Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Injective’s governance process just delivered one of those near-unanimous results that would make most democratic institutions jealous. Roughly 99% of INJ stakers voted in favor of the Meridian Mainnet Upgrade, clearing the path for what amounts to the blockchain’s biggest institutional play yet.

The proposal, designated IIP-701, introduces regulated token standards on Injective’s EVM layer designed specifically for compliant issuance of real-world assets. The upgrade is scheduled to go live on September 24, 2026, at block height 184,394,000.

What the Meridian upgrade actually does At its core, the v1.20.4 upgrade is about making Injective a place where institutions don’t have to choose between blockchain efficiency and regulatory compliance. The new features allow token issuers to bake regulatory requirements directly into their assets on the Injective EVM.

The upgrade also unifies what Injective calls “MultiVM markets,” enabling seamless trading and settlement for tokenized assets across different virtual machine environments.

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Meridian initiates early testing of private RFQ (request-for-quote) transaction flows. These are the building blocks for CypherOS, Injective’s planned privacy platform.

Beyond the headline features, the upgrade includes improvements to market execution mechanics, risk controls, and oracle reliability.

Building on regulatory groundwork The Meridian upgrade doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It arrives roughly five weeks after a potentially more consequential milestone: Injective Institutional Services received SEC transfer agent registration, effective August 19, 2026.

The timeline of Injective’s recent development cadence tells a story of deliberate sequencing. The Injective Mint tool launched in July 2026, providing the tooling for token creation. SEC transfer agent registration followed in August. Now the Meridian upgrade delivers the on-chain compliance rails to tie it all together.

The 99% approval rate, while striking, isn’t unprecedented for Injective. The prior Vulcan upgrade also received over 99% staker support.

Why institutions care about compliance-native chains Injective’s approach with Meridian is to make compliance a protocol-level feature rather than an application-level add-on. When regulatory requirements live at the token standard level, every application built on top inherits those protections automatically. Issuers don’t need to build custom compliance solutions for each deployment.

This positions INJ itself as a potential settlement asset for institutional RWA trading activity. If tokenized securities are being issued, traded, and settled on Injective, demand for the native token to pay transaction fees and participate in governance naturally increases.

With the voting window closed on September 22 and deployment set for two days later, the turnaround is notably fast.

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

10h05 ▪ 4 min read ▪ by Fenelon L.

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Visa will end a loophole that allowed certain memecoin purchases by card to generate loyalty points. The network has asked its payment processors to stop using the concerned merchant code starting next week. Purchases will still be possible by card, but without the associated rewards.

In Brief Certain memecoin purchases were classified as digital goods and generated points. Chase reported the anomaly to Visa, while the New York district attorney is examining the case. Card purchases should continue, but without points or cashback. A Merchant Code Allowed Rules to be Bypassed The problem comes from a four-digit merchant code: 5815, normally used for digital books and movies. According to correspondence reviewed by Crypto in America, Visa asked its processors to no longer use it for memecoin purchases.

The investigation published on September 1 by The Block revealed that some dogwifhat (WIF) purchases could be processed as digital goods. The result: transactions triggered rewards programs normally associated with this type of purchase.

The Block notably tested buying WIF via Apple Pay and Google Pay on Fomo and Robinhood Wallet, with a Visa or Mastercard from New York. Crossmint, which provides the infrastructure used for these transactions, was involved in the process.

However, Visa’s rules have other categories for direct cryptocurrency purchases, including codes 6012 and 6051, accompanied by a specific indicator. By using a different classification, the transaction could bypass the usual treatment reserved for crypto.

Chase Reports the Issue to Visa Chase was one of the first banks to notice the anomaly. The bank confirmed to The Block that a transaction was not identified as a crypto purchase and therefore should not have generated rewards.

Crossmint defended its approach. The company considers some concerned tokens as collectibles, notably relying on a SEC staff statement from 2025 concerning certain memecoins.

” Every product we support goes through a detailed review with the relevant partners, including transaction categorization ,” a spokesperson assured.

The tightening follows three days after the CLARITY Act’s failure in the Senate, which left banks empty-handed on stablecoins. On cards, JPMorgan scores a closer point, according to Crypto in America.

The case also interests New York authorities. The office of Attorney General Letitia James told The Block that it was reviewing the situation.

Memecoins Will Remain Purchasable by Card Visa’s decision does not mean the end of memecoin purchases by credit card. Users will still be able to use this payment method, but transactions must now be properly identified as cryptocurrency-related purchases.

For platforms like Fomo and actors facilitating these payments, the disappearance of points could reduce this experience’s appeal to new users.

Crossmint said in April it had registered 68,000 first-time buyers thanks to its Apple Pay button, while Fomo raised $75 million in June for a valuation of $550 million.

For now, Visa is the only network to have announced a precise measure on this loophole. Mastercard has not announced a similar change. The case’s continuation will depend notably on the review conducted in New York.

Ultimately, credit cards will continue to serve as a gateway to memecoins. What disappears is mainly the possibility of turning a speculative purchase into a few extra loyalty points.

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Fenelon L.

Passionné par le Bitcoin, j'aime explorer les méandres de la blockchain et des cryptos et je partage mes découvertes avec la communauté. Mon rêve est de vivre dans un monde où la vie privée et la liberté financière sont garanties pour tous, et je crois fermement que Bitcoin est l'outil qui peut rendre cela possible.

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.

Ethereum’s validator queues are telling a pretty clear story right now: everyone wants in, and almost nobody wants out. The ratio of ETH waiting to enter staking versus ETH waiting to exit has hit 13.6x, a lopsided figure that reflects just how eager holders are to lock up their tokens.

At one point in July 2026, the exit queue dropped to literally zero ETH. Meanwhile, the entry queue ballooned to approximately 2.48 million ETH, creating a wait time of roughly 43 to 45 days for anyone trying to become a validator.

The entry queue peaked even higher earlier in the year, reaching around 3.4 million ETH in May 2026. Even by late September, it hovered around 1.8 million ETH, still implying a 32-day wait. The exit side, by contrast, has been a ghost town for months.

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This wasn’t always the case. Back in September 2025, the exit queue swelled to approximately 2.67 million ETH. Then something shifted. By early January 2026, exit demand had collapsed by more than 99.9%.

Why the bottleneck exists in the first place Ethereum doesn’t let validators flood in or out at will. The protocol rate-limits both entries and exits to a maximum of roughly 256 ETH per epoch, which works out to about 57,600 ETH processed each day. Right now, that bottleneck is almost entirely one-directional. Entry demand is creating massive backlogs while exit requests barely register.

What’s driving the rush to stake Total staked ETH has surged to a record high of approximately 41 million ETH. That represents roughly 33.5% to 34% of Ethereum’s entire supply. The validator count tells the same story, with the network now supported by somewhere between 885,000 and 900,000 validators.

Large staking operators have been a significant force behind the entry demand. Entities like BitMine have been contributing materially to the queue, reflecting institutional-scale appetite for staking exposure. The Pectra upgrade has also played a role in propelling staking demand, and the data suggests it had exactly that effect.

Supply dynamics and market implications When a third of a network’s token supply is locked in staking, the math for available liquidity changes dramatically. Every ETH staked is an ETH that isn’t sitting on an exchange order book, isn’t being used as collateral for a leveraged trade, and isn’t available for immediate sale.

The 13.6x ratio also serves as a sentiment indicator. The September 2025 exit surge of 2.67 million ETH coincided with a period of broader market uncertainty. Its near-total reversal within a few months suggests that whatever concerns drove that wave of unstaking have been resolved in the minds of most participants.

Combined with the daily processing cap of 57,600 ETH, even if sentiment shifted tomorrow, exits would take weeks to materially impact the staked total of 41 million ETH. That built-in lag acts as a buffer against sudden supply shocks.

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

Robinhood Chain has collected roughly $4.5 million in transaction fees on Sept. 3 while spending an estimated $398 to post data and proofs to Ethereum, illustrating how little Layer 1 settlement cost can accompany heavy activity on an Ethereum Layer 2.

Summary

Robinhood Chain collected $4.5 million in fees on September 3 while paying Ethereum just $398. Bitquery counted 597 million transactions through September 3 and roughly $23 million in cumulative fees. Ethereum blobs provide Robinhood Chain data availability while ETH remains the network’s native gas token. L2Beat says only two whitelisted actors can challenge Robinhood Chain state updates on Ethereum today. Arbitrum receives 10% of Robinhood Chain net protocol revenue under its Expansion Program license terms. Bitquery reported that Robinhood Chain charged users $4,503,705 that day, while approximately $396 went toward Ethereum data posting and another $2 toward proving results. Its calculation produced a fee-to-settlement-cost ratio of roughly 11,400 to one.

The figures support part of an analysis published Sept. 20 by South Korea’s Digital Asset, which argued that rapid Layer 2 growth does not necessarily create proportional economic value on Ethereum mainnet. The publication’s conclusion is an analysis, however, while the underlying fee, architecture and settlement figures can be checked separately.

Robinhood Chain generated $4.5M while settlement stayed cheap Bitquery examined Robinhood Chain from its first block on April 30 through Sept. 3 and counted approximately 597 million transactions across 54 million blocks. By the end of that period, the network had generated roughly $23 million in cumulative transaction fees.

Most of the revenue arrived late in the period. Bitquery found that around 70% of cumulative fees came from Aug. 24 onward as the network’s base fee moved away from its 0.02 gwei floor. Daily fees jumped from $54,701 on Aug. 22 to $4.50 million on Sept. 3 as gas consumption roughly tripled.

The Sept. 3 Ethereum bill was far smaller. Bitquery calculated an exact execution-layer component and estimated blob charges after sampling 24 batch receipts across the day. It arrived at approximately $396 for posting data and $2 for proof-related costs. Even pricing every sampled blob batch at the highest rate observed that day would have left the settlement bill far below Robinhood Chain’s user fees.

Bitquery cautioned that the difference should not be read as Robinhood’s profit. Its calculation excludes staff, hardware, infrastructure, development, compliance and other operating expenses that are not recorded directly in the chain’s transaction ledger.

Nor does the $398 represent revenue received by an entity called Ethereum. It measures Robinhood Chain’s cost of using Ethereum for settlement-related activity. Ethereum’s fee mechanics distribute or burn different components according to protocol rules.

Digital Asset separately cited roughly $49,000 in cumulative on-chain costs paid to Ethereum since late April, averaging close to $370 per day over the period it examined. The publication used that comparison to argue that L2 transaction growth and Ethereum’s direct fee capture can diverge sharply.

Cheap Ethereum blobs are working as designed Robinhood’s own technical documentation describes Robinhood Chain as an Arbitrum Layer 2 built on Ethereum. It uses ETH as its native gas asset and publishes transaction data through Ethereum blobs.

Ethereum’s documentation describes EIP-4844 blobs as deliberately inexpensive temporary data space created mainly for rollups. Blobs use a separate fee market from ordinary execution gas and allow Layer 2 systems to publish compressed transaction information at much lower cost.

Ethereum therefore designed the mechanism to reduce rollup settlement costs. Its Proto-Danksharding documentation says cheaper blob storage is intended to lower Layer 2 costs while letting those networks continue using Ethereum for data availability.

The Sept. 3 gap between $4.5 million of Layer 2 fees and roughly $398 of Ethereum settlement costs is consistent with that architecture. It does not by itself demonstrate a malfunction in Ethereum’s scaling model.

Digital Asset’s author took a different economic question from the same data. The analysis argued that if most user payments remain on a company-operated L2 while Ethereum supplies cheap data availability, higher transaction volume does not automatically create a similar rise in Ethereum mainnet fees or ETH burned through Layer 1 execution.

Ethereum still supplies a function Robinhood currently uses directly. L2Beat says all data needed to construct Robinhood Chain’s state and proofs is published on Ethereum using blobs or calldata, while the chain maintains a challenge period of six days and eight hours.

The current design is not technically locked to every feature forever. A future operator could change some chain parameters through upgrades, but Robinhood’s live documentation currently specifies Ethereum for data availability and ETH for gas.

As previous Robinhood Chain architecture coverage reported, the public mainnet launched July 1 using Arbitrum technology, with tokenized stocks and DeFi products among its principal uses.

Robinhood Chain keeps control over sequencing Low settlement costs are only one difference between activity on Robinhood Chain and transactions executed directly on Ethereum.

L2Beat currently classifies Robinhood Chain in its “Others” category because fewer than five external actors can challenge state updates. Its current risk analysis says only two whitelisted validators can submit challenges against an incorrect state root.

Robinhood Chain has a centralized sequencer with priority over transaction ordering. L2Beat says the operator can extract MEV through that position, while an ArbOS transaction-filtering feature lets an authorized filterer cause selected transaction hashes to fail even if users try to force their inclusion through Ethereum.

The same assessment states that contracts can be upgraded without a user exit window in some configurations. L2Beat labels those characteristics according to its own maturity framework and explicitly says its stages are an opinionated assessment, not a direct security rating.

At the same time, the network does publish the data required for proof construction to Ethereum. L2Beat lists Ethereum as Robinhood Chain’s data-availability layer and reports no ongoing data-submission anomaly at its latest check.

Current activity remains high. L2Beat showed Robinhood Chain securing roughly $2.99 billion in value at the latest check, with about 114 user operations per second during the preceding day. Its value-secured figure is not the same metric as DeFi TVL and should not be presented interchangeably with deposits reported by other data providers.

Robinhood publicly opened the mainnet on July 1 after earlier restricted activity. The company said Uniswap, Pleiades, Alchemy, BitGo and Chainlink were among the ecosystem and infrastructure providers supporting the network.

That timing explains why Bitquery can measure transactions back to April 30 even though Robinhood’s official public-mainnet launch occurred two months later. L2Beat records July 1 as the date Robinhood removed the transaction-access whitelist.

As recent Robinhood Chain activity coverage reported, RWA-related trading reached a record $390 million in early September, with tokenized stocks and memecoin-stock pairs contributing to the activity.

Arbitrum captures revenue that Ethereum does not One part of the original value-capture argument needs another qualification: the spread between Robinhood Chain user fees and Ethereum settlement costs does not all remain with Robinhood.

Under the Arbitrum Expansion Program, Robinhood Chain must return 10% of its net protocol revenue to the Arbitrum ecosystem because it uses Arbitrum technology while settling outside Arbitrum One. The arrangement directs 8% to the ArbitrumDAO treasury and 2% to the Arbitrum Developer Guild.

Arbitrum’s Sept. 2 financial update provided evidence that this revenue-sharing arrangement is operating. The Foundation said Expansion Program licensing fees reached $360,000 in July and accounted for 35% of ArbitrumDAO income that month, Robinhood Chain’s first month on public mainnet.

The license applies to net protocol revenue, not gross transaction fees. The $4.5 million Bitquery measured on Sept. 3 therefore cannot simply be multiplied by 10% to determine Arbitrum’s payment without first calculating the applicable net-revenue base.

As earlier Robinhood revenue-share coverage explained, the Arbitrum arrangement gives a separate ecosystem an economic claim on Robinhood Chain activity even though the L2 settles to Ethereum.

Bitquery’s latest fee investigation identified another reason the Sept. 3 number rose so quickly. Eight contract addresses produced 79% of the increase in gas demand from the preceding period, including a swap router, an order-settlement contract, ERC-4337 entry points and aggregators.

One swap router handled 1.7 million transactions and paid approximately $1.1 million in fees on Sept. 3. A group of 31 wallets linked through common funding sent nearly 695,000 transactions to an order-settlement contract and paid roughly $692,000. Bitquery described the transaction patterns as consistent with heavy automated trading, while noting that blockchain flows alone do not establish who controls the addresses.

By Sept. 10, Robinhood Chain gas revenue had fallen to roughly $944,000 even though transaction counts remained close to early-September levels, according to later network reporting. The change showed that the Sept. 3 fee total was not a stable daily run rate.

However, Ethereum’s direct settlement bill, Robinhood Chain’s sequencer economics and Arbitrum’s licensing revenue therefore measure three different parts of the same stack. Bitquery’s Sept. 3 data shows a very large gap between the amount users paid on the L2 and the cost of posting its activity to Ethereum; it does not establish that the entire difference became Robinhood profit or that Ethereum received no economic benefit from the network.

TLDR: XLM price rose 3.79% to $0.1985 on September 19, after Stellar activated Protocol 28 and recorded 211 transactions per second across 100 blocks. Stellar reports about $3.3 billion in tokenized real-world assets, nearly $884 million in stablecoins, and around $294 million in decentralized-finance value. The $0.197 level and the middle Bollinger Band near $0.19277 form the immediate support areas in the current short-term XLM trading structure. XLM trades above its middle Bollinger Band, while the $0.21832 upper band and $0.21 to $0.22 range mark higher technical areas. XLM price moved back toward $0.20 on September 19 after Stellar activated Protocol 28 two days earlier. The token traded at $0.1985, gaining 3.79% over 24 hours. Trading volume reached about $568.96 million, while market capitalization stood near $6.99 billion. 

The move followed a rebound from lower September levels and put $0.20 in focus. Protocol 28 introduced consensus tooling and contract-migration capabilities. It also recorded 211 transactions per second across 100 blocks.

Traders also closely tracked a possible pullback toward $0.197. Holding that region could clarify whether short-term buyers retain control. Total crypto capitalization rose 1.6%, while altcoin capitalization increased 1.2%. XLM outperformed the broader market during that period.

Stellar (XLM) Price XLM Price Gains Focus After Stellar Protocol 28 Activation Stellar activated the upgrade on September 17, adding consensus changes and contract-migration tools. The network recorded 211 transactions per second through a 100-block test period. XLM Price gained roughly 4% around activation and traded near $0.186. The timing aligns with the upgrade, though several factors can influence price action.

Protocol 28 supports Soroban development as projects prepare contracts for newer network functions. It gives developers a clearer route for moving existing contracts. Stellar processes payment and asset-issuance activity alongside token trading. Later phases could target throughput above 3,000 transactions per second.

$XLM just activated Protocol 28.

The upgrade adds new consensus tooling and improvements for Soroban smart contracts.

Stellar also recorded sustained throughput around 211 TPS over 100 blocks.#XLM #Stellar #Web3

— Akshay (@iiam_Akshay) September 19, 2026

Stellar supports about $3.3 billion in tokenized real-world assets. It also carries nearly $884 million in stablecoins and roughly $294 million in decentralized-finance value. Those measures place the upgrade within broader infrastructure activity. Franklin Templeton and Ondo have used Stellar for tokenized asset initiatives. This activity feeds the network’s real-world asset narrative.

XLM and XRP moved more than 8% during earlier positioning around US crypto market-structure legislation. The advance showed sensitivity to policy developments. Still, legislation does not set the token’s immediate technical direction.

The International Monetary Fund has published 2026 research on tokenized finance, stablecoins, and tokenized money. Its work identifies faster settlement and lower reconciliation costs as possible benefits. It also flags liquidity, interoperability, and financial-stability risks. The research does not endorse individual networks or tokens.

Bollinger Bands Define Key XLM Support and Resistance Levels Before the recent rebound, the token traded in the mid-$0.15 range. Its return toward the 200-day moving average put the $0.188 to $0.190 zone under scrutiny. A hold above that range would keep attention on the $0.20 threshold. XLM Price now depends on buyers defending nearby levels after the breakout.

Source: TradingView XLM price traded above the middle Bollinger Band near $0.19277. That positioning places the recent range midpoint in focus as potential support. The upper Bollinger Band stands near $0.21832, while the lower band sits around $0.16922. A move toward the upper band would extend the recovery from earlier September weakness.

Momentum indicators also show a firmer short-term structure. The MACD line stood at 0.00313, above its 0.00185 signal line. Its positive 0.00128 histogram shows buying pressure improved from weaker prior sessions. Momentum can change quickly if price returns below the middle band.

The $0.197 level features prominently in the immediate setup. Market commentator Udy Highs identified it as a possible long-entry area after a retracement. A retest that firmly holds could keep buyers focused on $0.20 and the upper band. XLM Price faces a separate test if it loses the midpoint near $0.19277.

Source: Udy Highs on X That break could shift attention toward support between $0.176 and $0.182. A sustained move through $0.20 instead puts the $0.21 to $0.22 zone in focus. Derivatives positioning adds another layer to the near-term move. Long-to-short ratios near 1.15 and positive funding rates show growing long exposure. That positioning can amplify sharp moves after network news or broad market shifts.

PEPE, the frog-themed meme token born on Ethereum, crossed $40 million in trading volume on Solana within roughly a day of its debut on the network. The token arrived via Sunrise, an asset orchestration layer built on Wormhole infrastructure, and traders wasted no time putting it to work.

The volume milestone, reported by Sunrise on September 19, marks one of the fastest ramps for a newly listed asset on the platform. For context, Sunrise-listed assets collectively crossed $10 billion in lifetime Solana trading volume by early September 2026. PEPE capturing $40 million in a single weekend suggests the appetite for meme tokens on Solana’s faster, cheaper rails remains very much alive.

What Sunrise actually does Calling Sunrise a “bridge” would be underselling it. The platform describes itself as an orchestration layer, not a traditional cross-chain bridge or a launchpad. The distinction matters.

Sunrise takes a different approach. It creates what it calls “canonical tokens,” meaning there’s one official version of PEPE on Solana rather than competing wrapped variants. That single version gets distributed across Solana’s major decentralized exchanges, including Raydium, Orca, and Meteora, with liquidity baked in from day one.

Why PEPE on Solana makes sense PEPE has always been an Ethereum creature. It launched there, built its community there, and saw its wildest price swings there. But Ethereum’s transaction costs and speed have long been friction points for the kind of rapid-fire, small-dollar trading that meme token enthusiasts prefer.

The $40 million volume figure in roughly 24 hours suggests that a meaningful chunk of PEPE’s trading community was simply waiting for a clean on-ramp to Solana.

The timing helped too. PEPE’s Solana debut coincided with a broader market rebound that had already elevated trading volumes for the token across multiple venues.

Sunrise has been building toward moments like this since its inception in November 2025. The platform’s core thesis is that external assets, tokens native to other chains, should be able to plug into Solana’s DeFi ecosystem without the usual fragmentation headaches.

The broader meme token migration The $10 billion in cumulative Sunrise trading volume heading into PEPE’s launch shows that cross-chain asset migration to Solana isn’t a niche phenomenon. Raydium, Orca, and Meteora each bring different liquidity profiles and trading mechanics, giving PEPE holders multiple venues to choose from.

For Wormhole Labs, the team behind Sunrise, PEPE’s debut validates the canonical token model at scale. If a single asset can generate this kind of immediate activity without liquidity fragmentation, the playbook becomes repeatable for other high-demand tokens sitting on Ethereum or elsewhere.

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

US spot Bitcoin ETFs now manage roughly $102.5 billion in assets, holding approximately 6.29% of Bitcoin’s entire supply. That’s around 1.27 to 1.32 million BTC sitting in cold storage, effectively pulled from active circulation since these products launched in January 2024.

BlackRock is eating the competition alive BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, known by its ticker IBIT, holds an estimated 693,000 to 786,000 BTC. That gives it a commanding share of the total ETF market, often exceeding 60% of all Bitcoin ETF assets.

IBIT has pulled in more than $60 billion in cumulative inflows since launch. Fidelity and Grayscale have struggled with net outflows during various periods. Grayscale’s converted GBTC product shed significant holdings as investors rotated into lower-fee alternatives. The cumulative net inflows across all US spot Bitcoin ETFs sit at approximately $55 billion, which means BlackRock alone accounts for a disproportionate chunk of the total capital that’s actually stuck around.

The supply squeeze no one can ignore Bitcoin has a hard cap of 21 million coins. Bitcoin held by ETFs doesn’t get lent out, staked, or traded on exchanges. It just sits there, backing the shares that investors buy and sell on traditional stock markets. Every BTC that enters an ETF’s custody is one fewer BTC available for spot market transactions.

According to current market valuations, reaching the 10% ownership threshold would require an additional $60.5 billion in ETF assets. That figure assumes Bitcoin’s price stays flat, which, if the supply dynamics play out as expected, it almost certainly wouldn’t. Rising prices would raise the cost of each incremental BTC, meaning the actual capital required to hit 10% could be substantially higher.

At current implied valuations, Bitcoin’s total market cap sits at roughly $1.63 trillion. The ETFs’ $102.5 billion share of that represents a level of institutional participation that would have seemed almost fantastical during the 2022 bear market, when the SEC was still blocking every spot ETF application that crossed its desk.

What institutional adoption actually looks like The spot Bitcoin ETF approvals in January 2024 gave pension funds, registered investment advisors, and wealth management platforms a compliant vehicle to gain Bitcoin exposure. No private keys, no custody headaches, no explaining to a compliance department why you need a Ledger wallet. Just a ticker symbol on a brokerage screen.

ETF inflows have shown resilience through multiple Bitcoin price corrections, with assets under management hovering around the $100 billion mark throughout September 2026. When Bitcoin’s price dips, the dollar value of ETF holdings drops mechanically, but the BTC held in custody doesn’t leave.

What happens from here With roughly 19.7 million BTC mined and millions likely lost or permanently dormant, the actively traded supply is already smaller than the headline number suggests. Removing another 4% from circulation to reach that 10% threshold would further compress the liquid supply at a time when demand channels, from ETFs to corporate treasuries to sovereign interest, continue to expand.

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

Ripple has introduced the XRPL AI Starter Kit, a comprehensive development toolkit designed to enable artificial intelligence agents to autonomously initiate payments using XRP and RLUSD on the XRP Ledger. This move places Ripple, a blockchain-based payment solutions provider, at the forefront of bridging the gap between AI-driven economic actors and practical payment infrastructure.

XRPL AI Starter Kit enables autonomous paymentsThe XRPL AI Starter Kit empowers developers to create agent-focused payment applications utilizing XRP, Ripple’s native digital asset, as well as RLUSD, its dollar-backed stablecoin. This toolkit integrates directly with the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), an open standard for machine-to-machine payments that was jointly developed by payments company Stripe and Europe-based remittance provider Tempo.

With this integration, AI agents can perform recurring payments and manage wallets not only on the XRP Ledger but also across multiple blockchains. The kit supports the x402 payment standard and provides tools for creating wallets, checking balances, and initiating transactions autonomously.

Mini dictionary: RLUSD is a stablecoin issued by Ripple, pegged 1:1 to the US dollar. It is specifically designed to provide stability and facilitate efficient payments on the XRP Ledger ecosystem.

Ripple’s Senior Vice President at RippleX stated that XRPL was built for this kind of autonomous payment future, emphasizing that x402 support enables agents to conduct payments with XRP and RLUSD immediately.

The Machine Payments Protocol offers more than basic transaction capabilities. It introduces a session-based approach, allowing an agent to pre-approve spending limits and continuously stream micropayments without generating separate on-chain transactions for each payment. This design enables recurring agent payments at scale.

FeatureXRPL AI Starter KitTraditional Payment SolutionsRecurring/Automated PaymentsYes, via MPP/x402Limited support, manual approval commonMulti-Blockchain SupportYesUsually noAutonomous Wallet ManagementYesNoStablecoin IntegrationRLUSD includedVariesRipple strengthens ecosystem partnershipsRipple’s integration with Stripe and Tempo extends beyond technical collaboration. In July 2026, Ripple became a Premier Member of the x402 Foundation, joining a roster of major enterprises such as Coinbase, Circle, Shopify, Stripe, and American Express.

The x402 protocol was initially developed by Coinbase and is currently governed by the Linux Foundation. It has processed more than 120 million transactions, settling over $41 million in volume across 14 separate blockchains.

This development highlights a broad industry effort to standardize AI-driven payments, bringing together leading payments, fintech, and blockchain firms within a common framework.

Ripple’s network reach has continued to expand. Mastercard has included Ripple as a partner in its Agent Pay for Machines initiative, making Ripple one of over 30 launch partners in Mastercard’s agentic commerce network. Ripple is now actively integrated with the x402, Machine Payments Protocol, and Mastercard’s agentic stack.

Mini dictionary: x402 is a payments protocol for automated and recurring machine-to-machine transactions, originally created by Coinbase and now overseen by the Linux Foundation. It is used by AI agents for seamless multi-blockchain payments and wallet management.

XRP and RLUSD in autonomous commerceThe integration of AI agents with XRPL highlights a shift in payment infrastructure requirements. Fast, cost-efficient, and automated settlement processes are necessary to support workflows and transactions between machines and agents without human intervention. The XRP Ledger addresses these needs with rapid transaction finality, transparent fees, and a built-in decentralized exchange.

RLUSD complements this system by providing price stability for operations requiring predictable billing, such as automated invoice settlement and international payouts. Since the XRP Ledger allows agents to hold either XRP or RLUSD, seamless conversion between these assets is possible through its native decentralized exchange capabilities.

Tezos may be finally waking up thanks to the broader market’s bullishness. Especially after Tezos closed with higher highs for two consecutive days, breaking above its descending resistance trendline. 

In doing so, the altcoin rallied from $0.24, flipped its $0.3 resistance, and hit a high of $0.38 for the first time since May.

At the time of writing, Tezos was trading at around $0.34 following a 30% surge on the daily charts. Over the same period, the altcoin’s trading volume skyrocketed by 878% to $68 million. This may be evidence of high market activity and steady capital flows.

Besides the improvement in market sentiment, Tezos [XTZ] pumped in part due to a recent ecosystem development. According to Tezos commons, XTZ’s post-quantum code has now gone live.

The post-quantum resilient DAL shownet is an experimental network with 12 bakers and 14 DAL nodes. Roomsburg noted that this moves post-quantum work into a live test for Tezos builders. The shownet will replace quantum vulnerable KZG polynomial commitment. The shift will enable developers to test infrastructure through RPC endpoints. 

However, Roomsburg also stated that with the shownet now running, the real test will be whether it holds up.

On the flip side, this development also attracted new users to the network. New users increased from 573 to 608. At the same time, a hike in user base also boosted transactions, with daily transactions rising to 121K. 

Is risk appetite on its way back? 2026 has seen Tezos struggle significantly, with most of its demand drying up too. However, the shift in market sentiment has now incentivized traders, especially speculators, to return.

According to Coinglass, Tezos’s Open Interest climbed by 44% to $18.1 million, while the derivatives volume surged by 272% to $58 million.

Source: Coinglass Both OI and Volume rising in tandem may allude to strong participation and steady capital inflows. That may be why traders rushed to open strategic positions, either shorts or longs.

Meanwhile, the overall Long/Short Ratio has remained below 1 around 0.96. On the contrary, on exchanges such as Binance and OKX, the metric was above 1.

The ratio suggested that although investors have started to flip longs, the shift is not complete across all exchanges.

What’s next for XTZ? For now, Tezos’s short-term outlook is leaning bullish. The short-term upside momentum has been holding firm and is likely to extend itself.

If the demand across the market holds, XTZ will reclaim $0.38, flip $0.4 in short term, and eye $0.5 in medium term.

However, speculative activity, when elevated, also means high price volatility. Thus, if speculation fades or bulls get flushed out, a drop below $0.3 could follow.

Final Summary Tezos [XTZ] surged by 30%, flipped $0.3 resistance, and touched $0.38 for the first time since May. XTZ’s post-quantum code is now live as Tezos seels to replace vulnerable KZG commitments. 

AAVE, the native token of decentralized lending protocol Aave, is showing early signs of recovery after a sustained decline. Crypto analysts have identified the $121–$122 region as a critical support area for AAVE, with the token recently retesting a key resistance between $136 and $145. A confirmed break above $145 could open the path toward a target zone between $180 and $190.

AAVE price action and resistance levelsTechnical analysis from Crypto With Gopal highlighted that AAVE has reclaimed the $121–$122 support level and is now moving toward what appears to be an important resistance region. The daily chart indicates that AAVE was trading near $136.50, approaching a significant test at the $145 mark. This resistance is viewed as pivotal—if AAVE can close decisively above $145, the bullish momentum could extend to the $180–$190 area.

If the token fails to break this range, analysts warned that AAVE could remain trapped in its existing sideways trading channel. The $121.80 mark is being closely watched as the main downside support. A sustained move below this level would undermine the recovery setup and possibly weaken the short-term bullish outlook.

Looking further ahead, $300 is seen as the next major resistance level after the $180–$190 range. For now, the $145 region remains the critical technical zone for determining AAVE’s next move.

A move above $145 is seen as essential to confirm AAVE’s recovery, while holding $121 as support is needed to maintain the bullish structure identified by analyst Crypto With Gopal.

Key LevelTypeSignificance$121–$122SupportMain area to hold for bullish structure$136–$145ResistanceCritical zone for breakout confirmation$180–$190TargetNext bullish target if $145 is broken$300ResistanceMajor resistance beyond $190Protocol growth and Aave V4 deploymentThe recent strength in the AAVE price coincides with heightened activity on the Aave V4 protocol upgrade. Aave V4, which is the latest version of the lending protocol, surpassed $1 billion in deposits on September 16, marking a new all-time high for the platform.

Governance data indicated that deposit balances reached $708.6 million across six hubs as of September 16, showing a 23% increase over the previous period. The Ethereum Core hub remained the largest contributor, but the recently launched Arc hub also brought in substantial USDC deposits.

Some reserve assets are now near their cap limits, prompting suggestions from within the community to raise these caps to allow further growth.

Aave Labs had previously announced in its August developer update that V4 exceeded $800 million in deposits and set a record for the number of active loans—demonstrating that expansion was ongoing ahead of the latest milestone.

The fundamental backdrop for AAVE has improved as protocol activity grows, but analysts caution that stronger fundamentals may not directly translate into immediate price gains for the token. The price response will likely depend on liquidity in the broader crypto market and technical triggers around the key resistance and support levels.

Aave launched its V4 version on the Avalanche network in July with a Hub and Spoke design, which combines a central liquidity hub with multiple specialized markets. This structure aims to maximize capital efficiency and expand the protocol’s ability to service various assets and user needs.

Mini dictionary: Aave is a decentralized, non-custodial liquidity protocol that allows users to lend, borrow, and earn interest on cryptocurrencies. The V4 upgrade introduces a modular architecture with enhanced efficiency, featuring a hub for central liquidity and flexible spokes for specialized markets.

Outlook for AAVE tradersTraders are now watching two central factors: the price reaction at the $145 resistance and the continuation of protocol growth on V4. A firm move above $145 may strengthen upward momentum and bring the $180–$190 target into play. On the other hand, failure to clear this resistance could refocus attention on the primary support between $121 and $122.

The relationship between expanding protocol adoption and AAVE price performance remains uncertain, as market conditions and liquidity are likely to play a major role.

The current setup gives traders clear reference points; a decisive breakout above $145 would reinforce the recovery thesis, while defending $121 support remains crucial for a sustained bullish outlook.

NEAR Intents, the intent-based cross-chain execution layer built on NEAR Protocol, has crossed $169 million in total value locked across 26 different blockchain networks. That figure represents a 77.2% increase over the past 30 days, according to DefiLlama data.

Where the money sits Not all 26 chains are pulling equal weight. NEAR’s own chain holds roughly 52% of the total TVL, translating to approximately $87.23 million. Ethereum comes in second at around $45.89 million, with the remaining capital distributed across networks including Tron, Bitcoin, and BSC.

The DefiLlama snapshot places TVL at $167.55 million, while Dune Analytics recorded a daily figure of approximately $169.05 million on September 16. The slight variance between sources is standard for DeFi tracking, where measurement timing and methodology differences create small discrepancies.

How intents-based execution works Traditional cross-chain swaps require users to navigate bridges, select routes, and manage gas fees across multiple networks. Intents-based protocols flip that model. Users declare what they want to accomplish, a destination token and amount, and a network of solvers competes to fulfill that intent as efficiently as possible. The user doesn’t need to know which bridge gets used or how many intermediate hops the transaction takes.

NEAR Intents adds another layer to this by supporting both public and confidential transaction modes. The privacy-preserving option lets users execute cross-chain transfers without exposing transaction details on-chain.

Revenue and volume tell a deeper story NEAR Intents generated approximately $5.87 million in fees over the trailing 30-day period, with $1.29 million flowing directly to protocol revenue. Cumulative transaction volume has reached into the tens of billions.

What’s driving the growth The integration with various wallets and aggregators has expanded its distribution surface, making NEAR Intents accessible to users who may never visit the protocol’s interface directly.

The expansion to 26 supported chains creates network effects that compound over time. Each new chain integration adds potential routing paths, which gives solvers more options for fulfilling intents efficiently. The risk surface expands with each integration, though. Supporting 26 chains means 26 potential points of bridge vulnerability, smart contract risk, and chain-specific edge cases.

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

Tether just pushed $500 million in freshly minted USDT onto the Solana blockchain in less than 60 minutes.

The massive mint adds to Solana’s existing USDT supply, which currently sits at approximately $3.8 billion to $4 billion in native SPL-standard tokens. While that’s a meaningful chunk of stablecoin liquidity, it still trails far behind the Tron network, which remains the dominant highway for USDT circulation globally.

Why Solana, and why now Tether first deployed USDT on Solana back in September 2020, betting early on the network’s high throughput and low transaction costs.

The timing of this particular mint is worth noting. Circle, the issuer of rival stablecoin USDC, minted $250 million on Solana around the same period. When two of the largest stablecoin issuers are simultaneously flooding the same chain with fresh supply, it usually means one thing: someone needs liquidity, and they need it fast.

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Tether has also been active on other chains during this period, executing significant transfers including a $500 million USDT movement to Binance via Solana. The company continues to operate across multiple blockchains simultaneously, with Tron and Ethereum remaining its largest venues by total supply, but Solana is clearly gaining ground as a preferred rail for high-volume operations.

Solana’s stablecoin infrastructure play The $3.8 billion to $4 billion in native USDT on Solana represents a substantial but still secondary presence compared to the tens of billions circulating on Tron.

For Solana’s broader ecosystem, stablecoin liquidity acts as a foundational layer. DeFi protocols need stablecoins for lending, borrowing, and providing liquidity pairs. Trading platforms need them for settlement.

The competitive dynamic between Solana, Tron, and Ethereum for stablecoin market share has become one of the quieter but more consequential races in crypto infrastructure. Tron still dominates USDT volume largely because of its entrenched position in peer-to-peer transfers across Asia and emerging markets. Ethereum commands the largest DeFi ecosystem. Solana is carving out its niche by offering speed and cost advantages that appeal to both retail and institutional users.

What the liquidity surge signals Market observers generally read large stablecoin mints as leading indicators rather than lagging ones. The logic is straightforward: new USDT doesn’t get minted for fun. Someone deposits dollars (or dollar-equivalent collateral) with Tether, and Tether issues tokens in return. A $500 million mint means $500 million in demand showed up at the door.

That demand could come from several sources. Institutional trading desks preparing for large positions often pre-stage stablecoin liquidity. DeFi protocols experiencing growth need deeper stablecoin pools to function efficiently. And exchanges frequently request new mints when their reserves run low relative to trading volume.

The fact that both Tether and Circle are simultaneously expanding supply on Solana specifically suggests the network is becoming a preferred venue for whatever activity is driving this demand.

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

Solana’s spot ETFs just strung together their 12th consecutive week of net inflows, a streak that has pulled more than $1.4 billion into the category and pushed total assets under management to roughly $1.62 billion. Meanwhile, Bitcoin spot ETFs are sleepwalking, with trading volume sinking to its lowest full five-session weekly total since October 2024 and net inflows amounting to a whisper-quiet $6.1 million.

Solana’s ETF machine keeps humming The week ending September 18 was a standout, with $60.7 million in net inflows into Solana ETFs. Nearly half of that, $47.6 million, poured in on the final trading day alone.

Bitwise’s BSOL, a staking ETF that passes through SOL staking rewards to holders, has captured approximately 80% of all Solana ETF inflows. Staking yield gives BSOL a structural advantage over competitors: investors get exposure to SOL’s price movement plus an embedded income stream.

The rest of the field includes Grayscale’s GSOL, Fidelity’s FSOL, VanEck’s VSOL, and Morgan Stanley’s MSOL. SOL itself has responded accordingly, trading at $110 to $112 in mid-September, its highest level in roughly seven months.

Bitcoin’s ETF market flatlines Bitcoin’s spot ETFs are having a very different September. Weekly net inflows of $6.1 million barely register against the category’s multi-billion-dollar asset base. Trading volume across all Bitcoin spot ETFs dropped to levels not seen since October 2024. Bitcoin ETFs have experienced periods of extended outflows in recent months, a pattern that makes Solana’s 12-week streak look even more impressive by comparison.

Why the divergence matters The $1.62 billion in Solana ETF AUM is still modest compared to Bitcoin’s ETF empire. But the velocity of accumulation matters. It took Bitcoin spot ETFs months after their January 2024 launch to hit a comparable inflow streak. Solana products are building momentum faster than most observers expected.

Bitwise’s dominance within the Solana category also raises a competitive question for other issuers. If 80% of flows are going to a single staking product, the remaining issuers need to differentiate or risk becoming afterthoughts.

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

Raydium rallied on the price charts as the broader cryptocurrency market saw green across the board.

In this case, the timing was particularly interesting. Especially since it followed Injective’s Solana expansion which strengthened RAY’s fundamentals. To be specific, Injective’s Solana launch introduced another potential source of trading activity for Raydium’s decentralized exchange.

Reportedly, Raydium joined the rollout as a day-one liquidity partner, granting Injective assets immediate access to Solana blockchain liquidity.

Here, it is also important to note that Raydium accounts for over 90% of memecoin DEX trading volume on Solana. In fact, its cumulative tokenized stock volume recently surpassed $5 billion on the blockchain.  

The aforementioned integration will also enable participants to trade Injective ecosystem tokens through Raydium, eventually funneling additional swaps and liquidity.

For its part, RAY’s price gained by 15.19% over 24 hours. Its trading volume simultaneously surged by 125.5% too, hinting at greater market participation. 

Are retail traders on board with RAY? While the altcoin’s price action did surge, so did the retail Futures activity. This pushed trading frequency into the “Too Many Retail” area. In fact, this metric’s reading implied that smaller traders increasingly entered Futures trading as RAY’s price pushed higher.

Furthermore, the 90-day Futures Taker CVD also maintained taker-sell dominance across the derivatives market.

Therefore, aggressive sellers likely started taking in profits after RAY’s sharp price appreciation.

Hence, retail traders chased the rally while taker activity revealed persistent selling. Taken together, these findings might imply possible exhaustion after the rapid price expansion.

Source: CryptoQuant What happened after RAY swept its swing high? On the 24-hour chart, Raydium’s [RAY] price rally extended by roughly 26.16%. Thanks to the same, it briefly hit the $1.85 swing high, before a retracement on the charts. 

Notably, the move above previous highs appeared to grab nearby internal liquidity instead of establishing $1.85 as resistance. Subsequently, the price then slipped below the $1.80-resistance level, with the token trading at around $1.77 at press time. 

The MACD indicator remained supportive after crossing above its Signal line. Furthermore, its positive histogram reading of 0.0341 suggested that the bullish pressure had not fully faded after the retracement. 

The RSI indicator, however, breached 72.27, placing the token in overbought conditions. 

Ultimately, reclaiming the $1.80-resistance would be crucial for an upside continuation. A sustained rejection, however, could instead reinforce the pullback as price gravitates towards denser lower liquidity.

Source: RAY/USDT, TradingView Downside liquidity strengthens pullback risk With reference to the technical price structure, RAY’s latest rally may have already collected much of the nearby upper liquidation liquidity. Attention can now shift towards the substantially denser liquidation concentrations below the press time price.

Notably, the strongest visible clusters can be seen around the $1.64–$1.66 region. All while the taker-sell dominance and overbought RSI conditions increased the significance of a rejection around the $1.80-area.

Persistent rejection around that key level could therefore push RAY towards the $1.64–$1.66 liquidity pool before another sustained recovery attempt.

However, such a correction would not invalidate the broader structure while $1.2202 remains protected.

Source: Coinglass Final Summary Injective strengthened Raydium’s growth narrative, but Futures sellers challenged the rally. RAY lost $1.80 after its daily swing-high sweep, increasing near short-term price correction risk.

Hyperliquid pulled in $3.07 million in protocol revenue over a single 24-hour period, part of a broader wave that saw four major onchain platforms simultaneously post their best weekly numbers. According to data tracked by DefiLlama, Hyperliquid’s 7-day revenue total reached approximately $13.47 million, cementing its position as one of the highest-earning protocols in decentralized finance outside of stablecoin issuers.

The other three protocols sharing the spotlight, Pump (pump.fun), StonkFun (Stonk), and Pons, each hit personal weekly revenue records of their own.

The numbers behind the surge Hyperliquid’s revenue engine runs almost entirely on perpetual futures trading. Roughly 99% of eligible perps fees get funneled into HYPE buybacks and burns via the protocol’s Assistance Fund.

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StonkFun, operating in the token launchpad space, posted a peak single-day revenue figure of $1.84 million during the same stretch.

Pons demonstrated perhaps the most consistent performance of the group, with approximately $17.8 million in revenue over its trailing 30-day window.

Pump, the Solana-based memecoin launchpad, rounded out the quartet, capitalizing on continued activity within the Solana ecosystem.

Why revenue matters more than TVL right now DefiLlama’s rankings now place these protocols among the top onchain revenue generators when you exclude stablecoin issuers like Tether and Circle. That’s a meaningful filter, because stablecoin revenue is a fundamentally different business model built on interest income from reserves rather than protocol fees from users.

Activity levels surged particularly around mid-September, with revenue leadership shifting frequently among these platforms.

Buybacks, burns, and what comes next Hyperliquid’s approach is the most aggressive, directing nearly all eligible fees into its Assistance Fund for HYPE buybacks and burns. The launchpad protocols tend to split their earnings between treasury accumulation and token buyback initiatives.

For Hyperliquid specifically, the $13.47 million weekly revenue figure translates to an annualized run rate north of $700 million.

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

Key Highlights XRP surged approximately 7% to reach $1.41 with spot trading volume exploding to $1.36B within 24 hours Short positions totaling $8.05M were liquidated during a squeeze as Bitcoin reclaimed $80,000 A golden cross pattern is forming, with the 50-day MA trailing the 200-day MA by just 2% Institutional interest remains strong with US spot XRP ETF inflows exceeding $1.7B Technical analyst Ali Charts projects a potential 35% surge to $2 if XRP clears $1.55 resistance XRP price experienced a notable weekend rally, advancing approximately 7% to settle at $1.41. Trading activity intensified dramatically, with spot market volume reaching $1.36 billion across a 24-hour period—representing a nearly 90% single-day increase.

XRP Price The upward momentum was primarily driven by a significant short squeeze event. Approximately $8.05 million worth of short positions faced liquidation as Bitcoin successfully pushed beyond the $80,000 threshold, creating upward pressure across the altcoin market.

Long positions weren’t completely spared, experiencing roughly $2.36 million in liquidations. The broader cryptocurrency market witnessed approximately $300 million in total liquidations as Bitcoin climbed past $81,000.

XRP futures contracts generated $5.71 billion in volume—exceeding spot volume by more than four times. When derivatives markets demonstrate such significant dominance over spot trading, rallies often face reversal risk once leveraged positions unwind.

This weekend’s price action occurred in the absence of significant fundamental catalysts. XRP had previously declined toward the $1.23–$1.30 range during early September following the Senate’s 49-50 failed cloture vote on the CLARITY Act.

Chart Patterns and Price Projections Technical analyst Ali Charts (@alicharts) shared analysis indicating XRP may be developing an inverse head-and-shoulders formation on daily timeframes. His focus remains on price action near the neckline positioned around $1.55. According to his analysis, a confirmed breakout above this resistance level could spark a 35% advance toward the $2 price target.

XRP TARGETS $2

On the daily chart, $XRP appears to be forming the right shoulder of an inverse head-and-shoulders pattern.

If the setup continues to develop, I’m watching for a move toward the neckline near $1.55.

That’s the key level.

A confirmed breakout above $1.55 could… pic.twitter.com/HQfEkWiDoj

— Ali Charts (@alicharts) September 18, 2026

XRP is simultaneously approaching a golden cross formation. The 50-day moving average currently trades approximately 2% beneath the 200-day moving average—marking the narrowest separation since August 2024.

Golden crosses occur when the 50-day MA climbs above the 200-day MA and typically signal bullish long-term momentum. Worth noting, however, is that all 16 of XRP’s historical golden crosses eventually transitioned to death crosses within a 12-month timeframe.

🔴 XRP nears golden cross as bitcoin dominance slides to 59%

XRP's 50-day moving average sits roughly 2% below its 200-day average, the closest point since August 2024. A golden cross—when the 50-day crosses above the 200-day—is considered a bullish signal, though XRP's track… pic.twitter.com/ErVIjeiOrr

— NewsTongue (@NewsTongueX) September 18, 2026

Among the ten crosses that maintained duration, five delivered returns ranging from 85% to over 1,000%.

Institutional Flows, Large Holder Movements and Market Updates US spot XRP exchange-traded funds have accumulated more than $1.7 billion in total net inflows. This represents the most compelling evidence of institutional participation in the current market environment.

Meanwhile, approximately 1.6 billion XRP tokens transferred into Binance from whale-sized wallets throughout the past 30 days, reaching a six-month peak. CryptoQuant analysts suggested this activity might indicate portfolio rebalancing rather than outright selling—though Binance reserve levels have climbed to a 69-day high.

Bitcoin’s dominance metric declined below 59%, marking a one-month low. Capital has been rotating into alternative cryptocurrencies, with tokens including UNI, NEAR, and ARB posting approximately 30% gains within 24 hours.

Ripple has integrated both XRP and RLUSD into Stripe and Tempo’s artificial intelligence-powered payments infrastructure. The Moscow Exchange plans to introduce XRP perpetual futures contracts on September 22.

Following the unsuccessful CLARITY Act vote, Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty commented: “Ripple and $XRP stand on settled ground.”

Critical resistance levels to monitor as the trading week begins include $1.45 and $1.50.

Crypto market commentator X Finance Bull has advised $XRP holders to look past the most recent debates surrounding the CLARITY Act, highlighting significant advances in the digital asset’s regulatory journey in the United States.

Key court ruling and regulatory clarityX Finance Bull emphasized Judge Analisa Torres’ landmark 2023 decision, which established that XRP, as a token, is distinct from the investment contracts tied to some of Ripple’s sales practices. Following this ruling, both Ripple and the SEC chose not to pursue further appeals in August 2025, allowing the court’s findings to stand.

He also pointed to the joint move by the SEC and the CFTC on March 17, 2026, when both agencies introduced a formal crypto taxonomy. Their framework explicitly named XRP as a digital commodity, laying the groundwork for how regulators will approach similar tokens in the future.

These steps, according to X Finance Bull, help explain why Evernorth CEO Asheesh Birla does not view the CLARITY Act as essential to XRP’s regulatory clarity. Instead, Birla described the legislation as an accelerator that could speed up institutional adoption, rather than defining XRP’s status outright.

Market-structure legislation may serve as a catalyst for accelerating XRP’s institutional uptake, but the foundation for XRP’s regulatory clarity has already solidified with key court decisions and agency classifications.

Institutional prospects and Evernorth’s strategyX Finance Bull noted that the next phase in XRP’s trajectory may focus on how regulated institutions use the asset within traditional finance. Topics such as institutional custody, deepened liquidity, and the possible roles of XRP in lending, tokenization, and onchain markets were brought to the forefront.

Further, X Finance Bull referenced SEC filings from Evernorth, where Birla described the CLARITY Act as a spark for corporations and institutions to enhance their use of decentralized finance technologies. Evernorth is reportedly building an institutional decentralized finance ecosystem based on XRP, aiming to expand its applications across enterprises.

Evernorth’s corporate plans include holding at least 473 million XRP at closing, with industry figures David Schwartz and Brad Garlinghouse named as strategic advisers, and Stuart Alderoty linked to the firm’s board.

In rapidly evolving markets, traders report that a single announcement from the Fed or an unexpected altcoin listing can shift sentiment instantly. As market participants seek an edge, privacy-focused aggregation tools like CryptoAppsy are gaining attention. Such platforms integrate real-time charts, portfolio tracking, smart price alerts, curated coin news, and crucial macroeconomic indicators into one interface—all without requiring an account—allowing investors to make faster decisions and reduce friction between applications.

Legislative setbacks and future directionX Finance Bull connected the recent rejection of the CLARITY Act in the Senate with subsequent regulatory moves. Two days after the bill failed to progress, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins announced the Innovation Exemption, offering temporary permission for tokenized U.S. stock trading through permissioned onchain venues. Atkins stated that while legislative progress stalled, regulatory agencies could still provide interim solutions.

Congressional gridlock may slow new laws, but agencies like the SEC and CFTC continue to make incremental changes that guide the industry’s path forward.

Evernorth’s S-4 registration statement has now become effective, and Armada shareholders are scheduled to vote on September 30 regarding the proposed business combination. If finalized, the merged entity could begin trading under the ticker XRPN.

In sum, X Finance Bull shifted focus from debates about XRP’s legal status to the growing infrastructure regulated institutions could build around the asset. The commentator underlined that core questions about XRP are transitioning away from regulatory uncertainty toward the scale of financial activity and adoption the token can support as institutions deepen their involvement.

TL;DR

U.S. Ethereum ETFs recorded $29.4 million in net inflows on September 18. Fidelity’s FETH brought in $26.2 million. The move followed three consecutive sessions of net outflows. Ethereum ETF flows finally turned positive on Friday, although the rebound was considerably smaller than the one seen in Bitcoin funds.

U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $29.4 million in combined net inflows on September 18, according to Farside Investors. Fidelity’s FETH was responsible for $26.2 million of that figure.

Bitwise’s ETHW added $1.3 million and VanEck’s ETHV brought in $1.9 million. The remaining funds reported no net movement for the session.

It wasn’t a huge day, but after the previous few sessions, green was probably welcome.

Three Difficult Sessions Came First Ethereum funds had been under steady pressure heading into Friday.

September 15 produced a $142 million net outflow, followed by another $224.1 million leaving the funds on September 16. September 17 added a further $39.3 million in redemptions.

That means Friday’s $29.4 million inflow only recovers a small portion of the money that left earlier in the week.

Still, the composition is interesting.

Fidelity was the clear buyer, while BlackRock’s ETHA recorded no net flow after being one of the major sources of outflows earlier in the week.

ETF capital can move very differently from crypto’s spot market. Sometimes that reflects portfolio rebalancing, sometimes a large allocator moving through a particular issuer, and sometimes it is simply the timing of creations and redemptions.

A Rebound, Not A Reset That’s probably the right way to read Friday’s number.

It is a rebound, but not enough to say the week’s outflows have suddenly been reversed.

What it does tell us is that demand for Ethereum exposure through regulated funds hasn’t disappeared. Even after several difficult sessions, buyers were still willing to put fresh capital into the products.

The next few sessions will tell us more.

If inflows broaden beyond Fidelity and begin showing up across multiple issuers, that would look more like a genuine change in the short-term flow pattern. If not, Friday may simply prove to have been a pause in a choppier stretch.

Either way, the ETF market gave Ethereum investors their first positive session after several days of redemptions.

Source: Farside Investors — https://farside.co.uk/eth/

This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.

U.S. spot crypto exchange-traded products recorded about $70.7 million in combined net outflows during the Sep. 14–18 trading week, as withdrawals from Ether funds outweighed demand for Bitcoin, Solana, and Hyperliquid products.

Summary

Spot Bitcoin ETFs ended the week with a modest $6.1 million net inflow after attracting $433 million on Friday. Spot Ether ETFs lost about $140.6 million, extending their weaker flow trend despite a $143.7 million Friday rebound. Solana ETFs took in $60.7 million, led by $47.6 million entering Bitwise’s BSOL on Friday. Hyperliquid ETFs recorded $3.1 million in weekly net inflows after three positive sessions offset Tuesday’s withdrawals. The flows came during a volatile week in which the Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points, and Bitcoin later reclaimed $80,000. According to data from Farside Investors, the four U.S. crypto ETF categories tracked by the firm diverged sharply during the week. Bitcoin products recovered from $746.3 million of combined withdrawals on Tuesday and Wednesday, while Ether ETFs failed to erase their midweek losses.

Solana funds drew fresh capital in four of the five sessions, including their strongest day of the week on Friday. Hyperliquid products also finished positive, although their $3.1 million weekly gain remained small compared with flows into the larger crypto funds.

Bitcoin ETFs erase most weekly losses with $433M Friday inflow U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted a net inflow of $6.1 million for the week after two large redemption days nearly pushed the group to a steep weekly loss.

The funds began with a $159.9 million inflow on Monday before losing $450.4 million on Tuesday and $295.9 million on Wednesday. Investors returned on Thursday with $159.5 million, followed by $433 million on Friday, the largest daily inflow of the week.

BlackRock’s IBIT led the weekly rankings with $120.6 million in net inflows. Fidelity’s FBTC followed with $79.9 million after drawing $310.7 million on Friday, the biggest single-fund inflow recorded that day.

Morgan Stanley’s MSBT added $13.2 million, while Franklin Templeton’s EZBC received $4.6 million. The gains were partly offset by $141.9 million in withdrawals from ARK 21Shares’ ARKB and $62.3 million from Grayscale’s GBTC. Bitwise’s BITB lost $2.7 million, and VanEck’s HODL shed $5.3 million.

The late reversal coincided with Bitcoin’s return above $80,000 on Friday. The asset had come under pressure earlier in the week as the Federal Reserve raised its target rate by 25 basis points to 3.75%–4.00%, its first increase in more than three years. Bitcoin later rallied as oil prices eased and crypto-linked stocks recovered.

Ether ETFs post $140.6M weekly outflow U.S. spot Ether ETFs recorded approximately $140.6 million in net withdrawals, making Ether the weakest of the four crypto ETF categories covered by Farside.

The group attracted $121.1 million on Monday but lost $142 million on Tuesday, $224.1 million on Wednesday and $39.3 million on Thursday. A $143.7 million Friday inflow reduced the weekly deficit without fully reversing it.

BlackRock’s ETHA accounted for a net weekly outflow of $56.1 million despite taking in $114.3 million on Friday. Fidelity’s FETH lost $25.9 million, while Bitwise’s ETHW shed $33.1 million.

Grayscale’s ETHE posted $31.4 million in withdrawals. VanEck’s ETHV lost $10.3 million, 21Shares’ TETH shed $1.9 million, and Invesco’s QETH recorded a $5.4 million outflow.

BlackRock’s ETHB and Grayscale’s lower-fee ETH fund moved in the opposite direction, taking in $7 million and $16.2 million, respectively. Farside’s daily totals contain rounded fund-level figures, which can produce small differences when individual entries are added.

Ether’s negative weekly result widened the gap with Bitcoin products. Bitcoin ETFs recovered nearly all of their midweek redemptions, while the Friday demand for Ether funds covered only part of the $405.4 million withdrawn across the prior three sessions.

Solana ETFs draw $60.7M as BSOL leads Friday demand Farside’s Solana ETF data showed $60.7 million in net inflows for the week, the strongest total among the four tracked crypto assets.

Solana funds received $11 million on Monday, $1.3 million on Tuesday and $800,000 on Wednesday. Thursday ended with no net movement before Friday’s inflow reached $47.6 million.

Bitwise’s BSOL generated $58.7 million of the weekly total. Grayscale’s GSOL contributed a net $2 million after a $3.9 million Monday inflow was partly offset by a $1.9 million withdrawal on Wednesday.

The remaining Solana products reported no net flows during the week. Friday’s $47.6 million allocation went entirely to BSOL, giving the Bitwise fund almost 97% of the category’s weekly net intake.

Hyperliquid ETFs add $3.1M during mixed week Hyperliquid ETFs ended the week with $3.1 million in net inflows. The products recorded no movement on Monday, followed by a $3.9 million outflow from Bitwise’s BHYP on Tuesday.

Flows turned positive during the rest of the week. 21Shares’ HYPG received $1.7 million on Wednesday, while Thursday brought $1.9 million into BHYP and $2.4 million into 21Shares’ THYP. BHYP added another $1 million on Friday.

The combined weekly data left Bitcoin funds close to flat, Ether products in net redemptions and the two smaller altcoin categories positive. Across all four categories, approximately $70.7 million exited on a net basis, with the $140.6 million Ether outflow exceeding the combined inflows into Bitcoin, Solana and Hyperliquid funds.

Stacks just gave institutions something they’ve been quietly asking for: a way to earn yield on Bitcoin without handing over their keys. The network’s Genesis Bond went live on September 10, aligned with Bitcoin block 966,350, and four institutional participants collectively locked approximately 250 BTC into the program.

The participants, 21Shares, HashKey Cloud, UTXO Management, and Sypher Capital, are staking Bitcoin through a six-month bonding period that targets roughly 3% APY, paid out weekly in BTC. That yield doesn’t come from lending or rehypothecation. It comes from Stacks miners through the network’s Proof-of-Transfer mechanism.

How the Genesis Bond actually works Participants lock their BTC directly on Bitcoin Layer 1 using a timelock script. The coins never leave the base chain.

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Alongside that locked BTC, participants hold a position in STX, the native Stacks token, worth approximately 5% of their Bitcoin position’s value. This STX is held on the Stacks network. The combination of locked BTC on Layer 1 and STX on Stacks creates what the protocol calls a “protocol bond.”

Yields flow from Stacks miners who commit BTC as part of the Proof-of-Transfer (PoX) consensus mechanism. Miners on Stacks essentially pay Bitcoin to mine STX blocks, and that Bitcoin gets redistributed to stackers. Since PoX launched in January 2021, the mechanism has distributed over 4,200 BTC to participants, valued at more than $500 million at historical prices.

At the end of the six-month term, participants recover full custody of their locked Bitcoin. No bridges, no wrapped tokens, no third-party custodians sitting between the institution and its BTC.

Sypher Capital participated through a slightly different route, using StackingDAO’s pooled staking infrastructure. The other three institutions bonded directly.

The road to institutional stacking UTXO Management became the first institutional participant in Stacks stacking back on May 28, serving as a proof of concept for the broader Genesis Bond. Earlier in 2026, Stacks integrated Fireblocks custody support. The biggest technical prerequisite was the PoX-5 hard fork, which activated around July 29-30. That upgrade enabled the specific bonding and yield distribution mechanisms the Genesis Bond relies on.

Why 3% on Bitcoin matters more than it sounds The 5% STX requirement introduces exposure to a second asset. If STX drops significantly during the bonding period, the effective return measured in dollar terms could be diminished even if the BTC yield arrives as promised.

A second bonding period is planned for early October 2026 with expanded capacity. The longer-term roadmap points toward a permissionless model where any institution, and eventually any holder, could participate without needing to be part of a curated cohort.

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

Achi (the dog from the famous dogwifhat meme) is seen at the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, on January 23, 2025. Dogwifhat (WIF) is a Solana-based dog-themed memecoin that was launched in November 2023. It features a Shiba Inu wearing a knitted hat as its mascot. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

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Tesoro, a new launchpad on Robinhood Chain that says it will pass tokenized real-world assets back to token holders, puts its TORO token live at 8 p.m. Eastern on Friday, the project said on X, after a three-tier presale it extended by a day. A 3% tax on every trade buys tokenized gold and equities, which go into a vault the project calls a chest. “Now you can launch your own treasure chest,” Matt Wright, a co-founder, said in an interview. “We want to actually drive it into something that gets back to the early community members that are contributing to that platform.” The founding team is two: Wright, a second co-founder who goes by the name Billion. Wright has spent nearly a decade building developer communities, first around JPMorgan’s Quorum, then at ConsenSys, then as co-founder of the AI network Gaia.

“We’re not launching a meme coin launchpad,” Billion said. “You can’t launch just a regular meme coin on our platform.” His reason is the memecoin’s oldest problem. “Every time there’s a dip, especially from Bitcoin, the whole market drags out with it,” he said. Then Robinhood listed tokenized gold and stocks. “We were like, okay, this is really good,” he said. The aim, he said, is “to put the tools out there” so that a user “could actually feel like he is doing something meaningful and it’s not just noise.”

Toro is one example of something larger. The Securities and Exchange Commission let tokenized U.S. stocks trade on blockchain liquidity pools for five years on Thursday, and the conversation since has been about Apple and Nvidia settling on-chain. One clause in the order lets a venue pair a tokenized stock with any crypto asset it chooses, memecoins included. That market already exists. On Robinhood Chain and on Coinbase’s Base, memecoins are trading against tokenized stocks, taxing themselves to buy gold, and spending their fees on lottery tickets.

Memecoins with stocks inside themRobinhood Chain went live on July 1 to carry tokenized stocks. Memecoins took it over instead. Within two weeks CASHCAT, the breakout token, was worth about twelve times every real-world asset on the network combined, and Noxa, the launchpad minting coins at 18,600 a day, took an estimated $12 million in fees and went dark. What came next was stranger. Memecoins started using the stock tokens as their trading pair. A token called Artificial Inu trades against Robinhood’s Nvidia token, and an analysis by DeFiPrime’s Nick Sawinyh on September 1 counted 432 pools pairing memecoins with 19 Robinhood stock tokens, holding about $8.8 million in stock tokens and turning over roughly $95 million a day. When a memecoin called BONER drained the supply of the Hims & Hers token one weekend, he found, it traded as much as 112% above the stock’s last close until Robinhood issued more.

The same thing is happening on Base, where Coinbase’s tokenized stocks launched on August 24. “We’re seeing lots of people pair meme coins with tokenized stocks and that whole thing’s taken off in a big way,” Xen Baynham-Herd, head of marketing and global at Base, said in an interview the morning the SEC order was posted.

The fee is turning into somethingA memecoin’s trading tax has usually been the exit, kept by the launchpad or the deployer, and Noxa’s $12 million is only the latest example. This month the fee started buying things. Lotto Coin, an anonymous-team token on Base, sends every trading fee in USDC to a contract that buys $1 tickets in Megapot, an on-chain daily lottery, each night. Megapot’s public records show the contract held 17,732 of the 21,180 tickets in the September 13 drawing. One of them matched all six numbers. The $213,017.16 prize was paid a minute after the draw to a pool that Megapot said had 417 holders at the time. By my arithmetic on Megapot’s number ranges, that many tickets gave the pool roughly one chance in 80 that night.

“What a day yesterday! We burned over 10% of the token supply at an average price of $2.3m market cap,” the project’s account on X posted on September 14. The token promises nothing else. “Holders receive nothing, earn nothing, and are entitled to nothing,” its website says, and it calls the burn “a mechanism, not a return.” Megapot, which raised $5 million in a round led by Dragonfly in March, said it neither built nor approved the project.

Aerodrome, the largest exchange on Base, pays all of its trading fees to holders who lock its AERO token. Alex Cutler, its co-founder, puts the case for sending fees back to users this way. “The whole promise of this onchain technology is we can distill Interactive Brokers entirely into code and we can redistribute all the value rather than having it extracted to users of these platforms,” he said. Lotto Coin’s version is a bonfire. Tesoro’s version is a treasure chest, and its marketing says so: the X account’s bio reads “Hold $TORO. Dig nothing. Get rewarded in RWAs and Gold.” “We just want to help drive a meme that’s going to help people get equitable utility,” Wright said.

What the order does and does not coverThe SEC’s order describes a narrower world than this one. A qualifying token must be a claim on a real share, which Coinbase’s tokens are: each is backed by a share held by a regulated broker in an Abu Dhabi structure. Robinhood’s Stock Tokens are tokenized debt securities, they track the share price, they carry no ownership claim, and they are restricted from U.S. persons. They sit outside the order, and so does Tesoro’s chest, which holds exposure rather than title. Tesoro’s own terms bar U.S. persons, as Robinhood’s tokens do. Megapot, licensed in Anjouan, in the Comoros, does not serve about 30 countries, the United States among them. A token on an open exchange does not check where its buyers live. The pairing clause is one sentence in an order about Apple and Nvidia. It is the sentence memecoin builders will read first.

Wright built the developer community around Quorum at JPMorgan, the bank’s permissioned Ethereum fork. “First it was WallStreetBets coming to Wall Street,” he said. “Now it’s the Pirates of Robinhood coming to Wall Street.” True to their pirate fashion, Toro has the parrot Hidalgo as a mascot. The market those pirates are sailing into is still one where the buyer carries the risk. Noxa’s holders learned in July that a launchpad can take its fees and vanish, and Lotto Coin’s own website calls lottery play “negative expected value.” Tesoro says it is building against that, in three steps its founders describe as coming over the next few weeks: vaults that hold tokenized Robinhood assets for a memecoin’s holders, AI agents Wright calls a “ghost crew” to run a project’s vault and community, and an on-chain prediction market he calls “rug-proof tech.” Billion described the aim as “tools for additional accountability, additional confidence in whatever the creator is doing.” “You can have a prediction that says the creator does not get the vault assets if that roadmap is not hit,” he said. “It’s a bit experimental.” Nobody designed a market where a lottery token and a gold chest are the first things built on tokenized stocks. It is here anyway, and it is eleven weeks old.

US spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $433 million in net inflows on September 18, while spot Ethereum ETFs added $144 million on the same day. Both figures represent a meaningful rebound from mixed and negative flow sessions that preceded them.

Fidelity’s FBTC was the standout performer on the Bitcoin side, attracting $311 million of the day’s total. BlackRock’s IBIT contributed $108 million. On the Ethereum front, the roles reversed: BlackRock’s ETHA led with $114 million, while Fidelity’s FETH added roughly $26 million.

The numbers behind the flows The $433 million Bitcoin ETF inflow day arrived against a backdrop of total Bitcoin ETF assets under management reaching $102.532 billion, a figure that now represents 6.29% of Bitcoin’s entire market capitalization. Cumulative historical net inflows into these products have hit $55.161 billion since their launch.

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Ethereum ETFs, while smaller in absolute terms, are growing at a pace that demands attention. Total AUM for spot Ethereum ETFs now stands at $16.719 billion, representing 5.2% of Ethereum’s market cap. Cumulative inflows have reached $13.250 billion.

The gap between 6.29% market cap penetration for Bitcoin ETFs and 5.2% for Ethereum ETFs is narrower than many expected at this stage.

Fidelity vs. BlackRock: different days, different leaders Fidelity dominated Bitcoin flows with $311 million out of $433 million total, capturing roughly 72% of the day’s inflows into FBTC. BlackRock took a back seat with $108 million into IBIT.

Flip to Ethereum, and the script reverses completely. BlackRock’s ETHA absorbed $114 million of the $144 million total, roughly 79% of all Ethereum ETF inflows for the day. Fidelity’s FETH picked up $26 million.

What this means for the market Bitcoin ETFs controlling 6.29% of the total market cap creates structural dynamics where every inflow day effectively removes a portion of circulating supply from the open market and parks it in cold storage under institutional custody.

With cumulative inflows of $55.161 billion for Bitcoin ETFs and $13.250 billion for Ethereum ETFs, the aggregate capital committed to these products now exceeds $68 billion.

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

Chainlink has extended its core services to two new networks: Arc, Circle’s institutional layer-1 blockchain, and MOVA Chain, a DeFi-focused network that adopted Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol in July 2026.

The timing matters. Arc’s mainnet launched on September 16, 2026, with Chainlink’s infrastructure already running underneath it before the first block was finalized.

What Chainlink actually deployed, and where Chainlink rolled out its services on Arc in stages. Data Feeds went live on Arc mainnet on September 9, giving the network reliable price oracle coverage before its official launch. Data Streams followed on September 15, adding low-latency market data suited for more complex financial applications. CCIP, Chainlink’s cross-chain messaging layer, activated on Arc’s mainnet the same day the network itself launched, September 16.

Arc is not a typical public blockchain. Circle built it as a permissioned layer-1 designed for institutional use, and the validator network includes BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, DTCC, and ICE. Gas fees on Arc are paid in USDC rather than a native volatile token.

MOVA Chain’s adoption of CCIP, which went live in July 2026, addresses a different set of needs. MOVA is focused on stablecoins and DeFi applications, and CCIP gives it secure cross-chain messaging to connect with the broader ecosystem. With CCIP now live on over 50 chains, MOVA gains immediate access to that network rather than building cross-chain bridges from scratch.

Why Circle built Arc this way DTCC, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, processes the majority of US securities settlements. ICE operates the New York Stock Exchange. Paying gas fees in USDC means corporate participants never need to hold or manage a volatile native asset to use the network.

The broader Chainlink expansion picture Earlier in the year, Chainlink expanded CCIP to MegaETH and World Chain, with CRE, the Chainlink Runtime Environment, going live on World Chain as part of that February update. Arc itself had Chainlink live on its testnet before the mainnet launch, giving developers time to build and test before real assets were at stake.

The CCIP network now spans over 50 chains. Each new chain that joins increases the number of possible cross-chain connections, and projects building on any one of those chains inherit access to the full network.

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

Circle’s Agent Marketplace just picked up one of crypto’s more interesting AI startups. Venice.ai, the privacy-centric AI platform founded by Erik Voorhees, is now listed as a service provider in Circle’s rapidly expanding hub for AI agent transactions.

The integration means AI agents can now tap into Venice’s creative and inference services, think image generation, video creation, and access to a library of over 200 AI models, and pay for it all in USDC without needing API keys, subscriptions, or even an account.

What the Agent Marketplace actually does Circle launched its Agent Stack on May 11, 2026, building out infrastructure specifically designed for AI agents to discover, access, and pay for services on their own. The Agent Marketplace is the centerpiece: a structured directory where services are screened, compliance-checked, and made available through a keyless Discovery API.

The marketplace has grown from over 600 live services at launch to more than 900 in just a couple of months. That’s a roughly 50% jump in available services, spanning 15-plus blockchains.

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Payments flow through the x402 protocol, which handles wallet authorization for USDC transactions on chains like Base and Solana. The key innovation here is gasless nanopayments settled at sub-cent scales.

Venice’s privacy play Venice.ai has carved out a distinctive niche in the AI space by making privacy its core selling point. All interactions with the platform’s models are client-side encrypted, and Venice itself doesn’t store user data.

The company offers access to more than 200 AI models, covering everything from text generation to creative media production. Venice processes over 1 million API calls daily, which gives some sense of the scale already in play before this Circle integration.

Voorhees raised $65 million in Series A funding for Venice in July 2026. That round valued the company at $1 billion, earning it unicorn status less than two years after its founding in 2024.

Venice had already integrated x402 wallet authorization for USDC payments on Base and Solana before joining the marketplace. So the technical plumbing was largely in place. The Circle listing essentially puts Venice in front of every AI agent already using the marketplace to source services.

Why this combination matters On the AI side, most services require creating accounts, managing API keys, and dealing with billing systems designed for human users. AI agents operating autonomously can’t navigate a Stripe checkout page. Circle’s marketplace eliminates that entire layer, replacing it with programmatic USDC payments that settle instantly.

On the payments side, USDC gets a new category of transaction volume that barely existed a year ago. Every API call processed through the marketplace is a USDC transaction. Multiply that by the million-plus daily calls Venice already handles, and the potential throughput becomes significant.

For Venice specifically, the integration opens distribution to an entirely new class of customers: autonomous agents that discover and purchase services without human intervention.

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

Italian prosecutors have opened an investigation after criminals allegedly used a compromised government email account to obtain information about hundreds of Revolut customers.

The group that claimed to be behind it demanded 6,000 Monero [XMR], worth about $3 million. The deadline they set has passed, but it is not known if Revolut paid or not, or if the data has now been sold as they threatened.

Hackers allegedly targeted crypto holders The ransom demand was unveiled with a 24-hour countdown by the group, which calls itself “iamnotavillain”, on September 16.

According to the Financial Times, the attackers threatened to sell sensitive customer records to criminals if Revolut did not pay.

Several passports, driving licenses, identity photographs, and transaction histories were all visible on screen in a video that the FT watched. At least 680 customer accounts have been compromised.

The attackers said that they identified customers with a lot of crypto holdings by doing blockchain analysis. They said they got the records after they compromised an Italian government email system and acted as if they were law enforcement officials.

Revolut responded by stating they had not formally heard back from the group nor received any ransom demands. They confirmed that none of its internal nor client funds had been affected nor breached.

Revolut has said that they have been working closely with other regulators and law enforcement bodies, and have also offered to help and support any of its affected customers.

Italian prosecutors and the country’s anti-mafia and counterterrorism authorities are now investigating the incident, according to an updated Euronews report.

Why the attackers demanded Monero Monero hides information that most public blockchains display, including transaction amounts and the identities of senders and recipients.

These protections offer financial privacy to ordinary users. Yet, they also provide an appealing option for criminals seeking to hide ransoms.

This incident implies in no way that the Monero network itself was breached and implicated in obtaining the customers’ records; XMR was employed by the attackers as their chosen method of payment.

XMR was trading near $546 when writing, up by more than 5.7% from opening. XMR jumped above $600 for a few minutes but has dropped from those levels.

​Yet while the price remained above its recent average, the massive wick from $608 showed that sellers were not playing around when the price rose to a certain level.

Final Summary After allegedly leaking the records of at least 680 customers, the attacker[s] demanded payment of 6,000 XMR! Revolut’s systems and customers’ funds were said to still be secure, while it is not clear what happened after the ransom demand time expired.