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Anchorage Adds Etherlink Institutional Custody for Tokenized Uranium

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Crypto Breaking News

Anchorage Digital Bank, the first federally chartered crypto bank in the United States, has expanded its custody offering to include Etherlink-issued assets on the Tezos ecosystem. The update adds custody support for Etherlink’s native tokenized uranium exposure through xU3O8, alongside additional Etherlink tokens such as wrapped Tezos (WXTZ), liquid staking token stXTZ, and major stablecoins.

In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, Anchorage said its institutional clients can now hold these assets in segregated custody accounts at the federally chartered bank, enabling regulated custody for tokens that settle via an Etherlink network that runs on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) while relying on Tezos for settlement.

Key takeaways

  • Anchorage Digital Bank added custody support for Etherlink assets, including xU3O8, a token backed by physical uranium exposure.
  • The custody integration is designed for institutional clients using segregated accounts at the federally chartered bank.
  • Supported assets include WXTZ, stXTZ, wrapped Ether (WETH), and stablecoins USDT, USDC, and USDSM.
  • Anchorage claims tokenization can reduce transfer and settlement time from weeks to minutes compared with traditional uranium intermediaries.
  • xU3O8 custody support is not new—Hex Trust previously integrated Etherlink for xU3O8 custody in August 2025.

Anchorage moves Etherlink custody into segregated bank accounts

The integration targets the institutional custody workflow Anchorage is built around: custody in segregated accounts at a federally chartered institution. According to Anchorage’s announcement, this means clients can hold assets issued on Etherlink—an EVM-compatible layer-2 network—within a regulated custody framework.

Etherlink’s positioning matters for investors because it allows assets to be issued and transacted on an Ethereum-compatible environment while settlement occurs on Tezos. For institutions, that combination can make it easier to support tokenized products that may otherwise require multiple operational layers across different networks.

Anchorage did not frame the move as a broader expansion beyond Etherlink tokens, but the specific selection of assets suggests a focus on both liquidity utilities and “core” market infrastructure tokens: wrapped assets (WXTZ and WETH), liquid staking (stXTZ), and stablecoins (USDT, USDC, and USDSM) alongside xU3O8.

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What xU3O8 is, and why tokenized uranium is attracting custody attention

xU3O8 is designed to represent ownership exposure to physical uranium without requiring investors to directly handle or store the underlying commodity. Anchorage’s announcement describes a traditional uranium investment process as involving “specialist intermediaries,” longer settlement periods, and higher minimum investment sizes.

The custody bank argues that tokenization changes the mechanics: it enables transfers and settlement “in minutes rather than weeks,” pointing to faster movement of exposure compared with earlier commodity trading and delivery workflows.

CoinMarketCap data cited in the original announcement places xU3O8’s market capitalization just above $9 million at current price levels. That relatively small market size underscores that uranium exposure via tokens remains a niche product—one that may be more dependent on institutional access and operational support than on mass retail adoption.

The full list of newly supported Etherlink assets

Alongside xU3O8, Anchorage’s Etherlink custody expansion includes the following assets, as reported in the announcement shared with Cointelegraph:

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  • Wrapped XTZ (WXTZ)
  • Liquid staking token stXTZ
  • Wrapped Ether (WETH)
  • Stablecoins: USDT, USDC, and USDSM

For institutional custody users, the mix is notable. Wrapped and liquid staking tokens can be used for portfolio rebalancing and yield-oriented strategies, while stablecoins are often needed for collateral, treasury management, and operational liquidity. Adding them to the same custody rail as xU3O8 suggests Anchorage is aligning the uranium exposure workflow with the practical day-to-day requirements of professional asset managers and funds.

Custody competition on Etherlink: Hex Trust added xU3O8 earlier

Anchorage’s decision to support xU3O8 is part of a broader trend: other institutional custodians have already moved in the same direction on Etherlink. Earlier, digital asset custodian Hex Trust integrated Etherlink in August 2025 to offer custody for xU3O8 and other Etherlink-issued assets, as noted in earlier coverage by Cointelegraph: Hex Trust integrated Etherlink to offer custody for tokenized uranium.

That earlier integration helps explain why investors watching tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) may see this as incremental but meaningful: multiple custodians are building operational capabilities around the same product rails and the same tokenized commodity exposure. Anchorage’s entry, however, is distinguished by its positioning as a federally chartered crypto bank, which may matter to institutions comparing custody providers’ regulatory status and account structures.

Still, questions remain for market participants. xU3O8’s comparatively small market capitalization suggests limited liquidity relative to mainstream token categories, and the long-term demand for commodity-linked tokens will likely depend on how easily institutions can expand from custody access into consistent trading and portfolio allocation.

As more custodians integrate Etherlink-based assets, traders and institutional allocators should watch whether liquidity for tokens like xU3O8 deepens and whether additional uranium- and commodity-linked products follow onto the same custody infrastructure—especially within regulated, segregated custody accounts.

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Risk & affiliate notice: Crypto assets are volatile and capital is at risk. This article may contain affiliate links. Read full disclosure

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Ripple Joins Velocity, Targets Payment Back End With $10 Million Extension

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Ripple Joins Velocity, Targets Payment Back End With $10 Million Extension

London-based Velocity has raised an additional $10 million, extending its Series A to $48 million at a $200 million post-money valuation, with participation from Visa Ventures, Circle Ventures, and Ripple. The fresh capital will fund infrastructure connecting stablecoins to existing payment networks, settlement systems, and corporate treasury operations.

The extension follows a $38 million Series A announced in July, which CEO Eric Queathem said was oversubscribed. Haun Ventures, Translink Capital, and Mirana Ventures also joined the extension round, pushing the total investor list well beyond typical crypto-native venture backers into strategic corporate money from a card network and a stablecoin issuer directly.

Velocity’s platform lets payment companies and banks use stablecoins for settlement, liquidity, and treasury operations without ripping out the systems they already run. That’s a deliberate scope: the company is targeting the layer connecting issuers, card networks, acquirers, and merchants, not the wallet consumers see.

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Stablecoin circulation has grown past $300 billion, with usage expanding from crypto-exchange dollar transfers into payments, cross-border transfers, and corporate treasury work, the exact seam Velocity is trying to occupy.

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The Back-End Layer Nobody Fixed

Queathem’s framing draws directly on his time at Worldpay, which settles more than $2 trillion in annual payment volume. His diagnosis: consumer payments got faster and slicker over the past decade and a half, but the machinery behind them didn’t.

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“All this capital has flowed into payments over the last 15 years, and it’s been 100% focused on how do you create a better experience on the front end for consumers,” Queathem said. “But no one has fixed the back-end layer.”

Discover: The Best Token Presales

Why Ripple Participates?

Visa’s check is notable precisely because Velocity isn’t pitching stablecoins as a card replacement. The company expects blockchain-based money to sit underneath existing payment rails, absorbing more of the funding and settlement work that happens invisibly to end users.

Visa’s Rubail Birwadker, global head of growth products and strategic partnerships, said stablecoins are playing an increasingly important role in reshaping how value moves across the Visa ecosystem, a statement that reads less like hedging and more like a network trying to own the migration rather than get disrupted by it.

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Velocity Chief Growth Officer Matt Larson made the consumer-invisibility point explicit: it probably doesn’t lead to everyone switching to stablecoin wallets. Instead, he expects the funding and settlement flowing around card networks to increasingly shift toward stablecoin rails while the front-end experience stays unchanged.

Queathem’s longer bet is more aggressive; he expects every global business to hold some value onchain within five years, which would create sustained demand for reconciliation and treasury tools bridging blockchain assets with legacy financial systems.

That’s a projection, not a confirmed trend, and it’s worth treating it as one. But the investor list here isn’t speculative money chasing a narrative. It’s a card network and a stablecoin issuer putting capital behind the specific thesis that treasury and settlement infrastructure, not retail wallets, is where stablecoin adoption compounds first.

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Ripple participation fits a broader pattern of the company pushing RLUSD and related infrastructure into institutional credit and treasury products rather than retail-facing crypto rails, reinforcing the same back-end thesis Velocity is selling to its bank and payments-company clients.

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The post Ripple Joins Velocity, Targets Payment Back End With $10 Million Extension appeared first on Cryptonews.

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Bitcoin steady as stocks slide following Fed rate hike, Warsh press conference

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Bitcoin steady as stocks slide following Fed rate hike, Warsh press conference

Bitcoin (BTC) traders aren’t exactly panicking about Wednesday’s expected Federal Reserve rate hike, but they aren’t taking many chances either.

Markets are pricing a 92.5% chance the Fed raises rates for the first time in three years after strong employment data and stubborn inflation. Bitcoin has spent the past 24 days stuck between roughly $76,000 and $80,000, with volatility falling to a one-month low.

For some traders, the quarter-point hike is already old news.

“The bond market has done its job and fully priced in tomorrow’s hike,” said Chris Sullivan of Hyperion Decimus. In his view, the bigger shock could come if the Fed doesn’t hike, since that could leave investors wondering what policymakers see that markets don’t.

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Crypto investors are still putting some money out of harm’s way.

Talos has seen a 28% net buying tilt toward stablecoins ahead of the meeting, according to research analyst Cooper Duschang. Around previous Federal Open Market Committee meetings, investors showed an average 8% selling tilt toward stablecoins.

Appetite for the two largest cryptocurrencies has moved in the other direction. Bitcoin buying conviction has dropped to 3% from 10%, while ether (ETH) has fallen to 9% from 23%.

“The clearest shift has been into stablecoins,” Duschang said. Investors, he said, appear to be “reducing risk and holding greater liquidity ahead of the Fed.”

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The bigger question for Wednesday afternoon is where that sidelined cash goes once the Fed decision is out of the way.

There is some precedent for a muted initial reaction. Bitcoin barely budged around the Fed’s last rate hike in July 2023, Duschang said, with the move largely priced in before the announcement.

The derivatives market isn’t showing much anxiety either. K33 Research said open interest across bitcoin futures and perpetuals remains below its yearly average, with little evidence of the kind of leverage that can turn a routine selloff into a wave of liquidations.

Oil is the wildcard. Crude has risen more than 20% over the past five days, according to Mark Connors, chief investment officer at Risk Dimensions. Higher energy prices could add to inflation even as the Fed tries to contain it with higher borrowing costs.

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Connors described another hike as “using a pitchfork to bail out our boat of inflation,” arguing that monetary policy can’t easily fix inflation caused by an oil supply shock.

For bitcoin, Wednesday may therefore be less about whether the Fed delivers the hike everyone expects and more about what Fed Chair Kevin Warsh says comes next.

Duschang will also be watching the stablecoins traders have accumulated. If that money starts moving back onto exchanges after the announcement, traders who spent the run-up getting defensive may be getting ready to put risk back on.

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Binance Unveils Multiple Delistings: Check Out the Affected Cryptocurrencies

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The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange will end support for several trading pairs across its margin and spot sections.

Many of the involved digital assets have entered red territory today (September 16), but is Binance the sole reason for their poor performance?

The Upcoming Delistings

The company conducts periodic reviews of all listed trading pairs on its platform and removes those that no longer meet key criteria, such as adequate liquidity, solid trading volume, development activity, and more.

Based on this research, it will delist the following cross-margin pairs: ENJ/USDC, GENIUS/USDC, CVX/USDC, and VANA/USDC, as well as the isolated-margin pair GENIUS/USDC.

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The actual removal is scheduled for September 18. On the same day, the exchange will terminate access to the BREV/USDC, COOKIE/USDC, LA/USDC, and QNT/USDC spot trading pairs.

“The delisting of a spot trading pair does not affect the availability of the tokens on Binance Spot. Users can still trade the spot trading pair’s base and quote assets on other trading pair(s) that are available on Binance,” the entity clarified.

Most of the cryptocurrencies included in the delisting efforts have posted daily losses, yet Binance doesn’t seem to be the main culprit behind the decline. Perhaps the main factor is the overall market correction, caused by the CLARITY Act failure.

Binance remains a behemoth in the industry and can trigger a major crash, but that typically happens when it terminates all trading services for certain tokens, not just trading pairs. Such was the case in August this year when it said goodbye to Across Protocol (ACX), Hashflow (HFT), PIVX (PIVX), Vulcan Forged PYR (PYR), Vanar (VANRY), and Viction (VIC). All affected coins plunged by double digits after the news.

On the other hand, Binance support can drive a substantial price pump. Just a few weeks ago, the exchange added PONS to its Binance Alpha section, thus contributing to the token’s rally and its brief entry among the top 100 cryptocurrencies.

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The Scam Warning

In addition to updating its platform, Binance recently issued a critical scam alert about phishing attacks targeting crypto investors. The team disclosed that attackers send fake text messages that seem official, such as “Your account settings were changed: or “Suspicious login detected,” to trick users into clicking malicious links that could result in painful losses.

“Remember: Binance will never ask you to tap a link in a text message to “verify” or “secure” your account,” the company emphasized.

It also outlined steps that could improve protection. People should never click on unfamiliar links, turn on Withdrawal Address Whitelist in the security settings, and enable Anti-Phishing Code.

The post Binance Unveils Multiple Delistings: Check Out the Affected Cryptocurrencies appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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Robinhood engineers charged over fraudulent Hyperliquid trades

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Robinhood Chain’s memecoin boom is already imploding

Two Robinhood engineers have been accused of using the platform’s confidential crypto listings to insider trade perpetual futures on the decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid. 

The US filed the charges yesterday against 36-year-old Hefu Chai and 30-year-old Huaisong Xiang, accusing them of wire fraud and commodities fraud.

Their knowledge of Robinhood’s plans to support certain cryptocurrencies was allegedly used to trade positions on Hyperliquid, which in turn constituted a breach of duty. 

Across 2025 and 2026, each of them allegedly made over $50,000 trading with the undisclosed information. 

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Read more: Did ‘insider’ secretly short Robinhood on Hyperliquid?

US attorney Jamie McDonald said, “Today’s charges make clear that corporate insiders cannot evade the securities and commodities laws by trading based on misappropriated information in derivatives like perpetual futures, tokenized securities, or other similar financial instruments.”

Robinhood insider trading was tracked in 2025

Onlookers linked yesterday’s filing to the work of pseudonymous researcher Astra Trades.

They uncovered a series of trades in 2025 that saw one user buying dozens of tokens, across a few months, minutes before they were listed publicly on Robinhood. 

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Astra Trades has also shared suspicious activity that involved well-timed Hyperliquid shorts on Robinhood stock that were placed just before disappointing earnings calls.

It believes it’s the same trader conducting the shorts and token pre-buys.

Not the first crypto insider trading case

In 2023, the US sentenced a former Coinbase employee who received the country’s first-ever crypto insider trading charge.

Ishan Wahi tipped off his brother and friend with confidential upcoming listings. They then purchased these cryptocurrencies before they were listed and sold them for profit around the time of the listings. 

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A new wave of insider trading has also plagued crypto-based prediction markets. 

Suspicions have been raised around markets involving Israeli military action, the kidnapping of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, and the Nobel Peace Prize

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on XBluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Deutsche Bank nears crypto custody service debut for institutional clients

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Crypto adoption in the U.S. is increasing with bitcoin (BTC) still dominating: Deutsche Bank

Deutsche Bank’s (DB) digital asset custody service is set to go live by the end of the year.

Germany’s largest bank said the service, subject to the completion of applicable regulatory checks, will give European institutional and corporate clients regulated custody of digital assets.

The service will support a select range of cryptocurrencies at debut, including bitcoin and ether and stablecoins like USDC and EURC.

“Digital assets are not a replacement for the traditional financial system but an important complement to it,” Deutsche’s co-head of corporate bank, Gerald Podobnik, said in an announcement on Wednesday.

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“We see them as new rails that coexist with existing marketing infrastructures. The service will be developed in line with client demand, regulatory requirements and the bank’s risk appetite,” Podobnik added.

Deutsche Bank was reported to be preparing a crypto custody service alongside exchange Bitpanda for debut sometime in 2026 last July.

As institutions and corporates adopt digital assets, they will likely gravitate toward asset-custody services offered by financial institutions they already rely on for their traditional financial portfolios.

Prominent Europe-based banks such as Standard Chartered and BBVA already offer such services.

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Zoomex TradFi Zone: How ETF Perpetual Contracts Work

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Zoomex TradFi Zone: How ETF Perpetual Contracts Work

Zoomex’s TradFi Zone includes a set of ETF-linked perpetual contracts alongside its single-stock and commodity lineup, giving users USDT-margined exposure to broad index, sector, and leveraged ETF products through the same interface used for crypto derivatives.

What an ETF perpetual is

A traditional ETF gives investors diversified exposure to an index or sector without picking individual stocks. It trades on an exchange during market hours, settles in fiat, and is bought and sold as a share.

An ETF perpetual contract references the same underlying product but works differently in three respects. It has no expiry, so a position can be held as long as margin requirements are met. It is margined and settled in USDT rather than fiat, which means no currency conversion and no separate brokerage account. And it trades continuously rather than during exchange hours.

That last difference is the practical one. A traditional ETF position cannot be adjusted when the underlying market is closed, which covers roughly two-thirds of every week once evenings and weekends are counted. A perpetual contract referencing the same ETF can be opened, adjusted, or closed at any point.

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The trade-off is that a perpetual contract is a derivative, not ownership of the underlying fund. It carries funding payments, margin requirements, and liquidation risk that a spot ETF holding does not.

The contracts available

Zoomex’s ETF perpetual lineup covers several distinct types of exposure.

Broad market index. SPYUSDT references the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, the most widely held ETF tracking the S&P 500, and gives exposure to the broad US large-cap market in a single contract. QQQUSDT references the Invesco QQQ Trust, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 and carries a heavier weighting toward technology than the S&P 500.

Small-cap exposure. IWMUSDT references the iShares Russell 2000 ETF, tracking US small-cap equities. Small caps historically behave differently from large caps across the economic cycle, which is why the contract sits in the lineup as separate exposure rather than as a variation on SPY.

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Sector-specific. XLFUSDT references the Financial Select Sector SPDR Fund, covering banks, insurers, and other financial companies. XLKUSDT references the Technology Select Sector SPDR Fund, covering the technology names within the S&P 500. Sector contracts let users take a position on a specific part of the market rather than the index as a whole.

Leveraged. TQQQUSDT references ProShares UltraPro QQQ, a 3x leveraged product tracking the Nasdaq 100. Because the underlying ETF is already leveraged, price movement in this contract is amplified relative to QQQ before any additional leverage a user applies on the platform. It is the highest-risk instrument in the group and behaves differently over multi-day holding periods than an unleveraged product, due to the compounding effects inherent to leveraged ETFs.

Source: Zoomex

How the contracts work on Zoomex

All ETF perpetuals run on the same infrastructure as Zoomex’s crypto perpetuals. There is no separate account, no different interface, and no distinct onboarding flow. Users search the ticker under the TradFi category and open a position the same way they would on any crypto pair.

Contracts are USDT-margined and support both cross and isolated margin modes. Published contract specifications cover leverage caps, tick size, funding rate schedule, and margin requirements, each visible before a position is opened rather than disclosed afterward.

Funding is exchanged at fixed intervals, following the same mechanics that apply to the platform’s crypto perpetuals. Because these contracts track assets that trade on traditional exchanges during limited hours, pricing outside those hours reflects the market’s ongoing assessment rather than a quoted exchange price, which is worth understanding before holding a position across a weekend.

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Positions can be opened long or short. The ability to take a short position without a margin account at a traditional broker is one of the structural differences between an ETF perpetual and a conventional ETF holding.

Risk considerations

ETF perpetuals carry the risks common to all leveraged derivatives. Positions can be liquidated if margin requirements are not met, and losses can exceed initial expectations in fast-moving conditions. Funding payments accrue over time and affect the cost of holding a position.

Leveraged ETF products such as TQQQ carry additional considerations. A 3x leveraged ETF is designed to deliver three times the daily return of its index, not three times the return over longer periods. Over multi-day holding periods, compounding means the realised return can diverge meaningfully from three times the index’s move over the same window, particularly in volatile or range-bound conditions. Users considering positions in leveraged ETF perpetuals should understand this behaviour before holding across multiple sessions.

Zoomex publishes contract parameters, funding schedules, and liquidation mechanics for every contract in the TradFi Zone. Users should review these before opening a position, and treat position sizing as a function of account balance rather than of available leverage.

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Why ETF perpetuals fit the Zoomex model

ETF perpetuals extend the same logic that underpins the rest of Zoomex’s TradFi Zone. The exchange has not pivoted away from crypto derivatives to chase traditional markets; it has extended the same derivatives engine, matching logic, and risk controls that already serve its crypto perpetuals to a wider set of underlying assets.

For users, that consistency is the point. The same margin mechanics, the same order types, the same risk tools, and the same published rules apply whether a position references Bitcoin or the S&P 500. A user who already understands how a crypto perpetual behaves on the platform does not need to learn a second system to take a position on an index.

Access follows the same Fair Access & Rule-Based Execution framework applied across the product suite. Contracts are not gated behind separate onboarding or tiered eligibility, and execution logic applies identically regardless of position size.

About Zoomex

Founded in 2021, Zoomex is a global cryptocurrency trading platform focused on derivatives trading. The platform serves over 3 million users across 35+ countries and regions, offering access to 700+ trading pairs. Built around ease of use, transparency, fairness, and speed, Zoomex provides a clear and efficient trading experience for users worldwide.

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Through its high-performance matching engine, clear asset and order displays, and transparent fee and rule mechanisms, Zoomex helps users better understand their account status, order execution, trading costs, and results. Zoomex maintains registrations, licenses, and regulatory statuses across multiple jurisdictions, including the U.S. MSB, Canada MSB, U.S. NFA, and Australia AUSTRAC, and has completed security audits conducted by blockchain security firm Hacken. The platform also continues to strengthen its trust framework through Proof of Reserves, Security & Transparency, Compliance Information, and Fees / Rules Transparency initiatives.

Beyond trading, Zoomex builds a refined brand experience through elite sports partnerships, including the TGR Haas F1 Team, World Cup-winning goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, and world-class tennis events such as Wimbledon. The values of speed, precision, discipline, fair play, and rule-based execution are closely aligned with Zoomex’s approach to derivatives trading.

At Zoomex: Easy to Use. Transparent balance. Fair access to your earnings.

The post Zoomex TradFi Zone: How ETF Perpetual Contracts Work appeared first on BeInCrypto.

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Italy investigates government email breach linked to Revolut data leak

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Italy investigates government email breach linked to Revolut data leak

Italy investigates government email breach linked to Revolut data leak

Italy is probing the Revolut-linked breach after its cyber agency reported more than 650 cases involving abused or illicit certified email accounts.

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September Fed statement redline: Here’s what changed

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September Fed statement redline: Here's what changed

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh speaks to reporters during his first news conference since taking the helm at the central bank on June 17, 2026 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

This is a comparison of Wednesday’s Federal Open Market Committee statement with the one issued after the Fed’s previous policymaking meeting in July.

Text removed from the July statement is in red with a horizontal line through the middle.

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Text appearing for the first time in the new statement is in red and underlined.

Black text appears in both statements.

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Quants are paying $4,000 a month to front-run Solana trades

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Quants are paying $4,000 a month to front-run Solana trades

According to a new investigation, validators are accepting payments starting at 10 SOL ($1,000) a month to leak early access to Solana trades they receive for block production.

Maximal extractable value (MEV) is on allegedly sale to quants via an incredibly valuable, realtime feed of pre-execution transactions.

Corvus Labs’ Andrei Vacariu traced payouts through a vault where Everstake, led by former Grayscale founding general manager David Kinitsky, sells a $4,000/month private data feed of pending trades.

He also claimed that Everstake salespeople are soliciting more validator node operators to join the scheme with offers of over 10 SOL a month.

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With this valuable information, sophisticated traders can allegedly front-run and sandwich-attack common orders on DeFi exchanges.

‘Every trader on Solana’

Vacariu spelled out the implications of his allegation for average users of Solana applications: “Every trader on Solana hits these slots, can’t tell which leaders mirror their traffic, and can’t opt out.”

Everstake, which runs one of Solana’s larger validators, with about 7.4 million SOL delegated to it, claims that it uses “filtering mechanisms specifically to prevent this type of activity,” and that it doesn’t encourage front-running or sandwiching.

Thanks to this largesse, Everstake’s traffic priority enjoys institutional “stake-weighted quality of service,” a service tier that it repackages via Blockspace.

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No public mempool, just high-priced, private mempools

Blockspace’s high-priced service only exists in the first place because Solana has no public mempool.

Unlike common memory pools of pending transactions that are free and easy to access on other blockchains, most Solana transactions travel straight to the validator scheduled to build the next block without queueing in any public mempool. 

That design was supposed to be net positive. Only the scheduled validator would see a trade before it executed, which should minimize MEV.

However, MEV opportunities haven’t disappeared under this model. Instead, they’ve consolidated into a high society of customers who can afford to pay thousands of dollars for slices of MEV opportunities directly from validators with over 15,000 SOL staked on Solana’s blockchain.

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Customers can run Everstake’s software, mirroring incoming traffic to Everstake servers before a block exists and rushing through new transactions earlier (or right after) retail orders.

Read more: Solana validator decentralization under scrutiny

Solana validators on the payroll

Everstake isn’t a single validator but rather an association of 39 validators who collectively have staked more than 50 million SOL.

Payouts from Blockspace’s revenue-sharing wallet, according to Vacariu, have disbursed to Prostaking, RockawayX, Staking Facilities, and Stake.org.

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Staking Facilities allegedly took more than 950 SOL in such payments since July, while Prostaking allegedly collected over 200.

Other major players in the Solana ecosystem, Blockspace noted, run MEV infrastructure through different architectures.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on XBluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Fed Hikes to 4%: Why Are 16 Officials Still Not Done?

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Fed dot plot. Source: CME FedWatch Tool

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by a quarter point on Wednesday, lifting the target range to 3.75% to 4.00%. All 12 voting officials backed the move, the first increase since 2023.

Forecasts released alongside the decision went further than the hike itself. A total of 16 of 18 policymakers now expect at least one more increase before the year ends.

The Statement Dropped Its Explanation for Inflation

The wording moved further than the rate did. In July, the Fed pinned part of high inflation on supply shocks in sectors including energy. That line is gone.

One claim replaced it. Wednesday’s increase will support a “timelier” return to the 2% goal. The closing promise survived intact, that the committee will deliver price stability.

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Officials also raised their assessment of business investment and swapped a reference to the Middle East conflict for broader geopolitical developments.

Projections Show 16 Officials Want Another Hike

The dot plot, a chart where each of 18 policymakers marks where they think rates should sit, turned sharply hawkish.

Fed dot plot. Source: CME FedWatch Tool
Fed dot plot. Source: CME FedWatch Tool

Officials put core Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) inflation, the Fed’s preferred price gauge, at 3.4% in December 2026 and 2.5% a year later. They cut the unemployment forecast to 4.1% for both years, from 4.3%.

BeInCrypto reported in June that nine officials had broken ranks. That count has now nearly doubled.

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Bitcoin Climbed While Gold Gave Up Gains

Bitcoin traded near $76,152 after the release, up 0.7% over 24 hours. Prices jumped from roughly $75,350 to above $76,100 within minutes of the announcement.

Gold went the other way. Spot prices spiked toward $4,368, then sold off hard and settled near $4,333.

Bitcoin and Gold Price Reaction to FOMC
Bitcoin and Gold Price Reaction to FOMC. Source: TradingView

The hike landed in a week already going badly for crypto. Bitcoin and XRP slid after the CLARITY Act’s failure in the Senate, a bill that would have set out which US regulator oversees digital assets, wiping out more than $300 million in leveraged bets.

White House adviser Christopher Phelan warned against a hike this week, citing falling inflation data. Chair Kevin Warsh has delivered zero cuts since Powell left.

Traders are keeping their bets on another increase this year. Warsh’s press conference decides whether that holds.

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