Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Tokenized stocks sitting on Solana and Robinhood Chain have crossed $152 million in combined DeFi deposits. That figure represents roughly 79% of the entire $192.6 million in tokenized-equity DeFi TVL across all chains, a concentration that says a lot about where this market is actually happening.

Solana commands the lion’s share at approximately $75.4 million, good for 64.5% of the global market in tokenized-stock DeFi deposits. Robinhood Chain, barely two months old, has already muscled its way to second place. The rest of the field, Ethereum included at around $15 million, is fighting over scraps.

From trading tokens to farming yield Still, only about 5% of all tokenized equities have actually entered DeFi lending protocols. That’s a tiny fraction of a $3.1 billion total tokenized equity market cap. Solana hosts the largest share of that deployed capital, which tracks with its broader dominance in onchain equity trading.

In Q2 2026, Solana recorded $5.8 billion in tokenized-stock DEX volume. That’s roughly 95% of all onchain equity trading globally, a 114% increase from the prior quarter. Platforms like xStocks and Raydium have been the primary venues facilitating that flow.

Robinhood Chain’s aggressive entrance Robinhood Chain launched on July 1, 2026, as a Layer 2 solution built on Ethereum, purpose-built for tokenized real-world assets. Within its first month, the platform’s tokenized equities reached an active market value of nearly $72.7 million. That represents close to a sevenfold increase from its early days, driven largely by trading activity in familiar names: tokenized GameStop hit a daily trading volume of $26.6 million shortly after launch, and Nvidia proved similarly popular.

Weekly spot volume across major chains reached approximately $3 billion in August 2026, with Robinhood Chain capturing a meaningful slice despite being the newest entrant. Grayscale has identified Solana, Robinhood Chain, and BNB Chain as the three leading platforms for tokenized equity volume.

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

Agent-driven transactions on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) have reached a new record, with over 3,992,146 transactions now processed through the x402 facilitator. This marks a significant milestone as AI-powered agents continue to use the ledger to pay for services directly onchain using XRP and RLUSD.

Rapid growth in agentic transaction volumeData shows that the number of agentic transactions has surged rapidly since the beginning of September 2026. According to t54, a provider of trust and facilitation tools on the XRPL, transaction volume climbed from 3.1 million to nearly 4 million in just four days—an increase of approximately 890,000.

AI agents rely on the XRP Ledger to conduct payments for various digital services, including token analytics, market intelligence, and research. Transactions are settled autonomously in either XRP or RLUSD, Ripple‘s onchain US dollar-backed asset.

More than 3.99 million agentic transactions have settled on the XRPL to date, highlighting accelerating demand for onchain machine-to-machine commerce and infrastructure.

DateAgentic Transactions (Cumulative)September 1, 20263.1 millionSeptember 5, 20263.99 millionRipple has actively supported this trend with the launch of the XRPL AI Starter Kit in June 2026. This collection of developer tools introduced new ways for AI agents to make payments using the x402 protocol, allowing seamless, trust-minimized transfers in XRP and RLUSD for APIs and digital services.

XRP Ledger agentic payments gain Mastercard supportThe x402 facilitator, provided by Ripple partner t54, acts as a trust layer and mediator, enabling verification of agent payments and risk checks before settlement. Through this setup, agent payments on the XRP Ledger now support Mastercard’s Verifiable Intent standard, which provides proof of payment authorization, amount limits, and purchase details, with automated screening prior to finalization.

Mastercard, a global payments technology company, has included the t54 x402 facilitator in its Start Path program for Agentic Commerce & Services. This initiative connects fintech innovators with large-scale payment networks to foster secure, transparent agent-driven transactions.

Using t54’s platform, merchants and payment providers can transact with AI agents in real time, benefiting from identity verification, automated risk assessment, and built-in dispute resolution. The integration supports a growing trend of machine-to-machine financial activity on blockchain networks.

Mini dictionary: x402 Facilitator – A protocol and infrastructure provider on the XRP Ledger that enables AI agents to authorize, execute, and confirm payments for services using onchain digital assets like XRP and RLUSD, with integrated trust, payment verification, and risk management tools.

The integration of Mastercard’s Verifiable Intent standard with the x402 facilitator is expected to improve trust and transparency in machine-agent transactions by providing clear records of payment authorization and automated risk checks.

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

TLDR: RedSonic Vault lost 9.25 ETH after an attacker exploited a dual-asset pricing flaw entirely. A permissionless registerErc20 function let the attacker add a second, conflicting stETH share class. The attacker flash-loaned 1,139 WETH from Balancer and needed zero starting capital of their own. ExVulSec traced the full exploit, including the Curve swap and the final loan repayment step. A flash loan attacker drained 9.25 ETH from Ethereum’s RedSonic Vault in a single transaction. Blockchain security firm ExVulSec identified the exploit and published a full technical breakdown. 

The attacker manipulated a permissionless asset-registration function to double count the same underlying collateral. On-chain records show the entire operation executed inside one self-contained transaction.

How the RedSonic Vault Exploit Unfolded The attacker flash-loaned 1,139 WETH from Balancer to fund the entire operation. No upfront capital of their own was required.

RedSonic’s vault prices its rsvETH shares through a function called getTotalAssetBalance. For the Lido position, that function reads the vault’s raw stETH balance directly.

That design choice became the exploit’s foundation. Share prices tied directly to a raw balance can shift if that balance changes unexpectedly. No corresponding shares need to be minted or burned.

The vault’s registerErc20 function carried no access restrictions, according to ExVulSec. Anyone could register a brand new asset class inside the vault.

The attacker registered stETH as a second asset, creating a class called rsvstETH. Both share types then drew from the exact same underlying stETH balance.

The exploit contract self-destructed once execution finished. Security researchers note that self-destructing contracts often complicate later on-chain tracing efforts.

Flash loans let borrowers access large sums without posting collateral, provided the loan gets repaid within the same transaction. Attackers commonly use this mechanism to fund exploits that would otherwise demand substantial capital.

🚨 ALERT — Exploit on Ethereum @reddio_com RedSonic Vault was drained for ~9.25 ETH. A no-capital attacker flash-loaned 1,139 WETH from Balancer, inflated the vault's share price, and cashed out. The exploit ran inside a self-destructing contract's constructor.

Root cause:
the…

— ExVul (@exvulsec) September 5, 2026

RedSonic Vault Exploit Exposes a Dual-Asset Flaw The attacker deposited 1,130 ETH first, acquiring close to 99% of all outstanding rsvETH shares. That position set up the rest of the exploit.

Next, the attacker deposited 9.34 stETH directly into the vault. That single deposit inflated the stETH balance without minting any new rsvETH shares.

Because rsvETH pricing reads the raw stETH balance, the extra deposit pushed the share price higher artificially. The attacker’s existing rsvETH holdings gained value instantly as a result, without any new rsvETH being issued.

The attacker then redeemed rsvETH for 1,139.5 ETH, according to ExVulSec’s transaction analysis. That single redemption produced the full 9.25 ETH profit.

The same attacker also redeemed the rsvstETH shares for stETH separately. The identical underlying collateral effectively paid out twice from one shared, pooled vault balance.

ExVulSec reported that the recovered stETH was swapped for ETH on Curve. The attacker repaid the Balancer flash loan within that same transaction.

Etherscan data lists the attacker’s wallet as 0x70f2333d21Ed7E7D105F6578227A9A747687982C. The RedSonic Vault contract itself sits at 0x4315990d9eeaffdfafd49958b4851f203fa1126f.

The attack transaction carries the hash 0xe3cba90e865c6cba950ebce36a52607f51f1fd33cd9fb920c78803f19b57791a. It remains publicly viewable on Etherscan for anyone verifying the exploit’s details.

Customers of failed crypto exchanges often face substantial losses, finding themselves at the end of lengthy bankruptcy proceedings with little chance of recovering their digital assets. Senator Cynthia Lummis, a leading advocate for the CLARITY Act, has stated that her proposed legislation would address this ongoing issue.

The bankruptcy risk for crypto customersSenator Lummis emphasized that the risks are not merely hypothetical. In the event of an exchange bankruptcy, customers are typically required to line up behind lawyers and institutional creditors, who have higher priority. As a result, users may only reclaim a small portion of their holdings, if anything at all.

Senator Cynthia Lummis pointed out that, “When a crypto exchange goes bankrupt today, customers are forced to get in line behind lawyers and creditors with low priority in hopes of maybe recouping a fraction of their assets. The CLARITY Act ensures consumers’ assets are protected just like they would be with traditional institutions.”

Senator Lummis serves as a member of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee and has long advocated for regulatory clarity in the crypto sector.

Major collapses highlight urgent needSeveral high-profile crypto exchange failures, most notably the collapse of FTX in November 2022, have underscored this problem. Customers of FTX reportedly lost billions of dollars, as bankruptcy courts classified client funds as part of the exchange’s estate. This treatment left individual users competing with large institutional creditors over the remaining assets.

Similar situations occurred at other platforms such as Celsius, Voyager, and BlockFi, revealing that crypto users lack the legal protections afforded to traditional investors. Under current securities law, assets held by customers at licensed brokers are separated from company property, ensuring investors are prioritized during insolvency. No such mechanism currently exists for digital assets.

How the CLARITY Act would change the rulesThe proposed CLARITY Act aims to categorize digital commodities as customer property within the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, granting crypto customers rights comparable to those of holders of stocks or commodities. The bill would require exchanges and brokers to hold client assets at specialized custodians, entirely separate from their operating funds. Any commingling of client and company assets, the kind that contributed to the FTX collapse, would be prohibited.

Key portions of the legislation link digital commodities to existing bankruptcy protections applicable to other kinds of commodity contracts. The goal is to move customers to the front of the line in any bankruptcy distribution.

Mini dictionary: CLARITY Act – Proposed United States legislation designed to create clear rules for the treatment of customer digital asset holdings during crypto exchange bankruptcies, prioritizing customer recovery above other creditors.

Bankruptcy ScenarioTraditional SecuritiesCrypto Assets (Current)Crypto Assets (With CLARITY Act)Customer Fund PriorityFirstLastFirstAsset Segregation RequirementMandatoryNot requiredMandatoryCustodian StandardsRegulated Broker-DealersVaries by platformQualified digital custodiansLegislative outlook and next stepsSenator Lummis has championed the CLARITY Act for several years. She has stated that if the bill does not pass during the current congressional session, regulatory progress on digital assets could be delayed until at least 2030. The Senate is set to hold a crucial cloture vote on September 15, marking a key juncture for the bill’s advancement.

The Senator has warned that failure to enact the CLARITY Act could postpone comprehensive crypto safeguards for years, highlighting the urgency for legislative action.

Should the legislation clear the Senate, delays in the House of Representatives remain possible, although Republican leadership is reportedly pushing to deliver the bill to the President soon.

Implications for XRP and digital asset holdersXRP holders and the broader crypto community are closely following the bill’s progress, as the CLARITY Act would offer the first federal legal framework ensuring digital asset owners cannot be subordinated behind creditors in insolvency cases. If enacted, the legislation would fundamentally strengthen legal protections for crypto customers in the United States.

With the Senate vote on the horizon, the outcome is expected to set a precedent for future exchange bankruptcies and potentially reshape recovery processes for digital asset holders.

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

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams compared Robinhood's and Ondo's stock tokens to early stablecoins on Friday, hours after Dinari co-founder Gabriel Otte called the same instruments "indisputably worse for the end investors than even common stocks." Three models are competing for $2.91 billion of tokenized equities, and the SEC has already sorted them into separate legal boxes.

The public fight between AMC Entertainment Chief Executive Adam Aron and Robinhood over tokenized AMC shares spilled on Friday into a dispute among the companies that build the instruments, over which of three incompatible designs should become the standard.

The models differ in what the holder actually owns. Robinhood's stock tokens are debt securities issued by an unregulated Jersey entity, sold only to non-US persons, that pay economic exposure and confer no claim on the referenced company. Ondo, xStocks and Dinari hold the underlying shares through regulated intermediaries and pass the economics through, with Dinari the only one of the three selling to US investors. Securitize and Superstate put a company's own registered shares onchain, with the issuer and its transfer agent inside the transaction. The SEC's Division of Corporation Finance mapped the three categories in a statement on Jan. 28, and the model determines which securities laws apply and what a holder can claim in a bankruptcy.

Tokenized stocks hold $2.91 billion, up 14.4% in 30 days across 2.67 million holders, rwa.xyz data shows. Ondo leads with $869.6 million, followed by bStocks at $659.4 million, xStocks at $633.7 million, Securitize at $274.1 million, Bitget at $170.5 million, Robinhood at $133.2 million, Figure at $84.7 million, Superstate at $46.4 million and Dinari at $11.2 million.

Robinhood's book is a sixth the size of Ondo's and its trading business is the largest of the group. Robinhood Chain turned over $1.56 billion of DEX volume in 24 hours, more than double the level a week earlier, according to DefiLlama, and passed Solana in tokenized stock volume in late July on the strength of memecoin pairs.

Snake Juice And StablecoinsGabriel Otte, co-founder of Dinari, which sells 1:1 custodial tokenized stocks to US investors through an SEC-registered broker-dealer, opened the argument at 12:18 p.m. ET Friday under Robinhood Chief Executive Vlad Tenev's defense of the product, "We stand behind Stock Tokens."

"Many took shortcuts to make 'tokenized stocks' that are synthetic and indisputably worse for the end investor than stocks," Otte wrote. "It's time for the industry to follow @DinariGlobal's lead and adopt the custodial model that protects investor rights."

Six minutes later he named both companies and set aside the securities-law question Aron had raised. "To be clear, it's not about legality, it's just that synthetic tokens like @RobinhoodApp stock tokens and @Ondo are just indisputably worse for the end investors than even common stocks," he wrote.

Hayden Adams, the founder of Uniswap, whose AMM is the largest DEX on Robinhood Chain and the venue where the memecoin pools have been pricing the stock tokens, answered at 6:08 p.m. ET. "They're not worse if you want programmability, or to trade at night/weekend/holidays, live outside the US, don't have a bank account, want to use them in DeFi apps/hold them in a crypto wallets," he wrote. "End of the day, tokenized stocks are pretty similar to early stablecoins - are they exactly the same as dollars? No. But they are meeting a user demand in a way that nothing else is."

Otte replied that the same demand could be met "without it being synthetic and being an inferior product with price dislocation."

Dinari amplified the version of the objection put by Anna Wroblewska, its chief business officer, the same morning: "The main problem here isn't tokenization. It's the marketing of a discretionary debt instrument, which functions essentially as an onchain CFD, as an investment in the US stock market."

Carlos Domingo, chief executive of Securitize, took Aron's side on Thursday night. "I would also not want people creating offshore derivatives of our stock that trade all over the place," he wrote. "This is why we tokenized our own stock natively and in the US, in a fully compliant way."

Linked Securities At The SECThe Corp Fin statement gives each model a different legal shape. Issuer-sponsored tokens are the security itself, with the issuer or its agent keeping the master securityholder file onchain. Third-party custodial tokens represent "the holder's indirect interest in the underlying security via the security entitlement." The third category, which the staff calls linked securities, covers a token "issued by the third party itself that provides synthetic exposure to a referenced security, but it is not an obligation of the issuer of the referenced security and confers no rights or benefits from the issuer of the referenced security."

Robinhood's own developer documentation describes stock tokens as "tokenised debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets (Jersey) Limited" that grant no "legal or beneficial rights in, or against the issuer of, those underlying securities." Dividends run through an onchain multiplier rather than a payment. Only one firm, BBVI, can create or redeem them.

Dinari's dShares are held with FINRA-member broker-dealer Alpaca Securities in segregated custodial accounts, pay cash dividends in stablecoins and can be burned for redemption at market value. Ondo and Broadridge added proxy voting to more than 250 Ondo tokenized stocks and ETFs in April, through Ondo Global Markets, which is not available in the US.

The staff also flagged the counterparty question the AMC episode raised: holders "may be exposed to risks with respect to the third party, such as bankruptcy, to which a holder of the underlying security would not necessarily be exposed."

Issuers In The RoomSecuritize runs five regulated affiliates: a broker-dealer that operates an SEC-regulated alternative trading system, an SEC-registered transfer agent, an exempt reporting adviser, a fund administrator and an EU investment firm authorized under the DLT Pilot Regime, according to the company. That stack is what lets it act as the record-keeper for a tokenized security rather than a counterparty to it, and it is how BlackRock's BUIDL and funds from Apollo, Hamilton Lane, KKR and VanEck came onchain. Securitize says it has tokenized more than $4 billion of assets.

The company took its own shares public on the NYSE as SECZ on July 2 after merging with Cantor Equity Partners II, and tokenized them on day one. SECZ is the largest single tokenized equity tracked by rwa.xyz.

Superstate runs the same idea for companies that are already listed. Its Opening Bell program appoints Superstate as a company's digital transfer agent and issues the company's registered shares directly onto Ethereum and Solana. "Tokenized shares are not derivatives, wrappers, or new share classes," the product page states; the tokens are recorded in the investor's name and carry the same economic and governance rights as the shares on the exchange.

Galaxy Digital and Forward Industries have shares onchain through it, and Forward Industries accounts for nearly all of Superstate's $46.4 million on rwa.xyz. Founder and Chief Executive Robert Leshner, who also founded Compound, called SharpLink the first public company to tokenize its shares on Ethereum through the program in September 2025.

Best Execution Versus SlippageBrian Huang, co-founder of onchain portfolio manager Glider and a former XTX Markets equities trader, argued on The Defiant's livestream Friday that the venue matters more than the wrapper. "AMMs do not guarantee best execution for consumers," he said. "In the US, we have protections around what's called the national best bid offer or best execution rules, where whether you're trading on Robinhood, Coinbase or any of the major apps or brokers in the US, you are guaranteed to get best execution. Now, that is not true via AMMs."

Huang called the rights objections false. "You do get the voting rights through particular issuers," he said. "Ondo has worked on this with Broadridge." He said Ondo's request-for-quote design, in which a market maker sources the share off-chain and the token is minted against it, is the structure the market will converge on, and that the dislocations end when 24/7 creation and redemption exists on both sides. "You will not see these dislocations a year from now."

He made the same case at RWA Summit on Wednesday, calling the arguments from Dinari, Securitize and the NYSE "propaganda." The Defiant reported his exchange with Adams over AMMs and correlated pairs on Aug. 18.

Programmable Demand, No SupplyBinji Pande, a founding member of Ethereum R&D lab Ethlabs, argued on the same stream that the blowouts are a supply problem rather than a design flaw. "We kind of figured out how to program demand before we figured out how to program supply, and you kind of need both," he said. He did not defend the price gaps, calling a six-dollar tokenized AMC print "bad market structure" and saying it was not good "for any market."

Pande's framing after tokenized AMC and Hims & Hers broke against their reference prices over the Aug. 29 weekend was that issuers have lost control over how their assets are used, the same way publishers lost control over how information traveled. A memecoin called BONER had by then cornered about half the tokenized Hims & Hers float. On Wednesday he predicted the pattern spreads to penny stocks.

Huang's objection to the memecoin pairings is mechanical. "When you put in a meme coin with the stock, they're not really correlated assets. You're exposing people to a lot of impermanent loss in those situations."

Transfer Agents Want A LineThe firms that keep shareholder records have asked the SEC to draw the distinction in rules. Continental Stock Transfer & Trust told the agency's crypto task force on July 21 that third-party tokens "do not establish a legal relationship between the token holder and the issuer" and can "confuse investors, impair issuer governance, create disclosure and market-integrity risks, and bypass the shareholder-record and corporate-action infrastructure." It asked the SEC to exclude them from regulatory relief absent safeguards. Computershare asked a week later for neutral treatment across all book-entry forms instead.

Ariel Givner, a corporate and intellectual property lawyer in fintech and the founder of Givner Law, posted the investor-side version of the argument on Friday morning, drawing 109,000 views. "You bought economic exposure from an offshore affiliate that slapped someone else's ticker on a derivative," she wrote. "That is NOT tokenization."

AMC has filed nothing with the SEC on the dispute. Robinhood's chief legal officer Dan Gallagher, an SEC commissioner from 2011 to 2015, told Aron to "send your lawyers and we'll educate them," as The Defiant reported on Friday.

ONDO traded at $0.3689, up 5.1% over 24 hours and 5.2% over seven days, according to CoinGecko.

Figures via rwa.xyz, DefiLlama and CoinGecko on Sept. 5.

Cover image via U.Today Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by our writers are their own and do not represent the views of U.Today. The financial and market information provided on U.Today is intended for informational purposes only. U.Today is not liable for any financial losses incurred while trading cryptocurrencies. Conduct your own research by contacting financial experts before making any investment decisions. We believe that all content is accurate as of the date of publication, but certain offers mentioned may no longer be available.

According to the RWA Foundation X account, Solana led RWA flows, pulling in $348 million in the last 30 days.

"Solana is leading the pack. It topped net flows for RWAs over the past 30 days, pulling in $348 million to the chain," the RWA Foundation X account wrote.

As seen on the rwa.xyz page, Solana led the 30-day change among major networks on the RWA League table (distributed), referring to RWA tokens using the blockchain as a distribution layer, enabling onchain investors to subscribe, hold, and manage assets directly through their own wallets or custodians. Solana recorded a 30-day increase of 11.13%, while Ethereum and Stellar rose by 0.77% and 5.22%, respectively. XRP Ledger and Avalanche declined by 5.51% and 14.06%, respectively.

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As reported, Solana's RWA value has crossed $4 billion, currently at $4.23 billion. RWA holders increased by 17.63% in the last 30 days to 398,644.

One of the defining industry trends over the past year has been the growth of RWAs, with Solana sustaining its momentum. The Solana blockchain hosts tokenized Treasury products, including Circle's USYC tokenized money market fund, BlackRock's BUIDL, VanEck's VBILL, and Franklin Templeton's BENJI.

Ondo Finance runs two Treasury-linked products on Solana: USDY is a tokenized note backed by short-term U.S. Treasuries and bank demand deposits, and OUSG provides exposure to short-term U.S. government bonds and is backed significantly by BlackRock's BUIDL fund.

Solana eyes most ambitious upgradeSolana is eyeing what could be its most ambitious core upgrade to date—one that replaces its current technology stack with a redesigned consensus protocol built for near-instant finality and responsiveness.

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Dubbed Alpenglow, the upgrade proposes replacing Proof of History—Solana's well-known unique "pre-recorded clock" system—and Tower BFT, its existing voting mechanism for reaching consensus.

In late August, Solana saw its first network-wide governance vote—a proposal to speed up cuts to new SOL issuance that scraped past the required two-thirds majority in the final minutes before the deadline.

BulkTrade, one of the more quietly hyped projects in Solana’s DeFi ecosystem, has officially gone live on mainnet. The perpetual futures exchange launched on September 5, bringing with it execution latency between 5 and 20 milliseconds, a figure that puts it in striking distance of the centralized exchanges it’s trying to replace.

The platform isn’t rolling out the red carpet for everyone, though. Access is gated behind referral codes and invites.

The numbers behind the launch BulkTrade didn’t arrive empty-handed. A pre-deposit campaign that kicked off on June 1, 2026, pulled in over $25.9 million in USDC TVL within just 10 days.

The financial foundation goes deeper than pre-deposits. BulkTrade closed an $8 million seed round back in September 2025, co-led by Robot Ventures and 6th Man Ventures. Wintermute Ventures also participated, which is notable given Wintermute’s role as one of the largest market makers in crypto.

On the tokenomics side, the BULK token hasn’t launched yet, but the allocation framework is already public. Thirty percent of the total supply is reserved for community distribution through airdrops, with eligibility tied to pre-deposit activity and trading behavior.

The platform also introduced what it calls BIP-1 on July 28, a framework that enables permissionless, deployer-owned perpetual markets.

Why speed matters in perps trading BulkTrade is betting it can deliver both speed and self-custody. The platform targets sub-40 millisecond finality while keeping user assets in self-custody on Solana. All perpetuals are settled in USDC, which simplifies the margin and settlement process compared to platforms that support multiple collateral types.

The exchange underwent a security audit by Zellic, a firm that has reviewed smart contracts for several major DeFi protocols.

Solana’s perps landscape gets more crowded BulkTrade enters a Solana perps market that already includes established players like Jupiter’s perps product and other on-chain derivatives protocols.

BulkTrade’s 30% airdrop allocation rewards early depositors and active traders. The dynamic margin functionality the platform offers adjusts margin requirements in real time, potentially improving capital efficiency for sophisticated traders, in contrast to traditional perps platforms that use static margin requirements.

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

THORSday Community Podcast #231 ft. codehans1, Devel484, CBarraford, KentonC137 & patriotsounds | September 3, 2026 | Watch the full episode on YouTube

By Raynalytics

TL;DRTHORChain completed a long-awaited churn, but the stability focus continues for another week before reassessment. Monero remains built and working on stagenet, with its mainnet launch still waiting. A Gaia pause interrupted the next churn during the show.Protocol-owned liquidity is active, with 20% of system income being routed toward POL. Denny showed almost $22,000 on day three, with deposits going into the TRON $USDT pool.Rujira's app layer has resumed with two contracts still disabled. Hans wants emergency halts followed by prompt contact with the affected team and a clear route to resolution.Devel argues base-layer limit orders could improve quotes and execution for all swappers. Chad and Hans question the complexity and priority; Rujira's oracle-based DCL offers another approach to keeping trading value inside the ecosystem.Chad is building better metrics and log access for AI-assisted maintenance. Kenton reported stronger AI discovery, while ADR30's delegated node permissions still needed more votes.1. Churn Returns, but Stability Still Sets the PaceTHORChain finally churned again, bringing relief after the extended disruption. Devel said the change in the active node set immediately improved average block times by about 300 milliseconds as troubled nodes left and healthy ones entered.

That progress does not end the stability-first period discussed last week. Chad's Thursday engineering call favored another week of focused fixes, followed by reassessment. Outstanding Solana issues were one reason to continue.

"I'm hesitant to say that we've completed our stability without achieving stability." (Chad)For Monero followers, the message was explicit: the integration is built, functioning and working on stagenet. The team has not abandoned it. Monero and Zcash remain behind the decision to resume adding chains, with no new launch date given.

During the show, a Gaia pause complicated the next churn. Chad said a security concern was being investigated; details were still emerging. It illustrated a dependency he wants to revisit: adding a chain currently requires a churn. As more chains and signing schemes make that process more complex, he wants to remove avoidable dependencies on it. That is a proposed direction, not a completed redesign.

2. POL Starts Building Pool Depth Every BlockProtocol-owned liquidity, or POL, supplied the week's other concrete milestone. The setting was 20% of system income, and Denny showed almost $22,000 accumulated on day three. Allocations happen every block; the current destination was the TRON $USDT pool.

The discussion described pool selection as being recalculated each churn cycle, directing new liquidity toward an eligible pool based on its activity. The purpose is to build depth that stays under protocol ownership. Raynalytics' POL Income dashboard tracks the allocations, deposits and pool priorities.

"Its only interest is to just supply more liquidity and more depth to the pools." (Chad)Denny explored whether this made THORChain resemble an ETF or an index fund. Chad drew a boundary around that analogy: holding $RUNE does not give someone a direct redeemable share of the POL portfolio. The intended benefit is indirect, through deeper pools, more useful trading capacity and the fees that activity can generate.

Kenton floated a possible future distribution to $TCY holders if POL became sufficiently large. Chad treated that as an option, not a commitment. Treasury rebalancing was also raised, including Oleg's suggested $500,000 move toward TRON stablecoin liquidity. No allocation decision was announced.

3. Rujira Resumes With Two Contracts Still PausedThere is a material update to Saturday's discussion of the app-layer pause: Rujira is running again. Hans said the bond contract and its trading pair remained disabled while the team double-checked the relevant query paths.

He said the non-determinism issue had been fixed in v3.20, with further checks intended to establish that nothing remained. The broader lesson concerns separation: complex financial logic can sit on the app layer, but the base-layer queries it calls must still behave deterministically and contract execution must be bounded.

Hans accepted that emergency controls need to be usable immediately. His proposed follow-through was to pull the lever when necessary, contact the relevant team, and establish a clear path to resolution.

"We weren't really sure what the correct process to get things reenabled was." (Hans)The group also discussed malicious use of pause powers. Chad described counter-votes and possible governance action against offending nodes; these were responses to a hypothetical attack, not an announced automatic penalty.

Hans explained one safeguard in Rujira's credit-account design: collateral can still be sent to a position's address when app-layer execution is paused, including supported secured assets. That can help protect a position during market moves, but it does not restore every action. App-layer-only positions cannot necessarily be sold while their contracts are halted.

4. BLO's Promise Meets the Cost of More ComplexityDevel's base-layer limit-order proposal, or BLO, produced the episode's longest debate. The disagreement centered on whether the execution benefits justify adding another trading mechanism alongside THORChain's AMM pools.

Chad evaluates a feature by implementation effort, risk and expected return. BLO would add code, maintenance obligations and operational questions about how two liquidity mechanisms interact. He remains open to it, but gives it a lower priority while stability work continues. Hans shared those concerns, drawing on years of building on-chain order books and the pitfalls of rounding, iteration limits and execution time.

Devel's case is that the initial users may be a small group of arbitrageurs, while the beneficiaries are everyone whose swaps reach the base layer.

"It improves the quote, it improves the result, it improves the speeds, it reduces refunding." (Devel)He said existing limit swaps have details that make them unattractive for arbitrageurs. BLO is designed around that workflow, with the aim of winning more quotes for ordinary users. Devel and the Maya Protocol team would likely provide much of the implementation, although core review and testing would still be necessary.

Oleg Petrov from SwapKit supplied a concrete example through chat: a user wanted a fast $20 million swap involving shallow pools. BLO could let market makers post liquidity and serve it in smaller chunks. Chad challenged the assumption that enough capital would be waiting there. Devel agreed that makers would need time to reallocate funds. The example shows the opportunity and the unresolved liquidity problem; it is not a claim that BLO already solves large swaps.

Hans also explained Dynamic Concentrated Liquidity, or DCL, which Rujira is developing. Instead of quoting only along a fixed curve, it uses the strategy's average entry price and THORChain's enshrined oracle price to adjust bids and asks. Its aim is to retain more trading profit and liquidity within the ecosystem.

Devel questioned whether external arbitrageurs would capture opportunities before the oracle-driven strategy reacts. Hans welcomed the resulting price competition. Neither DCL's profitability nor BLO's adoption was presented as proven. The designs could also interact: Hans said the app layer could use base-layer order functionality if it becomes available.

5. AI Maintenance Needs Better VisibilityHans and Chad agreed that agents can already use open blockchain interfaces. An agent can generate keys and broadcast transactions; a special agent-branded chain is not a prerequisite. A convenient cross-chain command-line wallet could help, but Hans noted that agents can also work with multiple existing tools.

Chad's immediate work is more operational. He wants protocol metrics pushed into Midgard, where statistical analysis can flag unusual values. An agent could then connect those anomalies to code and logs, investigate causes and potentially open a proposed fix.

The second piece is a THORNode API for querying logs over a block range. Together, these would give developers and agents more context without requiring every investigator to run a node. Devel said he already uses a restricted MCP server to give an agent log access, and had built monitoring that notified him when a churn succeeded.

There are limits. Data from one node may not explain why another node has a different app hash. Bifrost logs also remain a separate operator-controlled source. Chad discussed possible private, opt-in sharing later, while stressing that sensitive log contents require care. Broader visibility is work underway, not a deployed autonomous maintenance system.

6. Better AI Discovery, but a Weak August Fee-Test SampleKenton showed the swap site's score on Ora, reporting an improvement from 18/100 two months earlier to 89/100. He credited SEO work and the Unstoppable Wallet developers, and said he and Randy were now seeing daily API-key requests, including projects finding THORChain through AI search. Some requests were spam or individual inquiries, so this is evidence of visibility, not a count of signed integrations.

He is also replacing older “liquidity protocol” descriptions with “decentralized exchange” where possible, so search systems associate THORChain with a term people actually use.

"We have to stop inventing words that nobody uses." (Kenton)Distribution work continues through DeFi Llama: the first paid article has launched, with roughly monthly articles planned over the next year. Blockworks also announced its dashboard. Referral tracking links were still being finished.

On execution, Kenton reported fixes for THORChain Swap, including $USDT allowance handling and THORName address entry. He asked users to retest Bitcoin Taproot flows, including a reported Ledger issue, rather than treating every route as independently verified.

The dynamic-fee experiment had a less encouraging month. Chad reported roughly $187,000 of ShapeShift volume for THORChain in August, about 6.1% of the total. He considered the sample too small for a strong conclusion and wants to add higher-volume affiliates after the stability period, with Edge Wallet mentioned as a possibility. Better discovery and better routing economics still need to turn into sustained flow.

7. ADR30 and the Next Wave of Node OperatorsADR30 remained around 37% support during the recording. The Liquify proposal would let a node owner delegate selected tasks to other addresses without handing over the key controlling the bond. A team could separate routine operation from custody, making the setup more practical for professional infrastructure providers. The vote was still open; follow it on the governance tracker.

The standby queue was another sign of activity. Denny highlighted Runetard for helping bond providers become independent node operators and encouraged other multi-node operators to consider doing the same.

The group was cautious about accelerating churn merely to clear the backlog. Chad and Devel preferred gradual changes while reliability improves. Devel also highlighted the rule that the lowest-bonded node no longer has to leave unless the active set is at capacity, allowing smaller operators to remain when they perform well.

What to WatchNext Thursday's stability review: whether remaining issues are resolved enough to resume new-chain launches, including Monero and Zcash.POL deployment: how much income accumulates, where deposits land and how pool priorities change across churn cycles.Rujira's remaining pauses: completion of the contract checks and clearer communication around future emergency halts.BLO and DCL evidence: implementation review, testing, execution benefits and how much liquidity each design can attract.AI maintenance tooling: delivery of metrics and log access, with clear boundaries around operator-specific data.Conversion into flow: whether AI discovery, paid distribution and a broader dynamic-fee sample produce sustained activity.ADR30 and node growth: further votes, successful churns and independent operators entering the active set.More THORChain data, check out raynalytics.net

Follow Raynalytics for more Weekly Analytics and Podcast recaps.

BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust pulled in $117.4 million in a single trading session on September 4, 2026, as clients continued to channel capital into the world’s largest spot Bitcoin ETF.

The daily haul pushed total U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF inflows to $174.6 million that day, with Fidelity’s FBTC contributing the remaining $57.2 million. A day earlier, IBIT alone had absorbed $454 million, which puts the two-day combined figure well above half a billion dollars.

How IBIT actually works Worth clarifying: BlackRock is not buying Bitcoin for itself. The firm has been explicit that it only transacts in Bitcoin when clients instruct it to through the fund, acting as an intermediary rather than a principal investor.

Inflows and outflows correspond directly to creations and redemptions in the ETF structure, meaning every net inflow day represents actual Bitcoin being purchased on behalf of clients in the open market, handled in partnership with custodians like Coinbase Prime. That $117.4 million is not an accounting abstraction.

The bigger picture behind one day’s number Cumulative net inflows into IBIT have now exceeded $60 billion since the fund launched in January 2024, cementing its position as the dominant vehicle in the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF category by a considerable margin.

IBIT has led net inflows across the U.S. Bitcoin ETF landscape consistently throughout 2026. Fidelity’s FBTC has been the closest competitor, but the gap has remained wide.

The September 3 single-day figure of $454 million deserves attention on its own. Days with inflows of that magnitude were notable events in 2024 and early 2025. By mid-2026, they have become a recurring feature of the market rather than a headline anomaly.

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

The XRP Ledger just hit 8 million activated accounts for the first time. That sounds like a growth story. Look closer, though, and the picture gets more complicated.

Daily active addresses on the network fell roughly 61% in one June 2026 snapshot, dropping to around 7,800 on its worst days and sitting near 25,350 during mid-year readings. The total number of funded wallets keeps climbing, but the share of those wallets actually doing anything on a given day has shrunk considerably.

What’s filling the gap is the size of the transactions that remain. Average transaction value on XRPL reached somewhere between $85,000 and $86,700 in 2026, a figure that reportedly surpasses the per-transaction average of both Bitcoin and Ethereum. When fewer people are moving money but each transfer is worth roughly the price of a suburban home, that tells you something meaningful about who is still showing up.

A network in transition The ledger crossed 8 million activated accounts in July 2026, up from approximately 7.85 million in March. New account creation has continued, averaging around 2,300 fresh wallets per day since March, though the pace of additions has slowed from earlier peaks.

Transaction counts, meanwhile, paint an interesting contrast with the falling active-address numbers. Certain periods showed a 38% rise in total transactions alongside a 110% jump in transactions per ledger, even as overall payment volumes declined. More transactions, fewer active accounts, larger individual transfers: the ledger is doing more heavy lifting per session, not more sessions overall.

The clearest explanation sits in what those transactions are increasingly made of. RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, has been expanding its issuance on XRPL. Tokenized real-world assets are also proliferating on the network, with associated value running into the hundreds of millions and, in some readings, into the billions. Both categories skew toward institutional counterparties settling large positions rather than retail users making small payments.

What institutional gravity means for XRPL’s positioning The expansion of tokenized real-world assets on the ledger fits a broader market trend. Across multiple blockchains, asset managers and financial institutions have been piloting or deploying tokenized versions of treasuries, money market funds, and other instruments.

RLUSD’s growth on XRPL adds another institutional-grade layer. A regulated stablecoin anchored to the dollar and settling on a ledger purpose-built for high-value transfers is a more compelling argument for a bank treasury desk than for a retail crypto trader.

The retail cooling, though, deserves honest acknowledgment. Daily active addresses in the low thousands represent a significant contraction in grassroots network participation.

The regulatory backdrop matters here. Ripple’s multi-year legal dispute with the US Securities and Exchange Commission effectively resolved in the company’s favor on key points, removing one of the larger clouds over the token and the ledger. That outcome opened doors with regulated financial institutions that had been waiting on the sidelines, which likely contributed to the institutional activity uptick visible in 2026’s on-chain data.

For investors watching XRP as a proxy for network health, the metrics demand a framework update. Traditional crypto valuation heuristics lean on daily active addresses and transaction counts as signals of organic demand. XRPL’s 2026 data suggests those numbers need to be weighted against average transaction size and the composition of network activity. A ledger moving billions in tokenized assets through fewer, larger transactions can be healthier in economic terms than one generating thousands of tiny transfers from speculative retail flows.

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

U.S. spot Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds attracted a combined $1.20 billion during the trading week ending Sept. 4, with Bitcoin products accounting for more than 80% of the total.

Summary

Spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $986.7 million in weekly net inflows. Ethereum ETFs added $215.3 million, down sharply from the previous week. BlackRock’s Bitcoin funds attracted $691.5 million across the five sessions. The largest combined inflows arrived on Sept. 3 as crypto prices rebounded. Bitcoin ETF inflows approach $1 billion According to data from Farside Investors, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $986.7 million in net inflows between Aug. 31 and Sept. 4. The weekly intake increased about 6.7% from the $924.5 million added during the previous five trading sessions.

The funds opened the week with $216.7 million in net inflows on Aug. 31 before recording $236.5 million in withdrawals on Sept. 1. Demand returned over the following three sessions, producing inflows of $101.1 million, $730.8 million, and $174.6 million.

Sept. 3 accounted for roughly 74% of the entire weekly total. BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin products attracted $454 million that day, while ARK Invest and 21Shares’ ARKB added $137.7 million. Fidelity’s FBTC and Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust recorded $74.4 million and $48.8 million, respectively.

BlackRock’s products led the full week with about $691.5 million in net inflows. ARKB followed with $137.7 million, while Fidelity’s fund added $94.8 million.

Bitwise’s BITB received $41.7 million during the period. VanEck’s HODL posted approximately $33 million in net withdrawals, while Grayscale’s converted GBTC fund recorded a modest $18.6 million inflow.

The five-day result brought cumulative net inflows across the U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF market to approximately $55.69 billion, according to Farside’s data.

Ethereum ETF demand slows from the previous week U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded $215.3 million in net inflows over the same period, Farside data showed. Although the funds remained net positive, weekly inflows fell by around 73.6% from $815.7 million during the previous week.

Ethereum products started the period with an $87.6 million inflow on Aug. 31 and added another $8.6 million on Sept. 1. The group then recorded $48.2 million in net outflows on Sept. 2 before attracting $141.4 million on Sept. 3 and $25.9 million on Sept. 4.

BlackRock’s ETHA brought in $136.4 million during the week, while its staked Ethereum product ETHB added $81.8 million. The two BlackRock funds therefore received a combined $218.2 million, slightly more than the category’s total net inflow after withdrawals from competing products were included.

Fidelity’s FETH ended the week with only $4.7 million in net inflows. The fund attracted $65.1 million on Sept. 3 but lost $48.3 million the following session.

Grayscale’s higher-fee ETHE recorded $37 million in weekly net outflows. Grayscale’s lower-cost Ethereum Mini Trust partly offset those withdrawals with $17.1 million in inflows.

Cumulative net inflows into U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs reached approximately $13.19 billion by the end of the week.

Crypto ETF inflows diverge from wider U.S. funds The $1.20 billion combined inflow into Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs came during a cautious period for conventional U.S. investment funds.

Investors withdrew $11.12 billion from U.S. equity funds during the week ending Sept. 2, according to LSEG Lipper data reported by Reuters. Large-cap funds accounted for $7.52 billion of those withdrawals, while money market funds attracted $48.76 billion.

Reuters tied the broader caution to rising bond yields, higher oil prices and tensions in the Middle East. Those factors weighed on risk assets earlier in the week, but sentiment improved on Sept. 3 after Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said he could support keeping interest rates unchanged if inflation continued to ease.

The shift coincided with the largest daily crypto ETF inflows of the week. Bitcoin and Ethereum funds collectively attracted about $872.2 million on Sept. 3, while Bitcoin climbed above $81,000 and Ethereum moved back toward $2,500.

The subsequent reversal showed that ETF inflows did not remove short-term macro risks. Bitcoin was trading near $79,664 at the time of writing, down about 1.8% over the latest session, while Ethereum traded around $2,458 after a 2.8% decline.

U.S. data keeps rate expectations in focus The next test for ETF demand could come from changing expectations for U.S. interest rates. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that nonfarm payrolls increased by 162,000 in August, while the unemployment rate remained at 4.1%.

The stronger labor data reduced some of the optimism created by Waller’s comments because a resilient economy could give the Federal Reserve more room to keep borrowing costs elevated.

Investors will now focus on the Sept. 11 U.S. consumer price index report and the Federal Reserve’s Sept. 16 policy decision. Further evidence of persistent inflation could pressure crypto prices and ETF demand, while softer inflation would support the case for stable or lower interest rates.

Despite those risks, the weekly figures showed that U.S. investors remained net buyers of both major crypto ETF categories. Bitcoin products maintained their momentum from the previous week, while Ethereum funds stayed positive even as their weekly intake slowed.

The Solana network and its ecosystem underwent two significant changes within one week. Validators first approved a plan to reduce future SOL issuance by 18.9 million.

AMBCrypto previously reported on the disinflation proposal. Now, Solana’s rent system is also changing, potentially unlocking millions of SOL held inside existing accounts.

How does Solana’s rent reduction work? On September 3rd, Solana activated rent reduction. With the activation, the network will reduce storage bins for onchain accounts by approximately 90%. 

According to Solana Floor, the first stage lowers the Lamports-per-byte requirement from 6,960 to 6,333, through five feature gates. This will mark a 9% drop. 

The already existing accounts will keep their lamports, so each activated reduction will leave them above the new minimum.  The excess funds could be withdrawn without closing the account. 

How much could be surplus funds? Solana activated its rent reduction on the 3rd of September. The complete rollout will reduce storage costs for on-chain accounts by approximately 90%.

According to Solana Floor, the first stage reduced the Lamports-per-byte requirement from 6,960 to 6,333. This represented a 9% reduction across five feature gates.

Existing accounts will retain their Lamports, leaving them above the newly reduced minimum.

Consequently, account holders could withdraw the surplus without closing their accounts. That shift could turn previously locked storage capital into spendable SOL.

Over 1.16 billion token accounts held a combined 3.425 million SOL in rent balances.

After SIMD-0437’s five-stage rollout, approximately 3.08 million SOL could become reclaimable. Those tokens were worth roughly $307 million.

Solana Floor described the potential release as an “airdrop” worth around $319 million.

However, the rent reduction will not distribute an automatic refund. Eligible token programs must withdraw the surplus before holders can spend it.

Therefore, the change resembles capital recovery rather than a conventional airdrop. It also creates an unusual supply tension. Solana is reducing future issuance while simultaneously making previously restricted SOL liquid.

Did Solana’s price react? SOL rebounded from $99 and reached a local high of $105. At press time, Solana [SOL] traded around $104 after gaining 4.01% on the daily chart.

The recovery also forced bearish traders from the market.

Source: CoinGlass Short Liquidations exceeded $12.2 million, compared with only $2 million in Long Liquidations.

Short squeezes can support further gains as traders cover positions and potentially switch toward longs. However, those Liquidations reflected forced buying rather than guaranteed organic demand.

Can SOL hold the $100 support? Despite SOL’s rebound, Spot Netflow showed that some holders continued realizing profits. The metric remained positive for three consecutive days.

On the 3rd of September, Spot Netflow reached $39.6 million before falling to $4.9 million.

Source: CoinGlass Positive Spot Netflow indicated that more SOL entered exchanges, increasing potential selling pressure.

Continued profit-taking could weaken the $100 support. By contrast, easing Exchange Inflows may allow SOL to revisit $110 and extend its recovery. The next debate extends beyond price: will reclaimed rent strengthen participation or simply create another source of sellable SOL?

Final Summary Solana began reducing account storage costs on the 3rd of September. The full rent reduction could make approximately 3.08 million SOL reclaimable.

LayerZero Labs is sunsetting Stargate V1, the cross-chain bridging protocol that helped define omnichain DeFi when it launched back in March 2022. The V1 liquidity pools will become inoperable after December 15, 2026, and liquidity providers who don’t withdraw before then risk losing access to their positions.

Zero-fee withdrawals are being enabled to smooth the transition.

What’s happening and why The deprecation stems from LayerZero’s decision to retire its V1 Relayer, the underlying messaging infrastructure that Stargate V1 depends on. Without a functioning relayer, the pools simply can’t operate.

This move is part of a broader 2026 initiative by LayerZero to phase out support for low-activity chains and consolidate resources around its newer technology stack.

Approximately two weeks before the December 15 deadline, V1 messaging will be temporarily paused. Pools will then reopen solely for the purpose of allowing withdrawals. That pause window gives the team time to configure the zero-fee exit mechanism so LPs can pull their funds without getting dinged on the way out.

This deprecation applies exclusively to V1. Stargate V2 and Hydra, LayerZero’s newer protocols, will continue operating as normal.

A brief history of Stargate V1 Stargate V1 holds a notable place in cross-chain infrastructure history. It was the first application ever built on the LayerZero messaging protocol, launching in March 2022. Its unified liquidity pools allowed assets to be transferred across multiple chains without the fragmentation that plagued earlier bridging solutions. The Delta algorithm, Stargate’s proprietary rebalancing mechanism, helped maintain pool health across different networks.

The protocol changed hands in August 2025, when the LayerZero Foundation formally acquired Stargate. As part of that transition, the native token shifted from STG to ZRO at a conversion rate of 1 STG to 0.08634 ZRO.

What LPs need to do If you have liquidity sitting in any Stargate V1 pool, withdraw it before December 15, 2026. The zero-fee withdrawal mechanism removes the usual cost barrier, so there’s no financial penalty for exiting.

LayerZero has recommended that users migrate their positions to more liquid chains like Ethereum, Arbitrum, and BSC when withdrawing.

Market implications and what to watch The impact of this deprecation is likely to be concentrated rather than systemic. The users most affected are long-tail LPs who parked capital in V1 and haven’t actively managed their positions.

The real risk here isn’t market-wide contagion. It’s individual users who miss the deadline. LayerZero is doing what it can with the zero-fee structure and extended timeline, but the responsibility ultimately falls on each LP to act before December 15.

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

Strategy Inc. is sitting on roughly $52.5 billion in net Bitcoin reserves after subtracting what it owes to preferred shareholders and convertible debt holders.

The gross number is substantially larger. Strategy holds approximately 845,050 BTC valued at around $74 billion, which represents about 4.02% of Bitcoin’s entire circulating supply. But after accounting for roughly $14.8 to $15.5 billion in preferred stock obligations and $6.7 to $6.8 billion in out-of-the-money convertible debt, the net figure lands at $52.5 billion.

A new way of counting The shift in reporting methodology traces back to July 2026, when Strategy introduced a revised metrics framework that prioritizes net exposure for common shareholders. Previously, the company simply trumpeted its total Bitcoin stack. Now it’s voluntarily showing its work, deducting the claims that sit above common equity in the capital structure.

Executive Chairman Michael Saylor has been the loudest champion of this approach. The framework is designed to give shareholders a clearer picture of what actually belongs to them after everyone else in line gets paid first.

The company has also introduced a market net asset value metric, referred to as mNAV, which has consistently registered above the 1.0x threshold since the revised framework went into effect. Strategy has permanently anchored its equity issuance threshold at that level, meaning it won’t dilute shareholders by selling stock below the net asset value of its Bitcoin holdings.

Cash reserves and strategic positioning Beyond the Bitcoin pile, Strategy’s liquidity position is substantial. The company reports a USD reserve of $5.1 billion alongside an additional cash pool of approximately $1.6 billion. Combined, that’s enough to cover preferred dividends and interest obligations for several years without touching the Bitcoin stash.

During recent weeks, the company has refrained from purchasing or selling any Bitcoin. Instead, it has raised capital through MSTR share sales and conducted limited preferred stock buybacks. The decision to pause Bitcoin acquisitions while repurchasing preferred stock serves a dual purpose: it reduces the senior claims sitting ahead of common shareholders while maintaining the existing Bitcoin position intact.

What the net reserve framework means for markets The distinction between $74 billion gross and $52.5 billion net is roughly $21.5 billion. It represents the total value of claims that would need to be satisfied before common shareholders see a penny in a theoretical liquidation scenario.

For investors evaluating MSTR stock, the mNAV metric hovering above 1.0x suggests the market is assigning at least full value to Strategy’s net Bitcoin position.

The approximately $6.7 billion in convertible debt is described as out-of-the-money, meaning the conversion prices sit above where MSTR shares currently trade. If those converts were to swing into the money, the dilution math would change, potentially shifting the net reserve calculation in ways that affect common shareholder value.

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

The XRP Ledger's agentic payment layer has crossed a fresh milestone, with @t54ai's x402 hub recording 3,807,228 transactions to date, a 274% increase from earlier counts. Total value settled stands at 5,726 XRP and 3,626 RLUSD, @Ripple's dollar stablecoin.

How x402 Agent Payments Work

The hub acts as the central directory and facilitator for these machine-to-machine payments, currently listing 1,711 live services from 148 registered merchants.

Heurist Leads the Merchant Table @heurist_ai's Heurist Inference Router sits well clear of the rest of the top five merchants on the hub.

Other active merchants in the directory include LucyOS, ClawBank, and AskSurf, which together round out the top five by transaction volume.

The rapid growth in transaction counts signals a maturing agentic economy on the XRP Ledger, even as the broader market watches for signs that volume can translate into meaningful settlement value at scale.

Sources:
XRP Ledger: Agentic Payments with X402
CoinMarketCap: Ripple Launches AI Agent Payments with XRP and RLUSD
Crypto Economy: AI Agents Fuel XRP Transactions, RippleX Maps Path Toward 100M

Fireblocks published an optimized EVM implementation of an ML-DSA-44 signature verifier, a post-quantum cryptographic scheme compliant with NIST’s FIPS 204 standard. The headline number: verification now costs 1.23 million gas, down from the previous state-of-the-art benchmark of 8.09 million gas set by ZKNox’s ETHDILITHIUM project. That is a 6.6x reduction, achieved without any changes to the Ethereum protocol itself.

What actually changed under the hood ML-DSA-44, formerly known as CRYSTALS-Dilithium, is a lattice-based signature scheme selected by NIST as a post-quantum standard.

Fireblocks targeted the specific bottlenecks. The largest single gain came from optimizing SHAKE-256 hashing, a core component of the ML-DSA scheme, cutting its gas contribution from roughly 3 million down to approximately 400,000. Additional improvements came from more efficient number theoretic transform (NTT) computations and smarter memory expansion techniques within the EVM.

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For comparison, EIP-7885, a pending Ethereum improvement proposal that would add a dedicated NTT precompile to the protocol, was projected to bring ETHDILITHIUM’s cost down to around 5.73 million gas. Fireblocks reached 1.23 million without any precompile support, working entirely within the existing EVM instruction set.

An AI team did most of the heavy lifting Fireblocks used an autonomous AI-driven research team of 144 agents operating over nine days. Total cost: approximately $7,500.

The AI agents conducted formal verification as well as performance tuning, producing over 320 verification tests and 62 machine-checked arithmetic properties validated in Z3, a formal verification tool from Microsoft Research.

Where this fits in Ethereum’s quantum roadmap Ethereum’s longer-term roadmap already anticipates the need to replace its native signature scheme. The plan involves account abstraction, specifically moving toward a model where smart contracts, rather than the protocol itself, handle signature verification. This architecture, sometimes called de-enshrining native signatures, means any NIST-approved post-quantum scheme can be deployed as a contract verifier without requiring a hard fork to change Ethereum’s consensus rules.

Earlier in 2026, other research efforts focused on SPHINCS+-derived schemes, a hash-based post-quantum approach that achieved costs around 127,000 gas. Hash-based schemes come with significant drawbacks including large signature sizes and statefulness requirements that make them awkward for general wallet use. The lattice-based ML-DSA approach Fireblocks optimized is the NIST primary recommendation for general-purpose digital signatures.

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

Table of contents

APX Lending, Canada’s first regulated digital-asset-backed lender, launched a five-year revolving line of credit on September 3 that lets clients borrow against Bitcoin, Ethereum, or both, according to the company’s announcement. The facility carries no origination, prepayment, or liquidation fees and includes up to $250 million in collateral insurance coverage.

How the Line of Credit Works Unlike APX’s fixed-term loans, which are collateralized by either BTC or ETH, the new facility can use both assets together to calculate borrowing capacity. A client holding $200,000 of Bitcoin and $100,000 of Ethereum can apply the combined $300,000 toward a single credit line; at 60% loan-to-value, that supports up to $180,000 of borrowing capacity. Annual rates range from 10.49% to 11.99% depending on the outstanding balance, and interest accrues only on the amount drawn, so borrowers pay nothing on unused capacity.

The revolving structure lets clients establish the facility once, then draw, repay, and redraw as their needs change rather than starting a new loan each time. Available credit adjusts dynamically with the market value of the collateral, rising or falling as the pledged Bitcoin and Ethereum appreciate or depreciate.

A Regulated Lending Framework APX was the first digital-asset-backed lender approved by Canadian securities regulators and is registered with both FINTRAC and FinCEN. Founded in 2023 and based in Toronto, the company now spans fixed-term lending, revolving credit, and a Lending-as-a-Service platform that lets banks and fintechs offer APX-powered products to their own clients. “A revolving line of credit is something our clients have asked us for repeatedly,” said founder and chief executive Andrei Poliakov. “You may need money for a purchase today, an investment three months from now and a business expense later in the year. You shouldn’t have to start a new loan every time.”

Crypto-Backed Credit Broadens The launch extends a widening market for crypto-backed borrowing. Ledn recently projected that the Bitcoin-backed loan market could reach $1 trillion over the next decade, while banks have begun accepting digital assets as collateral, with Sberbank planning to lend against Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. APX’s move signals that regulated lenders are graduating from single-transaction loans toward products that mirror traditional banking lines of credit, even as borrowing capacity stays tied to the market value of the pledged crypto.

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A planned dollar stablecoin backed by 21 global financial institutions will begin with regulatory resources, corporate relationships, and international payment connections. Four industry executives told crypto.news, however, that institutional backing will not guarantee adoption unless the token can match the liquidity, accessibility and portability already offered by USDT and USDC.

Summary

The 21-member consortium plans to launch its dollar stablecoin during the first half of 2027. Experts said established banking relationships could help the token gain early institutional distribution. Interoperability, wallet support, and reliable redemption will determine whether it circulates beyond member banks. The consortium must identify who carries legal responsibility for reserves, redemptions, and transaction failures. USDT and USDC could lose market share even as bank-issued tokens expand the overall stablecoin market. The consortium committed to forming a new stablecoin company during the second half of 2026, subject to closing conditions. Its members include Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, UBS, and other financial institutions across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

The unnamed venture intends to launch a US dollar-denominated stablecoin during the first half of 2027. It may later introduce stablecoins tied to other G7 currencies, with a euro-denominated token listed as its first expansion priority.

The consortium has not disclosed the token’s name, supported blockchains, reserve custodian, governance model, or redemption process. Those details could determine whether the product becomes a widely used payment instrument or remains primarily a settlement token within the institutions’ existing networks.

21-bank stablecoin starts with a distribution advantage Utkarsh Ahuja, founder and managing partner at Moon Pursuit Capital, told crypto.news that the consortium starts with relationships that normally take new financial products years to develop.

The participating institutions already serve corporate treasury departments, process international payments, and operate compliance systems across several jurisdictions. According to Ahuja, those connections could make it easier to introduce the stablecoin into existing corporate workflows, particularly for cross-border settlement.

“The banks start with something that normally takes a financial product years to build: distribution into the companies that actually move very large amounts of money.”

Ahuja cautioned that established relationships do not provide the portability that USDT and USDC have built across exchanges, wallets, blockchains, and market makers. The consortium could bring corporate clients to the token, he said, but convincing those clients to use it outside the participating banks’ network will be more difficult.

Jerald David, CEO of Lynq Network, said the initiative has both offensive and defensive motives. It could open new blockchain payment revenue for the institutions while protecting payment activity and commercial balances from migrating to non-bank stablecoin issuers.

Stablecoin issuers can earn income from the assets held against circulating tokens, including short-term government debt. When deposits move from banks into stablecoins, part of the balance and its associated economics can move with them.

David said a shared token would allow the institutions to enter blockchain payments through a framework over which they retain greater control. However, he warned that scale alone would not make the proposed token more attractive than established alternatives.

USDT and USDC currently benefit from years of integration. A recent crypto.news analysis of stablecoin distribution placed the wider market at approximately $316 billion in mid-2026, with USDT accounting for about $187 billion and USDC representing roughly $75 billion.

Interoperability will decide whether the token circulates David described issuance as the easier part of the project. Businesses will also need reliable ways to move between the consortium’s stablecoin, existing stablecoins, tokenized deposits and conventional bank accounts.

“Interoperability will be more important than issuance,” David said.

“If capital can enter the token easily but cannot move out or across networks just as efficiently, the consortium risks creating another isolated pool of liquidity.”

Such interoperability would require dependable minting and redemption, custody arrangements, market makers, and settlement infrastructure connecting different forms of digital and conventional money. An institution receiving the new token must be able to redeem it for dollars or exchange it without facing long delays, high spreads, or limited trading depth.

Alvin Kan, chief operating officer of Bitget Wallet, told crypto.news that self-custodial wallets would examine the token’s entire user journey before supporting it. Relevant functions include holding, transferring, swapping, and spending the stablecoin.

Wallet providers would need audited smart contracts, transparent issuance and redemption processes, and consistent technical standards across every supported blockchain, according to Kan. They would also need to know whether tokens are issued natively on each network or transferred through bridges.

Kan said native mint-and-burn systems or coordinated cross-chain issuance would generally be preferable to wrapped assets because they could reduce bridge risks and prevent liquidity from being split among several representations of the same stablecoin.

Wallets could use intent-based routing and liquidity aggregation to shield users from some of that complexity. However, Kan said wallets cannot eliminate fragmentation without cooperation from issuers, banks, and liquidity providers.

“Ultimately, interoperability will matter more than how many bank tokens get issued. The winning infrastructure will make multiple tokens feel like one connected financial system.”

Gas abstraction could remove another obstacle. Users may be less willing to adopt a dollar stablecoin if they must first acquire a separate blockchain token to pay network fees whenever they transfer or spend it.

The same problem applies to identity verification. Kan said reusable credentials or privacy-preserving attestations could allow users to demonstrate that they have completed required checks without repeating the full process for every issuer. Different regulatory requirements would still apply across jurisdictions, meaning one universal identity credential is unlikely to resolve every compliance issue.

Bank backing does not guarantee stablecoin adoption Waseem Salim, CEO of Valdora, told crypto.news that an established issuer can provide initial trust, but utility determines whether people continue to hold and use a stablecoin.

Société Générale offers an example of the difference between institutional backing and circulation. Its digital asset subsidiary launched USD CoinVertible on Ethereum and Solana in 2025. Despite its connection to a major global bank, official SG-FORGE data showed approximately $12.55 million of the stablecoin in circulation as of Sept. 4.

“A strong name helps, but people won’t adopt a stablecoin just because there’s a bank behind it,” Salim said. “They need a reason to actually use and hold it.”

According to Salim, users will consider whether the token works with their existing wallets and preferred networks, whether sufficient liquidity is available, and how easily they can redeem it. They will also examine what they can do after acquiring it.

Possible advantages include cheaper cross-border settlement, direct integration with corporate bank accounts, and access to tokenized financial products. Those benefits would need to be substantial enough to compete with USDT and USDC integrations and the familiarity of conventional deposits.

Kan similarly described adoption as utility-driven. Institutional reputation could attract users who value regulated redemption and established banking relationships, but the token would need to work across payments, swaps, merchant transactions and local cash-out services.

The last step could prove decisive. A stablecoin may move between blockchains within seconds, but Kan said much of that advantage disappears if recipients face high costs when converting it into reais, rupees or pesos.

The World Bank’s latest remittance pricing data puts the average cost of sending money internationally at 6.36% of the transferred amount. Bank-backed stablecoins could compete in those corridors if they reduce the complete delivered cost, including foreign-exchange spreads, network fees, redemption charges and local payout expenses.

Domestic conditions will also affect adoption. Kan said stablecoins must offer more than fast local transfers in markets already served by systems such as India’s UPI, Brazil’s Pix and SEPA Instant in Europe. Their stronger use cases in those regions may involve international commerce, multi-currency access and digital-asset settlement.

Reserves, redemption and liability will test trust The consortium’s size creates another question: which entity will ultimately stand behind the token?

David said businesses should not have to determine which of the 21 participating institutions is responsible when a redemption fails. He called for one clearly identified legal issuer, segregated and independently verified reserves, and defined obligations for the issuer, participating institutions, and infrastructure providers.

“Shared distribution is an advantage. Shared liability is not,” David said.

The consortium has said it intends to comply with the US GENIUS Act and the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework where applicable. The GENIUS Act established requirements covering one-to-one reserves, disclosures, redemption, and permitted issuers, although US regulators were still completing implementation rules during 2026.

Kan said wallets would also require information about freezing powers, transfer restrictions, sanctions enforcement, and how compliance responsibilities are divided among the issuer, wallet, and fiat service providers. Such controls become more complex when tokens circulate across public blockchains and national borders.

Redemption risks could grow if the stablecoin becomes a gateway into tokenized investments. Salim warned that users must understand that yield does not appear merely because an asset is held onchain.

If returns come from business lending, government securities, or market strategies, platforms should identify the underlying source, asset manager, custodian, and counterparties. They should also explain how quickly the assets can be sold and what happens if a borrower defaults.

Salim said those arrangements differ from interest earned on a bank deposit because the legal relationship, custody model, liquidity, and protections may not be the same.

Platforms could also create a mismatch if users expect immediate stablecoin withdrawals while the underlying capital is invested in assets that trade during limited hours or take longer to sell. Salim said providers may need liquid reserves, staggered maturities, redemption windows, or withdrawal queues aligned with the underlying assets.

USDT and USDC may face competition as the market expands Ahuja expects a bank-issued dollar stablecoin to place more immediate pressure on USDC in institutional markets where Circle and major banks could compete for the same corporate balances.

If companies transfer balances into the new stablecoin, the reserves and income generated from those assets would move with them. However, Ahuja said USDT occupies a different position because much of its demand comes from markets where access to US banking services remains limited or inefficient.

The consortium’s Western banking relationships would not automatically replicate Tether’s reach in those regions. USDT is widely used on exchanges and in markets where people seek access to dollars outside conventional banking channels.

Competition may also enlarge the market rather than redistribute a fixed amount of stablecoin activity. Banks could bring corporate transactions onchain that currently do not use USDT, USDC, or any public blockchain.

Ahuja said Tether and Circle could therefore lose percentage share while their circulation and transaction volumes continue growing. He recommended examining the composition of stablecoin activity rather than relying solely on market-share figures.

The effects could extend beyond the issuers. A market containing bank stablecoins, tokenized deposits, USDT, USDC, and tokens tied to other currencies would increase demand for companies connecting those pools.

Ahuja identified liquidity providers, payment infrastructure, custody services, compliance tools, and blockchain networks as potential beneficiaries. Tokenized-asset platforms could also gain if regulated digital cash allows funds and securities to settle on the same infrastructure.

David said the consortium’s traction should ultimately be measured through active business users, recurring settlement, redemption performance during market stress, and acceptance outside the 21 participating institutions. Large transaction volumes alone could reflect a small group of members moving capital among themselves.

The consortium’s banking relationships could put its token in front of corporate users quickly. The four executives nevertheless agreed that liquidity, interoperability and external acceptance, not the number of institutions behind it, will determine whether the stablecoin becomes a genuine rival to USDT and USDC.

DefiLlama and Forgd have introduced an AAA-to-CCC rating system covering 128 of 149 listed tokens, with Uniswap currently holding the dashboard’s only AAA grade at a composite score of 60.80.

Summary

Universal Token Rating multiplies disclosure and performance scores instead of averaging them. Projects lose points for missing disclosures, weak liquidity arrangements and insider-friendly tokenomics. Submitted project information is checked against exchange, on-chain, and market-maker data. AAA signals strong current conditions but does not predict returns or eliminate investment risks. DefiLlama’s live Universal Token Rating dashboard places Uniswap first with disclosure and performance scores of 7.87 and 7.72, respectively. Meteora follows with an AA grade and a composite score of 58.48, while Curve DAO ranks third at 53.32.

Developed with token advisory platform Forgd, the system grades assets by combining what a project discloses with what trading data shows. Its disclosure assessment covers areas such as tokenomics, insider wallets and commercial arrangements, while the performance side examines liquidity, spreads, venue coverage and market-maker conduct.

DefiLlama Head of Research Ryan Celaj told crypto.news that both components are required because averaging them could allow strength in one area to conceal serious problems in another.

“We’re multiplying a project’s disclosure and performance scores deliberately, because they are both necessary conditions for credibility. And ‘necessary’ is the key word. It’s not that performance and disclosures both factor in. They’re required.”

Under the formula, a project with a disclosure score of 10 and a performance score of 2 receives a composite score of 20. Celaj said an average would give the same project a much less critical score despite its weak market performance.

DefiLlama token grades require strength on both axes The two scores range from zero to 10 and are multiplied to produce a result out of 100. AAA begins at 60, meaning a token cannot reach the top category if either component falls below six, even with a perfect score on the other axis.

AA starts at 40, with narrower bands separating A, BBB, BB, and B as weaknesses increase. Celaj said the thresholds make the highest grades difficult to obtain while creating distinctions among assets further down the table.

Although the letters resemble grades used in conventional finance, Celaj said they do not estimate default probabilities and should not be treated as equivalents to ratings issued by a traditional credit-rating agency. The format was selected because institutional traders already understand the AAA-to-CCC scale.

The approach also links stated policies to observable results. A project may publish detailed market-making terms or token-distribution plans, but the performance score tests whether liquidity, trading activity and wallet behavior match those claims.

Uniswap founder Hayden Adams drew attention to the results after UNI received the only AAA grade. Referring to the ranking in an Aug. 27 X post, Adams called it “the result of a neutral, unbiased ratings system” and referred to past criticism of Uniswap as “crypto Twitter psyops and fud.”

Market-maker conduct can lower a token’s grade Forgd founder and CEO Shane Molidor said private contracts do not prevent the platform from assessing whether a market-making arrangement has produced durable liquidity.

Forgd monitors more than 500 market-maker engagements through reports and application programming interface data, according to Molidor. Its system measures contributions to volume and depth, uptime, compliance with agreed targets, and each provider’s record across other mandates.

“We do not determine sustainability from the disclosed contract alone,” Molidor said. “Forgd already monitors market-maker performance through its platform, giving us access to market-maker reporting and API data for the over 500 engagements we track.”

According to the executive, Forgd compares first-party information with exchange and on-chain data, including spreads, two-sided depth, venue coverage, and organic trading activity. Analysts also examine how liquidity behaves during volatile periods, token unlocks, and the period after launch incentives end.

Such checks are designed to separate persistent liquidity from volume temporarily supported by token loans, options, or other incentives, Molidor said. A project does not have to publish every commercial term, but it must provide enough verifiable evidence for Forgd to understand the arrangement and the commitments being measured.

Acceptable evidence may include relevant contract provisions, amendments, token-loan terms, options, wallet identifiers, liquidity targets, uptime requirements, incentive structures, market-maker reports and API records. Forgd also offers its market-maker monitoring software free of charge, allowing a poorly rated project to submit more data for review.

Market quality has become an important issue as institutions increase their exposure to tokenized assets. On Aug. 27, Stellar’s RWA value was reported to have increased from about $785 million in January to more than $3 billion in July, yet slightly more than $2 million had entered Blend pools that accept RWAs. The figures showed a large difference between assets issued on-chain and the amount actively used in decentralized lending.

Project claims cannot directly determine the score Claiming a profile gives a token issuer an opportunity to submit evidence, but Molidor and Celaj said the process does not allow the issuer to assign or control its rating.

Missing information counts against the disclosure score. A project that supplies favorable details while withholding weak areas cannot obtain full disclosure credit, according to Molidor.

“The downside is that some ratings will appear artificially low until a project provides the necessary disclosures,” Molidor said. “But the upside is that for projects, there is no downside to being transparent, and no upside to selective disclosure.”

The performance score adds a separate check by using exchange records, on-chain events, and Forgd’s monitoring tools. Its inputs include depth, spreads, volume, exchange coverage, derivatives conditions, tokenomics, and adherence to market-making targets.

Exceptionally strong performance in one category is capped, Celaj said, preventing one metric from cancelling persistent weakness elsewhere. The methodology also excludes venues regarded as unreliable from relevant calculations.

Ratings update continuously rather than relying on a single audit. Material disclosures that remain outdated for more than 60 days receive a penalty, while verifiable events such as token unlocks and exchange listings enter the performance assessment automatically.

Even with those controls, both executives acknowledged limits. Molidor said the system cannot prove that an undisclosed commercial relationship does not exist. It can identify missing information, inconsistent claims, and activity that does not match a project’s account, but its grade cannot guarantee that every relationship has been found.

Celaj similarly said that no grading model can be considered impossible to manipulate. DefiLlama has made its methodology and category-level results available so users can trace grades and challenge disputed information, while the team plans to adjust the system if projects find ways to exploit it.

An AAA token grade does not predict returns Neither DefiLlama nor Forgd has gathered enough long-term evidence to claim that highly rated tokens suffer smaller drawdowns or fewer market failures.

Molidor said a high performance score necessarily corresponds with stronger measured depth, tighter spreads, and more extensive liquidity because the system uses those conditions as inputs. Price declines can still result from security breaches, governance failures, or market conditions that the rating does not assess.

“An AAA grade means that, at this point in time, a token demonstrates a strong combination of disclosure quality and observable market performance under the UTR methodology,” Molidor said.

“It does not mean the token is risk-free, that its price will appreciate, or that an institution can replace its own legal, technical and financial due diligence.”

A CCC grade identifies substantial problems in disclosure, performance, or both, according to Molidor. It does not establish that a project is fraudulent or certain to fail, but it points institutions toward areas requiring additional review.

Celaj described the rating as a screening and monitoring tool rather than an investment recommendation. In his view, the system creates a dataset that researchers can eventually use to test whether combining disclosures with market data produces a better predictive signal than assessing each category separately.

Institutional interest gives that test practical relevance, especially for tokens linked to real-world assets. On July 31, an article on Ondo Finance reported that tokenized securities exceeded $36 billion in 2026, including approximately $12.88 billion in tokenized U.S. Treasuries.

For American institutions, token grades may help organize preliminary market-structure reviews, but regulated tokenized products remain subject to separate custody, eligibility, and securities requirements. On Aug. 3, BlackRock launched two tokenized money-market products backed by cash, short-term U.S. Treasuries and Treasury-backed repurchase agreements, with transfers restricted to approved investors and compliant wallets.

UTR does not assess every risk attached to such assets. Celaj specifically said its methodology does not measure cybersecurity risk, which has caused some of crypto’s largest historical drawdowns.

Analysis

Solana's new Payment Channels benchmark crushes traditional payment rail throughput, yet the gap between protocol signaling and real commerce tells a different story.

The Million-Payment Benchmark On September 3, 2026, the Solana Foundation announced the launch of Payment Channels, accompanied by a headline-grabbing figure: 1 million payments per second. This benchmark, derived from a controlled test involving 100,000 unique wallets through a proxy, does not represent current mainnet throughput. While the capacity to handle 80 billion payments in 24 hours is technically impressive, the gap between a lab-controlled stress test and the messy reality of global commerce remains wide.

The Bar Tab Model The architecture functions like a digital bar tab. Instead of requiring an on-chain transaction for every individual interaction—which would be prohibitively expensive and slow—a user authorizes a spending limit once. The agent then spends against that limit off-chain via signed messages. The final net amount is settled in a single on-chain transaction. This non-custodial escrow model is a departure from custodial prepaid credits, where balances are tracked in a third-party database. By keeping funds in an on-chain program rather than with an operator, the system attempts to solve the friction of agent autonomy, where human intervention was previously required to approve payments one at a time.

Throughput in Context Visa reported a peak capacity of approximately 65,000 transactions per second (TPS) in Q2 2026, with an average of 8,400 TPS. Mastercard, during Q1 2026, operated at an average of 5,600 TPS with a peak capacity of 5,000 TPS. Solana’s benchmark suggests a theoretical ceiling far beyond these legacy systems, yet the utility of such throughput depends entirely on the nature of the transactions being processed. Moving billions of micro-payments is a different engineering challenge than settling high-value retail transactions.

Protocol Neutrality Solana is positioning itself as a neutral settlement layer by supporting both the x402 (pay-per-call) and MPP (session-based) protocols. The x402 protocol offers modes ranging from single metered calls with a ceiling to batch-settlement, while MPP sessions allow for streaming many metered deliveries that settle when the session idle-closes. With Alibaba Cloud serving as the first live partner with API endpoints available at launch, the infrastructure targets enterprise-scale agentic commerce. Whether this neutrality holds under real-world load or simply creates a fragmented landscape for developers remains an open question.

The Economic Reality The cost efficiency is notable, with a per-payment cost of $0.000000000776. However, the actual economic activity on these protocols requires scrutiny. While Solana has seen over 35 million cumulative x402 transactions and $10 million in volume, Artemis Analytics found that approximately half of these transactions are artificial, stemming from self-dealing and wash trading. Furthermore, CoinDesk reported that real daily x402 volume was near $28,000 as of March 2026. The Major Matters x402 tracker indicates that the average x402 transaction value sits in the sub-cent-to-dime range, typically under $0.50. This discrepancy between protocol signaling and actual commercial volume suggests that the ecosystem is still in a phase of infrastructure testing rather than widespread adoption.

The Settlement Race The race to capture agentic commerce settlement is heating up, but the absence of significant “Category 3” commerce—real-world, non-speculative agent-to-agent transactions—remains the primary hurdle. Payment channels remove three specific friction points: the need for constant authorization, the reliance on custodial databases, and the inefficiency of individual settlement. Yet, until the volume shifts from artificial testing to genuine commercial activity, the 1 million payments per second figure remains a proof of concept rather than a market reality. For builders and investors, the focus should remain on whether these channels can sustain real-world utility once the novelty of the benchmark fades.

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The Wyoming Stable Token Commission said on September 2 that it is adopting Chainlink Proof of Reserve to verify the reserves backing Frontier Token (FRNT), the state’s stable token, directly on-chain. In its announcement, the Commission framed the integration as a step toward a new U.S. standard for digital-asset transparency, making the state’s token one of the first government-issued stablecoins to publish on-chain proof of its own backing.

What Proof of Reserve Adds to FRNT Chainlink Proof of Reserve uses independent data feeds to check that a token’s off-chain assets match its on-chain supply, alerting holders when the collateral behind a coin falls short. For FRNT, that means the Commission can surface live evidence that the cash and U.S. Treasury assets intended to back the token are actually in place, rather than asking holders to rely on periodic attestations.

The Commission described the adoption as a transparency upgrade rather than a change to FRNT’s underlying design. The token is already integrated with Chainlink’s CCIP interoperability protocol for cross-chain movement, a step Wyoming announced in August.

Why a State-Backed Token Is Being Watched Closely Wyoming issued FRNT as the first state-authorized stable token in the United States, positioning it as a test case for how a government can issue money on a blockchain. Extending on-chain verification to its reserves is meant to give that pilot a stronger credibility argument as federal stablecoin legislation pushes issuers toward tighter reserve disclosure.

The Commission’s announcement frames the integration as a benchmark other issuers and states can follow, though it did not specify when the verification feed would go live or how often reserve data would be refreshed.

An Early Pilot With Broader Ambitions FRNT remains a small-scale pilot rather than a widely circulating currency, and its outstanding supply is still measured in a narrow range. That scale means the Proof of Reserve integration is more a signal of regulatory direction than a live test of market-scale reserve risk today.

Still, the pairing of a state regulator with a major oracle network shows how government-issued stablecoins might report their backing in the future. The open question is whether the on-chain verification Wyoming has adopted will satisfy federal regulators once broader stablecoin rules take effect.

AUTHOR

With over five years of experience in crypto, blockchain, and tech content, Ishtiyaq makes complex topics easy to understand. He simplifies blockchain and digital currency concepts for a wide audience, ensuring that beginners and experts alike can grasp key ideas. His clear and engaging writing helps readers stay informed about the latest trends, developments, and innovations in the crypto space. Whether explaining blockchain technology, digital assets, or DeFi, Ishtiyaq breaks down complicated ideas into simple, digestible content. His goal is to help people navigate the fast-changing world of cryptocurrency with confidence, clarity, and a deeper understanding.

Pendle has launched its first yield-trading market on Robinhood Chain, giving sNET holders access to fixed and variable yield positions until the market matures on Sept. 17, 2026.

Summary

Pendle has deployed on Robinhood Chain with sNET as its first supported market. The sNET market will let users separate and trade principal and future yield. Robinhood Chain launched on July 1 as an Ethereum Layer 2 built with Arbitrum technology. Pendle held about $1.23 billion in total value locked at the time of reporting. Pendle opens its first Robinhood Chain market Pendle said in a Sep. 4 announcement that its protocol is now live on Robinhood Chain, adding fixed-yield products and yield trading to the network’s decentralized finance ecosystem.

The deployment begins with one sNET market scheduled to mature on Sept. 17. Pendle did not identify the assets planned for subsequent markets or provide a timetable for adding them, saying only that more products would arrive as the ecosystem develops.

Pendle is live on Robinhood Chain by @RobinhoodCrypto.

Adding a native layer for fixed yield and yield trading to the chain’s DeFi economy.

First up is sNET (17 Sep 2026 maturity), with more markets to follow as we expand across the ecosystem! pic.twitter.com/VerEaWzQhK

— Pendle (@pendle_fi) September 4, 2026 Issued by NetNet Capital, sNET is the staked form of NET, a reserve-backed token native to Robinhood Chain. NetNet’s public materials describe the protocol as a reserve manager for NET, with a treasury containing assets that include the USDG stablecoin. Users who stake NET receive sNET and become eligible for distributions generated under the protocol’s staking model.

NetNet also uses bond sales to acquire assets for its treasury. Its model draws from reserve-backed token systems in which market participants exchange selected assets for discounted NET, while the protocol controls the deposited liquidity. NetNet has described USDG as one of the assets held in the treasury, although the value of NET and returns from sNET remain exposed to the protocol’s reserves, market structure and smart contracts.

Adding sNET to Pendle allows traders to separate the asset’s principal from the yield it may generate before Sept. 17. The structure turns a single yield-bearing position into components that users can trade according to their expectations for future returns.

How Pendle splits sNET principal and yield According to Pendle’s documentation, the protocol wraps supported yield-bearing assets through its Standardized Yield format before dividing a position into Principal Tokens and Yield Tokens.

A Principal Token, commonly shown as PT, represents the underlying principal that becomes redeemable when the market reaches maturity. PT can also trade before that date, allowing a buyer to purchase the future principal at the prevailing market price.

Yield Tokens, or YT, provide the right to yield generated by the underlying asset until maturity. Holders can claim accrued returns through Pendle’s interface, but YT stops earning once the market expires. Its remaining value, therefore, declines as maturity approaches unless changes in the underlying rate or incentives support demand.

For the sNET market, the Sept. 17 date establishes when PT becomes redeemable and YT stops collecting returns. Traders who buy PT can seek an implied fixed return by holding the position through maturity, while YT buyers take exposure to changes in sNET’s yield during the remaining term.

Pendle calculates the implied annual percentage yield from the relative prices of PT and YT. Although the platform describes the rate available through PT as a fixed APY, its terms state that the figure is an implied annualized return based on the purchase price and an assumption that the position remains open until maturity. It is not a contractual guarantee.

Buying YT can amplify exposure because a trader pays for the yield component rather than the full underlying asset. Pendle warns in its documentation that long-yield returns can be negative when the income collected before maturity falls below the amount paid for YT.

Liquidity providers face a different mix of returns. Pendle says its pools contain PT and Standardized Yield assets, with providers potentially receiving swap fees, underlying yield, an implied return from PT, and protocol incentives where available.

Robinhood Chain adds another DeFi protocol Robinhood opened the chain’s public mainnet on July 1 as a permissionless Ethereum Layer 2 built using Arbitrum technology. The network uses ETH for transaction fees, supports Ethereum-compatible wallets, and posts transaction data to Ethereum.

Its first group of infrastructure and trading partners included Uniswap, Pleiades, Alchemy, BitGo, and Chainlink. Robinhood said the network was designed for tokenized financial assets, lending, trading, and applications that can use real-world assets inside smart contracts.

Robinhood Crypto executive Johann Kerbrat said during the mainnet announcement that decentralized finance had offered functions unavailable in traditional markets but had historically required technical knowledge to use.

“We’re bringing the best of traditional finance and DeFi together, and in doing so, expanding financial ownership to every corner of the globe.”

Activity grew quickly after the launch. As crypto.news previously reported, Robinhood Chain processed about $945 million in decentralized exchange volume on Aug. 25, up from its former daily record of $563 million on July 8. Cumulative DEX volume exceeded $47 billion in less than two months, while total value locked reached roughly $1.4 billion by late August.

Uniswap has served as a major liquidity venue since the mainnet opened. In August, its stock-token volume passed $1 billion, covering combined swaps across several tokenized equities rather than deposits or activity from a single asset.

Robinhood Chain generated $4.01 million in application revenue from $4.45 million in fees on Sept. 2, according to a recent revenue report. The DeFiLlama snapshot placed it above Solana, Ethereum and Tron for the measured day, although much of the fee activity came from trading applications and memecoin platforms rather than tokenized stocks.

Robinhood has covered gas costs for eligible transactions completed through Robinhood Wallet during a 90-day promotion that began with the mainnet launch. The subsidy is scheduled to end around Sept. 29, while people using third-party wallets already pay network fees in ETH.

U.S. access depends on the product Robinhood describes its blockchain as permissionless, meaning users can connect with supported self-custody wallets without opening a Robinhood brokerage account. The company also states that activity on the network remains separate from investments and balances held through its brokerage and centralized crypto services.

Product restrictions still apply at the application and asset levels. Robinhood says its Stock Tokens are unavailable to U.S. residents even though they track companies listed on American exchanges, including Apple, Alphabet, and Nvidia.

Stock Tokens are debt securities issued by Robinhood Assets Jersey Limited and provide economic exposure to referenced securities. Robinhood’s disclosures state that token holders do not gain legal or beneficial ownership of the underlying shares, including shareholder voting rights.

Pendle’s announcement did not say whether its sNET market carries geographic restrictions or whether Robinhood Wallet will surface the product directly to American users. Access through the permissionless network does not establish that a particular interface or financial product is legally available in every jurisdiction.

Pendle expands its multichain presence Before the Robinhood Chain deployment, Pendle operated across networks including Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Base, Mantle, Optimism, HyperEVM, Monad and Plasma. Its earlier Plasma expansion introduced five markets tied to assets such as USDe, sUSDe, USDai, and syrupUSDT.

DefiLlama data showed approximately $1.23 billion locked across Pendle products at the time of reporting, with Ethereum accounting for more than half of the total. The data provider also recorded about $542 million in Pendle decentralized exchange volume during the previous 30 days.

PENDLE traded near $1.90 on Sept. 4, rising about 1.2% over 24 hours and 9.1% across seven days. Its market capitalization stood near $327 million, based on roughly 172 million tokens in circulation.

NetNet’s NET changed hands near $1,012 on the same day, according to CoinGecko, after trading between approximately $863 and $1,371 over 24 hours. The data provider placed its circulating market capitalization near $4.5 million and identified NET-USDG on Uniswap V4 as its most active trading pair.

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Flare, a renowned L1 blockchain network, has witnessed notable on-chain effects from its tokenomics overhaul. This comes after the FIP.16 proposal obtained 98.06% support from Flare’s governance participants. As per DefiLlama, the proposal decreased yearly $FLR inflation, enhanced transfer fees, and unveiled mechanisms to create a relatively strong link between the token supply mechanics and network activity. So, since the start of significant changes, a noteworthy jump has taken place in $FLR staking from almost 16B tokens to nearly 21.5B.

Flare FIP.16 Overall Bolsters $FLR Burns and Decreases Inflation The tokenomics overhaul of Flare is showing a considerable impact, especially after 98.06% governance support for the FIP.16 proposal. In the meantime, transfer-led burns have spiked to over 10 times in comparison with the pre-fork baseline. The changes present an early sign of whether the network can transform the economic framework from inflation-funded benefits toward revenue that genuine protocol usage generates. Particularly, FIP.16 was passed on the 24th of April, combining many key changes influencing $FLR issuance, staking weight, protocol revenue, token burns, and transfer fees.

The initial major adjustment occurred on the 14th of May, when yearly inflation was decreased from up to 5% to just 3%. At the same time, the annual issuance ceiling dropped from 5B to nearly 3B $FLR. Additionally, the robust inflation base also saw a reduction. Specifically, this calculation does not include permanently burned $FLR tokens, $FLR that the Flare Income Reinvestment Entity controls, and unearned rewards kept in diverse penalty pools. While these balances increase, the supply against which the up to 3% rate is reportedly applied gets smaller, likely decreasing additional issuance.

Another major change took place through the July 14 hard fork. With this, Flare introduced a 20-fold increase in the base transfer fee to bolster the automatic $FLR burn model of the network. Irrespective of the surge, a simple transaction costs just 0.064 $FLR, maintaining a relatively low base for the practical expense. Additionally, FIP.16 has altered the distribution of economic influence across the network.

Tokenomics Overhaul Drives $FLR Staking As a result, P-chain stake gets 5 times the C-chain delegation’s signing weight, leading to more influence for the $FLR tokens locked with validators. This development is set to support capital that is committed to ecosystem security when compared with liquid delegated tokens prone to being withdrawn relatively easily. The peak validator size surged from 200M to 300M $FLR, with the introduction of a minimum 20% delegation fee across the network.

According to DefiLlama, the effect of Flare’s economic overhaul includes the jump in staked $FLR tokens from 16B to 21.5B in July. Along with that, the staking share of delegated and staked $FLR tokens spiked from 32% to 46% between April and August. Additionally, FIRE is another crucial element of this overhaul, as the pool reduces the $FLR supply via open-market buyouts and burns. Overall, Flare’s FIP.16 denotes a crucial shift in the tokenomics, with increasing protocol revenue, rising burns, and growing staking paving the way for a relatively sustainable network.

AUTHOR

Crypto journalist with years of experience providing in-depth analysis and news on blockchain and decentralized finance. With a keen eye for detail, Shahzaib delivers insightful articles that explore the latest trends, market movements, and innovations within the crypto and blockchain ecosystem. His work focuses on educating readers while offering expert commentary on the evolving landscape of digital assets, DeFi protocols, and the broader impact of blockchain technology.

Aurora Innovation has signed a commercial agreement with McLane Company, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary, to launch fully driverless trucking operations on the Dallas-Houston corridor in Texas. The deal, announced on May 6, 2026, transitions what was previously a supervised pilot program into unsupervised commercial hauling, a distinction that matters enormously in the autonomous vehicle world.

The pilot phase wasn’t exactly a warm-up lap. Aurora logged over 280,000 autonomous miles and completed 1,400 loads for McLane, all with a 100% on-time delivery rate.

How the partnership actually works The operational model is a hybrid approach that splits the work between machine and human. Aurora’s self-driving technology handles the long-haul interstate segments between Dallas and Houston, roughly 240 miles of highway driving. McLane’s own drivers then take over for last-mile deliveries, navigating the trickier urban streets and loading docks that still challenge autonomous systems.

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McLane operates one of the largest distribution networks in the US, serving convenience stores, restaurants, and mass merchants.

Aurora’s growth targets and revenue outlook Aurora isn’t treating this as a one-route curiosity. The company has laid out aggressive expansion plans, targeting additional routes across US Sun Belt distribution-center corridors by the end of 2026.

On the fleet side, Aurora aims to have over 200 driverless trucks in operation by year-end 2026.

The financial projections reflect that ambition. Aurora has guided for $14 to $16 million in revenue for 2026, with an annual run-rate potential reaching $80 million once operations hit full scale.

Looking further out, Aurora is preparing to launch a Driver-as-a-Service model in 2027. Rather than selling trucks or software licenses outright, DaaS would essentially let logistics companies pay per mile or per load for autonomous capability.

What this means for the autonomous trucking race For investors in Aurora, which trades under the ticker AUR, the McLane deal offers commercial traction with a credible counterparty. The 100% on-time delivery rate across 1,400 loads is the kind of operational data that procurement teams at other major shippers will scrutinize when deciding whether to sign their own contracts.

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

@Ripple has entered a long-term partnership with @FloridaGators, making $XRP the official crypto brand of one of college sport's most recognisable athletic programmes. The deal marks a significant step in bringing digital asset branding into mainstream American sports.

$XRP Branding at Ben Hill Griffin StadiumUnder the agreement, the $XRP logo will appear on the field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium throughout the entire 2026 football season. The placement is one of the most prominent in college sports, putting the $XRP brand in front of tens of thousands of fans at every home game and a much wider television audience.

The scope of the deal extends well beyond a single venue or season. Ripple's partnership covers digital and event branding across all 21 Florida Gators sports programmes, giving $XRP consistent visibility across a broad range of athletic events and the millions of fans who follow them worldwide.

Education and Community OutreachRipple is also using the partnership to push beyond logo placement. The company is launching dedicated educational initiatives aimed at 500 student-athletes and the wider University of Florida community. The programmes are designed to introduce students to digital assets and blockchain technology, positioning $XRP and Ripple as more than a sponsor and as a platform with real-world financial relevance.

The move reflects a broader strategy from Ripple to embed $XRP into mainstream culture through sports. College athletics offers direct access to a large and engaged fan base, and a deal of this size, spanning 21 teams and one of the country's most storied football venues, signals a serious long-term commitment to that approach.

For Florida Gators Athletics, the partnership brings both commercial value and a connection to the growing world of digital finance, at a time when sports organisations across the country are exploring new revenue streams and sponsor categories.

Sources:
Florida Gators Official Website