WuBlockchain’s weekly top 10 roundup covered Ethereum’s technical roadmap, regulatory moves in the U.S. and Europe, stablecoin initiatives from major financial institutions, El Salvador’s blockchain-based national app, and shifts in on-chain market structure.
Vitalik says Ethereum is moving toward a “cryptographic world computer”
In an article titled The cryptographic world computer, Vitalik Buterin said Ethereum is evolving from a traditional blockchain into what he called a “cryptographic world computer.”
He wrote that by 2030 Ethereum is expected to adopt few-slot finality, PeerDAS and SNARK verification, multi-party block building, FOCIL, privacy mempools, and lighter distributed storage for history and state. That would shift verification away from “download and re-execute” and toward “data sampling + SNARK verification,” while improving scalability, privacy and censorship resistance.
Buterin also said the planned Hegotá upgrade next year could be Ethereum’s last “regular upgrade” in a technical form still recognizable to developers from 2015. Upgrades after that, he said, would involve recursive STARKs, automated formal verification, highly optimized consensus algorithms and quantum-resistant technology. With PeerDAS moving into deployment, he argued Ethereum has already started to move beyond a simple blockchain toward a system that combines blockchain infrastructure, cryptographic privacy and verification, and powerful decentralized off-chain components.
SEC advances work on on-chain securities and crypto custody rules
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins said on Sept. 29 in an interview with CNBC’s Squawk Box that the agency is advancing regulatory arrangements tied to on-chain capital formation and trading in tokenized securities, and has already introduced an Innovation Exemption.
Atkins said the framework would allow companies to issue tokenized securities that represent real rights and interests in underlying securities, so that “actual securities trade on-chain.” He added that the SEC is “trying to move these things on-chain” and described the direction as attractive and one the agency intends to keep pursuing.
Separately, the SEC proposed new rules and amendments to existing rules to create a dedicated framework for the custody of crypto assets by registered investment advisers, registered investment companies and business development companies.
The proposal would update custody requirements under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. It covers items including audits of registered advisers’ financial statements and broker-dealer custody services for regulated funds. It would also allow self-custody of crypto assets in certain cases and permit state trust companies to act as custodians for crypto assets held for clients and regulated funds. The SEC said the rules are meant to provide a compliant custody path for advisers and funds. The public comment period would remain open for 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.
El Salvador launches Sivar, a national super app built on Base
The official site for El Salvador’s national super app Sivar shows that the app is supported by Modveon and combines government identity verification, community functions, government communications and on-chain financial infrastructure. User identity is verified against official government records in El Salvador.
The Sivar wallet offers transfers, remittances and cash withdrawals to local users in El Salvador and members of the Salvadoran diaspora in the United States. Cross-border transfers carry a fixed $2 processing fee. Its legal documents state that the wallet uses a self-custody model, supports holding and transferring stablecoins, and processes related on-chain transactions through Coinbase’s Base network.
Modveon was registered as a digital asset service provider with El Salvador’s National Commission of Digital Assets, or CNAD, in April 2026.
ESMA proposes a new DeFi access category in MiCA review
The European Securities and Markets Authority has submitted recommendations to the European Commission as part of the MiCA review process. It proposed a new regulated crypto service category for firms that provide users with access points to DeFi protocols, along with clearer disclosure and compliance requirements for staking, crypto lending and borrowing.
ESMA also recommended explicitly prohibiting MiCA-regulated crypto platforms from offering services tied to stablecoins that do not meet MiCA requirements, while expanding supervisory powers over unauthorized offshore platforms. The measures remain recommendations under the MiCA review and have not become formal rules.
HSBC outlines phased launch plan for Hong Kong stablecoin HSBC RedCoin
HSBC disclosed that its upcoming Hong Kong stablecoin will be called HSBC RedCoin and said the rollout will follow a phased path. The first stage will focus on person-to-person transfers and person-to-merchant payments, before expanding to corporate and institutional use cases.
The bank also released a survey of more than 1,000 Hong Kong customers. It found that 74% of respondents could identify at least one stablecoin use case. Digital asset trading and tokenized investment accounted for 57%, person-to-person transfers for 53%, and both cross-border remittances and merchant payments for 52%.
Morgan Stanley sets up a digital asset lab
Morgan Stanley has established a Digital Asset Lab to test technologies including stablecoins, tokenization and DeFi, and to assess how blockchain systems may fit into its business.
Its digital asset team also plans to test tokenized deposits, CBDCs, tokenized money market funds and DeFi vaults. Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley’s head of digital asset strategy, said the team is paying close attention to DeFi vaults because they could eventually become part of asset management products by deploying assets and running investment strategies through smart contracts. She added that the technology is still at an early stage and needs more validation inside an isolated lab environment first.
Crypto lobbying spending topped $13 million in the first half
According to CoinDesk’s analysis of U.S. federal lobbying disclosure filings, the crypto industry spent more than $13 million on lobbying in the first half of 2026. Nearly $8 million of that total was tied to efforts to push the CLARITY Act, a U.S. crypto market structure bill.
The bill, however, failed to secure the 60 Senate votes needed to move forward. Of the lobbying tied to the legislation, about $2.4 million went to outside lobbying firms and about $2.1 million was spent on in-house lobbyists at industry associations, with the rest mainly coming from crypto companies’ own lobbying teams.
At the company level, Coinbase spent about $2.2 million on lobbying tied to the bill in the first half, while Kraken spent close to $1 million. Digital Currency Group, Jump Crypto and Paradigm were also listed as major participants.
Michael Saylor looks to turn Strategy into a digital credit issuer
Bloomberg reported that Strategy founder Michael Saylor is trying to move Strategy beyond a pure Bitcoin treasury company and reposition it as a “digital credit” issuer.
The model uses the company’s Bitcoin holdings as a capital base. By adjusting dividend rates, issuing and repurchasing STRC, and managing dollar reserves, the company would leave more of Bitcoin’s high-volatility exposure with MSTR common shareholders while offering STRC holders relatively lower-volatility dollar cash yield.
STRC currently carries an annualized dividend rate of about 12%. Strategy has also proposed changing it to a daily accrued dividend with payment on the next business day after declaration, in a bid to reduce price volatility and improve liquidity. Saylor said the digital credit market has grown from zero to about $16 billion over the past roughly 20 months.
a16z crypto investor says perpetuals are widening the scope of on-chain markets
a16z crypto investor Robbie Peterson wrote that blockchains are lowering the barriers to market creation in traditional finance by enabling permissionless issuance and global distribution, cutting through constraints tied to listing reviews, legal frameworks and geography.
He wrote that annualized on-chain RWA perpetual trading volume reached about $1.4 trillion in July 2026 and argued that perpetuals are pushing traditional risk assets such as stocks and commodities into 24/7 on-chain trading. Peterson said future on-chain markets could also extend to foreign exchange, indices, compute futures and macro indicators such as CPI.
Notable financing deals
- Solana Company completed a $15 million financing at a 5% premium and plans to use the proceeds to add to its SOL holdings or buy back stock.
- Jeeves completed a $110 million equity financing led by CoinFund.
- Kalshi is in talks for about $1 billion in new funding at an approximate $40 billion valuation.
- Raven completed a strategic financing involving Coinbase Ventures and others at a pre-money valuation of $90 million.
- More industry financing events are available at crypto-fundraising.info.