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Today's News Recap
Bags Build - Michael Saylor’s Strategy buys another 155 BTC for $18 million to near 3% of bitcoin’s total supply.
Crypto Shakeup - Bo Hines to leave White House crypto post, eyes turn to successor.
Volatility Spike - Ether volatility spikes on rally as Bitcoin edges back toward record highs.
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Top Assets
Messari Protocol Reporting
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.
Decentralized indexing protocol providing onchain data
Query volume hit an all-time high of 6.49B (+5.8% QoQ)
1,673 new Subgraphs launched (+46.3% QoQ) and active Subgraphs reached a record 14,023
Usage-based revenue increased 6.4% QoQ to $128.9K
Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN)
19,000+ active Satellite Miners in 145+ countries, making it the world’s largest decentralized RTK (Real-Time Kinematics) network
Revenue rose 19% quarter-over-quarter to $963K, with annualized revenue approaching $3M
3.8M GEOD tokens were burned in Q2 (+67% QoQ), signaling steady usage and growing economic activity
Decentralized Wireless Network (DePIN)
Cellular coverage via a hybrid network (T-Mobile + Helium Hotspots)
2,721 TB of carrier data offloaded in Q2 (+138.5% QoQ); total paid traffic surpassed 5,520 TB
311,200 Helium Mobile sign-ups (+94.1% QoQ)
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Two Bits
All Roads Lead Onchain
By: Youssef Haidar
Initially, centralized exchanges shipped wallets so customers could interact with DeFi, NFTs, and other onchain use cases. As the demand for onchain protocols increased, they started building onchain rails with Layer-2 (L2) networks, like Base and Ink. Now, these exchanges are integrating onchain tokens and DEX liquidity directly into their flagship apps.
Coinbase recently rolled out DEX trading inside the main Coinbase app. Users can route orders to DEXs like Aerodrome and trade a growing list of assets on Base, the exchange’s L2 network. The feature is live for U.S. users outside N.Y., and plans are in place to support more networks, like Solana.
Kraken announced plans to integrate the INK token and its Ink L2 network into its core products. The strategy here is simple. If you keep users inside a polished exchange while settling activity onchain, you get throughput and composability without pushing users to a third-party platform.
This wave of onchain integrations is likely a response to DEXs like Hyperliquid and trading terminals like Axiom. These products eat into the CEX value proposition by offering tighter spreads, lower fees, or broader asset coverage. A terminal like Axiom and an exchange like Hyperliquid show how much of the “CEX experience” can be replicated without custody if execution quality and asset breadth are strong, eroding the convenience moat that used to protect centralized exchanges.
Trading fees are a race to the bottom, and onchain venues set the anchor. DEXs are structurally cheaper, with fewer intermediaries, transparent costs, so CEXs can’t win on price without cutting their own take rate. That compresses trading revenue per dollar of volume, forcing exchanges to treat the matching engine as top-of-funnel and monetize everything around it through onchain integrations (routing, staking, L2s), fiat on/off-ramps, debit/credit cards, and premium subscriptions.
To offer the lowest fees and the broadest menu of tradeable assets, you do not refactor the old stack. You move settlement, collateral, and distribution onchain and keep the user experience familiar. That is why Coinbase is integrating DEX trading and Kraken is pushing Ink into its core suite. The road is already paved; the real question for CEXs is how fast they choose to drive.
