XRP surged 7.7% on September 18, rallying from about $1.30 to $1.40 and briefly touching $1.41 after Bitwise Asset Management submitted a fresh filing connected to its XRP ETF with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Despite widespread attention, the new paperwork did not mark the regulatory approval of a brand new exchange-traded fund. Bitwise, a well-known digital asset manager, provided a Post-Effective Amendment No. 2 for its already active Bitwise XRP ETF. The SEC’s public filing described the update as a preliminary prospectus dated September 18 and made clear the product’s documents are still “subject to completion.”
A crucial detail noted by market observers is that Bitwise’s filing pertained to an existing product, rather than an application for the first XRP ETF by the company. Some sources emphasized that headlines announcing Bitwise was “filing for an XRP ETF” failed to accurately capture the true scope of the event.
XRP’s gain on September 18 followed Bitwise’s update to a current XRP ETF, not a completely new application, according to details from the official SEC documents and historical fund records.
Details about the Bitwise XRP ETFAccording to the filing, the Bitwise XRP ETF trades on the NYSE Arca under the ticker XRP. The fund’s stated goal is to provide investors with exposure to XRP held by the trust. Accounting consents within the document reference financial statements dating back to November 19, 2025, confirming that the fund was already operating before the recent amendment.
Bitwise Asset Management is a San Francisco-based firm specializing in crypto index funds and exchange-traded products, aiming to deliver digital asset exposure to institutional and retail investors.
Mini dictionary: NYSE Arca, a US-based electronic securities exchange known for listing stocks, options, and a wide range of exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
XRP price movement and ETF inflowsMarket history shows XRP opened the day near $1.30, hit an intraday high around $1.41, and closed at about $1.40, recording a 7.69% gain. This rally came in the middle of a volatile period for the asset. Three days prior, XRP had slipped to $1.28 after trading above $1.42, before mounting a recovery that gained speed on September 18. By September 21, XRP reached approximately $1.53.
Meanwhile, US XRP ETF products had already gathered about $1.7 billion in historical net inflows as of September 17, despite XRP trading well below its all-time peak. Research group Coinpaper recently highlighted this divergence between robust ETF demand and XRP’s subdued price levels.
Nik Bougalis se po téměř dvou letech vrací k aktivnímu vývoji zdrojového kódu XRP Ledgeru a podal návrh, který má zvýšit bezpečnost i výkon jádra sítě. Ripple to označuje za klíčový krok pro další technický posun XRPL.
Cryptographer Nik Bougalis, widely recognized for his pivotal contributions to the XRP Ledger, has rejoined active development on the project’s source code after an absence of nearly two years.
Ripple leadership welcomes Bougalis’s comebackRipple‘s engineering community showed strong support for Bougalis’s return. David Schwartz, who previously held the position of CTO at Ripple, expressed his appreciation on X after learning that Bougalis would once again contribute to the XRP Ledger. Schwartz had once suggested that the opportunity to collaborate with Bougalis might be the only reason he would consider coming back to coding.
H. Ayo Akinyele, head of engineering at RippleX, also acknowledged that Bougalis’s expertise was essential for tackling upcoming technological challenges.
RippleX’s head of engineering described Bougalis as a key figure in addressing next-generation technology initiatives as the industry advances.
Technical focus: Security and performance improvementsBougalis marked his official comeback by submitting pull request PR #8300 to the XRPLF/rippled repository under the name “I’m back, baby.” This submission is not merely symbolic; it introduces significant technical upgrades targeting some of the ledger’s foundational components.
Highlights of his proposed changes include refactoring the BaseUInt data type to utilize 64-bit elements when the platform architecture permits, and the removal of potentially hazardous raw pointers and unchecked runtime constructors. The main objective is to enhance the code’s safety at compile time, ultimately protecting the network against failures during periods of heavy use.
Bougalis’s changes are designed to improve security and optimize system performance by directly addressing vulnerabilities in the ledger’s core code.
Bougalis, eighth to join Ripple in its early years and inventor of several key cryptographic patents, stepped away from the project in 2022 and later served as CTO at the Algorand Foundation in 2025. His return to XRPL occurs as the broader blockchain landscape faces significant structural transformations.
XRPL adapts to ongoing industry shiftsThe XRP Ledger is now preparing for further integration of real-world assets (RWA), while also adapting to evolving U.S. regulatory requirements. Bougalis’s deep technical background and reputation for setting industry standards in secure protocol design highlights Ripple’s ongoing commitment to robust engineering.
Alongside these core advancements, monitoring market trends and new token launches remains crucial for developers and investors. For instance, the meme token market frequently witnesses internet trends turning into substantial capital flows. Recent data from Fomo App highlights a notable case where an initial $99 purchase of “Niu Lai” transformed into about $370,000. This example illustrates the value of not just tracking prices, but also understanding investor timing and token selection. Fomo App responds to these needs by combining token discovery, live trading features, social feeds, investor leaderboards, and real-time notifications for a comprehensive user experience.
The partnership between veteran developers and new market tools signals a period of innovation and renewed focus for the XRPL ecosystem, with technical and community-driven growth on the horizon.
Velcí držitelé během pěti dnů nakoupili přes 470 milionů XRP v hodnotě asi 724 milionů USD. XRP zároveň těžilo z přílivu 22,65 milionu USD do spotových ETF v USA.
Key Takeaways XRP climbed to a range between $1.54 and $1.58, registering approximately 10% gains across the week as Bitcoin maintained levels above $84,000 and Ethereum hovered around $2,680. Following the Senate’s failure to pass the CLARITY Act, SEC staff released non-binding guidance addressing token buybacks, staking mechanisms, and protocol upgrades. Spot XRP exchange-traded funds in the United States attracted $22.65 million in net capital on September 25, with Bitwise’s offering capturing $18.39 million. Total net inflows into XRP ETF products have accumulated to $1.79 billion, while aggregate net assets stand at $1.77 billion. Technical resistance is positioned at $1.60 for XRP, while downside support remains intact around the $1.50 level based on four-hour chart analysis. XRP maintained trading activity in the $1.56 to $1.58 zone throughout the week, marking an approximate 10% increase compared to levels observed seven days prior. This upward movement aligned with a wider cryptocurrency market rebound, as Bitcoin sustained positions above the $84,000 threshold and Ethereum exchanged hands near $2,680.
XRP Price The price advance materialized following developments on the regulatory front. Earlier this month, the Senate declined to move forward with the CLARITY Act, resulting in the postponement of proposed cryptocurrency market regulations.
SEC staff released informal guidance on September 25 addressing topics including token repurchase programs, staking derivatives, network maintenance operations, and marketing communications. This guidance represents staff opinion without formal legal authority and does not provide direct classification of XRP.
Breakdown of SEC Staff Position According to the staff statement, repurchase programs involving tokens that are not securities on operational networks do not inherently indicate promised managerial contributions. Additionally, certain staking derivatives may be categorized as digital commodities instead of securities, contingent upon their issuance structure.
Standard protocol improvements and promotion of current network functionality may not fall within investment contract frameworks under this new staff position. Market analyst Crypto Rover highlighted the development on social platforms, noting that liquid staking instruments are receiving treatment as digital commodities rather than securities, and that token buybacks on operational protocols are not being interpreted as management-driven activities.
Prediction platform Kalshi positioned its September price projection for XRP at $1.70, representing a $0.10 increase from its previous estimate. The platform maintains an additional contract monitoring whether XRP surpasses $1.70 before September 30.
Exchange-Traded Fund Capital Flows According to data from SoSoValue, United States spot XRP exchange-traded funds registered $22.65 million in net capital inflows on September 25. Bitwise’s product dominated with $18.39 million, comprising roughly 81% of the day’s aggregate inflows.
Franklin Templeton’s XRPZ product contributed an additional $4.26 million. The remaining three listed investment vehicles reported zero net activity for that trading session.
These capital additions elevated total cumulative net inflows to $1.79 billion. Aggregate net assets across all products reached $1.77 billion, representing approximately 1.80% of XRP’s overall market capitalization.
Transaction volume across the five investment products totaled $57.75 million, with Bitwise responsible for $37.07 million of that figure. The previous day, September 24, witnessed $14.89 million in combined inflows following $23.17 million recorded on September 23.
As of September 23, Bitwise’s product held 401.42 million XRP tokens, reflecting an increase of 14.18 million tokens over a two-day period. According to the fund’s official documentation, this position carried a value of approximately $613.89 million.
Market analyst Ali Charts highlighted accumulation patterns among major holders, observing that whale addresses acquired over 470 million XRP across five days—approximately $724 million in value—while a reverse head-and-shoulders formation continues developing on the daily price chart.
XRP briefly reached $1.60 during the week before retreating to $1.5535 by 08:41 UTC on Saturday. Four-hour chart analysis reveals resistance positioned at $1.60, a threshold that has prevented additional upward movement across several recent attempts.
A confirmed close above the $1.60 level could establish momentum toward $1.65 initially, followed by $1.70. Support remains established near $1.50, a price point that provided stability following the September 23 trading session.
A break below $1.50 could potentially expose the $1.45 zone. The four-hour Relative Strength Index currently registers at 52, marginally above the neutral 50 threshold, while the MACD indicator remains below its signal line, suggesting diminishing near-term momentum.
XRP v červenci 2025 vystřelilo na nové historické maximum 3,65 USD po dohodě Ripple se SEC, která ukončila letitou právní nejistotu. Další růst má podpořit zájem o spotové ETF.
XRP soared to a new all-time high of $3.65 in July 2025, marking its strongest price performance in more than seven years. The digital asset surpassed its previous peak, fueled by the positive outcome of the regulatory battle between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
SEC settlement boosts regulatory clarityRipple, a San Francisco-based blockchain payments company, reached a settlement with the SEC in 2025, resolving a lawsuit filed in 2020 over alleged securities violations related to XRP sales. The agreement ended years of legal uncertainty that had cast a shadow over XRP’s status in the US, clearing the path for broader adoption.
The settlement provided significant regulatory clarity for XRP and renewed confidence among investors. Following the resolution, trading volumes spiked and market sentiment turned strongly bullish, reflected in the asset’s sharp price appreciation.
XRP broke past its seven-year all-time high, climbing to $3.65 after the settlement, and investor enthusiasm surged with expectations of continued growth as regulatory barriers diminished.
Mini dictionary: Ripple, a technology company best known for the RippleNet payment network, uses XRP as its bridge currency for fast, low-cost cross-border transactions.
Spot ETFs drive institutional interestThe launch of several XRP spot Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) played a pivotal role in XRP’s rapid price increase. ETFs have gained prominence in the cryptocurrency sector by providing institutional investors access to digital assets without the need to hold the underlying tokens directly.
Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) reached new record highs in 2025, a trend widely attributed to increased ETF inflows that brought greater capital from the traditional financial sector. Market participants now expect XRP to experience a similar effect as ETF inflows accelerate.
As broader market conditions improve, analysts anticipate that institutional demand for XRP via ETFs could rise sharply. Such inflows could provide the foundation for sustained price growth.
Once ETF inflows into XRP gather pace, many expect a significant price rally, mirroring patterns seen with Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Analysts eye $10 target amid Bitcoin forecastsSome market analysts have begun speculating on XRP’s potential to reach $10, arguing that this target could be more attainable as momentum builds. Observers point to similarities between XRP’s price structure and Bitcoin’s four-year cycle, where BTC has historically achieved new highs every four years—most recently in 2021 and 2025.
Projections for Bitcoin’s next peak in 2029, with some forecasters setting targets as high as $500,000, have amplified bullish sentiment for other major cryptocurrencies. A continued BTC rally, particularly if ETF-driven, could increase capital rotation into XRP and help propel it to new levels ahead of the next cycle peak.
Some analysts believe that if the anticipated market uptrend develops as expected, XRP could begin its next rally as early as late 2026 or early 2027, rather than waiting until 2029 for a new record.
Asset2025 ATHETF ImpactPotential 2029 TargetBitcoin (BTC)$145,000Strong upward momentum$500,000Ethereum (ETH)$8,600Significant increaseUnknownXRP$3.65Awaiting major inflows$10 (analyst target)Overall, XRP’s 2025 breakout and broader adoption through ETFs have positioned it as a key asset to watch in the coming years as market speculation swirls around future price milestones.
PANews reported on September 26, citing CoinDesk, that the Bitget hacker has moved roughly $83 million worth of XRP from three stolen XRP-holding addresses. Of the approximately 103 million XRP originally stolen, about $75 million remains spread across five initial receiving addresses. On-chain data shows that two of the addresses, which each originally held 20 million XRP, have been nearly emptied, with only about 23 and 55 XRP respectively remaining as of 12:41 UTC on Saturday, while the third address's balance has dropped to roughly 5.8 million XRP.
Because XRP is the native asset of the XRP Ledger, Ripple cannot directly freeze the stolen XRP the way it can freeze issuer tokens such as USDC and USDT. Recovering the funds depends in part on where the hacker moves them next; if they enter an exchange, the exchange can restrict the relevant accounts and withdrawals, but it cannot directly freeze XRP held in the hacker's own wallets. Around 54 million XRP has now left the initial five addresses, and the funds are being further dispersed across more wallets, though it is not yet possible to determine how much of it has been sold.
Earlier, Circle and Tether froze roughly $320,000 worth of USDC and USDT linked to the attack. On Friday, Bitget raised its estimate of the attack's losses to about $387.5 million, saying the additional figure includes Zcash and TRON transfers that were previously omitted from its tally, rather than a second attack. Bitget also said its protection fund will cover the losses and that user balances will not be affected, with withdrawals of BTC, ETH, USDT and other tokens expected to resume on September 28, September 29, September 30 and October 2, respectively.
Blacklight node operations are upgraded from Nillion L2 to Ethereum L1.
As Dusk moves towards mainnet, Blacklight L2 will become the legacy network and be retired. Blacklight L1 will run directly on Ethereum, with node operators taking on a new role in how Covenants are resolved.
Both independent and managed node participants can begin migrating from September 26, ahead of the Blacklight L1 mainnet launch. The steps are largely the same, with managed participants moving through the managed-nodes app instead of registering a node themselves.
In this post, we’ll cover:
What Blacklight L1 nodes do
What’s changing for node operators
How independent operators migrate
How managed node operators migrate
What happens to rewards during migration
Key dates
Getting started on Blacklight L1
What Blacklight L1 Nodes Do Blacklight L1 gives node operators a different role from Blacklight L2.
Blacklight L1 nodes help Covenants stay sealed until the condition attached to them is met.
When a Covenant is created, its payload is split into encrypted shares and distributed across a committee of nodes. Each node holds one share, so no single operator can reconstruct the original payload on its own.
The nodes then watch for the condition tied to that Covenant. Once it is met, they publish their shares onchain. When enough shares are available, the payload can be reconstructed and verified on Ethereum before any downstream action happens.
What’s Changing The move to L1 changes a few things for Blacklight node operators, while some of the core requirements stay the same.
The minimum required stake for Blacklight L1 operators remains 70,000 NIL.
Rewards on L1 will come from 0.5% annual inflation, alongside trigger fees earned by node operators. Operators will also need ETH to cover gas when running a node on Ethereum.
Mainnet nodes will need to be registered fresh on L1, meaning existing Sepolia testnet registrations will not carry over. The expected setup remains similar to testnet: an always-on machine or VPS, Docker, an archive Ethereum RPC, an owner wallet, and an operator address funded with ETH.
How to Migrate: Independent Node Operators Independent operators should keep their current L2 node running until they’re ready to migrate. From there, the move happens in a few steps:
1. Claim your L2 rewards Claim any rewards you’ve earned on Blacklight L2 before you begin unstaking.
2. Unstake from L2 Unstake your NIL from L2 and wait for an hour for the unbonding period to complete.
3. Withdraw your NIL + ETH After unbonding, withdraw your NIL first and finally your ETH (leave this last as you need it for gas fees on all the previous txs)
4. Bridge your NIL + ETH to Ethereum Bridge them back to Ethereum using the Nillion Bridge.This is expected to take around nine days and is linked to your wallet so you can reconnect later to check the progress.
5. Register your L1 mainnet node Once the mainnet is live on October 5th, register a fresh L1 mainnet node on the Blacklight L1 webapp. Sepolia registrations will not carry over to mainnet.
6. Stake 70,000 NIL on L1 The minimum required stake remains 70,000 NIL on Blacklight L1.
7. Fund your operator address with ETH Your operator address will need ETH to cover gas on Ethereum. We recommend funding it with around 0.01 ETH.
How to Migrate: Managed Node Operators If you currently participate in Blacklight through a Managed Blacklight Node, you can move on the same timetable as independent operators, starting today, September 26.
The flow is simpler: Head over to the L2 managed-nodes app and connect your wallet. Then unstake, withdraw your NIL, and finally head over to the Nillion Bridge and bridge it to Ethereum (bridging from the L2 -> L1 takes around 9 days).
On October 5th, stake on L1 through the Blacklight L1 managed nodes webapp instead of registering a node yourself.
Rewards During Migration While your NIL is moving from L2 to L1, it won’t be earning rewards.
The move takes around nine days, most of it spent bridging to Ethereum. Plan to start with enough lead time for your NIL to reach L1 before mainnet goes live and L1 rewards begin.
Any rewards you’ve already earned on L2 will still be there after L2 rewards stop. They’ll remain claimable until Blacklight L2 halts later this year.
We’ll share separate guidance for any funds remaining on L2 ahead of the network halt.
Key Dates Node operator migration begins: 26th Sep
This is when node operators should begin the L2 to L1 migration process. You can migrate anytime between 26th September till 5th October.
Blacklight L1 mainnet: Oct 5
L1 node operations and L1 rewards begin around the mainnet launch.
Blacklight L2 halt: later this year
Rewards already earned on L2 will remain claimable until the network is halted.
Getting Started on Blacklight L1 If you’re not already running a Blacklight node, you can start testing Blacklight L1 on Sepolia now.
The current setup requires an always-on machine, Docker, an archive Sepolia RPC, testnet NIL, and Sepolia ETH for gas.
Mainnet nodes will require a fresh registration and a 70,000 NIL stake, with ETH needed to cover gas. Operators will earn through 0.5% annual inflation and trigger fees.
Run a testnet node now and check out the full guide to walk through setup step by step.
Binance investovala 100 milionů USD do Circle a uzavřela pětiletou dohodu o podpoře a integraci USDC. Analytici říkají, že to může posílit USDC v závodě se stablecoinem Tether.
Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Circle (CoinDesk)Summary
Binance's $100 million stake and tie-up gives Circle a powerful distribution channel in markets where USDT is deeply entrenched, analysts said.USDC trading on Binance has already surged since the companies first partnered in 2024, Kaiko data shows.Tether still benefits from deeper local liquidity and long-standing user habits, limiting how quickly market share could shift, CEO of market maker Gravity Labs noted.Circle’s expanded deal with Binance could give USDC USDC$0.9998 more traction in emerging markets and global trading, analysts said, while putting some additional pressure on Tether’s long-held lead in the dollar-denominated stablecoin race.
Binance invested $100 million in Circle CRCL$87.37·Market Closed shares and signed a new five-year commercial agreement to promote and integrate USDC across its platform. The arrangement gives Binance a direct stake in Circle’s growth while giving Circle wider distribution through one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges.
“This optimizes the relationship and further aligns Binance's interests with Circle's, echoing Circle-Coinbase's distributor-shareholder model,” Clear Street analyst Owen Lau told CoinDesk.
Binance has already become a major USDC venueThe companies’ first partnership, announced in December 2024, has already changed how USDC trades on Binance.
The exchange offered 140 USDC-quoted spot markets when the partnership began. It now has 329, according to Kaiko. That compares with a much slower increase from 39 markets in 2021 to 140 by late 2024.
Trading pairs quoted in USDC on Binance (Kaiko)Monthly USDC trading volume on Binance has also roughly doubled, rising from the $20 billion-$40 billion range before the partnership to consistently above $80 billion.
“Throughout 2026, Binance has consistently captured the largest share of USDC spot trading activity, processing $5 million-$10 billion in daily volume, roughly 10-20 times more than most other trading venues, which typically stay below $0.5 billion,” said Anastasia Melachrinos, head of research at Kaiko.
Other major exchanges have remained broadly within their previous USDC trading ranges, according to Kaiko, suggesting Binance itself has driven much of the increase.
“As Binance accelerates USDC's reach in emerging markets, that dominance is likely to grow even further,” Melachrinos said.
More pressure on TetherUSDC has a market capitalization of about $74 billion, making it the second-largest U.S. dollar stablecoin behind Tether’s roughly $140 billion USDT.
“There is a clear incentive on both sides to grow USDC through Binance’s user base and infrastructure,” said Martins Benkitis, co-founder and CEO of Gravity Team.
Circle has also been building beyond stablecoin issuance. Its Circle Payments Network is designed to connect financial institutions for stablecoin payments, while its recently announced $400 million acquisition of Singapore-based Tazapay would add local banking relationships and payment rails across emerging markets.
The strategy comes as stablecoin competition broadens beyond Circle and Tether. Banks and payment companies including Visa, Mastercard and Stripe have been pushing further into stablecoin payments and infrastructure.
Circle also has a close commercial relationship with Coinbase, which distributes USDC and shares in its economics. Lau said the Binance agreement does not give Circle additional leverage over Coinbase, noting that Circle recently renewed that partnership.
Binance can put USDC in front of more users, but Tether’s long-established trading and payment network will make market share difficult to shift quickly.
“That puts more pressure on USDT, particularly in global trading and emerging markets, where it has built a very strong position over many years,” Benkitis said. “But distribution alone won’t change that overnight. USDT has deep trading pairs, local liquidity and, importantly, people are already used to using it.”
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12345678910The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific
The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Sep 15, 2026
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Why it matters:
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Genius Foundation schválila rozdělení zhruba 125 000 USD v BNB: polovina půjde na nákup GSTOCK a polovina na GENIUS. Peníze pocházejí z poplatků z launch platformy Genius.fun.
Ryan Myher, co-founder of Genius Terminal, announced the voting result on the allocation of approximately $125,000 worth of BNB held by the Genius Foundation that cannot be unwrapped (referring to unbundling and redeeming for underlying stocks): 50% will be used to purchase GSTOCK, and 50% will be allocated to buy GENIUS. The funds stem from accumulated fees from the Genius.fun launch platform that flowed into the foundation’s treasury. The foundation stated it will execute the plan per the voting outcome and announce updates on X after completion. According to GMGN data, the platform’s native token GENIUS currently has a market capitalization of $345 million. GSTOCK’s market cap has surpassed $24 million, with a 24-hour price increase of 24.2% and trading volume of $8.4 million. The GSTOCK token is paired with BNCB, the on-chain token of BNB treasury firm BNC, as its liquidity pool base. BlockBeats reminds users that related tokens are highly volatile, so investors should exercise caution.
Cosmos Hub po téměř 25 hodinách zastavení obnovil provoz a přesunul 1 227 121 ATOM z adresy spojené s útočníkem do záchranné úschovy. Síť uvedla, že nebyla prolomena.
26 September 2026 | 11:26 Cosmos Hub resumed after an almost 25-hour halt with 1,227,121 ATOM moved from an attacker-linked address into recovery custody. The action may help Neutron victims, while showing that blockchain finality depends on more than a transaction reaching the chain.
The Cosmos Hub’s incident update says its network was not exploited. Stolen assets arrived from Neutron via IBC; Hub validators then paused their own chain and restarted it with a limited change affecting one account.
Cosmos recovery: the record
Network actionBlock production stopped, then resumed on Gaia v28.3.0.
State change1,227,121 ATOM moved from one account to recovery custody.
Recovery custodyA named 4-of-6 multisig holds the secured ATOM.
Important limitA later THORChain refund fell outside the first sweep.
Three powers people confuse in a blockchain emergency A blockchain can halt block production when enough validators stop signing transactions, pausing normal network activity.
1. Stopping block production Validators produce and confirm new blocks. On Cosmos Hub, the CometBFT consensus engine records blocks with agreement from at least two-thirds of validator voting power. When enough operators stop signing, ordinary transfers and other changes cannot settle on that chain. This is a liveness problem: the network is still there, but it is temporarily unable to progress.
2. Changing state at the restart A halt alone does not move a coin. Cosmos Hub validators restarted on Gaia v28.3.0 with a one-time state change at block height 33,086,741, before further transactions were processed. It moved the remaining balance from one attacker-linked address to a 4-of-6 recovery multisig.
Cosmos Hub said the patched binary touched no other balances, delegations or user funds. The action did not use the attacker’s private key and did not reverse the Neutron exploit. Validators agreed to run updated code, and the restarted network accepted the altered Hub state. The Cosmos SDK supports state migrations during upgrades; the important point is that the ability becomes meaningful only when validator operators coordinate around it.
3. Holding recovered assets The state change did not send the ATOM to a single company wallet. The recovery address is controlled by Nansen, Keplr, Enigma, Silknodes, Kiln and Polkachu, with four signatures needed to move the funds. Cosmos Hub says Neutron contributors and affected protocols are working out a recovery plan.
These are separate powers. A validator set can stop blocks without changing an account. It can agree to a targeted state change without deciding how recovered assets should ultimately be distributed. Treating all three as a simple “wallet freeze” hides the safeguards and the risks involved.
The halt stopped Cosmos Hub, not every settlement path The most useful part of the incident is also the part that makes the recovery less tidy. The 1,227,121 ATOM sweep covered the balance that was present in the attacker-linked address at the halted height. It could not include assets that reached that address afterward.
Unchained and CryptoSlate reported that 168,991 ATOM from an unfilled THORChain swap returned to the address shortly after the restart. The refund arrived after the one-time change had already executed.
IBC had moved stolen ATOM from Neutron to Cosmos Hub, while THORChain created a separate settlement path. The episode shows why recovery teams must map pending swaps, bridge transfers, wrapped tokens and exchange deposits alongside the balance visible on the chain they control. Halting one network does not cancel activity already pending elsewhere.
Why this differs from an exchange freeze
An exchange can suspend withdrawals or change balances inside its own system during a security event. The reports around Bitget-linked wallet movements concerned exchange infrastructure; an exchange cannot independently rewrite another public chain. Cosmos Hub paused its own service and changed its own state through validator coordination.
Four checks before trusting a recovery Who can stop the network? Look at voting-power concentration, not only the number of validators. What exactly changed? The network should disclose the affected account, code version, restart height and scope of the patch. Who holds the recovered assets? Readers should be able to identify the signers, signature threshold and the process for distributing funds. What remains outside the intervention? Check cross-chain transfers, pending swaps and off-chain destinations before calling a recovery complete. A chain without a workable response can leave victims with no recovery route. One with wide, undisclosed emergency powers gives users less certainty about completed transactions. The useful standard is narrower: emergency authority should have a public trigger, a defined scope and an auditable record.
What Cosmos has shown, and what it has not yet settled Confirmed by the Hub update
Still unresolved
Cosmos Hub was not the exploited network, and its patched restart changed one named account.
The final allocation of the multisig’s ATOM to affected Neutron users and protocols.
The recovery address and six signers are public, with four signatures required.
The complete accounting of funds that moved through external settlement paths.
The initial sweep was limited to the account balance at the halted height.
Neutron’s full post-mortem and the final remediation steps for the exploited contracts.
Cosmos disclosed enough information to examine the scope of its intervention: the affected account, the code version, the restart height, the recovery address and the signers. The remaining test is whether the recovery plan provides the same clarity for victims whose assets are not in that multisig.
Emergency action can protect users after an exploit. Its authority, code and boundaries should be visible before a crisis forces the network to use them. That is the lasting lesson from the ATOM recovery: finality carries more weight when its exceptions are understood in advance.
This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Incident reporting and recovery plans can change as further technical and governance updates are published.
Author
Alexander Zdravkov is a market analyst and crypto journalist with interests in economics, broader financial markets and digital assets. His journey into crypto began more than four years ago, driven by a fascination with the rapid evolution of blockchain technology and the transformative potential of decentralized finance. He began analyzing market cycles and identifying emerging trends before they reach the mainstream. He holds a degree in International Relations - a background that helped shape his broader perspective on global economics, geopolitics, and the interconnected nature of modern financial markets. Whether covering the latest developments in the crypto sector or exploring broader macroeconomic themes, Alexander focuses on giving readers context rather than simply repeating headlines. During his career, he has authored more than 5,000 articles covering cryptocurrencies, traditional finance, and global market developments. His work spans everything from Bitcoin and altcoins to macroeconomic trends influencing risk assets worldwide.
Grayscale Zcash ETF (ZCSH) dosáhl spravovaných aktiv ve výši 1 miliardy USD 24. září, ale kumulativní čisté přílivy činí jen 306,12 milionu USD. Růst táhla i cena ZEC a zděděná aktiva z Grayscale Zcash Trust.
In a surprising turn of events, Grayscale’s Zcash ETF (ZCSH) hit $1 billion in assets under management (AUM) on 24th September.
However, this does not mean investors have poured $1 billion of new money into the fund. Instead, only $306.12 million was poured in as cumulative net inflows. In other words, less than one-third of its current value came from new investor money.
The reality behind the $1 billion AUM Still, this is a very noteworthy development, as after the fund’s launch on 25th August, it surpassed $500 million in assets in just two weeks. And now, it has reached the $1 billion-AUM threshold, effectively doubling its reported assets in about 16 days.
However, this surge in momentum was not just driven by fresh investor inflows. Instead, it was fueled also by Zcash’s [ZEC] sharp price hike and the fund’s pre-existing ZEC holdings inherited from the Grayscale Zcash Trust.
For those unaware, ZCSH got converted from the older Grayscale Zcash Trust, which had already been holding a large amount of ZEC since 2017. And therefore, it goes without saying that those existing ZEC holdings were simply carried into the ETF structure.
All about ZEC’s price action At the same time, ZEC’s price has roughly doubled since the ETF began trading, increasing the dollar value of the ZEC the fund already owned. This, in turn, has pushed its AUM higher, without requiring equivalent new purchases.
In fact, at press time, ZEC was trading at $1,533 after a hike of 92% in the past 30 days.
These developments coincided with Europe’s launch of the first physically-backed Zcash ETP by 21Shares.
Movements in the broader ETF space The broader crypto ETF market highlighted positive investor sentiment during the week ending on 24th September.
Bitcoin [BTC] ETFs attracted the most capital, recording $2.25 billion in inflows, while Ethereum [ETH] ETFs followed with $602.94 million.
Source: SoSo Value Meanwhile, XRP ETFs brought in $52.95 million, Solana [SOL] ETFs attracted $101.55 million, and Hyperliquid [HYPE] ETFs recorded $6.02 million in inflows.
Final Summary Within two week of the launch, Grayscale’s Zcash ETF surpassed $500 million in AUM. Other ETFs, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and smaller altcoins, all recorded inflows over the past week.
Zcash price has gained about 102% over the past month to trade near $1,535 as co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson has repeated his forecast that ZEC will reach $5,000 by the end of 2026.
Summary
Ben-Sasson said his $5,000 year-end forecast remains on track after ZEC passed his earlier $1,200 target. ZEC recently traded above $1,600 before pulling back toward the $1,500 level. Grayscale’s U.S.-listed Zcash fund has surpassed $1 billion in assets roughly a month after its exchange debut. The daily chart places $1,625 above ZEC and $1,500 at the nearest marked level below its recent high. Ben-Sasson said in a recent X post that he still considers his $5,000 year-end prediction on track. He also said large holders had asked him about ZEC’s latest rise, while acknowledging that he did not know precisely what caused the move.
Why do I feel on track to my $5K EoY zcash:native prediction?
More and more whales asking me: Why price surge?
Me: No fucking clue.
What's your explanation?
Not investment advice, DYOR. https://t.co/E7J6YzYq4M
— Eli Ben-Sasson | Starknet.io (@EliBenSasson) September 24, 2026 The forecast follows an earlier call for ZEC to exceed $1,200 by Sep. 25. Zcash passed that price during its September rally and later traded above $1,600, putting the token well beyond the level Ben-Sasson had named for the month.
At roughly $1,535, a move to $5,000 would require ZEC to rise about 226%. The year-end figure remains Ben-Sasson’s prediction; his post did not identify a price model or a sequence of levels leading to it.
Zcash price holds above $1,500 after its monthly surge Zcash price traded near $1,535 on the Binance daily chart captured on Sep. 26. The session showed an opening price of $1,555.74, a high of $1,559.02, and a low of $1,527.56 at the time of the reading.
Price remained above the chart’s $1,500 Murrey Math level after pulling back from a recent peak above $1,600. The next marked level above price was $1,625, followed by $1,750. Below $1,500, the chart placed the next levels at $1,375 and $1,250.
Zcash price daily chart — Sep. 26 | Source: TradingView The daily average directional index, or ADX, stood at 60.44. ADX measures the strength of a trend without showing its direction; ZEC’s price action supplies the directional context after its climb through the September levels.
The speed of the advance has also brought sharp reversals. On Sep. 18, ZEC reached $1,535.82 before retreating toward $1,455, as previous Zcash price coverage detailed. At the time, the $1,500 level acted as resistance. ZEC has since moved above it, though its retreat from the latest high leaves that level close to the market again.
Earlier in September, ZEC rose from around $814 to more than $1,200. The rise included a move above $1,000 on Sep. 4, when short liquidations added to trading activity. Price then crossed $1,250 and $1,375 during the next leg of the rally.
Grayscale’s Zcash fund gives U.S. investors exchange access Grayscale’s Zcash product began trading on NYSE Arca under the ticker ZCSH on Aug. 25 after the firm converted its existing trust into an exchange-traded fund. The listing gave U.S. brokerage investors a way to gain ZEC exposure without buying and storing the token themselves, as crypto.news covered after its launch.
Grayscale launched the product with about $304 million in assets held by the former trust. Its assets passed $500 million within weeks and reached more than $1 billion roughly one month after the listing, according to Grayscale’s reported fund figures. Asset growth includes changes in the value of ZEC already held by the fund, as well as investment flows.
ZCSH is also approaching a change to its share structure. Grayscale has scheduled a three-for-one forward split, with investors on record at the close of Sep. 28 set to receive two additional shares for each share held. Distribution is scheduled for Sep. 29, and split-adjusted trading is due to begin before the market opens on Sep. 30.
The split will triple the number of shares held by each eligible investor while reducing the net asset value per share proportionately. It will not change the value of the investor’s holding at the time of the adjustment, according to the ZCSH split filing.
For U.S. investors comparing the fund with direct ZEC ownership, Grayscale states that ZCSH is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940. Its shares trade through brokerage accounts, while direct holders own the cryptocurrency itself.
Network upgrade plans add dates to the ZEC calendar Zcash developers have set an Oct. 6 testnet activation target for Network Upgrade 7, or NU7, according to the project’s published upgrade timeline. The plan includes reducing the target time between blocks from 75 seconds to 25 seconds.
The proposed schedule calls for a final decision on mainnet activation on Oct. 20, after developers review the testnet rollout. Mainnet activation is targeted for Nov. 5. The upgrade package also includes changes to older transaction formats and the network’s funding mechanism.
Coinholders had backed the faster block target in a September poll. Nearly 99.9% of the participating ZEC supported the 25-second proposal, while about 98.9% favored retaining the existing halving schedule, according to coverage of the NU7 vote.
Outside the U.S., 21Shares launched a physically backed Zcash exchange-traded product on Euronext Paris and Amsterdam in September. The product gives eligible European brokerage customers another route to ZEC exposure, weeks after ZCSH began trading in New York.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Solana’s 150-millisecond settlement upgrade reaches second public test network. (Solana)Summary
Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade, which aims to cut transaction settlement time to about 150 milliseconds from 12.8 seconds, is now active on its devnet and testnet.The upgrade changes how validators reach agreement and will remove validator votes from blocks, reducing reported transaction totals even if user activity remains unchanged.Alpenglow’s mainnet launch has not been scheduled, and its speed target has yet to be sustained under live-market conditions.Solana’s planned upgrade to make payments final in a fraction of a second has reached its public developer network, giving application teams a place to test before it reaches the blockchain carrying real money.
Called Alpenglow, the upgrade targets roughly 150 milliseconds for finality, the point at which a transaction can no longer be reversed, compared with about 12.8 seconds under the existing system.
That could shorten the wait for an exchange to release deposited funds or a payment app to tell a merchant a sale is complete.
Anza, the company building Solana’s core software, announced the developer-network switch on Sept. 25, a day after the separate testnet completed its transition. The Solana Foundation’s upgrade page lists Alpenglow as active on both networks.
Developers use the developer network, or devnet, to check applications with tokens that have no real value. The separate testnet is used primarily to stress-test network software and validator operations.
Read More: Solana starts testing upgrade that could cut finality from 12.8 seconds to 150 milliseconds
Alpenglow changes how validators, the computers that check transactions, agree on the network’s records. They will exchange votes directly instead of recording those votes as transactions inside blocks, the batches of transactions added to the blockchain. Agreement can then take one or two voting rounds.
Removing those votes will also make some Solana activity charts fall. Transaction totals that include validator votes will shrink even if users make just as many payments and trades. The Foundation has told data providers to adjust their comparisons.
Services that build transaction histories also need to keep competing candidate blocks separate until the network selects one. Mixing their contents could produce an incorrect record.
Applications that simply send transactions and read account balances require no migration, according to the Foundation’s guide.
The speed figure remains a target derived from simulations, rather than a demonstrated result under live-market conditions. Wallet processing and exchanges’ own deposit checks can add further waiting time.
No firm launch date has been announced for the live network. Anza’s software schedule tentatively allows feature activations to resume Sept. 28, but does not identify that date as Alpenglow’s launch.
12345678910The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific
The Definitive Stablecoin Landscape Series: Asia Pacific
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Sep 15, 2026
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Why it matters:
As stablecoins move into regulated finance, APAC is becoming a key proving ground. This report maps the region’s rules, use cases, and RLUSD’s role.
Americké spotové Bitcoin ETF přilákaly za týden 2,39 miliardy USD, přičemž všechny obchodní dny skončily v čistém přílivu. Nejvíce získal BlackRock IBIT s 1,16 miliardy USD.
U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds took in $2.39 billion during the Sep. 21–25 trading week, with net inflows on all five days. Spot Ether ETFs added $689.8 million, while Solana funds drew $188.1 million.
Summary
Bitcoin ETFs recorded $2.39 billion in weekly net inflows, led by a $999 million Monday. BlackRock’s IBIT drew $1.16 billion, the most among Bitcoin funds. Ether ETFs added $689.8 million across five positive sessions. Solana ETF inflows reached $188.1 million, with $86.7 million arriving Friday. According to Farside Investors, Monday’s $999 million was the largest daily Bitcoin ETF inflow of the week. The funds then added $714.7 million on Tuesday, $346.9 million on Wednesday, $190.7 million on Thursday and $134.5 million on Friday.
BlackRock leads Bitcoin ETF inflows BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, collected $1.16 billion over the five sessions, based on Farside’s daily fund figures. Fidelity’s FBTC followed with $701.6 million, while ARK 21Shares’ ARKB added $294.7 million. Morgan Stanley’s MSBT drew $203.3 million.
Monday accounted for nearly $1 billion of the Bitcoin funds’ $2.39 billion weekly total. IBIT received $381.4 million that day, while ARKB took in $289.1 million and FBTC added $238.8 million. Tuesday brought another $350.3 million to IBIT and $257.4 million to FBTC.
The pace slowed later in the week, but the combined funds remained positive through Friday. IBIT posted an inflow on every trading day. The weekly total also exceeded the prior week’s roughly $6.1 million net inflow, which included sharp withdrawals on Sep. 15 and 16 before flows recovered.
Bitcoin’s price moved above $87,000 earlier in the week before pulling back. crypto.news reported on Friday that BTC was holding near $84,000 despite continued ETF inflows. The fund data show sustained net buying through the price retreat; they do not establish how much of the price move came from ETF demand.
Ether funds reverse the previous week’s outflow U.S. spot Ether ETFs recorded $689.8 million in net inflows from Sep. 21 through Sep. 25, according to Farside’s Ether data. The funds added $270 million on Monday, followed by $162.2 million, $104.5 million, $66.1 million, and $87 million over the next four sessions.
The result reversed the previous week’s roughly $140.6 million net outflow. BlackRock’s ETHA led this week’s gains with $326.2 million, while Fidelity’s FETH took in $174.1 million. BlackRock’s staking fund ETHB added $47.5 million.
Monday’s $270 million was Ether ETFs’ strongest day of the week. ETHA received $110.1 million, FETH added $73 million, and Grayscale’s lower-fee ETH fund drew $59.3 million. Daily inflows became smaller as the week progressed, though the group finished each session in positive territory.
Solana ETFs finish with their strongest day Spot Solana ETFs drew $188.1 million for the week, based on Farside’s Solana figures. Their daily net inflows were $26 million on Monday, $28.9 million on Tuesday, $13.7 million on Wednesday, $32.8 million on Thursday, and $86.7 million on Friday.
Bitwise’s BSOL accounted for $128.4 million of the weekly total. It received $55.7 million on Friday, when Grayscale’s GSOL added $18.5 million, and Morgan Stanley’s MSOL took in $6 million.
Across the Bitcoin, Ether and Solana products tracked in Farside’s three tables, net inflows totaled approximately $3.26 billion for Sep. 21–25. Bitcoin funds accounted for about 73% of that combined figure.
US spotové Solana ETF zaznamenaly rekordní čistý příliv zhruba 80 až 87 mil. USD denně. Týdenní příliv dosáhl 181 mil. USD a kumulativně už přesáhl 1,6 mld. USD.
US spot Solana ETFs just posted their best day ever. On September 25, net inflows hit approximately $80M to $87M across the category, more than doubling the previous single-day record of $33.5M set in August. Weekly inflows reached $181M, a figure that suggests this wasn’t a one-off burst but the peak of a sustained multi-week buying trend.
For a product category that didn’t exist a year ago, the numbers are striking. Cumulative net inflows across all US spot Solana ETFs have now crossed $1.6B, with total assets under management sitting between $1.8B and $1.96B.
Bitwise’s BSOL is running away with the category Bitwise’s staking-enabled Solana ETF attracted roughly $55.7M of the day’s inflows, capturing about two-thirds of the total. Since the funds launched on October 28, 2025, BSOL has hoovered up approximately 80% of cumulative inflows, translating to around $1.22B of the category’s $1.6B total.
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Grayscale’s GSOL came in a distant second on the day, adding about $18.5M. Fidelity’s FSOL and Morgan Stanley’s MSOL contributed smaller amounts.
Why staking is the differentiator These funds don’t just offer passive exposure to SOL’s price. They generate yield by staking the underlying tokens on the Solana network, giving institutional investors something Bitcoin ETFs structurally cannot: a return on top of price appreciation.
SOL was trading near $120 during the record inflow period. That price level represents a recovery from earlier volatility but remains well below the token’s all-time highs.
What the flow trajectory signals The previous daily record was $33.5M, meaning the new high represents roughly a 2.4x jump. Total AUM between $1.8B and $1.96B puts the category in a range where it starts to matter for portfolio construction, and breaching the $2B mark could unlock a new wave of buyers who were previously sitting on the sidelines waiting for the category to mature.
Bitwise’s 80% share of cumulative inflows is remarkable. If Grayscale, Fidelity, or Morgan Stanley adjust their fee structures or staking strategies, the category could become more competitive. For now, BSOL’s dominance means Bitwise is effectively setting the terms for how institutional Solana exposure gets packaged and sold in the US market.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
CEO Backpack Armani Ferrante chce na blockchain Solany dostat 10 000 tokenizovaných akcií, tedy výrazně více než zhruba 200 symbolů, které dnes nabízí. Přes jedno API mají mezi brokerovým účtem a DeFi proudit skutečné akcie tam i zpět.
Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante has laid out a plan to expand tokenized stock access on Solana from about 200 symbols to 10,000, with shares moving between brokerage accounts and decentralized finance through one API.
Summary
Ferrante described 10,000 stock symbols as Backpack’s next target, without giving a rollout date. Backpack already lets eligible users convert certain brokerage holdings into Solana tokens and back. The SEC’s new tokenized stock trading exemption applies only to venues that meet its conditions. According to a post shared by Solana on Sep. 26, Ferrante wants to make the full stock market available through a system that connects conventional securities accounts with DeFi applications.
“Not 10 stocks, not 100 stocks. We want to bring the entire stock market to Solana,” Ferrante said in the clip shared by Solana.
Armani Ferrante, CEO of Backpack, on what comes next for tokenized stocks.
"Not 10 stocks, not 100 stocks. We want to bring the entire stock market to Solana. One API where a real share, by any definition of the term, moves back and forth between your brokerage account and DeFi.… pic.twitter.com/KF5Zi26a9b
— Solana (@solana) September 26, 2026 He described a single API through which a real share could move from a brokerage account into DeFi and back. Ferrante called the move from 200 to 10,000 symbols “the next leap,” though the post did not identify a launch date or set out which stocks would be added first.
The 200-symbol figure comes from Ferrante’s description of the starting point. The post does not establish that Backpack Securities has already issued 200 separate tokenized stocks on Solana, so the proposed expansion should not be read as a count of tokens currently in circulation.
How Backpack moves stocks onto Solana Backpack introduced its securities platform in June, saying customers could hold U.S. stocks and exchange-traded funds through a brokerage service and convert eligible holdings into tokenized securities. Depositing a supported token through Backpack Exchange converts it back into a traditional security entitlement, according to the company.
The company says its brokerage holdings are security entitlements governed by New York’s Uniform Commercial Code Article 8. Backpack also says the service supports cash dividends, corporate actions and transfers involving established brokerage infrastructure, including ACATS and Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation systems.
On Solana, Backpack-issued tokens can be held in compatible wallets and transferred between users. The company says they can also be used in DeFi applications, subject to the features and rules of the particular product and service.
A June report on SPCX covered Backpack Securities’ first tokenized SpaceX product, issued with Sunrise on Solana. Backpack said eligible holders could convert the token into the corresponding share through its brokerage route, while Sunrise provided infrastructure for issuing and distributing the token.
Backpack subsequently added tokenized versions of other U.S.-listed companies. In July, crypto.news covered its continuous trading for a group of equities available to users outside the United States, including products tied to SpaceX, Micron and SanDisk. The company said users could redeem supported Solana tokens one-for-one for the corresponding shares through its platform.
The conversion process is also described in Backpack’s Sep. 23 CoreWeave announcement. A customer can withdraw a CoreWeave holding from Backpack Exchange as a CRWV token on Solana, then deposit the token to convert it back into a brokerage holding, the company said. Backpack identified decentralized exchanges, wallets and other Solana applications where the token could be accessed.
What ownership rights Backpack describes Backpack draws a distinction between a brokerage holding and its tokenized form, even when it says the two can be converted one-for-one. In its Micron product description, the company says brokerage holders receive cash dividends and corporate actions through traditional securities infrastructure.
For holders of its tokenized Micron security, Backpack says dividend payments are reinvested into additional tokens. It says applicable corporate actions are handled through proportional changes to token balances intended to preserve the economic value of the underlying holding.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has warned that tokenized securities created by third parties do not all give holders the same rights. In a January staff statement, the agency said the rights attached to a token depend on its structure and may differ from those attached to the underlying security. The statement also distinguished tokens backed by securities held through custody arrangements from synthetic products that create different claims.
For American readers, those differences matter when comparing stock tokens with conventional brokerage positions. Backpack’s descriptions of redemption, dividends and corporate actions apply to its stated product structure; they should not be assumed to apply to every token carrying a familiar stock ticker.
Where U.S. tokenized stock rules stand On Sep. 17, the SEC granted conditional relief for certain venues to trade tokenized National Market System stocks through permissioned automated market makers and liquidity pools. The five-year framework places limits on the number of symbols and trading volume a qualifying venue may handle.
Under the SEC’s published conditions, a venue must verify that a tokenized stock gives its holder the same rights and privileges as the equivalent traditional share. When an unaffiliated third party tokenizes a company’s stock, the venue must notify the issuer and give it an opportunity to object.
The SEC also requires public, auditable smart contracts and a halt in token trading whenever the underlying stock is halted on its primary exchange. The agency’s announcement does not identify Backpack as a participating venue or state that its current products operate under the exemption.
Backpack’s U.S. plans have involved a separate corporate step as well. In September, the company’s U.S. arm appointed Kyle Samani to its board. Backpack said the former Multicoin Capital executive would support its work across regulated U.S. financial services and onchain markets; the appointment did not include a timetable for expanding its U.S. stock or tokenized asset services.
SOL poprvé od ledna překročil 120 USD a dostal se na 120,86 USD. Podpořily ho čisté přílivy 32,81 milionu USD do spot ETF a nasazení upgradu Alpenglow do obou veřejných testovacích sítí.
SOL reached $120.86 on September 25, marking its first breach of $120 since late January. The token has surged more than 100% from its June 2026 trough of approximately $60.39. Spot Solana ETFs in the United States recorded $32.81 million in net capital inflows, bringing cumulative assets to nearly $1.81 billion. Open interest in SOL futures expanded to $7.49 billion, representing a roughly 14% increase from early September levels. The Alpenglow protocol enhancement, designed to achieve 150-millisecond transaction finality, has been deployed across both public testing environments. Solana registered a significant price milestone on September 25, pushing above the $120 mark to reach $120.86. This represents the first instance of SOL trading at this elevation since January 29 of this year.
Solana (SOL) Price The token posted a 3.56% gain across the 24-hour trading period. Looking at the weekly timeframe, SOL advanced 7.61%, based on figures from CoinGecko.
By comparison, other leading cryptocurrencies showed more modest movement during the same window. Bitcoin hovered around $83,800, Ethereum maintained levels near $2,687, and XRP remained close to $1.57. The aggregate cryptocurrency market capitalization stood at approximately $2.97 trillion, experiencing a marginal decline throughout the day.
Strong Recovery From Mid-Year Bottom SOL bottomed out at $60.39 during June 2026. The current price of $120.86 signifies a gain exceeding 100% from that nadir.
This appreciation unfolded across multiple phases. The token advanced from roughly $97 during mid-September to surpass $112 by September 18. Throughout August, SOL delivered a 41.5% return, establishing momentum that carried into September’s rally.
Market commentator The Kobeissi Letter highlighted the development on X, noting that Solana crossed $120 for the first time since late January and has now climbed more than 100% from its yearly bottom, observing that “the crypto rally continues to broaden out.”
This methodical accumulation of gains, as opposed to a single parabolic spike, indicates that the former resistance level around $120 could potentially function as near-term price support.
Institutional Demand Through ETF Channels and Derivatives Expansion Spot Solana exchange-traded funds in the United States absorbed $32.81 million in net inflows during the September 24 trading session, the latest available data point. Bitwise’s Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) captured $27.97 million of this flow, while Fidelity’s FSOL contributed an additional $4.84 million.
Source: SoSoValue Total assets under management across these ETF products now approach $1.81 billion, according to SoSoValue tracking. Cumulative historical inflows into these investment vehicles have reached $1.52 billion.
In the derivatives market, Solana futures open interest climbed to $7.49 billion, up from approximately $6.57 billion at the beginning of September—a 14% expansion. Daily futures trading volume registered $11.76 billion over the past 24 hours, compared with $9.38 billion earlier in the month.
CoinGlass data shows approximately $21.43 million in liquidated positions during the same 24-hour window.
From a technical analysis perspective, the relative strength index currently registers at 61, while the MACD indicator shows a positive reading near 1.34. Both metrics suggest constructive short-term momentum. Market participants are monitoring the $122 to $123 zone as immediate resistance, with $130 representing the subsequent upside objective should that barrier yield.
Analyst Master of Crypto outlined a broader perspective on X, identifying approximately 703 days of accumulation followed by roughly 230 days of consolidation, stating that expansion is now underway with a longer-range target of $500.
$SOL MAY FINALLY BE ENTERING THE MOVE WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR.
~703 days of accumulation.
~230 days of manipulation.
Now expansion is starting fast, and the major markup phase will be next.
$500 is the target.
The only question is how long it takes to get there. pic.twitter.com/KTJsFNJ1E7
— Master of Crypto (@MasterCryptoHq) September 26, 2026
Alpenglow Protocol Enhancement Deployed to Testing Infrastructure In parallel developments, Solana’s Alpenglow protocol upgrade successfully launched on its second public testing network this week. The enhancement is engineered to reduce transaction finality to approximately 150 milliseconds, a substantial improvement from the current 12.8-second settlement time.
Anza, the organization responsible for Solana’s core infrastructure development, confirmed the devnet activation on September 25, following the testnet’s completion of its transition one day earlier. The Solana Foundation’s official upgrade tracker now confirms Alpenglow’s operational status across both testing environments.
The devnet serves as a sandbox where developers can experiment with applications using valueless tokens, whereas the testnet provides a stress-testing environment for network software and validator configurations before deployment to the production mainnet blockchain.
Bitcoin has gained about 3.8% over seven days as U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs have drawn $2.39 billion this week, while Quant, Ethena and Bitway have led the 100 largest crypto assets by weekly price gain.
Summary
Quant rose 61.8% after The Clearing House selected it for a U.S. tokenized-deposit network. Ethena gained 54.1% as it expanded USDe’s backing strategy into tokenized stocks and equity futures. Bitway climbed 48.0%, although a sharp daily reversal put its weekly advance under pressure. Bitcoin held near $84,000 after reaching an eight-month high above $87,000 earlier in the week. According to CoinGecko, Bitcoin traded near $84,077 on Sep. 26, and the total crypto market value stood near $2.98 trillion. Quant (QNT) ranked first among the top 100 seven-day gainers at 61.8%, followed by Ethena (ENA) at 54.1% and Bitway (BTW) at 48.0%. The rankings use rolling seven-day price changes, so the figures can change during the weekend.
Bitcoin ETF inflows set the market backdrop U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows on all five trading days from Sep. 21 through Sep. 25, according to Farside Investors. The funds drew $999 million on Monday and $714.7 million on Tuesday, followed by $346.9 million, $190.7 million and $134.5 million over the next three sessions. Combined inflows reached about $2.39 billion.
Bitcoin reached $87,392 on Sep. 21 before retreating toward $84,000. In a report on ETF demand published Sep. 24, crypto.news quoted BTCS S.A. strategy adviser Wojciech Kaszycki, who said cash entering spot funds supported the initial price rise while futures positions also increased. He put the next major test near $90,000 if buying continued.
CoinGecko’s seven-day figures showed a much larger move in the three leading tokens than in Bitcoin. Each also had a separate development or trading pattern behind its advance, leaving different price levels in focus for the coming week.
Quant tests $106 after clearing $100 Quant traded near $104.48 in the CoinGecko snapshot, giving it the strongest seven-day return among the 100 largest assets. On Sep. 24, The Clearing House announced that it had selected Quant to power its On-Chain Money Initiative in the United States.
Quant will provide technology to connect banks and coordinate the clearing and settlement of tokenized-deposit transactions. The Clearing House said the network will also connect with payment systems already used by financial institutions, including RTP and CHIPS. It expects the service to become available to participating banks in the first half of 2027.
The U.S. selection follows Quant’s work on a separate British bank project. On Sep. 24, six UK institutions completed live customer transactions through the Great British Tokenised Deposit initiative, which Quant supported alongside EY and Linklaters. The British project tested payments involving customers at different banks.
On the TradingView daily chart, QNT rose through the Murrey Math $100 level and traded around $104.57. Its Average Directional Index stood at 39.13, indicating a strong trend after the steep advance. Price reached $108 during the session before easing below the chart’s $106.25 overshoot level.
Quant price daily chart — Sep. 26 | Source: TradingView A move back above $106.25 would put $112.50 in focus, followed by $118.75 if buyers sustain the advance. If QNT falls below $100, the breakout would face a more demanding test at $93.75, the next marked level on the daily chart.
Ethena approaches $0.28 with RSI near 80 Ethena’s ENA traded near $0.2781 on CoinGecko after gaining 54.1% over seven days. On Sep. 25, the protocol said it would add tokenized U.S. stocks and corresponding equity perpetual futures on Binance to part of the strategy used to back its USDe synthetic dollar.
As reported on Sep. 25, Ethena plans to hold Binance bStocks for stock exposure and take offsetting positions in equity perpetuals. Ethena said Binance’s equity perpetual market had more than $2.9 billion in open interest. The stock-linked positions add another market for a strategy the protocol has also used with crypto assets.
Ethena Labs founder Guy Young called it “the most significant expansion of USDe’s funding mechanism since we started.” The company said its Risk Committee had approved a framework for the stock-based trades.
The strategy involves tokenized U.S. equities, but Binance’s bStocks offering is available to eligible users where permitted by local law. Binance’s original bStocks launch included tokens linked to Nvidia, Tesla, Circle, Micron, and Sandisk shares. The tokens provide stock-linked exposure without the voting rights held by direct shareholders.
On the TradingView daily chart, ENA traded around $0.2756 after touching $0.2807. Price stood above its 20-day moving average at $0.1808, its 50-day average at $0.1491, its 100-day average at $0.1160, and its 200-day average at $0.1082. Daily RSI reached 79.85, above the commonly watched 70 level.
Ethena price daily chart — Sep. 26 | Source: TradingView A move above $0.2807 would extend the latest breakout. The day’s $0.2632 low is the first level to watch on a pullback; below it, the earlier $0.22–$0.23 trading area would come back into view. Ethena’s fee-switch proposal links future ENA buybacks to USDe supply thresholds, starting at $7.5 billion, rather than providing an immediate buyback at the supply level cited in the proposal.
Bitway’s reversal puts $0.76 in focus Bitway traded near $0.9032 on CoinGecko, up 48.0% for the rolling seven-day period. Its daily TradingView chart showed a much sharper move within that window: BTW reached $1.3661 before falling to about $0.9033, with the session’s low at $0.7620.
Earlier in the week, on-chain analyst Ai Yi reported that a new address withdrew 5 million BTW, worth about $3.71 million at the time, from Gate. Other reports of the analyst’s findings put the combined withdrawals by three new addresses at 15 million BTW within three hours. The transfers occurred during the rally, but the transactions alone do not establish who controlled the wallets or why BTW’s price rose.
Bitway also has a staking program running from Sep. 1 to Oct. 1, with an 8% stated annual rate on USDT and an additional 3% offered in BW Points. Its earlier incentive programs were covered in an August Bitway price report after the token rose sharply that month.
The latest daily candle leaves BTW below the Bollinger upper band near $1.1513 but above its middle band near $0.7121. Regaining $1.00 and then $1.1513 would bring the $1.30–$1.37 area back into focus. A fall through the $0.7620 daily low would put the $0.7121 middle band next on the chart.
Bitway price daily chart — Sep. 26 | Source: TradingView Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Zano kvůli inflační chybě okamžitě zastavil veškerý provoz a plánuje rollback blockchainu zhruba o 24 hodin. Tým slibuje, že postižené uživatele odškodní.
A bug that lets a blockchain silently mint extra coins is, in the hierarchy of crypto emergencies, about as serious as it gets. Zano, a privacy-focused layer-1 blockchain, found itself confronting exactly that problem on September 25, 2026, when the team publicly identified an inflation bug and ordered an immediate, network-wide halt to all economic activity.
The project plans to roll back its blockchain by roughly 24 hours to excise the damage, and has committed to making affected users whole in the process.
What happened and why it matters The bug is tied to Gateway Addresses, a feature introduced in Zano’s Hard Fork 6, which activated on mainnet at block 3,833,000 around August 26, 2026. Gateway Addresses were designed to smooth out service integrations while preserving the privacy guarantees Zano is built around. Somewhere in that new code, a flaw opened the door to unauthorized asset creation.
For a project whose entire economic model rests on scarcity, the stakes are high. Zano operates on a fixed emission schedule with a 1 ZANO block reward, and every transaction fee is burned rather than paid to miners, a design meant to make the supply deflationary over time. An inflation bug cuts directly against that architecture, undermining the foundational promise the project makes to its holders.
The team has instructed users to stop all economic activity on both the primary Zano chain and its Confidential Assets layer until the rollback is complete. The specific block height at which the chain will be rewound has not been disclosed publicly, nor has a detailed breakdown of how many unauthorized coins were created or how compensation will be structured.
Rollbacks, finality, and the uncomfortable questions they raise A 24-hour blockchain rollback is not a light decision. It invalidates the concept of transaction finality for every trade, transfer, or contract settled during that window. Anyone who received funds, completed a sale, or moved assets during the affected period now exists in a kind of temporal limbo, waiting to see what the ledger looks like once the team rewinds and rebuilds.
For Zano, the answer is the core development team, which retains enough coordination power to execute a move like this. The commitment to reimburse affected users is a meaningful gesture and, if executed transparently, could limit the reputational fallout. The compensation process itself, though, remains unspecified, which leaves users with little to do right now except wait.
Privacy coins under the microscope Zano’s crisis lands at a delicate moment for the privacy coin sector. Earlier in 2026, Zcash dealt with its own high-profile operational incident, and the cumulative effect of these episodes is a market that is increasingly skeptical about the maturity of privacy-preserving blockchain infrastructure.
Privacy coins occupy an already uncomfortable regulatory position in many jurisdictions. Several exchanges have delisted assets like Monero and Zcash under pressure from regulators who view transaction obfuscation as a compliance liability.
For Zano specifically, supply integrity is not just a technical feature, it is the value proposition. A network that burns fees to create deflation needs users to believe that the emission schedule is actually being followed. A bug that compromises that belief, even temporarily, does lasting damage to the narrative.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Ondo Finance s BlackRock a Securitize navrhují tokenizované americké státní dluhopisy OUSG pro Sky, který chce do ekosystému přivést asi 1 miliardu USD v tokenizovaných aktivech. Cílem je posílit krytí sUSDS a diverzifikovat rezervy.
Ondo Finance, working alongside BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) and Securitize, (NYSE: SECZ) has put forward its tokenized US Treasuries product, OUSG, as a candidate for Sky’s Spark Tokenization Grand Prix. The initiative, run by the protocol formerly known as MakerDAO, seeks to bring roughly $1 billion in tokenized traditional assets into the Sky ecosystem.
The proposal positions OUSG as a way to diversify Sky’s real-world asset holdings and strengthen backing for sUSDS, the yield-bearing version of the USDS stablecoin.
Ondo framed the product as a practical bridge between crypto-native capital and institutional-grade Treasury exposure.OUSG is structured as an on-chain fund that tracks short-term US government securities.
At the time of the submission, a large share of its holdings sat in BlackRock’s BUIDL fund, the tokenized money-market vehicle administered by Securitize.
The partners said they were also exploring direct conversions between OUSG and BUIDL so Sky could move between the two products if both were approved.
Ondo highlighted several operational features.
Subscriptions and redemptions were designed to run around the clock, with daily capacity initially set at $25 million and slated to rise.
Interest was to accrue daily.
The product was available in rebasing and non-rebasing versions and already lived on more than one chain, including Ethereum and Solana.
2/ OUSG: Building with BlackRock
We are proud to collaborate with @BlackRock and @Securitize to submit the OUSG application to the Sky Ecosystem. OUSG is the first peer-to-peer transferable fund onchain and offers lower minimums & fees, instant investment & redemption 24/7, and…
— Ondo Finance (@Ondo) September 23, 2024
Fees were described as comparatively low, and minimums were lower than those attached to some purely institutional vehicles.
Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, said the joint application showed how a crypto-native issuer and traditional asset managers could work together.
He argued the combination of Ondo’s distribution and technical stack with BlackRock and Securitize’s infrastructure could deliver competitive yield and liquidity for Sky.
Nathan Allman, founder and CEO of Ondo, presented OUSG as a long-term partner product rather than a one-off allocation, emphasizing its potential role in making sUSDS a leading on-chain savings instrument.Ondo also pointed to its track record.
The firm described itself as one of the larger operators in on-chain real-world assets, with hundreds of millions of dollars already deployed across OUSG, the more accessible USDY product, and related infrastructure such as Flux Finance.
It argued that experience managing permissioned securities at scale would help Sky avoid early-stage operational friction.
The Grand Prix itself was an open process.
Multiple issuers submitted tokenized funds, credit products, and other instruments.
Sky’s goal was not simply to park idle reserves in Treasuries but to assemble a diversified, liquid portfolio that could support stablecoin issuance and generate yield without relying solely on crypto-native collateral.
Whether OUSG ultimately received an allocation depended on Sky governance.
The proposal nevertheless illustrated a broader pattern: traditional asset managers, specialized tokenization platforms, and DeFi protocols were beginning to treat one another as complementary rather than purely competitive.
OUSG wrapping a portion of BUIDL while offering easier access and 24/7 liquidity was a concrete example of that layering.
For Sky, the appeal was practical.
Tokenized Treasuries can provide a relatively stable yield sleeve, reduce reliance on volatile crypto collateral, and still remain usable inside DeFi systems that accept eligible tokens.
For Ondo, BlackRock, and Securitize, a large allocation from one of DeFi’s oldest and largest stablecoin protocols would have been a visible endorsement of their combined model.
The submission therefore sat at the intersection of two trends: the migration of short-duration government paper onto public blockchains, and the effort by established DeFi systems to professionalize their reserve management.
PayPal v Lucembursku od 25. června 2026 pozastaví nákupy Bitcoinu a dalších kryptoměn kvůli novým pravidlům vyplývajícím z CARF. Uživatelé mohou dál své držené kryptoměny prodávat a spravovat.
PayPal has hit pause on cryptocurrency purchases for its European users in Luxembourg, effective June 25, 2026. The culprit: a new international tax reporting framework that requires the company to collect and verify detailed customer information before it can legally facilitate new buy orders.
The temporary freeze applies specifically to new purchases of Bitcoin and other crypto assets through PayPal’s platform in Luxembourg. Users who already hold crypto in their PayPal accounts can still sell or manage those positions. They just can’t add to them for now.
What CARF actually requires The Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, or CARF, is the OECD’s answer to a simple question: how do you tax something that moves across borders as easily as an email? Developed by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, CARF creates a standardized way for countries to share information about crypto transactions, much like the Common Reporting Standard already does for traditional bank accounts.
Luxembourg has now written CARF into local law, which means any company facilitating crypto transactions there needs to collect specific data from its customers. That includes account holder addresses, tax identification numbers where applicable, and classifications of account entities.
All of that information ultimately gets reported to Luxembourg’s tax authority, the Administration des Contributions Directes (ACD). The ACD can then share that data with tax authorities in other jurisdictions.
The requirements apply to both new and existing PayPal accounts. That means even longtime users will need to provide additional documentation as part of updated onboarding procedures.
Why PayPal chose to pause rather than patch The company has said it expects to resume crypto purchases by the end of 2026. That timeline suggests PayPal views this as a months-long engineering and compliance project, not a quick fix. The gap between the June 25 freeze and a projected late-2026 resumption gives the company roughly six months to build out the necessary systems.
It’s worth noting what this pause is not. It’s not a withdrawal from crypto. It’s not a signal that PayPal is souring on digital assets. And it’s not a market-wide disruption. The freeze is geographically contained to Luxembourg, and users retain full control over assets they already hold on the platform.
The bigger picture for crypto regulation Luxembourg’s implementation of CARF is not happening in isolation. The framework was designed for broad international adoption, and the European Union has already embedded it into its DAC8 directive, which updates the bloc’s rules on administrative cooperation in taxation.
For investors, the immediate impact is negligible. There have been no reported price effects or broader market disruptions tied to PayPal’s announcement. Luxembourg, while an important financial hub, represents a fraction of global crypto trading volume.
Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
MSCI zvažuje nová pravidla pro vyřazování firem považovaných za neprovozní, což by podle simulace mohlo zasáhnout i bitcoinové držitele Strategy a Metaplanet. CEO společnosti Strive Matt Cole vznesl námitky proti dřívějšímu návrhu MSCI týkajícímu se bitcoinu. MSCI uvádí, že zpětná vazba je splatná 30. září, výsledky očekává 16. října a případná změna by vstoupila do listopadové revize indexu 2026.
MSCI is consulting on a new index eligibility screen for companies it considers non-operating. The August 2026 proposal is not a Bitcoin-only exclusion. It would first examine operating assets, then apply five financial ratios to companies that fail the initial test. A company would fail the second screen if flagged on at least four of those ratios. MSCI says feedback is due September 30, results are expected by October 16, and any adopted change would enter the November 2026 index review.
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Why Bitcoin treasury companies are watching MSCI’s consultation uses May 2026 data to illustrate possible outcomes. Its simulated deletion list includes Bitcoin holders Strategy and Metaplanet, along with Yellow Cake, a uranium investment company. These are modeled results, not completed removals. The proposal gives existing index members a two-period buffer before a deletion, so a single failed screen would not necessarily remove a current constituent.
Strive chief executive Matt Cole raised a related objection in a letter dated December 4, 2025. That letter addressed MSCI’s earlier idea to exclude companies whose digital-asset holdings exceeded half of their total assets. Cole argued that Bitcoin treasury companies can operate structured-finance businesses and that investors should be able to choose tailored index screens. MSCI decided in January 2026 not to implement that Bitcoin-specific rule and said it would study non-operating companies more broadly.
What this article corrects An earlier version presented Cole as sending a new letter on September 25 and used Strive’s 2025 holding figure as if current. The reviewed primary records document the December 2025 letter and the August 2026 MSCI consultation, but not a new Strive letter on September 25. The earlier version also gave October 16 as the feedback deadline; MSCI lists that date for announcing results, with feedback due September 30. This correction does not claim Strive is on MSCI’s simulated deletion list or that any proposed exclusion has taken effect.
Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Spotový Litecoin ETF od Canary Capital zaznamenal 24. září příliv 1,73 milionu USD, první sedmimístný denní příliv od ledna. Celkové rezervy amerických spotových Litecoin ETF pak 25. září dosáhly rekordu 175 000 LTC.
ETF Inflows Pick Up as Sentiment ShiftsSomething may be stirring in the @Litecoin market. On September 24, Canary Capital's spot Litecoin ETF (Nasdaq: LTCC) recorded a daily inflow of $1.73 million, marking the first seven-figure daily inflow the product has seen since January. The timing is notable, arriving as broader momentum around the @Litecoin ecosystem appears to be building.
LTCC is the first and only U.S. spot Litecoin ETF. Launched on Nasdaq in late October 2025 after receiving SEC approval, the fund holds physical LTC and tracks the CoinDesk Litecoin Price Index. The product has had a modest run since launch, but the September 24 inflow suggests renewed appetite from investors. That momentum carried into September 25, with total U.S. spot Litecoin ETF reserves hitting a record 175,000 LTC, driven by a 39,000 LTC inflow into LTCC, according to analytics data cited by KuCoin.
LitecoinVM Adds a New Layer of UtilityThe renewed investor interest does not exist in a vacuum. The @Litecoin ecosystem has seen meaningful technical development in 2026, with @LitecoinVM at the center of it. LitVM is Litecoin's first EVM-compatible Layer-2 rollup, built to bring smart contracts, DeFi, and real-world asset tokenization to Litecoin without altering its base chain. The project is backed by the Litecoin Foundation and Litecoin creator Charlie Lee, who joined as an advisor and investor in March 2026.
LitVM's testnet, called LiteForge, launched in April 2026 and has processed over 75 million transactions. The Layer 2 is built using Polygon's Chain Development Kit and BitcoinOS technology, and aims to give Ethereum-familiar developers a path to build on Litecoin with minimal friction. Planned use cases include LTC-backed real-world assets, decentralized finance applications, and cross-chain liquidity.
Whether the ETF inflow is a one-off or the start of a more sustained trend remains to be seen. But the combination of fresh institutional interest and genuine ecosystem development gives the Litecoin bull case more substance than it has had in some time.
Sources:
Canary Capital: Canary Litecoin ETF (LTCC) Launch Announcement
KuCoin: Litecoin ETF Holdings Reach Record High
CoinMarketCap: Latest Litecoin Updates
ACI Worldwide aktivovala podporu XRP jako vypořádací možnost v rámci nové iniciativy víceřetězcové účetní knihy SWIFT. XRP Ledger se tak stal uznávanou platební cestou v její globální infrastruktuře.
ACI Worldwide, a leading provider of real-time electronic payment and banking solutions, has activated support for XRP as a settlement option in accordance with SWIFT’s new multi-chain ledger initiative. This development makes XRP Ledger a recognized payment rail within ACI’s global infrastructure.
ACI Worldwide’s key role in SWIFT integrationACI Worldwide processes approximately 9% of SWIFT’s global payment traffic, representing an annualized payment volume of $155 trillion. The company’s adoption of real-time payment offerings ensures that solutions based on the XRP Ledger could reach a significant portion of cross-border payment flows.
The integration is possible because Ripple’s technology is compatible with ISO 20022, SWIFT’s new global messaging standard that is being adopted by financial institutions around the world. ISO 20022 is seen as a critical step in advancing interoperability and modernization of banking infrastructure.
SWIFT, a cooperative founded in 1973 that provides secure financial messaging services for over 11,000 institutions, has been expanding its engagement with distributed ledger technology (DLT) providers like Ripple to facilitate broader interoperability between traditional finance and blockchain networks.
Recent developments highlight a shift in the relationship between Ripple and SWIFT. Once perceived as direct competitors, the two entities are now increasingly seen as complementary. Ripple provides settlement and liquidity solutions that can enhance SWIFT’s existing infrastructure, rather than seeking to replace it entirely.
Mini dictionary: ISO 20022 is an international messaging standard for payments, designed to improve data quality and interoperability across financial networks. It enables richer and more consistent information sharing between banks and other payment systems.
XRP Ledger’s on-demand liquidity advantageThe XRP Ledger’s On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) service allows banks and payment providers to use XRP as a bridge currency for cross-border settlements. By leveraging ODL, financial institutions can convert local fiat money into XRP, send it instantly across borders, and convert it back to the local currency on the receiving end. This setup offers faster and more affordable international payments compared to traditional systems.
With ISO 20022 compatibility, banks using SWIFT’s upgraded messaging standards can now directly employ XRP for settlement, allowing rapid conversion between digital and fiat currencies.
In 2025, Ripple acquired GTreasury, a firm specializing in treasury management software, further enhancing its integration with the SWIFT network. The GTreasury platform now supports SWIFT messaging, reference data services such as SWIFTRef for IBAN and ABA look-ups, and digital asset accounts, including support for XRP and RLUSD.
This integration enables corporate treasury departments to handle both traditional SWIFT flows and cryptocurrency assets within a unified system. Although there is no fixed guarantee that every transaction will use Ripple’s technology stack, ACI’s move positions DLT-based solutions with native ISO 20022 compatibility at a distinct advantage in the evolving payments landscape.
These developments underline the increasing adoption of blockchain technology within mainstream financial infrastructure, as global players seek more efficient, interoperable, and cost-effective cross-border payment solutions.
Pět spotových XRP ETF zaznamenalo třetí den po sobě milionové čisté přílivy a tento týden už přidalo 53 milionů USD. Spravovaná aktiva vzrostla na zhruba 1,7 miliardy USD.
The five spot $XRP exchange-traded funds tracked by @BSCNews have posted multi-million dollar net inflows for three consecutive days, bringing the week's total gains to $53 million. Total assets under management across the funds have climbed to around $1.7 billion, representing approximately 1.8% of XRP's circulating supply.
A Rapid Build in Institutional Capital The milestone sits within a broader story of accelerating institutional interest in regulated XRP products.
The current week's $53 million in net inflows continues a pattern of steady institutional demand.
Persistence Through Volatility
The broader regulatory backdrop has helped.
With AUM already at $1.7 billion and weekly inflows continuing to build, the XRP ETF category is proving it has staying power well beyond its initial launch momentum.
Sources:
Ripple: XRP ETFs, The Institutional Era Has Begun
Phemex: XRP Spot ETFs See $18M Daily Inflows Led by Bitwise
Yahoo Finance: XRP ETFs Hit a New 2026 Record at $1.6 Billion
Aktivace EIP-4444 zkrátila synchronizaci nového uzlu Ethereum na méně než půl dne a snížila nároky na úložiště o 300 až 500 GB. Uzly tak mohou běžet na 2TB disku s celkovým úložištěm pod 0,5 TB.
With the activation of EIP-4444 on July 8, 2025, Ethereum execution clients can now prune pre-Merge historical data, slashing storage requirements by 300 to 500 GB and enabling new nodes to sync in under half a day.
The result: operators can run a fully functional node on a 2 TB disk with aggressive settings keeping total storage under 0.5 TB.
What EIP-4444 actually changes EIP-4444 introduces what’s called “partial history expiry.” Instead of requiring every node to store the complete history of the Ethereum blockchain, nodes can now drop older data after a defined retention period. The initial design specified roughly 33,000 epochs, but this was revised to approximately 82,000 epochs, or about one year of history.
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Nodes validate the current chain head using weak subjectivity checkpoints. The consensus layer can sync in minutes through checkpoint sync, while the execution layer benefits from not needing to download and verify a decade of transaction receipts. Historical data retrieval mechanisms remain available as an optional feature for operators who need archival access.
All five major Ethereum execution clients have shipped support. Geth v1.16.0, Nethermind 1.32.2, Besu 25.7.0, Erigon v3.0.12, and Reth v1.5.0 each include the necessary flags and configurations.
Why storage was becoming a problem Prior to EIP-4444, a full node needed more than 400 GB of disk space, and that number was only going in one direction. Every new block, every smart contract interaction, every token transfer added to the pile.
There’s an important distinction worth noting. This change affects full nodes and validators, not archive nodes. Archive nodes, which serve historical queries for block explorers and analytics platforms, will continue storing everything.
The accessibility equation A sub-half-day sync on under 0.5 TB of storage means a relatively modest consumer-grade machine with a decent SSD can participate in Ethereum’s network, compared to the multi-day sync processes and terabyte-plus storage demands that previously greeted new node operators.
EIP-4444 sits within the “Purge” phase of Ethereum’s roadmap, which Vitalik Buterin has described as focused on reducing protocol complexity and node requirements.
The remaining question is how the network handles the transition period as nodes begin pruning at different rates and historical data becomes distributed rather than universally replicated. The Portal Network and other peer-to-peer data availability solutions are designed to fill this gap, ensuring that historical queries can still be resolved even when most nodes have moved on.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Voliči Cosmos Hub téměř jednomyslně zamítají návrh na vrácení 1,221,120 ATOM spojených s útokem na Neutron. Proti je asi 95 % zhruba 69,3 milionu ATOM.
A proposal titled “ATOM Refund & Justice Bounty” would pay 1.72 million ATOM out of the Hub’s community pool, including 500,000 ATOM for the voters who back it.
Cosmos Hub voters reject refunding Neutron attacker's 1.2 million ATOM
Posted September 25, 2026 at 4:05 pm EST.
A Cosmos Hub governance proposal that would return the ATOM validators seized after the Neutron attack is drawing a near-unanimous veto. By 2:34 p.m. ET on Friday, No with Veto votes made up about 95% of the roughly 69.3 million ATOM cast on proposal 1056, against about 174,300 ATOM in favor.
The proposal, which carries the title “ATOM Refund & Justice Bounty” on-chain, went up at 7:20 p.m. ET on Wednesday. Its text says “Cosmos Hub reps coordinated validators to unjustifiably steal 1.2M ATOM” from the attacker’s address, and it asks for 1,221,120 ATOM to be returned. It also offers a 500,000 ATOM “Justice Bounty” to yes voters, split by staking weight, paid over six months and capped at 5,000 ATOM per voter.
The message attached to the proposal would pay 1,721,120 ATOM out of the Hub’s community pool to the address that submitted it, which is a different address from the one the Hub swept.
How the Hub Took the ATOM The ATOM came from Neutron, where a governance vote that closed on the night of Sept. 21 gave the attacker admin control of contracts run by Astroport and Drop. Validators halted and restarted the chain, and the restart on Wednesday moved the address’s remaining 1,227,121 ATOM into a 4-of-6 multisig.
In its weekly update on Thursday, the Hub team wrote that “there was no vulnerability on the Cosmos Hub” and that the patched software “touched exactly one account.” Any four of the multisig’s six signers, all Hub validators (Nansen, Keplr, Enigma, Silknodes, Kiln and Polkachu), must approve before the funds can move.
The Refund That Got Out At 8:07 a.m. ET on Wednesday, minutes after the restart, the attacker’s address received 168,990.9 ATOM back from THORChain. The attacker had put 200,000 ATOM into a THORChain swap for ether on Sept. 22, and THORChain’s records show about 19.9 ETH went out before the swap hit its price limit and the rest was refunded. At 1:54 p.m. ET on Wednesday, the attacker sent 168,990 ATOM to an Osmosis address over IBC.
Voting on proposal 1056 closes on Sept. 30. The proposal fails if turnout stays below 40% of staked ATOM, and turnout stood at about 21% on Friday afternoon. If it clears that bar with No with Veto above 33.4% of the vote, it fails and its 500 ATOM deposit is burned.
Related Listen: How DeFi Remains Secure in a World of Always On AI Hacks: Uneasy Money
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
AlphaFi v ekosystému Sui přechází do režimu údržby a ukončí provoz; nové vklady ani půjčky už nepřijímá, výběry ale zůstávají otevřené. Ztráty byly plně pokryty a prostředky uživatelů jsou v bezpečí.
Sui ecosystem lending protocol AlphaFi announced it will undergo an orderly shutdown and has entered maintenance mode. Withdrawals remain open, but the protocol will no longer accept new deposits or borrowings. Some ALPHA-collateralized loan positions on AlphaLend were severely undercollateralized, resulting in bad debts for the protocol. After the Sui Foundation Security Team identified the issue, it collaborated with the project team to address it. The bad debts have now been fully covered, the protocol remains solvent, and user funds are secure. As part of the shutdown arrangements, users should close their positions and withdraw their assets. Slush Strategies users can now directly withdraw funds from Slush Wallet: the lock-up period for the WAL vault has been lifted, withdrawals for SUI, WAL, DEEP, and USDC strategies are instant, and the ALPHA vault has also been shut down with its lock-up period canceled.
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Morgan Stanley shifts to a bullish stance on the US dollar, with high yields set to continue weighing on global risk appetite.
Morgan Stanley has adjusted its previously bearish outlook on the U.S. dollar, forecasting that the greenback’s strength will persist through mid-2027. The bank projects the U.S. Dollar Index will rise to 104 by then, while the euro could fall from its current level around $1.14 to $1.10 against the greenback. The report cites expectations of further Federal Reserve rate hikes, U.S. economic resilience, and persistently high energy prices as factors that will sustain America’s relative interest rate advantage and continue to underpin the dollar. This outlook aligns closely with recent market conditions. On September 25, the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield remained near the 5.2% mark, with the U.S. Dollar Index trading around 101. While U.S. stocks stabilized at the open on optimism over artificial intelligence, and bitcoin hovered around $84,900, elevated yields continued to weigh on valuations of risk assets. Morgan Stanley had earlier revised its Fed rate path to include two 25-basis-point hikes in December this year and March 2027, lifting the federal funds rate range to 4.25%-4.5%, which is likely to be maintained through 2027. For the foreign exchange market, this means the U.S.’s interest rate advantage over other major economies will be slow to narrow. The report also flags European political risks as an additional headwind for the euro, including the French presidential election in spring 2027 and electoral risks in Germany and Italy. If the euro’s risk premium continues to rise, it will work in tandem with the U.S. interest rate advantage to boost the dollar.
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PAID Token’s automatic fee revenue sharing pushes its market capitalization to exceed $40 million, with over 360% growth in 24 hours.
PAID official announcement: The platform has successfully distributed $1.44 million to X Money users via its token creator fee automatic revenue-sharing tool. Paid previously launched its token issuance feature on Pons on the 19th. The official stated that 80% of fees will be sent to X users via X Money, while 20% will be converted to SOL for PAID token buybacks. Token issuers can send fees via X Money by adding an X Handle to their project description. Additionally, celebrities on X do not even need to register for Paid or provide consent to receive fund distributions through X Money. According to GMGN market data, PAID’s market cap on Solana has now exceeded $40 million, with a 24-hour increase of over 360% and trading volume of $32.8 million in the same period. On-chain data shows that Frank DeGods, founder of DeGods, purchased PAID approximately four days ago, investing roughly $145,000 to $169,000 and holding tens of millions of tokens. BlockBeats reminds users that related token prices are highly volatile, so investment requires caution.
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Goldman Sachs: AI capital expenditure has not reached an inflection point, and the market will conduct stricter scrutiny of monetization efficiency.
U.S. stocks remain resilient amid pressure from high oil prices and elevated yields, with AI themes continuing to underpin tech sector performance. Goldman Sachs’ latest calculations have shifted market focus further toward the revenue side: top U.S. AI cloud vendors will need to generate roughly $300 billion in annualized AI revenue over the next several years to cover their current massive investments; for cloud vendors to achieve meaningful returns and the application layer to sustain high profit margins, end-users’ annual spending on AI applications will need to approach $1 trillion. Goldman Sachs analyst Ryan Hammond forecasts that hyperscale cloud vendors’ capital expenditure will reach around $800 billion in 2026, with the market consensus for 2027 standing at roughly $1.1 trillion. Goldman Sachs’ baseline scenario is that actual 2027 spending may still exceed consensus expectations, though the growth rate and the degree of upside surprise will gradually slow. For AI operations already reliant on data centers, GPUs, storage, and networking equipment, capital expenditure is not nearing a sudden contraction point; the market will closely monitor how much cloud revenue and profit each dollar of investment generates. The report does not simply turn the AI narrative into a pessimistic outlook. Goldman Sachs notes that hyperscale cloud revenue in Q2 has added roughly $70 billion in annualized terms compared to pre-AI boom trends, with announced revenue backlogs exceeding $1.5 trillion. Enterprise AI procurement remains in its early stages, and the recent acceleration in corporate spending will make AI’s impact on corporate profits clearer over the coming quarters.
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Security Alert: Users who have previously traded NFTs on Magic Eden’s Ethereum marketplace are advised to revoke authorizations for the Limit Break contract.
RevokeCash has issued a security alert, warning that users who previously traded NFTs on Magic Eden’s Ethereum marketplace likely granted authorization to Limit Break’s Payment Processor contract, which carries a known vulnerability, and recommends revoking that authorization. Yesterday, Magic Eden officials noted that NFTs currently listed on the platform are not affected by the vulnerability, while those listed via its EVM marketplace roughly between February and October 2024 may be impacted; listings after October 2024 are in principle unaffected. The platform is in contact with protocol owner and maintainer Limit Break to explore additional risk mitigation measures, including pausing protocol transfers, and will continue investigating the full scope of the impact. Users who have listed or traded NFTs on Magic Eden’s EVM marketplace should revoke related contract authorizations on the Ethereum, Polygon, and Base networks. They can filter their addresses via revoke.cash and revoke all NFT authorizations marked as "approved for all". Additionally, Yuga Labs’ Vice President of Blockchain, Quit, stated that the asset claim website for NFT theft incidents tied to the Payment Processor vulnerability is now live. Affected users whose NFTs were successfully recovered by Yuga Labs can now file claims, but must first revoke authorization for the Payment Processor.
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AI-themed token IMD on Ethereum mainnet hits an all-time high as its market cap surges past $39 million.
According to GMGN data, Ethereum mainnet AI-themed token IMD has hit a new all-time high market cap of over $39 million, and has since pulled back to $31 million, with a 24-hour trading volume of $2.1 million. IMD is an older token on the Ethereum mainnet, having evolved from a chain game pet token to an experimental project featuring "community-provided computing power, AI labor, and token deflation." Its predecessor was Fren Pet, an electronic pet game launched on Base in 2023, later renamed VIBE, and rebranded as IMD in May 2026. Its current narrative centers on building an "AI cooperative": users holding qualified NFTs can connect their computers and Claude/Codex quotas to the network, enabling AI agents to collaboratively write code, audit smart contracts, and develop applications, with rewards distributed for completed projects. The token uses the POOL4 mechanism, where a portion of IMD is allocated from transactions—most of which is burned, with the remainder distributed to stakers and nodes. BlockBeats reminds users that token prices are highly volatile, so investment requires caution.
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A wallet address generated over $312,000 in profits trading the Meme coin e/acc in just five hours.
Per Lookonchain monitoring, an on-chain address spent $870 to purchase 16.7 million e/acc tokens, which are now valued at $313,000. The address has generated a profit of over $312,000 in just 5 hours, delivering a 350x return on investment.
Spotové Zcash ETF mají za sebou dva dny bez obchodování, ale v září jsou stále v plusu o 284 mil. USD. Grayscale zároveň oznámila forward split akcií 3:1 pro ZCSH s rozhodným dnem 28. září a split-adjusted obchodováním od 30. září.
The spot Zcash ETF market has gone quiet. After a strong run of inflows since launch, the recently debuted $ZEC products have now logged two consecutive days of zero activity, according to @BSCNews. Despite the lull, the funds remain firmly in positive territory for September, still up $284M on the month.
A Strong Start That Has Stalled The Grayscale Zcash ETF (ticker: ZCSH) launched on NYSE Arca on August 25, 2026, becoming the first exchange-traded product in the world to offer spot exposure to $ZEC. The fund hit the ground running, crossing $500 million in assets under management within two weeks of its debut. That milestone coincided with a $100 million investment from Digital Currency Group, which contributed 85,705 ZEC tokens in exchange for ZCSH shares.
The momentum carried well into September. On September 18, the Grayscale Zcash ETF recorded $270 million in inflows, marking its 16th consecutive day of positive flows. By that point, the product had established itself as a significant force among altcoin ETFs, having launched into a market already showing strong institutional appetite for privacy-focused digital assets.
The Cold Spell and What It Means The two-day halt in activity marks a notable reversal after eight straight days of substantial multi-million dollar inflows. While the cause of the pause is unclear, it arrives alongside a broader corporate update from Grayscale. The firm announced a 3-for-1 forward share split for ZCSH, with shareholders of record on September 28 set to receive two additional shares for each one held and split-adjusted trading beginning September 30. The split does not change the fund's underlying value but is designed to lower the per-share price barrier and attract a wider pool of investors.
A brief lull in flows is not uncommon for newly launched ETFs as early buyers consolidate positions and the market reassesses entry points. With September inflows still sitting at $284M, the broader picture for $ZEC ETFs remains strong, even if the short-term momentum has cooled.
Sources:
GlobeNewswire: The Zcash ETF (ZCSH) Begins Trading on NYSE Arca
SEC Filing: Grayscale Zcash ETF AUM Grows to More Than $500 Million (September 8, 2026)
Nabídka stablecoinů na Solaně dosáhla nového historického maxima 17,39 miliardy dolarů, což za 24 hodin představuje nárůst o 7,8 %. Nejvíce přispěly nové emise USDC a USDT od Circle a Tether.
Solana’s stablecoin supply has reached a new all-time high of $17.39 billion, marking another sharp expansion in dollar-backed liquidity on the network.
The total supply stood at approximately $16.13 billion yesterday, September 24, representing an increase of $1.26 billion, or 7.8%, in 24 hours.
The latest record also came only 3 days after Solana set its previous ATH. The market reached approximately $16.87 billion on September 22 before breaking above that level today.
The latest surge followed fresh issuance from the network’s 2 largest stablecoin issuers. Circle minted approximately $751 million in $USDC, while Tether minted about $530 million in $USDT on Solana over the past 24 hours.
Combined, the 2 issuers added roughly $1.28 billion in new stablecoins, slightly above the network’s net $1.26 billion increase.
$USDC Remains Largest, But Its Dominance Has Shifted $USDC currently accounts for 47.31% of Solana’s stablecoin supply, making it the network’s largest stablecoin.
That share has changed considerably in recent months.
Last week, $USDC dominance fell to approximately 44%, down from 80.3% at its February 2025 all-time high. $USDC presently accounts for $8.23 billion of the total supply. $USDT comes next with $2.66 billion.
Regulation Adds Another Layer The stablecoin expansion comes as U.S. regulators move to implement the GENIUS Act. On September 24, the Federal Reserve proposed 2 rules covering payment stablecoin issuers under its supervision. The framework would require issuers to fully back stablecoins with permitted reserve assets, including short-term Treasury bills and other high-quality liquid assets. It would also introduce capital and risk-management requirements and establish a process for Fed-supervised banks seeking approval to issue payment stablecoins.
The proposals also address stablecoin-related activities at Fed-supervised banks and certain arrangements involving rewards or yield. The Fed opened a 60-day public comment period before it considers final rules.
For Solana, the latest stablecoin supply all-time high shows how quickly dollar liquidity can expand when multiple issuers compete for activity on the same network. While USDC remains the largest individual asset, the market now contains a broader mix of stablecoins.
Read More on SolanaFloor Solana’s Rally Is Reviving DAT Stocks and Opening the Door to More $SOL Buys
Centrifuge Brings $HYB to Solana as RWA Ecosystem Tops $4.4B
LayerZero od 30. září ukončí off-chain podporu pro 13 sítí včetně Taiko a opBNB kvůli nízké aktivitě. Stargate Hydra tím přestane podporovat některé z nich.
PANews reported on September 26 that LayerZero has officially reminded users that, due to low activity on certain networks, it will continue to discontinue off-chain service support for the relevant chains in batches, and LayerZero DVN and Executor services will no longer cover these networks. The 13 chains affected starting September 30 are Aurora, Taiko, Japan Open Chain, LightLink, Viction, Anime, XPLA, Merlin, Gnosis, Zora, Otherworld Space, XAI, and opBNB.
As a result, Stargate Hydra will no longer support some of these networks. The official notice reminds affected users to redeem or bridge out assets such as USDC.e, WETH, and Hydra USDT from these chains as soon as possible; among them, Stargate's support for Aurora, Taiko, LightLink, and Gnosis already ended on September 23. According to a September 25 update, LayerZero's off-chain services for Gravity, Camp, Lisk, GOAT, and Metis will be discontinued on October 30, with the corresponding Stargate asset support ending on October 23. The official recommendation is to bridge assets to networks with deeper liquidity that remain supported, such as Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, or BSC, to avoid losing access to funds.
Bybit zveřejnil nový Restricted Counterparty List a zablokoval desítky platforem, včetně Lazarus Group, Garantex, Bitzlato, EXMO, Payeer a HTX. Součástí seznamu jsou i mixéry a darknet tržiště.
Bybit, a leading global cryptocurrency exchange, has released a new Restricted Counterparty List, identifying dozens of crypto platforms, wallets, and organizations that are barred from using its services.
Major crypto platforms, payment processors, and mixers blacklistedThe exchange’s latest list names notable trading platforms such as Garantex, Bitzlato, EXMO, Payeer, and Nobitex among the restricted entities. A range of additional platforms also appear on the list, including Bitpapa, Chatex, Cryptex, Grinex, and Rapira. Bybit has further designated WhiteBird, OMPFinex, Ramzinex, HTX, and Wallex as restricted services.
Several payment processors and regional marketplaces, including Tetherland, Bit24, QvaPay, Huione Guarantee, and Xinbi Guarantee, are also flagged. Independent reports indicate Huione Guarantee and Xinbi Guarantee have faced scrutiny for enabling illicit fund movements across Southeast Asia.
Well-known mixer services such as Samourai Wallet, Bitcoin Fog, and ChipMixer are listed alongside darknet markets Sinbad and Hydra Market, reflecting Bybit’s ongoing efforts to address platforms associated with high-risk activities.
Among the platforms now blocked from Bybit’s services are high-profile exchanges, payment processors, and mixers that have attracted international enforcement attention in recent years.
Bybit cited terms under Section 23 of its Platform Terms and Section 28 of the BVAPO Terms as the basis for these restrictions. These provisions prohibit any dealings with organizations or individuals subject to global sanctions regimes.
The exchange stated it references sanctions lists maintained by authorities including the U.S. Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals list and the European Union’s Consolidated Financial Sanctions List. Comparable registries from regulatory agencies in other jurisdictions are also used in screening processes.
TypeExample Platforms FlaggedTrading platformsGarantex, Bitzlato, EXMO, HTXPayment processorsPayeer, Huione Guarantee, Xinbi GuaranteeMixersSamourai Wallet, ChipMixer, Bitcoin FogDarknet marketsSinbad, Hydra MarketBybit emphasized that its compliance team actively and continuously screens all transactions for links to restricted entities, reserving the right to suspend or terminate any accounts found in violation, block funds, and escalate incidents to regulatory authorities.
Sanctioned organizations and user responsibilityIn addition to trading platforms and wallets, the list includes organizations subject to sanctions due to serious security concerns. Notably, Lazarus Group, also known as Hidden Cobra, Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), Ansarallah (the Houthis), and ISIS-K (ISIS-Khorasan) are named as entities barred from using Bybit’s services.
Lazarus Group, a North Korean state-sponsored cybercrime organization, has been implicated in multiple high-profile crypto breaches. Hamas, Ansarallah, and ISIS-K are designated by various governments as terrorist groups involved in global financial crimes.
Mini dictionary: Lazarus Group is a North Korean hacking collective, officially backed by the state, known for orchestrating large-scale cyberattacks against crypto exchanges and financial institutions worldwide.
According to Bybit’s terms, users who transmit funds to, conduct transactions with, or otherwise interact with a restricted entity are in breach of the exchange’s rules. Customers are required to notify Bybit immediately if they discover any such violation in their activities.
Bybit states that it reserves all necessary rights to ensure compliance, including collaboration with law enforcement and regulatory agencies in multiple jurisdictions.
The exchange may suspend or close user accounts, restrict access to assets, and liquidate affected positions where links to banned parties are confirmed. Bybit has not indicated a specific update schedule for expanding or revising the restricted list.
Industry compliance pressures intensifyBybit’s announcement reflects an industry-wide move among major exchanges to strengthen controls around sanctioned counterparties. Exchanges worldwide are facing increasing pressure from financial regulators to identify and block entities associated with illicit finance or international sanctions.
A spokesperson for Bybit described the new list as a reference point to help users avoid accidental breaches of regulations by transacting with prohibited parties.
This action demonstrates ongoing adjustments in exchange compliance frameworks as global standards evolve for monitoring illicit finance and upholding sanctions obligations.
Aero se 21. října 2026 spustí na sedmi EVM řetězcích včetně Base, Ethereum Mainnetu, OP Mainnetu, Arc, Ink, Robinhood Chain a Arbitrum. Protokol vznikl spojením Aerodrome a Velodrome.
Aero, the cross-chain decentralized exchange born from the merger of Aerodrome and Velodrome, has set October 21, 2026, as its launch date across seven EVM-compatible chains. The deployment will span Base, Ethereum Mainnet, OP Mainnet, Arc, Ink, Robinhood Chain, and Arbitrum.
The protocol’s existing predecessors, Aerodrome and Velodrome, already account for roughly 17% of all EVM spot trading volume.
Seven chains, one liquidity layer The inclusion of Robinhood Chain and Arbitrum in the launch roster was confirmed on September 25, 2026. Robinhood Chain, an Arbitrum Orbit network that went live on mainnet on July 1, 2026, brings tokenized stock products to the deployment.
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At its core, Aero functions as a unified liquidity layer. The protocol uses what its developer, Dromos Labs, calls MetaDEX03 technology to enable cross-chain token swaps through a feature branded as Metaswaps.
The Aerodrome-Velodrome merger Aero represents the formal unification of two protocols that already dominated their respective chains. Aerodrome was the leading DEX on Base, while Velodrome held a similar position on OP Mainnet.
Under Aero, a single AERO token replaces the previously separate governance and incentive structures. The protocol’s economic model promises to distribute 100% of exchange revenue to AERO stakers. No private sales were conducted for the token.
The governance system incorporates what the protocol calls Predictive Allocation, where sAERO holders (staked AERO) direct rewards to liquidity pools. Aero also enables permissionless token launches, allowing any project to create and list a token without needing approval from the protocol team.
Pre-launch momentum and security Aero Lite, a stripped-down version of the protocol designed for early liquidity infrastructure, has already been deployed on Arc. The protocol ran a public audit contest that closed with zero major issues identified. The protocol has also introduced liquidity launchpad programs designed to bootstrap trading pairs and attract early liquidity providers.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Arbitrum One se stal první blockchainovou sítí, která překročila hranici 7 000 tokenizovaných reálných aktiv, když nyní hostí asi 7 083 RWA. Hodnota těchto aktiv činí zhruba 1,03 miliardy dolarů.
Arbitrum One now hosts approximately 7,083 tokenized real-world assets, making it the first blockchain to cross the 7,000 RWA threshold. The milestone, confirmed by on-chain data from RWA.xyz, marks a striking acceleration for a network that only passed 3,000 RWAs in mid-August 2026.
The numbers behind the milestone The distributed value of RWAs sitting on Arbitrum currently stands at roughly $1.03 billion. Transfer volume tells an even more interesting story: 30-day RWA transfers have reached $1.08 billion, suggesting these aren’t dormant tokens gathering digital dust.
Over 11,481 holders are actively participating in the network’s RWA ecosystem. Worth noting: Arbitrum leads in raw asset count, but not in total distributed value. Ethereum and a handful of other chains still command larger dollar-denominated RWA pools.
What’s actually being tokenized Tokenized equities make up the bulk of the growth, with Reality contributing thousands of stock tokens to the Arbitrum ecosystem. Beyond equities, the asset mix includes tokenized Treasury bills, commodities, and private credit instruments. Spiko has been a key player on the T-bill side, while Franklin Templeton, one of the largest asset managers on the planet with over a trillion dollars in assets under management, has brought institutional credibility to the effort.
Robinhood’s involvement adds another dimension. The retail brokerage giant’s participation in on-chain tokenization bridges traditional fintech and decentralized finance, and signals that tokenized assets are moving past the proof-of-concept stage.
How Arbitrum got here The Arbitrum DAO has been strategically deploying resources to attract RWA issuers since 2024, most notably through its Stable Treasury Endowment Program, known as STEP. The program allocated ARB treasury funds directly into real-world assets, generating yield on the DAO’s treasury holdings while simultaneously seeding the ecosystem with RWA infrastructure and liquidity.
As an Ethereum layer-2 rollup, Arbitrum inherits Ethereum’s security guarantees while offering lower transaction costs and higher throughput. For RWA issuers who need to process frequent transfers, redemptions, and settlements, Arbitrum’s fee structure makes continuous trading and settlement economically viable in a way that mainnet alone cannot.
What this means for the RWA market Liquidity fragmentation, where trading activity is scattered across too many instruments with too few participants, remains a structural challenge for the entire RWA sector. Regulatory uncertainty adds another layer of complexity: the SEC hasn’t issued comprehensive guidance on how existing securities laws apply to blockchain-native representations of traditional assets.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
IMD rozšířilo NFT-gated síť AI agentů na 370 agentů a $IMD za poslední týden vzrostl o 200 %. Projekt staví komunitně vlastněnou firmu řízenou umělou inteligencí.
There's a rising AI project in the Ethereum ecosystem that has the early makings of a cult following. It's IMD, for identity.md, and its goal is to actualize a community-owned company run entirely by AI agents.
Today, this mission is coming together across numerous pillars, including 2,000 NFTs that function not as PFPs but as work permits, a swarm of AI agents that holders run on their own machines, a Uniswap V4 hook that burns $IMD on sells, and a launchpad where new coins are priced in $IMD.
And things are moving fast. The agent network opened to NFT holders on September 20th with only a couple dozen agents online out of the gate. Five days later, it's at +370, and $IMD is up +200% over the past week.
Ultimately, IMD's bull case is that its swarm becomes a popular workforce other protocols routinely pay, e.g. as reasoning oracles or beyond. To understand why, and what the project's full potential looks like, let's break down how its machinery works and how you might approach this system’s trade opportunity.
The background IMD was created by Adam (@surfcoderepeat), the lead dev behind the onchain Tamagotchi game Fren Pet that launched on Base in August 2023. I covered the game back then, and notably it still runs to this day.
As Adam expanded toward new AI experiments, he opened a $FP bridge to Ethereum via LayerZero in Oct. 2025. A few months later $FP was rebranded to $VIBE, and then in May 2026 $VIBE became $IMD alongside the free mint drop of the 2,000 identity.md NFTs.
Recently, the project’s revving has accelerated. Its liquidity migrated to Uniswap V4 last month, and then this September it opened its POOL4 burn hook, sIMD staking, a bridge to Robinhood Chain, and its NFT-gated agent network.
If you want to keep up with further advances here, IMD’s official updates are published as onchain messages, i.e. notes written into the data of transactions that Adam sends from 0x200E710aCAA6A93bbc77146026328C40F1d60fB1, which you can read via Etherscan.
How IMD works 1) The NFT seats Each of the 2,000 identity.md NFTs offers one seat in the IMD swarm.
To put a seat to work, a holder must register their NFT as an agent under ERC-8004, an Ethereum standard for giving AI agents onchain identities and reputations. Then they must install the open-source worker client on a machine (a VPS is recommended) and plug in their own Claude or Codex subscription.
A single NFT authorizes one active device, and holders pay for the compute. Notably, the most valuable work, like smart contracts and frontends, only gets routed to seats running top-tier models (e.g. Claude Fable 5.1 at high effort).
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2) The swarm A lead orchestrator agent posts work to the network, after which seats can pick up tasks, then build, and then submit their results.
From there, a verifier rebuilds each submission in a sealed-off container to confirm only the allowed files changed. Other seats review the work adversarially, and accepted efforts get logged onchain as reputation.
As the public explorer shows, what comes out the other end can be things like code (new Uniswap V4 hooks on testnet atm), websites (published to IPFS), oracles (panels of agents that answer independently), and more (audits, reports, images, etc.).
As of this week, outsiders can also buy work. Anyone can pay 0.5 IMD per request to open a job settled via x402. For now this agent system only produces deployments on Sepolia, but mainnet deployments are on the horizon.
— (@)
3) $IMD + sIMD $IMD is the currency of this economy. It's one supply spread out across Ethereum, Base, and Robinhood Chain, bridgeable 1:1, and its supply only goes down. Between burns in the Fren Pet years and burns today, the original 10M supply has shrunk to ~7.1M, i.e. ~29% is gone.
Holders can also stake by depositing $IMD into the StakedIMD vault to receive sIMD, an ERC-4626 (i.e. standardized yield-bearing vault) share that redeems for more $IMD over time as rewards stream in. No lockups or claim steps needed.
Right now, about ~2.3M $IMD is staked, or ~32% of the $IMD supply. And on Sept. 19th, Adam renounced ownership of the staking contract, so no admin can trigger an emergency withdraw on stakers' behalf.
4) POOL4 The IMD protocol owns the main ETH/IMD pool on Uniswap V4, a.k.a. POOL4, which is run by a hook called CappedBurnHook.
Simply put, this hook sets a cap on how much $IMD the pool can hold. When sells push the pool's $IMD above that cap, the hook trims the excess after the swap settles. Of the trimmed tokens, 85% is burned, 6% goes to a reserve for orchestrator compute, 4.5% goes to stakers, and 4.5% goes to the NFT seats.
Meanwhile, the ETH freed up by trims gets redeployed as a buy wall below the current price, and the hook’s cap ratchets down ~1,000 $IMD per day so the sink doesn’t stall. In other words, sells feed burns, and burns feed stakers and seats.
5) Community Coins Last but not least, there's Community Coins, IMD's launchpad. Anyone can launch a coin for the cost of gas, and each one gets a 1B supply and a bonding curve priced in $IMD rather than ETH.
You trade with ETH on the surface, but underneath every buy is an $IMD buy. Each trade also sends 1% to ETH/IMD liquidity providers, 0.5% of the ETH side to the coin's launcher, and burns 0.5% of the $IMD side.
Relatedly, since all coins share one backing pool here, buying any of these coins lifts the others, and selling any coin marks the others down.
Understanding the flywheel & the pulse of the swarm The ideal loop for the IMD system then, at least as things stand, looks like so:
People trade $IMD and Community Coins.
POOL4 trims and burns, supply falls, and stakers and seats earn.
The orchestrator converts specs into live products.
Useful outputs make more people want $IMD-priced launches and paid jobs + more people want seats.
Seat scarcity bids the NFT, and token demand plus burns bid $IMD.
So zooming in on the most important question: is the swarm, the keystone of this flywheel, actually working yet? To find out, I pulled the public seat records from IMD's API this morning (Sept. 25th).
At that time, and as best as I could tell, 380 of the 2,000 seats were enrolled, and 372 agents were online. Of these, 334 enrolled seats previously had work accepted, while 267 boasted +50 accepted submissions, and 193 had +100. The top 10 seats accounted for just ~8.5% of accepted work, and the top 50 for ~32%.
The quality looks decent, too. About 86% of the swarm's ~50,700 attempts have been accepted, and only ~1% were outright rejected (the rest failed or are still pending). Notably, the pace is picking up fast as well, with ~29,600 accepted submissions in the past 24 hours alone.
It’s also worth noting that paying customers have only just begun to arrive. The public x402 rail has facilitated 115 paid orders so far at 0.5 IMD each, i.e. ~57.5 $IMD, or ~$560. Thus the workforce is real, but it’s just now ramping up.
Approaching the trade So say you're interested at this point and thinking about how to participate.
The most accessible entry point is $IMD, as it’s a fungible token you can buy in at any size, versus ~1.99 ETH for a seat. Buy these tokens if you believe trading volume and burns will persist here, and paid demand for the swarm can grow.
This is the token sink play rather than agent ownership. It also opens the door to a secondary play, staking for sIMD, though keep in mind that yields depend on sell flow into the POOL4 hook.
Of course, the NFT play is for more advanced users who want to run a node or can afford to speculate with 1.99 ETH (give or take, the floor moves) on the productive/scarcity value of seats. Seats don’t earn much yet, but that could change, so this will be a thread to watch. They’re an option on future wages, plus a spot in the room for allowlists, airdrops, etc.
Lastly, it’s completely fine to stand aside if you can’t wrap your head around the project, or if you think it will remain in experimental territory and not break out.
The bottom line Can $IMD reach the multi-hundred-million market cap range like other agentic powerhouses, à la Virtuals?
For context, $VIRTUAL sits at about $508M even after falling ~85% from its all-time high, so IMD would need roughly a 7x from here to match it.
To be sure, the projects are built differently so it’s not apples to apples. Virtuals tokenizes agents, giving each one its own token, while IMD tokenizes its capped agent crew as a whole and the system around it, so to speak.
Ultimately, what happens now depends on how the market coalesces around IMD. If it becomes a teeming workforce swarm that more and more protocols pay, then I think such a rise is definitely in the realm of possibility. If it stays a quirky onchain experiment with a great burn sink, the ceiling is lower.
Either way, IMD is certainly one of the most interesting AI efforts happening on Ethereum going into the end of the year. If activity surges come and the momentum is sustained, this could make for one of the most compelling trades of 2026 in my opinion.
DYOR, and treat this like an experiment that hasn’t been formally audited for now. But sometimes experiments grow into giants, and I do think that’s a distinct possibility here. Keep it on your radar at the very least!
Ethena rozšiřuje zajištění USDe o tokenizované americké akcie a equity perpetual futures na Binance. Firma to označila za nejvýznamnější expanzi financovacího mechanismu USDe od spuštění.
Ethena (ENA) is adding tokenized U.S. equities and equity perpetual futures on Binance to the basis trade underlying its USDe (USDe) synthetic dollar backing allocation, extending the strategy into equities.
According to a statement shared exclusively with The Block, Ethena will use bStocks as tokenized spot collateral and Binance equity perpetuals for the hedge. The Ethena Risk Committee previously approved a framework for adding tokenized equity basis trades to its allocation strategy. bStocks represent an interest in securities held by their issuer, BTech Holdings Limited, and can be converted to the underlying securities on Binance, subject to applicable laws.
Ethena has previously run the delta-neutral strategy across crypto assets, using derivatives positions to hedge the exposure. Binance added USDe across its platform last year, including as collateral for futures and perpetuals trading.
Over time, Ethena said it expects the equity perpetual opportunity to significantly exceed the crypto perpetual market.
"This is the most significant expansion of USDe's funding mechanism since we started," Ethena Labs founder Guy Young said. "Equities trade in the hundreds of trillions of dollars globally, and as more of that market moves onchain, we see a substantial opportunity to continue diversifying our backing strategy."
USDe supply currently stands at about $4.9 billion, according to The Block's data dashboard.
Total stablecoin supply. Image: The Block. Equity markets enter Ethena's basis trade Binance has more than $2.9 billion in open interest across equity perpetual futures, according to data provided by Ethena, growing at a compound monthly rate of 105% this year, while the equity basis has averaged 3.56% annualized over the past six months.
"Binance's bStocks and equity perpetuals are seeing increased adoption as their liquidity and use case grows," Binance Head of Exchange and Trading Shunyet Jan said. "Ethena runs one of the largest systematic strategies in digital assets, and their expansion into tokenized securities and equity perps is a clear sign of how the convergence of crypto and traditional assets will surface new opportunities."
Binance previously opened trading in more than 7,000 U.S.-listed stocks and ETFs to eligible users outside the U.S. in June. It subsequently rolled out bStocks later the same month. Binance's TradFi perpetual futures generated about $433.4 billion in volume in August, with equity-linked contracts accounting for roughly $342.9 billion, The Block previously reported.
Bitcoin continues to rally, even as the Federal Reserve’s recent rate hike and the failure of the Clarity Act have added new uncertainties to the market. On-chain data indicates that the supply held by long-term investors recently reached a record high of 15 million BTC, suggesting a significant shift in market dynamics.
Long-term holders and selling pressureMitchell Askew, Head of Blockware Intelligence, highlighted that this unprecedented accumulation by long-term holders may reflect an exhaustion of selling pressure. When so much Bitcoin remains inactive, it often signals growing conviction among holders and a potential foundation for sustained upward price action.
Askew pointed out that historical data shows higher dormancy of coins tends to limit immediate resistance from sellers, giving space for new buyers to accumulate without large quantities entering the market. This supply dynamic can have lasting effects on both the volatility and trend direction of Bitcoin’s price.
Recent on-chain analysis revealed that long-term holders now control 15 million BTC, the highest level ever recorded, which may enhance Bitcoin’s resilience during periods of increased market volatility.
ETF flows and institutional interestAskew also discussed the role of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in shaping demand. He stated that ETF flows have been a notable indicator of renewed institutional interest, with recent inflows pointing to the possibility of bigger investors returning to the market after a period of caution.
This resurgence of institutional participation comes at a time when other market forces, such as technological demands from AI data centers and shifts in global mining, continue to influence the Bitcoin ecosystem. These factors contribute to complex supply and demand dynamics for Bitcoin miners, impacting hash rate trends and overall network profitability.
Broader market trends and investor behaviorFurther, industry observers have commented on the cyclical nature of Bitcoin, noting that the traditional four-year halving cycle appears less predictable due to new variables in both technology and investor behavior. Now, younger demographics like Gen Z are increasingly scrutinized for their saving and investment habits, as economic circumstances and asset preferences evolve rapidly.
Amid these developments, tracking market activity and investor sentiment has become essential not only for Bitcoin but also for the broader digital asset sector. Technical factors such as inactive supply, inflows from institutional products, and changes in network fundamentals continue to play a pivotal role in shaping outlooks.
Market observers also stress the importance of monitoring alternative signals in the rapidly growing meme token market. For example, timing and token selection by investors can lead to rapid value creation, as illustrated by the recent success of a “Niu Lai” trade on Fomo App, where a $99 purchase surged to roughly $370,000. Integrated platforms like Fomo App, which combine token discovery, social feeds, and investor rankings, are offering new tools for monitoring shifts and opportunities in this vibrant segment.
Podíl ETH drženého na centralizovaných burzách klesl na rekordních 3,49 % celkové nabídky. Od 1. června bylo z burz staženo množství odpovídající 1,16 % nabídky.
Ethereum, the largest altcoin, broke its 2021 all-time high (ATH) in August, setting a new record for August 2025.
However, in 2026, ETH experienced a significant supply shift, falling sharply to levels around $1,500.
At this point, the amount of Ethereum held on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges has fallen to its lowest levels.
ETH Supply on Exchanges Drops to 3.49%! Cryptocurrency analysis platform Santiment stated that the percentage of ETH held on exchanges has fallen to only 3.49% of the total supply.
Santiment also added that an amount equivalent to 1.16% of the Ethereum supply has been withdrawn from exchanges since June 1st.
The fact that there is less ETH on exchanges means that, in the short term, the amount of coin that investors are holding directly on exchanges for sale will decrease. However, a decrease in the supply on exchanges alone does not mean that the price of ETH will rise.
Staking and DeFi Are Moving ETH Supply Away From Exchanges! According to Santiment, staking and decentralized finance (DeFi) activities also play a significant role in the supply fluctuations on Ethereum. It is estimated that approximately 35% of ETH is staked.
This situation results in a portion of ETH being utilized in blockchain applications rather than being held on centralized exchanges.
What Does Low Stock Supply Mean for Price? The decrease in the amount of ETH on exchanges can be considered a significant indicator of a shrinking supply of ETH available for sale in the market.
Especially during periods of strong demand, a decrease in the available ETH supply that buyers can encounter can make price movements more sensitive.
However, the decline in exchange reserves alone should not be considered a bullish signal. If ETH holders transfer funds to exchanges again or liquidate their staking and DeFi positions, the liquid supply in the market could increase again.
Therefore, for Ethereum, it is important to monitor the trend of supply on exchanges, staking rate, the amount of ETH used in DeFi, and new demand together in the coming period.
*This is not investment advice.
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Magic Eden varuje, že staré NFT uvedené na svém EVM tržišti mezi únorem a říjnem 2024 mohly být zasaženy zneužitím Payment Processor V2. Whitehat operace zachránila 23 155 NFT v hodnotě přes 5,7 milionu USD, ale 660 WETH se nepodařilo získat zpět.
In brief Magic Eden warned that NFTs listed on its now-closed EVM marketplace between roughly February and October 2024 could be exposed to an exploit in Limit Break's Payment Processor V2. Yuga Labs' 0xQuit said a whitehat operation rescued 23,155 NFTs worth more than $5.7 million, but 660 WETH couldn't be recovered. Users should revoke the contract's approvals on Ethereum, Polygon and Base. Revoking won't return tokens that have already moved. Magic Eden may have left Ethereum behind, but some of its old users' NFTs were still exposed.
The marketplace warned Friday that NFTs listed on its EVM marketplace between roughly February and October 2024 could be affected by an exploit in Payment Processor V2, an NFT trading protocol built and maintained by Limit Break.
Myriad: Where does Ethereum go next? Click to make your prediction.EVM refers to Ethereum and the blockchains compatible with it. Magic Eden adopted the contract to settle trades in 2024, stopped using it that October and shut its EVM marketplace entirely in early 2026.
"No live Magic Eden listings were impacted in this exploit," the company said on X.
The problem lies in lingering approvals. When users list NFTs, they typically grant a contract permission to move them, and that permission stays active until it's revoked.
Magic Eden urged anyone who listed or traded on its EVM marketplace to revoke the V2 contract's "approved for all" permissions on Ethereum, Polygon, and Base using Revoke.cash. It noted that revoking won't return tokens that have already moved.
At 9AM EST today somebody abused a bug in Payment Processor V2 to steal 10 Meebits, 50 Otherdeeds, 10 WoW, and 235 Desperate Apewives.
It wasn't until over 12 hours later that somebody reported it to me, and upon digging in I realized that a great many NFTs were subject to the… pic.twitter.com/Vue8TUyMD2
— Quit (@0xQuit) September 25, 2026
Yuga Labs Vice President of Blockchain 0xQuit said an attacker used the bug to take 10 Meebits, 50 Otherdeeds, 10 World of Women NFTs, and 235 Desperate ApeWives. Limit Break paused Payment Processor V3, which had the same flaw, but V2 couldn't be paused. That forced a whitehat rescue, an operation in which friendly hackers move vulnerable assets to safety before attackers can.
"All in all, we rescued 23,155 NFTs worth north of $5.7M USD," 0xQuit wrote. Owners will be able to reclaim them after revoking the approvals, according to 0xQuit.
But 660 wrapped Ethereum, or WETH, exposed to a reverse version of the exploit wasn't recovered in time.
Magic Eden dropped Ethereum and Bitcoin support in February to focus on Solana and its crypto casino, Dicey. It later wound down its multichain wallet.
The episode lands at a rough time for crypto users. Just yesterday, unknown hackers swiped more than $380 million in Ethereum and other crypto assets from the Bitget exchange in what is now the biggest crypto hack of the year.
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ADA dnes vzrostla o 5 % na 24hodinové maximum 0,2544 USD poté, co FC Barcelona spustila Barça Fan Lab na Cardanu. Platforma má fanouškům nabídnout digitální průkazy totožnosti, sběratelské předměty a Web3 portfolio.
Cardano price rose 5% today to a 24-hour high of $0.2544 as FC Barcelona launched Barça Fan Lab on Cardano. The platform, developed with Andamio, will support fan participation, digital credentials, collectibles, and Web3 portfolios.
ADA Price Jumps as Barça Fan Lab Launches According to the Cardano Foundation, FC Barcelona has launched Barça Fan Lab with Andamio using Cardano infrastructure. The platform aims to shift fans from being passive consumers of content to active participants in the digital space.
The Barcelona project adds another use case to Cardano’s expanding blockchain ecosystem. That expansion was most recently made possible via the x402 software kit, which made it possible for applications and AI agents to handle transactions with ADA.
While these developments expand Cardano’s utility, ADA also saw sharp price movement during the session. Despite rising, the token later pulled back from its $0.2544 high as selling pressure emerged near resistance. At press time, Cardano traded at $0.2482, holding a 1.47% jump over the last 24 hours.
FC Barcelona Brings Fan Credentials to Cardano Through the Barça Fan Lab, supporters will be able to learn the club’s history, identity, and values using structured learning pathways. On top of this, fans are able to participate in community events and earn verifiable digital credentials.
Access will use BarçaID, while each participant can create a Cardano-based Web3 portfolio. The portfolio may store credentials and access tokens that are obtained from activities conducted on the platform.
The program will include club history, sustainability, digital communities, and Web3 use cases. These include collectibles, loyalty functionality, NFTs, smart contracts, and recognition systems on the blockchain.
Other topics range from inclusion, empowerment of women, technology, and responsible digital innovation. Subsequently, FC Barcelona wants fans to participate and receive verifiable recognition for their contributions.
Catalyst Fund 13 Supports Barça Fan Lab Development Barça Fan Lab is supported through Cardano’s Catalyst Fund 13, while Andamio serves as the technology partner. Catalyst accepts proposals from the public, goes through community review, and votes on these projects.
The learning pathways, digital credentials, and community activities are made possible through the infrastructure provided by Andamio. That collaboration allows Barcelona to have a Cardano-based solution to ensure that fans participate and their actions are registered and verified.
The project comes at a time when Cardano’s network infrastructure is undergoing a broader transformation. The changes are preparations for the Dijkstra upgrade as part of the network’s planned protocol development on Node 11.1.1.
As we reported, Node 11.1.1 removed older tracing systems and addressed issues linked to Genesis operations. Later releases, however, will set up Plutus V4 and nested transactions in advance of the final protocol upgrade.
Americké úřady zabavily asi 84,2 milionu USD z účtů napojených na Capstone, který zpracovával stovky milionů dolarů pro Tether a Bitfinex. EQIBank tvrdí, že je zmrazeno zhruba 80 % jejích prostředků a hrozí jí kolaps.
The U.S. Department of Justice has seized about $84.2 million from bank accounts linked to Capstone, a payment firm that handled hundreds of millions of dollars for Tether and Bitfinex
But the seizure goes beyond the stablecoin giant, as EQIBank says around 80% of its funds are frozen and warns that its operations could collapse.
How Did Capstone Become a $700M Crypto Banking Link?Federal prosecutors filed a civil forfeiture complaint against Capstone’s accounts on July 15, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California.
The case centers on Capstone Limited, a Sacramento-based company run by Kotaro Shimogori and Mary Jeanne Thompson. Prosecutors say Capstone served as a link between EQIBank and the U.S. banking system.
EQIBank, a digital bank based in Dominica, did not have a direct account with the U.S. Federal Reserve. Because of this, it relied on Capstone to help process U.S. dollar transfers.
Prosecutors allege that Capstone told U.S. banks it was an IT services company. However, they say the company was actually handling international money transfers without the required license.
The amount of money moving through Capstone was significant.
Court documents show that more than $700 million passed through one Capstone account over several months. About $337 million was then sent to hundreds of people and companies, with nearly two-thirds of that money reportedly processed for Tether and Bitfinex.
What Assets Were Seized in the Case?The DOJ’s civil forfeiture case covers money held in several bank accounts and digital wallets linked to Capstone. Federal authorities seized about $84.2 million in total, including funds held at major U.S. banks and USDT stored in two digital wallets.
The seized assets included:
$79.1 million from a Capstone account at Wells Fargo Securities.$1.86 million from a Capstone account at Wells Fargo Bank.$2.06 million from an operational account at JPMorgan Chase.1.18 million USDT from two digital wallets linked to the case.The DOJ also alleges that a cyber-fraud group used Capstone’s accounts to move stolen money. The group reportedly posed as FBI agents and converted some of the stolen funds into USDT.
Response From EQIBank, Capstone, Tether, and BitfinexFollowing the seizure EQIBank quickly filed an emergency motion in a California court to recover the frozen assets. The Dominica-based bank says the freeze has blocked around 80% of its total funds, putting its operations under serious pressure.
EQIBank warned that it could face bankruptcy and collapse if the funds remain frozen.
The bank also says it was an “innocent owner” and that Capstone misled it about its registration and operations.
Meanwhile, Capstone has denied criminal wrongdoing. Its lawyer said the company plans to challenge the government’s civil forfeiture complaint.
Tether and Bitfinex said they were unaware of Capstone’s alleged banking misrepresentations or money laundering activity.
Story Ends Here
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Circle a Tether zmrazily peněženku spojenou s hackem Bitgetu a zablokovaly asi 318 000 USD ve stablecoinech. Zbytek uloupených prostředků už byl převážně přesunut do ETH mimo jejich dosah.
In brief Circle and Tether froze a wallet tied to the Bitget hack, blacklisting roughly 99,990 USDC and 218,023 USDT (~$318,000) at the contract level; Circle acted at 05:00 UTC Friday, with Tether following via its multisig hours later. The wallet's ~170 ETH stayed untouched—issuers can freeze their own tokens but not Ethereum—and trackers show other exploiter addresses still hold 63,000+ ETH beyond reach. It's a small dent in a breach pegged at roughly $387 million, with Lazarus Group a suspected culprit and Bitget's $464 million protection fund set to cover losses. Circle and Tether have frozen a wallet linked to the massive Bitget exchange hack, cutting off roughly $318,000 in stablecoins from the attacker, though the bulk of the stolen fortune moved beyond reach before issuers could act.
Blockchain data shows Circle blacklisted the address, labeled "Bitget Exploiter 8" on Etherscan, at 05:00 UTC Friday, using the built-in freeze function in its USDC token contract.
Myriad: Where does Ethereum go next? Click to make your prediction.Roughly seven hours later, Tether followed suit, with a signer confirming a transaction on its multisig wallet that added the same address to USDT's blacklist. Together the actions locked about 99,990 USDC and 218,023 USDT in place.
The wallet also held around 170 ETH, but that portion remains untouched, underscoring the core limitation of stablecoin freezes: issuers can blacklist their own tokens at the contract level, but no one can freeze Ethereum itself.
That gap explains why so little was recovered. The attacker appears to have raced to convert freezable assets into ETH before issuers intervened, consolidating stolen tokens into fresh wallets and swapping stablecoins out within minutes.
Blockchain trackers indicate other exploiter-linked addresses still hold more than 63,000 ETH that no issuer has the authority to touch.
The freezes are a small dent in one of the year's largest exchange breaches. The Bitget hack drained hundreds of millions of dollars, with early estimates reaching $387 million, and analysts have pointed to North Korea's Lazarus Group as a possible culprit.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen has said attackers compromised a backend system in the exchange's wallet infrastructure, spoofing transaction data to trigger unauthorized transfers, while ruling out a private-key compromise. The exchange has said a user protection fund holding more than $464 million will cover losses.
The rapid blacklisting drew notice as a faster response than some past incidents, though it also renewed a long-running debate about the centralized control issuers wield over supposedly permissionless assets.
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Tezos spustil Quantumnet, experimentální testnet pro zkoušení kvantově odolné kryptografie napříč více vrstvami blockchainu. Nejde o finální ani produkční verzi.
Future quantum computers are acting as a threat to the current blockchain technology, which relies heavily on cryptography such as elliptic-curve signatures.
Hence, to protect itself from this threat, Tezos has launched Quantumnet, an experimental test network. However, it is not the final post-quantum version of Tezos or ready for production use.
Instead, it is a testing ground where the developers can identify problems, measure performance, and refine the technology before potentially proposing it as a future protocol amendment.
Tezos plays the test match In an email to AMBCrypto, Zaynah Dargaye, Core Layer 1 Engineering Manager at Nomadic Labs, said,
Quantumnet gives us a space to experiment rigorously and in the open on a major topic for the Tezos ecosystem.
He added,
We are doing this work early so that we have the time to learn, iterate and ultimately make sure Tezos is ready for a post-quantum future, with as smooth a transition path as possible. This is just the beginning, and it is particularly exciting to see this work taking shape.
So for now, Tezos is testing quantum-resistant cryptography across multiple layers of its blockchain, and not just user accounts.
Quantumnet uses ML-DSA-44 for tz5 account signatures and Smooth Weighted Round Robin for baker selection. It also tests post-quantum signature aggregation for consensus and ZODA for data availability.
Meanwhile, TzEL is exploring confidential post-quantum transactions separately. That leaves Tezos with several pieces to test together before any change reaches its live network.
Blockchain prepares against quantum threats This coincided with Ethereum developers targeting the end of 2029 to make L1 quantum-resistant. They planned an intermediate step for late 2026.
At the same time, Bitcoin’s quantum defense has already taken a step forward after StarkWare and the MARA Foundation conducted the first known quantum-resistant Bitcoin transaction on the 27th of August.
Final Summary Quantumnet is not the final post-quantum version of Tezos. Tezos is testing quantum-resistant cryptography across multiple layers of its blockchain.
Stellar's native token $XLM posted a solid seven-day run, gaining 13% to trade at $0.2167 as of September 25. Trading volume over the prior 24 hours jumped 82% to $528.9 million, while the network's market cap stood at $7.57 billion, pointing to renewed interest in the payments-focused blockchain.
DeFi Activity Picks Up Across the Network On-chain activity on the @StellarOrg network strengthened in parallel with the price move. DeFi total value locked (TVL) rose 5.8% in 24 hours to $260.39 million, according to DeFiLlama data. Weekly decentralised exchange (DEX) volume climbed 86%, and stablecoins held on the chain grew 4.6% to $938.38 million, reflecting a broader uptick in user activity and liquidity deployment.
The numbers build on a longer growth trend for Stellar DeFi. Stellar posted 284% year-over-year TVL growth through 2025 and carried that momentum into Q1 and Q2 2026. Blend, the network's main lending protocol, reached $110.25 million in TVL after growing 25.9% quarter-over-quarter through Q1 2026.
Institutional Adoption Adding Structural Support Beyond the headline numbers, Stellar continues to attract institutional interest. Payments platform BVNK has integrated Stellar, opening the network to businesses across more than 130 markets for cross-border stablecoin payments. On the protocol side, the "Adapter" upgrade (Protocol 28) went live on mainnet on September 17, 2026, introducing atomic contract-fleet upgrades and faster consensus under load, aimed at supporting larger financial applications.
Cross-border payments remain Stellar's primary use case, with stablecoin-related volume exceeding $5.5 billion in Q1 2026, a 72% year-over-year increase. That structural demand, combined with growing on-chain liquidity, helps explain why this week's price and volume moves carried more weight than a typical short-term spike.
Sources:
DeFiLlama: Stellar Chain Overview
CryptoNews: Stellar TVL Surged to Nearly $200M
CoinMarketCap: Latest Stellar News and Updates
The total market capitalization of stablecoins on the XRP Ledger reached $1.159 billion on September 25, rising by $67.12 million in the last week, according to data from DefiLlama. This marks a 6.15% increase over seven days, with RLUSD maintaining its position as the dominant stablecoin on the network.
RLUSD strengthens dominanceRLUSD, also known as Ripple USD, accounted for $1.067 billion, representing 92.1% of all stablecoins tracked on the XRP Ledger. RLUSD’s market value increased 11.55% over the past 30 days, outpacing the overall 9.8% growth of the stablecoin sector on the network during the same period.
The XRP Ledger, first launched by Ripple Labs in 2012, is a decentralized blockchain network focused on fast and cost-efficient digital asset transfers.
The RLUSD surge coincides with developments on the network, including preparations for the activation of Batch V1.1, which has surpassed the necessary validator support threshold. This feature is set to allow groups of interlinked transactions to settle together under preset conditions, aiming to improve efficiency for users executing multiple related transfers.
Mini dictionary: XRP Ledger Batch V1.1, an upcoming protocol upgrade that enables grouped transactions to be executed and settled under defined rules, intended to streamline complex operations and enhance throughput on the blockchain.
The growth in RLUSD has helped push the overall market capitalization of XRP Ledger stablecoins to new highs, attracting increased industry attention.
StablecoinMarket Cap (XRP Ledger)30-Day Change7-Day ChangeShare of MarketRLUSD$1.067 billion+11.55%+6.69%92.1%USDC$4.62 million-21.86%+6.71%0.4%Valtorum USD$72.77 million-7.03%Data not specified6.3%EUR CoinVertible$11.37 million-2.37%Data not specified1.0%USDC and other stablecoins declineUSDC, issued by Circle, saw its market cap on the XRP Ledger drop 21.86% over the last month to $4.62 million, despite achieving a 6.71% increase in the past week. This recent uptick was marginally higher than RLUSD’s weekly growth rate. However, on the whole, USDC’s position on the ledger has weakened significantly.
Other network stablecoins also experienced decreases over the month. Valtorum USD fell 7.03% to $72.77 million, while EUR CoinVertible declined 2.37% to $11.37 million. These market cap numbers represent only the stablecoin balances on the XRP Ledger, not their supply across all blockchain networks.
The value tracked by DefiLlama covers only the stablecoins present and circulating on the XRP Ledger, not overall trading volumes or total decentralized finance activity. Binance marked the week with a campaign launching new XRP rewards for eligible RLUSD holders, prompting additional focus on the token.
Market trends and stablecoin mechanicsChanges in stablecoin market capitalization do not directly imply that funds were moved from USDC or other coins into RLUSD. Confirming such flows would require specific transaction data linking withdrawals, redemptions, transfers, and issuances. Balances on the ledger also provide no detail about the identities of users or institutions responsible for the recent net increases.
RLUSD aims to maintain a 1:1 peg to the US dollar, backed by cash and cash-equivalent reserves, according to issuer Ripple. RLUSD is available on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum networks; thus, the market cap figure reflects only the XRP Ledger portion of its total circulation.
Ripple says RLUSD serves payments, institutional settlements, and treasury management needs. The company guarantees RLUSD’s redeemability for US dollars. XRP, the native asset of the XRP Ledger, remains distinct from RLUSD and other stablecoins. The recent rise in RLUSD and other balances does not necessarily indicate corresponding XRP purchases or increased institutional participation.
The uptick in XRP Ledger stablecoin balances cannot be interpreted as evidence of direct institutional investment or automatic buying of XRP tokens by stablecoin issuers or holders.
Binance investuje 100 milionů USD do Circle a uzavřela pětiletou dohodu na podporu adopce USDC na své globální platformě. NYSE a Blockchain.com zároveň chystají tokenizované americké akcie a ETF prostřednictvím nového ATS.
The boundaries between cryptocurrency firms and traditional financial institutions are increasingly intersecting, with new partnerships and investments signaling a shift toward integrated payment systems and tokenized assets. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, has committed a $100 million investment in Circle, a key player in the stablecoin sector. Meanwhile, Canada’s leading banks are collaborating on new blockchain-based deposit initiatives, and the New York Stock Exchange is advancing plans to bring tokenized US securities to crypto-focused platforms.
Binance’s $100 million Circle deal expands USDC partnershipBinance strengthened its collaboration with Circle through a $100 million investment announced this week, accompanied by a five-year agreement aimed at boosting adoption of USD Coin (USDC) across Binance’s global platform.
A recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Circle issued 1,237,011 shares of its Class A common stock to Binance, priced at $80.84 each, during a private placement executed on September 17. Circle’s share price climbed in response to the announcement, and the purchase price was noted as being below its prevailing market value before the deal finalized.
The partnership goes beyond a capital investment. Circle agreed to pay Binance a monthly incentive fee based on the amount of USDC managed through the exchange’s Modular Smart Contract Wallet system, a technology designed to make holding digital assets more flexible and secure.
Binance faces restrictions on selling, transferring, pledging, or otherwise disposing of the Circle shares for up to two years, though the lockup may end early if certain conditions are met. During this period, Binance will retain voting rights for its shares.
Circle and Binance deepened their relationship with a major investment and lengthy agreement to drive USDC adoption on the exchange’s network.
Circle, a US-based financial technology company, is known for developing USDC, one of the most widely used USD-backed stablecoins in global digital transactions.
Canada’s six largest banks—Bank of Montreal, CIBC, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, and TD Bank Group—are jointly exploring the launch of tokenized Canadian dollar deposits. The project aims to enable digital representations of bank deposits to move swiftly between institutions, potentially connecting to wider digital asset networks in the future.
The initiative follows a clarification by Canada’s bank regulator, which stated that tokenized deposits are not legally distinct from traditional bank deposits, meaning their core legal status remains unchanged regardless of the technology used.
Unlike stablecoins backed by cash and issued by financial technology companies, tokenized deposits would remain recognized as liabilities of banks, allowing them to offer programmable, rapid transfer solutions within the established financial system.
Mini dictionary: Tokenized deposits, digital versions of traditional bank deposits issued on a blockchain, which let financial institutions and clients transfer value on digital rails while keeping deposits as conventional bank liabilities.
Canada’s new stablecoin rules are set to cover non-bank issuers, while regulated banks and credit unions are excluded under the current framework.
Stablecoin use grows as market contractsDespite a sharp downturn in the broader crypto market, which saw total capitalization drop 37% to $2.1 trillion, cross-border stablecoin flows jumped 78% to $220.3 billion in the year through June, according to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis.
Chainalysis identified 4,708 new cross-border corridors handling $2.64 billion, with the largest corridors representing 96.1% of total value transferred. The typical transfer was about $3,000, indicative of activity ranging from remittances to business payments.
Tether’s chief economist Philip Gradwell described the wave of stablecoin transfers as “steady,” aligning with global business needs more than trading speculation. StraitsX CEO Tianwei Liu cited increasing demand for dollar-based assets, inflation protection, and pathways around capital restrictions outside Asia.
The rise in stablecoin payments has coincided with regulatory advancements in several major jurisdictions. The US implemented the GENIUS Act in July 2025, while the European Union’s MiCA regulation and Hong Kong’s licensing rules have expanded formal oversight across the sector.
MarketStablecoin FlowsTotal Crypto Market CapYear through June$220.3 billion (+78%)$2.1 trillion (down 37%)The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Blockchain.com have formed a partnership to provide tokenized US stocks and exchange-traded funds via a forthcoming alternative trading system (ATS). The project will allow crypto users to gain exposure to regulated equities on a blockchain infrastructure.
Both companies have signed a memorandum of understanding for this initiative, which depends on regulatory approvals. The agreement also includes a data-sharing partnership with Intercontinental Exchange’s ICE Data Services, a major provider of financial market data and the parent of NYSE.
Reid Noch, a director at TD Securities, said the collaboration targets the expanding market for retail trading and seeks to enable 24/7 market access. Talos’s Tanay Ved highlighted how digital asset platforms are evolving into multi-asset trading solutions.
According to RWA.xyz, the total value of tokenized stocks has reached $3.14 billion, with the number of holders up 72% to 3.87 million.
US regulators have introduced a five-year Innovation Exemption for selected tokenized securities trading venues, provided that these digital assets represent real shares with full economic and governance rights in line with traditional stocks.
Útočník na Bitget po průlomu za zhruba 351,6 milionu USD převedl ukradené USDC do ETH. Případ znovu vyvolal otázky, kdy Circle dokáže zmrazit prostředky spojené s útokem.
The Bitget hacker has converted stolen USDC into ETH after a breach that the exchange valued at about $351.6 million, renewing questions about when Circle freezes funds linked to an attack.
Summary
Security researcher Taylor Monahan flagged USDC transfers and swaps tied to the Bitget attacker. Bitget estimated the theft at $351.6 million and temporarily suspended withdrawals. Circle says it freezes USDC when legally compelled, while researchers have criticized its response time in past hacks. A U.S. lawsuit over the Drift exploit has raised similar questions about stolen USDC moving across chains. Security researcher Taylor Monahan flagged the attacker’s activity on X, pointing to USDC moving through wallets as stolen assets were converted into ETH. Monahan questioned why the funds remained movable despite Circle’s ability to block transfers from specific USDC addresses.
The transactions show the attacker using USDC during the conversion process, according to Monahan’s account. Her criticism concerns Circle’s response to identifiable funds, although the public account of the transfers does not establish whether Circle received a legal order concerning those addresses or when it learned their identities.
Bitget attacker moves USDC after $351.6 million breach Bitget said its security systems detected unauthorized transfers from some hot wallets at 18:31 UTC on Sep. 24. The exchange activated an emergency response, suspended customer withdrawals and estimated the affected assets at approximately $351.6 million. Deposits and trading remained available, while Bitget said account balances were accurate and its cold wallets were secure.
In its initial report on the breach, crypto.news covered Bitget CEO Gracy Chen’s account of the preliminary investigation. Chen said investigators had ruled out a leak of wallet private keys and believed the attackers had entered the exchange’s systems to move funds directly, without submitting customer withdrawal requests. Bitget was still investigating the entry point and had not released a final account of the attack.
The theft involved several assets, leaving investigators to follow more than one route for the stolen funds. On-chain tracker Lookonchain estimated the stolen portfolio at roughly $356.8 million using prices at the time of its update. Its breakdown included 102.93 million XRP worth about $157.48 million, 31,890 ETH worth about $85.75 million, and 21.05 million USDC. Lookonchain’s changing on-chain estimate and Bitget’s internal loss figure use different measurements.
Bitget said it had flagged addresses linked to the abnormal transfers and notified law enforcement and on-chain security firms. Chen said measures to prevent further outflows had been completed as engineers worked on repairs and the return of withdrawal services.
Monahan’s concern centers on the portion of the stolen assets held in USDC. Circle’s USDC terms say the issuer reserves the right to block transfers to and from certain on-chain addresses under its blocklisting policy. Once an attacker swaps USDC for ETH, however, a block on a USDC address cannot freeze the ETH received in that trade.
Circle’s freeze policy draws a response-time dispute Circle has described a narrower standard for using its technical controls than the one its critics seek during a live exploit. In an April statement on lawful intervention, published after the Drift Protocol hack, the company said it exercises its freeze ability when legally compelled by an appropriate authority. Circle argued that letting an issuer decide on its own whose assets to block could put legitimate holders’ property rights at risk.
Its USDC terms also say Circle may be required to freeze tokens after receiving a legal order from a valid government authority. The terms separately reserve the right to block certain addresses that Circle determines may be associated with illegal activity or a violation of its terms. They state that an on-chain USDC transaction cannot be reversed or recalled once initiated.
Those provisions matter to U.S. holders because Circle issues a dollar-backed stablecoin used across exchanges and decentralized applications, while its freeze decisions can affect access to tokens at a particular address. Circle’s stated policy places lawful process at the center of that decision. Monahan’s criticism focuses on the time available to intervene before a suspected attacker finishes moving or swapping the USDC.
Circle said in its April statement that tools for faster intervention exist, but legal frameworks for quicker, coordinated action while protecting users’ rights remain incomplete. The company called for clearer rules and for security measures across protocols, wallets, exchanges and stablecoin issuers.
ZachXBT documented 15 earlier USDC cases On-chain investigator ZachXBT alleged in April that Circle had taken minimal action or failed to act quickly enough in 15 cases involving more than $420 million in suspected illicit USDC flows since 2022. His list covered hacks and fraud cases in which he said stolen funds remained movable despite time to identify the activity.
As previously covered by crypto.news, ZachXBT cited about $9 million in USDC linked to the July 2025 GMX hack and said wallets involved in the Cetus hack were blocked only after the stolen USDC had been converted into ETH. He also alleged that attackers in the Drift case moved roughly $232 million over about six hours and more than 100 transactions before converting the funds.
The Drift transfers became the subject of a U.S. civil case. In April, a claimant sued Circle over transfers following the exploit, alleging that the issuer failed to stop roughly $230 million in stolen USDC routed through its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol. The complaint, filed in a federal district court in Massachusetts, argues that earlier intervention could have reduced the losses. Those are the claimant’s allegations, rather than a court finding against Circle.
In that case, the claimant also pointed to Circle’s freeze of 16 USDC-linked wallets tied to a separate sealed U.S. civil matter as evidence that the issuer could block addresses. Circle’s April public statement, issued after the Drift attack, said freezes require lawful authority and called for legal structures that would permit faster action during future incidents.
Zcash has climbed toward $1,600 following a series of sharp price increases, coinciding with the introduction of a new investment product in Europe. Investors in the region now have a fresh avenue to gain exposure to the privacy-focused cryptocurrency without taking on the risks or complexity of direct ownership.
On September 21, Swiss-based exchange-traded product issuer 21Shares launched the Zcash ETP, under the ticker ZCASH, designed for European investors. The ETP is physically backed, meaning that each share represents actual ZEC held in custody on behalf of investors. The product began trading with $100,212 in assets and 5,000 securities outstanding. Investors are subject to a 2.5% annual product fee, which impacts returns relative to holding ZEC directly.
21Shares is recognized as one of the largest providers of crypto ETPs in Europe, aiming to help traditional investors access digital assets through regulated and familiar investment vehicles.
Mini dictionary: Exchange-Traded Product (ETP), a type of security that tracks an underlying asset such as a cryptocurrency, commodity, or index, and trades on stock exchanges similarly to shares.
Price rally predates product launchZEC’s latest surge predates the introduction of the European ETP. Data from CoinGecko show Zcash closing near $1,111 on September 15, before surging above $1,300 on September 16 and reaching around $1,471 the day the ETP launched. The price momentum continued, pushing Zcash above $1,600.
Earlier gains were tracked by Coinpaper, which reported the break above $1,000. Additional factors behind the rally included an investment in ZEC by crypto investment firm Paradigm and anticipation for the network’s upcoming NU7 upgrade—a significant software update for the Zcash protocol scheduled to improve performance and security.
Mini dictionary: NU7 upgrade, a future protocol update to Zcash designed to enhance the blockchain’s scalability, privacy, and network rules.
ZEC’s rally began before the ETP’s introduction, with the new product becoming an additional access point rather than the driving force behind recent price action.
New investment options for European investorsThe launch of the Zcash ETP offers investors exposure through a typical brokerage setup, eliminating the need to manage digital wallets, private keys, or direct cryptocurrency custody. This approach is especially suited for institutions or individuals restricted to regulated investment vehicles.
In financial terms, holding $10,000 worth of ZEC in the ETP would cost investors about $250 per year in management fees, excluding any changes in ZEC’s value. Direct ZEC ownership does not incur recurring product fees, though it does require investors to assume full responsibility for security and storage.
OptionAnnual FeeCustody FormatTypical User21Shares Zcash ETP2.5%Brokerage account (regulated ETP)Traditional investors, institutionsDirect ZECNoneSelf-custody (wallets, private keys)Crypto-native usersWhile not the least expensive way to participate in Zcash’s price movements, the ETP’s primary benefit is offering streamlined, regulated access to the asset.
For those unable or unwilling to manage direct crypto holdings, ETPs provide access to $ZEC within an established financial framework.
Aave V4 na Base nově umožňuje použít tokenizované akcie Coinbase jako zástavu pro půjčky v USDC. Do kolaterálu patří sedm amerických titulů včetně Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia a Tesla.
Coinbase’s tokenized stocks can now be used as collateral for USDC loans on Aave V4 on Base, bringing seven U.S. equities into the decentralized lending protocol’s collateral markets.
The Equities Hub launched Friday with Coinbase-issued tokenized stocks tracking Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla, according to a statement shared with The Block. The seven assets are available to eligible non-U.S. users in permitted jurisdictions.
Aave said users can deposit the tokenized stocks and borrow USDC against them. The equities are collateral-only at launch, with Chainlink providing onchain pricing through its tokenized equity feeds.
“Public equities are one of the largest pools of capital in the world, and tokenization is starting to bring that capital onchain,” Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave Labs, said in the announcement.
“Until now a tokenized stock was something you could hold or trade. Today it becomes something you can borrow against,” Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave Labs, told The Block.
The market launches with an initial collateral cap of roughly $29 million across the seven stocks, a $32 million USDC supply cap and a $21 million USDC borrow cap, according to Aave’s risk provider LlamaRisk. Collateral factors range from 65% to 79%, depending on the stock.
Aave pushes beyond crypto assets The launch comes as Kulechov has been outlining a broader push into tokenized stocks, securities, and other real-world assets. In a recent interview with The Block, he said institutions "come with size" and could drive demand for onchain borrowing.
Kulechov also said the technology behind tokenization is no longer the main obstacle for the sector. “Tokenization and DeFi are not a technological challenge anymore,” he said. “I think it's a go-to-market challenge.”
His comments came a day after the Senate voted 49-50 against advancing the Clarity Act. Kulechov said DeFi may need to follow an “Uber path” by reaching enough users that lawmakers are forced to address how the sector should be regulated.
“But if that doesn’t obviously happen, I think the ultimate goal is to really use this technology and empower millions of people around the world,” he said.
Equities pooled into one USDC market Aave said the Equities Hub uses its Hub and Spoke architecture to pool the equity collateral into a single market with one USDC reserve. Risk parameters are set separately for each asset, while issues affecting one equity are isolated from the others.
The market operates around the clock, according to the statement. Additional Coinbase tokenized stocks could be added over time, along with GHO as a borrowable asset, subject to governance and risk review.
“Aave's adoption of Coinbase’s Tokenized Stocks powered by Chainlink as official oracle solution marks a major step toward bringing the $150+ trillion global equities market onchain,” Chainlink Chief Business Officer Johann Eid said.
Base Head of Growth Antonio García-Martínez said eligible customers outside the U.S. can use the stocks to borrow USDC, while USDC suppliers can earn interest.
USDC supply by blockchain. Image: The Block. Aave said it has processed $3.6 trillion in cumulative deposits and more than $1 trillion in all-time loans.
EU chce zahrnout crypto lending do rámce MiCA a EBA navrhuje limity páky i certifikaci DeFi protokolů. Aave zároveň označil návrh Morpho na klasifikaci vaultů za „účelový“.
The European Union [EU] wants to bring crypto lending within the scope of the MiCA framework. In a recent policy review, the European Banking Authority (EBA) said that DeFi lending and borrowing should be regulated.
EBA crafts policy and regulates the EU-wide banking sector to ensure financial stability and user protection.
According to EBA, crypto lending, either via an intermediated interface of crypto asset service providers (CASPs) or DeFi protocols, can offer regulatory arbitrage for stablecoin yields.
MiCA banned stablecoin yield, but some, such as Circle’s USDC and EURC, still earn yield via DeFi strategies. For EBA, this could cause more problems,
Thus, the activities (DeFi lending) may pose regulatory arbitrage risks. Additionally, the EBA and ESMA have identified a series of potential consumer protection risks.
The consumer protection risks highlighted by the watchdog include over-leverage, contagion risks, hacks, and fraud.
To mitigate against these risks, EBA proposed a few considerations, including leverage caps, disclosure requirements, and cyber resilience-based certification for DeFi protocols.
Source: EBA Additionally, the proposed rules could bar unlicensed stablecoins such as USDT from DeFi lending. Regulators would likely focus on platforms that give users access to DeFi protocols through intermediated lending and borrowing.
The proposed EU approach differs from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) approach. The SEC warned that securities laws could apply when curators actively manage vaults to generate yield. The treatment of fully non-custodial vaults remains less clear.
Still, leading industry players disagree on how regulators should classify on-chain vaults and which rules should apply.
Aave disagrees with Morpho on DeFi vaults Vaults pool users’ assets and deploy them across lending opportunities. Some follow preset rules; others give curators discretion over where the assets go.
The segment held roughly $10 billion across more than 4,000 deployed vaults, within a $54 billion DeFi lending market.
However, Aave and Morpho, some of the top DeFi lending giants, are undecided on the classification of vaults for regulation.
Why did Aave challenge Morpho’s vault model? For his part, Morpho CEO Paul Frambot proposed two categories: non-custodial and discretionary vaults. According to him, non-custodial vaults will limit curators’ role and allow user flexibility (including exit capacity or time lock).
In contrast, discretionary vaults should be managed by asset managers, but will trigger the SEC’s securities laws.
However, Stani Kulechov discredited Frambot’s non-custodial vault proposal as weak.
This categorisation doesn’t make sense and is pretty much self-serving. Vaults that could reasonably be considered non-custodial are those without a manager. There’s nothing inherently wrong with discretionary vaults, as long as the regulatory path is figured out.
Source: X Overall, the EU wants to expand MiCA oversight to crypto lending and borrowing, yet the industry is undecided on how to classify vaults.
Final Summary European banking regulator wants crypto lending to be regulated under MiCA with leverage caps and DeFi certification. Aave’s Kulechov discredited Morpho’s proposed vault classification model for US regulation.
Bitwise NEAR ETF cleared to list and trade on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR. The first spot exchange-traded fund linked to Near Protocol is expected to launch soon. NEAR price is expected to surge, extending the 36% rally in the past week.
Bitwise Gets Approval for its NEAR ETF Bitwise’s application to list and trade the shares of its NEAR ETF is approved by NYSE Arca. The S-1 registration statement for the spot exchange-traded fund is effective under Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act.
As CoinGape reported earlier, the crypto fund manager filed with the US SEC to list and trade Bitwise NEAR ETF on NYSE Arca under the ticker symbol NRR. It aims to offer regulated exposure to Near Protocol tokens held by the trust and additional rewards through staking.
Bitwise NEAR ETF has a management fee of 0.75%. The issuer intends to stake 100% of NEAR. “The Staking Expenses will equal 33% of the amount of the additional NEAR generated by the staking of the Trust’s NEAR,” as per registration.
Also, Bitwise Asset Management earlier purchased $200 worth of shares, receiving 8 shares at $25 each. Now, Bitwise Investment Manager is expected to purchase 20,000 initial shares for $500,000.
In addition, the crypto asset manager has filed 424(b)(3) prospectus. Issuers typically use the form once a registration statement is effective and the product is ready for offering to investors. The Bitwise NEAR ETF is expected to launch next week, pending CERT and other filings.
NEAR Price on a Massive Rally NEAR price has skyrocketed 20% in 24 hours, with an 11% jump coming in the last few hours. The price is currently trading at $5, after hitting a 24-hour high of $5.05. NEAR price has rallied almost 175%, with TVL surpassing $210 million.
Furthermore, trading volume has dropped 33% over the last 24 hours, indicating traders remain cautious despite Iran’s proposal to the US to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and end the war.
CoinGlass data showed massive buying in the derivatives market. The total NEAR futures open interest jumped almost 15% to $1.49 billion in the last 24 hours. At the time of writing, the futures OI has climbed almost 10% in the last 4 hours, signaling bullish sentiment among derivatives traders.
Traders looking to take advantage of these market swings can evaluate the features and fee structures of the best crypto futures trading platforms.
