Author: NBTC

Japanese investment bank Mizuho downgraded Circle (CRCL) to underperform from neutral and slashed its price target to $50 from $85, arguing that OpenUSD’s business model threatens the stablecoin issuer’s long-term economics. Circle shares were trading 0.6% lower at $62.63 at publication time. Open USD, a dollar-backed stablecoin unveiled June 30 by the Open Standard consortium, “could fundamentally alter CRCL’s business model, which relies on retaining a large portion of the treasury yield to drive revenues,” analysts led by Dan Dolev said in the Tuesday note to clients. The consortium counts more than 140 partners, including Mastercard (MA), Stripe, Coinbase (COIN)…

The $XRP Ledger (XRPL) has experienced a noticeable increase in stablecoin activity as Ripple’s $RLUSD, the largest stablecoin on the network, expands its dominance. According to RWA.xyz, a leading provider of real-world asset (RWA) data, stablecoin transfer volume on the $XRP Ledger has risen 10.8% over the past 30 days to $4.28 billion. The increase suggests that more people and businesses have begun actively using the network to move funds. Notably, rising transfer volume usually points to stronger network activity, as it shows that stablecoins are changing hands more often instead of sitting idle in wallets. Such activity can improve…

Bottom line: Clarity isn’t likely to come up for voting before next week — the final days before the chamber’s summer break is set to start on August 8. The hotly debated market structure bill isn’t yet ready for a vote, anyway, as the parties continue to try to seek a compromise on a contentious provision that’s stood in the way of a deal: the ban against senior government officials, including President Donald Trump, backing crypto projects. Thune’s office had told CoinDesk last week that his next floor-time priority would go to the Russia legislation. While the majority leader also…

Samsung just told the world that Samsung Wallet stablecoins are coming — and that single sentence, buried inside the Galaxy Unpacked 2026 recap, set off a quiet scramble across the crypto industry. The announcement is real. The details, however, are almost entirely missing. Key takeaways Samsung announced at Galaxy Unpacked 2026 that Samsung Wallet will support native stablecoins, with $USDC among the expected options, according to Crypto Briefing. No stablecoin issuer, blockchain network, custody model, launch date, or eligible markets have been officially confirmed by Samsung. In July 2025, Samsung announced a partnership with Coinbase, allowing Galaxy users in the…

American Bitcoin, a mining company with ties to the Trump family, has agreed to pay $2.5 million to resolve U.S. Department of Justice allegations that it improperly received pandemic relief funds. The settlement stems from a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan obtained by Gryphon Digital Mining before its merger with American Bitcoin last year. Background of the case The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) had initially approved a PPP loan for Gryphon Digital Mining, which at the time was operating as a cannabis-related software company. However, the SBA later determined that the company was not eligible for the loan and…

Crypto infrastructure firm BitGo (BTGO) is set to replace LayerZero with Chainlink as the exclusive cross-chain provider for wrapped bitcoin (WBTC). The move pushes the value covered by announced LayerZero-to-Chainlink migrations to nearly $15 billion. The move forms part of a migration wave that started following the $292 million exploit of Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered bridge earlier this year, which increased scrutiny of LayerZero bridge configurations. Various other projects, including Mantle, Kelp, Lombard, Solv Protocol, Virtuals, Re and Kraken have since announced moves to Chainlink’s CCIP. WBTC is a tokenized representation of bitcoin designed to track its value. Unlike native bitcoin,…

The sharp market rally seen in the past day has suddenly awakened a long-dormant Bitcoin whale that has remained inactive for about five to seven years. According to recent on-chain data shared by a CryptoQuant analyst, Maartun, an unknown Bitcoin whale has moved over 2,373 $BTC that had remained untouched for between five and seven years. Old Bitcoin whales resurface again In addition to the data, the analyst further shared a chart from CryptoQuant’s Spent Output Age Bands metric, which revealed a sharp spike in activity from older Bitcoin holdings. While the data showed that Bitcoin tokens held for a…

Circle Internet Group shares have dropped more than 2% in pre-market trading after US banking groups urged the Senate to tighten stablecoin provisions in the CLARITY Act, adding fresh pressure to the stock. According to a joint letter from several US banking organizations, the groups have asked Senate majority and minority leaders to revise Section 404 of the CLARITY Act before lawmakers move the bill forward. The banks argue that the current wording could allow stablecoin issuers to offer interest-like incentives that encourage customers to move money out of traditional bank deposits and into stablecoins such as Circle’s $USDC. The…

How INCUCAI and Extrimian Put Argentina’s Transplant System Onchain TL;DR:$IOTA and Latin American decentralized-identity company Extrimian have put Argentina’s national organ, tissue, and cell donation and transplantation authority INCUCAI and its 24 provincial agencies onto a live, publicly verifiable digital-identity system on $IOTA mainnet, with tamper-proof document signing, and $IOTA independently verified every part of it. Somewhere in Argentina, a patient is waiting for a heart. When a match finally appears, a countdown starts: a donated heart stays viable for only a few hours, and inside that window dozens of people across hospitals, provincial agencies, and a national coordinator have…

U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer has proposed two candidates each for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to the White House, according to a report from Semafor reporter Eleanor Mueller. The move comes as part of ongoing negotiations over cryptocurrency legislation, where the issue of vacancies at both agencies has been a sticking point for months. Background of the Nominations The proposal follows months of back-and-forth during crypto bill talks, with lawmakers from both parties pointing fingers over who was responsible for filling the empty seats at the SEC and CFTC. The…