News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: Payment company Block announced on September 24 that it has integrated the Bitcoin Lightning Network into the x402 payment standard. The x402 protocol can complete verification and unlock data through Lightning Network invoices and payment preimages after a server returns an HTTP 402 payment request.Steve Lee, head of Spiral, Block's open-source Bitcoin research and development division, stated that the integration targets instant, low-cost micropayment use cases. Block has not yet disclosed a timeline for bringing the standard to Cash App, Square, or Bitkey, and the related Python implementation still needs to be tested on real nodes. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Aave V4 has launched Equities Hub on Base, allowing eligible non-US users to borrow USDC using 7 tokenized US stocks issued by Coinbase as collateral, covering Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla. The market uses Chainlink to provide on-chain price data for tokenized stocks. The initial combined collateral cap for the 7 stocks is approximately $29 million, with a USDC supply cap of $32 million and a borrow cap of $21 million. Collateral ratios for different stocks range from 65% to 79%. Currently, these stocks can only be used as collateral. Aave stated that more Coinbase tokenized stocks and GHO as borrowable assets may be added in the future after governance and risk assessment approvals. (The Block)
Bitcoin News posted on X that Block has joined the x402 Foundation and is providing Bitcoin Lightning Network support for x402, an open payment standard for AI agents. x402 embeds payments directly into HTTP, enabling AI agents to autonomously pay for goods, services, and other agent tools. Block stated that the Lightning Network is well-suited for the billions of instant, low-cost micropayments expected to be generated by the agent economy.
According to The Block, New York-based stablecoin payment and tokenized asset company HIFI has announced the completion of a $37 million Series A financing round led by Left Lane Capital. Proceeds from the funding will be used to expand its tokenized capital market infrastructure and product lines. HIFI provides API infrastructure that integrates fund flows, compliance, and settlement capabilities, currently processing over $7 billion annually across 87 countries. Prior to this round, HIFI participated in a tokenized securities production trade co-hosted by DTCC, BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Nasdaq in July. Later this month, it partnered with Visa to extend its stablecoin settlement platform to remittance and card payment scenarios, initially supporting stablecoin settlements for more than 4 billion Visa cards globally.
Odaily News: Visa has released its "Money Travels 2026" report, based on a survey of 2,192 U.S. adults, showing that if stablecoins were equipped with bank-grade fraud protection and deposit insurance, consumer willingness to use them would rise from 36% to 56%; if offered through existing financial institutions, willingness would also increase to 45%. The survey also found that 56% of respondents had never heard of stablecoins, and 64% of respondents had greater trust in payment providers than in the technology itself. Currently, the total global supply of USD-pegged stablecoins has exceeded $295 billion, with USDT at approximately $183.4 billion and USDC at approximately $76 billion; Visa's annualized stablecoin settlement volume has surpassed $20 billion, representing more than a 15-fold increase from a year ago. (The Block)
According to The Block, Visa released its Money Travels 2026 report. Based on a survey of 2,192 U.S. adults, consumer willingness to use stablecoins would rise from 36% to 56% if they feature bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance; if offered through existing financial institutions, willingness could also reach 45%. The survey also indicates that 56% of respondents had never heard of stablecoins, while 64% trust payment providers more than the technology itself. Currently, the global total supply of USD-pegged stablecoins exceeds $295 billion, comprising approximately $183.4 billion in USDT and around $76 billion in USDC. Visa's annualized stablecoin settlement volume has already surpassed $20 billion, representing an increase of over 15 times compared to a year ago.
Cosmos Hub officially stated that validators have successfully restarted the Cosmos Hub network as planned, block production has resumed, and the network is operating normally. The team will continue to monitor the network status and release further updates.
According to The Block, X has filed a lawsuit against two UK residents, accusing them of coordinating nine accounts to post identical Bitcoin content to fraudulently extract over £207,000 (approximately $276,900) from the X Revenue Sharing Program, with the funds transferred via Stripe accounts registered under different names.
Solana lowered its target slot time from 300 milliseconds to 250 milliseconds on September 18, marking the third speed increase since August. As the computation and data each slot can carry are proportionally reduced, overall network throughput has not increased; this adjustment is the third phase of the four-phase SIMD-0525 plan, with slot time having been reduced from 400 milliseconds at genesis through 350 milliseconds and 300 milliseconds to 250 milliseconds. The final step down to 200 milliseconds has not yet been scheduled for mainnet activation, contingent on validator skip rates remaining stable.
Odaily reports: Ethereum developers have warned that attackers could exploit free testnet ETH and one-time builder identities to win Sepolia block auctions and withhold transaction payloads during the Glamsterdam testing period.This attack does not threaten mainnet funds, but it could disrupt infrastructure testing. The Sepolia public test is scheduled to launch on October 6, while the Hoodi test is tentatively set for October 27. The mainnet activation date remains undetermined. (CoinDesk)
According to The Block, World, an identity verification cryptocurrency project formerly known as Worldcoin, has officially launched its self-custody financial super app, World Money, available in more than 150 countries worldwide. The app supports stablecoin payments, trading, yield generation, virtual accounts, and other features. It manages balances in eight currencies and integrates with Stripe, Kalshi, and Morpho, allowing users to quickly convert fiat currency into stablecoins via Apple Pay through the Stripe partnership. Users who complete World ID verification are eligible for additional rewards in qualifying Earn programs. World is developed by Tools for Humanity, a company co-founded by Alex Blania and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
According to The Block, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan has revised his previous assessment regarding the impact of the Clarity Act's failure. The bill secured only 49 votes in a procedural Senate vote, falling short of the 60-vote threshold needed to advance. While Hougan had previously forecasted that a failed bill would trigger several weeks of crypto market weakness, he noted in his latest client report that Bitcoin has continued to rise after bottoming out around $57,950 on July 1, surpassing $80,000 on September 4. In the same period, Polymarket’s implied probability for the bill’s passage within the year dropped from 39% to 14%. Price action moving contrary to these expectations suggests that the bull market does not rely on legislative passage. Hougan also pointed out that initiatives such as Robinhood launching its own blockchain, Morgan Stanley listing a Solana ETF, and DTCC completing the settlement of the first batch of tokenized stocks demonstrate that Wall Street institutions are already positioning themselves ahead of regulatory clarity. He noted that proactive rulemaking by the SEC and CFTC can partially fill legislative gaps, but acknowledged that executive regulations carry the risk of being overturned by future administrations. Consequently, congressional legislation remains the sole path to providing lasting regulatory certainty.
Odaily News: Approximately 2.4 million ZEC participated in the privacy-protection vote for Zcash's next major network upgrade, NU7, accounting for about two-thirds of the tokens eligible to vote.Voters supported shortening the block time to 25 seconds, retaining the Bitcoin-style halving schedule, and launching NU7 as soon as possible; they also supported postponing the reissuance of fees collected by the network sustainability mechanism until February 2031 and disabling transactions related to the deprecated Sprout privacy system. (CoinDesk)
Block CEO Jack Dorsey has expressed support for review, independent evaluation, and planning of frontier AI, but opposes governments and leading AI companies negotiating industry-wide development restrictions.He advocates for an open-release approach that allows outside parties to reproduce results, identify problems, and develop alternatives, and supports providing models, computing power, and public infrastructure to independent researchers and safety researchers.Block is developing open-source AI tools and provides Bitcoin-related services across products including Square and Cash App. The company has also launched the open-source AI agent goose, and is developing Bitcoin mining hardware Proto and hardware wallet Bitkey. (Bitcoin.com News)
According to The Block, Katie Wobadden, spokesperson for Senator Cynthia Lummis, stated that the Democrats' amended counterproposal for the latest version of the Clarity Act is identical to their pre-recess position, leading Republicans to reject it. Wobadden noted that Republicans have already made significant concessions on multiple fronts, including agreeing to nearly the entire Tillis-Gallego ethics framework, while Democrats "have not budged," and called on them to engage in substantive negotiations.
According to The Block, on-chain confidentiality protocol Zama will open deposits for 16 Morpho confidential vaults on September 15, supporting assets such as USDC, USDT, AUSD, and TGBP. Previously, the first vault launched by Zama in collaboration with Morpho and Steakhouse Financial reached $40 million in total value locked within seven weeks.
perpetual contract platform RWAperp has announced the completion of $2 million in financing, with a post-investment valuation of $50 million. Participants in the round include Lime co-founder Brad Bao, Cresta AI co-founder Tim Shi, Tesla Autopilot team member Phil Duan, Crux members William Freiberg and Charles Ferguson, as well as members of the a16z and Sequoia Scout networks.RWAperp is a decentralized perpetual contract protocol for traditional financial assets. It is currently live on OKX X Layer and has opened 19 markets, covering BTC, ETH, SOL, Korean and U.S. stocks, the S&P 500 Index, the DRAM Index, gold, silver, and WTI crude oil. Users can settle in USDC, USDT, or USDG and gain leveraged long and short exposure to stocks, indices, commodities, and crypto assets without needing to hold, custody, or tokenize the underlying assets.RWAperp primarily designs its trading, pricing, liquidity, and risk management systems around the trading characteristics of the stock market, and handles situations such as market closure periods, overnight gaps, trading halts, and corporate actions. The platform uses a multi-issuer composite oracle and provides a professional order book trading terminal.RWAperp is also developing Agent Mode. This AI feature is designed to understand natural language trading instructions, analyze market conditions, and gradually support trading execution operations such as opening positions, position management, and closing positions. (The Block)
According to The Block, Bernstein analysts indicated that Senate Republicans' progress on the Clarity Act may surpass market consensus expectations. The Republican proposal has been finalized, incorporating 126 substantive amendments put forward by Democrats. President Trump has also endorsed most measures within the bipartisan ethics framework, including granting enforcement authority to state attorneys general. Bernstein pointed out that the crypto market currently holds a pessimistic view toward Tuesday’s procedural vote, with "any upside surprises not yet priced in." The probability of the bill's passage on prediction market platform Kalshi has climbed back above 30%. Analysts cautioned that a failure to pass the legislation, combined with hawkish remarks from the Federal Reserve, could trigger a "significant pullback" in markets. However, even if the bill fails, it will accelerate SEC and CFTC crypto regulatory rulemaking rather than derail broader regulatory efforts.
According to The Block, Uniswap Labs has launched the StablePair Hook, a stablecoin pair tool designed for Uniswap v4, supporting trading pairs such as USDC/USDT and USDC/USDG. The tool utilizes a dynamic fee mechanism that adjusts trading fees when the pool price deviates from the reference price, helping liquidity providers retain more value generated by stablecoin arbitrage and price reversion. The initial StablePair Hook pools will launch on Ethereum and can be upgraded via Uniswap governance.
Odaily News — Global payments company MoneyGram has launched its first stablecoin Visa card in Colombia, developed with assistance from stablecoin payment infrastructure company Rain. The card is currently available in digital form, allowing users to hold U.S. dollar stablecoin balances within the MoneyGram app and make online and offline payments through the Visa network. Users can also convert their balances into local cash and withdraw at MoneyGram locations. The card initially supports USDC, and MoneyGram plans to add its own stablecoin MGUSD in the near future. The company also plans to launch a physical card by the end of 2026 and expand its business to other Latin American markets first. (The Block)