NEAR Protocol announced via X that its hackathon will run from 8:00 AM (Beijing Time) on November 1 to 7:59 AM on November 15. The judging period is scheduled from November 16 to 18, with results to be released no later than 7:59 AM on November 19. The event focuses on building intelligent agents, autonomous payment, and cross-chain value transfer applications using tools including NEAR Intents, NEAR AI Cloud, and Chain Signatures. The total prize pool is $250,000, payable in NEAR tokens. Participants can join individually or in teams, and submissions require a public code repository plus a public demo posted on X. The hackathon features 13 tracks, with a judging panel that includes Illia Polosukhin, Mert Mumtaz, Eddy Lazzarin, and other members.
Solana has reported 8.92 billion successful non-vote transactions for the third quarter of 2026, more than double its Q4 2025 total, while SOL has remained near $104.
Summary
8.92 billion successful non-vote transactions were recorded in Q3, according to Solana’s Allium-sourced chart. 104% growth compares Q3 2026 with Q4 2025; quarter-over-quarter growth was approximately 24%. Solana Compass recorded 8.78 billion completed transactions, leaving a difference between the two datasets. SOL traded near $104, while the organic share of quarterly transactions remained unquantified. Solana’s chart, published in an Oct. 20 post and sourced to Allium, puts Q3 activity 104% above the 4.38 billion transactions recorded in Q4 2025. The same chart shows 7.54 billion in Q1 2026 and 7.19 billion in Q2.
Using those rounded figures, Q3 transactions grew approximately 24.1% from Q2, adding 1.73 billion successful transactions. Against Q1, the gain was 18.3%, making the latest quarter the busiest of the four periods displayed.
The chart shows a 350 million transaction decline between Q1 and Q2, or 4.6% using rounded totals. Q3 then exceeded Q1’s previous high by 1.38 billion transactions.
The 104% headline compares quarters nine months apart. It is neither a quarter-over-quarter growth rate nor a year-over-year comparison.
Across the 92 days from July through September, the reported total works out to roughly 97 million successful non-vote transactions a day, or 1,122 per second. Both averages are calculated from the rounded quarterly figure.
Solana transaction counts differ between datasets Solana Compass’s independently indexed data puts completed non-vote transactions at 8.78 billion for Q3, compared with 7.13 billion in Q2. Its quarterly growth rate was 23.3%, close to the rate calculated from Solana’s chart.
The two Q3 totals differ by 140 million transactions, equivalent to approximately 1.6% of the Compass count. The figures support a similar direction of growth, although the examined material does not reconcile the indexing difference.
In its Oct. 1 analysis, Compass defines completed transactions as those that execute and retain their results. Its count excludes validator votes and includes activity from users, applications and bots.
September’s completed transactions reached 3.18 billion in that dataset, while reverted transactions fell to 1.52 billion from 2.19 billion in August. Compass says its raw spot-swap figures include circular and bot-driven trading.
Successful execution therefore does not establish that a transaction came from a human user. Neither the supplied chart nor the examined Compass analysis assigns an organic share to the 8.92 billion figure.
SOL trades near $104 despite the quarterly activity record CoinGecko’s retrieved market snapshot put SOL at $104.21, up 3.3% over 24 hours but down 3.5% over seven days. Market capitalization stood near $61.4 billion, with daily trading volume of $2.89 billion.
The same page listed a 24-hour price range of $100.48 to $106.05. Its financial-data section showed $642,458 in daily fees and $109,966 in project revenue, separate measures from transaction counts.
Those figures cover a current 24-hour window, not the July-to-September reporting period. They do not establish whether quarterly fees grew at the same rate as successful transactions.
As crypto.news previously reported, SOL had already fallen below $105 by Oct. 18. That report recorded a price near $104 and a seven-day loss of approximately 5.6%, alongside nine consecutive sessions of U.S. spot SOL ETF withdrawals documented in its Oct. 16 coverage.
The quarterly transaction figure and October market snapshots cover different periods. The available evidence does not establish that the transaction growth caused, or should have prevented, the token’s recent price decline.
Tokenized stock trading provides one separate activity measure DWF Labs research covered on Oct. 16 put Solana’s share of tracked tokenized-equity spot DEX volume at 31% in early October, compared with 99.8% in January.
Across the chains in that study, weekly tokenized-equity DEX trading reached $2.54 billion in the week of Oct. 5, against $45.8 million in the week of Jan. 5. Weekly transfers reached $17.5 billion, using a definition that includes movements involving trading and lending protocols.
The research measured trading and transfer values in dollars, not the number of successful transactions. Its figures do not identify how many of Solana’s Q3 transactions involved tokenized stocks.
DWF Labs placed tokenized equities deployed in DeFi at $313 million by Oct. 15. Kamino, Jupiter Lend and Frankencoin held a combined $51.3 million, while pools on Uniswap V4, Raydium and Aerodrome held $77.9 million.
Those are cross-chain totals. The study does not allocate the entire amounts to Solana or establish that tokenized equities accounted for most of its transaction growth.
Alpenglow changes consensus while keeping execution intact An Oct. 19 report scheduled Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade for Oct. 21, targeting roughly 150-millisecond finality. The reported activation estimate had moved from 14:50 UTC toward 13:20 UTC as the relevant epoch approached.
Solana’s own technical page describes Votor as a replacement for TowerBFT’s voting and finality process. Validators send votes directly to one another and combine them into certificates, instead of placing vote transactions inside blocks.
The Foundation’s documentation says transaction execution, programs, and fee mechanics remain unchanged. Ordinary users keep the same process for signing, sending, and approving transactions.
Rotor, a separate proposed change to block-data distribution, is reserved for a later release without a scheduled activation date.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Solana has seen a remarkable increase in network activity, with non-vote transactions soaring to 8.92 billion in the third quarter of 2026, marking a 104% rise compared to the final quarter of 2025. This surge in transactions indicates robust network usage by various users, applications, and automated systems, although the data does not specify the proportion contributed by organic users. The current price of Solana (SOL) hovers around $104. The substantial rise in transactions is being viewed by market participants as indicative of strong network demand, potentially impacting Solana’s market performance.
Key Takeaways
Solana’s transaction volume increase appears to align with heightened network usage.
Current market pricing suggests participants are considering the impact of this activity on Solana’s valuation.
The rise in non-vote transactions is consistent with scenarios favorable to Solana reaching higher price thresholds.
What to Watch
Market participants will be closely monitoring Solana’s price movements in response to this uptick in network activity. Key indicators to watch include any regulatory developments involving Solana, announcements from major partners like Samsung or Fiserv, and broader market movements, particularly in Bitcoin, which could influence Solana’s trajectory. The market is also watching for technological updates such as the mainnet activation of Alpenglow and potential impacts of any network outages.
SkyAI, formerly Sharps Technology, has sold its entire Solana (SOL) treasury and launched a tender offer to repurchase up to $201.3 million in shares and warrants, reversing its cryptocurrency accumulation strategy.
The company held approximately $223.8 million in cash as of Oct. 16 after liquidating its SOL holdings, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
The tender offer allows shareholders and warrant holders to sell their securities directly back to SkyAI at a fixed price. It covers up to 95% of each class of the company’s outstanding shares and warrants, funded entirely by cash on hand.
The company said the tender offer is no longer tied to SOL’s price, a condition it had initially planned to include when announcing the buyback on Oct. 11. SkyAI intends to continue developing a financial platform combining stablecoin infrastructure on Solana with artificial intelligence.
SkyAI shares closed Monday at $2.79, up 5.3% on the day, according to Yahoo Finance data. The stock has gained approximately 65% over the past month but remains down about 41% over the past year.
SkyAI reverses Solana treasury strategy after one yearSkyAI launched its Solana treasury strategy in August 2025 after raising more than $400 million through a private placement. The company acquired more than 2 million SOL the following month, establishing a position valued at more than $400 million at the time.
By the end of 2025, the company held approximately 2.08 million SOL with a cost basis of $403.1 million, or roughly $194 per token. Its holdings were valued at $250.1 million, representing approximately $153 million in unrealized losses, according to its annual financial disclosures.
The losses reflected broader pressure on companies that accumulated SOL as a treasury asset. By February 2026, publicly traded Solana treasury companies faced more than $1.5 billion in combined unrealized losses as falling token prices weighed on their holdings and share valuations.
SOL fell to around $62 in June but has since recovered, trading near $104 as of Monday, according to CoinGecko data.
Source: Magazine: Can the SEC and CFTC’s pro-crypto rules be overturned? Legal opinion
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
SkyAI, formerly Sharps Technology, has sold its entire Solana (SOL) treasury and launched a tender offer to repurchase up to $201.3 million in shares and warrants, reversing its cryptocurrency accumulation strategy.
The company held approximately $223.8 million in cash as of Oct. 16 after liquidating its SOL holdings, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
The tender offer allows shareholders and warrant holders to sell their securities directly back to SkyAI at a fixed price. It covers up to 95% of each class of the company’s outstanding shares and warrants, funded entirely by cash on hand.
The company said the tender offer is no longer tied to SOL’s price, a condition it had initially planned to include when announcing the buyback on Oct. 11. SkyAI intends to continue developing a financial platform combining stablecoin infrastructure on Solana with artificial intelligence.
SkyAI shares closed Monday at $2.79, up 5.3% on the day, according to Yahoo Finance data. The stock has gained approximately 65% over the past month but remains down about 41% over the past year.
SkyAI reverses Solana treasury strategy after one yearSkyAI launched its Solana treasury strategy in August 2025 after raising more than $400 million through a private placement. The company acquired more than 2 million SOL the following month, establishing a position valued at more than $400 million at the time.
By the end of 2025, the company held approximately 2.08 million SOL with a cost basis of $403.1 million, or roughly $194 per token. Its holdings were valued at $250.1 million, representing approximately $153 million in unrealized losses, according to its annual financial disclosures.
The losses reflected broader pressure on companies that accumulated SOL as a treasury asset. By February 2026, publicly traded Solana treasury companies faced more than $1.5 billion in combined unrealized losses as falling token prices weighed on their holdings and share valuations.
SOL fell to around $62 in June but has since recovered, trading near $104 as of Monday, according to CoinGecko data.
Source: Magazine: Can the SEC and CFTC’s pro-crypto rules be overturned? Legal opinion
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
Solana (SOL), one of the leading layer-1 blockchains, has recorded a massive increase in transaction activity, with its non-vote transaction count more than doubling compared to late 2025.
According to a recent announcement by the official Solana account on X, the network processed a staggering 8.92 billion non-vote transactions in the third quarter of 2026.
Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, better known as Toly, responded to the milestone with a characteristically brief comment.
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"Put the cryptography into the computer," he wrote on X, apparently celebrating the blockchain's growing adoption and activity.
The 104% growth represents a significant increase from approximately 4.38 billion transactions recorded in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Notably, Solana also recorded 7.54 billion transactions in the first quarter of 2026, followed by 7.19 billion in the second quarter.
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This means that transaction activity increased by approximately 24% on a quarter-over-quarter basis in Q3, reversing the decline observed during the preceding quarter.
Solana activity surgesNon-vote transactions are particularly important for evaluating blockchain activity because they exclude the routine voting transactions that validators use to maintain network consensus.
Instead, they capture activity involving token transfers, decentralized applications, trading, and other interactions with the blockchain.
The latest figures suggest that Solana continues to experience substantial demand for its network infrastructure.
According to data compiled by Solana Compass, the blockchain processed approximately 3.18 billion completed non-vote transactions in September alone, marking its third consecutive monthly record.
However, the growing transaction count does not necessarily translate into an equivalent increase in individual users, since automated trading bots can account for significant on-chain activity.
Meanwhile, Solana's native SOL token was trading near the $104 level on Oct. 19, with a market capitalization of approximately $61 billion.
Solana has shipped version 3 of its JavaScript SDK, and it is the kind of upgrade developers notice in their codebases before anyone notices it on a chart.
The release, @solana/web3.js v3, was announced on October 6, 2026, via the @solana_devs account on X. Its pitch is simple: smaller app bundles, cleaner dependencies and one consistent way to build JavaScript apps on Solana.
That matters because the SDK sits underneath a huge share of Solana apps. Packages tied to it logged over 3 million downloads in a recent week, so any change here ripples outward fast.
What changed in web3.js v3
The SDK rebuilds nine legacy web3.js classes on top of Solana Kit, the newer toolkit Solana introduced in February 2025. The familiar class names stay the same, preserving backward compatibility with established naming. What changed is the plumbing underneath, which now runs on Kit’s more modern foundation.
The goal, per the release, is to cut bundle sizes and simplify the dependency structure. The update also aims for consistent interfaces across three core building blocks: signers, clients and codecs.
The breaking changes developers need to know
Version 3 introduces several breaking changes. Methods which previously ran synchronously now run asynchronously. Functions like Keypair.generate() are affected, meaning code that expected an instant answer will now have to wait for a promise to resolve.
Numeric values must now use bigint, JavaScript’s type for arbitrarily large integers. Account data, meanwhile, moves to Uint8Array, a standard format for raw binary data.
A new wallet adapter package also arrives alongside the SDK. On compatibility, v3 supports Node.js 20.18 and above, modern browsers and React Native. The release also brings improved validation and transaction handling.
Release timeline and the fate of v1
Version 3.0.0 was tagged on GitHub on October 1, followed by a maintenance release, v3.0.1, on October 5. The public announcement came a day after that.
The legacy version 1 now moves to maintenance-only status. Version 3.0.0 is expected to be tagged as “latest” around October 19, 2026. Once that switch happens, new projects will start on v3 automatically.
Why this matters for Solana’s ecosystem
This update grows out of the Solana Kit tools introduced in February 2025. By rebuilding the classic classes on Kit, it gives existing developers a migration path that keeps the vocabulary they know.
The async shift and the move to bigint and Uint8Array mean migration work, testing time and the occasional bug that only shows up in production. For new projects, starting on v3 after it becomes the default around October 19 should be the easier path, since they will not carry legacy code to unwind.
What to watch next: how quickly major Solana projects migrate, whether the October 19 default switch surfaces new issues, and how the new wallet adapter package gets picked up across apps. With download counts in the millions each week, even a modest migration rate would put v3 in front of a large slice of the ecosystem fairly quickly.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Solana, a leading layer-1 blockchain recognized for its high-speed network, reported a substantial surge in transactional activity during the third quarter of 2026, as non-vote transactions more than doubled compared to the end of 2025.
Transaction volume sets new recordsThe official Solana account announced that the network processed 8.92 billion non-vote transactions in Q3 2026. This figure marked a 104% increase from the 4.38 billion transactions recorded in the final quarter of 2025.
Solana also outperformed its previous quarters in 2026. The blockchain saw 7.54 billion transactions in Q1 and 7.19 billion in Q2, highlighting a steady upward trend in activity. The quarterly growth for Q3 stood at 24%, signaling a reversal from the decline registered in the preceding quarter.
Solana’s non-vote transaction count includes network interactions such as token transfers, decentralized application activity, and trading, excluding the regular validator votes essential for network consensus.
Co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko, widely known as Toly, acknowledged the network’s milestone with a concise social media post:
“Put the cryptography into the computer,” he wrote, conveying enthusiasm about the blockchain’s accelerating adoption.
Data compiled by Solana Compass indicated that the blockchain handled about 3.18 billion completed non-vote transactions in September alone, setting its third straight monthly record. This consistent rise underscores the persistent demand on Solana’s infrastructure from developers and users.
QuarterNon-Vote Transactions (Billion)Quarterly ChangeQ4 20254.38—Q1 20267.54+72%Q2 20267.19-5%Q3 20268.92+24%Interpreting on-chain activityNon-vote transactions are central to assessing true user engagement on a blockchain, as they filter out automated validator votes that secure the network’s consensus. Instead, they reflect interactions linked to token transfers, decentralized applications, and trading platforms built on Solana.
Mini dictionary: Non-vote transactions — Blockchain transactions that exclude validator voting, capturing real user activity such as token transfers, smart contract interactions, and decentralized app usage.
Despite the record-breaking totals, analysts caution that these statistics may not directly equate to an increase in individual user activity. Automated trading bots are capable of generating a significant proportion of transaction volume, inflating on-chain metrics without necessarily boosting the actual number of unique users.
SOL token performanceAmid these network milestones, Solana’s native token, SOL, was trading near $104 on October 19, with its market capitalization standing at around $61 billion.
StonkFun, the Solana launchpad behind the $STONK token, has generated close to $40M in fees and over $900M in DEX volume since its August launch, according to DefiLlama.
StonkFun, a token launchpad on @Solana, has posted fast early numbers since opening in August, raising the question of whether it can become a leading platform in a crowded field. The project, which operates as @LaunchOnSF, has attracted traders with a model that pairs new tokens with tokenized stocks rather than only $SOL or stablecoins.
Fees and volume since launchDefiLlama data shows StonkFun has collected $39.91 million in cumulative fees, with cumulative DEX volume at $903.46 million. All of it has come on Solana. The same dashboard shows fees of $21.6 million over the past 30 days, though 24-hour fees were about $96,000, suggesting activity has cooled from earlier peaks.
The platform officially opened on August 3, 2026, while the $STONK token went live on July 23 in a pool on Raydium, according to a MEXC Crypto Pulse explainer. The same report says $STONK launched with a fixed supply of 1 billion tokens, no presale and revoked mint and freeze authority.
A key catalyst came in early September. The Block reported that $STONK jumped more than 250% to a market cap of roughly $140 million after StonkFun integrated with Raydium's LaunchLab. Pump.fun, the dominant Solana launchpad, later copied the feature, according to Our Crypto Talk, which also reports the integration cut token deployment costs from 0.29 SOL to 0.03 SOL.
The burn mechanism and the risks$STONK is tied to platform activity through a buyback and burn. Roughly 60% of platform fees are used to buy the token on the open market and burn it, with the remainder retained, according to Nulltx. StonkFun announced on September 25 that 18% of the total supply had been burned, KuCoin News reported.
The same Nulltx analysis notes the flywheel depends on continued trading activity: buyback pace slows if volume drops. Cryptonews.net also reported that StonkFun briefly overtook Robinhood Chain's $PONS in daily revenue in September, with $1.355 million in fees against $1.21 million.
Whether StonkFun can hold its position will depend on how long demand for stock-paired launches lasts, and on how Pump.fun and other launchpads respond. Its early fee and volume figures are strong for a platform less than three months old, but they are not a guarantee of lasting leadership.
Sources:
DefiLlama: StonkFun fees, revenue and volumeNulltx: On-chain mechanics behind StonkFun's token burnsKuCoin News: StonkFun burns 18% of STONK supply
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Tron has established a clear lead in blockchain network revenue over the most recent 30-day period, generating more than $23 million and ranking first among all tracked chains. On-chain data compiled by DefiLlama and highlighted by the analytics account Lookonchain show Tron recording approximately $23.41 million in revenue.
This figure places the network well ahead of Ethereum at roughly $6.34 million, Solana at about $3.4 million, and Base at around $2.78 million over the same window.
The ranking covers daily, weekly, and monthly timeframes, with Tron holding the top position across each.
On a 24-hour basis, the network has continued to produce hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, consistent with its longer-term average.
These numbers reflect chain-level activity rather than application-level protocol earnings, focusing on fees collected or burned at the base layer.
Tron’s revenue strength stems largely from its central role in stablecoin transfers, particularly Tether’s USDT.
The network hosts tens of billions of dollars in stablecoin supply and processes millions of daily transactions tied to payments, remittances, and settlement in emerging markets.
High transaction throughput combined with relatively predictable fee structures generates steady income even when speculative activity on other chains fluctuates.
DefiLlama data indicate Tron’s stablecoin market capitalization stands near $95 billion, with USDT dominating the supply, underscoring the practical utility driving fee volume.
By comparison, Ethereum’s revenue remains tied more closely to a broader mix of decentralized finance activity, NFT trading, and gas consumption that can vary with market conditions.
Tron ranks No. 1 among all chains in 24-hour, 7-day, and 30-day revenue, far ahead of other chains.
Its monthly revenue reached $23.41M.https://t.co/28rZKzvLEx pic.twitter.com/rM6JuEmmnM
— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) October 19, 2026
Solana captures significant volume from high-frequency trading and meme-token activity, yet its reported chain revenue has lagged Tron’s in the latest period.
Base, as a Layer-2 network optimized for low-cost consumer applications, generates fees primarily through its sequencer and related activity, but the absolute totals remain smaller than Tron’s base-layer figures.
Industry observers note that Tron’s model benefits from consistent real-world payment demand rather than relying solely on cyclical DeFi or speculative surges.
Earlier quarterly reports from the Tron ecosystem have documented multi-trillion-dollar stablecoin settlement volumes and tens of millions of active addresses, providing context for why fee generation remains elevated.
While average transaction fees on Tron have moderated somewhat following prior adjustments, overall activity has sustained the revenue lead.This performance highlights a divergence between market narratives and on-chain economic output.
Networks often associated with high total value locked or developer activity do not always translate that presence into the highest fee retention.
Tron’s position as the leading revenue generator for the period illustrates how specialized use cases—particularly stablecoin settlement—can produce durable cash flows.
Market participants tracking protocol economics continue to monitor whether this lead persists as competing chains expand their own payment and settlement capabilities. Data sources remain transparent and publicly available for independent verification, allowing observers to track ongoing shifts in fee rankings as market conditions evolve.
JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
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After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
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OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
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Tron recorded $23.41 million in chain revenue over the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama’s data. That exceeded Ethereum’s $6.34 million and Solana’s $3.40 million combined.
The figures show Tron leading in revenue generated. It has also seen a lot of stablecoin presence, while TRX’s price chart showed a market performance that was dull.
Tron’s lead extends beyond the monthly figure Ethereum and Solana together had about $9.74 million over the same period, with Tron having about 2.4 times that amount.
The difference also could also be seen in its seven-day and 24-hour data. Its seven-day revenue is $5.8 million, and its 24-hour figure is $554,976, which is more than both these other networks.
Source: DefiLlama But the ranking alone does not show that Tron’s revenue increased. It shows how much the network generated during those periods, but not its performance in the month before.
The $23.41 million is not all the earnings on Tron; the fees are shown as transaction fees paid by users.
USDT dominates Tron’s stablecoin supply Tron’s dashboard showed about $95 billion in stablecoins, with USDT making up 97.76% of that total.
But the amount that is outstanding is different from the amount transferred, and it does not identify how much revenue came from payments, trading, or other uses.
TRX’s rebound loses momentum near $0.335 TRX traded around $0.3313 at the time of this writing, down 0.42%.
It had bounced from roughly $0.327, but that recovery thinned out before reaching the $0.34 price level. Recent trading suggested buyers have not been able to establish a sustained upward move.
Source: TradingView The $0.327–$0.328 price area remained the nearest level where buyers had previously stepped in. A recovery above $0.335–$0.337 would mean that the rebound was gaining traction.
Final Summary Tron’s $23.41 million in 30-day chain revenue was more than Ethereum and Solana’s combined total. TRX traded near the $0.3313 price level as its recent rebound slowed.
Two of Wall Street’s most recognizable names are running Solana funds. This week, they went in opposite directions.
Morgan Stanley’s Solana Trust, ticker MSOL, has not sold any SOL and has pulled in fresh money. Meanwhile, Fidelity sold $1.8 million of SOL in a single session. Same asset, same week, very different vibes.
The broader category of US spot Solana exchange-traded products saw outflows of approximately $25 million during the week. MSOL was swimming upstream.
The flow numbers On October 8, 2026, MSOL recorded an inflow between $1.77M and $1.8M. That came on a day when the Solana ETP cohort as a whole was losing money.
Fidelity’s FSOL went the other way. The fund logged a $1.8M outflow in October, matching reports that Fidelity sold SOL.
For context on scale, MSOL is still the smaller player. It manages approximately $52M in assets, which trails competitors such as BSOL.
FSOL has also shown intermittent redemptions rather than a single bad day.
How Solana ETPs got here The Solana ETP cohort first launched in May 2026. Since then, it has accumulated approximately $1.56 billion in net inflows.
As of mid-October 2026, the group held around $1.62 billion in net assets.
MSOL listed on NYSE Arca in late July 2026, entering a market where rivals already had a head start on assets.
To compete, Morgan Stanley leaned on two features. The first is price: MSOL charges an expense ratio of 0.14%. The second is yield: the fund passes up to 95% of staking rewards to investors.
What this means for Solana fund investors When the overall category is shedding money, a fund with a low fee and staking pass-through still managed to attract capital.
An inflow of around $1.8 million into a fund of approximately $52M is meaningful for MSOL. Measured against a category holding around $1.62 billion, it is a rounding error.
The broader category flows deserve the most attention. Approximately $25 million in weekly outflows, after a strong summer, hints that investors are taking a wait-and-see approach. Cumulative net inflows of approximately $1.56 billion give the group a sizable cushion.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
September 2026 was the month Zoomex turned its TradFi expansion into a full trading calendar. After crossing the 50-contract milestone for Stock Perpetuals at the end of August, the platform spent September widening the lineup, adding ETF-linked perpetuals to its TradFi Zone, relaunching Zero-Fee TradFi, and opening the Zoomex World Trading Championship 2026 (ZWTC 2026) with a prize pool of up to 5 million USDT.
The backdrop was far less calm. The U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, the Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time since 2023, and Bitcoin still closed the month higher. Beneath that noise, Zoomex’s verifiable reserves stayed multi-chain, stablecoin-anchored and openly trackable, which is exactly what Transparent by Design is meant to deliver. This report reviews Zoomex’s on-chain reserves, chain and token composition, and platform metrics as tracked through DefiLlama, CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, alongside the product developments that shaped the month.
Zoomex Overview Founded in 2021, Zoomex is a global cryptocurrency trading platform focused on Derivatives, serving over 3 million users across 35+ countries and regions and offering 700+ trading pairs. Its philosophy of easy-to-use, transparent balances and fair access to earnings shapes everything from its trading interface to the way it publishes proof of reserves. Zoomex has completed security audits conducted by Hacken and holds multiple regulatory registrations, including U.S. and Canada MSB, U.S. NFA, and Australia AUSTRAC.
September’s product story was the continued build-out of the TradFi Zone.
On September 1, Zoomex confirmed that its Stock Perpetuals lineup had grown past 50 contracts across four asset categories, timed with a Zero-Fee TradFi event that ran from August 28 to September 4. On September 8, the platform announced a further expansion covering more than 30 US and global equities across four categories, all margined and settled in USDT and trading around the clock. Two days later, Zoomex put the spotlight on TSLA and NVDA exposure through its rule-based derivatives offering, reinforcing Fair Access & Rule-Based Execution for every trader.
On September 18, ahead of the Federal Reserve decision, Zoomex highlighted its ETF-linked perpetuals, SPYUSDT, QQQUSDT, IWMUSDT, XLFUSDT, XLKUSDT and TQQQUSDT, available through the TradFi Stock Perpetuals section. The same day, it relaunched Zero-Fee TradFi, running from September 11 to October 11, 2026, which rebates 100% of actual trading fees on eligible stock contracts, commodity contracts and stock tokens, capped at 100 USDT per account.
On the competition side, Zoomex launched ZWTC 2026 on September 10 with a prize pool of up to 5 million USDT, its largest to date. The Squad Competition, with up to 2.5 million USDT in prizes and three separate leaderboards, opened on September 21 and runs until October 11 at 10:00 UTC. Alongside it, Zoomex Predict World continued to feature its established Long-Term event contracts, giving traders a longer-horizon complement to the 5 Minute, 15 Minute and 4 Hour markets. Together, these launches reflect a Refined Brand & Trading Experience built around one account and one rule set for crypto, equities, ETFs and commodities.
Exchange trade volume Zoomex’s exchange trade volume ranged from about $125M to $680M in September, with the month’s defining move arriving in its final third, according to CoinGecko. September volume ranged from roughly $125M to $680M, with the month’s low on September 13 and its peak on September 22. For scale, that peak sits at about two thirds of the $1.02B high recorded in August.
Source: Coingecko On the pair side, BTC/USDT strengthened its lead at 53.5% of volume, up from 43.4% in August, followed by ETH/USDT at 13.7% and USDC/USDT at 11.6%. ETH has therefore overtaken USDC/USDT for second place. SOL/USDT contributes 3.9%, HYPE/USDT and XRP/USDT 1.6% each, and ENA/USDT 1.5%, while a tail of other pairs accounts for 12.6%. As in previous months, 100% of volume settles in USDT by CoinGecko’s currency breakdown, underscoring its role as Zoomex’s near exclusive quote and settlement currency.
On-chain reserves Zoomex’s total on-chain assets stayed inside a narrow $34M to $38M band for the whole month, extending the durable step-up that began in August. DefiLlama’s CEX Transparency tracker shows reserves opening near $36M, easing to a monthly low of about $33.8M around September 10, rebuilding to roughly $36.5M by September 15, and reaching the month’s peak of about $38M around September 20. A pullback to roughly $35M followed by September 25, before assets climbed again to about $37M at month end. The live reading on October 13 stood at $34.9M.
Source: Defillama The contrast with the mid-year pattern is clear: there were no sharp spikes that unwound within days, and the base held. As always, this figure reflects verifiable cold and hot wallet holdings tracked by DefiLlama and sits alongside, not in place of, Zoomex’s separately maintained $50 million insurance fund.
Assets by chain Ethereum remains Zoomex’s largest chain by a wide margin, holding roughly $15.7M at month end versus about $16.5M on September 1, with a low near $15.1M around September 24. That is close to 42% of tracked assets. XRPL stays second at about $6.9M, after dipping to roughly $6.1M in mid-September and peaking near $7.4M on September 23. Tron fell from about $3.5M to around $2.0M by September 22, then jumped to roughly $4.0M by September 30, the largest late-month move among the major chains. Mantle rose from about $1.7M to $2.1M, Solana roughly doubled from about $1.0M to $2.0M, BSC slid from about $2.2M to $1.5M, while Base (about $1.45M) and Arbitrum (about $1.3M) stayed flat.
Source: Defillama The most unusual line is Bitcoin. Its balance sat near $0.8M until September 14, jumped to about $2.75M on September 15, climbed to roughly $3.3M by September 22, then fell back to about $1.6M on September 23 and $1.1M on September 24, ending the month near $0.95M. That round trip points to a temporary custody or settlement movement rather than a lasting reallocation, and it lines up with the BTC inflow and outflow bars in the flow data below. Zoomex’s reserves remain distributed across 14 networks, the same multi-chain footprint maintained throughout 2026, with OP Mainnet, Polygon, Vaulta, Doge and Sonic each holding under $0.5M.
Token balances Read in raw units rather than USD value, PEPE again dominates by count, but its trajectory reversed from August. The balance held near 8.7 billion units through mid-September, then stepped down to roughly 7.7 billion around September 17 and about 7.1 billion by September 20, a decline of close to 19%. Meme coin balances on an exchange typically mirror user activity rather than treasury decisions, so this looks like client withdrawals more than a deliberate reallocation. BONK stayed flat at roughly 2.5 billion units.
Source: Defillama TBY’s block-shaped presence continues to be the more interesting signal. It appeared at around 5.3 billion units in five separate windows, September 1 to 7, 10 to 11, 19 to 20, 24 to 25 and 29 to 30, and was absent in between. That on and off pattern is more consistent with temporary custody, a settlement cycle or a recurring product flow than with a held position.
USD inflows Source: Defillama Outside those windows, daily activity stayed shallow and mixed. Net flow across the month was slightly negative, yet total assets ended higher, which means price moves rather than deposits explain the stable balance sheet. The framing from August holds: movement was event-driven and concentrated in a handful of identifiable days, not the product of steady retail flow.
Inflows by token The token split shows what drove each of those days. The September 15 spike was almost entirely Bitcoin, at roughly $2.0M gross, and the September 23 outflow was the mirror image, with about $1.85M of BTC leaving, partly offset by roughly $0.4M of TRON inflow. That confirms the temporary Bitcoin build seen in the chain data.
Source: Defillama Stablecoins drove the rest. USDT left on September 1 (about $0.9M), September 19 (about $1.35M) and September 22 (about $1.6M), then returned on September 29, when roughly $1.65M of USDT arrived together with smaller USDC and TBY inflows. WETH was the one asset with clear accumulation, with inflows of about $0.85M on September 19 and $0.4M on September 20. XAUT recorded a small inflow of about $0.3M on September 2.
Token values (USD) Viewed by asset value, September was a rotation story. USDT started the month near $11.3M, held between $9.5M and $10.5M through September 18, then fell to about $8.6M on September 19, $6.9M on September 22 and a low near $6.6M on September 24, before rebounding to about $9.1M on September 30. At the same time, WETH stepped up from roughly $4.3M to around $6.1M between September 19 and 22 and held that level, which matches the inflow bars above. In other words, part of the stablecoin drawdown reappeared as ether exposure.
Source: Defillama XAUT slipped from about $5.35M to roughly $5.0M, a decline of around 7% that is largely a price effect, since gold retreated through September after its August high. Mantle’s MNT rose from about $1.5M to $2.0M, while ETH (about $1.6M), USDT0 (about $1.0M to $1.2M) and AAVE stayed broadly stable. The purple Bitcoin line shows the temporary spike to about $3.3M on September 22 and the return to under $1M afterwards.
Token breakdown The composition snapshot reads as liquidity first with measured diversification. USDT leads at 32.55%, followed by WETH (16.12%), XAUT (13.42%) and BTC (10.03%), which together account for roughly 72% of holdings. The rest is spread across MNT (4.55%), ETH (4.12%), USDT0 (3.48%), USDC (3.19%), AAVE (3.08%), TRON (1.71%) and an Others bucket of 7.73%.
Source: Defillama Several comparisons with August stand out. USDT rose from 27.96% to 32.55% and WETH from 12.45% to 16.12%, while XAUT eased from 14.94% to 13.42%. BTC jumped from 2.16% to 10.03%, which is consistent with the temporary Bitcoin build between September 15 and 22 rather than a strategic shift. Counting USDT, USDT0 and USDC, stablecoins make up about 39% of the portfolio, and ether exposure across WETH and ETH is about 20%.
Individual stablecoins USDT makes up almost all of Zoomex’s tracked stablecoin balance. USDT opened September near $10.4M and closed around $9.1M, with a mid-month trough near $6.6M. USDC edged down from about $0.9M to $0.75M.
Source: Defillama Total stablecoins Combined stablecoin holdings fell from about $11.5M on September 1 to a low of roughly $7.3M on September 24, a drop of around 36%, before recovering to about $9.9M on September 30. Net, stablecoins ended the month roughly 14% below where they started. Because total assets stayed in the $34M to $38M band, stablecoins slipped from about 32% of tracked assets at the start of the month to roughly a fifth at the trough, which reflects a shift in composition rather than a shrinking balance sheet. The late month rebound, which coincides with the $1.65M USDT inflow on September 29, suggests the rebuild was already underway as September closed.
Source: Defillama Platform community and user metrics Zoomex ended September 2026 with over 3 million registered users across more than 35 countries and regions. The platform’s Telegram community has grown from 76,277 members to 82,319, reflecting active engagement among Zoomex’s core retail trading base.
Zoomex’s daily active trader count consistently exceeds 1 million users according to independent review data, TradersUnion. The platform regularly adds new assets based on market demand combined with rigorous vetting, as of this report, Zoomex lists 486–495 cryptocurrencies and operates across 518–575 trading pairs depending on the market segment (spot or derivatives), a figure that has grown steadily through 2026.
ZoomexFounded in 2021, Zoomex is a global crypto exchange serving 3M+ users with 600+ trading pairs. Guided by the values of "Simple, User-Friendly, and Fast," Zoomex leverages a high-performance engine to ensure a fair, just, and transparent trading environment where every transaction is fully traceable and unbiased. With MSB (U.S./Canada), NFA, and AUSTRAC licenses and audits by Hacken, Zoomex provides institutional-grade security. Partnered with TGR Haas F1 Team and Emiliano Martínez, the platform mirrors elite precision and consistency, delivering a secure, low-barrier, and compliant ecosystem for traders worldwide.
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This third-party press release is published substantially as received and does not reflect BeInCrypto's editorial views. BeInCrypto has not independently verified its claims or assessed the suitability, legality or appropriateness of any referenced asset, product or service; publication is not an endorsement. The content is general information, not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, a personal recommendation, offer or solicitation. Verify all information and seek professional advice where appropriate before acting. Crypto-assets may result in total loss.
Injective's October Community BuyBack opens Wednesday with a pool above $247,000. INJ holders commit tokens for a revenue share, and Stockdrop is set to return.
The next @injective Community BuyBack opens on Wednesday, with the October pool valued at more than $247,000. Holders commit $INJ and receive a share of Injective ecosystem revenue in return, split by how much each person put in, while all committed INJ is burned for good.
Injective has also teased the return of Stockdrop, which debuted with September's round. Details for this round have not been shared yet.
How the Community BuyBack worksAccording to Injective's own guide, The program
The scheme launched in late 2025. Its first round , according to CoinJournal. More recent rounds have been far smaller. In July,
The program sits within a wider burn framework. Injective says
What Stockdrop addsStockdrop debuted in September. Injective described it as Per Blockchain.News,
Eligibility does not depend on size. Injective says
Crypto Briefing reported that Which stocks will be offered this month, and how many, has not yet been confirmed. Participants should check Injective Hub for the final terms once the round opens.
Stargate Finance is pulling the plug on four blockchains. Support for Gravity, Camp, GOAT and Metis through Stargate v2 will end on October 23, 2026.
If you have liquidity parked in Stargate pools on any of those networks, the calendar is now your most important DeFi tool. Users are being urged to withdraw or bridge their assets before the cutoff to avoid losing access to their funds.
What is changing and when
The affected chains are Gravity Alpha Mainnet, Camp, GOAT Network and Metis Andromeda. All four are being cut because of low activity.
The move tracks a broader LayerZero Labs initiative. The company is winding down the off-chain infrastructure services it runs on chains that show minimal usage.
There are actually two deadlines here, and they hit different groups. The first, October 23, 2026, applies to Stargate v2 users and liquidity providers on the four chains.
The second lands a week later. LayerZero’s default DVN and Executor services for those same chains will stop on October 30, 2026.
A cross-chain message needs someone to confirm it is legitimate and someone to actually deliver it on the other side. DVNs and Executors are the off-chain services LayerZero has been running to handle those jobs by default. When LayerZero stops supplying its default versions, apps on these chains have to arrange their own.
Developers building on the impacted networks have until October 30 to move to new DVN and Executor configurations, where those are available.
Anyone holding canonical assets through the established, official bridges is unaffected. The official bridges between Ethereum and Metis remain operational, so users who came in that way can sit tight.
Part of a bigger cleanup
This is not the first round of cuts. Stargate and LayerZero have already deprecated support for other networks earlier in 2026, with Aurora, Gnosis and Taiko among the chains named in prior wind-downs.
And the biggest cut is still ahead. All Stargate v1 pools are scheduled to shut down across every chain on December 15, 2026.
What this means for users, LPs and builders
For liquidity providers, the practical message is simple: act early. Waiting until the final days before October 23 means competing with every other LP heading for the exit at the same time.
Metis users have a cushion that the others may not, since the official Ethereum-Metis bridges keep running. For Gravity, Camp and GOAT, the practical impact depends on what alternative routes remain available to their users once Stargate exits.
Developers face the trickiest homework. Any application on these chains that leans on LayerZero’s default DVN and Executor setup needs a new configuration by October 30. If no replacement exists for a given chain, cross-chain features built on that stack could simply stop working.
For anyone touching LayerZero-based protocols, the dates worth circling are clear. October 23 for Stargate v2 on Gravity, Camp, GOAT and Metis. October 30 for default DVN and Executor services on those chains. December 15 for the shutdown of every Stargate v1 pool.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Flare (FLR) holders have staked 23.1 billion tokens, or 49.2% of FLR taking part in the network, after the FIP.16 tokenomics overhaul gave staking more weight than delegation.
Holders have staked 23.1 billion $FLR on @FlareNetworks, or 49.2% of the FLR taking part in the network. The remainder is delegated.
FIP.16 shifted weight toward stakingFlare governance voters approved the FIP.16 tokenomics overhaul in April. According to the official proposal page, the vote passed on April 24, 2026, with 98.06% support against a 50% requirement.
The proposal changed how staking and delegation are weighted.
The Flare Foundation, which authored the proposal, said the changes are designed to
FIP.16 also covered inflation and burns.
Staked FLR has climbed since JulyStaked tokens stood near 16 billion in July.
The latest figure of 23.1 billion FLR represents a further increase from those levels and puts staking just under half of the participating FLR.
The distinction matters for network security. Staked FLR is locked with a validator, while delegated FLR can leave at any time. With staked tokens now carrying five times the weight of delegated ones, a larger staked share gives the network a more committed base of participants.
For context, staking still represents a minority of total supply.
Sources:
FIP.16: Restructure FLR Tokenomics for Long-Term Network Sustainability (Flare)Flare tokenomics revamp drives staking to 21.5B FLR (crypto.news)Flare FIRE Revenue Doubles as FLR Staking Jumps 82% (The Crypto Times)
CTSH stock rises 0.66% to $66.46 following an expanded Google Cloud alliance. Cognizant assigns over 18,000 employees to its new Gemini engineering group. The partnership targets AI automation across retail, healthcare, and manufacturing. A retail project reports 40% higher productivity and 35% lower costs using Gemini. Over 55,000 Cognizant employees complete Gemini training as deployment expands. Cognizant Technology Solutions (CTSH) stock gained 0.66% to $66.46 on Monday, adding $0.43 as afternoon buying strengthened. The increase followed Cognizant’s announcement of an expanded Google Cloud partnership focused on enterprise AI adoption. The companies introduced a new Gemini Frontier Capability Group to support businesses deploying advanced automation systems.
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation, CTSH
Cognizant and Google Cloud Expand Enterprise AI Partnership The new partnership brings together Google’s enterprise AI technology and Cognizant’s engineering expertise to develop business automation solutions. Cognizant will support the initiative with more than 18,000 dedicated employees across its global operations. The group will help companies move AI projects from early testing into full commercial deployment.
Furthermore, the initiative builds on Cognizant’s Gemini practice, which launched in April 2026. The companies aim to simplify enterprise adoption through specialized engineering services and structured deployment methods. Their expanded collaboration targets businesses seeking greater efficiency across software development, operations, and cybersecurity.
Meanwhile, Cognizant plans to focus its engineering resources on modernizing older technology systems and improving developer productivity. The company will also develop autonomous business processes and strengthen enterprise cybersecurity capabilities. These services will combine Google’s cloud infrastructure with Cognizant’s experience across several major industries.
New Gemini Initiative Targets Retail, Healthcare, and Manufacturing Cognizant plans to introduce enterprise applications that automate specific tasks across retail, healthcare, and manufacturing operations. Its retail support agent will help businesses manage product catalogs and related customer service processes. Its healthcare marketplace will coordinate specialized digital agents across different operational functions.
The manufacturing initiative will focus on automating order processing, billing, and payment collection through connected systems. Cognizant will also use standardized architecture to support secure communication between enterprise applications. Google Cloud’s Model Armor will help protect these systems from security threats.
The partnership has already produced measurable improvements through an earlier retail software development project. Cognizant reported a 40% increase in developer productivity after integrating Gemini models into development workflows. The same project reduced delivery times by 30% and generated cost savings of 35%.
Cognizant Expands Workforce Training and Internal AI Deployment Cognizant continues to expand employee training as enterprise demand for advanced AI services increases. More than 55,000 employees completed its recent Build with Gemini workshop alongside Google Cloud. Participants developed applications and automation agents while earning credentials related to Gemini technology.
The training initiative supports Cognizant’s broader effort to develop engineers with specialized AI deployment skills. These employees will help enterprise clients integrate new technology into existing business systems. Consequently, the company expects its trained workforce to support larger and more complex customer projects.
Cognizant is also expanding Gemini adoption across its internal workforce throughout 2026. The company plans to provide the technology to 100,000 employees this year, with a longer-term target of 200,000. This expansion strengthens its existing Google Cloud partnership and extends AI capabilities across its global business operations.
Alphabet (GOOG) stock closes 0.96% higher at $340.16, then adds 0.13% after hours.
AIBotics acquires NovaCore assets to expand its AI mapping operations in Jamaica.
NovaCore’s assets include 10 service robots, six drones and Google mapping tools.
AIBotics outlines a $3 million earn-out tied to four revenue growth milestones.
NovaCore plans wider LiDAR mapping, drone services and technical skills training.
Alphabet (GOOG) stock gained 0.96% to close at $340.16 on Monday, October 19, before rising 0.13% to $340.60 after hours. Meanwhile, AIBotics completed its acquisition of NovaCore Labs assets, expanding its AI mapping and robotics operations in Jamaica. The transaction includes equipment previously used in Google Street View mapping projects and supports broader Caribbean technology expansion.
Alphabet Inc., GOOG
AIBotics Acquires NovaCore Assets to Expand Caribbean Operations
AIBotics acquired NovaCore Labs operating assets from PlayJamaica Limited through an asset purchase agreement. The acquisition strengthens its presence in Jamaica and establishes a platform for regional technology services. Furthermore, the company plans to expand operations across the Caribbean Community, known as CARICOM.
The acquired assets include 10 service robots, six commercial drones, and three field generators. AIBotics also obtained Google Street View mapping equipment, a dedicated mapping vehicle, and proprietary operating methods. These resources support commercial mapping, robotics, drone services, and digital infrastructure projects.
The Caribbean Economic Outlook 2026 estimates regional economic output at approximately $420 billion. It also projects average real GDP growth of 3.4% across major regional economies. Consequently, AIBotics plans to pursue commercial opportunities across public institutions, private businesses, and technology services.
NovaCore Targets AI Mapping and Drone Service Growth
NovaCore previously participated in Jamaica’s Google Street View mapping initiative through its geospatial technology operations. The company now plans to expand those capabilities using artificial intelligence and LiDAR technology. Its proposed services include infrastructure analysis, surface classification, and digital asset management.
NovaCore intends to expand commercial drone services across selected industries and institutional markets. The acquired equipment and software will support field operations, automation projects, and customer deployments. Additionally, the company plans to develop its technical laboratories for demonstrations and operational support.
NovaCore also maintains relationships with the University of Technology and the University of the West Indies Global Campus. These partnerships support technical training, demonstrations, apprenticeships, and workforce development programs. The company plans to strengthen these initiatives while expanding regional expertise in robotics and mapping technology.
AIBotics Outlines Acquisition Terms and Revenue Targets
AIBotics issued 22,500 Series B preferred shares with an aggregate stated value of $225,000 for the acquired assets. The agreement also includes potential additional consideration worth up to $3 million over four years. However, NovaCore must achieve specified cumulative revenue milestones to qualify for those payments.
The revenue targets stand at $500,000, $1.5 million, $3 million, and $5 million. Each achieved milestone triggers $750,000 in additional preferred-stock consideration under the agreement. Meanwhile, Gregory Moore will lead the acquired operations as president of the operating subsidiary.
AIBotics and Moore also plan a budget targeting $1 million in capital deployment over 12 months. The spending plan will support operational expansion, technical infrastructure, and commercial service development. Although NovaCore’s mapping history involves Google Street View, the announcement does not establish a new Alphabet partnership.
Lighter, the Ethereum zk-rollup exchange known for perpetual futures, has launched binary options on Bitcoin and Ether on its Lighter Core platform, The Defiant reported on October 19.
The Up/Down contracts let traders take a view on whether BTC or ETH will rise or fall over 15-minute price windows, settled using Chainlink price data. Each winning share pays 1 USDC.
Positions must be fully funded in USDC, meaning the product carries no leverage and no liquidations. A trader’s maximum loss is the price paid for the shares.
First step toward a full options suite The launch follows an “Options season. Coming soon” teaser Lighter posted on October 16. Founder and CEO Vladimir Novakovski has said the exchange is focusing on options this quarter, starting with binary options and moving next to onchain European options that would share the same balance sheet as its perpetual contracts, ChainCatcher reported.
Novakovski said the combined setup would let users trade spot, options and perpetuals on a single platform, supporting strategies such as basis trading and delta hedging.
Moving closer to prediction markets Fully funded contracts that resolve to a fixed payout bring Lighter closer to prediction market designs such as Polymarket, where share prices reflect the market’s implied probability of an outcome. Lighter’s initial markets cover only short-term price direction for two assets.
Lighter operates as an application-specific zk-rollup that publishes proofs of order matching to Ethereum. The company has said it is seeking a license from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The US Blockchain Association supports the overall direction of the U.S. Treasury Department's stablecoin regulation, and calls for clarification on the definition of service providers and requirements for foreign issuers.
The Blockchain Association has submitted comments to the U.S. Department of the Treasury on the proposed rule implementing Section 3 of the GENIUS Act. This provision specifies which entities are eligible to issue and sell payment stablecoins in the U.S. The association supports the Treasury’s core regulatory approach, but calls for further clarity on the definition of digital asset service providers, the criteria for determining "knowing participation," and requirements for foreign issuers.
7 minutes ago
On Day 15 of OpenAI's 28-day sprint, no new features or resets were launched, with Tibo remarking "We're doomed".
Insight Beating AI Flash News: OpenAI’s 28-day product sprint has reached Day 15. Today, Tibo did not unveil new features; instead, he shared a show titled *COOKED*, with only the caption “We’re cooked”. The phrase is an English slang meaning “we’re screwed,” but in the context of a ramen-making show, it doubles as a pun. The roughly 13-minute video pairs ramen cooking with demos of OpenAI products: Dot assists with recipe preparation, while GPT-Live-1 guides cooking via voice commands. Developers also built an 8-bit ramen game using Ultrafast, tested on the ModRetro handheld console. The show also highlighted Codex’s cloud tasks, terminal voice interaction, agent management, and dedicated workspaces. However, these features were previously launched and are not new to Day 15. Tibo had originally promised to either deliver a significant improvement or reset usage limits each day. As of Day 15, there has been no official announcement of new features or a usage limit reset.
7 minutes ago
PEARL breaks through $2, with a monthly gain of 82.2%.
According to market data, PEARL has broken through the $2 mark, currently trading at $2.01, with a 24-hour gain of over 5% and a monthly increase of 82.2%, and its market capitalization stands at $702 million. As previously reported, on October 20, Coinbase announced it would add Pearl (PEARL) to its listing roadmap. Pearl (PEARL) is an independent public chain launched in April 2026, positioning itself as an "AI version of Bitcoin". Miners use GPUs to conduct large model matrix operations, generating verifiable AI computations while mining blocks, with a total token supply of approximately 2.1 billion.
7 minutes ago
Tether CEO responds to Iran-related sanctions concerns: Relevant freezes were implemented 4 weeks ahead of official sanctions, while Iran-linked stablecoin trading volume has fallen by 94%.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has published a response to US Senator Blumenthal’s analysis of the stablecoin issuer’s sanctions compliance, stating that since 2023, Tether has frozen relevant addresses an average of four weeks ahead of official sanctions from OFAC and NBCTF. In 99% of related cases, these freezes also predate Chainalysis’ labeling of the addresses in question. Ardoino added that Tether’s actions have reduced Iran-related stablecoin trading volume by 94%, and its cooperation with law enforcement enables it to respond rapidly to emerging threats. The response follows Blumenthal’s release of a Democratic staff report from the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations on September 28. The report claimed that among 846 wallets analyzed that were sanctioned or designated as seizure targets for ties to Iran and its regional proxy groups, 84% used only or nearly only USDT for transactions. It accused Tether of failing to adequately freeze illegal wallets, prompting Blumenthal to call on the US Treasury Department and Department of Justice to investigate the firm’s anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance practices. In a separate statement issued the same day, Tether noted that since the start of 2026 alone, it has helped freeze approximately $550 million in Iran-related USDT, with the relevant wallets identified by US authorities as linked to the Central Bank of Iran and sanctions evasion networks.
7 minutes ago
South Korea's KOSPI index fell more than 4%, while SK Hynix dropped over 7%.
According to Bitget data, South Korea's KOSPI index dropped 4.52%, SK Hynix fell 7.02%, and Samsung Electronics declined 3.3%.
7 minutes ago
Sophon announced that it plans to shut down its mainnet on November 30, with asset withdrawals set to close on November 25.
Sophon has released the mainnet shutdown timeline, with the final mainnet closure scheduled for November 30, 2026. The deadline for users to withdraw their assets is November 25. Key infrastructure and related websites will begin shutting down after November 25. Users are advised to promptly withdraw SOPH, ETH, USDC and other assets, as well as claim unclaimed staking or Guardian rewards. Those holding unclaimed Sophon Farm assets must also complete withdrawals via the corresponding platforms. Sophon warns that assets remaining on-chain after the deadline may become permanently inaccessible, urging users not to wait until November 30 to take action. Additionally, users should only use Sophon’s official links and remain vigilant against fraudulent migration websites.
Circle’s euro stablecoin, EURC, grew its market cap by $4.8 million over the past seven days. In a sector dominated by dollars, that counts as a respectable week.
The gain pushes EURC’s market cap to $497.12 million as of October 19, 2026, with 443.11 million tokens in circulation.
The numbers behind the week
EURC’s supply climbed 8.8% in the month leading up to October 15, 2026, reaching €441 million.
The token crossed €400 million in circulation back in August 2026.
EURC has grown more than 10x since its MiCA launch two years ago, according to the research findings.
Market share is where Circle really stands out. EURC commands roughly 60% of the euro stablecoin market, which is estimated at somewhere between $760 million and $810 million in total.
A small pond, with one big fish
The entire euro stablecoin segment makes up less than 0.3% of global stablecoin supply.
Meanwhile, the USD stablecoin market exceeds $300 billion.
Circle launched EURC in 2022 as a euro counterpart to USDC. Every token is backed 1:1 by euros held in reserve.
The token is issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS. It falls under the direct supervision of France’s Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution, known as the ACPR.
EURC lives on multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Base.
Why MiCA keeps showing up in the story
The research findings tie EURC’s expanding listings to regulatory clarity under MiCA. The token is available on centralized platforms such as Coinbase and Kraken.
It also shows up across decentralized finance, on protocols including Aave and Uniswap.
Beyond trading, Circle has positioned EURC for payments, foreign exchange, and treasury work. Partnerships with VisaNet and Thunes support those use cases.
The competition is not standing still
Circle is not alone in chasing the regulated euro stablecoin crown. Société Générale’s EURCV is one of the MiCA-compliant alternatives competing for the same users.
Still, EURC’s roughly 60% share suggests Circle’s head start has been hard to erode so far.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
World’s latest push into banking and finance could give the WLD price prediction a fresh bullish angle. The company is introducing identity-verification products designed to tackle deepfakes, impersonation, and fraudulent approvals. But here’s the catch: real-world utility doesn’t automatically translate into token demand or a rising price.
World ID Targets a Growing Financial Security ProblemDeepfake fraud is becoming a serious headache for financial institutions. In 2024, an employee at UK-based engineering firm Arup reportedly fell for a deepfake scam involving a transfer of approximately $25.6 million. That’s the kind of risk World wants its identity technology to address.
$WLD announces World ID for Banking and Finance.
Deepfakes and impersonation are common in the AI world.
In 2024, an employee at UK-based engineering firm Arup fell for a deepfake scam and processed a transfer of about $25.6M.
This creates new challenges for banks and… pic.twitter.com/8zO2g3mBKy
— Milk Road Crypto (@milkroaddaily) October 19, 2026 The new product suite includes a World ID app that stores proof-of-human credentials, World ID for Zoom, and World ID for agents. Together, these tools aim to verify human identity and authorization across digital interactions.
Three Products Bring Identity Checks Into FocusWorld ID for Zoom uses an Orb to match an iris scan, selfie, and live video. Successful verification enables a verified-human badge on Zoom. The integration is now live on the Zoom App Marketplace.
World ID for agents takes a different approach, allowing AI agents to receive delegated proofs that verify authorization from real humans. Meanwhile, banks are still exploring potential applications, including high-value transfers, account recovery, and executive approvals.
WLD Token Demand Remains the Big QuestionDesign partners include Bain Capital, VanEck, Pantera Capital, OpenExchange, and Outtake. The technology also uses privacy-preserving cryptographic proofs intended to keep raw biometric data private.
The network aims to charge apps and institutions in WLD tokens to access these services. That creates a potential link between adoption and token demand, but the banking use cases remain early-stage.
WLD Price Prediction Depends on Real AdoptionThe WLD price prediction could turn more bullish if institutions adopt these products and demand for token-powered access increases over the coming months. For now, the announcement offers a possible catalyst, not proof of rising demand. Adoption, usage, and actual token requirements will matter more than the headline alone.
Story Ends Here
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XRP price is attracting bullish attention after transaction volume on the XRP Ledger skyrocketed to nearly $50 billion. The XRPL transaction volume marked a dramatic increase from the levels recorded over the preceding days. Ali Martinez, an analyst, says that the market may be nearing a bottom and be ready to rally to $2 as on-chain activity surged alongside XRP hitting the $1.25 support level.
XRPL Transaction Volume Explodes Nearly 6,000%
On October 19, approximately $49.66 billion worth of coins were transferred on the XRP Ledger, according to the Santiment chart shared by Martinez. That’s about $0.8 billion each of the previous days on the chart, which is an estimated 6,000% more than the previous amount.
XRP: THE BOTTOM IS IN
Transaction volume on the $XRP Ledger exploded last night as prices hovered around the $1.25 support.
The total dollar value of coins transferred on-chain skyrocketed to $49.70 billion, coinciding with the rebound that is now taking place.
This surge in… https://t.co/vTEFhtC5ss pic.twitter.com/fQTEvKsTKk
— Ali Charts (@alicharts) October 19, 2026
The chart shows that transactions were quite low during the October 16, 17 and 18 and then went off the charts on the 19th. The sharp surge was in tandem with XRP price trading above the $1.25 level and a quick recovery.
On X, Martinez declared, “XRP: THE BOTTOM IS IN.” In this regard, he implied that the price stability coupled with increased on-chain activity could be a sign that selling pressure is easing for XRP price.
“This surge in on-chain activity around such a critical support level suggests that $1.25 could mark the bottom,” he wrote.
However, an increase in volume does not necessarily mean a market reversal, aa rhe dollar value of coins transferred may not be a measure of the net buying pressure.
XRP Price Chart Signals Potential Rally To $2
In a previous analysis, Martinez pointed to a possible ‘inverse head and shoulders’ pattern on XRP price’s 3-day chart. The formation is in the process of forming a left shoulder, a deeper central low known as the “head”, and a right shoulder forming close to the $1.25 support zone.
XRP price chart analysis. Source: Ali Charts | X
The chart sets the neckline resistance at about $1.56. If it is able to clear this level, a bull market could be in the making and continue to push up towards $2.
“For $XRP, I’m watching $1.25,” Martinez wrote. With this level, he said, the right shoulder is filled out.
The “downside” scenario is still significant. Martinez said that if XRP price fell by $1.25, the next price to keep an eye on is $1.00.
Currently, the $1.25 and $1.56 support and resistance levels respectively are still vital. The volume spike is a good signal, but a price breakout is still required to confirm the expected rally.
France’s borrowing costs are now higher than Italy’s. Weekend riots pushed the French 10-year yield to about 4.85% on Monday, the sharpest rise in the G7.
Italy, long seen as Europe’s riskier borrower, pays about 4.52%. For French households, that gap is already reaching mortgages, savings, and jobs.
Why France’s Costs are SkyrocketingProtests over school conditions and living costs turned violent this weekend. Authorities arrested close to 2,400 people, the Guardian reported.
Investors track the gap between French and German 10-year yields as a gauge of French risk. It now sits near 145 basis points, or 1.45 percentage points. In early September, it stood around 85.
Meanwhile, the deficit is expected to reach 5.4% of gross domestic product (GDP) this year. The EU limit is 3%.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu needs about €54 billion in savings for 2027. However, he lacks a parliamentary majority.
“With France already facing a difficult fiscal backdrop and the 2027 election approaching, the weekend adds another layer of political risk for markets.”
Jim Reid, analyst at Deutsche Bank
France borrowing costs spread versus Germany, FR10Y-DE10Y daily chart / Source: TradingViewAre French Stocks Flashing a Warning?The CAC 40, France’s benchmark index, trades about 10% below its August peak. Each rebound since then has stalled lower.
On Monday, it slipped back under support near 7,890. The next floor sits around 7,510.
Banks led the drop. BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, and Société Générale each fell more than 2%, according to the Telegraph.
CAC 40 daily chart showing downtrend as France borrowing costs rise / Source: TradingViewWhat Should French Households Check Now? Mortgages. The average 20-year rate reached 3.66% in October, up from 3.17% early this year, per broker Pretto. On a €250,000 loan, that adds about €63 a month. Buyers may benefit from securing a written rate offer early. Savings. The Livret A, France’s tax-free savings account, pays 1.70%, roughly matching inflation. Eligible lower earners get 2.50% on the means-tested LEP account. Bank deposits remain protected up to €100,000 per bank. Life insurance. Euro funds in assurance-vie policies returned 2.63% on average in 2025. Higher bond yields tend to lift these returns gradually. Jobs and shops. Carrefour expects repair costs above €10 million, with some franchise staff placed on furlough. That state scheme pays 60% of gross salary. Many shop policies require theft reports within two working days. Travel and imports. The euro slipped to about $1.12, near its weakest since May 2025. Dollar-priced trips and goods now cost more. Can Friday’s Moody’s Review Break the Cycle?Moody’s reviews France’s Aa3 rating on Oct. 23, with a negative outlook already attached, according to the national debt agency. S&P follows on Nov. 27.
A downgrade could push yields higher still. In turn, that would feed the living costs that sparked the protests.
With an election due next spring, bond yields may become the clearest gauge of what this unrest costs households.
Starknet’s STRK token has fallen about 38% over the past seven days, sharply underperforming Bitcoin and Ether as a rally driven by talk of an independent Layer 1 unwinds, The Defiant reported on October 19.
The decline comes as a community vote on whether Starknet should research leaving Ethereum to become a post-quantum Layer 1 remains open until October 22. STRK still holds a positive 28-day return despite the pullback.
Starknet’s DeFi total value locked fell 5.3% over the same period, a smaller drop than the token’s.
Rally peaked after Layer 1 announcement
STRK hit an intraday high of $0.1265 on October 11, its highest level since early December, according to AltcoinBuzz. The move followed StarkWare’s October 8 statement that it was actively considering turning Starknet into an independent network. Even at its peak, the token traded more than 97% below its February 2024 all-time high of $4.41.
Supply pressure arrived during the correction. A scheduled unlock released 127 million STRK to early contributors and investors on October 15, worth about $11 million at the time, according to Tokenomist data. Unlocks of up to 127 million STRK per month continue through March 2027.
Non-binding vote on a post-quantum future
The seven-day Snapshot poll, which opened on October 15, asks STRK stakers and delegators whether Starknet should explore becoming an independent Layer 1 focused on post-quantum security, The Crypto Times reported. The vote is non-binding. A “Yes” result would trigger a research effort and more detailed proposals, while “No” would keep post-quantum work on the current Ethereum Layer 2 path.
“Starknet becoming an independent L1 is our clearest path forward,” StarkWare said. The company argues that Starknet’s hash-based STARK proofs and native account abstraction position it for quantum resistance, but that its reliance on Ethereum for bridging and data availability ties it to Ethereum’s timeline, which targets full Layer 1 quantum resistance by the end of 2029.
StarkWare has said Starknet could reach full quantum resistance by 2027 if it controlled those components itself. STRK would remain the network’s token, and bridges from Ethereum would stay open under the proposal.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Sei Network (SEI) now supports tokenized funds from major asset managers including BlackRock, Apollo, Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane and Nomura's Laser Digital, alongside Ondo Finance.
@SeiNetwork now supports tokenized institutional funds from a broad group of global asset managers, adding to the growing real-world asset (RWA) activity on the layer-1 blockchain. The offerings include products linked to @BlackRock, Apollo, Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane, Nomura's @LaserDigital_, and @Ondo Finance.
The multi-issuer integration gives accredited investors and institutional desks onchain access to a range of fund strategies, including private credit and hedge fund exposure, on Sei's parallel execution layer.
How the funds reached SeiMuch of the rollout came in October 2025. According to crypto.news, tokenization platform KAIO launched BlackRock's ICS US Dollar Liquidity Fund and Brevan Howard's Master Fund on Sei, while Securitize also brought an Apollo fund to the network. The same report said investors can access shares of the BlackRock and Brevan Howard funds by holding a KAIO token on Sei.
Yahoo Finance reported that KAIO, backed by Brevan Howard and Nomura's crypto-focused Laser Digital, had issued more than $200 million in tokenized assets across feeder funds from Brevan Howard, Hamilton Lane, Laser Digital and BlackRock. The tokens are available to institutional and accredited investors and allow onchain subscription, redemption and reporting. The same report said Securitize's Apollo Diversified Credit Fund (ACRED) was a $112 million tokenized feeder fund of Apollo's private credit vehicle.
Hamilton Lane's Senior Credit Opportunities Fund (SCOPE) followed. Sei's own weekly roundup said it went live on the network via KAIO, after earlier launches from BlackRock, Brevan Howard and Apollo.
Why parallel execution mattersSei is a layer-1 chain built for trading and financial applications. According to CoinMarketCap, it uses optimistic parallelization, processing transactions across multiple cores at once rather than sequentially as Ethereum does, and targets block times of roughly 400 milliseconds. That design is central to Sei's pitch as a settlement layer for tokenized assets.
Tokenized funds still operate within existing legal, tax and compliance frameworks, even when the infrastructure is onchain. For institutions, the appeal is faster settlement and programmable access to products that were previously available only through traditional channels. $SEI is the network's native token.
Sourcescrypto.news: BlackRock and Brevan Howard tokenized funds launch on Sei
Yahoo Finance: Brevan Howard-backed tokenization firm expands funds to Sei
Sei Blog: The Roundup, Week of October 13th, 2025
The market for tokenized equities has expanded rapidly in 2026, with total value rising from roughly $654 million in the week of January 5 to $3.8 billion in the week of October 5—an increase of 483 percent—according to research published by DWF Labs.
While overall capitalization has grown substantially, leadership has become more fragmented as additional issuers entered and existing platforms gained traction.
Ondo Finance remains the largest single issuer by value, holding about $1 billion.
Its share of the category, however, declined from 56 percent early in the year to 26 percent by early October. Much of the shift is attributable to newer products.
Binance’s bStocks, introduced in June 2026, reached approximately $905 million (about 24 percent of the market) after an initial surge past $100 million within two weeks of launch.
Robinhood’s tokenized equities offering, which began in July, grew from around $20 million to $170 million over the same period.Other platforms also advanced.
xStocks increased from $187 million to $954 million and retained roughly a 25 percent share.
Securitize reached about $290 million (8 percent), driven in part by the tokenization of a portion of its own newly listed shares.
These movements illustrate how entry by established trading platforms and specialized issuers has redistributed activity that was previously more concentrated.
Network distribution has shifted alongside the issuer landscape.
Ethereum accounted for half of tokenized equity value at the start of the year but fell to 22 percent by October.
BNB Chain rose from 9 percent to 32 percent, reinforced by Binance’s bStocks launch; several of the largest individual tokenized equities by value now reside on that network.
Avalanche, which held no measurable share at the beginning of the year, reached about 9 percent after Securitize’s activity began there in July.
Usage metrics show that growth has not been limited to idle capitalization.
Weekly transfer volume (covering any movement of tokens between addresses) rose more than 40-fold to $17.5 billion, while weekly spot trading volume on decentralized exchanges increased roughly 55-fold to $2.54 billion.
Trading velocity relative to market capitalization improved markedly.
DeFi deployment also expanded, with active total value locked rising from about $15.5 million at the start of January to $313 million by mid-October—roughly 8 percent of category market capitalization, up from around 2 percent earlier in the year.
Activity has spread beyond any single chain, with meaningful volumes appearing on Solana, Robinhood Chain, BNB Chain, and Base.
Even with these gains, tokenized equities remain a small fraction of traditional equity markets, which DWF Labs estimates at approximately $75 trillion in the United States and $150 trillion globally.
The report highlights both the scale of potential further growth and the importance of genuine on-chain utility beyond simple tokenization.
It is essential for all industry participants to recognize that products commonly described as “tokenized stocks” or “tokenized equities” are not necessarily digital securities that represent direct ownership of the underlying shares with the full suite of associated rights (such as voting).
Many of the offerings driving current volume provide economic or price exposure through certificates, structured notes, tracker instruments, or similar arrangements issued by third parties.
Holders typically do not appear on the issuer’s share register and may lack direct shareholder privileges, even when the tokens are backed by underlying assets held in custody.
Regulatory treatment, investor protections, and economic claims vary by structure and jurisdiction.
Clear communication of these distinctions—rather than treating the category as interchangeable with traditional or fully tokenized securities—helps reduce the risk of misunderstanding among users, platforms, and other market participants as the sector continues to develop.
Ondo Finance and Superstate pulled ahead of the pack in the tokenized US Treasury bill market this past week. According to Token Terminal data, Ondo added $41.6 million in market cap over seven days, while Superstate added $34.2 million.
Together, that is roughly $75.8 million of fresh capital flowing into two issuers in a single week.
Who grew, and by how much
The weekly gains cover the period ending around October 19, 2026. Ondo led the way, with Superstate a fairly close second.
A tokenized T-bill product takes short-term US government debt and represents it as a token on a blockchain. Holders get exposure to Treasury yields and can move that exposure around on-chain instead of waiting on traditional settlement rails.
Ondo’s weekly jump came on the heels of a bigger milestone. On October 13, 2026, the platform crossed $3 billion in total tokenized US Treasury assets.
Its flagship product, USDY, accounted for over $2.3 billion of that total, at approximately $2.328 billion. OUSG, Ondo’s other Treasury offering, held approximately $319 million.
That haul made Ondo the leading platform by assets, according to RWA.xyz.
USDY’s roughly $2.328 billion edged past BlackRock’s BUIDL, which sat at about $2.2 billion in the same October 13 snapshot.
The top spot for a single product, however, belonged to someone else. Circle’s USYC held roughly $2.38 billion under management, keeping it narrowly ahead of both USDY and BUIDL.
So the leaderboard depends on how you count. Measured by platform, Ondo leads. Measured by individual fund, Circle holds the crown.
A market measured in billions
The total tokenized US Treasury market was valued at between $14.9 billion and $15.5 billion in mid-October 2026. Against that backdrop, Ondo’s $3 billion represents roughly a fifth of the entire sector.
The broader category is bigger still. Total tokenized funds reached $35.1 billion by early October 2026, with T-bill funds standing out as a leading category within that universe.
Superstate’s USTB product is now marketed under the Invesco Short Duration US Government Securities Fund branding, putting a traditional asset management name on an on-chain Treasury vehicle. USTB has posted strong daily leadership in some recent periods, with on-chain assets under management in the hundreds of millions.
Why the growth matters, and where it stalls
There is a catch. Use of these tokenized assets inside decentralized finance remains low, estimated at only 0.4% to 2%.
The vast majority of tokenized Treasuries are being bought and held, not deployed. They are sitting in wallets collecting yield rather than serving as collateral in lending markets or liquidity pools.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
MemeCore’s M token has lost about 30% in a week and trades near its lowest level since early July. Price has broken down from its two-month range and is falling inside a narrow downward channel. RSI shows extreme selling pressure, but there is still no technical sign of a bottom. A new LayerZero and Stargate integration expanded M’s reach without changing the market’s direction. MemeCore price fell to $0.6706 on Monday, down 15.17% in 24 hours and 30.21% over the past seven days, according to CoinMarketCap. The drop cut the project’s market capitalization to $1.53 billion and pushed M into the bottom fifth of the rally it built over the summer. The sell-off has continued even after MemeCore connected its network to LayerZero and Stargate on October 16-17, a move that opened routes for M and stablecoins to BNB Chain and Base but gave buyers no reason to step back in.
M has handed back 85% of its 280% summer rally Between late June and September 20, M rose from $0.47 to $1.785, a gain of about 280% in 87 days. At current prices the token sits roughly 62% below that peak, which wipes out about 85% of the gains from the run.
Where M sits inside the summer rally
$0.47
Late June
$0.67
Now
$1.785
Sept 20
The $0.972 floor broke on October 12 and no bounce has held since The decline did not happen in one move. Through July, August and early September, M traded sideways between $0.972 and $1.282, two levels where buyers repeatedly stepped in on dips and sellers took profit on rallies. In mid-September the price spiked to $1.78. That breakout failed almost at once.
M/USDT daily chart. Source: Alexander Stefanov / TradingView By the end of September the 20-day average price had dropped below the 50-day average, a sign that short-term momentum had turned against holders. Around October 12 the $0.972 floor of the two-month range gave way. Since then M has slid inside a narrow downward channel and broken through $0.855 and $0.751 without a meaningful rebound at either level.
Monday’s daily candle is the largest of the entire move and is closing near its lows. Sellers remain in control. On the hourly chart the price has flattened, which points to a pause rather than to buyers returning.
Why an RSI of 21 isn’t enough to call a MemeCore price bottom The RSI reading of 21 is the lowest since late June. In practical terms it means the price has fallen unusually fast over a short period, and the last time M reached this zone, the July rally began soon after.
That parallel has limits. Momentum is still printing new lows together with the price, so there is no divergence that would show selling pressure fading. The RSI line also remains well below its own average of 31.9. A 30% weekly drop in a $1.5 billion asset leaves room for a sharp relief bounce, but rebounds inside a falling channel tend to fade unless the price reclaims the levels it has already lost.
M price map
$0.91-$0.97Trend decider
$0.855Lost in October
$0.751First hurdle
$0.6706Current price
$0.62Key support
$0.549July low
$0.47Rally origin
The $0.62 area is the most likely place for buyers to make a stand. It matches the early-July price zone, and the lower boundary of the channel reaches it within the next few sessions. If it fails, $0.549 is the next support, followed by a full return to $0.47.
Unlocked supply and trapped summer buyers cap every rebound Part of the pressure comes from supply. An unlock of about 56.11 million M took place on October 2, valued at roughly $57 million at the time, and the breakdown of the trading range followed ten days later. M launched with 5 billion tokens and has a maximum supply of 10 billion. Core contributors hold 13% of the allocation and investors 12%, according to the project’s official documentation, and scheduled releases to those groups tend to weigh on price when sentiment is already fragile.
Positioning matters too. Traders who bought anywhere between $0.97 and $1.28 during the summer range are now sitting on losses of 30% to 50%. Many of them are likely to sell into any recovery toward their entry price, which is why the $0.91-$0.97 zone carries more weight than the levels below it. A rally into that area looks more like an exit opportunity for trapped holders than the start of a new uptrend.
Only a daily close above $0.97 would mark the October breakdown as a false move. Before that, the first signs of a potential bottom would be a break above the channel’s upper line near $0.751 together with RSI crossing back above its average.
LayerZero routes to Base and BNB Chain opened during the sell-off MemeCore announced the integration on October 15 in a post on its official X account, saying the LayerZero and Stargate connection lets liquidity move on and off the chain. Stargate confirmed the same day that M now runs on the OFT standard and is live on its bridge. The post also lists the official M contract addresses on BNB Chain and Base, which is the reference point anyone bridging should use, since fake token contracts tend to appear around new listings. The scope is narrower than some coverage suggests: M itself moves only between MemeCore, BNB Chain and Base, while the bridged USDC and USDT versions can travel across the wider Stargate network.
MemeCore just went omnichain.🌐
We've integrated @LayerZero_Core and @StargateFinance, so moving liquidity on and off MemeCore is now seamless.
LayerZero is a messaging protocol that lets a contract on one chain send a verified instruction to another chain, with each application choosing its own verifiers through Decentralized Verifier Networks (DVNs). Stargate is the transfer layer on top, handling liquidity and routing for users, including tokens built on the Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard. The two have been closely aligned since August 2025, when the Stargate DAO approved an acquisition by the LayerZero Foundation valued at about $110 million. MemeCore also already had a bridge, Ants Gate, so the new routes extend existing connectivity rather than mark a first.
For the price, the integration works in both directions. It makes M easier to buy for users on Base and BNB Chain, and it equally makes it easier for current holders to move tokens to deeper markets and sell. Over the past four days the second effect appears to have mattered more, although no route-level transfer data has been published to confirm the direction of flows. No independent audit of MemeCore’s specific bridge contracts has been released either.
$0.62 and Tuesday’s ZRO unlock set the near-term test In the short term, how the MemeCore price reacts at $0.62 will set the tone for the rest of the month. A hold there combined with a slowing decline in RSI would open room for a test of $0.751, while a daily close below it would put the July lows at $0.549 back in play.
Beyond the chart, the data that could change the picture is still missing: transfer volumes across the new routes, net stablecoin inflows to MemeCore, and any sign that M liquidity pools on Base and BNB Chain are attracting capital. The broader LayerZero market faces its own pressure point on October 20, when about 23.63 million ZRO tokens worth roughly $44.4 million are scheduled to unlock, equal to almost 6% of its circulating supply and split between core contributors and strategic partners.
Alex is a financial markets journalist and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, and he's spent close to ten years trying to answer one stubborn question: what's really driving this? It started in 2016, when Bitcoin refused to make sense to him - and rather than shrug, he stayed with it until it did. That patience became his method. He's less interested in what an asset is doing today than in the plumbing behind it: how liquidity flows, where risk hides, what a chart is quietly telling you that the headline isn't. That lens eventually stretched well past crypto into traditional markets, because the same forces - fear, leverage, incentives, timing - show up everywhere once you know how to look. Most coverage, in his view, insults the reader by stopping at the surface. Price up, price down, moving on. He'd rather leave someone genuinely understanding a move than merely informed that it happened. His path into markets ran through a Tourism degree at New Bulgarian University - proof, maybe, that curiosity beats credentials. With more than 200 deep analyses and over 10,000 articles behind him, he still walks away from most trading days having learned something he didn't know that morning.
HYPE has slipped below its short-term moving averages after pulling back from its September high. A bearish crossover between the two averages is forming but has not been confirmed. Hyperliquid’s CEO wants US rules to target market operators instead of the blockchain itself. A regulated route for American traders through Kraken’s parent company still awaits approval. HYPE price is hovering near $79.30 on Monday, down about 8.5% over the past week and roughly 19% below the $98.16 peak it reached in September, after sellers pushed the price under both its 20-day and 50-day exponential moving averages. The pullback lands in the same week Hyperliquid Labs CEO and co-founder Jeff Yan used an interview on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast to explain how the platform could legally serve American traders, which matters for HYPE because the token’s buybacks are funded by trading fees on the network.
Two averages close to crossing The 20-day EMA sits at $83.60 and the 50-day EMA at $82.85, a gap of less than $1 that keeps shrinking as the faster line turns lower. If the 20-day average drops beneath the 50-day, traders would read it as a bearish crossover, meaning the average price of roughly the last month has fallen below the average of the last two and a half months, and that the October selling has started to outweigh the uptrend HYPE built from early August. That signal is still pending, although the price has already spent several sessions below both lines, so the $82.85 to $83.60 band now works as a ceiling buyers would need to break through before the short-term trend can be called healthy again.
Hyperliquid (HYPE) daily chart. Source: Alexander Stefanov / TradingView. HYPE also lost the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement at $80.21. These levels measure how much of the August to September rally, which took the token from $51.15 to $98.16, has been given back, and the 0.382 line marks the point where about 38% of that gain has been erased. A return above $80.21 would be the first sign of repair, while the 0.5 retracement at $74.66, where half of the rally would be gone, is the next support buyers have to defend.
Level Role $87.07 (0.236 Fib) Upper resistance $83.60 / $82.85 (EMAs) Trend ceiling $80.21 (0.382 Fib) First resistance $74.66 (0.5 Fib) First support $69.11 (0.618 Fib) Deeper support Key HYPE levels on the daily chart.
The Relative Strength Index reads 39.67, below the neutral 50 mark and under its own signal average of 43.77, which shows sellers have held the upper hand for most of the past two weeks. The reading is still above 30, the zone where a token is usually considered sold heavily enough to attract bargain hunters, so the chart still leaves room for more weakness before the token reaches levels that have historically drawn buyers back in. Volume during the October decline has also stayed well below the levels seen during the August breakout, a sign that the selling so far lacks the force of the rally that preceded it.
Yan’s case for regulating deployers Yan said Americans who reach Hyperliquid through a VPN are breaking its terms of service, and argued that compliant US access depends on regulators understanding onchain technology well enough to judge whether it meets the CFTC’s core principles. His proposal treats the Hyperliquid blockchain like an internet protocol and places compliance duties on the firms that deploy and run markets on top of it, since those firms control listings, margin rules and who can trade. As an example of what the technology offers supervisors, he noted that anyone can verify that total user balances equal the USDC held at a given address, a live proof of funds that customers of a traditional exchange cannot check for themselves.
How the US route is being built The pieces Yan described already exist on paper. HIP-3 lets outside builders launch their own perpetual futures markets on Hyperliquid, and on September 16 Payward, the parent company of Kraken, said it intends to deploy onchain perpetual futures for US clients starting with HIP-3* markets, a permissioned version of HIP-3 where the market operator decides who is allowed to trade. Under that plan, Bitnomial, a CFTC-regulated exchange that Payward acquired this year, would create and administer the markets and clear the contracts, while NinjaTrader Clearing would hold client accounts. American users would trade newly created contracts listed under Bitnomial’s rules, without any access to Hyperliquid’s existing order books, and the whole structure remains subject to regulatory approval.
Hyperliquid’s path toward US markets
Feb 2026 – Hyperliquid Policy Center opens in Washington
May 29 – CFTC approves Kalshi’s bitcoin perpetual as a futures contract
Jun 18 – CME sues the CFTC, arguing perpetuals are swaps
Aug 19 – Trump says the CFTC chair is working to bring Hyperliquid onshore
Sep 16 – Payward unveils US perpetuals plan via Bitnomial
Oct 15 – Yan sets out deployer-level regulation
Political backing arrived in August, when President Donald Trump said at a White House meeting that CFTC Chair Mike Selig was working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion. The legal ground is less settled. CME Group sued the CFTC in June over its approval of perpetual futures, arguing they should be regulated as swaps under the Dodd-Frank Act, and the Hyperliquid Policy Center hired former US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar to file a brief asking the court to throw the case out.
Why US access matters for HYPE The link between regulation and the HYPE price runs through fees. Most of the trading fees Hyperliquid collects go toward buying HYPE on the open market, and builders who launch HIP-3 markets have to stake HYPE, so regulated American volume would feed both mechanisms. Ki Young Ju, founder and CEO of on-chain analytics firm CryptoQuant, shared a ranking that put HYPE first among major crypto assets by analyst sentiment, about 2.3 standard deviations more bullish than the average reading, with fee-driven buybacks named as the main reason. That optimism has not stopped the token from sliding this month, and the US channel would initially cover only a subset of new contracts on Bitnomial, which limits how quickly any approval could show up in fee revenue.
The most bullish crypto asset by analyst sentiment is $HYPE. pic.twitter.com/VtqsqWSsiD
— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) October 18, 2026
Bitnomial approval and the CME case On the chart, a daily close above $80.21 followed by a move through the EMA band would neutralize the crossover threat, while a break under $74.66 would open the way toward $69.11. On the regulatory side, the CFTC still has to clear Bitnomial’s listing, and a ruling in CME’s favor could push perpetual contracts into the heavier swaps regime, raising compliance costs for every venue planning to offer them. Hyperliquid keeps expanding offshore in the meantime: EQX Labs said on October 14 it plans to launch 11 tokenized US stock and ETF markets on the platform, including SPY, QQQ and NVIDIA, and US persons are explicitly barred from buying them.
Alex is a financial markets journalist and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, and he's spent close to ten years trying to answer one stubborn question: what's really driving this? It started in 2016, when Bitcoin refused to make sense to him - and rather than shrug, he stayed with it until it did. That patience became his method. He's less interested in what an asset is doing today than in the plumbing behind it: how liquidity flows, where risk hides, what a chart is quietly telling you that the headline isn't. That lens eventually stretched well past crypto into traditional markets, because the same forces - fear, leverage, incentives, timing - show up everywhere once you know how to look. Most coverage, in his view, insults the reader by stopping at the surface. Price up, price down, moving on. He'd rather leave someone genuinely understanding a move than merely informed that it happened. His path into markets ran through a Tourism degree at New Bulgarian University - proof, maybe, that curiosity beats credentials. With more than 200 deep analyses and over 10,000 articles behind him, he still walks away from most trading days having learned something he didn't know that morning.
A crypto whale staked 139,000 HYPE tokens, incurring a loss of $2.02 million over the past 30 days.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a crypto whale staked HYPE worth $10.95 million and incurred a $2.02 million loss over the past 30 days. The whale staked 139,050 HYPE (valued at $10.95 million) and delegated the assets to Infinitefield.xyz. The wallet also holds a 10x leveraged long position worth $202,250 involving CXMT, SKHX, and LYTE, with an unrealized loss of $36,540. The wallet’s total profit from perpetual contracts stands at $7.22 million, but it has suffered an overall $2.02 million loss in the past 30 days.
4 hours ago
Aster launches pre-market trading on PAPER, with up to 3x leverage.
According to official announcements, Aster has launched pre-launch contract trading for PAPER (papertrade.xyz), supporting a maximum leverage of 3x.
4 hours ago
Mastercard launches stablecoin risk intelligence service for institutions.
Mastercard announced at the Money20/20 USA conference this Monday the official launch of its "Stablecoin Security" risk intelligence service. The service enables financial institutions to comprehensively evaluate risks of stablecoin payments before funds are recorded on-chain. Via an API interface, Mastercard will supply banks with risk scores for seamless integration into their existing fraud prevention and compliance systems. According to Mastercard, the service tracks fund sources throughout the entire lifecycle of stablecoin payments, screens for links to financial crime risks including fraud, scams, and sanctions violations, and conducts in-depth analysis of transaction context before delivering risk scores. Citing a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) study, Mastercard noted that among 593 million stablecoin transfer events observed in 2025, nearly 60% took place in complex multi-step transactions rather than simple peer-to-peer payments, underscoring the necessity of pre-transaction security assessments. Ann Johnson, Executive Vice President of Mastercard Security Solutions, stated: "Stablecoins are creating new possibilities for value exchange, but financial institutions need the right intelligence and controls to participate with confidence."
4 hours ago
I appreciate you sharing this Lookonchain weekly report, but I need clarification on what you'd like me to do. You mentioned at the start that I should write headlines for Lookonchain tweets (max 120 characters, keeping tickers/amounts/names, no quotes/hashtags/periods). However, what you've pasted appears to be the beginning of a weekly report summary, not a tweet. Could you provide: 1. The specific tweet
Oct 12–Oct 18, 2026 #LookonchainWeeklyReport ?? Overview Stablecoin supply fell by $1.65B last week, DEX spot volume rebounded and perp volume edged up, while public companies added 7,721 BTC. ?? Stablecoin Market The total stablecoin market cap decreased by $1.65B. ?? Spot &
4 hours ago
Bitcoin ETFs see $94.94M outflow, Ethereum ETFs down $87.51M in 24 hours
Former 5th-largest SOL treasury company radically shifts strategy to liquidate all its SOL holdings, having reaffirmed its 'SOL treasury strategy' just one month ago.
SkyAI, formerly Sharps Technology, has recently undergone a radical strategic shift. The company has liquidated all its Solana (SOL) reserves to fund its stock and warrant repurchase program, dropping from being the fifth-largest Solana treasury holder to zero SOL holdings. According to a Monday statement, as of October 16, SkyAI held roughly $223.8 million in cash and has "completed the sale of all SOL". Under the repurchase plan, SkyAI proposed to buy back 95% of its outstanding shares at $3 per share or per warrant. If fully subscribed, the company would retain approximately $22.5 million before related expenses. Additionally, since it no longer holds SOL, SkyAI has scrapped the original repurchase condition requiring SOL’s price to stay above $100. The liquidation was swift and abrupt: as recently as September 14, SkyAI reaffirmed its Solana treasury strategy, claiming to hold over 2 million SOL. But an October 11 repurchase announcement disclosed it had sold ~1 million SOL, and subsequent SEC filings showed its remaining balance was only around 600,000 SOL. This rapid sell-off has drawn strong pushback from Bastion Trading, a major shareholder holding nearly 10% of SkyAI’s shares. Bastion has called for an independent review and explicitly said it will not participate in the repurchase under current terms, demanding the repurchase price be raised to $3.5 per share, restrictions on insiders, and exclusion of strategic advisors’ warrants from the repurchase. Despite liquidating its crypto assets, SkyAI still describes its business as "building a financial platform combining Solana-based stablecoin tracks with AI". However, Monday’s announcement did not clarify if the company plans to rebuild its SOL treasury, nor provide updates on the platform. SkyAI only stated it intends to maintain its Nasdaq listing status after the repurchase is completed. As of the latest trading day, SkyAI (SKYA) shares rose 4.5% to $2.77, with a year-to-date gain of 35%.
Kinetiq (@Kinetiq_xyz) will launch the Elysium mainnet on November 9, a Layer 2 network for @HyperliquidX that settles to HyperEVM and uses $HYPE for gas.
Kinetiq (@Kinetiq_xyz) has set November 9 as the mainnet launch date for Elysium, a Layer 2 network built for the @HyperliquidX ecosystem. TechFlow reported on October 19 that, according to official announcements, Elysium is the first L2 network in the Hyperliquid ecosystem.
What Elysium is designed to doElysium is a general-purpose, high-performance L2 built specifically for Hyperliquid. ChainCatcher reports that it settles to HyperEVM, is co-located with HyperCore, and uses $HYPE as its native gas token. It runs Conduit's G2 sequencer on an architecture that meets SOC 2 Type 2 standards, according to the same report.
Kinetiq first unveiled the project on August 24. Crypto.news reported that the network is meant to increase transaction capacity within the Hyperliquid ecosystem, with 50% of sequencer fees allocated to buybacks and burns of Kinetiq's $KNTQ token.
The team has pointed to limits in the existing HyperEVM environment as the motivation. CoinTurk reported that Kinetiq cited HyperEVM's dual-block architecture, restricted throughput and high fees during congestion, including basic swaps costing as much as $20. Elysium is intended to be more deeply integrated with HyperCore, the liquidity engine behind Hyperliquid, and to offer faster block times.
Technically, Chainstack's overview describes Elysium as an Arbitrum Orbit chain that executes on its own fast chain and settles to HyperEVM, with high-frequency trading and market making as the stated target workload. The testnet has been live since September 22, 2026.
Why it matters for HyperliquidKinetiq is best known as the protocol behind kHYPE. OAK Research describes it as a non-custodial liquid staking protocol on Hyperliquid, where users deposit $HYPE and receive kHYPE in return. Elysium extends the company beyond staking into trading infrastructure.
Analysts have framed the launch as a test of execution. MEXC News noted that Elysium must show it adds meaningful functionality rather than fragmenting liquidity, and that performance, liquidity and developer adoption can only be measured after launch.
Kinetiq's documentation still describes Elysium as pre-launch, with specifications and parameters subject to change before mainnet, according to Chainstack.
SourcesTechFlow: Elysium to launch mainnet on November 9
ChainCatcher: First Hyperliquid L2 Elysium mainnet launch
Chainstack: What is Elysium?
A trader engaged nearly 98 million dollars on a rise in bitcoin with a 40x leverage on Hyperliquid. At the time of the report published on October 18, a decrease of only 1.6% threatened to trigger the liquidation of this particularly risky position.
In brief
A trader bets nearly 98 million dollars on the rise of Bitcoin with a 40x leverage on Hyperliquid.
This position rests on only 2.85 million dollars of margin.
A 1.6% drop in bitcoin could trigger its liquidation, estimated at 79,828 dollars.
The high leverage exposes the trader to quick losses despite small market fluctuations.
The account already shows nearly 9.8 million dollars in cumulative losses over seven days.
A $98 million position supported by $2.85 million
The observed account controlled 1205.31 BTC through a perpetual contract. Its long position showed a notional value of 97.87 million dollars, with an average entry price of 81,913.80 dollars. The trader was therefore betting on a rise of bitcoin above this threshold.
The use of a 40x leverage explains the gap between the size of the bet and the capital actually mobilized. Here are the main data recorded on the account :
An exposure of 97.87 million dollars ;
About 2.85 million dollars deposited as margin ;
An effective leverage of 34.33 ;
An estimated liquidation price at 79,828 dollars ;
An unrealized loss of 866,467 dollars ;
Nearly 86,952 dollars already paid in financing fees.
The figure of 98 million therefore does not correspond to the personal amount the trader risks losing. It designates the total value of his exposure after applying leverage. The direct loss mainly rests on the margin employed, even if previous account operations can weigh on the overall balance.
At the time of observation, bitcoin was trading around 81,117 dollars on Bitstamp. Only 1,289 dollars separated its price from the liquidation level, about a 1.59% gap. However, the market has moved since this snapshot, and the position might have been reduced, reinforced, or closed.
40x leverage leaves almost no margin for error
A perpetual contract allows speculation on the price of an asset without an expiration date. With a long position, the trader gains if the BTC rises and loses if it declines. Leverage multiplies these variations relative to the capital engaged.
At 40 times the stake, a few points of adverse variation are enough to absorb most of the margin. The unrealized loss of 866,467 dollars already represented a negative return of 30.4% on the funds engaged. The account had no additional available margin at the time of the report.
The position used isolated margin mode. In this system, the collateral allocated to the bet remains separate from the rest of the portfolio. Liquidation therefore mainly threatens the amount reserved for this operation, rather than all assets potentially held on the account.
However, Hyperliquid does not rely solely on the last price shown by a spot platform. Its mechanism takes into account a reference price, margin level, and protocol-specific rules. The 79,828 dollar threshold was thus an estimate liable to change if the trader added collateral or reduced exposure.
The account had already lost $9.8 million in one week
Statistics published by Hyperbot show that the difficulties extended beyond this single position. Over seven days, the account showed a cumulative loss close to 9.78 million dollars and a maximum drawdown of 78.77% from its previous peak.
Its history counted 3,763 operations, but only 16.67% of them ended with a gain. The portfolio remained 100% exposed to the rise of bitcoin, without a short position to cushion a new fall. These figures describe an aggressive strategy but do not identify its real owner.
A forced closure of such a position could briefly increase selling pressure. The system would have to sell part or all of the exposure to cover losses. Its effect on the market would depend on the order book depth, liquidation speed, and available buyers.
This bet mostly illustrates the risk of extreme leverage. An exposure close to 100 million dollars can rest on less than 3 million margin, but a usual variation of the bitcoin price can then quickly erase the engaged capital. The 79,828 dollar level remains the main threshold to watch as long as the position remains open and unchanged.
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Luc Jose A.
Diplômé de Sciences Po Toulouse et titulaire d'une certification consultant blockchain délivrée par Alyra, j'ai rejoint l'aventure Cointribune en 2019.
Convaincu du potentiel de la blockchain pour transformer de nombreux secteurs de l'économie, j'ai pris l'engagement de sensibiliser et d'informer le grand public sur cet écosystème en constante évolution. Mon objectif est de permettre à chacun de mieux comprendre la blockchain et de saisir les opportunités qu'elle offre. Je m'efforce chaque jour de fournir une analyse objective de l'actualité, de décrypter les tendances du marché, de relayer les dernières innovations technologiques et de mettre en perspective les enjeux économiques et sociétaux de cette révolution en marche.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
A crypto whale staked 139,000 HYPE tokens, incurring a loss of $2.02 million over the past 30 days.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a crypto whale staked HYPE worth $10.95 million and incurred a $2.02 million loss over the past 30 days. The whale staked 139,050 HYPE (valued at $10.95 million) and delegated the assets to Infinitefield.xyz. The wallet also holds a 10x leveraged long position worth $202,250 involving CXMT, SKHX, and LYTE, with an unrealized loss of $36,540. The wallet’s total profit from perpetual contracts stands at $7.22 million, but it has suffered an overall $2.02 million loss in the past 30 days.
4 hours ago
Aster launches pre-market trading on PAPER, with up to 3x leverage.
According to official announcements, Aster has launched pre-launch contract trading for PAPER (papertrade.xyz), supporting a maximum leverage of 3x.
4 hours ago
Mastercard launches stablecoin risk intelligence service for institutions.
Mastercard announced at the Money20/20 USA conference this Monday the official launch of its "Stablecoin Security" risk intelligence service. The service enables financial institutions to comprehensively evaluate risks of stablecoin payments before funds are recorded on-chain. Via an API interface, Mastercard will supply banks with risk scores for seamless integration into their existing fraud prevention and compliance systems. According to Mastercard, the service tracks fund sources throughout the entire lifecycle of stablecoin payments, screens for links to financial crime risks including fraud, scams, and sanctions violations, and conducts in-depth analysis of transaction context before delivering risk scores. Citing a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) study, Mastercard noted that among 593 million stablecoin transfer events observed in 2025, nearly 60% took place in complex multi-step transactions rather than simple peer-to-peer payments, underscoring the necessity of pre-transaction security assessments. Ann Johnson, Executive Vice President of Mastercard Security Solutions, stated: "Stablecoins are creating new possibilities for value exchange, but financial institutions need the right intelligence and controls to participate with confidence."
4 hours ago
I appreciate you sharing this Lookonchain weekly report, but I need clarification on what you'd like me to do. You mentioned at the start that I should write headlines for Lookonchain tweets (max 120 characters, keeping tickers/amounts/names, no quotes/hashtags/periods). However, what you've pasted appears to be the beginning of a weekly report summary, not a tweet. Could you provide: 1. The specific tweet
Oct 12–Oct 18, 2026 #LookonchainWeeklyReport ?? Overview Stablecoin supply fell by $1.65B last week, DEX spot volume rebounded and perp volume edged up, while public companies added 7,721 BTC. ?? Stablecoin Market The total stablecoin market cap decreased by $1.65B. ?? Spot &
4 hours ago
Bitcoin ETFs see $94.94M outflow, Ethereum ETFs down $87.51M in 24 hours
Former 5th-largest SOL treasury company radically shifts strategy to liquidate all its SOL holdings, having reaffirmed its 'SOL treasury strategy' just one month ago.
SkyAI, formerly Sharps Technology, has recently undergone a radical strategic shift. The company has liquidated all its Solana (SOL) reserves to fund its stock and warrant repurchase program, dropping from being the fifth-largest Solana treasury holder to zero SOL holdings. According to a Monday statement, as of October 16, SkyAI held roughly $223.8 million in cash and has "completed the sale of all SOL". Under the repurchase plan, SkyAI proposed to buy back 95% of its outstanding shares at $3 per share or per warrant. If fully subscribed, the company would retain approximately $22.5 million before related expenses. Additionally, since it no longer holds SOL, SkyAI has scrapped the original repurchase condition requiring SOL’s price to stay above $100. The liquidation was swift and abrupt: as recently as September 14, SkyAI reaffirmed its Solana treasury strategy, claiming to hold over 2 million SOL. But an October 11 repurchase announcement disclosed it had sold ~1 million SOL, and subsequent SEC filings showed its remaining balance was only around 600,000 SOL. This rapid sell-off has drawn strong pushback from Bastion Trading, a major shareholder holding nearly 10% of SkyAI’s shares. Bastion has called for an independent review and explicitly said it will not participate in the repurchase under current terms, demanding the repurchase price be raised to $3.5 per share, restrictions on insiders, and exclusion of strategic advisors’ warrants from the repurchase. Despite liquidating its crypto assets, SkyAI still describes its business as "building a financial platform combining Solana-based stablecoin tracks with AI". However, Monday’s announcement did not clarify if the company plans to rebuild its SOL treasury, nor provide updates on the platform. SkyAI only stated it intends to maintain its Nasdaq listing status after the repurchase is completed. As of the latest trading day, SkyAI (SKYA) shares rose 4.5% to $2.77, with a year-to-date gain of 35%.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center has urged the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to revise its proposed Regulation Crypto Assets framework, submitting five recommendations covering token airdrops, secondary trading, developer protections, buybacks and state securities requirements.
Summary
Hyperliquid Policy Center says it has submitted five recommendations concerning the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets framework.
The proposals seek clearer legal treatment for airdrops, secondary token trading, buybacks and developing blockchain networks.
SEC exemptions would permit qualifying token offerings of up to $5 million or $75 million under different conditions.
The group wants regulators to distinguish automated token repurchases from buybacks directed by centralized project operators.
The SEC’s public consultation closes October 20, while the proposed regulations remain subject to review and revision.
According to the policy organization’s October 19 announcement, it filed a comment letter supporting the SEC’s proposed rules while requesting changes intended to address how decentralized cryptocurrency networks operate. The group argues that the current draft leaves important questions unresolved for developers and token holders, particularly while networks are still being built.
The submission comes one day before the SEC’s October 20 deadline for public comments on Regulation Crypto Assets. The agency proposed the framework in August 2026 to establish specific registration exemptions for certain investment contracts involving cryptocurrencies.
Under the draft, qualifying projects could raise up to $5 million over four years through a startup exemption or up to $75 million within a 12-month period through a separate fundraising exemption. Neither provision is currently an approved exemption under Regulation Crypto Assets, and the final rules may differ from the published proposal.
Hyperliquid Policy Center seeks clearer rules for token airdrops
One of the group’s central recommendations concerns how free token distributions should be treated under U.S. securities laws.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center wants the SEC to write its existing airdrop interpretation directly into the final regulation. The group argues that receiving tokens without providing payment or another form of consideration generally does not satisfy the investment-of-money requirement associated with an investment contract.
BIG UPDATE: Hyperliquid Policy Center (@HyperliquidPC) has officially submitted a comment letter to the SEC, supporting Regulation Crypto Assets and proposing five key refinements.
The proposed regulatory framework includes:
– Up to $5M in token offerings over four years under… https://t.co/a9lq0Jcca9
— HypedLaunches (@HypedLaunches) October 19, 2026
In March, the SEC and Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued a joint interpretation addressing the application of federal securities laws to several cryptocurrency activities. The joint crypto classification guidance covered airdrops, staking and other blockchain activities while examining the circumstances under which tokens may be connected to investment contracts.
The policy center’s proposed change would provide specific regulatory language for qualifying token distributions. It wants the rule to focus on whether recipients provided tangible and definable consideration in exchange for the assets.
The group identifies wallet connections, sanctions screening and other routine delivery procedures as activities that should not automatically turn a free distribution into a securities transaction. Such requirements may be necessary before a user can receive tokens, even when the recipient has not paid the issuing project.
Its recommendation distinguishes administrative steps from activities performed as compensation for tokens. A project requiring participants to provide services after announcing a distribution could raise different legal questions under the existing interpretation.
The organization argues that formalizing this distinction would give developers and recipients clearer expectations when distributing tokens to network participants.
SEC proposal leaves secondary crypto trading questions unresolved
Secondary market trading forms another significant part of the Hyperliquid Policy Center’s submission.
The organization wants the SEC to explain whether tokens originally distributed through the proposed registration exemptions can subsequently be traded through decentralized protocols and other intermediaries.
The August proposal addresses certain cryptocurrency offerings and contains provisions concerning resale and state registration requirements. However, it does not establish a complete regulatory regime for every person or protocol facilitating transactions after tokens reach investors.
Earlier, crypto.news examined the proposed exemptions, including the separate fundraising limits and proposed safe harbor. The SEC’s announcement emphasized capital raising and disclosures, leaving the legal treatment of certain secondary-market activities to other regulatory requirements.
The policy center argues that the usefulness of the offering exemptions depends partly on whether recipients have a functioning market in which to transfer or sell their tokens.
Its comment refers to the SEC’s own economic analysis, which discusses how limited secondary-market liquidity could reduce the expected benefits of the proposed framework. The organization wants the agency to address this issue when adopting the final regulation.
The recommendation specifically includes blockchain protocols and people who facilitate trading without being registered as traditional securities intermediaries. The group has not argued that every platform should receive unconditional relief from applicable securities laws.
Existing requirements for securities exchanges, brokers and dealers remain relevant when an activity falls within their statutory definitions. The proposed offering exemptions would not automatically exempt all trading services from those obligations.
Hyperliquid group challenges the proposed developer safe harbor
The SEC’s draft includes a conditional safe harbor intended to address when a cryptocurrency is no longer tied to an investment contract.
Under the proposed framework, an issuer generally must complete or permanently cease the essential managerial efforts it previously represented or promised to investors. Meeting the specified conditions could allow the related token to be treated as no longer subject to that investment contract for federal securities law purposes.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center argues that the certification requirement could create difficulties for projects that have maintained that their tokens were never sold through investment contracts.
Its submission says developers might view the required certification as an implicit admission that a securities relationship previously existed. The group wants projects to be able to certify that their tokens were never tied to an investment contract without making a contrary declaration.
A second objection concerns timing. The organization believes the safe harbor should provide protection while essential managerial work is still underway, because projects face regulatory uncertainty during development.
The current proposal is more limited, with the safe harbor linked to the completion or permanent cessation of the promised managerial activities. Extending protections to unfinished projects would require the SEC to change the conditions described in its August release.
In a previous analysis of the regulatory framework, the proposed safe harbor was identified as distinct from the two fundraising exemptions. The safe harbor concerns the legal relationship between a token and an investment contract, while the exemptions address qualifying offers and sales.
The group has not received approval for its proposed changes. The SEC must consider the public consultation and any subsequent revisions before determining the contents of a final regulation.
Automated token buybacks draw a separate SEC recommendation
Token repurchases are another area where the Hyperliquid Policy Center wants more precise legal language.
The group is asking the SEC to distinguish buybacks that occur automatically under published blockchain rules from purchases made at the discretion of a centralized company or project operator.
Some cryptocurrency protocols use predetermined mechanisms to allocate trading fees or other network revenue toward purchasing tokens. In other arrangements, a company or foundation decides when to buy tokens, how much to spend and whether to change the program.
The policy organization argues that those arrangements should not automatically receive identical treatment when regulators assess whether a central party is directing the economic activities associated with a cryptocurrency.
It wants the SEC to incorporate its staff’s token buyback guidance into the final regulation or the accompanying explanation. The submission requests consistent use of the term “central party” and cautions against treating validators and other independent participants as one controlling group solely because they share economic incentives.
The distinction is relevant to Hyperliquid’s ecosystem, where token buybacks and transaction-driven mechanisms have attracted attention from market participants. However, the group’s request does not establish that any particular Hyperliquid token or program has received a regulatory exemption.
The policy center’s interpretation remains an interested-party recommendation. Whether a particular buyback is associated with an investment contract depends on the facts of the arrangement and the applicable law.
Federal protections could expire under the SEC’s draft
The group’s fifth recommendation addresses how long federal protections against certain state securities registration requirements should remain available.
Regulation Crypto Assets proposes federal preemption for qualifying securities offerings and some subsequent transactions. The provision would limit specified state registration requirements while preserving other applicable legal obligations.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center argues that those protections should remain effective after a project satisfies the proposed safe harbor. It is concerned that losing federal preemption at that stage could expose developers or token holders to a new set of state-level registration questions.
The comparison with congressional legislation has identified differences between the SEC’s proposed regulatory exemptions and the treatment of decentralized networks under the CLARITY Act. The SEC proposal concerns particular securities law requirements, while legislation could establish a more extensive statutory framework.
Federal preemption under the draft would not eliminate every state law affecting cryptocurrency businesses. State antifraud provisions and requirements governing activities beyond the covered securities offerings may continue to apply.
In its August proposal, the SEC established file number S7-2026-27 and set October 20 as the deadline for written comments. The rulemaking remains open for public input, and the agency has not adopted the Hyperliquid Policy Center’s five requested changes.
After Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) and Elon Musk presented a next-generation Roadster prototype incorporating SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) derived thruster technology at a demonstration on October 15 at SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas facility, trading activity in instruments tracking Tesla’s share price accelerated sharply on always-open crypto platforms.
The event, which included the vehicle performing aerial maneuvers and flips using cold-gas thrusters and suction systems, occurred after regular US equity markets had closed, with Tesla shares finishing the session at $362.44.
On Hyperliquid, the TSLA perpetual futures contract (listed via Trade.xyz) rose roughly 4.9 percent to around $378 in the hours after the reveal.
Hourly trading volume on the contract increased approximately 1,580 percent, climbing from $2.8 million to $47 million within a single hour.
With the daily candle only about nine hours old at the time of the peak activity, the session ranked as the product’s second-busiest day since listing roughly a year earlier.
Data aggregated by RootData showed Binance leading overall 24-hour volume in Tesla-related derivatives at approximately $279 million, ahead of Hyperliquid’s roughly $159 million.
Hyperliquid nonetheless held the largest open interest, near $99 million.
Tesla’s actual shares indicated roughly 4.5 percent higher in premarket trading the following morning.
SpaceX has used thrusters to position spacecraft for decades.
Making them work in a vehicle instead of a vacuum took all-new hardware & controls.
Every usable void in the car is packed with Carbon Fiber Overwrapped Pressure Vessels (COPVs)
More compressed gas on board = more… pic.twitter.com/IyFDx26yEf
— Tesla (@Tesla) October 16, 2026
The Hyperliquid instrument is a perpetual futures contract that tracks the price of Tesla stock.
It settles in USDC, permits leverage of up to 20 times, and operates continuously without a traditional brokerage account.
This structure allowed market participants to take positions on Tesla’s valuation immediately after the prototype demonstration while the Nasdaq remained closed.
Tesla is scheduled to report third-quarter earnings on October 21.
The episode highlights how round-the-clock crypto derivatives platforms can serve as an initial reaction venue for corporate news that emerges outside conventional equity market hours.
It is important to note that products of this type are frequently mislabeled in headlines and commentary as “tokenized stocks.”
In reality, not all instruments described as tokenized stocks constitute digital securities.
Conflating the two categories reflects a basic lack of understanding of how these financial instruments function.
A genuine digital security representing equity would ordinarily carry ownership rights, potential dividend claims, and the regulatory framework applicable to securities.
Many products marketed as tokenized stocks in crypto markets, including the Hyperliquid TSLA contract, are instead synthetic derivatives or price-tracking perpetuals.
They deliver economic exposure to price moves without conveying ownership in the underlying company, without voting rights, and without the legal character of a security in most jurisdictions.
Treating them interchangeably overlooks material distinctions in counterparty risk, settlement, regulatory status, and holder rights.
These are price-tracking derivatives, not tokenized equity securities.
Many industry professionals and commentators continue to treat every blockchain-based product that references a stock ticker as a form of tokenized equity, often without examining the actual contractual terms, settlement mechanics, or regulatory status.
This habit stems in large part from a failure to read the fine print that defines the instrument.
In the case of the Hyperliquid TSLA contract and similar products listed through platforms such as Trade.xyz, the documentation and market specifications make clear that the offering is a cash-settled perpetual futures contract whose value is derived from an external price feed.
It does not represent a claim on Tesla shares, does not confer shareholder rights, and does not involve the transfer or custody of any underlying securities.
Professionals who overlook these distinctions frequently default to the language of “tokenized stocks” because it is familiar and marketable, even when the product’s structure is that of a leveraged synthetic derivative.
The result is a persistent category error in which price-tracking contracts are discussed as if they were digital representations of equity ownership.
This confusion also reflects a broader shortfall in basic financial literacy among some participants in crypto markets.
Traditional equity ownership, whether in certificated or digital form, is defined by legal rights—including residual claims on assets, potential dividends, voting power, and protections under securities law—rather than by the mere ability to bet on a price.
Perpetual futures and other synthetic instruments, by contrast, are contractual agreements between counterparties (or against a protocol’s risk engine) that expire only when closed, settle in a stablecoin such as USDC, and carry funding rates, liquidation risk, and no ownership interest.
When industry voices blur these categories, they obscure material differences in counterparty exposure, regulatory treatment, and the nature of the claim being traded.
Accurate differentiation requires only the willingness to consult the product specifications and to apply elementary distinctions between ownership of a security and a derivative that tracks its price—distinctions that have long been standard in conventional finance.
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19 October 2026 | 17:36 Hyperliquid Policy Center has asked the SEC to confirm that a token buyback running on fixed, published rules is not a promise of managerial effort. It wants that to hold even when a company, foundation or other central party still controls the network.
Key Takeaways HPC wants buybacks that run on fixed, published rules cleared as no promise of managerial effort on functional networks, even where a central party exists. It accepts that discretionary buybacks run by a central party may still count as such a promise, especially when marketed as yield. Its definition does not say whether a buyback stays programmatic if someone can change its parameters. The letter also seeks a narrower “central party” definition and changes on airdrops, secondary trading, the safe harbor and state preemption. The request is one of five in a comment letter on the proposed Regulation Crypto Assets, filed on October 19 and signed by HPC chief executive Jake Chervinsky and senior counsel Brad Bourque. HPC launched in February with 1 million HYPE from the Hyper Foundation, which supports the Hyperliquid ecosystem, and describes itself as an independent research and advocacy group. Hyperliquid buys back HYPE with its trading fees.
The SEC proposed the rule in August. It would allow token offerings of up to $5 million over four years under a startup exemption, and up to $75 million in any 12-month period under a fundraising exemption. It would also add a safe harbor confirming when a token is no longer tied to an investment contract, and preempt state registration for those offerings and certain resales. HPC supports the proposal and wants changes before it is adopted.
What SEC staff says about buybacks today The legal question is whether announcing a buyback counts as a promise of “essential managerial efforts.” These are the work of a team or issuer that buyers rely on to make a profit. Under the Howey test, which courts use to decide whether an arrangement is an investment contract, that reliance is one of the markers of a securities transaction.
The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance covers buybacks in its crypto FAQ. Since an amendment on September 28, the answer says a buyback announcement is not such a promise where the crypto system is functional and has no central party. Coindoo has reported on how staff separated buybacks from profit promises.
Staff FAQs carry no legal force. HPC’s letter praises the guidance but argues that projects cannot depend on it until the Commission writes it into the final rule or the adopting release.
Published rules versus case-by-case calls HPC wants the Commission to treat two kinds of buyback differently. The letter defines them this way:
Programmatic
Runs on fixed, publicly disclosed parameters: a set share of protocol fees, a defined schedule, a formula, or continuous open-market buying that anyone can check onchain. No one chooses the timing, the size or whose tokens are bought.
Discretionary
Run by a central party that decides when to buy, how much and from whom. Purchases can come from insiders or a treasury.
In HPC’s view, the second type involves information asymmetries and the kind of discretion securities law exists to police. The first does not.
From that, the letter asks the SEC to confirm that announcing, maintaining or executing a programmatic buyback or burn on a functional system is not a promise of essential managerial efforts, “regardless of the existence of a central party.” That goes past the FAQ’s wording. HPC presents it as a reading of the existing text, arguing that the “no central party” condition was aimed at discretionary buybacks.
The letter also asks the SEC to confirm the opposite case. A discretionary repurchase programme run by a central party may be a promise of managerial effort, depending on the facts. That is especially likely where the issuer markets the buyback as yield for holders or the system is not yet functional. The requested treatment covers only non-security tokens on functional systems.
Hyperliquid already runs this kind of programme Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund receives most of the exchange’s trading fees and uses them to buy HYPE on the open market. According to CoinShares research, the fund places orders below the market price and sends the purchased tokens to an address no one can access. Validators voted in December 2025 to recognise those tokens as burned.
The letter does not mention Hyperliquid’s buyback and does not ask for treatment of any single project. The definition it proposes, however, is fee-funded, rule-based and verifiable onchain, which describes the model Hyperliquid already uses.
The question the definition leaves open HPC’s definition covers how a buyback executes. It does not cover who may change it. A programme can run without human input for months and still depend on someone who can raise or cut the fee share, pause purchases or send the money elsewhere. Hyperliquid’s December 2025 vote shows that holders of governance power do take decisions about such a fund.
Element What HPC’s definition fixes What it does not address Funding A published share of fees or a formula Who can change the share Timing A schedule or continuous buying Who can pause or restart it Use of funds Open-market purchases, no chosen sellers Who can redirect the money The letter does not say whether a buyback stays programmatic if a team, a foundation or a governance vote can rewrite its parameters. Any final text that adopts HPC’s distinction would need a position on that, because a parameter change is a decision about timing and size made by someone.
Who counts as a central party The same recommendation asks the SEC to settle what “central party” means. The term governs the FAQ’s buyback answer and the wider test of whether a network is functional, yet the FAQ does not define it. The SEC’s March interpretation defines it in a footnote as a person, entity or group with operational, economic or voting control, without explaining what makes a group.
HPC argues that a loose reading could cover any network with a governance token, since some combination of unrelated holders always controls a majority of votes. It asks the SEC to define a group as two or more persons acting in concert or under common control, in line with Section 13(d) of the Exchange Act. Holders, validators, delegators, developers, foundations and liquidity providers should not count as one because of combined holdings or shared incentives.
That definition would not decide the programmatic case, which HPC wants cleared whether or not a central party exists. It would decide which networks fall under the FAQ’s current answer, and who is responsible for a discretionary buyback.
The other four requests Airdrops: Write into the rule that tokens earned by using a network, running a validator or supplying liquidity involve no investment of money where the recipient gave no tangible and definable consideration. Confirm that connecting a wallet, signing a claim or passing sanctions screening is not payment, and apply the same analysis to past airdrops. Secondary trading: State that resales of these tokens are not securities transactions, and use the SEC’s Section 36 exemptive authority so intermediaries and qualifying onchain protocols can facilitate trades without registering as exchanges, brokers or dealers. HPC cites the SEC’s own economic analysis, which says the proposal’s benefits may be small if no liquid secondary market develops. Safe harbor: Let a project certify that its token was never subject to an investment contract, and state that filing is not an admission. Allow the supporting analysis to stay out of the public filing, since HPC argues it would give opponents a guide for litigation. Extend protection to projects still building, under a defined development period with milestones. State preemption: As proposed, preemption would end once a project satisfies the safe harbor. HPC says that could expose holders and trading venues to registration rules in more than 50 jurisdictions and give projects a reason to delay finishing their work. It proposes an optional annual certification that keeps the federal protection in place. What happens next The letter is filed under SEC file number S7-2026-27. The Commission will consider public comments before it votes on a final rule, and HPC says it will keep engaging with the agency and its staff. None of the requests has legal effect unless the SEC includes it in the final rule or the adopting release.
This article is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or investment advice. It describes a proposed rule and requested changes that the SEC has not adopted.
Author
Kosta has reported on cryptocurrency markets and blockchain infrastructure since 2020, bringing over six years of hands-on experience in the crypto industry built through daily tracking of markets, trends, and emerging blockchain developments. Specializing in Bitcoin on-chain analysis, institutional ETF flows, and digital asset price action, his work at Coindoo has been cited by other news agencies and consistently covers market developments with a focus on data-driven reporting across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, and XRP. Over the years, Kosta has contributed to multiple crypto media outlets in different regions, authoring over 6,000 articles across the sector. His reporting spans cryptocurrency markets and the broader fintech industry, tracking not only price action but also the technological and regulatory forces shaping the ecosystem. To support his analysis, Kosta actively leverages on-chain data and metrics from leading platforms such as Santiment, Glassnode, and CryptoQuant, enabling deeper, evidence-based market insights. He believes in the power of transparency and the data that underpins the blockchain ecosystem. His academic background in Marketing Management from Denmark further complements his analytical approach, adding a strong understanding of communication strategy and content positioning to his work.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center (HPC) has urged the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to adopt its proposed Regulation Crypto Assets framework with five revisions aimed at providing greater legal clarity for crypto developers and token holders.
In an October 19 comment letter, the advocacy group supported the SEC’s proposal, which would allow qualifying crypto projects to raise up to $5 million over four years under a startup exemption or up to $75 million annually under a separate fundraising exemption.
The framework, introduced in August, would also establish a safe harbor for tokens no longer associated with investment contracts and provide exemptions from certain state securities registration requirements.
Hyperliquid Policy Center seeks clearer rules for airdrops and token trading
HPC recommended that the SEC formally establish that token airdrops do not constitute securities transactions when recipients provide no tangible consideration in exchange.
The group argued that administrative requirements, such as connecting a wallet or completing sanctions screening, should not be treated as payment for tokens.
It also called for clearer rules governing secondary market trading, including whether decentralized protocols and other intermediaries can facilitate transactions involving tokens distributed under the proposed exemptions.
Another recommendation seeks to expand the SEC’s proposed safe harbor to protect projects still undergoing development without requiring them to acknowledge that their tokens previously constituted investment contracts.
HPC also urged regulators to distinguish automated token buybacks governed by predefined rules from discretionary purchases controlled by developers or other centralized parties.
Finally, the group called for permanent federal preemption of certain state registration requirements, warning that the current proposal could expose mature crypto projects to additional state regulations once they qualify for the safe harbor.
The recommendations come as the SEC moves toward finalizing its crypto regulatory framework, with the public comment period scheduled to close on October 20.
HPC argued that greater legal certainty could encourage crypto developers to launch projects in the US rather than relocate overseas or exclude American users.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The Hyperliquid Policy Center has submitted five recommendations urging the SEC to clarify crypto rules covering token airdrops, automated buybacks, secondary trading, and developer protections under its proposed regulatory framework.
Hyperliquid Policy Center Seeks Changes to SEC Crypto Rules
The Hyperliquid Policy Center announced its recommendations on October 19, supporting the SEC’s proposed Regulation Crypto Assets framework. The group asked for more generally defined rules for the distribution of tokens, platforms for trading and securities registration procedures.
The SEC introduced the proposal in August, offering two exemptions for qualifying cryptocurrency token sales. One allows offerings of up to USD 5 million in four years and the other USD 75 million per year.
Under its first recommendation, HPC wants the SEC to confirm that qualifying free token airdrops are not investments. The group stated that it does not consider these connections to be payment or the completion of a sanctions check.
Separately, HPC requested guidance for decentralized trading protocols and intermediaries handling token resales under the proposed exemptions.
SEC Urged to Clarify Token Buybacks and Developer Protections
HPC has urged the regulator to separate out automated token buybacks from buybacks approved on a case-by-case basis by the developers. It suggested uniformity of definitions for controlling parties in the final regulations.
The group seeks protection of the networks that developers are still building. Under its plan, it would allow projects to receive legal protections without recognizing that the tokens they previously issued were investment contracts.
For secondary trading, HPC requested clearer rules allowing platforms without SEC registration to facilitate eligible transactions. The group noted volatility in these activities could limit token liquidity and participation in the network.
Previously, the organization urged European regulators to classify perpetual futures under existing derivatives rules.It submitted its request for “consistent treatment of financial products” involving blockchain to the Ministry of Finance on October 1.
SEC Faces October 20 Deadline for Crypto Rule Comments
HPC’s fifth recommendation concerns federal protections against separate state securities registration requirements. The organization wants those protections to remain in place after projects qualify for the proposed safe harbor.
The SEC’s proposal currently sets October 20 as the deadline for public comments. The commission has not yet accepted the recommendations and the proposed rules still have to be considered.
Meanwhile, the SEC and CFTC have been advancing their own cryptocurrency regulations in the wake of stalled federal market regulation.
Previously both agencies have advanced their own crypto regulatory initiatives for markets with tokenization and derivatives. The SEC will consider comments submitted before it decides to modify or adopt the proposed framework.
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