Aave's DAO voted Monday to advance the V4 protocol toward deployment on Ethereum mainnet, with more than 645,000 votes in favor and less than one vote against. The proposal is expected to move next to an Aave Improvement Proposal (AIP), a binding onchain vote to deploy and activate V4 on Ethereum.

Banks are ramping up tests of tokenized deposits to move commercial bank money onto blockchain-based payment and settlement rails. The RWA.io report says these bank-issued liabilities are developing alongside stablecoins and CBDCs within an emerging onchain cash stack, with multiple pilots underway in Europe. It also notes the ECB's parallel work on digital euro infrastructure, including Pontes, which is scheduled to launch in Q3 2026.

The European Central Bank has opened applications for two industry workstreams on how a potential digital euro would operate across ATMs, payment terminals and existing acceptance infrastructure. The effort focuses on offline functionality and interoperability with European payment standards, alongside proposed testing, certification and approval frameworks for digital-euro payment solutions.

SBI VC Trade, the digital asset arm of SBI Holdings, will start a USDC lending service in Japan on Thursday, allowing individual users to lend Circle's stablecoin to the platform under fixed-term contracts. Participants can apply to lend up to 5,000 USDC per offering, earning interest while bearing direct counterparty risk as SBI may re-lend the assets and user funds lack bank-style segregation protections.

Decentralized autonomous organization governance platform Tally will begin winding down operations at the end of March after five years, with its co-founder citing the lack of a sustainable business model for DAO tooling. The platform says it has handled governance for hundreds of organizations, served more than 1 million users and processed over $1 billion in payments, but will not move ahead with a planned token sale. Industry participants argue the closure reflects broader challenges in DAO coordination, where high usage has not consistently translated into revenue.

In a Monday research note shared with Cointelegraph, Bernstein said Bitcoin's recent rebound is being supported by a growing base of long-term holders as US spot ETF inflows and corporate treasury buying reshape the asset's ownership. The firm noted that BTC and ETH outperformed gold and major equity indexes over the past week, while BTC traded around $73,208, up more than 8% over seven days amid Middle East tensions. Bernstein added that roughly 60% of Bitcoin supply has been inactive for over a year, and that ETFs, exchanges and public companies collectively hold several million BTC worth over $200 billion.

On Friday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he is no longer closely aligned with the Future of Life Institute, which received Shiba Inu (SHIB) tokens from him in 2021 that were later cashed out for around $500 million. He explained that the group’s focus shifted from a wide agenda on existential risks to cultural and political advocacy around AI, and he criticized proposals that rely on safeguards in biosynthesis tools and AI models as too fragile. Buterin added that he had expected the institute to liquidate no more than $10–25 million worth of the SHIB instead of the much larger amount it ultimately realized.

Chinese investors defrauded in the Zhimin Qian scheme are urging the UK High Court to overturn a proposed redress plan for more than 61,000 seized Bitcoin, arguing it could strip them of gains in the crypto's value. The holdings, seized in a London money-laundering probe linked to Qian and associate Jian Wen, are now valued at about 3.2 billion pounds, while a July hearing will decide whether English or Chinese law governs recovery claims.

In 2026, the value of tokenized real-world assets on public blockchains has expanded about 66% to roughly $23.6 billion, led by tokenized funds, gold, commodities and equities. Data indicates tokenized funds now represent the largest segment at $10.5 billion, while market participants highlight growing demand for assets that can trade and settle around the clock.