a16z crypto said in a post on X that monthly spending through crypto payment cards reached about $759 million in July, up roughly 2.5x from about $306 million a year earlier. The figure also marks a sharp jump from less than $1 million recorded in October 2023. Average transaction size was about $86. According to the post, users hold stablecoins in either custodial or self-custodial setups, then spend through traditional card rails such as Visa at physical merchants worldwide, with merchants receiving settlement in local fiat currency. On the asset mix, about 58% of spending was settled in USDC and about 26% in USDT. Euro stablecoin EURe fell to about 2% from roughly 88% previously. By chain, Optimism, Solana and Base each accounted for more than one-fifth of activity, while Gnosis saw its share decline noticeably.

ChainFeeds’ Aug. 12 research digest pulled together five separate crypto narratives that are shaping current market and product discussions. The report focused first on Hermes, arguing that its breakout did not come from a decisive infrastructure lead over OpenClaw, but from solving operational pain points for users who wanted personal agents without taking on configuration, maintenance and recovery burdens themselves. It framed Hermes’ appeal around delegation trust, built through reliability, safety controls and verifiability. The digest also featured Andreessen Horowitz’s view that crypto payment cards have moved well beyond novelty status. Monthly card spending topped $759 million in July 2026, up from $306 million a year earlier, while transaction count approached 9 million. The mix of settlement chains has diversified from an early concentration on Gnosis to a broader spread across Optimism, Solana and Base, and dollar stablecoins now dominate usage, led by USDC and USDT. A third section summarized Vitalik Buterin’s updated Ethereum roadmap thinking. The piece said privacy, post-quantum security, protocol simplification and AI-assisted formal verification are taking on greater weight, while new state types, native rollups and possible non-EVM instruction set designs are entering the conversation. The digest also reviewed pressure on corporate Bitcoin buyers such as Strategy and Trump Media, and outlined how meme coin issuance and trading platforms including Pump.fun, Pons, GMGN, Axiom and Fomo are still generating sizable fee income despite a cooler market.

Crypto payment cards processed $759 million in monthly spending in July 2026, according to onchain behavior data tracked by Paymentscan and cited in a report written by Robert Hackett and Ryan Holloway of a16z, translated by Foresight News. That compares with $306 million a year earlier, putting the market at roughly 2.5 times last year’s level. The report says the sector was still below $1 million a month when tracking began in October 2023. Usage rose in count as well as value. Crypto payment cards handled nearly 9 million purchases in July 2026, versus about 5.2 million a year earlier, implying an average ticket size of around $86. The report also says the settlement layer is no longer concentrated on a single chain. Optimism accounted for about 29% of payment-card volume in July, while Solana and Base each held 19%, and Gnosis had fallen to 2%. Stablecoin composition changed sharply over the same period. EURe, once the dominant euro-backed asset in this market with an 88% share in early 2024, had dropped to 2% by July. Dollar stablecoins took over, with USDC at 58% and USDT at 26%, up from 48% and 7% a year earlier. The report adds that nearly all products covered in the dataset run on Visa’s network.

Crypto payment cards processed $759 million in spending across nearly 8.8 million transactions in July 2026, according to fresh data shared by a16z crypto on X. The figures were up sharply from roughly $306 million and about 5.2 million transactions a year earlier, pointing to much heavier use of stablecoin-linked cards for everyday purchases rather than large transfers. Based on the monthly total and transaction count, average ticket size came to about $86. The report said cardholders typically spend crypto assets, mostly stablecoins, which are converted into local fiat at checkout, letting merchants treat the payment like a standard card purchase. Several issuers are active in the segment, including RedotPay, EtherFi, KAST, Karta, Plasma One, Tria and Wirex One, with RedotPay described as the largest contributor by spending volume. Paymentscan data also showed a major shift in stablecoin mix. In July 2026, USDC accounted for 58% of crypto card spending and USDT for 26%, while euro stablecoin EURe had held as much as 88% in early 2024. The story also flagged limits in the dataset: some figures are self-reported by issuers and not fully verifiable on-chain, and activity is concentrated among a small number of providers.

Gnosis Pay hit by an active exploit tied to the Zodiac delay module. Co-founder Köppelmann and PeckShield advise withdrawing all EURe and GNO. Gnosis promises to cover losses and asks bridge validators to pause.

Gnosis Pay has released a post-mortem on its June 1 security incident, identifying the root cause as a flaw in ERC-1271 signature validation within the Zodiac module. According to the report, the system only checked the contract’s return value and failed to verify whether the call had actually executed successfully. An attacker exploited this by deploying a contract designed to fail while still returning a value interpreted as “valid,” enabling forged authorization and unauthorized withdrawals from accounts they did not own. The vulnerability was introduced in Zodiac code version 3.4.0 in October 2023 and was patched on June 5. Gnosis Pay said the attacker extracted around $1.5 million across 5,281 wallets, including roughly $641,000 in GNO, $453,000 in EURe, and $399,000 in USDC.e. Another approximately $300,000 remains locked in inaccessible accounts, with recovery options still under review. The team said it will expand its security team, bring in external audits, widen smart contract audit coverage, and has already completed a full product rebuild under v2 to improve security and incident response capabilities.

Gnosis co-founder Martin Koppelmann confirmed the Zodiac delay module used by Gnosis Pay is being exploited, allowing unauthorized transactions from Safe wallets. Gnosis requested bridge validators to halt operations and will cover all user losses, ensuring full reimbursement, while retracting the emergency withdrawal notice.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield has warned of an ongoing attack on Gnosis Pay. Co-founder Martin Köppelmann publicly called for users to immediately withdraw GNO and EURe assets. Market analysts warn of potential selling pressure on GNO and EURe if a fund theft or protocol exploit is confirmed, which could shake the Gnosis ecosystem. Official details are still pending.