MO/USDT Funding Rate Extreme Long Rate 1.2387% (8h), Long pays ~3.72% daily
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A new batch of experiments just shipped to Osmosis. 🧪
Incentives you can fund yourself, warnings that find the right people, and updates to withdraw and deposit flows.
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Cloudflare Gave AI Agents an Identity and a Wallet. What It Means for Agentic Commerce
TL;DR: On August 4, 2026, Cloudflare announced Cloudflare Wallets and cloudflare.pay, giving AI agents a stable identity and a programmable wallet for the agentic Internet. The launch shows where agentic commerce is heading: agents will need to identify themselves, pay safely, and operate within user-defined limits. It also raises the next digital identity challenge: making user-approved credentials, permissions, and verification work beyond a single platform. Why this matters AI agents are moving from answering questions to taking actions. They can compare APIs, buy content, access tools, book services, and make payments on behalf of people or organizations. Most of the web was designed for humans: A human creates an account. A human adds a payment method. A human passes bot checks. A human clicks approve at checkout. A human is accountable if something goes wrong. Agents need a more machine-native flow. They need ways to identify themselves, show who authorized them, and pay within clear limits. Cloudflare’s announcement matters because it brings two building blocks together: Agent identity: a stable, human-readable handle that helps merchants understand which account or organization an agent is connected to. Agent payments: programmable wallets that let agents buy APIs, tools, content, and online resources within spending rules. This is a strong signal that agentic commerce is becoming a real infrastructure category. What Cloudflare launched Cloudflare introduced Cloudflare Wallets and cloudflare.pay as part of its agentic commerce stack. According to Cloudflare, the product includes: Cloudflare Wallet handles: unique handles that give accounts a stable identity when interacting with merchants. Account Wallets: wallets for human owners and Cloudflare account users. Virtual Wallets: wallets for individual AI agents, operated through API keys. Spend guardrails: allowance limits, merchant allowlists, and maximum transaction sizes. Stablecoin support: Cloudflare says wallets will be able to store stablecoins, purchase services, and receive funds across the web. x402 support: Cloudflare’s Monetization Gateway supports micropayments using the x402 protocol, which allows payments to be attached to HTTP requests. cloudflare.pay identity: a way for agents to optionally identify themselves as delegates of a Cloudflare account. Cloudflare’s press release describes the goal clearly: businesses should be able to see who is behind an AI agent, and agents should be able to pay safely on their owner’s behalf. In simple terms, Cloudflare is not only launching an agent wallet. It is launching an identity and payment layer for agents inside its ecosystem. What problem does this solve? Agents often struggle to use the commercial web because many online flows still assume a human is present. For example, an agent trying to evaluate a paid API may need to: sign up through a human-oriented login flow; add a payment method; generate an API key; manage spend; prove it is not abusive automation; show which human or organization it represents. That creates friction for agents that are supposed to explore and compare services autonomously. Cloudflare’s solution gives agents a way to: identify themselves through cloudflare.pay; pay for online resources using wallets; operate within owner-defined spending policies; access services behind Monetization Gateway and x402-compatible endpoints; help merchants distinguish known agents from unknown or abusive traffic. This helps create a two-sided agentic market: sellers can monetize APIs, content, datasets, and tools, while agents can buy those resources in a more automated way. What this means for agentic commerce Cloudflare’s launch points to several broader shifts. 1. Agents are becoming economic actors Agents are no longer only chat interfaces. They are starting to browse, compare, purchase, subscribe, and access paid services. That means agent identity and payment infrastructure are becoming core pieces of the agentic web. 2. Identity and payments are converging A merchant does not only need to know whether an agent can pay. It also needs to know who sent the agent, what the agent is allowed to do, and whether the request is within the owner’s rules. Cloudflare’s model combines identity, wallet access, and spending controls in one flow. 3. Payments are moving closer to machine-to-machine commerce Cloudflare is not alone. Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are also building around agentic commerce, tokenized payments, and programmable transaction flows. The pattern is clear: agents will need multiple payment rails, from cards and tokenized credentials to stablecoins and protocol-native payments. 4. Spending rules are becoming part of agent design Virtual Wallets can include caps, allowlists, and transaction limits. This matters because agentic payments need clear boundaries before users and businesses can trust agents with more autonomy. 5. Machine-native payments are becoming more practical With x402 and Cloudflare’s Monetization Gateway, agents may be able to pay for APIs, content, datasets, and tools without traditional checkout flows. Where portable digital identity comes in Cloudflare gives agents a stable identity within its ecosystem. That is important. The next question is how agent identity works across the broader web. An agent may need to move across different merchants, platforms, payment providers, loyalty systems, and verification environments. In those cases, identity cannot only say “this is a known agent.� It also needs to show what the agent is allowed to know, prove, share, and spend on behalf of the user. For example, agentic commerce may need to answer: Is the underlying user KYC-verified? Is the user over 18, resident in a certain jurisdiction, or eligible for a product? Which credentials did the user approve this agent to present? Can the same identity and credentials work outside one platform? Can proof-sharing, data access, and spending rights be managed separately? Can the agent carry loyalty, membership, payment preference, and verified context across services? This is where the next digital identity challenge begins: making credentials, permissions, and verification work beyond a single platform. Platform identity vs cross-platform identity Cloudflare’s announcement is best understood as a platform-native identity and wallet layer. The next layer is cross-platform identity that can help agent identity, user-approved credentials, and verification work across platforms, merchants, agents, and payment rails.
Why identity needs to travel with AI agents Agentic commerce will not depend on only one network, one wallet, or one payment rail. Agents may need to transact across: Cloudflare Wallets and x402 endpoints; card networks and tokenized card credentials; payment service providers and checkout platforms; stablecoin rails; merchant websites; enterprise AI platforms; agent platforms and copilots; loyalty, travel, finance, gaming, and commerce ecosystems. That means the identity layer needs to travel with the user and their approved credentials. A reusable digital identity layer can help agents prove only what is needed, with user consent, while supporting delegation, verification, revocation, and audit across services. The broader opportunity is not just giving agents wallets. It is giving them trusted, user-approved identity signals that can move across the services where agents act. What builders should watch next If you are building for the agentic web, watch these areas: Agent identity standardsCloudflare says agentic identity standards are changing quickly and that its approach is intentionally simple. It describes cloudflare.pay as a human-readable identifier for a keypair, rather than a full schema or verification system. This leaves room for richer standards around credentials, delegation, and agent accountability. x402 and machine-native paymentsCloudflare’s Monetization Gateway supports x402, allowing payments to be attached to HTTP requests. If adoption grows, agents may be able to pay for APIs, tools, datasets, and content without traditional checkout. Delegation and permissionsA wallet limit is one type of permission. Agents also need data permissions, proof-sharing permissions, merchant permissions, and task-specific limits. Portable credentialsFor many use cases, payment is not enough. An agent may need to prove that the user is KYC-passed, over 18, a loyalty member, a verified employee, or eligible for a regulated product. Audit and revocationAgentic commerce needs receipts: what the agent accessed, what it proved, what it bought, what it shared, and whether permissions were valid at the time. Cloudflare’s launch matters because it brings agent identity and agent payments into the same flow. It gives AI agents a way to identify themselves, act within defined limits, and pay for online resources inside Cloudflare’s ecosystem. More importantly, it shows how agentic commerce and digital identity are beginning to converge. References: Cloudflare Blog: Announcing Cloudflare Wallets; Cloudflare Press Release: Cloudflare Gives AI Agents an Identity and a Wallet; Cloudflare Blog: Announcing the Monetization Gateway; Visa: AI, stablecoin and token innovations; Mastercard: Agent Pay for Machines; Stripe: Agentic commerce payment methods; x402; W3C Verifiable Credentials; W3C Decentralized Identifiers.
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USD.AI July Recap: $81M in GPU Loans Deployed and Aave ARFC Passed
In July, The protocol deployed $81 million in GPU-backed loans, with $69.7 million entering escrow and $11.3 million moving to funded deployment. Aave governance advanced USDai and sUSDai onboarding, while new markets expanded their utility across DeFi.
At publication, sUSDai has reached a new all-time high of $349.5 million. USD.AI has $436.8 million in TVL, with sUSDai earning 8.61% gross APY and 7.46% net APY.
Loan Book Growth
Hydra Host: $54.4M Enters Escrow
On July 20, a $54.4 million loan for Hydra Host moved into escrow.
The financing backs 1,040 NVIDIA B300 GPUs and marks the beginning of Hydra Host’s season-and-sell program, the first of its kind in GPU finance.
Once the hardware is delivered, installed, and verified, the loan will enter active deployment and earn 10% APY.
QumulusAI: New $15.3M Loan and Nasdaq Listing
On July 13, a new $15.3 million loan for QumulusAI moved into escrow.
The loan is the latest draw under USD.AI’s $500 million QumulusAI facility, following previous financings of $4.3 million and $16.4 million.
QumulusAI also made its Nasdaq debut in July under the ticker QMLS.
Texas B200 Deployment Goes Live
On July 6, USD.AI executed an $11.3 million loan backed by 32 NVIDIA B200 Blackwell servers.
The 256 GPUs are now online in Texas, and capital has been released from escrow to the borrower.
The position now earns 11.5% APY, up from 7% while the capital was held in escrow.
Together, these updates show GPU-backed capital progressing from origination and escrow to verified deployment and active yield.
DeFi Expansion
Aave ARFC Passed for USDai and sUSDai
Before the vote, Chaos Labs and LlamaRisk independently reviewed USDai and sUSDai and recommended both as collateral on Aave V3 Arbitrum.
On July 24, the Aave community passed the ARFC, advancing the assets toward the remaining governance and implementation steps.
Read the Aave governance discussion or view the Snapshot vote.
New PT Markets on Morpho
On July 1, new PT-USDai-15OCT borrow markets became available on @Morpho, curated by @SteakhouseFi.
All available markets and Allo Game Season 2 points opportunities are listed on the USD.AI Opportunities page. Earn points through October 14, 2026 for S2 $CHIP airdrop.
Insights
The $2T Compute Financing Middle Market
@_ConorMoore, COO and Co-Founder of Permian Labs (developer of USD.AI), published The $2T Compute Financing Middle Market.
Over eight months, USD.AI saw $13 billion in prospective financings across more than 200 neoclouds in this category. The segment is estimated to represent $2 trillion in compute spending through 2030.
For crypto, the gap creates an opportunity to channel stablecoin capital into productive infrastructure and transform GPU-backed credit into composable onchain assets.
Read the full article.
Galaxy Research: Inference Capital Markets
Galaxy Research’s Inference Capital Markets report examines where crypto-AI is already finding real customer demand and where adoption still depends on token incentives.
It highlights GPU financing because demand comes from neoclouds that need capital, while returns come from borrower repayments rather than token emissions. The report uses USD.AI as its main example of stablecoin capital funding real AI infrastructure and bringing GPU credit onchain.
Read the full report.
Looking Ahead
With the compute middle market projected to represent $2 trillion in spending through 2030, demand for flexible GPU financing is clear. In August, USD.AI expects continued momentum across borrower growth, institutional adoption, and onchain expansion.
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USDe collateralized on @Aave on @Monad is now eligible for a 1% boost over the base promotional reward rate for a total of 5% APY, up to a cap of $250 million USDe.
Access the markets linked below:
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USDe supplied as collateral on Aave's @monad market now earns a 1% yield boost on top of the existing promotional reward rate from @ethena.
The first $250 million in USDe qualifies for the boost.
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quote: Morpho Effect in July:
🔹Morpho Midnight, Morpho's latest fixed-term, fixed-rate credit protocol, just went live
🔹@robinhoodapp integrated Morpho to power Robinhood Earn, with total deposits already approaching $300M
🔹@uniswap Earn is powered by Morpho
🔹Morpho is in DC advocating for permissionless & noncustodial infrastructure
Full newsletter: | http://x.com/i/article/2084315220353118208
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Morpho Effect in July:
🔹Morpho Midnight, Morpho's latest fixed-term, fixed-rate credit protocol, just went live 🔹@robinhoodapp integrated Morpho to power Robinhood Earn, with total deposits already approaching $300M 🔹@uniswap Earn is powered by Morpho 🔹Morpho is in DC advocating for permissionless & noncustodial infrastructure
Full newsletter:
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Reminder for Osmosis Pay card holders.
August 7 is the last day to spend on the card.
You can still withdraw your funds after the 7th as the withdrawal window stays open until September 6.
If you haven't already: withdraw what's left, and don't wait for the deadline. 👇
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Babylon Q2 2026 Quarterly Founders Call
TBV Progress, Mainnet Launch with Aave v4 Readiness, and Community Q&A
Overall Summary
This Quarterly Founders Call focused on one clear theme: Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV) are moving from research and testnet to product readiness.
@dntse and @baby_fisherman walked through the current state of TBV, the Aave v4 integration, why Aave on Ethereum as the first integration, testnet learnings, wallet and infrastructure partner readiness, BABY token direction, and the team’s current mainnet target.
The call was also a continuation of Babylon’s broader message for 2026: build real products for native Bitcoin holders, validate them with real users, and bring native Bitcoin into DeFi without asking users to wrap, bridge, or rely on intermediaries for their Bitcoin. Below is the recap.
Project Overview
David opened the call by reintroducing Babylon’s core mission: giving Bitcoin holders more ways to use their Bitcoin and contributing to the broader crypto economy.
Babylon’s first product was Bitcoin Staking. David pointed to Bitcoin Staking as proof that Bitcoin holders are willing to use native, trustless infrastructure when the product is useful enough.
The next product now is Trustless Bitcoin Vaults (TBV).
The idea behind this product is to enable native Bitcoin to be used as collateral and staying self-custodial, without relying on any third party.
The Core Problem: Bitcoin Usability in DeFi
David framed the opportunity of TBV around a basic market reality. Many Bitcoin holders want liquidity, yield, or access to financial products, but the current options if they want to borrow in DeFi are:
Transfer BTC to a custodian or bridge
Receive a wrapped BTC and then use that wrapped asset in lending protocols
These models work, but they introduce counterparty risk. It also breaks the core Bitcoin preference for self-custody and trust minimization.
The goal of TBV became to allow native Bitcoin to remain under predefined, objective withdrawal conditions, and still be usable as collateral in on-chain markets.
How TBV Works
Then David further explained TBV through a simple borrowing example.
A Bitcoin holder creates a self-custodial Bitcoin vault. The Bitcoin is locked under objective conditions that define when it can be withdrawn. The user can withdraw according to those rules. Any other withdrawal path must also satisfy those same rules. There are no discretionary intermediaries.
Babylon’s first product built on this infrastructure is native Bitcoin-backed borrowing through @aave v4.
The flow is below as presented in the call:
The key point is that the Bitcoin is not wrapped, bridged, or handed to any third party.
The Key Technical Unlock: BABE
David also explained why this is only becoming practical now.
Ethereum can verify zero-knowledge proofs directly through smart contracts. Bitcoin does not have the same smart contract model. Previous approaches to verifying a zero-knowledge proof on Bitcoin required roughly one gigabyte of data, which David said would consume around 225 Bitcoin blocks.
Instead, Babylon’s research team made the breakthrough behind BABE that allows zk proofs to be verified efficiently on Bitcoin. This allows the Ethereum state (the fact that you repaid your loan) to be verified and unlock your Bitcoin on the Bitcoin chain without any committee or any third party to make that decision for you.
David connected this to Babylon’s recent research progress at the Science of Blockchain Conference. He first described the improvement as 1,000x, then corrected himself and said it was closer to 10,000x compared with the version Babylon had presented one year earlier.
https://x.com/babylonlabs_io/status/2082092018143310266?s=20
What TBV Unlocks Beyond Lending
During his presentation, Fisher framed TBV as programmable Bitcoin collateral.
The first application is borrowing stablecoins and other on-chain assets against native Bitcoin. But the same collateral infrastructure could support a wider range of products over time, including:
Fisher said the team has received positive feedback and market validation from builders and potential users. David emphasized that TBV is not limited to Ethereum or lending. The broader vision is objective conditions predefined to native Bitcoin, rather than intermediaries.
Why Babylon Is Starting With Lending
@Tristan0x15 asked why Babylon chose lending as the first application when TBV could support many categories.
David’s answer was the team needed to validate the technology through one real product, not attempt to support every possible use case at once.
Lending was the natural starting point because it is one of the largest categories in DeFi. Aave is the largest lending protocol, and Ethereum is the largest smart contract ecosystem. He also connected this back to Bitcoin’s original payment vision. If a user can borrow USDC against Bitcoin, they may be able to use the borrowed stablecoin without selling their Bitcoin and without relying on an intermediary.
Current Borrowing Options for Bitcoin Holders
Fisher compared once again Babylon’s TBV approach with the two main options Bitcoin holders have today.
1. Centralized lenders
Users can borrow through exchanges, OTC desks, or centralized lending providers. Fisher said these products often charge borrowing rates of 7% or more, with some OTC providers above 10%.
They also usually require users to transfer Bitcoin to a third party and often require identity verification.
2. Wrapped BTC in DeFi
Users can also wrap Bitcoin and use it in protocols like Aave or @morpho. Fisher referenced borrowing rates around 3% to 5% on those protocols at the time of the call.
This option gives users transparent on-chain markets, but it still requires wrapped Bitcoin. That means users either transfer Bitcoin to a third party or acquire wrapped Bitcoin elsewhere.
Babylon’s goal is to combine the better parts of both models:
Native BTC collateral
Self-custody
Transparent on-chain lending
No wrapped BTC intermediary dependency
Aave Integration & Go-to-Market Progress
In the next part of the call, Fisher then gave a detailed update on the Aave integration.
Listing a new collateral asset on Aave involves three governance stages:
Temperature Check
Aave Request for Comment (ARFC)
Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP)
The Temperature Check passed on June 10, 2026, with what Fisher described as strong support from the Aave community. He also noted that Aave founder @StaniKulechov had replied in support of the proposal, and that community members described the product as the type of Bitcoin product they had been waiting for.
At the time of the call, Babylon was preparing for the ARFC, which Fisher estimated would happen around mid-August.
The team is working with Aave Labs, LlamaRisk, and Certora on final reviews of the code and collateral parameters. If the ARFC passes, Babylon will determine a mainnet date before submitting the AIP required to activate the integration.
Fisher grouped the go-to-market work into three areas:
1. User Acquisition
Babylon launched the TBV testnet in late May and has been working directly with Bitcoin holders since then.
Fisher named @Bedrock_DeFi, @GoMining, and 84 Labs @pumpspace10000 as participants, each with commitments up to 1,000 BTC. The team expects more announcements as the testnet and go-to-market work continue.
2. Distribution Partners
Wallet support is a key dependency because TBV requires additional cryptographic signatures and secret generation beyond a standard Bitcoin transaction.
Fisher grouped wallet partners into three categories.
Hardware wallets
@Ledger
@KeystoneWallet
@OneKeyHQ
Software wallets
@unisat_wallet
@wallet
MPC wallets
@utila_io
The broader point: different wallets serve different Bitcoin holder segments.
Hardware wallets tend to serve conservative retail users and larger individual holders.
Software wallets are more common among active individual users.
MPC wallets are more common among institutions.
Supporting all three categories helps TBV serve both retail and institutional Bitcoin holders.
3. Infrastructure Partners
TBV also requires an ecosystem of infrastructure participants. Fisher mentioned several roles, including:
Arbitrage and liquidation participants
Vault Providers
Universal Challengers
Governance and Security participants
He said Babylon has made strong progress preparing these roles and is confident the system will be ready by mainnet.
Testnet Update: What the Team Has Learned
Fisher shared the current state of the TBV testnet.
The testnet launched on May 26 and had been running for two months and four days at the time of the call. More than 2,000 vaults had been created.
Fisher thanked the community members for stress testing the system and said the testnet has already exercised every stage of the vault lifecycle:
Active vaults
Closure
Redemption
Expiration
Liquidation
Babylon also completed its first round of community testing. Some noticeable insights include:
70+ community members participated
Users created vaults and tested key actions
Participants looked for edge cases
The team distributed about $5,000 in USDC rewards
Fisher shared the testnet feedback results and found that the main area for improvement was vault creation. Tristan added that external testing is valuable because users surface issues internal teams often miss. David also thanked participants and said user feedback is one of the most important inputs for a startup building a new product.
Fisher previewed a redesigned version of the testnet interface. He described it as more professional, more institutional, and more intuitive than the current version. Tristan clarified that the demo was running internally on Babylon’s development environment.
In this update, users will be able to understand what is happening during the vault creation process more clearly, especially when Bitcoin confirmation time makes the flow feel slow.
BABY Update: Validators, Delegation, and Value Accrual
The call also covered the BABY token and validator ecosystem.
Fisher noted that several validators have recently announced their plans to leave the validator business, including Cosmostation and other large validators.
Babylon views this as an opportunity to revisit the validator set and foundation delegation strategy.
One area under discussion is reducing the validator set while prioritizing Babylon Foundation delegations toward contributors and participants that support the TBV ecosystem. That could include some of the infrastructure partners required for the protocol to operate.
The logic is as follows:
Foundation delegation can help important ecosystem participants enter the network.
If TBV gains traction, those participants should eventually acquire and stake BABY themselves.
Over time, BABY tokenomics should become more aligned with TBV usage and value creation.
Fisher also said Babylon continues to work with @a16zcrypto on TBV and BABY value accrual design. The team is exploring how value generated by TBV activity could flow into the Babylon ecosystem, while running simulations to test whether the designs are sustainable.
The direction was clear: connect BABY more directly to adoption of TBV and the value created by the protocol.
What to Expect Over the Next Three Months
Community Q&A Highlights
Here are some of the highlights from the community Q&A.
- Is Babylon exploring AI applications for TBVs?
Yes, but not for the initial launch.
David said Babylon already uses AI extensively in development, including engineering productivity and internal security auditing. He also said the team is researching how AI systems can be given enough information about a protocol’s intended security properties to help evaluate whether the code satisfies those objectives.
Longer term, Babylon is thinking about how AI agents could interact with TBV. But David was careful about the risks, especially prompt injection attacks that could expose private keys.
Fisher summarized the direction as making the infrastructure “agent-friendly,” but this is still early.
- Is October still the mainnet target?
Yes, October is the current target.
Fisher said the team expects internal security reviews, external audits, testnet work, and the bug bounty program to be substantially complete by then.
But he repeated that launch timing depends on readiness across code, audits, go-to-market, macro conditions, and security risk.
Tristan noted that Babylon has worked with six external audit firms and also uses an internal AI auditing system. David said different auditors are needed because the protocol has several distinct technical areas, such as:
BABE cryptography
Cross-chain protocol design
Smart contracts for the Aave integration
Fisher added that, including reviews from Aave Labs, LlamaRisk, Certora, and others, the protocol has gone through roughly ten separate audits or technical reviews.
- Will current Bitcoin Staking users become TBV users?
Some may, but not necessarily immediately.
David said the composition of Bitcoin Staking participants has changed since launch. Many current participants access Babylon through exchanges, and exchanges tend to adopt new infrastructure more conservatively.
He expects some current staking users to migrate to TBV over time, but also expects TBV to attract new users, just as Bitcoin Staking did.
- What are Bitcoin holders and capital allocators saying?
Fisher said the product is fundamentally a borrowing product, but users usually borrow for a reason.
From Babylon’s conversations, many Bitcoin holders are interested in generating yield while keeping custody of their Bitcoin. The product gives them self-custodial Bitcoin plus access to borrowing at competitive on-chain rates.
Users may then choose to deploy borrowed stablecoins into yield strategies. Fisher did not guarantee any specific outcome, but noted that lower borrowing costs can improve the spread available to users.
David said one of the strongest reactions from potential users has been interest in building products without a trusted third party. This may be especially important for Bitcoin holders, while institutions are often more accustomed to custodians.
- Is Babylon a product company or an infrastructure company?
David’s answer: both.
He does not see infrastructure and product as separate categories. Infrastructure is also a product.
Babylon is currently focused on one specific product: native Bitcoin-backed borrowing through Aave v4 using TBV. After launch, user feedback will help determine whether Babylon expands vertically into more products or horizontally by supporting more builders.
Tristan summarized the approach as using a product to validate infrastructure.
- What comes after borrowing?
Fisher said the immediate priority is expanding the borrowing product.
Two examples already being explored with ecosystem partners are:
Fixed-rate borrowing with @aegis_im
Covered call products built on the borrowing capacity enabled by Aave
Longer term, Babylon would like to see additional products built on native Bitcoin collateral, including:
Credit cards
Bitcoin-backed stablecoins
Insurance products
The team is already speaking with builders exploring those opportunities.
Closing Thought
TBV is moving from concept to product.
Babylon has already proven demand for native Bitcoin infrastructure through Bitcoin Staking. Now the team is applying the same trustless design philosophy to borrowing, lending, and broader BTCFi.
The next few months are about execution - improved testnet UX, further community testing, security reviews, Aave governance, BABY value accrual work, and a mainnet launch target in October.
With these milestones, Babylon’s native Bitcoin-backed borrowing product could become the entry point for a much larger TBV ecosystem.
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What's Happening on Monad? (Aug 1)
Nitro Demo Day Nitro wrapped Cohort 1 Demo Day in NYC, with 100+ investors in attendance. Teams that pitched: @crshmarket - livestream prediction markets @BlinkCashX - stablecoin deposit layer for consumer apps @blend_money - compliance-focused account layer for platforms to build on @joinCero - an app where spending earns rewards and builds credit @TradeJanus - financial OS for global trade @40acres_Finance - an open market for credit @ForkastGG - Cursor for trading agents https://x.com/monad/status/2081751778756870633 Big things coming! Keep an eye on these teams. Applications for Cohort 2 are coming soon. Mera Category Labs introduced Mera, an open-source library for passkey onboarding: https://mera.category.xyz/ Mera allows apps to prompt users to create a crypto account using only a passkey, without relying on smart accounts or any backend logic. The goal is simple: let apps onboard users with the same flow people already know from Face ID and Touch ID. Ecosystem Activity The Monad Economy update showed $800m in TVL, 30+ fiat onramps, institutional lending and RWA markets, and $15B in DEX volume: https://blog.monad.xyz/blog/monad-economy-eight-months-in A few more highlights: The App Hub passed 130 listed apps, with new listings this week including @ethena and @saturn_credit. There are now five Prop AMMs duking it out on https://mpamm.wtf/. Metric has the highest 7d volume, followed by Hanji and LFJ POE. @pendle_fi got up to $150M in deposits on Monad, while @avantprotocol hit $150M globally, a large amount of which is on Monad. The @aave Monad market is up to $500M in total deposits, h/t @Token_Logic @KuruExchange's Agent Arena concluded, with @0xCal1 winning the championship. Seven-day averages: Daily transactions: 3.82M TPS: 44.23 Active wallets: 14,960 Stablecoin marketcap: $506M Spot daily volume: $33M Perps daily volume: $60M Builder Shipping DeltaV's weekly shipping update had more of the same builder motion: Accountable launched its first AUSD vault on Morpho and put YieldApp live on Binance Wallet, LeverUp reported $35.77M in 7-day volume and $2.39M TVL, and Sentry set a public beta date. Check out the full updates: https://x.com/DeltaV_xyz/status/2082837299113398454 Category Research at SBC Category Labs was highly active at the Science of Blockchain Conference, with 6 of the 34 talks at SBC (including 3 of the 4 in the Consensus track) and a presentation at the MEV Workshop. Category research was also the topic of a Whitepaper Reading Club session - on Cadence, Category's new MCP protocol. Lastly, Category's @liobaheimbach chaired the DeFi session at SBC. Here are all of the papers: Forget-IT: Optimal Good-Case Latency For Information-Theoretic BFT [paper] (talk by @komasito55) Timing Games in Responsive Consensus Protocols [paper] (talk by @kalpturer, PhD student and former Category intern) MonadBFT: Fast, Responsive, Fork-Resistant Streamlined Consensus [paper] (talk by @MohammadMJalal1) Weighted Batched Threshold Encryption with Applications to Mempool Resilience [paper] (talk by Amit Agarwal) Blockspace Under Pressure: An Analysis of Spam MEV on High-Throughput Blockchains [paper] (talk by @0xWenhaoWang) Multiple Sides of 36 Coins: Measuring Peer-to-Peer Infrastructure Across Cryptocurrencies [paper] (talk by @liobaheimbach) Cadence: Extreme Pipelining with Multiple Concurrent Proposers [paper] (whitepaper reading club) EVM Workloads in the Wild: Evidence for Multi-Dimensional Gas Metering, State Growth, Delayed Execution, and Parallelism [paper] (talk by @liobaheimbach) Category Labs is making rapid strides in research that will improve transaction execution fairness, performance, and latency. https://x.com/category_xyz/status/2081415033204903963 v0.15.2 Rolled out to Testnet Monad version v0.15.2 was rolled out to Testnet this week; changelog here. This release includes more preparatory work for MIP-8 and Deterministic Raptorcast.
MOST for Independent Developers The Monad Foundation also announced MOST (Monad Open Source Track), an effort to support independent developers who are actively shipping open-source code by subsidizing AI tokens: https://x.com/monad_dev/status/2081765376904614331 BuildAnything @buildanythingso wrapped up its first hackathon last week. Over 600 projects were submitted! https://x.com/buildanythingso/status/2080660114122449077