Morning Minute is a daily newsletter authored by Tyler Warner. The views and insights presented are his own and do not necessarily represent those of Decrypt.
Good morning!
Here are today’s key highlights:
- Major cryptocurrencies are on the rise, with SOL increasing by 7% and BTC priced at $79.4k.
- The inflow of ETFs continues, with ETH showing strong performance.
- Pump records another peak in revenue, introducing HyperEVM.
- Ansem and Cashcat achieve significant new all-time highs as on-chain activity increases.
- ACK’s ‘Argonauts’ sold out in just 5 minutes, generating 1,600 ETH in secondary market activity.
📈 Robinhood Chain is gaining traction as memes and real-world assets (RWAs) surge.
The Robinhood Chain is experiencing a notable uptick, driven by the popularity of cats, dogs, and infrastructure projects, particularly those involving RWAs.
Recently, the chain reported its best day since mid-July, with approximately $443 million in decentralized exchange (DEX) volume, over 3 million transactions, and active wallets exceeding 115,000. This marks a threefold increase from the low of $140 million recorded in early August.
The performance of its tokens has mirrored this growth.
- CASHCAT, the leading meme coin, surged to a $250 million market cap after a 25.9% increase on $24.1 million in trading volume, reaching a new all-time high.
- PONS, the top launchpad, climbed 30% to a market cap of $94.9 million, achieving a remarkable revenue day exceeding $200k, also reaching a new all-time high, and has been listed on Gate.io.
- Artificial Inu soared by 80% to a market cap of $58 million, pairing with tokenized NVDA stock in its liquidity pool.
- Delta, dubbed the “Meteora of Robinhood Chain,” increased by 58.9%, marking a new all-time high.
Other tokens such as StonkBroker, Index, HMM, TENDIES, Juggernaut, and YOLO also closed in the green, while newcomer Biscotti quickly reached a market cap of $10 million within hours.
To put this into perspective, all tokens in the top eleven by market capitalization are less than two months old.
A significant aspect of this growth is attributed to RWAs. The total value of real-world assets on the chain has hit $41.9 million across 202 tokenized assets, with net on-chain RWA flows spiking to around $85 million on Monday, marking the highest single-day total since the chain's inception. This figure was just $12.8 million in mid-July.
“If you hold a meme coin, you just get stock tokens airdropped to you,”
said Vlad Tenev on a podcast that aired three hours ago, describing what developers are already creating on the Robinhood Chain:
- Unique pools that Robinhood “didn’t even think would exist”
— votesa (@votesa) August 23, 2026
Robinhood’s CEO is paying close attention. Vlad Tenev shared with Graham Stephan on The Iced Coffee Hour this week that developers are innovating in ways the company had not anticipated, linking memecoins, core cryptocurrencies, and stock tokens into products that Robinhood had not envisioned. One example he provided was the ability to receive stock tokens as airdrops by holding a memecoin, a feature that exemplifies the Stonkbroker ecosystem and has parallels with AI developments. Clearly, Vlad is monitoring the developments on the chain closely.
What’s next? The outlook appears optimistic, although the tokens may need a breather following several days of rapid gains. A key indicator to watch will be the next potential Robinhood listing following the recent listing of Cashcat. Another listing would not only confirm the trend of increasing token listings but also provide insights into which sectors Robinhood may be inclined to support (e.g., memes, utility, infrastructure, etc.). As long as Vlad and his team remain engaged, the potential for this new ecosystem is boundless.
🌎 Macro Crypto and Markets
- Major cryptocurrencies are up, led by SOL; BTC +1% at $79.4k; ETH +1% at $2,500; SOL +7% at $104; HYPE -1% at $82.
- Top altcoin movers include VET (+25%), SPX (+13%), and TAO (+10%).
- Oil increased by 2% to $82; Gold decreased by 0.2% to $4,650.
- Stock futures are positive after NVDA's outstanding earnings report; DOW remains steady, Nasdaq up 1%.
- Nvidia reported record quarterly revenue of $96.2 billion, a 106% year-over-year increase, and announced $366 billion in future commitments for AI infrastructure.
- Ethereum developers are proposing a rebuild of the validator deposit contract to accommodate keys up to 8,192 bytes, marking the first step towards post-quantum staking.
- The Dallas Fed cautioned that tokenized deposits could reduce bank lending capacity by approximately $700 billion, as instant settlement allows yield-seeking depositors to switch banks almost instantaneously.
- Judge Katherine Polk Failla delayed Roman Storm’s Tornado Cash retrial to April 26, 2027, a postponement of over six months, with his acquittal motion from April still unresolved.
- Galaxy launched retail crypto-backed credit lines with an 8.99% APR against Bitcoin, Ethereum, and staked Solana, featuring a 50% loan-to-value cap and no rehypothecation.
- DeFi Development Corp introduced State of Solana, a free dashboard that tracks staking yields, validator distribution, and network throughput, while its own DFDV shares have declined over 70% in the past year.
- Core Lightning maintainers advised node operators to implement an upcoming security update or restart with the offline flag, following a series of AI-generated vulnerability reports, several of which were confirmed to be legitimate.
Corporate Treasuries & ETFs
- Bitcoin ETFs experienced $232 million in net inflows on Wednesday, while ETH ETFs saw $192 million in inflows.
Meme Coin Tracker
- Meme leaders were mostly up; DOGE +2%, SHIB +1%, PEPE +3%, PENGU -1%, TRUMP +3%, SPX +15%; Fartcoin -1%.
- Robinhood Chain continued to see significant gains; AI +30%, Stonkbroker +20%, INDEX +35%, and TENDIES +35%; Cashcat remained steady at $225 million (briefly hitting $250 million).
- Leaders on Solana included fone (+120x), Breaking (+100%), and aura (+80%); Ansem increased by 20% to $340 million.
💰 Token, Airdrop & Protocol Tracker
- Pump.fun achieved another local revenue high of $2.47 million as they launched HyperEVM to the Pump app.
- Stonkfun reached a new all-time high of $17 million after introducing memecoins paired with collectibles (like tokenized Pokémon) and surpassing $1 million in revenue.
- StarkWare confirmed the first Quantum-Safe Bitcoin transaction on mainnet on Wednesday in block 964,199, utilizing output protected by hash-based cryptography instead of elliptic curve math, which could be vulnerable to quantum attacks.
🚚 What's happening in NFTs?
- NFT leaders showed slight declines; Punks -2% at 31.8 ETH, BAYC stable at 8 ETH, Pudgy -2% at 4.4 ETH.
- Top movers included Chain Mancers (+53%) and Stonkbrokers (+13%).
- ACK’s Argonauts sold out in five minutes with 1,600 ETH in secondary volume, initially achieving a 0.33 ETH floor before settling at 0.27 ETH.
- FWA is launching its second drop today featuring Sterling Crispin’s ‘Save ETH’ collection.