Crypto.com has moved its U.S. derivatives business closer to single-stock futures after North American Derivatives Exchange filed a Form 1-N with the SEC on Sept. 14, with the notice registration becoming effective that same day.

The SEC notice says Nadex registered as a national securities exchange solely for trading security futures products under Section 6(g) of the Securities Exchange Act, while the regulator formally acknowledged receipt of the filing on Sept. 16.

The distinction is important to the factual status of the rollout. Under the SEC’s own rules, Form 1-N is a notice registration, not a conventional application requiring the Commission to approve the exchange through an affirmative vote. The SEC previously explained that the filing does not require it to make a specific determination that every exchange rule or proposed product complies with the Exchange Act.

Nadex registration opens the security-futures route

Nadex filed under its legal name, North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc., doing business as Crypto.com Derivatives North America. Its 515-page Form 1-N identifies the Chicago-based exchange as an existing CFTC designated contract market seeking SEC notice registration for security futures.

Registration under Section 6(g) is available to a CFTC-designated contract market that limits its securities activity to security futures and certain permitted futures or options products. The SEC states that registration becomes effective at the same time the Form 1-N notice is submitted, which puts Nadex’s effective registration date at Sept. 14 rather than the Sept. 16 acknowledgement date.

Nadex already operates under CFTC oversight. The regulator’s current records list the exchange as a designated contract market dating to 2004, while its clearing arm is registered as a derivatives clearing organization permitted to clear margined futures and fully collateralized derivatives.

The filing says direct security-futures access will be restricted to qualified exchange members. Firms carrying customer accounts for the products must be registered futures commission merchants and SEC-registered broker-dealers, while some market makers can connect through approved clearing members.

Orders will run through a fully electronic matching system using price-and-time priority. The exchange plans to accept market and limit orders, with clearing taking place through qualified members connected to a registered clearing agency.

Crypto.com filing names 10 proposed stock futures

The Form 1-N contains considerably more detail than the SEC’s two-page acknowledgement. Exhibit I says Crypto.com Derivatives North America plans cash-settled futures on individual equities and may later include exchange-traded funds.

Its initial schedule names 10 proposed reference securities: Apple, Advanced Micro Devices, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Micron Technology, Nvidia, Tesla and SpaceX. Nine are publicly traded companies, while SpaceX remains privately held.

The filing does not say all 10 products are currently trading. It states that Nadex plans to submit listing standards, terms and conditions under Section 19(b)(7) of the Exchange Act before listing the security futures.

A separate operational exhibit says the exchange expects to charge $0.10 for each one-share security-futures contract. Nadex may impose other regulatory, data, connectivity and related fees on qualified members.

Trading hours have not been fixed uniformly for the proposed stock products. The filing says Nadex operates some fully collateralized and margined products around the clock when reliable underlying-market pricing is available, while individual security futures will follow trading hours specified in their own product filings.

One filing detail appears dated. Nadex wrote that it intended to launch security futures on Sept. 9, five days before Form 1-N was submitted on Sept. 14. No later public Nadex announcement reviewed for this report confirmed that the proposed stock contracts began trading on Sept. 9.

A search of the CFTC’s current security-futures product database did not surface a Nadex certification for the ten contracts listed in Exhibit I. The database does show security-futures certifications from CME during June and July, including contracts on Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla and other stocks.

U.S. stock perpetuals remain a separate plan

Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said after the SEC acknowledgement that the company is working with both the SEC and CFTC on perpetual futures tied to individual U.S. stocks.

“We are working with the SEC and the CFTC to offer single-stock perps in the U.S.,” Marszalek wrote, adding that the company wants to combine digital-asset market structures with U.S. capital markets. His statement describes work with regulators, not an approved perpetual-futures launch.

Perpetual futures do not have the fixed expiration dates used by conventional futures. Funding mechanisms are commonly used to keep their prices near the value of the underlying reference asset.

Stock-linked perpetuals raise an additional regulatory question because products based on individual securities fall within the joint SEC-CFTC security-futures framework. Crypto.com has not disclosed proposed leverage, funding-rate rules, supported stocks or a launch date for its planned perpetual contracts.

Coinbase has taken a similar path. As Coinbase stock perpetual filing coverage reported, Coinbase Derivatives filed its own Form 1-N while Coinbase Financial Markets submitted a related broker-dealer notice as the company works toward U.S. single-stock perpetuals. The filings did not identify a launch date or leverage limits.

Kalshi has gone further in crypto perpetuals and has separately discussed equity-linked products. In Kalshi stock perpetual plans coverage, the company was reported to be preparing around 60 perpetual futures tied to stocks and ETFs, including Tesla, Apple and Nvidia. Those proposed equity contracts had not received final approval at the time of that report.

CME entered the single-stock futures market through traditional dated contracts earlier in 2026. CFTC records show certified products tied to companies including Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla, providing an existing regulated U.S. reference point for the product category Nadex plans to enter.

OG.com now owns the Nadex exchange entity

Nadex’s SEC filing shows a corporate structure that changed earlier this year. Exhibit F states that OG Markets US, Inc. acquired 100% ownership of Crypto.com Derivatives North America on June 15, while the exchange’s day-to-day operations remain under its own management team.

The filing describes Nadex as operating two brands for its CFTC-regulated business: Crypto.com Derivatives North America and OG.com. OG Markets US is identified as Nadex’s direct parent.

OG.com later described itself as an independent company following a strategic spin-off from Crypto.com. In a Sept. 8 release, the company said a Citadel Securities investment valued OG.com at $5 billion as part of a wider Crypto.com transaction.

Robinhood agreed under the same announcement to route part of its U.S. prediction-market volume through OG.com’s regulated exchange and clearing infrastructure and to take equity stakes in both OG.com and Crypto.com. The first OG-backed event contracts on Robinhood began rolling out Sept. 8.

For the proposed stock futures, Nadex still must file the product-level listing standards and terms referenced in its Form 1-N. Crypto.com has not announced when the first of the 10 named cash-settled contracts will begin trading, and Marszalek’s proposed single-stock perpetuals remain under discussion with the SEC and CFTC.

World has begun rolling out World Money across more than 150 countries on Sept. 17, combining stablecoin balances, global transfers, digital asset trading, Morpho-powered Earn programs and virtual accounts inside a self-custody financial app.

World said features and eligibility vary by country, meaning the 150-plus-country footprint does not represent uniform access to every payment, trading, virtual-account or Earn function. The company describes World Money as the financial counterpart to World ID, with existing World users able to carry their verification status into the new app.

World Money combines payments, stablecoins and investing

World Money supports stablecoin balances tied to eight currencies, according to the launch announcement. Users can hold supported dollar and local-currency stablecoins, track their portfolios, view transaction histories, set price alerts and send supported digital assets to other users by World username.

The company says transfers between World Money users are typically completed within seconds, though timing can depend on the payment method and destination. Its product page warns that asset availability varies by country and that stablecoins held in the app are digital assets, not insured bank deposits.

Local stablecoins run on World Chain and can be exchanged inside the app where supported. World’s updated support documentation uses wARS, which tracks the Argentine peso, as one example. Users can obtain supported local stablecoins by swapping another asset such as USDC, while access to fiat bank transfers depends on local payment providers.

The Trade section covers digital assets including WLD, wrapped Bitcoin and wrapped Ether, while World says selected real-world assets such as gold can be accessed through third-party trading services. The full token list can change, and World directs users to the app for the current assets available in their jurisdiction.

World Money arrives after the project had already expanded the finance functions of its earlier World App. In earlier coverage of World App’s financial expansion, crypto.news reported that World had added virtual accounts, stablecoin transfers and an Earn product while increasing the number of assets accessible through the wallet.

Native USDC had already become part of that infrastructure. As previously reported on World Chain’s USDC integration, Circle replaced bridged USDC in World wallets with native USDC and brought its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol to World Chain.

Stripe starts World Money funding in the U.S.

The new release gives Stripe a direct role in funding World Money accounts. Beginning in the U.S., users can add money from Apple Pay and convert it into stablecoins through a funding flow embedded in the app.

World states that stablecoins funded through the Stripe flow will typically arrive within minutes. Stripe is described as the default way to add funds through the redesigned U.S. experience, though World did not publish a fixed processing time, fee schedule or date for extending the same setup to every country.

The arrangement builds on infrastructure World already uses from Bridge, which Stripe acquired. World introduced personal virtual accounts in 2025 for receiving bank transfers and paychecks, with supported deposits converted into digital assets inside users’ self-custody wallets.

Updated World support material gives more detail on how that setup operates. For U.S. dollar virtual accounts, Lead Bank issues the account and routing details, while Bridge converts incoming dollars into USDC before depositing the stablecoin into the user’s World Wallet on World Chain.

USD virtual accounts can accept employer and paycheck deposits where available. World separately offers Ripio-powered virtual accounts in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico, where local payment rails handle deposits and withdrawals. Those accounts do not share every function of the U.S. version; World says paycheck deposits are not supported through its Ripio virtual accounts.

World previously said its Bridge-powered virtual account service had expanded beyond its initial U.S. pilot into markets including Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. The company reported nearly 38 million World App users and more than 850 million processed transactions when it announced that expansion in December 2025.

Morpho powers Earn while returns remain variable

World Money has replaced its earlier WLD and USDC Vault products with a new Earn section. Supported users can deposit eligible assets into on-chain lending programs and track rewards without separately managing the underlying DeFi transactions.

World’s help center currently lists WLD, USDC, wrapped Ether and wrapped Bitcoin as examples of supported Earn assets. The programs use Morpho, with displayed APYs determined by protocol rates, deposited amounts and any promotional incentives.

Earn is not available in every country included in the 150-plus-country rollout. World says users who do not see the feature in their Wallet tab may be in an unsupported location. Rates can change, and withdrawals depend on on-chain liquidity and protocol conditions.

The main World Money product page warns that principal is not guaranteed and lists smart contract failure and protocol default among the risks. Earn balances are not bank deposits and receive no FDIC, SIPC or other government insurance.

World ID-verified users can receive limited promotional boosts on eligible Earn programs. Current support documentation says the enhanced rewards apply to the first 1,000 WLD and first 1,000 USDC placed into qualifying programs, with the underlying promotional terms subject to change.

Morpho itself has experienced infrastructure interruptions without reported failures of its underlying lending contracts. In recent coverage of a Morpho service outage, crypto.news reported that a July frontend and API disruption was restored after several hours while its blockchain contracts continued operating independently.

World ID now works beside a separate money app

The launch comes as World has separated much of its identity and financial functionality into two applications. Updated support documentation dated Sept. 16 says World ID App now handles identity verification and credentials, while World Money handles wallet and financial functions.

Existing users do not need a separate identity. The two apps share the same World ID, allowing verification status to carry across when users sign in. World Money continues to support sending and receiving assets, trading and virtual accounts, while passport and national-ID credentials reside in the World ID App.

Orb verification remains available through World Money for a limited period, according to the current support page. World describes Orb verification as proof that a person is unique and uses it to determine eligibility for selected rewards and experiences.

In its launch post, World said “Money moves differently when accounts belong to people,” arguing that proof of human can add a verified-human layer to digital transactions. That description represents World’s view of its identity system; it does not eliminate payment, smart-contract, stablecoin or investment risks.

World Money includes Mini Apps such as Kalshi, Credit and Morpho, with actual access dependent on local eligibility. Kalshi has previously worked with World on prediction-market access; earlier coverage of the Kalshi integration reported plans to let World users access its markets through a Mini App.

WLD traded around $0.37 on Sept. 17, with CoinMarketCap data showing a roughly 3.2% daily increase at the time of its market snapshot. 

World’s current product terms state that World Money is offered by Tools for Humanity and is not a bank. Features provided through Stripe, Bridge, Morpho and other partners remain subject to their own terms, local eligibility requirements and availability. World ID App and World Money now run in parallel, with the former handling identity credentials and the latter retaining wallet, transfer, trading and virtual-account functions.

BitGo has appointed Alex Rozman as chief compliance officer effective Sept. 21, placing the former Exodus compliance executive in charge of enterprise compliance and financial crime programs as the NYSE-listed digital asset company expands its regulated institutional business.

BitGo said Rozman will lead engagement with regulators, examiners and banking authorities across the company’s legal entities worldwide, covering a business that now spans federally regulated custody, trading, financing, stablecoin services and institutional settlement.

Rozman takes over global compliance and financial crime work

Rozman joins BitGo from Exodus Movement, where he had served as chief compliance officer since May 2024. His career covers more than 25 years across legal, risk and compliance roles, with experience in anti-money laundering and sanctions programs for banking, financial-market infrastructure and digital asset businesses.

Before Exodus, Rozman led global compliance at Polygon Technology and served as head of financial crime compliance at CLS Bank International. Earlier positions included AML advisory work at Deloitte and Navigant Consulting, now Guidehouse. He sits on the board of the Association of International Bank Audit and Compliance Professionals and previously chaired the Audit & Risk Committee while serving as a director at the CFP Board.

BitGo CEO Mike Belshe called Rozman “a key addition” to the leadership team and said his experience would support the company’s risk management processes and regulatory work as it adds institutional products. Those comments state management’s expectations for the appointment and do not establish future business or regulatory outcomes.

Rozman said companies operating in digital finance need to treat compliance as “core infrastructure.” His new responsibilities include BitGo’s financial crime controls, which cover areas such as AML and sanctions compliance across regulated entities and product lines.

BitGo now operates under a federal trust charter

The appointment follows a major change in BitGo’s U.S. regulatory structure. BitGo Holdings listed Class A shares on the New York Stock Exchange under BTGO on Jan. 22, becoming a public company while its banking subsidiary moved under federal oversight.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency approved BitGo Trust Company’s conversion into BitGo Bank & Trust, National Association in December 2025. BitGo later confirmed final operation under the national trust structure in January. The bank is subject to OCC supervision covering areas including capital, risk management, AML controls and fiduciary obligations.

Outside the federal bank, BitGo maintains separate regulated businesses. Its current licenses page lists BitGo New York Trust Company as a New York-qualified custodian, BitGo Europe as a MiCA-regulated crypto-asset service provider in Germany and BitGo Singapore under a Major Payment Institution license. BitGo Technologies is registered with FinCEN as a money services business and holds money-transmitter licenses in several U.S. states.

Compliance requirements differ across those entities, which is why BitGo described Rozman’s position as enterprise-wide while specifying that he will deal with regulators and banking authorities across separate legal operations.

BitGo’s customer identification notice states that its national trust bank and New York trust company collect and verify identifying information from clients as part of federal and state requirements intended to address money laundering and terrorist financing risks.

Institutional expansion has accelerated during 2026

Rozman arrives after several additions to BitGo’s institutional business. On Aug. 27, BitGo completed its acquisition of NYDIG’s institutional trading operation, adding derivatives, structured products, financing and execution services to its existing platform.

As BitGo’s NYDIG acquisition coverage previously reported, the acquired business brought institutional trading relationships and personnel into BitGo while NYDIG concentrated on power infrastructure, Bitcoin mining and high-performance computing. Financial terms were not publicly disclosed.

A few weeks later, BitGo and Crossover Markets reported that institutional clients had passed $2 billion in cumulative notional volume executed through CROSSx and cleared through BitGo’s Go Network. Go Network lets clients settle trading activity while using BitGo infrastructure for custody and settlement.

BitGo has been extending its trading connectivity at the same time. Eligible self-custody clients gained access to Hyperliquid through WalletConnect on Sept. 10, allowing them to place perpetual trades while keeping existing BitGo wallet controls.

The Hyperliquid connection followed integrations with venues including Gate US and Decibel. Recent BitGo settlement coverage reported that Gate US joined Go Network in July, letting eligible institutional customers access exchange liquidity while assets remained in regulated BitGo custody.

Expansion has extended outside the U.S. BitGo Singapore opened a new regional office on Sept. 2 and said its Asia-Pacific client base had tripled since it received its Major Payment Institution license in 2024. The company said Singapore staff numbers had more than doubled during the same period.

Public filings show a larger client and asset base

BitGo’s Aug. 12 quarterly filing showed 5,833 clients as of June 30, up from 4,621 one year earlier. The company reported approximately $65.2 billion in assets on platform and $11.9 billion in assets staked during the quarter. Its client base operated across more than 100 countries.

Second-quarter revenue reached $4.33 billion, compared with $2.41 billion a year earlier, while BitGo recorded a $19 million net loss. Digital asset sales accounted for roughly $4.20 billion of reported revenue, though corresponding direct costs were $4.19 billion because the company records much of that activity on a gross accounting basis.

Stablecoin-as-a-Service revenue reached $38.8 million during the quarter, up from $15.7 million a year earlier. BitGo said growth came from higher reserve balances and new stablecoin programs. Staking generated $64.7 million, while subscriptions and services produced $27.5 million.

The same filing disclosed material weaknesses in BitGo’s internal control over financial reporting involving IT general controls, segregation of duties and staffing expertise in accounting, finance and operations. Management said the weaknesses had not caused a material misstatement in previously issued financial statements. The disclosure concerns financial-reporting controls and should not be treated as evidence of a failure in BitGo’s AML or sanctions programs.

BitGo has not announced any separate change to its existing regulatory licenses in connection with Rozman’s appointment. His tenure as chief compliance officer begins Sept. 21, when he is scheduled to assume responsibility for compliance and financial crime programs across the company’s regulated entities.

Binance’s failed Greek MiCA bid has returned to scrutiny after The Wall Street Journal reported Sept. 18 that European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde personally pressed Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis against approving the exchange’s application.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Binance had been preparing in late May to announce an EU-wide regulatory approval through Greece after Greek officials told the company its application was complete. The newspaper said Binance had drafted a release describing the expected authorization as a “Major Milestone,” while co-CEO Richard Teng planned to travel to Athens for a meeting and photograph with Mitsotakis.

The reported intervention has not been confirmed in a public statement from Lagarde, the ECB or Greece’s Hellenic Capital Market Commission. Under current MiCA law, the ECB does not grant crypto-asset service provider licenses. The application rested with the HCMC, while ESMA had a coordination and supervisory-convergence role.

WSJ says Lagarde raised compliance and stablecoin concerns

According to the WSJ report, Lagarde opposed Binance receiving the Greek authorization after the process had moved close to approval. The newspaper attributed the account to people familiar with discussions surrounding the application.

The reported concerns included Binance’s previous U.S. criminal case. In 2023, Binance pleaded guilty to violations involving the Bank Secrecy Act, failure to register as a money transmitting business and sanctions laws, agreeing to a settlement exceeding $4 billion. Reuters later reported that Binance’s legal history and corporate structure were among the issues European regulators examined during the Greek licensing process.

WSJ further reported that Lagarde was concerned that allowing the world’s largest crypto exchange to gain a MiCA passport could increase the use of U.S. dollar stablecoins inside Europe. The newspaper linked that concern to the ECB’s work on European monetary sovereignty and the planned digital euro.

Lagarde has publicly raised similar policy concerns without referring specifically to Binance. In a May 8 speech, she said stablecoin supply had grown above $300 billion and remained overwhelmingly dollar-denominated, with Tether and Circle controlling nearly 90% of the market. She said Europe faces a risk of “digital dollarisation and a loss of monetary sovereignty” if foreign-currency stablecoins become deeply embedded in its financial system.

Her speech did not argue for banning stablecoins. Lagarde instead said Europe should build public settlement infrastructure anchored in central bank money while allowing regulated private forms of tokenized money to operate within that system.

The ECB currently expects to be technically ready for a possible first digital euro issuance during 2029, assuming EU lawmakers adopt the required legislation. A pilot is planned for 2027 under the present timetable.

Binance says its Greek application had met MiCA requirements

Before withdrawing its application, Binance publicly disputed suggestions that its submission itself had failed Greece’s regulatory review.

In a June 16 update, Binance said its “understanding” was that the HCMC had completed its review and considered the application compliant with MiCA requirements. The exchange further said it understood that the file had been reviewed at ESMA level. Those statements represented Binance’s account of the process and were not accompanied by a public HCMC approval decision.

Reuters reported on June 16 that the Greek regulator was preparing to reject the application, citing two people familiar with the process. HCMC declined to discuss Binance’s case at the time, citing confidentiality rules. Binance responded that the regulator had provided “no formal indication” contradicting its belief that the application met the requirements.

Under MiCA, an applicant submits its authorization request to the competent regulator in its home member state. Once licensed, the crypto-asset service provider can use that authorization to offer covered services across the EU without obtaining a separate license in every country.

MiCA requires regulators to examine governance, internal controls, anti-money-laundering procedures and the reputation of management and shareholders with qualifying holdings. Applicants must provide information on criminal convictions and penalties involving financial services, AML rules, fraud and related areas.

As earlier crypto.news coverage reported in June, Binance said at the time that it had received no formal notice that the Greek application would be denied even as reports indicated rejection was approaching.

Binance withdrew before Greece issued a final decision

On June 24, Binance pulled its Greek MiCA application before the HCMC published a final approval or rejection. The company said in its official notice that it would seek authorization through another EU member state.

Binance said it made the decision after assessing “the status and the timeline” of the Greek process as the EU transition deadline approached. It did not cite Lagarde or the ECB when announcing the withdrawal.

The deadline had direct operational consequences. Article 143 of MiCA allowed eligible firms operating under earlier national rules to continue only until July 1, 2026, or until regulators granted or refused a MiCA authorization, whichever came first.

Without a MiCA authorization, a provider cannot generally continue offering regulated crypto services throughout the bloc. ESMA states that firms reaching the end of their permitted transition period without approval must stop providing those services until authorization is granted.

As crypto.news reported after the withdrawal, Binance informed affected European users that services would be restricted after the July deadline while withdrawals remained available.

The company has continued pursuing a route back into the regulated EU market. Reuters reported in July that Teng said regulators in other jurisdictions had shown interest in Binance applying for licenses after the Greek process ended. He did not publicly identify a completed replacement authorization.

More recently, crypto.news reported on remaining EU access that some customers continued using Binance after July through reverse solicitation and offshore arrangements, including an Abu Dhabi entity. The report said ESMA had sought information about whether Binance was properly winding down its unlicensed EU activities. Those arrangements do not amount to a MiCA passport.

ESMA licensing reform is still being negotiated

One element of the WSJ account concerns a separate debate over who should supervise Europe’s largest crypto businesses.

Current MiCA rules leave CASP authorization with national competent authorities. ESMA coordinates standards and receives information concerning large providers, but Article 85 does not currently make ESMA the licensing authority for major crypto exchanges.

The European Commission proposed changing that arrangement as part of its market-integration agenda. The original plan would give ESMA direct supervisory responsibility for crypto-asset service providers, reducing reliance on 27 separate national supervisory structures.

The proposal has not become law. A June Council document showed that a broad majority of EU member states preferred transferring only significant crypto-asset service providers to direct ESMA supervision, instead of all CASPs as the Commission originally proposed. Ministers were still debating the definition of significance and the role national regulators would retain.

Separately, the Commission opened a review of MiCA in May. Its targeted consultation remains open through Sept. 30, with potential legislative amendments to follow depending on the review’s findings.

The WSJ reported that the possible move toward centralized ESMA oversight was one consideration behind Lagarde’s reported intervention. No public ECB document reviewed for this report confirms that Lagarde formally requested Greece delay Binance’s application pending those reforms.

Binance has not publicly announced a new MiCA authorization since withdrawing from Greece. Its latest official European licensing posts continue to state that it plans to seek authorization in another member state, while ESMA’s existing legal framework still leaves licensing decisions with national competent authorities until any supervisory reform is adopted.

Neutrl has opened an early redemption program for NUSD and sNUSD holders on Sept. 17, allowing eligible users to exchange their tokens for USDC after a reserve-liquidity problem halted normal protocol operations in August.

Neutrl said holders can connect the wallet containing their NUSD or sNUSD, sign an on-chain message to prove wallet ownership and review the applicable redemption details before submitting a request. Completed redemptions pay users in USDC and burn the corresponding NUSD or sNUSD.

The company did not state a recovery percentage in the announcement. Structured-yield protocol Strata subsequently examined the deployed redemption contract and reported a redemptionRate() value of 510000000000000000, equivalent to a 0.51 reference rate.

NUSD redemption contract points to a 0.51 rate

Strata identified the redemption contract as 0xB3f07D3392102fC23264a78e2A1A8B6421123828 and said the rate visible on-chain was 0.51. The reading supports claims that holders currently face a payout close to half of NUSD’s original $1 reference value, though Neutrl has not described the program publicly as a 50% recovery.

A separate report said Strata treated the contract value as the observable redemption reference under the current program. Eligibility, final payout details and availability remain subject to terms set by Neutrl operator Caverna Auctus Inc.

Neutrl’s own announcement states only that the redemption rate is fixed and based on the liquid reserves previously disclosed by the protocol. Users receive the exact applicable details through the portal before submitting their request.

The program is expected to remain open until Nov. 14, 2026. Neutrl describes that date as an expected deadline subject to applicable terms, meaning it has not presented the date as an unconditional guarantee.

One X user separately claimed users can recover “around 50%” and must accept a “liability waiver.” The first part is broadly consistent with the 0.51 contract reading reported by Strata. No public Neutrl statement or indexed copy of its redemption terms reviewed for this report confirmed the claimed liability-waiver requirement.

Neutrl had disclosed $27 million in liquid reserves

The redemption program follows a reserve problem first disclosed in August. Neutrl said it discovered an issue involving a position held within its strategy that affected the liquidity of part of its reserves.

After consulting legal advisers, the protocol paused affected smart contracts. Neutrl specifically said the incident was “not the result of a smart contract exploit, hack, or code vulnerability.”

By Aug. 28, the protocol disclosed approximately $27 million of available liquid assets. Other strategy positions remained on its books with associated gains or losses, but Neutrl said they could not be liquidated at that stage.

Management said it could not confirm the timing, total amount or recovery value associated with the illiquid positions. Unwinding the remaining positions was expected to take time, leaving the value of any later recoveries uncertain.

The $27 million figure came after the protocol had reported a much larger reserve base earlier in the year. As earlier reserve suspension coverage reported, Neutrl’s dashboard showed roughly $91 million in assets against about $90 million of NUSD as of June 21 before its detailed reserve display was later placed under recalculation.

A separate June snapshot cited by on-chain researchers put the reserve book even higher at roughly $137 million at an earlier point. That figure predates the August freeze and should not be treated as the protocol’s asset value when redemptions opened.

Burn mechanics reduce supply after redemption

Each successful redemption removes the surrendered NUSD or sNUSD from circulation. Neutrl says the tokens are burned after USDC is paid to the holder, preventing redeemed units from remaining outstanding.

The portal requires users to sign a message to verify control of the wallet before they proceed. Neutrl cautioned holders to use only its official redemption URL because recovery programs can attract fake websites and malicious wallet-connection requests.

The company says the new redemption contract underwent review by a third-party security auditor. It has not named the auditor in the Sept. 17 public announcement reviewed for this report or published the audit report through the announcement itself.

Before opening the program, Neutrl said deployment depended on completing a new redemption contract, an independent audit and legal and financial reviews. Its earlier guidance had targeted early September, making the Sept. 17 launch later than the initial schedule.

Structured products built on NUSD are affected as well. Strata said a 0.51 valuation causes its jrNUSD junior tranche to be written down to zero under the Neutrl market structure, while the remaining value flows to the senior srNUSD tranche according to that product’s loss waterfall.

As previous coverage of NUSD supply conditions reported, NUSD circulation had already contracted sharply before the redemption launch, falling from roughly $226 million in February to about $53.6 million in August.

Secondary market prices offer little current signal

CoinGecko currently displays approximately 53.39 million NUSD in circulating supply and a reference price near $0.9983. The data provider warns that NUSD had not traded on its tracked exchanges for an extended period, meaning the displayed price represents an old recorded market value rather than an active price at which holders can currently exit.

For that reason, the near-$1 tracker quote should not be compared directly with the 0.51 redemption-contract reading as if both represented equally accessible markets. CoinGecko states that the token no longer has active trading pairs across its tracked venues.

The reserve issue is especially relevant to NUSD’s original structure. Neutrl marketed NUSD as a synthetic dollar backed through liquid stablecoins, OTC-acquired crypto positions and delta-neutral trading strategies instead of a portfolio limited to cash and Treasury securities.

Its April 2025 fundraising release described a strategy built partly around purchasing locked altcoins at discounts and hedging market exposure with perpetual futures. STIX and Accomplice led the $5 million seed round, with Amber Group, SCB Limited, Figment Capital and Nascent among the other investors.

The company said at launch that the structure could maintain liquidity while using positions normally associated with institutional OTC markets. That description was a company claim made before the 2026 reserve issue and does not establish the liquidity now available under the redemption program.

Neutrl has not provided a final valuation for the illiquid strategy positions or said whether later asset recoveries could produce an additional payment to holders who accept the current redemption program. Its current disclaimer says timing, amounts and recovery outcomes are estimates that can change without notice.

Zcash developers have targeted Nov. 5 for the NU7 mainnet upgrade after ecosystem engineering teams agreed on a package featuring 25-second blocks, version 4 transaction deactivation and a Network Sustainability Mechanism, with testnet activation planned for Oct. 6.

Sean Bowe said in a Sept. 17 community update that the Zcash Foundation, Project Tachyon, Valar Group, ZODL, Shielded Labs and the relevant engineering teams had reached “unanimous agreement” on the planned scope and timetable. The Nov. 5 date remains subject to a final Oct. 20 mainnet decision after developers review testnet behavior.

Zcash NU7 testnet is scheduled for October 6

The current development schedule sets Sept. 30 as the feature-completion cutoff. Code intended for NU7 should be implemented and ready for inclusion in the testnet upgrade by that date, according to Bowe’s timeline.

Testnet activation follows on Oct. 6. Developers then plan to observe network behavior for two weeks before deciding the mainnet activation height on Oct. 20. The current Nov. 5 mainnet date would proceed only after that review.

The announced scope does not introduce a new transaction format. Bowe said wallets are not expected to require major changes from NU7 itself, while full nodes, indexers and block explorers may need adjustments to handle the new consensus rules.

The current Zcash ZIP repository still describes NU7 proposals as candidates and says the deployment ZIP will determine the final package. That repository has not yet replaced the draft deployment process with a finalized mainnet specification, so the Oct. 20 decision remains an important step before activation.

As previous governance coverage reported, the latest coinholder poll involved nearly 2.4 million ZEC, representing roughly 66% of the eligible Ironwood balances at the voting snapshot.

NU7 would cut block times from 75 to 25 seconds

ZIP 218 proposes reducing Zcash’s target block spacing from 75 seconds to 25 seconds, which would produce roughly three times as many blocks over the same period. The proposal keeps daily ZEC issuance unchanged by reducing the subsidy paid per block to account for the faster schedule.

The draft says a first confirmation would arrive after an average target interval of 25 seconds instead of 75 seconds. Developers present the change as useful for payments, exchange deposits and cross-chain operations that currently wait for one or more block confirmations.

Faster blocks would come with new action limits. ZIP 218 sets a maximum of 330 actions across all pools per block, including no more than 330 Orchard actions, 300 combined Sapling inputs and outputs, and 25 Sprout JoinSplits.

The draft estimates that the configuration would lift Orchard throughput from roughly 2.9 transactions per second to 6.6 for two-action transactions. At the same time, its model reduces maximum shielded-wallet synchronization bandwidth under the specified denial-of-service scenario from 271 MB per day to 169 MB.

More blocks create extra overhead. ZIP 218 estimates wallets would download around 200 KB more compact-block header data per day. Full-node synchronization demand rises because three times as many blocks must be processed over a comparable period.

Testing examined the increased stale-block risk. The draft estimates a theoretical stale rate near 3.26% at 25-second spacing. A devnet with 99 geographically distributed Zebra nodes and 2 MB blocks produced a 4.86% stale-block rate and 0.37% fork rate during testing.

The proposal remains classified as Draft, meaning the technical specification can still change before final deployment.

Halvings stay while NSM reissuance waits until 2031

The latest governance results rejected replacing Zcash’s existing halving schedule with the original issuance-smoothing proposal.

Coinholders representing 2,375,932.375 ZEC voted to preserve halvings, compared with 22,384.875 ZEC supporting a smooth issuance curve. The result gave the halving option roughly 98.9% of participating ZEC on that question.

For when ZEC removed through the Network Sustainability Mechanism should begin returning to circulation, 2,319,643.750 ZEC backed February 2031. Roughly 70,240 ZEC favored starting as soon as possible, while 6,283 ZEC selected February 2027.

Zcash Foundation, Project Tachyon, ZODL, Shielded Labs and Valar Group subsequently agreed to use February 2031, describing it as the most conservative reading of the mixed community polls. They said another vote could revisit that date later.

Bowe’s NU7 timeline therefore references an alternative NSM implementation that preserves halvings while allowing future reissuance to start in 2031. The ordinary ZIP 234 draft still describes smoothing the subsidy through an exponential-decay formula, so it should not be confused with the configuration selected after the September vote.

ZIP 235 specifies that at least 60% of transaction fees would be removed from circulation, with the remaining 40% available for miners. The removed ZEC is designed to return later through future block subsidies instead of being permanently destroyed.

The selected February 2031 timetable means fee-derived ZEC collected through the NSM could remain outside circulation for years before reissuance begins, assuming the planned rules survive final technical review.

Version 4 shutdown would stop Sprout spending

NU7 is expected to disable version 4 transactions when the upgrade activates. ZIP 2003 states that v4 deactivation prevents Sprout funds from being spent because the newer v5 transaction format does not support the original Sprout shielded pool.

The proposal does not technically burn or unissue remaining Sprout balances. Its specification leaves open the possibility that developers could later restore a recovery mechanism, but no such future retrieval feature is promised.

Sprout has been largely unused for years. Zcash Foundation’s governance material said the pool held less than 23,000 ZEC and accounted for under 0.1% of transaction volume when the NU7 questions were put to voters.

Coinholders backed immediate v4 deactivation at NU7 in the September poll. The decision follows Zcash’s migration toward Sapling, Orchard and the newer Ironwood architecture, which became active with NU6.3 earlier in 2026.

Zebra’s current production releases already support NU6.3, while the Foundation has spent 2026 hardening node behavior ahead of later upgrades. Earlier Zebra releases widened the local rollback window from 99 to 1,000 blocks as a defense against prolonged consensus splits.

ZEC rallies while the mainnet date remains conditional

ZEC has risen sharply during the governance process, though the market move cannot be attributed solely to NU7.

CoinMarketCap data showed ZEC trading near $1,485 early Sept. 18, up roughly 9.6% over 24 hours, with trading volume above $2.6 billion. The token had already received other market catalysts during September, including institutional activity and the recent U.S.-listed Zcash investment product.

In recent ZEC market coverage, crypto.news reported that ZEC climbed more than 20% on Sept. 16 to around $1,337, with network-upgrade optimism cited alongside other trading factors.

Earlier in September, ZEC crossed $1,000 after Grayscale converted its Zcash Trust into the ZCSH exchange-traded product on NYSE Arca. Previous ETF coverage reported that the fund launched with roughly $304 million in assets before growing further as ZEC prices increased.

For NU7 itself, Sept. 30 is the next engineering checkpoint. Features not ready by that cutoff can be removed from the upgrade under the approach favored by coinholders, followed by the Oct. 6 testnet activation and the Oct. 20 mainnet decision.

The mainnet activation height has not yet been finalized. Developers plan to set it on Oct. 20 after reviewing the testnet upgrade, leaving Nov. 5 as the current scheduled date subject to that decision.

Ethereum developers have confirmed an Oct. 6 Glamsterdam activation on Sepolia while warning that cheap test ether could let malicious builders repeatedly win block auctions and withhold their transaction payloads during the public test phase.

Ethereum’s Sept. 17 All Core Developers Consensus transcript shows participants accepted the Oct. 6 date after reviewing recent Glamsterdam devnet results, though developers simultaneously raised concerns about how Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation could behave on a public network where test ETH carries no meaningful economic cost.

Ethereum Glamsterdam test could face cheap builder attacks

At the center of the warning is EIP-7732, Glamsterdam’s Enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation design. Ethereum.org describes ePBS as a protocol change that separates the job of assembling transaction payloads from the validator’s consensus duties, moving a relationship that currently relies heavily on external infrastructure into Ethereum’s consensus rules.

Under the design, builders can submit bids for the right to supply an execution payload. Once a proposer commits to the winning bid, the builder is expected to release the transactions behind it. Ethereum’s consensus specification defines builders as separate staked actors that submit signed execution-payload bids before broadcasting the corresponding payload envelope.

During Thursday’s developer call, consensus developer Potuz warned that the economics change on a testnet because attackers can obtain test ETH without paying its mainnet market value. A malicious operator could create many builder identities, submit bids far above legitimate competitors and then refuse to provide the promised payload after winning.

“I can just spin up a thousand builders,” Potuz said, explaining that the attacker could rotate them, bid aggressively and withhold payloads. He later added, “Any teenager can do this.”

The developer framed the concern as a public-testnet availability problem, not a new route to steal mainnet ETH. On mainnet, a participant can already pay to produce an empty block, but the economic cost of obtaining block space limits the behavior. Test ETH makes persistent disruption much cheaper.

Clients may need builder-level circuit breakers

Existing safeguards may not be sufficient for the Sepolia environment. Potuz told developers that some client circuit breakers fall back to locally built blocks only after several payloads are missed, while he was not aware of universal protections that could reject individual abusive builders.

His concern centered on attackers returning under fresh identities. Even if a client reacts to missing payloads, disposable builders could continue bidding unless the defensive logic identifies and restricts the behavior quickly enough.

Developers did not present the builder attack as a confirmed exploit against Sepolia. The discussion concerned a scenario they expect public testing could expose once outsiders can participate under ePBS conditions. Potuz argued that Ethereum’s testnets need stronger safeguards because application and infrastructure teams rely on them to test software against functioning blocks.

Ethereum.org notes that Sepolia uses a permissioned validator set controlled by client and testing teams, while Hoodi has an open validator set intended for staking and protocol testing. Sepolia’s structure gives Ethereum developers more operational control if the first long-lived public Glamsterdam deployment encounters problems.

As previously reported by crypto.news, developers had tentatively selected Oct. 6 before the latest call, with the date still dependent on another stable private-devnet transition. The Sept. 17 consensus call moved that timetable forward after Devnet-11 completed its scheduled fork rehearsal.

Devnet-11 tested 200 million gas before Sepolia

Glamsterdam Devnet-11 was created as a controlled “happy-path” rehearsal rather than an adversarial attack network. Its official specification scheduled genesis for Sept. 14, the Gloas transition for Sept. 16 and a block gas-limit increase from 60 million to 200 million shortly afterward.

The test network used 84,000 validators across a multi-client configuration and carried the same core EIP set planned for Glamsterdam testing. Its organizers explicitly excluded deliberate attacks from the Devnet-11 scope, keeping adversarial experiments on the longer-running Platåberget environment.

CoinDesk reported that Devnet-11 completed the transition and moved the gas limit toward 200 million without losing finality. The 200 million setting is a test parameter, not a confirmed mainnet gas-limit commitment.

Ethereum’s own Glamsterdam roadmap says the upgrade is designed to increase Layer 1 capacity while changing how blocks are built and verified. EIP-7732 extends the execution-payload propagation window from roughly two seconds to around nine seconds, giving nodes more time to distribute and validate larger payloads.

The upgrade includes Block-Level Access Lists and a series of gas-pricing changes as well. Earlier Glamsterdam compatibility coverage reported that wallets, indexers and gas estimators using fixed assumptions can require changes because new-account creation and some state-heavy operations receive different gas treatment under the planned fork.

A separate smart-contract risk review found that contracts using fixed gas stipends or gas-sensitive execution patterns may require testing before the upgrade reaches mainnet.

Sepolia client review window falls to seven days

The Oct. 6 schedule gives client teams less review time than Ethereum’s normal upgrade process recommends.

During the Sept. 17 call, developer Fredrik Svantes told participants that the standard process calls for at least 14 days between release-ready client software and the first public testnet activation. He said those two weeks are normally used for internal security reviews, bug-bounty exposure and possible external security work.

With Sepolia approaching, developers discussed a Sept. 29 latest date for client releases. Seven days between Sept. 29 and Oct. 6 would leave half of the normal review period. Participants accepted that risk for Sepolia partly because its validator set is relatively centralized and the network can be recovered more easily if software breaks.

Core developer Alex Stokes urged teams to release software earlier where possible so more reviewers could examine it. Once release-ready clients are available, they can enter Ethereum’s bug-bounty process immediately.

The compressed schedule follows several earlier testing problems. A Sept. 3 developer agenda recorded non-finality during the Devnet-8 Gloas activation affecting multiple consensus clients, while later Devnet testing examined fixes and additional edge cases.

Another testing call recorded problems in which a Platåberget scenario knocked 12 of 13 Besu nodes offline and slowed Erigon and Ethrex nodes. Devnet-9 experienced unplanned non-finality, pushing teams into further iterations before Devnet-11.

Mainnet activation still has no confirmed date

Ethereum’s public roadmap continues to list Glamsterdam for the fourth quarter of 2026 but states that the mainnet date has not been confirmed. The next published milestone is the Oct. 6 Sepolia fork.

Hoodi is expected to follow Sepolia because it provides an open validator environment for staking and upgrade testing. Developers discussed the Hoodi stage during the Sept. 17 call but tied its timing to Sepolia’s progress, meaning problems on the first public testnet could move subsequent dates.

Ethereum’s draft mainnet incident-response plan still contains no activation epoch or timestamp. The document instead leaves the upgrade information fields blank while listing the client and coordination roles that will be filled before mainnet deployment.

As earlier crypto.news Glamsterdam coverage reported, the upgrade centers on ePBS, Block-Level Access Lists and gas repricing designed for higher Layer 1 throughput. Developers have continued treating successful multi-client testing as a prerequisite before setting the mainnet fork.

For now, client teams face the Sept. 29 software deadline discussed on the call, followed by Sepolia’s Oct. 6 activation. Ethereum developers have not published a mainnet epoch or final activation timestamp.

Circle has introduced Arc Studio, an AI coding agent that generates full stack onchain applications, smart contracts and agents from natural language prompts.

According to an Arc announcement on Sept. 17, Studio can produce frontend interfaces, backend logic and smart contracts from a description of what a user wants to build, with generated applications available for testing across nine blockchain networks.

The product arrives days after Arc moved to public mainnet, extending Circle’s developer tools around a network built for stablecoin payments, financial applications and automated software agents.

Arc Studio builds onchain apps from prompts

Arc Studio is designed to handle parts of blockchain development that would normally require developers to separately configure wallets, gas, contracts, protocol integrations and testnet infrastructure.

Users can describe an application in plain language and have Studio assemble its components into a working prototype. Developers can then export the generated code to their own repositories, inspect the underlying logic and use their own credentials and infrastructure for production deployments.

Circle said Studio can be accessed through its web interface or used as a subagent from coding tools including Claude Code, Codex and Cursor. The product is built specifically around Arc and Circle’s developer infrastructure instead of operating as a general purpose coding assistant.

Supported Circle products include Cross Chain Transfer Protocol, or CCTP, Contracts, Gateway and Wallets. Studio can work with live protocols and assets while applications can be tested on Arbitrum, Arc, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, Monad, OP Mainnet, Polygon and Unichain.

The platform can write Solidity contracts, perform initial reviews and deploy them to Arc Testnet or eight other EVM testnets. Its interface provides access to contract read and write functions, while a tracing system records RPC calls, transactions, decoded events and offchain HTTP requests generated by an application.

Circle warns that AI generated code may contain errors, security weaknesses or incomplete output and should be independently reviewed and tested. Studio does not sign, fund or submit mainnet transactions on behalf of users, leaving production deployment to developers using their own credentials and infrastructure.

USDC payments sit at the center of Arc Studio

Circle has positioned Studio around applications that involve USDC flows, including payments, swaps, wallets, bridges, lending, staking and programmable payouts.

A developer could use a prompt to build a cross border payout application with an administrative interface and wallet functions, according to Arc. Other examples include stablecoin payments for digital goods, usage based SaaS billing settled in USDC and payment systems through which AI agents can pay each other or purchase computing resources.

Protocol integrations extend the available building blocks. Studio supports composable services from Aave, Morpho and Uniswap, allowing generated applications to incorporate existing DeFi infrastructure without requiring developers to manually connect each integration.

Circle has been expanding the underlying infrastructure that handles such transactions. A CCTP update released in September added upfront fee payments for Fast Transfer, allowing applications to quote and collect cross chain USDC fees on the source network while keeping the amount delivered to the recipient unchanged.

CCTP uses a burn and mint system for moving native USDC between supported networks. Circle’s newer Quote API can combine eligible protocol fees into a signed, time limited quote, while prepaid fees can be settled in USDC or the source network’s native gas asset.

Studio’s launch comes as Circle is developing another use case around payments initiated by autonomous software. In August, Circle said 99.3% of payment volume measured through the x402 agent payment protocol during the second quarter settled in USDC.

The x402 payment activity covered the protocol measured by Circle and did not represent the same share of all AI agent payments. Circle’s Agent Stack, launched in May, had more than 900 paid services by the end of the second quarter.

Arc Studio follows the network’s mainnet launch

Arc Studio is being released alongside a larger expansion of the Arc ecosystem following the blockchain’s Sept. 16 public mainnet launch.

As crypto.news previously reported, the Arc mainnet launch brought Circle’s Layer 1 network online with USDC used for transaction fees, deterministic settlement in under one second and support for Ethereum Virtual Machine applications.

Arc launched with Circle and 11 named institutional founding validators, including BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa and Worldpay, which is part of Global Payments.

More than 100 applications and over 100 institutional and ecosystem builders were live on the network at launch, according to Circle. The company said Arc began with integrations spanning banks, asset managers, payment companies, exchanges, custodians, wallets, DeFi protocols and AI platforms.

The network supports 22 fiat stablecoins, while tokenized funds including BUIDL, USYC, JAAA and JTRSY were available at launch. Arc’s connection with CCTP and Circle Gateway provides routes for moving supported assets and accessing liquidity across more than 20 blockchain networks.

Circle has built Arc around an EVM compatible environment, allowing developers to use Solidity and existing Ethereum development tools. USDC serves as the native asset for gas accounting, removing the requirement to hold a separate network token to pay ordinary transaction fees.

Before the public launch, Arc had operated as a private mainnet with more than 100 institutional and ecosystem participants. Its earlier public testnet had processed more than 700 million transactions by the time the mainnet opened, according to Circle.

Circle is expanding Arc’s developer and agent tools

Studio is one of several products Circle is placing around Arc as it builds services for developers, institutions and autonomous agents.

Arc App Kits provide packaged components for common financial functions such as payments, swaps, onramps and yield. Arc Portal gives users an interface for funding agent wallets, setting spending limits and delegating specific onchain tasks.

Circle Agent Stack provides policy controlled wallets and nanopayments, while its Agent Wallets are designed for software that can hold, trade and bridge USDC within spending rules established by humans. Supported networks include Arbitrum, Arc testnet, Avalanche, Base, Ethereum, Monad, OP Mainnet, Polygon PoS and Unichain.

Institutional functions have been developed alongside those developer products. Circle disclosed plans for confidential smart contract capabilities earlier this year, with Arc Privacy designed to keep selected financial information private while retaining access needed for audits and compliance reviews.

Circle has identified payroll, treasury management, tokenized assets, trading and lending among the potential uses for confidential contracts.

Studio is available through its web interface, while developers working in existing coding environments can use it as a subagent. Generated applications remain exportable, allowing teams to review the code and move it into their own repositories before using their own keys and infrastructure for deployment.