Strategic Bitcoin Reserve

Macauley Peterson

Citi has raised its base-case projection for stablecoin issuance to $1.9 trillion by 2030, up from $1.6 trillion earlier this year, with a $4 trillion bull case and a $0.9 trillion bear case.



On Day 3 of DAS London, Sophia Bantanidis, a research analyst on Citi’s Future of Finance team, presented the findings of the bank’s “Stablecoins 2030: Web3 to Wall Street” <a href="https://www.citigroup.com/rcs/citigpa/storage/public/GPS_Report_Stablecoins_2030.pdf">report</a>, calling the stablecoin boom “blockchain’s ChatGPT moment for institutional adoption.”



Bantanidis pointed to “a huge surge of announcements from digitally native firms integrating stablecoins into commerce, payments and real-world applications,” noting big e-commerce names are “partnering with the wallet providers to accept crypto and stablecoins.”



Stablecoin issuers could become a top Treasury holder —potentially more than any single jurisdiction today, the report says — with $1 trillion+ in T-bills by 2030, amassing political capital in the process.



Bantanidis also cited “regulatory tailwinds” — including the GENIUS Act — and “offshore international demand for holding USD,” as primary drivers of stablecoin growth.



<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-50.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109130" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-50.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Ethereum holds roughly $177b of the <a href="https://defillama.com/stablecoins">$306 billion total</a> stablecoin supply | Source: <a href="https://app.blockworksresearch.com/analytics/team/charts/3228">Blockworks Research</a></figcaption></figure>







Beyond growth in supply, Citi’s updated outlook projects even more eye-popping numbers for transaction volume. Since stablecoins “can circulate with really high velocity,” Bantanidis said the base case implies roughly $100 trillion in annual stablecoin transaction volume by 2030, or even double in the bull scenario.



But there’s a caveat, she told the London audience: “Stablecoins are not going to be the only game in town.”



<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;The takeaway from both reports is that stablecoins are not going to be the only game in town,&quot; <a href="https://twitter.com/Citi?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Citi</a>&#39;s Sophia Bantanidis says <a href="https://t.co/CoAnVDoIce">pic.twitter.com/CoAnVDoIce</a>&mdash; Digital Asset Summit 2025 (@blockworksDAS) <a href="https://twitter.com/blockworksDAS/status/1978407929263923239?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 15, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



“We envision a multi-format, monetary ecosystem,” Bantanidis said, predicting that “bank tokens…will outpace stablecoins in transaction volume by 2030.”



The report models $100–$140 trillion in annual bank-token turnover at modest penetration of large-value payment rails.



On adoption, corporate treasurers “can optimize liquidity management globally” via programmability, embedded compliance and conditional settlement — but many “are likely going to prefer bank tokens and tokenized deposits because of their risk appetite [and] regulatory considerations,” Bantanidis said.



Geopolitically, Citi believes dollar-backed stablecoins could extend USD dominance, with Hong Kong and the UAE among jurisdictions likely to embrace local-currency rails but, Bantanidis cautioned, “there are multiple regulatory loopholes that still need to be filled.” Risks include interoperability and fragmentation, the quality of the reserve assets, transparency and auditability.



Despite lingering uncertainties, one thing is clear, Bantanidis said: “Stablecoins are shifting from a niche decentralized finance experiment into a viable rail for moving money.”



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Banking

Citi posits bank tokens may be more popular than stablecoins

Blockworks

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has granted preliminary conditional approval for a de novo national bank charter to Erebor Bank.



The approval positions Erebor Bank, a venture backed by Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and firms connected to Joe Lonsdale and Peter Thiel, to become one of the first federally-chartered banks built around the innovation-economy client base once served by Silicon Valley Bank.&nbsp;



According to Erebor’s June <a href="https://www.occ.treas.gov/news-issuances/news-releases/2025/nr-occ-2025-101.html">filing</a>, investors plan to commit around $250 million in capital through 8VC, Founders Fund, Haun Ventures, and other backers. The proposed leadership team includes Michael Hagedorn as president, with Owen Rapaport and Jacob Hirshman serving as co-chief executives.



Erebor’s application outlines a target clientele spanning crypto, AI, and defense startups as well as high-net-worth individuals in those sectors. The bank also intends to assist foreign banks with U.S. dollar-based transactions.&nbsp;



In its OCC filings, Erebor <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/palmer-luckey-joe-lonsdale-bank-erebor/">describes</a> plans to become “the most regulated entity conducting and facilitating stablecoin transactions,” to promote “broader acceptance of stablecoins,” and to accept cryptocurrencies as collateral for certain loans. Stablecoins are digital tokens whose value is pegged to a currency such as the U.S. dollar, often backed by cash or short-term Treasuries to maintain price stability.



Comptroller Jonathan V. Gould called the move a milestone for a “dynamic and diverse federal banking system,” adding that the agency “does not impose blanket barriers” to banks that want to engage in permissible digital-asset activities, provided they are conducted in a safe and sound manner.



While the OCC’s conditional approval confirms Erebor’s eligibility to proceed, the bank must still meet all pre-opening requirements, including capital adequacy, governance, and compliance testing.



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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OCC guidance paves way for Erebor’s crypto-bank ambitions

Coinbase has agreed to invest in Indian crypto exchange CoinDCX, valuing the company at $2.45 billion post-money.



Coinbase said in a<a href="https://www.coinbase.com/blog/Coinbase-makes-investment-in-CoinDCX-expanding-our-commitment-to-India-and-the-Middle-Easts-crypto-future"> statement</a> that the deal underscores its commitment to “responsible innovation” in emerging crypto economies.&nbsp;



“This investment adds to our growing presence in the region, where we also maintain local operations and other important local partners. Taken together, these steps reflect a clear commitment: we believe India and its neighbors will help shape the future of the global onchain economy,” the firm said.&nbsp;



CoinDCX last raised $135 million in an<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/18/indian-crypto-exchange-coindcx-tops-2-1-billion-valuation-in-new-135-million-funding/"> April 2022 funding round</a> led by Pantera Capital and Steadview, with participation from Coinbase Ventures and B Capital Group. That round valued the Mumbai-based exchange at $2.15 billion, marking it as India’s first crypto unicorn.&nbsp;



Founded in 2018, CoinDCX has built a user base exceeding 14 million, offering trading, staking, and education tools aimed at onboarding Indian retail users. Coinbase’s fresh investment reinforces its regional expansion following licenses in Singapore and Dubai.&nbsp;



When completed, the deal aims to deepen Coinbase’s exposure to Asia’s largest retail crypto market while signaling long-term confidence in regulated local exchanges.



Two investments this month signal Coinbase’s particular focus on two key areas in crypto today: prediction markets and stablecoins.&nbsp;



Coinbase joined a $300 million Series D round into prediction market <a href="https://news.kalshi.com/p/kalshi-hits-5-billion-valuation-amid-international-expansion">Kalshi</a>, which secured a $5 billion valuation.<a href="https://cryptorank.io/ico/kalshi?utm_source=chatgpt.com"> </a>It also participated in a $25 million Series A for Coinflow, supporting the company’s expansion in stablecoin payments infrastructure, according to <a href="https://fortune.com/crypto/2025/10/08/stablecoin-coinflow-startup-funding-round-pantera-stripe-payments/">Fortune</a>.



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="https://blockworks.co/author/michael-mcsweeney">Michael McSweeney</a> before publication.



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Coinbase

Coinbase invests in CoinDCX, valuing crypto exchange at $2.45B

Shaunda Devens

Kunal Doshi

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Beyond the near-term sector rotation, one group continues to stand apart on a year-to-date basis: Bitcoin Miners, up 150.32% YTD. That outpaces Crypto Equities at 16.13% and leaves BTC itself, up just 1.05%, far behind.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1600" height="843" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109114" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=1600 1600w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=1536 1536w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-49.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px" /></figure>



This miner outperformance reflects a structural shift in how the market values the sector. Previously viewed primarily as leveraged proxies to BTC, miners are now increasingly seen as infrastructure providers controlling scarce, pre-permitted power capacity and high-density data-center real estate that can be monetized via either hash or AI/HPC hosting. This generates approximately 70% more revenue per megawatt than BTC mining, with contracts delivering roughly $149K/MW-month vs. $87K/MW-month from mining at current hashprice levels.



Several miners, including Core Scientific (CORZ), Cipher Mining (CIFR), Iris Energy (IREN), CleanSpark (CLSK), and TeraWulf (WULF), are benefiting from this trend. They&#8217;ve secured multi-year hosting agreements that deliver contracted, dollar-linked cash flows in addition to mining revenues. <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="blob:https://cms.blockworks.co/3950e72d-5493-43c2-9e3b-19bcf1f6cfd6" width="572" height="307">



Leadership remains highly concentrated. Heavyweight CLSK, IREN, and WULF have delivered outsized, triple-digit performance YTD, supported by three key competitive advantages:



<ol class="wp-block-list">
<li>Rapid scale-up in efficient exahash and rack capacity.</li>



<li>Cheap, reliable power with secured grid interconnects and clear expansion pathways.</li>



<li>Credible AI/HPC optionality, converting their power-rich campuses into diversified, contracted revenue streams.</li>
</ol>



Conversely, laggards within the sector typically have smaller operating footprints, higher energy costs, weaker balance sheets or limited progress on pivoting infrastructure toward AI/HPC workloads.&nbsp;



— <a href="https://x.com/shaundadevens">Shaunda</a>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Plasma has liquidity, but now it needs life</h2>



As Plasma Mainnet approaches its <a href="https://blockworks.co/news/plasma-announces-mainnet-beta">one-month anniversary</a>, it’s a good time to assess whether it has lived up to its reputation as the stablecoin chain. After an explosive start, the price action of XPL has been brutalized. It is down -43% in the past week and -70% from its all-time high.



Despite ranking as the fourth-largest chain by DeFi TVL at $8.42 billion, Plasma’s defining feature should be utility, not deposits. The hallmark of a stablecoin chain is active circulation. Weekly P2P transfer data shows Tron and Solana leading by a wide margin, with each stablecoin dollar turning over roughly twice per week. Plasma and Ethereum lag, suggesting most stablecoins are either parked in farms or left idle.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="563" height="135" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-46.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109111" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-46.png?w=563 563w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-46.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-46.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-46.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-46.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-46.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 563px) 100vw, 563px" /></figure>



Around 65% of Plasma’s stablecoins are deposited in lending protocols such as Aave, reflecting a farming-heavy ecosystem. Incentives explain the behavior. Roughly $230K in daily rewards are given for lending and $55K for borrowing USDT0 on Aave. While TVL bootstrapping has its place, incentives on stablecoins should ideally fuel usage, not just inflate metrics.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="481" height="161" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-47.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109112" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-47.png?w=481 481w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-47.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-47.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-47.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-47.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-47.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 481px) 100vw, 481px" /></figure>



This TVL is proving far from sticky. As XPL’s price fell, rewards declined, prompting large withdrawals and loan repayments. With limited real utility, XPL has effectively become a reward token, facing continuous sell pressure from roughly 25% annualized inflation.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="798" height="387" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-48.png" alt="" class="wp-image-109113" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-48.png?w=798 798w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-48.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-48.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-48.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-48.png?w=470 470w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-48.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-48.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 798px) 100vw, 798px" /></figure>



Plasma’s next phase must move beyond incentives. Unless users begin using USDT0 for payments or unique use cases for stables emerge, it risks losing out to the next yield farm. Still, there are bright spots. Neutrl opens pre-deposits today with $50 million in capital to offer hedged OTC and delta-neutral yield strategies. This gives retail access to institutional-grade products traditionally locked behind OTC desks. If projects like Neutrl gain traction on Plasma and merchant integrations follow, Plasma could still evolve from a yield farm to a functional stablecoin economy.



— <a href="https://x.com/Kunallegendd">Kunal</a>



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Mining

Miners power higher as Plasma’s stablecoin hype fades

David Canellis

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Today’s subject is an unsolved mystery of crypto market microstructure. We only have so many facts, and we’ll likely never know all the details.



To get up to speed with the fundamentals of what happened over the weekend, I recommend the <a href="https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1YqGolZBBRgJv">Empire livestream</a> from Sunday with Doug Colkitt, as well as Doug’s <a href="https://x.com/0xdoug/status/1976850615621107743">helpful X thread</a> on Auto-Deleveraging.



For those wanting the quick and dirty headline summary, here goes.&nbsp;



For some silly reason, Binance was using spot prices to value three tokens accepted as collateral for margin positions — liquid staking derivatives wBETH and BNSOL, alongside Ethena’s synthetic dollar USDE.



Not exactly a problem when Binance’s order books for those tokens were thick with bids on either side. But they’d quickly dried up around the time that bitcoin and other coins started dumping on word that Trump’s trade war with China would persist, leading prices to slip well below par, and in the case of the two staking derivatives, almost to zero.



Bad news for anyone using the affected coins as collateral for margin trading on Binance. Suddenly their collateral wasn’t considered valuable enough to cover their position — even though prices remained much more stable elsewhere — and they were liquidated.&nbsp;



At the same time, leveraged traders on perps DEXs like Hyperliquid, many incentivized to take margin by points campaigns for airdrops, were also hit as a result of second-order price effects.&nbsp;



So, if you’re after an analogy, it’s easiest to consider Binance as the epicenter of an earthquake. Had Binance valued USDE, wBETH and BNSOL using an index or some other pricing system, rather than its own illiquid spot markets, maybe there would have been no earthquake at all. The Ethena protocol was still redeeming USDE tokens for $1 value throughout the entire ordeal, for instance.



<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">While we share these suggestions privately with any partner we work with across both DeFi and CeFi, want to surface this publicly so there is zero doubt going forward on what we view as appropriate oracle design and risk management for USDe: <a href="https://t.co/lb4OeaGn9Y">pic.twitter.com/lb4OeaGn9Y</a>&mdash; G | Ethena (@gdog97_) <a href="https://twitter.com/gdog97_/status/1977302774636540403?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Now comes the mystery: As Colin Wu <a href="https://wublock.substack.com/p/opinion-is-this-crash-an-attack-on">pointed out</a> earlier this week, Binance had, only days before the liquidation quake, publicly <a href="https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/detail/d6deec042d784b6ba5d8710a8c69d79d?utm_source=chatgpt.com">announced</a> that it would be reconfiguring its price oracles away from its own spot markets for wBETH and BNSOL “to minimise the risk of depegging.”



Hypothetically, that opens the door to the whole situation amounting to a coordinated attack on Binance (or one of its market makers).&nbsp;



Whether Binance knew it or not, the announcement made it clear that there was a structural weakness in the way its oracles were valuing certain tokens used as collateral. Any malicious whale with a decent-enough position in the implicated spot markets could (again, hypothetically) dump enough coins to depeg those assets, triggering liquidations that shouldn’t be triggered at all.



Which, I suppose, could be the case. But for such a plan to work, it would take knowing that the order books were so thin that prices would actually collapse under a certain amount of acceptable selling pressure applied by the malicious whale.&nbsp;



As it so happens, there is data that suggests that this might’ve been possible.&nbsp;



The tip off came from an X poster by the name of Benson Sun, who has been unpacking the implications in a series of articles. Sun <a href="https://x.com/BensonTWN/status/1978083314121552360">wrote</a> that between 21:18 and 21:20 UTC, Binance underwent an “abnormal, synchronized withdrawal of liquidity,” through which “order books were nearly drained, leaving the market in a brief but total vacuum.”



Indeed, bid and ask volumes on Binance’s BTC/USDT market evaporated by more than 95% between 21:13 and 21:22, per Blockworks Research data and as shown on the chart below. The orderbooks were drained almost completely in under 10 minutes and would take the better part of an hour to recover to reasonable levels.



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1282" height="718" src="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=1024&amp;h=1024" alt="" class="wp-image-109104" srcset="https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=1282 1282w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=300 300w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=1024 1024w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=768 768w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=428 428w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=466 466w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=389 389w, https://blockworks-co.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/image-45.png?w=80 80w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1282px) 100vw, 1282px" /></figure>



Binance, meanwhile, compensated liquidated users affected by localized depegs that occurred between 21:36 UTC and 22:16 UTC.&nbsp;



Which makes sense: The depegs had started around 21:40 UTC, with the worst of it coming about 10 minutes later. Trump’s announcement of potential additional tariffs on China came 20 minutes after that, at 20:00 UTC, on Truth Social.&nbsp;



Curiously, two Hyperliquid accounts <a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/currencies/a-historic-crypto-selloff-erased-over-19-billion-but-two-accounts-made-160-million-3144cccd">got ahead of the news</a> by shorting bitcoin and ether minutes before that post, leading to $160 million profits.



Were those traders the same whales who might’ve intentionally crashed prices on Binance after they simultaneously pulled their chips off the table, imploding markets that they themselves turned illiquid? Was that a strategy to profit even more from their shorts, fueled by the tears of liquidations across the exchange ecosystem?



<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">Reminded by <a href="https://twitter.com/BensonTWN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@BensonTWN</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Arthur_0x?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Arthur_0x</a>, I further explored the data points of <a href="https://twitter.com/ethena_labs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ethena_labs</a> price at 9:18 pm UTC and 9:19 pm UTC on 10 Oct across <a href="https://twitter.com/binance?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@binance</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/okx?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@okx</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Bybit_Official?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Bybit_Official</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/bitgetglobal?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@bitgetglobal</a> . 0.34 -&gt; 0.27 at 9:18 pm 0.27 -&gt; 0.15 at 9:19 pm It looks like mms withdrew the liquidity… <a href="https://t.co/PhtTWMHAqx">https://t.co/PhtTWMHAqx</a> <a href="https://t.co/Fyvycbethz">pic.twitter.com/Fyvycbethz</a>&mdash; YQ (@yq_acc) <a href="https://twitter.com/yq_acc/status/1978138671531618777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2025</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



We’ll never know without Binance publicly releasing details of how their largest traders operated around the time of the crashes (which would never happen).&nbsp;



But remember the part about pattern recognition: In a separate post, another analyst <a href="https://x.com/yq_acc/status/1977433963728867630">catalogued</a> four other instances of attacks on oracles prone to manipulation since late 2020, including bZx, Harvest Finance, Compound and Mango Markets.



So the $19 billion question of whether a single culprit caused the chaos might be a misnomer. It was a situation that could’ve easily been caused by just one person.&nbsp;



Whether or not they intended to trigger the situation is the real kicker. And it doesn’t take a tinfoil hat to suggest that exchange operators (CEX or otherwise) would do well to consider this a coordinated attack in any case.&nbsp;



Fingers crossed, at least.



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Binance

Attack on Binance? Crypto meltdowns are starting to rhyme

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>
</div></figure>



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

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>
</div></figure>



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%.



<h1 class="wp-block-heading"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="blob:https://cms.blockworks.co/10aef8a9-adbd-4b24-8da0-8786d0108e7d" width="720" height="400"></h1>



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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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.



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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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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.



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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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Brazil

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

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.



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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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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>.



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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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<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/supply-shock">Supply Shock</a>: Bitcoin, bitcoin, bitcoin.</li>
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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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Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:



<ul class="wp-block-list">
<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/the-breakdown">The Breakdown</a>: Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/0xresearch">0xResearch</a>: Alpha in your inbox. Think like an analyst. </li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Empire</a>: Crypto news and analysis to start your day.</li>



<li><a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/forward-guidance">Forward Guidance</a>: The intersection of crypto, macro and policy.</li>



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



<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>

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