The money layer is being rebuilt in the open, and today you can watch it happen at three altitudes at once. A government running short on dollars is weighing whether a stablecoin can carry its everyday payments, a Tokyo payments firm just turned stablecoins into a shop-counter transaction, and NEAR rewired its own cryptography to outlast quantum computers.
- Bolivia is evaluating whether Tether’s USDT can circulate alongside the boliviano and the dollar.
- In Japan, Netstars opened Stablecoin Pay, letting merchants take USDC, USDT and JPYC on the terminals they already own.
- One transaction is now all it takes to rotate a NEAR account onto quantum-safe keys.
- Back in Washington, the CLARITY Act returns to the Senate calendar with a narrow window before the August recess.
Ownership, movement, participation. Bolivia and Netstars are stories about value moving and being used where dollars and banks fall short, while NEAR and the CLARITY Act are about making that ownership durable, in code and in law.
Bolivia weighs adding USDT to its national payment system
Source: CoinDesk
Bolivia’s Economy Minister José Gabriel Espinoza said the government is evaluating whether Tether’s USDT could circulate formally alongside the boliviano and the US dollar, as part of a technical review of how stablecoins might fit the national payment system. No implementation rules exist yet, and any rollout would need tighter anti-money-laundering controls, since Bolivia sits on the FATF grey list.
The context is a hard dollar shortage. Bolivia dropped its 15-year dollar peg earlier this year, and crypto activity has climbed sharply since the central bank lifted restrictions in June 2024, with transaction volumes rising from $46.5 million in the first half of 2024 to $294 million a year later.
Zypto take: When local currency wobbles and dollars vanish from the shelves, a stablecoin stops being a trading chip and becomes the steadiest money a person can actually hold. That is the gap Zypto already works to close, holding Tether in self-custody and turning stablecoins into physical cash through USDC to Cash for people whose bank cannot hand them dollars.
NEAR turns on post-quantum signatures with its v2.13.0 upgrade
Source: NEAR
NEAR activated its v2.13.0 mainnet upgrade on Monday, adding support for ML-DSA-65, a post-quantum signature scheme standardized by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. Accounts can now rotate to quantum-safe keys in a single transaction, and the switch is transparent, so token holders and apps have nothing to do.
The release also lets the network split busy shards automatically under load, and adds a gas-key system so apps can sponsor their users’ transaction fees.
Zypto take: Quantum machines that could break today’s signatures are still years out, and the chains hardening their cryptography now are the ones that will still be guarding value when that day arrives. Self-custody only means something if the keys behind it stay yours across decades, which is the whole reason to hold them on your own device in the Zypto App instead of leaving them with someone else.
Netstars launches Stablecoin Pay for Japanese merchants
Source: Cointelegraph
Japanese payments firm Netstars opened its Stablecoin Pay service on Monday, letting merchants accept USDC, USDT and the yen-pegged JPYC across the Solana and Polygon networks, with MetaMask as the first supported wallet. The merchant fee is 0.98%, most existing terminals keep working, and shops can price, record and settle everything in yen even when a customer pays in a dollar stablecoin.
Netstars said the design removes any need for merchants to hold crypto or track exchange rates. The commercial launch follows trials at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and a trading-card shop in Himeji.
Zypto take: The merchants who win with crypto are the ones who never have to think about it, taking digital dollars at the counter and watching local currency land in the books. That is the entire idea behind Zypto Pay, which settles into fiat or crypto with 0% merchant-side processing fees, online or in person, across chains like Solana.
The CLARITY Act returns to a divided Senate
Source: PYMNTS
The US Senate came back on July 13 with the CLARITY Act, the bill that would sort digital assets into securities or commodities, facing a tight run before the August recess. A merged version from the Banking and Agriculture committees is expected this week, and floor consideration could come as soon as the week of July 20.
Three fights are still open: a conflict-of-interest rule barring officials from holding crypto stakes while in office, developer protections, and whether stablecoins can pay yield. Prediction market Polymarket now puts 2026 passage near 48%, down from roughly 74% a month ago.
Zypto take: Clear rules on what is a security and what is not are what let ordinary people take part without wondering whether the asset in their wallet is quietly offside. The stablecoin-yield question at the heart of this fight matters most, because stablecoins are already how millions of people move and hold value every day.
Key Takeaways
- Stablecoins are settling into the base layer of real economies, from Bolivia’s payment system to a Tokyo shop counter, where they function as everyday working money.
- The strongest adoption stories share a shape: crypto fades into the background while people simply get paid, pay, or hold value.
- Security is becoming a long game, with NEAR hardening its keys against threats that are still years from arriving.
- Law is catching up to behavior, as the CLARITY Act tries to put names to what people are already doing with digital assets.
- Watch the next two weeks. A US market-structure vote and a Bolivian decision could each reset how stablecoins are treated in two very different economies.
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