Crypto World
LayerZero has lost a dozen partnerships this year
Blockchain interoperability project LayerZero has lost a dozen partners this year as its ZRO token shed a third of its value.
The latest departure, Ethereum node service provider Nethermind, ran one of the verifiers that LayerZero advertised to enterprise users. It migrated to one of LayerZero’s competitors and terminated its role as verifier on Wednesday.
It joins a long list.
- Kelp DAO exited LayerZero in May after it lost $292 million through a bridge that a single LayerZero verifier secured.
- Solv Protocol deprecated its LayerZero bridges two days later, with Re.xyz making the same move.
- The following week, Kraken shifted its kBTC BTC-linked token off LayerZero, while Lombard pulled over $1 billion of BTC-backed assets one day later.
- Virtuals Protocol left LayerZero in June. Yuzu Money completed its exit in early July, and Mantle swapped out its Super Portal days later.
- BitGo took $7.7 billion of wrapped BTC out of LayerZero’s ecosystem in August.
- Huma Finance declined to use LayerZero for its product launched earlier this year.
Even the Wyoming Stable Token Commission, the lone state government in the pack of LayerZero partners, dropped its token bridge on Tuesday.
LayerZero targeted by Lazarus Group
More than $7 billion in assets had migrated off LayerZero by early July. BitGo’s exit lifted the tally toward $15 billion.
The panic began after LayerZero admitted that hackers at Lazarus Group poisoned its internal RPCs in April.
“We made a mistake by allowing our DVN to act as a 1/1 DVN for high-value transactions,” it said.
Protos documented the immediate fallout from that incident, with Aave pausing ETH-pegged token markets from LayerZero as depositors rushed for the exits.
Read more: Aave TVL still down 43% since KelpDAO hack
Hard to recover from an 88% drawdown
LayerZero co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino dismissed much of the early criticism as untrue.
Another defender argued that the departures amount to “about 3% of actual usage in volume and less than 1% of messages.”
Still, LayerZero has been retreating. ZRO, has lost 31% of its value this year, 56% over the past 12 months, and 88% from its December 2024 all-time high.
In July, it announced it was “winding down support for a number of chains with minimal activity across our offchain services and Stargate products.”
The same notice told Stargate users on those chains, “Failure to act before chain support is fully deprecated will result in losing access to your funds.”
LayerZero warned teams still using v1 libraries would face an August 3 shutoff.
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Grayscale has disclosed discussions with a Digital Currency Group (DCG) subsidiary over a contribution of roughly 200,000 ZEC to its Zcash Trust, in an August 18 amendment to the registration statement that would move the fund onto NYSE Arca.
Grayscale Investments Sponsors, the trust’s sponsor, said it is in discussions with DCG International Investments Ltd. for the unit to acquire shares through an authorized participant in exchange for the tokens. The filing adds that “because these discussions are not binding agreements or commitments to purchase, the Potential Investor could determine to purchase more, fewer, or no Shares.”
Moreover, the trust intends to list under the ticker ZCSH, which already carries its shares on OTCQX. Net asset value was $155.2 million on June 30, when the trust held about 2.3% of circulating ZEC, and shares closed at $36.6 on August 12 at a 7% discount to NAV per share.
Since October 2021, the shares have been quoted at a discount on 700 days, with a maximum discount of 55% and a maximum premium of 240%, though the SEC has not approved or disapproved the shares.
DCG Sits on Both Sides
Grayscale’s parent would take a controlling position if the contribution is completed. DCG “may, directly and indirectly through the Potential Investor and other affiliates, own a majority of the Shares representing ownership in the Trust,” the filing states, and would hold “the ability to control the outcome of virtually all matters presented to our shareholders for their approval.”
DCG also mines the asset. Fortitude Mining, a DCG subsidiary, mines ZEC and runs infrastructure on the network, while Foundry Digital operates a ZEC mining pool that accounted for approximately 15.4% of the Zcash Network’s hash rate for the month ended July 2026.
DCG “could prioritize its own interests in these and other investments over those of the Trust,” according to the filing. Zcash itself shipped the Ironwood upgrade and its turnstile mechanism after a counterfeiting bug surfaced in the Orchard shielded pool.
Fee Line Still Blank
The Sponsor’s Fee, the only ordinary recurring expense the trust expects, appears in Amendment No. 4 with its annual rate left blank, as does the trust’s intended new name. Coinbase Custody Trust Company holds the ZEC, and Coinbase is the prime broker.
Grayscale has run this conversion before. The SEC cleared its Digital Large Cap Fund for NYSE Arca alongside generic listing standards that removed the 19(b) filing requirement, and the manager earlier filed to convert its XRP trust into an ETF on the same exchange.
ZEC traded at $550.78 on August 19, according to CoinGecko, with a market capitalization of $9.3 billion.
The post Grayscale Discloses Talks Over 200,000 ZEC Contribution to Zcash Trust From DCG Unit appeared first on CryptoPotato.
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Two upgrades in the testnet and one number that keeps coming up: 200 million gas. Google Gemini AI predicts that the throughput jump reframes what Ethereum can carry, and the price prediction targets $3,200 to $4,200 by the end of 2026, with $3,500 as the base case from $2,100.
The Platåberget testnet for Glamsterdam anchors the case. It introduces block-level access lists through EIP-7928.
Enshrined proposer-builder separation arrives alongside it via EIP-7732. Together, those drastically expand Layer-1 gas throughput toward that 200 million figure.
Client developers are already finalizing the next scope. The Hegota upgrade has confirmed FOCIL through EIP-7805. Native account abstraction is under evaluation as EIP-8141. Both feed stateless validation via Verkle trees.
The practical result is cheaper node hardware. Gemini frames that as the path to institutional-grade network efficiency. The main invalidation risk is macro drag. Technical resistance at the 200-day EMA near $2,140 is the near-term obstacle.
Losing the $1,800 support zone is the larger threat. That risks a leg down toward $1,200.
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Ethereum Price Prediction: Gemini AI Predicts Two Hundred Million Gas Changes The Math
The daily chart has just delivered its strongest session in months. ETH peaked near $4,950 last September before a long unwind began. November and December cut price toward $2,600. February brought the sharpest break, dropping ETH near $1,780.
Spring recovered to $2,450 by May. June reversed that entirely, marking the low around $1,480. July and August rebuilt slowly. The latest session then broke sharply higher, clearing $2,100 in a single move.
The close reads $2,124.2, up 10.83%, and $207.6. The daily range covered $1,904.9 to $2,132.2. Support sits at $2,000, then $1,800 and $1,480. Resistance appears at $2,140 at the EMA Gemini names, then $2,450 and $2,800.
RSI reads 77.11 with its signal line far below at 54.97. That gap of more than 22 points is extreme and confirms a violent momentum shift. The oscillator is now clearly overbought. Momentum is strongly bullish, though readings this stretched typically cool before continuing.
Gemini’s base case needs a 65% move from here. Closing above that 200-day EMA is the first hurdle standing in front of it.
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Ethereum Is Chasing 200M Gas. Bitcoin Hyper Is Taking the SVM Route to Scale BTC.
Ethereum’s next valuation case depends on dramatically expanding what the base layer can process. Bitcoin Hyper is tackling the same bottleneck from a different direction: giving Bitcoin a faster execution environment without asking the Bitcoin network itself to become something it was never designed to be.
Bitcoin Hyper runs on the Solana Virtual Machine, bringing high-speed transactions, low fees, and smart contract functionality into a Bitcoin Layer 2 ecosystem.
Its Canonical Bridge is designed to move BTC into that environment, while HYPER powers gas, staking, and governance across the network.
That makes the thesis less about changing Bitcoin and more about extending what Bitcoin capital can actually do.
The presale has already raised more than $33 million, while buyers can currently stake HYPER for yields of up to 35% APY ahead of the project’s planned 2026 launch.
Explore the Bitcoin Hyper Presale
The post Google Gemini AI Predicts an Unexpected Prediction on Ethereum By The End of 2026 appeared first on Cryptonews.
XRP price trades at $1.18 as of this writing, up 18% on the day in a follow-through move that’s keeping the “biggest rally prediction since 2020” narrative alive. But there’s a catch most headlines are skipping over, and it involves where the smart money actually went.
The token jumped 10% on August 19, beating Bitcoin’s 7% gain and finishing third among the eight largest coins during a record-wide short squeeze. Based on XRP’s 180-day correlation with Bitcoin, the move should have produced 6.57% upside, but it delivered 3.83 points more than that. It is a real outperformance, not just a beta ride.
Ripple is about to flip the switch! —
HODL $XRP!! 
pic.twitter.com/Y4rY8qfBov
BULL RUN WONKA XRP (@WillyWonkaXRP) August 19, 2026
However, spot ETF flows tell a different story: Bitcoin funds pulled in $517 million that day, nearly triple the prior pace, while XRP’s institutional pipes stayed comparatively quiet.
This gap in retail momentum without matching institutional confirmation sets up the next question. Can the chart hold what the squeeze built?
Discover: The Best Token Presales
XRP Price Prediction: Hit $1.30 This Week?
At $1.18 and rising nearly 20% in 24 hours, XRP sits just above the $1.10–$1.12 resistance band that’s capped multiple rallies since early August, per recent technical coverage. Volume above $3–4 billion daily suggests the move has real participation behind it, not thin-book noise.
The 200-day moving average near $1.28 is the next real test, and clearing it decisively would open room toward the $1.29–$1.45 zone analysts have flagged as the next demand shelf.
In a good scenario, a confirmed break above $1.20 extends the squeeze toward $1.30–$1.45. A consolidation between $1.00 and $1.20 continues while ETF flows catch up.
However, a rejection at resistance sends price back toward the $1.00 floor that’s held all year, and a break below that invalidates the entire rally thesis. This is worth watching before chasing this candle.
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Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early Mover Upside as XRP Tests Key Levels
XRP bulls have earned some validation here; an 18% daily pop and a rare win against Bitcoin is nothing to dismiss. But at a $68 billion-plus market cap, XRP’s percentage upside from here is mathematically constrained even in a strong breakout scenario.
That’s the trade-off of buying an asset this size: the squeeze gets headlines, the multiples don’t move like they used to. Capital chasing outsized returns is increasingly rotating toward earlier-stage infrastructure plays instead, and Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) is drawing that attention as the first Bitcoin Layer 2 with native SVM integration.
The presale has raised $33 million at a current token price of $0.0136849, with staking rewards available at launch with a huge 35% APY reward. The pitch: Solana-speed execution secured by Bitcoin’s base layer, via a decentralized canonical bridge, is solving the slow, expensive, non-programmable problems that have limited BTC’s utility for years.
Research Bitcoin Hyper before deciding whether that risk fits the portfolio.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
The post XRP Price Prediction: Can Ripple Extend Its Biggest Rally Since 2020? appeared first on Cryptonews.
The 1.66 mile, 7-turn track begins on 3rd Street near the Capitol building at the east end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., before jutting down Pennsylvania Avenue, the course’s longest straight at 0.4 miles. It then makes turns on 9th Street, 7th Street, and Independence Avenue, passing sites including the Lincoln Reflecting Pool and the Smithsonian Museum before circling back onto 3rd street to finish off.
Who’s paying?
Penske Corp., the owner of IndyCar, is picking up most of the tab for the race, according to Bud Denker, Penske Corp. president and chair of the Freedom 250 Grand Prix.
An exact price tag for the event is unknown, but Denker said in July that the race is “much more” than IndyCar’s Detroit street race, which has a budget of $20 million.
A $90 million budget allocated by Congress for special events in Washington will cover security costs, according to Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah, who spoke at a public briefing in July.
US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) recorded $517.2 million in net inflows on Wednesday, their largest single-day investment since May 4, pushing August net inflows to $1.47 billion.
The funds have taken in about $1 billion since Monday, already their strongest weekly net inflow since the week ended Jan. 16, when they attracted about $1.42 billion.
The inflows came as crypto prices rallied on Wednesday, alongside a US Treasury decision to expand buybacks of longer-dated government debt and renewed attention on crypto regulation after President Donald Trump urged Congress to advance the CLARITY Act at a White House event.
“The Treasury signalling it’ll step in at the long end pushed yields and the dollar lower, and gold and silver outperformed equities on the day, so the market priced this as a currency event rather than a growth one,” Jonatan Randin, senior market analyst at PrimeXBT, told Cointelegraph.
“Bitcoin moved with gold and silver rather than with risk appetite, which is what the debasement trade looks like when it’s working,” he said.
Bitcoin traded near $72,000 at the time of writing on Thursday, up 11% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Ether rose 19% to $2,286.
Spot Ether ETFs logged $189.2 million in net inflows on Wednesday, bringing this week’s inflows to about $291.5 million.
Related: Standard Chartered analyst eyes $100K BTC as US Treasury doubles long-end buybacks
It isn’t clear if an increase in cannabis use, for example, is driving some of the decline. “We don’t know if it’s a substitution, but that’s a question we need to answer,” Toomey says.
Saad, of Gallup, says there could be political factors at play too. According to the new Gallup poll, alcohol use has declined significantly among Republicans and Independents, while Democrats’ alcohol consumption has remained virtually unchanged since 2023.
“It could be worth looking into what kind of political messaging is going on, and if it’s more effective among Republicans and Independents than Democrats,” Saad says.
She notes, however, that “we haven’t seen strong anti-alcohol messages out of the [Trump] Administration.” In January, the administration released updated dietary guidelines that no longer specified a daily limit for alcohol consumption.
Bitcoin (BTC) saw multimonth highs after Thursday’s Wall Street open while stocks dipped and bond yields rebounded on US-Iran war nerves.
Key points:
- Bitcoin builds on its highest levels in 11 weeks to hit $72,500 on Bitstamp.
- US bond yields see volatility after president Donald Trump threatens “economic warfare” with Iran.
- Bitcoin market participants question whether the rally has staying power.
US bond yields reverse higher after Trump pledges “economic warfare” with Iran
Data from TradingView showed BTC/USD retesting $71,000 before hitting new 11-week high of $72,505 on Bitstamp, up by more than 4% on the day.
BTC/USD one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
US equities opened lower after US president Donald Trump threatened Iran with the “most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country,” calling it “Economic D-Day.”
“This will be economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social amid frustration over the lack of a deal with the US on the Strait of Hormuz oil route.
WTI crude oil reached $87.69 per barrel on the day, its highest since July 24.
CFDs on WTI crude oil one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The comments further appeared to cause a rebound in US government bond yields, which had fallen sharply the day prior after the US Treasury announced that it would at least double the size of its bond-market liquidity interventions from September.
The 30-year yield traded as low as 5.179% on the day before rebounding to 5.266% — an increase of 9 bps, which nearly erased the previous downside. The 10-year bond yield also reversed the previous day’s drop.
US 30-year bond yields one-day chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView
The Kobeissi Letter cast doubt on whether the intervention would be sufficient to calm markets.
“It’s going to take a lot more intervention to tame this beast,” it wrote in a post on X. The Treasury confirmed in its announcement that it would revisit the size of debt buyback operations on Nov. 4.
US 10-year bond yields chart. Source: The Kobeissi Letter on X.com
Analysis: Too early to call Bitcoin bull-market comeback
After gaining nearly $10,000 over four days, Bitcoin left market participants skeptical about the durability of its newfound strength.
Related: Bitcoin has ‘largely purged’ froth that preceded 50% drop from $126K: BlackRock
In ongoing X coverage, trader and analyst Rekt Capital argued that BTC/USD would need to sustain its gains to challenge the grip of the bear market.
“Bitcoin will need to rally a lot more than what it has produced thus far if price is to invalidate the ‘weakening support’ idea. At the moment, technicals are pointing to $60k as a weakening macro support,” he wrote on Thursday.
A further post noted that four-year BTC price cycle patterns would allow for a new macro BTC price low until the end of 2026.
BTC/USD one-month chart. Source: Rekt Capital on X.com
Continuing, Ki Young Ju, CEO of onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant, flagged the return of positive demand for Bitcoin on both spot and derivatives markets — a phenomenon not seen since October 2025, when BTC/USD saw its most recent all-time high of $126,200.
“The scale remains modest, but if this holds for another month, it would be reasonable to conclude that the bear market is over and a new bull cycle has begun,” he told X followers.
Previously, Cointelegraph reported on the lack of spot demand as a key missing catalyst for a sustainable crypto market reversal.
Bitcoin demand growth data. Source: Ki Young Ju on X.com
U.S. financial literacy scores are falling and researchers think they’ve pinpointed an overlooked factor in the plunge — the “smartphone penalty.” Research suggests smartphones lead to less engaged survey participants, and are therefore partly to blame for declining financial literacy scores on surveys conducted over the past 15 years. “We found that using a smartphone to answer survey questions leads…
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