What do we know about the people involved?

Paimon Finance’s pPOLY has become the first token selected for PancakeSwap’s Pre-Access program, opening a $4.8 million subscription campaign at $15.50 per token on Sept. 21 before trading starts Sept. 24.

Binance Wallet said the 72-hour campaign runs from Sept. 21 at 9:00 a.m. UTC until Sept. 24 at 9:00 a.m. UTC on BNB Smart Chain, with pPOLY claims, returns of unallocated funds and trading scheduled to begin when the subscription period ends.

The announcement identifies Paimon Finance as the token issuer and PancakeSwap as the provider of the Pre-Access campaign. Binance Wallet provides eligible users with a route to the event through its self-custodial Keyless Wallet interface but says it does not issue pPOLY or operate the sale.

Evernorth Holdings has agreed to issue $30 million of convertible debt that may fund additional XRP purchases and XRP ecosystem activity, subject to the completion of its proposed business combination with Armada Acquisition Corp. II.

The SEC filing dated Sept. 17 shows that Evernorth signed the note purchase agreement on Sept. 11 with NH Investment & Securities Co., acting as trustee of Kyobo AIM Corporate Finance General Private Investment Trust No. 3, as the purchaser. The notes carry a 4% payment-in-kind interest rate and mature in 2031.

The filing therefore differs slightly from reports describing the transaction as an already completed $30 million raise. Payment for the notes and their issuance are scheduled to occur concurrently with Evernorth’s business combination closing. Evernorth says the transaction is “expected to close during the fourth quarter of 2026,” making the financing conditional at this stage.

MultiversX has come under formal trading review at Upbit after the South Korean exchange flagged EGLD on Sept. 21 following a mainnet security incident that forced the network to stop progressing.

Upbit’s official notice designated EGLD/KRW, EGLD/BTC and EGLD/USDT as trading caution markets after the exchange said an unresolved security incident involving the blockchain could have caused, or could potentially cause, user losses.

Upbit had already suspended EGLD deposits and withdrawals at 5:47 p.m. KST on Sept. 19. When transfers eventually resume, the exchange said withdrawals will return first. Deposit support will require a separate announcement after the trading caution review begins.

MultiversX exploit triggered the Upbit warning

The warning follows a confirmed attempt to exploit a virtual-machine-level atomicity issue on the MultiversX mainnet.

MultiversX initially disclosed on Sept. 19 that it was investigating a potential mainnet issue and prioritizing user safety and stable network operation. As crypto.news previously reported, the project’s first statement did not classify the event as an exploit or disclose any confirmed financial loss.

A later project update said an actor had “attempted to exploit a VM-level atomicity issue.” The attempt produced invalid state changes, prompting developers to stop network progression while engineers worked on a repair.

The team prepared a software fix for testing through a shadow fork, allowing developers to reproduce mainnet conditions without immediately applying changes to the live network.

MultiversX said deployment would proceed “subject to successful testing” and would require coordination with validators, exchanges and infrastructure providers. No firm restart deadline appeared in the public updates reviewed.

Security tracker SlowMist separately recorded the incident as an attempted VM-level atomicity exploit involving invalid on-chain state changes. Its public database did not list a confirmed loss amount.

EGLD withdrawals remain blocked across exchanges

Upbit’s action came as several exchanges restricted MultiversX transfers following the network disruption.

Bithumb suspended EGLD deposits and withdrawals on Sept. 19 after MultiversX block production stopped. The exchange said transfer services would remain unavailable until it confirmed network stability.

Bithumb had restored EGLD deposits and withdrawals only three days earlier following a scheduled network upgrade, according to its Sept. 16 service notice.

Kraken took a different approach. Its public status page placed EGLD trading pairs into cancel-only mode, allowing users to cancel existing orders while preventing new trades. Deposits and withdrawals remained unavailable.

Coinbase separately reported delayed EGLD sends and receives beginning Sept. 19 because of a MultiversX network issue. Buying, selling and fiat services were not affected by the transfer disruption.

MultiversX told users not to submit or rebroadcast transactions and advised against moving EGLD or ESDT tokens through exchange deposit and withdrawal routes or cross-chain bridges until the project issues an all-clear.

Upbit can extend the warning or end EGLD trading

The Upbit designation does not immediately remove EGLD from the exchange.

Under its digital asset trading-support termination policy, Upbit will review whether the reasons behind the caution notice have been fully resolved before deciding whether to lift the warning, extend the review or end trading support.

The current review period runs from Sept. 21 through the fourth week of October, with Upbit identifying Oct. 19-23 as the expected decision window.

The exchange said the review can be extended if further investigation is required. A failure to fully resolve the underlying security concerns could lead to termination of EGLD trading support.

Deposits made after publication of the caution notice cannot be credited normally and fall under Upbit’s return process. Since transfer services were already suspended, users remain unable to use standard EGLD deposits or withdrawals.

Upbit cited Article 17(1)(e) of South Korea’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act Enforcement Decree when explaining the designation.

The exchange said its decision considered whether a security incident affecting a wallet, distributed ledger or other infrastructure used to issue, transfer or store virtual assets remained unexplained or unresolved.

EGLD weakened as network restrictions spread

EGLD declined while the network issue and exchange restrictions developed.

CoinGecko historical data show EGLD closing at $4.14 on Sept. 18, before falling to $3.87 on Sept. 19 and $3.78 on Sept. 20. The move represented a decline of roughly 8.7% from the Sept. 18 close.

Trading activity increased during the disruption. CoinGecko recorded approximately $10.18 million in EGLD volume on Sept. 20, compared with roughly $3.35 million on Sept. 18.

The timing places the price decline alongside the security incident and exchange restrictions, though the market data alone do not establish that the exploit attempt caused every part of the move.

The episode came shortly after MultiversX activated its Supernova mainnet upgrade, which reduced targeted block time from six seconds to 600 milliseconds and shortened cross-shard settlement.

No MultiversX statement reviewed has connected the VM-level atomicity exploit attempt to Supernova, so the upgrade and security incident should not be treated as causally linked without further technical evidence.

MultiversX plans recovery before releasing full report

MultiversX said engineers were evaluating a targeted recovery procedure designed to preserve finalized legitimate transaction history while correcting invalid state changes linked to the incident.

The project has not yet published the exact recovery method or identified which transactions, smart contracts or account states require correction.

Its official status page has shown several services, including the Public API, xPortal, Explorer, Wallet, Bridge and xExchange, as experiencing degraded performance during the incident response.

Gateway and Index services were listed as operational in the same status update. MultiversX said a full technical incident report would be published after investigators finish the response and finalize their findings. Upbit, Kraken and other exchanges are meanwhile keeping EGLD transfer restrictions in place pending further network recovery updates.

Hana Bank issued a $100 million digital bond through Euroclear’s blockchain settlement platform, completing the transaction the same day, the Yohnap Agency reported Monday.

This was the first time a Korean financial institution directly used the international depository’s distributed ledger infrastructure, the bank said, ranked second in South Korea with nearly $500 billion in client assets under management. Euroclear is a Brussels-based financial services company and one of the world’s largest central securities depositories (CSDs).

It shows how tokenization could make capital markets faster and more efficient. In this case, a traditional multi-day bond settlement process was replaced with same-day settlement on a distributed ledger.

“The $100 million digital bond issuance and implementation of T+0 settlement represent a significant step beyond simply diversifying our funding channels, as they bring blockchain technology into the capital market,” a Hana Bank official said, according to the Korea Herald. “We will continue to adopt advanced infrastructure and explore innovative funding solutions that meet the needs of global investors.”

Hana Bank and Euroclear did not immediately respond to a CoinDesk request for information.

Bitcoin traded just under $84,000 on Monday, up nearly 2% over 24 hours and extending the climb it began late last week, CoinDesk data show.

Monero’s XMR was the standout among larger tokens, up 13% to nearly $588, though it gave back 4% of that in the past hour. DOGE added 5% and XRP 4% to just above $1.45. Ether, SOL and HYPE each rose about 3%, while BNB and ZEC picked up 2%. TRX was the laggard at under 1%.

Risk assets rose broadly. S&P 500 futures were up more than half a percent and Nasdaq 100 contracts nearly 1%, with technology shares leading across regions. Treasuries climbed across the curve and European bonds outperformed. The dollar was flat.

Oil did most of the work. Brent fell for a fourth straight session, its longest losing run in three months, as traders tracked diplomatic efforts to ease tensions between Washington and Tehran and restore Middle East crude shipments. President Donald Trump told Fox News he would “probably” be open to meeting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian at the U.N. General Assembly this week.

Cheaper energy eases the inflation picture that has kept the Federal Reserve hawkish, and traders are also positioning ahead of a Trump-Xi summit later this week.

Hyperliquid has generated $429.04 million in revenue from Jan. 1 through Sept. 15, placing the perpetual futures platform first in CoinGecko’s adjusted ranking of crypto revenue generators for 2026.

CoinGecko’s Sept. 17 study calculated Hyperliquid’s share at 12.62% of the $3.40 billion comparison pool. Pump.fun followed with $322.21 million, while Axiom Pro ranked third among the projects included in the final table.

The ranking uses data through Sept. 15 and should be read as a fixed year-to-date snapshot. CoinGecko excluded Tether and Circle because their scale would overwhelm the comparison, while Grayscale was removed because its $154.14 million came from asset-management sponsor fees instead of a usage-based crypto protocol model.

Hyperliquid leads 2026 crypto revenue ranking

Hyperliquid finished more than $106 million ahead of Pump.fun at the Sept. 15 cutoff. CoinGecko said the two projects together generated $751.25 million, equal to 22.10% of the revenue pool used in the study.

Pump.fun’s $322.21 million came mainly from token creation and trading fees tied to its Solana memecoin launchpad. Axiom Pro followed at $132.09 million, Sky posted $129.87 million and GMGN generated $126.03 million.

Polymarket ranked sixth with $115.48 million. World Liberty Financial followed at $95.37 million, while Paxos recorded $87.93 million. edgeX generated $84.37 million and Titan Builder completed the top 10 at $83.47 million.

CoinGecko classified the projects across several business models, including perpetual futures, trading terminals, prediction markets, stablecoins, real-world assets and MEV infrastructure. The researcher described its sector labels as a best-effort classification instead of a formal industry taxonomy.

Perpetual trading feeds Hyperliquid’s revenue engine

Hyperliquid earns fees from perpetual futures and spot activity on its exchange infrastructure. Its official fee documentation uses volume-based maker and taker tiers, with separate schedules for perpetual and spot markets.

Higher-volume traders receive lower fees, while users staking HYPE can qualify for further discounts. Hyperliquid says its fee structure does not reserve the proceeds primarily for a company or insider group, with funds instead directed toward HLP, the Assistance Fund and eligible market deployers.

The Assistance Fund automatically converts eligible trading fees into HYPE through Hyperliquid’s L1 execution. Hyperliquid’s current documentation says HYPE acquired by the fund is burned, permanently removing those tokens from total and circulating supply.

Hyperliquid separately states that its platform is processing billions of dollars in daily trading volume and that more than $1 billion in annualized fees are being directed toward programmatic HYPE purchases. Fees and CoinGecko’s revenue figure are not identical accounting measures, so the two numbers should not be treated interchangeably.

As crypto.news previously reported, Hyperliquid’s Assistance Fund has become a central part of HYPE’s token structure because trading activity creates recurring purchases of the token. Earlier reporting placed cumulative fund spending above $1.3 billion, though that figure covers buybacks since launch and is separate from CoinGecko’s 2026 revenue ranking.

Pump.fun and trading terminals fill the next positions

CoinGecko’s ranking shows that revenue has not been concentrated in a single crypto sector. Pump.fun represents token launchpads, while Axiom Pro and GMGN are trading terminals that make on-chain markets easier to access.

Axiom integrates Hyperliquid for perpetual futures trading, creating some overlap between the activity surrounding the two projects even though CoinGecko records them as separate revenue-generating businesses. GMGN centers more heavily on Solana memecoin trading, linking its activity to the same trading segment that supports Pump.fun.

Shorter reporting periods can produce different leaders. In August, Pump.fun briefly moved ahead of Hyperliquid on a 30-day revenue measure after generating more than $10 million of protocol fees during the week of Aug. 3-9.

CoinGecko’s longer Jan. 1-Sept. 15 measurement produced a different result, with Hyperliquid retaining the full-year lead despite shorter periods in which competitors generated more revenue.

The top 15 projects accounted for 56.02% of the $3.40 billion pool used for the ranking. Beyond the top 10, Collector Crypt recorded $72.82 million, Phantom $60.05 million, Aave $56.81 million, fomo $54.66 million and Aerodrome $54.31 million.

CoinGecko exclusions change how the table should be read

CoinGecko deliberately excluded Tether and Circle from the top-project ranking because both stablecoin issuers generate revenue at a scale the researcher said would obscure differences between the remaining businesses. Their omission does not mean CoinGecko regarded their revenue as invalid.

Grayscale would have ranked third at $154.14 million, ahead of Axiom Pro, but CoinGecko excluded the asset manager because its revenue is derived from AUM-based sponsor fees. Aerodrome, which would otherwise have ranked 16th, consequently entered the displayed top 15.

CoinGecko uses on-chain revenue as its main inclusion criterion but acknowledged that not every project in the list earns money directly from blockchain transaction fees. Paxos and World Liberty Financial, for example, derive substantial revenue from interest earned on reserves, according to the study.

Monthly crypto revenue has remained below last year’s average. Across all projects tracked in CoinGecko’s second dataset, which does include Tether and Circle, monthly revenue averaged $1.08 billion from January through August 2026. The figure was 11.68% below the $1.22 billion monthly average recorded during 2025.

September was left out of the monthly-average comparison because CoinGecko had only 15 days of data when the study was compiled. Its revenue rankings still include activity through Sept. 15, meaning later September revenue will not appear in the published $429.04 million Hyperliquid figure.

HYPE trades near record levels after revenue growth

HYPE has remained close to record territory while Hyperliquid’s fee activity stays elevated. CoinGecko data on Sept. 21 placed HYPE around $94.02, up approximately 2.7% over 24 hours and 18.1% during the previous seven days, with a market capitalization close to $20.9 billion.

Historical CoinGecko data show HYPE closed at $76.92 on Sept. 15 before rising to $85.06 on Sept. 17 and $92.54 on Sept. 18. The token closed Sept. 20 at $93.64, while daily trading volume stood above $1 billion.

Crypto.news reported that Hyperliquid and Pump.fun accounted for nearly 90% of tracked crypto token buybacks during 2026. The report distinguished annual buybacks from Hyperliquid’s cumulative Assistance Fund purchases, which span multiple years.

Hyperliquid’s own documentation now lists maker rebates reaching negative 0.003% for qualifying high-volume market makers, while its highest published staking tier provides a 40% trading-fee discount to accounts linked with more than 500,000 HYPE staked.

ZetaChain tokenholders have voted to end the project’s layer-1 blockchain and migrate its native ZETA token to Solana. The governance decision, approved via a formal proposal on Sunday, clears the path for ZETA to be represented as a Solana token through a 1:1 conversion—while network operations and staking are expected to continue until a later, separate shutdown and migration plan is finalized.

Governance proposal 68 passed with 99.4% support and 58% participation, comfortably above the network’s 40% quorum requirement. Importantly, the proposal does not immediately trigger a shutdown or token migration timetable; ZetaChain said a second proposal will be submitted to outline the withdrawal window for assets tied to other blockchains, snapshot timing, shutdown scheduling, and the mechanics and duration of the token claim and exchange period.

Key takeaways

• Proposal 68 approved: 99.4% support with 58% participation, exceeding the 40% quorum threshold.
• Token migration approach: ZETA is set to become an SPL token on Solana on a 1:1 basis, keeping the same ticker and total supply.
• No immediate shutdown: ZetaChain indicated validators will keep operating and staking rewards will continue during the transition.
• Next step is a second proposal: details on withdrawal windows, snapshot height, shutdown timing, and conversion/claim periods will be defined later.

What ZetaChain’s governance vote actually changes

Under the approved plan, ZETA will be converted into a Solana Program Library (SPL) token while preserving a 1:1 ratio. The proposal states that the token’s ticker and total supply will remain the same—an operational detail that matters for holders because it clarifies that the change is intended to be a representation/migration rather than a token split or supply adjustment.

However, governance approval is not the same as execution. ZetaChain emphasized that passing proposal 68 does not automatically set a shutdown date. Instead, core contributors must bring forward a subsequent proposal covering the practical steps holders will care about most: how and when assets connected to other chains can be withdrawn, the snapshot block height used for migration calculations, the shutdown timetable, and the process and timeframe for token claims or exchange conversions.

In the interim, validators are expected to keep running. The project also said staking rewards will continue through the transition phase, suggesting the token migration process is being staged rather than rushed—an important distinction for participants who would otherwise be forced to exit staking positions abruptly.

Why ZetaChain wants to shift away from its layer-1

ZetaChain linked its move away from maintaining its own Cosmos SDK-based layer-1 to a strategic repositioning. The project said its standalone chain no longer supports its focus on Anuma, a private-focused artificial intelligence application.

In ZetaChain’s framing, moving to Solana is meant to let the team redirect engineering and operational effort away from base-layer blockchain maintenance and toward Anuma and its “Private Memory Layer,” which the project says helps users carry encrypted context across AI models.

For investors and builders, the key question is not only whether the migration is technically feasible, but whether the funding and talent concentration can deliver measurable progress on the AI-related roadmap. On that front, ZetaChain’s approach is effectively a resource reallocation: the governance vote signals that maintaining a dedicated interoperability layer-1 is being deprioritized in favor of an execution environment closer to the rest of the Solana ecosystem.

A broader pattern of standalone chain wind-downs

ZetaChain’s decision fits a wider trend in crypto: projects that previously operated standalone chains are increasingly opting to shut them down or migrate tokens to other networks. The rationale varies—from security events to cost and strategic focus—but the end result is similar: ecosystems consolidate around fewer chains, while token representations move to more established venues.

Two other examples cited alongside ZetaChain include BounceBit and Harmony. BounceBit previously announced it would retire its standalone blockchain after an authorization flaw was exploited to steal about $3 million in BB tokens. The project chose a migration of its token to BNB Smart Chain at a 1:1 ratio rather than restarting its layer-1—an approach that mirrors ZetaChain’s “representation stays the same” principle.

Harmony also proposed winding down its layer-1 and migrating ONE to Ethereum as an ERC-20. Earlier reporting noted the proposal came after an exploit created unauthorized ONE tokens and led Harmony to plan a rollback of more than 109,000 transactions. In that case, the governance pivot appears tied both to recovery from a security incident and to a broader shift toward an AI video initiative.

While every project’s situation differs, these cases highlight how token migration plans can become governance-led responses to operational and risk realities—especially when maintaining a dedicated chain becomes harder to justify.

Security history adds urgency to migration planning

ZetaChain’s migration plan arrives against a backdrop of security-related issues. The project was previously affected by a $334,000 exploit targeting its cross-chain gateway contract, according to the referenced earlier coverage. The incident reportedly drained funds from ZetaChain-controlled wallets across multiple networks including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base and BNB Smart Chain.

In response to that broader security discussion, ZetaChain also acknowledged it had dismissed an earlier bug bounty report about a vulnerability, stating it treated the behavior as intended. That decision later prompted a review of its security processes.

None of this history necessarily determines whether a Solana migration will be successful, but it raises the stakes for how ZetaChain designs its transition. The second governance proposal—covering snapshot height, the token claim period, and the exchange conversion window—will likely be where market participants focus on clarity and safeguards. For holders, the worst outcomes in a migration tend to be uncertainty: unclear eligibility rules, poorly timed snapshots, or token claim/exchange mechanics that leave participants unable to complete conversions.

With validators expected to keep operating and staking rewards continuing for now, ZetaChain appears to be attempting to balance continuity with an orderly wind-down. Still, the exact operational details—when withdrawals open, when the chain stops, and how claims are handled—remain unresolved until the next proposal is submitted.

Going forward, tokenholders and observers should watch for the forthcoming governance proposal that lays out the withdrawal window, snapshot block height, shutdown timeline, and conversion/claim mechanics. Those specifics will determine whether the transition preserves holder outcomes cleanly or introduces friction at the moment people need certainty most.