Blockchain

Derive.xyz co-founder Nick Forster breaks down the three major barriers that have kept on-chain options far behind perpetual futures’ $170 billion weekly trading volume—spot liquidity, institutional participation, and the prior maturity of the futures market—while revealing the key catalysts for institutional entry in 2026.

This article explores LayerZero’s evolution from a cross-chain bridge to the introduction of its next-generation global computing platform, Zero L1. It offers an in-depth look at Tether’s investment, partnerships with major Wall Street players—including Citadel, DTCC, ICE, and Google Cloud—and highlights the remarkable advisory team led by Cathie Wood.

In January, BTC and ETH trading volumes generally fluctuated at elevated levels. Market sentiment shifted from a recovery phase toward caution, with limited trend persistence. Stablecoin market capitalization across major blockchains remained highly concentrated, with Ethereum accounting for more than half of the total. Gold and silver prices reached record highs, while the market cap of tokenized commodities surpassed $5 billion. Prediction markets recorded a new monthly high of $12 billion in trading volume, with both activity and fees expanding in tandem. The Web3 industry completed 53 funding rounds in January, with capital primarily flowing into blockchain services and the CeFi sector. Smart contract vulnerabilities continued to be the leading source of Web3 security risks.

Ripple and SWIFT are the two core systems in the global cross-border payments space. They are often viewed as a competition between decentralized settlement infrastructure and traditional financial messaging networks. While both enable the movement of value across borders at a surface level, they differ fundamentally in underlying architecture, settlement speed, cost structure, and compliance design.

Monad is a high performance, low latency EVM compatible Layer1 blockchain designed to dramatically increase throughput and confirmation speed while preserving full Ethereum Virtual Machine compatibility. Rather than relying on Layer2 scaling or modular designs, Monad fundamentally restructures both the execution and consensus layers. Through parallel transaction execution, an optimized BFT consensus mechanism, and an asynchronous block processing model, it delivers architectural level performance breakthroughs beyond traditional public chains.

Monad is a high performance Layer1 blockchain network designed to address scalability and performance bottlenecks in existing Ethereum compatible chains. It enhances throughput and reduces latency through a parallel execution engine, the MonadBFT consensus mechanism, and an optimized state management architecture, while maintaining full compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, EVM.

Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency system designed for peer to peer value transfer and long term value storage. It was created by Satoshi Nakamoto and operates without relying on any central authority. Instead, it is maintained collectively through cryptography and a distributed network.

Immutable Contribution Vault (ICV) is an on-chain contribution and revenue sharing mechanism designed for collaborative AI development. Its core idea is that contribution itself is an asset. By writing processes such as model updates, data submissions, feature development, and behavior design directly onto the blockchain, ICV creates immutable contribution records. This transforms development activities that were previously difficult to quantify or track into verifiable and traceable on-chain assets, while providing a transparent and reliable basis for future revenue distribution.

IAO (Initial Agent Offering) is a new Web3 asset issuance model designed specifically for AI agents. It represents a shift in asset issuance logic from earlier fundraising focused models such as ICOs and IDOs toward an on-chain economic model centered on digital labor. Under this framework, the AI agent itself becomes the core asset. Its functionality, revenue rights, and governance rights can all be tokenized and discovered by the market, allowing AI to evolve from a simple tool into an on-chain entity capable of economic activity.

Virtuals Protocol is a blockchain protocol built specifically for intelligent AI agents. It aims to help AI evolve from a functional tool inside a single platform into a digital entity with autonomous behavior, on-chain identity, and economic value. In its design, each AI agent can be deployed, traded, and co-owned. Through decentralization, it addresses common limitations in traditional AI systems such as concentrated ownership, high deployment costs, and difficulty monetizing outcomes, so that AI can truly become an on-chain asset that participates in market activity.

LayerZero has introduced the institutional-grade L1 platform “Zero,” quickly attracting backing from major Wall Street players including Citadel, DTCC, and ICE. This article examines the underlying logic of LayerZero’s pivot from cross-chain bridges to a “Wall Street public chain,” providing an in-depth analysis of Zero’s market positioning, shifts in ZRO valuation, and critical risk factors. We also assess whether this transformation marks genuine entry into the realm of financial infrastructure or if it remains an unproven pilot initiative.

USDC and moltbook are hosting the OpenClaw hackathon, exclusively for AI Agent participants for the first time. This article highlights the most prominent projects, focusing on Agent payment solutions, compute resource procurement, risk management, prediction markets, and privacy protocols. It explores how these projects are already exposing the practical needs of Agentic Commerce and shaping the competitive landscape for the next stage of infrastructure development.

In January 2026, the public chain landscape showed structural reallocation rather than an overall cooldown, with on-chain activity concentrating in high-frequency and high-efficiency networks. Solana maintained strong activity levels, Ethereum reinforced its role as a settlement layer, and Base expanded on the back of narrative-driven momentum, while some traditional L2s and sidechains weakened. Market capital allocation logic is increasingly shifting toward real usage efficiency. On Bitcoin, price action continues to oscillate around the short-term holder cost basis, with profit-taking cooling and selling pressure easing. Stress remains concentrated among short-term holders, while long-term holder structure stays intact, suggesting a mid-cycle consolidation rather than a trend reversal. At the project level, the rebound in Solana meme activity has reignited launchpad ecosystems. Pump.fun remains dominant, while Bags App has scaled rapidly through its novel “donation-driven” mechanism, leaving the sector in a

MrBeast, a prominent YouTube creator, and his company Beast Industries have announced the acquisition of Step, a fintech app designed for teens and young adults. This marks a strategic shift from content creation to digital banking and wealth management services, with plans to integrate DeFi features. The article also examines MrBeast’s previous on-chain activities in the crypto sector, prompting debate around influencer-led financial initiatives and user trust.

Stable is a Layer 1 blockchain jointly launched by Bitfinex and Tether. It uses USDT as the native gas asset and supports free peer to peer USDT transfers.