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AirDAO Launching Astra DEX and Airdrop Staking Campaign

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AirDAO’s $HBR token presale has surpassed expectations, marking a successful launch for the first of three innovative tokens under the Star Fleet Initiative. With significant early participation, the $HBR presale has highlighted the strong demand for AirDAO’s accessible DeFi products, and excitement is already building for the $AST presale, set to launch soon.

$HBR Presale Draws $200K+ Value With the $HBR presale now closed and achieving upwards of 200k USD raised and 5% of the supply sold, early adopters have eagerly embraced Harbor’s flexible liquid staking model. Powered by $HBR, Harbor allows users to earn $AMD and $BOND staking rewards without locking up their assets, providing the freedom to stay liquid while still benefiting from staking gains.

The success of $HBR highlights AirDAO’s commitment to accessible, user-friendly DeFi and establishes a strong foundation as the Star Fleet Initiative progresses toward its next launch.

Up Next: The $AST Presale  Following the overwhelming response to $HBR, AirDAO is now preparing for the $AST token presale. $AST will fuel Astra, AirDAO’s decentralized exchange (DEX), designed to make liquidity provision simple and inclusive through single-sided liquidity. Unlike traditional DEXs, Astra allows users to provide liquidity using only one asset, with AirDAO’s treasury supplying the counterpart, eliminating the need for paired assets and making DeFi easier to navigate for newcomers and seasoned participants alike.

The $AST presale offers early supporters another opportunity to secure their position within AirDAO’s expanding ecosystem. With Astra’s potential to make liquidity provision more accessible, AirDAO anticipates strong interest and participation from a community eager to get involved in this next step.

Building on Growth: The Star Fleet Initiative and AirDAO’s Path Forward With 12,000 monthly active users and $4 million in total value locked (TVL) across staking and DEX activities, AirDAO’s growth trajectory is already impressive. Backed by $7.5 million in recent funding and led by a fully doxxed, community-elected council, AirDAO is committed to accessible, community-driven DeFi. The Star Fleet Initiative—featuring the $HBR, $AST, and $KOS tokens—drives this momentum forward, bringing AirDAO closer to its ambitious targets of 20,000 daily users and $50 million in TVL within two years.

With each token designed for a unique DeFi purpose, Star Fleet simplifies and enhances the AirDAO ecosystem: $HBR powers Harbor’s liquid staking, enabling flexible rewards; $AST introduces single-sided liquidity on Astra’s DEX, lowering barriers to liquidity provision; and $KOS supports Kosmos, a bond marketplace and launchpad, giving users accessible entry points into token presales.

Join the Next Wave: $AST Presale Following the outstanding success of the $HBR presale, the $AST presale offers yet another opportunity to get involved early in a rapidly growing Layer-1 ecosystem. With each token launch, AirDAO moves closer to establishing a truly inclusive, community-driven DeFi landscape.

To learn more about the $AST presale and stay updated on AirDAO’s progress, visit the Star Fleet official site and follow AirDAO on X for the latest announcements.

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Table of contents

In a major development, AirDAO has announced partnership with Lunar Strategy. The news was shared on Lunar Strategy’s X account, highlighting their support for AirDAO’s growth and development. Lunar Strategy is an incubator and accelerator that supports the development of crypto projects, relying on experience, contacts, and funding.

https://twitter.com/airdao_io/status/1865007628792824055?t=PnQikIzIv-X1pH0QJobCkw&s=19

Lunar Capital to Support AirDAO with Strategic Initiatives Lunar Capital, which specializes in funding progressive blockchain projects, will back AirDAO with key initiatives. These comprise ecosystem project acceleration and growth and strategic advisory services. This partnership is expected to enhance AirDAO as a community-led L1 blockchain and Web3 ecosystem of decentralized applications ($AMB) hosted on its network.

This has made the organisation to stand out particularly in the recent past as well as have a clear vision in the future. The team unveiled its new 2025 roadmap, which clearly demonstrates the team’s willingness to grow the $AMB ecosystem. They have also built a full DeFi ecosystem solution that comprises of a DEX, a bridge, and staking.

Lunar Strategy Helps AirDAO Drive Web3 Ecosystem Expansion There is no other project like AirDAO that focuses on real community governance. This makes the platform to be more decentralized so that the community members can be in a position to participate in decision making hence they will be trusted. Lunar Strategy’s support means that AirDAO has good opportunities for further development and expansion of the ecosystem. Additionally, this partnership perfectly falls in line with the vision of AirDAO to contribute to the development of the Web3.

Lastly, this partnership is a positive development for both these institutions. Therefore, with the help of Lunar Strategy, AirDAO will be able to maintain the pace of development. Moreover, it will implement the plans for the future outlined in the present document.

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.

Why Web3Bay’s Zero-Fee Platform Is the Future: $580K Presale, Plus AirDAO’s Wallet Launch & SUI’s Epic Climb!

Binance Set to Delist 4 Altcoins: What You Need to Know

Blockchair has announced the support of 24 new blockchains into its platform, significantly enhancing its multi-blockchain explorer and professional tools offering.

This expansion includes prominent names such as Solana, Base, TRON, Arbitrum One, Polygon, Polygon zkEVM, Linea, Optimism, TON, Beacon Chain, Aptos, Avalanche, DigiByte, Fantom, Handshake, Moonbeam, Peercoin, Polkadot, Sei EVM, and XRP Ledger, but also upcoming Layer 2s on Bitcoin such as BOB, Botanix, Rootstock, and Liquid Network.

 ‘Blockchair has historically been a Bitcoin and UTXO-chain explorer. Our expansion into the Bitcoin Layer 2 ecosystem feels nothing but natural and we’ll keep adding more and more upcoming Bitcoin Layer 2s.’

Nikita Zhavoronkov – CEO & Lead Developer at Blockchair

The addition of these 24 blockchains brings unique capabilities and features to Blockchair’s already robust platform. This integration sets Blockchair apart from other block explorers by providing a unified interface to explore data across 42 popular chains. Users can now seamlessly access and analyze data from multiple blockchains, benefiting from enhanced user experience and functionality.

Alongside this expansion, Blockchair has also unveiled a comprehensive platform redesign aimed at improving user experience and accessibility.

New design with AI Assistant The redesigned platform boasts lightning-fast performance and a modern, clean interface that simplifies navigation and improves accessibility. Key enhancements include intuitive navigation and distinct sections dedicated to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other ecosystems. Additionally, the Blockchair AI Assistant is introduced to help users interpret and understand on-chain data effectively and get professional support.

‘Since 2016 we have received lots of similar questions from crypto users related to their on-chain transactions, and there is fundamentally no real-time tech support for decentralized cryptocurrencies. Providing crypto users with comprehensive and, what is even more important, a safe support system – is no easy task. We have solved it. We believe AI-powered human-like interactions are the future of UI.‘

Yedige Davletgaliyev – Head of Research at Blockchair

Blockchair’s AI Assistant guides users in multiple languages through understanding on-chain data with questions such as:

How long will it take for my transaction to be processed? What can be done to speed up or revert/cancel a transaction? How to distinguish between fraudulent and legitimate advice? The AI assistant has already guided thousands of users not to send money or seed phrases to scammers, and will soon be made available for developers in the API.

Blockchair also improves its UX by expanding its offering of fiat currencies in which the data can be denominated and adding KYA/KYT scores to check transaction risk evaluation. According to the Blockchair team, the platform will continue to add support for new blockchains and work on its professional developer tools.

About Blockchair: Blockchair offers the most private search and analytics engine and a wide range of professional tools for scientists and developers of multi-currency wallets and exchanges, for 42 different blockchains. This includes APIs, PDF receipts and Wallet statements generator, Awesome Catalog of Blockchain and Crypto services, News Aggregator, Data Dumps, an anonymous portfolio tracker, and charts with blockchain and monetary data. The website is offered in 20 languages and no user data is gathered nor shared with third parties.

For more information or questions: [email protected] [email protected] Disclaimer: This is a Press Release provided by a third party who is responsible for the content. Please conduct your own research before taking any action based on the content.

Oliver Dale

Editor-in-Chief of Blockonomi and founder of Kooc Media, A UK-Based Online Media Company. Believer in Open-Source Software, Blockchain Technology & a Free and Fair Internet for all. His writing has been quoted by Nasdaq, Dow Jones, Investopedia, The New Yorker, Forbes, Techcrunch & More. Contact [email protected]

Donald Trump‘s viral claim that Haitian immigrants are “eating cats” was one of several long-shot events that political traders successfully predicted to happen at Tuesday’s presidential debate.

What Happened: The claim, which Trump made in response to Vice President Kamala Harris questioning the size and engagement at his rallies, almost immediately became a viral meme on social media:

The claim was debunked by debate moderator David Muir as well as by Reuters fact checkers, among others.

Traders on prediction market platform Polymarket were able to speculate on a mention of “cat” prior to the debate, essentially putting a price on the likelihood of the former president leaning into the claim.

Over $115,000 were traded at a closing price of around 30 cents to the dollar. Over $275,000 at a closing price of 28 cents to the dollar were traded on a mention of Springfield, the city in Ohio where the false rumors originated.

Thus, savvy traders who were in tune with what drives Trump’s thinking — he had repeatedly shared cat-related AI art on his Truth Social account — netted a gain of 200% to 300%. For comparison, Trump did not mention Tesla CEO Elon Musk, which traded at a similar price of around 30 cents.

But that was not the only unlikely event traders predicted.

Speculation about a handshake, the first at a debate since 2016, netted traders a similar profit of over 300%.

Trump did not appear inclined to shake Harris’s hand at their first personal meeting, but the Vice President set the tone by meeting her opponent behind his podium to introduce herself with a handshake.

The two also exchanged a handshake at a 9/11 memorial service on Wednesday, which may adjust traders’ expectations at a possible second debate.

Read Also: Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark Expands Mining Boundaries, Purchases Seven Facilities For $30M In Tennesse

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is another long-standing proponent of prediction markets and their informational value.

Over $875 million have been traded on the winner of the 2024 presidential election, dwarfing the volume on competitor sites like PredictIt and Betfair.

Some may see prediction markets as a pure speculation or a thinly-veiled version of gambling.

But successful traders like Polymarket whale Domer show that is it possible to make a living by trading politics.

There may also be something to the claims of pricing information by allowing to speculate on events: a mention of “cat” at Donald Trump’s rally in Arizona on Thursday is priced at 80 cents to the dollar. Traders are confident the former President will double down on his claims when addressing his base — and we will find out shortly whether they are right about that.

Read Next:

Bitcoin Gearing Up For Next Bull Run? On-Chain Analysis Says It Just Might Be Image: Shutterstock

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What is DNS hijacking? How it took down Curve Finance’s website

Tim Berners-Lee says internet DNS should have been more decentralized

< 🐈 A Namespace For The Decentralized Web Disclaimer: 2 of the authors were founding contributors to Handshake and hold HNS.

Names are fundamental to human existence and how we relate to everything in the world. At the heart of all interactions lies the ability for all the parties to match names to the respective entities they stand for.

Names are so integral to the human experience that a strong argument can be made that if something doesn’t have a name, it does not exist.

Correspondingly, names on the internet are critical to our online existence. Users, apps, or machines locate a resource on the internet via its name. The name needs to not only be understood by humans but also needs to be uniquely identifiable by machines amongst the billions of potential destinations.

Given that the act of matching a name to the eventual resource is the starting point of trillions of internet transactions that happen daily, it is no surprise that out of the three core layers of internet stack - naming (DNS), transportation (TCP/IP) and application (HTTP), naming is at the very start of the stack.

Naming needs a single source of truth as the names within the namespaces have to be unique across the whole system. Hence, an effective naming system cannot merely be a standard or a protocol, it has to meet all the other aspects of running an internet-scale namespace - including enforcement of unique names, the management of the naming records, scaling to internet traffic, while remaining fully accessible to anyone, anywhere.

Namespaces Names are the most valuable assets on the internet, but we don’t own our own names. All of the crucial namespaces belong to centralized entities who control the namespaces and take that control away from you. This is true for all significant namespaces today - the ICANN namespace, Facebook, Twitter, and Google.

As a result, your name on the internet does not belong to you, but rather to the owners of these centralized namespaces. With a stroke of the keyboard, they can remove anyone from existence. If your name lives on a centralized namespace, your right to exist effectively belongs to someone else.

Centralized namespaces also determine much more than a user’s ability to exist. They also decree a user’s ability to search, match, and communicate with others. They unilaterally set the framework for what protocols can be used, which use cases are permitted, and what information can flow.

The power to enforce monopolies with little consequence also makes these centralized namespaces some of the most valuable properties on the internet today. Verisign makes billions a year controlling .com with practically zero innovation, while ICANN has the power to arbitrarily raise price caps of entire TLDs with their pet cartel companies. Facebook and Twitter controls exactly how users can use their names/accounts, and can heedlessly cancel pages and remove identities for barely specified reasons.

Everywhere we see, we are seeing the serious dangers of depending on centralized entities to exist and be found by others. The Internet is supposed to be kingless, but the ability to strike away one’s existence and control exactly how the name is to be used makes the owners of these namespaces the de-facto kings/governors of the internet.

The World Needs a Decentralized Namespace Of course, the ability of these centralized namespace owners to control digital existence, lockout access, and enforce monopolistic economics is the complete opposite goal of the decentralized web, which is the ability to exist, innovate, and create their own business models without the need for centralized control or systems.

Whether it’s decentralized currencies, decentralized file systems, or decentralized servers - if these decentralized entities do not live on a widely used namespace, they simply do not exist to the vast majority of users on the internet.

Without a decentralized namespace widely readable by humans and resolvable by machines, it is impossible for the decentralized world to be widely adopted by users.

Criteria for a Decentralized Naming System

Naming systems play a crucial role in discovery, connection and identification. As one of the most fundamental and long-lasting components of the internet backbone infrastructure, the bar needs to be set very high in terms of longevity, stability, and technical scalability.

For a decentralized naming system to become the legitimate namespace for the decentralized world, the bar is even higher. Without a centralized body in charge, the world has to trust that this naming system will exist in a stable state for a long time to come and stay relevant regardless of potential upheavals and technological progress.

As such, this naming system’s fundamental construction needs to have certain key technical, social, and governance requirements:

Be truly decentralized: what is the point of a decentralized naming system if it remains controlled by a small set of people? Main key focus as a naming system: naming systems need to be extremely focused and fast. Can you imagine the DNS system operating reliably if it was also designed for delivering 4K video? Be as accessible yet trustless as possible: anyone should be able to access the namespace directly in a fully trustless manner without intensive resources Compatible with the rest of the internet: allowing for seamless usage with the rest of the application, user, and technical stack Stability and upgradability at the protocol level: allowing for innovation moving forward without disrupting regular operations Handshake Design Given these objectives, and with the general goal of the decentralized root zone and certificate authority, Handshake is the only naming system that is fundamentally suitable to be the namespace for decentralized web.

1. Focus as a Naming System Let’s consider the inherent complexity of an internet-scale naming system. For reference, the naming layer (DNS), unlike the other layers of the internet stack, is the only layer that is a system and not a protocol - the key difference between the two is that a protocol cannot enforce uniqueness of names, which is essential to a functioning namespace. It’s also arguably by far the most complex layer with many competing technical, political, and economical demands.

As a standalone blockchain, Handshake has room to grow all on its own and govern itself without interfering with other projects or having to compete with different priorities with other use cases (like gaming or DeFi) trying to run in parallel on the same network. In addition, there are several fundamental constraints in other blockchains - for example, Bitcoin limited OP sizes and Ethereum’s notoriously hard to sync blockchain.

If Handshake is built on another blockchain, the instability caused by these competing priorities for use cases and political interests also eliminates one of the core requirements for a decentralized naming infrastructure - which is stability. A naming infrastructure needs to be highly stable - remember - both users, hosts and developers need to be confident that the names will be around for a long time in the same format. For instance, Ethereum’s sky high gas prices due to DeFi and the complex migration to ETH2 are both creating high levels of certainty around how apps will work in the future, and whether retail users will be able to have the same level of access as large ticket users.

Lastly, creating a native auction system is complicated and requires highly specific primitives, such as making coins unspendable for certain periods, and increases the complexity of the system if HNS is a non-native token.

2. Decentralization The other critical consideration is decentralization. Remember, the goal here is to achieve a truly decentralized, uncensorable namespace independent of centralized control and policies. Anything less than will be completely redundant.

Ethereum is the most decentralized smart contract platform of date, but it’s still insufficient as a base layer blockchain for a truly decentralized naming system. A system based on Ethereum either would have to be strictly immutable or engineer a governance mechanism with a single or multiple signers. For example, the ENS system on Ethereum has a 7-part multisig making it either censorable and shutting it off to any future innovations or upgrades. These mechanisms either risk shutting off future innovations or don’t meet the decentralized requirement.

How about sidechains? Sidechains mostly rely on the main chain’s security, which makes them completely subject to the same concerns above in terms of sharing priorities with the main chain. In addition, there is currently no such thing as a decentralized side-chain on Bitcoin. Counterparty is a one-way system, Liquid requires a small federated multisig, and Rootstock is currently federated waiting on Drivechain support from Bitcoin.

For all of PoW’s issues, namely with the limited number of miners, it is built on competition which is inherently decentralized as well as clear separation of concerns between developers, users, and miners. This is in contrast to PoS which encourages stakeholders to collude and centralize, creating a largely plutocratic environment.

As such, true naming decentralization with the ability to upgrade is likely best achieved on a standalone PoW chain with robust hash power, a strong ecosystem, and miner confidence in the value of the blockchain.

3. Ease of Trustless Resolution Compared to other naming blockchains, _the entire Handshake stack is engineered for the use case of creating a human readable, truly decentralized, fully accessible and secure namespace. _

The naming data in Handshake is stored in a novel data structure called an Urkel Tree, which was designed specifically for this purpose. The proofs are small and verify quickly, allowing name resolution to happen with very little computation.

Secondly, a highly unique application called HNSD written in C only handles the DNS functions of Handshake (avoiding any primitives related to currency). It is designed to be as fast as possible and as lightweight as possible. Written in C, it can be compiled on every computer system in use today. HNSD verifies compact proofs, which cryptographically ensure that a DNS record is on the Handshake blockchain, and in the chain with the most accumulated proof-of-work.

The light resolver means anyone can use Handshake with minimal effort. The efficiency provided by the compact Urkel proofs means that Handshake resolution can be executed on the most minimal of devices.

As a result, Handshake is the only naming system that allows anyone with any level of resources to access the namespace without the need for any centralized components, and without any level of security tradeoffs. Depending on their preferences, a user or application can resolve names by running a full node, a HNSD client, or a third-party resolver. In many ways, this spectrum of accessibility is the gold standard for a trustless naming resolution system.

4. Compatible with the Rest of the Internet HNS works with the entire DNS stack in all the key ways - technical, resolution and for new systems, without being hampered by the political, economic and technical burdens of DNS

Handshake doesn’t replace the ICANN root zone, it extends it. When queried for a name, the Handshake resolver checks the blockchain for the TLD first. If it does not find it there, it then “falls back” to ICANN’s DNS system. A user running Handshake can browse the entire internet just like they always have, but now they can also resolve names rooted in the blockchain.

After the root zone, there is no difference between DNS resolution on Handshake or the legacy system. Resolvers follow the chain of domains and sub-domains indicated by a URL and connect with authoritative nameservers around the world running the same software they always have.

5. Stability and Upgradability at the Protocol Level Handshake allows up to 512 bytes of anything to be inserted in the Urkel tree for a name. Currently, all Handshake software is configured to only allow read/write of format-compliant DNS records, but it is trivial to write software that uses the data available for other purposes.

In addition, PoW is the most robust mechanism we know of today to provide infrastructural level stability while having a clear upgrade path.

As for governance, the most interesting thing philosophically about HNS is the experimentation of a kingless construct. There is no leader, no foundation, and no core team post launch. Handshake follows the same upgrade path as Bitcoin via soft forking and offchain social coordination, which is proven to be the most resilient mechanism for governance.

Alternative approaches like PoS governance are still in early stages and haven’t withstood the test of time. The ENS approach is even more vulnerable, where a group of multisig key holders, no matter how reputable, will control the governance and upgrade of the backbone infrastructure of the decentralized web.

Handshake and Bitcoin are two truly decentralized projects without kings, and the crypto space should be about exploring alternative coordination mechanisms. We will cover this topic in a later essay.

Handshake: Extending the Internet The idea of centralized systems controlling names is fundamentally incompatible with the decentralized web, which needs to be independent of any centralized ingredients.

Without a widely resolvable and recognized naming system, the decentralized web, and everything on it (decentralized servers, decentralized filespaces) will be invisible, and therefore, does not exist to wide swathes of the mainstream world.

HNS is the only namespace designed to withstand the length of time, infinitely extensible use cases and maintains the complete spectrum of convenience/decentralization tradeoffs.

It will of course take a while to get to the widespread adoption needed, but that curve of legitimacy is not dissimilar to the curves of validation that Bitcoin had to take before being recognized as a legitimate store of value and one of the prime contenders for value alongside gold and USD.

By making the decentralized web just as accessible as the centralized ones, HNS looks to extend the internet beyond its current borders. If you are interested to be part of this movement, we strongly encourage you to become part of the ecosystem - join the groups, get some HNS, secure a name.

Most of all, participate in the community by providing code, ideas, or just good vibes. It’s early days yet for Handshake, the decentralized web, and most of all, what it means for all of us to exist, collaborate and coordinate on the Internet.

We believe in a world where every internet user have an truly decentralised name that they have absolute freedom to do whatever they want with it, secure in the knowledge that the name truly belongs to them. And we believe that Handshake will be the system to host this all-important namespace. Would be great to have you along for the ride.

Thanks to Kartik Talwar, Ali Yahya, Chris Dixon, Qiao Wang, Linda Xie, Chjango, Dan Tsui, Shawn O’Connor, Mike Youseefmir, Ari Paul, Tamara Frankel, Andreas Brekken, Steven Mckie, Dan Elitzer, Eric Meltzer, Xinshu Dong, Jocy Lin and Zhuling Chen for reviewing this post and providing many helpful comments and feedback.

Credit to Matthew Zipkin for assistance with much of the technical context.

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The DeFi lending protocol still has $3.4 million in outstanding bad debt.Bad debt came from malicious exploits from three years ago.DeFi lending protocol Inverse Finance, with more than $178 million in investor funds, has patched a $2.6 million bad debt hole in the project’s finances.

A bad debt happens when a loan position cannot be repaid because the collateral used to borrow funds has lost a lot of its value, which leaves the lender with a hole in their finances. It can happen due to malicious exploits that drain liquidity from lending pools or a massive market decline that causes the price of collateral tokens to plummet.

On Monday, Inverse Finance secured funds to service the bad debt by selling 104,000 of its native Inverse tokens to a cohort of DeFi investors. The token sale was for 25 Dola per Inverse token, to raise the $2.6 million required.

Dola is the protocol’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, while the Inverse token controls the protocol and absorbs financial risks. The latter is also the governance token for the DAO that controls the protocol.

Given the relationship between both tokens, the deal effectively means investors are betting that the Inverse token’s long-term growth potential can cover the bad debt liability, and the DAO proposal for the move did not hide this trade-off.

“This is our way of sending a message to everyone that Inverse DAO never abandons its users always repays its debts,” Nour Haridy, Inverse Finance founder, told DL News. Haridy called the repayment “an investment into the future.”

Hello! This chart will be available in a few moments

Inverse Finance TVLThe Inverse tokens acquired by the investors will be locked for six months. Inverse tokens traded for more than $43 on Monday, a 72% premium on the cost basis of the DeFi investors.

The bad debt traces back to malicious exploits on Inverse Finance lending markets that have since been deprecated. Those defunct lending markets suffered two malicious exploits in April and June 2022 that resulted in more than $24 million in losses.

A portion of the bad debt also comes from Euler Finance’s $200 million flash loan attack of March 2023. Euler has since recovered the hack and now holds more than $1 billion in investor assets, a 10-fold growth in 2025.

‘A moral obligation’Monday’s repayment whittles the protocol’s bad debt exposure to $3.4 million, which the DAO plans to cover by borrowing from 40acres.finance, another lending protocol.

Haridy said the protocol didn’t have a choice but to cover the bad debt.

“Dola would’ve collapsed due to the elevated bad debt levels back then and more people would lose their money,” Haridy said. “We had a moral obligation towards people who trusted Dola with their hard earned money and we chose to fulfill this obligation.”

The repayment also comes as the protocol reached $100 million in loans on its fixed-rate lending market platform FiRM, another sign of recovery for a protocol that has suffered multiple crises.

Osato Avan-Nomayo is our Nigeria-based DeFi correspondent. He covers DeFi and tech. Got a tip? Please contact him [email protected].

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%.

5 hours ago

Around $240K in losses occurred when sDOLA price manipulation triggered the liquidation of 27 users on LlamaLend. Inverse Finance confirmed that its own protocol was not affected. A recent suspicious transaction caused around $2,40,000 in losses, initially reports suggested Inverse Finance users were affected, but the losses were due to an sDOLA price manipulation that triggered multiple liquidations.

The incident was first reported by BlockSec Phalcon in its X platform on March 2. As it said,  “As it is unclear whether additional users may still be affected, we are withholding further technical details at this time. Please take immediate action if you are exposed.”

Then, after a few hours, CertiK Alert also confirmed the incident that an attacker exploited a around $30 million flash loan to manipulate the sDOLA balance on Inverse Finance, leading to incorrect collateral values. Which triggered the liquidation of 27 users’ DOLA-backed positions, allowing the exploiter to profit by about $240,000 in a single transaction.

False. Inverse Finance was NOT affected. It's simply an incident in an external protocol that uses DOLA token. Please correct this.

— nour (@NourHaridy) March 2, 2026 After hours of reports from BlockSec Phalcon, in response, Founder and developer of Inverse Finance,  Nour Haridy said, “False. Inverse Finance was NOT affected. It’s simply an incident in an external protocol that uses the DOLA token. Please correct this.”

In addition, YAM, a DeFi community of sharing insights, posted that this was not an attack against Inverse Finance, but an issue with LlamaLend. The attacker liquidated the majority of users who possessed sDOLA and borrowed crvUSD, temporarily adjusting the sDOLA pricing from about 1.188 to 1.358 per DOLA. 

Also, mentioned, “We don’t understand yet how this actually liquidated users. It’s clearly unintentional behaviour, the value of your collateral going up should move you further away from liquidation, not closer.”

Later, BlockSec Phalcon said, “Correction: After further investigation and discussion with@InverseFinance, we confirm that its contract was not affected by the attack.” It was a user loss on LlamaLend due to a flash loan exploiting a faulty oracle configuration in the sDOLA–crvUSD pool. 

With that, this is not the first time Inverse Finance has encountered issues with DOLA and its money-market platform, Frontier. In April 2022, Frontier was known as Anchor, and a hacker used a price oracle to steal $15.6 million. They increased the value of $INV tokens, allowing them to borrow against collateral while withdrawing ETH, WBTC, YFI, and DOLA.

Writer with roots in journalism and international relations, actively exploring blockchain and crypto, with curiosity for the field and a passion for simplifying complex ideas.

The AC Milan fan token, known as ACM Coin, offers AC Milan supporters the chance to influence club decisions through the Socios app and its services, embodying a tokenized asset.

What is the AC Milan Fan Token (ACM)?The AC Milan Fan Token (ACM) is a fan token that provides AC Milan supporters with exclusive content, services, and applications through Socios. The AC Milan Fan Coin assigns users a special membership role, offering the chance to compete for unique rewards, increased club visibility, and more. ACM Token holders can vote via smart contracts in various fan decision polls published by AC Milan, which is obliged to act on the contract outcomes. Owners of ACM Coin can enjoy features such as voting in polls, participating in contests, and interacting/chatting with other users on the Socios platform.

AC Milan Fan Token holders can earn certain rewards as long as they meet the requirements. These include match day tickets, special experiences, rebate offers from official store shops, app bonuses, digital badges, and exclusive NFTs for the club.

Where to Buy ACM Coin?ACM Coin can be securely bought and sold on Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume. Active trading pairs on Binance include ACM/USDT, ACM/BUSD, and ACM/BTC. As of the time this article was written, the AC Milan Fan Token is trading at approximately $12.20.

To purchase AC Milan Fan Coin, you need to register at the Binance exchange and then send fiat currency or cryptocurrency to your account wallet. Once you have sufficient balance, select one of the ACM/USDT, ACM/BUSD, or ACM/BTC pairs, specify the amount you wish to buy, and then proceed with the purchase.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.

Crypto Analyst Sees 1,200% Potential in ACM Token Surge

Sujha Sundararajan

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Jun 2023

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Sujha has been recognised as 🟣 Women In Crypto 2024 🟣 by BeInCrypto for her leadership in crypto journalism.

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August 12, 2025

Clearpool, a decentralized capital markets ecosystem, has partnered with on-chain credit risk management company Cicada in a move to institutionalize PayFi lending with improved risk management.

In an announcement shared with Cryptonews on Monday, the partnership will boost Clearpool’s credibility and risk management in PayFi lending. Cicada will structure and underwrite PayFi lending opportunities and serve as the administrative agent for select Credit Pools.

Cicada has underwritten more than $850m in loans at a 1.2% default rate during the prior cycle.

🤝 Clearpool has partnered with Cicada to institutionalize PayFi lending with risk-managed Credit Pools

Cicada is an on-chain credit risk management company founded by a seasoned team of former buy- and sell-side credit professionals. Cicada’s co-founders have deep crypto… pic.twitter.com/JY79tNCVqE

— Clearpool (@ClearpoolFin) August 11, 2025 Clearpool’s partnership with Cicada could shake up the lending space, bringing more institutional players into the DeFi fold.

Clearpool Expands to Payment Financing or PayFiAccording to Jakob Kronbichler, CEO of Clearpool, Cicada’s risk management integration would strengthen Clearpool’s institutional infrastructure for PayFi lending.

“While stablecoin settlements are instant, underlying fiat flows are not, forcing fintechs to bridge liquidity gaps,” he said. “This partnership enhances our proven credit framework and supports the growth of the emerging trillion-dollar stablecoin payment ecosystem.”

Clearpool will be launching PayFi Credit Pools for users to access these highly liquid, real-world yield opportunities. This means facilitating credit to institutional lenders specializing in short-term stablecoin-based working capital to fintech operators.

It will also launch cpUSD, a permissionless, yield-bearing asset, which will enable retail to tap into real-world stablecoin payments.

Cicada offers Risk-as-a-Service (RaaS) Solutions to DeFi Protocols On the other hand, Cicada offers Risk-as-a-Service (RaaS) solutions, including third-party underwriting, pool management for DeFi protocols and risk structuring.

“Partnering with Clearpool allows us to elevate PayFi lending by combining our underwriting and risk management expertise with their innovative credit products,” said Sefton Kincaid, Managing Partner of Cicada Partners.

The partnership will accelerate the adoption of PayFi by laying the groundwork for more safer, transparent and scalable stablecoin ecosystem.

“Together, we’re advancing professionally managed Credit Pools and strengthening Clearpool’s offering to borrowers and lenders in the growing stablecoin economy,” Kincaid added.

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Clearpool has announced its groundbreaking collaboration with Plasma, marking a significant step forward in redefining the landscape of global payments. This partnership aims to empower Plasma’s mainnet by building a flagship yield-bearing stablecoin, cpUSD. With this, the platform is set to pave the way for a scalable and credit-backed stablecoin liquidity among both emerging and developed markets.

Clearpool 🤝 @PlasmaFDN: Two Forces, One Vision

Clearpool is launching cpUSD on Plasma.

Our flagship yield-bearing asset is powered by PayFi Vaults, which finance short-term credit for stablecoin-settled payments from remittances to card processors.

This partnership scales… pic.twitter.com/LpsZ6rVed7

— Clearpool (@ClearpoolFin) September 24, 2025 Clearpool, a decentralized marketplace for unsecured liquidity, has announced the news through its official X account. The other partner, Plasma, is a purpose-built blockchain for stablecoin transactions.

Clearpool and Plasma to Bridge cpUSD with Plasma’s Payment Infrastructure With this partnership, Clearpool and Plasma are poised to expand their shared vision while laying the foundations for DeFi integrations. They both aim to scale stablecoin-powered liquidity to advance global payments. Clearpool’s cpUSD is powered by PayFi Vaults, offering yield-bearing opportunities to fulfill the short-term financial credit needs of institutional lenders, including remittances and card processors. These credit channels are infused with Plasma to execute a chain that is especially created for payment efficiency and scale.

Plasma is supported by Founders Fund, Bitfinex, and Framework Ventures. At the time of launch, the network boasted more than $2 billion in stablecoin TVL. Plasma offers zero-fee USDT transfers, complete EVM compatibility, and partnerships with major DeFi protocols such as Aave and Euler.

With this, the platform strives to cement its position as a cornerstone for the stablecoin ecosystem. In this way, Plasma becomes the ideal home for Clearpool’s cpUSD. Through this integration, the platform is set to expand its utility for trading, lending, settlement, and collateralized DeFi applications.

Clearpool’s cpUSD is built to maximize utility along with stability, allocating 75% PayFi Vaults and 25% to liquid yield-bearing stablecoins for redemption flexibility. Plasma’s mission perfectly aligns with this structure, skimming high-volume stablecoin flows. Clearpool, by combining efforts with Plasma, aims to foster a vision for stablecoins to go beyond speculative use cases.

The CEO and Co-founder of Clearpool, Jakob Kronbichler, states that, “Plasma is creating the payments infrastructure that stablecoins have always needed.”  Paul Faecks, the counterpart at Plasma, echoed the statement by saying, “By bringing cpUSD to Plasma, we’re ensuring that fintechs can access credit at scale on a chain built for their core use cases.”

The two platforms are poised to unite Clearpool’s credit solutions with Plasma’s payment infrastructure. With this, both strive to pave the way for the next level of stablecoin adoption. There, the stablecoins can move the world, not just a market.

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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.

Clearpool, a DeFi protocol focused on embedding credit infrastructure into stablecoin payments, secured $400,000 in XPL funding from Plasma, a blockchain network designed for stablecoin liquidity and global money movement.

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The funding uses XPL, the native token of the Plasma network used for incentives and ecosystem growth, to support Clearpool’s expansion of PayFi, a credit layer concept that provides short-term financing for stablecoin-settled payments like remittances and merchant flows.

Clearpool partnered with Plasma to launch cpUSD, Clearpool’s permissionless yield-bearing stablecoin backed by PayFi credit vaults, and PayFi Vaults on the recently launched Plasma mainnet beta.

Plasma’s mainnet launch positions it as infrastructure for stablecoin velocity, with Clearpool integrating to provide credit rails for emerging payment ecosystems.

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

Upbit to List Clearpool (CPOOL) and Open Trading Pairs for KRW, BTC, and USDT

Bithumb Lists Clearpool (CPOOL) KRW Trading Pair

Clearpool (CPOOL) price surges more than 70%, trading above $0.173 at the time of writing on Wednesday. This rally follows the confirmation of Upbit, South Korea’s largest crypto exchange, for the CPOOL listing. The rally pushes CPOOL’s market cap above $136 million, overtaking rivals like PNUT and ZIG, while technicals suggest further upside toward the $0.217 target.

Clearpool, a decentralized capital markets ecosystem that enables institutional borrowers to access unsecured loans directly from the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem, rallies by more than 70% on Wednesday. The main reason for this price surge is that Upbit, a crypto exchange, announced it would list CPOOL with trading pairs against KRW and USDT.

This news is triggering a massive surge in CPOOL price as a centralized exchange listing typically signals increased liquidity, accessibility, and investor confidence in the token.

CoinGecko data shows that Clearpool’s market capitalization reaches over $136 million on Wednesday, surpassing other popular altcoins such as ZIGChain (ZIG) and Peanut the Squirrel (PNUT), securing the 410th spot in the overall crypto market capitalization table.

Clearpool Price Forecast: CPOOL bulls aiming for $0.217 markClearpool price is breaking above a descending trendline (drawn by connecting multiple highs since mid-August) on Wednesday and rallies nearly 73%, trading around $0.173 as of writing.

If CPOOL continues its upward momentum, it could extend the gains toward the August 14 high of $0.217.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) on the daily chart reads 69, pointing upward, indicating strong bullish momentum. Additionally, the Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) shows a bullish crossover, giving a buy signal and indicating an upward trend.

CPOOL/USDT daily chart 

On the other hand, if CPOOL faces a correction, it could extend the decline to retest the 50-day Exponential Moving Average (EMA) at $0.129.

Clearpool (CPOOL) Breaks 2-Month High After Dual Listing on Upbit and Bithumb