Latest blockchain news: April 2026

April was an especially active month for Stakely and for many of the ecosystems we follow closely. We expanded the staking options available in the Stakely app, helped boost the Spanish-speaking Pharos community, and continued taking part in Web3 education spaces.

Across the ecosystem, the month was marked by progress in interoperability, privacy, security, tokenomics, and institutional adoption. Here are the main highlights.

The Spanish-speaking Pharos Network community now has an official Telegram group and a Medium with content translated into Spanish, both created by Stakely’s initiative as an official validator of the network. With this, we aim to provide support in Spanish, answer questions, share updates, and contribute to the ecosystem’s growth.

In addition, to celebrate the arrival of Pharos’ Pacific Ocean mainnet, we raffled early access spots for the PROS pre-deposit whitelist among our community members and organized the Pharos Mainnet Celebration Party - Madrid Edition. Sign up! Limited capacity.

We continue expanding the staking experience in the Stakely app. After Ethereum, Monad, and Solana, you can now also stake Cosmos and Celestia in just one click with Stakely.

The experience allows you to stake, unstake whenever you need to, and claim rewards easily, while always keeping control of your assets.

We took part in World Chain 2140, where we joined industry experts to discuss the present and future of DeFi.

We were also at El Taller de La Familia, as part of the Colosseum Hackathon, with a technical talk aimed at builders and projects in the Solana ecosystem.

Aleo launched its Technical Advocates program to provide global support to builders in real time and asynchronously, making it easier to build within its ecosystem from any time zone.

Algorand continues strengthening its ecosystem with updates across wallets, staking, and access for traditional users. Pera Wallet reactivated its 1% swap fee, while ALGO became available to PostFinance customers, bringing access to 2.5 million banking users in Switzerland without the need to use exchanges or external wallets.

Shelby Serves opened Early Access on the Aptos testnet with global storage, cryptographic verification, and up to 70% lower costs compared to traditional cloud services.

Aptos moved forward with its tokenomics update through several proposals: a maximum cap of 2.1 billion APT, a progressive reduction in staking rewards, and an increase in gas fees, which are burned on the network.

Aptos is driving global stablecoin payments together with Bitso, Yellow Card, Coins.ph, and Sphere Labs, enabling instant, near-zero-cost remittances.

Decibel Trade launched Builder Codes, connecting developers to its trading engine to execute orders, create apps, and earn commissions based on real usage generated within its Global Trading Engine infrastructure. It also enabled gold trading with XAU on Aptos.

Avail Project brought its Data Availability Layer to production with KalqiX, enabling high-frequency markets with data batches, state roots, and ZK proofs verified through KZG commitments and Data Availability Sampling, with ~250 ms preconfirmations for CLOB infrastructures.

Avail introduced FastBridge and Avail Deposits to unify balances, move funds across networks in a single transaction, optimize cross-chain deposits in apps, and reduce onboarding friction in DeFi.

Avail Nexus added integrations with PingMe, Vanna Protocol, and Signals to move USDC cross-chain, unify balances, and enable payments, credit, and prediction markets without friction across networks.

Avalanche introduced the “Cold Cold Wallet”, an extreme cold storage proposal for seed phrases focused on privacy.

Retro9000 C-Chain completed its first round with more than 5,745 AVAX burned and over $50,000 distributed among 40 projects, while Build Games boosted new applications within the ecosystem, with Meridian, Forg3t Protocol, and The Grotto leading the awards.

Native USDS and sUSDS also arrived on Avalanche, with direct issuance and cross-chain transfers via Skylink to improve liquidity without wrappers.

Canopy Network surpassed 185,000 chains launched on testnet, highlighting its model for creating sovereign L1s in minutes.

It also enabled LPs with CNPY incentives and proposed appchains with over 10,000 TPS by default, security inherited from the root chain, liquidity and swaps integrated from day one, and full sovereignty to evolve or break away.

Discover everything about this framework for creating sovereign blockchains:

Celestia is powering the infrastructure behind CollectChain and VeVe by processing more than 8 million Disney, Marvel, and Star Wars NFTs with 250 ms finality, decentralized security, and modular blockspace to build without operating infrastructure.

Celestia accelerated its roadmap with V8 Hibiscus on Mocha and its upcoming mainnet arrival, enabling cross-chain transfers with a single signature, ZK-verified messaging, and preparing 32 MiB blocks with 3-second block times.

Celo activated the Jovian hard fork on mainnet, an important step in its alignment with the OP Stack. The upgrade improves EVM compatibility, adjusts gas behavior, and prepares the network for future infrastructure improvements.

Celo introduced Celo Agent Visa with incentives, support, liquidity, and verified identity through Self Agent ID to scale on-chain agents and strengthen their adoption within the ecosystem.

160 million CELO allocated to Opera: boosting MiniPay, new regions, more assets, and access to millions of users.

Celo enabled ERC-7715 so that apps and agents can request specific permissions and execute transactions in MetaMask.

CELOccelerate was activated, redirecting net sequencer revenue to the Community Fund, gradually increasing base fees, and pausing the Carbon Offset Fund due to excess reserves.

Concordium launched the “Guardians Wanted” initiative in preparation for its upcoming 2026 governance vote, with incentives of $100 in CCD. Guardians help keep the voting process private, secure, and verifiable, reinforcing the network’s progressive decentralization.

The ecosystem also continued highlighting its focus on verifiable identity and privacy-preserving payments, with Coin98 Wallet and Snappy integrating Concordium to enable verified identity, support for CCD/PLTs, secure payments for remittances and e-commerce, and age verification through cryptographic proofs without sharing documents or storing personal data.

Ethereum expanded its support for ecosystem security with two $1 million initiatives: an audit fund together with Chainlink Labs and Nethermind, and the Ethereum Security Subsidy Program, which covers up to 30% of costs; in addition, the DAO Security Fund added 500 ETH in quadratic funding for Ethereum and its L2s.

The Ethereum Foundation, Gnosis, and ZisK presented the EEZ to unify Ethereum with synchronous composability, shared liquidity, and L1↔L2 security through ZK.

Arbitrum froze 30,766 ETH from the KelpDAO exploit through its Security Council, moving around $71 million to an intermediate wallet to contain compromised funds and strengthen the ecosystem’s security response.

The improvements around blobs, PeerDAS, and post-Fusaka upgrades aim to increase data capacity without proportionally increasing the load on validators.

GenLayer Skills is the new modular plugin system for coding agents that makes it possible to create smart contracts, applications, and manage validators with AI-powered tools.

Trustless escrow for AI agents was enabled, locking funds on BNB Chain and releasing or refunding them based on on-chain evaluated compliance.

Shipyard simplifies deployments on GenLayer, making it possible to deploy contracts in under 60 seconds with one-click templates and without using a CLI.

Update for users who use Ledger: you will need to use the new migration app to sign transactions on Kusama, with functional support in Nova, SubWallet, and Talisman, while issues remain in Polkadot-JS UI and the Staking Dashboard.

Lit Protocol introduced v3 “Chipotle”, a rebuild of its programmable signing and encryption system that removes SDKs, enables usage via HTTP API, and unlocks wallets, signing, and cryptographic logic for AI agents with granular permissions and TEE-based execution.

Monad surpassed $250 million in assets transferred in four months of mainnet, and reached 200 validators distributed across 30 countries and 58 cities.

Monad Foundation announced a subsidy program for dedicated signing devices, aimed at protocols with at least $2.5 million in TVL on Monad to strengthen the security of multisigs and treasuries with isolated hardware.

Monad integrated Machine Payments Protocol, MPP, an open standard for payments between agents that monetizes APIs, tools, and content with just a few lines of code and drives the on-chain agent economy.

Native MON swaps arrived on Ledger, allowing users to interact with Monad from the wallet with integrated execution and offline verification for greater security and self-custody.

NEAR Intents expanded its reach with integrations in Bungee Exchange, Rabby Wallet, L2Pass, Ledger, and Unigox, enabling cross-chain swaps across more than 30 networks, USDT flows on TON, stablecoins, and EVM chains with a single transaction, solver- and agent-assisted execution, on-device verification, and user custody.

NEAR launched a public revenue dashboard with fees, revenue, and the on-chain impact on NEAR emissions, including the Intents fee switch.

NEAR launched Confidential Swaps with privacy for amounts, routes, and counterparties, and execution in under 3 seconds.

NEAR strengthened IronClawAI and its protocol with more validators, lower inflation, deterministic accounts, and sovereign agents with TEE, while IronClawAI v0.26 adds improvements in memory, support for files and documents, missions, LLM provider hot-reload, and portfolio tools for more flexible self-hosted agents.

Osmosis is moving toward $23M in total protocol revenue, reinforcing its position as one of the main value generators within the Cosmos ecosystem.

The integration of Osmosis into the Cosmos Hub was not approved by governance, so it will continue operating as an independent chain while the ecosystem defines the next steps with a focus on security and continuity.

Pharos launched the Pacific Ocean mainnet, focused on institutional-grade performance, compliance, and real-world applications for on-chain financial infrastructure.

The network also promoted the Stake Before the Stake campaign together with OKX Wallet, allowing users to participate in a pre-deposit phase linked to the mainnet launch and future ecosystem incentives.

You can now claim your PROS airdrop rewards through its official website!

Polkadot launched an MCP server, Model Context Protocol, for its official documentation, allowing developers and AI agents to access structured information in real time, automating technical queries, development flows, and RAG pipelines directly from the ecosystem’s documentation.

Polkadot launched RevX beta, an AI-powered IDE for creating and deploying smart contracts, with Claude integration, PolkaVM support, and an ABCD flow from development to deployment on Asset Hub.

Polkadot reduced its annual issuance by 53.6%, set a supply cap of 2.1B DOT, and adopted a decreasing issuance model linked to π, approved by OpenGov in 2025.

Hyperbridge reported an incident in its Ethereum gateway affecting only DOT bridged via Hyperbridge. Native DOT and Polkadot remain safe, while the bridge stays paused during the investigation.

Praxis Protocol partnered with Secret Network to combine agent coordination with confidential computing. Through the integration of trusted execution environments (TEEs), it is possible to execute tasks, process sensitive data, and settle value privately but verifiably. This adds a programmable privacy layer for autonomous agent systems.

Shentu Chain activated proposal 54, scheduling the mainnet upgrade to v2.18.0 at block 29,367,500, expected around May 19, 2026, with a new protocol version and coordinated deployment on its network.

Solana Foundation strengthened its security program with new initiatives led by Asymmetric Research. STRIDE will evaluate DeFi protocols within the ecosystem, while SIRN will provide a real-time incident response network.

MetaMask Card enabled USDC payments on Solana in the U.S., expanding crypto usage at merchants that accept Mastercard.

Solana reduced the cost of accessing historical data by up to 10x, lowering the cost of key methods such as getBlock, getTransaction, and getSignaturesForAddress.

Sonic introduced SonicCS, a research line focused on preparing the network’s consensus for post-quantum resistance, making it easier to migrate to signatures such as Dilithium or Falcon without structural changes.

A synchronization incident was resolved, caused by changes in Geth after release 2.1.6, with no risk to funds and fixed within a few hours.

Sonic has up to 32.6M S still unclaimed, corresponding to seasons 1 and 2 of the airdrop, with a possible burn on October 15, 2026.

Fantom Opera testnet and Sonic Blaze testnet will shut down on May 1, 2026, concentrating development on Sonic testnet.

The ERC-7715 upgrade was enabled, introducing granular wallet permissions, fewer repetitive approvals, and a better UX for agents, dApps, and MetaMask.

Starknet activated Shinobi v0.14.2, enabling native privacy through on-chain proof verification and laying the groundwork for STRK20, strkBTC, and future improvements such as zkThreads.

Starknet promoted Starkzap as an all-in-one tool, already used by more than 2,800 builders and accessible through a simple installation command.

Starknet introduced SNIP 38, a Bitcoin representation based on a transparent federation of institutional signers, with a roadmap toward BitVM and OP_CAT.

Story Protocol activated CDR on testnet with private storage and encrypted data exchange, introducing a programmable data layer that defines who can access information, when, and how, enabling new data markets and autonomous objects within on-chain applications.

Story Skills arrived on Story Protocol as a framework for AI agents with executable actions, integrations, and on-chain development.

New IP Portal v2 from Story with a redesigned interface, integrated explorer, and a faster mobile experience.

Revolut now enables SUI staking, integrating network participation directly into the app without the need for external platforms.

Sui Network reached $1T in stablecoin transfers, marking a milestone in payments adoption and on-chain liquidity.

CME Group will list SUI futures from May 4, giving institutional investors regulated access through standardized instruments.

Suuuiplash confirmed its launch for April 30 and will bring a high-performance roguelike to Sui.

Sui launched its Creator Program with $3,000 in rewards for content about DeepBook and DeFi.

Walrus celebrated its anniversary with a boosted WAL vault on Slush Strategies, with rewards active until May 10, as part of its WAL incentive campaign for early deposits.

Walrus surpassed 4,000 hosted models and 4.5 TB of data, consolidating verifiable infrastructure for open AI and inference validation.

Walrus enabled complete datasets from Ethereum, Bitcoin, and BNB Chain together with Tatum, driving analytics, AI, and agents with verified on-chain data.

Sui Messaging SDK Beta integrated Walrus, enabling encrypted messaging and chat recovery across devices through decentralized storage, without centralized servers.

On May 4, we will celebrate the launch of the Pharos mainnet in Madrid together with community members, builders, and Web3 ecosystem professionals.

It will be an afternoon to learn, build, connect, and discover firsthand the opportunities that Pharos opens up for on-chain financial infrastructure.

📍 Location: MIL (Madrid Innovation Lab) 🗓️ Date: May 4 🕖 Time: 17:00 - 20:00 UTC+2

Capacity is limited, so you can register now and secure your spot. See you there!