Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Chainlink has wired itself into the plumbing of global finance, with SWIFT, JPMorgan, UBS, and DTCC building on its infrastructure. Its token trades around $7, roughly 86% below its all-time high. The gap between the adoption and the price is the whole story, and it is the same story as XRP.

Summary

Chainlink has embedded itself in traditional finance, with SWIFT, JPMorgan, UBS, DTCC, and others building on its cross-chain infrastructure, yet LINK trades near $7, about 86% below its 2021 high. The disconnect mirrors XRP almost exactly: the network’s adoption is real and growing, but the token captures the value only indirectly and slowly. Chainlink secures more value than any other oracle network and its cross-chain protocol processes billions of dollars a month, but the fees actually reaching LINK holders are tiny next to the headline adoption. A new strategic reserve converts protocol revenue into LINK and staking locks up supply, but neither yet offsets weak token-level demand and a soft market for high-risk altcoins. The gap closes only if bank usage scales into real, recurring fee demand for LINK, and the clearest test is whether SWIFT’s integration moves from pre-production into live settlement volume. Chainlink may be the most widely adopted piece of infrastructure in all of crypto, and its token trades like an afterthought.

Over the past two years the network has wired itself into the core of traditional finance, with SWIFT, the messaging backbone that connects roughly 11,000 banks and moves on the order of $150 trillion a year, moving from pilot to pre-production on Chainlink’s cross-chain technology.

JPMorgan, UBS, ANZ, Fidelity International, SBI, DTCC, Euroclear, and Mastercard have also built around its infrastructure, while the value secured across its oracle network has climbed past $90 billion, many times that of any competitor.

By the measure of institutional adoption that crypto has chased for a decade, Chainlink has arguably won. And yet LINK, its token, trades around $7, roughly 86% below the all-time high near $53 it reached back in 2021.

The fundamentals keep setting records and the price keeps disappointing. That gap, between a network embedding itself in global finance and a token that acts like none of it is happening, is the entire story.

Anyone who followed XRP through 2026 will recognize it immediately, because it is the same adoption-versus-token gap.

This piece works through why Chainlink’s extraordinary adoption has not lifted its token. It covers what Chainlink actually does and why banks cannot easily avoid it, what SWIFT and the institutions signed up for, the central problem of how value is supposed to reach the token at all, the mechanisms Chainlink has built to try to close that gap, why the market still refuses to pay up, and what would finally have to change for the price to follow the adoption.

The aim is not to talk LINK up or down, but to explain one of the most striking disconnects in the market: how a project can win the institutional race it set out to win and watch its token languish anyway.

The most important company in crypto you do not trade Start with what Chainlink does, because its importance is easy to miss precisely because it is infrastructure.

Blockchains have a built-in blindness: they cannot, on their own, see anything that happens outside their own network. A smart contract on a blockchain has no native way to know the price of a stock, the result of a shipment, the value of a currency, or whether a payment cleared in a bank account.

This is called the oracle problem, and it is a hard limit on what blockchains can do, because a contract that cannot react to real-world information is a contract that can only move tokens around inside its own walls.

Chainlink exists to solve exactly this. It is a decentralized network that feeds outside data onto blockchains and connects them to one another and to traditional systems, acting as the secure bridge between the on-chain world and everything else.

Without something like Chainlink, the entire edifice of decentralized finance, and the much larger project of tokenizing real-world assets, simply does not function.

That is why what oracles feed data to matters. Smart contracts are only as useful as the data and systems they can reliably touch.

Because that role is foundational, Chainlink has become close to unavoidable for anyone serious about putting financial activity on a blockchain.

Its price feeds underpin major lending and trading protocols across decentralized finance. Its cross-chain protocol has been adopted by large exchanges and protocols as a bridging standard.

Critically, its institutional push has landed the names that matter most. The roster of traditional-finance firms building on Chainlink reads like a directory of the global banking system, and the total value its oracle network secures runs into the tens of billions, many times that of the nearest competitor.

By the standard crypto has always used to define success, real institutions using the technology for real financial activity, Chainlink is at or near the top of the entire industry.

It is, in a sense, the most important company in crypto that most people never think to trade, because its product is the invisible plumbing rather than the visible coin.

And a token that trades like the adoption is not happening Now place that adoption next to the chart, and the contrast is jarring.

LINK trades around $7, down roughly 86% from its 2021 peak near $53, and it spent the most recent stretch sliding rather than rising, sitting below the technical levels that traders watch for signs of strength.

The pattern across the last couple of years has been almost comically consistent: record after record on the fundamentals, the cross-chain protocol moving billions a month, the value secured hitting new highs, the bank partnerships piling up, while the token closed well below where it traded years earlier.

Analysts who follow Chainlink closely have taken to describing its recent history in exactly those terms, as a period of record fundamental milestones paired with significant price disappointment.

The ETF channel has not solved the problem either. Chainlink spot ETFs recently saw a net outflow, ending a six-month inflow streak and showing that even new institutional access does not automatically create uninterrupted demand.

This is what makes Chainlink such a clean case study, and such a frustrating holding for its believers.

It is not a story of a failing project ignored for good reason; the project is, by adoption metrics, thriving. It is a story of a thriving network whose token has decoupled from its success.

That forces an uncomfortable question that applies to a whole category of crypto assets: what is the actual link between a network being used and its token rising in value?

For Bitcoin the answer is relatively direct, since the asset itself is the product. For an infrastructure token like LINK, the answer is far murkier, and the murkiness is precisely what the price reflects.

The market is not saying Chainlink has failed. It is saying it does not yet see how all that institutional adoption turns into sustained demand for the token.

Until it does, the chart and the deal sheet point in opposite directions.

The oracle problem, and why it made Chainlink unavoidable To understand both the strength of Chainlink’s position and the weakness of its token, it helps to sit with the oracle problem a moment longer, because it explains the moat.

A blockchain is a deterministic system: it is brilliant at agreeing on its own internal state, who holds what, but it is mathematically incapable of knowing anything about the outside world on its own.

If a smart contract needs to know the price of an asset to liquidate a loan, or whether a real-world bond has matured, it has to get that information from somewhere. If it gets it from a single source, it inherits that source’s vulnerability to error or manipulation.

That would undermine the security that makes blockchains worth using in the first place.

Chainlink’s design answers this by gathering data through a decentralized network of independent node operators, aggregating their inputs, and delivering a result that no single party can easily corrupt.

That decentralized, tamper-resistant design is why Chainlink became the default rather than one option among many.

Once a network of high-quality node operators is securing tens of billions of dollars across hundreds of applications, that track record itself becomes a moat. A bank deciding whose data and cross-chain infrastructure to trust with real money is going to choose the one with the longest, most battle-tested history.

This is the foundation of the institutional strategy.

Chainlink’s cross-chain protocol added a risk-management layer, an independent set of nodes that watches for anomalies and can halt transfers if something looks wrong. That is the kind of dual-layer safeguard large institutions demand before moving significant capital on-chain.

The result is that Chainlink occupies a position closer to critical utility than to speculative token: the oracle and interoperability standard that the tokenized-finance future is being built on.

The strength of that position is not in doubt. What is in doubt is whether holding the token captures any of it.

What SWIFT and the banks actually signed up for The institutional adoption is concrete and worth spelling out, because it is genuinely impressive and it is also, on close inspection, the source of the token’s problem.

Chainlink built a suite of products aimed squarely at banks and asset managers: a cross-chain protocol for moving assets and messages between blockchains and legacy systems, a runtime environment that lets institutions build and manage tokenized-asset workflows, a compliance engine that embeds rules like identity checks directly into tokenized assets, a confidential-compute layer that lets sensitive institutional data be processed without exposing it on a public chain, and data services that bring benchmark and index information on-chain.

This is not a retail product suite. It is enterprise financial infrastructure, designed to slot into how large institutions already operate.

The marquee relationship is with SWIFT, and it captures both the scale and the nature of the adoption.

SWIFT connects roughly 11,000 banks and carries the messaging behind an enormous share of global settlement, and Swift and Chainlink’s ongoing work moved from early pilot toward pre-production.

The goal is to let banks send traditional SWIFT messages that trigger smart-contract actions across blockchains, without those banks having to rip out and rewrite their legacy systems.

That is a profound integration: it means the existing banking messaging layer could reach into the on-chain world through Chainlink as the connective tissue.

More recently, Chainlink also partnered with more than 50 banks on Project Pangea for T+0 foreign-exchange settlement, another sign that traditional finance is testing Chainlink as an institutional bridge rather than a crypto side experiment.

But notice the shape of it. What the banks signed up for is infrastructure, a way to connect their systems to blockchains using Chainlink’s technology.

They signed up to use the network. Nothing in a SWIFT pre-production integration, a JPMorgan tokenization pilot, or a bank FX settlement project necessarily requires anyone to buy, hold, or even think about the LINK token.

The adoption is real, and it is adoption of Chainlink the infrastructure. That is different from demand for LINK the asset.

That distinction is the hinge on which the entire price puzzle turns.

The value-accrual problem: adoption is not token demand Here is the core issue, the one that explains the chart.

For a token to rise because its network is being used, there has to be a mechanism that converts that usage into demand for the token. For infrastructure tokens, that mechanism is often weak, indirect, or still being built.

When a bank uses Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, it pays fees, and those fees are part of how value is meant to flow to the network.

But the fees generated even by substantial institutional usage are, so far, small relative to the headline numbers that make the adoption sound overwhelming.

The value secured across the network may be measured in tens of billions, but the value secured is not revenue. Revenue is not automatically token demand either.

A pilot or a pre-production integration generates little in the way of recurring fees, and even meaningful live usage produces fee flows that are modest next to LINK’s multi-billion-dollar market value.

This is the value-accrual problem, and it is the single best explanation for why LINK trades where it does.

The market is making a distinction that the celebratory headlines blur: between adoption of the infrastructure, which benefits the network and its users, and demand for the token, which is what actually moves the price.

It is the identical distinction that explains why XRP failed to rally on Ripple’s bank deals, because those deals ran through the company and its stablecoin while the token captured only a sliver.

For Chainlink, the question every prospective LINK buyer faces is simple and unforgiving: if SWIFT and JPMorgan can use the network without the token being central to the economics, then what exactly am I buying when I buy LINK?

The project has answers to that question, and they are improving. But the market has not yet been convinced that the answers are large enough to matter.

That is why the adoption keeps growing and the token keeps waiting.

The strategic reserve and staking: Chainlink’s answer Chainlink is acutely aware of the value-accrual problem, and it has been building mechanisms specifically designed to tie network usage to token value.

That is the strongest part of the bull case.

The first is a fee model that converts revenue generated across the network, including from institutional and off-chain use, into LINK, accumulating it in the Chainlink Reserve.

The logic is that as adoption grows and generates more revenue, more of that revenue is converted into LINK and held, creating a structural source of buying tied directly to usage.

This is meant to be the bridge between adoption and token demand that infrastructure tokens so often lack.

It is a way to make sure that when the network earns, the token benefits. The reserve has been growing, adding millions of LINK, which is a tangible sign of the mechanism working, even if the amounts remain small relative to the total supply.

The second mechanism is staking.

Chainlink lets LINK holders stake their tokens to help secure the network’s data feeds and services, locking up supply and giving the token a direct role in the system’s security and economics.

As more high-value feeds and services come to rely on staked LINK as a security backstop, demand to stake, and therefore to acquire and lock the token, is meant to rise.

That makes Chainlink part of a broader move toward security-backed crypto networks. For context, another staking-secured network shows how tokens can accrue value when they are required to secure services rather than simply sit beside them.

Together, the reserve and staking are Chainlink’s answer to the question of why anyone should own LINK instead of simply admire the network.

The reserve ties revenue to token accumulation. Staking ties the token to the network’s security and to a yield.

These are real, well-designed mechanisms, and they are the reason the bull case is not empty.

The honest caveat is that they are still early and still modest in scale relative to a multi-billion-dollar market cap. They point in the right direction, but they have not yet generated token demand large enough to overcome the broader forces pushing the price down.

Why the chart still says no Even granting the reserve and staking, several forces keep weighing on LINK, and naming them explains why the token has not responded to the adoption.

The first is the simple gravity of the broader market. LINK is a high-beta altcoin, meaning it tends to move more violently than the market as a whole, rising faster in booms and falling harder in downturns.

Through a stretch of macro pressure and a weak environment for risk assets, infrastructure tokens like LINK have been sold off regardless of their individual progress.

When capital flees risk, the quality of a project’s bank partnerships offers little protection, because the selling is driven by macro flows, not fundamentals.

The second force is competition. Chainlink leads the oracle space by a wide margin, but rivals are chasing the same market with different technical models, faster delivery in certain niches, or lower costs.

The existence of credible competitors caps the pricing power and the perceived inevitability that would justify a higher token valuation.

The third and deepest force is the value-accrual skepticism already described.

The market keeps treating Chainlink’s institutional milestones as proofs of concept instead of as recurring revenue, pricing a SWIFT pre-production integration as a promising experiment instead of as a stream of token demand, because that is what it currently is.

Until the pilots become production volume large enough to drive real fees into the reserve and real demand into staking, the market is, not unreasonably, declining to pay in advance.

This is the same discipline that kept XRP pinned through its own parade of bank wins. The chart is not ignoring the adoption; it is refusing to pay for token demand that has been promised but not yet delivered at scale.

What would finally make LINK follow the adoption If you want to know when LINK might finally track its fundamentals, the analysis points to a specific set of conditions, and none of them is simply another partnership announcement.

The first and most important is the transition from pilots to production volume.

A SWIFT integration in pre-production is a promise; SWIFT-connected banks routing real, recurring settlement volume through Chainlink’s protocol would be a structural source of fee demand unlike anything in the token’s history.

Even a small fraction of the volume that flows through global bank messaging would dwarf current usage.

The clearest single catalyst to watch is whether that integration goes fully live and starts carrying real traffic, because that is the moment infrastructure adoption could begin converting into the recurring revenue that feeds the reserve.

The policy backdrop also matters. Chainlink executives have warned that delays in U.S. crypto rules benefit overseas competitors, because institutions need clarity before they can scale production deployments.

The second condition is the maturation of the token mechanisms themselves: the strategic reserve growing large enough that its accumulation of LINK becomes a meaningful, visible source of demand, and staking scaling to the point where locking the token to secure high-value services pulls significant supply off the market.

The third is the broader environment, since even strong fundamentals struggle against a hostile macro tape, and a friendlier market for risk assets would let Chainlink’s progress show up in the price.

The new exchange-traded products tracking LINK add another potential channel for demand if they gather assets. But as the recent outflow showed, the ETF channel must become a sustained buyer, not just another headline.

The honest synthesis is that Chainlink has done the hard part, winning the institutional adoption that the rest of crypto only talks about.

The remaining question is purely about conversion: whether all that adoption can be turned into durable, measurable demand for the token through fees, the reserve, and staking, at a scale large enough to matter.

Until it is, LINK will keep trading like the adoption is not happening, not because the market is blind to Chainlink’s success, but because it is watching the one number that has not yet moved. That number is demand for the token itself.

Frequently asked questions Why does Chainlink have so much adoption but a low token price? Because adoption of the infrastructure is not the same as demand for the token. Banks and protocols use Chainlink’s data feeds and cross-chain protocol, generating fees, but those fees are still small relative to LINK’s multi-billion-dollar market value, and nothing about a SWIFT or JPMorgan integration requires anyone to buy or hold LINK. The market distinguishes between the network being used, which benefits the infrastructure, and token demand, which moves the price. So far, the adoption has not converted into token demand large enough to lift the price, which is why LINK trades around $7 despite record fundamentals.

What does Chainlink actually do? Chainlink solves the oracle problem. Blockchains cannot natively access information outside their own network, so a smart contract has no built-in way to know a price, a payment status, or a real-world event. Chainlink is a decentralized network that feeds outside data onto blockchains and connects them to one another and to traditional systems, using many independent node operators so no single party can easily corrupt the data. This makes it foundational infrastructure for decentralized finance and for tokenizing real-world assets.

What did SWIFT and the banks sign up for with Chainlink? They signed up to use Chainlink’s infrastructure, chiefly its cross-chain protocol, which lets banks send traditional SWIFT messages that trigger smart-contract actions across blockchains without rewriting their legacy systems. JPMorgan, UBS, DTCC, Euroclear, and others are building on Chainlink’s suite of institutional products for tokenized assets, compliance, and data. Crucially, this is adoption of the infrastructure, not a commitment to buy or hold the LINK token, which is exactly why the impressive partnerships have not directly lifted the price.

How is Chainlink trying to connect adoption to the token? Through two main mechanisms. A fee model converts revenue generated across the network, including from institutional use, into LINK and accumulates it in a strategic reserve, creating buying tied to usage. Staking lets holders lock LINK to help secure the network’s data feeds and services, taking supply off the market and giving the token a direct economic role. Both are well-designed attempts to bridge the gap between adoption and token demand, and the reserve has been growing, but they remain modest relative to LINK’s market value and have not yet offset the forces pushing the price down.

Will LINK go up if SWIFT fully adopts Chainlink? It could, but the key is volume, not the integration itself. A pre-production SWIFT integration is a promise; SWIFT-connected banks routing real, recurring settlement volume through Chainlink would generate fee demand on a scale unlike anything in the token’s history, because even a fraction of global bank messaging volume would dwarf current usage. That fee flow could feed the strategic reserve and drive real token demand. So the catalyst to watch is whether the integration goes live and carries actual traffic, turning infrastructure adoption into recurring revenue, instead of the announcement of the integration alone.

Is Chainlink’s situation similar to XRP’s? Very. Both are cases where a network or company achieved real institutional adoption while the token failed to follow, because the value flows first to the infrastructure and only indirectly to the token. Ripple’s bank deals ran through its stablecoin and ledger while XRP captured a sliver; Chainlink’s bank integrations run through its infrastructure while LINK captures fees that are still small relative to its valuation. In both cases the market prices the adoption as promising proof of concept instead of as token demand, and in both cases the token waits for pilots to become production-scale volume.

This article is information, not investment advice. Cryptocurrency is volatile, and figures for Chainlink and LINK reflect reporting available as of June 26, 2026, which can change quickly. Do your own research and verify current data from primary sources before making any decision.

A Legal Foundation for Agentic CommerceHedera has joined as a founding member of the Legal Context Protocol (LCP), a new open standard designed to give AI agent transactions a verifiable legal framework. The American Arbitration Association (AAA), together with Integra Ledger, launched the LCP on June 24 as a new open standard that makes legal terms, consent, and dispute resolution discoverable and verifiable when AI agents transact on behalf of people and organizations.

Founding contributors include Google, IBM, Circle, Wayfair, Stellar Development Foundation, Ava Labs, UiPath, Cardano, Hedera, Crossmint, Pinata, Aptos Foundation, Baselayer, Trinsic, First Person Cooperative, Sei Labs, and Mysten Labs, the original contributor to Sui.

Payments and identity checks already exist for AI agents, but there has been no shared system for proving the legal terms, jurisdiction, and dispute process. David Fisher, CEO of Integra Ledger, framed the gap plainly: "Payment infrastructure is actively being built for AI agents. The legal layer, what was agreed, under what terms, and how disputes will be resolved, is not. LCP provides the essential legal layer, built as an open standard that can be added to all payment rails and protocols."

Hedera's Role and the Scale of the OpportunityAs AI agents start making decisions and transacting on our behalf, Mance Harmon, co-founder of Hedera, said "we need to know there's a clear answer to what happens if something goes wrong." He added that LCP gives agentic commerce a missing layer of trust that requires no new infrastructure to adopt.

AI agents are already negotiating services, executing procurement, and settling payments autonomously. Gartner projects that by 2028, 90% of B2B purchases will be intermediated by AI agents, channeling more than $15 trillion through automated exchanges.

LCP does not move money itself. It records the terms under which a transaction took place, which law governs it, and what remedies are available if a dispute arises, making that information discoverable and cryptographically verifiable so counterpart agents and human auditors can confirm the legal context of an automated deal.

Any organisation with a web server can adopt the LCP, which does not require any other specific infrastructure, intermediaries, or use of blockchain technology. The protocol was published under an open source Apache 2.0 licence, and governance is intended to transfer to a neutral foundation.

AAA and Industry Leaders Launch Legal Protocol for Agentic Commerce (PR Newswire) | AAA Launches Legal Layer for AI Agent Transactions (CoinTelegraph) | AAA Official Press Release (adr.org)

Binance announced that the altcoins Alchemix (ALCX), Ardor (ARDR), NFPrompt Token (NFP), and Marlin (POND) will be delisted.

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, continues to make altcoin announcements. Accordingly, Binance announced the delisting of four altcoins.

Binance announced that the altcoins Alchemix (ALCX), Ardor (ARDR), NFPrompt Token (NFP), and Marlin (POND) will be delisted.

“Based on our latest assessments, we have decided to discontinue trading and delist the following tokens in all spot trading pairs on 10.07.2026 at 03:00 (UTC):”

ALCX, ARDR, NFP and POND

Spot trading pairs for these altcoins will be discontinued.

All trading orders will be automatically deleted after the transactions in the relevant trading pairs have ended.

The token’s value will no longer be displayed in user accounts after it is delisted. Deposits of these tokens will not be credited to users’ accounts after 03:00 (UTC) on 11.07.2026.

Withdrawals of these tokens from Binance will no longer be supported after 09.09.2026 03:00 (UTC).

Following the news, altcoin prices experienced sharp and significant drops.

*This is not investment advice.

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Stablecoin infrastructure company StablecoinX has completed its merger with TLGY Acquisition Corp, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, allowing it to begin trading on Nasdaq on Friday.

StablecoinX is the first public stablecoin infrastructure company focused on supporting the Ethena ecosystem through decentralized verifier nodes and software infrastructure, and will trade under the symbol “USDE,” according to a statement on Thursday.

“We believe Ethena has emerged as one of the most important platforms powering the next generation of digital dollars,” said Edward Chen, CEO and Chairman of StablecoinX.  

The Nasdaq debut is a big bet that stablecoins are becoming the plumbing of global finance, and comes despite a broader crypto bear market and Ethena’s relatively small 1.4% market share of the stablecoin market compared with those offered by its competitors, such as Tether and Circle.

Ethena’s USDe is a yield-bearing synthetic dollar-pegged stablecoin. Unlike USDt (USDT) or USDC (USDC), which are backed by actual dollars, USDe (USDE) maintains its $1 peg through a derivatives strategy. 

It is backed by crypto collateral in Bitcoin and Ether and short futures positions on those same assets, enabling the long and short positions to cancel out the price volatility, helping to keep its value at approximately $1.

Ethena’s delta-neutral strategy works well in normal markets but is vulnerable during periods when futures funding rates go negative. 

USDe supply fallsWhile stablecoin circulation has grown in recent years, USDe market capitalization has declined by 70% since its peak in October to around $4.5 billion today, ranking it sixth among stablecoins.  

USDe supply has fallen since the bull market peak. Source: CoinGecko

StablecoinX’s treasury also holds approximately 3 billion Ethena governance tokens (ENA), or around 20% of the total supply, valued at approximately $275 million. The company announced a $360 million capital raise to purchase ENA on Sunday.

However, the asset is currently trading at $0.08, down 94% from its April 2024 all-time high. 

The company has three business lines: a decentralized verifier node (DVN) serving as a cross-chain message verifier for the Ethena ecosystem, a middleware software stack called “Stablecoin Harness” and distribution services, which are currently in development. 

The company says the three businesses reinforce one another, though the broader crypto bear market presents a challenging backdrop for its Nasdaq debut. 

Crypto SPACs and crypto treasuries have had a tough time this year as the broader market has tanked 52%, with $2.3 trillion leaving the space since October and crypto falling out of favor among investors. 

Pre-merger TLGY fell 6.93% on Thursday on OTC markets to end the day trading at $9.40, according to Google Finance data. 

Magazine: AI is banking the unbanked in Africa... faster than crypto

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.

The first six months of 2026 were packed with major announcements for Ripple as the company aggressively expanded its global footprint across payments, custody, stablecoins, and tokenization. From deepening ties with banks and fintech giants to launching RLUSD in new markets, here are top Ripple partnerships and expansions from January through June 2026.

January 2026DXC Technology Partnership (Jan. 21): Ripple partnered with DXC Technology to integrate blockchain-based custody and payments directly into banks’ existing core banking systems.Ripple Treasury Launch (Jan. 28): Ripple introduced Ripple Treasury, a new platform designed to help institutions manage liquidity, settlements, and treasury operations using RLUSD.February 2026Hyperliquid Integration via Ripple Prime (Feb. 4): Ripple Prime integrated with Hyperliquid, giving institutional clients access to DeFi derivatives and cross-margin trading capabilities.Securosys and Figment Partnership (Feb. 9): Ripple expanded institutional custody services through partnerships with Securosys and Figment, enabling regulated clients to securely stake assets like Ethereum and Solana.March 2026Ripple Payments Upgrade (Mar. 3): Ripple enhanced its payments platform by combining fiat settlements, stablecoin payments, custody, and treasury services into a single enterprise solution.$100 Billion Stablecoin Milestone (Mar. 4): Ripple revealed that its stablecoin infrastructure had surpassed $100 billion in processed payment volume.Convera Partnership (Mar. 31): Ripple partnered with Convera to enable faster crypto and stablecoin-powered cross-border business payments.April 2026Brazil Expansion: Ripple expanded institutional custody, treasury, and payments services in Brazil while actively pursuing additional regulatory approvals in the country.Kyobo Life Insurance Partnership (Apr. 15): Ripple joined forces with Kyobo Life Insurance to pilot blockchain-based settlement for tokenized government bonds in South Korea.Kbank Custody Deal (Apr. 29): Ripple partnered with Kbank to deploy scalable digital asset wallet and custody infrastructure.May 2026$200 Million Financing Deal (May 11): Ripple secured a $200 million debt facility to support expansion of its institutional product suite.EDX Markets Partnership (May 19): Ripple Prime partnered with EDX Markets to strengthen institutional liquidity and improve digital asset market access.June 2026RLUSD Expansion in Türkiye (Jun. 2): Ripple expanded RLUSD into Türkiye through partnerships with Bitexen, Bitlo, and BiLira.Bitso Partnership Expansion (Jun. 11): Ripple deepened its collaboration with Bitso to support enterprise stablecoin settlement systems across Latin America.MiCA CASP License Approval (Jun. 23): Ripple secured preliminary approval for a MiCA Crypto Asset Service Provider license in Luxembourg, paving the way for regulated expansion across Europe.Flutterwave Integration (Jun. 24): Ripple integrated with Flutterwave to streamline remittances and reduce payment costs across Sub-Saharan Africa.SBI Group RLUSD Launch (Jun. 25): Ripple and SBI Group officially launched RLUSD in Japan following regulatory approval, bringing the stablecoin to both retail and institutional users through SBI VC Trade.With partnerships spanning banking, payments, custody, tokenization, and stablecoins, the first half of 2026 highlighted Ripple’s growing push to build global blockchain infrastructure for traditional finance.

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The number of active addresses on the Cardano network has climbed for the second time this month, even as ADA’s price hovers around its lowest point since December 2020. The recent uptick in on-chain activity has also been reflected in greater Cardano visibility and discussion across social media channels.

Network data stands out amid ongoing price pressureThe combination of persistent price pressures and heated debates within the Cardano community has put the project back in the spotlight. As a result, both investors and analysts are paying close attention to short-term trends, trying to gauge the next direction for ADA.

According to analytics platform Santiment, both active address numbers and Cardano’s share of social media discussions rose at the same time. Santiment’s charts indicate that this pattern appeared twice already this month, each time coinciding with a limited price rebound for ADA.

Santiment’s latest analysis notes that while Cardano’s price has slipped to its lowest levels in years, active user participation and community discussions have sharply increased—previously, similar patterns were seen just ahead of brief price recoveries.

Analysts highlight that the current situation closely mirrors previous spikes in activity. However, they caution that as long as overall price pressure continues, renewed on-chain engagement alone may not be enough to trigger a lasting reversal for ADA.

Much of the renewed attention comes in the wake of new statements from Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson. In his recent remarks, Hoskinson warned that more Cardano-based projects could fail under current conditions, and he announced a reduction in his own public visibility, deepening uncertainty within the community.

At the same time, disagreements around the management of Cardano’s treasury funds have caused further division across the ecosystem. These disputes, amplified on social platforms, have fueled a more negative atmosphere but also led to increased discussion and engagement on ADA-related topics. The jump in daily active addresses suggests that user interest remains resilient in spite of the challenges.

Security breach triggers focus on resistance levelsThe recent security breach affecting a Cardano-based wallet protocol has further intensified pressure on ADA. Approximately 129 million ADA were withdrawn as a result of this attack, equating to around $20 million at current market prices.

Despite this setback, market analyst Ali Charts observed a buy signal from the TD Sequential indicator on ADA’s daily chart. This technical tool is known for identifying potential exhaustion and reversal zones, sometimes pointing to short-lived price rebounds.

Glossary: The TD Sequential is a technical indicator designed to spot potential exhaustion points and trend reversals in market prices. It is rarely used in isolation and is often combined with support, resistance, and volume data for confirmation.

Ali Charts argues that, in spite of the Cardano wallet protocol security incident and the loss of nearly 129 million ADA, a TD Sequential buy signal has appeared on the daily chart. However, he notes that the prevailing market structure remains too weak to support a sustained recovery at this stage.

According to Ali Charts, any attempted rebound is likely to encounter resistance between $0.160 and $0.176. If ADA fails to break through $0.176, recent buyers could end up trapped, with prices potentially falling back to lower levels. The simultaneous appearance of a buy signal amid negative news has made the outlook for ADA increasingly complex.

The coming days will be crucial as Cardano navigates technical, governance, and security challenges against a backdrop of heightened community activity. The interplay between social momentum and ongoing headwinds will likely shape ADA’s short-term path.

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.

Table of contents

Polkadot (DOT) is trading at $0.8758 on June 25, 2026 — below the $1.00 psychological support level for the first time in its modern history and approximately 98% below its all-time high of $54.87 reached in November 2021. The token that once ranked in the top 5 by market cap with a $50+ billion valuation now sits at #44 with a market cap of $1.48 billion. This page covers Polkadot’s complete price history, what drove the collapse, and what structural changes the project has made in 2026.

What Is Polkadot? Polkadot is a multi-chain blockchain network designed to solve one of crypto’s most fundamental problems: blockchains cannot communicate with each other natively. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana each operate as isolated silos. Polkadot connects them.

The network was designed by Dr. Gavin Wood — co-founder of Ethereum and author of the Ethereum Yellow Paper — and launched on mainnet in May 2020. It operates through two core architectural components. The Relay Chain is the central coordination layer that provides shared security, consensus, and cross-chain communication. Parachains are independent, application-specific blockchains that connect to the Relay Chain and inherit its security without needing to bootstrap their own validator sets.

This shared security model is Polkadot’s primary technical differentiator. A new blockchain launching as a Polkadot parachain receives the full security of the Relay Chain’s validator network from day one — something Cosmos chains and Avalanche subnets cannot offer, as they must secure themselves independently.

DOT is the native token of the Polkadot network. It serves three functions: governance (voting on network upgrades through OpenGov), staking (securing the Relay Chain with approximately 11% annual yield), and coretime bonding (purchasing blockspace under the Agile Coretime model, which replaced the old parachain slot auctions in 2024–2025).

The official Polkadot website and documentation are available at polkadot.network.

Critical update — March 2026 tokenomics reform: On March 12, 2026, Polkadot enacted runtime upgrade v2.1.0, fundamentally changing DOT’s economic model. Before this upgrade, DOT had an uncapped, inflationary supply issuing approximately 120 million DOT annually — roughly 7–10% inflation with no maximum. After the upgrade: total supply is now hard-capped at 2.1 billion DOT, issuance is cut by over 50%, and 80% of coretime sales revenue plus a portion of fees are burned from circulation. This transforms DOT from an inflationary utility token into a scarcer asset with a defined supply ceiling — one of the most significant tokenomics overhauls in Polkadot’s history.

Polkadot Price History 2020: Launch and Initial Listing Polkadot launched its mainnet in May 2020. DOT was initially priced at approximately $2.70 at its earliest exchange listings and ended 2020 at around $9.28 — a gain of roughly 200% in its first year. The initial rally was driven by strong developer interest, the prestige of Gavin Wood’s involvement, and early anticipation around the parachain auction model. During this period, Polkadot quickly entered the top 10 by market cap, establishing itself alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum as one of the most watched new Layer 0 protocols.

2021: All-Time High at $54.87 2021 was Polkadot’s defining year. The best year for DOT saw the average price reach $29.03 and the token hit its all-time high of $54.87 in November 2021. The rally was fueled by the successful launch of parachain auctions on Kusama — Polkadot’s canary network — in June 2021, followed by the first Polkadot mainnet parachain auction wins in November 2021, with Acala, Moonbeam, and Parallel Finance among the early winners. Retail enthusiasm for the parachain narrative drove DOT to a peak market cap exceeding $50 billion, ranking it among the top 5 cryptocurrencies globally.

The year closed at $26.70, down 51% from the November peak but still 188% above the 2020 year-end price.

2022: Bear Market Collapse In 2022, DOT entered a steep decline, falling from approximately $30 at the start of the year to below $10 by mid-year and stabilizing near $5 by year-end — a loss of roughly 83% over the calendar year. The collapse mirrored the broader crypto bear market driven by the Luna/UST crash in May 2022, the Three Arrows Capital insolvency in June, and the FTX collapse in November.

The parachain model came under significant criticism during this period. Projects that had won parachain slots by locking up millions of dollars in DOT saw those funds depreciate dramatically, while the two-year lock-up structure prevented capital reallocation. The model that had driven 2021’s euphoria became a structural headwind in the bear market.

2023: Consolidation Between $5 and $7 DOT spent most of 2023 consolidating between $5 and $7, closing the year at approximately $8.20 — a 90% gain over the 2022 close and one of the best calendar year performances in the post-crash period. Recovery was driven by improving macro sentiment following the Federal Reserve’s pause on rate hikes and renewed institutional interest in the broader crypto market. Early announcements of Polkadot’s transition away from the parachain slot auction model toward Agile Coretime gave the market a credible narrative catalyst heading into 2024.

2024: Brief Recovery to $10.40, Then Renewed Weakness DOT briefly recovered toward $10.40 in December 2024, riding the broader crypto rally that followed Bitcoin’s ETF approval and the post-halving momentum. However, DOT significantly underperformed relative to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana during the 2024–2025 bull cycle. While BTC reached an all-time high of $126,173 and ETH peaked at $4,951.66, DOT’s recovery was modest and short-lived. The year closed at approximately $6.63, down 19% from the January open of $11.85 — a stark underperformance that signalled a structural market discount was being applied to Polkadot’s architecture.

2025: Sustained Decline Through the Bull Cycle In 2025, DOT weakened considerably, falling from a January high of $7.98 to around $4.30 in March, then drifting below $4 through April and May. By June it dropped toward $3.30, briefly stabilized near $4.00–$4.30 from August to October, then fell to around $2.10 by late November and early December. The year closed at approximately $1.79 — down 73% from the January open.

2025 represented a defining divergence: Bitcoin and Ethereum made new all-time highs while DOT did not come close to its $54.87 peak. Active parachain counts were declining, developer activity was migrating toward Ethereum L2s and Solana, and the parachain slot auction model was broadly viewed as having failed to generate sustainable ecosystem growth. The market delivered a clear verdict.

2026: Sub-$1 Territory and Structural Reforms In 2026, DOT remained under pressure across every quarter. The token traded between $1.66 and $2.33 in January, fell to a cycle low near $0.84–$0.85 in the May–June selloff, and is currently trading at $0.8758 on June 25. This represents an approximately 98% drawdown from the $54.87 all-time high — a level that was once unthinkable for a top-5 asset.

However, 2026 has also brought the most significant structural reforms in Polkadot’s history:

March 2026 hard supply cap: Runtime upgrade v2.1.0 permanently capped DOT’s maximum supply at 2.1 billion tokens, cut issuance by 50%+, and introduced burn mechanics tied to coretime sales revenue.

Agile Coretime model: Replaced the parachain slot auction system with an on-demand blockspace market, dramatically lowering the cost for new developers to build on Polkadot. Over 150 new decentralized applications joined in Q1 2026.

21Shares TDOT ETF: The first regulated institutional vehicle for DOT exposure launched in 2026, with $11 million in initial AUM — providing infrastructure for institutional allocation to scale.

JAM protocol (roadmap): Polkadot’s next major architectural upgrade — replacing the Relay Chain with a general-purpose decentralized computation environment — is targeting Q3–Q4 2026 milestones on testnet.

Is Polkadot Dead in 2026? It’s the question every DOT holder is asking. The honest answer is: no, but the market has delivered a harsh verdict.

DOT is down approximately 98% from its all-time high and trading below $1.00 — a price level that would have seemed impossible during the 2021 bull cycle when Polkadot was a top-5 asset with a $50 billion market cap. The drop from #5 to #44 by market cap reflects a fundamental shift in how the market values interoperability infrastructure relative to high-throughput execution chains.

Three structural problems defined the 2022–2026 decline. First, the parachain slot auction model required projects to lock millions of dollars in DOT for two-year periods, pricing out smaller teams and generating artificial scarcity without proportional ecosystem growth. Second, Ethereum’s Layer 2 ecosystem — Arbitrum, Optimism, Base — solved cross-chain communication within Ethereum’s liquidity-rich environment without requiring a separate relay chain, directly undermining Polkadot’s core value proposition. Third, Solana captured the developer narrative for high-speed execution, leaving DOT without a clear competitive identity in the 2024–2025 cycle.

The 2026 picture is structurally different. The March supply cap ended DOT’s inflationary headwind. Agile Coretime lowered barriers to building on Polkadot. The JAM protocol — if it delivers on Q3–Q4 milestones — represents the most ambitious pivot in Polkadot’s history, expanding the network beyond interoperability into general-purpose decentralized computation. Whether the market re-rates DOT on these fundamentals before year-end is the central question for current holders.

Polkadot Price Summary Table PeriodOpenHighLowCloseChange2020~$4.68~$9.36~$2.71~$9.28+199%2021~$9.27$54.87~$7.20~$26.70+188%2022~$30.89~$30.89~$4.22~$4.30–84%2023~$4.31~$9.58~$3.56~$8.20+90%2024~$8.20~$11.85~$3.60~$6.63–19%2025~$7.99~$7.99~$1.65~$1.79–73%2026 (YTD)~$2.34~$2.34~$0.84~$0.88–62% Sources: CoinLore, Cryptopolitan, CoinMarketCap. Data approximate.

Where to Buy Polkadot (DOT) Binance — world’s largest exchange by volume, deep DOT/USDT liquidity, DOT staking available. Bybit — spot and perpetual DOT pairs with competitive fees. Coinbase — U.S.-regulated platform, DOT available for spot purchase with insured custody. Kraken — established 2011, DOT staking with competitive APY available on-platform. KuCoin — wide DOT trading pairs, good access to Polkadot parachain ecosystem tokens. Gate.io — broad parachain token selection including Moonbeam, Astar, and other DOT ecosystem assets. OKX — DOT derivatives and spot trading with Web3 wallet integration.

Frequently Asked Questions What is Polkadot (DOT)? Polkadot is a multi-chain Layer 0 blockchain network designed by Dr. Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum, and launched on mainnet in May 2020. It connects independent blockchains called parachains through a central Relay Chain that provides shared security and cross-chain communication. DOT is the native token used for governance, staking with approximately 11% annual yield, and purchasing blockspace under the Agile Coretime model. As of March 2026, DOT's maximum supply is hard-capped at 2.1 billion tokens following the v2.1.0 tokenomics upgrade. More information is available at polkadot.network.

What is Polkadot's all-time high? Polkadot's all-time high is $54.87, reached in November 2021 during the parachain auction launch period. As of June 25, 2026, DOT trades at approximately $0.88 — around 98% below that record. The 2026 cycle low is approximately $0.84, reached during the May–June 2026 broad crypto market selloff alongside Bitcoin's retest of its $59,102 cycle low.

Why has Polkadot dropped so much from its all-time high? DOT's 98% decline from its 2021 peak reflects three structural problems. The parachain slot auction model locked up millions of dollars in DOT without generating proportional ecosystem growth. Ethereum's Layer 2 ecosystem addressed cross-chain communication within Ethereum's existing liquidity base, reducing demand for a separate relay chain. And Solana captured developer mindshare for high-throughput execution, leaving Polkadot without a clear competitive identity during the 2024–2025 bull cycle. DOT underperformed Bitcoin and Ethereum significantly through both the 2022 bear market and the 2024–2025 bull cycle.

What changed in Polkadot's tokenomics in 2026? On March 12, 2026, Polkadot enacted runtime upgrade v2.1.0, permanently capping DOT's maximum supply at 2.1 billion tokens. Before this change, DOT had unlimited inflation issuing approximately 120 million new tokens annually at a 7–10% rate. The upgrade cut issuance by over 50% and introduced burn mechanics: 80% of coretime sales revenue plus a portion of network fees are now removed from circulation. This was the most significant tokenomics change in Polkadot's history and represents the first time DOT's supply trajectory has reversed direction.

What is the JAM protocol and why does it matter for DOT? JAM — Join Accumulate Machine — is Polkadot's next major architectural upgrade, designed to replace the Relay Chain with a general-purpose decentralized computation environment. Rather than simply connecting blockchains, JAM expands Polkadot's capabilities to support arbitrary computation, positioning the network as infrastructure for AI agents, ZK proofs, and applications beyond standard DeFi. JAM is targeting Q3–Q4 2026 milestones on testnet. Progress toward those deliverables is the primary near-term price catalyst for DOT and the clearest measure of whether Polkadot can differentiate itself in the next market cycle.

Tokenized stocks trading on Solana hit $4.9 billion in volume during the first half of 2026, a sixfold increase from the $775 million recorded in the back half of 2025. The market cap for these on-chain equities reached $539 million by June, cementing Solana’s position as the dominant blockchain for a financial product category that barely existed 18 months ago.

The numbers behind Solana’s dominance The blockchain consistently accounts for more than 95% of cross-chain tokenized equity volume. During one week in mid-June, Solana processed $1.298 billion in tokenized stock trades, representing 95% of the global total for that period alone.

May 2026 was particularly notable. Cross-chain tokenized stock trading volume hit a record $5.3 billion that month, a 44% jump from April. And by June 23, Solana’s cumulative transfer volume for tokenized equities had crossed $10 billion.

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The chain’s structural advantages help explain why traders keep choosing it. Low transaction fees, high throughput, and a mature DeFi ecosystem make it the path of least resistance for platforms looking to bring traditional equities on-chain.

SpaceX shares lit the fuse The single biggest catalyst for this explosion in volume has a familiar name: SpaceX.

Following the company’s initial public offering, demand for tokenized SpaceX shares went vertical. During peak periods after the IPO, Solana captured up to 99% of related volume.

Tokenized stocks first emerged as a distinct digital asset class around mid-2025, offering on-chain access to both publicly traded equities and pre-IPO shares. Several platforms attempted tokenized securities on Ethereum years ago, but high gas fees and slow throughput limited adoption. Solana’s architecture solved both problems simultaneously.

What this means for investors A $539 million market cap for tokenized stocks is still a rounding error compared to the trillions sitting in conventional equity markets. But the growth rate is the signal, not the absolute number. Six-times growth in six months, if it continues at even a fraction of that pace, starts to represent meaningful market share.

Solana’s 95%-plus market share is extraordinary for any blockchain-based product category. What remains is regulatory clarity, which varies significantly by jurisdiction and remains the primary wildcard for the sector’s trajectory.

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

The Kazakhstan Stock Exchange just became the first in Central Asia to list US-based cryptocurrency ETFs. On June 19, KASE admitted two digital asset funds under its KASE Global framework: the Volatility Shares Solana ETF (SOLZ_KZ) and BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF (ETHA_KZ).

What’s actually being listed SOLZ_KZ, the Solana fund from Volatility Shares, does not hold SOL directly. Instead, it gains exposure through futures contracts listed on the CME, along with cash equivalents. The net expense ratio sits at 0.95%, set to hold through June 30, 2026. As of June 18, SOLZ_KZ had roughly $80 million in assets under management.

On the Ethereum side, ETHA_KZ is BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust ETF, carrying a leaner management fee of 0.25%.

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Investment Company Standard JSC initiated the listing process for both products on KASE, acting as the bridge between US-based fund issuers and the Kazakh exchange infrastructure.

Kazakhstan’s crypto strategy has been building for a while In December 2025, KASE and the Solana Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on digital assets. That partnership directly facilitated KASE’s registration as Kazakhstan’s first digital asset platform operator, which became effective around mid-2026.

And even before KASE got into the game, the Astana International Exchange had already made waves. In September 2025, Fonte Capital launched what it described as the world’s first spot Solana ETF with staking on AIX. That product represented a different approach entirely, holding actual SOL tokens and generating staking yield, compared to the futures-based structure that SOLZ_KZ uses on KASE.

What this means for investors The immediate practical impact is straightforward: qualified investors in Kazakhstan can now gain exposure to Solana and Ethereum through their existing brokerage accounts on KASE. No need to set up a crypto wallet, manage private keys, or navigate the often-chaotic world of decentralized exchanges.

The fee structures also deserve attention. SOLZ_KZ’s 0.95% expense ratio is notably higher than ETHA_KZ’s 0.25%, reflecting the additional complexity and cost of managing a futures-based strategy. Futures-based funds can suffer from roll costs and tracking errors that eat into returns over time, a consideration that becomes more important the longer you hold.

For the Solana ecosystem specifically, having both a spot ETF with staking on AIX and a futures-based ETF on KASE operating in the same country represents a level of product diversity that most Western markets haven’t yet achieved. The $80 million in AUM for SOLZ_KZ is modest by US standards, but as a proof of concept for regulated crypto products in Central Asia, it’s the kind of number that tends to grow once institutional allocators see that the infrastructure actually works.

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

Solana Mobile’s dApp Store added 96 new applications in the span of a single week, pushing total listings to 1,561. The store had roughly 700 apps back in March 2026, climbed past 817 in April, crossed the 1,000 threshold in early June, and now sits at 1,561. That’s more than doubling its catalog in about three months.

Why developers keep showing up The Solana dApp Store charges developers a 0% platform fee. Zero. Not 15%, not 30%, not some convoluted tier system. Nothing. Compare that to Google’s 15-30% cut or Apple’s famously contentious 30% commission.

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The store operates as an Android distribution platform, meaning it runs alongside Google Play on Solana’s Seeker smartphone rather than replacing it entirely.

Solana Mobile has also introduced a feature called dApp Spotlight, a curated carousel surfacing quality applications for users. The platform has also introduced AI-driven tools for ratings and reviews.

The hardware equation Solana Mobile’s Seeker smartphone has now shipped more than 150,000 units. The Seeker includes hardware-level security features like the Seed Vault Wallet, which handles private key management and asset storage directly on the device.

The SKR token and ecosystem economics Solana Mobile launched the SKR token in January 2026 with a total supply of 10 billion tokens. The token serves multiple functions within the ecosystem, including governance, staking, and user incentives.

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

The problem with AI agents handling money has always been the same: give an agent access to a wallet and you’ve handed it the keys to the kingdom. Mysten Labs thinks it has a better way.

Sui Network has unveiled a prototype built on its Seal multi-party computation system that allows AI agents to participate in onchain markets and execute payments without ever receiving or controlling private keys. The Seal MPC system commenced its rollout on Sui’s testnet around June 19, 2026, building on a decentralized key server prototype that first went live on testnet in March of the same year.

What Seal MPC actually does Seal sidesteps the private key problem entirely. Instead of handing an agent a private key, the system routes transaction authorization through MPC committees, groups of independent nodes that collectively approve or deny a transaction without any single party ever assembling the complete key. The agent proposes, the committee decides, and no individual node can act unilaterally.

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Authorization isn’t arbitrary either. Sui’s on-chain Move smart contracts enforce human-readable spending policies automatically, covering things like daily caps, approval thresholds, and counterparty restrictions. An agent can’t simply decide to wire funds to an unknown address if the policy says otherwise. The contract enforces the rule before the transaction ever goes through.

Fair competition in onchain markets Beyond payments, Sui’s official announcement highlighted a second application: fair competition between AI agents in onchain markets.

Seal’s cryptographic architecture allows agents to submit bids that remain completely hidden until a synchronized reveal. No agent can observe a competitor’s strategy before committing to its own. The reveal happens simultaneously for all parties, enforced by the protocol rather than by any single trusted party.

Mysten Labs has been deliberate about the sequencing here. The decentralized key server prototype launched in March 2026, giving the ecosystem time to evaluate the infrastructure before the fuller MPC system arrived in June. Audits and validations are required before real funds flow through the system at scale.

What this means for Sui’s broader AI infrastructure play Seal doesn’t exist in isolation. Mysten Labs has been assembling what it describes as a programmable access layer for AI agents on Sui, with Seal sitting alongside tools like Walrus, Sui’s decentralized storage solution, and encrypted messaging capabilities.

SUI serves as the native gas token for the network, meaning any increase in transaction volume from AI agent activity translates directly into demand for the token.

The risks are real. MPC systems have their own attack surface, particularly around the coordination of committee nodes and the potential for collusion. The requirement for audits before live transaction handling reflects genuine technical stakes. A flaw in the authorization flow doesn’t just affect one wallet, it affects every agent and policy running on the same infrastructure.

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

 MEXC, a pioneer in 0-fee digital asset trading, will list five Ondo tokenized stock spot trading pairs spanning AI, semiconductor, and energy sectors on June 25, 2026, at 12:00 UTC, giving global users onchain exposure to U.S. stocks without a traditional brokerage account or market-hours restrictions.

Ondo Global Markets is a tokenization platform that provides onchain exposure to thousands of U.S. publicly traded securities, including stocks and ETFs, for investors outside the United States. Each token is supported by specific assets held through regulated custodial brokers and tracks the total return of the underlying security, including dividend reinvestment. Non-US retail and institutional users can mint and redeem tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs instantly, 24 hours a day, five days a week. 

As part of its deepening collaboration with Ondo Finance, MEXC is adding five new tokenized stock tradingpairs on spot markets — CCJON/USDT, TTMION/USDT, RMBSON/USDT, SYMON/USDT, and KEELON/USDT — covering Cameco (uranium energy), TTM Technologies (PCB manufacturing), Rambus (semiconductor & silicon intellectual property), Symbotic (AI automation), and Keel Infrastructure (data center & energy infrastructure). This further solidifies MEXC and Ondo’s shared commitment to expanding real-world assets trading opportunities for investors worldwide. Full details are available on the MEXC announcement page.

MEXC and Ondo Finance remain committed to expanding the tokenized real-world assets ecosystem, with plans to continue listing new assets and deepening users’ access to traditional financial markets worldwide. Beyond tokenized assets, MEXC has also officially launched “RealStocks“, an innovative equity product that provides eligible users with real share ownership and dividends. This opens an additional channel for users to access U.S. stock markets within a single platform.

About MEXC MEXC is the world’s fastest-growing cryptocurrency exchange, trusted by more than 40 million users across 170+ markets. Built on a user-first philosophy, MEXC offers industry-leading 0-fee trading and access to over 3,000 digital assets. As the Gateway to Infinite Opportunities, MEXC provides a single platform where users can easily trade cryptocurrencies alongside tokenized assets, including stocks, ETFs, commodities, and precious metals.

MEXC Official Website｜X ｜Telegram ｜How to Sign Up on MEXC

For media inquiries, please contact MEXC PR team: [email protected]

Risk Disclaimer:

This content does not constitute investment advice. Given the highly volatile nature of the cryptocurrency market, investors are encouraged to carefully assess market fluctuations, project fundamentals, and potential financial risks before making any trading decisions.

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Disclaimer: TheNewsCrypto does not endorse any content on this page. The content depicted in this Press Release does not represent any investment advice. TheNewsCrypto recommends our readers to make decisions based on their own research. TheNewsCrypto is not accountable for any damage or loss related to content, products, or services stated in this Press Release.

The company says it has mined the first known Bitcoin block using Stratum V2’s Job Declaration feature, as it also rolls out new marketplace tools for digital mining assets.

GoMining says it has mined what it believes is the first known Bitcoin block produced using the Stratum V2 protocol’s Job Declaration functionality, marking an early real-world deployment of technology designed to give miners greater control over how Bitcoin blocks are constructed.

The block was mined through the DMND bitcoin mining pool, with GoMining creating and declaring its own block template rather than relying on the mining pool to determine which transactions were included. The approach represents one of the core features of Stratum V2, an open-source mining protocol that aims to improve security, efficiency and decentralization within Bitcoin mining.

According to the company, the block included transactions associated with GoBTC Pay, GoMining’s open-source Bitcoin instant payments protocol, demonstrating that miners can include transactions tied to their own applications while continuing to participate in pooled mining.

“For years, mining pools have largely determined which transactions are included in Bitcoin blocks,” said Mark Zalan, CEO of GoMining. “By creating our own block template and including GoBTC Pay transactions, we’re demonstrating one of the practical capabilities that Stratum V2 makes possible.”

Mining pools have traditionally been responsible for constructing block templates, leaving individual miners with little influence over transaction selection despite providing the computing power. Stratum V2 introduces Job Declaration, allowing miners to build their own templates while still benefiting from pooled mining rewards.

The protocol has been under development for several years with contributions from members of the Bitcoin community. Supporters argue that broader adoption could reduce centralization among mining pools by distributing block construction decisions across participating miners.

“A miner just mined the first Stratum V2 block to power their own product end to end,” said Alejandro De La Torre, CEO and co-founder of DMND. “GoMining declared the template and included their GoBTC Pay payments with no pool in the way. We built DMND for exactly this.”

The milestone comes as Bitcoin mining companies continue exploring new infrastructure and protocol upgrades aimed at improving network resilience and operational flexibility.

Separately, GoMining has also expanded its digital mining ecosystem with the launch of a new “Step Down Auction” feature for its secondary marketplace. The automated sales mechanism allows sellers to list Digital Miners at a starting price that gradually decreases until a buyer purchases the asset, eliminating the need for competitive bidding.

The marketplace update also broadens public access to listings, introduces additional price history and ROI metrics, and adds new sorting and filtering tools designed to improve liquidity and price discovery for digital mining assets.

Together, the announcements highlight GoMining’s dual focus on advancing Bitcoin’s underlying mining infrastructure while expanding the user experience around tokenized mining products. While the Stratum V2 milestone targets improvements at the protocol level, the marketplace enhancements are aimed at making digital mining assets easier to trade and evaluate within the company’s ecosystem.

Whether the Stratum V2 implementation accelerates adoption across the wider mining industry remains to be seen. However, successfully mining a production Bitcoin block using miner-controlled template creation provides one of the first practical demonstrations of the protocol’s capabilities outside of testing environments.

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Members of the XRP community are warning users to be cautious of scam tokens claiming to represent JPYSC on the XRP Ledger.

This comes as Japan’s financial giant, SBI Holdings, officially launched JPYSC, a trust-bank-backed yen stablecoin. The development sparked speculation about whether JPYSC could be issued on XRPL.

Warning Over Fake JPYSC Tokens XRPL validator Vet (Hussein Zangana) cautioned users that JPYSC has not been publicly announced for issuance on the XRP Ledger. So, any token currently using the JPYSC ticker on XRPL should be treated as suspicious.

The warning comes as scammers may try to exploit excitement surrounding the stablecoin. SBI’s long-standing relationship with Ripple and the XRP ecosystem has fueled expectations that JPYSC could interact with XRPL.

Another XRP community member said they have established monitoring systems to track new trustlines from known SBI addresses. The goal is to identify any legitimate issuance activity if it occurs in the future.

JPYSC Launches Within SBI VC Trade Notably, JPYSC went live on June 24 as a trust-type yen stablecoin issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank and distributed through SBI VC Trade. The stablecoin was developed jointly with Startale Group and is currently available only to SBI VC Trade account holders.

Unlike many stablecoins operating under Japan’s money transfer regulations, JPYSC is structured as a trust-bank-backed electronic payment instrument. SBI says this framework removes the ¥1 million transaction cap that applies to certain payment products. 

For now, JPYSC remains confined to SBI VC Trade accounts. Users cannot withdraw it to external wallets or public blockchains.

SBI Preparing for Public Blockchain Expansion Although transfers are currently restricted, SBI said the technical and operational groundwork for public blockchain circulation has already been completed.

The company stated that once regulatory requirements and tax frameworks are finalized and approved, it plans to enable domestic and international circulation of JPYSC on public blockchain networks.

SBI did not specify which blockchain networks will support JPYSC after the public rollout. As a result, XRP Ledger supporters continue to speculate about a possible future integration.

Because no network has been officially confirmed, community members are urging users to verify issuer addresses before interacting with any token claiming to represent JPYSC.

SBI Targets On-Chain Finance and Tokenization SBI described JPYSC as part of an effort to connect traditional finance with blockchain-based markets. The company outlined several planned use cases once public-chain deployment begins, including:

On-chain foreign exchange markets involving yen and dollar stablecoins Institutional lending and borrowing Settlement of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) Retail and merchant payments Cross-border remittances OTC and institutional crypto trading SBI Chairman and CEO Yoshitaka Kitao said the migration of financial services onto blockchain networks is “irreversible”. He described JPYSC as an important step toward building Japan’s on-chain financial infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Sota Watanabe said preparations for external wallet transfers and public-chain circulation are already complete. According to Watanabe, the remaining obstacles are primarily regulatory and tax-related.

For XRP investors, the launch has attracted attention because of SBI’s close ties to Ripple. However, no official announcement has linked JPYSC to the XRP Ledger so far. 

DisClamier: This content is informational and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author's personal opinions and do not reflect The Crypto Basic opinion. Readers are encouraged to do thorough research before making any investment decisions. The Crypto Basic is not responsible for any financial losses.

XRP is trading just above $1, leaving the token at its weakest price level of the year, but onchain data paints a different picture. 

The exchange-held XRP supply continues to fall, Binance withdrawals have exceeded deposits for seven straight days, whale flows are holding positive and spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have attracted $243 million in inflows since April.

The improving onchain data points to healthy network positioning, even as XRP continues to search for a price bottom.  

XRP supply on exchanges continues to shrinkCrypto analyst Amr Taha noted that Binance's XRP reserve has fallen to its lowest level since March after roughly 100 million XRP left the exchange over the past month. Binance's balance stood at about 2.68 billion XRP on June 25, down from 2.78 billion XRP on May 12, accounting for the largest outflow among major trading platforms.

XRP multi-exchange daily reserve. Source: CryptoQuant

Other exchanges also posted smaller declines. Upbit's reserve fell to 2.48 billion XRP on June 25 from 2.51 billion XRP on May 31, while Bybit's holdings declined to 82 million XRP from 92 million XRP on June 2. Binance led in absolute outflows, while Bybit recorded the steepest percentage decline.

Taha also highlighted a significant shift in Binance transaction activity. XRP withdrawal transactions have exceeded deposits for seven consecutive days since June 17. The seven-day withdrawal share climbed to 53.8% on June 23, its highest reading since June 2024, while deposits fell to 46.1%, the weakest level since 2024.

XRP daily deposit/withdrawal transactions (%) on Binance. Source: CryptoQuant

The metric tracks transaction count rather than XRP volume. This indicates users are moving coins off Binance more frequently than sending them to the exchange, marking the longest withdrawal-led stretch in roughly a year.

Large XRP holders supported the trend. XRP whale flow on the 90-day moving average has stayed positive throughout the quarter at 5.143 million XRP per day, showing consistent net accumulation by large wallets instead of distribution. 

XRP whale flows. Source: CryptoQuant

Institutional demand has also added support. Spot XRP ETFs recorded $2 million in net inflows on June 24, lifting June's total netflows to $31 million. Since April, the total cumulative inflows have reached $243 million.

XRP price approaches a major demand zoneFrom a technical standpoint, the higher-time-frame market structure remains bearish for the altcoin. XRP touched $1.01 on Thursday, its lowest price of 2026, leaving the token close to its first move below $1 since November 2024. The decline has pushed XRP down 43% year-to-date.

XRP/USDT, one-week chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView

The next key area for XRP sits within the fair value gap between $1 and $0.63, an unfilled price gap created during the sharp rally in late 2024 that could attract buying interest if the decline extends in the coming weeks. 

Black Swan Capitalist founder Versan Aljarrah continues to focus on the longer-term chart. The analyst said XRP has spent years building a large accumulation range with higher lows on both weekly and monthly timeframes.

XRP/USD, one-month chart analysis by Versan Aljarrah. Source: X

Aljarrah argued that extended consolidations often produce stronger breakout moves once the price eventually breaks out of the range, with the analyst targeting $10, i.e., a 900% increase from the current price. 

This article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph's Editorial Policy and is intended for informational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice or recommendations. All investments and trades carry risk; readers are encouraged to conduct independent research.

Ripple has appeared on the doorsteps of American lawmakers as part of its effort to push the passage of the Clarity Act.  

San Francisco-headquartered company, which is known for its association with the XRP cryptocurrency, has launched a mobile campaign in the capital with a branded "Clarity truck" to lobby Congress (as shown in the X post below). 

On the road to clarity - literally!
Ripple's Clarity truck is out in D.C. as Congress works on the Clarity Act, which creates clear rules for digital assets and crypto.
Clear rules help protect consumers, support responsible innovation, and keep the U.S. competitive pic.twitter.com/FGdTHVguPl

— Lauren Belive (@BeliveLauren) June 25, 2026  The timing is crucial, given that legislators keep mulling over the major regulatory framework for cryptocurrency. 

Lauren Belive, the head of the U.S. Public Policy at Ripple, has quipped that the company is "on the road to clarity—literally!" The exec has stressed that clear crypto rules will be beneficial for consumers and American competitiveness. 

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The massive Senate hurdle  The passage of the Clarity Act, which aspires to resolve years of regulatory uncertainty, appears to be less likely with each passing day. As of today, Polymarket bettors see only a 43% chance of the bill being signed into law this year. 

The Clarity Act cleared the House with strong bipartisan support back in July, but it has struggled to pass the upper chamber. 

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Negotiations stalled over unresolved ethics and conflict-of-interest provisions. Senate Democrats were reportedly left frustrated by the lack of cooperation. 

Moreover, there are disagreements over DeFi platforms as well as stablecoin yield and rewards (the most contentious issue). 

So far, no Senate floor vote has been scheduled. The Republicans have to secure at least seven Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster.   

The Senate is scheduled to head to its July 4 recess on June 27. 

Analysts view early to mid-August as the practical deadline for the bill to pass the Senate.

Ripple previously supported the imperfect legislative effort despite some opposition from the broader industry, stating that clarity is better than chaos. 

BlackRock remains affected by the consistent outflows witnessed across both the Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF markets, and has continued to offload large amounts of its holdings.

In a familiar move showcased by blockchain monitoring platform Lookonchain, BlackRock has deposited another 3,410 BTC and 5,132 ETH to Coinbase Prime in multiple transfers spotted on Thursday, June 25.

BlackRock dumps crypto non-stopThe data further revealed that the Bitcoin and Ethereum transfers were worth $209.64 million and $8.43 million, respectively, per the assets' prices at the time of the transactions.

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The total deposits happened in a series of about seven separate transfers, with nearly all of them carrying 300 BTC each, while only one separate transfer moved Ethereum to the Coinbase wallet.

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While this transfer happened at a time when the broader crypto market is facing downside pressure, market watchers fear that the move from BlackRock could further fuel the ongoing volatility.

Did BlackRock actually sell?Although BlackRock did not clarify the reason it has continued to offload large stashes of its Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings on Coinbase, the transfers have triggered speculation across the market, with traders interpreting them as potential attempts to sell.

It is important to note that deposits to Coinbase Prime or other crypto exchanges do not necessarily confirm an immediate sale. However, investors have become suspicious of BlackRock's frequent deposits, as the timing of the transfers has intensified concerns and signals that BlackRock might actually be selling.

This is more apparent, as the company has been found to sell only when its ETF products record withdrawals during their daily trading sessions.

Round-the-Clock Access to Tokenized U.S. Equities@OndoFinance has activated what it describes as the industry's first 24/7 minting and redemption cycle for tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, a move that formally severs the dependency of real-world asset (RWA) products on traditional market hours.

Investors can now execute primary issuance and liquidations for $SPYon, $QQQon, $NVDAon, and $TSLAon during overnight sessions, weekends, and public holidays, periods when NYSE and Nasdaq are closed. The update eliminates the reliance on legacy banking schedules, allowing tokenized shares to be created or redeemed in real time regardless of exchange downtime.

Each tokenized asset is an ERC-20 token backed 1:1 by the underlying security, held by U.S. broker-dealers along with cash in transit. The tokens are total-return trackers that mirror the economic performance of their underlying assets, including price movements, dividends, and corporate actions.

Multi-Chain Rollout and Growing Platform ScaleThe 24/7 architecture is currently live on @Ethereum and @BNBChain, with a @Solana deployment scheduled for the near term. Ondo had already expanded to Solana earlier this year: Ondo Global Markets, the world's largest tokenized stock and ETF platform by total value locked, became available on Solana with more than 200 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs, including NVDA, AAPL, META, and ETFs such as SPY and QQQ.

Ondo Global Markets has surpassed $1 billion in tokenized stock TVL less than eight months after launch, becoming the first tokenized stocks platform to cross that mark. The platform now offers more than 260 tokenized U.S. stocks and ETFs across Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain, with access through wallets, exchanges, custodians, and protocols including Binance, Bitget, MetaMask, and Blockchain.com.

Ondo said Global Markets holds more than 70% market share among tokenized equity issuers and has secured regulatory approval to offer tokenized stocks and ETFs across 30 EU and EEA countries.

The broader significance of the 24/7 minting update is structural. By enabling round-the-clock mint and redeem operations, Ondo aims to make equities and ETFs composable components within the DeFi ecosystem, substantially expanding the asset universe and extending trading hours for on-chain finance. This also removes the T+1 settlement delay that traditional stock trading requires and enables transferring equity exposure between wallets as easily as sending stablecoins.

Sources
Ondo Global Markets tops $1B in TVL, Crypto Briefing
Ondo Global Markets launches on Solana, Solana.com
Deep Dive of Ondo Finance, TokenInsight

Aave governance is weighing a proposal to bring savings GHO, or sGHO, across chains, a move that could make the protocol’s yield-bearing stablecoin product easier to access beyond Ethereum mainnet.

TL;DR Aave governance is considering an ARFC proposal to launch sGHO cross-chain. The proposal uses Chainlink CCIP while keeping Ethereum mainnet as the main source of truth. The move could expand access to GHO savings yields across Layer-2 networks. A Cross-Chain Stablecoin Push The proposal would extend sGHO, the savings version of Aave’s GHO stablecoin, to additional networks. The idea is to let users access yield-bearing GHO exposure from Layer-2 environments without fragmenting the core accounting model. According to the proposal, Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol would be used to support messaging between chains.

That structure matters because stablecoin liquidity can become messy when each chain develops its own version of an asset. Aave’s approach appears designed to expand access while keeping the main vault logic anchored to Ethereum. In theory, that gives users lower-cost access on L2s while preserving a clearer system for tracking deposits and yield.

Why sGHO Matters For Aave GHO has become an important strategic product for Aave because it gives the lending protocol a native stablecoin around which it can build revenue, incentives, and liquidity. sGHO adds another layer by giving users a savings-style version of that stablecoin, turning idle stablecoin exposure into a yield-bearing position.

Cross-chain deployment could help GHO compete with other stablecoins and yield products that already have broad multi-chain footprints. For Aave, the goal is not just to issue a stablecoin; it is to create a deeper ecosystem where borrowing, lending, liquidity, and savings products reinforce each other.

Governance Still Has To Decide As with any Aave governance process, the proposal still needs community scrutiny. Tokenholders will need to assess bridge risk, CCIP assumptions, liquidity incentives, operational complexity, and whether the rollout creates enough user demand to justify the added architecture.

If approved, the move would fit a wider DeFi trend: major protocols are trying to make their core products available across multiple networks while avoiding the liquidity fragmentation that hurt earlier cross-chain expansions.

Market Context The proposal also arrives as DeFi protocols are searching for more durable revenue lines. A successful GHO and sGHO ecosystem could give Aave a native stablecoin flywheel, where borrowers, savers, and liquidity providers all interact around the same asset rather than relying only on third-party stablecoins.

Execution risk remains real, though. Cross-chain systems introduce dependencies that users may not notice until something breaks, which is why governance will likely focus heavily on bridge assumptions, risk limits, and how quickly the rollout should expand.

That leaves the story as more than a single-day headline. The practical test is whether the development changes user access, liquidity, regulatory confidence, or trader positioning over the next few sessions rather than simply adding another announcement to the crypto news cycle.

This coverage is based on information from Aave governance forum.

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

MiCA is the European Union’s first comprehensive rulebook for crypto, and on July 1, 2026, its transition period ends for good. This guide explains what MiCA does, why USDT got delisted while USDC did not, and what the hard deadline means for exchanges and users.

Summary

MiCA becomes fully enforceable across the European Union on July 1, 2026, after which crypto firms without a MiCA license can no longer legally serve EU users. The regulation introduced a single framework for crypto across all EU member states, with strict rules for stablecoins, exchanges, and other crypto service providers. MiCA compliance kept USDC listed on regulated European exchanges, while USDT was delisted after its issuer chose not to seek authorization. Table of Contents

What MiCA actually regulatesThe stablecoin rules and why USDT got delistedCASPs: the rules for exchanges and service providersThe July 2026 deadline and the great narrowingA worked example: what a token and an exchange each faceWhat MiCA leaves unsettledMiCA in the global pictureWhat it means for everyday usersFrequently Asked Questions MiCA, short for Markets in Crypto-Assets, is the European Union’s first comprehensive law governing crypto-assets and the companies that deal in them, creating one common rulebook across all twenty-seven member states in place of the patchwork of national approaches that came before. Formally known as Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, it entered into force in mid-2023 and has rolled out in phases ever since, and it now sits at a decisive moment: on July 1, 2026, the transition period that let existing crypto firms keep operating under old national rules expires for good, and Europe’s market supervisor has been blunt that there will be no extensions. 

After that date, any company offering crypto services to European Union clients without a proper MiCA license is simply breaking the law. This guide explains what MiCA is, the categories it creates, why some stablecoins survived in Europe while others were delisted, what a crypto company must do to comply, and what the hard 2026 deadline means for exchanges and ordinary users alike.

The significance of MiCA is hard to overstate, because the European Union is one of the largest economic blocs on earth and MiCA is the most ambitious attempt yet to bring crypto fully inside a traditional financial-regulation framework. Before MiCA, a crypto exchange or token issuer operating in Europe faced a confusing mix of national rules, with one regime in Germany, another in France, another in Malta, and gaps everywhere in between. 

MiCA replaces that fragmentation with a single, harmonized system: get authorized once, and you can passport your services across the entire bloc. The trade-off is that the bar to get authorized is high, the obligations are heavy, and the deadline to clear them is now days away rather than years off. The result is a market being reshaped in real time, with a small number of licensed winners, a large number of firms facing exit, and a stablecoin landscape that already looks very different inside Europe than outside it.

What MiCA actually regulates MiCA divides the crypto world into categories and applies different rules to each, so the first step in understanding it is learning what those categories are. At the top level, MiCA governs two kinds of actors: the issuers of crypto-assets and the providers of crypto-asset services. For issuers, MiCA sorts tokens into three buckets.

The first is electronic money tokens, or EMTs, which are stablecoins pegged to a single official currency, such as a euro-pegged or dollar-pegged coin. The second is asset-referenced tokens, or ARTs, which are stablecoins backed by a basket of things, multiple currencies, commodities, or other assets, rather than a single currency. The third is a catch-all category of other crypto-assets, which covers utility tokens, governance tokens, and unbacked cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, the assets most exchanges handle every day.

Each bucket carries different obligations. The two stablecoin categories face the strictest treatment, because regulators view stablecoins as the part of crypto most capable of threatening the wider financial system, a concern sharpened by the 2022 collapse of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin that wiped out tens of billions of dollars. EMT and ART issuers must hold proper reserves, grant holders redemption rights, and meet governance and disclosure standards. 

The other crypto-assets face lighter rules, mainly requirements to publish an honest whitepaper before offering a token to the public and to avoid market abuse. Notably, MiCA largely excludes non-fungible tokens, unless they are issued in a large fungible series that makes them function more like ordinary tokens, and it excludes assets already covered by existing financial law, such as securities. The category a token falls into determines almost everything about how MiCA treats it, which is why getting the classification right is the starting point for any issuer.

The stablecoin rules and why USDT got delisted The most visible effect of MiCA so far has been on stablecoins, and the clearest way to understand the rules is through what happened to the two largest dollar stablecoins. Under MiCA, a stablecoin can only be offered by European Union-regulated platforms if its issuer is authorized, which for a single-currency stablecoin means holding an e-money or credit institution license and meeting MiCA’s reserve, redemption, and governance requirements. 

The reserve rules are strict: an EMT must back its tokens fully, holding one hundred percent of reserves in safe, segregated accounts, while an ART must keep at least a substantial portion segregated at regulated credit institutions. MiCA also bars stablecoin issuers from paying interest or yield to holders, a deliberate choice to stop stablecoins from competing with bank deposits and drawing money out of the banking system.

This is where the two giants diverged. Circle, the issuer of USDC, pursued authorization through a European subsidiary and obtained MiCA approval for USDC and its euro stablecoin EURC, making them compliant and freely offered across European Union exchanges. Tether, the issuer of USDT, the largest stablecoin in the world, did not apply for MiCA authorization and confirmed its token was not compliant. The consequence was swift: major European Union-regulated exchanges, including the regional arms of the largest global platforms, delisted USDT and other non-compliant stablecoins for their European users. 

The nuance worth understanding is that USDT is not banned from existence in Europe; users can still hold it in self-custody and trade it on decentralized exchanges. What changed is that a MiCA-licensed exchange can no longer offer it, which fragments liquidity and pushes European users toward compliant alternatives like USDC. Every stablecoin authorized under MiCA so far has been an EMT, a single-currency token, and USDC’s compliance versus USDT’s non-compliance has become the textbook illustration of the rules in action.

CASPs: the rules for exchanges and service providers Beyond token issuers, MiCA’s other major target is the companies that provide crypto services, which the regulation calls crypto-asset service providers, or CASPs. This category is broad: it covers exchanges, brokers, custodians, wallet providers that hold customer assets, trading platforms, and firms that advise on or place crypto-assets. 

If your business touches customer crypto in almost any commercial way, you likely need a CASP authorization to keep serving European Union clients. The obligations that come with that authorization are extensive and closely mirror those imposed on traditional financial firms, which is the entire point: MiCA aims to make crypto service providers behave like regulated financial institutions rather than lightly governed startups.

A CASP must meet requirements covering customer identity verification and anti-money-laundering controls, the safekeeping and segregation of customer assets, governance and capital standards, market-conduct rules that prohibit insider trading and market manipulation, and clear disclosure of risks to customers. Authorized CASPs also become subject to the European Union’s operational-resilience framework, which mandates cybersecurity and incident-reporting standards, and to the crypto travel rule, which requires them to pass along sender and recipient information on transfers, the same obligation that has applied to bank wires for decades. 

The reward for shouldering all of this is passporting: once a firm is authorized in any one member state, it can offer its services across all twenty-seven without seeking separate licenses in each, turning a fragmented continent into a single market. The burden is that running these programs at scale, across a global customer base, is expensive and demanding, which is exactly why so many firms are struggling to clear the bar before the deadline.

The July 2026 deadline and the great narrowing Everything about MiCA now points toward a single date, and understanding the phased rollout explains why that date matters so much. MiCA did not arrive all at once. The stablecoin rules for EMTs and ARTs took effect in mid-2024. The full CASP authorization regime took effect at the end of 2024, the point from which firms needed a MiCA license to operate. 

But MiCA included a grandfathering provision, a transition period that let firms already operating legally under their national rules continue doing so while they applied for full MiCA authorization. Member states set their own transition windows within the limits MiCA allowed, ranging from short windows ending in 2025 to the full eighteen-month period ending on July 1, 2026. That final date is the bloc-wide cutoff, the moment the transition ends everywhere at once.

What makes the deadline dramatic is how few firms have actually cleared the bar. As the cutoff approached in 2026, roughly a couple of hundred firms held some form of full MiCA authorization across the entire union, but the number cleared to run an actual crypto trading platform was strikingly small, in the low double digits, with a number of member states having issued zero trading-platform licenses at all. Industry executives openly warned that a large majority of exchanges currently operating may fail to secure a license and be forced to exit the European market, and reports emerged of major global exchanges facing rejection in specific countries. 

Europe’s market supervisor reinforced the message with no room for ambiguity: no member state may extend the transition beyond July 1, 2026, and after that date, operating without authorization is a breach of European Union law, not a paperwork gap. The picture, then, is of a great narrowing, a market being compressed from a crowded field into a small set of licensed survivors, with the rest required to wind down their European operations or leave.

A worked example: what a token and an exchange each face To make the rules concrete, it helps to walk through how MiCA treats two typical cases, a stablecoin issuer and an exchange, because the abstract categories become much clearer in motion. Imagine a company issuing a euro-pegged stablecoin and wanting European users to hold and trade it on regulated platforms. 

Under MiCA, that token is an electronic money token, so the issuer must hold an e-money or credit institution license, back every token fully with reserves held in safe, segregated accounts, grant holders the right to redeem their tokens for the underlying currency on demand, publish a compliant whitepaper, and accept that it cannot pay holders any interest or yield. If the company does all of this and secures authorization, its stablecoin can be offered across the bloc; if it does not, regulated exchanges must refuse to list it, exactly the fork in the road that separated the compliant dollar stablecoin from the non-compliant one. The token’s fate under MiCA is decided entirely by whether its issuer accepts this package of obligations.

Now imagine an exchange that wants to keep serving European customers. Its path runs through CASP authorization. It must apply to a national regulator in some member state, prove it meets MiCA’s standards for governance, capital, and the safekeeping and segregation of customer assets, stand up the identity-verification and anti-money-laundering machinery that turns it into an obliged entity under European law, implement the travel rule so it passes sender and recipient information on transfers, meet the operational-resilience and cybersecurity requirements, and submit to ongoing supervision and market-conduct rules. If the regulator grants authorization, the exchange can passport that single license across all twenty-seven member states and operate bloc-wide. 

If it cannot meet the bar or applies too late, it must stop serving European Union clients once the transition ends, winding down in an orderly way. The two journeys share a logic: MiCA offers a single, valuable prize, legal access to the entire European market, in exchange for accepting obligations modeled on those that govern banks and regulated financial firms.

What this worked example reveals is the deeper character of MiCA. It is not a light-touch registration that lets crypto firms keep operating much as before with a new label. It is a serious authorization regime that demands real reserves, real controls, real segregation of customer money, and real accountability, and it forces every issuer and service provider to decide whether the prize of European market access is worth the cost of meeting those demands. 

For well-resourced firms with a long-term commitment to Europe, the answer is often yes, and they have built the compliance machinery to clear the bar. For many smaller or offshore operators, the cost is too high or the timeline too short, which is why the market is narrowing toward a smaller set of licensed survivors. The categories and rules described earlier are not bureaucratic abstractions; they are the concrete hurdles that decide, token by token and firm by firm, who gets to operate in Europe after the transition closes.

What MiCA leaves unsettled For all its ambition, MiCA leaves important questions open, and the gaps are as revealing as the rules. The largest unsettled area is decentralized finance. MiCA is built around identifiable issuers and service providers, the companies it can authorize and supervise, but a genuinely decentralized protocol has no company at its center, no firm to hold a license or answer to a regulator. MiCA states that fully decentralized arrangements, those provided without any intermediary, fall outside its scope, which sounds clean until you ask what “fully decentralized” actually means. 

The market supervisor has not yet defined the term precisely, and most real protocols sit somewhere in the middle, with a governance token, a development team, a foundation, or a front-end operator that a regulator might decide counts as an intermediary. The result is genuine uncertainty about which DeFi protocols MiCA captures and which it does not, a gap that will be filled by future guidance and enforcement instead of the text itself.

Other tensions are surfacing as the rules meet reality. MiCA places caps on how widely very large stablecoins denominated in non-European currencies, such as dollar stablecoins, can be used as a means of payment within the bloc, a provision aimed at protecting European monetary sovereignty but one that complicates life for a market where most trading is dollar-denominated. 

There are overlaps with other European financial laws, such as payment services rules, that can double the compliance burden for some stablecoin activities and have prompted worries about the competitiveness of euro stablecoins. And politically, the dossier has grown charged, with some member states floating the idea of a mechanism to switch off foreign stablecoins seen as a systemic threat. 

None of these unsettled questions undermines MiCA’s core achievement of creating a single framework, but they are reminders that a law this sweeping cannot anticipate everything, and that MiCA will keep evolving through guidance, enforcement, and amendment for years after the headline deadline passes.

MiCA in the global picture MiCA does not exist in isolation, and seeing it alongside parallel efforts elsewhere reveals where global crypto regulation is heading. The same years that produced MiCA also produced the United States’ first comprehensive federal stablecoin law, the United Kingdom’s move toward its own crypto regime under its financial regulator, and Hong Kong’s stablecoin ordinance, among others. 

These frameworks differ in detail, but they converge on a striking number of core principles: stablecoin issuers should hold full, high-quality reserves; they should be licensed and supervised; holders should have clear redemption rights; service providers should enforce identity checks and anti-money-laundering controls; and the whole apparatus should be brought inside the regulatory perimeter that governs traditional finance. MiCA, having arrived early and comprehensively, has functioned as something of a reference point that later frameworks echo and respond to.

This convergence matters for anyone trying to understand the trajectory of the industry. The era in which crypto operated in a regulatory vacuum, where an exchange could serve a global audience with minimal oversight, is closing, and MiCA is one of the clearest markers of that shift. The picture that emerges is of a maturing market in which access increasingly depends on compliance, in which the same stablecoin can be freely available in one jurisdiction and delisted in another based purely on its issuer’s regulatory posture, and in which the cost of operating legally has risen sharply. 

For Europe specifically, MiCA’s promise is a safer, more transparent market with clear rules and a public register of authorized firms and tokens that anyone can consult. Its cost is a heavier compliance burden, a narrower field of providers, and reduced access to some popular global assets. Whether that trade favors consumers or stifles innovation is the live debate, but the direction is set: in Europe, crypto is now a regulated activity, and after July 1, 2026, that is true without exception.

What it means for everyday users For an ordinary person using crypto in Europe, MiCA changes the landscape in concrete ways worth understanding before the deadline instead of after. The most immediate effect is on which platforms and tokens you can use. If you rely on an exchange that has not secured a MiCA license, that platform may be forced to stop serving European Union clients after July 1, 2026, which in practice can mean frozen new deposits, halted trading features, and eventually a forced withdrawal of your funds, sometimes during a period of low liquidity and high fees. The protective move is to check, today instead of on July 2, whether the platforms you use have secured or are clearly on track to secure authorization, and to favor those that have. An unauthorized service operating after the deadline offers reduced legal protection and potential restrictions on access to your own assets.

The second effect is on stablecoins. If you hold a non-compliant stablecoin on a European Union-regulated exchange, you may find it delisted, with trading pairs removed and liquidity drying up, which is why many European users have shifted toward MiCA-authorized options. You can still self-custody whatever you like, but the convenient on-ramps and trading pairs increasingly favor compliant tokens. The broader takeaway is that MiCA, for all its complexity, ultimately aims to make the European crypto market safer and more transparent for users by ensuring the exchanges they trust meet real standards and the stablecoins they hold are genuinely backed. The cost of that safety is fewer choices and more friction, and a transition period that, for some platforms and tokens, ends abruptly. 

The practical wisdom is simple: understand which of your platforms and assets are compliant, make any moves before the deadline instead of during the disruption, and treat MiCA authorization as a meaningful signal that a service has accepted real regulatory accountability.

Frequently Asked Questions What does MiCA stand for and what is it? MiCA stands for Markets in Crypto-Assets. It is the European Union’s first comprehensive law for crypto-assets and the companies that deal in them, formally Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. It replaces the previous patchwork of national rules with one harmonized framework across all twenty-seven member states, covering token issuers and service providers like exchanges, custodians, and wallet providers. Its goals are to protect consumers, prevent market abuse, ensure stablecoins are properly backed, and bring crypto inside the same kind of regulatory perimeter that governs traditional finance, while letting authorized firms operate bloc-wide.

Why was USDT delisted in Europe but not USDC? Under MiCA, a stablecoin can only be offered by European Union-regulated platforms if its issuer is authorized and meets MiCA’s reserve, redemption, and governance rules. Circle pursued authorization through a European subsidiary and obtained MiCA approval for USDC and its euro stablecoin EURC, so they remain available. Tether did not apply for MiCA authorization and confirmed USDT was non-compliant, so European Union-regulated exchanges delisted it. USDT is not banned outright; it can still be self-custodied and traded on decentralized exchanges, but licensed European platforms can no longer offer it.

What happens on July 1, 2026? That is when MiCA’s transition period ends across the entire European Union. The transition, or grandfathering, let firms already operating under national rules keep going while they applied for full MiCA authorization. After July 1, 2026, any company providing crypto services to European Union clients without a proper MiCA license is breaking European Union law. The market supervisor has stated there will be no extensions. Because relatively few firms have secured licenses, especially to run trading platforms, many exchanges may be forced to exit the European market or wind down their services there.

What is a CASP under MiCA? A CASP is a crypto-asset service provider, MiCA’s term for companies that offer crypto services such as exchanges, brokers, custodians, wallet providers holding customer assets, and trading platforms. To serve European Union clients, a CASP needs MiCA authorization, which comes with obligations modeled on traditional finance: identity checks and anti-money-laundering controls, segregation and safekeeping of customer assets, governance and capital standards, market-conduct rules against manipulation and insider trading, operational-resilience requirements, and the crypto travel rule. Once authorized in one member state, a CASP can passport its services across all twenty-seven.

Does MiCA regulate DeFi and NFTs? Only partly, and with significant uncertainty. MiCA largely excludes non-fungible tokens unless they are issued in a large fungible series that makes them behave like ordinary tokens. For decentralized finance, MiCA says fully decentralized arrangements provided without any intermediary fall outside its scope, but it has not precisely defined “fully decentralized.” Since most protocols have a governance token, a development team, a foundation, or a front-end operator, regulators may decide some of them have an intermediary that MiCA captures. So the treatment of many DeFi protocols remains unsettled and will be clarified through future guidance and enforcement.

How does MiCA affect ordinary crypto users in Europe? Mainly through which platforms and tokens you can use. If an exchange you use has not secured a MiCA license, it may have to stop serving European Union clients after July 1, 2026, which can mean halted deposits and trading and eventually forced withdrawals. Non-compliant stablecoins may be delisted from regulated exchanges, with liquidity shifting to compliant ones like USDC. The protective steps are to check whether your platforms are authorized, move before the deadline instead of during any disruption, and treat MiCA authorization as a signal that a service has accepted real regulatory accountability. You can still self-custody assets freely.

This article is educational information, not legal or financial advice. MiCA implementation, license counts, stablecoin compliance status, and deadlines can change, and details reflect reporting available as of June 25, 2026. Confirm current requirements and the status of specific platforms and tokens through official sources such as the European Securities and Markets Authority register before relying on anything described here.

In contrast to comparable features provided by centralized exchanges, dSLTP uses Orbs-powered decentralized infrastructure. By expanding on its current integration of the Orbs-powered dLIMIT and dTWAP protocols, the launch broadens SushiSwap’s range. One of DeFi’s most established decentralized exchanges, SushiSwap, has included dSLTP, the Orbs Layer-3 technology-powered stop-loss and take-profit protocol. Through decentralized stop-loss and take-profit orders, users may automate trade execution from inside the SushiSwap trading interface thanks to the integration.

By expanding on its current integration of the Orbs-powered dLIMIT and dTWAP protocols, the launch broadens SushiSwap’s range of sophisticated trading capabilities. In order to control risk, safeguard gains, and lessen the need for continuous market monitoring while retaining complete custody of their assets, users may now establish automatic orders that execute when predetermined price goals are met.

Currently, dSLTP is accessible on SushiSwap for Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, and Katana, giving traders in several blockchain ecosystems access to sophisticated order capabilities. In contrast to comparable features provided by centralized exchanges, dSLTP uses Orbs-powered decentralized infrastructure.

The protocol maintains the composability and transparency of decentralized finance by enabling stop-order automation without the need for centralized servers, custodians, or off-chain execution mechanisms.

“Stop-loss and take-profit orders are among the most widely used tools in trading, yet they’ve largely been unavailable in a decentralized environment,” said Ran Hammer, Vice President of Business Development at Orbs. “By bringing dSLTP to SushiSwap, we’re giving traders the ability to automate risk management and execution without sacrificing the transparency and self-custody that make DeFi unique. It’s another milestone in closing the gap between centralized and decentralized trading experiences.”

A variety of execution settings, including as trigger prices, optional limit prices, order expiry dates, and percentage-based trading strategies, may be configured by traders via the interface. The SushiSwap interface allows for immediate order monitoring, modification, and cancellation.

When an asset drops below a defined price, stop-loss orders instantly take effect, assisting traders in reducing their exposure to downside risk under erratic market circumstances. Take-profit orders enable users to lock in profits in accordance with their trading strategy by triggering when a target price is met. When combined, the order types provide traders a framework for automated profit-taking and risk management.

The launch is the most recent addition to Orbs’ expanding collection of decentralized trade protocols. In addition to dLIMIT, dTWAP, Liquidity Hub, and Perpetual Hub, dSLTP is intended to provide on-chain markets with sophisticated execution capabilities that are often associated with conventional finance and centralized exchanges.

Advanced order types are becoming more and more crucial for traders looking for more accuracy, efficiency, and control as decentralized exchanges continue to develop beyond simple token swaps. Now that dSLTP is operational on SushiSwap, customers may access institutional-grade trading capabilities while staying entirely on-chain.

One of DeFi’s most well-known decentralized exchanges, SushiSwap was first introduced on Ethereum in 2020 and is now available on other chains. SushiSwap, a leader in community-governed DeFi infrastructure, is a reliable source of on-chain trading volume and provides a wide range of trading and liquidity options.

Content writer by profession. A crypto lover and has passion for writing. Follows the developments of digital currency right from its launch, years ago.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Spark has deployed approximately $150 million in stablecoin liquidity across two Uniswap v4 pools on Ethereum as part of a collaboration aimed at creating shared liquidity and exchange infrastructure for stablecoin issuers.

A Spark spokesperson told Cointelegraph that the initial deployment is live in two pools pairing USDS with PayPal USD (PYUSD) and USDT, with USDS serving as the foundation. Spark described the deployment as one of the largest automated market maker (AMM) liquidity migrations in DeFi.

“These pools represent the initial deployment of approximately $150 million of liquidity and establish the first phase of the Stablecoin FX Layer,” the spokesperson said. “This initial deployment focuses on bootstrapping shared liquidity on Uniswap v4.”

Earlier this month, Standard Chartered identified Uniswap as a potential beneficiary of tokenized assets moving into DeFi. It forecast that total assets held in DeFi could reach $2.7 trillion by 2030, with Uniswap potentially emerging as a liquidity venue for the growing market. 

The deployment announced Thursday lays the groundwork for a planned programmable liquidity system that could reduce the need for banks, financial technology firms and stablecoin issuers to build separate liquidity networks while testing whether Uniswap can make onchain capital more efficient without weakening market depth.

Spark plans programmable liquidity expansionSpark said it plans to introduce its Shared Liquidity Layer and DualPool hook in subsequent phases using Uniswap v4's programmable architecture to coordinate how liquidity is distributed across stablecoin markets.

A liquidity hook enables protocols to seamlessly integrate with platforms for capital access and developing yield and trading strategies.

Spark said a hook is intended to allow capital not immediately needed for trades to be deployed into governance-approved products, liquidity venues and yield-generating strategies.

The implementation of the DualPool hook will go through a separate security review, testing and production-readiness process before deployment. The first phase uses standard Uniswap v4 pools rather than the planned programmable framework.

Spark said the planned framework is intended to give future stablecoin issuers access to shared liquidity rather than requiring them to individually bootstrap pools, coordinate market makers and manage inventory across different venues.

The spokesperson told Cointelegraph that Spark is working with additional partners across the stablecoin ecosystem but is not yet ready to disclose those integrations.

Uniswap seen as winner as tokenized assets move onchainIn a June 15 note to clients, StanChart's bank's head of digital assets research, Geoff Kendrick, said that tokenized treasures, equities, bonds and other assets could bring more trading activity and liquidity to decentralized exchanges as their DeFi use expands. 

DeFi total value locked as of June 25. Source: DefiLlama

This new $150 million migration offers a more immediate test of StanChart's infrastructure thesis, though it involves stablecoins rather than tokenized securities. 

The migration also follows Uniswap’s push into institutional tokenized-asset trading. On Feb. 12, BlackRock said it would bring its $2.1 billion tokenized Treasury fund, BUIDL, to Uniswap, allowing eligible institutional investors and market makers to trade the security through decentralized infrastructure. 

Magazine: Japanese pension fund tips 1% in crypto, G7 urges action on NK hackers: Asia Express

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Paxos built PAXG to remove the operational overhead of holding gold. Storage, custody, and transfer are handled at the token level, backed 1:1 with the world’s finest gold and overseen by federal regulators, so holders get direct exposure to physical gold without the infrastructure burden that comes with it. As gold continues its strongest bull cycle in two decades, more investors are seeking the convenience of tokenized gold: lower-cost, faster to settle, and instantly transferable. PAXG has grown over 300% since 2024 and demand continues to increase. 

Today we're extending PAXG to Solana, the first step in PAXG's multi-chain expansion. You can find more information about where to buy PAXG on Solana here.

What Is PAXG?Pax Gold (PAXG) is a digital token where one token equals one fine troy ounce of physical gold. 

Each ounce is stored in London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) accredited vaults. The gold reserves are attested monthly by KPMG, providing token holders with regular, independent verification that every PAXG in circulation is fully backed by physical gold. In addition, the reserves undergo an annual physical audit conducted by Bureau Veritas, an independent inspection and certification body. This audit is limited to physical verification procedures performed on-site and does not constitute an attestation of ownership, valuation, or overall asset backing, but provides an additional layer of independent verification of the vaulted gold. If you hold PAXG, you hold the underlying physical gold under the legal custody of Paxos Trust Company, National Association.

We issue PAXG as a national trust bank regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), one of the most rigorous oversight frameworks available for a digital asset issuer. That regulatory posture is not incidental and sets us apart in the market. It means your gold is held under legal custody, with monthly public attestations and full bar-serial transparency through our Gold Allocation Lookup tool.

A few specifics that differentiate PAXG from other ways to own gold:

No custody fees. Gold ETFs charge 10 to 40 basis points per year just to hold your position. PAXG charges zero for storage.

Near-instant settlement. On-chain transfers settle in seconds, compared to T+1 for Gold ETFs and T+2 for LBMA bars.

Redeemable for physical bars, unallocated gold, or USD. PAXG is redeemable for LBMA Good Delivery gold bullion bars (requires holder to have 430 PAXG), unallocated Loco London Gold, or USD at current market price. This can be completed through the Paxos site.

No accredited investor gate, no brokerage account, no large bar minimums.

How Is PAXG Created?Every PAXG token begins with physical gold. When demand for PAXG increases, Paxos purchases unallocated gold from our supplier, which is then allocated to LBMA-accredited vaults in London as Good Delivery bars. Once the gold is vaulted, it is tokenized: PAXG tokens are minted on-chain and held in Paxos' inventory wallets. When a customer buys PAXG from Paxos directly, tokens transfer directly from Paxos inventory to their wallet.

Every token in circulation is backed by a specific, auditable bar of physical gold. The flow is always the same direction: gold enters the vault before tokens enter the market.

Why Solana, and Why NowPAXG launched on Ethereum in 2019. In the past two years, the number of holders more than doubled, and average holding size more than tripled from $7,000 to $26,000.

That growth signals the opportunity to expand PAXG into new ecosystems and put it in the hands of more builders and users.

Solana's real-world asset ecosystem crossed $2.5 billion in TVL in May 2026, up from $215 million just twelve months ago. Transaction fees average a fraction of a cent, with sub-second confirmation and 99.9%+ uptime over the past year. It is an ecosystem mature enough to support a regulated, allocated gold token immediately at launch, with an active DeFi base ready to integrate native assets.

We are partnering with Sunrise Defi on our Solana expansion to bring PAXG natively to the ecosystem with active DeFi markets across major Solana DEXs and seamless integration into Solana wallets and aggregators.

Solana is the start of our multi-chain expansion for PAXG. Every piece of infrastructure we are shipping in this launch is designed to extend cleanly to every chain that comes next.

How We Built the InfrastructureGetting here required one foundational upgrade and one new deployment. Both matter for Solana and for every chain that comes after.

ETH PAXG Contract Upgrade

Expanding to new chains starts at the contract level. We upgraded the PAXG token contracts to support omnichain functionality across both EVM and non-EVM networks, with an architecture designed to extend cleanly as we add more chains.

The upgraded contracts maintain all existing compliance controls, the same supply verification that underpins our monthly KPMG attestations, and full auditability of every token in circulation across every chain where PAXG is live.

The upgraded contracts are open source, independently audited by Zellic, and available for review in our PAXG GitHub repository.

Existing Ethereum holders can bridge directly through the Paxos platform or through

LayerZero Stargate

. No re-purchasing, no re-custodying, no new attestation required.

PAXG on Solana: The Token Implementation

The Solana deployment of PAXG is built on the Token-2022 program, Solana's extended token standard that enables native compliance controls at the token level.

This is the same standard Paxos used for PYUSD and USDG on Solana. It lets us enforce the same regulatory requirements that exist on Ethereum without relying on a separate contract layer to do it.

The Permanent Delegate extension ensures PAXG on Solana meets the same regulatory requirements as the Ethereum contract. The result is a Solana-native PAXG token that carries the same compliance posture and supply verifiability as the Ethereum original.

This Is the FoundationThe Solana launch is the first step in PAXG's multi-chain expansion. The contract upgrades and infrastructure we shipped today  are built to add new chains faster with less overhead each time.

Whether you're a builder integrating tokenized gold into a Solana application or an institutional investor looking to learn how to buy PAXG, reach out here to get started or learn more.  

Footnotes:

¹ Solana RWA TVL growth from $215M to $2.5B over twelve months as of May 2026. Source: RWA.xyz. Reported independently by MEXC News and CryptoNews.net.

² Solana lending markets reaching $3.6B: as of December 2025 per DeFiLlama. Verify current figures before publication at defillama.com/chain/Solana as lending TVL fluctuates.

³ Last officially confirmed major outage: February 6, 2024, per the Solana Foundation's June 2025 Network Health Report. As of mid-2025, Solana had gone over 16 consecutive months without a major confirmed outage. 

PAX Gold, the gold-backed token issued by Paxos, is now tradeable on Jupiter, Solana’s dominant DEX aggregator. The integration was made possible through Sunrise DeFi, a liquidity gateway built by Wormhole Labs that handles the messy plumbing of onboarding new assets to Solana.

PAXG is the first gold token regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to land on Solana.

How Sunrise makes it work Instead of forcing each new asset to negotiate with individual DEXes, liquidity providers, and block explorers one at a time, Sunrise bundles the entire onboarding process into a single pipeline. The result is day-one trading access the moment an asset goes live.

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A token like PAXG doesn’t have to sit in limbo for weeks while liquidity slowly materializes across fragmented venues. Sunrise pre-coordinates with Jupiter and other infrastructure partners, including the Solana block explorer Orb, so that trading and price discovery can happen immediately.

The platform has already tested this playbook with other assets. Bittensor’s TAO token was recently onboarded through the same process, suggesting that Sunrise is building a repeatable framework rather than a one-off integration.

Why gold on Solana matters PAXG is one of the more straightforward tokenized assets in crypto. Each token is backed by one fine troy ounce of London Good Delivery gold, held in Brinks vaults. Paxos, the issuer, operates under a New York State trust charter and is regulated by the OCC, which makes PAXG one of the few gold tokens with a clear regulatory pedigree.

Solana’s transaction fees are measured in fractions of a cent, and block times hover around 400 milliseconds.

What this means for investors Solana DeFi users can now trade a regulated gold token without bridging to Ethereum, paying Ethereum gas fees, or dealing with the latency of a slower network.

For Jupiter specifically, each new asset integration adds trading volume and fee revenue. Jupiter already dominates Solana’s DEX aggregation layer, and the Sunrise partnership effectively turns it into the default landing pad for cross-chain assets entering the ecosystem.

Wormhole, the bridge protocol behind Sunrise, suffered a high-profile exploit in 2022 that drained hundreds of millions of dollars. The team has overhauled its security since then, but the history is worth noting for anyone allocating significant capital through this pathway.

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

Exponent Finance just rolled out the feature that traditional finance has used for decades but DeFi has largely ignored: risk tranching. The Solana-based yield exchange launched its V2 platform on June 24, introducing a system that lets users pick their poison, either principal protection with modest returns or a higher-risk bet chasing outsized yield.

The first market uses ONyc, a reinsurance asset from OnReFinance, split into two tranches. The senior tranche (srONyc) targets roughly 6.4% APY with downside protection baked in. The junior tranche (jrONyc) aims for around 31.4% APY, absorbing more risk in exchange for the juicier number. In English: senior tranche holders get paid first if things go sideways, while junior tranche holders eat the losses first but collect bigger rewards when things go well.

How the tranching mechanics work Think of it like a layered cake where the bottom layer takes all the weight. Junior tranche depositors essentially cushion the senior tranche above them. If the underlying yield underperforms, junior holders absorb the shortfall before senior holders feel anything. If it overperforms, junior holders capture the excess.

The alpha phase launches with a $2.5 million cap, a deliberate constraint designed to stress-test the system with real capital before scaling up. Launch rewards exceeding $200K are available to early participants.

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Alongside the tranching product, V2 introduces Strategy Vaults and what Exponent calls an enhanced liquidity engine. Strategy Vaults are essentially pre-built portfolio positions that automate allocation across different yield opportunities. Rather than manually managing tranche positions, users can deposit into a vault that handles rebalancing according to a defined strategy.

Why this matters for Solana’s yield landscape The choice of a reinsurance asset as the first market is deliberate. Real-world asset (RWA) yields represent one of the fastest-growing segments in DeFi, and reinsurance specifically offers yield that’s uncorrelated with crypto market volatility. Pairing RWA yield with on-chain risk tranching creates a product that looks genuinely different from the usual lending-and-borrowing fare.

Exponent has been building toward this for a while. Since its mainnet launch in 2024, the protocol has recorded billions in trading volume without a security breach. The team has completed 12 tier-1 audits and allocated roughly $1 million specifically toward security measures.

On the funding side, Exponent has raised approximately $7.1 million in total. That includes a $2.1 million seed round in 2024 and a $5 million raise in April 2026.

What this means for investors Risk tranching isn’t a new concept in DeFi. Protocols like Tranche Finance and BarnBridge explored similar ideas during previous cycles, mostly on Ethereum. But adoption was limited, partly due to gas costs and partly because the underlying yield sources weren’t compelling enough to justify the added complexity.

For conservative investors, the senior tranche offers yield with a structural buffer against losses. For more aggressive participants, the junior tranche provides leveraged exposure to yield without the liquidation risk that comes with traditional leverage.

The $2.5 million cap on the alpha phase means this is still a small-scale experiment. Exponent plans to expand beyond the ONyc asset into other yield markets. The real test will be whether the tranching system maintains its target yields as more capital flows in and whether demand balances naturally between senior and junior tranches, because the whole structure depends on enough risk-hungry capital sitting in the junior layer to protect the conservative layer above it.

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