From crypto market moves to AI in healthcare, new chip launches, and international tech agreements. Here’s what happened this week.
What’s up, Pasar Crew?
The past week has been packed with major developments across Web3 and AI, with markets, institutions, and regulators all making bold moves. From Binance-backed Aster surging into the top tier of decentralised exchanges to the US and UK sealing a landmark ‘Tech Prosperity Deal’, innovation is clearly setting the pace in both finance and technology.
In Web3, trading volumes and token rallies are reshaping the leaderboard of decentralised exchanges, while BNB continues its upward momentum. Coinbase is pushing ahead with its ambition to replace banks with a crypto ‘super app’, and custody giant BitGo has filed for a US IPO, underscoring the growing pull of institutional players. Vitalik Buterin, meanwhile, has renewed focus on low-risk DeFi as Ethereum’s backbone, while regulators in Washington debate the future shape of crypto markets.
On the AI front, advances range from life-saving humanitarian applications in disaster zones to next-generation chips powering superclusters. Seattle Children’s is already seeing tangible results with a GenAI assistant that streamlines care delivery, while Google, Microsoft, and Huawei are accelerating the integration of AI into consumer and enterprise systems alike. Yet with opportunities come risks such as vulnerabilities in agentic AI and concerns over the limits of large language models. The coming months will test how innovation balances speed with safety.
Here’s all the details you need to know about the Web3 and AI landscape this week.
Crypto and Web3
Aster DEX Volume Surpasses Hyperliquid Amidst 800% Token Rally
Binance-backed Aster has overtaken Hyperliquid in daily trading, reaching US$793 million and securing a place among the top six DEXs by volume. The surge follows renewed attention from Changpeng Zhao, who praised its multi-chain architecture and hidden-order functionality. Aster’s native token simultaneously rallied over 800%, attracting major whale investments and multi-million-dollar profits.
BNB Climbs 10% as Analysts Predict $1,565 Year-End Target
BNB has gained more than 10% in recent days, outpacing a largely flat wider market. While its ‘overbought’ RSI suggests the risk of a short-term pullback, analysts highlight a strong bullish structure. Breakout patterns point to potential year-end price targets between $1,250 and $1,565, with on-chain sentiment reinforcing the view that BNB is in a mid-cycle growth phase.
BitGo Files for US IPO on NYSE with $90.3 Billion in Custody
Crypto custody provider BitGo has filed for a US IPO on the NYSE under the ticker BTGO, seeking to capitalise on growing institutional demand. The firm currently safeguards $90.3 billion in assets across 4,600 clients in more than 100 countries. The move mirrors the increasing presence of traditional financial institutions, such as US Bancorp and Deutsche Bank, in crypto custody.
Buterin: Low-Risk DeFi is Ethereum’s Economic Backbone
Ethereum Co-founder Vitalik Buterin has likened low-risk DeFi, including fully collateralised lending and savings tools, to Google Search’s central role within Google. He argued such protocols form Ethereum’s economic backbone, and criticised US regulators for penalising transparent, innovative projects while creating conditions that favour speculative, less productive applications. In his view, DeFi risks are now comparable to, if not lower than, those in traditional finance.
Coinbase CEO Pushes Super App Vision to Replace Banks
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has outlined plans to turn the exchange into a crypto super app serving as users’ primary financial account, with the aim of replacing traditional banks. Armstrong criticised high fees and inefficiencies in legacy banking, arguing that transaction costs should be close to zero. Coinbase intends to offer a full suite of financial services, including a credit card paying 4% Bitcoin rewards.
Flora Growth Rebrands to ZeroStack, Launches $401 Million Treasury
Nasdaq-listed Flora Growth has rebranded to ZeroStack and launched a $401 million treasury initiative to support the Zero Gravity (0G) decentralised AI blockchain. The package, led by DFDV, includes $35 million in cash and $366 million in 0G tokens. The investment aims to scale 0G’s infrastructure which already trained a 107-billion-parameter model.
Senate Democrats Push for Bipartisan Crypto Bill Drafting
Twelve Senate Democrats have called on Republican counterparts to adopt a bipartisan authorship process for the crypto market structure legislation progressing through Congress. The Democrats’ proposal builds on their recently unveiled seven-pillar regulatory framework, which would expand CFTC oversight of non-security spot tokens and prohibit elected officials and their families from profiting from crypto projects while in office.
YZi Labs Increases Ethena Stake to Boost USDe Adoption
YZi Labs has expanded its investment in Ethena, the issuer of the synthetic dollar USDe, to accelerate adoption across both decentralised and centralised platforms. The funding will also support USDe’s rollout on BNB Chain and aid development of Ethena’s treasury-backed USDtb stablecoin. USDe has already reached a $14 billion market cap and is set to be integrated into Aster.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI-Driven Disaster Response in the Arab World
Two case studies from the Arab world highlight the potential of AI in humanitarian work. During the 2023 Türkiye–Syria earthquake, one project processed more than 94 million tweets and images using AI-powered tools, identifying urgent needs such as requests for shelter. Another study tracked internal displacement during the Syrian civil war to high-resolution satellite imagery.
Seattle Children’s Deploys GenAI Assistant to Accelerate Care
Seattle Children’s Hospital introduced Pathway Assistant, an AI chatbot built on Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and Gemini. The system can parse hundreds of thousands of clinical pathway documents, including flowcharts and diagrams, delivering answers to natural-language queries in seconds. This dramatically reduces the hours clinicians previously spent researching evidence-based guidelines, freeing more time for patient care and improving outcomes.
Google Deepens Gemini Integration in Chrome, Removes Fee
Google has embedded Gemini more deeply into Chrome, now available at no cost for Mac and Windows users. Gemini can access tab context, browsing history, compare products, and summarise material from multiple sources, and is being integrated across Google services like YouTube, Maps, and Calendar.
Huawei Unveils Ascend 950, 960, and 970 Chips with SuperClusters
Huawei launched three new Ascend chip series, with a strategy that’s focused on building large-scale SuperPoDs and SuperClusters alongside the open-source UnifiedBus 2.0 protocol. Its flagship product, the Atlas 950 SuperCluster, reportedly offers 2.5 times more NPUs and 1.3 times more computing power than xAI’s Colossus.
Language Models Show Reasoning Gaps
LLMs demonstrate what researchers call ‘jagged intelligence’, which is when the model excels in some areas while failing on minor variations of queries. Though LLMs sometimes form abstracted internal ‘world models’, they still produce frequent errors and hallucinations.
Microsoft Expands AI Agents Across Teams and SharePoint
Microsoft is rolling out dedicated Copilot AI agents across Microsoft 365 apps for enterprise users. In Teams, facilitator agents can set agendas, take notes, and suggest time allocations, while channel agents answer questions from chat history and produce project updates. In SharePoint, knowledge agents automatically organise, tag, and summarise files to support smoother collaboration and knowledge sharing.
ChatGPT Agent Exploited in Prompt Injection to Leak Gmail Data
Security researchers at Radware have exposed a vulnerability in which an embedded ChatGPT agent was manipulated into exfiltrating sensitive Gmail data. The exploit relied on a hidden prompt injection embedded in an email, which instructed the AI agent to search for and disclose private details, such as HR communications, once the user engaged with it. OpenAI has since patched the issue, underscoring the risks of agentic AI.
The US and the UK Signs Tech Prosperity Deal
US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer have signed a ‘Tech Prosperity Deal’ in London, deepening collaboration on emerging technologies such as quantum computing and AI-driven healthcare. Nvidia also announced plans to deploy 120,000 GPUs in Britain, marking its largest European investment.
That’s all for this week’s Pasar Pulse. Want more insights? Stay tuned to our site or subscribe via email!
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