Harmony has proposed retiring its seven-year-old layer-1 blockchain and moving ONE to Ethereum, with validators able to begin shutting down nodes from Sept. 10 as the project prepares a new AI video business.

Harmony said Sunday that it wants to take a final snapshot of the network, issue ONE as an ERC-20 token on Ethereum and move exchange listings to the new token. The proposal remains non-binding, and the project has not given a date for the final block.

The plan would end Harmony’s run as an independent blockchain after launching its mainnet in 2019. The project cited security threats from state actors and AI agents when announcing the proposed shutdown.

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Harmony has not said whether the plan will be put through its existing validator-led governance process. Under the network’s published governance rules, elected validators can submit proposals and unelected validators can vote, with voting power determined by stake. A proposal requires participation representing 51% of total stake weight and 66.7% support after a seven-day introduction period and 14-day voting period.

Harmony proposes moving ONE balances to Ethereum

At the final Harmony block, the project plans to record ONE held in wallets, staking delegations, validator rewards, smart contracts and centralized exchanges before distributing replacement tokens on Ethereum.

Users would not have to file claims for the new tokens. Harmony said ERC-20 ONE would be sent to the same addresses recorded in the final snapshot, while delegated stakes and unclaimed validator rewards would be distributed to individual governor vaults.

The token’s total supply and emission rate would remain unchanged under the proposal. Harmony plans to make the Ethereum token contract, snapshot calculations and airdrop scripts public so they can be audited.

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Not every asset or application can make the move. Multisig safes, liquidity pools and onchain applications cannot be transferred through the proposed migration, according to the project, which has asked users to exit smart contracts before Sept. 10.

Exchange-held ONE is included in the planned snapshot, with Harmony proposing to coordinate the migration of centralized exchange listings to the Ethereum version of the token.

Validators face a separate transition process. Node operators can begin shutting down from Sept. 10, while Harmony has set aside $1.372 million for validators and delegators who stop their nodes on time, sign an agreement, retain their stakes and continue as governors.

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The compensation would be distributed over four quarters. Harmony said it would cover the difference in emission rewards between a validator’s last block and the network’s final block for eligible operators.

Validators could move into Harmony’s AI video project

Harmony has proposed moving its work toward an AI video “remix economy” once the blockchain is retired, offering existing validators the option of remaining as governors or becoming operators or affiliates in the new project.

Under the model described by the team, a small group of video creators would publish prompts and other assets that fans could fork or remix. AI agents would then be used to turn the resulting branches into more video clips.

Operators would handle video generation, distribution and content moderation, with staking and service uptime tied to rewards. Harmony plans to subsidize GPU hardware during the first year and said operators could generate up to $1 million in combined revenue during that period, subject to the proposed staking and uptime requirements.

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The project has floated a $10 monthly subscription for the service, with promoters receiving a continuing 30% commission from subscriptions they refer. Harmony said advertising could generate tens of millions of dollars if the platform reached 1 million users.

Future ONE emissions would be directed toward the new initiative, although the team said the arrangements would remain subject to feedback from governors.

Harmony shutdown proposal follows August ONE exploit

The proposed shutdown follows an August security incident that forced Harmony to consider reversing days of blockchain activity after unauthorized ONE entered circulation.

On Aug. 12, crypto.news previously reported that Harmony was investigating an unauthorized mint after an outside researcher claimed nearly 4 billion ONE had been created and approximately 2.8 billion had reached centralized exchanges. Harmony had not confirmed either figure at that stage and said it was working with exchanges while examining recovery options.

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A later reconstruction by the project identified more than 3 trillion ONE created across six transactions. Harmony traced the incident to a flaw in cross-shard receipt verification that allowed valid receipts to be processed more than once, creating ONE without a corresponding debit elsewhere.

By Aug. 17, the project had settled on a much more disruptive response. Harmony proposed rolling back its two shards to checkpoints recorded at 11:25:37 p.m. UTC on Aug. 11, before the forged mint activity.

For shard 0, validators were instructed to retain block 92,730,034 and restart from 92,730,035. Shard 1 would return to block 94,978,278 and resume from the following block, even though the forged mint did not originate on that shard.

The recovery would remove 141,628 consecutive shard 0 blocks containing 109,126 regular transactions and 315 staking transactions. Harmony’s analysis classified 104,545 of the regular transactions, or 95.8%, as automated activity, including nearly 100,000 transactions linked to decentralized exchange automation.

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One wallet connected to the forged mint attempted 534 transfers of 5 billion ONE each within 106 seconds. Of those, 477 succeeded, moving 2.385 trillion ONE, according to Harmony’s investigation.

Investigators traced the tokens into standalone wallets, exchange accounts, decentralized exchange routers and pools, liquidity provider positions, bridge contracts, wrapped ONE and staking wallets. Harmony said it was working with exchanges, bridges and law enforcement as it tried to identify where the forged assets had moved.

Token migration was among the recovery options examined during that process, but Harmony said at the time that moving ONE would cause substantially more disruption than the rollback. Less than a month later, migration to Ethereum has become part of the project’s proposed plan to retire the network entirely.

Harmony has faced repeated token and bridge security incidents

The August exploit was not Harmony’s first incident involving unauthorized ONE creation. In December 2023, the project disclosed that a staking logic flaw had resulted in 146.28 million ONE being minted across 74 delegator addresses before an emergency hard fork was deployed.

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Harmony’s most prominent security breach came in June 2022, when attackers stole close to $100 million from its Horizon cross-chain bridge after compromising keys used to control the bridge.

The project worked with exchanges, blockchain analytics companies and law enforcement following the attack and raised its hacker bounty to $10 million in an attempt to recover the assets.

Harmony initially considered creating billions of ONE to reimburse users affected by the Horizon attack. A proposal published the following month included an option to mint 4.97 billion ONE for compensation, drawing opposition from community members concerned about dilution.

By September 2022, Harmony had changed course and said its revised recovery plan would not mint additional ONE or alter the token’s economics through a hard fork. The project instead proposed using treasury funds for recovery and ecosystem development.

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Raydium has expanded LaunchLab to support trading between any token pair, with LaunchOnSF’s StonkFun becoming the first integration to use the new system on Solana.

According to Raydium’s Sept. 7 announcement on X, LaunchLab can now pair a newly launched token with any quote token supported through Raydium, removing the fixed pairing structure used by many token launch platforms. Raydium said the upgrade brings more flexible token pairing, deeper liquidity and lower fees for memecoin trading.

LaunchLab now supports any token pair on Raydium.

The upgrade brings flexible pairing directly to Solana, with deeper liquidity, lower fees, and stronger meme-native trading.@LaunchOnSF is the first integration partner to bring the model live on LaunchLab. pic.twitter.com/c3NFuYCRWI

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— Raydium (@Raydium) September 6, 2026

LaunchOnSF confirmed that its StonkFun platform is the first integration partner to bring the feature live. Its team spent the previous week preparing the integration, which required changes across Raydium’s programs, trading terminals and aggregators before custom quote tokens could be supported.

Raydium LaunchLab now supports custom token pairs

Under the new system, creators can select the quote token used for a LaunchLab deployment, allowing communities to build markets around assets other than the standard quote tokens commonly used for new Solana launches.

Raydium described the feature as the ability to launch “any token, paired with any quote token.” LaunchOnSF said Raydium updated its programs to accommodate custom quote and reward tokens, while aggregators and trading terminals needed to support routing for the resulting pairs.

The integration covers permissionless deployments, bonding curves and constant product market maker pools. LaunchOnSF said deployment costs through StonkFun have been reduced to 0.03 SOL from 0.29 SOL, while liquidity provider fees can be directed back into liquidity.

Developers do not have to use the StonkFun API to deploy tokens and can construct transactions themselves. LaunchOnSF said the system was built to reduce problems it had encountered with snipers and launches concentrated in a single wallet.

Ahead of the integration, StonkFun reported more than $392 million in total trading volume, including roughly $219 million routed through Raydium. The platform had generated $1.21 million in revenue and distributed more than $5.35 million in rewards to ecosystem holders.

More than $705,000 had been spent on buybacks and burns of its ecosystem token, while another $68,000 went toward buying and burning tokens from its 10 largest ecosystem projects, according to figures published by LaunchOnSF.

LaunchLab followed Pump.fun’s move away from Raydium

Raydium first disclosed LaunchLab in March 2025 after Pump.fun began working on its own automated market maker. The platform offered creators different pricing curves and allowed third party interfaces to build on the underlying infrastructure and set their own transaction fees.

Crypto.news previously reported on Raydium’s LaunchLab plans in March 2025. An anonymous Raydium developer said at the time that the product had been under development for several months but had initially been kept on the sidelines while Pump.fun continued using Raydium for liquidity.

LaunchLab officially went live in April 2025, allowing users to create, customize and trade tokens through Raydium. Projects crossing the original 85 SOL threshold were automatically moved into Raydium’s automated market maker.

Raydium introduced customizable bonding curves, no migration cost and a 1% trading fee under the initial model. The protocol said 25% of trading fees collected through LaunchLab would be used to buy back RAY.

More than 10 projects had passed the 85 SOL threshold shortly after LaunchLab opened, while RAY rose roughly 13% following the launch before giving back part of the move.

LaunchLab arrived after Pump.fun changed a relationship that had directed a steady flow of newly created memecoins toward Raydium.

Tokens launched through Pump.fun had historically moved into Raydium liquidity pools after completing their bonding curves. Pump.fun began testing its own automated market maker in February 2025, opening a path for graduated tokens to remain inside its own trading infrastructure.

PumpSwap ended Pump.fun’s reliance on Raydium

Pump.fun formally moved away from the previous setup when it launched the PumpSwap DEX in March 2025.

Built around a constant product automated market maker similar to Raydium v4 and Uniswap v2, PumpSwap allowed tokens completing Pump.fun bonding curves to migrate directly to its own liquidity pools. Users could create pools, provide liquidity and trade tokens without sending graduated launches to Raydium.

PumpSwap introduced instant migrations and removed the six SOL migration fee previously associated with the process. The platform initially charged 0.25% on trades, allocating 0.20% to liquidity providers and 0.05% to the protocol.

Trading activity climbed quickly. PumpSwap captured 21% of Solana DEX trading about a week after launch, with cumulative volume exceeding $1.2 billion. Raydium remained ahead with a 57.4% share at the time.

By March 30, PumpSwap had recorded $2.43 billion in volume, alongside $5.4 million in protocol fees, around 700,000 active wallets and 30.59 million swaps. Raydium accounted for 74% of Solana DEX volume on that date, compared with PumpSwap’s 8%.

Raydium had entered the contest from a strong position in memecoin trading. A CEX.io report showed its memecoin volume share rising from 77% to 83% during the first quarter of 2025.

Pump.fun was responsible for more than half of daily SPL token creation at the time, with tokens previously flowing into Raydium after meeting Pump.fun’s graduation requirements. That pipeline changed once PumpSwap began taking the migrations directly.

Raydium remains a major Solana trading venue

Despite heavier competition among Solana exchanges and launchpads, Raydium has remained one of the network’s largest execution venues.

Across 2025, the protocol processed $352.8 billion in execution layer DEX volume. Meteora followed with $113.7 billion, while Orca and SolFi recorded $103.9 billion and $97.9 billion, respectively.

More recent activity has remained spread across several Solana venues. On Aug. 21, 2026, Solana generated approximately $2.8 billion in daily decentralized exchange spot volume. PumpSwap processed roughly $485 million, followed by BisonFi at $466 million, Orca at $307 million, Raydium at $260 million and Manifest at $218 million.

The five platforms together accounted for approximately $1.74 billion of the network’s daily total.

LaunchLab’s latest update changes the type of markets that can be created through Raydium’s launch infrastructure. Instead of requiring creators to launch against a predetermined quote asset, StonkFun deployments can select another supported token and carry that pairing through the bonding curve and subsequent liquidity setup.

Raydium ecosystem contributor Infra said the structure lets a community pair a meme token with another asset its users already follow and use the same asset for rewards. LaunchOnSF became the first partner to put that model into production through StonkFun following the Sept. 7 rollout.

South Korea’s National Tax Service ruled on Aug. 28 that residents must continue reporting qualifying cryptocurrency accounts held with bankrupt overseas exchanges, even when trading and withdrawals are unavailable.

The National Tax Service issued its interpretation after a Korean resident asked whether an inaccessible exchange balance still qualified as an overseas financial account.

The taxpayer was a creditor of an overseas cryptocurrency exchange that entered bankruptcy in November 2022. The account holder could no longer trade or withdraw the assets and had entered the exchange’s distribution process.

The taxpayer was receiving partial bankruptcy distributions through a domestic foreign-currency account. However, the NTS concluded that the original overseas account remained subject to reporting because it had been opened with a foreign virtual asset service provider to trade digital assets.

The decision concerns disclosure obligations rather than whether the inaccessible assets generate taxable income. Reporting an account does not by itself establish that tax is owed on its entire balance.

The 500 million won threshold applies across accounts

Korean residents and domestic corporations generally must report when their combined overseas financial account balances exceed 500 million won, approximately $350,000, at the end of any month during the relevant calendar year.

Balances across qualifying foreign accounts are aggregated when applying the threshold. The rule can therefore apply even when no single account independently exceeds 500 million won.

Taxpayers must submit the report during June of the following year. The filing identifies the foreign financial institution, account information and reportable balance.

Digital assets were added to the foreign financial account regime beginning with the 2023 reporting cycle. Accounts held through overseas cryptocurrency exchanges can therefore qualify alongside foreign deposits, securities, funds and other covered financial assets.

Self-custody wallets are treated differently because they are not accounts opened with overseas virtual asset service providers. Crypto.news previously reported that decentralized wallets were excluded from overseas account declarations under the NTS interpretation.

The latest ruling clarifies that an exchange’s insolvency does not produce the same result. A customer can retain a reportable account or claim against the exchange even after losing normal control over the assets.

Bankruptcy creates a difficult valuation question

The NTS interpretation confirms that the account must be reported, but the publicly available summary does not fully explain how taxpayers should value a disputed or partially recoverable bankruptcy claim.

An exchange interface might display the customer’s original token balance even when the bankruptcy estate cannot return all assets. The value eventually distributed may differ substantially from that displayed balance.

The legal interpretation arose from a taxpayer already receiving partial distributions. It does not establish that every reported account balance will equal the amount recovered through bankruptcy.

Affected account holders may need records showing monthly balances, exchange statements, bankruptcy claims and distributions. Those documents can help establish what existed in the account and what was later recovered.

Exchange bankruptcy can leave customers waiting years for repayment. The FTX estate, for example, began a multibillion-dollar creditor repayment process after customers lost access to funds held on the platform.

The NTS ruling means Korean creditors cannot assume that frozen balances disappear from their disclosure obligations while those proceedings continue.

Overseas crypto disclosures fell to 10.5 trillion won

Korean taxpayers reported 10.5 trillion won in overseas digital assets during the 2026 disclosure cycle, according to figures attributed to the National Tax Service. The total declined 5.4% from the previous year.

Individual holdings increased 5.4% to 9.8 trillion won. Corporate holdings dropped 61.1% to approximately 700 billion won, producing the decline in the combined total.

The NTS attributed the overall reduction to a broad fall in asset prices. The figures represent balances disclosed through overseas financial account reports, not the full cryptocurrency holdings of every Korean resident.

South Korea’s total reported overseas financial accounts reached 107.1 trillion won in the latest cycle. The number of reporting individuals and companies rose 9.1% to 7,484, according to the published results.

The disclosure requirement is separate from South Korea’s planned tax on cryptocurrency gains. The country currently plans to apply a combined 22% tax to qualifying digital asset income from Jan. 1, 2027.

That future tax will also cover activity on overseas exchanges and private wallets. As crypto.news reported, annual gains above the 2.5 million won deduction would face a 20% national tax and 2% local income tax.

What affected account holders must do next

Residents whose combined overseas account balances exceeded the threshold during 2026 will generally need to file their disclosures in June 2027.

Customers of bankrupt exchanges should retain account records even if the platform no longer provides normal access. Bankruptcy notices, claim approvals and payment records may also be required to explain differences between reported balances and recovered funds.

The NTS is preparing broader enforcement tools ahead of the 2027 crypto income tax. In related coverage, the agency was reported to be developing wallet-tracing capabilities for overseas transactions.

South Korea also plans to exchange crypto transaction information with participating jurisdictions through the OECD’s Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework. The new data channels could make previously undisclosed overseas exchange accounts easier to identify.

Ripple has expanded XRP’s presence in major U.S. college sports through a multi-year sponsorship with the University of Florida that will put the token’s logo on the field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

Florida Athletics said Friday that XRP branding will appear on the football field at the 88,548-seat stadium beginning this season, while the partnership will extend to digital properties and event signage across Gainesville.

Financial terms were not disclosed. Ripple has committed to supporting financial and technology education for student-athletes and the university community, covering subjects across traditional finance and digital assets.

The agreement gives Ripple another major college athletics sponsorship only two months after it signed a similar deal with the University of Kansas.

XRP branding is coming to the Swamp

At Florida, Ripple is pairing XRP marketing with educational programs designed for students and athletes. The arrangement places the cryptocurrency inside one of the largest college sports programs in the Southeastern Conference.

University of Florida Director of Athletics Scott Stricklin said the school has a history of adopting technology to improve its programs and fan experience.

“Ripple has established itself as an innovative leader in financial technology, and we’re excited to welcome XRP to Gator Nation,” Stricklin said.

The field placement will give XRP exposure during Florida Gators home football games at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, commonly known as the Swamp. Digital placements and event signage will keep the branding visible outside football games during the multi-year agreement.

Ripple has already tested the college sports strategy at another major NCAA program. As crypto.news previously reported, the company signed a five-year sponsorship with the University of Kansas in July that put XRP branding on Jayhawks athletics uniforms.

The Kansas agreement covered football, basketball and other university teams, making XRP the first cryptocurrency to appear on the jerseys of a major NCAA Division I athletics program. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, a University of Kansas alumnus, publicly promoted the partnership after it was announced.

Education was part of that agreement as well, with Ripple extending its existing relationship with the university into athletics, financial education and blockchain research.

Ripple expands its XRP college sports strategy

Ripple’s move into college athletics has drawn attention beyond the two university partnerships.

After the Kansas deal, Ripple CTO Emeritus David Schwartz defended XRP advertising in college sports after critics questioned whether cryptocurrency promotion should face tighter restrictions.

Schwartz argued in July that truthful advertising for XRP receives commercial speech protections under the First Amendment, citing previous U.S. Supreme Court rulings involving advertising for lawful products. Commercial speech can still be regulated under U.S. law, meaning those protections do not prevent every potential restriction on advertising.

The Florida agreement takes the strategy from uniforms to the playing field itself. Ripple has not disclosed whether more college programs are being considered for similar partnerships.

The sponsorship campaign is running alongside a much larger expansion of Ripple’s financial infrastructure businesses, including payments, custody, corporate treasury services and its Ripple USD stablecoin.

RLUSD crossed $2 billion in market capitalization in August, less than two years after its December 2024 launch, according to Ripple. Nearly $1 billion of the stablecoin had been issued on the XRP Ledger when the company announced the milestone.

Standard Custody issues RLUSD under New York regulatory oversight, while Ripple has been building stablecoin settlement and treasury products around the asset.

XRP price holds near $1.41

XRP’s market reaction has been limited despite the new Florida sponsorship.

The token traded near $1.41 on Friday, gaining 0.6% over the previous 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data cited in the original report. XRP was up roughly 34.9% over the past 30 days but remained approximately 49.8% lower over the past year.

Institutional demand through U.S. spot XRP exchange-traded funds has cooled after becoming a major source of inflows earlier in 2026.

ETF flows were essentially flat on Sept. 4 after the funds recently ended an inflow streak. Cumulative net inflows remained close to $1.6 billion, while Decrypt’s XRP ETF tracker classified market sentiment as neutral.

The slowdown had already become visible in August. Weekly U.S. spot XRP ETF net inflows fell 93% from $14.86 million to $1.01 million during the week ending Aug. 8.

Regulated XRP products have continued appearing in U.S. fund filings despite the weaker pace of fresh capital. SEC filings dated Aug. 27 and Aug. 28 listed three XRP-linked ETFs, including ProShares products and a Cyber Hornet strategy fund combining S&P 500 equities with XRP exposure.

Seven U.S. spot XRP ETFs had accumulated $1.57 billion in net inflows by Aug. 24.

Ripple builds visibility outside crypto markets

The Florida and Kansas agreements put XRP branding in front of college sports audiences while Ripple continues developing businesses that do not depend exclusively on the token.

Over the past several years, the company has moved into custody, stablecoin payments, prime brokerage and corporate treasury management through product launches and acquisitions. RLUSD has become part of that strategy as Ripple develops payment and settlement services for institutions.

Ripple launched enterprise tools earlier this year that allow corporate finance teams to manage fiat currencies, RLUSD, XRP and other digital assets within existing treasury workflows. The platform builds on the company’s acquisition of treasury management software provider GTreasury.

XRP remains closely associated with Ripple’s public identity despite the company’s expansion into other financial products. The Florida partnership continues that association by promoting XRP itself, not Ripple’s stablecoin or one of its institutional services.

The University of Kansas agreement followed the same approach, placing XRP branding directly on athletic uniforms while combining the sponsorship with blockchain and financial education programs.

At Florida, the logo will move onto the football field this season, accompanied by digital branding and event signage throughout the multi-year partnership.

Liquid, the Bitcoin sidechain operated by Blockstream, has paused operations after actors who claim they are “white-hat” hackers withdrew roughly 4,000 BTC from Liquid’s federation wallet—an amount the report describes as worth about $320 million. The move has triggered a wider shutdown of bridge activity, with Liquid saying new transactions are currently blocked.

On Sunday, Liquid said it disabled bridge nodes, halting activity that would otherwise allow users to move funds between Bitcoin and Liquid’s network. Exchanges, meanwhile, were either already stopping deposits and withdrawals of L-BTC or preparing to do so, according to Liquid’s public statements.

Key takeaways

• Liquid disabled bridge nodes after actors withdrew about 4,000 BTC from the federation wallet, leaving the sidechain in a paused state.
• Liquid and Blockstream say they contacted the actors through signed on-chain messages seeking a remediation and coordinated return of funds.
• Liquid estimates the withdrawn BTC represented about 95% of the wallet’s roughly 4,200 BTC balance at the time of the incident.
• L-BTC bridge-related activity was stopped, while Liquid says other issued assets on the network—including USDT—were not affected.
• SideSwap says its peg-out service processed a withdrawal order using its PAK and that the key was not compromised, attributing the source of the L-BTC to a bug in Elements.

Bridge nodes disabled as federation wallet is emptied

Liquid’s response centers on preventing further bridge transactions while the federation works through the situation. Liquid stated that bridge nodes were turned off, which stops new transactions from being created or relayed through the bridge.

The immediate market-facing impact was felt by custodians and exchanges supporting L-BTC. Liquid said exchanges had halted or were in the process of halting L-BTC deposits and withdrawals—effectively reducing the risk of users interacting with a bridge that is no longer operating normally.

Liquid said the seized Bitcoin amount was taken from its federation wallet. The report notes that the withdrawn BTC accounted for approximately 95% of a federation balance that was around 4,200 BTC prior to the incident.

On-chain messages and a demand to patch before funds return

Blockstream, Liquid’s technology provider, reportedly began contacting the actors directly using signed on-chain messages. Subsequent messages, as described in the reporting, show the actors telling Blockstream to patch the vulnerability and ensure that every node is updated before they would return most of the Bitcoin.

The actors also reportedly provided encrypted technical details to Blockstream. According to Galaxy Digital research head Alex Thorn, those details were shared through the same channel of communications.

As of the time of writing, the funds had not been returned, leaving the sidechain paused and raising an open question for Liquid users: even if the actors’ stated intent is to improve security, the operational downtime could persist until updates are verified across the network.

Other Liquid-issued assets reportedly unaffected

Liquid said other assets issued on the network were unaffected. That includes tokens and instruments such as USDT, DePix, and real-world assets (as referenced in the report). The sidechain’s pause appears focused on bridge functionality and the federation wallet state, rather than a broader halt of every on-chain activity.

For traders and integrators, this distinction matters. When a sidechain pauses because of bridge-layer issues, it can limit the ability to move assets in or out, but it may still allow certain on-network transfers—depending on the specific operational constraints put in place by the federation and bridge nodes.

SideSwap attributes peg-out details to Elements, not its system

One of the most specific parts of the incident response came from SideSwap, which said the withdrawal passed through its peg-out service as a customer order using its Peg-out Authorization Key (PAK). SideSwap emphasized that the PAK was not compromised.

The company’s statement further claims that the L-BTC used in the transaction originated from a bug in Elements—the open-source software that underpins Liquid—rather than from a compromise or failure within SideSwap’s systems.

That framing is significant because it shifts attention from custodian or peg-out authorization credentials toward the base protocol layer. If the vulnerability truly stems from Elements behavior, the remediation would likely require coordinated updates not only on the bridge or federation components, but also across the surrounding software stack that interfaces with Liquid nodes.

What to watch next for Liquid users and integrators

Until Liquid and Blockstream complete the patching and federation-wide node updates demanded in the messages, the bridge will remain paused and L-BTC flows are likely to stay constrained. Users should monitor further public updates from Liquid and Blockstream—especially any confirmation that the patched version is fully propagated across nodes and that exchanges resume deposits and withdrawals safely.

Protocol 27 delivers smart contract authentication, an automated market maker DEX, and RPC server infrastructure to a blockchain with 14 million migrated users. The September 15 mainnet activation is the moment Pi Network proves it can build real products or admits that seven years of mobile mining was the product all along.

Protocol 27 delivers smart contract authentication, an automated market maker DEX, and RPC server infrastructure to a blockchain with 14 million migrated users. The September 15 mainnet activation is the moment Pi Network proves it can build real products or admits that seven years of mobile mining was the product all along.

Pi Network has spent seven years telling the world that it is building something different. On September 15, the world gets to check the receipts.

Protocol 27 is the upgrade the Pi Core Team has called the “final planned” protocol change in the current development sequence. That phrase carries weight. It means the team believes the base layer is finished, or close enough to finished that everything coming next sits on top of it rather than inside it. Smart contract authentication, automated market maker liquidity pools, RPC server infrastructure, and a decentralized exchange that already drew 242,000 testers on testnet are all part of the package. When Protocol 27 goes live, the excuses run out.

The timing is deliberate. Pi closed August at $0.0909, sitting more than 97% below the $2.99 all-time high it touched when the open mainnet launched external trading in February 2025. Monthly token unlocks dump roughly 6.5 million PI per day into circulation. Exchange listings on OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, and MEXC have not stopped the bleeding. Binance still has not listed the token despite an 86.8% community vote in favor. The market has been patient with Pi Network for a long time. Protocol 27 is where patience converts into a verdict.

From Stanford dorm room to 60 million Pioneers

Pi Network launched on March 14, 2019, Pi Day, built by three Stanford graduates who believed cryptocurrency was too hard for normal people to access. Nicolas Kokkalis, a computer science Ph.D. whose doctoral work at Stanford involved building smart contract frameworks on fault-tolerant distributed systems before Ethereum existed, led the technical side. Chengdiao Fan, also a Stanford Ph.D., handled product. Vincent McPhillip, an MBA graduate, ran growth. Visiting researcher Aurelien Schiltz rounded out the founding team.

The pitch was simple: mine crypto on your phone without draining the battery. Tap a button once a day. Invite friends. Build a security circle. The mining was not proof of work in any traditional sense. It was closer to a faucet with social verification layered on top. Critics called it a glorified sign-up counter. Supporters called it the most accessible onboarding mechanism crypto had ever seen.

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Both sides had a point. By 2026, Pi Network claims more than 60 million registered users across 200 countries. That number makes it one of the largest user bases in all of cryptocurrency. But registered users and active participants are not the same thing. Roughly 19 million have completed KYC verification. About 14 million have migrated their tokens to mainnet. The gap between 60 million and 14 million tells you something about friction, about how many people tapped that button and then never came back when the network asked them to prove they were real.

The KYC system itself is worth examining. Pi uses a combination of AI-powered document verification and human validators who review applications and flag inconsistencies. The process includes liveness detection, sanctions screening, AML checks, and duplicate account detection. The Core Team has said openly that their KYC is designed to reject accounts, not rubber-stamp them. That philosophy has slowed migration but produced a verified user base that few crypto projects can match in scale.

Pi Network has positioned its 18 million verified users as a competitive advantage rather than a vanity metric. Whether that advantage translates into economic activity is exactly what Protocol 27 needs to prove.

What Protocol 27 actually changes

Strip away the marketing language and Protocol 27 does three things that matter.

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Smart contract authentication. This is the headline feature. Protocol 27 expands how applications verify user identity within on-chain logic, building on the Pi Sign-In and PiVerify infrastructure the Core Team released at Pi2Day 2026 in June. In practical terms, smart contracts on Pi can now support more advanced permission rules. Accounts and applications get more flexible, more secure ways to authorize transactions. If you are building an app on Pi and you need to confirm that the user interacting with your contract is a real, KYC-verified person, Protocol 27 gives you the on-chain tools to do that without relying on off-chain workarounds.

This is not a small thing. Identity-gated smart contracts are something the broader crypto industry has talked about for years without shipping at scale. Pi is not claiming to have solved decentralized identity, but it is claiming to have built authentication primitives that work within its own ecosystem. The difference between those two claims matters, and Protocol 27 is where the distinction gets tested.

RPC server infrastructure. Protocol 27 adds the plumbing that external developers need to connect to the Pi blockchain without running a full node. RPC servers are not glamorous. They do not make headlines. But they are the reason developers can build on Ethereum, Solana, or any other chain without downloading the entire blockchain first. Pi has been criticized for years for making it difficult for outside developers to build on the network. RPC infrastructure is the fix.

Automated market maker and DEX. The integrated order book and AMM decentralized exchange moves from testnet to mainnet. This is where Pi token holders will be able to swap tokens, provide liquidity, and participate in new token launches through the Pi Launchpad without leaving the Pi ecosystem. The AMM model means liquidity pools set prices algorithmically rather than relying on traditional order matching.

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Protocol 27 targets September 15 as the mainnet deployment date, with three weeks of testing across Testnet 1 and Testnet 2 before activation. The timeline is aggressive. It is also the kind of timeline that a project in Pi’s position needs to hit.

The SLICE test that nobody outside Pi noticed

Before Protocol 27 goes live, the Pi Launchpad already ran what amounts to a full dress rehearsal. From June 11 to 28, the Core Team launched SLICE, a test token with no monetary value, on the testnet DEX. The results deserve attention even though they happened in a sandbox.

242,000 Pioneers participated. They committed 15.92 million Test-Pi toward token acquisition. The launch tested the full Launchpad lifecycle: token issuance, AMM pool creation, liquidity bootstrapping, and real-time price discovery through swaps. The Core Team revised the participation model after the first test round to simplify the user experience and improve fairness, adding a fair access mechanism designed to prevent large participants from dominating token allocations.

The Pi Mainnet is upgrading to Protocol 26. Deadline: Aug. 11.

All Mainnet node operators must complete the upgrade before the deadline to remain connected to the network. Details here: https://t.co/9VehO7hhj1

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Protocol 26 is a major milestone ahead of the final planned upgrade,…

— Pi Network (@PiCoreTeam) July 29, 2026

Those numbers matter for a specific reason. A DEX is only as useful as the people who show up to use it. Getting 242,000 participants in a testnet exercise where the tokens have zero real value suggests genuine curiosity, or at least muscle memory from years of tapping buttons. The question Protocol 27 answers is whether those same users show up when real money is on the line.

The SLICE test also revealed something about Pi’s approach to DEX design. Rather than copying Uniswap’s pure AMM model or building a traditional central limit order book, Pi Launchpad combines both. The hybrid model lets price discovery happen through automated curves while still allowing limit orders. It is a design choice that suggests the Core Team is thinking about users who have never used a DEX before, which tracks with Pi’s entire history of prioritizing accessibility over sophistication.

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Pi2Day and the developer toolkit that changed the pitch

On June 28, Pi2Day 2026, the Core Team dropped three products that quietly shifted what Pi Network is. Before Pi2Day, Pi was a blockchain with a big user base and limited developer tools. After Pi2Day, it became a blockchain with a big user base, identity infrastructure, and a computing framework.

SoloHost is an open, permissionless framework on Pi Desktop where developers can build and list apps that run local AI and distributed computing workloads. Users discover and run these apps on their own machines, interacting through mobile devices on Pi Browser. The pitch is that Pi’s 60 million users are not just token holders. They are potential compute nodes.

Pi Sign-In lets users log into third-party websites and applications using their Pi accounts. No separate usernames. No separate passwords. For developers, it means access to Pi’s 18 million KYC-verified users without building an identity system from scratch.

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PiVerify is the business-facing identity layer. It offers document verification, liveness detection, sanctions screening, AML checks, and duplicate account detection through a combination of AI and human review. This is Pi selling its KYC infrastructure as a service to companies that need compliant identity verification but do not want to build it themselves.

Pi shipped its DEX while the broader market looked away, and the developer tools that launched alongside it may matter more than the exchange itself. Identity is the one thing Pi has that most chains do not. PiVerify and Pi Sign-In turn that advantage into products other businesses can actually use.

The Core Team followed up on September 5 with three more developer features: local storage for apps, access to app-specific staking data, and a file and video sharing function. These are not headline-grabbing releases. They are the kind of incremental tooling updates that signal a team actually building for developers rather than announcing vaporware at conferences.

The numbers that keep Pi honest

Optimism about Protocol 27 needs to exist alongside the numbers that explain why PI trades at $0.095 instead of $2.99.

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Pi Network has a circulating supply of 11.14 billion PI out of a total supply of 100 billion. The fully diluted valuation sits at roughly $9.46 billion. About 1.21 billion tokens are scheduled to unlock in 2026, which works out to approximately 6.5 million new PI entering circulation every single day. In September alone, over 149 million tokens worth roughly $50.71 million are set to unlock.

This is the structural headwind that no protocol upgrade can fix overnight. Every month, hundreds of millions of new PI tokens enter exchange circulation from unlocking schedules, and organic demand has not grown fast enough to absorb the supply. Not all unlocked tokens sell, obviously. Unlocked supply represents potential selling pressure, not guaranteed selling. But the persistent downward price action since February 2025 suggests that enough holders are selling to overwhelm whatever buying demand exists.

The exchange situation adds another layer. PI trades on OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, MEXC, and Kraken. It does not trade on Binance. The world’s largest exchange held a community vote in February 2025 where 86.8% of roughly 226,000 participants supported listing PI. Binance never acted on the result. The stated concerns, code transparency, insufficient independent security audits, questions about decentralization, and token concentration risk, remain unresolved as of September 2026.

Whether demand can absorb Pi’s 2026 token unlocks is the question that every protocol upgrade, DEX launch, and developer tool release ultimately needs to answer.

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421,000 nodes and a hard deadline

Protocol 27 does not arrive in isolation. It follows Protocol 26, which upgraded four areas: contract safety, state management, interoperability, and cryptographic capabilities. Protocol 26 carried a hard deadline of August 11, 2026, requiring all 421,000 mainnet node operators to update or lose network connectivity.

That number, 421,000 active nodes, is significant. It represents one of the larger node networks in cryptocurrency. Whether those nodes are meaningfully decentralized is a separate debate. Many of them run on personal computers and consumer hardware, which is by design. Pi has always positioned itself as a network that ordinary people can run on ordinary machines. The tradeoff is that the network’s throughput and finality characteristics differ from chains optimized for institutional-grade infrastructure.

The August 11 deadline for Protocol 26 was a forcing function. Nodes that did not update got disconnected. The Core Team chose disruption over accommodation, a decision that signals confidence in the remaining operator base. Protocol 27 applies the same logic. The mandatory upgrade deadline for all nodes to version 27.1 is September 15.

Running two mandatory protocol upgrades within 35 days is an aggressive cadence. It is also a cadence that only works when you have a community that actually pays attention to deadlines. The fact that Pi pulled off Protocol 26 without catastrophic node dropout gives Protocol 27 a better chance of landing cleanly.

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Consensus 2026 and the credibility play

Pi Network sponsored Consensus 2026 in Miami, and both co-founders, Nicolas Kokkalis and Chengdiao Fan, spoke at the event. This is not a small detail. Consensus is the crypto industry’s flagship conference. Sponsoring it and putting founders on stage is an expensive credibility play that signals Pi is done operating in the shadows.

For years, Pi’s biggest weakness in the eyes of the broader crypto community was not technical. It was reputational. The project looked like a phone-tapping game to people who had never examined the code or the roadmap. Mainstream crypto media largely ignored it. Crypto Twitter treated it as a punchline. The user base grew anyway, entirely through grassroots word of mouth in markets where traditional crypto infrastructure does not reach, particularly in Southeast Asia, Africa, and South America.

What next for the Pi Network price ahead of the 134M unlock in January?

This Pi Network price has remained under pressure in the past few days, with technicals suggesting a big drop ahead of a 134 million token unlock

— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) December 29, 2025

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Pi’s credibility gap between real infrastructure and market perception has been one of the defining tensions of the project. Protocol 27 does not close that gap on its own. But it gives observers something concrete to evaluate. A live DEX with real volume numbers. Smart contracts with authentication primitives. RPC endpoints that external developers can actually query. These are measurable things.

The Vibe Coder campaign, which incentivizes developers to build AI-powered applications on Pi through the Pi App Studio, and the SoloHost distributed computing framework represent long-term bets on ecosystem growth. Neither will produce results by September 15. But they plant seeds that could matter if Protocol 27 gives developers a reason to take Pi seriously as a platform rather than a social experiment.

What to watch

September 15 delivery. Protocol 27 either ships on time or it does not. On-time delivery would confirm the Core Team can execute on aggressive timelines. A delay would feed the narrative that Pi moves too slowly.

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DEX volume in the first 30 days. The SLICE testnet drew 242,000 participants. Real money will draw fewer. The question is how many fewer. Sustained daily volume above $1 million on the Pi Launchpad DEX would signal genuine utility. Anything under $100,000 after the launch week spike fades would suggest the DEX is a feature that users tried once and abandoned.

Node operator compliance rate. All 421,000 nodes need to upgrade to version 27.1 by September 15. The compliance rate after Protocol 26 set the baseline. A significant drop in active nodes after Protocol 27 would indicate operator fatigue.

External developer activity. RPC infrastructure is only valuable if developers use it. Watch for new apps connecting to Pi’s mainnet through RPC endpoints in Q4 2026. The Vibe Coder campaign and Pi App Studio submissions will be the early indicators.

Token unlock absorption. September brings over 149 million PI in unlocks. If the price holds steady or rises through September and October despite the new supply, it means Protocol 27 generated enough demand to offset the dilution. If PI drops below $0.05, the market is saying that utility improvements do not matter when supply growth outpaces demand.

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Binance listing movement. Any signal from Binance before or after Protocol 27, whether a listing announcement, a renewed vote, or continued silence, will disproportionately affect PI’s price trajectory. The 86.8% community vote from 2025 still hangs in the air.

Disclaimer:** This article is for educational and informational purposes only. It does not constitute financial, investment, or trading advice. Cryptocurrency markets are volatile and carry significant risk. Always conduct your own research and consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Published September 7, 2026.

When does Protocol 27 go live on mainnet?

The Pi Core Team has set September 15, 2026, as the target date for Protocol 27 mainnet activation. All node operators must upgrade to version 27.1 by that date. The timeline follows three weeks of testing across Testnet 1 and Testnet 2.

What is the Pi Launchpad DEX?

The Pi Launchpad is a combined order book and automated market maker decentralized exchange built into the Pi ecosystem. It was tested on testnet through the SLICE token launch from June 11 to 28, 2026, which drew 242,000 Pioneers who committed 15.92 million Test-Pi. Protocol 27 brings this DEX to mainnet.

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How many Pi Network users have completed KYC?

As of mid-2026, Pi Network reports more than 18.1 million KYC-verified users across over 200 countries, with approximately 16.72 million having completed mainnet migration. The total registered user base exceeds 60 million, though only those who complete KYC and migration can access transferable PI on chain.

What were the Pi2Day 2026 releases?

Pi2Day 2026, held on June 28, introduced three products: SoloHost, a permissionless framework for building local AI and distributed computing apps; Pi Sign-In, an authentication solution letting users access third-party sites with Pi accounts; and PiVerify, an identity verification platform for businesses offering document verification, liveness detection, and AML compliance.

What exchanges list PI?

PI trades on OKX, Bitget, Gate.io, MEXC, and Kraken as of September 2026. Binance has not listed PI despite an 86.8% favorable community vote in February 2025. The token’s 24-hour trading volume across exchanges typically ranges from $3 million to $5 million.

How many PI tokens unlock in 2026?

Approximately 1.21 billion PI tokens are scheduled to unlock throughout 2026, releasing into circulation at a pace of roughly 6.5 million tokens per day. In September 2026 alone, over 149 million PI tokens are set to unlock. The circulating supply stands at 11.14 billion out of a total supply of 100 billion.

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Is PI a good investment?

PI has declined more than 97% from its February 2025 all-time high of $2.99 and trades near $0.095 as of early September 2026. The token faces persistent sell pressure from monthly unlocks and has not secured a Binance listing. Protocol 27 and the DEX launch represent potential catalysts, but the project’s ability to generate sustained utility and demand remains unproven. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.

Is PI a good investment?

PI has declined more than 97% from its February 2025 all-time high of $2.99 and trades near $0.095 as of early September 2026. The token faces persistent sell pressure from monthly unlocks and has not secured a Binance listing. Protocol 27 and the DEX launch represent potential catalysts, but the project’s ability to generate sustained utility and demand remains unproven. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.

Bitcoin sidechain Liquid paused operations after actors claiming to be white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 Bitcoin worth $320 million from its federation wallet. 

On Sunday, Liquid said that bridge nodes were disabled, preventing new transactions, while exchanges had halted or were preparing to halt L-BTC deposits and withdrawals.

Blockstream, Liquid’s technology provider, started contacting the actors through signed onchain messages. Subsequent messages show the actors told Blockstream to patch the vulnerability and ensure every node was updated before they would return most of the Bitcoin. 

They also sent encrypted technical details to Blockstream, according to Galaxy Digital research head Alex Thorn. At the time of writing, the funds had not been returned. 

SideSwap said the withdrawal passed through its peg-out service as a customer order using its Peg-out Authorization Key (PAK), but that the key was not compromised. It said the L-BTC used in the transaction originated from a bug in Elements, the open-source software underpinning Liquid, rather than SideSwap’s systems. 

Cointelegraph reached out to Liquid Network and Blockstream for comment.

The withdrawn Bitcoin represented roughly 95% of the wallet’s approximately 4,200 BTC balance before the incident. Liquid said other assets issued on the network, including USDT, DePix and real-world assets, were unaffected. The sidechain remained paused while federation members worked to fix the vulnerability. 

This is a developing story, and further information will be added as it becomes available. 

Related: ‘White hats’ take 4000 BTC from Liquid, ETFs see best inflows of 2026: Hodler’s Digest

Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.