Zcash holders have backed a proposal to cut block times from 75 seconds to 25 seconds in a governance poll. They also voted to keep the network’s existing halving schedule. Nearly 2.4 million ZEC took part in the Zcash Community Forum’s NU7 poll. The amount represented about 66% of the 3.6 million ZEC eligible in the Ironwood pool. Poll organisers set one million ZEC as the minimum participation level for representative results. They closed the vote on September 14 at 19:00 UTC. Organisers recorded eligible balances at mainnet block 3,459,350 on August 24. Only spendable shielded ZEC held in Ironwood…
Author: Austin Mwithalii
Balancer has proposed winding down its decentralised finance (DeFi) protocol after its recovery plan failed to restore revenue growth. Marcus Hardt, a treasury council member and former Balancer Labs CEO, submitted the governance proposal Monday, September 14, 2026. The plan would end new business development and gradually shut down the protocol. It would also close the DAO to the extent required for its legal and practical operations. Balancer token holders approved a restructuring plan in April to help the protocol reach profitability. The plan cut costs, ended token emissions, simplified the BAL token model, and directed protocol revenue to the…
Bitwise will shut down its Dogecoin ETF after about 10 months of trading. The fund trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) Arca under the ticker BWOW. The asset manager expects final trading to end on October 14. NYSE Arca will stop trading the fund before the market opens on October 15. Bitwise disclosed the decision in a September 10 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing outlines the fund’s planned closure and liquidation. Bitwise said it wants to optimise its product range around changing investor needs. However, the company did not identify trading volume, assets,…
Ant International, Visa, and MasterCard have partnered to develop common standards to identify AI agent during payment transactions. The framework will help merchants verify which agent requests a payment and whether the customer authorised it. The companies will develop an interoperable “Know Your Agent” system to connect each agent with a verified entity. The system will also help payment providers assess agent behaviour and track activity across payment networks. The companies want AI agents to keep their verified identities across different payment providers. Ant chief innovation officer Jiang-Ming Yang said agents registered with Ant would not need separate registration with…
Block filed an application with the OCC on Tuesday, September 8, 2026 to establish Builders Bank & Trust, N.A. The proposed bank would provide custody and fiduciary services for digital assets. Block would include Bitcoin and stablecoins among the assets covered by those services. Block plans to make Builders Bank an uninsured institution that accepts no deposits or issues traditional loans. Instead, the bank would focus on digital asset custody and related fiduciary services under OCC supervision. Block said the national charter would give its expanding custody operations a consistent federal regulatory framework. Builders Bank cannot begin operations until the…
The Ethereum Foundation has published ratings for 62 Hegotá proposals after specialists assessed their technical value and development requirements. Around 60 experts from nine protocol teams submitted 397 assessments during the review. The Protocol Cluster published the results on September 7 with a separate article on Ethereum’s future priorities. The cluster said the exercise marked its first shared tier list for one Ethereum upgrade. The specialists held live discussions, where teams compared technical benefits, development costs and conflicts before developers decide Hegotá’s final scope. The proposals address account abstraction, privacy, gas pricing, validator economics, shorter slots and state-growth pricing. Developers…
Unidentified actors holding nearly 4,000 BTC from the Liquid Network have demanded a network patch before returning the funds. The actors made the offer through Bitcoin transactions on September 7. They asked whether Liquid’s federation would accept most of the Bitcoin back. However, they attached a condition to the offer. They want Blockstream to fix the vulnerability that they say still exposes the network. The actors also want every federation node to receive the patch. They said they would return the Bitcoin after confirming that Blockstream had fixed the problem. Galaxy Research head Alex Thorn reconstructed the messages and detailed…
Revolut received conditional OCC approval on Sept. 3 to establish a national bank in the United States. The decision advances the charter application that the fintech submitted to the regulator in March 2026. However, Revolut cannot open the bank until the FDIC, Federal Reserve, and OCC complete the remaining regulatory steps. The fintech plans to establish Revolut Bank US, N.A., with its headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut. Revolut expects to contribute about $95 million in initial capital to the proposed banking operation. The company also expects its Stamford operation to employ about 160 people when the bank opens. The fintech company…
Standard Chartered has today expanded institutional Bitcoin and Ether spot trading to the UAE through its Dubai International Financial Centre branch. Clients can complete trades through electronic systems that Standard Chartered already uses for foreign exchange transactions. Eligible institutions receive Bitcoin or Ether after each spot trade instead of derivatives linked to cryptocurrency prices. Standard Chartered said it became the first Global Systemically Important Bank to provide institutional digital asset spot trading in the UAE. The bank also said no other global bank currently provides the same institutional trading capability in the region. The finance magnate integrated Bitcoin and Ether…