BYTE by Virtuals

Ben Strack

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forward-guidance">subscribe</a>.



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Stablecoins and tokenization (shocker!) remained a big theme at DAS London’s Day 2. Upon the umpteenth mention of these segments, Inversion founder Santiago Roel Santos got real with the industry members watching. But first, Algorand Foundation CEO Staci Warden kicked off the main stage festivities by calling tokenization crypto’s killer app. This clip comes from later in the chat:



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Enjoyed this conversation to kick off Day 2. &quot;With tokens, everything can become money, and it can be yield-bearing money. Why do we have $20 billion a year in collateral in the financial system tied up earning absolutely nothing?&quot; <a href="https://t.co/U3bqLsy9p4">https://t.co/U3bqLsy9p4</a>&mdash; Ben Strack 🟪 (@strack_ben) <a href="https://twitter.com/strack_ben/status/1978022303595118905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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The market value of stablecoins — tokenization’s “top of the funnel” — has grown to nearly $300 billion. There’s about $33 billion worth of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs) — i.e. private credit, money market funds, equities, etc. — <a href="http://rwa.xyz">RWA.xyz</a> data shows.



Even many crypto skeptics understand the benefits of blockchain technology. Index fund giant Vanguard, which doesn’t allow bitcoin ETFs to trade on its platform, was <a href="https://corporate.vanguard.com/content/corporatesite/us/en/corp/who-we-are/pressroom/Press-Release-Vanguard-Advances-Blockchain-Technology-Pilot-061120.html">testing the tech</a> five-plus years ago in an effort to streamline asset-backed securities markets.&nbsp;&nbsp;



So tokenization’s growth potential is by no means a new conversation. You know that as a Forward Guidance reader.&nbsp;



That might explain what Santos said during an afternoon chat I was moderating: “I’m tired of sitting behind a screen or coming to these panels and pontificating about this [gosh darn!] technology. It’s good, we use it, but someone has to deploy it at scale.”



We shouldn’t need another decade before mass adoption takes hold, Santos argued. He told me there’s a three-to-five year “execution window” before tokenization becomes “table stakes” — and no excuse if the industry can’t make it happen.&nbsp;



“The tech is ready, the regulation is there and so let’s accelerate that, let’s actually muscle our way to go-to-market and development,” Santos said.&nbsp;



He didn’t stop there, and I think his words kind of sum up where the industry is heading.&nbsp;



The goal, Santos explained, is making crypto a relatable piece of tech for people who may not even understand it. In other words, the infrastructure should be invisible to them — and yet they’ll feel the impact. All’s to say: The industry should focus less on the “casino” side of crypto and instead fully seek to deliver real value to end users.&nbsp;



“Building distribution is very hard; convincing people to set up a wallet is hard,” the Inversion founder went on. “I think now we’ve got to invert the playbook. Let’s acquire real business and let’s just kind of Trojan horse our way into mainstream adoption.”



That’s what you might call real talk.



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DAS Day 2: Tokenization’s ‘Trojan horse’ moment

Blockworks

Bridge, Stripe’s stablecoin unit, has applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter.



The move was announced by co-founder Zach Abrams <a href="https://x.com/zcabrams/status/1978138910464324060">on X</a>.&nbsp;



Abrams said that the charter would enable Bridge to manage reserves, provide custody and other functions. The post cited the GENIUS Act, a legal framework for stablecoins that was <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-signs-genius-law">signed into law</a> in July.



“We’ve long believed stablecoins will be a core, regulated financial building block. This regulatory infrastructure will enable us to tokenize trillions of dollars and make this future possible,” Abrams wrote.



The OCC charter, if approved, would place Bridge in a similar regulatory category to Paxos and Anchorage Digital, both of which hold charters. These charters permit companies to engage in digital asset custody and token issuance under federal banking supervision rather than state-by-state licensing.



Stripe’s acquisition of Bridge marked a major strategic step for the payments firm into stablecoins. The transaction, <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stripe-bridge-acquisition-stablecoin-infrastructure">announced</a> last year, was completed in February.&nbsp;



The latest move suggests a deeper integration of stablecoins into mainstream financial rails. Stripe <a href="https://stripe.com/en-hk/newsroom/news/sessions-2025">announced</a> new stablecoin-powered money management tools in May.



The OCC has not publicly commented on the filing. Bridge’s application remains pending, with review timelines typically spanning several months.



This is a developing story.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor<a href="https://blockworks.co/author/michael-mcsweeney" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"> Michael McSweeney </a>before publication.



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Stripe’s stablecoin biz seeks national bank trust charter

Kate Irwin

This is a segment from The Drop newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/the-drop">subscribe</a>.



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At Blockworks’ <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/das-london-day-1">Digital Asset Summit</a> (DAS) this week, Mastercard’s crypto SVP Christian Rau and WalletConnect CEO Jess Houlgrave agreed that crypto still has to improve its user experience before the next wave of adoption can occur.



“For me, the bar in terms of user experience is really a tokenized debit card on my iPhone,” Rau <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01d-eDb0rfY">told</a> Blockworks’ Bennett Holloway. “The industry needs to mature and go in this direction.”



Houlgrave added that “we need an awful lot of investment” into crypto UX to make such improvements happen.



Rau shares my stance on the future of true crypto “mass adoption,” which is that most everyday people are never going to get behind the way the tech works and feels today.&nbsp;



He thinks maybe only 3-5% of people are willing to have a “crypto-first mindset” to deal with things like bridging assets or other crypto friction points that can spark confusion or incur wait times or extra fees depending on what’s being used.&nbsp;



For him, we’re still in the “mp3” phase of crypto UX — a place where technical glitches happen more than they should, in the time before the iPod really changed things for music. To an extent, I think he’s right.&nbsp;



“The user experience needs to be more at the center of discussion, and I feel that this is really what the industry is also recognizing,” Rau said.&nbsp;



But crypto UX has already improved massively since the 2021 bull cycle. We’ve seen MetaMask, once the clunkiest of wallets, take UX seriously. We’ve seen single sign-on wallet tech emerge as an easy way to quickly log in and create a custodied wallet using just an email address or a social media account.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Day 1 <a href="https://twitter.com/blockworksDAS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@blockworksDAS</a> 🌐 “Payments aren’t just one-off transactions. They include subscriptions, recurring payments, and more &#8211; and we need to perfect that experience before TradFi and onchain truly converge.” WalletConnect CEO <a href="https://twitter.com/jesshoulgrave?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jesshoulgrave</a> on her panel with <a href="https://twitter.com/Mastercard?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Mastercard</a>. <a href="https://t.co/UDZhMACLhV">pic.twitter.com/UDZhMACLhV</a>&mdash; WalletConnect (@WalletConnect) <a href="https://twitter.com/WalletConnect/status/1977754028952928521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
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There are also places where I’d disagree with Rau. Because he’s an exec at Mastercard, he does have faith in the current payment rails that exist.&nbsp;



“If we embed this almost as a new engine into traditional financial services that work very very well, I think that can be a very potent mix,” he said of blockchain tech.



I just wouldn’t go that far in saying that TradFi systems work “very very well.”



Domestic wire transfers typically take less than one business day, while international wires can take up to five business days. These also won’t happen on holidays, and even during the week, some banks may stop taking transfers a few hours before they close.



Existing TradFi rails cost consumers more fees than they should, and they take longer than they should. This is partly due to regulation, but it’s also partly due to the existence of middlemen who slow things down.



Crypto can fix this — though I’m concerned that TradFi’s big push into stablecoin payments could ultimately result in crypto for the masses becoming more of the same.&nbsp;



Some crypto natives might like to harp on about how fees are essential for propping up validators. Sure, that’s true. But there are a whole lot of TradFi players looking to get in on crypto payments as middlemen who may charge their own extra set of fees on top.&nbsp;



I’m a bit worried, long-term, that this new era of TradFi coming into crypto will result in many of the same problems consumers already face in traditional banking.&nbsp;



Instead of TradFi leaving their old ways behind, they may bring their problems to us.



Or, those fees could balance out if they offer yield to users.



But as Houlgrave said during the panel, the crypto industry seems to be really good at solving one problem, only to create a few more for itself.



If the fees just get too damn high in whatever new system is coming our way, it’ll be up to the 3% to remind everyone that peer-to-peer payments exist — and they can be faster.



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Mastercard crypto SVP unpacks industry’s mass adoption problem

Luke Leasure

This is a segment from the 0xResearch newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">subscribe</a>.



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Following Friday’s selloff, the AI index emerges as the strongest sector and the first to make new highs relative to pre-crash levels. While the AI index is up 26% in the past week, gold is up 4.43%, representing the only two indices we track that have made positive gains on a week-over-week basis. While the equity indices are down -1% on this timeframe, crypto indices remain much more damaged from the selloff. Solana Ecosystem tokens and Launchpads are amongst the hardest hit, still down -24% from the prior week’s levels. Within these two worst performing sectors, CLOUD is the only name to have made positive gains over the past week, up +41%.



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Unfortunately, within the AI Index, the breadth of the recovery does not demonstrate health. Of all of the components we track in our AI index, TAO is the only name to have registered positive gains over the past week (up +29%), while all the rest remain negative. The breadth of the recovery will be important to monitor in the wake of the selloff, with a broader recovery suggesting a healthier market and more favorable recovery.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1479" height="821" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109051" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=1479 1479w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-44.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1479px) 100vw, 1479px" /></figure>



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While declining volatility and variance has long been a persistent feature of crypto markets on a year-over-year-basis, Friday’s price action presented a counterfactual to this trend. The distribution in the tails were in fact fat, more so than many would have thought possible. As the long tail of returns can still be realized, unfortunately in this case it was to the downside, systems that can effectively manage this risk become increasingly important to continue to support growth in risk taking on these markets.&nbsp;



While CEX performance was throttled, particularly for perpetual futures, several onchain systems proved resilient. Aave has grown into the preeminent money market for lending and borrowing activities, accounting for 60% market share in this category and over $75 billion in deposits and $30 billion in active loans prior to this event. The absolute value of this capital is enormous, and the risk management of it is paramount.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="900" height="500" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-43.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109050" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-43.png?w=900 900w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-43.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-43.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-43.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-43.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-43.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-43.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="900" height="500" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-41.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109048" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-41.png?w=900 900w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-41.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-41.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-41.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-41.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-41.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-41.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" /></figure>



Friday’s selloff led to the liquidation of $193 million in loan value on Aave. Over 80% of this liquidated loan value was denominated in stablecoins. While the scale of this liquidation was significant, it was actually smaller than the values liquidated during August 2024 of $272 million and February 2025 of $204 million.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1282" height="706" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109052" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=1282 1282w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-14-at-11.29.12.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1282px) 100vw, 1282px" /></figure>



Aave was less impaired from this event given the fact that the long tail of most alts are not eligible collateral on the market, dissimilar from perps DEXs where these alts may compose a significant share of the platform’s open interest.



In addition, and perhaps most significantly, risk curators for Aave now long ago made a small but critical decision regarding the risk management of USDe within the system. The decision made was to <a href="https://governance.aave.com/t/arfc-susde-and-usde-price-feed-update/20495">hardcode</a> the USDe price to match the USDT price within Aave’s risk management system. While the decision drew controversy as impairment of USDe’s reserves could lead to bad debt for lenders, it simultaneously protected borrowers from liquidations during tail events as exhibited on Friday, where the USDe price on Binance fell beneath $0.70. As the scale of sUSDe and USDe-type PTs grew into the billions in recent months, with much of this collateral borrowed against at very high LTVs, this subtle but critical risk management decision protected the platform from the billions in liquidation value that would have occurred otherwise during an event like Friday’s.



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Despite the selloff, relative strength abounds in projects that have no major CEX listings. One such case is <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/research/meta-dao-self-enforced-tokenholder-rights">MetaDAO</a>, whose META token has continued to make new highs. MetaDAO has evolved from a fringe futarchy governance experiment to a crowdsale platform for “unruggable ICOs,” enabling high-quality founders to raise capital by sending a credible signal to the market about enforceable token holder rights.



The recent ICO of Umbra, performed on MetaDAO’s ICO platform, proved successful. The team set a cap of $3 million to be raised in the ICO, with over $154 million offered in commitment to the raise. Given the oversubscription, ICO participants received a pro-rata share of their commitment at a $3 million FDV, with the remainder of the funds returned. In the week since launch, UMBRA now trades at a $12 million FDV, giving ICO participants a 4x return on their committed capital.&nbsp;



Up next on the MetaDAO platform, beginning today, is the <a href="https://x.com/AviciMoney/status/1977834732160418013">Avici ICO</a>. Avici aims to offer core financial services like spend cards, credit lines and mortgages fully onchain, seeing that the crypto ecosystem lacks native infrastructure for reputation-based, undercollateralized lending. Avici’s public beta launched in August 2025, having generated over $1.2 million in Visa spend volume and attracted nearly 4,000 monthly active users with 70% retention. Long-term, Avici envisions a complete neobank with payroll integration, decentralized credit scoring, and mortgage issuance. The project’s ICO allocates 0% to insiders, with the team funded through a monthly treasury allowance of $100K approved by a futarchy-style governance model. The ICO aims for a $2 million minimum raise.



MetaDAO’s new futarchy-AMM gives the platform a promising avenue for monetization. From just the UMBRA launch, the AMM has generated about $50K in revenue over the past four days of trading. As a higher quantity of projects seek to perform their ICO on this platform, this new model can offer promising monetization, offering good justification for the META token’s recent 400% increase and continued relative strength.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="900" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109049" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=464 464w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-42.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>







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0xResearch Newsletter

Risk management is paramount

RootstockLabs, a core contributor to the Rootstock ecosystem, announced the creation of Rootstock Institutional, a cross-functional initiative designed to expand access to Bitcoin-native DeFi.



The new initiative aims to enable institutional participation in BTC-backed lending, stablecoin issuance, and yield-generating strategies.&nbsp;



Rootstock Institutional’s rollout will take place over two phases. The first, available immediately, integrates existing Rootstock DeFi partners such as LayerBank, Midas, and Solv, allowing institutions to access transparent on-chain liquidity and collateral mechanisms.&nbsp;



The second phase will introduce regulated vault strategies designed to provide both Bitcoin-denominated and dollar-pegged returns within compliant, auditable frameworks.



Following the December launch, RootstockLabs plans to expand the program through 2026 with six additional institutional strategies, spanning real-world assets, liquidity mechanisms, and structured financial products.&nbsp;



“Institutions want exposure to Bitcoin without forfeiting yield potential,” said Richard Green, Managing Director of Rootstock Institutional. “Rootstock’s infrastructure enables that blend of transparency, composability, and compliance anchored in Bitcoin’s security.



“Rootstock’s deep ties to the Bitcoin mining community and its eight-year operational history uniquely position us to meet that demand,” Green added.



Rootstock’s initiative signals a broader industry trend toward BTCFi, or Bitcoin-based decentralized finance, as institutional investors increasingly seek compliant on-chain products anchored in Bitcoin’s security guarantees.



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Lightspeed</a>: All things Solana.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supply-shock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
</ul>

Bitcoin

Institutional Bitcoin DeFi initiative launched on Rootstock

The US Department of Justice has filed a civil forfeiture complaint against approximately 127,271 bitcoin — valued at more than $14 billion — allegedly linked to an international fraud and money laundering network.



Federal prosecutors said the bitcoin, described as “proceeds and instrumentalities” of criminal schemes, was seized from unhosted wallets controlled by Chen Zhi, founder and chairman of the Cambodia-based Prince Holding Group. The funds are now in U.S. custody, per a <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/chairman-prince-group-indicted-operating-cambodian-forced-labor-scam-compounds-engaged">press release</a>.



The action marks the largest cryptocurrency forfeiture in the department’s history, the DOJ said.&nbsp;



An accompanying indictment unsealed in the Eastern District of New York charges Chen, also known as “Vincent,” with wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy. According to prosecutors, Prince Group operated forced-labor compounds across Cambodia where individuals were coerced into running “pig butchering” scams, or fraudulent operations that defrauded victims in the U.S. and abroad of billions of dollars.&nbsp;



Chen remains at large, US officials said. The FBI’s New York Joint Asian Criminal Enterprise Task Force and the Bureau’s Virtual Asset Unit participated in the investigation.



“As alleged, the defendant directed one of the largest investment fraud operations in history, fueling an illicit industry that is reaching epidemic proportions,” United States Joseph Attorney Nocella said in a statement.



Investigators allege that Chen and his associates laundered criminal proceeds through luxury purchases and high-value assets, including yachts, private jets, rare collectibles, and a Picasso painting acquired via a New York auction house.&nbsp;



If convicted, Chen faces up to 40 years in prison.



This is a developing story.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor <a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Michael McSweeney</a> before publication.



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</ul>

DOJ seeks forfeiture of more than $14B in bitcoin tied to global fraud ring

Crown, a São Paulo–based fintech focused on programmable money in emerging markets, has raised $8.1 million in seed funding to launch BRLV, a stablecoin pegged to the Brazilian real (BRL) and fully backed by Brazilian government bonds.&nbsp;



The round was led by Framework Ventures, with participation from Valor Capital Group, Coinbase Ventures, Norte Ventures, Paxos, and Ed Wible, co-founder of Nubank, who is also joining Crown’s board.



The funding will accelerate Crown’s product development and market expansion as it seeks to become Brazil’s leading BRL stablecoin issuer. BRLV differs from dollar-denominated stablecoins like USDC by offering native revenue sharing to institutional partners, distributing a portion of yield from government bond holdings.&nbsp;



CEO John Delaney said the structure makes BRLV “both safer and fairer,” giving partners access to the Brazilian real’s high-interest environment through a transparent, regulated model.



Framework Ventures’ Vance Spencer said Crown’s model could position it as “the Circle of Brazil,” emphasizing the potential for fintechs and global investors to gain efficient, on-chain exposure to local yields.&nbsp;



The raise underscores renewed venture interest in compliant stablecoin infrastructure after a period of regulatory uncertainty. With backing from both crypto-native and traditional finance investors, Crown aims to bridge on-chain liquidity with sovereign debt-based stability, expanding institutional access to Brazil’s financial ecosystem.



This is a developing story.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Brazil

Crown raises $8.1M to launch BRLV, a Brazilian real-backed stablecoin

Macauley Peterson

Circle and Safe unveiled a strategic partnership aimed at making USDC the default asset for institutional self-custody and onchain treasury operations, the companies said Tuesday. 



The tie-up positions USDC “at the core of the Safe ecosystem,” bundling Circle’s stablecoin infrastructure with Safe’s programmable, multi-sig smart accounts that already see heavy enterprise and DAO usage.



The move lands as <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/circle">Circle</a> leans harder into institutional distribution following its June listing on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CRCL.



For <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/safe">Safe</a>, the announcement formalizes an institutional pivot already underway. In June, the Safe Ecosystem Foundation <a href="https://safe.global/blog/safe-labs-launch-rahul-rumalla-ceo">stood up Safe Labs</a>, as a wholly owned subsidiary tasked with operating an enterprise-grade instance of Safe{Wallet} and aligning governance and monetization around the SAFE token. Safe Labs will now run the app.safe.global interface as it pushes for uptime, SLAs and faster product cycles.



Many details are still pending, but product-wise, the companies say institutions will get a tighter experience from onboarding through advanced treasury management: policy-based approvals, role-based spending, and direct access to DeFi liquidity where <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/usdc">USDC</a> is most active. Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (<a href="https://developers.circle.com/cctp">CCTP</a>) — which burns and mints native USDC across supported chains — figures to be a key building block for moving balances between networks without relying on wrapped versions.



Scale remains a selling point. Safe notes it secures about $60 billion in digital assets and accounts for roughly 4% of all Ethereum transactions — credentials it argues make Safe a “premier institutional storage solution” for USDC in self-custody and DeFi. The institutional push must contend with reliability and governance, following industry-wide scrutiny after a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/bybit-hack-raises-security-questions">February incident involving Bybit’s wallets</a> that touched Safe’s ecosystem, although the loss stemmed from compromised credentials rather than core Safe code.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109033" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-40.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">USDC is the #2 stablecoin by circulating supply, with roughly have the supply of USDT on Ethereum | Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/ethereum?dashboard=231">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







Stablecoin settlement is a core part of the plumbing of onchain capital markets, and institutions want policy-aware accounts that plug directly into compliance-minded liquidity. Circle brings the regulated dollar; Safe brings the programmable account and enterprise workflows, suitable for crypto-native treasuries and corporates moving onchain, who aren’t afraid of self-custody.



The companies did not disclose commercial terms. Near-term watch items include concrete service level agreements from Safe Labs, specific DeFi venues and guardrails supported at launch, and how quickly CCTP-powered, policy-constrained transfers become one-click inside Safe.



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Circle

Safe taps Circle’s USDC in institutional self-custody partnership

S&amp;P Global Ratings has partnered with Chainlink to publish its stablecoin stability assessments on-chain.



The collaboration uses Chainlink’s institutional-grade DataLink oracle infrastructure to deliver S&amp;P’s independent stablecoin risk evaluations directly to decentralized finance (DeFi) applications and institutional systems.



The SSAs rate a stablecoin’s ability to maintain value parity with fiat currencies on a scale from 1 (very strong) to 5 (weak).&nbsp;



While not formal credit ratings, the assessments analyze key factors such as collateral quality, liquidity management, and governance controls.&nbsp;



By embedding these evaluations into smart contracts through Chainlink’s decentralized network, DeFi protocols and investors can access real-time stability insights for automated risk management and lending decisions.



Chuck Mounts, Chief DeFi Officer at S&amp;P Global, said the launch reflects the firm’s aim to “meet clients where they are” as institutional adoption of digital assets accelerates. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov called the integration “a critical step” in enabling traditional market standards to guide on-chain finance.



The move follows S&amp;P Global’s 2023 debut of its Stablecoin Stability Assessments and expands the company’s data reach into blockchain ecosystems. It also aligns with broader efforts to bridge traditional finance with DeFi, joining similar Chainlink integrations from institutions like Deutsche Börse and the U.S. Department of Commerce.



S&amp;P Global Ratings’ collaboration with Chainlink builds on a gradual expansion of its digital asset coverage since 2021. 



The firm has previously analyzed stablecoin reserves, crypto-backed lending, and tokenization frameworks across traditional credit markets. In December 2023, S&amp;P launched its first stablecoin assessments, evaluating tokens USDC, USDT and others.



This is a developing story.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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Chainlink

S&P Global and Chainlink launch on-chain stablecoin risk assessments

This is a segment from the Forward Guidance newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forward-guidance">subscribe</a>.



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



This version of DAS London felt extra timely as stablecoins proliferate, tokenization developments multiply, DATs keep buying their desired tokens and more US crypto ETFs wait in the wings.&nbsp;



Not to mention the latest crypto turbulence, which spurred a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/crypto-liquidations-drive-historic-market-turbulence">historic level of liquidations</a> Friday — making this gathering feel even more fitting, in a way.&nbsp;



Christopher Holmes, a member of the House of Lords, alluded to that “crash” Monday morning, asking the crowd: “How’s everybody’s blood pressure?”



Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan was later asked how much Friday’s activity damaged this crypto cycle. He was resolute in his answer: “Not at all.”



His firm’s main customers are professional investors — family offices, financial advisers and institutions — that he says are driving this cycle by growing their crypto allocations from, let’s say, 0% to 3%. That’s mostly into bitcoin, which remains up ~23% year to date and roughly 6x what it was just three years ago.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1440" height="874" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-108967" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=1440 1440w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=423 423w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=430 430w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=361 361w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-39.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1440px) 100vw, 1440px" /></figure>



“The people driving the market can’t pronounce solana,” Hougan added.



Stablecoins — with a market value just shy of $300 billion — were another big talking point.&nbsp;



Inversion founder Santiago Roel Santos, for example, criticized exchanges <a href="https://x.com/brian_armstrong/status/1963375254526709879">upping their max leverage</a> offerings to traders. He warned that the industry best not rely too much on centralized exchanges to acquire users.&nbsp;



“[With] stablecoins in their own right, as a tokenization product, we don’t need to innovate more than that for this industry to be 10x larger and transform businesses,” Santos argued.



Apeiron Investment Group founder Christian Angermayer also addressed stablecoins:



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">&quot;I think the US [will] go as far in the next three years to try to convince numerous of these countries to just completely abolish their currency and completely dollarize&quot; <a href="https://t.co/iTdV0eTEVh">pic.twitter.com/iTdV0eTEVh</a>&mdash; Digital Asset Summit 2025 (@blockworksDAS) <a href="https://twitter.com/blockworksDAS/status/1977697640759325143?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Panelists touched on regulation too.&nbsp;



UK Parliament member Nigel Farage, who seeks to become Britain’s next prime minister, said the vast majority of his colleagues can’t <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/nigel-farage-deregulation-bitcoin">hold a crypto convo</a>.&nbsp;



&#8220;You might as well be speaking Swahili to them,” he told Blockworks co-founder Michael Ippolito.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">If <a href="https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Nigel_Farage</a> wins the general election, &quot;we will bring crypto in from the cold&quot; <a href="https://t.co/udoA6grCf1">pic.twitter.com/udoA6grCf1</a>&mdash; Digital Asset Summit 2025 (@blockworksDAS) <a href="https://twitter.com/blockworksDAS/status/1977700466487124347?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Speaking of regulation, Jito Labs chief legal officer Rebecca Rettig said on the DAS stage she doesn’t expect US market structure legislation to pass this year. She’s eyeing 2026.



“The best thing would be if we stop having regulatory panels two to three years from now, because the lawyers can just be back-office people like we’re supposed to be,” she said to laughter.&nbsp;



Rettig added: “The biggest question is, and will remain to be, what do we do about DeFi?” Regulators want to, after all, hold people/front-ends accountable in that realm; that could slow down market structure clarity.&nbsp;



“It is almost like you’re explaining robots to people or what the future looks like,” she noted. “It’s very hard for financial regulators to believe that things that look so similar to what they know from centralized legislation can actually happen without any human intervention.”



It was DeFi platforms like Aave that operated <a href="https://x.com/heyibinance/status/1976976922283221445">smoother than various centralized players</a> during what many called the latest “stress test,” Rettig said.



Let’s wrap up this Day 1 recap with a bigger-picture quote from DeFi Development Corp. CEO Joseph Onorati. It’s a theme that seems to sum up most DAS events.&nbsp;



He said he didn’t view his move to running a <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/equity-fueled-firms-volatility-sol">Nasdaq-listed</a> Solana treasury company as a transition from DeFi to TradFi. Rather, it was just “a natural progression” given regulatory changes, which he said will allow these two systems to keep merging.



“In 20 years…hopefully [finance is] more decentralized than centralized,” Onorati noted. “But there’s just going to be one system in the long run.”



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Soundbites and sentiment from DAS London Day 1

At DAS London, Eigen Labs’ J.T. Rose argued that crypto’s next leg won’t be DeFi but “verifiable AI” — agentic systems whose off-chain work can be proven on-chain.&nbsp;



Rose cast Eigen’s stack as a cloud-like trio of services (data, compute, inference) backed by crypto-economic security and proofs, letting developers keep public-cloud flexibility while adding verifiability before funds move or state updates land on <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/ethereum">Ethereum</a>.



Three promising use cases are coming to the fore, according to Rose:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>Autonomous trading agents that must prove they followed risk rules;</li>



<li>Agent-to-agent (A2A) payments where work receipts trigger settlement and;</li>



<li>Gaming with attestable outcomes.</li>
</ul>



“The single most important limitation we see for [<a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/artificial-intelligence">Artificial Intelligence</a>] founders over the next decade is trust,” Rose said. “Without a mechanism to make AI verifiable up and down the stack — from inference and benchmarking to training and identity — we’ll never hit escape velocity for the agentic era.”



The common thread is programmability meets provability — “programmability like a cloud, assurances like a blockchain,” as Rose framed it — a response to today’s trade-off between tightly constrained on-chain execution and opaque off-chain compute.



David Sneider, co-founder of Lit Protocol, largely shares the destination, focusing on the properties which can instill trust in AI agents, like “guardrails and policies,” synonyms to promote correct execution.



“[As] with anything with security, there&#8217;s multiple components in terms of different types of attacks and how you guard against them,” Sneider told Blockworks, arguing that runtime enforcement — not just after-the-fact proofs — is what turns agents from demos into dependable infrastructure.



In Lit Protocol’s design, Sneider said, a user might tell an agent, “Send an email or buy a bitcoin,” in which case “it communicates with Lit, which validates against the policies&#8230;and only if the policy passes, the secret management network then executes.” By “secret management network,” Sneider is referring to Lit’s TEE-secured, MPC-based key infrastructure.



Taken together, Lit handles the “Can the agent act on my behalf?” question. <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/google-cloud-eigencloud-payments">EigenCloud and Google’s AP2</a> handle “Can I trust the result of this offchain computation?”



Or, to simplify the full trust stack:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li>An agent asks: Am I allowed to do this? (Lit)</li>



<li>Execution proves: Did I do what I said? (EigenCloud/AP2)</li>
</ul>



Rose outlined a range of alternatives on the verifiability spectrum, such as TEEs, crypto-economic slashing and zk proofs. Lit can emit success/failure signals and policy-compliance proofs for each execution, but they’re often kept internal. The roadmap is to surface those attestations “in privacy-preserving ways into shared registries like <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/ethereum-foundation-team-ai-integration">ERC-8004</a> and inter-agent communication protocols like A2A,” so a compliant agent doesn’t need to be re-audited in every venue.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="889" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-108957" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-38.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



Restaked ether has held steady between 2-3 million ETH, mostly with <a href="https://blockworks.co/tag/eigenlayer">EigenLayer</a> | Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/ethereum?dashboard=313">Blockworks Research</a> (Entity labels sourced from <a href="https://dune.com/">Dune&#8217;s</a> staking flows table.)



Both founders converge on Ethereum as the neutral trust anchor and on a near-term consumer arc.



Soon, “everybody is going to have essentially a quant in their pocket to manage their funds,” Sneider said. It’s an idea that “seems pretty coherent and is starting to come together.”



If all the pieces land — guardrails that travel and compute that can prove itself — both founders see a path from prototypes to production. As Rose put it: “The next growth driver for crypto won’t be DeFi — it’s verifiable AI, and it’ll happen on Ethereum.”



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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/thedrop">The Drop</a>: Apps, games, memes and more.</li>



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Verifiable AI took center stage at DAS London with EigenCloud

This is a segment from The Drop newsletter. To read full editions, <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/the-drop">subscribe</a>.



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Six years ago, the Ethereum Foundation <a href="https://blog.ethereum.org/2019/11/27/validated-staking-on-eth2-no-0">declared</a> that “eth2 should be capable of surviving World War 3.”



But its app layer is clearly not.&nbsp;



Uniswap Labs’ front-end is still blocking Ukraine-based IP addresses, according to multiple user reports and my own test with a VPN set to the country.



Ukraine IP addresses are able to see the Uniswap site, but any attempt to select assets results in an error message, which does not occur when using a US IP address.



Artem Chystiakov, head of Solidity at Distributed Lab, is based in Ukraine and believes Uniswap has misinterpreted US sanctions.&nbsp;



“It is clearly stated that no goods, services or technology must be provided to both the so-called DNR/LNR and the Crimea regions of Ukraine. Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities/regions are not mentioned whatsoever,” Chystiakov wrote.



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">Dear <a href="https://twitter.com/Uniswap?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Uniswap</a>, I am writing this letter to you because your dapp is still blocked and can&#39;t be used in Ukraine. We had this conversation before and despite my efforts to convince you why it is legal to access the dapp from Kyiv (support ticket 169045), nothing has changed since… <a href="https://t.co/RDy1UfS0WC">pic.twitter.com/RDy1UfS0WC</a>&mdash; Artem Chystiakov (@Arvolear) <a href="https://twitter.com/Arvolear/status/1977618657468359103?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 13, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



OFAC’s <a href="https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/where-is-ofacs-country-list-what-countries-do-i-need-to-worry-about-in-terms-of-us-sanctions">website</a> states: “The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) does not maintain a specific list of countries that US persons cannot do business with.” Instead, it details specific programs and sanctioned persons and companies.



In the open letter, Chystiakov told Uniswap Labs: “This is absurd. Ukraine, being in the middle of the war, fighting for freedom, and you are limiting the availability of your service on some false regulatory claims.”



Chystiakov shared a screenshot response from Uniswap Labs’ support team, indicating the issue has been ongoing since at least as early as February this year:&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1410" height="516" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-108950" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=1410 1410w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-36.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1410px) 100vw, 1410px" /></figure>



The date of the response, plus user <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/UniSwap/comments/1kji6jf/uniswap_not_available_in_ukraine_what/">reports</a> and the date of a Change.org <a href="https://www.change.org/p/restore-uniswap-access-for-ukrainian-citizens">petition</a>, suggests Uniswap Labs has been blocking Ukrainians’ access to its DEX via its front-end for at least a year now.&nbsp;



Traders suggested using an aggregator instead, though using a VPN would also in theory work to get around the restriction.



The Uniswap support team’s response from February suggests they’ve taken a blanket approach to adhering to sanctions by blocking entire countries via “third party providers.”



But Cloudflare, for example, does offer ways to block only certain parts of a country. <a href="https://community.cloudflare.com/t/embargoed-and-sanctioned-countries-crimea/204185">Posts</a> from the Cloudflare team and <a href="https://community.cloudflare.com/t/how-to-block-sanctioned-sections-of-ukraine/648769">community</a> show that Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk can be blocked individually using specific subregion codes. But a Cloudflare Pro, Business or Enterprise plan is <a href="https://community.cloudflare.com/t/block-traffic-originated-from-specific-sub-regions-in-ukraine-to-our-domain/757612/2">required</a>.&nbsp;



Uniswap Labs appears to be using Cloudflare, based on ICANN Lookup data, NsLookup, and Cloudflare’s <a href="https://domaincontact.cloudflareregistrar.com/uniswap.org">website</a>.&nbsp;



It’s unclear whether the issue is due to a policy choice, issues with Cloudflare or a financial decision. Data suggests Uniswap Labs saw <a href="https://defillama.com/protocol/uniswap-labs">$118 million</a> in revenue in 2024. The Uniswap Foundation <a href="https://gov.uniswap.org/t/uniswap-foundation-summary-fy-2024-financials/25486">reported</a> $1.11 million in revenue in that same period.&nbsp;



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="868" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/unnamed.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-108958" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/unnamed.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/unnamed.png?w=300 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Error message encountered when using a Ukraine-based IP address</figcaption></figure>



It’s ironic, of course, that Uniswap’s website bears the slogan “Swap anytime, anywhere,” when that is not really the case.



Uniswap Labs blocking Ukrainians from using its web app is additionally ironic considering it <a href="https://decrypt.co/94079/uniswap-adds-tool-to-facilitate-crypto-donations-to-ukraine">added</a> a function for users to easily donate to the Ukrainian government via Uniswap back in 2022. Upon checking today, that donate link appears to have since been taken down.



I’ve reached out to Uniswap Labs for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.&nbsp;



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Developers

Uniswap Labs front-end remains blocked in Ukraine, frustrating builders

Jack Kubinec

Founder sources I’ve spoken to seem to agree: There’s never been a better time to be selling a stablecoin startup.



I learned this the hard way last week. After noticing the relative dearth of recent crypto acquisitions, I was planning a bratty column titled: “Is the crypto M&amp;A season in the room with us right now?”&nbsp;



Then Fortune blew up my spot when it broke the news that Coinbase and Mastercard are offering between $1.5-2.5 billion to acquire stablecoin infrastructure firm BVNK. Coinbase appears to currently have the inside track to win the bidding war, Fortune <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/10/09/bvnk-acquisition-coinbase-mastercard-stablecoins/">reported</a>.



<a href="https://blockworks.co/news/stripe-acquisition-azura-defi-raise">Stripe paid $1.1 billion</a> for stablecoin infrastructure shop Bridge last year, and BVNK could get double that amount. BVNK <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2024/12/17/exclusive-stablecoin-bvnk-750-million-series-b-bridge-stripe-haun/">reportedly</a> had $40 million in annualized revenue at the end of last year.



The revenue multiples that stablecoin startups can ask for in the current market environment are “pretty damn high,” said one stablecoin founder, who declined to be named. The founder added that despite the relatively low number of closed acquisition deals in recent months, the sharks are circling behind the scenes.



“If you can name a company in the space or tangential to the space, they are shopping around,” the founder said.



Stablecoin startups can fast track large financial or payments’ firms pathway to market in a post CLARITY Act world. This is partly because stablecoin tech may be cumbersome to build in-house and partly because stablecoin firms may have earned the requisite licenses to do business in the US.&nbsp;



“M&amp;A will be a key for institutions to play catch up games,” Jiazi Guo, founder and CEO of crypto tax firm ETZ Soft, said.



Some of these startups — the BVNKs and Bridges of the world — may have great pieces in place but lack the scale to absorb all the demand for stablecoins. The apparently high revenue multiples being demanded by stablecoin startups in the current environment could be justified by the projected revenue these firms could produce in the context of a larger company with more compliance infrastructure and distribution, said a second founder in the stablecoin space.



In conversations on crypto’s M&amp;A outlook, I heard names like Visa, Mastercard, and Square come up as potential buyers.&nbsp;



Within crypto, things can get murkier. Paying with stock helps billion-dollar-plus acquisitions actually happen, and while private crypto projects can offer tokens, those may be seen as risky assets to accept from a seller’s point of view.&nbsp;



Actors like Coinbase, Circle, Tether, and some layer-1s could be outliers here, either because they have gone public or have a large amount of free cash flow.&nbsp;



There has been a decent amount of acquisition activity within crypto in recent months, with firms like MoonPay making multiple smaller acquisitions. These deals may be more likely to be paid in cash, such as Solana staking firm Sanctum’s <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/sanctum-acquires-ironforge">recent acquisition of IronForge</a>.



The complicating factor in some crypto-native acquisition deals can be tokens, which present thorny questions as to the rights of token holders. Tokens can also make it less logical for companies to merge, said one of the founders, who recounted an acquisition deal with a down-on-its-luck DeFi venue falling through due to complications surrounding the project’s token.



The <a href="https://thedefiant.io/news/defi/stargate-approves-usd110-million-takeover-by-layerzero">messy takeover attempt</a> Wormhole made for cross-chain protocol Stargate Finance illustrated how projects with token holder bases don’t always make for the easiest acquisition targets.



Still, my sources seem to think crypto M&amp;A is yet to peak for this market cycle. Perhaps a BVNK bidding war will be the activation energy that gets M&amp;A season kicked off in earnest.



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acquisition

It’s selling time for stablecoin companies

BitMine Immersion announced the acquisition of more than 200,000 ETH, raising its total holdings of the cryptocurrency to more than 3 million ETH. 



The firm said its crypto and cash holdings are worth nearly $13 billion. BitMine holds a mix of ETH and BTC, in addition to its bitcoin mining business lines and <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eightco-holdings-inc-octo-announces-250-million-private-placement-with-an-additional-20-million-strategic-investment-from-bitmine-bmnr-to-initiate-worlds-first-worldcoin-wld-treasury-strategy-302549012.html">shares</a> in Eightco Holdings, a Worldcoin treasury company. 



BitMine is the largest treasury company of its kind, with its holdings far exceeding those of other firms, per Blockworks Research <a href="https://blockworks.com/analytics/treasury-companies/ethereum-treasury-companies">data</a>. 



The firm, according to chairman Tom Lee, has maintained a goal of acquiring 5% of the total supply of ETH, which per Coingecko currently stands at more than 120 million tokens.



In this morning’s press statement, Lee cited last week’s market tumult and wave of liquidations in leveraged trading markets as key instigators for Bitmine’s latest purchases.&nbsp;



“The crypto liquidation over the past few days created a price decline in ETH, which BitMine took advantage of,” Lee said in a statement, later adding: “We are now more than halfway towards our initial pursuit of the &#8216;alchemy of 5%&#8217; of ETH.&#8221;



BitMine is one of a growing body of digital asset treasuries (DATs) that trade on public markets. 



BitMine’s stock, under the ticker BMNR, is trading at $54.86, up roughly 4.3% since the market’s open.



This is a developing story.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor&nbsp;<a href="mailto:jeffrey@blockworks.co" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Jeffrey Albus</a>&nbsp;before publication.



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BitMine

BitMine adds 200K ETH to its Ethereum treasury holdings

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage took to the stage at DAS London this morning and promised that, should his party enter government, it would oversee a process of deregulation in the country’s crypto space.



During his appearance, Farage touted his party’s “Cryptoassets and Digital Finance Bill,” <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg4vnd0d17ro">unveiled in May</a> and criticized the management of the UK financial service sector by the Conservative Party and Labour Party.&nbsp;



“It’s been completely neglected by both the last government and by this government, and I want to regenerate it. I want to make London back to being a great trading center and that includes [the crypto] space,” he told attendees.



Reform UK’s draft bill proposed cutting capital gains tax on crypto to 10%, establishing a bitcoin reserve at the Bank of England, and tightening rules against account closures based on lawful digital-asset activity.



“We have to get the tax burden right,” he said of Reform UK’s broader economic plans, decrying a “flight of capital, the flight of brains” to other countries.&nbsp;



Farage’s pledges come as the major UK political parties fight over the direction of the country’s economy, amid a period of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/12/stagnant-gdp-shows-scale-of-challenge-for-rachel-reeves-at-autumn-budget">slowing growth</a> and deteriorating <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/oct/05/rachel-reeves-second-budget-narrative-fairness-tax-rises">government finances</a>. Recent polls, per <a href="https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/">Politico EU</a>, show Reform performing above the other parties, including the governing Labour Party.&nbsp;



The comments also come amid shifts in the regulatory landscape for crypto in the UK. Late last month, UK and US officials announced the creation of <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0256">a new collaborative task force</a> intended, in part, to harmonize crypto rules.



Meanwhile, Bank of England chief Andrew Bailey has pushed for major stablecoins to be closely regulated in the country. According to Reuters, he remarked on Oct. 1 that “widely used UK stablecoins should have access to accounts at the BoE in order to reinforce their status as money.” Bailey has <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/bank-england-says-regulators-must-keep-ahead-stablecoins-2020-09-03/">long argued</a> that regulators must closely monitor and enforce rules around stablecoins.



This is a developing story.



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This article was generated with the assistance of AI and reviewed by editor <a href="https://blockworks.co/author/michael-mcsweeney" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Michael McSweeney</a> before publication.



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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage touts plans for crypto deregulation, Bitcoin reserve

Michael McSweeney

Crypto prices plunged Friday, triggering the market’s most severe — and perhaps most consequential — wave of liquidations on record.



More than $19 billion worth of liquidations were triggered during the past day, according to <a href="https://www.coinglass.com/LiquidationData">Coinglass</a> data, with $16.8 billion of that figure on the long side. The true figure “is likely much higher” owing to the way Binance, which saw significant volume during the event, reports&nbsp; liquidations, Coinglass <a href="https://x.com/coinglass_com/status/1976796969961193641">wrote</a> on X.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The decentralized perpetuals trading platform Hyperliquid saw a significant portion of the day’s action: $10.3 billion in liquidations, with $9.3 billion on the long side, per Coinglass.



The developments were fueled by the escalating <a href="https://x.com/0xdoug/status/1976850615621107743">unwind</a> of leveraged positions and a collapse in open interest. Bitcoin’s price fell to as low as $104,000, with altcoins big and small impacted more severely.



Felix Jauvin, host of the Forward Guidance podcast, told me, &#8220;This was one of the messiest liquidation events that I’ve seen in a long time. The last one I remember like this was probably May 2021. With estimates of around $20b of liquidations, it’s likely someone big got carried out and there was nowhere to hide other than spot long.&#8221;



&#8220;Leverage long? Liquidated. Leverage short? Forced deleveraging through exchange auto deleveraging (ADL),&#8221; he explained. &#8220;I’m&nbsp;hearing a lot of stories of people that were short, took profits and bought the dip and then were quickly liquidated right after.&nbsp;It’s&nbsp;a mess and will take quite a while for market makers to reshore up liquidity again.”



Onchain activity surged dramatically, though some users encountered significant delays in the chaos. Aave founder Stani Kulechov <a href="https://x.com/StaniKulechov/status/1976777483824644454">wrote</a> on X that “[t]he protocol operated flawlessly, automatically liquidating a record $180M worth of collateral in just one hour, without any human intervention.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">1/ Yesterdays crash brought chaos to DeFi lending markets. Aave: $182M in liquidated loans Spark: $16M in liquidated loans Morpho: $35M in liquidated loans Lets dive into the data 👇&mdash; Jack 🟪 (@JackMandin) <a href="https://twitter.com/JackMandin/status/1977008640281510245?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 11, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Speculation quickly surfaced on Crypto Twitter around yet-to-be-named industry firms suffering major losses that, in turn, deepened the rout. Alongside these theories, traders shared testimonies of complete or near-total wipeouts of leveraged positions.



“Probably one of the most severe flushes I’ve ever seen on alts, I didn’t even imagine alts had this much leverage in them,” Cobie, the long-time crypto trader and commentator, <a href="https://x.com/cobie/status/1976788855006302686">wrote</a> on X Friday. “It feels like someone got hit very hard and will see a large body float to the surface soon, reminds me a little of summer 2021.”



“Don’t let a leverage blowup dictate your long-term views. The future is bright, good things to come, patience is rewarded,” he went on to conclude.



Bitcoin’s price has since partially recovered and is trading around $112,200 at the time of writing. The collective crypto market cap is down 9% in the past day, per Coingecko. Among the altcoins bucking the trend was <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/zcash">Zcash</a>, which posted additional gains post-crash after climbing sharply in the days and hours beforehand.



Some market participants swiftly drew comparisons to the dramatic market drops around Tether/Luna and FTX. Both proved to be market-defining events last cycle.&nbsp;



Beyond the raw numbers —&nbsp;Coinglass reports 1.6 million traders liquidated in the past 24 hours —&nbsp;the event demonstrated crypto’s vastly expanded interconnectedness with global markets and power politics.



The selloff appears part of a broader reaction to a new flare-up in US President Donald Trump’s trade war against China. Trump, in a pair of posts on his Truth Social website, declared his intention to impose 100% tariffs in response to a move by China to restrict access to its rare earth materials. The U.S. would also restrict Chinese access to “critical software”, Trump said, per the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/us/politics/trump-xi-china-tariffs-rare-earth.html">New York Times</a>. Major US indices <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/business/stock-market-trump-tariffs.html">tumbled</a> on the news, especially after Trump doubled down on his tariff threats.&nbsp;



While the US-China trade relationship has fluctuated between cool détente and outright hostility since Trump took office, his latest moves struck at the heart of the most important exchange of goods between the two countries: software that fuels the global AI revolution and the crucial ingredients required to manufacture the chips behind it.



Beyond the macro implications, the Trumpian roots of the crypto market turbulence may prove to be more consequential than the losses themselves.



Nearly 10 months into his second term, Trump and his family have fully embraced the industry —&nbsp;personally, professionally, and politically. The industry, too, embraced Trump, pouring millions of dollars into GOP election coffers. 



In return, the Trump administration has pushed policies that favor the industry, and it ended an era of oversight under former President Joseph Biden that prioritized regulatory pressure and legal combat. Congress passed <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/trump-signs-genius-law">landmark stablecoin regulation</a> and, despite <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/09/tensions-over-crypto-bill-boil-over-in-the-senate-00601479?cdlcid=5d23ad3c953109375ea49b92&amp;section=&amp;utm_campaign=cryptocodex&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter">disputes</a> between Republicans and Democrats, lawmakers are likely to pass market structure reforms sometime in the future as well.&nbsp;



Still, Friday’s events confirm that, despite the favorable treatment, the crypto market is not immune to Trump’s geopolitical whims. The industry’s march across Wall Street — ETFs, DATs, investments and more — means that crypto may inescapably rise or fall as Trump’s hot-and-cold trade war with China continues. Friday’s events could happen again, though perhaps not with the same scale or intensity.



The coming days will reveal the extent of the damages, the firms impacted, and the degree to which publicly traded crypto companies will be affected.&nbsp;



More broadly, it remains to be seen whether Friday was the start of a new crypto bear market — or the latest twist in its most important bull market yet.&nbsp;

BYTE by VirtualsBYTE

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