GnosisDAO has approved a major change for Gnosis Chain, clearing the way for the network to transition from a standalone layer-1 into a ZK-proven Ethereum Economic Zone (EEZ) rollup. The vote centered on GIP-153, which would effectively retire the existing validator set and move transaction settlement to Ethereum.

According to Gnosis Chain, the proposal passed with 123,158 GNO in support, 115 against, and 151 abstaining across 54 voters. Turnout totaled 123,425 GNO, surpassing the 75,000 GNO quorum threshold.

Key takeaways

• GIP-153 clears governance approval to transition Gnosis Chain into an EEZ rollup settled on Ethereum.
• Existing validator infrastructure would be retired, shifting settlement responsibilities to Ethereum validators.
• Target timing is late 2026 or early 2027, contingent on EEZ technology readiness.
• The EEZ concept aims to reduce fragmentation by enabling cross-rollup smart contract execution without bridges.
• Standard Chartered expects fewer bridge dependencies and improved on-chain usability, which could increase Ethereum activity.

What GIP-153 approved and what it changes for users

In the proposal, Gnosis Chain outlined a pathway to make Gnosis Chain “Ethereum-aligned” by converting it into a rollup instance under the EEZ framework. The core mechanics are straightforward: the current validator set would be retired, and transactions would settle on Ethereum. In that structure, Gnosis Chain becomes a layer-2 that relies on Ethereum for settlement, while still supporting “Gnosis Chain-native smart contracts.”

The proposal also points to functionality changes intended to matter for developers and dApps: Gnosis Chain contracts would be able to call Ethereum and use the result within the same transaction. If implemented as described, that design is meant to provide tighter integration with Ethereum mainnet assets and liquidity than what the proposal claims is currently available on existing L2 deployments.

Gnosis Chain further states it would preserve key user-facing continuity, including keeping its existing applications and balances, along with the xDAI gas token.

The EEZ framework: aligning rollups to address L2 fragmentation

The EEZ concept is not limited to one network. It is described as a framework for building Ethereum-aligned rollups developed by Gnosis and ZisK, with funding from the Ethereum Foundation. The intent is to unify parts of Ethereum’s currently fragmented scaling landscape.

Ethereum’s scaling reality today is defined by the proliferation of multiple rollups, each with its own liquidity pools, infrastructure choices, and user access patterns. That separation can reduce composability—especially when applications want to interact with state or assets across different rollups. The EEZ approach targets one of the most persistent scaling trade-offs: improved throughput at the cost of fragmentation.

Under the proposal’s vision, the first production EEZ instance would be deployed through Gnosis Chain while still keeping its existing ecosystem. The broader objective is to enable smart contracts across different participating rollups to execute synchronously without relying on bridges, which the proposal presents as a structural weakness in today’s cross-chain interactions.

This argument fits into an earlier critique of L2 designs. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin previously raised concerns about centralized sequencers and trusted bridging mechanisms as potential vulnerabilities, writing in a Feb. 3 X post that “the original vision of L2s and their role in Ethereum no longer makes sense, and we need a new path.”

For context, L2Beat data cited by the Gnosis-related reporting indicates that 22 Ethereum rollups are currently “secure” with $27.82 billion in value secured. When expanded to include validiums, optimiums, and other scaling networks, the total tracked value secured rises to $34.88 billion.

Why reduced bridge reliance is a key selling point

Bridge risk is a frequent topic in Ethereum scaling discussions because bridges are often the point of failure in major cross-chain incidents. Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick, global head of digital assets research, argued that EEZ could help reduce reliance on those vulnerable components.

In a May 28 report shared with Cointelegraph, Kendrick wrote that the EEZ “will have the benefit of reducing the need for bridges (where hacks tend to occur) and increasing the usability of assets in EVM chains.” He added that both factors are “likely to lead to greater activity in the Ethereum ecosystem.”

Kendrick’s view also emphasized composability. He suggested that EEZ could allow smart contracts on different participating networks to interact within the same transaction. For investors, traders, and users, that distinction matters because better composability can translate into smoother execution paths for complex DeFi operations—potentially reducing the friction that users face when assets must move across ecosystems before a transaction can complete.

Still, the practical timeline remains dependent on development readiness. Gnosis Chain says an initial launch is targeted for late 2026 or early 2027, subject to the required EEZ technology being ready. Until then, many questions—especially around performance, finality characteristics, and integration details—will likely remain in the realm of documentation and engineering milestones rather than lived production behavior.

What to watch as Gnosis Chain moves toward EEZ

The governance vote is a significant milestone, but it is not the final word on execution. Readers should watch for how Gnosis Chain and its partners operationalize the EEZ transition: whether settlement on Ethereum is implemented in the intended manner, how the ability for contracts to call Ethereum within a single transaction is achieved, and how users experience the migration while keeping existing apps, balances, and the xDAI gas token.

The next critical signals will likely come in the form of engineering updates leading up to the late-2026/early-2027 target—especially benchmarks or test deployments that clarify what “ZK-proven” and “Ethereum Economic Zone” mean in day-to-day performance and developer tooling. If the EEZ thesis holds, the broader impact could be a more cohesive Ethereum environment where interoperability is handled by design rather than bridged after the fact.

Bitdeer AI has signed a five-year customer agreement expected to generate about $400 million from roughly half of its A102 data center capacity in Malaysia before the facility has been energized.

Bitdeer AI said in a Wednesday announcement that the agreement covers about 50% of the A102 site’s available capacity and was signed with an undisclosed customer it described as being of “high credit quality.”

Revenue from the contract, along with the costs associated with delivering the service, is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2027 when operations under the agreement start.

The deal gives the Bitcoin miner’s AI business a contracted customer for a large portion of the Malaysian facility before commercial operations begin, while Bitdeer AI continues building data center capacity across several markets.

Bitdeer AI has secured half of A102 capacity before launch

Under the five-year agreement, the unnamed customer will use about half of the available capacity at Bitdeer AI’s A102 facility in Malaysia.

Bitdeer did not disclose the customer’s identity or provide a detailed breakdown of the contract’s pricing structure. The company estimated total revenue from the agreement at approximately $400 million over its five-year term.

Service is scheduled to begin during the first quarter of 2027, meaning the contract is not expected to contribute revenue or related operating costs before then.

Securing a customer before energization reduces the amount of uncommitted capacity Bitdeer will need to commercialize once A102 enters operation. The company has not disclosed agreements covering the remaining capacity at the site.

Malaysia is already part of Bitdeer’s AI operations. As crypto.news reported in June on, the company had been expanding AI cloud services while reviewing infrastructure across several countries for AI and colocation use. Its AI cloud annual recurring revenue stood at about $69 million during that period, according to company disclosures cited in the report.

Bitdeer has set a target of reaching 350 megawatts of AI cloud data center capacity by the first quarter of 2028, placing the Malaysian agreement within a multi-year buildout that includes both cloud computing and dedicated infrastructure contracts.

AI contracts are becoming a larger part of Bitdeer’s business

Bitdeer began as a Bitcoin mining company but has increasingly committed capital and existing infrastructure to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.

The company still operates a large mining business, including sites in the United States, Bhutan, Norway and Ethiopia, while developing its own SEALMINER machines. Its AI business has expanded alongside those operations through GPU cloud services, data center conversions and long-duration infrastructure agreements.

Earlier this month, Bitdeer signed a 16-year lease covering 121 megawatts of AI computing capacity at its Tydal campus in Norway. The agreement carries about $4.7 billion in contracted revenue over its initial term.

Bitdeer said the entire 121 MW of contracted IT capacity at Tydal will be configured to run Nvidia GPUs for a leading AI lab through Volta, an Nvidia Cloud Partner. The project is being developed in two phases, with the first scheduled to begin operations at the end of 2026 and the second targeted for the first quarter of 2027.

The Norwegian agreement also contains an eight-year renewal option that could increase its potential contract value to about $8 billion over 24 years, according to Bitdeer. Electricity costs are set to be reimbursed by the tenant under the lease structure.

At the same time, the company has continued investing in its mining hardware operations. A July expansion included a $36 million manufacturing facility in Nevada focused on Bitcoin mining equipment, while its AI cloud and data center businesses remained separate from the production site.

Bitcoin miners are locking in long AI leases

Bitdeer is one of several publicly traded Bitcoin miners using existing access to power and data center sites to build businesses serving AI customers.

Hut 8 and IREN announced large contracts in July, with new AI infrastructure deals adding billions of dollars in contracted revenue for both companies. Hut 8 signed its second 15-year, $9.8 billion agreement at the Beacon Point campus in Texas, while IREN announced $2.8 billion in new multi-year AI cloud contracts.

Hut 8’s second contract covered another 352 MW of IT capacity, taking the tenant’s total contracted footprint at Beacon Point to 704 MW. Combined base-term contract value at the Texas campus reached $19.6 billion following the agreement.

IREN, meanwhile, raised its 2026 annualized AI cloud revenue target to more than $4 billion after signing the additional contracts. The company has also been developing hundreds of megawatts of cloud capacity as it puts more of its power portfolio toward GPU-based computing.

MARA Holdings has taken a different route into the same market. In July, the miner expanded its Texas footprint through an agreement to acquire a 1,200-acre powered site with planned grid capacity of up to 2 gigawatts for AI, high-performance computing and Bitcoin mining infrastructure.

TeraWulf has already reached the point where its computing business produces more quarterly revenue than its Bitcoin mining operation. During the first quarter of 2026, the company generated $21 million from high-performance computing hosting compared with less than $13 million from digital asset mining, according to its first-quarter revenue results.

Bitdeer shares have risen after the Malaysia deal

Investors responded positively after Bitdeer disclosed the Malaysian customer agreement.

Bitdeer shares rose about 7% during Wednesday trading before adding nearly 6% in Thursday pre-market trading, according to Yahoo Finance data cited in the original report.

The stock was changing hands at about $10.20 as of 12:16 p.m. UTC on Thursday.

Bitdeer’s latest customer contract follows its second-quarter results earlier this month, when the company reported $228.8 million in total revenue compared with $155.6 million a year earlier. The company recorded a net loss of $92.3 million for the quarter and held $496.3 million in cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash as of June 30.

Its data center portfolio continues to include both Bitcoin mining and AI facilities, with additional sites being assessed or converted for cloud and colocation workloads as capacity becomes available.

The Commission published 400 pages of token offering rules while Congress left town. If both frameworks survive, they will contradict each other on the questions that matter most.

The timing was not subtle. On Aug. 7, 2026, the United States Senate adjourned for its August recess without voting on the CLARITY Act, the most ambitious piece of crypto legislation to reach the chamber floor since the industry began lobbying for a federal framework. One week later, on Aug. 14, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to publish Regulation Crypto Assets, a 400 page proposed rulemaking that would create the agency’s first bespoke offering regime for digital tokens. The full text landed on Aug. 18, the same week Polymarket odds for the CLARITY Act’s passage in 2026 dropped to roughly 16%.

The market read it as coordination. The SEC, under Chairman Paul Atkins, stepped into the vacuum that Congress left behind. But calling it a replacement misses the structural problem. The CLARITY Act is not dead. It sits on the Senate Legislative Calendar with a September 14 return window and three working weeks before the session runs out. If both frameworks proceed in parallel, the crypto industry will face two overlapping regimes that disagree on token classification, startup capital thresholds, the meaning of decentralization, and whether software developers owe regulatory obligations at all.

This is not a question of which framework is better. It is a question of which one survives.

What Regulation Crypto Assets actually proposes

The SEC’s proposal, filed as Release No. 33 11434 under docket S7 2026 27, runs roughly 400 pages and creates three distinct pathways for token projects that currently lack a workable compliance route.

The startup exemption, housed in Subpart B, allows teams to raise up to $5 million over four years with no accredited investor requirement and no per investor cap. The lane covers not just capital raises but also airdrops and network rewards, a deliberate expansion of scope that signals the Commission views token distribution itself as an offering event. Issuers must file a Form NOR (notice of reliance) before any distribution and post principles based disclosures on their website covering ten mandated topics, from token economics to governance mechanisms. There is no resale lockup, and general solicitation is permitted.

Intercontinental Exchange has signaled it may put more money into Polymarket’s next funding round after building a $1.64 billion stake in the prediction market platform.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that ICE Chief Executive Officer Jeff Sprecher said the New York Stock Exchange parent would consider participating if its involvement could help Polymarket complete the round.

“We’ll look at it, if it would help the round in order to have our imprimatur on it, we are always interested,” Sprecher told Bloomberg Television.

ICE may join Polymarket’s new funding round

Polymarket is seeking fresh capital at a valuation above $20 billion, according to Bloomberg, more than twice the valuation attached to the company in October. The report said the platform has continued to draw investor interest as prediction markets expand across sports, politics, geopolitics and other event based contracts.

ICE has already participated in two Polymarket funding rounds, with Bloomberg putting the exchange operator’s stake at $1.64 billion by March. Sprecher said the relationship was designed partly to allow the companies to exchange information and expertise, instead of turning ICE into a regular investor in technology startups.

As crypto.news reported in March, ICE invested another $600 million in Polymarket as part of a previously announced commitment of up to $2 billion. ICE said at the time that the investment was not expected to have a material effect on its financial results or capital return plans.

“The reality is we’re not a venture firm,” Sprecher said Thursday, describing the Polymarket investment as a relationship built around the “transfer of information and expertise.”

The distinction is important to ICE’s approach, according to Sprecher, because the company operates some of the world’s largest financial exchanges and clearing businesses and does not plan to build a portfolio of venture investments simply because technology companies are attracting capital.

Polymarket, meanwhile, has continued adding infrastructure around its prediction market business. A March report on Polymarket’s Brahma acquisition detailed its purchase of the DeFi infrastructure startup after earlier acquisitions of QCEX and Dome. The report said the transactions added U.S. regulatory access, developer infrastructure and onchain execution capabilities to Polymarket’s operations.

Prediction markets are drawing more institutional capital

Prediction markets have attracted more attention since the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Bloomberg reported, as traders increasingly use yes or no contracts to speculate on outcomes ranging from elections and sporting events to geopolitical developments.

Investor money has followed that activity. Polymarket is now seeking funding at a valuation above $20 billion, while rival Kalshi has also completed major fundraising rounds as both companies compete for traders and distribution partnerships.

Robinhood Markets has become another major participant in the sector. During the same Bloomberg Television coverage, Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev said prediction markets should remain under federal supervision through the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not individual state regulators.

The question has become increasingly important as several states attempt to apply their own rules to sports and election linked contracts. According to Bloomberg, some state authorities contend that certain contracts should fall under state gambling or gaming laws, while prediction market companies have argued that federally regulated event contracts belong under the CFTC.

A July report on North Carolina’s new law showed one state taking the federal route. Governor Josh Stein signed legislation recognizing CFTC authority over prediction markets and allowing federally registered platforms, including Kalshi and Polymarket, to operate in the state from 2027. The law also imposed a 6% state tax on trading fee revenue generated by the platforms.

State challenges keep the CFTC fight active

Other states have continued to challenge prediction market operators, leaving courts to consider how federal derivatives law interacts with state gambling powers.

Tenev told Bloomberg that he expects event contracts to remain a viable business even if the jurisdictional fight eventually reaches the U.S. Supreme Court and the court gives states more control over some products.

“I don’t think it’s going to be, ‘prediction markets are gone,’” Tenev said. He added that a legal ruling could establish a boundary that would require companies such as Robinhood to adapt their offerings.

The dispute has already produced different regulatory approaches across the country. North Carolina has explicitly recognized federal oversight, while lawsuits and enforcement actions elsewhere have challenged sports related contracts offered through federally regulated platforms.

Alongside prediction markets, the CFTC has also started allowing new forms of crypto derivatives to enter regulated U.S. venues.

In May, Kalshi received approval to launch the first regulated Bitcoin perps in the United States. The same report said Coinbase received a no action letter allowing certain crypto perpetual futures products to use Bitcoin, Ether and stablecoins as collateral.

The approvals have created another point of comparison between newer crypto trading products and the traditional futures contracts offered by established derivatives exchanges.

ICE remains cautious on perpetual futures

Perpetual futures became another focus of Sprecher’s interview after President Donald Trump said earlier this week that U.S. regulators were working on a route to bring Hyperliquid into the country in a fully compliant form.

Hyperliquid is best known for perpetual futures, leveraged derivatives that allow traders to take positions on crypto and other asset prices without an expiration date. Bloomberg reported that the product category has moved outside its long standing crypto use case, particularly during the Iran war.

During periods when traditional oil futures venues operated by CME Group and ICE were closed, Bloomberg said perpetual contracts became one of the available ways for investors to trade oil exposure.

Sprecher said ICE is not currently pursuing the products because the company’s core derivatives customers primarily use futures for hedging. Traditional futures contracts with different expiration dates also produce a forward pricing curve that companies can use to manage future costs and prices, while perpetual contracts do not create the same structure.

“Our client base is really a hedging client base, and there’s no forward pricing curve that is created by a perpetual future,” Sprecher told Bloomberg.

For ICE, Sprecher said the product does not fit the customers the exchange primarily serves, describing perpetual futures as “really a speculative” product that “doesn’t cater to our distribution or client base.”