Topic: #defi
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Dee Goens Replaces Jacob Horne as Zora CEO, $ZORA Token Launches
Zora co-founder Dee Goens stepped into the CEO role after Jacob Horne's departure on April 23, the same day the platform launched its $ZORA token. The move caps a dramatic transformation that has pivoted Zora toward creator and content coins in the SocialFi space.
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Osmosis Pauses Alloyed BTC After Nomic Chain Exploit Freezes 22.65 BTC
Osmosis suspended minting and redemptions for its alloyed BTC product after a double-spend vulnerability on the Nomic blockchain compromised 39.84 nBTC. An emergency upgrade locked the stolen funds, and the exchange plans a governance vote to seize the frozen assets.
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Solana ranks fourth in Zcash spot trading with $64M in 24 hours
Solana ranked fourth globally for Zcash spot volume with $64 million in trades over 24 hours, a 220% jump from prior metrics. The surge highlights DeFi's liquidity growth but underscores cross-chain bridge risks that have historically been the largest attack vector in decentralized finance.
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Liquid Bitcoin sidechain halted after $320M withdrawal; Citi, DBS tokenize payment
Bitcoin sidechain Liquid halted operations after actors claiming to be white-hat hackers withdrew $320 million in Bitcoin, while Citi and DBS completed a tokenized cross-border payment in minutes—and Chilean exchange Orionx shut down after losing $7 million in customer funds.
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Injective Announces Native Privacy Features for Institutional Transactions
Injective announced plans to build native privacy capabilities into its finance-focused layer-1 blockchain, targeting institutional-grade transactions and real-world asset functionality. The protocol has not yet disclosed technical specifications or a deployment timeline.
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Standard Chartered launches Bitcoin, Ether trading in UAE
Standard Chartered became the first Global Systemically Important Bank to offer institutional digital asset trading in the UAE, while Hyperscale Data ended Bitcoin mining to make room for an AI data center customer worth up to $3 billion over 20 years. New Jersey challenged federal authority over prediction market sports betting.
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Coinbase stock tokens drive $125M DEX volume on Base, fuel token launch speculation
Coinbase-issued stock tokens generated $124.8 million in decentralized exchange volume on the Base platform, primarily through NVIDIA and Alphabet tokens. The surge has lifted market odds for a Base token launch by end-2026 to 13% YES.
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Crypto valuations could double as protocols adopt token buybacks
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said crypto valuations could at least double as protocols increasingly use revenue to fund token buybacks and burns, with revenue-capture mechanisms expected to spread across DeFi and layer-1 networks over the next 12 to 24 months.
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Ether.fi splits weETH from restaking as Ethereum rewards debate heats up
Ether.fi removed restaking from weETH, its flagship staking token, forcing users into a separate token (weETHs) to access higher-risk yield. The move comes as Ethereum researchers propose capping validator rewards, sparking criticism from staking operators.
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Chinese AI models show context-aware security flaws, researchers warn
Booz Allen and University of Toronto researchers found that Chinese AI models behave differently when prompted in U.S. government contexts, and that open-weight AI can power adaptive worms. The findings raise urgent questions about AI-assisted code security in immutable blockchain systems.
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Shopify Q2 revenue beats estimates, launches native USDC payments
Shopify beat earnings expectations and raised Q3 guidance, with shares surging 34% in premarket trading. The e-commerce platform's partnership with Coinbase and Stripe to enable USDC payments marks a major step toward mainstream crypto adoption for merchants.
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XRP Holders Can Borrow RLUSD on Ethereum Without Selling
Flare's FXRP has been approved as collateral in a Morpho lending vault, allowing XRP holders to tap Ethereum's DeFi markets and borrow Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin against their holdings without selling.
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Spark Pivots to DeFi Backend for PayPal, Robinhood Stablecoin Rails
Spark, the lending unit of Sky (formerly MakerDAO), abandoned its consumer-facing app to focus on supplying liquidity and yield infrastructure to major fintech platforms. The shift targets $1 billion in OTC lending by year-end, with Robinhood and PayPal already live on its stablecoin rails.
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Trump's Gaza peace deal revives stablecoin infrastructure debate
Trump's July 31 disarmament agreement with Hamas includes discussions of a dollar-pegged stablecoin for Gaza reconstruction, raising regulatory questions about US oversight of crypto deployed in geopolitical contexts.
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Stablecoin market cap falls to six-month low as capital shifts to yield alternatives
The stablecoin market has contracted roughly $10 billion over the past 10 weeks to a six-month low, marking the sector's first sustained decline in four years. Capital is migrating to tokenized Treasury products and yield-bearing on-chain instruments as regulatory changes limit stablecoin issuers' ability to compete.
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xAI sues Minnesota to block nation's first AI nudification law
Elon Musk's xAI filed a federal lawsuit against Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to block HF 1606, arguing the law's definition of intimate parts is so broad it would criminalize shirtless photos and swimwear images. The law takes effect Saturday.
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Merkle Science brings confidential transfers to Sui with regulatory compliance
Merkle Science is deploying confidential transfers on Sui that keep account balances private while giving compliance teams structured access, attempting to resolve the long-standing tension between blockchain privacy and regulatory oversight.
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SEC warns crypto yield vaults face securities scrutiny over human control
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce warned that crypto vaults face securities-law scrutiny when people control how assets earn yield, placing protocols like Morpho in a regulatory gray zone based on their governance structure.
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Flare Networks CEO Announces Six-Month XRPFi Integration Roadmap
Flare Networks CEO Hugo Philion announced a six-month roadmap to transform the XRP-based DeFi ecosystem through large-scale integration, with technological updates rolling out within two weeks and institutional adoption expected to follow security audits.
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Chainlink expands with eight integrations across three blockchains
Chainlink announced eight integrations across four services and three blockchain networks, including partnerships with Aave, CaliberCo, and Glacis Labs. The expansion reinforces the protocol's role in cross-chain interoperability and compliance.
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Bitcoin trapped between $65K and $62.5K resistance levels
Bitcoin is trading near $64,500 this weekend, positioned between $65,000 resistance and $62,500 support—the two levels that will determine whether the week closes with a recovery rally or a breakdown toward $60,000.
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DeFi's Institutional Trust Problem: Pricing On-Chain Real-World Assets
The DTCC's tokenization trial with 40 major firms signals institutional appetite for on-chain RWAs, but DeFi faces a critical bottleneck: deciding which oracle feeds and curators can be trusted to price tokenized stocks, bonds, and commodities when primary markets close.
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Bitwise CIO: Hyperliquid and Robinhood lead next crypto cycle
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said Hyperliquid and Robinhood could emerge as leading beneficiaries of the next crypto bull market, driven by the convergence of traditional and onchain finance rather than speculation alone.
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SEC's Hester Peirce warns DeFi vaults may trigger securities scrutiny
SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has cautioned that on-chain DeFi vaults and lending strategies could be classified as securities, urging builders to engage with regulators before enforcement action follows.