Rumor mill is saying the SEC is gearing up to revamp KYC requirements so users only need to KYC once to access tokenized securities onchain. Our sources are saying this would enable composability across different onchain venues & tokenization platforms to let users clear more volume by splitting orders across venues using a zk based identity system.

Some bangers from the SEC today: 1) buybacks do not make a commodity token into a security 2) liquid staking tokens for commodities are not securities sec.gov/about/divisions-offi…

Spent an evening in Washington talking USDT on Bitcoin with @MorganStanley They invited me to dinner, where I caught up with @MergnerMS, Joe Medioli and a few people from the team I’ve known for quite some time We talked about @utexocom working with Morgan Stanley on USDT adoption on Bitcoin, both in Europe and globally

CIRCLE’S $USDC IS COMING TO BITCOIN THROUGH ALPEN Alpen is partnering with Circle to bring native, Circle-issued USDC and CCTP to its Bitcoin financial system when mainnet launches. The integration will allow BTC holders to borrow, lend and trade using regulated dollar stablecoin liquidity without selling their Bitcoin or moving it to another network. CCTP will connect Alpen with other supported networks, enabling USDC to move cross-chain without wrapped representations for swaps, payments and treasury rebalancing.

USDC is coming to Bitcoin — through Alpen, in partnership with @circle. Circle-issued dollar stablecoins for Bitcoin’s financial system, enabling BTC holders to borrow, lend, and trade without leaving Bitcoin behind.

Meta's @Muse's recent BD deals should cause stablecoin bulls to reflect on the stablecoin x agent narrative. For those who haven't been following, Muse is Meta's personal AI agent. It's free for now, and one of the business models they seem to be eyeing is e-commerce: if you ask for a product and Muse links you to it, Meta will take a small cut of the transaction from the merchant. For context, a big part of the agentic commerce narrative around stablecoins is that stablecoins become the base asset for agentic commerce. They are internet-native and inherently programmable, so agents will want to use them. But the evidence so far is that Muse is partnering with @PayPal, @Shopify , etc. That seems to indicate traditional credit card rails, fintech players and e-commerce platforms have sufficient technology to deal with agents at the moment. Granted, the rumor mill does say some stablecoin players are in the mix, but for all intents and purposes the existing rails work for this use case. This forces people to re-underwrite the narrative around stablecoins being the new substrate for agentic commerce. One way to deal with that is that maybe stablecoins do get used for agentic commerce, but not when you are buying physical goods. Cards have real advantages there, namely chargebacks and dispute resolution when an order goes wrong. Stablecoins might instead be used for machine to machine transactions and micropayments where card rails are insufficient. There has been a lot written on this. Nonetheless I think it is worth reflecting on. When people talk about agentic payments using stablecoins, what exactly are they talking about, and why is it better than the traditional system? It is something we are thinking about. Curious how other people are reading the news here.

If it’s not obvious by now blockchain/crypto is really just the next evolution of fintech Thus far we’ve had two parallel tracks with the traditional finance system and blockchains but now they’re starting to merge The next step is starting to export the US Capital markets similar to what we did with the US dollars

Today we announced a significant expansion of our partnership with @binance, including a new 5-year deal to promote and drive $USDC adoption across Binance global platforms, and that Binance has taken a $100m strategic stake in $CRCL. As the world’s largest and most widely used wallet for stablecoins and onchain finance, the partnership will accelerate global and emerging market preference and adoption of USDC. The internet financial system is expanding everywhere and this partnership will help to expand access to this new financial system to hundreds of millions of people and businesses around the world. circle.com/pressroom/binance…

THE BLOCK: Apple and Google Cloud are hiring for roles seeking stablecoin, tokenization, and blockchain expertise. Apple has listed a financial product strategy lead role for Apple Pay in New York, while Google Cloud is recruiting a Web3 architect in Hong Kong.

Agora has received preliminary conditional approval from the OCC to organize as a national trust bank. A defining early milestone on the path to a full charter for Agora and regulated stablecoin infrastructure. agora.finance/blog/occ-condi…