News linked to both this project and an event.
Odaily News: The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging its authority to grant national trust bank charters to crypto firms and asking the court to vacate the final rule dated March 2, 2026, and Interpretive Letter No. 1176.ICBA President and CEO Rebeca Romero Rainey said the charters give crypto firms the credibility of a federal bank charter without requiring compliance with federal deposit insurance, capital and liquidity standards, and the Community Reinvestment Act. The ICBA also seeks to revoke Protego Holdings' conditional charter, citing deficiencies in its governance and risk controls.The lawsuit involves digital asset firms that have applied for or obtained OCC charters, including Circle, Ripple, Paxos, Fidelity, BitGo, Kraken parent company Payward, Block, and World Liberty Financial. Senator Elizabeth Warren separately accused the approvals of being unlawful, drawing pushback from the industry; the OCC plans to complete stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act by November. (Decrypt)
Odaily News: USDC issuer Circle has submitted recommendations to the European Commission, advocating for revisions to the rules for foreign stablecoins under the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and the establishment of a recognition mechanism for foreign issuers.Circle suggests that foreign stablecoin issuers should be primarily regulated by the authorities in their place of registration, and after obtaining equivalence recognition from relevant parties and the European Banking Authority (EBA), EU-licensed local entities would be responsible for distribution. This mechanism would also allow euro stablecoins to circulate in foreign jurisdictions.Circle also requested the removal of the requirement for e-money token issuers to hold 30% of reserve assets in commercial banks; for "significant" e-money tokens, the ratio is 60%. The company argues that this requirement increases exposure to banking credit risk and counterparty risk. (Bitcoin.com News)
Circle has submitted a formal response to the European Commission’s consultation on the review of the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA). Circle stated that currently only three of the top 25 global stablecoins by market capitalization—USDC, USDG, and EURC—are regulated under MiCA. Therefore, it recommends retaining the "Multi-Issuance" mechanism, allowing globally circulating stablecoins to be jointly issued by EU entities authorized under MiCA and overseas regulated entities, to prevent related demand from shifting outside the EU's regulatory scope. Circle also recommended establishing a long-term "equivalence and recognition" regime for overseas-regulated stablecoins, and revisiting MiCA's requirement that e-money token issuers deposit at least 30% of reserve assets in commercial banks, proposing instead more flexible minimum asset liquidity requirements. Furthermore, Circle recommended removing the 35% position limit on single sovereign assets and the restriction limiting single banking exposure to no more than 1.5% of the bank's total assets.
Odaily News — Gracy Chen, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Bitget, said the company is not optimistic about recovering the $388 million in crypto assets lost in last week's security incident. Citing the Bybit hack in 2025 as a reference, she noted that approximately one year after that incident, only about 3.5% of the stolen funds had been frozen, and that this does not equate to a completed recovery.Bitget has set up a bounty program offering 5% rewards for frozen funds and recovered funds respectively. The NEAR Intents team said it has intercepted over $50 million in assets related to the attack and frozen approximately $500,000. Tether and Circle have blacklisted the relevant wallets, freezing $318,000 worth of USDT and USDC.Gracy Chen stated that preliminary investigations indicate the attack may match VPN addresses used by North Korea-linked groups, but Bitget has not yet fully ruled out the possibility of an insider job. Bitget has resumed withdrawals in phases, starting with Bitcoin transactions on Monday and continuing with ETH transactions on Tuesday. (Cointelegraph)
Odaily reports: Aztec Network developer Aztec Labs has relaunched the self-custodial wallet zk.money. The wallet can conceal payment amounts, balances, and recipient information through Aztec Network, and supports transfers via readable names or links.Users can deposit DAI, USDC, or USDT from Ethereum, with USDC and USDT being converted to DAI. Deposit records remain publicly traceable, while subsequent transaction activity remains private.The early Alpha version limits individual deposits, payments, and withdrawals to under $2,500, and screens addresses in accordance with sanctions policy. The software has not yet undergone a full audit and carries security risks. (CoinDesk)
Odaily News: Circle Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Circle Internet Group, has announced the launch of two grant programs in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to explore the use of regulated stablecoins and digital financial infrastructure for international development and humanitarian aid payments.Circle Foundation will fund UNDP in establishing a Digital Asset Innovation Pool to support its country offices in scaling regulated stablecoin payments from local pilots to full project delivery. The mechanism is designed to complement traditional banking systems.Another grant awarded to World Food Program USA will support WFP in building governance, risk, compliance, and fund reconciliation frameworks for digital asset distribution. WFP plans to test stablecoin payment channels in 2 to 3 countries over the next three years and conduct independent research to establish benchmarks for speed, efficiency, and cost. (Bitcoin.com News)
Odaily News: Franklin Templeton has expanded its off-exchange collateral program to Bybit, allowing users to use their tokenized money market fund shares as collateral for crypto trading. These shares represent approximately $686 million in net assets and can be used to borrow USDT or USDC, while the underlying assets continue to generate yield.Users do not need to transfer the underlying assets to Bybit. The regulated custody platform ByCustody will hold the relevant assets off-exchange, with their value mirrored within Bybit's trading environment. Franklin Templeton has previously offered similar services to Binance and OKX users.
In an 8-K filing submitted on September 25, Circle Internet Group (NYSE: CRCL) disclosed that co-founder P. Sean Neville has resigned from the board of directors for personal reasons, effective immediately, reducing the board size from eight to seven members. On the same day, CFO Jeremy Fox-Geen notified the company of his intention to step down and will remain through the end of 2026 to assist with the transition; Circle has engaged executive search firms to find a successor. The company stated that neither departure was due to disagreements regarding the company's operations, policies, or practices.
Stablecoin issuer Circle is currently recruiting for the "Senior Director, Ecosystem Growth, South Korea" role in South Korea, responsible for developing market entry strategies, tracking regulatory developments, and establishing partnerships with domestic financial and digital asset industry players. The position requires candidates to possess over 13 years of business development experience, familiarity with stablecoins, DeFi, and institutional finance flows, as well as fluency in both Korean and English. Circle has previously indicated that its South Korea strategy does not involve directly issuing a KRW stablecoin, but instead focuses on partnering with local KRW stablecoin issuers to provide infrastructure linking to USD stablecoins.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen thanked Circle and Tether for their swift action. The Bitget Asset Recovery Bounty Program has now been launched, offering a 5% reward respectively to participants who assist in freezing the attacker's funds and recovering the assets, and calls on exchanges, security researchers, and on-chain investigators to participate.
Circle Foundation announced its support for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to advance digital payment infrastructure, exploring how to enhance the efficiency, transparency, and financial accessibility of funding disbursement for development projects and humanitarian aid through regulated stablecoins. Specifically, Circle Foundation will fund UNDP’s establishment and operation of the Digital Asset Innovation Pool, facilitating the deployment of regulated payment stablecoins from pilot projects into standard programs. Previously, UNDP has tested solutions such as digital cash payments, fund disbursement in low-connectivity environments, and mobile wallets in locations including Aleppo, Syria; Haiti; Guatemala; and Gambia. Circle Foundation will also provide an additional grant to World Food Program USA to support WFP in building the governance, risk management, fund management, reconciliation, and compliance systems required for stablecoin payments, alongside integration into local fintech and mobile payment networks. Over the next three years, WFP plans to pilot stablecoin payments across payment channels in two to three countries to evaluate their costs, speed, transparency, and operational feasibility.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen posted a 12-hour progress report on the security incident on X, including:1. Affected assets include ETH, XRP (largest single-chain loss), BNB, AVAX, USDT, USDC, and other tokens. Affected chains include: Ethereum, XRP Ledger, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, BSC, and Base. All on-chain cold wallets have been confirmed secure and unaffected.2. All foundations of the affected chains have been contacted, and some foundations have confirmed the freezing of the hacker's wallet addresses.3. Based on IP behavioral characteristics and on-chain analysis, the attack methodology is highly consistent with known patterns of North Korean hacker groups. Relevant authorities have been notified, and full cooperation is being provided for a global investigation.4. Bitget Wallet (decentralized wallet) operates completely independently from Bitget exchange infrastructure, and this incident has no impact on it. Bitget Wallet assets are completely safe.5. Transparent disclosure regarding the platform's financial status: In addition to over $464 million in protection funds (all held in publicly verifiable wallet addresses), Bitget's own assets exceed $1 billion. User funds are covered at a 1:1 ratio, and all data can be verified on-chain.6. Regarding withdrawal recovery timing: The goal is to achieve full recovery as soon as possible. Once a specific time window is confirmed, an announcement will be made immediately. No commitment will be made to timelines that cannot be fulfilled.
Privacy stablecoin payment network Payy Network has confirmed that its cross-chain contract on Ethereum was hacked, resulting in the theft of its entire balance. The investigation is ongoing, and all Payy Network transactions have been suspended, including deposits, withdrawals, transfers, and card transactions. Payy has notified law enforcement authorities and is collaborating with multiple incident response organizations. Previously reported, according to monitoring by Specter Investigation, Payy Network was suspected to have been hacked, with approximately 1.8 million USDC transferred out.
Odaily News: Visa has released its "Money Travels 2026" report, based on a survey of 2,192 U.S. adults, showing that if stablecoins were equipped with bank-grade fraud protection and deposit insurance, consumer willingness to use them would rise from 36% to 56%; if offered through existing financial institutions, willingness would also increase to 45%. The survey also found that 56% of respondents had never heard of stablecoins, and 64% of respondents had greater trust in payment providers than in the technology itself. Currently, the total global supply of USD-pegged stablecoins has exceeded $295 billion, with USDT at approximately $183.4 billion and USDC at approximately $76 billion; Visa's annualized stablecoin settlement volume has surpassed $20 billion, representing more than a 15-fold increase from a year ago. (The Block)
According to The Block, Visa released its Money Travels 2026 report. Based on a survey of 2,192 U.S. adults, consumer willingness to use stablecoins would rise from 36% to 56% if they feature bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance; if offered through existing financial institutions, willingness could also reach 45%. The survey also indicates that 56% of respondents had never heard of stablecoins, while 64% trust payment providers more than the technology itself. Currently, the global total supply of USD-pegged stablecoins exceeds $295 billion, comprising approximately $183.4 billion in USDT and around $76 billion in USDC. Visa's annualized stablecoin settlement volume has already surpassed $20 billion, representing an increase of over 15 times compared to a year ago.
Russian Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov stated that Russia has approximately 20 million cryptocurrency users, with citizens holding cryptocurrencies and related financial products totaling around $44 billion, and daily trading volume of about $595 million.Russia is advancing comprehensive regulation to clarify the rights and responsibilities of service providers, intermediaries, and investors; it plans to pursue criminal liability for illegally organized cryptocurrency trading activities starting July 1, 2027, while ordinary individual transactions are excluded. The Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank are studying the operational models and application scenarios of domestic stablecoins; if assets such as USDT and USDC are frozen due to actions by foreign issuers and Russian custodians are not at fault, related losses will in principle be borne by investors.
Arc officially announced that Circle's onchain FX engine StableFX is now live on the Arc mainnet. Arc is a public chain launched by Circle, designed for stablecoins and payment use cases; StableFX supports 24/7 settlement, enabling near-instant or delayed settlement, ensuring that both parties either receive funds simultaneously or neither receives funds, and supports trading with multiple vetted counterparties through a single contract, using a unified RFQ model for pricing. The global foreign exchange market has a daily trading volume of nearly $10 trillion, most of which still relies on traditional trading hours.
According to official reports, the NSTR oracle price was manipulated yesterday, causing a single account to use NSTR as collateral to borrow approximately $3.5 million in ETH, STRK, USDC, USDT, WBTC, and DAI v1 from the Nostra money market on Starknet. The market has currently suspended deposits, borrows, withdrawals, and liquidations. Nostra is currently assessing the impact on each asset and tracking the funds, with final losses and recoverable amounts yet to be determined.
According to Crypto Pulse Research, Bernstein's September 16, 2026, research report states that the procedural vote on the CLARITY Act has failed, and there should be no hope for a revote. Stablecoins, governed by the GENIUS Act, remain unaffected, while Circle’s ARC chain launched that same day. Robinhood's daily on-chain gross revenue is approximately $1 million. The bank recommends buying the recent weakness in crypto equities, favoring Robinhood (HOOD), Circle (CRCL), and Figure (FIGR), with target prices set at $160, $140, and $70, respectively. It sets a $330 price target for Coinbase, $350 for Strategy, and $24 for Sharplink. Bernstein believes that following legislative failure, regulatory clarity will pivot toward rulemaking by the CFTC and SEC. This rulemaking process will be aggressive and rapid, making product rollout schedules more predictable. Advancement of stablecoins, tokenization, perpetual futures, and prediction market-related products will continue, with crypto stock pullbacks offering buying opportunities.
The U.S. Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act due to insufficient votes, triggering a broad decline in crypto-linked stocks, with Coinbase and Circle each dropping over 10% intraday.