A central bank pushed 200 real remittances through USDC to find where the savings actually sit, and landed on the conversion at each end rather than the chain in the middle. That edge, where digital money meets the older system, is where all four of today’s stories get decided.
- Bank of Italy priced 200 USDC transfers across 10 corridors and found a range from 0.3% to nearly 9%.
- Aviva Investors put a share class of a $1.23 billion money market fund onto the XRP Ledger with the Central Bank of Ireland’s approval.
- One in four Canadian adults now owns crypto, up from one in ten three years ago.
- Idle USDC, USDT and ether can earn through Uniswap’s new Earn product, built on Morpho vaults.
Ownership is the settled part. What today’s stories argue over is the step after it: what a balance can do once it arrives, and how much of it survives the trip.
The last mile sets the price of a stablecoin remittance
Source: Cointelegraph
The Bank of Italy tested 200 USDC remittances across 10 bidirectional corridors linking Italy with Brazil, Argentina, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and South Africa. Costs ran from 0.3% to nearly 9% depending on the route.
Settlement arrived in under 20 minutes wherever an instant payment system waited at the far end, and took one to two business days where none existed. Measured against the World Bank’s 6.65% global average, stablecoins came out cheaper in most corridors tested. Measured against Wise, they won in three of seven comparable routes.
The researchers traced the spread to fiat conversion fees and domestic payment systems rather than blockchain fees, and noted that spending the stablecoin directly, with no conversion at all, would widen the advantage considerably.
Zypto take: The study’s own closing line is the useful one, because if the cost lives in the exit then the answer is to skip the exit. Settling a bill straight from the stablecoin already does that across 87,000+ billers in 126 countries with Zypto bill pay.
Aviva puts a $1.23 billion fund on the XRP Ledger
Source: Ledger Insights
Aviva Investors has launched a tokenized share class of its US Dollar Liquidity Fund on the XRP Ledger following approval from the Central Bank of Ireland. The fund holds high grade short term dollar debt and money market instruments, carries $1.23 billion across its existing share classes, and sets a £1 million minimum on the token version.
The structure is deliberately narrow. Each token is tied to one traditional share of the fund, cannot exist independently of it, is non-transferable, and is reconciled daily against the conventional register. BNY Mellon keeps custody of the underlying assets, Komainu holds the digital side, and Licuido supplies the tokenization. It is the first live product from Aviva’s February partnership with Ripple.
Zypto take: A fund whose tokens cannot yet move is a cautious first move, and cautious first moves are how public chains end up carrying regulated money. Self custody is where this lands once the transfer restrictions come off, which is why XRP and the wider real world asset category sit in the same wallet as everything else.
One in four Canadians now owns crypto
Source: crypto.news
The Ontario Securities Commission’s latest survey puts Canadian crypto ownership at 25%, up from 10% in 2023. It polled 2,360 Canadian adults between December 2025 and January 2026, and found awareness of crypto assets at 59%.
Understanding lagged behind the buying. Only about half of owners checked whether a platform was registered before opening an account or making a transaction, and the regulator found respondents unclear on how platforms are regulated, whether digital assets carry insurance protections, and which transactions can be reversed or recovered.
Zypto take: Getting a quarter of the adult population to own something is the hard part, and it is done. What that balance can do on an ordinary Tuesday is the open question, which is what Zypto App answers across 24,000+ assets and 20+ blockchains while the keys stay on your own device. Download Zypto App.
Uniswap opens an earning route for idle stablecoins
Source: The Block
Uniswap has launched Earn, a lending product built with Morpho, the second largest decentralized lending protocol. Depositors place USDC, USDT or ether into one of three Gauntlet-curated Morpho vaults, the assets are lent through Morpho’s markets, and the interest borrowers pay flows back to depositors.
Custody stays where it started. Users keep control of their assets and can withdraw at any time. Uniswap staff product manager Anthony Beshay described it as “a simple way to put their assets to work without needing to manage concentrated liquidity positions”, which is a fair account of what has kept most people away from liquidity provision so far.
Zypto take: Custody staying put while a balance earns is the detail worth noticing here. Zypto App reaches protocols like this through its in-app Web3 browser and WalletConnect, so USDC and the rest of the stablecoins never leave your keys to get there.
Key Takeaways
- The cheapest leg of a stablecoin transfer is the one that runs on a blockchain. The expense collects where the money meets a bank, a cash counter or a domestic payment system.
- The strongest version of a stablecoin payment is the one that never converts, which is why settling a bill directly keeps more value than cashing out and paying in local currency.
- Regulated money is reaching public chains through the narrowest available door. Non-transferable tokens, daily reconciliation and familiar custodians are the price of the first approval, and they make the second one easier.
- Ownership has stopped being the interesting number in mature markets. A quarter of Canadian adults hold something, so the contest now is over what that holding can actually do.
- Watch the idle balance next. Once earning, spending and paying all work from one self-custodied wallet, the case for parking assets on someone else’s platform gets thinner.
