Zypto Crypto News

This Week In Crypto — Ripple, X Money, Telegram, and Taylor Swift

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Gm frens, welcome to July’s first news round-up!

Ripple donates over $70M to global causes; X Money user sends $25 to Elon Musk; Pavel Durov gifts $12,000 NFT to a Telegram designer. Users bet over $4 million on Taylor Swift’s wedding, while the world’s highest-IQ holder backs an XRP supercycle, and an ANSEM meme coin deployer makes $5.5k. Lastly, Zypto launches its redesigned platform with expanded features.

Let’s get to it.

Ripple donates over $70M to global causes

Ripple has released its 2025 Annual Impact Report, detailing support for education, financial inclusion, sustainability, and humanitarian programs. Since 2018, the company has donated more than $250 million, including over $70 million contributed in 2025.

The report also highlighted how Ripple’s blockchain tools, including the XRP Ledger and the RLUSD stablecoin, supported different projects. They include programs in emerging markets, microfinance, and humanitarian aid through partnerships with nonprofit organizations.

Ripple committed $25 million in RLUSD to support underserved U.S. small business owners and career programs for military veterans. The company also helped partners deploy $53.6 million and supported nearly 12,000 water and sanitation loans. Several non-profit partners described Ripple’s funding as long-term support rather than one-time donations.

In addition, Ripple supported blockchain research and education through its university Blockchain Research Initiative. Now in its seventh year, the program spans 62 universities, has awarded $74 million since 2018, and supported 198 XRPL projects in 2025.

Beyond these, Ripple said employee participation reached its highest level since the program began. About 80% of employees participated in volunteer and donation efforts, supporting 544 non-profit organizations and raising $555,000 for charitable causes.

Alongside these social and environmental efforts, Ripple highlighted broader blockchain adoption through its programs. The firm said active users increased 37% and transactions rose 113% year-over-year. Tokenized real-world assets on the XRP Ledger expanded from $24.7 million to $568 million during 2025, while total network transactions surpassed 3.8 billion.

X Money user sends $25 to Elon Musk

A U.S. user sent $25 directly to Elon Musk to test X Money’s peer-to-peer feature. Musk confirmed the payment publicly on X as the platform officially launched its full payments service for US Premium subscribers.

X Money’s digital wallet enables real-time peer-to-peer transfers, bank account deposits, and US dollar balance storage. Subscribers also receive a physical metal Visa debit card for everyday spending at any Visa-accepting merchant.

The launch marks the end of a months-long beta period for X’s integrated financial system. The service initially covers Premium and Premium+ subscribers, with a wider expansion expected to follow. Earlier in the year, Musk already signaled X Money’s arrival, placing it at the center of his broader app ambitions.

Users can send money to any X account, link external bank accounts, and hold dollar balances inside the app. The Visa debit card ships to subscribers and displays their X handle as the card identifier.

An X user put the feature to an immediate test by sending $25 to the world’s richest person. Musk confirmed the receipt in a brief public reply.

The exchange gave X Money’s P2P transfers a public proof of concept within hours of the official launch. Musk has separately revealed plans for crypto integration with X Money, and the fiat-first release does not rule out future digital assets. X’s XChat also topped the App Store at launch, demonstrating the platform’s consistent ability to drive rapid adoption of new product releases.

Pavel Durov gifts $12,000 NFT to a Telegram designer

Telegram founder Pavel Durov purchased Plush Pepe #834 for 7,500 Gram (GRAM) on The Open Network (TON), then transferred the NFT to Adler Toberg, a designer linked to Telegram’s interface and gift system.

The acquisition marks Durov’s third confirmed purchase of a TON collectible in just over six months. He added his first Plush Pepe in December 2025, then picked up a Telegram Gift NFT in January 2026. Together, the moves reflect deliberate and ongoing personal engagement with the digital asset layer Telegram continues to build.

Plush Pepes are Telegram’s official collectibles series, issued natively on The Open Network. At GRAM’s current price of $1.55, the 7,500 GRAM spent on Plush Pepe #834 comes to roughly $11,625. The specific piece is the Donatello model, a 1% rarity variant, with a Bell Pepper symbol (0.5%) and a Navy Blue backdrop (2%). Of the 2,861 Donatello editions, 2,825 have found owners.

The TON blockchain X account responded to Durov’s purchase with a dry piece of humor. It expressed hope that he would pass the NFT along to a Telegram intern as a workplace bonus. The joke turned out to be close to the truth.

Durov transferred Plush Pepe #834 directly to Adler Toberg, a designer known for his work on Telegram’s interface and gift system. Toberg has previously made public statements about the direction of Telegram’s collectibles program, including the cadence of new gift releases.

The transfer points to something real. Within the Telegram ecosystem, collectibles now carry social weight as markers of community standing. Durov’s decision to give a high-value NFT to a member of his team reinforces that dynamic. His role as Telegram’s CEO makes each on-chain move a visible signal across the network.

Users bet over $4 million on Taylor Swift’s wedding

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s unannounced wedding has already generated more than $4 million in trading volume on prediction platform Kalshi, with bettors wagering on the venue, date and bridesmaids.

According to Kalshi, entertainment trading grew from $43 million in 2024 to over $300 million in 2025. Music markets alone surpassed $400 million in Q1 2026, putting total 2026 entertainment volume on pace for $1 billion.

The location market has drawn $2.26 million in volume, making it Kalshi’s largest Swift-Kelce trading category. New York holds 84% odds, Rhode Island trails at 16%, while Pennsylvania has 5%.

Separate markets track the wedding party, with celebrities populating them. Jason Kelce leads the odds of being a groomsman at 89%, followed by Patrick Mahomes at 72%. On the bridesmaid’s side, Gigi Hadid holds 55% odds for maid of honor, while Kylie Kelce has 61%.

The Swift-Kelce surge arrives as prediction markets post a record monthly transaction volume. Monthly active users reached 865,411 in March 2026, up 118% from the prior year. Monthly notional volume hit $23.89 billion, a 1,107% year-over-year increase.

The sector grew from roughly $1.2 billion in monthly volume in April 2025. By March 2026, that figure had exceeded $25 billion. Kalshi is targeting a $40 billion valuation in an ongoing funding round, up from $22 billion a month earlier. The platform has also expanded through a World Cup prediction partnership, broadening its market categories.

World’s highest IQ holder backs an XRP supercycle

The world’s highest IQ record holder just declared that the XRP supercycle is only beginning, while three bullish signals hit the chart at the same time. The token trades near $1.05 as the narrative quickly gains momentum.

The XRP narrative just got a major sentiment boost from YoungHoonKim, holder of the verified world record for the highest IQ, who publicly described the current XRP phase as the very early innings.

Furthermore, the message landed at a moment when both technical and on-chain indicators are aligning for the Ripple token. Such declarations always generate excitement among holders. However, the framing matters because it aligns with structured cycle perspectives shared by serious technical analysts.

As a result, the supercycle conversation has expanded into long-term, data-driven market modeling for XRP. Technical analyst ChartNerdTA recently highlighted relevant historical cycle data. XRP’s moves from one periodic cycle high to the next have averaged three to five years over the past decade-plus. That said, if a cycle bottom forms during 2026, the next major XRP top could realistically land between 2028 and 2030.

XRP has just triggered three bullish signals at once, reinforcing the broader narrative pushed by the highest-IQ holder this week.

The first signal comes from the Tom DeMark Sequential indicator on the daily chart. The setup printed a fresh “9” buy signal, as flagged by analyst Ali Charts. Furthermore, the reading often signals exhaustion in downtrends and tends to precede short-term relief rallies lasting 1 to 4 candles.

The second signal is a Morning Star Doji candlestick pattern, an indicator used to identify localized price bottoms.

The third signal comes from on-chain activity. Daily active addresses jumped from around 23,000 on June 14 to nearly 39,500 in recent days. That surge points to genuine network engagement rather than speculative positioning alone, driving short-term price recovery.

Together, the three signals form a rare alignment. Technical reversal patterns are now meeting concrete on-chain growth at a defended support zone. However, confirmation will require sustained buying volume.

ANSEM meme coin deployer makes $5.5K

A Solana-based meme coin named after prominent crypto influencer Ansem has rocketed to a fully diluted valuation of over $108 million, with on-chain data showing his wallet holds more than $71 million worth of the token. However, the person who deployed the coin reportedly walked away with just $5,500.

On-chain analytics firm Lookonchain shared details of the situation, saying that the deployer, identified by the wallet tag “yHCxHB,” spent $6,300 to launch The Black Bull ($ANSEM) and then acquired 792.45 million tokens in the process. Of those, 650 million were transferred directly to Ansem’s wallet for free, with the deployer then selling the remaining 142.5 million tokens for $11,800, resulting in a $5,500 profit on a meme coin that has since surpassed a $43 million market cap.

Spot-on on-chain analyst Hupzy noted that ANSEM’s supply structure was highly concentrated and influencer-controlled. Rugcheck.xyz shared the same warning, flagging a risk of market manipulation due to a high concentration of tokens in unidentified wallets.

A Pump.fun ecosystem-tracking account has been documenting the meme token’s rise in real time. It noted, at the time of writing, that $ANSEM was the top-traded on Pump.fun by volume in the past 24 hours, well ahead of tokens like Jotchua and Fartcoin.

Lookonchain highlighted one wallet, CxCTVj, that saw a 261x return after buying 14.2 million ANSEM tokens near the start, turning $2,330 into $614,500. Another trader reportedly bought $3,370 worth of the asset when its market cap was about $4 million and later sold it for $37,580, securing an 11x gain.

Zypto launches its redesigned platform with expanded features

Zypto has launched a major upgrade to its platform with the release of Zypto.com v2. It introduces a redesigned interface, expanded crypto market data coverage, and a broad suite of tools to simplify how users explore and interact with the crypto ecosystem.

The updated platform significantly expands the range of available assets to research, allowing users to explore more than 25,000 cryptocurrencies through detailed asset pages featuring live pricing, interactive charts, heatmaps, liquidity insights, and market data.

Alongside enhanced market visibility, Zypto v2 introduces improved navigation and discovery features. They are designed to make it easier for users to compare projects, analyse blockchain ecosystems, and identify emerging trends across the digital asset space.

A central addition to the platform is Crypto Share Studio, a content creation tool that enables users to transform live market data into shareable visuals. The feature allows users to generate custom price cards, charts, and heatmaps with built-in editing tools, supporting community engagement directly from the platform.

Zypto has also expanded its focus on real-world utility by introducing ‘Spend Crypto by Country.’ It is a feature that highlights region-specific availability of crypto services, including crypto cards, bill payments, and mobile top-ups, and now supports 41 languages.

To support user education, Zypto.com also now includes a growing library of blockchain guides, explainers, and learning resources. The educational content is designed to make crypto more accessible to both new and experienced users. Find out more here.

Closing remark

Besides the social, financial, and environmental benefits, Ripple’s donations expand blockchain-driven initiatives in research, and real-world asset growth. X Money’s newly launched peer-to-peer payments feature marks its push into integrated financial services.

Pavel Durov’s $12,000 NFT gift highlights the growing social and symbolic value of digital collectibles within the platform’s ecosystem. Prediction markets amassing over $4 million in bets on a potential Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wedding underscores rapid growth in entertainment-based wagering.

The combination of high-profile sentiment, bullish technical and on-chain signals is reshaping how traders frame the next XRP cycle. Analysts warn of concentrated ownership and manipulation risks, with the $ANSEM story a cautionary tale. The launch of Zypto.com v2 underscores the company’s broader strategy to unify market data, education, content creation, and real-world utility within a single platform.

FAQs

What did Ripple donate for?

Ripple donated to support education, financial, sustainability, and humanitarian programs.

How much was sent to Elon Musk?

A U.S. user sent $25 directly to Elon Musk to test X Money's peer-to-peer feature.

Who did Pavel Durov gift?

Pavel Durov transferred the Plush Pepe #834 NFT to Telegram designer Adler Toberg.

How much has betting on Taylor Swift's wedding generated?

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's unannounced wedding has already generated more than $4 million in trading volume on Kalshi.

How much did the ANSEM memecoin deployer make?

The person who deployed the $ANSEM meme coin reportedly walked away with $5,500.

Today in Crypto - A stablecoin network built to outflank Circle

Zypto Editorial Team — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT

A consortium of payment giants just built a stablecoin designed to make Circle’s business model look outdated. That is the headline, but the pattern underneath is bigger: the same week, a regulatory crackdown in India revealed exactly why people reach for USDT in the first place, and a card that draws directly from a DeFi vault stopped being a concept and became a product.

Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase and 140+ firms unveiled Open USD, a consortium stablecoin that shares reserve yield with partners instead of keeping it
Six raids in Bengaluru squeezed India’s USDT supply, pushing the local premium above 8.5%
Stripe’s Privy now lets a debit card pull straight from a DeFi vault, settling in stablecoins while the rest of the balance keeps earning

The through-line is infrastructure catching up to demand. The rails being built this week are the ones that make stablecoins work as money, not just as a store of value.

Visa, Mastercard and 140+ Firms Launch Open USD to Challenge Circle

Source: The Block

Open Standard, a new company led by Bridge co-founder Zach Abrams, unveiled Open USD on Monday with more than 140 founding partners including Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Coinbase, BlackRock, BNY, Google, Shopify and Stellar. The token, ticker OUSD, launches natively on Solana first, with Stellar, Base and Polygon to follow.

Unlike Circle’s USDC, Open USD charges zero fees on minting and redemption and shares the yield earned on reserves with partner organizations instead of keeping it. Governance sits with a board drawn from partner companies rather than a single issuer, a structure closer to how Visa or Mastercard are run than how most stablecoins are run today.

Circle’s stock dropped sharply on the news. Open USD still has to prove it can win real transaction volume, something earlier consortium stablecoins have struggled with.

Zypto take: A stablecoin where the partners split the reserve yield instead of one company keeping it is a genuinely different business model, and it says something about where this market is heading: stablecoins are turning into shared infrastructure, not proprietary products.

Stellar is a founding launch partner of Open USD, the same blockchain that already powers USDC to Cash, Zypto App’s feature for cashing in or out of USDC at participating MoneyGram locations worldwide. The biggest payment networks in the world are choosing to build on the same rails Zypto users already have in their pocket.

India’s USDT Premium Jumps Above 8.5% After Crypto Remittance Crackdown

Source: CoinDesk

India’s Enforcement Directorate raided six premises in Bengaluru on June 17, targeting five crypto payment firms it accuses of running roughly 25 billion rupees, about $265 million, in unlicensed cross-border transfers using USDT. The agency alleges non-resident Indians used USDT as a stand-in for bank wires, converting rupees to stablecoins, moving them abroad, and selling them back on Indian exchanges to skip formal documentation requirements.

The raids tightened supply. Market makers pulled back on USDT purchases overseas, and the local premium spiked to 8.5%, roughly double its normal 3 to 4% range, with USDT trading at 102.88 rupees against a dollar rate of 94.65.

That premium is really a price signal. It shows how much demand exists for a faster, cheaper cross-border channel even when the formal one is available.

Zypto take: An 8.5% premium on a stablecoin is the market pricing what faster, cheaper cross-border transfers are actually worth to people who need them. The demand is not the problem. The gap between what formal banking costs and what crypto costs is.

That gap is exactly what Zypto App’s cross-border transfers are built to close: 24/7, borderless, almost instant, with no banking windows and no correspondent bank markup sitting in the middle.

Stripe’s Privy Launches a Debit Card That Spends Straight From a DeFi Vault

Source: KuCoin News

Privy, the wallet infrastructure Stripe acquired last year, announced a debit card on Monday that draws funds directly from a user’s DeFi vault at the point of sale. When a purchase is made, the card settles in stablecoins while the wallet grants Stripe a one-time approval to withdraw vault shares, handling redemption and settlement in a single step with no manual withdrawal first.

The card is issued as a prepaid Visa by Lead Bank. Deposited funds keep earning yield inside the vault right up until the moment of payment, rather than sitting idle in a separate spending account. Privy is opening early access to integration teams now, with a broader rollout to follow.

Skipping the manual withdrawal step is the whole idea behind DeFi-native card funding, and it is not a new concept to test.

Zypto take: No manual withdrawal step is the correct design, and it validates a model Zypto has run for a while now.

Zypto Premium VISA Cards already load directly from a DeFi wallet, no exchange account, no custodial platform, no intermediate transfer, converting to spending power the moment the card is loaded rather than at the point of sale. Seeing a payments company as large as Stripe build toward that same direct-from-wallet model is a signal that this is becoming the standard, not the workaround.

Key Takeaways

Stablecoin infrastructure is consolidating around shared economics. Open USD splitting reserve yield with partners instead of one issuer keeping it all is a structural shift, not a marketing angle.
The line between holding and spending stablecoins is disappearing. Privy’s vault-linked card removes the manual transfer step that used to sit between earning yield and paying for something.
Regulatory crackdowns reveal real demand, they do not eliminate it. India’s 8.5% USDT premium is the market pricing the gap between formal and informal remittance channels, a gap that only closes with better-regulated options, not fewer of them.
Direct-from-wallet card funding is moving from a crypto-native feature to a mainstream industry expectation, which is exactly the kind of validation that matters more than any single feature announcement.
The throughline across all three stories is the same: crypto is being built to work the way money is supposed to work, available, earning, and spendable, without asking the user to manage the difference.

Today in Crypto - Stablecoin rails go institutional

Zypto Editorial Team — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Stablecoin infrastructure is no longer something banks are studying. Four major moves in 48 hours show the rails being built in real time, from regulators setting the rules to custody giants opening the pipes.

The UK FCA dropped stablecoin capital requirements to 1%, pulling well below the EU’s MiCA standard
BNY Mellon, with $59 trillion under custody, opened USDC minting and redemption to institutional clients
Breez launched an SDK letting Bitcoin wallet users pay recipients in USDC or USDT on 30+ blockchains
JPMorgan’s Kinexys platform added five Asia-Pacific currencies and now settles $7B+ daily around the clock

The through-line is acceleration. The policy frameworks are landing, the custody infrastructure is opening up, and the payment tooling is closing the gap between holding crypto and spending it.

UK Slashes Stablecoin Capital Requirements, Undercutting MiCA

Source: CoinDesk

The UK Financial Conduct Authority finalized stablecoin capital requirements at 1% of total stablecoin value in circulation, down from the 2% it had previously proposed. The EU’s MiCA regulation requires 2%. The Bank of England also reversed its earlier proposal to cap individual stablecoin holdings at £20,000, signaling a deliberate move toward lighter-touch oversight than its European counterparts.

The FCA said the change “makes the prudential framework more proportionate for larger issuers while maintaining the robustness of the overall regime.” Crypto firms wanting to operate legally in the UK have until February 2027 to obtain FCA authorization under the new framework.

Zypto take: The UK and EU are now running competing regulatory models for stablecoins. Lower capital requirements and no individual holding caps mean UK-authorized stablecoins will have structural cost advantages over their MiCA counterparts. For people using stablecoins for payments and savings, more issuer competition under clearer rules is good news.

BNY Mellon Opens USDC Minting and Redemption to Institutions

Source: CoinDesk

BNY Mellon, the world’s largest custody bank with $59 trillion in assets under custody, expanded its Digital Asset Custody platform to allow institutional clients to hold, mint, and redeem USDC directly. Clients can now convert U.S. dollars into USDC through Circle and redeem back to dollars through a single platform.

BNY already holds reserves backing USDC and now brings those two functions together. The bank says it plans to support additional stablecoin issuers over time. The move follows the GENIUS Act establishing a federal U.S. framework for dollar-backed stablecoins.

Zypto take: When the world’s largest custodian builds USDC directly into its core platform, the question of whether stablecoins belong in institutional portfolios is answered. That same USDC powers USDC ⇌ Cash, Zypto App’s service activated by MoneyGram and Stellar, that lets you cash-in or cash-out of USDC at participating MoneyGram locations worldwide. The infrastructure at both ends of that chain is now mainstream.

Breez SDK Lets Bitcoin Wallets Pay in USDC Without Holding Stablecoins

Source: CoinTelegraph

Bitcoin infrastructure company Breez launched a developer SDK that lets users pay in USDC or USDT on 30+ blockchains while spending from a Bitcoin balance. The sender holds Bitcoin; the recipient receives stablecoins on their chosen network. The SDK automatically identifies the destination chain, calculates the conversion route, shows fees before confirmation, and routes through liquidity providers Flashnet and Boltz.

CEO Roy Sheinfeld said the feature “relies on interoperability to let users spend from a Bitcoin balance while recipients receive stablecoins on supported blockchain networks.” Inbound stablecoin support is planned for a future release. The SDK is aimed at developers building payment applications.

Zypto take: Cross-chain payment routing is becoming a commodity. The Zypto multichain wallet handles 1,000,000+ swap routes across 20+ blockchains precisely because real-world spending requires moving between asset types and chains without thinking about it. Breez is solving it at the developer layer; Zypto solves it for the end user in two taps.

JPMorgan’s Kinexys Adds Five Asia-Pacific Currencies for 24/7 Settlement

Source: CoinDesk

JPMorgan expanded its Kinexys blockchain payments platform to support eight currencies, adding the Australian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi, and Singapore dollar. These join the existing U.S. dollar, euro, and British pound. The permissioned network runs 24/7, processes $7 billion in average daily volume, and has settled over $4 trillion since launch.

Payoneer is already using the Australian dollar service; JERA Global Markets is live on Japanese yen. The platform lets businesses move funds, exchange currencies, and manage liquidity at any hour without waiting for correspondent banking windows.

Zypto take: Traditional cross-border payments run on schedules that digital rails never needed. A $7B daily blockchain settlement network clearing Asia-Pacific currencies around the clock is the same argument for 24/7 global value movement that crypto has made since day one. Zypto App has always worked this way: borderless, almost instant, no banking hours.

Key Takeaways

Stablecoin regulation is moving fast on both sides of the Atlantic, and the UK is deliberately positioning itself as the lighter-touch alternative to MiCA. Expect issuer activity to reflect that.
BNY’s USDC integration signals that dollar-pegged digital assets are now inside the institutional custody stack. That is a structural change, not a trial.
The cross-chain payments problem is being solved at every layer simultaneously: developer SDKs, bank rails, and consumer wallets. The direction is all-on interoperability.
Around-the-clock settlement is becoming the baseline expectation. Networks that can only move money during banking hours are the legacy exception, not the norm.
The regulatory and infrastructure pieces are arriving together in 2026. The gap between what crypto enables and what mainstream finance offers is closing measurably.

Today in Crypto - The Distance Is the Point

Zypto Editorial Team — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Stablecoins are working exactly where they were always needed most. Transaction volume surpassed $28 trillion last year, driven by countries where dollar access matters more than anywhere else. Meanwhile, Europe just hit a regulatory hard deadline, Tether is turning its $23 billion gold reserve into a lending business, and DeFi is next on the EU’s legislative agenda.

Binance’s MiCA failure opens a window: Coinbase and OKX are racing to sign up its 450 million EU users before July 1
Tether teams up with Ledn to let XAUT holders borrow against tokenized gold without selling
Stablecoin volume hit $28T in 2025, with the real demand coming from Nigeria, Argentina, and Brazil, not Silicon Valley
EU lawmakers back a formal review of DeFi, staking, and NFT regulation ahead of a July 7 plenary vote

The regulation and the capital are both moving at once. How those forces land will shape which products, which founders, and which users get to participate in the next phase of crypto’s growth.

MiCA shakes up EU crypto: Binance out, Coinbase and OKX move in

Source: CoinDesk

Binance informed European users it would suspend services after failing to obtain a MiCA license before the July 1 deadline. Coinbase and OKX moved quickly to compete for its estimated 450 million EU users. Coinbase, MiCA-licensed since 2025, launched a 5% transfer bonus campaign across Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Sweden, and the UK. OKX is advertising deposit bonuses of up to 8%. Binance says it expects to secure a MiCA license in coming months.

Zypto take: Regulatory compliance is no longer a cost centre; it is a market-share lever. For crypto holders caught in the transition, having assets in a self-custody wallet means the platform beneath them does not matter. Your keys, your assets, independent of which exchange is licensed this week.

Tether puts $23B gold reserve to work with bullion-backed loans

Source: CoinDesk

Tether has partnered with crypto lender Ledn to let XAUT token holders borrow against their tokenized gold without selling. Each XAUT token represents one troy ounce of physical bullion held in Swiss vaults. Tether currently holds approximately $23 billion worth, around 140 metric tons, in reserve. Ledn’s model keeps 1:1 collateral without rehypothecating customer assets, a deliberate departure from lending platforms that collapsed in 2022. The service is expected to launch later this year.

Zypto take: Tokenized real-world assets get more useful the moment they can do something beyond sitting in a wallet. Most people cannot pledge bullion as loan collateral. XAUT holders will be able to. Hold the asset, move liquidity out of it, without losing the underlying position. That is the direction the real-world asset stack is heading.

Where stablecoin volume actually lives

Source: Decrypt

Stablecoin transaction volume reached $28 trillion globally in 2025, surpassing Visa and Mastercard combined. Nigeria has 26 million crypto users with 59% holding USDT. Stablecoin purchases account for over half of all exchange transactions in Argentina. Latin American stablecoin flows equal 7.7% of the region’s GDP. Only 32% of stablecoin companies globally are based in emerging markets, despite those regions generating the majority of real-world usage.

Zypto take: In Nigeria, Argentina, and Brazil, stablecoins are not an investment product. They are a practical answer to currency collapse and banks that can be shuttered or seized. The fact that the issuers are far away is the point, not a flaw. Zypto App was built on the same principle: hold, move, and convert digital assets across 20+ blockchains, without depending on any single country’s financial system to do it.

EU eyes DeFi and staking for the next regulatory wave

Source: CoinTelegraph

The European Parliament’s economic affairs committee has backed a nonbinding resolution urging the European Commission to assess whether crypto lending, borrowing, staking, and NFTs should come under MiCA. Drafted by Belgian MEP Johan Van Overtveldt, the report also encourages euro-denominated stablecoins and warns against fragmented national applications of the existing framework. A full Parliament vote is expected July 7. The resolution carries no immediate legal force but represents the Parliament’s official position on where digital asset regulation goes next.

Zypto take: Nonbinding today, legislative template tomorrow. The key question for self-custody users is whether incoming rules distinguish between custodial and non-custodial activity. That distinction matters enormously, and it is why the Zypto multichain wallet’s non-custodial architecture is a design choice, not just a feature.

Key Takeaways

MiCA enforcement is landing hard: one exchange out, two in. The pattern will repeat across markets as regulatory timelines arrive. Self-custody remains the one position that is indifferent to which platform holds a license.
Tokenized real-world assets are moving from storage to utility. Collateralized lending against gold is a proof point that on-chain assets can serve traditional financial functions with a broader access profile.
Stablecoins are working exactly where they were always needed most. The fact that issuers are far from Lagos or Buenos Aires is the feature, not the flaw. Dollar access independent of local financial systems is the use case.
The EU is treating MiCA as a first chapter, not a complete framework. DeFi, staking, and NFTs are the next subjects; what the Parliament resolves in July will shape legislation for years.

Today in Crypto - June 26: Base Goes Programmable, ETH Gets Flipped

Zypto Editorial Team — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:00:00 GMT

The infrastructure is catching up to the thesis. Base shipped a token standard built for stablecoin issuers and real-world asset platforms. Tether flipped Ether by market cap as ETH touched 2023 lows. A major custodian restructured around stablecoins and AI. And the clock on US crypto market-structure law is now measured in weeks, not months.

Base’s Beryl upgrade goes live with B20: a compliance-native token standard baked into the node
Tether overtakes Ether by market cap as ETH falls to $1,510
BitGo cuts 15% of staff and reorients around stablecoins and AI infrastructure
The CLARITY Act has roughly five working weeks before August recess, and Congress has less runway than it looks

The connective tissue here is institutional readiness. The rails are being built, the compliance tooling is arriving, and companies are restructuring around the stack that will remain after the market recovers.

Base activates Beryl with a compliance-native token standard

Source: The Block

Base activated its Beryl hard fork today, the second named upgrade for Coinbase’s Layer 2 network. The headline feature is B20, a new token standard that runs as a Rust precompile inside the node rather than as a deployed smart contract. Designed for stablecoin issuers and tokenized asset platforms, B20 ships with role-based permissions, transfer restrictions, optional supply caps, and freeze-and-seize capability. It also cuts withdrawal finalization from seven days to five.

Zypto take: B20 introduces a class of crypto assets that can be frozen or seized by their issuers, regardless of where they are held. As this model grows, the distinction between issuer-controlled assets and self-sovereign ones matters more than ever. Native assets like Bitcoin, Ether, and the broader open asset class carry no such controls. Zypto App’s multichain wallet is built for both, and knowing the difference is part of owning crypto well.

Tether flips Ether by market cap as ETH falls to $1,510

Source: CoinTelegraph

Ether fell 5.2% to $1,510 today, its lowest price of 2026 and a level last seen in October 2023. The drop pushed ETH’s market cap to roughly $185 billion, just below Tether’s $186 billion. USDC also overtook XRP during the same session. The moves reflect a broad crypto selloff rather than any Ethereum-specific catalyst, but the optics are notable: the largest stablecoin by market cap now outranks the second-largest proof-of-stake network.

Zypto take: Stablecoins now represent nearly 15% of total crypto market cap. That is not a signal that stablecoins are winning and assets are losing. It is a signal that stable-value infrastructure has become a core, persistent layer of the crypto economy regardless of market direction. Ownership of volatile assets and use of stablecoins for movement and participation are not in competition. They are complementary layers in the same stack.

BitGo cuts 15% of staff and pivots to stablecoins and AI

Source: Decrypt

BitGo, the crypto custodian that went public in January 2026, is cutting approximately 90 roles from a staff of 603. CEO Mike Belshe described the reduction as a one-time action and said the company is refocusing on “security, trading, stablecoins, settlement, and AI-powered infrastructure.” BitGo joins Coinbase, Block, and Robinhood in making significant workforce reductions this year, with companies across the sector pointing to AI adoption as a driver.

Zypto take: BitGo is a custodian that holds assets on behalf of users. The pivot toward stablecoins and settlement is the custodial tier following where value is moving. Zypto App takes the other path: self-custody, where users own their keys and move value directly, without a custodian in between.

CLARITY Act has five weeks before Congress heads home

Source: The Block / BeInCrypto

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act faces a compressed timeline. President Trump has declined to sign the bipartisan housing bill, conditioning his signature on passage of the SAVE America Act, an unrelated elections measure. The housing standoff is consuming Senate floor time, and the chamber has roughly five working weeks before the August recess. A Senate aide confirmed that the CLARITY Act remains a July priority for both parties, with bill text expected around the July 4 period. But the math is tight.

Zypto take: The CLARITY Act would establish a federal framework distinguishing digital commodities from securities and clarifying how crypto assets can be issued, traded, and held. A durable legal framework for digital asset market structure matters for every participant in the ecosystem, from retail users to institutional custody providers. The question is not whether clear rules are coming. It is whether they arrive in July, in November, or in the lame-duck session. That timing affects how fast the rest of the stack can be built on top of them.

Key Takeaways

Base’s B20 standard embeds compliance tooling directly into the node, a meaningful step toward a regulated stablecoin and real-world asset ecosystem on Ethereum L2 rails.
Tether flipping Ether by market cap is less about Tether winning and more about stablecoins becoming permanent infrastructure, growing independently of market cycles.
BitGo’s restructuring mirrors a sector-wide shift: institutional crypto services are consolidating around stablecoins, settlement, and AI-managed operations.
The CLARITY Act remains on track for a July vote but faces real schedule pressure. Five weeks is not a lot of runway when the Senate has competing priorities.
The week’s underlying signal: the regulatory, institutional, and infrastructure layers are all moving at once. The rebuild is happening in a down market, which is usually how durable foundations get built.

“This Week In Crypto – Ethereum, Ripple, GTA 6, and Polymarket”

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Gm frens. Welcome to the last news round-up for June!

Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade is set for Q3 2026; Nigeria leads Ripple's RLUSD bet, as Pudgy Penguins rolls out a game at Target stores. GTA 6 pre-orders are confirmed amid a meme coin frenzy, and a Polymarket trader wins $9.24 million in a single day. Is ETH setting up for a recovery? Lastly, Zypto App v1.28 is live.

Let's go!

Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade set for Q3 2026

Ethereum is preparing to roll out the Glamsterdam upgrade in Q3 of 2026 to handle increased network activity. Rather than adding new features, the upgrade focuses on improving how Ethereum processes transactions behind the scenes.

First, Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-7732 gives the network more time to build and share blocks, increasing that window from about two seconds to nine seconds. This helps Ethereum handle larger amounts of data more efficiently.

Next, EIP-7928 allows the network to identify transaction requirements before processing them, making it easier to handle multiple transactions simultaneously. Meanwhile, updated fee rules aim to support higher network capacity without overloading the system. Together, these changes could lower costs, reduce congestion, and improve Ethereum's long-term performance.

Ethereum's scalability story is increasingly being shaped by Layer-2 networks rather than the main chain itself. According to DefiLlama data, Base holds more than $4.2 billion in DeFi value, while Arbitrum secures roughly $1.3 billion.

This migration accelerated as users sought lower costs and faster execution than the main network could consistently provide. Meanwhile, transaction activity has increasingly moved toward rollups, reinforcing their role as the ecosystem's primary execution layer.

However, the rollups reduce congestion and expand capacity, yet they also deepen reliance on Ethereum for settlement and security. As activity grows, sustaining efficiency across both layers becomes increasingly important for long-term network performance.

Nigeria leads Ripple's RLUSD bet through Flutterwave

Ripple announced a strategic partnership with Flutterwave, one of the biggest payment companies located in Nigeria. With Ripple's help, Flutterwave is advancing its push into blockchain-based payments through this new partnership.

That said, the investment, which was a component of Flutterwave's Series E round, valued the company at $3.2 billion. With this partnership, Ripple would also integrate its global payment network, the XRP Ledger (XRPL), and its stablecoin, RLUSD, into Flutterwave's infrastructure. All in all, this agreement marks a significant change in how funds could enter and exit Nigeria.

Although Flutterwave currently handles payments for millions of consumers and businesses throughout the continent, the majority of international transactions still go through conventional banking channels.

This includes multiple intermediaries, correspondent banks, currency conversions, and settlement times that take several days. By strategically investing in and integrating technology, Ripple aims to replace much of that complexity with stablecoin-based blockchain infrastructure.

Needless to say, the implications are wider for Africa and Nigeria. For context, the continent has long struggled with issues such as high remittance costs, restricted access to international banking systems, and a lack of foreign exchange.

This milestone occurs, as the RLUSD Cost Basis Distribution Heatmap indicates that June 2026 appears to mark the start of a higher-activity phase for RLUSD. The rise in volatility and the formation of new cost-basis clusters below $1 suggest that more people were interacting with the stablecoin.

Though this may have caused brief disruptions, it prevented the peg from collapsing overall.

Pudgy Penguins rolls out trading game at Target stores

NFT project Pudgy Penguins has expanded the retail reach of its trading card game through a nationwide rollout at Target stores in the US. According to reports, the launch of Vibes Series 3 marks the game's biggest retail expansion to date and brings the total number of circulated cards to 15 million. The new set includes additional gameplay mechanics, original artwork, and appearances by characters from the Moonbirds collection.

Pudgy Penguins developed Vibes in partnership with Orange Cap Games, with Series 3 following two earlier releases. The digital collectible project is the fourth-largest NFT collection by market capitalization, according to data tracker NFT Price Floor.

The rollout shows how Pudgy Penguins is extending its NFT-born intellectual property into mainstream consumer products as it aims to build a broader entertainment franchise beyond digital assets.

Pudgy Penguins has spent years turning its Ethereum-based NFT collection into a broader consumer brand, with ventures spanning toys, licensing and other consumer products.

Its physical toys were stocked in more than 2,000 Walmart stores in 2023. The project's licensing model also allows NFT holders to receive 5% of net revenue from physical products featuring their individual penguins.

The franchise has also expanded into gaming. In 2025, Pudgy Penguins launched two games, Pengu Clash and Pudgy Party. The company claimed that the latter's downloads exceeded 1 million. However, the project said that it would halt further development of the game and focus its resources on a browser-based game called Pudgy World.

GTA 6 pre-orders confirmed amid meme coin frenzy

Rockstar Games officially confirmed that Grand Theft Auto VI pre-orders will begin on June 25 across all major platforms and global digital storefronts. The announcement reignited massive hype around what is already considered one of the most anticipated game launches in history.

GTA 6 has dominated gaming conversations for years. Moreover, the long wait between the original announcement and the release has intensified retail attention. Crypto markets reacted within minutes. GTA 6 and Rockstar-themed meme coins surged sharply across multiple decentralized exchanges, especially on Solana, Ethereum, and BNB Chain.

Several previously dead tokens reached multi-week highs as social media amplified a buying frenzy across crypto communities worldwide. The reaction follows a familiar pattern. Whenever major entertainment events approach, themed meme coins typically experience parabolic moves driven by retail FOMO. As a result, traders chase quick gains tied to the underlying brand's cultural relevance.

Despite the explosive moves, Rockstar Games has not released any official tokens. Every meme coin riding the GTA 6 hype is a community-driven project with no formal connection to Rockstar, Take-Two Interactive, or the franchise itself.

Also, regulatory uncertainty around unauthorized branding can trigger sudden token removals from major exchanges. The lack of official endorsement does not stop the rally. Crypto markets historically reward narrative-driven speculation, especially around culturally significant brands.

For now, the GTA 6 pre-order announcement on June 25 remains the next major catalyst. Until then, meme coin volatility tied to the franchise will likely remain elevated. Investors should remember that the only confirmed news comes directly from Rockstar Games.

Polymarket trader wins $9.24 million in one day

Prediction market traders are winning and losing millions on the 2026 World Cup, with one Polymarket bettor banking $9.24 million in a single day after correctly calling four match outcomes. The scale has made individual trades a spectacle. On-chain trackers now follow the biggest wallets in near real time.

The tournament has turned platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi into high-stakes betting arenas. Traders are wagering seven-figure sums on single matches, and the results are producing both record payouts and steep losses. The outright winner market on Polymarket alone has drawn more than $2.5 billion in volume.

A standout winner won all four of their bets. According to Lookonchain, the trader staked $7.03 million on Iran, not beating New Zealand. Iran drew 2-2, and that single bet returned $7.34 million.

Another trader, fishalive, turned roughly $427,000 into $4.7 million after Spain drew 0-0 with Cape Verde at 9% odds. A third account, gardenshed, booked $764,000 in four days. It won 7 of 8 bets for an 87.5% win rate.

Losses were just as visible. One trader put about $1.2 million on Argentina not to beat Algeria, hoping to secure a $3.43 million payout. Argentina won 3-0 via a Lionel Messi hat-trick, and the trader lost. Another user lost $391,536 on the same outcome, while a separate Kalshi bettor put $373,407 on Algeria not to win, and that wager paid out $416,184.

Is ETH setting up for a recovery?

A major Ethereum whale intensified its accumulation activity after purchasing 7,000 ETH worth $11.8 million. The latest acquisition lifted the wallet's total purchases to 17,800 ETH valued at approximately $29.76 million over the previous ten days at the time of writing.

Such sustained buying activity highlighted growing conviction from large holders despite Ethereum's recent price struggles. Notably, the whale accumulated ETH at an average price of $1,672, a level close to the asset's current market value. This positioning suggested that large investors continued to view current prices as attractive.

Beyond whale activity, exchange flow data revealed a notable shift in Ethereum's circulating supply. During the latest trading session, Ethereum recorded $95.92 million in inflows against $109.27 million in outflows. This imbalance produced a net outflow of roughly $13.35 million.

The persistent outflow trend indicated that more ETH left exchanges than entered them. Since exchange-held assets typically represent a readily available supply for sale, the decline suggested reduced immediate sell-side pressure.

Liquidation data revealed several high-interest zones that could influence Ethereum's next move. The Global Liquidation Heatmap showed a notable concentration of liquidity around the $1,720 to $1,730 region.

Since large liquidation clusters often attract price action, this zone emerged as a key area to monitor in the short term. Below the current price, another significant liquidity pocket appeared between $1,665 and $1,675.

This cluster provided an important downside reference if Ethereum lost support near $1,700. Elsewhere, additional liquidity concentrations extended toward $1,750 and above $1,800, indicating areas where leveraged positions had accumulated.

As traders continue to target liquidity-rich zones, Ethereum's price action could remain drawn toward these levels before establishing a clearer directional move.

Zypto App v.128 is live

Zypto App v1.28 expands the availability of its reloadable crypto card range to more countries and U.S. states, while introducing a refreshed, more configurable app experience for active, everyday crypto users.

The broader availability is designed to enable more users to fund their card balances with crypto and spend instantly at millions of merchants worldwide. Zypto positions these reloadable cards as a bridge between on-chain value and everyday payments, allowing users to top up from supported cryptocurrencies while maintaining self-custody inside the app until they choose to load.

Beyond geography, v1.28 also brings an upgrade in the in-app experience for reloadable cards, with a focus on smoother funding and clearer visibility into balances and usage. Zypto highlights performance and reliability improvements under the hood, aiming to make topping up, tracking spend, and managing cards feel closer to a modern neobank app than a legacy crypto interface.

These optimizations arrive as competition intensifies around crypto-linked cards, especially in markets where users expect near-instant funding and transparent fee structures. By tightening the card flow and reducing friction at the app layer, Zypto is betting that a refined user experience will matter as much as headline perks or rewards.

The v1.28 release also refreshes the Zypto app's front door, introducing configurable homepage shortcuts that let users pin their most-used features. In practice, that means quicker access to actions such as sending or receiving crypto, swapping assets, managing cards, topping up mobile phones, or exploring DeFi integrations with a single tap.

This customization aligns with Zypto's broader 'super-app' vision, where wallet, payments, swaps, and cards coexist in a single interface rather than being split across multiple apps or browser tabs. For power users who manage dozens of tokens across more than 20 blockchains and 24,000+ supported assets and local currencies, shaving seconds off frequent workflows can add up quickly.

Underneath the interface changes, users benefit from a wide range of security and reliability improvements that align with Zypto's ongoing emphasis on self-custody and non-custodial controls. That combination–ownership of keys plus a consumer-grade experience–remains central to Zypto's aim to serve as a single, mobile-first hub for on-chain finance.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

Ethereum's Glamsterdam upgrade, targeted for Q3 2026, centers on EIP-7732 and EIP-7928 to give the network more time to build blocks, process transactions in parallel, and upgrade fee rules so Ethereum can handle more data at lower cost.

Ripple's strategic investment in Flutterwave will embed RLUSD and the XRP Ledger into its infrastructure to streamline cross-border payments and remittances, potentially lowering costs and friction for users across Africa.

Over several years, Pudgy Penguins has repositioned its NFT collection as a consumer brand through mass-market toy deals, licensing arrangements with NFT holders, and a growing slate of physical and digital products.

The speculative rally regarding GTA 6 meme coins reflects how gaming narratives consistently fuel meme coin volatility cycles. Traders quickly piled into tokens with names referencing the game, its characters, and the fictional Vice City setting.

World Cup betting markets on Polymarket have become high-stakes arenas where huge wagers are generating multi-million-dollar windfalls as well as outsized losses. Fresh accumulation from a major Ethereum whale has coincided with renewed discussion about whether large holders see current conditions as an attractive entry point.

Zypto App is sharpening its narrative beyond just another DeFi wallet. The direction of v1.28 suggests that future releases will likely continue to push toward a fully connected financial experience where holding, swapping, and spending crypto all happen without leaving the Zypto environment.

FAQs

What is the new Ethereum upgrade?

Ethereum is preparing to roll out the Glamsterdam upgrade in Q3 of 2026.

What is the latest on Ripple?

Ripple announced a strategic partnership with Flutterwave.

What is Pudgy Penguin's rollout strategy?

Pudgy Penguins' nationwide rollout is at Target stores in the US.

When is the GTA 6 pre-order starting?

Pre-orders for Grand Theft Auto VI will begin on June 25.

Today in Crypto - Stablecoins, Regulation, and 47 Banks Testing Cross-Border Settlement

Zypto Editorial Team — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Regulated dollar rails are arriving faster than most expected, and today’s news makes that concrete. Japan clears a stablecoin for retail and institutional use. US credit unions managing $25 billion in assets start testing stablecoin payments. A nation of 280 million crypto users gets formal influencer rules. And 47 banks test near-instant stablecoin FX settlement via Chainlink.

Ripple’s RLUSD goes live in Japan under FSA approval, cleared for both retail and institutional use via SBI VC Trade
US credit unions with $25 billion in combined assets join a stablecoin payments pilot, the GENIUS Act’s first real test at scale
Indonesia’s OJK mandates certifications and disclosures for crypto influencers, bringing the world’s fourth-largest country in line with Singapore and India
47 banks across Europe and South Korea test near-instant stablecoin FX settlement using Chainlink’s CCIP under Project Pangea

The throughline: stablecoins are no longer being evaluated as a crypto experiment. Regulators, credit unions, and global banking consortiums are treating them as payment infrastructure, and building accordingly.

Ripple’s RLUSD Stablecoin Goes Live in Japan After Regulatory Approval

Source: CoinDesk

Japan’s Financial Services Agency approved Ripple’s RLUSD on June 25 as an electronic payment instrument under the Payment Services Act, one of the first foreign-issued stablecoins to clear Japan’s regulatory bar. SBI VC Trade is now distributing the token to retail and institutional customers. RLUSD carries dual-jurisdiction compliance: NYDFS on the issuance side, FSA on distribution. Market cap sits at $1.7 billion since its late 2024 debut.

Zypto take: Japan’s FSA approval is the kind of regulatory clarity that makes stablecoin payments genuinely viable across borders. Major markets opening up is what turns crypto into everyday finance.

US Credit Unions Managing $25 Billion Join Stablecoin Infrastructure Pilot

Source: Crypto Briefing

Three US credit unions, RBFCU, Stanford FCU, and La Capitol FCU, collectively managing $25 billion in assets, joined Stablecore’s early-access program on June 24. The pilot covers stablecoin payments, tokenized deposits, Bitcoin on/off-ramps, and staking. Stablecore is partnered with Curql, a fintech collective representing 160+ credit unions. The GENIUS Act, signed July 2025, provided the regulatory confidence that made this possible.

Zypto take: 130 million Americans bank with credit unions. Stablecoin payment rails reaching that tier of institution is a different order of adoption than exchange-driven growth, and it points to the same infrastructure Zypto App already delivers: buy crypto via 130+ payment methods across 190+ countries, no bank intermediary required.

Indonesia Sets Certification Rules for Crypto Influencers

Source: Cryip / OJK

Indonesia’s OJK issued POJK No. 6/2026 on June 24, requiring mandatory competency certifications and paid-promotion disclosures for financial influencers. Crypto-specific content must be distributed through licensed channels; non-compliant accounts can be blocked. The regulation follows a February 2026 enforcement case involving undisclosed stock manipulation. Indonesia, with 280 million people, joins Singapore and India in formalizing finfluencer oversight.

Zypto take: Better disclosure rules mean more users across one of the world’s biggest retail crypto markets making decisions based on verified products. That’s a better environment for everyone building real crypto services, including Zypto App.

47 Banks Pilot Near-Instant Stablecoin FX Settlement via Chainlink

Source: Blockworks

Project Pangea, a consortium of 47 banks spanning Europe’s Qivalis group and South Korea’s UniKA alliance ($10 trillion in combined assets), is piloting stablecoin FX settlement on the Europe-South Korea trade corridor using Chainlink’s CCIP. The Payment-versus-Payment model compresses conventional two-day settlement to near-instant finality, with CCIP handling atomic cross-chain coordination between the two bank groups.

Zypto take: 47 banks and $10 trillion in assets running stablecoin settlement over CCIP is institutional crosschain in practice. Zypto App’s 1,000,000+ crosschain routes exist because this kind of infrastructure works at scale.

Source: Blockworks

Key Takeaways

Stablecoins have crossed from crypto experimentation into regulated payment infrastructure, with Japan and the US both formalizing frameworks that allow dollar-backed tokens into mainstream finance.
Credit union adoption matters more than it sounds: 130 million Americans bank with credit unions. Stablecoin payments reaching that tier of financial institution is a qualitatively different kind of adoption than exchange-driven growth.
Indonesia’s influencer rules, like similar moves in Singapore and India, signal that regulators view retail crypto education as something to govern, not ignore. Better disclosure standards create a healthier user base.
Project Pangea shows that institutional crosschain settlement is past the proof-of-concept stage. A 47-bank consortium with $10 trillion in assets running Payment-versus-Payment on CCIP is a production-grade test, not a whitepaper.
The practical question for crypto users has shifted from “can I hold digital assets” to “how many real-world things can I do with them.” The infrastructure to answer that question is being built right now, from Tokyo to Texas to Jakarta.

Today in Crypto - Yen Stablecoins, MiCA Licenses & Bitcoin Runes

Zypto Editorial Team — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

The infrastructure of real-world crypto is being built from three directions at once today: a regulated yen stablecoin goes live in Japan, a major payments processor locks in its European license just before the MiCA deadline, and Bitcoin’s own network is seeing its highest transaction volume in two years. Regulators and builders are moving at the same pace, which is new.

Japan’s SBI Group launches JPYSC, the first trust bank-backed yen stablecoin, with no transaction ceiling
OpenPayd secures a MiCA license in Malta ahead of the July 1 deadline, unlocking stablecoin services across the EEA
Four U.S. law enforcement groups warn the CLARITY Act’s safe-harbor provision could shield illicit crypto flows
Bitcoin’s Runes protocol pushes daily transactions past 820,000, the highest count since April 2024

The common thread across today’s stories: stablecoins and crypto infrastructure are becoming more formal, more regulated, and more embedded in existing financial systems. That shift favors utility over speculation.

SBI Group launches Japan’s first trust bank-backed yen stablecoin

Source: The Block

SBI Group launched JPYSC on Wednesday, making it the first yen stablecoin issued through a trust bank structure in Japan. The token is issued by SBI Shinsei Trust Bank, distributed by SBI VC Trade, and developed in partnership with Singapore-based Startale Group.

The trust bank classification matters: JPYSC is registered as a Type 3 electronic payment instrument under Japan’s Payment Services Act, which removes the 1 million yen per-transaction and balance ceiling that applied to earlier fund-transfer stablecoins. That opens a path to institutional-grade uses including onchain foreign exchange markets, corporate lending, and settlement for tokenized real-world assets. For now, JPYSC is available only to SBI VC Trade account holders while broader regulatory and tax guidance is finalized.

Zypto take: Japan has been building toward this for two years, and the trust bank structure finally removes the ceiling that made earlier yen stablecoins impractical for institutional use. Zypto App already supports stablecoins across 20+ blockchains, and as regulated local-currency stablecoins like JPYSC expand multichain, they slot naturally into the kind of crosschain movement infrastructure that makes crypto useful at scale.

OpenPayd secures a MiCA license with a week to spare

Source: CoinTelegraph

OpenPayd received authorization as a crypto asset service provider from Malta’s Financial Services Authority on June 24, days before the EU’s July 1 MiCA transitional deadline. The license, which passports across the European Economic Area, covers fiat-to-stablecoin conversion and related financial services for businesses.

The company processes more than $240 billion in annualized transaction volume for over 1,100 business clients including Kraken, OKX, eToro, and B2C2. OpenPayd joins Bitcoin Suisse and Ripple in the growing roster of MiCA-licensed operators and has separately announced a proposed Nasdaq listing under the ticker “OP,” valuing the company at approximately $1.1 billion.

Zypto take: Every new MiCA license is another piece of stablecoin infrastructure that works within the regulatory perimeter rather than around it. For users who hold or move stablecoins, that means more compliant on-ramps, better banking relationships for the platforms they use, and less operational risk from the operator side. The EU’s regulated layer is now thick enough to build serious products on.

Law enforcement groups push back on CLARITY Act safe harbor

Source: The Block

Four major U.S. law enforcement organizations sent a joint letter to the DOJ and White House on Tuesday warning that Section 604 of the Clarity Act could hamper crypto crime investigations. The signatories were the National District Attorneys Association, National Association of Assistant United States Attorneys, International Association of Chiefs of Police, and National Sheriffs’ Association.

Section 604, also called the Blockchain Regulatory Certainty Act, would create a safe harbor for non-custodial developers and clarify they are not money transmitters. The law enforcement groups argue the provision contains “broad exemptions that may shield individuals or entities whose activities facilitate the movement of digital assets.” Nearly 100 Catholic leaders raised similar concerns the same day, specifically around human trafficking protections. White House crypto adviser Patrick Witt countered that the bill is “pro-regulatory, pro-enforcement.”

Zypto take: The tension here is real and worth watching. Safe-harbor clarity for non-custodial developers is exactly what allows software like Zypto App to exist: you own your keys, no one is holding your assets on your behalf. The law enforcement objection deserves a proper legislative answer, but the remedy should be targeted at bad actors, not at the infrastructure of self-custody itself.

Bitcoin Runes push daily transactions to a two-year high

Source: CoinDesk

Bitcoin’s daily transaction count crossed 820,000 on Tuesday, its highest level since April 2024, driven by a resurgence in the Runes protocol. Rune-related transactions (Runestones) exceeded 600,000 per day, according to Glassnode data, and Rune activity now accounts for roughly 25% of all Bitcoin transaction fees.

The timing is notable: Bitcoin is currently trading around $62,000, roughly 50% below its October all-time high, a point in the cycle when network activity typically softens. The Runes protocol, which enables fungible tokens on Bitcoin in a way structurally similar to Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard, launched at the April 2024 halving and appears to be driving a second wave of usage.

Zypto take: Bitcoin building onchain utility during a bear market is the kind of signal that matters more than short-term price. A network that generates demand for block space from applications, not just transfers, is a healthier network. For anyone using Zypto App to hold or move Bitcoin across 20+ blockchains, this is the underlying infrastructure getting stronger.

Key Takeaways

Regulated local-currency stablecoins are arriving in major economies. Japan’s JPYSC removes the institutional barriers that capped earlier yen stablecoins, and Europe’s MiCA framework is producing a new class of compliant operators.
The CLARITY Act debate is sharpening around a real question: how to protect self-custody infrastructure without creating gaps that benefit bad actors. The answer matters for every non-custodial product in the space.
Bitcoin’s Runes activity shows that crypto networks can attract genuine usage independent of price. Application-driven demand for block space is a structural shift worth tracking.
The direction across all four stories is the same: crypto infrastructure is becoming more regulated, more institutionally accessible, and more embedded in real financial systems. That’s the environment Zypto was built for.

Today in Crypto - Quantum Threat, Tax Clarity, Cardano Scales

Zypto Editorial Team — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Crypto’s long-term security, its tax treatment, and the scalability of one of its oldest smart contract platforms all moved on the same day. The common thread is infrastructure. The foundations being built right now will define how crypto performs in the next decade.

Trump signs two executive orders to accelerate US quantum computing and mandate federal agencies migrate to post-quantum cryptography by 2030-31
Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation, and The Digital Chamber urge Congress to pass the Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act unchanged
Cardano launches its Leios Musashi Dojo public testnet, targeting a 30-65x throughput increase toward a November 2026 mainnet hard fork

Whether the industry survives the next decade depends partly on decisions being made right now: at the protocol level, in Congress, and in federal agencies managing the transition to quantum-resistant encryption.

Trump signs executive orders on quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography

Source: CoinTelegraph

President Trump signed two executive orders on June 23. The first directs the Department of Energy to accelerate US quantum computer development. The second mandates that federal agencies migrate to post-quantum cryptography standards by 2030-31.

The crypto relevance is direct: Bitcoin and Ethereum both rely on elliptic curve cryptography, which a sufficiently powerful quantum computer could theoretically break. The 2030-31 federal deadline puts a clock on how seriously governments are treating that risk.

Zypto take: The threat to elliptic curve cryptography is real but not imminent. What matters today is that governments are treating it as a planning problem, which means protocol developers should too. Self-custody in a multichain wallet is built on cryptographic foundations that the industry is actively working to strengthen. The right time to prepare for that transition is now, and the work is already underway.

Sources: CoinDesk · CoinTelegraph

Crypto lobby urges Congress to pass mining and staking tax bill unchanged

Source: CoinTelegraph

The Blockchain Association, Crypto Council for Innovation, and The Digital Chamber sent a joint letter to the House Ways and Means Committee on June 23, urging passage of the Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act without changes. Under current IRS treatment, miners and stakers owe income tax on rewards the moment they are received, regardless of whether they have sold anything.

The bill would defer that tax liability until the point of sale. Industry groups call the current treatment “taxation of phantom income.”

Zypto take: Taxing rewards before they are sold discourages participation in the networks that secure crypto infrastructure. Deferred taxation at disposal is how most asset classes work, and getting that parity in law matters for anyone earning yield on their holdings.

Sources: CoinTelegraph · The Block

Cardano launches Leios Musashi Dojo public testnet

Source: BeInCrypto

The Cardano Foundation launched the Leios Musashi Dojo public testnet on June 23. The Ouroboros Leios scaling protocol targets a 30-65x throughput increase, taking Cardano from roughly 10 transactions per second to over 1,000 TPS. A mainnet hard fork is targeted for November 2026.

The public testnet phase opens participation to developers and validators who want to test the protocol before it reaches production.

Zypto take: 1,000+ TPS is the threshold where a chain starts to become credible for high-frequency real-world use. Whether Leios delivers at that scale on mainnet is what the next five months will test.

Source: BeInCrypto via Yahoo Finance

Key Takeaways

Governments treating quantum computing as a planning problem is a prompt for protocol developers to do the same. The 2030-31 federal deadline is not distant.
Current IRS treatment of staking and mining rewards taxes income that has not been realized. The Tax Clarity for Mining and Staking Act would bring crypto in line with how most asset disposals are taxed.
Cardano’s Leios testnet is the most concrete step yet toward genuine scalability for the network. November 2026 is the target, not a promise.
All three stories point toward infrastructure maturity: cryptographic resilience, fair tax treatment, and usable throughput. The foundations being laid now will determine which networks and which users are best positioned in the next cycle.

Today in Crypto - MoneyGram Goes Onchain, BoE Sets Stablecoin Rules

Zypto Editorial Team — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

The line between payments infrastructure and blockchain infrastructure is collapsing. A 60-million-customer remittance giant became a Solana validator today, the Bank of England put a number on how big a stablecoin is allowed to get, and a South Korean bank signed up to replace its wire-transfer rails with onchain settlement. Traditional finance is not adopting crypto cautiously. It is rebuilding its core plumbing.

MoneyGram becomes an official Solana validator, deepening its multi-chain stablecoin payment strategy
Bank of England drops individual holding caps and sets a £40 billion issuance ceiling for systemic stablecoins, clearing the way for a 2027 market launch
South Korea’s Toss Bank and the Solana Foundation agree to pilot stablecoin-based remittances for 15 million customers
Intercontinental Exchange and OKX launch a 50-50 joint venture to bring tokenized NYSE equities and ICE futures to global crypto users
Baillie Gifford and BNY put a 118-year-old investment firm’s bond fund on Ethereum and Solana, live today

The day’s throughline is infrastructure. Every story is about the rails: who controls them, what they settle on, and how fast the old guard is moving to own a piece of the new ones.

MoneyGram becomes a Solana validator amid stablecoin payment push

Source: CoinDesk

MoneyGram announced on June 22 that it has become an official validator on the Solana network, helping process and secure transactions on the proof-of-stake chain. The company also joined the Solana Developer Platform alongside Mastercard, Worldpay, and Western Union. The move follows MoneyGram’s June 2 launch of MGUSD, its own dollar-denominated stablecoin issued on Stellar through a partnership with Bridge, and its role as an anchor validator on blockchain payment network Tempo.

CEO Alex Holmes framed the logic clearly: “MoneyGram has spent the past several years integrating blockchain into our payment infrastructure. We believe the future of global money movement will be built on open, interoperable stablecoin rails that anyone, anywhere can access.”

Zypto take: MoneyGram validating Solana while running MGUSD on Stellar is the stablecoin multi-chain strategy in its most concrete form. A payment network with 60 million customers and nearly 500,000 retail locations is not experimenting. It is deciding which blockchains matter for the next decade of money movement and putting infrastructure-level commitments behind those choices.

This matters for how remittance rails evolve. When a validator earns staking rewards, it also gains direct participation in how a network prioritizes and processes transactions. MoneyGram is not just using Solana’s speed for payment throughput. It now has a governance-adjacent stake in the network’s health. That is a different relationship to blockchain than “we accept crypto.”

Zypto is an Official Partner of MoneyGram, activating the USDC to Cash service in Zypto App through MoneyGram’s global network on Stellar. MoneyGram’s decision to deepen its blockchain commitments, becoming a Solana validator while running MGUSD on Stellar, shows a payment network at serious scale making multi-chain infrastructure bets, not dabbling.

Source: CoinDesk

Bank of England drops individual holding caps and sets £40 billion stablecoin ceiling

Source: CoinTelegraph

The Bank of England published its revised stablecoin regulatory framework on June 22, making substantial changes from earlier drafts. The central bank abandoned proposed caps that would have limited individual holdings to £20,000 and corporate holdings to £10 million. In their place, it introduced a single macro-level guardrail: a temporary £40 billion (approximately $50.6 billion) aggregate circulation limit for any single systemic stablecoin.

On reserves, the BoE relaxed requirements further. Issuers may now invest up to 70% of reserves in short-term UK government debt (T-bills under six months). The remaining 30% must sit in non-interest-bearing central bank deposits. Issuers cannot pay interest or dividends to token holders directly, but activity-based rewards such as cashback or loyalty points tied to payment transactions remain explicitly permitted. Regulated stablecoins are expected to launch in the UK in 2027, when the country’s full crypto regulatory framework takes effect.

Zypto take: The holding-cap reversal is the right call, and the BoE knows it. Capping individuals at £20,000 would have made sterling stablecoins functionally unusable for any business with real payment volumes. The industry pushed back hard, the House of Lords backed them, and the central bank listened. That is how regulatory frameworks are supposed to work.

The £40 billion issuance ceiling is the more interesting piece. It signals that the BoE’s primary concern is systemic risk to UK credit provision, not consumer protection per se. A stablecoin large enough to trigger capital flight from the banking system is the tail risk they are managing. That is a legitimate concern, and it is structured sensibly. It is a temporary guardrail, explicitly subject to review, not a permanent limit baked into law.

What the activity-based rewards carveout means in practice: stablecoin issuers can build reward programs around payment activity. That is the product layer that makes stablecoins competitive with card loyalty programs. The UK is deliberately preserving that design space.

Source: CoinTelegraph

South Korea’s Toss Bank pilots stablecoin remittances on Solana

Source: The Crypto Times

South Korea’s Toss Bank signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Solana Foundation on June 19, announced publicly on June 22. The agreement covers a proof-of-concept to evaluate whether stablecoin rails on Solana can support overseas remittances and cross-border settlement for the bank’s 15 million customers. Toss Bank describes it as the first direct strategic cooperation between a South Korean internet-only bank and the Solana Foundation.

The pilot will connect Toss Bank’s existing overseas transfer service to Solana’s network to measure speed, cost, and reliability. The goal is to determine whether a blockchain settlement layer can sit above current banking rails without compromising compliance or service levels. No live product has been announced. This is research-stage work with a defined product path.

Zypto take: Fifteen million banking customers is not a small user base for a remittance pilot. Toss Bank is South Korea’s leading internet-only bank, with a mobile-native customer base, a young demographic, and high international payment demand. The fact that they are looking at Solana rather than traditional SWIFT rails for their rebuilt transfer product is a statement about where the industry’s velocity of development sits.

Stablecoin remittances have the clearest value proposition of any crypto payment use case: the settlement is near-instant, the fees are a fraction of correspondent banking, and there is no need for a bank account at the receiving end. What this pilot tests is the compliance layer: whether a fully regulated Korean banking entity can route international value over a public blockchain and satisfy its AML, travel rule, and reporting obligations simultaneously. If it works, the model scales fast.

For anyone using a multichain wallet to move value across borders today, this is what the mainstream version of that experience looks like when a bank builds it natively.

Source: The Crypto Times

ICE and OKX form a 50-50 joint venture to put tokenized NYSE equities in crypto wallets

Source: Fortune

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, and crypto exchange OKX announced a 50-50 joint venture on June 22 to build infrastructure for tokenized and digitally native financial products. The venture will operate as a US-registered broker-dealer and futures commission merchant, enabling OKX’s global users to access ICE futures contracts and tokenized versions of NYSE-listed equities.

The joint venture will be co-chaired by former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. ICE invested roughly $200 million in OKX in March at a valuation of approximately $25 billion. The rollout is targeted for the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approval. OKX’s 120 million global users would gain access to the NYSE’s tokenized equity market as part of the agreement.

Zypto take: The owner of the New York Stock Exchange building a 50-50 venture with a crypto exchange to put tokenized NYSE stocks into digital wallets is not a small move. ICE runs the financial market infrastructure that most of the world’s pension funds, asset managers, and institutions route through. When that entity commits capital and equity ownership to a blockchain-native distribution channel, the direction of travel becomes clear.

Tokenized equities and crypto assets in the same wallet changes the product question from “should I be in crypto or in stocks” to “how do I allocate across both inside one self-custody environment.” That is a much bigger shift than it sounds. The portfolio boundary between the two asset classes disappears at the wallet layer.

Source: Fortune

Baillie Gifford and BNY put a 118-year-old investment firm’s bond fund on Ethereum and Solana

Source: CoinDesk

Baillie Gifford, the Edinburgh-based investment manager founded in 1908, launched the Baillie Gifford Enhanced Yield Fund (BAGEY) on June 22 in partnership with BNY. The fund is a dollar-denominated, actively managed portfolio of short-duration public corporate bonds currently offering approximately 7% yield. It is structured as a UK-regulated Open-Ended Investment Company and issued natively on both Ethereum and Solana, with BNY providing tokenization infrastructure and custody.

According to Theo Golden, head of digital assets at Baillie Gifford, “the blockchain serves as the register of record” for the fund. BNY’s Katey Neate said the launch demonstrates how “tokenisation has moved from concept to real-world application.” The fund is available to eligible investors in the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands.

Zypto take: A 118-year-old firm that manages roughly $340 billion in assets issuing a bond fund natively on a public blockchain is the RWA story in its most mature form. Baillie Gifford is not a crypto-native business experimenting with tokenization. It is a deeply institutional asset manager concluding that blockchain-based fund infrastructure is good enough for its investors and its compliance obligations.

The detail that matters: the blockchain is the register of record, not a parallel record alongside a traditional back office. That is a different architectural commitment than most tokenization pilots, which maintain off-chain registers with a blockchain mirror. It also means settlement, transfers, and ownership verification happen onchain by default.

Zypto supports real-world assets within Zypto App. As tokenized funds like BAGEY become more widely available, the infrastructure to hold, transfer, and manage those assets in a self-custody environment becomes more relevant: not for speculation, but for genuine portfolio participation.

Source: CoinDesk

Key Takeaways

Traditional payments infrastructure is not just adopting crypto. It is becoming blockchain infrastructure. MoneyGram validating Solana and Toss Bank piloting stablecoin rails signal that the settlement layer is changing from the inside out.
Regulation is maturing in a usable direction. The Bank of England’s holding-cap reversal and the US GENIUS Act rulemaking both landed this week on the side of workable frameworks, not prohibitive ones.
Tokenized finance is moving off the whiteboard. A bond fund issued natively on Ethereum and Solana, backed by one of the world’s largest custodians, is real-world asset tokenization as a live product, not a roadmap item.
The wallet is becoming the universal account. When NYSE equities, bond funds, stablecoins, and crypto assets all settle onchain, the distinction between a crypto wallet and a financial account starts to dissolve.
For anyone already using crypto for real-world participation, whether for payments, remittances, or savings, the infrastructure underpinning that activity just got significantly deeper roots.

Today in Crypto - Stablecoin Rules Land, Bitcoin Gets a POS, and AI Pays

Zypto Editorial Team — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

The scaffolding for a stablecoin-powered payment world is going up fast. Five federal agencies dropped the GENIUS Act’s first customer ID rules this week, Fidelity launched the reserve fund those issuers will need to stay compliant, a Swedish krona stablecoin went live across five chains under MiCA, and Bitcoin got a point-of-sale protocol that keeps the asset native all the way to settlement.

Five US agencies publish proposed GENIUS Act KYC rules for stablecoin issuers, with a 60-day comment window
Fidelity launches a GENIUS Act-aligned money market reserve fund targeting the $320 billion stablecoin market
AllUnity’s SEKAU becomes the first MiCA-compliant Swedish krona stablecoin, live on Ethereum, Solana, Base, Polygon, and Tempo
GoMining releases its GoBTC Pay SDK and APIs, giving merchants a native Bitcoin point-of-sale with 0.2% fees and BTC settlement
Alchemy’s AgentCard secures Visa network access, letting AI agents execute purchases on behalf of their users

The direction across all five stories is the same: stablecoins are moving from financial experiment to regulated infrastructure, and the protocols for spending digital value in everyday commerce are multiplying fast.

US agencies publish the first GENIUS Act KYC rules for stablecoin issuers

Source: CoinDesk

The Federal Reserve, Treasury Department, OCC, FDIC, and NCUA jointly released a proposed rule on June 18 establishing customer identification requirements for stablecoin issuers operating under the GENIUS Act. The rule would treat permitted payment stablecoin issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act, requiring them to verify customer identities, maintain records, and screen against terrorist watchlists.

The agencies limited the KYC obligations to direct-to-consumer relationships, stopping short of a “global” customer due diligence requirement they judged unfeasible. A 60-day public comment period opens once the rule is published in the Federal Register on June 22. Fed Governor Michael Barr flagged a concern: the framework may not adequately address illicit finance in secondary market transactions, questioning whether ID requirements should extend beyond initial issuance.

Zypto take: This is what regulatory normalization looks like. The GENIUS Act passed in July 2025 and defined who can issue a payment stablecoin. This rulemaking fills in the next question: what operational obligations come with that status. Treating stablecoin issuers like financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act is not a radical move. It is, broadly, the trade-off the industry asked for when it lobbied for a legal framework.

The secondary-market gap Barr flagged is the real unresolved question. Once a stablecoin leaves the issuer’s direct customer relationship and starts circulating onchain across wallets and protocols, the BSA’s standard compliance machinery gets thin. That is a genuine infrastructure challenge, and it will drive further rulemaking.

The obligations in this proposed rule land at the point of issuance: when you first acquire a stablecoin from a regulated issuer, that issuer runs the KYC check. Secondary market transfers (sending stablecoins between wallets onchain) remain outside this rule’s scope for now, which is the gap Governor Barr flagged. For most holders, the practical effect is that the KYC step you likely already went through when buying USDC or USDT just got formally standardized.

Source: CoinDesk

Fidelity launches a GENIUS Act reserve fund for stablecoin issuers

Source: The Block

Fidelity Investments launched the Fidelity Reserves Digital Fund on June 18, a money market fund designed to hold the assets that stablecoin issuers need to meet GENIUS Act reserve requirements. The fund holds US Treasury bills, notes, and bonds maturing in 93 days or less, cash, overnight repurchase agreements backed by Treasuries, and shares in government money market funds. It targets a $1.00 net asset value per share and carries a net expense ratio of 0.18%, with a current yield near 3.46%.

The GENIUS Act prohibits stablecoin issuers from passing yield on those reserves to token holders, which creates a strong incentive to outsource reserve management entirely. Fidelity joins BNY Mellon, Morgan Stanley, State Street, BlackRock, and Goldman Sachs in building GENIUS Act-aligned reserve products. The stablecoin market currently holds approximately $320 billion in circulating supply, with projections running to $1.9-4 trillion by 2030.

Zypto take: Fidelity is simultaneously managing competitors’ reserves and issuing its own stablecoin, which is a level of vertical integration that tells you something about where the serious money thinks this market is going. When Wall Street’s largest asset managers build the infrastructure for a class of asset, the question of whether stablecoins are a legitimate store of value stops being interesting. The answer is in the product filings.

The reserve fund race matters for a structural reason. The GENIUS Act’s 1:1 reserve requirement, combined with the prohibition on distributing yield, means issuers need a compliant vehicle that handles the compliance burden and captures the float yield on their behalf. That is precisely what these funds do. The yield stays with the issuer; the regulatory burden outsources to Fidelity or whoever wins that mandate.

For the people actually holding and moving stablecoins, the practical takeaway is that the backing of circulating USDC and USDT just got more standardized. A reserve structure holding short-dated Treasuries is about as conservative as it gets. The stablecoins you hold in a self-custodial wallet sit on top of that foundation.

Source: The Block

AllUnity’s SEKAU goes live as the first MiCA-compliant Swedish krona stablecoin

Source: CoinTelegraph

Frankfurt-based AllUnity launched SEKAU on June 19, a Swedish krona-denominated stablecoin issued as a regulated e-money token under the EU’s MiCA framework. The token is fully reserved 1:1 with segregated SEK holdings, and token holders carry a statutory right to redeem at par. Banking Circle manages the reserves; Swedish Marginalen Bank provides banking support. SEKAU launched across Ethereum, Solana, Base, Tempo, and Polygon, with further network expansion planned later in 2026.

AllUnity is a joint venture backed by DWS, Flow Traders, and Galaxy Digital, licensed as an e-money institution by Germany’s BaFin. SEKAU expands its existing portfolio alongside euro-backed EURAU and Swiss franc-backed CHFAU, both launched within the past year. The company positions SEKAU for institutional cross-border settlement and round-the-clock payments between Swedish businesses and their international counterparties.

Zypto take: The euro stablecoin story has been running for a while, but the spread to smaller European currencies is the more interesting signal here. A krona-denominated stablecoin solves a very specific problem: Swedish businesses doing cross-border work currently have to route through euro intermediaries or use dollar stablecoins, both of which introduce FX exposure they may not want. A native SEK stablecoin removes that middle step.

The multi-chain deployment on launch day is also worth noting. Ethereum is obvious, but Solana and Base reflect where actual payment volume lives in 2026. Cross-chain availability from day one means settlement works wherever counterparties happen to be, which is a material improvement on the early days of stablecoin infrastructure where chain choice was a constraint.

MiCA’s e-money token category is proving to be a workable template. The statutory redemption right and segregated reserves are straightforward compliance commitments, and BaFin licensing gives institutional users a clear counterparty status to work with. This is what regulated stablecoin infrastructure looks like in practice, and it is expanding faster than most observers expected two years ago.

Source: CoinTelegraph

GoMining releases its GoBTC Pay SDK, giving merchants a native Bitcoin point-of-sale

Source: CoinDesk

GoMining released the developer SDK and APIs for GoBTC Pay on June 19, opening the protocol to merchant integration. GoBTC Pay processes Bitcoin transactions at a 0.2% fee, split evenly between wallet providers and Bitcoin miners, with onchain settlement targeting 12-hour completion via GoMining’s dedicated Stratum V2 mining pool. Unlike Square and most other Bitcoin payment systems, GoBTC Pay delivers bitcoin to the merchant by default rather than converting to fiat.

CEO Mark Zalan: “Our idea isn’t to squeeze bitcoin into the old fiat experience and lose what makes it bitcoin along the way.” The company plans to onboard an initial 10 merchants through the SDK rollout. Plugins for Shopify and WooCommerce are also in development, alongside a dedicated POS terminal and a web merchant dashboard.

Zypto take: The distinction GoBTC Pay draws matters. The dominant model for crypto payments at the point of sale today involves converting to local currency either at load or at checkout, which means the merchant never actually holds the asset. GoBTC Pay bets that a growing category of merchants specifically wants to receive and hold Bitcoin, not convert it. That is a different product for a different buyer, and it is not competing with Square so much as creating a separate market.

The 12-hour settlement via onchain Bitcoin is slower than the instant finality that stablecoin-based payment systems offer, and GoMining is honest about that. The bet is that the asset itself is the point for enough merchants to build a real network around it.

For anyone holding Bitcoin in Zypto App across 20+ blockchains, the direction here is encouraging: more places accepting Bitcoin settlement directly means the asset you hold becomes more useful without requiring you to convert it first. That is ownership extending into participation, which is the whole point.

Source: CoinDesk

Alchemy’s AgentCard gets Visa network access for AI-driven purchases

Source: CoinDesk

Alchemy’s AgentCard secured access to the Visa payment network on June 18, allowing AI agents to execute commercial purchases on behalf of consumers using Visa-issued tokens. Each agent operates with a dedicated email address, phone number, and card credentials, and can make purchases while preserving the user’s existing rewards, credit lines, and cardholder benefits. The integration supports agents from any provider, including OpenAI and Anthropic. Visa and Mastercard are both investing in what the industry now calls agentic commerce, with native protocols designed to handle machine-initiated payments at scale.

Zypto take: The “agentic commerce” frame is new but the underlying shift is not. Machines have been initiating payments on behalf of humans for decades, from subscription billing to automated expense reconciliation. What changed is that the machine can now understand context well enough to make discretionary purchases, not just repeat a pre-authorized transaction.

What makes this a payments story rather than an AI story is the Visa integration. An AI agent with a Visa-issued token is spending inside the same rails as every other cardholder. The agent does not need a separate infrastructure stack. That is a quiet normalization, and it happens to benefit crypto payment infrastructure too: if AI agents become significant payers, they will move toward the most programmable rails available. Stablecoins and onchain payment protocols are more programmable than traditional card networks by design.

The near-term effect is that Zypto Premium Visa Cards and the spending layer of Zypto App exist in an ecosystem where agent-initiated commerce is becoming part of the picture. The longer-term effect is that the payment rails best suited to agent use will attract the most volume. That is a race worth watching.

Source: CoinDesk

Key Takeaways

The GENIUS Act rulemaking is filling in fast. Two major deliverables landed in 48 hours: KYC obligations for issuers and a Fidelity reserve fund giving those issuers a compliant place to park the backing. The scaffolding for a regulated stablecoin payments market is materially more complete this week than last.
Stablecoins are extending beyond the dollar. SEKAU joining EURAU and CHFAU under MiCA means the regulated non-dollar stablecoin layer is now real and multi-chain. The era of dollar-only stablecoin infrastructure is ending.
Bitcoin payments are splitting into two models: convert-at-load/checkout systems for merchants who want local currency, and native settlement systems like GoBTC Pay for merchants who want to accumulate the asset. Both markets exist; neither is wrong.
AI agents with payment credentials are moving from prototype to production. The long-run implication is that programmable payment rails will attract more agent volume than traditional card networks. Onchain infrastructure has a structural advantage here.
The throughline: digital assets are becoming spending infrastructure, not just stores of value. The regulatory, institutional, and protocol-level work this week all points in the same direction.

This Week In Crypto – Chainlink, Arbitrum, Ethereum, and Ripple

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Gm frens, welcome to the third news-round up for June!

Chainlink powers World Cup prediction markets; as investors lock up nearly 3 million ETH; LG Electronics partners with Arbitrum; and Ripple’s $1B stablecoin push for AI. Trump pays UFC fighters in his stablecoin, while an analyst affirms that crypto winter is over. Lastly, Zypto: Your wallet, your choice.

Let’s dive in.

Chainlink powers World Cup prediction markets

Chainlink (LINK) now powers the betting markets behind the 2026 World Cup. Yet, its token trades near $8.30, about 23% below its May highs. The disconnect highlights a familiar pattern in crypto. Real-world use of Chainlink’s network is rising, while LINK’s price remains tied to sentiment across the wider market.

Chainlink provides oracle infrastructure that feeds real-world data onto blockchains. Prediction markets use that data to settle bets automatically. ADI Predictstreet became the first official prediction-market partner for the FIFA World Cup, and it runs on Chainlink oracles. Chainlink says the markets have processed more than $7 billion in a matter of months.

Despite the weakness, Joao Wedson, founder of analytics firm Alphractal, says LINK is “entering the accumulation zone.” He noted that large holders have resumed accumulating.

Chainlink’s infrastructure keeps expanding while its token waits on the macro. The coming weeks of the tournament will test whether rising usage eventually pulls LINK off its lows.

Investors lock up nearly 3 million ETH

Ethereum’s staking ecosystem is sending one of the strongest confidence signals the market has seen in months. While ETH continues to trade under pressure and remains significantly below its previous highs, investor behavior tells a very different story.

Nearly 3 million ETH are currently waiting to enter staking, forcing new participants to endure an estimated 50-day queue, while the exit queue has effectively fallen to zero. At the same time, exchange balances continue to hit record lows, institutional accumulation is growing, and derivatives traders are increasingly positioning for a recovery.

Together, these trends suggest that despite the prevailing fear across crypto markets, long-term conviction in Ethereum remains remarkably strong. One of the clearest indicators of investor sentiment is the behavior of stakers. Currently, almost no ETH holders are rushing to unstake their assets. The exit queue has collapsed to virtually zero, meaning validators who wish to leave can do so within minutes.

This dynamic highlights a significant imbalance between supply and demand. Rather than seeking liquidity or reducing exposure, investors are voluntarily locking up capital for long periods in exchange for staking rewards.

Such behavior typically reflects confidence in Ethereum’s long-term prospects rather than expectations of further downside. The trend is particularly notable given Ethereum’s difficult price performance. ETH is down roughly 44% in 2026 and trading around $1,660 amid extreme fear across the broader crypto market.

Yet, stakers appear willing to look beyond short-term volatility, treating Ethereum increasingly as a productive, yield-bearing asset rather than a purely speculative investment. As more ETH is staked, the circulating supply continues to shrink, creating conditions that could amplify future price movements if demand accelerates.

Beyond staking, Ethereum’s available supply is tightening across multiple fronts. Exchange reserves have fallen to just 14.5 million ETH, the lowest level ever recorded. Since late 2023, more than 6 million ETH have been withdrawn from exchanges, reflecting a growing presence for long-term holding and staking.

LG Electronics partners with Arbitrum

LG Electronics developed its own layer-2 blockchain network in collaboration with Arbitrum to power a new digital advertising platform. The South Korean consumer electronics giant mentioned that the Arbitrum-based network will serve as a platform for placing, buying, selling, and managing digital ads, eliminating traditional intermediaries in the advertising supply chain.

LG completed a pilot program with a Japanese advertising agency and is now evaluating whether to bring the product to market later this year. Arbitrum’s native token ARB jumped 5% following news of the LG Electronics partnership at the time of writing.

Arbitrum co-founder Steven Goldfeder said the blockchain approach removes the need for manual interventions in ad transactions. “You don’t need manual interventions,” Goldfeder said, explaining that the technology enables automated market operations through software. Arbitrum’s native token ARB jumped 5% following news of the LG Electronics partnership.

The advertising blockchain represents LG’s latest foray into distributed ledger technology. The company’s IT services arm LG CNS introduced the Monachain enterprise blockchain platform in 2018, though LG shuttered its Art Lab NFT marketplace last year.

The new initiative leverages LG Ad Solutions, the company’s advertising division that manages a global smart TV installed base of 216 million units, including 49 million in the United States.

LG joins a growing list of major corporations building custom blockchain infrastructure for business applications, including Samsung’s supply chain ledger and JP Morgan’s JPM Coin deposit token. The trend signals enterprise adoption of crypto infrastructure even as blockchain received minimal attention at CES 2026, where AI dominated technology predictions.

Ripple’s $1B stablecoin push for AI

Stablecoin liquidity on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has nearly doubled over the past month, putting the network within reach of a $1 billion supply milestone as Ripple tries to position its blockchain for automated payments.

The surge gives Ripple a stronger base for one of its most ambitious pitches yet: that AI agents will need dollar-denominated payment rails that can settle transactions in seconds, enforce spending rules, and operate without manual approval at every step.

Data from DefiLlama shows stablecoin supply on the XRPL at over $770 million, up roughly 97% over the past 30 days. RWA.xyz, which tracks a broader set of tokenized real-world assets and stablecoins, places XRPL’s stablecoin market capitalization at about $901.7 million, with 30-day transfer volume rising 122% to $4.95 billion.

The gap between the two data providers reflects differences in methodology, but both show the same trend. Dollar-pegged assets on the XRP Ledger are growing quickly, and RLUSD, Ripple’s own stablecoin, is driving most of that increase.

Data from DefiLlama shows that RLUSD accounts for nearly 99% of the stablecoin supply on the XRP Ledger, with about $761.7 million in circulation. RWA.xyz lists RLUSD’s total market capitalization across supported blockchains at roughly $1.65 billion.

That concentration gives Ripple unusual influence over the XRPL’s dollar layer. It strengthens the argument that RLUSD can serve as a settlement tool for institutions, developers, and software agents that need predictable on-chain access to dollars. The major question is whether the current growth reflects durable payment demand or early positioning ahead of a market that is still taking shape.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents are moving beyond passive chat interfaces into software systems that can take actions on behalf of users and businesses. In payments, that shift creates a practical problem. An agent that needs to access an API, pay for cloud computing, purchase data, settle an invoice, or complete a multi-step workflow cannot always wait for a person to approve each transaction.

That is the opening Ripple is trying to exploit.

The company released the XRPL AI Starter Kit, a developer package designed to make it easier to build AI-agent payment flows on XRPL. The first phase includes an MCP server that lets compatible AI coding tools query XRPL documentation, Claude skills for wallet creation and payments, and new tutorials for building agentic transactions.

Trump pays UFC fighters in his stablecoin

On June 14, President Trump’s crypto venture World Liberty Financial paid $250,000 in USD1 stablecoin bonuses to UFC fighters on the South Lawn of the White House. The event looked like a sports sponsorship, but the company behind the stablecoin carries a story that goes well beyond prize money.

Trump co-founded World Liberty Financial (WLFI) in 2024. The company’s USD1 stablecoin, a dollar-pegged token with reserves in US Treasuries and cash equivalents, has grown to a market cap of more than $5 billion since its March 2025 launch and now runs across Ethereum, BNB Chain, Tron, and Solana.

World Liberty Financial served as the presenting sponsor of UFC Freedom 250, held on the South Lawn. WLFI contributed $250,000 in USD1 to the Performance of the Night bonus pool, pushing those payouts to $425,000 per winner. About 14 fighters competed for roughly $1.65 million in bonuses, a record for a UFC card, and the Performance of the Night winners collected theirs in USD1.

The White House showcase arrived while Congress was already scrutinizing WLFI’s ownership structure. A UAE firm linked to Sheik Tahnoon Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and brother of the UAE president, acquired a 49% stake in WLFI for a reported $500 million.

The House launched a formal probe into potential conflicts of interest and national security risks, focused on what it means for a foreign state official to own nearly half of a sitting president’s crypto company, and for that company’s stablecoin to now sit at a $5 billion market cap and rising.

The UFC fighters collected their USD1 winnings at the White House. The question Congress has formally committed to answering is who else profits when those payments settle.

Analyst affirms that crypto winter is over

The crypto market has taken a heavy beating since Bitcoin notched all-time highs eight months ago, though it’s likely past its nadir, according to Standard Chartered’s Geoff Kendrick.

The investment bank’s global head of digital asset research posited that Bitcoin’s recent fall to nearly $59,000 marked crypto winter’s most frigid conditions. This represents a 54% drawdown from its peak price of $126,000 in October.

Kendrick wrote in an emailed note, “I think we have now seen the low in crypto asset prices. Winter is over. Welcome back to Crypto Spring.” Furthermore, he named three catalysts that would help propel the Bitcoin price higher. They include oil prices falling back toward their pre-U.S. war-in-Iran levels, Michael Saylor’s Strategy buying more Bitcoin, and a positive day of BTC ETF inflows.

“All three confirmatory signals I had mentioned below as wanting to see have worked,” Kendrick said after Strategy announced it bought almost 1,600 bitcoins for $100 million. This week, traders are closely watching for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Premium Income exchange-traded fund (ETF), using the ticker $BITA, to begin trading.

The filing “typically means launch in one week,” Eric Balchunas, an ETF analyst, posted to X.

Recently, Bitcoin changed hands above $64,000, a 5% increase over the past week. Over the same period, the total value of all cryptocurrencies had edged down to $2.27 trillion from $2.29 trillion.

In recent weeks, ETFs that track Bitcoin have seen some of the sharpest selling since inception, the analyst noted. Indeed, the Wall Street vehicles have posted roughly $5 billion in net outflows since mid-May.

Kendrick argued that some of the selling likely stems from investors looking to hitch a ride on Elon Musk’s rocket company.

Zypto: Your wallet, your choice.

Zypto has reinforced its self-custody-first philosophy with a renewed focus on user control through its “Your Wallet, Your Choice” initiative, underscoring the importance of ownership and autonomy in crypto asset management.

The initiative highlights Zypto’s commitment to giving users full control over their private keys and funds, positioning the app as a non-custodial solution in contrast to centralized platforms that retain custody of user assets.

By prioritizing self-custody, Zypto enables users to store, manage, and transact digital assets without intermediaries, reducing counterparty risk while aligning with the foundational principles of decentralized finance.

The company said its wallet infrastructure is designed to balance security and usability, allowing both new and experienced users to access decentralized tools without sacrificing control over their holdings.

Zypto’s approach also integrates features such as multi-chain support, in-app swaps, payments, and DeFi access, enabling users to operate across blockchain ecosystems while maintaining ownership of their assets in a single interface.

The move comes as industry debates around custodial risk intensify, particularly following high-profile exchange failures that have driven demand for self-custody solutions and greater transparency in asset management.

Zypto emphasized that users retain full authority over transactions, wallet access, and asset storage, with no reliance on third-party custody, reinforcing its positioning as a user-first crypto platform built around control, privacy, and decentralization.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

Chainlink’s oracle infrastructure is driving billions in World Cup-related prediction market activity. Nearly three million ETH are queued up for staking amid record-low exchange balances, signaling strong long-term investor conviction.

Ripple is rapidly expanding stablecoin liquidity on the XRP Ledger, driven largely by RLUSD, to position itself as a key payment layer for autonomous AI-driven transactions. Trump-backed’s USD1 stablecoin payment to UFC fighters draws attention to both its rapid growth and scrutiny over ownership and influence.

Geoff Kendrick argues crypto markets have bottomed, citing key macro and institutional signals as evidence that a new growth phase is beginning. Zypto is doubling down on self-custody by promoting full user control over assets through a multi-chain, non-custodial wallet designed to reduce counterparty risk.

That’s a wrap for this week. See you next week for another round up of the latest crypto news.

FAQs

Which network is powering World Cup prediction markets?

Chainlink now powers the betting markets behind the 2026 World Cup.

Why did investors lock up nearly 3 million ETH?

This trend suggests that long-term conviction in Ethereum remains remarkably strong.

Which blockchain network did LG Electronics partner with?

LG Electronics developed its own layer-2 blockchain network in collaboration with Arbitrum.

Why is Ripple pushing for AI?

Ripple’s pitch is that AI agents will need dollar-denominated payment rails that can settle transactions quickly.

Today in Crypto - Illinois Taxes Crypto, CBDC Banned, Africa Gets Stablecoin Rails

Zypto Editorial Team — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

The line between crypto policy and everyday financial life is getting shorter by the day. One state is now taxing every transaction, Congress has locked out a federal digital dollar, Africa is getting stablecoin payment rails backed by a major fintech investment, and Nigeria’s dollar-denominated crypto adoption is large enough to worry the IMF.

Illinois Governor Pritzker signs a 0.2% privilege tax on all digital asset transactions, effective 2027
Congress slips a CBDC ban through 2030 into a housing bill, explicitly carving out private stablecoins
Ripple backs Flutterwave’s $3.2 billion Series E, putting RLUSD and XRP Ledger into African cross-border payments
Nigeria absorbed $59 billion in crypto inflows in one year, with stablecoins dominating, and the IMF says suppression efforts won’t work
BitGo offers European crypto firms a MiCA compliance path hours before the licensing deadline lands

Each story sits at the same crossroads: who decides the rules of owning and moving digital money, and whether those rules leave room for the people who most need it.

Illinois signs a 0.2% tax on every crypto transaction

Source: CoinTelegraph

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed a $55.9 billion state budget on June 17, 2026, that includes a 0.2% “privilege tax” on all digital asset transactions involving Illinois residents. The tax takes effect January 1, 2027, applies to registered digital asset brokers, and is broadly defined to catch out-of-state platforms with sufficient Illinois customer activity. Several major crypto firms are headquartered in the state, including Zero Hash, Jump Crypto, Bitnomial, and Apex Crypto.

Illinois becomes the only US state to tax digital asset users regardless of whether they made a gain, profit, or any income whatsoever. The Crypto Council for Innovation called it “unprecedented” and compared it to taxing email correspondence because it uses a different delivery mechanism than post. a16z Crypto’s Miles Jennings said there is “effectively no comparable state financial transaction tax on stocks, bonds or derivatives anywhere in the country.” The state expects the measure to raise over $800 million to plug its budget gap.

Zypto take: A flat transaction tax on every trade, regardless of profit, is a different animal from capital gains taxation, and Illinois residents should understand that distinction clearly. Capital gains taxes apply when you sell at a profit. This tax applies when you transact, full stop.

At 0.2%, the cost is manageable on larger moves, but it stacks on every single trade and has a chilling effect on frequent, smaller activity. The industry’s comparison to taxing email is more than a rhetorical flourish: it targets the technology, not the gain, which sets a troubling precedent.

The wider signal for crypto users across the US is that state-level policy is now moving faster than federal, and in multiple directions at once. Some states are positioning as crypto-friendly; Illinois has made a different choice.

For anyone who holds crypto across many chains and needs to move value without accumulating invisible overhead on each leg, the practical answer is to understand exactly what transactions trigger tax obligations in your jurisdiction. That starts with clear custody of your own assets. Zypto App holds 24,000+ assets across 20+ blockchains on your own device, so you control when and what you move rather than relying on a platform to make those decisions for you.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Congress bans the Fed from issuing a CBDC until 2030

Source: CoinTelegraph

House and Senate leaders agreed on a bipartisan housing reform package, the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, that includes a provision banning the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency or any substantially similar instrument until December 31, 2030. The bill also prohibits institutional investors from purchasing existing single-family homes for rental purposes. The CBDC language includes a specific carve-out for private stablecoins that are “open, permissionless, and private,” drawing a clear legislative distinction between government-issued digital money and privately issued dollar-pegged tokens.

President Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 directing federal agencies to cease CBDC-related work. This bill now puts that direction into statute, at least through 2030, and clears legislative bandwidth for the CLARITY Act before August recess.

Zypto take: What matters here is not the ban itself but the framing that surrounds it. The carve-out language, open, permissionless, private, reads like a definition of what good digital money looks like from Congress’s perspective, and it aligns almost exactly with what privately issued stablecoins are already doing. A CBDC, by design, would be programmable by the issuer, traceable end to end, and revocable in ways that cash and most stablecoins are not.

The distinction between a government digital dollar and a privately issued one is the same distinction that exists between money your bank holds and money you hold yourself. The CBDC debate tends to get framed as a technical question about payment infrastructure, but the ownership question underneath it is what actually matters.

Keeping value in a form that cannot be frozen, recalled, or restricted by a single authority is the foundation of what self-custody means. The multichain wallets in Zypto App store your keys on your own device, which is as close to that principle as crypto gets in practice.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Ripple backs Flutterwave to put stablecoin rails across Africa

Source: CoinDesk

Ripple took a stake in Flutterwave’s Series E funding round, valuing the African payments company at $3.2 billion, with the deal integrating Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin and the XRP Ledger into Flutterwave’s cross-border payment infrastructure across the continent. RLUSD currently has $1.6 billion in supply, growing roughly 20% this year.

Ripple’s managing director for the Middle East and Africa, Reece Merrick, said Flutterwave had “built one of the most advanced payments networks in Africa, and as its infrastructure evolves, stablecoins are becoming central to that story.” The goal is to reduce the cost and speed overhead of international money movement for African businesses by settling in digital dollars rather than routing through correspondent banking networks.

Zypto take: Cross-border payments in Africa have long been constrained by a correspondent banking structure that is expensive, slow, and built around access to the US financial system rather than around the actual needs of the people using it. Routing through New York to send money from Lagos to Nairobi is the kind of overhead that exists because of institutional path dependency, not because there is no better option.

Stablecoins remove that path dependency. When two parties can settle in digital dollars without a correspondent bank in the middle, the transaction is faster, cheaper, and does not require both parties to have the same banking relationship.

RLUSD on XRP Ledger is one implementation of that idea. Zypto App supports RLUSD alongside every asset on the XRP Ledger, and XRP is available as a payment option across all products and services in the app. The underlying principle is the same: value that moves on open rails does not require permission from a chain of intermediaries to get where it is going.

Africa’s remittance volumes are measured in the hundreds of billions annually. That is a structural shift in who can participate in cross-border commerce.

Source: CoinDesk

Nigeria absorbed $59 billion in crypto inflows and the IMF says it cannot be stopped

Source: Decrypt

A new IMF report found that Nigeria received $59 billion in crypto-asset inflows between July 2023 and June 2024, accounting for 60% of all stablecoin inflows within sub-Saharan Africa since 2019. The fund identified several risks: digital dollarization that threatens the Central Bank of Nigeria’s grip on monetary policy, financial integrity gaps because traditional AML systems cannot monitor stablecoin transactions effectively, and a threat to monetary sovereignty at scale.

The IMF’s conclusion on attempts to suppress stablecoin use was direct: they “are likely to be only partly effective.” Its recommended path forward is to strengthen monetary frameworks and payment infrastructure rather than to attempt prohibition.

Zypto take: Sixty billion dollars in one year is a population voting with its money, choosing digital dollars because local currency and a constrained banking system have consistently failed to protect purchasing power.

Nigeria’s experience is the clearest real-world proof that demand for digital dollars is grounded in genuine financial need. When local currency is unreliable and banking access is limited, people find another way to store and move value.

The IMF reaching this conclusion carries weight precisely because the fund approaches crypto regulation from a cautious, institution-preserving perspective. The report is effectively saying: the adoption is real, it is durable, and the policy response has to engage with that reality on its own terms.

For users in emerging markets holding stablecoins for everyday stability, the question is not whether to adopt digital dollars but how to do it with full ownership intact. A balance that lives on your own keys cannot be frozen by a monetary policy decision or a platform’s compliance policy. That is the difference that self-custody makes in markets where the rules can change without notice.

Source: Decrypt

BitGo offers European crypto firms a MiCA compliance path at the deadline

Source: CoinDesk

BitGo Europe, licensed by Germany’s BaFin, launched a Crypto-as-a-Service compliance platform targeting European crypto businesses that have not secured their own Markets in Crypto Assets licenses before the end-of-June 2026 deadline. Firms can integrate their existing wallets and client relationships into BitGo’s MiCA-compliant infrastructure while maintaining their own customer-facing operations. CEO Mike Belshe explained the model: “All of your clients can be onboarded and have sub-accounts inside of BitGo…they are now in segregated safe storage that’s MiCA-compliant.”

Europe had over 3,000 registered crypto businesses as recently as 2024; by May 2026, only 194 had achieved full CASP authorization. Industry estimates suggest roughly 75% of pre-MiCA firms will lose their registration status as transitional periods expire. BitGo charges “a couple of $1,000 a month” as a base fee.

Zypto take: MiCA is the most significant regulatory event in European crypto in years, and its most important design decision was the one that barely made news: non-custodial wallets sit explicitly outside CASP scope. The regulation applies to service providers, not to individuals holding their own keys. That carve-out is not an accident. It reflects the legal and philosophical consensus that self-custody is ownership, not a financial service.

The firms scrambling for compliance today are those whose business models depend on holding customer assets. That is a different model from what Zypto App represents. A self-custodial wallet does not require a MiCA license because the user is the custodian.

The regulatory pressure that is forcing 75% of European platforms to restructure or shut down does not touch the ownership layer at all. For anyone paying attention to where the regulatory trend lines are pointing, holding your own keys is the lowest-overhead path through regulatory change. In the current environment, that advantage is only growing.

Source: CoinDesk

Key Takeaways

State-level crypto policy is moving faster than federal, and in opposite directions. Illinois has made crypto transactions more expensive regardless of profit, while Congress has locked out a government digital dollar for four years. Users need to track their own jurisdiction, not just federal rules.
The CBDC ban carve-out for “open, permissionless, private” stablecoins is Congress effectively endorsing the design principles that make private digital money preferable to a government-issued alternative. That framing will shape legislation beyond 2030.
Africa’s stablecoin adoption is large enough to show up in IMF risk assessments, which means it is far beyond the pilot stage. When $59 billion flows into one country’s crypto ecosystem in a year and the IMF says it cannot be suppressed, that is confirmation that demand for dollar-denominated digital money in emerging markets is structural, not speculative.
The MiCA deadline is a sorting event, separating platforms that hold customer assets, and therefore need licenses, from wallets where the user holds their own keys. Self-custody is outside regulatory scope by design, not by luck.
The throughline across all five stories today is ownership. Who owns the keys, who controls the movement, and who decides the rules. Crypto’s value is most durable in the hands of the people who actually hold it.

Today in Crypto - AWS Adopts x402, Stablecoin Race Opens

Zypto Editorial Team — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Crypto rails are becoming the default. AWS bakes stablecoin payments into CloudFront, Dragonfly calls time on the USDT-USDC duopoly, and PIMCO bond funds land onchain. Three corners of the market, one direction.

AWS builds Coinbase’s x402 into CloudFront and WAF, so any site or AI agent can charge for access in stablecoins
Dragonfly’s Rob Hadick argues the USDT and USDC duopoly will not last as payments competition opens up
Bybit puts PIMCO and CMBI bond funds onchain, letting eligible users subscribe with USDC

When the largest cloud provider on earth treats onchain payment as a standard feature and institutional bond funds settle in stablecoins, the rails stop being the story. What gets built on top of them is.

AWS builds Coinbase’s x402 into CloudFront and WAF

Source: Amazon Web Services

Amazon Web Services added an AI traffic monetization capability to AWS WAF that lets website and API owners charge for access using Coinbase’s x402 protocol. When a monetization rule matches an incoming request, WAF returns an HTTP 402 Payment Required response with a machine-readable price manifest in JSON, listing the price, the supported blockchain networks, and the wallet address. Content owners set base pricing in USDC across networks such as Base and Solana, and any x402-compatible agent can complete the payment on its own, with settlement and verification handled by Coinbase’s x402 Facilitator. Sitting inside CloudFront, WAF, and Lambda@Edge, the flow turns an obscure HTTP status code into a working payment rail for the open web.

Zypto take: HTTP 402 was reserved for “payment required” back in the early days of the web and then left empty for thirty years because nobody had a money layer that fit the internet. That blank is being filled now, and it is being filled with stablecoins. What makes this notable is not a crypto company shipping a crypto feature, it is one of the largest infrastructure providers on earth treating onchain payment as a normal building block of the stack. Once a website or an API can quote a price and settle in USDC without a card network in the middle, the line between crypto rails and ordinary internet rails stops being meaningful. That is the direction Zypto has always read correctly: digital assets are most powerful when they are useful, not when they are speculated on. The same stablecoins moving through these new agent payments are the ones a person can hold and move themselves in Zypto App across 20+ blockchains, which is the difference between watching the rails get built and actually standing on them. Download Zypto App.

Source: Amazon Web Services

Dragonfly says the stablecoin duopoly will not survive

Source: Bitcoin.com News

Rob Hadick, a general partner at Dragonfly, argued that the dominance USDT and USDC hold today will erode as competition intensifies. “It’s inevitable that the stablecoin space will continue to get more competitive,” he said. “We will not be in a duopoly years from now.” His view is that the next phase of growth comes less from issuance and reserve income and more from payments, distribution, compliance, and real-world financial activity, with challengers like Paxos, Agora, and various fintechs gaining ground through merchant adoption and regional strength rather than headline market cap. Hadick also estimated that stablecoins are only about 5% of the way toward their potential, putting most of the build still ahead.

Zypto take: A more crowded stablecoin market is good news for the people who actually use them, and that is the part worth holding onto. When the competition shifts from who can mint the most to who settles payments cleanest, integrates widest, and clears compliance best, the winners are decided by utility rather than incumbency. That is a healthier contest, and it tends to produce better tools for everyone downstream. The risk in a multi-issuer world is fragmentation, where your dollars are stuck in whichever token your app happened to support. The answer to that is a wallet that does not make you pick a side. Zypto App already holds USDC, USDT, DAI, USD1, and HBD wherever they live across 20 blockchains, with crosschain swaps built in, so a user can hold and move stablecoins on their own keys without betting on a single winner. If Hadick is right that the book is barely 5% written, the practical posture for an ordinary holder is optionality, and that is exactly what self custody across many assets provides.

Source: Bitcoin.com News

Bybit puts PIMCO and CMBI bond funds onchain

Source: Cointelegraph

Bybit launched RWA Earn, a platform that brings tokenized real-world assets to eligible users, opening with two bond funds. The first is the PIMCO Dynamic Income Opportunities Fund, which invests across corporate debt, mortgage-backed securities, and government bonds, and the second is the CMBI Investment Grade Bond Fund, focused on investment-grade credit in Asian and global markets. The funds are tokenized through DigiFT, a digital asset exchange regulated in Singapore and Hong Kong, while Plume supplies the onchain infrastructure for subscriptions and allocation. Users subscribe with USDC and pay no subscription, redemption, or onchain transaction fees. The broader tokenized asset market reached roughly $31.8 billion in mid-June, with US Treasury products making up close to $14.9 billion of it.

Zypto take: Tokenized money market funds were the first wave of this, and tokenized bond funds are the logical next step, because the appeal is the same: take an instrument that normally lives behind a brokerage and a minimum, and make it divisible, transferable, and reachable from a wallet. The detail that matters most here is that subscriptions settle in USDC. That is a stablecoin doing exactly what a stablecoin should, acting as the cash leg for an onchain financial product rather than sitting idle. As more of these funds come onchain, the value of holding real-world assets is not the wrapper, it is that the asset can move and connect to the rest of someone’s holdings instead of being trapped in one institution’s system. The honest read on the $31.8 billion figure is that it is still small against traditional fixed income, which is the point: this is early, the rails are being laid now, and the ownership model that comes with them is the part that lasts.

Source: Cointelegraph

Key Takeaways

Crypto rails are turning into default infrastructure. When AWS treats onchain stablecoin payment as a standard feature of its edge stack, the distinction between crypto plumbing and internet plumbing starts to disappear.
Competition in stablecoins favors users. A market that rewards payments, distribution, and compliance over sheer issuance produces better tools, and the right defense against fragmentation is holding many stablecoins yourself rather than betting on one.
Tokenization is moving up the asset stack, from money market funds to bond funds, and USDC is increasingly the cash leg that makes these products work onchain.
For anyone using crypto in daily life, the signal under all three stories is the same: value is being built to move onchain by default, and ownership of that value is what turns new rails into something useful rather than something to watch.

Today in Crypto - Zimbabwe Regulates, Korea Taxes Tokens

Zypto Editorial Team — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

The stories landing today all sharpen one question: who gets to own and move digital value, and on what terms.

Zimbabwe pulls its crypto market out of the shadows and under central bank registration
South Korea decides tokenized stocks are securities, which means they can be taxed
A $300,000 campaign tries to push stablecoins from idle balances into everyday spending
Two US banking groups argue the rulebook should follow stablecoins into the secondary market

The thread is the gap between owning digital value and using it. Governments are deciding the terms of ownership, while the industry keeps working on the harder part: making those balances do something in daily life.

Zimbabwe brings its crypto market under central bank oversight

Source: Bitcoin.com News

Zimbabwe will require crypto businesses to register with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and pay an annual fee, formalizing a market that has largely operated underground. Under Statutory Instrument 99 of 2026, any firm that buys, sells, transfers, or safeguards virtual assets must register each year with the central bank’s anti-money laundering division, set up a locally registered subsidiary, clear director background checks, and implement the FATF travel rule. Registration costs $500 a year, and operating without it is now an offense. The government framed the move as a way to bring the sector into the open and avoid landing on the Financial Action Task Force grey list.

Zypto take: This is the version of crypto regulation that mostly gets the direction right. For years Zimbabweans have turned to digital dollars as a hedge against a currency that has repeatedly lost its footing, and they have done it in an unregulated grey market that offered no protection if something went wrong. Bringing service providers into a registration regime is not the same as restricting what people can own, and that distinction matters. The honest framing here is not that crypto was a problem the state had to contain, but that the state is catching up to how its citizens already store and move value. The part worth watching is how the rules treat the individual. Registration that targets businesses and leaves self custody intact is a healthy outcome, because the deepest reason people in unstable economies hold crypto is that no intermediary stands between them and their money. Zypto App keeps that intact by holding your keys on your own device across 20+ blockchains, so ownership stays with the person regardless of which firms register where.

Source: Bitcoin.com News

South Korea moves to tax tokenized stocks as securities

Source: TronWeekly

South Korea’s Ministry of Economy and Finance signaled that it views tokenized stocks as securities rather than virtual assets, a reading that would pull them under the existing Capital Markets Act. A ministry official said the products “may take the formal structure of virtual assets, their substance is closer to securities because they represent economic rights tied to underlying equities.” If the Financial Services Commission agrees when it updates its Token Securities Guidelines in July, taxation could begin in the second half of 2026, earlier than the country’s delayed broader crypto tax. The tokenized stock market in Korea has grown sharply this year, and authorities said offshore platforms could fall in scope too.

Zypto take: Calling a tokenized share a security is the legally tidy answer, and it is probably the correct one. A token that represents a claim on an underlying equity is an equity, whatever wrapper it ships in, and pretending otherwise to dodge tax would not have lasted. What is worth noticing is how fast tokenization is forcing these definitions into the open. Real-world assets spent years as a conference slide, and now a finance ministry is writing tax guidance for them because the volumes got real enough to matter. That is the signal under the headline. The interesting question is not the tax rate but what becomes possible once these assets live onchain: divisible, transferable, and connected to the rest of someone’s digital holdings rather than locked inside one brokerage. That direction, ownership of real-world assets that can actually move, is where tokenization stops being a novelty and starts being useful.

Source: TronWeekly

A $300,000 campaign tries to move stablecoins from idle to everyday

Source: The Crypto Times

Bitget Wallet launched PayFi Odyssey, a campaign built on the Stellar network that rewards users for completing real payments, including crypto card purchases, QR-code payments, and onchain transfers across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The incentive pool runs to $300,000 through July 2026, and the framing is pointed: of roughly $35 trillion in stablecoin volume during 2025, the company estimates under 1% went toward actual goods and services. “Our focus is to make digital assets usable in daily scenarios,” said COO Alvin Kan, describing an effort to bring crypto closer to “the last mile of everyday use.” Stellar was chosen because its low settlement costs keep small, everyday transfers economically viable.

Zypto take: The number that should stick is that one. Tens of trillions in stablecoin volume, and barely a sliver of it buying anything. That gap is the whole story of crypto’s real-world phase: the value exists, the rails exist, and most of it still sits parked rather than spent. Campaigns that pay people to actually transact are a reasonable nudge, but the durable answer is infrastructure that makes spending the obvious thing to do, not a thing you get rewarded for trying once. This is the part Zypto has been building toward for a long time. The Zypto Premium VISA Cards let a user load crypto in advance and then use it for real-world spending wherever Visa is accepted, which turns a held balance into something usable without waiting for a campaign to make it worthwhile. You can see the range on the crypto cards page. Closing the gap between holding and using is the entire point. Download Zypto App.

Source: The Crypto Times

US banks press for stablecoin rules to follow the money

Source: Decrypt

Two large US banking groups, the Bank Policy Institute and The Clearing House, argued that anti-money laundering rules for stablecoins should reach beyond the moment of issuance and into secondary market activity, where they say most illicit transactions actually happen. They urged regulators to move away from “check-the-box compliance” and toward flexible approaches that target higher-risk activity, as agencies work through how to implement the GENIUS Act. For ordinary holders, the practical effect would likely be tighter identity and transaction monitoring at the exchanges and platforms where tokens change hands after they are minted.

Zypto take: There is a real tension worth naming here. Pushing oversight into the secondary market is defensible, because that is genuinely where bad actors operate, and nobody serious wants stablecoins to become a laundering channel. But the same lever can quietly raise the cost of simply using a stablecoin for legitimate, everyday reasons, and the people most affected are rarely the ones the rules were written for. The honest position is that good AML rules and broad access are not actually in conflict, as long as the regime targets behavior rather than ownership. Holding stablecoins yourself, on your own keys, does not put you outside the rules, and it should not have to. It simply means the value is yours to move while the oversight sits where the risk genuinely is, on the platforms and at the on and off ramps, not on the act of owning a digital dollar.

Source: Decrypt

Key Takeaways

Governments are defining the terms of ownership in real time. Zimbabwe is formalizing a grey market and Korea is taxing tokenized equities, and in both cases the law is catching up to how people already use digital assets, not inventing a problem to solve.
Tokenization keeps forcing old definitions into the open. When a finance ministry has to decide whether a token is a security, the technology has moved from the margins to the mainstream.
The hardest problem in crypto right now is not owning value, it is using it. A campaign paying people to spend stablecoins is a vivid reminder that trillions sit idle while only a fraction reaches everyday purchases. Closing that gap, turning a held balance into something usable in daily life, is exactly what Zypto is built around.
Sensible regulation and open access are not opposites. Rules that target risky behavior in the secondary market can coexist with the simple right to hold and move your own digital money.
The throughline for the rest of 2026 is the distance between holding and using. Whoever closes that gap, with cards, cash access, and assets that actually move, turns crypto from a balance into a tool. That is the ground Zypto already works on, from self-custody in Zypto App to real-world spending and cash access.

Today in Crypto - Peso Stablecoins, Global Payouts, Hungary Reopens

Zypto Editorial Team — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Cross-border money movement is the story under almost everything today. New rails for the dollar and the peso, payouts reaching 180 countries, and a country reopening its doors to crypto after a hard six months.

A peso-backed stablecoin lands on the XRP Ledger to settle US-Mexico payments
180 countries: MassPay and Coinbase wire stablecoin payouts to businesses worldwide
Hungary scraps the jail terms that pushed crypto trading underground for half a year
Coinbase backs a payment card with stablecoins for people locked out of traditional credit

The thread is access. Three of these stories are about moving value across borders without the old overhead, and the fourth is about a country deciding its citizens should be allowed to participate at all.

Ripple and Bitso put a peso stablecoin on the XRP Ledger

Source: Ripple

Ripple and Bitso expanded their long-running partnership to issue Bitso’s regulated Mexican-peso stablecoin, MXNB, on the XRP Ledger. MXNB joins RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar stablecoin, inside the XRPL Permissioned DEX, a layer built so verified counterparties can access onchain liquidity under a compliance framework. The pairing targets the US-Mexico corridor, where roughly $60 billion moves each year through remittances and business payments. “By bringing together RLUSD and MXNB on the XRPL Permissioned DEX, we’re helping create regulated, onchain liquidity infrastructure purpose-built for enterprise cross-border payments,” said Silvio Pegado, Ripple’s managing director for Latin America.

Zypto take: A peso stablecoin matters more than another dollar one in some ways. Most stablecoin infrastructure is dollar-denominated, which is useful but leaves the last leg of a payment, the conversion into what the recipient actually spends, sitting outside the chain. Putting the peso onchain alongside the dollar means both ends of a US-Mexico transfer can settle in stablecoins, with the currency swap happening as an onchain trade rather than through a chain of correspondent banks. That is the part of remittance that has always been slow and expensive, and it is finally being addressed at the protocol level. The XRP Ledger is one of the 20+ blockchains Zypto App supports, and the broader point holds regardless of which chain wins: value that can move and convert onchain is value people can actually use across a border. Holding stablecoins directly, on your own keys, is where that capability reaches an individual rather than just an institution.

Source: Ripple

MassPay and Coinbase wire stablecoin payouts to 180 countries

Source: PR Newswire

MassPay and Coinbase announced a partnership to power cross-border business payouts with stablecoins, combining MassPay’s payout network across 180 countries with Coinbase’s custody and conversion infrastructure. Companies can fund disbursements in US dollars, convert to USDC through Coinbase, and pay recipients in USDC, other digital assets, or local fiat, all from one platform. Coinbase handles the wallet infrastructure and compliance; MassPay handles last-mile delivery. “Stablecoins have moved from experiment to infrastructure,” said MassPay CEO Ran Grushkowsky, describing a turnkey path to fund in dollars, move value onchain, and pay anyone in the world.

Zypto take: This is the quietly important version of stablecoin adoption: not a consumer launch, but the payout plumbing that businesses use to pay contractors, suppliers, and workers abroad. The old way involves prefunding accounts in dozens of currencies, idle capital sitting in foreign banks, and settlement measured in days. Routing the value through a dollar stablecoin and converting at the edge collapses most of that overhead. What stands out is how unremarkable it has become to describe USDC as infrastructure rather than a speculative asset. The same rails that let a company pay a freelancer in another country are the rails an individual can use to cash out value where they live, which is exactly what the USDC to Cash feature does, letting people cash in or cash out of USDC at participating MoneyGram locations.

Source: PR Newswire

Hungary scraps the jail terms that drove crypto underground

Source: CryptoBriefing

Hungary will decriminalize crypto trading, reversing a framework that took full effect on December 27, 2025 and carried prison terms of up to eight years for service providers and up to five years for individuals making unauthorized transactions. Under the prior rules, every crypto transaction needed a compliance certificate from a licensed validator, and trading without one was a criminal act. Government spokeswoman Anita Kobol confirmed the reversal followed EU infringement proceedings, which argued the rules conflicted with the bloc’s MiCA framework. Platforms including Revolut had suspended Hungarian services rather than navigate the regime, and trading volumes fell sharply during the six-month window.

Zypto take: It is worth sitting with what actually happened here. For half a year, owning and moving a legal asset class in an EU member state could put an ordinary person at risk of prison. The rules did not stop crypto; they pushed activity offshore and out of view, while the people who stayed compliant simply lost access. That is the recurring lesson when a government tries to gate ownership: the technology routes around the restriction, and the main casualties are regular users who wanted to follow the law. This is also the clearest argument for self custody there is. When the rules can change overnight and intermediaries can be forced to pull out, holding your own keys means your access does not depend on any one company’s willingness or ability to operate in your country. Zypto App is built around exactly that, keeping your keys on your own device so ownership stays in the hands of the person rather than the platform.

Source: CryptoBriefing

Coinbase backs a payment card with stablecoins for the credit-locked-out

Source: PYMNTS

Coinbase is launching a payment card, built with fintech Cardless, aimed at people who cannot qualify for a traditional unsecured card but hold digital assets. Applicants use their stablecoin holdings as collateral to secure the credit line, and the product extends a partnership that began with a Coinbase-branded card last year. “People apply from all different parts of the credit spectrum,” said Cardless co-founder Michael Spelfogel. “There are some people that want to use this method because they believe in cryptocurrency, but they’re just beginning their journeys and accumulating wealth.”

Zypto take: The interesting move here is using crypto holdings as collateral rather than asking someone to sell. Traditional credit access depends heavily on a history most people build slowly and some never get the chance to build at all. Letting digital assets back a credit line turns a holding into something useful without forcing the holder to give it up, which is a genuinely practical form of participation. The wider pattern is consistent across today’s stories: digital assets keep finding their way into the everyday financial tools people already understand. Zypto already connects crypto to real-world spending through the Zypto Premium VISA Cards, which a user loads with crypto in advance and then uses for real-world spending wherever Visa is accepted. You can see the full range on the crypto cards page. Download Zypto App.

Source: PYMNTS

Key Takeaways

Cross-border payments are where stablecoins are proving themselves fastest. A peso onchain and dollar payouts to 180 countries are two sides of the same shift: the slow, costly middle of an international payment is being removed, one currency and one corridor at a time.
Stablecoins are now described as infrastructure by the people building on them, not as a speculative bet. When a payout network and a regulated exchange treat USDC as plumbing, the conversation has moved from whether to how.
Hungary is a reminder that access can be taken away as well as granted. Ownership you hold yourself, on your own keys, is the version that does not depend on a single company’s permission to operate where you live.
Digital assets keep merging into familiar tools. A card backed by stablecoins, a payout funded in dollars and delivered onchain: the wins are practical and unglamorous, which is exactly why they last.
The corridors being wired this week for businesses and institutions are the same ones individuals will travel next. The interesting question for the rest of 2026 is how quickly the peso-on-XRPL kind of infrastructure reaches the person actually sending money home.

Today in Crypto - Japan Reclassifies Crypto, UK Banks Push Back

Zypto Editorial Team — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Regulation and payment rails are pulling in the same direction today, even when they look like they conflict. Japan is reclassifying crypto as a financial instrument, UK holders are organizing against banks that block their transfers, and the two largest card networks are quietly wiring stablecoins into how commerce settles.

Japan’s Lower House passes a bill moving crypto under its securities law, with lower taxes and a path to ETFs
286,000 UK crypto holders launch a campaign after banks block or delay roughly 40% of crypto transactions
Visa tells its payments forum that stablecoins are reshaping the back end of commerce
Mastercard’s Agent Pay lets AI agents settle in USDC and RLUSD alongside cards
DBS will sell gold-backed tokens to retail customers, one gram of vaulted gold per token
Delaware and New Jersey advance bills to ban crypto ATMs, citing $388 million in 2025 fraud losses

The common thread is access. Some of today’s news widens it and some narrows it, but every story is a decision about who gets to own and move digital value, and on what terms.

Japan moves to regulate crypto like a financial instrument

Source: CoinDesk

Japan’s Lower House passed a bill shifting cryptocurrency from the Payment Services Act to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, the same legal framework that governs stocks. The change brings lower, stock-style tax treatment, introduces insider trading rules for exchange staff and project insiders, and opens a path to domestic crypto exchange-traded funds. New disclosure requirements will ask projects to publish details on technology, token supply, and finances. The rules are expected to take effect in 2027.

The Financial Services Agency framed it as a balance: “Our framework intends to improve user protection while remaining mindful of promoting innovation.” The scale Japan is regulating for is notable. The FSA cited more than 14 million crypto accounts in the country, with around 70% held by people earning under 7 million yen a year. This is not a niche hobby being tidied up. It is a mainstream asset class being given mainstream rules.

Zypto take: Lower taxes and clearer rules are good news for anyone who already holds crypto in Japan, and the ETF door will pull in a new wave of investors who want exposure without touching a wallet. That is real participation, and it is worth welcoming. But there is a quiet distinction worth holding onto. Regulating crypto as a financial instrument optimizes it for investing, for buying an asset and watching its price. It does less for using it. The people in that 70% earning under 7 million yen are exactly the ones who benefit most when digital assets are something you can move and spend, not just hold in a brokerage wrapper. Ownership you can actually use is a different proposition, and it is what Zypto App is built around.

Source: CoinDesk

UK crypto holders organize against banks blocking their transfers

Source: CoinTelegraph

A campaign backed by 286,000 UK crypto holders launched this week, urging members to file formal complaints against retail banks that block or restrict transactions to crypto exchanges. According to the organizers, several banks now stop all transfers and card payments to exchanges outright, while others impose strict caps. The group estimates British banks block or delay around 40% of domestic crypto transactions, and says 80% of surveyed exchanges reported more transfer rejections over the past year. One platform reported banks rejecting over one million pounds in transactions in a single year.

The campaign’s framing is direct. “People across the UK are being blocked from accessing a legal asset class because banks have chosen to impose blanket restrictions on an entire sector,” said the director leading it. Crypto is legal to own in the UK. The barrier here is not the law. It is an intermediary deciding, on its own terms, what its customers are allowed to do with their own money.

Zypto take: This is what the case for self custody looks like in practice, stripped of ideology. When a third party can decide whether your money is allowed to move, you do not fully own it. You hold it at someone else’s discretion. The campaign is right to push for fairer treatment from banks, and that fight matters. But the deeper point is structural: assets you hold yourself, with keys on your own device, cannot be frozen at a bank’s discretion because no bank sits in the path. That is the whole reason self custody exists. Zypto App keeps your keys on your device across 20+ blockchains, so the question of whether you are permitted to move your value never has to be asked.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Visa says stablecoins are reshaping the back end of commerce

Source: The Block

At its annual payments forum, Visa put stablecoins at the center of its infrastructure roadmap. “AI is transforming the front end of commerce. Stablecoins are reshaping the back end,” said chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell. The company reported its stablecoin settlement run rate had reached an annualized $7 billion as of March 2026, and said it is extending seven-day settlement to acquirers and expanding pilots across more regions, blockchains, and currencies. Visa also introduced a tokenized deposits layer that lets banks turn traditional deposits into programmable digital money.

The headline number is worth sitting with. Seven billion dollars in annualized stablecoin settlement, running through the back end of the largest card network in the world, is no longer experimental. It is plumbing. Most of the people whose transactions flow across these rails will never know stablecoins were involved, and that is precisely the point. The technology disappears into the infrastructure.

Zypto take: Two truths can sit side by side here. Stablecoins becoming the settlement layer for global card networks is a genuine milestone, and it validates everything the industry has said about their utility for years. It is also worth being clear about where the user stands in that picture. When stablecoins settle on the back end, the value still moves between institutions, and the person at the front end is using the same card the same way they always have. The other version of this is the one where the user holds the stablecoin directly and moves it on their own terms. Zypto Pay runs on that model, letting merchants accept crypto and settle in local currency without an institution sitting between the payer and the payment.

Source: The Block

Mastercard’s Agent Pay lets AI agents settle in stablecoins

Source: Decrypt

Mastercard launched Agent Pay for Machines, a platform that lets autonomous AI agents transact on their own, settling through cards, bank accounts, or regulated stablecoins including Circle’s USDC and Ripple’s RLUSD. More than 30 companies took part, among them Coinbase, OKX, Polygon, RippleX, Aave Labs, Stripe, Cloudflare, and the Solana Foundation. “Machine payments can make it possible for services to be bought and sold among agents at fundamentally different scales than payments today,” said chief product officer Jorn Lambert, describing very high volumes of very small, very fast transactions.

The choice of stablecoins here is not incidental. Machine-to-machine payments need a settlement medium that moves instantly, around the clock, in tiny amounts, without waiting on banking hours or batch windows. That describes a stablecoin far better than it describes a card rail. The AI framing grabs the headline, but the durable signal underneath is that when payments have to be fast, programmable, and continuous, the industry reaches for stablecoins by default.

Zypto take: Strip away the agents for a moment. What this confirms is that stablecoins have become the obvious answer whenever value needs to move quickly and continuously, whether the sender is a machine or a person. That same property, value that moves on demand without waiting on an intermediary’s schedule, is exactly what makes stablecoins useful for a human sending money across a border or paying for something abroad. The infrastructure being built for agents is the same infrastructure people will use directly. Holding and moving stablecoins yourself, rather than through a settlement layer you never see, is where that utility lands for an ordinary user.

Source: Mastercard

DBS will sell gold-backed tokens to retail customers

Source: CoinDesk

Singapore’s DBS Bank will offer Physical Gold Tokens to retail customers in the second half of 2026, each token backed by exactly one gram of physical gold held in a Singapore vault. Customers will buy and hold the tokens through the bank’s retail app, with DBS handling tokenization, issuance, distribution, and custody in-house. The bank’s investment product head framed the move as widening access: physical gold has largely been the preserve of institutional and accredited investors, while retail customers were limited to gold funds. Last year DBS tokenized structured notes on Ethereum and listed a tokenized money market fund.

Real-world asset tokenization spent years as a slide in conference decks. Gold split into one-gram tokens, sold to ordinary customers through a bank app they already use, is the version where it finally touches a regular person. The asset is old and familiar. What changes is that ownership becomes divisible, portable, and digital, available in fractions that a physical gold market never made practical.

Zypto take: This is ownership being unbundled from the gatekeepers who used to control it, and that is a genuinely good direction. Splitting a vaulted asset into gram-sized tokens means someone with modest savings can own real gold for the first time, not a fund’s claim on it. The open question is what happens after you own it. A token that lives only inside one bank’s app is a starting point, not the finish line. The fuller promise of tokenized real-world assets is that they can move and connect across an ecosystem, which is the direction real-world assets are heading. Divisible ownership is the breakthrough. Portable, usable ownership is where it gets interesting.

Source: CoinDesk

Delaware and New Jersey move to ban crypto ATMs

Source: CoinTelegraph

Bills to ban crypto ATMs advanced in two more US states this week. Delaware’s House Bill 441 cleared committee and would prohibit owning, installing, or operating the kiosks, with a 90-day removal window. New Jersey’s S2141 passed a Senate committee unanimously. Both follow Indiana, Tennessee, and Minnesota, which enacted bans earlier this year. Lawmakers cited FBI figures of nearly 13,500 complaints in 2025 tied to $388 million in losses, with more than half of complaints coming from people over 50. They also pointed to fees running as high as 20%, against 0.4% to 1% on online exchanges.

The fraud concern is legitimate and the victim data is hard to argue with. Crypto ATMs have been a favored tool for scams that target older, less technical people, and a 20% fee on a confused first-time buyer is genuinely predatory. The complication is that these kiosks are also one of the few cash-to-crypto on-ramps that does not require a bank account, which is precisely why vulnerable users and underbanked users both end up at the same machine.

Zypto take: Banning the kiosks treats a real harm, and no one should defend a scam pipeline. But the underlying need does not disappear with the machine: people without easy bank access still want a way to turn cash into digital value. The honest response is not to mourn the crypto ATM. It is to build cash on-ramps that are safe, fairly priced, and ID-verified rather than anonymous and exploitative. Zypto already does cash access through the USDC to Cash feature, where users can cash in or cash out of USDC at participating MoneyGram locations, a regulated counter rather than an unmonitored box on a wall. Remove the predatory option, and the answer is a better one, not no option at all. Download Zypto App.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Key Takeaways

The big institutions are converging on stablecoins as settlement infrastructure. Visa’s $7 billion run rate and Mastercard’s agent payments are two views of the same shift: when value needs to move fast and continuously, the rails are increasingly stablecoin rails.
There is a recurring gap between exposure and use. Japan’s securities reclassification and DBS’s gold tokens both widen access to owning digital value, but owning an asset inside an institution’s wrapper is not the same as being able to move and use it freely.
Who controls access is the quiet theme running under everything. UK banks blocking transfers and US states banning kiosks are both intermediaries deciding what people may do with a legal asset. Self custody exists precisely so that decision stays with the owner.
Real-world utility keeps proving itself in mundane places. Gold by the gram, cross-border settlement, machine micropayments: the wins are practical, not theatrical.
The infrastructure being built for institutions and machines this week is the same infrastructure that, held directly, gives an ordinary person ownership they can actually use. The interesting question for the rest of 2026 is how quickly that reaches the front end, where people live.

This Week In Crypto – Ripple, Ethereum, Pump.fun, and Bitcoin

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT

GM Frens,

It’s been another busy week across crypto. Stablecoins continue expanding, AI is finding new ways to spend digital dollars, Bitcoin miners are turning buyers again, and new crypto incentive models are pushing the boundaries of online engagement.

Ripple is pushing RLUSD into Turkey, Travala now lets AI agents book hotels with USDC, Pump.fun launches its new GO bounty platform, Ethereum has 3x more holders than Bitcoin, and we look at how miners may be quietly fueling Bitcoin’s next rally. Finally, Zypto continues advancing real world crypto utility.

Ripple is pushing RLUSD into Turkey

Ripple is pushing its dollar-backed stablecoin into Turkey, betting that one of the world’s most active digital-asset markets is ready for a more regulated version of the digital dollars already used to navigate currency weakness and limited access to traditional dollar savings.

Last week, the company announced that its US dollar-pegged stablecoin, RLUSD, is now available to institutional clients in Turkey through integration agreements with local cryptocurrency platforms. The stakes for capturing market share are exceptionally high.

Turkey handled nearly $200 billion in annual crypto transactions, almost four times the United Arab Emirates’ $53 billion, making it the dominant crypto economy in the Middle East and North America. The rollout places RLUSD inside the domestic order books of three established Turkish gateways.

Since its global launch in late 2024, RLUSD has scaled to a $1.7 billion market capitalization. Ripple’s strategy in Turkey focuses not on retail day traders, but on capturing high-value corporate flows that require strict regulatory certainty.

Meanwhile, market observers have noted that Turkey’s outsized role in the global crypto ecosystem is not solely due to typical retail speculation. Instead, it sits at the intersection of speculative trading, robust dollar demand, and profound macroeconomic pressure. Turkey dominates the MENA region in digital asset value received and was the fifth-largest global market for retail crypto activity in Q1 2026.

To anchor its commercial expansion, Ripple is simultaneously building physical and academic infrastructure within the country. Ripple announced that Istanbul Technical University (ITU) has joined its global University Blockchain Research Initiative. The partnership would be funded directly by RLUSD allocations.

Travala lets AI agents book hotels with USDC

Singapore-based crypto travel platform Travala has launched a protocol it says lets artificial intelligence agents search for, reserve, and pay for hotels with USDC on the layer-2 blockchain Base, extending agentic AI stablecoin payments to travel bookings.

The company said the system connects Travala’s hotel inventory to AI agents through the Model Context Protocol, an open standard for linking AI apps to external tools. Payments use Base with Travala saying the setup allows gasless USDC transactions, near-instant settlement and transaction costs of about $0.01 per booking.

However, final payment authorization still requires manual approval from the traveler, so it’s not fully autonomous; it’s more advanced than a chatbot that only recommends itineraries.

The launch comes as crypto companies try to make stablecoins useful for machine-to-machine commerce and follows a wave of crypto payment infrastructure aimed at AI agents. The likes of Fireblocks, MoonPay, and Exodus have launched products for AI-driven stablecoin payments, while x402-linked wallets on Base surpassed 100 million transactions.

Travala framed the launch as an early step toward autonomous travel booking, even as travelers still retain final approval over payments. Travala said the setup uses ERC-7715 session keys, allowing the AI agent to request a payment while keeping final signing authority inside the traveler’s wallet.

The company said the protocol can maintain context across searches, bookings and cancellations in a single chat thread. Travala said the protocol covers more than 2.2 million hotels, including listings from Marriott, Hilton and IHG, which are sourced through its aggregator partners.

Ethereum has 3x more holders than Bitcoin

Ethereum has emerged as the blockchain with the largest number of holders, far ahead of Bitcoin. Data on non-empty wallets show that Ethereum has around 189.49 million holders, more than three times Bitcoin’s 59.08 million.

The figures, shared by Lisk’s head of research, analyst Leon Waidmann, indicate Ethereum’s large user base even as the asset’s price remained in a bearish zone. After Ethereum and Bitcoin, Tether ranks third with 13.61 million holders, followed by XRP with 7.8 million and USDC with 6.76 million non-empty wallets.

Even with such strong network adoption, ETH has been on a steady decline over the past month, losing more than 30% during the period. The crypto asset was trading near $1,620 at the time of writing.

The weakness in its price has also affected companies that built large treasury positions in the asset. One example is Nasdaq-listed FG Nexus, which has reportedly incurred more than $85 million in losses on its Ethereum strategy after selling a substantial portion of its holdings at prices below its purchase price.

The company had made ETH its main treasury reserve asset and started building its position around Ethereum’s 10th anniversary, with plans to become a major holder. However, the broader market downturn forced it to reduce its exposure.

Meanwhile, crypto analyst Michael van de Poppe noted that ETH’s daily Relative Strength Index (RSI) has dropped to its lowest level ever.

The market pressure has also been visible in spot Ethereum ETF activity. However, after 17 straight trading days of outflows, these funds recorded net inflows of $19.3 million on June 4. The inflows were driven entirely by ETHA, while the remaining nine ETFs saw no activity.

Overall, Ethereum ETFs still posted $168 million in net inflows for the week. SoSoValue said the latest figures could mean ETF flows are starting to stabilize. However, a meaningful recovery will depend on whether inflows continue into Ethereum and other major crypto assets.

Pump.fun launches a GO bounty platform

Solana based memecoin launchpad Pump.fun introduced GO, a new bounty platform built around the slogan “Pay ANYONE to do ANYTHING.” In it, users post crypto rewards for bizarre promotional tasks, such as tattooing the ticker symbols of memecoins, quitting their job live on camera, or skydiving into a World Cup match.

Users connect an X account and wallet, post a task, and lock rewards in escrow starting at $5, while Pump.fun reviews submissions and determines payouts. At the time of writing, GO listed 225 live bounties, 509 submissions, and a $115,000 unclaimed pool. The biggest rewards remain unclaimed on the platform.

The top remaining listing, worth roughly $23,655, sought an interview with either a family member of the person responsible for Henry Nowak’s death or the lead police officer on the case.

Another task offered a $3,066 bounty for users to tattoo the ticker “Bountywork” on their foreheads, with a request for video proof. So far, the task has received four submissions with people completing the tattoo.

Further down the board, the tasks turn stranger and, in places, riskier.

Bounties asked people to set a branded car alight, streak during an NBA Finals game, fart through a megaphone at a lecture, pour milk over themselves, hand out 100 jars of pineapple Kool-Aid to homeless people, get Elon Musk to engage with a token on X, and bail someone out of jail.

GO formalizes a pay-for-stunts incentive that has repeatedly turned dangerous on Pump.fun. The launchpad pulled its livestreaming feature in 2024 after an influx of contentious streams. Pump.fun revived livestreaming at the start of 2025 with new moderation, then leaned into ‘creator capital markets,’ pairing viral stunts with tradable tokens.

How miners are quietly fueling Bitcoin’s next rally

After six weeks of selling, Bitcoin miners have flipped to net accumulation just as price carved a cycle low, an on-chain shift that echoes the last major turn. There are three signals we can consider.

Firstly, since June 5, Bitcoin miners have posted three consecutive days of positive net position change, a metric that tracks whether miners add to or draw down their holdings.

The shift breaks a stretch of red that ran from April 23 through June 4, one of the longer miner capitulation phases of the year.

The timing stands out. The flip to green arrives just after the price breached its sub-$60,000 low, the same pattern seen at the previous turn. A local bottom near $64,088 in late February closed the prior capitulation, after which miner flows turned positive in early March and coincided with the Bitcoin price recovery.

Secondly, the accumulation shift lines up with a quiet recovery in network demand. Bitcoin network revenue, the total transaction fees miners earn, climbed to 89 BTC in May. That figure tops February’s 80 BTC, March’s 79, and April’s 74, marking a clear pickup in fee income just as miners stopped selling.

June’s reading sits at 26 BTC. Still, that figure covers only the first eight days and remains incomplete, so it cannot be read as a drop. Yet, the BTC trend still looks positive, which explains why the miners’ net position change has turned up.

Stronger fee revenue eases the operational pressure that forces miners to liquidate, which helps explain why their net position turned. When network revenue rises, miners earn more from fees, so they feel less need to sell their Bitcoin to cover costs, which is why their net position can flip from selling to accumulating.

The relevant is the May surge, the best fee month since the start of the year, landing alongside the miner flip. Two signals now point the same way. The third tests whether leverage could undo them.

Thirdly, the final signal sits in derivatives, where the setup looks calmer than it did before last week’s crash. Total open interest dropped from about $31.26 billion in late May to near $22.31 billion, after touching $21.09 billion.

That matters because the current funding rate of 0.005%, which reflects what traders pay to hold long positions, sits just below the 0.006% reading from early June that preceded the price crash.

The difference is open interest. Leverage stood far higher on June 1, so the same lean toward longs carries less risk of a cascading long flush now. That leverage cooling coincides with the Bitcoin miner pickup.

However, there are some warning signs. Funding turning positive again shows buyers leaning long, and sellers have reappeared as new whales realize losses.

For now, watch whether miner accumulation holds, whether fee revenue builds in June, and whether open interest stays contained. Those three, not price alone, will show if the on-chain turn has staying power.

Zypto advances real-world crypto utility

For most of history, cross-border transfers have traditionally been slow, expensive, and dependent on layers of intermediaries, with access unevenly distributed across regions. This gap between how information moves and how value moves began to close with the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009.

While widely recognized as the first cryptocurrency, Bitcoin was originally conceived as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system. It wasn’t designed as an investment vehicle, but as a form of money native to the internet. Since then, thousands of blockchain networks and digital assets have built on this, creating a decentralized system for transferring value across borders.

While the underlying technology proved effective, practical usage has remained fragmented. Owning and transferring crypto became increasingly accessible, but using it in everyday life or spending across borders often required navigating multiple platforms and services.

Zypto is positioning itself to address this gap by focusing on utility, aiming to make digital assets function like everyday money. Through its app ecosystem, Zypto integrates a wide range of services—cross-chain swaps, cards, bill payments, gift cards—that enable users to move from simply holding crypto to actively using it.

It supports more than 20 blockchains, over 24,000 digital assets, and more than 1,000,000 cross-chain swap routes, combining services that are typically dispersed across multiple providers into a single interface. This integration allows users to perform practical financial actions across borders.

By consolidating these capabilities, Zypto is addressing a core limitation in the current crypto landscape: fragmentation. While individual services exist across the ecosystem, they are often disconnected, creating friction for users attempting to rely on digital assets in everyday scenarios.

Zypro’s approach reflects a broader shift within the industry toward real-world applicability. As cryptocurrencies and stablecoins increasingly facilitate billions of dollars in daily transactions, the focus is shifting from trading to usability.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

Ripple is expanding its dollar-backed stablecoin RLUSD into Turkey through local exchange integrations. Travala has introduced a system that allows AI agents to search and book hotels using USDC on Base, enabling low-cost, near-instant payments while keeping final transaction approval with the user.

Ethereum now has over three times as many non-empty wallets as Bitcoin, highlighting its broader user base. Pump.fun has launched GO, a crypto bounty platform where users pay others for promotional tasks and viral marketing campaigns.

Bitcoin miners have shifted from selling to accumulating after a prolonged period of capitulation, coinciding with rising network fees and reduced leverage in derivatives markets. Zypto’s model suggests that the next phase of crypto adoption will be defined less by asset ownership and more by everyday functionality.

What’s your favorite development this week? Let us know in the comments section!

FAQs

Where is Ripple pushing RLUSD?

Ripple is pushing its dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, into Turkey, one of the world’s most active digital-asset markets.

What is the latest on Travala?

Travala has launched a protocol it says lets artificial intelligence agents search, reserve, and pay for hotels with USDC.

How does Ethereum compare to Bitcoin?

Ethereum has emerged as the blockchain with the largest number of holders, far ahead of Bitcoin.

How are miners fueling Bitcoin’s next rally?

Bitcoin miners posted three consecutive days of positive net position change, adding to their holdings.

Today in Crypto - Stablecoins, Tournament Payouts, and New On-Ramps

Zypto Editorial Team — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Stablecoins and real-world payments are dominating today’s agenda. Japan’s three biggest banks are building toward a shared digital yen. The World Series of Poker is paying tournament winners in crypto. And two separate regulatory moves, one in the UK and one in Washington, are quietly making it easier for ordinary people to hold and use digital assets.

Japan’s MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC form a joint council to issue a yen stablecoin by March 2027
The World Series of Poker adds Solana payments for buy-ins and stablecoin payouts for winners
The UK’s FCA proposes letting retail investment funds hold up to 10% in crypto ETNs
SBI Shinsei Bank in Japan pilots crypto vouchers linked to deposit interest, no purchase required
US lawmakers advance a de minimis tax exemption that would make stablecoin payments less burdensome
The GENIUS Act’s AML rules draw pushback from Paradigm and Hyperliquid over stablecoin overreach

Three countries, two competing regulatory approaches, and one consistent signal: crypto is being plumbed into the financial system from the top down. What’s new this week is the pace.

Japan’s three megabanks move toward a shared yen stablecoin

Source: Decrypt

MUFG Bank, Mizuho Bank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation have established a joint council to develop and launch a yen-backed stablecoin before the end of Japan’s financial year in March 2027. The three institutions will operate under a trust structure, with an independent trust bank serving as the asset holder, and have the backing of Japan’s Financial Services Agency and the ruling party.

Japan already has one of the more developed stablecoin legal frameworks in the world, passed in 2023, but yen-denominated stablecoins remain a tiny fraction of the market compared to dollar-pegged alternatives. A credible yen stablecoin from three of Japan’s largest banks changes that dynamic entirely, and opens a direct pathway for domestic settlements, cross-border payments, and eventually merchant adoption at scale.

This is not a retail product yet. The initial design targets institutional settlement. But the institutional layer is exactly where payment rails need to be built before user-facing products can follow. When Japan’s biggest banks agree on a shared standard, the downstream adoption curve compresses.

Zypto take: The question here is not whether traditional banks will issue stablecoins. That is now settled. The question is whether those stablecoins will be designed for movement, or designed for control. Bank-issued stablecoins built on trust-bank custody structures are efficient within closed systems and considerably less so outside them. A user who wants to send value across borders, access DeFi, or use stablecoins without a bank as intermediary still needs a different tool. The bank stablecoin and the self-custodial wallet are not the same product solving the same problem.

Source: Decrypt

The World Series of Poker starts paying out in stablecoins

Source: CoinDesk

The World Series of Poker has partnered with MoonPay to accept Solana-based payments for tournament buy-ins with zero processing fees, effective at the current Las Vegas event. Starting in December at WSOP Paradise in the Bahamas, winners will have the option to collect prize payouts in stablecoins. Solana is now the official presenting sponsor of the 2026 WSOP, with branding across broadcasts and event venues.

WSOP CEO Ty Stewart said the integration is intended to “modernize payments for players,” particularly international participants who face foreign exchange and wire fees when moving large sums across borders. For a tournament where buy-ins can reach thousands of dollars and prize pools run into the millions, the cost savings on cross-border settlement are real and immediate.

This is one of the cleaner real-world payment use cases to land in months. The value transfer problem is concrete, the audience is international, and the savings come not from speculation but from cutting unnecessary middlemen out of what is, functionally, a payment.

Zypto take: For someone playing an international poker tournament, the hassle of moving winnings across borders through traditional banking is a known cost of participation. The shift here is that stablecoins are being positioned as the default settlement method for a globally distributed audience, not a workaround for the technically adventurous. That is exactly what real-world crypto adoption looks like: a better answer to a problem that already existed. Zypto Pay is built on the same logic, letting merchants accept crypto and settle in local currency without overhauling their existing operations.

Source: CoinDesk

UK retail investment funds get a path to crypto exposure

Source: CoinDesk

The Financial Conduct Authority has proposed allowing authorized UK investment funds to allocate up to 10% of assets to crypto exchange-traded notes. The cap would apply to UCITS schemes, which cover the majority of retail-facing collective investment vehicles including most ISA-eligible funds. The FCA described the proposed limit as a “conservative restriction” consistent with the speculative nature of digital assets, while still keeping funds “contemporary” with investor demand.

The consultation closes July 13. The proposal builds on the FCA’s August 2025 decision to lift its ban on retail crypto trading products, and is part of a broader legislative push that includes stablecoin oversight, crypto custody rules, and staking frameworks. For approximately 20 million UK adults who hold investments through regulated fund products, this would provide a first legal, regulated route to digital asset exposure without opening a separate crypto account.

The FCA is also reviewing whether certain fund categories, such as property funds and long-term asset funds, should be excluded from crypto allocations due to structural incompatibility with their stated objectives.

Zypto take: Most of the regulatory debate around crypto still centers on whether to allow it. This proposal accepts that question as settled and is working through the specifics of how. That is a different kind of conversation, and a more useful one. A 10% fund allocation and a self-custodial wallet are both legitimate forms of participation. They just offer different things. Exposure to the price of an asset inside a regulated wrapper is not the same as the ability to move, use, or build with it. Both have a place, and the users who want the full picture will eventually find their way to the Zypto App.

Source: CoinDesk

SBI Shinsei Bank rewards depositors with Bitcoin, no investment required

Source: CoinTelegraph

SBI Shinsei Bank launched a three-month pilot that automatically credits deposit customers with cryptocurrency vouchers equal to 20% of their earned interest, on top of their standard yen interest payment. Customers holding term deposits of three months to five years can open an account with SBI VC Trade and redeem the vouchers for Bitcoin, Ether, or XRP. If the pilot lands well, a permanent product follows.

The design is deliberate. No one is being asked to buy crypto, choose a wallet, or make an active investment decision. The depositor does what they were already doing, earns interest as normal, and receives a small allocation of digital assets as an additional benefit. First exposure, zero commitment required.

SBI Group has been building methodically across the digital asset stack: stablecoin lending, exchange consolidation via SBI VC Trade, and now deposit-linked rewards. The pilot is modest in scale. The model it establishes, bank deposits as a crypto on-ramp, is not.

Zypto take: Most on-ramp discussions focus on exchanges, apps, and KYC flows. This is something different: an institution with 20 million existing customer relationships turning routine deposit interest into a first crypto holding. The people who arrive this way are not researching wallets or tracking market movements. They are just finding out they own a little Bitcoin. That is a different kind of introduction, and a much wider one. Once someone has their first holding, the natural next question is what they can do with it.

Source: CoinTelegraph

US lawmakers push a tax exemption for everyday crypto payments

Source: Decrypt

A House Ways and Means Committee hearing on June 9 advanced six crypto tax bills, including a de minimis exemption that would remove the requirement to track and report gains on small everyday crypto transactions. Committee Chairman Jason Smith framed it directly: people who want to pay with a stablecoin instead of a credit card or cash should not face a pile of tax paperwork. Under current rules, every transaction using crypto, including a stablecoin payment for a coffee, is a taxable event that requires cost-basis tracking.

Separate bills address double-taxation of staking and mining rewards, and industry testimony pushed for expanded exemptions across the board. Democratic members raised concerns about potential abuse in mining deferral provisions, with ranking member Richard Neal acknowledging skepticism on both sides. Galaxy Digital estimates a 60% chance of Senate passage before August recess.

The de minimis exemption has the clearest direct impact on ordinary users. As long as every small crypto payment generates a taxable event, using digital assets for everyday spending carries a compliance overhead that cash simply does not.

Zypto take: Tax treatment has been the quiet ceiling on everyday crypto bill payments and purchases in the US for years. Not lack of wallets, not lack of merchant acceptance: the administrative cost of treating each transaction as a capital gain disposal. A de minimis exemption removes that ceiling. It does not solve every pain point in the system, but it removes the most structurally absurd one, and it does so in a way that benefits any user trying to make real-world crypto useful. Whether this passes before August matters less than the direction: the US is now actively working to make everyday crypto payments less burdensome, not more.

Source: Decrypt

Paradigm and Hyperliquid push back on GENIUS Act AML overreach

Source: CoinTelegraph

The Hyperliquid Policy Center and venture firm Paradigm filed joint comments urging Treasury to revise the anti-money-laundering rules accompanying the GENIUS Act stablecoin legislation. The specific objection: the proposed rules require stablecoin issuers to block, freeze, or reject transactions that violate US law across both primary and secondary markets, including on decentralized protocols where issuers have no visibility into who is transacting.

Paradigm and Hyperliquid argue that imposing secondary-market obligations on issuers creates an impossible compliance burden. An issuer cannot meaningfully monitor transactions on every decentralized protocol that holds their token. The practical consequence, they contend, would be stablecoin issuers retreating to permissioned environments and ceding the open, decentralized layer to offshore, non-dollar alternatives.

The GENIUS Act itself has substantial bipartisan support and is considered likely to pass in some form. The AML rules, written by Treasury rather than Congress, remain in a comment period through early July.

Zypto take: Most people discussing the GENIUS Act are focused on whether it passes. This argument is about what it says when it does, and it matters more than the headline vote. If compliant US-dollar stablecoins are forced out of open protocols and decentralized markets, the result is not a safer system. It is a two-tier system: regulated stablecoins in closed rails, and everything else in the open layer. The users who benefit most from open, permissionless value movement are not sophisticated traders. They are people sending remittances, making cross-border payments, and using stablecoins because they need a dollar-equivalent that moves freely. Getting the AML rules right protects them, not just the protocol developers. Download Zypto App.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Key Takeaways

Institutional stablecoin infrastructure is being built faster than most expected. Three of Japan’s largest banks agreeing on a shared yen stablecoin standard in the same week that Washington debates stablecoin tax policy is not a coincidence. The rails are being laid from both ends.
The on-ramp is getting wider and less deliberate. SBI Shinsei’s deposit-linked voucher model proves that first crypto exposure does not require an active purchase decision. The next wave of participants may arrive without ever choosing to invest.
Regulatory clarity is moving in the right direction, but the details matter. The GENIUS Act AML debate shows that well-intentioned rules can produce outcomes that undermine the open systems they are meant to govern. What Treasury writes in the coming weeks will shape stablecoin utility more than the vote itself.
Real-world merchant adoption is accelerating in unexpected places. Tournament poker may not be the obvious frontier for crypto payments, but the economics are clear: international prize pools, high buy-ins, and global players make cross-border settlement cost savings immediate and concrete. More categories will follow the same logic.
For users who want more than price exposure, the gap between a fund allocation and actual ownership of digital assets is still meaningful. Self-custody is not just a philosophical preference. It determines what you can do with what you hold.

Today in Crypto - Stablecoin card, CLARITY Act push, and RWAs surge

Zypto Editorial Team — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Six stories stood out today:

Coinbase and Cardless launched a credit card that uses USDC holdings as collateral
Over 200 crypto organizations pushed the Senate to schedule a CLARITY Act vote before the August recess
The UK’s FCA proposed letting retail investment funds hold up to 10% in crypto ETNs
Active tokenized real-world assets surged 600% in 18 months despite the broader market pullback
A $30 million private key compromise drained Humanity Protocol, sending the token down 85%
MetaMask released an Agent Wallet that lets AI bots execute DeFi trades within user-defined limits

The common thread: the infrastructure for everyday crypto ownership and participation is expanding rapidly, while the cost of weak key security remains as high as ever.

Coinbase and Cardless launch a credit card that runs on USDC collateral

Coinbase and Cardless have introduced a stablecoin-secured credit card. Applicants set aside a portion of their USDC holdings on Coinbase as collateral, continue earning yield on those assets, and pay a $49.99 annual fee for card access. The product targets people who hold crypto but cannot qualify for a conventional unsecured credit card, with Cardless co-founder Michael Spelfogel describing it as built for those “beginning their journeys.”

This is the practical version of a crypto-backed financial life becoming more normal. Yield on idle USDC while the card is in your wallet. A path to credit access that doesn’t require converting to cash first.

For people using Zypto App to hold stablecoins, the direction is clear: the range of things you can do without ever leaving the crypto ecosystem is widening. The Cash to USDC and USDC to Cash global service in Zypto App already covers that bridge at any participating MoneyGram location.

Source: CoinDesk

200+ crypto organizations are pressing the Senate to vote on the CLARITY Act

Four major industry groups, Stand With Crypto, the Digital Chamber, the Blockchain Association, and the Crypto Council for Innovation, jointly represent more than 200 companies in a letter urging Senate leadership to schedule a floor vote on the CLARITY Act before the August recess. The bill would divide regulatory oversight cleanly: the SEC handles crypto securities, the CFTC handles commodities. It has already cleared both the Banking and Agriculture Committees but stalled on the floor over disagreements on stablecoin yield restrictions and developer protections. Galaxy Digital puts the odds of passage this year at 60%.

The question is not whether the US needs a framework. It is whether Congress moves before or after the rest of the world builds one without it.

A clear regulatory structure matters most to everyday users, not institutions. Knowing which rules apply to which asset, and which agency enforces them, is what lets people participate without legal ambiguity overhead. That kind of clarity is what brings digital assets further into everyday financial life.

Source: CoinTelegraph

The UK’s FCA wants to let retail funds hold up to 10% in crypto ETNs

The Financial Conduct Authority opened a five-week consultation today proposing that UCITS funds and some retail-facing non-UCITS funds be permitted to allocate up to 10% of assets to crypto exchange-traded notes, provided the allocation aligns with the fund’s stated investment objectives. The cap reflects what the FCA calls a “conservative” position given the speculative characteristics of underlying assets. Unregulated and qualified investor schemes could go higher, but cannot market those products to retail consumers. The consultation closes July 13.

This follows the FCA’s August 2025 decision to lift its ban on retail trading of crypto ETNs, which itself brought the UK in line with European and North American norms. The 10% proposal extends that opening to fund vehicles that millions of ordinary investors use through pension wrappers and ISAs.

Incremental access through regulated fund structures is how most retail investors in the UK will first get crypto exposure. Regulatory permission is not the exciting part. The long-run direction it sets is.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Active tokenized real-world assets jumped 600% in 18 months

A Binance Research report published this week shows active tokenized real-world assets surged 589% between early 2025 and June 2026. Bonds and money market funds grew 83%, adding $6.5 billion. Tokenized stocks moved faster at 422%, with Ondo Global Markets alone exceeding $1 billion locked within eight months. Tokenized precious metals added $1.5 billion, led by gold. xStocks has now cleared more than $25 billion in cumulative trading volume. Major institutions including JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are backing the underlying infrastructure.

Tokenized RWAs growing through a crypto pullback is the signal. The growth is not retail speculation driving a number up; it is institutional capital building settlement and ownership infrastructure that happens to run on blockchains.

Stocks, bonds, gold, and real estate accessible from the same self-custodial setup you use for Bitcoin is exactly the expanded participation that defines this space. Zypto App already covers 24,000+ assets across 20+ blockchains. As tokenized real-world assets land on those chains, real-world asset access through self-custodial wallets becomes the natural next layer.

Source: CoinTelegraph

A $30 million private key compromise just reminded everyone what is at stake

Humanity Protocol, a zkEVM blockchain project, suffered a security breach when private keys belonging to a member of the Humanity Foundation were compromised. The attacker moved at least $30 million in H tokens across decentralized exchanges. The token fell 85% within 12 hours, dropping from roughly $0.70 to $0.08. CEO Terence Kwok confirmed the incident in a public statement. CertiK data shows private key compromises were already the second-most costly attack vector in May 2026, accounting for $13.7 million in losses that month alone across multiple projects including Drift Protocol and Polymarket.

Private key security is not a solved problem. Repeating breaches across high-profile projects in 2026 suggests it is not even a declining one.

The Vault Key Card splits signing authority between your device and a physical card. A compromised phone cannot move funds without it. That design exists precisely because private key exposure is the most common and most costly category of crypto loss, and software alone cannot fully protect against it. Download Zypto App.

Source: CoinTelegraph

MetaMask launched a self-custodial wallet that AI agents can operate

MetaMask released Agent Wallet, an early-access product that lets AI agents execute transactions on decentralized finance platforms within boundaries set by the user. Users connect the wallet to supported AI frameworks including OpenAI Codex and Claude Code, define an allowlist of approved protocols, and the agent operates within those limits. Transactions flagged as potentially malicious require manual approval before proceeding. The system also offers up to $10,000 in loss protection on transactions its own security layer clears. Supported activity spans token swaps, perpetual futures, prediction markets, and liquidity provision across Ethereum-compatible networks and Hyperliquid.

Giving AI agents self-custodial access to DeFi is a real product now, not a whitepaper. The key constraint MetaMask is betting on: user-defined spending rules and protocol allowlists, not blanket agent authority.

The self-custody model is still doing the same job it always has. User-defined controls, transparent transaction history, no counterparty holding the keys. The mechanism that lets you trust an AI agent with your funds is the same one that lets you trust any setup: the private keys stay yours, and the boundaries stay your decision.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Today in Crypto - Mastercard goes on-chain, payment giants converge, and a landmark ruling

Zypto Editorial Team — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Six stories define the week so far:

Mastercard will now settle transactions in stablecoins across six major blockchains, around the clock
Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are building a shared stablecoin platform, with Coinbase reportedly joining
Congress holds its crypto tax hearing today, debating a bill that would remove reporting requirements on small transactions
Bybit and Kraken are both offering tokenized SpaceX IPO access to retail crypto users
Securitize cleared its final SEC hurdle on the path to an NYSE listing as tokenized RWAs hit $32 billion
A Chinese court ruled that Bitcoin is legally property, even as the country bans trading

The common thread: the payment infrastructure for everyday crypto use is being built, standardized, and tested from multiple directions at once.

Mastercard will settle card transactions in stablecoins across six blockchains

Mastercard is enabling on-chain settlement alongside its existing fiat processes, supporting USDC, PYUSD, RLUSD, USDG, USDP, and SoFiUSD across Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, and XRPL. The move shifts settlement toward a 24/7 model: intraday, weekends, holidays, no banking-hours dependency.

Early participants include Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ, and Nuvei, initially across the U.S. and Latin America. “The next phase of stablecoin adoption is about real-world utility, especially in settlement, where timing and liquidity matter most,” said Raj Dhamodharan, Mastercard’s executive vice president of blockchain and digital assets.

Settlement infrastructure is not visible to cardholders, but it is what makes everything else work. When the rails settle in stablecoins on-chain, the cost and speed of moving money changes. Six blockchains and six stablecoins in one announcement is a meaningful commitment to breadth rather than a single-chain bet.

Stablecoin settlement moving on-chain means payments that work on weekends, on holidays, and through the night without clearing windows. The Zypto Premium VISA Card loads from Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, and Arbitrum. Better settlement infrastructure on those chains means more reliable everyday spending for anyone already using crypto that way.

Source: CoinDesk

Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are building shared stablecoin infrastructure

The three largest players in global payments are reportedly close to launching a joint stablecoin platform, with Coinbase said to be exploring participation. Each arrived here separately: Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure firm Bridge for $1.1 billion in 2024, Mastercard recently acquired BVNK, and Visa has processed $3.5 billion in stablecoin-settled card transactions.

A platform with all three names on it is a different kind of signal from individual integrations. It would shift stablecoin settlement from a feature each network runs independently to shared infrastructure reaching billions of cardholders.

The direction has been clear for some time. What is changing is the pace. Three competing payment networks building together rather than separately suggests the bet on stablecoin rails has become industry consensus rather than a differentiator.

Three of the largest payment networks in the world are now building stablecoin infrastructure together. For people who hold and use stablecoins, that kind of structural alignment makes digital assets more usable over time.

Source: CoinDesk

Congress holds its crypto tax hearing today, and the small-transaction exemption is the one to watch

The House Ways and Means Committee holds its crypto tax hearing today with a de minimis exemption on the table. If it passes, routine small transactions would carry no reporting obligation. The paperwork disappears, even though any underlying gain or loss still applies. Today’s hearing is the furthest this type of legislation has advanced in years.

Everyday crypto use and tax compliance have an uncomfortable relationship in the US right now. A de minimis exemption is a practical fix: routine small transactions would no longer require reporting. It is a meaningful step toward crypto that works in daily life.

Source: CoinDesk

Bybit and Kraken are both offering tokenized SpaceX IPO access to retail crypto users

Two of the largest crypto exchanges launched tokenized access to the SpaceX IPO within days of each other, both powered by xStocks. SpaceX is targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation and begins trading June 12. Kraken’s version issues SPCXx tokens, each backed 1:1 by underlying shares. Bybit’s IPO Express allows purchases at official IPO pricing. That kind of access has historically been limited to institutional investors and large brokerages.

Both platforms offer 24/7 trading on the tokens and DeFi composability. Kraken’s service is available across the European Economic Area and 110-plus international markets. The US, Canada, Australia, and the UK are excluded due to local regulatory requirements. Registration windows close June 11.

This is a structural shift in what a crypto platform can offer. The exchange ecosystem is extending from digital assets into tokenized real-world equity, settling in the same wallets and rails users already have. The line between a crypto app and a multi-asset financial platform is moving quickly.

The tokenized SpaceX IPO is one piece of a larger shift: the range of things people can participate in through their existing crypto setup is expanding. Zypto App was built around that kind of participation, combining self-custody with real-world spending, bill payments, and everyday financial tools in one connected place.

Source: CoinDesk

Real World Asset tokenization hits $32 billion as Securitize clears its final SEC hurdle for an NYSE listing

Securitize, the tokenization platform that manages $4 billion in assets for partners including BlackRock, Apollo, and BNY, received SEC approval for its merger with Cantor Equity Partners II. Shareholders vote June 29. If approved, the combined company lists on the New York Stock Exchange as SECZ.

The backdrop: tokenized real-world assets hit a record $32 billion in on-chain value in May, a 220% increase over 12 months. US Treasuries make up nearly half of that figure. Securitize reported $19.5 million in first-quarter 2026 revenue, up 39% year on year.

A tokenization platform going public on the NYSE signals that the infrastructure layer of real-world asset tokenization is becoming a mainstream financial industry. The largest asset managers in the world are already customers. The public market is now pricing that in.

Tokenized real-world assets are being built on Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Base, and Stellar. These are the same chains individuals hold assets on every day. The institutional infrastructure layer and the everyday participation layer are running on the same rails, and that opens up new possibilities for anyone already in this space.

Source: CoinTelegraph

A Chinese court ruled that Bitcoin is legally property, despite a national ban on trading it

A court in Qingdao, China sentenced a man to nearly 11 years in prison after he memorized 11 of 12 words in a victim’s wallet recovery phrase and used them to reconstruct full access and transfer 107 Bitcoin. Prosecutors argued successfully that Bitcoin meets the legal definition of property subject to theft under Chinese criminal law. The court agreed.

China maintains a ban on cryptocurrency trading and mining, but that restriction does not appear to have changed the legal status of digital assets when it comes to criminal property protections. The ruling creates a clear, if narrow, precedent: Chinese courts will treat unauthorized transfer of crypto from another person’s wallet as theft, prosecutable and punishable.

The security lesson is as important as the legal one. This case was not a technical exploit. It was a human one: the attacker was present during wallet setup and collected most of a seed phrase by memory. Self-custody security is not just about keeping private keys offline. It is about ensuring no one ever sees your seed phrase, under any circumstances.

The attack was not technical. Eleven words were memorized in the room where a wallet was set up. Self-custody security comes down to who has ever seen the recovery phrase. The Vault Key Card adds a physical signing layer so device access alone cannot authorize a transaction, but protecting the seed phrase is still where security starts and ends.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Today in Crypto - USDC payroll at scale, Bitcoin buys homes without being sold

Zypto Editorial Team — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Six stories stood out this weekend:

Meta is scaling stablecoin payroll to 160 countries
Coinbase closed the first Fannie Mae-backed Bitcoin mortgage
Visa is piloting private on-chain settlement
Congress is moving seven crypto tax bills including small-transaction relief
Travala launched AI agent hotel bookings paid in USDC
The six largest US banks announced a tokenized deposit network for 2027

The common thread: institutional infrastructure is being built, and everyday use cases are being built with it.

Meta is paying creators in USDC, and spending it is still their problem

Meta began paying creators in USDC in Colombia and the Philippines in March and is on track to expand to more than 160 countries by year-end, covering roughly $3 billion in annual creator payouts. The program runs across Solana and Polygon.

Getting paid in USDC and being able to use it are two different things. Creators in Manila or Bogota still need to connect external wallets, select a blockchain network, manage custody, and navigate exchange withdrawals to convert a USDC payment into local currency. Meta has solved cross-border settlement. The last mile is still a gap.

For Zypto users, that last mile is the whole product. A multichain wallet that handles USDC across multiple chains and lets you use your crypto for real-world spending is exactly what a 160-country creator base will need as USDC payroll becomes standard. Zypto already does this. The gap Meta’s piece puts on the map is not a future build. It is a problem Zypto solves today.

Source: CoinDesk

Travala lets AI agents book hotels and pay with USDC on Base

Travel platform Travala launched a protocol allowing AI agents to search, reserve, and pay for hotels from its catalog of 2.2 million properties, settling in USDC on Base at roughly one cent per transaction. The system uses ERC-7715 session keys so travelers retain signing authority while agents handle search and booking, with manual confirmation required before any payment goes through.

Major chains including Marriott, Hilton, and IHG are in the catalog. The payment rails are Coinbase’s x402 protocol and Base, Coinbase’s layer-2 network, with gasless, near-instant settlement. Developers who integrate the protocol receive a 10% Coinbase Wrapped BTC rebate on completed stays.

This is one of the first working examples of AI agent-driven crypto payment at real commercial scale. The payment mechanic matters more than the AI angle: USDC on Base at $0.01 per transaction, settling instantly, across 2.2 million hotels. The infrastructure for crypto as a default payment layer in new application categories is being built one protocol at a time.

Source: CoinTelegraph

Coinbase and Better close the first Fannie Mae-backed Bitcoin mortgage

The first Fannie Mae-guaranteed mortgage using Bitcoin as collateral closed in Michigan this month. Coinbase partnered with lender Better on a structure that places a second lien against Bitcoin holdings in place of a cash down payment. A borrower needing a $100,000 down payment can pledge $250,000 in Bitcoin as collateral, with no margin calls triggered by daily price moves.

Borrowers retain their Bitcoin position and avoid the capital gains tax event that selling would trigger. The Federal Housing Finance Agency opened the path last year when it recognized crypto held on regulated exchanges as a qualifying mortgage asset. The program expands nationally in the coming months and also accepts USDC as collateral.

This is the first time a government-backed lending program has integrated crypto collateral at the retail level. Buying a home without selling your Bitcoin, on a Fannie Mae loan, is now a live product in the United States.

Source: Decrypt

Visa tests private stablecoin settlement with Brale and Canton Network

Visa is piloting private stablecoin settlement on Canton Network, a permissioned ledger backed by JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, and the DTCC. The stablecoin is SBC, a dollar-backed token from infrastructure company Brale. Transaction details are visible only to participants and authorized regulators, addressing the concern that public-chain settlement exposes commercially sensitive data.

Global stablecoin issuance has surpassed $300 billion. Visa began experimenting with on-chain settlement using USDC on Ethereum in 2021. This pilot is the most institutional version yet, simulating real payment flows across privacy-enabled infrastructure rather than a lab environment.

The practical effect for end users is indirect but significant: when card network settlement and stablecoin infrastructure converge at the institutional layer, the rails under crypto card products get faster and more reliable. Visa is not just watching stablecoins grow. It is building the settlement layer to run alongside them.

Source: CoinTelegraph

US House committee advances seven crypto tax bills, including small-transaction relief

The House Ways and Means Committee circulated seven draft crypto tax bills ahead of a hearing on June 9. The most significant for everyday users is a de minimis exemption that would eliminate the tax liability triggered by small crypto transactions, such as buying goods or settling bills with digital assets.

Additional bills address wash sale rules, mining and staking income timing, and charitable donation appraisals. One draft would let miners and stakers choose between paying tax when assets are received or when sold, removing the current double-taxation concern for people who earn crypto without actively trading it.

Under current law, every crypto transaction is a taxable event in the US, regardless of size. The de minimis bills before Congress would set a threshold below which small transactions carry no reporting requirement, bringing the rules in line with how crypto is actually used. The tax obligation on gains does not go away; the paperwork on routine purchases does. This is the furthest similar legislation has advanced in years, and the June 9 hearing is the next checkpoint.

Source: CoinDesk

JPMorgan, Citi, and four other major banks are building a tokenized deposit network for 2027

JPMorgan, Citibank, Bank of America, Barclays, BNY Mellon, and Wells Fargo are developing a tokenized deposit network through The Clearing House, targeting a launch in the first half of 2027. The network would enable 24/7 settlement, programmable payments, and interoperability with digital asset infrastructure, matching the speed and flexibility that has made stablecoins attractive for institutional settlement.

The banks are responding directly to stablecoin competition. With Tether, Circle, and bank-issued stablecoins offering faster settlement and programmable logic than legacy wire systems, the largest US banks need an on-chain alternative that keeps deposits in regulated channels.

This is the clearest signal yet that traditional banking is building on crypto rails rather than observing from the outside. For the broader ecosystem, 2027 may be when blockchain-based payment rails and conventional banking become functionally interchangeable for the use cases that matter most to businesses and their customers.

Source: CoinTelegraph

This Week In Crypto – Pi Network, World Cup, Bitcoin, Kalshi, and TON

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Gm frens, welcome to our first June round-up series! There’s plenty happening across the crypto landscape this week, so let’s get straight into it.

A Pi Network whale’s wallet crosses 400 million PI; a Trader’s World Cup $341 meme coin surges over 30,000%; and a dormant Bitcoin wallet moves 20 BTC after 16 years of inactivity.

Then, Post-crash BTC eyeing $73K recovery for summer breakout, Kalshi secures CFTC approval to offer bitcoin perps, and The Open Network plans a rebrand to GRAM. Finally, Zypto App becomes the official wallet for Electroneum, expanding what ETN holders can do across the wider crypto ecosystem.

Let’s dive in.

Pi Network whale’s wallet crosses 400 million PI

One PI address, tracked as “GAS…ODM,” has now surpassed 400 million tokens, making it the largest single holder. Recent on-chain data show the wallet adding more than 1.5 million PI in a single day. The pattern of near-daily accumulation has held through May.

Some analysts have speculated that the address could serve a buyback or treasury role. No party has confirmed the ownership of the mysterious whale wallet. Several Pi commentators have framed it as a form of whale-driven price support absorbing supply during the drawdown.

PiScan data show that tagged exchange wallets now hold about 546 million PI in total, with a net inflow of roughly 1.5 million PI over the past 24 hours, as of this writing. Inflows of exchanges typically signal incoming sell pressure rather than accumulation. The whale’s buying has not been enough to offset the broader supply moving back toward trading venues.

Mainnet usage has expanded as more Pioneers complete Know Your Customer (KYC) verification and second migration steps. Pi Network reports 18.1 million verified users, 16.72 million migrations, and more than 119,000 second migrations completed.

Three upgrades anchor the June calendar. Pi Network set June 2 as the deadline for Protocol 24 node upgrades. Protocol v25.1 follows on June 8, and v26.0 on June 22. The releases target node performance, scalability, and smart contract maturation after the Protocol 23 rollout in May.

Trader’s World Cup $341 meme coin surges over 30,000%

A lucky trader bought $341 of a World Cup-themed Solana meme coin in mid-May, when it had a market capitalization of less than $40,000. Since then, the token has soared more than 30,000%, with the trader notching a 14,000% gain after selling more than $49,000 in holdings.

World Cup Coin ($WORLDCUP) launched on May 11, ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which starts in June and has historically been the most-watched sporting event in the world. Alongside this token, meme coins for each nation competing in the tournament were launched on the Solana token launchpad Pump.fun.

Just hours after launch, per DEX Screener, the aforementioned trader bought $341 worth of the World Cup Coin via five transactions. Over the next 12 hours, the token traded sideways before surging to a $2.18 million market cap, then to $6 million the day after. Through these two pumps, the trader sold $35,700 worth of tokens.

World Cup Coin then traded down 49% to a $3.15 million market cap over the coming week, just before it spiked to an all-time high of $12.2 million on May 21, up more than 30,000% from the trader’s first purchase. Again, the trader sold a chunk of his bag, bringing his total realized gains to $49,400 across 78 transactions, according to block explorer SolScan.

In addition to holding the World Cup Coin, traders have accumulated coins named after specific nations competing in the tournament. It appears that traders are purchasing tokens based on what they deem most likely to perform well in the tournament.

Unsurprisingly, France, Spain, and Portugal have the highest market cap tokens at $315,000, $255,000, and $225,000, respectively, per Pump.fun. The lucky trader also owns a sizable amount of national coins, with $9,400 in Spain as his largest single-nation holding.

Bitcoin wallet moves 20 BTC after 16 years of inactivity

A Satoshi-era Bitcoin wallet that sat untouched since August 2010 moved 20 BTC over the weekend, ending almost 16 years of total dormancy. The transfer, worth roughly $1.47 million at current prices, drew immediate attention from on-chain analysts.

Galaxy Research first flagged the event in block 951828, mined at 05:14 UTC on May 31, 2026. Bitcoin was trading at $73,608 around the time of the transfer, off 0.3% on the day.

The address starting with “1CDSyXAQxro4FPUoqAQb,” last received coins nearly 16 years ago. That places the wallet firmly within Bitcoin’s earliest mining era.

CPU mining was common at the time, and only a small circle of enthusiasts ran the network. Alex Thorn, head of firmwide research at Galaxy, quickly ruled out any connection to Satoshi Nakamoto via a post on X.

Galaxy distinguishes likely Satoshi clusters from other early wallets through on-chain heuristics. The 20 BTC amount here did not match the amounts in those profiles. Similar Satoshi-era miner movements have surfaced repeatedly through 2025 and 2026, often without market consequence.

A similar pattern accompanied the reactivation of a dormant miner wallet, which produced limited price impact. Bitcoin’s slow redistribution from earliest holders has accelerated alongside higher prices. An 80,000 BTC whale movement earlier this year sent coins to exchanges without triggering panic.

Whether this anonymous owner sells, consolidates, or simply rotates to modern address formats remains unclear. The answer surfaces only if the 20 BTC reaches an exchange. The transfer adds to a broader long-term holder redistribution trend defining Bitcoin’s 2026 cycle.

Post-crash BTC eyeing $73K recovery for summer breakout

Bitcoin’s recent overnight pullback to around $65,300 is characterized by analysts as a necessary shakeout designed to build momentum for a significant summer price rally toward new highs. While short-term volatility broke immediate bullish trends, experts suggest the market is preparing for a swift recovery, with key attention on reclaiming the $73,000 level.

On June 1, crypto analyst Michael van de Poppe laid out a clear conditional case for BTC, saying that once the $73,000 area holds and history repeats itself, we could see two strong weeks of upward momentum that could push the OG crypto coin to new highs this summer. He also suggested that there may be a broader altcoin rally alongside the Bitcoin surge.

Its price was stuck within a narrow band for the better part of the past week, with resistance around $74,200 and support around $72,700, according to market watcher Daan Crypto Trades, who posted that these are the levels to watch in the short term.

Another thing noted is that BTC is now entering the longest correction of this entire market cycle. According to pseudonymous analyst Darkfost, the cryptocurrency is set to surpass the 237-day correction that occurred in 2024. It is a sober fact to note that, even if it falls short of the brutal drawdowns seen in past bear markets, it took 849 days to reach a new all-time high in 2023 and 1,180 days to reach a peak in 2015.

There is also a seasonal dimension to things, as described by crypto observer Markus Thielen, who pointed out that in the past decade, June has delivered average returns of just 0.7% for BTC, making it one of the weakest months for the asset.

However, Thielen did raise the possibility that seasonal patterns may shift, given that May, normally a strong month, failed to deliver this year. In the analyst’s opinion, that divergence from historical norms could mean that some of the expected weakness has already been priced in.

Since the ‘June slump’ happened overnight in one aggressive crash, the market has hastened the pain. The overnight bottom is the ultimate accumulation zone, and touching this level historically triggers massive buyer demand. The market is now fully priced in, arguably clearing the schedule for an early summer rally.

Kalshi secures CFTC approval to offer Bitcoin perps

The CFTC has issued an order allowing Kalshi to offer perpetual futures tied to Bitcoin’s prices in the U.S., reflecting the regulator’s growing acceptance of the derivatives. Although the prediction market described the debut in a blog post as the “first-ever perpetual futures in America,” the CFTC flashed a green light for Bitnomial in December, albeit with a 25-year limit, making them not truly ‘perpetual’ in nature despite underlying similarities.

Kalshi described the development as its most significant product expansion since the introduction of event contracts, enabling new ways for customers to speculate on the platform that has emerged as a leader in the sector alongside Polymarket. Also, there are speculations that Kalshi aims to launch in June.

In the blog post, Kalshi claimed that the asset class, which supported over $90 trillion in trading volume last year, has been entirely closed off to American institutions until now. In an announcement, the CFTC said the order requires Kalshi to comply with rules enforced under the Commodity Exchange Act, which the regulator has cited in court as legislation that places event contracts under its remit and exempts them from state rules.

Meanwhile, the CFTC recognized that the perpetual contract design may not be suitable for all asset classes. Since the war involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran broke out in February, perpetual futures tied to oil, which trade around the clock, have come into vogue.

Polymarket mentioned in April that it plans to offer customers perpetual futures, citing companies like Nvidia and commodities such as silver and gold in its marketing materials. The announcement also references trades using 10x leverage.

The Open Network plans a rebrand to Gram

The Open Network says it plans to rebrand its Toncoin (TON) token as Gram (GRAM), the original name of the network’s cryptocurrency in its first white paper. TON founder Pavel Durov posted on Telegram on Monday, affirming a return to their roots and paving the way for the future.

The change revives the original token name from TON’s 2018 whitepaper, which Telegram abandoned after the US Securities and Exchange Commission blocked its $1.7 billion initial coin offering (ICO) in 2020. It also follows Telegram’s takeover from the TON Foundation as the network’s primary driver and largest validator in May.

The Open Network launched a vote on the proposal, explaining that there is no swap, migration, bridge, claim, or conversion, and that every balance, address, contract, and position remains exactly as it is.

At the time of writing, there were 1.8 million TON, or almost 80%, pledged in favor of the rebrand. Durov has positioned the token rebrand as part of the “Make TON Great Again” roadmap.

The rebrand is the fourth stage of the roadmap, with the first three coming earlier this year, which included an upgrade to Catchain in April to boost blockchain speed, a decrease in transaction fees, and the Telegram takeover.

The endgame is to power a smooth Web3 ‘super app’ experience inside Telegram for its one billion users, turning the messenger into a global platform for payments, mini-apps, digital ownership, AI agents, and more.

Zypto becomes the official Electroneum wallet

Zypto App has become the official wallet for Electroneum (ETN), providing the Electroneum community with a multichain home for storing, sending, receiving, and managing ETN.

The integration enables users to access ETN directly within Zypto App while also connecting to a wider ecosystem of digital assets, cross chain infrastructure, payments, and real world crypto utility.

By supporting Electroneum within its existing infrastructure, Zypto continues to evolve into a connected crypto ecosystem that combines asset management, payments, and multichain interoperability within a single mobile app.

Electroneum, known for its focus on accessibility and real world utility in developing economies, aligns with Zypto’s broader strategy of supporting digital currencies designed for everyday transactions, particularly in regions with limited banking infrastructure.

The move allows ETN holders to manage Electroneum alongside thousands of other supported digital assets, opening access to multichain functionality, DeFi services, rewards, and practical crypto use cases without switching between platforms.

The addition further strengthens Zypto’s growing ecosystem of supported blockchains and assets as the company continues to focus on practical applications such as remittances, merchant payments, mobile based financial services, and everyday crypto utility.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

Despite Pi’s buying activity, rising exchange inflows and long-term unlocks continue to signal broader sell pressure and expanding supply. The World Cup-themed Solana memecoin’s rally reflects speculative momentum tied to global sports narratives, with parallel demand emerging for country-specific tokens ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

The dormant wallet’s transfer appears insignificant relative to market volume and fits a broader trend of early holders gradually redistributing assets without major price disruption.

Bitcoin’s recent overnight correction is viewed as a healthy reduction of leverage, strengthening the foundation for a potential summer rally to new highs, provided the $73,000 level is reclaimed.

Kalshi has received CFTC approval to offer Bitcoin-linked perpetual futures in the U.S., marking a significant step toward regulated access to a derivatives market long dominated by offshore platforms.

The Open Network plans to rebrand its TON token back to Gram, reviving its original identity as part of a broader roadmap tied to Telegram’s deepening involvement in the ecosystem.

Zypto App has become the official wallet for Electroneum, giving ETN holders access to a broader ecosystem of multichain tools, DeFi, payments, rewards, and real world crypto utility within a single mobile app.

What are your thoughts on this week’s developments? Let us know in the comments section.

FAQs

What is the largest single amount of Pi held in wallets?

A mysterious PI address tracked as “GAS…ODM” crossed 400 million tokens.

How high did the World Cup Coin soar?

The World Cup-themed Solana meme coin surged over 30,000%.

How much did the dormant Bitcoin wallet have?

The Satoshi-era Bitcoin wallet moved 20 BTC, ending almost 16 years of total dormancy.

What does The Open Network want to rebrand to?

The Open Network says it is planning to rebrand its Toncoin (TON) token as Gram (GRAM).

This Week In Crypto – Tether, SpaceX, FIFA, Ripple, and Ethereum

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 28 May 2026 06:21:35 GMT

Dear Frens,

This week,Tether pushes for a KRW stablecoin, SpaceX reveals $1.46B BTC holdings, while FIFA chooses ADI Predictstreet for World Cup 2026. Then, Ripple adds 4,300 new wallets, Ethereum falls 32% year to date, and a researcher proposes a $1 billion plan to strengthen Ethereum’s future. Finally, Zypto promotes crypto powered living with expanded in app capabilities.

Let’s dive in.

Tether pushes for a KRW stablecoin

Tether (USDT) is reportedly making an Asia bet, with new trademark filings found in South Korea. Additionally, the stablecoin giant has also expanded its presence around Bitcoin (BTC), with a stake in Twenty One Capital.

Tether has filed seven trademark applications with South Korea’s KIPRIS database. The spotlight is on two names in particular, KRWT and WONTETHER. Both clearly indicate the Korean won, which is why markets are reading them as a sign. Alongside the won-linked names, Tether also filed trademarks for Tether Gold (XAUT), QVAC, USAT, and its shield logo.

The timing lines up with USDT’s dominance in the market. Over the last month, USDT supply has expanded by more than $5 billion, while rivals like USDC, USDe, and PYUSD collectively shrank by roughly $4.2 billion. Even as overall growth in the stablecoin market slowed, Tether continued to gain market share.

Tether International has also taken full control of Twenty One Capital after acquiring SoftBank Group’s entire stake in the company. In fact, SoftBank’s board members have stepped down, leaving Tether with uncontested control.

Twenty One Capital is one of the world’s largest public holders of Bitcoin, with more than 43,500 BTC on its balance sheet. That’s worth around $4 billion. The deal value has not been disclosed so far.

After the filings and the Twenty-One capital move, markets now have three things to track. First is whether Tether officially confirms a KRW-backed stablecoin or keeps the trademarks as a defensive legal step. The second is the South Korean regulators’ response. A won-linked stablecoin from the world’s largest stablecoin issuer would likely draw attention. The third is Tether’s expansion pathway.

SpaceX reveals $1.46B Bitcoin holdings ahead of IPO launch

SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, is preparing for its initial public offering (IPO) on the 12th of June. The company has submitted its S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, aiming to stage the largest IPO in history. The filing also highlighted Musk’s quiet commitment to digital assets.

According to the filing, the company held 18,712 BTC, with a cost basis of $661 million and a fair value between $ 1.29 billion and $ 1.64 billion. However, at the current price of $78,029.03 per BTC, the position is worth approximately $1.46 billion.

On-chain data shows Tesla, Musk’s other publicly traded company, holds 11,509 BTC. By comparison, Strategy remains the largest corporate holder with 843,738 BTC, meaning Musk would need to accumulate far more to reach that level. Still, his efforts are notable.

It was reported that SpaceX transferred $94 million worth of Bitcoin as part of a weekly trend. For nearly two months in late 2025, the aerospace firm consistently moved about $100 million each week.

FIFA chooses ADI Predictstreet for World Cup 2026

FIFA has named ADI Predictstreet as the official prediction market partner for the 2026 World Cup. The tournament, already set to become the largest in football history, will run from June 11 to July 19, 2026, featuring 48 teams, 104 matches, and 16 host cities across Canada, Mexico, and the United States.

FIFA said that the partnership will center on interactive forecasting markets tied to match outcomes, player performances, tournament statistics, and other key moments throughout the competition. Prediction markets can turn live sports into a constant, interactive experience, letting fans forecast goals, cards, substitutions, player performances, and tournament outcomes as they watch a match.

FIFA’s announcement positions ADI Predictstreet as a new way to turn match attention into forecasts. The platform is expected to use FIFA-linked data and let fans predict tournament events before and during matches. FIFA’s public language centers on fan engagement, collective intelligence, responsible participation, and official data.

Before the April 2 announcement, ADI Predictstreet was largely unknown within the prediction markets industry, especially compared to established platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi. Those two were already hosting markets on politics, economics, entertainment, and sports, including the 2026 World Cup.

Unsurprisingly, FIFA’s choice stands out. The official partner is a little-known company attached to a new blockchain ecosystem. ADI Predictstreet is connected to the ADI blockchain, which is an Abu Dhabi-based blockchain project founded by Sirius International Holding, the digital arm of IHC, one of the world’s largest investment companies.

FIFA has spoken in glowing terms about ADI Predictstreet, affirming that safeguards will support transparency, fairness, and responsible participation. Nonetheless, at the scale of the World Cup, the platform would have to absorb traffic surges, settle markets quickly, screen users by age and location, monitor fraud, and flag suspicious activity.

FIFA may see ADI Predictstreet as a controlled way to enter prediction markets before unofficial platforms capture World Cup attention. ADI may see FIFA as the perfect launchpad for a new blockchain-based forecasting product. Fans may see a game, regulators may see event contracts, while crypto users may see a new trading venue.

Ripple adds 4,300 new wallets

From a technical purview, XRP has lagged behind most large caps in this Q2 cycle. While liquidity continues to flow heavily into Bitcoin, XRP is still up less than 2% among major altcoins, meaning holders from the last couple of quarters are still largely underwater.

Against this backdrop, the recent spike in new XRP wallets appears to be a classic rotation. As the data shows, roughly 4,300 new XRP wallets appeared within a 24-hour window, marking the fourth-largest spike of 2026 so far. Such spikes often signal renewed speculative interest in a lagging asset.

Notably, recent derivatives positioning around Ripple (XRP) supports this setup. Per CoinGlass data,

Ripple’s Open Interest (OI) rose by over $20 million over the same 24-hour window, showing that leverage is slowly rotating back into the market.

This move to new wallets could also point to strengthening retail participation. In a recent move, U.S. President Donald Trump made another regulatory call. In a broader context, he reportedly directed the U.S. government to update regulations better to integrate crypto into traditional finance and payment systems.

With the CLARITY Act still stalled on the regulatory front, this renewed push was enough to trigger a market frenzy, with attention largely centered around XRP. Notably, the underlying metrics support this narrative.

Today, XRPL hosts a growing range of tokenized financial assets on-chain, from U.S. Treasuries and money market funds to commercial paper, structured credit, and more. With tokenization central to crypto regulation, the XRP market frenzy becomes easier to understand.

Supporting this narrative, Ripple’s recent partnerships further reinforce XRP’s growing integration with TradFi markets. Against that backdrop, rising retail participation in the network doesn’t look like classic short-term FOMO tied to momentum; instead, it reflects early-stage positioning and broader adoption trends. In this context, FOMO may be ‘evolving’ into a key bullish catalyst for XRP this cycle.

Ethereum down 32% year-to-date

Leading altcoin Ethereum has shed 31% of its value since the start of 2026, dropping from a January 1 close of $3,001 to $2,069.98 as of this writing. This drawdown leaves ETH among the worst-performing major assets of the year, even as a handful of altcoins have attracted fresh capital and posted stronger relative performance.

As the anchor for broader altcoin rotations, ETH’s weakness has pushed the prospect of an altcoin season further out. According to Blockchain Center, an altcoin season begins when at least 75% of the top 50 altcoins outperform BTC over three months.

New data from the on-chain analytics platform shows that only 29% of these tokens have outperformed BTC over the past 90 days, significantly below the required threshold. This means capital is still concentrating in BTC rather than rotating out into the broader altcoin market.

The sustained exit of institutional capital from ETH-backed products has compounded ETH’s price weakness. According to CoinShares’ latest weekly fund flows report, ETH investment products saw $249.3 million in exits last week, representing their largest single-week outflow since January 30.

Per the report, the redemptions were part of a broader $1.07 billion outflow from digital asset investment products for the week ending May 16. This marked the third-largest weekly withdrawal of 2026 and the first negative print after six consecutive weeks of inflows.

Furthermore, inflows into spot ETH exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have stalled since the beginning of May. SoSoValue data shows two consecutive weeks of net outflows, totaling $404 million.

As of this writing, total net assets across spot ETH ETFs sit at $11.84 billion, down 25.3% from its year-to-date peak of $15.86 billion last seen in January. In addition to a drop in institutional interest in ETH, short-term holders have also significantly distributed their coins over the past few weeks.

Per Glassnode, these are investors who have held their coins for 1 to 3 months and are usually the most responsive to price moves. They have offloaded 14% of their holdings since April 26, and currently hold 5.54% of ETH’s circulating supply.

This dip in short-term holdings is significant because this cohort’s behavior tends to drive long-term price action. When they aggressively distribute, the added selling pressure typically weighs on prices, opening the door to further downside in ETH.

Researcher proposes $1 billion plan to save Ethereum

Dankrad Feist, a former Ethereum Foundation researcher, has called on the community to build a new ETH-aligned organization with at least $1 billion in funding, arguing it is the only credible path to putting Ethereum back on a winning trajectory.

His proposal, posted on X, arrives as at least eight senior EF members departed in 2026, with five leaving in May alone. He put his case directly.

“The community needs to create an organization that’s economically aligned with Ethereum and accountable to it.”

Feist sketched out some requirements for the new body. It needs at least $1 billion in credible funding and a competent leader willing to fight for the protocol’s interests. A board explicitly accountable to Ether (ETH) holders and a permanent staking revenue stream would complete the structure.

The Ethereum Foundation currently holds less than 0.1% of all ETH and collects no share of staking or transaction fee revenues. Its treasury holds roughly 92,548 ETH, a figure that has fallen as the Foundation sold holdings to cover operating costs. The EF launched a staking initiative in February, targeting 70,000 ETH, aiming to generate native yield without reducing its treasury balance.

Zypto promotes crypto-powered living with expanded in-app capabilities

Zypto is advancing its ‘live on crypto’ vision by showcasing the real-world utility of its app, enabling users to spend, manage, and interact with digital assets as part of everyday financial activity.

The platform integrates a broad set of features that go beyond passive crypto holding, allowing users to pay bills, transfer funds, and transact globally with cryptocurrencies without relying on traditional banking infrastructure.

Through its growing ecosystem, Zypto combines wallet functionality, payments, swaps, and financial services into a single interface, aiming to simplify how users interact with digital assets across multiple use cases.

The company positions its app as a bridge between decentralized finance and real-world spending, offering tools that allow users to convert and use crypto for routine expenses.

Zypto’s infrastructure supports multiple blockchain networks and a wide range of digital assets, enabling cross-chain functionality while maintaining user control over funds through self-custody.

The platform also emphasizes accessibility, with features designed to reduce friction in onboarding and daily use, including simplified transaction flows and integrated services that eliminate the need for multiple third-party applications.

Zypto’s mission reflects a broader shift in the crypto industry, where platforms are increasingly focused on utility and user experience as adoption moves beyond trading into everyday financial behavior.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

Tether’s trajectory in Asia has been impressive, and if it keeps up with more treasury deals or regional stablecoin initiatives, the Korea filings may just be the start of something much bigger.

Based on the filing, SpaceX expects a valuation of at least $1.5 trillion, potentially reaching $2 trillion. If the IPO succeeds, the company would immediately rank among the ten most valuable publicly traded corporations worldwide.

Billions will watch the 2026 World Cup. If ADI Predictstreet works smoothly, FIFA can claim it brought prediction markets into global football under an official framework. If the product stumbles, the fallout will reach far beyond crypto.

Zypto affirmed that its goal is to enable a future in which users can rely on crypto not just as an investment but as a primary financial tool for payments, transfers, and global transactions.

What is your favorite development this week? Tell us in the comments section.

FAQs

Which stablecoin offering is Tether reportedly after in Asia?

Tether is reportedly pushing for a KRW-backed stablecoin after filing trademarks applications with South Korea’s KIPRIS database.

How much BTC does SpaceX have in its holdings?

According to a filing, SpaceX has 18,712 BTC, worth approximately $1.46 billion.

Which prediction market did FIFA partner with ahead of the 2026 World Cup?

FIFA named ADI Predictstreet as the official prediction market partner for the 2026 World Cup.

How many new wallets did Ripple add?

Ripple added roughly 4,300 new XRP wallets, making it the fourth largest spike of 2026 so far.

This Week In Crypto – Solana, Drake, Ethereum, and Bitcoin

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 21 May 2026 08:00:00 GMT

Gm, frens, welcome to our third news round-up for this month, and things are speeding right up.

Will memecoins pump again in 2026? Drake references BTC in his new “Iceman” album, as an Ethereum whale moves $157M worth of ETH after 9 years. Japan’s largest brokerages begin investing in crypto, Bitcoin stalls above $80K despite the CLARITY Act’s passage, and Revolut plans UK private banking for crypto investors. Finally, Zypto App marks 24 months of relentless expansion.

Let’s get to it.

Will memecoins pump again in 2026?

After a brutal collapse in 2025 that erased billions in value and crushed retail traders, memecoins, the crypto market’s most chaotic corner, is roaring back to life in 2026. Trading volumes are rising, market caps are recovering, and Solana-based memecoins are once again flooding timelines.

In the opening months of 2026, the sector added more than $8 billion back in market value, with some estimates placing the total memcoin market near $69 billion by the end of Q1. Several of the market’s biggest names posted strong gains.

Many of the tokens still attracting volume now have stronger ecosystems, deeper liquidity, and larger online communities. Some also generate meaningful transaction fee revenue through trading activity and token burns. At the same time, the market has become far more selective. Millions of tokens launched during the previous cycle disappeared almost immediately, leaving only a small group of projects with lasting traction.

Solana has become the main hub for meme token launches thanks to its low fees, fast transaction speeds, and simple launch tools like Pump.fun. By early 2026, Solana’s memecoin ecosystem had grown to roughly $6.7 billion in market value, while peak trading volumes crossed $2.5 billion.

Pump.fun has played a major role in that growth. Since launching, the platform has helped create more than 13 million tokens and generated hundreds of millions in revenue. The ease of launching tokens turned Solana into crypto’s memecoin factory almost overnight. Little wonder Solana-based tokens like BONK, WIF, POPCAT, and FARTCOIN became some of the biggest names of the latest rally.

The surge in memecoin trading also boosted activity across Solana’s broader ecosystem, driving DEX volumes to climb sharply in recent months. But the same speed that powers Solana’s memecoin economy also creates major risks. Tokens can launch in seconds, attract huge speculation within hours, and collapse just as quickly. That dynamic continues to make the sector feel more like a high-speed casino than a traditional market.

Drake references BTC in his new “Iceman” album

Global superstar Drake namedrops Bitcoin on his new album “Iceman,” released on May 15, 2026. On the track “Dust,” he identifies himself as a “BTC crypto big-timer.” The line lends fresh celebrity visibility to the leading digital asset.

The same album also references the imprisoned former FTX chief, Sam Bankman-Fried, and the exchange’s penthouse era. The verses tie Drake’s lyrics directly to one of the most prominent collapses in crypto history. The new lyric arrives as BTC consolidates well below its October 2025 all-time high above $126,000. Cultural references like Drake’s tend to coincide with periods of renewed retail attention.

For Drake, the bar continues a long pattern of using Bitcoin as a personal flex. He has previously placed multi-million dollar bets on sporting events denominated in BTC on Stake, infamously losing a six-figure sum on a Mavericks wager during a recent NBA Finals run.

Drake is not the first major artist to invoke Bitcoin. References to BTC have appeared across hip-hop, pop, and electronic music for nearly a decade. Each cycle pulls celebrity attention back to the asset.

Whether the “Iceman” name-check moves price action is doubtful. It does confirm that crypto’s biggest characters, from BTC bulls to disgraced founders, now sit comfortably inside mainstream pop lyrics.

Ethereum whale moves $157M worth of ETH after 9 years

Ethereum whale activity increased sharply during the recent market retracement, with dormant holders returning to the network. According to Arkham, a whale that acquired 69,400 ETH during the 2015 ICO became active again after nine years. The wallet moved 69,878 ETH, worth nearly $157 million, across three newly created addresses.

The transfer may point to two possible scenarios. First, the whale may have relocated assets for security reasons following recent exploits involving dormant wallets. Second, the movement could signal preparations for future selling activity through smaller wallet distributions.

Despite the attention around the transfer, the movement itself appeared neutral for Ethereum’s market structure. The tokens had not entered exchanges at press time, meaning circulating sell-side pressure had not increased yet. At the same time, broader exchange activity still pointed toward accumulation.

Exchange Netflow turned negative, dropping to -11.9k, reflecting rising outflows from trading platforms. Negative Exchange Netflow usually indicates that buyers moved assets off exchanges and into private wallets. That shift suggested that some market participants were still accumulating ETH despite recent weakness.

Japan’s biggest brokerages to begin crypto investment

Japan’s largest online brokerages are moving into digital assets. SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities are building in-house Bitcoin and Ethereum investment trusts for retail customers.

According to Nikkei, these trusts remove that friction. Investors could gain exposure to Bitcoin and Ethereum through brokerage accounts they already use for stocks, bonds, and funds. The product would feel closer to buying a mutual fund than trading on an exchange.

SBI Securities plans to sell products developed by group company SBI Global Asset Management. Rakuten Securities is following a similar path through Rakuten Investment Management.

Both groups already run licensed exchanges, so the infrastructure and regulatory relationships are largely in place. The momentum reflects clearer rules ahead. In a Nikkei survey of 18 firms, 11 others, including Nomura, Daiwa and Mizuho Securities, said they would consider entering once the regulatory framework is finished.

Japan’s Financial Services Agency is driving this change. It is reportedly weighing rules that would let investment trusts and exchange-traded funds hold crypto under the Investment Trust Act.

Japan now wants to bring crypto closer to its mainstream wealth management industry.

For retail investors, that means familiar protections handled through regulated financial groups they already trust. Also, millions of people who already hold SBI or Rakuten accounts could gain exposure to Bitcoin or Ethereum without needing to sign up.

The trade-off is real, too. Holding units in a trust means investors do not own the Bitcoin directly.

Bitcoin stalls above $80K despite CLARITY Act pass

Bitcoin’s Thursday rally last week to $82,000, buoyed by the Senate Banking Committee’s advancement of the CLARITY Act, has stalled amid stiff overhead resistance and weakening demand. Still, analysts said that BTC’s upward momentum may increase if key conditions are met.

Data from TradingView showed BTC tested overhead resistance at $82,000, which has rejected the price since last week. Note that this is where the 200-day simple moving average (EMA) and the 200-day exponential moving average (SMA) converge, reinforcing the importance of this level.

“If Bitcoin is going to go higher, it should really break above the 200 EMA now at $82,000 and hold it. Reject again here, and I think we will get a deeper retrace, $74k-$77k levels,” analyst Sykodelic said in a post on X.

Analysts at Galaxy Trading said that the price has been trading below these moving averages since October 2025, and breaking them will be “another bullish confirmation” for Bitcoin.

The last time BTC price broke convincingly above the moving averages with strong volume was in April 2025, triggering a 48.5% rally to its current all-time high of $126,000.

Bitcoin’s cost-basis distribution heatmap reveals another major level of resistance, sitting further up, between $84,000 and $85,400, where investors acquired roughly 1.05 million BTC.

Analyst Sherlock said this is “one of the biggest supply clusters” that the BTC market must absorb to continue higher.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin’s liquidation heatmap shows heavy ask orders at $82,000-$83,000, highlighting the bears’ main line of defense.

One factor that could trigger a BTC breakout is a resurgence in institutional demand, which has faltered amid inconsistent inflows into spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Data from Farside Investors shows that spot Bitcoin ETFs snapped a five-day inflow streak totalling nearly $1.7 billion, with $269 million in outflows on May 7 as Bitcoin dipped below $80,000.

Strong and consistent inflows must return for Bitcoin to continue its recovery, Glassnode affirmed in its newsletter. Michael Saylor’s Strategy, the largest corporate bitcoin treasury holder, is one of the few companies consistently buying, adding 535 BTC for $43 million some weeks ago. This brought Strategy’s total Bitcoin holdings to 818,869 BTC.

Revolut plans UK private banking for crypto investors

Revolut reportedly plans to launch a UK private banking unit this summer with a £500,000 ($630,000) deposit threshold, a move that could deepen its appeal to crypto-focused wealth clients after fresh approvals from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

The proposed arm would target mass-affluent customers sitting between retail banking and traditional private banks. It may pair leveraged products, discretionary portfolio management and private wealth advisory services with Revolut’s existing crypto stack used by more than 10 million customers.

Those FCA approvals reshape what the company can build for higher-tier UK clients. The structure should support portfolios that blend crypto with traditional assets, staking exposure, and managed solutions within a regulated, FSCS-protected environment.

The reported £500,000 threshold would target a segment that traditional private banks have walked away from. Coutts recently moved its minimum to £3 million ($3.9 million), while UBS sets its bar at £1 million ($1.3 million) in investable assets, leaving a wide gap.

Many of those clients hold meaningful crypto positions and want institutional-grade tools without leaving the Revolut ecosystem. The company is positioning the launch ahead of a potential Nasdaq listing in 2028. Reports point to a $150 billion to $200 billion valuation target.

Zypto App marks 24 months of relentless expansion

Zypto App has spent the last 24 months expanding far beyond the boundaries of a typical crypto wallet app, building a connected ecosystem designed to bring trading, payments, spending, and utility into a single user experience.

Over that period, the app’s multichain reach has expanded to more than 20 blockchains and over 24,000 supported digital assets, reflecting a strategy focused on both breadth and usability. Zypto has built cross-chain functionality into the app, with more than 1,000,000 swap routes designed to help users move between ecosystems without relying on fragmented external tools.

The expansion has not been limited to wallet infrastructure. Zypto has continued to add layers of real-world crypto utility, including swaps, DEX access, fiat onramps and offramps, crypto cards, stablecoin support, bill pay, mobile top-ups, gift card marketplace, rewards, and cold storage integration through the Vault Key Card. By combining these tools in one environment, the company is positioning the app as a broader crypto utility ecosystem rather than a single-purpose product.

A major part of that strategy has been the growth of Zypto’s card offering. The company’s crypto card stack includes physical and virtual cards, with premium cards offering spending limits of up to $1 million per month and broad acceptance anywhere Visa is accepted.

Zypto has also expanded its payment utility through crypto bill pay and mobile services. Its bill pay infrastructure now supports payments in more than 120 countries. In comparison, mobile top-up services reach more than 180 countries and over 800 network providers, pushing crypto use further into daily financial activity.

Alongside product growth, Zypto has continued to deepen its presence across the broader digital asset industry through partnerships and integrations. The company highlights ecosystem relationships with MoneyGram, Stellar, KuCoin Pay, Algorand, Dash, and Electroneum, and also connects infrastructure across platforms such as Uniswap, PancakeSwap, ShibaSwap, Aftermath, and Chainlink CCIP.

That combination of wallet infrastructure, cross-chain functionality, payment rails, and real-world spending tools is what increasingly sets Zypto apart in a market where many crypto apps still specialize in a single category.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

Memecoin’s rebound comes with a familiar question hanging over the market. Is this the start of a more mature memecoin cycle, or just another speculative frenzy waiting to collapse?

Parts of the crypto community read Drake’s verse as a bullish signal for Bitcoin’s cultural acceptance. The reference joins earlier nods from artists, athletes, and brands that have made the asset shorthand for status.

Despite the Ethereum whale’s large transfer, on-chain data shows no immediate sell pressure, with continued exchange outflows suggesting ongoing accumulation. The Japanese top brokerage crypto investment move reflects regulatory progress and could accelerate mainstream adoption.

For Bitcoin, a sustained breakout will likely depend on renewed institutional demand, particularly consistent inflows into spot ETFs, which have recently turned negative.

How regulators treat leveraged crypto exposure inside a regulated private bank will shape Revolut’s reach. The next twelve months and beyond could reveal how far it can spread across Europe and across the world.

By bringing wallets, swaps, spending, payments, and protection into one connected application, Zypto has spent the last two years building an ecosystem designed to make crypto more usable, more integrated, and more practical in everyday life.

There’s so much to unpack this week, so what’s your favorite?

And… if you’re searching for something, it’s

FAQs

How is Solana leading memecoins’ resurgence?

Solana has become the main hub for meme token launches thanks to its low fees, fast transaction speeds, and simple launch tools like Pump.fun.

Where did Drake reference Bitcoin?

Drake namedropped Bitcoin on his new album “Iceman.”

How much ETH was transferred by the whale?

The Ethereum whale moved 69,878 ETH, worth nearly $157 million, across three newly created addresses.

Which Japanese brokerages are entering crypto investing?

They include SBI Securities and Rakuten Securities.

This Week In Crypto – Polygon, Tether, Polymarket, and Solana

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 14 May 2026 09:20:27 GMT

Gm frens, it’s a new day and a new cryptosphere round-up.

Polygon reduces block time to 1.75 seconds, Tether’s AI model excels in medical evaluation, and Polymarket’s ‘Alien Disclosure’ bets hit $33 million. An outage hit Coinbase due to AWS issues, while AI agents can now pay for APIs on Solana, as HANTA Solana memecoin exploded 100x. Finally, Zypto expands smooth cross-chain swaps within its multichain wallet.

Are you ready?

Polygon reduces block time to 1.75 seconds

Blockchain layer-2 (L2) network Polygon reduced its average block time by 250 milliseconds to 1.75 seconds, marking its first block-time reduction since genesis as the network pushes deeper into stablecoin payments and settlement infrastructure.

Polygonscan shows that the latest blocks on the network were created in 1.75 seconds. The upgrade means that Polygon can process around 14% more payments per second, reaching a maximum theoretical throughput of about 3,260 transactions per second (TPS), according to Polygon software engineer Lucca Martins.

Shorter block times can help transaction backlogs clear faster, reducing the duration of network congestion and subsequent transaction fee spikes, which is particularly important for high-frequency use cases such as payments, stablecoins, or DeFi trading.

The upgrade comes as Polygon seeks to position itself for use cases that target greater institutional adoption, such as private stablecoin payments. Polygon introduced a new wallet feature that enables users to privately route stablecoin transactions through a shielded pool verified by zero-knowledge proofs.

The upgrade is part of the Polygon Improvement Proposal PIP-86. This two-step motion seeks to reduce block time to 1.5 seconds further and scale down checkpoint rewards to maintain Polygon (POL) token emissions at the target 1% after the block time reduction.

Polygon’s new wallet feature is part of an aim to onboard more institutional users as it hides senders. Receivers and amounts on-chain while maintaining compliance through Know Your Transaction (KYT) screening and auditable files. The feature introduces more privacy for businesses transacting with stablecoins, according to Polygon community lead Smokey.

Tether’s AI model excels in medical evaluation

Tether just released a medical AI model that fits in your pocket and may outperform rivals more than a dozen times its size. QVAC MedPsy launched today from Tether’s AI Research Group as a new class of medical language models designed to run on smartphones, wearables, and edge devices.

On HealthBench Hard, OpenAI’s benchmark that evaluates AI on realistic, multi-turn clinical conversations graded by 262 physicians, QVAC MedPsy’s tiny 1.7 billion-parameter model outscores Google’s MedGemma-27B on medical benchmarks despite being smaller.

Also, the 4 billion model averages about 909 tokens per response, compared with 2,953 for comparable systems, a 3.2x reduction. Fewer tokens mean lower compute cost, faster responses, and the ability to run locally without a cloud backend.

The models ship as quantized GGUF files: 1.2GB for the 1.7 billion-parameter model and 2.6GB for the 4 billion-parameter model, with compressed versions retaining most benchmark performance while fitting on standard consumer hardware. That means a hospital system, rural clinic, or individual clinician could run the model entirely on-device, keeping patient records out of third-party cloud infrastructure and away from HIPAA exposure.

The privacy pitch may be a major plus for some people, but using AI for medical opinions is far from ideal even by today’s standards. An Oxford study published in February found that LLMs routinely give dangerous medical advice, including incorrect answers, confused guidance, and poor handling of nuanced symptoms. The compliance problem compounds it as most medical AI today routes patient data through cloud servers, creating HIPAA exposure every time a doctor types a query.

The release fits Tether’s pattern over the past year. Last month, it shipped the QVAC SDK, an open-source toolkit for building local, offline AI apps across iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux. Before that, it launched QVAC Health, a consumer wellness app that keeps biometric data entirely on-device. MedPsy is the first QVAC model specifically trained for clinical reasoning. The medical AI market is roughly $36 billion today, with projections exceeding $500 billion by 2033.

Polymarket bets hit $33 million

Crypto-native prediction markets reacted within minutes after the Pentagon released its first declassified UAP files last week, more famously labeled as the ‘Alien Files.’ Polymarket’s flagship alien disclosure market has now reached a cumulative volume of over $33 million.

The Department of War launched the Presidential Unsealing and Reporting System for UAP Encounters (PURSUE) on Friday. Officials posted Release 01 to a public WAR.GOV/UFO portal, with rolling tranches promised every few weeks.

Traders on Polymarket have wagered roughly $33 million on whether a senior U.S. official will confirm extraterrestrial life by year-end. The crypto-native prediction platform sat at 19% on May 8 after Release 01 dropped.

A separate market on whether Trump declassifies new UFO files this year, priced at 83% on December 31. Bettors appear positioned for more rolling tranches rather than a single dramatic event. A separate $16 million market asking whether the administration would declassify UFO files in 2025 resolved “Yes” earlier this year.

No formal presidential declassification took place at the time. Late-session bids near 00 cents and a contested UMA oracle vote pushed the outcome through. Comment threads on the platform labelled the call a scam. Critics dubbed the dispute mechanism ‘proof-of-whales,’ reigniting questions about token-weighted oracles overriding trader consensus.

The Department of War welcomes private-sector analysis of the unresolved cases. Each new tranche could move disclosure odds and revive the dispute around how oracles call ambiguous outcomes. If headline catalysts keep arriving, the prediction-market lens may become the cleanest gauge of how seriously market participants take price-disclosure narratives.

Coinbase hit by outage due to AWS issues

Coinbase users faced hours of service transformions last week after failures tied to Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure disrupted core trading systems. In a post on X, Coinbase said the outage began around 8 pm ET on Thursday, after its system detected elevated error rates across multiple services.

The outage follows another AWS-related transformion in October that temporarily knocked Coinbase and Robinhood offline and prevented some users from accessing their accounts or executing trades.

Coinbase said its systems are designed to recover from a single availability zone outage. In this case, however, the company said failures affected multiple AWS zones, causing what it described as an ‘extended outage’ of core trading services. At the same time, AWS worked to restore temperature controls and other managed services.

Amazon disputed Coinbase’s description of the outage, affirming that only a single availability zone was ultimately impacted. Users reported problems accessing the Coinbase app, transferring funds, and executing trades.

Downdetector reports spiked around 6 pm ET and remained elevated overnight before declining on Friday. After 33% of reports involved fund transfers, another 33% involved trading issues, and roughly 29% involved the Coinbase mobile app.

Coinbase said the primary issue has been resolved, and directed users with account-related questions to Coinbase Support. The outage comes as Coinbase deepens its cloud-based AI and stablecoin infrastructure through partnerships with multiple companies, while also restructuring around what CEO Brian Armstrong has described as an AI-first operating model.

AI agents can now pay for APIs on Solana

AI agents can now autonomously pay for Google Cloud services and dozens of other APIs using stablecoins on Solana, following the launch of Pay.sh by the Solana Foundation and Google Cloud.

The gateway service runs an API proxy on Google Cloud Platform, connecting agents to backend services through the x402 protocol, an OpenAI payments standard incubated by Coinbase and now under the stewardship of the Linux Foundation. The system also supports the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP).

Agents pay fractions of a cent per API call instead of monthly subscriptions, and work with services like Google Cloud and Gemini, Anthropic’s Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes, and more. The platform connects to blockchain infrastructure providers Helius and Alchemy, as well as data services from Dune Analytics and Nansen.

Pay.sh arrives as major tech and crypto companies race to build payment infrastructure for autonomous AI systems. These platforms target enterprise developers seeking programmable money for new business models that traditional payment rails can’t support.

Google has been expanding its crypto payment infrastructure work, revealing an AI agent payments protocol backed by the Ethereum Foundation earlier this year.

HANTA Solana memecoin explodes 100x

Hantavirus (HANTA), a Solana-based memecoin, surged more than 10,000% and briefly reached a market capitalization above $17 million, while generating nearly $30 million in daily trading volume.

Unlike most memecoins, the Hantavirus memcoin wasn’t built solely around internet jokes. It was based on a real-world disease outbreak aboard the MV Hondius cruise ship after it departed from Argentina.

Early buyers who minted the token on Pump.fun reportedly secured life-changing gains within hours. Shortly afterward, Moonshot verified the token, thereby increasing its visibility and triggering aggressive retail buying.

The HANTA token (2tXpgu…7hzs9y) was launched in early May. Solscan data showed the token’s holder base jumping from 2,640 to 17,589 within a single day. The rally extended across more than half a dozen similar issuances.

A separate HANTA token rose 251% to a market cap of $193,190. A Hanta-Kun variant climbed 261.87%, while two Hantavirus listings on Meteora DAMM V2 added 399% and 246%.

At that point, the rally turned vertical as the memecoin surged from a $170,000 market cap to over $17 million. Several prominent crypto traders began pushing a highly speculative theory online that another global health scare (like COVID-19) could spark a memecoin supercycle similar to the pandemic-era retail trading boom.

There were reported net inflows of $50,000 from Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) and crypto influencers within hours on May 7. That inflow helped trigger a secondary rally phase, pushing HANTA much higher after its initial breakout. Combined with the original launch move, the token eventually surged more than 100x from inception.

Yet, it is important to exercise caution with speculative tokens. History shows hype-linked meme coins are likely to collapse sharply once attention shifts, leaving late buyers exposed to steep drawdowns.

Zypto expands smooth cross-chain swaps within its multichain wallet

Zypto has expanded its multichain wallet functionality with further native cross-chain swap capabilities, allowing users to trade more assets across different blockchain networks directly within its crypto app.

The technology enables users to swap tokens between multiple chains without relying on external bridges, centralized exchanges, or third-party interfaces, reducing complexity and execution risk typically associated with cross-chain transactions.

By increasing cross-chain swap capabilities in its wallet infrastructure, Zypto is advancing its position as a unified crypto platform that combines asset storage, payments, access to decentralized finance, and interoperability into a single application.

The system aggregates liquidity from multiple decentralized exchanges and routing protocols to identify optimal swap paths across chains, helping users achieve competitive rates while maintaining full custody of their assets throughout the process.

Zypto said the cross-chain functionality currently supports over 20 blockchain networks and over 1 million crosschain routes, enabling users to move value smoothly between ecosystems without needing to bridge or manually wrap tokens.

The extensive infrastructure reflects a broader industry trend toward simplifying multichain interactions, as crypto platforms compete to eliminate friction caused by fragmented blockchain environments and complex user workflows.

Within the app, users can review transaction details, including routes, fees, expected output, and execution time, before confirming swaps, improving transparency and user control over cross-chain operations.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

Polygon reducing its average block time from 2 seconds to 1.75 seconds boosts theoretical throughput to roughly 3,260 TPS and helps clear transaction backlogs for payments, stablecoins, and DeFi activity faster.

MedPsy aligns with Tether’s broader push into privacy-preserving local AI. However, medical LLMs still pose safety and compliance risks, given evidence that they can provide dangerous or incorrect clinical advice.

Polymarket’s flagship alien-disclosure market surpassed $33 million in cumulative volume as traders bet on whether a senior U.S. official will confirm extraterrestrial life by year-end.

While Coinbase framed the incident as a multi-zone AWS failure and AWS said only a single availability zone was affected, the episode emphasized the exchange’s dependence on cloud infrastructure.

The Solana Foundation and Google Cloud have launched Pay.sh, an API gateway that lets AI agents autonomously pay for Google Cloud and other API services in stablecoins on Solana.

HANTA surged from about a $170,000 valuation to over $17 million in market cap, delivering 100x-plus gains to early Pump.fun minters. Zypto has expanded its multichain wallet with native cross-chain swap functionality, letting users move and swap assets on over 1 million routes.

There’s so much to unpack this week, so what do you think about the developments?

FAQs

What did Polygon reduce?

Polygon reduced its average block time by 250 milliseconds, bringing it to 1.75 seconds.

How did Tether’s AI model excel?

Tether’s QVAC MedPsy’s tiny 1.7-billion-parameter model outscored Google’s MedGemma-27B on medical benchmarks despite its smaller size.

What is the latest on Polymarket?

Traders on Polymarket have wagered roughly $33 million on whether a senior U.S. official will confirm extraterrestrial life by year-end.

What is the latest on Solana?

AI agents can now autonomously pay for Google Cloud services and dozens of other APIs using stablecoins on Solana.

What is Zypto App’s latest feature?

Zypto has expanded its multichain wallet functionality with added native cross-chain swap capabilities.

This Week In Crypto – Bitcoin, Tether, Meta, Solana, and Polygon

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 07 May 2026 08:18:33 GMT

Gm frens, welcome to our first news report of May!

Crypto card spending jumps 500%, Bitcoin drives 2M customers to a U.S. steak restaurant, and Tether Investments proposes a merger to form a Bitcoin platform. Meta launches USDC creator payouts on Solana and Polygon, X rolls out a new crypto trading terminal, Bitcoin struggles near $80K, and Zypto spotlights its premium crypto cards.

Let’s dive in.

Crypto card spending jumps 500% since September 2024

Crypto card usage has surged more than 500% since September 2024, with monthly volumes reaching roughly $600 million as of April 2026. What was once a niche tool for early adopters is quickly becoming a practical payments option, driven by one key shift: the rise of stablecoins.

The growth in crypto card spending closely tracks the rise of stablecoins. People are loading stablecoins onto debit-style cards and swiping them at coffee shops, gas stations, and online checkouts just like any regular card.

In early 2023, monthly crypto card volumes hovered around $100 million. By late 2025, some reports showed volumes exceeded $1.5 billion, while volumes had stabilized around $600 million per month, with occasional spikes above that level. This pattern suggests not just experimentation, but sustained usage.

Rather than relying on traditional banking rails, companies have partnered directly with crypto-native issuers, enabling faster, more cost-efficient card launches that settle in stablecoins. Users aren’t just testing the waters anymore; they’re spending real money, billions annually, because the experience finally feels smooth.

At the center of this hype are stablecoins, especially USDC and USDT, whose stability makes them perfect for spending. Users hold them in their Zypto wallet and link it to their physical and virtual Zypto VISA card. When the user taps to pay, the system converts instantly on the backend, often using stablecoin rails, while the merchant sees a normal fiat transaction.

Stablecoins have turned crypto balances into usable money, and the numbers back it up. Stablecoin market cap increased past $300 billion in early 2026, while transaction volumes hit $33 trillion in 2025. Today, USDT and USDC account for roughly 90% of crypto card funding, and the reasons are straightforward.

Stablecoins remove volatility risk, allowing users to spend without worrying about price swings. They also enable faster and cheaper settlement, particularly when integrated with existing payment networks. Moreover, in regions with limited access to banking, they provide a way to spend dollar-denominated assets globally.

Bitcoin drives 2M customers to a U.S. steak restaurant

Steak ‘n Shake’s Bitcoin strategy is delivering measurable results, and the latest figures are hard to ignore. The company has added roughly 2 million new customers since launching BTC payments in May 2025 and has achieved the highest same-store sales growth in the restaurant industry.

Steak ‘n Shake began accepting Bitcoin on May 16, 2025, rolling it out across hundreds of US locations, with additional international sites where regulations allow. Within months, same-store sales climbed more than 10%, reaching 11% in Q2 and 15% in Q3, according to company figures. The momentum was amplified by social media buzz and widespread media coverage, drawing in curious first-time customers and converting many into repeat visitors.

Steak ‘n Shake’s growth has been tied to Bitcoin adoption as well as improvements in food quality and employee compensation. It was also revealed that using Bitcoin has cut payment processing costs by around 50%. Additionally, it was announced that BTC payments for the company’s burgers go into its Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, which funds Bitcoin bonuses for its employees.

The cost savings and additional revenue generated by Bitcoin have enabled the company to reinvest heavily in its menu. Over the past year, the chain has upgraded its ingredients and processes, including shifting to beef tallow fries, using higher-quality dairy, and removing microwaves across locations.

Tether Investments proposes a merger to form a Bitcoin platform

Tether Investments, the investment arm of stablecoin giant Tether, announced proposals for a triple merger combining Twenty-One Capital, Strike, and Elektron Energy into what it described as “the premier listed Bitcoin company in the world.”

The proposed combination would unite three distinct Bitcoin operations under a single public entity. Twenty-One Capital, which ranks second among public companies for Bitcoin holdings, with over $3.3 billion in BTC, would contribute its substantial treasury operations to the merged platform.

Strike, the Bitcoin financial services company founded by Jack Mallers (Twenty-One Capital’s CEO), operates in more than 100 countries and enables users to buy, sell, hold, and borrow against Bitcoin. Millers affirmed that Strike has secured a $2.1 billion credit facility to meet lending demand.

Elektron Energy would bring significant mining infrastructure to the merger. Led by Raphael Zagury, the company has mined more than 5,500 Bitcoin across its managed portfolio and maintains all-in production costs below $60,000 per Bitcoin.

Tether Investments wrote, “The proposed leadership structure is intended to combine Mallers’ product, brand, and consumer Bitcoin leadership with Zagury’s capital markets, operating, and execution experience.”

Market participants responded positively to the merger announcement, with Twenty-One shares jumping after market trading, though those gains have since been largely reduced.

The merger builds on Twenty-One Capital’s recent transition to public markets. The company went public through a SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners in December. Tether was one of the prominent backers of the original business combination, setting the stage for further proposed mergers.

Meta launches USDC creator payouts on Solana and Polygon

Meta has begun allowing content creators to receive earnings in USDC stablecoin directly to their crypto wallets on Solana and Polygon.

A Meta spokesperson emphasized that the firm is not issuing a Meta stablecoin. Instead, the company is tapping Circle’s USDC, the second-largest stablecoin with a market cap of over $77 billion. They said, “We strive to offer the most relevant payment methods, which is why we are exploring how stablecoins could become part of our suite of options.”

The geographic selection reflects Meta’s strategy of testing financial features in emerging markets where crypto adoption often outpaces traditional banking infrastructure. The stablecoin payments feature is currently available to a limited group of creators in Colombia and the Philippines.

Meta’s adoption of a stablecoin represents a strategic reversal from its earlier crypto ambitions. The company shut down its Libra project, later renamed Diem, in 2022 after facing intense regulatory scrutiny.

Stablecoin interest among U.S. companies has grown substantially since last year’s signing of the GENIUS Act, which regulates the dollar-pegged crypto tokens.

Chainalysis projects that stablecoin trading volume could reach $1.5 quadrillion by 2035, reflecting growing confidence in digital-dollar payment rails among traditional finance players.

X launches new crypto trading terminal

X head of product Nikita Bier said the company was rolling out a web version of Cashtags, a feature that converts $tickers for stocks and crypto into clickable, real-time charts and asset-specific post feeds.

Bier framed the tool as a way to position X as a core trading terminal. Bundled controls, including contract address matching and account locks on first-time crypto posters, are intended to filter out fraudulent tokens before they reach users.

The rollout fits a broader X finance push that also includes payments and pilot trading features. Musk’s distinction between merit assets and scams maps directly onto Cashtags’ pitch, separating what the feature wants to surface from what its anti-scam controls are designed to suppress.

In other news, crypto ranks as the most muted topic on X since the platform launched its new snooze feature. The data, shared by Nikita Bier, signals growing user fatigue with the asset class.

Users snoozed crypto posts more than politics, the Iran conflict, sports, and business content combined. The pattern marks the strongest feed-level pushback against any single category since launch.

X has steadily expanded its crypto exposure even as Premium users tune out the topic. The company recently hired designer Benji Taylor away from a crypto-native firm. X is also preparing XChat as a payments-ready messaging product to compete with WhatsApp and iMessage.

Elon Musk himself remains entangled in a high-profile OpenAI lawsuit that continues to dominate his public agenda. The widening gap between platform strategy and audience appetite continues to grow. X will need to rethink how crypto surfaces in Premium feeds without alienating its most engaged users.

Bitcoin struggles near $80K – trouble for BTC bulls?

Bitcoin (BTC) rallied to $79.2K late on May 2, but at press time, BTC was rejected from a key local resistance zone. Notably, Glassnode reported that defensive positioning was rising as the price approached the $80K psychological resistance.

In a post on X, the crypto intelligence platform highlighted that takers were selling calls and buying downside protection. The post also used BTC options data to highlight how the $82K level could trigger a short squeeze.

Implied volatility trended lower throughout April, with upside sold rather than chased. Another short squeeze could be just around the corner. Using the 30-day sum of the Bitcoin Apparent Demand metric, crypto analyst Darkfost observed that it was too early to conclude that Bitcoin had shifted into a bullish regime.

The metric is calculated as the difference between new BTC issuance and the amount of coin supply that has been dormant for over a year. It tracks structural accumulation or distribution trends across higher timeframes.

The chart showed the 30-day sum was still at -44,700 BTC. Though it was an improvement from -89,000 in early April, the negative figures meant apparent demand was still weak.

For most of 2026, this metric has been negative, showing indecisive demand trends. Since mid-February, the 7-day Moving Average of Bitcoin net flows to exchanges has been negative, except for a brief spike in late March. Over the past week, the 7-DMA of the metric moved into positive territory with greater confidence.

Exchange inflows generally indicate increased selling pressure, which aligns well with the idea that holders were becoming more defensive as BTC pushed toward $80K. Joao Wedson, founder and CEO of Alphractal, outlined decisive price markets in a post on X.

He advised betting against BTC at its current retest of the short-term holder realized price, while looking to buy at the retest of the long-term holder realized price.

It might really be as simple as selling Bitcoin now and buying in the $50K-$55K range.

Zypto spotlights premium crypto cards

Zypto’s range of premium crypto cards are positioned as a zero-monthly-fee solution for users looking to spend digital assets globally, amid intensifying competition in the crypto off-ramp market.

The platform’s premium cards, available in both physical and virtual formats, allow users to convert cryptocurrencies to fiat and spend them anywhere major card networks are accepted, spanning multiple countries.

The cards are designed to eliminate recurring costs typically associated with financial products, with no monthly or inactivity fees. It also maintains a transparent fee structure for transactions and currency conversions, as well as high limits, and luxury benefits, without tiered levels.

Zypto’s premium physical card is marketed toward high-volume users, supporting ATM withdrawals of up to $22,500 per month and transaction limits of $1 million in monthly spending, positioning it for business use cases and high-net-worth individuals.

Meanwhile, the virtual version targets frequent payments and everyday usage, alongside integration on Apple Pay and Google Pay. It offers instant usage for online, in app or in store transactions, complete with 3D Secure support for extra protection.

Zypto emphasizes interoperability, noting that users can fund their cards using over 100 cryptocurrencies from both its native wallet and external platforms, aligning with broader industry trends toward self-custody and multi-chain access.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

Crypto card usage has surged as stablecoins like USDT and USDC transform crypto from a volatile asset into a widely accepted payment method for everyday spending. Tether Investment has proposed a three-way merger into a publicly listed Bitcoin-focused firm.

Meta is piloting direct creator payouts in USDC across Solana and Polygon in certain emerging markets. X has rolled out the web version of Cashtags; it remains to be seen how the consensus will be.

Bitcoin is struggling to break past the $80K resistance, as rising defensive positioning, weak apparent demand, and increasing exchange inflows signal cautious investor sentiment.

Recent studies have found that tourists, millennials, and Gen Z prefer locations that accept cryptocurrency. So, many eateries are converting Bitcoin to cash or keeping it as a treasury asset.

Zypto’s launch reflects a broader push across the crypto industry to bridge digital assets and everyday payments, as providers compete on lower fees, higher limits, and global usability to attract both retail users and institutional spenders.

What do you think about this week’s developments? Let us know in the comments section.

FAQs

How high has crypto card spending reached?

As of this writing, crypto card usage has surged more than 500% since September 2024.

How many customers has Steak ‘n Stake gotten due to Bitcoin?

Steak ‘n Stake has added roughly 2 million new customers since launching BTC payments in May 2025.

Which countries are the Meta USDC payout available to?

The Meta USDC payments feature is currently available to a limited group of creators in Colombia and the Philippines.

Which companies want to merge to form a Bitcoin platform?

Tether Investments announced proposals for a triple merger combining Twenty-One Capital, Strike, and Elektron Energy.

This Week In Crypto – AWS, Chainlink, Pi Network, and Bitcoin

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Gm frens, we’re closing out the month with a big round-up of crypto news.

AWS adds Chainlink crypto oracle services. Morgan Stanley debuts a market fund for stablecoin issuers. Fold launches a Bitcoin Bonus program, while Pi Network brings smart contracts to Testnet.

At the same time, Bitcoin eyes a potential new high as key indicators flip bullish. A new BTC hard fork, eCash, is announced, and Zypto App expands its cross-chain capabilities.

Amazon Web Services adds Chainlink crypto Oracle services

Amazon Web Services has launched Chainlink’s data standard on the AWS Marketplace, making the oracle provider’s data feeds, data streams, and proof-of-reserve services available to enterprise developers.

The AWS Marketplace integration includes three core Chainlink services designed for enterprise blockchain applications. Chainlink data feeds provide decentralized price and market data for asset valuation, settlement, and risk management.

The oracle provider’s data streams deliver fast, secure data that enable on-chain systems to respond to market movements in real time. The service targets applications requiring low-latency market data integration.

Lastly, Chainlink’s proof-of-reserve feature provides secure, verifiable on-chain reserve attestations for stablecoins and other tokenized assets, allowing institutions to verify asset backing without compromising security protocols.

Amazon Web Services commands approximately 31% of the global cloud infrastructure and serves millions of enterprise customers worldwide. Chainlink operates one of the largest decentralized oracle networks, connecting smart contracts, which hold the code that powers autonomous crypto apps, to off-chain data sources across multiple blockchains.

Since launching on mainnet in 2019, Chainlink’s decentralized oracle networks have secured $29 trillion in transaction value across 80+ public and private blockchains. The protocol’s infrastructure emphasizes security in a landscape where cross-chain bridge hacks have resulted in $3 billion in losses.

Morgan Stanley debuts a market fund for stablecoin issuers

Morgan Stanley has launched a money market fund for stablecoin issuers, positioning it as a way for companies like Circle to manage their reserves.

The Stablecoin Reserves Portfolio (MSNXX), available on days when the New York Stock Exchange is open for business, will enable companies to invest the proceeds backing their tokens, the investment bank with $9.3 trillion in assets said in an announcement.

Although stablecoin issuers often back their tokens with a mix of cash and U.S. Treasuries, Morgan Stanley indicated that MSNXX will also allocate to notes and bonds, as well as certain overnight repurchase agreements collateralized by liquid assets.

The product was specifically designed to comply with the GENIUS Act, a federal framework for stablecoins enacted last year that mandates reserve requirements.

In a statement, Morgan Stanley’s co-head of Global Liquidity, Fred McMullen, noted the sector’s growth, specifically a “significant increase in stablecoin issuers as well as the growing number of assets held in stablecoins.”

Whether it’s new use cases in traditional finance or AI-agent payments, stablecoins are expected to become a $2 trillion market by the end of 2028, or in roughly 32 months, according to a recent note from investment bank Standard Chartered.

At the time of writing, the total value of stablecoins is $320 billion, with Tether’s USDT as the largest issuer. Circle, the second one, currently holds the majority of its USDC reserves in the Circle Reserve Fund (USDXX), a BlackRock-managed money market fund.

Decentralized finance projects like Ethena, which offers a synthetic dollar dubbed USDe, have forged a different path: using BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund, BUIDL. The product issued on nine blockchains was valued at $2.5 billion.

Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley debuted a spot Bitcoin ETF, which dovetails with the firm’s army of roughly 16,000 financial advisors. Since the product debuted just over two weeks ago, it has generated $173 million in net inflows.

Fold launches ‘Bitcoin Bonus’ program for employers

Bitcoin financial services company Fold Holdings, Inc., launched a program that allows companies to pay recurring BTC bonuses to employees, following an initial rollout from restaurant chain Steak ‘n Shake earlier this year.

The Bitcoin Bonus Program represents the first product from Fold Business, the company’s new enterprise division. Under the program, Steak ‘n Shake’s 10,000-plus hourly workers across the U.S. can receive Bitcoin bonuses, as announced in January and implemented on March 1. The restaurant chain pays $0.21 per hour worked into the bonus program for hourly employees, and it vests in full after two years.

“We launched our Bitcoin Bonus Program because we saw a gap that no one was filling. We’ve created a recruiting story that didn’t exist before,” said Fold co-founder and CEO Will Reeves, in a statement.

The program handles all custody and compliance requirements, Fold said, allowing traditional businesses to offer cryptocurrency incentives without managing the technical infrastructure. Employers set bonus terms in dollars, and Fold converts and manages the Bitcoin distribution. Bitcoin mining firm Simple Mining has also adopted the program, offering a bonus to salaried employees based on their tenure.

The company plans to expand its Business platform to include payroll, corporate Bitcoin treasury management, corporate cards, and additional enterprise financial tools. Fold previously focused on consumer Bitcoin rewards and spending solutions, including a debit card that offers Bitcoin rewards on purchases, before developing these corporate services aimed at bringing cryptocurrency benefits to mainstream workplaces.

Pi Network smart contracts go live on Testnet

Pi Network has activated its first smart contract on Testnet, bringing subscription functionality to the blockchain. The rollout introduces recurring-payment logic for e-commerce, streaming, and other services. Community sentiment has turned cautiously optimistic, yet the daily chart still shows a neutral structure after months of decline.

The smart contract capability focuses on subscription support, a model most chains have struggled to deliver cleanly. Subscribers can approve a defined budget that the contract draws from over a set billing horizon. Funds remain in the wallet until a charge is processed.

The design avoids the full pre-funding required by account-abstraction standards such as ERC-4337. It also removes repeat signatures used in earlier Ethereum proposals, such as EIP-1337. Pi frames this as a cleaner path for on-chain recurring payments.

Pi Request for Comment 2 (PiRC2) is now open for developer review on GitHub. External auditors are also reviewing the contract before any Minnet rollout. Community voices have mapped the release to real use cases.

One post listed streaming, AI tools, digital memberships, e-commerce, and local commerce as targets. The list reflects a broader push to anchor Pi demand to recurring real-world services rather than speculative activity.

The pitch to builders leans on scale. Pi claims to have more than 18 million KYC-verified users, which bolsters its image as a ready customer base. Warnings about staking, DeFi, and dApp risks in any young ecosystem temper that optimism. Education and external audits will shape how safely the rollout proceeds.

The contract remains in Testnet. A Mainnet launch will depend on audit outcomes and PiRC2 feedback, which sets the near-term expectation bar.

Possible Bitcoin ATH as risk indicator flips bullish

Bitcoin’s sustained bullish market structure over the past three weeks has triggered a clear risk landscape signal that could hint at an extension of the ongoing rally. The Risk Index, Glassnode’s proprietary metric that quantifies systemic risk on a scale of 0 to 100, is hovering at zero, the lowest possible level, according to a Telegram post.

It indicates a ‘cleared risk landscape’ and serves as a primary gauge of market health, with a 25 threshold that distinguishes between low and high-risk regimes. The Moderate Strategy, which captures upside momentum and exits when conviction fades, has flipped from ‘Moderate’ to ‘High Confidence.’

The alignment of these models signals a bullish regime, underscored by sustained inflows into Bitcoin ETPs and aggressive demand from spot buyers. As a result, Bitcoin hit $79,388 last week, its highest level in over three months.

Lacie Zhang, a research analyst, thinks this is an excellent window for strategic accumulation rather than chasing deeper dips, maintaining “a strong conviction for a positive close to 2026, supported by improving market structure and institutional conviction that should drive Bitcoin to a new all-time high.”

Investor sentiment has also seen considerable improvement, resulting in the Fear and Greed Index jumping from ‘extreme fear’ at the start of April to ‘fear.’ Likewise, users on the prediction market Myriad see a 74% chance that Bitcoin will extend its rally toward $84,000 next. Similarly, for Ethereum, users assign a 54% chance that the crypto will pump to $3,000 next.

“Breaking and holding above $80K would act as a major technical and psychological catalyst, clearing the path for further recovery toward $90K and potentially $100K,” Zhang said.

Additionally, the recent uptrend has pushed 54% of recent buyers into profitable territory, according to Glassnode’s latest report. These buyers are now at a threshold that has historically exhausted bear market rallies. Short-term holders’ realized profit has spiked to $4.4 million, three times the $1.5 million threshold that has marked every local top year to date.

The missing piece remains a fundamental catalyst, whether it’s the CLARITY Act, Fed rate cuts, or a lasting Middle East truce. Until then, the risk landscape may be cleared, but the path above $80,000 is not.

Blockchain developer announces BTC hard fork eCash

Bitcoin developer Paul Sztorc announced that a new hard fork of the Bitcoin network called eCash will be deployed in August. Bitcoin holders will be able to exchange their BTC for eCash at a 1:1 ratio once the hard fork is live, Sztorx said in an X post.

He added that the layer-1 node software for the chain will be a ‘near-copy’ of the BTC Core client software and will use the SHA-256 hashing algorithm used by the Bitcoin blockchain, with a reduced initial mining difficulty to make it easier for participants to mine blocks.

The new layer-1 hard fork will also include seven layer-2 scaling networks called “drivechains” to increase transaction throughput and enable optional on-chain privacy, he said.

Sztorc distances the eCash hard fork from previous attempts to fork hard the Bitcoin protocol, including Bitcoin Cash (BCH), which was created in 2017 but failed to become the dominant chain. However, the announcement drew mixed reactions.

“Unlike BCH, the 2017 fork, there is no ‘Bitcoin’ in the name,” Sztorc said, adding, “This is a permanent and sustainable fix to Bitcoin’s problems.”

He added that the forked chain would manually reassign a portion of Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1.1 million BTC stash to early investors. However, some critics weren’t pleased.

“Taking Satoshi coins is theft and disrespectful, and eCash is already used for Lightning payments with Cashu and Fedi. Those are poor choices,” Bitcoin advocate Peter McCormack said in response.

“I give you two or three years to fold completely,” Bitcoin advocate PakoVM said about the planned hard fork.

The announcement came amid a growing debate about Bitcoin’s tech stack and whether the protocol should introduce privacy-preserving features and post-quantum resistance.

Zypto App expands cross-chain capabilities with CCIP integration on Solana

Zypto has announced the integration of Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) for Solana within its wallet application, marking another step in the platform’s push to simplify cross-chain asset transfers for users.

The update introduces CCIP-powered swaps involving Solana, allowing users to move digital assets between Solana and other supported blockchains directly inside Zypto App environment. The feature builds on Zypto’s broader strategy of embedding cross-chain infrastructure natively on its self-custodial wallet, rather than relying on external bridges or decentralized applications.

CCIP, developed by Chainlink, is designed to enable secure and standardized communication between blockchains, addressing long-standing challenges associated with fragmented networks and bridge vulnerabilities. By integrating this protocol alongside many others, Zypto continues to position its app as a more unified interface for multi-chain activity.

Zypto’s approach reflects a broader trend in the crypto ecosystem, where wallet applications are evolving into full-service platforms that combine storage, decentralized finance (DeFi) access, and cross-chain interoperability in a single interface. Rather than acting solely as transaction signers, crypto wallets are increasingly embedding core infrastructure to streamline user experience.

The company noted that the new capability is now live, enabling users to access CCIP-based Solana swaps directly within the app without leaving the self-custodial environment. The rollout underscores Zypto’s ongoing focus on reducing friction in cross-chain transactions, as demand grows for smooth movement of assets across an increasingly multi-chain crypto landscape.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

AWS has developed reference architectures that demonstrate integration patterns for proof-of-reserve monitoring and real-time prediction-market trading. These templates provide enterprises with pre-built frameworks for deploying Oracle services within existing cloud infrastructure.

Morgan Stanley’s new Stablecoin Reserves Portfolio (MSNXX) offers issuers a regulated vehicle for holding reserve assets in U.S. Treasuries, facilitating regulatory compliance, capital preservation, and daily liquidity.

Unlike previous corporate Bitcoin initiatives that focused on treasury management or executive compensation, Fold’s program specifically targets rank-and-file employees in sectors such as food service and manufacturing, where retention and recruitment challenges have intensified since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pi Network’s first smart contract launch on Testnet enables developers to test on-chain subscription models for future ecosystem utility. Bitcoin’s Risk Index hitting zero and strong institutional demand indicate a ‘bullish regime’ and a strategic window for accumulation, though analysts warn that geopolitical uncertainty and profit-taking could still hinder a move above $80,000.

The Solana integration expands Zypto’s existing cross-chain functionality, which already supports a wide range of blockchain networks and liquidity routes.

What do you think about this week’s developments? Let us know in the comments section.

FAQs

Why did AWS integrate Chainlink services?

Chainlink provides market data for enterprise blockchain applications.

What is the Morgan Stanley market fund for?

Morgan Stanley’s money market fund was launched to help stablecoin issuers manage their reserves.

Why did Fold launch the Bitcoin Bonus program?

Fold Holdings, Inc. launched the Bitcoin Bonus program to pay recurring BTC bonuses to employees.

What is the latest on the Pi Network?

Pi Network has activated its first smart contract on Testnet.

What is the latest update on Zypto?

Zypto has announced the integration of Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) for Solana within its wallet application.

This Week In Crypto – X, XRP, Solana, and World

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Gm frens, welcome back to another fast-moving week in crypto. There’s plenty to unpack.

X Cashtags drive an estimated $1 billion surge in trading, wrapped XRP goes live on Solana, a trader turns $2,500 into $500K on the ASTEROID memecoin, and World rolls out a major upgrade with Zoom, Tinder, and DocuSign integrations. We also look at renewed XRP price speculation and Zypto’s latest expansion into TRON DeFi with SunSwap integration.

Let’s dive in.

X Cashtags trigger estimated $1 billion surge in crypto trading

Social media platform X has already generated roughly $1 billion in trading volume from its new Cashtags feature, which allows users to view stock and crypto data directly from the app.

In a post on X on Friday, the company’s head of product, Nikita Bier, said the trading milestone was reached just 48 hours after the social media platform introduced Smart Cashtags, citing data aggregated from X’s trading pilot.

Cashtags allows users to select a specific asset or smart contract address when posting a ticker, and tapping a tag displays live price charts and related posts.

A pilot integration with Canadian brokerage Wealthsimple also enables direct trading from the timeline. However, the pilot remains limited in scope. Only iPhone users in the US and Canada have access, and the buy button is not yet active for US users. Android and web support have not yet rolled out.

The Cashtags rollout comes as X prepares to launch its broader payments platform, X Money, a peer-to-peer payments system that seeks to offer yield-bearing accounts, a cashback debit card, and other perks. Elon Musk stated in March that early public access would begin in April.

Since xAI was formed just 30 months ago, the small and talented team has made remarkable progress. Polymarket data currently shows a 36% chance that X money will launch by April 30, suggesting most traders remain skeptical.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has also raised concerns about the platform’s proposed 6% APY and potential stablecoin issuance, requesting Musk provide a written response by April 21.

Over the last few years, X has secured money transmitter licenses in more than 40 US states and registered with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to enable peer-to-peer payments on the platform.

Wrapped XRP goes live on Solana

Solana has confirmed that wrapped XRP [wXRP] is now live on its network. This enables XRP holders to access decentralized finance [DeFi] applications beyond the XRP Ledger for the first time.

The rollout, facilitated by Hex Trust and LayerZero, enables XRP to be used within Solana’s DeFi ecosystem while remaining 1:1 backed by the native asset. According to the announcement, wXRP enables users to bridge XRP onto Solana and interact with DeFi protocols. This includes lending, trading, and liquidity provision.

The 1:1-backed wXRP can then be used in DeFi protocols on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchains like the Ethereum mainnet, Optimism, or Hyper EVM, all of which have more robust DeFi ecosystems than the native XRP Ledger.

According to data from DefiLlama, Ethereum and Solana rank first and second in DeFi total value locked (TVL), at $57.2 billion and $6.08 billion, respectively. Meanwhile, XRP Ledger ranks 41st, with just $51.46 million in DeFi TVL.

In addition to the $1.2 million in wXRP on Solana, 50 million tokens, or around $74.5 million worth of wXR, have been minted on Ethereum. Almost all of those tokens have been in the same Ethereum wallet, one likely connected to the token issuer, since early November, before the wXRP announcement.

This marks a shift for XRP, which has historically been used primarily for payments and transfers on the XRP Ledger. Up till now, it has had limited exposure to DeFi activity.

By introducing a wrapped version of Solana, XRP holders can now deploy capital across a wider range of on-chain applications without converting their holdings into other assets.

The integration highlights a growing trend in the crypto market, where assets are increasingly being moved across chains to access different ecosystems and yield opportunities.

Solana, which has positioned itself as a hub for high-speed, low-cost DeFi activity, stands to benefit from additional liquidity as XRP enters its ecosystem. At the same time, the institutional study and cross-chain infrastructure aim to address security concerns often associated with wrapped assets.

Trader turns $2,500 to $500K on ASTEROID memecoin

A meme coin trader turned 1 Ethereum (ETH) or around $2,455 into nearly $500,000 on Thursday after trading the surging Asteroid (ASTEROID) meme coin on the Ethereum network.

The token, which is based on a Shiba Inu mascot named Asteroid, skyrocketed early on Friday following a social media post from media personality Glenn Beck, which earned a reply from X owner and SpaceX and Tesla founder, Elon Musk.

Beck’s post highlighted the story of Liv Perotto, a teenage girl who he said maintained a list of questions for Musk, but passed away from cancer in January without the chance to get them answered.

Her final question would have asked Musk if Asteroid, the Shiba Inu mascot she created to act as the zero-g indicator for SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission in 2024, could become the face of SpaceX.

“Will answer shortly,” Musk said in his reply to Beck’s post around 11:50 p.m. ET on Thursday. That post has now garnered more than 1.3 million views on X.

Eight minutes later, an Ethereum address ending in “EFF99af” bought 1 ETH worth of ASTEROID tokens, which were first launched on Ethereum 19 months ago. The buy was good enough for more than 10 billion ASTEROID tokens.

As renewed attention bloomed around Perotto and Asteroid with Musk’s reply, a massive surge in the meme coin ensued, quickly making the trader’s portfolio worth nearly $500,000.

At this time, “EFF9af” is the top trader on the token according to DEXScreener’s top traders tab, locking in more than $242,000 in profits with sales while maintaining a stash of just around $180,000 worth of ASTEROID tokens.

Two other traders, “6E5Eae” and “9dE8db,” both purchased less than $10,000 worth of ASTEROID tokens, and have similarly locked in more than $150,000 in gains via sales.

The token has generated more than $43 million in 24-hour trading volume, making it the second-most-traded meme coin across blockchains in the last 24 hours, per DEXScreener.

World launches upgrade with Zoom, Tinder, and DocuSign

World, formerly Worldcoin, unveiled a major World ID upgrade on Friday, introducing account-based architecture for “proof of human” verification alongside new integrations with Tinder, Zoom, and DocuSign.

OpenAI, which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman co-founded, introduced the World ID app as a dedicated experience for managing and using proof-of-human verification across the internet. The standalone application represents a shift from the company’s previous wallet-integrated approach to identity verification.

The company is arguably best known for its iris-scanning Orb device, which scans and verifies humans for use across an array of online applications. World incentivized use of the Orb with its Worldcoin (WLD) crypto token, but has expanded its proof-of-human suite to include other forms of verification.

The company also launched Concert Kit on Friday, a tool powered by World ID that enables artists to reserve tickets for verified humans. The platform aims to combat bot-driven ticket scalping by requiring human verification for event access, as Grammy-winning musician Anderson. Paak appeared at Friday’s event to help reveal the technology.

World and Vercel are teaming to bring human-in-the-loop verification to developers building on Vercel’s new open-source Workflow SDK. Okta plans to build Human Principal, a product that allows API builders to verify whether a human stands behind an agent.

Match Group, Tinder’s parent company, is expanding its existing World partnership to serve U.S. users, while World announced business-centric agreements with Zoom and DocuSign.

Zoom, the video meeting app, will integrate World’s deepfake detection technology to try and spot fakes, with fund manager VanEck among firms currently trialing the tech. Meanwhile, DocuSign will offer World ID support to ensure that whoever is supposed to sign a document digitally is actually the person they claim to be.

Did Ripple predict $50 XRP in 2026?

The XRP price prediction for 2026 conversation resurfaced with renewed intensity after Crypto Dyl News published a post on April 13, questioning whether Ripple had implicitly indicated a $50 valuation for XRP this year.

The post draws a direct line between Ripple’s $33 trillion projection for global stablecoin volume and projected token price outcomes. This connection reinvigorated the Ripple XRP price prediction debate across investor communities. Both the XRP $50 prediction and the broader assessment of whether XRP is a good investment in 2026 are now subjects of considerable market discussion.

The Ripple $33 trillion projection quantifies total global stablecoin trading volume from the prior year, a metric that Garlinghouse presented on Fox Business on March 27, 2026, to underscore the scale of payment infrastructure that has yet to integrate blockchain technology.

Ripple Treasury, acquired for approximately $1 billion in 2025, processed $13 trillion institutional payments that year without deploying a single stablecoin or crypto asset across those flows. The XRP price prediction 2026 models citing this figure treat it as a proxy for future token demand, a significant interpretative leap from its original context.

Various XRP price prediction 2026 models targeting $50 engineer backward projections by applying a market share percentage to that $33 trillion stablecoin, working through assumptions about XRP’s role as a bridge asset. The math is also easy to follow, but the assumptions underneath it are not.

Reaching $50 would require XRP’s market cap to surpass $3 trillion, more than double Bitcoin’s current valuation. Ripple’s CTO Emeritus, David Schwartz, addressed the $50 XRP prediction in late January; he stopped short of ruling it out but made his skepticism clear.

His core argument: rational investors wouldn’t let XRP trade around $1.37 if they genuinely believed it even had a 10% chance of reaching $50 to $100 in a few years. Standard Chartered’s Geoffrey Kendrick put out the most-referenced institutional forecast right now: $8 for 2026 and $28 by 2030, still $22 short of $50.

Several key factors further complicate the Ripple XRP price prediction picture, most notably, institutional settlement currently routes through RLUSD and fiat channels rather than XRP directly. On-demand Liquidity, the mechanism that actually drives XRP demand, hasn’t scaled enough to affect these projections at the time of writing meaningfully.

Zypto expands in-app DeFi swaps via SunSwap DEX integration

Zypto has expanded its decentralized finance offering with the integration of SunSwap, enabling in-app swapping of TRX and TRC20 tokens through a decentralized exchange on the TRON network. The update strengthens Zypto’s growing network of DEX and cross-chain integrations, allowing users to access decentralized liquidity and move assets across chains without leaving the app environment.

The platform combines multichain self custody wallets with access to more than 24,000 digital assets across over 20 blockchains, alongside more than 1 million cross-chain swap routes. As a multifunctional app, Zypto brings together decentralized swaps, payments, spending, and asset protection within a single interface, reflecting a broader shift away from fragmented crypto tools toward integrated environments.

Zypto has continued to expand its feature set at pace, with recent updates spanning DeFi access, transaction handling, onboarding, and card functionality. The addition of SunSwap deepens the TRON layer within this system, connecting decentralized swaps with existing payment rails that support real-world use cases such as bill payments, mobile top-ups, and card-based spending.

While still a relatively young entrant, Zypto is increasingly positioning itself alongside more established platforms by delivering a comparable breadth of functionality within a single application. As competition intensifies, the ability to combine DeFi, cross-chain movement, and everyday utility in one place is emerging as a key differentiator.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

X sees more than 550 million users each month, positioning it as one of the largest social media platforms globally and enabling it to compete with established financial information providers in delivering market-related content and data.

While the long-term adoption of wXRP will depend on user uptake and liquidity depth, the launch signals continued efforts to reduce fragmentation across blockchain networks.

World’s launch comes as Worldcoin’s network has reached 18 million verified humans across 160 countries. The timing reflects the growing urgency around human verification as a growing share of internet traffic comes from AI chatbots, agents, and bots.

Whether XRP is a good investment hinges on how Ripple’s $33 trillion projection translates into token demand, and whether the CLARITY Act accelerates the institutional inflows needed to close the gap.

With the integration of SunSwap, Zypto App is strengthening its decentralized swap capabilities while continuing to connect multichain self custody wallets, cross-chain movement, and real-world utility within a single, multifunctional application.

There’s so much to unpack this week, so what’s your favorite news story?

FAQs

How much has X generated from its Cashtag feature?

X has already generated roughly $1 billion in trading volume from its new Cashtags feature, which allows users to view stock and crypto data directly from the app.

How much did the trader make on ASTEROID?

The meme coin trader turned 1 Ethereum (ETH), or about $2,455, into nearly $500,000 by trading the surging Asteroid (ASTEROID) meme coin on the Ethereum network.

Which upgrade did World make?

World introduced account-based architecture for proof of human verification alongside new integrations with Tinder, Zoom, and DocuSign.

Which feature did Zypto introduce?

Zypto introduced SunSwap integration, enabling in-app swapping of TRX and TRC20 tokens. This expands its decentralized swap capabilities and connects TRON DeFi with its multichain wallet, cross-chain swaps, and real-world payment features.

This Week In Crypto – TRON, Anthropic, Tether, and Ethereum

Sarah Kutu — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 09:00:00 GMT

Gm frens, we’re back for our weekly round-up of crypto news.

TON blockchain is allegedly now 10x faster, TRON users can now buy event tickets with USDT, and Coreweave lands agreement with Anthropic to run AI workloads.

Tether launches toolkit for building AI apps, analysts warn XRP price may struggle by 2030, MicroStrategy STRC volume hits $1.1 billion, and Zypto expands TRON functionality to drive real-world crypto payments.

Let’s dive in.

TON blockchain is allegedly now 10x faster

Pavel Durov announced that the TON blockchain is now 10x faster. The Telegram founder shared the news on April 9, explaining that the transactions now confirm in under one second. Before the upgrade, users waited over five seconds for finality.

The speed improvement comes from Catchain 2.0, a new consensus mechanism running under the hood. Blocks now generate every 400 milliseconds, which is 6x faster than before. A new streaming layer pushes updates to apps almost instantly rather than making them wait for the next block.

Durov framed the upgrade as the first step in a seven-part plan he calls “Make TON Great Again,” or MTONGA. The name echoes a certain political slogan, but the goals are technical: making TON fast enough and cheap enough to compete with centralized platforms.

The next steps on the roadmap: cutting transaction fees by 6x. TON fees are already lower than Ethereum or Solana. But further reductions would make micropayments and high-frequency applications more practical.

Durov designed TON to operate within Telegram, which has over 1 billion users. His vision includes payments that feel like sending a message, Mini Apps that respond instantly, and DeFi tools that rival the spread of centralized exchanges.

At five-second confirmation times, delivering that experience was difficult. At sub-second finality, it becomes possible. The infrastructure now matches what users expect from any other app on their phone.

The upgrade went live on mainnet on April 10, 2026. Durov confirmed the fee reduction as step two but has not yet shared the timeline for the remaining six steps in the MTONGA roadmap.

TRON users can now buy event tickets with USDT

Uquid has launched Uquid Tickets, a platform built for the TRON network that allows users to purchase event tickets using USDT and other supported tokens.

TRON continues to see strong stablecoin activity, particularly USDT, supported by high throughput and low transaction fees. These features have contributed to its use in payments, especially in emerging markets.

In regions where TRON already accounts for a significant share of Uquid transactions, users can book concerts, sports events, and festivals without bridging assets or facing higher fees on other networks.

Tickets are delivered shortly after confirmation, reducing delays often associated with crypto payments. Increased ticket purchases drive more on-chain activity, boosting network security, liquidity, and overall usage.

For many users, TRON is already used for remittances, savings in volatile currencies, and everyday transactions. The addition of ticketing introduces another practical use case, linking digital assets to consumer spending.

By channeling stablecoin spending into entertainment, one of the most vibrant consumer categories, the integration strengthens TRON’s position as a high-volume payment rail rather than just a DeFi hub.

Uquid is developing agentic payment features, including automated ticket buying based on user budget and smart tracking for favorite artists or teams. Combined with TRON’s scalable infrastructure, these tools could create personalized, hands-free experiences that feel more like modern consumer apps than traditional blockchain transactions.

Coreweave lands agreement with Anthropic to run AI workloads

CoreWeave, a publicly traded AI cloud infrastructure company, announced on Friday a “multi-year” agreement with AI developer Anthropic, which will use CoreWeave’s cloud computing data centers for its Claude AI model workloads.

Shares of CoreWeave surged more than 12% on Friday and are trading at $102.73 at the time of writing. The agreement follows CoreWeave’s recent $8.5 billion capital raise, led by tech giant Meta Platforms.

The financing was collateralized against CoreWeave’s deployed computing capacity, which is tied to predictable cash flows, rather than its graphics processing unit hardware, making a notable departure from traditional crypto mining financing structures.

CoreWeave pivoted away from crypto mining and rebranded as an AI infrastructure company in 2019, as the mining sector faced prolonged economic pressure following the 2018 crypto market downturn.

Bitcoin (BTC) miners are struggling with rising energy costs, reduced rewards, and declining crypto asset prices, leading many to repurpose their mìning hardware for AI processing.

Up to 20% of Bitcoin miners are unprofitable in the current economic environment, according to asset manager CoinShares’ latest mining report.

Crypto miners must generate yield on their assets by deploying their crypto on decentralized finance (DeFi) platforms to shore up declining revenues, according to market maker Wintermute.

The mining industry’s economic challenges worsened after the October 2025 market crash, which took BTC down from a high of about $126,000 to the low $60,000 range. Prices have since then stabilized around $73,000.

Tether launches toolkit for building AI apps

Tether, the company behind the world’s largest stablecoin, USDT, announced the launch of QVAC SDK, a fully open-source software development kit designed to run artificial intelligence applications directly on any device without requiring cloud servers.

The cross-platform toolkit works unchanged across iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and Linux environments, the company said. The SDK is built on QVAC Fabric, a fork of Ilama.cpp, providing compatibility with the Illama.cpp model ecosystem for text generation, embeddings, and multimodal workloads.

Through a single interface, developers can access text completion, embeddings, vision, optical character recognition, text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and translation capabilities. The toolkit’s peer-to-peer functionality, powered by the Holepunch stack, enables decentralized model distribution and delegated interference. The company plans to add peer-to-peer swarms for decentralized training, fine-tuning, and interference in future updates.

“The laws of physics alone make centralized AI a dead end: speed-of-light latency, single points of failure, and concentration of control are features of a system designed for a smaller world,” Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino said. “QVAC is built for the world that’s coming. It is the building block of the Stable Intelligence Era.”

The SDK emerges from QVAC, Tether Data’s AI research initiative focused on building open, decentralized, and adaptive intelligence systems. The company has committed to substantial investments to expand QVAC’s open-source ecosystem over the coming months and years, including specialized toolkits for robotics and brain-computer interfaces.

The launch marks a significant strategic expansion for Tether beyond its core stablecoin business, positioning the company to compete with centralized AI providers by offering privacy-focused alternatives that process data locally rather than transmitting it to cloud servers.

Analysts warn XRP price may struggle by 2030

The XRP Ledger has surpassed 7.7 million holders for the first time in its 13-year history, according to on-chain data, underscoring a steady expansion in network participation. The data also showed a spike in engagement, with daily active addresses hitting a five-week high of 46,767 on Monday.

The simultaneous rise in wallet count and activity suggests broader participation rather than isolated large-holder movements. For XRP, such metrics are often viewed as leading indicators of underlying demand. A growing base of holders can signal increasing adoption, while higher active address counts typically point to stronger transaction activity and network utility.

Johnny Rice, an analyst at Motley Fool, said increased adoption of Ripple’s technology does not necessarily drive demand for XRP itself. Rice warned that while Ripple as a company may continue to grow, XRP holders may not see proportional benefits by 2030.

The analyst highlighted how spot XRP exchange-traded funds attracted more than $1.3 billion in inflows within their first 50 days, making them the second-fastest-growing crypto ETFs after Bitcoin. Yet, Rice argued that these catalysts have not translated into sustained price gains, XRP remains significantly below its historical highs, and he attributes this to a deeper issue.

Separately, institutional investment in XRP-linked exchange-traded funds has increased, though its overall impact on prices remains constrained, according to regulatory filings.

Goldman Sachs has emerged as the largest disclosed institutional holder of spot XRP ETFs, with more than $150 million invested across several products, according to U.S. 13F filings.

However, Bloomberg intelligence analyst James Seyffart said the filings reflect only a “small portion” of total ownership. Meanwhile, senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the investor base may be concentrated among committed XRP supporters rather than broader institutional participants.

The limited visibility into ETF ownership comes as XRP has struggled to sustain price gains despite more than $1 billion in inflows into the products during 2025.

MicroStrategy STRC volume hits $1.1 billion

MicroStrategy’s STRC preferred stock recorded $1.1 billion in daily trading volume on Monday, increasing the firm’s holdings to 780.897 BTC. The company confirmed the surge, noting a 46.5% increase from its previous peak. The sudden spike has drawn attention across crypto markets, with traders attempting to decode its implications for Bitcoin exposure.

According to Matthew Sigel, the head of digital assets research at VanEck, the volume spike could be tied to a large Bitcoin purchase. The timing of the move has fueled speculation, especially since MicroStrategy has historically used market events to expand its Bitcoin holdings.

Michael Saylor reinforced the narrative by highlighting the session’s scale and stability. The combination of high liquidity and low volatility suggests controlled execution, often associated with institutional-scale positioning rather than retail-driven trading.

An analyst estimated that between $600 million and $700 million in Bitcoin may have been acquired through STRC-linked flows.

At the same time, comparisons between STRC and MicroStrategy’s core stock trading activity have raised eyebrows.

Analysts noted that STRC volume reached a significant share of MicroStrategy’s daily trading levels, an unusual development for the instrument.

Additional projections suggest that if historical patterns hold, STRC volume could expand further ahead of key market events.

One tracker estimated a potential move beyond $1 billion again, based on prior month trading trends. The latest surge highlights how structured products tied to MicroStrategy may be influencing Bitcoin demand.

Whether this activity reflects direct accumulation or broader market positioning remains unclear, but the scale of flows suggests that institutional dynamics are once again shaping Bitcoin’s trajectory.

Zypto expands TRON functionality to drive real-world crypto payments

Zypto has announced an expanded integration with the TRON network, enabling users to easily use TRX and USDT for everyday payments within Zypto App. The launch reinforces Zypto’s mission to transform digital assets from passive holdings into practical tools for daily financial activity.

With this update, users can hold, send, and receive TRX and TRC-20 USDT while accessing a comprehensive suite of in-app payment services. The integration leverages TRON’s fast transaction speeds and low fees, making it well-suited for frequent, real-world use.

The new functionality allows users to move beyond simple storage of digital assets and instead use their balances for essential financial tasks. Through Zypto App, TRX and USDT can now be used to:

Fund and spend via payment cards, enabling purchases online and in-store.
Pay utility bills and subscriptions to streamline everyday expenses.
Top up mobile airtime globally, supporting connectivity across over 100 countries.
Purchase digital gift cards, providing instant access to retail and online services.

By consolidating these capabilities into a single platform, Zypto offers users a smooth bridge between blockchain-based value and real-world transactions.

TRON’s infrastructure plays a major role in this rollout. Known for its efficiency and minimal transaction costs, the network supports high-frequency payments and microtransactions. The inclusion of USDT further enhances the experience by offering price stability, making it suitable for routine spending.

In line with Zypto’s commitment to user empowerment, the app operates within a self-custodial environment, ensuring that users maintain full control over their digital assets while benefiting from an intuitive and secure interface.

This launch marks another step in Zypto’s broader strategy to enhance the practical value of digital assets. By enabling TRX and USDT to function as everyday money within a unified ecosystem, Zypto is helping redefine how users interact with blockchain-based finance.

Find out more here.

Closing remark

For developers building on TON, the recommendation is to update their apps to use streaming APIs rather than polling. In other words, the blockchain is faster. Apps need to catch up.

TRON’s focus on fast, low-cost stablecoin transfers is extending into everyday use cases such as event ticketing. The ticketing service allows users to spend existing crypto holdings directly on real-world experiences.

The high cost of mining and shrinking profit margins threaten the viability of Bitcoin mining, with AI models becoming much more attractive in this environment. Some analysts have warned that XRP may not see long-term growth by 2030, sparking concerns amongst holders.

As digital assets continue to evolve, Zypto’s TRON integration underscores a clear shift from passive ownership to active, real-world utility. This brings users closer to a future in which managing and spending value are both smooth and borderless.

With so much to unpack today, what’s your favorite development?

FAQs

What is the latest with the TON blockchain?

Pavel Durov announced that the TON blockchain is now 10x faster, with transactions confirming in under one second.

What is the latest with TRON?

Uquid has launched Uquid Tickets, a platform built for the TRON network that allows users to purchase event tickets using USDT and other supported tokens.

Why did Coreweave partner with Anthropic?

CoreWeave partnered with Anthropic so its cloud computing data centers can be used for Anthropic’s Claude AI model workloads.

What did Tether launch?

Tether launched QVAC SDK, a software development kit designed to run AI applications directly on any device without requiring cloud servers.

What is MicroStrategy’s BTC holding?

MicroStrategy’s Bitcoin holdings increased to 780.897 BTC.