What Did Six Years of Cardano Staking Get Right?
Cardano's Shelley upgrade, launched in July 2020, got one thing right from the start: it let ADA holders earn staking rewards without ever giving up custody of their coins. Six years later, t
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DeFi
News, analysis, and explainers connected to DeFi across the CryptoCompass archive.
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Inside Zcash’s Ironwood Upgrade and the Rush Into Its New Shielded Pool
Zcash activated its Ironwood upgrade, known formally as NU6.3, on July 28, 2026, at block height 3,428,143. The upgrade replaced Orchard, the network's main privacy pool, with a new pool call
What Does a Chainlink Price Oracle Actually Do?
A Chainlink price oracle collects asset price data from many independent sources, aggregates that data off-chain, and publishes a single trusted value on the blockchain so smart contracts can
How Does XRP’s Escrow System Work?
Ripple locks XRP in time-based smart contracts on the XRP Ledger and releases a maximum of 1 billion XRP on the first day of each month, a supply schedule set up in December 2017 and enforced
Inside the MCP Beta: How Claude and Other AI Agents Can Execute On-Chain Actions on ICP?
The Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) now lets AI agents like Claude connect directly to on-chain applications through a new Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, currently in public preview. T
How Did Pudgy Penguins Build a Physical Consumer Brand Around PENGU?
Pudgy Penguins built its physical consumer brand by licensing its penguin characters into toys, trading cards, and games sold through Walmart, Target, and Amazon, while keeping that retail bu
Inside Sei Network's Giga Upgrade and Its Race Toward 200,000 TPS
Sei Network is rebuilding its blockchain from the ground up to hit 200,000 transactions per second with finality under 400 milliseconds. The project, called Giga, is not one upgrade but three
How Did the KelpDAO Exploit Reshape LayerZero’s Security Model?
The KelpDAO exploit forced LayerZero to end support for single-verifier security setups and rebuild its default configuration around multiple independent verifiers. On April 18, 2026, attacke
Trump’s White House Crypto Meeting: Key Takeaways
US President Donald Trump met with crypto and prediction market executives at the White House on Wednesday, August 19, pushing Congress to pass the CLARITY Act while also signaling that regul
Why Does Polkadot's Treasury Model Let the Community Fund Its Own Development?
Polkadot's treasury lets any DOT holder propose a funding request, put it to an on-chain vote, and get paid directly from a shared pool of network revenue, without needing approval from a com
How Could XDC Network’s x402 Integration Enable AI Agent Payments?
XDC Network is adopting the x402 payment standard through a new product called XDC AI, a marketplace that lets AI agents pay for digital services on their own using USDC, without a human appr
How Does Plume Network Bake KYC and Compliance Directly Into the Chain Itself?
Plume Network bakes KYC and compliance into the chain by building identity checks, transfer restrictions, and sanctions screening into its core protocol modules instead of leaving each app to