Ethena Launches Ethena Pay, Boasting 5% Cashback and 6% USD Savings Yield

Serenity published a post stating that action camera maker GoPro ($GPRO) plans to merge with photonics firm Starman Optical to enter the AI data center 800G/1.6T optical module market. Following the announcement, GoPro’s share price surged over 80%. Serenity commented, “GoPro competing against AAOI is absolutely outside my expectations.” It noted that GoPro’s shift from action cameras to the AI data center optical communications sector is quite unexpected, and the market has reacted strongly to this transformation plan.

On the first trading day of September, the three major U.S. stock indexes opened lower across the board: the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.64%, the S&P 500 dropped 0.71%, the Nasdaq slid 1.31%, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index once plunged more than 3%. Intel and Qualcomm declined nearly 3%, AMD and Meta fell over 2%, while Tesla, Alibaba, and Nvidia dropped nearly 2%. The core factor pressuring the market is the simultaneous rise in oil prices and global bond yields. Brent crude oil broke above $92 per barrel during the session; market concerns over Middle East tensions and shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz are expected to push up energy prices and inflation, further strengthening expectations of a Federal Reserve interest rate hike. Currently, CME’s FedWatch Tool shows the probability of a 25-basis-point Fed rate hike in September to a range of 3.75%-4.00% has risen to 66%. Paul Ciana, technical strategist at Bank of America, stated the S&P 500’s upward breakout starting in August remains intact, provided it holds above 7,500 points. Meanwhile, neither the RSI nor MACD has confirmed the recent price highs, indicating upward momentum is weakening. Ciana noted seasonal headwinds, election uncertainty, and rising front-end U.S. Treasury yields are posing greater challenges to the market, with higher yields increasing the risk that stocks will enter a consolidation phase rather than rallying at an accelerated pace. Matt Maley, strategist at Miller Tabak, also warned the stock market has so far been able to ignore rising yields, but this does not mean the pressure from high yields will not eventually surface. JPMorgan Chase, meanwhile, argues rising yields may not be an insurmountable obstacle for the bull market, as they could reflect stronger economic activity momentum.

DeFi protocol Firelight Protocol has secured an $8 million funding round led by Gumi Cryptos Capital, with participation from Maven 11, Metalayer, Joint Effects, Tribe Capital, and other investors. The project aims to build an on-chain risk protection layer for DeFi, planning to launch its protocol and first set of coverage products in September, while expanding its insured asset base from XRP to include Bitcoin (BTC) and Stellar (XLM). Incubated by DeFi infrastructure provider Sentora, Firelight targets the smart contract vulnerability risks that fintech companies face when entering the on-chain yield market. It has developed an on-chain protection mechanism where users’ insured positions are represented as NFTs. In the event of a vulnerability exploit, an alliance of independent risk firms—GFX Labs, Hypernative, Credora, Native, and Cyfrin—will evaluate claim eligibility, with a goal of completing reviews in 3–4 days and payouts within 10 days. Firelight CEO Anthony DeMartino stated that the product is not geared toward crypto-native speculators, but rather intends to act as a "protective layer" to drive the next wave of capital into on-chain spaces. Currently, roughly $80 billion is locked in DeFi, yet less than 1% of that total has on-chain risk coverage. Firelight identifies fintech firms, digital banks, and payment platforms as its core potential clients.

Injective officials announced that community contributors coordinated an accelerated network upgrade yesterday. As the time required for all validators and ecosystem infrastructure to complete the upgrade exceeded expectations, some validators were temporarily jailed, leading to a temporary dip in the network’s staked amount. Several exchanges also temporarily suspended INJ deposits and withdrawals. Injective stressed that its blockchain network and INJ token remained fully secure throughout the process: the underlying protocol and consensus mechanism were not compromised, user and staked funds suffered no losses or risks, and the network continued processing transactions without any downtime. The official noted that the accelerated upgrade was triggered by attacks on a small number of binary options market applications within the Injective ecosystem. The incident only impacted those applications, and did not exploit the Injective blockchain, protocol, native assets, or consensus mechanism. The attack vector has since been contained and repaired. Injective added that its team is deploying enhanced security mechanisms, real-time monitoring systems, and additional protective measures to identify abnormal activities earlier and reduce the risk of similar incidents recurring.

Hyperliquid’s block trading layer Silhouette has announced the mainnet launch of its RFQ (Request for Quote) trading system, with initial support for xStocks, Payward’s tokenized stock framework. According to the announcement, traders can submit quotes for supported xStocks, receive competitive bids from multiple market makers, and final executed trades settle directly on-chain, with support for 24/7 trading and large-sized orders. This model eliminates the need to build separate order books for each tokenized stock; once trading activity reaches a certain threshold, the assets can also be listed on Hyperliquid’s HyperCore market. Data shows that since its launch in June 2025, xStocks has recorded a cumulative trading volume exceeding $40 billion, with over 200,000 holders, of which nearly $20 billion in volume has been settled on-chain. The current global tokenized stock market size is around $2.53 billion, with xStocks boasting a market cap of ~$620 million, ranking third globally. In addition, Payward announced today that it will tokenize the 100 largest companies by market cap listed on the London Stock Exchange. The first batch of London-listed xStocks is expected to launch in the coming weeks, pending regulatory approval.

U.S. job openings rose slightly in July, signaling that overall labor demand has remained stable in recent months. Data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on Tuesday showed that July job openings climbed from June’s downwardly revised 7.18 million to 7.27 million, versus economists’ median estimate of 7.31 million. The report notes the U.S. labor market is still in the "low hiring, low layoffs" pattern that has prevailed for most of the past few years. Amid geopolitical uncertainty and persistent inflation, employers are cautious about expanding their headcount but reluctant to cut staff easily. The increase in job openings was driven mainly by manufacturing, state and local governments (excluding education), healthcare and social assistance sectors. Meanwhile, layoffs hit their lowest level since January this year, while the quits rate — a measure of the share of workers who voluntarily leave their jobs each month — edged down to 1.9%. Source: Jinshi