This is a general announcement and marketing communication. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region.
Fellow Binancians,
Binance Earn presents to you new offers that are newly added to Yield Arena this week. Stay tuned for more campaigns in Yield Arena to earn rewards from Simple Earn, ETH Staking, SOL Staking, Dual Investment, and more.
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USDe:Eligible users who hold at least 0.01 USDe for 24 hours can enjoy 4.75% APR rewards from 2026-10-16 00:00 (UTC) to 2026-10-22 23:59 (UTC). Simple Earn:From 2026-10-15 00:00:00 (UTC) to 2026-11-13 23:59:59 (UTC), users who subscribe to U Flexible Products may enjoy up to 6% APR, including exclusive Bonus Tiered APR. VIP users can enjoy up to 7% APR on the first 500,000 U subscribed.Dual Investment:Join the Dual Investment October Monthly Leaderboard to earn up to 5,888 USDC from 2026-09-29 02:00 (UTC) to 2026-10-30 23:59 (UTC).
ProductOfferingsDurationAPRMin. Subscription Limit per UserMax. Subscription Limit per User Flexible ProductsUSDTFlexibleReal-Time APR (Approximately 2.5%)+4% Bonus Tiered APR(Tier 0 - 500 USDT)0.01 USDTUnlimitedUSDCFlexibleReal-Time APR (Approximately 2.5%)+2% Bonus Tiered APR(Tier 0 - 10,000 USDC)0.01 USDC300,000,000 USDCETHFlexibleReal-Time APR (Approximately 1.2%)+0.1% Bonus Tiered APR(Tier 0 - 0.2 ETH)0.002 ETHUnlimitedSOLFlexibleReal-Time APR (Approximately 2.1%)0.01 SOLUnlimitedPLUMEFlexibleReal-Time APR (Approximately 1.8%)+8% Airdrop APR0.1 PLUME9,000,000 PLUMELocked ProductsBNB90 Days0.3%+Airdrop Rewards (where applicable)0.05 BNB1,000,000 BNBSOL90 Days4%0.01 SOL500,000 SOLSOL (VIP Users)60 Days4.1% (VIP Exclusive)1 SOL2,000,000 SOLBTC (VIP Users)60 Days0.30% (VIP Exclusive)0.01 BTC10 BTC0G90 Days5.5%1 0G200,000 0GSSV90 Days12% (ETH Rewards)1 SSV2,000,000 SSVGRAM90 Days7.2%0.1 GRAM1,000,000 GRAMGRT90 Days1.8%1 GRT2,000,000 GRTETH StakingETHFlexibleDynamic APR(Up to 2.2%)0.0001 ETHUnlimitedSOL StakingSOLFlexibleDynamic APR(Up to 4.5%)0.01 SOLUnlimitedDual InvestmentBTCMultiple Settlement Dates15% or more0.00001 BTC200 BTC per SubscriptionETHMultiple Settlement Dates15% or more0.0001 ETH4,000 ETH per Subscription
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Flexible and Locked ProductsBinance reserves the right to adjust APRs at any time without prior notice.Offers are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Once subscribed, users can view their assets by going to Assets > Earn.Users may choose to redeem their assets in advance in Simple Earn Locked Products. After choosing early redemption, the principal will be returned to their Spot Accounts, and the distributed interest will be deducted from the refunded principal. Due to differing global time zones, it may take up to 72 hours to receive the tokens. However, in the case of exceptional circumstances the return of such assets may be delayed further. Please see our terms and risk warning for more details.Users will automatically receive rewards from ongoing Launchpools when they hold BNB Flexible Products and/or BNB Locked Products positions. Refer to this announcement for more information.Users may also accrue scores and qualify for Megadrop rewards with active BNB Locked Products positions. For more details, please refer to the FAQ. On top of that, users who subscribe to BNB Simple Earn products (Flexible and/or Locked) with their BNB holdings can receive airdropped tokens via HODLer Airdrops.
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Dual Investment is a high-yield structured product that allows users to buy or sell cryptocurrency at their desired price and date in the future while earning rewards no matter which direction the market goes. Learn more here.
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BTC Yield is a BTC-denominated yield product. Depositors receive BTCY, representing their strategy value. The primary strategy is covered calls—selling call options on BTC holdings, collecting premiums, and distributing them. Learn more here.
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VIP Earn is a dedicated destination for Binance VIP users, bringing together selected Simple Earn Locked and On-Chain Yield Products with VIP-exclusive APRs and higher subscription quotas. Eligible users can explore enhanced earning opportunities across a range of digital assets in one place. Learn more here.
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Note: There may be discrepancies between this original content in English and any translated versions. Please refer to the original English version for the most accurate information, in case any discrepancies arise.
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Binance Team
2026-10-21
Disclaimers:
APR rewards are distributed from Binance’s own funds, and are determined based on the assessment and evaluation of prevailing market conditions. This Promotion is not associated with the issuer of USDT/USDC in any manner.USDC is an e-money token issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS (https://www.circle.com/). USDC’s whitepaper is available here. You may contact Circle using the following contact information: +33(1)59000130 and [email protected]. Holders of USDC have a legal claim against Circle SAS as the EU issuer of USDC. These holders are entitled to request redemption of their USDC from Circle SAS. Such redemption will be made at any time and at par value.For clarity, references to “U” , “ USD1” in the content above are not direct acronyms of the “United States Dollar” fiat currency unless otherwise specified.
Stablecoin purchases can move deposits from local banks to the large banks holding issuer reserves. Community bankers want the SEC to study that shift before finalizing a crypto rule.
Key Takeaways
Community bankers want deposit analysis before SEC rule.
Group says crypto exemptions could boost stablecoin use.
USDC reserve cash sits mostly at major banks.
Higher deposit rates preceded slower stablecoin growth.
In a comment letter filed on October 20, the last day for comments, the Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) asked the SEC not to finalize Regulation Crypto Assets until it studies the rule’s effect on community-bank deposits and local lending.
What the SEC proposed and what ICBA wants
The proposal, published in the Federal Register on August 21, would exempt certain crypto-linked investment contracts from Securities Act registration in exchange for principles-based disclosures. One exemption covers raises of up to $5 million over four years; a second allows up to $75 million in each 12-month period. A conditional safe harbor would also let a token stop being treated as subject to an investment contract.
The rule covers securities offerings, not stablecoins. ICBA connects the two through the rule’s purpose. Cheaper, less risky issuance is meant to bring more tokens, trading and participants, and the letter argues that much of that activity runs on stablecoins, which serve as trading pairs, collateral and the bridge between bank money and blockchains. More trading, by that logic, means more stablecoin balances funded from community-bank accounts.
The letter also describes a slower pathway. The SEC wants exempted tokens to spread quickly and build network effects, and ICBA argues those networks could eventually carry payments that compete with checking accounts.
ICBA does not claim this proposal alone would drain a measurable sum. It frames the risk as cumulative, with the rule sitting alongside other SEC work on trading platforms, custody, broker-dealer treatment and tokenization, and says it sees no analysis of what that combined package means for bank funding. The group grounds its request in Section 2(b) of the Securities Act, which requires the SEC to weigh efficiency, competition and capital formation. In ICBA’s view, capital formation should also count deposits diverted from small-business and farm lending.
If the SEC goes ahead, ICBA’s conditions
First, a supplemental economic analysis written with the federal banking agencies. Then, in the final rule:
Tighter limits
Narrower offering thresholds or eligibility periods
More reporting
On stablecoin settlement and banking relationships
Regular reviews
Of deposit concentration and funding effects
Suspension power
To pause the relief if material risks emerge
Automatic sunset
The relief lapses unless the SEC renews it
The deposits don’t vanish – they change banks
Take a customer who moves $10,000 from a community bank to buy newly issued stablecoins, where the issuer keeps the backing cash at a large bank:
Community bank
Loses a $10,000 retail deposit
→
Stablecoin issuer
Issues $10,000 in tokens
→
Reserve bank
Gains a $10,000 institutional balance
If the issuer buys Treasury bills instead, part of the money can still return to banks, because the dealers selling the bills deposit the proceeds. Federal Reserve staff economists, in a May note reflecting their own views rather than Fed policy, conclude that stablecoins can change the mix of deposits without shrinking the total one-for-one.
That change in mix is what worries local lenders. ICBA separates lasting losses from one-off trades: “The concern is durable displacement, not merely a one-time transfer.” Buying existing tokens shifts dollars from the buyer’s bank to the seller’s. The risk is customers who start keeping working balances in stablecoin wallets instead of local checking accounts.
Those balances can pool at a few institutions. Circle says most of the USDC reserve is held in a government money market fund managed by BlackRock, with the remaining cash mostly at a handful of the world’s largest banks. A September 2025 Fed survey of senior bank finance officers, cited in the same note, found that about 40% of respondents plan to prioritize holding reserve assets for stablecoin issuers. ICBA warns that such balances may be more rate-sensitive and quicker to move than local operating deposits.
What losing them costs a community lender
ICBA’s members lend to small businesses, farmers, ranchers and homebuyers, many of whom have few other credit options, and local deposits fund that lending. When an operating account leaves, the letter says, a bank loses both the funding and its payment relationship with the customer, and replacement funding may cost more. Smaller banks, it adds, have fewer replacement options and less room to absorb outflows that persist.
A hypothetical funding gap
$10M
low-cost deposits lost
+3 pts
cost of replacement funding
$300K
extra interest per year
A bank can absorb that as lower profit, charge more on loans, or drop loans whose margins no longer cover the cost. The figures are illustrative, not an estimate of stablecoin losses.
ICBA puts a far larger figure on the wider stablecoin threat. In earlier letters to the OCC and FDIC on GENIUS Act rules, it modeled a scenario in which stablecoin yield or rewards draw up to $1.3 trillion from community banks and cut their lending capacity by about $850 billion. It says those numbers do not estimate this SEC rule, which would work through a different route. For the link between deposits and credit, it cites University of Pittsburgh professor Leming Lin, whose research found that stock market booms slow deposit growth and tighten credit for small private firms.
Banks can compete on price – at a cost
A BIS working paper published on October 13 shows the lever banks hold. Rashad Ahmed and Iñaki Aldasoro used weekly US data from January 2019 to June 2025 and found that higher deposit rates were followed by slower stablecoin growth, making the two partial substitutes. The effect was stronger for USDC than for USDT, which the authors link to USDC’s closer ties to US depositors.
That supports the case that banks can compete with stablecoins by paying savers more. For community banks, it is also a trade-off: higher deposit rates raise the same funding costs ICBA wants the SEC to examine. The May Fed note makes a similar point, saying competition for liquid balances could lift deposit rates or squeeze bank margins.
Smaller banks have adapted more slowly in earlier contests, according to the same note. When money market funds drew savings away in the 1970s and early 1980s, many community banks lacked the scale to offer sweep accounts or matching rates. In digital payments, large banks built rival products earlier, while smaller ones often relied on third-party providers. The authors also observe that banks lobbied against money market funds then, as they press for limits on stablecoins now.
Some evidence cuts the other way. Foreign demand for dollar stablecoins can add deposits at US banks when issuers hold reserves domestically, the Fed economists write. The BIS paper, for its part, tracks where savers put their money and does not show that stablecoin growth reduces total deposits or lending.
What would settle the question
With comments closed, ICBA’s case is now part of the SEC’s record. Testing it would take bank-level data: which lenders lose balances for good, which collect the reserves, what replacement funding costs, and whether local lending slows as a result. National totals would reveal little, since the money can stay in the system while changing hands. For community banks, the outcome turns on two prices: what it costs to replace lost deposits, and what it costs to keep them.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, legal or investment advice.
Author
Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else.
It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other.
What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn?
He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
Circle is doubling down on Argentina. On October 20, 2026, the USDC issuer announced a strategic partnership with Allaria, a local capital markets firm, to deepen USDC liquidity and widen institutional access in the country.
What the Allaria deal actually does
At the center of the agreement is two-sided USDC/ARS quoting across local markets. That means Allaria will stand ready to both buy and sell USDC against the Argentine peso, posting prices on each side of the trade.
The service is aimed at eligible participants rather than the general public. So this is plumbing for institutions and qualified players, not a retail app launch.
Allaria is not a newcomer looking for a crypto pivot. The firm is a leading Argentine securities house with more than 55 years of experience, offering brokerage and asset management services.
Circle’s second Argentine move this year
The Allaria tie-up is not Circle’s first local partnership in 2026. In July, the company teamed up with Grupo BIND to open institutional access to USDC through BIND’s BEN platform.
That earlier deal targeted payments and treasury management for institutions, operating under Argentina’s PSAV licensing regime for virtual asset service providers. When it was announced, USDC’s market capitalization had surpassed $70 billion.
Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has pointed to a better macroeconomic backdrop as part of the rationale. He has cited improved fiscal indicators and relaxed currency regulations, arguing that Argentina looks more attractive for foreign investment than it did two years earlier.
USDC’s foothold in a USDT region
Across much of Latin America, Tether’s USDT has been the dominant stablecoin. Argentina appears to be breaking that mold.
USDC now accounts for roughly 46% of stablecoin transaction volume in the country. That is close to half of all activity, in a region where its main rival has typically held the upper hand.
What this means for the market
For institutions operating in Argentina, the practical change is better access to dollar-denominated digital liquidity. A treasury team that wants to hold or move USDC now has an established local firm quoting peso prices, rather than relying on fragmented or offshore venues.
There are risks, too. Argentina’s economic improvement is a recent development, and Allaire’s optimism rests on fiscal and currency conditions that have reversed before. Regulation is another variable. Both partnerships depend on local frameworks such as PSAV licensing, so any change in how Argentine authorities treat virtual assets could affect how these services operate.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Alchemy is offering eligible teams building on Circle's Arc blockchain up to $10K in credits for a 90-day trial, as Arc's USDC-fee mainnet draws developers.
Blockchain infrastructure provider @Alchemy is offering eligible teams building on @arc up to $10K in credits for its services, in a bid to attract developers to Circle's new Layer 1 network. The credits go directly into a team's Alchemy account and cover a 90-day trial period.
Who the Alchemy credits are forThe program targets three groups: teams bringing an existing app to Arc, teams moving their setup onto Alchemy, and developers building their first $USDC payment flow. Alchemy supplies the servers and tools that apps use to connect to blockchains, so the credits offset infrastructure costs during the early stages of a project.
The move follows a pattern. Alchemy has run similar credit schemes for other ecosystems. In April it launched a $20 million fund for Solana builders, with , according to Yahoo Finance. Alchemy's own startup program also offers .
Alchemy is also already part of Arc's infrastructure layer. Circle's launch announcement named .
Arc's mainnet and USDC feesArc is the blockchain from @circle. The mainnet opened on September 16, and the network uses $USDC to pay fees. In Circle's words, .
That design is aimed at businesses that need predictable costs. Circle said Arc is , which lowers the barrier for teams porting apps from other networks. The company also said .
Circle has separately courted developers with its own funding. Its Arc site says the company is , and Circle Ventures has launched an , according to Bitget News.
For developers, the Alchemy credits add another low-cost way to test on the network before committing to a paid plan. Eligibility rules and application details are set by Alchemy.
Sources
Circle: Circle Launches Arc MainnetYahoo Finance: Alchemy launches $20 million fund for Solana buildersAlchemy: Startup Program
1inch, a decentralized finance (DeFi) aggregator network, has announced that users of its crypto debit card will still be able to retrieve their e-wallet balances for up to six years after account closure, even if they miss the initial withdrawal deadline set for December 18, 2026.
Program closure and withdrawal windowThe company stated that it has stopped accepting new signups for the 1inch Card. Existing cards and accounts will continue functioning for the time being, but users are strongly encouraged to move their balances as soon as possible.
Section 16 of the issuer’s card terms outlines that e-wallet funds remain redeemable for up to six years following account closure. According to the company’s FAQs, if a cardholder does not withdraw their funds by December 18, 2026, they can still make a claim directly with Crypto Life or the card issuer.
Section 16 of the card issuer’s terms ensures users can claim their funds for six years after account closure, with processes managed by third parties.
However, 1inch has stressed that these withdrawal processes are controlled by external parties, which may change their policies, timelines, or terms. The company noted that it does not have the ability to oversee or confirm these third-party processes.
Roles of Crypto Life and issuerThe final shutdown date for card functions is determined by Crypto Life and the card issuer. While December 18, 2026, is the last date recommended for withdrawals, 1inch cannot guarantee when the card will be fully deactivated, since external providers set the timeline.
Card accounts are managed by Crypto Life, with funds held by Baanx.com Ltd for the UK and Frozen Time UNIPESSOAL LDA for the EU. In Europe, Crypto Life represents Frozen Time UNIPESSOAL LDA, while in the UK, it is represented by Baanx Group Ltd. Crypto Life is responsible for elements such as account closure, card status, know-your-customer (KYC) procedures, and personal data requests. These can be handled by email or in-app chat.
1inch has asked users to share details of any unanswered requests sent to Crypto Life, including the nature and timing of the inquiry. 1inch clarified that it cannot process account-level requests itself but will document and escalate cases to Crypto Life when necessary.
The 1inch Card debuted in April 2024 as a collaborative effort with Mastercard and Crypto Life, a Baanx-linked card provider. The card specialized in converting cryptocurrencies to fiat for purchases and was accepted at merchants, online stores, ATMs in the Mastercard network, and integrated with Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Mini dictionary: Baanx.com Ltd, a UK-based fintech company, provides crypto payment solutions and white-label card services, facilitating the issuance and management of cryptocurrency-linked debit cards for various companies.
Crypto card market trends and data privacy concernsAccording to Cryptopolitan, the crypto card sector recorded a 33% surge in volume during the third quarter of 2026, reaching $4.31 billion, compared to $3.24 billion in the previous quarter.
QuarterCrypto card volumeQ2 2026$3.24 billionQ3 2026$4.31 billionUSDC-based card payments in September 2026 exceeded $439 million, more than three times the transaction value recorded for USDT payments in the same period. Card programs in the cryptocurrency sector have also faced scrutiny over user data security.
On October 5, the Based Visa Card program experienced a hack that exposed user KYC data, including passport numbers and addresses. The incident prompted Based to notify Singapore’s data regulator and file a police report.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
According to an official announcement, OKX will launch xNFLX USDC spot trading at 19:00 Beijing time on October 20.
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This is a general announcement and marketing communication. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Fellow Binancians, Qafila – a million reasons to celebrate with Binance! Join the journey, take part in activities, move through different stops, and share $1,000,000 in USDC rewards along the way. Start Now Promotion A – The First Gate: Complete your First Trade to Share $250,000 in USDC Token Vouchers Promotion Period: 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC) to 2026-11-30 23:59 (UTC) During the Promotion Period, verified and eligible users from select regions who meet the following criteria can each earn up to $20 in USDC token vouchers on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to a $250,000 in USDC reward pool: Log in to your Binance account. If you don’t have a Binance account yet, register for an account. Click the “Join Campaign” button on the activity page during the Promotion Period.Trade and reach a cumulative minimum trading volume of $25 or equivalent via eligible pairs* on Binance Spot, Convert, or Futures. Eligibility New users who joined Binance on or after 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC), orExisting users who signed up before 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC) and have accumulated zero trading volume on Spot, Convert, and Futures as of 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC). Join Promotion A Promotion B – The Bold Route: Complete your First TradFi Perpetuals Trade to Share $100,000 in USDC Token Vouchers Promotion Period: 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC) to 2026-11-30 23:59 (UTC) During the Promotion Period, verified and eligible users from select regions who meet the following criteria can get up to $15 in USDC token vouchers on a first-come, first-served basis subject to a total reward pool of $100,000 in USDC. Log in to your Binance account. If you don’t have a Binance account yet, register for an account. Click the “Register Now” button on the activity page during the Promotion Period.Trade and reach a cumulative minimum trading volume of $500 equivalent on TradFi Perps. Eligibility First-time TradFi Perps users on Binance from select regions, who have not traded TradFi Perps prior to 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC). Join Promotion B Promotion C – The Rising Road: Join the Trading Challenge to Share $75,000 in USDC Token Vouchers Promotion Period: 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC) to 2026-11-19 23:59 (UTC) How to Get Started: Step 1: Log in to your Binance account. If you don’t have a Binance account yet, register for an account now. Step 2: Click the “Register Now” button on the activity page during the Activity Period.Step 3: Click the “Join Now” button on the activity page to join one of the available Qafila teams for the Spot Trading Challenge or Futures Trading Challenge during the Promotion Period. Spot Trading Challenge: All qualified regular, VIP 1 to 3 users from select regions who confirm their participation and trade a minimum of $2,000 equivalent on eligible Spot trading pairs during the Promotion Period can join. Eligible participants will be ranked by their Spot trading volume and will be eligible for a share of rewards as per the table below. Individual Rankings Based on Spot Trading Volume Performance During the Promotion PeriodRewards Per Eligible User1st Place6% of the total prize pool2nd Place4% of the total prize pool3rd Place3% of the total prize pool4th - 10th PlacesAn equal share of 10% of the total prize pool11th - 50th PlacesAn equal share of 35% of the total prize pool51st - 100th PlacesAn equal share of 17% of the total prize pool101st - 500th PlacesAn equal share of 15% of the total prize pool501st - 5,000th PlacesAn equal share of 10% of the total prize pool Futures Trading Challenge: All qualified regular, VIP 1 to 3 users from select regions who confirm their participation and trade a minimum of $30,000 equivalent on eligible Futures trading pairs during the Promotion Period can join. This is a team-based competition. Users may join any one of the five available teams via the landing page, but cannot create new teams. Once a team is selected, it cannot be changed. The top 3 teams will be ranked by their total Futures Return on investment (ROI) and will be eligible for rewards as per the table below. Eligible individual participants will also be ranked by their Futures Return on investment (ROI) and receive rewards as per the table below. Team Rankings Based on Futures Trading ROI Performance During the Activity PeriodRewards Per Team1st Place50% of the total prize pool2nd Place30% of the total prize pool3rd Place20% of the total prize pool Individual Rankings Based on Futures Trading ROI Performance During the Activity PeriodRewards Per Eligible User1st Place6% of the team prize pool2nd Place4% of the team prize pool3rd Place3% of the team prize pool4th - 10th PlacesAn equal share of 10% of the team prize pool11th - 100th PlacesAn equal share of 35% of the team prize pool101st - 250th PlacesAn equal share of 17% of the team prize pool251st - 500th PlacesAn equal share of 15% of the team prize pool501st - 1,000th PlacesAn equal share of 10% of the team prize pool Join Promotion C Promotion D – The Lamp’s Glow: Complete your First Earn Subscription to Share $75,000 in USDC Token Vouchers Promotion Period: 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC) to 2026-11-30 23:59 (UTC) During the Promotion Period, the first 50,000 verified and eligible users from select regions who meet the following criteria can earn $1.50 in USDC token vouchers: Log in to your Binance account. If you don’t have a Binance account yet, register for an account. Click the “Register Now” button on the activity page during the Promotion Period.Subscribe to Binance Flexible Earn with 20 USDT or more for a minimum of 2 days. Eligibility: Eligible users who have never subscribed to Binance Simple Earn products (flexible savings or locked staking) prior to 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC). Reward Distribution: Rewards for Promotion D would be distributed after 3 to 4 days of successfully completing this task as a minimum holding period of 2 days is required following the user’s first Earn subscription. For example, to fulfill the requirement for this promotion, User A holds Flexible Earn with 20 USDT for a minimum of 2 days. TimelineEventDay 1User A subscribes to Flexible Earn with at least 20 USDT Day 2: From 00:00 (UTC) till Day 3 23:59 (UTC)Holding period counted as 2 days (fulfill the minimum requirement)Day 4: After 00:00 (UTC)Task marked as complete, reward distribution subject to system verification Join Promotion D Promotion E – Join My Qafila: Invite Friends and Complete Tasks to Share $500,000 in USDC Token Vouchers Promotion Period: 2026-10-20 07:00 (UTC) to 2026-11-30 23:59 (UTC) How to Participate: Visit the activity page and share your limited-time Qafila activity referral link with friends.Ensure each newly referred user (referee) completes identity verification (KYC) and both of the following task during the Promotion Period to qualify as a successful referral*: Trade eligible trading pairs and reach a cumulative trading volume of at least $20 or equivalent via Binance Spot, Convert, or Futures. For each successful referral*, both the referrer and the referee will unlock a Qafila Reward Lamp, available on a first-come, first-served basis, capped at 25 Qafila Reward Lamps per user.Open the Qafila Reward Lamp to claim your reward, containing up to $20 in USDC token vouchers. The token voucher will be sent to the referrer’s and referee’s Rewards Hub respectively in 48 hours. Please Note: *A successful referral refers to a newly referred user who registers on Binance via the referrer’s limited-time Qafila activity referral link, completes identity verification (KYC), and completes the aforementioned Task during the Promotion Period.Each eligible user (referrer and referee) can unlock a maximum of 25 Qafila Reward Lamps on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to the reward pool. It might take up to 48 hours for the USDC token voucher to be credited to the eligible user’s account. Special Leaderboard Bonus: $50,000 in USDC Prize Pool for Top Referrers In addition, eligible referrers will be ranked based on their total number of successful referrals during the Promotion Period. The top 150 referrers will be eligible to share an additional $50,000 in USDC token vouchers, with prizes up to $10,000 in USDC for the highest performer (Qafila Star), as per table below: Qualified Referrer’s Rankings Based on the Number of Successful Referrals*Rewards (in USDC Token Vouchers)1st (Qafila Star)(Must have obtained at least 1,000 successful referrals*)$10,0002nd (Qafila Champion)(Must have obtained at least 750 successful referrals*)$6,0003rd (Qafila Achiever)(Must have obtained at least 500 successful referrals*)$4,0004th(Must have obtained at least 250 successful referrals*)$3,0005th(Must have obtained at least 100 successful referrals*)$2,0006th - 10th(Must have obtained at least 50 successful referrals*)$1,000 Each11th - 50th(Must have obtained at least 30 successful referrals*)$250 Each51st to 150th(Must have obtained at least 30 successful referrals*)An equal split of $10,000 capped at $100 Please Note: *A participant will only receive the reward for a tier if they (i) are placed within that tier’s ranking range and (ii) meet that tier’s minimum Successful Referral threshold. If a participant’s ranking falls within a tier but they do not meet the minimum threshold, they will not receive that tier’s reward and will instead be re-assessed for the next lower tier for which they meet the minimum threshold (if any). For tiers with an equal-split reward pool, the pool will be split equally among eligible winners in that tier, subject to the per-user cap. Join Promotion E Terms & Conditions: Only verified users from select regions will be eligible to participate and receive rewards. Users may refer to the respective promotion specific activity page for their eligibility to participate. Rewards are subject to risk and eligibility checks. Once a task is completed, the corresponding USDC token voucher reward will be credited to eligible users’ Rewards Hub within 48 hours of task completion, following successful verification This is valid for Promotion A, B, D, E only. This is not valid for Promotion C and Leaderboard rewards for Promotion E.The following pairs are excluded from Binance Convert in the Trade Task for Promotion A & E: All trading pairs, except FDUSD/USDT, USDC/USDT, TUSD/USDT, U/USDT, BUSD/USDT, USDP/USDT, DAI/USDT, GUSD/USDT, EURS/USDT, USDN/USDT, RSV/USDT, U/USDC, USDC/BUSD, BUSD/USDP, USDC/TUSD, DAI/USDC, FDUSD/TUSD, DAI/TUSD, FDUSD/USDC, DAI/FDUSD, AEUR/EUR, BUSD/FDUSD, EUR/EURI, are eligible for trading volume calculation for Binance Convert.The following pairs are excluded from Binance Spot in Trade Task for Promotion A,C & E: AEURUSDT, BFUSDUSDT, EUREURI, EURIUSDT, EURUSDT, FDUSDUSDC, FDUSDUSDT, TUSDUSDT, USDCUSDT, USDPUSDT, UUSDC, XUSDUSDTAll Zero Fee trading pairs are excluded from Promotion C.For Promotion D, users need to subscribe to Flexible Earn with a minimum of 20 USDT for a duration of 2 days or more.Total Amount Verification: Verification is based on Net Subscription Amount which is calculated as: [Subscription Amount − Redemption Amount during the Promotion Period].Minimum Subscription Requirement: Users must subscribe to Flexible Earn with $20 or more to qualify for this task. Token should be USDT only.Task Completion Rule: The Earn task will be marked as completed only after the required holding period of minimum 2 days is met and the user continues to meet the minimum net subscription requirement of 20 USDT or more.Holding Days Rule: Holding days are counted starting from 00:00 (UTC) of the day following the subscription.Reward: Once the Earn task is successfully completed, the user will be rewarded with $1.5 in USDC token voucher within 48 hours, subject to eligibility checks, risk checks, and campaign terms.Promotion E – Qafila Reward Lamp Referral Promotion: A successful referral is a new user who registers on Binance through the referrer’s limited-time referral link, completes identity verification (KYC), and completes the aforementioned task during the Promotion Period. For each successful referral, both the referrer and the referee can unlock a Reward Box containing up to $20 in USDC token vouchers, available on a first-come, first-served basis, subject to the total reward pool in USDC token vouchers.Each user may unlock a maximum of 25 Qafila Reward Lamps. Rewards are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. If the USDC prize pool is depleted, referrers and their successful referrals will no longer be eligible for any rewards.Users must open the Reward Boxes within seven days after the Promotion ends. Thereafter, token voucher rewards will be distributed to users’ Rewards Hub within 48 hours. Learn how to redeem a voucher. Leaderboard Rewards will be distributed in the form of USDC token vouchers latest by 2026-12-31 following the offline risk check by Binance risk team. Users will be able to login and redeem their token voucher rewards via Profile > Rewards Hub. The validity period for the USDC token voucher is set at 14 days from the day of distribution. Vouchers must be redeemed before expiry. If a voucher is not claimed before its expiry, then it will be void and no replacement voucher nor other reward will be provided. Learn how to redeem a voucher. USDC token voucher rewards featured in this Promotion are included without endorsement, promotion, or recommendation by Binance.These terms and conditions (“Activity Terms”) govern users’ participation in the Referral Campaign (“Activity”). By participating in this Activity, users agree to these Activity Terms, and the following additional terms: (a) Binance Terms and Conditions for Prize Promotions; (b) Binance Terms of Use; and (c) Binance Privacy Notice; all of which are incorporated by reference into these terms and conditions. In the case of any inconsistency or conflict between these Activity Terms, and any other incorporated terms, the provisions of these Activity Terms shall prevail, followed by the following in this order of precedence, and to the extent of such conflict: (a) Binance Terms and Conditions for Prize Promotions; (b) Binance Terms of Use; and (c) Binance Privacy Notice.Sub-accounts cannot participate in this Promotion. Spot or Convert trades that are completed with a sub-account will not count toward the trading task requirement. Binance will use the real-time fiat currency to USDT rates for calculating the price of the USDT trading pair at trading time to calculate the value of the cryptocurrency trade completed during the Promotion Period. If there is no USDT pair for a specific cryptocurrency, it will be converted to another token or coin with a USDT pair to determine its value.Binance reserves the right to disqualify any participants who tamper with Binance program code, or interfere with the operation of Binance program code with other software.Binance reserves the right to disqualify and revoke rewards for participants who engage in dishonest or abusive activities during the promotion, including but not limited to registering from the same IP or device, bulk-account registrations to farm additional bonuses, creating duplicate registrations with the same identification after account deletion and any other activity in connection with unlawful, fraudulent, or harmful purposes.At Binance's sole discretion, user participation will be considered without effect and users will automatically be excluded, disqualified and prevented from accumulating benefits, in cases where it is identified: Any violations of Binance's Terms of Use, as well as attempted or proven fraud, human and/or through the use of technology; Manipulation of results or failure to fulfill the requirements and provisions set forth in these Terms and Conditions; Completion, by the user, of incorrect, outdated, mistaken information or filled with untrue information, and may also be liable for the crime of ideological or documental falsehood; Registrations and participations for which any technological means have been used or there are indications of their use, whether electronic, computerized, digital, robotic, repetitive, automatic, mechanical and/or analogous, with the intention of automatic and/or repetitive reproduction of registrations, identical or not, which will also result in the nullity of all registrations and participations made by the user who has used one of the aforementioned means or for one of the aforementioned purposes, even if not all registrations or participations have resulted from the use of such means and/or were carried out with such purpose.Binance reserves the right at any time in its sole and absolute discretion to determine and/or amend or vary these Activity Terms without prior notice, including but not limited to canceling, extending, terminating or suspending this Activity or its eligibility terms and criteria.Binance reserves the right of final interpretation of this Promotion.There may be discrepancies between this original content in English and any translated versions. Please refer to the original English version for the most accurate information, in case any discrepancies arise. Thank you for your support! Binance Team 2026-10-20 Disclaimers: EURI is an e-money token issued by Banking Circle S.A (https://www.bankingcircle.com/). EURI’s whitepaper is available here. You may contact Banking Circle using the following contact information: +44 (0)7867254482 and [email protected]. EURI purchasers can exchange their EURI at par value for funds denominated in the official currency that the EURI is referencing (EUR) for the monetary value of the EUR held by Banking Circle for the purchaser of the EURI. USDC is an e-money token issued by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS (https://www.circle.com/). USDC’s whitepaper is available here. You may contact Circle using the following contact information: +33(1)59000130 and [email protected]. Holders of USDC have a legal claim against Circle SAS as the EU issuer of USDC. These holders are entitled to request redemption of their USDC from Circle SAS. Such redemption will be made at any time and at par value.
France's National Assembly has backed a 31.4% flat tax on crypto-to-stablecoin swaps, ending tax deferral on conversions into $USDC, $USDT and $EURC-type tokens from 2027.
French lawmakers have voted to impose a 31.4% flat tax on conversions from cryptocurrency into stablecoins, ending a tax-deferred treatment that has applied to on-chain rebalancing. Under the measure, swapping digital assets into tokens such as $USDC, $USDT and $EURC would trigger a taxable event, regardless of whether proceeds stay in self-custody wallets.
What the amendment changes
The rate is not new.
Not yet lawThe vote is a first step.
The thin margin leaves the outcome open.
Industry analysts have flagged the risk of displacement. CoinDesk reported that the firm warned the proposal could drive crypto activity offshore.
For French holders, the practical effect is on strategy.
Sources
Crypto Briefing: France pushes budget vote on stablecoin swap tax to November 3CoinDesk: France's 31.4% stablecoin tax proposal risks driving crypto activity offshore, warns ChainalysisBitcoin.com News: French Assembly Narrowly Adopts Stablecoin Swap Tax Proposal
Real-world asset (RWA) platform tx has launched USTX, a dollar stablecoin for its wallet and planned marketplace for tokenized stocks.
Users will need USDC to mint USTX, which can also be redeemed for USDC, the company said in a Tuesday announcement shared with Cointelegraph. The platform accepts deposits from eight blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana and Base.
“It is not a USDC-backed wrapper or synthetic representation of USDC,” Ashley Ebersole, tx’s co-founder and chief legal officer, told Cointelegraph. USDC provides a way to mint USTX, which has its own 1:1 reserve structure through Brale, he said.
Fintech platform Brale issues USTX, manages its reserves and facilitates minting and redemption. According to tx, each token is backed by $1 in assets, including cash, bank deposits, government money market funds and short-term US Treasury bills.
Brale said in June that it was working with Visa to improve the speed and programmability of blockchain-based stablecoin settlement in environments where privacy, compliance, and operational control are essential.
Blockchain networks and trading platforms are launching their own dollar stablecoins through outside providers that handle issuance and reserve management. Native stablecoins provide a common dollar balance for buying assets, settling trades and posting collateral across a network.
Some stablecoin providers also share reserve earnings with clients. Eligible USTX users may also receive rewards through tx’s wallet programs.
The GENIUS Act prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying holders interest or yield solely for holding, using or retaining a payment stablecoin.
“The overall rewards program was designed based on legal advice to ensure it falls within what’s permissible under the law,” Ebersole said when asked how the rewards comply with the restriction.
Coinbase has released a report titled "The Always-On Dollar", which notes that in Q3 2026, the average hourly transaction volume of organic stablecoin transfers exceeded $400 million. For the 12-month period ending July 31, approximately 73% of screened stablecoin transfer volume occurred outside U.S. banking hours, highlighting the demand for always-on stablecoin payments. The report shows that adjusted quarterly stablecoin transfer volume has quadrupled since early 2023, reaching $891 billion in Q3 2026. At the current growth rate, this figure is expected to hit $1.5 trillion by the end of 2027. The report also points out that sending $200 via USDC on the Base network saves around 86% in fees compared to traditional payment channels. Additionally, if 80% of global international transactions shift to stablecoin payment networks, global annual GDP could rise by an extra $155 billion. Looking ahead, the report positions stablecoins as a critical payment infrastructure for the AI agent economy. McKinsey forecasts that by 2030, AI agents will drive $3 trillion to $5 trillion in global B2C transactions, and stablecoins can support small transactions including paying task fees between agents, purchasing API calls, and accessing data and computing power on demand.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
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Spark now supplies more than $400 million in USDC to the cbBTC/USDC lending market on Base. That makes it the source of nearly a quarter of all the USDC in the market.
The numbers behind the vault Spark is the allocation layer from the Sky ecosystem. It routes its capital through a dedicated Morpho USDC Vault, which in turn feeds the cbBTC/USDC market.
Spark’s vault has allocated over $410 million into that single market, according to the research data. Spark’s own public figure puts it at “over $400 million” and “nearly a quarter” of the market’s USDC.
The market itself is large. Total supplied assets sit at approximately $1.77 billion, with $1.60 billion borrowed.
That works out to a utilization rate above 90%. Put simply, almost every dollar lenders deposit is already out on loan.
Spark adjusts its USDC reserves to track borrowing needs, according to the research findings. Its allocations started modest and grew rapidly from there.
How the market works The market runs on Morpho as an isolated lending market. Isolated means the risk stays inside this one pairing. Problems with some unrelated asset elsewhere on Morpho do not spill into it.
The market launched on September 4, 2024. It uses an 86% liquidation loan-to-value ratio, or LLTV.
That figure sets the danger line. If a borrower’s debt climbs to 86% of their cbBTC collateral’s value, the position becomes eligible for liquidation.
Rates have cooled as competition for lending has picked up. Lenders currently earn a supply APY of about 4.73%, while borrowers pay around 5.26%.
Earlier, rates sat near 7.5%. The gap between the two rates sits at a little over half a percentage point.
The Coinbase connection In January 2025, Coinbase introduced Bitcoin-backed loans that let users borrow USDC against cbBTC directly inside the Coinbase app. Users never need to open a separate DeFi interface, and the borrowing happens on Morpho in the background.
The research findings describe Spark as a primary liquidity provider tied to that Coinbase lending launch. When a Coinbase user borrows USDC against their Bitcoin, there is a decent chance some of those dollars came from Spark’s vault.
The market has also seen a 55% rise in volumes year-to-date, according to the research data.
What this means For other lenders, falling supply APYs from around 7.5% earlier down to about 4.73% show that deep-pocketed players compress returns for everyone else in the pool.
Concentration is the risk worth watching. When one supplier provides nearly a quarter of a market’s USDC, its allocation decisions carry real weight.
The 86% LLTV allows fairly aggressive borrowing against Bitcoin. A sharp drop in Bitcoin’s price could push many positions toward liquidation at once.
Coinbase supplies the front end and the users. Morpho supplies the lending rails. Suppliers like Spark supply the dollars. Going forward, the key metrics are utilization, the spread between supply and borrow rates, and Spark’s share of the pool.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Estefano Gomez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Real World Assets (RWA) platform tx has launched USTX, a U.S. dollar stablecoin, for use on its wallet and upcoming tokenized stock trading marketplace. Users can mint USTX using USDC or redeem USTX back to USDC, with support for deposits from 8 blockchains including Ethereum, Solana, and Base. USTX is issued, its reserves managed, and minting and redemption services provided by fintech platform Brale. tx co-founder and chief legal officer Ashley Ebersole stated that USTX is not a USDC-backed wrapped token nor a synthetic representation of USDC, but instead features an independent 1:1 reserve structure. According to tx, each USTX is backed by $1 worth of assets including cash, bank deposits, government money market funds, and short-term U.S. Treasuries. tx added that eligible USTX users can earn rewards via its wallet incentive program. However, the U.S. GENIUS Act prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest or returns to users solely for holding, using, or retaining payment stablecoins. Ebersole said tx’s overall incentive program was designed under legal guidance to ensure compliance with relevant regulatory requirements.
Every stablecoin yield product answers the same awkward question.Your USDC doesn’t appreciate. It’s engineered not to. So when a platform offers you 4%, 8%, or 20% on a dollar-pegged token, that money is coming from somewhere specific — and the “somewhere” is the only thing that matters.
Most comparison posts rank these by headline APY. That’s exactly backwards. A 12% yield funded by a sustainable market mechanism is a completely different product from a 12% yield funded by token emissions that run out in six months.
So this ranking does it the other way round. Six ways to earn yield on stablecoins, ordered by how durable the underlying source actually is.
The one thing to check before you deposit anywhere Ask what the counterparty is doing with your money to generate the return. There are only a handful of honest answers:
They’re lending it to someone who pays interest They’re putting it in Treasuries and sharing the coupon They’re running a trading strategy that generates returns They’re paying you out of token emissions or marketing budget The first three are businesses. The fourth is a countdown. If a platform can’t tell you which one it is in a sentence, that’s your answer.
1. Funding-rate arbitrage — yield from a market mechanism The source: perpetual futures contracts pay funding between long and short holders every few hours to keep the contract price tethered to spot. Crypto traders lean long most of the time, so shorts tend to collect. BitMEX’s Q3 2025 analysis found funding was positive for over 92% of the quarter — a persistent tilt, not a one-off.
A position that holds spot and shorts the perpetual collects that funding while the two legs cancel out directionally. The return isn’t coming from a token printer or a borrower who might default. It’s coming from leveraged traders paying to keep their positions open.
Typical return: varies with funding conditions and strategy. VectorTraders publishes target ranges from 7.8% to 43.3% annualised across its plans, depending on term and strategy mix.
The catch: funding can stay negative for extended periods, which inverts the payment direction. Execution runs on third-party exchanges, so venue risk is real. And running it yourself means managing two legs across venues continuously — which is why most people access it through a managed product rather than doing it directly. The full mechanism is explained here, worked example included.
Why it ranks first: the source is structural rather than promotional. Perpetual futures aren’t going anywhere — on-chain perp DEXs alone turned over $593 billion in 30 days as of September 2026 — and as long as traders use leverage, someone is paying funding.
Start small and see how it behaves. VectorTraders’ entry plan opens at $100 on a seven-day term, which is about the cheapest way to watch funding capture work in practice. See the current plans →
2. Tokenized Treasuries — yield from government debt The source: your stablecoins buy short-dated US Treasury bills through a tokenized fund, and you receive the coupon.
Typical return: tracks short-term Treasury rates, minus a management fee. Whatever T-bills are paying, roughly.
The catch: returns are capped at the risk-free rate, and they fall when rates fall. Many of these products are also restricted to accredited or institutional investors, and redemption can take a business day or more.
Why it ranks second: it’s the most boring source on this list, and that’s the compliment. You know exactly where the money comes from.
3. DeFi lending — yield from borrowers The source: protocols like Aave and Morpho let you supply stablecoins to a pool that borrowers draw from, paying interest. Rates float with utilisation.
Typical return: low single digits in quiet markets, spiking when leverage demand runs hot. Highly variable.
The catch: smart contract risk is the obvious one. The subtler one is that rates collapse exactly when you most want them — in calm markets, nobody’s borrowing. You’re also exposed to the protocol’s liquidation machinery working correctly during a crash, which is the moment it’s under the most stress.
4. Exchange rewards programmes — yield from a revenue share The source: exchanges pay rewards on stablecoin balances, typically funded by sharing the interest the issuer earns on its reserves.
Typical return: low single digits. Coinbase’s USDC rewards have run around 3.5%.
The catch: this is the category regulators have been circling. The GENIUS Act, signed in July 2025, bars stablecoin issuers from paying yield on reserves directly. The CLARITY Act would have extended restrictions to platforms, but it failed a Senate procedural vote 49–50 in September 2026, so the platform-level ban never became law. A proposed OCC rule on affiliate arrangements remains unresolved.
Translation: this yield source exists at the pleasure of a rulemaking process that is still moving. Fine for parking cash. Not something to build around.
5. Yield-bearing stablecoins — yield baked into the token The source: the token itself accrues value, usually from Treasuries or a delta-neutral strategy run by the issuer.
Typical return: varies enormously by product, because “yield-bearing stablecoin” describes a mechanism, not a risk level.
The catch: you’re taking the issuer’s strategy risk and their peg risk simultaneously, and the two are correlated — if the strategy breaks, the peg is what breaks. Read what’s actually backing it. Some are Treasury wrappers. Others are leveraged positions with a dollar sign on the front.
6. Liquidity provision and yield farming — yield from emissions The source: you supply stablecoins to a liquidity pool and earn trading fees plus, usually, token rewards.
Typical return: the advertised numbers are the highest on this list, and the realised numbers frequently are not.
The catch: headline APYs on stablecoin farms are typically dominated by token emissions rather than fees. Emissions decay, the token price usually falls as rewards are sold, and the quoted APY assumes neither happens. Add impermanent loss on non-pegged pairs and smart contract risk on top.
Why it ranks last: not because it never works — it sometimes works very well — but because the source is a marketing budget with a timer on it.
Side by side MethodWhere the yield comes fromDurabilityMain riskFunding-rate arbitrageLeveraged traders paying fundingStructuralNegative funding periods, venue riskTokenized TreasuriesGovernment debt couponsVery highRate-dependent, access restrictionsDeFi lendingBorrower interestModerateSmart contract, rate collapseExchange rewardsIssuer reserve revenue shareUncertainRegulatoryYield-bearing stablecoinsVaries by issuerVariesStrategy and peg risk combinedLiquidity provisionTrading fees + token emissionsLowEmission decay, impermanent loss How to actually choose If you want the yield to still be there in two years, weight durability over headline rate. Tokenized Treasuries and funding-rate strategies both have sources that exist independently of anyone’s marketing budget.
If you’re parking cash for a few weeks, exchange rewards are frictionless and the regulatory question won’t resolve in your holding period. Just don’t plan around it.
If you want the highest sustainable rate, funding-rate arbitrage has historically offered more than Treasuries because it’s compensating you for real operational work — running two legs across venues, managing exchange exposure, handling the periods when funding inverts. That’s a genuine return source, not a free lunch, and it comes with genuine risk.
If you’re drawn to a 20%+ farm APY, work out what percentage is fees and what percentage is token emissions before you deposit. The answer is usually uncomfortable.
One rule covers all of it: if you can’t explain where the money comes from, you’re not earning yield. You’re providing it.
Want the funding-rate route without running it yourself? Plans start at $100 with a seven-day term. Explore VectorTraders →
FAQ What is the best stablecoin yield in 2026? It depends on what you’re optimising for. Tokenized Treasuries offer the most predictable source. Funding-rate arbitrage strategies have historically offered higher rates in exchange for operational and market risk. Headline APYs on farms are usually the highest and the least durable.
Is stablecoin yield legal in the US? The GENIUS Act bars stablecoin issuers from paying yield on reserves directly. The CLARITY Act would have extended restrictions to platforms but failed a Senate procedural vote in September 2026. Rules in this area are still developing, so check current terms with any provider.
Why do stablecoins pay yield at all if they don’t appreciate? They don’t, on their own. The yield comes from whatever the platform does with the deposit — lending it, buying Treasuries, or running a trading strategy. The token is just the unit you deposit and withdraw in.
What’s the safest way to earn on stablecoins? No option here is risk-free. Tokenized Treasuries carry the least strategy risk because the underlying is government debt. Every other method adds counterparty, smart contract, or market risk on top.
How much can you earn on USDT or USDC? Low single digits from exchange rewards and Treasury products. Variable from DeFi lending. Higher from strategy-based products — VectorTraders publishes target ranges from 7.8% to 43.3% annualised depending on plan and term, with returns varying by market conditions.
Can funding rates go negative? Yes. When markets lean short, longs get paid instead. BitMEX found funding positive for over 92% of Q3 2025, but negative stretches have persisted for weeks in past drawdowns — most notably in March 2020 and after the FTX collapse in November 2022.
Disclosure: This content is provided by a third party. Neither crypto.news nor the author of this article endorses any product mentioned on this page. Users should conduct their own research before taking any action related to the company.
Holders who earned PAPER through trading losses can stake it for USDC distributions, but still have no date when they can transfer or sell their tokens.
Holders who earned PAPER through trading losses can stake it for USDC distributions, but still have no date when they can transfer or sell their tokens.
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A crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.
According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.
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JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
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Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
10 minutes ago
Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
The consumer-spend layer that was missing from the stablecoin infrastructure stack just arrived. Mesh handles the conversion; merchants see nothing but a normal Visa transaction.
The stablecoin payments buildout has spent the year assembling rails: Visa Direct moving USDC prefunding into commercial production, Mastercard wiring BVNK stablecoin settlement into 130 countries, and Marqeta and Coinbase building processor-layer settlement on Base. Each solved a different leg: cross-border prefunding, card issuing, and processor integration. What none of them solved was the simplest question of all: can you spend your stablecoin balance at the grocery store?
On October 19, 2026, Mesh and Visa announced a partnership that attempts to close exactly that gap. The mechanism is deliberately unglamorous. A Visa credential gets provisioned behind the scenes inside participating wallet apps. The consumer taps at a standard contactless terminal or checks out online. Mesh orchestrates how the transaction is funded and converted across crypto, stablecoin, and fiat balances. The merchant receives a normal fiat payment. No new hardware. No new workflow. Nothing changes at the point of sale except that the money can now come from a place it could not come from before.
The scale of the acceptance network is the headline number, and it bears repeating: upwards of 175 million merchant locations across more than 200 countries and territories, backed by $14.2 trillion in Visa payments volume in fiscal 2025. Mesh, which already has more than 200 enterprises on its network, acts as the program manager handling user onboarding, KYC, and the orchestration layer that routes each transaction’s funding source. Platforms where consumers hold balances integrate once with Mesh and their users can spend anywhere Visa is accepted.
The demand side makes the case for why this matters now. Global crypto ownership reached 774 million as of June 2026, per Crypto.com research, yet almost none of that collective value touches everyday spending. According to American Banker, crypto card volumes were running at roughly $1.5 billion monthly by late 2025 – a figure that remains a rounding error against the total addressable balance. Every existing route that turns a stablecoin balance into a purchase still asks the consumer to act first: cash out to a bank account and wait, or sign up for a card tied to a single platform. The Mesh-Visa model removes that friction by converting at the moment of payment rather than requiring pre-conversion.
What makes this structurally different from prior stablecoin payment launches is the principal model. Visa Direct (Post 132225) solved the cross-border prefunding leg for money transmitters and fintechs. Mastercard’s stablecoin-linked Global Money Platform solved the card-issuing leg through BVNK. Coinbase and Marqeta solved the processor settlement leg through Base. Mesh occupies a different position entirely: it sits inside the wallet, not inside the payment chain. The consumer does not need a new card, a new account, or a new app. The balance they already hold becomes purchasing power at the moment of payment, with Mesh handling the conversion and the merchant receiving standard fiat settlement.
Bam Azizi, CEO and co-founder of Mesh, framed the gap plainly: “Crypto never had a spending problem – it has a last-mile problem, and until now, closing it meant getting a separate card. Mesh handles the funding and conversion, so a balance becomes purchasing power at the moment of payment, with nothing for the user to move and nothing for the merchant to change.” Rubail Birwadker, Global Head of Growth at Visa, added: “Consumers increasingly expect to use their money however and wherever they choose. Working with Mesh helps expand how digital asset balances can connect to the trusted payment experiences consumers and merchants rely on every day.”
The initial integrators tell the story of where this lands first. Mesh already counts Kalshi, Tools for Humanity, Felix Pago, Majority, and KAST among its enterprise partners, and the company claims its network reaches hundreds of millions of users through existing platform integrations. The initial availability, supported devices, and participating platforms will be announced as rollout details are finalized, which is the standard caveat that accompanies every partnership announcement of this class.
The timing is not accidental. Money20/20 USA runs this week in Las Vegas, and the conference has programmed six stablecoin sessions across two days. The industry is no longer asking whether stablecoin payments work at scale; it is asking how fast the consumer-facing layer can be built. With GENIUS Act compliance requirements looming on January 18, 2027, institutions need production track records, not pilot announcements. The Mesh-Visa partnership is the consumer-spend equivalent of what Visa Direct did for cross-border prefunding: it converts an infrastructure question into a payments question and asks the merchant nothing at all.
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Visa has moved stablecoin prefunding on Visa Direct, its push-payments network, from pilot into commercial deployment. Payments processor Inyo Global is the first enabler, and its clients can now prefund cross-border payouts with USDC in near real time instead of relying only on traditional bank funding windows, according to Visa's October 15 release.
The stablecoin sits on the sender's side of the transaction. Inyo's platform pays out across more than 180 countries, and recipients still receive local currency. The release names USDC as the only stablecoin and does not identify the blockchains used, the corridors covered or any expected volumes. Availability "varies by eligibility and geography," the release says.
"The next chapter for stablecoins is adoption," said Vira Platonova, Global Head of Visa Direct. "We're now seeing those efforts translate into live implementations." Robson Dantas, Chief Product and Technology Officer and co-founder at Inyo Global, said: "Innovation in money movement is ultimately about creating a better experience for customers."
The production launch arrives a little over a year after Visa announced the prefunding pilot at Sibos in September 2025, when it said the pilot was expected to reach limited availability by April 2026.
Visa's own disclosures show its broader stablecoin numbers climbing quickly. At its Visa Payments Forum in June, the company put stablecoin settlement across VisaNet at an annualized run rate of approximately $7 billion and said more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were live or in development. By September 8, a Visa web page said settlement volume had "recently surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, up more than 15x year over year."
Those figures warrant some caution. Visa has not said what period the run rates are annualized from or how stablecoin settlement volume is counted.
The competitive picture has also shifted under Visa Direct. BVNK, which began powering stablecoin payments for Visa Direct in January, agreed in March to be acquired by Mastercard for up to $1.8 billion, including $300 million in contingent payments, in a deal expected to close by year-end.
Visa's fiscal year closed on September 30, and its fourth-quarter results will be the next opportunity for the company to put stablecoin settlement volume on a formal reporting footing and to name further Visa Direct partners going live.
Circle and Tether are the leading stablecoin issuers across the globe, providing USDC and USDT, respectively. However, it is Circle that has been making moves toward regulatory clarity faster than Tether.
For instance, USDC became the EU‘s first significant stablecoin under MiCA regulation. In fact, Circle’s revenue for the first half of the year, at $1.40 billion, confirmed its growing adoption.
Circle’s USDC has been dominated by agentic payments, which has contributed to such revenue. Even with that, the protocol is aiming for a larger global reach.
Circle to expand USDC to 40 developing markets
While stablecoin adoption has continued to grow, it has not reached greater levels. As such, CEO Jeremy Allaire of Circle announced they were targeting expansion into 40 developing markets across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
In this context, Visa is now moving USDC funding for cross-border payouts from pilot to commercial use across 180 countries.
However, the cost of turning USDC back into local money is unknown. A cheap transfer can still have an expensive last step.
This could widen the gap between USDC and USDT in transaction volume. According to Bernstein reports, it now handles over 60% of adjusted transaction volume in 2026, despite USDT having a bigger cap.
That is, USDC was capped at $72.5 billion, while USDT was at $183 billion, which is more than double. Still, Circle continues to provide stablecoin liquidity, minting $3.75 billion in USDC on Solana over the past 7 days.
Has Circle’s new blockchain helped in the quest?
As Circle challenges Tether in stablecoin business dominance, it launched its chain in mid-September under the name Arc. However, the Arc blockchain is still underutilized, accounting for less than 1% of all USDC, equivalent to $661.4 million.
As per Token Terminal, 66.6% of the supply was on Ethereum [ETH], with Solana [SOL], HyperEVM, Base, and Arbitrum One [ARB] following, respectively. This indicates that Arc is yet to play a key role in challenging USDT’s dominance.
Source: Token Terminal
It is still worth noting that the DeFi TVL of USDC grew by 6% upon chain launch. Weekly asset senders also increased by 5.4%, reaching 5.5 million as of press time.
However, Circle’s stock CRCL continued to decline in valuation, from $84 to $82.
Final Summary
Circle’s USDC accounts for 60% of stablecoin transactions, even though USDT has a market cap that is double.
Despite launching Arc blockchain, most of the USDC circulating supply was sitting on Ethereum and Solana.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
A crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.
According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.
10 minutes ago
OKX will list US TradFi perpetual contracts for RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST
OKX announced that it will launch U.S. dollar-denominated (U) U.S. TradFi perpetual contracts today, with underlying assets covering RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST. The launch times (UTC+8) are 17:00, 17:15, 17:30, 17:45, and 18:00 respectively. The corresponding U.S. stock underlyings for these contracts are Rumble, Critical Metals, Carvana, MP Materials, and Twist Bioscience.
10 minutes ago
$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
10 minutes ago
JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
10 minutes ago
After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
10 minutes ago
Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
A crypto whale liquidated $46 million in long positions in Tesla and semiconductor stocks, shifting instead to a large position in Google.
According to TradingBeats monitoring, a whale liquidated its long positions in Tesla, the DRAM Index, and the 3x semiconductor bull ETF SOXL last night, totaling roughly $46.317 million. The same account then established a long position in Google (GOOGL) worth approximately $44.393 million, marking a clear shift in holdings toward Google. The average entry price for this Google position is about $345.865, with an unrealized loss of around $188,000 and a liquidation price of $331.03; it also holds a long position in Amazon worth roughly $1.223 million.
10 minutes ago
OKX will list US TradFi perpetual contracts for RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST
OKX announced that it will launch U.S. dollar-denominated (U) U.S. TradFi perpetual contracts today, with underlying assets covering RUM, CRML, CVNA, MP, and TWST. The launch times (UTC+8) are 17:00, 17:15, 17:30, 17:45, and 18:00 respectively. The corresponding U.S. stock underlyings for these contracts are Rumble, Critical Metals, Carvana, MP Materials, and Twist Bioscience.
10 minutes ago
$ZEC whale with $15M portfolio accumulates 3.69M $MASK tokens worth $151K in 3 days
A $ZEC whale is buying $MASK (Nullmask)!
This whale holds over $15M in assets, including 10,241 $ZEC ($11.69M).
Over the past 3 days, he has been accumulating $MASK, buying a total of 3.69M $MASK ($151K).
10 minutes ago
JPMorgan predicts Bitcoin will be the highest-return asset over the next decade, outperforming U.S. stocks and gold.
JPMorgan Asset Management released its "2027 Long-Term Capital Market Assumptions" report on October 19, including Bitcoin in its long-term return forecast for the first time. The report projects Bitcoin’s compound annual return over the next 10 to 15 years will reach 10%, outperforming 7.5% for U.S. large-cap stocks, 5.5% for gold, and 8.2% for U.S. real estate investment trusts (REITs). It also estimates Bitcoin’s arithmetic average annual return at 20.9% and annualized volatility at 55%. Matt Hougan, chief investment officer of Bitwise, noted that JPMorgan has ranked Bitcoin as the top-performing asset expected over the next decade, a move that signals a shift in traditional financial institutions’ attitude toward crypto assets.
10 minutes ago
After Anthropic disrupted IBM, OpenAI also posted a near-perfect score in COBOL migration.
Beating AI Express: In February this year, after Anthropic demonstrated Claude Code’s capability to modernize legacy COBOL systems, IBM’s stock price plummeted 13.2% in a single day. Eight months later, OpenAI released its latest results for the GPT-6 series on legacy programming languages, with a maximum success rate of 97.9% in COBOL code migration tests.
COBOL, created in the 1950s, remains widely used in banking transactions, ATMs, and insurance systems. Many programs have operated for decades, their original developers long departed, and some business rules exist only within the code itself. Rewriting these into modern languages requires not just making the code run, but also ensuring fully consistent calculation results. For instance, COBOL’s fixed-point arithmetic discards excess decimal places unless explicitly ordered to round; a new program using rounding instead could lead to financial account errors.
OpenAI specifically tested AI’s ability to convert COBOL programs to languages including C++, Java, Python, and Rust, requiring byte-for-byte identical output between the old and new programs. GPT-6.1 Sol achieved an 86.6% success rate at low inference settings, compared to just 5.4% for the previous GPT-5.6 Sol, with an estimated API cost reduction of 39%. Success rates climbed further to 97.9% when increasing inference settings.
OpenAI also open-sourced MultiLangBench, which tasked AI with building SQLite-compatible database engines from scratch in 20 different programming languages. GPT-6 Astra posted an average test pass rate of 87.4%, versus 26.8% for GPT-5.6 Sol. Between the two models, their scores on COBOL were 72.1% and 10.9% respectively – COBOL ranks as the most challenging of the 20 tested languages.
10 minutes ago
Investors ramp up AI-related credit default swap trades to hedge against industry debt risks.
Investors are rushing to buy credit default swaps (CDS) to shield their portfolios from a potential AI boom bust. The financial instrument, which rose to prominence during the global financial crisis, has seen its trading volume surge sharply. Firms are on a borrowing spree to fund trillions of dollars in AI infrastructure spending, driving demand for these "insurance-like" derivatives that pay out if the underlying entity defaults on its debt. According to Morgan Stanley research, weekly average trading volume of CDS linked to bonds issued by Oracle, SpaceX, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Broadcom and Nvidia topped $9 billion in September, compared to less than $2 billion in July. Institutional data shows that year-to-date trading volume of U.S. corporate CDS indexes has already surpassed last year’s full-year total. (Financial Times)
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
September 2026 was the month Zoomex turned its TradFi expansion into a full trading calendar. After crossing the 50-contract milestone for Stock Perpetuals at the end of August, the platform spent September widening the lineup, adding ETF-linked perpetuals to its TradFi Zone, relaunching Zero-Fee TradFi, and opening the Zoomex World Trading Championship 2026 (ZWTC 2026) with a prize pool of up to 5 million USDT.
The backdrop was far less calm. The U.S. Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, the Federal Reserve raised rates for the first time since 2023, and Bitcoin still closed the month higher. Beneath that noise, Zoomex’s verifiable reserves stayed multi-chain, stablecoin-anchored and openly trackable, which is exactly what Transparent by Design is meant to deliver. This report reviews Zoomex’s on-chain reserves, chain and token composition, and platform metrics as tracked through DefiLlama, CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, alongside the product developments that shaped the month.
Zoomex Overview Founded in 2021, Zoomex is a global cryptocurrency trading platform focused on Derivatives, serving over 3 million users across 35+ countries and regions and offering 700+ trading pairs. Its philosophy of easy-to-use, transparent balances and fair access to earnings shapes everything from its trading interface to the way it publishes proof of reserves. Zoomex has completed security audits conducted by Hacken and holds multiple regulatory registrations, including U.S. and Canada MSB, U.S. NFA, and Australia AUSTRAC.
September’s product story was the continued build-out of the TradFi Zone.
On September 1, Zoomex confirmed that its Stock Perpetuals lineup had grown past 50 contracts across four asset categories, timed with a Zero-Fee TradFi event that ran from August 28 to September 4. On September 8, the platform announced a further expansion covering more than 30 US and global equities across four categories, all margined and settled in USDT and trading around the clock. Two days later, Zoomex put the spotlight on TSLA and NVDA exposure through its rule-based derivatives offering, reinforcing Fair Access & Rule-Based Execution for every trader.
On September 18, ahead of the Federal Reserve decision, Zoomex highlighted its ETF-linked perpetuals, SPYUSDT, QQQUSDT, IWMUSDT, XLFUSDT, XLKUSDT and TQQQUSDT, available through the TradFi Stock Perpetuals section. The same day, it relaunched Zero-Fee TradFi, running from September 11 to October 11, 2026, which rebates 100% of actual trading fees on eligible stock contracts, commodity contracts and stock tokens, capped at 100 USDT per account.
On the competition side, Zoomex launched ZWTC 2026 on September 10 with a prize pool of up to 5 million USDT, its largest to date. The Squad Competition, with up to 2.5 million USDT in prizes and three separate leaderboards, opened on September 21 and runs until October 11 at 10:00 UTC. Alongside it, Zoomex Predict World continued to feature its established Long-Term event contracts, giving traders a longer-horizon complement to the 5 Minute, 15 Minute and 4 Hour markets. Together, these launches reflect a Refined Brand & Trading Experience built around one account and one rule set for crypto, equities, ETFs and commodities.
Exchange trade volume Zoomex’s exchange trade volume ranged from about $125M to $680M in September, with the month’s defining move arriving in its final third, according to CoinGecko. September volume ranged from roughly $125M to $680M, with the month’s low on September 13 and its peak on September 22. For scale, that peak sits at about two thirds of the $1.02B high recorded in August.
Source: Coingecko On the pair side, BTC/USDT strengthened its lead at 53.5% of volume, up from 43.4% in August, followed by ETH/USDT at 13.7% and USDC/USDT at 11.6%. ETH has therefore overtaken USDC/USDT for second place. SOL/USDT contributes 3.9%, HYPE/USDT and XRP/USDT 1.6% each, and ENA/USDT 1.5%, while a tail of other pairs accounts for 12.6%. As in previous months, 100% of volume settles in USDT by CoinGecko’s currency breakdown, underscoring its role as Zoomex’s near exclusive quote and settlement currency.
On-chain reserves Zoomex’s total on-chain assets stayed inside a narrow $34M to $38M band for the whole month, extending the durable step-up that began in August. DefiLlama’s CEX Transparency tracker shows reserves opening near $36M, easing to a monthly low of about $33.8M around September 10, rebuilding to roughly $36.5M by September 15, and reaching the month’s peak of about $38M around September 20. A pullback to roughly $35M followed by September 25, before assets climbed again to about $37M at month end. The live reading on October 13 stood at $34.9M.
Source: Defillama The contrast with the mid-year pattern is clear: there were no sharp spikes that unwound within days, and the base held. As always, this figure reflects verifiable cold and hot wallet holdings tracked by DefiLlama and sits alongside, not in place of, Zoomex’s separately maintained $50 million insurance fund.
Assets by chain Ethereum remains Zoomex’s largest chain by a wide margin, holding roughly $15.7M at month end versus about $16.5M on September 1, with a low near $15.1M around September 24. That is close to 42% of tracked assets. XRPL stays second at about $6.9M, after dipping to roughly $6.1M in mid-September and peaking near $7.4M on September 23. Tron fell from about $3.5M to around $2.0M by September 22, then jumped to roughly $4.0M by September 30, the largest late-month move among the major chains. Mantle rose from about $1.7M to $2.1M, Solana roughly doubled from about $1.0M to $2.0M, BSC slid from about $2.2M to $1.5M, while Base (about $1.45M) and Arbitrum (about $1.3M) stayed flat.
Source: Defillama The most unusual line is Bitcoin. Its balance sat near $0.8M until September 14, jumped to about $2.75M on September 15, climbed to roughly $3.3M by September 22, then fell back to about $1.6M on September 23 and $1.1M on September 24, ending the month near $0.95M. That round trip points to a temporary custody or settlement movement rather than a lasting reallocation, and it lines up with the BTC inflow and outflow bars in the flow data below. Zoomex’s reserves remain distributed across 14 networks, the same multi-chain footprint maintained throughout 2026, with OP Mainnet, Polygon, Vaulta, Doge and Sonic each holding under $0.5M.
Token balances Read in raw units rather than USD value, PEPE again dominates by count, but its trajectory reversed from August. The balance held near 8.7 billion units through mid-September, then stepped down to roughly 7.7 billion around September 17 and about 7.1 billion by September 20, a decline of close to 19%. Meme coin balances on an exchange typically mirror user activity rather than treasury decisions, so this looks like client withdrawals more than a deliberate reallocation. BONK stayed flat at roughly 2.5 billion units.
Source: Defillama TBY’s block-shaped presence continues to be the more interesting signal. It appeared at around 5.3 billion units in five separate windows, September 1 to 7, 10 to 11, 19 to 20, 24 to 25 and 29 to 30, and was absent in between. That on and off pattern is more consistent with temporary custody, a settlement cycle or a recurring product flow than with a held position.
USD inflows Source: Defillama Outside those windows, daily activity stayed shallow and mixed. Net flow across the month was slightly negative, yet total assets ended higher, which means price moves rather than deposits explain the stable balance sheet. The framing from August holds: movement was event-driven and concentrated in a handful of identifiable days, not the product of steady retail flow.
Inflows by token The token split shows what drove each of those days. The September 15 spike was almost entirely Bitcoin, at roughly $2.0M gross, and the September 23 outflow was the mirror image, with about $1.85M of BTC leaving, partly offset by roughly $0.4M of TRON inflow. That confirms the temporary Bitcoin build seen in the chain data.
Source: Defillama Stablecoins drove the rest. USDT left on September 1 (about $0.9M), September 19 (about $1.35M) and September 22 (about $1.6M), then returned on September 29, when roughly $1.65M of USDT arrived together with smaller USDC and TBY inflows. WETH was the one asset with clear accumulation, with inflows of about $0.85M on September 19 and $0.4M on September 20. XAUT recorded a small inflow of about $0.3M on September 2.
Token values (USD) Viewed by asset value, September was a rotation story. USDT started the month near $11.3M, held between $9.5M and $10.5M through September 18, then fell to about $8.6M on September 19, $6.9M on September 22 and a low near $6.6M on September 24, before rebounding to about $9.1M on September 30. At the same time, WETH stepped up from roughly $4.3M to around $6.1M between September 19 and 22 and held that level, which matches the inflow bars above. In other words, part of the stablecoin drawdown reappeared as ether exposure.
Source: Defillama XAUT slipped from about $5.35M to roughly $5.0M, a decline of around 7% that is largely a price effect, since gold retreated through September after its August high. Mantle’s MNT rose from about $1.5M to $2.0M, while ETH (about $1.6M), USDT0 (about $1.0M to $1.2M) and AAVE stayed broadly stable. The purple Bitcoin line shows the temporary spike to about $3.3M on September 22 and the return to under $1M afterwards.
Token breakdown The composition snapshot reads as liquidity first with measured diversification. USDT leads at 32.55%, followed by WETH (16.12%), XAUT (13.42%) and BTC (10.03%), which together account for roughly 72% of holdings. The rest is spread across MNT (4.55%), ETH (4.12%), USDT0 (3.48%), USDC (3.19%), AAVE (3.08%), TRON (1.71%) and an Others bucket of 7.73%.
Source: Defillama Several comparisons with August stand out. USDT rose from 27.96% to 32.55% and WETH from 12.45% to 16.12%, while XAUT eased from 14.94% to 13.42%. BTC jumped from 2.16% to 10.03%, which is consistent with the temporary Bitcoin build between September 15 and 22 rather than a strategic shift. Counting USDT, USDT0 and USDC, stablecoins make up about 39% of the portfolio, and ether exposure across WETH and ETH is about 20%.
Individual stablecoins USDT makes up almost all of Zoomex’s tracked stablecoin balance. USDT opened September near $10.4M and closed around $9.1M, with a mid-month trough near $6.6M. USDC edged down from about $0.9M to $0.75M.
Source: Defillama Total stablecoins Combined stablecoin holdings fell from about $11.5M on September 1 to a low of roughly $7.3M on September 24, a drop of around 36%, before recovering to about $9.9M on September 30. Net, stablecoins ended the month roughly 14% below where they started. Because total assets stayed in the $34M to $38M band, stablecoins slipped from about 32% of tracked assets at the start of the month to roughly a fifth at the trough, which reflects a shift in composition rather than a shrinking balance sheet. The late month rebound, which coincides with the $1.65M USDT inflow on September 29, suggests the rebuild was already underway as September closed.
Source: Defillama Platform community and user metrics Zoomex ended September 2026 with over 3 million registered users across more than 35 countries and regions. The platform’s Telegram community has grown from 76,277 members to 82,319, reflecting active engagement among Zoomex’s core retail trading base.
Zoomex’s daily active trader count consistently exceeds 1 million users according to independent review data, TradersUnion. The platform regularly adds new assets based on market demand combined with rigorous vetting, as of this report, Zoomex lists 486–495 cryptocurrencies and operates across 518–575 trading pairs depending on the market segment (spot or derivatives), a figure that has grown steadily through 2026.
ZoomexFounded in 2021, Zoomex is a global crypto exchange serving 3M+ users with 600+ trading pairs. Guided by the values of "Simple, User-Friendly, and Fast," Zoomex leverages a high-performance engine to ensure a fair, just, and transparent trading environment where every transaction is fully traceable and unbiased. With MSB (U.S./Canada), NFA, and AUSTRAC licenses and audits by Hacken, Zoomex provides institutional-grade security. Partnered with TGR Haas F1 Team and Emiliano Martínez, the platform mirrors elite precision and consistency, delivering a secure, low-barrier, and compliant ecosystem for traders worldwide.
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Disclaimer
This third-party press release is published substantially as received and does not reflect BeInCrypto's editorial views. BeInCrypto has not independently verified its claims or assessed the suitability, legality or appropriateness of any referenced asset, product or service; publication is not an endorsement. The content is general information, not investment research, financial, investment, legal or tax advice, a personal recommendation, offer or solicitation. Verify all information and seek professional advice where appropriate before acting. Crypto-assets may result in total loss.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Europe’s banking regulator has classified Circle’s USDC as its first significant e-money token. The decision shifts supervision of the European issuer’s reserves and redemption arrangements to the EBA in November, while France keeps other oversight.
Summary
The EBA classified USDC as the first significant token among 45 e-money tokens notified under MiCA.
Direct EBA supervision of specified USDC safeguards begins November 12, 2026, according to the regulator.
France’s ACPR retains responsibility for Circle Europe’s governance, ownership assessments, outsourcing and conflicts of interest.
Circle’s French entity issues USDC in the EEA, while a separate U.S. entity issues it outside the region.
The EBA announced a New York supervisory agreement to exchange information about cross-border stablecoin activity.
USDC will come under a divided European supervisory arrangement on November 12 after the European Banking Authority classified it as a significant e-money token. In its October 14 announcement, the EBA said it would take direct responsibility for specified own-funds, reserve, liquidity, recovery and redemption matters currently handled by France’s banking regulator. The French authority, ACPR, will continue supervising other aspects of Circle’s European issuer.
JUST IN: Circle’s $USDC becomes the EU’s first “significant” e-money token under MiCA
Starting Nov. 12, 2026, the European Banking Authority will directly supervise USDC’s reserves, liquidity and redemption plans, following its assessment under the EU’s crypto rules. pic.twitter.com/5tYj6K4Enn
— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) October 15, 2026
Significant status can sound like a new license or a judgment that USDC is safer than every other stablecoin. It is neither. Circle had already established a regulated European issuance route. The classification identifies a token that meets the regulation’s scale and activity criteria and assigns additional obligations and supervisory work accordingly. The most useful question for users and businesses is what changes in the rules governing the issuer, and what remains the same when they hold or redeem a dollar token.
The November handover is divided, not total
The EBA counts 45 e-money tokens notified in the European Union and calls USDC the first it has designated significant. From November 12, the agency will directly supervise the areas it names: capital, reserve assets, liquidity, recovery and redemption plans. The ACPR retains governance, qualifying holdings, checks on management suitability, outsourcing and conflicts of interest. Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS is the issuer whose European activities are at issue.
Crypto.news reported the designation after the EBA’s decision. The regulator’s own account makes the division clear: it is possible for the token to have a European-level supervisor for prudential safeguards and a French supervisor for corporate conduct at the same time. A problem involving redemption liquidity might require EBA attention, while a question about an outsourced provider or management suitability remains within the ACPR’s remit, with coordination between them.
The transfer has a date rather than an instantaneous effect from the press release. An October 14 decision and November 12 start create a period for handover of supervisory files and responsibilities. It does not imply the French authority stops paying attention to reserves before that date or that Circle can avoid existing MiCA duties meanwhile. The classification also does not describe a change in the token’s $1 reference value, contract addresses or the basic right of eligible holders to redeem.
MiCA Article 117’s supervisory allocation distinguishes a significant e-money token issued by an electronic money institution from a significant asset-referenced token. The former is jointly supervised, with the EBA overseeing compliance with Articles 55 and 58 in its assigned areas. Describing USDC as simply “taken over” by Brussels would erase the continuing French responsibilities.
How a token becomes significant
An e-money token under MiCA refers to one official currency. USDC refers to the U.S. dollar. The Article 56 classification process draws on the significance criteria in Article 43, which address such factors as holders, value, transactions and the issuer’s interconnected activities. The EBA reviews classifications under the regulation rather than attaching the label as a promotional badge.
The October 14 announcement says the EBA assessed USDC against those criteria but does not enumerate the exact indicators or calculations that made it qualify. Readers should not reverse-engineer an official finding from one circulating-supply estimate and assert that a particular threshold was decisive. A globally used dollar token may have several relevant dimensions, including issuance, transfer activity and links among issuers and services. The public release does not disclose which three criteria determined this decision.
The designation is reviewed, not irrevocable. The EBA regularly assesses whether a classified token continues to meet the criteria. If the underlying facts change, MiCA provides a procedure to reconsider significance. Such a review is separate from whether USDC itself remains redeemable or tradable. A fall in market capitalization would not automatically revoke Circle’s French authorization, and a rise in usage would not by itself alter holder terms overnight.
A classification can nevertheless change business costs. Circle may need more supervisory reporting, liquidity planning and capital than under a less demanding category. It may also gain a clearer European supervisory relationship for institutions evaluating stablecoin exposure. Those are possible commercial consequences, not amounts quantified by the EBA’s October release. Until Circle discloses its compliance costs and reserve allocation, claims of a specific hit to profit are speculative.
JUST IN: Tether’s USDT generates $19.6B in yield, outpacing Circle’s USDC
Since May 2021, Tether has generated roughly $19.6 billion in yield from assets backing USDT, compared with Circle’s $7.4 billion from USDC since July 2022, according to DeFiLlama data. pic.twitter.com/05JPcdydEQ
— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) September 20, 2026
Two issuers support a token used across borders
The EBA identifies Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS as USDC’s EU issuer and Circle Internet Financial, LLC as its U.S. issuer. A customer can encounter the same USDC brand in different jurisdictions while the legal right against a particular issuer depends on location and applicable terms. Regulatory attention to an EU entity does not place all worldwide USDC balances into a single French balance sheet.
Circle’s European USDC white paper sets out the issuer’s legal identity, holder rights and risks. It says EEA holders have redemption rights under the relevant European terms, while holders outside the EEA should consult the U.S. entity’s terms and do not have a right to seek redemption from the French company under that white paper. The distinction matters when comparing a global token supply chart with the obligations placed on Circle’s EU issuer.
A token may move between wallets while its holder moves between countries, making the cross-border arrangement more than a bookkeeping detail. The white paper says a transfer assigns the redemption right to a subsequent eligible holder. Operational controls still govern identity checks and the path to fiat payment. Neither the existence of a blockchain transfer nor the new significant classification tells a particular user that a same-day bank payout is guaranteed in their jurisdiction.
Circle’s September 2026 European redemption policy describes the co-issuance model and a route for EEA holders seeking redemption from Circle France. It also distinguishes selling a token at an exchange from redeeming with the issuer. A person exchanging USDC for euros in a trading market receives a price and service under that venue’s terms; issuer redemption is a claim governed by the issuer’s terms and MiCA. The two paths can diverge under stress.
The EBA says it has signed a memorandum of understanding with New York’s Department of Financial Services to facilitate information exchange on cross-border stablecoin activity. A memorandum is a coordination tool, not a merger of the two legal regimes. The agencies retain their respective powers. The fact that regulators need a formal bridge underscores the difficulty of supervising one widely transferable token through multiple issuer entities.
Reserves and liquidity move into EBA’s remit
A dollar token promises access to dollar value under its redemption terms. Its issuer needs assets that can meet withdrawals when requested, not merely a large nominal portfolio. Reserve composition, maturity, concentration at banks and operational access to cash all influence the ability to redeem during a sudden surge. The EBA’s new responsibility covers those safeguards as specified under MiCA.
Article 58’s additional obligations for e-money tokens brings significant issuers into selected reserve, liquidity and own-funds requirements drawn from the asset-referenced token provisions. Article 54 addresses how funds received for e-money tokens are held and invested. The text distinguishes bank deposits from remaining funds invested in secure, liquid instruments denominated in the referenced currency. An issuer’s prudential compliance cannot be inferred from a single public attestation without applying the exact regulatory scope and entity boundary.
Liquidity is about timing as well as nominal value. A reserve asset may ultimately be worth a dollar while taking days to convert to funds available for redemption. A bank deposit can be readily payable in normal circumstances yet exposed to the bank’s own disruption. A short-term security may be liquid but still require custody, settlement and market access. Stress planning tests whether those paths work when many holders seek cash at once.
The EBA will supervise recovery and redemption plans too. A recovery plan concerns how an issuer responds before failure when its finances or operations deteriorate. A redemption plan describes an orderly path for holders when ordinary arrangements cannot continue. A prepared plan does not mean a crisis is expected or that a government guarantees every claim. It assigns procedures and accountability so the issuer can be examined before and during trouble.
Circle has argued for changes to Europe’s fixed bank deposit requirements. Its request to ease the reserve rules focused on the tradeoff between mandated deposits and exposure to banking counterparties. Significant classification applies the existing legal framework; the EBA’s notice does not approve Circle’s proposed amendment. A supervisor must enforce the law in effect while policymakers consider whether to revise it.
What the additional duties require in practice
Significant status changes more than the address to which a report is sent. Article 58 applies specified rules on reserve management, custody, independent audits and liquidity to an electronic money institution issuing a significant token. The legal text calls for an independent reserve audit every six months from the classification decision. It also replaces some baseline e-money requirements with the MiCA provisions applicable to significant issuers. The date of that decision and the schedule for supervisory responsibility are related but distinct milestones.
The capital question requires care with the denominator. MiCA applies the significant-token own-funds rule through Article 58. Article 45(5) sets a 3% measure against average reserve assets for relevant significant issuers. The rule is a regulatory capital requirement for the issuer, not an automatic 3% charge on each customer’s transfer, and not a claim that the other 97% of reserves may be missing. Capital and the assets backing outstanding tokens are different balance-sheet concepts. Circle’s actual requirement and any supervisory add-on need entity-specific data.
Article 54 separately requires at least 30% of the funds received for e-money tokens to be deposited in separate credit-institution accounts. Other provisions for significant reserves and technical standards may impose stricter liquidity and deposit conditions in their applicable circumstances. Circle’s call to revise fixed deposit ratios should therefore be read against the layered rules rather than summarized as a request to eliminate reserves. An issuer can argue that holding too much at commercial banks concentrates counterparty risk while a regulator argues that deposits provide dependable immediate liquidity. Both positions require evidence about actual banks, instruments and redemption timing.
Suppose a provider holds liquid securities but its bank transfer channel is unavailable on a heavy redemption day. A solvent portfolio would not necessarily translate into immediate payouts. Conversely, keeping a large share at one bank can simplify normal operations while creating exposure to that institution. Stress tests ask whether several pressures can be met together. The EBA can examine the policies, concentration limits and access arrangements; an outside reader generally cannot reconstruct those answers from an aggregate supply chart.
Reporting requirements can reveal other distinctions. The EBA’s significance process uses indicators for transaction value, holder counts and issuer activity, but the public announcement does not publish a table of USDC’s result on each criterion. Future disclosure may provide more detail about reserves or redemption readiness without making commercially sensitive supervision files public. The strongest measurable outcome of the handover would be an observable change to safeguards, reporting or enforcement, rather than simply a larger global USDC balance.
More oversight is not an insurance policy
Circle’s white paper states that the EU investor compensation and deposit guarantee schemes identified there do not cover USDC. MiCA redemption rights and prudential oversight are meaningful protections, but they should not be described as an insured bank balance. The rights rest on a legal claim and the issuer’s ability to honor it within the applicable arrangements.
A user holding USDC through a custodian also faces the custodian’s terms. Some exchanges may restrict withdrawals, temporarily suspend a trading pair or experience operational outages independently of the underlying issuer. A regulated issuer cannot prevent every platform-specific loss or make an intermediary’s promises equivalent to its own. The relevant question after the EBA decision is whether Circle’s European reserve and redemption arrangements are supervised more intensively, not whether every place showing a USDC balance has become supervised by the EBA.
A label can be misunderstood in the opposite direction too. Significant does not mean the regulator found USDC unsafe. MiCA uses the status for a token large or connected enough to warrant more intensive oversight. Additional reporting and stress tests may reveal vulnerabilities earlier, but classification alone is not a finding that reserves were deficient. The EBA did not allege a reserve shortfall in its announcement.
Crypto.news examined Circle’s position on MiCA revisions before the classification. Circle’s policy arguments deserve separate treatment from its legal duties. A company can comply with current requirements while seeking a different future framework. Neither its advocacy nor a positive status label replaces the reserve disclosures and supervisory findings needed to judge present performance.
An exchange conversion is not a redemption
The distinction becomes visible when a user wants cash. An exchange can offer a USDC trading pair in which another customer or market maker takes the other side. The quoted price may be slightly below or above $1 and the venue can impose its own fees and access rules. Direct redemption from an issuer invokes a different obligation: the eligible holder presents tokens through the issuer’s process and seeks payment under the legal terms. A token can remain transferable while one particular exchange has suspended trading or withdrawals.
Circle’s European redemption policy identifies the licensed French entity and explains that EEA holders can seek redemption under its terms. It describes what information a claimant may need to provide and the issuer’s process for handling requests. A reader assessing practical access should look at eligibility, identification, payment method, business-day timing and complaint procedures. A claim of redemption at par does not mean every anonymous wallet can immediately exchange tokens for notes at a physical counter.
MiCA supervision can examine whether plans hold up when normal arrangements fail. If an intermediary refuses a withdrawal, the holder may have a claim against that intermediary as well as a potential route to the issuer, depending on legal ownership and eligibility. If the issuer itself encounters a reserve or operational problem, its recovery and redemption plans become central. These are different failure points; describing all of them as a stablecoin depeg conceals who owes what to whom.
European platforms have already adjusted access to competing dollar tokens under MiCA. A conversion route offered by OKX Europe illustrates how an exchange listing decision can affect a holder’s practical choices without rewriting Circle’s issuer obligations. USDC’s significant designation may influence institutional confidence, but the EBA did not direct an exchange to add a pair or require a customer to switch tokens.
The case for a single global token
A strong argument for the co-issuance model is that businesses can use one familiar digital dollar across payments, trading and treasury operations without maintaining a different brand for each region. A compliant European issuer can give regulated counterparties a clear entity and legal framework, while the U.S. entity operates under its own rules. Shared technology and interoperability can improve access if redemption duties and reserves are mapped correctly.
The counterargument is that a token moving freely across borders is hard to divide neatly into local obligations. A holder may buy from one exchange, transfer through another wallet and redeem in a different jurisdiction. Supervisors need reliable information about where issuance and redemption risk sits. Cross-border information sharing cannot erase differences in legal rights, reserve location or local payment access. The EBA’s agreement with New York regulators addresses cooperation, while leaving these distinctions intact.
The EBA must establish and chair a supervisory college under MiCA Article 119 following a significant classification. Such a college brings relevant authorities together to exchange views on the issuer. Its opinions and coordination do not turn every participating authority into one regulator. The practical value will depend on whether information arrives early enough to guide decisions about liquidity and redemption.
USDC’s global reach might make significant status commercially useful as a signal that the EU has a named issuer and a formal supervisory arrangement. It could also impose costs and constraints that make some uses less attractive. The EBA has not forecast demand growth, platform listings or a change in USDC’s share of stablecoin transfers. A token’s market position depends on users, exchange access, payout routes and competitors as much as its regulatory designation.
JUST IN: Circle and Volante partner to expand $USDC payments
The partnership will help financial institutions evaluate USDC payment and settlement workflows within their existing payment infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/ohXBQO16ml
— crypto.news (@cryptodotnews) September 29, 2026
What November 12 can and cannot prove
The first thing November 12 can establish is a new supervisory allocation. EBA responsibility for specified safeguards transfers from ACPR while France retains its separate fields. A later statement from either regulator may describe examination priorities, data requests or changes to reserve practice. The effective date alone cannot show that the stock of USDC increased, that holders redeemed faster, or that the issuer altered its portfolio.
A concrete comparison requires entity-specific disclosure. A worldwide USDC number includes activity beyond Circle France, while a European supervision question concerns the entity and rights under MiCA. An analyst should identify which reserve report covers which liabilities, in what currency, on what date and with what assurance. Comparing an all-chain market cap to French legal capital without matching scope would create a striking but meaningless ratio.
Crypto.news’s report on Circle’s wider market plans examines expansion outside this specific supervisory handover. A company can seek new corridors while regulators apply stricter standards to an established token. Neither development proves actual consumer payments until services launch and usage is reported with definitions.
The designation is most consequential when claims are tested: can Circle’s European entity provide redemption at par under its stated procedure, maintain appropriate liquid assets, and communicate reliably with both regulators during stress? The EBA’s October announcement fixes which authority will ask those questions from November 12. Evidence of compliance will come from the issuer’s ongoing disclosures and supervisory work, not from the word significant printed beside the token.
What to watch
November 12 handover: Check the EBA and ACPR for any clarification of their respective responsibilities and implementation dates.
European reserve disclosures: Match Circle Europe’s asset disclosures with the corresponding liabilities and the period reported.
Redemption practice: Track published processing terms and whether eligible EEA holders can redeem at par under the stated process.
Rule review: Follow EU action on bank deposit and liquidity requirements without treating Circle’s proposals as enacted law.
Cross-border coordination: Look for concrete EBA, ACPR and New York information-sharing arrangements affecting the two issuer entities.
FAQ
What does significant e-money token mean?
It is a MiCA regulatory classification for an e-money token meeting prescribed significance criteria. It brings additional requirements and EBA supervision in specified areas. It is not a consumer safety grade or a new exchange listing.
When does the EBA begin supervising USDC?
The EBA says its direct responsibility for Circle Europe’s specified financial safeguards begins November 12, 2026. France’s ACPR continues supervising other areas of the European issuer’s business.
Is Circle newly licensed in Europe?
No. Circle’s French entity already held an electronic money institution authorization and issued USDC under the European framework. The October decision concerns significant classification and the resulting supervisory allocation.
Does the EBA supervise all USDC worldwide?
No. The EBA’s decision concerns the token issued in the EU by Circle Internet Financial Europe SAS. Circle identifies a separate U.S. issuer. Authorities have arranged to cooperate on cross-border matters.
Can EEA holders redeem USDC?
Circle’s European white paper and redemption policy describe rights for eligible EEA holders under MiCA. The procedure is different from selling USDC on an exchange, where price, fees and access depend on that platform.
Does significant status insure USDC deposits?
No. Circle’s EU white paper says the cited investor compensation and deposit guarantee schemes do not cover the token. Regulatory oversight and redemption rights should not be confused with deposit insurance.
Which regulator checks Circle’s reserves?
Beginning November 12, the EBA takes direct responsibility for the European issuer’s reserve, liquidity, own-funds, recovery and redemption requirements identified in its announcement. The ACPR keeps other assigned duties.
Will the classification change USDC’s price?
The EBA decision does not make a price forecast or change the token’s dollar reference. Market prices, redemption access and demand have other drivers that need separate evidence. This is educational analysis, not investment advice.
Disclaimer: This article is for information and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Figures reflect regulatory filings and reporting available at the time of writing and change with each disclosure. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security or asset. Always do your own research. Information is accurate as of October 19, 2026.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
A crypto whale staked 139,000 HYPE tokens, incurring a loss of $2.02 million over the past 30 days.
According to Onchain Lens monitoring, a crypto whale staked HYPE worth $10.95 million and incurred a $2.02 million loss over the past 30 days. The whale staked 139,050 HYPE (valued at $10.95 million) and delegated the assets to Infinitefield.xyz. The wallet also holds a 10x leveraged long position worth $202,250 involving CXMT, SKHX, and LYTE, with an unrealized loss of $36,540. The wallet’s total profit from perpetual contracts stands at $7.22 million, but it has suffered an overall $2.02 million loss in the past 30 days.
3 hours ago
Aster launches pre-market trading on PAPER, with up to 3x leverage.
According to official announcements, Aster has launched pre-launch contract trading for PAPER (papertrade.xyz), supporting a maximum leverage of 3x.
3 hours ago
Mastercard launches stablecoin risk intelligence service for institutions.
Mastercard announced at the Money20/20 USA conference this Monday the official launch of its "Stablecoin Security" risk intelligence service. The service enables financial institutions to comprehensively evaluate risks of stablecoin payments before funds are recorded on-chain. Via an API interface, Mastercard will supply banks with risk scores for seamless integration into their existing fraud prevention and compliance systems. According to Mastercard, the service tracks fund sources throughout the entire lifecycle of stablecoin payments, screens for links to financial crime risks including fraud, scams, and sanctions violations, and conducts in-depth analysis of transaction context before delivering risk scores. Citing a Bank for International Settlements (BIS) study, Mastercard noted that among 593 million stablecoin transfer events observed in 2025, nearly 60% took place in complex multi-step transactions rather than simple peer-to-peer payments, underscoring the necessity of pre-transaction security assessments. Ann Johnson, Executive Vice President of Mastercard Security Solutions, stated: "Stablecoins are creating new possibilities for value exchange, but financial institutions need the right intelligence and controls to participate with confidence."
3 hours ago
I appreciate you sharing this Lookonchain weekly report, but I need clarification on what you'd like me to do.
You mentioned at the start that I should write headlines for Lookonchain tweets (max 120 characters, keeping tickers/amounts/names, no quotes/hashtags/periods).
However, what you've pasted appears to be the beginning of a weekly report summary, not a tweet. Could you provide:
1. The specific tweet
Oct 12–Oct 18, 2026 #LookonchainWeeklyReport
?? Overview
Stablecoin supply fell by $1.65B last week, DEX spot volume rebounded and perp volume edged up, while public companies added 7,721 BTC.
?? Stablecoin Market
The total stablecoin market cap decreased by $1.65B.
?? Spot &
3 hours ago
Bitcoin ETFs see $94.94M outflow, Ethereum ETFs down $87.51M in 24 hours
Former 5th-largest SOL treasury company radically shifts strategy to liquidate all its SOL holdings, having reaffirmed its 'SOL treasury strategy' just one month ago.
SkyAI, formerly Sharps Technology, has recently undergone a radical strategic shift. The company has liquidated all its Solana (SOL) reserves to fund its stock and warrant repurchase program, dropping from being the fifth-largest Solana treasury holder to zero SOL holdings. According to a Monday statement, as of October 16, SkyAI held roughly $223.8 million in cash and has "completed the sale of all SOL".
Under the repurchase plan, SkyAI proposed to buy back 95% of its outstanding shares at $3 per share or per warrant. If fully subscribed, the company would retain approximately $22.5 million before related expenses. Additionally, since it no longer holds SOL, SkyAI has scrapped the original repurchase condition requiring SOL’s price to stay above $100.
The liquidation was swift and abrupt: as recently as September 14, SkyAI reaffirmed its Solana treasury strategy, claiming to hold over 2 million SOL. But an October 11 repurchase announcement disclosed it had sold ~1 million SOL, and subsequent SEC filings showed its remaining balance was only around 600,000 SOL. This rapid sell-off has drawn strong pushback from Bastion Trading, a major shareholder holding nearly 10% of SkyAI’s shares. Bastion has called for an independent review and explicitly said it will not participate in the repurchase under current terms, demanding the repurchase price be raised to $3.5 per share, restrictions on insiders, and exclusion of strategic advisors’ warrants from the repurchase.
Despite liquidating its crypto assets, SkyAI still describes its business as "building a financial platform combining Solana-based stablecoin tracks with AI". However, Monday’s announcement did not clarify if the company plans to rebuild its SOL treasury, nor provide updates on the platform. SkyAI only stated it intends to maintain its Nasdaq listing status after the repurchase is completed. As of the latest trading day, SkyAI (SKYA) shares rose 4.5% to $2.77, with a year-to-date gain of 35%.
AI agents can already book flights, compare prices, and fill out forms. Proving who they work for, and paying on the spot, has been a messier problem.
Proof and Circle think they have a piece of the answer. On October 19, 2026, the two companies unveiled a joint demonstration at Money20/20 USA in Las Vegas. It shows an AI agent presenting verified identity credentials and settling a payment in USDC within a single workflow, built on open protocols.
What the demo actually shows The setup is an identity-gated purchase. A merchant asks an AI agent for two things: proof of identity and proof of payment. The agent responds with an approved credential, using Proof’s x401 protocol. That credential is selectively disclosed, so the merchant sees only what it needs to see.
The agent then pays in USDC through Circle’s x402 payment protocol and Circle Agent Wallet. The merchant receives tamper-evident proof that the payment happened. It does not end up storing the buyer’s full personal details.
Through x402, the merchant gets signed evidence that can be used in disputes.
The live demo is running at Proof’s booth, #5069, throughout the conference, which runs from October 19 to 21, 2026.
The protocols behind it x401 is Proof’s open identity protocol. It handles verified legal identity credentials, letting an agent show it is acting on behalf of a real, verified person. Proof launched it in June 2026, and contributors include Visa, Circle, and Okta.
x402 is the payments side. It is backed by the Linux Foundation and supported by more than 40 organizations. In this demo, it carries the USDC transaction and produces the signed proof the merchant receives.
The key selling point is that these interactions do not require pre-established agreements. Today, a business typically needs some prior relationship, integration, or contract before it trusts an incoming payment or identity claim. Open protocols aim to replace that bilateral setup with shared rules anyone can follow.
Why identity and payments are converging For most of internet history, identity and payments have lived in separate silos. That arrangement creaks when the buyer is not a person clicking buttons but an AI agent acting on someone’s behalf. A merchant selling an age-restricted product, a regulated service, or a high-value item needs to know more than whether a payment cleared. It needs to know who authorized it and whether that agent had the authority to spend.
The Proof and Circle demo argues that both questions should be answered at once. Identity and authority get checked in the same exchange as the payment, rather than in a separate step bolted on afterward.
Proof brings the identity verification layer. Circle brings the money and the wallet infrastructure.
What this means for merchants, fintechs, and USDC Selective disclosure matters here. Merchants that collect less personal data carry less liability if they are breached. A system that confirms identity without handing over the full dossier could lower that burden while still giving the merchant enough to comply with checks it needs to run.
If an agent’s purchase is later contested, the merchant has cryptographic proof of what was agreed and paid via x402’s signed dispute evidence.
The roster behind the standards is worth watching. Visa and Okta contributing to x401, and the Linux Foundation plus more than 40 organizations supporting x402, signal that this is not a two-company side project.
Open protocols only work if enough parties adopt the same version. Regulators will also have views on how agent authority, identity credentials, and stablecoin payments fit into existing rules.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Diego Almada Lopez. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Canadians trading crypto with their own dollars are increasingly buying something designed not to move. By June 2026, stablecoins accounted for 44% of Canadian dollar crypto order book volume, according to Chainalysis.
A year earlier, that share was 30%. The coin doing most of the work is USDC, a token pegged to the US dollar.
The findings come from Chainalysis’s 2026 North America Crypto Adoption report, released in mid-October 2026.
Stablecoins pull ahead of the classics
The headline figure is the 14-percentage-point jump in stablecoin share over twelve months. That growth pushed stablecoins past traditional store-of-value assets, which made up only 29% of CAD order book volume.
Within the stablecoin category, USDC dominated. Chainalysis found minimal activity in stablecoins pegged to the Canadian dollar itself.
The broader numbers also stand out. Canada’s crypto economy grew 2.3% year over year, reaching $247.7 billion in the twelve months leading up to June 2026.
That growth came while the wider North American market saw a slight decline.
Remittances are doing the heavy lifting
Chainalysis ties much of this stablecoin activity to strong peer-to-peer usage. The driver is demographic as much as financial.
Foreign-born residents make up 23% of Canada’s population, the highest share in the G7. Many of those residents send money to family abroad, and traditional remittance channels are expensive.
High remittance costs have pushed a growing number of senders toward crypto, according to the report.
Remittance-sized transfers from Canada to countries including India, China, and the Philippines rose 141% year over year. Those flows reached $2.36 billion across 3.56 million transactions in the year to June 2026.
The average transfer size was $663. The Philippines corridor alone accounted for about $61 million, spread over roughly 73,564 transactions.
A policy headache with a maple leaf on it
The report also flags a thornier issue for Canadian regulators. Strong demand for US dollar stablecoins could potentially divert investment away from Canadian government debt.
Major dollar stablecoins are typically backed by reserves, so money flowing into them can end up supporting US assets rather than Canadian ones.
Canada has started to respond. Recent legislation facilitating the issuance of CAD-pegged stablecoins has been enacted, with the aim of strengthening Canada’s competitive position in crypto and keeping capital at home.
CAD-pegged alternatives currently see minimal trading, while USDC has the liquidity, the network effects, and the head start.
What this means
For investors and traders, the clearest signal is that Canadian crypto demand is tilting toward utility. A 44% stablecoin share of CAD order book volume, up from 30%, suggests a growing slice of activity is about payments and transfers rather than price bets.
The remittance numbers deserve the closest watch. A 141% annual jump to $2.36 billion indicates the corridor is growing fast from a meaningful base.
Canada’s 2.3% crypto economy growth, set against a slight North American decline, also hints that demographic demand may make Canadian crypto activity less sensitive to market cycles. Remittances do not stop because prices fall, which gives this segment a different rhythm than trading-driven volume.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Kaye Quema. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
Rome Protocol has published connection details for its Hadrian testnet, giving developers a USDC-funded environment to try Ethereum-style applications inside Solana, while its documentation separately lists a mainnet network called Rubicon.
Summary
Rome’s Hadrian testnet runs on Solana Devnet, while its documentation separately lists Rubicon as mainnet. Compound v3 and Aave v3 implementations remain reference applications, without confirmed official protocol migrations. Hadrian uses test USDC for gas, with transaction pricing controlled through configurable operator settings. Rome reports a Halborn audit, while its documentation lists Ethereum compatibility and execution limits. Rome Protocol’s Oct. 18 post identifies Hadrian as a testnet running on Solana Devnet, with chain ID 200010, an RPC endpoint, an explorer, and instructions for obtaining test USDC. The supplied screenshot directs developers to Circle’s faucet and a bridge interface to fund their wallets.
The project’s developer documentation lists Rubicon separately as mainnet, with chain ID 7531 and a different RPC endpoint. Its introductory page describes Rubicon as using real USDC, distinguishing the production environment from Hadrian’s testing assets.
Rome EVM runs Solidity code within Solana Rome’s execution documentation describes an Ethereum Virtual Machine implemented as a Solana program. A proxy receives signed Ethereum-style transactions, checks them through an offchain emulator, and packages their instructions for execution by Solana validators.
According to the architecture described by the project, Solidity contracts can call native Solana programs through cross-program invocation, or CPI. Developers can use familiar Ethereum tools while their contracts execute within Solana’s runtime.
The documentation describes shared application state between EVM and Solana users. Its statement that no bridge is needed concerns interactions inside that environment; Hadrian’s funding instructions separately direct users to a bridge when bringing test USDC into the network.
Rome’s execution guide distinguishes two processing modes. Operations that fit within one Solana transaction use atomic execution, where the complete transaction succeeds or reverts together.
For more demanding operations, the same guide describes iterative execution across several Solana transactions. Accounts are locked during processing, and cached effects are committed at the end. The project lists a 160-step session limit and restrictions on which Solana program calls can use that mode.
Solana’s transaction capacity has been the subject of separate network changes. In an Aug. 30 report, Jacob Creech outlined a planned move from 1,232-byte transactions to a 4,096-byte format, as crypto.news previously reported. The announcement scheduled Transaction V1 for Sept. 9 and treated slot-time reductions and Alpenglow as separate upgrades.
Compound and Aave implementations remain reference applications Rome’s Hadrian guide names Uniswap, Compound and Aave as reference applications validated first on the testnet.
The project’s Aerarium repository describes a Compound v3 lending application with two wallet routes sharing one lending pool. One route accepts Ethereum-style signed transactions through MetaMask; the other uses Phantom and a Solana-derived identity without requiring an Ethereum key.
According to that repository, both routes access the same Comet market, covering USDC deposits, collateral deposits, borrowing, repayments, and withdrawals. The listed application address uses a devnet domain. GitHub
Rome’s Aave interface repository explicitly calls the product a demo and places it on Hadrian. Its accompanying contract repository describes a fork of Aave’s code.
Those materials establish how Rome presents its implementations. They do not establish that either lending protocol’s governing organization has approved a production deployment or moved existing user positions to Rome.
Rome has pursued other financial applications through partnerships. In March 2025, the project announced work with KiiChain on tokenized assets and cross-chain payment finance for Latin America. Executives described plans involving real estate, agricultural commodities and access to Solana liquidity.
USDC gas payments depend on operator configuration Hadrian’s network guide specifies USDC as its gas token and identifies Circle’s Solana Devnet USDC mint. Developers funding from Solana need test USDC and some devnet SOL, according to the guide.
Circle’s faucet supports both Solana Devnet and Ethereum Sepolia. The provider describes faucet tokens as testing assets without real-world value and currently lists a distribution of 20 test USDC per request, subject to its limits.
Rome’s application-chain documentation allows an operator to select an SPL token for gas payments and route transaction-fee revenue to an application treasury.
The same documentation describes a pricing service that converts the chosen gas token against SOL for underlying Solana transaction costs. Its configuration can draw prices from Meteora pools or a Pyth/Hermes fallback.
Rome’s constraints page lists configurable minimum gas prices and a proxy-level multiplier. The published framework therefore describes configurable pricing, without establishing one universal dollar cost for every application transaction.
Audit and compatibility claims carry defined limits Rome’s EVM repository identifies a mainnet program and says Halborn audited it. The repository provides instructions for rebuilding the program and comparing it with the deployed binary, with build-time and commit-hash metadata masked during comparison.
The project’s compatibility documentation lists differences from Ethereum, including disabled modular-exponentiation functionality and gas behavior that does not reproduce Ethereum’s per-operation schedule.
The constraints page says Rome transactions must declare the Solana accounts they touch before execution. It lists a 64-address transaction cap and approximately 1.4 million compute units per transaction. The guide recommends measuring actual Solana compute consumption from transaction receipts because the EVM gas-used figure does not faithfully represent that resource use.
Its mainnet deployment table names a Squads multisignature wallet as upgrade authority.
Separate interoperability projects have targeted institutional markets. In August, Interstice Digital announced a cross-chain swap engine linking Canton with Ethereum, Solana and Robinhood Chain. FalconX supplies liquidity, while Interstice said it does not hold customer assets or execute transactions on users’ behalf.
This is a general announcement. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Terms and conditions apply. Disclaimer: This is not available for users in the EEA. Fellow Binancians, Binance is pleased to launch a new Word of the Day (WOTD) game! The theme of this week’s WOTD is “ Building Agent Rails”. Read selected articles to learn more about this topic and participate in this week’s WOTD to grab a share of the rewards. Activity Period: 2026-10-19 01:55 (UTC) to 2026-10-25 23:59 (UTC) Complete 5 Words and $50 Equivalent Trading Volume to Unlock Your Share of 10,000 USDC WOTD is an educational word-guessing game, which allows users to increase their crypto vocabulary and stay on top of the latest market developments. 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No replacement reward will be provided. Learn how to redeem a Binance voucher. How to Enable the Second WOTD Game: After the first game, click the "Get A New WOTD" button.Share the featured link on social media.Unlock the second WOTD game once the shared link is clicked by a logged in user. New User Welcome Bonus: In addition, all new users who register for a Binance account using the “WOTD” referral code or via this referral link during the Activity Period, will each receive 10% off their Spot trading fees. Users may also qualify for additional welcome rewards by completing tasks available at the Rewards Hub within 14 days after registration. Play WOTD Now to Earn Rewards! Related Readings for This Week’s WOTD: Meet Binance AI: Your 24/7 Personal Assistant Terms & Conditions: Binance reserves the right to modify or cancel the Promotion at any time without prior notice.Binance reserves the right to update the list of eligible countries/regions for the Promotion at any time. 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Only users from eligible countries/regions who complete account verification shall be able to participate and receive rewards.For the new user welcome bonus: The 10% Spot trading fee discount will remain valid as long as the Binance referral program is in place. 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This is a general announcement. Products and services referred to here may not be available in your region. Terms and conditions apply. Fellow Binancians, Binance is excited to introduce Binance Pick, a flagship campaign that rewards your trading activity. Early Bird reservation opens on 2026-10-19, while the campaign officially launches on 2026-10-21 (UTC). The more users who reserve during Early Bird, the larger the prize pool unlocked, up to 1,000,000 USDC. Eligible users can start completing tasks and making predictions for a share of the prize pool. Join Now Promotion Period： Reservation Period: 2026-10-19 to 2026-10-20 23:59:59 (UTC)Prediction Period: 2026-10-21 00:00:00 to 2026-11-15 23:59:59 (UTC) How It Works: Step 1. Join the Campaign Visit the Binance Pick campaign page and select [Join Now]. Reserve during Early Bird to earn bonus Scores. Eligible new users who join the campaign earn additional bonus Scores. Step 2. Complete Tasks to Earn Scores Complete the tasks available to you to earn Scores. Tasks include Join Campaign / Early Bird reservation, New User Welcome, referrals, daily check-in, Spot/Convert/Futures Trading Task, post on Square and the Refill Station. Step 3. Use Your Scores to Predict in Binance Pick For users who are from an eligible jurisdiction, use your Scores to join available markets in Binance Pick. Close your position before it ends or hold until settlement. A correct prediction increases your Scores. Please note that Scores are campaign-only points used only for campaign ranking and reward allocation. They have no monetary value and cannot be redeemed, transferred, or exchanged for cash. Scores reset at the end of the season under the Campaign Terms. Step 4. Climb the Leaderboard and Win Rewards Track your ranking on the Leaderboard page. Rewards are distributed across three pools: Season Leaderboard — 500,000 USDC: The top 20,000 participants on the leaderboard after the campaign ends can share rewards. Participants must have more than 0 Season Scores to be eligible.The Season Leaderboard closes on 2026-11-15 at 23:59:59 (UTC).Weekly Leaderboard — 400,000 USDC in total (100,000 USDC/week): The top 8,000 participants on the leaderboard at the end of each weekly ranking period can share rewards. Participants must have a Weekly PnL greater than 0 from predictions made with Scores. 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Using six years of weekly U.S. data, two economists found stablecoins grew more slowly after banks raised deposit rates, while cautioning that their evidence covers a single high-rate period.
BIS paper links stablecoin growth to bank deposit interest
Posted October 19, 2026 at 5:45 am ET.
When U.S. banks paid savers more, stablecoins grew more slowly, according to a Bank for International Settlements working paper published on Oct. 13. Its authors, Rashad Ahmed of the Andersen Institute for Finance and Economics and Iñaki Aldasoro of the BIS, describe the study as, to their knowledge, “the first empirical evidence” that changes in deposit rates affect stablecoin flows.
The paper states the views of its authors, not necessarily those of the BIS or its member central banks. Their bottom line: “The size of the stablecoin sector therefore depends in part on how banks price deposits.”
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What the Data Show The study covers 339 weeks of U.S. figures, running from January 2019 into June 2025, a stretch in which reserve-backed stablecoin market capitalization went from under $5 billion to more than $220 billion. Over that period, stablecoin market value rose an average of about 15% in a 10-week window.
Under their baseline estimate, a 1 basis point rise in deposit rates was followed by 10-week growth of about 12%. A second method, which exploits banks passing on a much larger share of Fed rate increases once the federal funds rate is above about 3%, put the figure near 6%. That method did not predict moves in the rest of the crypto market, a check the authors used to rule out a broad crypto cycle.
The response was larger for Circle’s USDC than for Tether’s USDT: the baseline estimate trimmed about 5% from USDC’s 10-week growth, against roughly 2% for USDT. The authors attribute the gap to differing user bases: USDC skews toward U.S. institutions and DeFi participants, USDT toward offshore activity and developing economies.
The Caveats “Growth slows but does not necessarily reverse,” the authors wrote. The statistical strength of their second method, a first-stage F-statistic of 9.78, fell just below the conventional benchmark of 10, “suggesting some instrument weakness.” The sample covers one high-rate period, 2022 to 2025, and the aggregate data can’t show which holders switched or which banks were affected. Because issuers reinvest the money, a move into stablecoins could shift deposits between banks rather than shrink the total, they wrote.
The results also describe a market where stablecoins pay holders nothing. “A small but growing segment of yield-bearing stablecoins and tokenized money market funds may alter the substitution margin over time,” the paper said.
The Yield Debate The paper arrives during a policy debate over stablecoin rewards. The GENIUS Act bars issuers from paying interest, but banks have argued that rewards offered through third-party platforms could draw money out of deposits. In September, the Federal Reserve proposed treating yield routed through an issuer’s affiliates or other connected outside parties as presumptively barred.
Ahmed and Aldasoro wrote that banks “retain some influence over the pace of that adoption through deposit pricing.” For regulators, they suggested weighing whether part of stablecoin reserves should sit in bank deposits, which could cushion bank funding but pile large uninsured deposits into a few banks, and whether issuers may pay holders at all.
Related Listen: Ledger Wallets Were Drained of $100 Million. Is Self-Custody Still Safe?
AI-assisted content: This article was produced with the assistance of AI tools and was reviewed, edited, and fact-checked by a member of the Unchained editorial team before publication.
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Circle has reportedly minted about 3.75 billion USDC on the Solana blockchain over the past seven days, according to data shared by @SolanaFloor on social media. This significant issuance represents gross minting and highlights the ongoing expansion of USDC liquidity on the Solana network. As of early October, Solana’s native USDC holdings were approximately $7.3 billion, constituting about 10% of the total USDC supply. This development suggests that Solana continues to be a key platform for stablecoin activity, supporting various applications in payments and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Key Takeaways The minting of 3.75 billion USDC on Solana suggests increased liquidity provision on the platform. This development appears consistent with scenarios that could support a rise in Solana’s price, as enhanced liquidity may drive demand. Market pricing implies moderate confidence in Solana reaching higher price targets, with some sub-markets reflecting this sentiment. What to Watch Markets will be monitoring any further increases in USDC minting on Solana and its potential impact on Solana’s price. Key indicators include regulatory developments, such as SEC decisions on spot-SOL ETFs, and technological milestones like the successful activation of Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade. These factors could influence market sentiment towards Solana’s price reaching or exceeding significant thresholds, such as $190, in October 2026.
Term Structure
Contract Odds Δ since publish Volume 24h November 1 2026 0.6% — — View market → November 1 2026 3.9% — — View market → November 1 2026 15.5% — — View market → November 1 2026 4% — — View market → November 1 2026 0.4% — — View market → November 1 2026 0.9% — — View market → November 1 2026 1.4% — — View market → November 1 2026 1.8% — — View market → November 1 2026 1.5% — — View market → November 1 2026 0.1% — — View market → November 1 2026 0.1% — — View market → November 1 2026 8.5% — — View market → November 1 2026 0.4% — — View market → November 1 2026 2% — — View market → November 1 2026 55% — — View market →
Not financial or tax advice. PANews content is strictly educational and informational and is not investment advice, financial advice, tax advice, legal advice, or a solicitation to buy or sell any digital asset, security, or financial product. Do your own research and consult qualified advisers.
Disclosure. PANews may publish sponsored content, partner content, advertisements, affiliate links, event promotions, and market commentary involving Web3 projects, service providers, or financial products. PANews personnel, contributors, or affiliates may hold digital assets or other interests related to covered topics. See our Terms of Service.
Middle Eastern crude oil exports rebound, with sharp surges in freight rates leaving Asian refiners unable to mask their profit squeeze.
Middle East crude oil exports continue to recover, but surging transportation and insurance costs are sharply squeezing the profits of Asian refiners. Data from HiLo Analytics shows that Asian refiners have an average gross profit of around $40 per barrel. After deducting roughly $33 in freight costs, net profit shrinks to just about $7 per barrel, with freight eating up approximately 82% of gross profit. In contrast, this figure is only around 16% for refiners on the U.S. Gulf Coast and in Northwestern Europe. On the supply side, data from Kpler indicates that Middle East crude oil exports rebounded to 15.4 million barrels per day in September, roughly 90% of pre-war levels. Asia’s crude oil imports in October are projected to hit 23.5 million barrels per day, the highest level since February this year. However, Iran’s attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz continue to drive up freight and insurance costs, with transportation costs on some routes reaching several times pre-war levels. To attract Asian buyers, Middle East oil producers have been forced to slash crude oil prices significantly, with some discounts reaching up to $30 per barrel. But this strategy of trading lower prices for higher volumes still struggles to offset the pressure from logistics costs. If refiners further cut operating rates or switch to other crude oil sources, the recovery in Middle East exports could be hampered again.
2 minutes ago
Omarchy author DHH slams Chinese software as overly crude, naming WeChat, Alipay and HarmonyOS.
Beating AI News, a crypto and blockchain news outlet, reports that renowned developer DHH (David Heinemeier Hansson) introduced his self-developed Linux desktop system Omarchy at the GOSIM conference in Shenzhen on October 17, and later attended a developer gathering with over 500 registrants. The next day, he praised Huawei’s MateBook Fold foldable device as futuristic, but in the evening criticized Chinese software as overly crude, naming WeChat, Alipay, and HarmonyOS.
DHH stated that while he greatly admires China’s AI models and hardware, its software design remains confusing to him. He elaborated that the issues center on interface aesthetics, user workflows, and detail refinement, citing problems like insufficient white space, inconsistent margins, jarring page transitions, rough animations, and disorganized information architecture. DHH noted that large Silicon Valley apps still hold a clear lead in these areas.
Some netizens pushed back, arguing that WeChat and Alipay integrate a wide range of lifestyle services including payments and transportation, reducing the need for users to switch between apps, so complex interfaces are unavoidable. DHH disagreed, asserting that rich functionality and refined design can coexist, and there is no excuse for super apps to be so crude.
Others in the comment section pointed out that the complexity of domestic apps is tied to commercialization: splash-screen shake-to-open ads, loan portals, and short video recommendations are increasingly crowding out core functional interfaces. One developer analogized this to adding loan features to X and stuffing TikTok into Stripe.
2 minutes ago
KORUB rose nearly 18% in 24 hours, with its market capitalization climbing to $22.65 million.
According to market data, South Korea Bull 3X ETF (KORUB) rose nearly 18% in 24 hours, with its market capitalization reaching $22.65 million and 24-hour trading volume hitting $53.11 million. KORUB is a tokenized bStock that grants users economic exposure to the South Korea Bull 3X ETF; each token is fully backed by the corresponding underlying stocks held by the issuer at a U.S.-regulated broker-dealer. South Korea’s stock market has recently experienced a sharp slump. On October 16, the South Korean Ministry of Finance issued a response, stating it will closely monitor whether stock market volatility spreads to the bond, foreign exchange, and money markets. The government and relevant agencies will enhance stock market monitoring and strictly address any acts that disrupt market order. The statement noted that strong economic growth expectations, current account surpluses, and solid corporate earnings confirm that South Korea’s stock market fundamentals remain sound.
2 minutes ago
ETH whale's short positions were forced liquidated again, with total liquidations reaching $16.32 million today.
According to TradingBeats' monitoring, the ETH short position at address 0xb15b…dbae saw another partial liquidation in the afternoon, with around 1,416 ETH forcibly liquidated, a liquidation turnover of approximately $3.46 million, and a corresponding realized spread loss of about $112,000. Earlier that day, the address had already undergone three partial liquidations, totaling roughly 6,747 ETH liquidated, with a total liquidation turnover of $16.32 million. As of press time, the address still holds around 5,663 ETH short positions, with a position value of approximately $13.76 million, an average entry price of $2,365.86, and an unrealized loss of roughly $362,000. The current position uses 25x full leverage, with a liquidation price of about $2,452.74.
2 minutes ago
Cathie Wood is bullish on storage chips, while Bank of America warns that risk assets are not yet at a bottom-buying opportunity.
ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood recently stated that memory chips have entered a buy zone, adding that the rapid rise in memory prices and the impact of falling electronics sales have already been partially priced into stocks. In contrast, Michael Hartnett, Chief Investment Strategist at Bank of America Global Research, pointed out that the end of market sell signals does not mark the arrival of a buying opportunity, as two key prerequisites for a return to risk assets remain unmet.
The surge in memory chip prices is mainly driven by AI servers crowding out production capacity, with original manufacturers shifting more output to high-bandwidth memory (HBM) and server DDR5, resulting in tightened supply for consumer-grade memory. According to TrendForce data, DRAM contract prices are projected to rise 90%–95% quarter-on-quarter in Q1 2026 and 58%–63% in Q2 2026, while NAND Flash contract prices will increase 55%–60% and 70%–75% respectively in the same periods.
Soaring memory costs have also begun to impact the consumer electronics supply chain. Citing IDC data, global smartphone shipments in Q3 2026 fell 22% year-on-year to 255.3 million units. Memory original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) benefit from the price hikes, while end-device brands face the dual challenges of rising costs and weak sales. Key areas to monitor going forward include whether DRAM/NAND contract price gains continue to narrow, whether declines in smartphone and PC shipments improve, whether memory’s share of end-device material costs has peaked, and whether memory OEMs will reallocate production capacity to consumer-grade products.
