News linked to both this project and an event.
the U.S. Department of Justice stated in a press release that a 47-year-old resident of Newcastle, Washington, Geoffrey K. Auyeung, has been sentenced to 5 years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering.Geoffrey K. Auyeung assisted overseas scammers in transferring nearly $100 million in investment fraud proceeds through bank accounts and cryptocurrency exchanges. The scammers deceived victims into investing in the oil and gas industry, luring them to transfer funds into so-called escrow accounts. To facilitate this, Geoffrey K. Auyeung established at least nine entities to receive funds, which were then transferred overseas or exchanged for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, USDT, and USDC via exchanges like Gemini, Coinbase, and BitStamp. Most of these cryptocurrencies were subsequently sent to Binance accounts controlled by individuals in Nigeria and Russia.Geoffrey K. Auyeung opened at least 81 bank accounts across 24 financial institutions and 19 accounts across 8 cryptocurrency exchanges, receiving a total of $97.1 million in wire transfers and deposits. Through his involvement in the scheme, he earned at least $4 million in commissions and received an additional $400,000 in commissions through accounts under his wife's name between August 2024 and December 2025. Auyeung pleaded guilty in February of this year. He will forfeit approximately $2.3 million seized from bank accounts and his home, an Audi SQ8, and has agreed to forfeit approximately $7.1 million worth of cryptocurrency. (The Block)
Circle has announced the launch of a wrapped Bitcoin product, cirBTC, on the Ethereum blockchain. The token is fully backed 1:1 by Bitcoin, designed to help users integrate BTC assets into DeFi scenarios such as lending, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), tokenized assets, and stablecoins.Circle stated that cirBTC is primarily aimed at institutional investors, whose target client base typically holds Bitcoin as a core crypto asset allocation and has already established trust in Circle's infrastructure through products like USDC. Currently, USDC's market capitalization exceeds $75 billion, making it the second-largest stablecoin in the market.The wrapped Bitcoin market is currently dominated by wBTC and cbBTC, launched by Coinbase. Among them, wBTC, launched in 2019, has a market cap of approximately $7.3 billion and remains the largest wrapped Bitcoin product; cbBTC, which went live in 2024, has a market cap close to $5.4 billion. With the launch of cirBTC, Circle will directly compete with Coinbase and BitGo, the primary custodian of wBTC, for institutional wrapped Bitcoin market share.Data shows that the total market capitalization of all wrapped Bitcoin tokens currently stands at approximately $12.5 billion to $13.5 billion, accounting for roughly 1% of Bitcoin's total market cap of about $1.25 trillion. (CoinDesk)
Recently, the decentralized stablecoin USDD officially announced that the PT-sUSDD/USDT and PT-sUSDD/USDC markets have gone live on Morpho. Users can swap USDT for PT-sUSDD on Pendle, then collateralize PT-sUSDD on Morpho to borrow USDT or USDC and obtain liquidity. This strategy is supported by Gauntlet. Currently, the borrowing rates for related vaults are low; combined with PT-sUSDD’s annualized yield, there is room for leveraged (i.e., “looped”) lending operations. Theoretically, looping 10 times could generate an annualized return of nearly 30%. Users may participate according to their individual risk appetite.
According to an official announcement, Circle has launched cirBTC on Ethereum. cirBTC is a wrapped Bitcoin asset backed 1:1 by native BTC and can be used in on-chain financial applications such as lending protocols, over-the-counter (OTC) trading, market making, treasury management, and settlement—enabling institutions to use their BTC as collateral without selling it.
Charlie (@0xBroze), co-founder of the Felix Protocol, announced that Felix’s HIP-3 DEX and all spot markets will begin shutting down on June 19 and complete shutdown by June 20; all traders must close their active positions before then. In its post-mortem analysis, the Felix team noted that competitor TradeXYZ successfully established a growth flywheel and gained market dominance by launching earlier, pricing in USDC (rather than Felix’s USDH), rapidly expanding the number of markets, and leveraging airdrop-driven brand effects. Although Felix launched first in markets such as OIL, GOLD, and SILVER—and recorded approximately $3 billion in trading volume—it was ultimately overtaken by TradeXYZ. Felix emphasized that the DEX shutdown will not affect its lending or spot stock trading businesses, and the team will continue focusing on upgrading and iterating these core products.
Coinbase has announced on the X platform that it has officially become the deployer of the Hyperliquid USDC Treasury wallet, activating the AQAv2 feature through two addresses.Analysts believe this adjustment means the USDC Treasury wallet within the Hyperliquid ecosystem will be deployed and managed by Coinbase for related on-chain operations, further strengthening the partnership between the two parties in stablecoin infrastructure.
a joint letter initiated by Stand With Crypto, in collaboration with the Blockchain Association, the Crypto Council for Innovation, and The Digital Chamber, has been submitted to U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, urging a full floor vote on the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act (the "CLARITY Act") as soon as possible.Over 200 crypto enterprises, industry associations, and community organizations, including Coinbase, Ripple, Kraken, a16z, Circle, and Binance.US, have participated in signing the letter. The joint letter points out that the CLARITY Act would establish a comprehensive federal regulatory framework for the digital asset market, clearly delineate regulatory responsibilities, provide feasible registration pathways, protect software developer innovation, and simultaneously promote the return of more digital asset businesses to the U.S. market.The signatories stated that the bill would help retain innovation, jobs, investment, and market activity within the United States, further solidifying America's leading position in the global digital asset innovation sector.It is understood that the CLARITY Act received bipartisan support and passed committee review in the Senate Banking Committee last month. Senator Cynthia Lummis subsequently stated that the next step for the bill is to enter the full Senate deliberation stage.Additionally, 160 former national security and law enforcement officials have previously signed a letter supporting the bill. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Crypto Advisor Patrick Witt have also publicly called for advancing the legislative process. However, the issue of conflicts of interest between the Trump family and the crypto industry is still regarded as one of the main obstacles to the bill's progress. (The Block)
MarketCards' official website shows its first MintBox has received subscriptions exceeding $300,000 within just 22 hours of launch, with the current subscription rate reaching 101.6%. The subscription window will close in 66 hours.This MintBox adopts an oversubscription model, publicly releasing 100% of the tokenized rights to rare cards (all are one-of-one unique pieces) to all participants. Users participate using USDC, and the platform will allocate the tokenized rights to winning users through a public and verifiable lottery mechanism.At 16:00 Beijing time on June 8th, secondary trading of the tokenized rights will commence.
According to Cointelegraph, Coinbase and Better Home & Finance announced they will launch a cryptocurrency-backed mortgage program in summer 2026, enabling qualified borrowers to use bitcoin (BTC) or USDC as collateral to fund down payments on mortgages backed by Fannie Mae. This initiative follows the U.S. Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) directive in June 2025 instructing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to include crypto assets in mortgage risk assessments—without requiring conversion into fiat currency. Other lenders, including Newrez, have already begun adopting similar measures. However, some U.S. senators have expressed concerns that cryptocurrency price volatility could threaten housing market stability. Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis has introduced the “21st Century Mortgage Act,” aiming to codify this policy into law.
Coinbase announced on X platform that Pre-IPO perpetual contracts have been listed on Coinbase, with the first underlying asset being SpaceX, and are now open for trading to eligible non-US users. The contract supports 24/7 trading, settled in USDC, with no expiration date. After the IPO, related positions will be automatically converted to regular perpetual contracts with no action required.
Ivan Chebeskov, Deputy Minister of Finance of Russia, stated that the ministry does not wish to allow dollar-denominated stablecoins to circulate in the Russian market.Chebeskov pointed out that issuers of foreign stablecoins like USDT and USDC have the capability to freeze wallet assets held by users. Once such wallets engage in transactions with platforms licensed by the Central Bank of Russia, the risk of asset freezes for holders will significantly increase. He revealed that dollar stablecoins held by Russian legal entities have previously been frozen by issuers, while no similar incidents have occurred with Bitcoin and Ethereum due to the lack of relevant technical means.The Russian Finance Ministry believes it is necessary to establish a regulatory framework specifically for stablecoins, prioritize supporting the development of stablecoins pegged to the ruble and currencies of friendly nations, and grant the Central Bank of Russia the authority to adjust the list of related assets. (Bits.media)
Global payment networks Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are close to launching a new stablecoin platform.According to sources familiar with the matter, U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is also exploring the possibility of participating in this stablecoin platform. Meanwhile, Binance, Coinbase, Stripe, and Visa have all declined to comment, and Mastercard did not respond to requests for comment before publication. Additionally, the revenue-sharing agreement between Coinbase and Circle Internet is set to expire and be renewed in August of this year, with the current market cap of USDC reaching $76 billion. (CoinDesk)
Mastercard is expanding its settlement network to support regulated stablecoins, planning to introduce stablecoin settlement, intraday settlement, as well as weekend and holiday settlement services to meet the demand for real-time fund movement.According to the introduction, the new settlement framework will operate in parallel with the existing fiat settlement system, providing financial institutions with more flexible liquidity management solutions. The first supported stablecoins include Circle-issued USDC, Paxos-issued PYUSD, USDG and USDP, Ripple-issued RLUSD, and SoFiUSD.The related services will cover blockchain networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, and XRPL. (CoinDesk)
According to The Block, Coinbase Ventures announced its investment in Ethena by purchasing ENA tokens on the public market. The two parties also announced a strategic partnership to jointly expand onchain financial and savings products. According to Guy Young, Ethena’s founder, the integration will go live next week, marking the first time Ethena’s products will be made available to Coinbase’s over 100 million users. Additionally, the collaboration involves Circle’s USDC stablecoin, though specific details of this cooperation have not yet been disclosed.
Coinbase Ventures stated it has invested in Ethena by purchasing ENA tokens on the open market. Following the announcement, ENA rose approximately 6% over the past 24 hours.Ethena said the two parties will collaborate to advance on-chain finance and savings products. Coinbase also mentioned that they will establish closer cooperation, which involves Circle's stablecoin USDC.Ethena founder Guy Young stated that Ethena's products will be integrated with Coinbase's user base of over 100 million for the first time next week, to support its dollar savings products. The market is watching how the two parties will subsequently collaborate around USDC and Ethena's synthetic dollar, USDe. This move also comes as the US "Clarity Act" remains deadlocked in the legislative process. The bill concerns whether platforms like Coinbase can offer users rewards for holding stablecoins, while banking lobbying groups have consistently opposed similar stablecoin yield arrangements.
the decentralized contract trading platform Pingu Exchange has announced its permanent closure, with the platform set to go offline on July 31, 2026. Launched on Arbitrum in January 2024, Pingu started with approximately $270,000 in seed capital, achieving a cumulative trading volume of around $2.4 billion and distributing about $650,000 in ETH and USDC to stakers. The team subsequently migrated to the Monad mainnet, but over the roughly six months following the migration, the platform's trading volume reached only about $80 million. The team has not taken salaries since February to avoid depleting the treasury.
Binance has opened access to over 7,000 US stocks and ETFs for non-US users, supporting fractional shares with zero commission and a minimum investment of $5. Users can purchase these assets using cryptocurrencies such as USDC, USDT, and BNB. The trading is executed by brokerage Nest Trading, while custody, brokerage, and dividend distribution are managed by the New York-based company Alpaca.Binance also plans to launch "bStocks" based on the BNB Chain, allowing users to convert their held stocks into tokenized assets that can circulate on-chain. These assets can be used for instant settlement and potential DeFi scenarios (such as lending and liquidity provision), further bridging traditional equity and on-chain assets. (Fortune)
Blockaid disclosed on X that the Alephium TokenBridge Ethereum cross-chain bridge was attacked. The attacker compromised three out of four Guardian private keys, forged a Verified Action Approval (VAA) message, and executed the attack within approximately seven minutes, stealing roughly $815,000 worth of assets. During the attack, the attacker minted 13.76 million Wrapped ALPH tokens out of thin air—exceeding the pre-attack circulating supply by over 100%—and simultaneously unlocked and withdrew assets including USDT, USDC, WBTC, and WETH from the custody pool. As of now, the attacker’s address still holds approximately $815,000 in stolen assets and 13.76 million uncollateralized Wrapped ALPH tokens; the largest anomalous transaction involved the out-of-thin-air minting of 13.76 million Wrapped ALPH tokens.
Odaily Odaily founder Rand posted on platform X, stating that with the assistance of on-chain detective ZachXBT, the team has identified the root cause of the recent cUSDC freeze incident, which is unrelated to the Zama protocol itself or privacy technology. The incident originated when a wallet address associated with the Overnight Finance hack deposited over $12.5 million USDC into Zama's cUSDC wrapper contract. Since the address was not on any sanctions list at the time of deposit and was not flagged by KYT (Know Your Transaction) tools, the funds were able to enter the protocol.Rand stated that law enforcement agencies recently issued asset restriction orders against several wallets linked to the hacker. At that time, the cUSDC wrapper contract held relatively small funds, with over 99% coming from the aforementioned hacker address. Consequently, the court ordered the freezing of the entire wrapper contract to restrict the movement of the related funds. Rand emphasized that this measure is not a sanction against Zama or privacy protocols, but a common judicial freezing measure in the DeFi space.To cooperate with the investigation, Zama has suspended the operation of the cUSDC, cUSDT, and cWETH contracts until the investigation is complete, all involved addresses are identified, and corresponding measures are taken. Rand reiterated that Zama adheres to the principle of "compliant confidentiality" and will not tolerate any illegal activities. He also indicated that a more detailed post-mortem of the incident and a plan for handling similar requests in the future will be released subsequently.
Circle has released a post-quantum security white paper, proposing a phased upgrade plan covering Arc, USDC, smart contracts, and the validator system to address potential security risks posed by future quantum computing.