The efficiency dividend of cross-border payments brought by stablecoins is an irreversible technological revolution. Its power is forcing traditional financial giants to reposition themselves from the bottom up (vertically), while also triggering fierce confrontations over monetary sovereignty and regulation between nations (horizontally).

The vested interests have no choice; they must join the battle.

This week, we focus on the transformation of enterprises and markets driven by stablecoins.

In the Global South, high inflation and inadequate infrastructure have created a market with financial potential. Western Union and Zepz are targeting this opportunity, but their approaches are vastly different: the former relies on a physical agent network to create the "last mile" for stablecoins, while the latter integrates savings, payments, and wealth management through a digital dollar wallet, attempting to shape a new type of consumer financial entry point. Meanwhile, the Latin American exchange Ripio has launched a stablecoin pegged to local currencies, aiming to promote regional payment network autonomy and low friction through de-dollarization. This is not only a demonstration of the exchange's business transformation but also an experiment in monetary sovereignty.

In Northern markets, stablecoins are driving the reconstruction of enterprise-level financial infrastructure. This week's protagonist, Ripple, has completed a full-stack integration of issuance, custody, treasury management, and settlement through six acquisitions in two years, with a valuation rising to $40 billion, surpassing Circle. This marks a transformation from a token narrative to enterprise-level revenue-driven operations, showcasing how stablecoins can become a new core of competitiveness for enterprises in Northern markets.

Market Overview and Growth Highlights

The total market capitalization of stablecoins has reached $305.206 billion, with a week-on-week decrease of $2.17 billion. In terms of market structure, USDT continues to dominate, accounting for 60.07%; USDC ranks second with a market cap of $74.898 billion, accounting for 24.54%.

Top three stablecoin networks by market cap:

1. Ethereum: $166.815 billion

2. Tron: $78.312 billion

3. Solana: $13.824 billion

Top 3 Fastest Growing Networks of the Week:

1. Circle USYC (USYC): +14.87%

2. CASH (CASH): +14.06%

3. Ripple USD (RLUSD): +12.82%

Data from DefiLlama

From Crypto Narrative to Financial Infrastructure: Ripple Realizes the Transformation of the "Stablecoin Era" with a $40 Billion Valuation

Ripple announced on Wednesday that it has completed a $500 million financing round, bringing its latest valuation to $40 billion. This marks the transformation of this crypto-native enterprise, which was centered around a crypto narrative, into a regulated, institution-facing financial technology infrastructure, ultimately gaining recognition from the capital markets. This round of financing was led by top traditional financial institutions such as Citadel Securities and Fortress, with a valuation exceeding Circle's $30 billion market cap, despite the latter having a larger stablecoin circulation (around $70 billion) and a multi-billion dollar revenue base. This sends a clear signal that real revenue and regulatory clarity are granting Ripple the long-sought asset of legitimacy.

Over the past two years, Ripple has completed six acquisitions totaling over $3 billion, decisively accelerating its entry into the institutional crypto infrastructure space through "mergers and acquisitions"—acquiring treasury management company GTreasury for $1 billion; acquiring cross-asset brokerage Hidden Road for $1.25 billion; acquiring Canadian payment company Rail for $200 million; and building a full-stack infrastructure from secure custody to high-frequency wallets through the acquisitions of Metaco, Standard Custody, and Palisade. Thus, Ripple has transformed from a token-driven payment company into an institutional crypto infrastructure provider, integrating stablecoin issuance, custody, enterprise treasury management, and settlement onto one platform.

With the reshaping of its business landscape, Ripple's target market has expanded to the trillion-dollar enterprise finance sector—a space where liquidity, settlement certainty, and regulatory trust are key to success.

Ripple's acquisitions are paving the way for this: GTreasury allows Ripple to enter the treasury system managing trillions of dollars in funds and connects to the cash flow systems of Fortune 500 companies; Metaco provides bank-grade custody capabilities; Palisade's Wallet-as-a-Service supports high-frequency wallet deployments; Rail facilitates real transaction flows for global B2B stablecoin payments; and the global network of 75 regulatory licenses ensures its compliant operations across markets and jurisdictions. These businesses bring real revenue. Ripple's annual payment volume has reached $95 billion, and the stablecoin RLUSD has surpassed $1 billion in circulation less than a year after its launch. This structure represents visible revenue, a solid customer base, and clear regulatory certainty, which are the core values supporting Ripple's position as a full-stack financial infrastructure provider.

Ripple is applying for an OCC bank charter and a Federal Reserve master account. Once approved, the company will eliminate its reliance on third-party custody and clearing, gaining direct access to the Federal Reserve's payment infrastructure, achieving internal vertical integration from issuance and clearing to software delivery, and providing a complete solution for institutional clients. At that point, Ripple will no longer just be a "bridge between traditional finance and crypto," but will master both ends of the bridge, eliminating intermediary costs, delays, and risks, and standing on equal footing with financial giants like Visa and Mastercard in the institutional payment space. However, Ripple still faces technical shortcomings: its cross-border payments and most RLUSD settlements still rely on the decade-old XRPL network, which is stable and reliable but lags behind Solana and Ethereum L2 in programmability and DeFi compatibility. To mitigate this reliance, Ripple is building a multi-chain architecture through the acquisitions of GTreasury, Hidden Road, and Rail, deploying RLUSD on both XRPL and Ethereum, and has the potential to migrate key operations to higher-performance or more open public chains in the future, making XRPL the payment layer while Ripple itself evolves into a complete "digital asset operating system."

When Cross-Border Remittances Meet Stablecoins: Two Futures of Western Union and Zepz

Stablecoins solve the efficiency problem from chain to chain, but so far, the exchange from "digital dollar -> physical cash" remains the only and largest friction and barrier. Solving this friction requires a massive physical network, high compliance costs, and years of trust accumulation. This friction also contains enormous commercial value. In the Global South, two cross-border remittance giants—Western Union and Zepz Group—are reshaping themselves, representing two distinctly different evolutionary paths in the era of stablecoins.

Western Union is a remittance network with a century-long history, spanning over 200 countries and 500,000 locations, planning to issue a USD-pegged stablecoin USDPT on Solana in the first half of 2026, with custody provided by Anchorage Digital. At the same time, it has launched a "Digital Asset Network," platforming its physical agent network.

By issuing its own stablecoin USDPT, Western Union can not only earn interest income from reserve funds (i.e., float funds) invested in low-risk assets like government bonds, but more importantly, its competitive moat lies in its physical network that spans Latin America, Africa, and South Asia, where regulatory barriers are high and cash remains mainstream—an infrastructure that is difficult for any digital-native enterprise to replicate. It is in these regions that the world of stablecoins still struggles to penetrate, and Western Union's network is precisely the necessary channel for "on-chain value to land." For wallet providers, DeFi applications, exchanges, and even large payment networks, turning on-chain funds into cash or bringing cash users on-chain ultimately requires Western Union to complete the final conversion.

This elevates Western Union from a traditional remittance company to a "physical base station" in the blockchain world, undertaking the final connection between virtual value and the real economy. Its business model thus forms a three-layer structure: reserve interest income, fees for cash on-chain and off-chain transactions, and adoption incentives from public chains—reportedly, Western Union has already received an eight-figure ecological subsidy from Solana. With this model, Western Union has transformed from a single remittance channel into a key underlying infrastructure of the global stablecoin system, connecting the "last mile" of the crypto network.

If Western Union connects the physical world to the blockchain, Zepz is taking another path—starting from digital remittances, with stablecoins at its core, to create a financial entry point for emerging markets. Headquartered in London, Zepz has millions of users, targeting over 300 million immigrants globally. In a high-inflation environment, stablecoins are becoming their private dollarization tools for hedging and saving.

This week, Zepz partnered with Bridge to enable users to directly use their digital dollar balances at global Visa merchants, with real-time local currency settlements in the background, upgrading stablecoin wallets from single savings accounts to consumable, cross-border payment "digital dollar accounts." Next, Zepz will layer on-chain yield products, such as staking or lending, and package them as local wealth management tools with a simplified interface, gradually evolving Zepz into a "consumer bank for the Global South"—a stablecoin super app that integrates savings, spending, and wealth management.

Capital Layout

Zynk Secures $5 Million Investment from Coinbase Ventures and Others to Build Stablecoin Payment Infrastructure

Key Highlights

• Cross-border payment infrastructure company Zynk has completed a $5 million seed round of financing, led by Hivemind Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Alliance DAO, and others. The financing was completed in August under a SAFE agreement;

• Zynk provides stablecoin-driven cross-border payment solutions, supporting instant settlements without pre-funding, eliminating the need for payment companies to pre-deposit funds or manage complex liquidity operations in different markets by embedding liquidity directly into the network;

• The company has supported multi-currency settlement channels including USD, EUR, UAE Dirham, Indian Rupee, Mexican Peso, and Philippine Peso, achieving a 70% month-on-month growth since its quiet launch in April.

Why It Matters

• Zynk is addressing the core pain point of the cross-border payment industry—the need for pre-funding, which has long been a moat in the cross-border payment market. The company is composed of 15 team members with backgrounds in fintech and capital markets, including the former CTO of Amazon Payments India and former Morgan Stanley capital markets professionals, dedicated to making "liquidity move like data," providing global scalability without liquidity bottlenecks for remittance providers, B2B payment platforms, and payment service providers.

Ripple Acquires Crypto Wallet Company Palisade, Expanding Institutional Payment Business

Key Highlights

• Ripple announced the acquisition of crypto wallet provider Palisade, integrating its wallet-as-a-service platform into Ripple Custody to provide stronger custody services for digital assets, stablecoins, and tokenized physical assets for banks and enterprises;

• Palisade brings the technology needed for high-speed, high-frequency application scenarios, such as on-chain and off-chain channels or enterprise payment processes, supporting multiple blockchains and interactions with DeFi protocols, helping fintech companies quickly create wallets for new users or manage global treasury operations for enterprises;

• This is Ripple's fourth acquisition this year, following the acquisitions of prime broker Hidden Road ($1.25 billion), stablecoin infrastructure company Rail ($200 million), and treasury management platform GTreasury, as well as the acquisition of Swiss custodian Metaco in 2023.

Why It Matters

• Ripple's strategy of building a crypto-native alternative to traditional financial infrastructure through intensive acquisitions is becoming increasingly clear, forming a complete institutional-level digital asset service ecosystem from cross-border payments, liquidity, stablecoin issuance to secure asset management tools. According to Ripple President Monica Long, as stablecoin payments rapidly gain popularity, Palisade's technology will perfectly complement the fast-growing demand for Ripple Payments. With 75 regulatory licenses globally and support from financial institutions such as BBVA, DBS Bank, and Societe Generale's crypto division, Ripple is consolidating its leading position in institutional payments and digital asset management through these strategic layouts.

Arx Research Secures $6.1 Million Seed Round Financing, Launches "Burner Terminal" Payment Device

Key Highlights

• Arx Research has secured $6.1 million in seed round financing led by Castle Island Ventures, launching the "Burner Terminal" terminal device that can accept cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and traditional payments simultaneously;

• The Burner Terminal is set to launch in early 2026, priced under $200, supporting tap payments, QR code scanning, and traditional credit card payments without additional gas fees;

• Initially, the device will support USD II and USDC on the Base network, with plans to expand to more networks and stablecoins in 2026, and collaborate with Flexa to provide extensive cryptocurrency payment support.

Why It Matters

• This device provides merchants with a free option to directly receive stablecoins, addressing the "last mile" problem of crypto payments in physical retail scenarios, bringing the tap payment experience from traditional finance into the crypto realm, and creating a convenient solution for small merchants to accept multiple payment methods with a single device.

Regulatory Compliance

Circle Submits Implementation Proposal for GENIUS Act, Urges Establishment of Unified Stablecoin Regulatory Framework

Key Highlights

• Circle submitted its implementation opinions for the GENIUS Act to the U.S. Department of the Treasury on November 4, 2025, emphasizing that the act not only sets regulatory standards for stablecoins but also lays the foundation for a federal digital payment framework in the U.S.;

• Circle suggests that all digital assets designed to maintain stable value should adhere to the same regulatory obligations, and that both bank and non-bank issuers, whether domestic or foreign, should compete in a fair environment;

• The proposal recommends that regulations ensure that capital and liquidity requirements adequately consider the risk characteristics of stablecoin issuance and provide clear global operational guidelines for U.S. stablecoin issuers to support interoperability with global financial institutions.

Why It Matters

• Proper implementation of the GENIUS Act could unify standards and enhance transparency, promoting U.S. leadership in the digital finance sector by establishing clear definitions, risk-sensitive prudential requirements, and predictable enforcement mechanisms, while guiding market demand towards transparent, fully reserved, and compliant stablecoin products.

Coinbase Urges Treasury to Align GENIUS Act Implementation Rules with Congressional Legislative Intent

Key Highlights

• Coinbase submitted feedback to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, urging that the GENIUS Act implementation rules strictly adhere to congressional legislative intent and avoid exceeding the regulatory scope explicitly required by the law;

• The crypto exchange proposed that regulators take a narrow interpretation of the law, excluding non-financial software, blockchain validators, and open-source protocols from the regulatory scope;

• Coinbase pointed out that the interest payment prohibition in the act applies only to stablecoin issuers, not to intermediaries or exchanges providing loyalty rewards, and suggested treating payment stablecoins as cash equivalents for tax purposes.

Why It Matters

• The GENIUS Act was signed into law in July 2025, establishing a federal framework for regulating stablecoins. Coinbase warns that excessive regulation could stifle innovation and undermine the goal of making the U.S. the "world's crypto capital."

Traditional Banking Sector Resists Coinbase's Application for Federal Trust Bank Charter

Key Highlights

• The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA) submitted a petition to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) requesting the rejection of Coinbase's federal trust charter application, claiming that the crypto exchange has failed to meet requirements in multiple areas;

• The Wall Street lobbying group Bank Policy Institute (BPI) also opposed trust applications from several crypto companies, including Ripple, Circle, and Paxos, and raised objections against Coinbase again on Monday;

• The ICBA letter noted that Coinbase's trust bank would struggle to be profitable in a bear market, and the OCC would find it difficult to safely dissolve a failed trust, with Coinbase's national trust company relying on "obviously flawed risk and control functions."

Why It Matters

• The regulatory boundary dispute between traditional banking and the crypto industry is intensifying, with traditional banks attempting to block crypto companies from entering areas they have completely controlled. Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal responded on social media, stating that bankers are "trying to dig a regulatory moat to protect themselves." Notably, the OCC is currently led by Jonathan Gould, appointed by pro-crypto President Trump, who has criticized the banking industry's unfriendly attitude towards the crypto sector. This regulatory decision will have significant implications for crypto companies seeking banking licenses and may affect the entire industry's integration with the traditional financial system.

EU Plans to Establish SEC-like Single Regulatory Authority to Regulate Crypto and Stock Exchanges

Key Highlights

• The European Commission plans to propose in December the establishment of a single regulatory authority mimicking the U.S. SEC to unify the regulation of stock exchanges, crypto exchanges, and clearinghouses, a proposal supported by European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde;

• One possible solution is to expand the powers of the existing European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to cover significant cross-border financial entities, including stock exchanges, crypto companies, and other post-trade infrastructures;

• This move aims to make it easier for small financial startups to expand cross-border without needing approval from numerous regional and national regulatory authorities, although small countries with financial centers like Luxembourg and Dublin have expressed skepticism.

Why It Matters

• The EU is moving towards a "Capital Markets Union," attempting to simplify the regulatory environment for cross-border financial services by centralizing regulatory power. If this proposal is approved, it will have profound implications for the European crypto industry, allowing crypto companies to face a unified rather than fragmented regulatory framework. This move aligns with the EU's recent initiatives on stablecoin regulation, the digital euro CBDC issuance roadmap, and the tokenization of physical assets, indicating that the EU is advancing the centralization of digital finance regulation. If the proposal is presented in December, it will begin the legislative process with the European Parliament and Council, including amendments and trilateral discussions, which may last until 2026. This transformation will bring the European regulatory framework closer to the U.S. model, potentially altering the competitive landscape of European crypto and traditional financial markets.

Opinion: MiCA May Not Prevent Stablecoin Crisis, Potentially Laying Systemic Risk Traps

Key Highlights

• The EU MiCA regulation regulates stablecoins through reserve proofs, capital rules, and redemption requirements, but Daniele D’Alvia, Deputy Director of the Queen Mary University of London School of Law, believes this micro-regulation overlooks macro systemic risks. As stablecoins scale up, it may trigger a massive migration of bank deposits to crypto assets;

• Bank of England Governor Bailey warned that "widely used stablecoins should be regulated like banks," proposing a cap of £10,000 for individual holdings of systemic stablecoins and £10 million for corporate holdings, indicating that the central bank is aware of the potential threat stablecoins pose to monetary sovereignty;

• Strict regulation may lead to regulatory arbitrage, prompting issuers to shift to loosely regulated offshore regions, transferring rather than eliminating risks outside the regulatory scope, creating a new form of shadow banking system.

Why It Matters

• While MiCA provides legitimacy to stablecoins, it may also embed risks within the financial system. As stablecoins gain official recognition and widespread application, the boundaries between them and the traditional financial system gradually blur, and the demand for stablecoin reserve assets may trigger a wave of sovereign debt sell-offs during market turmoil. Stablecoins are becoming key infrastructure at the intersection of DeFi and traditional finance, and regulators need to move beyond viewing them as ordinary asset classes to understand their systemic impact as a new form of currency. The current regulatory framework overlooks macro-level risk control tools, such as issuance limits, liquidity tools, or crisis management frameworks, which may lead to stablecoins causing more problems after gaining legitimacy than they solve.

Swiss Crypto Bank AMINA Obtains Austrian MiCA License, Accelerating EU Market Expansion

Key Highlights

• Swiss digital asset bank AMINA (formerly SEBA Bank) has obtained a MiCA regulatory license issued by the Austrian Financial Market Authority (FMA) and will provide compliant crypto services across the EU through its subsidiary AMINA EU;

• AMINA EU will offer cryptocurrency trading, custody, portfolio management, and staking services to professional investors, family offices, corporations, and financial institutions, laying the foundation for its expansion in the European market;

• AMINA chose Austria as its entry point into the European market, primarily due to the country's strict regulatory standards and commitment to investor protection. Austria has become a regulatory base for well-known crypto companies such as Bitpanda and Bybit.

Why It Matters

• As a multi-regional compliant institution holding Swiss FINMA banking licenses and crypto licenses in Hong Kong and Abu Dhabi, AMINA will be able to provide EU professional investors with a full range of services from bank accounts to crypto loans. Although the MiCA framework has unified EU crypto regulation, the Austrian FMA has called for stronger controls over MiCA alongside regulators in France and Italy, indicating that EU crypto regulation is still evolving. AMINA's European expansion will provide more compliant channels for institutional investors to participate in the crypto market, accelerating the mainstreaming of digital assets within the traditional financial system.

Canada Announces Upcoming Stablecoin Legislation in Federal Budget

Key Highlights

• Canada announced plans to introduce stablecoin regulatory legislation in its 2025 federal budget, requiring stablecoin issuers to hold sufficient reserves, establish redemption policies, implement risk management frameworks, and protect personal information;

• The Bank of Canada will reserve CAD 10 million from its unified revenue fund for managing the new regulations in the 2026-2027 fiscal year, with approximately CAD 5 million in annual administrative costs to be covered by fees charged to regulated stablecoin issuers;

• The Canadian government is also preparing to amend the Retail Payment Activities Act to regulate payment service providers using stablecoins, ensuring appropriate stablecoin management policies to promote secure innovation in digital assets.

Why It Matters

• The establishment of a stablecoin regulatory framework in Canada is the latest development in the global wave of stablecoin regulation following the U.S. passing the GENIUS Stablecoin Act in July. According to Bloomberg, Canadian Treasury officials have engaged in intensive discussions with industry stakeholders and regulators regarding stablecoin regulation, focusing primarily on stablecoin classification and preventing capital outflow to dollar-backed tokens. With the implementation of the European MiCA regulation and similar efforts in Japan and South Korea, stablecoin regulation has become a global trend. As of November 4, the total global supply of stablecoins is approximately $291 billion, primarily dominated by dollar-pegged stablecoins, with Standard Chartered estimating that up to $1 trillion could flow from emerging market bank deposits to U.S. stablecoins by 2028.

Market Adoption

Yellow Card Shuts Down Retail Business, Focuses on B2B Stablecoin Infrastructure

Key Highlights

• African crypto company Yellow Card announced it will shut down its consumer-facing mobile app starting January 1, 2026, and will instead focus on providing stablecoin infrastructure services for corporate clients, including enterprise payment channels, financial management, and liquidity solutions;

• Founded 9 years ago, Yellow Card currently operates in over 30 countries, having processed over $6 billion in transactions and boasting over 1 million retail users. This move reflects a strategic shift trend among crypto-native companies;

• Since its Series B funding in 2022, the company has gradually transitioned to serving businesses and has raised $85 million to date, becoming one of the best-funded fintech startups in Africa.

Why It Matters

• With the stablecoin market reaching $300 billion and the global regulatory framework becoming increasingly clear, Yellow Card's business transformation validates that the African B2C stablecoin market is still immature, and the real business opportunities lie in the B2B sector. While retail stablecoin businesses have garnered significant funding attention, enterprise payments, treasury management, and liquidity solutions are currently the sustainable profit models.

Mastercard, Ripple, and Gemini Collaborate to Explore Settling Card Transactions with XRPL

Key Highlights

• Mastercard is collaborating with Gemini and Ripple to explore settling fiat credit card transactions using the RLUSD stablecoin on the XRPL blockchain, which will become one of the first regulatory-compliant cases in the U.S. for using regulated stablecoins to settle traditional card transactions on a public blockchain;

• Gemini offers an XRP version credit card through WebBank, which also participates in this RLUSD settlement plan as the issuer of the Gemini credit card; last month, Gemini also launched a "Solana version" credit card offering up to 4% SOL token rewards;

• Mastercard's partnerships in the digital asset space continue to expand, having collaborated with Chainlink in June to allow consumers to purchase cryptocurrencies "directly on-chain" through secure fiat-to-crypto conversions.

Why It Matters

• This collaboration marks a deep integration between traditional payment giants and cryptocurrency companies, using stablecoins on public chains to settle everyday fiat card transactions, setting a milestone for the application of blockchain settlement systems in large-scale traditional financial transactions. Numerous crypto platforms are seeking to increase transaction revenue and attract new customers by offering debit and credit cards for everyday shopping, and such collaborations involving regulated banks pave the way for the mainstream adoption of stablecoins within compliant traditional financial infrastructure.

New Product Launches

Ripple Launches Digital Asset Prime Brokerage Service, Expanding U.S. Institutional Business

Key Highlights

• Ripple has officially launched a digital asset prime brokerage service for U.S. institutional clients, marking an important step into a broader financial services sector following its acquisition of multi-asset prime broker Hidden Road earlier this year;

• The new platform, Ripple Prime, supports over a dozen major digital assets (including XRP and Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin) for over-the-counter trading and integrates them with derivatives, swaps, fixed income, and foreign exchange products within the same service framework;

• U.S. institutional clients can now conduct cross-collateral trading between OTC spot trades and swaps and CME futures options on a single platform, greatly enhancing the management flexibility of digital asset portfolios.

Why It Matters

• By acquiring Hidden Road and launching Prime services, Ripple not only integrates regulatory licenses with existing prime brokerage infrastructure but also signifies a strategic deepening of the company's transformation from payment solutions to a comprehensive financial services provider. Ripple Prime forms a complete ecosystem with the company's payment and custody services, deeply integrating XRP and RLUSD stablecoins into these products to enhance liquidity and simplify settlement processes for institutional participants.

Latin American Crypto Exchange Ripio Launches Argentine Peso-Pegged Stablecoin "wARS"

Key Highlights

• Latin American crypto exchange Ripio has launched the wARS stablecoin, pegged to the Argentine peso, which is now live on Ethereum, Coinbase's Base, and World Chain, further expanding its real asset tokenization layout with a platform that has over 25 million users;

• wARS allows users to send and receive funds globally at any time without going through banks or converting to U.S. dollars, launched against the backdrop of the Milei government's reduction of inflation from 292% last April to 31.8% now;

• Ripio plans to launch similar stablecoins for other Latin American currencies, which could ultimately enable cross-border payments across the region using local currencies, avoiding the current reliance on U.S. dollars or high-cost intermediaries.

Why It Matters

• In high-inflation countries like Argentina and Brazil, stablecoins have become increasingly popular as inflation and strict currency controls drive people to seek more stable value storage methods. The launch of Ripio's wARS follows its previous sovereign bond tokenization project, marking a further expansion of the exchange's strategy to bring real assets on-chain. This initiative signifies innovation in the local currency stablecoin space in Latin America, providing local users with new options to combat inflation and facilitate cross-border payments while promoting the practical application and development of blockchain payment infrastructure in emerging markets.

Chainlink Launches CRE Platform, Accelerating Institutional Asset Tokenization Process

Key Highlights

• Chainlink has launched the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE), a software platform that allows institutions to deploy smart contracts on public and private chains, equipped with compliance, privacy, and data integration tools;

• CRE enables developers to write smart contracts that work across blockchains and connect to traditional financial messaging standards (such as ISO 20022), while providing existing Chainlink services like price feeds and reserve proof systems;

• Several large institutions, including JPMorgan Kinexys, Ondo, UBS Tokenize, and DigiFT, have already utilized the platform, with JPMorgan completing cross-chain settlements based on CRE and UBS achieving the first on-chain tokenized fund redemption.

Why It Matters

• Chainlink positions CRE as the infrastructure for the tokenization shift, noting that major institutions including Swift, Euroclear, UBS, and Mastercard are adopting it "to seize the $8.67 trillion tokenization opportunity." According to Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, advanced institutional smart contracts that previously took months or even years to implement correctly can now be completed in weeks or even days with the launch of CRE. The platform plans to add privacy features in early 2026, including confidential computing capabilities for institutions that need to securely handle proprietary data.

Macro Trends

Stablecoin Issuers Dominate Crypto Revenue, Accounting for Up to 75% of Protocol Daily Income

Key Highlights

• Stablecoin issuers continue to dominate crypto protocol revenue, accounting for 60%-75% of daily income in major crypto categories, far exceeding lending platforms, decentralized exchanges, and others;

• Tether's CEO announced that the company is expected to achieve a profit of $15 billion this year, with a profit margin of 99%, making it one of the most efficient profit-making enterprises globally;

• Competition in the stablecoin industry is intensifying, with USDe becoming the third-largest stablecoin, and Coinbase starting to offer a 3.85% APY reward for USDC holders.

Why It Matters

• The stablecoin business model relies on asset reserve income, but increasing competition is prompting issuers to explore alternative value-sharing solutions, which may reshape the industry's profit distribution mechanism.

Data: Crypto Card Transaction Volume Increased to $376 Million in October, Rain Cards Leads the Market

Key Highlights

• The total transaction volume of cryptocurrency cards grew from $318 million to $376 million in October, an increase of nearly 18%, indicating the continued expansion of the crypto payment sector;

• Rain Cards leads the market with a transaction volume of $196 million, followed by RedotPay ($100 million) and Etherfi Cash ($33 million) in second and third place, respectively;

• The fastest-growing projects include Rain Cards (+$50 million), Etherfi Cash (+$9 million), Cypher (+$3 million), KoloHub (+$2 million), and MetaMask (+$400,000).

Why It Matters

• The rapid growth of the crypto card market indicates that digital assets are gradually integrating into everyday payment scenarios, providing an important channel for the practical application of cryptocurrencies and promoting the fusion of the crypto economy with the traditional financial system.

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