The conversations offer clues to DSA’s sudden relevance. Members talk about rent and health care, Donald Trump and immigration enforcement, Israel and Gaza, jobs that do not pay enough and homes they cannot afford. Others describe a Democratic Party they no longer believe is capable of addressing the problems shaping their lives.

There is plenty at the summit to remind visitors that this is an avowedly socialist organization. A bookseller in the hallway sells Marxist literature; The Communist Manifesto sells out by evening. Nearby, organizers decorate a “Free Stuff!” booth with fake bags of money and gold bars. But many of the grievances drawing people toward DSA no longer sound especially fringe. For Katie Sims, DSA’s 28-year-old electoral chair, the revelation came after graduating from Cornell in 2020 and looking at what a job would pay, then what rent and health insurance would cost. “I was like, none of these numbers add up,” Sims says. Polls show younger Americans are increasingly pessimistic about reaching the basic milestones available to their parents: homeownership, financial security, raising a family without amassing crushing debt. But, while Mamdani was elected mayor of New York with 51% of the vote, the people DSA has attracted are disproportionately young, white, urban, and college educated—hardly a representative sample of the working class the organization hopes to organize.

GnosisDAO has voted to approve a major upgrade for Gnosis Chain: the network will transition from operating as a standalone layer-1 to becoming a ZK-proven “Ethereum Economic Zone” (EEZ) rollup aligned with Ethereum. The decision is intended to move Gnosis Chain’s transaction settlement to Ethereum while still running its smart contracts in an environment designed to improve how users and applications interact with Ethereum-native liquidity and assets.

In the governance vote, Gnosis Chain reported that GIP-153 passed with 123,158 GNO in support, 115 against, and 151 abstaining across 54 voters. The proposal’s turnout totaled 123,425 GNO, surpassing the 75,000 GNO quorum requirement. Gnosis Chain now says an initial launch is targeted for late 2026 or early 2027, contingent on the EEZ technology being ready.

Key takeaways

• GnosisDAO approved GIP-153 to transition Gnosis Chain from layer-1 to an EEZ rollup that settles transactions on Ethereum.
• The vote cleared the 75,000 GNO quorum with 123,425 GNO in turnout, signaling broad governance support despite a low “no” count.
• Under the proposal, Gnosis Chain’s validator set would be retired, shifting settlement responsibility to Ethereum validators.
• Gnosis Chain-native contracts would gain tighter access to Ethereum assets and liquidity, including the ability to call Ethereum and use results within the same transaction.
• The EEZ concept is aimed at reducing fragmentation across Ethereum’s growing rollup landscape, potentially lowering reliance on bridges.

What GIP-153 changes for Gnosis Chain

The approved proposal, GIP-153, outlines a fundamental architectural shift. Instead of settling transactions on its own chain as a layer-1, Gnosis Chain would settle transactions on Ethereum, making it effectively an Ethereum layer-2 that depends on Ethereum’s validator set for settlement finality.

In the same proposal framework, Gnosis Chain’s existing validator set would be retired, aligning core settlement with Ethereum while preserving the network’s application layer. Gnosis Chain also said it would retain its “existing applications, balances and xDAI gas token,” suggesting a continuity plan for users and developers even as the underlying consensus and settlement model changes.

A key promise of the EEZ approach is improved on-chain interoperability for smart contracts. The proposal states that Gnosis Chain-native smart contracts would be able to call Ethereum and use that information in the same transaction—an ability it claims is not currently available on existing layer-2 systems.

Why the EEZ framework is being pursued

At a broader level, the EEZ concept is designed to address a structural issue in Ethereum scaling: fragmentation. As Ethereum’s rollup ecosystem has expanded, liquidity and usage have increasingly become siloed across separate networks. Different rollups can also limit how easily contracts from one environment can synchronously coordinate with contracts on another.

According to the coverage referenced in the original report, the EEZ framework was developed by Gnosis and ZisK, with funding from the Ethereum Foundation. The stated objective is to unify Ethereum-aligned rollups so that smart contracts across different participating networks can execute synchronously—without requiring bridging mechanisms.

This matters for investors and builders because bridges and cross-chain messaging have become recurring points of failure in the broader ecosystem. The EEZ plan attempts to reduce one major source of operational and security risk while improving how assets and logic can interact across rollups.

Timing is also a central uncertainty. Gnosis Chain’s rollout target—late 2026 or early 2027—explicitly depends on the underlying EEZ technology being sufficiently developed. That means market participants may want to track technical milestones and readiness signals long before deployment.

Buterin’s critique and the rollup security trade-off

The push for an EEZ-aligned design comes amid ongoing debate about how layer-2s fit into Ethereum’s long-term architecture. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin previously argued that some assumptions behind the original L2 vision no longer hold up. In a Feb. 3 X post, Buterin wrote that “the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path,” pointing to potential weaknesses including centralized sequencers and trusted bridging mechanisms.

Those concerns align with the EEZ pitch: move settlement closer to Ethereum’s security model and reduce bridge dependence while enabling more direct execution pathways for cross-network smart contract interactions.

Rollup adoption remains substantial. Data referenced from L2Beat indicates that 22 Ethereum rollups are listed as securing $27.82 billion, while the platform tracks $34.88 billion in total value secured when including validiums, optimiums, and other scaling networks. As that footprint grows, the industry pressure for smoother composability and reduced fragmentation is likely to intensify.

Standard Chartered: fewer bridges, more composability

Standard Chartered’s digital assets research team has also weighed in on what an EEZ could change operationally and economically. In a May 28 report shared with Cointelegraph, Geoffrey Kendrick—global head of digital assets research—said the EEZ could reduce reliance on blockchain bridges and increase the usability of assets in EVM environments.

Kendrick wrote that “the EEZ will have the benefit of reducing the need for bridges (where hacks tend to occur) and increasing the usability of assets in EVM chains.” He added that these factors are “likely to lead to greater activity in the Ethereum ecosystem.”

From an application standpoint, Kendrick also highlighted the potential for stronger composability. The idea is that smart contracts across participating networks could interact within the same transaction, enabling richer cross-asset and cross-contract workflows without the fragmentation that can arise when operations span multiple independent rollups.

What to watch as the transition approaches

With GnosisDAO’s approval now in place, the key question for the market is execution: whether EEZ technology progresses on schedule and whether Gnosis Chain can migrate while maintaining continuity for users and developer tooling. As the late-2026/early-2027 target draws closer, attention will likely shift to implementation details—especially how Ethereum settlement, synchronous execution, and bridge reduction are delivered in practice.

Link Attracting Whales Amid Robust Buy-In

The entire cryptocurrency market is now in a fresh wave of bullish trend as Bitcoin and Ethereum made impressive gains during the past 24 hours. The positive performance of the two largest cryptocurrencies has spilled into altcoin space, with several altcoins gaining significant value.

In that regard, Chainlink’s LINK has emerged as a focus of traders after the token registered a robust uptrend during the last day. LINK has gained above 8%, taking the coin’s value close to $10.65. The uptrend comes at a time when LINK had been trading with weak momentum and lack of direction.

The uptrend is being backed by whales. Market trends suggest that there has been continued accumulation of LINK by whales rather than one-off very large transactions.

Such an accumulation can prove very important as buying pressure on LINK can play an essential role in supporting the token. Unlike other transactions, LINK buying activities indicate that there have been gradual purchases of the token by certain market players. Analysis of LINK shows that it has appreciated by more than 19% in just one week.

Link Breaks Crucial Resistance Barrier

The new price rise has been accompanied by yet another vital technical development. Specifically, LINK has risen above the crucial diagonal resistance barrier that previously prevented its price from moving higher. Another technical development is that LINK has risen back into its daily cloud area.

It is crucial to break resistance barriers because it indicates there is enough buying power to push the price past a point where sellers previously existed. Breaking out of the daily cloud adds more weight to the technical development in terms of overcoming an area that was earlier seen as a barrier.

Short-Term Correction Is Still Possible

Even with the improvement in the technical setup, LINK is still susceptible to a short-term correction, especially after the recent gains in its price.

The coin has appreciated quickly, and there might be some selling pressure from traders who choose to book profits from the current rally. However, this does not mean that a correction in LINK invalidates the bullish setup, especially when LINK is still trading above its previously reclaimed resistance levels.

The fact that whales are continuing to buy LINK can also help during any short-term sell-off. As long as whales continue to accumulate LINK amid the new technical levels, the recent breakout can become a long-lasting move.

At the moment, LINK’s technical setup of continuous whale accumulation, increasing momentum, and a break above major technical resistances has made the altcoin a favorite among traders. For some time now, LINK has been one of the weakest coins, and the token has been showing some of its best bullish setups in some time. It will be vital for upcoming sessions to determine what happens next.

Crypto markets have been roiled by a rapid unwind of bearish leverage, with short liquidations pushing past $3 billion over the past two days. According to CoinGlass, total liquidations for Aug. 19–20 reached roughly $3.1 billion, while Thursday marked the largest single-day wipeout of shorts recorded by the platform.

Bitcoin has also been firming in the backdrop. The BTC/USD pair continued its upside reaction tied to a US Treasury liquidity intervention, trading around the $72,000 area, with local highs of $71,992 on Bitstamp reported via TradingView data.

Key takeaways

• Short liquidations exceeded $3.1 billion across Aug. 19–20, per CoinGlass.
• Bitcoin accounts for just over half of the two-day short liquidation total, at about $1.65 billion.
• Thursday’s short squeeze was the biggest on record for single-day short liquidations in CoinGlass’ data.
• Short-term holders rotated out of break-even territory, moving 43,300 BTC to exchanges as price improved.

Short liquidations surge to record levels

The liquidation figures reflect how quickly leverage can unravel when price moves persistently higher. CoinGlass data indicates that Aug. 19–20 combined for short liquidations of more than $3.1 billion, with Thursday contributing the most extreme daily spike in the dataset.

It’s important to distinguish between short-only and all-liquidation measures. The $3.1 billion figure refers specifically to shorts. If long positions are included, the total liquidation impact can be much larger; the article notes that the long liquidation cascade following Bitcoin’s October 2025 reversal from its then-most recent all-time high of $126,200 dwarfed the current short-only event, described elsewhere as a roughly $20 billion cascade.

CoinGlass’ emphasis on shorts also sits alongside historical context from CoinMarketCap. Using a combined long-and-short view, CoinMarketCap ranks Thursday’s total liquidations around seventh place historically, estimating $3.25 billion for the day when both sides are counted.

BTC’s climb stays tied to US Treasury liquidity signals

Part of the upside momentum is linked to a US Treasury liquidity intervention, which the article references as the catalyst behind BTC/USD’s move earlier in the week. Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph noted Bitcoin’s response to a liquidity intervention and the subsequent push to levels not seen since the start of June.

As of the time of writing, the rally was still playing out. TradingView data cited in the article shows BTC/USD reaching local highs of $71,992 on Bitstamp, reinforcing the broader pattern that spot gains and margin squeezes often feed each other: rising prices trigger forced closes for short positions, which can in turn add incremental buy pressure.

Why short-term holders are moving coins to exchanges

Beyond liquidations, the more structural read-through for traders is what longer-lived cohorts do when price crosses above cost. The article highlights that Bitcoin short-term holders—defined as wallets holding a UTXO for less than 155 days—have taken profit in a meaningful way.

According to on-chain analytics from CryptoQuant, short-term holders transferred 43,300 BTC to exchanges in what is described as their largest profit-taking move of 2026. That behavior matters because it can influence near-term supply dynamics: when “recent buyers” sell into a rally, the market’s ability to sustain higher prices depends on whether fresh spot demand absorbs that distribution.

CryptoQuant also points to the spent output profit ratio (SOPR) for the short-term holder cohort. As of Thursday, STH-SOPR stood at 1.01—its highest level since April. SOPR above 1 indicates that, on average, the coins being spent by the cohort are moving at a higher price than their prior transaction price. In practical terms, the majority of UTXOs moving from short-term holders were sold at prices above their earlier cost basis, consistent with profit-taking rather than capitulation.

What investors are watching next: staying power vs. profit rotation

The current unwind of shorts looks like a classic “payoff” for bearish leverage—forced selling pressure on one side is removed as price rises. But the longer question is whether the bid can keep absorbing new supply. The article notes that earlier Cointelegraph analysis found the short-term holder cohort’s aggregate cost basis (also called the STH realized price) at about $68,700, and that such a level previously suggested upside could face friction if investors felt compelled to exit positions that had been underwater.

Now, with STH-SOPR above 1 and a record-sized profit-taking transfer to exchanges, market participants should watch whether this rotation expands or fades. If short-term holders continue to distribute aggressively while price pauses, rallies could become choppier. If instead inflows remain strong enough to offset that selling, the liquidation-driven momentum may transition into steadier spot accumulation.

For the next session, the key signals to track are whether short liquidations taper off as leverage clears and whether the STH profit cycle continues or stabilizes—because that combination often determines whether “squeeze” gains convert into a sustained trend or revert once the forced selling stops.

• KuCoin earns ISO 42001 certification for its AI management system globally.
• ISO 42001 focuses on AI accountability, transparency and human oversight.
• New certification strengthens KuCoin’s wider security and trust framework.

KuCoin has secured ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification for its Artificial Intelligence Management System, adding a dedicated AI-governance standard as crypto exchanges increasingly use artificial intelligence across risk, compliance and customer operations.

The certification applies to the management framework supporting KuCoin’s global digital-asset exchange.

The company said AI is used across areas including anti-money laundering, fraud detection, market surveillance, customer service, product intelligence and operational automation.

ISO/IEC 42001 was published in December 2023 and is the world’s first international management-system standard for artificial intelligence.

It sets requirements for establishing, maintaining and continually improving an AI management system, with a focus on accountability, transparency, risk management and oversight.

AI governance becomes a bigger financial-sector issue

The certification comes as financial companies expand AI use beyond simple automation into functions that can influence compliance, risk management and customer outcomes.

S&P Global analysts Miriam Fernández and Nicolas Charnay have warned that more complex AI systems could amplify risks including privacy concerns, operational failures and financial instability.

In a report on AI adoption in banking, they said: “Without careful governance, banks could be exposed to material operational risks with financial, regulatory, reputational, and systemic implications.”

Those concerns also apply to digital-asset platforms, where automated systems can operate continuously across transaction monitoring and fraud prevention.

KuCoin chief executive BC Wong said governance is becoming inseparable from AI adoption.

“AI is becoming a foundational capability of digital financial infrastructure, but greater capability must be matched by greater responsibility,” said BC Wong, CEO of KuCoin.

We believe the future of the industry will not be defined simply by more advanced AI, but by more trusted AI. Achieving ISO/IEC 42001 demonstrates our commitment to embedding responsible AI governance into the way we build, deploy and operate AI across our platform. As we continue to innovate, we remain equally committed to ensuring that every AI capability is transparent, accountable and designed to strengthen user trust.

Certification adds to KuCoin’s trust framework

ISO/IEC 42001 adds an AI-governance layer to KuCoin’s existing security and operational framework.

The exchange already holds ISO/IEC 27001 certification for information security, SOC 2 Type II attestation and ISO 22301 certification for business continuity and operational resilience, according to the company.

Unlike a cybersecurity standard, ISO/IEC 42001 focuses on how organisations manage AI throughout its lifecycle.

ISO says the framework covers policies, risk assessment, monitoring and continual improvement rather than certifying individual AI applications.

The distinction matters as financial platforms deploy AI into sensitive operations. It can improve fraud detection, compliance monitoring and efficiency, but also raises the need for clear human accountability.

For KuCoin, the certification is less about a single AI tool than formalising how the technology is governed across the platform.