Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson says he is personally developing a new programming language for the blockchain. In an October 18 post on X, he said he was working with a developer to build it.

According to him, the proposed tool would help applications carry out users’ requests and provide evidence that the required conditions were followed. That could give Cardano developers another way to build applications, although Hoskinson’s post offered no release date.

What would the new language do?
Hoskinson described the language as supporting “intents and PCD via Groth16 proofs,” calling it the first of its kind.

So, for example, someone swapping tokens could specify the minimum amount they want to receive. Software would handle the steps needed to complete the request while making sure the conditions are met.

The proof component would provide mathematical evidence that the relevant rules were satisfied. 

Cardano already has programming tools, including Aiken, which developers use to create smart contracts. Aiken’s official documentation describes an existing language and toolkit, so what this means is that Hoskinson’s project would add another development option.

The announcement leaves important questions open

Hoskinson did not include a name, technical specification, or code link in his reply. So, it is not yet known how his proposal would work or fit alongside existing tools.

Source: X
His earlier October 17 post described a Midnight concept as the “magnum opus” of his career. He announced the Cardano language in a subsequent reply, but did not explicitly say that the two were the same project.

ADA remains under pressure near $0.217
ADA traded around $0.2173 at the time of this writing, down 1.76% in the ongoing session.

It had fallen from the high $0.28 price level it hit earlier in the month. The recent rebounds it experienced have not been able to reverse that decline, which leaves the price close to its latest lows.

Source: TradingView
The $0.21 area was the nearest zone to watch for buyers who want to get some of it. If it is able to remain above $0.23, it would mean a stronger sign of recovery.

Final Summary

Hoskinson says he is developing a new Cardano programming language, with no release date provided.
ADA traded near $0.2173, with $0.21 and $0.23 the nearby levels to watch.

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino says his company’s address freezes have cut Iran-linked stablecoin transaction volumes by 94% since 2023.

The timing matters. A Senate report recently named Tether’s USDT as the stablecoin of choice for sanctioned Iran-linked wallets, and Ardoino’s response amounts to this: yes, they used our token, and we are the reason they are using it a lot less.

What Tether is claiming Ardoino made the announcement on October 19, 2026. He framed the drop as the result of a proactive compliance strategy, not a reactive one.

His central argument concerns timing. According to Ardoino, Tether froze relevant addresses an average of four weeks before official sanctions arrived from the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Israel’s NBCTF.

The company also put a dollar figure on its efforts. Tether disclosed that it blocked approximately $550 million in USDT linked to Iran over the course of 2026.

Most of that came in two large batches. Freezes in April and July together accounted for over $470 million of the total.

Third-party data points in the same direction. Figures from TRM Labs show USDT’s share of on-chain volume in Iran-attributed wallets fell from 67% in 2025 to 14% in August 2026.

The Senate report that set this off Ardoino’s comments were a response to a Senate report published on September 28, 2026. The findings were presented by Senator Richard Blumenthal.

The report analyzed 846 sanctioned wallets with Iranian links. Of those, 84% predominantly used Tether’s USDT.

That statistic did not sit quietly. The findings prompted calls for investigations into whether Tether has complied with sanctions and anti-money laundering rules.

Ardoino’s answer reframes the same facts. If USDT was the most-used token among these wallets, he argues, Tether was also the party best positioned to shut that activity down, and it did.

Why the ability to freeze matters Think of USDT less like cash and more like a gift card the issuer can deactivate. Once Tether flags an address, the tokens sitting in it stop moving.

The four-week lead time is Ardoino’s strongest card. A company that waits for OFAC to publish a list is following the rules. A company that acts before the list exists is making its own calls about who looks suspicious.

What this means for Tether and stablecoins For Tether, the immediate stakes are regulatory. The calls for investigation that followed Blumenthal’s report have not gone away simply because Ardoino published a strong number.

A 94% decline is a compelling headline figure, but it is Tether’s own claim about its own performance. Investigators will likely want to see how the figure was calculated, which wallets were counted, and what baseline from 2023 it measures against.

The TRM Labs data helps Tether’s case because it comes from an outside firm. Still, if USDT’s share dropped from 67% to 14%, the open question is where the remaining activity went, and the figures here do not answer it.

Tether’s strategy here is clear. Rather than dispute the Senate’s finding that USDT dominated sanctioned Iran-linked wallets, it is pointing to the freezes, the dollar totals, and the four-week lead as evidence that its controls work.

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

Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said on Monday that the company's address freezes have driven a 94% decline in Iran-linked stablecoin volumes, in a post on X rebutting a Senate report that placed USDT at the centre of Iran's shadow banking network.

Ardoino wrote that Senator Richard Blumenthal's "analysis" of Tether's sanctions report "misses that, since 2023, Tether froze on average 4 weeks prior to OFAC & NBCTF official sanction designation and in 99% of these transactions, Tether froze the reported addresses before Chainalysis labelled them." Tether has not published the data behind the 94% figure or said what period the decline covers, what baseline it is measured against, or whether it counts USDT alone or all stablecoins, so the number cannot be independently checked.

The report, Tethered to Terrorism, was published on September 28 by Democratic staff of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. It analysed 846 wallets sanctioned or targeted for seizure over ties to Iran and its proxies between June 2021 and August 2026, and found that 84% transacted exclusively or nearly exclusively in USDT. Blumenthal, the subcommittee's ranking member, referred the findings to the Treasury and the Justice Department.

One case in the report sits awkwardly with the four-week claim. Israel's National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing designated 39 wallets tied to Hezbollah financier Tawfiq Muhammad Sa'id Al-Law in June 2023. Tether froze five of them and left the other 34 open until March 2024, shortly before OFAC sanctioned Al-Law, and more than $34.6 million in USDT left those wallets in the interim. The report credits Tether with responding to designations "in some instances" since late 2023 but calls the effort "uneven and inconsistent."

Tether's own disclosure, released the same day as the report, said it had supported freezes of nearly $550 million in Iran-linked USDT this year. That includes more than $344 million across two addresses in April, which TRM Labs identified as the first Central Bank of Iran wallets designated by OFAC, and more than $130 million across four wallets in July. The release does not itemise the remaining $76 million or so.

TRM puts Iranian crypto volume at about $11.4 billion in 2024 and $10 billion in 2025, a fall of roughly 12% in the wider market. A steep drop in USDT activity is consistent with that only if much of the flow moved to assets or venues that Tether cannot freeze.

USDT has a market capitalisation of about $183 billion, according to CoinGecko. The next test is whether the Treasury or the Justice Department acts on Blumenthal's referral. As of the report's publication, Tether had confirmed receipt of the subcommittee's June letter without responding to it.

TRON built its reputation moving digital dollars. Justin Sun now wants it to move stocks and Treasuries too.

Speaking at TOKEN2049 Singapore and related events in October 2026, the TRON founder laid out a plan to push the network past its role as a stablecoin pipeline. He said the expansion will go ahead without fresh guidance from Congress.

From USDT rails to tokenized assets
The centerpiece of the plan is tokenized real-world assets, or RWAs. Think of these as digital receipts on a blockchain that represent ownership of something off-chain, like a share of a company or a government bond.

Sun said TRON aims to bring tokenized equities and US Treasuries onto the network. The first step, according to the plan, is a launch of tokenized share offerings in Q4 2026.

The target audience is global, with a particular focus on Asia and emerging markets. These are users who want exposure to the US dollar and US assets but may prefer to get it through on-chain tools rather than a traditional brokerage account.

Sun also put a number on the opportunity. He projected that tokenized stocks could grow into a market exceeding $100 billion within five years.

Why Sun thinks TRON has a head start
The pitch rests on a simple argument: TRON already handles an enormous share of the world’s digital dollars, so adding other dollar-linked assets is a natural extension.

The numbers behind that argument are substantial. As of Q3 2026, USDT on TRON hit a record high of over $92.7 billion, representing more than 50% of the global USDT supply.

Settlement activity tells a similar story. As of September 2026, TRON settled approximately 73% of total stablecoin volume.

On the regulatory front, Sun pointed to existing supportive frameworks from agencies such as the CFTC and SEC as the footing for moving forward. His position is that those agency-level frameworks are enough to proceed, even without new legislation from Congress.

AI agents and post-quantum upgrades
The network is also working on AI agents that can carry out transactions autonomously. These are software programs that can act on a user’s behalf, such as executing payments or trades, without a human clicking every button.

TRON has implemented post-quantum signatures on its Nile testnet. The plan is to roll those post-quantum upgrades out to the TRON mainnet by the end of 2026.

What this means
For users in Asia and emerging markets, the appeal is access. A tokenized share could offer a path to US market exposure that bypasses some of the friction of traditional cross-border investing.

The biggest open question is regulatory. Sun is choosing to lean on existing agency frameworks rather than wait for Congress. Tokenized stocks also sit in a more sensitive category than stablecoins, touching on securities rules, investor protection and questions about who custodies the underlying shares.

Things to watch include whether the Q4 2026 tokenized share launch arrives on schedule, how regulators respond to TRON moving ahead without congressional action, and whether the post-quantum upgrade makes the jump from Nile testnet to mainnet by the end of 2026.

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

BNB Chain wants your opinion on its next blockchain. The project has opened a dedicated community forum category for NewL1, a new Layer 1 network built for workloads that stretch beyond what BNB Smart Chain (BSC) can handle today.

The forum category first went live in July 2026. BNB Chain promoted it again on October 17 and 19, 2026, which means the conversation is heating up ahead of a planned testnet.

What NewL1 is supposed to do
NewL1 is a Layer 1, meaning it is a base blockchain with its own consensus and settlement. It is not a scaling add-on that sits on top of another chain.

It is also EVM-compatible. The Ethereum Virtual Machine is the software environment most smart contracts are written for. Compatibility means developers can bring existing code and tools over without starting from scratch.

The chain is aimed at three use cases: trading, payments and AI. The research specifically points to agentic AI trading, where software agents execute trades on their own rather than waiting for a human to click a button.

The performance targets are ambitious. BNB Chain is aiming for:

Sub-50 millisecond preconfirmations. A preconfirmation is an early signal that a transaction will be included, delivered before the block is fully settled.

More than 100,000 transactions per second. Throughput of that scale would let the network absorb heavy bursts of activity, the kind high-frequency trading and automated agents tend to generate.

Sub-second finality. Finality is the point at which a transaction can no longer be reversed.

No new token, and a feature aimed at front-runners
NewL1 does not plan to have a new token. The existing BNB token will serve as the sole gas token. Gas is the fee users pay to get transactions processed. So every transaction on NewL1 would be paid for in BNB.

The other headline feature is TxStream, a structure designed to reduce front-running risk. Front-running happens when someone sees your pending trade and jumps ahead of it to profit from the price move you were about to cause.

NewL1 is also slated to include privacy enhancements, which could further reduce how much information pending transactions leak to opportunistic actors.

A native bridge is planned to connect BSC and NewL1. That gives users and assets a built-in route between the two chains rather than relying on third-party bridging services.

The forum ground rules
The forum covers technical design questions, including tokenomics, consensus protocols and privacy features.

Tokenomics is an interesting item on the agenda for a chain that is not launching a token. The open question is how BNB itself will function in the new environment, which is a design problem even without a fresh asset.

BNB Chain has set ground rules to keep the discussion focused on technical development. Speculative price talk is off the table.

The timeline is relatively tight. A testnet is projected for late 2026, with mainnet expected in early 2027.

How BNB Chain got here
BNB Chain has grown into a multi-chain ecosystem anchored by BSC, known for low fees and a large amount of DeFi activity.

In 2023, the project launched opBNB, a Layer 2 scaling solution that sits on top of the main chain to handle extra transaction volume. NewL1 continues that expansion, but instead of scaling BSC, it builds a separate base layer tuned for specific tasks.

What this means
For BNB holders, the most concrete takeaway is the gas token decision. If NewL1 attracts trading, payments and AI activity, that usage would run on BNB rather than a competing asset.

The things to watch are the testnet launch in late 2026, early performance data against the sub-50 millisecond and sub-second finality goals, and how much of the forum feedback actually shows up in the final design.

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

1 hours ago

According to official announcements, BNB Standard Corporation (BNC), the BNB treasury firm, has named Alex Odagiu as its new CEO. Public records show Odagiu joined YZi Labs in September 2021 as an investment manager, and was promoted to Investment Partner at the firm in September 2025. During his tenure at YZi Labs, he was primarily responsible for Web3-related investments spanning DeFi, payments, stablecoins, real-world assets (RWA), and AI-crypto intersections, served as a mentor and judge for the BNB Chain MVB Accelerator across 10 seasons, participated in the EASY Residency incubation program, and backed projects including Avalon, Aspecta, Canton, Hemi, Concrete, Mysten Labs, and Aptos. In June 2026, he was appointed Interim President and Director of BNB Standard Corporation, and officially took on the CEO role on October 19, 2026, resigning from all his positions at YZi Labs, including Investment Partner and his seat on the investment committee. This past June, YZi Labs and BNB treasury firm CEA Industries (now rebranded as BNC) reached an agreement to resolve governance disputes and jointly advance management adjustments.

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Data Feeds: a push modelChainlink Data Feeds provide reliable, decentralized market data for smart contracts that depend on consistently available onchain reference prices. By aggregating data through Chainlink oracle networks, Data Feeds reduce the need for developers to source, aggregate, and maintain their own pricing infrastructure.

On Stellar, a single proxy contract serves every feed. You don't need a separate address per asset, you pass a 32-byte data_id.

Mainnet proxy: CDQBHEUGLDHMSUHG4IH33RJBUTMNCZOT4JIAQR4WZFRDZW6DR6S32ZLZTestnet proxy: CBUF6IADAWPWIDWRTHJNINKXHG2UTIQ6TU2F2HRAXWAI7OT3KJPKK6O4Your contract reads a feed with one cross-contract call:

#[contractclient(name = "DataFeedsProxyClient")] pub trait DataFeedsProxy { fn latest_round(env: Env, data_id: BytesN<32>, decimals: u32) -> Result<Round, ProxyReadError>; } pub fn read_latest_price(env: Env, proxy: Address, data_id: BytesN<32>) -> I256 { let client = DataFeedsProxyClient::new(&env, &proxy); // The generated client returns the Round directly and panics on error; // use try_latest_round to handle ProxyReadError yourself. let round = client.latest_round(&data_id, &18); round.answer }Snippet adapted from Chainlink's Stellar Data Feeds guide, which has the full working example, including the Round and ProxyReadError types.

Each Round returns round_id, answer (an I256) and timestamp. Feeds are stored at 18 decimals. If you ask for fewer, the answer is truncated, not rounded, so factor that in.

💡 Tip: The sample returns the answer without looking at timestamp. In production, compare timestamp to the ledger time and reject prices older than the feed's heartbeat. That's 24 hours for the current Stellar feeds.

Data Streams: a pull modelWith Streams, nothing is written onchain until your application needs a price:

1. Offchain, you fetch a signed report from Chainlink's Data Streams API through REST, WebSocket, or the Go, TypeScript or Rust SDKs. It's a subscription product.

2. Onchain, a verifier contract checks the signatures. The mainnet verifier is CAKA3NBYPC6OBEUEGNIYGNYG3ES2GPQK736B5SR7ASGUXRDAKXI2JCQI. Its verify function parses the report, looks up the registered oracle configuration, recovers each signer via ECDSA, and requires exactly f+1 valid, unique signatures from registered oracles. It checks who signed a report, not how old it is, so decode the report's observationsTimestamp and expiresAt fields and enforce your own freshness rules.

3. Your contract consumes the verified bytes:

pub fn consume_price_data(env: Env, verifier_address: Address, signed_report: Bytes, sender: Address) -> Bytes { sender.require_auth(); let verifier = VerifierClient::new(&env, &verifier_address); // Verifies all ECDSA signatures and returns the decoded report data. let report_data = verifier.verify(&signed_report, &sender); // First 32 bytes are the feed_id; remaining fields are feed-specific. report_data }Snippet from Chainlink's Stellar Data Streams tutorial. Chainlink notes the example is unaudited.

Every stablecoin yield product answers the same awkward question.Your USDC doesn’t appreciate. It’s engineered not to. So when a platform offers you 4%, 8%, or 20% on a dollar-pegged token, that money is coming from somewhere specific — and the “somewhere” is the only thing that matters.

Most comparison posts rank these by headline APY. That’s exactly backwards. A 12% yield funded by a sustainable market mechanism is a completely different product from a 12% yield funded by token emissions that run out in six months.

So this ranking does it the other way round. Six ways to earn yield on stablecoins, ordered by how durable the underlying source actually is.

The one thing to check before you deposit anywhere Ask what the counterparty is doing with your money to generate the return. There are only a handful of honest answers:

They’re lending it to someone who pays interest They’re putting it in Treasuries and sharing the coupon They’re running a trading strategy that generates returns They’re paying you out of token emissions or marketing budget The first three are businesses. The fourth is a countdown. If a platform can’t tell you which one it is in a sentence, that’s your answer.

1. Funding-rate arbitrage — yield from a market mechanism The source: perpetual futures contracts pay funding between long and short holders every few hours to keep the contract price tethered to spot. Crypto traders lean long most of the time, so shorts tend to collect. BitMEX’s Q3 2025 analysis found funding was positive for over 92% of the quarter — a persistent tilt, not a one-off.

A position that holds spot and shorts the perpetual collects that funding while the two legs cancel out directionally. The return isn’t coming from a token printer or a borrower who might default. It’s coming from leveraged traders paying to keep their positions open.

Typical return: varies with funding conditions and strategy. VectorTraders publishes target ranges from 7.8% to 43.3% annualised across its plans, depending on term and strategy mix.

The catch: funding can stay negative for extended periods, which inverts the payment direction. Execution runs on third-party exchanges, so venue risk is real. And running it yourself means managing two legs across venues continuously — which is why most people access it through a managed product rather than doing it directly. The full mechanism is explained here, worked example included.

Why it ranks first: the source is structural rather than promotional. Perpetual futures aren’t going anywhere — on-chain perp DEXs alone turned over $593 billion in 30 days as of September 2026 — and as long as traders use leverage, someone is paying funding.

Start small and see how it behaves. VectorTraders’ entry plan opens at $100 on a seven-day term, which is about the cheapest way to watch funding capture work in practice. See the current plans →

2. Tokenized Treasuries — yield from government debt The source: your stablecoins buy short-dated US Treasury bills through a tokenized fund, and you receive the coupon.

Typical return: tracks short-term Treasury rates, minus a management fee. Whatever T-bills are paying, roughly.

The catch: returns are capped at the risk-free rate, and they fall when rates fall. Many of these products are also restricted to accredited or institutional investors, and redemption can take a business day or more.

Why it ranks second: it’s the most boring source on this list, and that’s the compliment. You know exactly where the money comes from.

3. DeFi lending — yield from borrowers The source: protocols like Aave and Morpho let you supply stablecoins to a pool that borrowers draw from, paying interest. Rates float with utilisation.

Typical return: low single digits in quiet markets, spiking when leverage demand runs hot. Highly variable.

The catch: smart contract risk is the obvious one. The subtler one is that rates collapse exactly when you most want them — in calm markets, nobody’s borrowing. You’re also exposed to the protocol’s liquidation machinery working correctly during a crash, which is the moment it’s under the most stress.

4. Exchange rewards programmes — yield from a revenue share The source: exchanges pay rewards on stablecoin balances, typically funded by sharing the interest the issuer earns on its reserves.

Typical return: low single digits. Coinbase’s USDC rewards have run around 3.5%.

The catch: this is the category regulators have been circling. The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, bars stablecoin issuers from paying yield on reserves directly. The CLARITY Act would have extended restrictions to platforms, but it failed a Senate procedural vote 49–50 in September 2026, so the platform-level ban never became law. A proposed OCC rule on affiliate arrangements remains unresolved.

Translation: this yield source exists at the pleasure of a rulemaking process that is still moving. Fine for parking cash. Not something to build around.

5. Yield-bearing stablecoins — yield baked into the token The source: the token itself accrues value, usually from Treasuries or a delta-neutral strategy run by the issuer.

Typical return: varies enormously by product, because “yield-bearing stablecoin” describes a mechanism, not a risk level.

The catch: you’re taking the issuer’s strategy risk and their peg risk simultaneously, and the two are correlated — if the strategy breaks, the peg is what breaks. Read what’s actually backing it. Some are Treasury wrappers. Others are leveraged positions with a dollar sign on the front.

6. Liquidity provision and yield farming — yield from emissions The source: you supply stablecoins to a liquidity pool and earn trading fees plus, usually, token rewards.

Typical return: the advertised numbers are the highest on this list, and the realised numbers frequently are not.

The catch: headline APYs on stablecoin farms are typically dominated by token emissions rather than fees. Emissions decay, the token price usually falls as rewards are sold, and the quoted APY assumes neither happens. Add impermanent loss on non-pegged pairs and smart contract risk on top.

Why it ranks last: not because it never works — it sometimes works very well — but because the source is a marketing budget with a timer on it.

Side by side MethodWhere the yield comes fromDurabilityMain riskFunding-rate arbitrageLeveraged traders paying fundingStructuralNegative funding periods, venue riskTokenized TreasuriesGovernment debt couponsVery highRate-dependent, access restrictionsDeFi lendingBorrower interestModerateSmart contract, rate collapseExchange rewardsIssuer reserve revenue shareUncertainRegulatoryYield-bearing stablecoinsVaries by issuerVariesStrategy and peg risk combinedLiquidity provisionTrading fees + token emissionsLowEmission decay, impermanent loss How to actually choose If you want the yield to still be there in two years, weight durability over headline rate. Tokenized Treasuries and funding-rate strategies both have sources that exist independently of anyone’s marketing budget.

If you’re parking cash for a few weeks, exchange rewards are frictionless and the regulatory question won’t resolve in your holding period. Just don’t plan around it.

If you want the highest sustainable rate, funding-rate arbitrage has historically offered more than Treasuries because it’s compensating you for real operational work — running two legs across venues, managing exchange exposure, handling the periods when funding inverts. That’s a genuine return source, not a free lunch, and it comes with genuine risk.

If you’re drawn to a 20%+ farm APY, work out what percentage is fees and what percentage is token emissions before you deposit. The answer is usually uncomfortable.

One rule covers all of it: if you can’t explain where the money comes from, you’re not earning yield. You’re providing it.

Want the funding-rate route without running it yourself? Plans start at $100 with a seven-day term. Explore VectorTraders →

FAQ What is the best stablecoin yield in 2026? It depends on what you’re optimising for. Tokenized Treasuries offer the most predictable source. Funding-rate arbitrage strategies have historically offered higher rates in exchange for operational and market risk. Headline APYs on farms are usually the highest and the least durable.

Is stablecoin yield legal in the US? The GENIUS Act bars stablecoin issuers from paying yield on reserves directly. The CLARITY Act would have extended restrictions to platforms but failed a Senate procedural vote in September 2026. Rules in this area are still developing, so check current terms with any provider.

Why do stablecoins pay yield at all if they don’t appreciate? They don’t, on their own. The yield comes from whatever the platform does with the deposit — lending it, buying Treasuries, or running a trading strategy. The token is just the unit you deposit and withdraw in.

What’s the safest way to earn on stablecoins? No option here is risk-free. Tokenized Treasuries carry the least strategy risk because the underlying is government debt. Every other method adds counterparty, smart contract, or market risk on top.

How much can you earn on USDT or USDC? Low single digits from exchange rewards and Treasury products. Variable from DeFi lending. Higher from strategy-based products — VectorTraders publishes target ranges from 7.8% to 43.3% annualised depending on plan and term, with returns varying by market conditions.

Can funding rates go negative? Yes. When markets lean short, longs get paid instead. BitMEX found funding positive for over 92% of Q3 2025, but negative stretches have persisted for weeks in past drawdowns — most notably in March 2020 and after the FTX collapse in November 2022.

Disclosure: This content is provided by a third party. Neither crypto.news nor the author of this article endorses any product mentioned on this page. Users should conduct their own research before taking any action related to the company.

Pump.fun has officially launched tokens tracking the market value and sentiment of major companies before their initial public offering (IPO).

Powered by @PreStocks, the debut features pre-IPO assets and paired memecoins. Previously, launching a memecoin on the platform required SOL or USDC as the underlying quote asset. The stocks integration means a memecoin uses the specific pre-IPO tracking token as its quote asset, hence why they are dubbed “Custom Pairs.”

The rollout includes eight initial companies, in the following categories:

AI companies – in this group are OpenAI and Anthropic.Prediction market companies – this cohort comprises Polymarket and Kalshi.Robotics company – in this group is Figure AI, which builds autonomous, general-purpose humanoid robots.Neuro technology company – another brainchild of tech mogul Elon Musk, Neuralink, falls here.Defense technology contractor – here is Anduril, a firm that builds autonomous military weapons.Health company – in this category is Oura, which manufactures biometric smart ring trackers.For Pump.fun, the development saw its token (PUMP) surge 8.41% in the last 24 hours, to trade at $0.004475. 

Source: CoinMarketCap 

The rally is attributed to the fact that the newly launched custom pair tokens will contribute to the ecosystem’s fees and hence its token buyback and burn mechanism.

As of late October, the model had permanently wiped out 17.2% of the token’s fixed supply. This, coupled with rising demand and successful projects, enhances the token’s value.

Source: Pump.fun official dashboard 

CaveatsNotably, these tokens only provide synthetic exposure to the underlying companies. They do not, in any way, grant holders shareholder privileges such as voting rights or legal equity ownership.

More importantly, a valuation disconnect can be created when the synthetic assets rise to extreme valuations (trillions of dollars), while the platform’s total assets remain comparably lower.

Even more, the tokens are currently restricted for all US citizens because they are considered synthetic derivatives. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) banned this category of assets recently when granting a five-year innovation exception for tokenized stocks.

Outside the US, users are finding the 3%-5% pre-IPO token fees a hefty penalty for short-term high-frequency trading.

CriticsEthereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Curve Founder Michael Egorov have previously criticized the Solana launchpad, likening it to a gambling den or a casino.

On X, the community questioned possible liquidity issues and regulatory status, while others looked forward to participating.

Memecoins paired with pre-IPO OpenAI and Anthropic exposure. The trenches just got a new base layer. Curious to see how liquidity behaves on these pairs vs SOL pairs.

— Cysco 🧪 (@cyscolab) October 19, 2026 Story Ends Here

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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.

10 minutes ago

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.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
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.

10 minutes ago

Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.

Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)

10 minutes ago

A crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.

According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.

10 minutes ago

OKX will list US TradFi perpetual contracts for RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST

OKX announced that it will launch U.S. dollar-denominated (U) U.S. TradFi perpetual contracts today, with underlying assets covering RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST. The launch times (UTC+8) are 17:00, 17:15, 17:30, 17:45, and 18:00 respectively. The corresponding U.S. stock underlyings for these contracts are Rumble, Critical Metals, Carvana, MP Materials, and Twist Bioscience.

10 minutes ago

$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days

A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).

10 minutes ago

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.

10 minutes ago

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.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
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.

10 minutes ago

Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.

Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)

10 minutes ago

Visa has moved stablecoin prefunding on Visa Direct, its push-payments network, from pilot into commercial deployment. Payments processor Inyo Global is the first enabler, and its clients can now prefund cross-border payouts with USDC in near real time instead of relying only on traditional bank funding windows, according to Visa's October 15 release.

The stablecoin sits on the sender's side of the transaction. Inyo's platform pays out across more than 180 countries, and recipients still receive local currency. The release names USDC as the only stablecoin and does not identify the blockchains used, the corridors covered or any expected volumes. Availability "varies by eligibility and geography," the release says.

"The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption," said Vira Platonova, Global Head of Visa Direct. "We're now seeing those efforts translate into live implementations." Robson Dantas, Chief Product and Technology Officer and co-founder at Inyo Global, said: "Innovation in money movement is ultimately about creating a better experience for customers."

The production launch arrives a little over a year after Visa announced the prefunding pilot at Sibos in September 2025, when it said the pilot was expected to reach limited availability by April 2026.

Visa's own disclosures show its broader stablecoin numbers climbing quickly. At its Visa Payments Forum in June, the company put stablecoin settlement across VisaNet at an annualized run rate of approximately $7 billion and said more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were live or in development. By September 8, a Visa web page said settlement volume had "recently surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, up more than 15x year over year."

Those figures warrant some caution. Visa has not said what period the run rates are annualized from or how stablecoin settlement volume is counted.

The competitive picture has also shifted under Visa Direct. BVNK, which began powering stablecoin payments for Visa Direct in January, agreed in March to be acquired by Mastercard for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments, in a deal expected to close by year-end.

Visa's fiscal year closed on September 30, and its fourth-quarter results will be the next opportunity for the company to put stablecoin settlement volume on a formal reporting footing and to name further Visa Direct partners going live.

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.

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A crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.

According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.

10 minutes ago

OKX will list US TradFi perpetual contracts for RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST

OKX announced that it will launch U.S. dollar-denominated (U) U.S. TradFi perpetual contracts today, with underlying assets covering RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST. The launch times (UTC+8) are 17:00, 17:15, 17:30, 17:45, and 18:00 respectively. The corresponding U.S. stock underlyings for these contracts are Rumble, Critical Metals, Carvana, MP Materials, and Twist Bioscience.

10 minutes ago

$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days

A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).

10 minutes ago

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.

10 minutes ago

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.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
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.

10 minutes ago

Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.

Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)

10 minutes ago

Top 3 Altcoins to Watch in Third Week of October 2026

2 hours ago

Citi Research has released a report stating that it is no longer sufficient to view Aave solely as a crypto-native lending protocol. As tokenized assets, stablecoins, and institutional participation gradually integrate into mainstream finance, Aave is poised to be positioned as a decentralized collateral liquidity protocol. Projects including Aave V4, Horizon, and GHO all point to the intersection of collateral, liquidity, and financing. The report notes that if tokenization determines which assets enter on-chain ecosystems, and stablecoins become the default settlement base, Aave could help shape how these assets are financed, leveraged, used as collateral, and integrated into capital markets. Citi argues that as tokenization expands beyond stablecoins to money market funds, private credit, Treasuries, and even future equities, collateral circulation may eventually emerge as one of the most important use cases of tokenization. Aave provides a practical case study showing how tokenized assets can be used for collateralized borrowing, financing, and re-collateralization within the digital financial system, while also offering insights into the future of tokenized capital markets, securities financing, and even prime brokerage.

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Hedera chief policy officer Nilmini Rubin says the EU has no US crypto law to align with after the CLARITY Act stalled in the Senate, as the SEC and CFTC write rules instead.

Europe has no US crypto law to line up with, according to Hedera (@hedera) chief policy officer Nilmini Rubin (@nilminirubin), after the CLARITY Act stalled in the US Senate. The setback leaves a planned EU-US effort on mutual recognition of crypto rules without an American counterpart to work with.

Rubin said a European government leader told her the EU had hoped to work this year on getting the EU and US to recognize each other's crypto rules. Now they "don't really have anything to be equivalent with," she recalled. She made the comments on an Atlantic Council (@ACGeoEcon) panel at last week's IMF and World Bank meetings in Bangkok.

CLARITY Act stalls in the SenateThe bill, a US crypto market structure measure, hit a wall on September 15. , according to law firm Paul Hastings.

The vote was procedural. Reporting indicates the dispute centered on ethics language covering officials' crypto holdings.

The bill is not formally dead. Even so,

SEC and CFTC fill the gapRubin also said the SEC and CFTC are now writing crypto rules instead. That matches the Paul Hastings account, which noted that

Agency rulemaking may move faster than Congress, but it offers a less settled footing for international coordination than a statute would. That is a concern for firms operating across the Atlantic, where Rubin has argued that rules for tokenized markets need to work across borders.

In a Bretton Woods Committee piece ahead of the Bangkok meetings, Rubin and Hedera colleague Isadora Arredondo wrote that

For Hedera, which positions its network for enterprise and institutional use, regulatory alignment between the two largest Western markets is a practical issue. Without a US statute, any EU-US equivalence process has to wait for either a revived CLARITY Act or finalized agency rules.

Sources:

Paul Hastings: Clarity Act fails Senate votecrypto.news: The CLARITY Act stalledBretton Woods Committee: Tokenized Markets Need Rules That Travel

$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days

A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).

5 minutes ago

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.

5 minutes ago

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.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
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.

5 minutes ago

Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.

Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)

5 minutes ago

A ZEC-holding crypto whale increased its MASK holdings, purchasing 3.69 million tokens over the past three days.

According to Lookonchain’s monitoring, a crypto whale holds over $15 million in assets, including 10,241 ZEC tokens valued at $11.69 million. The whale has been steadily accumulating MASK tokens over the past three days, purchasing a total of 3.69 million MASK tokens worth $151,000.

5 minutes ago

$ZEC Whale Buys 3.69M $MASK (Nullmask) ($151K) Over 3 Days

A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)! This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M). Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).

5 minutes ago

PANews, October 20 - According to SoSoValue data, the crypto market sectors saw an overall slight pullback, with the DePIN sector continuing its pullback, falling another 1.09% in 24 hours, and Filecoin (FIL) dropping 2.58%. The AI sector remained relatively resilient, rising 0.83% in 24 hours, with Quack AI (Q) up 15.51% and Worldcoin (WLD) up 9.27%. Meanwhile, the Layer2 sector rose 0.46%, with Arbitrum (ARB) up 5.12%.

In addition, Bitcoin (BTC) fell 0.97%, dropping back above $81,000; Ethereum (ETH) fell 1.08%, breaking below $2,400.

In other sectors, the CeFi sector rose 0.21% in 24 hours, with Bitget Token (BGB) up 1.06%; the Meme sector rose 0.01%, with Pons (PONS) up 5.22%; the DeFi sector fell 0.12%, but Bedrock Token (BR) surged 47.68%; the Layer1 sector fell 0.26%, with NEAR Protocol (NEAR) down 3.71%; the PayFi sector fell 0.83%, with Telcoin (TEL) down 3.67%.

NEAR Intents handled about $10.4 billion in Q3 2026, and NEAR Protocol is retaining a larger share of swap fees to fund $NEAR buybacks.

NEAR Protocol is capturing a growing share of the fees generated by its cross-chain swap product. @near_intents handled about $10.4 billion in volume in the third quarter, bringing lifetime volume to more than $32 billion, according to @NEARProtocol's Q3 report.

Lifetime fees topped $52 million, and more than $8 million of that went toward buying back $NEAR.

Retained share of fees risesThe portion of Intents fees that NEAR keeps reached 16.4% over its lifetime as of October 6. That compares with 11.5% in the second-quarter report. Over the past 30 days, the retained rate stood at 28.4%.

The distinction matters because the fees charged on swaps are not all kept by the protocol. DefiLlama's methodology separates gross fees, which include the protocol fee plus the affiliate fee each front end collects, from the revenue NEAR itself captures. According to DefiLlama, NEAR's captured Intents revenue has been used to buy back $NEAR on the open market since February 23, 2026, and the tokens are not burned.

Buybacks in contextBuyback activity has picked up alongside volume. Altcoin Buzz, citing DefiLlama data, reported that September's $1.84 million was the biggest monthly buyback so far. Different trackers count the buyback total differently, depending on whether they measure tokens or dollars and which wallets they include.

Some market participants have urged caution on what buybacks can achieve. Sal Ternullo, CEO of Nasdaq-listed NEAR treasury company SVRN, said on the Bankless podcast that buybacks are real, but that the network was issuing more than six times as much new NEAR as was bought back over the prior 30 days, according to Yahoo Finance. He also floated a governance proposal to cut maximum annual issuance from 2.5% to 1.6%.

For now, the Q3 figures show both swap volume and the protocol's retained share moving higher. Whether that is enough to offset token issuance will depend on how long volume stays elevated.

SourcesDefiLlama: NEAR Intents TVL, fees, revenue and volume
Altcoin Buzz: NEAR Intents buyback hits $6.68M
Yahoo Finance: NEAR treasury firm CEO on buybacks and issuance

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.

solana chart

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.

Term Structure

Contract
Odds
Δ since publish
Volume 24h

November 1 2026
0.6%
0.0¢
—
View market →

November 1 2026
3.6%
-0.2¢
$10
View market →

November 1 2026
15%
-3.5¢
$36
View market →

November 1 2026
3.2%
-1¢
$380
View market →

November 1 2026
0.4%
0.0¢
$15
View market →

November 1 2026
0.7%
0.0¢
$4K
View market →

November 1 2026
1.2%
-0.1¢
—
View market →

November 1 2026
1.8%
-0.1¢
$200
View market →

November 1 2026
1.3%
-0.2¢
$1K
View market →

November 1 2026
0.1%
0.0¢
$70
View market →

November 1 2026
0.1%
0.0¢
$6K
View market →

November 1 2026
7%
0.0¢
$808
View market →

November 1 2026
0.4%
0.0¢
$2K
View market →

November 1 2026
1.7%
0.0¢
$54
View market →

November 1 2026
61%
-5.5¢
$6K
View market →

Updated 6min ago

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 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.

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