Messari

We’re excited to announce we’re sponsoring @Consensus2026 by @CoinDesk 🥳 Over 20k professionals across 100+ countries will gather to discuss all topics centered around crypto, blockchain, and the future of web3. You'll also find Messari team members at the event!🤫 Save 20% of passes with code: Messari20

Aave is to Ethereum what the major banks were to the U.S. economy in 2008: too essential to the system for any participant to let it fail. DeFi United has been the largest DAO coordination effort in DeFi history, with major DAOs and individuals contributing over $300M in a short period. Letting Aave collapse would have cost the protocols around it more than the rescue did.

Read the full report from @CryptoRick98👇 messari.co/4td0Av0

300M+ in voluntary contributions across the DeFi ecosystem made Aave depositors whole after the rsETH exploit. DeFi just proved it can self-organize a systemic backstop. Despite a 45% TVL hit, Aave still controls 49.4% lending market share.

Q1 showed incredible momentum across stablecoins, ecosystem growth, and many new integrations. Dive into the full breakdown with @CryptoRick98 and @SamElfa0. Thanks to @MessariCrypto for the report👇

Prediction Market volume (last 4 weeks): 1. @Kalshi - $13.4B (52%) 2. @Polymarket - $8.5B (33%) 3. @trylimitless - $1.4B (5%) 4. @predictdotfun - $1.3B (5%) 5. @opinionlabsxyz - $636.2M (3%) Key observation: • Kalshi now owns the majority of prediction market volume. On a trailing 4-week basis, they've held >50% market share for all of April 2026, steadily eroding Polymarket's lead Other insights: • Limitless is making noise in the competitive 3rd place battle, as it processed $1.4B in the last 4 weeks. That's a 177% jump from $507M over the previous 4 weeks. • First time in 2026, Limitless has been in 3rd place 🥉 • April 20-26 set a new weekly volume high for volume at $7.1B

Messari is now a Research Partner for Kite mainnet and Kite Agent Passport. Kite mainnet and Kite Agent Passport is live and ready for action. Go try it now: agentpassport.ai @MessariCrypto brings institutional-grade crypto research and data infrastructure to Kite, with coverage spanning chain metrics, token unlocks, ecosystem analytics, and AI-powered research through Messari Copilot. For institutions and researchers, this means one trusted place to track Kite fundamentals, query agentic payment activity, and follow how agentic commerce takes shape on-chain. Together, we are giving the agentic economy an auditable, institutional-grade research layer.

Check out the full report below messari.co/4un0jGU

.@GoKiteAI has launched their blockchain built for agent payments. @CryptoRick98 breaks down the Kite Chain architecture, the design of Kite Agent Passport, the launch partner roster spanning Avalanche, PayPal, Google, Coinbase, and more, and where Kite fits into the agentic payments landscape.

@GoKiteAI Congrats on the mainnet launch team! 🎉

Kite Mainnet is now live. This is not just another mainnet. It is the first blockchain built for agentic payments. Designed for an agent-first internet, for builders, and for the future Agent Economy. What makes Kite Mainnet different: Built for builders and agents. Not chasing TVL. Not chasing the next DeFi cycle. Not competing for idle speculative capital. Three layers, one platform: • Settlement Layer: built for high-frequency, low-value, agent-driven stablecoin-native transactions. • Kite Agent Passport: unifies identity, delegated authority, and programmable governance. • Agent Interface & Experience: where agents and developers interact with the system through agent registration, agent harnesses, and service discovery. A unified hub for all major payment protocol standards, including x402, Google AP2, and Stripe MPP. Try Kite Agent Passport today: agentpassport.ai Join our agentic community: discord.gg/gokiteai Let's build the rails for the Agent Economy.

Make sure to check out the Valuation of Polymarket Enterprise report!

@pharos_network Amazing news team! Congrats on the mainnet launch! 🔥

Pharos Pacific Ocean Mainnet is LIVE! ⚓ The first asset-native, institution-grade L1 engineered for high performance and regulatory compliance, bridging the gap between deep liquidity and real-world impact Today, Pharos sets sail for the global stage 🌊

Read the full report here messari.co/3ORPPQD

.@Bitget has made AI a core strategic pillar of its Universal Exchange (UEX) model via a broad product stack that applies AI to market analysis, trading workflows, developer infrastructure, and platform engagement. @kreisermatt on what you need to know 👇

@Cardano DeFi had a sleeper hit in Q1'26: - @DanoFinance's TVL rose 407.7% YoY to $15.6 million in Q1'26. - DEX volume grew 226% QoQ. The protocol's highest single-day volume ($4.75 million) landed on March 5, the day after USDCx launched on the platform. Full breakdown in our State of Cardano Q1 2026 report, dropping early next week.

.@StellarOrg Q1 2026: Stablecoins. Stellar’s stablecoin market cap increased 22% QoQ from $244 million to $297 million, driven by USDC’s 14.9% QoQ increase to $256.3 million and SG-FORGE’s EURCV launch on the network on March 10, 2026. - EURCV is backed 1:1 by euro cash deposits and equivalents and had the second largest stablecoin market cap on Stellar at Q1-end at $22.9 million. - The EURCV launch builds on @PayPal’s PYUSD launch on Stellar in September 2025. The network now has two of the top U.S. dollar stablecoins by total market cap (@Circle’s USDC and PayPal’s PYUSD) alongside the top three euro stablecoins by total market cap (Circle’s EURC, Stasis’s EURS, and SG’s EURCV). - Features like Stellar’s built-in clawback, which allows the issuer of an asset to reclaim it, are particularly attractive to stablecoin issuers. In November 2025, @usbank announced that it is testing the custom issuance of its own stablecoin on Stellar and cited the clawback feature as key, given the bank’s legal requirements for customer protections. In addition to this, the network’s other built-in asset controls, 99.99% uptime over a decade, billions in annual payment volume, and 3-5 second settlement at the cost of a U.S. cent provide the reliability and configurability required by regulated institutions.

Perhaps one of the more interesting quirks of DeFi right now is that supplying $USDC to @aave V3 on L2s typically yields less than on @ethereum. So far in 2026 - • @arbitrum: -63 bps discount v. Ethereum • @Optimism: -54 bps discount v. Ethereum • @base: +59 bps premium v. Ethereum There are two clear takeaways from this: 1) Even in the case of Base, lenders accepted returns below the risk-free rate while taking on significantly more risk. 2) Since these premiums and discounts persisted and were not arbitraged away, the market does not treat these environments as equal, despite all being USDC supplied on Aave V3.

Read the full report on the rsETH exploit here⬇️ messari.co/3OnQPfd

The rsETH exploit was not an isolated failure, but a systemic event that exposed how risk propagates across an increasingly interconnected Ethereum ecosystem. This report analyzes the structural conditions that made the exploit possible, focusing on the unintended consequences of restaking and the L2 roadmap. It finds that both introduced new layers of complexity and trust assumptions, making risk harder to identify and easier to spread. Ultimately, the report explores how these dynamics are forcing the industry to confront a deeper question around the trade-offs between decentralization and centralization.

.@StellarOrg Q1 2026: DeFi DeFi total-value locked (TVL) on Stellar increased 1.1% QoQ to $174.4 million, even as the price of XLM (which makes up roughly 70% of TVL) decreased 16.6% QoQ from $0.201 to $0.167. This follows explosive 284% YoY growth from $44.9 million at the end of 2024 to $172.6 million at the end of 2025. While TVL was effectively flat QoQ, TVL share by protocol type was not. DEXs' share of TVL declined, and TVL of lending and borrowing protocols like @blend_capital and @TemplarProtocol grew. The top DEX by TVL, Aquarius, had $39.9 million in TVL at Q1-end (+9.7% QoQ), followed by Stellar DEX with $15.8 million (-16.6% QoQ), Lumenswap with $8.2 million (-30.3% QoQ), and @PhoenixDeFiHub with $1.5 million (-64.5% QoQ). Combined, the TVL of these protocols declined 8.3% QoQ to $65.4 million. In contrast, Blend’s TVL grew 25.9% QoQ to $100.6 million, and Templar’s grew 89.5% QoQ to $5.6 million. The larger TVL growth of Blend and Templar compared to the decline in TVL of the top DEXs was offset by the 84.7% QoQ decline in the Other category (which includes other DEXs like Soroswap) to $2.8 million in TVL at the end of Q1. Templar’s TVL growth in Q1 came from continued adoption of its deposit XLM to borrow USDC vault, which was its only available vault in Q1 following its launch in November 2025. TVL growth should continue in Q2 as on April 1, 2026, Templar launched lend/borrow vaults for RWAs, including Centrifuge’s deJAA and deJTRSY, Etherfuse’s CETES and USTRY, and SolvBTC

The State of TRON Q1 2026. @CryptoRick98 sits down with @SamElfa0 to unpack the quarter: -USDT on TRON: $84.5B (98.6% share) -USDD surges 81.5% -AI Fund expands 10x to $1B -Metamask, Anchorage, and Gemini onboard Tune in👇