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Today's News Recap
WLFI Windfall - Crypto trader scores $250M payday as Trump-linked WLFI hits open market.
DEX Exploit - Decentralized exchange BunniXYZ loses $8.4M in liquidity exploit.
Predictions Partners - Crypto.com and Underdog team up to launch sports prediction markets in US.
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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 storage marketplace built on IPFS.
Network utilization hit 32% in Q2 2025 as storage demand held up while overall capacity declined from provider churn
Daily new storage deals rose 25% QoQ (3.5 PiB/day), signaling sustained demand for enterprise and research workloads.
Focus is moving from raw capacity toward high-value datasets (864 >1,000 TiB in size, +7.5% QoQ)
Raydium remained the leading Solana DEX with 28.9% daily volume share in Q2, though down from 44.9% in Q1
RAY delivered a 9.7% yield in Q2 2025 ($0.21 EPT on adjusted market cap), making it one of the highest-yielding protocols
Token launchpad went live in April, driving $1.1B in Q2 volume and $4M in revenue (~22% of Raydium’s total)
Concentrated liquidity pools overtook legacy AMM pools for the first time, capturing 76% of Raydium’s Q2 volume
XRP futures listed on Coinbase and CME, fulfilling SEC requirements for potential U.S. spot ETF approval this fall
Ripple’s RLUSD hit $65.9M (+49% QoQ), XRPL’s largest stablecoin; new stablecoins (USDC, EURØP, etc.) launched on XRPL
Tokenized treasuries, commercial paper, and real estate pushed XRPL’s RWA market cap to an all-time high of $131.6M.
XRP remains the 4th largest crypto asset ($132B market cap, +8.5% QoQ)
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This development builds upon Chainlink’s accelerated work with the U.S. government in 2025, including meeting with several key officials and regulators to make policy recommendations that are advancing the growth of the blockchain industry.
Two Bits
FLIPR: The Leverage Layer for Prediction Markets
By: Austin Weiler
Prediction markets are heating up again. Polymarket cleared over $1 billion in volume for three straight months from May to July, the first time that’s happened since the 2024 U.S. election cycle. Kalshi is ramping up with retail-facing partners like Robinhood, and the sector’s momentum has stabilized after a post-election cooldown.
As volume steadies, new protocols are starting to build on top of existing infrastructure. One of the more interesting ones is Flipr, a trading layer built on top of Polymarket and Kalshi markets.
Flipr has two core features. First, it’s X-based trading bot (@fliprbot), lets users to place bets by posting or replying market links on X with natural language commands, then Flipr parses the reply and executes the trade. There’s no separate interface, just tweet and trade.
The goal is to make prediction markets more accessible and social, embedding them directly into the timeline. A Polymarket post can turn into a real-time trade thread. Arguments become positions, and quote tweets carry tangible stakes.
Flipr adds something that hasn’t yet been fully realized in prediction markets: leverage.
Flipr lets users take up to 10x leveraged positions on supported Polymarket and Kalshi markets. For example, going long ‘Fed decreases rates by 25 bps after the September 2025 meeting?’ at $0.80 with 2x leverage returns ~50% if it resolves ‘yes,’ compared to the standard 25%.
The product is early, but the team is shipping. On August 28, they added take-profit (TP) and stop-loss (SL) support. These tools let traders manage short-term odds shifts instead of holding through full resolution, a notable shift for a space where upside has mostly been limited to end-of-market outcomes.
Flipr also has a liquid token, something Polymarket and Kalshi don’t currently provide.
If prediction markets are going to break out beyond election cycles and start looking more like memecoin casinos, they’ll need two things: leverage and permissionless market creation with reliable resolution and deep liquidity. Flipr is helping push the sector in that direction.
If this works, Flipr becomes the place for hypergamblers to trade real-world events with the speed and leverage they expect from token markets. It expands the surface area of speculation beyond tokens, using mechanics traders already understand.
But this is early. Slippage is already a problem on long-tail Polymarket markets, and leverage makes it worse. For now, Flipr is limited to high-liquidity markets. Funding and liquidation mechanics remain unclear, though documentation is in progress.
If Flipr sticks the landing, it’s going to onboard a new type of user, one looking for action, not just resolution. Worth watching.
