Aave Labs, the organization behind the largest decentralized lending platform Aave AAVE$91.13, is rolling out vaults to help fintech companies offer yield on stablecoins without requiring users to interact directly with crypto rails.
The new Stable Vaults let wallets, exchanges and payment providers embed stablecoin earning through a single connection. Behind the scenes, the vaults allocate deposits across approved decentralized finance (DeFi) lending strategies while the customer continues using a familiar app interface.
“Stable Vaults make predictable stablecoin earning simple to plug into any fintech application,” Aave founder Stani Kulechov said in a statement.
The move comes as stablecoins has become increasingly part of everyday payments and digital banking. As more fintech firms adopt stablecoins for moving money globally, many are looking for ways to let customers earn a return on idle balances without leaving blockchain rails or navigating crypto-native applications.
Vaults have emerged to fill that role. They are a piece of infrastructure that automatically move users’ deposits between lending and yield strategies based on predefined rules, allowing investors to earn returns without actively managing positions or monitoring markets.
More than $7.2 billion in cross-chain and wrapped assets have migrated from LayerZero to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) since May, with Mantle becoming the latest project to replace LayerZero for high-value token transfers.
Mantle said it is migrating its Super Portal, which it co-developed with Bybit, from LayerZero’s Omnichain Fungible Token (OFT) standard to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Token (CCT) standard.
LayerZero and Chainlink CCIP both let token holders move assets between blockchains, a basic requirement as crypto markets spread across competing networks.
The infrastructure matters because bridges between different blockchains have become one of crypto’s largest security risks, with a single failure able to expose hundreds of millions of dollars in user assets.
The portal enables transfers of the MNT token between Ethereum and Solana, with support for additional blockchain networks planned.
The migration includes MNT, the native token of Mantle’s network, which has more than $2.5 billion in value locked. Mantle’s move pushes the total value of announced migrations from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP above $7.24 billion.
Revolut, a crypto-friendly digital banking platform, said its Tether USDt (USDT) delisting will not affect all customers globally.
The delisting will affect Revolut customers in the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland, while support for the stablecoin will continue in other markets, a spokesperson for the company told Cointelegraph.
Revolut said the decision followed a review of its crypto services and risk considerations under the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA).
“Revolut is discontinuing support for USDT for customers in the EEA following a periodic review of our cryptocurrency offering in light of the evolving EU regulatory framework under MiCA,” the spokesperson said.
Revolut’s decision reflects a broader trend across the EU, where crypto platforms have continued to phase out USDT after Tether, the issuer of the $184 billion stablecoin, chose not to seek authorization under the bloc’s MiCA framework.
News of Revolut’s USDT delisting first surfaced on Friday, when the company notified some European users that it planned to delist the stablecoin from its platform by Aug. 31, 2026.
The company added that the process began earlier, as Revolut had already removed USDT from its Revolut X trading platform for EEA customers. The latest step completes the removal of USDT from its EEA retail offering, the spokesperson said.
MiCA scope raises questions over affected markets
MiCA is an EU regulation marked as having EEA relevance, meaning it is expected to extend to the broader EEA, which includes Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein alongside EU member states, according to official documents from the European Securities and Markets Authority.
Switzerland, which Revolut included among the affected markets, is not part of the EU or the EEA and is not directly covered by MiCA. Revolut did not explain why Swiss customers were included.
Related: ESMA turns spotlight on crypto custody risks after MiCA transition
Revolut did not provide a list of jurisdictions where it currently offers crypto services, and had not responded to Cointelegraph’s request for clarification on the scope of its offering by the time of publication.
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Revolut originally launched crypto trading in 2017 and later expanded crypto services in EEA countries in 2024.
Magazine: Has Bitcoin bottomed for this cycle? Analysts say ‘not yet’
Bitcoin (BTC) institutional demand is “not yet strong” despite positive inflows to the US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Key points:
Bitcoin ETF flows reverse a ten-day losing streak, but analysis warns that demand remains weak.
An “overwhelming” sell-off is nonetheless over, says Swissblock.
Overall BTC demand shows a clear gap between spot and derivatives trends.
Swissblock on Bitcoin ETF outflows: “The storm has passed”
In new X commentary on Thursday, crypto investment company Swissblock called an end to the “most overwhelming” ETF sell-off in history.
“The storm has passed: The most overwhelming ETF distribution wave of this bear market has ended,” it wrote.
“As Bitcoin Risk continues easing from Capitulation Risk, Spot ETF flows have turned slightly positive again.”
Beginning June 17, the ETFs saw ten straight days of net outflows totaling $2.7 billion, data from UK-based investment company Farside Investors confirms.
The cohort then began to reverse the trend, and saw over $500 million of net inflows over three trading days before a net $84.9 million outflow for Wednesday.
US spot Bitcoin ETF netflows (screenshot). Source: Farside Investors
Swissblock described the results as a “caveat” to the recovery signal.
“ETF accumulation is positive, but not yet strong. Institutional conviction is not returning with full force,” it added.
“Has the storm passed? Or is Bitcoin simply in the eye of the storm?”
US spot Bitcoin ETF netflows. Source: Swissblock/X
Bitcoin spot markets fail to match futures demand rebound
As Cointelegraph reported, analysis sees overall demand as a key stumbling block on the way to a bullish market recovery.
Related: BTC speculators in focus as analysis says ‘textbook Bitcoin bottom’ is underway
In fresh research for onchain analytics platform CryptoQuant this week, contributor IT Tech saw conditions partially improving, albeit with a clear divide between spot and derivatives markets.
“A week ago, the 30-day cumulative demand was close to -500K BTC. Today, it’s recovered to roughly -75K BTC,” they summarized.
In that time, futures demand went from -295,000 BTC to a “slightly positive” figure, while spot demand stayed negative.
“This tells us something important. The latest bounce has been driven primarily by derivatives traders, while spot buyers are still relatively cautious,” IT Tech commented.
“Historically, the strongest and most sustainable rallies begin when both futures and spot demand move higher together.”
Brazil’s B3 stock exchange has unveiled options on bitcoin BTC$62,676.14, ether (ETH) and solana (SOL) futures, expanding its regulated crypto derivatives offerings.
The contracts bec+ame available for trading on July 6, according to a B3 circular. They include call and put options on bitcoin futures denominated in Brazilian reais, while ether and solana futures are denominated in U.S. dollars.
The options settle into the underlying futures contracts, not the tokens themselves. B3 said the products do not involve custody, transfer or administration of spot cryptoassets.
The contracts trade independently from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. local time, according to B3’s derivatives trading schedule. Exercise is automatic at expiration when the option finishes in the money, unless the holder blocks exercise.
The offering gives traders and asset managers a local venue to hedge crypto exposure, trade volatility and build structured positions without using offshore crypto options markets.
It adds another instrument to B3’s push into regulated crypto products, after the exchange moved to list bitcoin options and ether and solana futures and later prepared bitcoin-linked event contracts.
B3’s bitcoin futures contract is denominated in reais. Its ether and solana futures are denominated in U.S. dollars. All three reference Nasdaq crypto indexes, according to the announcement.
Singapore’s state-owned investment firm, Temasek Holdings, said it will prioritize AI investments over crypto due to regulatory uncertainty and the lingering impact of a $275 million write-off from the collapse of crypto exchange FTX in 2022.
The firm, with an investment portfolio valued around 518 billion Singapore dollars ($400 billion), plans to increase its AI exposure from 6% of its portfolio in the first quarter of 2026 to 15% by 2031, Nagi Hamiyeh, president of Temasek Global Investments, told CNBC on Wednesday The AI investment cycle has just begun and will continue for decades, he said, while cautioning that valuations in some parts of the industry have run ahead of fundamentals.
Temasek, the state’s largest investment vehicle after GIC Private Ltd., is still dealing with the hit it took following the collapse of FTX. That implosion and other failures exposed weak consumer protections in Singapore, prompting the central bank, the Monetary Authority (MAS), to swing toward stricter supervision, a move that resulted in higher compliance costs and slower licensing, among other challenges.
The Bank of Japan (BOJ) may raise its benchmark interest rate rapidly this year, as the yen slides, eventually pushing it above 2%.
That’s the latest warning from a former Bank of Japan official Tsutomu Watanabe, an economics professor at the University of Tokyo who left the central bank in 1999, according to Bloomberg.
As of now, the official rate is at 1%, the result of recent hikes, and the 10-year benchmark government bond yield hovers above 2.8%, the highest in at least three decades, according to data source TradingView.
Meanwhile, the Japanese yen continues to slide despite recent hikes and hardening Japanese government bond yields. It has depreciated by 60% to 162.36 per U.S. dollar since early 2021, a major decline for one of the most traded currencies in the world. Also, it has dropped 3% so far this year.
Faster potential interest rate hikes by the BOJ may put a floor under the yen, or potentially lift it higher. The question then is whether it will help bitcoin BTC$62,810.94 or work against it.
“The under-covered angle is that this metric is documenting the end of the exchange-custody era,” Ben Nadareski, CEO of Solstice, said. The bigger story may not be lower exchange balances themselves, but where those assets are moving to.
“Assets are leaving trading venues for two destinations: regulated custody on one side, productive onchain positions on the other,” he said.
Moreover, the argument that bull runs always follow a steady decline in exchange balance is not necessarily true. For instance, in 2022, the supply on exchanges remained low, yet prices crashed hard.
HODLing is real
While the indicator may not be as dependable as before, it doesn’t change the fact that BTC is being accumulated by a variety of market participants in anticipation of a price increase.
“Over 130 public companies now hold bitcoin on their balance sheets, and spot ETFs have absorbed a growing share into regulated custody,” Zalan said.
According to Bitcoin Treasuries, public companies hold about 1,264,579 BTC, private ones 281,752, government entities 649,954, DeFi and other protocols 369,595, while ETFs and exchanges have 1,622,533. Its data also shows treasury companies hold about 7.252 million ETH.
Combined with nearly 7 million bitcoin in dormant wallets, a total of just under 11.2 million bitcoin sits outside active trade, which is about 56.5% of the currently circulating supply of roughly 20.05 million.
U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs lost a net $85 million on Wednesday, ending a three-day inflow run that had pulled in roughly $509 million, per SoSoValue data. Ether ETFs took in about $70 million the same day, a fifth straight session of inflows.
The bitcoin outflow was broad. BlackRock’s IBIT shed roughly $59 million, Grayscale’s GBTC lost nearly $64 million, and Fidelity’s FBTC gave up about $15 million.
Grayscale’s mini BTC fund was the only one in the green at nearly $53 million. Total bitcoin ETF assets fell to about $75 billion.
Ether’s flows came from a narrower base but kept pointing the same way. Fidelity’s FETH led with roughly $69 million, with VanEck’s ETHV adding just over $1 million and every other fund flat. Ether ETF assets sit at about $9 billion.
The split matches the price tape. Bitcoin traded near $62,300 and ether near $1,740, both down about 3% on the day, though ether has outperformed over the past two weeks as the Lean Ethereum roadmap and returning ETF demand gave it a story bitcoin has lacked.
Blockchain security experts are urging crypto protocols to reaudit their smart contracts as AI tooling is making it easier for hackers to identify vulnerabilities more quickly than ever before.
“Our data argues for continuous review rather than a one-time audit,” TRM Labs head of policy Ari Redbord told Cointelegraph, adding that “attack techniques are moving faster than a single audit from launch day can account for.”
“An audit built for last year’s attack patterns leaves a protocol exposed to this year’s as bad actors are changing up.”
CertiK reported Monday that hackers stole another $1.32 billion in the first half of 2026 and have adopted increasingly sophisticated strategies in response to strengthened security measures across the industry.
One of those strategies has been to revisit old codebases, CertiK said, adding that the attackers’ efforts have likely been “aided by improved automated tooling for identifying latent vulnerabilities at scale.”
One of the most recent incidents involved privacy-focused blockchain Zcash, where Shielded Labs security engineer Taylor Hornby found a major security vulnerability using a custom auditing agent powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8. The bug has since been patched.
The security vulnerability, which existed for four years, could have enabled undetectable counterfeiting inside the Orchard shielded pool, one of the network’s key privacy features.
“The window of maximum vulnerability does not close after launch,” CertiK warned. “Projects operating legacy infrastructure should treat reauditing as a recurring operational requirement rather than a one-time exercise conducted at deployment.”
In December, Anthropic conducted a study finding that AI agents found $4.6 million worth of exploitable vulnerabilities in smart contracts. Meanwhile, there is more than $72.3 billion worth of crypto locked across hundreds of DeFi protocols, giving hackers plenty of incentive to exploit vulnerable smart contracts.
SlowMist’s estimate of total crypto losses from blockchain hacks. Source: SlowMist
Defunct crypto protocols targeted
On June 14, hackers exploited a smart contract vulnerability to steal $2.1 million from the Aztec Connect, which had been shut down since March 2023.
Five days later, a smart contract on the decentralized exchange mySwap was exploited for $300,000, even after the mySwap user interface had been closed to new liquidity deposits for more than six months.
A more fortunate event took place in May, when a white hat, known as “0xflorent,” helped recover 1,003 Ether (ETH) worth over $1.72 million from 48 investors involved in the Hong Coin (HONG) initial coin offering in 2016.
Related: ‘All DeFi unsafe’ claim sparks AI security debate after April hack surge
The ICO failed to launch after missing its funding target, and the funds remained locked in the smart contract due to a bug in the auto-refund function.
Reaudits only part of the equation, TRM says
The work doesn’t stop with hardening the codebase and infrastructure, Redbord said, explaining that the broader industry and regulators need to continue finding ways to mitigate malicious cyberactivity from North Korea and disrupt Chinese money laundering networks:
“Protocols can lock their doors, but someone still has to go after the actor breaking in.”
Features: DeFi hacks shake institutional confidence as risks outpace yields
