defi

According to The Block, earlier this month, BlackRock, Citadel Securities, and Apollo Global Management disclosed their plans to purchase DeFi governance tokens. BlackRock tokenized its treasury bond fund BUIDL on-chain through UniswapX and bought UNI tokens; Citadel Securities supported the launch of the "Zero" blockchain under LayerZero and acquired ZRO tokens; Apollo or its affiliates reached an agreement with Morpho to acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens over 48 months, accounting for approximately 9% of the total supply.Several investors told The Block that the motivation for these institutions to buy governance tokens is not to allocate them as part of their investment portfolio, but rather to secure access to infrastructure.In terms of future predictions, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan have been mentioned by several investors as the next potential entrants, with a focus on blue-chip projects related to stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and trading infrastructure.

The voting on Jupiter's proposal to "reduce the net release of future tokens to zero" officially ended today at 19:00, with the community passing the proposal with a 75% support rate.Previously, Jupiter initiated a new proposal to reduce the net release of JUP to zero in the foreseeable future. The proposal mainly targets the three major sources of JUP releases at present ------ Jupuary airdrop, team share unlock, and Mercurial quota unlock. The specifics are as follows:First, the Jupuary airdrop will be indefinitely postponed, and all 700 million JUP will be returned to the community multi-signature cold wallet for future use. The usage amount and staking snapshot at the current time will be retained. When the market environment, token status, and market sentiment are more suitable, this matter will be re-discussed with the DAO.Second, the release of tokens to team members will be indefinitely suspended. As an alternative, team members will receive JUP in the form of Jupiter's balance sheet debt. If any member wishes to sell their allocated tokens, they will be directly purchased by Jupiter's balance sheet. This move will further strengthen JUP reserves while demonstrating the team's commitment to the future of the JUP token.Third, the selling pressure from Mercurial stakeholders will be fully hedged, which will accelerate the unlocking process, and an equivalent amount of tokens will be purchased through Jupiter's own balance sheet to absorb any impact from potential token sales.

According to Onchainschool monitoring, multiple wallets are selling AAVE tokens, with six different wallets having sold AAVE worth $1.3 million yesterday.Analysis indicates that these wallets do not seem to be directly related to each other; some wallets had previously purchased AAVE tokens, some wallets withdrew from DeFi platforms, and others received tokens from team wallet addresses.

According to CoinDesk, the White House expressed support for certain stablecoin reward programs during talks with the banking and crypto industries, urging the banking sector to reach an agreement on the market structure bill.According to sources, if the banking sector agrees, limited stablecoin rewards will be included in the next draft of the U.S. Senate's Digital Asset Market Clarity Act.At Thursday's meeting, the White House team, led by Trump crypto advisor Patrick Witt, made it clear that reward programs for certain activities would remain in the bill, but rewards for stablecoin holdings similar to deposit accounts would be excluded.Blockchain Association CEO Summer Mersinger stated that the meeting took a constructive step in addressing reward-related issues and maintaining the legislative process for market structure. Currently, the bill still needs to address demands from Democrats to strengthen regulation in the DeFi space, prohibit senior government officials from directly participating in the crypto industry, and fill vacancies among CFTC and SEC commissioners.

The decentralized staking protocol Ether.fi announced that its DeFi native crypto card product ether.fi Cash will migrate from the Scroll network to the OP Mainnet (Optimism Mainnet). The migration work will be completed in the coming months, involving approximately 70,000 active cards, 300,000 accounts, and millions of dollars in user locked assets (TVL).ether.fi Cash offers a non-custodial crypto payment experience, allowing users to spend directly with stablecoins or use staked and re-staked assets (such as eETH) as collateral for borrowing while continuing to earn yields and enjoy cashback rewards similar to traditional bank cards. The card can be used at all merchants that support Visa. Data shows that the Ether.fi card currently accounts for nearly half of the crypto native payment card transaction volume, becoming one of the leading products in this field. Meanwhile, the OP Stack processed approximately 3.6 billion transactions in the second half of 2025, accounting for 13% of the total crypto transaction volume during the same period, providing high throughput infrastructure support for this migration.

According to Fortune magazine, the decentralized derivatives trading platform Hyperliquid has officially established the Hyperliquid Policy Center in Washington, D.C., with veteran crypto lawyer Jake Chervinsky serving as the first CEO.The center aims to create legal pathways for the widespread adoption of DeFi in the United States, helping Congress and federal agencies understand the underlying technology of DeFi and providing professional support for regulatory rule-making. Chervinsky stated that the current regulatory framework was formed in the analog era and cannot cover new trading forms such as decentralized protocols. One of the center's primary tasks is to develop a legal framework for perpetual contracts.The Hyperliquid affiliated foundation has donated 1 million platform native tokens HYPE (currently valued at approximately $28 million) to support the center's operations. The founding team also includes policy advisor Brad Bourque (former lawyer at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP) and policy director Salah Ghazzal (former policy head at Variant). The center is currently hiring for positions such as Chief of Staff, Director of Communications, and Director of Government Relations.

According to The Block, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated that decentralized finance is expected to lead the crypto market out of the current bear market. He pointed out that major DeFi protocols have shown substantial progress: Uniswap DEX's trading volume often exceeds that of centralized exchange Coinbase, and DeFi lending platform Aave has an annual revenue of over $100 million. Hougan believes that the next bull market will focus on fundamentals, and DeFi aligns with this trend.Hougan specifically mentioned Aave Labs' recent governance proposal, which aims to transfer all Aave brand product revenues to the DAO treasury while adjusting the incentive mechanisms between developers and the community. He believes this shift will help address the long-term misalignment between the protocol's success and the token's value; if Aave can achieve this, other DeFi assets may follow suit. He also noted signs of institutional participation, such as BlackRock investing in Uniswap and Apollo investing in Aave competitor Morpho.Additionally, Strategy co-founder and Executive Chairman Michael Saylor stated in an interview with Fox Business that the current crypto market is indeed in a bear market, but "it is much milder than previous cycles" and "will last a shorter time." He mentioned that the banking sector's support for Bitcoin is stronger than it was four years ago, with continuous capital inflow and ongoing technological advancements, and posted on X platform that "spring is coming, Bitcoin is winning."

According to Crowdfund Insider, Nimbus Capital announced a strategic partnership with the non-custodial wallet Chimera Wallet, built on Bitcoin's VTXO technology, worth $15 million. The aim is to expand decentralized finance (DeFi) capabilities within the Bitcoin ecosystem and promote the development of programmable financial tools on the Bitcoin network.Both parties stated that this collaboration will integrate the underlying security of Bitcoin with the programmable capabilities of the Arkade layer built on Bitcoin, providing users with DeFi-related services including asset exchange, lending mechanisms, liquidity features, fiat deposit channels, and payment integration, while maintaining control over self-custodied assets.Claudio Levrini, founder and director of Chimera, stated that this partnership combines financial expertise with the construction of Bitcoin infrastructure, aiming to enhance the practical application scenarios of Bitcoin while ensuring self-custody. Robert Baker, managing partner of Nimbus Capital, mentioned that this move will help further integrate Bitcoin in institutional and decentralized scenarios.It was introduced that Chimera plans to leverage this collaboration to accelerate product development, including the global promotion of the Chimera Visa card to support BTC and fiat conversion, integration of digital gift cards and merchant gateway systems, enhancement of liquidity and cross-chain interoperability, as well as the development of user-facing features including Swap, yield products, and portfolio management.

According to OnchainLens monitoring, Astaria founder Justin Bram deposited 14.19 million WLD into Binance 2 hours ago, worth approximately 5.72 million USD.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform, stating that users do not need to agree with his views on application forms, DeFi, privacy payments, AI, etc., to freely use Ethereum.As a decentralized protocol, Ethereum should maintain permissionless and censorship-resistant properties, but this does not mean that individuals cannot make value judgments and publicly criticize applications. Neutrality should belong to the protocol layer, while individuals and communities need to clearly express their principles and build an ecosystem consistent with their values, while also accepting that Ethereum will be used in different ways by different ideologies.

According to Cointelegraph, Aave founder Stani Kulechov stated that by 2050, DeFi could benefit from tokenizing $50 trillion worth of "abundant assets" (such as solar energy), thereby opening up a new category of on-chain collateral.Data from RWA.xyz shows that nearly $25 billion of real-world assets have already been tokenized on-chain, but they primarily exist in the form of U.S. Treasury bonds, stocks, commodities, private credit, and real estate.Kulechov expects these scarce assets to continue to grow, but "the greatest impact of tokenization can be achieved through the tokenization of abundant assets." By 2050, solar energy alone could account for $15-30 trillion.

AINFT officially launches its new product, Bank of AI, focusing on on-chain payments, identity, and DeFi financial capabilities for AI Agents, and has taken the lead in supporting both TRON and BNB Chain.In terms of functionality, it natively supports x402 and 8004 standards, covering on-chain payments and identity management, and allows AI Agents to participate in DeFi operations such as lending, exchanging, and earning through automation via MCP Server and Skills. Additionally, the product supports the OpenClaw extension plugin, enabling any Agent to quickly gain complete capabilities in payments, identity, and DeFi. AINFT is a Web3 native AI platform dedicated to connecting mainstream AI capabilities with on-chain asset systems. As of now, the user base has surpassed 390,000.

Chase, the former head of listings at Binance, stated in an interview, "The Binance listing team has a total of more than a dozen people, with 4 of us, including myself, who can actually engage with projects. In my two and a half years here, I have reviewed over 1,000 crypto projects, and I estimate that around 100 projects will have their tokens listed on Binance (including Alpha) in 2025. The ratio of projects that can be listed after communicating with the founders is about 5% to 10%. Bitcoin will definitely reach a historical high in 2026.In a week of 2025, after Bitcoin's daily K-line rose continuously for 7 days with the same amplitude and trading volume, it suddenly dropped. This pattern indicates the presence of a strong "whale" that can control the entire chip situation. I understand this as someone or a group wanting to announce to the world that the price of Bitcoin is now under their control, and they hope that those who understand will join in.Market makers do not look at fundamentals but only at the liquidity they believe in. Therefore, the above situation either belongs to the market liquidity at that time being controlled by a few market makers with the same algorithm, or it is that a certain group with chips believes that other groups will not participate in trading during that time period."

According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Senate's cryptocurrency market structure bill has stalled over issues related to stablecoin yields.Bankers insist on a complete ban on stablecoin yields, arguing that it threatens bank deposit operations; the Digital Chamber of Commerce released a principles document today in response, willing to forgo interest on static holdings of stablecoins but insisting on retaining reward mechanisms related to liquidity provision and ecosystem participation, especially in the DeFi space. The White House has urged both sides to reach a compromise by the end of the month and may schedule a new round of meetings next week. Digital Chamber of Commerce CEO Cody Carbone stated that if bankers refuse to negotiate, the status quo will be the continued existence of reward mechanisms.

According to DL News, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stated in an interview with CNBC that advancing long-stalled cryptocurrency legislation such as the "Clarity Act" will help stabilize the currently weak market and restore investor confidence.Bessent pointed out that Bitcoin has a history of volatility, but some of the current fluctuations are "self-inflicted." He mentioned that a group of Democrats wishes to collaborate with Republicans to advance market structure legislation, but some cryptocurrency companies have been obstructing this.He stated that providing clarity for the "Clarity Act" during a time of historic market volatility and sell-offs would bring great comfort to the market, and it is crucial to complete this work as soon as possible. The cryptocurrency industry and the banking sector must reach an agreement on the market structure legislation before March 1.Bessent indicated that there is a wealth of innovation in the cryptocurrency and its derivative fields like blockchain and DeFi, and the legislation should be pushed for submission to the President for signing in the spring.

According to CoinDesk, the DeFi Education Fund (DEF) based in Washington, USA, stated in response to the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) regarding the consultation paper on the regulation of crypto asset activities that regulatory obligations should only apply to entities that have "unilateral control" over user assets or transactions, and should not be considered intermediaries solely for developing or participating in decentralized protocols.DEF argues that "control" should be linked to specific operational powers such as the ability to unilaterally initiate or block transactions, modify protocol parameters, or exclude users, and warns that directly applying the requirements for prudent regulation, reporting, and platform access of centralized trading platforms, as well as complete anti-money laundering obligations, to automated, non-custodial DeFi protocols will be structurally mismatched.

Ondo Finance announced that the tokenized stocks of Ondo Global Markets are now live in the DeFi lending market, with SPYon and QQQon being the first to launch, integrated with Morpho and Gauntlet.Ondo's tokenized stocks and ETFs are now available as efficient risk management collateral assets in Ethereum DeFi.