Presented by
Today's News Recap
ETF Push - Bitwise files to launch a spot Chainlink ETF in latest push for single-token crypto funds.
Raise Rationale - Pantera Capital seeks $1.25 billion for Solana treasury firm.
IPO Inbound? - Bitpanda considers public listing, rules out London as destination.
New here? Ask Copilot up to 5 free queries per day with Messari Basic.
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.
Top cross-chain aggregator for Solana and Bitcoin, leveraging a wide integration base of L1s, L2s, DEXs, and bridges
Transactions rose 24% QoQ to 1.1M
~7,600 daily active addresses (+7.3% QoQ), strongest growth on Ethereum and Base
Launched Rango Learning Center for devs/users; ran campaigns like Rango x Linea and Zealy Sprint, driving 60k+ cross-chain txs
BNB Smart Chain – Main EVM-compatible L1 for smart contracts, DeFi, and governance
Market cap rose 7.5% QoQ to $92.6B
Daily transactions more than doubled to 9.9M, while daily active addresses rose 33.2%
DeFi TVL grew 14% to $9.9B. PancakeSwap dominated DEX volumes (85% share)
Layer-1 blockchain built by Dapper Labs (2018), optimized for consumer-scale apps like gaming, sports, and collectibles
TVL grew 46.3% QoQ to $68M, led by KittyPunch, MORE Markets, and Increment Finance
Smart contract deployments surged 473% QoQ, with April marking Flow’s busiest month ever (45,239 contracts)
Flow introduced tools (AgentKit, Eliza, MCP) enabling AI-powered dApps, embedding AI into developer workflows
From Our Sponsor
Introducing the Chainlink Reserve—a strategic reserve of LINK tokens designed to support the long-term growth of the Chainlink Network by accumulating LINK using offchain revenue from large enterprises adopting Chainlink and onchain service usage. Through a unified platform offering, Chainlink is uniquely positioned to power and benefit from the growing tokenization trend as more and more of the world’s largest financial institutions adopt blockchain to tokenize trillions of dollars of assets onchain.
Two Bits
Recapping a Weekend of Fixtures on Football.Fun
By: Evan Zakhary
Over the weekend, I tracked how Ballon d’Or nominees are priced on Football.Fun, Base’s fast-emerging consumer app. The first snapshot (shared on Saturday and linked here) laid out where top football players on the platform stood going into the weekend. This update builds on that thread, showing how matchday performances and reward claims reshaped valuations.
If the Ballon d’Or shortlist sets the benchmark for player valuations, the updated snapshot as of August 25 (5 PM UTC) illustrates how leading names were positioned after a full weekend of fixtures:
Lamine Yamal: $1.98, Avg Buy $0.47, Volume $2.0M
Kylian Mbappé: $1.41, Avg Buy $0.43, Volume $2.1M
Mohamed Salah: $0.93, Avg Buy $0.30, Volume $1.3M
Harry Kane: $0.77, Avg Buy $0.25, Volume $1.1M
Michael Olise: $0.72, Avg Buy $0.18, Volume $574.8K
Erling Haaland: $0.55, Avg Buy $0.25, Volume $1.3M
Pedri: $0.50, Avg Buy $0.19, Volume $652.0K
Ousmane Dembélé: $0.41, Avg Buy $0.23, Volume $1.1M
Virgil van Dijk: $0.41, Avg Buy $0.12, Volume $501.7K
Vinícius Júnior: $0.40, Avg Buy $0.22, Volume $1.1M
This distribution reflects two market drivers: star power, with Mbappé and Yamal anchoring liquidity, and performance momentum, where weekend outcomes quickly reshaped secondary demand.
The weekend also offered a first look at the speed at which prediction markets price in performance:
Harry Kane (Bayern Munich): Fresh off a hat trick and four shots on target, Kane’s token surged from $0.158 at match time to $0.731 post-rewards (362% increase).
Pedri (Barcelona): A goal and two shots on target drove his price from $0.147 to $0.494 (236% gain).
Dean Huijsen (Roma): Newly listed on the platform, Huijsen opened under $0.02 and repriced to $0.312 after a clean sheet and a shot on target.
Together, these examples suggest that Football.Fun is emerging as a real-time, tokenized reflection of on-field performance. After just one weekend, markets appear to reward not only players with established reputations but also those delivering standout contributions on the pitch. The coming matchdays will show whether this balance holds, or if underdog names can break through and reshape the order.
