BSC News

On most blockchains, validators carry a heavy load. To check that a block is valid, they must maintain a full, up-to-date copy of the chain's state, meaning every account, balance, and contract stored on the network. As a chain grows, so does that burden, gradually raising the cost of running a node and pushing out smaller participants.
@NEARProtocol takes a different approach. Each block on NEAR carries a state witness: a compact cryptographic proof containing only the data required to validate that specific block. A validator can check work on a shard without ever storing that shard's full state.
How Stateless Validation Works in Practice
The practical result is a sharp reduction in hardware requirements. NEAR's top 100 validators, which both produce blocks and track a shard, operate on roughly 48GB of memory. Those below that threshold run a lighter checking role on just 8 to 16GB.
Stateless validation arrived with Nightshade 2.0, which went live on NEAR mainnet in August 2024. According to The Defiant, the upgrade was designed to speed up transaction execution by 400% and increase the network's shard capacity.
What Has Changed Since, and What Comes Next
The protocol has not stood still since Nightshade 2.0. The v2.13 upgrade landed on mainnet on July 20, 2026, adding two significant capabilities. First, dynamic resharding: the network can now automatically split shards when they reach a capacity threshold, without requiring a validator vote or a manual protocol upgrade. Second, post-quantum signing: NEAR activated the FIPS-204 standard using the ML-DSA-65 parameter set.
It is important to note that the migration is opt-in. Ed25519 and secp256k1 signing remain in place, and users can rotate their keys to ML-DSA-65 through a single on-chain transaction via the NEAR CLI, with no need to move assets or change account addresses. The reason NEAR kept the switch voluntary is a practical one: ML-DSA keys and signatures are substantially larger than elliptic-curve equivalents, which raises storage and processing demands. NEAR's official press release described the deployment as placing it among the first major Layer-1 blockchains to ship a NIST-approved quantum-resistant signature scheme in a live production environment.
Looking further ahead, SPICE (Separation of Consensus and Execution) is the next major upgrade on the roadmap toward Nightshade 3.0, which is already in progress. SPICE decouples the process of validators agreeing on block order from the execution of transactions inside those blocks, targeting block times of 200ms and sub-half-second finality.
Together, these upgrades form a coherent technical arc: reduce validator storage requirements, automate capacity scaling, harden cryptographic security, and compress latency, each layer building on the last.
Sources:
NEAR Protocol: Nightshade 2.0 Launches on NEAR Mainnet
PR Newswire: NEAR Protocol Brings Quantum-Safe Signing to Mainnet
eGamers: NEAR Goes Live With Post-Quantum Signatures On Mainnet Via 2.13 Release

OpenReserve Bank, backed by Andreessen Horowitz among other investors, received preliminary conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on September 2 to charter a full-service national bank in Salt Lake City, Utah. The move marks a significant step for the blockchain-native startup, though a number of conditions must be met before it can open for business.
What the Approval Requires
The proposed bank must raise at least $210 million in initial paid-in capital, net of organizational and preopening expenses, and maintain a Tier 1 leverage ratio of at least 12% during its first three years of operation. OpenReserve must raise the capital within 12 months of conditional approval and begin banking operations within 18 months, or the approval will expire. Before commencing operations, OpenReserve must also satisfy the OCC's preopening requirements and receive final approval, as well as obtain FDIC deposit insurance and apply for Federal Reserve Bank stock.
The proposed full-service bank, which raised a $25 million seed round led by @a16zcrypto, is being built to offer tokenized deposits and digital asset custody, with a planned subsidiary for stablecoin issuance. The OCC letter notes the proposed bank plans to establish a wholly owned subsidiary for the issuance, custody, conversion, and payment of U.S. dollar-denominated reserve-backed stablecoins, though the subsidiary has not yet filed an application with the regulator.
A Broader Shift in US Crypto Banking
@OpenReserveBank chose a full national charter over the trust-bank route most crypto firms have taken, clearing a path toward insured deposits and conventional lending alongside stablecoin issuance. Founded in 2025 by Diwakar Choubey and Richard Correia, OpenReserve says it is being built around a programmable core ledger and native onchain settlement. The OCC's preliminary approval provides a regulatory path for the bank to issue a digital dollar-linked asset designed to support transactions and settlement outside conventional banking hours.
The OCC's decision follows a string of conditional approvals for crypto-focused institutions under Comptroller Jonathan Gould, who has said entities engaging in novel technologies should have a pathway to become federally supervised banks. The agency has granted conditional approvals for national trust bank charters to crypto firms including Coinbase, Paxos, BitGo, Ripple, and Circle, while Revolut also received a similar nod on the same day as OpenReserve. OpenReserve filed its OCC charter application in April 2026, winning preliminary approval in under five months.
Sources:
The Block: Andreessen Horowitz-backed OpenReserve secures preliminary OCC approval for national bank charter
Decrypt: A16z-Backed OpenReserve Gets Approval for Full-Service National Bank
Crypto.news: OpenReserve wins initial OCC approval for U.S. bank

Sheriffs Step Back, But Prosecutors Hold Firm
The National Sheriffs' Association (NSA) has moved to a neutral position on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, becoming the last major police group to drop its active opposition to the crypto market structure bill. The NSA announced the shift in a letter to Senate leadership, citing the bill's complexity and the number of important details still under consideration.
The group had previously warned that the legislation could exempt crypto mixers, tumblers, and decentralized finance platforms from anti-money-laundering rules, potentially enabling illicit finance. The Major County Sheriffs of America had already softened to neutral in July after securing assurances about state and local involvement in Treasury-led regulatory studies.
Federal prosecutors, however, are not following suit. According to @EleanorTerrett, the National District Attorneys Association and the National Association of Assistant US Attorneys are not expected to change their positions. Both bodies want narrower protections for developers who never hold user funds, so that prosecutors retain the ability to charge individuals for knowingly moving illicit money. The National District Attorneys' Association has written that Section 604 of the bill "would severely impede the ability of law enforcement and prosecutors to investigate, trace, and prosecute criminal activity involving cryptocurrency and other digital assets." The White House and the crypto industry have refused to accept those narrower terms.
September 15 Cloture Vote Looms
The CLARITY Act faces a significant procedural test on September 15, 2026, when the Senate will vote on a motion that determines whether the legislation has a realistic chance of clearing the chamber this year. The vote is not a direct vote on the bill itself, but the Senate requires a 60-vote supermajority to proceed. Republicans hold 53 seats, meaning at least seven Democrats would need to join them.
The NSA's earlier opposition had given swing-vote Democrats, including Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), political cover to withhold support over the law enforcement provisions. The shift removes a prominent law-enforcement critic before the September vote, though unresolved ethics provisions and the tight congressional calendar make passage before the November election uncertain.
The CLARITY Act would create a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies and other digital assets, much like the GENIUS Act did for payment stablecoins in 2025. The House passed the bill in July 2025 by a 294-134 vote, but disagreements in the Senate over ethics, rewards, DeFi, and regulatory authority have prevented swift passage.
Sources:
Semafor: Key law enforcement group flips on crypto bill
CoinDesk: National Sheriffs' Association pivots to neutral stance on Clarity Act
The Hill: Obstacles threaten success of Clarity Act in Senate

@chainlink is set to take a prominent role at one of global banking's most established gatherings. Co-founder @SergeyNazarov will deliver a keynote address on building global digital asset markets at Sibos 2026, with Ryan Lovell, Chainlink's director of capital markets, also confirmed to speak at the event.
What Is Sibos and Why Does It Matter?
Sibos, the Swift International Banking Operations Seminar, is the largest annual conference and exhibition for the global financial services industry, organised by Swift since 1978. Each edition brings together 10,000-plus senior executives from the world's banks, payment providers, technology vendors, fintechs, central banks, regulators, and market infrastructure operators.
Sibos 2026 takes place from 28 September to 1 October at the Miami Beach Convention Centre. It is the first time the flagship event has touched down in Miami, and across four days it will convene global experts in international trade, banking and wealth management under the theme "Digital Finance for AI-driven Economies." More than 250 sessions will bring together over 500 leading voices from across the financial ecosystem.
Chainlink's Role at the Conference
Nazarov's keynote will focus on the infrastructure needed to build global digital asset markets, a topic that places $LINK and Chainlink's cross-chain technology squarely in front of the banking world's senior decision-makers. Separately, Ryan Lovell will take the stage to address whether AI can keep payment systems operating reliably under conditions of extreme stress, a question gaining urgency across the financial sector.
At Sibos, Chainlink is showcasing how its cross-chain and real-world data platform is powering the next era of global finance, with the protocol already securing tens of trillions in transaction value and connecting blockchains to institutional systems to enable tokenised assets, payments, and next-generation market infrastructure. Chainlink counts Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, and UBS among the institutions that trust its technology.
A keynote slot at Sibos carries real weight. The conference is where senior banking executives set direction on payments, settlement, and emerging technology. Chainlink securing two speaking appearances signals growing recognition of blockchain infrastructure at the institutional level, at a moment when the conversation around digital finance and AI is moving from pilot to production.
Sources:
Swift: Sibos 2026 Miami official event page
Sibos 2026 conference programme
Chainlink at Sibos: official page

Dollar pricing, token burning
Render Network (@rendernetwork) connects artists and AI developers with idle GPU capacity, but it prices that capacity in dollars rather than in its native token. When a creator submits a job, they convert cash into RENDER, the network's Solana-based token (solana:rndrizKT3MK1iimdxRdWabcF7Zg7AR5T4nud4EkHBof). Rendering jobs are quoted in fiat, converted to RENDER at the time of payment, and burned after completion. In return, the creator receives Render Credits worth the same dollar amount, keeping the cost to the buyer predictable regardless of where the token price moves on any given day.
Because the burn is calculated in dollar terms, jobs are priced in USD and creators burn RENDER tokens equal to the work's dollar cost, which shrinks supply. When the token price rises, fewer tokens are needed to cover the same bill. When it falls, more are burned. The quantity of tokens destroyed therefore floats with the market, but the dollar cost to the buyer stays fixed.
How operators get paid and what governs new supply
Every burn is recorded on-chain, and that record determines how the newly minted reward pool is divided. An operator responsible for 2% of the burns logged within an epoch collects 2% of the tokens minted for completed work that period, plus a share tied to passing uptime checks. Node operators who complete jobs receive newly minted RENDER as a reward, tying token supply directly to real demand for GPU power on the network.
Each epoch period runs for seven days before moving to 24-hour intervals once the network is fully upgraded. Even in a quiet week with little job activity, the scheduled mint still runs. Emissions follow a capped, declining issuance over time, distributed weekly based on on-chain activity. The schedule itself is set by governance through the Render Network Proposal (RNP) system. In RNP-018, the community passed an emissions schedule for Year 2 allocating 5,905,580 RENDER to the network, following Year 1's allocation of 9,126,804 RENDER approved in RNP-006.
The combined effect is what the project calls Burn-Mint Equilibrium (BME). Unlike traditional cryptocurrency models where inflation is fixed, BME ties token issuance directly to actual usage: every job processed burns tokens, and the protocol mints new tokens to compensate node operators, creating a self-regulating supply that responds to real-world demand for GPU compute. Burn activity has been accelerating: cumulative burns reached 1 million RENDER in December 2025, a milestone that took roughly three years under BME, with monthly burns rising approximately 488% within 2025 alone.
Sources:
Messari: Understanding the Render Network
Render Network Knowledge Base: Burn Mint Equilibrium
Render Network: BME Emissions Are Live

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) says the United States is on the verge of cementing its position as the world's leading crypto hub, following a high-level White House gathering convened by President Donald Trump in mid-August.
Inside the White House Innovation Meeting
The August 19 summit, held at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, brought together a broad cross-section of industry and regulatory power. Attendees included Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong, SEC Chair Paul Atkins, CFTC Chair Michael Selig, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, alongside executives from Kraken, Robinhood, Nasdaq, and others. Trump described the gathering as a meeting of a "who's who" in finance, crypto, and technology.
Garlinghouse said he was proud to have been in the room, pointing to the scale of crypto adoption in the US as evidence the industry can no longer be sidelined. Nearly 67 million Americans now hold digital assets, roughly one in four people. "Crypto isn't a fringe industry," he wrote afterward on X, adding that Washington "knows the crypto voter is alive and well." He closed with a call to action: "Let's finish the job."
This was not Garlinghouse's first appearance at the White House under the Trump administration. He attended a pre-inauguration dinner with Trump in early 2025, as well as the inaugural White House Digital Assets Summit that followed.
CFTC Takes a Harder Line on CLARITY Act Delays
The White House meeting directly preceded the first session of the CFTC's newly launched Innovation Advisory Committee, held the following day on August 20. At that meeting, CFTC Chair Michael Selig made clear the agency is not prepared to wait indefinitely for Congress to act.
The CLARITY Act, the landmark bill that would formally divide crypto oversight between the SEC and CFTC, passed the House in July 2025 by a 294-134 bipartisan margin. It cleared the Senate Banking Committee in May 2026 but has yet to reach a full Senate floor vote. A procedural cloture vote is currently scheduled for September 15, 2026, though the 60 votes needed to advance the bill remain uncertain.
Selig said his agency is "ready to begin immediately implementing the bill" if Congress passes it, but confirmed the CFTC will act unilaterally if the legislation continues to stall. "If CLARITY continues to stall because of Democrat obstruction, the CFTC will utilise its existing authorities to begin establishing a regime for crypto asset markets," he said. He added that he has already directed CFTC staff to begin exploring formal rulemaking under the agency's current statutory powers.
For Ripple and the broader industry, the dual signals from the White House and the CFTC mark a notable shift in tone. Whether through legislation or agency action, US crypto market rules now appear to be a matter of when, not if.
Sources:
Payment Expert: CFTC to set crypto rules if CLARITY Act stalls in Senate
PYMNTS: CFTC Readies Own Crypto Market Rules as Congress Stalls CLARITY Act
Sumsub: What Is the CLARITY Act? Full Guide to US Crypto Regulation

@Dashpay's $DASH pushed to the top of the daily leaderboard on September 4, posting a gain of 18.9% to trade at $54.72, according to CoinMarketCap data. The move also extends a strong seven-day run, with $DASH up 45% over that period. Market capitalisation sits near $700 million, placing Dash at rank 71 among all cryptocurrencies.
Volume Tells the Bigger Story
The price action is underscored by a sharp surge in trading activity. Daily volume rose 237% to $318 million, a figure that amounts to nearly half of the token's entire market cap. That kind of volume-to-market-cap ratio points to significant speculative interest and elevated liquidity. Earlier in 2026, Dash had already demonstrated its capacity for sharp recoveries, rebounding from the low $30 range and surging above $52 as traders rotated back into privacy-focused assets.
Dash is an open-source blockchain and cryptocurrency focused on offering a fast, cheap global payments network that is decentralised in nature. According to the project's white paper, it seeks to improve upon Bitcoin by providing stronger privacy and faster transactions. Dash, whose name comes from "digital cash," was launched in January 2014 as a fork of Litecoin.
Privacy Coin Peers Post Mixed Results
While $DASH led the pack, the broader privacy coin segment showed a divergence. Zcash gained 30% over the same rolling week, keeping pace with the privacy coin rotation. Monero, by contrast, fell 13% over the same period, suggesting the buying has not been uniform across the sector.
Analysts at CoinMarketCap have noted that moves in Dash are mainly driven by privacy-coin sector rotation and exchange-driven momentum, with Dash being one of the legacy names in the space. The regulatory backdrop adds complexity: Grayscale filed for the first U.S. spot privacy coin ETF on May 12, 2026, with approval estimated to carry a 75 to 85% probability by CoinMarketCap, a development that would set a precedent for regulated institutional access. On the other side, the EU is proposing a ban on anonymous crypto transactions by 2027, which could force exchanges to delist privacy coins and severely impact liquidity.
For now, $DASH's combination of price momentum, heavy volume, and a broadly supportive altcoin environment keeps it firmly in focus as September gets underway.
Sources:
Dash (DASH) Price and Market Data, CoinMarketCap
Dash Price Prediction and Regulatory Outlook, CoinMarketCap
What Is Dash and Why It Rallied, Phemex Academy

Changpeng Zhao, the Binance founder known as @cz_binance, says the capital his investment firm @yzilabs deployed over recent months will turn out to be "some of the best performing" in its history. Speaking at a Hong Kong event on August 28, he argued that deploying during a crypto winter, when valuations are compressed, positions those bets at the bottom of the market cycle.
From Binance Labs to Independent Firm
@yzilabs formally launched in January 2025, rebranding from what was previously Binance Labs. The rebrand transformed the firm from being Binance's venture capital arm into the family office of Zhao and Binance co-founder Yi He, with Zhao taking an active role in investments. The firm ranks among the world's largest crypto investors, managing CZ's fortune along with capital from a handful of early Binance executives, including co-founder Yi He.
The firm is now led by Ella Zhang, one of the original founders of Binance Labs, who returned to head YZi Labs and oversee its broader ambitions. Under her prior leadership, the firm successfully incubated over 40 transformative projects, including Polygon, Injective Protocol, and Dune Analytics.
A Broader Investment Mandate
YZi Labs has expanded its focus beyond Web3 and blockchain projects to now actively invest in emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology. As of early 2025, YZi Labs manages a portfolio worth over $10 billion, including investments in more than 250 projects such as Sky Mavis, LayerZero, Aptos Labs, and Polygon.
Recent investments include additional funding for Ethena Labs as well as $BNB-focused crypto treasury firms B Strategy and CEA Industries. The firm has also moved into AI, making its first AI-sector investment by funding Vana, a crypto-AI project focused on data ownership.
In a market where crypto cycles rise and fall while AI feels inevitable and biotech plays out over decades, YZi Labs is deliberately positioning itself across multiple technological frontiers. CZ's comments at the Hong Kong event reinforce a long-standing conviction: the best entry points come when markets are quiet, not loud.
Sources:
CoinDesk: YZi Labs Makes First Investment Following CZ's Return
The Block: CZ-linked YZi Labs mulls opening to outside investors
CoinDesk: From Stablecoins to Biotech, Why YZi Labs Is Betting on What Hasn't Happened Yet

How Bittensor allocates $TAO across its AI subnets
Bittensor is a decentralized network built around competing AI subnets, each one focused on a specific digital commodity: compute, inference, storage, or prediction. To fund that competition, the protocol mints new $TAO continuously. Each day, 3,600 $TAO are emitted into the network, equal to 0.5 $TAO every 12 seconds. Those tokens are then divided among the active subnets, but not equally.
Bittensor uses a price-based model for determining how $TAO emissions are distributed across subnets. Each subnet's share of block emissions is proportional to its EMA (Exponential Moving Average) token price, normalized over all subnets with emissions enabled. In other words, the market's appetite for a subnet's work directly shapes how much that subnet earns. Subnets that attract genuine demand see their token price rise, which in turn draws a larger slice of the emission pool.
That said, price alone does not determine outcomes. The protocol runs results through an emission gate that sharply reduces the shares assigned to weaker or underperforming subnets, concentrating rewards where real output is being produced. The V440 Emission Gate introduced a more selective framework for subnet rewards, directing emissions according to performance and demand rather than allowing weaker subnets to capture the same economic weight. New subnets also face a deliberate ramp-up period of roughly four weeks, which blunts the effect of speculative launch pumps on emission allocations.
Where the rewards go once they reach a subnet
Once a subnet's share of the block reward is established, the split inside that subnet follows a fixed structure. Each block mints $TAO which is split 41% to AI miners (who run inference), 41% to validators (who score that work), and 18% to the subnet creator. Validators score miner outputs and submit those assessments on-chain. The validator scores of miners' performance determine the proportion of the subnet's emissions allocated to each miner, according to the Yuma Consensus algorithm.
The design is intended to be self-correcting. Bad-faith validators, those whose scores deviate too much from the consensus, earn less and get diluted by honest ones over time. Meanwhile, as a subnet ages, the TAO that can no longer be injected as liquidity is instead swapped for alpha on the subnet's own pool, buying pressure that transitions mature subnets from liquidity injection to chain buybacks.
The broader result is a network where funding flows toward AI services that the market actually values, rather than being distributed by committee or predetermined formula, according to @opentensor's documentation.
Sources:
Bittensor Emission Documentation, LearnBittensor
Bittensor Official Emissions Docs, Bittensor.com
What Is Bittensor (TAO)? Decentralized AI Explained, Bitcoin.com

@binance has signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Bank of Kazakhstan and is preparing to apply for a new payments license, in a move that would deepen the exchange's footprint across Central Asia.
What the MoU covers
Deputy Governor Binur Zhalenov confirmed that the National Bank signed the agreement with @binance on September 4. The MoU carries no binding legal obligations but sets out a framework for cooperation. Zhalenov signed the agreement as part of a broader push that included three separate MoUs inked the same day. The other two involve cooperation with Kazakhstan's Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development and the Astana International Financial Centre.
The memorandum puts @binance on a path to apply for a Category 1 non-bank Payment Service Provider license, a credential designed to allow digital assets and traditional fiat currencies to operate alongside each other. The license permits payments but does not extend to deposits or lending. No formal application has been filed yet.
According to Zhalenov, @binance intends to use Kazakhstan as a base to serve nearby post-Soviet countries, signalling a regional expansion strategy rather than a purely domestic one. The three simultaneous MoUs suggest a coordinated government strategy rather than a one-off deal, with multiple ministries and regulatory bodies aligned on the same digital finance agenda.
Building on an existing presence
This MoU is not @binance's first move in Kazakhstan. The exchange received a Digital Asset Trading Facility license through Binance Kazakhstan back in 2024, giving it a regulated foothold in the country. That foothold became more tangible in July 2026 when @binance launched Binance Pay in partnership with Alatau City Bank, going live across 5,000 point-of-sale terminals and allowing users to spend crypto at physical merchants.
Cooperation areas under the broader set of agreements include the issuance of a stablecoin in Kazakhstan, further development of infrastructure for payments using digital assets, and improvement of tax and judicial approaches in the digital asset sector.
The Category 1 PSP license, if granted, would represent a further step in Kazakhstan's push to position itself as a regulated hub for digital finance in the region, with @binance serving as a key commercial partner in that effort.
Sources:
Crypto Briefing: Kazakhstan's National Bank signs MoU with Binance to expand digital asset services
Trend.Az: Binance inks two MoUs with Kazakhstan on digital assets and payments
FX News Group: Binance Kazakhstan obtains full Digital Asset Trading Facility license

Seven Modules, Zero Cost
The Cardano Foundation (@Cardano_CF) has made its full developer training path publicly available online, giving builders free and open access to a structured curriculum that runs from blockchain basics through to production-ready applications.
The programme is built around seven modules, taking developers from fundamentals all the way through to shipping live projects. Topics covered include smart contracts, decentralised applications (dApps), security, and scaling. Builders working through the path can learn to use Aiken and leverage Cardano's eUTxO model for predictable smart contract execution.
The material has been released under an MIT license, meaning anyone can copy, modify, and redistribute it freely, with no cost attached. The Cardano Foundation's developer portal on GitHub carries the MIT designation across its repositories.
Who Is It For?
The portal recommends that prospective learners arrive with existing programming experience and a working understanding of blockchain fundamentals before starting. The structured approach reflects the Foundation's broader effort to lower the barrier to entry for developers looking to build on Cardano.
@Cardano confirmed the release. The Foundation has been running an annual survey since 2022 to assess the state of its developer ecosystem and determine which tooling to prioritise. The public release of this training path appears to be a direct response to those findings, with the organisation's stated goal being to empower communities, businesses, and individuals through open-source blockchain education.
Publishing the content under an MIT license is a meaningful step. It allows educational institutions, bootcamps, and individual instructors to incorporate the material into their own programmes without legal or financial friction, helping to accelerate the growth of Cardano development skills more broadly.
Sources:
Cardano Developer Portal
Cardano Foundation on GitHub
Cardano Academy, Cardano Foundation

Zcash miners are moving on from zcashd in growing numbers, turning instead to Zallet, the wallet designed to replace the decades-old node software. Developers reported on Thursday's Arborist Call, hosted by @ZcashFoundation, that a number of miners have switched over completely and that the migration is working well.
zcashd Reaches End of Life
The shift is not voluntary for much longer. zcashd reached its final End-of-Support halt on July 18, 2026, at block height 3,417,100, and every unmodified zcashd 6.20.0 node shut down automatically at that point. The software does not support the NU6.3 network upgrade that followed shortly after. Users who have not yet moved are now being directed to either Zebra, the Rust-based consensus node developed by @ZcashFoundation, or to Zallet if they rely on the embedded wallet functionality.
Zallet is a full-node Zcash wallet written in Rust, built specifically as a replacement for the zcashd wallet. The software is still in beta, and developers have warned that breaking changes can occur at any time. Users were asked to back up old wallet.dat files before importing them into Zallet.
Beta 3 Fixes and Security Review Progress
Beta 3 shipped with fixes for problems miners had reported during earlier testing. The security review by Least Authority, a firm with a long track record of auditing Zcash components, has now reached its second round, where auditors verify that previously identified issues have been properly addressed. Least Authority recently completed a broader AI-assisted security audit across several critical repositories in the Zcash ecosystem, commissioned by Zcash Community Grants, with final reports delivered in May 2026.
The Arborist Call also noted that the migration tooling has matured. The migrate-zcashd-wallet command converts a legacy wallet.dat file into a Zallet wallet.db, and the team has been encouraging community testing on both mainnet and testnet to validate wallet balances and migration flows ahead of broader adoption.
While Zallet remains under active development, the combination of a hard zcashd shutdown deadline, improving tooling, and a security review nearing completion suggests the ecosystem is moving quickly toward a full transition.
Sources:
zcashd End of Life Timeline, The zcashd Book
Zallet GitHub Repository, zcash/zallet
AI-Assisted Security Auditing in the Zcash Ecosystem, Least Authority

Sequential transaction execution has long been one of blockchain's most stubborn bottlenecks. Executing a block one transaction at a time does not scale. Long transactions stall everything behind them, so latency and throughput collapse under load. The question facing every high-performance chain has been how to fix that without breaking the deterministic guarantees that make blockchains trustworthy.
Two Approaches, One Winner
One solution asks developers to declare upfront every piece of storage a transaction might touch, allowing a scheduler to run non-overlapping transactions side by side. The problem is that those declared access lists tend to be conservative, holding back work that could have safely run in parallel.
@AptosLabs took a different path. @Aptos executes blocks with Block-STM, a multi-threaded, in-memory engine that combines software transactional memory with a collaborative scheduler. It uses the consensus order as the serial baseline, executes transactions in parallel, and re-executes only the ones that aborted because of a conflict. Critically, developers do not declare access lists. They write ordinary Move, and the engine parallelizes whatever does not conflict.
Block-STM is a parallel execution engine for smart contracts, built around the principles of Software Transactional Memory. Transactions are grouped in blocks, and every execution of the block must yield the same deterministic outcome. Block-STM enforces that the outcome is consistent with executing transactions according to a preset order, leveraging this order to dynamically detect dependencies and avoid conflicts during speculative transaction execution.
An Engine Other Chains Have Since Adopted
The broader industry has taken note. Block-STM is the dynamic-parallelism engine originally built by Aptos Labs. Polygon, Sei, Starknet, and other chains have adopted the same approach.
Block-STM has been adopted for execution on the Polygon PoS chain, where it is already live on mainnet. The proposer uses Block-STM to execute transactions in parallel and includes a DAG in the block to allow deterministic and safe parallel execution at validators. SeiGiga has also adopted Block-STM. On the Ethereum Layer 2 side, StarkWare engineers led the implementation of a variant of Block-STM for Starknet v0.13.2.
The value of parallelism extends far beyond the Aptos ecosystem. Chains like @SeiNetwork have implemented solutions based on Block-STM's design that aim to improve concurrent execution performance. @0xPolygon's adoption has had tangible results: according to the Aptos Foundation, Block-STM's rollout on Polygon PoS was cited as a primary reason the chain processed more than 15 million transactions per day without disruption.
The spread of Block-STM across competing ecosystems is a notable marker of where blockchain infrastructure is heading. What began as @AptosLabs' internal execution engine has effectively become a reference design for any chain serious about throughput.
Sources:
Aptos Documentation: Block-STM Execution
Aptos Foundation: Ecosystem Leading the Way with Parallelism
Starknet: Parallel Execution and v0.13.2

WISeKey joins as Hedera's fourth Strategic Partner
@hedera's governing council has expanded its partner network, naming @WISeKey as its fourth Strategic Partner and @SpaceDevUy as its eighth Community Partner. Neither tier carries a seat on the council itself, but both signal the network's push into cybersecurity and clean-energy infrastructure.
WISeKey, a global expert in cybersecurity, digital identity and IoT solutions, joins the Global Blockchain Business Council, Halborn and the Institutes RiskStream Collaborative as Hedera's fourth Strategic Partner. The collaboration aims to combine WISeKey's cybersecurity, digital identity, IoT and post-quantum secure semiconductor expertise with Hedera's distributed ledger technology to accelerate trusted digital ecosystems and machine-to-machine transactions.
SEALCOIN AG, one of WISeKey's established subsidiaries, focuses on the development of the SEALCOIN platform, which enables the autonomous exchange of verified, high-value data secured by post-quantum cryptography. Hedera has been an active contributor to this vision, with a dedicated team of experts from its ecosystem working alongside SEALCOIN in the platform's development. By combining trusted device identity with Hedera's scalable distributed infrastructure, the project aims to build foundations for machines to authenticate, exchange value and transact autonomously at global scale.
The partnership also has a quantum-security angle. Earlier this year, WISeKey, The Hashgraph Group and Hedera launched the QAIT Q-Day Security Assessment Platform on the SEALCOIN Quantum Marketplace. Developed in collaboration with The Hashgraph Group, the platform is designed to help enterprises, governments and critical infrastructure operators evaluate, monitor and mitigate cybersecurity risks associated with the emergence of quantum computing.
SpaceDev brings carbon tokenization experience to the council
SpaceDev is a blockchain and custom software development company headquartered in Miami, Florida, with additional offices in Uruguay, Argentina and Colombia. The firm joins as Hedera's eighth Community Partner, bringing hands-on experience building on the network across multiple sectors, including energy, fintech and web3 infrastructure.
SpaceDev previously partnered with the Blockchain for Energy consortium to build a tokenization platform on Hedera that turns carbon-capture initiatives into auditable on-chain assets, replacing manual, error-prone workflows with a standardized, automated pipeline. That platform addresses the energy sector's need to accurately track and verify carbon emissions by combining distributed ledger technology, AI and IoT technologies to create a comprehensive emissions management platform that ensures transparency and accountability.
Hedera's partnership program leverages the skills, networks and resources of industry leaders to drive real-world adoption of the network, with its latest collaborations expanding capabilities for secure, decentralized infrastructure across real-world use cases.
Sources:
WISeKey joins the Hedera Council Network of Strategic and Community Partners (Manila Times / GlobeNewswire)
SpaceDev: Blockchain for Energy case study (SpaceDev)
Advancing decarbonization with Blockchain for Energy (Hedera)

The XRP Ledger's agentic payment layer has crossed a fresh milestone, with @t54ai's x402 hub recording 3,807,228 transactions to date, a 274% increase from earlier counts. Total value settled stands at 5,726 XRP and 3,626 RLUSD, @Ripple's dollar stablecoin.
How x402 Agent Payments Work
The x402 protocol uses an HTTP 402 "payment required" response, allowing AI agents to pay other agents or services for compute, data, or API access without manual wallet management or human sign-off. Settlement occurs on the XRP Ledger in seconds, with fees burned on each transaction, making every agentic payment a marginal reduction in circulating supply. On the XRP Ledger, the fixed network fee is only $0.0002, while settlement takes three to five seconds.
XRPL support for the x402 protocol came through a contribution from Ripple's partners at t54. The hub acts as the central directory and facilitator for these machine-to-machine payments, currently listing 1,711 live services from 148 registered merchants.
Heurist Leads the Merchant Table
@heurist_ai's Heurist Inference Router sits well clear of the rest of the top five merchants on the hub. AI agents use the Heurist Inference Router to instantly purchase additional computing power from other neural networks, at prices starting from 0.003 RLUSD per micro-request, and this category is growing faster than any other.
The fastest-growing category overall is on-demand inference: agents that rent computational capacity from other neural networks through the Heurist Inference Router. Other active merchants in the directory include LucyOS, ClawBank, and AskSurf, which together round out the top five by transaction volume.
RippleX's head of engineering, J. Ayo Akinyele, described the current volume as an early baseline, projecting the network could process between 10 million and 100 million agentic transactions within two years. Akinyele compares the current moment to the early years of cloud software, when common standards were just beginning to take shape and the amounts held in machine wallets were still small.
Chandler Fang, CEO of t54.ai, indicated that agents will soon be able to search for discounts and order physical products for their users, with around one hundred online stores in the process of integration. The rapid growth in transaction counts signals a maturing agentic economy on the XRP Ledger, even as the broader market watches for signs that volume can translate into meaningful settlement value at scale.
Sources:
XRP Ledger: Agentic Payments with X402
CoinMarketCap: Ripple Launches AI Agent Payments with XRP and RLUSD
Crypto Economy: AI Agents Fuel XRP Transactions, RippleX Maps Path Toward 100M

@Ondo has added STRCon to its growing roster of tokenized assets with round-the-clock minting and redemption, giving eligible investors continuous on-chain access to @Strategy's variable-rate Stretch preferred stock, $STRC.
What STRCon Offers
STRCon is Ondo's tokenized version of Strategy's variable-rate Series A Perpetual Stretch Preferred Stock, giving token holders economic exposure similar to holding $STRC and reinvesting any dividends. STRC currently carries a 12% variable annualized dividend rate and a $100 stated amount. The tokens are backed 1:1 by STRC shares held in custody, giving the product a direct link to the traditional market security rather than creating synthetic exposure without reserves.
Strategy Inc. is the largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder, and STRC is its variable-rate perpetual preferred stock. Unlike a corporate bond with a maturity date, STRC has no fixed redemption date, and Strategy is under no legal obligation to ever return principal.
Always-On Infrastructure Keeps Expanding
Ondo's 24/7 instant minting and redemption expands access beyond its previous 24/5 window, enabling eligible users to mint and redeem tokenized stocks and ETFs at any time, including weekends and U.S. public holidays. While rivals have claimed 24/7 trading, that access has historically only applied to CEX or DEX transfers, with actual minting and redemption limited to traditional market hours.
Ondo Stocks lists over 430 tokenized stocks and ETFs across Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain and became the first platform to surpass $1 billion in total value locked, more than all other tokenized stock platforms combined. In late July, Ondo secured FINRA approval connected to its U.S. tokenized-equity business, and at the time the company said its tokenized products had passed $2.5 billion in total value locked, while Ondo Stocks had generated more than $7 billion in cumulative trading volume. Most of the platform's catalog, however, remains on weekday-only minting hours, with the always-on set covering a select group of assets.
STRCon is designed to be usable within decentralized finance protocols, though how users choose to integrate it will depend on their own strategies and applicable regulations. Ondo Stocks products remain unavailable to most investors in the United States.
Sources:
Ondo Finance: Real 24/7 Trading for Tokenized Stocks (Official Blog)
Crypto.news: Saturn Adds Ondo Tokenized Stocks to STRC Products
The Defiant: Ondo Finance Launches 24/7 Minting and Redemption for Tokenized US Stocks and ETFs

TON Claims Top Spot for Daily Transaction Growth
@Ton_blockchain has recorded a 66% jump in transaction activity this week, making it the fastest-growing Layer-1 network on a daily basis according to Chainspect data. @Hedera follows in second place with a 56% rise in on-chain volume, while @Avax rounds out the top three with a 30% increase.
The move higher for $TON comes on the back of a rapidly expanding mini-app ecosystem built into Telegram. TON monthly active addresses rose from roughly 1.4 million to 4.5 million in 2026 as Telegram-linked activity has kept expanding. The network's consumer model is built around smaller, faster, and more frequent transactions including app rewards, simple transfers, gaming actions, tipping, mini-app payments, and stablecoin-style flows. That structural design has made it well-suited to absorb the wave of new users arriving through Telegram's interface.
Technical improvements have also helped. The Catchain 2.0 upgrade reduced block generation time to just 400 milliseconds, a change that makes sub-second finality live and fees negligible.
Hedera Builds on Enterprise Momentum
$HBAR's activity increase tells a different story. Rather than consumer-facing apps, Hedera's volume growth is tied to institutional and enterprise settlement flows. Its governance model, led by a council of global corporations including Google, IBM, and LG, sets it apart from community-driven blockchains and positions it as a preferred network for regulated and enterprise-grade use cases.
Daily transactions on Hedera have remained near 371,000 despite broader market turbulence, signaling robust enterprise adoption. The network has processed billions of transactions since its mainnet launch, with use cases spanning tokenization, supply chain tracking, and decentralized identity.
Taken together, this week's figures point to broadening network usage across the Layer-1 landscape, with $TON and $HBAR leading for distinctly different reasons. TON's gains reflect the scale of Telegram's consumer reach, while Hedera's rise underlines steady institutional demand for a governed, enterprise-ready ledger.
Sources
TON Monthly Active Addresses Triple in 2026, Crypto Adventure
Hedera Latest Network Updates, CoinMarketCap
Hedera Network Growth Analysis, CryptoRank

@Ripple has entered a long-term partnership with @FloridaGators, making $XRP the official crypto brand of one of college sport's most recognisable athletic programmes. The deal marks a significant step in bringing digital asset branding into mainstream American sports.
$XRP Branding at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium
Under the agreement, the $XRP logo will appear on the field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium throughout the entire 2026 football season. The placement is one of the most prominent in college sports, putting the $XRP brand in front of tens of thousands of fans at every home game and a much wider television audience.
The scope of the deal extends well beyond a single venue or season. Ripple's partnership covers digital and event branding across all 21 Florida Gators sports programmes, giving $XRP consistent visibility across a broad range of athletic events and the millions of fans who follow them worldwide.
Education and Community Outreach
Ripple is also using the partnership to push beyond logo placement. The company is launching dedicated educational initiatives aimed at 500 student-athletes and the wider University of Florida community. The programmes are designed to introduce students to digital assets and blockchain technology, positioning $XRP and Ripple as more than a sponsor and as a platform with real-world financial relevance.
The move reflects a broader strategy from Ripple to embed $XRP into mainstream culture through sports. College athletics offers direct access to a large and engaged fan base, and a deal of this size, spanning 21 teams and one of the country's most storied football venues, signals a serious long-term commitment to that approach.
For Florida Gators Athletics, the partnership brings both commercial value and a connection to the growing world of digital finance, at a time when sports organisations across the country are exploring new revenue streams and sponsor categories.
Sources:
Florida Gators Official Website

Nepal Turns to Blockchain for Disaster Funding
The Government of Nepal has launched its first-ever blockchain-based donation campaign, using crypto infrastructure to channel international contributions into the Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund following severe flooding that struck the country in late August 2026. A flash flood came down the Bhote Koshi river on 26 August 2026, originating on the Tibet side of the border before crossing into Nepal and hitting Rasuwa, Nuwakot, and neighbouring districts. By September 2, more than 1,100 people had died. Nepal faces a $5 billion flood recovery bill after widespread damage to tourism and hydropower infrastructure.
The campaign marks a significant step for a government that has historically relied on conventional banking channels for foreign aid. Cash and supplies for relief are directed through the Prime Minister's Disaster Relief Fund, with the Ministry of Finance confirming the rule covers individuals, companies, donor agencies, and foreign organisations.
How Polygon's Open Money Stack Fits In
The relief drive leverages @0xPolygon's Open Money Stack (OMS) to accept contributions from donors worldwide using stablecoins and other digital assets across multiple networks. The Polygon Open Money Stack is an open, integrated, and programmable suite of services delivered through a single API, designed to move money anywhere instantly, accepting deposits, moving stablecoins, and off-ramping to bank accounts or cash.
Critically for a government fund denominated in Nepali Rupees, the infrastructure handles the full conversion flow automatically. The OMS receives stablecoin payments, auto-converts to fiat, and delivers the proceeds to the recipient's bank account, so the sender pays in stablecoins while the recipient settles in the currency they already use. This eliminates the multi-day settlement delays and high fees typically associated with international wire transfers and SWIFT-based remittances.
Polygon Chain, which underpins the OMS, has recorded $54 billion in stablecoin transfer volume, 159 million unique wallet addresses, and an average transaction cost of $0.002. The OMS also manages interoperability across hundreds of chains, with routing, bridging, and execution handled behind the scenes, meaning donors are not restricted to a single network or asset.
The move positions Nepal as an early-adopter government in using public blockchain rails for sovereign disaster fundraising, and offers a live test case for whether crypto payments infrastructure can genuinely accelerate humanitarian aid delivery at a national scale.
Sources:
Polygon: Open Money Stack Technical Preview (polygon.technology)
Could Crypto Support Nepal's $5 Billion Flood Recovery? (bitcoinethereumnews.com)
Nepal Government's One-Door Policy for Flood Relief (kathmandupost.com)

MOVA Bets on Chainlink CCIP for Cross-Chain Infrastructure
@MovaChain has integrated @Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) to serve as the core infrastructure of its sovereign financial operating system, known as the MOVA Financial OS. The move is designed to allow liquidity and tokenized assets to flow securely between blockchains without relying on the older bridge technology that has historically introduced significant risk.
Traditional cross-chain bridges have proven to be a persistent weak point in the blockchain ecosystem. Traditional bridges represent single points of failure, a vulnerability that led to over $2 billion in exploits in 2022 alone. MOVA's integration of CCIP is a direct response to those risks, replacing legacy bridge infrastructure with a more robust and decentralized alternative.
Chainlink CCIP is a blockchain interoperability solution designed to securely move data and value across more than 60 public and private blockchains through a single integration. The protocol is powered by Chainlink's decentralized oracle networks, which have a proven track record securing tens of billions of dollars. This infrastructure removes single points of failure and provides defense-in-depth security for cross-chain operations.
Stablecoins and RWAs at the Core of MOVA Financial OS
At the heart of the MOVA Financial OS are two asset classes: stablecoins and real-world assets (RWAs). The platform is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer through which these assets can operate across multiple blockchains at global scale. RWA interoperability refers to the ability of tokenized assets to be transferred, referenced, or used across multiple blockchain networks and legacy systems. In the context of the Chainlink interoperability standard, this means moving beyond simple token bridging to a state where data, value, and instructions can flow securely between chains.
@MovaChain itself is built around sovereign digital infrastructure. The platform offers modular digital public infrastructure designed for sovereign control, regulatory alignment, and institutional scalability. Adding Chainlink's CCIP layer brings the interoperability capabilities needed to make that vision operationally viable across different blockchain environments.
The information security management system of CCIP has been certified under ISO 27001, and CCIP has completed a SOC 2 Type 1 attestation covering the trust services criteria for security, availability, and confidentiality. Those credentials matter for a project targeting sovereign financial systems, where regulatory alignment and institutional trust are non-negotiable.
The integration adds MOVA to a growing list of platforms turning to CCIP as foundational cross-chain infrastructure. Since launching on mainnet in July 2023, CCIP has evolved into a fully operational protocol that now connects over 60 blockchain networks and serves as critical infrastructure for both decentralized finance and institutional adoption.
Sources:
Chainlink CCIP: Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol
What Is Chainlink CCIP? (CoinGecko)
MOVA Chain Official Website