Ethereum staking has long had a cover charge. Myrmidon Staking is trying to lower it to roughly the price of a nice lunch.
The Denmark-based validator operator has launched the Myrmidon Staking ETH Pool, a pooled staking product built on Lido V3 stVaults. Users can stake with as little as 0.01 ETH. The product went live on October 14, 2026, and Lido itself promoted the launch.
What Myrmidon is actually offering
The pool runs on Lido’s stVaults, the modular staking infrastructure introduced with Lido V3. Myrmidon also uses Lido’s DeFi Wrapper toolkit, which is designed for pooled delegated staking setups.
The economics are straightforward. Myrmidon charges a node operator fee of 10% on staking rewards. Stakers keep the rest of what their ETH earns, and the fee only applies to rewards, not to the principal deposited.
The pool also carries a reserve ratio of 50%, one of the configurable risk settings within the stVaults framework.
Myrmidon has set a modest goal: 1,000 ETH staked in the new pool within 12 months of launch.
For those who want to go directly, the pool’s staking address, 0x456…409322, is listed on lido.fi.
The operator behind the pool
Myrmidon has run Ethereum validators since 2023 and reports a zero slashing record over that stretch. At its peak, Myrmidon’s validator operation managed approximately 1,200 ETH.
The company has also collected some credentials along the way. It received stVaults Professional Operator status from Lido, a designation meant to signal that an operator meets the protocol’s standards for running vaults. Myrmidon was also the first live pool using Northstake SVM.
How Lido V3 set the stage
This launch is a downstream product of a bigger architectural shift at Lido. Lido V3 hit mainnet on January 30, 2026, introducing a modular design that lets third parties build customized staking products on top of Lido’s infrastructure. Operators can now design their own vaults with their own fees, risk settings and target audiences, while still plugging into Lido’s tooling.
Roughly nine months separate the V3 mainnet launch from Myrmidon’s pool going live.
What this means for stakers and the staking market
For smaller ETH holders, the most obvious change is the entry price. A 0.01 ETH minimum means people who were previously priced out of running a validator now have another option with a named operator and a track record attached.
The fee structure deserves a closer look. A 10% cut of rewards is the main cost stakers pay for not running their own hardware. Users should also understand how the 50% reserve ratio and the DeFi Wrapper mechanics affect their position before depositing.
There are still risks worth naming. Pooled staking concentrates trust in the operator and in the smart contracts underpinning the vault. A spotless slashing history is encouraging, but it describes the past, not a guarantee about the future.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
An early Ethereum holder has moved 6,369 ETH, valued at $15.95 million, to prominent exchange Kraken, in a transaction that has drawn significant attention within the crypto community.
Major profit realized after nine yearsBlockchain monitoring platform Lookonchain reported that the investor originally purchased the ETH nearly nine years ago at an average price of $14. This latest transfer signifies that the initial investment of approximately $89,166 has appreciated by about $15.86 million over the holding period.
This remarkable increase translates to a gain of approximately 17,786%, or nearly 179 times the original capital. Such returns underscore Ethereum’s impressive growth since its early days, as the asset has transformed from a speculative project to a mainstay of the digital asset market.
The Ethereum investor’s move represents a substantial profit of about $15.86 million, realized by holding the asset for nearly a decade through periods of significant volatility.
Market conditions and price impactThe move comes as Ethereum trades below the key resistance level of $2,500, facing sustained downside pressure. Despite this correction, long-term holders like this early investor remain in deep profit, reflecting the resilience and upward trajectory of Ethereum’s price over the years.
Currently, there is uncertainty within the market regarding the implications of this transfer. It is not clear whether the investor is planning to fully liquidate their assets or simply redistribute funds between addresses. However, large inflows of ETH to exchanges are typically monitored closely by traders for potential effects on price action and liquidity.
Activity in meme tokens highlights market trendsMeanwhile, the cryptocurrency market continues to see explosive activity in the meme token segment, where internet-driven trends can quickly attract substantial capital. For example, Fomo App data shows that a well-timed investment of $99 in “Niu Lai” generated approximately $370,000 in returns, illustrating both the volatility and opportunity present in this space. In such a fast-moving environment, it is essential for traders to track not only price fluctuations but also the specific timing and selection of tokens by active investors.
Fomo App facilitates this process by integrating token discovery, trade activity monitoring, and real-time social feeds into one unified platform. With features such as investor rankings and trade alerts, market participants can keep pace with rapidly emerging trends and monitor high-performing meme coins as shifts occur.
As both established cryptocurrencies like Ethereum and surging meme tokens draw renewed attention, investors are focusing on technical patterns and market developments that may indicate broader sentiment shifts or trigger key price movements.
Large transactions from early holders and the emergence of high-return meme coin trades highlight a dynamic crypto landscape, where tracking investor behavior and market timing has become increasingly important.
The recent transaction by the early Ethereum holder reflects the scale of long-term gains possible within crypto and underscores why ongoing monitoring of on-chain activity remains a critical component for market participants navigating both legacy and nascent digital assets.
Ethereum holds the largest market cap in the tokenized ETF market, at $303 million, according to data shared on X.
The numbers behind Ethereum’s lead
Think of a tokenized ETF as a digital receipt for a share of a regular fund. The token lives on a blockchain, while the underlying asset sits with an issuer that backs it.
The practical upshot: you can hold and move fund exposure the way you’d move any crypto token, including outside normal market hours.
Ethereum’s dominance in this niche has been consistent, though not static. Research tracking the sector shows Ethereum commanded approximately 74% of the tokenized ETF market in May 2026, worth roughly $321 million.
By July, its share had slipped to about 62%, even as its value rose to approximately $326 million. In August 2026, Ethereum held 52.5% of the market, with a market cap of roughly $335 million.
The $303 million figure now attached to Ethereum sits below that August level. It still keeps the network in first place.
The total tokenized ETF market grew quickly over the same period. It stood at approximately $297.5 million at the end of Q1 2026 and reached $639 million by August 2026.
Ondo, BlackRock and the issuers doing the heavy lifting
Much of Ethereum’s position traces back to one issuer. Ondo Finance is the leading tokenized ETF issuer on Ethereum and accounts for a substantial portion of the network’s market share.
Ondo’s products are 1:1 backed tokenized ETFs and stocks that trade around the clock.
The research attributes much of the overall market’s growth to aggressive product deployment by issuers like Ondo.
BlackRock and Franklin Templeton have partnered to launch tokenized offerings in this space.
Rivals are gaining ground next door
Ethereum’s lead in tokenized ETFs specifically looks less commanding when you zoom out to the broader category of tokenized stocks and ETFs combined.
By early October 2026, that wider market had reached approximately $3.7 billion. BNB Chain led with roughly $1.1 billion, ahead of Ethereum at about $828 million and Solana at approximately $738 million.
Several tokenized stock products on Solana and BNB Chain threaten to erode Ethereum’s dominance in specific segments.
A rounding error next to traditional ETFs
The traditional ETF industry is valued at over $23 trillion. The entire tokenized ETF market represents roughly 0.003% of that.
What this means
For Ethereum, the takeaway is that first place is not the same as a moat. Its share fell from approximately 74% in May to 52.5% in August, a slide of more than 20 percentage points during a period of rapid market expansion.
The research suggests maintaining the lead may require continued adaptation and possibly new strategic partnerships to fend off BNB Chain and Solana.
Because Ondo Finance drives a large share of Ethereum’s tokenized ETF value, decisions about where Ondo and similar issuers deploy new products will shape the rankings.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
In brief
Standard Chartered launched direct Bitcoin and Ethereum trading for affluent UAE clients on Wednesday after receiving licensing approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
Eligible Professional Investor clients can buy and sell BTC and ETH through their existing bank accounts, with the bank handling custody and settlement in a closed-loop model built with SC Ventures-backed Zodia Markets.
The bank called the service a global first for Standard Chartered and plans to expand it to other markets, though it gave no timeline.
Standard Chartered will now let its wealthier clients in the United Arab Emirates buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum straight from their bank accounts, the British lender announced Wednesday.
The move eliminates the need for its affluent clients to rely on separate wallets or third-party platforms, the bank said.
Myriad: Where does Ethereum go next? Click to make your prediction.The service opens first to clients classified as Professional Investors and runs under licensing approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, or VARA. The bank called it a global first for Standard Chartered and the first crypto trading offering from an international bank in the UAE.
Trades are executed inside the bank's own ecosystem, and Standard Chartered handles custody and settlement end-to-end through what it calls a closed-loop model, which the bank says reduces clients' exposure to third-party wallet risk.
The bank built the product across its Wealth and Retail Banking and Corporate and Investment Banking units, working with Zodia Markets, a digital asset trading firm backed by Standard Chartered's venture arm, SC Ventures.
“As client interest in digital assets continues to grow, this launch represents a significant milestone for Standard Chartered as we bring digital assets into our core wealth offering” Samir Subberwal, the bank's global head of wealth solutions, retail products, data and analytics, said. He argued that clients now want more than access, and are looking for the security that comes with buying through a regulated institution.
Rola Abu Manneh, Standard Chartered's CEO for the UAE, Middle East and Pakistan, said the country was a natural choice given its regulatory environment and its role as one of the bank's four global wealth hubs.
Until now, Standard Chartered's crypto trading business had catered to institutions. In July 2025, it became the first global systemically important bank—one of the lenders regulators consider too big to fail—to offer spot trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum to institutional clients, through its U.K. branch.
It brought that institutional desk to the UAE last month through its unit in the Dubai International Financial Centre, which is overseen by a different watchdog, the Dubai Financial Services Authority. The bank's crypto custody service had already gone live in the UAE in September 2024, and in the European Union through a Luxembourg entity a few months later.
Wealth clients previously had indirect routes into crypto at the bank: crypto exchange-traded funds on its cash equities platform, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives tied to crypto prices. The new service lets them own the coins themselves, held by the bank, rather than a product that tracks their price.
The bank has historically been very bullish towards crypto, with frequent calls from its analysts for Bitcoin to extend to new highs.
In June, Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered's global head of digital asset research, declared crypto winter over after Bitcoin slid to nearly $59,000, a 53% drop from its October 2025 peak of $126,000. The bank has held onto a $100,000 year-end target for BTC.
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In brief
Standard Chartered launched direct Bitcoin and Ethereum trading for affluent UAE clients on Wednesday after receiving licensing approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
Eligible Professional Investor clients can buy and sell BTC and ETH through their existing bank accounts, with the bank handling custody and settlement in a closed-loop model built with SC Ventures-backed Zodia Markets.
The bank called the service a global first for Standard Chartered and plans to expand it to other markets, though it gave no timeline.
Standard Chartered will now let its wealthier clients in the United Arab Emirates buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum straight from their bank accounts, the British lender announced Wednesday.
The move eliminates the need for its affluent clients to rely on separate wallets or third-party platforms, the bank said.
Myriad: Where does Ethereum go next? Click to make your prediction.The service opens first to clients classified as Professional Investors and runs under licensing approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, or VARA. The bank called it a global first for Standard Chartered and the first crypto trading offering from an international bank in the UAE.
Trades are executed inside the bank's own ecosystem, and Standard Chartered handles custody and settlement end-to-end through what it calls a closed-loop model, which the bank says reduces clients' exposure to third-party wallet risk.
The bank built the product across its Wealth and Retail Banking and Corporate and Investment Banking units, working with Zodia Markets, a digital asset trading firm backed by Standard Chartered's venture arm, SC Ventures.
“As client interest in digital assets continues to grow, this launch represents a significant milestone for Standard Chartered as we bring digital assets into our core wealth offering” Samir Subberwal, the bank's global head of wealth solutions, retail products, data and analytics, said. He argued that clients now want more than access, and are looking for the security that comes with buying through a regulated institution.
Rola Abu Manneh, Standard Chartered's CEO for the UAE, Middle East and Pakistan, said the country was a natural choice given its regulatory environment and its role as one of the bank's four global wealth hubs.
Until now, Standard Chartered's crypto trading business had catered to institutions. In July 2025, it became the first global systemically important bank—one of the lenders regulators consider too big to fail—to offer spot trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum to institutional clients, through its U.K. branch.
It brought that institutional desk to the UAE last month through its unit in the Dubai International Financial Centre, which is overseen by a different watchdog, the Dubai Financial Services Authority. The bank's crypto custody service had already gone live in the UAE in September 2024, and in the European Union through a Luxembourg entity a few months later.
Wealth clients previously had indirect routes into crypto at the bank: crypto exchange-traded funds on its cash equities platform, structured products, and over-the-counter derivatives tied to crypto prices. The new service lets them own the coins themselves, held by the bank, rather than a product that tracks their price.
The bank has historically been very bullish towards crypto, with frequent calls from its analysts for Bitcoin to extend to new highs.
In June, Geoff Kendrick, Standard Chartered's global head of digital asset research, declared crypto winter over after Bitcoin slid to nearly $59,000, a 53% drop from its October 2025 peak of $126,000. The bank has held onto a $100,000 year-end target for BTC.
Daily Debrief NewsletterStart every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
Join 72,000+ readers
Create an account to save your articles.
Add on Google
Add Decrypt as your preferred source to see more of our stories on Google.
An old Ethereum address transferred 6369 ETH to Kraken after acquiring these tokens around 14 dollars nine years ago. Their value now reaches nearly 16 million dollars, but the reported yield of 17786% will only be actually cashed if the assets are sold.
In brief
An Ethereum whale transferred 6369 ETH to Kraken, for a value close to 16 million dollars.
Bought around 14 dollars nine years ago, these ETH show a potential gain of 17786%.
This transfer does not necessarily mean that the investor sold their cryptocurrencies and cashed in their gains.
The movements of these historic holders attract attention, but their impact on the Ethereum price remains limited at this stage.
The 6369 ETH were transferred to Kraken
The wallet tracked by Lookonchain deposited 6369 ETH on the Kraken platform on October 14. At the time of the transfer, the tokens were worth around 15.95 million dollars, based on a price near 2504 dollars per ether.
The address is said to have acquired these ETH nine years ago for an average price of only 14 dollars. The initial cost of the position can therefore be estimated at about 89166 dollars.
The ratio between the current value and the initial capital reaches nearly 179. After deducting the initial investment, the potential gain approaches 15.86 million dollars, or about 17786%.
This calculation shows the extent of Ethereum’s appreciation since 2017. However, it depends on two assumptions: the address actually bought the tokens at the indicated price and their owner can sell them near the price used for the estimate.
The public blockchain data allow transfers between wallets to be tracked. They do not always identify with certainty the person, company, or group that controls an address.
A deposit on an exchange does not prove a sale
Sending tokens to a centralized platform generally constitutes a potential selling signal. Investors often transfer their cryptos to an exchange to convert them into dollars, stablecoins, or other assets.
However, this operation does not demonstrate that the 6369 ETH have already been sold. Their holder can keep them on Kraken, use them as collateral, stake them, or execute an over-the-counter transaction.
The yield of 17786% remains therefore theoretical as long as no sale is visible or confirmed. If the investor gradually sells their ETH at a lower price, their final gain will be lower. An additional increase would have the opposite effect.
The figure also does not take into account possible transaction fees, Kraken commissions, and taxes applicable to the holder. These costs would remain low compared to the gain, but they prevent considering the estimate as a net profit.
It is therefore appropriate to speak of a potential gain or unrealized capital gain at the time of the deposit, and not of a definitively cashed profit.
The first ETH holders take their profits
This transaction joins several movements observed among early Ethereum investors. At the end of September, another address inactive for nearly nine years had begun selling a position acquired in 2017.
This wallet had bought 3000 ETH at an average price of 18.80 dollars, for an initial investment of 56500 dollars. It then sold 2000 tokens around 3096 dollars on average and kept the remaining 1000 ETH.
In January, an address inactive for nine years also transferred 135284 ETH to Gemini. These tokens, accumulated around 70 to 90 dollars, were worth nearly 397 million dollars at the time of their movement.
These sales do not necessarily constitute a collective bearish signal. Historic holders can secure part of their gains after several years without questioning their confidence in the network.
Their very low acquisition price also allows them to sell with a significant capital gain, even when ETH is far from its historical peak.
Selling pressure the market must absorb
Ethereum trades around 2500 dollars after briefly hitting nearly 2400 dollars this week. The token remains weakened by outflows from certain ETFs, the decline of the ETH/BTC ratio, and general caution on risky assets.
A sale of 6369 ETH represents about 0.005% of the network’s total supply. This volume remains modest on the scale of Ethereum and should not, by itself, sustainably change the price.
The impact mainly depends on the method used. An immediate sale on the order book exerts more pressure than a split operation or an over-the-counter deal with an institutional buyer.
Whale movements attract attention because they can indicate a change in behavior among long-term holders. However, a single wallet is not enough to establish a general trend.
This transaction mainly illustrates the performance realized by some early investors. It also reminds us of an essential nuance: the blockchain confirms the movement of ETH, but not the identity of their owner nor the definitive realization of the reported gain.
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Luc Jose A.
Diplômé de Sciences Po Toulouse et titulaire d'une certification consultant blockchain délivrée par Alyra, j'ai rejoint l'aventure Cointribune en 2019.
Convaincu du potentiel de la blockchain pour transformer de nombreux secteurs de l'économie, j'ai pris l'engagement de sensibiliser et d'informer le grand public sur cet écosystème en constante évolution. Mon objectif est de permettre à chacun de mieux comprendre la blockchain et de saisir les opportunités qu'elle offre. Je m'efforce chaque jour de fournir une analyse objective de l'actualité, de décrypter les tendances du marché, de relayer les dernières innovations technologiques et de mettre en perspective les enjeux économiques et sociétaux de cette révolution en marche.
DISCLAIMER
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and should not be taken as investment advice. Do your own research before taking any investment decisions.
The market is continuing to bet heavily on the potential altseason.
Technically, the setup looks more and more interesting. Following the ETH/BTC 20% rally in Q3, traders are already positioning for another move higher in Q4, with early accumulation signs starting to show.
However, Bitcoin dominance has broken over 60%, indicating that capital is still flowing towards the flagship crypto, which makes a general altcoin breakout not so certain for now.
And yet, Lookonchain spotted a big whale rotation in the last three days. The whale sold 1,074.36 BTC equal to $89.5 million and bought 36,159 ETH.
Naturally, the question becomes: Is this whale positioning ahead of a potential Ethereum rally, with the border market now catching up to the hype?
Source: X
From an on-chain perspective, this does seem to be the case.
According to Santiment data, Ethereum FOMO is growing, with ETH rapidly becoming a favorite among bulls. On X, Reddit, and Telegram, ETH is registering 2.05 bullish comments for every bearish comment.
Bitcoin is the opposite, with 0.82 bullish comments per bearish comment. Rejected levels around $87k, a slide toward $81k, heavy liquidation of long positions, and macro pressure have pushed sentiment toward fear.
Notably, this shift is also seen in the derivatives market. As the post above highlights, ETH/BTC longs are going parabolic as Bitfinex traders are increasingly betting on Ethereum [ETH] to outperform Bitcoin [BTC].
In short, traders are positioning for an ETH-led rally, potentially hinting at an early rotation into altcoins.
Ethereum hype builds as USDT borrowing against Bitcoin jumps
The timing of this rotation between BTC and ETH is crucial.
An analyst recently reported that $6 billion in USDC had been minted this month, adding fresh liquidity to the crypto market. However, with BTC dominance of over 60%, it appears that Bitcoin is still gathering the most capital.
However, according to data from CryptoQuant, this may be about to change.
As the chart below shows, the amount of USDT borrowed by users who hold $10 million or more in BTC has jumped by 83% last month. This suggests that whales have used their BTC as collateral to unlock funds and buy more crypto. In short, risk appetite may soon be on the rise.
Source: CryptoQuant
This is where on-chain signals start to converge. Whale rotation is picking up, ETH longs are increasing, and ETH/BTC gained 20% in Q3.
Now, with USDT borrowing against BTC jumping 83%, traders could be positioning for another Ethereum/Bitcoin rally and a subsequent rotation into altcoins in Q4.
Final Summary
USDT borrowing against BTC jumped 83%, hinting at rising risk appetite.
ETH/BTC’s 20% Q3 rally could set the stage for an altcoin rotation.
On-chain finance continues to draw capital at a steady clip, and the latest weekly figures from Token Terminal illustrate a clear split in where that money is landing.
Real-world assets (RWAs)—tokenized versions of funds, U.S. Treasury bills, credit products, equities, and commodities—showed concentrated growth on Ethereum, while stablecoins, the dollar-pegged instruments that serve as the primary settlement and trading layer for most crypto activity, saw their largest single-week addition on Tron.
According to the data, the circulating market capitalization of RWAs issued or hosted on Ethereum rose by $553.1 million over the trailing seven days.
That single-chain increase outpaced the next two gainers by a wide margin. zkSync Era recorded the second-largest expansion at $126.1 million, while BNB Chain added $68.7 million.
Ethereum’s weekly gain was therefore more than four times larger than the runner-up, reinforcing the network’s longstanding position as the primary venue for tokenized traditional assets.
This concentration is consistent with Ethereum’s broader role in the sector. Institutional issuers and asset managers have repeatedly chosen the chain for its liquidity depth, established custody solutions, and the ability to compose tokenized products with existing decentralized-finance infrastructure.
Even as other networks post incremental gains, the absolute scale of capital flowing onto Ethereum in any given week tends to remain larger, particularly when the inflows involve regulated or semi-regulated instruments such as tokenized money-market funds and Treasury products.
The $553.1 million figure represents fresh issuance or net inflows rather than pure price appreciation of already-deployed tokens, underscoring ongoing demand for on-chain representations of off-chain yield and collateral.In parallel, the stablecoin market posted a distinct pattern of growth.
Tron’s stablecoin market capitalization expanded by $633.6 million during the same seven-day window.
The next largest increases were substantially smaller: OP Mainnet rose by $64.1 million, X Layer by $61.9 million, and Base by $57.8 million.
Tron’s addition was nearly ten times the size of the second-place chain, highlighting the network’s continued dominance in low-cost dollar transfers, especially those involving Tether’s USDT.
Tron’s advantage stems from a combination of near-zero fees for stablecoin transfers, high throughput, and deep integration with payment and remittance use cases across emerging markets.
A large share of USDT supply already resides on the chain, and weekly expansions of this magnitude typically reflect both new minting and net migration of balances from higher-cost environments.
While Ethereum still holds the overall lead in total stablecoin value, the incremental flows continue to favor Tron when the priority is speed and cost rather than composability with complex DeFi strategies.
The two data points illustrate complementary rather than competing dynamics. Ethereum remains the preferred settlement and issuance layer for higher-value, institutionally oriented RWA products whose weekly growth can exceed half a billion dollars.
Tron, by contrast, continues to absorb the bulk of retail and payments-oriented stablecoin activity, with single-week additions that can surpass $600 million and dwarf those of other Layer-2 and alternative networks.
Both trends contribute to the same underlying development: an expanding share of traditional and digital dollar financial activity is occurring on public blockchains, tracked and standardized by platforms such as Token Terminal.
Market participants will watch whether these weekly patterns persist as new RWA products launch and as stablecoin issuers adjust supply across chains. For now, the numbers show Ethereum capturing the majority of recent tokenized-asset growth and Tron securing the clear majority of new stablecoin capitalization.
In brief
The Bank of Russia added Sberbank to its register of crypto exchange operators on October 12, six days after listing it as a digital depository.
Sberbank plans to launch its first crypto products on December 1 inside SberBank Online, SberInvestments and SberBusiness, starting with Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT.
Retail buyers face a 300,000 ruble annual cap per intermediary and a mandatory knowledge test, and paying for goods with crypto remains illegal in Russia.
The Bank of Russia has added Sberbank to its register of organizations authorized to exchange digital currencies, clearing the country's largest lender to buy and sell crypto in its own name and with its own money. The decision was posted on the regulator's website, Russian outlet Interfax reported.
The approval landed six days after the central bank put Sberbank on its separate list of digital depositories, the firms that keep the official record of who owns which coins. Holding both statuses lets the bank sit on the other side of a client's trade and also keep the ledger of that client's holdings, without sending anyone to an outside venue.
Myriad: What will the Fed do next? Click to make your prediction.Sberbank said the depository status would let it offer crypto services in interfaces clients already use. That means SberBank Online, SberInvestments and SberBusiness, where the bank plans to start with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether's USDT on December 1, according to its press service.
The bank has hedged that date, saying it depends on the central bank's decisions and on the secondary regulations being ready in time. Both approvals by the Bank of Russia have now arrived, which leaves the secondary rulebook as the main variable.
Sberbank ended the second quarter with 110.6 million retail clients and 3.5 million corporate clients, per its quarterly results. Plugging crypto into that user base turns a regulated on-ramp into one more menu item inside an app those customers already use for everyday banking.
Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov has forecast that crypto trading volumes in Russia could reach 4 trillion rubles, roughly $46 billion, in the regime's first year and 7.5 trillion rubles by 2029 or nearly $89.7 billion. The bank also plans to accept Ethereum and USDT, alongside Bitcoin, as collateral for loans once the central bank allows them into public circulation.
Under the law Putin signed in August, non-qualified investors can spend up to 300,000 rubles (about $3,800) a year per intermediary, buyers must pass a knowledge test, and the central bank's draft list of tradable coins includes only Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT.
In January 2022, the Bank of Russia proposed banning crypto use, mining and exchanges outright, citing threats to financial stability. Less than five years later, it is licensing the country's biggest lender to run a crypto desk. As of today, spending crypto inside Russia is still illegal, so Sberbank customers will be able to buy Bitcoin but not pay for products with it.
Firms already on the registers have until September 1, 2027, to bring their operations fully in line with the new law, the central bank said.
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The Bank of Russia has officially listed Sberbank as an authorized crypto exchange operator, enabling the country’s largest lender to purchase and sell digital assets directly using its own funds. This regulatory move, announced on October 12, follows Sberbank’s addition to the register of digital depositories just six days earlier.
Sberbank enters crypto market with new servicesWith the latest registration, Sberbank is now permitted to act as both an exchange operator and a digital depository. This dual authorization allows the bank to facilitate trades and maintain client asset records entirely within its own systems, eliminating reliance on third-party platforms.
Sberbank, founded in 1841, is the largest banking and financial services company in Russia, serving over 110 million retail customers and 3.5 million corporate clients. The bank plans to introduce its first digital asset products on December 1 through its integrated apps, which include SberBank Online, SberInvestments, and SberBusiness. The initial offering will feature trading in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Tether (USDT).
According to Sberbank’s press service, these crypto services will be accessible to clients directly within the bank’s established digital interfaces. The December 1 rollout is contingent on finalized secondary regulations from the central bank, which are still pending.
Regulatory framework and user restrictionsRussia’s legal environment for digital currencies is evolving. President Vladimir Putin signed a law in August establishing new limits for retail crypto investors. Non-qualified individuals are restricted to spending a maximum of 300,000 rubles, approximately $3,800, per year through any single intermediary. Those wishing to participate must also pass a mandatory knowledge assessment. The current draft list of tradable digital assets is limited to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT.
Despite the expanded access to crypto purchases, it remains illegal to use digital currencies for payments within Russia. As a result, Sberbank clients can buy and hold cryptocurrencies, but cannot use them directly for transactions involving goods or services.
Market impact and future growth projectionsAnatoly Popov, Deputy Chairman of Sberbank’s Management Board, has projected that the Russian crypto trading market could reach 4 trillion rubles, or about $46 billion, in its first year under the new regime. He further expects this figure to climb to 7.5 trillion rubles, roughly $89.7 billion, by 2029. Sberbank also intends to accept Ethereum and USDT, alongside Bitcoin, as collateral for loans once the Bank of Russia authorizes public circulation for these assets.
Deputy Chairman Anatoly Popov has forecast that Russian crypto trading volumes could reach 4 trillion rubles, or about $46 billion, in the first year and approach 7.5 trillion rubles, nearly $89.7 billion, by 2029.
Sberbank’s integration of crypto services represents a notable shift in Russian monetary policy. In January 2022, the Bank of Russia had proposed a ban on crypto use, mining, and exchanges, citing concerns over financial stability. The current approach signals a more regulated and structured entry into the digital asset sector by major financial institutions.
Registered crypto service providers in Russia must comply fully with new regulatory standards by September 1, 2027, as specified by the central bank.
Mini dictionary: Sberbank, founded in 1841, is Russia’s largest lender and a key player in the country’s banking and financial sector, with a vast network of clients and digital services.
AssetAvailable for Trading?Can be Used for Payments?Investor LimitBitcoinYesNo300,000 rubles/yearEthereumYesNo300,000 rubles/yearUSDTYesNo300,000 rubles/year
Bitcoin holds near $81,500 after falling 2% over the past 24 hours as hotter-than-expected CPI data fueled expectations of further Federal Reserve rate hikes.
Notable Statistics:
Coinglass data shows 89,108 traders were liquidated in the past 24 hours for $331.89 million. SoSoValue data shows net inflows of $175.6 million from spot Bitcoin ETFs on Tuesday. Spot Ethereum ETFs saw net inflows of $24.84 million. In the past 24 hours, top gainers include Bitway, Venice Token and Pearl. Notable Developments:
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Analyst Kevin expects Bitcoin to form a higher low around the upcoming U.S. midterm elections, noting that BTC bottomed in the weeks following the 2014, 2018 and 2022 elections.
He argues that higher-timeframe indicators already resemble previous market bottoms, making a fresh low historically unusual.
Kevin sees $77,000 to $83,000 support holding for a rally to $93,000 to $100,000, while a breakdown below $77,000 could trigger a pullback to $67,000 to $76,000.
Trader KillaXBT noted that Bitcoin’s decline heading into Oct. 14 could set the stage for a reversal, citing a recurring pattern over the past year in which BTC moves against bearish expectations around that date.
The trader suggested a potential rebound if the historical pattern repeats.
Image: Shutterstock
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Crypto Banter analyst Sheldon expects Cardano (ADA) to resume its upward move within the next seven to 10 days.
He shared this view during a recent YouTube livestream, highlighting price zones where buyers have been accumulating the cryptocurrency.
Sheldon said ADA’s recent pullback has made buying areas on its chart easier to identify. He expects several cryptocurrencies to spend another week or two consolidating before making sharp upward moves.
“You can see very clearly where the buys are on Cardano,” Sheldon said, adding that the market will start turning green again once the current phase ends.
His outlook comes as Cardano trades at $0.2346, according to CoinMarketCap data. ADA has fallen 7.81% over the past week but remains up approximately 11% over the past month.
Sheldon Expects Cardano to Turn Green Within 10 Days
Sheldon expects the current market weakness to persist briefly before buyers regain control. He indicated that the recovery will arrive sooner if the market moves lower and reaches the buying zones he has identified.
“If things play out right, we should be done in the next seven to 10 days and we should be seeing green again,” he said.
The analyst added that a quicker move into these zones will accelerate the recovery. However, he did not provide specific price targets for ADA or identify exact price levels for the buying areas in the available excerpt.
His comments suggest he sees the current decline as an accumulation phase rather than the start of a prolonged downturn. ADA’s response to buying interest and cryptocurrency market conditions will determine the strength and timing of the recovery.
Notably, ADA hit $0.2813 last week, marking a five-month high. However, the price quickly retraced from that level but has since found support around $0.23, and many analysts believe the rally will resume soon.
UPDATE: Crypto Banter's Sheldon says "you can see very clearly where the buys are on #Cardano $ADA. I do think a lot of these tokens are going to be here for a week or two, and then start moving ridiculously." pic.twitter.com/x8m5hPDBqJ
— Angry Crypto Show (@angrycryptoshow) October 13, 2026
CryptoUS Predicts a Solana-Type Comeback
Sheldon’s outlook follows comments from CryptoUS pundit George, who argued that Cardano will stage a recovery similar to Solana’s performance soon.
George noted that ADA has repeatedly suffered deep declines during crypto winters before recovering. He also highlighted Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson’s continued involvement as a key factor supporting the project’s long-term resilience.
Solana provides a notable historical comparison. SOL fell to about $8.14 in 2022 after the FTX collapse, then climbed above $125 by 2023. It subsequently reached an all-time high of around $294 in January 2025.
That represented a gain of more than 3,500% from its December 2022 low to its peak. George sees Cardano following a comparable recovery path.
Meanwhile, ADA will need to overcome its current price weakness and attract sustained buying demand to establish a similar trajectory.
ADA Recovery Hinges on Its Next Move
At $0.2346, Cardano remains well below its previous all-time high of approximately $3.10. Its 11% monthly gain signals improved performance despite the weekly decline.
Sheldon’s seven-to-10-day forecast puts the focus on ADA’s ability to stabilize and recover during the coming sessions.
Both analysts anticipate a Cardano comeback from different perspectives. Sheldon focuses on near-term buying zones and an imminent market turnaround, while George points to the prospect of a longer-term recovery modeled on Solana’s post-FTX rally.
Crypto YouTuber The Modern Investor has outlined a bullish price forecast for Cardano (ADA) in an outlook in which Bitcoin (BTC) climbs to $295,000.
The crypto commentator shared his price targets for several major cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum (ETH), XRP, and Cardano. He argued that the current market cycle will either follow previous bull run patterns or usher in unprecedented growth for the crypto industry.
“I could totally see Bitcoin going to around $295,000,” The Modern Investor said, adding that Ethereum could reach $11,000. As for Cardano, he predicts $5, and $8.95 for XRP.
How Much Would Cardano Gain From $0.2348 to $5? Cardano is trading at $0.2348, up 0.4% over the past 24 hours and 13% over the past month. A rally to The Modern Investor’s $5 target would deliver a gain of approximately 2,030% from the current price. In dollar terms, ADA price would rise by $4.7652, reaching more than 21 times its present value.
Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading at approximately $83,400, up 7% over the past month. A rally to $295,000 would deliver a gain of about 254%, adding $211,600 to its current price.
These targets highlight the scale of the gains The Modern Investor anticipates under his bullish market scenario.
Tokenization to Drive the Next Crypto Bull Run The Modern Investor’s outlook comes amid expectations that tokenization will become a major driver of crypto adoption and valuations.
He referenced forecasts estimating that between $5 trillion and $10 trillion worth of real-world assets will be tokenized by 2030. The commentator also cited remarks from Fundstrat co-founder and BitMine chairman Tom Lee, who expects the current crypto bull market to surpass previous cycles.
Lee has identified tokenization, artificial intelligence, and a more favorable regulatory environment as factors distinguishing the current cycle from earlier rallies driven by initial coin offerings, meme coins, and stablecoins.
The Modern Investor believes these developments will contribute to a much larger market expansion than investors experienced in previous cycles.
“Large Investors Are Preparing for a Major Move” Beyond tokenization, the YouTuber argued that large-scale crypto accumulation signals that wealthy investors are positioning themselves ahead of major economic disruptions.
He pointed to reports of substantial Ethereum purchases and significant XRP accumulation, arguing that the scale of these transactions indicates that institutional and wealthy investors are preparing for a major market move.
Meanwhile, the commentator also raised concerns about a stock market crash, an artificial intelligence bubble, and rising global debt. He suggested that some investors are accumulating digital assets in anticipation of these risks.
Can Cardano Reach $5 in the Next Bull Run? For Cardano holders, The Modern Investor’s $5 target represents an extremely bullish scenario requiring ADA to rise more than 2,000% from its current price.
Such a rally would deliver substantial returns to investors who accumulate ADA at current levels. ADA’s price reached $3.10 in the 2021 bull run, and many market commentators believe history could repeat.
Essentially, the Modern Investor’s forecast places Cardano among the assets he expects to benefit from an exceptionally strong bull market. But his $5 target remains a price projection, not a guaranteed outcome.
Cardano price has fallen toward $0.228 as daily selling pressure tests its rising channel, while analyst Giannis Andreou sees a possible recovery if ADA holds the $0.22–$0.24 demand zone.
Summary
ADA traded near $0.228, with TradingView showing a 3.47% decline on the daily chart.
Daily Chaikin Money Flow stood at −0.12 as price approached the rising channel’s lower boundary.
Andreou identified $0.2910 as a breakout test after a recovery through $0.26–$0.28.
CoinGlass showed prominent liquidation concentrations near $0.24, $0.247, and $0.26, above the market price.
Cardano daily price chart showed it was trading at $0.2278 on Oct. 14, below the session’s opening price of $0.2360. The recorded high was $0.2391, while the low reached $0.2266, leaving ADA near the bottom of its daily range.
The weekly chart showed a broader decline of 9.79%, with ADA at $0.2276 against an opening price of $0.2522. Its weekly high stood at $0.2561 and its low at $0.2242, placing the latest price just above that lower level.
Cardano approaches the lower edge of its rising channel
The TradingView daily chart places ADA inside an ascending channel drawn from its June and July lows. Cardano recovered from roughly $0.14 in July to above $0.27 in early October before retreating toward the channel’s lower boundary.
Cardano price daily chart — Oct. 14 | Source: TradingView
At the latest reading, the drawn lower trendline runs through approximately $0.21–$0.22. ADA remains above that boundary, although its fall from the October peak has narrowed the distance between price and channel support.
The same chart shows several unsuccessful attempts to sustain trading above $0.25 during the recent pullback. A recovery toward that area would first require ADA to regain $0.23–$0.24, where recent daily candles show repeated trading activity.
Daily momentum readings also show a weaker short-term setup. TradingView displays the Aroon lines at 42.86% and 57.14%, with both below their recent peaks near 100%.
The daily Chaikin Money Flow reading is more clearly negative at −0.12. Its move below zero accompanies the latest price decline, following positive readings during parts of September and early October.
Taken together, the daily chart shows a pullback within the recovery channel that began in midyear. A move through the lower boundary would break that drawn structure, while a rebound would keep price inside it.
Andreou’s recovery scenario starts with $0.22–$0.24
Giannis Andreou identified the $0.22–$0.24 area as Cardano’s immediate demand zone in an Oct. 14 post. He placed the 0.618 Fibonacci level near $0.2278, almost exactly matching the latest TradingView daily price.
📊 $ADA’S NEXT HIGHER LOW COULD SET THE STAGE$ADA is testing $0.22–$0.24 demand, with the 0.618 Fibonacci level near $0.2278 adding confluence.
Hold this zone and reclaim $0.26–$0.28, and $0.2910 becomes the key breakout test.
A confirmed break and retest would bring $0.3206… pic.twitter.com/G4CRBqnGie
— Giannis Andreou (@gandreou007) October 14, 2026
The analyst said ADA needs to hold that zone and reclaim $0.26–$0.28 before $0.2910 becomes the key breakout test. His scenario therefore requires a recovery through several resistance levels before the higher targets come into play.
A confirmed break above $0.2910, followed by a retest, would bring $0.3206 and $0.3698 into focus, according to Andreou. He listed $0.4277 as the next level beyond those targets.
His illustrated bullish path extends to $0.4834, representing roughly 105% upside from the approximately $0.2354 price shown in his own chart. That percentage belongs to the starting price in his analysis; the Binance daily chart records a lower price near $0.228.
Andreou also outlined the downside conditions. A loss of $0.22 would put $0.2110 and the $0.19–$0.20 support area in focus, he said.
His $0.22 threshold sits close to the lower boundary of the separate daily ascending channel. Both chart setups place the next downside test beneath the current price, while his bullish path begins with holding that area.
Weekly Supertrend remains above ADA’s price
TradingView’s weekly chart shows the Supertrend indicator at $0.2762, above ADA’s $0.2276 reading. The indicator remains red, maintaining a bearish weekly signal despite the recovery from the midyear lows.
Cardano price weekly chart — Oct. 14 | Source: TradingView
The Supertrend level also falls inside Andreou’s $0.26–$0.28 reclaim zone. A move into that range would bring ADA back toward both the analyst’s recovery threshold and the weekly indicator.
Weekly Bull Bear Power stood at a positive 0.0325. The latest green histogram bars follow a lengthy stretch of mostly negative readings, creating a mixed picture alongside the red Supertrend.
The weekly chart also contains a drawn rounded recovery path that extends upward into 2027. ADA’s observed price remains near the lower portion of that illustration, beneath the Supertrend line and far below the curve’s projected endpoint.
For U.S. holders following the dollar value of ADA, the quoted readings come from Binance’s USDT trading pair. Andreou’s price levels are also dollar-denominated, giving his recovery and downside scenarios the same approximate price reference as the technical charts.
Liquidation bands cluster above the market
CoinGlass’s one-week ADA liquidation heatmap shows the price retreating from around $0.255 toward $0.227 across the displayed period. The path includes rebounds toward $0.255 that failed to hold before the latest decline.
Cardano liquidation heatmap | Source: CoinGlass
At the right edge of the heatmap, visible liquidation bands sit near $0.23–$0.233 and approximately $0.24. Higher concentrations appear around $0.244–$0.247, with the strongest broad band near $0.26.
The $0.26 concentration overlaps the lower end of Andreou’s proposed reclaim zone. His next resistance range extends toward $0.28, close to the weekly Supertrend reading of $0.2762.
Below the latest price, CoinGlass shows bands around $0.223–$0.225 and near $0.22. Those levels sit close to the weekly low and Andreou’s stated downside threshold.
ADA consequently enters the next trading stretch near $0.228, with daily channel support below it and the weekly Supertrend overhead. Andreou’s recovery scenario requires the $0.22–$0.24 zone to hold before a reclaim of $0.26–$0.28 opens the way toward his $0.2910 breakout test.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Remittix approaches its confirmed market debut with PayFi testing underway as Ethereum staking expands into traditional brokerage and Cardano records its busiest five-day period.
MAJURO, Marshall Islands, Oct. 14, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Remittix is counting down to the November 24, 2026 market launch of RTX, giving its growing community a fixed date for the project’s transition from crypto presale to public trading.
The launch sets an endpoint for a campaign that has attracted more than 40,000 participants and raised over $32 million toward a $36 million hard cap. RTX is currently available at $0.28 through Remittix, while $0.46 is the announced final presale price and planned minimum exchange launch price.
The countdown begins as Ethereum and Cardano price prediction models gain fresh support. Interactive Brokers has launched Ethereum staking for eligible clients, while Cardano recorded 1.78 million transactions in five days.
November 24 Gives Remittix a Defined Market Catalyst
The November 24 RTX launch creates a clear timeline for the final allocation. Participants can track the current $0.28 price, the $0.46 final stage, the hard cap and the public-market date.
One thousand invited holders can test PayFi using EUR and USD routes, allowing Remittix to gather feedback before wider access.
PayFi Places Remittix Inside a Global Payments Opportunity
Remittix is primarily a PayFi project built to connect cryptocurrency with conventional bank settlement. Its model allows an eligible transfer to be funded with supported digital assets while the recipient receives fiat through a compatible bank account.
Current testing includes crypto-to-fiat and fiat-to-crypto functions. USDT and USDC are supported across Ethereum, Celo, Base and Polygon, with additional currencies, assets and networks being prepared.
The Remittix ecosystem adds further utility. Its iOS wallet has exceeded 10,000 downloads, Remittix Markets has processed more than $50 million in perpetual volume and Remittix Earn is approaching release with advertised yields of up to 22% APY on eligible holdings.
Ethereum Price Prediction Targets $12,000 as Cardano Eyes $3
Interactive Brokers has introduced Ethereum staking for eligible clients through zerohash. Rewards can be credited as additional staked ETH and compound while active. The move takes Ethereum’s yield proposition further into traditional finance and strengthens the case behind a $12,000 ETH price prediction.
Cardano processed 1,780,896 transactions during Epoch 660, surpassing its previous five-day record from November 2021. That surge gives ADA bulls a new network-activity argument as Cardano price prediction models revisit the $3 level. From recent prices, that target would represent a return toward the token’s historic peak and a major rerating of Cardano’s ecosystem.
Remittix Enters the Final Phase With Multiple Products Advancing
Ethereum and Cardano offer established network exposure, but their multibillion-dollar valuations require enormous new capital to produce outsized gains. Remittix enters public trading from an earlier stage, with PayFi testing, a live trading platform, wallet adoption and an Earn product approaching release.
For investors searching for a new crypto with a confirmed launch catalyst, November 24 places RTX on a shorter and more visible timeline. The final presale phase gives buyers a limited opportunity to enter before price discovery moves to public exchanges.
About Remittix
Remittix is developing a connected PayFi ecosystem for crypto-to-bank and bank-to-crypto transactions. Its products include international payment settlement, a mobile wallet, Remittix Markets and the forthcoming Remittix Earn service.
Media Contact
Company: Remittix
Email: [email protected]
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Tether Brings On-Device Speech Recognition to Smart Glasses and Humanoid Robots as Smart Technology Moves Deeper Into Private Life
TranscribePsy’s open-source 254-million-parameter model delivers high-performance speech recognition without cloud processing, transcribing 10 minutes of audio in 1.65 seconds on an iPhone 17 Pro Max and advances Tether’s vision for private, voice-enabled AI 14 October 2026 – Tether AI Research* today announced the release of QVAC TranscribePsy, a compact 254-million-parameter multilingual automatic speech recognition model designed to run entirely on-device. The model marks a major step in Tether’s broader effort to bring advanced AI capabilities directly to smartphones, smart glasses and humanoid robots while keeping users’ data private.
As voice-enabled technology moves further into homes, workplaces and everyday conversations, TranscribePsy gives developers a way to build speech recognition that works offline without sending users’ audio to cloud servers. The model can process audio from smart glasses connected via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi in near real-time, or run directly on a humanoid robot’s onboard processor. Designed for fast responses, it enables natural voice interactions with low latency, while keeping speech processing on-device.
The release addresses a growing question for consumer AI: as more devices can listen, where do those conversations go? Spoken interactions can capture family discussions, confidential work, and the voices of people nearby who never chose to use the technology. Processing speech locally removes the need to upload that audio for transcription, giving people greater control over information from their private lives.
High Performance in a Compact Model
TranscribePsy delivers leading performance across accuracy, speed, and memory efficiency, despite being a fraction of the size of larger speech models.
TranscribePsy achieves an 8.02% word error rate (WER) on the Open ASR Leaderboard, 6.58% on Multilingual LibriSpeech and 21.56% on Common Voice, leading all tested models in its parameter class. At 254M parameters, TranscribePsy achieves a 6.58% WER on Multilingual LibriSpeech, outperforming models 3–4x its size, including Qwen3-ASR-0.6B, omniASR-CTC-1B-v2, OWSM-CTC-v4 and Whisper-Medium. Across six tested smartphones, TranscribePsy was the fastest model, running 2.6x faster than the next-fastest model and 5.7x faster than Whisper-small across the phone CPUs. Its Core ML build transcribes 10 minutes of audio in 1.65 seconds on an iPhone 17 Pro Max, while using less than half the disk space and 1.7x less memory than a tested Core ML competitor. TranscribePsy covers 25 European languages on laptops and 8 European languages on phones, with dedicated builds for the iPhone Neural Engine. Built for Voice-First AI
TranscribePsy is designed for continuous, real-time audio, turning conversations into text moments after they are spoken. These models support Tether’s longer-term vision for AI that people can interact with AI naturally through speech. For smart glasses, local transcription can reduce delays and data leaks associated with cloud processing. This approach is particularly relevant to medical consultations, legal interviews, therapy sessions and confidential journalism, where recordings may contain sensitive information. In humanoid robotics, a compact speech model can preserve onboard computing resources for visual understanding, spatial mapping and physical control.
The release includes four specialized checkpoints: a laptop model covering 25 European languages, a laptop variant focused on eight core languages, a GGUF mobile build that runs on the qvac-fabric-speech’s parakeet.cpp engine, and a Core ML build optimized for the iPhone Neural Engine.
Within the broader QVAC Psy ecosystem, TranscribePsy provides the speech-to-text foundation for potential integrations with VisionPsy, TranslatePsy-Nano and MedPsy. Together, these capabilities could support voice-driven document analysis, translation, navigation and private note-taking. They reflect Tether’s broader ambition to bring private, on-device AI into everyday tasks, with this release delivering the speech recognition models that lay the foundation for those future applications.
“The future of AI shouldn’t mean giving centralized platforms a front-row seat to our personal lives,” said Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. “TranscribePsy shows that advanced speech AI can be fast, capable, and entirely local. AI is going to become part of our phones, glasses, and machines, but that doesn’t mean our data needs to leave them. We want to see powerful AI running directly on the devices people already own, with users in control of their data and their privacy intact.”
Open by Design
TranscribePsy is released under the Apache 2.0 license for research and educational purposes, with open model weights, GGUF mobile builds, Apple Silicon Core ML builds, and complete evaluation configurations for transparent and reproducible benchmarking.
The release is part of Tether AI Research’s broader work to develop compact, efficient models capable of processing audio, text, images, and video directly on edge devices. The long-term vision is to make advanced multimodal AI available wherever people need it, without requiring sensitive data to leave the device.
*References to Tether AI Research mean Tether Data, S.A. de C.V.
About QVAC
QVAC is Tether Data’s advanced AI research initiative dedicated to building open, decentralized, and adaptive intelligence systems. Its mission is Local AI and Infinite Intelligence. It is guided by an uncompromising vision of a world where AI lives and learns on any device, empowering individuals and communities rather than concentrating power in corporate data centers.
About Tether Data
Tether Data, S.A. de C.V. (“Tether Data”) is part of Tether’s broader vision to advance freedom, transparency, and innovation through technology. Its mission is to enable people and organizations to connect and share information directly, without unnecessary intermediaries. By creating secure, peer-to-peer systems, Tether Data gives users greater control over their data, communications, and digital interactions. Tether Data aims to redefine how information flows across networks by replacing centralized models with decentralized infrastructure designed for privacy, efficiency, and resilience. The company’s goal is to make global connectivity faster, safer, and more private, empowering individuals and institutions alike to exchange information freely and securely.
Tether has invested in EFY Finance’s seed funding round to expand institutional use of USDT and USA₮ in Latin America. The company announced the investment on October 13 without disclosing its size.
The backing targets the connections between stablecoins and everyday financial services, including bank accounts, cards, and cross-border payments. EFY already supports settlement to local accounts in 17 countries, giving Tether an established network to build on.
Connecting digital dollars with local accounts Accounts, custody for digital assets and local currency to stablecoin conversion are services provided by EFY. It serves a lot of active individual and business accounts, according to Tether.
For a business that is paying suppliers overseas, it is more than just sending tokens between wallets. The business receiving the payment may want it to come to a local bank account, and this is where EFY is able to help.
The countries where EFY already operates with its own institutions and with which relationship Tether aims to expand include Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, and Ecuador.
The announcement covers both USDT and USA₮.
The 17-country network already exists The investment does not mark the launch of payments in 17 new countries. EFY announced that settlement coverage in February, with an update in July.
This service lets users easily transfer money to their business, and the funds are accessible in a local account right after the transaction, without opening up an operation account in all their destinations.
The businesses can manage payments, review payment and other rates, and track their transfers via one simple platform.
However, coverage does not mean every service is available to every customer. EFY says access depends on the destination, currency, account type, and compliance requirements. Banking hours and the payment route can also affect settlement times.
What the investment adds EFY CEO Andres Tobon said the next goal should be building tools to get people to use stablecoins into their workflows. Tether’s interest is in helping it happen.
The deal is about payment infrastructure and distribution. Its impact will depend on how effectively EFY expands access and handles transactions across its supported markets.
Final Summary Tether-backed EFY’s seed round is to expand institutional access to USDT and USA₮ in Latin America. EFY’s 17-country settlement coverage has been in place before the investment.
Basic Attention Token [BAT] finally broke out of a multi-month descending channel, briefly clearing the $0.20 resistance.
At press time, the altcoin traded around $0.19, up 8.5% on the daily chart and 93% over the week. Trading Volume surged 120%, reflecting stronger market activity.
As BAT crossed $0.20, short sellers felt the squeeze, with over $1.2 million in short positions liquidated. However, the retreat below that level left buyers with another test: absorbing the tokens flowing onto exchanges.
What fueled BAT’s breakout?
Basic Attention Token experienced strong bullish pressure alongside growing interest in decentralized advertising models.
According to CoinMENA, BAT saw increased demand as capital rotated toward altcoins associated with real-world adoption. That growing interest was especially visible in the derivatives market.
CoinGlass data showed Open Interest surged 25% to an all-time high [ATH] of $59 million.
Source: CoinGlass
Meanwhile, Derivatives Volume climbed 340% to a record $632 million. Together, rising Open Interest and Trading Volume pointed to greater participation in BAT’s leveraged markets.
Source: CoinGlass
Futures Inflows reached $265.7 million, compared with $255.4 million in Outflows. Futures Netflows consequently rose 332% to roughly $10 million.
More capital entered tracked Futures venues than left, although these flows alone could not establish whether traders favored longs or shorts.
Could BAT exchange inflows slow the rally?
After the breakout, more BAT moved onto exchanges, potentially giving holders an opportunity to take profits.
On the 13th of October, Spot Netflows reached a record $2.5 million. At press time, the reading fell to $1.5 million but remained positive.
Source: CoinGlass
Positive Spot Netflows indicated that exchange inflows exceeded outflows. These deposits increased the supply available for selling, without confirming that holders had already sold.
For buyers, that creates a practical challenge. Sustaining the rally could require enough demand to absorb any selling from those deposits.
What’s next for BAT?
BAT’s Relative Strength Index (RSI) rose to 85, entering the overbought zone and reflecting strong recent buying momentum.
The Moving Average Convergence Divergence (MACD) also maintained an upward trajectory, supporting the bullish outlook.
Source: TradingView
Still, an elevated RSI leaves room for a pullback, even while momentum remains strong.
If buyers absorb profit-taking pressure and reclaim $0.20, Basic Attention Token [BAT] could target the $0.28 resistance. Conversely, sustained selling could undermine the breakout and bring the draft’s deeper downside level of $0.10 into focus.
Final Summary
BAT crypto gained 93% over the week, with record Open Interest accompanying its breakout above the descending channel.
Positive Spot Netflows raised selling risk, while reclaiming $0.20 could open a recovery path toward $0.28.
TRON’s [TRX] steady growth in stablecoins is translating into higher payment activity, with the network processing $2.21 trillion in transactions through Q3 2026. The growing supply of Tether [USDT] and USDD was responsible for much of this activity.
This was a 5.5% increase from the previous quarter to a total of $93.88 billion. Average daily stablecoin volume was up by 3.9% to $24.05 billion. This indicates continued demand for dollar-based transfers.
The activity coincided with an increase in monthly active user accounts, which rose 9.8% to 18 million.
Source: X Meanwhile, TRON’s cumulative transaction volume has exceeded $30 trillion. Now, further growth will depend on continued use. However, simply high transaction volume does not prove long-term acceptance or profitability.
TRON’s stablecoin payment demand TRON’s expanding stablecoin supply is seeing consistent movement. The continued increase in supply suggests growing use across digital payments. USDT, which currently represents nearly 98% of TRON’s stablecoin base at approximately $93.1 billion out of $95.2 billion.
Therefore, it has a considerable impact on the volume of transfers executed within TRON.
Average daily transfer volume of USDT over the last 30 days stood at $24 billion. Daily transfer volumes fluctuated from as low as $10 billion to as high as $32 billion.
Furthermore, over 1 million user accounts are initiating new transfers every day and generate up to 2.5 million new events per day.
Source: TRON Blog This repeated circulation supports activity across exchanges, remittances, and merchant payments. Sustained usage would strengthen its position in stablecoin payments and confirm demand beyond idle balances.
TRON adds $633.6M in stablecoin supply While TRON’s stablecoin activity reflects sustained transaction demand, its latest supply growth highlights where capital is flowing across blockchain networks.
TRON attracted $633.6 million stablecoins during a seven-day period. This is considerably higher than the influx of $64 million for OP Mainnet.
Therefore, this gap suggests stablecoin issuers continue to prefer using the token as a platform to deploy their stablecoins due to nearly 98% of TRON’s stablecoin holdings being in USDT form.
Source: Token Terminal Such concentration could reinforce TRON’s liquidity advantage over competing networks, supporting its appeal to exchanges and payment providers. However, one week of inflows cannot confirm a lasting trend.
Continued gains relative to rival networks would strengthen evidence of capital preference, while slower growth could signal a temporary shift.
Final Summary TRON settled $2.21 trillion in stablecoins during Q3 2026, with daily USDT transfers averaging $24 billion.
TRX added $554.9 million in stablecoin supply in one week, outpacing OP Mainnet’s $64 million.
Tokenized stocks on BNB Chain have a new place to trade. Metric has opened its decentralized exchange on the network, letting users trade and provide liquidity for bStocks, the BEP-20 tokens that represent US stocks and ETFs.
The launch landed on October 14, 2026. It pairs one of the fastest-growing tokenized equity products with a DEX built around off-chain price feeds rather than pure on-chain guesswork.
What Metric is actually launching
bStocks are tokenized versions of US equities and exchange-traded funds. Each one lives on BNB Chain as a BEP-20 token, the network’s standard token format.
Users can swap bStocks directly on the exchange. They can also deposit assets into Metric’s pools as liquidity providers, the people who supply the inventory that makes trading possible.
Metric’s smart contracts are deployed on BNB Smart Chain, which carries chain ID 56. The same contracts also run on Ethereum and Robinhood Chain.
The propAMM model, explained
Most decentralized exchanges use automated market makers, or AMMs. These set prices using the ratio of tokens sitting in a pool.
Metric takes a different route. It uses what it calls a propAMM, short for provisioned automated market maker.
Instead of relying only on internal price discovery, the system pulls in external oracles. Chainlink Data Streams is among them.
Those feeds anchor pool prices to off-chain market rates. The design is meant to support continuous trading for these real-world asset tokens. It also aims to play nicely with other DeFi protocols on BNB Chain, including PancakeSwap.
Metric’s quiet run-up
Metric did not arrive empty-handed. Before going public with its DEX launches, the team reported more than $10 billion in cumulative trading volume.
That volume was built while Metric operated in stealth across several chains, including Robinhood Chain and Ethereum.
bStocks had a head start
bStocks launched around June 11, 2026. The product is backed by regulated custody from BTech Holdings Ltd., an affiliate of the Binance group.
By July 2026, bStocks accounted for about 85% of tokenized equity DEX volume.
What this means for traders and DeFi
For BNB Chain users, the most immediate change is choice. bStocks now have another venue where they can be traded and pooled, with pricing tied to external market data.
For the broader BNB Chain ecosystem, composability is the bigger story. If bStocks liquidity on Metric connects smoothly with protocols like PancakeSwap, tokenized equities could start behaving like regular DeFi building blocks rather than isolated novelties.
For now, the setup is straightforward. bStocks bring the dominant market share, BTech Holdings brings the custody, and Metric brings an oracle-anchored DEX with a reported $10 billion-plus track record.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Memecoins have changed from simple internet jokes into a major part of cryptocurrency culture. Dogecoin started as a playful digital currency, while PEPE gained attention through its connection to a famous internet meme. Both show how online communities can turn cultural ideas into widely traded crypto assets.
However, a new generation of AI memecoins is bringing technology into the picture. Instead of depending entirely on viral attention, these projects aim to use artificial intelligence for research, token discovery, and automated launch preparation.
MemeToro is building an AI-powered memecoin ecosystem on BNB Chain. Its open-source AI agent researches trends, prepares token proposals, and connects them with transparent smart-contract rules.
With more than $163,000 raised in Stage 8 and $MT priced at $0.00528, MemeToro is developing a different approach to memecoin participation. The project combines AI research, future trading infrastructure, and token utility within one ecosystem.
Why AI Memecoins Could Become the Next Major Crypto TrendThe main difference between AI memecoins and classic memecoins is how technology supports their ecosystems. Traditional memecoins often depend on community enthusiasm, exchange listings, and social media attention.
Dogecoin uses its own blockchain and has an established history as a payment-focused cryptocurrency. PEPE operates as an Ethereum-based token whose identity comes from internet meme culture.
MemeToro takes a different route by developing an AI agent that can study online conversations, news, and emerging cultural themes. The goal is to turn those signals into documented memecoin proposals.
The planned process includes:
Trend research: The AI agent examines public signals to identify emerging cultural themes.Proposal creation: MemeToro generates concepts with supporting evidence and launch parameters.Smart-contract execution: Public contracts are designed to enforce funding conditions after validation.This gives AI memecoins a technology-led angle beyond their branding. MemeToro’s development also creates a possible connection between automated discovery and future memecoin trading.
Potential 9.82x Returns on a $500 $MT Buying Right NowCommitting $500 at the current Stage 7 price secures roughly 94,697 $MT tokens.
Should the token successfully reach its publicized launch price of $0.05186, the resulting paper value of this stake would land around $4,911, representing the familiar 9.82x step-up from the initial investment.
Pushing the scenario further into optimistic territory, if MemeToro’s project eventually scales to a $1 billion fully diluted market cap, implying a token price close to $0.8333, this same token count would theoretically be worth about $78,911.
MemeToro’s AI Agent Brings a New Approach Beyond DOGE and PEPEDOGE and PEPE already have recognizable identities, but MemeToro focuses on the infrastructure used to discover and prepare new memecoin concepts.
MemeToro’s AI agent follows a Propose, Verify, Fund, and Launch model. The AI researches ideas, while deterministic software checks whether the proposals meet predefined requirements.
MemeToro has published real code, tests, and development examples through its GitHub repository. These materials describe how proposal evidence, rejected candidates, and funding parameters can be recorded.
Another development involves launch manifests. These structured records contain important information about a proposed token, including supply, pricing, and funding conditions.
MemeToro’s latest proposal-fingerprint system is designed to connect published information with the corresponding BNB Chain funding round.
The technology gives MemeToro a distinctive position among AI memecoins. Rather than relying only on the popularity of one character, the project is developing tools for researching and launching future memecoin concepts.
Why $MT Utility and Stage 8 Pricing Strengthen MemeToro’s AppealMemeToro’s $MT token supports the project’s planned ecosystem of platform access, transactions, rewards, staking, and memecoin-related services.
Unlike DOGE and PEPE, $MT is associated with a developing AI-assisted launch infrastructure. MemeToro also plans trading features that connect token discovery with broader ecosystem activity.
The total $MT supply is 1.2 billion tokens. Its corrected allocation includes 852 million for public sale, 120 million for CEX reserves, 90.72 million for marketing partners, 60 million for trading, 53.28 million for rewards, and 24 million for the team.
How to Buy MemeToro Before the Prices Increases in the Next StageUsers interested in $MT can begin through MemeToro’s official how to join page. The website provides card and cryptocurrency payment routes for presale participation.
The basic process involves connecting a compatible wallet or selecting an available payment method, entering the purchase amount, and following the displayed instructions.
MemeToro states that public-sale tokens are claimable at launch without a presale vesting schedule. This makes the token distribution structure particularly relevant to buyers comparing early-stage projects.
The project’s separate FairLaunchEscrow architecture is still under development. Its proposed exit windows and refund functions apply to future launchpad funding rounds, not automatically to existing $MT purchases.
What’s Ahead for Top Crypto Presales: MemeToro Offers a Different Direction for MemecoinsThe comparison between AI memecoins and classic memecoins is ultimately about how each project creates value for its community.
DOGE demonstrates the lasting influence of a familiar cryptocurrency brand. PEPE shows how internet culture can support a widely recognized token.
MemeToro is pursuing another direction through AI-assisted research, transparent launch proposals, and planned BNB Chain trading infrastructure.
Its Stage 8 presale, $MT utility model, and published development work give investors several measurable areas to follow as the ecosystem develops.
The strongest distinction is not that MemeToro uses a meme-based identity. It is that MemeToro is building technology intended to help communities research, evaluate, fund, and launch new memecoins through documented rules.
That makes MemeToro an interesting project in the growing AI memecoins category.
FAQsWhat Makes AI Memecoins Different From DOGE and PEPE?AI memecoins combine meme culture with artificial intelligence tools. MemeToro uses an AI agent to research trends, generate token proposals, and prepare transparent funding rules, while DOGE and PEPE mainly rely on their established communities and market activity.
Why Is MemeToro Considered a Promising AI Memecoin?MemeToro combines AI-powered memecoin discovery, planned trading features, and $MT token utility. Its open-source development and BNB Chain funding architecture give the project a technology-focused approach beyond traditional memecoin branding.
How Much Could a $500 MemeToro Investment Be Worth?At the stated Stage 8 price of $0.00528, $500 buys approximately 94,697 $MT before fees. If the token reached $0.05186, those tokens would have a hypothetical value of around $4,911, representing approximately 9.82x the original amount.
Memecoin launchpads have made token creation faster and more accessible. Instead of developing smart contracts from scratch, creators can use specialized platforms to launch tokens and connect them with trading markets.
However, these platforms do not all follow the same funding model.
Pump.fun operates on Solana and uses bonding curves to make new tokens immediately tradable. Four.meme brings a similar launch experience to BNB Chain, with tokens moving toward PancakeSwap liquidity after meeting the platform’s conditions.
MemeToro is developing a different approach built around AI-generated proposals, fixed-rate funding, and smart-contract protections.
The project has raised more than $163,000 in Stage 8 of its $MT presale, priced at $0.00528.
For buyers comparing these platforms, the main question is whether they prefer immediate trading or a structured funding period with published terms and withdrawal conditions.
Why MemeToro’s Buyer-First Design Stands Out Among Launchpads and Crypto PresalesMemeToro, Pump.fun, and Four.meme approach token launches from different starting points.
Pump.fun emphasizes fast token creation and immediate trading on Solana. Its bonding-curve system allows buyers and sellers to trade before eligible tokens graduate to PumpSwap.
Four.meme provides token creation and bonding-curve trading on BNB Chain. Successful launches can progress to PancakeSwap liquidity.
MemeToro focuses on a planned funding model that begins with documented AI-generated proposals.
Its proposed protections include:
Fixed-rate funding: Contributors within a round receive the same published funding price.Exit windows: Contributors can withdraw before a stated deadline.Proposal fingerprints: Funding rounds can be checked against the originally published launch information.Permissionless refunds: Eligible contributors can recover funds through contract rules without team approval.These features give MemeToro a different design focus.
Pump.fun and Four.meme already operate live trading systems. MemeToro’s FairLaunchEscrow protections are published in development code but are not yet deployed as a production launchpad.
Analyzing a $1,000 $MT Holding: From Presale to CEX LaunchAllocating $1,000 at the $0.00528 Stage 7 price point results in approximately 189,394 $MT tokens, a figure that excludes any payment or network processing fees.
Assuming the token eventually trades at its projected launch price of $0.05186, that batch of tokens would hold a value of about $9,822, roughly a 9.82x gain compared to the original $1,000 investment.
Taking the analysis into more ambitious territory, an aggressive $1 billion fully diluted valuation model would imply a token price around $0.8333, which would value this same 189,394-token holding at approximately $157,822.
How MemeToro’s Refund Rules Compare With Bonding-Curve TradingThe biggest difference between MemeToro and the other launchpads is how participants enter and leave a funding arrangement.
Pump.fun uses a bonding curve that supports immediate buying and selling. Token prices respond to activity under the curve’s pricing mechanism.
Four.meme also uses bonding curves, with trading liquidity eventually moving to PancakeSwap after the relevant conditions are reached.
MemeToro’s proposed model uses a fixed-rate funding round before finalization.
Contributors can withdraw during the published exit period. The contract prevents finalization until that window closes, even if the funding cap is reached earlier.
This is different from selling a token into a market.
A market sale depends on the available price and liquidity. MemeToro’s proposed exit-window withdrawal instead returns an eligible contributor’s funds under the funding contract’s predefined conditions.
The distinction makes MemeToro’s design particularly relevant to buyers who want clearly documented funding rights before a token launches.
Why MemeToro’s AI Agent Could Offer a Stronger Research ExperiencePump.fun and Four.meme primarily provide tools for creating tokens and connecting them with trading activity.
MemeToro is developing an additional research layer through its AI agent.
The agent is designed to monitor news, social discussions, and cultural trends before generating candidate memecoin concepts.
Its workflow includes:
Research public trend signals.Generate possible token ideas.Record evidence supporting each concept.Reject proposals that fail validation.Publish an accepted launch manifest.Prepare the proposal for contract-based funding.MemeToro’s launch manifests are intended to include supply, pricing, funding thresholds, and wallet limits.
Why MemeToro’s Stage 8 Presale Adds Another Growth NarrativeMemeToro is also building an ecosystem around its $MT utility token.
The token is intended to support access, ecosystem transactions, staking, rewards, and memecoin-related services.
MemeToro has raised more than $163,000 during Stage 8, with $MT priced at $0.00528.
The total token supply is fixed at 1.2 billion, including 852 million tokens allocated to public sale. The remaining supply is divided among CEX reserves, marketing partners, trading, rewards, and the team.
For buyers evaluating the presale, the entry price provides a simple way to calculate token exposure.
At $0.00528, a $1,000 purchase represents approximately 189,394 $MT before fees. A hypothetical future price of $0.01584 would make the same token quantity worth about $3,000.
That would represent a threefold price increase, not a guaranteed outcome.
MemeToro’s how to join page explains current participation, while the developing launchpad represents a separate part of its wider technology roadmap.
Final Words: Which Memecoin Launchpad Offers the Strongest Buyer Protections?Pump.fun, Four.meme, and MemeToro serve different needs within the memecoin market.
Pump.fun provides established Solana-based token creation and bonding-curve trading. Four.meme offers a similar route for BNB Chain creators, including integration with PancakeSwap liquidity.
MemeToro is building a more structured funding model centered on AI research, fixed terms, exit windows, and permissionless refunds.
For buyers who value immediate trading, the two established platforms already provide working markets.
For buyers interested in published funding conditions and the ability to withdraw before finalization, MemeToro’s proposed FairLaunchEscrow architecture offers a compelling design.
The important distinction is deployment status. MemeToro’s protections are documented in development code, while Pump.fun and Four.meme already operate live launch systems.
MemeToro’s next technical milestones will determine how those proposed protections perform in practice.
FAQsHow Is MemeToro Different From Pump.fun and Four.meme?Pump.fun and Four.meme use bonding-curve trading, while MemeToro is developing fixed-rate funding rounds with published terms and exit windows.
Which Memecoin Launchpad Offers Refund Protection?MemeToro’s proposed FairLaunchEscrow includes withdrawal windows and conditional refunds, although the system is not yet deployed.
Does MemeToro Use AI for Memecoin Launches?Yes. MemeToro’s AI agent researches trends, generates proposals, and prepares launch parameters before smart-contract execution.
Bank of America stock fell as much as 9% on Wednesday, a day after the bank admitted willful money laundering control failures and agreed to pay $1.21 billion. Nobody was charged with a crime.
Changpeng Zhao (CZ) served four months in a US prison over his exchange’s anti-money laundering (AML) failures. On Wednesday, the Binance executive highlighted this double standard.
According to the Treasury, the bank failed to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions on time. Over $1 billion involved national security risks, including suspected Chinese money laundering networks.
The release says the bank often relied on law enforcement inquiries to spot problems, rather than its own monitoring.
The penalty cut quarterly profit by 17 cents a share, as BeInCrypto flagged Tuesday. Even without it, adjusted earnings of $1.08 per share missed estimates, per TipRanks.
Meanwhile, CZ referred to deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs), deals where prosecutors drop charges if a company complies.
Why Did No One at Bank of America Face Charges?The penalties came from three Treasury agencies. These are civil regulators, and they issue fines, not criminal charges.
Criminal cases come from the Justice Department. None of Tuesday’s Treasury announcements mention it.
That department changed course in 2025. A May 2025 Criminal Division memo widened the paths for companies to avoid prosecution if they self-report, cooperate, and fix problems.
Law firm Paul Weiss counted 21 corporate guilty pleas in 2025 and read the data as a slowdown. In 2013, then-Attorney General Eric Holder told senators that the size of some banks made them difficult to prosecute.
Why an HSBC Whistleblower Wants Bank of America Executives ChargedEverett Stern reported money laundering at HSBC while working there as a compliance officer in 2010. On Wednesday, he published an open letter on X to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent,
My name is Everett Stern. In 2010 I was a compliance officer at @HSBC. From a back office in New Castle, Delaware, I watched billions of dollars move to drug cartels, sanctioned regimes, and terrorist organizations. The enemies of the…
— Everett Stern (@EverettStern1) October 14, 2026 Stern asked Bessent to refer Bank of America executives for criminal prosecution. He also urged an end to “too big to jail” and a review of the bank’s national charter.
HSBC settled its own case in December 2012. It admitted that at least $881 million in cartel drug money moved through its US arm, according to the Justice Department.
HSBC paid about $1.92 billion and signed a deferred prosecution agreement. Stern says no banker was charged, and that reporting the bank cost him his career.
“The fines are not working. A fine is paid by shareholders, absorbed by the balance sheet, and forgotten by the next earnings call.”
What Made the Binance Case CriminalBinance never filed a single suspicious activity report with US authorities, according to Justice Department filings.
It also let Americans trade $898 million with users in Iran, breaching US sanctions. Prosecutors said CZ told staff it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.
Binance pleaded guilty and paid $4.3 billion. CZ got four months, though prosecutors sought three years. He has since called underestimating compliance his biggest Binance mistake.
Banks have faced criminal cases too. TD Bank pleaded guilty in 2024 after employees helped launderers move money. Prosecutors charged over two dozen people, including two bank insiders.
How US Enforcement Shifted Since CZ’s SentenceIn April 2025, the Justice Department told prosecutors to end “regulation by prosecution” of crypto platforms. It disbanded its national crypto enforcement team.
Six months later, President Donald Trump pardoned CZ. Bank of America now has to pay for an outside review to find suspicious transactions it missed.
Crypto websites make blockchain transactions easier, but the website itself does not always control the money. When a platform goes offline, users may lose access to familiar buttons, dashboards, and account information even though its smart contracts remain active.
This difference matters during memecoin presales, where buyers may need to withdraw contributions, claim tokens, or request refunds.
MemeToro is developing an AI-powered memecoin launchpad on BNB Chain with a funding system designed to operate independently of its website. Its FairLaunchEscrow contract supports permissionless actions, meaning eligible transactions do not require approval from the project team.
The project has also raised more than $163,000 during Stage 8 of its $MT presale, with tokens priced at $0.00528.
MemeToro’s latest funding architecture focuses on a practical question: how can contributors retain access to their funds when the usual website interface is unavailable?
Why MemeToro’s Smart-Contract Funding Model Could Change Presale AccessA conventional website provides the visual controls people use to interact with a blockchain application. However, a smart contract can continue operating on its blockchain even when that website becomes unavailable.
MemeToro’s FairLaunchEscrow design separates these two responsibilities.
The interface is intended to help contributors view their positions and submit transactions. The smart contract determines whether contributions, withdrawals, refunds, or claims are permitted.
MemeToro’s proposed funding model includes several important functions:
Permissionless withdrawals: Contributors can exit during the published withdrawal window without team approval.Contract-based refunds: Eligible contributors can recover funds when the round enters a refundable state.Public finalization: Anyone can trigger finalization once the contract’s conditions permit it.This structure reduces reliance on a single website or private operator.
MemeToro has published code and tests supporting these mechanisms. The complete production funding interface and FairLaunchEscrow deployment remain development work.
How MemeToro Keeps Funding Rules Independent of Website UptimeMemeToro’s funding architecture is designed so the contract, rather than the website, controls the state of a funding round.
When a contributor sends funds, the contract records the contribution. Its rules then determine when the contributor can withdraw, when refunds become available, and when a successful round can finalize.
The process follows a straightforward sequence:
A contributor interacts with the funding contract.The contract records the contribution.Published deadlines determine which actions are available.Eligible users submit withdrawal or refund transactions.The blockchain processes transactions that satisfy the rules.If MemeToro’s website becomes unavailable, the intended contract logic does not automatically stop.
A contributor could potentially interact through another compatible blockchain interface, provided the contract is deployed, the network remains available, and the required transaction information is known.
This is an important technical distinction. Website uptime affects convenience, while smart-contract availability depends on the underlying blockchain and deployed code.
MemeToro’s design aims to keep those responsibilities separate.
MemeToro’s New Exit Window Adds More Control Before LaunchMemeToro’s latest FairLaunchEscrow update introduces an exit window that allows contributors to withdraw before a published deadline.
The contract is designed to block finalization throughout that period. Even if a round reaches its maximum funding target quickly, contributors retain the full withdrawal window.
This prevents a funding round from moving into its final state before the agreed decision period ends.
MemeToro also allows withdrawals to change whether the round still meets its minimum funding target.
If enough contributors leave, the remaining amount may fall below the threshold required for launch. The contract can then follow its refund conditions instead of finalizing an underfunded round.
Another development involves proposal fingerprints.
MemeToro’s AI agent prepares structured launch proposals, and the corresponding digital fingerprint is intended to connect published funding terms with the on-chain round.
This gives contributors a way to check the rules independently of the website’s presentation.
Why MemeToro’s $MT Ecosystem Adds Another Reason to Watch DevelopmentMemeToro is building its funding infrastructure alongside a wider AI-powered memecoin ecosystem.
The project’s AI agent researches public trends, develops candidate memecoin concepts, and prepares launch manifests. Future trading infrastructure is intended to connect these proposals with BNB Chain market activity.
The $MT token supports the broader ecosystem through planned access, transactions, staking, rewards, and trading-related functions.
MemeToro has raised more than $163,000 during Stage 8, with $MT priced at $0.00528.
Its total supply is 1.2 billion tokens. The allocation includes 852 million for public sale, 120 million for CEX reserves, 90.72 million for marketing partners, 60 million for trading, 53.28 million for rewards, and 24 million for the team.
At the Stage 8 price, $1,000 would purchase approximately 189,394 $MT before fees.
If $MT eventually traded at $0.01056, that holding would have a hypothetical value of $2,000.
The MemeToro website provides information about $MT participation, while its GitHub repository documents the developing funding contracts.
Final Words: MemeToro Is Building Beyond Just a MemecoinA blockchain funding system should not depend entirely on whether a website is working.
MemeToro’s FairLaunchEscrow design addresses this issue by placing funding conditions, withdrawal rights, refunds, and finalization rules inside public smart contracts.
The latest exit-window update strengthens that architecture by protecting the published withdrawal period.
MemeToro’s proposal fingerprints add another useful feature by connecting public launch information with contract parameters.
Together, these developments show how an AI-powered memecoin launchpad can separate research, website access, and financial execution.
The wider $MT ecosystem also connects these technical developments with AI discovery, rewards, and planned memecoin trading.
For MemeToro, the important next milestone is turning its published contract design into independently reviewed, deployed infrastructure that contributors can use directly on BNB Chain.
Buying a token before its public trading launch usually means committing funds before the final product becomes available. Many buyers focus on the token price, potential growth, and launch date without fully understanding what happens to their contribution.
This raises an important question: can you get your money back in a memecoin presale?
The answer depends on the funding agreement and the smart contract controlling the money. Some token sales provide refund conditions, while others treat purchases as final.
MemeToro is developing a different funding model for future AI-generated memecoin launches on BNB Chain. Its FairLaunchEscrow contract introduces a defined exit window, permissionless withdrawals, and refunds when certain funding conditions are not met.
MemeToro has also raised more than $163,000 in its separate $MT Stage 8 presale, priced at $0.00528. The new refund architecture concerns future launchpad rounds rather than automatically changing existing $MT presale terms.
Why MemeToro’s Refund System Could Change Memecoin PresalesA memecoin presale refund system determines when contributors can recover their original funds. MemeToro’s FairLaunchEscrow design makes these conditions part of the smart contract rather than leaving every decision to the project team.
The latest update introduces a published exit deadline. Contributors can withdraw their funds before that deadline without asking for permission.
This creates a clear sequence:
Contribution: A buyer sends funds into the designated escrow contract.Exit period: The contributor can withdraw while the published window remains open.Finalization: The funding round can proceed only after the exit period closes and the required conditions are satisfied.MemeToro’s contract design prevents a launch from finalizing while contributors still have the right to withdraw.
Even if a funding round reaches its hard cap almost immediately, the published exit deadline remains in place.
This is an important design choice because the contributor’s decision period cannot be shortened simply because other buyers contributed quickly.
How the $163K MemeToro Presale Is a Bullish Sign for New InvestorsMemeToro’s existing $MT presale is separate from the future FairLaunchEscrow funding rounds. The project has raised more than $163,000 in Stage 8, with $MT priced at $0.00528. Its total supply is fixed at 1.2 billion tokens, with 71% allocated to public sale.
MemeToro plans to use $MT for ecosystem access, transactions, staking, rewards, and memecoin-related services.
The project also describes AI-assisted memecoin discovery and future trading infrastructure as part of its wider ecosystem.
Buyers can review current participation options through the official how to join page.
Can a $50 Entry in $MT Generate Significant ROI?Even a modest $50 allocation at the current $0.00528 rate buys around 9,470 $MT tokens before any transaction fees come into play.
Based on the project’s publicized launch price target of $0.05186, this small position would be worth roughly $491 on paper, mirroring the same 9.82x valuation jump seen at every other tier examined here.
If MemeToro reach a $1 billion fully diluted valuation with a token price near $0.8333, those same 9,470 tokens would carry a value of about $7,891.
How MemeToro Uses Smart Contracts to Give Buyers More ControlMemeToro’s FairLaunchEscrow architecture uses Solidity smart contracts to manage funding conditions on BNB Chain.
The design includes minimum funding thresholds, maximum contributions, wallet limits, refund conditions, and finalization rules. These parameters are intended to be fixed when the funding round is created.
MemeToro’s latest refund update gives contributors two important forms of control.
First, they can withdraw during the published exit window. Second, refunds can become available if the round fails to meet the conditions needed for a successful launch.
For example, imagine a funding round reaches its minimum target but several contributors withdraw before the exit deadline. Those withdrawals could reduce the remaining contributions below the required minimum.
Under MemeToro’s design, that round should not launch using capital that contributors have already withdrawn.
The contract is also designed so contributed funds have only two permitted destinations: back to contributors or toward liquidity after successful finalization.
MemeToro has published code and tests demonstrating these rules, although FairLaunchEscrow remains an undeployed development contract.
Why MemeToro’s New Funding Interface Matters for Refund AccessA smart-contract refund system becomes more useful when contributors can understand their balances and interact with the contract directly.
MemeToro’s developing funding interface is intended to make actions such as contributions, withdrawals, refunds, and claims easier to access.
The underlying contract design does not require an AI agent or private backend to approve eligible withdrawals.
That means the planned funding system separates website convenience from contract authority. The interface helps users interact with the blockchain, while the contract determines whether an action is allowed.
MemeToro is also developing launch manifests that publish supply, funding targets, wallet caps, and timing rules.
Each proposal can carry a digital fingerprint that links its published information to the funding round.
Together, these features create a clearer record of what contributors agreed to before sending funds. For an AI-powered launchpad, this is a significant development because the software can prepare proposals without controlling contributor money.
Final Words: Is MemeToro the Best Crypto Presale Right Now?Refund access is becoming an important topic as memecoin launchpads introduce more automated funding systems.
MemeToro’s approach focuses on giving contributors a published period to reconsider their participation before a round becomes final.
Its FairLaunchEscrow design also includes permissionless refunds when the required launch conditions are not satisfied.
The latest exit-window update strengthens this approach by preventing early finalization, even when a funding round fills quickly.
MemeToro’s broader AI ecosystem adds another layer through documented proposals, fixed funding parameters, and public smart-contract development.
For buyers researching future memecoin presales, the central benefit is clarity. They can examine when withdrawals are allowed, when refunds apply, and what conditions must be met before funding proceeds toward a launch.
FAQsCan You Get a Refund From a Memecoin Presale?Refunds depend on the project’s funding rules. MemeToro’s developing FairLaunchEscrow system allows contributors to withdraw during a published exit window and receive refunds when a future funding round fails to meet its required conditions.
How Does MemeToro’s Smart Contract Refund System Work?MemeToro’s FairLaunchEscrow contract is designed to hold contributions and enforce funding rules on BNB Chain. Eligible contributors can withdraw or claim refunds directly through the contract without requiring approval from the project team.
Does MemeToro’s Refund System Apply to the $MT Presale?No. MemeToro’s FairLaunchEscrow refund system is being developed for future AI-generated memecoin funding rounds. The current $MT presale follows separate participation terms.
Stellar Lumens (XLM) and Ripple’s XRP, both established digital assets launched by former Ripple co-founder Jed McCaleb, have become increasingly prominent in providing distributed ledger technology (DLT) solutions for cross-border payments and the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs). Since regulatory frameworks have evolved, institutional interest has grown, leading to major advances for both networks.
RWA expansion and ecosystem comparisonCurrently, Stellar has demonstrated remarkable growth in tokenized real-world assets. Official figures indicate that assets on its network have climbed to $3.5 billion in 2026, reflecting a 350% increase since early 2025. This progress has given Stellar a significant position in the rapidly expanding RWA sector.
In comparison, the tokenized asset volume on the XRP Ledger stands at approximately $2.5 billion. However, XRP has achieved exceptional growth in tokenized US Treasuries, with the value of these instruments rising from around $50 million to $418.5 million, marking an increase close to 800% within a single year.
MetricStellar (XLM)XRP LedgerTotal RWA tokenized assets (2026)$3.5 billion$2.5 billionGrowth in US Treasuries (yearly)N/A+800%Largest single productBENJI Fund ($605 million)NASDAQ-listed XRP treasury fund ($500 million)Stellar’s network is utilized by multiple institutional players launching large-scale products. One of the most notable contributors is Franklin Templeton’s BENJI fund, which held about $605 million on Stellar by October 2026. Additionally, Spiko has added roughly $1.7 billion to Stellar’s tokenized money-market assets, further driving network utility.
Stellar’s technical framework is designed for versatility, allowing for swift settlement times of five to seven seconds and features such as atomic multi-currency routing, protocol-native clawback, freeze, and authorization. These features cater to the operational needs of financial institutions, making Stellar a flexible platform for a variety of use cases.
When institutions purchase tokenized treasury funds through Stellar, investments generally go into the underlying securities, with minimal direct impact on the XLM token price due to low transaction fees. The network collects these fees in XLM, but the low cost results in only modest effect on the asset’s demand.
In contrast, Ripple, the US fintech company behind XRP, has gained more traction in the traditional finance sector, specifically through nine exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that together account for $1.56 billion in net assets. This exposure is believed to be attracting new investor segments to digital assets.
Mini dictionary: Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) — A regulated investment fund traded on stock exchanges, designed to track the price of underlying assets such as cryptocurrencies, stocks, or bonds. In the crypto space, ETFs provide institutional and retail investors direct exposure to digital assets without requiring them to hold the tokens directly.
Institutional impact and RWA outlookThe total ETF-driven assets investing in or through XRP are now roughly equal to Stellar’s RWA product base. This week, Evernorth’s introduction of the first XRP-only treasury fund on NASDAQ contributed close to $500 million in value—an amount roughly equivalent to three days of XLM spot trading volume.
Unlike many RWA-focused funds, these investment vehicles provide direct exposure to XRP tokens rather than just the tokenized version of conventional securities. The flows into these ETFs have a more immediate relationship with XRP price fluctuations.
Stellar’s transaction fees are described as modest compared to traditional networks, allowing corporate users to process cross-border payments and tokenize assets efficiently while incurring minimal cost fluctuations for its XLM coin.
Meanwhile, XLM’s model collects fees from stablecoin-centered tokenized funds and from supporting an expanding ecosystem of digital assets. The rapid acceleration of RWA volume on Stellar has been mostly driven by major institutional partnerships and a few leading tokenization projects.
In the cross-border payments field, XRP retains a larger share of the market, but if Stellar aims to overtake it by market capitalization, the network would need to add $80 billion to move beyond its current $6 to $7 billion range. Analysts view this as a substantial but not impossible leap, considering stellar’s current growth trajectory.
Stellar (XLM) declined by approximately 3.6% on October 14, trading near $0.184, as the token continued to struggle despite new partnerships and increasing institutional involvement in its blockchain. The drop extended recent losses, keeping Stellar below the $0.20 level even as industry initiatives signal a growing role for its infrastructure in global finance.
Institutional Expansion Meets Token Price WeaknessStellar’s ongoing efforts to modernize traditional finance have been highlighted by collaboration with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), which processes infrastructure for trillions of dollars in traditional financial assets annually. In May, DTCC announced plans to connect its tokenization platform with the Stellar public blockchain, aiming to bring eligible assets onto Stellar’s network by the first half of 2027.
Assets under consideration include prominent US equities such as Russell 1000 stocks, major exchange-traded funds, and US Treasury securities. These plans, however, remain in development, and no such assets have yet been moved onto the Stellar blockchain.
DTCC custodianship covers more than $114 trillion in assets, illustrating the scale of the opportunity. While the announcement initially boosted optimism for Stellar, XLM’s price has since decoupled from the pace of institutional adoption.
XLM’s recent decline highlights a growing gap between advances in financial tokenization and the investment demand for its native cryptocurrency. The underlying infrastructure may attract institutional interest, but this does not guarantee increased market value for XLM itself.
One critical factor behind XLM’s price difficulties involves how the Stellar network operates. Institutional activity, such as securities or stablecoin transfers, does not require holding an equivalent amount of XLM, as the token’s primary role is to cover transaction fees and minimum balances.
MoneyGram Deepens Its Stellar PartnershipBeyond securities tokenization, Stellar’s institutional expansion is also evident through its partnership with MoneyGram. The payments company, along with the Stellar Development Foundation, has recently strengthened their alliance by rolling out stablecoin-powered services and digital-dollar solutions across Latin America.
MoneyGram’s extensive network now supports receiving, holding, and withdrawing funds using stablecoin integrations, making the transfer of digital assets easier for users in the region. Additionally, MoneyGram has joined Stellar’s ecosystem as a Tier 1 validator, joining other institutional nodes such as Figure Markets and Range. This move is expected to reinforce Stellar’s technological reliability and governance.
Despite these advances and a surge in tokenized real-world asset volumes, volatility in XLM persists. Analysts point out that the network’s evolution does not necessarily translate into direct purchasing demand for XLM, mirroring adoption trends throughout the crypto sector.
Meme Tokens and Market MonitoringDetailed observation of market cycles has become increasingly vital in the crypto sector, especially with the rising prominence of meme tokens. In this space, viral trends can rapidly catch fire, drawing millions of dollars of interest within a matter of days. Data from Fomo App pointed to the example of “Niu Lai,” where an initial purchase of just $99 ballooned to approximately $370,000. For participants, monitoring the timing, investor choices, and price movements is essential. Fomo App aggregates token discovery, social activity, investor rankings, and trade notifications in a unified platform, helping traders keep pace with the swift dynamics of meme coins and investor sentiment.
XLM Price Levels and Broader Macro TrendsBroader conditions in the cryptocurrency market have also weighed on XLM’s performance. Recent data shows Bitcoin’s dominance climbing toward 60%, with overall trading activity in altcoins diminishing, suggesting a shift toward larger, more established cryptocurrencies.
Macroeconomic concerns have added pressure. The US inflation rate rose to 3.7% in September, raising expectations that the Federal Reserve could maintain tighter financial conditions and reduce speculative inflows to digital assets.
Market participants are closely watching the $0.182 to $0.185 zone, historically a region where buyers have emerged. A conclusive move below this range could shift attention to the next psychological support near $0.18, while a sustained recovery above $0.19 would signal the first signs of stabilization. The $0.20 threshold remains a key marker following the recent selloff.
While institutional involvement with the Stellar blockchain is growing, wider adoption does not directly fuel sustained demand for XLM, especially as regulatory shifts, inflation, and competitive pressures continue to shape the market environment.
Stellar, which provides a blockchain designed for payments and financial services, has integrated Chainlink’s oracle services to support DeFi growth across its $4 billion-plus real-world asset ecosystem, giving developers access to market data for lending, trading and collateral management, the companies said Wednesday.
The move means that Chainlink’s Data Feeds and Data Streams are now live on the Stellar network, providing smart contracts with the external market information needed to support financial applications.
Data Feeds can supply prices for collateral valuation, loan-to-value ratios and liquidation mechanisms, while Data Streams offer low-latency pricing designed for trading platforms and derivatives markets that require more timely data. These services could support new DeFi applications, from lending markets and perpetual futures to prediction markets and stablecoin protocols.
The launch could help developers make greater use of the more than $4 billion in tokenized RWAs already hosted on Stellar, according to the announcement.
Chainlink said the availability of its oracle infrastructure removes a key obstacle to developing financial applications on Stellar, supporting functions such as collateral processing, loan-to-value calculations, automated liquidations and stablecoin reference rates. Chainlink’s infrastructure has supported tens of trillions of dollars in onchain transaction value and secured the majority of DeFi.
“The Stellar network’s adoption of Chainlink as its data infrastructure unlocks a new generation of DeFi and tokenized asset applications across its ecosystem. With Data Feeds and Data Streams now available natively, developers have the high-quality, reliable market data needed to build secure lending markets, stablecoins, and tokenized assets and scale them for widespread adoption,” Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs, commented.
Several ecosystem applications have adopted the services at launch. Raja Chakravorti of the Stellar Development Foundation said reliable data and connectivity would help institutional-scale financial markets develop on the network.
The deployment follows Stellar’s participation in the Chainlink Scale program, which involves a capital commitment from Stellar to provide developers with cost-efficient access to Chainlink’s enterprise-grade data infrastructure.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Chainlink is unleashing a new wave of DeFi adoption on the Stellar network. With Chainlink’s Data Feeds and Data Streams now live on Stellar, developers have access to the market data needed to launch secure lending markets, prediction markets, perpetual futures, and other innovative onchain financial applications that connect the Stellar network’s growing real world asset (RWA) ecosystem to DeFi.
The Stellar network already supports $4+ billion in RWAs, but assets moving onchain are only part of the story. These assets also need to be priced, traded, borrowed against, and used as collateral. The next phase is utility and distribution. Chainlink is providing industry-standard data infrastructure required to put more of that value to work securely and reliably.
Through Chainlink, assets and liquidity on the Stellar network become the foundation of a productive DeFi ecosystem where stablecoins, tokenized equities, and other digital assets gain utility as collateral and tradable assets, giving users more ways to put their capital to work. Chainlink creates a powerful engine for the Stellar network’s growth by removing a critical barrier to launching new DeFi applications, enabling developers to build the markets that attract new users and capital.
Enhancing asset utility is the next phase of the lifecycle after asset issuance. This integration gives builders access to the same Chainlink oracle infrastructure that secures the vast majority of DeFi and has enabled tens of trillions of dollars in onchain transaction value.
This launch delivers on the previous announcement about the Chainlink Scale program by giving developers access to Chainlink’s high-quality, enterprise-grade oracle infrastructure.
Leading ecosystem applications are adopting Chainlink data infrastructure on the Stellar network at launch to power critical DeFi functions including collateral processing, loan-to-value calculations, automated liquidations, and stablecoin reference rates.
“The Stellar network’s adoption of Chainlink as its data infrastructure unlocks a new generation of DeFi and tokenized asset applications across its ecosystem. With Data Feeds and Data Streams now available natively, developers have the high-quality, reliable market data needed to build secure lending markets, stablecoins, and tokenized assets and scale them for widespread adoption.”—Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs
“Tokenization is only the beginning. For onchain financial markets to operate at institutional scale, assets need reliable infrastructure for pricing, execution, and movement. Chainlink's oracle infrastructure strengthens that foundation by giving developers access to the data and connectivity required to build next-gen financial applications on Stellar. As these layers mature together, the opportunity shifts from simply issuing assets onchain to putting them to work.”—Raja Chakravorti, Chief Business Officer, Stellar Development Foundation
About StellarThe Stellar network is a decentralized, fast, scalable, and uniquely sustainable blockchain built for financial products and services. It offers builders smart contracts functionality and a protocol optimized for payments, with a design intended to keep fees low and to provide transaction speeds that can scale with increased adoption. Financial institutions and innovators worldwide issue assets and settle payments on the Stellar network, which has processed billions of operations with millions of accounts since the network was first launched.
About ChainlinkChainlink is the industry-standard oracle platform bringing the capital markets onchain and the market leader powering the majority of DeFi. The Chainlink stack provides the essential data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy standards needed to power advanced blockchain use cases for institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, stablecoins, and more. Since inventing decentralized oracle networks, Chainlink has enabled tens of trillions in transaction value and now secures the vast majority of DeFi.
Many of the world’s largest financial services institutions have also adopted Chainlink’s standards and infrastructure, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, S&P Dow Jones Indices, FTSE Russell, WisdomTree, ANZ, and top protocols such as Aave, Polymarket, Lido, Lighter, and many others. Chainlink leverages a novel fee model where offchain and onchain revenue from enterprise adoption is converted to LINK tokens and stored in a strategic Chainlink Reserve. Learn more at chain.link.
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The Stellar blockchain has officially launched the Chainlink Data Feeds and Data Streams oracle infrastructure on its mainnet. The key element of the deal is purely commercial: the Stellar Development Foundation has fully taken over the operating costs of running the oracles under the Chainlink Scale program.
This decision opens external markets to a giant ecosystem of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) worth $3.54 billion, which until today had remained effectively isolated.
.@Chainlink Data Feeds and Data Streams are now live on Stellar. The integration adds new capabilities for builders, helping to put more assets to work across DeFi applications for lending, trading, stablecoins, tokenized equities, and more. https://t.co/7uuH8e6pG6
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— Stellar (@StellarOrg) October 14, 2026 According to the latest data from the analytics tracker RWA.xyz, Stellar ranks fourth in the world among all blockchain platforms by RWA volume, trailing only Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana.
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However, the structure of this capital is specific. It consists exclusively of conservative reserves held by major players, distributed across strictly regulated sectors.
The ecosystem's landscape is defined by the European fintech sector, led by the Spiko platform, which digitized Amundi's interbank swaps in euros, pounds, and francs, as well as Eurozone treasury bills. The American wing is represented by the public sector: secure Ondo Finance products based on US government bonds and the flagship money market fund from the investment giant Franklin Templeton.
Infrastructure liquidity is provided by Circle's regulated dollar stablecoin USDC and Figure's American stablecoin YLDS, registered with the SEC.
Why billions of dollars just sat idle on the blockchainThe thing is, the Soroban smart contracts within Stellar were completely cut off from the outside world. The network held colossal reserves of highly liquid and legitimate assets but could not build a full-fledged financial turnover around them.
They physically could not verify the exact value of these instruments in real time. Billions of dollars sat on the blockchain passively, serving as digital warehouse receipts.
It was impossible to launch even basic instruments against them. For example, it was impossible to use tokenized Ondo bonds as collateral to automatically receive stablecoins, since the system could not instantly calculate the liquidation value of the collateral at the slightest market fluctuation.
Stellar RWA distribution by asset class, Source: RWA.xyzThe Chainlink integration fully removes this technical barrier. Low-latency data streams deliver market quotes to Stellar smart contracts with virtually no delay.
This enables full-fledged automated lending with per-second recalculation of the collateral ratio, allows safe liquidations of large players' positions without the risk of systemic failures, and also creates a foundation for prediction markets and perpetual futures on tokenized stocks.
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Since the volume of RWA transfers on Stellar grew by a quarter over the past month, and stablecoin capitalization rose by 10%, the foundation's decision to subsidize the integration looks like a pragmatic, preemptive commercial move.
By lifting the financial burden from developers, Stellar is trying to wrest the status of the main platform for structured DeFi from the market leaders, turning passive billion-dollar reserves into dynamic working capital.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
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Chainlink price is approaching a key technical test, with traders watching whether LINK can hold $11.50–$13.20 and begin a broader recovery. The weekly chart marks $52.86 as a potential all-time-high target, implying roughly 309% upside from the displayed $12.938 price. Big target, certainly. But the route there has several hurdles.
Chainlink Price Tests Support After ReboundingLINK has rebounded from the $7–$9 demand zone and is now testing the $11.50–$13.20 support area. If buyers defend this range, $14.77 becomes the first level to watch, followed by the $17.81 reclaim zone, per the analyst post.
Above that, $20.93 is another important threshold. A sustained move beyond it, alongside a break of the descending macro trendline, would strengthen the recovery setup. If support fails below $11.50, however, the lower demand zone could come back into focus.
Chainlink Reserve Reaches 6.2 Million LINKThe technical picture isn’t the only development. Chainlink Reserve holdings have reached 6.2 million LINK, with the latest addition recorded on October 8, 2026.
The broader network metrics are also substantial. Chainlink oracles have facilitated a cumulative $36.42 trillion in transaction value, while smart contract applications secured by its oracles hold or have borrowed against $57.9 billion in assets.
CCIP and Oracle Metrics Show Network ScaleChainlink oracles have published 20.28 billion verified outputs on smart contract blockchains. Meanwhile, the fully diluted value of Cross-Chain Tokens integrated with CCIP stands at $85.63 billion, and cumulative asset transfers through CCIP have reached $25.48 billion.
These figures show the scale of activity associated with Chainlink’s infrastructure, which can be useful data points to assess network’s adoption. They don’t, by themselves, guarantee that LINK’s market price will rise. Adoption and token performance aren’t interchangeable.
For now, the Chainlink price prediction hinges on support holding and buyers reclaiming successive resistance levels. A confirmed breakout could put $28.01 and $36.42 into view before the chart’s $52.86 target. Until then, the bullish path remains conditional with better odds, if demand aligns.
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Chainlink, a leading oracle network offering real-time data to smart contracts, has launched its infrastructure on the Stellar blockchain. This development grants Stellar developers access to Chainlink’s Data Feeds and Data Streams, services that provide reliable market data to underpin financial applications built on the network. The integration specifically targets Stellar’s growing real-world asset (RWA) ecosystem, which surpassed $4 billion in tokenized holdings.
Chainlink Data Feeds enhance contract accuracyFollowing the launch, smart contracts on Stellar can utilize Chainlink Data Feeds to obtain up-to-date external asset pricing. These feeds are essential in powering decentralized financial applications such as lending protocols, stablecoins, and systems for collateralization, where accurate asset valuation is crucial for risk management and proper functionality.
Chainlink’s documentation notes that Stellar implements a single proxy contract for selecting data feeds, relying on a 32-byte data identifier rather than individual contract addresses, as seen on some other blockchains. Several major pricing pairs are supported, including BTC/USD, ETH/USD, LINK/USD, XLM/USD, USDC/USD, and USDT/USD.
Chainlink Data Feeds now bring real-world asset prices directly into Stellar smart contracts, supporting tokenized lending, stablecoin management, and newer forms of onchain finance.
Stellar’s RWA market highlights demand for oraclesStellar, an open-source network focused on payments and tokenization, reported that more than $4 billion in real-world assets were represented as tokens on the network as of September 1, 2026. This ecosystem spans 67 tokenized products issued by 10 regulated organizations. One notable example is the BENJI fund by Franklin Templeton, which managed approximately $605 million in tokenized assets on Stellar as of October 6, 2026. Such figures underline the need for reliable price infrastructure as more traditional financial instruments migrate to blockchain environments.
Onchain tokenization does not eliminate the requirement for accurate market data. Lending protocols must continually assess collateral and manage liquidation risks, and the presence of dependable pricing feeds is key to achieving these objectives. While Chainlink’s integration is designed to facilitate more sophisticated financial services, ultimate adoption depends on the willingness of developers to implement these tools in their applications.
Mini dictionary: Real-World Assets (RWA) are tangible assets, such as bonds, funds, or real estate, that are represented as digital tokens on a blockchain, making them accessible for trading and new forms of decentralized finance.
MetricStellar RWA MarketTotal Tokenized Assets$4 billionNumber of Tokenized Products67Regulated Issuers10Franklin Templeton BENJI Fund$605 millionChainlink Scale program lowers integration costsThe integration also introduces the Chainlink Scale program to the Stellar network. Through Scale, Stellar is committing funding to help offset oracle costs for its ecosystem developers, aiming to make high-quality data services more affordable. This incentive is designed to encourage innovation and experimentation among developer teams but does not ensure that newly created applications will succeed in attracting users or liquidity.
The move comes as competition intensifies among oracle service providers to support tokenized financial services. Stellar has also referenced the recent introduction of Pyth Network’s pricing feeds, highlighting the importance of diverse and independent sources for data. Developers are expected to evaluate offerings not just on price, but on reliability, breadth of data coverage, frequency of updates, and performance during periods of market disagreement.
Expanding options with Data Streams and interoperabilityChainlink Data Streams are simultaneously becoming available, delivering low-latency price data required for high-frequency trading and derivatives applications. With access to both Data Feeds and Data Streams, Stellar-based projects now have tools for a wider range of financial innovations.
In addition, the Stellar Development Foundation has announced plans to adopt Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), a tool designed to facilitate the transfer of assets between Stellar and other blockchain ecosystems. However, the foundation stated that CCIP integration is still in progress and is distinct from the live status of Data Feeds and Data Streams.
Stellar’s roadmap includes adopting Chainlink’s CCIP to enable seamless asset movement across different blockchains, though this feature remains under development.
If implemented, CCIP could increase the utility and mobility of tokenized assets by connecting Stellar to a broader network of chains. Security, regulation, and end-user demand will continue to play central roles in driving adoption as new cross-chain capabilities come online.
Stellar now has a native price oracle. On October 14, 2026, Chainlink’s Data Feeds and Data Streams went live on Stellar mainnet, giving developers on the network a built-in source of market data for decentralized finance applications.
The timing was awkward for anyone watching the chart. XLM’s seven-day loss reached 7.85% around the announcement, which is a fairly blunt reminder that infrastructure news and price action rarely move together.
What Stellar actually shipped
Chainlink is supplying two products here, Data Feeds and Data Streams. Both are aimed at the plumbing that DeFi apps depend on, including collateral valuation, automated liquidations and stablecoin reference rates.
The launch is built to serve lending, trading and derivatives applications from day one. A bad price feed in any of those categories can turn a routine market dip into a cascade of wrongful liquidations, so the quality of the data source matters a great deal.
Chainlink brings a long track record to that job. Its oracles have historically secured the majority of DeFi and facilitated tens of trillions in onchain transaction volume.
The Scale program and who pays the bill
The integration did not appear out of nowhere. In October 2025, Stellar committed to joining the Chainlink Scale program, which covers both data tools and the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, known as CCIP.
The Stellar Development Foundation (SDF) is subsidizing oracle operations under the program, which lowers the cost for developers who want to build on top of the feeds.
Johann Eid, Chainlink’s Chief Business Officer, framed the adoption as a significant milestone. He pointed to new possibilities for DeFi capabilities and for applications built around tokenized assets on Stellar.
Why the RWA angle matters
The network already hosts over $4 billion in tokenized RWAs, though some reports place the figure between $3.54 billion and $4 billion. Either way, it is a sizable pool of assets sitting on a chain that, until now, lacked native Chainlink pricing.
That gap limited what those assets could do. A tokenized asset that cannot be reliably priced on-chain is hard to use as collateral, hard to lend against and hard to trade in automated markets.
The market shrugged
Traders did not reward the news. XLM declined roughly 7-10% during the week of the announcement and was trading around $0.19 by mid-October 2026.
What this means for Stellar and its rivals
For developers, the SDF subsidy removes a real cost barrier, and the use cases supported at launch cover collateral processing, automated liquidations, stablecoin rates, lending, trading, and derivatives.
Native oracle support from a widely used provider is close to table stakes for any chain that wants to host serious lending and derivatives activity, and Stellar now checks that box.
The most concrete things to watch are new lending and derivatives protocols launching on Stellar, growth in how much of the RWA pool gets used as collateral, and whether the CCIP portion of the Scale commitment follows the data services onto mainnet.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Holders in Italy, Portugal, and Singapore each own a larger share of geolocated tokenized US Treasury value than US holders, according to Chainalysis. The US ranks fourth at 10.5%.
Its 2026 North America report argues that foreign stablecoin and tokenized Treasury buyers add demand for US debt.
A Retail Route Into a Wholesale MarketTokenized Treasury debt grew 125% in the 12 months ending July 1, 2026, from $6.86 billion to $15.42 billion. US government debt was the largest real-world asset (RWA) on-chain, holding 42.8% of all tokenized RWA value. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund retook the top spot among these products in late August.
Most geolocated value sits outside the US. Holders in Italy account for 29.9%, followed by Portugal at 18.8% and Singapore at 18.2%.
Japanese holders make up 16.4% of geolocated holders, the most of any country, but just 0.4% of value. Chainalysis says a small group of large foreign holders drives the market, while a broader retail base builds smaller positions.
Tokenized Treasury Holdings by Country. Source: ChainalysisTokenization shrinks the minimum investment and removes the need for a US brokerage account, the report says. That lets retail investors in Lisbon or Singapore buy a wholesale instrument directly, the report adds.
These buyers tend to hold tokenized Treasuries rather than post them as collateral, the report finds. Treasury lending activity contracted 23% over the period, the only RWA lending category to shrink.
“A holder outside the United States who buys a tokenized Treasury product is creating demand for US government debt rather than for their own government’s,” Chainalysis added.
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Digital Dollars Take the Same PathStablecoins open a second channel for that foreign demand. Tokens from American issuers are backed largely by short-dated US government debt. As a result, dollar stablecoins bought abroad also feed demand for that debt, the report notes.
Dollar tokens also dominate the market. They account for 99.1% of stablecoin order book volume, while euro stablecoins hold just 0.45%. Euro tokens trail even after the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation improved conditions for their issuers.
Circle’s USD Coin (USDC) gives a sense of that scale. The US-based issuer reported $73.3 billion in circulation at quarter end, up 19% from a year earlier.
The preference for dollar tokens also holds in Canada. By June 2026, stablecoins made up 44% of Canadian dollar order book trading, up from 30% a year earlier. USDC led that share, while little trading flowed to Canadian dollar stablecoins.
For Morva Rohani, executive director of the Canadian Web3 Council, that shift comes at Canada’s expense. She said dollar stablecoin purchases build demand for US government debt that Canadian debt could otherwise capture.
“This is a trend that Canadian policy-makers are following closely,” Rohani noted.
Ottawa has laid the groundwork for local alternatives. Canada’s Stablecoin Act received Royal Assent on March 26, 2026, clearing the way for Canadian dollar tokens. The full regime still depends on supporting regulations.
For now, Canadian dollar stablecoins remain tiny next to their US dollar rivals. Chainalysis says local alternatives will need market uptake, not just new laws, to catch up.
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StarkWare has opened OffMarket to the public, allowing users to trade on Polymarket without publicly linking their positions to existing accounts. The service has been in limited beta testing since August, leveraging zero-knowledge technology and sharing a privacy pool on Starknet. Current per-account deposit limits are set at 1,000 USDC, with adjustments planned based on demand. Prediction orders still execute on Polymarket with the same counterparties and at identical market prices. The service is non-custodial, with user keys remaining stored locally in users’ browsers. Additionally, Polymarket transaction records are public on Polygon, with positions, order sizes, and trading history all viewable. OffMarket still does not fully prevent others from inferring a trader’s identity through trade size or timing, as market quotes and executions themselves remain public. This product is not an official Polymarket offering, has no formal partnership or special access privileges, and is part of Polymarket’s Verified Builder Program, retaining its geographic restrictions including a ban on U.S. users. Independent compliance firm Financial Privacy Inc. holds the master viewing key for sanction screening and required disclosures under lawful requests. L2BEAT data shows that the shared privacy pool on Starknet currently holds approximately $1.5 million in total value across 17,000 deposits.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Standard Chartered Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick said in a Wednesday report that he still forecasts the stablecoin market capitalization will hit $2 trillion, but the timeline for reaching that target has been pushed back from 2028 to 2030 due to stalled supply growth this year. Over the past 12 months, stablecoin supply has hovered roughly between $300 billion and $320 billion, and currently stands at around $309 billion. Kendrick attributes the slowdown to cyclical rather than structural factors, linked to the weak crypto market, noting that similar historical phases are typically followed by expansion as market conditions recover. The report also highlights that stablecoin usage continues to grow: this year’s average monthly on-chain transaction volume is nearly $10 trillion, up from $4 trillion in 2025, with a record of around $19 trillion logged in May alone. Average monthly turnover has risen from roughly 15 times in 2025 to around 30 times currently. USDT has an average monthly turnover of about 7 times, and is mostly used for U.S. dollar savings in emerging markets. USDC’s average monthly turnover has climbed from around 45 times to roughly 80 times, with the stablecoin increasingly utilized for payments, financial transactions, and payments between early-stage AI agents.
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Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 has generated a total of $75 million in cumulative revenue, with $37.5 million going to deployers and the remaining $37.5 million allocated for repurchasing and burning Hyperliquid’s native token. HIP-3, the Builder-deployed perpetual contract mechanism, allows eligible deployers to launch their own perpetual markets on Hyperliquid: they can define oracles, contract specifications, and manage operations, while leveraging the protocol’s core infrastructure such as order books and liquidation systems. Fees from these markets are typically split 50/50 between deployers and the protocol, with the protocol’s revenue share used for token repurchases and burns.
Beating AI Express News: xAI has launched its speech-to-speech model Grok Voice 3.0, claiming it ranks first on the Speech-to-Speech Index in an independent test by Artificial Analysis, scoring 86.9 points—higher than Grok Voice 2.0 (81.3), GPT-Live-1 (83.2), and Gemini 3.8 Live (82.6). The model also features end-to-end latency of under 1 second. It is now available via the Voice Agent API, priced at $0.08 per minute, matching the previous generation; agents using the "grok-voice-latest" tag will automatically switch to the new model. According to xAI, Grok Voice handles millions of daily conversations for Tesla and SpaceX: Starlink’s customer service center receives around 20,000 calls daily, with roughly 70% resolved without human intervention, and about a quarter of sales calls resulting in a purchase before the call ends. On benchmarks, Grok Voice scores 74% accuracy on ServiceNow EVA-Bench and 71.6% on τ-Voice, which the company says is comparable to GPT-Live-1 but with roughly 40% lower latency.
4 hours ago
White House Crypto Committee 'effectively defunct' as Executive Director Patrick Witt’s secondment is set to expire.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett said she emailed the White House three times over the past week to inquire whether Patrick Witt still serves as executive director of the White House Crypto Council, and received no reply. Witt himself declined to comment.
Sources familiar with the matter disclosed that Witt, a U.S. Department of Defense employee temporarily seconded to the White House Crypto Council, has reached or is nearing the end of his secondment, with his reappointment status unclear. Earlier this year, he delayed his service in the Georgia National Guard, and is expected to resume his military service soon.
Terrett added that Harry Jung, deputy director of the White House Crypto Council, left his post at the end of July, and after David Sacks’ tenure as Crypto and AI “tsar” concluded, Witt is now the only remaining staff member of the council.
The crypto policy community is now debating: after the CLARITY Act (officially the Crypto Market Structure Act) failed to advance in the Senate, whether the White House still prioritizes the crypto industry.
The relevant personnel changes have not yet been officially confirmed by the White House.
4 hours ago
US stocks slump, with the optical communication sector leading the decline; semiconductor, storage, and crypto-related stocks all fall across the board, and Strategy drops 5.8%.
According to market data from BIT (bit.com), during U.S. stock trading hours, the S&P 500 index’s decline widened to 1.1%, the Nasdaq fell 1.64%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.3%. Semiconductor, storage, optical communication, and crypto-related stocks all fell across the board, with the optical communication sector leading losses, as most major individual stocks in the sector declined by over 7%. In the semiconductor and storage sectors: Seagate Technology (STX) fell 2.8%; Western Digital (WDC) dropped 3.2%; SanDisk (SNDK) declined 4.7%; Micron Technology (MU) fell 3.3%; NVIDIA (NVDA) dropped 2.9%; Intel (INTC) fell 4.2%; Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) declined 5.3%. Among crypto-related stocks: Strategy (MSTR) fell 5.8%; Coinbase (COIN) dropped 4.6%; Circle (CRCL) declined 6.4%; BitMine Immersion (BMNR) fell 5.3%; SharpLink Gaming (SBET) dropped 7.4%. In the optical communication sector: Pure Photonics ETF (FOTO) fell 6.2%; Marvell Technology (MRVL) dropped 5.8%; AAOI (Applied Optoelectronics) declined 9.8%; LITE (Lumentum Holdings) fell 7.2%; COHR (Coherent Corp.) dropped 7.8%; CIEN (Ciena Corporation) declined 7.8%.
4 hours ago
USDC designated as EU's first 'systemically important e-money token'
The European Banking Authority (EBA) announced that it has classified USDC, issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, as an Important Electronic Money Token (EMT) under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. To date, 45 EMTs in the EU have completed notification under MiCA, with USDC being the first to be designated as an Important EMT. Starting November 12, 2026, USDC will be subject to dual supervision for Important EMTs under MiCA: direct regulatory responsibilities for own funds, asset reserves, liquidity requirements, and recovery and redemption plans will be transferred from the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) to the EBA; ACPR will retain oversight of governance, qualifying holdings, suitability assessments, outsourcing, and conflicts of interest. USDC is issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS in the EU and Circle Internet Financial, LLC in the U.S. The EBA has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the New York State Department of Financial Services to facilitate cooperation and information exchange on cross-border stablecoin activities.
Circle built its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol to do one job: move USDC between blockchains. That job description just got longer.
CCTP has now handled more than $100 million in cross-chain volume for assets other than USDC, including cirBTC, EURC and WETH. The milestone arrived shortly after Circle switched on multi-asset support in September 2026. In other words, this was not a slow multi-year climb. It happened within weeks.
How Circle’s CCTP moves tokens without wrapping them CCTP uses a burn-and-mint model, destroying tokens on the source chain and creating the same amount fresh on the destination chain. Users end up holding the real asset, not a stand-in. There is no wrapped version to track, and no liquidity pool that needs to be stocked for the transfer to go through.
A September rollout in three acts The expansion began on September 2, 2026, when CCTP added native EURC transfers. Circle’s euro stablecoin started out on routes between Ethereum and Base, then extended to Arc, a network aimed at institutions.
Next came cirBTC. The token, which is backed 1:1 by Bitcoin, launched on Arc on September 21, 2026. Native cirBTC transfers through CCTP were switched on just days later, on September 23-24, 2026.
The third piece is WETH, the wrapped form of Ether that many DeFi apps use as a building block. CCTP now supports select third-party assets, and WETH is the headline example. WETH carries particular weight in lending applications within the Arc ecosystem, such as Aave V4.
The full supported list now reads USDC, EURC, cirBTC and WETH, plus whatever other third-party tokens Circle chooses to admit.
Putting $100 million in context Over its lifetime, CCTP has processed more than $110 billion in cumulative volume across all supported assets. Next to that figure, $100 million in non-USDC transfers is a small slice.
The broader CCTP toolkit has also been getting heavier. Its V2 release added Fast Transfers, which speed up settlement, and Hooks, which let developers trigger actions automatically once funds arrive on the destination chain. The protocol is also adding blockchains. Sui is slated to join in October 2026.
Background: from stablecoin plumbing to multi-asset rails CCTP started life as Circle’s answer to a specific headache. USDC existed on many chains, but moving it between them often meant relying on third-party bridges and their wrapped versions of the token. By handling the burn and the mint itself, Circle could keep USDC native everywhere. The September expansion applies that same playbook to a growing portfolio of Circle-issued tokens and a handful of outside assets.
For developers, multiple assets can now be supported through a single CCTP integration, rather than wiring up a separate bridge for each token.
What this means for Circle, developers and DeFi Arc is the other thread to watch. Both EURC and cirBTC were routed to the institution-focused network early, and WETH’s role in Arc lending markets like Aave V4 hints at where Circle hopes the activity concentrates.
There are real tradeoffs to weigh. Burn-and-mint transfers concentrate trust in the issuer and the protocol running the attestations, and the third-party asset list is selected by Circle rather than open to anyone.
The near-term markers are straightforward. Watch whether non-USDC volume keeps compounding after the launch novelty fades, whether more third-party tokens get approved, and whether the Sui integration lands on its October 2026 timeline.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
At 13:00 UTC on October 14, 2026, EQX Labs introduced 11 tokenized U.S. equity markets that it plans to issue as HIP-1 tokens on HyperCore. The set covers $SPY, $QQQ, $AAPL, $AMZN, $GOOGL, $META, $MSFT, $NVDA, $TSLA, $MU and $SPCX. EQX says the markets will trade against $USDC on Hyperliquid’s public spot order book, but its documentation states that trading is not live yet and gives no launch date.
The tokens are issued by EQX SPC Ltd., a British Virgin Islands segregated portfolio company. Each token is legally an unsecured, limited-recourse participating debt instrument, rather than the underlying share. Each ticker has a separate portfolio whose assets and obligations are kept apart from the other portfolios. The issuer is owned by the EQX STAR Trust, a Cayman purpose trust with independent governance, and EQX Labs provides technology services under an agreement with the issuer.
EQX says each token will be backed 1:1 by shares of the relevant company or fund. Those shares will sit in custody accounts held in the issuer’s name at Alpaca Securities, Clear Street and StoneX Financial. The backing can include settled shares and shares in flight from an authorized participant, with delivery due by the next U.S. business day. EQX says its launch dashboard will separate settled and in-flight positions and publish the brokers’ statements.
That split gives users two different backing states to monitor. Settled shares are already at a custodian. In-flight shares are still due from an authorized participant on the next U.S. business day. The broker statements and dashboard should therefore show whether reported backing has completed delivery or remains pending. The announcement does not describe a holder action for delayed delivery.
How creation and holder rights work Authorized participants will create tokens by delivering shares and redeem tokens for shares. EQX charges no issuer fee for creation or redemption. When a token trades above the backing value, an authorized participant can buy shares, create tokens and sell them. When it trades below backing value, the participant can buy tokens, redeem them and sell the shares. This mechanism can align prices while U.S. equity markets are open, when the underlying shares are available for arbitrage.
Other holders cannot redeem directly with the issuer. They buy and sell on Hyperliquid’s order book. The trading venue, rather than the issuer, will therefore set the available liquidity. EQX says it adds no fee to holding or secondary trading, although traders still pay Hyperliquid’s standard spot fee and an app may add its own charge. EQX instead receives a share of the trading fees that Hyperliquid pays to HIP-1 deployers. This separates the retail exit from the share-redemption process: a holder sells to another order-book participant, while an authorized participant handles conversion between tokens and shares.
The holder documentation distinguishes the token from a brokerage share in several ways. EQX tokens are not covered by SIPC or deposit insurance. A holder has a limited-recourse debt claim against the issuer for one ticker’s segregated portfolio, not equity in the company or fund. The token terms require redemption in shares rather than cash. That structure makes the quality and availability of the backing, the authorized participants and the issuer’s compliance central to the product.
Dividends will initially buy more of the same shares after applicable withholding and broker costs. The shares-per-token ratio starts at 1.0 and increases as dividends are reinvested. EQX’s comparison table specifies 30% U.S. withholding at the issuer. Stock splits will change the ratio. For other corporate actions, including mergers, EQX says it will announce the planned treatment in advance.
Token holders can submit voting instructions by signing with the wallet that holds the tokens. EQX says it will use reasonable endeavours to follow those instructions. The arrangement passes an instruction to the issuer, rather than making the token holder the registered shareholder.
What changes for Hyperliquid users The planned markets put equity exposure on HyperCore beside Hyperliquid’s existing spot and derivatives markets. Orders will go directly to a public order book rather than through a broker. EQX says transfers and on-chain settlement complete in under a second. The markets are designed to operate 24/7/365, including when U.S. exchanges are closed. During those closed hours, authorized participants cannot perform the share-side leg of the arbitrage described by EQX, so the documentation does not establish that token prices will track shares continuously.
For DeFi operators, the tokens create prospective collateral and vault assets with equity-linked economics. EQX says public token IDs and backing data will let apps list, price or lend against the tokens without an EQX account, API key or issuer fee. HyperEVM use depends on a contract address being listed in the token registry. Protocols considering these assets will still need to account for off-hours price formation, the issuer claim, custody status and restrictions on who may hold them.
The eligibility restrictions are material. EQX says the tokens are not offered to U.S. persons, people in the United States, British Virgin Islands residents or persons there, or sanctioned persons. Eligible users need a wallet funded with $USDC on Hyperliquid, with no EQX account or identity check. The official token ID matters because anyone can copy a market name.
Trading remains the next unresolved milestone. EQX has published the issuer structure, the first 11 tickers and the intended mechanics, but it has not stated when the order books will open, which authorized participants will be active at launch or how much settled backing each market will begin with.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Standard Chartered says stablecoin transaction activity continues to grow even as the market’s overall value has stalled, suggesting existing stablecoins are circulating more frequently rather than new supply driving growth.
In a report shared with Cointelegraph, the bank said it now expects stablecoin market capitalization to reach $2 trillion by 2030, two years later than initially projected, after the market plateaued at roughly $309 billion this year.
Geoffrey Kendrick, StanChart’s head of digital assets research, said stablecoin usage continues to expand despite slower supply growth, with existing stablecoins changing hands more frequently as their use cases diversify.
Kendrick identified four distinct markets, each with different competitive dynamics. Tether’s USDt (USDT) dominates emerging-market savings, while Circle’s USDC (USDC) leads developed-market payments. USDC and Ethena’s USDe have established strong positions in crypto trading, while USDC also leads the much smaller market for transactions between AI agents.
The bank expects the most intense competition in developed market payments, where challengers such as USDG, M^0 and multibank stablecoin networks are pursuing alternatives to existing payment infrastructure.
According to Kendrick, how issuers and payment networks divide the yield generated by stablecoin reserves could ultimately determine which competitors gain market share.
Source: US regulatory and accounting changes could shape stablecoin useStandard Chartered’s revised forecast comes as regulatory and accounting developments in the United States could influence how businesses use stablecoins.
Since the GENIUS Act passed in 2025, US regulators have proposed rules governing stablecoin issuance, reserve requirements and consumer protections. Some measures have also clarified the limits of those protections, including a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) proposal that would exclude stablecoin holders from pass-through deposit insurance.
The Treasury Department has also advanced implementation of the law. In August, it proposed rules restricting stablecoin issuance in the United States to federally or state-authorized issuers, with the licensing requirements expected to take effect in January 2027.
Separately, in August, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), which sets US accounting standards, proposed an update that could affect how companies report certain stablecoins on their balance sheets.
Blockchain payments company Tempo said the proposed changes could make it easier for businesses to use stablecoins for payments and settlement without introducing additional accounting complications.
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) announced that it has classified USDC, issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, as an Important Electronic Money Token (EMT) under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. To date, 45 EMTs in the EU have completed notification under MiCA, with USDC being the first to be designated as an Important EMT. Starting November 12, 2026, USDC will be subject to dual supervision for Important EMTs under MiCA: direct regulatory responsibilities for own funds, asset reserves, liquidity requirements, and recovery and redemption plans will be transferred from the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR) to the EBA; ACPR will retain oversight of governance, qualifying holdings, suitability assessments, outsourcing, and conflicts of interest. USDC is issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS in the EU and Circle Internet Financial, LLC in the U.S. The EBA has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the New York State Department of Financial Services to facilitate cooperation and information exchange on cross-border stablecoin activities.
Relevant content
Ledger: German retail and distribution inventory devices show no signs of tampering, and no financial loss reports have been received across Europe.
Hardware wallet provider Ledger’s security team Donjon has updated on a German-related report, stating that after receiving a report from a German user, it inspected inventory devices at retail outlets and distributors in the country, including products at the named stores, and found no signs of tampering. Ledger also noted that there have been no reports of financial losses linked to hardware implants across Europe. Separately, regarding the suspected abnormal devices circulating online, the security team has not obtained physical units for testing. It has now invited holders of such devices to send them to Ledger’s security team for further analysis, with investigation results to be made public.
4 hours ago
Hyperliquid HIP-3 Cumulative Revenue Reaches $75 Million
Hyperliquid’s HIP-3 has generated a total of $75 million in cumulative revenue, with $37.5 million going to deployers and the remaining $37.5 million allocated for repurchasing and burning Hyperliquid’s native token. HIP-3, the Builder-deployed perpetual contract mechanism, allows eligible deployers to launch their own perpetual markets on Hyperliquid: they can define oracles, contract specifications, and manage operations, while leveraging the protocol’s core infrastructure such as order books and liquidation systems. Fees from these markets are typically split 50/50 between deployers and the protocol, with the protocol’s revenue share used for token repurchases and burns.
Beating AI Express News: xAI has launched its speech-to-speech model Grok Voice 3.0, claiming it ranks first on the Speech-to-Speech Index in an independent test by Artificial Analysis, scoring 86.9 points—higher than Grok Voice 2.0 (81.3), GPT-Live-1 (83.2), and Gemini 3.8 Live (82.6). The model also features end-to-end latency of under 1 second. It is now available via the Voice Agent API, priced at $0.08 per minute, matching the previous generation; agents using the "grok-voice-latest" tag will automatically switch to the new model. According to xAI, Grok Voice handles millions of daily conversations for Tesla and SpaceX: Starlink’s customer service center receives around 20,000 calls daily, with roughly 70% resolved without human intervention, and about a quarter of sales calls resulting in a purchase before the call ends. On benchmarks, Grok Voice scores 74% accuracy on ServiceNow EVA-Bench and 71.6% on τ-Voice, which the company says is comparable to GPT-Live-1 but with roughly 40% lower latency.
4 hours ago
White House Crypto Committee 'effectively defunct' as Executive Director Patrick Witt’s secondment is set to expire.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett said she emailed the White House three times over the past week to inquire whether Patrick Witt still serves as executive director of the White House Crypto Council, and received no reply. Witt himself declined to comment.
Sources familiar with the matter disclosed that Witt, a U.S. Department of Defense employee temporarily seconded to the White House Crypto Council, has reached or is nearing the end of his secondment, with his reappointment status unclear. Earlier this year, he delayed his service in the Georgia National Guard, and is expected to resume his military service soon.
Terrett added that Harry Jung, deputy director of the White House Crypto Council, left his post at the end of July, and after David Sacks’ tenure as Crypto and AI “tsar” concluded, Witt is now the only remaining staff member of the council.
The crypto policy community is now debating: after the CLARITY Act (officially the Crypto Market Structure Act) failed to advance in the Senate, whether the White House still prioritizes the crypto industry.
The relevant personnel changes have not yet been officially confirmed by the White House.
4 hours ago
US stocks slump, with the optical communication sector leading the decline; semiconductor, storage, and crypto-related stocks all fall across the board, and Strategy drops 5.8%.
According to market data from BIT (bit.com), during U.S. stock trading hours, the S&P 500 index’s decline widened to 1.1%, the Nasdaq fell 1.64%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.3%. Semiconductor, storage, optical communication, and crypto-related stocks all fell across the board, with the optical communication sector leading losses, as most major individual stocks in the sector declined by over 7%. In the semiconductor and storage sectors: Seagate Technology (STX) fell 2.8%; Western Digital (WDC) dropped 3.2%; SanDisk (SNDK) declined 4.7%; Micron Technology (MU) fell 3.3%; NVIDIA (NVDA) dropped 2.9%; Intel (INTC) fell 4.2%; Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) declined 5.3%. Among crypto-related stocks: Strategy (MSTR) fell 5.8%; Coinbase (COIN) dropped 4.6%; Circle (CRCL) declined 6.4%; BitMine Immersion (BMNR) fell 5.3%; SharpLink Gaming (SBET) dropped 7.4%. In the optical communication sector: Pure Photonics ETF (FOTO) fell 6.2%; Marvell Technology (MRVL) dropped 5.8%; AAOI (Applied Optoelectronics) declined 9.8%; LITE (Lumentum Holdings) fell 7.2%; COHR (Coherent Corp.) dropped 7.8%; CIEN (Ciena Corporation) declined 7.8%.
4 hours ago
OpenAI accuses a former employee of leaking confidential data before joining Apple, as the intellectual property rights dispute escalates once more.
According to Reuters, OpenAI has accused a former employee of sending more than 100 files related to the company’s unreleased devices to his personal account before leaving to join Apple, and subsequently presenting the relevant products to Apple’s senior management. Apple had earlier filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging the latter stole trade secrets of its unreleased hardware products, marking a further escalation of the intellectual property dispute over hardware technology between the two parties.
Standard Chartered has pushed back its $2 trillion stablecoin market forecast to 2030 from 2028, citing stalled supply growth even as actual usage keeps climbing.
Standard Chartered Global Head of Digital Assets Research Geoffrey Kendrick wrote in a Wednesday report cited by The Block that stablecoin supply has held steady between $300 billion and $320 billion over the past 12 months, currently sitting near $309 billion.
Kendrick called the slowdown cyclical rather than structural, since it coincided with weak broader crypto market activity rather than any fundamental breakdown in demand.
Why Stablecoin Usage Still Looks Strong Despite the PauseTransaction activity tells a different story than supply. Kendrick said raw on-chain transfer value hit a monthly record of $19 trillion in May, with monthly volume averaging just under $10 trillion so far this year, up from $4 trillion in 2025.
Stablecoin velocity, which measures how many times each dollar changes hands, has also doubled:
Overall velocity: roughly 30 times this year, up from 15 times in 2025
USDT (CRYPTO: USDT) velocity: stayed flat near 7 times
USDC (CRYPTO: USDC) velocity: jumped from 45 times to around 80 times
Kendrick traced that gap to different use cases. USDT mainly serves as a dollar-savings tool in emerging markets, while USDC sees heavier use in payments and early transactions between AI agents.
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Kendrick expects the sharpest competition to emerge in developed-market payments and transactions. He flagged three potential challengers worth watching:
Open USD (OUSD), similar to Global Dollar Network’s USDG, aimed at trading venues
M^0, a stablecoin infrastructure provider built for longer-run growth
A+, a planned network letting banks issue a shared stablecoin while keeping the income from reserves
Kendrick told The Block this segment is “the most contested going forward,” with yield-sharing terms ultimately deciding the winners.
Kendrick named regulation as the primary threat to his $2 trillion forecast.
The outcome hinges on whether other countries follow the U.S. GENIUS Act’s lead, set to take effect in January 2027.
How This Ties to Kendrick’s Broader Tokenization ThesisAs Benzinga reported earlier this month, Kendrick told the Milk Road podcast that stablecoins proving blockchain can replace real-world financial infrastructure convinced him to build cash flow models for tokenization-linked altcoins instead of XRP (CRYPTO: XRP):
Uniswap (CRYPTO: UNI)
Aave (CRYPTO: AAVE)
Arbitrum (CRYPTO: ARB)
Chainlink (CRYPTO: LINK)
His $2 trillion stablecoin forecast, paired with a matching $2 trillion target for tokenized assets, anchors that entire thesis.
Standard Chartered’s revised timeline still sits well below some rival estimates.
Meanwhile, as Benzinga reported earlier, Bernstein projected stablecoins could reach $4 trillion by 2035, while Citi’s base case points to $1.9 trillion by 2030, with a bullish scenario reaching $4 trillion over the same stretch.
Circle has a new customer segment in mind, and it does not have a pulse.
In an October 12, 2026 appearance on the NYSE/ICE House Podcast, Circle Chief Commercial Officer Kash Razzaghi described AI agents as a fresh category of buyer. He also argued that these agents gravitate toward USDC for a handful of practical reasons.
What Razzaghi laid out Razzaghi framed USDC’s appeal around three priorities that matter to machines more than to people: programmability, low transaction costs, and availability at any hour.
Circle’s own figures suggest the pitch is landing. As of mid-October 2026, the company reported 165 million transactions involving approximately 80,000 agents.
Circle also reported that USDC accounted for 99-99.8% of transaction value on the x402 protocol, a payments standard used for these agent-driven transactions.
Cost is a big part of the story. Circle says USDC enables near-zero-cost settlement, with transactions as small as $0.000001.
AI agents are becoming new customers that prefer USDC based on three key priorities.
That framing, shared alongside the interview, captures how Circle wants the market to see this shift. Agents are not just tools that move money on someone’s behalf. In Circle’s telling, they are customers in their own right.
The Agent Stack behind the numbers The figures Razzaghi cited trace back to a product launch earlier in the year. On May 11, 2026, Circle rolled out its Agent Stack, a suite of tools built specifically for autonomous AI agents.
The stack has four main pieces: Agent Wallets, an Agent Marketplace, the Circle CLI, and nanopayments.
The wallets give agents somewhere to hold funds, while the marketplace gives them somewhere to spend them. The CLI lets developers work with Circle’s tools directly from code rather than through a dashboard. Nanopayments handle the ultra-small transactions that make machine-to-machine commerce viable.
Together, the tools are meant to let agents transact programmatically across different chains and protocols. Traditional payment methods typically carry higher costs and onboarding hurdles, which Circle argues makes them a nonstarter for high-frequency machine-to-machine transactions.
What this means for Circle and the agentic economy Circle is trying to make USDC the default settlement asset for what it calls the agentic economy, and the early data gives it a credible claim to that position.
That said, the numbers deserve some context. Roughly 165 million transactions sounds enormous, but when individual payments can be as small as $0.000001, transaction count and economic value are very different measurements.
There is also the question of concentration. A market where one stablecoin captures 99-99.8% of transaction value on a key protocol means the agent economy’s payment layer leans heavily on a single issuer.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has classified Circle’s USDC stablecoin as a significant e-money token under the region’s Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework.
In a Wednesday notice, the banking regulator said the e-money token classification, granted to only 45 other projects, effectively means the USDC stablecoin will be jointly overseen by the EBA and France’s supervisory authority, the Autorité de Contrôle Prudentiel et de Résolution. The stablecoin is the second largest by market capitalization, at $73 billion compared to Tether USDt’s $184 billion.
The “significant“ classification came as many EU-based token issuers pushed for regulated US dollar-pegged stablecoins in the region. Stable Mint CEO James Bennett told Cointelegraph that while Europe couldn’t “wish away“ dollar stablecoins, regulators could control safeguards and rules for issuers.
“For European corporates to make cross-border payments globally, offering only a euro stablecoin isn’t enough,” AllUnity CEO Alexander Höptner told Cointelegraph.
As authorities and issuers move closer to embracing dollar stablecoins, policymakers at the European Central Bank continue to explore the potential introduction of a digital euro. The EU authority first proposed the central bank digital currency in 2020, with the potential to issue the coin in 2029 after the conclusion of legislation and a pilot program.
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
