DeFi News Hub

Circle's Arc blockchain testnet goes live with BlackRock, Visa, and 100+ companies—aiming to be the internet's financial operating system.

The prediction protocol is launching new markets built for speed and simplicity, alongside localized experiences including Mandarin.

The central bank warned that private stablecoin issuers lack the institutional trust needed for stable currency, citing depegging risks.

By suing first, Kalshi controls the narrative to focus on federal preemption rather than contract legality, Decrypt was told.

Democrat Ro Khanna called Trump’s pardon of Binance founder Zhao “blatant corruption” as he pushes to ban politicians from trading crypto.

Bitcoin’s climb to $116,000 has spurred a wave of leveraged bets ahead of Wednesday’s Fed decision, as traders brace for another rate cut.

With beefed-up security, tokenized stocks, crypto travel bookings and a meme coin launchpad, Gate is offering users a more rounded experience.

Argentines gambled by swapping pesos for dollar stablecoins this weekend as the local currency fluctuated in price.

The small-cap coin trenches have been struggling since the TRUMP memecoin launch in January, but there are renewed signs of life in the artificial intelligence (AI) coin space, driven by the Virtuals ecosystem and the rise of x402 protocols.

VIRTUAL is up 84% over the last week, and leading coins in its ecosystem, such as TIBBIR and AIXBT, are up 27% and 54% in the same timeframe, likely catalyzed by Coinbase providing its users access to all Virtuals-based AI agent tokens on Oct. 24.

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Ohio lawmakers introduced a bill declaring AI systems nonsentient under state law.

Anonymous donors said they pooled funds to recognize Binance founder Changpeng "CZ" Zhao in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday with a 14-foot-tall statue.

Altcoin ETFs are landing this week, with Canary's Litecoin and Hedera funds and Bitwise and Grayscale Solana ETFs set to begin trading.

ETHZilla continued climbing Monday, with the Ethereum treasury firm selling ETH to buy back shares—just like a prominent investor asked.

Speculation that a MetaMask token will drop before the end of the year has picked up after the Ethereum wallet provider registered a new domain for token claims earlier today.

According to multiple sources, MetaMask registered two domains today – “claim.metamask.io” and “gift.metamask.io” – both of which currently redirect users to the company’s homepage.

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Solana Mobile has quietly ended software and security support for its first-generation Saga phone, quietly closing the device’s lifecycle just over two years after its May 2023 debut and leaving roughly 20,000 active units without further updates.

Marketed around an on-device Seed Vault, the smartphone briefly drew mainstream attention when memecoin airdrops made preloaded wallets unusually valuable.

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Professional sports are emerging as a notable tailwind for Robinhood as the firm’s prediction market offering grows, says Compass Point.

The People's Bank of China Governor’s warning on sovereignty risks comes amid Asia's stablecoin boom and Chinese firms seeking offshore licenses in Hong Kong.

The Bored Ape Yacht Club creator will soon launch the social and interactive hub for its Otherside metaverse, complete with an Amazon avatar.

Crypto markets recorded modest gains on Monday after rallying sharply over the weekend as trader optimism was revived by news of a U.S.-China trade agreement – even as the U.S. government shutdown continues.

Bitcoin (BTC) climbed around 1.8% to trade near $115,600, holding its position above a critical support level after dropping to as low as $107,000 last week. Meanwhile, Ethereum (ETH) rose 3% to about $4,183, driving its weekly gains to roughly 4%.

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MegaETH's massively oversubscribed initial coin offering has resulted in a "hypothetical" FDV of $7 billion, the team said.

The company holds approximately 3,865 Bitcoin acquired through mining and strategic purchases.

Investor confidence returned to digital assets as softer U.S. inflation data fueled expectations of further monetary easing.

Ink, a Layer 2 (L2) blockchain launched by U.S. crypto exchange Kraken in December 2024, saw its total value locked (TVL) surge by nearly 3,800% in less than two weeks, climbing from $6.42 million on Oct. 15 to nearly $249 million as of press time.

However, data from DefiLlama shows that out of 30 protocols deployed on Ink, more than 97% of this sharp increase came from a single product, Tydro, a non-custodial lending protocol built by the Ink Foundation, as a white label instance of open-source DeFi giant Aave.

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The senators took issue both with the Binance founder’s failure to implement anti-money laundering measures at the crypto exchange, and Binance’s ties to the Trump family.

Citi partners with Coinbase to boost crypto payment options for institutional clients, bridging traditional finance and digital assets.

BitMine Immersion Technologies now holds over $13.8 billion worth of Ethereum, widening its ETH treasury lead over SharpLink Gaming.

Publicly traded computing firm IBM is rolling out a digital assets management platform targeted at governments and institutions.

Strategy hasn’t issued common shares in nearly a month.

Bitcoin climbs back near $115K as trade war fears ease, but ETF flows still lag gold—can crypto catch up before Trump meets Xi?

$150 billion was added to the market cap of all cryptocurrencies over the weekend—and it looks like the rally isn't slowing down.

The defunct exchange’s trustee has pushed back repayments to October 2026, citing incomplete procedures and creditor processing issues.

The group had been discreetly registering blockchain and stablecoin-related trademarks despite increasingly tightened scrutiny in Hong Kong.

The lawsuit claims Microsoft hid cheaper subscription plans from 2.7 million users after bundling AI tools and raising prices by up to 45%.

Zcash has returned to prominence as traders position ahead of its halving and a renewed appetite for privacy-focused assets.

The ruling defines crypto as property with fiduciary protections, preventing WazirX from diluting user holdings after a $234 million hack.

Bitcoin climbed over the weekend as signs of progress in U.S.–China trade talks lifted risk appetite across global markets.

Bitplanet, a publicly-listed firm backed by Metaplanet’s Simon Gerovich and Sora Ventures, has begun its daily Bitcoin purchases.

Crypto has “grown up” in 2025, according to a new report from a16z crypto, the crypto-focused venture capital arm of Andreessen Horowitz, which has $46 billion in committed capital.

The total crypto market grew to over $4 trillion this year, while the number of mobile wallet users rose 20% from last year. The report estimates there are roughly 40-70 million active crypto users, up about 10 million over the past year. Still, this is only a fraction of the 716 million people who own crypto, up 16% from last year.

Meanwhile, stablecoins handled $46 trillion in transactions this year, rivaling payment giants like Visa and PayPal. The total stablecoin market cap stands at $308 billion, up $100 billion since January. Tether’s USDT currently holds the largest market share with a market cap of $183 billion.

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Memecoin launchpad pumpfun announced its newest acquisition today, closing a deal to add Padre, a multichain trading terminal, to its ecosystem.

Padre is a memecoin trading terminal live on Solana, Base, Ethereum, and BNB Smart Chain, and looks to compete in the trading bot space, which is currently dominated by Axiom. Padre has a market share of around 5%, according to Dune Analytics.

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Following the initial success of Plasma, the Bitfinex-backed Layer 1 blockchain, traders and investors have been looking at Stable as the next stablechain opportunity. However, when Stable opened up public deposits to its capped vault yesterday, retail users found that the team had pre-filled the vault before the public even had a chance.

Notably, $500 million of the total $825 million cap was pre-filled by a cluster of ten wallets directly linked to the Stable Vault owner, implying that the team took 60% of the initial allocation.

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When the GENIUS Act was signed into law on July 18, 2025, the crypto industry hailed it as a significant piece of legislation globally, proposing federal regulations for stablecoins in the United States.

Just over three months later, GENIUS has yet to go into effect — meaning that no stablecoin or stablecoin issuer is actively regulated by the bill — even as established and new players position themselves to comply with the upcoming rules.

Despite that, Anchorage Digital Bank, known for being the only crypto-focused bank with a charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), announced earlier this month that it would be issuing "America’s first federally regulated stablecoin," USDtb, in partnership with Ethena Labs, the issuer of synthetic dollar asset USDe.

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XRP, the native token of Ripple’s payment network, jumped on Friday after Ripple said it had completed its acquisition of global prime broker Hidden Road, now rebranded as Ripple Prime.

XRP is trading around $2.50, up about 5% on the day and 8% over the past seven days, after suffering losses most of last week amid a broader market downturn, according to The Defiant’s price page. It is currently the fifth-largest digital asset with a market capitalization of over $148 billion.

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Crypto majors are green and rebounding. BTC is up 1% at $110,800, ETH is up 2% at $3,940, BNB is up 2% at $1,120, and SOL is up 1% at $191. MYX (+14%), VIRTUAL (+13%), ZEC (+11%), and WLFI (+11%) led the top movers. Stocks and crypto flipped green yesterday ahead of the October 30th meeting between Trump and Xi in South Korea. JPMorgan announced plans to allow institutional clients to use Bitcoin and ETH as collateral for loans. Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao. An alleged “Trump insider” whale closed a $200 million Bitcoin short and booked fresh profits, bringing its lifetime total to over $100 million on Hyperliquid. Revolut won a MiCA license in Cyprus and hinted that a stablecoin could be next. Ledger introduced its new Nano Gen 5 wallet, featuring a redesign from Apple designer Susan Kare. Trezor launched the “quantum-ready” Safe 7 hardware wallet.

Crypto markets saw a moderate rally on Friday, Oct. 24, after fresh U.S. economic data showed that annual inflation rose to 3% for the first time since January, reinforcing bets that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates next week.

Bitcoin (BTC) climbed 2% to briefly reach over $111,500 before retracing slightly, while the total crypto market capitalization rallied 1.5% to reach $3.85 trillion, according to CoinGecko.

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Peter Schiff, well known in the crypto industry as a Bitcoin critic and gold advocate, announced that he’s exploring a new way to make bullion digital — via blockchain. Schiff revealed his plans for a tokenized gold platform during an interview on CounterParty TV posted yesterday, Oct. 23.

The proposed platform includes a debit card that would let users buy, hold, and spend tokenized gold, while keeping the precious metal in vaults. Schiff didn’t miss a chance to critique Bitcoin as he explained his upcoming product in the interview:

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Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) latest outage on Oct. 20 has sparked debate over decentralized alternatives and hybrid strategies for resilience.

The outage lasted several hours and disrupted major websites and apps, including Robinhood and Coinbase. Experts say it highlights the fragility of today’s internet, where a few centralized cloud providers dominate. AWS holds 30% of the global cloud market, ahead of Microsoft Azure at 21% and Google Cloud at 12%, giving the three more than 60% of total cloud share, per Statista.

“The vast majority of data making up the websites we use every day sits in data warehouses owned by just three companies. We have repeatedly seen these companies suffer blackouts, and vast swaths of the web go down for hours,” Marta Belcher, President and Chair at the Filecoin Foundation, said in comments shared with The Defiant. “This latest AWS outage is just another example of the problem with having single points of failure.”

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Meteora, a Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX), launched its native MET token on Thursday.

The token is currently trading at $0.565, down 17.7% since launch, according to CoinGecko. At the time of writing, MET has a market capitalization of over $271 million and a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of more than $565 million.

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Aster, the decentralized exchange (DEX) on BNB Smart Chain (BSC), is surging today after announcing its new incentives campaign dubbed “Rocket Launch.”

Rocket Launch will be a series of campaigns with reward pools filled with ASTER tokens and participating project tokens. Participants will earn rewards based on their trading volumes for specific spot or perp trading pairs. To be eligible, participants must also hold a minimum undisclosed amount of ASTER tokens.

ASTER is up 8% since the announcement, and up 12% over the last 24 hours, driven by the market’s rebound today and potentially the new ASTER-aligned incentives program. Despite the bounce, the token is still down 16% over the last week, and 55% from its all-time high set in September.

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Crypto markets rose slightly Thursday morning, with Bitcoin holding around $110,000 and the total market cap at $3.78 trillion, as the 10-year Treasury yield climbed above 3.98%.

Bitcoin (BTC) has gained 1.6%, pushing the price to $110,000 and keeping it firmly within the $108,000-$112,000 range.

In a commentary for The Defiant, Farzam Ehsani, CEO and co-founder of VALR, suggested that Bitcoin’s path higher “is not guaranteed” as the same macro volatility that triggered gold’s rally due to its general perception as a defensive asset “could cap Bitcoin’s upside if it reignites broad risk aversion.”

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BNB, the native token of BNB Smart Chain (BSC), surged sharply on Thursday following news that President Donald Trump pardoned Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the co-founder and former CEO of crypto exchange Binance.

The token is currently trading at $1,145, up 7% on the day, according to The Defiant’s price page. BNB is currently the fourth-largest digital asset with a market capitalization of over $158 billion. Previously Binance's official platform token before a rebrand, the token and the broader BNB Chain ecosystem remain closely tied to the CEX, and officially supported by CZ.

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Aave Labs, the team behind the Aave lending protocol, has acquired Stable Finance, a San Francisco-based fintech startup, according to an Oct. 23 press release.

The deal brings Stable Finance founder Mario Baxter Cabrera into Aave Labs as Director of Product, along with the company’s full engineering team. Aave currently has more than $38 billion in total value locked (TVL), making it the largest DeFi protocol, per DeFiLlama.

The acquisition highlights Aave Labs’ shift beyond core protocol work toward making decentralized finance (DeFi) more accessible. The team says that, even with strong infrastructure, onboarding and user experience still make DeFi difficult for many users.

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Crypto bounces as BTC dominance rises to 60%. The SEC and CFTC aim for crypto regulation by the end of 2025. Democrats and crypto executives meet to discuss a crypto bill. Over 150 crypto ETF filings await review. HYPE leads altcoins after its co-founder appeared on TBPN. Hyperliquid Strategies plans to raise $1b to buy HYPE. Aave DAO proposes a $50m annual token buyback. Robinhood officially lists BNB. FalconX acquires 21Shares. T. Rowe Price files for its first crypto ETF. Coinbase unveils a tool for AI agents to access wallets. HTX is sued by the UK for unlawful crypto promotion. Canada’s Cryptomus exchange is fined CAD 177m. Hackers move $1.8b BTC stolen from LuBian. Farage says he is willing to go to prison to stop the UK CBDC. Russia plans to legalise crypto use in foreign trade.

Tokenholder payouts through buybacks and direct distributions have grown more than fivefold since 2024, as crypto projects increasingly return revenue to holders rather than reinvesting it into growth, according to a new report from global investment firm Keyrock.

The report examined 12 major crypto projects and found that, on average, 64% of total revenue was distributed to tokenholders. This marks a shift from when most decentralized projects spent their funds on product development, marketing, and community programs instead of direct payouts.

By contrast, a Messari report of 10 DAOs found that 77% of treasury outflows went to product and growth initiatives, with only 23% toward community, marketing, and operations.

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HYPE jumped over 10% on Thursday, Oct. 23, shortly after news broke that U.S. brokerage giant Robinhood is adding support for HYPE trading on its platform. In an X post today, Robinhood said users can now trade Hyperliquid’s native token Robinhood Crypto.

The announcement quickly transformed into HYPE’s price appreciation, with the token up more than 10.8% in the past 24 hours to reach just over $40 at press time.

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Kalshi, the first CFTC-regulated prediction market, is teaming up with oracle data provider RedStone to make it possible to place bets on-chain across more than 110 networks, including Ethereum, Solana, Base, and TON.

In a press release shared with The Defiant, RedStone said that DeFi developers could use real-world data to create smart contracts that will be able to read and respond to actual events like who wins an election or how the Fed moves on interest rates.

At launch, however, the rollout starts with three data categories: the New York City Mayoral Election, the 2028 Democratic Nominee, and the number of rate cuts in 2025, with more markets expected to follow as developers start using the data.

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Upcoming Ethereum Layer 2 network MegaETH unveiled the terms for its third community-led raise today, coinciding with the launch of MEGA pre-market perpetuals on Hyperliquid.

The raise will begin at an initial valuation of $1 million, with participants bidding on the valuation via an English auction capped at $999 million. If the raise is oversubscribed, which it is expected to be, the team will prioritize allocations to the “existing MegaETH community alongside those who illustrate long-term alignment through social activity, onchain behavior and lockup preferences.”

The initial coin offering (ICO) style raise will be conducted via Sonar, the ICO arm of Echo, which was founded by crypto investor Jordan “Cobie” Fish, and acquired by Coinbase earlier this week.

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DraftKings, one of the leading sports betting platforms in the United States, is entering the prediction markets space and tapping Polymarket Clearing as its official clearing house.

Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan made the announcement today via X, where he posted, “Congrats to @DraftKings on their acquisition of @RailbirdHQ. We’re proud for Polymarket Clearing to be their designated clearinghouse as they enter the prediction market space.”

Clearing houses act as intermediaries between buyers and sellers within a market, meaning that Polymarket's infrastructure will serve as the backend for DraftKings’ new prediction market arm.

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After Tuesday’s quick rally following Fed governor Christopher Waller’s upbeat comments on crypto, markets fell sharply on Wednesday, Oct. 22, as reports surfaced that the Trump administration may limit a wide range of tech exports to China in response to Beijing’s rare-earth metals restrictions, sending U.S. stocks lower.

Bitcoin (BTC) has fallen back to around $108,000, erasing most of its 5% rally from the previous day that briefly pushed prices near $114,000.

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The conflict between Fetchai and Ocean Protocol, two blockchain projects that once teamed up under the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance, is heating up amid growing concerns that Ocean Protocol quietly dumped over a $100 million worth of FET tokens.

In an X post on Monday, Oct. 20, Fetchai announced that it’s organizing “collective legal action” representing FET holders affected by Ocean Protocol’s alleged conversion and transfer of tokens that Fetchai says resulted in losses for token holders.

Fetchai claims that in July, Ocean Protocol converted 661 million OCEAN tokens into 286 million FET, and later moved most of these tokens to exchanges, resulting in “demonstrable market impact and financial loss to FET holders.”

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The Kinetiq Foundation on Wednesday unveiled KNTQ, the official governance token for the Kinetiq protocol—the largest liquid staking platform on Hyperliquid’s Layer 1, HyperEVM, with a total value locked (TVL) of over $1.6 billion.

As a governance token, KNTQ will enable holders to participate in decision-making and help shape the future of the Kinetiq protocol. The token will have a maximum supply of 1 billion, and eligible airdrop recipients must agree to the Kinetiq Foundation Terms of Use by Nov. 21 at 20:00 UTC.

Kinetiq’s token distribution will allocate 30% of KNTQ to protocol growth and rewards, 25% to the initial airdrop (including 1% for Hypurr holders and 24% for kPoints holders), 23.5% to core contributors, 10% to the Kinetiq Foundation, 7.5% to investors, and 4% to liquidity.

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Crypto chop continues, tariff headlines dominate. ZEC breaks $300 before falling, leads altcoins. Waller signs Fed’s shift towards embracing crypto. ETH Foundation moves $654m ETH. BlackRock trying to pull in BTC whales to its ETFs. HK approves first SOL ETF. SOL ends support for Saga mobile phone. Galaxy profit jumps 1500% in record quarter. Bealls now accepting crypto payments. Aave outstanding loans hit $25b, to integrate Maple. Groups urge Trump to defend CFPB’s banking rule. Asian exchanges intensify scrutiny of DATs. Kadena winds down ops, KDA drops 60%.

Ethereal, the spot and perpetual futures DEX approved by Ethena community governance, announced in a Tuesday X thread that its mainnet alpha is now live, and a small group of users can start trading with USDe, a synthetic dollar stablecoin by Ethena Labs.

First proposed to Ethena governance last year, Ethereal is described as the “only perps DEX building a complete all-in-one DeFi money app around USDe,” according to the project’s documentation. Under that plan, ENA holders are set to receive 15% of any future Ethereal token, tying the exchange’s growth directly to Ethena’s token economy.

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Nearly half of U.S. retail crypto holders have never earned yield on their assets, according to MoreMarkets’ 2025 Crypto Yield Retail Consumer Report.

The report, which surveyed U.S. retail consumers and analyzed on-chain data, estimates that roughly 20-36 million users earn yield through centralized exchanges (CEXs) like Binance and Coinbase, while only 500,000-700,000 use decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. That equates to around 97% of yield earners preferring to earn on CEXs rather than decentralized alternatives.

Of those not earning yield at all, 68% cited concerns about liquidity, 45% cited security risks, and 28% said they didn’t understand how to participate in DeFi.

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Crypto Dips Despite Continue Strength in Stocks. Another $320m of Liquidations in Drop. Fed to Host Crypto Innovation Conference Today. Strategy Bought $19m Btc, Bitmine Buys $251m Eth. Coinbase Buys Cobie’s Echo for $375m. Coinbase Buys Cobie’s Up Only Nft for $25m. Sol Co-founder Toly Designing Perps Dex. Evernorth Spac Plans to Be the $1b Xrp Dat. Vaneck Files for First Staked Eth Etf. Gemini Launches Sol Credit Card. House of Doge Buys Fc U.s. Triestina 1918. Justin Sun Hints at Tron Collab With Base. Ethena Planning Two New Products.

Crypto Dips Despite Continue Strength in Stocks. Another $320m of Liquidations in Drop. Fed to Host Crypto Innovation Conference Today. Strategy Bought $19m Btc, Bitmine Buys $251m Eth. Coinbase Buys Cobie’s Echo for $375m. Coinbase Buys Cobie’s Up Only Nft for $25m. Sol Co-founder Toly Designing Perps Dex. Evernorth Spac Plans to Be the $1b Xrp Dat. Vaneck Files for First Staked Eth Etf. Gemini Launches Sol Credit Card. House of Doge Buys Fc U.s. Triestina 1918. Justin Sun Hints at Tron Collab With Base. Ethena Planning Two New Products.

The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has announced a change to the upcoming Fusaka hard fork that will introduce a per-transaction gas limit cap.

The EF unveiled the change via its blog today, with the update, also known as EIP-7825, already live on the Holesky and Sepolia testnet networks. EIP-7825 is expected to launch on the Ethereum mainnet when Fusaka goes live in December.

Currently, a single transaction can fill an entire block's 45 million gas limit, which could inhibit parallel execution and open the door to Denial of Service (DOS) attacks. The change will set a per-transaction gas limit of 16.78 million to mitigate potential issues.

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The Kadena Organization, the company that develops the eponymous Layer 1 blockchain, announced today that it will be shutting down operations and ceasing its affiliation with Kadena immediately, sending the KDA token tumbling.

As a decentralized blockchain, the network will technically remain operational via independent miners and smart contract operators, but the founding team will no longer be supporting its growth or maintenance.

KDA is down 60% today following the news and down 85% over the last calendar year to a $30 million valuation. The token now trades 99.7% below its all-time high of $27 billion in 2021, which would have made it a Top 15 cryptocurrency by fully diluted valuation (FDV) in 2025.

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Crypto markets are seeing a sharp uptick today, Oct. 21, with most of the top 10 assets up between 2-4% in the past 24 hours. Bitcoin (BTC) surged from near $108,560 to almost $114,000 over the past two hours, a 5.5% gain.

Markets rallied sharply after Federal Reserve governor Christopher Waller spoke favorably about the crypto and “defi industry” in his opening remarks at the Fed’s first Payments Innovation Conference, which is taking place today. The conference was created to focus on the integration of blockchain and crypto into mainstream finance, Waller noted.

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Coinbase, the largest U.S.-based centralized crypto exchange (CEX), announced on Tuesday that it has acquired blockchain fundraising platform Echo in a deal valued at approximately $375 million in cash and stock.

The acquisition aims to connect crypto builders with community capital and give users access to new investment opportunities. Echo was co-founded by crypto investor Jordan “Cobie” Fish, who also co-founded the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Lido.

Earlier today, Coinbase also paid $25 million for an NFT to bring back the popular UpOnly podcast, co-hosted by Cobie.

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Maple Finance, an on-chain asset manager overseeing more than $3.1 billion, and Aave, the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol, announced on Tuesday a strategic partnership to bring institutional-grade assets into Aave’s lending markets.

Initial integrations will include syrupUSDT on Aave’s Plasma instance, followed by syrupUSDC on the core market, with additional Maple assets to be added over time, according to a press release viewed by The Defiant. Aave is currently the largest DeFi protocol with a total value locked (TVL) of over $40 billion.

The collaboration aims to stabilize borrow demand, improve capital efficiency, and strengthen liquidity within Aave’s variable lending model, according to a press release viewed by The Defiant.

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Crypto Bounces After Hitting Extreme Fear Sentiment. Spot Btc Etf Suffer Ath Weekly Outflows. Revived Btc Supply Hits Highest Since January. Tough to Be Bullish With Btc Below $112k: Ansem. Top 50 Altcoins Below Level After Ftx Crash. Bitmine Has Bought $1.5b Eth Since Crash. New $1b Eth Dat Incoming. Kang Liquidated on Long Ena, Short Eth & Btc Trade. Tao & Zec Lead Bounce in Altcoins. Us 10yrs Behind on Crypto, Fixing is Job One: Atkins. Crypto Execs to Meet Senate Dems on Crypto Bill. Crypto Miners Riding Ai Wave Outperforming Btc. Hayes to Raise $250m for New Pe Fund. Stripe’s Tempo Raises $500m at $5b Valuation. Dankrad Leaves Eth Foundation for Tempo. Tether Open Sources Wallet Kit. Japan’s Fsa Could Allow Banks to Hold Crypto. Japan’s Big Banks Join Forces on Stablecoins. Uk Sends 65k Letters to Crypto Tax Evaders. Uk to Finalise Stablecoin Rules by End-2026. Ant Group, Jd Com Halt Stablecoin Plans in Hk.

Meteora, the third-largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on Solana by cumulative volume, is gearing up for its token launch on Thursday, and pre-market perpetual derivatives are pricing the token at a $1 billion fully diluted valuation (FDV).

The MET pre-market on Hyperliquid opened on Oct. 10 at a $1.8 billion valuation, just 12 hours before the altcoin market collapsed. While the valuation held up post-crash, MET has slowly fallen since, and now trades at $1, or a $1 billion FDV.

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A relatively new exchange, HumidiFi, has risen to the top of the Solana decentralized exchange (DEX) volume leaderboards, flipping legacy Solana DEXs such as Raydium, Meteora, and PumpSwap.

HumidiFi is a proprietary automated market maker (AMM) that launched in June. Over the last month, HumidiFi has processed $34 billion in DEX volume compared to Meteora’s $31.5 billion and Raydium’s $21.4 billion.

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Corporate crypto treasury activity picked up this week, as major Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) companies boosted their holdings, while others forged new strategic partnerships.

Ethereum-focused BitMine Immersion Technologies Inc. (NYSE AMERICAN: BMNR) increased its ETH holdings by more than 203,000 tokens, worth more than $800 million, while Strategy Inc. (formerly MicroStrategy) added 168 Bitcoin (BTC) to its balance sheet.

Meanwhile, Greenlane Holdings unveiled a new initiative with the Berachain Foundation to build the first-ever corporate BERA DAT.

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Crypto markets climbed slightly higher to start the week, with total market cap up 2%, and almost all of the top-10 assets in the green on Monday, Oct. 20. The moderate recovery comes after Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinted that the Fed might soon stop reducing its balance sheet, signaling a possible end to its quantitative tightening program.

Bitcoin (BTC) bounced back from last Friday’s brief dip below $105,000, and is now trading around $111,500, up nearly 3% on the day — the second-biggest daily gainer among the top-10 large caps.

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On-chain liquidity distribution protocol Turtle has raised $5.5 million in new capital, bringing its total funding to $11.7 million. The project will use the fresh funding to expand its engineering team, develop its DeFi yield-earning product infrastructure, and deepen its integrations across multiple blockchain ecosystems, according to a press release shared with The Defiant.

The funding round saw participation from institutional investors including GSR, FalconX, Anchorage VC, as well as founders from Polygon, 1inch, and Gnosis.

Turtle describes itself as an infrastructure hub that moves liquidity across decentralized finance, connecting capital providers and protocols through a "coordination layer” that matches liquidity with earning opportunities, while tracking wallet and vault activity on-chain.

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Intercontinental Exchange’s move to invest up to $2 billion into Polymarket and Kalshi’s $300 million financing have turned a once-niche corner of crypto into a mainstream trading category.

"The real prize for ICE is not just clearing contracts but monetizing the data, selling odds as sentiment factors alongside rates and credit where every rumor pays a fee," said Michael Ashley Schulman, partner and CIO at Running Point Capital Advisors, told Reuters.

But the prediction market boom is the culmination of years of technical experiments, regulatory fights, and product re-thinking, not a passing trend.

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The cryptocurrency market fell again on Friday, extending a four-day losing streak as investors grappled with rising geopolitical tensions, trade uncertainties, and the ongoing U.S. government shutdown.

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $106,400, down 2% on the day, while Ethereum (ETH) is hovering around $3,830, down 3.2% in the same timeframe.

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Tempo, a payments-focused blockchain developed by Stripe and Paradigm, has raised $500 million in a Series A round led by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital and Greenoaks.

The funding round values Tempo at $5 billion, according to Fortune, making it one of the largest blockchain venture rounds in recent years.

Sequoia, Ribbit Capital, and Ron Conway’s SV Angel also participated in the financing. Fortune revealed that Paradigm and Stripe did not contribute capital to the round.

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Ondo Finance has published an open letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) asking it to delay approval of Nasdaq’s plan to trade tokenized securities until more details are revealed.

The team behind the decentralized finance protocol, which has $1.7 billion in total value locked (TVL), said Nasdaq’s proposal depends on the Depository Trust Company (DTC) figuring out a new system for tokenized settlement – information that has not yet been made public.

If approved, Nasdaq’s proposal (filed on Sept. 8) would mark the first time tokenized securities are listed on a major U.S. exchange. However, Ondo warned that moving forward without transparency could give larger financial institutions an unfair edge or make it harder for newer firms to compete.

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Ethereum’s biggest threat might actually be what most see as its next milestone — institutional adoption. At least that’s what pcaversaccio, a pseudonymous analyst at blockchain security firm Seal 911, suggested recently on X, warning that traditional finance could tame the network’s open, cypherpunk spirit.

In a late September post, pcaversaccio argued that as bigger finance players enter the ecosystem, the more “influence they wanna have on future hard fork decisions,” treating compliance as a feature rather than a constraint.

“Look, you can go all mainstream, but we should actually celebrate it when Ethereum isn't chosen by tradfi clowns. That means we're doing something right. I won't let Ethereum be tamed, neutered, or turned into just another corporate playground. Never,” pcaversaccio wrote.

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The price of Launch Coin on Believe (LAUNCHCOIN) sank more than 30% on Thursday, Oct. 16, after developers said they were scrapping its original model, calling it too outdated to keep up with the growing demands of the Believe ecosystem.

In an X thread yesterday, the Solana-based token launchpad said that the original design of the LAUNCHCOIN token “didn’t anticipate the long-term needs of the Believe ecosystem,” announcing an upgrade to a new token called BELIEVE.

Per the announcement, under the upgrade plan, LAUNCHCOIN will eventually be phased out after a two-week swap window, ending Oct. 29, though a final claim period remains open until Nov. 12.

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Stablecoins are expanding beyond payments and trading, according to a new report from Visa, which found that more than $670 billion in loans have been issued through on-chain lending platforms over the past five years.

Visa said monthly on-chain lending volumes reached $51.7 billion in August 2025, with over 81,000 active borrowers and an average loan size of $76,000. The average borrowing rate from September 2024 to August 2025 was about 6.7%, similar to traditional credit markets.

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Lighter, the second-largest decentralized perpetuals exchange, was one of many platforms that experienced platform outages during the crypto market’s flash crash on Oct. 10. To compensate affected users, Lighter has distributed points that will translate to a future token airdrop.

Lighter announced its reimbursement plan on Oct. 14, dropping 250,000 points to traders affected by the platform's technical issues during and after the crash.

While points may seem like nebulous compensation for lost funds, Lighter points are in high demand, reaching as high as $100 per point on OTC markets before Friday’s events. As of Oct. 16, the highest bid sits at $81.

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Ventuals, a protocol designed for trading tokenized private and pre-IPO companies, launched its HYPE liquid staking vault today, which will be used to fund the protocol’s HIP-3 permissionless derivatives market on Hyperliquid.

The launch included a minimum stake threshold of 500,000 HYPE, worth roughly $19 million, which was filled in just five minutes, with the top depositor contributing 250,000 HYPE. Users who deposited before the threshold was hit will receive a 10x multiplier on their points distribution and an official Ventuals NFT.

Inflows continued to pour in, with a little over 1 million HYPE, worth $38 million, raised in the first half hour. The total sits at 1.29 million HYPE at the time of writing.

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The U.S. crypto banking sector is heating up as Japan-based Sony Bank, a subsidiary of the Sony Financial Group, recently filed with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust charter, signaling a growing race among institutions to offer regulated digital asset services.

Dubbed Connectia Trust, N.A., the bank would operate as a trust company in the U.S. and offer cryptocurrency services, including issuing dollar-backed stablecoins, holding digital assets for clients, and managing assets for affiliated companies.

If approved, Sony Bank would be one of the first major global technology companies to run a federally regulated crypto bank in the U.S. The filing also reflects a broader trend of both traditional financial (TradFi) firms and crypto-native companies seeking federal oversight to offer digital asset products.

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Less than 24 hours after a Base builder publicly slammed Binance’s alleged listing policy on X, sparking a heated debate in the crypto community, Coinbase yesterday unexpectedly announced plans to list BNB. Though it’s no longer Binance’s official platform token, BNB — originally Binance Coin — was developed by the exchange, and remains a key asset in its ecosystem.

The drama began on Tuesday, Oct. 14, when CJ Hetherington, the co-founder and CEO of Base prediction market Limitless, shared what he said were Binance listing terms in an X post. The post alleges that Binance — the world’s largest centralized exchange (CEX) by trading volume — asked for roughly 8% of his project’s token supply, broken into allocations for airdrops, liquidity and other marketing activations, for listing on Binance’s Alpha platform, as well as a $2 million security deposit in BNB for spot listing.

Legal Action Threats

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The cryptocurrency market fell on Thursday, extending losses for a third consecutive day as investors remained cautious amid escalating geopolitical tensions and speculation over a Federal Reserve rate cut later this month.

Bitcoin (BTC) is changing hands at $108,500, down 2% on the day, while Ethereum (ETH) trades around $3,903, also down 2% in the same period.

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Solana’s SOL token could reach $6,000 in the long term, according to a new report from investment firm RockawayX, which says the blockchain is becoming a leading platform for digital finance and tokenized assets.

Solana is currently the second-largest blockchain, with over $13 billion in total value locked (TVL), according to DeFiLlama. Its native token, SOL, is currently priced at $195.70, up 25% over the past year – making it the sixth largest digital asset with a market capitalization of over $107 billion, per CoinGecko.

RockawayX, which manages about $2 billion and was an early investor in Solana, says SOL could hit $900 in the short term (aligning with Ethereum’s ~$0.5 trillion market cap), $2,000 in the mid-term (supported by $2 trillion in tokenized assets or $30–50 billion of protocol revenue), and $6,000 in the long term (fueled by $10–15 trillion in tokenized assets or $100–150 billion in protocol revenue).

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Jovay Network, an Ethereum Layer 2 (L2) network backed by Ant Digital, a subsidiary of Alibaba, is catching eyes today after it proclaimed its alignment with Ethereum on social media.

Despite many investors being surprised by the news, Jovay was originally revealed as an Ethereum L2 in April at the RWA Real Up conference in Dubai.

Jovay touts itself as financial-grade blockchain infrastructure, focused on global real-world asset (RWA) tokenization via its “modular Layer2 infrastructure that bridges Web2 and Web3.”

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Fintech giant PayPal made an interesting move today, minting $300 trillion of its PYUSD stablecoin on the Ethereum blockchain, briefly making it the largest stablecoin in the world by a landslide.

Paxos, which issues PYUSD, minted the supply on Wednesday afternoon and burned it shortly after, confirming it was an accidental mint.

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In the world of crypto — abundant with hacks, social engineering, malicious software, and even fraudulent on-chain transfer requests — one threat stands out for its scale, targeting an entire blockchain ecosystem: the 51% attack.

A 51% attack on a blockchain network refers to a type of exploit when an individual or a group controls over half — at least 51% — of network consensus. Usually, this kind of attack refers to blockchains that use proof-of-work (PoW) consensus where miners validate transactions, like Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum Classic (ETC). In the case of a PoW chain, a 51% attack entails controlling the majority of mining power, letting the attacker manipulate the chain.

The possibility of such an attack is tied to the very nature of crypto — decentralization. Unlike a traditional financial system, like a bank, where a central authority controls and verifies all transactions, blockchains rely on decentralized networks of miners or validators to maintain consensus, a system where the majority agrees on which transactions are valid.

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The cryptocurrency market slipped on Wednesday for a second consecutive day, following Monday’s brief rebound, as investors remain cautious after a tumultuous weekend and recent geopolitical developments.

Bitcoin (BTC) is changing hands at $111,000, down 1.5% on the day, while Ethereum (ETH) is trading at $3,987, down 3.3%.

Other top tokens also recorded declines: BNB dropped 3.7% to $1,172 after hitting a recent high of around $1,370 on Monday. Solana (SOL) fell 2.6% to $197, and XRP declined 2.6% to $2.44.

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MegaETH, an Ethereum-compatible ‘real-time’ blockchain, appears to be planning an initial coin offering (ICO).

This potential public token sale would take place on Sonar, a self-hosted token launch platform created by crypto investor Jordan “Cobie” Fish, who is also a co-founder of Lido. “The First Real-Time Blockchain. Built for you. Owned by you. Register now,” MegaETH’s team shared on X earlier today.

ICOs – which are a way for crypto projects to raise funds – are making a comeback in 2025, with MegaETH’s move showing a shift toward community-focused, transparent sales to drive user engagement and ecosystem growth.

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Backpack, a centralized crypto exchange (CEX) and self-custody wallet app founded by former FTX and Alameda employees, has partnered with Robert Leshner’s fintech firm Superstate to let users trade on-chain versions of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-registered stocks.

According to a press release shared with The Defiant, the collaboration integrates Superstate’s Opening Bell platform into Backpack, allowing eligible non-U.S. users to buy, sell, and margin trade tokenized versions of real stocks — not synthetic alternatives, the release specifies — while retaining the same dividend rights and voting privileges as shares listed on stock exchanges.

Backpack has yet to reveal which tokenized stocks will be available at launch, saying that more details will come in the next few weeks.

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Blockchain analytics firm Nansen on Wednesday announced a partnership with Sanctum to launch nxSOL, a liquid staking token (LST) built on Solana – the second-largest blockchain with a total value locked (TVL) of over $13 billion.

The token lets users earn staking rewards while retaining liquidity, allowing them to withdraw or use funds across Solana’s decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem at any time. Nansen said the project aims to make staking on Solana more liquid and easy to use.

Sanctum – which has a TVL of $2.5 billion, up significantly from $900 million in April – is the fourth largest protocol on Solana and helps to enhance the utility of staked SOL. Currently, around 68% of SOL’s total supply is staked – that’s about 372 million tokens worth $74.5 billion. Staked SOL earns on average an estimated 4.38% annual yield, according to Coinbase data.

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Cross-chain liquidity layer Yei Finance launched its CLO token on Sei and BNB Smart Chain today.

CLO is up 245% since this morning, surging from a $17.5 million market capitalization to $61 million in a matter of hours. Roughly 13% of the token supply is currently circulating, and CLO trades at a $475 million fully diluted valuation (FDV).

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The past few years have not been kind to crypto gaming and GameFi investors, with most tokens and NFTs struggling to take off and other companies shutting down. However, the sector is showing some signs of life.

OhBaby Games’ flagship NFT collection, the OhBaby Pass, launched at 0.1 ETH ($410) on Oct. 8 before quickly surging as high as 0.5 ETH ($2000) shortly after the mint concluded. The collection currently changes hands at 0.42 ETH.

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Digital assets have posted market-leading returns in eight of the past eleven years, cementing their status as a legitimate asset class, according to a recent report by global investment firm Franklin Templeton, which manages over $1.6 trillion in assets.

The report outlines eight reasons why now may be the ideal time for investors to consider crypto, from strong historical returns to growing institutional adoption. Since Bitcoin’s (BTC) launch in 2009, the digital asset market has grown to nearly $4 trillion in total market capitalization. Ethereum (ETH) alone generated more than $10 billion in transaction fees over the past seven years, “faster than many of today’s tech company giants,” the report notes.

Bitcoin and Ethereum also show low correlations with traditional assets, indicating their potential as portfolio diversifiers. Bitcoin has a correlation of 0.41 with the S&P 500, 0.40 with the NASDAQ 100, and 0.06 with gold. Ethereum has slightly higher equity correlations, at 0.48 with both the S&P 500 and NASDAQ 100, while its correlation with gold is slightly negative at -0.04.

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With the privacy token meta in full swing, the native asset of a new privacy protocol, Umbra, is trading almost five times higher than its initial coin offering (ICO) price, after launching on Friday.

Just a few days after its ICO, which priced UMBRA at $0.30, the token is currently changing hands around $1.30 with a fully diluted valuation (FDV) above $36 million, and reached as high as $2.48 yesterday, per data from CoinGecko.

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