The quiet work of this cycle is happening at the patent office and in the fee charts. Circle bought IBM’s blockchain patent estate outright, research showed three major networks carrying more traffic for less money than a year ago, and two very different gatekeepers, a Shariah advisory board and a securities regulator, spent the day widening who is allowed to take part.
- Circle now holds nearly 1,000 blockchain patents after buying IBM’s estate.
- Cheaper blockspace, more transactions, token prices down over 50%: Bitwise counted all three at once.
- A Shariah certification opens Tether’s gold token to Islamic finance.
- Seven firms, four of them building tokenization, entered Zimbabwe’s regulatory sandbox.
Adoption is increasingly decided by who controls the technology and who is permitted to use it. Both questions moved today, and neither of them has much to do with price.
Circle buys nearly 1,000 blockchain patents from IBM
Source: Decrypt
Circle acquired IBM’s blockchain patent estate, taking on more than 680 patent families and nearly 1,000 issued patents worldwide. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The company said the portfolio covers foundational blockchain technology, banking, financial services, insurance, enterprise systems, supply chain verification and secure cloud operations, and that it will apply it across USDC, the Circle Payments Network and its Arc blockchain. The deal makes Circle the largest holder of blockchain patents in the United States. Its general counsel called intellectual property “critical to advancing our mission and expanding adoption of onchain infrastructure.”
Zypto take: Patents decide who gets to build the next version of digital dollars, which is a long way from what a USDC balance does for the person actually holding one.
That part is already answered. USDC to Cash turns USDC into physical local currency at participating MoneyGram locations, with no bank account and no card needed.
Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche get busier and cheaper
Source: The Block
A Bitwise report found that Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche each carried more onchain activity at lower cost over the past year while all three tokens fell more than 50%.
Network revenues dropped sharply across the trio, which the report puts down mainly to protocol choices that made blockspace cheaper and more plentiful. Bitwise head of onchain research Kam Benbrik summarized it as blockchains “becoming cheaper” while “onchain activity is actually increasing.”
Zypto take: Falling cost and rising usage is exactly what the technology was built to do, even though it reads badly on a price chart. Networks that are cheap to use get used more, and that is how a payment method turns ordinary.
The multichain wallet in Zypto App moves value across 20+ blockchains in-app, so Ethereum and Solana are both just places value passes through.
Tether’s gold token clears a Shariah review
Source: Cointelegraph
Amanah Advisors issued a Shariah certification for Tether’s XAUt gold token, citing full backing by physical gold, the absence of interest and leverage, and transparent reserves. Each token represents one troy ounce of gold held in Swiss vaults.
XAUt was backed by more than 707,000 troy ounces, worth over $3.3 billion, as of March 31. The certification gives Tether a clearer route to Islamic financial institutions across the Gulf Cooperation Council, South Asia and parts of Africa.
Zypto take: This changes who is allowed to hold tokenized gold, which is a wider unlock than any feature release. Whole regions sat out over a compliance question rather than a technical one.
Gold, invoices and property all follow the same path. Real-world assets only begin to matter once the people who want them can participate.
Zimbabwe admits seven fintech firms to its sandbox
Source: Bitcoin.com News
The Securities and Exchange Commission of Zimbabwe admitted seven fintech firms into its regulatory sandbox, with tokenization the dominant theme of the cohort. Four of the seven are building tokenization platforms for assets, infrastructure or securities, joined by a blockchain capital-raising exchange, a crowdfunding platform and a synthetic trading venue.
The sandbox lets participants test products inside set parameters and timeframes before going to market, with the regulator keeping authority to monitor and issue directives. Its stated objective is to “facilitate responsible innovation, boost financial inclusion, and encourage the development of a fair, transparent and efficient capital market in Zimbabwe.”
Zypto take: A country with hard experience of currency collapse is writing tokenization rules with financial inclusion as the stated goal, which is a better reason to regulate than most.
Participation should not depend on where someone happens to live. Zypto App puts self-custody wallets across 20+ blockchains on any phone, in 25+ languages. Download Zypto App.
Key Takeaways
- The value in this cycle is collecting in the layer nobody screenshots: patents, fee schedules, and the rulebooks that decide who can take part.
- Token prices and network usage can move in opposite directions for a year, and only one of the two tells you whether the technology is working.
- Access is now as much a compliance question as a technical one. A certification or a sandbox place can open a market faster than a product launch.
- Watch the countries with the least stable money. They have the strongest reason to build this carefully, and they are moving first.
Related topics
