Ripple released the XRPL AI Starter Kit on Wednesday, giving developers tools to build AI-agent payment applications on the XRP Ledger using XRP and RLUSD. The launch lands alongside Mastercard naming Ripple as a partner in Agent Pay for Machines, its agentic-commerce network.

Mastercard launched Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M) Wednesday, extending its payments network to autonomous AI agents with 30-plus crypto and fintech launch partners including Coinbase, Ripple, Solana Foundation, Polygon, Aave Labs and Stellar.

How close did DeFi come to a real systemic collapse? In this episode, Camila Russo sits down with Mike Silagadze, co-founder and CEO of Ether.fi, to break down the Kelp exploit, the DeFi United rescue effort, and why Mike believes the default path could have been far worse if nobody had stepped in. He explains why the bigger lesson is not just smart contract risk, but operational security, app-layer responsibility, and the need to move past "decentralization theater."

A forensic report from Humanity Protocol found a single malware-infected developer machine held backups of seven private keys, giving an attacker full control over both its Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain infrastructure.

Polychain-backed Botanix Labs is winding down its Spiderchain Bitcoin Layer 2 after a year of mainnet operation, citing insufficient demand for Bitcoin-native DeFi. Users have until July 9 to withdraw assets.

A genesis-block Ethereum wallet labeled "Joseph Lubin?" by Arkham Intelligence deposited 110,000 ETH into three Sky Finance vaults on Friday, shoring up collateral behind $259M in DAI debt as ETH fell sharply. Neither Lubin nor ConsenSys has made any public statement on ownership of the address.

Polymarket's 2026 FIFA World Cup prediction markets have accumulated more than $1.8 billion in cumulative trading volume as the tournament's group stage gets underway, with France and Spain trading as the narrowest co-favorites.

Citrini Research, known for moving AI equities with its reports, published an analysis calling Hyperliquid compelling, citing the protocol's Assistance Fund directing more than 90% of fees to HYPE buybacks and its command of close to half of all crypto token buyback activity this year.

Arthur Hayes published a macro thesis arguing Bitcoin cannot rally until the AI stock bubble deflates, citing $1.5 trillion in AI debt issuance that absorbed the liquidity Bitcoin needed. He exited HYPE, NEAR, WLD, and ZEC and rotated Maelstrom's equity book into US energy producers.

LlamaRisk has submitted two Aave governance proposals covering a four-layer protocol-wide risk standard and a PT oracle upgrade to Chainlink CRE. Founder Stani Kulechov says assets that fail the new standard will be off-boarded.