defi

The number of real-world asset holders on the Solana chain has surpassed 300,000, and the total locked value in DeFi has risen to 10.7 billion USD, but the spot price of SOL has recently fallen from 208 USD to around 187 USD.

The Solana ecosystem DeFi protocol Kamino announced the launch of Kamino Fixed Rates, positioned as an on-chain fixed-term, fixed-rate credit architecture solution. The product is now live in a private testing version, with a public version planned for release in the third quarter of 2026.According to the introduction, Kamino Fixed Rates aims to provide a lending framework for the on-chain credit market with both the term and interest rate locked in advance. Kamino also released a related light paper for the market to review the product design and mechanism description.

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.

Coinbase's policy head Faryar Shirzad stated that Coinbase has submitted a joint request for comments to the CFTC and SEC regarding the definition of perpetual derivatives products and alternative compliance pathways. He emphasized that it is essential to address the complexities of definitions and overlapping regulatory jurisdictions so that the U.S. can bring relevant activities under domestic regulation.Shirzad pointed out that clarifying the rules helps safely open relevant opportunities to U.S. consumers and maintain the competitiveness of the U.S. against foreign jurisdictions that already have significant first-mover advantages in this field. This response focuses on product definitions and compliance arrangements, aiming to promote the regulation of perpetual derivatives in the U.S.

According to official news, Mantle Vault has officially expanded from CeFi to DeFi, collaborating with Grove, CIAN, and Fluxion to launch a non-custodial yield vault aimed at stablecoin holders. Users can deposit USDC/USDT into Mantle to obtain institutional-level floating yields through the underlying strategy of sUSDS, along with incentives of Fluxion Points and 5.14 million GROVE tokens (with a target APY of up to 6.5%).The vault adopts a conservative non-leveraged structure, with strategies built by CIAN, capital base provided by Grove's Sky Savings Rate, and liquidity entry managed by Fluxion. Previously, Mantle Vault's AUM on Bybit had exceeded $200 million, and Mantle RWA TVL increased from $22 million to $257 million within the year, with DeFi TVL surpassing $755 million.Mantle stated that by expanding into the DeFi space through Mantle Vault, Mantle and its collaborators are committed to enabling all stablecoin holders to access institutional-level yields without borders, free from geographical restrictions and without the need for intermediary access, and all these components can be combined within Mantle's open financial network.

According to CoinDesk, a price fluctuation of about 3% in tokens on the lending platform Morpho triggered approximately $36 million in liquidations. The incident was caused by a wallet that bought a large amount of the yield token YT-reUSD issued by Pendle, pushing the implied annual yield up to 20% before quickly selling it, resulting in a price drop of about 3% for the corresponding principal token PT-reUSD.Previously, some traders deposited PT-reUSD into Morpho, borrowed stablecoin USDC, and then bought more PT-reUSD in a circular operation, leaving less than 3% of liquidation buffer space for leveraged positions. Morpho uses oracle prices, taking the lower value between the average trading price of PT-reUSD over the past 15 minutes and a fixed path that gradually approaches $1 at maturity. Liquidation is triggered when the market price falls below this curve. Pendle stated that the price source configuration is correct and operates as designed.Steakhouse Financial, responsible for managing the related lending market, stated that its lenders in the treasury were unaffected, with no bad debts incurred, and the proceeds from the liquidation were sufficient to repay the loans. After withdrawing funds during the investigation, Steakhouse reinvested, and the underlying asset reUSD was unaffected.

Vaults.fyi released the report "2026 DeFi Custody Market Status," covering 856 vaults, 131 custodians, and 18 protocols, with a total locked value of approximately $11.29 billion. Over the past year, the TVL on the supply side of DeFi decreased by 41.8%, while the TVL of custody vaults grew by 39%, increasing market share from 5.24% to 12.51%. The top 5 custodians manage 69% of the funds, and the top 10 account for 79.1%. The leading landscape has changed dramatically, with Sentora and Concrete not making the list a year ago, now ranking second and fourth, respectively, while Usual dropped from fourth to thirty-fourth.Morpho ranks first among protocols with a custody TVL of 46.2%, with the remaining 53.8% distributed across the other 17 protocols. Bitcoin collateral accounts for 54.1% of Morpho's top 25 stablecoin vaults (approximately $3.71 billion). In terms of address concentration, weighted by TVL, a single address holds an average of 47% of vault shares, with the top ten addresses collectively controlling 74%. About 33% of the custody funds require a multi-step redemption process, with a 7-day annualized yield median of 4.82%, which is 98 basis points higher than instant redemption vaults.The report also points out that traditional financial institutions such as Société Générale, Apollo, and JPMorgan have begun to deploy custody vault strategies.

Arthur Hayes recently accepted a video interview on the Altcoin Daily podcast. In the interview, Arthur once again expressed his aggressive optimism for ETH: "In this round of liquidity rebound in the crypto market, it will outperform all other large-cap crypto assets."When the host asked, "Assuming BTC rises to $200,000 in the next 5 years, where will ETH be?" Arthur replied: "I don't know what the exchange rate will be, maybe around $20,000, $25,000, or even $30,000... Currently, BTC's market share is about 60%, and during the DeFi summer from 2020 to 2021, it dropped to around 25%-26%. I don't think it will drop that low again, but a drop to 40% is possible, and this process will be largely driven by ETH. Because it is the largest asset, no other asset can rise as much and as quickly, thereby significantly lowering BTC's dominance."

DeFi protocol Term Labs updates on the progress of the attack incident, disclosing that the affected entity is the Term Vault governance mechanism, rather than the underlying Term protocol and its direct lending market. All Meta Vaults have now been closed and DAO governance permissions revoked to prevent further inflow of funds. This closure operation is irreversible and will permanently block new deposits.Currently, the withdrawal function remains open, and they are working with external security teams to conduct repairs and recovery. If a funding gap is ultimately confirmed, corresponding solutions will be explored. Term Labs reminds users to pay attention only to information released by official accounts and to be wary of impersonators and fraud. Previously, it was reported that Term Labs suffered a governance attack resulting in losses of approximately $8.5 million.

According to Cointelegraph, the European Commission is assessing whether to include crypto lending (including DeFi vaults) in the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). The relevant targeted consultation was launched on May 20, 2026, with a feedback deadline of September 30. MiCA originally excluded crypto lending and completely decentralized activities, but Brussels is currently reviewing these gaps.EU digital asset lawyer Yuriy Brisov stated that there is no category of "vault" in EU law, and lawyers need to define by function rather than label. Vaults decentralize economic functions such as lending across smart contracts and multiple participants (such as owners, curators, distributors, and sentinels in Morpho Vault V2), making it difficult to correspond to a single regulated entity. Cahill partner Jonathan Galea cautioned against treating "DeFi lending" as a single label, as products with different structures may be subject to a one-size-fits-all approach. Curve founder Michael Egorov noted that if included in regulation, they should be treated differently, as DeFi does not require all the protections of traditional lending and may need different rules.

According to Cointelegraph, the deposit scale of the V4 version of the decentralized lending protocol Aave is approaching $750 million. In the past week, this version has attracted over $300 million in inflows, showing significant deposit growth.As a mainstream DeFi lending platform, Aave's V4 upgrade continues to receive market attention, and the recent net inflows reflect users' recognition of the protocol's liquidity and functionality.

According to the latest report from DefiLlama, Gate's trading activity remains at the forefront of the industry, with a total trading volume of approximately $9.5 billion in spot and derivatives over the past 24 hours, ranking third globally and exceeding some mainstream trading platforms by about 40%. DefiLlama pointed out that Gate's trading structure is clearly biased towards derivatives, and the continuously growing scale of related trading has become an important support for its market competitiveness, creating a distinct business advantage among centralized exchanges.In addition to ranking third globally in trading volume, Gate's open interest also ranks among the top three worldwide, currently reaching $12.48 billion, further reflecting the scale of its derivatives business and market participation. DefiLlama noted that compared to its reserve size, Gate demonstrates a more outstanding trading performance, supporting a large derivatives trading volume with a relatively streamlined asset scale. The simultaneous entry of trading volume and open interest into the industry's top three core indicators reflects Gate's leading performance in capital capacity, user participation, and overall market competitiveness.

On August 20, JustLend DAO announced the launch of the "Buy Energy" one-stop energy direct purchase service, providing TRON ecosystem users with a more efficient and economical way to acquire resources. This feature focuses on short-term energy needs, with funds arriving within 10 seconds after placing an order, eliminating the traditional 14-day staking lock-up and redemption waiting time, achieving "buy and use immediately."Single orders support bulk purchases of energy for up to 50 addresses, enhancing the convenience of multi-account operations. Compared to directly burning TRX to obtain energy, Buy Energy can save about 63% in costs, lowering the interaction threshold on the TRON chain.

Lighter CEO Vladimir Novakovski stated at the first meeting of the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee that DeFi should not be seen as the opposite of regulators, and that on-chain verifiable transaction records assist regulators in their work regarding transparency, consumer protection, and market fairness. He pointed out that decentralized verifiable finance is expected to become an important part of the future financial infrastructure in the United States, and the industry should promote the evolution of technology towards open-source and verifiable directions.Novakovski also mentioned that AI has the opportunity to drive financial democratization, allowing users to build trading strategies based on their own judgment, a capability that has primarily been available to high-net-worth individuals and professionals in the past. He also warned that the main risk of AI in the financial sector is consumer protection issues, such as users not understanding the actual functions of models or being misled by deceptive advertising, and suggested establishing a sandbox mechanism to validate the effectiveness and verifiability of AI models before large-scale application.

According to Defillama data, the DeFi market has rebounded strongly, with TVL jumping 9.15% in a single day to $83.216 billion. Spot DEX trading volume reached $10.886 billion, breaking the $10 billion mark for the first time since June 5.The trading volume of decentralized perpetual contract platforms reached $36.72 billion, with Hyperliquid processing $15.205 billion in a single day, accounting for about 45% of the total trading volume of perpetual DEX. Its HYPE token price also rose to the $70 range. Uniswap continues to lead spot DEX with a trading volume of about $3.1 to $3.4 billion, while Solana ranks first in activity among spot DEX across various periods.

Multicoin Capital partner Tushar Jain stated that he spoke at the first meeting of the CFTC Innovation Advisory Committee and presented three recommendations to CFTC Chairman Selig. These include establishing safe harbors or innovation exemptions for new markets such as derivatives, allowing builders to test ideas for compliance; supporting compliance confidentiality tools in DeFi, which provide greater transparency for regulators in managing systemic risk while protecting the privacy of institutional traders.Jain also called for support for perpetual futures before IPOs, enabling ordinary Americans to share in AI wealth creation, rather than being excluded from private markets or forced into opaque SPVs. He mentioned that he also communicated with SEC Chairman Paul Atkins that day and expressed gratitude to forward-looking regulators concerned about the future of America.

According to RootData, among 3,244 cryptocurrency projects with financing records spanning no more than four years and amounts that can be accounted for, 1,617 have a cumulative financing amount of no more than $5 million, accounting for 49.8%. The median financing for this batch of projects is $2.5 million, with about 96% recording only one round of financing.In terms of sectors, DeFi, infrastructure, and gaming projects together account for 59.2%, with small-scale financing mainly flowing to protocol development, underlying technology, and consumer applications. However, a quarter of the projects in the sample have already ceased operations, indicating that while lower regulatory thresholds can improve financing efficiency, they cannot replace product demand and sustainable operational capability.Institutional participation is also higher than the market's usual perception of "small projects": 92.9% of the sample has identifiable investor records, and 83.5% disclosed at least two investors. Among them, Animoca Brands, Shima Capital, and Big Brain Holdings participated in 84, 69, and 67 projects, respectively.It is reported that the U.S. SEC officially proposed the "Regulation Crypto Assets" on August 18. The proposal aims to set up two tiers of issuance exemptions: projects can raise no more than $5 million in a single instance within four years; projects with greater financing needs can raise up to $75 million within each 12-month period, but must submit financial statements and fulfill ongoing reporting obligations. The proposal is currently in a 60-day public comment period and has not yet officially taken effect.