Ethereum R1 is a new donation-funded, tokenless Layer 2 rollup designed to offer a decentralized, censorship-resistant, and governance-minimized scaling solution for Ethereum

The S&P 500 rose 0.63% Thursday, boosted by strong Meta and Microsoft earnings, but futures slipped Friday as investors awaited the April jobs report and weighed Apple and Amazon tariff concerns. Gold fell to $3,235 as easing trade tensions cut safe-haven demand; markets await US jobs data for rate cut signals. The Coindesk Indices, which tracks the broader crypto market, rose 2.19%, with Bitcoin and Ether up 2.57% and 2.60%, respectively in the past 24 hours. Trade these markets and more with up to 500x leverage on Bybit MT5 using this 

Today's top performer is AR, which gained 16.8% following CloneX's successful migration to Arweave, sponsored by ArDrive.

Arweave (AR), founded in 2017, is a decentralized network for permanent data storage, using blockweave and Proof of Access to ensure long-term accessibility. It offers 200-year storage for a one-time fee, incentivized by AR tokens for miners. The system connects blocks efficiently to preserve and retrieve data, aiming to create a lasting digital knowledge repository. CloneX has successfully 

 to Arweave for permanent storage, with the support of ArDrive, which sponsored the migration of 100 GB of data. The process is nearly complete, with only Animus remaining to undergo decentralization.

Check out the latest prices, charts, and data of 

 is a new donation-funded, tokenless Layer 2 rollup designed to offer a decentralized, censorship-resistant, and governance-minimized scaling solution for Ethereum. Built on open-source code and the Nethermind Surge stack, it emphasizes credible neutrality, public good funding (with all fees burned after 2030), and infrastructure that remains free from VC control or centralized dependencies.

Yesterday, BTC spot ETFs saw $71.1M in total inflows, with $16M from GBTC and $55.1M from other ETFs.

 $BOOP tokens to active Solana memecoin traders and creators who promote memecoins or Solana dapps on X. To claim, users must connect their Solana wallet or X account and launch a free token. The airdrop arrives in 30 days, but growing the token’s market cap can accelerate the reward.

Beginner

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Ethereum R1 offers a decentralized rollup solution for Ethereum

This article dives into Bitcoin liquid staking protocol Lombard Finance, how LBTC works and how you can stake LBTC through Bybit Web3.

Bitcoin stands as the undisputed giant of the cryptocurrency space, commanding the largest market capitalization. Yet, much of its potential remains untapped, often sitting idle as a store of value rather than actively participating in the thriving 

 ecosystem. Lombard Finance aims to change this narrative by unlocking Bitcoin's utility and integrating it seamlessly into DeFi.

Lombard is built upon Babylon, the innovative Bitcoin staking protocol, and is incubated by Polychain Capital. Lombard’s flagship product, 

 (LST) for BTC. This article explores what Lombard Finance is and how LBTC works, and describes the Lombard ecosystem and how you can stake LBTC through Bybit Web3.

 is a liquid staking protocol that focuses on transforming 

's role in the digital economy. Its core mission is to evolve BTC from simply being a store of value — also viewed as 

 — into a productive asset that actively generates yield and participates within DeFi. Currently, a significant portion of Bitcoin's

 sits idle, lacking the native staking capabilities or cross-chain composability seen with assets such as 

Lombard Finance addresses this shortcoming by building on top of 

, a protocol that supports BTC staking without needing 

 or custodians. Babylon allows Bitcoin's economic weight to secure other 

 (PoS) chains and applications, creating a new yield source for holders. Lombard leverages this foundation to offer LBTC, making staked BTC liquid and usable across the DeFi market.

Lombard’s goal is ambitious: to channel Bitcoin's vast liquidity into DeFi. This could potentially double the ecosystem's 

 (TVL) if even a fraction of available BTC is introduced. Lombard believes this integration will catalyze significant growth and create more sustainable market dynamics by making BTC a core, yield-bearing primitive within DeFi.

Founders and investors of Lombard Finance

Lombard Finance was founded in April 2024 by a team with deep expertise within DeFi, drawing talent from established crypto projects like Polychain, Babylon, Argent, Coinbase and Maple. This collective experience underpins the protocol's design and strategic direction.

The project was notably incubated by Polychain Capital, a prominent crypto investment firm that also led Lombard's $16 million seed funding round (which was 

 in July 2024). This round saw participation from a wide array of significant players in the crypto space — including Babylon, dao5, Franklin Templeton, Foresight Ventures, HTX Ventures, Mirana Ventures, Mantle EcoFund, Nomad Capital, OKX Ventures and Robot Ventures — thus highlighting broad industry confidence in Lombard's vision. Strategic partnerships and contributions from exchanges like

 and Bitget are further bolstering its distribution and liquidity aggregation efforts.

LBTC is Lombard Finance's flagship product — a liquid staking token (LST) that represents Bitcoin staked through the Babylon protocol. Designed as a universal liquid BTC standard, LBTC is fully backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin, ensuring its value is directly tied to the underlying asset.

The token is yield-bearing, capturing rewards generated from securing PoS networks via Babylon staking. Crucially, LBTC remains liquid, meaning holders can freely use it across various DeFi applications — such as 

 and automated vaults — without sacrificing their underlying staked positions or associated yield.

LBTC is also designed for cross-chain compatibility, natively minted on supported blockchains like Ethereum, Base and Sui and using secure infrastructure [such as 

]. This avoids the risks associated with traditional bridging or wrapping methods, thus aiming to provide a more secure and seamless way to utilize Bitcoin across the multichain DeFi ecosystem.

Lombard Finance simplifies the process of putting Bitcoin to work within DeFi through its LBTC token. The mechanism is designed with security and user experience in mind, leveraging the Babylon protocol and a robust Security Consortium.

The core benefit of LBTC lies in its ability to unlock multiple layers of value simultaneously. Holders earn native yield from Babylon staking, potentially accrue additional rewards (such as Lombard Lux points) and gain access to diverse DeFi yield opportunities, all while maintaining the liquidity of their Bitcoin position. This transforms BTC from a static asset into a dynamic, yield-generating component of the DeFi ecosystem.

Lombard Finance is actively building a wide LBTC ecosystem that already boasts over 75 DeFi integrations. Security is foundational, anchored by the 14-member Security Consortium (including prominent names like Galaxy and OKX Ventures) and validating all critical operations alongside audits and bug bounties.

Core infrastructure relies both on Babylon for staking, and on the Chainlink CCIP for secure cross-chain movement, with EigenLayer integration 

. LBTC integrates with leading DeFi applications across lending platforms (e.g., 

) and automated vaults. The platform supports multiple blockchains (including Ethereum, Base, Sui, BNB Chain) and 

 (L2s), positioning LBTC as a versatile cross-chain asset.

Here's how you can stake BTC on Lombard and use LBTC in DeFi and automated vaults.

Lombard Finance (via its LBTC token) offers a compelling way for Bitcoin holders to put their assets into use, earn yield via Babylon staking and gain exposure to the expansive DeFi ecosystem — all while maintaining liquidity. Incubated by Polychain Capital and supported by a robust consortium and growing partner network, Lombard is positioning LBTC as a secure and versatile liquid Bitcoin standard.

It’s easy to participate in the Lombard ecosystem through 

, you can utilize your Bybit Web3 Seed Phrase Wallet to stake BTC and mint 

, Lombard's vault token that represents deposits in automated yield strategies. This provides you with a seamless gateway to access Bitcoin liquid staking and DeFi yields.

Ready to unlock your Bitcoin's potential? 

Intermediate

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Lombard Finance: Polychain-backed Bitcoin liquid staking protocol

The cryptocurrency market has entered a phase reminiscent of past altcoin seasons, primarily driven by Bitcoin's recent rebound to the $94K–$96K range. 

Altcoin season might have come with reviveding speculation 

The cryptocurrency market has entered a phase reminiscent of past altcoin seasons, primarily driven by Bitcoin's recent rebound to the $94K–$96K range. This resurgence has sparked renewed interest among retail traders, shifting focus from Bitcoin to smaller, more speculative altcoins. The overall market saw a 10% increase in value during the final eight days of April, contrasting with Bitcoin's 7% gain. This trend indicates a growing appetite for risk among investors, particularly in meme coins, which have seen a surge in social media discussions.

However, caution is warranted as elevated crowd enthusiasm often precedes market corrections. Historical patterns suggest that when buzzwords like "altseason" are dominating discussions, it may signal an impending price exhaustion. The current market dynamics reflect a shift toward speculative investments, raising concerns about the sustainability of this enthusiasm.

Bitcoin's bullish sentiment substantially improves

Bitcoin's position as the leading cryptocurrency has remained steady, with discussions around its price fluctuating significantly. Following a period of pessimism, when predictions dipped as low as $10K–$69K, sentiment shifted dramatically with the price recovery. Now, optimistic projections of $100K–$159K are dominating conversations, indicating a reversal in trader sentiment.

Despite Bitcoin's consistent presence in market discussions (approximately 25% of asset topics), the ratio of bullish-to-bearish commentary has grown increasingly favorable. This suggests a growing confidence among traders bolstered by Bitcoin's recent performance. However, it’s essential to monitor whether this bullish sentiment translates into sustained investment, or if it leads to overconfidence that may trigger a market pullback.

Ethere, once a robust contender in the altcoin arena, has struggled to regain retail investor confidence despite recent bullish commentary and promises of innovation from co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Its social media presence has dwindled to about 6–7% of discussions, a significant drop from previous years. This decline highlights the challenges Ethereum faces in re-establishing itself as a go-to investment in a market increasingly dominated by speculative assets.

Conversely, XRP has seen a notable increase in optimism surrounding ETF approvals, with expectations rising to 85%. This shift reflects a broader trend of institutional interest in cryptocurrencies, potentially paving the way for significant capital inflows. Meanwhile, Dogecoin's potential ETF listings have sparked renewed interest, transforming its image from that of a meme coin to a legitimate investment option. The growing dialogue surrounding institutional adoption of Dogecoin and XRP indicates a pivotal moment for these assets, suggesting they may play critical roles in the evolving cryptocurrency landscape.

Advanced

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Bybit x Santiment social sentiment report: Altcoin sentiment recovers despite Bitcoin’s resilience

Bybit Spread Trading allows traders to simultaneously buy and sell two related instruments in order to hedge risk or profit from price discrepancies. Read more.

Whether markets are flying high or wobbling unpredictably, one thing remains true: traders are always looking for smarter ways to 

 and find profit opportunities. That’s where Bybit Spread Trading comes in. This feature is tailor-made for those who want to go beyond basic buy/sell plays and start taking advantage of price discrepancies between related instruments. In this guide, we’ll walk through exactly how Bybit Spread Trading works, why it matters and how you can start using it today, whether you’re 

is a newly launched Bybit feature that allows users to simultaneously buy and sell two related instruments — such as Spot, Perpetual or Expiry contracts with different settlement dates — in order to hedge risk or profit from price discrepancies.

This type of trading strategy is popular among institutional and professional traders because it enables more precise, controlled market exposure. However, with Bybit’s interface, the barrier to entry is significantly lowered, opening the door for individual traders to tap with just a few clicks into a powerful set of tools.

At its core, Spread Trading on Bybit is about executing what’s called a combo trade. This means entering two positions at once: one long, one short. These positions are taken on related instruments, such as a BTC Spot trade and a BTC Perpetual contract, with the idea that their prices will either converge or diverge in a way that benefits your position.

When you place a buy combo, you’re buying the instrument with the longer expiration (the “far leg”) and selling the one that expires sooner (the “near leg”). 

A sell combo is the reverse: selling the far leg and buying the near leg. The profit (or loss) comes from how the spread between these two instruments shifts over time.

For example, if you believe the spread between a Perpetual and a Quarterly Futures contract will widen, you can buy the combo. If the spread increases after your entry, that movement becomes your profit. Bybit calculates your 

 prices automatically, based on the mark prices and your defined “order price,” so there’s no need to manually crunch the numbers.

Perhaps the most important feature here is atomic execution. This ensures both sides of your combo trade are filled together, in equal quantities, or the trade doesn’t go through at all. It removes “leg risk,” which is the danger of getting filled on one side of the trade, but not the other. In volatile markets, that alone can save you from an unwanted mess.

Spread Trading on Bybit currently supports combinations such as Spot and Perpetual, Spot and Expiry, Perpetual and Expiry, or even two Expiry contracts with different dates. This flexibility lets you build strategies that align with different market outlooks — bullish, bearish or neutral.

There’s a strong reason why Spread Trading is a go-to for many experienced traders: it allows for strategic plays that are more sophisticated than just guessing price direction. On Bybit, it’s not only powerful, but also convenient.

First, you get price certainty. Your spread is locked in at the price you specify. There’s no 

 between legs because the entry prices are automatically calculated and matched. You’re trading the spread, not the individual legs.

Secondly, the trading experience is smoother. Instead of placing two separate orders and manually trying to sync them, Bybit handles everything as a single transaction. You don’t have to worry about whether one leg gets filled and the other doesn’t — that risk is eliminated through atomic execution.

Third, this setup is a great hedge against volatility. By taking opposing positions on two related contracts, you reduce exposure to sharp price movements. Your P&L becomes more about the relative performance between contracts, rather than the market direction itself.

There’s also a strong cost advantage. Trading spreads on Bybit is significantly cheaper than doing it manually. You pay only half the trading fees you’d incur if you placed two individual trades on the order book. For high-volume or 

, that translates to meaningful savings over time.

Finally, it unlocks strategy flexibility. Whether you're 

 funding rates between Spot and Perpetual, doing 

 with different Futures contracts or taking advantage of price convergence before expiry, this platform gives you the tools to execute those ideas efficiently.

How to get started with Bybit Spread Trading 

Now that you have a better understanding of how Bybit Spread Trading works, let’s look into how to get started. Please note that you’ll need to have a Bybit account in order to proceed. If you don’t already have one, please check out our 

 for more information on how to create a Bybit account.

: Log in to your Bybit account and hover your cursor over the 

: The available spreads are organized in a grid, with each tile representing a unique combo. Choose your preferred combo to trade.

Tiles with a border around them signify that Spread Trading offers a better price. Hover over a tile for more details, or use the bar at the bottom of the grid to explore more options.

On the order placement page, set up your order with the following parameters:

to place your order. A pop-up window will appear for you to confirm your order details. Then, click on 

Congratulations — you’ve successfully placed an order!

You can view your Spread Trading orders from any trading page (Spread Trading, Spot and Futures), as they all share the same order data.

 to view your active orders. You’ll be able to view the combo, underlying asset, order price and more. 

If you would like to adjust your order parameters, you may click on the pencil icon under 

. To cancel your order, simply click on the order’s corresponding 

to view your completed orders. To view each order’s information on each leg, click on the order’s corresponding 

button. For additional insights, click on 

Spread trading isn’t for everyone — but if you’re someone who enjoys strategic trading, hedging or arbitrage, it’s a tool worth adding to your arsenal. It appeals to traders who are less interested in taking a directional bet, and more focused on capitalizing on inefficiencies in the market.

You don’t have to be a pro trader to benefit, either. The simplified execution and intuitive UI mean even intermediate users can explore advanced strategies without being overwhelmed. As long as you understand how spreads work, and how your P&L is affected by their movement, you’re already halfway there.

More importantly, in times of market uncertainty or low volatility — when price action feels sluggish — spread trading gives you an alternative way to profit. It keeps you in the game — even when momentum plays aren’t cutting it.

Bybit Spread Trading is a powerful tool that combines simplicity with sophistication. Whether you're looking to hedge, save on fees or experiment with 

 strategies, it offers a clean and user-friendly way to do so. With lower risk, lower costs and plenty of flexibility, Bybit Spread Trading is a smart move for any trader looking to level up their game — especially when markets get messy.

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Bybit Spread Trading: Smart strategies for market swings

Blockchain

Altcoins

Explainers

Casper Network is a future-proof Layer 1 proof of stake (PoS) public blockchain that is optimized for developers, enterprises and consumers.

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Web3 is calling, and the world and its enterprises are listening. Indeed, blockchain and cryptocurrencies have come a long way since 

However, despite blockchain’s disruptive and dynamic nature, we have yet to see an influx of enterprises and developers tap into the immense power of its technology.

What is Casper crypto? Could its futureproof, enterprise-grade modular protocol help scale blockchain?

(PoS) public blockchain with a future-proof modular infrastructure that can adapt to the constantly evolving needs of the market. 

Its dev-friendly, enterprise-focused architecture supports popular open-source languages like Rust and Wasm, which encourages swift adoption by both developers and businesses requiring blockchain technology.

 (L1) PoS protocol provides optimized solutions for businesses and developers to help them leverage blockchain technology for scaling their operations at a low cost.

’ Medha Parlikar and Mrinal Manohar, Casper launched its mainnet in March 2021, alongside Casper Association, its nonprofit organization aimed at managing the decentralization and evolution of its network. Casper Network markets itself as the evolved version of Ethereum, which only 

 that’s hindered wide-scale adoption of the technology, as it allows for sharding and further decentralization of validators in terms of geographical location. By building on Casper, developers have access to features such as upgradeable 

. In this way, they don’t need to make trade-offs between security, scalability and full decentralization as they build.

Powered by its native token, CSPR, Casper’s robust ecosystem is filled with multiple enterprises and projects across the web3 space, building products in CeFi, 

Casper Network’s focus on the future positions it for multiple utilizations as the world moves toward widespread adoption of blockchain. 

Tokenization involves the creation of digital tokens that can represent both virtual and physical assets, so they can be easily traded on a blockchain. It also facilitates 

 of assets, which enables users to buy a portion of an expensive asset at a fraction of its total price, opening up the market to more buyers. Additionally, tokenization fosters the development of self-sustaining microeconomies. For instance, by tokenizing a building, the tokens can be used for various purposes like paying rent, maintenance and even renovations. 

As an L1 blockchain, Casper offers a secure and efficient platform for businesses to utilize tokenization and create new economic opportunities.

Casper’s upgradeable smart contracts also extend to its 

 (NFTs), giving NFT creators the freedom to update their smart contracts without incurring high 

. This spurs the continual creation of innovative NFTs, cultivating a vibrant creator economy.

While the tokenization of financial assets such as bonds and futures may lead to economic benefits, there’s still a need for a unified standard to achieve improved efficiency and transparency in financial transactions. 

Casper can help facilitate the adoption of blockchain technology by implementing the open-source 

, which provides a common framework. The combination of Casper’s blockchain technology with the ACTUS standard allows businesses to develop transparent, verifiable on-chain financial contracts. This promotes market integrity and resilience, ultimately mitigating the risk of financial crises.

The process of tokenizing physical and virtual assets is recorded on-chain, which means that ownership rights are similarly represented on-chain. Hence, even if an asset is fractionalized, with ownership rights split among multiple owners, individual ownership rights can still easily be tracked and verified. Casper’s NFT-based chain of custody (CoC) solution for public patent records further guarantees security of ownership rights by creating and storing patents as NFTs.

As a PoS network, Casper depends on validators to verify transactions and ensure the security of the platform through a network of nodes operating from decentralized geographical locations.

Using the CBC Casper consensus protocol algorithm, participating nodes can reach a consensus by generating and wiring messages regarding a newly created block.

To become a validator on the network, you’ll need to 

 CSPR tokens, which helps you earn rewards for participating in the block validation.

Often, there’s confusion once you mention Casper, because some relate it to Ethereum. 

Indeed, this confusion is mired in controversy. Casper’s Highway Protocol was rooted in its CBC specification, which was built by Vlad Zamfir, an Ethereum developer, who joined CasperLabs as their lead architect in March 2019. Zamfir left shortly after, in October 2019, with claims that the company hadn’t funded his Casper blockchain research. He eventually 

 for using the name “Casper” in their marketing in a way that misled potential investors. 

 protocol, a PoW/PoS hybrid consensus mechanism. CasperLabs claims that when Ethereum 2.0 upgrades to Ethereum 3.0, its protocol will operate similarly to Casper’s CBC specification. As such, the CasperLabs team often refer to their work as the ‘’final evolution of Ethereum.’’

As a highly scalable network, Casper is optimized with relevant blockchain-based features to help developers and enterprises grow in a truly permissionless way. Let’s look at the notable features of the Casper network as it helps shape the future of blockchain.

At the core of Casper’s architecture is its 

 (CBC) specification to create an energy-efficient and flexible consensus protocol. 

Unlike classic consensus protocols such as Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT), Highway provides an improved version of block validation. Networks on Highway can reach higher thresholds of finality in a non-binary way, which allows more blocks to be finalized. Additionally, Highway provides flexibility to configure security thresholds for participating nodes, even slower ones.

 by CasperLabs, Casper’s network operating 400 nodes is 47,000% more energy-efficient than Ethereum, and a remarkable 136,000% more energy-efficient as compared to Bitcoin. These findings are shown in the table below:

Casper is a future-proof blockchain that enables smart contract upgradeability, which has given the network a competitive edge over other enterprise blockchains. Casper uses a package management model for smart contracts, which allows direct upgrading of contracts that have been deployed on-chain.

Such a model eliminates the need for migration processes that can be costly and complex. Additionally, it ensures that developers can quickly add new features, or address any vulnerabilities, such as fixing bugs, by providing a new smart contract version.

Previously, developers couldn’t edit a smart contract once deployed. Such contract upgrade features on Casper ensure that enterprises can build resilient products that adapt to shifting business needs and consumer trends.

Casper Network is a haven for developers. The network is keen on making life easy for developers who build on its friendly infrastructure. Casper supports 

 (Wasm), which eliminates dependence on proprietary languages such as Solidity.

Moreover, CasperLabs has developed a Solidity 

 that automates the conversion of Solidity-based 

 into Rust, a safe and highly performing programming language.

By creating a developer-friendly building environment, Casper helps drive enterprise blockchain adoption through simplified migration into the network.

As an enterprise-focused blockchain, Casper Network gives enterprises the freedom to choose between public, permissioned and private networks without affecting the security or performance of the blockchain.

Casper’s advanced PoS mechanism plays a major role in ensuring relatively stable fees on the network. With its Highway Protocol, there’s less congestion on the network as it ensures block validation validity, enabling a low gas fee structure that’s transparent and consistent. 

 native token for the Casper Network. It plays the following critical roles in the Casper ecosystem:

At genesis, 10 billion CSPR were created. However, CSPR has an inflationary supply rate of about 8% each year. Its inflationary tokenomics encourage staking or delegating of CSPR tokens to secure the network, and also to support actual economic activity on it.

The genesis distribution of CSPR is as shown below:

As of Feb 28, 2024, Casper (CSPR) is priced at $0.0412, which is 96.9% lower than its all-time high of $1.33 on May 12, 2021 and 86.1% higher than its all-time low of $0.2241 on Jun 18, 2022.

Unfortunately, technical analysts anticipate sluggish growth for CSPR. Although analysts at DigitalCoinPrice believe that CSPR won’t pump hard in the short term, they believe it 

 in 2025, though remaining under $1 even till 2033. Similarly, Price Prediction’s technical analysis shows slow growth for CSPR, forecasting it 

Despite the initial hype surrounding the CSPR token’s release in 2021, Casper has since struggled to maintain a strong foothold in the market. This struggle persists even though the market has bounced back from a prolonged crypto winter from mid-2022 to the end of 2023. 

However, Casper’s future-proof blockchain infrastructure allows for constant improvements, and if its subsequent upgrades unfold as planned, the final upgrade for 2024, Condor, could potentially renew investor confidence with its array of innovative features. 

In such a dynamic and rapidly evolving market, it's crucial to conduct your own 

 before making any investment decisions. By staying informed and knowledgeable about a project's progress alongside broader crypto market trends, you can make more informed choices about whether to invest in Casper or any other token.

CSPR tokens can be bought on Bybit as a Spot pair (

Bybit is currently hosting three events, with a 

The blockchain landscape is always evolving, and Casper blockchain aims to create a network that will evolve with the technology. Its dev-friendly features, energy-efficient model and predictable gas fees are a good combination to attract enterprises, developers and blockchain enthusiasts. As its future upgrades roll out, users can anticipate additional benefits, such as gas refunds and zero-gas transactions, further enhancing the Casper platform's appeal and usability.

What Is Casper (CSPR): A Future-Proof Upgradeable Blockchain

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