DTCC has received approval from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a new Agent Clearing (ACS) Triparty Service within the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation’s (FICC) existing Agent Clearing Service framework. The approval follows a rule filing submitted to the SEC in September 2025 and marks a significant expansion of cleared triparty repo capabilities. The new service will be delivered using BNY’s Global Collateral Platform, enabling both “done-with” and “done-away” triparty repo transactions to be centrally cleared. This development comes as market participants prepare for the SEC’s expanded U.S. Treasury clearing mandate, which takes effect in 2026 and 2027. Alongside the regulatory approval, DTCC reported record volumes at FICC’s Government Securities Division (GSD), underscoring growing adoption of central clearing across the U.S. Treasury market. Takeaway: SEC approval of FICC’s ACS Triparty Service strengthens market infrastructure ahead of mandatory Treasury clearing rules, while record GSD volumes highlight accelerating buyside and dealer adoption of central clearing. Expanded Triparty Repo Clearing via BNY Infrastructure With SEC approval secured, FICC can now offer cleared triparty repo services to Agent Clearing Members and their Executing Firm Customers. Eligible transactions include repos executed directly with the Agent Clearing Member (“done-with”) or with another GSD Netting Member or its client (“done-away”). The ACS Triparty Service leverages BNY’s Global Collateral infrastructure, allowing triparty repo transactions to benefit from centralized clearing while continuing to use established collateral management workflows. This integration is designed to support a broad range of market participants without disrupting existing operational models. By combining FICC’s clearing framework with BNY’s collateral platform, the service aims to deliver operational efficiency, greater scalability, and improved risk management for triparty repo activity. Preparing the Market for Expanded Treasury Clearing Rules The new ACS Triparty Service was developed in anticipation of the SEC’s expanded U.S. Treasury clearing requirements, which will mandate central clearing for cash Treasury trades beginning in December 2026 and for repo transactions starting in June 2027. DTCC said the service is designed to broaden access to central clearing, particularly for market participants that rely on agent clearing models. For Agent Clearing Members, the offering may deliver enhanced margin efficiency, reduced capital requirements, and balance sheet relief. As regulatory timelines approach, the service provides a pathway for firms to adapt their repo activity to a cleared environment while maintaining flexibility in how trades are executed and intermediated. FICC Volumes Reach New Highs In parallel with the service launch, FICC reported record activity in its Government Securities Division. Overall GSD volumes reached a new peak of $13.2 trillion on December 1, 2025, reflecting elevated trading and financing activity in U.S. government securities. Buyside participation also hit new highs. On December 31, 2025, FICC recorded a peak of $3.1 trillion in buyside activity across its Sponsored and Agent Clearing Services, highlighting growing engagement from asset managers and other institutional investors. DTCC said the combination of rising volumes and expanded clearing services underscores the industry’s shift toward greater central clearing, improved risk management, and enhanced resilience in the U.S. Treasury market.

Russia has started the large-scale introduction of its central bank digital currency (CBDC) called the digital ruble across the state budget system and within the banking sector. The move is in place to step up preparations for a nationwide rollout ahead of scheduled deadlines later in 2026. Government agencies and financial institutions are now processing digital ruble transactions for budget flows, federal agency payments, and tax and fee settlements, marking a tangible era of broad public sector use of CBDCs. This shift reflects a broader strategy by the Central Bank of Russia (CBR) and federal authorities to integrate the digital ruble into core public finance and commercial payment infrastructures.  Russian Government and Budget Systems Lead CBDC Adoption With Zero Fees According to reports, Russia’s Treasury is set to accept digital ruble payments in 2026. This includes the ability for payers with digital wallets to settle payments into the federal budget and for federal institutions to receive transfers in digital rubles for certain functions. In a bid to encourage usage and lower barriers to adoption, the CBR has waived fees on digital ruble-based transactions involving taxes, fees, and government-related payments. This zero-fee phase is designed to boost adoption among individuals and corporate entities while systems continue to scale. By integrating the digital ruble into state fiscal operations, Russia is demonstrating how central bank digital currencies can work alongside core public-sector financial systems and eventually become a part of them. This reflects a shift toward programmable money models, where the state can efficiently disburse funds, collect revenues, and manage transfers on blockchain-enabled rails, potentially at lower operational costs.  Banks, Businesses, and Timelines Get Integrated Into the Digital Economy Alongside budget systems, Russia’s banking sector is gearing up for broader CBDC integration. Regulators have laid out a phased timetable requiring the country’s largest banks and their institutional retail clients to support digital ruble transactions by September 1, 2026. These banks must ensure that customers can open digital ruble accounts, make transfers, and pay for goods and services using the new CBDC. Smaller banks and commercial entities will follow a slower schedule, with full compliance expected between 2027 and 2028 as infrastructure upgrades are completed. This phased approach mirrors broader trends in major CBDC initiatives worldwide, where central banks collaborate with commercial institutions to scale digital currency infrastructure gradually.  However, analysts suggest that a widely adopted CBDC may challenge existing payment networks, including established card systems, by offering a blockchain-enabled alternative that could slow the growth of traditional payment instruments by an estimated 7–9% annually. This transformation also raises questions about data privacy, user experience, and the role of digital currencies in everyday economic life. As the rollout advances toward mass use in 2026 and beyond, the digital ruble could reshape how public funds are managed, how payments flow through banks, and how businesses and citizens interact with state-issued digital money.

What Has Binance Launched? Binance has introduced its first regulated perpetual futures linked to traditional financial assets, starting with contracts tracking gold and silver. The new products are settled in USDT and offered through Nest Exchange Limited, a Binance entity regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market. The contracts, branded as TradFi Perpetual Contracts, allow traders to gain continuous exposure to gold and silver through the same perpetual futures structure commonly used in crypto markets. The initial pairs, XAUUSDT and XAGUSDT, track the price of gold and silver respectively, with Binance saying additional traditional-asset contracts are planned. Perpetual contracts do not have an expiry date and are widely used for hedging and leveraged trading. Binance said the TradFi versions follow the same settlement currency and fee framework as its crypto perpetuals, while applying pricing and risk controls suited to periods when traditional markets are closed. Investor Takeaway Gold and silver are now tradable on Binance through regulated, USDT-settled perpetuals, giving traders round-the-clock access to commodities without leaving crypto derivatives markets. Why Is Binance Moving Into Traditional Assets? The launch reflects a broader push by major crypto exchanges to widen their product range beyond digital assets. Trading volumes across spot crypto markets have fluctuated in recent quarters, pushing platforms to look for new sources of activity and liquidity. Traditional assets, especially commodities, offer a familiar hedge during periods when crypto price momentum slows. Binance said it is the first global digital asset platform to secure a full suite of licenses under the ADGM framework that allows regulated derivatives tied to traditional markets. By using its Abu Dhabi-regulated entity, the exchange is able to offer these products under a clearer supervisory structure than many offshore derivatives venues. In December, updates to Binance’s API hinted that stock-linked perpetual contracts were under development. The gold and silver launch confirms that the exchange is testing demand for TradFi-linked derivatives before expanding into other asset classes. “We were beta-testing and can now announce the launch of TradFi Perpetuals — a new product category bringing TradFi assets into crypto through USDT-settled contracts,” a Binance spokesperson said after the announcement. How Do TradFi Perpetuals Work When Markets Are Closed? Unlike spot gold or silver markets, which close overnight and during holidays, Binance’s perpetual contracts trade continuously. The exchange said it has adapted pricing and risk-management mechanisms to account for periods when underlying markets are shut, reducing the risk of sharp dislocations when traditional venues reopen. This approach mirrors how crypto perpetuals already function during periods of thin liquidity, but applied to assets whose reference markets follow fixed trading hours. Traders can hold, hedge, or adjust positions at any time, rather than waiting for commodity exchanges to reopen. Jeff Li, Binance’s vice president of product, said the launch gives users continuous access to traditional assets through a derivatives format they already know, bringing commodities into the same trading environment as crypto. Investor Takeaway Perpetual access removes time-zone and market-hour constraints, but it also concentrates risk during off-hours when price discovery relies more heavily on derivatives flows. Is Capital Rotating Away From Crypto? The timing of the launch comes as trading interest has shifted across asset classes. Capital flows into bitcoin have slowed compared with earlier cycles, while demand for equities and commodities has remained steady. Precious metals, in particular, have attracted renewed attention as macro uncertainty persists. CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju commented on Thursday that liquidity has spread across a wider range of markets. “Capital inflows into bitcoin have dried up,” he wrote. “Liquidity channels are more diverse now, so timing inflows is pointless. Money just rotated to stocks and shiny rocks.” This rotation helps explain why crypto exchanges are expanding into commodities and tokenized traditional assets. Beyond derivatives, onchain representations of stocks and commodities have grown rapidly over the past year. Data from a Dune dashboard curated by Gate Research shows tokenized traditional assets surpassed $1 billion in total value by late 2025, up roughly fifty-fold year over year. What Comes Next? Binance has not said which traditional assets will follow gold and silver, but its earlier API signals point toward equities and other commodities. If uptake is strong, TradFi Perpetual Contracts could become a parallel derivatives layer where crypto-native traders access conventional markets without switching platforms. The launch also adds pressure on rival exchanges to respond. Regulated perpetuals tied to traditional assets blur the line between crypto and conventional derivatives, especially when offered around the clock and settled in stablecoins.

ATFX has announced a regional sponsorship partnership with the Argentine Football Association (AFA), marking a strategic move that links elite sport with global trading culture. Built around ATFX’s “Road to Goals” theme, the collaboration highlights preparation, discipline, and resilience as shared foundations between professional football and successful trading. The partnership positions ATFX alongside one of football’s most storied institutions as global attention builds toward the next World Cup cycle. With Argentina’s national team representing excellence at the highest level of competition, the sponsorship reinforces ATFX’s ambition to associate its brand with long-term performance rather than short-term results. By combining finance and sport, ATFX aims to engage a broader international audience, particularly in regions where football culture plays a central role in shaping community identity and aspiration. Takeaway: ATFX’s partnership with AFA reflects a broader trend of financial firms using elite sport to reinforce values of discipline, strategy, and long-term performance while expanding brand reach in key global markets. Shared Foundations of Strategy and Discipline ATFX and AFA are aligned around a common philosophy: success is built on preparation, informed decision-making, and adaptability under pressure. In professional football, tactical discipline and execution define outcomes; in trading, structured strategies and risk management play the same role. Argentina’s football legacy, shaped by three World Cup titles and iconic players such as Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, provides a powerful narrative of resilience and excellence. Current stars, including Rodrigo de Paul and Enzo Fernández, continue that tradition, reinforcing the team’s relevance for a new generation. For ATFX, aligning with AFA strengthens its message that sustainable performance—whether on the pitch or in financial markets—comes from consistency, learning, and disciplined execution over time. Education as the Central Link Between Sport and Trading Education sits at the core of ATFX’s global strategy, and the partnership uses football as a relatable framework to communicate trading principles. By drawing parallels between match preparation and market analysis, ATFX aims to make financial education more accessible and engaging. Just as players must adjust tactics in response to changing conditions during a match, traders are required to navigate volatility and uncertainty in financial markets. The collaboration frames education as the assistance that helps individuals progress toward their goals, rather than focusing solely on outcomes. According to ATFX Chairman Joe Li, the partnership reflects a commitment to empowering communities through knowledge, ensuring traders are supported with tools and education as they pursue long-term financial objectives. Global Brand Expansion and Long-Term Vision From AFA’s perspective, the sponsorship supports its continued international expansion strategy. Since 2021, the association has built commercial operations across multiple regions, strengthening its global brand and creating partnerships beyond traditional football markets. AFA Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer Leandro Petersen noted that collaborations such as ATFX validate the federation’s long-term vision of global engagement, particularly across Asia and the Americas. The partnership will include joint marketing initiatives designed to amplify the reach of both organisations. As ATFX and AFA move forward together, the collaboration underscores how finance and sport can intersect to inspire ambition, resilience, and global participation—on the field and in the markets.

Webull has launched Vega AI for Australian users, introducing an artificial intelligence-powered investment assistant designed to help retail investors navigate markets with greater speed, clarity, and confidence. Available from today at no additional cost, the new tool delivers real-time analysis across stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrencies, reinforcing Webull’s push to embed advanced analytics directly into the trading experience. Takeaway: Vega AI signals Webull’s shift from being a trading platform with tools to a decision-support platform with intelligence. By offering AI-driven insights for free, Webull is raising competitive pressure in Australia’s retail brokerage market while accelerating the mainstream adoption of AI-assisted investing. AI Moves From Optional Add-On to Core Trading Feature Vega AI is positioned as a 24/7 investment assistant that transforms complex market information into accessible insights. The tool summarises corporate disclosures and SEC filings, tracks real-time price movements, and explains the drivers behind market changes as they happen. This approach is designed to reduce the cognitive load on investors who may struggle to process raw data, filings, and fragmented news flows. Unlike traditional research tools that require users to actively search for information, Vega AI proactively surfaces relevant updates and delivers daily summaries during trading hours and after-market sessions. By combining live market data with AI interpretation, Webull aims to help investors understand not just what is moving, but why it is moving. Rob Talevski, CEO of Webull Securities Australia, described Vega AI as one of the most significant product upgrades introduced locally, emphasizing its role in giving everyday Australian investors access to capabilities that were previously the preserve of institutional desks. From Options Intelligence to Smart News Filtering One of Vega AI’s standout features is its options statistics insight engine, which highlights unusual activity in options chains and translates that data into actionable context. For active traders, this can surface potential opportunities that might otherwise remain buried in large datasets. The platform also integrates smart news aggregation, curating and summarising updates from premium sources such as Reuters. By filtering out market noise and focusing on relevance, Vega AI addresses a common pain point for retail investors: information overload during volatile market conditions. For U.S. equities, Vega AI adds an additional layer through intelligent financial report analysis. Dense SEC filings are distilled into clear, digestible summaries, enabling users to quickly identify material developments without needing to interpret lengthy regulatory documents. Democratising AI-Driven Investing in Australia Webull’s decision to make Vega AI available to all Australian users at no extra cost is strategically significant. As AI tools increasingly become embedded in trading platforms, pricing and accessibility are emerging as key differentiators. By offering Vega AI as a standard feature, Webull is positioning itself as an intelligence-first platform rather than a premium, paywalled research provider. The tool is designed to serve both novice and experienced investors. Beginners benefit from simplified explanations and guided insights, while more sophisticated traders gain continuous analysis across multiple asset classes. This dual focus aligns with Webull’s broader goal of democratising access to markets without diluting analytical depth. Regulated by ASIC and operating as a trading participant on both the ASX and Cboe Australia, Webull is integrating Vega AI within an established regulatory framework. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in retail investing, the launch highlights how brokerages are competing not just on execution and fees, but on who can best augment investor decision-making in real time.

For most of the last cycle, crypto perpetual swaps were a remarkably forgiving market. Funding rates rewarded passive positioning, delta-neutral strategies felt structurally protected, and exchanges sold the illusion that liquidation engines existed purely to preserve stability. In 2025, that illusion broke. The year marked a turning point for perpetual swaps—not because of a macro shock, but because of internal failures in market structure. What followed was not simply volatility, but a reckoning that forced traders, market makers, and exchanges to confront uncomfortable truths about leverage, incentives, and trust. This is the state of crypto perpetual swaps in 2025: a market that survived its most destructive internal crisis, shed its weakest participants, and began evolving toward something more complex—and less forgiving. Why was the October crash a structural failure, not a price event? The defining moment of 2025 was not driven by inflation data, central bank policy, or geopolitical headlines. It was driven by a breakdown in exchange-level risk management. The 10–11 October crash triggered an estimated $20 billion liquidation cascade—the largest in crypto history—and inflicted unprecedented damage on professional liquidity providers. What made this event different was not the size of the price move, but who bore the losses. For the first time, market makers running textbook delta-neutral strategies were forced into losses by the very systems designed to keep markets orderly. Auto Deleveraging (ADL) mechanisms—meant to socialise risk during extreme conditions—entered feedback loops. As long positions failed, exchanges forcibly closed short hedges held by market makers to offset bankrupt accounts. Neutral books became directional exposures overnight. Investor Takeaway The October crash was a microstructure failure. Risk engines broke their promise of neutrality, permanently changing how professionals view exchange risk. How delta-neutral strategies were dismantled Delta-neutral trading has long been the backbone of crypto market making. By pairing long spot exposure with short perpetuals, firms could earn funding while remaining insulated from price direction. On 10 October, that insulation failed. As liquidation pressure mounted, ADL systems aggressively closed profitable short positions held by market makers. This left firms long spot assets in a collapsing market, with no hedge in place. Losses cascaded not because strategies were flawed, but because infrastructure forcibly rewrote risk exposure. The result was immediate and lasting. Market makers pulled liquidity across venues in Q4. Order books thinned to levels not seen since 2022. Spreads widened. Slippage increased. The cost of trading rose for everyone. Investor Takeaway Neutral strategies are only neutral if exchanges honour them. Infrastructure risk is now a first-order consideration. Did funding rate arbitrage finally hit its limits? If 2024 was the year funding arbitrage went mainstream, 2025 was the year it became unprofitable. The long spot / short perp trade did not explode—it suffocated under its own popularity. What began as a clever yield mechanism was rapidly productised, scaled, and embedded directly into exchange infrastructure. Exchange-issued delta-neutral assets flooded the market with automated short flow. Every dollar minted into these products sold perpetual exposure. The supply of shorts overwhelmed organic long demand. Funding rates collapsed. By mid-2025, yields that once exceeded 15–20% annualised compressed to around 4%, often underperforming U.S. Treasury bills. For the first time in a bull-leaning market environment, funding consistently traded below the historical baseline. Investor Takeaway Funding arbitrage is no longer “free money.” Scale and automation eliminated excess returns. Why trust became the most valuable currency in 2025 As yields disappeared and volatility rose, another fracture emerged: trust. 2025 exposed the risks of opaque B-Book exchange models, where platforms internalise user flow and profit from client losses. When volatility surged, several venues invoked vague “abnormal trading” clauses to void profitable trades or freeze accounts. For traders, this was a wake-up call. Volume metrics proved meaningless if profits could be confiscated. Where you traded became as important as what you traded. The divide between fair matchers and predatory platforms widened. Exchanges operating true peer-to-peer matching engines gained credibility. Others lost it permanently. Investor Takeaway In stressed markets, counterparty integrity matters more than leverage, fees, or UI. Did perpetual DEXs solve the problem—or create new ones? As centralised exchanges faltered, trading activity flowed toward high-performance perpetual DEXs. On-chain transparency promised fairness. In practice, it introduced new vulnerabilities. Public order books and visible liquidation thresholds turned into attack surfaces. In illiquid pre-TGE markets, coordinated actors manipulated internal prices to trigger forced liquidations. Transparency became a map for predation. Decentralisation did not eliminate risk—it redistributed it. Unlike centralised venues, many protocols disclaimed responsibility when systems failed, leaving users with no recourse. The lesson was sobering: decentralisation is not immunity, and transparency without safeguards can be dangerous. Investor Takeaway On-chain transparency can expose traders to targeted attacks. Risk management still matters. Why liquidity fragmentation reshaped trading behaviour Following the October crash, liquidity became scarce and selective. Market makers reduced exposure. Leverage declined. Depth vanished outside of major venues. Traders adapted by shifting from passive yield strategies to active risk management. Relative-value trades, volatility positioning, and tactical execution replaced set-and-forget approaches. The perpetual market stopped rewarding inertia. Investor Takeaway 2025 rewarded activity, not passivity. Alpha moved from structure to skill. Are equity perpetuals the next product-market fit? One of the clearest growth areas in 2025 was the convergence of crypto derivatives and traditional equities. Demand to trade U.S. stocks outside of market hours surged. Crypto exchanges filled the gap by offering equity-linked perpetuals, allowing traders to speculate on earnings, macro events, and momentum 24/7 using crypto collateral. For many traders, this became the most compelling use case for perpetual swaps since Bitcoin itself. Investor Takeaway Equity perps reflect genuine demand—not leverage addiction. This is structural, not cyclical. Funding rates as a tradable asset class As funding arbitrage compressed, traders stopped farming rates and started trading them. Markets emerged that allowed participants to speculate directly on funding volatility—hedging spikes, betting on reversals, or capturing dislocations across venues. This shift marked a maturation of the derivatives ecosystem. Funding became information, not income. Investor Takeaway Funding volatility is now a tradeable signal, not a guaranteed yield stream. What 2025 changed permanently The perpetual swaps market that emerged from 2025 is leaner, harsher, and more honest. Easy yield is gone. Blind trust in exchange risk engines is gone. Passive strategies no longer survive volatility. In their place is a market that rewards transparency, infrastructure resilience, and active risk management. The winners will not be the loudest or fastest-growing platforms—but the ones that can survive stress without rewriting the rules. Conclusion: A more grounded derivatives market 2025 was painful, but necessary. The ADL crisis forced the industry to confront structural weaknesses. The collapse of funding arbitrage exposed false assumptions about “risk-free” yield. Trust failures reshaped venue selection. The result is a derivatives market that is smaller in illusion, but larger in substance. Perpetual swaps are no longer a casino. They are a professional market again. Learn More: bitmex.com/blog/state-of-crypto-perps-2025

What was deployed Orbs said Atlantis has integrated its Perpetual Hub Ultra product to enable onchain perpetual futures trading on the Monad network. The deployment expands Atlantis’ trading offering beyond spot markets and introduces a managed perpetuals stack without requiring the platform to build custom backend infrastructure. The integration is built on Atlantis’ modular V4 architecture and uses Orbs’ Layer-3 execution layer. According to the companies, the setup allows Atlantis to offer perpetual futures through a plug-and-play framework while retaining flexibility to adjust or expand features over time. With the launch, Atlantis positions itself as a broader DeFi venue on Monad, covering both spot and derivatives trading within a single interface. How Perpetual Hub Ultra works Perpetual Hub Ultra is Orbs’ latest iteration of its perpetual futures infrastructure. It provides a full derivatives stack, including liquidation logic, hedging mechanisms, oracle support, and a professional trading interface, delivered through a modular integration layer. The protocol is designed to aggregate liquidity from multiple sources rather than relying on a single pool. This allows decentralized exchanges to access deeper liquidity without maintaining their own market-making infrastructure. Ultra also supports intent-based execution, a model that separates trade intent from execution, aiming to improve efficiency and execution quality while keeping settlement onchain. Investor Takeaway Onchain perps are moving toward shared infrastructure. Execution layers, not individual DEXs, are increasingly where performance is defined. What Atlantis gains from the integration For Atlantis, the integration removes the need to build and maintain a proprietary perpetuals backend. Instead, the platform can deploy derivatives trading as a modular extension of its existing architecture. Users gain access to adjustable leverage, aggregated liquidity, and faster execution compared with typical onchain derivatives designs. Atlantis, meanwhile, retains control over product configuration and can adapt as Monad’s ecosystem evolves. The model reflects a broader trend in DeFi toward composable trading infrastructure, where platforms assemble capabilities from specialized providers rather than building everything internally. Orbs’ role as an execution layer Perpetual Hub Ultra builds on earlier Perpetual Hub deployments that are already live across several decentralized trading venues. The Ultra version extends the model by routing liquidity from both onchain and offchain sources, including major centralized exchanges, while keeping settlement and execution decentralized. Orbs operates as a Layer-3 network secured by a public set of permissionless validators using delegated proof-of-stake. The network is positioned as an execution layer optimized for advanced trading logic rather than a general-purpose base chain. According to Orbs, this structure allows DeFi protocols to approach centralized exchange-level execution quality without abandoning onchain composability. Context: intent-based trading and onchain derivatives Intent-based models have gained traction in spot markets as a way to improve execution efficiency and reduce user-facing complexity. Applying the same approach to perpetual futures has been more difficult due to liquidation risk, leverage, and funding mechanics. The Atlantis deployment demonstrates how intent-based execution can be extended to derivatives using shared infrastructure. Whether the model scales will depend on liquidity sourcing, risk controls, and user demand for onchain alternatives to centralized perpetuals. For Monad, the launch adds a derivatives use case to its DeFi stack at an early stage in the network’s growth. Investor Takeaway The competitive edge in DeFi perps is shifting from individual DEX design to execution layers that aggregate liquidity and manage complexity.

Ethereum (ETH) still finds itself among the top performers in the market, but it is one of the slowest-performing assets in the market. ETH has been relegated between increased support levels and strong resistance levels, while trading volume has been low, an indication of weakness. For investors looking for the top crypto to buy now, such a market is calling for a move towards new cryptocurrencies with more immediate gains. Among the emerging cryptocurrencies making headlines is Mutuum Finance (MUTM) which is undervalued at just $0.04 in presale phase 7. With over $19.68 million already raised and presale moving at a rapid pace, the project has taken over as the top crypto to buy now. Ethereum’s (ETH) Momentum Stalls Although the basics for Ethereum are good in the long run, it is also observed that the present market trend is a pause in the market. The present market trend for ETH is in the form of a leading diagonal since 2022, and the token might go as high as $8.5k to $11k, but is now losing steam as it finds it difficult to re-enter key resistances. For the active investor, MUTM offers a more defined market trend for gains, making it the best crypto to buy today, as well as the best cheap cryptocurrency in the presale phase. MUTM Presale  Mutuum Finance is seeing rapid growth during its presale. The DeFi crypto is currently priced at $0.04 during the 7th phase of the presale. The presale features increasing prices that will see MUTM cost nearly 20% higher in phase 8 while launch price is set at $0.06. This creates a profit mechanism for investors long before MUTM launches on exchanges. Experts predict that as more adoption grows, MUTM's price may rise to rise toward $1.20, delivering a 2900% profit for an investor during phase 7. More than 18,730 people have already taken part. For investors seeking the top crypto to buy now, phase 7 presents a cheap opportunity with huge upside. MUTM Community Incentives Mutuum Finance engages their community with the help of reward systems which promote constant interest in the token. An ongoing event with a $100,000 giveaway will see ten individuals get $10,000. In addition, the project is rewarding its biggest buyer every day with a  $500 MUTM bonus. What’s more there is a leaderboard for the biggest 50 MUTM holders who also stand to gain rewards.  Revenue-Sharing Model  Every transaction within Mutuum Finance generates fees. A fraction of these fees will then be used by the project to buy back MUTM tokens from the market. However, rather than burning them, these tokens will be shared among Mutuum Finance stakers. Stakers are normally market players with a longer-term commitment to the project. This means they might choose to hold the tokens, which will drive the price of MUTM higher. If the project, for instance, generates $1 million in fees, a fraction of these will go to them. Lending APYs  MUTM features a dual lending mechanism that features peer-to-contract and peer-to-peer lending. With P2C, lenders deposit their funds in liquidity pools with an APY of as high as 15%, depending on the platform’s usage. This means an investor with idle 10 ETH in their wallet may choose to deposit in the pools to take advantage of the yields. For more volatile assets, like Shiba Inu, they may choose peer-to-peer lending to negotiate higher APYs that could even reach 20%.  MUTM Provides A Rare Early-Stage Open While the hype surrounding Ethereum continues to wane, MUTM is still in a nascent stage of development and has strong upside fueled by a rapidly selling presale, community rewards, a buyback & redistribute mechanism, and juicy lending APYs. It not only gives presale participants an early shot at a dwindling token supply but also has a scalable multi-chain strategy that makes it ideal for long-term holding. As one of the most promising cheap crypto tokens currently available, MUTM is attracting investors looking for early-stage opportunities with high growth potential. For more information about Mutuum Finance (MUTM) visit the links below: Website: https://mutuum.com/  Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mutuumfinance 

Fireblocks has agreed to acquire TRES Finance, adding enterprise-grade accounting, reporting, and audit capabilities to its digital asset infrastructure platform. The deal brings together transaction execution, custody, and onchain operations with financial reconciliation and compliance, positioning Fireblocks as a unified operating system for institutional digital asset activity. The acquisition reflects how digital assets are moving deeper into regulated financial workflows. As banks, fintechs, and crypto-native firms expand onchain operations, the ability to align blockchain activity with traditional accounting, ERP, and reporting systems has become a baseline requirement rather than a differentiator. By integrating TRES Finance, Fireblocks aims to close the long-standing gap between onchain execution and back-office finance, enabling institutions to manage digital asset lifecycles from transaction creation through to audit-ready financial statements within a single platform. Takeaway: Fireblocks’ acquisition of TRES Finance signals that infrastructure alone is no longer enough in institutional crypto. Accounting, auditability, and regulatory reporting are becoming core components of digital asset platforms as onchain activity converges with traditional finance. From Secure Transactions to Financial-Grade Reporting Fireblocks has built its reputation as secure infrastructure for digital asset transfers, custody, tokenization, and settlement, supporting trillions of dollars in transaction volume annually. TRES Finance adds the financial intelligence layer required to translate that activity into structured, contextualised records that meet enterprise accounting and regulatory standards. TRES automates reconciliation and reporting across hundreds of blockchains, exchanges, custodians, and banks, enabling institutions to maintain accurate ledgers, prepare audits, and comply with tax and disclosure requirements across jurisdictions. Integrating these capabilities directly into Fireblocks embeds compliance and reporting into the transaction lifecycle rather than treating them as downstream processes. This unified workflow links middle-office operations with back-office finance, reducing manual reconciliation, operational risk, and data fragmentation. For institutions scaling digital asset activity, this alignment is critical as regulatory expectations increasingly mirror those applied to traditional financial instruments. Meeting Rising Regulatory and Enterprise Standards Regulatory clarity around digital assets is advancing globally, bringing higher expectations for financial controls, transparency, and audit readiness. Institutions operating onchain must now demonstrate the same levels of accuracy and governance expected in traditional markets, including clean financial records and integration with existing ERP and ledger systems. Fireblocks CEO Michael Shaulov said the combination enables customers to run both operations and finance on a single, secure, and compliant stack. Crypto-native firms face growing tax and disclosure obligations, while banks and fintechs require reconciliation frameworks that fit seamlessly into established enterprise processes. TRES Finance’s existing client base includes exchanges, market makers, banks, and infrastructure providers, underscoring the demand for institutional-grade reporting as digital assets become part of everyday financial operations rather than isolated experimental activities. Building an Operating System for Onchain Finance The acquisition positions Fireblocks beyond infrastructure provider and toward a full operating system for onchain finance. Transactions carry financial context from inception, enabling real-time visibility into balances, exposures, and reporting outcomes as activity occurs on blockchain rails. TRES Finance CEO Tal Zackon said joining Fireblocks allows the platform’s financial record-keeping capabilities to scale globally, supporting institutions as more financial activity migrates onchain. Together, the platforms aim to provide the end-to-end stack required for institutional adoption at scale. As digital assets continue to converge with traditional financial systems, platforms that unify execution, custody, and financial reporting are likely to set the standard. Fireblocks’ move highlights how the next phase of institutional crypto adoption will be defined less by access to blockchain technology and more by operational maturity and regulatory alignment.

Saxo has reached a major milestone, surpassing DKK 1 trillion in client assets as its global client base grows to more than 1.5 million investors. The achievement marks a tenfold increase from May 2017, when the bank reported DKK 100 billion in client assets. The milestone reflects sustained growth across both Saxo’s direct-to-client business and its institutional operations, underscoring rising demand for multi-asset investing and technology-driven market access. The record comes shortly after Saxo reported the strongest financial results in its history for 2024, reinforcing momentum across its platform and business model. Takeaway: Saxo’s rise to DKK 1 trillion in client assets highlights accelerating adoption of global, multi-asset investing and the growing role of platform-led banking and brokerage services. Client Growth Drives a Decade of Asset Expansion Saxo’s client assets have expanded rapidly alongside growth in its customer base, which now exceeds 1.5 million clients worldwide. The milestone represents a tenfold increase in assets under custody since 2017, reflecting long-term compounding rather than a single-cycle surge. Growth has been supported by increased participation from retail investors as well as steady inflows from professional and high-net-worth clients using Saxo’s trading and investment platforms. The bank said the milestone demonstrates how more investors are putting savings to work across global markets and asset classes, supported by improved access, pricing transparency, and digital tools. Institutional Business and BaaS Play a Central Role In addition to its direct client segment, Saxo’s institutional business has been a key contributor to asset growth. Through its banking-as-a-service (BaaS) model, Saxo provides capital markets access and infrastructure to institutional partners and their end-clients. This model allows banks, brokers, and fintechs to leverage Saxo’s technology, pricing, and market access while maintaining their own client relationships, extending Saxo’s reach beyond its proprietary platforms. The combination of direct and institutional channels has enabled Saxo to scale client assets across regions and client types, reinforcing its position as a global investment platform. Focus on Platforms, Pricing, and Investment Culture Saxo attributed the milestone to its continued focus on delivering advanced platforms, broad product coverage, and competitive pricing across multiple markets. Maintaining price leadership has been central to attracting and retaining active investors. Founder and CEO Kim Fournais said the scale of the achievement reflects a thriving investment culture, with more people recognising the long-term benefits of investing locally and globally across asset classes. As Saxo builds on its strongest-ever financial performance, the bank said it remains focused on enhancing tools and services that help clients and partners pursue their financial goals in an increasingly global and digital investment landscape.