Privacy Pump - Privacy tokens Zcash, Dash, Railgun rip higher as market rotates back to 2018 narratives.
Based Streams - Hyperliquid introduces 'based streams,' a DEX-powered live streaming platform.
Railgun Rally - Railgun token soars 300% as Ethereum Foundation integrates protocol into privacy wallet toolkit.
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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.
Decentralized Wireless (DeWi) / DePIN
Roam’s node count surged 427.5% YTD, reaching 6 million nodes across 3M+ users and 578M+ total check-ins
Over 14.98B points issued and 10.08B burned show a highly active, utility-driven ecosystem with strong conversion into ROAM tokens
Competes with Helium and other DeWi protocols but differentiates through focus on WiFi + eSIM, decentralized identity, and active user participation
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
A neobank is a digital-only financial institution that delivers services like deposits, payments, lending, and FX through mobile and web interfaces. Traditional examples such as Nubank, Revolut, and SoFi scaled by prioritizing cost efficiency and user accessibility over physical infrastructure. Crypto neobanks apply the same model to blockchain rails. The user experience remains familiar, but the backend operates through decentralized systems that lower costs, improve yields, and expand access. Users can retain direct custody of funds and transact globally without intermediaries.
Their revenue model combines conventional and crypto-native streams:
Transaction and on/off-ramp fees.
Ancillary products like vaults, lending, and subscriptions.
If the platform issues their own stablecoin, profitability can resemble Circle’s or Tether’s model, where interest on reserves is a key driver.
Today, centralized exchanges dominate this space. Coinbase, Binance, and Robinhood already function as custodial neobanks by offer fiat on/offramps, yield products, lending and borrowing, and debit/credit cards. Their advantage lies in liquidity, compliance coverage, and the ability to subsidize users through exchange revenues.
But a small group of onchain-native neobanks is emerging. Platforms like EtherFi are testing non-custodial, smart contract–based banking model (Cash) where users can interact with DeFi or earn in Ether.fi’s end-to-end ecosystem. While these remain early experiments, they represent a structural shift toward open financial systems that could eventually compete with both centralized exchanges and traditional fintechs.