Spark, an on-chain capital allocator incubated by Sky (formerly MakerDAO), on Wednesday, Feb. 11, launched Spark Prime and Spark Institutional Lending, two products aimed at institutional borrowers.

The products target the off-chain crypto lending market, which Spark estimates at about $33 billion as institutional participation in crypto continues to rise, according to a press release viewed by The Defiant.

Spark Prime enables institutions to use collateral across both centralized platforms and decentralized finance (DeFi) and supports margin trading and off-exchange settlement. Arkis’ technology handles collateral and risk management, while Spark provides liquidity.

Meanwhile, Spark Institutional Lending is designed for firms that want to operate via custodians. Through integrations with entities like Anchorage Digital, institutions can borrow from Spark-governed markets while keeping their assets in regulated custody.

“Institutional lending depends on reliable liquidity,” said Sam MacPherson, co-founder and CEO of Phoenix Labs (a core contributor to Spark). “Spark Prime applies on-chain liquidity in a way that fits how institutions already manage custody, risk, and scale.”

Spark currently allocates more than $9 billion in stablecoin liquidity across decentralized markets, according to the release. The protocol boasts $5.2 billion in total value locked (TVL), making it the ninth-largest DeFi platform. Its lending protocol, SparkLend, accounts for $2.5 billion of Spark’s TVL, according to DefiLlama.

The launch builds on Spark’s earlier collaborations. In early 2025, Coinbase rolled out a Bitcoin borrowing product that used Spark-managed USDC liquidity, with Spark supplying more than 80% of the funds. Borrowing volumes grew by about $500 million over the next three months, per the release.

Spark has also supported on-chain liquidity for PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD, allocating around $500 million across stablecoin markets.

Spark’s native token, SPK, is down about 2% on the day, trading at $0.022, with $12 million in 24-hour trading volume, according to CoinGecko.

EMB: Feb. 11, 06:00 UTC

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Spark is pushing one of DeFi’s deepest pools of stablecoin liquidity further into institutional markets, unveiling new lending infrastructure designed to connect on-chain capital with off-chain borrowers that have largely stayed outside DeFi.

The protocol introduced Spark Prime and Spark Institutional Lending in an announcement at Consensus Hong Kong 2025 on Wednesday.

The new offerings extend more than $9 billion in deployed stablecoin liquidity into products aimed at hedge funds, trading firms and fintechs that operate under traditional custody and compliance requirements. Off-chain crypto lending is estimated at about $33 billion, according to Galaxy, reflecting sustained demand from institutions that remain cautious about direct onchain exposure.

“This will be OTC crypto lending through a qualified custodian,” Sam MacPherson, co-founder of Phoenix Labs, the core contributor to Spark, told CoinDesk in an interview. “This market is much bigger than the DeFi lending market, and we’re able to issue the same kind of overcollateralized loans Maker has done since its inception, but with access to a much broader set of borrowers.”

Spark Prime introduces a margin lending model that allows borrowers to deploy collateral across centralized exchanges, DeFi venues and qualified custodians under a single risk framework. That structure improves capital efficiency for hedge funds pursuing strategies such as perpetual futures trading, while giving lenders more direct exposure to funding rates.

The system is powered by prime broker Arkis’ margin and liquidation engine, which can automatically unwind positions across venues if portfolio risk thresholds are breached.

Spark Institutional Lending is aimed at firms that prefer fully custodial participation. Through arrangements with providers such as Anchorage Digital, institutions can borrow against collateral held in regulated custody while accessing Spark-governed liquidity pools.

MacPherson said the design reflects hard lessons from past market failures. “The status quo is still unsecured lending to hedge funds, which can go horribly wrong,” he said. “By keeping positions overcollateralized and holding collateral with an intermediary, you dramatically improve safety for lenders.”

Spark has already supported institutional-scale deployments, supplying most of the liquidity behind Coinbase’s bitcoin borrowing product in 2025 and allocating hundreds of millions of dollars to support PayPal’s PYUSD. The new offerings formalize that approach into a broader institutional framework, positioning Spark as a conduit between on-chain stablecoin demand and off-chain capital markets.

[PRESS RELEASE – Prague, Czech Republic, February 10th, 2026]

GoMining, the all-in-one Bitcoin ecosystem for mining, earning, and spending BTC, announced the launch of Simple Earn, a new feature that gives users an opportunity to earn yield on the crypto assets held in their account, with payouts delivered automatically in Bitcoin every four hours.

Simple Earn provides users with support for the autonomous earning mechanisms of their assets. It is designed to remove the complexity that usually comes with earning yield on crypto. Users activate the program with a single toggle in their wallet, and GoMining handles the rest.

Behind the scenes, the platform routes eligible assets to secure earning mechanism protocols that work to generate returns. Users skip the research, position management, and technical details of staking or liquidity provision.

Once activated, eligible assets can start earning — both current holdings and future deposits. Yield accrues continuously, gets converted to BTC, and lands in the account every four hours. The system compounds automatically, and earnings roll back in without user action.

Users can enter or exit whenever they want. Full fund access stays intact throughout. Deposits and withdrawals work normally while the program runs. No lockup, no waiting. This is a good option for users who want the potential to earn yield but also need to be liquid at all times.

Yield is not guaranteed and can vary depending on market conditions and the user’s VIP level within the GoMining ecosystem. Yield scales with the user’s VIP level within the GoMining ecosystem — higher-tier members receive increased Bitcoin yield on the same supported assets.

Simple Earn is available globally, with the exception of the United States. GoMining is working to bring the feature to U.S. users pending necessary compliance and legal requirements, and the list of eligible assets may vary by location.

“Most people who hold crypto know they could be earning yield on it, but the process has always been too complicated,” said Mark Zalan, CEO of GoMining. “You have to research protocols, move funds around, understand smart contract risk — it’s a full-time job if you want to do it right. With Simple Earn, there’s none of that complexity. One button, and your assets start working for you autonomously. “

The launch of Simple Earn continues GoMining’s push to become a comprehensive Bitcoin-based ecosystem. With digital miners already generating daily BTC rewards, and the recently launched GoMining Card allowing users to spend crypto at millions of merchants, Simple Earn adds another layer for users to grow holdings passively without leaving the app.

For users who want more from their crypto but aren’t interested in becoming DeFi experts, Simple Earn does the work behind the scenes. Yield is paid out automatically in Bitcoin, with virtually no learning curve.

About GoMining

GoMining is an all-in-one Bitcoin ecosystem that makes it simple and secure to mine, earn, and use Bitcoin every day.

With more than 13 million terahash of computing power across data centers in the U.S., Africa, and Central Asia, and over 5 million registered users worldwide, GoMining is redefining what it means to participate in the Bitcoin economy.

Website | X | Discord | Telegram

The tokenized commodities market has posted a striking resurgence, climbing 53% in under six weeks to exceed $6.1 billion in total value. The surge positions this segment as the fastest-growing corner of real-world asset tokenization, driven by expanding on-chain access to gold and other physical assets. Investors are increasingly seeking regulated, blockchain-enabled exposure to tangible assets, and the data indicate a material shift in demand toward tokenized commodities as a mainstream route to diversification.

Key takeaways

• The tokenized commodities market rose 53% in less than six weeks to top $6.1 billion, marking rapid expansion within real-world asset tokenization.
• Gold-backed tokens dominate the segment, led by Tether’s XAUt and Paxos-listed PAX Gold, with market capitalizations of about $3.6 billion and $2.3 billion respectively in the recent period.
• Year-over-year growth for tokenized commodities reached about 360%, outpacing tokenized stocks and tokenized funds by wide margins.
• Tether expanded its tokenized-commodities footprint by acquiring a $150 million stake in Gold.com, signaling deeper integration of XAUt into mainstream gold platforms and potential USDt purchase options for physical gold.
• Gold’s price momentum complemented the on-chain story, with gold hitting all-time levels in late January before consolidating in the $5,000s—while Bitcoin faced a separate price trajectory, remaining volatile after a broader market downturn.

Tickers mentioned: $BTC, $PAXG

Sentiment: Neutral

Price impact: Neutral. The article detailing asset issuance and price movements centers on on-chain tokenized assets rather than immediate price shifts in major cryptos.

Market context: The expansion of tokenized commodities underscores a broader push to transform physical assets into liquid, tradable on-chain instruments, even as traditional cryptocurrencies navigate their own volatility and macro-driven flows.

Why it matters

The growth of tokenized commodities—especially gold-backed tokens—reflects a notable pivot in how stakeholders access and leverage real-world assets. By converting physical metals into blockchain-tradable instruments, issuers aim to deliver improved liquidity, auditable on-chain provenance, and potentially broader reach to investors who prefer digital-native channels. The leading force in this sector is gold, which remains a cornerstone of the tokenized market and is increasingly integrated with mainstream platforms via strategic partnerships and cross-chain tooling.

Tether’s strategic expansion into tokenized gold signals both confidence in the asset class and a practical bridge between stablecoins and precious metals. The company’s $150 million stake in Gold.com represents not just capital but a potential pathway for the on-ramping of USDt into physical gold purchases. By aligning XAUt with Gold.com’s user base, the ecosystem could see more users transact in gold-backed tokens and, in turn, push higher liquidity across tokenized gold markets. The move also aligns with broader efforts to broaden access to real assets through on-chain rails, potentially lowering barriers for investors who want exposure without the logistical complexities of holding physical metal.

On the price side, gold has rallied meaningfully, reflecting a period of elevated demand for tangible assets amid macro uncertainty. In late January, gold touched striking levels around a then-new high, underscoring why tokenized gold remains attractive to market participants seeking a combination of liquidity and hedging characteristics. While the on-chain narrative emphasizes growth and access, the traditional price dynamics of gold provide important context for the overall momentum in tokenized commodities. Bitcoin, by contrast, has faced its own pressures, trading below record highs for extended stretches and prompting debates about whether it should be viewed as a digital safe-haven or a high-growth asset with its own risk profile.

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) has moved through a volatile period since October, when a broader crypto market downturn triggered substantial liquidations. After a roughly 52% drop from an early-October peak to around $60,000, the asset has bounced back toward the high $60,000s to near $69,000 in recent readings, according to market data. Investors continue to debate whether Bitcoin remains a store of value or behaves more like a software-growth asset in the current macro regime. The discussion is not purely academic; it shapes how capital allocators perceive risk, correlation with traditional markets, and the appetite for real-world assets that promise on-chain transparency and settlement efficiency.

Beyond price action, commentary from major industry players has emphasized a shift in narrative. Grayscale and others have argued that Bitcoin’s long-standing moniker as “digital gold” faces renewed scrutiny as the asset’s price dynamics resemble those of risk-on growth equities at times. Yet the tokenized-commodities space continues to distinguish itself with a separate value proposition: the ability to tokenize and trade assets with a real-world physical counterpart, governed by on-chain protocols and regulated custodians. The convergence of on-chain finance with traditional asset classes—exemplified by gold—highlights a broader trend toward real-world asset tokenization that could redefine liquidity, settlement speed, and investor access in coming quarters.

What to watch next

• Follow the pace of growth in the tokenized commodities market, including quarterly or monthly updates on total market capitalization and the share of gold-backed tokens.
• Monitor Tether’s integration of XAUt on Gold.com and any announced USDt-enabled pathways for acquiring physical gold, including potential new merchant partners or custodial arrangements.
• Track gold price dynamics in relation to on-chain demand for tokenized gold products, noting any correlations with currency moves or macro risk sentiment.
• Look for regulatory developments or disclosures that could affect on-chain commodity tokens, custody standards, or reporting requirements for tokenized assets.

Sources & verification

• Token Terminal data on the growth and composition of the tokenized commodities market, including the six-week rise to $6.1B and relative YoY growth.
• Tether’s stake in Gold.com and statements about integrating XAUt and exploring USDt-based purchases of physical gold.
• Gold price commentary and all-time high levels around January, with the subsequent pullback and rebound figures.
• Bitcoin price dynamics and market context, including the October crash and latest price movements tracked by primary market data aggregators.
• On-chain tokenized gold tokens such as XAUt and PAXG, including market caps and year-over-year growth figures cited in official data releases and market dashboards.

Momentum in tokenized commodities reshapes on-chain gold access

The tokenized commodities space is gaining traction as a fast-moving segment within real-world asset tokenization. Data indicate a 53% surge in value over a period of fewer than six weeks, taking the total to north of $6.1 billion. This lift positions tokenized commodities as a leading growth vocation in the on-chain economy, with gold-backed tokens at the epicenter of the expansion. Token Terminal’s data illustrate the broader arc: starting the year just above $4 billion, the market has added roughly $2 billion in value since January, signaling not only robust demand but a structural shift toward digitized collateral and settlement layers for tangible assets.

Within the space, gold is the dominant force. Tether’s gold-backed token, XAUt, has been the primary driver of the ascent, contributing to a market capitalization of about $3.6 billion in the period under review. In second place sits Paxos-listed PAX Gold (CRYPTO: PAXG), which rose to approximately $2.3 billion. The prominence of gold tokens underscores the perceived safety and liquidity that on-chain representations of physical metal can provide in a market where traditional assets have faced friction and opacity. The top five largest tokenized commodities, according to Token Terminal’s dashboard, collectively show how gold’s on-chain footprint is outpacing other real-world assets in tokenized formats, reinforcing the sector’s potential to unlock new liquidity pools for long-only and hedged investors alike.

Year-over-year, the momentum is even more pronounced: the tokenized commodities market has surged roughly 360% compared with the previous year, a pace that outstrips the growth of tokenized stocks (about 42% over the same period) and tokenized funds (roughly 3.6%). The sector’s relative scale—now just over one-third of the $17.2 billion tokenized funds market and clearly larger than tokenized stocks at $538 million—emphasizes a broad reallocation toward tangible assets via blockchain rails. The ongoing evolution is not only about tokenizing gold but about building a broader ecosystem where gold, silver, and other real assets can be accessed with improved liquidity, transparency, and settlement efficiency.

Tether’s strategic foray into Gold.com illustrates how the ecosystem is layering on additional infrastructure to serve the growing demand for tokenized gold. By integrating XAUt into Gold.com’s platform, Tether is positioning USDt as a potential on-ramp to physical gold ownership, with discussions publicly framed around enabling customers to purchase physical gold using the stablecoin. The strategic fit is clear: a more seamless bridge from on-chain assets to physical metals could expand the user base for tokenized gold while also offering a practical use case for stablecoins beyond payments and liquidity provisioning. This development aligns with a broader trend of on-chain-native assets increasingly intersecting with traditional commodities markets, a synthesis that could reshape how institutions and individuals access and leverage gold as a hedge or strategic asset.

At the same time, gold itself has captured attention with a renewed leg higher. The spot price of gold climbed aggressively in the preceding year, surpassing earlier records and reaching fresh highs before a brief retreat. The price action reinforces gold’s bid as a traditional safe-haven asset, supplying a favorable backdrop for tokenized gold tokens to demonstrate both exposure and resilience in volatile market environments. Bitcoin, meanwhile, navigates its own course. After a pronounced fall from October’s peak, the benchmark cryptocurrency has rebounded in fits and starts, trading near the upper $60,000s to around $69,000 in recent readings. Market participants continue to wrestle with whether BTC represents a digital store of value or a high-growth instrument that may correlate with broader risk sentiment at times. This ongoing dialogue—between the on-chain commoditized world and the broader crypto universe—highlights the breadth of investor interest in assets that offer both liquidity and recognizable risk profiles.

As the sector matures, the central question becomes how tokenized commodities can sustain growth, attract institutional capital, and integrate with traditional financial ecosystems. The data show that the market’s expansion is not a peripheral trend but a substantive development in the crypto economy’s asset mix. If the pace persists, tokenized gold and other commodities could become a meaningful corridor for hedging, diversification, and strategic exposure within both crypto-native portfolios and more conventional investment strategies. The interplay between on-chain access to gold, stablecoin ecosystems, and physical-asset settlement could define a new phase of crypto-enabled real-world asset investing.

Michael Saylor pitches a 1.4% credit‑funded balance‑sheet formula to Middle East capital, aiming to turn corporates into perpetual Bitcoin accumulators in a fragile market.

Michael Saylor has found a way to turn balance‑sheet engineering into a perpetual Bitcoin (BTC) accumulator’s charter — and he is not whispering it, he is broadcasting it to the Middle East.

Saylor’s “1.4% forever” math

Speaking live on Middle Eastern television, Strategy’s executive chairman Michael Saylor distilled his pitch into a single, aggressive sentence: “If we sell credit instruments equal to 1.4% of our capital assets, we can pay the dividends funded in Bitcoin and we can increase the amount of BTC we have forever.”

The logic is brutally simple: monetize a thin slice of the asset base via credit, recycle that into yield‑bearing Bitcoin exposure, and feed shareholders both cash flow and upside without, in his view, diluting the core capital stack. KuCoin’s summary of the framework put it starkly: selling 1.4% of capital assets as credit “could allow the company to boost Bitcoin holdings permanently” while still supporting stock dividends.

This approach extends a strategy he outlined at the Bitcoin MENA conference, where he told regional sovereign funds in the Middle East that “Bitcoin is digital capital, or digital gold, and digital credit builds on it by stripping out volatility to generate yield.”

Macro risk, meet corporate leverage

Saylor’s formula lands in a market where Bitcoin itself has turned into the cleanest proxy for global risk appetite. At press time, Bitcoin (BTC) trades around $70,345, with a 24‑hour range between roughly $68,428 and $71,852 on about $59.3B in volume. Ethereum (ETH) changes hands near $2,012, with 24‑hour trading volume close to $28.7B and intraday prints between about $1,999 and $2,140. Solana (SOL) sits around $86, with roughly $3.9B traded over the last day as it grinds through a 2025–26 drawdown. XRP (XRP) hovers near $1.44, down about 1% over the last 24 hours as on‑chain data flags a “stop‑loss phase” after months of distribution.crypto+8

This parabolic move comes as digital assets continue to trade as the purest expression of macro risk appetite. Bitcoin (BTC) is hovering around $70,345, with a 24‑hour high near $71,852 and a low near $68,428, on roughly $59.3B in dollar volumes. Ethereum (ETH) changes hands close to $2,012, with about $28.7B in 24‑hour turnover and spot quotes clustered in the $2,000–$2,100 band on major exchanges earlier this week. Solana trades around $86, up modestly over the last 24 hours, with nearly $3.9B in volume.crypto+5

Middle Eastern capital in the crosshairs

Saylor has been explicit about his target audience. In Abu Dhabi, he claimed to have met “every Middle East sovereign wealth fund” to pitch Bitcoin‑backed credit as a superior fixed‑income replacement, promising “two to four times” traditional yields while using corporate structures like Strategy as leverage amplifiers.

The sales pitch collides with a more fragile tape. Bitcoin has slipped below $70,000 amid what one analyst called an “unpumpable” market, with selling pressure overwhelming inflows after a 45% drawdown from the 2025 peak. Whether Saylor’s 1.4% rule becomes a template or a cautionary tale will be decided not in televised sound bites, but in the next macro stress test.

LayerZero’s native token, ZRO, has bucked the broader market downturn, posting double-digit gains to reach a four-month high.

The rally follows the LayerZero’s unveiling of a new blockchain, backed by Citadel Securities and ARK Invest. Both firms made strategic investments through ZRO purchases.

Sponsored

Sponsored

Institutional Backing Fuels ZRO Rally While Crypto Market Slides

BeInCrypto Markets data shows the crypto market extended its decline today, following yesterday’s $19 billion in losses. Over the past 24 hours, total market capitalization has fallen by more than 2%, reflecting continued risk-off sentiment across major digital assets.

Despite the broader pullback, select altcoins have managed to post outsized gains, with ZRO being one of them. During early Asian trading hours, the token climbed to an intraday high of $2.42 on Binance.

This level was last seen in early October 2025. At the time of writing, ZRO was trading at $2.27, up nearly 22% over the past day.

The token secured the third spot among the top 300 daily gainers on CoinGecko. Trading activity has also accelerated significantly. Over the past 24 hours, the token recorded $491 million in volume, marking a 410.60% increase.

What Is LayerZero’s New Blockchain?

The rally followed LayerZero Labs’ announcement of Zero. It is a new blockchain network designed to address scalability constraints that have historically limited decentralized systems.

Sponsored

Sponsored

According to the company, Zero introduces a heterogeneous architecture. It separates transaction execution from verification using zero-knowledge proofs, eliminating the “replication requirement.”

LayerZero claims the network can scale to up to 2 million transactions per second per zone, with transaction costs as low as $0.000001. The blockchain is scheduled to launch in fall 2026.

“Zero’s architecture moves the industry’s roadmap forward by at least a decade. We believe we can actually bring the entire global economy on-chain with this technology. Our mission is to build permissionless infrastructure for a better world – this is the beginning of that world,” Bryan Pellegrino, CEO of LayerZero Labs, stated.

As part of the rollout, Citadel Securities is collaborating with LayerZero to evaluate potential applications in trading, clearing, and settlement workflows. The firm also made a strategic investment in ZRO.

ARK Invest is likewise becoming a shareholder in LayerZero and has purchased ZRO. Cathie Wood, ARK’s founder and CEO, will join the project’s advisory board.

“ZRO is the token of the network, and LayerZero will provide interoperability between Zones and across the 165+ blockchains it connects,” the announcement read.

Beyond these investments, LayerZero said it is working with The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation to explore enhancements to tokenized securities infrastructure, including scalability improvements for its DTC Tokenization Service. 

Intercontinental Exchange, parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, is examining potential applications related to 24/7 markets and tokenized collateral integration. Google Cloud is also partnering with LayerZero to explore infrastructure enabling AI agents to conduct micropayments autonomously.

Meanwhile, the development closely follows Tether’s strategic investment in LayerZero Labs through Tether Investments. Thus, the combination of strategic capital and institutional collaboration appears to have fueled investor interest in ZRO, even as the broader crypto market continues to face selling pressure.

HONG KONG — Financial regulators in Hong Kong are going to unveil a framework for trading platforms to offer perpetual contracts, the head of the region’s Securities and Futures Commission said Wednesday.

Brokers in Hong Kong will soon be able to provide financing to clients backed by bitcoin BTC$67,625.77 and ether ETH$1,977.26 and platforms will be able to offer market-making through independent units, said Julia Leung, the CEO of Hong Kong’s SFC at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference.

While the SFC plans to share more details later, the moves are part of the regulator’s broader push to let regulated firms offer more products and services, Leung said, following on its 2025 roadmap which included an effort to develop the local crypto market.

The SFC has already published the conclusions from its consultation on custody and related issues, but these new initiatives are focused on continuing to develop these markets in Hong Kong, including with novel products like perpetual futures contracts.

“We will be publicizing a high-level framework for platforms to be offering perpetual contracts,” she said.

These products will only be available for institutional investors, not retail clients, at this time, she said, and the framework will focus on risks. Platforms seeking to offer these products will need to be able to manage those risks, “and it also has to be very fair to the customers.”

On the other initiatives, Leung said that the SFC will start sharing further details soon.

“We will allow brokers to provide financing to clients with strong … credit profiles, and the collateral will be backed by both securities as well as virtual assets,” she said. “Because virtual assets … many of them are very volatile, so we’ll start with two that will be eligible as collateral, bitcoin and ether.”

Platforms looking to engage in market-making will need to make sure they have strong conflict-of-interest rules and independent market-making units, she said.

Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, reignited conversations about the potential intersection of Ethereum and artificial intelligence (AI). In a recent post on X, Buterin revisited his past thoughts on how the Ethereum network could contribute to the development of AI and artificial general intelligence (AGI). His comments underscore his ongoing commitment to long-term technological objectives, highlighting Ethereum’s broader potential beyond decentralized finance.

Two years ago, I wrote this post on the possible areas that I see for ethereum + AI intersections: https://t.co/ds9mLnrJWm

This is a topic that many people are excited about, but where I always worry that we think about the two from completely separate philosophical… pic.twitter.com/pQq5kazT61

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 9, 2026

Buterin sees Ethereum as a foundational layer not only for blockchain transactions but also for enhancing AI systems. He envisions Ethereum supporting more open, transparent, and censorship-resistant AI technologies. Through Ethereum’s decentralized infrastructure, Buterin believes AI could develop in a way that aligns with human progress, rather than accelerating unchecked technological growth.

Ethereum as the Economic Layer for AI Transactions

Buterin suggests that Ethereum could play a pivotal role as an economic coordination layer for AI-to-AI transactions. Autonomous AI agents, operating independently, could use Ethereum to interact, negotiate, and exchange value seamlessly. In this model, Ethereum would serve as a neutral and reliable settlement layer, facilitating trust in transactions within machine-driven economies.

This vision of Ethereum goes beyond supporting financial markets. Buterin highlights Ethereum’s potential to create a decentralized environment where AI systems can autonomously interact efficiently and securely. By providing a transparent and immutable ledger, Ethereum could support an ecosystem where AI agents transact with each other in a trustless manner, all within the bounds of decentralized principles.

AI-Assisted On-Chain Verification and Trust

Buterin also emphasizes the importance of on-chain verification, with Ethereum providing the trust framework for various operations. He imagines a future where AI could assist in auditing smart contracts, verifying data, and improving decentralized governance systems. With Ethereum at the core, this verification process would be transparent, efficient, and immutable, strengthening the security and reliability of the entire system.

This idea aligns with Buterin’s vision of building a decentralized infrastructure that could sustain long-term technological development. He points out that AI could improve market efficiency, ensuring that decentralized systems function with higher levels of trust and accuracy. The integration of AI in Ethereum’s blockchain could bring about a new era of AI systems that are more accountable and reliable, further embedding Ethereum into the future of computing technology.

A Vision Beyond Market Cycles

Buterin’s recent tweet serves as a reminder to the crypto community that Ethereum’s development isn’t only about short-term trends or market movements. While many in the crypto industry remain focused on speculative developments, Buterin’s call for long-term thinking encourages broader innovation. His remarks suggest that Ethereum’s real potential lies in its ability to shape the next generation of computing infrastructure, not just in financial applications.

By revisiting ideas from nearly two years ago, Buterin aims to inspire developers and researchers to look at Ethereum’s broader potential. Ethereum’s decentralized architecture could serve as the foundation for future breakthroughs in AI and AGI development. Buterin’s comments, though not offering a clear roadmap, are a signal to think bigger and consider how Ethereum can be integrated into the next wave of technological advancements.

Robinhood has launched a public testnet for Robinhood Chain, its new Ethereum layer‑2 network built using Arbitrum technology that aims to bring tokenized real‑world and digital assets onchain.

According to a release shared with Cointelegraph, the testnet, which is now live for developers, offers network access points, documentation at docs.chain.robinhood.com, compatibility with standard Ethereum development tools and early integrations from infrastructure partners. 

Robinhood says the chain is designed for “financial‑grade” use cases, including 24/7 trading, seamless bridging, self‑custody, and decentralized products such as tokenized asset platforms, lending markets, and perpetual futures exchanges. 

A mainnet launch is planned for later this year, with testnet-only assets such as stock‑style tokens and tighter integration with Robinhood Wallet among the features expected in the coming months.

Johann Kerbrat, senior vice president and GM of Crypto and International at Robinhood, said in the release that the testnet for Robinhood Chain laid the groundwork for “an ecosystem that will define the future of tokenized real-world assets,” and enable builders to tap into decentralized finance (DeFi) liquidity within the Ethereum ecosystem.

Related: Coinbase adds stock trading, prediction markets in ‘everything app’ push

Robinhood’s tokenization push

The launch marks a deeper shift by Robinhood from simply offering crypto trading to operating its own onchain infrastructure, following its decision to tokenize nearly 500 United States stocks and exchange‑traded funds (ETFs) on Arbitrum as part of a broader real‑world asset strategy.