DeFi

Lido said it has completed a major upgrade to its staking architecture, now applied across roughly 8 million ETH it manages, valued at about $16.5B at current market prices and representing nearly one-third of all ETH staked on the network. The upgrade focuses on improving protocol security, modularity and validator management efficiency. It does not involve changes to tokenomics or any token unlocks. As Ethereum’s largest liquid staking protocol, Lido’s technical iteration affects LDO governance weight and ecosystem stickiness, while indirectly strengthening the reliability of infrastructure underpinning ETH as a yield-bearing asset.

USDD has published a guide detailing three ways to obtain the stablecoin: minting through an overcollateralized Vault using TRX, sTRX or USDT; buying on exchanges; or swapping USDT/USDC for USDD via the Peg Stability Module (PSM) at a 1:1 rate with zero slippage. After acquiring USDD, holders can deploy it in products such as sUSDD and Earn, or in protocols including JustLend DAO, to generate yield. The guide highlights USDD’s cross-chain DeFi access, expanded collateral options and an optimized stablecoin conversion mechanism, positioning it as a core stablecoin and liquidity layer within the TRON ecosystem, according to USDD.

Lido said it has begun a historic migration involving about $16.5 billion in ETH, aimed at optimizing Ethereum’s performance and staking efficiency. The move is part of a core infrastructure upgrade of the Lido protocol that will rebuild its underlying ETH staking architecture to improve security, scalability and governance responsiveness. As Ethereum’s largest liquid staking protocol, Lido’s migration directly affects the value-support logic of its native token, LDO, and indirectly strengthens ETH’s utility and network effects as a base-layer asset. The event does not involve regulators, exchange listings or token unlocks, and is presented as a protocol-level ecosystem evolution.

A recent JustLendDAO capital-flow snapshot shows supply concentrated in ETH, sTRX and TRX, with sTRX standing out and signaling stronger confidence in TRON’s liquid staking mechanism. On the borrowing side, demand is dominated by USDT, followed by TRX and BTC, suggesting users are seeking stablecoin liquidity and leverage rather than selling core holdings. The data also indicates professional capital is using TRON-linked assets as vehicles for layered yield strategies, tying TRX liquidity more closely to JST’s governance value in the protocol.

Evernorth said it plans to put its own XRP to work through lending, basis trades and active participation on the XRP Ledger, aiming to shift XRP from a passively held asset to a yield-generating component of financial infrastructure. The company said the move does not involve exchange listings, regulatory rulings or new token issuance, but instead focuses on expanding real on-chain usage. It did not disclose the size of the funds involved, a timeline or partner details, and described the effort as a single-institution ecosystem practice rather than a network-wide protocol upgrade or liquidity injection.

Flare Networks has started a six-month integration phase to expand the XRPFi ecosystem. The first upgrades are expected within two weeks and are intended to make Flare a fully programmable layer for the $XRP Ledger. The effort is aimed at opening more DeFi use cases for XRP, which has largely been limited to payments, according to CEO Hugo Philion.

A cross-platform price comparison found BOB Gateway consistently delivered the best quotes for BTC swaps into USDT and other stablecoins across common trade sizes. The assessment was based on test data spanning major swap routes and focused on realized slippage and the final amount of USDT received. It also pointed to GOBOB, the protocol token behind BOB Gateway, as an ecosystem utility and traffic gateway that has been objectively validated.

A new feature called Stars has been observed on the Hedera (HL) testnet, enabling DEX deployers to enforce a HIP-3-based allowlist for trading addresses, with the testnet allowlist currently capped at 10,000 addresses. Addresses not on the allowlist can still submit reduce-only orders and fund accounts. BTC Star DEX (ktob), the first known example, registered a BTC pair, activated a Star, approved a trader address, and unhalted the pair, then tested that unapproved addresses failed to place orders while approved addresses could trade. The feature is currently only running on testnet and has not been deployed to mainnet.

The RIBBIT project has launched a new staking incentive campaign for token holders. Users who stake 1M RIBBIT will receive an instant 500K RIBBIT bonus and earn 150% APY over a 90-day staking period. Stakers who commit 10M RIBBIT or more are also eligible for an additional “Silver Bitcoin” bonus. The announcement does not state whether the token is listed on major exchanges such as BingX, or whether there are changes to tokenomics, team backing, or audit status.

The RIBBIT team announced a limited-time staking incentive program in which users who stake 1M RIBBIT receive an instant 500K RIBBIT bonus and can earn 150% APY over a 90-day term. Participants staking more than 10M RIBBIT in total can also unlock a “Silver Bitcoin bonus.” The program is aimed at existing holders and does not involve new token issuance, an on-chain upgrade, or protocol governance changes.