小捕手 chaos

Big news: The established payment project Alchemy Pay may be entering the compliant exchange track.

Alchemy Pay has just officially announced its investment in the Hong Kong securities company HTF Securities Limited. HTF has been operating in the Hong Kong capital market for many years and holds three core financial licenses, namely:
Category 1 (Securities Trading)
Category 4 (Securities Advisory)
Category 9 (Asset Management)
Through a strategic investment in HTF, Alchemy Pay has successfully obtained the aforementioned financial licenses. This is just the first step in the strategy.

What’s next?
The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission currently allows holders of Category 1, Category 4, and Category 9 licenses to apply for an extension of their business scope to virtual assets. In other words, by holding the aforementioned financial licenses, Alchemy Pay now has the potential to expand its business activities into crypto assets.
Is the probability of success high? Previously, Guotai Junan and Futu Securities both successfully passed the approval of the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission and were permitted to provide virtual asset trading services.
Personally, I think the probability of application approval is quite high.

Alchemy Pay's strategic ambitions go far beyond license upgrades. I have organized its ecological layout and $ACH benefits:
Alchemy Pay compliance license upgrade
Alchemy Chain launch, empowering $ACH (the mainnet is expected to be launched in Q4 2025)
Issuance of its own stablecoin (expected to be issued on Alchemy Chain)
More RWA product integration. Previously, Alchemy Pay collaborated with Backed & xStocks to launch the world's first fiat-to-RWA product.
Looking at the $ACH trend, after a period of consolidation, it has been steadily rising for nearly a month. If you are a $ACH holder, I suggest paying attention to the important nodes I mentioned above.

The Aptos ecosystem is really about to take off.
Binance Wallet's Bonding Curve IDO first phase has chosen Aptos ecosystem Dex leader @hyperion_xyz as the first project to take the plunge, and in the short term, market sentiment and funds will tilt towards Hyperion. It is expected to perform well.

Valuation Analysis
From a valuation perspective, Hyperion's best comparable is Cetus on Sui, as both are top-tier Dexs on Move public chains, and Cetus has already had its TGE, providing relatively rich data for reference.
Overall comparison:
Public Chain Background: Undoubtedly, Sui is currently stronger than Aptos in terms of ecology, giving Cetus one point.
TVL: $94 million vs $110 million, giving Hyperion one point.
Ecological Status: Cetus has a strong external competitor, Momentum, and is currently lagging behind in TVL, also recently recovering from a negative incident, making its ecological status unstable; in contrast, Hyperion is undoubtedly the prince of Aptos, with a cumulative trading volume exceeding $7.1 billion since launch, demonstrating stronger ecological dominance.
Comparison Result: Hyperion wins two to one. Considering that Cetus's FDV is currently $12 million, we reasonably expect Hyperion's FDV at launch to be above this level.

Additionally, I want to mention the Bonding Curve; the core of curve auctions is linking price with demand: the more participants there are, the higher the token price; conversely, when purchasing funds decrease, the price will fall. Therefore, I do not recommend FOMOing in; if it were me, I would set a psychological expectation price. If I can't buy it, I would patiently wait for a pullback.

Most Important Reminder
Lastly, and most importantly, do not forget to check and claim your airdrop (don’t forget!): https://hyperion.xyz/airdrop

The 4 AI sub-tracks that Grayscale is most concerned about:

Bittensor subnet: TAO is currently the largest AI asset by market capitalization, mimicking Bitcoin's halving mechanism, halving once every 4 years. The first halving will occur this year. Additionally, interest in the Bittensor subnet is accelerating.

Distributed training: The most promising AI sub-track in Grayscale's view. Projects worth noting include @PrimeIntellect, @gensynai, and @NousResearch, among which some may have their TGE this year.

AI protocols generating sustainable income: @grass has achieved annualized revenue of tens of millions of dollars by selling captured web data; another example is @virtuals_io, which, as of May 2025, has an annualized revenue of about 30 million dollars, mostly from trading fees of AI agent tokens on the platform.

AI agents and stablecoins: In the foreseeable future, AI agents will be integrated with stablecoin payment solutions.

🧐 Save it for slow study.

In the morning's Sui tweet, I mentioned that Mysten Labs' proactive strategy of 'leading development' and 'building the next stage' has achieved quite good results. In fact, Aptos is also learning from its competitors.

Aptos's Strategic Transformation
Since the new CEO took office, a very noticeable change is that Aptos has significantly increased its emphasis on the ecosystem, shifting its strategic focus from technical development to more comprehensive ecosystem cultivation. The decentralized storage project @shelbyserves launched in collaboration with Jump Crypto is an important embodiment of this strategic transformation.

Future Outlook for Shelby
What can we expect to see from Shelby next?
1. Launch of InfoFi platforms like Kaito
Reason: Since the new CEO took office, Aptos has placed great importance on community and promotion, and Aptos itself has also entered Kaito's Post-TGE section.
2. Phased Rollout
Shelby will be launched in a rhythm of 'developer testnet - public testnet - mainnet', with the mainnet expected to go live at least in the second half of 2026. The information I saw in third-party research reports has a relatively high credibility.

Current Action Suggestions
What can we do now?
Let's write about Shelby now; having more early posts can reduce the pressure of making it onto the Yapper leaderboard.

Project parties should be wary of the 'false prosperity' of mouth-to-mouth hype.

Recently, the community has been writing about @vooi_io, with uniform praises. However, I checked the on-chain transactions of vooi:
The transaction volume in 2025 is sluggish: Compared to 2024, vooi's on-chain transaction volume has significantly declined, failing to maintain its previous momentum.
The peak period from May to September 2024: Data shows that the peak period for vooi's transaction volume and number of traders was from May to September 2024.

What happened to vooi during this period in 2024?
In May 2024, the vooi invitation program was launched.
In August 2024, vooi received investment from Binance Labs (MVB Season 7).

Considering that vooi's cookie launch was in July, and only a week has passed since then, it's a bit early to draw conclusions, but currently, there is indeed no sign of mouth-to-mouth hype boosting transaction volume.

Additionally, vooi's biggest issue lies in its generalized positioning and lack of core competitiveness. The comprehensive strategy of 'everything can be traded' has led to mediocre product functionality and a lack of differentiated advantages. It's like a student who can only score 70 points in every subject. In contrast, I am more optimistic about projects like Axiom or surf that have a clear product philosophy.

vooi on-chain data (self-verify): https://dune.com/vooi/vooidash

The Aptos ecosystem is bound to create a big market movement.

Since the reorganization of the leadership team last December, Aptos has taken many significant actions. These include:
The Aptos Foundation's commitment of $200 million in new ecosystem funding
A formal submission for an Aptos spot ETF application initiated by Bitwise
Becoming a candidate chain for the WYST stablecoin from the Wyoming State Government, rated alongside Solana as the highest
Collaborating with Jump Crypto to launch the 'hot storage' project Shelby
Another landmark event is that the leading BTCFi project on Aptos, @EchoProtocol_, went live on Binance alpha today, giving the entire ecosystem a boost.

Echo monopolizes nearly 70% of BTC liquidity on the Aptos chain, with impressive data:
TVL reaching $878M
125K+ weekly active users
aBTC market share reaching 65%
In terms of investment institutions, Aptos has received investments from leading firms including Spartan Group and ABCDE Capital, with angel investors including BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes and others.

Finally, don’t forget to claim your $ECHO airdrop: https://vault.echo-protocol.xyz/airdrop

The project shared in 2022 @CESS_Storage $CESS had its TGE tonight. In addition to launching on Binance alpha, it has also been synchronized on multiple exchanges including Gate, Kucoin, and MEXC.
After many years of effort, we finally have a harvest. For those who have interacted before, remember to claim your airdrop.
Official airdrop: https://cess.network/earn/
OKX exclusive airdrop: https://web3.okx.com/ul/0G49fU

In terms of project narrative, CESS is the world's first decentralized infrastructure that integrates "L1 public chain + infinite storage + AI." Its network architecture includes:
CESS Layer1
DeOSS object storage layer
CD²N content distribution layer
PoDR² privacy and security mechanism
etc.
It sounds complex, but in reality, it is not that simple...

CESS's industry contributions and past activities
CESS has passed the Level 1 assessment of the Blockchain Maturity Model by GBA in Washington, USA;
Invited twice to participate in the Use Case Fly-in event on Capitol Hill, engaging in policy exchanges with several members of Congress;
Led and initiated the IEEE P3220.02 international standard;
In the blockchain strategic proposal submitted to the Bahraini government by the international organization GBA, CESS was listed as a candidate partner at the infrastructure layer along with Oracle.
From all of the above, it can be seen that CESS's technical strength is absolutely unquestionable. However, as a public chain, I believe the core aspect lies in the ecosystem. With the technical architecture completed and the TGE successfully accomplished, I hope CESS can make more efforts in the ecological aspect.

Last train opportunity: heavyweight project @InfraredFinance 
Portal: https://infrared.finance/ 

1/ Infrared - The eldest son of Bearchain
  Infrared is a DeFi platform built around the Berachain PoL mechanism, achieving efficient value capture through BGT and BERA liquid pledge solutions, node infrastructure and PoL vaults.
  It can be said that Infrared is the current top DeFi brand of Bearchain:
  First, Infrared TVL is 840 million US dollars, ranking first in Bearchain;
  Second, the total amount of financing after three rounds of financing of Infrared is as high as 18.75 million US dollars, and the investors include Framework Ventures, YZi Labs, Hack VC, etc. Among them, Framework Ventures, the lead investor of Infrared A round, is also the lead investor of Bearchain, and has great support for Bearchain;
  Third, Infrared is also one of the first projects of the "Build-A-Bera" incubator of the Berachain Foundation.

2/ Q3 TGE (estimated)
  In April 2025, Infrared launched a points program. In an interview with The Block, the founder revealed the following information:
  First, the points program is expected to last for 3 months;
  Second, Infrared plans to complete TGE in Q3 2025;
  Third, there will be airdrops.
The question is, how much valuation would you give to the bear chain head card?  

3/ Recent important updates - Infrared v1.5
  In June 2025, Infrared launched the v1.5 upgrade!  
  The important updates introduced in this upgrade are: 
  Allow users to cast iBGT through Berachain's set operator function, so that users can directly use the earned $BGT to cast $iBGT;
   Infrared's internal reward auction mechanism has been upgraded to an automated keeper system, which greatly reduces slippage during the auction process;
  The optimal Boost interval for each validator is dynamically calculated through on-chain data and revenue models, and tokens are automatically allocated to the highest-yielding pool.

In short: less user friction, higher returns 👉 more users 👉 faster protocol positive flywheel!
  Updates and iterations in the underlying design of the protocol will not bring short-term fomo and hype, but they are the key to whether a platform can operate stably in the long term. I am very optimistic about teams like Infrared that focus on the first principle and can continuously deliver iterative products.

“Reverse Odyssey” - Midl Liquidity Guidance Program Review
Just took some time to study the Midl liquidity guidance program, here are a few interesting points:
Users only need to “commit” liquidity without actually staking tokens to receive guaranteed rewards.
Provides clear token incentives, with simple and transparent operations.
Users support not just a single project, but the entire BTCFi ecosystem. Currently, projects available for “commitment” support include: @midl_xyz, @BimaBTC, @Omzoio, @helios_finance, etc.

Participation Steps
① Visit the official link: https://bootstrap.midl.xyz
② Connect a Bitcoin or EVM-compatible wallet.
③ Choose supported projects and commit the amount of liquidity; the system will take a snapshot of the wallet balance for verification.
④ After signing confirmation, reward points start to accumulate, and assets remain in the user's wallet address (not transferred, just snapshot).

Notes
Reward collection conditions: At TGE, the committed liquidity must be provided to redeem Midl token rewards.
Soft staking restriction: If users transfer the committed assets from their wallet, reward accumulation will automatically stop, and the committed liquidity will be deducted from the pool.

Personal Opinion
This is a highly creative DeFi airdrop mechanism, particularly suitable for Bitcoin ecosystem (BTCFi) projects. Midl not only focuses on its own development but also supports other projects within the BTCFi ecosystem, showing a great vision that deserves recognition.
A small improvement suggestion: The current mechanism restricts users' freedom to transfer assets, which may impose certain constraints on the flexibility of user funds. It is recommended to remove this restriction.

$AQUA @AtlantisOnSonic Public Offering Progress:
① Financing Amount: Raised 2.5 million $S
② Financing Deadline: June 4, 2025 (2 days remaining)

At the current price, the circulating market value of $AQUA will be 1.2 million USD, which is not high. As for the upper limit, it depends on how well Team B can secure the project.

As the first collaborative launch project of the Atlantis launch pad, @SynapGG initially planned to launch on Virtuals but later changed their mind and migrated, the specific motive is unclear.

Is the launchpad still a sexy business?
@virtuals_io's answer is: Yes.

The Evolution of the Launchpad's Role
In historical cycles, the launchpad mainly played the intermediary role of project promotion, financing, and token issuance, relying on the enthusiasm of bull markets to achieve monetization. However, the current market cycle has raised higher demands on launchpads:
Trust Crisis: The speculative excess of past cycles has led to a loss of trust; launchpads need to restore trust through transparent mechanisms and long-term value creation.
Ecological Responsibility: Transitioning from a single financing tool to an ecological catalyst, focusing on sustainable ecological cultivation and technological innovation alignment.
The strategic line of Virtuals Protocol is clear:
Core Objective: Incubate AI projects and cultivate the ACP ecosystem.
Value Positioning: Lower the barrier to creating AI agents through a no-code platform, promoting the integration of AI and blockchain.
In addition to Virtuals, another launchpad I am personally interested in is @AtlantisOnSonic.

Latest Developments of Atlantis
As the native launchpad of the Sonic ecosystem, Atlantis shows strong momentum:
Financing: Raised 1.08 million $S within 20 hours of launch.
Initial Project: Official announcement of @SynapGG, focusing on trading AI agents.
Atlantis's Strategic Line: Deeply bind with the Sonic ecosystem to achieve mutual prosperity.

Strategic Advice: Short-term Optimization for Atlantis
If I were part of Atlantis, I would do two things in the short term:
First, reach out to the winning projects of the Sonic DeFAI hackathon to seek cooperation.
Second, rewrite and design the business logic of the launchpad; fine-tuning is also acceptable.

Finally, the above is not investment advice.