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Bitcoin Staking Debuts on Ethereum Layer-2 Starknet With STRK Incentives

by admin September 30, 2025

In brief

Starknet began letting users stake Bitcoin on Tuesday.
The network pays out rewards in Starknet’s STRK.
The Starknet Foundation is distributing 100 million in STRK incentives.

Bitcoin became a core part of Starknet’s ecosystem on Tuesday, as the Ethereum layer-2 network began using the asset as a way to secure itself, according to a press release.

Starknet users can now participate in the process of validating transactions by delegating Bitcoin to the network in order to earn rewards, StarkWare, the network’s developers, said. Previously, Starknet users could only stake its native STRK token.

The company also said that RE7, a London-based investment firm, is building a Bitcoin-denominated yield product on Starknet. The Starknet Foundation is planning on using 100 million STRK to encourage Bitcoin-related activity on the network, StarkWare added.

If Bitcoin has a flaw, it’s that the asset is being “too much hodled,” StarkWare co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson told Decrypt, using a misspelling of “hold” that’s emerged as rallying cry for steadfast cryptocurrency investors in recent years.

Ben-Sasson said that Bitcoin is “pristine capital,” but the asset’s use has been limited so far within the realm of decentralized finance, or DeFi, because centralized exchanges have historically had superior scale, good user experiences, and dirt-cheap prices.

As Bitcoin’s use in borrowing becomes more commonplace, Ben-Sasson said that Starknet is “perfectly aligned to make Starknet the financialization layer and the execution layer for Bitcoin,” a scenario that Ben-Sasson thinks will be winner-takes-most.

This year, crypto exchange Coinbase has leaned into a service that connects its customers with the lending protocol Morpho on its Ethereum layer-2 network Base. Nearly $1 billion worth of loans have originated through the arrangement, according to a Dune dashboard.

StarkWare emphasized that Bitcoin staking on Starknet does not require users to relinquish custody of their assets, arguing that its approach doesn’t make security tradeoffs.

Although StarkWare is positioning Starknet as a Bitcoin layer-2, the network’s staking feature has design elements that don’t fully align with Bitcoin maximalists, who often believe that all other cryptocurrencies are inferior and should be viewed as “shitcoins.”

Those that stake Bitcoin on Starknet receive STRK, Starknet’s native token, as a reward, for example. Other projects trying to bring programmability to Bitcoin, such as GOAT Network, pay out rewards primarily in Bitcoin but still use a native token for incentives as well.

As of Monday, STRK had a market capitalization of $498 million, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. The asset’s price had fallen 74% over the past year to $0.122. In 2024, STRK hit an all-time high of $4.41, one month after its debut.

The Israeli-based firm said last June that it was raising $1 million to enter the Bitcoin-scaling space. At the time, it came out in support of restoring the OP_CAT, a command within Bitcoin’s programming language that some think could unlock innovation.

Starknet uses a specific zero-knowledge proof system that Ben-Sasson introduced in 2018. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has said the form of advanced cryptography could be key to balancing privacy against regulatory compliance.

Ben-Sasson said that he’s been interested in using zero-knowledge proofs to scale Bitcoin since he discovered it in 2013, but Ethereum was the easiest blockchain to start with.

“I think there’s a much higher need for this stuff on the Bitcoin side,” he said. “We’re not leaving Ethereum, but definitely our main goal in 2025 and 2026 is to service Bitcoin the best possible way that we can.”

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September 30, 2025 0 comments

NFT Gaming

Liquid Staking Debuts On XRP Ledger, What mXRP Means For Investors

by admin September 26, 2025

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Midas, in partnership with Axelar, has launched the first XRP liquid staking token, mXRP. The token will provide investors with yields from the XRP DeFi ecosystem and further expand the altcoin’s utility.

XRP Liquid Staking Token Launches

Midas revealed that the mXRP liquid staking token will be issued on the XRP Ledger EVM via the Axelar bridge, which also facilitates the transfer of the token to the Ledger. The tokenization platform noted that this is a first-of-its-kind tokenized exposure product, offering meaningful XRP-denominated yield strategies. The token is expected to provide an APY of up to 8% for holders, although Axelar indicated it could reach 10%.

In an X post, Panek Mekras, co-founder of Anodos Finance, which offers the token on the Ledger, broke down key details about the liquid staking token. He explained that token is a yield-bearing version of XRP that generates yields for its holders. As such, the price of mXRP should continuously grow against the XRP price and trade at a premium.

Panek further stated that the yield comes from various strategies, including lending, market making, and depositing on DeFi protocols, among others. He noted that asset managers first lock XRP and then borrow against it in stablecoins, using the capital for various strategies to generate profits.

The Anodos Finance co-founder also clarified that investors simply need to hold the staking token to claim their yields or redeem their XRP. He added that holders of the liquid staking token do not receive extra tokens. Instead, the yield and rewards are automatically added and embedded into mXRP’s value.

Panek noted that token works similarly to other liquid staking tokens, such as stETH, jitoSOL, and sAVAX, meaning that those looking to get yields from it have to buy the asset and hold it. They can do this by selling XRP or adding new capital to buy the token.

What mXRP Means For XRP

Panek indicated that the launch of mXRP is beneficial for XRP, as it will add constant buying pressure to the altcoin. He noted that Midas and Axelar said that the goal is to become a perpetual buyer of XRP. Meanwhile, every XRP used to mint mXRP is locked, thereby removing it from circulation.

Flare Network also recently announced the launch of ‘FXRP’ to expand XRP’s DeFi. Panek noted that mXRP and FXRP are slightly different, but ultimately, both are beneficial for XRP and the XRP Ledger. mXRP’s capital is managed by asset managers who generate yield on behalf of investors. At the same time, FXRP is a trustless version of XRP on the Flare network, which doesn’t inherently generate yield but can be used in DeFi protocols to generate yields.

At the time of writing, the altcoin price is trading at around $2.84, down in the last 24 hours, according to data from CoinMarketCap.

XRP trading at $2.84 on the 1D chart | Source: XRPUSDT on Tradingview.com

Featured image from iStock, chart from Tradingview.com

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September 26, 2025 0 comments

Crypto Trends

Stablecoin-Focused Plasma’s XPL Token Debuts With $2.4B Market Cap

by admin September 25, 2025

The stablecoin-focused Plasma blockchain’s native token, XPL, debuted on major exchanges, including Binance and OKX, on Thursday.

The token drew a price of up to $1.54 in early trading, resulting in a market capitalization of over $2.8 billion. The plasma token has a genesis supply of 10 billion, of which 18% or 1.8 billion is now in circulation.

The Plasma network also debuted with over $2 billion in stablecoin total value locked and an EVM-compatible design.

Use case

XPR serves as the gas token for transactions and smart contract execution, as well as the staking asset that secures the network, and finally, as the reward token for validators.

Plasma allows gasless transfer of stablecoins for end-users. In other words, it allows zero-fee transfers only for simple USDT sends and receives.

However, more complex transactions, such as deploying contracts or decentralized applications, require XPL to be paid as gas, or a portion of stablecoins to be converted to XPL as fees, according to Delphi Digital’s explainer.

Early this week, Plasma launched Plasma One, a stablecoin-native neobank with the aim of providing users with permissionless access to spending, earning, and saving digital dollars.

Tokenomics

XPL is the native token of the Plasma blockchain, analogous to ETH on Ethereum and SOL on Solana. XPL serves as the gas token for transactions & smart contract execution, the staking asset securing the network, and the reward token for validators.

The XPL token has a fixed total supply of 10 billion tokens. Of this, 40%—equaling 4 billion tokens—is allocated for ecosystem and growth initiatives. At launch, 8% of the total supply (800 million tokens) will be unlocked from this ecosystem allocation to support initial activities such as liquidity provision and partnerships.

The remaining 3.2 billion ecosystem tokens will be gradually unlocked monthly over a three-year period to ensure steady liquidity and ongoing development.

Furthermore, 25% of the supply (2.5 billion tokens) is allocated to founders, developers, and employees, who face a one-year cliff preceding vesting, followed by linear vesting over the next two years. Another 25% (2.5 billion tokens) have been allocated to early backers and strategic partners, with the same vesting terms as the team: a one-year cliff followed by two years of linear vesting.

The token follows an inflationary model, with Validator rewards initially starting at a 5% inflation rate, which will decrease each year until it stabilizes at 3%.

Read more: Peter Thiel-Backed Plasma Unveils ‘HotStuff-Inspired Consensus’ For High-Frequency Global Stablecoin Transfers

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September 25, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Qualcomm Debuts Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme, Its Next-Gen Laptop Chips

by admin September 24, 2025

Perhaps the most exciting part of the chip is the graphics performance: The Snapdragon X2 Elite and X2 Elite Extreme both use a new Adreno GPU architecture. Qualcomm says power efficiency has improved by 2.3X, so hopefully that means these laptops can scale up performance when it’s needed, in games or creative applications. Qualcomm says gaming will take a big step forward in this next generation. Qualcomm showed a chart with 2.2X faster frame rates in Hitman World of Assassination and 2.1X faster in Black Myth Wukong. Of course, these Qualcomm laptops continue to rely exclusively on integrated graphics, meaning the discrete GPUs in dedicated gaming laptops are still on another level of performance. Snapdragon X2 chips will also support higher refresh rate screens, now up to 144 Hz and up to three external 5K monitors.

Lastly, the company claims there’s a much more powerful neural processing unit (NPU) with 80 TOPS (trillions of operations per second) of on-device AI processing performance. The Snapdragon X set the initial bar with 50 TOPS, which Apple, Intel, and AMD then had to match in their next chips. We’ve yet to see the explosion of on-device AI processing be relevant for the average person, but hopefully, more performance will provide an incentive for developers to build more unique AI experiences that can utilize the NPU.

Qualcomm still boasts “multi-day” battery life on these new chips, though performance was the priority in the company’s product presentation. This is a change from the original marketing around the first-generation Snapdragon X chips, which centered battery life as its primary selling point.

As always, it helps to go first. These second-generation PC chips have been announced months ahead of devices from competitors, which may not arrive until the first quarter of 2026, making it easier to compare with previous-gen chips. Intel is expected to launch its highly anticipated A18 chips (also known as Panther Lake) later this year, and Nvidia’s $5 billion investment in Intel could change everything in the world of PCs. Apple is also expected to debut an M5 chip next month.

A New Smartphone Chip

Alongside new PC chips, Qualcomm also detailed its recently announced mobile chips, the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5. These were officially unveiled last week, but at the company’s Snapdragon Summit conference, it shared new details on how these chips will perform.

Barely a week has gone by since Apple’s A19-powered iPhones hit the market, but Qualcomm is already claiming that its Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 is the “fastest mobile CPU in the world,” with a record clock speed of 4.6 GHz (Apple’s A19 Pro has a clock speed of 4.26 GHz). Like the PC chips, graphics and AI processing have the largest leaps in performance, with a purported 23 percent faster GPU and 37 percent faster NPU. Some slightly faster single-core performance in your next phone might not be noticeable, but the significantly faster GPU could have a bigger impact on mobile gaming.

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September 24, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Four years later, PlayStation and Insomniac gives Marvel’s Wolverine a 2026 release window, debuts trailer full of blood, brutality, and blades

by admin September 24, 2025

Other than that brief teaser from 2021, any official word on Insomniac’s Wolverine has been slimmer than an adamantium claw blade. But today – finally! – at Sony’s State of Play livestream, the developer has kicked down the door, made that trademark ‘snikt’ sound, and shown us an uber-violent trailer and behind-the-scenes video chronicling the development of the game so far.

We’ve also got a release window: Fall 2026.

The trailer, and the behind-the-scenes footage, confirms that this will be a project that takes in a lot of Wolverine’s history: we’ve seen proof of life of important locations to him like Japan, Madripoor, and the American North, whilst key characters in his history like Omega Red and Mystique have thus far been confirmed. Will we see more X-Men – Jean Grey or Cyclops? – or maybe even some external team-ups (Colossus, Hulk, and Cable come to mind…)

Check out the videos below.

The gameplay trailer.Watch on YouTube

“Become a living weapon,” reads a blurb. “As he searches for answers about his past, Wolverine will do whatever it takes – unleashing brutal claw combat, violent rage, and relentless determination – to cut through the mystery of the man he used to be.”

Here’s some more info about how Insomniac is bringing Logan to life, per the PS Blog:

Bold, resilient, and volatile, Wolverine is a character that all of us at Insomniac are thrilled to explore in collaboration with our friends at Marvel Games and Sony Interactive Entertainment. Like our Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise, we’re once again combining our super powers to deliver an original take on a beloved character based on Marvel Comics.

Our Wolverine, AKA Logan, is played by actor Liam McIntyre who taps into the rage, pain, and nuances of this iconic character. In this story, he is on the hunt to uncover the secrets of a dark past that keeps eluding him. Unfortunately, in this world, he’ll have to dig his claws deep to pull any shred of information that may lead to answers. Often, that means shredding into a relentless onslaught of enemies who aim to stop him by any means necessary. Fueled by unflinching resilience (and a rapid healing factor), Wolverine won’t go down easy if it means keeping the mission on task.

Wolverine was first teased back in 2021, during a PlayStation Showcase. At this time, the studio stated the game was still “very early in development”. It also still had its Marvel’s Spider-Man sequel in the works at this point, with that project ultimately releasing in 2023.

The most we’ve seen from the game, to date, was actually back in 2023, when files were stolen from Insomniac Games by ransomware hackers. Following this attack, people began playing – and uploading footage – of an incomplete early development build of Wolverine, which was found within the stolen files. Safe to say, things are looking a bit more like a finalised game right now.

We’re going to see more of the game in Spring 2026, apparently. See you then, bub.

The making of.Watch on YouTube

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September 24, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Flare debuts FXRP, unlocking new utility for XRP in DeFi

by admin September 24, 2025

Flare has activated FXRP on its mainnet, allowing XRP to be wrapped and deployed across decentralized finance protocols. The rollout begins with capped minting and incentive pools, marking what Flare calls the start of an “XRP DeFi awakening.”

Summary

Flare has officially activated FXRP on its mainnet, allowing XRP holders to mint a fully composable, non-custodial version of the token for use across DeFi protocols.
The rollout, capped at 5 million FXRP in its first week, pairs liquidity incentives with a carefully measured launch, positioning FXRP as the backbone of Flare’s FAssets ecosystem.
Beyond simply wrapping XRP, the project envisions FXRP powering lending, stablecoin minting, and yield-generating products, laying the foundation for what Flare calls the “XRPFi flywheel” and signaling a broader push to bring major assets like Bitcoin and Dogecoin into its DeFi stack.

According to a Sept. 24 announcement, the Layer 1 blockchain has launched the first live instance of its FAssets protocol with FXRP v1.2. This enables XRP holders to mint a wrapped, composable version of the asset on the Flare network.

Flare said the initial rollout is deliberately measured, with a minting cap of 5 million FXRP in the first week to ensure network stability. To bootstrap liquidity, the Flare Foundation is directing rFLR token incentives to key decentralized exchange pools, including on SparkDEX and BlazeSwap, with target annual percentage rates for some pools reaching 50%.

How FXRP brings XRP into DeFi’s core

For XRP holders, the primary gateway to this new functionality is through the direct minting of FXRP. The process requires moving XRP to a self-custody wallet like Bifrost or Ledger that supports both the XRP Ledger and Flare.

From there, Flare said users can interact with designated minting agents to create a one-to-one representation of their XRP on the network. The team emphasized that this method is intentionally non-custodial, contrasting with previous wrapped versions that relied on centralized entities.

“They are one-to-one representations of the original asset (e.g. XRP to FXRP) secured through an overcollateralized system of independent agents and secured by Flare’s enshrined data protocols,” the team wrote.

Flare positions FXRP as a game-changer not merely because of the native composability it grants XRP. Unlike isolated bridges, the wrapped asset is designed as a foundational layer within Flare’s DeFi stack. This means that once minted, it can be seamlessly integrated as collateral for lending on protocols like Enosys Loans, used to mint an XRP-backed stablecoin, or supplied to liquidity pools without requiring custom integrations.

The upcoming launch of liquid-staked XRP, stXRP, is poised to further accelerate this by creating a yield-bearing derivative that can power a broader range of financial products, forming what the project terms the “XRPFi flywheel.”

The successful deployment of FXRP serves as proof of concept for Flare’s broader ambitions. According to its public roadmap, the FAssets system is designed to accommodate other significant non-smart contract assets, with Bitcoin and Dogecoin identified as the next in line for integration.

Flare’s native token, FLR, reflected the heightened attention. Data from CoinMarketCap showed FLR, which currently holds a market capitalization of approximately $1.9 billion, trading near $0.027 and registering a price increase of nearly 13% in the 24 hours following the announcement.

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September 24, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Ripple’s Stablecoin Debuts on BlackRock-Backed Tokenization Platform

by admin September 23, 2025

In brief

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin was integrated in Securitize’s platform.
Two tokenized money market funds can now be exchanged for the stablecoin.
BlackRock’s BUIDL is worth $2 billion, per RWA.xyz.

Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin has been integrated into Securitize’s platform, allowing users to exchange shares in tokenized money market funds for the dollar-pegged asset.

The feature was enabled through a smart contract, which now serves as another off-ramp for products offered by asset managers BlackRock and VanEck, according to a press release. It functions 24/7, allowing users to access instant liquidity, Ripple added.

Ripple’s stablecoin debuted in December. And although it’s much smaller than alternatives offered by Tether and Circle, RLUSD has grown to a market capitalization of $740 million within the past year, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko.

In a statement, Jack McDonald, senior vice president of stablecoins at Ripple, described the move as a “natural next step as we continue to bridge traditional finance and crypto,” noting that RLUSD was designed specifically for institutional use.

Securitize made a similar announcement nearly a year ago, saying that Circle’s USDC had been integrated into its platform as a way to reduce investment costs and streamline the subscription process for investing in BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL).

BlackRock’s BUDIL is worth $2 billion, according to data from RWA.xyz. Around 90 qualified investors hold shares in the fund, which is tokenized on several blockchains, including Solana, Avalanche, Ethereum, Polygon, and layer-2 networks Arbitrum and Optimism.

The VanEck Treasury Fund (VBILL), which can also be exchanged for RLUSD on Securitize’s platform, is worth $74 million, while only having 14 different holders.

Shares in BUIDL and VBILL are represented by tokens that change hands at $1, but unlike most stablecoins, they offer investors a yield.

Products issued through Securitize’s platform do not yet exist on XRP Ledger, but Tuesday’s announcement notes that “additional use cases and assets [are] planned,” while Securitize will “expand access and bring new utility to the XRPL ecosystem” through its own moves.

On Monday, Ripple unveiled an updated roadmap for XRPL, highlighting new compliance features like the ability for token issuers to “deep freeze” wallet addresses and a method for being able to “dry run” transactions.

“Partnering with Ripple to integrate RLUSD into our tokenization infrastructure is a major step forward in automating liquidity for tokenized assets,” Securitize CEO and co-founder Carlos Domingo said in a statement. “Together, we’re delivering real-time settlement and programmable liquidity across a new class of compliant, on-chain investment products.”

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September 23, 2025 0 comments

Aria PRIME tokenizes $100M Korean music catalogs

GameFi Guides

Aria debuts $100M music IP tokenization via Story Protocol

by admin September 22, 2025

Aria launches Aria PRIME with Story Protocol, tokenizing $100M Korean music catalogs to bring cultural IP into institutional investment markets.

Summary

Aria PRIME launches as an institutional platform for tokenized IP
First deal brings $100M in Korean music catalogs onchain with Story Protocol
Platform plans to expand into other cultural assets like film and art

Aria is moving $100 million in Korean music catalogs onchain through Story Protocol, opening a new market for tokenized cultural IP.

Aria made the announcement on Sept. 22, introducing Aria PRIME, its institutional platform for managing and investing in high-value intellectual property. The launch, done in partnership with Story Protocol (IP) and Contents Technologies, will bring tokenized access to music rights that represent more than half of South Korea’s global music distribution market.

Aria PRIME: turning culture into capital

Film franchises, music catalogs, and other entertainment rights are just a few of the extensive IP portfolios that Aria PRIME is designed to manage. Rights holders benefit from increased liquidity and more transparent ownership structures when these assets are tokenized into fungible units, and institutional investors can access them with the help of blockchain infrastructure.

The Story Layer 1 blockchain, a network designed for IP tokenization, powers the platform. Assets created as Intellectual Property Real-World Assets can be divided into fractional ownership, produce royalties, and be integrated with smart contracts for remix and licensing rights. This design enables both financial utility and new creative models.

Funding and ecosystem growth

Earlier in September, Aria secured $15 million in seed and strategic funding at a $50 million valuation, with support from Polychain Capital, Neo Classic Capital, and the Story Protocol Foundation. The company earns fees from token launches, trading, and IP vault management, but is currently reducing costs to drive adoption.

The $100 million Korean music catalog is Aria PRIME’s first step toward a larger institutional IP market. Cinema, art, and other genres might be added in the future, making cultural intellectual property a scalable financial asset.

By bridging capital markets and entertainment, Aria is positioning IP to function not only as creative output but also as investable capital.

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September 22, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

xAI debuts a faster and more cost-effective version of Grok 4

by admin September 20, 2025

A few months after the release of Grok 4 and an extremely problematic antisemitic meltdown of its chatbot, xAI is already trying to move on with its latest AI model. Elon Musk’s xAI announced the release of Grok 4 Fast, a faster, more efficient reasoning model compared to its recent predecessor. According to xAI, Grok 4 Fast offers similar performance to Grok 4 while using 40 percent fewer thinking tokens on average.

Along with faster results, xAI said Grok 4 Fast “results in a 98% reduction in price to achieve the same performance on frontier benchmarks as Grok 4,” whether it’s handling tasks that involve writing code or just browsing the web for quick responses. Similar to OpenAI’s GPT-5 that alternates between a smart, efficient model and a deeper reasoning model, xAI’s latest update includes a unified architecture that can transition between handling complex requests with its “reasoning” model and quick responses through its “non-reasoning model.”

In tests on LMArena, a platform that pits AI models against each other and provides side-by-side comparisons, Grok 4 Fast ranks first in search-related tasks and eighth in text-related tasks. xAI made Grok 4 Fast available for all users, including the free ones, on web, iOS and Android. However, with how competitive the LLM race is getting, it’s only a matter of time before Google releases the next-gen version of Gemini or Anthropic updates the Claude Opus model beyond the recently released 4.1 version.

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September 20, 2025 0 comments

GameFi Guides

Valour Debuts Bitcoin Staking ETP on LSE, Providing Investors With Annual Yield

by admin September 20, 2025

Valour Digital Securities, a subsidiary of DeFi Technologies (DEFT), debuted its bitcoin BTC$115,578.71 staking exchange-traded product (ETP) on the London Stock Exchange, expanding the reach of a product that started trading in Germany almost a year ago.

The 1Valour Bitcoin Physical Staking (1VBS) product offers professional and institutional investors exposure to bitcoin with an additional 1.4% annual staking yield and has been available on Deutsche Börse’s Xetra platform since Nov. 5, 2024. It now trades on multiple European exchanges.

Each share is backed 1:1 with bitcoin held in cold storage by Copper. The yield is added to the net asset value (NAV), which is published daily along with entitlements and indicative prices.

Shares of DeFi Technologies fell 3.12% to $2.63 in early Nasdaq trading.

Access to the new London-listed ETP is limited to professional investors under current U.K. rules. Retail investors will be able to access crypto exchange-traded notes (ETNs) on recognized investment exchanges such as the LSE starting Oct. 8, under Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) rules.

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September 20, 2025 0 comments