Ethereum reclaimed the $2,000 - Short-term sentiment remains bearish, with prediction markets giving a 67% likelihood that ETH's next move will be down to $1,500 rather than up to $3,000.
'Mini crypto winter' nearly over - Chairman Thomas Lee said the company stepped up buying from the recent weekly average of roughly 45,000 to 50,000 ETH as market signals suggest a potential bottom may be forming.
Nasdaq partners with Kraken - Nasdaq has partnered with Kraken’s parent company, Payward, to create infrastructure connecting tokenized equity markets with decentralized blockchain networks.
New Thorchain Spotlight Now Available
THORChain is a decentralized cross-chain liquidity protocol designed to enable native asset swaps across multiple blockchains without relying on wrapped tokens or centralized exchanges. Through its automated liquidity pools and the RUNE settlement asset, users can swap assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum directly between chains while maintaining custody of their funds. This architecture positions THORChain as a key piece of multi-chain DeFi infrastructure, enabling liquidity to move freely across the crypto ecosystem.
The new Messari THORChain Spotlight Dashboard brings the protocol’s ecosystem into a single analytical view. The dashboard aggregates key metrics across liquidity, trading activity, token performance, and protocol usage, giving investors, researchers, and builders a real-time understanding of how the network is evolving. Instead of piecing together fragmented data sources, users can quickly analyze THORChain’s market activity, growth signals, and onchain trends through a single research-grade interface.
In the next Fully Diluted podcast, host Alex Beaudry is joined by analysts Hayden Booms, Dillon Bayne, and Qorban Ferrell to break down the most important moves happening across DeFi, derivatives, and on-chain AI. The team dives deep into Hyperliquid's HIP3 markets, Uniswap's fee switch expansion to L2s, and the rising Venice AI (VVV) controversy.
Dylan brings real volume data showing that Hyperliquid's HIP3 markets — led by TradeXYZ's equity and commodity perps — have become a legitimate venue for weekend price discovery, with Bloomberg now paying attention and 90% of weekend directional trades proving correct.
The team debates whether pre-IPO HIP3 markets can compete with Polymarket, and what revenue sharing or synthetic ownership mechanics would need to look like to drive meaningful volume.
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.
By: Youssef Haidar · @0xYoussef_ · Research Analyst
In 2025, institutional giants Visa, Stripe, and Worldpay integrated Solana to settle and/or accept stablecoin payments. Visa’s USDC pilot surpassed $3.5 billion in annualized volume, while Worldpay achieved a 50% reduction in processing times using the Global Dollar Network (USDG). 57% of USDG is issued on Solana, as the network’s fast finality and near-zero fees support the high-frequency settlement needs of institutions.
Western Union is issuing a new stablecoin on Solana, migrating its treasury operations onchain and opening up its network of over 500,000 retail agents to Solana apps. The 2026 launch of the USDPT token aims to eliminate the "working capital trap" of pre-funded accounts and drastically lower average international transfer costs.
Fiserv, one of the world’s largest bank processors and merchant acquirers, is issuing FIUSD on Solana, a bank-centric stablecoin. Fiserv announced the launch of a digital asset platform with FIUSD, designed for its clients spanning 10,000 financial institutions, as well as its merchant network
Gusto is piloting instant USDC payouts for over 400,000 global businesses on the Solana network. Launched in January 2026, the partnership with Zero Hash targets the 11% of U.S.-based small and midsize businesses (SMBs) hiring international contractors to bypass traditional three-to-seven-day wire delays.
PayPal USD (PYUSD) market cap on Solana hit $834.7 million on Feb. 2, 2025, a 500.9% YoY increase. Adoption was fueled by "Pay with Crypto" merchant integrations, "PayPal Links" for URL-based transfers, and a 4.0% reward rate for users.
Huma Finance transaction volume surged 232% YoY to $8.9 billion in 2025. Following its merger with Arf, the protocol originated $3.8 billion in onchain credit, replacing legacy SWIFT systems with 24/7 stablecoin settlement for global businesses.
By: Matthew Nay & Alexander Beaudry · @NaytheForceBwU · @ahbeaudry · Research Analysts
Helium Network offloaded 4,388 TB of data from major US mobile carriers in Q4 2025, up 60.7% from just 2,731 TB in Q3. By the end of Q4, the total amount of data offloaded since inception was over 9,840 TB.
Average daily users of the network grew 32.4% QoQ to 1.6 million. The network set a new record in Q4, surpassing 2 million daily active users for the first time, and reaching a maximum of 2.5 million on December 20.
Helium’s annualized revenue reached $11.0 million, when removing all discretionary subscriber revenue burn. Average daily total data credit (DC) burns grew 83.6% QoQ to $56,760.
Over 595,800 total accounts have signed up for Helium Mobile as of December 31, a 29.1% QoQ increase.
Helium partnered with Mambo WiFi in Brazil. Mambo WiFi supports major carriers and tens of millions of customers through 40K+ access points across the country, which will serve as the foundation for Helium's expansion into South America.
By: Austin Weiler · @0xWeiler · Research Analyst
In Q4, Huma processed $2.2 billion in transaction volume, a 26.9% QoQ increase from $1.7 billion in Q3, while credit originations rose 24.4% QoQ from $860.6 million to $1.1 billion.
As of Dec. 31, users staked 268.2 million HUMA ($6.6 million), up 0.6% QoQ from 266.6 million on Sept. 30. This represents 14.9% of the 1.8 billion HUMA eligible for staking.
On Jan. 8, Huma introduced Huma Prime, a yield product where users deposit USDC to earn yield from Huma PayFi activity, which Huma then borrows against on Jupiter Lend and redeploys the borrowed USDC into Huma pools to amplify total returns.
As of Dec. 31, Huma 2.0 held $123.8 million in deposits, an 18.3% QoQ decrease from $151.6 million on Sept. 30.
As of Dec. 31, HUMA's circulating market cap was $63.8 million, a 9.5% QoQ decrease from $70.4 million on Sept. 30, while HUMA token price decreased 27.8% QoQ from $0.034 to $0.025.
Crude Goes Onchain: Hyperliquid CL Hits $1B
By: Sam Ruskin · @0xCryptoSam · Research Analyst
Hyperliquid's crude oil (CL) perpetuals market just posted its highest volume weekend on record. On March 6, volume hit $414 million, followed by $140 million on March 7, $310 million on March 8, and a new all-time high of $1.1 billion on March 9; the first billion-dollar day in the market's history.
For context, CME WTI crude futures, the global benchmark for institutional oil trading, have seen several 12-figure days of volume during the crisis. Hyperliquid's peak-week volume represents less than 1% of that figure, but the significance lies more in trajectory than in absolute scale. Reaching even 0.5–1% of CME's daily crude throughput on a permissionless, onchain venue, with no prime brokerage, no clearing house, and no trading hours constraint, is a notable milestone. Bloomberg has already covered the surge, and notable traders, including Citrini and Michael Burry, have flagged it privately and publicly.
This is not the first time Hyperliquid has punched into TradFi-adjacent territory. Earlier this year, the platform's silver market (SLV) hit a single-day peak of $3.4 billion, representing nearly 2% of CME silver's average daily volume. Both CL and SLV do significant volume during the week when traditional futures markets are open, and tend to see the largest absolute volume on weekdays rather than weekends. But the most notable spikes relative to baseline consistently emerge around macro shock events.
Hyperliquid perpetuals use a funding rate mechanism to keep perp prices anchored to the underlying index: when the perpetual trades at a premium, longs pay shorts; when it trades at a discount, shorts pay longs. For CL, the oracle runs on live external WTI futures prices from Sunday 6 PM ET through Friday 5 PM ET, keeping funding well-anchored and arb traders active. During the internal session (Friday 5 PM to Sunday 6 PM ET), external price inputs go offline, and the oracle falls back to an exponentially weighted moving average derived from on-platform trading activity. With no live external anchor, price dislocations can persist, and funding rates can run elevated, creating carry costs for traders long into a volatility spike. Weekend volume tends to be lower for equities and commodities.
The structural argument for Hyperliquid as a macro volatility venue is only getting stronger. 2026 is dense with catalysts: an Iranian regime in transition, U.S. midterm elections in November, ongoing global trade negotiations, active tariff escalation risk, Federal Reserve leadership uncertainty as Powell's term expires in May, and persistent geopolitical pressure across the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Each of these events carries the potential for volatility and weekend or off-hours price shocks in energy, commodities, and FX, exactly the conditions where Hyperliquid's always-on, permissionless infrastructure has repeatedly proven its value.