A stablecoin is a "digital dollar" — a coin pegged to exactly $1 and backed by real cash and government bonds. It's the blood that flows through the crypto world, and it's becoming a genuine rail for cross-border payments. But the secret that lets this business "print money" is a model that's shockingly simple: you deposit your dollars, the issuer buys bonds with them, and keeps the interest for itself. In 2025, a single company made over $10 billion this way — with almost no employees.
News & notes movingStablecoin Issuers & Distribution
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S&P Global Acquires OpenZeppelin to Rate Smart Contract Risk
S&P Global announced on September 17, 2026 that it has acquired OpenZeppelin, the industry standard for smart contract security, in a move that extends the ratings firm's risk-assessment mandate into the technology-risk layer of digital assets. OpenZeppelin's libraries underpin over $37 trillion in cumulative transfers and power 8 of the top 10 stablecoins, including USDC, and 10 of the top 10 tokenized money market funds, such as BlackRock's BUIDL and Franklin Templeton's BENJI. OpenZeppelin will operate as a separate business unit led by CEO Demian Brener, who will report directly to Yann Le Pallec, President of S&P Global Ratings. The deal lands on the same day the SEC granted a 5-year exemption for tokenized NMS stock trading, aligning with the broader GENIUS Act framework, and ahead of the DTCC Tokenization Service launch in October 2026. S&P Global is positioning itself as the gatekeeper of the technical standards regulators are expected to require for tokenized markets.
Europe Runs Live Agent Payments Across 30+ Banks as US Stalls on Liability
Europe has moved agentic payments into live production while the United States remains stalled over who bears the loss when an AI agent errs. Live end-to-end payments have been executed by Santander, Mastercard, ING, and Worldline, and on July 2, 2026, ING, Worldline, and Visa completed an agentic payment in Germany using Visa Payment Passkeys for biometric authentication. Mastercard has enabled all issuers in Europe at the network level for Agent Pay, backed by a new Lisbon Centre of Excellence for Innovation, with Mastercard Europe President Kelly Devine calling agentic payments a profound shift in how commerce is initiated and executed. In the US, the Treasury OIG has flagged ambiguity in Regulation E on agent authorization, and the AI AGENT Act introduced in July 2026 addresses fiduciary duties rather than liability allocation for agent misexecution, prompting the Consumer Bankers Association to recommend the industry write its own private network rules. Hypertrade data shows a 4,700% year-over-year increase in AI-generated traffic to retail sites, yet agentic commerce is less than 1% of US e-commerce, with only 23% of US consumers trusting generative AI to handle payment transactions and 93% of merchants saying the AI provider should bear the financial loss for incorrect purchases.
Mastercard, Visa race to set standards for AI agent shopping payments
Mastercard rolled out a payment option Thursday that lets cardholders give an AI agent a virtual card to buy things online without checking in before each purchase, with limits on spending, retailers, or required approval before checkout. Rival Visa partnered with Alchemy earlier this year and has announced its own AI shopping and payment product, Visa Intelligent Commerce, which the company says is still being deployed, while Meta's Muse can search for products and navigate checkout but presents the purchase for the user's final approval. Phil Bruno, chief strategy and growth officer at payments company ACI Worldwide, called it "a land grab for infrastructure standards," saying that if card companies set the standards for agentic commerce they can keep the commerce in their environments for decades to come. Consumer appetite lags the infrastructure push: just 7% of U.S. and U.K. consumers surveyed who buy fashion items said they would allow an AI assistant to make purchases without approval under predefined conditions, according to research commissioned by ACI Worldwide, and more than half said they were uncomfortable allowing AI to purchase on their behalf. Mastercard has developed a digital paper trail called Verifiable Intent to record who authorized the agent to shop and what it was authorized to buy, but when asked who would be responsible if an agent made an incorrect, fraudulent, or unauthorized purchase, Mastercard pointed back to Verifiable Intent and did not specify who would ultimately be responsible if an agent bought something outside those instructions.
Coinbase Trades at 80.17X Forward P/E, Zacks Rates Stock a Sell
Coinbase Global Inc. shares are trading at a 12-month forward price-to-earnings of 80.17X, a steep premium to the industry average of 15.56X, the broader sector's 16.29X and the Zacks S&P 500 composite's 19.54X, and Zacks Investment Research says investors should avoid the stock given its stretched valuation. The firm assigns Coinbase a Value Score of D and a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), citing softer market volatility, weaker digital asset prices, near-term revenue and earnings pressures, and below-average return on equity. Coinbase shares have gained 6.6% over the past three months, outperforming a 6.4% decline for its industry, a 1.4% gain for the sector and a 0.1% gain for the Zacks S&P 500 composite, a move Zacks attributes to Bitcoin momentum, institutional inflows into spot Bitcoin ETFs for which Coinbase serves as custodian, and improving regulatory clarity. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 now stands at a loss of 21 cents per share, an improvement from a loss of 37 cents expected seven days ago, while the 2027 consensus estimate has moved 13.7% higher over the past seven days. Coinbase is pursuing CEO Brian Armstrong's vision of an "everything exchange," with recent initiatives including regulated derivatives in Canada, an expanded Webull partnership, a collaboration with Moov on stablecoin payment and custody infrastructure for community banks and credit unions, and a nationwide conforming mortgage product backed by crypto assets introduced with Better Mortgage.
Mastercard, Alchemy Launch AgentCard for AI Agent Payments
Alchemy has turned its agent-payment framework into a live developer product called AgentCard, giving AI software agents single-use Mastercard credentials tied to a customer's existing account rather than permanent access to a payment card. Developers can set spending caps, limit eligible merchants and restrict transactions geographically, while users keep their existing rewards and credit arrangements. Alchemy says the service is already available, letting autonomous agents buy goods anywhere Mastercard is accepted online. Mastercard shares were nearly flat at $566.285 Friday morning, and the chart puts the stock 17.09% below a GF Value estimate of $683. Neither company has disclosed pricing, transaction volumes or committed customers yet.
Sam Altman's Worldcoin Launches World Money Stablecoin Super App in 150 Countries
World, the crypto network co-founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, launched a global stablecoin super app called World Money. The self-custody app combines stablecoin balances, payments, trading, investing and yield, and is set to be available in 150 countries. It integrates with Stripe, Bridge and Kalshi, among others. The app's novel approach ties World's proof-of-human verification, the iris-scanning system that gives users free tokens for proving they are human, to a full suite of crypto-powered financial services. World was previously known as Worldcoin.
Bitcoin Tops $80,000 as $445 Million in Shorts Liquidate
Bitcoin surged past $80,000 as a fresh short squeeze liquidated more than $445 million in short positions across the crypto market, with Bitcoin alone accounting for $230 million of that total. The world's largest cryptocurrency is up 5.88% on the day, trading at $80,846 after opening at $76,355 and tagging an intraday high of $80,857 against a low of $76,236. The rally follows a Federal Reserve rate hike of 25 basis points on Wednesday, its first since 2023, paired with a dot plot projecting a median policy rate of just 4.1% through the end of 2027, implying only one more move rather than a sustained tightening cycle. Crypto had extra ground to make up after the failure of the Clarity Act to clear a Senate procedural vote earlier in the week knocked Bitcoin below $75,000, and the relief rally has compounded through the week. Technically, Bitcoin's Average Directional Index sits at 40.6, above the 25 threshold, with the positive directional line above the negative one, while the 50-day exponential moving average trades above the 200-day EMA after a golden cross last Saturday; the Relative Strength Index reads 63.3. Immediate resistance sits at $82,281, with support at $75,569 and then $68,858.
Coinbase Partners With Stablecore to Bring Stablecoins to 3,000-Plus Community Banks
Coinbase announced a partnership with Stablecore on September 16, 2026, embedding digital asset capabilities into the core banking systems used by more than 3,000 community banks and credit unions. The deal plugs Coinbase into existing core banking providers such as Q2 and Jack Henry, letting legacy institutions offer tokenized deposits, digital asset accounts, and collateralized loans without overhauling their technology stacks. It is Coinbase's second major distribution play in September alone: six days earlier, on September 10, the exchange partnered with Moov to bring stablecoin payments and real-time funding to another 1,000-plus institutions. Together the two deals reach into a US long tail of more than 4,700 community banks and 4,700 credit unions. Coinbase's Alec Lovett said community banks and credit unions should not have to choose between staying local and staying current, while Stablecore's Alex Treece said banks should not have to migrate to entirely new platforms to support digital assets. The push comes as the OCC's November deadline looms as a potential catalyst for federal clarity; PYMNTS Intelligence data shows 77% of consumers would open a stablecoin wallet through their existing banking or fintech application, but if the OCC deadline slips or the final rule narrows eligibility, the new integrations stay dormant.
JPYC President Okabe Explains Price Divergence After Upbit Listing, Cites Inventory Shortage and Overnight Work
Regarding the issue of the Japanese yen stablecoin JPYC's price diverging from its roughly 1 yen peg, JPYC President Noritaka Okabe responded to an interview with NADA NEWS on September 18. JPYC was listed on the South Korean crypto exchange Upbit on September 17, and immediately afterward 1 JPYC rose to a level exceeding 2 yen. Arbitrage trades, in which coins issued at 1 yen were sold in the higher-priced market, occurred one after another, and the circulating supply swelled to approximately 4.26 billion JPYC as of 9 a.m. on the 18th, about 2.2 times the previous day's level. Okabe revealed that issuance surged and inventory ran short in the middle of the night, and that employees took on overnight work due to a sharp increase in account applications, and he expressed his gratitude to the employees. He also said he had no knowledge at all of the Upbit listing and had not thought the first day's trading volume would exceed 30 billion yen. Noting that although it is a stablecoin compliant with Japanese regulations, not a single domestic electronic payment method operator has yet begun trading it, he expressed hope for trading to start at an early date. He explained that because JPYC Inc. always receives 1 yen at the time of issuance, it can be redeemed regardless of the secondary market price, and he called on users to use it with peace of mind.
World launches World Money super app in 150 countries, linking Stripe and Apple Pay
World, the identity-focused cryptocurrency project formerly known as Worldcoin, is launching a self-custodial financial app in more than 150 countries under the name World Money, combining stablecoin payments, trading, earnings and a virtual account in a single app. The app supports balances in 8 currencies and connects with Stripe, Kalshi and Morpho. Stripe will power a new top-up system in the United States that lets users convert funds from Apple Pay into stablecoins, typically completing within a few minutes. World ID verification is integrated into the app, including to earn higher returns in the participating Earn program. Features and asset availability vary by jurisdiction. World is a project under Tools for Humanity, a company co-founded by Alex Blania and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The company began moving toward super-app functionality in March 2025, when it added crypto payments and chat to the app, and later that summer Circle launched native USDC on World, replacing bridged USDC in the World App wallet.
JPYC price briefly diverges to 2.2 yen on Upbit listing, circulating supply up 2.2x day-on-day to over 4.2 billion yen
The total circulating supply of JPYC, a Japanese yen-pegged stablecoin, has surpassed 4 billion JPYC, reaching approximately 4.26 billion JPYC, according to the latest data from JPYC info, which compiles on-chain data. That marks an increase of about 2.36 billion JPYC from roughly 1.89963 billion JPYC as of 10:23 on September 17, a 2.2x rise day-on-day. The trigger was the start of JPYC trading on September 17 on the South Korean crypto exchange Upbit, which opened three markets for the token: Korean won, Bitcoin, and Tether, marking the first time a Korean won-denominated trading pair has been offered for JPYC. Immediately after trading began, the price diverged sharply from its baseline level of around 1 yen, with CoinMarketCap recording a temporary high of about 2.2 yen per JPYC. At the start of trading, the only network Upbit supported for deposits and withdrawals was Ethereum, and JPYC on Ethereum accounted for only about 7 percent of the total at the time, which is seen as one reason the available supply was limited. The price gap drew a rush of funds from investors seeking arbitrage, and reports proliferated on X of users who issued JPYC at 1 yen and swapped it for USDC on DEXs such as Uniswap to turn a profit. As of September 18, Polygon ranked first in circulating supply by chain, followed by Ethereum in second and Kaia in third, and after trading began Upbit also began supporting deposits from Kaia and Polygon.
WisdomTree and MoonPay Partner on Tokenized Money Market Funds
WisdomTree and MoonPay announced a strategic partnership on September 17 aimed at expanding access to tokenized funds in the United States and supporting the management of stablecoin reserves. At the center is the tokenized money market fund WisdomTree Treasury Money Market Digital Fund, or WTGXX. WisdomTree will build an acquisition channel using MoonPay's technology and infrastructure, extending distribution from its own channel through its securities subsidiary to MoonPay, which has more than 35 million accounts. Eligible U.S. investors will be able to put money into the tokenized money market fund through infrastructure they already use, and for MoonPay, WTGXX becomes a means of managing reserves within a regulated and highly transparent structure. According to RWA.xyz, the tokenized U.S. Treasury fund market stood at 15.4 billion dollars as of September 17, shrinking about 4.9% over 30 days, and within that market WTGXX ranked fifth by ticker at 1.23 billion dollars, with net inflows of 466 million dollars over the most recent 30 days.
Visa Joins Mastercard and Ant International on AI Agent Identity Standards
Visa has joined Mastercard and Ant International in pushing for common identity standards for AI purchasing agents, proposing a Know-Your-Agent framework that would let verified trust signals travel across card networks, digital wallets, marketplaces and agent platforms without forcing every participant into the same approval system. Under the proposal, each company would still decide which agents it trusts, while shared certification, identifiable operators and ongoing transaction monitoring could give the emerging agent-commerce ecosystem a common security backbone. Visa shares slipped approximately 0.4% to $369.39. For Visa, interoperability cuts both ways: common standards could strip friction out of agent payments, reduce duplicated verification and accelerate adoption across merchants and platforms, potentially expanding the pool of transactions flowing through Visa's network, but Visa would not control the identity layer alone. No transaction-volume, pricing or revenue commitments were disclosed.
Visa's Agent Commerce Gap: Hundreds of Beta Transactions Versus Millions Projected
Visa reported in December 2025 that it had completed "hundreds" of secure, agent-initiated transactions in a closed beta, while projecting that "millions" of consumers will use AI agents to complete purchases by the 2026 holiday season. That gap between a few hundred test cases and a multi-million-transaction reality marks the adoption ceiling for agentic commerce, held back by three structural barriers: consumer trust, merchant liability, and protocol proliferation. According to the Visa Earning Trust Report, only 23% of U.S. consumers trust generative AI to handle payment transactions, and PYMNTS Intelligence found that just 14% trust AI to execute purchases without manual verification, while 93% of merchants believe the AI provider should bear the financial loss for incorrect purchases and only 28% are willing to offer their full product range to AI agents. The technical landscape is fragmented across at least five competing checkout protocols, including Visa Intelligent Commerce, Mastercard Agent Pay, Stripe ACP, Google UCP, and Meta Muse, with integration costs ranging from $5,000 to $500,000 per protocol. Visa is attempting to bridge the gap with Intelligent Commerce Connect, a network-, protocol-, and token-vault-agnostic integration platform, but it remains unproven at the scale required to hit Visa's holiday 2026 targets, and Bernstein research notes that agentic commerce currently accounts for less than 1% of U.S. e-commerce.
Coinbase CEO Says AI Agents Will Need Their Own Financial Infrastructure
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said AI agents will need their own financial infrastructure, telling Scott Melker that the company has built a set of tools for the agentic economy. Armstrong said the existing payment rails are sometimes not sufficient for AI because agents want to move very fast, make payments globally, and in some cases transact in very small amounts. The stack includes the Base blockchain, the USDC stablecoin that Coinbase co-created with Circle, and the X402 protocol, which Coinbase created and which is now under the Linux Foundation in collaboration with Google, AWS, CloudFlare and others. He said X402 allows agents to pay each other in real time instantly all over the world, even in very small transaction amounts like a couple of cents at a time, which traditional payment rails do not really support. Armstrong also said Coinbase has been able to bring perpetual futures products to the US under this administration, calling them a pretty killer app in the trading world, and that he expects a future not too far off in which more agents transact in the economy than humans.
House Committee Advances Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act 38-5
The House Ways and Means Committee advanced the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act by a bipartisan 38 to 5 vote, one day after the Senate rejected the CLARITY Act on September 15. The bill creates a de minimis exemption for network or transaction fees of $10 or less, though it does not exempt the underlying purchase, so buying a coffee with Bitcoin would still trigger a capital-gains calculation while the blockchain fee could be exempt; the exemption would not apply to service providers processing transactions for others. The bill also extends wash-sale rules to widely traded digital assets, ending the practice of selling Bitcoin at a loss and immediately repurchasing it to offset gains, and it establishes tax treatment for stablecoins, lending, mining, and staking. Representative Steven Horsford pushed for the small-transaction exemption during committee consideration, while an earlier proposal to defer taxes on mining and staking income until the assets were sold was dropped from the version that advanced. Representative Lloyd Doggett opposed the bill, arguing its provisions favor the crypto industry over broader taxpayer priorities, and no full House vote has been scheduled, with a larger year-end tax package a possible route.
Senate Blocks Clarity Act as Coinbase CEO Cites Mixed Impact
The US Senate voted 49–50 against advancing the Clarity Act, a key piece of proposed crypto market-structure legislation. Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the bill would have been beneficial overall for America through durability and clarity of the rules, but that it also carried a downside for Coinbase. He explained that regulatory clarity would have prompted every major financial services company in the world to start integrating crypto, bringing far more competition. Armstrong said it could arguably be better for Coinbase to proceed under the current path, since it is one of the few companies willing to go through it, though he remains focused on growing crypto adoption globally, including in the United States. He added that it was frustrating to see people retreat into tribal camps and forget the bigger picture.
Mastercard Targets Small-Business Growth With New Collection for Business
Mastercard is positioning itself beyond payments with a new Collection for Business offering, citing survey findings that small businesses prioritize stability and integrated tools. Its Dreamonomics survey of more than 6,000 SMEs across 18 countries found that 68% prioritize stability and predictability over rapid growth, while 54% avoid unnecessary financial risk, and 61% favor deeper customer relationships over simply reaching more buyers. The new Collection for Business combines payment capabilities with productivity tools, travel and lifestyle benefits, cybersecurity support and business-focused experiences for eligible cardholders. Mastercard sees clear gaps: SMEs already rely on five digital tools on average, yet 89% intend to add more and 78% say integrated tools are critical, while 71% consider cyber protection a priority but only 37% currently use cybersecurity tools. Rival Visa launched its Visa & Main platform with a $100 million working-capital facility, and American Express offers its Business Blueprint, as Mastercard shares have lost 0.5% year to date compared with the broader industry's 11.2% decline.
Coinbase Trades 47% Below High as 24/7 Wall St. Sets $212.94 Buy Target
24/7 Wall St. has issued a BUY rating on Coinbase with a 12-month price target of $212.94, implying 23.73% upside from a current price of $172.11, even as the stock sits 47.37% below its 52-week high. The call follows a rough second quarter in which revenue of $1.22 billion fell 18.5% year over year and missed consensus by 5.36%, with GAAP EPS of -$1.36, as total crypto spot trading volume dropped 25% quarter over quarter. The bull case rests on diversification: subscription and services reached 48% of net revenue in Q2, prediction markets already exceed $100 million in annualized revenue, average USDC held on platform hit an all-time high of $20 billion, and Base has processed roughly $32 trillion in trailing 12-month stablecoin transfer volume, with management projecting the stablecoin market will grow tenfold from $300 billion today to $3 trillion by 2030. The bear case is equally blunt: consumer transaction revenue fell 20% year over year and institutional dropped 26%, assets on platform slid to $246 billion from $294 billion, and the FY2026 EPS estimate has collapsed from $0.8953 ninety days ago to -$1.9697 today on 13 downward revisions in the past 30 days. For comparison, Robinhood posted Q2 2026 revenue up 32% year over year to $1.31 billion and carries an $87 billion market cap versus Coinbase's $38 billion, while CME Group reported $1.71 billion in quarterly revenue at a $99 billion market cap. 24/7 Wall St.'s bull scenario points to $361.40, while its bear scenario lands at $186.62, still above the current price.
Ripple updates XRPL AI Starter Kit to version 1.1 with support for Stripe and Tempo's MPP standard
Ripple has expanded its developer toolkit on the XRP Ledger network to support payment standards created by Stripe and Tempo. Version 1.1 of the XRPL AI Starter Kit adds support for the Machine Payments Protocol, or MPP, and the Open Wallet Standard, which lets software manage wallets across multiple blockchains through a central interface. According to a post by a developer from RippleX, the update gives developers another option for enabling AI agents to pay for data, computing power, and other online services with cryptocurrency. Jazzi Cooper, head of product at RippleX, wrote on the X platform that their job is to make XRP and RLUSD excellent choices everywhere developers start building. RLUSD is Ripple's stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. Ripple previously added support for x402, another standard for web payments, in June, and has now added MPP, backing both systems rather than betting on just one. MPP, co-written by payments company Stripe and Tempo, a blockchain built specifically for payments, provides a way for AI agents to pay on the fly: a service provider responds to a request with a price, the agent approves the payment, and the provider delivers the requested resource. The payments software remains in beta, and Ripple's announcement did not name any customers using the new MPP integration commercially, nor did it provide any payment transaction volume figures.
SBI and Kyobo Life Complete Proof of Concept for Direct Yen-Won Stablecoin Exchange
Kyobo Life Insurance of South Korea announced on September 17 that it had completed a proof of concept for institutional fund transfers between Japan and South Korea conducted with the SBI Group. Since July, the two parties have tested a mechanism for directly exchanging yen-denominated and won-denominated stablecoins to move funds from Japan to South Korea without going through the US dollar, using test tokens. SBI Digital Practice, an SBI Group subsidiary, took part in the trial, confirming the flow of fund transfers, foreign exchange swaps, and settlement in the test environment of Canton Network, a blockchain for financial institutions. According to Kyobo Life, this is the first time South Korea's insurance industry has verified the full cross-border processing chain for institutional funds. Kyobo Life said the trial confirmed that the intermediary foreign exchange procedures could be simplified, processing times shortened, and transaction information tracked.
CEA Estimates Minimal Impact on Bank Lending Even With Stricter Stablecoin Yield Rules
The White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) on September 15 published a re-examination finding that tightening regulation of stablecoin yields would do little to protect bank lending. In the CEA's base case, a full ban on yields would move about $54 billion from stablecoins into bank deposits, while the increase in bank lending would be only about $2.1 billion, or 0.02% of the loan balance, with lending by small and mid-sized regional banks rising by about $500 million. Even in a case where stablecoins grow from about 1.7% of bank deposits to 10%, a yield ban would increase lending by only about $11.1 billion, or 0.09% of the loan balance, the CEA estimates. The banking industry has argued that yield-bearing stablecoins could substitute for bank deposits and affect lending. The American Bankers Association (ABA), in an April 13 rebuttal, criticized the CEA for failing to adequately capture deposit outflows if the market expands, and on September 10 again urged lawmakers to tighten yield rules under the Clarity Act. The sticking point is that the GENIUS Act, enacted on July 18, 2025, bars issuers from paying interest or yield, while it does not explicitly prohibit third parties such as exchanges from offering rewards to holders.
CLARITY Act May Be Revived in Lame-Duck Session After Senate Rejects It in 60-Vote Threshold
The CLARITY Act, a crypto market structure bill, may get another chance in the U.S. Congress during the post-election lame-duck session, even after it failed to advance in the Senate this week, according to Adrian Wall, managing director of the Digital Sovereignty Alliance. Wall said on Wednesday that he had spoken directly with senators from both parties who are considering pushing the bill again before the current Congress expires, stressing that he heard this from the senators themselves, not from congressional staff. His comments came after Tuesday's Senate cloture vote failed, leaving the bill short of the 60 votes needed to move forward. Wall described Tuesday's vote as a major blow, but not necessarily the end of the bill, and said that if another lame-duck attempt fails, the next Congress can pick up the pen and continue work on the crypto market structure legislation. The Digital Sovereignty Alliance is a nonprofit advocacy and campaign group that works with lawmakers and regulators on digital asset policy.
Circle Launches Arc, a New Blockchain for USDC Fees
Circle, the major US stablecoin issuer, announced on September 16 that it has launched the mainnet of Arc, its underlying layer-1 blockchain. Arc is designed so that transaction processing fees are paid in the dollar-denominated stablecoin USDC, with settlements finalized in under one second, and it also offers security features for institutional investors such as confidential transactions and quantum-resistant signatures. The founding validators that approve transactions include 11 companies, among them BlackRock, the US DTCC, Visa, Mastercard, SBI Group, and Sumitomo Corporation. Arc is linked to StableFX, a foreign exchange platform that exchanges multiple currencies around the clock, and JPYC, the company issuing the Japanese yen stablecoin JPYC, is also listed as a participating partner currency. By the 16th, Circle had completed the issuance of an initial supply of 10 billion of its own token, ARC, and aims to migrate to proof of stake around 2027, saying it is the world's first listed company to issue its own token on a new layer-1.
SEC and CFTC Move Ahead with Their Own Crypto Rules After Clarity Act Fails in Senate
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or CFTC, are moving ahead with their own rules to regulate digital assets after the draft Clarity Act failed to pass the U.S. Senate. Michael Selig and Paul Atkins are the key figures leading this push, with the two agencies set to jointly set out a regulatory framework for the U.S. crypto and digital asset market, including issues related to stablecoins. The move follows the failure of efforts in Congress to pass a new digital asset law.
US Senate Rejects Motion to Begin Debate on Clarity Act, Crypto-Linked Stocks Fall
On the 15th, the US Senate rejected a cloture motion on a motion to begin debate on the Clarity Act, a cryptocurrency regulation bill, by a vote of 49 to 50, falling far short of the 60 votes needed. In response, Coinbase shares fell about 10%, Circle shares about 11%, and Strategy shares about 5%. Saxo Bank investment strategist Ruben Dalfovo noted in a September 16 report that the risks facing the three companies differ, and analyzed that Coinbase is most directly affected by the Clarity Act's progress. According to him, Coinbase posted a record share of crypto trading in the second quarter, and the average USDC balance held within its services reached 20 billion dollars. Circle's main risk factors, meanwhile, are USDC adoption and interest rates, while Strategy's are the bitcoin price and its funding structure. The Senate is scheduled to adjourn on December 18, and Republican Tom Tillis has filed a motion to reconsider, but Bernstein sees little chance of a revote and expects the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to move quickly to formulate rules.
US Senate Fails to Advance Clarity Act as SEC and CFTC Move to Regulate Under Existing Authority
The US Securities and Exchange Commission and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission indicated separately on September 16 that they will use their existing legal authority to advance rulemaking on crypto assets. On September 15, the US Senate held a cloture vote to begin consideration of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, a bill aimed at building a comprehensive federal framework to regulate the crypto industry, but the vote was 49 in favor and 50 against, falling short of the 60 votes needed. As a result, the focus of US crypto regulation may shift from Congress to the regulators. SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said on X that regardless of whether legislation is enacted, the SEC will "act resolutely" within the scope of its legal authority, and expressed his intention to provide regulatory certainty to US investors and the entrepreneurs driving technological innovation. CFTC Chairman Michael Selig also called the Senate vote result "unfortunate," stressed that the crypto market needs regulatory clarity, legal certainty, and consumer protection, and indicated a policy of advancing rulemaking using existing legal authority, saying "we are ready to publish rules for a new frontier in finance."
Circle Agrees to Buy Tazapay for About $400 Million in Stock
Circle Internet Group agreed on September 8 to acquire Singapore-based Tazapay, a payments provider serving payment providers and financial institutions, for approximately $400 million in Class A common stock, subject to adjustments for debt, cash, and transaction expenses, plus $25 million of post-closing employee restricted stock unit awards. As of July 31, 2026, Tazapay had more than $25 billion of annualized payment volume, over 60 banking and fintech partners, and payout capabilities across more than 100 markets, with roughly 60% of that transaction volume involving stablecoins, though USDC's share was not specified. Closing is expected in 2027, subject to customary conditions and regulatory approvals, including approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Circle reported second-quarter reserve income of approximately $668 million against $701 million of total revenue and reserve income, with reserve income representing roughly 95% of the total and other revenue at approximately $34 million. The announcement did not disclose Tazapay's revenue, margins, or customer concentration, and the stock consideration would dilute existing shareholders.
Clarity Act Fails to Advance in Senate, Stalling Crypto Regulation
The Clarity Act failed to advance in the Senate, stalling crypto regulation. Scott Melker discussed the bill's failure on "The Daily Wolf with Scott Melker," where he also covered the Fed's expected interest rate hike and Circle's launch of its Arc blockchain. Markets are pricing a quarter-point rate hike at roughly 93%, which would be the first increase since 2023, with Kevin Warsh facing pressure from Trump, who appointed him expecting lower rates. Melker noted that three committee members already wanted hikes at the last meeting and that seven would be needed this meeting to move rates even if Warsh prefers to hold steady.
Circle Launches Arc Mainnet With BlackRock, Visa Among Validators
Circle has launched the public mainnet of Arc, a Layer 1 blockchain built for payments, trading and agentic economic activity, with BlackRock, the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation, ICE, Mastercard, MoneyGram, SBI Group, Standard Chartered, Sumitomo, Visa, Worldpay and Galaxy forming its founding cohort of validators. Chief executive Jeremy Allaire called it the single most significant launch in Circle's history since USDC itself, and the USDC stablecoin, with around $74 billion in circulation, serves as the chain's gas token. Circle completed the genesis mint of ARC this week, creating all 10 billion tokens and making it the first publicly traded company to mint a network token for a new Layer 1, though the company said the mint is not a commitment to publicly launch ARC and described it as a technical step toward a possible move from proof of authority to proof of stake in 2027. Circle had already raised $222 million in an Arc token presale at a $3 billion valuation. Banks with access include BNY, HSBC, Societe Generale and State Street, while Aave and Morpho anchor lending, Uniswap, Aero and fomo provide trading, and Binance, Kraken, Bybit and OKX offer routes in, with Coinbase to follow; BlackRock's BUIDL and Circle's USYC provide tokenized collateral. Circle said USDC accounts for 98.8% of agent-driven transaction volume, citing Dune, and that Arc's testnet, launched last year with BlackRock and Visa among the participants, processed more than 700 million transactions in under a year.
XRP Falls 9.4% After Senate Clarity Act Vote Fails 49-50
XRP tumbled 9.4% over the past 24 hours to trade at $1.28 after the Senate failed to advance the CLARITY Act, a bill that would have made the token's commodity status permanent under U.S. law. The cloture motion failed 49 to 50, falling 11 votes short of the required 60 and one vote short of a simple majority, with Senator Chris Coons not participating. XRP's commodity status currently rests on a joint SEC and CFTC interpretation from March 17, 2026 that classified it as one of 16 digital commodities, which a future commission could alter by vote. Coinbase, the exchange most affected by the bill, fell 8.65%, while Bitcoin slipped only 1.2%, Ethereum fell 2.9% and Solana dropped 3.4%. XRP also broke below its 200-day moving average at $1.355, which it had held for five sessions, touching an intraday low of $1.276. Senator Thom Tillis filed a motion to reconsider at 3:01 p.m., and Kalshi traders put the odds of it passing before year-end at 20%. Attention now turns to the Federal Reserve's 2 p.m. ET rate decision, with CME FedWatch showing a 92% chance of the first rate hike in three years; support sits at $1.25, then $1.21 and $1.10, with an August 17, 2026 low of $0.9877.
Senate Blocks CLARITY Act in 49-50 Cloture Vote, Sinking XRP and Crypto-Linked Stocks
The Senate voted 49 to 50 on September 15 against opening debate on the CLARITY Act, falling eleven votes short of the 60 needed for cloture and leaving the crypto market-structure bill dead for the year. Four Republicans broke ranks, with Susan Collins, Josh Hawley and Jerry Moran opposing the bill on its merits over community-bank concerns about the stablecoin yield provision, while Thom Tillis voted no on procedural grounds and filed a motion to reconsider at 3:01 p.m. Seven Democrats who helped negotiate the text, including Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Warner, Cory Booker, Raphael Warnock, Ruben Gallego, Angela Alsobrooks and Catherine Cortez Masto, ultimately voted against it, with Elissa Slotkin calling the ethics provisions too thin. After the vote, XRP fell 7.98% to $1.29, Bitcoin dropped 1.42% to $75,924, Ethereum declined 3.15% to $2,404 and Solana slipped 3.67% to $97.23, while listed companies tied to market structure fell hardest, with Coinbase down roughly 8% and Circle about 11%. Polymarket, which priced the bill becoming law in 2026 at 82% in February, now puts the odds near 7%, and Kalshi traders price passage before January 1, 2027 at 20%. The SEC's Regulation Crypto Assets proposal introduced September 1, 2026, the March 17 joint SEC-CFTC interpretation and a blockchain transfer-agent overhaul cover much of what Congress left unlegislated, but agency rules can be revoked by a future chair, unlike a statute.
Bitcoin Holds Near $76K as Analysts Say Fed Outweighs Clarity Act Failure
Bitcoin traded around $76,140 Wednesday morning, down 0.9% on the day and 4% for the week, a day after senators blocked the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Analysts argued the legislation's failure, while disappointing, matters less for Bitcoin's price than today's Fed decision, with Stephen Wundke of Algoz putting the odds of a quarter-point increase at 93%, in line with CME FedWatch, up from 33.1% a month ago. Talos data showed a 28% net buying tilt toward stablecoins ahead of the decision versus an average 8% selling tilt around previous FOMC meetings, with Bitcoin buying conviction falling from 10% to 3% and Ethereum from 23% to 9%, according to research analyst Cooper Duschang. Tim Sun of HashKey argued the true pricing mechanism for this downturn remains U.S. dollar liquidity rather than congressional legislation, while CFTC Chair Michael Selig and SEC Chair Paul Atkins have both signaled their agencies can write crypto rules under existing authority. On prediction market Myriad, owned by Decrypt's parent company Dastan, users placed a 72% chance on Bitcoin's next move taking it to $84,000.
Ripple's RLUSD Hits $2.345 Billion Market Cap as Acquisition Strategy Builds Institutional Settlement Rails
Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin has reached approximately $2.345 billion in market cap as of September 16, 2026, a 1,278% year-to-date increase that makes it the third-fastest growing stablecoin of the year, with daily transfer activity tripling since January to $750 million per day by August. Roughly $963 million of the token sits on the XRP Ledger and $1.05 billion on Ethereum. Ripple is pursuing a vertically integrated strategy built on acquisitions rather than validators, including the $1.25 billion purchase of Hidden Road, now rebranded Ripple Prime, which clears roughly $3 trillion annually and lets RLUSD serve as collateral with zero haircut for over 300 institutional clients, alongside the $1 billion acquisition of GTreasury's treasury management platform, which reaches 1,200 corporate treasurers processing $13 trillion annually. Integrations include a September 2025 partnership with DBS and Franklin Templeton for 24/7 trading of tokenized money market funds, a Securitize link allowing holders of BlackRock BUIDL and VanEck VBILL to swap into RLUSD around the clock, and a Mastercard and WebBank pilot marking the first time a regulated US bank has settled card transactions on a public blockchain using a stablecoin. Ripple holds a New York Department of Financial Services trust company charter and conditional OCC approval, and launched in Japan via SBI under the JFSA's revised Payment Services Act, positioning itself around private-sector consensus and state-level charters after the CLARITY Act failed on September 15. The Federal Reserve Master Account remains the key bottleneck, and expansion into L2 networks via Wormhole NTT is still pending NYDFS approval.
Dangote Refinery IPO Opens for Subscription via Stablecoins on Solana
Solana announced on September 15 on its official X account that subscriptions for the initial public offering of one of Africa's largest refineries, the Dangote Refinery, can now be made using stablecoins on the Solana blockchain. The IPO will offer roughly 3 percent of the company's shares and aims to raise about 1.6 billion dollars, which Solana says would make it the largest IPO ever in Africa. Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals FZE, which is carrying out the IPO, operates the world's largest single-train refinery in Nigeria; it began operations in 2024 and turned the country from a net importer of petroleum products into a net exporter. Subscriptions using stablecoins will be handled through the Nigeria-born financial app NectarFi, on infrastructure provided by the investment platform GetEquity. Investors will receive ordinary shares slated for listing on the Nigerian Exchange, and residents and nationals of Japan are in principle not permitted to subscribe.
BIS finds on-chain Bitcoin transfer value measurements overstated by as much as six times
Researchers from the Bank for International Settlements, or BIS, found that estimates of the value transferred on the Bitcoin blockchain can differ by as much as sixfold depending on how transactions are measured. The discrepancy stems from Bitcoin's transaction structure, in which unspent funds are often returned to the sender as change and counted as another transaction output even though no value was actually sent to anyone else. The measurement problem also extends to Bitcoin's market value, where traditional measures have run as much as four times higher than Realized Capitalization. The study drew on 100 billion blockchain records covering Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tron. On Ethereum, of roughly 67.5 million smart contracts that saw actual use, about 54 million could not be classified. USDT on Ethereum is more closely tied to DeFi activity, while USDT on Tron is more associated with payments and store-of-value use. The share of USDT held by smart contracts on Ethereum once exceeded 20% in 2022, compared with about 1% on Tron. The BIS researchers concluded that on-chain indicators should be viewed as highly volatile estimates rather than direct measures of economic activity. Meanwhile, Visa's Onchain Analytics dashboard, powered by data from Allium Labs, showed total stablecoin transaction volume of 6.4 trillion dollars across the networks it tracks over the past 30 days, against an adjusted volume of 313.1 billion dollars.
10-Year Treasury Yield Tops 5% as Fed Rate Decision Looms
The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield surged past 5.0%, its highest level since 2007, pressuring U.S. stocks on Tuesday ahead of the Federal Reserve's interest rate decision. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Index, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, is running at roughly 3.3%, well above the Fed's 2% target, and bettors see an 87% chance of a 25 basis point hike on Kalshi and 92.3% odds on the CME FedWatch tool. Newly appointed Fed Chair Kevin Warsh faces the choice of hiking to quell inflation or defying President Trump's wishes. Crypto names fell late in the session after the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act failed to pass the Senate, though the iShares Bitcoin ETF Trust and Circle Group found buyers at the 200-day moving average. AI-related stocks including Micron, SanDisk, and Nebius Group have underperformed after the CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic called for more stringent regulation and OpenAI paused its IPO plans.
Bank of England FPC member says stablecoins strengthen dollar dominance and demand for US Treasuries in speech
Carolyn Wilkins, an external member of the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee, said in a speech at Queen's University Belfast on September 15 that the rise of stablecoins could reinforce the global dominance of the US dollar and increase demand for US Treasuries. She noted that dollar-denominated stablecoins facilitate cross-border payments and broaden access to dollar assets outside the United States, saying dollar-denominated coins account for about 98% of the stablecoin market and that the dollar enjoys a substantial first-mover advantage. According to data she cited, Tether's USDT and Circle's USDC held about 150 billion dollars' worth of US short-term government debt as of the end of 2025, having added roughly 33 billion dollars' worth during that year. At the same time, she argued that this relationship is a double-edged sword, warning that once issuance becomes large enough, a wave of redemptions could force issuers to sell short-term government debt, potentially amplifying volatility in a market that is already under stress. In the UK, the Financial Conduct Authority published final rules for stablecoin issuers in June after trials in a regulatory sandbox, and the Bank of England has indicated it will allow systemic issuers to hold up to 70% of their backing assets in UK government debt with less than six months to maturity.
Senator Warren Aims to Legislate Crypto, Opposes Clarity Act
US Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said on September 15 that she again pressed the need to advance comprehensive legislation on crypto assets, while indicating she cannot support the current Digital Asset Market Clarity Act. Warren told reporters that she regarded the Clarity Act as Washington's "first opportunity to achieve meaningful crypto regulation," but argued that any bill that becomes law must include ethics rules restricting public officials' crypto investments, along with stronger national security, consumer protection, anti-fraud financing, and counter-terrorism measures. The sticking point is President Trump's crypto-related interests. The latest draft would require public officials to sell or move "significant financial interests" tied to crypto into a blind trust, and would give state attorneys general a role in enforcing the ethics rules, but Democrats including Warren argue that a mechanism relying on the Justice Department's judgment for enforcement against the president himself is insufficient. Democrats put forward a counterproposal before the vote to strengthen the response to Trump's crypto-related conflicts of interest, but failed to reach agreement with Republicans. Warren said that if she were to lead the Senate Banking Committee in the future, she intends to consult with both parties and the crypto industry and to lead the drafting of new legislation. The Clarity Act later failed a Senate procedural vote by 49 to 50, falling short of the 60 votes needed to advance.
Senate Blocks Digital Asset Market Structure Bill; Crypto Stocks Slide
The Senate blocked a landmark digital asset market structure bill in a procedural vote Tuesday, sending crypto-related stocks sharply lower. The legislation failed to reach the 60 votes needed to advance. Coinbase declined more than 9%, while Circle Internet Group dropped over 9.6%; Strategy fell roughly 5%, and Bitmine Immersion Technologies lost more than 7%. The bill would have given the Commodity Futures Trading Commission primary authority to regulate the digital assets industry, and Democrats blocked the measure citing concerns over ethics provisions designed to address President Donald Trump's crypto business interests. Senate Republican leaders released an updated version of the Clarity Act late Sunday night that added measures to expand state attorneys general's ability to enforce ethics provisions and further limit crypto companies from offering rewards or interest to stablecoin users, including a circuit-breaker for the Treasury Department to prohibit such rewards, interest or yield. Democrats said the ethical guardrails for the president and other elected officials holding cryptocurrencies did not go far enough, particularly in light of Trump's $1.4 billion crypto windfall, and the defeat comes less than two months before the midterm elections in November.