News linked to both this project and an event.
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.
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.
privacy computing protocol Zama posted on the X platform stating that Circle's compliance system flagged an external deposit address. Because this address held funds in the cUSDC contract, the entire cUSDC contract was included in a routine freeze measure. Zama emphasized that this incident is "collateral damage" caused by the affected address and is not a sanction action targeting the Zama protocol. Currently, Zama's legal team has intervened and is working with relevant parties to isolate the flagged address and restore normal access to funds for other unaffected participants as soon as possible.
According to Fortune magazine, prediction market platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket are attracting younger users through meme culture, humorous memes, and gamified design. These platforms enhance user engagement with features like leaderboards, badges, and comment-based interactions, while also lowering participation barriers—setting the minimum age for use at 18, below the 21-year-old legal gambling age in most U.S. states. Currently, only a small number of top users profit from Polymarket trading, while approximately 69% of users incur losses. Experts warn that young users, whose cognitive development is still ongoing, may develop a high-risk investment dependency. U.S. Senators Katie Britt and Richard Blumenthal have reportedly introduced legislation to restrict minors’ exposure to prediction market advertising.
decentralized derivatives platform Hyperliquid has launched a pre-listing perpetual contract for SpaceX (SPCX-USDC) via Trade.xyz, sparking controversy over a global regulatory gap. The contract provides leveraged trading without requiring users to hold any SpaceX stock or authorization from the company. Initially priced at $150, corresponding to an implied valuation of approximately $1.78 trillion, the contract surged to $216 shortly after launch.According to reports, the contract is settled in USDC, with prices derived from market oracles and not linked to SpaceX's actual financials or equity structure. SpaceX itself has neither authorized nor participated in this market, yet its valuation is being priced and traded in real-time on-chain, raising concerns that "decentralized derivatives are taking over price discovery for private companies." This market originates from Hyperliquid's HIP-3 mechanism, suggesting that private company valuations may increasingly be re-priced by on-chain derivatives, while regulatory frameworks have yet to establish corresponding standards. (Forbes)
Odaily报道 The Digital Chamber, a crypto industry group, has responded to Senator Elizabeth Warren’s questions regarding recent approvals of OCC national trust charters, stating that her claim of crypto companies receiving "improper approvals" is unfounded.Earlier, Warren sent a letter to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), arguing that recent approvals granted to digital asset companies such as Ripple, Circle, Paxos, Fidelity, BitGo, and Coinbase may violate the National Bank Act and fail to adhere to the same regulatory standards applied to traditional banks.The Digital Chamber stated that the OCC has the authority to grant national trust charters to qualified institutions, and that such arrangements do not equate to relaxed oversight. Representing over 250 crypto-related entities, the organization believes these charters help integrate digital asset services into a clearer federal regulatory framework.
According to Decrypt, the Digital Chamber sent a letter to Jonathan Gould, Comptroller of the Currency at the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), on May 26, urging him to uphold the OCC’s decision to grant national trust bank charters to cryptocurrency firms including Coinbase, Ripple, and Circle. Earlier, Senator Elizabeth Warren had accused the approval of these charters of violating the National Bank Act and posing a threat to the safety of the U.S. banking system. In response, the Digital Chamber argued that Congress has effectively authorized the OCC to extend bank charters to stablecoin-related activities through the GENIUS Act, and that the approved companies do not accept FDIC-insured deposits—meaning their operations do not constitute traditional banking activities.
Although the GENIUS Act and the CLARITY Act are pushing for stablecoin compliance, stablecoins remain essentially "private money" and could introduce structural risks to the financial system.The article points out that stablecoins aim to combine the stability of the US dollar with the payment efficiency of blockchain, but because they operate on fragmented, privatized infrastructure, they lack the uniformity of the traditional dollar system. While USDT and USDC are pegged to the US dollar, their prices can still deviate from $1.Additionally, stablecoin issuers have incentives to boost yields by allocating capital to high-risk, low-liquidity assets. Should the value of these assets decline, it could trigger de-pegging and concentrated redemption risks. Citing Chainalysis data, the article states that stablecoins account for 84% of illicit crypto activity, primarily involving sanctions evasion and money laundering, while their use in real economy payments accounts for less than 1%.The Wall Street Journal argues that stablecoins are essentially repeating the path of the private money experiments seen during the "Free Banking Era" in 19th-century America. In the future, they may need to accept stricter regulation, similar to banks, and require deeper integration into the central banking system. (Wall Street Journal)
a report released by FalconX shows that the crypto derivatives platform Hyperliquid is expanding from perpetual contracts to pre-IPO trading, prediction contracts, and tokenized real-world assets, beginning to compete with traditional exchanges and prediction market operators. The report indicates that Hyperliquid's HIP-3 market allows users to trade stocks, commodities, forex, and pre-IPO contracts 24/7, with traders already using it for pre-IPO speculation on companies such as Cerebras, Anthropic, and SpaceX. The HIP-4 outcome market allows traders to place binary bets on political, economic, and crypto events.In terms of capital inflows, the HYPE spot ETFs launched by 21Shares and Bitwise have attracted a combined $53 million in inflows within just a few trading days. Hyperliquid's USDC partnership with Coinbase and Circle is expected to generate up to $160 million in annual protocol revenue. FalconX warns that CME and ICE have expressed concerns to regulators about potential market manipulation risks on the Hyperliquid market. Nevertheless, Hyperliquid continues to lead the decentralized perpetual contract market in terms of trading volume, revenue, and total value locked. (CoinDesk)
crypto market maker and investment firm Keyrock has released a new report indicating that as traditional bank card payment systems struggle to meet micro-payment needs, blockchain-based stablecoin payment rails are gradually becoming the default payment layer for AI agents.The report shows that between May 2025 and April 2026, AI agents have completed over 176 million transactions through on-chain infrastructure, settling more than $73 million.The so-called "Agentic Payments" refer to AI software that can autonomously purchase data, computing power, API access, or AI services without requiring human authorization for each individual transaction. For example, an AI trading agent can continuously and automatically buy market data, cloud computing resources, or AI analysis services. Keyrock believes this growth rate may even surpass the early explosive phase of stablecoins.Currently, Coinbase's x402 protocol has emerged as one of the leading crypto-native machine payment solutions, allowing AI agents to directly pay for on-chain data analysis, cloud services, and other resources using USDC, without the need for accounts or subscription systems.Data shows that approximately 76% of AI agent payment amounts fall below the common 30-cent fixed fee threshold of traditional bank cards, with most transactions ranging from just 1 to 10 cents. This makes traditional payment networks unsuitable for machine-to-machine micropayments. In contrast, on chains like Base and Tempo, the settlement cost for stablecoins is "less than one cent."However, regulation may still become a limiting factor for industry growth. The report points out that new regulatory frameworks, including Europe's MiCA, the US's GENIUS Act, and the EU's AI Act, have yet to directly cover critical issues such as autonomous transactions by AI agents, liability attribution, and identity authentication. (CoinDesk)
Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle, posted on X announcing that cirBTC is即将 launched. Circle Wrapped Bitcoin (cirBTC) is a tokenized Bitcoin backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin, issued by Circle on the Ethereum mainnet and the Arc network. Each cirBTC is backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin held in custody by regulated entities within the Circle group.
Odaily Odaily News: Flipcash, an app created by Kik founder Ted Livingston, has launched a native stablecoin USDF on Solana, based on Coinbase's "Stablecoin as a Service" platform.According to reports, USDF is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar and fully backed by USDC. Coinbase handles issuance, reserves, and compliance matters. Flipcash has become the first application to use the Coinbase stablecoin-as-a-service platform.It is understood that USDF will primarily be used for cash-like payment scenarios within the Flipcash app. Flipcash is a digital payment application built on Solana, allowing users to create and trade "community currencies" with a fixed supply.Coinbase launched its stablecoin-as-a-service platform in late 2025, aiming to help enterprises issue branded stablecoins without needing to build their own infrastructure. (The Block)
According to an official announcement, Plume stated that it has obtained a Digital Asset Business License from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), making it the world’s first regulated on-chain vault manager. Plume noted that this positions it alongside other BMA-regulated entities such as Circle, Coinbase, and Kraken, and said it brings the company closer to realizing its vision of open finance.
According to Fortune, Catena Labs—founded by Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle—has raised $30 million in its Series A funding round, led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto, with participation from Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, and QED. Catena Labs focuses on developing tools that enable AI agents to conduct financial transactions securely. The company has applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) in New York for a national trust bank charter, seeking regulatory authorization to process payments and hold customer funds. Previously, in 2025, Catena Labs secured an initial $18 million financing round led by a16z crypto.
The Zcash Foundation released its Q1 2026 report, disclosing total liquid assets of approximately $36.7 million, including roughly $12.11 million in cash, 506,556 USDC, 85,412 ZEC (valued at ~$21.2 million), 41.8 BTC (valued at ~$2.85 million), and 12.02 ETH (valued at ~$25,000). The Zcash Foundation added that, although the first quarter of this year saw personnel changes within the Electric Coin Company’s development team and governance-related disputes, network operations remained unaffected, with transactions and block production continuing normally. On the regulatory front, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has concluded its investigation without taking any enforcement action, thereby resolving long-standing regulatory uncertainty.
According to chart analysis released by independent analyst Markus Thielen on May 19, the current market capitalization of USDT has reached $189.8 billion, while that of USDC stands at $76.9 billion—both exhibiting long-term upward trends. However, since Bitcoin entered a correction phase in October last year, the total market capitalization of stablecoins has remained largely flat, indicating relatively limited inflows of new capital into the crypto market. Thielen noted that although there is a widespread belief that stablecoins will fully replace traditional payment networks, their primary use cases remain concentrated on crypto trading and portfolio management—still far from achieving mainstream payment adoption. While U.S. policy broadly supports stablecoin development—partly because their reserve assets are often reallocated into U.S. Treasury securities—the gap between current usage and true mainstream payment application remains substantial.
Verus confirmed on Platform X that its Verus-Ethereum cross-chain bridge has been attacked, resulting in the theft of ETH, USDC, and tBTC from the contract on the Ethereum chain. Other bridged assets are currently unaffected. The Verus network is now suspended, with most block-producing nodes voluntarily going offline after experiencing the cascading effects of the attack. The development team is fully investigating the scope of the incident, the attack vector, and the subsequent remediation plan, and will provide updates once more information is confirmed. Verus stated that it is willing to cooperate with relevant law enforcement agencies to pursue legal accountability; however, if the attacker returns all stolen funds, the project team is willing to offer a bug bounty and will not pursue further legal action.Verus also reminds users that anyone claiming to be part of the Verus team or community in public channels, private messages, or other avenues, and offering "compensation" or "remediation plans," is a scammer. The official statement emphasizes not to interact with anyone claiming there are compensation projects or offering payouts, and to promptly report such accounts to Discord or Platform X.Previously, it was reported that the Verus-Ethereum cross-chain bridge was attacked, resulting in losses of approximately $11.58 million.
Odaily. Bernstein stated in its latest research report that the newly reached compromise on stablecoin yields under the U.S. CLARITY Act is structurally beneficial for Circle and the USDC ecosystem.The report notes that the current version of the bill prohibits stablecoin issuers from paying interest to passive holders that is "economically equivalent" to bank deposits, but allows reward mechanisms tied to actual transaction, payment, and usage activities to continue. Bernstein believes this means Circle's current model, which relies on partners like Coinbase to provide USDC reward programs, will gain regulatory recognition, while also limiting the industry's ability to compete for market share through high yields.Bernstein points out that the bill effectively reinforces the positioning of stablecoins as "payment tools" rather than "deposit substitutes," helping to protect Circle's current business model that relies on reserve income. The firm maintains an "Outperform" rating for Circle with a $190 target price.Data shows that the total global supply of dollar-pegged stablecoins has surpassed $300 billion, with USDT and USDC collectively accounting for approximately 97% of the market share. Bernstein notes that USDC's share in on-chain payments and wallet transfers is steadily increasing, and its share of payments in the AI Agent payment protocol x402 has exceeded 99%.Additionally, Bernstein mentioned that Circle's ARC chain has cumulatively completed 244 million testnet transactions. The ARC token pre-sale previously raised $222 million, with investors including a16z crypto, Apollo Funds, ARK Invest, and BlackRock.However, the report also points out that the CLARITY Act still needs to complete multiple legislative procedures before it takes effect, including a 60-vote threshold in the full Senate and coordination with the House version. Polymarket currently estimates its probability of passage by 2026 at approximately 62%. (The Block)
that, according to on-chain analyst Ember Monitoring, following news that the CME and the New York Stock Exchange have jointly pushed US regulators to strengthen oversight of Hyperliquid, HYPE has retraced 4% from $45 to $43. An address named asssdfc transferred 8.826 million USDC to Hyperliquid 20 minutes ago after the news broke to short HYPE. It has already opened a $7 million short position on HYPE with an entry price of $43.1 and is still increasing its short position.
Turnkey, a company specializing in crypto wallets and key management infrastructure, has announced the completion of a $12.5 million strategic financing round. Archetype and Circle Ventures led the round, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital Crypto, Lightspeed Faction, Galaxy Ventures, and Variant. The project's total funding has now exceeded $65 million.The company's primary business involves developing wallet and key management infrastructure for crypto applications. This round of financing will be used to support the development and public launch of Turnkey Verifiable Cloud, a product focused on digital asset security computing. This product aims to provide enterprises with verifiable operating environments, encompassing functionalities such as transaction visibility, policy decisions, and agent-driven wallet activities. Turnkey's current clientele includes Polymarket, World App, and Anchorage Digital.