Ethereum engineering firm Nethermind has ended its role as a participant in LayerZero’s Decentralized Verifier Network, or DVN, and shifted its cross-chain node operations to Chainlink Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol, better known as CCIP. The company is now operating as a Chainlink CCIP node operator. According to the report cited by Techub and sourced to Bitcoinist, the move reflects Nethermind’s own strategic choice in cross-chain security rather than a broad replacement of one interoperability stack by another. That distinction matters because LayerZero remains one of the main cross-chain messaging protocols in crypto, and the market for cross-chain infrastructure is still competitive. Nethermind is widely known for its work across Ethereum client development, infrastructure, and research. Its addition to the CCIP node operator set gives Chainlink a recognizable engineering name as it competes for projects that want cross-chain connectivity while staying cautious about bridge-related risk. At the same time, the report says Nethermind’s switch does not imply that other projects will follow the same path, as teams continue to choose different systems based on security assumptions, cost, and integration needs.

LayerZero has lost a dozen partners in 2026, with Ethereum node service provider Nethermind becoming the latest to leave after ending its verifier role on Wednesday and moving to a rival. The exits have stacked up since May and include Kelp DAO, Solv Protocol, Re.xyz, Kraken’s kBTC, Lombard, Virtuals Protocol, Yuzu Money, Mantle, BitGo, Huma Finance, and the Wyoming Stable Token Commission. By early July, more than $7 billion in assets had moved off LayerZero, and BitGo’s August departure pushed that total toward $15 billion. The retreat followed LayerZero’s April admission that Lazarus Group hackers had poisoned its internal RPCs. The company said at the time, “We made a mistake by allowing our DVN to act as a 1/1 DVN for high-value transactions.” LayerZero co-founder and CEO Bryan Pellegrino pushed back on early criticism, while one defender said the departures represented about 3% of usage by volume and less than 1% of messages. Even so, the project has kept pulling back support, and ZRO is now down 31% this year, 56% over the past 12 months, and 88% from its December 2024 all-time high.

A White House crypto gathering set the tone for the day’s market and policy headlines. U.S. President Donald Trump urged Congress to move the CLARITY Act forward, calling it a powerful market-structure bill, while saying Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chair Michael Selig is working to bring Hyperliquid into the U.S. in a fully compliant way. HYPE rose more than 20% over 24 hours following those remarks. The event came ahead of the first meeting of the CFTC’s Innovation Advisory Committee, which is scheduled to cover crypto regulation, AI in trading and compliance, and prediction markets. At the same time, Coinbase said it has integrated Hyperliquid into Base App to offer perpetual futures trading to eligible users with up to 50x leverage in supported jurisdictions. Outside the policy story, VanEck said Bitcoin has triggered eight of its 12 capitulation indicators, suggesting the market is approaching historical bear-market bottom zones, though not necessarily a confirmed bottom. PANews’ daily roundup also highlighted Unitree’s launch of a 7-axis bionic robotic arm starting at 9,900 yuan, fresh ETF flow data, new funding deals across AI infrastructure, and several project updates spanning Berachain, Nethermind, Aligned, Linera and Flop Labs.

A dense 24-hour stretch across crypto and macro markets brought a mix of token airdrops, policy signals, whale liquidations, and AI-related capital flows. Binance Alpha opened the third round of its STABLE airdrop, while Berachain rebranded its stablecoin HONEY to Bera USD, with no contract change but a required re-signing for some permits because of EIP-712 domain separation. In macro markets, the U.S. Treasury said it will at least double the size of liquidity-support buybacks for long-dated nominal coupon securities, lifting the cap per operation from $2 billion to at least $4 billion starting Sept. 9, 2026. After the announcement, Bitcoin briefly rose to $69,749, its highest level since June 2, even as Bitfinex said the rally still lacks stablecoin support. On the regulatory side, the CFTC secured supplemental consent orders against former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, while also scheduling the first meeting of its Innovation Advisory Committee and seeking public comment on computing-power derivatives contracts. In markets, major leveraged positions were wiped out across BTC and ETH, including a 1,800 BTC short that was fully liquidated. Hyperliquid’s HYPE token climbed more than 20% after President Donald Trump said CFTC Chair Michael S. Selig was working to bring the platform into the U.S. in a fully compliant way, even as FalconX and Multicoin Capital moved large amounts of HYPE to exchanges.

PANews’ July 25 daily roundup collected a broad set of crypto regulatory, market, project, funding, and data developments, led by two market signals: analysts said stablecoin inflows to exchanges have fallen to their lowest level of 2025, while U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded a combined net outflow of $240 million on July 24, with BlackRock’s IBIT accounting for $212 million of that figure. The report also covered a Hong Kong court sentencing Xiao Rui, son of former Wuhan supervisory official Xiao Jun, to six years and nine months in prison in a money-laundering case involving more than HK$64 million; Thailand’s SEC filing criminal complaints against Bitkub Online and two former directors over disclosures tied to a 2021 theft; and India’s move to ask GitHub to remove repositories for Bitchat, an offline messaging app backed by Jack Dorsey. On the project and corporate side, PANews highlighted Robinhood’s talks with Crypto.com on prediction markets, Across Protocol’s post-mortem on a relayer incident, LayerZero’s plan to wind down support for 20 low-activity chains, Phantom’s scheduled end of support for Monad, BlackRock’s transfer of about 3,126 BTC to Coinbase Prime, Circle’s mint of 250 million USDC, and World Foundation’s $52.5 million strategic WLD sale led by Pantera Capital. The roundup also included updates on Anduril, LMAX, B2C2, Capital Group, ARK, Kinetic Group, Bitcoin volatility, and Hyperliquid buybacks.

LayerZero said it will phase out offchain support for 20 low-activity blockchains, with the first shutdown taking effect on July 30. The move covers LayerZero Labs-operated DVN and Executor services, while Stargate v2 will also drop support for five of those chains: Botanix, EDU Chain, Aurora, Taiko, and LightLink. The company warned that users who do not bridge or redeem affected assets before each chain’s cutoff date could lose access to their funds. The timeline is split across four dates: July 30, July 31, August 28, and September 30. LayerZero also provided chain-specific instructions for Stargate users holding assets such as USDC.e, wETH, USDT, S*USDC, and S*ETH. In several cases, users are asked to bridge assets back to Stargate Pools or withdraw liquidity before support ends. LayerZero said the shutdown applies to its managed offchain services rather than onchain Endpoint contracts, which remain deployed and immutable. Even so, without official verification and execution services, cross-chain messaging on those networks will effectively lose LayerZero’s operational support. The announcement points users toward deeper-liquidity destinations including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, and BSC.

LayerZero said on X that it will gradually end off-chain support for 20 low-activity blockchains, with DVN and Executor services for the affected networks set to go offline in stages. The company also warned that users holding related Stargate assets need to complete cross-chain migrations before the deadline. The update focuses on low-activity networks and outlines an operational shutdown rather than a broader protocol change. Users with exposure to the affected Stargate assets are being asked to take action within the stated timeframe to avoid disruption once support is withdrawn. No additional details on the list of chains or the exact deadline were included in the brief announcement cited by ChainCatcher.

Kelp DAO lost 116,500 rsETH ($292M) in an April 18 exploit. LayerZero says a single-verifier DVN configuration created the vulnerability. The attacker used the stolen assets as collateral on Aave V3, threatening bad debt.