Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Chainlink (LINK) is experiencing renewed bullish momentum, supported by improved sentiment and increased institutional adoption. The recent decision by Wyoming’s Stable Token Commission to migrate the Frontier Stable Token (FRNT) to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) marks a significant step for both the state and the blockchain network.

LINK price rebound and market dynamicsAt the time of reporting, LINK is trading at $10.65. The token has seen a 24-hour trading volume of $653.7 million and a market capitalization of $7.97 billion. In the past day, LINK rose 6.67%, signaling a notable reversal as market conditions improve across the broader cryptocurrency sector.

Crypto analyst Michaël van de Poppe has commented that LINK’s movement toward $11 reflects stronger buying interest and points to a robust phase for the altcoin. The analyst further indicated that while bullish momentum appears sustained, LINK may face resistance near current levels, potentially leading to a consolidation period. This pause could allow traders to evaluate momentum before the next significant move.

Analysts are closely watching LINK’s formation, with the $14 level identified as the key resistance if bullish momentum continues. Sustained gains above this threshold may pave the way for further price appreciation, while failure to maintain upward momentum could lead to sideways trading.

As the market focus intensifies, traders are monitoring whether LINK can establish a foothold above resistance and sustain its recovery trajectory alongside improving performances in major cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Wyoming’s stablecoin adopts Chainlink CCIPChainlink stated that the Wyoming Stable Token Commission has decided to migrate the FRNT stablecoin from its previous bridge-based setup to Chainlink’s CCIP, strengthening cross-chain capabilities while emphasizing greater security and operational reliability. Wyoming, known for its proactive approach in digital asset legislation, aims to enhance the security of its stablecoin infrastructure through this move.

By selecting Chainlink as its exclusive cross-chain infrastructure partner, the Wyoming Stable Token Commission seeks to reduce reliance on older bridge technologies and leverage Chainlink’s security-focused design for cross-chain transactions and monitoring. Chainlink CCIP is designed to facilitate interoperability among various blockchain ecosystems, providing institutions with secure, efficient, and reliable protocols for moving digital assets across networks.

Mini dictionary: Chainlink CCIP, or Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, enables seamless communication and asset transfers between blockchains, improving both security and flexibility for institutions and developers.

The Frontier Stable Token (FRNT) is Wyoming’s own stablecoin initiative, aimed at offering a regulated digital dollar solution within the state. The decision to transition to Chainlink technology underscores growing institutional trust in Chainlink as a secure interoperability provider for digital assets.

Future prospects for LINK and network utilityThe expansion of Chainlink’s network utility and its broadening institutional partnerships, such as the collaboration with Wyoming, could further support LINK’s price recovery. The growing use cases and adoption within the blockchain sector contribute to a more optimistic outlook for the token, provided broader market conditions remain supportive.

Chainlink’s position as the exclusive provider of cross-chain infrastructure for the FRNT project highlights its prominence in blockchain interoperability solutions. Analysts suggest that further adoption and development may offer additional tailwinds to LINK’s valuation in the coming months.

Market participants remain attentive to whether the current bullish trend can be sustained, especially as the broader crypto market shows signs of recovery and renewed enthusiasm among investors.

MetricCurrent ValueLINK Price$10.6524h Trading Volume$653.7 millionMarket Capitalization$7.97 billionResistance Level$14 Wyoming’s migration of FRNT stablecoin infrastructure to Chainlink CCIP demonstrates rising confidence in Chainlink’s technology among institutional users, while LINK continues its upward trend in price and market activity.

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.

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According to the official X account of AllScale, a self-custody stablecoin digital bank, the platform has launched the AllScale CLI command-line tool. A single installation enables users to perform stablecoin receiving, payments, and account reconciliation directly in the terminal. For receiving, one command sends a detailed invoice to any valid email address, supporting USDT or USDC, with no requirement for recipients to pre-register or establish a prior partnership. For payments, users only need to approve spending limits—including per-transaction caps, total budget, and validity period—once, after which the script can run unattended. Each payment creates and funds a Claim Link, so recipients don’t need to provide a wallet address; the process is idempotent, meaning failed tasks won’t result in duplicate payouts. Every command outputs JSON to standard output and returns 13 documented exit codes, letting scripts or AI agents automatically branch to handle results, eliminating the need for screenshots to verify pages. AllScale stated the CLI works in any environment that can run a shell, and it is now available on npm under the package name @allscale/cli.

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Hayden Adams, the founder and CEO of Uniswap Labs, walked into a Washington, D.C., conference room on August 20 and told a panel of federal regulators something they probably didn’t love hearing: their own enforcement strategy has been an accelerant for offshore crypto development.

At the inaugural meeting of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, Adams argued that US regulatory pressure has pushed founders to set up shop in friendlier jurisdictions, giving international competitors the freedom to build faster and iterate without the constant threat of legal action.

From enforcement target to advisory panelist Adams was appointed to the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee back in February 2026, a move that signaled at least some willingness from regulators to hear directly from DeFi builders rather than just prosecuting them.

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That willingness came after a rocky stretch. In April 2024, Uniswap Labs received a Wells notice from the SEC, the formal “we’re probably going to sue you” letter that keeps crypto founders up at night. That notice was ultimately dropped in March 2025, but not before generating months of uncertainty for the largest decentralized exchange by volume.

Separately, the CFTC itself hit Uniswap Labs with a $175,000 penalty in 2024 related to leveraged trading offerings. So Adams wasn’t speaking as a theoretical observer of regulatory overreach. He was speaking as someone who has been on the receiving end of it from both major US financial regulators.

The talent drain argument Adams didn’t name specific competitors or cite particular jurisdictions during his remarks, according to initial reports from the meeting. He also didn’t put forward concrete policy recommendations, suggesting the committee is still in its early, diagnostic phase rather than drafting proposals.

Broader regulatory context The enforcement-first approach that characterized the SEC under former Chair Gary Gensler created a chilling effect that extended well beyond the companies directly targeted. When Uniswap received its Wells notice, it wasn’t just Uniswap Labs that reacted. DeFi teams across the ecosystem recalibrated their legal strategies, and some accelerated plans to move operations outside the US.

The $175,000 CFTC fine against Uniswap Labs was relatively modest by regulatory standards. For context, that’s roughly what a mid-level software engineer in San Francisco earns in a year. But the signal it sent mattered more than the dollar amount: even decentralized protocols aren’t beyond the reach of US enforcement, and the rules you might be breaking aren’t always clear until after you’ve broken them.

What the committee does next The CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee now faces the challenge of translating industry feedback into actionable recommendations. Adams’s testimony establishes the baseline concern: the current regulatory environment is not competitive internationally.

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

US stablecoin issuers have entered a five-month preparation window before the GENIUS Act’s expected Jan. 18, 2027, effective date, which places licensing and operating controls at the center of market access.

Summary

Stablecoin issuers will generally need a federal or state license from Jan. 18, 2027. Patrick Gerhart said integrated compliance systems will present the hardest licensing challenge. US platforms face separate restrictions on distributing unapproved stablecoins from July 18, 2028. Treasury is considering customer and location checks that could affect offshore issuers and platforms. The US Treasury proposed new definitions on Aug. 17 covering when a company issues a payment stablecoin in the United States and when a digital asset platform offers one to a US customer.

Although the proposal clarifies which activities fall under the law, Patrick Gerhart, president of Telcoin Digital Asset Bank, told crypto.news that securing a license will require issuers to prove their compliance, reserves, and technology systems work together under daily operating conditions.

“The hardest part will be building the operating infrastructure behind the license,” Gerhart said. “A stablecoin issuer needs much more than a reserve account and a compliance policy on paper.”

President Donald Trump signed the GENIUS Act into law on July 18, 2025, establishing separate regulatory paths for federally supervised issuers and qualifying state-regulated companies. Under the law, only permitted issuers may issue payment stablecoins in the United States once the framework takes effect.

Its effective date is technically the earlier of Jan. 18, 2027, or 120 days after the responsible federal agencies complete their final regulations. Regulators missed a July 18, 2026, statutory deadline for finishing the rules, however, leaving issuers with less time to adapt before the expected January start.

Stablecoin licensing will require working controls Based on Telcoin’s chartering process, Gerhart said regulators will expect an issuer to show how it identifies customers, traces incoming funds, monitors transactions, manages reserves and handles redemptions.

Each function may require a separate policy, but the licensing test will involve how the controls operate as a single system. According to Gerhart, compliance, risk, technology, reserve management, and banking relationships cannot remain isolated workstreams.

“For issuers working toward 2027, I would expect the biggest challenge to be demonstrating that those controls actually work together operationally,” he said.

“They have to function as one operating model, and regulators will want to see that the institution is ready to manage that model at scale.”

Federal proposals support his assessment. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s draft framework covers reserve assets, redemptions, custody, liquidity, capital, audits, risk management, regulatory reporting and operational backstops. Application, examination, and wind-down procedures also form part of the proposed rules.

OCC-supervised issuers would have to maintain eligible reserves and redeem stablecoins at par. Nonbank companies seeking approval as federal qualified payment stablecoin issuers would follow a separate application process, while bank subsidiaries, qualifying state issuers, and foreign companies would face requirements suited to their regulatory status.

Comptroller Jonathan Gould reportedly expects the agency to finalize its rules by November after considering industry comments. Completion by then would give issuers only about two months before Jan. 18, although the rules remain subject to revision.

Meanwhile, a separate proposal from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the Office of Foreign Assets Control would treat permitted stablecoin issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act.

FinCEN and OFAC have proposed requirements for customer identification, due diligence, suspicious-activity reporting, and sanctions compliance. Issuers would also need the technical ability to block, freeze, or reject prohibited transactions and comply with lawful government orders.

Telcoin spent years preparing its banking model Telcoin’s experience provides Gerhart with a direct view of the work involved. Nebraska granted Telcoin Digital Asset Bank its final charter in November 2025 under the Nebraska Financial Innovation Act, which the state enacted in 2021 to create a regulated path for digital asset depositories.

The state described Telcoin’s charter as the first of its kind in the United States. Nebraska officials said the bank’s stablecoin reserves would primarily consist of US government bonds or deposits at FDIC-insured banks in the state.

Before granting final approval, Nebraska regulators required an operating structure covering capital, reporting, security, and customer safeguards. State rules impose surety bond and insurance requirements, as well as funding for three years of operating expenses.

Digital asset depositories must also maintain customer-complaint procedures and written plans for responding to data breaches or other cybersecurity incidents. Certain security events require immediate notice to the Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance.

While developing its model, Telcoin worked with state regulators to explain how its technology operated and determine how existing banking requirements applied to the business, Gerhart said.

“We spent years working with Nebraska regulators and building the policies, procedures, reporting, and risk controls needed to operate a digital asset bank within a regulated banking framework,” he said.

Telcoin is building its services around eUSD, a bank-issued stablecoin designed to connect conventional dollar accounts with public blockchain networks. According to Gerhart, customers could move between bank-held dollars and an on-chain dollar asset without combining services from a separate bank, exchange, and stablecoin company.

For businesses, he said the model could support faster settlement and allow payments to be built into blockchain-based products. Consumers could access blockchain applications while retaining a relationship with a regulated bank.

Gerhart attributed another potential benefit to the banking controls governing reserves, custody, compliance, and redemptions. Blockchain supplies the transfer speed and programmability, he said, while the regulated institution provides a familiar operating structure.

US rules could favor prepared issuers The GENIUS Act allows issuers with no more than $10 billion in consolidated outstanding stablecoins to choose state-level supervision when the Treasury determines that the state’s rules are substantially similar to the federal framework.

Companies exceeding the threshold generally fall under federal supervision. The OCC will oversee federally qualified nonbank issuers, stablecoin subsidiaries of national banks and federal savings associations, along with certain state-qualified companies under its authority.

Gerhart said institutions that have already invested in banking and regulatory systems may enter the new regime with an advantage. Existing controls, reporting systems, and regulator relationships could take years for less-prepared competitors to reproduce.

Under his assessment, however, banks will not simply displace established nonbank stablecoin companies. Issuers will still need interoperability and practical uses alongside regulatory approval to win customers.

“The issuers that succeed will be the ones that can combine regulatory compliance with interoperability and real utility. Regulation opens the door to more participants, but the ability to integrate with existing financial infrastructure and actually serve customers will determine who gains traction.”

An earlier explanation of the law detailed additional issuer obligations, including one-to-one reserve backing, monthly attested disclosures and a ban on paying yield directly to stablecoin holders.

Eligible reserves include cash, insured bank deposits, short-term Treasury bills, Treasury-backed repurchase agreements and qualifying money market funds. Corporate debt, loans, precious metals and cryptocurrencies do not qualify as reserve assets under the framework.

Platforms face a separate 2028 access deadline From July 18, 2028, digital asset service providers generally cannot offer or sell a payment stablecoin to people in the United States unless an approved issuer issues it.

Treasury’s proposal treats exchanges, custodians, transfer providers and businesses offering financial services tied to digital asset issuance as service providers. Its US restrictions are intended to reach offshore activity when a platform offers or sells stablecoins to a person located in the country.

Under the proposed definitions, direct solicitation and US-facing advertising could count as an offer. A platform may also fall within the rule if it responds to an unsolicited request by agreeing to sell a stablecoin or telling potential customers how to bypass location restrictions.

Treasury is seeking feedback on whether platforms should use customer identification, account-opening data, geographic restrictions, device or network checks, contractual declarations and transaction monitoring to determine a customer’s location. IP address and identity-document checks are among the specific controls under consideration.

Foreign issuers would retain a route into the American market if the Treasury considers their home regulatory regime comparable, they register with the OCC, and they can comply with lawful orders and reciprocal arrangements.

Given the operational work involved, Gerhart said platforms should already be identifying every stablecoin they list, its issuer, the issuer’s home jurisdiction and the controls needed to limit customer access when required.

“The 2028 deadline gives platforms more time, but it is not something they should leave until 2028 to address,” he said.

Issuers should also begin reviewing reserve reconciliation, redemption procedures, KYC, anti-money laundering controls, sanctions systems, and regulatory reporting, according to Gerhart. Treasury will accept comments on its latest proposal for 60 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register.

On-chain activity picks up across Kaspa's upgraded stackSeven weeks after Kaspa's Toccata hard fork went live on June 30, 2026, the new protocol machinery is showing measurable real-world use. Kaspalytics counts 1,196 covenant-creating transactions in the past 24 hours, with over 2,700 covenant outputs produced. Those outputs represent programmable spending rules running natively on Kaspa's Layer 1, one of the headline features of the upgrade.

Toccata's changes focus primarily on adding covenant-like programmability, transaction v1, script pricing, ZK verification, based-app primitives, and Silverscript tooling. The hard fork transforms Kaspa from a fast, payments-focused network into a programmable value settlement layer.

The zero-knowledge side is at an earlier stage. Just nine ZK precompile transactions were recorded in the same 24-hour window, split between Groth16 and R0Succinct proof verifications. The update introduced an OpZkPrecompile for trustless L1 ZK proof verification and partitioned sequencing commitments to scale based ZK applications. Low initial volumes are expected given how recently that infrastructure became available.

Igra L2 dominates network activityThe clearest adoption signal sits on layer 2. Igra, the EVM-compatible L2 anchored to Kaspa, logged around 54,000 transactions in 24 hours, dwarfing every other protocol on the network, with KRC inscriptions a distant second near 1,900. Igra Labs describes its network as an EVM-compatible programmable layer on Kaspa L1, with fast probabilistic finality and support for 3,000 TPS or more. An EVM-compatible Layer 2 on Kaspa adds a separate layer that can run Ethereum-style smart contracts while still leveraging Kaspa's fast and secure L1 for transaction processing and settlement.

Miner adoption of the post-Toccata software also looks clean. Some 86% of recent blocks come from node version 2.0.1, the post-Toccata release, suggesting the consensus change has settled without a lingering network split. As with any consensus change, failing to upgrade can cause a node to split off from the network , so the rapid migration to 2.0.1 points to a smooth transition across the mining community.

Taken together, the data paints a picture of an upgrade that has cleared its most critical technical hurdle, broad miner adoption, while the application layer is still in its early innings. Covenant activity and Igra's transaction volumes suggest developers and users are beginning to test what the new stack can do.

Sources:
Kaspa Toccata Hard Fork Guide, kaspanet/rusty-kaspa on GitHub
Kaspa's Biggest Upgrade Yet, Bitcoin Foundation
Kaspa Covenants++ Toccata Hard-Fork Outlook by Michael Sutton, Medium

In brief Bitcoin climbed above $72,000 Thursday after gaining nearly 15% since Monday. Analysts pointed to Treasury bond purchases, policy headlines, and a massive short squeeze as drivers of the rally. With much of the short squeeze exhausted, analysts are watching spot demand, technical levels, and Treasury yields. Bitcoin's rally above $72,000 wiped out billions of dollars in bearish bets, but analysts say it will need fresh buyers to keep climbing.

Bitcoin reached its highest price since June on Thursday after gaining nearly 15% since Monday, with more than $3 billion in crypto short positions liquidated. That's the largest liquidation of short positions on Bitcoin since at least 2021. What's more, spot Bitcoin ETFs pulled in $517 million Wednesday, their largest single-day inflow since May.

Myriad: Bitcoin price next move? Click to make your prediction.Julio Moreno, head of research at CryptoQuant, attributed the rally to the U.S. Treasury buying long-dated government bonds, which markets interpreted as increasing liquidity, and President Donald Trump suggesting that the U.S. government could purchase Bitcoin.

"The rally may be sustainable if spot demand growth continues after the initial impact of these macro events," Moreno told Decrypt. "Officially we are still in a bear market, so a price pull back is possible, more so after this sudden increase."

Moreno said he is watching Bitcoin's 365-day moving average, currently around $83,000, along with CryptoQuant's profit-and-loss index and bull score, neither of which has turned bullish.

"To confirm that a bull market has started, I'm watching CryptoQuant's P&L Index, specifically if it crosses its 365-day moving average to the upside, which it has still not crossed," Moreno said. "Moreover, CryptoQuant's bull score continues in bearish mode, so I'm waiting for it to switch into bull territory."

Nansen Senior Research Analyst Nicolai Sondergaard said Bitcoin's technical picture has improved after reclaiming its 200-day simple moving average around $69,000. Bitcoin also sits about 8% above its 20- and 50-day moving averages, while its MACD, a momentum indicator used to track changes in price trends, has turned bullish.

"The key line is the 200-day SMA near $69,000 and holding above it keeps the breakout valid, while a close back below would signal a failed move," Sondergaard told Decrypt. "Above, the recent high ~$72,824 is immediate resistance."

However, Sondergaard warned that much of the rally was driven by liquidations rather than sustained buying, leaving Bitcoin vulnerable once the short squeeze runs out. Positioning remains mixed, he said, though whales and public figures on Hyperliquid are net long by $27.9 million and $33.9 million, respectively.

"The largest risk is that this was a short-squeeze spike, not fresh sustained buying," he said. "Once forced covering exhausts, thin follow-through can reverse quickly."

Sondergaard said trader positioning remains mixed and warned that "any reversal in that narrative or a broader risk-off move could stall the rally fast."

Adam McCarthy, a researcher at crypto trading firm Lo:Tech, also attributed the move to the Treasury's expanded buyback program and the short squeeze. More than half of Wednesday's gain occurred within a single hour as traders were forced out of a one-sided short position, he said.

"The Treasury's buyback expansion gave the market a reason to reprice, but more than half of Wednesday's gain came in one hour when a one-sided short position was forced out," McCarthy told Decrypt. "That fuel is spent, so the next leg has to be bought rather than squeezed."

McCarthy said he is watching the 30-year Treasury yield, particularly whether it moves back toward 5.3%, and crypto funding rates for signs of sustained buying.

"In crypto, whether funding starts showing a real long premium, because that's what actual buying looks like," he said.

McCarthy warned that the short positions that helped drive Bitcoin higher have largely been cleared.

"The short base is largely cleared and nothing has replaced it, so the move that got us here can't repeat," McCarthy said. "And if dealers are short gamma at $70k as we think, the hedging that exaggerated the way up exaggerates the way down."

Bitwise Research Analyst Ishmael Asad was more bullish, calling the rally the strongest indication yet that Bitcoin has bottomed. He pointed to the Treasury's expanded bond buybacks, the SEC's proposed Regulation Crypto Assets framework, and this week's White House crypto summit as catalysts.

"After this steep leg up, I wouldn’t expect the rally to continue at the same pace from here," Asad told Decrypt. "But I would take this move as the strongest confirmation we’ve seen yet that the bottom is in."

Asad said much of the potential downside, including the failure to pass the Clarity Act this year and possible rate hikes, has already been priced in. Still, he said a return to a bull market would require additional catalysts.

"The market will likely move sideways or higher in the coming months as we look towards the next milestones, like a potential Senate vote on Clarity in September," he said.

CoinShares Head of Research James Butterfill also expects conditions to remain favorable, but said Bitcoin is more likely to trade within a range than enter a sustained breakout.

"The rally is primarily a macro story rather than a crypto specific one," Butterfill told Decrypt. According to Butterfill, recent inflation and employment data have weakened expectations for further Federal Reserve tightening, while large Bitcoin holders have stopped selling and begun accumulating again.

“We expect the constructive backdrop to persist, but we would characterize the market as range-bound for now rather than in a sustained breakout, as accumulation by large holders is not yet at a scale that would imply one,” he said.

Digital asset investment products have also attracted about $1.3 billion so far this week. Still, Butterfill expects Bitcoin to remain range-bound because accumulation by large holders is not yet strong enough to support a sustained breakout.

Myriad: Bitcoin price on Sunday? Click to make your prediction.Bitcoin's move above its 200-day moving average has improved the technical picture, Butterfill said, with $80,000 now a key level to watch.

"On the upside, the US $80,000 area remains the important boundary, and a decisive move through it would likely require clearer confirmation from the Federal Reserve that policy risks have shifted away from further tightening," he said.

Monetary policy, he added, remains the biggest risk, noting that persistent inflation could force the Federal Reserve to keep policy tighter for longer, reversing the liquidity conditions supporting Bitcoin's rally.

"With accumulation by large holders still modest in scale, the market lacks the depth of conviction that typically underpins a durable breakout," Butterfill said.

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If you wanted to move Bitcoin onto Starknet today, you’re out of luck. Atomiq, the infrastructure provider powering BTC-to-Starknet swaps, yanked all of its swap routes offline on August 20 after what it described as sophisticated AI-assisted security attacks targeting its operations.

The good news: no user funds were lost. The less good news: one of Starknet’s key Bitcoin on-ramps is now a dead end until a replacement integration goes live, which Starknet says should happen within days.

What happened and why funds are safe Atomiq’s role in the Starknet ecosystem was straightforward but critical. It facilitated zero-slippage swaps between native BTC (including Lightning Network transactions) and Starknet-based assets like strkBTC.

Starknet moved quickly to clarify the damage, or rather the lack of it. The swaps relied on a trustless escrow model secured by Bitcoin’s proof-of-work consensus. In practical terms, that means the security of user funds didn’t depend on Atomiq staying online. The cryptographic guarantees were baked into the protocol layer, not the application layer.

Users who had swaps in progress aren’t stranded either. Atomiq’s web application remains accessible specifically so people can claim refunds on past transactions. The swap service is dead, but the refund counter is still open.

The replacement plan Starknet confirmed it is actively preparing a new integration to restore Bitcoin bridging capabilities. The timeline is aggressive: days, not weeks or months.

Starknet has positioned itself as a privacy-focused Layer 2 built on zero-knowledge rollup technology, where Bitcoin holders can access DeFi applications with enhanced privacy guarantees. The new integration is expected to include enhancements over the previous Atomiq-powered system, including existing swap services such as zero-slippage Bitcoin transactions and support for the strkBTC token.

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

A whale trader using the ENS-linked address pension-usdt.eth was liquidated on Hyperliquid after a massive Ether short position unraveled in just 12 seconds.

The position was large: 50,000 ETH, worth about $108 million in notional exposure. As prices spiked, the short was unwound between 04:51:03 and 04:51:15 UTC, leaving the trader with a reported loss of $26.66 million.

Hyperliquid’s insurance and backstop fund absorbed the remaining 1,417 ETH.

This is not an Ethereum network issue. It is not evidence of a Hyperliquid malfunction. It is a leverage story — and a sharp reminder that crypto derivatives can move faster than even experienced traders expect.

TL;DR A Hyperliquid trader using pension-usdt.eth was liquidated on a 50,000 ETH short. The unwind reportedly took 12 seconds. The trader lost $26.66 million, while Hyperliquid’s backstop fund absorbed the remaining 1,417 ETH. Why The Liquidation Matters Large liquidations are useful because they show where leverage was hiding.

Spot markets can look calm until a heavily leveraged position gets forced out. Then price moves suddenly, liquidity thins, and the market discovers that one trader’s risk can become everyone’s headline.

That appears to be what happened here.

A 50,000 ETH short is not a casual trade. It is a major directional bet against Ether. When price moved against it quickly enough, the position could not survive. The forced unwind then became part of the rally itself.

That is how leverage can turn a price move into a cascade.

Hyperliquid Keeps Becoming A Bigger Venue The episode also shows how much attention Hyperliquid now commands.

On-chain perpetuals and decentralized derivatives venues have become central to crypto market structure. Traders no longer need to rely only on centralized exchanges to take large leveraged positions. They can build major exposure on venues where activity is more transparent and often easier to track.

That transparency makes stories like this visible in real time.

When a large trader gets liquidated, the market can see the wallet, the position, the timing, and the aftermath. That creates a different kind of market theater from older exchange-driven liquidation events.

It also makes risk more public.

This Was A Margin Event, Not A Protocol Failure The distinction matters.

A trader being liquidated does not mean Hyperliquid failed. It means the trader’s margin could not support the position as price moved. The backstop mechanism then handled remaining exposure.

That is how derivatives venues are supposed to manage risk, though the speed and size of the event still deserve attention.

The Ethereum network itself was not affected. ETH did not experience a consensus issue, outage, or protocol-level disruption. The liquidation happened in the derivatives layer, not the base chain.

That is important for readers who may see a $26 million loss and assume something broke.

Nothing necessarily broke. A very large short was simply on the wrong side of a violent move.

Leverage Cuts Both Ways Crypto traders like leverage because it magnifies returns.

The other side is that it magnifies timing risk. Even if a trader has a reasonable market thesis, a sharp move in the wrong direction can liquidate the position before the thesis has time to play out.

That is especially true in ETH markets, where liquidity can be deep but volatility remains high.

A 12-second unwind is a brutal illustration of that point. There is no time to rethink, no time to gradually reposition, and no time to wait for a candle to close. Once margin thresholds are hit, the system takes over.

What Traders Should Watch Next The next question is whether this liquidation was isolated or part of a broader leverage flush.

If other large shorts were crowded near the same levels, the unwind may have contributed to additional upward pressure. If it was mostly a single whale event, the market may move on quickly once the forced buying is complete.

Funding rates, open interest, and spot volume will help show whether ETH traders are still leaning too heavily one way.

For now, the signal is clear enough.

Ether’s move was not only about spot buying. It also forced a major short off the board, and that can change positioning fast.

This article is based on public Hyperliquid trader and liquidation data.

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

XRP experienced a notable rally on Thursday, jumping over 25% to reach $1.245, in a move that mirrors Bitcoin’s breakout past $72,000. The sharp price increase followed several weeks of growing accumulation by large XRP holders, commonly known as whales.

Whale accumulation intensifiesOnchain data from CryptoQuant confirmed that average spot order sizes for XRP have remained in the highest range throughout 2026, reflecting steady accumulation by big players. Crypto analyst Ali noted that, within a 96-hour period, whales acquired 300 million XRP tokens, characterizing the buying activity as “crazy.”

Santiment, an onchain analytics platform, observed a rise in millionaire wallets holding XRP. Over the last three months, the number of wallets holding at least $1 million in XRP increased by 32, underscoring renewed confidence among large holders.

Recent activity demonstrates that whales purchased 300 million XRP tokens within just four days, while millionaire-level XRP wallets have increased by 32 in three months, highlighting sustained interest from major investors.

This sustained whale activity coincided with increased trading momentum. From Wednesday’s low of $0.99, XRP’s price rallied to a peak of $1.245, marking a significant intraday gain. At the time of reporting, XRP had recorded a 22% daily increase to stand at $1.23, fostering optimism in the community.

MetricValueChangePrice (intraday high)$1.245+25%Current price$1.23+22% (24h)XRP open interest (Binance)$461.3 million2-month highMillionaire wallets+32 walletsPast 3 monthsSpike in activity and open interestCryptoQuant also reported that XRP open interest on Binance soared to roughly $461.3 million this week, marking a two-month high and a clear uptick in derivatives trading activity. Increased open interest often signals heightened engagement from both institutional and high-volume retail traders in the derivatives market.

Santiment pointed out that last weekend brought the highest level of XRP network activity seen in more than two months. This surge follows a recent period when network activity neared its lowest point for 2026.

Across both spot and derivatives markets, XRP has seen a strong resurgence in volume and investor participation, with metrics returning to levels not observed since earlier in the year.

Institutional-grade credit debuts on XRPLMomentum for XRP was further boosted by the introduction of institutional-grade credit to the XRP Ledger (XRPL). Cicada Partners announced the launch of a new credit initiative, leveraging infrastructure provided by Clearpool. This new pipeline is built on the XRPL Lending Protocol and the Single Asset Vault product.

Ripple, the global payments company behind the XRP Ledger, acts as a Liquidity Provider within this new credit fund, supplying capital along with other major institutional investors. The addition of these players aims to bring traditional credit opportunities and borrower pipelines directly to the XRPL ecosystem.

Mini dictionary: Cicada Partners – A financial technology firm specializing in digital credit and lending solutions for institutional markets. Clearpool – A decentralized credit marketplace that enables institutional borrowing and lending using blockchain protocols.

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.

Crypto analyst Xaif recently published a video of Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse addressing a live audience at the 2026 Wyoming Blockchain Symposium, a key industry event jointly hosted in Jackson Hole by SALT and the cryptocurrency exchange Kraken. In the clip, Garlinghouse responded to a question about the company’s position on going public, noting a change in attitude that has drawn attention from the XRP investor community.

Ripple’s evolving IPO strategyDuring the session, Garlinghouse acknowledged that Ripple has long operated as a private company. He pointed out that, in the previous year, Ripple had completed $2.5 billion worth of acquisitions without relying on public financing. Additionally, over the past two years, Ripple conducted $3 billion in shareholder tender offers, providing liquidity to early backers.

Garlinghouse’s remarks suggested a shift from Ripple’s historic reluctance toward an IPO. “We have been very happily private for a long time,” he stated, but went on to clarify, “We’re more neutral on the topic than maybe we used to be.” This measured openness suggests that Ripple is no longer categorically opposed to becoming a public company.

Garlinghouse explained that while Ripple remains private, the company’s attitude toward a potential IPO has changed, noting, “We’re more neutral on the topic than maybe we used to be.”

This evolving stance did not go unnoticed by market observers such as Xaif, who highlighted that Ripple’s tone had moved from resistant to neutral, especially following recent acquisitions and major shareholder liquidity events.

Consolidation and growth strategyGarlinghouse emphasized the increasing consolidation across the cryptocurrency industry, as larger firms acquire smaller competitors during cyclical downturns. Drawing from his experience across five separate crypto market cycles, he said that Ripple’s ongoing acquisition activity positions it as a consolidator, strengthening its market presence.

Going public could offer strategic advantages for Ripple, including greater access to capital markets, a higher public profile, and expanded options for future deal-making. The significant financial groundwork laid through multi-billion-dollar acquisitions and tender offers has built a strong foundation for any potential public transition.

Mini dictionary: Shareholder tender offer, a process in which a company offers to buy back shares from existing investors, often to provide liquidity or alter ownership structure.

Potential impact for XRPFor the XRP community, a Ripple IPO would represent a major development. As XRP is used within Ripple’s payment infrastructure, broader transparency and increased institutional participation following a public offering could benefit token holders. Greater visibility and regulatory compliance bolstered by a listing may also strengthen Ripple’s case in financial markets.

The prospect of Ripple accessing public markets could lead to higher institutional access for XRP and augment Ripple’s visibility in the regulated finance sector.

Current position and future outlookRipple’s openness to a potential IPO arrives shortly after the company resolved its long-running legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm has continued to expand through strategic acquisitions, further consolidating its position in the digital assets sector.

Garlinghouse’s latest comments do not confirm immediate plans for an IPO, but indicate Ripple’s leadership is reassessing previous resistance to going public. This shift draws considerable interest from both institutional investors and retail participants in the broader cryptocurrency market.

Ripple is a leading blockchain payments firm best known for developing cross-border settlement solutions using its digital asset, XRP.

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.

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Ripple plans to enter the tokenized private credit market through a new institutional lending system on the XRP Ledger. RippleX is developing the lending feature with Clearpool Finance and Cicada Partners for real-world business borrowers. Loans will use Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin, while lending transactions will run directly on XRPL. The system will use the XLS-65 Single Asset Vaults and XLS-66 Lending Protocol amendments. XRP will remain necessary for transaction fees and wallet reserves, increasing its utility within the lending network. Ripple is preparing to expand XRP Ledger into institutional private credit through a new lending system built with Clearpool Finance and Cicada Partners. The plan aims to connect XRPL with a tokenized private credit market valued at above $10 billion while giving real-world businesses access to working capital across regulated institutional lending markets.

Unlike much of DeFi lending, where funds often circulate inside crypto markets, the proposed system will focus on fintech and payment companies. Borrowers will receive loans in RLUSD, Ripple’s regulated stablecoin, while XRPL will process lending activity on-chain.

Ripple Backs Native Lending Infrastructure RippleX developers plan to build the lending system directly into XRP Ledger through the XLS-65 Single Asset Vaults and XLS-66 Lending Protocol amendments. The design removes reliance on third-party smart contracts and places core lending functions inside XRPL’s base protocol.

Loan pools, issuance, repayments, and related activity will all run on XRPL. Each transaction will require XRP for network fees and wallet reserves, giving the token a direct role in the lending process as activity grows.

RLUSD Loans Target Real-World Borrowers The lending system will use RLUSD for loans to businesses seeking working capital. The stablecoin operates under New York Department of Financial Services oversight, while Bank of New York provides custody support.

Ripple will also invest in the lending fund under the same terms as other institutions. The company will not guarantee returns, and all investors will share the same rights and risks on a pari passu basis.

Validator Vote Will Decide Mainnet Launch Developers have added compliance tools designed for institutional use. These include digital participant identities and a Clawback feature that can return funds when required under set rules.

Clearpool is now testing end-to-end lending scenarios on XRPL Devnet. A Mainnet launch will depend on independent validators approving and activating the XLS-65 and XLS-66 amendments through the network’s amendment voting process.

Asset manager T. Rowe Price has quietly added Cardano to its Active Crypto ETF, placing the cryptocurrency alongside major assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

The move follows the fund’s initial launch without Cardano, despite earlier filings indicating that T. Rowe Price could support the asset. TKNZ began trading on NYSE Arca in mid-July after the U.S. SEC approved the fund in June.

At launch, TKNZ held Bitcoin, Ethereum, BNB, Solana, XRP, Hyperliquid, Stellar, Dogecoin, USD Coin, and cash equivalents. Although T. Rowe Price had previously indicated that Cardano could qualify for inclusion, ADA was absent from the fund’s initial holdings.

However, the asset manager has now followed through by adding ADA to the portfolio.

Cardano Meets TKNZ’s Eligibility Requirements Cardano’s inclusion is notable because TKNZ cannot invest in every cryptocurrency. Instead, the fund applies eligibility criteria covering regulatory classification, liquidity, custody, valuation, and an asset’s ability to be held and traded within a regulated investment product.

In addition, the fund’s prospectus excludes assets considered securities under U.S. federal law. Therefore, ADA’s inclusion indicates that T. Rowe Price considers Cardano eligible under the fund’s investment framework.

ADA Holds a Small Allocation Despite its addition, Cardano currently accounts for only a small portion of TKNZ.

ADA ranks as the fund’s 10th-largest asset, with a 0.44% portfolio weighting, according to data from the fund’s website. Based on TKNZ’s reported $16.47 million in net assets, the allocation represents approximately $72,500 in Cardano.

Nevertheless, the significance of the move extends beyond the size of the investment. By including ADA in an actively managed product from a major asset manager, TKNZ provides traditional investors with another avenue to gain Cardano exposure through a regulated fund structure. 

Active Crypto ETF Holdings Cardano’s Institutional Presence Expands Meanwhile, T. Rowe Price’s move adds to Cardano’s growing presence in U.S.-based crypto investment products.

ADA has already appeared in several diversified crypto funds and index products, including the Bitwise 10 Crypto Index Fund (BITW), Grayscale Smart Contract Fund, and Hashdex Nasdaq CME Crypto Index ETF. Consequently, TKNZ’s addition further strengthens Cardano’s position within the institutional crypto-investment landscape.

In the meantime, ADA posted a strong performance yesterday, rallying more than 10% and briefly surpassing $0.19. However, the token has since surrendered some of those gains and currently trades at around $0.1838.

Despite the pullback, Cardano remains up 4.9% over the past 24 hours. Its trading volume has also surged 212% during the same period to $528.26 million, highlighting increased market activity around the asset. 

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

Canary Capital has updated its S-1 form for Staked TRX ETF with the US SEC, revealing fees and other key details ahead of potential launch in coming weeks. TRX, the native token of Justin Sun’s TRON, has spiked nearly 2% over the past 24 hours.

Canary Staked TRX ETF Amends Filing with the US SEC Canary Capital has filed amendment no 4 to its S-1 registration statement for its Staked TRX ETF, according to the latest US SEC filing. The issuer aims to list and trade shares on Cboe BXZ Exchange under the ticker TRXS.

The filing advances the proposed spot ETF that would offer investors exposure to TRX price. It will also generate staking rewards by participating in the TRON network’s proof-of-stake process.

The most notable change from the previous amendment is the disclosure of a 1.10% management fee. The Canary Staked TRX ETF is to cover ordinary operating expenses up to $200,000 per fiscal year. However, the issuer has not disclosed any fee waiver.

Canary Staked TRX ETF expects to stake 90% of TRX under normal conditions, with staking rewards shared among staking provider, sponsor, and custodian. The total staking fees will not exceed 20% of the TRX staking rewards.

“As of the date of this prospectus, the aggregate Staking Fees are expected to be 20% of the TRX staking rewards, resulting in the Trust retaining 80% of the TRX staking rewards generated by the Staking Program,” it states.

The filing also revealed details of seed capital investor and seed investment to launch the Canary Staked TRX ETF. Canary Capital Group plans to purchase 10,000 shares at $25 per share.

TRON Price Jumps Ahead of Major Upgrade TRON price surged almost 2% in the past 24 hours, currently trading at $0.337. The 24-hour low and high are $0.3315 and $0.3374, respectively. Moreover, trading volume has increased by 75% over the last 24 hours amid broader crypto market recovery.

In the daily timeframe, the price is trading strongly above the 50-SMA and 200-SMA. Analysts predict potential updside amid major TVM compatibility upgrade. The upgrade would improve TVM compatibility, security, execution consistency, and support for newer Ethereum opcodes and precompiled contracts.

Derivatives markets showed massive buying sentiment, as per Coinglass data. At the time of writing, the total TRX futures open interest jumped more than 5% to $256.12 million in the last 4 hours.

TRON futures OI on Binance rocketed more than 9% amid Canary Staked TRX ETF amendment, while it climbed almost 2.50% on Hyperliquid and 8% on KuCoin.

Traders looking to trade these shifting trends can find competitive fees and deep liquidity on the best crypto futures trading platforms currently leading the derivatives sector.

TLDR Table of Contents

Franklin Templeton received SEC staff relief to let eligible funds invest in its blockchain-based OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund. The tokenized fund could support cash management and securities lending collateral within traditional investment portfolios. Franklin Templeton said the structure could eventually bring tokenized assets into ETFs and mutual funds. The OnChain Fund uses Stellar as its main public blockchain, while Franklin Templeton Investor Services keeps the official ownership record. The fund offers features such as hourly NAV calculations, intraday trading, and faster transaction processing. Franklin Templeton is preparing to place tokenized assets inside traditional investment funds after receiving SEC staff relief. The move allows certain Franklin funds to invest in shares of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund under stated conditions. That opens a new route for regulated portfolios.

The SEC Division of Investment Management issued the no-action letter on August 12. Staff said it would not recommend enforcement action if Franklin Templeton Investor Services acts as custodian for eligible fund investments.

Franklin Templeton Gains New Cash Management Option The relief gives Franklin funds another way to manage cash and securities lending collateral. Franklin said its tokenized money market fund could later serve ETFs and mutual funds, bringing blockchain-based fund shares into standard portfolios.

Each fund board must approve the arrangement before use. Franklin said some portfolios could begin using the OnChain Fund in the fourth quarter, depending on those approvals and each fund’s needs.

The OnChain Fund uses blockchain networks to record transactions and anonymous shareholder data. Franklin Templeton Investor Services keeps the official ownership record, while Stellar currently serves as the fund’s main public blockchain.

Franklin said the setup supports hourly net asset value calculations, intraday trading and faster transaction processing. The firm also expects the structure to help funds manage liquidity more closely while reducing operational costs over time.

SEC Relief Comes With Clear Limits The SEC made clear that the letter reflects only a staff enforcement position. It does not represent formal Commission approval, and it does not provide a legal finding on the structure.

Sandy Kaul, Franklin Templeton’s head of digital assets and innovation, said the firm wants funds to manage cash more precisely, earn more yield and hold less unused liquidity. Franklin also plans more tokenized products for possible use as cash or collateral.

Franklin launched the OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund in 2021. Its BENJI token represents fund shares, and the product became the first U.S.-registered money market fund to use a public blockchain as its official recordkeeping system.

The broader BENJI product suite held $1.98 billion in assets under management as of April 29. Franklin’s next step will depend on fund board approvals and how quickly portfolio teams adopt the tokenized structure.

Chainlink Labs is betting that the next wave of blockchain growth won’t come from crypto-native builders alone. It’ll come from Wall Street. And the person tasked with making that happen is Andrew McCormick, who joined the oracle network on June 4 as Head of Institutional and Market Development.

McCormick, who previously ran eToro’s US operations, has a straightforward thesis: artificial intelligence will make it trivially cheap to launch new blockchain networks, and the resulting proliferation of chains will create enormous demand for the plumbing that connects them. That plumbing, in Chainlink’s view, is its Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, better known as CCIP.

The multi-chain argument, reframed McCormick has been making this case publicly through a series of media appearances, including a YouTube interview on June 30 and a spot on the All-In Crypto Podcast in late July. The messaging has been consistent: interoperability isn’t a nice-to-have feature for institutions. It’s a prerequisite.

Why institutions care about CCIP For a bank or asset manager considering tokenized securities, the nightmare scenario is liquidity fragmentation. If a tokenized Treasury bond lives on one chain but the buyer’s settlement infrastructure runs on another, someone needs to bridge that gap without introducing counterparty risk or regulatory ambiguity.

That’s the problem CCIP is designed to solve. The protocol enables cross-chain token transfers and messaging with a verification layer powered by Chainlink’s existing oracle network. In practical terms, it lets a tokenized asset on Ethereum settle against a payment rail on a private chain without either party needing to trust a centralized intermediary.

Chainlink has already been working with some of the biggest names in traditional finance to prove this out. Collaborations with DTCC, the central clearinghouse that processes the vast majority of US securities transactions, and J.P. Morgan’s blockchain unit Kinexys suggest that the institutional interest isn’t theoretical.

McCormick’s role is to scale those relationships. His mandate includes engaging US banks and asset managers on blockchain integration, developing strategies for tokenized asset adoption, and running educational programs that explain blockchain’s utility, security, and interoperability to financial decision-makers.

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

AEON brings USDC payments to physical stores across five markets@AEON_Community has launched a $USDC payment gateway at physical retail locations across the Philippines, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Africa. The deployment runs on @0xPolygon technology, enabling instant settlement at the point of sale through familiar interfaces such as QR codes and mobile wallets.

The partnership between AEON and Polygon has been building since mid-2025, with the two companies working to bring crypto payments to more than 20 million retail locations spanning Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The AEON Pay interface supports payments in $USDC and $POL at merchant checkouts, covering use cases from dining and lifestyle to everyday shopping.

Polygon's infrastructure is well suited to retail-scale payment volumes. Blocks settle in roughly two seconds and network fees average fractions of a cent, keeping the cost of small-value transactions minimal. The network has also built out meaningful off-ramp coverage in Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, meaning merchants can receive settlement in local fiat currency without needing to manage blockchain complexity directly.

The choice of markets is deliberate. Almost 50 percent of all stablecoin transfers in Argentina already use USDC, according to data from analytics firm Artemis, reflecting strong grassroots adoption of dollar-pegged assets in economies exposed to currency volatility. Brazil and Mexico, two of Latin America's largest economies, have also seen stablecoin rails gain traction as businesses look to reduce cross-border transaction costs.

AI agents are the next target use caseBeyond everyday consumer payments, the integration has been designed with autonomous AI agents in mind. @AEON_Community has been developing a framework that allows AI-powered agents to shop and settle payments independently, both online and at physical retail locations via QR code. The Polygon-based $USDC gateway is positioned as a key part of that infrastructure, giving agents a stable, low-cost settlement layer for real-world commerce.

AEON's AI Payment feature deploys agents that can search, compare products, and execute purchases without human intervention, including QR code-based payments in physical stores. Routing those transactions over Polygon's network means near-instant finality at minimal cost, which is a practical requirement for agent-driven workflows that may involve high transaction frequency.

The deployment adds to a broader wave of stablecoin-powered retail infrastructure being built on Polygon. The network's payments volume has grown sharply over the past year, driven by a combination of fintech partnerships, rising stablecoin demand in emerging markets, and the expanding role of programmable money in automated business operations.

Sources:
AEON Partners with Polygon to Bring $POL and USDC Crypto Payments to 20 Million Stores - Coinfomania
Polygon USDC Transfers Surge 141% Amid Stablecoin Payments Push - Yahoo Finance / DL News
AEON Launches AI Payment for Autonomous Crypto Payments - Crypto.news

The Algorand protocol engineering team has been cooking up a feast lately, and the Algorand 5.0 upgrade brings a wide variety of new capabilities and raises many of the protocol’s long-standing limits. In this four-part series, we’ll explore some of the most important ones through an extended metaphor using the core components of cooking: salt, fat, acid, and heat. Rather than cooking tasty food, though, we’re enhancing the flavor of the applications that can be built on Algorand.

Part 1 of the series (Salt) is below; stay tuned for parts 2-4 in the coming days. Part 1: Salt - Cryptographic capabilities Post-Quantum Signatures The single biggest addition to Algorand in this 5.0 upgrade is a framework enabling native post-quantum (PQ) signature schemes for transactions, beginning with the addition of Falcon-1024.

While it has been possible since late 2025 to create LogicSig smart contract accounts that will only authorize transactions after verifying a Falcon signature, the way this was achieved required combining multiple transactions together, which impeded DeFi composability with protocols that require using several transaction slots in the atomic group for their own calls. Smart contract accounts are also not the typical approach preferred by most Algorand wallets.

A better approach is to add first-class support for transactions to carry post-quantum signatures, and that’s what we’ve added now:

pqsig: { sch: [2]byte, slt: uint8, pk: []byte, sig: []byte }

The new pqsig framework is a transaction signature envelope that allows arbitrary schemes to be added to the protocol in the future. Here we can indicate the scheme being used, and the first one we support is Falcon-1024, a lattice-based scheme that is suitable for long-lived accounts. In the future, support for additional schemes will be explored. Falcon-512 is already on Algorand’s roadmap as a variant of Falcon with smaller public key and signature sizes that can be suitable in situations where lightness is useful, and security requirements are somewhat less demanding.

Salt to taste Note that this signature object includes slt, an important salt value that is used to ensure that the Algorand address derived from a PQ public key does not correspond to a valid point on Curve Ed25519. If a PQ account address does not lie on the curve, then there is simply no corresponding Ed25519 private key that could ever be found by an attacker with a quantum computer. As a result, PQ accounts can only ever spend by signing with their PQ key.

Generally speaking, the Algorand technical community will consider the canonical salt to be the lowest value that results in an address that is off of Curve Ed25519. This will be the default approach used in our SDKs when handling accounts, in the algod REST API when submitting transactions, and in other tooling.

That said, the protocol itself will not enforce this canonical salting approach, and signatures will verify successfully even if a different salt has been used by a wallet to generate an account.

Astute readers will notice that the salt is only one byte, which provides 256 tries with roughly 50-50 odds each to find a point that isn’t on the Edwards curve. The probability of using all of those tries and failing to find a good address is extremely small, and if that should occur, a new PQ keypair should be generated.

Crypto-agile signing interfaces Alongside this protocol upgrade, we have introduced upgrades in our SDKs around handling and signing for Algorand accounts. This includes support for PQ signature schemes, support for hierarchical-deterministic (HD) accounts, support for integrating with key management systems (KMS), and more secure secret handling.

Throughout the libraries, you will find flexible interfaces for signing transactions that can be wired up to any signer, with the default approach being that this signing occurs somewhere secure rather than handling raw key material directly in the library.

The goal is to make it easier for developers to build secure, production-ready applications and avoid building infrastructure or even helper scripts that involve the use of secrets in cleartext that can fall victim to malware attacks against servers and developer machines.

These new interfaces also open the door to supporting more signature schemes in the future without requiring developers to update their SDK code to leverage new and different approaches to signing transactions.

Stay tuned for Part 2 in this series: “Fat: Fatter apps and transactions,” coming later this week. What do you want to build on Algorand 5.0? Join our Discord server to meet other developers building PQ solutions, fat apps, box families, and more.

Disclaimer: The content provided in this blog is for informational and educational purposes only. The information is provided by the Algorand Foundation and while we strive to keep it accurate and current, we make no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy, reliability, suitability, or availability of the blog or the information contained in it for any purpose. Nothing in this blog is legal, financial, tax, or investment advice, nor an endorsement, guarantee, or investment recommendation. Technical descriptions are provided as of the date of publication and may change. Any statements about future plans, features, integrations, protocol or consensus upgrades, fees, or timelines are forward-looking and subject to change, including subject to community adoption, and are not commitments. You should conduct your own research and consult a qualified professional before acting on any information here; any reliance you place on it is strictly at your own risk. All third-party names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners, and their mention does not imply affiliation or endorsement.

Pakistan's Sovereign Messenger Enters Testing PhaseInternet Computer (@DFINITY) is accelerating the rollout of Pakistan's sovereign national messenger app, with the project now in active testing with a select group of users. According to ICP's Chief Business Officer, Pierre (@PierreSamaties), the application is "making great progress" and already supports built-in audio and video calls.

The messenger sits at the centre of a broader partnership between the Pakistan Digital Authority (PDA) and the DFINITY Foundation, formalised through a Memorandum of Understanding signed in February 2026.

On-Chain Security and OpenChat ExpertiseThe technology underpinning the messenger uses a tamper-proof, always-on architecture to integrate on-chain identity and end-to-end encryption directly into native iOS and Android apps.

To guarantee scalability for a national user base, the development team is drawing on years of experience with @OpenChat, a decentralised messaging platform built on the Internet Computer.

The messenger's progress marks a significant step in the broader push to deploy blockchain-based infrastructure at the nation-state level, with Pakistan positioning itself as an early mover in sovereign digital communications.

Sources:
DFINITY Foundation: Pakistan Digital Authority Partnership Announcement
Business Wire: Pakistan Digital Authority and DFINITY Partner for Sovereign Cloud Infrastructure

TLDR: Pump Foundation holds nearly $2 billion in treasury assets, mostly in stablecoins, no SOL held. Baton Corporation develops pump.fun and receives about $100 million yearly for operations. Pump.fun has generated over $1 billion in total revenue since its January 2024 platform launch. With 13.5 million active wallets, pump.fun now drives about 40% of Solana’s network activity. Pump Foundation currently holds close to $2 billion in treasury assets, according to Pump fun co-founder Noah Tweedale.

Tweedale shared the figure during an interview with Crypto Insider published on August 8, 2026. The foundation operates separately from Baton Corporation, the UK-based company that develops the platform.

Baton receives roughly $100 million annually to cover development, technology, and other operating costs. The treasury holds no SOL and instead consists mainly of stablecoins and other assets.

Foundation Structure and Revenue Sources Pump Foundation’s funds come primarily from its initial coin offering and ongoing platform revenue. This separation keeps foundation assets distinct from the operational budget used by Baton Corporation. Baton handles the technical side of the business, building and maintaining the trading platform.

The foundation’s treasury composition reflects a conservative approach to asset management. Holding stablecoins rather than SOL reduces exposure to token price swings. This structure allows the foundation to fund long-term initiatives without relying on volatile crypto holdings.

Tweedale also addressed the team behind Pump fun during the conversation. The team maintains a young average age of 25 years old. Despite its size, the group manages a treasury approaching $2 billion alongside a sizable annual budget.

The co-founder acknowledged past communication gaps with investors and the wider community. He stated the team plans to increase transparency going forward. Regular updates are expected to become part of the foundation’s ongoing strategy.

Platform Growth and Future Expansion Pump fun launched in January 2024 and has since generated over $1 billion in revenue. The platform now engages 13.5 million active wallets across its ecosystem. That activity accounts for roughly 40% of total network usage on Solana.

The platform started as a basic meme coin launchpad before evolving further. It has since become a mobile-first social trading platform built for everyday users.

Traders can now deposit funds and place trades directly from their phones. This shift removed many of the technical barriers that once limited crypto trading access.

Looking ahead, the team is expanding its mobile app, web interface, and a professional trading terminal. New initiatives include GoDo.fun, a bounty-based feature, and a boost mode for coin launches. Both additions aim to support faster platform growth going forward.

A pump.fun stablecoin is also under consideration by the team. Such a token would let traders denominate trades in US dollars instead of SOL.

The platform already supports cross-chain assets from BNB, ETH, and Base networks, giving users broader access beyond the Solana ecosystem alone.

Solana’s tokenized fund market cap grew by $12.5 million over just seven days, underscoring the blockchain’s rapidly expanding role as a hub for real-world assets moving on-chain. That weekly figure is a slice of a much larger story: over the past 30 days, Solana led all tracked chains with a $201.2 million increase in tokenized fund market capitalization.

In a total addressable market of roughly $34.7 billion across multiple chains, Solana now holds an estimated $1.9 billion in tokenized fund market cap. That’s still a fraction of Ethereum’s dominance, but the growth rate tells a different story entirely.

From niche to institutional playground Solana’s non-stablecoin real-world asset ecosystem value has surged to historic levels, reaching between $3.4 billion and $3.9 billion during mid-2026 according to Token Terminal data. The drivers behind that number read like a traditional finance product catalog: tokenized credit funds, equities, ETFs, and money market instruments.

BlackRock and Securitize are among the notable names actively launching products on Solana’s network.

The tokenized credit fund sector alone tells a compelling story. Solana achieved the most substantial year-to-date growth among tracked chains in that category, contributing to a cumulative market cap of $664.3 million within tokenized credit funds.

Tokenized equities have become another pillar of Solana’s RWA strategy. Recent data shows that 97% of on-chain tokenized equities spot volume settled on Solana, with daily trading volumes exceeding $680 million.

Why Solana keeps winning institutional mandates The technical case for Solana in the tokenized fund space comes down to speed and cost. Sub-second settlement finality means that when an institution tokenizes a Treasury bill or equity product, the transaction clears faster than it takes to refresh a Bloomberg terminal.

Compare that to traditional settlement cycles. Even after the SEC’s push to T+1 settlement in US equity markets, the process still involves intermediaries, reconciliation, and overnight batch processing. Solana’s architecture collapses that entire pipeline into something approaching real-time.

Low transaction costs matter equally. Tokenizing a money market fund on a chain where gas fees routinely spike into double digits per transaction creates friction that defeats the purpose. Solana’s fee structure, typically measured in fractions of a cent, makes micro-transactions and frequent rebalancing economically viable for fund managers.

The competitive landscape and what to watch Several dynamics are worth monitoring. First, the concentration of tokenized equity volume on Solana at 97% creates both opportunity and risk.

Second, the institutional players entering Solana’s ecosystem bring credibility but also expectations. BlackRock and Securitize don’t build on experimental infrastructure. Their presence signals confidence in Solana’s reliability, but it also raises the stakes for network uptime and security. Solana’s historical struggles with outages remain a concern for institutions accustomed to five-nines availability.

Third, the regulatory environment for tokenized securities remains fluid. How the SEC and global regulators ultimately classify and oversee tokenized funds will shape which blockchains capture the most institutional capital.

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

Optimism’s Token House just voted to redirect roughly $49 million worth of OP tokens, and the beneficiary is not the user base. A January 2026 governance proposal passed with approximately 84% support, rerouting half of the Superchain’s net revenue toward recurring OP token buybacks over a 12-month pilot period.

The Superchain, Optimism’s network of OP Stack-based chains, generates net revenue from sequencer fees and related activity. Under the newly approved plan, 50% of that revenue gets funneled into systematic OP token buybacks on a recurring basis across the pilot year.

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The vote cleared through the Token House, Optimism’s primary governance chamber where OP holders weigh in on financial policies and treasury allocation. Getting 84% approval in a governance vote is not trivial. Most contested DeFi governance proposals scrape by with slim majorities. That said, governance participation rates in on-chain systems tend to skew toward larger holders, which means the 84% figure reflects who showed up to vote, not necessarily the sentiment of every OP holder.

Optimism has historically leaned on direct token distributions as a tool for community building. Airdrops, retroactive public goods funding, and user incentive programs have been central to how the protocol attracted and retained participants. This vote marks a deliberate turn away from that playbook, deploying revenue instead to reduce circulating supply.

It also raises a subtler governance question. The team that cast the deciding vote here was funded by the Optimism Foundation itself. When a protocol-affiliated entity holds enough voting power to tip a proposal that redirects tens of millions away from users, the independence of the outcome becomes worth examining, regardless of how the final tally looks.

Optimism’s governance structure will face scrutiny as the buyback program runs. Token House votes on treasury allocation have historically been a place where large holders and affiliated entities can punch above their weight. If the 12-month pilot delivers on price stability without visibly harming developer activity, the model will likely get extended.

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

An Ethereum user reportedly lost 1,010 ETH after following an old Tornado Cash bookmark that allegedly redirected to a malicious frontend controlled by phishing attackers.

Summary

An Ethereum address received 810 ETH through nine transfers on August 18, onchain records confirm. Community reports claimed 1,010 ETH was stolen after a user visited a suspected phishing frontend. The cited wallet retained approximately 810 ETH, worth about $1.86 million when records were checked. Claims that attackers stole nearly 4,000 ETH over twelve months remain independently unverified by researchers. Tornado Cash’s website was accessible when checked, leaving the alleged domain takeover without official confirmation. Community accounts said the incident unfolded over approximately 12 hours. They alleged that attackers obtained the victim’s Tornado Cash deposit credentials and withdrew the funds before transferring them to several addresses.

Onchain records provide partial confirmation. The cited wallet received 810 ETH through nine transactions on Aug. 18. Eight transfers carried 100 ETH each, while the final transfer carried 10 ETH.

The transactions occurred between 5:56 a.m. and 6:05 a.m. UTC. The address retained approximately 810 ETH, valued by Etherscan at about $1.86 million when checked on Aug. 20.

Ethereum records confirm 810 ETH, not the full claim The verified transactions leave a 200 ETH gap between the 1,010 ETH loss reported by community users and the 810 ETH held by the cited wallet. The remaining amount may have reached another address, but no additional destination was included in the supplied evidence.

User Loses Over 1,000 ETH in Phishing Attack After Using Tornado Cash’s Expired Official Domain

According to community users, a user clicked an old link left in a related bookmark and was redirected to a phishing site through the expired official domain tornado. cash, which had… pic.twitter.com/8j7eQl3qX2

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) August 20, 2026 No public statement from Tornado Cash, an established blockchain security firm or the reported victim had independently confirmed the full amount when this article was prepared.

Community accounts claimed the victim tracked a total loss of 1,010 Ethereum, but the provided address independently confirms only 810 Ethereum.

The cited wallet had recorded nine transactions and no outgoing transfer at the time of review. Its balance therefore supports the claim that most of the reported funds remained under the suspected attacker’s control.

At Ether’s price of approximately $2,295, the confirmed 810 Ethereum was worth about $1.86 million. The reported 1,010 Ethereum loss would be worth roughly $2.32 million at the same price.

Tornado Cash domain takeover remains unconfirmed Reports blamed the theft on the tornado.cash domain, claiming it expired after the project’s team failed to renew it during the disruption caused by U.S. sanctions. According to the accounts, an attacker subsequently registered the address and installed a fake user interface.

That account could not be fully verified. The domain was accessible and displayed a Tornado Cash interface when checked. No authoritative domain record, official Tornado Cash warning or named security researcher was found confirming that the address had expired and changed ownership.

Claims that the official domain was captured by an attacker therefore remain unconfirmed and should not be presented as an established cause.

A website loading correctly at the time of checking does not prove it was safe at an earlier time. Attackers can remove malicious code, redirect only selected visitors or restore a legitimate interface after collecting credentials.

Tornado Cash has faced previous frontend security problems. In 2024, researcher Gas404 found that malicious JavaScript had been inserted into an open source interface and could expose private deposit notes. Checkmarx later documented the supply chain compromise, although no evidence currently connects that episode with the latest transactions.

Deposit notes can give attackers control of funds Tornado Cash uses private deposit notes to let users withdraw assets from its pools. Anyone who obtains a valid note can generally initiate the corresponding withdrawal, making the note comparable to a private credential.

A fake frontend can capture this information when a user attempts to make a deposit or withdrawal. The attacker can then use the stolen note before the legitimate owner does.

The attack differs from approval phishing, where a victim signs a malicious transaction that authorizes a drainer contract. In related coverage, crypto.news explained how wallet drainers exploit deceptive signatures to gain access to tokens and nonfungible assets.

Old bookmarks present another risk because users often assume previously trusted links remain safe. Expired or transferred domains preserve their familiar names, search rankings and backlinks, making malicious replacements harder to identify.

As crypto.news recently reported, fake websites continue draining Ethereum wallets after users approve transactions or enter sensitive information. The safest approach is to verify domains through several current project channels before connecting a wallet.

Nearly 4,000 ETH claim needs more evidence Community reports also alleged that the same attackers stole almost 4,000 ETH through similar methods over the previous 12 months. No list of related addresses or attribution analysis accompanied that figure.

Without linked wallets, transaction hashes or a report from a security firm, the 4,000 ETH estimate cannot be independently verified. Blockchain transfers show where funds moved, but they do not automatically establish who controlled each address or which phishing campaign generated them.

The immediate priority is monitoring the confirmed 810 ETH. Transfers to exchanges could create an opportunity for platforms to identify or freeze assets, subject to their procedures and applicable law.

The victim should preserve browser history, bookmarked URLs, wallet logs and transaction records before reporting the incident to wallet providers, exchanges and law enforcement. Users who interacted with the same frontend should stop using it, move unaffected assets and revoke suspicious token approvals.

The available evidence supports a large Ethereum transfer into a newly active wallet. It does not yet prove the full 1,010 ETH loss, the alleged takeover of the official domain or the claimed 4,000 ETH campaign.

Planned deployment will provide fully onchain access to Anchored's 1:1 backed tokenized stocks on Uniswap, using UniswapX to connect tokenized stock liquidity with the world's largest decentralized exchange ecosystem.

ROAD TOWN, British Virgin Islands, /PRNewswire/ -- Anchored, the digital operating layer for global capital markets, today announced plans to launch its tokenized stocks on Arbitrum with Uniswap, using UniswapX as an initial route for fully onchain access. The deployment will bring Anchored's 1:1 backed tokenized stock products into one of the most active blockchain networks and make them accessible through the largest decentralized exchange.

Anchored tokenized stocks are designed to provide exposure to underlying stocks through onchain issuance, redemption, and USDC settlement workflows. By launching with Uniswap on Arbitrum, Anchored aims to make tokenized stocks available through infrastructure that users, wallets, liquidity providers, and market makers already understand. UniswapX adds an RFQ and solver-based execution layer designed to improve routing and price discovery, helping connect Anchored's tokenized stock products with broader onchain liquidity.

"Tokenized stocks are an important step in bringing more real-world assets onchain, and UniswapX helps make them easier to access," said Ken Ng, Head of Ecosystem at Uniswap Labs. "Anchored's planned launch on Arbitrum shows how issuers can plug tokenized assets into Uniswap liquidity from day one."

The Arbitrum deployment is expected to support fast and low cost settlement while giving exchanges, wallets, protocols, and market makers a practical route to integrate tokenized stocks into existing onchain flows. It also positions Anchored tokenized stocks for broader DeFi composability, including future integrations across wallets, liquidity venues, and partner distribution channels.

"Tokenized stocks need credible issuance, reliable liquidity, and scalable distribution," said Andy Deacon, Head of Fintech Partnerships at Offchain. "Anchored's planned deployment on Arbitrum through UniswapX is an important step for us toward bringing real-world assets into the Arbitrum ecosystem."

The launch is part of Anchored's broader strategy to make capital-market assets available through interoperable, and programmable infrastructure. Tokenized stocks are Anchored's live first product, with the company also building toward tokenized funds, IPO access, and Digital Market Offering infrastructure for pre-IPO and private assets.

"Launching on Arbitrum with Uniswap gives Anchored a powerful route to make tokenized stocks fully onchain and accessible through the largest decentralized exchange ecosystem," said Wenny Cai, CEO at Anchored. "The opportunity is not only to issue tokenized stocks, but to make them usable through the venues where liquidity, settlement, and user access already exist."

The teams are coordinating toward a target launch date of 21 August 2026, subject to final technical readiness, liquidity arrangements, partner review, and applicable compliance approvals. Additional details on supported assets, market maker participation, user access, and launch availability will be shared closer to launch.

About Anchored

Anchored is the digital operating layer for global capital markets. The company builds programmable infrastructure that connects assets, liquidity, compliance, distribution and settlement across traditional finance and onchain markets. Anchored's product platform spans tokenized stocks, tokenized funds and tokenized private market assets.

About Arbitrum

Arbitrum is the finance-native blockchain platform providing infrastructure for applications, tokenization, and dedicated blockchain environments. Arbitrum hosts one of the largest financial ecosystems on Ethereum, with deep liquidity and predictable execution at scale. It powers the programmable economy, where markets, transactions, and business processes run automatically in software. For businesses launching dedicated environments, Arbitrum provides configurable execution, fee models, compliance, and governance, so organizations can define how their systems operate while remaining connected to shared liquidity and a global settlement layer.

About Uniswap

Uniswap is the largest decentralized trading venue having processed over $4.5T in volume with zero hacks. It is trusted by institutions like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Anchorage. Uniswap Labs is a core contributor to the Uniswap Protocol and builds products that make it easy to access and build on Uniswap including the Uniswap Web App, Wallet, and Trading API.

For more information, please visit:
Website | X/Twitter | LinkedIn

Media contact

Anchored: Toni Morales / [email protected]  

Arbitrum / Offchain Labs: [email protected]  

Uniswap: Bridgett Frey / [email protected]

SOURCE Anchored Finance

New funding will support Beldex’s next phase of privacy infrastructure, developer tools, AI and security research, and ecosystem growth.

Beldex, a privacy focused blockchain ecosystem, has raised $8 million in a new funding round to accelerate the development of its privacy infrastructure for Web3 and AI.

The round includes participation from NTC, Nxgen, Digital Consensus Fund, and EAK Ventures, led by Sigma Capital. 

The funding comes as Beldex expands beyond its established privacy ecosystem toward infrastructure that developers can use to build private and confidential applications. The company plans to invest across developer tooling, confidential applications, protocol security, AI infrastructure and ecosystem adoption.

Afanddy Bin Hushni, Chairman of Beldex said, “Privacy is becoming an infrastructure requirement, not a feature that can be added at the end. This funding gives us the capacity to move faster across the layers where sensitive information is created and exchanged, including transactions, communication, network activity, identity, and increasingly AI. Our focus is to turn that stack into practical infrastructure that developers, applications, and users can adopt without compromising usability.” 

Building on a Live Privacy Ecosystem
Beldex has built a suite of privacy focused products around its Layer 1 network.

The ecosystem includes the Beldex Wallet for private transactions, BChat for encrypted messaging, BelNet for decentralized private networking, Beldex Browser for private browsing and Beldex Name Service (BNS) for human readable names across wallets, messaging and private web applications.

The next phase is focused on making these privacy capabilities easier for developers to use.

Part of the new funding will support the development of the Beldex Extension Wallet, SDKs, account based addresses and other developer tools designed to simplify how applications interact with the Beldex ecosystem.

Beldex is also working on confidential assets and an EVM compatible sidechain, with the aim of giving developers familiar with Ethereum tooling an environment for building applications with privacy capabilities.

Vineet Budki, Managing Director & CEO at Sigma Capital said, “What stood out to me about Beldex is its long-term conviction. While privacy was often treated as a niche, Beldex spent years building it into the infrastructure itself. AI agents and Web3 applications demand greater privacy today, and we believe Beldex is exceptionally well positioned for the next era of Web3. That conviction is why we chose to lead this round.”

Building Privacy Infrastructure for AI
A key focus of the new funding will be privacy infrastructure for AI. As autonomous agents increasingly handle payments, credentials, communications and personal data, Beldex is exploring how its privacy stack can protect these interactions.

Key areas include privacy-preserving agent identities through BNS, encrypted AI-powered communication via BChat, confidential payments, secure AI execution, and research into Fully Homomorphic Encryption and secure memory to protect sensitive data during processing.

Expanding Interoperability and Security
The funding will also support Beldex’s work on interoperability and network security.

The Beldex network supports cross-chain connectivity with Binance Smart Chain and plans to expand interoperability with other blockchain ecosystems. Beldex is also researching a TSS and DKG based cross chain architecture designed to distribute signing authority across multiple participants while also continuing research into quantum safe technologies for transactions and messaging as part of its longer term security roadmap.

Looking Ahead 
Beldex will use the new funding to move several initiatives from research and development toward usable infrastructure.

Near term priorities include the Beldex Extension Wallet, SDKs, VRF consensus, account based addresses, confidential assets and an EVM compatible sidechain testnet.

Alongside these initiatives, the team will continue research and development across AI privacy infrastructure, FHE, private smart contracts, interoperability and quantum safe technologies.

The broader goal is to make privacy easier to build across transactions, communication, identity, applications and AI.

About Beldex
Beldex is a privacy-focused decentralized ecosystem building infrastructure for Web3 and AI. Its ecosystem includes BChat for encrypted messaging, BelNet for decentralized private networking, Beldex Browser for private web access, and BNS for decentralized naming.

Powered by a Proof-of-Stake masternode network, Beldex continues to develop privacy-enhancing technologies including private agentic AI, confidential assets (private tokens), privacy-first EVM infrastructure, zero-knowledge systems, and quantum-safe cryptography.

Website: https://www.beldex.io/
X: https://x.com/beldexcoin
Telegram: https://t.me/official_beldex

OrdinalsBot, the first inscription service in the Bitcoin (BTC) Ordinals ecosystem, has announced its shutdown. The project will sell its brand, intellectual property, and full technology stack.

It opened about a month after the Ordinals protocol went live in early 2023. The project said that sustaining the business is not viable.

OrdinalsBot Puts Brand, IP, and 90 Code Repositories Up for SaleThe team announced the decision in a post on X. OrdinalsBot said it had explored measures, including restructuring and a business pivot, but ultimately determined that continuing operations was no longer viable.

“Unfortunately, the Ordinals market has contracted sharply over the past year…In these 3 years, we have achieved many great things and met amazing, like-minded people looking to bring new use cases to the mother chain and create a robust fee market,” the post read.

Rather than allow the business and its technology to gradually lose value, the company has opted to sell its entire asset portfolio through an open, competitive bidding process. The package includes the OrdinalsBot brand, intellectual property, domains, social media accounts, Discord community, and GitHub presence.

It also includes more than three years of research and development spread across more than 90 code repositories. According to the company, the assets could give a prospective buyer an established foundation for building on Bitcoin without having to develop the underlying infrastructure from scratch.

OrdinalsBot said it has already informed investors about the wind-down and has begun receiving acquisition bids. 

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Shutdowns Pile Up Across Crypto in 2026OrdinalsBot joins a long queue. More than 120 crypto projects shut down, filed for bankruptcy, or went dark so far this year, according to RootData.

The closures span wallets, exchanges, NFT platforms, and DeFi tools, pointing to a broader shakeout across the industry. Crypto exchanges BitMEX and BitMart both announced shutdowns last month.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) portfolio tracker Zapper closed in August. OrdinalsBot differs in one respect. Its founders are trying to sell the pieces rather than switch off the servers.

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