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Avalanche gains momentum as monthly transactions surge 326% but this chart signals a cold front
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Avalanche activity spikes despite AVAX price pullback

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Avalanche network activity continues to show robust growth despite the native token hitting a snag and slipping from highs above $25 as a pullback across the crypto market engulfed most coins. 

Summary

  • Avalanche price pulled back from highs above $25, retreating slighty amid broader market sell-off pressure.
  • Nansen data however shows Avalanche’s onchain growth momentum remains.

The Avalanche (AVAX) token rose to highs of $25.64 on Aug. 18, extending the uptick that had bulls off support levels around $23.40 over the past week. 

However, with cryptocurrencies down in the past 24 hours amid widespread profit taking, AVAX pared gains to hover around $23.61. The altcoin was down 5% in 24 hours as Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $115k and Ethereum (ETH) retreated to near $4,200.

Avalanche network activity rises

While Avalanche’s price is facing the same downside pressure that currently engulfs the broader risk-asset market, data shows network strength that supports the long-term outlook. Other than the key metric of stablecoin growth, onchain data from Nansen suggests the past two weeks have been huge for Avalanche in terms of transactions.

An update by the multichain artificial intelligence-powered analytics platform shared on August 18 shows that Avalanche’s daily transactions grew by more than 100% in the past month. From about 500,000 transactions per day, Nansen data shows the network rose to hit over 1.3 million in daily transactions.

Avalanche activity is on the rise. 🔺

Over the last 30 days, transactions jumped from ~500K/day lows to 1.3M+ daily transactions, more than doubling in just two weeks!

Momentum on @avax is definitely heating up. pic.twitter.com/iDIW8Vihw3

— Nansen 🧭 (@nansen_ai) August 18, 2025

Notably, most of the uptick came in a two-week period in which Avalanche witnessed significant network growth.

Momentum for AVAX is cooling, but with the bullish fundamentals in place, analysts say Avalanche’s price setup suggests a breakout. Stablecoin growth and decentralized finance traction are driving this outlook.

TVL and other metrics 

As the onchain metrics point to increased user activity, DeFiLlama data indicates total value locked is ticking up from April 2024 lows.

The TVL aside, Avalanche is also attracting attention as a platform for real-world asset tokenization. In the tokenization market, the latest development related to Avalanche is the move by Bowmore, among the oldest distilleries in Scotland, to launch its first-ever tokenized whisky bottles on the AVAX blockchain.

In July 2025, Avalanche attracted headlines as it announced that $250 million in RWAs was coming onchain via Grove. The platform also struck a deal with Visa for global stablecoin settlement.





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Crypto Trends

USDC Issuer Circle Spikes After Wall Street Firm Initiates With Buy Rating

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In brief

  • Circle (CRCL) surged 14% to $228 after Seaport Global initiated coverage with a buy rating and $235 price target, calling it a “top-tier crypto disruptor.”
  • The rally was fueled by the Senate’s passage of the GENIUS Act stablecoin legislation, which would create the first federal framework for dollar-pegged stablecoins.
  • Circle and Coinbase both benefited from the regulatory momentum due to their revenue-sharing agreement on $61.2 billion in USDC cash reserves, while Robinhood declined 1.65%.

USDC issuer Circle was buoyant in pre-market trading Friday, climbing above $236 ahead of the opening bell. That put it ahead of the $235 price target set by Wall Street research firm Seaport Global, which initiated coverage of the company today with a buy rating.

But once the bell rang, the company’s stock, which trades on the NYSE under the CRCL ticker, settled and is currently changing hands around $228, or 14% higher than its previous close.

Seaport announced that it was initiating coverage of Circle on Friday, before markets opened. The firm’s analyst Jeff Cantwell called the stablecoin issuer “top-tier crypto ’disruptor’,” and said he thinks the $260 billion stablecoin market will balloon to $2 trillion.

In the analysis, which Cantwell shared with Decrypt, Cantwell wrote that USDC was always meant to be disruptive. ““Early on, Circle’s founders envisioned the development of an ‘HTTP for Money’, to make money more frictionless in order to help raise global economic prosperity,” he said.

Cantwell also predicted that investors will see Circle’s annual revenue grow up to 30%, with gross margins around 40%, as it continues to scale.

And although interest rates are working in Circle’s favor now, he said the company’s strength could also be its biggest risk. “Nearly all of Circle’s revenue still comes from interest earned on reserve assets — 99% in both 2023 and 2024,” he wrote. “This is both a strength and a risk if interest rates fall.”

Both Circle and crypto exchange Coinbase have captured a lot of investor attention since the Senate voted in favor of key stablecoin legislation, the GENIUS Act, on Tuesday afternoon. That’s because the two companies have an agreement that sees them splitting the interest earned on the $61.2 billion worth of cash reserves backing the company’s stablecoin tokens.

The GENIUS Act, if signed into law, would represent the first comprehensive federal framework for U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins.

Coinbase, which trades on the Nasdaq under the COIN ticker, started Friday 3% above its Wednesday close. (Remember: Markets were closed in the U.S. on Thursday, June 19, in observance of Juneteenth.)



But trading platform Robinhood—which is less exclusively tied to crypto assets and doesn’t have links to a stablecoin—got off to a bumpy start on Friday morning. The company, which trades on the Nasdaq under the HOOD ticker, is trading for $76.76, or 2% lower than it was on Wednesday afternoon.

HOOD on Wednesday hit a 52-week high of $77.83, surpassing the $61 price target set for it by Deutsche Bank and $69 set by Cantor Fitzgerald earlier this year.

But it has a ways to go before it closes in on the $90 price target of Summit Redstone Partners’ Michael Cyprys.

Just last week, Robinhood reported that total platform assets grew to $225 billion in May, up 10% from April and a staggering 89% hike compared to the same time last year.

Edited by James Rubin

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VPN Usage Spikes in France as Pornhub Blocks Users Over Age Restrictions
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VPN Usage Spikes in France as Pornhub Blocks Users Over Age Restrictions

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In brief

  • ProtonVPN reported a 1,000% surge in signups within 30 minutes when French users sought to bypass new, countrywide age restrictions for porn.
  • Both Proton and Pornhub criticized the law, warning that mandatory ID collection by third-party or offshore sites could create dangerous repositories of sensitive personal data.

French Pornhub users rushed to ProtonVPN this week after the adult site blocked access from France in protest of new government-mandated age verification rules, the company said, claiming that signups for the service surged 1,000% in just 30 minutes.

ProtonVPN is part of a suite of privacy tools developed by Proton AG, a Switzerland-based company best known for its encrypted email service, ProtonMail.

While ProtonVPN reported a 1,000% surge in French signups this week, it didn’t disclose the number of users it had in the country before the spike, making the figure difficult to interpret.

Still, ProtonVPN ranks among the more widely used VPNs worldwide.

According to Appfigures, it was downloaded 3 million times on Google Play in May, with an estimated 620,000 additional downloads via the Apple App Store.

By comparison, NordVPN saw about 1.7 million downloads across both platforms, and ExpressVPN totaled around 690,000.

Proton acknowledged the surge and voiced concern about the broader implications of mandatory age verification laws—and the unintended ways virtual private networks, better known as VPNs, are being used to circumvent them.

“We built Proton VPN to help people in authoritarian countries bypass online censorship. An access gateway for porn was obviously not what we had in mind,” a Proton spokesperson told Decrypt. “But VPNs can be used this way, and signups from France have temporarily increased by a factor of ten.”

Virtual private networks encrypt internet traffic and mask IP addresses, allowing users to browse privately and access region-restricted content.

The decision to block access to Pornhub followed a French law enacted in May 2024, requiring adult websites to verify users’ ages—a measure Pornhub’s parent company, Aylo, criticized as futile.

The company argued that the rules made French citizens more vulnerable to data theft and illicit content, while failing to protect children, a sentiment echoed by Proton.



“We believe the age verification approach is not the best way of restricting children’s access to illicit content,” the Proton spokesperson wrote. “There’s no such thing as age verification for children only; it’s age verification for everyone.”

Proton said that allowing offshore porn sites or other third parties to collect IDs from adults creates a central repository of sensitive information, which carries serious risks of blackmail and data misuse.

Attempting to access Pornhub from France, users were met with a declaration from the company lambasting the French government’s actions.

Instead of website-level age verification, Aylo and Proton support device-level verification as a more effective solution.

“All it requires is that the government enforce regulations on three companies–Apple, Google, and Microsoft–the three operating system manufacturers requiring age verification at the device level prior to accessing adult content,” Aylo said in a statement.

Digital restrictions have repeatedly driven users to adopt alternative technologies.

In December 2020, major credit card companies—including Mastercard, Visa and Discover—blocked payments to Pornhub after a New York Times investigation alleged the site hosted illegal content, including child abuse and nonconsensual videos.

Mastercard permanently ended its relationship with the platform, while Visa suspended payments pending further review. In response to its payment services being cut, Pornhub began accepting cryptocurrency for its premium subscription service.

The surge in VPN signups marked another front in the ongoing battle over anonymous access to adult content.

Lawmakers are increasingly turning to age verification laws to shield children from explicit material.

Other countries enacting these measures include the United Kingdom and Germany. In the U.S., 19 states—including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, and Texas have enacted age-verification measures in recent years.

Edited by Josh Quittner and Sebastian Sinclair

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A weekly AI journey narrated by Gen, a generative AI model.



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Crypto Trends

UNI Recovers as Volatility Spikes on Trade War Fears

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The cryptocurrency market faces mounting pressure as global economic tensions escalate, with Uniswap (UNI) experiencing dramatic price swings reflecting broader market uncertainty.

UNI’s recent 10.9% price range demonstrates how geopolitical factors are directly influencing digital asset valuations, as traders navigate between risk-off sentiment and opportunistic positioning.

Despite challenging conditions, Uniswap has shown resilience by breaking above key resistance levels, suggesting potential stabilization after significant volatility.

Technical Analysis Highlights

  • UNI experienced significant price turbulence over the 24-hour period, with a substantial range of 0.644 (10.9%) from the high of 6.589 to the low of 5.945, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis data model.
  • The token faced a sharp selloff during the 16:00-01:00 period, plummeting from 6.510 to 5.954, with notably high volume (4.4M) at the 01:00 low, establishing a strong volume support zone.
  • A modest recovery followed, with UNI finding resistance around 6.120 and consolidating between 6.000-6.050, suggesting market indecision after the significant correction.
  • In the last hour, UNI experienced a significant downward trend followed by a modest recovery.
  • The token declined from 6.110 to a low of 6.017 around 13:51, establishing a key support zone with increased volume.
  • A notable reversal occurred at 14:01 when UNI surged 3.6% from 6.032 to 6.054, accompanied by elevated volume (28.7K), suggesting renewed buying interest.
  • The price action formed a bullish channel with resistance at 6.055 and support at 6.030, with the closing price of 6.051 indicating potential short-term stabilization after the earlier volatility.

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Bitcoin Options Open Interest Spikes to Record High as Traders Target $116K

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In brief

  • Open interest for Bitcoin options most recently stood at an all-time high of around $65 billion.
  • An increase in bets was driven by options on BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF.
  • The increase mirrored levels of participation seen in November.

The Bitcoin options market has spiked to an all-time high alongside the asset’s climb toward a record $112,000, Greg Magadini, director of derivatives at crypto data provider Amberdata, told Decrypt on Thursday.

Open interest for Bitcoin options most recently stood at around $65 billion, including contracts traded through venues like the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, or CME, as well as options tied to BlackRock’s spot exchange-traded fund, he said.

Based solely on traders’ positioning, options market data suggests that Bitcoin’s price will likely rally into a range between $116,000 and $120,000, Magadini said. Bitcoin’s rally currently has “wide participation,” as evidenced by $20 billion in notional open interest outstanding for BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF alone, he added.

“The options market on top of IBIT is one of the most actively traded,” Magadini said. “This shows strong adoption and enthusiasm for BTC in general.”



Excluding options on BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF, which debuted late last year, Bitcoin options open interest peaked around $46 billion in late November, according to crypto data provider CoinGlass. The metric tracks the dollar value of contracts outstanding, which give speculators the ability to bet on price movements using leverage.

According to Block Scholes, a crypto analytics firm, the Bitcoin options market remained bullish on Thursday. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, the firm said that traders still favored out-of-the-money call options, meaning that most expect Bitcoin’s price will rise further. Block Scholes noted, however, that there has been a slight increase in bearish bets.

On the crypto derivatives exchange Deribit, which Coinbase plans to acquire for $2.9 billion, traders favored call options. The exchange had $23 billion worth of call options outstanding, as opposed to $13.9 billion worth of put options, according to CoinGlass.

Bitcoin was recently changing hands at around $111,800, a 4.2% increase over the past day, according to crypto data provider CoinGecko. Over the past 30 days, its price has increased 23%. Last month, the asset’s price fell as low as $74,000.

Edited by James Rubin

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Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.



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Venom spikes after achieving 150K TPS in closed-network stress test
Crypto Trends

Venom spikes after achieving 150K TPS in closed-network stress test

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Venom Foundation’s crypto spiked after a successful closed-network test, revealing significant throughput.

Scalable blockchain Venom claims that it can handle more throughput than Solana. On Friday, May 23, the Venom Foundation announced a successful closed-network beta test. Specifically, the network achieved 150K transactions per second, more than Solana’s theoretical limit of 65K TPS.

For the Venom Foundation, this is a key step ahead of its mainnet launch, set for the third quarter of 2025. According to the foundation, this would make Venom one of the blockchains with the highest throughput out there.

For instance, Solana advertises a theoretical limit of 64,000 TPS, while the payment giant Visa can support 24,000 TPS. Following the successful test, Venom’s token spiked 2%, reaching a daily high of $0.1031.

Venom Foundation prepares for enterprise use cases

According to the Venom Foundation, the goal of this stress test was to ensure that the blockchain is ready for enterprise use cases in DeFi. This includes payment providers, crypto exchanges, and games, among other DeFi users. Specifically, these are the types of platforms that require a reliable and scalable blockchain that doesn’t break down under network stress.

“Throughput only matters if it can remain reliable under pressure,” said Christopher Louis, Chief Executive Officer at Venom. “Our new stack can handle enterprise‑scale workloads without spiking fees or compromising decentralization, which is exactly what payment providers, exchanges, and game studios need.”

Venom uses directed acyclic graph technology, which is different than traditional blockchains, which record transactions sequentially one after another. Unlike blockchains, transactions can be confirmed in parallel, as long as they don’t conflict with each other.

Based in Abu Dhabi and registered in the Cayman Islands, Venom Foundation is a non-profit supporting the development of its layer-1 blockchain. Their focus is on building a scalable blockchain for DeFi use cases.





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