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Editorial Note

Launching alongside Arc mainnet, aka.fun uses USDC and programmable Uniswap v4 markets to connect crypto-native trading activity with the distribution of tokenized real-world assets.

aka.fun announced its launch on Arc mainnet, introducing a new kind of crypto launchpad built around a simple thesis:

Crypto has liquidity, attention and distribution.
Real-world assets need more of all three.
aka.fun is building the layer between them.

The platform is designed to transform crypto-native trading activity, beginning with meme markets and internet culture into a recurring economic engine capable of generating demand for tokenized real-world assets.

Rather than asking crypto users to leave the markets and communities they already participate in to discover RWAs, aka.fun aims to bring RWAs directly into those markets.

The model creates a simple flywheel:

Culture → Trading → Fees → RWA Demand → Distribution → Utility → More Activity

The greater the activity flowing through markets launched on aka.fun, the greater the potential economic engine behind RWA acquisition and distribution.

Turning Crypto Liquidity Into RWA DistributionCrypto has proven remarkably effective at generating communities, liquidity and global trading activity at internet speed.

Tokenized real-world assets are growing rapidly onchain, but distribution remains one of the industry’s largest opportunities: connecting those assets with millions of crypto-native users already transacting onchain.

aka.fun is designed to become that distribution layer.

Markets created through the platform can use programmable fee flows to support liquidity, incentives and the acquisition of eligible tokenized real-world assets. Those assets can then be distributed to eligible users through aka.fun’s ecosystem and DN404 mechanics.

Users receiving RWAs can choose how they participate based on the mechanics and eligibility of the underlying asset, including holding or trading them where supported.

For RWA issuers and providers, the model creates an entirely different potential distribution channel: crypto-native market activity itself becomes a source of recurring RWA demand.

Why Memes?Because attention is infrastructure.

Memes have become one of crypto’s most powerful mechanisms for turning internet culture into communities, liquidity and markets.

aka.fun doesn’t view meme trading and real-world assets as competing narratives.

It views them as two parts of the same economic system.

A meme can generate attention.

Attention can generate trading.

Trading can generate fees.

And programmable markets can transform a portion of that economic activity into demand for real-world assets.

In other words: speculation can become distribution.

Rather than attempting to remove the culture and behavior that make crypto unique, aka.fun is building on top of them.

The AKA FlywheelAt scale, the model is designed to create value across multiple sides of the market.

For users:
Crypto-native activity can unlock exposure to real-world assets and new forms of onchain rewards.

For RWA providers:
aka.fun can become a distribution channel connecting tokenized assets with a much larger crypto-native audience.

For liquidity providers:
Growing market activity creates additional opportunities for liquidity deployment and fee generation.

For creators and token communities:
Markets can incorporate programmable incentives and economic mechanics directly into their trading infrastructure.

For the broader ecosystem:
More activity can mean more liquidity, more transactions, greater RWA demand and deeper integration between onchain culture and onchain finance.

The result is a flywheel in which each participant can contribute to and potentially benefit from increased economic activity.

Built on Arc, Powered by USDC and Uniswap v4aka.fun launches alongside the public mainnet of Arc’s Layer-1 blockchain designed for stablecoin finance and onchain financial applications.

The platform is built around three core infrastructure layers:

Arc – the financial environment.

USDC – the primary financial rail.

Uniswap v4 – the programmable market engine.

Uniswap v4 Hooks allow markets to incorporate custom logic around swaps, liquidity and fees, giving aka.fun the ability to build economic mechanics directly into the trading layer.

aka.fun sits above that infrastructure as the market and distribution layer, connecting creators, traders, liquidity and ultimately tokenized real-world assets.

AKA DN404: The First Showcase of the ModelLaunching alongside the platform is AKA DN404, aka.fun’s native AKARII collection and the first showcase of how the ecosystem can combine crypto-native liquidity, digital ownership and RWA-linked rewards.

AKA DN404 is designed around two participation states.

LiquidIn its Liquid state, AKA combines fungible token liquidity with NFT ownership, allowing users to participate through ERC-20 markets as well as NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea.

This creates opportunities for trading, liquidity and arbitrage between the two market structures.

CommittedHolders can alternatively enter a Committed state by permanently burning the fungible token side while retaining the NFT.

Under the collection’s reward mechanics, this commitment activates eligibility for RWA-related rewards associated with the NFT.

The result is a model that lets users choose their own role:

Trade it.
Provide liquidity.
Arbitrage it.
Collect it.
Or commit it.

Different behaviors, one connected economy.

Building the Distribution Layer Between Crypto and the Real WorldThe long-term ambition extends far beyond individual launches or a single collection.

aka.fun aims to become a large-scale distribution layer between crypto liquidity and real-world asset providers.

As more markets launch and trading activity grows, the platform’s objective is to create increasingly recurring RWA demand generated directly by crypto-native economic activity.

That creates a potentially powerful feedback loop:

More projects create more markets.

More markets create more trading activity.

More activity creates more fees.

More fees can generate more RWA demand.

More RWA distribution creates greater utility for users.

And greater utility attracts more users, creators and liquidity.

“Crypto doesn’t have an attention problem. It has enormous attention, liquidity and trading activity. At the same time, real-world assets don’t necessarily need another place to exist onchain, they need distribution. Our vision for AKA is to connect those two worlds and turn crypto-native activity into a recurring distribution engine for RWAs.”

That is the flywheel aka.fun is building.

Meme culture on the surface.
Programmable markets underneath.
Real-world value flowing through the engine.

Trade, aka FUN.

About aka.funaka.fun is an Arc-native launchpad and programmable market platform built around USDC, Uniswap v4 and tokenized real-world assets.

The platform enables creators to launch crypto-native markets while embedding liquidity, incentives and programmable economic mechanics directly into the trading layer.

Its long-term mission is to build a distribution layer connecting crypto-native liquidity and audiences with the rapidly expanding world of tokenized real-world assets.

AdvertorialAdvertorial is the universal author name for all the sponsored content provided by BeInCrypto partners. Therefore, these articles, created by third parties for promotional purposes, may not align with BeInCrypto views or opinion. Although we make efforts to verify the credibility of featured projects, these pieces are intended for advertising and should not be regarded as financial advice. Readers are encouraged to conduct independent research (DYOR) and exercise caution. Decisions based on this content are the reader's responsibility.

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Disclaimer

This third-party press release is published substantially as received and does not reflect BeInCrypto's editorial views. BeInCrypto has not independently verified its claims or assessed the suitability, legality or appropriateness of any referenced asset, product or service; publication is not an endorsement. The content is general information, not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, a personal recommendation, offer or solicitation. Verify all information and seek professional advice where appropriate before acting. Crypto-assets may result in total loss.

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21 banks, including Goldman Sachs, Citi, and Bank of America, have committed to a joint dollar stablecoin targeting a first-half 2027 launch.Payment operators say the savings are real, with one client cutting a $100,000 cross-border payment's fees from 3–5% to under 1%.Contributors warn that a bank coin that cannot leave the issuing bank risks becoming a digitized version of the same fragmented payment system.For most of their first decade, stablecoins lived inside crypto, sitting on exchanges as dry powder between trades. Supply rose from $27 billion at the end of 2020 to more than $300 billion today.

A significant portion of that growth now occurs outside the order book. Cross-border flows into the US alone total nearly $127 billion a month, and businesses settled $226 billion in B2B payments in stablecoins last year, according to Artemis Analytics.

The expansion has caught the attention of the institutions it threatened. Banking groups pressed Congress to stop crypto firms from paying rewards on stablecoin balances, arguing that a token paying interest is a deposit in disguise.

Stablecoin Market Cap Since 2020. Source: DefiLlama The lobbying has not deterred new entrants. Visa, BlackRock, Google, and DoorDash have lined up behind Open USD, a stablecoin set to launch this year, in a market that Tether and Circle still dominate.

So banks have begun asking a different question: whether they need a coin of their own, if only to defend the ground they already hold.

BeInCrypto spoke with experts from Triple-A, ChangeNOW, Infinia, StraitsX, and others about what changed in 2026 and whether a bank coin is actually worth it for customers.

The Banks Stopped Watching The shift is visible in recent initiatives. On September 1, 21 financial institutions, including Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, and Deutsche Bank, committed to setting up a new company in the second half of 2026 to issue a stablecoin. 

The group plans a dollar token for the first half of 2027, with a euro version to follow, and says the product will be compliant with the GENIUS Act and MiCA. 

The consortium is not alone. SoFi Bank opened its stablecoin, SoFiUSD, to nearly 15 million members inside its app in May, five months after launching it for enterprise clients. JPMorgan, absent from the 21, runs its JPMD deposit token on Base. 

In Hong Kong, HSBC plans to launch a Hong Kong dollar (HKD) denominated stablecoin in the second half of 2026. Something shifted this year to make the trouble of issuing a stablecoin worth taking on.

Where Banks Stand on Stablecoins, September 2026. Source: BeInCrypto Tianwei Liu, CEO and co-founder of StraitsX, a Major Payment Institution (MPI) licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), says 2026 has been an inflection point for stablecoins, with regulatory clarity and institutional adoption making the cost of sitting out harder to ignore.

“For banks, issuing a stablecoin is a way to stay on the rails as the underlying infrastructure evolves.”

Liu explained that the stablecoin sandwich illustrates this opportunity well. Essentially, a stablecoin effectively sits between two fiat payment systems, connecting them. 

The user and merchant don’t necessarily need to hold or interact with the stablecoin directly; it can operate behind the scenes as the settlement asset, making the transaction faster and cheaper. 

He added that does put pressure on traditional banking revenues, particularly cross-border payment economics. However, it is not necessarily a major threat to banks themselves. 

Ianai Urwicz, co-founder and CEO of Infinia, puts a number on what banks stand to lose. 

“In 2025, global B2B stablecoin payments surged 733% year-on-year to $226 billion, proving that corporate treasurers are actively bypassing legacy correspondent banking networks to avoid multi-day settlement delays and high FX friction. This represents an immediate threat of deposit flight: Recent numbers show that up to $1 trillion in emerging-market bank deposits could migrate into stablecoins over the next three years.”

According to Urwicz, traditional banks are realizing that staying on the sidelines means surrendering their most valuable corporate liquidity pools, treasury relationships, and transactional fee revenues to regulated on-chain innovators.

Two other experts traced the change to the GENIUS Act. 

Vincent Chok, CEO and co-founder of First Digital, says banks were waiting for regulators to open the doors for them to participate.

“The law changed. The GENIUS Act gave banks a rulebook where there was previously only uncertainty, defining what a stablecoin is and what is required before issuing one…The second reason is volume. Stablecoin transaction volume passed $28 trillion in the first quarter of 2026, settling on networks where banks have historically had limited control or participation. When money moves at that scale outside a bank’s control, it becomes difficult to ignore.”

Alex Witt, founding general partner at Verda Ventures, agrees that the act opened the door.

“GENIUS gave banks a federal perimeter to issue inside, and the market showed them the cost of waiting…The threat is the spread. Stablecoins exposed how fragile the zero-yield deposit model is, which is why the CLARITY yield fight was never about consumer protection.” 

Issuing a coin lets banks keep the float. Meanwhile, data from Stablescape, Verda Ventures’ live index of stablecoin companies, suggests they’re entering a consolidating layer. New issuer formation fell 7% in 2025 and is down 34% so far this year.

The Customer’s Side of the Ledger The case for banks is clear enough. A stablecoin lets them keep the float, hold on to corporate clients, and stay on rails they no longer control. The case for the customer is less obvious.

Stablecoins moved an estimated $135B across borders in 2025.

That's just 0.31% of a $44.3T non-wholesale cross-border payments market. Initial 2026 YTD data suggests growth of around 23%.

As stablecoin infrastructure expands, cross-border payments remain one of the clearest… pic.twitter.com/sD20WytoSK

— OpenAssets (@OpenAssetsInc) September 10, 2026 A business that switches from a bank account to a bank-issued token is not buying speed alone. It is trading one set of protections for another, and the sums involved are not small. 

For a business holding $1 million in a bank account for supplier payments, the calculation comes down to two things. How much does the token save on the way out, and what protection disappears the moment the money leaves the deposit account?

Witt draws the line at the border. 

“Move it when suppliers are cross-border and settlement time is eating working capital; on-chain, that $1 million recycles several times a day instead of sitting pre-funded for three days. If suppliers are domestic on ACH, don’t bother. What you give up is that a bank stablecoin isn’t a deposit: no FDIC insurance, no yield under current rules, and an issuer freeze-and-burn capability. The trade is yield and insurance for velocity, worth it on the portion that moves and not on the portion that sits.”

How much that speed saves depends on where the money is going. Asked to walk through one live cross-border payment, Eric Barbier, CEO of Triple-A, a global payment institution, picked one from his own client book.

“Take an African car dealer paying a Japanese exporter for vehicles, a real use case from one of our clients. A traditional international wire can cost 3–5% once you include FX spreads and intermediary fees, and it may take several business days. Using stablecoin rails, the value can move in a dollar stablecoin within minutes, while the exporter receives JPY in Japan. On a $100,000 payment, bringing the all-in cost below 1% can save several thousand dollars.”

 The savings are real. Where they end up is another matter. Bernardo Brites, co-founder and CEO of Trace Finance, argues the token is the easy half.

“Issuing the token is easy; owning the local FX and settlement leg on the other end is what actually determines the customer’s savings. We move more than one billion dollars a month for multiple large corporate and our margin is a single, disclosed spread because we hold both sides, the digital dollar and the local rail. A bank-issued stablecoin without that local infrastructure just hands the economics to whichever partner does own it. BIS’s interoperability concern is really this same gap, dressed as a technical problem.”

Can the Coin Leave the Bank? Every bank in the consortium can issue a token. The harder question is whether the token can leave. 

Even the BIS, which questions whether stablecoins of any kind can yet do the job of money and favours tokenized deposits instead, sees the same interoperability gap in what banks have built so far.

Speaking at Jackson Hole on August 28, general manager Pablo Hernández de Cos said much of it either sits on closed platforms or is better described as bank-issued stablecoins, and that those tokens share many of the same shortcomings as existing stablecoins. A token that clears inside one bank’s walls is only half a payment rail.

Tim Stanyakin, Head of Growth at ChangeNOW, explained that banks already cooperate through existing payment and settlement infrastructure. 

The question is whether their stablecoins will extend that interoperability or create new, closed digital money ecosystems.

“Bank-backed stablecoins could give users something they already understand: a familiar institution behind their digital money, with clearer regulatory recourse. But the real value will depend on what users can do with these tokens beyond the issuing bank.”

The failure mode is easy to picture.

“If Bank A’s stablecoin cannot interact seamlessly with Bank B’s token, public blockchains, or other digital assets, it risks becoming little more than a digitized version of the same fragmented payment system. Ultimately, users will care less about who issues the coin and more about where they can use it, how easily they can move it, and how quickly they can convert it into other forms of digital money.”

Chok of First Digital sees two things standing in the way: acceptance and regulation.

“A competing bank or a third-party payment app has to be willing to hold a token issued by a rival. This is a commercial decision rather than a technical one…The second is regulation. Banks operate under different rules in different countries, and as of today, there is no universally agreed framework for stablecoins across jurisdictions.”

The executive mentioned that until there is greater alignment across commercial acceptance and regulatory frameworks, a token that works only inside the bank that issued it cannot truly become a payment rail.

Witt says the friction is not in the token at all. 

“The problem is that the token is fungible and the identity behind it is not: under proposed GENIUS rules, a receiving institution can rely on the sender’s KYC only if that sender is federally regulated, so every hop outside the perimeter triggers re-verification.”

The Corridors Already Have a Dollar While the consortium drafts its charter, the independents are shipping. Circle switched on Arc’s public mainnet on September 16, a layer-1 network where fees are paid in USDC. 

Validators include BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, Standard Chartered, and DTCC, among others. Open USD is due later this year, with more than 140 partners lined up to share its reserve income. And Tether’s USDT, at roughly $183 billion, is larger than every other stablecoin combined as of mid-September.

Stablecoins by Market Cap. Source: DefiLama That is the market the banks are entering. Their advantage is obvious. A familiar name behind the token and a regulator to call when something goes wrong count for a lot. 

But trust is only useful where the token is accepted, and that is where the independents still hold the ground.

Barbier of Triple-A says independent stablecoins have independence and a network advantage.

“They can move across banks, wallets, payment providers, and blockchains, rather than being tied to a single institution’s ecosystem.”

He added that a bank-issued stablecoin may work very well within that bank’s own network. The limitation appears when the payment needs to leave it. 

“Cross-border businesses need money that can move between different institutions, platforms, and markets. So the real competition is not about who can issue a token. It is about whose money can travel furthest with the least friction.”

Witt locates that friction in a specific place: the countries where dollars are hard to get. 

“A bank consortium coin will be excellent for institutional settlement in New York, but it won’t be the dollar a P2P desk in Lagos or a supplier in Buenos Aires actually quotes and holds; that’s USDT, built corridor by corridor over a decade with almost none of its $184.6 billion in circulation requiring U.S. approval.”

None of which means the banks lose. Liu of StraitsX drew the line.

“Banks that treat stablecoins purely as competition risk disintermediation. Those that integrate them into payments and treasury can capture the next generation of payment flows.”

The consortium coin arrives in the first half of 2027, if the timeline holds. By then, the corridors it needs will have had another year to settle on someone else’s dollar. Arc is live. Open USD is months away. The banks are drawing up the rulebook for a game already in its second half.

Disclaimer

BeInCrypto independently reports and controls this Feature. Quoted views belong to their speakers. This content is general and non-personalized; it does not consider your circumstances and is not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, or an offer, endorsement or recommendation to transact in any crypto-asset, product or service. Verify material information before acting. Crypto-assets are volatile and may result in total loss. BeInCrypto gives no warranty as to completeness, accuracy or timeliness, except where required by law.

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Bitget, one of the world’s largest Universal Exchanges (UEX), has upgraded its Proof of Reserves (PoR) from four cryptocurrencies to 19 major assets, significantly widening the share of user holdings covered by its reserve verification infrastructure. The upgrade extends both platform-level reserve disclosures and personal Proof of Assets verification, giving users greater visibility into how assets held on Bitget are accounted for and the ability to independently verify their inclusion in reserve snapshots.

As exchanges expand the range of assets they support, reserve transparency needs to keep pace. The latest upgrade moves Bitget closer to making verification a standard layer across its ecosystem, rather than a safeguard limited to core cryptocurrencies.

The expanded coverage includes BTC, USDT, ETH, LTC, LINK, XRP, USDC, DOGE, BNB, SOL, ADA, NEAR, XAUT, TAO, SUI, ONDO, HYPE, PI, and USDGO. Through the upgraded PoR page, users can view the reserve ratio and amount of user assets for each supported asset, assess if reserves are sufficient, and see how user assets are distributed across different public blockchains. 

Personal Proof of Assets verification has expanded across the same range, allowing users to independently check whether their holdings were included in a PoR snapshot using Merkle Tree verification. Detailed audit records, including Merkle hashes and snapshot information, remain available for users seeking deeper verification.

Bitget has published Proof of Reserves monthly since its launch in December 2022. As of August 2026, the platform had published 45 consecutive PoR reports, with its latest report showing a total reserve ratio of 122%, remaining above the 1:1 reserve standard. Bitget uses Merkle Tree technology to aggregate and verify user assets, allowing users to independently confirm whether their holdings are included in a particular Proof of Reserves snapshot. Users can also download the relevant data and further verify their asset records using publicly available verification methods.

“Users shouldn’t have to simply take our word for it, they should be able to verify their assets for themselves,” said Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget. “Proof of Reserves has been part of Bitget’s transparency framework for nearly four years, and as the assets people hold on our platform become more diverse, that verification needs to expand with them. Expanding from four assets to 19 gives more users that visibility.”

For assets outside the scope of a particular audit, or where corresponding personal records have not yet been generated, Bitget’s Proof of Assets interface provides relevant notices to help users interpret their audit results accurately. As UEX brings a broader range of assets and markets into one trading environment, Bitget is extending the systems that allow users to independently examine what sits behind their holdings. Proof of Reserves, the Protection Fund, and Bitget’s broader security infrastructure form part of that approach, with the goal of making security increasingly measurable and verifiable as the ecosystem grows.

For more information, visit here. 

About BitgetBitget is one of the world’s largest Universal Exchanges (UEX), serving over 125 million users and offering access to over 2M crypto tokens, 500+ tokenized stocks, ETFs, commodities, FX, and precious metals such as gold. The ecosystem is committed to helping users trade smarter with its AI agent, which co-pilots trade execution. Bitget is driving crypto adoption through strategic partnerships such as MotoGP™. Aligned with its global impact strategy, Bitget has joined hands with UNICEF to support blockchain education for 1.1 million people by 2027. Bitget currently expands in the tokenized TradFi market, providing the industry’s lowest fees and highest liquidity across 150 regions worldwide.

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Risk Warning: Digital asset prices are subject to fluctuation and may experience significant volatility. Investors are advised to only allocate funds they can afford to lose. The value of any investment may be impacted, and there is a possibility that financial objectives may not be met, nor the principal investment recovered. Independent financial advice should always be sought, and personal financial experience and standing carefully considered. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future results. Bitget accepts no liability for any potential losses incurred. Nothing contained herein should be construed as financial advice. For further information, please refer to our Terms of Use.

Disclaimer

This third-party press release is published substantially as received and does not reflect BeInCrypto's editorial views. BeInCrypto has not independently verified its claims or assessed the suitability, legality or appropriateness of any referenced asset, product or service; publication is not an endorsement. The content is general information, not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, a personal recommendation, offer or solicitation. Verify all information and seek professional advice where appropriate before acting. Crypto-assets may result in total loss.

In This Article Ripple XRP News: What Does Arc do Differently to Ripple? It USDC Into the Rail ItselfThe Evidence for SBI's Dual-Rail PositionWhat Is Arc Walking Into?The Verdict: SBI is Hedging, Not Choosing Between Ripple XRP and Arc Circle opened the public mainnet for Arc, its USDC-centered Layer 1 blockchain, on September 16, 2026, with 11 founding validators drawn almost entirely from traditional finance, creating a talking point about the firms involvement with Ripple XRP.

Among them: SBI Group, which has held roughly 9% of Ripple since 2016 and is described as Ripple’s largest external shareholder, according to the primary reporting on the launch. SBI CEO Yoshitaka Kitao has put the value of that stake near $4Bn.

‼️ BOJ INSIDER CALLED IT A YEAR AGO — ARC GOES LIVE AND RIPPLE SITS DOWN WITH CIRCLE THE SAME WEEK! 🤯

Last Year @yutokanzakireal posted that Japan and the United States were quietly lining up trusted financial institutions on top of Ripple, Arc, and other rails for payments,… https://t.co/DLPCCRDrA5 pic.twitter.com/WfcPbpdd5S

— Pumpius (@pumpius) September 16, 2026

That places SBI in an odd spot. It is simultaneously the biggest outside owner of a company built around XRP and RLUSD, and a founding operator securing a rival chain built to make USDC the default unit of institutional settlement.

Here is the tension this article works through: does validating Arc signal SBI is drifting away from Ripple, or is this simply what hedging looks like when banks don’t yet know which settlement rail wins?

Ripple XRP News: What Does Arc do Differently to Ripple? It USDC Into the Rail Itself Arc is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 blockchain, meaning it runs the same smart-contract environment developers already use on Ethereum, but with one structural difference: USDC is the native gas asset.

Transaction costs are quoted in dollars rather than a volatile network token, removing a pricing headache that has kept some institutions cautious about public blockchains.

Circle describes Arc as purpose-built for stablecoin finance, pairing that dollar-denominated fee structure with an integrated stablecoin foreign-exchange engine, sub-second settlement finality and opt-in privacy controls.

Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire said, “Arc is built on a simple premise: that the global financial system deserves a blockchain network it can trust.”

The mainnet and USDC gas mechanism are live today, alongside a day-one application set spanning decentralized finance protocols like Aave and Uniswap, payments firms including Rain and Wirex, and wallets and exchanges such as Kraken, MetaMask and Upbit.

The Evidence for SBI’s Dual-Rail Position 🚨 BREAKING

JAPAN ALREADY HOLDS APPROXIMATELY 59 BILLION DOLLARS IN #XRP THROUGH SBI HOLDINGS ALONE

THAT IS OVER 450 TIMES MORE THAN THE COUNTRY 131 MILLION DOLLAR PENSION FUND ALLOCATION CURRENTLY UNDER CONSIDERATION

SBI HOLDINGS HAS EMERGED AS ONE OF THE LARGEST CORPORATE… pic.twitter.com/5ZqmTT59HJ

— 𝗫ℝℙ ℍ𝔼ℝ𝔸𝕃𝔻 (@xrp_herald) June 23, 2026

SBI’s involvement with Ripple goes beyond equity, as SBI Ripple Asia operates Japan’s only live XRP remittance corridor. In March 2026, SBI became Asia’s first regulated RLUSD distributor and a founding validator for a competing stablecoin network.

Similarly, Mastercard has expanded its settlement framework to include RLUSD across eight blockchain networks, including the XRP Ledger.

Both companies are hedging their bets across different settlement networks rather than favoring one. Regulatory developments are crucial; for instance, XRP fell 10% when the US Senate blocked the CLARITY Act, highlighting ongoing uncertainties in Ripple’s home market.

Understanding Ripple’s supply mechanics and scheduled escrow releases is essential to tracking XRP liquidity relative to institutional deals.

EXCLUSIVE: Trade Cardano and Earn $10 USDC Via Binance Sign-Up

What Is Arc Walking Into? Arc’s founding validator cohort lacks crypto-native firms and consists mainly of banks and financial institutions like BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, Visa, and others.

Over 100 institutional players have been active on Arc’s private mainnet before its launch. BlackRock intends to deploy its BUIDL tokenized fund, and DTCC is collaborating with Circle to tokenize assets by late 2027.

This month, RLUSD’s supply reached $2.442Bn, with Circle’s USYC exceeding $3Bn, and BlackRock’s BUIDL around $2.4Bn, highlighting the significant tokenization market Arc is entering, influenced by emerging stablecoin regulations in various jurisdictions.

UPDATE: ARC⚡

• Arc has just minted 10 billion $ARC tokens on mainnet

• Circle confirmed this is the full initial supply of ARC

• This is currently a technical milestone and does not confirm a public ARC token launch

• Circle is exploring a future move to Proof of Stake… https://t.co/gNiBxkYwsN pic.twitter.com/QChtfTdAm6

— Crypto Sutra (@Cryptosutra_) September 17, 2026

The Verdict: SBI is Hedging, Not Choosing Between Ripple XRP and Arc Nothing in SBI’s Arc validator role indicates it is abandoning Ripple or XRP. It confirms SBI is participating in both ecosystems at once, which is materially different from switching allegiance.

Whether SBI, Mastercard, or other dual-rail participants eventually consolidate around one network remains unresolved. The variable that will actually decide this isn’t which validators sign up.

It’s whether institutional capital ultimately settles around USDC-based infrastructure, XRP liquidity, or a durable multi-rail arrangement where firms like SBI keep a foot on each side of the table.

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Alex Ioannou

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Alex is a seasoned cryptocurrency trader and market analyst with over seven years of active experience in the digital asset space. Since entering the markets in 2017, Alex has specialized in identifying emerging "meta" trends and high-volatility narratives. Notably, Alex... Read More

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The US stock market’s CPU sector continues to rally, with Intel’s gains expanding to 10% and AMD rising more than 7%.

According to market data from BIT (bit.com), the US CPU sector continues to rally, with Intel’s gains expanding to 10%, AMD rising over 7%, Arm up more than 8%, Qualcomm advancing over 3%, and Nvidia increasing by more than 2%.

47 minutes ago

2026 U.S. Federal Reserve terminal rate outlook: The probability of another 50 basis point rate hike stands at 37.2%, while the likelihood of keeping rates unchanged at current levels is 13.3%.

According to CME Group’s FedWatch data, after the U.S. Federal Reserve implemented its first interest rate hike in three years, market focus has shifted to whether this move is a policy "recalibration" or the start of a new consecutive rate hike cycle. The two remaining FOMC meetings in 2026 are scheduled for October and December respectively. Currently, the probability of holding interest rates steady at the October meeting is 49.1%, while the chance of a 25 basis point hike is 5.9%. For the period through December, the probability of rates remaining unchanged from current levels is 13.3%, a cumulative 25 basis point hike has a 49.6% probability, and a cumulative 50 basis point hike carries a 37.2% chance.

47 minutes ago

Lobster token’s market cap briefly surpassed $246 million, hitting an all-time high, with a 13.5% rise in the past 24 hours.

According to GMGN market data, the Chinese Meme coin "Lobster" briefly hit a market capitalization of over $246 million, setting a new all-time high. The token has a 13.5% 24-hour price increase, with its current market cap at $237 million and 24-hour trading volume at $5.8 million. BlockBeats reminds users that prices of related tokens are highly volatile, so investors should exercise caution.

47 minutes ago

UNI breaks through $7.3; Uniswap founder says v4 pools are a new gateway for compliant on-chain US stock trading.

According to HTX market data, UNI has surged past $7.3, gaining over 15.6% in the 24-hour period. Today, Uniswap founder Hayden Adams stated that for Automated Market Makers (AMMs), the most critical point is not the main text of the SEC’s "innovation exemption" but the accompanying opinion from Commissioner Hester Peirce. This means the general permissionless Uniswap is not included in this regulatory sandbox and does not need to apply for an exemption in the first place. The exemption applies to permissioned liquidity pools on Uniswap v4, a path that can be chosen when assets and users require compliant channels. Hayden Adams believes that permissioned Uniswap v4 pools are the new entry point for compliant on-chain US stock trading.

47 minutes ago

Artificial Inu (AI) hits an all-time high market cap of over $360 million, surging 32.1% in 24 hours.

According to GMGN data, the crypto meme coin Artificial Inu (AI) on the Robinhood Chain has hit a new all-time high, with its market cap exceeding $360 million, a 24-hour gain of 32.1%, and trading volume of $23.9 million. Artificial Inu was launched via Long.xyz, a launchpad on the Robinhood Chain, and uses tokenized Nvidia stock as its liquidity pool, with liquidity provided via the AI/NVDA trading pair. BlockBeats Note: Stock Meme is an emerging concept that combines traditional meme coins with tokenized U.S. stocks. Unlike standard meme coins that pair with USDT or ETH, Stock Memes are directly paired with on-chain U.S. stock tokens (such as NVDA, TSLA, AAPL, etc.). This model retains meme coins’ high volatility and community-driven speculative traits while leveraging the popularity and narratives of real stocks. A portion of transaction fees is typically funneled back to the community treasury to accumulate the corresponding U.S. stock tokens, forming a dual-driven model of "sentiment-driven speculation + real asset anchoring". BlockBeats reminds users that token prices are highly volatile, so investment should be approached with caution.

47 minutes ago

Backpack platform’s token BP surges past $0.53, with a more than 18.4% gain in the last 24 hours.

According to HTX market data, Backpack’s platform token BP has surged past $0.53, logging a more than 18.4% gain in the past 24 hours. The price movement is mainly driven by news that the SEC has approved limited trading of tokenized stocks on on-chain platforms. On July 10 this year, Backpack announced the launch of a 24/7 real US stock trading market for international investors, allowing eligible users to trade and hold actual US stocks around the clock rather than synthetic derivatives. Backpack stated that the platform provides actual equity ownership, leverages liquidity from traditional trading platforms, and supports instant settlement, continuous price discovery, as well as fiat and stablecoin settlements.

47 minutes ago

Washington’s stablecoin debate is about characteristics: who can issue one, what has to back it, and how it gets audited. The Federal Reserve, the US central bank, and the OCC, the regulator that supervises the country’s national banks, cannot simply accept that a token is worth one dollar; they have to control who is allowed to make that promise. 

Because a dollar-pegged token is, in a real sense, a representation of the country’s own currency.

Latin America is regulating something structurally different: access to a currency none of its governments control. For a saver in Buenos Aires, Bogota, or Mexico City, whether the token behind their savings is USDC, USDT, or whatever wins that fight barely matters, as long as it holds its peg and the custodian is solvent. 

That asymmetry explains a mistake regional regulators keep edging toward: importing Washington’s fight over issuer specs, when the real problem here is different, and harder.

The real question is not which stablecoin wins. It is where the dollars backing it should live.

Offshore Dollars Become a Domestic Policy Problem  A dollar in a reserve account in New York does the same job, on a user’s screen, as a dollar in a reserve account in Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo. But for a regulator in a region where hard currency has been the state’s scarcest resource for decades, those two dollars are not equivalent. One is available to the local financial system under stress. The other is not. 

Argentina remains the world’s most dollarized crypto market by share of volume, but the pattern is regional: in Brazil, institutional stablecoin volume jumped from 5% of local crypto flows in 2024 to 84% in 2025, and Mexico’s Senate is now debating a bill to regulate peso-pegged stablecoins. 

How Argentina uses stablecoins. Source: a16z crypto A rising share of household and corporate dollars sitting in instruments reserved entirely offshore will, sooner or later, look like a policy problem worth solving, not a market outcome to shrug at.

Should Latin America Force Some of Those Dollars Back Home? This has a preview. In July, Kenya’s Treasury proposed requiring stablecoin issuers to hold at least 30 percent of customer funds in banks domiciled in the country. No Latin American regulator has proposed anything like it yet, but the logic behind Kenya’s rule, chronic dollar scarcity meeting a financial system trying to claw back some claim on flows it can no longer prevent, is arguably more acute in Argentina or Venezuela than in Kenya. I would be surprised if nobody in the region’s finance ministries is already sketching something similar.

I do not think this is an easy call. None of the region’s frameworks so far, not Argentina’s PSAV regime, not Brazil’s rules in force since February, not the bill in Mexico’s Senate, have tried to solve this yet, and one of their underappreciated virtues is that they have not. 

My read: mandating local reserves would fragment liquidity that today lives almost entirely in USDT and USDC, strip domestically-backed instruments of the convertibility that makes them useful for remittances, and likely push demand toward unregulated rails instead of compliant ones. That defeats the point of the rule.

How Brazil’s Assets Leave the Country to Offshore Companies. Source: BeInCrypto Research The alternative worth building toward is coexistence: locally-reserved and offshore-reserved dollar instruments operating under supervision, moving freely between each other, letting users decide where their dollars live. 

Whether the region gets there, or defaults to Kenya’s blunter instrument once dollarization is impossible to ignore, will decide how much of Latin America’s dollar savings stays inside a supervised system, and how much goes looking for the door.

Arc Blockchain Explained: Everything You Need to Know About Circle’s Layer 1

2 hours ago

Arc has announced the launch of its Arc Microgrants program, offering 20 grants of 500 USDC each (totaling 10,000 USDC) to qualified early-stage developers building functional mini-apps on Arc’s mainnet. The initiative is open to early-stage projects, prototypes, and proof-of-concept applications.

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Circle isn’t just issuing stablecoins anymore. It’s running the rails they move on.

The company behind USDC has deployed $649M in USDC and $7M in EURC on Arc, its own Layer 1 blockchain that launched its public mainnet on September 16, 2026. For a company that spent years being the “stablecoin issuer that works with every chain,” building its own chain is a sharp strategic pivot, one that CEO Jeremy Allaire has called potentially the most significant launch in Circle’s history.

What Arc actually does differently Arc’s headline feature is deceptively simple: USDC is the native gas token. Transaction fees on Arc target roughly $0.01, denominated entirely in USDC.

The blockchain delivers sub-second deterministic finality, meaning transactions settle almost instantly with no ambiguity about whether they went through. Traditional blockchains often have probabilistic finality, where a transaction becomes “more confirmed” over time. Arc skips the uncertainty entirely.

Arc also launched with support for 22-plus fiat-linked stablecoins, not just USDC and EURC. The chain integrates Circle’s StableFX product, which enables atomic foreign exchange settlement between different stablecoin pairs.

The validator list reads like a Davos attendee roster Circle announced the founding validator cohort on August 5, 2026, and it includes BlackRock, Visa, and Mastercard. The network launched with over 100 institutional participants spanning banks, asset managers, and DeFi protocols.

On the DeFi side, protocols like Aave and Morpho are already building on Arc, giving the chain immediate functional utility from day one.

The economics behind the chain Circle executed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens. Prior to launch, a presale raised approximately $222M at a $3B fully diluted valuation. That presale price implies early buyers got ARC tokens at roughly $0.022 each.

The $649M USDC deployment on Arc represents a significant initial liquidity injection. Circle, being the issuer, can simply mint and deploy — the advantage of vertical integration.

The $7M EURC deployment is smaller but symbolically important. EURC, Circle’s euro-denominated stablecoin, has grown more slowly than USDC. Embedding it natively into Arc alongside the StableFX settlement system could accelerate euro-denominated DeFi activity.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Tokenized Treasuries and money market funds have dominated the real-world asset conversation for the past two years. Now Avalanche is pushing into riskier territory: junk bonds.

IXS Finance launched its High Yield Corporate Bond Vault on September 17, bringing tokenized exposure to US high-yield corporate debt onto Avalanche. The vault, accessed through the IXHYB token, tracks the performance of BlackRock’s iShares 0-5 Year High Yield Corporate Bond ETF (SHYG), a fund that focuses on short-duration, sub-investment-grade corporate bonds. The minimum deposit is $100 in USDC, which makes this one of the lowest entry points for accessing institutional-grade credit products onchain.

How the vault works The vault uses an ERC-7540 contract on Avalanche that is compatible with the ERC-4626 tokenized vault standard.

The structure is designed to be bankruptcy-remote through Open Trade SPC, a Cayman Islands Segregated Portfolio Company. This legal wrapper means that if IXS Finance itself ran into trouble, the vault’s assets would theoretically remain ring-fenced from creditors.

Deposits are accepted in USDC, and the vault offers two access routes. The permissionless path allows any wallet, or even an AI agent, to interact without being on an allowlist. The permissioned route requires standard KYC procedures. Daily net asset value is referenced at 9:30 am GMT.

Redemptions come with a 50 basis points exit fee and are processed one business day after the cutoff. Historical returns on the underlying SHYG strategy have averaged approximately 10.59% over six-month periods, though IXS is clear that negative returns are possible.

Early depositors who get in before September 21 are eligible for a reward pool of 500,000 IXS tokens, which vest 90 days after December 21.

Why junk bonds matter for onchain finance IXS Finance operates under a Bahamas DARE Act license and has achieved access as a US broker-dealer. The DARE Act, which stands for Digital Assets and Registered Exchanges, is the Bahamas’ regulatory framework for digital asset businesses.

This launch fits into a broader 2026 trend of institutional asset managers moving higher-yielding strategies onchain. The initial wave of tokenized Treasuries proved the concept. The second wave, which this vault represents, tests whether onchain infrastructure can handle products with more complex risk profiles, variable returns, and credit analysis requirements.

Because IXHYB is ERC-4626 compatible, it could theoretically be used as collateral in lending protocols, incorporated into structured products, or combined with other yield sources.

The permissionless access path allows any wallet to deposit without KYC. IXS’s DARE Act license and US broker-dealer access underpin that design decision, though whether regulators in the US and elsewhere agree with that interpretation remains an open question.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Hyperliquid, the perpetual futures-focused Layer-1 blockchain, now holds more circulating USDC than Solana. According to data from the Hyperliquid ecosystem tracker hl.eco, the network’s USDC supply has reached approximately $6.73 billion, narrowly exceeding Solana’s $6.72 billion.

That makes Hyperliquid the second-largest chain by circulating USDC, trailing only Ethereum.

How Hyperliquid got here The bulk of Hyperliquid’s USDC, roughly $6.28 billion, comes from native issuance on HyperEVM, the chain’s Ethereum-compatible execution layer. A smaller legacy pool of about $453.6 million remains bridged from Arbitrum, a holdover from Hyperliquid’s earlier architecture.

USDC now accounts for approximately 98% of Hyperliquid’s total stablecoin supply, which sits at $6.85 billion. USDC functions as the primary collateral for Hyperliquid’s perpetual futures markets, with the protocol’s entire margin system built around it.

Partnerships with Circle and Coinbase, established around May 2025 to 2026, have supported the minting and treasury infrastructure that enabled this scale, giving Hyperliquid direct access to USDC issuance pipelines rather than relying solely on bridged supply from other networks.

Solana’s USDC dip adds context In late August 2026, Solana’s USDC supply had surged to approximately $8 billion after Circle processed roughly $11 billion worth of mints that month alone. That number has since pulled back to $6.72 billion.

The HYPE flywheel Hyperliquid’s protocol design creates a feedback loop with its native HYPE token. The platform routes a portion of yield generated from USDC reserves toward HYPE token buybacks and burns. More USDC deposits mean more reserve yield, which means more buying pressure on HYPE.

What this shift means for stablecoin distribution Hyperliquid represents a chain where nearly all stablecoin activity serves a single vertical. It’s not trying to be a general-purpose smart contract platform. It’s a derivatives exchange that happens to be its own blockchain, and traders are parking billions in USDC there to use it.

For Circle, the USDC issuer, having significant USDC supply distributed across Ethereum, Hyperliquid, Solana, and other chains reduces concentration risk and expands the stablecoin’s utility across different market segments.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.

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Column has launched four new financial infrastructure products spanning stablecoins, card issuing, global banking and multicurrency accounts, giving fintech companies access to the services through a single banking platform.

Summary

Column launched four products covering stablecoins, card issuing, global banking and multicurrency accounts. USDC and USDT can be converted into U.S. dollars and connected with domestic and international payment rails around the clock. Column built its own issuer processor and now provides banking, processing and capital through one integration. Verified customers globally can access U.S. dollar or local currency accounts and cards using Column’s infrastructure. William Hockey said the new products are already moving billions of dollars for major fintech companies. According to Column co founder William Hockey, the rollout completes a years long effort to build the underlying components needed for technology companies to create financial products without connecting separate banks, payment orchestrators and processing providers. Hockey announced the products on Sept. 16, saying each service is already processing billions of dollars for fintech companies including Ramp, Brex, Bilt, Mercury, Slash and Kapital.

Global banking

Issue U.S. dollar or local currency accounts and cards to verified customers anywhere in the world, on the same infrastructure and same compliance tooling you already use domestically. pic.twitter.com/85f6oXoy11

— William Hockey (@williamhockey) September 16, 2026 Column said the new stablecoin infrastructure makes USDC and USDT interoperable with U.S. dollars and the payment networks connected to its banking platform. Transfers and conversions can operate around the clock, while clients can move funds between stablecoins, bank accounts and domestic or international payment rails without relying on an intermediary provider.

The launch comes as stablecoins increasingly move into payment and banking infrastructure. crypto.news previously reported that stablecoin card spending surpassed $10.9 billion cumulatively, based on Paymentscan data cited by RedotPay in August. Monthly spending crossed $1 billion for the first time in July, compared with approximately $339.4 million a year earlier.

Column stablecoin infrastructure connects crypto and bank payments Column’s stablecoin product allows businesses to receive and send USDC and USDT while moving between digital dollars and traditional bank money. Hockey said the functionality was built directly into Column and operates without middlemen.

One example provided by the company involves receiving USDC from Mongolia, immediately converting the funds into U.S. dollars and splitting the payment. Part of the money could then be sent to a U.S. community bank through FedNow while another portion is converted into euros and sent through SWIFT.

Hockey described the process as possible through a few API calls and said it could be completed within seconds.

Column’s product arrives as fintech companies build similar connections between stablecoins and traditional payment systems. Ramp, which Column named among the companies using its infrastructure, launched stablecoin accounts on Solana in July. Ramp said businesses could hold USDC and USDT and make payments to vendors in more than 140 countries, with settlement available in more than 40 local currencies.

Local currency conversion remains a separate part of the payment process even when the underlying stablecoin transfer settles quickly. Gravity Team CEO Mārtiņš Beņķītis said in August that stablecoin transfers still depend on local liquidity, banking connections and payout infrastructure when recipients need spendable domestic currency.

Column is combining those functions inside its banking stack by connecting stablecoins with its existing dollar accounts and payment rails.

Card issuing brings banking and processing under one integration A second product gives customers access to Column’s full card issuing stack, including the bank, processing infrastructure and capital through one integration.

Column has sponsored card programs for several years but has now built its own issuer processor from the ground up, according to Hockey. Clients can use the infrastructure to create debit, credit and stablecoin backed cards across the Mastercard and Visa networks.

Bringing the processor in house means Column can provide the banking relationship and card processing layer rather than requiring a fintech company to combine separate providers for those functions.

Stablecoin cards have become a growing part of the card market. Visa said earlier this month that more than 160 programs linked to stablecoins were operating globally during its fiscal second quarter of 2026. Payment volume from the programs rose nearly 200% year over year, while Visa’s stablecoin settlement volume surpassed a $20 billion annualized rate.

Mastercard has been expanding its settlement infrastructure in parallel. In June, the company added six regulated stablecoins to its settlement network, including USDC, PYUSD, USDG, USDP, RLUSD and SoFiUSD. Mastercard said the system could settle transactions outside traditional banking hours, including weekends and holidays.

Column’s card platform supports both Visa and Mastercard while allowing stablecoin balances to sit within the same infrastructure used for conventional card programs.

Global banking opens Column accounts beyond the U.S. Column’s third product extends its account and card infrastructure to verified customers outside the United States.

Businesses using the service can issue U.S. dollar or local currency accounts and cards to eligible customers globally. Column said companies can use the same infrastructure and compliance tools that support their domestic operations instead of creating a separate technology stack for international users.

The company did not provide a complete list of supported jurisdictions in the announcement. Availability therefore depends on the markets covered by Column’s global banking infrastructure and its customer verification requirements.

For businesses operating across multiple countries, the global banking service can be combined with Column’s stablecoin and card products. A customer could hold funds through an account, receive a stablecoin payment and use the balance through a card without moving between separately integrated providers, based on the product flow described by Hockey.

Column said the products were designed to work with one another because they share the company’s underlying financial infrastructure.

Multicurrency accounts connect to international payment systems Column’s fourth product adds individually numbered accounts for foreign currencies, allowing customers to receive, hold and send money in currencies other than the U.S. dollar.

Funds can be converted instantly between supported foreign currencies and dollars, according to the company. The accounts connect with international payment networks, including SEPA Instant, giving clients another route for local and cross border payouts.

Hockey provided another example in his announcement in which a company receives USDC, converts the stablecoin into dollars and divides the balance between different payment destinations. One portion could travel over FedNow, another could be converted into euros and sent through SWIFT, while a third could be directed back to a card.

Column said the workflow could be completed within seconds because its stablecoin, banking, card and foreign currency products use the same underlying financial components.

The company has positioned the four products as an alternative to fintech stacks assembled from separate banks, issuer processors, payment orchestrators and other vendors. Hockey said businesses can instead use Column as the single bank behind the financial products they build.

Column did not disclose individual transaction volumes for the four services, but Hockey said every product announced this week is already moving billions of dollars at scale for some of the world’s largest fintech companies.

Circle has launched the mainnet for Arc, a layer-1 blockchain built around its USDC stablecoin, with a validator set that includes BlackRock, Mastercard, Visa, DTCC and ICE, according to a Circle press release yesterday.

Chief executive Jeremy Allaire called it "the single most significant launch in Circle's history since USDC itself," describing Arc as "an open, neutral, always-on economic operating system" for financial markets and AI-driven transactions.

Arc is fully EVM-compatible, letting existing Solidity contracts run without modification, and departs from most layer-1 designs by charging network fees in USDC rather than a separate volatile token. A native ARC token, with a fixed supply of 10 billion, instead functions as a coordination mechanism for network security, utility and governance, while transaction fees stay denominated in USDC. The chain currently runs on a proof-of-authority model, with Circle planning a shift to proof of stake in 2027, and offers sub-second, deterministic finality alongside an optional privacy feature, still in development, that would let institutions shield transaction details behind view keys. Circle said Arc's testnet processed more than 700 million transactions in under a year of operation ahead of the mainnet launch.

Eleven institutions serve as founding validators: BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo Corporation, Visa and Worldpay. More than 100 applications and institutional integrations went live alongside the mainnet, spanning banks including BNY, HSBC, Societe Generale and State Street; exchanges Binance, Coinbase, Kraken and OKX; DeFi protocols Aave, Morpho and Uniswap; custody providers Anchorage, BitGo and Fireblocks; and wallets including MetaMask, Phantom and Ledger.

BlackRock's Robbie Mitchnick said "purpose-built blockchains can help accelerate adoption of digital asset use cases, and Arc appears clearly well positioned to serve stablecoin and payment use cases at scale." Aave Labs founder Stani Kulechov said the network brings "the speed, stablecoin-native infrastructure needed to expand onchain credit to a much broader market," and SBI Group chief executive Yoshitaka Kitao said the Japanese financial group would "contribute to its operation and governance" as a founding validator.

Arc enters a stablecoin-settlement race that has already drawn more than half a billion dollars in dedicated funding. Tether's Plasma network launched in September 2025 prioritizing zero-fee USDT transfers and reached $5.5 billion in total value locked within its first week, while Stripe-backed Tempo, live since March, runs without a native token at all and instead pays validators directly in stablecoins, according to BlockEden's overview of the sector. Where those networks compete mainly on payments throughput, Circle is pitching Arc's institutional validator set and features like its StableFX cross-currency settlement product as the basis for capital-markets use cases, including tokenized treasury funds and, per Allaire, commerce conducted directly by AI agents.

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Circle’s new Arc blockchain went live on September 16 with a design choice that inverts the usual layer-1 model: transaction fees are paid in USDC, the stablecoin itself, not in Arc’s own freshly minted ARC token.

Arc, Circle’s layer-1 network for payments and financial markets, launched its public mainnet on September 16 with EVM compatibility and sub-second settlement finality, according to the launch announcement on Arc’s blog.

“This is, I believe, the most consequential major platform launch in our history, and I think an even more consequential launch than USDC itself,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said at a press briefing.

The company targets roughly one cent per transaction, and because fees are paid in USDC, that price stays predictable in dollar terms rather than moving with a volatile native token.

Why not ARC? Circle minted the full initial supply of 10 billion ARC tokens at genesis, but the token is not publicly available, and the company said the mint is not a commitment to launch ARC publicly. Its stated role is coordination for security, utility and governance. USDC stays the fee currency.

The pitch is aimed at exactly the institutions Arc launched with. Founding validators named in August include BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, ICE and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), with more than 100 institutions and companies involved at launch. A treasury desk that must budget costs in dollars has no reason to want its fee line item denominated in a token whose price it cannot control.

The permissioned structure supports the same goal. Arc currently runs on approved proof-of-authority validators, and Circle says it is exploring a transition to proof of stake in 2027, which could eventually give ARC a role in network security. The network also carries more than 20 fiat-backed stablecoins, including EURC, JPYC, KRW1 and TRYB, and connects to more than 20 blockchains through Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP).

Circle is also working on an opt-in privacy feature, with confidential transactions and balances readable through view keys by authorized parties, that has not yet shipped. The company is positioning Arc to serve banks and asset managers that need to use a public chain without exposing positions.

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Robinhood Joins Circle's Arc at Launch@RobinhoodApp has formally announced that its platform will soon support Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain built by @Circle. The integration will allow users to move $USDC tokens directly on the Arc network, offering a streamlined path from off-chain holdings to on-chain activity without relying on fragmented cross-chain bridges.

The announcement places Robinhood among a broad group of trading and liquidity platforms confirmed at Arc's mainnet launch. Circle's official launch materials list Robinhood alongside 1inch, Uniswap, Pump.fun, and others as onchain trading and liquidity protocols expanding access across spot trading, structured products, perpetuals, and cross-chain execution.

What Arc Is and Why It Matters Arc is an open Layer 1 blockchain built by Circle for stablecoin-native financial activity, designed from the ground up for moving, settling, and programming digital money, rather than trying to support every on-chain trend under one roof. It uses USDC as its native gas token, runs on a Tendermint-derived consensus engine called Malachite, and is designed for institutional settlement and stablecoin finance.

Fees on Arc are denominated in USDC, with the network's fee documentation setting a base fee target of about $0.01 per transaction. That predictability is a deliberate design choice. Arc is a Layer 1 network purpose-built for financial applications, with every transaction fee paid in USDC instead of a separate gas token, a design meant to make costs predictable for institutions and developers who already operate in stablecoin terms.

Arc has attracted major institutions and ecosystem participants, including BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, Aave, and Uniswap. Circle's roadmap includes a potential transition to proof-of-stake consensus in 2027, expanded privacy capabilities, and network capacity exceeding 100,000 transactions per second.

Robinhood's decision to support Arc from launch reflects the platform's continued push into crypto infrastructure. For users, it means the ability to move $USDC on-chain through a regulated, retail-friendly interface, directly on a network built to handle institutional-grade settlement. That combination of retail access and institutional design is central to Arc's positioning as a settlement layer for next-generation financial services.

Sources:
Circle: Arc Mainnet Launch Press Release
FX News Group: Circle Announces Public Mainnet Launch of Arc
Crypto Times: Circle's Arc Goes Live on Mainnet

Key Highlights Circle officially debuts Arc mainnet on Wednesday, establishing a Layer 1 blockchain where USDC functions as the native gas token Major institutions including BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, and Standard Chartered serve as inaugural validators The network facilitates 20+ fiat-based stablecoins and bridges to 20+ blockchains through Circle’s CCTP infrastructure Circle executed a genesis mint of 10 billion ARC tokens while clarifying no guarantee of public token distribution Prior funding round secured $222 million through an Arc token presale, establishing a $3 billion network valuation On Wednesday, Circle’s Arc mainnet officially launched, with CEO Jeremy Allaire describing it as “the single most significant launch in Circle’s history since USDC itself.”

LATEST: ⚡️ Circle launched the Arc mainnet, its new L1 blockchain designed for financial markets and the AI agent economy, with BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, and the DTCC serving as founding validators. pic.twitter.com/m4hI9MDBnc

— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) September 16, 2026

The Arc platform represents a purpose-built Layer 1 blockchain engineered specifically for stablecoin-centric payments, trading activities, and autonomous agent transactions. With approximately $74 billion currently in circulation, USDC operates as the network’s foundational gas token.

Built with EVM compatibility in mind, the blockchain delivers deterministic finality in under one second. This architectural approach targets both developers and institutional players seeking rapid, stablecoin-first infrastructure solutions.

The network commenced operations with over 100 institutional and ecosystem collaborators from launch day. The founding validator cohort encompasses BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), ICE, Mastercard, Visa, Standard Chartered, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Sumitomo, Worldpay, and Galaxy.

Circle employs a permissioned validator framework. The company positions this structure as advantageous, providing financial institutions with established governance protocols for deploying public chain infrastructure in treasury management, trading operations, and confidential payment systems.

Network Participants Major banking institutions with Arc access include BNY, HSBC, Societe Generale, and State Street. Within the decentralized finance ecosystem, Aave and Morpho manage lending protocols, while Uniswap, Aero, and FOMO facilitate trading services.

Leading cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance, Kraken, Bybit, and OKX provide network onboarding capabilities, with Coinbase integration forthcoming. BlackRock’s BUIDL fund alongside Circle’s USYC token deliver tokenized collateral infrastructure within the ecosystem.

The platform accommodates over 20 fiat-denominated stablecoins, spanning USDC, EURC, JPYC, KRW1, and TRYB. Network interoperability extends across more than 20 additional blockchains via Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) and Gateway solutions.

Based on Dune analytics data referenced by Circle, USDC represents 98.8% of agent-initiated transaction volume across the platform.

Token Economics This week, Circle finalized the genesis creation of 10 billion ARC tokens. The organization highlighted this achievement positions them as the inaugural publicly traded entity to mint a network token for a novel Layer 1 blockchain.

Nevertheless, Circle emphasized the mint “is not a commitment to publicly launch ARC.” The token creation represents a technical milestone supporting a prospective transition from Proof of Authority to Proof of Stake consensus mechanisms scheduled for 2027.

Previously, Circle secured $222 million through an Arc token presale round, valuing the network at $3 billion.

The Arc public testnet debuted in October 2025, featuring BlackRock and Visa among initial contributors. Throughout less than twelve months, the testnet successfully processed over 700 million transactions.

The network arrives with integrated agent wallets, expenditure limitations, and nanopayment capabilities. Arc additionally offers optional post-quantum cryptographic signatures, with comprehensive security enhancements currently under development.

Over 100 organizations engaged with Arc’s private mainnet environment preceding Wednesday’s public deployment.

Germany's largest lender is moving into regulated crypto custody. The announcement, made on September 16, marks one of the most significant steps yet by a globally systemic bank into digital asset infrastructure.

What the Service Covers

Deutsche Bank co-head of corporate bank Gerald Podobnik framed the move as complementary to traditional finance rather than a break from it.

Regulatory Path and Broader Context

, suggesting the custody offering is intended as a foundation for a broader digital asset strategy rather than a standalone product.

Sources:
CoinDesk: Deutsche Bank nears crypto custody service debut for institutional clients
The Block: Deutsche Bank plans bitcoin, ether custody for institutional clients in Europe
EuropaWire: Deutsche Bank official press release

USDC issuer Circle just launched its own chain, arriving to an arena already fielded by Tether and Stripe.

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TLDR Table of Contents

Circle shares fall 7% as Arc launches with major global financial institutions. BlackRock, Visa and Mastercard join Arc’s phased institutional validator rollout. Arc uses USDC for gas while targeting payments, trading and tokenized assets. Aave, Morpho and Uniswap expand Arc’s public DeFi ecosystem from the first day. Arc launches with 100+ apps and institutional builders across global finance. Circle Internet Group (CRCL) shares fell 7.13% to $80.15 as the company launched Arc on public mainnet. The stock erased earlier gains after trading near $86.30 before a sharp mid-morning decline. Meanwhile, Arc entered production with major financial institutions, exchanges, wallets, and DeFi platforms connected from launch.

Circle Internet Group, CRCL

Arc Mainnet Targets Payments and Onchain Finance Circle designed Arc as a Layer 1 network for payments, trading, lending, asset issuance, and cross-border settlement. The network uses USDC for transaction fees, which removes the need for a separate volatile gas token. It also provides sub-second finality and supports post-quantum signatures for added security.

Arc also supports tokenized assets, stablecoins, and programmable foreign exchange through Circle StableFX. Circle integrated its payments network directly into Arc for near-real-time cross-border transfers. The system also supports confidential transactions, although network-wide privacy features remain under development.

The company built Arc for human users and automated economic agents using programmable payment tools. Circle said USDC already dominates transaction volume across agent-driven payment activity using the x402 standard. Arc now extends that approach with controlled wallets, small payments, and delegated onchain tasks.

BlackRock, Visa and Mastercard Join Arc Rollout Circle launched Arc with a validator group that includes BlackRock, DTCC, Galaxy, ICE, Mastercard, and MoneyGram. Standard Chartered, Sumitomo, Visa, SBI Group, and Worldpay also joined the phased validator rollout. These companies will help operate the network while supporting institutional settlement and tokenized finance.

Arc also launched with more than 100 applications and over 100 institutional and ecosystem builders. Banks including BNY, HSBC, State Street, and Societe Generale gained access to the network. Asset managers and issuers include BlackRock, Bitwise, Janus Henderson, ProShares, Maple, and Matrixdock.

Payments firms and exchanges expanded Arc’s reach across global trading and settlement channels. Binance, Coinbase, Kraken, OKX, Bybit, Bitso, and Upbit joined the exchange group. Visa, Mastercard, JCB, MoneyGram, Thunes, and Global Payments supported stablecoin settlement and broader payment connectivity.

Arc Ecosystem Expands Across DeFi and Wallets Arc launched with trading protocols including Uniswap, Aero, 1inch, Robinhood, Pump.fun, and LI.FI. Aave and Morpho also brought lending markets to the network from launch. Custody support came from Anchorage, BitGo, Copper, Fireblocks, Ceffu, and Zodia Custody.

The wallet lineup includes MetaMask, Phantom, Ledger, Rainbow, Trust Wallet, and several exchange-linked wallets. Infrastructure providers include Alchemy, Chainlink, Blockdaemon, Figment, Kaleido, and QuickNode. These services give developers access to familiar tools while keeping Arc compatible with Ethereum software.

Circle said Arc’s developer community includes more than 75,000 active members and 10,000 program ambassadors. Developers have built more than 1,200 projects, while the testnet processed over 700 million transactions. Circle also released Arc Studio and Arc App Kits to simplify application development and deployment.

Anchorage Digital Bank, recognized as the first federally chartered cryptocurrency bank in the United States, has expanded its digital asset custody services by adding Etherlink and seven tokens based on the Tezos layer-2 network. This new offering notably includes xU3O8, a token that provides direct exposure to physical uranium.

Expansion of Custody ServicesThe move allows Anchorage’s institutional clients to securely store and manage a variety of assets issued on Etherlink, an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible (EVM) layer-2 network that settles transactions on Tezos. Anchorage confirmed that these tokens are held in segregated accounts, benefitting from protections under the federal bank charter.

The assets now supported include wrapped XTZ (WXTZ), which mirrors the price of the Tezos network’s native coin, liquid staking token stXTZ, stablecoins USDT, USDC, USDSM, and wrapped Ether (WETH), in addition to xU3O8.

Etherlink enables users to deploy EVM-based decentralized applications (dApps) while benefiting from Tezos’s consensus mechanism and security. This network aims to foster broader adoption by bridging Ethereum-native tools and environments with Tezos’s infrastructure.

Mini dictionary: Etherlink is a layer-2 blockchain network compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), allowing Ethereum-based dApps and assets to operate on Tezos infrastructure while utilizing Tezos consensus and lower transaction costs.

xU3O8: Tokenized Uranium ExposureThe xU3O8 token is designed to represent actual ownership of physical uranium, letting investors gain exposure to the commodity without the challenges of directly storing or handling it. Current data from CoinMarketCap places the token’s market capitalization at just over $9 million, reflecting moderate investor demand for this niche product.

According to Anchorage, direct exposure to physical uranium has long required the involvement of specialist intermediaries and typically came with lengthy settlement periods and significant minimum investment requirements. The company stated that tokenization allows for faster, more efficient settlement, reducing these periods from weeks to minutes for digital asset holders.

xU3O8 allows investors to gain exposure to uranium by holding a digital token backed by physical reserves, with Anchorage emphasizing the benefits of tokenization for faster and more flexible settlement.

Institutional Custody LandscapeAnchorage Digital Bank is regulated as a federally charted trust, focused on providing compliant custody infrastructure for institutional digital asset investors.

While Anchorage is one of the major crypto custody providers in the US, it is not the sole player in this space. In August 2025, Hex Trust, a digital asset custody specialist based in Asia, also integrated Etherlink, enabling custody solutions for xU3O8 and other associated assets. This points to growing institutional interest in tokenized commodities and multi-network asset safekeeping.

By expanding custody to Etherlink assets, Anchorage aims to attract a new wave of institutional participation in digital commodities and stablecoin markets within the Tezos ecosystem.

AssetTypeKey FeatureNow Supported By Anchorage?xU3O8Commodity tokenRepresents physical uraniumYesWXTZWrapped native coinMirrors Tezos’ XTZ priceYesstXTZLiquid staking tokenStaked XTZ for yieldYesUSDTStablecoinPegged to US dollarYesUSDCStablecoinPegged to US dollarYesUSDSMStablecoinPegged to US dollarYesWETHWrapped tokenMirrors Ethereum’s ETHYesThe development reflects a broader trend of integrating physical assets and commodities into blockchain-based investment vehicles, potentially expanding access and liquidity for both institutional and retail investors worldwide.

London, September 16, 2026 – Wirex, the global stablecoin infrastructure provider, has today launched Wirex One, the first stablecoin neobank built for the growing segment of mass affluent consumers, to the public. The platform is a day-one launch partner on Arc’s mainnet, delivering a private banking experience with true asset ownership. 

Following a closed beta that amassed over 20,000 users in testing since June, Wirex One is now available globally.

Wirex One launches as part of Wirex’s wider integration with Arc, making Arc available as a settlement layer for any partner issuing cards and accounts through the Wirex API. Arc is an open blockchain network built for the world’s financial markets, real-time money movement, and agentic economic activity. 

Wirex One was created for an underserved market. The global private banking market is projected to grow by over 10% annually to reach $1.24 trillion by 2035, yet a large segment of affluent individuals remain structurally underserved: too wealthy for retail banking, but below the minimum for traditional private banking. Stablecoins are closing that gap, enabling secure, borderless wealth management that the traditional financial system cannot provide.

Wirex One brings private banking onchain, managing everyday spending, yield, overseas transfers, borrowing, and investing from a single place. Arc was strategically chosen as the foundation for Wirex One due to its stablecoin-native, payments-optimised design, with a built-in privacy layer and real-time settlement.

Paired with Privy’s non-custodial wallet technology, it gives users complete ownership over their assets and institutional-grade security, without the complexity that typically comes with crypto wallets.

At launch, key features include:

Stablecoin-funded card with up to 8% cashback in USD, instantly spendable in everyday life Access to selected crypto and stablecoin yield features Support for a wide range of crypto assets Multi-currency accounts, with fee-free FX and ATM withdrawals globally Ability to send and receive via SEPA, ACH, Faster Payments, card transfers, and crypto transfers Innovative membership model, offering higher rewards, fee-free trading, dedicated account management, and 50% off premium subscriptions for leading AI and financial platforms for higher tiers Pavel Matveev, Co-Founder & CEO of Wirex, said: “A new wave of fintech apps are being built on stablecoin rails, and they all need the same foundation: regulated issuing, accounts, settlement, and yield. Wirex One is our own consumer platform built on that infrastructure, redefining what a private bank can be: a bank you control, not one that controls you. Every partner integrating with Wirex’s infrastructure gets the same rails, the same scheme access, and now the same day-one access to Arc.”

Today’s announcement is a major milestone in Wirex’s vision to build a unified, onchain suite of financial services for consumers and businesses on their stablecoin infrastructure, which recently reached $2 billion annualised card spend volume. In the coming weeks, Wirex One will expand to include tokenised equities and perpetuals.

More information about Wirex One, including card availability in supported jurisdictions, is available at Wirex’s website.

Developers can learn more about integrating with Wirex’s infrastructure on Arc here. The list of supported countries can be viewed here. Rewards are valued in USD

About WirexWirex is the global stablecoin infrastructure behind a complete banking stack. Through a single API, any app, wallet or fintech can launch regulated accounts, cards, payments, payouts, yield, cashback and travel, settled in stablecoins, on any chain. Wirex is one of the few crypto-enabled platforms with principal membership of both Visa and Mastercard, settling in USDC and EURC without an intermediary bank. 

Wirex builds its own products on that same infrastructure, through the same API: Wirex One, a stablecoin neobank for consumers, with Wirex Private as its highest membership tier; Wirex Business for companies; and Wirex Agents, giving AI agents the ability to transact onchain. 

Trusted by over 8 million users since 2014, Wirex has processed more than $20 billion in transactions across 130 countries, and created the first crypto-enabled card in 2015. Built on a decade-long track record of regulatory compliance, enterprise-grade security and onchain innovation, Wirex is creating a financial system where money moves globally and instantly, giving consumers and businesses true ownership, privacy by architecture, and access to the next generation of global payments and settlement.

Disclaimers: Arc is an open L1 blockchain launched by Arc Network Services LLC (“Arc LLC”) and operated by a permissioned validator set. Arc LLC provides software services only and does not offer regulated financial or advisory services. Arc has not been reviewed or approved by the New York State Department of Financial Services or any other regulatory authority. 

The Arc network is provided “as is” and “as available.” Use of Arc involves inherent risks associated with blockchain technology, including smart contract vulnerabilities, network disruptions, and the absence of recourse for transaction errors or losses. The ability to transact on Arc depends on the ability to obtain and use USDC to pay gas fees. Neither Arc LLC nor any permissioned validator is responsible for the content, accuracy, legality, or functionality of third-party applications, protocols, or services built on or integrated with Arc. You are solely responsible for features or services you provide to users, including obtaining any necessary licenses or approvals and otherwise complying with applicable laws. 

All Arc features may be modified, delayed, or cancelled at any time without notice. Nothing herein constitutes a commitment, warranty, guarantee or legal, regulatory, tax, or investment advice.

Disclaimer

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