On 25 August, Wolfe Research analysts raised their price target for Netflix shares from $84.00 to $95.00. According to Wolfe Research, the company’s weak second-quarter subscriber and engagement figures were driven by the timing of content releases rather than a decline in demand. Previous seasons of shows returning in the third quarter generated 1.3 billion hours viewed in the top 10, compared with 765 million hours for second-quarter releases. Based on this, Wolfe Research expects stronger results in the second half of the year and a solid outlook for 2027.

Technical Analysis of Netflix

The four-hour NFLX chart shows a short-term downtrend, within which a descending trendline had formed. On 17 July, the final bar of the trend was accompanied by a pronounced spike in vertical volume, prompting an upward reversal that was followed by a breakout above the trendline.

The stock is now trading above the upper boundary of the current market profile at $80.00, potentially setting the stage for further tests of higher levels. The nearest significant resistance is around $83.50.

If the market reverses or the price is rejected at the red resistance level, Netflix could move back into the market-profile range. Before attempting to break below the profile, however, the price would need to overcome a substantial cluster of levels, including the POC at $73.30 and the lower profile boundary at $71.00.

Immediately below this cluster lies the green support level around $68.50.

The RSI + MAs indicator currently shows readings of 58, 62 and 60. The oscillator and both moving averages remain above the neutral zone and continue to display bullish signals. Notably, RSI has not entered overbought territory at any point during the rebound.

Key Takeaways

The move above the market profile, combined with the bullish RSI + MAs readings, could indicate that the previous downtrend has come to an end. The surge in volume at the trend low also marked a potential structural reversal point.

The stock’s further performance may depend not only on the technical setup but also on whether upcoming content releases validate analysts’ expectations for stronger results in the second half of the year.

Buy and sell stocks of the world’s biggest publicly-listed companies with CFDs on FXOpen’s trading platform. Open your FXOpen account now or learn more about trading share CFDs with FXOpen.

This article represents the opinion of the Companies operating under the FXOpen brand only. It is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, or recommendation with respect to products and services provided by the Companies operating under the FXOpen brand, nor is it to be considered financial advice.

Cronos has resumed block production after validators halted the network during an exploit targeting Tectonic and restored the chain state to a point before the attack.

Cronos Network said the blockchain was fully back online after the validator set coordinated an emergency halt designed to protect users while the Tectonic incident was being contained. The restart followed a rollback of the network state, effectively returning Cronos to its condition before the exploit.

Block production resumed at 23:49:01 UTC on Aug. 30 from block 90,896,189. Node operators have been instructed to restart using Cronos v1.7.8 and the latest mainnet snapshots dated Aug. 31 at 09:52 UTC.

The network remains under observation while operators check its stability. Cronos warned that some protocols, RPC providers, blockchain explorers and bridges may take longer to restore their services as individual operators complete their own checks.

“We will be releasing a full postmortem soon,” Cronos said.

Cronos network restart follows emergency validator halt

The shutdown came after an exploit hit Tectonic, a decentralized lending protocol built on Cronos. Tectonic told users on Aug. 30 that it was investigating an incident and asked them not to interact with the protocol until its team confirmed that it was safe.

Cronos validators subsequently stopped block production, preventing transactions from being processed across the network while the incident was investigated.

Onchain researcher Weilin Li estimated that the exploit affected roughly $75 million after initially identifying approximately $66 million connected to the attack and later finding another attacker-controlled address holding close to $8 million. Tectonic and Cronos have not confirmed the estimated loss, making the figure provisional until the promised postmortem provides a full accounting.

Li linked the incident to manipulation of TONIC, Tectonic’s governance token. According to his analysis, the attacker drove TONIC’s price roughly 100 times higher within around 20 minutes and then supplied the inflated tokens as collateral to borrow other assets from Tectonic.

Tectonic’s lending parameters allowed TONIC to be used with a 20% collateral factor. Li identified approximately 364.6 trillion TONIC in the attack position, which would have required the tokens to carry an inflated value of roughly $375 million to support around $75 million in borrowing.

Only a portion of the assets had left Cronos before validators stopped the network. Li estimated that around $6 million had been bridged to Ethereum, leaving most of the assets linked to the exploit on Cronos when block production stopped. Neither Cronos nor Tectonic has independently confirmed that estimate.

Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said the company’s app and exchange were not compromised by the Tectonic incident. Crypto.com’s security team was assisting with the investigation, while Marszalek said the exchange and app continued operating normally.

Chain state has been restored to before the Tectonic exploit

Instead of restarting Cronos from the state at which validators stopped producing blocks, the network restored its state to a point before the Tectonic attack.

Cronos described the halt as a “validator-consensus emergency action” taken to protect users. Restoring the earlier state meant transactions recorded as part of the exploit after the selected restoration point would no longer form part of the restarted chain’s history.

The network has not yet published the technical details behind the restoration, including the exact process validators followed to agree on the earlier state. Its postmortem is expected to provide more information about the exploit, the response and the subsequent restart.

Cronos previously upgraded its infrastructure to cut gas costs by around 90% and bring block times below one second, while daily transactions had risen roughly fourfold at the time of the upgrade, crypto.news previously reported. The network had recorded more than 100 million transactions since launch and had more than 500 developers building across its ecosystem as of November 2025.

Tectonic has long been one of the main decentralized finance applications operating on Cronos. Earlier Cronos ecosystem data identified Tectonic alongside VVS Finance, Orby Network and Veno Finance among the network’s prominent protocols.

Before the exploit, Tectonic held approximately $121.7 million in total value locked and around $82.7 million in active loans, according to data cited by The Block.

Cronos restart comes after other recent emergency chain halts

The Tectonic response follows several emergency blockchain shutdowns linked to security incidents in recent weeks.

On Aug. 25, Cosmos EVM chains were advised to request validator halts while Cosmos Labs investigated a security incident affecting users of its EVM module. KiiChain reported that more than 148.3 million KII had been drained through 18 attacks, while TAC said validators halted its network after one account was drained.

MANTRA had stopped its own network several days earlier while investigating a separate incident, freezing transactions and preventing assets from moving across the Layer 1 blockchain. Its engineering and security teams investigated the issue with external partners before the network later resumed block production.

Cronos has continued developing its network infrastructure while maintaining close links with Crypto.com. A 2025 roadmap outlined plans for tokenized equities, real estate, commodities, funds and other assets, alongside lending and decentralized finance integrations. The roadmap placed Crypto.com integration at the center of distribution plans through the exchange’s user base.

More recently, Trump Media, Crypto.com and Yorkville Acquisition Corp. terminated their planned CRO treasury venture on Aug. 7. The proposed company had originally been designed around a multibillion-dollar CRO treasury, but the parties cited prevailing market conditions and changing business and stakeholder priorities when ending the transaction.

For the Tectonic incident, Cronos has not yet provided a final figure for affected assets or published the root cause of the exploit. Its forthcoming postmortem is expected to document the attack and the network’s response after validators halted the chain and restored its pre-exploit state.

Bitcoin yield has moved beyond lending BTC to a centralized platform and collecting interest. In 2026, holders can choose from self-custodial staking models, lending protocols, managed DeFi vaults, exchange-embedded strategies and wrapped-Bitcoin staking systems.

Investors need to know where yield comes from, whether Bitcoin remains under their control, and whether returns depend on real economic activity or token emissions.

This ranking compares seven leading Bitcoin yield opportunities using the same framework: protocol track record, yield source, custody model, smart-contract exposure, liquidity, sustainability and onchain verifiability. Much of the comparative risk framework and current rate data comes from BitcoinYield. Rates can change quickly, so the figures below should be treated as snapshots rather than fixed returns.

1. Stacks BTC staking

Stacks BTC Staking is designed for Bitcoin holders who want native BTC yield without giving up custody of their coins. The product has not yet reached mainnet, but its proposed structure places it at the low-custody end of the market.

Under the current design, participants lock BTC directly on Bitcoin Layer 1 using a standard timelock mechanism and pair the position with STX worth approximately 5% of the BTC value. The Bitcoin remains under the holder’s keys rather than moving through a bridge, wrapper or centralized custodian.

The target yield is approximately 3% annualized in native BTC. That return comes from Proof of Transfer, or PoX, the Stacks consensus system. Stacks miners commit BTC to compete for the right to produce blocks, and that BTC funds rewards for participants. Stacks says PoX has distributed more than 4,200 BTC since January 2021.

The model does not depend on new reward-token emissions, recycled deposits or unsecured lending. Instead, returns come from miner expenditure tied to network operation.

BTC is designed to enter an approximately six-month bonding cycle. Holders can exit early and recover principal, but they forfeit remaining rewards for that cycle. The structure does not include slashing risk.

For investors prioritizing capital preservation, the planned model stands out because custody remains user-enforced on Bitcoin L1. The key risk is execution: Bitcoin Staking was still in private-testnet testing in July 2026, so its mainnet performance remains unproven.

2. Zest Protocol

Zest Protocol offers Bitcoin-linked yield through a live lending market and targets users comfortable with DeFi infrastructure.

The protocol has built one of the strongest operating records in Bitcoin DeFi. Zest reports around 800 BTC deposited, more than 1,500 liquidations with zero bad debt and a historical peak above $100 million in total value locked.

Current yield is around 1% in sBTC, a Bitcoin-backed asset on Stacks. The return comes mainly from Dual Stacking, a mechanism connected to PoX rewards, with a smaller contribution from lending interest. At launch, participating Stacks entities redirect part of their own PoX rewards to users of the Dual Stacking system.

That gives the yield a real economic source, but it also creates more dependencies than the Stacks BTC Staking design. Users rely on sBTC infrastructure, the signer set controlling access to underlying BTC, lending contracts and the continued operation of Dual Stacking.

Zest’s next major product, Bitcoin Collateral Vaults, aims to let holders lock BTC directly on Bitcoin L1 and borrow stablecoins on EVM networks. The structure could reduce one of the largest barriers facing institutions that want to use Bitcoin as productive collateral without transferring custody.

Zest best suits investors who understand lending risk and want a live protocol with a measurable track record.

3. Kraken Bitcoin vault

Kraken Bitcoin Vault packages an onchain Bitcoin yield strategy inside a familiar centralized exchange interface. Users deposit BTC through Kraken, while the underlying strategy is handled by specialized infrastructure operating behind the scenes.

The vault currently offers a variable yield of roughly 1.4%. Deposited BTC is converted into kBTC, Kraken’s wrapped Bitcoin asset, before being deployed through a collateralized DeFi strategy. Veda provides the vault infrastructure, while external credit markets, including Morpho, form part of the underlying yield process.

The return comes from real lending and credit-market activity rather than token emissions. That gives the strategy a more defensible economic basis than products whose rewards rely entirely on newly issued tokens.

Convenience is the main advantage. Users do not need to interact directly with multiple DeFi protocols or manage each underlying position themselves.

The trade-off is a broader trust and execution surface. Depositors rely on Kraken as the user-facing platform, the kBTC wrapping mechanism, Veda’s vault contracts and the external markets where capital is deployed. Users hold a claim on the vault rather than maintaining direct control of the underlying Bitcoin throughout the strategy.

Kraken Bitcoin Vault therefore fits investors who prioritize simplicity and are comfortable accepting exchange, wrapper and smart-contract dependencies in return for managed access to Bitcoin yield.

4. Lombard Bitcoin earn

Lombard Bitcoin Earn takes a different approach by spreading capital across multiple DeFi strategies rather than relying on a single lending market.

Users deposit supported Bitcoin assets and receive BTCe, a receipt token representing their position in the vault. Capital is then allocated across whitelisted strategies through Veda’s vault infrastructure.

Current yield is roughly 2%, although returns vary with market conditions and portfolio allocation. The strategy has included money-market positions and liquidity provisioning, with part of the capital sometimes remaining unallocated while managers assess available opportunities.

The yield comes from real DeFi activity rather than protocol token emissions. However, returns depend heavily on how effectively the vault allocates capital and how the underlying markets perform.

That creates a different risk profile from Kraken’s exchange-embedded product. Lombard users face exposure to the vault contracts, the LBTC infrastructure beneath the product and every DeFi strategy receiving an allocation. Diversification can reduce dependence on one market, but it also creates more points where technical or economic problems can occur.

Users also hold BTCe rather than directly controlling the underlying Bitcoin. The yield path is visible through onchain strategies, but assessing the full position requires monitoring the vault manager’s allocation decisions.

Lombard Bitcoin Earn is therefore better suited to investors who want diversified Bitcoin yield exposure without manually managing multiple DeFi positions and who accept the additional complexity that comes with an actively allocated vault.

5. Hermetica hBTC

Hermetica’s hBTC vault targets users willing to accept strategy risk in exchange for actively managed BTC-denominated returns.

The vault takes deposited BTC exposure and deploys it through DeFi strategies. A typical structure uses Bitcoin-linked collateral to borrow stablecoins, places those stablecoins into yield-generating positions and converts the resulting profits back into BTC.

Current yield is around 1.4%, although Hermetica has marketed potential returns of up to 8% under favorable strategy conditions. Rates vary because returns depend on lending costs, market spreads and underlying strategy performance.

Withdrawals back to native Bitcoin are permissionless, positions and transactions are visible onchain, and strategy limits are set in advance rather than left to discretionary manual trading.

The risk profile is broader than direct staking. hBTC depends on sBTC and its signer set, smart contracts, off-chain keepers, and several connected DeFi positions. Hermetica has completed multiple audits and uses predefined leverage, delta and interest-spread controls, but those safeguards reduce rather than eliminate execution risk.

This option suits experienced DeFi users who want BTC-denominated yield while remaining comfortable with managed onchain strategies.

6. Starknet BTC staking

Starknet BTC Staking allows holders of wrapped Bitcoin assets such as WBTC, LBTC, SolvBTC and tBTC to participate in network security.

Current yield is roughly 2.4%, but rewards are paid in STRK rather than BTC. The nominal APY therefore depends on both the staking rate and the market value of STRK when rewards are sold.

The yield comes from token emissions, not external economic activity. If STRK prices fall or staking incentives decline, the real value of returns can shrink.

Custody also depends on the chosen Bitcoin wrapper. Each asset introduces its own custodian, federation or signer-set assumptions before funds reach Starknet. Smart-contract exposure then extends across the wrapper, bridge and staking system.

This option may appeal to users already active in the Starknet ecosystem, but it is less suitable for investors seeking native BTC yield or minimal infrastructure risk.

7. Babylon

Babylon offers one of the largest native Bitcoin staking systems by total value committed. Users lock BTC on Bitcoin L1 and use it to help secure external Proof-of-Stake networks.

The custody design is strong. Bitcoin stays inside a Script-governed UTXO under the holder’s keys rather than moving to a wrapped asset.

The trade-off is slashing. BTC supports Finality Providers that help secure connected networks, and misbehavior can put the staked Bitcoin at risk.

Current BTC-only yield is around 0.04%, paid in BABY rather than Bitcoin. Co-staking BABY can increase the rate, but returns still rely on native-token emissions rather than miner fees, lending activity or another external revenue source.

Babylon therefore offers robust self-custody but a weaker yield source for investors primarily seeking BTC-denominated income.

Conclusion

For holders focused on self-custody and principal protection, Stacks BTC Staking presents the cleanest planned structure because BTC remains on Bitcoin L1, rewards come from miner expenditure and there is no slashing. The main limitation is that the product has not yet launched on mainnet.

For DeFi-native investors, Zest and Hermetica provide live alternatives with transparent onchain activity and BTC-linked returns. They carry more smart-contract and custody dependencies, but they also offer greater composability.

Kraken and Lombard prioritize simplicity by packaging complex strategies behind managed interfaces. Starknet offers a higher headline rate but pays rewards in STRK, while Babylon preserves native BTC custody at the cost of slashing risk and a very low emissions-based return.

The best Bitcoin yield strategy is not necessarily the highest APY. The key questions are whether the yield source is durable, the custody model is acceptable and the failure modes are clear enough for the holder to evaluate.

Find your Bitcoin yield strategy by comparing the return source, custody structure and risk profile before deploying capital.

FAQ

Ripple and SettleMint announced a strategic partnership on Sept. 1 that combines institutional digital asset custody with tools for issuing and managing tokenized assets.

The companies said the initial offering would target regulated financial institutions in Asia Pacific. It integrates Ripple Custody with SettleMint’s Digital Asset Lifecycle Platform, known as DALP, according to the official announcement.

The integration is intended to give banks, financial market operators and other regulated institutions one foundation for custody, issuance, compliance, settlement and post-issuance servicing. Ripple and SettleMint said they had begun offering the combination in Asia, although they did not identify participating institutions.

Ripple Custody will secure assets managed through DALP

Ripple Custody provides infrastructure for holding and transferring cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets. The platform supports configurable access controls, policy enforcement and approval workflows intended for institutional environments.

Ripple describes the product as self-custody technology that institutions can install within their own infrastructure. In that deployment model, the institution retains control of its private keys instead of outsourcing control to Ripple.

The London Stock Exchange has partnered with Kraken parent Payward to bring shares of the 100 largest London-listed companies onto the xStocks tokenization framework, opening the door for the products to eventually trade through the exchange’s planned 24-hour venue.

Payward and the London Stock Exchange said Tuesday that the first batch of U.K. equities will become available as xStocks in the coming weeks, extending a tokenized stock platform that has already generated more than $40 billion in total trading volume. Nearly $20 billion of that activity has settled onchain, while the products have attracted more than 200,000 holders.

London Stock Exchange tokenization will start with 100 companies

Under the partnership, shares of the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange will be made available through Payward’s xStocks framework.

Each xStock is backed one-to-one by the corresponding underlying security. The blockchain-based products can trade around the clock through supported centralized exchanges, move into self-custody wallets and interact with compatible onchain applications.

The planned London rollout would give eligible investors across more than 110 countries access to tokenized versions of U.K.-listed companies. xStocks are not currently available to investors based in the United Kingdom.

The agreement comes as Payward has been taking the framework beyond its original focus on U.S.-listed companies.

Crypto.news previously reported in July that Payward had partnered with financial infrastructure provider GTN to expand xStocks internationally, beginning with Hong Kong-listed shares before targeting the U.K., Europe, South Korea and other approved markets.

Under that arrangement, GTN agreed to provide execution, custody and record-keeping infrastructure spanning more than 90 international financial markets. At the time, xStocks supported more than 500 tokenized assets and had generated over $37 billion in transaction volume.

Activity has continued to climb since then. By Aug. 18, xStocks had processed more than $38 billion in total transaction volume as Kraken rolled out 7,000 U.S. stocks to eligible customers across the European Economic Area.

The service put conventional U.S.-listed shares alongside more than 700 xStocks and over 600 crypto assets within the same Kraken account. Traditional stock trading in the EEA is provided through Payward Europe Digital Solutions (CY) Limited, a Cyprus investment firm authorized under the European Union’s MiFID II framework.

Payward’s figures released with the LSE partnership now put xStocks volume above $40 billion, with nearly half of that activity having settled directly onchain.

LSE 24 could become a regulated venue for xStocks

The partnership extends beyond distributing tokenized London-listed shares through Payward’s existing network.

Subject to regulatory approval, the London Stock Exchange plans to list xStocks and support their trading on LSE 24, its recently announced round-the-clock venue. The platform is expected to eventually cover tokenized equities from the U.S., European Union, U.K. and Hong Kong, with other asset classes potentially added as the framework develops.

The exchange had already been preparing to extend access beyond conventional London market hours.

In July, the LSE was reported to be preparing a separate overnight market targeted for the first half of 2027. Initial plans called for the venue to offer exchange-traded products linked to the U.K. and U.S. stock markets.

LSE CEO Julia Hoggett said at the time that retail traders were showing interest in using London’s time zone to gain exposure to both U.K. and international assets.

The agreement with Payward now adds tokenized securities to the exchange’s plans for trading outside its standard session, although their listing remains subject to regulatory approval.

Payward co-CEO Arjun Sethi described the arrangement as a combination of regulated financial markets and blockchain infrastructure.

“For years, the assumption was that crypto and traditional finance were on a collision course, and one of them would have to lose. That was never the real story,” Sethi said.

Hoggett took a more cautious position on how tokenized markets should be developed.

Tokenization “must develop in a way that preserves the trust, rights and role of regulated markets,” she said.

Payward and LSE could issue shares directly onchain

A separate part of the partnership could take the companies beyond blockchain representations backed by conventionally issued shares.

Payward and the LSE said they will explore natively LSE-issued equity tokens, which would allow exchange members to issue and service shares directly onchain.

Under the proposed model, the blockchain-issued securities would be fully fungible with their traditional counterparts and carry the same rights as conventional shares.

That differs from the current xStocks structure, where tokens are issued against securities held through the product’s underlying custody framework.

Payward has been expanding how xStocks can be used as the platform gains volume.

In July, Kraken began allowing eligible customers outside the United States to use selected xStocks as collateral for futures and margin trading on Kraken Pro.

Ten assets were accepted when the feature launched, including tokenized versions of Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Strategy, Robinhood, Alphabet and several major exchange-traded funds.

Futures collateral became available to eligible clients outside the U.S., including those in the EEA, while margin collateral was offered to qualifying users outside the U.S. but excluded EEA customers.

Kraken applies different collateral haircuts and limits depending on the asset. Broad-market products such as tokenized SPY and QQQ received 10% haircuts at launch, while several individual stocks carried 20% haircuts and more volatile securities received higher discounts.

The feature lets qualifying investors maintain exposure to tokenized shares while using the same holdings as collateral for other positions.

Tokenized equities are moving into existing market infrastructure

Tokenized equities have increasingly moved from crypto-native platforms toward infrastructure operated or connected to established financial institutions.

The LSE agreement puts Payward’s xStocks within a framework that could eventually include direct trading through a regulated stock exchange venue, while the companies’ work on native equity tokens would move issuance itself onto blockchain infrastructure.

For investors, the existing xStocks framework differs from conventional brokerage-held shares in how the assets can be transferred. Traditional equities remain inside market and custody systems that operate according to exchange and settlement schedules, while compatible tokenized products can be transferred between wallets and supported blockchain applications outside those trading hours.

Payward has said the framework is intended to let tokenized assets move through centralized exchanges, self-custody environments and onchain financial applications while remaining backed by their underlying securities.

Its international expansion has accelerated during 2026. The GTN partnership established plans to add securities from several major equity markets, while Kraken’s EEA launch paired thousands of conventional U.S. shares with hundreds of xStocks within the same regulated account.

The London Stock Exchange partnership would extend that model to some of the largest publicly listed companies in the U.K. and could eventually allow the tokens themselves to trade through LSE 24 if regulators approve the plan.

Industry participants have meanwhile been working on using tokenized securities for functions beyond direct trading, including collateral and credit markets. Kraken’s July collateral rollout is one example of tokenized shares being used to support other financial positions without requiring investors to first sell the underlying exposure.

Payward and the LSE have not provided a specific launch date for the first U.K.-listed xStocks beyond saying they will become available over the coming weeks.

The companies have similarly not given a timetable for natively issued LSE equity tokens, with that part of the agreement remaining an area they plan to explore.

London Stock Exchange Group shares fell roughly 2% in early London trading Tuesday.

Legal battles