Calling all builders 🔨 Your frontend, your users, Derive's options liquidity underneath. Build or integrate the next great options product → docs.derive.xyz Here's what V3 means in practice ↓

LayerZero is building an integration with @TACEO_io for cross-chain Merces transfers to support private balances that move between networks with the participants and the size of the transfer shielded in transit.

We think it's time to make some changes to the TokenStrategy platform, tying in FWA even further. Starting tomorrow, anyone will be able to deploy the Strategy for a collection if it doesn't already have one. Here's how it will work:

worked through the entire night to save ~$6M worth of NFTs and all I'll be able to think about is the $1.7M in WETH I wasn't fast enough for. Fuck scammers.

MAYC #23028 purchased with 1.011 ETH backing ($2,732 USD) by 0xcb5e...2b77 from @bavibull fwa.fun/nft/25763

Let’s talk about the cabal in crypto. People hear that word and immediately act like you’re describing a secret meeting in a dark room. But it doesn’t need to be that dramatic. A cabal can simply be a small circle of well-connected people who continuously move money, attention, opportunities and credibility between one another while pretending the entire market is open and merit-based. We have all watched it happen. The same collectors buy from the same artists. Those artists promote the same platforms. Those platforms feature the same collectors. The same influencers amplify the drops. The same friends enter early, create activity, sell into the attention and then move together to the next project. Money gets tossed around inside the same circle, and every transaction becomes marketing for the next one. One person buys a piece for a large amount. The artist suddenly looks important. The collector gains influence for “discovering” them. The sale gets shared everywhere. More buyers arrive because they believe the market has validated the work. Then the artist, collector and platform use that attention to lift another person from the same circle. Everyone involved becomes more valuable because everyone involved keeps declaring the others valuable. That does not mean every successful artist is part of some scheme. It does not mean every large sale is fake or that every collector is dishonest. There are real artists, genuine collectors and people doing incredible work in this space. But pretending these circles do not exist is insulting. Talent alone does not explain why the same small group receives the exhibitions, interviews, collaborations, invitations, features and high-value sales year after year. It does not explain why incredible artists can work publicly for years without being acknowledged, while someone connected to the right people arrives and is immediately treated like an important cultural figure. Crypto was supposed to remove gatekeepers. Instead, it created new gatekeepers who hide behind words like community, decentralization and culture. They tell artists to keep creating, stay consistent and support the space. What they often mean is: support our projects, buy from our friends, repeat our narratives and never question why opportunity keeps circulating among the same wallets and names. If you challenge it, you become “negative.” If you question a valuation, you “don’t understand the culture.” If you point out the circle, you are accused of being jealous. That response protects the system because it turns every legitimate criticism into a personal flaw. It is easier to dismiss someone as bitter than to answer why visibility, money and influence keep moving through such a small network. And this is bigger than art. It happens with memecoins, NFT collections, conferences, launchpads, advisory positions and so-called organic communities. Insiders build the story, buy early, amplify each other and benefit from the attention that arrives later. The public sees momentum. The inner circle sees timing. Then, when the volume disappears, ordinary people are told they should have done better research. What frustrates me most is that crypto still has the ability to be something better. It can give independent artists and builders direct access to people who genuinely care about their work. It can create communities that are not controlled by galleries, corporations or old institutions. But decentralization means very little if social power remains completely centralized. I am not asking anyone to stop supporting their friends. Support them. Collect their work. Celebrate what they build. But stop pretending friendship, access and coordinated attention have nothing to do with who succeeds. Stop presenting a closed social economy as a fair and open marketplace. Stop telling struggling artists that their only problem is that they have not worked hard enough. Some people are climbing a mountain. Others are being carried up by the people already standing at the top. The cabal does not need robes, secret handshakes or a headquarters. It exists wherever the same people repeatedly exchange money, access, legitimacy and attention while convincing everyone outside the circle that they are witnessing a completely organic market. You can call it networking. You can call it community. You can call it culture. But when the money, influence and opportunities continually travel around the same closed loop, people are eventually going to recognize it for what it is. The NFT market moves billions of dollars, but the social circle deciding where much of that attention goes is remarkably small.

INTEL: KYC should collect less personal data and use zero-knowledge proofs to verify compliance without revealing names, income or addresses, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce says