Author: John Smith
A prediction made more than a decade ago about closer ties between Bitcoin startups and traditional payment companies increasingly resembles the payments market of 2026. Summary A 2014 prediction about traditional payment firms partnering with Bitcoin startups increasingly resembles today’s market. Visa and Mastercard now work directly with crypto firms on cards, settlement, stablecoins, and payments. BitPay continues expanding regulated crypto payment services more than a decade after joining the payments industry. Former Electronic Transactions Association CEO Jason Oxman discussed that possibility in an August 2014 interview with CoinDesk. His comments followed BitPay becoming the first digital currency company to…
South Korea’s Financial Supervisory Service has begun a formal sanctions process against Dunamu, the operator of crypto exchange Upbit, over the major wallet breach reported in November 2025. Summary South Korea’s FSS opened sanctions proceedings against Dunamu over Upbit’s November 2025 wallet breach case. Current law lacks direct hacking penalties, leaving regulators uncertain about how severe sanctions can be. Upbit reimbursed affected users and rebuilt wallet systems while regulators continued examining the incident closely. The action follows a months-long inspection into whether the exchange met its duties under the country’s Virtual Asset User Protection Act. According to an SBS report…
Japanese logistics group AZ-COM Maruwa Holdings plans to introduce the yen-backed JPYC stablecoin for payments to about 2,300 partner carriers and independent drivers, according to a Nikkei report cited by Crypto Briefing. Summary AZ-COM Maruwa plans JPYC payments for 2,300 logistics partners in Japan’s first large corporate rollout. The logistics group will invest ¥1 billion in JPYC while forming a business partnership directly. JPYC is gaining wider use through retail trials, lending projects, and emerging payment infrastructure nationwide. The move is “expected to become Japan’s first large-scale corporate use of JPYC.”The company also plans to invest ¥1 billion in JPYC…
Circle President Heath Tarbert has defended the company’s long-term strategy after Circle shares fell sharply from their post-IPO peak. Summary Circle says USDC’s scale and network effects remain difficult for new stablecoin competitors to replicate. Open USD adds pressure as Circle shares trade far below their post-IPO peak near $260. Circle keeps expanding regulated infrastructure while investors question competition, margins, and future stablecoin revenue sharing. Speaking in a July 14 interview with FOX Business, Tarbert said management remains focused on building financial infrastructure rather than reacting to short-term moves in the stock. The interview came as Circle faced growing investor…
Zcash founder Zooko Wilcox has explained how the network’s July 28 Ironwood hard fork will address uncertainty around a critical flaw in the Orchard shielded pool. Summary Zcash will seal the old Orchard pool, limiting how much ZEC can leave after Ironwood. Ironwood cannot identify fake coins individually but can stop excess hidden supply from escaping Orchard. Temporary exchange and wallet disruptions may occur as providers prepare for Zcash’s July 28 upgrade. The upgrade will not identify or freeze individual counterfeit coins. Instead, it will seal the old pool and limit how much ZEC can leave. In a July 19…
Bitcoin Ordinals advocate Leonidas has introduced DOG Mode, an alternative open-source Bitcoin client that changes how nodes relay certain valid transactions without altering Bitcoin’s consensus rules. Summary DOG Mode removes default relay limits while keeping Bitcoin’s existing consensus rules completely unchanged today. Leonidas says fee-paying users should access block space without Bitcoin Core deciding transaction purposes beforehand. BIP 110 takes opposite approach, proposing temporary consensus restrictions on several data-heavy Bitcoin transaction types. The project adds a new layer to the dispute over Ordinals, Runes and the use of Bitcoin block space. In his DOG Mode announcement, Leonidas argued that Bitcoin…
BNB Chain has become the largest blockchain for assets tracked under Franklin Templeton’s Benji tokenization platform, with about $1.5 billion recorded on the network. Summary BNB Chain now hosts $1.5 billion of Franklin Templeton Benji platform assets, leading all networks. RWA.xyz data shows BNB Chain holds 61.71%, while Stellar has fallen to second place overall. Franklin Templeton keeps expanding tokenized finance through Kraken, MoonPay, Binance, and multiple public blockchains globally. The figure represents 61.71% of the platform’s distributed asset value, according to RWA.xyz data cited byBNB Chain. The milestone marks a sharp change in the platform’s network distribution. BNB Chain…
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev has defended trading against claims that it should be treated as gambling as the brokerage takes on a role in the U.S. Summary Robinhood is helping operate Trump Accounts as it seeks deeper ties with younger American investors. Tenev rejects labeling all trading as gambling, arguing speculation remains necessary for functioning financial markets. Robinhood is expanding beyond stocks and crypto into prediction markets, tokenization, banking, and global finance. Government’s new Trump Accounts program. The accounts are designed to help children start investing early as Robinhood broadens its business beyond retail trading. In an interview with The…
The network that moves the world’s money spent 9 months building a blockchain, and the most important decision it made was what not to put on it. No stablecoins. No public tokens. Just bank deposits, wearing a new coat. Summary On July 9, SWIFT launched a blockchain-based shared ledger with 17 major banks, including Citi, HSBC, UBS, and BNP Paribas, for round-the-clock cross-border payments using tokenized deposits. The ledger is built on Hyperledger Besu, an EVM-compatible architecture, developed with Consensys in 9 months, and it is positioned openly as the banking industry’s answer to a $315 billion stablecoin sector. The…
There is $1.6 trillion in Bitcoin sitting idle, earning nothing, doing nothing. Charles Hoskinson has a plan to put it to work on Cardano, and the plan quietly requires every transaction to burn a little ADA. Whether that saves Cardano or exposes its central problem is the whole question. Summary Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson has laid out a strategy to bring Bitcoin into Cardano’s DeFi ecosystem through a platform called Pogun, targeting the roughly $1.6 trillion in idle Bitcoin. Pogun rolls out in three phases across 2026: a non-margin credit market in the second quarter, a yield application in the…