ChainCatcher reports that decentralized trading infrastructure provider 0x said it has routed 81.92 million trades so far this year, totaling $42.67 billion in volume, with roughly 70% tapping Uniswap liquidity. 0x warned of a spike in malicious Uniswap v4 hooks. According to the firm, some hooks display one price when a quote is requested but settle at a different price, misleading aggregators, wallets, and trading apps to extract value from users. After reviewing 84,163 hooks across six chains, 0x classified 19.4% as safe, 54.2% as malicious, and 26.4% as potentially malicious. It said routing through malicious v4 hooks can leave users receiving up to 50% less than the quoted amount. 0x cited examples of fee extraction tied to these hooks: the Base chain’s ETH/NVDAc pool has accrued about $143,000 in fees, while the BNB chain’s USDT/WBNB pool has collected roughly $18,600. 0x said routing providers should ensure quoted amounts reflect actual execution, applications need the ability to quickly filter suspicious routes, and users should recognize that the best quote only matters if the route is secure. The company added that it has deployed detection and pool-auditing measures to keep such pools out of its routing paths.

Balancer said a governance proposal authored by Marcus Hardt has been published on its forum, calling for the protocol to be wound down and for the project's treasury to be distributed to BAL holders, Huoxing Finance reported. The team said discussion is now underway, with a Snapshot vote expected to run from Sept. 25 to 29. Balancer added that operations remain unchanged for now, and liquidity pools and withdrawals continue to function normally. Any wind-down steps would be taken only after the vote result is known.

Ethereum staking has climbed to a new all-time high after the network's exit queue fell to zero. More than 43 million ETH are now staked on the Ethereum mainnet, the highest level on record, representing over 35% of total ETH supply. Validator Queue data also shows no ETH currently queued for unstaking, while more than 1.78 million ETH are waiting to be staked.

Token Terminal data shows Ethereum's Layer 1 processed a record 203.9 million transactions in Q2 2026, a 68.4% increase from a year earlier, with average throughput rising to an all-time high of 25.9 transactions per second (TPS). The ETH staking rate reached a new peak of 32%, and the number of ETH-holding addresses climbed to a record 312.1 million. User activity softened over the quarter: monthly active users fell 30% quarter over quarter to 9.2 million. Network monetization strengthened, with on-chain fees up 31.6% to $52.5 million and ETH burn revenue jumping 112% to $17.1 million. Tokenized assets on Ethereum averaged about $203.1 billion in market value during the quarter, including roughly $176.8 billion in stablecoins and $20.8 billion in tokenized funds.

Balancer ($BAL) holders are set to vote on a proposal to wind down the protocol and distribute its treasury. Under the plan, liquidity pools would switch to withdrawals-only on 30 October. A Snapshot vote is scheduled for September 25–29, and contributor notification is already underway through October 31. The proposal outlines a treasury distribution beginning at the end of May 2027. At that point, holders would burn $BAL to receive a pro rata in-kind share of treasury assets. The proposal cites a sharp deterioration in operating economics: @Balancer's monthly protocol revenue slid to about $30,000 in August from roughly $97,000 in June, while monthly costs were around $150,000. The treasury is estimated at a minimum of $9 million.

S&P Global has led a strategic investment in crypto data provider Kaiko, extending the company's Series B financing to $110 million. Kaiko said the round brought in a roster of strategic investors including BNP Paribas, Bpifrance, Broadridge, Canton Foundation, Coinbase Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Nasdaq Ventures, Royal Bank of Canada, Stellar, and Susquehanna. Anthemis, Point Nine and Revaia also participated. The participating institutions have joined a Kaiko-chaired working group tasked with shaping the data standards used for tokenized products. Kaiko has recently expanded through acquisitions, buying Cometh and Amberdata, the latter previously its largest U.S. competitor.

StoneX attributes Robinhood Chain's swift expansion to the brokerage's brand recognition, its permissionless architecture, subsidized gas fees, and an intensifying feedback loop between memecoins and tokenized equities. Since launching on July 1, the network's total value locked has risen to nearly $1 billion. Daily DEX trading volume hit $1.88 billion on Sunday. $HOOD

THE BLOCK reports that StoneX says Robinhood Chain's fast traction reflects Robinhood's brand pull, a permissionless setup, subsidized gas fees, and a reinforcing loop between memecoins and tokenized equities. Since launching on July 1, the network's total value locked has risen to nearly $1 billion. Daily DEX volume hit $1.88 billion on Sunday. $HOOD

Onchain data cited by ME News shows that 1.4175 billion WLFI tokens—matching the holdings previously disclosed by U.S. President Donald Trump—were routed via a multisig transaction into a vesting smart contract on May 19, setting the first defined timetable for exiting a position estimated at about $800 million. Entry into the vesting plan triggers an immediate 10% token burn and enforces a two-year cliff, followed by a three-year linear unlock. Based on this schedule, the earliest potential sale date is May 2028. The data indicates six internal wallets funded the contract. The largest deposited 1.575 billion WLFI and retained 1.4175 billion after the burn, aligning with Trump's disclosed amount. Two wallets each deposited 375 million tokens, while three wallets each deposited 225 million. The vesting contract is now the largest single WLFI holder, with 4.61 billion tokens—close to half of total supply. WLFI total supply has fallen from a peak of 10 billion to 9.67 billion. The vesting framework was introduced through a governance proposal approved around May 6 with support from 11,537 wallets. Founder token holders were able to opt in, converting an indefinite lockup into a two-year cliff plus a three-year vesting period. World Liberty Financial spokesperson David Wachsman said the community backed the founders' token burn, adding that co-founders moved tokens into the smart contract to complete the burn and accepted the strictest lockup terms among token holders. (Source: ChainCatcher)