stablecoin

The London-based payment infrastructure company OpenPayd's CEO Iana Dimitrova told CoinDesk that the company expects to complete its merger with Titan Acquisition Corp. and list on Nasdaq by the end of this year. The transaction is still subject to the effectiveness of the registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and approval from Titan shareholders, with the stock ticker expected to be OP after listing. According to the announced terms, the implied equity value of OpenPayd in the transaction could reach up to $1.1 billion.OpenPayd provides account, foreign exchange, and domestic and international payment services to companies such as Kraken, B2C2, and OKX, and offers infrastructure for converting between fiat currencies and stablecoins, having integrated with the Circle payment network and Fireblocks payment network. Last month, the company incorporated MSB USA Inc. and its 43 state-level money transmission licenses into the group, planning to launch services for U.S. customers by April 2027. For the fiscal year ending April 30, 2026, the company reported revenue of $73 million, up from $57 million in the previous fiscal year, with an EBITDA of $13 million and a net loss of $2.8 million. A company spokesperson stated that the loss was entirely due to a one-time transaction cost of $5.8 million related to this merger.Dimitrova stated that the company intends to acquire businesses that can provide licenses or technology to accelerate its entry into new markets. The listing will provide funding and publicly traded stock that can be used for transactions and collaborations. The company is also considering a private placement before the merger to raise growth capital.

ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood stated at a summit hosted by Robinhood in Houston that investors have traditionally "followed developers" to gauge technological trends, but now they may need to "follow agents." The AI agents she refers to are software that can perform tasks on behalf of humans, rather than just answering questions or generating text. This statement came towards the end of a discussion on AI, private markets, and technology investments.As AI agents shift from answering questions to executing operations and spending funds, the type of financial infrastructure they will use has become a focal point. SharpLink co-CEO and former BlackRock digital asset head Joseph Chalom believes that the financial system used by AI agents should not be controlled by a few banks or tech companies. He cited the example of authorized agents booking hotels, pointing out that users should be able to set spending limits, revoke authorizations at any time, and view the agents' transaction records. Additionally, users should be able to transfer the agents' identities, financial information, and permissions between different financial service providers, similar to mobile number portability.Chalom believes that open blockchains like Ethereum can provide a universal financial network for different agents, applications, and companies to use collectively, eliminating the need for each AI company to build its own closed payment system. A report from BlackRock in September also noted that AI agents could create new demands for machine-oriented payment systems, such as payment API calls, purchasing data, or renting computing power, with stablecoins and blockchain being one of the viable solutions. Coinbase's x402 is designed to enable machines to pay for online services like data or APIs.

Circle, the issuer of USDC, submitted a proposal to the European Commission advocating for the revision of the rules regarding overseas stablecoins in the Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) and the establishment of a recognition mechanism for overseas issuers. Circle suggested that overseas stablecoin issuers should primarily be regulated by their home jurisdiction's regulatory authorities, and after obtaining equivalence recognition from relevant parties and the European Banking Authority (EBA), local licensed entities in the EU would be responsible for distribution.This mechanism also allows euro stablecoins to circulate in overseas jurisdictions. Circle also requested the removal of the requirement for electronic money token issuers to hold 30% of reserve assets in commercial banks; the proportion for "significant" electronic money tokens is 60%. The company believes that this requirement increases exposure to credit risk and counterparty risk in the banking sector.

Visa stated that its stablecoin-linked card program's payment volume has increased by nearly 200% year-on-year, currently supporting over 160 consumer, business, and commercial card programs. Since the beginning of the 2026 fiscal year, approximately 17% of the stablecoin-linked card transaction volume has come from business and commercial card programs. Mark Nelsen, Visa's Global Head of Products, Commercial, and Cash Flow Solutions, stated that businesses are seeking reliable and trustworthy methods of fund transfer, and stablecoins are increasingly appearing in commercial applications such as vendor payments, treasury operations, and cross-border commerce.Allium research shows that payments are the fastest-growing use case for stablecoins, with annual payment volume estimated between $401 billion and $527 billion, including service fees, payroll, and vendor payments of $56 billion, $43 billion, and $28 billion respectively, with B2B cross-border payments accounting for 43%.

Bitwise Asset Management Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated that after the Senate did not advance the CLARITY Act, stablecoin platforms retain the space to offer balance rewards to customers, and exchanges like Coinbase continue to hold the advantages of existing state-level licenses and the integration of trading and brokerage services.The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued a five-year exemption for tokenized stock trading, allowing eligible platforms to test using licensed automated market makers and liquidity pools. Hougan listed Securitize, which will serve tokenized funds for BlackRock, Apollo, and KKR, as a beneficiary. SEC staff updated the token buyback guidelines, stating that for networks that are functional and do not have a centralized party, buyback announcements do not constitute a commitment relied upon by buyers for expected profits; this guideline does not have legal effect.

According to The Information, citing informed sources on Friday, Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered digital asset bank in the United States, has laid off 17% of its workforce. CEO Nathan McCauley informed employees of this decision earlier this week. Anchorage was valued at $4.2 billion earlier this year, and as of February, the global workforce was approximately 400 people, meaning this layoff affects about 68 positions.The Information attributes this layoff to the ongoing downturn in the cryptocurrency market that has lasted for a year. Bitcoin briefly rose above $87,000 on Friday but remains far below the peak of $126,000 reached in October last year.At the time of the layoffs, Anchorage is continuing to expand its presence in the regulated U.S. cryptocurrency industry. The company became the first cryptocurrency firm to obtain a national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in 2021 and has since developed into a major cryptocurrency custodian. Recently, its business has expanded into the stablecoin issuance sector, including participation in Tether's newly launched U.S. stablecoin USAT; earlier this year, the company also received a strategic investment of $100 million from Tether.

S&P Global Ratings confirmed on October 1 that the issuer credit rating of the stablecoin protocol Sky Protocol is B-, with a stable outlook. S&P stated that Sky is advancing the Prime Agent ecosystem (formerly Stars or subDAO), which includes strategies such as over-the-counter lending with a scale of approximately $1 billion, accounting for about 10% of the total assets supporting USDS and DAI; these semi-independent entities use the Sky balance sheet for specialized investments within the risk parameters set by governance, while increasing management and monitoring complexity.The total supply of USDS and DAI increased from $7.7 billion in August 2025 to $9.5 billion. As of September 17, 2026, reserves are approximately $92 million, with a target of $150 million. Robust assets USDC and tokenized money market funds backed by government bonds total approximately $4.92 billion, accounting for about 50% of circulating USDS and DAI, up from 36% in August 2025. On-chain crypto lending has decreased to about 25% of the balance sheet, while over-the-counter crypto lending has increased to approximately $1 billion. Newly included assets include RLUSD, PYUSD, and USDG totaling approximately $392 million, as well as a tokenized fund investing in AAA-rated CLO shares of about $500 million.As of September 2026, the four major Prime Agents account for approximately 65% of the combined assets, with Spark accounting for 36%, Grove for 24%, Obex for 4%, and Osero for 1%.

Circle disclosed that it has responded to the European Commission's targeted consultation on MiCA. Circle stated that MiCA has provided a first-mover advantage for Europe, with approximately 30 types of electronic currency tokens authorized. However, among the top 25 stablecoins by global market capitalization, only 3 are regulated by MiCA, namely USDC, USDG, and EURC, indicating a gap in the regulatory scope of MiCA that fails to cover the largest global tokens.Circle suggests maintaining a multiple issuance structure, where globally circulating stablecoins are jointly issued by EU entities authorized under MiCA and foreign regulatory entities. It also recommends establishing an equivalence and recognition system for foreign regulatory stablecoins similar to EMIR, CSDR, and MiFIR, with the regulatory authority of the issuer's jurisdiction primarily responsible for supervision, while the EU level conducts equivalence recognition and EBA entity approval. Regarding reserve requirements, Circle believes that MiCA's requirement for issuers to deposit at least 30% of reserve assets in commercial bank deposits will increase bank credit and counterparty risk, supporting the European Central Bank to reconsider this requirement, and suggests removing two concentration rules from the EBA technical standards.

According to Cointelegraph, Arthur Hayes stated that U.S. policymakers may support the AI industry and government debt financing by increasing the money supply, driving up cryptocurrency prices. If China shifts from limited tightening to large-scale monetary stimulus, it may also boost demand for scarce assets. He is also paying attention to financial pressures in France, including credit default swaps related to BNP Paribas and the spread of French government bonds.Catrina Wang, General Partner at Portal Ventures, stated that banks and asset management companies have an advantage in on-chain financial markets due to existing customer relationships. Todd McDonald, co-founder of R3, pointed out that public chains can help institutions reach customers beyond their own networks. Justin Kugel, Executive Vice President of Growth at World Liberty Financial, mentioned that the demand for asset management and investment evaluation still leaves room for intermediaries.Chetan Karkhanis, Senior Vice President of Digital Asset Client Relations at Franklin Templeton, stated that the company has no intention of issuing its own stablecoin and hopes to provide investment returns through tokenized money market funds. Haonan Li, co-founder and CEO of Codex, stated that trade routes connecting Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia are driving demand for stablecoin payments, with buyers paying eastward and manufactured goods flowing westward.Ilya Podoynitsyn, co-founder and CEO of FinHarbor, stated that companies need to confirm they have long-term idle funds that do not affect daily operations before allocating cryptocurrency assets. Michael Camarda, Chief Development Officer of SharpLink, an Ethereum treasury company, stated that both stock buybacks and increasing ETH holdings can enhance the per-share ETH ownership, and the company employs both methods to meet the preferences of institutional and retail investors.

According to The Block, the European Central Bank has proposed three models for introducing central bank digital currency on the blockchain, including direct issuance, establishing bridging mechanisms, and implementation through private intermediaries.These models can provide settlement support for transactions such as tokenized securities, bank deposits, and stablecoins on distributed ledger technology networks.

On-chain analyst Darkfost posted on X that the inflow of whale funds transferring over 1 million dollars in stablecoins to Binance has significantly increased recently.According to the 30-day cumulative calculation, the amount of stablecoins this group has transferred to Binance has risen from 21.7 billion dollars to 30.5 billion dollars over the past month, an increase of over 40%.Darkfost stated that the inflow of stablecoins to exchanges usually indicates that funds are preparing to enter the market, so this change may correspond to potential buying pressure. However, compared to last October when inflows once exceeded 61 billion dollars, the current deployment of whale funds remains relatively cautious.

According to Cryptopolitan, the International Financial Association's Global Debt Monitor on September 23 shows that global debt has reached a historic high of 365 trillion dollars, an increase of 10 trillion dollars in six months, with emerging market debt rising by 6.5 trillion to 110 trillion dollars, with China contributing the most.The San Francisco Federal Reserve's report on September 28 pointed out that the share of U.S. Treasury bonds held by foreign investors has decreased from over 50% at the peak in the late 2000s to about 30% in early 2026. Since 2023, stablecoin issuers have been increasing their holdings of short-term U.S. Treasury bonds at a pace faster than Japan; the bank expects that by 2030, the demand for short-term U.S. Treasury bonds from stablecoins may nearly double to about 400 billion dollars.

Variant Fund investment partner Alana Levin stated in her market thoughts for Q4 2026 that the bottom of the crypto market likely occurred at some point in July. She wrote in early July that the bottom seemed close, with Bitcoin at $59,000, Ethereum at $1,600, and ZEC at $420. She mentioned that the question has shifted to whether the bull market is genuinely starting or if it's a false rally, and which projects will benefit the most in the early bull market, assuming the market is in the early stages of a new crypto bull market.Levin indicated that the increasingly formed consensus is that marginal funds are most likely to flow into value storage protocols as currency and protocols that can generate income. She believes Bitcoin is the dominant asset for digital value storage currently, while other competing assets may be valued based on their market capitalization relative to Bitcoin's market cap and its changes. For income-generating protocols, she expects investors to examine whether the income comes from crypto-native activities (like Pump) or traditional financial activities (like Hyperliquid), whether it persists during market downturns, and profit margins; projects with exposure to real-world assets and stablecoin growth, which are expected to attract institutional users and are still led by founders after surviving a bear market, are more likely to achieve higher multiples.She also categorized on-chain projects that can benchmark against non-crypto businesses as a third category, believing that most belong to narrative trading rather than long-term investment. Themes include routing, reasoning, computing power, data collection, and interface-related directions in artificial intelligence, and she is skeptical about whether most scenarios require blockchain; if such projects significantly outperform, she would view it as a signal of nearing the top.

According to The Block, new data released by Visa shows that nearly 17% of the transaction volume from stablecoin-linked card transactions in the fiscal year 2026 to date comes from corporate and business projects.Visa currently supports over 160 stablecoin-linked card projects, with related payment transaction volume increasing by nearly 200% year-on-year.

The core provisions of the regulatory framework for payment stablecoins in Florida, USA, will take effect on October 1, 2026.According to the state's Bill 2026 Chapter 176, engaging in the business of qualified payment stablecoin issuers in the state generally requires a license or must meet exemption conditions; qualified issuers must maintain at least a 1:1 identifiable reserve, which includes cash, funds in Federal Reserve accounts, qualified bank deposits, U.S. Treasury securities with a remaining maturity of no more than 93 days, and qualified government money market funds, among others. They must also publicly disclose redemption policies, disclose reserve composition monthly, accept monthly audits by certified public accountants, and be certified by the CEO and CFO.If the total issuance of payment stablecoins by state-level issuers reaches $10 billion, unless a federal exemption is obtained, they must transition to the corresponding federal regulatory framework within 360 days or suspend new issuances until the scale falls below the threshold.

From September 29 to October 1, the stablecoin infrastructure platform Interlace made its debut at the 2026 Korea Blockchain Week (KBW), deeply participating in events such as The Next Onchain Economy and HSC Conference Seoul, engaging with global Web3 partners and financial industry practitioners to discuss stablecoin payments and next-generation financial infrastructure.Cat Lucci, the business leader of Interlace, stated that the key to the implementation of stablecoin payments lies in the deep integration of stablecoin channels with bank cards and local clearing systems. Interlace provides efficient and secure capital flow experiences for exchanges, wallets, and B2B trade scenarios through modular capabilities such as cards, accounts, and clearing.During KBW, Interlace also set up a product experience session where attendees could receive Stablecoin Card gift cards to experience the convenient payment of on-chain assets in real-world consumption scenarios, attracting the attention and engagement of many participants.It is reported that Interlace's next stop will be at TOKEN2049 in Singapore, participating in events such as Stablecoin Happy Hour and AI & Emerging Onchain Assets, continuing to share innovative achievements in on-chain financial infrastructure on the core stage of Web3.