Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

An estimated $390 billion in stablecoin payments took place in 2025, according to McKinsey and Artemis. But inside this market, AI agents are creating an interesting kind of payment activity.

Research shows that agents completed more than 176 million on-chain transactions worth over $73 million between May 2025 and April 2026. But most of them were very small transactions. 

The median x402 payment was between $0.01 and $0.10, while 76% of transactions fell below the $0.30 fixed-fee threshold for card payments. USDC accounted for 98.6% of settlements.

Annual Stablecoin Payments in 2025. Source: McKinsey Although the transaction amounts are small, the frequency of AI agentic payments is staggering — 173 million.

Software can buy data, compute and other services hundreds or thousands of times without the human behaviors that define conventional commerce. For example, opening an account, entering card details, approving an invoice or waiting until the next banking day.

XDC Network believes this offers an early glimpse of how more payments could work in future.

“Money has always moved as fast as the slowest part of the process, like a bank, a clearinghouse, or normal business hours,” Atul Khekade, Co-Founder of XDC Network, told BeInCrypto. “Agents just show what happens when you get rid of those delays. Payments stop being something you wait around for and turn into a continuous process happening in the background at the speed of the underlying network.”

Machine Payments Software can transact continuously. An AI service may need a weather feed for one calculation, a market-price API several seconds later, and compute resources immediately afterward.

Each interaction can carry its own price, turning what might once have been a monthly subscription or invoice into thousands of individual transactions.

That helps explain why Keyrock found activity spread across such a large population of AI agents and service directories. The report found more than 104,000 agents registered across at least 15 directories by the end of the first quarter of 2026.

The economics favor systems that can handle payments measured in cents or fractions of a cent. The payments industry is already preparing:

Stripe launched the Machine Payments Protocol, or MPP, in March. The open standard allows agents and services to coordinate micropayments and recurring payments programmatically, with Stripe supporting stablecoins as well as traditional payment methods; Google’s Agent Payments Protocol, or AP2, concentrates on proving user authorization and establishing an auditable record of what an agent was permitted to buy. Google transferred the protocol to the FIDO Alliance in April and added support for autonomous “Human Not Present” transactions; Cloudflare entered the market in August with Cloudflare Wallets and cloudflare.pay, giving agents identities and programmable spending controls. Its payment tools support both x402 and MPP; Mastercard’s Agent Pay for Machines service, announced in June, is designed for continuous, high-frequency and low-value payments, with settlement across cards, accounts and stablecoins. More than 30 companies, including Stripe, Coinbase, Cloudflare and Tempo, were named among its initial supporters. 2️⃣ Secure agentic purchases on Google

✅ We designed Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) to help agents make secure payments on your behalf — with boundaries and accountability to give you peace of mind.

✅ AP2 lets you set strict guardrails for agentic payment transactions. Just…

— Google (@Google) May 27, 2026 Invisible Settlement XDC’s contribution to this market is XDCAI.tech, which uses the open x402 protocol originally introduced by Coinbase.

x402 turns the HTTP ‘402 Payment Required’ response into a payment mechanism. An agent requests a resource, receives its price, authorizes the payment, and repeats the request with proof of payment. The process allows software to purchase an API call or another digital service within the same interaction.

Coinbase introduced the protocol in May 2025, and its use has since expanded through integrations with companies including AWS.

XDC AI applies x402 to USDC settlement on XDC Network. Users fund a smart wallet with USDC and establish an on-chain spending limit. An agent can then pay an x402-enabled service per request. EIP-3009 allows the payment to be signed off-chain while a relayer covers the network fee, leaving the agent itself to hold and spend USDC.

For years, AI agents could reason, plan, and execute tasks.

But they couldn't pay.

APIs, subscriptions, checkout pages, and payment flows were built for humans — not autonomous software.

So we built XDC AI.

A platform that gives AI agents a wallet, lets them discover…

— Rushabh Parmar (@rushabh96975767) July 11, 2026 The system can also connect to AI applications through MCP or a command-line interface, allowing agents running through products including ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and Codex to discover and pay for services.

XDC already had much of the underlying settlement infrastructure in place. Native USDC and Circle’s CCTP went live on XDC in September 2025.

XDC lists two-second block times, six-second finality, and transaction costs around $0.00001, characteristics aimed at high-volume financial applications.

Invoices Could Disappear Invoices package several functions together. They communicate what is owed, set payment terms, and provide records for reconciliation and accounting. Many businesses then wait days or weeks for the actual transfer to arrive.

Software dealing with software can compress part of that cycle. A service can state its price in a machine-readable format, an authorized agent can evaluate the request, and payment can be settled immediately. Transaction records can then feed directly into treasury and accounting systems.

Next wave of payments = AI + Agentic Commerce.
XDC is building the infrastructure:
• x402 micropayments
• Gasless USDC settlement
• Real-time, sub-cent autonomous payments for AI agents
Tonight in NYC, @atulkhekade shares how we’re making this a reality. The future of… https://t.co/FokrYWhAbw

— XDC Network (@XDCNetwork) July 9, 2026 This comes as agents are taking on increasing responsibility for procurement, cloud spending, portfolio management, and recurring commercial obligations. A company could eventually give an agent a budget and a set of rules, then allow it to buy compute when demand rises, renew services, pay suppliers or rebalance liquidity within those boundaries.

XDC therefore sees today’s one-cent API payment as the smallest version of something much larger.

The card networks see it too. Visa’s stablecoin settlement program reached a $7 billion annualized run rate in April after growing 50% quarter-over-quarter and expanding to nine blockchains. Mastercard announced stablecoin settlement across networks including Ethereum, Solana, Base, Polygon, Tempo and XRPL in June.

The competition is consequently broader than blockchain networks attempting to replace card companies. Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Google, Coinbase, Cloudflare and blockchain developers are increasingly building interoperable pieces of the same machine-commerce market.

The Other Half of the Problem Greater autonomy raises questions about permission and accountability.

An agent paying 3 cents per API request incurs limited financial exposure. However, an agent managing a corporate treasury or procurement budget needs controls around authorization, counterparties, limits, and auditability, which is why the major platforms are converging on different pieces of the same problem. This explains why:

Google has concentrated on cryptographic mandates that record what a user authorized; Cloudflare lets owners impose spending caps and approved merchant lists; Mastercard’s system combines agent credentials with permissioning rules;  XDC AI places spending limits at the wallet level Those controls determine how quickly agentic payments graduate from micropayments into larger financial relationships.

They also temper the idea that cards and invoices disappear on a fixed timetable. Card networks are already adapting their products for autonomous software, while invoices serve legal, tax, credit and accounting functions that extend beyond transferring funds.

XDC believes that payment and service delivery can happen almost simultaneously: APIs, data, compute, digital services and other machine-to-machine transactions. Success there could establish the habits and technical standards that would later be used for larger transactions.

Khekade expects the terminology itself to disappear as the technology becomes commonplace.

“In 5 years nobody will describe this as agentic payments, the same way nobody today calls a wire transfer an internet payment,” he said. “It will just be how value moves. The interesting question is not whether that happens, it is which networks were actually built for it versus which ones bolted it on afterward.”

Coinbase is cutting off trading for two tokens that have had a rough stretch. Badger DAO (BADGER) and Storj (STORJ) will both lose trading access on Coinbase starting September 28, 2026, at approximately 2 PM ET.

The announcement came on August 28, giving holders exactly one month to figure out their next move.

What the suspension actually means This is a trading suspension, not a full delisting. You can still reach your holdings and withdraw them. You just cannot place new trades. Coinbase transitioned both order books to limit-only mode immediately upon announcing the suspension, meaning market orders were shut off right away while limit orders and order matches remained temporarily active.

The suspension applies across Coinbase’s full product stack: coinbase.com’s Simple and Advanced Trade interfaces, Coinbase Exchange, and Coinbase Prime.

Coinbase frames these actions as routine housekeeping. The exchange periodically evaluates its listed assets against internal benchmarks covering liquidity and trading performance. This is not the first time Coinbase has done a sweep like this. Recent suspensions hit IOTX, IDEX, and LRC, sketching out a clear pattern: the exchange is tightening its roster, with lower-liquidity projects bearing the brunt.

Two different stories, one shared fate Badger DAO is a DeFi protocol that built its identity around Bitcoin yield products. Binance and Crypto.com both reduced support for BADGER in 2025, and those moves appear to have accelerated a slide in both liquidity and market attention.

Storj is a decentralized cloud storage network that distributes user data across a global network of independent operators rather than relying on centralized data centers. Storj Labs, the company behind the project, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2026, citing legacy liabilities. Chapter 11 is the reorganization variant of bankruptcy, not outright liquidation, and Storj Labs has indicated its decentralized storage network remains operational through the process.

The Coinbase suspension landing just two months after the bankruptcy filing is probably not a coincidence, though Coinbase has not cited the bankruptcy explicitly as a factor.

What holders should be thinking about The practical read for anyone holding BADGER or STORJ on Coinbase is straightforward: trading access ends September 28. Withdrawals remain available, so assets are not at risk of being locked. But the limit-only mode already in effect means price discovery is becoming thinner.

For STORJ, the backdrop of Storj Labs’ bankruptcy adds another layer of complexity. Equity holders in Storj Labs and STORJ token holders are technically different categories of stakeholder, but market psychology rarely draws that line carefully.

The broader pattern here is worth watching beyond just these two tokens. Coinbase’s recent string of suspensions points to an exchange actively curating its listing quality rather than chasing volume at all costs.

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

Injective has joined the x402 Foundation as a core member, bringing its sub-second transaction finality to a payment protocol that counts AWS, Google, Visa, and Mastercard among its premier backers. The x402 protocol is now live on Injective’s network, enabling USDC payments that settle in a single block.

That block takes roughly 650 milliseconds to finalize.

What x402 actually does The x402 protocol started life as a Coinbase project built around a piece of internet plumbing that’s been gathering dust for decades. HTTP 402 is a status code that was reserved for “Payment Required” when the web’s foundational protocols were designed, but it was never formally implemented.

The x402 Foundation launched operations on July 14, 2025, under the governance of the Linux Foundation, with approximately 40 member organizations. The roster includes AWS and Google on the cloud side, Visa and Mastercard on the payments side, and crypto-native organizations like NEAR Foundation and Polygon Labs.

The protocol’s core purpose is to standardize programmatic, internet-native payments, particularly for artificial intelligence applications. Instead of requiring accounts, API keys, or subscription plans, x402 lets machines pay for services on a per-request basis using USDC.

Why Injective’s architecture matters here Injective’s network has processed more than 2.9 billion on-chain transactions, with median fees hovering around $0.0001. At that price point, a million transactions would cost about $100, which makes per-request micropayments economically viable rather than theoretical.

The blockchain’s EVM-compatible environment means developers building on Ethereum’s tooling can port their work to Injective without starting from scratch. For x402 integration specifically, Injective has released middleware libraries, including @injectivelabs/x402, that let developers wire up pay-per-request services with relatively minimal overhead. INJ, the network’s native token, handles gas fees for these transactions.

The single-block finality with deterministic confirmation is the technical feature that makes this work for machine-to-machine commerce. Deterministic finality at 650 milliseconds means the payment is confirmed, full stop, almost instantly, eliminating the latency introduced by waiting for multiple block confirmations.

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

Injective just plugged into one of crypto’s largest cross-chain plumbing networks. The Layer-1 blockchain has integrated with LI.FI Protocol, a cross-chain routing and liquidity aggregation layer that spans more than 60 blockchain networks and connects to over 1,000 applications and wallets.

The integration, which went live on August 4, means users can now bridge, swap, and deposit INJ and USDC into Injective’s ecosystem without stitching together multiple tools or hopping through intermediate chains. An integration with JumperApp, LI.FI’s consumer-facing bridge interface, is set to follow shortly after launch.

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What LI.FI actually does here From day one, Injective users get access to LI.FI’s full product suite: API, SDK, Widget, and Intents. That’s not just a front-end button. It means any developer building on Injective can embed cross-chain bridging directly into their application, reducing the friction that typically causes users to abandon multi-step onboarding flows.

The supported actions at launch include bridging assets in and out of Injective, plus direct deposits of INJ and USDC.

Injective’s architecture plays a specific role in making this work smoothly. The chain is built as a Layer-1 optimized for financial applications, featuring high throughput and sub-second finality. Fast finality matters enormously for bridging because it determines how quickly a cross-chain transaction can be confirmed on the destination side.

The MultiVM angle One detail worth unpacking is Injective’s MultiVM environment. The chain supports both native modules and Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible applications, which means developers can deploy Solidity-based smart contracts alongside Injective’s native CosmWasm contracts.

For context, the Cosmos ecosystem, where Injective lives architecturally, has historically relied on IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) for cross-chain transfers. IBC works well within the Cosmos family, but connecting to EVM chains, Solana, or other non-Cosmos networks has always required third-party bridges. LI.FI’s aggregation layer essentially fills that gap by routing through whatever bridge or DEX offers the best execution for a given path.

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

QQQ/USD and SPY/USD perpetual markets are live on GMX on Arbitrum, and accessible from Ethereum, Base, and BNB Chain via Multichain. Traders on GMX can now long or short the two most widely traded US equity ETFs — the Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1 and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust — 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

QQQ tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on Nasdaq, weighting it heavily toward tech. SPY tracks the S&P 500, the standard benchmark for the US market as a whole. Both appear in the market dropdown under TradFi, in a new Indices group alongside Commodities.

Both run on the same session schedule already live for SPCX/USD. Leverage is available up to 50x during US market hours and up to 25x outside them. The switchover changes which risk parameter set is active; it does not gate trading. Positions can be opened, adjusted and closed at any hour, including weekends and US market holidays, and neither market launches with a cap on open interest.

Trading fees follow GMX’s energy markets: just 1 or 2 basis points during on-hours and 4 or 6 bps during off-hours, the lower figure applying when a position improves the balance of open interest and the higher when it worsens it.

Pricing is powered by Chainlink’s perp-optimized Data Streams, the same low-latency oracle infrastructure behind GMX’s gold, silver, energy, and crypto markets.

Each market is backed by its own risk-isolated GM liquidity pool on Arbitrum:

QQQ/USD [WETH-USDC]

SPY/USD [WETH-USDC]

For these two markets, GLV [WETH-USDC] is the only supported route in; the GM tokens are not directly purchasable.

GLV is the GMX Liquidity Vault these markets share with GMX’s commodity markets; it rebalances liquidity across its constituent GM markets according to trader demand, so depositors earn from fee generation across the whole set rather than just a single market.

Index exposure outside the bell is not new; futures on both indices trade nearly around the clock on weekdays. What they do not do is trade through the weekend, and getting to them means a futures account, margin held at a broker, and a position you cannot custody.

GMX’s perps have no expiry and no roll. They mark to an oracle price and use funding to keep it near the underlying, which lets the market stay open continuously while risk parameters tighten during the hours when the underlying is illiquid. That is what the on-hours/off-hours split achieves: it prices the risk of a thin session, rather than blocking users from trading.

QQQ and SPY are wave 1 of GMX’s TradFi expansion. They extend the RWA lineup GMX has been building since gold and silver launched in April — commodities, energy, pre-IPO equity, and now broad US equity exposure — on the same infrastructure and execution stack as our crypto perps.

Trade them permissionlessly at:

> app.gmx.io

QQQ/USD and SPY/USD are synthetic perp markets. They reflect the market-implied price of the underlying ETF and confer no ownership of the fund or its holdings, no voting rights, and no entitlement to dividends or distributions.

A U.S. federal judge has pushed Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Storm’s retrial to April 26, 2027, about six months later than planned, while his motion seeking to overturn his existing conviction remains unresolved.

Summary

Roman Storm’s retrial has been moved from October 2026 to April 26, 2027. His pending acquittal motion challenges his 2025 money transmitting conviction. Storm still faces money laundering and sanctions charges carrying up to 20 years each. The first jury deadlocked on both charges after convicting Storm on one separate count. The Aug. 25 court order states that U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla granted Storm’s request to postpone the proceedings, moving the retrial from an October 2026 timetable after his defense cited scheduling conflicts and the pending motion for judgment of acquittal.

Storm filed the Rule 29 motion on Sept. 30, 2025, challenging his conviction for conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business on the grounds that prosecutors had not presented enough evidence to sustain the verdict. Failla heard oral arguments on April 9, 2026, but had not ruled on the request when she issued the latest scheduling order.

Under the revised calendar, Storm will face another jury on two charges left unresolved during his first trial: conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to violate U.S. sanctions. Each carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

Roman Storm retrial has been moved to April 2027 Storm’s defense asked Failla earlier in August to schedule the retrial no sooner than April 2027, according to the court proceedings, while prosecutors opposed extending the case and preferred the earlier October timetable.

The judge ultimately adopted the defense’s requested date of April 26, 2027, and reset the other pretrial deadlines around it. Expert disclosures will now take place in early 2027, with a final pretrial conference scheduled for April 20, six days before the trial is due to begin.

The new schedule reverses the timetable prosecutors had sought several months earlier. In March, crypto.news reported on prosecutors seeking an October retrial after the first jury failed to return unanimous verdicts on the money laundering and sanctions charges.

At the time, Storm said another trial would expose him to as much as 40 years in federal prison if he were convicted on both unresolved counts. He also said his legal resources had been heavily depleted during the first four-week trial.

The pending Rule 29 motion could affect another part of the case before Storm returns to court. Under the federal rule, a judge may enter a judgment of acquittal when the evidence introduced at trial is legally insufficient to support a conviction.

If Failla grants Storm’s motion, his conviction on the unlicensed money transmitting charge could be set aside. If the motion is denied, the conviction would remain in place while prosecutors proceed with their second attempt to secure verdicts on the two charges on which the original jury deadlocked.

The first jury convicted Storm on only one count Storm went to trial in Manhattan in the summer of 2025 on three criminal charges stemming from his involvement with Tornado Cash, the Ethereum-based privacy protocol he co-founded.

After several weeks of testimony and four days of deliberations, jurors returned a split verdict on Aug. 6, 2025. They found Storm guilty of conspiring to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business but could not unanimously decide the money laundering and sanctions conspiracy counts.

Failla declared a mistrial on the two unresolved counts, leaving prosecutors with the option to try Storm again before another jury.

The charge on which Storm was convicted carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The two counts awaiting retrial carry substantially higher penalties, with up to 20 years available on each if a conviction is secured.

Before the first trial began, the Justice Department had already reduced part of its case. In May 2025, prosecutors narrowed the money transmission allegation by dropping the portion based on Storm’s alleged failure to comply with federal money transmitter registration requirements under 18 U.S.C. § 1960(b)(1)(B).

Prosecutors continued with the remaining money transmission theory and the money laundering and sanctions allegations, saying their decision was consistent with an April 2025 Justice Department policy memorandum that instructed federal prosecutors to avoid using criminal cases to regulate the crypto industry through technical registration violations.

Storm was originally charged in August 2023 alongside Tornado Cash co-founder Roman Semenov. U.S. prosecutors accused the pair of helping operate a service that processed more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds, including funds connected to North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

The government’s case has focused partly on whether Storm and his co-founders continued developing, promoting and financially benefiting from Tornado Cash despite knowing that criminals and sanctioned actors were using the protocol.

Storm’s lawyers have disputed that interpretation, arguing that Tornado Cash operated through decentralized smart contracts and that its developers did not control individual transactions or take custody of funds moving through the protocol.

Tornado Cash sanctions were removed before the trial Tornado Cash allows users to deposit cryptocurrency into smart contracts and later withdraw funds to a separate address, reducing the direct on-chain connection between the sending and receiving wallets.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned the protocol in August 2022, accusing it of being used to launder billions of dollars in virtual currency, including funds stolen by the Lazarus Group.

Legal challenges to those sanctions later produced an outcome separate from Storm’s criminal prosecution. In November 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that immutable Tornado Cash smart contracts could not be treated as property under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act because they could not be owned or controlled.

Treasury subsequently removed Tornado Cash sanctions on March 21, 2025, reversing the designation imposed in 2022. The department continued to warn about North Korea’s use of digital assets for cybercrime and illicit financing after withdrawing the designation.

The sanctions decision did not terminate the criminal proceedings against Storm. Prosecutors continued arguing that his conduct before and during the period covered by the indictment could support the separate conspiracy charges.

An additional sanctions lawsuit brought by Coin Center was later closed after the government stopped defending the Tornado Cash designation following its removal.

Developer control remains disputed in Storm’s case Questions over how much control a software developer must exercise over a decentralized protocol before facing criminal liability have remained central to Storm’s defense.

Prosecutors have argued that Storm’s role went past publishing open-source software, alleging that Tornado Cash’s founders maintained parts of the project, promoted its use and profited from it while knowing illicit funds were passing through the protocol.

The defense has countered that Tornado Cash’s immutable smart contracts could continue operating without Storm and that users could interact with the contracts without the developers approving individual transfers.

Support for Storm has also come from parts of the Ethereum community. In January 2026, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin called for sentencing leniency and argued that privacy software can serve lawful purposes while open-source development should not by itself establish criminal liability. The report said Storm’s legal defense had raised more than $6.3 million with support from Buterin, the Ethereum Foundation and other donors.

The Ethereum Foundation had previously pledged up to $1 million in matching support for Storm’s legal defense following the 2025 verdict, while Storm remained free on bond as the criminal proceedings continued.

Failla has not issued a decision on Storm’s Sept. 30, 2025 Rule 29 motion. Under the new court schedule, the final pretrial conference on the unresolved money laundering and sanctions charges is set for April 20, 2027, with the retrial scheduled to start on April 26.

From Mainnet to Mobile and Now Desktop@PetraWallet users on desktop can now hold and send encrypted $APT balances directly from the wallet's browser extension, with transaction amounts hidden on-chain while sender and receiver addresses remain publicly visible. The move extends a rollout that has been building across platforms throughout 2026.

Aptos Proposal 188 executed on April 24, enabling APT confidentiality on mainnet. Aptos announced access through Petra and its Confidential Assets web interface on June 17, followed by a broader Petra mobile rollout in July. The browser extension marks the latest step in that expansion.

Confidential APT is an opt-in feature inside Aptos's fungible-asset framework. A user moves public APT into a protocol pool, registers an encryption key, and receives an encrypted balance. Transfers within that confidential domain update encrypted claims rather than moving the underlying APT out of the pool.

How the Privacy Layer WorksThe feature uses zero-knowledge proofs and Twisted ElGamal encryption to hide wallet balances and transfer amounts while keeping addresses publicly visible on-chain. Confidential APT maintains a 1:1 peg with standard APT and functions natively on the network.

@Aptos frames the feature as opt-in and built for compliant use. Governance-controlled auditor keys enable authorized access to transaction data for compliance and investigative purposes, with the implementation targeting enterprise use cases including confidential payroll, treasury operations, and trading activities.

As of an August 16 snapshot, APT confidentiality was enabled, allowlisting was active, the emergency pause was off, and the public confidential pool held approximately 15,116 APT. The desktop extension brings the feature to a wider slice of the Aptos user base, with Petra, developed by Aptos Labs, remaining the most widely used wallet and often treated as the official entry point to the ecosystem.

Sources
CertiK: Aptos Confidential APT, Verifiable Encrypted Transfers on Mainnet
Everstake: Aptos in 2026, Latest News and DeFi Updates
MoneyCheck: Aptos Rolls Out Privacy-Enhanced Token With Compliance Framework

A wallet bought yield tokens in a $9 million Pendle pool, pushing the principal token price down 2.8% and clearing out looped positions on a Morpho market carrying $52 million in borrows. No bad debt was incurred.

Trades in a thinly traded Pendle yield market triggered $36.1 million of liquidations on Morpho early Tuesday, closing out leveraged positions in about 14 minutes while leaving lenders whole. Pendle and vault curator Steakhouse Financial both said the price feed did what it was built to do.

The setup is the recurring failure mode in looped yield strategies: a lending market sized far larger than the pool that prices its collateral. The Pendle reUSD pool maturing Dec. 10 holds $8.97 million of liquidity, according to Pendle's API. The Morpho market that accepts its principal tokens as collateral held $67.5 million of collateral against $52.2 million of borrows at a 91.5% liquidation threshold. Borrowers who had looped up to health factors of 1.03 were carrying less than a 3% buffer against any price move.

PENDLE fell 4.3% over 24 hours to $1.74 and MORPHO fell 5% to $2.52 as of 16:01 UTC, per CoinGecko, against a 3.2% decline in total crypto market cap. Both remain up over the week, PENDLE by about 29%. Pendle's fees ran to $91,863 on Tuesday, DefiLlama data shows, after $54,640 on Monday and $15,306 on Sunday. Its total value locked is $1.18 billion, down 88.5% from $10.3 billion a year ago.

PENDLE price, past 30 daysFourteen Minutes, Thirty-Three LiquidationsMorpho's API records 33 liquidation events between 04:37:47 and 04:51:23 UTC across the two affected markets, repaying $36.14 million of debt and seizing 38.6 million principal tokens. The USDC market accounted for $35.19 million of that and the USDT market $956,000. Realized bad debt in both is zero. The three largest borrowers liquidated lost positions of $13.01 million, $11.01 million and $6.83 million. One liquidator contract handled 96% of the repayments.

Those two markets were effectively all of Morpho's liquidation activity on Tuesday. Every other market on Ethereum and Base combined totaled $731 over the same day.

Correct By Design"The oracle for this market was set up correctly and functioned as intended," Pendle said. "This was not a misconfiguration, despite the unfortunate outcome."

The feed Steakhouse configured references the lower of two prices: the principal token's own market price on Pendle as a 15-minute average, and a fixed curve rising to $1 at maturity along a 6% annual discount. When the market price fell, the 15-minute average became the reference and cut collateral values on looped positions. Positions already sitting at health factors below 1.03 crossed the liquidation threshold, Pendle said. The Pendle Ecosystem Vault on Morpho was unaffected.

Steakhouse put the move at 2.8% on high volume and said its systems withdrew liquidity from all affected markets as a precaution before restoring it. Onchain data matches: supply in the USDC market fell 25% from $82.9 million at midnight UTC to $62 million by mid-afternoon, and borrows dropped 27% from $71.1 million at 04:00 UTC.

Pendle's own integration guide calls 15 or 30 minutes the recommended window, "but it can vary depending on the market," and tells integrators to pick "a market with high trading activities & deep liquidity."

Who Bought The Yield TokensSecurity firm PeckShield said a wallet ending 690d market-bought reUSD yield tokens, pushing the implied yield to 20%, then dumped the position, triggering roughly $36.39 million in liquidations on looped principal-token positions. Buying yield tokens mechanically pushes principal tokens into the pool and lowers their price.

Onchain analyst 0scar reconstructed the sequence: the wallet bought yield tokens on a time-weighted schedule, pushing 5.4 million principal tokens into a pool holding 3.1 million, which dragged the 15-minute average price to $0.9647 and flagged a borrower sitting at 90.9% loan-to-value.

"Liquidator and YT buyer are the same entity, because the liquidator paid for the buyer's gas multiple times," 0scar wrote, putting realized gains at "at least $360k." The Defiant confirmed onchain that in one transaction at 04:38:23 UTC, an address ending 7F44 borrowed $9.94 million of USDC and supplied 11,710,808 principal tokens in the same block as the $11.01 million liquidation that seized exactly that many. 0scar's profit figure has not been independently confirmed.

Re Protocol, which issues reUSD, said it is "investigating whether the PT market price was intentionally manipulated and are working with the relevant teams on a safer oracle configuration." No protocol involved has said manipulation occurred. reUSD itself was unaffected: its net asset value stands at $1.0968 with a 6.44% APY, per Re's API, and circulating supply is $212.5 million on DefiLlama, up 27% in a month.

Flagged Eight Days EarlyThe size mismatch was documented publicly before it mattered. On Aug. 17 a user posting as SrAugust wrote on the Morpho governance forum that the market showed "55,887,325 borrowed against 7,309,040 liquid," calling the figures reproducible from Morpho's public GraphQL endpoint in a single query. The comment landed in an RFC filed by Sigma Labs in June proposing a collateral-transparency standard, one of whose four stated problems is that a passive vault depositor's capital is "silently leveraged by the looper's activity."

Steakhouse itself described the tradeoff in a June 2025 forum post: "Market-based oracles are closer to the 'true' price of the collateral but are often thinly traded and can be manipulated." Its April 2026 oracle upgrade, which moved BTC and ETH markets to Chainlink feeds with a 2% deviation threshold, did not cover Pendle principal-token markets.

Steakhouse is Morpho's largest curator with $2.16 billion in assets, though its own Smokehouse vaults held about $8.3 million of exposure to this collateral as of Tuesday afternoon, after the withdrawals it described. The four largest suppliers to the USDC market are addresses holding between $7.2 million and $17.5 million each, none of them listed vaults, meaning most of the market was supplied directly.

The episode is the inverse of the $25 million Resolv exploit in March, where a hardcoded oracle held wstUSR at $1.13 while it traded at $0.63 and left more than $10 million of bad debt at Fluid alone. Here a market oracle repriced fast, protected lenders and liquidated borrowers. That is the case curators made in April, when Steakhouse told The Defiant that its vaults had absorbed zero bad debt and kept full withdrawal liquidity through a drawdown that put about $238 million of liquidations through Morpho in late January and early February.

TLDR Kraken temporarily restricted customer accounts after nearly 12,000 unsolicited crypto transfers hit its platform between August 17 and 24. Arkham Intelligence linked the sending wallet to HTX, but the exchange denied any involvement. Kraken called the activity a dust attack meant to spread sanctioned funds across unrelated accounts. The EU added HTX’s Huobi Global entity to its transaction ban list on August 23, 2026. Kraken restored account access but kept the disputed funds separate from customer balances. Kraken temporarily restricted a group of customer accounts this week after an unusual wave of small crypto transfers reached its platform. Bloomberg first reported the story on August 25, citing data on nearly 12,000 transactions.

The transfers arrived between August 17 and August 24. Most were worth only a few cents or a few dollars each.

Kraken described the activity as a dust attack. In this case, the goal appeared to be spreading sanctioned funds across many unrelated accounts rather than tracking wallet owners, which is the usual purpose of dust attacks.

What Happened to the Affected Accounts Kraken restricted the accounts that received the transfers while it reviewed the situation. The exchange later restored access to those accounts once the reviews were complete.

However, Kraken kept the disputed funds separate from customer balances. The company said this was because the funds were tied to wallets connected to sanctioned entities.

A spokesperson for Kraken said the transfers appeared to come from wallets owned by HTX. The spokesperson added that the funds seemed linked to sanctions imposed by the UK and the EU.

Kraken did not say how many accounts were affected. The company also did not share the total value of the funds it is holding separately.

Blockchain analytics firm Arkham Intelligence labeled the sending wallet as connected to HTX. This label was based on addresses that HTX had used in past proof of reserves reports.

That label does not confirm that HTX controlled the wallet or directed the transfers. It only shows a past connection between the address and the exchange.

HTX Denies Sending the Funds HTX pushed back on the claim. A spokesperson said the exchange did not send the transfers and is now looking into what happened.

HTX said it is checking whether the mislabeling came from an error, a misunderstanding, or the actions of a third party. The exchange has not shared full wallet records to support its explanation.

Other exchanges reportedly saw similar small transfers before Kraken’s issue became public. Coinbase and Binance were both named as recipients of comparable transactions.

The timing lines up with recent sanctions activity. The UK named Huobi Global S.A., tied to HTX, as a sanctioned entity back in May.

The EU followed with its own restrictions on HTX starting August 23. That rule bans certain crypto firms from processing transactions linked to the exchange.

HTX has argued that Huobi Global S.A. is a separate legal entity from its main trading platform. The exchange says the sanctions should not apply to its full operations.

Researchers at TRM Labs said HTX changed wallets several times after the UK sanctions took effect. HTX called this normal security practice, not an attempt to avoid the rules.

Crypto exchanges generally cannot block incoming transfers before they are screened. This means unwanted funds can land in a customer account without that person doing anything.

Stablecoin issuers like Tether have more control since they can freeze tokens directly. Tether froze more than 500 million dollars across 370 addresses during one recent 30 day period.

Kraken and HTX have not announced a joint investigation. Any further update would likely need clear wallet evidence or a statement from sanctions regulators in the UK or EU.

WhiteBIT’s native token WBT has reached a new all-time high. The milestone lands during a period of genuine activity across the WhiteBIT ecosystem, including the fourth anniversary of WhiteBIT Coin and the relaunch of Whitechain as a distribution-focused Ethereum Layer 2. The combination of a token record and infrastructure development happening at the same time is worth paying attention to.

WBT’s Record Arrives as Whitechain Enters Its Next Phase Whitechain’s relaunch isn’t a minor update. Moving to an Ethereum Layer 2 model means the network is being rebuilt around scalability and broader blockchain adoption rather than staying in its original form.

Layer 2 networks have become an important part of the Ethereum ecosystem. They allow applications to process activity more efficiently while staying connected to Ethereum’s underlying infrastructure. For WhiteBIT, this transition means Whitechain can support a wider range of future applications and developers while maintaining a real connection to the broader blockchain environment.

WBT sits at the center of this. The token connects exchange activity, blockchain development, and future platform initiatives across WhiteBIT’s expanding infrastructure. As Whitechain evolves, WBT’s role within the ecosystem grows alongside it.

What WBT’s Utility Actually Covers WBT’s utility goes well beyond a simple exchange token. Holders get trading-fee discounts, which reduce the cost of active trading on the platform. Staking opportunities let users earn rewards on held tokens. The referral reward system gives users a way to generate income through network growth. Launchpad access gives WBT holders early entry into new projects listed on the platform.

WBT also functions as the native asset within Whitechain, which means its role expands directly as the Layer 2 network grows. That native asset function is the connection between the token’s exchange utility and the broader blockchain infrastructure WhiteBIT is building.

WhiteBIT Has Been Building Beyond Exchange Services WhiteBIT started as a cryptocurrency exchange. That’s still a core part of what the company does, but it’s no longer the whole picture. The company has expanded into additional areas including blockchain infrastructure, financial products, and technology initiatives.

The Whitechain development is the clearest example of that shift. By building its own blockchain infrastructure, WhiteBIT is creating a foundation for future applications rather than depending entirely on existing networks. That kind of infrastructure investment tends to have a longer payoff horizon, but it also builds something that’s genuinely harder to replicate.

The Ethereum Layer 2 direction also reflects broader industry demand. Blockchain networks that combine scalability with established security foundations are attracting developer attention. WhiteBIT is positioning Whitechain to compete in that environment.

What the All-Time High Means in Context WBT reaching a new record during a period of infrastructure expansion reflects more than just market sentiment. The token has been accumulating utility across a growing ecosystem, and Whitechain’s relaunch adds another layer to that structure.

The fourth anniversary of WhiteBIT Coin also matters here. Four years of ecosystem development don’t happen overnight. The token’s evolution from a straightforward exchange utility asset to a core component of a broader blockchain ecosystem reflects consistent work rather than a single product launch.

WhiteBIT continues building blockchain capabilities and developing products around digital asset adoption. The WBT all-time high marks where that work stands right now.

What’s Ahead for WBT Token WBT is trading near $72.5 after gaining approximately 30.88% over the week. The token broke above the $55 to $60 resistance zone with strong volume, reaching an ATH of $72.21. Current resistance sits at $72 to $75, followed by the psychological $80 level. Key support levels are located around $60 to $62, with stronger support near $54 to $56. The $401.76M 24-hour volume suggests strong market participation behind the breakout.

The @SuiNetwork Foundation's open-market buyback program is gathering pace, with the total number of $SUI tokens repurchased now approaching a significant milestone.

Daily Purchases Stack Up On 24 August, the foundation purchased 7,600 $SUI tokens on the open market. That single day's activity brought the week's running total to roughly 57,500 tokens, and the year-to-date figure has now surpassed 516,800 $SUI, collectively valued at over $600,000.

The program is not a one-off intervention. Purchases are made daily, with proceeds recycled back into the network rather than held as treasury reserves.

Stablecoin Yield Funds the Loop The mechanics behind the program centre on the foundation's USDsui stablecoin strategy.

The design is intended to redirect value that stablecoin issuers would otherwise retain, putting it to work within the Sui ecosystem instead.

Importantly, this is not a burn program.

The scale of the program will ultimately depend on how much yield the stablecoin reserves generate. As USDsui adoption grows, so too could the pace of daily repurchases, pushing the program's cumulative total toward and eventually beyond the one million token mark.

Sources:
Crypto Briefing: Sui turns stablecoin reserves into a token buyback machine
Bitcoinist: Sui's USDsui Model Turns Stablecoin Yield Into Ecosystem Buybacks
AMBCrypto: SUI crypto price holds support as buyback programme gathers pace

AI agents can only create value when someone delegates real work to them, but delegation will be low without trust. Given that organizational and public trust in AI/Agents remains cautious, it’s more important than ever to tackle this issue. As agents take on consequential work like moving money, managing treasuries, and executing smart contracts, they need a platform built on absolute reliability and accountability.

To address this need, Talus has officially deployed the Talus Protocol v2.0 contracts on the Sui Network mainnet. With this release, Talus Agents and the protocol have been upgraded with a wide variety of improvements to establish the production-grade infrastructure needed to create trustworthy AI that handles real value.

Partner projects and developers building with Talus now have the opportunity to upgrade their agents and products to the mainnet in an ecosystem designed to scale. Workflows launched today are backed by protocol-level backward compatibility, meaning future network upgrades don’t break active agents or disrupt live applications as the ecosystem grows.

The Talus team has worked incredibly hard since the launch of v1.0 of Talus Protocol, and today’s upgrade delivers a continuation of the key architecture proposed in the Talus Litepaper, proving that the foundation for a transparent, agent-driven economy is possible.

CEO of Talus, @0xgmike, emphasizes the importance of this step forward:

Protocol v1.0 proved onchain agent coordination was possible and that was never the end-goal. v2.0 is what makes it real with production-grade infrastructure agents that can actually be trusted to run on, with real value on the line.What’s New in Talus Protocol v2.0?The v2.0 release brings together five foundational upgrades designed to turn fragile agent setups into trustworthy digital workers:

This transition to production-grade infrastructure is driven by a comprehensive set of protocol-level upgrades that transform how agents operate, communicate, and scale. In practice, production-grade means providing the deterministic rules, standardized capabilities, and onchain accountability required for agents to safely handle real money and authority.

By introducing the Talus Agent Package (TAP) standard, agents now have a universal format to register distinct identities, offer capabilities, and manage execution payments rather than relying on custom, mix-and-match setups.

To ensure these capabilities are backed by absolute accountability, proof verification authority has been shifted directly onchain, enabling smart contracts to verify every execution rather than trusting centralized offchain servers.

If automations run into roadblocks or a step in the workflow fails, the newly added protocol-wide error handling ensures offchain disruptions no longer leave execution without a clear resolution, instead recording an auditable onchain record so the network always knows how to respond.

Meanwhile, zero-downtime versioning introduces backward compatibility and multi-stage rollouts, allowing underlying data structures and contract logic to evolve continuously without interrupting active workflows or forcing hard-breaking resets.

Finally, a priority fee system introduces a market-driven queuing system, allowing high-stakes or important tasks to jump to the front of the line for execution when real value is on the line, while regular queued tasks continue as normal.

Together, these upgrades establish a trustworthy and resilient environment where autonomous agents can operate safely at scale.

The Foundation for What Comes NextWith Talus Protocol v2.0 live on Mainnet, we have set the rules of engagement: verifiable execution, standardized agent capabilities, and backwards-compatible infrastructure.

This foundation is already powering active workflows for a growing cohort of ecosystem partners and applications who are now starting to deploy their autonomous products directly onto Mainnet.

As we look beyond v2.0, this foundation will allow us to continuously roll out enhancements to Talus Protocol, opening the doors to permissionless node operators, automated slashing for faulty behavior, and deeper crypto-economic incentives.

The agent economy cannot scale without a reliable platform. Today, that platform is live.

Welcome to Talus Protocol v2.0

🌐 Explore the Mainnet Release: https://github.com/Talus-Network/nexus-sdk

📚 Read the Docs: https://docs.talus.network

Sui, a Layer 1 blockchain project focused on fast smart contract execution and scalable infrastructure, is drawing renewed attention from analysts and investors after a series of bullish technical developments and consistent accumulation via U.S. spot SUI ETFs.

Key support and resistance levelsSUI’s recent price action has centered on the $0.73-$0.76 range, which is supported by a cluster of short- and medium-term moving averages. Resistance is building at $0.80, with analysts highlighting this area as pivotal for the next directional move.

Technical analyst InvestorJordan pointed to a breakout on SUI’s four-hour chart, where the price moved above a descending trendline after testing its 100-period moving average. The analyst noted entry around $0.72 and is eyeing $0.80 as the next decisive confirmation area. Finsends, another analyst, considers the $0.75 region a potential accumulation zone, with a longer-term breakout target set near $1.15.

Sustained trading above $0.80 would mark a more significant technical shift than the initial trendline breakout, as it would clear a prominent horizontal resistance.

On the daily time frame, SUI remains below several longer-term averages. The 100-period simple moving average stands near $0.755, and the 100-period exponential moving average is close to $0.784. As of the latest trading, SUI hovers close to $0.745, directly intersecting this major moving average cluster.

Further resistance persists at the 200-period SMA near $0.859 and the 200-period EMA around $0.986. These levels could come into play if the current recovery gathers momentum toward the $1 mark.

SUI ETF inflows signal institutional interestGlassnode, a blockchain analytics firm, reports that U.S. spot SUI ETFs have not seen net outflows for 12 consecutive weeks. Over this period, three ETFs have accumulated a combined 9.3 million SUI tokens, indicating sustained institutional demand through regulated channels.

Three U.S. spot SUI ETFs have accumulated 9.3 million tokens over 12 weeks without net outflows, highlighting persistent institutional interest despite recent price fluctuations.

While consistent ETF flows do not guarantee higher prices in the future, they have provided a notable tailwind in support of SUI’s investment case.

In parallel, the Sui ecosystem has expanded its institutional profile. Integration of Sui with tZERO brings new infrastructure for regulated digital asset securities, covering issuance, custody, trading, and settlement. The Sui Foundation has also partnered with Securitize and Neuberger on a tokenized high-income fund, aiming to expand Sui’s reach in the institutional digital asset market.

Mini dictionary: tZERO, a regulated digital asset trading platform, provides infrastructure for issuing, trading, and settling blockchain-based securities, aiming to bridge traditional financial markets and blockchain technology.

Technical outlook: mixed momentumSUI’s technical scenario remains at a crossroads, with short-term momentum showing signs of improvement while longer-term bearish pressures persist. The daily relative strength index (RSI) is near 50.93, signaling balanced buying and selling activity. The Stochastic oscillator remains neutral, and the Stochastic RSI sits in oversold territory.

Momentum indicators are divided. The MACD stands at approximately 0.0204, just above its signal line at 0.0166, while the Average Directional Index (ADX) at 27.86 suggests strengthening trend development. Daily Bollinger Bands cover a range between $0.609 and $0.849, and the average true range (ATR) represents about 6.5% of the token’s price, pointing to continued volatility.

Bullish and bearish scenariosFor the bullish outlook to play out, analysts stress the importance of holding the $0.73-$0.76 support zone and breaking through the $0.80 resistance. CoinLore’s technical levels place $0.774-$0.795 and $0.823-$0.849 as the next resistance bands, followed by $0.95 and the key psychological $1 mark. Finsends projects that a breakout could eventually target $1.15 or even $1.40 under favorable conditions.

Conversely, a loss of the $0.73 support may result in a decline toward $0.712 and $0.699. A further breakdown would direct attention to the $0.64-$0.67 historical support region. The weekly chart and Ichimoku Cloud remain cautious, and analysts urge traders to await confirmation before expecting a sustained trend reversal.

Key LevelTypePrice RangeImmediate supportMoving average cluster$0.73-$0.76Next support levelsHorizontal support$0.712, $0.699Major resistanceHorizontal resistance$0.80Additional resistance zonesFibonacci/technical$0.774-$0.795, $0.823-$0.849High-target scenarioBreakout targets$0.95, $1, $1.15, $1.40Institutional inflows reinforce trendMarket participants continue to monitor ETF inflows as an indicator of broader investor sentiment. The 12-week period of uninterrupted demand, combined with SUI’s increasing integration into regulated asset infrastructure, has positioned the token as one to watch, particularly if the $0.80 resistance is cleared and sustained.

Despite these tailwinds, analysts maintain caution due to persistent long-term resistance and mixed technical signals. Volatility remains high, and traders are encouraged to use tight risk controls as price action tests key levels.

Core Lightning has confirmed multiple security vulnerabilities in its Bitcoin Lightning Network software and has urged node operators to install an upcoming security update or temporarily run their nodes offline.

Summary

Core Lightning confirmed several vulnerabilities after reviewing a large number of AI generated CVE reports. Node operators were urged to install the security update, with offline mode offered as a temporary option for those awaiting an upgrade. Running a node offline stops Lightning payments and routing while allowing the daemon to continue monitoring the Bitcoin blockchain. Core Lightning has not disclosed the flaws’ severity, CVE identifiers or any evidence of exploitation or related losses. Core Lightning said Thursday that its developers had been reviewing a large number of AI-generated Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures reports and confirmed that several submissions identified real problems requiring fixes.

The project advised operators to upgrade as its main recommendation. Operators who have not installed the security release can restart Core Lightning with the –offline option, which prevents the node from connecting to peers and stops payments from entering, leaving or routing through it.

Core Lightning initially described the offline setting as a protective measure while fixes were being prepared, but later clarified that operators should prioritize upgrading once the patched software is available.

Technical details about the newly confirmed vulnerabilities have not been made public. Core Lightning has not disclosed their severity, assigned public CVE identifiers or reported evidence that attackers have exploited the flaws.

Core Lightning nodes can remain active without routing payments Using the –offline setting allows the Core Lightning daemon to remain active while disconnecting the node from the Lightning Network.

Under the configuration, a node does not accept incoming peer connections or attempt to reconnect with existing peers. Payments therefore cannot move through the affected node while the operator waits to install the security update.

Core Lightning said operators should not simply stop the software because an active daemon can continue following the Bitcoin blockchain and respond if another party force-closes a Lightning channel.

A fully stopped node cannot perform the same monitoring while it remains offline. Channel counterparties can publish transactions to Bitcoin when channels are closed, making continued blockchain monitoring part of normal Lightning node operations.

Once operators have installed the patched version, Core Lightning said they should remove the –offline option before restarting normally. Leaving the setting enabled after the upgrade would keep the node disconnected from its peers and prevent it from sending, receiving or routing Lightning payments.

The recommendation applies while developers address vulnerabilities found during their review of AI-generated security submissions. Core Lightning has not publicly described which components are affected or what conditions would be needed to exploit the confirmed flaws.

The project also has not disclosed whether all supported software versions are affected, leaving operators dependent on the upgrade instructions accompanying the security release.

New Core Lightning vulnerabilities follow earlier DoS fixes The newly confirmed problems are separate from denial-of-service vulnerabilities disclosed earlier this year that could remotely crash Core Lightning nodes.

Two related flaws involved memory exhaustion inside separate Core Lightning daemons. One affected connectd, the component handling peer connections, while another affected gossipd, which processes network information used by Lightning nodes.

In the connectd case, a remote peer could trigger unbounded memory use and eventually cause an out-of-memory crash. The issue was patched before the latest vulnerability warning.

Another flaw allowed a remote peer to flood gossipd with channel update messages, causing an internal map used for unknown short channel IDs to continue consuming memory until the machine became unresponsive or crashed.

Both problems relied on resource exhaustion, while Core Lightning has not said whether the newly confirmed vulnerabilities involve similar components or attack methods.

Security fixes requiring node operators to install updated software have also appeared elsewhere in Bitcoin infrastructure this year. In May, crypto.news previously reported that Bitcoin Core disclosed a bug that could allow miners to remotely crash vulnerable nodes.

Tracked as CVE-2024-52911, the issue affected Bitcoin Core releases after version 0.14.0 and before version 29.0. Developers had already fixed it in Bitcoin Core 29.0, released in April 2025, before publicly disclosing the vulnerability in May 2026.

The bug involved Bitcoin Core’s script interpreter during block validation. A specially constructed invalid block could cause a node to access data after the relevant memory had been freed, potentially crashing the software. Bitcoin Core said remote code execution was possible but unlikely because of restrictions on block data.

Bitcoin software projects have continued patching node risks A separate Bitcoin Core privacy flaw was addressed in June through the 31.1rc1 release candidate, alongside changes covering blockchain validation, wallets, networking and MuSig2 security.

The privacy problem affected PrivateBroadcast, a feature designed to reduce the information exposed when transactions are first transmitted. Developers released the fix before the next stable Bitcoin Core version and asked users to test the release candidate before production deployment.

Lightning implementations have faced software-specific problems before as well. In June 2023, operators of Lightning Labs’ LND implementation were warned against upgrading to version 0.16.3 because of a memory leak.

The problem caused the software’s memory use to increase over time and could eventually crash a node. Operators who had already installed LND 0.16.3 were advised at the time to downgrade to version 0.16.2 while developers addressed the issue.

Another Lightning security issue emerged later in 2023 when developer Antoine Riard described replacement cycling attacks that could be used against Lightning payment channels. Riard subsequently stepped back from Lightning Network development after arguing that the problem required changes beyond short-term mitigations.

Riard said at the time that no replacement cycling attacks had been observed or reported in the wild during the preceding 10 months, while a functional test existed for exercising an affected Lightning channel against the Bitcoin Core mempool.

The vulnerability involved replacing an unconfirmed transaction under specific conditions, potentially interfering with the transaction sequence used to protect funds in Lightning channels. Riard said existing mitigations could make attacks harder but did not consider them a permanent solution.

Core Lightning has withheld details of the latest flaws For the current Core Lightning vulnerabilities, operators have received protective instructions before technical disclosure of the underlying bugs.

The project has said several AI-generated CVE submissions were valid, but it has not published the affected functions, attack paths or conditions needed to reproduce the issues.

No losses or successful attacks have been reported in connection with the newly confirmed flaws based on Core Lightning’s disclosure so far.

Operators who have not yet upgraded were instead instructed to use –offline while keeping the daemon running, allowing the software to continue tracking Bitcoin for channel-related transactions without participating in Lightning payments.

After installing the security update, Core Lightning said operators using the temporary configuration must remove –offline to reconnect their nodes to peers and resume normal payment and routing activity.

Lending protocol Moonwell lost an estimated $8.7 million to an exploit on Thursday. No smart contract was broken. An attacker simply made MAMO, a small Base token, look far more valuable than it is.

The inflated price let the attacker borrow real assets, including Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC) and USD Coin (USDC). Security firm Blockaid caught the activity, and Moonwell froze new borrowing within hours.

How the Moonwell Exploit WorkedThe trick was price, not code. Blockaid reported that the attacker manipulated MAMO collateral pricing to drain cbBTC from Moonwell’s mCBTC market. Its first estimate showed 50.6 cbBTC gone, worth more than $4 million.

Blockaid’s Exploit Detection identified suspicious activity against @MoonwellDeFi on Base.
An attacker manipulated MAMO collateral pricing to borrow cbBTC from the mCBTC market.
Observed impact so far: 50.6 cbBTC ($4.0M+) drained
More details to follow. 🧵

— Blockaid (@blockaid_) August 27, 2026
MAMO is the token of Mamo, a yield tool built on Base. Every MAMO in existence is worth about $7.6 million combined, and the token trades near $0.011366. A market that small is cheap to pump.

MAMO Price Performance. Source: BeInCryptoThat was the whole attack. Pump MAMO on thin markets, post it as collateral at the fake price, and borrow assets with real value. Moonwell’s oracle, the system that feeds prices to the protocol, believed the pump.

Security firm PeckShield later put total losses at $8.7 million. That is more than the market value of every MAMO token. The firm said the funds now sit in the DAI stablecoin at a wallet starting with 0xD71d.

Borrow Caps Cut to One Wei as Recovery Questions BeginMoonwell acknowledged the incident in a post, indicating that they were already working to stop the bleeding.

“We are aware of an issue affecting the MAMO Core Market on Base and are actively investigating. As a precaution, borrow caps for all Core Markets on Base have been set to 1 wei, preventing new borrowing and limiting the potential for further impact,” the team wrote.

One wei is the smallest unit possible. The change blocks all new loans without touching withdrawals. Supply caps for MAMO and WELL, Moonwell’s governance token, also fell to one wei.

Thursday’s exploit is not a first. Bad prices, not bad code, keep costing Moonwell money. A wrsETH oracle malfunction created around $3.7 million in bad debt in November 2025. A cbETH oracle misconfiguration added $1.78 million more in February. Pricing failures have now cost the protocol over $14 million in ten months.

The wider sector shows the same weakness. Term Labs lost roughly $8.5 million to a governance exploit on Sunday. Analysts increasingly blame economic design failures rather than broken code for DeFi’s biggest losses.

Moonwell says another update is coming. Two numbers will tell the real story. The first is the final bad debt once MAMO’s price settles. The second is how much cbBTC and USDC remains for suppliers who want out.

Revolut opens EURR to selected customers in three countries; Bridge reported €374 outstanding, compared with €394.5 million of Circle’s EURC.

Revolut has begun rolling out EURR, its first euro-backed stablecoin, to selected customers in Denmark, Poland and Portugal, putting a branded onchain euro inside its app while Bridge Building S.A. serves as issuer and redemption counterparty.

Bridge Building is the legal issuer; Revolut describes it as a Stripe company. Revolut Digital Assets Europe Ltd acts as the offeror and is admitting EURR to trading on the Revolut X platform, according to Revolut’s legal disclosure.

The arrangement makes the rollout a distribution play: Revolut provides access through an app used by more than 75 million customers, although EURR is initially limited to eligible users in the three test markets. Revolut said users can move between euros, crypto, external wallets and supported blockchain networks.

Revolut says more markets are set to follow and expects wider EURR availability later this year. Stablecoins tied to other currencies are also in development.

A Regulated Issuer, but a Small Supply SnapshotEURR is an e-money token under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework. Luxembourg’s Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier lists Bridge Building as an active electronic money institution authorized on June 29, 2026. The regulator separately lists Bridge as an active crypto-asset service provider with custody, exchange and transfer permissions.

Tokenholders have the right to redeem EURR at par against Bridge at any time, subject to the applicable terms and redemption process. Bridge’s reserve page says funds received for EURR are safeguarded in segregated accounts at regulated credit institutions or invested in eligible, highly liquid euro-denominated instruments.

The supply snapshot was €374. Bridge reported 374 EURR in circulation and €374 in reserve assets as of Aug. 25, with all of the reported backing held as cash deposits in credit institutions. Bridge identifies Ethereum and Polygon as EURR chains.

By comparison, Circle reported €394.5 million of EURC in circulation as of Aug. 24. Circle identifies EURC on Avalanche, Base, Cronos, Ethereum, Solana, Stellar and World Chain.

Bridge is authorized as an electronic money institution in Luxembourg. Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS issues EURC under an electronic money institution license from France’s Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution. For EURR, Bridge carries the issuance and redemption role while Revolut supplies the brand and customer channel.

Revolut says more markets are set to follow and expects wider EURR availability later this year.

We’re excited to announce that USDC, EURC, CCTP, and Bridge Kit are now available on Plasma.

Plasma is an EVM-compatible, Layer-1 (L1) blockchain built for high-throughput stablecoin applications including payments, settlement, remittances, and other use cases. Supporting payment and partner infrastructure in over 100 countries with over 100 currencies, these integrations bring Circle’s trusted and interoperable multi-currency onchain infrastructure to Plasma’s large and established stablecoin-focused ecosystem.

With the launch of USDC and EURC along with CCTP support, Plasma gains access to some of the leading dollar and euro stablecoins. This unlocks MiCA compliant dollar- and euro-denominated payments, settlement, DeFi trading, FX, treasury management, and more on a blockchain designed for global transaction efficiency.

Benefits of USDC and EURC on Plasma:

Regulated1, fully reserved stablecoins redeemable 1:1 for USD2 and EUR,2 respectivelyIntegrate easily with Plasma payment and DeFi appsMigrate money flows to trusted, unified, and issuer-backed stablecoin infrastructureWith CCTP, eligible institutional traders and teams will be able to:

Access institutional-grade fiat on/offramps for USDC payments and settlementEnable full deposit, withdraw, and API access for USDC on PlasmaTransfer USDC from one supported blockchain (e.g., Ethereum) to another (e.g., Plasma)Integrate crosschain transfers in around 10 lines of code with Bridge KitKey use cases for USDC and EURC on PlasmaUSDC and EURC will enable a regulated1 dollar- and euro-denominated payment ecosystem on Plasma. With issuer-backed stablecoin infrastructure, MiCA compliance, and 1:1 redeemability for dollars and euros respectively, USDC and EURC can support payments, settlement, remittances, trading, and more on a chain purpose-built for stablecoin usage. Establishing deep liquidity for both EUR/EURC and USD/USDC trading pairs can support stablecoin flows at the volumes institutions and enterprises need. Through CCTP, USDC on Plasma will become interoperable with other supported blockchains, enabling users and developers to move USDC securely across ecosystems without relying on wrapped assets.

Together, USDC, EURC, CCTP, and Bridge Kit will give businesses and developers on Plasma access to trustworthy, multi-currency fiat rails for institutional-grade payments, B2B settlement, trading, FX, treasury, and other compliant stablecoin flows. While USDC is widely used around the world, euro-denominated EURC is well suited for onchain activity within the EU, where 1:1 euro redeemability and MiCA compliance are often required to enable compliant capital movement.

Starting today, users can access USDC through Plasma One, Plasma’s stablecoin app and card for sending and spending digital dollars. Developers can also integrate USDC and EURC across Plasma apps.

‍

USDC on Plasma, issued by Circle1

Token Name: USDC

Token Symbol: USDC

Mainnet Address: 0x2d661C89D812261039AF9764eceaAee884f5F67F

Testnet Address: 0xe67fb267022cba8064dd388cc2fed724f3120d9d

‍

EURC on Plasma, issued by Circle1

Token Name: EURC

Token Symbol: EURC

Mainnet Address: 0x3ee196e78d4d4248b849b8e1c7f44c5457fafd2c

Testnet Address: 0x98afa0f93dd993b736399f9074edcebd1985a330

Get started todayBusinesses can access institutional on/offramps to convert to Circle stablecoins on Plasma by applying for a Circle Mint3 account. Individuals and smaller institutions can access USDC and EURC through various exchanges, wallets, and providers. Visit circle.com/eurc and circle.com/usdc to learn more.

Get started today with our developer docs for USDC, EURC, CCTP, Bridge Kit, and Circle Mint. USDC and EURC are open-source, permissionless stablecoin infrastructure that anyone can build with.

‍

1 USDC is issued by regulated affiliates of Circle. EURC is issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS. A list of Circle’s regulatory authorizations can be found here.

2 Circle Mint customers are able to redeem USDC and EURC directly from Circle. In addition, Circle will redeem all USDC and EURC presented to it for redemption in compliance with MiCAR, regardless of whether the holder is a Circle Mint customer. Circle Mint is currently available only to institutions and is not available to individuals.

3 Circle Mint and money transmission services are provided by Circle Internet Financial, LLC, NMLS # 1201441, and Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, Electronic Money Institution License No. 17788, when provided in France.

Ondo leads a rapidly expanding field@Ondo Finance has crossed 403,000 holders across 441 tokenized real-world asset products, with total assets on the platform reaching $3.62 billion, according to rwa.xyz data cited by @BSCNews. The milestone places Ondo among the most widely held RWA platforms in the market, sitting atop a sector that is expanding at a striking pace.

The broader picture is equally notable. The near-doubling of the holder base in a single month points to a shift in adoption that goes beyond gradual institutional uptake.

Competition intensifies as flows shiftDespite Ondo's strong position, the monthly flow data tells a more complicated story. Challengers Spiko and Hastra drew fresh capital during the period, while Ondo, Securitize, and Ethena each recorded outflows. The divergence suggests the market has not yet settled on a small number of dominant platforms, and that newer entrants can still pull in meaningful allocations.

Ondo has also been pushing into new territory beyond its core Treasury products.

The outflows logged this month do not erase Ondo's structural advantages, but they are a reminder that scale alone does not guarantee retention in a market where alternatives are multiplying. The tokenization race, as the holder and flow data both confirm, remains wide open.

Sources:
RWA.xyz Network Metrics
Crypto News: Ondo Finance and the RWA Market in 2026
CoinDesk: Ondo Finance Tokenized Equities Update

In brief A scheduled unlock will release 14,175,778 Hyperliquid tokens on August 29, worth about $1.2 billion at current prices. The release equals 1.4% of total supply and 2.7% of HYPE's market capitalization. Nearly 47% of the unlocked tokens go to insiders — the largest single share of this release. Hyperliquid, the layer-1 blockchain and perpetual futures exchange, is on a tear—and investors in the project’s native token HYPE are reaping the benefits.

Hyperliquid, which trades as HYPE, touched an all-time high of $83.27 on Sunday before slipping to around $77.50, data from CoinGecko shows. The token's market cap sits near $19.5 billion. That run-up, though, is about to collide with a supply release the tracking site Tokenomics.com lists as the largest of Hyperliquid's monthly unlocks.

Myriad: Ethereum next price move? Click to make your prediction.Every month since the November 2024 launch, Hyperliquid has freed a slice of its 1 billion-token supply on a fixed calendar. The August 29 event is the fourth in a row to send tokens to three recipient groups: community, foundation, and insiders. Insiders (the early investors) take the largest single share of this release—46.6%, against 46.3% for the community (grants, rewards, airdrops, etc.) and 7% for the Hyper Foundation.

Token unlocks don't automatically tank a price. They raise the number of tokens that can be sold, and the new supply can pressure the market if recipients cash out. The site's own price-impact history is mixed: After the three prior monthly unlocks, HYPE fell 7% (July), rose 1% (June), and dropped 14.1% (May) in the days that followed.

But unlocks routed to investors and early contributors are the ones traders watch—those holders paid little and have more reason to take profits than a community pool does.

Hyperliquid has been in the news for more than its token chart. Coinbase added 50x perpetual futures to its Base app through Hyperliquid's infrastructure this month, an integration that pushes the protocol deeper into mainstream trading rails.

Perhaps the most bullish news for HYPE investors came mid-last week, when President Donald Trump directly referenced Hyperliquid during a media appearance ahead of a closed-door meeting with cryptocurrency executives. The decentralized exchange for perpetual futures is currently geofenced and unavailable to Americans, but Trump told media the CFTC is “working to bring Hyperliquid into the United States in a fully compliant and legal fashion.”

The push lands as Washington signals a friendlier stance to crypto as a whole. Trump also called on Congress to pass a "fair version" of the Clarity Act at a White House crypto meeting.

With HYPE near record levels, the August 29 release drops about $560 million of insider-facing supply onto a market that's already off its peak. The next unlock, of the same size, arrives September 29.

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Bernstein sees new USDC growth cycle, sets $140 Circle price targetLatest NewsPublishedAug 24, 2026

USDC supply increased by roughly $2 billion in seven days, with Bernstein citing higher transaction activity and several factors that could support further growth.

Analysts at Bernstein are bullish on stablecoin issuer Circle, arguing that a new growth cycle for its USDC stablecoin could provide a significant boost for the company over the next 12 months.

In a research note published Monday, Bernstein said USDC (USDC) is showing signs of what it called “digital dollar reflation” after its supply increased by roughly $2 billion in seven days, reversing a six-month stretch of stagnant or declining growth. The firm maintained an Outperform rating on Circle (CRCL) and a $140 price target, implying roughly 60% upside from current levels. Circle shares have risen roughly 40% over the past month.

Bernstein said the next phase of stablecoin growth could be driven by several factors, including renewed momentum in crypto markets, greater regulatory clarity in the United States, tokenized capital markets and growing adoption of stablecoins for payments. The analysts also pointed to early signs of stablecoin use in payments made by artificial intelligence agents.

Although USDC remains the second-largest dollar-backed stablecoin by market capitalization, well behind Tether’s USDt (USDT), it has gained significant ground in transaction activity. Bernstein said USDC’s share of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume rose from roughly 40% in 2025 to more than 60% so far in 2026, overtaking USDt by that measure.

Stablecoin transaction volume has grown significantly this year. Source: Bernstein

Circle’s volatile path since its IPOCircle shares have experienced significant swings since the company went public in June 2025. The stablecoin issuer priced its shares at $31 and raised roughly $1.1 billion in its initial public offering. After surging in the months following its debut, the stock had fallen back toward its IPO price by November 2025 as a broader crypto market downturn weighed on publicly traded companies with exposure to the sector.

In its most recent quarter, Circle reported $701 million in revenue and $48 million in net income, both up from a year earlier.

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.

Grayscale has filed Amendment No. 5 to its Form S-3 registration statement as part of its effort to convert the Grayscale Zcash Trust into a spot Zcash ETF.

The filing, submitted on August 21, targets a listing on NYSE Arca on or about August 25, according to the filing materials. It also discloses a 2.5% annual management fee and a cash-create, cash-redemption model.

That makes the filing notable for two reasons.

First, it shows the crypto ETF market continues to expand beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum. Second, it brings a privacy-focused asset like Zcash back into a regulated product conversation.

But the key caution is simple: the listing is not final until the necessary regulatory clearance is in place.

TL;DR Grayscale filed Amendment No. 5 for a proposed spot Zcash ETF conversion. The filing targets a NYSE Arca listing on or about August 25. The ETF should not be described as approved or finalized unless regulators clear it. Why A Zcash ETF Is Different Zcash is not just another altcoin.

It is one of crypto’s best-known privacy-focused networks. Its optional shielded transaction design has long made it an important part of the privacy debate, but also a more sensitive asset from a regulatory perspective.

That makes an ETF filing more interesting.

Bitcoin ETF approval was about institutional access to digital gold. Ethereum ETF approval expanded that access into smart contract infrastructure. A Zcash ETF would test whether regulated markets are willing to support a product tied to privacy technology.

That is a very different conversation.

Grayscale Is Extending Its Conversion Playbook Grayscale has used trust-to-ETF conversion strategies before.

The model gives existing trust products a path toward more liquid, exchange-traded structures, assuming regulators and exchanges approve the necessary steps. For investors, an ETF wrapper can improve accessibility, liquidity, pricing efficiency, and brokerage availability.

In Zcash’s case, the structure would move the product into a more visible market venue.

The proposed NYSE Arca listing target gives traders a date to watch, but it should not be treated as guaranteed. ETF conversion timelines can shift depending on SEC comments, exchange processes, and final approvals.

The Fee Tells Investors Something The filing’s 2.5% annual management fee stands out.

That is high compared with mainstream spot Bitcoin ETF fees. It may reflect a more specialized product, smaller expected asset base, operational complexity, custody costs, or lower competitive pressure.

Investors will judge whether the fee makes sense relative to the product’s niche.

A privacy-coin ETF would not necessarily compete directly with low-cost Bitcoin funds. It would serve a narrower investor base seeking exposure to ZEC through a regulated wrapper.

Still, fees matter.

Cash Creation And Redemption Keeps The Structure Conservative The cash-create and cash-redemption model is also important.

Under that structure, authorized participants generally create or redeem shares using cash rather than delivering or receiving the underlying crypto asset directly. This is a familiar structure in parts of the crypto ETF market and can simplify operational handling.

It may also reflect regulatory caution.

For a privacy-focused asset, cash-based mechanics may be more comfortable for traditional market participants than in-kind transfers of ZEC.

That does not remove every regulatory concern, but it shapes how the product would operate.

What To Watch Next The next thing to watch is whether the listing date holds and whether any additional regulatory comments emerge.

If the ETF clears its remaining hurdles, Zcash would gain a much more prominent regulated market wrapper. If the process is delayed, the filing still shows that issuers are pushing the boundaries of what crypto ETF products can include.

The broader message is clear.

Crypto ETFs are no longer only about Bitcoin and Ethereum. Issuers are testing how far regulated access can extend across the asset class.

With Zcash, that test now touches privacy technology directly.

This article is based on Grayscale’s SEC filing materials for the proposed Zcash ETF conversion.

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

For years, securing a spot on the @Polkadot network meant winning a competitive, capital-intensive auction and locking large amounts of $DOT for a two-year lease. That model is now gone.

From Auctions to On-Demand Blockspace Polkadot ended its parachain slot auctions on September 19, 2024, when the network enacted runtime upgrade 1.2.0. Existing leases were migrated to the new system automatically, and any leases that had not yet started were cancelled, with locked tokens refunded to holders. The change was a direct response to long-standing criticism of the auction model: costs were hard to predict, slot allocation timelines were unclear, and teams had to commit capital two years in advance at whatever $DOT price the market happened to set on auction day.

The replacement is called Agile Coretime, a flexible, market-driven model for acquiring computational resources on the network. Under the new system, builders can acquire blockspace on-demand or in bulk without significant upfront capital commitments, lowering the barrier for startups and smaller teams that previously could not compete in auctions.

How Coretime Works in Practice Agile Coretime offers two purchasing formats. The first is bulk coretime, where a team buys access to a core for a fixed period of up to 28 days, represented as an NFT on the Coretime Chain. The second is instantaneous coretime, a pay-as-you-go option where teams purchase blockspace on demand, block by block, without any long-term commitment. Renewal orders take priority over new purchases, which shields active chains from sudden price spikes during periods of high demand.

Bulk coretime can also be split into smaller regions and resold on secondary markets, meaning a team running a lighter workload can divide its core allocation and sell unused portions to other projects. This creates a more efficient use of overall network capacity and gives $DOT blockspace a functioning secondary market for the first time.

The shift is part of a broader technical overhaul at Polkadot that also includes Asynchronous Backing and Elastic Scaling, which together allow parachains to dynamically access multiple cores in real time and handle traffic surges without congestion or new contract negotiations.

Sources:
Polkadot Wiki: Agile Coretime for Parachains
Parity Technologies: Polkadot Upgrade 2025
CryptoNews: Polkadot 2.0 Explained: Agile Coretime and What It Changes for Developers

A step-by-step push toward quantum resistance@NEARProtocol has published a post-quantum roadmap targeting quantum-resistant validator consensus by late 2027. Developer Near One describes the change as one of the most fundamental protocol upgrades since mainnet launched, though the team notes timelines are directional and subject to research outcomes.

The roadmap follows a concrete first step.

ML-DSA, also known as the Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm, is the post-quantum digital signature standard published by NIST in FIPS 204 in August 2024, based on the CRYSTALS-Dilithium algorithm. It is designed to replace RSA and ECDSA signatures as the industry migrates away from classical cryptography.

Consensus and cross-chain MPC remain the harder problemsDespite progress at the account level, Near One is candid about what remains. Today's post-quantum schemes are still too computationally heavy for use in validator consensus, which is why the 2027 goal exists as a research and engineering target rather than a committed release date. The team has also acknowledged that quantum-safe threshold signing for its MPC network has no candidate solution yet.

The cross-chain layer adds further complexity. NEAR's Chain Signatures network currently links assets across 30+ chains, per the team's own roadmap post. On wallet support,

NEAR is not alone in this effort.

Sources:
NEAR Protocol Brings Quantum-Safe Signing to Mainnet (PR Newswire)
NEAR Protocol Becomes First Major Blockchain With Live Quantum-Safe Account Signing (TechTimes)
Ethereum Post-Quantum Roadmap (ethereum.org)

Solana registered its largest daily token burn in nearly seven months, destroying $87,000 worth of SOL on August 21. This spike in burns coincides with surging on-chain activity and increased transaction volumes across the network.

Burn mechanisms and rising on-chain activityThe Solana blockchain automatically removes half of all base transaction fees from SOL’s circulating supply. Under normal network conditions, around $47,000 worth of SOL is burned each day. The sharp rise to $87,000 followed a period of heightened on-chain usage and growing decentralized finance (DeFi) volumes.

Validator services such as Helius and Jupiter, along with developer collectives like Anza, influence the economics behind these burns. Additional involvement comes from organizations that actively manage crypto treasuries, such as DeFi Development Corp and Forward Industries. All together, these entities support an environment in which burn rates directly reflect real-world network demand.

Burn levels are integral to Solana’s broader supply and value dynamics. Each day, approximately 60,000 SOL is newly minted and the historical daily burn typically ranges near 650 SOL. The recent uptick means net inflation trends lower, a factor closely monitored by ecosystem participants.

Recent spikes in user activity and fee revenue enabled Solana to destroy $87,000 of SOL in a single day, its highest level in seven months, pushing net inflation lower and highlighting robust demand for block space and DeFi applications on the network.

Governance proposals and inflation outlookThe community is currently voting on Solana governance proposals SGP-0002 and SGP-0003, both of which are set to influence future burn patterns and network economics. A key technical update, SIMD-0553, seeks to introduce resource-based fees, which would elevate daily burns to between 7,500 and 9,000 SOL—potentially totaling up to $6.2 million. Another proposal, SIMD-0550, would accelerate a deflationary shift, targeting an inflation rate of 1.5% by 2029.

Validator concerns center on cost predictability and the impact of these changes on staking rewards and token supply. Adjustments to burn rates can affect validator incomes and require stakeholders to adapt as deflation becomes more pronounced.

Mini dictionary: Validators, also known as node operators, are responsible for securing the Solana network, processing transactions, producing new blocks, and earning staking rewards. They play a crucial role in implementing network proposals and ensuring the blockchain’s integrity.

Date/EventDaily SOL BurnUsual RangePotential Maximum (Projected)August 21, 2024$87,000$47,000$6.2 million (SIMD-0553)Impact on investors and ecosystemHigher burn rates can offer benefits for both institutional and retail investors by controlling the supply and potentially supporting the valuation of SOL over time. From the perspective of network developers, payment systems, and DePIN builders, stronger burn signals real activity, demonstrating Solana’s competitiveness compared to blockchains such as Ethereum and various Layer 2 networks.

The ecosystem continues to watch the ongoing governance votes, which end on August 29. The outcome is expected to shape Solana’s supply dynamics and validator economics in the months ahead.

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.

The Bitwise Solana Staking ETF (BSOL) saw nearly $100 million in trading volume in a single day, a milestone that underscores just how much institutional and retail demand has built around yield-generating crypto products.

BSOL, which trades on NYSE Arca, isn’t just a passive SOL tracker. It stakes 100% of its holdings, meaning investors get both price exposure to Solana and staking rewards in a single regulated wrapper. That dual value proposition, combined with a rock-bottom 0.20% management fee, has clearly resonated with the market.

From launch day fireworks to sustained momentum When BSOL debuted on October 28, 2025, it generated first-day volume between $55.4 million and roughly $69.5 million.

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Assets under management told an even more compelling story. The fund launched with approximately $217 million in AUM, blew past $500 million by November 2025, and has since climbed to roughly $760 to $770 million.

Bitwise waived the 0.20% sponsor fee entirely on the first $1 billion in assets for a three-month introductory period, making the cost of entry effectively zero for early adopters.

The staking yield adds another layer. SOL staking rewards have historically averaged around 7%, representing a differentiated income stream for investors already comfortable with digital asset exposure.

Tokenization enters the picture On August 13, 2026, Bitwise announced it would explore tokenizing BSOL shares through a partnership with Superstate. If executed, this would allow the ETF’s shares to exist on-chain, potentially expanding both liquidity and access beyond the traditional brokerage rails that ETFs typically rely on.

The Superstate partnership is still in exploratory phases.

A crowded field, but BSOL found its lane What sets BSOL apart from a vanilla Solana ETF is the staking component. A roughly 7% annualized yield, even if variable, provides an income story that pure price-tracking products can’t match.

With AUM approaching $770 million and the $1 billion mark within striking distance, the fee waiver clock is ticking. Investors who want the zero-fee window still have a narrowing opportunity before the 0.20% fee kicks in.

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