The Defiant
DeFi and decentralized finance news and analysis
Bitcoin Consolidates at $91,000 as Stocks and Gold Rally
Altcoins trade mixed as the total crypto market capitalization dips 0.5% to $3.19 trillion.
Optimism CEO Teases New Enterprise Strategy
Optimism’s chief executive announced that the network is shifting its focus from public Ethereum Layer‑2 projects such as Base and Ink toward an enterprise‑centric strategy. The new direction emphasizes private rollups, compliance tooling, and partnerships with cloud providers to attract...
Hyperliquid-Based Kinetiq’s KNTQ Token Trades at $130 Million Valuation
Kinetiq, a liquid‑staking protocol on the Hyperliquid blockchain, introduced its governance token KNTQ on November 27. Within 24 hours the token rose 19% to $0.13, generating $27.7 million in volume and a market cap of $35.3 million, implying a fully‑diluted valuation of roughly...
RedStone Predicts Tokenized Assets Could Hit $60 Billion in 202
RedStone forecasts tokenized real‑world assets will reach $50‑60 billion by 2026, up from $35 billion today. Private credit remains the largest segment, accounting for roughly 45‑50% of the market, while tokenized equities are set to outpace all categories with 200‑300% growth once...
Bitcoin Hovers Above $91,000 With US Markets Closed for Thanksgiving
Bitcoin hovered just above $91,000 on Thursday, gaining roughly 1 % in the last 24 hours while U.S. markets were closed for Thanksgiving. The overall crypto market capitalization rose 0.7 % to about $3.2 trillion, indicating continued price discovery despite the holiday. Approximately 82,000...
Hyperliquid Catches Flak for Reassigning MON Ticker
Pixelmon paid nearly $500,000 to acquire the MON ticker on the Hyperliquid exchange earlier this year. Hyperliquid later reassigned the MON symbol to a different project, Monad, effectively overwriting Pixelmon's branding. The move sparked criticism from the crypto community, accusing...
SpaceComputer Raises $10 Million to Run Secure Blockchain Compute From Space
SpaceComputer announced a $10 million seed round to develop its SpaceTEE satellite network, which will execute secure blockchain and cryptographic tasks from low‑Earth orbit. The round was co‑led by Maven11 and Lattice, with participation from the Arbitrum Foundation, Offchain Labs, Hashkey...
Grayscale Files to Convert Zcash Trust Into Spot ZEC ETF
The move follows ZEC’s massive rally since late September.
Privacy, ZK Everything and Big Announcements: DevConnect 2025 Recap
DevConnect 2025 highlighted privacy as the next frontier for Ethereum and DeFi, with zero‑knowledge proofs and SNARKs positioned as core technologies to realize the Lean Ethereum roadmap. Speakers emphasized that security, censorship resistance, and user protection must be embedded across...
First US Spot DOGE ETF Sees $1.4M in Day-One Volumes
Grayscale’s spot Dogecoin ETF fell short of expectations on its launch day.
Ethereum DATs Heavily Underwater as ETH Price Drops Below $3,000
Digital asset treasury (DAT) firms collectively hold millions of dollars in Ethereum, but a sharp decline in ETH's price to below $3,000 has left many of those holdings deeply underwater. The firms, which purchased the cryptocurrency at significantly higher price...
SKALE Launches on Base in New Initiative for Onchain Agents
SKALE announced the launch of its "Expand" initiative on Base, Ethereum's second‑largest Layer 2 with over $4.3 billion TVL, enabling its SKALE Manager contracts to run on any EVM‑compatible chain. The platform offers gasless transactions, instant execution, and encrypted processing, allowing the...
Polymarket Receives CFTC Approval to Operate in the United States
The long-awaited Polymarket US has been cleared to launch.
Bitcoin Clears $88,000 After Trump-Xi Call
Bitcoin rose 1.5% to $88,600 on Monday after news of a phone call between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, sparking a brief rally in the cryptocurrency market. While Bitcoin remains down 4.5% for the week, Ethereum gained...
Build on Bitcoin Token Rallies on Coinbase Listing
The newly issued Build on Bitcoin (BOB) token surged 25% to $0.0225 after being listed on Coinbase, marking one of the few gains in a broadly down crypto market. Launched on November 20 at $0.018 with a $45 million market cap,...
NFT Lending TVL Nears All-Time Lows
The NFT lending market has collapsed to roughly $8.3 million in total value locked (TVL), a 97% drop from its March 2024 peak of over $300 million, according to DefiLlama. Leading platforms have seen dramatic declines: Arcade’s TVL fell to about $300,000...
MegaETH Announces $250 Million Pre-Deposit Campaign
Ethereum Layer‑2 project MegaETH will launch a limited‑access pre‑deposit bridge on November 25 for users who registered for its ICO via Sonar, allowing unlimited USDC deposits that will be minted into the native stablecoin USDm in partnership with Ethena. The...
Dinari Integrates LayerZero to Offer Cross-Chain Access to Tokenized U.S. Equities
Dinari announced the integration of LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) protocol, allowing its tokenized U.S. equities—called dShares—to be traded and settled across multiple blockchains. The rollout initially spans four chains and 200 U.S. stocks, backed 1:1 by the underlying securities,...
Polymarket Seeks $12 Billion Valuation After Record-Breaking Month
Polymarket is pursuing a new funding round that would value the decentralized prediction‑market platform at $12 billion after posting record trading volumes of over $3 billion in October and an expected $3.5 billion in November, driven in part by the NYC mayoral election...
Bitcoin For America Act Would Allow Tax Payments in BTC
Rep. Warren Davidson (R‑Ohio) introduced the Bitcoin For America Act, which would let U.S. taxpayers settle federal taxes with Bitcoin at the market price at transfer, exempting them from capital‑gains tax. All Bitcoin collected would be deposited into a Strategic...
Crypto Market Holds Steady as Traders Digest Delayed US Jobs Report
Crypto markets remained largely flat on Tuesday, with Bitcoin hovering around $91,000—a 0.5% dip in 24 hours and an 11% decline for the week—while Ethereum slipped 1.4% to just above $3,000. The Crypto Fear and Greed Index stayed in extreme‑fear...
Securitize to Launch Institutional Assets on Plume’s Nest Protocol
Plume, a real‑world asset finance blockchain with $159 million TVL, announced that tokenization platform Securitize will deploy institutional‑grade assets on its Nest staking protocol. The rollout will begin with Hamilton Lane funds, targeting $100 million in capital and expanding to additional issuers...
S& P Ratings Gives Justin Sun-Linked TrueUSD Lowest Score
S&P Global Ratings assigned TrueUSD (TUSD) the lowest possible stability score of 5, indicating a weak ability to maintain its $1 peg. The rating reflects concerns that most of TUSD’s reserves are held by a single custodian, First Digital Trust,...
BlackRock Registers Staked Ethereum Trust
BlackRock has officially registered the iShares Staked Ethereum Trust in Delaware, four months after the SEC acknowledged its filing to allow staking in its ETHA Ethereum ETF. The new trust follows BlackRock's ETHA, the largest Ethereum ETF with over $13 billion...
Hyperliquid to Roll Out ‘Growth Mode’ to Supercharge New Markets
Hyperliquid announced a "growth mode" upgrade for its HIP‑3 perpetual futures system, slashing taker fees from the standard 0.045% to as low as 0.00144%‑0.009% for new permissionless markets. The fee reductions, which also apply to rebates and volume contributions, are...
0xbow Raises $3.5 Million to Expand Privacy Pools
0xbow closed a $3.5 million seed round led by Starbloom Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, BOOST VC and others, to scale its Privacy Pools technology that batches and mixes on‑chain transactions while preserving AML compliance. Launched on Ethereum in March 2025, the...
Ledger Draws Heat as Pre-2018 Zcash Holders Face Dropped Support
Long‑time Zcash holders with coins minted before the 2018 Sapling upgrade are unable to spend their assets using Ledger hardware wallets after the company removed support for the legacy "version 1" transaction format. The issue, highlighted by Bitcoin developer Jameson Lopp,...
Nearly 20% of Americans Would Prefer Crypto Over Gift Cards This Holiday Season: PayPal
A PayPal‑partnered survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults finds that 17% would rather receive cryptocurrency than a gift card this holiday season, and 31% think crypto gifts are less likely to go unused. Among current crypto holders, roughly 65%...
Ethereum Unveils New Technical Details About Interop Layer
Ethereum announced new technical details for its Interop Layer (EIL), a protocol that lets users send tokens, mint NFTs and trade across EVM‑compatible rollups without using bridges or separate wallet integrations. The system works with any rollup that settles to...
BNY’s New Fund Pushes for Safer Stablecoin Reserves
BNY Mellon launched the BNY Dreyfus Stablecoin Reserves Fund (BSRXX) on Nov. 13 as a regulated money‑market vehicle for stablecoin issuers to park cash under the GENIUS Act, with Anchorage Digital providing the seed investment. The fund offers a safer, standardized...
Ethereum Sees First Sustained Validator Exit Since Proof-of-Stake Shift
Ethereum’s daily active validator count dropped about 10% since July, slipping below the 1 million mark for the first time since April 2024, marking the first sustained validator exit of this magnitude since the network’s September 2022 proof‑of‑stake transition. The exit‑queue wait time...
Threshold Network Upgrades tBTC Bridge to Link Institutional Bitcoin with DeFi
Threshold Network has upgraded its tBTC bridge to let institutions mint and redeem tokenized Bitcoin in a single transaction without moving the underlying asset out of regulated custodial storage. The new architecture links directly to custodians and supports multiple blockchains—including...
Monad Faces Community Backlash After Unveiling Tokenomics
Monad, a Layer‑1 blockchain, announced a public token sale on Coinbase’s new platform, offering 7.5% of the MON supply at a $2.5 billion valuation that could raise about $187 million. Its tokenomics disclose only a 3.3% airdrop and a 7.5% public sale,...
Trump Tokens Outperform After US President Teases ‘Tariff Dividends’
The crypto market rallied after President Trump hinted on Truth Social that tariff revenues could fund $2,000 stimulus checks, sending his namesake tokens soaring. Bitcoin rose just over 1%, while World Liberty Financial (WLFI) surged 24% and the TRUMP memecoin...
XPL Rallies After Plasma Reveals Collaboration with Daylight Energy
Plasma’s native token XPL jumped 10% to $0.325, lifting its market value to $607 million after the Layer 1 blockchain announced a partnership with Daylight Energy to launch GRID, a fully collateralized M0‑backed stablecoin, and sGRID, a yield‑bearing token tied to the...
Ethena Season 4 Rewards Go Live
Ethena launched its Season 4 rewards, distributing 3.5% of the ENA token supply – 1.5% instantly claimable, 1% vested for the top 2,000 wallets and instantly available to smaller users, and the final 1% pending the launch of Hyena Trade, the...
LayerZero Token Surges After $10 Million Buyback
LayerZero Labs announced a $10 million open‑market buyback of its native ZRO token, pushing the price 11 % higher to $1.73 and lifting market cap to $194 million. The firm reiterated its view that ZRO is mispriced and signaled ongoing repurchases, echoing a...
Web3 Bug Bounty Firm Immunefi Plans ICO, Targets TGE in February 2026
Immunefi, the leading Web3 bug‑bounty firm, announced a public token sale on CoinList from Nov. 12‑19, offering about 374 million IMU tokens (3.74% of the 10 billion total) at $0.01337 each to raise $5 million, implying a $133 million fully‑diluted valuation—over 70% lower than its...
Stable Pauses Deposits After Another Pre-Deposit Vault Mishap
Stable, the Bitfinex‑backed stablechain, halted deposits into its Phase 2 pre‑deposit vault on Nov. 6 after users encountered repeated terms‑of‑service prompts and a crash of the Hourglass yield‑protocol website, which forced many to try direct contract deposits that were subsequently rejected. The...
MegaETH ICO Allocations Leave Community Split
MegaETH, an Ethereum Layer‑2 project, disclosed token allocations for its October 30 ICO, which raised nearly $1.4 billion in demand for a $50 million MEGA token pool, resulting in a 28‑times oversubscription. The allocation was split into "community" and "public" categories, with...
Controversial Hyperliquid HIP-5 Proposal Leaves Community Split
The Hyperliquid community is debating HIP‑5, a proposal to create a second assistance fund (AF2) that would allocate up to 5 % of protocol fees to purchase tokens of approved ecosystem projects such as PURR, Kinetiq and Felix. Currently 99 % of...
Seven Ethereum Protocol Teams Form Alliance to Engage on Crypto Policy
Seven leading Ethereum protocol teams—Aave Labs, Aragon, Curve, Lido Labs Foundation, Spark Foundation, The Graph Foundation and Uniswap Foundation—have formed the Ethereum Protocol Advocacy Alliance (EPAA). The alliance will pool technical expertise to influence emerging crypto regulations, representing protocols that...
DWF Labs ‘Likely’ Exploited for $44M in 2022 Hack Linked to North Korea: Report
Crypto investment firm DWF Labs is alleged to have been breached in September 2022, resulting in the theft of more than $44 million in USDC and USDT, according to blockchain researcher Tanuki42. The attack is attributed to the North Korea‑linked hacking...
Privacy Coin Rally Continues as DASH Surges 150%
The DASH cryptocurrency has surged 156% in the past week and roughly 200% over the last month, lifting its price to $120 – the highest level since 2022 – and pushing its market capitalization to about $1.4 billion. The rally follows...
One Year On: Inside ApeChain’s Brief Rise and Slow Fall
ApeChain, the Yuga Labs‑backed Layer 3 built for the ApeCoin ecosystem, launched in October 2023 with promises of fast transactions, NFT staking and developer incentives, sparking a brief surge that pushed total value locked to a peak of $33.8 million in December...
Bitcoin Breaches 10/10 Low as It Approaches $100,000
Bitcoin slipped to about $101,000, a 6% drop in 24 hours and 12% weekly, as the broader crypto market fell 6% to $3.44 trillion. Major altcoins such as Ethereum, BNB, Solana and XRP posted double‑digit weekly losses, while spot Bitcoin and...
ZKsync Proposes Utility and Revenue Focused Tokenomics Shift
ZKsync announced a revised tokenomics plan that would convert its ZK token from a pure governance role into a utility token whose value is derived from on‑chain interoperability fees and off‑chain enterprise licensing revenue. The proposal, the first phase of...
Aave DAO Makes $50 Million Annual Token Buybacks Permanent
The Aave DAO voted unanimously to make its $50 million‑per‑year token buyback program permanent, allocating weekly purchases of $250,000‑$1.75 million from protocol revenue. The move embeds the buyback into Aave’s long‑term “Aavenomics” strategy, leveraging its $12.7 million‑30‑day revenue and allowing the Finance Committee...
Sports Betting Pushes Kalshi and Polymarket Volumes to All-Time Highs
October saw prediction‑market platforms Kalshi and Polymarket post record volumes of $7.4 billion combined, driven largely by a surge in sports‑betting activity. Kalshi handled $4.4 billion, including $1.1 billion in sports bets over a week, while Polymarket processed $3 billion, with $357 million in sports...
Ethena USDe Market Cap Drops 40% After ‘Black Friday’ October 10 Crash
Ethena Labs' synthetic dollar‑pegged token USDe saw its market capitalization plunge by more than $5 billion in the three‑and‑a‑half weeks following the Oct. 10 “Black Friday” flash crash, falling from roughly $14.6 billion to about $9.2 billion – a near‑40% drop. The crash triggered...