their wealth across Solana DeFi.
Marinade’s $USDC vault seeks to capture this value flow, enabling its users to continue to earn reliable yield on their assets, without needing to leave the Marinade ecosystem.
Rubio: US and Iran to continue technical consultations at the end of this month
Multiple foreign media outlets reported on the 24th that US Secretary of State Rubio said technical teams from the United States and Iran will hold further talks in Switzerland by the end of June. (Xinhua News Agency)
6 hours ago
Over the past 24 hours, total crypto market liquidations hit $606 million, with more than 130,000 traders liquidated.
According to Coinglass data, the global cryptocurrency market recorded $606 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, including $542 million in long-position liquidations and $68.22 million in short-position liquidations. A total of 135,785 traders worldwide were liquidated in the same period, with the largest single liquidation order occurring on Binance’s BTCUSDT trading pair, valued at $12.0111 million.
6 hours ago
Bitcoin falls below $60,000
According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has fallen below $60,000, with a 4.3% drop in the past 24 hours.
6 hours ago
US Treasury Secretary: AI boom may boost productivity and help curb inflation.
US Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC in an interview that he hopes the Federal Reserve will remain "open-minded" about the inflation pattern after the reversal of Iran-related energy price hikes. Bessent noted that the U.S. could enter an economic environment marked by high GDP growth without a corresponding rise in traditional inflation. He cited that in the 1990s, Alan Greenspan foresaw that office modernization and the internet could drive non-inflationary growth, and allowed the economy to keep expanding. Bessent believes the U.S. has a strong chance of seeing a similar scenario again. When asked whether the Fed still needs to worry about potential inflation and whether interest rate cuts are possible this year or next, Bessent declined to comment. However, he argued that it is necessary to stay open-minded about the price or inflation impacts from the Iran conflict, and monitor inflation performance after those effects subside. Bessent also said an open mind is needed, as the AI boom could boost productivity and deliver disinflationary effects, helping inflation return to the Fed’s target level. He added that he believes Kevin Warsh will choose the optimal path that meets both the Fed’s inflation and growth mandates. Bessent also noted that Warsh previously took a hawkish stance on inflation.
6 hours ago
US stocks' intraday storage sector sees broad declines, with Western Digital and Seagate Technology both falling over 4%.
According to Bitget data, during U.S. stock trading hours, the storage sector saw broad declines: Western Digital (WDC) fell 4.47%, Seagate Technology (STX) dropped 4.17%, SanDisk (SNDK) declined 2.31%, and Micron Technology (MU) edged down 0.96%. Most optical communication concept stocks rose, with Corning (GLW) leading the gains at 9.75%, followed by Ciena (CIEN) up 3.24%, Coherent (COHR) rising 2.93%, Lumentum (LITE) gaining 2.61%, and Nokia (NOK) advancing 1.82%. Additionally, Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 2.59% and Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) declined 1.90%.
6 hours ago
During intraday trading in U.S. stocks, crypto-related concept stocks fell broadly, with MSTR dropping more than 7%.
According to Bitget market data, the three major U.S. stock indexes rose broadly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.94%, the S&P 500 increased 0.60%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.63%. Crypto-related stocks fell across the board, with declines as follows: Strategy (MSTR) down 7.33%; Circle (CRCL) down 4.35%; Bitmine (BMNR) down 3.97%; Coinbase (COIN) down 3.73%; Robinhood (HOOD) down 3.70%; Gemini (GEMI) down 3.27%; Bullish (BLSH) down 3.25%; Sharplink (SBET) down 3.19%.
Santiment stated that investors showed strong interest in altcoins such as Delysium (AGI), Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), USD Coin (USDC), Solana (SOL), and Bittensor (TAO).
25.03.2026 - 10:16
Update: 25.03.2026 - 10:16
Bitcoin and altcoins are struggling to recover amidst the turbulent days of the US-Iran conflict.
While Bitcoin struggles to hold above $70,000, cryptocurrency analytics company Santiment has revealed the most popular altcoins in the cryptocurrency world in its latest post.
According to Santiment, investors showed strong interest in altcoins such as Delysium (AGI), Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), USD Coin (USDC), Solana (SOL), and Bittensor (TAO).
AGI led the trending cryptocurrencies in the last 24 hours, surprisingly followed by USDT, BTC, USDC, SOL, and TAO.
The most popular cryptocurrencies in the crypto sector and the reasons why are listed below: Delysium: AGI is trending thanks to NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s striking statements about artificial general intelligence.
USDT: Trending due to Tether’s announcement that it has contracted with one of the Big Four accounting firms for the first fully independent audit of its USDT reserves (reported at approximately $180-192 billion).
Bitcoin: BTC is trending due to massive institutional accumulation. The institutional accumulation process continues to dominate the headlines, particularly with spot ETF inflows spearheaded by giants like BlackRock and Fidelity.
USDC: Reports indicate Circle has frozen USDC balances in 16 hot wallets in connection with a US legal case, and regulatory discussions surrounding USDC’s decentralization are trending.
Solana: SOL is trending due to the launch of the Solana Developer Platform (SDP) by the Solana Foundation.
Bittensor: TAO is trending due to Grayscale’s spot ETF application and the halving process on the network. Investors are showing interest in TAO.
*This is not investment advice.
Follow our Telegram and Twitter account now for exclusive news, analytics and on-chain data!
Rubio: US and Iran to continue technical consultations at the end of this month
Multiple foreign media outlets reported on the 24th that US Secretary of State Rubio said technical teams from the United States and Iran will hold further talks in Switzerland by the end of June. (Xinhua News Agency)
6 hours ago
Over the past 24 hours, total crypto market liquidations hit $606 million, with more than 130,000 traders liquidated.
According to Coinglass data, the global cryptocurrency market recorded $606 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, including $542 million in long-position liquidations and $68.22 million in short-position liquidations. A total of 135,785 traders worldwide were liquidated in the same period, with the largest single liquidation order occurring on Binance’s BTCUSDT trading pair, valued at $12.0111 million.
6 hours ago
Bitcoin falls below $60,000
According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has fallen below $60,000, with a 4.3% drop in the past 24 hours.
6 hours ago
US Treasury Secretary: AI boom may boost productivity and help curb inflation.
US Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC in an interview that he hopes the Federal Reserve will remain "open-minded" about the inflation pattern after the reversal of Iran-related energy price hikes. Bessent noted that the U.S. could enter an economic environment marked by high GDP growth without a corresponding rise in traditional inflation. He cited that in the 1990s, Alan Greenspan foresaw that office modernization and the internet could drive non-inflationary growth, and allowed the economy to keep expanding. Bessent believes the U.S. has a strong chance of seeing a similar scenario again. When asked whether the Fed still needs to worry about potential inflation and whether interest rate cuts are possible this year or next, Bessent declined to comment. However, he argued that it is necessary to stay open-minded about the price or inflation impacts from the Iran conflict, and monitor inflation performance after those effects subside. Bessent also said an open mind is needed, as the AI boom could boost productivity and deliver disinflationary effects, helping inflation return to the Fed’s target level. He added that he believes Kevin Warsh will choose the optimal path that meets both the Fed’s inflation and growth mandates. Bessent also noted that Warsh previously took a hawkish stance on inflation.
6 hours ago
US stocks' intraday storage sector sees broad declines, with Western Digital and Seagate Technology both falling over 4%.
According to Bitget data, during U.S. stock trading hours, the storage sector saw broad declines: Western Digital (WDC) fell 4.47%, Seagate Technology (STX) dropped 4.17%, SanDisk (SNDK) declined 2.31%, and Micron Technology (MU) edged down 0.96%. Most optical communication concept stocks rose, with Corning (GLW) leading the gains at 9.75%, followed by Ciena (CIEN) up 3.24%, Coherent (COHR) rising 2.93%, Lumentum (LITE) gaining 2.61%, and Nokia (NOK) advancing 1.82%. Additionally, Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 2.59% and Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) declined 1.90%.
6 hours ago
During intraday trading in U.S. stocks, crypto-related concept stocks fell broadly, with MSTR dropping more than 7%.
According to Bitget market data, the three major U.S. stock indexes rose broadly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.94%, the S&P 500 increased 0.60%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.63%. Crypto-related stocks fell across the board, with declines as follows: Strategy (MSTR) down 7.33%; Circle (CRCL) down 4.35%; Bitmine (BMNR) down 3.97%; Coinbase (COIN) down 3.73%; Robinhood (HOOD) down 3.70%; Gemini (GEMI) down 3.27%; Bullish (BLSH) down 3.25%; Sharplink (SBET) down 3.19%.
Cover image via U.Today Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.
The cryptocurrency market is experiencing one of the most dynamic moments of the year as Bitcoin has surpassed the psychological $78,000 mark for the first time in two months. This breakout is accompanied by a strong inflow of liquidity; on the Solana blockchain alone, 500 million USDC were issued within a short period of time, according to Whale Alert.
The main catalyst for growth was a sharp positive shift in geopolitics. The market reacted to news of a possible deescalation in the Middle East. Statements from the parties about opening the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping triggered a drop in oil prices below $80 for WTI and a sharp rise in risk assets — first of all BTC.
BTC/USD price chart with Whale Alert post, Source: TradingViewUSDC printing press: 500 million “in the moment”Against this backdrop, the Whale Alert system recorded the creation of two batches of 250,000,000 USDC, worth a total of $500 million in Circle’s treasury. The majority of the new issuance was deployed on the Solana network, bringing the weekly stablecoin issuance volume on this chain to a record $3.25 billion in 2026.
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Historically, such large USDC issuances precede phases of active buying or are used by institutions to collateralize margin positions amid rising volatility.
Despite the euphoria, experts from Glassnode and JPMorgan warn of a “sell wall” and potential profit-taking. Support is now located in the $75,000-$76,000 range. The ceiling for BTC in this rally is marked at $86,796, where the 200-day moving average is currently stretching.
The cryptocurrency market has been in a downturn this week, with many digital assets facing continued price declines. Today is no different, with the global crypto market cap down by 2% over the past 24 hours.
Amid this broader slump, certain altcoins are drawing attention—not for their gains but due to recent ecosystem developments.
Berachain (BERA)Berachain officially launched its “proof-of-liquidity” layer-1 blockchain on Thursday. The project also conducted its BERA token airdrop, which saw the distribution of coins worth around $1.17 billion to its community members.
However, this airdrop was immediately followed by a surge in selloffs, which led to a decline in the coin’s value. BERA trades at $7.39 at press time, noting a 17% price dip in the past 24 hours.
Notably, during that period, the coin’s trading volume surged by over 150,000%, reflecting the high selling pressure among BERA holders. A falling asset price alongside rising trading volume indicates strong selling pressure. It suggests that more traders are offloading the asset, putting downward pressure on its price.
If selloffs persist, BERA’s price could plummet to $5.36. Without sufficient bullish support at this level, the coin’s price could drop further to $3.89.
BERA Price Analysis. Source: TradingViewOn the other hand, if BERA’s accumulation rises again, its price could climb to $8.47.
Ondo (ONDO)RWA-based asset ONDO is another altcoin trending today. The major factor driving this is Ondo Finance’s Thursday announcement of its plans to start its layer-1 blockchain designed for tokenized real-world assets.
Following the announcement, World Liberty Financial—a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform backed by President Donald Trump—purchased 42,000 ONDO tokens for $470,000 USDC on the CoW Protocol.
However, despite these developments, ONDO’s performance has remained lackluster. It has shed 0.1% of its value over the past 24 hours. At press time, the altcoin trades at $1.40.
If ONDO’s demand weakens further, it could extend its decline in the short term, causing its price to plummet to $1.23.
ONDO Price Analysis. Source: TradingViewHowever, a shift in market trends toward accumulation could drive ONDO’s value up to $1.57.
Notcoin (NOT)At press time, NOT trades at $0.0026. It has lost 40% of its value over the past week. In fact, on Monday, the altcoin plunged to a nine-month low of $0.0021 before rebounding slightly.
Its Elder-Ray Index confirms the poor demand for NOT among market participants. At press time, this is at -0.0019. This indicator measures an asset’s buying and selling pressure by comparing its price to its exponential moving average (EMA).
When the index is negative, it indicates that bears are in control, meaning selling pressure is dominant, and prices may continue to decline. If NOT’s decline continues, its price could revisit Monday’s multi-month low.
NOT Price Analysis. Source: TradingViewConversely, if buying activity resumes, it could drive NOT’s value to $0.0039.
Stablecoin Expansion to Drive the Next Crypto Rally as Market Cap Hits $200B: CryptoQuant
Tanzeel Akhtar
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Tanzeel Akhtar
Part of the Team Since
Feb 2018
About Author
Tanzeel Akhtar has been reporting on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology since 2015. Her work has appeared in leading publications including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CoinDesk, Bitcoin...
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Last updated:
January 31, 2025
Liquidity in the cryptocurrency market has surged, with the total market capitalization of stablecoins recently surpassing $200 billion. This increase has historically preceded price rallies.
When the liquidity impulse grows, a rally usually follows.
USDT’s 30D market cap just turned positive (after contracting -2%), while USDC is surging 20%—its fastest pace in a year.
If stablecoin momentum continues, higher prices may be next. pic.twitter.com/fD8sQkKSKM
— CryptoQuant.com (@cryptoquant_com) January 30, 2025 According to data from CryptoQuant, stablecoin liquidity has increased since the U.S. presidential election, with major stablecoins like Tether’s USDT and Circle’s USDC leading the expansion.
Market Cap Hits Record High Amid Growing LiquidityThe total value of USD-denominated stablecoins reached an all-time high of $200 billion last week. Since then, it has grown further to $204 billion, representing an increase of $37 billion since November 4.
CryptoQuant reports that this surge in stablecoin liquidity reflects growing investor confidence, which has historically catalyzed crypto market upswings.
The expansion has been primarily driven by Tether’s USDT, the dominant stablecoin in the market. However, USDC, which had been losing market share, is now regaining traction.
A growing stablecoin supply often indicates increased buying power for traders, fueling demand for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Another key indicator of market liquidity, according to CryptoQuant, is the volume of stablecoins held on centralized exchanges.
The total value of USDT on these platforms has risen from $30.5 billion on November 4 to $43 billion, an increase of about 41% ($12.5 billion).
More stablecoins on exchanges show that traders have large amounts of capital on hand to deploy into crypto assets.
Such liquidity inflows have often preceded major price rallies, as traders convert stablecoins into volatile assets to seek gains.
USDT and USDC Lead the Stablecoin ExpansionStablecoin liquidity impulse, measured as the 30-day percentage change in market capitalization, has turned positive.
CryptoQuant analysts suggest this may signal an upward move in Bitcoin and the broader crypto market.
USDT’s liquidity impulse had been contracting by 2% at the beginning of 2024 but has now turned slightly positive, hinting at an uptick in crypto demand.
Meanwhile, USDC’s liquidity impulse has expanded by 20%, the fastest growth rate in at least a year.
Tether’s USDT remains the dominant player, with its market capitalization reaching $139 billion, increasing by $19 billion (15%) since November 4.
Meanwhile, USDC has experienced a strong comeback, increasing by $17 billion (48%) over the same period to reach a market cap of $52.5 billion.
The increase in liquidity and trading capital has historically coincided with crypto market rallies.
If past trends continue, an expanding stablecoin supply may contribute to increased market activity in Bitcoin and other digital assets.
Stablecoins surpassed a market cap of $200 billion. USDT and USDC are dominating the stablecoins market. The Stablecoin market cap leapfrogged the $211 billion mark amid USDC’s positive momentum. As per the recent report by Alphractal, a data analysis platform, the stablecoin market has witnessed tremendous growth since 2023 which was driven by USDT (Tether).
According to a report, the stablecoin market surged by 73% from $121.18 billion in August 2023 and hit an all-time high of $211 billion. Among all stablecoins, USDT shows a robust performance.
The data suggest that the USDT and USDC are the most demanded stablecoin in the crypto market. At the time of writing USDT holds a market cap of $139.45 billion and its ATH market cap of $140 billion was registered in December 2023.
Alphractal highlights that USDC got an advantage from the recent drawdown in altcoins where investors swap their crypto holdings into USDC. The USDC market dominance indicates a similar pattern from the 2021 bull cycle. If its metric rises continuously it will probably be a bearish signal.
Stablecoins are digital assets whose value is defined through another asset, typically the U.S. dollar. It provides a stable price to investors as they should maintain their pegged value while purchasing another asset.
President Donald Trump Boosts the Stablecoins Growth As per the CryptoQuant data, the stablecoin market has grown by approximately $40 billion since Donald Trump’s victory in the US election. The growth in stablecoins indicated higher liquidity, which means that more capital is flowing into the crypto market.
Moreover, the rise in capital could lead to a higher demand for other crypto assets such as Bitcoin, and impact their price positively. The report indicates that the higher liquidity in stablecoins could signal a bull rally in the crypto market.
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For the past few months, stablecoins have yielded the spotlight to their more speculative counterparts, including tokens inspired by politicians. However, recent on-chain data suggests that stablecoins are back and have surpassed the $200 billion market cap.
According to the data shared by Alphractal, the segment’s capitalization has surged to $211 billion, a record high, thanks to months of stable growth, which started in mid-2023.
Stablecoins‘ market capitalization grew by 73% from its August 2023 value of $121 billion, updated data released on January 31st show. The primary driver of this segment’s growth is still Tether’s USDT, however, USDC has been gaining ground recently, which is fascinating.
🚨 Stablecoin Market Cap Surpasses $211B – USDC Gains Momentum!
Since 2023, the stablecoin market has grown significantly, mainly driven by USDT (Tether). However, recently, USDC has been gaining an edge over other stablecoins.
This trend is occurring due to the recent drop in… pic.twitter.com/IRKrQErmCE
— Alphractal (@Alphractal) January 31, 2025
Tether’s USDT Remains Primary Driver Of Growth Since 2023, the stablecoin market has grown steady, mostly due to Tether’s USDT. As of now, stablecoins are worth $223 billion, which is a 0.2% increase from yesterday.
Interestingly, USDT and USDC are the present growth drivers of stablecoins. Apart from the numbers from both coins, the stablecoins group hasn’t changed much since 2023 and has shown steady and average values. Right now, Tether’s USDT is valued at almost $140 billion, and USDC is at $53 billion.
USDC Slowly Gains Ground On Other Coins Alphractal’s post on Twitter/X shows that USDC has been gaining ground over other stablecoins in the market. According to the post, this is happening due to a drop in altcoin prices and since a substantial part of the sell-offs have been swapped into USDC.
As of today, the market cap of cryptocurrencies reached $3.41 trillion. Chart: TradingView The post also showed that USDC’s dominance in this segment has hit a key resistance level, the same amount observed in 2021. This was the start of the bear market in 2022 when Bitcoin’s price dropped to as low as $15,500. If this metric persists, it can serve as the market’s bearish signal, impacting investors’ buying decisions. However, if this metric declines, it can be USDC’s jumping board to claim new highs.
What To Expect From The Stablecoins Segment In The Short-Term In the last bull run, USDC’s supply increased in May, then reached its high in March 2022. The stablecoin’s market cap increased by 170% from April 2021 to March 2022. If the current coin supply continues to grow but price starts to dip, then the stablecoin market may hit its peak in a few months.
Traditionally, a rising market cap for stablecoins reflects growing investors’ confidence, which signals an increase in capital inflows.
On the contrary, a rising stablecoin market cap is usually associated with growing investor conviction, signaling the potential for boosted capital inflows. This suggests that the bullish momentum could continue for a few more months.
Featured image from Gemini Imagen, chart from TradingView
TL;DRAcross now supports up to 10M USDC bridging using Circle’s CCTP v2, enabling native, canonical USDC transfers across supported chains. Built for users and developers moving serious capital, with integration available via the Across Swap API.
IntroductionSize doesn’t matter… until it does.
When you move whale-sized amounts of crypto between chains, you need a bridge you can trust. Across now supports up to 10M USDC transfers, powered by CCTPv2.
Here’s what you need to know.
The Bridge Built for All SizesBridges shouldn’t discriminate against size.
You can now bridge up to 10M USDC in a single transfer with Across. This unlocks fast, cheap, and secure transfers for whales, treasuries, funds, market makers, and anyone moving serious capital across chains.
Keep in mind that these are truly canonical USDC transfers. No wrapped assets. No liquidity fragmentation. Your USDC burns on the source chain and mints natively on the destination chain.
Whether you are an everyday user or the equivalent of an onchain Moby Dick, you can move your money without compromising on speed, cost, or security.
How It WorksAcross integrates Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol v2 (CCTPv2) to enable native USDC bridging to any CCTP-enabled chain that Across supports.
CCTPv2 uses a burn-and-mint model, where USDC is burned on the source chain and the same exact amount is minted natively on the destination chain. The result is a clean, capital-efficient, and secure way to move USDC across chains, now extended to $10M transfers on Across.
Here’s the coolest part: Across automatically handles transaction finalization. Unlike most CCTP-based bridges that require you to return and sign a second transaction to complete the transfer, Across runs a custom finalizer that monitors your transaction and completes it for you. Once you initiate the transfer, you’re done. No need to come back and click anything else.
Note: CCTP transfers include a small protocol fee set by Circle (1bp from Arbitrum, and low-range bps from other chains), which is transparently reflected in the transfer before you execute it.
Swap API For DevelopersThe upgrade isn’t just for end-users. If you’re a developer, we’ve got you covered too.
Building an app with native stablecoin transfers? If so, you’re only one integration away from bringing $10M-capacity USDC bridging directly to your users.
With our Swap API, you can plug into Across and provide crosschain functionality within your native UI. Across runs “under the hood,” abstracting away the complexity so you don’t have to manage burn-and-mint logic, edge cases, or fragmented liquidity yourself. Your users get fast, reliable USDC bridging directly inside your product, while you stay focused on what you’re building.
USDC at Internet ScaleUSDC has evolved into one of the most important pieces of onchain financial infrastructure.
Today, nearly $80 billion USDC is in circulation, making it one of the largest and most widely used digital dollars in the world. It is accessible on all the chains that people actually use, powering everything from trading and DeFi to payments and treasury operations.
As usage spreads across chains, the need to move large amounts of USDC reliably and natively becomes unavoidable.
Start Bridging USDCReady to bridge USDC? Move it where you need it, when you need it, with Across.
TL;DRYou can now bridge up to $10 million USDC directly to Hyperliquid in seconds with Across Protocol. Across is the first bridge that sends USDC straight into Hyperliquid. No Arbitrum detours, no manual deposit steps, and near-zero fees. Your USDC arrives ready to trade instantly on Hyperliquid. Currently, this route supports USDC-SPOT, with USDC-PERP coming soon.
IntroductionWe’ve raised the bar for Hyperliquid traders yet again.
You can now bridge up to $10M USDC straight into Hyperliquid with a single click from major chains. No more Arbitrum detours. Just a fast, clean, and direct flow. And today, Across is the only bridge where this is possible.
Whether you’re a whale or a casual trader on Hyperliquid, this post is for you.
The Problem: No Direct Path to HyperliquidBefore today, moving USDC into Hyperliquid was… complicated.
What should’ve been simple involved a bunch of steps. You had to route through Arbitrum first. Some bridges needed multiple signatures, and large transfers often slowed down or capped out well below what serious traders wanted to move.
The result? You ended up wasting time and money.
This changes now.
Across Protocol: Bridge USDC Directly to HyperliquidEnjoy the most direct path to your favorite trading platform. You can now bridge up to $10M USDC directly to Hyperliquid from any CCTP-enabled chain, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Base. And you can do it in seconds with near-zero fees.
Here’s the best part: when your USDC lands in Hyperliquid, you can start trading instantly. No extra deposit steps, no jumping between chains. Currently, this route supports USDC-SPOT, with USDC-PERP coming soon.
If you are a market maker, high-frequency trader, or someone moving large sizes of funds, you finally have a reliable and scalable bridge that matches the speed of Hyperliquid itself.
This is a fundamentally faster, cleaner, more scalable path for moving liquidity into Hyperliquid.
What’s New Under the HoodAcross now routes USDC into HyperCore using a streamlined path powered by the Across Swap API embedded with CCTPv2. Behind the scenes, your transfer is filled on HyperEVM, then passed directly into HyperCore, where your USDC becomes instantly usable on Hyperliquid.
All of this is wrapped behind a single bridging action.
Here’s what that means for you:
One-click bridging: bridge into HyperCore without touching Arbitrum.
Fast settlement: typically 8–20 seconds.
Low, predictable fees: 1bp from Arbitrum, and low-range bps from other chains.
Institutional-Grade Transfer Capacity: supports transfers up to $10 million, a threshold competing bridges can’t handle today.
You just send USDC in, get USDC on Hyperliquid, and start trading immediately.
Across routes USDC into HyperCore using a streamlined path powered by the Across Swap API embedded with Circle’s CCTPv2.How to Bridge USDC to HyperliquidHead to app.across.to.
Select your origin chain (Solana, Base, Ethereum, etc.) and USDC as your origin token.
Choose HyperCore as the destination and USDC as your destination token.
Enter the amount of USDC you want to bridge.
Bridge and confirm in your wallet.
Receive USDC on Hyperliquid in seconds!
There’s nothing new to learn. Just a dramatically better experience and path behind the scenes.
Start BridgingThe direct USDC to Hyperliquid bridge is live. Why take extra steps? Just use Across.
Rubio: US and Iran to continue technical consultations at the end of this month
Multiple foreign media outlets reported on the 24th that US Secretary of State Rubio said technical teams from the United States and Iran will hold further talks in Switzerland by the end of June. (Xinhua News Agency)
5 hours ago
Over the past 24 hours, total crypto market liquidations hit $606 million, with more than 130,000 traders liquidated.
According to Coinglass data, the global cryptocurrency market recorded $606 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, including $542 million in long-position liquidations and $68.22 million in short-position liquidations. A total of 135,785 traders worldwide were liquidated in the same period, with the largest single liquidation order occurring on Binance’s BTCUSDT trading pair, valued at $12.0111 million.
5 hours ago
Bitcoin falls below $60,000
According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has fallen below $60,000, with a 4.3% drop in the past 24 hours.
5 hours ago
US Treasury Secretary: AI boom may boost productivity and help curb inflation.
US Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC in an interview that he hopes the Federal Reserve will remain "open-minded" about the inflation pattern after the reversal of Iran-related energy price hikes. Bessent noted that the U.S. could enter an economic environment marked by high GDP growth without a corresponding rise in traditional inflation. He cited that in the 1990s, Alan Greenspan foresaw that office modernization and the internet could drive non-inflationary growth, and allowed the economy to keep expanding. Bessent believes the U.S. has a strong chance of seeing a similar scenario again. When asked whether the Fed still needs to worry about potential inflation and whether interest rate cuts are possible this year or next, Bessent declined to comment. However, he argued that it is necessary to stay open-minded about the price or inflation impacts from the Iran conflict, and monitor inflation performance after those effects subside. Bessent also said an open mind is needed, as the AI boom could boost productivity and deliver disinflationary effects, helping inflation return to the Fed’s target level. He added that he believes Kevin Warsh will choose the optimal path that meets both the Fed’s inflation and growth mandates. Bessent also noted that Warsh previously took a hawkish stance on inflation.
5 hours ago
US stocks' intraday storage sector sees broad declines, with Western Digital and Seagate Technology both falling over 4%.
According to Bitget data, during U.S. stock trading hours, the storage sector saw broad declines: Western Digital (WDC) fell 4.47%, Seagate Technology (STX) dropped 4.17%, SanDisk (SNDK) declined 2.31%, and Micron Technology (MU) edged down 0.96%. Most optical communication concept stocks rose, with Corning (GLW) leading the gains at 9.75%, followed by Ciena (CIEN) up 3.24%, Coherent (COHR) rising 2.93%, Lumentum (LITE) gaining 2.61%, and Nokia (NOK) advancing 1.82%. Additionally, Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 2.59% and Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) declined 1.90%.
5 hours ago
During intraday trading in U.S. stocks, crypto-related concept stocks fell broadly, with MSTR dropping more than 7%.
According to Bitget market data, the three major U.S. stock indexes rose broadly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.94%, the S&P 500 increased 0.60%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.63%. Crypto-related stocks fell across the board, with declines as follows: Strategy (MSTR) down 7.33%; Circle (CRCL) down 4.35%; Bitmine (BMNR) down 3.97%; Coinbase (COIN) down 3.73%; Robinhood (HOOD) down 3.70%; Gemini (GEMI) down 3.27%; Bullish (BLSH) down 3.25%; Sharplink (SBET) down 3.19%.
Across Protocol is considering a C‑Corp pivot that lets ACX holders swap tokens for equity in AcrossCo or USDC, testing whether token-era DAOs migrate to traditional cap tables.
Summary
Across proposes creating U.S. C‑Corp AcrossCo, offering ACX holders a six‑month window to swap tokens 1:1 for equity or redeem for USDC at a 30‑day average price. The structure channels larger wallets directly into AcrossCo and smaller ones through a free SPV, aiming to meet U.S. cap‑table and accreditation rules without abandoning decentralization entirely. Backed by 51 million dollars in prior raises and a heavily drawdown token, the move could become a template for DeFi bridges seeking real contracts, clearer cash flows, and institutional capital. Cross-chain bridge Across Protocol is exploring a radical restructuring that would let ACX token holders swap their tokens for equity in a new U.S. C‑Corp, AcrossCo, or redeem for stablecoins, marking one of the clearest tests yet of how DeFi projects adapt to regulatory and institutional pressure. The team has launched a “temperature check” proposal to gauge community appetite before moving to a formal on‑chain vote.
Under the plan, AcrossCo would become the core operating company for the protocol, while ACX holders gain two main options over a six‑month window: exchange ACX 1:1 for equity in AcrossCo, or cash out by redeeming ACX for USDC at the token’s average market price over a month. Larger holders would be able to convert directly into equity, whereas smaller holders would route through a free special purpose entity to pool and manage their stake. The structure is designed to satisfy regulatory requirements around cap tables and accredited investors while still preserving an on‑ramp for the long tail of tokenholders.
Co‑founder Hart Lambur said that if feedback is supportive, the team will initiate a formal governance vote two weeks after the temperature check ends, with a simple majority deciding the outcome. Across has framed the move as a response to the practical limits of the current DAO structure, pointing to issues around enforceable contracts, counterparty risk, and the absence of a clear legal wrapper as institutional demand for bridging and liquidity infrastructure grows. In other words, the protocol wants to look and behave more like a traditional software company to the outside world, even if parts of the stack remain decentralized under the hood.
Capital backing is already in place. Across has raised a total of 51 million dollars across two token rounds, including a 41 million dollar raise led by Paradigm with Bain Capital Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, and Multicoin Capital participating. ACX currently trades near 0.035 dollars, up roughly 4% over the past 24 hours but down about 84% over the past year, underscoring the pressure on token‑only models in a market that increasingly rewards clear cash‑flow rights and legal protections.
If approved, Across’s restructuring could become a template for late‑cycle DeFi projects seeking to square token‑based governance with real‑world compliance and institutional onboarding. It would also sharpen the debate over whether DAO tokens are long‑term ownership instruments or transitional mechanisms on the way to more conventional equity structures, especially for infrastructure servicing exchanges, trading firms, and custodians. For now, the critical question is whether ACX holders value legal clarity and equity upside more than the ideological purity of remaining fully token‑native.
Rubio: US and Iran to continue technical consultations at the end of this month
Multiple foreign media outlets reported on the 24th that US Secretary of State Rubio said technical teams from the United States and Iran will hold further talks in Switzerland by the end of June. (Xinhua News Agency)
5 hours ago
Over the past 24 hours, total crypto market liquidations hit $606 million, with more than 130,000 traders liquidated.
According to Coinglass data, the global cryptocurrency market recorded $606 million in liquidations over the past 24 hours, including $542 million in long-position liquidations and $68.22 million in short-position liquidations. A total of 135,785 traders worldwide were liquidated in the same period, with the largest single liquidation order occurring on Binance’s BTCUSDT trading pair, valued at $12.0111 million.
5 hours ago
Bitcoin falls below $60,000
According to HTX market data, Bitcoin has fallen below $60,000, with a 4.3% drop in the past 24 hours.
5 hours ago
US Treasury Secretary: AI boom may boost productivity and help curb inflation.
US Treasury Secretary Bessent told CNBC in an interview that he hopes the Federal Reserve will remain "open-minded" about the inflation pattern after the reversal of Iran-related energy price hikes. Bessent noted that the U.S. could enter an economic environment marked by high GDP growth without a corresponding rise in traditional inflation. He cited that in the 1990s, Alan Greenspan foresaw that office modernization and the internet could drive non-inflationary growth, and allowed the economy to keep expanding. Bessent believes the U.S. has a strong chance of seeing a similar scenario again. When asked whether the Fed still needs to worry about potential inflation and whether interest rate cuts are possible this year or next, Bessent declined to comment. However, he argued that it is necessary to stay open-minded about the price or inflation impacts from the Iran conflict, and monitor inflation performance after those effects subside. Bessent also said an open mind is needed, as the AI boom could boost productivity and deliver disinflationary effects, helping inflation return to the Fed’s target level. He added that he believes Kevin Warsh will choose the optimal path that meets both the Fed’s inflation and growth mandates. Bessent also noted that Warsh previously took a hawkish stance on inflation.
5 hours ago
US stocks' intraday storage sector sees broad declines, with Western Digital and Seagate Technology both falling over 4%.
According to Bitget data, during U.S. stock trading hours, the storage sector saw broad declines: Western Digital (WDC) fell 4.47%, Seagate Technology (STX) dropped 4.17%, SanDisk (SNDK) declined 2.31%, and Micron Technology (MU) edged down 0.96%. Most optical communication concept stocks rose, with Corning (GLW) leading the gains at 9.75%, followed by Ciena (CIEN) up 3.24%, Coherent (COHR) rising 2.93%, Lumentum (LITE) gaining 2.61%, and Nokia (NOK) advancing 1.82%. Additionally, Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell 2.59% and Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) declined 1.90%.
5 hours ago
During intraday trading in U.S. stocks, crypto-related concept stocks fell broadly, with MSTR dropping more than 7%.
According to Bitget market data, the three major U.S. stock indexes rose broadly: the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.94%, the S&P 500 increased 0.60%, and the Nasdaq rose 0.63%. Crypto-related stocks fell across the board, with declines as follows: Strategy (MSTR) down 7.33%; Circle (CRCL) down 4.35%; Bitmine (BMNR) down 3.97%; Coinbase (COIN) down 3.73%; Robinhood (HOOD) down 3.70%; Gemini (GEMI) down 3.27%; Bullish (BLSH) down 3.25%; Sharplink (SBET) down 3.19%.
