“With each ETF that’s gone live, the money’s a lot more sticky,” in the words of Canary Capital’s CEO Steven McClurg. 

This idea represents one of the clearest takeaways from Consensus Hong Kong this year: we’ve finally reached the era of long-term allocation. 

Consensus Hong Kong 2026 (Feb 10-12, 2026) brought 11,000 registered attendees from 122+ countries and regions to the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Senior leadership made up a significant share of the audience, along with allocators, operators, and infrastructure builders.

“Digital Assets. Institutional Scale.” was reflected in the programming, and met well on the ground. Panels centered on institutional adoption, stablecoin infrastructure, and the architecture of internet capital markets. There was also a visible attempt to connect blockchain infrastructure with AI agents and robotics, but even those discussions returned to the same constraint: execution and reliability.

What stood out early was how consistently conversations returned to market infrastructure. Across the Future of Finance Summit, the Global Bitcoin Summit, and the Advanced Trading track, it’s clear that the next phase in Web3 is about proving it can operate at scale, under real capital, without breaking.

Sticky money, soft regulation and a dominant U.S. narrative 

McClurg used Canary’s own XRP product to illustrate what he meant by ‘stickier’ capital.

“We launched an XRP ETF last year, and even on the biggest down days of the market, we were still getting inflows – meaning that people see an opportunity, they’re buying it.”

Of course, if capital continues to flow in during drawdowns, the market dynamic changes. 

The mood at Consensus was the product of such a change, beginning in earnest with the SEC’s approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024. Naturally, once exposure could be accessed through a familiar asset, things were shaken up. 

As ETF pipelines expanded in the U.S., so did the institutional looking glass. Liquidity quality started to matter more than raw volume, hedging tools became part of the discussion, and market structure moved from the periphery to the center.

Regulation came up repeatedly in Hong Kong, but in a specific tone.

McClurg described the U.S. shift as real, though not fully codified into statute.

“Most of it’s happened, but it’s soft regulation… not necessarily laws that are being passed. It’s via executive orders. It’s via appointments.”

In other words, posture and precedent are shaping the environment as much as formal legislation.

That aligns with developments in Washington since early 2025: executive actions outlining national digital asset frameworks and a reshaped SEC leadership publicly signaling a more workable approach to crypto oversight.

The result is a market that feels more procedural and predictable. That’s what institutions require before size follows – a topic also well discussed at Consensus’ “The Regulatory Shift” panel at the Convergence Stage.

Institutional anxiety about whether the infrastructure is real

Volatility no longer seems to scare serious allocators. At the event, this idea felt like a misconception for the first time. 

Cory Loo, Head of APAC at Douro Labs and lead for APAC business development for Pyth Network, commented on this point:

“Institutions understand volatility. What still quietly worries them is whether crypto’s infrastructure and business models are actually institutional-grade – not in marketing language, but in measurable terms. They want to see real revenue, real customers, real compliance, real uptime.”

The hesitation, in his view, is that parts of the industry can still look larger than they are: activity that appears significant on the surface, but doesn’t hold up when institutions pressure-test durability, unit economics, and operational maturity.

That framing matched the agenda-level emphasis at Consensus. The “Advanced Trading” programming was positioned around liquidity mechanics, security considerations, and a shifting regulatory landscape, including the role of cross-chain solutions and emerging protocols in making markets more transparent and efficient.

It felt as though being ‘institutional-grade’ has become a default requirement for projects in the space. Uptime, incident response, governance, and compliance aren’t secondary concerns anymore. 

That is also why infrastructure providers that can point to hard usage metrics have gained an edge in these conversations. Pyth Network, for instance, publicly says it has integrated 600+ protocols across 100+ blockchains and delivers thousands of price feeds, with a growing share tied to real-world assets.

Self-custody, the education gap, and why aggregation is becoming the default

One of the more useful signals at Consensus came from Andrey Fedorov, CMO & CBDO of STON.fi Dev, in an exclusive interview with BeInCrypto. He spoke to a product-design tradeoff, where DeFi teams either optimize for user acquisition speed or for principles that hold up when capital and scrutiny arrive:

“We could grow faster if we compromised on custody. But then we wouldn’t be building DeFi infrastructure – we’d be building another fintech layer.”

As more regulated capital comes into the market, the bar rises for what counts as acceptable custody, acceptable risk, and acceptable operational responsibility. A self-custody-first posture is not always the easiest route to distribution, but it seems from the event that that’s what the industry is focusing on building. 

Fedorov also put a spotlight on an interesting adoption blocker:

“If someone loses their seed phrase, we can’t restore access. We don’t have it. We’ve never had it. But quite often users still come to us expecting support, like they would from a bank or centralized exchange.” 

Essentially, the industry is still training users to understand what self-custody means. It’s clear that work on education is part of the cost of building non-custodial systems at scale.

Fedorov came prepared with a solution, however – distribution and aggregation:

“Make things easier for those who don’t want to think about technical stuff. Get wider distribution by integrating into all the apps. And aggregate liquidity from multiple blockchains, not just one. That’s the roadmap. Now it’s about scaling it.” 

That’s also exactly how Consensus framed advanced trading this year – with cross-chain solutions and new protocols positioned as drivers of efficiency and accessibility. 

Here, in STON.fi’s case, we could highlight Omniston, which the team positions as a liquidity aggregation protocol designed for TON, connecting multiple liquidity sources through a single integration.

Hong Kong’s welcomes institutional scale, with training wheels

Of course, many of the conference’s institutional conversations centered on the U.S. ETFs, precedent, and what McClurg called “soft regulation”. However, Consensus Hong Kong also had a clear local narrative running through the main stage. Hong Kong wants to be a global hub for digital assets, but it wants that growth routed through licensing, investor protection, and risk management.

In his opening address, John Lee (Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR) pitched Hong Kong’s approach as deliberately “steady and sustainable,” pointing to an actively built regulatory framework and a policy direction aimed at turning Web3 potential into real financial-market outcomes.

This all became a little more concrete in remarks by Paul Chan (Financial Secretary), who laid out what the government sees as the major institutional-facing trends: tokenization of real-world assets moving from proof-of-concept to deployment; deeper interaction between TradFi and DeFi (with DeFi also facing growing regulatory pressure); and the accelerating overlap between AI and digital assets, including early ‘machine economy’ concepts where autonomous systems transact on-chain.

Consensus 2026 proved that capital is willing to engage, but it demands environments where rules are legible, and intermediaries are accountable.

Stablecoins and tokenization

Lee also tied Hong Kong’s “hub” ambition directly to its new stablecoin regime. He pointed to the Stablecoins Ordinance and said the HKMA was already processing applications, with the first batch of fiat-referenced stablecoin issuer licences expected “within the next month.”

Eddie Yue, the HKMA’s Chief Executive, separately told lawmakers the first batch is expected in March 2026, and that only a “very small number” of licences will be granted initially. The emphasis is on use cases, risk controls, AML, and reserve backing.

Chan used his keynote to explain what this approach means for institutions. Tokenization is moving from proof-of-concept to deployment, led by on-chain versions of familiar instruments such as government bonds and money market funds. 

He supported that framing with local metrics. These included Hong Kong’s tokenized green bond programme, banks holding over HK$14 billion in digital assets under custody by the end of 2025, and tokenized deposits reaching HK$29 billion.

Separately, a main stage conversation on RWA tokenization brought together senior leaders from Securitize, Ondo, and J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys dove deep into how Real World Assets are increasingly being treated as part of familiar institutional categories. 

From the event, it was clear that payments, settlement, and regulated issuance are now the main competitive arena. Even the “Machine Economy” discussions (AI agents, robotics, on-chain execution) kept coming back to licensed issuers, enforceable AML and controls, and auditability, among other things. 

Risk appetite is back, but it’s not unconditional

The simplest way to describe where the market is heading is that institutional adoption is becoming a procurement game. The checks are on compliance posture, governance, uptime, incident response, and whether the business model survives scrutiny once you strip out cyclical volume.

Two signals made the direction clear. The agenda leaned hard into market structure (liquidity, security, regulation, and cross-chain execution) and made the point that enterprise-grade crypto infrastructure only works with regulatory backing, with Hong Kong’s stablecoin licensing push as the clearest example.

Indeed, risk appetite is returning, but it’s conditional. Capital will move faster when the foundations behave predictably. After all, that’s what makes crypto legible to investment committees and survivable under stress. 

Looking ahead to Consensus Miami (May 5-7, 2026), the agenda is set to dive further into stablecoins, tokenization, capital markets, and regulation, with dedicated programming for Bitcoin (including mining and institutional strategy) plus formats like Wealth Management Day, Stablecoin University, PitchFest, and the Hackathon.

Centralized exchanges (CEXs) still command the lion’s share of crypto liquidity. However, the balance of power is beginning to tilt as decentralized exchanges (DEXs) have doubled their spot market share over the past two years while expanding their presence in perpetual futures fivefold.

The data signals that on-chain trading is no longer a niche alternative. Rather, it is emerging as a structural competitor to centralized venues.

DEXs Gain Ground: Hyperliquid, Uniswap, and PancakeSwap Break into Top 10 Exchanges

According to the 2026 CEX & DEX Trading Activity Report from CoinGecko, CEXs processed nearly $80 trillion in spot and perpetual trading volume in 2025 alone. While this highlights their continued dominance, DEX adoption is also accelerating fast.

DEX spot market share rose from 6.9% in January 2024 to 13.6% in January 2026. In absolute terms, monthly DEX spot volume more than doubled, climbing from $95.86 billion to $231.29 billion.

At its peak in June 2025, DEXs accounted for 24.5% of spot trading activity. According to the report, this milestone was driven partly by Binance Alpha 2.0 routing trades through PancakeSwap.

While that spike proved temporary, DEX share has remained consistently above 10% since early 2025. This suggests that demand for on-chain execution is stabilizing rather than fading.

Still, centralized platforms continue to anchor liquidity, maintaining more than $1 trillion in monthly spot volume throughout the period.

Perpetuals: A Breakout Moment for DEXs wit Hyperliquid In the Lead

The perpetual futures market expanded 75% in two years, growing from $4.14 trillion in January 2024 to $7.24 trillion in January 2026. Within that growth, DEXs made their most dramatic gains.

• Perp DEX volume surged eightfold from $81.7 billion to $739.5 billion
• This lifted market share from 2.0% to 10.2%.

In other words, one in every ten dollars traded in crypto perpetuals now flows through decentralized infrastructure.

A key driver was the breakout performance of Hyperliquid, which became the only DEX to rank among the Top 10 perps exchanges.

Within six months between August 2025 and January 2026, Hyperliquid recorded $1.59 trillion in cumulative trading volume. This placed it alongside long-established centralized giants.

On the spot side, Uniswap and PancakeSwap also entered the Top 10 exchanges by volume, each surpassing $0.5 trillion in six-month cumulative trading activity.

Just a few years ago, the idea of multiple DEXs ranking among the industry’s largest exchanges would have seemed improbable.

Token Listings Reveal Structural Divide

The report also highlights stark differences in token coverage. Among centralized platforms, MEXC and Gate.io led listings with 1,281 and 1,273 tokens, respectively, over 13 months. They averaged just under 100 new listings per month.

Yet this represented only 0.01% of the 24.04 million tokens created during that period.

By contrast, Uniswap alone listed 13.69 million tokens, reflecting the permissionless nature of decentralized infrastructure.

This points to a fundamental divergence, where CEXs curate scarcity whereas DEXs scale abundance.

$2.4 Billion in Security Losses

Notwithstanding, the fast growth has not come without cost. Crypto exchanges recorded more than $2.4 billion in hack-related losses in just over a year.

Centralized venues accounted for over $2 billion, with 71% stemming from a single exploit at Bybit in February 2025.

DEXs experienced smaller aggregate losses, with the largest exploit totaling $223 million. This was typically tied to smart contract vulnerabilities and oracle manipulation.

The broader takeaway from CoinGecko’s report is that while CEXs remain dominant, decentralized competitors are closing the gap across both spot and derivatives markets.

With DEX market share above 10% and institutional-grade on-chain platforms emerging, the shift toward decentralized liquidity is becoming measurable.

Hyperliquid flashes a bullish MACD crossover near $33 resistance, setting up a potential breakout as traders weigh momentum against looming token unlock risks.

Hyperliquid (HYPE) is trading at $32.63 at press time, up 1.5% in the past 24 hours and hovering near the top of its weekly range between $26.22 and $33.33.

Despite the broader market downturn, HYPE has held up well. The token is up 16% over the past week and nearly 100% over the past year. It still trades about 44% below its September 2025 all-time high of $59.30.

According to CoinGlass data, derivatives volume fell 15% to $1.48 billion, while open interest edged up 1.2% to $1.29 billion, suggesting traders are cautiously adding exposure.

MACD crossover shifts short-term momentum

The daily chart shows a fresh bullish signal. The MACD line has crossed above the signal line for the first time in several sessions, and the histogram has turned positive. Momentum is building, though confirmation is still needed.

Price remains above the mid-Bollinger Band, which aligns with the 20-day moving average. The bands are starting to widen after a period of compression. When volatility expands alongside a bullish crossover, follow-through often occurs.

RSI has climbed back above 50 and continues to trend higher without entering overbought territory. Buyers appear to be regaining control, and there is still room for upside if momentum holds.

Structurally, HYPE is forming higher lows after its late-February dip. Price is now pressing against the $33–$34 resistance zone.

Hyperliquid price short-term outlook

Near-term expectations are split. If HYPE consolidates above $30, analysts see room for a push toward $35 and possibly $38–$40 later in March, especially if overall market sentiment improves.

Failure to maintain the $27–$30 support range could expose $22–$23, and if selling picks up speed, there is a greater risk toward $18–$21. The broader pattern of lower highs has not been fully invalidated.

Fundamentally, new activity may be sparked by the impending HIP-4 upgrade, which adds outcome trading features. Tokenomics are still promising, with daily buybacks and aggressive fee burns reducing the amount in circulation.

That said, a scheduled 9.92 million token unlock on March 6 may add short-term pressure, especially if broader crypto markets weaken.

For now, the MACD crossover has tilted short-term momentum upward. A clean break above $34 would strengthen the bullish case, while a rejection there could keep price locked in a volatile range.

Reports indicate that crypto outflows of the Nobitex exchange in Iran increased by over 700% to over half a million dollars in minutes after US-Israeli airstrikes. The withdrawals reached over $3 million in an hour, indicating possible capital flight despite internet disruptions

Meanwhile, Bitcoin price news reveals that bulls have forced a rebound from the $63K region after a recent decline fueled by tensions in the Middle East. In other news, DeepSnitch AI (DSNT) has successfully captured market momentum, raising more than $1.84M in funding.

With its live AI tools and 100X projection, the project could be the best crypto investment for both traders and investors. Those who buy at the current price of $0.04228 could see 100X returns once the price skyrockets.

Iran sees massive spike in crypto outflows following military strikes

Per reports, Iran’s crypto outflows have increased following the recent US-Israeli airstrike. According to blockchain analytics company Elliptic, there has been a 700% increase in withdrawals of the largest Iranian exchange, Nobitex.

The report added that over half a million dollars were withdrawn from the platform, and the figure reached almost $3 million in an hour. Elliptic also claimed that a large portion of the crypto was transferred to foreign exchanges.

This could be an indication of capital flight as uncertainty increased. Nevertheless, the outflows decreased as Iran started to block internet connections on a large scale.

Bitcoin price news: Two coins leading despite broader market volatility

1. DeepSnitch AI (DSNT): The 100X unicorn savvy investors are accumulating

DeepSnitch AI is an intelligence platform designed to give you a competitive edge in the 2026 market. By utilizing a network of five AI agents, the platform monitors real-time “alpha” signals, tracks whale movements, and identifies emerging trends before they hit the mainstream. Currently in Stage 6 of its presale, the price of the DSNT token has surged by 180% to a price of 0.04228.

Also, more than $1.84M has been raised from investors, signalling high trust. DeepSnitch AI’s recently launched live platform features a smooth, dark-themed interface that serves as a unified command center for its core tools.

This dashboard organizes the ecosystem into six accessible areas: Feed, Scan for finding gems and detecting rug pulls, Cast, GPT for interactive research, Audit for instant contract safety verdicts, and Explorer.

According to the latest rumours in the market, DeepSnitch AI might launch on exchanges very soon. Those who join the presale now could be among the top gainers if the price skyrockets by 100X. The longer you wait, the less your profit margin, as prices are increasing very fast. So, you might want to take action now.

2. Bitcoin price news

According to Bitcoin breaking news today, the BTC price has dropped to the $68K region. As of March 3, the Bitcoin price was trading at $68,714 with a gain of 6.9% on the weekly chart.

Bitcoin price news shows the flagship cryptocurrency has failed to reclaim the $70K region due to high volatility. Nevertheless, Rekt Fencer notes that those waiting for BTC to drop to $45-$55K will be disappointed.

He forecasts that the Bitcoin price might “go much harder,” soaring past $125K in the coming months. For now, Bitcoin price news shows that BTC is consolidating below $70K.

3. Pax Gold price prediction

Pax Gold is one of the top altcoins gaining attention in the market right now as more users switch towards gold and gold-backed assets. Pax Gold capitalized on the high interest, rising to a peak of $5,532.

However, the Pax Gold price retraced to $5,101 on March 3, likely due to an increase in selling pressure. Still, the Pax Gold price might revisit the level in the coming days if market sentiment improves. The price of Pax Gold might soar to $8,997 in the coming months.

The bottom line

In summary, the Bitcoin price news reveals that bulls are holding well despite the ongoing volatility in the market. Also, DeepSnitch AI is gaining more ground in the crypto space, raising more than $1.84M in funding.

Many traders who have seen the massive boom in the AI sector below AI-based projects like DeepSnitch AI might spark the 2026 bull run. As a result, they are piling into DeepSnitch AI and buying millions of coins.

DeepSnitch AI is currently priced at $0.04228 and is expected to skyrocket by 100X very soon. The best decision might be to get in now and use the bonus codes to get more DSNT coins, as prices could skyrocket anytime from now.

Visit the official website for more information, and join X and Telegram for community updates.

FAQs

1. Is Bitcoin expected to rise in price?

Bitcoin price news shows it has been consolidating below $70K. Nevertheless, BTC market headlines reveal that Rekt Fencer believes the flagship cryptocurrency might soar past $125K soon. This is an increase of 83% from the current price. Meanwhile, DeepSnitch AI could give higher returns of over 100X based on its presale growth, low market cap, and clear utility.

2. What is the latest Bitcoin price news?

According to Bitcoin breaking news today, the BTC price has stabilized at above $68K following a drop to $63K. In other news, DeepSnitch AI is in the sixth round of its crypto presale. It has already raised more than $1.84M, which is an indicator that investors have confidence in its potential.

3. Why is the Bitcoin price dropping?

The sudden drop in Bitcoin’s price can be explained by macro-driven BTC moves, as traders react to geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. Given this bearish scenario, savvy investors are moving to DeepSnitch AI. This presale unicorn is expected to rise by 100X soon, which makes it a good crypto investment.

Disclaimer: This is a Press Release provided by a third party who is responsible for the content. Please conduct your own research before taking any action based on the content.

Crypto markets rallied sharply on Wednesday as global markets bounced back despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Stocks and precious metals gained while oil and natural gas dipped slightly.

Bitcoin (BTC) is trading at around $73,500, up 8% over the past 24 hours and marking a four-week high for the world’s largest cryptocurrency. Meanwhile, ETH and SOL surged 9% to about $2,140 and $91, respectively, and BNB is up 4% on the day.

The overall crypto market capitalization climbed nearly 6% to $2.54 trillion, according to Coingecko.

Investor sentiment is being buoyed by upbeat U.S. economic data. Earlier today, ADP reported that the private sector added more jobs than expected in February. Additionally, the ISM services index rose to 56.1 in February, indicating that the non-manufacturing sector remains resilient. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained around 1% and 1.8%, respectively, while gold and silver posted modest gains.

Almost all of the Top 100 digital assets posted gains over the last 24 hours.

Top gainers include Dogecoin (DOGE), SKY, and Ethereum (ETH), which rallied 14%, 10%, and 9%, respectively.

Near Protocol (NEAR) is today’s biggest loser, falling 5%.

Around 129,000 leveraged traders were liquidated for $530 million in the past 24 hours, according to CoinGlass. Bitcoin accounted for $293 million, while ETH positions made up $126 million. Notably, more than 80% of liquidations involved short positions.

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $225 million in inflows on Tuesday, marking a second day of gains. This brings inflows to nearly $1.5 billion since last week.

As artificial intelligence reshapes everything from finance to cybersecurity, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) is carving out a strategy for how the world’s second-largest blockchain fits into that future.

Instead of trying to fuse blockchains and AI at the level of raw computation — something Ethereum was never designed to handle — the EF sees the network playing a different role: acting as a coordination and verification layer in an increasingly AI-mediated world.

Davide Crapis, the AI lead at the EF, argues that the motivation is as philosophical as it is technical. More and more digital activity is being handled by AI systems, whether it’s answering questions, executing trades, screening applications or writing software. If those systems are controlled by centralized entities, the values that underpin much of the crypto movement — decentralization, self-sovereignty, censorship resistance and privacy — could erode.

“If AI doesn’t have the properties we care about — self-sovereignty, censorship resistance, privacy — and then we use AI for everything, basically no one has those properties anymore,” he said to CoinDesk in an interview at NEARCON 2026.

In that sense, Ethereum’s AI push is less about competing with OpenAI or Google on model size and more about ensuring that as AI becomes the interface to the internet, it doesn’t quietly recentralize power.

The EF’s strategy rests on two broad fronts. The first is what Crapis calls decentralized AI coordination. As autonomous AI agents — software programs capable of carrying out tasks on their own — become more common, they will need ways to identify themselves, build trust and exchange payments. Ethereum, he argues, is well-suited to provide that infrastructure.

“Ethereum functions as a public, governance-less verification layer for AI,” he said.

In practical terms, that means the heavy computing work of AI remains off-chain, on traditional servers. But Ethereum can help agents discover one another through public registries, assess reputation through transparent histories, route payments and anchor cryptographic proofs that verify outcomes. Crapis likens it to a decentralized version of Google Reviews combined with payment rails.

The EF has been involved in developing standards to formalize this ecosystem, including a protocol for agent identity and trust, known as ERC-8004. According to Crapis, these standards are gaining traction beyond Ethereum, signaling that the coordination layer for AI agents may become blockchain-based even if the AI itself is not.

The second focus area centers on bringing Ethereum’s core principles — such as privacy, openness, censorship resistance, and security — into the world of AI. Crapis refers to this effort internally as “Props AI,” shorthand for the values the Ethereum ecosystem has historically prioritized.

Privacy is a major part of that conversation. Interacting with centralized AI services can gradually generate detailed user profiles based on queries, usage patterns and behavior.

From Ethereum’s perspective, the challenge is to design AI systems that allow users to retain greater control over their data and identity. One approach is to encourage more AI processing to occur locally on users’ devices whenever possible, reducing the amount of information that needs to be sent to centralized servers.

The broader goal is to ensure that as AI becomes embedded in everyday digital interactions, individuals still retain meaningful control over their data and how it is used, rather than handing that power entirely to large platforms.

“We want to create a world where users retain as much data and power as possible,” Crapis said. “We just don’t give it to operators.”

Security concerns also underpin the strategy. As AI systems grow more capable, they are likely to automate and scale cyberattacks in ways that strain existing defenses. Crapis predicts a near future in which AI systems can convincingly impersonate humans, undermining traditional authentication methods.

“We will probably see hacks orchestrated by AI,” he said. “The old security models break when AI can impersonate a human.”

In that environment, cryptographic keys may become more important. Control of a private key is mathematically verifiable and does not depend on human judgment. Crapis frames Ethereum’s long-term role in stark terms.

“In a world where AI is in the wild, we want Ethereum to be the place with the big lock,” he said. “If I have the keys, I still have power.”

Crapis described the AI initiative that the EF is doing as one of several major priorities rather than the dominant one. Still, the move reflects a growing recognition within the crypto industry that AI will shape the next phase of the internet. If that future is mediated by intelligent agents rather than human clicks, the question becomes who controls the rails those agents run on.

Ethereum’s bet is that even if it doesn’t power the brains of AI, it can help govern the environment in which those brains operate, anchoring identity, coordinating payments and preserving user control.

Read more: Ethereum Foundation Starts New AI Team to Support Agentic Payments

Centralized exchange (CEX) and wallet app Backpack announced today, March 4, that it will offer early access to initial public offerings on-chain in partnership with Superstate.

Currently, Backpack is offering users access to a waitlist for the new offering. The exchange — which was founded by former employees of the now defunct FTX and Alameda — said in its announcement that it’s providing access to IPO shares “prior to open market trading.”

The IPO shares will be available on the Solana blockchain and give traders direct ownership of equity, the firm noted in its announcement.

The move expands on Backpack’s existing partnership with Superstate, the tokenization firm founded by Compound co-founder Robert Leshner. The two firms previously announced that Backpack had integrated Superstate’s on-chain equity platform Opening Bell to let the CEX’s users trade on-chain versions of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-registered stocks, as The Defiant reported.

Superstate first announced back in December that it will let companies issue new shares directly on-chain, on both Ethereum and Solana.

The cryptocurrency fundraising platform Giving Block reported that it had seen a surge in donations with stablecoins in 2025 compared with previous years.

In its annual report released on Wednesday, the Giving Block said there had been a “major shift” in donations using stablecoins, particularly with Ripple USD (RLUSD) and Circle’s USDC (USDC). The platform reported that it had facilitated more than $100 million in crypto donations in 2025, with more than $32 million coming through USDC, RLUSD, Tether’s USDt (USDT), Dai (DAI), and other stablecoins.

“The trend is clear: stablecoins are no longer a side story in Crypto Philanthropy—they’re becoming one of its fastest-growing channels,” said the report.

Notably, however, it was that $25 million in RLUSD may have come directly from Ripple Labs, which pledged the funds to the nonprofit organizations DonorsChoose and Teach For America in May. The Giving Block projected in its 2025 annual report that it could see up to $2.5 billion in total crypto donations.

Related: Spanish Red Cross launches privacy-first blockchain aid platform

Givepact, another crypto donation platform, reported in July that stablecoins had “rapidly become the top donated asset in crypto philanthropy,” citing data from the Giving Block. The platform said that the payment stablecoin bill signed into law in the US in 2025 elevated the assets to “cash-equivalent” status, which “eliminates lingering concerns about issuer solvency, particularly for nonprofits relying on predictable donation value.”

“Even during bear markets, donors are willing to give in stablecoins — helping nonprofits avoid volatility and process donations faster,” said Givepact. “With the GENIUS Act now in place, this trend is accelerating. Stablecoins are no longer just convenient — they’re federally recognized and institutionally trusted.”

Stablecoin yield under scrutiny in US market structure bill

As the US Senate considers legislation to establish comprehensive market structure for digital assets, the issue of stablecoin rewards has divided many industry leaders and lawmakers. The Senate Banking Committee has not yet rescheduled a markup to address the bill after a January postponement, while the White House has had three meetings with industry leaders to discuss how the government might handle stablecoin yield.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump took to social media to urge banks not to hold market structure “hostage” over digital assets. Many crypto companies and interest groups oppose a ban on stablecoin rewards in the bill, whose text has yet to be finalized before a potential vote in the full Senate.

Magazine: Bitcoin may face hard fork over any attempt to freeze Satoshi’s coins