Crypto World
Pi Network’s pivot to AI and identity infrastructure
On Pi2Day, Pi Network stopped talking about mobile mining and started talking about infrastructure, launching tools to sell its compute, identity, and verification to the outside world. It is a real strategic pivot toward the AI era. Whether it fixes Pi’s actual problem, a token down 96% with no demand, is the harder question.
Summary
- On June 28, 2026, Pi Network used its annual Pi2Day event to launch three products, SoloHost, Pi Sign-in, and PiVerify, reframing the project from a mobile-mining app into infrastructure for compute, identity, and AI.
- SoloHost turns Pi Desktop into a platform for local, privacy-first AI apps and, in time, distributed computing across Pi’s hundreds of thousands of user-run nodes, with node operators paid in Pi.
- Pi Sign-in offers a “sign in with Pi” identity login for third-party apps, and PiVerify opens Pi’s human-verification system, which has checked over 18 million users, to outside businesses that pay in Pi.
- The pivot is a credible attempt to monetize Pi’s genuine assets, a large verified user base and a node network, by targeting real demand for private AI, decentralized compute, and trusted digital identity.
- The harder problem is that none of it directly addresses Pi’s core issue: a token down roughly 96% from its peak, weighed down by daily unlocks and migration supply, with no tier-one exchange listing, and the price fell after the announcement.
On June 28, 2026, Pi Network used its annual Pi2Day celebration to make a statement about what it wants to become, and for once the statement was not about mining. The project that grew famous as a mobile app letting tens of millions of people tap a button each day to earn tokens launched three products, SoloHost, Pi Sign-in, and PiVerify, and framed them as a deliberate pivot: from a mining-centric community toward an infrastructure provider for the artificial-intelligence era, offering compute, identity, and verification services to the outside world. The pitch was explicit. Rather than relying only on growth inside its own walled ecosystem, Pi would begin selling its genuine assets, a verified user base of more than 18 million people, a network of hundreds of thousands of user-run nodes, and a hybrid human-verification system, to external developers and businesses.
It was, by the standards of a project often dismissed as a mobile mining curiosity, a substantive strategic statement, and several observers called it the most concrete attempt yet to give Pi real utility beyond its internal apps. The reception was telling, and it frames the question this article examines. The new products were widely covered and broadly seen as more serious than Pi’s usual announcements, yet the token’s price fell after the news, extending a long decline, and the community split between those who welcomed a focus on real infrastructure and those frustrated that, once again, there was no major price catalyst and no tier-one exchange listing. That split is the heart of the matter.
This piece works through what Pi actually announced and what each product does, the logic behind the pivot and why it could matter, the harder reasons it may not move the needle, the community’s divided reaction, the identity angle that may be Pi’s most distinctive asset, and what would have to happen for the pivot to become real. The analysis is information, not advice. The honest framing throughout is that Pi has made a genuine strategic turn toward a credible thesis, and that a strategic turn is not the same as a solution to the supply-and-demand problem that has defined the token’s brutal 2026.
What Pi actually launched
Begin with the products, because the substance matters more than the framing. The headline release is SoloHost, an open, permissionless framework built into Pi Desktop that lets developers build and list applications which users run locally on their own computers, rather than on remote servers. Its emphasis is privacy-focused local AI: the flagship example shipped alongside it, an open-source AI agent, runs and stores its data entirely on the user’s own device, so a person can use AI assistance while keeping their data off third-party servers. SoloHost effectively turns a Pioneer’s computer into their own server, accessible from their phone through the Pi Browser, which lowers the technical barrier to running self-hosted software.
Looking further ahead, SoloHost is positioned to support distributed computing: the network plans to let its node operators contribute computing power to AI tasks, turning the hundreds of thousands of user-run Pi nodes into a practical computing layer for AI workloads, with participating nodes compensated in Pi by the third-party clients that use them. That last detail matters, because it is a direct attempt to create external demand for the token. The other two products target identity and authentication. Pi Sign-in is an authentication service that lets people log into supported third-party websites and apps using their existing Pi account, much like the familiar option to sign in with a major technology provider’s account.
It gives outside developers access to Pi’s large, verified user base while offering users a password-free login, and it extends Pi’s reach beyond its own browser into the wider web. PiVerify is arguably the most strategically interesting of the three: it opens Pi’s identity-verification system to external businesses, letting them use Pi’s know-your-customer and human-verification infrastructure, with those businesses paying in Pi. This is built on a verification base of real scale, a hybrid system combining automated and human checks that has reportedly verified over 18 million users across more than 200 countries and regions. Taken together, the three products share a single thesis: compute through SoloHost and the node network, identity through PiVerify and Pi Sign-in, and privacy-preserving AI running through all of it.
Each is designed to let outside parties use Pi’s existing resources and, in several cases, to pay for that use in Pi. The substance is real, and it is a meaningful departure from the mobile-mining identity that has defined the project. For readers who need the older model first, Pi’s mining and consensus basics explain why the daily tap was never computational mining in the Bitcoin sense. Pi2Day’s message was that the project now wants the conversation to move from how people earned PI to what the network can sell.
The logic of the pivot
The strategy behind these launches is more coherent than Pi’s critics often allow, and it rests on a clear-eyed assessment of what Pi actually has. After years of operation, Pi’s genuine assets are not a sophisticated technology stack or a thriving decentralized-finance ecosystem; they are scale and identity. The project has tens of millions of registered users, more than 18 million of them verified through identity checks, and a network of hundreds of thousands of nodes run by ordinary people on their own computers. Those are unusual assets.
Few crypto projects have a verified human user base of that size, and few have a distributed network of that many participant-operated nodes. The pivot is an attempt to monetize precisely those assets by turning them into services the outside world might actually pay for: the node network becomes a compute layer, the verified user base becomes an identity and authentication resource, and the whole thing is pointed at the demand wave around artificial intelligence. The timing aligns with real trends, which is what gives the thesis its credibility. Three of the most sought-after capabilities in technology right now are privacy-focused local AI, in which computation happens on a user’s device rather than in a corporate cloud; decentralized compute, in which distributed networks provide processing power outside the big data centers; and trusted digital identity, which has become acutely valuable as AI-generated content and bots make it harder to know whether an online actor is human.
Pi’s three releases map directly onto those trends: SoloHost addresses local AI and decentralized compute, while PiVerify and Pi Sign-in address trusted identity. The deeper narrative Pi has leaned into is “human infrastructure for AI,” the idea that its validator network, which has processed enormous volumes of human-verification tasks, makes it a provider of proof-of-human services in an age when distinguishing people from machines is increasingly difficult and increasingly valuable. The founders made this case publicly at a major industry conference, signaling that the pivot is a considered repositioning instead of a one-off product drop. As a strategy, monetizing real scale against genuine demand trends is a reasonable plan, and a more credible one than waiting for an internal app ecosystem to spontaneously produce value.
Why it could matter
Give the bull case its full weight, because parts of it are sound. The first point is that Pi is, for the first time, attempting to create external demand for the token instead of relying solely on internal ecosystem growth. The mechanisms are concrete: businesses using PiVerify pay in Pi, third-party clients using node compute through SoloHost pay node operators in Pi, and external developers tapping Pi Sign-in bring their users into contact with the network. If any of these gains real traction, it would represent something Pi has never had, namely outside parties paying to use Pi’s resources, which is a far healthier source of token demand than speculation or mining rewards.
Genuine utility demand, money flowing in from external use, is exactly what a token needs to escape a purely speculative valuation, and the pivot is at least pointed at creating it. The second point is that Pi’s scale is real and hard to replicate. A verified user base in the tens of millions and a node network in the hundreds of thousands are assets that most projects pursuing identity or decentralized compute would envy, and if Pi can convert even a fraction of that scale into paying external usage, the numbers could be meaningful. The third point is that the trends Pi is targeting are not hype cycles likely to fade quickly; privacy-preserving AI, decentralized compute, and trusted identity are durable, structural demands that are growing as AI adoption accelerates, so Pi is aiming at expanding instead of shrinking markets.
The fourth point is signaling: the launch represents Pi’s most serious attempt yet to position its existing resources for real external use, and a project that ships substantive infrastructure and pitches it at conferences is behaving more like a builder than a promotional scheme, which has value for credibility even before adoption arrives. None of this guarantees success, but it confirms that the pivot is a real strategy aimed at real demand using real assets, which is more than the project’s harshest critics concede. The bull case is not empty. The key is that the bull case depends on usage showing up outside Pi’s own community, not simply on another announcement cycle.
That is also why the SoloHost compute model matters beyond Pi itself. In crypto terms, Pi is trying to move closer to a DePIN-style thesis, where users contribute hardware resources and receive token incentives when external demand pays for those resources. If Pi can turn its node network into a usable compute market, the token gains a clearer reason to circulate. If it cannot, SoloHost remains a credible feature without becoming a meaningful demand engine.
Why it might not move the needle
Now the hard part, because the bull case runs into a problem the new products do not directly solve. Pi’s central issue is not a lack of strategy; it is a brutal supply-and-demand imbalance that the pivot does not address head-on. The token trades near $0.12, down roughly 96% from its peak near $3 in early 2025, weighed down by a structural overhang: large daily unlocks add millions of new tokens to the sellable supply, and the ongoing migration of users from the app to the mainnet steadily converts previously locked balances into liquid, sellable tokens, all against demand that has so far been thin and unproven. On top of that, Pi still lacks a listing on a top-tier exchange, which limits the buying power and liquidity available to absorb the supply.
The new products, however credible as a long-term strategy, do nothing immediate about the daily unlocks, the migration overhang, or the absence of a major listing, which are the forces actually pressing on the price. That is why the supply overhang in detail matters more for the chart than the branding of the pivot. The timing problem compounds this. SoloHost, Pi Sign-in, and PiVerify are early, with the flagship compute framework in beta and the distributed-computing vision still ahead, so any external demand they generate will build slowly, if it builds at all, while the supply pressure is immediate and continuous.
Infrastructure adoption is a multiyear process measured in developers onboarded and businesses signed, not a catalyst that lifts a price in weeks, and the gap between a strategy being announced and that strategy producing measurable token demand can be very long. The market reflected exactly this skepticism: the price fell after the Pi2Day announcement instead of rising, because traders recognized that a credible long-term plan does not change the near-term arithmetic of supply exceeding demand. The sober reading is that the pivot, even if it eventually succeeds, is unlikely to reverse the token’s trajectory soon, because the thing weighing on Pi is a supply overhang that infrastructure announcements do not lift. A good strategy and a falling price can coexist for a long time when the supply side is the problem, and for Pi, the supply side is the problem.
The community split
The divided reaction to Pi2Day captures the project’s central tension, and it is worth understanding because it reflects two legitimate but incompatible expectations. On one side are community members who welcomed the announcements as exactly the kind of substantive, building-focused progress Pi needs, evidence that the team is constructing real infrastructure and pursuing genuine utility instead of chasing speculative attention. To this group, the pivot toward compute, identity, and AI is encouraging precisely because it is unglamorous and long-term, the unflashy work of turning a large community into a useful network. They read SoloHost and PiVerify as signs that Pi is maturing into something with a reason to exist beyond mining rewards, and they value that even though it does not immediately move the price.
On the other side are community members frustrated by the same announcement, for the same reason it pleased the first group: it shipped services instead of a price catalyst, and in particular it did not bring the tier-one exchange listing that much of the community has long anticipated. The days before Pi2Day were thick with speculation, including rumors of a major listing, and when the actual announcement delivered infrastructure instead, the disappointment showed up immediately in the price. This group experiences Pi’s slow, conditions-based pace as a recurring letdown, a pattern of significant events that produce features but not the liquidity and demand that would let holders realize value. The split between these camps is not really a disagreement about facts; it is a disagreement about what Pi should be optimizing for, long-term infrastructure or near-term price and liquidity, and Pi2Day satisfied the first while frustrating the second.
That tension, between the builders and the price-watchers, is structural to a project that has an enormous community sitting on tokens it mostly cannot yet sell at a price it likes, and it will persist until the pivot either produces real demand or it does not. The same tension appears in smaller ecosystem updates, including tools meant to improve app visibility and activity inside Pi’s own directory. Builders can see those as pieces of a broader utility stack, while traders see them as too indirect to absorb the supply hitting the market. Both reactions make sense because they are measuring different things.
The identity angle
Of everything Pi announced, the identity thesis may be its most distinctive and defensible asset, and it deserves a closer look because it is where the pivot is strongest. The problem PiVerify and Pi Sign-in address, verifying that an online actor is a real, unique human, has become one of the most pressing in technology as AI systems generate convincing text, images, and behavior at scale, making bots and fake accounts harder to detect. A network that can reliably attest to human identity has genuine value in that environment, and Pi has built exactly that: a hybrid automated-and-human verification system that has checked over 18 million users across more than 200 countries, producing a large base of verified human identities. Opening that system to external businesses through PiVerify, and offering identity-based login through Pi Sign-in, points Pi at a real and growing market, proof-of-human services for an age of AI bots, where its scale is a genuine competitive asset instead of a liability.
The honest caveats keep this from being a slam dunk. Pi is not alone in pursuing decentralized identity and proof-of-personhood; other projects have built reputations and technology in the same space, and some have more sophisticated cryptographic approaches, so Pi’s advantage is its scale instead of its novelty. Questions also remain about the robustness of Pi’s verification against determined fraud, the privacy implications of a large identity database, and whether external businesses will actually choose Pi’s system over established identity providers. But even with those caveats, the identity angle is the part of the pivot where Pi’s existing assets line up most cleanly with real, growing demand, and where its scale is most clearly an advantage.
If any piece of the AI-infrastructure thesis becomes a meaningful business for Pi, the identity layer is the most likely candidate, because it is the one where Pi already has something large and hard to replicate that the market increasingly needs. For an observer judging whether the pivot has substance, the identity angle is the most credible reason to take it seriously. It is also where the identity thesis Pi is chasing connects most directly to a wider crypto problem, not just a Pi-specific one. In an internet crowded with AI agents and synthetic users, verified human identity is not a niche use case; it is becoming basic infrastructure.
What would make the pivot real
In the end, the pivot will be judged not by its announcement but by whether it produces the one thing Pi has always lacked: real, external demand large enough to matter against the token’s supply. That requires a recognizable set of developments, and naming them is more useful than guessing at a price. The first and most direct is external businesses actually paying in Pi at scale, real companies using PiVerify for identity checks, real clients paying node operators for compute through SoloHost, real developers integrating Pi Sign-in, with the resulting token demand visible and growing instead of nominal. Adoption metrics, not announcements, are the proof.
The second is that this demand grows fast enough to outpace the supply pressure, the daily unlocks and the migration overhang, so that real usage absorbs the new tokens entering the market instead of being swamped by them. That is where why migration adds sell pressure becomes central to the investment case. The third is liquidity, which for Pi means a tier-one exchange listing that would bring the deep markets and buying power needed to support a higher valuation, the catalyst much of the community has awaited and that the infrastructure pivot does not by itself provide. The honest reading is that the bull case requires these together, real external demand, demand outpacing supply, and the liquidity to express it, not any one alone, and that none of them is presently in hand.
What Pi2Day delivered is a credible strategy and a set of early products pointed at genuine demand trends, which is necessary but not sufficient. A token cannot pay its bills with potential, and the supply weighing on Pi is immediate while the demand the pivot might create is prospective and slow. The realistic conclusion is that Pi has made a serious and arguably overdue strategic turn, that the identity and compute thesis is more credible than the project’s reputation suggests, and that whether it rescues the token depends entirely on execution that has not yet happened. The pivot is real; whether it works is the question the coming months, not the announcement, will answer.
Frequently asked questions
What did Pi Network announce on Pi2Day 2026?
On June 28, 2026, Pi Network launched three products framed as a pivot toward infrastructure for compute, identity, and AI. SoloHost is an open framework in Pi Desktop for running local, privacy-first AI apps and, in time, distributed computing across Pi’s node network, with node operators paid in Pi. Pi Sign-in is a “sign in with Pi” authentication service letting people log into third-party apps with their Pi account. PiVerify opens Pi’s identity-verification system, which has checked over 18 million users across more than 200 countries, to external businesses that pay in Pi. Together they reframe Pi from a mobile-mining app into a provider of compute, identity, and AI-related services to the outside world. The important point is that these products try to monetize resources Pi already has: a large verified user base and a large network of user-run nodes. That makes the pivot more substantive than a branding change, even if adoption remains unproven.
Is Pi Network pivoting away from mining?
In emphasis, yes. The Pi2Day launches mark a deliberate shift from a mobile-mining-centric identity toward positioning Pi as an infrastructure provider for the AI era, monetizing its genuine assets, a large verified user base and a node network, as external services. Mining and the broader migration process continue, but the strategic narrative has moved toward compute, identity, and AI. The logic is that Pi’s real assets are its scale and its verified human identities, not a sophisticated technology stack, so the path to value is turning that scale into services outside parties will pay for. Whether the pivot succeeds depends on actual external adoption, which has not yet been proven. The daily tap may still define how millions of users think about Pi, but it is no longer the most important part of the project’s pitch. The new pitch is that Pi can sell identity, verification, and compute to third parties.
Will the Pi2Day pivot raise Pi’s price?
Not directly or quickly, on the evidence so far. The price fell after the announcement, because the new products, however credible as long-term strategy, do not address Pi’s immediate problem: a supply overhang from large daily unlocks and ongoing migration converting locked tokens into sellable ones, against thin demand and no tier-one exchange listing. Infrastructure adoption builds slowly, over years of onboarding developers and businesses, while the supply pressure is continuous. The pivot could eventually create real token demand if external businesses pay to use Pi’s compute and identity services at scale, but that is prospective and gradual. The forces weighing on the price are present and ongoing. A good strategy and a falling price can coexist when supply is the problem. For Pi, the market is asking for proof that demand can absorb unlocks, not only proof that the team can ship products.
What is the “human infrastructure for AI” narrative?
It is Pi’s framing of its core thesis: that its network of verified human users and the validators who process identity checks make it a provider of proof-of-human services in an age when AI makes distinguishing people from bots increasingly difficult. Pi’s verification system has processed enormous volumes of human-verification tasks across a base of more than 18 million verified users in over 200 countries. The pivot leans on this, positioning Pi’s identity and verification resources, through PiVerify and Pi Sign-in, as infrastructure that businesses need as AI-generated content and bots proliferate. It is the most distinctive part of Pi’s strategy, because trusted digital identity is a real and growing demand, and Pi’s scale of verified humans is genuinely hard to replicate. The challenge is turning that verified base into a product outside businesses actually choose to use. Scale alone is not enough if the verification layer is not trusted, easy to integrate, and privacy-conscious. That is why PiVerify is strategically important: it is the bridge between Pi’s internal verification work and an external identity market.
Why is Pi’s price so low despite a large community?
Because supply has overwhelmed demand. Pi trades near $0.12, down roughly 96% from its early-2025 peak near $3, because large daily token unlocks and the ongoing migration of users to the mainnet keep converting locked tokens into sellable supply, while demand has been thin and there is no tier-one exchange listing to bring deep liquidity and buying power. Many users treat mined Pi as tokens to sell once they become transferable, and weak app adoption has meant little organic usage to absorb the supply. The community’s goals, faster migration and bigger listings, ironically increase the sellable supply. The result is a structural imbalance that ecosystem announcements, including the Pi2Day pivot, do not by themselves resolve. For the price to stabilize, usage demand has to become large enough to meet the supply entering the market. Until then, even good news can fail to move the token if holders use liquidity as an exit.
What would make Pi’s pivot succeed?
Real, external demand large enough to matter against the supply. Concretely, that means external businesses actually paying in Pi at scale: companies using PiVerify for identity checks, clients paying node operators for compute through SoloHost, developers integrating Pi Sign-in, with visible, growing token demand instead of nominal usage. It also means that demand growing fast enough to outpace the daily unlocks and migration overhang, so real usage absorbs the new supply. And it likely means a tier-one exchange listing to provide the liquidity and buying power a higher valuation requires. The bull case needs these together, not any one alone, and none is presently in hand. Adoption metrics, not announcements, will determine whether the pivot becomes real. Pi has made the strategic argument; now it has to prove that outside customers want what the network is selling.
This article is information, not financial or investment advice. Details of Pi Network’s Pi2Day releases, user and node figures, price levels, and supply dynamics reflect reporting available as of June 30, 2026, are point-in-time, and can change. Cryptocurrency is highly volatile and you can lose money. Nothing here is a recommendation about Pi or any asset. Do your own research and consult a qualified professional before making any decision.
Ripple has unveiled a proposed lending protocol for the XRP Ledger that would allow financial institutions to borrow digital assets without selling their holdings, expanding the network’s institutional finance capabilities.
Summary
- Ripple has proposed an XRP Ledger lending protocol for institutional borrowers and lenders.
- The system lets institutions borrow digital assets without selling token holdings.
- The proposal now awaits XRP Ledger validator approval after devnet testing.
According to a proposal published by Ripple, the new XRP Ledger Lending Protocol is designed to fill what the company describes as a missing piece in blockchain-based finance. While tokenization has simplified the issuance and transfer of digital assets, Ripple argues that lending, collateral management, and credit infrastructure have not advanced at the same pace.
The proposal would support lending markets for tokenized U.S. Treasuries, money market funds, stablecoins, commodities, private credit, and other real-world assets on the XRP Ledger.
Rather than embedding credit decisions into blockchain code, Ripple said lenders and borrowers would negotiate loan terms and complete compliance checks off-chain before transactions move to the network for execution.
Credit decisions stay off-chain while loan servicing moves on-chain
Ripple said the protocol separates institutional credit assessment from blockchain settlement. Once a loan has been approved, the XRP Ledger would automate operational tasks including interest calculations, repayment schedules, loan servicing, and default management.
According to Ripple, this structure was intentionally designed to keep underwriting and regulatory requirements under the control of financial institutions while using the blockchain for standardized execution. The company said this approach mirrors how traditional financial markets separate credit decisions from settlement infrastructure.
The proposal introduces two core building blocks. A Single Asset Vault would pool a single token for lending, while a dedicated Lending Protocol would manage loan origination, servicing, and repayment. Ripple said separating custody from lending infrastructure follows the model already used in conventional capital markets.
As one example, Ripple said a payment provider holding reserves of RLUSD could obtain short-term liquidity through the protocol while waiting for cross-border transactions to settle. According to the company, doing so would allow institutions to avoid liquidating reserve assets or relying on higher-cost bank credit facilities.
Institutional access depends on validator approval
Compliance remains a central part of the proposal. Ripple said both lenders and borrowers would need to complete identity verification before participating, with access controlled through permissioned credentials rather than open participation.
The company also proposed assigning first-loss capital at the lending facility level instead of distributing losses equally across all participants. According to Ripple, this structure is intended to create a clearer framework for allocating credit risk.
The lending framework has not yet become part of the XRP Ledger. Ripple said the technical specifications, published as XLS-65 and XLS-66, still require approval from XRPL validators before they can be activated on the main network. Until then, developers and infrastructure providers can begin testing the proposed system on the XRPL devnet.
The proposal arrives days after Ripple drew attention through another institutional finance connection. As previously reported by crypto.news, Elon Musk’s X has begun rolling out X Money to a limited group of Premium+ users using traditional banking infrastructure provided by Cross River Bank, a Ripple banking partner.
Although some members of the XRP community speculated that the relationship could eventually support blockchain-based payments or stablecoin services, neither X nor Cross River Bank has announced plans to integrate XRP or other cryptocurrencies into the payment platform.
For now, X Money operates entirely through conventional banking rails despite Musk previously suggesting crypto features could be added to the platform’s financial services in the future.
Key Highlights
- Over 140 corporations including Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe support the OUSD stablecoin initiative
- Consortium-driven governance replaces traditional single-issuer control structure
- Zero-fee minting and redemption model eliminates direct transaction costs for businesses
- Primary focus includes corporate payment systems, settlement operations, and treasury management
- Major South Korean corporations like Samsung, Dunamu, and Shinhan participate in the initiative
On June 30, 2026, Open Standard unveiled OUSD with endorsement from Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, and over 140 corporate partners. This initiative focuses on enterprise-scale payment infrastructure and settlement solutions, employing a collaborative governance framework rather than centralized control. The platform offers zero-cost token issuance and redemption, potentially streamlining stablecoin adoption across corporate environments.
Collaborative Governance Model Defines OUSD Framework
Open Standard unveiled OUSD as a consortium-driven digital dollar initiative. The alliance encompasses payment processors, financial institutions, tech enterprises, cryptocurrency exchanges, and blockchain service providers. This launch bridges conventional finance with digital asset ecosystems through unified operational infrastructure.
Unlike traditional stablecoins controlled by singular entities, OUSD operates through a partner-governed board system for strategic oversight. This framework provides member organizations with meaningful input on governance matters and strategic development.
The model distributes reserve income among participating organizations following operational expenses. Consequently, partners obtain tangible financial incentives tied to broader market penetration. This arrangement encourages active promotion since member firms benefit directly from ecosystem expansion.
Leading Payment Processors Anchor Extensive Corporate Coalition
Among Open Standard’s supporters, Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe represent the most prominent payment industry players. Their participation establishes robust connections to worldwide payment infrastructure and commercial networks. This involvement reflects growing institutional appetite for stablecoin-based settlement mechanisms.
Additional consortium members feature BlackRock, BNY, Coinbase, Google, IBM, Ripple, OKX, and Standard Chartered. The roster extends to BBVA, DBS, Mizuho, MoonPay, Rakuten Group, and Crypto.com. OUSD launches with comprehensive backing spanning banking, payment processing, technology sectors, and cryptocurrency services.
South Korean members comprise Samsung Electronics, Hanwha Group, Dunamu, and Shinhan Financial Group. The Korean contingent also features K-Bank, KB Kookmin Card, Samsung Card, BC Card, and Hana Card. Hyundai Card, NH Nonghyup Card, and Woori Card complete the regional partnership lineup.
Corporate Settlement Infrastructure Emphasizes Cost Efficiency
Open Standard architected OUSD for cost-effective, high-capacity stablecoin operations. Organizations can create and redeem tokens without transaction charges, based on release specifications. This characteristic holds particular significance for payment processing, treasury functions, and settlement workflows.
The platform eliminates predetermined supply caps. OUSD circulation can grow proportionally with rising commercial demand. This methodology seeks to accommodate substantial transaction volumes without imposed supply constraints.
OUSD deployment remains planned for late 2026. Upon launch, it will compete directly with dominant stablecoins like USDT and USDC. Open Standard frames OUSD as collaborative enterprise infrastructure rather than a centrally controlled financial instrument.
Crypto World
Circle (CRCL) slides as Stripe, Coinbase (COIN) and BlackRock (BLK) back rival stablecoin network
With more institutions embracing stablecoins, the competition is increasingly shifting from issuing tokens to determining who controls the underlying infrastructure and network.
Unlike most existing stablecoins, Open USD will allow businesses to mint and redeem tokens without fees while returning reserve income to participating partners, less a management fee. Governance will also be shared among members rather than controlled by a single issuer.
The model targets one of the core economics of today’s stablecoin market. Issuers such as Circle earn revenue by investing reserves backing their tokens in short-term U.S. Treasuries and retaining most of the interest generated by those assets. Open USD instead plans to distribute that yield to participating businesses.
The approach resembles the Global Dollar Network (USDG), a stablecoin consortium led by Paxos that shares reserve income with participating firms. That network is backed by companies including Robinhood, Kraken and Galaxy Digital, and was designed to encourage broader adoption by aligning incentives between the issuer and distribution partners.
In Europe, a group of banks and payment providers launched Qivalis, a venture to develop a euro-denominated stablecoin as financial institutions seek to build shared digital payment infrastructure.
The breadth of Open USD’s backing reflects that shift. Beyond Stripe, Coinbase, Mastercard and Visa, launch partners include BNY, Standard Chartered, DBS, U.S. Bank, Shopify, Google, IBM, Mercado Pago, Fireblocks, Anchorage Digital, MetaMask, Aave, Solana, Polygon and Ripple.
David Schwartz, co-founder of the XRP Ledger and Ripple CTO Emeritus, has proposed a two-component transaction reservation mechanism to address front-running and sandwich attack risks on XRPL’s native DEX and AMM.
The proposal, surfaced in response to concerns raised by XRP-focused analytics account XRPresso.io, introduces priority execution guarantees for users willing to pay a reservation fee, a market-integrity measure with direct relevance as institutional inflows into XRP products continue to scale.
The proposal is currently under community discussion and has not been formalized as a network amendment. That distinction matters: on the XRP Ledger, protocol changes require a supermajority of validators to vote in favor before activation, meaning Schwartz’s design carries weight but faces a defined governance process before it touches mainnet.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
How the Ripple XRP ReservedTxns Mechanism Actually Works
The scheme introduces two new protocol components. The first is a ReservedTxns ledger object, which stores a target ledger sequence number and an array of up to 32 transaction IDs.
When that specific ledger executes, any listed transactions present in the consensus set are processed first, ahead of all other transactions, after which the object is deleted. The second component is a TxnReserve transaction type, which allows a user to claim a priority slot for one or more future transactions by submitting a reservation before the target ledger closes.
Three constraints govern the TxnReserve: the reservation fee must be at least twice the standard transaction fee; the target ledger must fall within 16 ledgers of the current one; and the actual transaction must set its LastLedgerSequence to match the reserved ledger.
Those rules are not incidental, they define both the economic cost of using the system and the narrow time window in which it operates. The 16-ledger ceiling keeps reservations tightly coupled to near-term execution, preventing the mechanism from being weaponized as a general-purpose queue-gaming tool.
DoS protection is built in through dynamic fee scaling: as reservation slots fill past 16, fees step upward, reaching several multiples of the base reserve near 30 slots. Schwartz also specified that XRPL server software would hold reserved transactions and release them only close to when the prior ledger’s proposals are known, compressing the pre-execution visibility window.
“This guarantees that you can execute your transaction ahead of any transaction that was formed after your transaction was disclosed,” Schwartz said. “You would use this approach any time you want to perform a transaction that you want to ensure cannot be sandwiched or front run.”
The XRPL-Specific Front-Running Problem Schwartz Is Solving
XRPresso’s concern centers on a structural feature of the XRP Ledger: pending transactions sit in a publicly visible queue before a ledger closes, giving validators and well-connected nodes advance sight of incoming trades.
Because canonical transaction ordering on XRPL is determined by a known, deterministic formula involving transaction hashes, a sophisticated actor can submit similar transactions repeatedly to increase the probability of landing in a favorable slot relative to a target trade, the mechanistic basis for a sandwich attack on the DEX or AMM.
Schwartz acknowledged the exposure but contested the framing. He argued that all participants have equal access to the public queue, and that validators gain no structural ordering advantage unless several conspire.
“If multiple validators did conspire, or a single validator attempted it, it would be very obvious to everyone exactly who was doing this,” he said, adding that no such attempt has been confirmed outside of a proof-of-concept.
He also flagged a practical profitability constraint: extracting meaningful value requires simultaneously high liquidity (to generate volume worth targeting) and low liquidity (to move price at manageable cost), a combination rarely present on XRPL.
That argument has not fully satisfied critics, but it does distinguish XRPL’s current risk profile from Ethereum’s historically active MEV environment.
The front-running debate in DeFi is not isolated to the XRP ecosystem. Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao proposed a dark pool perpetuals DEX last year using zero-knowledge cryptography to conceal order data until execution, an approach that drew its own criticism from decentralization advocates who argued it recreates the information asymmetries crypto was designed to eliminate.
XRPresso made a similar argument in response to Schwartz, contending that targeted confidentiality for pending transaction details would be a cleaner long-term fix than a reservation fee layer, and pointing to implementations already live on competing chains.
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The post Ripple CTO Proposes ReservedTxns to Block Front-Running on XRPL DEX appeared first on Cryptonews.
- REAL launches private execution layer for RWA institutions.
- ZKsync tech enables confidential on-chain settlement via Ethereum.
- Platform aims to bridge the privacy gap in institutional blockchain use.
REAL has introduced a confidential execution layer designed to support regulated financial institutions operating in tokenized real-world asset (RWA) markets, addressing one of the key barriers to broader institutional adoption of blockchain-based finance.
The new layer, built using ZKsync’s Prividium technology, operates alongside REAL’s public Layer 1 network.
According to the company, it enables institutions to keep positions, allocations, and counterparty data private while still benefiting from public settlement and liquidity through Ethereum.
The company said the confidential layer is intended to provide privacy controls without compromising compliance, liquidity, or distribution, allowing institutions to participate in onchain markets while maintaining the confidentiality required for regulated financial operations.
Confidential infrastructure targets institutional needs
REAL said the new execution layer is designed to bridge the gap between public blockchain infrastructure and the operational requirements of regulated financial institutions.
While public blockchains offer benefits such as global access, instant settlement, and composability, the company noted that institutions have been reluctant to conduct business on networks where sensitive information—including positions, treasury strategies, and counterparty relationships—is publicly visible.
Because the confidential layer settles transactions on Ethereum, institutions can access the broader onchain capital market while maintaining operational privacy instead of operating within isolated private networks.
Platform supports regulated financial workflows
According to REAL, the confidential execution layer is built to support a range of institutional workflows where privacy is considered essential.
These include wealth and asset management activities that require protected portfolio information, balance sheet operations, tokenized deposit models, and selective disclosure capabilities for auditors, compliance teams, and regulators when necessary.
The company said institutions using the platform will continue to benefit from blockchain-native settlement, distribution, and liquidity while avoiding the need to expose sensitive business activity on fully public networks.
The launch also expands REAL’s broader strategy of supporting the entire lifecycle of tokenized real-world assets within a compliance-focused infrastructure.
The company said its platform covers issuance, risk assessment, insurance, trading, and institutional execution under a single architecture designed for regulated financial markets.
REAL expands institutional blockchain offering
REAL describes itself as an institutional blockchain infrastructure provider focused on compliant real-world asset tokenization and risk-managed capital flows.
Built on Cosmos Tendermint, the platform supports multiple stages of onchain financial products, including issuance, compliance, liquidity, insurance, risk assessment, and trading.
The company said its dual-validator architecture combines technical validators with business validators such as tokenizers, risk scorers, insurers, and credit agencies to provide an infrastructure aimed at institutional trust.
The confidential execution layer uses ZKsync’s Prividium privacy technology, which is designed to enable regulated entities to operate onchain with configurable confidentiality, selective disclosure, and settlement on Ethereum.
Crypto World
Chinese exile once linked to Trump strategist gets 30-year sentence in $1 billion fraud
A U.S. judge sentenced Chinese businessman Miles Guo, the billionaire behind the fraudulent crypto venture Himalaya Coin, to 30 years in prison, long after a trial jury found the well-connected defendant was guilty of several crimes in 2024.
Guo, 55, also known as Ho Wan Kwok and a number of other aliases, was a self-imposed exile from China who had a close relationship with Steve Bannon, the former strategist of President Donald Trump who has had his own legal entanglements. In 2021, Guo had pushed his fraudulent crypto token, known as H-Coin, telling prospective buyers that it was 20% backed by gold and that the operation would cover 100% of investment losses.
He was said to pull in $500 million in investments, which was just one element of what U.S. authorities called “interrelated fraud schemes” perpetrated over five years, leading to his conviction on counts including racketeering, fraud and money laundering.
Key Takeaways
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RZLV shares advance 9.42% following shareholder endorsement of $300M share repurchase authorization
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Company anticipates UK Court clearance by mid-September 2026
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Rezolve Ai maintains FY26 revenue projection of approximately $360 million
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Company aims for minimum $500 million annual recurring revenue by year-end 2026
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Repurchase program provides board discretion without mandating specific share quantities
Rezolve AI PLC (RZLV) shares climbed 9.42% to reach $2.8450 following shareholder authorization of a substantial share repurchase program. The stock experienced an early jump after market open and maintained strength throughout the session near session highs. This approval provides the company with a strategic mechanism to address what management views as a market valuation disconnect.
Annual Meeting Delivers Buyback Mandate
During the company’s Annual General Meeting, Rezolve Ai shareholders voted to authorize both capital reduction and share repurchase capabilities. This mandate permits the board to execute buybacks totaling up to $300 million. The initiative still requires customary UK Court confirmation before any share repurchases can commence.
This authorization grants Rezolve Ai operational latitude to acquire ordinary shares in accordance with UK Companies Act 2006 provisions. Management anticipates completing the court approval process by mid-September 2026. Following judicial clearance, the company intends to initiate repurchases when market dynamics align with strategic board determinations.
According to Rezolve Ai’s announcement, the repurchase program may leverage open market acquisitions, block transactions, or private negotiations. The company noted it may occasionally repurchase shares from BTIG. Importantly, the program establishes no obligation to purchase any predetermined share volume.
Company Connects Repurchase Plan to Expansion Trajectory
Rezolve Ai characterized the shareholder vote as validation of its strategic direction and expansion prospects. Management stated that current market capitalization fails to capture the company’s operational scale. The company also highlighted accelerating commercial traction within its enterprise client portfolio.
The firm disclosed it currently supports over 1,000 enterprise clients worldwide. Additionally, Rezolve Ai reported approximately $60 million in preliminary revenue for the first quarter of 2026. Management reiterated its full fiscal year 2026 revenue target of roughly $360 million.
This projection represents approximately 7.5 times the company’s fiscal 2025 revenue baseline. Rezolve Ai also forecasts exiting 2026 with no less than $500 million in annual recurring revenue. Consequently, the buyback authorization coincides with an aggressive growth narrative the company continues to advance.
Brain Suite Platform Powers Digital Commerce Strategy
Rezolve Ai competes in the AI-powered commerce sector through its Brain Suite platform. This technology assists retailers, consumer brands, and financial services organizations in optimizing digital sales workflows. The platform facilitates search functionality, customer interaction, product suggestions, and transaction completion.
The company markets Brain Suite as foundational infrastructure for instantaneous commerce intelligence. It serves enterprises requiring accelerated product discovery and enhanced customer personalization. Accordingly, Rezolve Ai attributes its growth trajectory to rising enterprise adoption of automated commerce solutions.
RZLV’s rally demonstrated robust investor response to the buyback authorization combined with refreshed growth indicators. The stock’s 9.42% appreciation renewed market attention following the shareholder decision. Nevertheless, the repurchase program remains contingent upon court confirmation and board execution.
XRP price is holding above the $1.00 level, sitting between $1.04 and $1.06 with a slightly bullish prediction. Over the past 24 hours, it has been up nearly 2 percent, but the move still looks like a recovery within a volatile range.
Sentiment remains heavily negative, with the Fear and Greed index near 15 in extreme fear, with around 74 percent of readings still leaning bearish. This suggests participation is cautious and mostly retail-driven. As a result, upside moves remain fragile under risk-off conditions.
Technically, XRP has reclaimed short-term support after the prior decline, with momentum turned slightly positive on intraday readings. However, resistance remains concentrated around $1.08 to $1.10. Price action in this zone will decide near-term direction.
If buyers break above resistance, a base formation could develop; otherwise, rejection may confirm another failed bounce. Overall structure remains undecided despite the recent recovery. The market still waits for stronger confirmation.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
XRP Price Prediction: Reclaim $1.10 and Push Toward $2.00?
XRP is trading around $1.04 to $1.06, sitting in a sensitive technical zone, and near-term support sits between $1.02 and $1.04, holding recent pullbacks. Resistance builds from $1.10 to $1.11, where sellers previously absorbed momentum with volume near $1.58 billion, and remains steady but lacks breakout conviction.
If XRP holds $1.02–$1.04, momentum could rebuild gradually. A breakout above $1.10 may trigger stronger upside continuation. Upside extension targets $1.50 to $1.80 in that scenario. Some 2026 outlooks extend toward $2.80 under structural recovery.
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XRP likely consolidates between $1.02 and $1.11 in the near term, and price action may remain range-bound as sentiment slowly stabilizes. Not helping the case, the current market structure appears neutral, neither confirming a breakout nor a breakdown.
A daily close below $1.00 would weaken psychological support and reopen downside toward sub-$0.90 levels as sentiment near extreme fear increases volatility risk across markets. Longer-term projections remain conditional on macro stability returning.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio doesn’t.
Bitcoin Hyper Targets Early-Mover Upside as XRP Tests Key Levels
XRP at $1.04 is a recovery, not a repricing. Traders who bought the highs above $3.00 are still significantly underwater, and even a move to $2.80 represents a long hold against a market index screaming fear. That gap between current price and meaningful upside is exactly where early-stage infrastructure plays become worth sizing up alongside established large-caps.
Bitcoin Hyper ($HYPER) is positioning as the first-ever Bitcoin Layer 2 with Solana Virtual Machine (SVM) integration, a combination that targets Bitcoin’s core structural limitations: slow finality, high fees, and near-zero programmability.
The project has raised close to $33 million at a current presale price of $0.01368, with staking active for early participants. The SVM integration is the differentiator worth scrutinizing: it aims to deliver smart contract execution speed exceeding Solana’s own performance, anchored to Bitcoin’s security layer via a decentralized canonical bridge.
For traders watching XRP consolidate while seeking asymmetric early exposure, research Bitcoin Hyper’s presale terms before the current stage closes.
The post XRP Price Prediction: XRP Regains Momentum After Reclaiming Key Support appeared first on Cryptonews.
XRP (XRP) is holding above the $1.00 support zone amid a broader downturn. Yet, on-chain activity is rising.
New wallet, whale, and exchange-traded fund (ETF) activity suggest users are stepping in while the price looks fragile, pointing to demand below the surface.
XRP Price Slump Meets Steady Demand
XRP, like the broader market, has seen notable declines this month. The altcoin touched a 19-month low of $1.01 on June 25. It now trades near $1.05, down 0.18% over the past day.
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Yet, on-chain data paint a different picture. Santiment reported that the XRP Ledger added 4,941 new wallets in a single day, marking its strongest network growth in more than three months.
Social sentiment has also flipped bullish. The positive/negative social ratio reached 3.7 positive comments for every bearish one, a three-month high in FOMO, according to Santiment. Traders appear to treat the $1.00 to $1.05 band as a dip-buy area.
“Part of this optimism comes from XRP’s familiar rebound history, ongoing ETF and institutional narratives, and the idea that larger holders have continued building exposure even during ugly price action,” the firm said.
On-Chain Signals Point to Accumulation
On-chain data support that view. Santiment data shows accumulation across all three large cohorts in June despite a 21% price dip. The 10 million to 100 million XRP tier led with 160 million XRP added, the strongest bullish signal of the group.
Smaller cohorts followed. Wallets holding 100,000 to 1 million XRP added 30 million tokens, while those holding 1 million to 10 million XRP gained 20 million tokens. This suggested that large holders continued to accumulate despite the decline.
Institutional demand has also remained resilient. US spot XRP exchange-traded funds (ETFs) attracted $22.99 million in net inflows last week, extending their inflow streak to eight consecutive weeks.
The new week also began on a positive note, with the funds recording $15.34 million in net inflows on Monday. This trend stands in sharp contrast to Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs.
Bitcoin ETFs have recorded seven consecutive weeks of net outflows totaling approximately $7.7 billion. Investors pulled another $231 million on Monday.
Ethereum ETFs have also experienced consecutive weekly outflows. XRP ETFs, by contrast, have not recorded a single day of net outflows since June 3, although several sessions have ended with flat flows.
Santiment said the open question is whether this wallet surge converts into sustained buying pressure or fades as short-term FOMO. With XRP sitting so close to $1.00, the coming sessions should reveal which way the on-chain demand breaks.
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The post XRP Demand Builds On-Chain Even as Price Sinks to 19-Month Low appeared first on BeInCrypto.
Shares of Circle Internet Group (CRCL) fell on Tuesday after Open Standard unveiled Open USD (OUSD), a dollar stablecoin backed by more than 140 companies, including Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase, that targets the market its USD Coin (USDC) token leads.
The launch puts payment networks, banks, and crypto firms behind a single token. It lands as Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT control most of the stablecoin market.
Why Circle’s USDC Faces Pressure
Open USD goes after the enterprise users that drive USDC adoption. Businesses can mint and redeem it for free, and partners keep the earnings on its reserves after a small fee.
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That model strikes at how Circle makes money. Reserve interest produced 99% of its revenue in 2024, its filing shows.
Circle paid Coinbase $908 million that year to distribute USDC. Now Coinbase has joined a rival that lets partners keep those reserve earnings.
Circle stock fell nearly 15% on the news, touching its lowest level of the session. It extended a weak run after Circle’s stock rally from $50 to $129 in six weeks earlier this year.
The bigger risk is distribution. Circle gained ground as USDC overtook Tether in corporate transfers. Yet Open USD’s backers include the networks that move most of that money.
Circle still holds advantages. Its USDC carries regulatory standing in the US and Europe and deep exchange liquidity.
A Consortium Stands Behind Open USD
Open Standard will run the token through an independent board of its partners. Zach Abrams leads the company on an interim basis. He co-founded Bridge, the stablecoin firm Stripe bought for $1.1 billion in 2025.
The backers span finance and technology, from BlackRock and BNY to Google and Shopify. Many already run their own stablecoins or build stablecoin infrastructure firms, echoing Mastercard’s recent stablecoin payment integrations.
Stripe tied its payments business directly to the token.
“Open USD will be the default stablecoin for businesses running on Stripe…” read an excerpt in the announcement, citing Will Gaybrick, president of technology and business at Stripe.
Circle, Tether, and PayPal all sat out the venture. Tether’s USDT leads at about $185 billion and Circle’s USDC follows near $74 billion.
All these notwithstanding, the history is not encouraging for consortiums. Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe each backed Facebook’s Libra stablecoin in 2019, then abandoned it within months under regulatory pressure.
Open USD goes live later this year on Plasma and other chains built for stablecoin payments.
The timing matters for Circle, whose USDC revenue-sharing deal with Coinbase comes up for renewal in August.
The post Circle Stock Falls 15% as New Rival Stablecoin Targets USDC’s Enterprise Users appeared first on BeInCrypto.
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