Crypto World
AI to Strengthen DAO Governance
Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum, argues that artificial intelligence could reshape decentralized governance by addressing a core constraint: human attention. In a Sunday post on X, he warned that despite the promise of democratic models like DAOs, decision-making is hindered when members must tackle a flood of issues with limited time and expertise. Participatory rates in DAOs are often cited as low — typically between 15% and 25% — a dynamic that can concentrate influence and invite disruptive maneuvers when attackers seek to pass proposals without broad scrutiny. The broader crypto ecosystem is watching how AI tools could alter governance, privacy, and participation.
Key takeaways
- Attention limits are identified as a primary bottleneck in democratic on-chain governance, potentially hindering timely decisions in DAOs.
- Delegation, while common, risks disempowering voters and centralizing control in a small group of delegates.
- DAO participation averages around 15–25%, creating opportunities for governance attacks and misaligned proposals.
- AI-powered assistants, including large language models, could surface relevant information and automatically vote on behalf of members, provided privacy and transparency safeguards are in place.
- Privacy remains a critical design concern; proposals for private LLMs or “black box” personal agents aim to protect sensitive data while enabling informed judgments.
- Parallel efforts, such as AI delegates from the Near Foundation, illustrate practical explorations into scalable, participatory governance models.
Market context: The governance conversation unfolds amid broader discussions about AI safety, on-chain transparency, and regulatory scrutiny of token-weighted voting mechanisms. As networks scale, trials with AI-assisted decision-making could influence how quickly new proposals are vetted and executed, impacting liquidity, risk sentiment, and user participation across the crypto ecosystem.
Why it matters
The notion of AI-assisted governance enters crypto governance at a pivotal moment. If DAOs are to meaningfully scale beyond niche communities, they must solve the “attention problem” that limits who can participate and how often. Buterin’s argument centers on the danger that without broad and informed participation, governance can drift toward the preferences of a vocal minority or, worse, become vulnerable to coordinated attacks. The cited participation range, often quoted as 15–25%, underscores the fragility of consensus in diverse, globally distributed communities. When only a fraction of members engage, a coordinated actor with concentrated token holdings can steer outcomes that don’t reflect the broader base.
AI-powered assistants offer a potential path forward by translating dense policy options into actionable votes, tailored to an individual’s stated preferences. The idea rests on personal agents capable of observing user input — writing, conversations, and explicit statements — to infer voting behavior. If a user is uncertain about a specific issue, the agent would solicit input and present relevant context to inform the decision. This approach could dramatically increase effective participation without requiring each member to study every proposal in depth. The concept is anchored in current research into large language models (LLMs), which can aggregate data from diverse sources and present concise options for voter consideration.
Still, the privacy dimension looms large. Buterin has stressed that any system enabling more granular inputs must protect sensitive information. Some governance challenges arise precisely because negotiations, internal disputes, or funding deliberations often involve material that participants would prefer not to expose publicly. Proposals for privacy-preserving architectures include private LLMs that process data locally or cryptographic methods that output only the voting judgment, without revealing the underlying private inputs. The aim is to strike a balance between empowering voters and safeguarding their personal information.
Industry voices beyond Buterin echo this tension. Lane Rettig, a researcher at the Near Foundation, has highlighted parallel efforts to use AI-driven digital twins that vote on behalf of DAO members to counter low voter turnout. The Near Foundation’s exploration, described in coverage linked to AI delegation, signals a broader push to test AI-enabled delegation tools within a governance framework that remains accountable to the community. For those following the space, leadership in this domain is moving from conceptual discussions to concrete prototypes that can be observed and tested on real networks.
Another facet concerns strategic risk. The potential for “governance attacks” remains a real concern in token-weighted systems, where a malicious actor could amass enough influence to push harmful proposals. Researchers and builders are keen to ensure that any AI-assisted approach includes checks and balances, such as transparent audit trails, user override capabilities, and governance-rate limits to prevent rapid, unilateral shifts in policy. The literature and case studies cited in industry coverage emphasize that while technology can augment participation, it must not bypass the need for broad human oversight and robust protection against privacy invasions or manipulation. For context, earlier discussions in the crypto press have explored simulated transactions and other security models as ways to harden governance against abuse.
As the field evolves, partnerships and experiments in AI-assisted voting will continue to surface. The idea of “AI delegates” mirrors broader conversations about accountability and consent in automated decision-making. A number of projects have spotlighted the potential for AI to digest vast policy options, present them succinctly, and enable members to approve or customize how their tokens are used. The emerging consensus suggests that any path forward will require a layered approach: accessible information for all participants, privacy-preserving mechanisms for sensitive data, and safeguards against both technical and social vulnerabilities.
Readers can trace the thread of these ideas through related discussions on how governance models adapt to AI. For example, articles exploring the role of LLMs in decentralized decision-making and the implications for privacy and security provide a framework for evaluating new proposals as they emerge. The debate also intersects with broader AI governance conversations, including how to ensure that automated agents align with user intent without overstepping privacy boundaries or enabling unauthorized manipulation. The evolving dialogue recognizes that while AI can amplify participation, it should do so without eroding trust or undermining the democratic ethos at the heart of decentralized networks.
What to watch next
- Public pilots of AI-assisted voting or AI delegates in active DAOs, with timelines and governance metrics published in the coming quarters.
- Regulatory developments or guidelines affecting on-chain governance, including transparency and privacy standards for AI-assisted decision tools.
- Progress reports from the Near Foundation on AI delegates and related governance experiments, including measurable effects on participation rates.
- Technical demonstrations of privacy-preserving voting mechanisms, such as private LLMs or cryptographic approaches that protect input data while exposing voting outcomes.
- Ongoing analyses of governance security, including modifications to prevent governance attacks and ensure resilience against token-weighted manipulation.
Sources & verification
AI governance and the next frontier for on-chain democracy
In the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) ecosystem, researchers and builders are weighing how artificial intelligence could address the attention problem that Buterin highlighted. In a recent meditation on governance, he argued that the effectiveness of democratic and decentralized models hinges on broad participation and timely, expert input. Current participation rates for many DAOs hover around 15–25%, a level that can concentrate power among a small circle of delegates or core members. When the electorate stays largely silent, proposals with strategic misalignment can slip through, or worse, governance attacks can overwhelm a network by capitalizing on token-weighted voting power.
To counter these dynamics, the idea of AI-powered assistants that vote on behalf of members has gained traction. He suggested that large language models could surface relevant data and distill policy options for each decision, allowing users to consent to votes or to delegate tasks to an agent that reflects their preferences. The concept hinges on personal agents that observe your writing and conversation history to infer your voting posture, then submit a stream of votes accordingly. If the agent is uncertain, the agent should prompt you directly and present all relevant context to inform your decision. The vision is not to replace human judgment but to augment it with scalable, personalized insights.
The debate closely mirrors ongoing experiments beyond Ethereum. Lane Rettig of the Near Foundation has described AI-powered digital twins that vote on behalf of DAO members as a response to low turnout, a concept the foundation has explored in public discourse and research coverage. Such prototypes aim to maintain governance legitimacy while lowering the friction barrier for participation. The discourse reflects a broader industry consensus that AI-driven governance must be transparent, auditable, and privacy-preserving to gain wide trust across diverse communities.
Privacy considerations are not merely a secondary concern; they are central to any viable governance augmentation. Buterin has stressed the possibility of a privacy-forward architecture where a user’s private data could be processed by a personal LLM without exposing inputs to others. In this scenario, the agent would output only the final judgment, keeping private documents, conversations, and deliberations confidential. The challenge is to design systems that scale participation without compromising sensitive information or opening new vectors for surveillance or exploitation. The balance between openness and privacy will likely shape the tempo and nature of AI-assisted governance experiments across networks and ecosystems.
As the field evolves, several threads warrant close attention. First, concrete pilot programs will reveal whether AI delegates can meaningfully improve turnout and decision quality without eroding accountability. Second, governance models will need robust safety rails to prevent automated voting from overriding collective will through manipulation or covert data leaks. Third, privacy-preserving technologies will be essential to sustain user trust, especially in negotiations or funding decisions that could affect project trajectories. Finally, the ecosystem will watch the practical implications for security and resilience, including the potential for new forms of governance attacks and protective measures against them.
Crypto World
BNB Chain Launches BNBAgent SDK, the First Live Implementation of ERC-8183 for Trustless Onchain AI Agents
[PRESS RELEASE – Dubai, UAE, March 18th, 2026]
BNB Chain today announced the launch of BNBAgent SDK, the first live implementation of ERC-8183 and a complete developer framework enabling trustless onchain AI workflows. The release represents a major step forward in building the infrastructure needed for autonomous agents to operate at scale, with verifiable workflows, trustless settlement, and decentralized dispute resolution built in.
As AI agents move beyond experimentation into workflows where tangible value is involved, capability alone is insufficient. A key consideration is trust—specifically, the ability to verify results, resolve disputes, and settle payments in a reliable manner without dependence on centralized platforms.
The SDK provides:
- Onchain identity and reputation, built on ERC-8004 Every agent registered through the SDK gets a persistent onchain identity tied to ERC-8004, with a verifiable record of activity and outcomes that builds over time. Rather than being deployed in isolation, agents become discoverable participants that applications and users can evaluate and trust based on their actual track record.
- A standardized job lifecycle, no custom escrow required ERC-8183 establishes a shared protocol covering task creation, funding, execution, and settlement. The SDK puts that protocol directly in developers’ hands, so teams can integrate agent workflows without rebuilding contract logic for every new use case.
- Dispute resolution via UMA’s Optimistic Oracle When agent outputs go unchallenged, jobs settle quickly. When they are disputed, the SDK routes resolution through UMA’s Data Verification Mechanism, where token holders weigh in on the outcome. The process is transparent, decentralized, and doesn’t require either party to trust a third-party intermediary.
- A Python toolkit built for real workflows The SDK packages all of this into a Python developer toolkit with encrypted keystore support included by default. Developers interact with ERC-8183 using familiar patterns rather than writing low-level contract logic, and the architecture is designed to stay flexible as wallet systems and verification models continue to develop.
The code will be released publicly in the coming week, with mainnet to follow. For more information, users can visit the blog HERE.
About BNB Chain
BNB Chain is one of the largest and most active blockchain ecosystems in the world, supported by a global community of developers and users. With high throughput, low transaction costs, and full EVM compatibility, BNB Chain powers scalable applications across finance, gaming, and the broader Web3 economy. For more information, users can visit www.bnbchain.org.
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Crypto World
Ethereum’s Fast Confirmation Rule targets 13-second bridge times with 98% reduction: Ethereum Foundation
Ethereum’s proposed Fast Confirmation Rule aims to slash L1-to-L2 bridge and exchange deposit times from minutes to just 13 seconds without requiring a hard fork.
Ethereum is moving forward with a Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR) designed to dramatically accelerate bridge times between Layer 1 and Layer 2 solutions, as well as exchange deposits. The mechanism targets completion times of approximately 13 seconds—a reduction of 80–98% compared to current timelines—and achieves this without requiring a hard fork to the network.
The FCR leverages attestations rather than blocks to verify transactions, representing a shift in how Ethereum handles cross-layer confirmation speed. This proposal aligns with broader Ethereum roadmap efforts to reduce finality times and slot durations, part of a longer-term vision to make the network faster and more efficient for users and institutions.
Sources: Julian (@_julianma) on X | Binance Square
This article was generated automatically by The Defiant’s AI news system from publicly available sources.
Trump continues to urge Powell to cut the rates, but it’s highly unlikely.
With just hours left until the US Federal Reserve publishes its decision whether it will change in any way the key interest rates, BTC’s price has dived by roughly two grand in minutes, dropping to a multi-day low of under $72,500.
This would be the second-to-last FOMC meeting before the Fed’s chair, Jerome Powell, leaves office as his four-year term expires on May 15.
FOMC Today: What to Expect
The general consensus among experts and prediction platforms is that there will be no changes to the interest rates today. According to most reports, Powell will likely keep them the same, as the war in the Middle East has only increased uncertainty, with gas prices jumping worldwide.
“Heading into the March [Federal Open Market Committee] meeting, the key question for the Fed is how to handle oil price shocks,” wrote Morgan Stanley economists in a recent note as cited by NBC News.
At the same time, economists at UBS reaffirmed the narrative that the Fed will not pivot on its most recent monetary policy. BeiChen Lin, a senior investment strategist at Russell Investments, also believes there won’t be any changes today, but noted that “any hints Chair Powell might drop about the path of future interest rates will be key.”
US President Trump continues to request that Powell cut the rates, which has brought him little to no success over the past several months. It appears he would have to wait for his nominee, Kevin Warsh, to replace Powell in mid-May.
As reported yesterday, the central banks for the UK and the European Union will also have such meetings in the near future, but the landscape in those jurisdictions is rather identical, as the market does not expect any changes.
Bitcoin Slips
Bitcoin became one of the top-performing assets since the war started on February 28, and jumped from a then-low of $63,000 to $76,000 marked yesterday morning. Although it was stopped there, it managed to hold above $74,000 until a few hours ago.
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That’s when it started to lose value rapidly, dropping by around two grand in 90-120 minutes. The asset has a long history of reacting with intense volatility to Powell’s speeches, and more fluctuations are expected today, even if the Fed indeed leaves the rates as they are.
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The SEC just gave crypto its biggest regulatory green light in years.
Chair Paul Atkins floated a safe harbor exemption on March 18 that lets crypto projects operate without immediate securities registration. It is a direct reversal of the regulation by enforcement era that suffocated US-based development for years.
Token projects now have a compliant runway to decentralize without the threat of an SEC lawsuit hanging over them. For altcoin valuations, that changes the math entirely.x
- Atkins identified four asset categories—digital commodities, collectibles, tools, and payment stablecoins—that are not subject to securities laws.
- The safe harbor proposal offers a specific grace period for projects to reach decentralization without facing enforcement actions.
- Formal rulemaking is expected within weeks to replace temporary staff guidance and solidify these protections.
The Safe Harbor Framework Explained
Atkins is cutting through a decade of deliberate ambiguity.
Speaking at a Digital Chamber event, he laid out a framework that separates capital raising from the underlying asset. Four categories are now explicitly excluded from securities jurisdiction. Digital commodities, digital collectibles, digital tools, and payment stablecoins.
— BSCN (@BSCNews) March 18, 2026
UPDATE: SEC CHAIR PROPOSES CRYPTO SAFE HARBOR FRAMEWORK
USE SEC Chair, Paul Atkins, has proposed a new regulatory safe harbor for crypto firms in the US.
The framework aims to ease pressure on early-stage projects. It would allow firms to raise capital with fewer… pic.twitter.com/NRTHMyAv0J
For everything that does not fit cleanly into those boxes yet, the safe harbor buys time. Instead of Wells Notices for technically failing the Howey Test during development, projects face purpose-fit disclosures and a transparent path toward decentralization. Build first. Comply as you go.
Custody rules are also getting overhauled. Broker-dealers will be able to hold both crypto assets and traditional securities simultaneously. The special purpose broker-dealer model that no compliant firm could actually use is effectively dead.
Atkins is trying to bring crypto trading back to national securities exchanges and stabilize a market that has been hammered by legal uncertainty for years. Assets like XRP have historically exploded the moment regulatory clouds clear.
Those clouds are clearing fast.
Market Implications for Issuers and Exchanges
The immediate winners are US-based token issuers and exchanges.
Coinbase has operated for years under the threat that any listing could trigger a lawsuit. A formal safe harbor removes that existential risk entirely. That clarity is the missing piece institutional product approvals have been waiting for.
The ETF race is the most direct beneficiary. Solana’s push for a spot ETF has faced headwinds specifically because the SEC previously labeled SOL a security. If SOL lands in the digital commodity or digital tool bucket under Atkins’ new classification, the path to approval gets significantly shorter overnight.
The broader impact is a sector-wide repricing. Token prices have been trading at a discount for years to account for enforcement risk. Remove that discount and valuations adjust upward across the board.
The cost of capital just dropped for the entire industry.
Discover: The best new crypto in the world
The post SEC Chair Paul Atkins Floats ‘Safe Harbor’ Exemptions for Crypto appeared first on Cryptonews.
Opinion by: Vikram Arun, co-founder and CEO of Superform
Crypto cards aren’t the future of payments. They’re a temporary interface for a world that hasn’t fully accepted cryptocurrencies.
They rely on banks as issuers, Visa or Mastercard as gatekeepers, and compliance rules that look exactly like TradFi.
In most cases, crypto is sold into idle USD, the assets stop earning and every swipe creates a taxable event.
That’s not innovation. That’s a debit card with extra steps.
As digital banks built with blockchain rails scale, crypto cards that behave like debit cards will become obsolete, replaced by systems that treat cards as a thin interface on top of robust onchain credit.
The problem with current crypto cards
To understand why this shift is necessary, consider what happens with current crypto cards. When systems force users to liquidate holdings to spend, they reinforce the paradigm crypto was meant to escape: the false choice between liquidity and ownership.
Debit-style crypto cards recreate this same trade-off because they require assets to become spendable balances, which halts yield and makes the system structurally negative-sum without subsidies.
The IRS treats converting cryptocurrency to fiat currency as a taxable disposal, meaning each coffee purchase triggers capital gains reporting and permanently removes assets from productive use. Card issuers typically earn 1% to 3%, plus a flat fee per transaction, from interchange fees. The infrastructure looks decentralized on the surface, but the dependencies run deep.
Onchain credit fixes these issues
Instead of selling assets to spend, onchain credit enables people to deposit yield-bearing assets, open a credit line and spend against it. When people swipe the card, their debt increases, but their assets keep earning. Nothing is sold unless the person fails to repay. If the position falls below governance-defined parameters, liquidation is deterministic and transparent. This shift toward wallet-native credit shows onchain credit moving from concept to practice.
In this model, spending doesn’t reduce ownership; it increases debt. Collateral continues to compound until the credit line is repaid or liquidated. There are no forced conversions and no idle balances. Yield-bearing stablecoins currently offer about 5% yield, and DeFi protocols range from 5% to 12%, depending on demand and token incentives.
Users holding these assets in credit accounts keep earning while maintaining spending power.
Any earning asset can be collateral
This shift from debit to credit fundamentally changes what’s possible. Once credit becomes the primary primitive, the question stops being “what can I spend?” and becomes “what can safely secure my credit?” Eligibility is no longer about whether an asset can be instantly liquidated into cash. It’s about whether it can be priced continuously, risk bounded and unwound deterministically.
This allows productive assets to compete for inclusion. Vault shares, yield-bearing dollars, US Treasury-backed assets and strategy positions are first-class collateral that don’t need to be converted into idle balances. These assets remain productive until liquidation becomes required. When assets keep earning, users don’t have to choose between liquidity and yield, credit lines become cheaper to maintain and protocols earn from management and performance, not interest spreads.
The card is just an interface
The card is not the product. A card is simply a consumer-facing compatibility layer, a thin authorization surface, and not the source of truth. What actually matters is the credit line itself: the ability to price a user’s onchain balance sheet and decide, in real time, whether a spend should be allowed.
Related: Visa crypto card spending soars 525 percent in 2025
Cards serve merchants and consumers. Once credit is the primitive, however, interfaces become interchangeable. Software and autonomous agents can already request payment programmatically. Whether through cards or APIs, the underlying question is the same: Is this spend authorized against the user’s credit?
If credit logic lives within the card, people remain locked into interchange fee structures, closed payment rails and rigid KYC requirements. If credit lives onchain, cards become optional. Collateral stays in user-controlled accounts, spending is authorized in real time and liquidation is deterministic.
Managing risk through transparency
Of course, this system raises questions about safety. The most immediate objection is volatility. If collateral can fluctuate in value, what protects people from being liquidated while they are buying groceries?
Governance sets conservative loan-to-value ratios in advance, ensuring users can only borrow against a fraction of their collateral. As collateral earns yield, this buffer grows automatically. Pricing happens continuously, not at arbitrary intervals, and liquidation triggers are transparent from the beginning.
Traditional credit obscures risk through adjustable interest rates, surprise fees and terms buried in legal documents. Onchain credit makes risk explicit. Governance-set parameters mean the community decides what’s acceptable, not a bank’s risk committee behind closed doors.
The path forward
The answer to managing this risk lies in how the system is governed. Governance controls which assets can be used as collateral, how they’re priced, acceptable risk levels and when liquidations occur. People opt in by depositing collateral, and from that point on, the protocol enforces the rules without blanket access to funds or quietly changed parameters.
Crypto cards will not disappear because they failed. They will disappear because they succeeded by bridging crypto into a world that still runs on legacy rails. As wallets improve and crypto-native payments become standard, spending won’t require banks, issuers or card networks at all. Interfaces will change. Payment rails will evolve. But onchain credit will remain: the ability to spend without selling, to keep assets productive and to enforce risk transparently.
Cards are an interface. Credit is the system.
Opinion by: Vikram Arun, co-founder and CEO of Superform.
This opinion article presents the author’s expert view, and it may not reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. This content has undergone editorial review to ensure clarity and relevance. Cointelegraph remains committed to transparent reporting and upholding the highest standards of journalism. Readers are encouraged to conduct their own research before taking any actions related to the company.
Crypto World
Executive turnover clouds crypto payments firm RedotPay’s $4 billion U.S. IPO ambitions
RedotPay, a Hong Kong-based stablecoin payments startup, is facing internal strain and executive turnover as it seeks up to $150 million in fresh funding and works toward a U.S. IPO that could value the company at more than $4 billion.
Those ambitions are being clouded by executive turnover. At least five senior hires left within 12 months, and the company is pursuing its listing plans without a chief financial officer. Staff, according to a Bloomberg report, have often been asked to work late for extended periods.
The fundraising talks come only months after RedotPay raised more than $150 million across two rounds in September and December. It remains open to strategic investors, but does not face pressure to raise funds because of strong cash flow, Bloomberg said.
The company has grown fast. Investor materials show annualized payment volume passed $10 billion in December, while revenue doubled to $158 million. RedotPay says it now serves more than 6 million users in over 100 countries.
Its main product is a stablecoin payments app linked to a Visa card. Users can store stablecoins in the app and spend them at merchants or online, while the platform also offers remittance services and yield on some holdings.
Quiet bitcoin price action in the $74,000 area was shattered Wednesday morning on reports of military escalation in Iran and then February inflation data that came in far stronger than expected.
The declines started as U.S. President Donald Trump struck a more aggressive tone on Iran, suggesting further escalation in a series of Truth Social posts and calling the country the “NUMBER ONE STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR.”
Alongside, Iran’s state TV reported that part of that country’s South Pars gas field was attacked.
This followed reports that Israel killed Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib, while the U.S. deployed 5,000-pound bunker-buster bombs targeting missile sites near the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global oil flows.
That news combined to send the price of WTI crude oil from as low as $92 per barrel overnight to nearly $96.
Minutes later, the U.S. Producer Price Index for February rose 0.7% versus just 0.3% expected and up from January’s 0.5%. The core PPI rose 0.5% versus 0.3% expected, though down from January’s 0.8%. Importantly, the disturbing inflation data is from prior to the attacks against Iran and the subsequent sharp rise in the price of oil.
The data complicates the outlook for rate cuts, especially with oil prices still elevated, and is weighing on risk assets ahead of the U.S. stock market open.
Bitcoin has now fallen to $72,300, down 2% over the past 24 hours. Declines for ether (ETH), solana (SOL) and XRP (XRP) are closer to 3%. U.S. stock index futures have swung from solid gains to declines of about 0.4% across the board.
Fed comes later
Later in the day, the U.S. Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold rates steady, shifting the focus to Chair Jerome Powell’s messaging and how policymakers interpret the recent mix of growth risks and inflation pressures. Trump once again renewed calls for rate cuts in a Wednesday post, adding a political dimension to the meeting.
The effort involves eight cryptocurrencies and will take place at the start of April.
Binance revealed it will terminate all trading services for certain cryptocurrencies.
Somewhat expected, the tokens included in the effort nosedived by double digits immediately after the disclosure.
The Latest Announcement
Even though Binance supports a wide range of cryptocurrencies, their presence on the platform isn’t guaranteed forever and depends on factors such as trading volume, liquidity, network security, public communication, team commitment, and more.
Following its most recent review, the exchange decided to delist the altcoins Arena-Z (A2Z), Ampleforth Governance Token (FORTH), Hooked Protocol (HOOK), Loopring (LRC), IDEX (IDEX), Neutron (NTRN), Solar (SXP), and Radiant Capital (RDNT). The effort will take place on April 1 and will lead to the removal of spot trading pairs involving the aforementioned tokens. Meanwhile, Binance Spot Copy Trading will delist those assets on March 25.
“After this time, any outstanding assets will be force-sold at market price or moved to the Spot Account if the amount is unsellable. Users are strongly advised to update or cancel their Spot Copy Trading portfolios prior to Binance Spot Copy Trading delisting time to avoid potential losses,” the company warned.
Deposits of these tokens will not be credited to users’ accounts after April 2, while withdrawals won’t be supported after June 1. Delisted cryptocurrencies may be converted into stablecoins on behalf of customers after June 2, Binance clarified.
Such announcements usually trigger negative price reactions for the affected assets. After all, losing Binance support damages a coin’s reputation, reduces its liquidity, and limits its accessibility. Such was the case here as all of the involved altcoins headed south by double digits. IDEX was the biggest loser, with its valuation collapsing by 33% on a daily scale.
- IDEX Price, Source: CoinGecko
A similar thing was observed last week when Binance removed 21 cryptocurrencies, including WorldShards (SHARD), Alliance Games (COA), BNB Card (BNB Card), MilkyWay (MILK), Hyperbot (BOT), and others. Some of the assets saw their prices crash by an astonishing 70-80% shortly after the news broke.
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The Opposite Effect
On the contrary, backing from Binance typically has quite a positive price effect on the involved cryptocurrencies. Earlier this week, the exchange introduced the trading pairs CFG/USDT, CFG/USDC, and CFG/TRY, causing CFG’s valuation to surge 60% within minutes.
At the start of 2026, the lesser-known digital assets Moonbirbs (BIRB) and ETHGas (GWEI) also posted substantial gains after Binance launched the BIRB/USDT and GWEI/USDT perpetual contracts with up to 50x leverage.
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Australians are increasingly using cryptocurrency for day-to-day payments, even as banking restrictions continue to hamper access to the ecosystem.
Summary
- Crypto payments in Australia doubled to 12% in 2026 as more users turn to digital assets for everyday spending, led by online shopping and service payments.
- Nearly 30% of investors reported bank delays or blocks when transferring funds to crypto exchanges, up from 19.3% in 2025.
A recent survey by crypto exchange Independent Reserve, which polled 2,000 “everyday Australians” between Jan. 12 and Jan. 30, found that the share of users paying with crypto has doubled from 6% to 12% compared to the previous year.
According to the report, one in three Australians now own cryptocurrencies in 2026 and are viewing digital assets as more than just a speculative investment, with growing interest in real-world utility.
Nearly 21% of respondents reported using crypto for online shopping, making it the leading use case. It was followed by other applications such as freelancing payments and video game purchases, which accounted for 16%.
However, even as demand continues to build, banking-related issues remain a persistent challenge for users trying to access crypto services.
Among the respondents, nearly 30% said their bank had blocked or delayed a payment to a crypto exchange at least once. That figure marks a notable increase from 19.3% reported in 2025.
Such delays stem from tighter banking controls introduced in recent years, when several major institutions such as Commonwealth Bank and National Australia Bank rolled out measures including payment delays, transfer caps, and additional identity checks for crypto-related transactions.
“For many Australians, the lack of regulation hits home when a payment to a crypto exchange is delayed or blocked, an issue that has continued to rise for another year,” the report said, adding that “clear licensing and regulation can help fix this.”
Australian regulators are still undecided
Australia is still lagging behind other major economies in establishing formal legislation to effectively regulate the crypto sector.
So far, the federal government has primarily focused on a token mapping exercise and public consultations, while the Treasury continues to refine its proposed framework for digital asset service providers.
Earlier this week, Australia’s Senate Economics Legislation Committee said it was considering a new bill that would require crypto exchanges and tokenization platforms to operate under the country’s existing financial services framework.
Ethereum client teams are testing an opt-in mechanism that could cut the time some layer-2 networks and exchanges wait to recognize mainnet deposits, allowing them to process transactions much faster.
Summary
- Ethereum client teams are testing a Fast Confirmation Rule that could reduce deposit recognition times for layer 2 networks and exchanges to about 13 seconds.
- The proposal suggests replacing block counting with validator attestations, offering faster confirmation than canonical bridges while avoiding the need for a hard fork.
Dubbed the Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR), the proposal is expected to bring confirmation times down to around 13 seconds, according to Ethereum researcher Julian Ma.
By using this approach, platforms can move away from systems that rely on canonical bridges, where transfers typically take up to 13 minutes to reach full confirmation. However, many already rely on “k-deep” confirmation rules, which offer no formal guarantees. A transaction in such models is only treated as confirmed once a predefined number of blocks have been added on top of it.
Developers say the rule can be introduced without hard-forking, though client and API integration is still required.
Client teams are already working on implementations, with deployment expected to allow nodes to adopt the rule without network-wide coordination.
When using FCR, rather than counting blocks, the system evaluates validator attestations to determine whether a block is safe to treat as confirmed. This can solve the issue of slow bridging between Ethereum L1 and downstream platforms.
It does this by relying on two assumptions: that validator messages propagate quickly across the network and that no single entity controls more than 25% of staked Ether. While these thresholds fall short of Ethereum’s stricter finality guarantees, they are considered sufficient for most real-world use cases.
In cases where more security is needed, the system waits longer before confirming a block, Ma explained, adding that “it’s a feature, not a bug.”
Mixed community reaction
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the mechanism can provide a “hard guarantee” that a transaction will not be reverted after a single slot under the right network conditions.
But other community members remained skeptical about the proposal. Some argued that the model leans heavily on trust assumptions and may face challenges under stressed network conditions.
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