Money & Markets

Money & Markets

Circle Is Leaving Cosmos Behind

Circle will discontinue USDC and CCTP V1 on Noble by January 2027, with no V2 upgrade path. For the ecosystem that relied on Noble to unify its stablecoin liquidity, the institutional pivot just hit home.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 10

Money & Markets

The Fed’s New Yardstick for Stablecoins

Federal Reserve staff have released an analytical framework for classifying stablecoins as money, signaling that the central bank is preparing to measure the assets that Wall Street is already building.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 10

Money & Markets

Citi Japan’s Tokenized Deposit Launch Extends the Institutional Pivot Into Asia’s Deepest Regulatory Framework

The first foreign bank to offer tokenized deposit cross-border payments in Japan joins a pattern where banks build proprietary blockchain infrastructure rather than waiting for legislative clarity.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 10

Money & Markets

Tether Is Building Yield Infrastructure Around the GENIUS Act’s Interest Ban – and It Is Not Alone

StableFund, a $400M private credit vehicle from Tether and Fasanara Capital, reveals the playbook stablecoin issuers are adopting: if the token cannot pay interest, the infrastructure around it will.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 9

Money & Markets

U.S. Bank’s Stablecoin Pilot on Stellar Sends a Clear Signal: Banks Want Their Own Rails

The fifth-largest U.S. bank completed a live cross-border payment using its proprietary USBDC stablecoin on Stellar-seven days before Circle Arc's mainnet launch and absent from its validator list.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 9

Money & Markets

The Institutional Pivot: Why Wall Street’s Blockchain Bets No Longer Need Washington’s Permission

BlackRock, DTCC, Visa, and Mastercard are launching Circle Arc the day after the CLARITY Act is expected to fail. The money moved anyway — and the January 2027 enforcement cliff is now the only deadline that matters.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 9

Money & Markets

Capital Flows in Agentic AI: The Six-Jurisdiction Unlock

As the CLARITY Act's passage odds crater to 14%, Circle launches Arc with BlackRock, DTCC, and Visa as validators. Six jurisdictions enacted stablecoin frameworks in 12 months—and the money stopped waiting for Washington.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 9

Money & Markets

The GENIUS Act Yield Ban Gave Banks a Structural Moat — Tokenized Deposits Can Pay Interest; Stablecoins Cannot

Section 4(a)(11) prohibits stablecoin issuers from offering yield while tokenized deposits face no such restriction. The White House CEA says the ban does 'very little' to protect bank lending — which might be the point.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 8

Money & Markets

Circle Is Buying Its Own Cross-Border Payment Rails for $400 Million – and Skipping the ‘Build’ Phase Entirely

The USDC issuer's first major post-IPO acquisition absorbs a Singapore payments firm with $25 billion in annualized volume, 60 banking partners, and licenses across four jurisdictions. The stablecoin-to-infrastructure transition is accelerating.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 8

Money & Markets

Bottomline Is Wiring 600 Banks to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Rails – and the Agent Commerce Thesis Just Got Its Biggest Backing

The top-three SWIFT service provider's proof-of-concept with Chainlink CCIP and CRE is the largest institutional on-ramp yet for cross-chain settlement. Banks keep ISO 20022; agents get the orchestration layer.

◆ Nolan Pratt·Sep 8