Perpetual DEX tokens have outperformed bitcoin over the past month, with Lighter’s LIT posting the strongest gains in the group covered by The Defiant. The move has been tied to trader positioning around a possible U.S. regulatory opening, even though no public filing, CFTC docket, or exchange registration application has linked Lighter to that process. At the same time, broad trading activity across perpetual DEXs has weakened, with DefiLlama showing average daily volume down 30.13% over the past seven days to $20.85 billion. What can be measured more clearly is order flow tied to Robinhood. Lighter powers perpetual futures inside Robinhood Wallet on Robinhood Chain through a dedicated instance that uses USDG as its quote asset, and that venue has supplied a meaningful share of Lighter’s recent volume growth. The product is unavailable to users in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Switzerland, the UAE, and Singapore. The report also contrasts Lighter with Hyperliquid, which has a named route involving Bitnomial and Payward, Kraken’s parent, but notes that Lighter has announced no comparable arrangement. Fee data show Lighter running a far thinner take rate than Hyperliquid despite rapid volume growth and a near doubling in LIT over 30 days.

Arkham posted a screenshot on Aug. 31 showing a wallet tagged "Bonk Guy Fomo" with about $5 million in weekly unrealized gains, including roughly $4.4 million from PONS. @theunipcs replied the next day that the figure would soon be $6.5 million. Based on the report, he bought PONS near a $6 million market cap, and the token has since reached about $500 million, implying a roughly 83x return. PONS is the native token of Pons Labs on Robinhood Chain, not an official Robinhood product. Robinhood Chain launched its mainnet in July, and Pons quickly became one of the most active non-custodial launchpads on the L2 by token volume and trading activity. Pons Labs said on Sept. 3 that 24-hour volume had reached $400 million, while GMGN data showed the market cap briefly climbed above $500 million. The article also revisits the trading history behind the Bonk Guy name: his early days in crypto, the 2023 BONK trade that made him famous, later public wins in WIF and Fartcoin, the large liquidation event in October 2025, and his move to the FOMO social trading platform in May 2026, where he said his portfolio had reached an all-time high of about $6 million in late August.

According to HTX data, altcoins continued their upward momentum on September 3 as Bitcoin traded sideways. The top gainers were HEMI (+29.03%), MUBARAK (+26.96%), and EGLD (+25.06%). Other tokens with double-digit gains included ARB (+17.83%), AR (+13.47%), ASTSB (+11.84%), RED (+10.59%), and APT (+10.55%). NIGHT and GPS also posted gains of 9.85% and 9.16% respectively. This broad-based rally reflects ongoing strength in the altcoin sector.

WuBlockchain’s latest daily crypto digest rounded up seven developments across regulation, trading, and corporate strategy. The biggest item on the supply side was next month’s token unlock calendar: one-off unlocks above $10 million are expected for HYPE, XPL, ENA, ZRO, H, CARDS, and ARB, while linear monthly unlocks above the same threshold include RAIN, SOL, CC, TRUMP, ZEC, ASTER, WLD, MORPHO, PUMP, TAO, AVAX, and NEAR. The total value of large linear unlocks over the next month was put at more than $1.535 billion. In macro data, U.S. ADP employment rose by 38,000 in August, below the 48,000 consensus and the previous 44,000 reading, marking the weakest increase since January. Strategy CEO Phong Le told Bloomberg TV that the company’s Bitcoin trading decisions are driven by cost of capital rather than spot price, defending prior sales around $60,000 to $65,000 and more recent purchases near $80,000. Elsewhere, August trading volume for CEX stock-linked perpetual futures reached $665.42 billion. Tether is facing a lawsuit tied to roughly $42.4 million in frozen USDT, and Hyperliquid Strategies raised its equity financing capacity to $2.5 billion. Thailand’s SEC also approved a new crypto Travel Rule that will take effect on Feb. 27, 2027.

Tom Lee predicts Bitcoin could reach $150,000 as institutions buy crypto stocks, calling current rally just the first wave. Former SEC and CFTC officials co-signed a letter urging risk-calibrated regulation to attract offshore perpetual futures back to the U.S. Bitfinex Securities lists 5 tokenized notes linked to Strategy and other Bitcoin reserve companies. 21 global financial institutions commit to forming a joint stablecoin company targeting 2027 launch. Other key stories: OSL Group revenue up 65.8%, Kraken parent partners with LSE to tokenize 100 UK stocks, Fed's Barr warns of rate hikes if inflation persists, Singapore MAS consults on stablecoin regulation, Thai SEC proposes allowing retail to trade overseas crypto derivatives, and more.

Crypto projects have spent a record $638 million on token buybacks in 2026 through Aug. 31, according to figures cited in the report, but the headline number is heavily concentrated. Roughly 90% of that total came from just two platforms: perpetuals exchange Hyperliquid and memecoin launchpad Pump.fun. The data points to a real shift in tokenomics, with projects trying to tie token value to operating revenue instead of ongoing issuance, yet the underlying cash flows still come largely from trading activity. The report also argues that buybacks alone do not guarantee shrinking supply. Tokenomist’s figures show that once new unlocks are included, only BNB and RAY are in net deflation among 27 tracked tokens. HYPE’s annualized supply is still rising about 47%, while PUMP is up 14% and KAITO is close to 100%. Elsewhere, Ethena’s proposal to direct 95% of protocol net revenue to ENA buybacks passed with 17.6 million votes in favor and zero against, though it will not activate unless USDe supply returns to $7.5 billion from the current $4.12 billion. Solana’s first on-chain governance vote also highlighted the same math problem: slower issuance and higher burns do not necessarily produce net supply contraction.

Ether.fi’s consumer payments business has crossed the $100 million monthly mark, but the token tied to the ecosystem is still below where it started the year. Research cited by MarsBit shows Ether.fi Cash volume rising from $54.3 million in January to $100.3 million in July, an 85% increase, while monthly active addresses climbed from 21,898 to 40,040. Even so, ETHFI was still down 21% year to date despite a 45% rebound between Aug. 13 and Aug. 30 to $0.55. The focus has now shifted to a foundation proposal published on Aug. 30 and set to close on Sept. 3. If approved, contributions from card, swap and staking revenue would fund weekly ETHFI purchases through CoW Swap. Using July as an example, the proposal points to roughly $1.33 million a month, or about $16 million annualized, before accounting for reward distribution. The article also notes that Ether.fi’s account model is built around four functions — saving, spending, trading and borrowing — and that Cash has become a larger share of total revenue as staking-related income weakened. As of Aug. 31, voting power stood at about 245,800 ETHFI, only around one-quarter of the 1 million-token quorum requirement. That leaves turnout, contribution growth, reward allocation and execution details as the main variables before the deadline.

YZi Labs unveiled the final cohort for the fourth season of EASY Residency on Aug. 26, selecting 24 early-stage projects that can each receive up to $500,000, with roughly $12 million allocated for the season. The batch is heavily tilted toward stablecoin payments, cross-border settlement, on-chain FX, credit, digital banking, institutional liquidity, AI agents, and on-chain asset management, with “global payments” named as a central investment theme. The article argues that the new cohort highlights a broader shift in how YZi Labs wants to be seen. The firm, which manages more than $1 billion and retains deep ties to Binance through its history and network, has money, reach, and distribution. RootData shows it completed 34 investment rounds over the past year, second only to Coinbase Venture. Still, raw activity does not settle the harder question of whether YZi Labs can consistently spot category leaders before the market does. According to the piece, YZi Labs has been effective at backing projects once demand is visible and then helping them scale through exchange-era advantages, BNB Chain access, and Binance-linked networks. But that same model may also define its limits. The commentary points to missed names in prediction markets and payments, a public dispute tied to the BNB Treasury Company plan with 10X Capital, and a team profile shaped by finance, consulting, and exchange growth rather than deep on-chain product instinct. The test ahead is not how many deals YZi Labs can do, but whether it can develop conviction independent of Binance and identify the next wave before consensus forms.