Pump.fun Rolls Out Trader Cashback Model

Creators can now choose to retain or redirect 100% of the trading fees to the traders. Plus the top news, stats, and reports.

Issue Summary: Welcome back to Coinstack, the weekly newsletter for institutional crypto investors and industry insiders. We reviewed the top news, stats, and reports in the digital asset ecosystem for our 300k weekly subscribers. This week, Pump.fun rolled out a new trader-focused “Cashback Coins” model to rebalance creator incentives, while a Bitcoin Improvement proposal, BIP-110, aimed at curbing spam sparked community backlash over censorship concerns. Meanwhile, Bitcoin also slipped after Donald Trump announced a 15% global tariff hike, adding fresh macro pressure to markets. On the fundraising front, Dragonfly closed a $650M fourth fund—beating its $500M target—to double down on stablecoins, on-chain payments, and DeFi. Meanwhile, Novig raised $75M in a Pantera-led Series B, bringing total funding to $105M as it scales its sports prediction marketplace.

Price performance since we began writing Coinstack in January 2021

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💵 Weekly Crypto Fundraises & Deals

Here are all the crypto fundraises we heard about this week, ranked by size…

1. Dragonfly, the crypto venture company, has successfully raised $650M as its fourth venture fund, exceeding its initial $500M target. The fundraising marks one of the largest venture capital raises in recent times, despite the market downturn. According to reports, the company is focusing on stablecoin issuance, on-chain payments, and DeFi.

2. Novig, the sports-focused prediction market, raised $75M in Series B, bringing total funding to $105M since its launch in 2024. With the funding, Novig plans to democratize, capitalize, and reshape the sports industry. The funding is led by Pantera Capital with participation from Multicoin Capital, Makers Fund, Edge Equity, and existing investors Forerunner, NFX, and Perceptive Ventures.

3. An all–in-one crypto wallet and blockchain infrastructure provider, Kresus has raised $13M (KRW 18 billion) led by Hanwha Investment & Securities. The firm will utilize the funding to support the expansion of the RWA tokenization platform and industry-grade digital wallet infrastructure.

4. Newity, a fintech firm, has successfully raised $11M in strategic funding, led by lead investor CMT Digital. The fundraiser will help build a dedicated and peer-to- peer on-chain lending platform for small and mid-sized businesses.

5. Yom, a decentralized cloud gaming platform, has raised $3M in strategic funding, bringing its total raised funding to over $4M. The fundraiser will accelerate Yom’s cloud gaming infrastructure and streamline a high-performance gaming experience without using any localized downloads or specialized hardware. The funding round was led by Avalanche Foundation, Borderless Capital, Outlier Ventures, CV Labs, Protein Capital, Blockraise, and Simms International.

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🗞️ Crypto News Recap: The Top 5 Stories

Welcome back to This Week in Crypto… everything you need to know in one scannable format. Here are the top 5 stories of the week…

1. 🎉 Pump.fun Rolls Out New Fee-Sharing Model to Reward Traders: The Solana-based memecoin launchpad has revamped its creator fee model by introducing a new “Cashback Coins” model. Under this model, creators can choose whether to retain the rewards or redirect 100% of the trading fees to the traders. The update aims to create a fair and balanced reward system, addressing the longstanding criticism that the previous system unfairly enriched the creators.

2. 😳 Bitcoin Improvement Model to Curb Spam Receives Backlash: Pseudonymous developer Dathon Ohm, who introduced the BIP-110 proposal, a “soft fork” upgrade in December last year, received sharp criticism from the industry. Ohm said that BIP-110 could temporarily reduce the transaction data limit and unclog the network from spam risks. However, many industry experts argued that Ohm’s “spam fix” could impact decentralization, user accessibility, and undermine Bitcoin’s reputation.

3. 🧨 Bitcoin Dips After Trump Hikes Global Tariffs to 15%: The price of Bitcoin saw a minor intraday dip on Saturday after President Trump hiked global tariffs from 10% to 15%. The move followed a day after the Supreme Court’s landmark 6-3 ruling on Friday that struck down Trump’s tariff imposition on the grounds of overreaching presidential authority.

4. 🐙 Kraken Integrates ICE Chat for Institutional OTC Access: The U.S.-based crypto exchange Kraken has successfully integrated its OTC (over-the-counter) desk with ICE Chat, a messaging system managed by Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE). The integration allows Kraken to directly access ICE’s over 120,000 institutional clients worldwide via the OTC desk with real-time communications.

5. 🤯 Google Search for “Bitcoin to Zero” Reaches Record High: Google Trends search results for the query “Bitcoin to Zero” hit a record score in the U.S. as it plunged towards $60K in February. Google Trends data shows that search results for “Is Bitcoin dead” and “Bitcoin to zero” have spiked significantly this week. The searches spiked similarly in 2021 and 2022 when Bitcoin hit local bottoms.

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💬 Tweet of the Week

Source: @cz_binance

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📊 Key Stats of the Week

Here are the most important and interesting stats in crypto this week...

1. Tether Gold has emerged as one of the top-performing protocols of 2026, quietly growing into the 11th largest DeFi protocol with $3.5B+ in deposits.

Over the past 30 days, Tether.io Gold has grown 47%, by far the fastest growth of any protocol in the top 25 by TVL.

As risk appetite contracts and capital rotates into onchain RWAs, the distinction between which protocols and which RWAs attract flows will matter more than ever.

Source: @DavidShuttleworth

2. Markets: 200M $XRP left @Binance over past 10 days as supply ratio dropped from 0.027 to 0.025, showing potential accumulation after 40% YTD correction.

Source: @CoinDesk

3. Another largely underindexed angle amidst all the market turmoil: onchain commodities have grown by $3B (+67%) YTD.

Over the past month, trading volume has surged 200% to record highs of $18.6B, with active users doubling to 60k and total holders now exceeding 230k (+23%).

Much of this growth has been led by @tethergold ($2.66B) and @Paxos Gold ($2.3B), signaling growing demand for simple, portable stores of value onchain as risk appetite fades elsewhere.

Source: @DavidShuttleworth

4. As onchain private credit accelerates, one protocol is quietly dominating by bringing real estate collateral and HELOCs onchain.

Figure now accounts for $15B+ in active loans, representing over 70% of all onchain private credit outstanding, driven almost entirely by its HELOC product.

At the same time, Figure’s yield-bearing stablecoin YLDS has grown to $600M in circulating supply, up 6x since December. It is now the 17th largest stablecoin by total supply and the fastest-growing stablecoin in the top 25 over the past month (+60%).

Figure is quietly building a real RWA lending platform with real usage, and is compounding that credit layer by building products like YLDS on top of it.

Source: @DavidShuttleworth

5. 100 Days in the Red

“In just 100 days, the crypto market has erased more than $730 billion in value. What we are witnessing is an unprecedented short-term capital flight, deepening the contraction of the crypto economy.” – By GugaOnChain

Source: @cryptoquant_com

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📝 Highlights from the Top Crypto Reports

Here are the top highlights from the best crypto research reports this week…

Digital Assets 2026: Above the Noise

About the Author: CoinDesk Research offers unbiased data-driven reports and digital asset trends, aims to help you understand crypto like never before by harnessing the power of DeFi market dynamics along with macro trends, on-chain data & analytics. This is an excerpt from the full article, which you can find here.

📝 By CoinDesk Research:

What to know:

• Stablecoins now represent a much deeper capital base than the last cycle. Total stablecoin market cap has exceeded $300B, up ~6x from under $50B in early 2020 — signalling a structurally larger liquidity layer than 2020–2021.

• On-chain activity is operating at a higher baseline than 2021. Weekly stablecoin volumes peaked around $160B in early 2025 (vs ~$80B in 2021), and now average roughly $60B, compared with ~$30B last cycle.

• User and revenue growth is broader and increasingly multi-chain. Solana has reached over 4.1M daily active users and BNB around 1.9M, while weekly app revenues now average $50M–$70M and have exceeded $250M at peak — far beyond the 2020–21 cycle.

• Binance highlights how crypto platforms are evolving into multi-asset financial venues. After introducing gold and silver futures, commodity volumes on Binance surged to $70B, reinforcing the report’s “micro → macro” shift toward broader financial infrastructure.

Macro Landscape: A Subdued Market

Over the past few years, the digital asset industry has achieved milestones that once seemed aspirational. Spot crypto ETFs launched in the U.S. to record-breaking inflows. A pro-crypto administration and more constructive regulatory environment have reshaped the policy landscape. Public companies are adopting digital assets as part of their corporate treasuries and large investors are allocating directly to tokens,

Despite these constructive long-term developments, near-term market sentiment has softened considerably. The Fear & Greed Index now sits at historic lows, indicating a degree of risk aversion that exceeds even the depths seen during the FTX episode. Bitcoin has declined more than 50% over the last few months, and many altcoins have fallen to multi-year lows - without experiencing the broadly anticipated “altcoin season.”

At the same time, key capital inflow indicators have softened. The stablecoin market cap recently recorded its first decline in 26 months in November 2025, suggesting a slowdown in new capital entering the ecosystem. Institutional participation has moderated, with spot ETFs experiencing recurring outflows and Digital Asset Treasury (DAT) purchases stagnating, often trading below their mNAV.

Adding to the pressure, Bitcoin has underperformed many traditional financial indices and gold over the past year, with TradFi assets continuing to hover near all-time highs. In a period marked by heightened geopolitical uncertainty, Bitcoin has yet to consistently demonstrate the defensive characteristics many associate with its “digital gold” narrative - a role that could prove critical to its long-term positioning.

Microstructure: The Disconnect between Price and Fundamentals

While current market conditions remain muted, recent price action alone does not fully reflect the broader trajectory of the digital asset sector. Infrastructure has strengthened, regulatory frameworks have matured, institutional integration has deepened, and real-world use cases continue to expand. This divergence becomes even more evident when comparing today’s fundamental metrics with those of the 2021 cycle.

As it stands, the total stablecoin market capitalization has exceeded $300B, up sixfold from under $50B in early 2020. As stablecoins serve as a primary proxy for liquidity entering the crypto ecosystem, this expansion signals a much deeper capital base than the previous cycle.

Ethereum remains the dominant chain for stablecoins, but BNB Chain (BSC) leads the pack in terms of annual growth, surging 133% year-over-year. Networks like Solana and newcomers like Hyperliquid are capturing visible market share, signaling a transition toward a high-speed, multi-chain stablecoin economy.

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🎧 Top Crypto Podcasts of The Week

Here are the crypto podcasts that are worth listening to this week...

1. Bankless - Lyn Alden: How to Survive The Gradual Print Era — Fed Chair Warsh, Gold & Bitcoin

2. The Defiant - Robinhood’s Crypto Head Johann Kerbrat on Why Public Blockchains Will Win

3. Coin Bureau - Unrealized Gains Tax on Crypto: The New 36% Law Explained (What HODLers Must Know)

4. Forward Guidance: Dispersion Is Exploding While Main Street Reaccelerates | Weekly Roundup

5. Unchained: Why Crypto Is Having a Mass Exodus - The Chopping Block

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💬 Join The Coinstack Telegram Community

Join our Telegram Channel here to chat with our community, ask questions, and learn more about the future of money as we move to a decentralized internet and the creation of a new open global monetary system that works for everyone.

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💬 The People We’re Following Closely on Twitter

1. Vitalik Buterin

2. Justin Drake

3. Hayden Adams

4. Hasu

5. Ryan Adams

6. Vance Spencer

7. Camila Russo

8. Ryan Selkis

9. Anthony Sassano

10. Lyn Alden

11. Gavin Wood

12. Cathy Wood

13. Beniamin Mincu

14. Barry Silbert

15. David Hoffman

16. Preston Pysh

17. Willy Woo

18. Ultra Sound Money List

19. Polkadot Ecosystem List

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📚 How To Get Started With Crypto Learning

1. Crypto: Explain It Like I’m 5 (Article)

2. The Infinite Machine by Camila Russo (Book)

3. Crypto Theses for 2021 by Messari (PDF)

4. Bankless - The DeFi community (Substack + Podcast + Discord)

5. Understanding Polkadot - The Next Generation Blockchain Tech (Website)

6. The Ethereum 2.0 Report from Messari (PDF)

7. Blockgeeks Video Tutorials (Video)

8. The Coinstack Website (Website)

9. 2008 Bitcoin Whitepaper (PDF)

10. 2013 Ethereum Whitepaper (PDF)

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📰 The Coinstack Newsletter:

Tracking the most important blockchain stories of the 2020s, including a decentralized internet and the creation of a new open global monetary system that works for everyone. As always, published for informational purposes only. Please do your own research. Just our opinions. Not intended as financial advice as we are not financial advisors. We may own some of the digital assets we write about as we believe strongly in the sector. Please do your own research.

Coinstack is a news and analysis newsletter for the digital asset industry. None of the information here is a recommendation to invest in any securities or other types of investments. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. AI usage disclosure: Some portions of this document may have been created with the assistance of AI tools. The content has been reviewed and edited by a human. As a result, our research/editorial may contain errors. For more information on the extent and nature of AI usage, please contact the publisher. For personalized investment advice consult with a registered investment advisor. Any historical returns, expected returns, or probability projections may not reflect actual future performance. All investments involve risk and may result in loss.

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