Grayscale Staking - Grayscale enables staking for its spot Ethereum ETFs in the US.
Galaxy Launch - Galaxy launches GalaxyOne platform offering crypto, stocks, and 8% yields to US users.
Crypto Expansion - Hong Kong–listed China Financial Leasing to raise $11 million for crypto investment platform.
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Messari's protocol reports give you a deep dive on the foundation and state of top crypto protocols, including key metrics and notable events. See the complete list of protocol reports here and get a preview of our latest report below.
DePIN / Decentralized Cloud
Integrations with Saga, Gensyn, Morpheus, and VPS AI deepened role in powering decentralized AI compute and agentic workloads
CPU usage rose 14% QoQ, while storage usage surged 41%, signaling broader adoption across smaller, non-AI workloads
Eight proposals funded $1.33M in core infrastructure, new provider tooling, and global events
Autonomys integrates:
(1) Storage: distributed blockchain & AI agent data storage network (Archive size up 16% QoQ (143 GB))
(2) Consensus: Proof-of-Archival-Storage + Proof-of-Time
(3) Decoupled Execution: modular domains for transactionsCumulative events up 67% QoQ to 172.1M,
July 2025 saw AI3 token transferability go live; Auto EVM (smart contracts) and Auto ID (identity/agent verification) expected in Q3
Layer-1 blockchain optimized for DePIN
Circulating market cap up 1,581% QoQ to $13.7M, fueled by price gains and major token unlocks
Over 1M new transactions (+113% QoQ), with 99% success rate despite fees dropping 55% and gas down 25%
429 new contracts (+83% QoQ) and 163 verified contracts (+214% QoQ), showing a shift toward production-ready dApps
HYPE’s circulating market cap has yet to exceed UNI’s peak circulating market cap. On May 5, 2021, UNI’s circulating market cap peaked at $22.5 billion. Since then, the total crypto market cap is up 42.5% from roughly 2.5 trillion to 4.3 trillion, and USD M2 is up 8.6% to $22.2 trillion as of August. $1.44 trillion (80%) of that $1.8 trillion increase in total crypto market cap comes from Bitcoin, whose market cap increased from $1.0 trillion to $2.44 trillion over the same time period. Outside of a select few large market cap tokens like XRP, BNB, TRX, and SOL, tokens have trended to zero against BTC during its decade and a half of existence.
Notably, TRX is the only multi-cycle major to hit an all-time high against BTC this cycle. It is currently holding support above the 2021 TRX/BTC highs but still below the level of its 2022 bear market strength.
Removing BNB to take a closer look, HYPE looks strong, and appears to still be in price discovery. However, beyond this relative short-term strength, HYPE investors should determine whether the token will be commoditized like DEXs such as UNI and CAKE ultimately have been, and therefore top relatively starkly against BTC, or maintain price support in the long-term to some degree against BTC like XRP, BNB, SOL, TRX, and to some degree, ETH.
I take the view that Perp DEXs, including HYPE, will be commoditized, and therefore should be sold at the point the investor views the market has peaked this cycle, as they will not maintain their value against BTC long-term. The launch of Aster on BNB Smart Chain and looming TGEs for other protocols like Lighter is long-term bearish. CAKE, a DEX primarily on BNB Smart Chain, hit a peak circulating market cap of $6.7 billion, while UNI topped out at $22.5 billion. CZ doesn’t need Aster to beat Hyperliquid. He needs it to be a key piece in diluting it. MegaETH, Lighter, Robinhood, Coinbase, and others can all play a part in doing so in time. Ultimately, the premium HYPE commands today as the leading perp DEX is a direct threat to BNB’s.
The status quo of all but a few tokens being commoditized in crypto is what’s best for Binance, and hence BNB, as Binance seeks for BNB to keep pace with BTC. Binance has its hands in everything in crypto. Token allocations in exchange for listing on Binance, Binance launchpools, venture-capital activity, etc, all flow back to BNB. While it seemed last cycle like DEXs were the future, and this cycle like perp DEXs are, Binance is invested in both, with value accruing in real-time to BNB. There will be a next thing, a next fad, and BNB will capture value from that, too. Ultimately, it's easier to tear down than it is to build up. It seems like it's in the king’s (CZ’s) interest to tear down (commoditize) the perp dex space, to protect Binance’s moat, while looking to new sectors to continue to accrue value to BNB. I wouldn’t bet against the king.