chainwire

Montevideo, Uruguay, August 20th, 2026, Chainwire

Aligned allows fintechs and institutions to build financial products on Ethereum, with one-click solutions for wallets, rollups, interoperability, and zero-knowledge services.

Today, Aligned, a full-stack Ethereum infrastructure project, has launched $ALIGN*, the native token of its ecosystem, with listings on major exchanges. Aligned is working to turn Ethereum into the world’s financial backend, and its ecosystem is the single integration fintechs, institutions, and enterprises use to build financial products on Ethereum.

Less than one percent of the world’s assets are onchain, and most of what has moved sits on Ethereum as stablecoins, tokenized treasuries, and wrapped assets. Building on top of them is still harder than it should be. A fintech going onchain usually signs with multiple vendors, one for wallets, another for scalability solutions (including rollups and proving systems), then spends months wiring them together and keeping them in sync. There is no standard way to ship a financial product on Ethereum yet.

Aligned was built to fix that. It’s built in close collaboration with LambdaClass, a company behind key contributions across the Ethereum ecosystem, including work on Starknet, zkSync, Polygon Miden, and EigenCloud (formerly EigenLayer), as well as Ethrex (the execution client which powers Aligned’s Rollup-as-a-Service) and lambdaworks, a cryptography library written in Rust. By integrating with Aligned, users can access wallets, rollups, interoperability, and zero-knowledge services through a single stack.

Aligned ships the stack one piece at a time:

• Proof Aggregation Service: live on mainnet alpha. Batching the proofs a rollup generates so verification stays cheap as Ethereum scales.
• Wallet-as-a-Service: MVP already launched. Users sign in with Google or Face ID and get a real Ethereum wallet, with no seed phrases, extensions, or gas fees.
• Rollup-as-a-Service, the LambdaVM, and the interoperability protocol: in development. The LambdaVM is Aligned’s RISC-V zkVM (zero-knowledge virtual machine), built in collaboration with LambdaClass and 3MI Labs. Each ships as it’s ready.

The world’s assets are moving onto Ethereum, and Aligned is creating the stack that makes it easy to build on. In the future, $ALIGN will be available as an option to pay for the services across that stack, from Proof Aggregation to Wallet-as-a-Service. As more teams build on Aligned, it will be the asset they use to pay for that usage. It is a utility token. It is not equity, a share, or a claim on revenue or dividends, and it does not promise a yield or a price.

$ALIGN has a fixed supply of 10 billion tokens, with about 16% circulating at launch. The full allocation and the Genesis airdrop are laid out in the ALIGN tokenomics. The airdrop was distributed across several waves spanning developers and researchers, the Discord and Galxe communities, distinguished contributors to Ethereum and ZK such as Protocol Guild, L2BEAT, ZachXBT, and ZK Podcast, and holders of ecosystem tokens including Starknet, Mina, zkSync, Polygon, Scroll, Taiko, and EigenCloud.

Aligned is committed to Ethereum by choice, focusing all of its efforts on it. Through the rest of the year, the team plans to ship the remaining pieces of the stack and grow the number of products built on it. The longer-term goal is to make building a financial product on Ethereum a single decision, not a systems-integration project.

Check eligibility and follow the launch at community.alignedlayer.com. To hear more, read the ALIGN tokenomics at blog.alignedlayer.com and follow @alignedlayer.

About Aligned

Aligned builds the tools that turn Ethereum into the world’s financial backend. It gives fintechs, institutions, and enterprises one integration for wallets, rollups, interoperability, and zero-knowledge services, so they can build real financial products on Ethereum instead of assembling a stack from separate vendors. Users can learn more at alignedlayer.com.

*$ALIGN is the native asset of the Aligned ecosystem, built on Ethereum as an ERC-20 token and also available on Base, with a fixed total supply of 10 billion and an initial circulating supply equal to approximately 16% of the total token supply. It will be used across the Aligned stack. $ALIGN is not equity, a share, or a claim on revenue or dividends. This announcement is informational only and is not financial advice. Do your own research.

Contact

Roberto Catalan
Aligned Layer
[email protected]

VICTORIA, Seychelles, August 20th, 2026, Chainwire

Global crypto exchange BYDFi is participating as a Gold Sponsor at Coinfest Asia 2026, taking place August 20-21 at Melasti Beach in Bali. Positioned as “The World’s Crypto Festival Built for Institutions, Builders & Traders,” the event brings together participants across digital assets, finance, technology, and trading. Attendees can meet the BYDFi team at Booth A1 throughout the two-day event.

Coinfest Asia 2026 Returns for Its Fifth Edition

Coinfest Asia 2026 marks the fifth annual edition of the event, spanning five beach clubs at Melasti Beach as one integrated venue. With more than 150 CEOs and industry leaders expected across the two-day event, the program combines conference sessions, product discovery, networking, and community experiences within the beachfront setting.

The 2026 agenda is organized into three intent-based tracks: Institutional, Builders, and Traders. Together, they cover digital asset adoption, stablecoins, tokenization, regulation, AI, blockchain infrastructure, product development, market narratives, and trading strategy. Asia Go-To-Market Sessions add localized perspectives on regulatory environments, user behavior, and ecosystem development across key Asian markets.

Trading Conversations and Community Interaction in Bali

At Booth A1, BYDFi is meeting with traders, builders, institutional representatives, partners, and community members to exchange perspectives on market access, product usability, and changing trading needs. Visitors can also learn more about BYDFi’s trading experience across spot trading, perpetual contracts, copy trading, trading bots, and TradFi trading.

The booth features a Lucky Wheel where attendees can take part in on-site interaction and receive exclusive BYDFi merchandise. The activity has drawn a steady flow of visitors, with attendees gathering around the booth to watch, participate, and speak with the BYDFi team.

Reliability in a Fast-Moving Market

Coinfest Asia 2026 brings institutions, builders, and traders into one setting as digital assets become increasingly connected to the wider financial system. For BYDFi, the conversations taking place in Bali offer a timely view of shifts in technology, industry priorities, and user expectations.

This environment reinforces BYDFi’s focus on practical product improvement, steady execution, and a dependable trading experience. As user needs continue to change, that focus remains central to how BYDFi carries Built for Reliability forward.

About BYDFi

Founded in 2020, BYDFi now serves over 1,000,000 users across 190+ countries and regions. BYDFi is Newcastle United’s Exclusive Official Crypto Exchange Partner and is listed by Forbes Advisor Canada among the best crypto exchanges in Canada for 2026.

BYDFi is dedicated to delivering a world-class crypto trading experience for every user.

BUIDL Your Dream Finance.

• Website: https://www.bydfi.com
• Support email: [email protected]
• Business partnerships: [email protected]
• Media inquiries: [email protected]

X (Twitter) | Instagram | Telegram | YouTube | TikTok | How to Buy on BYDFi

Contact

Anna
BYDFi Fintech LTD
[email protected]

Milton, Georgia, August 11th, 2026, Chainwire

Businesses are increasingly looking for ways to offer more payment options without adding operational complexity. ForumPay, a crypto payment infrastructure company, enables merchants to accept crypto payments across online, in-store, and in-app channels, with instant conversion and next-day settlement.

ForumPay has recently announced a new payment flow that it says could meaningfully alter how payments are processed. Customers can now initiate purchases using any Visa or Mastercard and bank transfers in selected markets, with funds routed automatically through ForumPay’s infrastructure. Merchants can now offer card and bank payments without registering as a card acceptance businesses, sidestepping chargeback liability and PCI-DSS compliance costs while still receiving precisely the amount invoiced. 

This latest ForumPay release represents one of the more ambitious developments yet to bridge the gap between traditional payment rails and crypto infrastructure. 

Built for Modern Payment Acceptance

Businesses increasingly want to offer customers greater flexibility at checkout, but additional payment methods tend to bring additional operational and cost burdens. Card acceptance, in particular, can introduce chargeback exposure, compliance requirements, fraud management responsibilities, and more complex settlement processes, challenges that only grow more acute for organizations operating across multiple markets.

ForumPay’s innovative new payment flow is designed to solve these issues. Customers can initiate payments using any Visa, Mastercard, or bank transfer in selected markets, with those funds automatically used to purchase crypto and processed through ForumPay’s existing crypto payment infrastructure, with all of the inherent features and benefits, and converted and settled as per the preferences a merchant has already established on their account. Merchants will receive exactly the amount invoiced. For example, if a customer is billed $100, then $100 is what arrives in the merchant’s preferred bank account.

Critically, ForumPay will pass the additional card and bank transfer costs directly to the payer, meaning merchants pay only their usual crypto acceptance fees that would apply to any transaction processed through the platform. The approach allows businesses to expand the choice of available payment methods at checkout without taking on the compliance architecture, risks and costs that card acceptance would ordinarily require.

More Payment Options, the Same Operational Footprint 

Businesses increasingly want to offer customers greater flexibility at checkout, but incorporating additional payment methods tend to bring with it additional operational burdens. Card acceptance, in particular, can introduce chargeback exposure, compliance requirements, fraud management responsibilities, and more complex settlement processes, challenges that only grow more acute for organizations operating across multiple markets. 

ForumPay’s new payment flow is being designed to address this friction. Customers will be able to initiate payments using any Visa, Mastercard, or bank transfer in selected markets. Those funds are then automatically used to purchase digital assets and processed through ForumPay’s existing infrastructure, allowing merchants to continue receiving funds according to their established settlement preferences without having to overhaul their operations to accommodate the new options in the process. The approach, ForumPay says, allows businesses to expand what they can offer at checkout without taking on the compliance architecture that card acceptance would ordinarily require.

About ForumPay

ForumPay is a complete cryptocurrency-to-fiat payment technology firm; its core processing technology helps businesses attract new customers, optimize customers’ ability to spend, and increase revenue. ForumPay’s wallet-agnostic solution enables crypto consumers to spend their preferred cryptocurrency, from any wallet for everyday goods and services to luxury goods, automobiles, real estate, and private jets. ForumPay eliminates merchant exposure or risk by processing transactions with instant crypto-to-cash conversion. ForumPay merchants receive payments in the currency of their choice directly into their bank account. The transactional experience is similar to accepting other popular payment methods, including cash, credit cards, and bank transfers, but simpler, faster, and more secure.

Contact

Director Global Account Management
Paul Wordsworth
ForumPay
[email protected]

Road Town, British Virgin Islands, August 10th, 2026, Chainwire

Deposits Are Open for hBTC, the Vault Token for Hilbert Group’s BTC Basis+ Strategy

Syntetika, a tokenization hub for regulated investment strategies, opened deposits today for its first strategy: BTC Basis+, managed by the publicly traded Hilbert Group.

Syntetika makes investment strategies that run inside regulated funds accessible directly from a wallet. Each fund operates with independent custody, and each cycle its net asset value is attested by an independent third party. That attested NAV is the price at which vault tokens are issued and redeemed.

BTC Basis+ is a Bitcoin basis strategy: it holds Bitcoin exposure and captures the funding spread between spot and futures markets, with returns denominated in Bitcoin terms. Participants deposit cbBTC through the Syntetika platform in a permissionless way. Deposits are queued and subscribed into the fund at the next processing cycle, with hBTC minted at an attested NAV. Redemptions follow the same cycle.

Syntetika launches with partners Tulipa Capital on strategy curation, Ember Protocol on vault infrastructure, and Yield Network as Liquidity Syndication Partner. The platform launches on Base. Reserves behind its tokens will also become checkable by anyone through Chainlink Proof of Reserve.

“Today Syntetika opens its doors with BTC Basis+,” said Jorge Cuartero, CEO of Syntetika. “What we are really launching is the platform underneath it: infrastructure built to carry a growing set of regulated strategies onchain. This is day one of that roadmap.”

BTC Basis+ is open for deposits now at syntetika.io

About Syntetika

Syntetika is a tokenization hub for regulated investment strategies. Each strategy runs inside a regulated fund with independent custody and third-party NAV attestation, and is accessed onchain through a vault token issued and redeemed at that attested NAV.

Contact

Head of Marketing
Niko Petrov
Syntetika Proto Limited
[email protected]

Road Town, British Virgin Islands, August 7th, 2026, Chainwire

250+ TradFi markets join Carbon’s 530+ crypto perpetuals & 150 24/7 RWAs in one venue. Wall Street depth at listing, stable overnight rates, and on-chain settlement.

Carbon, the on-chain prime broker for global markets, today opened public trading on 250+ Carbon TradFi markets spanning equities, indices, forex, and commodities. Each position is hedged 1:1 at regulated TradFi venues, making Carbon the largest TradFi-native on-chain derivatives venue. Alongside 530+ crypto perpetuals and 150 24/7 RWAs, total tradeable instruments now exceed 950 in one account. 

Carbon TradFi is Carbon’s own on-chain instrument. A trader opens a position on-chain, in their own wallet, and Carbon’s solver architecture hedges it 1:1 at a regulated broker off-chain. The trader never leaves self-custody, and the price and depth they receive are the underlying market’s, not bootstrapped on-chain order books.

That structure removes the cold-start problem that has constrained real-world assets on-chain. Every Carbon TradFi market opens at full institutional depth on its first day, because the depth is inherited rather than manufactured. There is no per-market incentive program to run and no waiting period while liquidity accumulates.

Carbon now offers traders both in one account. Its 150 24/7 real-world markets trade around the clock, for traders who want access at any hour. Its 250+ Carbon TradFi markets track market hours with carry prices from the underlying, for traders who want institutional depth and predictable holding costs. Roughly 30 assets are live as both, letting a trader hold one against the other and capture the difference between the two financing rates without leaving the account.

The global market Carbon connects to is substantial. TradFi clears over $1.5 trillion daily in CFDs across thousands of markets, liquidity that until now had no direct route on-chain.

Carbon TradFi coverage at launch:

• 200 stocks across US, EU, and Asia markets
• 62 forex pairs
• 12 indices
• 8 commodities

Carbon can list a trending name within the same week it begins moving in Seoul, Tokyo, or Hong Kong, a cadence order-book venues cannot match because they lack the off-chain rails to stand up a new market that quickly. A further 150 listings are scheduled.

The launch also opens the Carbon Liquidity Provider (CLP) vault to public deposits. The CLP is a delta-neutral yield product: it funds the hedge behind trader flow rather than taking directional positions, earning from the difference between on-chain demand and off-chain liquidity. Modeled APY is illustrative and ranges from 20.3% at launch utilization to 57.1% at maturity, depending on flow and capital utilization.

“Traders have had to choose between the assets they want and the execution they need. Carbon ends that trade-off. Every position is hedged into the deepest liquidity in the world and settles in the trader’s own wallet, with 950+ markets in a single account. This is what global markets look like when they finally arrive on-chain properly.” – Levy, Co-founder and CEO of Carbon

“One of the biggest challenges for bringing traditional financial assets onchain has been delivering deep liquidity. Carbon is operating an architecture that connects onchain trading with established market infrastructure while preserving self-custody. We want Arbitrum to be home to teams building this next generation of financial infrastructure” – David Garcia, Ecosystem Lead at Arbitrum Foundation 

About Carbon

Carbon is the on-chain prime broker for global markets, combining crypto perpetuals and Carbon TradFi in one venue. Carbon’s solver architecture connects on-chain traders to institutional liquidity through bilateral 1:1 hedging, delivering Wall Street-grade depth and stable carry with on-chain settlement and self-custody. Live since 2023, Carbon has processed $20B+ in cumulative trading volume across 36K+ unique traders. Carbon operates on Arbitrum. Users can learn more at carbon.inc.

Contact

COO
Rens
Carbon
[email protected]

Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, August 5th, 2026, Chainwire

The former TON executive joins as Director of Strategic Partnerships to form the connections behind ChangeNOW’s next phase.

Former TON executive Martin Masser joins ChangeNOW to build strategic partnerships, ecosystem relationships, and media momentum behind its next phase.

Masser comes with experience across traditional banking, Web2 and Web3, including senior growth and business development roles within the TON space. At ChangeNOW, he will lead strategic relationships with blockchain networks, wallets, fintech companies, payment providers and other infrastructure partners.

His appointment comes as ChangeNOW grows beyond standalone crypto services, transitioning to one connected product where users can buy, store, swap, trade, send, receive and grow digital assets. The industry has already built most of the individual components. What it hasn’t solved is the experience of using them together; clients are still expected to switch between platforms, understand different networks and connect the pieces on their own. ChangeNOW’s super app strategy is designed to move that complexity beneath the product.

“Martin brings a rare mix of commercial relationships, product and media understanding,” said Pauline Shangett, Chief Strategy Officer at ChangeNOW. “He knows what the technology can do, what the business needs and how to make the market pay attention. That is exactly the perspective we need as we build the ChangeNOW super app.”

Masser’s role will focus not on accumulating partnership announcements, but on identifying relationships that can make ChangeNOW’s infrastructure more complete and remove unnecessary steps from the сlient experience.

“The best partnerships create access, adoption and attention. My focus is to build relationships that make the product stronger, simpler and more useful, and then help the market understand why they matter. If you are building wallets, networks, payments, stablecoins, fintech infrastructure, consumer crypto or Web3 products, I want to hear from you,” said Masser. 

For consumers, ChangeNOW is combining the core activities of managing crypto within one environment. For businesses, it is developing an integrated set of tools for crypto payments, exchange, stablecoin settlement, digital asset management and Web3 integrations.

As ChangeNOW expands into a crypto super app, its next phase is connecting the right networks, wallets and partners. Masser’s role will be central to building those relationships and turning them into product value, adoption and market momentum.

About ChangeNOW

ChangeNOW.io is a crypto super app built for every crypto move, giving newcomers, professionals, and businesses the tools they need to access Web3 finance in a simple and secure way.

Since 2017, ChangeNOW has grown from a fast, secure, and limitless instant exchange into a trusted platform where storage, swaps, trading, staking, and asset management are covered in one simple experience for millions of clients worldwide.

About Martin Masser

Martin Masser is Director of Strategic Partnerships at ChangeNOW, where he is building partnerships around the company’s expansion into a crypto super app. His career covers traditional banking and capital markets in London and Web3, including his previous role as Head of Growth at TON Foundation. Martin works at the intersection of growth, infrastructure, and partnerships, connecting products and industry players to make crypto services work as one seamless user experience.

Contact

PR Team
CHN Group LLC
[email protected]

New York, United States, July 28th, 2026, Chainwire

BitSafe has released infrastructure for builders launching decentralized financial applications on Canton Network.

Backed by a Canton Foundation Development Fund grant of over $1 million (8,500,000 $CC), BitSafe today opened the public beta of Decentralization Manager, an open-sourced framework allowing apps and institutions to build resilient products that distribute control across multiple independent operators.

Canton Network has become critical infrastructure for institutions bringing real capital and operations on-chain. Meeting institutional application standards requires audit trails and distributed trust, but until now every team building on Canton has had to build threshold custody, governance, and audit infrastructure from scratch. Decentralization Manager makes those reusable, so teams build the application, not the infrastructure.

Independently audited by Quantstamp, Decentralization Manager marks an exciting expansion of on-chain use cases and allows institutions to continue leveraging the network’s privacy-native architecture while mitigating risk by distributing their operations.

Decentralization Manager ships with pre-built frameworks for token issuance and custody and enables additional products such as:

• Token issuance: Issuers can launch and govern Canton-native tokens, ranging from wrapped cryptoassets to stablecoins and RWAs.
• Custody and multi-signature wallets: Teams can hold and transfer assets under shared, multi-party control, removing reliance on any single custodian.
• Tokenized real-world assets and securities: Builders can bring real-world assets on-chain and govern them under distributed control.
• DEXs, lending, and structured products: Institutions can launch institutional-grade financial applications with Decentralization Manager.

Contact us to start launching decentralized applications and assets.

CBTC, the first non-native asset on Canton, is the first live use case of Decentralization Manager. With over 10 million transactions to date, node operators powering CBTC already earn a share of Canton fees from on-chain transactions. Decentralization Manager now extends that opportunity across the network. Application builders get an easier path to high quality node operators who can support their products, and those operators earn the same share of Canton fees in return.

“The future of institutional blockchain depends on making sophisticated infrastructure easier to build and adopt,” said Viv Diwakar, Head of the Canton Foundation. “By open-sourcing Decentralization Manager, BitSafe is giving developers the tools to create resilient, privacy-preserving applications that distribute trust across independent operators without compromising the governance and control institutions require. Contributions like this strengthen the Canton ecosystem and help accelerate the growth of institutional digital assets and tokenized financial markets. We’re pleased to see BitSafe making this capability available to the wider community and look forward to seeing the next generation of institutional applications built on Canton.”

As of today, Palladium Labs is the first builder announced using Decentralization Manager to enable multi-party authorization for protocol operations. “Distributed trust and full auditability are table stakes for institutional-grade credit infrastructure like Alpend,” said Akshay Sinha, Cofounder & CTO of Palladium Labs. “Decentralization Manager makes that a framework the entire Canton ecosystem can build on. Adopting it was one of the easier decisions we’ve made.”

In addition to Palladium, CBTC Attestors Nethermind, DSRV, and Finoa Consensus Services have already implemented Decentralization Manager. Their institutional participation affirms a collective effort across Canton to embrace decentralized technology that prioritizes data privacy, operational control, and resilience.

The public beta is open now on the Canton Foundation’s GitHub, with an additional grant application underway. Builders who need operators to complete their Decentralized Party can reach out to BitSafe to be matched with vetted, institutional-grade node operators. Institutions looking to issue and govern Canton-native tokens can engage BitSafe’s Decentralization Services for custom tokenization engagements.

Additional quotes from ecosystem partners:

“The CBTC Decentralized Party has shown how far Canton has come, and the public beta opening of Decentralization Manager is a big step for the whole ecosystem. Onboarding was remarkably smooth for our team – contract deployment was essentially one click. For any app still running on a single validator, this is the easiest path we’ve seen to move beyond a single point of failure.” – Joonkyo Kim, CTO, DSRV

”As one of the attestors securing CBTC, we’ve operated inside BitSafe’s decentralized signing architecture from an early stage, so we’ve seen firsthand what it takes to distribute trust across independent operators in production. Onboarding into Decentralization Manager was refreshingly straightforward, the admin tooling is intuitive and whenever we hit an issue the BitSafe team resolved it quickly and communicated the whole way through.

Institutions bringing real assets onto Canton increasingly expect exactly this: no single point of control with the audit trails and operational resilience their risk teams demand. Making that kind of infrastructure open and repeatable is a meaningful step for the ecosystem.” – Mateusz Jędrzejewski, CIO, Nethermind

“BitSafe’s Decentralization Manager turns the infrastructure we already run into a setup with no single point of failure, the kind institutions expect from Canton. We’re glad to extend our partnership with BitSafe and look forward to building more together as new applications join the network.” – Daniel Schrader, Managing Director, Finoa Consensus Services

About BitSafe

BitSafe builds decentralized, privacy-enabled digital asset infrastructure on the Canton Network. As the team that brought Bitcoin to Canton ($CBTC), BitSafe’s threshold-governed multi-sig infrastructure distributes custody and governance, eliminates single points of failure, and enables institutions and developers to launch trading venues and build compliant financial products and assets across the ecosystem.

Contact

Kadeem Clarke
BitSafe
[email protected]

Singapore, Singapore, July 24th, 2026, Chainwire

Backed by Galaxy Ventures and Vitalik Buterin, the ultra-high-performance perp DEX has officially launched its public rewards program. 

RISEx, the fully on-chain perpetuals exchange built on the high-throughput RISE Chain, has officially launched Ignite: Season 1, its core loyalty and ecosystem points program. Following an invite-only beta phase that generated over $3 billion in cumulative trading volume, the program marks the next major step in RISEx’s broader ecosystem rollout as the protocol builds toward long-term community ownership and future token distribution.

Launch week concluded today with the distribution of the Season 0 retroactive points, recognizing the users who traded on a merit-based, invite-only venue with no guarantee of reward.

The program also carries a claim no competing venue can make: 100% of RISE points are allocated to RISEx users, including traders, LPs, and builder code integrators. RISE is an exchange chain, and RISEx is its product. Rather than splitting rewards across a diffuse ecosystem, the entire network’s incentive weight routes through the venue where activity actually happens.

The launch arrives amidst a massive structural shift in crypto derivatives, with decentralized perpetuals rapidly devouring centralized venue market share. Following the successful live deployment of its core exchange infrastructure, including cross-asset netted-margining and native Real-World Asset (RWA) trading, the public opening of RISEx’s rewards system marks the platform’s formal transition into global scale and growth mode.

Ecosystem Traction: By the Numbers

Prior to opening public rewards, the RISEx closed beta cultivated organic, institutional-grade liquidity and deep user engagement over three months:

• $3 Billion+ in cumulative trading volume processed since genesis.
• $26 Million+ in Open Interest (OI).
• $15 Million+ in Total Value Locked (TVL).
• 15,000+ Registered users accumulated entirely through a merit-based referral network.

Source: DUNE

Product First, Incentives Second “Much to the frustration of our growth team, I was adamant that we would not launch an incentives program until our core exchange engine reached absolute stability,” said Sam Battenally, CEO and co-founder of RISE Labs. “Too often, points programs are deployed prematurely to mask unfinished infrastructure or buy empty, temporary volume. We spent the last few months doing the hard engineering work instead by stabilizing core features like reduce-only GTC and bootstrapping deep, quality liquidity. If you are fueling the engine, it has to perform. Now that our core architecture is fully live, optimized, and performing at a world-class level, we are ready to scale.”

Ignite Season 1 Structure & Timeline

Ignite runs according to a product roadmap, and that is RISEx’s commitment to the RISE mission. As the exchange ships and reaches milestones, the season moves with it. AutoYield, Permissionless Portfolio Margin, and equity listings are all part of a larger vision to bring full-scale composable finance on-chain.

This is a deliberate design choice. Rewards should track real product progress rather than a marketing calendar that forces a program to overspend early or thin rewards later, penalizing the early contributors and active traders who showed up first.

• Live Since: Week 1 of Ignite began on Monday, July 20, 2026, at 00:00 UTC.
• Public Distribution: RISEx will distribute 200,000 points per week, settled every Tuesday, with the first weekly distribution on July 28, 2026, at 14:00 UTC.
• Season Length: Ignite is expected to end no later than Q2 2027.
• Allocation: 100% of RISE points are allocated to RISEx users, including traders, LPs, and builder code integrators.

Inside the Ignite Mechanics

Engineered to reward genuine, long-term ecosystem participation over predatory Sybil farming and artificial wash trading, Ignite evaluates user contribution across multiple health metrics rather than volume alone.

• Multi-Layered Earning: Qualifying activity spans higher-order activity, total costs including fees, slippage and negative markouts, trading volume, and open interest and hold time.
• Referral Rewards: Referrers earn an additional 10% of their referee’s points.
• Undisclosed Weightings: The exact methodology and weightings are not published. This protects the program from being gamed.
• Affiliate Program: For those who qualify, the affiliate program offers additional incentives such as fee rebates, point boosts, and more.

Institutional-Grade Architecture

RISEx achieves centralized-exchange execution speeds with full self-custody by utilizing RISE Chain, an EVM-compatible Layer 2 network delivering unprecedented 5 Ggas/s throughput and 1-millisecond latency. Because the exchange and the underlying blockchain share the same state, users benefit from a fully on-chain orderbook where collateral and interconnected DeFi positions exist within a single, atomic execution environment.

With the core perpetual exchange engine stabilized, the platform’s mid-term product roadmap is shifting toward the launch of native EVM Spot trading, AutoYield, and Permissionless Portfolio Margin.

Traders can clear the gate, check their retroactive allocations, and begin earning Season 1 points by visiting rise.trade.

About RISEx

RISEx is a fully on-chain perpetuals exchange built on RISE Chain. Delivering centralized-exchange execution speeds with full self-custody, RISEx features an on-chain orderbook that shares state and liquidity with the entire RISE DeFi ecosystem in a single transaction. RISEx offers institutional-grade crypto perpetuals with flexible collateral, with plans to expand into equities, forex, and commodities.

About RISE Chain

RISE Chain is a next-generation Ethereum Layer 2 purpose-built for high-performance DeFi, delivering 5 Ggas/s throughput and Web2-like latency via its proprietary Shreds architecture. Developed by RISE Labs, the network is backed by Galaxy Ventures, Vitalik Buterin, Finality Capital Partners, EtherFi, OrangeDAO, DACM, P2 Ventures, Stani Kulechov, and other leading digital asset investors.

Contact

Grigory Prelovskiy
[email protected]

Toronto, Canada, July 23rd, 2026, Chainwire

CoinRabbit and GoMining have published a report on Bitcoin mining profitability, showing why managing mined Bitcoin is becoming as important as producing it.

The report highlights how the post-halving environment is redefining success in mining, with operators relying on stronger treasury management, capital discipline, and long-term asset strategies to navigate tighter margins. With the block reward reduced to 3.125 BTC and network difficulty near record levels, operational efficiency alone is no longer enough. The next phase of mining will be shaped by smarter capital allocation and long-term conviction in Bitcoin.

The Four Pillars of the Bitcoin Mining Efficiency Mindset

The report presents a clear framework built around four key pillars:

1) Operational Cost Efficiency

Low-cost power procurement, high uptime, efficient cooling, and disciplined maintenance remain the foundation of any viable mining operation. These factors determine the baseline production cost and are essential for competitiveness.

2) Collateralization Over Liquidation

Instead of selling freshly mined Bitcoin to cover expenses, effective operators are using it as collateral. This approach allows them to meet short-term cash needs while retaining full ownership and long-term exposure to the asset’s value.

3) Operational Liquidity and Tax Optimization

Bitcoin-backed lending provides flexibility to cover recurring operating costs, including power, hosting, and payroll, while avoiding taxable sales. At the same time, it preserves the deductibility of operational expenses.

4) Long-Term Vision and Capital Discipline

Sustainable operators treat mining as a disciplined, capital-intensive business. They maintain the flexibility to hold Bitcoin through market cycles and reinvest in hardware upgrades when opportunities arise, avoiding forced sales during downturns.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Walter Barrett, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer at CoinRabbit, commented: “Long-term success is built on conviction in the assets you hold and the discipline to manage them through different market cycles. At CoinRabbit, we are proud to work with clients who share this long-term vision and recognize the value of staying focused through periods of uncertainty. We appreciate the collaboration with GoMining experts and their contribution to sharing deeper industry insights with the mining community.”

Jeremy Dreier, Chief Business Development Officer at GoMining and Managing Director of GoMining Institutional, added: “In the post-halving environment, discipline is critical. The miners that are winning are those with efficient operations and cash put aside for this exact time. This is the best possible moment to deploy capital into expanding your fleet, because it’s cheap to add hash rate when Bitcoin’s price is down. There’s a lot of opportunity in the market. At GoMining, this is our third bear market, and we’ve seen that the operators who are prepared look at these conditions as an opportunity. Those who aren’t prepared are the ones who panic.”

About CoinRabbit

CoinRabbit is a crypto asset management platform built for long-term capital preservation. It enables users to manage liquidity seamlessly across instant payments, lending, trading products, and the Private Program — all within a single ecosystem. Since 2020, CoinRabbit ensures 100% capital reserve, keeping clients’ funds safe and never reused.

For more information, users can visit coinrabbit.io

About GoMining

GoMining is an all-in-one Bitcoin ecosystem that makes it simple and secure to mine, earn, and use Bitcoin every day. GoMining serves 5 million users and ranks among the top-10 Bitcoin miners by hashrate globally, with data centers in the U.S. and internationally. The company makes Bitcoin accessible through tokenized hashrate, daily BTC rewards, and an expanding suite of payment and earning products. 

For more information, users can visit gomining.com

Contact

CMO
Irene Afanaseva
CoinRabbit
[email protected]

Miami, United States, July 22nd, 2026, Chainwire

Unserious today announced the acquisition of Creepz, one of the most recognizable NFT collections of the 2021-22 cycle. Backed by entrepreneur and investor Adam Weitsman, and with the support of the original founders, the deal places the lizard cult brand under a powerhouse new team.

Most importantly, the acquisition marks a homecoming for Psychrome – the original mastermind and creative genius behind the Creepz lore. Returning to lead IP development, he also brings a resume as a globally exhibited artist whose commercial collaborations span Nike, Salomon, Sneaker Con, Staple, Disney, Warner Bros., and Rovio.

Beyond this foundational creative leadership, the Unserious team brings deep operating experience with a track record spanning consumer brands, entertainment, and enterprise tech, alongside crypto’s largest token launches – including the historic ApeCoin.

Unserious also took the opportunity to formally deny the existence of lizard people, their alleged evil activities, and any plans for $CREEPZ world domination.

About Unserious

Unserious is reimagining the future of decentralized brands.

Contact

Acquirer
Unserious
Unserious
[email protected]