Olivia Capozzalo & Denis Omelchenko
September 29, 2025

Happy Monday, Defiers!

Today’s big story:

Crypto markets never sleep — this weekend saw sell-offs, hacks, new product launches, and more

In other news:

Swift has confirmed reports it will work with Consensys
PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD surged to new highs
Plasma’s savings vault saw nearly $3 billion in deposits in its first 24 hours
ETHGas building critical infra for Ethereum blockspace [SPONSORED]

Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.

FAssets are LIVE on Flare mainnet!

Flare’s first FAsset, FXRP, is now live on mainnet, starting with FXRP, a 1:1 representation of XRP. The launch gives XRP holders access to DeFi tools, including lending, liquidity, and soon liquid staking. FXRP can be minted directly or swapped on SparkDEX, BlazeSwap, and Enosys, with incentives offering up to 50% APR. The protocol has undergone multiple audits, bug bounties, and continuous monitoring. FXRP marks the beginning of Flare’s XRPFi ecosystem and a new chapter for XRP utility

Learn more

We’re back! Here’s what you need to know in web3 today

📈 Markets in the Past 24 Hours

TICKER	VALUE	24H
Bitcoin	$114,214	4.02 %
Ethereum	$4,199.91	4.41 %
XRP	$2.91	4.27 %
BNB	$1,019.35	4.45 %
Solana	$212.15	5.32 %

Weekend in Review: Crypto News You Might Have Missed

Crypto had a busy weekend with some sell-offs, hacks, new product launches, and big fund movements that kept traders on their toes.

Hyperdrive, a lending protocol in the Hyperliquid ecosystem that lets users borrow and lend tokens with algorithmic interest rates, suffered a $782,000 hack after “a known threat actor linked to high-profile attacks on other protocols” exploited a vulnerability in one of its liquidity pools. Shortly after the attack, the team reassured users in a Monday X post that “all markets are fully operational and funds have been restored to all impacted accounts.”

This is the second incident in the Hyperliquid ecosystem in the past week, after reports surfaced that DeFi protocol Hypervault seemingly rug pulled investors for $3.6 million, with analysts flagging spontaneous withdrawals to Tornado Cash, a crypto mixing service.

But incidents weren’t limited to Hyperliquid. Rival perp DEX Aster, which briefly surpassed Circle in daily revenue last week, had to refund traders after a glitch in its perpetual contract triggered exaggerated liquidations of XPL tokens, which debuted on Plasma’s mainnet beta last Thursday.

Market Rebound

On the market side, things cooled off a bit at the end of last week and over the weekend. Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $902 million in outflows last week, the third-biggest ever, per SoSoValue data.

Still, Bitcoin has held up better than expected and bounced back to start the week. After dropping below $110,000 over the weekend, BTC grew over 4% in the past 24 hours and has reclaimed the $114,000 level by Monday morning. Coinglass data now indicates that BTC could still finish September up over 3%, despite the month historically being weak for returns.

Meanwhile, a cluster of bull market top indicators tracked by Coinglass is steadily pushing toward sell signals.

BTC 1-month price chart. Source: CoinGecko

As analysts at Glassnode noted in a Monday post on X, Bitcoin futures built up a lot of short bets around $110,000-111,000 over the weekend, but Monday’s bounce back above $112,000 “forced liquidations across these clusters, clearing positioning and adding momentum to the upside as the market reset.”

On the regulatory front, Eric Adams, New York’s vocally pro-crypto mayor who took his first paychecks in crypto and pushed to roll back the costly BitLicense, announced in a video on Sunday that he’s dropping out of the mayoral race, leaving the contest between Democrat Zohran Mamdani and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Denis Omelchenko, staff reporter at The Defiant

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🎬WATCH

$100 Million DeFi DAT Chooses ETH | Ryan Zurrer

On the latest episode of The Defiant Podcast, Vinny sat down with crypto pioneer Ryan Zurrer to explore the strategy behind Game Square, the Jerry Jones-backed media powerhouse that bet $100 million on Ethereum instead of Bitcoin.

Ryan, who co-wrote the MakerDAO whitepaper and now leads Dialectic, shares why Ethereum dominates 5 out of 6 real-world crypto use cases, from stablecoins to DeFi, and how it’s emerging as the financial substrate of the future. The conversation dives deep into the evolution of DeFi, the lessons learned from past crypto cycles, and the importance of decentralization and fair launches in building sustainable ecosystems.