Aster DEX said on May 11, 2026 that it has added perpetual futures tied to four major Hong Kong-listed stocks, enabling 24/7 long or short trading with up to 3x leverage via a crypto wallet. The exchange described the move as a step toward bridging traditional markets and DeFi, and it also pointed to earlier product and fee updates released around May 7, 2026.

Circle Internet Group raised $222 million by preselling Arc, the native token for its new Arc blockchain, giving the network a $3 billion fully diluted valuation. Andreessen Horowitz led the round with a $75 million check, with participants including BlackRock, Apollo Funds and Intercontinental Exchange. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the company is expanding beyond USDC issuance toward blockchain infrastructure and applications, including tools for AI agents to transact with USDC.

On May 11, 2026, Solana Foundation and Google Cloud introduced Pay.sh, a system that lets AI agents pay for API access with stablecoins on the Solana blockchain. The setup supports real-time microtransactions, including paying fractions of a cent per API call, and is built to help autonomous agents discover and purchase cloud services without traditional accounts or subscriptions.

Renegade.fi said a whitehat hacker returned about $190,000 after exploiting its Arbitrum-based V1 decentralized dark pool. The protocol said Blockaid flagged a $209,000 exploit at 8:27 am UTC and that 27 ERC-20 tokens were taken before most funds were sent back within 45 minutes, including $84,370 in USDC, $27,885 in wrapped Bitcoin and $23,950 in wrapped Ether.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said on Friday that global stablecoin rules will require international standards and could involve a policy "wrestle" with the US. He warned that some stablecoins may be hard to convert to cash without crypto exchanges, raising concerns if US dollar tokens are widely used in cross-border payments. The stablecoin market is valued at more than $317 billion, and is largely dominated by US dollar-pegged tokens.

Renegade Fi suffered an exploit on Arbitrum after an attacker abused an unprotected initializer in its Dark Pool proxy contract to obtain privileged delegatecall access. The attacker drained nearly 27 ERC-20 tokens, including WBTC, PENDLE, LDO, CRV, RDNT, and SYNTHR, with losses estimated at roughly $209,000. The incident also prompted calls to revoke approvals and pause integrations to reduce exposure across connected proxy deployments.

The US Senate Banking Committee is set to hold a markup hearing on May 14 to amend and vote on sweeping cryptocurrency legislation, potentially advancing a first comprehensive federal framework for digital assets. The effort regained traction after lawmakers reached a compromise on stablecoin rewards, though Democrats say ethics provisions and other safeguards remain unresolved.

LayerZero has faced sustained pressure since an April exploit tied to a cross-chain bridge used by Kelp, where $293 million was drained and the wider DeFi gap topped $300 million. After the incident, protocols totaling $2 billion in combined TVL—including KelpDAO ($1.5B), SolvProtocol ($600M), and Re ($200M)—migrated to Chainlink CCIP, while LayerZero bridge volume fell to $91 million.