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Binance has decided to remove six tokens from its spot market following its periodic asset review. Across Protocol (ACX), Hashflow (HFT), PIVX (PIVX), Vulcan Forged (PYR), Vanar Chain (VANRY) and Viction (VIC) will be delisted from all spot trading pairs on August 17, 2026, at 06:00 Türkiye time.According to the exchange, the decision followed an assessment of several factors, including development activity, trading volume and liquidity, network security, community transparency and unexpected changes to token economics.All six tokens were already under selling pressure when the announcement was released. Vulcan Forged (PYR) recorded the sharpest move, falling to $0.069924 as its daily loss reached 4.28%. PYR was also the worst performer over the past 30 days, with a decline of 51.42%.Vanar Chain (VANRY) posted a similarly sharp fall. Its price dropped to $0.0036951, bringing its daily loss to 4.48%. However, VANRY remains up 24.68% over the past 30 days, suggesting that the latest decline was largely concentrated in the hours following the announcement.PIVX and Viction (VIC) showed similar weekly performances. PIVX was trading at $0.032638, down 9.07% over the past seven days and 18.83% over the past month.VIC fell to $0.0338093, losing 1.46% on the day and 9.03% over the past week. Across Protocol (ACX) posted the mildest decline among the six tokens, falling 2.17% to $0.0403979, although it recovered 0.86% on the hourly chart.Hashflow (HFT) was trading at $0.0086898. Its seven-day loss reached 9.54%, placing it among the weakest weekly performers on the list. Other key dates and timesThe delisting process will unfold gradually rather than taking place on a single date. Binance Futures will automatically settle contracts linked to the affected tokens on August 7 at 12:00 Türkiye time, while users will no longer be able to open new positions from 08:30.On the margin trading side, borrowing will be suspended from August 4 at 06:00. All affected cross-margin and isolated-margin pairs will then be removed on August 7 at 10:00.Flexible and locked positions held through Binance Simple Earn will be automatically transferred to users’ spot wallets after August 10 at 07:00. Binance’s Buy & Sell service will stop supporting the tokens on August 4 at 03:00, while Binance Pay support will end on August 7 at 03:00.Deposits made after August 18 at 03:00 will no longer be credited to user accounts. Withdrawals will remain available until October 17 at 03:00.Binance issued a separate warning for Vanar Chain. The exchange said it would not participate in the planned VANRY token swap.Under the migration plan announced by the project team, users will need to complete the token swap themselves through the designated migration portal. Binance will not carry out the process on behalf of users.VANRY withdrawals will remain available through the Ethereum ERC-20 and Polygon PoS networks.The delisted tokens may be converted into stablecoins on users’ behalf after October 18 at 03:00. Binance stressed that the conversion is not guaranteed.If conversion is unavailable, withdrawals may remain open depending on network availability.
Circle Internet Group (CRCL), the issuer of the dollar-backed stablecoin USDC, announced that it has received a limited-purpose trust charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS). The new entity will operate under the legal name Circle Internet Trust Company LLC and will be known as Circle New York Trust.In a statement released Friday, the company said the move strengthens its regulatory position in New York, which it considers a key financial center. The charter follows Circle’s approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) earlier this month to establish a national trust bank.Two approvals at different regulatory levelsCircle’s two recent approvals serve different purposes. On July 10, the OCC authorized the creation of First National Digital Currency Bank N.A., which will operate under the Circle National Trust brand at the federal level.The institution will be able to provide fiduciary custody services for digital assets. Although managing USDC reserves was a central part of Circle’s original application, that function was deferred to a later stage.The New York charter adds a separate regulatory layer at the state level. Circle had already stated in earlier federal filings that USDC issuance would take place through a New York-based limited-purpose trust company rather than the national trust bank.Circle became the first company to receive a BitLicense from the NYDFS in 2015. The new charter extends a regulatory relationship that now spans more than a decade.Allaire: “Something we have pursued for a long time”Circle co-founder, chairman and CEO Jeremy Allaire said obtaining the New York trust charter had been a long-standing priority for the company. According to Allaire, the regulatory clarity provided by the charter played a decisive role in that goal.The CEO also described the NYDFS as an international reference point for digital asset regulation. He said the framework places USDC in a strong position as digital dollars move closer to the center of the global financial system.Circle is not the first crypto company to receive a similar limited-purpose trust charter from the NYDFS. Coinbase, MoonPay, BitGo and Paxos have already secured comparable approvals, making Circle the latest major industry name to join the list.Market reaction and USDC’s positionCircle shares traded at $64.24 on Friday morning, remaining close to their previous closing level. USDC’s market capitalization has surpassed $71.8 billion, making it the world’s second-largest stablecoin behind Tether’s USDT.Alongside USDC, Circle operates the Circle Payments Network and the Arc blockchain. The company’s successive federal and state-level approvals represent concrete steps in its plan to expand custody and fiduciary services for institutional clients.
Bitcoin’s decline in the second quarter weighed heavily on two of the crypto industry’s biggest names. Strategy (MSTR), the world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, reported a net loss of $8.2 billion on Thursday, while crypto exchange giant Coinbase (COIN) missed revenue expectations across almost every major business segment.Strategy’s loss came from Bitcoin’s carrying valueAccording to Strategy’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, most of the loss did not involve a cash outflow. The company recorded an $8.32 billion fair-value loss on its Bitcoin holdings.As of July 26, Strategy held 843,775 Bitcoin, up 25% since the beginning of the year. At current prices, the holdings are worth around $54.8 billion, compared with the company’s total acquisition cost of $63.7 billion. That leaves Strategy with a substantial unrealized loss.The company raised $17.06 billion through share sales this year. It also repurchased $1.5 billion of its convertible debt at an 8% discount and increased its U.S. dollar reserve to $3.75 billion. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Kang said the reserve could cover preferred-stock dividends and interest obligations for more than 2.1 years.More notably, Strategy sold approximately $218.4 million worth of Bitcoin under its new BTC Monetization Program. The company has long been known for its “buy, hold and never sell” approach, making the transaction a small but meaningful departure from that strategy.Executive Chairman Michael Saylor said the company remained focused on its new “Digital Credit” business despite Bitcoin’s price weakness. Strategy has also announced a $1 billion share repurchase program for MSTR stock, although it has yet to use it.The company purchased approximately $25 million worth of STRC preferred shares below their nominal value. Management said it would continue buying the shares as long as they remained below that level.Coinbase delivers a more straightforward missCoinbase shares fell approximately 5% in after-hours trading. Revenue came in at $1.22 billion, below analysts’ expectations of $1.29 billion.Transaction revenue declined to $599 million, while subscription and services revenue fell to $555 million. Both figures missed market estimates. The reason was relatively simple. Bitcoin lost 14% during the quarter, while Ethereum declined 25%, dragging trading volumes lower.Coinbase was not the only platform affected by weaker market activity. Robinhood, which reported its results on Wednesday, said crypto revenue fell 38% year over year, dropping from $160 million to $100 million.In a post on X, CEO Brian Armstrong highlighted the company’s businesses beyond transaction fees, including stablecoins, Base and prediction markets. He also said Coinbase captured a record 10.3% share of global crypto trading volume.Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas offered a more measured assessment. Industry-wide spot trading volumes fell by more than 20%, while the total cryptocurrency market capitalization declined by a double-digit percentage. These conditions pushed Coinbase’s total revenue down 14% from the previous quarter.Coinbase added 819 Bitcoin to its balance sheet during the quarter, increasing its total holdings by 5% to 17,211 BTC. However, the company’s main challenge remains reducing its dependence on transaction fees.Subscription and services revenue includes interest income from USDC, staking, custody services, Coinbase One memberships and institutional products. Its performance provides one of the clearest indications of how successfully Coinbase can insulate itself from market volatility.Analysts will continue watching developments in derivatives, prediction markets and Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network. The company is scheduled to meet with investors later in the day.
The cryptocurrency market looks calm over the past 24 hours, but that appearance is misleading. Sharp price swings around the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decision wiped out a large volume of leveraged futures positions.According to CoinGlass data, $286 million worth of positions belonging to 87,294 traders were liquidated. The damage spread across Bitcoin, Ether and stock perpetual futures traded on cryptocurrency exchanges.Crypto investors feel the impact of the Fed decisionMajor cryptocurrencies were almost unchanged over the past 24 hours. However, prices moved sharply in both directions around the Fed meeting, clearing out leveraged positions before returning close to their starting levels.CoinGlass data showed that $186 million of the liquidations came from long positions, while shorts accounted for $100 million. In other words, the market hit traders on both sides before ending the period with little overall change.The damage in Bitcoin was almost evenly split. Of the $57 million in Bitcoin liquidations, $28 million came from longs and $29 million from shorts. Bitcoin traded between $63,247 and $64,660, a range of little more than 2%. The move looked modest, but it was enough to liquidate traders positioned in both directions. The largest single liquidation was a $2.9 million Bitcoin position on Binance.Ether liquidations reached $58 million, with long positions accounting for most of the losses. The price remained between $1,850 and $1,920.Bitcoin is currently trading near $63,900, while Ethereum stands at around $1,900. Both assets are almost exactly where they were 24 hours earlier.Fed decision triggers $188 million in liquidationsMost of the damage occurred around Wednesday’s Federal Reserve interest rate decision. The announcement alone triggered $188 million in liquidations, including $130 million in long positions.The more striking activity appeared in stock perpetual futures traded on cryptocurrency exchanges. SanDisk contracts recorded $19 million in liquidations, followed by Micron with $10 million, SK Hynix with $7 million and the leveraged semiconductor fund SOXL with another $7 million.These instruments are perpetual contracts that bring stock-market exposure onto cryptocurrency exchanges. They operate with the same leverage mechanism used for Bitcoin and other digital assets.Almost all the liquidations occurred on the long side. In Micron contracts, the ratio was seven to one, with $9 million in long liquidations compared with $1 million in shorts. SanDisk’s ratio was approximately two to one.Traders were using cryptocurrency infrastructure to bet on further gains in the artificial intelligence memory-chip theme. Those positions collided with one of the sharpest semiconductor sell-offs of the year.Chip rally turns against leveraged tradersThe timing proved costly. SK Hynix shares fell 17% on Wednesday after the company missed market expectations, despite reporting a 557% increase in profit. The Kospi has now fallen more than 40% from its June peak.This marked the second incident this week in which stock perpetual contracts traded on cryptocurrency exchanges caused substantial losses.On Monday, a single transaction on a low-volume Korean pre-market platform pushed Trade.xyz’s SK Hynix contract down 19%, triggering $60 million in liquidations. The exchange later agreed to cover all losses linked to the incident.
Creating an AI character is no longer a technical task reserved for software teams. Holoworld AI focuses on helping creators, brands, and communities build interactive AI agents without coding, deploy them across different platforms, and develop an on-chain economy around them. HOLO serves as the ecosystem token used for staking, governance, liquidity, and project launches.Holoworld AI: Definition and OriginsHoloworld AI is a content and application platform that combines AI agents with Web3-based digital ownership. The project describes itself as an “agentic app store,” an application marketplace built around AI agents.The agents created on the platform go beyond text-based chatbots. They can communicate through text, voice, and digital avatars, produce content, and perform different tasks using tools added by developers.Creators sit at the center of Holoworld’s model. Users can define a character’s appearance, personality, speaking style, and knowledge, then use that character in videos, social media, games, or community applications. HOLO is the native utility token of the Holoworld ecosystem. The project’s official documentation describes it as a core asset for HoloLaunch, liquidity programs, staking, and governance.There is an important distinction caused by the similarity between project names. Holoworld AI’s HOLO token is not the same asset as Holochain’s HOT token. Users should verify the project name, ticker, network, and contract address separately before making a transaction.Why Was Holoworld AI Developed?Most AI tools provide users with a particular service, but ownership of the character and the economic value created by its content usually remain with the company operating the platform. Holoworld AI is developing a model in which creators can build their own AI characters and form a more open economy around them.The project lowers the technical barrier to this process. Users do not need to train a language model from scratch, build a motion-capture system, or develop three-dimensional animations.Several modules, including Hologram Mocap, Holo3D, HoloAnimate, and HoloGPT, played a prominent role during Holoworld’s early development. According to the project’s 2024 introduction, these tools handled tasks such as motion capture, 3D asset generation, portrait animation, and character-specific response generation.The platform gradually expanded beyond a standalone AI character marketplace. Its current model aims to bring AI agent creation, video production, community development, project launches, and developer tools into the same ecosystem.Under this approach, an AI agent is more than a virtual character built for conversation. It can become the digital face of a brand, a continuously active content creator, a gaming character, a community manager, or a software agent connected to external applications.Connections to BNB Chain and SolanaHoloworld AI does not operate an independent blockchain of its own. The HOLO token can be used through contracts deployed on BNB Smart Chain and Solana.Binance published the contract details for both networks in its HOLO listing announcement. The BNB Smart Chain contract was identified as 0x1a5D7E4c3A7F940B240b7357a4bFED30D17f9497, while the Solana contract was listed as 69RX85eQoEsnZvXGmLNjYcWgVkp9r2JjahVm99KbJETU. Users should always verify contract addresses through official project documentation or exchange announcements.Support for two networks expands access to different wallets and applications. Solana offers fast, low-cost transactions and supports the on-chain identity of AI agents, while BNB Smart Chain provides connections to EVM-compatible applications and exchange infrastructure.The selected network is critical when sending HOLO. Transferring tokens through Solana to a BNB Smart Chain address, or through BNB Smart Chain to a Solana address, may result in a permanent loss of funds.Transaction fees are not paid in HOLO. Users need BNB for transactions on BNB Smart Chain and SOL for transactions on Solana.History of Holoworld AI: Major MilestonesHoloworld AI’s history goes back to Hologram Labs, a company that initially developed virtual avatars. According to the project’s official introduction, Tong Pow founded Hologram Labs in 2021, with the company initially focusing on motion capture, virtual identities, and three-dimensional avatar technology.The company raised $6.5 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital in July 2022. Nascent, Inflection, Quantstamp, Neon DAO, Foothill Ventures, and South Park Commons participated in the round, while Linkin Park member Mike Shinoda joined as an angel investor.Hologram’s first products allowed users to bring NFT avatars into video calls, livestreams, and games. As generative AI advanced, the team began turning static avatars into characters capable of speaking, producing content, and performing different tasks.The platform was introduced to the public under the Holoworld AI name on January 29, 2024. Its first version was positioned as a decentralized character marketplace and social platform where users could create AI characters in a few steps.In March 2024, Holoworld was selected for the seventh season of the Most Valuable Builder program run by BNB Chain and Binance Labs. According to BNB Chain, 13 projects were accepted from more than 700 applicants.HOLO Launch and Exchange ListingsThe Holoworld platform and the HOLO token did not launch at the same time. Development of the platform dates back to 2021, while HOLO’s token generation event and major exchange listings took place in September 2025.Binance announced HOLO as the latest project in its HODLer Airdrops program on September 9, 2025. Spot trading opened on September 11 with HOLO/USDT, HOLO/USDC, HOLO/BNB, HOLO/FDUSD, and HOLO/TRY pairs.At the time of listing, the total and maximum supply was set at 2.048 billion HOLO. The initial circulating supply stood at 347,376,226 HOLO, equivalent to approximately 16.96% of the maximum supply.Binance also allocated 30.72 million HOLO to HODLer Airdrops rewards. This amount represented 1.5% of the total supply.HOLO was later listed on other centralized exchanges, including Bybit, MEXC, and HTX. Supported networks, trading pairs, and withdrawal conditions may vary between exchanges, so users should not make transfers based on the ticker alone.HOLO experienced sharp price movements during its initial trading period. The difference between the $0.7757 peak and the $0.05002 low recorded by CoinGecko shows how volatile newly listed tokens with a low circulating supply can become. Past price movements do not guarantee future performance.HOLO coin price is at $0.06 at the time of writing. HoloLaunch and Recent Ecosystem DevelopmentsFollowing the token launch, Holoworld expanded its focus toward the “agentic app store” model. The project aims to build a marketplace where users can develop applications, content, and intellectual property connected to AI agents, rather than limiting the platform to an agent creation studio.Ava Studio is one of the ecosystem’s main products. It converts written prompts into AI-generated videos, allowing users to select characters, prepare scenes, and produce short-form content without conventional video-editing software.HoloLaunch serves as a launch platform for AI-based projects and digital intellectual property. Projects can organize presales or fair launches and customize features such as rewards, royalties, and token economics.Holoworld announced a Robinhood Chain version of HoloLaunch in July 2026. This version focuses on launching and trading AI agents and digital IP projects on Robinhood’s Ethereum-based Layer 2 network. The development shows that HoloLaunch has expanded to a new network, but it does not mean that every HOLO function has automatically moved to Robinhood Chain.Holoworld’s website also displays an AI-powered 24/7 livestreaming product. However, the feature was still marked as “coming soon” as of July 2026, so it should not be treated as a fully available product.Holoworld also provides APIs and agent development tools. Developers can use these tools to create characters, connect agent interfaces to their applications, and integrate their own data sources through Model Context Protocol, or MCP, connections.How Does the HOLO Token Work?Staking is one of HOLO’s main use cases. Users can lock their tokens for certain periods to access ecosystem rewards and selected launches on HoloLaunch.Staking should not be viewed as a risk-free return model. The market value of token rewards can change, while lock-up periods, smart contract vulnerabilities, and a decline in HOLO’s price may affect the overall result.HOLO also acts as one of the core assets within the HoloLaunch economy. Some launches may offer separate participation pools or priority allocations to users who stake HOLO. Participation requirements vary between projects.The token utility documentation describes HOLO as the primary medium of exchange within the Open MCP network. The project plans to use a shared token for economic activity between developers, data providers, and AI applications.HOLO also has a planned governance function. Token holders are expected to participate in decisions related to network development and the wider ecosystem. However, public documentation does not explain the full scope of binding votes, proposal thresholds, or which parts of governance are currently active.For this reason, describing HOLO as a fully community-controlled DAO token would be misleading. The maturity of its governance model may become clearer through future proposal systems and updates from the Holoworld Foundation.HOLO Supply and Token DistributionHOLO has a total and maximum supply of 2,048,000,000 tokens. A fixed maximum supply prevents unlimited issuance, but locked tokens can still enter circulation over time and increase the amount available on the market.Market data showed approximately 726.3 million HOLO in circulation as of July 2026. This figure represented around 35.5% of the maximum supply. The largest allocation, 20.93%, went to community growth. This category contains 428,646,400 HOLO and covers incentives for users and developers participating in HoloLaunch and the Open MCP network.The Foundation received 18.40%, or 376,832,000 HOLO. This allocation supports development, infrastructure, operations, and the project’s long-term activities.Core contributors received 15.60%, equivalent to 319,488,000 HOLO. Investors received 13.46%, or 275,660,800 HOLO, while advisers were allocated 3.50%, equal to 71,680,000 HOLO.Ecosystem and marketing activities received 13.11% of the supply. This category contains 268,492,800 HOLO.Initial community rewards account for 10% of the supply, or 204,800,000 HOLO. Another 5%, equal to 102,400,000 HOLO, was allocated to liquidity provision.Not all tokens entered the market on launch day. Fifteen percent of the community growth allocation was unlocked at the token generation event, followed by a three-month cliff and four years of linear vesting.Thirty percent of the initial community rewards was unlocked at launch, with the remaining portion placed on a shorter distribution schedule. The liquidity allocation became fully available at launch to support centralized and on-chain markets.No tokens were initially unlocked for the team, advisers, or investors. These groups have a one-year cliff, followed by three years of linear vesting for investors and advisers and four years for core contributors.Long vesting schedules prevent the team and investors from selling their full allocations within a short period. Regular unlocks can still increase circulating supply, so investors should examine upcoming token releases alongside the maximum supply.Multichain Transactions and SecurityHOLO is a token operating on existing blockchains rather than the native coin of an independent network. Transaction security depends on the validator structure of either BNB Smart Chain or Solana.This arrangement removes the need for Holoworld to build a separate validator network. At the same time, the project remains exposed to risks affecting the underlying networks, including outages, congestion, wallet incompatibility, and smart contract vulnerabilities.A multichain structure can spread liquidity across different networks. Fake tokens using the same ticker may also mislead users, particularly on new networks and decentralized exchanges.Users should not rely solely on a token’s name or logo. The contract address, selected network, destination wallet, and exchange deposit support should all be checked before making a transaction.The identity and ownership records of AI agents created through Holoworld are mainly associated with Solana. However, the agents’ computational processes do not all take place on-chain. Running language models, generating videos, and animating characters require off-chain infrastructure.This distinction matters when assessing security. On-chain records can verify digital asset ownership, but they cannot guarantee the accuracy of AI-generated content, its copyright status, or the uninterrupted operation of platform servers.Why Is Holoworld AI Important?Building an AI agent requires several components, including a language model, data connections, visual design, voice, motion, and distribution tools. Bringing these elements together can be expensive and complicated for independent creators and small communities.Holoworld is trying to place these components within a more accessible interface. After designing a character, users can adjust its personality, knowledge, and visual features, then turn it into a video, livestream, or community experience.For brands, the system can transform existing intellectual property into an interactive character. A cartoon character or digital collectible can become an agent that communicates with followers and continuously produces new content.Economic infrastructure is another important element for creators. HoloLaunch allows them to build communities around their characters or applications, raise funds, and create custom reward models.The model’s success depends on more than its technical tools. Users need to continue engaging with the characters, developers need to build new applications, and HOLO needs to gain real utility within platform activity.Ava Studio, HoloLaunch, and Their Place in the EcosystemAva Studio is one of the most accessible Holoworld products for end users. It allows users to generate character-led videos from text prompts and create different scenes without complicated editing software.HoloLaunch represents the ecosystem’s economic layer. AI agents, content projects, and brand-related digital IPs can seek community support through the platform, while HOLO staking may play a role in access to certain launches.The Open MCP network has a more technical objective. MCP connections help AI agents communicate with external data sources and tools through a standardized method. HOLO is intended to serve as a payment and incentive asset within this network. Developer APIs allow Holoworld characters to move beyond the platform. An agent can therefore become a social media bot, gaming element, or branded digital assistant instead of remaining confined to the Holoworld interface.Holoworld’s official website reports more than one million users, over 700,000 creations, and more than 35 million interactions. These figures are platform metrics shared by Holoworld and may not be fully verifiable through independent on-chain data.Holoworld competes with Virtuals Protocol, ai16z-based projects, and other no-code agent platforms in the AI agent sector. Ease of creation, distribution, user retention, and developer revenue will all influence whether the ecosystem can maintain long-term activity.Team, Partnerships, Token Unlocks, and RisksHologram Labs is the development company behind Holoworld AI. According to the project’s official introduction, Tong Pow founded the San Francisco-based company.The team has worked on motion capture, machine learning, three-dimensional animation, and Web3 tools. This background explains Holoworld’s focus on agents with visual identities and movement capabilities rather than text-only characters.Hologram Labs’ early customers and collaborators included L’Oréal, Bilibili, Pudgy Penguins, Milady Makers, Cool Cats, Arbitrum, and BNB Chain. The nature of each connection differs; some involved technology integrations, while others were customer relationships or character-based projects.The community participates in the ecosystem through HOLO staking programs and HoloLaunch allocations. Governance is another planned utility, although the project has not fully explained how much decision-making power has already been transferred to the community.A large portion of the token supply remains outside circulation. Unlocks involving the team, investors, advisers, and Foundation may increase supply pressure, particularly if demand does not grow at the same rate.HOLO is also an altcoin sensitive to AI and crypto market narratives. Interest in these sectors can shift quickly, leading to speculative price movements that may have little connection to actual product usage.There is also execution risk at the platform level. Ava Studio, HoloLaunch, the Open MCP network, and livestreaming products need to attract consistent users. Delays to the roadmap or weaker-than-expected demand may limit the token’s utility.Intellectual property is another area that requires close attention. AI agents resembling real people, brands, or copyrighted characters may create legal disputes involving image, voice, and training data rights.Smart contract vulnerabilities, incorrect network selection, fake tokens, and third-party platform connections represent additional technical risks. Users should examine contract audits, wallet permissions, and current security announcements before using the platform.Frequently Asked QuestionsBelow are answers to some of the most common questions about Holoworld AI.What is Holoworld AI, and when was it launched? Holoworld AI is a Web3 platform that helps users create AI characters and agent-based applications without coding. Hologram Labs, the company behind the project, was founded in 2021 and introduced the Holoworld AI platform on January 29, 2024. The HOLO token launched later, with its token generation event and Binance spot listing taking place in September 2025.What is the HOLO token used for? HOLO was designed for staking, HoloLaunch participation, ecosystem liquidity, governance, and economic transactions within the Open MCP network. Some HoloLaunch projects may provide separate pools or priority access to users who stake HOLO.The token’s use cases may change as the platform develops. Users should review the latest official documentation before participating in a new feature or reward program.Which networks does Holoworld AI use? The HOLO token is available on BNB Smart Chain and Solana. Solana plays a prominent role in the agent identity and digital ownership system, while BNB Smart Chain supports EVM-based token usage.HoloLaunch also expanded to Robinhood Chain in July 2026. This product integration does not replace HOLO’s contracts on BNB Smart Chain and Solana.Who founded Holoworld AI? Hologram Labs is the company behind Holoworld AI. According to the project’s official introduction, Tong Pow founded the company in 2021.Some public databases mention a broader founding and executive team. However, the project’s current documentation does not include a comprehensive page listing every founder, executive, and role.What is the HOLO supply? HOLO has a total and maximum supply of 2,048,000,000 tokens. Market data shows that approximately 726.3 million HOLO are currently in circulation.Circulating supply can increase as locked tokens are released. A fixed maximum supply and the number of tokens available on the market at a particular time are therefore separate figures.Is Holoworld AI a suitable investment? Whether Holoworld AI is suitable for a particular investor depends on risk tolerance, investment horizon, and portfolio structure. HOLO is a high-risk crypto asset exposed to price volatility, token unlocks, product development challenges, competition, smart contract vulnerabilities, and regulatory uncertainty.Follow the JR Kripto Guide series for the latest information about Holoworld AI and the Web3-based creator economy developing around AI agents.
Binance will begin accepting ten new bStocks tokens representing publicly traded securities as collateral across its Cross Margin, Portfolio Margin and Portfolio Margin Pro products. The change will take effect on July 29 at 12:00 UTC and covers well-known names ranging from Apple and Amazon to PayPal and Goldman Sachs.The tokens added to the list are Apple (AAPLB), Bloom Energy (BEB), Amazon (AMZNB), Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3X Shares ETF (SOXSB), Dell (DELLB), Fluence Energy (FLNCB), Applied Materials (AMATB), PayPal (PYPLB), Goldman Sachs (GSB) and VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMHB).The corresponding bStocks trading pairs will also become available for margin trading at the same time. This means Binance users will be able to use tokenized versions of these US-listed securities as collateral for margin positions alongside conventional crypto assets.The scope remains limited for now. The update applies only to the three specified margin products, while borrowing the tokens themselves will not be supported. Users can provide bStocks as collateral, but they cannot borrow these assets through Binance’s margin platform.Access will also remain restricted. The feature will be available only to VIP 3 users and above in eligible jurisdictions. Users located in restricted regions will not be able to use the new functionality.Binance has previously introduced new products gradually, often giving higher-volume customer segments access first before considering a broader rollout based on demand. It remains unclear whether the VIP 3 requirement will eventually be lowered.How do bStocks work?bStocks Tokenized Securities are not entirely new to Binance. The exchange already offers them on a secondary-market basis to eligible users in supported regions. The latest announcement expands how these assets can be used by allowing selected tokens to serve as collateral within Binance’s margin framework.Binance advised users to monitor their margin levels closely when using bStocks as collateral. This warning becomes especially relevant for assets such as SOXSB, which tracks a leveraged inverse exchange-traded fund.Leveraged and inverse products can experience significantly sharper price movements than standard stock tokens. Traders using these assets as collateral therefore need to assess margin-call and liquidation risks differently from those associated with conventional bStocks tokens.SOXSB, for example, represents the Direxion Daily Semiconductor Bear 3X Shares ETF, a product designed to deliver amplified inverse exposure to the daily performance of semiconductor stocks. Its value can move rapidly when the underlying sector changes direction, making it potentially more volatile as collateral.Binance provides the complete and updated list of eligible collateral assets on its margin data page. The exchange has also published a separate methodology explaining how index prices for bStocks collateral assets are calculated.The announcement does not introduce any additional changes beyond this expansion. Binance has not announced borrowing support for the ten tokens, access in new jurisdictions or a wider rollout to lower VIP tiers.For now, the update is limited to adding these ten bStocks tokens to the list of eligible collateral assets and enabling margin trading for their corresponding pairs.
Decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch has opened its shared liquidity protocol Aqua to users across 13 Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible chains.How Aqua worksAqua allows liquidity providers to use the same wallet balance across multiple positions instead of dividing their assets among separate pools. Tokens remain in the provider’s wallet until a matching swap takes place.1inch co-founder Sergej Kunz explained that tokens remain in the provider’s wallet and under their control instead of being split among smart contract deposits. A single balance can therefore support several positions across different strategies.In an example provided by 1inch, a $100,000 balance can support three separate positions offering a combined $300,000 in quoted liquidity. This does not mean that additional capital has been created; the figure represents the total amount of liquidity quoted across the positions.Orders can only be executed against assets that are actually available in the wallet. If the balance is insufficient, the swap fails.Unveiled last year1inch first introduced Aqua in November last year, releasing a software development kit, libraries and documentation alongside the protocol.The newly launched public interface allows users to create full-range, concentrated liquidity or fixed-rate positions across several networks. Supported chains include Ethereum, Base, BNB Chain, Arbitrum and Robinhood Chain.The idle liquidity problemThe launch follows research commissioned by 1inch into capital efficiency across concentrated liquidity exchanges.The study found that 85% of the $1.84 billion in liquidity tracked across major concentrated liquidity exchanges was underutilized during the first half of 2026.During an average week, around $542 million remained entirely outside active trading ranges. According to the research, this inactivity resulted in an estimated $150 million in lost annual trading fees.Aqua aims to improve capital efficiency by allowing liquidity providers to deploy the same wallet balance across several strategies without transferring their assets into separate pools.Security and incentives1inch said Aqua has undergone eight independent security audits. Liquidity providers nevertheless remain exposed to risks including price volatility, impermanent loss and smart contract vulnerabilities.A liquidity incentive program distributed through Merkl has also gone live alongside the protocol.The 1inch Foundation has committed 10 million 1INCH tokens over a three-month period, while the 1inch DAO is adding another $500,000 in USDC. At current prices, the token allocation is worth approximately $870,000, bringing the total value of the incentive program to around $1.37 million.Impact on the 1INCH priceThe 1INCH token, which will fund part of the incentive program, was trading at $0.0838 at the time of writing. The token had lost 1.59% over the previous 24 hours.Its price moved between $0.0818 and $0.0863 during the day. The broader performance presents a different picture, with 1INCH gaining 23% over the past 30 days and 5.69% over the past week.The dollar value of the foundation’s 10 million 1INCH commitment may therefore fluctuate from day to day depending on short-term changes in the token’s market price.
Morgan Stanley launched spot Ethereum and Solana exchange-traded funds on Tuesday. Both products entered the market with the lowest management fees in their respective categories.Both funds charge a 0.14% feeThe company’s Ethereum fund trades under the ticker MSSE, while its Solana fund trades as MSOL on the New York Stock Exchange. Both charge a sponsor fee of 0.14%.According to SoSoValue data, this rate is lower than the 0.15% charged by Grayscale’s Mini Ethereum Trust and the 0.19% fee attached to Franklin Templeton’s Solana ETF.The difference may look small on paper, but it can create substantial cost savings over time for funds managing billions of dollars. It is easy to see why institutional investors pay close attention to differences of just a few basis points; small percentages stop looking small when applied to large amounts of capital.Fee competition has become an increasingly important factor in the ETF industry in recent years. New market entrants often use lower fees to gain an initial advantage before building a broader customer base.Bitcoin fund reached $400 million despite the bear marketBloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said Morgan Stanley’s previously launched spot Bitcoin ETF attracted approximately $400 million within four months, despite entering the market during a downtrend. The figure may appear modest at first glance, but the broader market conditions make it more significant.Morgan Stanley Global Head of ETFs Ally Wallace said the company has built a product lineup exceeding $14 billion since its first launches in 2023. MSSE and MSOL form part of that expansion.According to Wallace, the company aims to simplify access to digital assets through an exchange-traded product structure.Staking adds another source of returnsA portion of the ETH and SOL held by the funds will be staked to generate additional yield. This feature sets the products apart from conventional ETFs that only track the price of their underlying assets, while reflecting an approach increasingly adopted by other issuers.For investors, staking introduces an additional layer of potential returns beyond price appreciation. The feature could prove particularly attractive to those planning to hold their positions over the long term.Competition intensifies in the altcoin ETF marketThe launch comes roughly two and a half years after industry giants such as BlackRock and Fidelity introduced their first spot Bitcoin ETFs. Since then, funds linked to tokens including XRP and HYPE have also entered the market.As of last week, Solana and Hyperliquid ETFs accounted for approximately 80% of ETF trading volume outside Bitcoin and Ethereum. The combined assets held by Solana ETFs had also surpassed $900 million.Investor demand currently appears concentrated around these two assets. How much Morgan Stanley’s low-fee strategy will alter the competitive balance remains to be seen.
Perpetual futures contracts linked to South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix suffered a sudden crash on Hyperliquid shortly before the company’s shares came under pressure in their home market. The company, whose American depositary receipts began trading on Nasdaq earlier this month, endured a difficult day across both crypto and traditional markets.According to Hyperliquid data, perpetual contracts tracking the Seoul-listed stock plunged 20% between 02:00 and 02:01 GMT+3, falling to $900. The price recovered above $1,000 in the following minute and was last trading at $1,092. The contract is settled in USDC, a US dollar-pegged stablecoin. South Korea’s stock market opened lower about an hour later, with chipmakers once again leading the decline. SK Hynix shares ended the session down 15% at 1.55 million won, equivalent to roughly $1,762.Samsung Electronics and automaker Hyundai Motor were also among the companies that recorded losses. The Kospi index closed the day 11% lower.SK Hynix ADRs, with 10 depositary receipts representing one ordinary share, fell 4.5% in US premarket trading to $136.51.Meanwhile, Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token declined by 8%.Hyperliquid gains popularityHyperliquid, a decentralized exchange focused on perpetual contracts, has recently emerged as one of the preferred platforms for traders seeking exposure to traditional assets. The trend accelerated after the war involving Iran began in late February.The exchange had not responded to a request for comment by the time of publication.Sudden price crashes on crypto exchanges often occur during the gap between the US market close and the opening of markets in China, South Korea and other parts of Asia. Trading volumes tend to remain low during these hours, leaving the market without enough opposing orders to absorb large trades and keep prices stable.SK Hynix suffers a sharp declineSK Hynix, one of the world’s largest suppliers of high-bandwidth memory chips used in Nvidia’s artificial intelligence processors, has struggled throughout the month. The stock has lost nearly 48% since reaching a record high of 1.947 million won on June 26.Investor appetite for AI-related stocks has also weakened on Wall Street. Nvidia shares fell 5% on Monday.According to The Wall Street Journal, Nvidia could provide around $250 billion in financial guarantees for a data center project backed by OpenAI.Crypto derivatives markets are increasingly offering early signals about price movements in Nasdaq-listed companies, rather than covering only assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. The signal proved accurate in this case, although there is no guarantee that the same pattern will hold every time.
Digital finance platform Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) announced that it has acquired a significant portion of IBM’s blockchain patent portfolio. The deal adds more than 680 patent families and approximately 1,000 granted patents worldwide to Circle’s intellectual property holdings.The portfolio covers a broad range of areas, including core blockchain technologies, banking and financial services, insurance, enterprise infrastructure, supply chain verification systems and secure cloud operations. With the acquisition, Circle has become the largest holder of blockchain patents in the United States.How the deal could affect Circle’s productsIn its announcement, Circle said the expanded patent portfolio supports the USDC stablecoin, its cross-border payment infrastructure Circle Payments Network, the enterprise blockchain network Arc, and the company’s broader range of onchain products and autonomous financial tools.Circle and IBM also plan to explore further commercial partnerships in the future, although neither company has shared specific details at this stage.Circle General Counsel and Corporate Secretary Sarah Wilson said intellectual property plays an important role in the company’s goal of accelerating the adoption of onchain infrastructure. According to Wilson, IBM’s long-standing technology expertise strengthens Circle’s ability to develop global financial infrastructure.The companies have not disclosed the financial value of the patent portfolio or the amount Circle paid for the acquisition.IBM’s blockchain history and the background to the saleIBM’s blockchain patent portfolio is the result of years of research and development. Beginning in 2015, the company played a leading role in Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source project hosted by the Linux Foundation. IBM also invested heavily in bringing enterprise blockchain solutions to banking, insurance and supply chain management.Over the past several years, however, IBM has scaled back its blockchain operations and shifted its focus toward artificial intelligence and cloud services. Against this backdrop, the patent sale can be viewed as an effort to monetize intellectual property in an area that is no longer among the company’s main priorities.For Circle, the acquisition comes as cryptocurrency companies place greater emphasis on patent strategies. Rivals such as Coinbase and Ripple have also increased their patent applications in recent years. These portfolios can serve as a defensive shield against intellectual property disputes while potentially creating additional revenue through licensing agreements.Circle is a financial technology company operating across digital assets, payment applications and programmable blockchain infrastructure. Its platform includes a stablecoin network anchored by USDC, the Circle Payments Network for global money transfers and the Arc enterprise blockchain network.The company provides the infrastructure that businesses, financial institutions and developers use to build blockchain-based financial products.
Binance Futures will launch three new USDT-margined perpetual futures contracts on July 27, 2026. With the TMFUSDT, TBTUSDT and BITOUSDT contracts, the exchange is expanding its product range into exchange-traded funds linked to the U.S. Treasury market and Bitcoin. TMF, TBT, and BITO (the underlying assets of the three contracts) are not company stocks; they are, respectively, leveraged bond funds managed by Direxion and ProShares, and a strategic fund based on Bitcoin futures.The three contracts target different market expectationsTMFUSDT will track the Direxion Daily 20+ Year Treasury Bull 3X ETF. The fund aims to deliver three times the daily performance of long-term U.S. Treasury bonds and is generally favored by investors who expect interest rates to fall.TBTUSDT represents the opposite position. Its underlying asset, the ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury ETF, seeks to deliver twice the inverse of the daily performance of long-term Treasury bonds. The contract therefore provides a tool for traders who expect interest rates to rise.The third product, BITOUSDT, will be based on the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF. Rather than holding Bitcoin directly, the fund provides exposure to Bitcoin price movements through futures contracts. Its addition to Binance gives the exchange another derivatives product offering indirect exposure to Bitcoin.Binance continues expanding its TradFi futures strategyThe three contracts mark the latest step in Binance’s effort to bring traditional financial assets onto its crypto futures infrastructure. The exchange began this expansion with gold and silver earlier in 2026 before extending it to stocks, leveraged ETFs and index funds.Throughout July, Binance listed contracts tracking companies including Strategy Inc., Caterpillar, Texas Instruments and Take-Two Interactive. Products linked to semiconductor and South Korean stock indexes also joined the platform.According to a report published by Binance Research, perpetual futures contracts linked to ETFs generated more than $116 billion in total trading volume during the first seven months of 2026. The segment recorded average monthly growth of around 170%, while Binance accounted for 74% of the total volume.This growth continues to strengthen the bridge Binance is building between traditional finance and crypto derivatives markets.What does this mean for investors?These USDT-margined contracts allow users to gain exposure to funds traded on U.S. stock exchanges without opening a traditional brokerage account. Investors can trade the products with crypto assets and access the market 24 hours a day, seven days a week.Traditional ETF markets operate during set trading sessions. Perpetual futures contracts on Binance, by comparison, provide continuous pricing.However, the risks associated with leveraged products remain significant. Contracts based on funds such as TMF and TBT, which already use 3x and 2x leverage, can experience much sharper short-term price movements than their underlying assets.This structure can lead to unexpected losses, particularly for investors who keep positions open for extended periods.Binance generally publishes contract specifications and leverage limits on its official announcement page. Before trading, investors should verify technical details such as funding rates, position limits and minimum order sizes through the exchange’s official resources.
Storj Labs filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States on Sunday. The company says its network remains operational and the STORJ token continues to serve its intended function. Storj offered a similar assurance nine months ago; this time, the circumstances look somewhat different.Storj plans to offer token holders equity in the reorganized company. However, a judge must first approve the restructuring plan, and creditors rank ahead of token holders in the bankruptcy repayment order.Why Storj filed for Chapter 11Storj Labs submitted its filing to the federal bankruptcy court in West Virginia. The case number is 5:26-bk-00512.A Chapter 11 filing does not mean the company is shutting down. It allows Storj to continue operating while restructuring its debts under court supervision.According to Storj, these debts are legacy obligations from an earlier stage of the company. Storj has acknowledged that it cannot simply grow its way out of them.“The infrastructure is sound and appropriately scaled. What is holding us back is the legacy liabilities from an earlier period,” said Kaloyan Raev, Storj’s director of software engineering. Raev signed the announcement, rather than CEO Colby Winegar.What changes for token holders?Storj says nothing has changed for the token as of today. Data continues to move between tens of thousands of storage nodes across more than 100 countries.The company plans to offer token holders equity in the new Storj. Equity would represent partial ownership, although the company has yet to establish the rules determining who will qualify for the offer.Those rules will matter because most of the token supply is not freely circulating. Of the total 425 million STORJ tokens, around 143.8 million are currently in circulation. The remaining two-thirds are locked or held elsewhere.Bankruptcy proceedings also follow a strict repayment hierarchy. Creditors receive priority, while equity holders come later. Storj acknowledged this directly in its open letter to the token community: the company can promise an intention, but it cannot guarantee the outcome.The warning sign from OctoberInveniam Capital Partners announced its acquisition of Storj on October 22, 2025. At the time, the companies said there would be no changes to contracts, pricing or management.“We are particularly excited to integrate the STORJ token into our ecosystem, enabling broader utility and interoperability across our platforms,” Inveniam Chairman and CEO Patrick O’Meara said at the time.STORJ was trading at around $0.1872 on the day of the announcement. The token has since lost roughly 60% of its value.A more recent warning arrived this month. MVMT Labs filed for Chapter 11 protection in Delaware on July 15. Ten days later, the MOVE token fell to a record low of $0.00964.The STORJ price appears slightly more resilient for now, although the broader picture remains bleak. The token is trading at $0.0626, down 15.75% over the past 24 hours.During the same period, STORJ moved between $0.061966 and $0.074988. The token has recovered 0.14% over the past hour, while its weekly loss stands at 14.91% and its monthly decline at 15.24%.STORJ currently has a market capitalization of approximately $10.7 million. Its daily trading volume stands at around $5.6 million. The broader sector presents a similar picture. Storage and infrastructure tokens continue to lag in price performance, even as network usage grows.Storj says it will announce upcoming court dates in the coming days. The central issue remains unresolved: the finer details of the equity offer will ultimately determine what token holders are left with.v
Bitcoin offers strong security and deep liquidity, yet its smart contract capabilities remain limited. Hemi aims to narrow the gap between Bitcoin and Ethereum by making Bitcoin data accessible to Ethereum-compatible applications.Hemi’s Definition and OriginsHemi is a Layer-2 protocol that brings Bitcoin and Ethereum together within a single modular network architecture. It draws on Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work security while providing developers with an application environment compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.The Hemi team describes this approach as a “supernetwork.” The goal is to treat Bitcoin and Ethereum as complementary parts of the same system instead of two isolated ecosystems.At the center of the network is the Hemi Virtual Machine, or hVM. According to Hemi’s documentation, hVM operates as an upgraded EVM environment capable of accessing Bitcoin data.Applications built on Hemi that use Bitcoin data are known as “hApps.” These applications are designed to access Bitcoin balances, UTXO data, transaction histories and block headers from within smart contracts.HEMI serves as the native ecosystem token of the network. Its use cases include staking, governance, liquidity incentives, network security and developer rewards.Which network does Hemi run on?Hemi has its own EVM-compatible mainnet. Hemi Mainnet uses chain ID 43111, while transaction fees are currently paid in ETH. This distinction matters because HEMI is the network’s ecosystem token, yet the current technical documentation lists ETH as the gas token.From an architectural perspective, Hemi is more than a conventional sidechain running alongside Bitcoin. It uses Ethereum rollup technology for transaction execution and data processing while relying on Proof-of-Proof to publish security-related data to Bitcoin.This structure places Hemi within discussions around both Ethereum Layer-2 networks and Bitcoin programmability layers. The project is commonly categorized as a Bitcoin Layer-2 or Bitcoin DeFi infrastructure protocol.HEMI also has token contracts on Ethereum and BNB Chain. Binance’s listing announcement identifies the Ethereum contract as 0xEb964A1A6fAB73b8c72A0D15c7337fA4804F484d and the BNB Chain contract as 0x5fFD0EAdc186AF9512542d0d5e5eAFC65d5aFc5B.Token contracts on different networks may not support the same applications or transfer methods. Users should check the destination network, contract address and supported bridge before transferring HEMI.The goal of connecting Bitcoin and EthereumBitcoin holds a vast amount of capital and relies on a strong security model. However, it was not designed to run general-purpose smart contracts in the same way as Ethereum. Ethereum offers a broad development environment for decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, stablecoins and other DeFi products. Hemi aims to connect the value held in Bitcoin with this programmable infrastructure.Traditional cross-chain applications often depend on third-party relayers or bridges that take custody of assets. These systems introduce additional security assumptions and have contributed to several major bridge exploits.Hemi’s hVM architecture seeks to reduce this dependence by making Bitcoin data available from within the EVM. A component called Tiny Bitcoin synchronizes with the Bitcoin network, while Hemi nodes process the collected data through a shared state view.The Hemi Bitcoin Kit, or hBK, makes this technical layer easier for developers to use. Solidity developers can work with ready-made contracts and query tools instead of processing low-level Bitcoin data from scratch.This architecture could support lending markets, BTC-backed financial products, cross-chain swaps and smart contracts that respond to Bitcoin transactions. Wider adoption will still depend on developer interest, network reliability and available liquidity.Hemi’s History: Key MilestonesHemi Network was introduced publicly by Hemi Labs in 2024. The founding team includes Jeff Garzik, Maxwell Sanchez and Matthew Roszak.Jeff Garzik contributed to Bitcoin Core during Bitcoin’s early years. He also worked on the Linux kernel and now leads engineering and protocol development efforts at Hemi.Max Sanchez is best known as the architect behind Hemi’s Proof-of-Proof mechanism. Sanchez has experience in distributed systems and blockchain security and previously co-founded VeriBlock.The foundations of Proof-of-Proof were developed during the VeriBlock era. Hemi Labs acquired VeriBlock in 2023 and turned the technology into a central part of Hemi’s Bitcoin security layer.Matthew Roszak is another co-founder, with a focus on business development, capital and strategy. Hemi’s broader team includes contributors working across engineering, security, operations and community development.Hemi Labs announced a $15 million funding round in September 2024. Binance Labs, later renamed YZi Labs, joined the round alongside Breyer Capital and Big Brain Holdings.The project completed another $15 million growth round in August 2025. Participants included YZi Labs, Crypto.com, Republic Digital, Selini Capital, HyperChain Capital and Quantstamp.From testnet to mainnet and the HEMI launchBefore launching its mainnet, Hemi operated an incentivized testnet program. Users earned points by testing bridges, swaps, wallets and other on-chain tasks, while developers tested the application infrastructure.The mainnet was initially scheduled for the final quarter of 2024. Development took longer than expected, and Hemi Mainnet eventually launched on March 12, 2025.At launch, the team reported more than $440 million in value and over 50 ecosystem partners. These figures included liquidity commitments and different forms of locked assets, so they should not be compared directly with standard DeFi TVL measurements.The HEMI token economy was announced in August 2025. The launch process involved airdrops, token sales and liquidity campaigns.On September 23, 2025, Binance selected Hemi as the 43rd project in its HODLer Airdrops program. The campaign distributed 100 million HEMI, while spot trading opened on the same day for the HEMI/USDT, HEMI/USDC, HEMI/BNB, HEMI/FDUSD and HEMI/TRY pairs.The Binance listing significantly expanded HEMI’s market access. Market data shows that the token reached an all-time high of approximately $0.1915 on September 24, 2025.Funding, listings and ecosystem partnersThe Hemi ecosystem includes decentralized exchanges, lending markets, yield platforms, oracle networks and cross-chain messaging protocols. Sushi, DODO, iZUMi, LayerBank, ZeroLend, LayerZero, RedStone and Pyth were among the integrations announced around the mainnet launch.Applications on the network allow users to swap assets, provide liquidity, lend, borrow and access Bitcoin-related DeFi strategies. Hemi’s current positioning places particular emphasis on helping institutional Bitcoin holders use on-chain yield strategies while maintaining control over custody.hemiBTC forms another part of this strategy. It is designed to make Bitcoin value usable within Hemi’s EVM environment and bring BTC liquidity into decentralized applications.Outside Binance, HEMI trades on centralized platforms such as Gate and MEXC. Decentralized trading options may include Uniswap, Curve and PancakeSwap on BNB Chain. Availability varies by country and platform policy.A single TVL figure does not provide a complete picture of Hemi’s size. The secured value shown on Hemi’s website, assets deposited in staking platforms, bridge collateral and DeFiLlama’s chain TVL are calculated using different methods.This issue is not unique to Hemi. Active addresses, transaction volume, protocol revenue, liquidity depth and developer activity can offer a more balanced view of actual network adoption.How Does the HEMI Token Work?HEMI acts as an economic coordination tool for Hemi Network. The project lists staking, governance, liquidity provision and ecosystem rewards among the token’s main use cases.Users can participate in governance by locking HEMI and creating a veHEMI position. Instead of operating as a standard transferable token, veHEMI uses an NFT to represent each locked position.Under the economic model known as HIPPO-002, users can lock HEMI for periods ranging from 12 days to four years. Longer lock periods receive greater governance and reward weight.veHEMI holders can vote on protocol decisions or delegate their voting rights to other participants. Future phases may also use the system to decide where liquidity incentives and protocol-owned funds are directed.Hemi’s economic model attempts to connect network revenue with HEMI. A portion of the net revenue from gas fees, cross-chain services and security infrastructure is converted into HEMI and hemiBTC.Some of the purchased HEMI is burned. The remaining HEMI and hemiBTC can be distributed to staking participants according to the relative weight of their veHEMI positions.HEMI also functions as a reward for Proof-of-Proof miners. These miners publish Hemi consensus data to the Bitcoin blockchain, helping the network connect its security model with Bitcoin.Hemi’s longer-term plans include validator staking and decentralized sequencing. Planned features should be separated from those already available, as several parts of the economic model are being introduced in phases.Supply, allocation and annual emissionsHEMI launched with an initial supply of 10 billion tokens. Community and ecosystem programs received 32% of the allocation, while 15% went to the Hemispheres Foundation.Investors and strategic partners received 28% of the supply. The team and core contributors received another 25%. This means that 68% of the initial allocation sits within the foundation, investor, partner, team and contributor categories. This distribution makes future token unlocks an important factor. As locked tokens enter circulation, supply may rise faster than demand and create additional pressure on the market price.The 10 billion figure should not be interpreted as a fixed maximum supply. Binance updated its announcement on October 2, 2025, adding an unlimited maximum supply with annual emissions ranging from 3% to 7%.Market data from July 2026 placed the circulating supply at approximately 977.5 million HEMI. This represented around 9.78% of the initial supply.The low circulation ratio makes future supply growth worth monitoring. Token unlocks, annual emissions, staking allocations and the effect of the burn mechanism should all be considered together.HEMI contracts and cross-chain useAlthough HEMI is the native ecosystem token of Hemi, it is also represented on other networks for centralized exchange and DeFi activity. Its Ethereum and BNB Chain contracts are the main examples.The BNB Chain version is used within Binance’s listing infrastructure and applications such as PancakeSwap. The Ethereum contract supports access through Ethereum-based wallets, exchanges and DeFi platforms.A standard wallet transfer may not be enough to move HEMI between networks. Users need to select a supported bridge or choose the correct deposit network on an exchange.Selecting the wrong network, sending funds to an unsupported contract or interacting with a fake token can result in permanent loss. Contract addresses should be checked against Hemi’s documentation and the deposit page of the relevant exchange before any transaction.HEMI’s role within the network may also change over time. Hemi Mainnet currently uses ETH for gas fees, while HEMI is primarily used for staking, governance, rewards and economic security.This distinction matters when assessing demand for the token. Rising transaction activity does not automatically mean that each transaction creates direct HEMI demand, although higher protocol revenue and staking requirements could affect the token economy indirectly.Why Is Hemi Important?Hemi’s most distinctive component is hVM. It expands the standard EVM environment so that smart contracts can read and work with Bitcoin data.The Tiny Bitcoin daemon connects to Bitcoin’s peer-to-peer network and indexes blocks. The processed data is then added to a shared state known as the Processed Bitcoin View.Hemi nodes process Bitcoin blocks at the same Hemi block height. This is designed to ensure that Bitcoin-aware smart contracts produce the same result across every node.Special precompiled contracts within hVM expose this information to Solidity applications. Developers can run queries involving Bitcoin balances, UTXOs, transactions and block headers from inside the EVM environment.Hemi’s whitepaper also lists potential query support for Bitcoin-native assets such as Ordinals, BRC-20 tokens and Runes. The scope of these features may change through network upgrades, so developers should refer to the latest technical documentation.hBK converts these queries into higher-level development tools. Developers can use ready-made Solidity components instead of decoding each Bitcoin data structure from the ground up.This approach could support BTC-backed lending, DAOs that respond to Bitcoin balances and exchange applications operating across both networks. Hemi focuses on allowing smart contracts to use Bitcoin state data directly, extending its role beyond basic token transfers.Proof-of-Proof, Bitcoin finality and TunnelsProof-of-Proof is a complementary consensus mechanism that connects Hemi data with the Bitcoin blockchain. PoP miners publish Hemi consensus information through Bitcoin transactions.Bitcoin miners do not need to operate Hemi nodes or participate directly in Hemi’s consensus. They only include the relevant transactions in Bitcoin blocks, while PoP miners may receive HEMI rewards for publishing the data.The Hemi protocol uses these proofs during possible chain conflicts. The goal is to make reorganizing older Hemi blocks progressively more expensive. According to the whitepaper, a Hemi block reaches full Bitcoin finality after nine Bitcoin blocks under normal conditions. This takes around 90 minutes on average, although the actual waiting period can vary with Bitcoin block times.Hemi calls the stronger state reached after an additional Bitcoin confirmation “Superfinality.” The security claims around this stage are based on the protocol’s design and consider the cost of attacking both Hemi and Bitcoin.The Tunnels system allows assets to move between Bitcoin, Hemi and Ethereum. Hemi presents this model as a more flexible alternative to conventional bridges, with support for different security assumptions.Not every tunnel offers the same level of security. Custody arrangements, multisig systems, BitVM-based components, liquidity providers and smart contracts can introduce different risks.Using Bitcoin security does not remove these additional risks. Users still need to understand which asset they are moving, which tunnel they are using and what level of finality the transfer requires.BTCFi use cases, competition and risksHemi’s primary market is Bitcoin-centered decentralized finance, commonly known as BTCFi. This sector aims to make Bitcoin usable as collateral, liquidity or part of a yield strategy instead of leaving it idle in a wallet.Developers can build decentralized exchanges, lending markets, yield platforms and cross-chain applications on Hemi. Contracts with access to Bitcoin data may also support products that standard EVM applications cannot offer.Hemi is competing in a crowded field. Stacks, Rootstock, Core, Bitlayer, Botanix and other networks are also developing smart contract or DeFi infrastructure around Bitcoin.Technical capacity alone will not determine which platform succeeds. Liquidity, developer participation, user experience, bridge security, exchange support and real protocol revenue will also shape the market.Hemi’s hVM and Proof-of-Proof systems offer a distinct technical approach. At the same time, the architecture requires several components to work together, including Bitcoin data processing, Ethereum rollup infrastructure, sequencers, tunnels and staking contracts.This complexity creates additional areas where technical problems may emerge. On June 1, 2026, Hemi Mainnet stopped producing blocks for roughly two hours after an hVM precompile call triggered a runtime error in the sequencer. Hemi’s status page later reported that the issue had been resolved and no user funds were at risk.HEMI also carries considerable price volatility. Market data shows that the token had fallen by more than 97% from its September 2025 high of around $0.1915 by July 2026.In July 2026, HEMI coin price traded near $0.0049, with a market capitalization of approximately $4.8 million. Its low circulating ratio, future emissions, token unlocks, technical risks and competition across the BTCFi sector remain key factors to monitor. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)Below are answers to some of the most common questions about Hemi and the HEMI token.What is Hemi, and when did it launch?: Hemi is a blockchain network designed to combine Bitcoin security with Ethereum-compatible smart contracts through a modular Layer-2 architecture. The project was introduced in 2024, Hemi Mainnet launched on March 12, 2025, and the HEMI token entered the market later in 2025.What is the HEMI token used for?: HEMI is used for staking, governance, network security, liquidity incentives and ecosystem rewards. PoP miners can earn HEMI for publishing Hemi data to Bitcoin, while veHEMI holders can participate in governance and fee distribution.Which network does Hemi run on?: Hemi operates its own EVM-compatible mainnet as a modular Layer-2 protocol. It uses Ethereum rollup infrastructure and connects its data to Bitcoin through Proof-of-Proof. HEMI also has token contracts on Ethereum and BNB Chain.Who founded Hemi?: The founding team of Hemi Labs includes former Bitcoin Core developer Jeff Garzik, Proof-of-Proof architect Maxwell Sanchez and blockchain entrepreneur Matthew Roszak. Garzik and Sanchez lead much of the project’s technical development.What is the HEMI supply?: HEMI launched with an initial total supply of 10 billion tokens. Binance and CoinMarketCap list the maximum supply as unlimited due to annual emissions ranging from 3% to 7%. Around 977.5 million HEMI were in circulation as of July 2026.Is Hemi suitable as an investment?: HEMI’s suitability depends on the investor’s risk tolerance, time horizon and portfolio structure. Its high volatility, low circulating ratio, future supply growth, technical network risks and intense competition within BTCFi should all be considered before making a decision. Hemi follows a distinctive path within BTCFi through hVM, which exposes Bitcoin data to Solidity applications, and Proof-of-Proof, which connects the network’s security model with Bitcoin. Its long-term position will depend on application adoption, network reliability and whether the HEMI economy develops as planned.Follow the JR Kripto Guide series for the latest insights into Hemi, the network bringing Bitcoin data to Ethereum-compatible applications, and other emerging projects across the BTCFi ecosystem.
Blockchain networks can record money transfers and smart contracts. However, cost and capacity problems begin to emerge when large files such as videos, images, AI datasets, or extensive transaction histories enter the picture. Walrus stands out as a decentralized data platform designed to store, verify, and manage this type of large-scale data through smart contracts without relying on a centralized cloud provider.Definition and Origins of WalrusWalrus is a decentralized storage protocol that stores large and unstructured data across a distributed network. Images, videos, audio files, documents, website content, AI models, and blockchain histories can all be stored on Walrus.Files stored within the protocol are called “blobs.” A blob refers to a single file or a large piece of data used by an application. While the file itself remains on Walrus storage nodes, information such as ownership, storage duration, and availability is recorded on Sui.Walrus was initially developed by Mysten Labs, the company behind the Sui blockchain. The project later evolved into an open-source protocol supported by the independent Walrus Foundation.WAL serves as the native token of the Walrus network. Users pay in WAL to purchase storage space, while token holders can stake WAL to support storage nodes across the network. The token also plays a role in protocol governance.Walrus does more than simply copy files across different servers. Data is encoded through mathematical methods, divided into smaller pieces, and distributed among independent nodes. This structure allows files to be reconstructed even when some nodes go offline.According to Walrus’ official documentation, when a blob is stored, the system first encodes the file and creates a unique blob ID based on its content. The data fragments are then sent to storage nodes. Signatures collected from at least two-thirds of the nodes are combined into an availability certificate.Which Network Does Walrus Run On?Walrus is a separate decentralized storage network that operates in connection with Sui. Walrus nodes store the files, while payments, ownership records, staking operations, and storage certificates are managed through smart contracts on Sui Mainnet.For this reason, WAL follows the Sui network’s token standard. A user storing data on Walrus must pay the storage fee in WAL and the gas fees for Sui transactions in SUI. Registering a blob, allocating storage space, and adding an availability certificate on-chain all generate Sui transactions.Walrus data nodes and Sui validators do not need to be operated by the same organizations. File contents are not sent to Sui validators either. Only relevant metadata, including the blob ID, size, storage duration, and certificate, is recorded on Sui.This architecture forms the basis of Walrus’ “programmable storage” approach. Move-based smart contracts on Sui can manage ownership or usage conditions for files stored on Walrus.For example, a game can store user-generated content on Walrus while representing ownership on Sui. A data marketplace can also make access to a specific file conditional on payment, membership, or another on-chain requirement.Walrus Mainnet and Sui Mainnet operate together. According to official network parameters, Walrus Mainnet uses 1,000 data shards, and each epoch lasts approximately two weeks. Storage space can be purchased in advance for up to 53 epochs, equal to roughly two years.Why Was Walrus Created?Small transaction records can be stored directly on a blockchain, but writing large files on-chain can become extremely expensive. High-resolution videos, game files, and AI datasets can exceed the storage capacity of conventional blockchains.Centralized cloud services can store large files quickly. However, the data remains dependent on the infrastructure of a single company. Service outages, account closures, or changes in provider policies can affect an application’s access to its data.Walrus aims to deliver an experience close to the speed of centralized cloud services while distributing data among independent nodes. The protocol also uses a content-based identification system that allows users to verify whether a downloaded file has been altered.A blob ID is generated directly from the file’s content. Even a single change to the content creates a different blob ID. This makes it possible to verify file integrity independently and prevents previous versions from being overwritten without detection.At the technical core of Walrus is an encoding system called RedStuff. RedStuff divides data into pieces known as “slivers” and distributes them among nodes. The system operates with approximately 4.5 times storage redundancy while aiming to repair missing pieces with lower bandwidth requirements.This approach reduces the need to store a complete copy of the file on every node. According to official documentation, data remains available as long as honest nodes control at least two-thirds of the shards. Once a file has been stored, the content can still be reconstructed if only one-third of the nodes remain accessible.Walrus does not, however, offer built-in privacy. Blobs uploaded directly to the system are public by default and can be downloaded by anyone who knows the blob ID. Sensitive data must first pass through a separate encryption or access-control layer.History of Walrus: Major MilestonesMysten Labs introduced Walrus as a developer preview on June 18, 2024. The initial version was designed mainly for Sui developers to test the protocol, store large files, and provide technical feedback.The Walrus whitepaper was published on September 16, 2024. The document explained key technical topics, including the RedStuff encoding system, data availability, node changes, and distributed storage security. Mysten Labs also said that more than 12 TiB of data had already been stored during the developer preview.The Public Testnet launched on October 17, 2024. During the testnet phase, independent storage nodes, publisher services, data retrieval infrastructure, and the staking system were tested under conditions closer to those of a live network.This phase was not limited to measuring technical performance. Economic processes such as node participation, WAL delegation, epoch transitions, and the transfer of data fragments to new committees were also tested.The Walrus Foundation began operating as a separate organization supporting protocol development and ecosystem growth before the mainnet launch. In February 2025, Rebecca Simmonds, a member of Vega Protocol’s founding team, was appointed Managing Executive to oversee the foundation’s daily operations.Mainnet Launch and Exchange ListingsThe Walrus Foundation announced on March 19, 2025, that it had completed a $140 million private token sale. Standard Crypto led the funding round, with participation from a16z crypto, Electric Capital, Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, Creditcoin, and other investment firms.The first epoch of Walrus Mainnet began on March 25, 2025. The broader mainnet launch was announced on March 27. At launch, more than 100 independent storage nodes were operating the network.The mainnet launch also introduced the live WAL token. Users gained the ability to publish blobs, retrieve data, create Walrus Sites, and delegate stake to storage nodes.WAL began trading on several cryptocurrency exchanges alongside the mainnet launch. Binance introduced a WALUSDT futures contract on March 27, 2025. Spot trading later began on October 10, 2025, with WAL/USDT, WAL/USDC, WAL/BNB, WAL/FDUSD, and WAL/TRY pairs.The Walrus team also organized an NFT-based airdrop for early community members. Ten percent of the total WAL supply was allocated directly to community distributions, with 4 percent assigned to the initial NFT distribution.Exchange listings gave WAL broader market access. However, a higher number of listings does not necessarily mean that technical usage of the project is growing at the same rate. Sustainable token demand depends on the development of applications that use Walrus for actual storage.Current StatusFollowing its mainnet launch, Walrus expanded beyond basic blob storage. Walrus Sites enables decentralized website hosting, while Quilt reduces costs by combining many small files into a single storage package.Uploading small files to Walrus separately can create disproportionate costs because of fixed metadata overhead. Quilt stores hundreds of small blobs in one structure while still allowing each file to be retrieved separately. Walrus’ta blob boyutuna göre okuma ve yazma gecikmeleri ile küçük ve büyük blob’ların işlem aşamalarına ait süre dağılımı. Dosya boyutu arttıkça özellikle yazma ve depolama süreleri belirgin biçimde yükseliyor. Kaynak: Walrus whitepaper Seal provides encryption and programmable access control for data stored on Walrus. This layer helps add privacy rules on top of Walrus’ public-by-default data structure.The project placed greater emphasis on artificial intelligence in 2026. Walrus Memory, launched in beta in March 2026 and expanded in June, provides a memory layer designed to carry AI agents’ conversations, work histories, and context across different applications.The Lighthouse integration announced in June 2026 aims to allow developers using IPFS to access Walrus storage without completely rewriting their existing applications. In April 2026, Tatum announced that it had moved 11 TB of blockchain history data to Walrus for developers and AI agents.As of July 2026, Walrus’ official website reported 356 TB of active data on the network and more than 200 ecosystem partners.As of July 2026, the WAL coin price was around $0.0293219. How Does the WAL Token Work?The first major use case for WAL is storage payments. Users purchase storage resources from the Walrus system for a specific amount of data and storage period. The payment is divided among the relevant epochs and transferred to the storage fund.At the end of each epoch, WAL in the fund is distributed to storage nodes and the stakers who delegated tokens to them based on performance. Nodes conduct lightweight audits of one another, and operators that fulfill their storage duties correctly receive rewards.Starting in May 2026, Walrus moved to a pricing model that fixes storage fees in US dollar terms. Official documentation lists a base price of $0.023 per gigabyte per month. Payments are still made in WAL, but the required amount of WAL adjusts according to the token’s market price.This model aims to prevent a rise in the WAL price from automatically making storage more expensive. Users must still pay separate SUI gas fees for registration and certification transactions on Sui.The second major use case is staking. Token holders can delegate WAL to selected storage nodes and participate in network security. The number of data shards assigned to a node is linked to the total amount of stake the node receives. Walrus shard’larının bölgelere ve barındırma sağlayıcılarına göre dağılımı. Shard’lar farklı altyapılara yayılırken, en yüksek yoğunluk Avrupa’nın batısında ve belirli hosting şirketlerinde görülüyor. WAL tokens cannot be withdrawn immediately after staking. Under the native staking system, unstaking may take one or two epochs, equal to roughly 14 to 28 days. The ecosystem also includes liquid staking solutions such as haWAL and wWAL, although these are developed by independent protocols and carry additional smart contract risks.WAL is also used in the governance mechanism. Voting power is linked to the amount staked, and storage nodes can participate in decisions involving system parameters, protocol upgrades, and penalties.Supply and TokenomicsThe maximum WAL supply is fixed at 5 billion tokens. At the mainnet launch, the initial circulating supply stood at 1.25 billion WAL, equal to 25 percent of the total supply.According to market data, approximately 2.46 billion WAL were circulating as of July 2026. This represented around 49 percent of the maximum supply.Ten percent of the total supply was allocated directly to community distributions. The first 4 percent was used for an NFT airdrop targeting community members active before the mainnet launch, while the remaining allocation was reserved for later incentive and distribution programs.When Binance listed WAL on the spot market in October 2025, the circulating supply stood at 1.48 billion WAL. The exchange allocated 32.5 million WAL to its HODLer Airdrop program and approximately 99.49 million WAL to additional marketing campaigns.The gradual increase in circulating supply shows that previously locked tokens are entering the market. New token releases can create selling pressure, although their actual effect depends on token-holder behavior, the staking ratio, market liquidity, and demand for storage.The WAL economic model attempts to create a direct link with storage demand. Users pay WAL for storage, nodes earn WAL for providing services, and stakers supply capital to the network’s security structure.However, dollar-denominated storage pricing makes the relationship between rising storage demand and token demand more complex. When the WAL price increases, less WAL is required to purchase the same amount of storage. For that reason, higher network usage does not necessarily translate into a proportional increase in the token price.Network, Storage, and Security StructureWalrus uses a security model similar to Delegated Proof of Stake. Storage nodes provide capacity to the network, while WAL holders delegate their tokens to these operators. Nodes receiving more stake may become responsible for a larger share of the network’s data shards.When a file is uploaded, the Walrus client encodes the data using RedStuff. The resulting slivers are sent to different nodes, which issue signed receipts for the fragments they receive. Once receipts from at least two-thirds of the nodes have been collected, the blob is certified as available.During file retrieval, the client or aggregator collects the necessary fragments from nodes. The original blob can be reconstructed once more than one-third of the valid slivers have been obtained. The downloaded content is then verified using the blob ID and cryptographic metadata.Walrus uses approximately 4.5 times encoding redundancy. For example, a 1 GB file may generate around 4.56 GB of billable storage after encoding and metadata are taken into account.This additional capacity may initially appear inefficient. The goal, however, is to maintain high availability without storing numerous full copies and to avoid retransmitting the entire file whenever the node committee changes.Network security does not rely solely on encoding. Node performance is monitored, and operators that violate protocol rules may face staking penalties. Mainnet epochs lasting two weeks also allow committee changes and staking operations to proceed in a more controlled manner.Why Is Walrus Important?Decentralized applications often keep their smart contracts on a blockchain while storing large files on centralized servers. As a result, critical data can remain dependent on a single service provider even when the visible part of the application appears decentralized.Walrus aims to store large files across distributed nodes while proving data integrity on-chain. Application developers can independently verify that a file is available and that it has remained identical to the version originally uploaded.Content-based blob IDs also make it easier to track data provenance. Developers can verify which dataset was used to train an AI model, which version of a financial report was used, or which file is linked to an in-game asset.Another distinctive feature of Walrus is its representation of storage resources as Sui objects. These resources can be divided, combined, and transferred to other addresses. Storage capacity therefore becomes a programmable asset that smart contracts can manage.Walrus is not a permanent archival system that automatically guarantees unlimited storage. Users pay for a specific number of epochs and must extend the storage period before it expires. This creates a different model from permanent-storage projects such as Arweave.Walrus’ Position in the Decentralized Storage EcosystemThe decentralized storage market already includes older solutions such as Filecoin, Arweave, and IPFS. Walrus entered the sector later, with its main differentiation centered on direct programmability through Sui and high-speed data access.Walrus does not focus solely on Web3 files. Its potential use cases include AI datasets, agent memory, advertising data, financial records, gaming content, NFT media, decentralized websites, and blockchain histories.According to official data, small files can be downloaded in approximately 800 milliseconds. This performance claim may vary depending on network conditions, file location, and the aggregator service being used.Walrus Sites allows website files to be stored on Walrus while domain and ownership information is managed through Sui. As a result, the closure of an account by a centralized hosting company does not directly remove access to the website’s core files.Walrus’ verifiable data approach is also becoming relevant in artificial intelligence. An agent can record the model, dataset, or previous work history it used through blob IDs. Since these records cannot later be altered without changing their identifiers, tracing the data behind generated results becomes easier.Integration with IPFS and other developer tools could also help Walrus expand beyond applications built exclusively on Sui. Even so, payments, staking, and the core coordination layer continue to operate on Sui.Risks and WAL VolatilityWAL is a cryptocurrency token and is therefore exposed to significant price volatility. Market conditions, token unlocks, exchange liquidity, and developments within the Sui ecosystem can affect the WAL price over short periods.With roughly half of the maximum supply in circulation, additional WAL tokens may enter the market in the future. Token unlocks do not always result in selling, but investors should still monitor changes in circulating supply.Walrus also faces adoption risk. A functioning technical infrastructure is not enough on its own. For the protocol to create long-term value, developers must build applications on Walrus and genuine demand for storage must continue to grow.Its connection with Sui provides Walrus with a fast and programmable coordination layer. At the same time, this connection makes Walrus partially dependent on technical issues, gas costs, and ecosystem risks associated with Sui.The public-by-default nature of stored data creates another risk. Users should not upload private keys, personal documents, trade secrets, or other sensitive information to Walrus without encryption. Keeping a blob ID private is not considered a sufficient security measure.Encoding and reconstructing large files can also require substantial memory. Current documentation lists an approximate file-size limit of 13.6 GiB for a standard blob. Encoding a 5 GiB file may require between 10 and 15 GiB of available RAM.The staking system may also face operator concentration risk. If a large share of WAL is delegated to a small number of nodes, data responsibility and governance influence may become concentrated among certain operators. Token holders should examine node performance and stake distribution alongside commission rates.Walrus Community and EcosystemIt would not be accurate to identify a single person as the founder of Walrus. The protocol was developed by a team of researchers and engineers at Mysten Labs, the company behind the Sui network.Mysten Labs was founded by Evan Cheng, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, Kostas Chalkias, and George Danezis. The company’s founders previously worked on projects including Meta’s Diem blockchain initiative and the Move programming language.The academic paper on Walrus lists George Danezis, Giacomo Giuliari, Eleftherios Kokoris Kogias, Markus Legner, Jean-Pierre Smith, Alberto Sonnino, and Karl Wüst as authors. The team worked on the RedStuff encoding system, epoch transitions, and data recovery mechanisms.Although Mysten Labs initially developed the protocol, ecosystem activities are managed by the Walrus Foundation. The nonprofit organization supports developer grants, partnerships, research proposals, and community programs.Rebecca Simmonds has served as Managing Executive of the Walrus Foundation since February 2025. Technical development of the protocol continues through its open-source code repository and contributions from different participants.Community and GovernanceThe Walrus community includes WAL holders, storage-node operators, application developers, and data-service providers. Before the mainnet launch, testnet participants contributed by operating nodes, uploading files, and developing applications.WAL holders can participate in network security by staking their tokens with storage nodes. The amount of stake helps determine a node’s data responsibilities and influence within governance.Governance is more technical than a system in which every WAL holder votes directly on a separate proposal platform. Node operators supported by staked WAL can vote on protocol upgrades, system parameters, and penalty decisions when necessary.The Walrus Foundation runs grant and request-for-proposal programs for developers. These initiatives support the development of storage tools, developer kits, data marketplaces, AI applications, and user-experience projects.The ecosystem includes tools for TypeScript, Python, Swift, Dart, and other programming environments. This range of tools aims to help developers upload files without working directly with low-level blockchain transactions.Partnerships and Use CasesWalrus partnerships demonstrate how the storage protocol can be used across different sectors. Plume announced that it would use Walrus as its default blob-storage solution for documents and financial metadata related to real-world assets.The integration with Linera focuses on allowing microchain applications to store large files on Walrus. Walrus also plans to use some parts of Linera’s verification infrastructure for data-processing operations.Pudgy Penguins began working with Tusky, a platform within the Walrus ecosystem, for decentralized storage of media files. This model aims to reduce dependence on a single centralized provider for GIFs, images, videos, and brand content.Chainbase aims to verify data integrity by storing raw data collected from different blockchains on Walrus. Itheum uses Walrus storage to support the tokenization of large media files and AI datasets.In gaming, Walrus can turn user-generated content into verifiable digital assets. Super-B plans to store player designs on Walrus while managing ownership and reward mechanisms through Sui smart contracts.Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)Below are some frequently asked questions about Walrus and WAL.What is Walrus, and when was it launched?: Walrus is a decentralized storage protocol that stores large files across distributed nodes and makes the data programmable through Sui smart contracts. Mysten Labs announced the project in June 2024. The Public Testnet launched in October 2024, followed by Mainnet in March 2025.What is the WAL token used for?: WAL is used to purchase storage space, stake with storage nodes, reward operators, and participate in protocol governance. Storage fees are paid in WAL, while gas fees for transactions on Sui are paid in SUI.Which network does Walrus run on?: Walrus operates its own independent storage nodes but uses Sui Mainnet as its coordination layer. Blob registrations, storage resources, payments, staking, and availability certificates are managed through smart contracts on Sui.Who founded Walrus?: Walrus does not have a single founder. The project was initially developed within Mysten Labs, which was founded by Evan Cheng, Sam Blackshear, Adeniyi Abiodun, Kostas Chalkias, and George Danezis. Ecosystem activities are now supported by the independent Walrus Foundation.What is the WAL token supply?: WAL has a maximum supply of 5 billion tokens. Its initial circulating supply at mainnet launch was 1.25 billion WAL. According to CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko data, approximately 2.46 billion to 2.5 billion WAL were circulating as of July 2026.Is Walrus suitable for investment?: There is no single answer to this question. WAL has practical use cases in storage, staking, and governance, but it also carries risks related to high volatility, token unlocks, competition, technical challenges, and uncertain adoption. Before making a decision, investors should assess WAL distribution, the token-unlock schedule, network usage, the staking ratio, and their personal risk tolerance.For more information about decentralized data-storage projects like Walrus, the Sui ecosystem, and Web3 infrastructure, follow the JR Kripto Guide series.
World Foundation has raised $52.5 million through a sale of WLD tokens. Pantera Capital led the funding round, which also included Bain Capital Crypto and Eightco Holdings. All tokens sold in the round will remain locked for one year.The project formerly known as Worldcoin now operates under the name World following a rebrand. Its token continues to trade under the WLD ticker.The foundation said Pantera Capital led the “first closing” of the round. Other investors included Bain Capital Crypto, Selini Capital, Susquehanna Crypto and Eightco Holdings, a WLD treasury company listed on Nasdaq under the ORBS ticker. The foundation has yet to clarify whether it plans another closing.World Foundation emphasized that the WLD tokens sold in the round serve a utility function within World Network. They provide no equity stake, profit entitlement or ownership rights in Tools for Humanity, the for-profit company behind the project.The foundation will use the new capital to expand World ID adoption among businesses, individual users and artificial intelligence agents worldwide.World ID expands into enterprise useThe token sale comes as World marks the third anniversary of its production launch. The foundation has shifted its attention from building the network toward increasing adoption of World ID.The system allows users to prove that they are unique humans without revealing their identities. Users complete a one-time verification through a specialized device called the Orb, after which their World ID remains stored on their phones.World Foundation says its open-source cryptography and multi-party computation systems protect users’ privacy throughout the process.Pantera Capital General Partner Cosmo Jiang said the rapid development of artificial intelligence has made the need for “proof of human” increasingly clear. He added that growing interest from institutional users also reflects this demand.Jiang said Pantera was pleased to continue supporting World’s mission at this stage of the project’s development.Tom Lee, a board member at Eightco Holdings who also serves as chairman of Bitmine, described World’s proof-of-human technology as a critical building block for verifying interactions in an increasingly digital world.World argues that AI bots, fake identities and deepfakes threaten a wide range of online activities. The project points to digital advertising, online dating, voting systems and video calls as areas where reliable human verification could become increasingly important.World launched World ID 4.0 in April with enterprise integrations in mind. The latest version allows developers to build additional authentication layers on top of World ID using zero-knowledge proofs.World ID currently supports integrations with platforms including Zoom, DocuSign, Okta, Vercel and Tinder.According to the foundation, more than 39 million people have joined World Network, with 18 million completing Orb verification. The network has generated over 475 million World ID proofs since its launch.Regulatory pressure continuesSam Altman, Max Novendstern and Alex Blania founded World with the goal of helping people prove they are human while preserving their privacy in the age of artificial intelligence.World Foundation now oversees protocol governance, ecosystem grants and network operations. Over time, the organization plans to fund its operations through commissions paid by applications using the network, reducing its reliance on fees charged directly to users.Tools for Humanity, the for-profit company responsible for developing World’s hardware and software, has raised approximately $240 million in venture capital to date.World Foundation and its affiliates had previously raised another $200 million through WLD token sales. Including the latest round, total funding associated with the project has reached approximately $492.5 million.The project has faced persistent regulatory and privacy concerns over its biometric identity verification model.Authorities in Spain, Kenya, Brazil, Indonesia, South Korea, Hong Kong and the Philippines have investigated, restricted, suspended or penalized World’s biometric data collection practices. Regulators have raised concerns about privacy protections and whether users provide sufficient informed consent.World says it continues to engage with regulators as it expands into new markets.WLD currently trades at around $0.36, giving the token a market capitalization of approximately $1.31 billion. Its price has fallen about 2% over the past 24 hours.
