Weekly Project Updates: CFTC Weighs Charges Against Kalshi, NYSE Uses Avalanche for Tokenized Stocks, Zcash Pushes NU8 Major Upgrade, etc

1. CFTC May Sue Kalshi Over Prediction Market Filings linkThe Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating whether prediction market platform Kalshi failed to complete required notification procedures for dozens of proposed new contracts, and has issued a warning to Kalshi of potential enforcement action. Kalshi responded that the issues stem from procedural errors in the submission of a small number of contracts, many of which have not yet launched, and the company is working to resolve them. The investigation has been ongoing for months and focuses on the self-certification mechanism for new prediction market contracts. Under current rules, exchanges may launch trading as early as the next day after certifying to the CFTC that new products comply with regulatory requirements, without explicit approval. The CFTC warned prediction market operators in July this year against using overly broad language in new product certifications. Meanwhile, the CFTC is also investigating whether Polymarket violated the terms of its 2022 settlement agreement restricting access to its platform by US users. As Democrats prepare to strengthen oversight of the sector following the midterm elections, US prediction markets are facing tighter regulatory scrutiny.2. NYSE to Settle Tokenized Stocks on Avalanche linkAva Labs announced on November 9 that Avalanche will provide core blockchain ledger technology for a tokenized securities trading platform being developed by an affiliate of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), enabling its clearing agency to conduct on-chain clearing and settlement. The platform plans to support round-the-clock trading, clearing and settlement, and allow trading of tokenized stocks issued on different blockchains. Dennis Lee, Head of Digital Issuance at NYSE, stated that Avalanche meets the platform’s requirements in terms of transaction speed, participant permission control, cost predictability and developer ecosystem. The formal launch of the platform remains subject to relevant regulatory approvals.3. Securitize and Ethena Launch $100M Liquidity Facility linkThe $100 million 24/7 liquidity tool launched jointly by real-world asset tokenization platform Securitize and Ethena Labs has gone live. It is designed to provide real-time liquidity support outside traditional trading hours for qualified investors of BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund (BUIDL), allowing them to redeem BUIDL fund shares for supported stablecoins such as USDC at any time. The tool was seeded with an initial $50 million of liquidity, split equally between BUIDL and USDC.4. Zcash Plans NU8 Upgrade for 200 TPS Privacy and Quantum Resistance linkZcash community developer Dev Ojha (ValarDragon) has proposed the NU8 network upgrade, targeted for deployment in late January 2027. The proposal plans to launch the new-generation Tachyon privacy pool, raising the maximum block size from 2 MB to 8 MB to support around 200 private transactions per second. It also intends to introduce SPHINCS-based post-quantum signature opcodes, paired with Tachyon’s ML-KEM encryption to boost post-quantum security, and set a cutoff date for new deposits into the legacy Sapling pool to drive user migration. The proposal additionally covers adjustments to future token emission allocations and improvements to wallet compatibility.5. Payward Adds 200+ UK and EU Tokenized Stocks to xStocks, HK Next linkPayward, the parent company of Kraken, announced that it has added more than 200 tokenized stocks of UK and EU listed companies via xStocks, bringing the total number of products to over 1,500. Each token is backed 1:1 by underlying shares held by a regulated custodian and can be traded on Kraken and alliance platforms supporting xStocks. Payward expects to launch hundreds of tokenized Hong Kong stocks in the coming weeks. Existing trading eligibility restrictions remain unchanged; UK investors, users located in the United States and US persons are still not permitted to use the service.6. NEAR AI Systems Breached, Cloud Suspended; Mainnet Intact linkNEAR AI released a security incident update stating that its internal systems had previously been accessed without authorization. The intrusion vector has now been blocked and the security investigation is underway. NEAR AI Cloud remains suspended as a precaution and will resume only after security is confirmed. The team emphasized that the NEAR Protocol mainnet and other NEAR ecosystem services were unaffected. The official has not disclosed the specific attack method, scope of impact or whether user data was compromised, and stated that further investigation updates will be released.NEAR AI released the latest update on the security incident, noting that on November 8, attackers exploited a vulnerability in SGLang, the AI inference engine it uses, to gain unauthorized access to part of its internal infrastructure. The team said attacker access has been blocked and the vulnerability fixed. All affected users have been notified, and users who have not received notifications do not need to take additional action.7. Aave V3.8 Goes Live on 15 Markets With Reentrancy Protection linkAave officially announced that the Aave V3.8 upgrade developed by Aave Labs has received Aave DAO governance approval and been deployed across 15 Aave V3 markets. Centered on security, the upgrade leverages the EIP-1153 transient storage mechanism to introduce reentrancy protection during external callbacks within the Pool, preserving the consistency of pool accounting and mitigating potential reentrancy attacks while keeping additional gas overhead minimal. The upgrade covers Aave V3 markets on Ethereum, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Base, Arbitrum, Polygon, Optimism and other networks.8. MegaETH Rebrands to MEGA, Pledges $30M for New Products linkThe MegaETH Foundation behind Ethereum Layer 2 network MegaETH announced its rebranding to MEGA and plans to allocate 30 million US dollars from its existing reserves to develop new products. It will first launch an AI inference marketplace for developers in December. The marketplace aims to improve the substitutability of AI inference services from different providers and foster price competition. All new products will run on the MegaETH network, and subsequent network upgrades will support the AI inference business. MegaETH previously raised more than 80 million US dollars in total via venture funding, community fundraising and token sales. Its current total value locked (TVL) stands at approximately 12 million US dollars, a sharp drop from its peak of over 245 million US dollars.9. Katana Overhauls KAT Tokenomics, Buyback From Four Revenue Streams linkDeFi public chain Katana announced adjustments to the KAT tokenomics model. It will terminate the vKAT staking and voting incentive mechanism on November 17 and instead distribute protocol revenue to stakers via avKAT. Katana has integrated three acquired assets, including Sushi’s DEX deployment on Katana, decentralized exchange IDEX, and yield infrastructure Vault Bridge. Under the new mechanism, a portion of revenue from four business lines — spot trading, perpetual contracts, Vault Bridge and the sequencer — will be used to repurchase KAT on the open market, with all repurchased tokens distributed to avKAT stakers. In addition, the unstaking cooldown period will be shortened from 45 days to 7 days, and a fully automated on-chain buyback mechanism will be rolled out at a later stage.10. Flop Labs Testnet and Airdrop Set for Nov 24, Says Arthur Hayes linkFlop Labs CEO Arthur Hayes posted an announcement that Flop Network, its AI computing network, will launch its testnet and airdrop campaign on November 24, with advance notice if the schedule changes. Positioned as a decentralized computing trading network for AI agents, Flop Network allows AI agents to pay for inference compute resources using FLOP, while miners and validators can earn token incentives by participating in the network.Follow usTwitter: https://twitter.com/WuBlockchainTelegram: https://t.me/wublockchainenglish