OVERVIEW

Zcash Woke Up And Chose Violence ⚔️

Before we dive in, here’s today’s crypto market heatmap:

And here’s a look at crypto’s total market and altcoin market cap charts:

ZCASH
Zcash Is Killing It 🤯 

If there’s something that’s absolutely killing it today, it’s $ZEC.X ( ▲ 61.72% ). I take that back. No, I’ll add to it. Zcash is kicking ass today, last week, and last month.

Zcash is currently at $123, up +66% today as of 1430 EST. When I started the draft for this story, it was at $92. So who know what it will look like later.

Let’s just look at how insane the performance has been for a crypto that’s almost 10-years old.

• Highest high in almost 3.5 years (May 7, 2022)

• Highest volume traded day since March 8, 2022, which makes today the second highest volume day since May 12, 2021.

• Last week’s close was the highest of 2025 and it made a new 2025 high. 

• Septembers close was the highest monthly close in almost 3.5 years (May, 2022) and the best performing month over 5.5 years (best since January 2020)

• There’s plenty of the week left, but if today was the end of the week, this would be the best performing week in Zcash’s history.

There’s a lot of the week left, October and Q4 just started, let’s keep an eye on this old dog and see how he ends up in a month. 📆 

INJECTIVE PROTOCOL
Injective Just Flipped On Pre‑IPO Perps. Private Markets ⚡️

Today’s episode of Things That Probably Keep Compliance Up At Night: Helix, the $INJ.X ( ▲ 3.87% )-based DEX, turned on on-chain Pre‑IPO perpetuals. :

First listing is OpenAI. Up to 5x leverage. Orders settle on-chain. Price feeds refresh on a schedule instead of whenever a bored banker replies to an email. Yes, really.

Private markets aren’t some niche little corner. They’re the corner store, the block, and the landlord. Industry estimates put private markets AUM around 13 trillion today and point to 20 trillion plus by 2030.

Big money rich people say if you’re not plugged into the private stack, you’re leaving optionality on the table. Which made no damn sense until the last couple years when normies like you and me could easily access these markets. And there’s still a metric crap ton do do.

Most of the good stuff never touches a ticker. Nearly 87% of U.S. companies with more than 100 million in revenue stay private. 

What’s Been Shipped

Helix listed OpenAI/USDT Perp the first of a new class of Pre‑IPO perpetual markets. You get synthetic exposure to private names. 5x max leverage. Maker rebate, standard taker fee.

It’s perpetual, so no expiry theatrics. Just funding and your risk management.

And Injective’s not winging the oracle layer. The chain already runs with performant feeds, and the broader ecosystem keeps adding specialized data rails like SEDA for private equity and other non‑crypto symbols. 🪙 

Who Else Is Doing Pre‑IPO On-chain?

Short answer: more than zero, less than everyone. 🧠 

PreStocks on Solana

Tokenized pre‑IPO equity as SPL tokens. Backed by SPVs. Tradable 24/7 on Jupiter and other Solana venues. Slice up SPV exposure, wrap it, and let DeFi composability do the rest.

Jarsy

1:1 equity‑backed tokens issued against shares held in an SPV. Minimums as low as 10 dollars. Designed for pre‑IPO exposure, with plans for secondary trading of the tokens. Not so much a perpetuals platform, more “tokenized cap table economics.”

Ventuals on Hyperliquid

Pre‑IPO perps built using Hyperliquid’s HIP‑3 builder‑deployed perpetual standard. It’s early, with testnet notes and explainer posts floating around, but the intent is clear: onchain perps referencing private company valuations. Think “Injective‑style idea, different stack.”

History lesson: Mirror Protocol

Terra’s (ya, time machine here) Mirror v2 added a Pre‑IPO mechanism to mint and trade mAssets before listing. That experiment did not survive Terra’s demolition derby, but it absolutely counts as prior art.

Kind of a big deal and big win for Injective. 👍️ 

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XRP
Ripple Loses Its Wizard 🧙 

David Schwartz, Ripple’s long-time CTO and the closest thing crypto has to a Gandalf with a GitHub repo, announced he’s leaving his role. No messy drama in the X post, just a clean goodbye and a thanks-for-everything vibe. 🫂 

Still, when the guy who literally designed $XRP.X ( ▲ 3.24% )’s consensus algorithm walks off stage, you pay attention.

Ripple has spent the last decade fighting regulators, rolling out liquidity hubs, and trying to convince the world it’s more than just a remittance token. Through all that, Schwartz was the technologist holding the codebase together while the suits ran PR campaigns.

He’s not totally gone though, he’s CTO Emeritus and is taking a spot on the board. 🪵 

ZCASH
One Of The Craziest Stories In Crypto Involves Zcash 🤯

Ever heard of ‘The Ceremony’? It’s the story of how Zcash’s blockchain first came to be. Unlike the creation of Bitcoin’s blockchain, which just ‘turned on’ when Satoshi minted the genesis blocks, Zcash required a private key with god-mode powers. ⚡️ 

Zcash needed this type of private key specifically because of how it achieves privacy—by using zk-SNARKs (zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge).

Here's why that's a big deal (and a pain in the ass):

• Zero-Knowledge Magic:
  zk-SNARKs allow users to prove transactions are valid without revealing details. Basically, it's the crypto equivalent of "trust me, bro," but mathematically legit.

• The Toxic Waste Problem:
  The catch? zk-SNARKs require a one-time "trusted setup"—a secret key generated precisely once. After it's made, that initial key becomes toxic waste. Anyone who gets their grubby mitts on it could secretly print unlimited coins, totally undermining Zcash’s privacy and security.

And that’s where The Ceremony begins. Because the creation of Zcash’s blockchain was borderline movie worthy. 😕 

The goal? Generate a truly random, massive private key so secretive, no human or machine could ever keep a trace of it. Because if someone did, they could print infinite Zcash.

To pull this off, six anonymous operators across the globe simultaneously created one part (shard) of the key. They executed this cryptographic ritual over two insane, intense days - without knowing each other's identities or locations in advance.

Then, each participant had to destroy their computers afterward, eliminating all traces of the private key.

Nine years later, it seems to have worked. 🧠 

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
AI, Stablecoins, & Privacy News 🕵️

🚨 Nexo Rolls Out Anti-Scam Engine to Spot Pig Butchering

Nexo upgraded its anti-scam defenses with AI-powered alerts that flag suspicious patterns in real time, now live across major chains. Instead of hard blocks, the system nudges users with explainable prompts and pauses only when risk spikes. Nexo.

🍯 Berachain’s HONEY Becomes the Chain’s Default Dollar

HONEY is Berachain’s fully collateralized stablecoin, minted with assets like USDC and PayPal’s pyUSD, with governance controlling mint/redeem rules per vault. Fees funnel back to BGT holders, making the stablecoin’s growth directly tied to the chain’s incentives. Berchain.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Metaverse, NFT, & Gaming News 🎮️

⚔️ Legend of YMIR Hits 1M Pre-Registrations With Web3 Flair

Warcraft meets DeFi farming, with loot that actually pays. Wemade’s upcoming MMORPG Legend of YMIR already passed 1M sign-ups thanks to Web3 hooks like server ownership, streamer-led servers, and PvP battles with gWEMIX prizes. Players can literally run servers, monetize them, and battle for BTC rewards in the YMIR Cup. WeMix.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
DeFi, DEX, & Lending News 🏦

🏦 QuantNet Claims It’s the Future Plumbing of Global Banking

Quant launched QuantNet, a programmable orchestration layer that connects tokenized deposits, bank stablecoins, asset platforms, and legacy rails like RTGS. It promises atomic settlement, compliance baked in, and zero custody grabs while letting banks keep their liquidity. Banks get to play with tokenized money without burning down the old pipes. Quant.

💰 CMCC Global Drops $25M Fund for Sonic Builders

CMCC Global launched the Resonance Fund to pump capital into Sonic’s DeFi and consumer app ecosystem, betting big on its Fee Monetization model. With $25M to spray at early protocols and liquid assets, the goal is to fast-track adoption while locking in strategic liquidity. Sonic now has institutional backing to match its scaling pitch. Sonic Labs.

NEWS IN THREE SENTENCES
Protocol News 🏦

🛡️ Guardians V2 Give Morpho Vault Users the Red Button

Oversight that doesn’t feel like paperwork? Morpho Vaults V2 just got a governance upgrade with Aragon’s Guardians V2, letting depositors veto risky curator moves on-chain. Instead of wrapping tokens or sitting idle, holders can lock their assets only when it’s time to vote, keeping liquidity alive until the last second. Aragon.

📑 Chainlink Launches DTA Standard for Onchain Fund Admins

Chainlink unveiled the Digital Transfer Agent standard, a suite that lets fund administrators process redemptions, enforce compliance, and sync NAV data directly onchain. UBS is already piloting it with their tokenized money market fund, making transfers instant and cross-chain. Chainlink.

🔍 Brave Launches “Ask Brave” to Fuse Search and Chat

It’s search without tab juggling, and chat without copy-paste purgatory. Brave rolled out Ask Brave, a single interface combining AI chat with classic search, serving contextual results plus follow-up actions in one spot. Unlike random LLM hallucinations, answers are grounded in Brave’s indexed web data and expire after 24 hours for privacy. Brave.

LINKS
Links That Don’t Suck 🔗

🪙 Coinbase launches no-strings attached USDC grant program for low-income New York residents

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Bank of England Governor says stablecoins could reduce UK reliance on commercial banks – Could it?

🛵 Tether scoops $1 billion In Bitcoin, strengthening $10-B stockpile

😠 North Korean hackers steal $21M from SBI Crypto, laundered via Tornado Cash

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