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block

Block, Inc. (NASDAQ: SQ) is a technology company focused on financial services and digital payments. The company was founded in 2009, originally named Square, Inc., and was renamed Block in 2021 to reflect its expanding product portfolio. The company operates Square merchant payment solutions, Cash App (which offers peer-to-peer payments and Bitcoin transactions), Afterpay (which provides buy now, pay later services), TIDAL (which offers music streaming services), Bitkey (which provides self-custody Bitcoin wallets), and Proto (which offers Bitcoin mining services).
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first_img Chainalysis sues ICE for exclusively awarding a $94.6 million blockchain analysis contract to TRM Labs

Blockchain analysis company Chainalysis has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Federal Claims Court, accusing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of illegally awarding a $94.6 million exclusive contract to competitor TRM Labs. This contract provides forensic software and support services for investigations by the Department of Homeland Security's task force, with a performance period from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027. Chainalysis claims this is the largest blockchain analysis contract awarded by the U.S. government to date.In the complaint, Chainalysis pointed out that ICE issued a Request for Information (RFI) on May 28, which included 18 questions regarding capabilities such as a proprietary fraud victim database, AI agent data retrieval, automatic notifications for virtual asset service providers (VASP) to execute voluntary freezes, and collaboration with stablecoin issuers. However, many of the RFI requests did not appear in the final Statement of Need released less than two weeks later, while ICE's market research determined that Chainalysis could not meet the needs based on RFI standards. Chainalysis also noted that "sexual extortion," which was not mentioned in the RFI, became one of the three main task areas in the Statement of Need, and some requirements closely matched TRM's proprietary product architecture.Chainalysis claims it was the only company to submit a capability statement, but ICE completed its market research the next day, determining that TRM was the only vendor capable of meeting all the requirements, and did not pose any follow-up questions to it.

first_img The market value of RWA on the Stellar blockchain approaches 4 billion USD, with an annual growth of about 360%

According to Cointelegraph, the market value of tokenized real-world assets (RWA) on the Stellar blockchain is expected to grow by approximately 360% by 2026, rising from $868.8 million at the end of last year to nearly $4 billion. The Dune Analytics dashboard maintained by Stellar shows that as of August 29, the market value of RWA on the network reached $3.996 billion, covering asset classes such as U.S. Treasury bonds, private and public credit, and non-U.S. government debt.The concentration of issuers is relatively high, with Spiko leading at $1.55 billion, followed by Realiz ($559 million), Tradable ($548 million), Franklin Templeton ($546 million), and Ondo ($535 million). Stellar has also made breakthroughs in the non-U.S. government debt sector, with the Stellar Development Foundation citing data from RWA.xyz stating that as of August 20, the network held approximately $490 million in such assets, including tokenized Mexican CETES and Brazilian government bonds issued through Etherfuse.Institutional adoption continues to drive growth. In May, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) announced plans to integrate its tokenization services with Stellar, with DTC tokenized assets expected to go live in the first half of 2027, potentially supporting tokenized U.S. Treasury bonds, major index ETFs, and Russell 1000 constituents. In July, Tradable announced plans to bring up to $1 billion in private credit assets to Stellar.

first_img 39 U.S. state banking associations have formed the BankChain alliance, aiming to launch a blockchain network by 2027

The bankers' associations from 39 states in the United States have jointly formed the BankChain alliance, planning to build an industry-owned blockchain network for tokenized deposits, stablecoins, smart payments, and automated settlements, with the goal of launching in 2027. The alliance is currently still selecting technical partners and has not yet become an operational payment network.The BankChain alliance states that the 39 member associations represent 3,283 banks, with total assets of $21.8 trillion. The board of the alliance is chaired by Kathy Kraninger, president and CEO of the Florida Bankers Association. Howard Headlee, president of the Utah Bankers Association, stated that governance is a differentiated advantage, and BankChain aims to allow member banks to "equally access a network owned by them and have their voices heard."The area that BankChain is entering has a bank tokenization deposit project led by The Clearing House, which was announced in June and aims to facilitate on-chain clearing and settlement of tokenized commercial bank money, connecting the RTP and CHIPS payment networks. In contrast, BankChain's product range is broader, covering stablecoins and automated settlements, but it is still in the early stages and needs to first identify technology suppliers and convert association-level support into commitments from member banks.

first_img Lighter average block proof time decreased from 5.3 minutes to about 1 minute

The decentralized perpetual contract protocol Lighter announced that its average block proof time has decreased from about 5.3 minutes to about 1 minute over the past month. This progress was achieved through two independent optimizations launched on July 23 and August 23. Lighter can now complete block verification faster, thereby increasing processing capacity, reducing infrastructure costs, and creating space for further expansion.The first optimization is the Heavy/Light decomposition. This solution splits the transaction circuit into light circuits and heavy circuits, allowing simple quote updates, which account for the vast majority of transactions, to only pay for light constraints, thus halving the proof time. The second optimization comes from the Prover backend optimization brought about by the proof competition held in collaboration with Eigen Labs, which again halves the proof time under the same circuit conditions. The first batch of optimizations went live on August 23, with more batches still in progress. Additionally, on August 10, all Schnorr signature verifications were incorporated into a single Plonky3 proof for each block, resulting in approximately a 20% improvement.The above optimizations are orthogonal and their effects are cumulative. The remaining competition optimizations are expected to bring about an additional 2x improvement, potentially reaching a total of about 10x compared to mid-July. Currently, Lighter's sustained processing capacity has exceeded historical peak loads, and the finality limit for withdrawals has been reduced from about 21-22 minutes to about 16-17 minutes, maintaining stability during peak traffic periods.

first_img The financial AI platform Oro has completed a strategic financing of $3 million, led jointly by MH Ventures and Mapleblock Capital

The financial AI platform Oro, which transforms complex user intentions into multi-step executions, announced the completion of a $3 million strategic financing round, led jointly by MH Ventures and Mapleblock Capital, with participation from M2M Capital, Archer Capital, and X21 Digital. Disrupt.com and ZIGLabs provide subsequent strategic support, bringing the total financing amount to $4 million. The funds will be used to advance core AI and agent research and development (including the proprietary Shield Engine and natural language execution stack), global market and user acquisition, build a self-hosted compliance framework with policy constraints, and expand engineering, AI research, and enterprise B2B teams.Oro converts natural language prompts into multi-step transaction paths in a non-custodial, user-signature manner. The official disclosure states that there are already over 350,000 independent active users, supporting more than 80 languages, and has completed mainnet integrations with Morpho, Kamino, Lido, Aave, Uniswap, Raydium, etc.; the activities with Ondo Finance saw over 50,000 verifications completed on the first day of launch. The company's goal is to reach 10 million active users in the next 6 to 12 months, launch native iOS and Android applications, and expand integration as a B2B and B2C intent routing layer.
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