projects

The Arbitrum Foundation announced the launch of the Arbitrum Security Program, providing smart contract audit subsidies for teams building projects on the Arbitrum platform, covering applications on the testnet, mainnet projects, projects migrating from other blockchains, and exclusive Arbitrum chains.

From September 22 to September 28, five major projects under TRON ECO—SUN, JUST, WINkLink, BitTorrent, and AINFT—launched the "Moonlight Tarot: Reveal Your Exclusive Identity" Mid-Autumn Festival themed event. Users can choose the tarot identity card that best fits them, tag the corresponding project, and include a reason that combines the characteristics of that project's products. At the same time, tag three friends and include the topic #TRONECOMoonTarot to participate.The event sets up 25 popularity awards for tarot (TRON ECO exclusive peripheral gift packages) and 10 lucky tarot signs (TRON ECO doormats), totaling 35 gifts. As the moon is full, the card array is open, and five identities await to be claimed—whether you are the "Trader" who excels in efficient trading, the "Alchemist" skilled in asset operations, the "Insightful" one connecting on-chain and off-chain, the "Communicator" enthusiastic about spreading information, or the "Architect" building AI Agents, you can find your role in this Mid-Autumn Tarot journey.Bring the topic and reveal your identity card, and celebrate a Mid-Autumn Festival with TRON ECO that is filled with cards, gifts, and surprises.

Data Center Watch data shows that from April to June, approximately 45 data center projects in the United States were halted or delayed due to opposition from local residents and communities, with a total value of $68 billion. The agency added that communities across the country are now pushing for bans on new data center construction, often taking action even before developers apply for relevant permits.In the first quarter of this year, a total of 75 data center projects in the United States faced opposition, involving approximately $130 billion. The 45 projects affected in the second quarter accounted for more than half of all large new projects tracked during the same period. This year, state legislatures in about 30 states have proposed or passed regulations related to data center siting, electricity, and water usage. Currently, there are 843 groups opposing data centers across 49 states in the U.S., excluding Hawaii.Miquel Vila, Chief Analyst at Data Center Watch, stated: New opposition groups are continuously emerging, and opposition actions are appearing in more and more states and local government jurisdictions, with the number of signatures on online petitions also steadily increasing. A petition opposing a data center project in Tennessee has garnered over 500,000 signatures on Change.org. The agency reported protests against data centers outside the United States for the first time, specifically mentioning several countries in Europe, as well as Australia and South Africa.

Recently, discussions surrounding the shutdown of projects invested by a16z have intensified. According to RootData's investment and financing data, after deduplication by project, five institutions—Coinbase Ventures, YZi Labs, Pantera Capital, a16z, and Paradigm—cover a total of 993 independent invested projects, of which 216 are marked as shut down, accounting for a cumulative ratio of 21.75%.Looking at the institutions individually, Pantera has a shutdown rate of 24.76% (51/206), Coinbase Ventures at 22.69% (98/432), a16z at 20.09% (43/214), Paradigm at 19.49% (23/118), and YZi Labs at 13.56% (32/236).Although a16z is at the center of public opinion, it is not the institution with the highest shutdown rate in the sample. Among its 148 lead investment projects, 29 are marked as shut down, accounting for 19.59%, including Linera, which recently announced its closure, and Universal, which has announced its entry into the shutdown process, indicating that even leading institutions cannot eliminate operational risks for projects.

According to Solid Intel, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated that the Pentagon is advancing several confidential projects related to BTC and cryptocurrencies, having previously agreed that the U.S. should seek a strategic advantage in the BTC field.

Robinhood's on-chain stock meme coin issuance platform Long.xyz founder Nate stated that after the launch of the new Pre-IPO feature, the platform has added approximately 10,000 asset issuance projects.Nate estimates that without token code locking and client issuance quantity limits, the platform's daily issuance could reach 100,000, at which point the platform may be more utilized by bots, making it difficult for ordinary users to filter through the large number of new assets, potentially further fueling FOMO trading, chasing volume, and data inflation.Nate indicated that LONG will continuously adjust issuance limits based on demand changes and plans to add an asset discovery filter to help users filter projects based on parameters such as whale holding ratios, asset longevity, and antifragility, while aggregating liquidity and capital flow to assets that perform well and have uniqueness within the ecosystem.The team is currently monitoring suspicious activities across all trading pairs and has not identified any major issues, but is prepared with new risk control parameters. If it is found that price manipulation behavior is due to coordinated actions rather than natural market activities, the team can quickly implement relevant restrictions.

MetaMask officially announced support for connecting to TRON decentralized applications, further opening up the multi-chain ecosystem entry. In the latest DApp Spotlight, several representative projects from the TRON ecosystem have been selected, covering three core areas: artificial intelligence, decentralized finance, and file storage, including the AI Agent infrastructure B.AI, the liquidity infrastructure platform SUN.io, the DeFi lending platform JustLend DAO, and the globally leading peer-to-peer file sharing protocol BitTorrent. Users can now conveniently access the above dApps through MetaMask, experiencing a one-stop service for AI, DeFi, and decentralized storage, among other multi-chain services. This integration not only enhances the openness and usability of the TRON ecosystem but also provides global users with a smoother multi-chain interaction experience, further improving the openness and usability of the TRON ecosystem.

The Watchdog Committee of the Arbitrum ecosystem (composed of Entropy Advisors and others) submitted a proposal to the governance forum on September 3, requesting a permanent ban on the projects Good Entry, Limitless, and APX Finance, as well as their founders, prohibiting their participation in all future ArbitrumDAO initiatives. The committee determined that these three projects engaged in grant abuse within the STIP and LTIPP incentive programs, involving a total amount of 457,553 ARB (approximately $76,000).Specifically, Good Entry received 200,000 ARB in the first round of STIP, of which 142,839 ARB flowed to 1,032 ineligible users, and there is evidence of self-farming by associated addresses, with the team refusing to cooperate with the investigation; Limitless exchanged all 75,000 ARB for USDC and cross-chain to Base, being classified as suspected theft; APX Finance was approved for 525,000 ARB, of which 239,714 ARB involved issues related to funds being held in the treasury, delayed distribution, and witch cluster problems. APX later merged with Astherus and rebranded as Aster, with approximately 70% of its assets located on the BNB Chain.According to the proposal, the three projects may defend themselves in the forum post before September 10. If the explanations are not accepted and the funds are not returned, the committee will initiate three separate Snapshot votes to decide whether to permanently ban the relevant projects and founders.

Visa stated in an official blog post that stablecoin-linked cards are one of the fastest-growing segments of the network. In the second fiscal quarter, over 160 stablecoin-linked card projects launched globally, with payment volumes increasing nearly 200% year-over-year, and an annualized settlement rate exceeding $20 billion, growing more than 15 times year-over-year.Visa pointed out that its collaboration with Credit Coop to launch a stablecoin-based revolving credit tool provides daily settlement funds for early stablecoin card projects, and the borrowing costs for some participating projects have decreased by more than 30%.

According to a report by the Financial Association on September 4, the Thai government has ordered the suspension of construction on 49 data center projects, awaiting the introduction of new regulations for the industry. Danucha Pichayanan, Secretary-General of the National Economic and Social Development Council of Thailand, stated at a press conference on Friday that the suspension is necessary because the government is formulating new regulatory rules and regulations for existing data centers as well as those that are about to begin operations.The Thai Data Center Regulatory Committee, chaired by the Minister of Finance, held its first meeting on Friday. Danucha indicated that the committee is expected to announce new regulations for data center enterprises within a month.

Aptos Foundation's ecosystem lead Ash Pampati tweeted that the team has cleared over 50 legacy funding projects and incentive programs in the past 9 months.He stated that nearly four years after the Aptos mainnet launch, data and experience have been accumulated, and they will increase collaboration with partners while focusing on major growth opportunities for Aptos in the crypto space. Details will be announced in the future.

Trader Wang Xiaoer posted that he has recently reflected on missing several leading projects of Robinhood Chain, believing that this ecosystem is one of the few incremental markets in the cryptocurrency space, while also having its own token listing channels. Therefore, he sees certain opportunities in the leading projects emerging on-chain.He also stated that the market is not far from the next bull market, and there is no need to feel anxious about missing previous opportunities. He will return to on-chain trading through the Pump.fun App to practice trading skills for the potential bull market.

New York state officials warn that AI-generated content and fake cryptocurrency projects are making investment scams more deceptive. Investment scam losses exceed $8 billion, a 38% increase from 2024, with 144,041 consumers reporting losses, and the median loss per incident is $10,560. AI can be used to clone voices, forge videos, impersonate financial professionals, and create social media advertisements.New York Attorney General Letitia James has warned that scammers attract investors through deepfake endorsements of celebrities, fake cryptocurrencies, pump-and-dump schemes, and fraudulent trading platforms. Some fake platforms display forged account balances, earnings, and transaction records, allowing victims to withdraw small amounts to build trust, and then request additional funds or fees. New York state officials advise consumers to verify the identity of promoters, companies, and investment projects, and confirm the destination of funds. According to the FBI, reported losses from cybercrime amount to $20.877 billion, with complaints involving cryptocurrency losses totaling $11.37 billion. Common signs of scams include promises of high returns, unsolicited investment opportunities, high-pressure sales tactics, and projects lacking clear documentation.

The long-established financial media in Hong Kong, "Hong Kong Economic Journal," published a column article citing statistics from RootData, indicating that in the first seven months of 2026, over 100 cryptocurrency projects have announced shutdowns, bankruptcies, or indefinite service suspensions. The article states that the actual number of closures may be higher, as many projects have not officially announced their status but are "slowly disappearing."The article further states that this wave of closures is not limited to a single sub-sector but is widely affecting various projects, including exchanges, wallets, DeFi, DAO tools, Layer 2, and infrastructure, showing a trend of spreading across the entire sector.

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) announced a new round of funding exceeding 60 million satoshis (approximately $472,800) to 16 projects worldwide through its Bitcoin Development Fund, with the funded projects distributed across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These grants aim to strengthen the Bitcoin protocol, expand the practical use of Bitcoin, and provide secure communication and community infrastructure for dissidents. This is HRF's second round of funding in 2026, following the organization's announcement in April to support 26 projects.The funded projects cover multiple areas. In terms of Bitcoin payments, BitSpenda plans to expand its mobile currency to a Bitcoin bridging tool to reduce cross-border transfer costs in Africa; Project Island Resilience, based on Jamaican developer Dread's Flash wallet, plans to add offline payment features using Bluetooth, NFC, and ecash; Bitzed helps Zambian users purchase Bitcoin directly through mobile currency. In Bitcoin development, Libbitcoinkernel, Floresta, BDK-Dart, and WalletScrutiny focus on reusing core code, lightweight nodes, cross-platform wallet tools, and wallet auditing, respectively.In the Nostr ecosystem, projects such as Vector, Flotilla Chat, OpenAlert, and 0xchat received support to provide censorship-resistant encrypted communication tools.

YZi Labs announced that its flagship incubation program EASY Residency has selected 24 early-stage companies for its fourth season, with each receiving an investment of $500,000. This season lasts for 10 weeks, starting online and then bringing founders together in Bhutan. The focus this season is on the next generation of global financial infrastructure, covering areas such as stablecoin payments, on-chain foreign exchange, institutional-grade market infrastructure, privacy, credit, and AI-native execution.The themes of the selected teams include stablecoin payments and cross-border settlement, on-chain foreign exchange and credit and new banking, institutional-grade liquidity and market making, digital asset privacy compliance and financial operations, AI agents and automated execution, on-chain financial consumption and enterprise interfaces, as well as AI-native security and creator infrastructure. YZi Labs manages assets exceeding $10 billion, with a portfolio covering over 300 projects in fields such as Web3, AI, and biotechnology.