BSC News

Two tokenization-focused tokens are standing out from the broader market on September 24, surging on separate but equally significant institutional developments.
Ondo Jumps on BlackRock Portfolio Token Launch
Ondo Finance's token climbed roughly 25% to around $0.51, with trading volume tripling to over $816 million, after @Ondo unveiled its new Intelligent Portfolios product. Ondo Finance launched Ondo Intelligent Portfolios, a new onchain product category offering curated portfolios as single onchain transferable tokens, with the first three based on portfolio strategies developed by BlackRock, marking the first time eligible onchain investors can access exposure to such strategies through a single token.
The three products are Ondo High Income Powered by BlackRock (BLKHIon), Ondo Diversified Growth Powered by BlackRock (BLKDIGon), and Ondo High Growth Powered by BlackRock (BLKGRWon). The tokens are issued by Ondo Global Markets and offer eligible non-U.S. investors economic exposure to weighted baskets of tokenized assets.
Ondo's disclosures note that BlackRock is not the investment adviser, manager, sponsor, promoter, underwriter, marketer, or distributor of the portfolios or the tokens and exercises no supervision or control over them. BlackRock builds the portfolios; Ondo Finance tokenizes them by issuing one token that tracks each portfolio.
$QNT Rallies as The Clearing House Picks @quantnetwork
$QNT rose around 21% to $86, pushing its market cap back above $1 billion, after a separate institutional announcement landed the same day. The Clearing House picked UK-based programmable money infrastructure provider Quant to power a new interoperable payments network that will enable US financial institutions of all sizes to clear and settle tokenized deposit transactions.
Unveiled in June, The Clearing House's On-Chain Money Initiative is backed by a host of Wall Street giants, including Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan, and Wells Fargo. Quant's technology will enable the network's interoperability, orchestration, and transaction-management layer, while providing connectivity to existing fiat payment systems including the RTP and CHIPS networks. The Clearing House expects to make the initiative available to participating institutions in the first half of 2027.
Both announcements landed on the same day, underscoring how quickly institutional momentum around tokenized real-world assets is building. For traders, the price action in ONDO and $QNT reflects growing confidence that tokenization is moving from pilot projects to live infrastructure.
Sources:
Ondo Finance press release: Ondo Launches Intelligent Portfolios Powered by BlackRock (PR Newswire)
The Clearing House taps Quant for tokenised deposit network (Finextra)
Ondo launches onchain portfolio tokens based on BlackRock-developed strategies (The Block)

The Federal Reserve Board has opened a public comment period on two proposed rules that would establish a regulatory framework for stablecoin issuers it supervises, the latest step in a broader push by U.S. financial regulators to implement the GENIUS Act.
What the Fed Is Proposing
The first proposal would require that Fed-supervised payment stablecoin issuers fully back their stablecoins with certain permissible reserve assets, such as short-term Treasury bills and other high-quality, liquid assets. Alongside reserve requirements, the proposal would introduce new capital adequacy and risk management standards for covered issuers.
A second proposal addresses how Fed-supervised banks would apply to issue stablecoins. Comments on both proposals close 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
Where This Fits in the Broader Regulatory Push
The move puts the @federalreserve in step with other U.S. regulators that have already advanced their own GENIUS Act rulemakings. The GENIUS Act directs several regulators, including the FDIC, Federal Reserve Board, NCUA, OCC, and Treasury Department, to issue implementing regulations. Passed in July 2025, the GENIUS Act created the first comprehensive federal framework for stablecoin regulation.
The law will take effect on the earlier of 18 months from enactment (January 18, 2027) or 120 days after primary federal regulators issue final implementing rules. Other agencies have moved on parallel tracks. The FDIC has proposed a prudential framework for its supervised stablecoin issuers covering reserve assets, redemption, capital, and risk management standards. The OCC and Treasury have also published their own implementing proposals in recent months.
The Fed's two proposals add an important piece to this regulatory puzzle, covering institutions under the Board's direct supervision. Together, the wave of agency rulemakings signals that the U.S. is moving toward an operational stablecoin regulatory regime well before the GENIUS Act's expected January 2027 effective date.
Sources:
Federal Reserve Board opens comment on two GENIUS Act stablecoin proposals
FDIC approves proposal to implement GENIUS Act requirements and standards
U.S. Treasury seeks public comment on GENIUS Act proposed rulemaking

The @SuiFoundation has joined @lfdecentralized, the Linux Foundation's open source body for blockchain and decentralized ledger technology, as part of a broad intake of 15 new members announced on September 24, 2026.
The full cohort includes Brickken, CertiK, Cosmos, DCP Inc., Ethereum Institutional, EthSystems, EUROPEUM, Fenasbac, Hypernative, Interchain Foundation, Sui Foundation, Swift, Vana, Wells Fargo, and Zeeve. Swift, Wells Fargo, and Zeeve are rejoining the community, a sign of the escalating importance of LF Decentralized Trust and its technologies.
Why Sui Is At the Table
The move places @SuiNetwork alongside some of the most influential names in global finance at a moment when the industry is trying to agree on how tokenized assets should move between institutions. As Adeniyi Abiodun, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Mysten Labs, put it: traditional finance built its standards over decades, but an equivalent set for tokenized assets has yet to be broadly adopted. The next challenge is making those assets move efficiently across institutions through a common language for identity, compliance, and settlement. Sui, he said, provides the high-performance layer needed to put those standards into action.
Sui's involvement with LFDT is not new. The Open Tokenized Asset Standard (OTAS), a lab that includes open source smart contracts for implementing tokenized financial instruments, was proposed by premier member OpenAssets and sponsored by Sui and Mysten Labs.
A Broader Institutional Push
The announcement comes ahead of Sibos, the annual financial services conference, and includes several institutional heavyweights. Among the new members are Swift, Wells Fargo, Brazil's central bank-affiliated innovation group Fenasbac, and DCP, the company behind Japan's tokenized deposit solution DCJPY.
Alongside the membership news, LFDT unveiled a major upgrade to its blockchain interoperability platform, Hyperledger Cacti v3, making it easier to plug new blockchains into cross-chain transfers. With the proliferation of institutional blockchains, interoperability has come to the fore.
Daniela Barbosa, General Manager of Decentralized Technologies at the Linux Foundation, said the industry has reached a tipping point for the commercialization of digital assets, with billions of dollars already moving across production systems powered by LFDT technologies. She noted the community sits at the core of the next generation of money, including tokenized assets, stablecoins, and CBDCs.
Sources
LF Decentralized Trust official press release via PR Newswire
Ledger Insights: Swift, Wells Fargo join LF Decentralized Trust
Ledger Insights: LFDT tokenization standard lab and Sui sponsorship

A Natively Onchain Private Equity Fund Backed by Chainlink
@chainlink is set to power a new tokenized private equity fund targeting some of Asia's most closely held markets. Hamco, in collaboration with Synthesys and Chainlink, has announced the Hamco Tokenized Pan-Asia Private Equity Fund, giving eligible investors access to hard-to-reach private and pre-IPO opportunities across Asia.
The fund will offer investors fractionalized exposure to the region's private markets, covering AI, semiconductors, and unicorn pre-IPO equities, with liquidity supported by tokenized funds, stablecoins, cash equivalents, and liquid assets.
The semi-liquid, evergreen fund is established as a native structure in the Cayman Islands and issued through Mint, which brings together Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), its Digital Transfer Agent (DTA) technical standard, and NAVLink into a single framework, with distribution through Synthesys Network's (@synthesysco) regulated distributor channels.
How the Technology Stack Works
Each component of the Chainlink stack serves a distinct function. NAVLink feeds securely link tokenized funds to the fund administrator's NAV reporting systems, ensuring accurate pricing for subscriptions and redemptions across both fiat and digital asset settlement. Meanwhile, Chainlink's CCIP allows tokenized funds to be distributed across multiple networks without fragmentation.
Chainlink's Automated Compliance Engine (ACE) provides flexible, programmable compliance enforcement, including eligibility checks, rate limits, and role-based access controls, enabling regulators' and institutions' requirements to be met onchain.
Access to the fund is restricted to eligible non-US professional investors. Tokenized money market funds and stablecoins held within the fund are designed to support redemptions, providing a degree of liquidity that traditional private equity structures typically do not offer.
The Hamco announcement follows a similar collaboration between the same parties earlier this year. In a previous deal, EPOCH partnered with Chainlink and Synthesys to launch TreasuryPlus (TPLUS), the first institutionally managed tokenized private credit fund across six global markets. The Hamco fund marks a broader push into private equity, rather than private credit, and focuses specifically on pan-Asian growth opportunities.
The deal also reinforces Chainlink's growing role in institutional finance more broadly. Among the financial institutions that have adopted Chainlink's standards and infrastructure are Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, and S&P Dow Jones Indices.
Sources:
Hamco Pan-Asia Fund Announcement via PR Newswire (The Manila Times)
Chainlink Digital Transfer Agent Technical Standard (Official Documentation)

The Clearing House (@TCHtweets) has selected @quantnetwork, a provider of programmable money infrastructure, to power its On-Chain Money Initiative. The initiative involves a new interoperable payments network that will enable financial institutions of all sizes to clear and settle tokenized deposit transactions.
Unveiled in June, the On-Chain Money Initiative is backed by a host of Wall Street giants, including Bank of America, Citi, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo. The initiative will be operated by The Clearing House, a U.S.-based payments company owned by 25 of the nation's largest financial institutions.
What Quant Will Do
Quant's technology will enable the network's interoperability, orchestration, and transaction-management layer that coordinates the clearing and settlement of tokenized deposit transactions, while providing connectivity to existing fiat payment systems that financial institutions and their customers use every day, including the RTP and CHIPS networks.
CHIPS is the largest private sector USD clearing and settlement network in the world for high-value wire payments, while RTP is a 24/7/365 instant-payments scheme built on the ISO 20022 messaging standard, supporting immediate credit-push transfers with final settlement. Connecting a tokenized deposit network to both rails puts blockchain-based settlement directly alongside the infrastructure that underpins the bulk of U.S. dollar payments today.
The initiative aims to enable payments that settle immediately, transactions that trigger automatically when agreed conditions are met, and reductions in manual work and delays for banks and their customers.
Tokenized Deposits Explained
Tokenized deposits are digital representations of a financial institution's deposits that retain the protections and regulatory oversight of a traditional deposit, but are recorded and moved differently, and can move automatically within rules that institutions set in advance. For businesses, this means liquidity and payments processed around the clock.
A deposit tokenized at one institution has historically struggled to interact with a deposit tokenized at another. The initiative's goal is a shared settlement layer that all 25 institutions can use together.
The Clearing House chose @quantnetwork through a competitive process to fill that coordination role. Quant specializes in programmable money infrastructure rather than issuing tokens itself. Its role here is coordination, not custody or issuance.
The Clearing House expects to make the On-Chain Money Initiative available to participating institutions in the first half of 2027.
Sources:
The Clearing House Partners with Quant to Advance the On-Chain Money Initiative (PR Newswire)
The Clearing House Taps Quant to Power Tokenized Deposits Network (PYMNTS)
The Clearing House Taps Quant for Tokenised Deposit Network (Finextra)

The @injective network activated its Meridian mainnet upgrade on September 24, 2026, marking one of the most consequential changes to the chain since its launch. The upgrade, formally designated IIP-701, passed governance with near-unanimous backing before going live.
Compliance Built Into the Protocol
At its core, Meridian introduces regulated token standards on Injective's EVM layer. The upgrade adds support for regulated token implementations, letting issuers embed compliance and transfer requirements directly into tokenized products. That means compliance becomes a protocol-level feature rather than an application-level add-on: when regulatory requirements live at the token standard level, every application built on top inherits those protections automatically, and issuers do not need to build custom compliance solutions for each deployment.
The upgrade, IIP-701, passed with roughly 99% staker approval and introduces a regulated token standard on Injective's EVM, allowing issuers to embed compliance directly into tokenized real-world assets and equities, building on Injective's SEC transfer agent registration from August. The vote result itself was not unusual for the network. The 99% approval rate, while striking, is not unprecedented for Injective. The prior Vulcan upgrade also received over 99% staker support.
Meridian is the latest step in a deliberate build sequence. The Injective Mint tool launched in July 2026, providing the tooling for token creation, and SEC transfer agent registration followed in August. The project says it has handled $6.8 billion in cumulative RWA volume, with its institutions page listing more than 500 on-chain assets and roughly 56.9 million $INJ staked.
Private Institutional Trading Enters Testing
Meridian also adds an exchange precompile, private RFQ testing, stronger oracles, and tightened execution and risk controls to accelerate crypto token launches, tokenized equities, RWA issuance, and institutional DeFi adoption.
The proposal lays groundwork for privacy-focused infrastructure, introducing early testing of private request-for-quote transaction flows. Those controlled environments are designed to give institutions access to onchain liquidity while shielding sensitive trading and order information, ahead of a broader privacy suite expected in a later upgrade. That broader suite is tied to CypherOS, Injective's native privacy platform, with Meridian advancing Injective's position as the premier blockchain for institutional-grade tokenization while laying the foundation for the future CypherOS launch.
The upgrade also tightens core infrastructure. Meridian further tightens market execution, risk controls, transaction signing, and oracle processing, with improved oracle prioritization and relay validation aimed at more dependable pricing for tokenized equities, RWAs, and derivatives.
Sources
Crypto Briefing: Injective Meridian mainnet upgrade proposal passes with 99% support
Blockchain Reporter: Injective Meridian Upgrade Targets September 24
Crypto Briefing: Injective Mint launches unified platform for institutional-grade tokenization

@plumenetwork has launched its nPRIME vault, giving DeFi users direct exposure to real-world home equity lending through PRIME, a Hastra token built on Figure's lending infrastructure.
PRIME is a liquid staking token on the Solana and Ethereum blockchains that provides decentralised access to institutional-grade yields generated from real-world home equity loans. It is the yield-bearing receipt token of the Hastra protocol, designed to bridge traditional finance and DeFi, serving as the primary vehicle for users to capture yields from Figure's Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) portfolios.
How the yield works
PRIME represents tokenised exposure to the yield generated in the Home Equity Pool on Figure's Democratized Prime, which consists of a pool of residential real estate loans originated by Figure. The income is not synthetic. Value moves through the system as borrowers pay interest on their real-world loans, which is then captured by the protocol and distributed to PRIME holders. The yield is not guaranteed and reflects actual borrower repayment performance.
Through Plume's nPRIME vault, depositors bypass Hastra's hourly rate auctions entirely. The vault captures interest from Figure's loans in the period before those loans are sold on to long-term institutional investors, passing that income directly to depositors.
Figure provides access to yields generated from its $1 billion-plus a month in onchain loan originations through Democratized Prime. Figure CEO Michael Tannenbaum has said the platform has originated over $22 billion in onchain loans.
Plume's growing RWA vault ecosystem
The nPRIME vault is one of several real-world asset products on Plume. Users deposit into a vault and receive a vault token representing their position. Every vault holds regulated real-world assets, with yield accruing automatically as the vault token value grows.
Figure launched Hastra in 2025 on Solana as an extension of its existing lending infrastructure. The platform uses Figure's loan origination and credit systems to bring real-world assets onchain for DeFi investors, and is now expanding to Ethereum-compatible EVM chains to reach a larger segment of the DeFi ecosystem.
The integration signals a broader push to connect TradFi credit markets with DeFi liquidity, allowing retail participants to access yield streams previously limited to institutional investors. As with any real-world credit product, the return is tied to underlying borrower performance and carries associated credit risk.
Sources
CoinGecko: Hastra PRIME (PRIME) Token Overview
RWA.xyz: PRIME Asset Analytics
Figure: RWA Consortium Launch Announcement

Kaspa Gets Its Own Native Name Service
@dotk_name went live on the Kaspa mainnet on September 13, 2026, introducing a name service built directly into the protocol layer. Rather than relying on an off-chain registry, a .k name is a covenant UTXO, meaning the chain itself enforces who owns it. Names are provably unique, and the system is fully trustless, with both correctness and completeness verifiable using a Kaspa node alone.
The practical upside is straightforward: instead of sharing a long alphanumeric Kaspa address, users can register a short .k name and use that as their on-chain identity. The ownership logic lives in the protocol, removing the need to trust a third-party registry.
Subnames, Wallet Support, and Developer Tools
Beyond simple name registration, dotk now supports subnames, allowing a single .k name to branch into multiple addresses. A project team, for example, could set up handles such as dev.project.k or treasury.project.k, each pointing to its own separate wallet address. This makes .k names useful not just for individuals but for teams and decentralised projects that need to route funds to different purposes under one identity.
Wallet support arrived quickly after launch. The Kaspire wallet lets users enter a .k name to send $KAS or assets on Layer 1, with the wallet deriving the deed in Rust and checking live ownership through the node before selecting the payment address. Name resolution is available on Android and in the latest browser extension. The registry identity and deed template are embedded in the wallet rather than accepted from the API, and node checks reject stale or spent deeds, foreign covenant IDs, wrong scripts, and address mismatches.
For developers building on top of the system, two npm packages are available to help integrators: @dotk/sdk for lookup and proof functions, and @dotk/sdk-tx for registering and transferring names. This gives application builders a clear path to resolve .k names and subnames without having to interact directly with the underlying covenant logic.
The launch positions Kaspa alongside other smart-contract-capable networks that have introduced human-readable naming layers, though dotk's approach of enforcing ownership at the consensus level rather than through a separate smart contract is a technical distinction worth noting for developers evaluating the protocol.
Sources:
dotk name system details on GitHub (Kastle integration request)
Kaspire wallet official site
Kaspire v0.11.31 release notes on GitHub

Planned Halt, Swift Recovery
Terra Classic ($LUNC) is back producing blocks after a brief, scheduled network halt on September 24 to apply a mandatory security patch. The chain stopped at block 30,544,730 at around 17:51 CEST, with block production resuming by 18:17 CEST, roughly 26 minutes later. By that point, 57 of 87 validators had signed on to the new release.
The upgrade, labelled v4.0.1-patch.3, was a mandatory security release for Terra Classic (columbus-5), rolled out through a coordinated governance proposal that passed with near-unanimous approval, with 99% of votes in favour. It was activated through an on-chain SoftwareUpgrade governance proposal, reflecting the community-driven process that governs the chain.
What the Patch Fixes
The wasmd and wasmvm components, which are critical parts of Terra Classic's smart contract platform, were both affected by a critical security vulnerability being handled through responsible disclosure. Full technical details of the flaw will not be made public until September 28, when Cosmos Labs is scheduled to publish the details of the fix at 14:00 UTC.
Chains needed to upgrade before that date to avoid becoming targets once the attack vector is public. The Terra Classic team moved quickly to meet that deadline, with the upgrade introducing no state migration or parameter change.
For $LUNC holders, the upgrade does not require a token exchange and focuses on strengthening the network's security and reliability. No action is needed on the part of ordinary token holders.
Sources
Terra Classic v4.0.1-patch.3 Release Notes, classic-terra GitHub
Terra Classic v4.0.1 Patch.3 Upgrade: What $LUNC Holders Need to Know, KuCoin

@LayerZero_Core and @TACEO_IO are joining forces to bring private transfers to cross-chain finance. The two projects are building an integration that will allow token balances to move between networks with both the participants and the transfer size shielded in transit.
How Merces Works
The integration plugs into TACEO's Merces privacy layer, which went live on mainnet on September 24, 2026, with funds already running on @monad and @world_chain_. The system enables token transfers across blockchains that shield both participant identities and transfer amounts.
Merces wraps standard ERC-20 tokens, such as USDC, into private virtual accounts using a technique called secret sharing. The balances exist on-chain, but no single party can read the plaintext data. Every output is verified on-chain via coSNARKs, and no single node or participant ever holds unencrypted data. Independent node clusters perform joint computations directly over encrypted shares without revealing raw inputs.
TACEO positions Merces as "compliant privacy": confidentiality that is meant to be compatible with the regulatory requirements financial institutions face, so supervisors and auditors retain their view. Compliance is baked into the architecture from the start, with allowlists, anti-money laundering hooks, and selective disclosure mechanisms built into the protocol rather than retrofitted later.
The Institutional Case
Cameron Nili, LayerZero's Banking and Capital Markets Lead, framed the integration as filling the remaining privacy gaps in cross-chain transfers, with an emphasis on institutional use cases. Banks, asset managers, and corporate treasuries have long cited the transparency of public blockchains as a dealbreaker. Stablecoin flows are a primary use case: when a corporation moves millions in USDC between chains, the current default is full public visibility. Merces directly targets that pain point.
State changes are verified on-chain through TACEO's CoSNARKs technology, a framework for generating cryptographic proofs in a distributed manner. TACEO reports that Merces has already processed roughly 5 million demo transactions on testnets at approximately 300 transactions per second. The full cryptographic specification has been published on the portal of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR ePrint 2026/850).
Sources
Crypto Briefing: LayerZero integrates with TACEO Merces to enable private cross-chain token transfers
IACR ePrint 2026/850: Merces: Confidential Token Transfers via MPC and CoSNARKs
TACEO Merces: Confidential Payments on Public Rails

@Doublezero has added @HyperliquidX as the second blockchain on its DoubleZero Edge platform, making Hyperliquid's live order book available for the first time through a low-latency market data delivery service. Hyperliquid, the blockchain home to the largest decentralised perpetual futures trading by volume, becomes the third venue on Edge, following Solana and Kalshi.
How DoubleZero Edge Works
Powered by independent fiber contributors and coordinated onchain, DoubleZero delivers low-latency networking and real-time data infrastructure for blockchains, prediction markets, and other distributed systems where milliseconds matter. The core design is built around directness: Hyperliquid feeds on DoubleZero Edge are sourced directly from HyperCore, one step closer than any public API path, with no reseller in between. Firms connect once and receive sequenced, machine-readable feeds over dedicated fiber, rather than rebuilding book state from public internet APIs.
Four feeds are available at launch: Hyperliquid native perpetuals Top-of-Book and Trades, Hyperliquid native perpetuals Market-by-Order (Level 4), HIP-3 RWA perpetuals Top-of-Book covering commodities including gold, silver, and oil, and HIP-3 RWA perpetuals Market-by-Order. Subscribers will also be able to access dedicated feeds for HIP-3 markets, including Anthropic and OpenAI pre-IPO perpetuals launched by Entropy IO.
Hyperliquid's Scale and Hyperion DeFi's Role
The scale of Hyperliquid gives the launch weight. In Q2 2026, the network processed over $662 billion in trading volume, while HIP-3 markets have brought oil, gold, silver, and other real-world-asset perpetuals onchain. The blockchain settles every order, cancel, trade, and liquidation within 70-millisecond block times.
Supporting the launch is Hyperion DeFi (NASDAQ: HYPD), which partnered with DoubleZero Edge alongside Hyperliquid validator operators MAVAN and Kinetiq. As part of the initial arrangement, Hyperion DeFi obtained 10 million DoubleZero "2Z" tokens, with additional future revenue expected through publishing Hyperliquid market data. The product roadmap also points to expansion into Hyperliquid's Outcome Markets as liquidity grows on HIP-4, potentially supporting cross-venue arbitrage with platforms like Kalshi.
Sources:
DoubleZero Foundation: Launch of Real-Time Hyperliquid Market Data on Edge (PR Newswire)
Hyperion DeFi Supports DoubleZero Edge in Launching Hyperliquid Data Feeds (GlobeNewswire)

Cardano Native Tokens Get Institutional-Grade Custody
@FireblocksHQ has formally introduced support for @Cardano_CF Native Tokens (CNTs), opening the door for banks, fintechs, and financial institutions to manage and transfer CNTs through the same policy engine and security framework they already use for other digital assets. The announcement, made on September 24, 2026, marks a meaningful step in bridging the Cardano ecosystem with traditional financial infrastructure.
Before this integration, institutions looking to handle CNTs had to rely on manual processes or custom workarounds. Before this deal, institutions handling CNTs had to rely on manual processes or raw signing workarounds. Now they are able to custody, send, and receive CNTs using the same policy controls and security architecture already applied to other digital assets on the platform. That friction has now been removed, with CNTs treated operationally on a par with more established institutional holdings.
The Fireblocks platform secures roughly $16 trillion in digital asset transactions and is used by thousands of banks, fintechs, and asset managers worldwide. Plugging CNTs into that infrastructure gives the Cardano ecosystem access to a distribution channel that few blockchain networks have reached.
Emurgo, Pentad, and Iagon assisted in the integration process, according to the Cardano Foundation. This latest announcement builds on earlier groundwork: a May 2026 integration with Iagon had already added staking and governance functionality for Cardano via an SDK, giving institutions a partial on-ramp.
CIP-26 and CIP-68 Standards Built Into the Integration
The implementation natively supports both of Cardano's primary token metadata standards. Cardano supports two primary metadata standards for fungible tokens: CIP-26, an off-chain metadata standard that stores data in a centralized or semi-centralized registry suitable for simple and static use cases, and CIP-68, an on-chain metadata standard that uses datums to store dynamic and programmable metadata directly on the blockchain, enabling advanced use cases. By supporting both, the Fireblocks integration covers the full spectrum of CNTs currently in circulation, from straightforward fungible tokens to more complex programmable assets.
Custody and asset transfer for CNTs becoming more uniform across a major platform like Fireblocks supports greater interoperability between Cardano-based tokens and the traditional financial institutions that increasingly touch digital assets. The go-live date gives both sides roughly six months from announcement to implementation, which is a reasonable timeline for the kind of technical certification and compliance review that institutional platforms require before flipping a switch on a new asset class.
For Cardano, the integration addresses a long-standing gap in its institutional story. The technology has often been viewed as technically rigorous but operationally difficult for large financial players to access. Fireblocks support changes that calculus in a practical way.
Sources:
Crypto Briefing: Cardano Native Tokens to get full institutional custody support on Fireblocks
Cardano Developer Portal: Token Metadata Standards (CIP-26 and CIP-68)

Ondo Finance has launched a new onchain product category: Ondo Intelligent Portfolios, curated portfolios delivered as single onchain transferable tokens. @PancakeSwap has moved quickly to integrate the offering, adding support for @Ondo's Intelligent Portfolios directly within its Stock Terminal.
Three Institutional-Grade Tokens, One Terminal
The three portfolio tokens are built on investment strategies customized by BlackRock for Ondo, addressing three key investment needs: income, diversification, and thematic exposure. $BLKHIon represents the Ondo High Income Powered by BlackRock strategy, $BLKDIGon covers Ondo Diversified Growth Powered by BlackRock, and $BLKGRWon delivers the Ondo High Growth Powered by BlackRock strategy.
The three tokens mark the first time eligible onchain investors can access exposure to such BlackRock-powered strategies through a single token. Diversified, professionally constructed strategies have historically required brokerage accounts and traditional fund structures. Now, these onchain portfolios are accessible to eligible non-US investors in permitted jurisdictions through the wallets, exchanges, and DeFi applications they already use.
Each portfolio token is issued by Ondo Global Markets and tokenized by Ondo Finance. Investors mint or redeem a single token to hold a weighted basket of tokenized assets, without buying, weighting, or rebalancing individual positions themselves. Holdings, weights, and every rebalance are visible onchain, and the tokens are transferable peer-to-peer across wallets, exchanges, and DeFi protocols.
From Asset Listing to Wealth Management
The integration signals a meaningful shift in how PancakeSwap positions itself. Rather than simply listing individual assets, the DEX is now offering users access to complete, managed portfolio strategies within a single interface.
The product features smart contract rebalancing and onchain integration, supporting ecosystem growth and DeFi expansion. The format also unlocks programmatic rebalancing, full composability with DeFi, complete onchain transparency, and multiple asset classes within a single token.
Ondo Finance Acting CEO and President Ian De Bode described the launch as "an important milestone in the development of onchain investment products," adding that eligible investors in supported jurisdictions can now obtain exposure to diversified portfolio allocations through a single token.
BlackRock's model portfolio business had reached $9.8 trillion in assets under management by June 2026, making the tokenization of even a narrow slice of those strategies a significant development for the DeFi sector.
Sources
Ondo Finance Official Press Release via PR Newswire
Crypto Times: Ondo Launches Three Tokenized Portfolios Built on BlackRock Strategies
Crypto Briefing: Ondo Partners With BlackRock to Develop Tokenized Intelligent Portfolios

Moving Zcash between chains used to mean creating a centralized exchange account, completing verification steps, and waiting up to 30 minutes for a transfer to settle. That process is now largely obsolete.
@NEARProtocol's NEAR Intents product transfers native $ZEC across more than 30 chains, including @Ethereum and @Solana, in a matter of seconds and for less than a cent in fees. Users do not need to manually bridge assets or interact with destination-chain contracts. The system handles the complexity under the hood.
How NEAR Intents Works
NEAR Intents uses an intent-driven architecture where competing solvers bid to fulfill user requests. These solvers handle the actual cross-chain execution, finding the most efficient path for atomic swaps, payments, and bridging actions. The user does not need to know which chain is doing what under the hood. The update leverages NEAR's intent-based infrastructure to facilitate multi-token-to-ZEC conversions, streamlining the user experience for accessing privacy-focused digital assets across blockchains.
By integrating Zcash into a broader swap ecosystem, NEAR Intents enables users who wish to consolidate multiple token holdings into a single privacy-enhanced asset to do so without needing to switch between multiple protocols or cross-chain bridges. The integration allows shielded ZEC from the Orchard pool to be transferred to a T-address managed by NEAR smart contracts, preserving privacy while facilitating efficient asset exchanges. ZEC holders can swap for cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, SOL, and NEAR while maintaining financial confidentiality through Zcash's Zero-Knowledge Proofs.
Adoption Is Growing Fast
According to @NEARProtocol, users have transferred over $2.4 billion in ZEC through NEAR Intents, a figure that reflects rapid uptake of the protocol for Zcash liquidity. The broader NEAR Intents platform has also posted remarkable overall growth. NEAR Intents has surpassed $30 billion in cumulative all-time volume, reaching approximately $31.4 billion according to data tracked on Dune Analytics. NEAR Intents hit $5 billion in transaction volume in November 2025. By January 2026, it had doubled to $10 billion. Barely five months later, it had doubled again.
NEAR Intents was reportedly the fastest-growing cross-chain protocol in 2025, and its trajectory in 2026 reinforces that position. For Zcash specifically, the protocol has emerged as the primary infrastructure layer for moving $ZEC natively across chains, without the privacy trade-offs that wrapped tokens typically introduce.
Sources:
The Defiant: NEAR Intents Expands Crosschain Swaps to Support 100+ Tokens Into Zcash
Crypto Briefing: NEAR Protocol Intents Surpass $30B in All-Time Volume
Yahoo Finance: NEAR Intents Achieves $10B in Swap Volume

A Gold Token That Grows in Gold Terms
@PaxosLabs and @Chainlink have joined forces to launch $PAXGy, a new gold-backed token built on top of $PAXG and issued by @Paxos. Paxos Labs describes itself as an enterprise-grade digital asset infrastructure provider, and PAXGy is designed to accrue value in gold terms over time.
The product goes beyond simply representing gold. The gold backing each token is deployed to a network of vetted institutional borrowers through the same leasing market that has set bullion lease rates for decades. As those reserves are deployed, value accrues to the PAXGy exchange rate, so each token comes to be worth more PAXG over time. Holders deposit PAXG or swap accepted stablecoins to receive PAXGy.
Chainlink CCIP as the Cross-Chain Backbone
The partnership places Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) at the core of the architecture. Chainlink's CCIP serves as the exclusive cross-chain messaging provider, so holders can move a PAXGy position across chains without unwinding it first. CCIP is Chainlink's universal standard for secure cross-chain communication, enabling blockchains to send and receive both messages and value between public, private, and institutional blockchains.
That infrastructure choice carries weight for institutional participants. Chainlink is the only data and interoperability oracle platform meeting key institutional security standards, including SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 1, and ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification. Chainlink's own documentation notes that institutional capital will not migrate onchain in any meaningful way unless the underlying infrastructure meets the highest security standards.
$PAXGy is live on OKX as the only centralized exchange listing at launch, and across onchain platforms including X Layer, 0x, @Uniswap, and @ether_fi. Those integrations mean $PAXGy can be used for trading, portfolio management, and collateral across DeFi platforms from day one.
The launch arrives against a backdrop of rapid growth in tokenized gold. Tokenized gold now exceeds $5 billion in value and traded $90.7 billion in the first quarter of 2026, surpassing all of 2025 combined. $PAXG itself is the only federally regulated tokenized gold asset, fully backed by investment-grade gold held in LBMA vaults and independently attested by KPMG.
Paxos Labs was incubated inside Paxos Trust Company and formally spun out as a standalone operation in mid-2025. In April 2026, the company raised $12 million to fund development of what it calls the Amplify suite, a collection of digital asset products designed to bring institutional-grade finance onchain.
Sources:
Paxos Labs official press release via PR Newswire
Crypto Briefing: Paxos Labs Launches PAXGy
Chainlink: CCIP Cross-Chain Standard

From Infrastructure to Interface
@DeepBookonSui Protocol has officially launched its consumer-facing application in alpha on @SuiNetwork mainnet, marking a significant shift for a protocol that has until now operated largely as background infrastructure. DeepBook has operated as background infrastructure since its July 2023 launch, powering decentralized exchanges and wallets with shared liquidity and low-latency settlement. The alpha app brings that plumbing to the surface for the first time.
DeepBook is Sui's native liquidity layer, providing a central limit order book for spot trading, margin trading, and prediction markets. The protocol's on-chain order book has now facilitated over $20B in cumulative trading volume, providing the liquidity backbone on which the new app is built.
The waitlist for the app's alpha launch surpassed 150,000 traders, reflecting strong demand ahead of the public rollout. The app is organized around two core modules: Spot and Predict, each targeting distinct types of active traders.
Predict: Bitcoin Range Trading With Sub-Minute Expiries
The headline feature is the Predict module. DeepBook's new Predict feature lets traders speculate on Bitcoin price moves with expiries as short as 60 seconds, backed by over $20B in cumulative CLOB volume. Rather than forcing traders into binary outcomes, the module uses a peer-to-pool options primitive that lets users trade price ranges on $BTC directly.
The feature was first tested on Sui's testnet in May 2026 in collaboration with Block Scholes, a crypto derivatives analytics firm. That prior testing period helped shape the product before its mainnet debut.
The speed required to support such short-dated instruments is underpinned by Sui's architecture. Sui finalizes transactions in roughly 390 milliseconds with deterministic finality, compared with the multi-second or multi-confirmation waits common on older chains. Sui's parallel execution also avoids bottlenecks during periods of high activity, ensuring that DeFi activity can be handled efficiently without slowing down the network for everyone.
The $DEEP token plays a central role in the ecosystem, handling trading fee management, user incentives, and governance across the protocol. $DEEP is used for fee payments, with a 20% discount, and is deflationary via fee burns, meaning increased usage creates a direct demand sink for the token.
Sources:
Crypto Briefing: SUI enables one-minute prediction markets with DeepBook App launch
Sui.io: Instant Finality for Institutional Finance
Sui Documentation: DeepBook

The @arbitrum network is cementing its position as one of the most active venues for decentralized perpetuals trading, with fresh data from DeFiLlama showing a sharp acceleration in volume over the past week.
Arbitrum Perps Volume Surges Past $50 Billion
According to DeFiLlama, perps trading volume on Arbitrum jumped more than 60% in the past seven days, reaching $19.91 billion for the week. That momentum has pushed the chain's rolling 30-day total above $50 billion, a milestone that underlines Arbitrum's status as a leading destination for on-chain leveraged trading.
Arbitrum hosts more active perpetuals protocols than any other network tracked by major analytics providers, a concentration that reflects the chain's combination of low transaction costs, EVM compatibility, and an established user base. GMX, one of the most recognized names on the chain, uses oracle-based execution to eliminate price impact for large orders, while Gains Network covers a wide market set spanning forex, stocks, commodities, and indices alongside crypto perpetuals.
The breadth of protocols available on Arbitrum is a key part of its appeal. The density of perp platforms on the chain does create liquidity fragmentation, however. Unlike @HyperliquidX, where all volume concentrates in one venue, Arbitrum's protocols compete for the same pool of active traders, keeping fee pressure competitive but leaving individual venues with thinner order books.
Hyperliquid Remains the Clear Leader
Despite the strong numbers, Arbitrum still has significant ground to cover before challenging @HyperliquidX for the top spot. Hyperliquid sits at approximately $220 billion in 30-day perps volume, dwarfing Arbitrum's $50 billion over the same period. Hyperliquid runs its own layer-1 blockchain built specifically for order-book trading, processing orders, cancellations, trades, and liquidations directly on-chain. It has captured the largest share of decentralized perp volume of any single venue, with 30-day volume around $196 billion at last count per DefiLlama.
The DEX-to-CEX ratio of perpetual volume has increased fivefold to 10% by January 2026, and the top 12 perpetual DEXs have managed to increase their average monthly volume to $611.57 billion in the first four months of 2026. That broader growth in on-chain derivatives activity is lifting multiple chains, but Hyperliquid's structural advantages have kept it firmly at the top of the leaderboard.
For Arbitrum, the latest volume figures represent a meaningful improvement in its standing among DeFi derivatives chains. Whether that momentum can be sustained will depend on continued protocol development and the chain's ability to attract and retain active traders in a competitive market.
Sources:
DeFiLlama: Arbitrum Perp DEX and Futures Volume
PerpFinder: Perpetual Futures on Arbitrum
MetaMask: Best Perps DEXs in 2026

Europe's top banking regulator is pushing to close one of the most significant gaps in the EU's crypto rulebook. The European Banking Authority (EBA) has called for crypto lending to be brought under the bloc's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework, extending its reach to cover platforms that give users access to decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocols.
DeFi Platforms in the Crosshairs
In a response to the European Commission's targeted consultation on MiCA, the EBA said crypto borrowing and lending should be regulated, including where crypto asset service providers facilitate access to DeFi lending protocols. The regulator stopped short of demanding immediate legislative changes, instead recommending a measured approach. It recommended that the European Commission conduct a cost-benefit analysis of legislative changes that could add intermediating crypto borrowing and lending to the list of services regulated under MiCA, potentially adding specific compliance requirements and oversight activity.
The proposed rules would not be limited to direct lenders. According to the EBA, crypto asset service providers that connect customers to decentralized lending protocols could face new requirements if the European Commission decides to expand MiCA as part of its ongoing review. Possible measures include suitability tests for users, limits on leverage, and extra disclosure requirements.
A certification regime for DeFi lending protocols could be considered as another option, particularly where regulated crypto firms act as the gateway through which customers access decentralized lending services. Crypto lending is already active in 16 EU member states, where clarity on regulation remains a key concern.
Non-EU Stablecoins Also Face Tougher Scrutiny
The EBA's lending proposals form part of a broader push to tighten MiCA's scope. The regulator also raised the prospect of restrictions involving lending products that use asset-referenced tokens or e-money tokens, which would require authorization under MiCA. Beyond crypto lending, the authority is also seeking stricter compliance requirements for multi-issuer stablecoins originating outside the EU.
The timing is significant. The European Commission opened public and targeted consultations in May 2026, inviting stakeholders to comment on whether an equivalence regime for third-country stablecoin frameworks should be introduced and how multi-issuer models should be treated. Under existing MiCA rules, major foreign stablecoin issuers, including Tether, have been unable to secure authorization to operate in the EU market. Under the terms of MiCA itself, the Commission is required to deliver a review report by mid-2027.
The EBA's recommendations signal that European regulators are intent on bringing a wider range of crypto activity within the regulatory perimeter, particularly as DeFi grows and non-EU stablecoins continue to dominate usage across the bloc.
Sources:
CoinTelegraph: EU Banking Watchdog Calls for Crypto Lending Rules Under MiCA
Crowdfund Insider: European Union Moves Forward With MiCA Review To Address Non-EU Stablecoin Guidelines
European Banking Authority: Asset-referenced and e-money tokens (MiCA)

White House Eyes Private-Sector Partnerships to Spread Dollar Stablecoins
The Trump administration is considering a plan to promote dollar-backed stablecoins in international markets through joint ventures with private-sector firms. According to Bloomberg, the initiative is aimed at reinforcing the greenback's status as the world's reserve asset. The approach would involve supporting stablecoin projects through partnerships with private companies, with the twin goals of maintaining the dollar's currency preeminence and boosting demand for US Treasuries.
The Treasury Department, State Department, and the US International Development Finance Corporation could all take part in the effort. That combination would pair financial oversight with diplomatic reach, signalling that Washington is treating stablecoins as a lever of monetary influence, not just a crypto-market product.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has described dollar-backed stablecoins as a tool supporting the dollar's dominance, noting that the dollar accounts for nearly 90% of foreign exchange transactions. With aggregate holdings approaching $200 billion, stablecoin issuers are already among the top 20 holders of US sovereign debt, ahead of the reserves of several major nations.
A Geopolitical Tool, Not Just a Financial Product
The US adopted the GENIUS Act in 2025, creating a federal framework for payment stablecoins and requiring them to be backed by liquid assets such as US dollars and short-term Treasury bills, with monthly disclosure of reserve composition. Whether stablecoins threaten or reinforce the dollar's global role depends critically on how they are backed. Under arrangements such as those required by the GENIUS Act, what initially appears to be a challenge to the dollar can become a force that strengthens it.
The initiative comes amid intensifying global competition in digital payment infrastructure, including China's Project mBridge and the European Central Bank's digital euro push. The International Monetary Fund has warned that wider stablecoin adoption could accelerate capital flight, weaken domestic currencies, and limit policymakers' control over financial flows in emerging economies. Those risks aside, the administration appears determined to use the technology to extend dollar reach into markets where traditional banking has little footprint.
The reporting describes deliberations, not a signed policy, so the specific mechanisms remain unconfirmed. Even so, the direction of travel is clear: the dollar and dollar stablecoins are increasingly treated as the same strategic asset in Washington.
Sources:
Bloomberg: US Weighs Initiative to Promote Dollar-Backed Stablecoin Abroad
CoinDesk: Trump Administration Weighs a Global Stablecoin Plan to Cement Dollar's Dominance
World Economic Forum: Why Stablecoins Are Quickly Becoming a Geopolitical Issue

The Cardano Foundation (@Cardano_CF) has open-sourced Mesmo, a native shared library designed to make building on Cardano considerably more accessible. The release brings offline functionalities from the Cardano Client Lib directly into Python, Go, Rust, and JavaScript, with no Java Virtual Machine required.
What Mesmo Does and How It Works
Mesmo is built on top of BloxBean's Cardano Client Lib (CCL), a well-established Java-based toolkit for Cardano. The problem CCL presented was clear: developers not running Java were effectively locked out of its more advanced features. Mesmo solves this by compiling CCL's selected offline functionalities through GraalVM Native Image, which generates platform-native shared objects, converting Java-dependent code into something any supported language can call natively through Foreign Function Interface (FFI).
CCL is a mature, feature-rich Cardano SDK covering key derivation, transaction building, Plutus data handling, and governance. Mesmo makes selected CCL modules available as a native shared library with a C ABI, so languages like Python, Go, Rust, and JavaScript can use it directly, whether as the foundation for a wrapper library, a transaction builder, or for individual functions like crypto, address parsing, and CBOR serialization.
The library covers a broad range of Cardano operations: Conway-era governance features such as DRep registration, voting and treasury transactions, staking, payments, key generation via seed phrases, address validation, Blake2b and Ed25519 cryptography, and offline Plutus cost estimation. Transactions are modeled declaratively and constructed offline, with the host programming language responsible for submission.
Designed to Fit Existing Workflows
One of Mesmo's key design principles is minimal disruption to existing developer workflows. Cardano already has strong native libraries, including pycardano, MeshJS, Lucid Evolution, pallas, gOuroboros, and Apollo. Mesmo is not intended to replace them; rather, it fills gaps when a native library is missing a capability or its API does not fit how a team works, offering CCL's well-tested semantics identically across four languages without requiring developers to leave their existing stack.
The engine inside Mesmo is proven: Cardano Client Lib has powered production Cardano systems, including exchange integrations, governance platforms, and indexers, for years. The bindings compile and export that same library, with the same code, tests, and maintainers.
Mesmo is currently in early pre-release, with the Python wrapper at version 0.1.0rc8. APIs at this stage can change, and developers building on Mesmo today should expect some refactoring as the library stabilises. The Cardano Foundation appears to be releasing early to gather developer feedback rather than waiting for a polished 1.0 release. Python users can install it via pip install --pre mesmo.
Sources:
BloxBean/Mesmo on GitHub
Mesmo Official Documentation
Crypto Briefing: Cardano Launches Mesmo