Trh se stablecoiny od květnového maxima ztratil asi 10 miliard USD; v červnu klesl o 7,7 miliardy USD na zhruba 312,23 miliardy USD, nejvíc od kolapsu TerraUSD.
The stablecoin market has lost about $10 billion since reaching a record high in May 2026. Total supply fell by $7.7 billion during June to about $312 billion, marking the largest monthly decline in dollar terms since the TerraUSD collapse in May 2022. The decrease equaled roughly 2.4% for June and about 3% from the May peak.
Summary
Stablecoin supply lost $10 billion since May as USDT and USDC redemptions reduced crypto liquidity. June recorded the largest monthly dollar decline since Terra, but the market contracted only 3%. Transaction volumes remained strong while tokenized assets expanded, showing blockchain finance activity continued despite redemptions. Current DefiLlama data places the market near $312.23 billion. The dashboard shows Tether’s USDT at about $184.15 billion and Circle’s USDC at roughly $73.41 billion. USDT still controls close to 59% of the market, leaving the sector heavily dependent on its two largest dollar-backed tokens.
USDT and USDC lead the supply reduction USDT fell from about $190 billion in May, cutting roughly $6 billion from its circulating value. USDC declined from a March peak near $80 billion, losing almost $7 billion over four months. Together, those changes account for most of the retreat, although smaller regulated issuers continued expanding during the same period.
Paul Howard, senior director at trading firm Wincent, described the decline as “a relatively small pullback in what we believe is a long-term growth market.” The current drawdown remains far below the 26% stablecoin contraction recorded across the 2022 bear market. That earlier decline followed the Terra failure, lender collapses, and the failure of FTX.
Stablecoin Market Loses $10B Since May in Biggest Retreat Since the Terra Crash
According to CoinDesk, stablecoin market capitalization has fallen by roughly $10 billion from its May peak, including a $7.7 billion drop in June—the largest monthly decline in dollar terms since… pic.twitter.com/RafAPoaerJ
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 12, 2026 Lower supply points to thinner crypto liquidity Traders use stablecoins as settlement assets and quote currencies across exchanges and decentralized markets. A falling supply can show that users redeemed tokens for bank dollars or moved capital outside crypto. It can also reduce the amount of dollar-linked buying power available for Bitcoin, Ether, and other digital assets.
The reduction arrived during a weak month for crypto investment products.Crypto.news reported that U.S. spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds lost more than $4 billion in June, their worst monthly outflow since launch. The parallel declines show that institutional fund demand and on-chain dollar liquidity both weakened as digital asset prices remained under pressure.
Activity did not fall at the same pace as supply. The adjusted stablecoin transaction volume reached a record $1.78 trillion in June. USDC processed about $1.21 trillion, while USDT handled $573 billion. USDT still recorded more individual transfers, showing that fewer tokens can continue supporting heavy payment and trading activity.
Tokenized assets grow while stablecoins retreat Tokenized real-world assets moved in the opposite direction. However, their on-chain value crossed $30 billion during 2026, led by tokenized Treasury products, funds, and private credit. CoinDesk Research also recorded a 145% rise in tokenized equity volume during June to a record $3.86 billion.
Regulation and new issuers continue reshaping the stablecoin market. The U.S. GENIUS Act created a federal framework for payment stablecoins, while regulators are drafting customer identification, sanctions, and reserve rules. Crypto.news has also tracked new reserve products from Fidelity and State Street designed for regulated issuers.
The latest supply figures point to a pause in market expansion rather than a Terra-style collapse. USDT and USDC remain near their dollar pegs, transaction activity remains high, and the total market retains most of its recent growth. Further monthly contractions would provide clearer evidence that crypto liquidity is leaving the system rather than moving between issuers or on-chain products.
Investors will now watch July issuance, redemption data, exchange volumes, and ETF flows for signs that demand is returning or weakening further.
Circle v roce 2024 zaplatila Coinbase 908 milionů USD za distribuci USDC a sdílení výnosů, což bylo asi 54 % jejích celkových výnosů. Smlouva se má znovu projednat v srpnu 2026.
Circle, the company behind the USDC stablecoin, paid Coinbase $908 million in distribution costs and revenue sharing during 2024. That figure represents roughly 54% of Circle’s total revenue for the year, making Coinbase less of a distribution partner and more of a landlord collecting majority rent.
The arrangement, formalized through a Collaboration Agreement that took effect on August 18, 2023, is approaching its first major renewal window in August 2026.
The economics of a lopsided partnership Coinbase earns 100% of the reserve interest generated on USDC held directly on its platform. For USDC held anywhere else in the world, Coinbase still collects 50% of that interest income.
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For Coinbase, stablecoin-related revenue is projected to reach approximately $1.35 billion in 2025. USDC-related activities accounted for roughly 13.8% of Coinbase’s total revenue in 2024, a figure large enough that any disruption to the partnership would show up clearly in quarterly earnings.
How we got here The current arrangement replaced a previous structure called the Centre Consortium, a joint venture that both companies operated together. When they restructured in August 2023, Circle took sole governance and issuance control of USDC.
As part of that restructuring, Coinbase also took an equity stake in Circle. The Collaboration Agreement runs on an initial three-year term through August 2026, with automatic three-year renewals that depend on performance metrics.
Coinbase’s wandering eye In June 2026, Coinbase endorsed Open USD, a rival stablecoin project. The market reaction was swift: Circle’s stock price dropped more than 17%.
What this means for investors The August 2026 renewal window is the most important date on the calendar for anyone with exposure to either company or to USDC itself. A renegotiation that shifts more revenue toward Circle would hurt Coinbase’s stablecoin income, while a deal that maintains the current structure keeps Circle’s margins under pressure.
For Coinbase investors, the $1.35 billion in projected stablecoin revenue for 2025 represents a substantial revenue stream. Stablecoin demand tends to persist even during bear markets, since traders use stablecoins to park capital, making this revenue line more resilient than Coinbase’s trading fee income.
If Coinbase actively promotes rival stablecoins on its platform, the 50% revenue share on off-platform USDC becomes less valuable as total USDC circulation potentially shrinks. Circle would then face the worst of both worlds: paying high distribution costs on a shrinking asset base.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Circle zveřejnil open-source startovací sady nástrojů Agent Stack pro LangChain a Claude Agent SDK, které umožňují AI agentům přímo posílat a přijímat USDC. Sady podporují i x402 transakce a on-chain služby.
Circle just handed AI developers a gift bag: open-source starter kits that plug USDC payments directly into the AI frameworks where most agents are actually being built. The kits, now live on GitHub, target LangChain and the Claude Agent SDK, two of the most widely adopted platforms for building autonomous AI agents.
What Circle actually shipped The open-sourced Agent Stack starter kits provide ready-to-use code that connects AI agents to Circle’s infrastructure. That means developers can give their agents wallets, let them send and receive USDC, and interact with onchain services, all without building payment plumbing from scratch.
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The kits build on Circle’s broader Agent Stack, which launched on May 11, 2026. That initial release introduced several foundational components, including command-line interface utilities for developers, permissioned agent wallets with built-in access controls, and gas-free nanopayments that allow USDC transfers as small as $0.000001.
The starter kits also support x402-compatible transactions. The x402 protocol is essentially the HTTP 402 “Payment Required” status code brought to life: a machine-readable way for services to demand payment before granting access. When an AI agent hits an x402-enabled endpoint, it can autonomously decide to pay, receive the service, and move on.
Circle’s Agent Marketplace adds another layer. It functions as a discovery hub where AI agents can find and transact with other agents or services.
Why open source matters here The choice to target LangChain and the Claude Agent SDK is also telling. LangChain has become something of an industry standard for building LLM-powered applications, and Anthropic’s Claude SDK is rapidly gaining ground among enterprise developers who prioritize safety and controllability.
The bigger financial picture Circle raised $222 million through a presale of its ARC token, which valued the Arc network at $3 billion.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Circle's $USDC now accounts for just 46% of Solana's stablecoin supply, its lowest share in more than 2 years.
According to DefiLlama data, $USDC's share has fallen to 46.13%, while $USDT's share has risen to 16.42%. Other stablecoins now collectively account for more than 26% of Solana's stablecoin market, highlighting broader liquidity diversification across the network.
Drift Fallout Changed Community Sentiment The shift follows the April 1 Drift exploit, which sparked widespread criticism of Circle across the Solana ecosystem. After attackers reportedly moved more than $230M via Circle's Cross Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), many ecosystem participants urged DeFi users to swap $USDC for $USDT. Critics argued that Circle should have frozen the stolen funds.
When challenged on the decision, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the company would not intercept funds without legal precedent, describing the situation as a "moral quandary." Meanwhile, Tether earned goodwill across parts of the Solana community after supporting Drift during its recovery efforts, strengthening $USDT's standing among many users.
Fresh Legal Challenges Add to Pressure Circle now faces renewed scrutiny following a July 8 report by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. According to the report, law enforcement authorities in Wisconsin and New York accused Circle of refusing to assist in freezing or recovering $USDC linked to scams. Wisconsin prosecutors filed a criminal complaint alleging that Circle failed to comply with a court order requiring the recovery of stolen assets.
Although the complaint involves a single misdemeanor count, former FBI financial crime expert Karen Greenway noted that criminal charges against a major financial firm are highly unusual.
Circle rejected the allegations, calling the complaint meritless. The company argued that it lacked the technical ability to comply with the order and maintained that the Wisconsin court lacked jurisdiction.
Stablecoin issuers such as Circle also face pressure from a changing regulatory landscape. Polymarket now places the odds of the CLARITY Act passing in 2026 at 40%, down from 82% in February.
Senator Cynthia Lummis recently warned that failure to pass the CLARITY Act could delay meaningful U.S. stablecoin legislation until 2030, turning what could have been a 1-year delay into a 4-year setback.
Solana's Stablecoin Economy Continues to Expand The decline in $USDC's market share comes even as Solana's stablecoin economy continues to grow at a record pace. During the first half of 2026, Solana recorded $1.12T in peer-to-peer stablecoin volume, up 72%, alongside 83.6M peer-to-peer transactions, up 37%. Active wallets reached an all-time high of 4.3M.
Retail transfers between $100 and $1,000 totaled a record $13.5B. Institutional transfers above $20,000 reached $1.07T, while micropayments between $0.50 and $100 climbed to an all-time high of $1.50B.
Circle has continued to expand its infrastructure despite a decline in market share. Gateway, launched in July 2025 and integrated with Solana in January 2026, allows users and businesses to access a unified $USDC balance across supported blockchains without manual bridging or third-party liquidity. The stablecoin giant recently reported that lifetime Gateway volume has now surpassed $4.5B.
Circle Scores a Major Regulatory Win Despite mounting competitive and legal challenges, Circle recently secured one of its biggest regulatory milestones. The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted final approval for Circle to establish Circle National Trust, a national trust bank operating as First National Digital Currency Bank, N.A.
The approval strengthens $USDC infrastructure through federally regulated custody, with reserve management planned as a future capability, while placing Circle's trust operations under direct federal oversight.
Investors welcomed the development, sending Circle's stock, $CRCL, more than 15% higher to around $71 following the announcement before retracing to its current price of $66.
While $USDC remains Solana's largest stablecoin by a wide margin, its share has fallen below 50% for the first time in more than 2 years. With growing competition, evolving regulation, and changing community sentiment, the battle for stablecoin dominance on Solana appears far from over.
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Circle získala konečné schválení OCC pro národní svěřeneckou banku Circle National Trust, která bude pod přímým dohledem úřadu. Charter má časem umožnit i správu rezervy USDC pod federálním dohledem.
Circle Internet Group, the fintech company behind USDC, one of the world’s largest US dollar-backed stablecoins, has secured final approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to launch Circle National Trust, a federally regulated national trust bank that will oversee key parts of the company’s digital asset infrastructure.
According to a Friday announcement, the approval places the bank under direct OCC supervision and is expected to enhance the regulatory framework supporting USDC through federally regulated custody, with reserve management planned as a future capability.
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Circle National Trust will initially provide fiduciary digital asset custody services for Circle and affiliated entities, the company noted. Under its approved business plan, the bank may later expand those services to a limited number of institutional customers, including banks and regulated financial institutions.
Circle also said the charter is designed to eventually allow management of the USDC Reserve within the national trust bank, bringing reserve operations under federal oversight.
The OCC approval marks one of Circle’s most important regulatory achievements to date and reflects the company’s strategy of operating within established financial regulatory frameworks.
The stablecoin issuer has steadily expanded its regulated presence globally, including obtaining approvals under the European Union’s MiCA framework and licenses across multiple international jurisdictions.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
A wave of payment-focused developments announced in June has significantly boosted Solana’s position in the digital finance ecosystem. According to Solana Payments data, Mastercard has launched seamless stablecoin settlement on the Solana network and brought Solana into its machine-centric Agent Pay initiative. These steps in payment infrastructure signal that the Solana network is gaining visibility not just in crypto transactions but also in everyday financial use cases.
Institutional payment adoption gains tractionIn South Korea, leading payment provider KG Inicis reached an agreement to explore stablecoin payments across its merchant network, which processes close to 25 trillion won per year. MoneyGram has also begun staking SOL to participate in network validation while expanding payment services to over 60 million customers worldwide. These moves underline the growing interest among major institutions in integrating Solana’s blockchain for real-world payment scenarios.
As Mastercard rolled out 24/7 stablecoin settlement on Solana, institutions like KG Inicis and MoneyGram have also begun evaluating the network for their payment services.
Digital bank Toss Bank has started pilot testing stablecoin transfers for its 15 million users. SoFiUSD grew its supply on Solana by $200 million within just five weeks. The Solana ecosystem continues to expand with new offerings like the Canadian dollar-backed CADC stablecoin and Open USD, which is supported by a consortium of major financial institutions.
The addition of subscription and allowance features to Solana means that recurring payments, payroll, and invoicing can now be executed directly on the blockchain, eliminating the need for third-party apps. The platform also highlights solutions such as international corporate banking, digital prepaid cards, and crypto-based lending products that use wallet behavior instead of traditional credit scores.
Network data points to rapid growthSince January 2025, the amount of stablecoins on the Solana network has surged by 154%, reaching $14.75 billion. Payment volume has jumped 87% compared to the same period last year. Card-based payment transactions alone have totaled $420 million. Solana’s share in the cryptocurrency payments sector climbed from 5.43% to an impressive 10.1%.
IndicatorDataStablecoin supply$14.75 billionIncrease since start of 2025154%Annual payment volume growth87%Card payment volume$420 millionMarket share5.43% → 10.1%According to Birdeye’s data from the first half of 2026, over half of Solana’s stablecoin total is made up of USDC, now spread across 7.54 million wallets. For seven consecutive weeks, Solana has ranked first among blockchains in USDC transfer volume. Birdeye is recognized as a leading crypto analysis platform for on-chain data and market tracking.
Mini glossary: Stablecoin settlement refers to the finalization of payments using digital assets that are typically pegged to fiat currencies like the dollar. USDC is a widely used, dollar-pegged stablecoin issued by Circle.
In the current week alone, the network processed 22.7 million transactions, equivalent to about one third of all USDC transaction volume. During the same period, payroll payments on Solana reached $1.6 billion, with peer-to-peer transfers among retail users totaling $803 million.
Key technical levels in focus for SOLAnalyst Celal Kucuker notes that SOL’s price continues to demonstrate resilience and retains its upward potential. He highlights the $77 level as a critical support zone, marking the intersection of previous price action and important Fibonacci retracement points.
Celal Kucuker assesses that if SOL breaks above the descending monthly trend established at the start of 2025, resistance areas at $145 and $188 may come into play.
Should SOL maintain its position above the downward trendline, the $145 and $188 levels are likely to emerge as the next resistance points. However, if the support is lost, the current bullish scenario may weaken, possibly delaying broader upward momentum in the market.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
Circle čelí ve Wisconsinu trestnímu oznámení kvůli odmítnutí zneplatnit zhruba 381 000 USDC po soudním příkazu. Firma tvrdí, že příkaz technicky nemohla splnit.
Stablecoin issuer Circle has come under scrutiny from US prosecutors over allegations that it has resisted court orders and law enforcement requests aimed at recovering crypto stolen through scams, according to officials in Wisconsin and New York.
The dispute centers on a Wisconsin fraud case in which Circle froze approximately 381,000 USDC but later declined to comply with a court order directing it to invalidate those tokens and issue replacements to law enforcement.
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Circle has denied wrongdoing, arguing it lacked the technical ability to carry out the order, that the complaint should be dismissed, and that prosecutors failed to pursue alternative solutions.
Law enforcement officials say the case underscores the growing challenge of combating crypto-enabled fraud, as funds can be transferred across blockchains before courts can intervene.
Prosecutors have also questioned Circle’s policy of freezing assets only through a formal legal process, while industry experts argue the company could implement technology similar to rival Tether’s system for burning and reissuing stolen tokens.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Ethena Labs zavedla bezpoplatkové mintování a vykupování USDe za USDC pro uživatele na whitelistu po KYC/KYB. Dříve se za konverzi platily poplatky, nyní jsou na 0 bps.
Ethena Labs just removed one of the biggest friction points in its synthetic dollar ecosystem. Onboarded mint users can now mint and redeem USDe using USDC at zero fees, eliminating the basis-point toll that previously ate into every conversion.
The change applies exclusively to whitelisted participants who have cleared KYC and KYB checks and signed Ethena’s Mint User Agreement. Everyone else still gets their USDe the old-fashioned way: through secondary markets, exchanges, or partner platforms like Morpho vaults.
What actually changed and why it matters Before this update, direct minting and redemption of USDe was already restricted to vetted counterparties, primarily market makers and institutional participants. But even those approved users were paying fees on the conversion. Now that cost drops to 0 bps.
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Ethena has also indicated it will update fee schedules for transactions involving non-whitelisted assets, with the new rates visible on public dashboards. So while USDC conversions are now free, other collateral types may still carry costs.
USDe’s positioning in the stablecoin landscape USDe is a delta-neutral synthetic dollar built on Ethereum, which means it maintains its peg not by holding dollars in a bank account but by combining crypto collateral with offsetting derivatives positions. The result is a token that tracks the dollar without directly depending on fiat reserves.
This makes it fundamentally different from USDC, which is backed 1:1 by cash and cash equivalents held by Circle.
Ethena’s integrations extend across both DeFi and CeFi. The protocol works with platforms including HTX for direct mint and redeem functionality, and Morpho for vault-based strategies.
What this means for investors and the broader market The restriction to KYC’d and KYB’d users is worth noting. Ethena is clearly threading the needle between DeFi accessibility and regulatory compliance. For institutions and compliant funds, this is a non-issue. For the permissionless-maximalist crowd, it’s another reminder that the biggest DeFi protocols are increasingly operating within traditional compliance frameworks.
A delta-neutral strategy is only as good as the funding rates it captures from derivatives markets. In periods of sustained negative funding, USDe’s value proposition gets tested in ways that free minting can’t solve. Investors eyeing this development should watch not just the fee structure, but the underlying health of the derivatives markets that keep USDe’s engine running.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Circle Gateway zaznamenal nejlepší týden v historii pro ražbu a převody USDC a celkový objem překročil 4,5 miliardy USD. Systém přesouvá USDC mezi blockchainy bez tradičních bridge.
Circle Gateway just posted its best week ever for USDC minting and transfers, pushing the service’s total lifetime volume past $4.5 billion. For a piece of infrastructure most retail users have never heard of, that’s a number worth paying attention to.
Gateway is Circle’s answer to one of crypto’s most persistent headaches: moving stablecoins between blockchains without the jankiness of traditional bridges. Instead of locking tokens on one chain and minting wrapped versions on another, Gateway uses a burn-and-mint mechanism. You burn USDC on the source chain, an attestation gets issued, and fresh USDC gets minted on the destination chain. No wrapped tokens, no pre-positioned liquidity pools.
How Gateway actually works The system operates across multiple blockchains, including Solana and EVM-compatible networks like Ethereum, Arbitrum, and others. Circle claims the process completes in under 500 milliseconds on supported chains.
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A key milestone came in January 2026, when Circle deployed a pre-mint address for USDC on Solana ahead of Gateway’s full mainnet launch on that network.
The introduction of programmatic minting features has also expanded who can interact with Gateway directly. Rather than requiring manual processes or custom integrations, institutional partners can now access minting operations through standardized APIs.
The bigger USDC picture USDC accounted for approximately 70% of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume during the first half of 2026.
Circle reported $21.5 trillion in on-chain USDC transaction volumes for Q1 2026 alone.
What this means for investors and the stablecoin market Circle went public earlier this year, making its financial health more transparent than any other major stablecoin issuer.
The risk side of the equation isn’t zero. Circle’s burn-and-mint model centralizes trust in Circle itself. If Circle’s attestation service goes down, cross-chain USDC transfers stop.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Alvarez & Marsal přijala první platbu klienta v USDC na blockchainu Solana. Jde o další signál rostoucího institucionálního využití sítě pro transakce.
Alvarez & Marsal, a global restructuring advisory firm, has reportedly accepted its first client payment in USDC using the Solana blockchain, according to a social media post. This development marks a significant milestone for Solana, which has been gaining traction as a network for high-volume USDC transactions. Solana processes over 31% of global USDC transactions, and with fees averaging under $0.001, it is recognized for its speed and cost-efficiency. The move by Alvarez & Marsal could suggest increased institutional adoption of Solana for financial transactions.
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Key Takeaways The acceptance of USDC payments by Alvarez & Marsal on Solana appears to indicate growing institutional adoption of the network. Solana’s network processes a significant share of global USDC transactions, which may be viewed as supportive of increased network utility. Market participants might see this development as consistent with scenarios where Solana’s price could rise, although the source’s reliability as Tier 3 could moderate impacts. What to Watch Market observers should monitor whether other institutions follow Alvarez & Marsal’s lead in adopting Solana for USDC transactions, which could further influence market sentiment. Additionally, any announcements by major financial entities, such as Visa or Mastercard, regarding their use of Solana for settlements could impact the market. As the end of July approaches, the behavior of Solana’s price and transaction volumes will be critical indicators of the market’s response to this development.
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Term Structure
Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h August 1 2026 30% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.7% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.1% — — View market → August 1 2026 4.2% — — View market → August 1 2026 1.8% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.8% — — View market → August 1 2026 10% — — View market → August 1 2026 1% — — View market → August 1 2026 15% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.2% — — View market → August 1 2026 2.8% — — View market → August 1 2026 0.1% — — View market →
Stripe spustil pro americké obchodníky vypořádání plateb ve stablecoinech USDC na Solaně. Jde o další signál, že stablecoiny se přesouvají z obchodování do reálné platební infrastruktury.
Stablecoins keep inching closer to the part of crypto that matters most in the long run: actual usage. Stripe’s move to support merchant settlement using USDC on Solana is another reminder that the payments story is starting to carry more weight than the pure trading story.
That is important because payments have always been one of crypto’s most promising ideas, but for years the real-world user experience lagged behind the pitch.
For more details, visit the official Stripe platform.
TL;DR Stripe introduced stablecoin payment settlement for US merchants using Solana.The rollout centres on USDC and aims to make on-chain settlement practical inside merchant flows.It is another sign that stablecoins are moving from trading tools to real payment infrastructure. Why Solana Fits This Use Case Solana’s low-cost and relatively fast settlement profile makes it an obvious network for this kind of rollout. For merchants, cost and speed matter more than crypto ideology. If a network can help settle transactions cleanly and cheaply, that is what counts.
Stripe’s presence also changes the conversation. This is not a niche wallet project trying to prove a concept. It is a major payments company plugging stablecoins into a merchant-facing workflow.
The Bigger Stablecoin Shift For the wider market, the story is not just about Solana or Stripe. It is about the continued normalization of stablecoins as a payment rail. That can support demand for infrastructure, liquidity, and settlement tools far beyond trading desks.
If these integrations continue, stablecoins will look less like a crypto side product and more like one of the sector’s clearest practical wins.
This article is based on information from Stripe.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
According to monitoring by OnchainLens, Circle has issued an additional 250 million USDC on the Solana blockchain. So far in 2026, Circle’s total USDC issuance on the Solana chain stands at $65.03 billion.
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Strike launches volatility-resistant Bitcoin-collateralized loans, eliminating the margin call mechanism.
Strike has launched a new "Volatility-Proof" Bitcoin mortgage product that eliminates margin calls and forced liquidations triggered by Bitcoin price declines. Jack Mallers noted that regardless of how much Bitcoin’s price drops, as long as borrowers make timely repayments, their pledged Bitcoin will not be liquidated due to price fluctuations. The new product features a maximum loan-to-value (LTV) ratio of 45%, a 6-month term, and an annual percentage rate (APR) ranging from roughly 10.7% to 14.2% — higher than Strike’s standard loan offerings. Should a borrower default, they must repay within 10 days or coordinate with the platform; otherwise, Strike retains the right to sell a portion of the Bitcoin collateral to cover the outstanding balance. The company added that the product is now available in most U.S. states, applicable for new loans, refinancing, and debt consolidation.
Podle dat Visa drželo USDC v první polovině roku 2026 asi 70 % upraveného objemu transakcí stablecoinů, zatímco USDT měl zhruba 25 %. Upravený měsíční objem v červnu dosáhl rekordu 1,79 bilionu USD.
Visa stablecoin data shows fiat-pegged token monthly activity increased to a record $1.79 trillion in June. ((Media/Visa)Summary
Circle’s USDC accounted for about 70 percent of adjusted stablecoin transaction volume in the first half of 2026, widening its lead over Tether’s USDT, which held roughly 25 percent.Adjusted stablecoin transaction volume hit a record $1.79 trillion in June 2026, up 63 percent from May and 125 percent from June 2025, contributing to $8.82 trillion in volume for the first six months of the year.Growing adoption of stablecoins by banks and financial institutions, including new USDC services from Standard Chartered and BNY, reflects a broader shift toward established fiat-pegged digital asset networks.Circle’s USDC stablecoin widened its lead over competitor Tether’s USDT by transaction volume during the first half of 2026, according to fresh data from Visa’s onchain dashboard.
In June alone, stablecoin activity increased to a record $1.79 trillion in adjusted transaction volume, up 63% from May's $1.1 trillion and 125% from about $795 billion in June 2025. Visa removes bot activity, exchange transfers and other blockchain transactions that do not reflect real economic activity before calculating adjusted volume.
These figures come as banks and other financial institutions expand their use of stablecoins for payments, settlement and treasury operations. Standard Chartered and BNY recently added services around Circles’s USDC rather than building their own infrastructure which also reflects a broader shift toward using established stablecoin networks as activity and demand for fiat-pegged digital assets increases.
The first six months of the year totaled $8.82 trillion in adjusted stablecoin transaction volume. That is more than the $5.8 trillion recorded during all of 2024 and $2 trillion less than the record $10.8 trillion reported in 2025.
USDC accounted for about 70% of adjusted transaction volume during the first half of 2026. USDT represented roughly 25%..
In 2020, USDT made up nearly 90% of adjusted transaction volume. USDC accounted for less than 10%. By 2022, USDC accounted for about 45% of adjusted transaction volume.
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Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Building the Zcash Machine: Tachyon and Quantum Readiness
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Jun 30, 2026
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Why it matters:
Zcash’s Tachyon upgrade aims to scale shielded payments, improve quantum readiness, and test whether its funding, security, and governance can hold.
Summer Finance potvrdila exploit a po útoku pozastavila všechny Vaulty, při němž bylo z LazyVault LowerRisk USDC odčerpáno 6 milionů $ DAI. Zobrazený APY krátce vyskočil na 2,08M %.
Summer Finance, a renowned DeFi platform, has recently undergone a significant exploit. In this respect, the Summer.fi exploiter has reportedly drained a staggering $6M in $DAI. As per the data from PeckShieldAlert, the incident majorly influenced the LazyVault LowerRisk USDC (LVUSDC). During this exploit, the displayed APY of the vault briefly jumped to a huge 2.08M%. It does not mean users could actually earn a 2.08 million% annual return. Instead, it is an artificially inflated APY caused by the exploit or a manipulation of the vault’s accounting.
Later on, Summer Finance officially acknowledged the attack in its tweet.
We are aware of the reported exploit a little earlier today and are investigating the root cause. The protocol guardians are currently pausing all Vaults across the Lazy Summer Protocol.
We will provide more updates as we have them.
— Summer.fi ☀ (@summerfinance_) July 6, 2026 Summer Finance Exploiter Drains $6M in DAI, Raising Vault APY to 2.08M% Based on the market data, the Summer.fi exploiter successfully drained a noteworthy $6M in $DAI. During this incident, the displayed APY of the vault reached the stunning 2.08M% mark. This has triggered immediate concerns regarding systemic risk and manipulation. The impacted vault’s biggest current holder is the address “0x874…4130.” The respective address is reportedly connected to UDHC’s Torben Jorgensen, with a cumulative deposit of nearly 8.6M $USDC.
Keeping this in view, the event highlights the DeFi protocols’ fragility amid the rise in sophisticated attacks. At the same time, the incident also underscores the requirement for more effective safeguards against such vulnerabilities. Specifically, the LVUSDC vault experienced manipulation that led to abnormal yield surges. Hence, this misled consumers by making them believe in the vault’s astronomical returns. Additionally, after the drainage of $6M, the sudden APY spike to 2.08M% emerged as a sign of malicious operations instead of a genuine yield generation.
Liquidity Manipulation and Contract Vulnerabilities Emerge as Red Flags According to PeckShieldAlert, such anomalies often play the role of red flags concerning contract-level vulnerabilities or liquidity manipulation. The involvement of Summer.fi’s risk-management partner Block Analitica makes the development more complicated. Overall, the incident signifies the urgent need for improved auditing, contingency planning, and real-time monitoring to secure consumers against such catastrophic losses.
AUTHOR
Umair Younas is a cryptocurrency-related content writer linked with this work since 2019. Here, at Blockchainreporter, he serves as a news and article writer. He is a crypto, blockchain, NFTs, DeFi, and FinTech enthusiast. He has strong command over writing authentic reviews about brokers and exchanges and he has collaborated with our education team to write educational content as well. He has a dream to raise awareness among people about digital currencies. His works are well-researched and brimmed with information hence they provide fresh insights. Stay tuned to his posts if you want to stay up-to-date with the crypto-verse.
Uživatel HyperSwapu přišel po kliknutí na falešný airdrop na X o zhruba 12 300 USD. Útočník po jednom schválení během méně než dvou minut vybral prostředky a přesunul je na Ethereum.
A HyperSwap user lost about $12,300 after clicking a fake airdrop link on X, approving one wallet request, and unknowingly giving a scammer control of his funds.
BeInCrypto reconstructed the attack with the victim using public blockchain records. The records show a fast phishing operation inside the Hyperliquid ecosystem.
The scammer took the victim’s position on HyperSwap, withdrew the funds behind it, converted them into HYPE, and moved the money to Ethereum in less than two minutes.
Note: HyperSwap is an exchange that runs on the Hyperliquid blockchain. HyperSwap has its own team, and Hyperliquid does not manage it — just as the creators of Ethereum do not manage applications like Uniswap running on it.
The Trap Started With a Fake X Account The victim used HyperSwap. Like other decentralized exchanges, it lets users trade directly from their wallets without a company holding their funds.
The victim had supplied money to a HyperSwap liquidity pool. In simple terms, he had deposited crypto, so other users could trade against it. In return, he could earn fees.
On HyperSwap V3, that position was represented by NFT #178549. This was not a picture or collectible. It was more like a digital receipt. Whoever controlled that NFT controlled the funds linked to the position.
The victim told BeInCrypto he saw a post on X promoting an airdrop. An airdrop is a token giveaway, often used by crypto projects to reward users.
The Scammer’s Post Using a Fake X Account with a Very Similar Username to the Official HyperSwap Account The post appeared to come from HyperSwap. It did not. It came from an impostor account with a handle that closely resembled the real HyperSwap account, HyperSwapX, which is linked from the project’s official website.
The victim followed the link and connected his wallet. He believed he was checking whether he qualified for the airdrop. Instead, he approved a transaction that gave the scammer permission to move his HyperSwap position.
That approval was the key moment.
One Approval Gave the Scammer Control Crypto wallets often ask users to approve transactions. Some approvals are harmless. Others give another address permission to move valuable assets.
To most users, the warning can look routine. A fake site can make a dangerous approval look like a normal step in claiming tokens.
That appears to be what happened here.
At 20:21:51 UTC on June 29, the scammer used the earlier approval to transfer NFT #178549 out of the victim’s wallet. The victim did not sign anything at that moment. The scammer had already secured permission.
The scammer’s address was 0x880C95246D7525b84902E6c040818a7C72d3Aa77. HyperEVM explorer records flagged it as Fake_Phishing3746335, with a “Phish / Hack” tag reported by HashDit.
The NFT moved to another scammer-controlled wallet. Once that happened, the attacker controlled the liquidity position.
Twenty-five seconds later, the scammer withdrew the funds behind the NFT. The position contained about 3,935 USDC and 116.6 WHYPE. Together, they were worth roughly $12,300 at the time.
Theft transaction in hyperevmscan: On June 29, 2026, the address marked as Fake_Phishing3746335 transferred the victim’s NFT (0x39f2…0f9E) to his wallet The Money Was Moved Fast After withdrawing the funds, the scammer prepared to move them away from HyperEVM.
First, the wallet gave permission to LI.FI, a legitimate cross-chain bridge and swap service. A bridge lets users move crypto from one blockchain to another.
There is no evidence that LI.FI took part in the theft. The scammer used it after stealing the funds.
The scammer then converted the stolen USDC and WHYPE into about 175.9 HYPE. Seconds later, the HYPE was bridged from HyperEVM to Ethereum.
The destination was 0xFa47eef42fB2C63DCEA0cAC2295a58036052932D. On Ethereum, that wallet received the funds and almost immediately moved 7.035 ETH onward in one transaction.
The wallet had been created shortly before. It was used once and left almost empty. That pattern is common in laundering chains, where stolen funds pass through temporary wallets to make tracing harder.
From the NFT transfer to the bridge transaction, the active theft took about 84 seconds.
A Wider Phishing Pattern The scammer’s wallet appeared to be part of a broader operation.
Explorer records reviewed by BeInCrypto showed the address had been active for about 33 days. It was also linked to roughly 25 other addresses. That suggests the attacker may have targeted more than one user.
The link to the fraudulent resource has been hanging in messages since June 26 For victims, the problem is practical. Blockchain records can show what happened. They rarely stop it from happening in real time.
Once a user signs a bad approval, the scammer can act quickly. Once funds move across chains, recovery becomes even harder.
The victim later tried to report the suspicious link and get it removed. He said he felt ignored and began to suspect the HyperSwap team had failed to act.
The on-chain evidence reviewed by BeInCrypto points to a phishing attack from an impostor account. The fake X account was separate from HyperSwap’s official account. The official HyperSwap account and official contract were not shown to have carried out the theft.
However, the victim’s experience highlights a serious weakness in the ecosystem. Users can be attacked through fake social media accounts, drained through confusing wallet approvals, and left with few clear options after the money is gone.
During a conversation with BeInCrypto journalists, the victim stated that they tried various ways to warn the Hyperliquid team about the scam, but received no response.
According to the victim, the only active communication channel with HyperSwap was Discord. At the time of writing, the link to it is invalid. So he tried to get the problem across to the ecosystem team where the project works, but that attempt was unsuccessful.
The screenshot shows our interlocutor trying to reach Hyperliquid support via Discord. In this case, the Hyperliquid command ignores the user’s request to send a message about the found vulnerability and prompts him to contact HyperSwap himself. Overall, the scammer’s method was simple. A fake account promoted a fake airdrop. A fake site secured wallet approval. A flagged phishing wallet took the victim’s HyperSwap position, emptied it, and moved the funds to Ethereum.
The loss was about $12,300. The theft took less than two minutes.
The victim suggested that HyperSwap employees may be involved in the theft or are deliberately hiding it. However, BeInCrypto could not find any exact information to support those claims.
Circle shares have climbed despite a bearish analyst note from Jefferies, as fresh data has shown USDC processed more than twice the adjusted stablecoin trading volume of Tether’s USDT in June.
Summary
Circle shares gained despite a bearish Jefferies note as USDC led stablecoin trading volumes in June. Visa data showed USDC processed $1.21 trillion in adjusted volume, more than double USDT’s $573 billion. CRCL is rebounding from key support, but bulls must clear the Supertrend resistance to confirm a trend reversal. According to Grayscale Head of Research Zach Pandl, stablecoins recorded a record $1.78 trillion in adjusted trading volume during June 2026. Visa data cited by Pandl showed Circle’s USDC accounted for about $1.21 trillion of that activity, giving it a 67% share of total stablecoin trading volumes. USDT processed $573 billion during the same period.
June 2026 was another record month for stablecoin transaction volume (according to the Allium measure), just ahead of February 2026 pic.twitter.com/oEuT6ueuai
— Zach Pandl (@LowBeta) July 5, 2026 While Tether trailed USDC in transaction value, it handled the highest number of transfers, recording 145 million transactions compared with USDC’s 57 million.
Circle Internet Group’s stock has responded positively to those figures. CRCL closed 4% higher at $64 on July 2 and was trading around $66 in pre-market trading on July 6, extending gains even after Jefferies advised investors against buying the stock over concerns that a new rival stablecoin could pressure Circle’s market position.
Source: Yahoo Finance USDC volume lead eases pressure from new rival Jefferies warned investors on July 2 that the launch of the OUSD stablecoin could weaken Circle’s position in the stablecoin market and weigh on its valuation. The caution came after CRCL posted its largest one-day decline since March on June 30, when the stock sold off following OUSD’s launch and Circle’s removal from several Russell indexes.
However, some of those concerns have faded after questions emerged over Open Standard’s claims of having 140 partners. Samsung and Dunamu, both previously listed as partners, later distanced themselves from the project, casting doubt on some of the announced industry backing.
Institutional buying also provided support. On the same day Jefferies published its bearish note, ARK Invest disclosed purchases of roughly $17.8 million worth of Circle shares despite the cautious outlook.
USDC has nevertheless recorded a slight decline in supply. Circle’s stablecoin market capitalization slipped from $73.75 billion on June 30 to $72.87 billion by July 6, indicating some capital rotated elsewhere following the OUSD launch even as USDC maintained a commanding lead in transaction volume.
Technical rebound faces major resistance From a technical perspective, CRCL has rebounded after finding support near the 1.0 Fibonacci extension at $61.73 on the four-hour chart. Buyers have defended that level over recent sessions, helping the stock recover from around $62 to nearly $66.
CRCL 4-hour price chart — July 6 | Source: TradingView The recovery, however, has yet to change the broader technical picture. CRCL remains below the Supertrend indicator, which sits near $75.66 and continues to signal that sellers retain control. Reclaiming that level would be the first indication that bullish momentum is strengthening.
Momentum indicators are beginning to improve. The MACD histogram has almost returned to the zero line after several weeks of negative readings, suggesting selling pressure is fading. However, the MACD line remains below the signal line, meaning a confirmed bullish crossover has not yet occurred.
If buyers push the stock above the Supertrend resistance, the next upside levels to watch are the Fibonacci retracement zones near $78.47, followed by $91.61 and $100.84. On the downside, losing support around $61.73 would weaken the current recovery attempt and increase the risk of another move lower.
Disclosure: This article does not represent investment advice. The content and materials featured on this page are for educational purposes only.
Circle minulý týden na Solaně emitovala zhruba 3,5 miliardy USDC, včetně jednorázového mintu za 1 miliardu. Hrubá emise USDC na Solaně už v roce 2026 přesáhla 64 miliard.
Circle printed roughly $3.5 billion worth of USDC on Solana last week, with a single $1 billion mint hitting the chain on June 16 alone.
Gross USDC issuance on Solana has already blown past $64 billion for 2026, and we’re barely into July.
What’s driving the demand USDC on Solana serves a sprawling set of use cases: DeFi trading, cross-border payments, and institutional settlements. The network’s low fees and high throughput make it a natural fit for the kind of rapid-fire transactions that stablecoin users actually need.
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Each token represents a dollar (or dollar-equivalent reserve) deposited by a customer who wants digital dollars on-chain. When $3.5 billion gets minted in a week, it means $3.5 billion in fresh demand showed up at the door.
The June 16 mint of $1 billion USDC in a single transaction is particularly notable. Transactions of that size typically signal institutional or enterprise-level activity, not retail users swapping tokens on a DEX.
The institutional angle is getting real Circle has enhanced its mint and burn capabilities with BNY Mellon, one of the world’s oldest and largest custodial banks. That partnership covers both Solana and Ethereum environments, giving institutions a familiar custody framework for handling USDC at scale.
Circle hasn’t issued any public statement about the specific June minting events. The data comes from on-chain tracking platforms that monitor blockchain transactions in real time.
What this means for investors With $64 billion in gross USDC issuance on Solana in 2026 alone, the network has established itself as a legitimate alternative for high-volume stablecoin operations.
For SOL holders, more USDC liquidity on the network means more transaction fees, more DeFi activity, and more reasons for developers to build on Solana. Stablecoin volume is one of the most reliable indicators of real economic activity on a blockchain, as opposed to speculative token trading that can evaporate overnight.
Tether’s USDT still commands the largest market share globally, but USDC’s growth on Solana, powered by Circle’s regulatory-first approach and institutional partnerships, is carving out a distinct lane.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Revolut do 31. srpna vyřadí USDT a do konce července zastaví vklady; po termínu je automaticky převede na fiat měnu. Krok souvisí s tlakem regulace MiCA.
Europe’s largest fintech platform, Revolut, will drop Tether’s USDT by 31st of August. However, USDT deposits will be disabled from the platform by the end of this month.
The tech giant informed users that those who fail to transfer their funds by the end of August will have their USDT automatically exchanged to fiat.
The move is likely informed by regulatory pressure, according to analyst Max Karpis. He noted,
Revolut is delisting USDT on 31 Aug 2026 (regulatory/risk reasons). Not long ago, they expanded support to include zero-fee transfers and 1:1 USDT/USDC swaps. Now a reversal. Compliance hits again.
EU’s crypto regulatory framework, MiCA, is now in effect. Hence, the move is likely to block non-compliant stablecoins and tokens.
Tether CEO deems MiCA as ‘dangerous’ for stablecoins Interestingly, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino has been open about not seeking MiCA approval. In fact, he argued that the regulation is “bad” and “dangerous” for stablecoins.
The problem I have with MiCA is that it’s very dangerous for stablecoins. What will happen next year is that a few banks in Europe will go belly up because of MiCA’s requirement that 60% of stablecoin reserves be kept in uninsured cash deposits in European banks.
He also noted that only small banks accept crypto firms, as major ones like UBS are unwilling to accept stablecoin business. For Ardoino, this would be risky as a +20% redemption on USDT could quickly trigger a banking crisis.
He believes that MiCA is designed to position the Digital Euro to control fund flows. Hence, he opted to keep USDT safe for emerging markets that rely heavily on it.
Whether the same risk applies to Circle’s USDC or Euro stablecoin EURC is not clear. However, Circle has MiCA approval and seems to have benefited last month as the MiCA transition period came to an end.
According to Visa data, USDC saw $1.21T in transfer volume in June, doubling Tether’s USDT. This was the second highest monthly transfer volume following February’s record $1.28T amid growing adoption across most blockchains.
Source: Visa In fact, less than a week into July, USDC’s volume was 3x that of USDT, underscoring a likely shift tied to the MiCA framework. Users across the EU or those sending money to the continent may be opting for USDC instead of USDT.
The shift was also evident across US dollar and Euro-based stablecoins. The latter grew 11x while USD-based stablecoin volumes shrank.
Source: TRM Labs Tether’s USDT still dominates the stablecoin market in terms of supply though. It remains to be seen whether Circle will close the gap as Revolut and other EU platforms continue to delist USDT.
Final Summary Revolut will delist USDT by August 31st and stop accepting deposits from the stablecoin by the end of July. USDC transfer volume hit $1.21T, doubling Tether’s USDT, further underscoring MiCA’s impact on stablecoin adoption.
Fireblocks nově podporuje Hedera Token Service, což otevírá institucionální úschovu pro nativní HTS aktiva. USDC je dostupné globálně a nové peněženky už nepotřebují předem financovat $HBAR.
Hedera has announced that Fireblocks now supports the Hedera Token Service (HTS), opening up institutional-grade custody for native HTS assets through the Fireblocks platform.
What the Integration CoversThe move allows Fireblocks clients to hold HTS tokens alongside their existing digital asset portfolios, with no separate infrastructure or additional setup required. USDC support is live globally from day one, and new wallets no longer need upfront $HBAR funding to get started, removing a longstanding friction point for institutions entering the Hedera ecosystem.
The Hedera Token Service is Hedera's native token issuance and management layer. According to Hedera, it enables the creation of fungible and non-fungible tokens using simple APIs, without relying on smart contracts, and is built for high-throughput operations with predictable fees and fast settlement. Built-in compliance controls include KYC, freeze, and wipe functions, all handled at the consensus layer.
Why Fireblocks Matters for Institutional AccessFireblocks is one of the most widely used institutional digital asset infrastructure platforms available today. The company provides custody, payments, tokenization, treasury management, and network connectivity across 150-plus blockchains to more than 2,400 organizations. Its client base includes major banks, asset managers, and fintechs that rely on the platform for custody and settlement at scale.
For Hedera, landing a Fireblocks integration puts HTS assets directly in front of that institutional client base. The simplified onboarding, particularly the removal of the upfront $HBAR wallet funding requirement, should reduce the operational overhead that has historically made Hedera accounts more cumbersome to provision at scale.
The announcement reflects a broader push by Hedera to build institutional-grade infrastructure partnerships as demand for regulated, on-chain asset management continues to grow.
Sources
Hedera Token Service, Hedera.com
Fireblocks: Leader in Public Blockchain Support Coverage, Fireblocks Blog
Stacks představil USDCx, první stablecoin krytý USDC podle specifikace Circle pro Machine Payments Protocol. Má podpořit standardizované strojové platby na Bitcoinu prostřednictvím Stacks.
Circle just published the official USDC method specification for the Machine Payments Protocol, and Stacks’ USDCx is the first stablecoin built under that framework. The move positions Bitcoin’s leading layer 2 as a hub for standardized machine-to-machine payments, the kind of infrastructure that makes AI agents capable of settling transactions on their own.
What USDCx actually is and how it works USDCx is a stablecoin pegged 1:1 to USDC, fully backed by reserves held in Circle’s xReserve infrastructure. It launched on Stacks mainnet on December 17-18, 2025, with a specific contract ID (SP120SBRBQJ00MCWS7TM5R8WJNTTKD5K0HFRC2CNE.usdcx) that anyone can verify on-chain.
USDCx doesn’t rely on third-party bridges to function. It connects directly with Circle Gateway and CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol), which means moving value between chains doesn’t require trusting some random bridge operator with your funds.
The stablecoin maintains its peg near $1 and is actively traded on platforms tracked by CoinGecko. Ethereum bridging was already supported at launch, with plans to expand CCTP network support that kicked off in Q1 2026.
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The machine payments angle The MPP spec is where things get genuinely interesting. The Machine Payments Protocol establishes a standardized way for machines, think AI agents, automated services, and IoT devices, to send and receive payments without human intervention. The MPP spec was published by Circle on June 23, 2026.
USDCx being the first USDC-backed stablecoin under this spec means Stacks is effectively positioning itself as the settlement layer for AI commerce on Bitcoin. Cross-chain machine-to-machine payments on Bitcoin through Stacks are now technically possible.
Ecosystem adoption and DeFi implications Major wallets including Asigna, Fordefi, Leather, and Xverse all adopted USDCx shortly after launch. On the DeFi side, protocols like Zest and Granite integrated the stablecoin, enabling lending, borrowing, and trading with dollar liquidity on Stacks.
For Bitcoin holders specifically, USDCx creates an option that didn’t cleanly exist before: accessing stablecoin functionality without leaving the Bitcoin economy entirely. You can collateralize Bitcoin-backed assets, borrow against them in a dollar-denominated stablecoin, and do it all within an ecosystem that settles on Bitcoin through Stacks’ Proof of Transfer consensus mechanism.
Stacks uses PoX to anchor its security to Bitcoin’s blockchain, and runs Clarity smart contracts, a language designed to be decidable, meaning you can mathematically verify what a contract will do before executing it.
What this means for investors Institutional players care about two things above all else: compliance and security in cross-chain interactions. Circle’s direct involvement through xReserve and CCTP addresses both concerns in ways that third-party wrapped tokens simply cannot. The 1:1 USDC backing, verified through Circle’s own infrastructure rather than an independent bridge, reduces counterparty risk substantially.
Trading volumes and user growth across Stacks DeFi protocols will be the metrics to watch. If USDCx drives meaningful increases in total value locked and daily active users on platforms like Zest and Granite, it validates the thesis that Bitcoin users want native stablecoin liquidity.
The risk worth monitoring is concentration. USDCx’s entire value proposition depends on Circle’s continued support and the stability of the xReserve infrastructure. Any disruption to Circle’s operations, whether regulatory or technical, would cascade directly into USDCx’s functionality.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Standard Chartered jako první G-SIB zavedla institucionálním klientům přímý přístup k ražbě a zpětnému odkupu USDC prostřednictvím jediného onboardingového rozhraní. Služba je zatím dostupná prostřednictvím operací v DIFC.
Eligible institutional clients can access USDC through a single onboarding and service experience, without needing direct Circle accounts
Dubai, United Arab Emirates — July 2, 2026 — Standard Chartered today announced the launch of its capability enabling institutional clients to access USDC minting and redemption, developed in partnership with Circle Internet Group, Inc. (Circle) (NYSE: CRCL), the issuer of USDC1 through its regulated entities.
The launch makes Standard Chartered the first Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) licensed to offer institutional clients access to USDC minting and redemption through a single onboarding and service experience, without requiring clients to hold direct accounts with Circle.
The capability enables institutions to move value across traditional and digital financial ecosystems with greater speed and transparency by connecting fiat banking, digital asset infrastructure and public blockchain networks within a single, bank-led solution. It supports institutional use cases such as on-chain settlement, treasury, and liquidity management, while providing the infrastructure to support payment-related use cases in the future.
By embedding USDC access directly within Standard Chartered’s institutional offering, Standard Chartered will bring together banking, custody, and digital asset services within one integrated offering and that is delivered through the risk management, compliance and governance standards expected of a leading international financial institution.
Initially available to eligible clients through Standard Chartered’s DIFC operations, the capability reinforces the UAE’s position as a leading hub for regulated digital asset activity and represents the first phase of Standard Chartered’s broader global stablecoin proposition. The Bank intends to expand the capability into additional markets, subject to regulatory approvals and market readiness.
The announcement reflects growing demand from financial institutions and corporations for regulated stablecoin infrastructure that can support a range of financial activities, including payments, treasury management, settlement, liquidity management and participation in digital asset markets.
Roberto Hoornweg, Chief Executive Officer, Corporate and Investment Banking, Standard Chartered said: “Digital assets are becoming an increasingly important component of global financial infrastructure, and institutional clients are seeking the same levels of trust and governance that underpin traditional markets. With this launch, we are extending those standards into a rapidly evolving segment of the financial system. Ultimately, this is about enabling broader institutional participation in digital asset markets through the frameworks, controls and regulatory oversight that have long supported confidence in global financial markets.”
Kash Razzaghi, Chief Commercial Officer, Circle, said: “Financial institutions are increasingly looking for trusted ways to access stablecoins and participate in blockchain-enabled financial markets. By integrating Circle’s regulated stablecoin infrastructure into Standard Chartered’s global banking platform, we are helping institutions access new opportunities to use USDC across payments, settlement and treasury operations while maintaining the compliance, governance and risk management standards they expect.”
For further information please contact:
Khaled Abdulla, CFA®
Head of Communications
UAE, Middle East & Pakistan
Corporate and Investment Bank
Standard Chartered
M: +971 55 655 7553
T: +971 4 508 3155
About Standard Chartered
We are a leading international banking group, with a presence in 54 of the world’s most dynamic markets. Our purpose is to drive commerce and prosperity through our unique diversity, and our heritage and values are expressed in our brand promise, here for good.
Standard Chartered PLC is listed on the London and Hong Kong stock exchanges.
For more stories and expert opinions please visit Insights at sc.com. Follow Standard Chartered on X, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook.
About Circle
Circle (NYSE: CRCL) is one of the world’s leading internet financial platform companies, building the foundation of a more open, global economy through programmable blockchain infrastructure, digital assets, and payment applications. Circle’s platform includes the world’s largest stablecoin network anchored by USDC, Circle Payments Network for global money movement, and Arc, an enterprise-grade blockchain designed to become the Economic OS for the internet. Enterprises, financial institutions, and developers use Circle to power trusted, internet-scale financial innovation. Learn more at circle.com.
1 USDC is issued by regulated affiliates of Circle. See Circle’s list of regulatory authorizations at circle.com/legal/licenses.
Umbra Privacy spustila na Solaně soukromý mzdový systém v USDC, který firmám umožňuje vyplácet zaměstnance bez zveřejnění detailů transakcí na veřejném blockchainu.
Umbra Privacy has launched a private payroll system on Solana, giving businesses a way to pay employees in $USDC without exposing transaction details on the public blockchain. The product is the latest feature to emerge from the protocol's broader push to make on-chain finance safe for corporate use.
How It Works The payroll system is built on top of Umbra's existing privacy infrastructure. Operating as the first live consumer application deployed on Arcium's Mainnet Alpha, Umbra's environment is engineered on top of Arcium's multi-party computation (MPC) encrypted execution engine and zero-knowledge cryptographic proofs, hiding the identities of the sender and recipient, alongside total transaction values, from public scrutiny by default.
The platform supports multichain funding and offers instant withdrawals to either a crypto wallet or a traditional bank account. The integration introduces native, private fiat onramping and offramping alongside a corporate payroll engine directly inside the Umbra application, enabling users to fund digital asset wallets and accept corporate compensation without exposing their physical identity or bank routing details to public blockchain trackers. This is handled through a partnership with Onramper. "It's about giving people genuine control over their financial lives," said Krutarth Shah, CEO of Umbra. "Integrating Onramper means our users can fund their wallets and receive payroll with the same level of discretion they expect from every other part of the Umbra experience."
Under the newly activated framework, Umbra users can natively purchase digital assets utilizing 24 major fiat currencies without departing the application's secure perimeter. The financial transaction layer relies on Onramper's algorithmic aggregation engine, which dynamically routes each localized payment flow to the most competitive fiat-to-crypto onramp provider worldwide.
Compliance Built In A recurring concern with privacy protocols is regulatory risk. Umbra has addressed this by embedding compliance tooling directly into the product. This structural privacy does not compromise regulatory compliance. Umbra preserves critical enterprise oversight utilities, natively retaining institutional compliance tools such as developer viewing keys and automated transaction risk screening. The payroll product also includes payroll history tracking for internal record-keeping.
Umbra includes a voluntary audit feature allowing transaction history disclosure to regulators. The Solana Foundation's framing of "confidentiality, not anonymity" is deliberate regulatory positioning. Confidentiality around hidden amounts with visible addresses is defensible for business, payroll, and institutional use.
The launch addresses a structural problem that has long made on-chain payroll impractical for businesses. Solana is one of the most transparent blockchains ever built, with every transaction, including sender, recipient, and amount, publicly readable by anyone with a block explorer and a wallet address. DAOs and businesses risk exposing operational data, payroll, or treasury activity on a public ledger. Umbra's payroll feature is designed to close that gap, giving crypto-native companies a viable path to paying staff in digital assets without broadcasting compensation details to competitors or the wider market.
Sources
The Fintech Times: Umbra Integrates Onramper for Private Fiat Ramps and Crypto Payroll
Onramper: Umbra Integration Announcement
Crypto Economy: Umbra Launches Privacy Wallet on Arcium
New York Life Investment Management a Centrifuge spustily svůj první tokenizovaný produkt, NYLIM Anemoy U.S. High Yield Corporate Bond Segregated Portfolio, vypořádaný v USDC. Američtí investoři do něj nemají přístup kvůli regulaci.
New York Life Investment Management (NYLIM) has partnered with Centrifuge to launch its first tokenized product, the NYLIM Anemoy U.S. High Yield Corporate Bond Segregated Portfolio. This move marks a significant step towards integrating blockchain technology into traditional finance, allowing institutional access to tokenized fixed-income assets. The new fund, which is settled in USDC, is not available to U.S. investors due to regulatory limitations. The announcement has triggered market discussions, with implications for the perceived value of tokenized asset-related entities.
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Key Takeaways The partnership between New York Life and Centrifuge appears to suggest increased institutional interest in tokenized assets. Market pricing indicates a moderate increase in STRC’s perceived value following the announcement. The launch of the tokenized bond fund is consistent with scenarios where institutional access to blockchain-based financial products expands. What to Watch Observers may find it valuable to monitor further institutional moves towards tokenization, as these could influence market dynamics. Regulatory developments in the U.S. concerning tokenized assets remain a potential catalyst for changes in market sentiment. Key actors such as Michael Saylor and Phong Le may play roles in shaping future discussions around blockchain integration in traditional finance.
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Jeremy Allaire odmítl argumenty kolem OUSD a řekl, že USDC má silné distribuční, likviditní a regulatorní výhody. Akcie Circle po spuštění konsorcia Open USD klesly o více než 17 %.
Jeremy Allaire argued that stablecoin networks are winner-take-most businesses built over years, two days after the launch of the 140-plus-firm Open USD consortium sent Circle's stock down more than 17% in a single session.
Circle co-founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire published a lengthy rebuttal on X on July 1 to the pitch behind OUSD, the stablecoin launched by the Open Standard consortium, arguing that USDC's advantages in distribution, liquidity and regulatory licensing are not easily replicated.
"We've had lots of questions from our investor community looking for thoughts on OUSD, and so I thought I'd share my direct views here," he wrote, describing stablecoin networks as "platform and network effect businesses that are established over a long period of time" and built on three layers: developer and application integrations, liquidity depth, and regulatory licensing accumulated over years, including USDC's approvals in the European Union and Japan.
Open Standard, the independent company formed to govern Open USD, unveiled the token on June 30. According to Open Standard's announcement, OUSD rests on three design principles: partner businesses can mint and redeem the token without fees or volume caps; partners receive nearly all reserve earnings after a management fee; and the token is governed collectively by a board of partner companies rather than a single issuer.
Reserves are described as maintained at financial institutions in compliance with U.S. regulatory requirements, though specific custodians and attestation practices had not been disclosed as of launch, as The Defiant reported.
Zach Abrams, Open Standard's founding CEO and a co-founder of Bridge, the stablecoin infrastructure company Stripe acquired for $1.1 billion in 2025, said in the announcement: "Existing stablecoins have great strengths, but to use them at scale, businesses need something that's open, low-cost, high-throughput, broadly accessible, and aligned to their interests."
Stripe president of technology and business Will Gaybrick said Open USD will be the default stablecoin for businesses running on Stripe.
The partner list spans more than 140 companies, including payment networks Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover; financial institutions BlackRock, BNY and Standard Chartered; technology firms Google and Shopify; and crypto platforms Coinbase, Ripple and Solana, according to Open Standard's site. Circle, Tether and PayPal are not among the backers.
Allaire's Point-by-Point RebuttalAllaire addressed three specific arguments made for OUSD. On fee-free minting and redemption, he said Circle already addresses large-partner economics through contractual arrangements rather than a blanket policy, and questioned whether removing fees entirely is sustainable market-wide.
On revenue sharing, he argued that distributing nearly all reserve income to partners risks starving the infrastructure needed to run a global stablecoin network — "giving away all income is a recipe for starving your infrastructure, systematically underinvesting and ensuring that your platform will remain limited in scope" — noting Circle already shares the majority of its income with distribution partners.
On consortium governance, Allaire pointed to Circle's own history — it co-founded the Centre Consortium with Coinbase before consolidating USDC issuance under Circle alone — and said the track record of similar multi-company products reaching scale "is absolutely dismal," citing coordination problems and slow decision-making among large corporate partners.
On usage, Allaire cited data he attributed to Artemis showing USDC processed roughly $30 trillion in onchain transactions in the first quarter of 2026, about 80% of dollar-stablecoin transaction volume, with USDT accounting for most of the rest and all other stablecoins combined under 0.5%.
On Coinbase specifically — notable because Coinbase is both a USDC revenue-sharing partner and an OUSD backer — Allaire wrote that Circle's "stablecoin partnership with Coinbase remains as strong as ever."
The Coinbase Economics at StakeCircle's own SEC filing spells out why the Coinbase relationship draws scrutiny: Coinbase earns 100% of interest income on USDC held within its own products, and 50% of the residual reserve income on USDC held elsewhere — a split that moves with how much USDC sits on Coinbase's platform, which Circle's filing put at 20% of total supply in 2024. That mechanism traces back to the actual Circle-Coinbase Collaboration Agreement, filed as an exhibit to Coinbase's 10-K, which defines Coinbase's cut through an "Issuer Retention" and "Residual Payment Base" formula and sets an initial three-year term running from the agreement's August 18, 2023 effective date — putting it up for renewal around August 18, 2026, with automatic three-year renewals contingent on Coinbase meeting the product and reseller thresholds in Section 3.2.
Bernstein analysts wrote in a research note that the arrangement accounts for close to 20% of Coinbase's total revenue, flagging Coinbase's participation in the 140-company OUSD consortium as something that "has raised eyebrows" given how much the exchange earns from USDC.
Market ReactionCircle's stock fell more than 17% on June 30 to close at $62.63, its weakest level in four months and down 55% from mid-May. CRCL had priced its IPO at $31 per share in June 2025 and reached an intraday all-time high of $298.99 (closing high of $263.45) on June 23, 2025, before its prolonged decline. As of DefiLlama, USDC's market capitalization stood at $73.9 billion against USDT's $184.9 billion, with total stablecoin market capitalization at $313.2 billion.
Circle reported first-quarter 2026 revenue and reserve income of $694 million, up 20% year-over-year, with reserve income of $653 million making up 94% of total revenue, according to Circle's Q1 2026 results.
Wall Street's initial read was skeptical of the selloff's magnitude. Bernstein reaffirmed an "Outperform" rating and $190 price target, citing Visa onchain data showing USDC processed $5.3 trillion in the first half of 2026 alone. William Blair kept its own Outperform rating, calling OUSD "a solution searching for a problem" and telling clients the selloff was a buying opportunity
Analysts pointed to Paxos's Global Dollar Network (USDG) — a similar consortium-backed, revenue-sharing stablecoin launched in 2024 — which has grown to only about $3 billion in supply, as a precedent for how new entrants have struggled against USDC and USDT.
Allaire closed his thread by saying Circle continues to work with OUSD's founding members as USDC customers and partners, and that Circle welcomes continued competition in the stablecoin market.
Solana has received another major injection of stablecoin liquidity after Circle reportedly minted an additional $1 billion in USDC on the network around July 1. The move adds to a year that has already seen unusually large gross USDC issuance on Solana, a chain where stablecoins have become central to swaps, leverage, payments, and on-chain trading activity.
TL;DR Circle reportedly minted another $1 billion in USDC on Solana. The mint follows another $1 billion Solana USDC issuance in mid-June. Gross 2026 USDC issuance on Solana is now reported at $64.25 billion. That figure is gross issuance, not current circulating supply. The distinction between issuance and supply is important here. A large mint does not mean all of that USDC remains circulating on Solana forever. Tokens can be burned, redeemed, bridged, or otherwise moved as market demand changes. The $64.25 billion figure refers to cumulative gross issuance during 2026, not the live amount of USDC currently sitting on Solana.
Why Solana wants deep stablecoin liquidity Stablecoins are the base layer for a lot of crypto trading behaviour. On Solana, they are especially important because the network is built around fast, low-cost settlement. Traders use USDC as collateral, as a settlement asset, and as a quick way to move between volatile positions without leaving the chain.
When more USDC is minted onto Solana, it usually points to demand for on-chain dollar liquidity. That demand can come from market makers, DeFi protocols, retail traders, or institutions routing activity through Solana-based venues. It does not automatically mean prices will rise, but it does show that the network remains a live venue for capital movement.
Gross issuance is not the same as circulating supply This is the part worth spelling out because the headline number can be easy to misread. Gross issuance counts how much USDC has been minted onto Solana across a period. Circulating supply reflects what remains after redemptions, burns, and transfers are accounted for.
So the $64.25 billion figure should not be treated as a claim that Solana currently has that exact amount of USDC active on-chain. Instead, it is a signal of throughput. It shows how much dollar liquidity has been created through the network during the year, even if some of that liquidity later moved elsewhere or was redeemed.
A stronger foundation for Solana DeFi For Solana’s DeFi ecosystem, this matters because stablecoin depth affects trading quality. More available USDC can improve routing, reduce friction, support lending markets, and make it easier for larger participants to enter and exit positions. In a market where liquidity often moves quickly between chains, stablecoin depth is one of the clearer signs of where users are actually active.
The latest mint also arrives at a time when Solana remains closely tied to high-velocity trading, meme coin activity, and decentralized exchange volume. That can make liquidity demand volatile. But it also keeps Solana near the center of the market’s most active trading lanes. For now, the fresh USDC mint reinforces the view that Solana is still attracting serious on-chain dollar flow.
This report is based on information from Solscan.
This article was written by the News Desk and edited by Samuel Rae.
Jeremy Allaire uvedl, že USDC má konkurenční výhodu díky síťovým efektům, hluboké likviditě a regulaci. V 1. čtvrtletí 2026 jeho on-chain objem transakcí téměř dosáhl 30 bilionů USD.
PANews July 1 news, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire stated that the stablecoin market is inherently a platform business driven by strong network effects, often showing a "winner-takes-all" pattern. Its core moats mainly come from three aspects: network effects formed by the application and developer ecosystem, global liquidity depth, and deep integration with regulatory systems across countries.
According to Allaire, USDC has built an access network of thousands of service providers and has become one of the three most liquid digital assets globally. In Q1 2026, USDC on-chain transaction volume approached $30 trillion, accounting for approximately 80% of USD stablecoin transaction volume, while USDT accounted for the remaining roughly 20%, and all other stablecoins combined accounted for less than 0.5%.
In response to OUSD's proposed "free minting and redemption, revenue sharing, and alliance governance," Allaire said that fully relinquishing reserve revenues could lead to insufficient infrastructure investment, while large alliance models typically suffer from slow decision-making and misaligned incentives, hindering product innovation. He emphasized that Circle still welcomes OUSD to join the ecosystem, but believes that the long-term winner will remain a platform with deep liquidity, regulatory compliance, and sustained capital investment.
USDT má být zítra stažen z regulovaných evropských kryptoburz, protože Tether nepožádal o povolení podle MiCA. Na burzách s licencí v EU tak zůstává jako hlavní alternativa v souladu s předpisy USDC.
Tomorrow marks the end of USDT’s run on regulated European crypto platforms. July 1, 2026, is the hard deadline for the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, and Tether, the issuer of the world’s largest stablecoin with a market capitalization between $175 billion and $186 billion, never bothered to apply for authorization.
MiCA requires stablecoin issuers to obtain e-money token authorization to operate within the European Economic Area. Without it, exchanges can’t legally offer the token to EEA clients.
Tether has not applied for MiCA authorization as of June 2026, a decision that aligns with its broader posture of focusing on markets outside Europe rather than complying with the bloc’s stringent bank reserve mandates.
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Coinbase Europe delisted USDT back in December 2024. Crypto.com followed in January 2025. Binance’s EEA entity restricted USDT trading pairs in March 2025. Major platforms have already started converting or limiting USDT balances for their European users in anticipation of the final deadline.
Tether also discontinued its euro-denominated stablecoin, EURT, back in 2024, walking away from the European market entirely.
Circle’s USDC and EURC tokens have secured MiCA compliance and remain available across EU-licensed platforms, making Circle’s products the default stablecoin option on regulated exchanges for European traders.
A retail investor using Binance’s European entity will need to switch to USDC or another authorized alternative. A DeFi user interacting directly with smart contracts through a self-custody wallet can keep using USDT, as the regulation targets service providers, not the token itself. No legal actions against Tether itself have been reported in connection with MiCA compliance.
USDT has long been the dominant trading pair denomination across crypto markets globally. When European platforms remove it, trading volumes on those platforms will shift to USDC-denominated pairs or other compliant alternatives.
Tether’s calculus appears to be that the cost of MiCA compliance, particularly the reserve requirements mandating funds be held in European banks, outweighs the revenue from European platform activity. Institutional players and regulated funds operating within the EEA don’t have the option of routing around compliance requirements by switching to non-custodial wallets, making USDC the only compliant option for that segment of the market.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Akcie společnosti Circle klesly téměř o 15 % po představení Open USD, nového stablecoinu od více než 140 firem včetně Visa, Mastercard a Coinbase, který míří na firemní klienty USDC. Open USD má partnerům ponechat výnosy z rezerv, což ohrožuje hlavní zdroj příjmů Circle.
Shares of Circle Internet Group (CRCL) fell on Tuesday after Open Standard unveiled Open USD (OUSD), a dollar stablecoin backed by more than 140 companies, including Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase, that targets the market its USD Coin (USDC) token leads.
The launch puts payment networks, banks, and crypto firms behind a single token. It lands as Circle’s USDC and Tether’s USDT control most of the stablecoin market.
Circle (CRCL) Stock Performance. Source: TradingViewWhy Circle’s USDC Faces PressureOpen USD goes after the enterprise users that drive USDC adoption. Businesses can mint and redeem it for free, and partners keep the earnings on its reserves after a small fee.
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That model strikes at how Circle makes money. Reserve interest produced 99% of its revenue in 2024, its filing shows.
Circle paid Coinbase $908 million that year to distribute USDC. Now Coinbase has joined a rival that lets partners keep those reserve earnings.
Circle stock fell nearly 15% on the news, touching its lowest level of the session. It extended a weak run after Circle’s stock rally from $50 to $129 in six weeks earlier this year.
The bigger risk is distribution. Circle gained ground as USDC overtook Tether in corporate transfers. Yet Open USD’s backers include the networks that move most of that money.
Circle still holds advantages. Its USDC carries regulatory standing in the US and Europe and deep exchange liquidity.
A Consortium Stands Behind Open USDOpen Standard will run the token through an independent board of its partners. Zach Abrams leads the company on an interim basis. He co-founded Bridge, the stablecoin firm Stripe bought for $1.1 billion in 2025.
The backers span finance and technology, from BlackRock and BNY to Google and Shopify. Many already run their own stablecoins or build stablecoin infrastructure firms, echoing Mastercard’s recent stablecoin payment integrations.
Stripe tied its payments business directly to the token.
“Open USD will be the default stablecoin for businesses running on Stripe…” read an excerpt in the announcement, citing Will Gaybrick, president of technology and business at Stripe.
Circle, Tether, and PayPal all sat out the venture. Tether’s USDT leads at about $185 billion and Circle’s USDC follows near $74 billion.
Total Stablecoin Market Cap. Source: DefiLlamaAll these notwithstanding, the history is not encouraging for consortiums. Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe each backed Facebook’s Libra stablecoin in 2019, then abandoned it within months under regulatory pressure.
Open USD goes live later this year on Plasma and other chains built for stablecoin payments.
The timing matters for Circle, whose USDC revenue-sharing deal with Coinbase comes up for renewal in August.
Spiko napojilo dva regulované evropské fondy EU T-Bills Money Market Fund a US T-Bills Money Market Fund na stablecoinovou infrastrukturu Coinbase a umožnilo vklady i výběry v USDC a EURC. Jde o první fondy UCITS v Evropě, které přijímají přímé platby ve stablecoinech.
Investment firm Spiko has integrated Coinbase’s stablecoin payment infrastructure into two regulated EU Treasury-bill funds, allowing eligible investors to fund subscriptions and receive redemption proceeds using USDC and EURC.
Coinbase said Tuesday the integration covers Spiko’s EU T-Bills Money Market Fund and US T-Bills Money Market Fund. Both are structured as Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities, or UCITS. Coinbase Payments will provide the payment, wallet and application programming interface (API) infrastructure, with the transactions settling on Base, Coinbase’s layer-2 network.
The exchange said the products are the first UCITS funds in Europe to accept direct stablecoin payments.
The move into UCITS funds comes as net sales of the assets rebounded in April, the latest data from trade group EFAMA showed on Monday. UCITS saw net inflows of 104 billion euros that month, compared to net outflows of 41 billion euros in March. Net sales reached a new record in 2025, totaling 828 billion euros and surpassing the previous 2021 high of 813 billion euros.
Tokenized funds push toward 24/7 utilityCoinbase described the integration as an example of how stablecoins could reshape payments infrastructure for mutual funds by removing bottlenecks for investors as they enter and exit a product. It positions stablecoins as settlement infrastructure, connecting onchain capital with regulated investment funds.
Investors can submit subscriptions at any time, including weekends and holidays. At the same time, redemption proceeds can be delivered to a stablecoin wallet within minutes after a position is liquidated.
Despite this, round-the-clock stablecoin transfers do not necessarily mean that the underlying fund continuously processes subscriptions and redemptions. Spiko said the Coinbase integration introduces a new payment method rather than changing the funds themselves.
Cointelegraph reached out to Coinbase for more information on order execution, but did not receive a response before publication.
Other asset managers have tested ways to provide 24/7 access to tokenized funds. In February, WisdomTree received approval for round-the-clock secondary trading and instant USDC settlement of its tokenized Treasury fund, with liquidity supplied by its broker-dealer while primary fund processes remained unchanged.
Tokenized money market funds are also increasingly being used as infrastructure beyond subscriptions and redemptions. In February, Franklin Templeton and Binance introduced a program allowing institutions to pledge tokenized fund shares as off-exchange trading collateral while the assets remain in regulated custody
Magazine: China’s 107 Bitcoin memory thief, Bithumb CEO booked: Asia Express
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Circle spálila na Ethereu USDC za 250 milionů USD a na Solaně vydala nové USDC za 910 milionů USD. Čistý přesun likvidity činí 660 milionů USD ve prospěch Solany.
Circle just pulled a quarter-billion dollars worth of USDC off Ethereum and stamped out $910 million in fresh tokens on Solana. Think of it as moving cash between registers at a store, except the registers are blockchains and the cash is the second-largest stablecoin in crypto.
The net effect: a $660 million liquidity swing toward Solana.
How the burn-and-mint machine works Circle manages USDC supply through what it calls the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, or CCTP. The mechanics are straightforward: burn tokens on one chain, mint an equivalent amount on another. Every USDC in circulation is supposed to be backed 1:1 by cash and cash equivalents, so these operations don’t change the total supply. They just change where the tokens live.
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The $250 million Ethereum burn and $910 million Solana issuance fit a pattern that’s been accelerating throughout 2026. Earlier in June, Circle minted $1 billion USDC on Solana in a single day. Days before that, there was a $500 million Solana mint. The cumulative gross issuance on Solana has been approaching $57 billion for the year.
USDC’s total circulation sits at approximately $73.6 billion as of late June 2026. The stablecoin is now native on over 30 networks.
Why the migration matters The institutional angle has gotten more concrete this month. Circle expanded its partnership with BNY Mellon in June 2026, enabling direct mint and burn capabilities through the bank’s custody services. That means institutional clients can now create and destroy USDC without going through Circle’s standard pipeline.
What this means for investors For Solana, more USDC on the network means deeper liquidity pools, tighter spreads on decentralized exchanges, and more attractive conditions for both traders and protocol developers.
The BNY Mellon partnership adds another layer to consider. Institutional access to direct minting and burning means that large players can respond to market conditions faster than ever.
Tether’s USDT still dominates overall stablecoin market share, but USDC’s multi-chain expansion and emphasis on full reserve transparency have carved out a distinct institutional niche. The $73.6 billion in circulation represents significant ground gained.
The risk worth flagging: concentrated minting on any single chain creates dependency. If Solana experienced a significant outage or security event, having tens of billions of USDC sitting on the network would create redemption pressure that could test Circle’s operational capacity.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Coinbase spustila 11. června Coinbase for Agents, platformu, která propojuje AI agenty s uživatelskými účty pro obchodování, správu portfolia a platby v USDC. Uživatelé nastaví limity a agent jedná v jejich rámci.
Coinbase launched Coinbase for Agents on June 11, a platform that lets AI systems like ChatGPT and Claude connect directly to user accounts to execute trades, manage portfolios, and make transactions using stablecoins. Users tell the AI what to do in plain English, set spending and risk limits, and the agent handles the rest. Coinbase’s stock rose over 3% on the news.
How it actually works Users can grant AI agents access to their Coinbase accounts with specific constraints: how much the agent can spend, what level of risk it can take, and which types of trades it can execute.
The platform supports both spot and derivatives trading, real-time market data access, and portfolio management. It’s accessible through both web interfaces and terminal-based setups.
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Transactions on the platform run on USDC, Coinbase’s preferred stablecoin, using something called the x402 protocol. This protocol is designed to enable machine-to-machine payments, essentially letting AI agents pay for services, data, or assets without a human intermediary approving each step.
Compliance follows the same framework as standard Coinbase accounts. The agents operate within user-defined guardrails, and Coinbase’s existing regulatory controls still apply.
The bigger picture: agentic finance Coinbase has been building toward this moment through a series of AI-focused products. First came AgentKit, which embedded crypto wallets directly into AI agents. Then came Agentic Wallets, purpose-built for autonomous trading and spending. Coinbase for Agents connects those autonomous capabilities to the full suite of Coinbase’s exchange infrastructure.
Alongside the agents platform, Coinbase also rolled out Coinbase Advisor, an in-app AI that provides personalized recommendations to users.
Coinbase is calling this broader trend “agentic finance.” Analysts have projected that autonomous agents could drive as much as 20% of all e-commerce by 2030.
What this means for investors Coinbase has hinted at future expansions beyond crypto, with potential support for equities and commodities trading through the agents platform.
By routing agent transactions through USDC, Coinbase is creating a new demand driver for its stablecoin. Every AI agent that needs to make a payment or execute a trade on the platform needs USDC to do it.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
BNY zpřístupnila institucionálním klientům minting, redemption, custody a převody USDC přímo přes svou platformu Digital Asset Custody. USDC je první stablecoin podporovaný touto službou.
BNY has added USDC minting, redemption, custody and transfer services to its Digital Asset Custody platform, giving institutional clients direct access to Circle’s stablecoin through the bank.
Summary
BNY has enabled institutional clients to mint, redeem, store and transfer USDC directly through its Digital Asset Custody platform. The bank has expanded its role with Circle beyond safeguarding USDC reserves by adding client-facing stablecoin services. BNY joins Invesco, JPMorgan and State Street as major financial institutions rolling out products tied to stablecoin reserves and infrastructure. According to BNY, the update allows clients to turn U.S. dollars into USDC and redeem the stablecoin back into dollars from within its platform. The bank said clients can also hold and transfer USDC through its digital asset custody service, making Circle’s token the first stablecoin supported by the platform.
The service deepens BNY’s existing relationship with Circle. BNY already serves as the primary custodian for the assets backing USDC, and the latest expansion moves the bank beyond reserve custody into direct stablecoin services for institutional clients.
BNY said it plans to add support for more stablecoins and digital cash workflows over time. The bank did not name the next assets it may support or give a timeline for the expansion.
BNY is taking USDC deeper into institutional custody BNY said it oversees $59.3 trillion in assets under custody and administration and serves more than 90% of Fortune 100 companies. Its USDC support gives large institutions a bank-based route to access stablecoin issuance and redemption without moving outside a regulated custody environment.
USDC is the second-largest stablecoin by market value, with more than $73.8 billion in circulation, according to DefiLlama data. Tether’s USDT remains the largest stablecoin, while DefiLlama data places the total stablecoin market at about $313 billion.
The announcement also follows BNY’s recent work in other areas of digital asset custody. In May, the bank partnered with Abu Dhabi-based Finstreet and the ADI Foundation to develop institutional custody services for Bitcoin and Ether, with plans to later include stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.
By adding USDC minting and redemption to its platform, BNY is placing stablecoin activity closer to the custody and settlement systems already used by institutional clients. Circle’s role remains tied to USDC issuance, while BNY’s expanded service gives clients custody and movement tools around the token.
Banks are building products for stablecoin reserves BNY’s move comes as large financial firms develop products tied to stablecoins, reserve assets and tokenized cash management.
Last week, Invesco filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a tokenized money market fund for stablecoin reserve management. According to the filing, the fund would invest in cash and short-term U.S. Treasury securities.
In May, JPMorgan filed to launch a tokenized money market fund designed for stablecoin issuers. The Ethereum-based fund would invest in U.S. Treasury bills and overnight repurchase agreements used to back payment stablecoins.
State Street also launched a government money market fund for stablecoin issuers earlier this month. The fund invests in U.S. government securities and repurchase agreements, with State Street Bank and Anchorage Digital listed among its first investors.
Other financial firms have also moved into stablecoin-related services. In January, Fidelity Investments launched its U.S. dollar-backed stablecoin FIDD after receiving conditional approval to operate a national trust bank.
Together, the announcements show how major banks and asset managers are building around the reserve, custody and payment layers of stablecoins as institutional demand for digital cash infrastructure grows.
Ekosystém Solana RWA dosáhl hodnoty 3,03 miliardy USD a měsíční objem převodů vyskočil o 120,5 % na 8,53 miliardy USD. Počet držitelů vzrostl na 290 481.
Solana RWA distributed asset value climbed to $3.03B after posting a 13.2% increase over 30 days. Monthly RWA transfer volume surged 120.5% to $8.53B, marking the fastest-growing network metric. RWA holders reached 290,481 after growing 24.4% in one month, showing wider ecosystem participation. Solana stablecoin market cap rose to $15.77B, supporting liquidity across the expanding RWA market. Solana’s real-world asset market continues to expand as fresh on-chain data points to stronger activity across tokenized assets.
The latest figures show higher asset values, growing participation, and a sharp rise in transfer volume. Stablecoins also remain a major source of liquidity across the network. The new metrics highlight steady growth across multiple parts of the Solana ecosystem.
Solana RWA Ecosystem Records Higher Asset Value and User Growth Data shared by Everstake shows the Solana RWA ecosystem reached $3.03 billion in distributed asset value. That marks a 13.2% increase over the past 30 days.
❗@solana's RWA ecosystem is reaching a whole new level.
Every month, the numbers get bigger.
And more importantly, they show that real-world assets are becoming an increasingly important part of the Solana ecosystem.
• $3.03B in distributed asset value, up 13.2% over the… pic.twitter.com/vpyj2eJowj
— Everstake (@everstake_pool) June 29, 2026
The same dataset shows the number of RWA holders climbed to 290,481. Monthly holder growth reached 24.4%, indicating broader participation in tokenized assets.
Transfer activity expanded even faster. Solana recorded $8.53 billion in 30-day RWA transfer volume, representing a 120.5% increase from the previous month.
Everstake highlighted transfer volume as the strongest metric during the latest reporting period. The figures suggest assets moved across the network at a much faster pace than before.
The platform also reported 2,115 tokenized real-world assets operating on Solana. Represented asset value stood at $125.86 million during the same period.
Stablecoins Continue Powering Solana RWA Market Activity Stablecoins remained the largest segment supporting the Solana RWA market. Network data placed the total stablecoin market capitalization at $15.77 billion, up 3.43% over 30 days.
Stablecoin transfer volume reached $487.08 billion during the month. Activity increased 3.59%, even as stablecoin holders declined 7.77% to 10.95 million.
The league table published alongside the data ranked Circle as the largest platform by asset value. Circle accounted for approximately $7.1 billion across three supported asset classes.
Tether Holdings followed with roughly $3.8 billion, while Paxos ranked third at $1.4 billion. BitGo, Securitize, Anchorage Digital Bank, Ethena, Ctrl Alt, Solstice, and Ondo completed the top ten.
Among individual assets, USDC remained the largest tokenized product on Solana with nearly $6.97 billion in distributed value. USDT followed at about $3.77 billion, while BitGo’s USD1 exceeded the $1 billion mark.
Other leading products included Anchorage Digital Bank’s USDGO, Paxos-issued PYUSD, and Securitize’s BlackRock USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund.
According to Everstake’s published figures and the accompanying Solana RWA dashboard, stablecoins continue to dominate network value while tokenized treasuries, private equity, and corporate credit products steadily expand their presence.
BNY rozšířila partnerství s Circle a na své platformě Digital Asset Custody začala jako první podporovat USDC jako stablecoin. Klienti mohou USDC držet, převádět, mintovat a burnovat.
BNY has expanded its partnership with Circle to launch new institutional stablecoin services, allowing clients to custody, transfer, mint and burn USDC through BNY’s Digital Asset Custody platform, the company announced Monday.
BNY’s Digital Asset Custody platform provides institutional investors with regulated custody and servicing for digital assets such as bitcoin, ether and tokenized securities. Designed to bridge traditional finance and blockchain, it integrates digital asset custody with banking services including payments, liquidity management and operational support.
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The offering makes Circle’s flagship stablecoin the platform’s first supported stablecoin and extends BNY’s role as custodian of USDC reserves.
According to the company, clients can now hold USDC in BNY custody while directing Circle to issue or redeem tokens against US dollars, creating a direct connection between traditional cash management and digital asset custody.
BNY said the integrated platform is designed to support institutional adoption of digital assets by bringing blockchain-based transactions into existing financial workflows, with plans to support additional stablecoins over time.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Breez přidal do svého SDK možnost posílat USDC a USDT na více než 30 blockchainů přímo z bitcoinového zůstatku, bez nutnosti držet stablecoiny. Platby běží přes Lightning Network a automatickou konverzi.
Bitcoin infrastructure company Breez has added a feature to its developer toolkit that lets users send USDC (USDC) and USDt (USDT) across more than 30 blockchain networks directly from a Bitcoin balance, without first converting or holding stablecoins.
According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, the feature uses the Lightning Network alongside automated conversion to route payments from Bitcoin (BTC) to USDC or USDT before delivering funds to the recipient's preferred blockchain.
When a user enters a recipient's wallet address, the Breez SDK identifies the destination blockchain, calculates a conversion route and displays the amount, network and fees before the payment is confirmed. The transaction is then routed through liquidity providers, including Flashnet and Boltz, which convert the sender's Bitcoin into stablecoins and deliver it on the recipient's chosen blockchain.
Roy Sheinfeld, CEO of Breez, told Cointelegraph the feature does not require USDT or USDC to be issued on the Lightning Network. Instead, it relies on "interoperability" to let users spend from a Bitcoin balance while recipients receive stablecoins on supported blockchain networks.
Breez said users continue holding Bitcoin until they initiate a payment, while recipients receive stablecoins on their preferred blockchain without requiring the sender to manage separate stablecoin balances. The feature is non-custodial and initially supports only outbound stablecoin payments, with support for receiving stablecoins from external blockchain networks planned for a future release.
The feature is designed to allow developers to add stablecoin payments without integrating multiple blockchain networks or requiring users to manage separate Bitcoin and stablecoin balances.
Bitcoin payment infrastructure expandsThe launch comes as companies expand Bitcoin and the Lightning Network, a layer-2 payment network designed to make Bitcoin transactions faster and less expensive, into new financial and commercial applications.
In February, Secure Digital Markets, an institutional trading and lending desk, completed a $1 million Bitcoin payment to Kraken over the Lightning Network in less than half a second, demonstrating the protocol's potential for high-value institutional transfers. The transaction illustrated how Lightning is increasingly being tested for use cases beyond small retail payments.
That same month, Bitcoin infrastructure company Voltage introduced a US dollar-settled revolving credit line that embeds business credit into Lightning payment flows, allowing companies to settle repayments in either US dollars or Bitcoin. The product is intended to enable businesses to access working capital using Lightning for payments, without holding crypto on their balance sheets.
Event platform Satlantis also launched a Bitcoin-native ticketing platform with embedded Lightning wallets, allowing organizers to sell tickets and accept BTC alongside traditional payment methods.
In March, Tether-backed Bitcoin infrastructure startup Ark Labs in a $5.2 million funding round to develop technology supporting stablecoin issuance, transfers and settlement on Bitcoin.
Lightning adoption has continued to grow. A February report from River estimated the network surpassed $1 billion in monthly transaction volume in late 2025, up from around $12 million in 2021.
Lightning Network transaction volumes continue to grow. Source: River
Cointelegraph is committed to independent, transparent journalism. This news article is produced in accordance with Cointelegraph’s Editorial Policy and aims to provide accurate and timely information. Readers are encouraged to verify information independently.
We’re excited to announce that USDC, EURC, and CCTP support are live on Cronos.
Cronos Network is a high-performance, EVM-compatible, Layer-1 (L1) blockchain network supported by Crypto.com, supporting payments, AI-native workflows, and DeFi trading. Native USDC, EURC, and CCTP bring trusted and interoperable stablecoin infrastructure to Cronos’ large and established ecosystem. USDC will also serve as the settlement layer for the Cronos app, the upcoming mobile-first trading platform where users will be able to trade tokenized stocks, crypto, and prediction markets from a single account, with 24/7 markets, and access in 180+ countries.1
With the launch of native USDC, EURC, and CCTP, Cronos gains access to the leading regulated2 dollar and euro stablecoins. This unlocks dollar- and euro-denominated DeFi trading, payments, treasury management, and more on a blockchain designed for EVM compatibility, AI-friendly workflows, and transaction efficiency. Native USDC will also serve as the dollar settlement layer for the Cronos app. Users will be able to deposit dollars and trade every asset class from one account.
Benefits of USDC and EURC on Cronos:
Regulated,2 fully reserved stablecoins redeemable 1:1 for USD and EUR,3 respectivelyInstitutional on/offramps with Circle Mint4 for qualified businesses Integrate easily with apps and protocols on CronosUnlock dollar- and euro-denominated DeFi markets and AI-powered transactionsCCTP on Cronos enables developers to:
Securely and efficiently move USDC between Cronos and other supported blockchainsBuild apps directly on the protocol layer that support high-performance DeFi and AI-powered transactionsKey use cases of USDC and EURC on CronosNative USDC and EURC can help establish a trusted dollar- and euro-denominated ecosystem on Cronos. With MiCA compliance, full reserve backing, and 1:1 redeemability for dollars and euros respectively, USDC and EURC support DeFi, traditional markets, and agent-to-agent transactions by serving as collateral and settlement infrastructure. Establishing deep liquidity for both EUR/EURC and USD/USDC trading pairs can support lower-slippage DeFi activity and AI-driven applications at the scale institutions and enterprises need. Through CCTP, users and developers can move USDC securely across ecosystems without relying on wrapped assets.
Beyond institutional use cases, native USDC will also bring dollar settlement to everyday users. As the dollar layer for the Cronos app, the upcoming mobile-first trading platform, USDC will let people deposit dollars and trade tokenized stocks, crypto, and prediction markets from a single account.
Together, native USDC, EURC, and CCTP can give businesses and developers on Cronos access to regulated2 fiat rails for institutional-grade trading, programmable payments, and compliant onchain settlement. While USDC is widely used around the world, euro-denominated EURC may be especially well suited for payments, settlement, and other onchain activity within the EU, where 1:1 euro redeemability and MiCA compliance can help support trusted euro-denominated use cases.
Popular Cronos apps include: Crypto.com, LI.FI, Relay, VVS, Wolfswap.
Bridged vs native USDC on CronosCronos also supports bridged USDC (i.e., USDC.e), a non-native version of USDC. The Cronos team plans to work with ecosystem apps and protocols to smoothly migrate bridged USDC liquidity to native USDC over time.
This gives Cronos the same native stablecoin features that are already available on other supported chains. There is no immediate impact to existing bridges and they will continue to operate normally. Bridged USDC will remain clearly labeled as “USDC.e” in block explorers, app interfaces, and documentation.
Get started todayBusinesses can access institutional on/offramps to convert to Circle stablecoins on Cronos by applying for a Circle Mint4 account. Individuals and smaller institutions can access USDC and EURC through various exchanges, wallets, and providers. Visit circle.com/eurc and circle.com/usdc to learn more.
Get started today with our developer docs for USDC, EURC, and CCTP. Both USDC and EURC are open-source, permissionless stablecoin protocols that anyone can build with.
1 Products may be subject to jurisdictional availability
2 USDC is issued by regulated affiliates of Circle. EURC is issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS. A list of Circle’s regulatory authorizations can be found here.
3 Circle Mint customers are able to redeem USDC and EURC directly from Circle. In addition, Circle will redeem all USDC and EURC presented to it for redemption in compliance with MiCAR, regardless of whether the holder is a Circle Mint customer. Circle Mint is currently available only to institutions and is not available to individuals.
4 Circle Mint and money transmission services are provided by Circle Internet Financial, LLC, NMLS # 1201441, and Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS, Electronic Money Institution License No. 17788, when provided in France.
Hyper Foundation spustila grantový program za zhruba 10 milionů USD na podporu migrace z USDH na USDC. Pomoc míří na projekty i uživatele v ekosystému Hyper.
TLDR:Hyper Foundation Unveils $10M USDH Migration Grant ProgramUSDH Holders Receive Migration Options as Ecosystem Shifts to USDC Hyper Foundation committed about $10 million to support USDH migration across affected ecosystem projects. Eligible builders must complete migration or orderly shutdown activities before the end of July deadline. USDH holders can swap tokens for USDC through supported HyperCore and HyperEVM migration pathways. Grant allocations depend on deployment costs or affected USDH total value locked across supported protocols. Hyper Foundation has introduced a grant program worth approximately $10 million to support projects affected by the USDH sunset. The initiative targets builders migrating away from the stablecoin or winding down USDH-dependent services before the end of July.
Eligible teams have already been contacted as the network moves through an organized transition process. The funding aims to reduce migration costs while helping maintain continuity across the Hyper ecosystem.
Hyper Foundation said the grants will support builders whose products relied on USDH before its retirement. According to the foundation, eligible recipients include HIP-1 spot deployers, HIP-3 perpetual deployers, HyperEVM protocols, dedicated USDH: USDC bridge operators, and Native Markets.
The grants fall into two categories. Migration grants support teams replacing USDH with USDC, while wind-down grants assist projects ending USDH-related operations. The foundation noted that wind-down grants remain smaller than equivalent migration awards.
According to Hyper Foundation, every recipient has committed to completing migration or orderly shutdown activities before the end of July. The program seeks to minimize disruption while encouraging structured transitions across supported applications.
Grant calculations also differ between ecosystem participants. HIP-1 and HIP-3 recipients receive allocations based on auction deployment costs, while HyperEVM protocol grants depend on the amount of USDH total value locked affected by the sunset.
USDH Holders Receive Migration Options as Ecosystem Shifts to USDC Hyper Foundation also outlined the migration process for users holding USDH. The organization encouraged users to follow instructions directly from the protocols where their assets remain deployed.
Users can exchange USDH for USDC through the HyperCore spot order book. The foundation also confirmed that HyperEVM users can swap USDH for USDC at a one-to-one ratio through Across without paying transaction fees.
Hyper Foundation Allocates $10M in Grants to Support USDH Migration
Hyper Foundation announced approximately $10 million in grants to help builders affected by the USDH sunset, covering migration and wind-down costs. Grants will be distributed to eligible HIP-1 and HIP-3… pic.twitter.com/Hwy7ZNwswz
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 28, 2026
Wu Blockchain highlighted the announcement shortly after the grant program became public. The report noted that the funding package covers both migration expenses and wind-down costs for affected ecosystem participants.
Hyper Foundation also acknowledged the contribution of builders, users, and Native Markets throughout the USDH rollout. The organization credited community participation and direct coordination with helping the migration process progress smoothly during the transition period.
Circle a Nomura chtějí do roku 2027 spustit okamžité FX vypořádání pro japonské firmy prostřednictvím nových dolarových stablecoinů. Cílem je rychlejší přeshraniční platby mimo bankovní hodiny.
Circle and Japan’s leading investment bank Nomura have announced a strategic partnership to develop an instant foreign exchange settlement service tailored for Japanese corporations. According to a Thursday report by Nikkei, the joint service is targeted for launch as early as 2027.
Cross-border payments set for transformationThe planned settlement infrastructure will allow companies to convert funds into new US dollar stablecoins for use in cross-border transactions. This model aims to reduce delays caused by traditional banking hours and time zone differences. The report highlights that accelerating the settlement process could bring major efficiency gains, particularly for corporate payments.
The report notes that the upcoming service could enable Japanese firms to convert funds into new dollar-based stablecoins and settle cross-border payments instantly.
This initiative signals the entry of one of the world’s largest dollar stablecoins into Japan’s institutional foreign exchange markets. As a result, the use of stablecoins in intercompany international payments could see significant expansion in the coming years.
Glossary: A stablecoin is a digital asset whose value is typically pegged to a fiat currency such as the dollar or yen. Settlement refers to the final completion of a payment, where funds are definitively transferred between parties.
Circle, the issuer of USDC with a market capitalization of $73.8 billion, is currently recognized as the world’s second largest stablecoin provider. As this article was being prepared, neither Circle nor Nomura had issued an official statement regarding the partnership.
Rapid progress on stablecoin regulation in JapanJapan has accelerated its progress in the stablecoin sector as financial institutions evaluate regulatory-compliant, blockchain-based settlement solutions. On Wednesday, SBI Holdings and Startale Group introduced JPYSC, a yen-backed stablecoin designed for corporate use and cross-border settlements, supported by a trust bank. Over the same period, Ripple USD also became officially available for use in Japan.
Japan has become one of the first major economies to establish a legal framework for stablecoins, enabling banks, trust companies, and licensed money transfer operators to issue regulated tokens.
The legal foundation for stablecoins in the country is shaped by the Payment Services Act, which allows banks, trust companies, and licensed payment institutions to issue regulated tokens. This framework is credited with enabling swift innovation in the sector.
Taxation and ETF reforms in focus for digital assetsJapanese regulators are also reassessing the legal status of crypto assets. While currently governed by the Payment Services Act, there are steps underway to bring digital assets under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Such a shift could align crypto assets with the regulatory framework of traditional financial products.
Among the proposed reforms is a reduction of the capital gains tax on crypto assets from the current high of 55% to a flat rate of 20%. These changes are seen as crucial for attracting corporate interest and expanding investment vehicles related to digital assets in Japan.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this article does not constitute investment advice. Investors should be aware that cryptocurrencies carry high volatility and therefore risk, and should conduct their own research.
MiCA se v EU plně uplatňuje od 1. července 2026 a bez licence už kryptofirmy nesmějí legálně obsluhovat evropské klienty. USDC zůstává díky schválení, zatímco USDT bylo na regulovaných burzách delistováno.
MiCA is the European Union’s first comprehensive rulebook for crypto, and on July 1, 2026, its transition period ends for good. This guide explains what MiCA does, why USDT got delisted while USDC did not, and what the hard deadline means for exchanges and users.
Summary
MiCA becomes fully enforceable across the European Union on July 1, 2026, after which crypto firms without a MiCA license can no longer legally serve EU users. The regulation introduced a single framework for crypto across all EU member states, with strict rules for stablecoins, exchanges, and other crypto service providers. MiCA compliance kept USDC listed on regulated European exchanges, while USDT was delisted after its issuer chose not to seek authorization. Table of Contents
What MiCA actually regulatesThe stablecoin rules and why USDT got delistedCASPs: the rules for exchanges and service providersThe July 2026 deadline and the great narrowingA worked example: what a token and an exchange each faceWhat MiCA leaves unsettledMiCA in the global pictureWhat it means for everyday usersFrequently Asked Questions MiCA, short for Markets in Crypto-Assets, is the European Union’s first comprehensive law governing crypto-assets and the companies that deal in them, creating one common rulebook across all twenty-seven member states in place of the patchwork of national approaches that came before. Formally known as Regulation (EU) 2023/1114, it entered into force in mid-2023 and has rolled out in phases ever since, and it now sits at a decisive moment: on July 1, 2026, the transition period that let existing crypto firms keep operating under old national rules expires for good, and Europe’s market supervisor has been blunt that there will be no extensions.
After that date, any company offering crypto services to European Union clients without a proper MiCA license is simply breaking the law. This guide explains what MiCA is, the categories it creates, why some stablecoins survived in Europe while others were delisted, what a crypto company must do to comply, and what the hard 2026 deadline means for exchanges and ordinary users alike.
The significance of MiCA is hard to overstate, because the European Union is one of the largest economic blocs on earth and MiCA is the most ambitious attempt yet to bring crypto fully inside a traditional financial-regulation framework. Before MiCA, a crypto exchange or token issuer operating in Europe faced a confusing mix of national rules, with one regime in Germany, another in France, another in Malta, and gaps everywhere in between.
MiCA replaces that fragmentation with a single, harmonized system: get authorized once, and you can passport your services across the entire bloc. The trade-off is that the bar to get authorized is high, the obligations are heavy, and the deadline to clear them is now days away rather than years off. The result is a market being reshaped in real time, with a small number of licensed winners, a large number of firms facing exit, and a stablecoin landscape that already looks very different inside Europe than outside it.
What MiCA actually regulates MiCA divides the crypto world into categories and applies different rules to each, so the first step in understanding it is learning what those categories are. At the top level, MiCA governs two kinds of actors: the issuers of crypto-assets and the providers of crypto-asset services. For issuers, MiCA sorts tokens into three buckets.
The first is electronic money tokens, or EMTs, which are stablecoins pegged to a single official currency, such as a euro-pegged or dollar-pegged coin. The second is asset-referenced tokens, or ARTs, which are stablecoins backed by a basket of things, multiple currencies, commodities, or other assets, rather than a single currency. The third is a catch-all category of other crypto-assets, which covers utility tokens, governance tokens, and unbacked cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether, the assets most exchanges handle every day.
Each bucket carries different obligations. The two stablecoin categories face the strictest treatment, because regulators view stablecoins as the part of crypto most capable of threatening the wider financial system, a concern sharpened by the 2022 collapse of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin that wiped out tens of billions of dollars. EMT and ART issuers must hold proper reserves, grant holders redemption rights, and meet governance and disclosure standards.
The other crypto-assets face lighter rules, mainly requirements to publish an honest whitepaper before offering a token to the public and to avoid market abuse. Notably, MiCA largely excludes non-fungible tokens, unless they are issued in a large fungible series that makes them function more like ordinary tokens, and it excludes assets already covered by existing financial law, such as securities. The category a token falls into determines almost everything about how MiCA treats it, which is why getting the classification right is the starting point for any issuer.
The stablecoin rules and why USDT got delisted The most visible effect of MiCA so far has been on stablecoins, and the clearest way to understand the rules is through what happened to the two largest dollar stablecoins. Under MiCA, a stablecoin can only be offered by European Union-regulated platforms if its issuer is authorized, which for a single-currency stablecoin means holding an e-money or credit institution license and meeting MiCA’s reserve, redemption, and governance requirements.
The reserve rules are strict: an EMT must back its tokens fully, holding one hundred percent of reserves in safe, segregated accounts, while an ART must keep at least a substantial portion segregated at regulated credit institutions. MiCA also bars stablecoin issuers from paying interest or yield to holders, a deliberate choice to stop stablecoins from competing with bank deposits and drawing money out of the banking system.
This is where the two giants diverged. Circle, the issuer of USDC, pursued authorization through a European subsidiary and obtained MiCA approval for USDC and its euro stablecoin EURC, making them compliant and freely offered across European Union exchanges. Tether, the issuer of USDT, the largest stablecoin in the world, did not apply for MiCA authorization and confirmed its token was not compliant. The consequence was swift: major European Union-regulated exchanges, including the regional arms of the largest global platforms, delisted USDT and other non-compliant stablecoins for their European users.
The nuance worth understanding is that USDT is not banned from existence in Europe; users can still hold it in self-custody and trade it on decentralized exchanges. What changed is that a MiCA-licensed exchange can no longer offer it, which fragments liquidity and pushes European users toward compliant alternatives like USDC. Every stablecoin authorized under MiCA so far has been an EMT, a single-currency token, and USDC’s compliance versus USDT’s non-compliance has become the textbook illustration of the rules in action.
CASPs: the rules for exchanges and service providers Beyond token issuers, MiCA’s other major target is the companies that provide crypto services, which the regulation calls crypto-asset service providers, or CASPs. This category is broad: it covers exchanges, brokers, custodians, wallet providers that hold customer assets, trading platforms, and firms that advise on or place crypto-assets.
If your business touches customer crypto in almost any commercial way, you likely need a CASP authorization to keep serving European Union clients. The obligations that come with that authorization are extensive and closely mirror those imposed on traditional financial firms, which is the entire point: MiCA aims to make crypto service providers behave like regulated financial institutions rather than lightly governed startups.
A CASP must meet requirements covering customer identity verification and anti-money-laundering controls, the safekeeping and segregation of customer assets, governance and capital standards, market-conduct rules that prohibit insider trading and market manipulation, and clear disclosure of risks to customers. Authorized CASPs also become subject to the European Union’s operational-resilience framework, which mandates cybersecurity and incident-reporting standards, and to the crypto travel rule, which requires them to pass along sender and recipient information on transfers, the same obligation that has applied to bank wires for decades.
The reward for shouldering all of this is passporting: once a firm is authorized in any one member state, it can offer its services across all twenty-seven without seeking separate licenses in each, turning a fragmented continent into a single market. The burden is that running these programs at scale, across a global customer base, is expensive and demanding, which is exactly why so many firms are struggling to clear the bar before the deadline.
The July 2026 deadline and the great narrowing Everything about MiCA now points toward a single date, and understanding the phased rollout explains why that date matters so much. MiCA did not arrive all at once. The stablecoin rules for EMTs and ARTs took effect in mid-2024. The full CASP authorization regime took effect at the end of 2024, the point from which firms needed a MiCA license to operate.
But MiCA included a grandfathering provision, a transition period that let firms already operating legally under their national rules continue doing so while they applied for full MiCA authorization. Member states set their own transition windows within the limits MiCA allowed, ranging from short windows ending in 2025 to the full eighteen-month period ending on July 1, 2026. That final date is the bloc-wide cutoff, the moment the transition ends everywhere at once.
What makes the deadline dramatic is how few firms have actually cleared the bar. As the cutoff approached in 2026, roughly a couple of hundred firms held some form of full MiCA authorization across the entire union, but the number cleared to run an actual crypto trading platform was strikingly small, in the low double digits, with a number of member states having issued zero trading-platform licenses at all. Industry executives openly warned that a large majority of exchanges currently operating may fail to secure a license and be forced to exit the European market, and reports emerged of major global exchanges facing rejection in specific countries.
Europe’s market supervisor reinforced the message with no room for ambiguity: no member state may extend the transition beyond July 1, 2026, and after that date, operating without authorization is a breach of European Union law, not a paperwork gap. The picture, then, is of a great narrowing, a market being compressed from a crowded field into a small set of licensed survivors, with the rest required to wind down their European operations or leave.
A worked example: what a token and an exchange each face To make the rules concrete, it helps to walk through how MiCA treats two typical cases, a stablecoin issuer and an exchange, because the abstract categories become much clearer in motion. Imagine a company issuing a euro-pegged stablecoin and wanting European users to hold and trade it on regulated platforms.
Under MiCA, that token is an electronic money token, so the issuer must hold an e-money or credit institution license, back every token fully with reserves held in safe, segregated accounts, grant holders the right to redeem their tokens for the underlying currency on demand, publish a compliant whitepaper, and accept that it cannot pay holders any interest or yield. If the company does all of this and secures authorization, its stablecoin can be offered across the bloc; if it does not, regulated exchanges must refuse to list it, exactly the fork in the road that separated the compliant dollar stablecoin from the non-compliant one. The token’s fate under MiCA is decided entirely by whether its issuer accepts this package of obligations.
Now imagine an exchange that wants to keep serving European customers. Its path runs through CASP authorization. It must apply to a national regulator in some member state, prove it meets MiCA’s standards for governance, capital, and the safekeeping and segregation of customer assets, stand up the identity-verification and anti-money-laundering machinery that turns it into an obliged entity under European law, implement the travel rule so it passes sender and recipient information on transfers, meet the operational-resilience and cybersecurity requirements, and submit to ongoing supervision and market-conduct rules. If the regulator grants authorization, the exchange can passport that single license across all twenty-seven member states and operate bloc-wide.
If it cannot meet the bar or applies too late, it must stop serving European Union clients once the transition ends, winding down in an orderly way. The two journeys share a logic: MiCA offers a single, valuable prize, legal access to the entire European market, in exchange for accepting obligations modeled on those that govern banks and regulated financial firms.
What this worked example reveals is the deeper character of MiCA. It is not a light-touch registration that lets crypto firms keep operating much as before with a new label. It is a serious authorization regime that demands real reserves, real controls, real segregation of customer money, and real accountability, and it forces every issuer and service provider to decide whether the prize of European market access is worth the cost of meeting those demands.
For well-resourced firms with a long-term commitment to Europe, the answer is often yes, and they have built the compliance machinery to clear the bar. For many smaller or offshore operators, the cost is too high or the timeline too short, which is why the market is narrowing toward a smaller set of licensed survivors. The categories and rules described earlier are not bureaucratic abstractions; they are the concrete hurdles that decide, token by token and firm by firm, who gets to operate in Europe after the transition closes.
What MiCA leaves unsettled For all its ambition, MiCA leaves important questions open, and the gaps are as revealing as the rules. The largest unsettled area is decentralized finance. MiCA is built around identifiable issuers and service providers, the companies it can authorize and supervise, but a genuinely decentralized protocol has no company at its center, no firm to hold a license or answer to a regulator. MiCA states that fully decentralized arrangements, those provided without any intermediary, fall outside its scope, which sounds clean until you ask what “fully decentralized” actually means.
The market supervisor has not yet defined the term precisely, and most real protocols sit somewhere in the middle, with a governance token, a development team, a foundation, or a front-end operator that a regulator might decide counts as an intermediary. The result is genuine uncertainty about which DeFi protocols MiCA captures and which it does not, a gap that will be filled by future guidance and enforcement instead of the text itself.
Other tensions are surfacing as the rules meet reality. MiCA places caps on how widely very large stablecoins denominated in non-European currencies, such as dollar stablecoins, can be used as a means of payment within the bloc, a provision aimed at protecting European monetary sovereignty but one that complicates life for a market where most trading is dollar-denominated.
There are overlaps with other European financial laws, such as payment services rules, that can double the compliance burden for some stablecoin activities and have prompted worries about the competitiveness of euro stablecoins. And politically, the dossier has grown charged, with some member states floating the idea of a mechanism to switch off foreign stablecoins seen as a systemic threat.
None of these unsettled questions undermines MiCA’s core achievement of creating a single framework, but they are reminders that a law this sweeping cannot anticipate everything, and that MiCA will keep evolving through guidance, enforcement, and amendment for years after the headline deadline passes.
MiCA in the global picture MiCA does not exist in isolation, and seeing it alongside parallel efforts elsewhere reveals where global crypto regulation is heading. The same years that produced MiCA also produced the United States’ first comprehensive federal stablecoin law, the United Kingdom’s move toward its own crypto regime under its financial regulator, and Hong Kong’s stablecoin ordinance, among others.
These frameworks differ in detail, but they converge on a striking number of core principles: stablecoin issuers should hold full, high-quality reserves; they should be licensed and supervised; holders should have clear redemption rights; service providers should enforce identity checks and anti-money-laundering controls; and the whole apparatus should be brought inside the regulatory perimeter that governs traditional finance. MiCA, having arrived early and comprehensively, has functioned as something of a reference point that later frameworks echo and respond to.
This convergence matters for anyone trying to understand the trajectory of the industry. The era in which crypto operated in a regulatory vacuum, where an exchange could serve a global audience with minimal oversight, is closing, and MiCA is one of the clearest markers of that shift. The picture that emerges is of a maturing market in which access increasingly depends on compliance, in which the same stablecoin can be freely available in one jurisdiction and delisted in another based purely on its issuer’s regulatory posture, and in which the cost of operating legally has risen sharply.
For Europe specifically, MiCA’s promise is a safer, more transparent market with clear rules and a public register of authorized firms and tokens that anyone can consult. Its cost is a heavier compliance burden, a narrower field of providers, and reduced access to some popular global assets. Whether that trade favors consumers or stifles innovation is the live debate, but the direction is set: in Europe, crypto is now a regulated activity, and after July 1, 2026, that is true without exception.
What it means for everyday users For an ordinary person using crypto in Europe, MiCA changes the landscape in concrete ways worth understanding before the deadline instead of after. The most immediate effect is on which platforms and tokens you can use. If you rely on an exchange that has not secured a MiCA license, that platform may be forced to stop serving European Union clients after July 1, 2026, which in practice can mean frozen new deposits, halted trading features, and eventually a forced withdrawal of your funds, sometimes during a period of low liquidity and high fees. The protective move is to check, today instead of on July 2, whether the platforms you use have secured or are clearly on track to secure authorization, and to favor those that have. An unauthorized service operating after the deadline offers reduced legal protection and potential restrictions on access to your own assets.
The second effect is on stablecoins. If you hold a non-compliant stablecoin on a European Union-regulated exchange, you may find it delisted, with trading pairs removed and liquidity drying up, which is why many European users have shifted toward MiCA-authorized options. You can still self-custody whatever you like, but the convenient on-ramps and trading pairs increasingly favor compliant tokens. The broader takeaway is that MiCA, for all its complexity, ultimately aims to make the European crypto market safer and more transparent for users by ensuring the exchanges they trust meet real standards and the stablecoins they hold are genuinely backed. The cost of that safety is fewer choices and more friction, and a transition period that, for some platforms and tokens, ends abruptly.
The practical wisdom is simple: understand which of your platforms and assets are compliant, make any moves before the deadline instead of during the disruption, and treat MiCA authorization as a meaningful signal that a service has accepted real regulatory accountability.
Frequently Asked Questions What does MiCA stand for and what is it? MiCA stands for Markets in Crypto-Assets. It is the European Union’s first comprehensive law for crypto-assets and the companies that deal in them, formally Regulation (EU) 2023/1114. It replaces the previous patchwork of national rules with one harmonized framework across all twenty-seven member states, covering token issuers and service providers like exchanges, custodians, and wallet providers. Its goals are to protect consumers, prevent market abuse, ensure stablecoins are properly backed, and bring crypto inside the same kind of regulatory perimeter that governs traditional finance, while letting authorized firms operate bloc-wide.
Why was USDT delisted in Europe but not USDC? Under MiCA, a stablecoin can only be offered by European Union-regulated platforms if its issuer is authorized and meets MiCA’s reserve, redemption, and governance rules. Circle pursued authorization through a European subsidiary and obtained MiCA approval for USDC and its euro stablecoin EURC, so they remain available. Tether did not apply for MiCA authorization and confirmed USDT was non-compliant, so European Union-regulated exchanges delisted it. USDT is not banned outright; it can still be self-custodied and traded on decentralized exchanges, but licensed European platforms can no longer offer it.
What happens on July 1, 2026? That is when MiCA’s transition period ends across the entire European Union. The transition, or grandfathering, let firms already operating under national rules keep going while they applied for full MiCA authorization. After July 1, 2026, any company providing crypto services to European Union clients without a proper MiCA license is breaking European Union law. The market supervisor has stated there will be no extensions. Because relatively few firms have secured licenses, especially to run trading platforms, many exchanges may be forced to exit the European market or wind down their services there.
What is a CASP under MiCA? A CASP is a crypto-asset service provider, MiCA’s term for companies that offer crypto services such as exchanges, brokers, custodians, wallet providers holding customer assets, and trading platforms. To serve European Union clients, a CASP needs MiCA authorization, which comes with obligations modeled on traditional finance: identity checks and anti-money-laundering controls, segregation and safekeeping of customer assets, governance and capital standards, market-conduct rules against manipulation and insider trading, operational-resilience requirements, and the crypto travel rule. Once authorized in one member state, a CASP can passport its services across all twenty-seven.
Does MiCA regulate DeFi and NFTs? Only partly, and with significant uncertainty. MiCA largely excludes non-fungible tokens unless they are issued in a large fungible series that makes them behave like ordinary tokens. For decentralized finance, MiCA says fully decentralized arrangements provided without any intermediary fall outside its scope, but it has not precisely defined “fully decentralized.” Since most protocols have a governance token, a development team, a foundation, or a front-end operator, regulators may decide some of them have an intermediary that MiCA captures. So the treatment of many DeFi protocols remains unsettled and will be clarified through future guidance and enforcement.
How does MiCA affect ordinary crypto users in Europe? Mainly through which platforms and tokens you can use. If an exchange you use has not secured a MiCA license, it may have to stop serving European Union clients after July 1, 2026, which can mean halted deposits and trading and eventually forced withdrawals. Non-compliant stablecoins may be delisted from regulated exchanges, with liquidity shifting to compliant ones like USDC. The protective steps are to check whether your platforms are authorized, move before the deadline instead of during any disruption, and treat MiCA authorization as a signal that a service has accepted real regulatory accountability. You can still self-custody assets freely.
This article is educational information, not legal or financial advice. MiCA implementation, license counts, stablecoin compliance status, and deadlines can change, and details reflect reporting available as of June 25, 2026. Confirm current requirements and the status of specific platforms and tokens through official sources such as the European Securities and Markets Authority register before relying on anything described here.
Na Starknet přichází STRK20, které přidává soukromé převody USDC a shieldované zůstatky bez změny standardu ERC-20. Soukromé transakce jsou zároveň auditovatelné přes viewing key.
Skip to contentHow STRK20 brings confidential stablecoin payments to DeFi
Stablecoins have become the unit of account for onchain finance. They settle trades, move treasury, pay contributors, and back most of the liquidity that DeFi runs on. But every one of those transfers carries a cost that rarely gets named: it is permanently, irreversibly public.
On Starknet, this has changed with privacy features for USDC, built with STRK20. With STRK20, Starknet’s native privacy framework, USDC on Starknet gains confidential capabilities: shieldable, privately transferable, and usable across DeFi, without leaving the standard ERC-20 behind.
The transparency problem with blockchain transactionsSend stablecoins on any chain and you broadcast the full transaction to anyone watching: the sender, the recipient, the exact amount, and the timestamp, all written to a public ledger forever. For a base layer that’s a feature. For the entity actually moving the money, it’s an exposure.
A treasury rebalance reveals position size and intent. A market-making wallet leaks its strategy with every fill. Counterparties can map your entire balance history before you’ve signed a single agreement, and MEV searchers can reconstruct your behaviour from a single linked address. The transparency that makes the network trustworthy makes its most important asset hostile to anyone who needs discretion, which is to say most enterprises, most institutions, and a fair number of individuals who simply expect their finances to be their own.
Workarounds exist, but they fragment liquidity, demand new tokens, or wrap privacy in a separate app users have to trust and migrate to. None of that is the same thing as privacy on the asset you already hold.
Introducing USDC privacy features with STRK20STRK20 is a privacy framework for all ERC-20 tokens on Starknet. It lets any ERC-20 support shielded balances and private transfers without altering the token contract and without asking wallets or apps to rebuild from scratch. USDC is among the first stablecoins on Starknet to have these privacy capabilities.
The model is:
– Shield USDC to hold a private balance, invisible to outside observers on the public ledger.
– Unshield at any time to return to standard, fully transparent ERC-20 behaviour.
– Transfer shielded USDC privately, with asset type, amount, and participating wallets all hidden from outside view.
Crucially, this is privacy at the protocol level, not an app integration. It’s the same USDC, in the same wallet, private when you need it to be and visible when you don’t. There’s no second token, no bridge into a walled garden, no duplicated balance to reconcile.
How it worksShielding moves USDC into a privacy pool where balances and transfers are protected by zero-knowledge proofs rather than published in the clear. A private transfer proves the transaction is valid (funds exist, the sender is authorised, nothing is double-spent) without revealing what moved, how much, or between whom.
Proof generation happens operator-side; verification happens at the sequencer level, using the same infrastructure Starknet already uses to prove its own blocks. Unshielding reverses the process, returning USDC to the public ledger whenever the user chooses.
And it won’t price privacy as a tax. Unlike approaches that skim a percentage of transaction value, STRK20 charges a fixed fee per transaction, closer to a gas fee than a toll. That flat cost is what makes private stablecoin payments viable at real volume rather than only for the largest transfers.
Confidential DeFi on Ready X and XversePrivacy that strands your assets isn’t very useful, so STRK20 is built for assets to stay composable. From the privacy pool, users will be able to swap in and out of USDC confidentially on Ready and XVerse wallets
That means you can hold a private balance and still participate in onchain markets without re-exposing yourself the moment you want to do something with it. These are the first integrations, not the last; more DeFi venues will follow as the framework rolls out.
Compliance architecture and viewing keysPrivacy and auditability are usually framed as a trade-off. STRK20 is designed to deliver both, by building compliance rather than bolting it on.
When a user shields, they automatically register a viewing key. The key is scoped to that user and that user alone. If a legitimate legal request is made, a designated third-party auditing entity can use it to reconstruct *that specific user’s* transaction history, and nothing else. No other participant in the pool is affected, and access sits with authorised bodies under legal process, never with counterparties, observers, or the users themselves peering into one another.
The result is privacy for users by default, with a clean, scoped path to auditability for regulators when the law requires it.
Why StarknetNone of this is incidental to Starknet; it’s a direct consequence of what the network was built on. Years of zero-knowledge research and engineering by StarkWare produced a STARK-based proving and verification stack efficient enough to make private payments both cheap and scalable, rather than a premium feature reserved for whales.
That same efficiency is why STRK20 can support complex private payments at scale where other privacy designs hit a wall. And it isn’t experimental: verification runs on the very infrastructure Starknet has used to prove its own blocks in production for over five years. Shielded USDC inherits that foundation.
Stablecoins gave onchain finance a unit of account. STRK20 is set to give it a private one.
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Confidential stablecoin payments are here on Starknet. Follow the rollout and get the technical details at strk20.starknet.io
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USDC od Circle se stal prvním globálním dolarovým stablecoinem schváleným japonskými regulátory. Circle tím posiluje vstup do Japonska přes partnerství se SBI Holdings.
Circle is making an aggressive push into Japan’s corporate finance landscape, with ambitions to bring instant foreign currency settlement capabilities to one of the world’s largest economies.
At the center of that strategy: USDC, Circle’s dollar-pegged stablecoin, which became the first global dollar stablecoin to receive approval under Japan’s Financial Services Agency framework.
The SBI Holdings partnership driving Circle’s Japan expansion Circle’s Japan entry has been anchored by its partnership with SBI Holdings, one of the country’s most influential financial conglomerates. That collaboration kicked off in 2023 and has since produced tangible results.
The most significant: the establishment of Circle Japan KK, a dedicated local entity designed to serve as the operational hub for Circle’s activities in the Japanese market.
On the product side, SBI VC Trade, SBI’s crypto exchange arm, received regulatory approval on March 4, 2025, to list USDC. The stablecoin’s official launch on the platform was set for March 26, 2025.
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The approval matters because Japan’s stablecoin rules require issuers to meet strict reserve and compliance standards. Circle clearing that bar with USDC positions the token as a credible instrument for Japanese institutions, not just retail crypto traders.
Why corporate FX settlement is the real prize Japan is the world’s third-largest economy by GDP, and its corporations move enormous volumes of foreign currency every single day.
Traditional FX settlement between Japanese firms and their international counterparts typically involves correspondent banking networks, multiple intermediaries, and settlement windows that can stretch across days.
Stablecoins like USDC offer a fundamentally different model. Settlement can happen in minutes rather than days. Transaction costs drop significantly. And the entire process runs on blockchain rails that provide real-time transparency.
Circle has been positioning USDC as precisely this kind of corporate infrastructure tool, targeting institutional adoption for digital payments, liquidity management, and treasury operations.
What this means for investors and the broader market First, regulatory precedent. Japan approving USDC under its FSA framework creates a template that other Asian regulators might follow.
Second, competitive dynamics. The Japanese crypto market has historically been somewhat insular, with domestic players like bitFlyer and Coincheck dominating. Circle entering through a partnership with SBI, rather than trying to go it alone, reflects a pragmatic understanding of how business gets done in Japan.
Third, the liquidity implications. If USDC gains meaningful traction among Japanese corporations for settlement purposes, it could significantly boost the token’s overall circulation and utility.
Japan’s regulatory environment overhauled its crypto regulations after the Mt. Gox collapse and again after the Coincheck hack. Any compliance stumble by Circle or its partners could trigger regulatory tightening that slows adoption.
The key metric to watch is actual USDC transaction volume on Japanese platforms in the months following the March 26, 2025 launch.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
SEC schválila změnu pravidel pro zalistování aktivně spravovaného T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF na NYSE Arca. Fond má držet zhruba 5 až 15 různých kryptoměn včetně BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, ADA, AVAX, LTC, DOT, DOGE a LINK.
On June 14, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings show the regulator has formally approved a rule change proposed by NYSE Arca that enables the listing and trading of the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF. An actively managed cryptocurrency ETF, the fund will invest in a basket of digital assets meeting SEC-defined "eligible asset" criteria. While it uses a cryptocurrency index as its benchmark, it will not track that index passively. The filing notes the fund is projected to hold roughly 5 to 15 distinct cryptocurrencies, including major tokens like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), XRP, Cardano (ADA), Avalanche (AVAX), Litecoin (LTC), Polkadot (DOT), Dogecoin (DOGE), and Chainlink (LINK). The SEC filing also reveals the fund may hold stablecoins—primarily USDC—as "tokenized cash" during normal operations to cover expenses and rebalance assets, though these will not count toward its core investment portfolio. The approval notice stresses the product must adhere to NYSE Arca’s rules around anti-manipulation, disclosure, liquidity, and risk management. It also requires the fund to have information barriers (often called "firewalls") and position transparency mechanisms in place to uphold market fairness and prevent insider trading. Analysts say this ETF’s approval further expands cryptocurrency’s footprint within the traditional financial sector, marking the arrival of actively managed multi-crypto ETFs as tradable products under mainstream regulatory oversight.
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PancakeSwap přidal na Monad nový MUSD-USDC stablecoinový pool a počet incentivizovaných likviditních poolů na síti vzrostl na 17. Odměny a zvýšené APR se distribuují přes Merkl.
PancakeSwap is deepening its footprint on Monad with the addition of a new MUSD-USDC stablecoin pool, bringing the total number of incentivized liquidity pools on the chain to 17. The move pairs MetaMask’s wallet-native stablecoin with USDC, offering liquidity providers boosted annual percentage rates distributed through the Merkl incentive platform.
What’s in the pool MUSD, or mUSD, is MetaMask’s stablecoin that launched in September 2025. It’s backed 1:1 by short-term US Treasury bills, which makes it structurally similar to competitors in the treasury-backed stablecoin space.
The boosted APRs for this pool and the other 16 incentivized pools on Monad are facilitated through Merkl, a platform that handles reward distribution for DeFi protocols. Rather than PancakeSwap manually distributing incentives, Merkl automates the process, letting liquidity providers claim rewards based on their contribution to the pool.
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PancakeSwap supports both its v2 and v3 concentrated liquidity models on Monad. The v3 model lets users specify price ranges for their liquidity, which can dramatically improve capital efficiency on stable pairs where the price barely moves.
Monad’s growing DeFi stack PancakeSwap’s initial liquidity incentives on Monad kicked off around November 2025, and the protocol has been steadily adding pools since then. Previous boosted pairs included MON-USDC, AUSD-USDC, and wrapped synthetic MON variants, covering both volatile and stable trading pairs.
The addition of MUSD-USDC on June 15, 2026 brings the total to 17 incentivized pools. MetaMask’s involvement adds another layer: by pushing mUSD into PancakeSwap’s incentivized pools, the wallet provider is creating familiar on-ramps for its user base.
What this means for liquidity providers and investors The specific APR figures were not disclosed with this announcement, which means investors will need to check the Merkl platform directly for current rates. APRs on incentivized pools tend to be highest in the early days when liquidity is still building, then compress as more capital flows in.
One risk worth flagging: incentivized APRs are temporary by nature. When the rewards dry up, liquidity tends to migrate to wherever the next boost appears. The real test is whether the pool generates enough organic trading volume to sustain competitive returns after incentives taper off.
The treasury-bill backing of mUSD provides a degree of structural safety that purely algorithmic stablecoins can’t match. But investors should still evaluate smart contract risk on both PancakeSwap’s Monad deployment and the Merkl distribution layer, as multi-protocol interactions create additional attack surface.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
PancakeSwap spouští na Base pobídky v USDC pro bridged SOL a jitoSOL tokeny. Cílem je přilákat likviditu ze Solany do širšího cross-chain DeFi ekosystému. Cílové likviditní páry zahrnují SOL-jitoSOL a SOL-USDC, přičemž tokeny jsou bridged přes Coinbase bridge.
PancakeSwap is rolling out USDC incentives for bridged SOL and jitoSOL tokens on its Base deployment, a move designed to pull Solana-native liquidity into the broader cross-chain DeFi ecosystem. The targeted liquidity pairs include SOL-jitoSOL and SOL-USDC, with tokens bridged via the Coinbase bridge.
The initiative is a team effort. Base, Jito, Merkl, and Gauntlet are all involved in structuring and distributing the incentives to liquidity providers. BeefyFinance is running a parallel campaign it’s calling “summer incentives,” offering auto-compounding vaults for SOL-cbBTC, SOL-USDC, and jitoSOL-SOL pairs on Base.
What’s actually on the table Earlier promotional rounds for SOL-jitoSOL pools on PancakeSwap featured APRs exceeding 100%. The new USDC incentive structure targets the same general liquidity territory. By denominating rewards in USDC rather than a governance token or volatile asset, PancakeSwap is offering something more predictable. Stablecoin incentives reduce the risk that your farming rewards evaporate the moment you try to harvest them.
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For the uninitiated, jitoSOL is Jito’s liquid staking token on Solana. You stake your SOL through Jito’s protocol, and in return you get jitoSOL, a token that accrues staking rewards plus MEV tips over time.
The Coinbase bridge serves as the pipeline. Users bridge their SOL or jitoSOL from Solana to Base (chain ID 8453), then deposit into PancakeSwap’s liquidity pools or BeefyFinance’s vaults. The vault option on BeefyFinance auto-compounds returns, meaning you don’t have to manually claim and re-deposit rewards.
Why Base, and why now PancakeSwap’s collaboration with Gauntlet, a risk management and optimization firm, suggests the incentive distribution isn’t purely spray-and-pray. Gauntlet typically models optimal incentive allocation to maximize liquidity depth relative to spend. Merkl handles the actual distribution mechanics for reward campaigns across DeFi protocols.
The BeefyFinance integration adds another layer. Beefy is a yield optimizer that sits on top of DEXs like PancakeSwap, automatically harvesting and reinvesting farming rewards. The SOL-cbBTC vault pairs bridged Solana with cbBTC, Coinbase’s wrapped Bitcoin product, on Base, auto-compounded by BeefyFinance.
What this means for investors For liquidity providers weighing whether to participate, the risk calculus involves several layers. There’s bridge risk (moving assets between chains always introduces smart contract exposure), impermanent loss (especially in volatile pairs like SOL-USDC), and the opportunity cost of parking capital in these pools versus alternatives on native Solana DeFi.
The USDC denomination of rewards does mitigate one common concern. When farming rewards are paid in a protocol’s native governance token, you’re essentially betting that token holds value. USDC rewards are worth a dollar.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
MEV bot JaredFromSubway byl podle Blockaid vyprázdněn přes falešné tokeny a otevřená schválení, která útočník zneužil k odčerpání asi 7,5 milionu USD. Bot později tvrdil ztrátu 15 milionů USD.
Ethereum’s well-known MEV bot JaredFromSubway was drained after an attacker used contracts that made its automated trading system grant token approvals, according to Blockaid.
Summary
Blockaid says attacker-controlled contracts tricked JaredFromSubway’s automated system into granting approvals later used for draining. Jared publicly claimed a $15 million loss, while Blockaid’s public estimate stood near $7.5 million. Crypto.news previously tied JaredFromSubway to Vitalik Buterin’s swap and heavy Ethereum gas use in 2023. The security firm said the incident was not a normal phishing case and not a direct bug in the victim contract.
“This is not a classic phishing attack and not a traditional smart-contract vulnerability in the victim contract,” Blockaid said.
The firm said the bot approved attacker-controlled contracts during routes that appeared to be profitable MEV trades.
Blockaid says approvals stayed open Blockaid said the attacker first tested routes where approvals were used at once, leaving no open allowance. Later, the attacker changed the route design so the bot gave approvals that were not spent or revoked.
One example cited by Blockaid involved an approval of about 92.16 WETH to an attacker helper contract. Etherscan data for the transaction showed jaredfromsubway.eth interacting with its MEV Bot 2 contract before the later sweep. The transaction record also showed ERC-20 movements tied to the same automated route.
Final sweep hit WETH, USDC and USDT The final transaction used the open approvals to pull WETH, USDC and USDT from the JaredFromSubway MEV bot contract through transferFrom. Etherscan showed transfers from “jaredfromsubway: MEV Bot 2” to the attacker wallet beginning with 0x3e37.
Blockaid put the drained amount at about $7.5 million. The JaredFromSubway account later claimed the loss was $15 million and offered a $1 million bounty for the full return of the funds. That difference has not been fully explained in the public posts reviewed.
How the attacker turned the bot’s logic against it The attack appears to have targeted the bot’s own trading workflow. MEV bots watch Ethereum activity and act on transactions that look profitable. In this case, attacker-controlled contracts made the route look useful enough for the bot to approve spending rights.
The attacker used 66 fake token contracts that copied the look and function of WETH, USDC and USDT. These contracts were paired with fake liquidity pools. The setup pushed the bot toward approvals that later became the path for the drain.
JaredFromSubway’s record is back in focus JaredFromSubway is one of Ethereum’s most watched sandwich bots. In a sandwich attack, a bot places trades before and after a user’s swap. This can give the user a worse price while the bot captures the spread.
As previously reported by crypto.news, JaredFromSubway targeted a small swap by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in April, using about $1.14 million in WETH volume across SushiSwap and Uniswap V2. Crypto.news also reported in 2023 that the bot used 455 ETH in gas within 24 hours and accounted for about 7% of Ethereum gas use during that period.
The exploit now puts attention on token approvals used by automated systems. The case shows how a system built to act quickly on open market data can be steered into unsafe permissions when controls around approvals are weak. It also adds a new chapter to the wider debate over MEV, sandwich trades and user protection on Ethereum.
For now, the key public details remain split between Blockaid’s technical thread, the on-chain records and posts from the JaredFromSubway account. No recovery had been confirmed in the reviewed updates.
IoTeX uvedl, že po útoku na ioTube je přes 86 % CIOTX zamčeno nebo zmrazeno a jen 0,4 % zůstává v ohrožení. Útočníci odcizili 410 milionů CIOTX a asi 4,4 milionu USD v aktivech.
PANews reported on February 23 that the IoTeX team tweeted that on February 21, they discovered an attack on the Ethereum side of their multi-chain bridge ioTube. The attackers stole 410 million CIOTX tokens and approximately $4.4 million in assets through four steps. Currently, over 86% of the CIOTX has been locked or frozen, 12.8% (52.4 million CIOTX) is being frozen in cooperation with Binance and other platforms, and only 0.4% (1.7 million CIOTX) remains at risk after being exchanged on DEXs. Regarding the bridge's reserve funds, the attackers exchanged the stolen reserve tokens (including USDC, USDT, WBTC, WETH, and other assets) for approximately 2,183 ETH . Of this, 1,572 ETH has been transferred to the Bitcoin network via THORChain.
The IoTeX team has taken emergency measures, including distributing patch fixes, freezing related addresses, and working with exchanges to freeze funds. The ioTube bridge service will be restored after an independent security audit, along with a compensation plan and security upgrades. The team is committed to ensuring the safety of community assets and will release a more detailed compensation plan and hold a community AMA within the next 48 hours.
Previously reported, IoTeX suffered a loss of approximately $2 million in assets and is expected to be operational within 48 hours . Upbit has added IoTeX (IOTX) to its transaction alert list .
TLDR The Polkadot community is currently voting on the proposal to launch a native stablecoin backed by DOT tokens. Bryan Chen, co-founder of Acala, introduced the pUSD stablecoin proposal to reduce reliance on USDT and USDC. The pUSD proposal has gained 74.6% support but requires 79.7% approval to pass in the ongoing referendum. Community members remain divided over Acala’s involvement in the pUSD project due to the failure of aUSD Gavin Wood outlines a broader vision for stablecoins within Polkadot, emphasizing the benefits of using pUSD for validator rewards. The Polkadot community is currently voting on a major proposal to launch a native stablecoin, pUSD. This stablecoin would be entirely backed by DOT tokens, the network’s native cryptocurrency. The proposal has sparked a heated debate, drawing strong opinions both in favor and against the initiative. At present, the vote is ongoing, and it could significantly influence the future of the Polkadot network.
Polkadot’s Push for a Native Stablecoin Bryan Chen, co-founder of Acala, introduced the proposal for pUSD. The plan suggests launching the stablecoin on Polkadot’s Asset Hub using the Honzon protocol. Honzon had previously been used in Acala’s aUSD project, which faced a failed launch due to an exploit. Despite the past failure, Chen has emphasized the importance of Polkadot having a decentralized stablecoin to reduce its reliance on USDT and USDC.
Chen stated, “A native stablecoin will prevent Polkadot from losing liquidity to other chains that already have one.” He believes pUSD can maintain the network’s strategic advantage in the rapidly evolving blockchain ecosystem. Although over 74.6% of the votes are in favor of the stablecoin, the measure requires 79.7% approval to pass. With over $5.6 million in DOT already committed to the vote, the outcome remains uncertain.
Acala’s Memories and Community Doubts Despite the potential benefits of a native stablecoin, memories of Acala’s previous failure have caused skepticism. The aUSD project’s collapse in 2022 due to an exploit left a lasting impact on the community. Some members argue that Acala should not be entrusted with launching another stablecoin, given the risks involved.
A group known as TheGlobedotters expressed concerns, urging that Acala’s involvement should be avoided. Others, like The White Rabbit, have said they could support the proposal if Acala were excluded from its development. They also call for strict governance safeguards before any stablecoin is deployed.
Gavin Wood Outlines the Broader Vision for Polkadot Polkadot’s founder, Gavin Wood, has also weighed in on the stablecoin debate. He outlined a broader strategy that includes both fully collateralized stablecoins like pUSD and more flexible “stable-ish” assets. Wood believes a multi-approach strategy is necessary to address Polkadot’s volatility issues while stabilizing the network’s validator rewards.
Wood suggested that validators could be paid in pUSD instead of volatile DOT, which would stabilize their income. He argued that such a move would attract institutional participants and enhance Polkadot’s long-term security. “A DOT-backed stablecoin like pUSD could be key to strengthening Polkadot’s position,” Wood added.
Coinbase uvedla, že smlouva na USDC s Circle se automaticky obnovuje každé tři roky a nelze ji ukončit. Firma tak má stabilní podíl na úrokových výnosech z rezerv USDC.
TLDR: Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas confirmed the USDC contract auto-renews every three years into perpetuity. CLO Paul Grewal confirmed Circle’s contract terms are set and will auto-renew without renegotiation. The USDC contract cannot be terminated by either party, providing Coinbase with long-term stability. Coinbase earns a share of USDC reserve interest income, secured through the auto-renewal structure. The USDC contract between Coinbase and Circle auto-renews every three years and cannot be terminated, executives confirmed.
This disclosure came during Coinbase’s Q1 2026 earnings call. Chief Financial Officer Alesia Haas addressed the contract’s structure directly on the call.
Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal also weighed in, confirming the existing terms remain set. Both executives stated that Coinbase expects to maintain the relationship with Circle under the same conditions.
CFO Alesia Haas confirmed the USDC contract structure during the Q1 2026 earnings call. She stated the agreement “auto-renews every three years into perpetuity and cannot be terminated.”
Coinbase: USDC Contract With Circle Auto-Renews Every Three Years and Cannot Be Terminated
Coinbase CFO Alesia Haas said on the earnings call that Coinbase’s USDC contract auto-renews every three years into perpetuity and cannot be terminated. Coinbase CLO Paul Grewal also said… pic.twitter.com/Pjpg3PBGIQ
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 8, 2026
This means neither party holds the ability to exit the arrangement. The structure ensures a continuous and uninterrupted partnership between Coinbase and Circle.
The three-year renewal cycle removes any uncertainty around the long-term viability of the agreement. Coinbase derives a meaningful portion of its revenue from USDC-related interest income.
With the contract locked in, that revenue stream remains stable and predictable. Investors, therefore, have a clearer view of Coinbase’s stablecoin earnings outlook.
Haas also used the earnings call to introduce Shan Aggarwal as a key leadership addition. Aggarwal joins as Coinbase’s new Chief Business Officer and Head of Investor Relations.
She described him as her right hand during the company’s 2021 direct listing. He also led Coinbase’s Series E fundraise back in 2018.
CLO Paul Grewal Reaffirms Coinbase’s Contract Terms With Circle CLO Paul Grewal also addressed the Circle partnership during the same earnings call. He confirmed the “existing contract terms with Circle are set, will auto-renew.”
Furthermore, Grewal noted that Coinbase expects to continue the relationship under those same terms. His remarks reinforced what Haas had already outlined earlier in the call.
This confirmation is relevant given the growing role of USDC in the stablecoin market. Coinbase earns a share of interest income from the reserves backing USDC.
The three-year auto-renewal cycle keeps that income stream locked in without interruption. As a result, the contract provides the company with a reliable and recurring revenue base.
Together, the remarks from Haas and Grewal offer investors consistent and clear messaging. The USDC contract remains a foundational part of Coinbase’s business model.
Both executives’ statements confirm that Circle is a core, long-standing strategic partner. Coinbase’s stablecoin position, as a result, stays well-supported for the years ahead.
Gearbox Protocol debutoval na Etherlinku s USDC vaultem od Re7 Labs a přináší institucionální DeFi strategie na Tezos Layer 2. Za sedm měsíců už Gearbox vytvořil objem obchodů dosahující 2,8 miliardy USD.
Curators may now create custom lending markets by using this distinctive, institutional-grade lending infrastructure . Over the course of seven months, Gearbox users have created $2.8 billion in trading volume across Ethereum DEXs. Gearbox Protocol, which has a USDC vault curated by Re7 Labs, has debuted on Etherlink. The deployment uses treasury-backed tokens like mTBILL, mBASIS, and mRe7YIELD to provide institutional-grade strategies to the Tezos Layer 2.
As DeFi’s credit layer, Gearbox links customers looking for composable leverage across return-generating options with passive liquidity providers. Curators may now create custom lending markets by using this distinctive, institutional-grade lending infrastructure thanks to the introduction of permissionless.
“We’ve been looking for the right L2 to expand Gearbox Permissionless, and Etherlink’s performance metrics and ecosystem convinced us,” said Mikhail Lazarev, Founder and CTO at Gearbox Protocol. “When you can get soft confirmations in under 500ms with fees that are negligible, combined with well-known DeFi protocols, it opens up entirely new possibilities for capital efficiency in leveraged strategies.”
As a vault curator, Re7 Labs contributes substantial experience, overseeing more than 700 million TVL over more than 100 pools on 14 blockchains. Re7, one of the leading DeFi curators in the world, uses unique risk management frameworks to generate profits. In order to increase underlying returns while upholding cautious risk criteria, the vault technique loops return-bearing tokens against USDC.
Evgeny Gokhberg, Managing Partner at Re7 Capital, said: “Etherlink’s infrastructure and Gearbox’s credit layer give us the ideal foundation to scale our strategies. We’re bringing institutional-grade yield to a new audience with the same discipline and risk management we apply across $1B+ in DeFi capital.”
Incentives from Apple Farm Season 2 and GEAR token payouts from the Gearbox DAO will also help the vault. Over the course of seven months, Gearbox users have created $2.8 billion in trading volume across Ethereum DEXs, and the protocol’s TVL increased by 230% to $400 million in H1 2025.
“Having Gearbox launch on Etherlink was a big win for us,” said Anthony Hayot, Head of DeFi Adoption at Nomadic Labs. “They bring serious institutional credibility, four years, zero hacks, $400 million TVL, and a product that will give real value to Etherlink users.”
For more over four years, Gearbox has had a perfect security record with no vulnerabilities or bad debt. The protocol operates under stringent governance mechanisms with 24-hour timelocks for vault parameter changes, and it has made large investments in audits by respectable firms.
Following the successful launch of Apple Farm Season 2 with over $3 million in incentives, the integration of Curve Finance to enable low-slippage stablecoin swaps, the launch of Liquid Bitcoin (LBTC) by Lombard Finance, and a 68.4% TVL increase in July that placed Etherlink among the fastest-rising Layer 2s, the Gearbox deployment comes after a period of significant momentum for Etherlink.
Through Credit Accounts and carefully chosen vaults overseen by knowledgeable asset managers, the decentralized credit layer known as Gearbox Protocol makes it possible to use composable leverage across DeFi possibilities.
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OKX Singapore spustila první scan-to-pay platby ze stablecoinů v zemi, takže zákazníci mohou u obchodníků přijímajících GrabPay platit USDC nebo USDT přes SGQR. Obchodníci dostanou vypořádání v SGD.
OKX Singapore has launched what it claims is the first stablecoin-powered scan-to-pay service in the city-state, enabling customers to spend USDC or USDT at GrabPay merchant locations by scanning standard SGQR codes.
The service, launched today through partnerships with stablecoin issuer StraitsX and payments platform Grab, allows OKX customers to convert their stablecoins into Singapore dollars at point of sale across Grab's extensive merchant network. Transactions settle through StraitsX's XSGD stablecoin using Singapore's Purpose Bound Money framework, which applies programmable logic for compliant conditional settlement.
The OKX Pay rollout addresses a longstanding challenge in cryptocurrency adoption: bridging the gap between digital asset holdings and everyday merchant acceptance. While crypto payment cards have existed for years, direct scan-to-pay integration with established merchant networks represents a more seamless user experience.
OKX Singapore's service targets the company's existing customer base, who can now utilize stablecoin holdings for daily purchases rather than converting to fiat before spending. The instant conversion mechanism addresses volatility concerns by settling transactions at real-time exchange rates.
"OKX Pay addresses real needs for customers by expanding DPTs' use beyond trading and investing to everyday payments - from a morning coffee to dining out with friends," said Gracie Lin, OKX Singapore CEO, in a statement shared with Blockhead.
The integration operates through the OKX SG app with instant USDT/USDC-to-XSGD-to-SGD conversion, while merchants receive settlement in Singapore dollars without directly handling digital payment tokens. Each transaction executes as a blockchain transfer with embedded compliance checks and real-time validation through the PBM framework.
Lim Kell Jay, regional head of Grab Financial Group, emphasized the benefit for merchant partners: "By integrating OKX Pay with GrabPay through StraitsX's settlement network, we are enabling our merchant-partners to benefit from expanding acceptance to a broader range of users and payment options, without any change to their existing flows."
The launch represents a practical application of Singapore's regulatory framework for digital payment tokens, which OKX Singapore operates under as a licensed DPT platform. The company received Major Payment Institution status from the Monetary Authority of Singapore in September 2024, allowing it to provide digital payment token services in the jurisdiction.
StraitsX serves as the regulated payment service provider enabling the settlement layer. The company's XSGD stablecoin maintains a 1:1 peg with the Singapore dollar and provides the bridge between cryptocurrency holdings and local currency merchant settlement.
"The future of payments will be defined by trust, speed, and interoperability – and stablecoins are at the heart of this shift," said Tianwei Liu, StraitsX CEO and co-founder. "The launch of OKX Pay is more than a new service but a blueprint for how stablecoins will underpin global commerce in the years ahead."
StraitsX has established integrations beyond Grab, that enables acceptance at merchants supporting regional wallets like GCash, KakaoPay, and Touch 'n Go. These partnerships position XSGD as infrastructure for cross-border stablecoin commerce across Asia.
Singapore's Purpose Bound Money framework provides the regulatory infrastructure enabling such implementations. The PBM system allows digital currencies to carry programmable conditions governing their use, ensuring transactions meet compliance requirements without manual intervention.
The launch comes as Singapore positions itself as a hub for regulated digital asset activity. The Monetary Authority of Singapore has pursued a measured approach to cryptocurrency regulation, establishing licensing frameworks while maintaining strict compliance requirements for operators.
Whether the service gains significant traction depends on user adoption patterns and merchant awareness. Grab's extensive merchant network provides broad potential acceptance, though merchant education about accepting stablecoin-originated payments may require time.
