Compound Foundation has launched a USDC lending market with loan-to-value ratios of up to 87% as part of its $52 million plan to attract institutional capital.

Compound Foundation said in a Sept. 9 announcement that its Institutional Market runs on Compound v3 and separates selected collateral into a lending pool designed around specific liquidity and risk conditions.

Borrowers can use Ether (ETH), wrapped staked Ether, Wrapped Bitcoin, or Coinbase Wrapped BTC to access USDC. The market gives ETH an 87% loan-to-value ratio, while wstETH carries an 85% ratio. WBTC and cbBTC each have an 81% ratio.

Each collateral asset has a $10 million borrowing cap. Liquidation factors range from 86% for WBTC and cbBTC to 93% for ETH, while penalties begin at 5% for ETH and rise to 10% for both Bitcoin-backed assets.

Compound promoted the product as an institutional-only market in its announcement. However, its official market page states that anyone can borrow, while approval applies to suppliers seeking additional incentives.

Compound market pairs higher LTVs with a narrow collateral list

By limiting the market to four liquid collateral assets, Compound said it can offer terms based on their individual risk and liquidity profiles instead of applying one set of conditions across a large group of tokens.

Institutions often manage larger positions and follow internal risk controls that differ from those of retail users, according to the foundation. Compound said the new structure provides increased borrowing capacity, defined collateral parameters, and direct operational support.

A dedicated contact will assist participating institutions with onboarding, market updates, and other operational matters. Compound also said USDC suppliers will receive the standard market yield, while approved lenders can qualify for extra incentives.

The rewards program will distribute as much as 200,000 USDC on a pro-rata basis over three months. Applicants must supply at least 100,000 USDC, and only the first $20 million in eligible deposits will count toward the program.

Compound said the market was oversubscribed when it opened, naming DeFi Saver, K3, KPK and Yearn among the participants. The foundation did not provide the amount committed or explain how much demand exceeded the available capacity.

“With today’s Institutional Market launch, we are taking the first step toward building infrastructure to meet institutional client demands, including better capital efficiency, clearly defined risk, and a much higher standard of service,” Compound Foundation Executive Director Aaron Schnarch said.

According to Schnarch, early demand encouraged the foundation, which plans to release more capabilities over the coming months.

KPK co-founder and CEO Marcelo Ruiz de Olano said direct access to a team familiar with institutional requirements made the market attractive to his company.

“Compound is combining the capital efficiency of onchain markets with the level of service institutional participants expect,” Ruiz de Olano said.

Institutional market follows Compound’s $52 million program

Three weeks before the product launch, crypto.news reported on Compound’s new management team and its DAO-approved, two-year development program.

COMP holders approved $28 million for operations and another $24 million for growth and incentives. The package represents the largest development allocation in the protocol’s history, according to the foundation.

Only $14 million was moved to the foundation’s multisignature wallet at the start of the program. The remaining $38 million stayed in reserve, with future releases linked to delivery targets such as assembling an engineering team and producing a Compound v3 integration kit.

Along with Schnarch, the management group includes Chief Operating Officer Christopher Donovan and Chief Product Officer Steven Liu. Team members brought experience from Coinbase Custody, Anchorage Digital, Near Foundation, Maple Finance, HSBC, and Broadridge Financial.

The program covers institutional lending, real-world assets, and tools that allow financial companies to connect with Compound’s infrastructure. Improving capital efficiency also forms part of the plan, as does building credit products around traditional finance requirements.

Founded in 2018, Compound helped establish blockchain-based borrowing and lending through permissionless markets governed by COMP holders and delegates. The foundation says the protocol has processed about $480 billion in cumulative deposits and borrowing volume, although the figure does not represent current assets held on the platform.

Data cited by The Defiant placed Compound’s total value locked near $1.53 billion around the launch, with approximately $638 million borrowed. Ethereum accounted for about $1.42 billion, or 93%, of the protocol’s locked assets.

US financial firms are also expanding crypto-backed credit

For US institutions, Compound’s use of USDC and Bitcoin or Ether collateral places the product alongside several recent crypto-backed lending programs, although the legal structures and access models differ.

In August, JPMorgan’s collateral program was reported to allow institutional clients to pledge Bitcoin and Ether for US dollar loans through its Kinexys digital asset platform. Fidelity Digital Assets and Coinbase Custody were named among the custodians holding the pledged assets.

Kraken and Maple also introduced a USDC-funded lending facility in June. Their structure uses a bankruptcy-remote special purpose vehicle to fund overcollateralized loans backed by Bitcoin and Ether, with Maple providing senior financing and Kraken servicing the loans.

Retail access to onchain credit has expanded through centralized platforms as well. Coinbase added an Ethena-linked USDC vault in June, using Morpho markets and allocations managed by Steakhouse Financial.

Unlike bank and special-purpose-vehicle lending arrangements, Compound’s new market operates through its v3 smart-contract infrastructure. The foundation described Compound v3 as having completed four years of production use without an exploit, a performance claim made by Compound rather than an independent auditor.

Compound delegate questions who controls the market

While the product was open, Compound delegate ugurmersin submitted a governance proposal asking for the DAO to receive ultimate authority over the Institutional Market.

The delegate said Compound governance did not appear to have approved the market’s current control structure. According to the proposal, the Treasury Management Committee administers the product, while a separate multisignature wallet holds authority over its collateral settings and other parameters.

Ugurmersin also said the committee’s existing DAO mandate covers treasury management rather than the operation of a lending market. The delegate could not identify a mechanism allowing COMP holders to withdraw the administrators’ permissions under the present setup.

Under the proposed changes, the foundation and committee could continue handling daily market operations. Administrators would have 10 business days to publish a full map of their permissions and 30 days to transfer final authority to Compound governance.

The Compound Foundation had not posted a public response to the governance proposal at the time of publication.

Crypto industry trade groups are asking a judge to halt Illinois’ upcoming 0.2% tax on cryptocurrency transactions, arguing the measure is unconstitutional and would force companies to incur substantial compliance costs before the rule even begins.

According to the Crypto Council for Innovation (CCI) and the Blockchain Association (BA), they filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, Illinois, seeking to block enforcement ahead of the tax’s planned start in January 2027. The request comes after the groups previously sued to challenge the law itself.

Key takeaways

• CCI and BA have moved for a preliminary injunction to stop Illinois’ 0.2% tax on crypto transaction volume from taking effect in January 2027.
• The groups argue the tax would trigger irreparable harm, including major spending on systems and resources while key details remain unclear.
• Illinois enacted the digital asset tax in June as part of the state’s FY 2027 budget, described as a “privilege tax.”
• The challenge is part of a broader pattern of Illinois regulation targeting crypto-related activity, including prediction markets.

Trade groups seek to pause Illinois’ crypto transaction tax

CCI and BA said in a Wednesday filing that they are seeking immediate court intervention to prevent Illinois from enforcing its 0.2% levy on cryptocurrency transactions before it becomes effective in January 2027. The motion asks the court to block enforcement while the underlying legal dispute continues.

Ji Hun Kim, CEO of CCI, said the clock is forcing companies to act now without sufficient clarity. In his statement, he argued firms are being pressured to build systems for a tax he says violates constitutional rights, under the threat of criminal penalties, and that this diverts employees and other resources from other priorities.

The groups’ central contention in the injunction request is that the compliance burden and related operational disruption amount to “irreparable harm”—a standard courts often require before issuing emergency relief.

Illinois’ tax was enacted as a “privilege tax” in June

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed the digital asset tax into law in June, placing it in the state’s fiscal year 2027 budget. As described by related reporting, the measure is structured as a “privilege tax” and taxes crypto users based on transaction volume rather than income.

The timing is at the center of the legal and practical dispute: the tax is set to take effect on Jan. 1, 2027. CCI and BA argue that the state’s early enforcement timeline compels immediate spending even though the law is still contested in court.

Illinois’ approach is also notable for being among the first in the U.S. to single out cryptocurrency transactions for a transaction-based levy rather than treating them through more general tax frameworks.

Legal challenge argues constitutional and statutory violations

The motion for a preliminary injunction follows a lawsuit filed earlier by CCI and BA to challenge Illinois’ digital asset tax. In the complaint and accompanying arguments described in earlier coverage, the groups contend the law violates multiple legal protections, including the U.S. Constitution, the Illinois Constitution, federal and state due process laws, and the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act. (One component of the challenge is reflected in the complaint document published by the groups, linked in earlier reporting.)

Another trade group, the Digital Chamber, also filed a similar lawsuit days earlier. Together, the parallel suits suggest the dispute is not limited to a single industry representative, but rather a broader coalition concerned about how the tax is designed and implemented.

Summer Mersinger, CEO of the Blockchain Association, framed the issue as a wider regulatory risk. He said waiting costs the state little but moving forward could prompt other jurisdictions to adopt similar tactics, given the precedent that Illinois could set.

Illinois also targets prediction markets alongside crypto

While the crypto transaction tax is one of the most immediate issues facing digital asset firms in Illinois, it is not the only area where the state has moved to restrict or regulate activity tied to the broader crypto ecosystem.

Separately, Illinois has also pursued rules affecting prediction markets. Kalshi has filed a lawsuit against Illinois officials over a law that took effect July 1 and “expressly bans sports event contracts,” according to earlier reporting. Kalshi’s complaint argues the state action conflicts with federal law and requires licensing steps that it says it cannot comply with under federal constraints.

In addition, Pritzker signed an executive order in April that banned state employees from betting on platforms associated with prediction markets. The executive action was described as a measure intended to reduce insider trading risk amid the growth of online prediction markets and event-based gambling contracts.

Taken together, these moves illustrate how Illinois’ regulatory posture is extending beyond simple taxation and into conduct restrictions around crypto-adjacent markets.

What to watch next in the court fight

The immediate question for investors and operators is whether the court grants emergency relief—keeping the 0.2% tax from starting in January 2027—while the constitutional challenge proceeds. For firms doing business in Illinois, the outcome may determine whether they must begin large-scale compliance work on a short runway or can pause until the legal issues are resolved.

Blockchain intelligence firm TRM Labs has reportedly doubled its valuation to $2 billion after expanding its Series C funding round led by Blockchain Capital. In an announcement Wednesday, the company said it did not disclose the amount of the latest investment, but stated that its annual recurring revenue has quadrupled over the past three years.

The new financing expansion comes on the heels of a $70 million Series C round in February, which was also led by Blockchain Capital. TRM provides blockchain intelligence and investigation software used by more than 600 government agencies and private-sector organizations across 75 countries, according to the company.

Key takeaways

• TRM Labs’ valuation has risen to $2 billion following an expanded Series C round led by Blockchain Capital.
• The company did not specify the size of the latest investment, but said its annual recurring revenue has quadrupled in three years.
• TRM’s products target investigations into fraud, money laundering, sanctions evasion, and other forms of digital crime.
• Federal procurement activity and a legal challenge involving an ICE contract have placed TRM’s role in government-focused intelligence in the spotlight.

Valuation lift tied to revenue growth

For investors, TRM’s disclosed performance metrics matter as much as the valuation headline. The company’s claim that annual recurring revenue has quadrupled over the past three years signals accelerating commercial traction, even though the size of the most recent Series C expansion remains undisclosed.

Before the February round, TRM was valued at $930 million, according to data compiled by Traxcn. It then crossed the $1 billion valuation threshold in a Series C that reportedly included Citi Ventures and Galaxy among the investors, setting up the momentum that now culminates in the doubled valuation.

Why demand is growing for blockchain intelligence

TRM says its AI-powered tools are used to investigate fraud, money laundering, sanctions evasion, and other categories of digital crime. That positioning aligns with the company’s references to broader enforcement and complaint trends.

TRM pointed to reported losses submitted to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center rising to $21 billion in 2025 from $16 billion in 2024. The firm also said it has observed a 40% year-over-year increase in criminal adoption of AI in 2026, citing its AI-in-Crime Adoption Index.

While those figures are company-provided context rather than independent metrics released alongside the funding update, they help explain why blockchain intelligence vendors are being treated as strategic infrastructure by both public agencies and regulated private institutions.

US government work and the court challenge

The funding expansion arrives roughly two months after US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded TRM a roughly $95 million, one-year contract for forensic software and support services for Homeland Security Task Force investigations. Such awards can be pivotal for blockchain intelligence firms: they not only provide revenue visibility, but also serve as proof points that government teams can integrate the tools into ongoing operations.

However, TRM’s government role has not been without controversy. Earlier coverage notes that rival Chainalysis challenged ICE’s sole-source award in federal court later that month, alleging the decision was “arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable.” The dispute underscores a key tension in the government procurement landscape for specialized digital forensics: even when a contractor claims performance and fit, competitors may argue process and selection standards were not met.

For TRM, the court case is important to monitor alongside the commercial narrative of rising revenue. For potential customers and partners, the outcome could influence procurement timelines, contract renewals, and how agencies evaluate alternative vendors for similar intelligence and investigation needs.

What to watch next

With TRM’s valuation now at $2 billion and revenue growth framed as a multi-year trend, the next signals to track are whether the company can sustain its A recurring revenue momentum and how the legal challenge around ICE’s contract develops—especially if it affects future government purchasing decisions.

Building trust in AI payments

RedStone has launched price feeds for a FalconX private-credit vault holding more than $170 million in exposure across Monad, Plume and MegaETH.

RedStone brings FalconX credit pricing to three chains

In a statement shared with crypto.news, RedStone said it had integrated its pricing infrastructure with Pareto’s Credit Vaults, starting with a FalconX vault carrying more than $170 million in private-credit exposure.

Through the vault, institutional investors deposit USDC to finance part of FalconX’s prime brokerage business. Depositors receive AA_FalconXUSDC, a token representing the senior tranche of their position in the underlying credit portfolio.

Interest earned by the vault accrues within the token’s net asset value, raising its redemption value over time. M11 Credit curates the product, underwrites FalconX, and monitors the credit exposure on an ongoing basis, according to the announcement.

RedStone reads the vault’s NAV from its Ethereum contract and publishes the value through standardized feeds on Monad, Plume and MegaETH. Lending protocols on each network can then use the feed to calculate how much a holder may borrow against AA_FalconXUSDC.

Without such a feed, each protocol or network would need to establish its own connection to the source contract on Ethereum. RedStone’s system instead distributes the same valuation wherever the supported token is deployed.

Holders can use AA_FalconXUSDC as collateral without redeeming it first, allowing the underlying position to continue earning interest while they borrow other assets. Actual access depends on which lending markets accept the token and the risk limits each protocol applies.

“Tokenization is only the first step. What comes after is what truly matters,” RedStone co-founder Marcin Kazmierczak said in the announcement.

“Pareto’s FalconX Credit Vault demonstrates how tokenized institutional credit can work in the onchain finance ecosystem beyond standard issuance.”

FalconX calculates the NAV before RedStone publishes it

Speaking to crypto.news, Kazmierczak said FalconX calculates and signs the AA_FalconXUSDC NAV off-chain based on the vault’s private-credit portfolio. RedStone delivers the reported value rather than independently valuing the underlying loans.

Once FalconX signs an update, RedStone’s oracle nodes collect it and test it against deviation thresholds and heartbeat rules. The system publishes the NAV onchain only after it passes the required checks.

Safeguards include confirmation from multiple nodes, verification of FalconX’s signature, and checks designed to reject updates that are too old. Circuit breakers can also stop publication when a reported value moves beyond preset limits.

According to Kazmierczak, the controls protect against accidental entries and unusual updates before one incorrect value reaches several networks. They do not replace FalconX’s responsibility for determining the fair value of the credit portfolio used to calculate NAV.

All three destination chains receive the same signed value from a single source. Each network therefore refers to FalconX’s underlying valuation rather than producing a separate calculation that could diverge from the others.

A disruption can still interrupt delivery. If Ethereum experiences an outage or another supported chain becomes congested or undergoes a reorganization, the affected network continues to display the last valid signed NAV until a fresh update can be verified and delivered.

Kazmierczak said staleness and heartbeat rules govern the treatment of delayed values. The approach avoids publishing data drawn from a reorganization or creating inconsistent NAV calculations, although prices may remain temporarily stale during an outage.

RedStone previously deployed an oracle on Stellar in March 2026 as the network developed its lending activity and tokenized-asset infrastructure. By August, Stellar held more than $3 billion in real-world assets, while slightly over $2 million sat in lending pools capable of accepting RWAs, according to a report on its DeFi gap.

FalconX vault NAV may differ from its liquidation value

Although the feed supplies a fair-value estimate, Kazmierczak said lending protocols should not treat the reported NAV as the price they are certain to recover during a forced sale.

“This isn’t an oracle question, it’s a risk parameter question for the lending protocol.”

Protocols must decide how much of the reported value they will recognize as collateral. Kazmierczak said they should apply haircuts that account for possible slippage, limit borrowing according to realistic secondary-market depth rather than the vault’s total assets, and leave a buffer between the liquidation threshold and a stressed exit price.

RedStone can provide the feed and risk ratings through Credora, but each lending protocol or its curator remains responsible for setting collateral factors, borrowing caps and liquidation thresholds.

Liquidity has become a central issue for tokenized assets as issuance has grown faster than their use inside decentralized finance. A Sept. 4 analysis found that 89% of tokenized RWAs in a $34.6 billion market remained outside active protocol use, with about $3.79 billion deployed at the time.

FalconX has separately expanded its institutional lending activity. In August, the company and Ethena launched a $1 billion lending facility that uses part of USDe’s backing assets to finance secured, overcollateralized loans for institutional borrowers.

The facility places collateral with qualified custodians and uses a special-purpose vehicle through which FalconX originates and services the loans. Institutional lending accounted for $310 million, or 6.9%, of USDe’s backing in early July.

For U.S. market participants, FalconX’s role links the vault to a prime broker with operations in New York, although the company says product availability depends on jurisdiction and the FalconX entity providing the service. Pareto also describes its credit products as regulatory-compliant offerings designed for professional investors, asset managers, digital-asset funds and fintech companies.

Permissioned tokens require approved liquidators

Transfer restrictions create another issue when private-credit tokens serve as collateral. Kazmierczak said an accurate NAV does not ensure that a liquidator can receive, move, or sell AA_FalconXUSDC after a borrower defaults.

Because the asset is permissioned, a prospective liquidator may need to appear on the issuer’s whitelist before taking custody. Even an approved party could struggle to sell the position immediately if the token has limited secondary-market liquidity.

“Reliable pricing is necessary but not sufficient,” Kazmierczak said. “Pricing solves the ‘what is it worth’ problem; execution/liquidity access is a separate problem that needs a permissioned settlement mechanism.”

RedStone has developed Settle to address the execution stage by auctioning liquidation or redemption rights to whitelisted solvers that have completed know-your-customer checks. According to Kazmierczak, a selected solver can take control of the asset and use the issuer’s regular redemption channel rather than depend on an open secondary market.

The company introduced RedStone Settle in May 2026 as a settlement layer for restricted real-world assets used in DeFi lending. Its design separates price discovery from the legal and operational process required to transfer and redeem permissioned tokens.

Pareto reports roughly $225 million in total value locked across its tokenized private-credit products. The FalconX Credit Vault is the first Pareto product covered by the integration, with additional NAV feeds planned as Pareto deploys more vaults on other networks.

According to RedStone, its infrastructure provides data on more than 110 chains for over 200 clients, including Securitize, Morpho, Pendle, Spark, and Compound. The company also supplies pricing data for tokenized products, including BlackRock’s BUIDL, Apollo’s ACRED and Hamilton Lane’s SCOPE.

DoubleZero co-founder Austin Federa has defended open access to Kalshi’s faster election-market data feed while confirming that the infrastructure remains read-only and provides no way to submit or execute trades.

Austin Federa told crypto.news that professional traders tend to compete on speed with each other, while tighter competition between market makers can produce narrower spreads and better prices for other participants.

Federa was responding to concerns that professional firms receiving faster information could gain an advantage over retail users who continue to access Kalshi through slower public-internet connections.

“Our answer to the imbalance concern is open access: the fastest data path shouldn’t be private rails and at unreachable price-levels. By placing Kalshi election market data over DoubleZero rails, anyone, from anywhere, can subscribe to the same stream,” Federa said.

DoubleZero announced on Sep. 9 that Kalshi’s election and politics markets had become available through DoubleZero Edge ahead of the U.S. election season. The service distributes Kalshi’s full election order book, including bids, offers and completed trades, over a dedicated fiber network.

DoubleZero says open access addresses the retail gap

Although subscribers receive data faster than users relying on ordinary internet routes, Federa said access to the feed is not restricted to a selected group of trading firms.

Professional market makers may use the information to update their quotes more quickly, but Federa argued that competition among such firms can benefit other users through tighter spreads and improved prices. DoubleZero has not yet released data showing whether the Kalshi integration has changed either measure.

Access still requires a paid subscription. According to Federa, a customer can buy the feed through DoubleZero’s website without entering a traditional sales process. The subscription is linked to a cryptographic identity and the internet address of the machine receiving the data.

Once subscribed, the customer installs a connector using a single command. Federa said the software configures the receiving machine, creates a private tunnel into DoubleZero’s network, and begins running the connection.

A status command allows the subscriber to check whether the tunnel is active and which data channels the machine has joined. The connector then converts the broadcast into JSON and serves the information locally, allowing a trading system to read live instruments, quotes, and order-book updates.

Kalshi faces an uneven legal environment across the United States even as its federally regulated markets expand. As crypto.news reported on Sep. 8, conflicting state court rulings could divide prediction-market access and liquidity between states.

Aaron Courtney, chief compliance officer at ProphetX, said in the earlier report that the conflicting decisions could leave users in some states with access to federally regulated platforms while users elsewhere remain restricted. The dispute centers on whether federal oversight of designated contract markets prevents states from applying their own gambling laws.

Kalshi orders cannot be executed through DoubleZero Edge

While traders can feed DoubleZero’s data into their own systems, Federa stressed that the product does not provide an order-entry function.

“DoubleZero Edge is a read-only distribution platform for market data into a trader’s tech stack. DoubleZero Edge has no execution functionality.”

Participants cannot use the infrastructure to submit, route, or complete trades. Orders must still pass through Kalshi’s trading systems, leaving DoubleZero to operate solely as the transport layer between the source data and subscribers.

Federa compared the setup with two established methods for receiving exchange information. Under the public model, firms connect to Kalshi’s API or WebSocket through the open internet, request updates, and assemble their own view of the order book.

Each company maintains its own connection, receives its own copy of the data, and manages the systems needed to turn separate responses into a usable market view. Network routes and delivery times may differ because the information passes through the public internet.

Traditional exchanges such as the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and CME use another model. According to Federa, they publish data once and broadcast it to subscribers over private fiber through a process known as multicast.

Kalshi’s feed applies the second model to a prediction market, he said. Data leaves Kalshi through the direct interface it provides to institutional participants, travels across DoubleZero’s dedicated fiber network and reaches subscribers through one broadcast.

Every subscriber is intended to receive the same sequenced message at the same time, reducing the work each firm must perform to collect and rebuild the order book.

Dedicated fiber changes how Kalshi data reaches traders

Federa said DoubleZero receives information through the fastest direct interface Kalshi makes available to institutional users. From there, Edge uses dedicated fiber and multicast, while Kalshi’s existing public API and WebSocket remain dependent on public-internet routes.

DoubleZero has not supplied figures showing the exact latency difference between the services. According to Federa, the company will release benchmark data as results become available during the initial product-testing phase.

Subscribers can choose between top-of-book data, which contains the best available bid and offer, and full-depth data containing every price level. DoubleZero had already offered separate feeds for Kalshi’s sports markets and crypto perpetual futures before adding election and politics contracts.

Kalshi has continued adding products that place it within both prediction markets and regulated U.S. derivatives trading. On Sep. 4, the exchange added five crypto perpetuals tied to BNB, Cardano, Worldcoin, Aave, and Venice Token.

The additions increased its lineup to Bitcoin and 17 altcoin perpetual contracts, according to the earlier report. Kalshi operates as a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-regulated designated contract market, and its dollar-margined perpetuals give U.S. traders long or short price exposure without requiring them to hold the underlying tokens.

Kalshi’s event contracts and crypto derivatives remain subject to separate regulatory and legal questions. CME Group has challenged the CFTC’s treatment of Kalshi’s Bitcoin perpetual contract, arguing that the product should fall under rules for swaps instead of conventional futures.

DoubleZero will measure delivery instead of Kalshi’s markets

To assess Edge, DoubleZero will track how quickly an update moves from its source to subscribers, how consistently users receive the same sequenced order book, and how fresh the delivered information remains compared with public-internet feeds.

Federa separated those transport measures from spreads, order-book depth, and price behavior during major political events. Kalshi controls the trading venue, he said, while DoubleZero only delivers its data.

Faster and cleaner information could help market makers adjust quotes more quickly, according to Federa, but he said DoubleZero would not use Kalshi’s spread or depth figures as performance measures for Edge.

“We will publish data on the delivery layer,” Federa said. “We will not publish venue market-quality scorecards from DoubleZero.”

Market integrity has received added attention as Kalshi expands contracts tied to politics and other real-world events. On Aug. 31, the exchange banned George Santos after its compliance department found that he had traded contracts based on whether he would attend President Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address.

Kalshi said Santos earned $17,839.57 after trading both sides of the attendance market while controlling information about his plans. The exchange imposed a $71,356 penalty and permanently barred him from its platform, while a separate CFTC settlement ordered him to disgorge $17,569.98, pay a $17,500 civil penalty and stop trading on CFTC-registered venues for three years.

According to the same report, Kalshi said it conducted more than 150 investigations in the first quarter of 2026, blocked over 100 suspected insider-trading attempts and referred 20 cases to law enforcement.

Consensys Software Inc., the Ethereum-focused company best known for MetaMask, plans to split into two standalone businesses—separating its consumer-oriented MetaMask platform from its institutional infrastructure and protocol operations. The company says the restructuring is expected to be completed by the end of 2026, with MetaMask led by Joe Lubin as chairman and CEO of the consumer company and Lubin also serving as executive chairman of the reorganized Consensys.

In the new structure, the remaining Consensys entity will focus on Ethereum protocols and institutional infrastructure. Its portfolio includes Linea, Besu, and Teku, and leadership will be handled by CEO Mike Kriak and President David Cunningham. The company frames the move as a response to diverging priorities between consumer products and enterprise blockchain deployment.

Key takeaways

• Consensys will split into two independent companies by the end of 2026, separating MetaMask’s consumer business from institutional infrastructure and protocols.
• MetaMask will stay focused on self-custody for users, while expanding into broader finance use cases such as payments, savings, and investing products.
• The new institutional Consensys will concentrate on Ethereum infrastructure and enterprise adoption, including tokenization and stablecoin-related services.
• Consensys says the consumer and institutional units have increasingly “different priorities,” a key justification for the corporate restructuring.

How the split reshapes Consensys’ operating model

According to Consensys’ announcement released via Business Wire, the company’s planned separation aims to give each business line room to pursue distinct strategies. In practice, the restructuring divides what has historically been one integrated Ethereum software ecosystem into two corporate entities with separate leadership teams and clearer mandates.

Consensys says the institutional company will house its protocols and enterprise infrastructure businesses, explicitly including Linea, Besu, and Teku. The stated focus goes beyond protocol development alone, extending to helping financial institutions deploy onchain capabilities for tokenization, stablecoins, and other onchain financial services.

Meanwhile, MetaMask is positioned as the home for consumer self-custody and a widening set of products meant to interact with mainstream financial activities. The company’s framing suggests a continued push for MetaMask to operate as more than a wallet—an interface through which users can access payment and investment-like functionality—while the enterprise-focused Consensys entity advances infrastructure and institutional use cases.

MetaMask’s expansion beyond a browser extension

MetaMask began in 2016 as an Ethereum browser extension for accessing decentralized applications and managing crypto assets, according to Consensys’ own historical account of the platform’s evolution. Over the past year, the company says MetaMask has added products that extend its role into payments, yield, and tokenized traditional assets.

One of the most notable developments described in the company’s coverage is the launch of MetaMask Money Account in June. The feature allows users to earn “up to 4% variable APY” on eligible mUSD stablecoin balances and spend those funds using the MetaMask Card. Consensys indicates that the yield is sourced from decentralized finance lending strategies rather than interest paid by MetaMask itself or by the stablecoin issuer.

In February, Consensys also pointed to MetaMask adding access to tokenized US stocks, exchange-traded funds, and commodities through Ondo Global Markets for eligible users outside the United States, referencing coverage that discussed the availability of 200 tokenized instruments. Later in February, it expanded MetaMask’s Mastercard-enabled spending card across 49 US states, building on earlier availability in other regions including Europe, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina.

Taken together, these product moves help explain why Consensys’ leadership appears to be treating the consumer business as something that increasingly looks like a retail financial application layered over Ethereum infrastructure, rather than a pure crypto tooling product.

Why Consensys says the separation makes sense now

Consensys states that the restructuring reflects increasingly different priorities between its consumer and institutional businesses. While the announcement is explicit about what each company will contain and what each will pursue, the underlying implication for investors and industry observers is that the risks, regulatory pressures, and product timelines for consumer finance features may differ sharply from those tied to enterprise protocol infrastructure.

The institutional unit’s focus—helping financial institutions deploy blockchain technology for tokenization and stablecoins—suggests a nearer-term path centered on integrations, enterprise adoption cycles, and infrastructure reliability. By contrast, MetaMask’s consumer roadmap described in the company’s rollout includes yield-bearing stablecoin access and card-based spending, areas that typically demand a strong user experience and careful alignment with payment rails and consumer-facing compliance expectations.

Separating the companies could therefore reduce internal tradeoffs: product teams can pursue roadmaps optimized for their user segments without competing for shared corporate bandwidth. It also creates a more straightforward way to evaluate each business line independently once the split is completed at the end of 2026.

What to watch as the companies operate independently

With completion targeted for the end of 2026, the most immediate question for users and builders is how the split affects product continuity—especially for MetaMask features that rely on Ethereum infrastructure and for institutional tools such as Linea, Besu, and Teku.

For the consumer side, attention will likely focus on whether MetaMask’s card, savings/yield functionality, and access to tokenized traditional assets continue expanding on a timeline comparable to the past year’s rollouts. For the enterprise side, the market will watch whether the reorganized Consensys institution continues to accelerate its work on deploying Ethereum infrastructure for tokenization and stablecoin use cases in collaboration with financial institutions.

In the months ahead, readers should look for clarifications from Consensys on how assets, roadmaps, and leadership responsibilities will transition through the separation process—because the core operational details will determine how smoothly both MetaMask’s consumer ambitions and the institutional unit’s infrastructure focus can scale after the split.

How Iceland responded to Trump’s U.S. takeover map

The September 15 upgrade brings smart contracts, an AMM DEX, and RPC infrastructure to a chain that has never processed a single swap. Seven years of mobile mining come down to whether anyone builds on the other side.

The most interesting thing about Pi Network is not the protocol upgrade scheduled for September 15. It is the gap between what Pi says it has built and what anyone can actually use.

Protocol 27 will activate smart contract authentication, an automated market maker DEX, and RPC server infrastructure on a mainnet that currently supports none of those things. On paper, this is the moment Pi transitions from a token distribution experiment to a functional Layer 1. In practice, the upgrade lands on a network where the DEX has only ever run on testnet, where 73% of claimed users have not migrated, and where daily trading volume would not fill a mid-tier Uniswap pool. The next ten days will answer a question that seven years of mobile mining have deferred: is there anything on the other side of the tap?

This piece maps the technical payload of Protocol 27, stress-tests the migration and liquidity numbers, examines the AI pivot that SocialChain has been building in plain sight, and measures the gap between Pi’s infrastructure claims and their on-chain evidence.

What Protocol 27 actually ships

The upgrade arriving September 15 is the second major protocol activation in less than two months. Protocol 27 bundles three components that collectively turn Pi from a transfer-only chain into something that could theoretically support decentralized applications.

First, smart contract authentication. Pi’s mainnet has operated without programmable contract deployment since its February 2022 launch. Protocol 27 introduces an authentication layer that gates which contracts can execute on-chain, a design choice that preserves SocialChain’s control over what gets deployed while technically enabling third-party code.

Second, an AMM DEX. The decentralized exchange module has lived on Pi’s testnet since early 2026 but has never processed a mainnet transaction. Protocol 27 migrates it to production. The critical unknown is whether the DEX will launch with open trading pairs or remain restricted to SocialChain-approved assets.

Third, RPC server infrastructure. Without public RPC endpoints, external developers cannot query the chain, index data, or build interfaces that interact with Pi without running a full node. Protocol 27 adds this plumbing.

The foundation was laid by Protocol v25, which activated July 22 and introduced BN254 elliptic curve cryptography, Poseidon hashing, and zero-knowledge proof support. Those are prerequisites for the contract verification system that Protocol 27 depends on. The two upgrades are sequential, not independent.

What is missing from the Protocol 27 changelog matters as much as what is included. There is no mention of permissionless contract deployment. There is no timeline for removing the authentication gate. The DEX module ships, but SocialChain has not published fee structures, liquidity provider incentives, or market-making parameters. These are not minor details. They determine whether Protocol 27 produces a functioning DeFi ecosystem or a controlled demonstration environment.

The migration wall

Pi claims 60 million engaged Pioneers. Only 16.6 million have completed mainnet migration. That 27.6% conversion rate is the single most important number in Pi’s ecosystem, and it is rarely discussed with the seriousness it deserves.

Migration requires KYC verification, wallet creation, and an active confirmation step. Pi has built an internal KYC network of 1,094,680 human validators who have processed over 526 million verification tasks. The infrastructure exists. The bottleneck is not capacity. It is willingness.

Three explanations compete for why 43.4 million Pioneers have not migrated. The charitable reading: many are casual users who downloaded the app, tapped the mining button a few times, and moved on. The critical reading: migration requires identity verification that some users in Pi’s global base cannot or will not complete. The structural reading: users who mined Pi for years watched it lose 96.7% of its value after exchange listings and decided the migration effort was not worth the outcome.

Whatever the cause, the effect is concrete. Protocol 27’s smart contracts, DEX, and developer tools arrive on a network where nearly three quarters of the claimed user base cannot interact with them. The 16.6 million migrated wallets represent the actual addressable market for anything built on Pi after September 15.

For context, Solana has roughly 1.8 million daily active addresses. Polygon has about 400,000. Raw wallet counts and active usage are different metrics, and Pi has not published daily active address data. The 16.6 million figure counts wallets that exist, not wallets that transact.