ETHZilla leans into sticky restaking with Ether.fi and Puffer

ETHZilla’s treasury is moving into DeFi, a strategy many Digital Asset Treasuries (DATs) talk about but haven’t executed at scale: split sleeves across liquid (re)staking providers, negotiate institutional terms, and favor long-duration capital over mercenary flows.

On Sept. 2, ETHZilla — currently the fifth-largest DAT by ETH held — said it plans to deploy $100 million in ETH to Ether.fi, its first formal DeFi treasury mandate. Today, the company announced it would deploy about $47 million into Puffer.

For Ether.fi, the pitch to institutions is partly economic and partly behavioral, according to Mike Silagadze, Ether.fi’s founder and CEO. The difference with DAT flows…

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LATEST: PayPal Taps DeFi’s Spark To Drive $1 Billion Boost Into PYUSD Stablecoin

PayPal has partnered with decentralized finance platform Spark to expand on-chain liquidity for its dollar-pegged stablecoin, PYUSD. The initiative aims to scale deposits from the current $100 million to $1 billion in the coming weeks, marking a major step in PayPal’s crypto push. PYUSD, issued by Paxos, was recently integrated into SparkLend, enabling users to supply and borrow the stablecoin through Spark’s $8 billion reserve pool.

The collaboration offers predictable borrowing costs instead of relying on costly market-making incentives. “Predictable access to deep liquidity is what allows stablecoins like PYUSD to scale quickly,” said Sam MacPherson, CEO of Phoenix Labs, highlighting the move as a blueprint for fintech adoption in decentralized finance.

The launch comes amid renewed momentum for stablecoins, with global supply climbing nearly $30 billion in three months to $263 billion and daily transaction volumes exceeding $100 billion. PayPal sees Spark’s role as pivotal in establishing PYUSD as a cornerstone of DeFi growth.

Exclusive: Genie founder raises $5M for social trading app Share

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Share has just emerged from stealth and closed a $5 million funding round from Coinbase Ventures, Collab+Currency, Palm Tree Crypto and others, The Drop has exclusively learned.

Share is an upcoming app for Solana, Base and Ethereum that shares crypto traders’ transactions and offers users a real-time feed of others’ onchain activity across those three blockchains. Users can also trade tokens, examine charts and follow wallets.

Scott Gray is Share’s founder and CEO. Gray is the founder of NFT aggregator tool Genie, which Uniswap acquired back in 2022 and led Gray to work as Uniswap’s head…

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Bitcoin Tumbles To $111,000: Bear Market Beginnings Or Still A Bull Market Dip?

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) is down to $111,000 as debates intensify about whether this downtrend is the start of a bear market or a dip in an uptrend.

What Happened: Popular trader Ansem urged investors to stack BTC aggressively if prices dip below $100,000 next year or at the start of 2026, with an exit window targeted for 2028.

Ansem aligned with fellow trader Plur Daddy, who earlier argued that the 4-year cycle theory is outdated.

While Plur sees upside within 3–6 months, Ansem expects a longer bearish period before a strong rally kicks off in mid-2026.

Also Read: Bitcoin, XRP, Dogecoin Extend Declines As ETH Dips Below $4,000

Why It Matters: Plur Daddy emphasized that lingering cycle…

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LATEST: Vitalik Buterin Says Fusaka Upgrade’s PeerDAS Is Crucial To Ethereum’s Scaling Future

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin highlighted PeerDAS, the central feature of the upcoming Fusaka upgrade, as the breakthrough solution for scaling the blockchain. PeerDAS, or Peer Data Availability Sampling, allows nodes to verify block data without downloading it entirely, instead reconstructing information from smaller chunks using erasure coding. Buterin called the approach “unprecedented,” noting it reduces reliance on any single node and strengthens resistance against dishonest actors.

Momentum around Ethereum’s scaling efforts is also evident in its network activity. For the first time, Ethereum reached six blobs per block — fixed-size data packets introduced in the Dencun upgrade to give rollups cheaper storage options. Increased blob use is being driven by rollups such as Base, World, and Linea, which collectively pay around $200,000 weekly in mainnet fees. Analysts caution, however, that blobspace remains inconsistent, with many blobs partially empty.

Ethereum developers have tentatively set December 3 as the target date for Fusaka’s mainnet launch, pending successful testnet results. To ensure security, the Ethereum Foundation has launched a four-week audit contest with $2 million in rewards for researchers who uncover bugs before the hard fork.

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Bitcoin Gives Me Hope, Says Knut Svanholm In Bitcoin Magazine Exclusive Interview

Knut Svanholm, the Swedish author, Bitcoiner, podcaster and educator, is a prolific writer and eccentric, charismatic persona in Bitcoinland. We don’t have royals in Bitcoin and we routinely slay our heroes, which means that anybody who sticks around for a long time has Lindy-proven integrity. Svanholm is one such character: If you’ve attended the conference circuit in recent years, you’re likely to have encountered Svanholm’s enchanting voice and scruffy beard — cowboy hat included for fashion and good measure. 

I’ve always had a weak spot for this fellow Scandinavian, whether it be his uncompromising words or impressive output, his funky demeanor or funny…

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Cipher Mining inks $3B AI hosting deal with Fluidstack

Cipher Mining Inc. has signed a 10-year high-performance computing (HPC) colocation agreement with Fluidstack, securing approximately $3 billion in contracted revenue.

The deal, announced Thursday, positions Cipher as a significant player in the artificial intelligence infrastructure sector. Cipher, traditionally known for its bitcoin mining operations, will deliver 168 megawatts of critical IT load at its Barber Lake site in Colorado City, Texas, with expected completion by September 2026. The facility could expand to 500 MW, supported by 587 acres of surrounding land.

The agreement includes two optional five-year extensions that would raise the total contract value to $7…

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XRP Punters Still Eye $4 Despite Recent Slump — Here’s How Prediction Markets Are Betting

XRP XRP/USD may have stagnated over the month, but cryptocurrency bettors haven’t completely discounted the possibility of fresh all-time highs by year-end.

New XRP Highs In 2025?

The fourth-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization sank 8% over the week, and 2.50% over the month, erasing the gains from the July rally that briefly appeared strong enough to drive it toward record highs at $3.84

The reversal cooled expectations in prediction markets, with Polymarket traders placing 30% odds on XRP reaching $4 and above this year, down from 53% a week ago.

Similarly, punters on Kalshi, a federally regulated prediction site, projected a 34% likelihood of XRP surpassing $4 in 2025, and a…

Read more on Benzinga

Why Is IREN Stock Spiking Overnight? – IREN (NASDAQ:IREN)

IREN Ltd IREN shares are trending on Thursday.

Check out the current price of IREN stock here. 

IREN jumped 4.48% in after-hours trading to $49.25, building on Wednesday’s 12.86% regular session gain. The dual-engine crypto mining and AI infrastructure company continues its remarkable 537.03% six-month rally.

AI Cloud Capacity Doubles With $674M Investment

IREN announced on Monday that it has significantly expanded its cloud computing power by increasing its capacity to 23,000 GPUs. This expansion was made possible through a series of strategic hardware purchases, including 7,100 Nvidia Corp. NVDA B300 GPUs, 4,200 Nvidia B200 GPUs, and 1,100 AMD MI350X GPUs, totaling around $674 million.

Benzinga

LATEST: Australia Proposes New Licensing Rules for Crypto Platforms

Australia’s Treasury has unveiled draft legislation that would require crypto exchanges and certain service providers to obtain Australian financial services licenses. The proposal aims to amend the Corporations Act 2001, classifying digital asset platforms (DAPs) and tokenized custody platforms (TCPs) as financial products. This move would bring them under the same licensing rules and consumer protections as traditional financial intermediaries.

Authorities explained that the framework is focused on businesses holding assets on behalf of clients, not the digital assets themselves. Treasury officials highlighted that past failures of crypto intermediaries have led to heavy consumer losses, making stricter oversight necessary. DAPs cover trading platforms and brokerages, while TCPs include services managing tokenized physical assets.

Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino said the legislation will extend existing financial laws in a “targeted way,” with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) set to issue licenses. Public consultation is open until October 24, 2025, marking a major step toward stronger regulation of the country’s crypto sector.

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