The asset manager’s base case assumes bitcoin gains traction as a settlement tool and reserve asset over the next 25 years.
Markets in Focus: Central Bank Decisions, AI Seesaw, and BP’s Leadership Shakeup
UK markets are poised for a lift as investors brace for a packed day of central bank announcements, with the Bank of England (BoE) taking centre stage.
According to Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, the FTSE 100 is expected to open slightly higher, though European sentiment remains “jumpy” ahead of the decisions.
Bank of England expected to cut rates
The BoE is widely anticipated to cut interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to 3.75 per cent. Britzman notes that this move is supported by “cooling inflation and a softer economy”. However, a unanimous decision is unlikely, with some Monetary Policy Committee members expected to adopt a more cautious stance, suggesting that further rate reductions in the new year will be “slow and cautious”.
Across the Atlantic, US markets have been volatile, experiencing a “seesaw” effect driven by shifting narratives in the artificial intelligence sector. The S&P 500 recently slid for a fourth consecutive day, dragged down by profit-taking in big tech and chipmakers.
Oracle has come under scrutiny regarding its spending commitments, which Britzman describes as becoming a “stress-test stock for the whole AI spending boom”. However, he distinguishes Oracle from its cloud peers, noting it lacks the “blank cheque” balance sheet of more established competitors.
Despite the recent dip, US futures point to a brighter start, bolstered by strong quarterly results from chipmaker Micron, which offered a “timely antidote” to fears of an AI spending bubble. All eyes now turn to the upcoming inflation reading to set the market’s direction.
Oil rebounds from lows
In commodities, Brent oil has climbed back above $60 a barrel, recovering from near five-year lows. The rebound is attributed to rising geopolitical tensions, including US sanctions tightening on Venezuelan oil and potential tougher actions against Russia. A fall in US stockpiles also supported prices, despite an increase in petrol and diesel supplies.
BP appoints Meg O’Neill as CEO
In major corporate news, BP has appointed Meg O’Neill as its new CEO, marking the first time an external candidate—and a woman—has led the oil major. An industry veteran with 23 years at ExxonMobil and a tenure as CEO of Australia’s Woodside Energy, O’Neill is tasked with steering the company through a turbulent period.
Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, highlighted the challenges ahead: “With the sector facing pressure, consolidation is the talk of the town, but BP is most frequently seen as prey rather than the hunter… O’Neill may have a fight on her hands to ensure BP’s not sold for a song, and to keep a seat at the table if it were to join forces with a competitor”.
The appointment follows the departure of former CEO Murray Auchincloss and chairman Helge Lund earlier this year, completing a “legacy clear-out” amidst pressure from activist investor Elliott Investment Management. Investors will now look to O’Neill for a plan to shore up the balance sheet and define BP’s role in the energy transition.
Bitcoin Stays Aligned With Its Long-Term Trend As Underlying Signals Evolve
Trusted Editorial content, reviewed by leading industry experts and seasoned editors. Ad Disclosure
Despite shifting market dynamics and evolving macro signals, Bitcoin keeps its long-term trend, while its deeper narrative is beyond headline price movements. This divergence between surface-level price action and underlying structure suggests that the BTC long-term thesis remains intact even as the forces shaping its next phase become more complex and more mature.
Why Bitcoin Trend Strength Persists Despite Cooling Momentum
Bitcoin remains firmly aligned with its long-term uptrend, but the more important signal is not showing up in price. CryptoELITES revealed on X that liquidity has been quietly tightening, and one of the clearest signals is TOTAL/BTC, which continues to bleed while BTC holds its structural levels.
This kind of setup does not leave the market in panic; it just needs patience. If liquidity conditions begin to ease while the BTC trend continues to hold, the response won’t be instant. However, it will emerge gradually through rotations first, but not headlines. “How are you reading this phase right now?” CryptoELITES ask.
The recent dip in Bitcoin doesn’t change the broader setup unfolding across the market. While BTC has chopped lower over the past few days, meme coins across the board have been quietly forming some of the cleanest corrective structures seen in this cycle. Crypto analyst 0xBossman highlighted that these meme coins have been reacting strongly to even modest BTC bounces and holding their structure during flash dips.
In combination with the tight corrective structures, overwhelming bearish sentiment across major assets has swung bearish again. At the same time, meme coins continue to act as the leading edge of this broader rally, which will lead to an explosion soon. From 0xBossman’s perspective, this setup suggests that 2026 is where many of these meme coins will fully express their upside. The signals are already visible for anyone paying attention.
From Downtrend Pressure To Structural Relief
According to Ardi, one of the more constructive developments for Bitcoin over the past week has been the reclaim and hold of the 200 Simple Moving Average (200-SMA) on the 4-hour chart, a level that has acted as a reliable trend filter throughout this cycle. When this move slopes downward, price action will struggle to maintain local higher highs, and downside flushes will continue to appear.
However, when the price regains the level and begins to turn up, the market will transition into a phase of sustained momentum. What stands out is that this is the first reclaim and hold of the BTC 4-hour 200-SMA since the October crash. This doesn’t automatically signal that the bull run is back, but it would give BTC a better chance to continue pushing through the $94,500 level.
Featured image from Pngtree, chart from Tradingview.com
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Exodus trims Bitcoin holdings but clears debt to enter 2026
Key Takeaways
- Exodus reported a year-end update showing a debt-free balance sheet alongside adjustments to its corporate digital asset holdings.
- The company now holds 1,704 Bitcoins after a significant reduction in digital asset reserves.
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Self-custodial crypto platform Exodus has updated its digital asset holdings, revealing a year-end balance of 1,704 Bitcoin, a reduction from the previous month.
The firm sits at 42nd place among the top 100 corporate holders of Bitcoin, with its BTC reserves valued at about $154 million, based on BitcoinTreasuries.NET data.
Exodus also reported reduced holdings in other digital assets during December 2025. Its Ethereum holdings dropped to 1,898 ETH from 2,802 ETH, while its Solana stash fell to 12,473 SOL from 31,050 SOL.
Exodus confirmed it paid off obligations to Galaxy Digital related to its announced acquisition of W3C, enabling a debt-free start to 2026.
Hundreds of wealthy investors are using crypto to buy real estate in Europe
Brighty co-founder Nikolay Denisenko, a former lead backend engineer at Revolut, says his startup has brokered over 100 deals for HNWIs to buy apartments in Europe.
Trump Says He Won’t Pardon Sam Bankman-Fried
President Donald Trump said this week that he has no intention of pardoning Sam Bankman-Fried, the former FTX chief executive who is serving a lengthy federal prison sentence for one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history.
In an interview with The New York Times, Trump was asked whether he would consider granting clemency to several high-profile inmates. Among the names raised was Bankman-Fried, the onetime cryptocurrency billionaire convicted in 2023 of stealing billions of dollars from FTX customers.
Trump’s response was that he is not considering it, according to The New York Times.
The remark puts somewhat of a stop to months of speculation inside crypto and political circles about whether Bankman-Fried might angle for relief from a president who has frequently criticized federal prosecutors and used his pardon power aggressively.
Bankman-Fried was sentenced in November 2024 to 25 years in prison after a New York jury found him guilty on seven counts, including wire fraud and conspiracy. Prosecutors said he orchestrated a scheme that diverted customer funds to prop up his hedge fund, Alameda Research, while presenting FTX as a safe and compliant exchange.
The collapse wiped out billions in customer assets and triggered a global crackdown on crypto firms.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s push for a pardon
Since his conviction, Bankman-Fried and those close to him have pursued multiple avenues that appeared designed to soften his public image and create openings for clemency.
In early 2024, Bankman-Fried gave a rare jailhouse interview to Tucker Carlson, portraying himself as misunderstood and claiming FTX customers would have been “made whole” absent government intervention.
The interview circulated widely among conservative audiences and was seen by many as a calculated appeal to Trump-aligned media figures.
Around the same time, Bankman-Fried’s parents, both Stanford law professors, sent letters to the court seeking leniency at sentencing, emphasizing his charitable intentions and arguing that a decades-long prison term would be excessive.
While not directed at Trump, the effort reinforced a broader strategy of reframing Bankman-Fried as a flawed but non-malicious actor rather than a criminal mastermind.
Bankman-Fried has also highlighted his past political realignment. Though he was one of the largest donors to Democrats in the 2022 cycle, he later claimed in interviews that he had secretly given comparable amounts to Republicans and had grown disillusioned with the Biden administration.
Those comments were widely interpreted as an attempt to distance himself from Democratic power centers and signal openness to a future Republican-led clemency process.
Trump, however, has not shown any public sympathy. While he has argued that allies prosecuted under the Biden administration were victims of a “weaponized” Justice Department, Bankman-Fried’s case does not fit that narrative. The fraud investigation began before Biden took office and was driven by customer losses and internal FTX records.
President Trump did pardon Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) in October 2025 for his 2023 guilty plea to money laundering violations, a move framed by the White House as ending the Biden administration’s “war on cryptocurrency” and a potential pathway for Binance to re-enter the U.S. market.
Bitcoin Steadies as ETF Flows Reverse and Altcoins Reprice
Cryptocurrency markets experienced a limited recovery this week as investor liquidity gradually returned after the holidays.
Bitcoin (BTC) topped a weekly high of $94,458 on Monday, before declining to about $90,937 at the time of writing on Friday.
US spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) demand saw a sharp reversal after $1.1 billion in inflows on the first two trading days of the new year. The ETFs have since logged three consecutive days of outflows, with a cumulative $398 million sold on Thursday, according to Farside Investors data.
In the broader cryptocurrency space, concerns arose over the future of privacy-preserving token Zcash (ZEC) after the main company behind the protocol, the Electric Coin Company, decided to separate from Bootstrap, the nonprofit that supports its development.
2025 crypto bear market “repricing” year for institutional capital
The steep decline in altcoins over the past year may reflect a broader reassessment of which blockchain networks are likely to attract long-term capital, as institutional investors begin a gradual, multiyear entry into the market, analysts said.
Excluding Bitcoin, 2025 turned out to be a bear market for the wider cryptocurrency market. Decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens fell 67%, while cryptocurrencies associated with smart contract blockchains delivered a negative average return of 66%, according to blockchain data shared by Jamie Coutts, chief crypto analyst at Real Vision.
The past year’s poor performance was a “repricing” of the leading crypto projects as institutional capital was seeking to gain more exposure, Coutts wrote in a Wednesday X post.
“Repricing the highest quality (network adoption, fundamentally sound) protocols/L1s, just as the multi-year onboarding of institutional capital commences,” he said.
Coutts is the latest analyst to highlight an ongoing repricing in how cryptocurrencies are valued as maturing digital asset investors seek exposure to tokens powering protocols with organic usage and revenue, not just general altcoins.
Looking at the past year, Solana was the leading blockchain by fees, with $585 million generated, while second was Tron with $576 million in revenue, according to crypto intelligence platform Nansen.
Institutional and large investors tend to gravitate to the five leading cryptocurrencies, according to Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at Nansen.
“Solana ETFs are still seeing inflows, but the same can’t fully be said onchain. ETH, on the other hand, has seen some players rotate from BTC,” the analyst told Cointelegraph, adding:
“Many expect that with liquidity coming back, big players prepare by accumulating, and this seems to be accurate based on onchain and offchain data.”
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Zcash backer Bootstrap says split due to clash over nonprofit, Zashi
Bootstrap, the nonprofit that supports the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash, said a recent governance dispute that led to the departure of key board members stemmed from the legal limits nonprofits face when seeking outside investment.
The comments follow the decision by the Electric Coin Company, the main development team behind Zcash, to separate from Bootstrap and form a new company. ECC cited concerns over what it described as “malicious governance actions,” Cointelegraph reported Thursday.
In its official response, Bootstrap said the board members engaged in discussions regarding “external investment and alternative structures to privatize” Zashi, the self-custodial crypto wallet built for private Zcash transactions.
The board discussed “external investment and alternative structures to privatize Zashi, while working with legal counsel to ensure any path forward would comply with U.S. nonprofit law, remain consistent with the long-term mission of Zcash, and not jeopardize the broader Zcash community,” according to an announcement shared by board member Zaki Manian on Thursday.
Zashi was developed by ECC and launched on mobile platforms in early 2024. Its source code is publicly available, reflecting Zcash’s open-source model, under which no single entity owns or controls the protocol.
Bootstrap said the core disagreement stems from its fiduciary and legal obligations as a nonprofit organization registered under section 501(c)(3) of the US tax code.
The proposed deal could bring “new vulnerabilities for politically-motivated attacks on Zcash,” including a potential lawsuit from donors leading to unwinding the transactions, meaning that Zashi would be “transferred back to ECC,” the statement says.
Bootstrap added that these factors “jeopardize the entire Zcash ecosystem” and such transactions must be done “carefully” to ensure these assets will “serve the public good,” and not be “captured for private benefit.”
Zcash’s code is also public and open-source, and no single company or entity owns the protocol.
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Fake MetaMask 2FA security checks lure users into sharing recovery phrases
Crypto investors are being targeted by a new phishing campaign that impersonates MetaMask and tricks users into handing over their wallet recovery phrases, according to the blockchain security firm SlowMist.
The attackers are impersonating a two-factor authentication (2FA) security verification flow, which redirects users to fraudulent domains through fake security warnings that request users’ seed phrases.
When a user shares a wallet recovery phrase, the funds from the wallet are stolen, warned SlowMist’s chief security officer, 23pds, in a Monday X post.
This new wave of scams serves as a reminder that decentralized wallet protocols would never ask users for their secret recovery phrase, which enables anyone to take control of the wallet.
The phishing email redirects users to fake domains impersonating MetaMask, urging them to enable 2FA within a short period, claiming they may lose access to key wallet features.
The final step of the fraudulent process asks users for their 12-word seed phrase to complete the “security setup.”
Crypto phishing scams involve hackers sharing fraudulent links with victims to steal sensitive information, such as crypto wallet private keys.
Phishing scams have been a long-standing issue in the cryptocurrency space, but a decreasing number of incidents signals that investors are becoming wiser to this threat.
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Aave founder pitches bigger future for DeFi lending giant
Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov outlined a broader strategic vision for the protocol following a contentious governance vote that rejected a proposal to transfer control of Aave’s brand assets and intellectual property to its decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
The failed vote prompted renewed debate within the Aave community over the protocol’s long-term direction and governance structure, an issue Kulechov addressed.
In a post published Friday on the Aave governance forum, Kulechov argued that the protocol must evolve beyond its core decentralized finance (DeFi) lending business to pursue opportunities in real-world assets (RWAs), institutional lending and consumer-facing financial products.
He described the community as being “at a crossroads,” noting that DeFi’s future growth trajectory remains uncertain without broader market expansion.
Significantly, Kulechov said Aave Labs plans to distribute non-protocol revenue to Aave (AAVE) tokenholders, a move that could expand how the token captures value beyond governance participation. He added that Aave Labs plans to introduce a new governance proposal to address intellectual property ownership and brand-related rights, following community pushback against the earlier initiative.
Kulechov’s post appears aimed at refocusing the community away from short-term governance disputes and toward a more cohesive long-term strategy. He highlighted RWAs in particular, describing the sector as a potential $500 trillion opportunity based on the estimated value of global financial assets.
Aave is one of the largest DeFi protocols, with its total value locked exceeding $45 billion in October, according to industry data.
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Perp DEXs almost triple volume in 2025 as onchain derivatives mature
Perpetuals decentralized exchanges are closing 2025 with cumulative trading volume reaching $12.09 trillion, up from $4.1 trillion at the start of the year.
DefiLlama data shows that about $7.9 trillion of this lifetime total volume was generated in 2025. This means that 65% of all perp DEX trading volume occurred in a single calendar year. This concentration highlights how rapidly onchain derivatives scaled in 2025.
In December alone, perpetuals trading volume reached $1 trillion, carrying momentum that started in October, when monthly volumes first reached $1 trillion.
The increase reflects a sharp acceleration in onchain derivatives usage in the last 12 months, as perpetuals DEXs absorbed a growing share of leveraged crypto trading activity.
Perpetuals DEXs began to emerge around 2021, with dYdX and Perpetual Protocol widely credited as among the earliest platforms to offer decentralized perpetual futures onchain.
The sector’s growth accelerated sharply in 2023, when the emergence of Hyperliquid marked a turning point.
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DeFi market overview
According to data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView, most of the 100 largest cryptocurrencies by market capitalization ended the week in the green.
The Render (RENDER) token rose 56% as the biggest gainer of the past week, followed by the Internet of Things (IoT) provider Jasmy Corporation’s JasmyCoin (JASMY), up over 52% during the past week.
Thanks for reading our summary of this week’s most impactful DeFi developments. Join us next Friday for more stories, insights and education regarding this dynamically advancing space.
Google Updates Gmail With Suite of AI Tools
As AI continues to shape modes of work, Google on Thursday released new AI features in Gmail, the most popular global email service.
The new AI features reflect the growth and maturity of AI models, expanding the idea that the application of AI models is key to helping business and consumer users adopt AI technology. The move also boosts Google’s position in the AI race, especially as new reports show that Google’s web traffic has increased since the release of its Gemini 3 generative AI model.
Google applied Gemini to Gmail, introducing new features such as an AI Inbox, AI Overviews in Search, Contextual Suggested Replies, Gemini Proofreading, and the expansion of its “Help Me Write” feature.
The new AI inbox replaces the chronological email view with time-sensitive emails, such as upcoming fees or appointments that require rescheduling. Instead of Smart Replies, the AI technology can now suggest replies to help users generate drafts written in their own style or tone. Gemini Proofreading uses Gemini 3 to fix grammar and other writing errors. The AI Overviews in Search feature provides users with summaries and answers to their questions based on the content of their emails.
Two of Gmail’s leading email platform rivals, Microsoft Outlook and Apple Mail, have also incorporated AI capabilities.
Helpful But Not Revolutionary
While the ability for AI technology to write emails for users might be helpful, the new features Google is introducing are not game-changing, said Keith Kirkpatrick, an analyst at Futurum Group.
“When you look at the way work is being done now, a lot of it is not being done necessarily in email,” Kirkpatrick said. “It’s being done across other platforms.”
However, AI tools, such as the ability to use natural language to search and find an email, help mitigate one challenge, Kirkpatrick said.
“If you think about how email systems used to be designed, it was impossible to find anything,” he said. “This does change it. It makes it easier to find information that’s buried by 10, 15 years into your history.”
On the other hand, the infusion of AI into email and other aspects of daily life could pose some challenges for users, who may end up with the technology generating an email with content they do not want included, Kirkpatrick continued. In such situations, users must still exercise due diligence in monitoring AI-generated emails; it is common for many to send emails without checking or re-reading them.
“We’re getting overwhelmed with incorporating AI into everything,” Kirkpatrick said. “That doesn’t mean that it won’t eventually be helpful. However, I think the bigger issue is ensuring that we, as workers, know how to use these tools in the most efficient way possible.”
OKX Launches Crypto Rewards in Europe
OKX has launched OKX Crypto Rewards for customers across the European Economic Area (EEA), offering a secure, flexible way to earn yield on idle crypto assets such as USDC, BTC, SOL, and ETH, including an average historical annualised yield of around 3.5% on USDC.
The launch comes as recent regulatory changes have reshaped the European crypto landscape. Several major platforms have withdrawn or restricted stablecoin reward products for European users, leaving many customers holding idle assets with limited options to put them to work. OKX Crypto Rewards is built specifically to address this gap.
OKX Crypto Rewards provides liquidity for Spot Margin trading on OKX, enabling active traders to access the assets they need to open and manage positions. Customers’ idle assets are matched with vetted borrowers, and traders pay to borrow this liquidity in real time. This demand-driven market mechanism is what generates yield for Crypto Reward participants.
“Our European customers have made it clear: they want a compliant solution that doesn’t force them to sacrifice flexibility,” said Erald Ghoos, CEO of OKX Europe. “Crypto Rewards brings yield to European customers through a transparent lending model, while keeping assets liquid and accessible 24/7.”
Key Features of OKX Crypto Rewards
- Hourly Yield Accrual
Rewards accumulate every hour based on real-time market demand, ensuring users are continuously compensated while their assets are active. - No Lock-Ups, Full Liquidity
Assets can be redeemed instantly, with no fixed terms or waiting periods, allowing users to trade or withdraw whenever needed. - Transparent, Regulated Structure
Yield is generated through a clear supply-and-demand lending mechanism, supported by strict collateral requirements and risk controls for borrowers. - Multiple Supported Assets
Customers can participate with popular assets including USDC, BTC, and ETH.
For customers transitioning from platforms that have reduced yield offerings in Europe, Crypto Rewards provides a familiar yet more flexible alternative. For newer crypto holders, it offers a straightforward way to put idle assets to work without navigating complex DeFi protocols or committing to long-term lock-ups.
OKX Crypto Rewards is now available to eligible European customers via the OKX platform. Customers can activate Crypto Rewards with just a few clicks and begin earning hourly rewards immediately, while maintaining full control over their assets.
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Disclaimer: The information provided on AlexaBlockchain is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Read complete disclaimer here.
Polygon Pushes a New Payments Stack for Compliant Stablecoin Settlement Across Chains
- Polygon Labs announced “Open Money Stack,” a modular payments infrastructure framework aimed at regulated stablecoin payments and modernizing cross-border money movement.
- What it’s designed to do: Combine key building blocks—settlement, liquidity, orchestration/routing, and compliance—into a single, modular system.
- Polygon said fintechs and institutions will be able to adopt only the components they need.
Polygon Labs is pitching a new “Open Money Stack” as stablecoin payments move from crypto-native rails toward mainstream financial plumbing, outlining a modular framework it says will help fintechs and regulated institutions move tokenized dollars across borders without stitching together wallets, on-ramps, routing and compliance tools from multiple vendors.
“All money will move onchain over time. The companies and infrastructure that define that future will be built in the next few years, and this is the moment that matters,” Polygon Founder Sandeep Nailwal and Polygon Labs CEO Marc Boiron said in a joint statement sahred with AlexaBlockchain.
“Our mission is simple. Move all money onchain and make it seamless, open, and interoperable for everyone,” they added.
The company said the Open Money Stack—scheduled to roll out in phases—will bundle onchain settlement with orchestration, liquidity and compliance services, while remaining “chain neutral” so payment firms can accept assets from multiple networks without forcing end users to bridge tokens or manage gas.
The announcement lands as stablecoins, once primarily used for crypto trading, increasingly show up in cross-border flows and corporate treasury experiments. Citigroup, in a September 2025 report, projected stablecoin issuance could reach about $1.9 trillion in a base case by 2030 and $4.0 trillion in a bull case. The outlook hinges less on token mechanics than on whether compliant distribution and settlement networks can scale.
A framework aimed at regulated money movement
Polygon’s framing is that the hardest part of stablecoin adoption is no longer the blockchain itself, but the surrounding “plumbing”: onboarding from bank accounts into tokenized cash, screening transactions, managing wallet UX, and routing payments across liquidity venues and rails. On its “vision” page for the Open Money Stack, Polygon argues today’s money movement remains “slow, expensive and uncertain,” and that “all money will be onchain,” with the category-defining infrastructure built over the next few years.
Polygon says the Open Money Stack will include components such as blockchain rails, wallet infrastructure, on- and off-ramps, cross-chain interoperability, compliance tooling, onchain identity and “onchain earning,” positioning the system as a one-stop integration for payment providers that want to keep funds onchain rather than treat blockchains as a temporary settlement hop.
The company also tied the initiative to its broader interoperability efforts—pointing to Agglayer as a way to make chains “invisible” to users, so senders and recipients interact as if they’re on the same network even when settlement is happening across multiple chains.
Why Polygon is leaning into payments
Polygon is attempting to differentiate on operational track record and stablecoin liquidity. Its payments marketing pages cite about $3 billion of stablecoin supply on Polygon, $0.001 average transaction costs, and 5.3+ billion total transactions—metrics it uses to argue the network is already supporting production payment flows rather than pilots.
In a year-end 2025 recap, Polygon Labs said much of Polygon’s sustained usage came from applications that “move value” such as payments, remittances, subscriptions and onchain financial products, and it highlighted activity tied to fintech integrations including Stripe and Revolut.
A crowded race for stablecoin “plumbing”
Polygon is far from alone in building a payments stack around tokenized dollars.
- Visa said in December 2025 it launched USDC settlement for U.S. institutions, citing more than $3.5 billion in annualized stablecoin settlement volume as it expands stablecoin-based settlement beyond pilot corridors.
- Circle markets a suite of stablecoin payments tools and describes a “Circle Payments Network” intended to connect financial institutions for real-time, stablecoin-powered money movement.
- Traditional finance is also experimenting with clearing layers. Barclays took a stake in stablecoin-settlement startup Ubyx, as banks explore ways to settle across stablecoins from different issuers within regulatory boundaries.
Those efforts reflect a broader shift: stablecoins are increasingly treated as a new settlement rail, but the market’s center of gravity is moving toward compliance, identity, dispute handling, issuer risk, and the ability to connect stablecoins with bank accounts and merchant acceptance at scale.
Polygon Labs said the Open Money Stack will launch in phases and is soliciting early partners.
The market impact will likely hinge on specifics still to come: which compliance standards and jurisdictions it supports first, how it handles fiat on/ off-ramps and identity, whether it can route across multiple chains without reintroducing “closed network” dynamics, and how pricing compares with incumbents building similar rails.
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Disclaimer: The information provided on AlexaBlockchain is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Read complete disclaimer here.