May 2, 2026 @ 11:19 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Bitcoin’s struggles, Saudi Arabia, stablecoins and interest rates occupied Web3 minds this week. Bitcoin struggles to hit $80K “As markets head into a week dominated by central bank interest rate decisions, Bitcoin is struggling to break through the psychological barrier of $80,000. It is battling… Read More

May 1, 2026 @ 7:27 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Paystand has launched USDb, a stablecoin targeting commercial-scale enterprise finance. It is designed to work inside the accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, and treasury workflows that run the global economy. Partners include Rootstock, a decentralized infrastructure layer built on top of the Bitcoin network, Blockstream,… Read More

May 1, 2026 @ 10:44 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

When Nacha updated its ACH rules on March 20, it coincided nicely with Socure’s expansion of its Bank Account Verification capabilities. Now available across more than 30 countries, Bank Account Verification allows organizations to verify bank accounts across dozens of major global markets — enabling… Read More

May 1, 2026 @ 9:18 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

HTX Ventures, the global investment arm of HTX, has released The Rise of Yield-Bearing Currency: How Crypto Neobanks Are Challenging the Traditional Banking Model. It argues that as stablecoins evolve from “payment instruments” to “yield-bearing dollar accounts,” a new financial form—termed the “Crypto Neobank”—is reshaping… Read More

May 1, 2026 @ 8:03 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

RedStone, a DeFi oracle network, has launched RedStone Settle, a settlement layer designed to make tokenized real-world assets usable inside DeFi lending markets. It debuts with Symbiotic’s Instant Liquidity vault as its first integrated liquidity layer. More than $30 billion in tokenized real-world assets sits… Read More

April 29, 2026 @ 8:23 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

How does Artemis protect companies from faster and more powerful AI-based attacks? By using AI to help companies leverage what they know better than the attacker – how their business runs at its core. It also helps to have two extremely qualified co-founders. Shachar Hirshberg… Read More

April 27, 2026 @ 6:07 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

A new interactive tool from NordVPN lets users calculate the value of their digital identities. And if you’re Canadian, it ain’t much. Working in collaboration with the threat exposure management platform NordStellar, NordVPN analyzed almost 75,000 dark web marketplace listings and found that Canadians’ personal… Read More

April 27, 2026 @ 3:27 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

This week, Lise (Lightning Stock Exchange) announced the successful closing of what it claimed is the world’s first IPO executed on a fully regulated, natively tokenized market infrastructure. As the first exchange in history to achieve this, Lise demonstrates that DLT-native equity offerings can meet… Read More

April 27, 2026 @ 2:25 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

DOJO AI, an AI marketing system, this week announced a $6 million seed round at a $30 million valuation. The round was led by Armilar, with participation from Heartfelt VC. The funding will support continued product development and accelerated expansion in the United States. DOJO… Read More

April 26, 2026 @ 10:21 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

OS and AI technology company Banma Intelligence and Alipay this week launched a new AI cockpit solution integrating Alipay AI Pay, enabling drivers to complete purchases by voice command directly from their vehicle. “In the past two years, smart cockpits have achieved rapid advances in… Read More

April 26, 2026 @ 12:33 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

This week, Prove launched the Prove Identity Platform, a unified platform that transforms identity from a one-time verification event into a persistent foundation of trust, built for a world where people, businesses, and AI agents must all be verified and trusted in real time. AI… Read More

April 24, 2026 @ 5:26 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

This week’s Web3 Thoughts of the Week tackles DoorDash and stablecoins, spot Bitcoin ETFs, and DeFi’s tattered image. DoorDash stablecoin use “It hasn’t ever been about DoorDash adopting crypto. It’s about the fact that money is finally starting to behave like the Internet. “Stablecoins are… Read More

April 24, 2026 @ 2:17 pm By Tony Zerucha  |  

Derivative Path, a derivatives and risk management platform serving financial institutions, is collaborating with Baton Systems, a real-time risk, liquidity, collateral and settlement orchestration platform, to deliver a fully integrated FX payments and nostro management solution for regional and mid-market financial institutions. Many regional and… Read More

April 22, 2026 @ 1:07 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

OpenGradient, the compute layer for verifiable AI, this week announced $9.5 million in total funding to scale its network for open, auditable model execution. Major investors include a16z crypto, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, SV Angel, Foresight Ventures, Pragma, SALT, Symbolic Capital, Canonical Crypto, Black… Read More

April 22, 2026 @ 12:08 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Slash Financial is now valued at $1.4 billion following a $100m Series C funding round led by Ribbit Capital. New investor Khosla Ventures and Goodwater Capital, who led Slash’s Series B 16 months ago, co-led the round. New Enterprise Associates and Y Combinator also participated… Read More

April 21, 2026 @ 8:00 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

NeoCurrency, a provider of digital rewards, incentives and payout solutions, is expanding its U.S. cash-like payment options to include Cash App and ACH Deposits. Cash App is an increasingly popular mobile payment platform with over 50 million monthly users in 2026. Automatic deposits to personal… Read More

April 20, 2026 @ 9:11 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Geopolitics has Web3 thinking about Bitcoin and ETH price movements this week. Strait of Hormuz blockade effects “Bitcoin is becoming one of the most accurate barometers of geopolitical shocks when markets are closed. This weekend, BTC went on a rollercoaster ride as hopes for US-Iran… Read More

April 20, 2026 @ 8:12 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Gr4vy, the cloud-native payment orchestration platform, is now fully ready to support agentic payment transactions through its orchestration layer, allowing merchants to manage and process transactions within AI-driven environments. In addition, Gr4vy is launching its Agentic Development Kit (ADK), designed to equip and guide merchants… Read More

April 20, 2026 @ 1:18 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Polymath, a provider of institutional-grade digital asset infrastructure, is working with Africa123, a pan-African land and infrastructure platform, to explore the tokenization of large-scale land assets across Africa. Africa123 controls a strategic landbank exceeding 400 million square meters across multiple jurisdictions, with a 25-year pipeline… Read More

April 20, 2026 @ 1:03 am By Tony Zerucha  |  

Paxos Labs, the financial utility stack for digital assets incubated within Paxos, has closed a $12 million strategic funding round, led by Blockchain Capital, an early investor in Paxos, with participation from Robot Ventures, Maelstrom and Uniswap. Paxos Labs provides platforms the tools to turn… Read More