Today's news tips:
Solana Foundation and Ark Invest Participate in Solmate’s $300 Million Funding Round
PayPal's stablecoin PYUSD expands to Tron, Avalanche, Sei and other blockchains via LayerZero
Consensys CEO: MetaMask token is coming, and possibly “sooner than you expect”
Upbit to List ETHFI, RESOLV, INIT, and SPK Tokens on BTC and USDT Markets
A whale is suspected of selling 20.92 million APX, worth approximately $12.3 million.
Macro
According to Aastocks, the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) responded to Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee's Policy Address, stating that Hong Kong is implementing diverse measures to boost economic development, with innovation and technology becoming a new driver of growth. As the standard-setter for the accounting profession in Hong Kong, the HKICPA is developing appropriate guidelines for accounting and auditing related to virtual assets and related matters, with an expected release in the first half of next year. Furthermore, it proposes measures to complement the existing patent box mechanism, including the introduction of an intellectual property financing sandbox and the promotion of intellectual property transactions, to encourage local innovation and technology activities and enhance Hong Kong's competitiveness in related fields. This will further develop the digital asset market.
EU Commissioner pledges to advance pension and cryptocurrency reforms this year
According to Jinshi, the European Union has set a year-end target for further measures to boost pension investments and streamline trading processes, in an effort to inject momentum into the revival of Europe's capital markets. EU Financial Services Commissioner Albuquerque unveiled the plan on Thursday. She also announced that the European Commission is considering granting direct supervisory authority to the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), its top market regulator based in Paris. She stated that with the transfer of supervisory authority to ESMA, the Commission will consider the feasibility of centralized oversight of certain market infrastructures, such as central counterparties, central securities depositories, and trading venues. She added that emerging sectors, such as cryptoasset service providers, would also benefit from more centralized oversight, emphasizing that such a move would not diminish the role of national regulators.
According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter said the White House is seeking additional candidates for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chairmanship, as Brian Quintenz's confirmation process to lead the regulatory agency has stalled. Discussions have intensified recently, with potential candidates including government officials focused on cryptocurrency policy. The Trump administration has not announced that Quintenz is no longer in the running. Both Quintenz and the CFTC declined to comment, with White House officials stating that the process is still in its early stages. Separately, Michael Selig, chief counsel for the Securities and Exchange Commission's cryptocurrency task force and a former asset management partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher, is also considered a candidate. Tyler Williams, digital asset policy advisor to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who worked at Galaxy Digital before joining the Treasury, is also being considered. The CFTC is supposed to have a five-member, partisan committee, but a series of resignations have left only Acting Chairwoman Caroline Pham, appointed by former President Biden.
According to Cointelegraph, the Bank of Canada has called for the establishment of a regulatory framework for stablecoins to modernize the payment system and avoid lagging behind other countries in promoting related policies. Ron Morrow, Executive Director of Payments and Other Affairs at the Bank of Canada, said in a speech at the Chartered Professional Accountants Conference in Ottawa on Thursday: "Even if you are on the right track, stagnation will be surpassed. For stablecoins to be considered currency, they must be as safe and stable as bank account balances. Governments are strengthening their regulation of cryptocurrencies such as stablecoins to benefit consumers and avoid credit and liquidity risks. In fact, many jurisdictions around the world have already introduced or are about to introduce regulatory frameworks for crypto assets."
Kalshi's trading volume this month has reached $1.3 billion, surpassing Polymarket
According to The Block, the prediction platform Kalshi is having its best month in nearly a year. The company said on Thursday that it currently "accounts for 62.2% of global prediction market trading volume, which is in stark contrast to a year ago, when Kalshi accounted for only 3.1% of global trading volume." Kalshi also emphasized that its services are only available to US consumers. Data shows that as of this month, Kalshi's monthly trading volume has reached US$1.3 billion, far exceeding its competitor Polymarket's US$773 million. The last time Kalshi's monthly trading volume exceeded US$1 billion was during the US election in November 2024. Although this month is not over yet and Polymarket may eventually overtake, Kalshi's performance in recent months shows that the platform is becoming increasingly popular.
PayPal's stablecoin PYUSD expands to Tron, Avalanche, Sei and other blockchains via LayerZero
According to The Block, PayPal's stablecoin, PayPal USD (PYUSD), is expanding to multiple new blockchain networks, including Tron, Avalanche, and Sei, through integration with LayerZero's Stargate Hydra cross-chain bridge. Issued by Paxos Trust Company, PYUSD was initially launched natively on Ethereum, subsequently expanded to Solana and Arbitrum, and yesterday added the Stellar network. LayerZero announced Thursday that with this expansion, a permissionless version of the token, dubbed "PYUSD0," will be introduced to seven additional blockchain networks: Abstract, Aptos, Avalanche, Ink, Sei, Stable, and Tron. Additionally, existing cross-chain versions of PYUSD on Berachain and Flow will be upgraded to PYUSD0.
Viewpoint
According to a recent interview with Unchained, Coinbase's Layer 2 project, Base, has announced it is exploring the possibility of issuing a token. This move marks a significant shift from Base's previous position that it had never planned to issue a token. Ryan Ye, a former member of Coinbase Ventures, predicts that the initial market capitalization of the Base token could be approximately $20 billion, with the potential to rise to $40 billion to $50 billion. He believes that the token issuance will significantly boost the Base ecosystem and attract more developers and users. Ryan speculates that the token distribution could include: 20%-40% going to Coinbase, approximately 20% going to an independent community treasury, and the remainder distributed to the community through airdrops or public sales. He also suggests that the Base token could function similarly to Ethereum's ETH, partially used for on-chain fee burn and potentially becoming a core liquidity asset for DeFi. Furthermore, Base has integrated with Solana on its testnet. Ryan believes this demonstrates that Base recognizes Solana as its primary competitor and is using this move to attract developers. He noted that the competition between Base and Solana primarily centers on user culture and DeFi liquidity, with Base favoring DeFi liquidity, while Solana has an advantage in user experience and consumer culture. Related reading: Base has repeatedly reiterated that it will not issue coins, why is it going back on its word now?
Consensys CEO: MetaMask token is coming, and possibly “sooner than you expect”
According to The Block, Consensys CEO Joe Lubin said in an interview that the MetaMask token is coming soon, and it may be "sooner than you expect." Earlier in May, MetaMask co-founder said that its team was still considering launching a native token.
Project News
Kyuzo's Friends (KO) to be Listed on Binance Alpha
Binance Alpha will be the first platform to list Kyuzo's Friends (KO) on September 20th. Eligible users can claim the airdrop using Binance Alpha Points on the Alpha event page after Alpha trading opens.
According to Near co-founder Ilia Polosukhin on the Rollup TV podcast, Near AI will launch an encrypted chat platform this month or early next month, aiming to replace existing chat tools like ChatGPT. This product ensures user data privacy through end-to-end encryption and allows users to provide data decryption permissions in a controlled environment, further enhancing the security and personalized experience of AI services. The platform will also serve as a developer tool, enabling new applications to access data context based on user permissions, driving the rapid development of new applications. NEAR is positioning itself as an "AI blockchain" and has developed frameworks such as Shade Agents to enable autonomous robots to operate across chains while protecting data privacy. Shade Agents, combining a trusted execution environment (TEE) with NEAR's decentralized key management technology, supports proxy cross-chain transactions, interaction with AI models, asset management, and privacy-preserving computations, combining the flexibility of Web2 with the verifiability of Web3. According to OKX market data, NEAR's stock price rose 11.6% in the past 24 hours, currently trading at $3.25. Previously, the NEAR Foundation announced the establishment of an AI R&D lab focused on developing AI developer tools.
Hold at least 200 Binance Alpha Points to claim an airdrop of 1,280 Ark of Panda tokens (AOPs).
Binance Alpha will launch a trading promotion for the Ark of Panda (AOP) token on September 19, 2025, at 8:00 PM (UTC). During the promotional period, users with at least 200 Binance Alpha Points will be eligible to claim 1,280 AOP tokens on a first-come, first-served basis. The point threshold will automatically decrease by 15 points every hour for the duration of the promotion.
Hold at least 200 Binance Alpha Points to claim 5,000 Dill tokens (DL)
Binance Alpha announced that it will launch trading of the Dill (DL) token at 7:30 PM (UTC) on September 19, 2025, and will also launch an airdrop. According to the event rules, users holding at least 200 Binance Alpha Points can claim 5,000 DL tokens. A limited number of DL tokens will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Binance: The participation threshold for the JOJO TGE event is 210 Alpha Points
Binance has announced the entry requirements for the exclusive JoJoWorld (JOJO) TGE event: Users with 210 or more Binance Alpha Points can participate in this TGE event through the Alpha event page. Participation will cost 15 points.
Binance: The threshold for participating in the first phase of River’s BuildKey TGE is 209 credits
Binance announced on the X platform that to participate in River's BuildKey TGE, users must meet the following Binance Alpha Points requirements: Phase 1 (BuildKey Subscription): At least 209 Alpha Points are required, and 15 points will be deducted for participation. Phase 2 (BuildKey Trading): At least 61 Alpha Points are required, and no points will be deducted for participation.
Changpeng Zhao retweeted the tweet "Trust Wallet updates token Litepaper" and said: "The TWT token was originally just an experiment. The price of FDV rose very quickly. They destroyed 99% of the supply, but there were not many use cases. Now, (use cases) are expanding." Coingecko data shows that the price of TWT token is currently US$1.1, with a 24-hour increase of 37.6%.
Binance Launches Solayer (LAYER) Fourth Round of HODLer Airdrops
Binance has officially announced the launch of its fourth round of HODLer airdrops as part of its 18,000,000 LAYER airdrop program. Details of the fourth round of LAYER HODLer airdrops: 6,000,000 LAYER will be distributed in this fourth round. Eligible users who subscribe to guaranteed principal earning (fixed and/or demand) or on-chain earning products using BNB between 08:00 on September 12, 2025, and 07:59 on September 15, 2025 (GMT+8) will receive the airdrop. The airdrop will be distributed within 24 hours of this announcement.
Upbit to List ETHFI, RESOLV, INIT, and SPK Tokens on BTC and USDT Markets
According to an official announcement, South Korean crypto exchange Upbit will list ETHFI, RESOLV, INIT, and SPK tokens in the BTC and USDT markets.
Ethereum mainnet Fusaka upgrade is tentatively scheduled for December 3rd this year
Christine Kim, former Vice President of Research at Galaxy Digital, stated on the X platform that a key decision was made at today's Ethereum developer meeting, ACDC 165, where developers confirmed the Fusaka public testnet schedule and the BPO hard fork schedule. Developers agreed on the following schedule for Fusaka: Holesky on October 1st, Sepolia on October 14th, Hoodi on October 28th, and the mainnet upgrade on December 3rd. The exact dates, times, and epoch numbers will be reconfirmed in the coming days. Developers also agreed that, based on preliminary analysis of Fusaka Devnet-5, blob capacity should more than double within two weeks of Fusaka's activation. Initially, Fusaka will not make any changes to blob capacity. After the first week, the first BPO fork will activate, increasing the target and maximum blob counts from 6/9 to 10/15. A week after the first BPO fork, the second BPO fork will activate, further increasing these numbers to 14/21.
Important data
According to SoSoValue data, Ethereum spot ETFs saw a total net inflow of $213 million yesterday (September 18th, EST). The Fidelity ETF (FETH) saw the largest single-day net inflow, with $159 million, bringing FETH's total net inflow to $2.927 billion. The second largest single-day net inflow was the Grayscale Ethereum Mini Trust ETF (ETH), with a daily net inflow of $22.9041 million, bringing ETH's total net inflow to $1.454 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Ethereum spot ETFs stood at $30.539 billion, with a net asset value ratio (market capitalization relative to Ethereum's total market capitalization) of 5.49%, and cumulative net inflows reaching $13.872 billion.
According to SoSoValue data, Bitcoin spot ETFs saw a total net inflow of $163 million yesterday (September 18th, EST). The Bitcoin spot ETF with the largest single-day net inflow yesterday was the Fidelity ETF FBTC, with a net inflow of $97.3526 million, bringing FBTC's total net inflow to $12.661 billion. The next largest inflow was the Ark Invest and 21Shares ETF ARKB, with a net inflow of $24.9951 million, bringing ARKB's total net inflow to $2.227 billion. As of press time, the total net asset value of Bitcoin spot ETFs was $155.053 billion, with a net asset value ratio (market capitalization relative to the total Bitcoin market capitalization) of 6.62%, and cumulative net inflows to $57.495 billion.
A whale is suspected of selling 20.92 million APX, worth approximately $12.3 million.
According to Lookonchain monitoring, the whale 0xD3DA is suspected of selling 20.92 million APX (worth approximately $12.3 million) on Aster. The whale deposited 20.92 million APX into Aster two days ago and subsequently withdrew 10.75 million USDT from it, with an average transaction price of $0.514.
According to on-chain analyst Ember’s monitoring, 10 minutes ago, the Pendle multi-signature wallet (0x811) once again transferred 1.2 million PENDLE (worth approximately US$6.44 million) to Binance.
A whale redeemed its ETH and stETH staked for a year and transferred 4,412 ETH to Binance
According to on-chain analyst Yu Jin, a whale who earned over $12 million on Blast continued to lock in profits. Early this morning, they redeemed the ETH they had deposited a year ago into StakeStone and AOProtocol, transferring 4,412 ETH (worth approximately $20.24 million) to Binance. The whale deposited 4,412 ETH into StakeStone and 8,168 stETH into AOProtocol last year, when the ETH price was around $3,800. Today, they withdrew all of their ETH and stETH, transferring the ETH directly to Binance. The stETH is currently in the process of being redeemed for ETH and is expected to be transferred to Binance upon successful redemption. This operation has resulted in a $10 million profit on these ETH compared to when they were deposited (excluding airdrops from staking).
According to Cryptobriefing, the REX-Osprey XRP ETF (ticker XRPR) saw $37.7 million in trading volume on its first day. The US-listed fund provides exposure to XRP spot prices. According to a post by Eric Balchunas on X, its first-day trading volume surpassed that of the IVES, making it the largest first-day trading volume among funds listed in 2025. The REX-Osprey Dogecoin ETF, which launched on the same day as the XRP fund, saw $17 million in first-day trading volume, placing it among the top five funds listed this year.
Financing/Acquisition
DEX aggregator Titan completes $7 million seed round led by Galaxy Ventures
Titan, the Solana ecosystem's meta-DEX aggregator, announced the completion of a $7 million seed round led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from Frictionless, Mirana, Ergonia, Auros, Susquehanna, and several angel investors. Titan stated, "This funding will accelerate Titan's progress in building a comprehensive portal to the internet capital markets, designed for traders seeking superior trade execution on Solana." Titan has officially exited its private beta phase and is now publicly available on the titan.exchange platform. Titan also launched the Titan Prime API, a meta-aggregator application programming interface that compares quotes from leading Solana routing tools, including Titan's proprietary Argos algorithm.
Bitlight Labs announced the completion of a $9.6 million Pre-A Series A funding round led by Amber Group and Fundamental Labs, with participation from UOB Venture Management, Signum Capital, ArkStream Capital, Side Door VC, Outliers Fund, Taisu Ventures, HV Capital, SuDo Research, and Gate Ventures. The funding will be used to develop a production-grade integration of the RGB protocol and the Lightning Network, aiming to build a low-fee settlement system for Bitcoin-native stablecoins to serve the wallet and merchant ecosystem. Bitlight Labs stated its commitment to continuing to promote the intelligent development of Bitcoin, the Lightning Network, and the RGB protocol.
IG Group acquires 70% stake in Australian crypto exchange Independent Reserve for $72.4 million
Online trading platform IG Group has acquired a majority stake in Australian cryptocurrency exchange Independent Reserve for US$72.4 million. The move aims to strengthen its position in the rapidly growing crypto market in the Asia-Pacific region and complement its recent crypto operations in the UK and the US. IG Group will initially acquire a 70% stake in Independent Reserve, with an option to acquire the remaining 30% in the future based on performance. The transaction is expected to close in early 2026 for a total of US$117.6 million. Independent Reserve is one of Australia's first regulated crypto trading platforms, supporting 34 cryptocurrencies across the Australian and Singaporean markets. The platform generated US$23.3 million in revenue for the fiscal year ending June 2025, an 88% year-on-year increase, with monthly active users increasing by 60% and total assets under custody reaching US$1.12 billion. IG Group expects the acquisition to be accretive to its earnings starting in fiscal 2027.
According to The Block, GRVT, a hybrid decentralized exchange based on Ethereum's scaling layer ZKsync, has secured $19 million in Series A funding, led by ZKsync and Further Ventures, with participation from EigenCloud and 500 Global. The new funding will help GRVT expand its product offerings to include cross-exchange vaults and cross-chain interoperability, and plans to leverage EigenDA's programmable privacy features. GRVT combines the user experience and regulatory compliance of a centralized exchange (CEX) with the self-custody features of a decentralized exchange (DEX). Its mainnet Alpha version, launched on ZKsync in late 2024, has expanded its trading offerings from perpetual cryptocurrency contracts to spot and options. GRVT is currently applying for operating licenses in multiple jurisdictions, having already obtained a VASP license in Lithuania in 2023. Previously, GRVT raised approximately $14.3 million through multiple funding rounds, including $2.2 million in a private token sale in March 2024. Earlier on September 16, it was reported that Grvt will conduct TGE in Q1 2026, and the total amount of community rewards will account for 20% of the total token supply.
Institutional holdings
Publicly listed SunCar plans to invest up to $10 million in real-world asset cryptocurrencies
SunCar Technology Group (NASDAQ: SDA), a digital auto insurance and automotive services provider, announced that its board of directors has authorized the company to invest up to $10 million in selected major cryptocurrencies that are expected to benefit from the rapid growth of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization. Furthermore, SunCar is exploring strategies to integrate blockchain and risk-weighted asset (RWA) tokenization into its existing cloud-based digital insurance business model.
Solana Foundation and Ark Invest Participate in Solmate’s $300 Million Funding Round
According to The Block, Brera Holdings will be renamed Solmate and has raised $300 million in private equity funding from investors including the Solana Foundation, Cathie Wood's Ark Invest, Pulsar Group, and RockawayX. Solmate will acquire Solana (SOL) at a discount and plans to dual-list on Nasdaq and in the UAE. The company's CEO is Marco Santori, former Kraken Chief Legal Officer, and its board of directors includes Arthur Laffer and RockawayX CEO Viktor Fischer. Solmate will continue to operate Brera Holdings' sports club business.
According to AggrNews, a former Pantera partner is leading Solmate in the UAE and managing the $300 million Solana Digital Asset Treasury (DAT). According to a press release, Brera Holdings (NASDAQ: BREA) announced its rebranding as Solmate and the completion of a $300 million private equity financing round led by the UAE's Pulsar Group with participation from ARK Invest and others. Solmate will establish a digital asset treasury and deploy blockchain infrastructure, centered around Solana. It plans to deploy a high-performance Solana validator node in Abu Dhabi to encourage regional investor participation in SOL staking. Marco Santori will serve as CEO, and the Solana Foundation will have the right to add additional board seats. The company will continue to operate its existing multi-club sports business.
