From Polymarket’s stripped-down design to Kalshi’s regulatory breakthrough, prediction markets are turning collective opinion into a financial asset class — and a new battleground over who defines truth
Alex Harutunian
While crypto remains banned, China’s state-backed blockchain ecosystem — led by Conflux — is expanding across Asia and into global finance. Conflux Network bridges China’s academic research, state strategy, and open blockchain innovation.
Alex Harutunian
DeFi is moving from standalone apps into the backend of exchanges, with Coinbase and Crypto.com leading by embedding Morpho’s lending vaults. This “embedded DeFi” model raises a key question: are exchanges becoming banks, or just UIs? The answer will define DeFi’s role in future banking.
Alex Harutunian
Curve Finance is launching Yield Basis with a $60M crvUSD credit line. The product aims to eliminate impermanent loss for liquidity providers, and at the same time transform CRV from a governance token into an income-generating asset with revenues shared back to holders
Alex Harutunian
Nasdaq has filed with the U.S. SEC to bring tokenized securities onto its main market, aiming to trade blockchain-based and traditional shares side by side. If approved, the move could make Nasdaq the first U.S. exchange to integrate tokenized equities under existing protections
Alex Harutunian
From Polymarket’s stripped-down design to Kalshi’s regulatory breakthrough, prediction markets are turning collective opinion into a financial asset class — and a new battleground over who defines truth
Alex Harutunian05.11.2025 StraitsX to expand stablecoin payment network across Asia by mid-2026. 05.11.2025 Cambodia to store national gold reserves with China. 05.11.2025 Canada includes stablecoin regulation costs in 2025 federal budget. 05.11.2025 Lido adopts Chainlink CCIP for cross-chain wstETH transfers. 05.11.2025
29.10.25 Ondo Finance launches Ondo Global Markets on BNB Chain. 29.10.25 Ethereum Foundation launches portal to guide institutional adoption. 29.10.25 Securitize goes public via SPAC merger with Cantor Fitzgerald’s CF Acquisition Corp VIII. 28.10.25 Trump Media & Technology Group to launch
Kazakhstan launched a state-backed crypto reserve, Alem Crypto Fund, partnering with Binance Kazakhstan and starting with an investment in $BNB. SWIFT is building a blockchain ledger with 30+ banks using Consensys. Polish lawmakers passed a Crypto-Asset Market Act, aligning rules with the EU’s MiCAR. Vitalik Buterin opposes EU’s
Uniswap’s Unichain has boosted L2 volumes past $40B, but liquidity tells a different story. TVL has halved since July, exposing the limits of incentive-driven growth. Despite cheaper fees, users remain on Ethereum—where Uniswap continues to be one of the network’s largest revenue engines.
TON Strategy Company, formerly Verb Technology, has rebranded as a Toncoin treasury, holding $713M in TON and targeting over 5% of supply. By staking its holdings and adopting financial engineering akin to Strategy’s playbook, it aims to turn crypto reserves into shareholder returns
From $GOAT to $FART, memecoins show how hype burns fast and budgets vanish faster. Market caps in the tens of millions may look like real businesses, but behind the joke lies sunk marketing spend, fragile communities, and the math of attention that always runs out of breath
Jito’s BAM transforms MEV on Solana from a private auction into a transparent, programmable marketplace. While Ethereum introduced PBS, Solana may now be a step ahead—embedding MEV handling directly into the protocol with greater flexibility and developer access.
Circle’s decision to bring native USDC to Hyperliquid underscores the chain’s rise as an institutional-grade DeFi hub, while advancing its strategy to make USDC the default stablecoin — trusted, redeemable, and seamlessly transferable across chains
BTC whale sells 24k BTC flash crash wipes longs. ETH hits new ATH above 4 900. Asia’s wealthy investors raise crypto allocations. Gemini files S-1 and secures MiCA EU license. Ether threatens 600 B market-cap, GENIUS Act stablecoin framework live. Metamask to issue its native mUSD stablecoin. Blockchain intelligence
Online pastor Eli Regalado fleeced his flock to the tune of $3 million based on the promise (from God) of a 10x return. Naturally, the money is now gone, and the pastor faces fraud charges.
Sasha Markevich
Female-led blockchain startups are a minority in Web3 and get less funding than their male-run equivalents.
Eva Senzaj Pauram
The new service, created with Consensys Staking, streamlines Ethereum validator node operation but charges a 10% reward fee.
Mathilde Adam
The upgrade promises a significant reduction in gas fees and enhanced transaction speed for L2 networks.
Alexander Mardar
Binance has reported another major token burn to kick off 2024. The BNB token has removed over 50% of its 100 million token target so far.
Alex Harutunian
To the casual Observer, a large cohort of the crypto community might seem borderline obsessed with just one question, "Wen moon?" Well this week was 'Wen', at least for the Japanese space agency, which managed to gently land its SLIM lunar lander on the surface of
Jack Martin
Advance excerpts from the annual Crypto Crime report by Chainalysis suggest that illicit activity fell significantly in 2023, with certain caveats.
Sasha Markevich
For all the key details of new blockchain projects in the banking world, real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, and central bank digital currency (CBDC) updates, the Observers 'Banking and CBDC Roundup' has you covered. Starting off with the tokenization of real-world assets, global credit ratings agency Moody's
Jack Martin05.11.2025 StraitsX to expand stablecoin payment network across Asia by mid-2026. 05.11.2025 Cambodia to store national gold reserves with China. 05.11.2025 Canada includes stablecoin regulation costs in 2025 federal budget. 05.11.2025 Lido adopts Chainlink CCIP for cross-chain wstETH transfers. 05.11.2025
29.10.25 Ondo Finance launches Ondo Global Markets on BNB Chain. 29.10.25 Ethereum Foundation launches portal to guide institutional adoption. 29.10.25 Securitize goes public via SPAC merger with Cantor Fitzgerald’s CF Acquisition Corp VIII. 28.10.25 Trump Media & Technology Group to launch
Kazakhstan launched a state-backed crypto reserve, Alem Crypto Fund, partnering with Binance Kazakhstan and starting with an investment in $BNB. SWIFT is building a blockchain ledger with 30+ banks using Consensys. Polish lawmakers passed a Crypto-Asset Market Act, aligning rules with the EU’s MiCAR. Vitalik Buterin opposes EU’s
Uniswap’s Unichain has boosted L2 volumes past $40B, but liquidity tells a different story. TVL has halved since July, exposing the limits of incentive-driven growth. Despite cheaper fees, users remain on Ethereum—where Uniswap continues to be one of the network’s largest revenue engines.
TON Strategy Company, formerly Verb Technology, has rebranded as a Toncoin treasury, holding $713M in TON and targeting over 5% of supply. By staking its holdings and adopting financial engineering akin to Strategy’s playbook, it aims to turn crypto reserves into shareholder returns
From $GOAT to $FART, memecoins show how hype burns fast and budgets vanish faster. Market caps in the tens of millions may look like real businesses, but behind the joke lies sunk marketing spend, fragile communities, and the math of attention that always runs out of breath
Jito’s BAM transforms MEV on Solana from a private auction into a transparent, programmable marketplace. While Ethereum introduced PBS, Solana may now be a step ahead—embedding MEV handling directly into the protocol with greater flexibility and developer access.
Circle’s decision to bring native USDC to Hyperliquid underscores the chain’s rise as an institutional-grade DeFi hub, while advancing its strategy to make USDC the default stablecoin — trusted, redeemable, and seamlessly transferable across chains