AI Agent Funding, Valuations & Market News

Money & Markets

LayerZero’s ‘Headless Exchange’ Arrives With Citadel, DTCC, and ICE Looking On. The Infrastructure Race Just Got More Crowded.

ATLAS collapses matching, clearing, and settlement into a single blockchain-native stack. The world's largest market maker is already collaborating. Whether the custodians of legacy market structure follow is the $16 trillion question.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 31

Money & Markets

From Pilot to Plumbing: DTCC Readies Tokenization for October Launch

With over 50 institutional heavyweights now aligned on a unified infrastructure, the DTCC is moving beyond experimental proofs-of-concept to formalize tokenized settlement for global markets.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 30

Money & Markets

CIMB Just Settled $342M in Tokenized Sukuk Using Tokenized Deposits. Malaysia’s Islamic Finance Market Is the Testing Ground.

The world's largest domestic sukuk primary market just completed its first on-chain settlement pilot, demonstrating that tokenization can preserve Shariah compliance while digitizing institutional capital market infrastructure.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 30

Money & Markets

The Five-Pillar Regulatory Stack — What Institutions Should Build Now

Seven agencies missed their rulemaking deadlines. The enforcement date is locked. And the infrastructure to comply cannot be retrofitted in 141 days.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 30

Money & Markets

SEC Custody Rule Enters Final Review. Combined With Four Other Regulatory Tracks, the Institutional Stack Is Nearly Complete.

SEC RIN 3235-AN46 entered OIRA review Aug 25, targeting an NPRM by October. With the GENIUS Act enforcement date locked for January 2027 and OCC/FDIC stablecoin rules already in proposed-rule stage, five separate regulatory tracks are converging into a single institutional framework for digital asset custody, settlement, and settlement finality.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 29

Money & Markets

At Jackson Hole, the BIS Head Said Stablecoins Fail Every Test of Money. Banks Are Building Them Anyway.

BIS General Manager Agustín Carstens laid out a three-test framework for sound money at Jackson Hole — and argued stablecoins fail all three. Meanwhile, twelve major banks are building one on public chains.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 29

Money & Markets

Bullish Is Backing $100M in Stablecoin Loans Collateralized by GPUs. That’s a New Kind of RWA.

The NYSE-listed exchange is committing stablecoin liquidity to USD.AI's GPU-collateralized lending protocol — the first major test of whether physical compute hardware can function as institutional-grade real-world asset collateral.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 29

Money & Markets

BitGo Pays Up to $57.5M for NYDIG’s Trading Business, but the Real Asset Is 250 Institutional Clients

The acquisition of NYDIG's institutional trading business marks a strategic pivot for BitGo from specialized custody to full-service prime brokerage, as the crypto infrastructure landscape enters a phase of consolidation.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 29

Money & Markets

Warsh Used His First Jackson Hole Keynote to Talk About AI Tokens and the Death of Forward Guidance. He Didn’t Mention Stablecoins Once.

At a symposium explicitly themed 'Financial Innovation: Implications for Payments and Policy,' the Fed Chair's strategic omission of digital assets signals a widening gap between the central bank and the institutions already building on public blockchains.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 29

Money & Markets

Twelve Major Banks Are Building a Stablecoin on Public Chains. That Changes the Competitive Calculus.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Santander, and nine other global banks are issuing their own stablecoin rather than ceding the $308B market to Tether and Circle — and the GENIUS Act just handed them the regulatory key.

◆ Nolan PrattAug 28