GnosisDAO has formally introduced GIP-153, a governance proposal that asks the community for directional consensus on moving Gnosis Chain away from its current position as an independent Layer 1 and into an Ethereum Economic Zone, or EEZ, rollup. The proposal, written by Gnosis co-founder Friederike Ernst together with Philippe Schommers and Ben Carvill, is notable for saying plainly that Gnosis Chain’s standalone L1 positioning has failed. It argues that the chain’s promise of credible neutrality overlaps too heavily with Ethereum, while Gnosis lacks the scale and liquidity to justify carrying a full security stack on its own. The document lays out the economic pressure behind that conclusion. According to the proposal, Gnosis Chain’s fee revenue does not cover network security costs, forcing GnosisDAO’s treasury to subsidize the gap and causing about 2.3% annual dilution for non-stakers. It also points to a TVL of roughly $91 million and a GNO market capitalization of around $280 million, figures it presents as marginal in the current L1 race. Rather than becoming a standard L2, Gnosis wants to adopt the EEZ framework, whose main pitch is synchronous composability with Ethereum. If implemented, the shift would also unlock about 350,000 staked GNO, remove the existing validator set, and hand sequencing to Gnosis Ltd. Community voting is expected in August to September 2026.

Web3 AI network X-Agent has announced the open-source release of xagentAI/xpense after completing a deep integration with OKX Agentic Wallet and launching a paid MCP tool on the OKX marketplace. The project is positioned as a payment control plane for AI agents, aimed at filling a missing control layer in autonomous spending, budget risk management, and delivery verification. According to the announcement, existing standards and tools including HTTP 402, x402, MPP, MCP, and OKX Agentic Wallet already support signing and micropayment rails, but they do not fully address the upper-layer controls required when machines spend funds on their own. X-Agent said xpense is designed to answer practical questions such as who sets spending limits for an agent, how repeated charges can be prevented, and how a system can verify that a paid service was actually delivered. The project lays out a seven-step deterministic flow covering Intent, Policy, Route, Pay, Deliver, Verify, and Account. It also adopts a dual-state-machine model that separates payment settlement from service delivery. X-Agent said the system also relies on policy-engine controls, a payment-aware router, and OKX infrastructure including TEE-based key isolation and x402 gas-free USDC settlement.

Ondo Finance on July 27 unveiled Ondo Network, framing it as a strategic shift away from its previously planned Layer 1 blockchain, Ondo Chain. The company said it no longer believes a traditional blockchain is necessary to achieve its goal. Instead, the team said work on Ondo Perps and conversations with clients showed the real constraint was not settlement, which blockchains already handle well, but execution speed and privacy. That led Ondo to separate execution from settlement and optimize the two functions independently. Ondo Network is built around two core components: secure enclaves running inside trusted execution environments, or TEEs, and a decentralized attestor layer. Applications execute privately inside hardware-isolated environments at speeds Ondo says are closer to centralized exchanges, while producing cryptographically signed logs for every state change. The attestor layer consists of independent operators that verify programs, hold sharded key fragments, and connect the network to public blockchains. According to Ondo, no single party holds the full key, and even infrastructure operators cannot extract it. The first launch on the network is Ondo Perps, a professional perpetuals platform that uses tokenized real-world assets as collateral. Ondo said the infrastructure is intended to be general-purpose and could later support spot trading, structured products, lending, settlement rails, and non-financial uses that require verifiable program execution.

Binance Alpha listed Arcium (ARX) on June 22, with airdrop requiring 225 Alpha Points for 172 ARX. ARX has 1B supply, 20.88% unlocked at TGE, $14M in funding, and targets confidential computing on Solana.

Binance's Word of the Day for March 2-8, 2026 uses the Binance Junior theme. The published list includes possible answers from 3-letter to 8-letter words, along with gameplay and reward details.

Puffer Finance has published a detailed breakdown of the security architecture behind its ETH staking system, arguing that security should cover the entire protocol stack rather than stop at smart contracts. The team said that since launching in 2024, Puffer has reached more than $1 billion in peak TVL and processed over $1 billion in ETH redemptions without pauses, withdrawal restrictions, or a depeg. The article describes a multi-layer model that combines continuous AI-assisted code review, sequential third-party audits, deployment audits, and role-based access controls built with OpenZeppelin Access Manager. Puffer said upgrades proposed by its Operations multisig are subject to a hard-coded 7-day timelock, while a separate Security Council can intervene during that period and a Pauser role can halt the protocol immediately, including through automated monitoring connected to BlockSec Phalcon. Puffer also said node operators must post a 2 ETH bond in pufETH before running validators, with that collateral serving as first-loss capital in slashing events. The company added that users can exit through either instant withdrawals using Vault liquidity for a small fee or a standard fee-free route, and said the withdrawal system has already been tested by more than $1 billion in ETH redemptions.

Base has deployed its Azul upgrade on testnet, introducing multiproofs and a new client stack. Mainnet activation is scheduled for May 13, 2026.

Coinbase's Layer 2 network Base has activated its first self-built upgrade, Azul, on mainnet. Multiproof combines TEE and ZK proofs, cutting withdrawals from a week to one day and reducing empty blocks by ~99%. Base now handles 5,000 TPS peak loads with $4.4B TVL.