Stock-Token Loans Face Their First Weekend
Plus: Aero merges Aerodrome and Velodrome, Starknet's poll closes at 93.52%, and Visa eyes Fireblocks
gm, Defiers!
These are the biggest stories in DeFi and crypto:
- Aero merged Aerodrome and Velodrome on 7 chains
- Starknet poll: 93.52% back L1 research
- Visa in talks to buy Fireblocks for $2.5B
- Ethereum devs cancel Glamsterdam on Hoodi
- Morpho opens loans on Robinhood Stock Tokens
Tokenized stocks are breaking free from exchange accounts and moving into DeFi lending markets. Today Morpho opened Robinhood Stock Tokens to stablecoin borrowing, and Kraken said it now lists more than 1,000 xStocks. Yesterday, Pendle added leveraged loops on Coinbase stock tokens on Base. A holder can now borrow dollars against Nvidia exposure without selling it.
So, what happens to that loan when the stock market closes?
A lending market must price its collateral at all times. Robinhood advertises 24/7 trading for its onchain Stock Tokens. Its Chainlink price feeds update 24 hours a day, five days a week. Aave Labs says its equity feeds hold the last price over weekends and U.S. holidays. Interest on the loan accrues during that time, and the collateral price stays fixed. (Paboxo, another lender on Robinhood Chain, pauses liquidations while the stock market is closed). LlamaRisk, a DeFi risk firm, warns that the first new price can include the whole weekend's move. A loan that was healthy on Friday can be liquidatable at that update.
I counted the Morpho markets on Robinhood Chain through Morpho's public API at 7 p.m. ET. Holders have posted $3.9 million of Robinhood Stock Tokens and borrowed $1.7 million of USDG, a dollar stablecoin. The average loan-to-value is 43.5%. Almost all of it sits in markets that liquidate at 62.5%. Nvidia tokens back $1.48 million of that collateral, at an average of 45.3%. By my arithmetic, Nvidia would have to fall about 27% before the average Nvidia loan became liquidatable.
That buffer is larger than one of Nvidia's worst days. The stock fell 17% on Jan. 27, 2025, its biggest drop since March 2020. True, the average hides the borrowers near the limit, and a Monday price gap would liquidate those borrowers first. Pendle's stock loops carry less buffer. They offer 2.6 to 4.2 times leverage. At 4.2 times, the user's own money is 24% of the position. A 24% fall erases it, and liquidation comes before that point.
The Morpho markets opened on a Thursday, so their first weekend is only hours away. Stay safe out there.
Chris, Editor Converge at The Defiant
Read more below!
As of 23:18 UTC, Oct. 22. Data: CoinGecko, Aave, Hyperliquid. Full list
Aero Launches as Aerodrome and Velodrome Merge Across Seven Chains
Aerodrome and Velodrome merged into Aero across seven chains, with one token and one liquidity network. Holders convert by hand, and the upgrade is irreversible: one AERO becomes one new AERO, and one VELO becomes 0.044 AERO. Aerodrome holders get 94.5% of the new supply, matching their share of the two exchanges' revenue. Continuous allocation replaces the weekly reward vote, and locked positions become sAERO on Base. Aero targets about 12% annual inflation against a 20% ceiling. By 7 p.m. ET, VELO traded 0.5% below the price the conversion implies.
Starknet Poll Backs Post-Quantum Layer 1 Research With 93.52% Support
Starknet's poll closed with 93.52% of voting power backing research into an independent, post-quantum Layer 1. The final tally counted 3,236 votes and 489.33 million STRK. The vote is non-binding and approves study only. It sets no launch date, no bridge design and no change to STRK's economics. StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson told The Block he hopes to release a draft whitepaper in November. STRK stays the token, and the Ethereum bridges stay open. Withdrawals still need an Ethereum state update before funds are released.
STRK's L1 Bet: Eli Ben-Sasson on Starknet's Exit Plan
Camila Russo talked with StarkWare co-founder and CEO Eli Ben-Sasson while the vote was open. They covered what would replace Ethereum's settlement guarantees, who approves the move and what a yes vote decides. Watch the full conversation.
Visa in Talks to Buy Fireblocks for About $2.5 Billion: Axios
Visa is in late-stage talks to buy Fireblocks for about $2.5 billion, Axios reported. A Fireblocks spokesperson told The Defiant the report is “not true at present time.” Banks, exchanges and payment firms use Fireblocks to secure and move digital assets, with key shares split across parties. A sale would put that infrastructure under a card network. The reported price is below the $8 billion valuation from Fireblocks' 2022 funding round. Mastercard completed its purchase of BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure firm, on Aug. 3 and launched a joint platform on Oct. 15.
Ethereum Developers Cancel Oct. 26 Glamsterdam Upgrade on Hoodi
Ethereum developers cancelled the Oct. 26 Glamsterdam upgrade on the Hoodi testnet after ChainSecurity found security issues in two gas-accounting changes, EIP-8037 and EIP-8038. The changes can let a contract's failure code finish where it used to revert. That can turn an operation that should be retryable into a permanent failure. Node operators must go back to an older release or install a client update that removes the fork. Besu 26.10.0 still activates it. The rollback sets no new Hoodi date. Teams had planned to pick a mainnet date next week.
Morpho Opens Robinhood Stock Tokens to Stablecoin Borrowing
Morpho made Robinhood Stock Tokens live as collateral on Robinhood Chain, so holders can borrow the USDG stablecoin against them. Listed markets for Nvidia and SpaceX tokens liquidate at a 62.5% loan-to-value ratio, and an S&P 500 ETF market at 77%. The price feeds update 24 hours a day, five days a week. Paboxo has offered stock-token loans since Oct. 19 and pauses liquidations while markets are closed. The tokens are debt claims on a Jersey issuer, and U.S. persons cannot buy them.
Other Stories Worth Your Time
Developer Links $370,000 Theft to Railway Secrets Exposure — researchers then flagged rate manipulation at Swell tied to the same key leak.
Cloudflare CEO Reports Millions of PHP2Shell Exploit Attempts — PHP has patched both flaws, and SlowMist urged crypto platforms to upgrade.
CoinDCX Co-Founder Denies New Hack After $16 Million Wallet Alert — Sumit Gupta says the flagged wallets were compromised in the July 2025 hack.
A16z Crypto Plans ‘Frontier’ Rebrand and Broader Strategy: Report — general partner Ali Yahya is leaving to start a company, the report says.
Pump.fun Adds Take-Profit and Stop-Loss Orders for EVM Trades — also new: D3's HYPE vault for domain access, Utexo's Nov. 28 USDT launch on Bitcoin and Collector Crypt's $24.3 million day.
Base Active Addresses Jump 82.5% to a 30-Day High — Arbitrum hit a 30-day high, then retreated; transactions rose far less on both.
Aztec Announces V6 Approval While Governance Dashboard Still Shows Voting Open — apps must recompile their contracts, and contract addresses change.
Bitcoin Falls 3.7% to Test $81,500 ETF Cost Basis — also: a government-linked $1 billion transfer reached Coinbase Prime, and Chinese prosecutors seek 61,896 BTC in the Qian case.
Kraken Says Its xStocks Lineup Now Exceeds 1,000 — up from 131 in September; separately, Robinhood plans a 2027 UAE launch.
Circle Opens USDC Auctions That Pay Minters a Rebate — also: SoFi launched a 4.4% tokenized deposit and JPMorgan brought MONY and JLTXX to Solana.
Blumenthal Seeks Records on Tether Payments to Bo Hines's Firm — and Ireland's central bank fined Coinbase €3.25 million over customer-fund failures.
Lightning Labs Urges Immediate Updates Over Certificate Vulnerability — also: Zipcoin is shutting down after a key compromise, and Interpol's sweep recovered $105 million.
Alpha Modus Reports $250 Million-Plus Bitcoin Holding From Share Swap — it got the 3,170 BTC through a share-and-warrant swap.
Matter Labs Introduces Prividium Commander for Existing Blockchains — plus Mastercard Crypto Credential compared with KYC and the Travel Rule.
What Is a Crypto ‘Wrench Attack’? — plus a toy ECDSA example of how wallet signatures work, and Bitcoin's and Ethereum's paths to post-quantum wallets.
Uniswap Swap Costs: What Reduces Your Output and What Is Paid Separately — the interface fee is zero, but pool fees, price impact and gas still apply.
Trending on The Defiant
Free newsletters
Good reporting. Delivered.
Choose your coverage: crypto and DeFi, the future of finance, or both.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
