A DIP proposal posted by Derive forum user domrom on Sept. 13 sets out a plan to deploy and launch Derive V3, a zkVM-based system that settles on Ethereum mainnet. The proposal would move all V2 positions and balances into the V3 genesis state, transfer bridged funds to Layer 1, and shut down Derive Chain after the migration is complete. It says the move would not require users to deposit again, because the genesis state would be created from a snapshot of Derive Chain. The document also describes V3 as a zero-knowledge exchange where state transitions for the matching engine and sequencer run inside a zkVM and are verified on Ethereum L1, while user funds remain custodied in L1 contracts. The stated target is L2Beat Stage 1. According to the proposal, Derive accounted for 95% of on-chain options premium volume over the previous 30 days as of Sept. 7, 2026, with about $2 billion in open interest. If approved, the timeline would be announced at least 14 days in advance. Before migration, bridging would be frozen, trading paused, and a post-settlement snapshot taken. Rewards would remain claimable on Optimism until Feb. 1, 2027.

PANews’ latest funding roundup shows capital in crypto continued to cluster around stablecoin payments, compliance tooling, and the convergence of traditional finance with digital assets, while AI dealmaking stayed centered on infrastructure. In crypto, Nasdaq invested $100 million in Payward, the parent company of Kraken, valuing the company at $21 billion. Latitude raised a $35 million Series A for cross-border stablecoin payment infrastructure, and TRM Labs’ valuation doubled to $2 billion after another follow-on investment from existing backers. Circle also said it plans to acquire cross-border payments platform Tazapay in an all-stock deal valued at about $400 million, pending regulatory approval and expected to close in 2027. PANews said that from Sept. 7 to Sept. 13, the global blockchain sector recorded eight disclosed financing events with total funding of more than $158 million. Elsewhere, Antarctic Exchange, Agentum, RealGo, and TINA all announced fresh raises, while Sei Labs acquired Bilinear Labs. In AI, infrastructure remained the dominant theme. French startup Mistral AI closed a €3 billion Series D at a post-money valuation above €21 billion. Positron raised $875 million at a $5 billion valuation, Celero Communications secured $275 million at a valuation above $3 billion, and Cognition raised $2 billion, lifting its valuation to $48 billion. Additional rounds went to Clay, Savvy Wealth, Lightfield, and Herdr, while Meta acquired Sweden-based Stilla.ai.

ChainFeeds published a new "VC Talk" roundup on Sept. 13, collecting recent views and research items circulating among crypto venture investors and market participants. The piece highlights two discussion threads: the controversy around the Hunter Biden-themed memecoin LAPTOP, and the debate sparked after OpenAI claimed AI had solved the Navier-Stokes equation, one of the Millennium Prize Problems. It also lists fresh research from Pantera Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, or a16z, and provides a snapshot of primary market fundraising activity. On the memecoin side, the article cites comments from 1kx’s Nick Tomaino, DeFiance Capital’s Arthur, and Amber Group’s Lao Bai. Tomaino contrasted the industry’s reaction to a Trump memecoin launched on Jan. 17, 2025 with criticism directed this week at a Biden-themed token. Arthur questioned why public figures appear willing to damage their reputations to issue celebrity memecoins, while Lao Bai argued that weak liquidity leaves little room for more small-cap token speculation. The roundup also says 12 public fundraising deals were disclosed between Aug. 31 and Sept. 6, with total funding exceeding $580 million.

PANews published a weekly selection of crypto stories spanning regulation, market structure, institutional moves and on-chain speculation. The list highlighted Hunter Biden’s planned Base-based meme token LAPTOP, which is slated for a Sept. 9 launch and will partly airdrop tokens to TRUMP investors. It also pointed to rising activity around the Robinhood Chain ecosystem, including a tools guide built around wallets, trading terminals and launchpads after the chain was described as generating $2.6 million a day. Market coverage centered on privacy coins, with Glassnode data showing the sector up 213% this year and ZEC surging 2,496% while Bitcoin remained down 36%. Other featured items included debate around the CLARITY Act in the U.S. Senate, the SEC’s approval of tokenized fund shares, Ethereum’s proposed EIP-8141 for stablecoin gas payments, the Liquid Network attack involving 4,000 BTC, and a string of short headline items on Tether, Robinhood, Circle, Bybit, ether.fi and others.

Agentum has announced a $7 million financing round, according to an official statement cited by ChainCatcher. Participating investors include MEXC Ventures, BingX Labs, Arca Fund, Wave Digital Assets, Echo3, Greenwood Global Capital, UZ capital, and Vega Ventures. The project describes itself as an autonomous economic trust and settlement layer built for AI agents. According to the announcement, Agentum is designed to let AI agents operate without human intervention across several stages of work. That includes publishing tasks, bidding for jobs, executing assignments, and settling payments on-chain. The stated goal is to provide a framework in which autonomous agents can transact and coordinate directly. Agentum is built on BNB Chain. The project says its system combines on-chain identity, collateralized bidding, escrow, staking, portable reputation, trusted execution environments, or TEE, and a zkVM-based verification mechanism. These components are intended to establish trust and accountability between autonomous agents.

ChainFeeds’ Sept. 11 research briefing combined a policy news roundup with five long-form pieces spanning meme launchpads, AI compute markets, post-quantum zk proofs, tokenized equities on Solana, and Ethereum core development. The newsletter highlighted a revised CLARITY Act proposed by Republican lawmakers that would require non-decentralized DeFi protocols to register with the CFTC, Polymarket’s first CFO hire tied to a planned $1 billion fundraising effort, updated tokenomics from FLOP, a reported $100 million investment plan by Nasdaq Ventures into Kraken parent Payward at a $21 billion valuation, and Bitrace’s note that Fulilai Guarantee has started removing money-laundering merchants, possibly due to OFAC sanctions. The research selections then moved across several themes. One focused on Robinhood Chain’s meme launchpad race, where Pons and LONG are pushing fee-sharing and tokenized-stock trading. Another, by Pantera Capital partner Jay Yu, argued that GPU compute could evolve into a commodity market with benchmark pricing similar to power markets. The briefing also covered a16z’s release of Lattice Jolt, a post-quantum zkVM built on lattice cryptography, Pump.fun’s rollout of custom quote assets including tokenized U.S. equities, and Four Pillars’ review of Ethereum’s August EIP pipeline, testnet work, and changing assumptions around Layer 2 networks.

Crypto markets saw an unusually dense flow of developments between Sept. 9 and Sept. 10, with LAPTOP drawing the most attention after its launch, airdrop claims, market-maker allocations, liquidity incentives and extreme price moves all unfolded in quick succession. Security concerns emerged at the same time, including phishing warnings tied to LAPTOP and a separate email phishing alert from hardware wallet maker Trezor. Beyond LAPTOP, on-chain activity showed large ZEC buying through three wallets, a profitable six-month run in VVV and LIT by whale address 0x7378, and fresh positioning by trader Based16z. Binance listed Niulai and expanded related services, while Binance Alpha added 4Stock and A Meme Coin. Institutional and infrastructure news also arrived in size. Aave launched an official MCP server for AI agents, Consensys spun out MetaMask into an independent entity, U.S. Bank tested cross-border payments using USBDC on Stellar, PayPal formally rolled out its PYUSDx platform, and Tether teamed up with Fasanara Capital on a $400 million private credit fund. Regulators and policymakers were active as well, with U.S. enforcement action against Xinbi Guarantee, fresh pressure in Washington around the CLARITY Act, and an EU move to extend local contact-point rules to crypto service providers.

a16z crypto said on Sept. 9 that it has released Lattice Jolt, a new open-source version of its zero-knowledge virtual machine that shifts its cryptographic foundation from elliptic curves to lattice cryptography. The change gives the system post-quantum resistance and, according to a16z crypto, improves prover and verifier speeds by 2x to 3x. The team also said proof sizes are now below 100KB, which it described as the smallest among post-quantum zkVMs. Lattice Jolt uses a new polynomial commitment scheme called Akita, built on the Module-SIS hard lattice assumption with a target security level of 128 bits. Akita was led by LayerZero’s research and engineering team in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Southern California, and a16z crypto. On performance, the project said the system can prove more than 2 million RISC-V cycles per second on CPU on the same device, and more than 10 million cycles on a MacBook with GPU acceleration through Apple Metal. Memory use for the prover was reduced from about 300 bytes per cycle to 200 bytes per cycle, enabling proofs for millions of computation cycles on phones.