Societe Generale-FORGE (SG-FORGE) is to launch a new stablecoin, the USD CoinVertible, on both the Ethereum and Solana public blockchains (ticker code: USDCV). The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, will act as reserve custodian, enabling seamless integration between traditional and digital financial ecosystems. The USD CoinVertible is the second stablecoin issued by SG-FORGE after the EUR CoinVertible (ticker code: EURCV) launched in April 2023, allowing investors to benefit from a robust access to stablecoin markets and a seamless trading experience on two major currencies. SG-FORGE will propose to its clients instant 24/7 conversion between fiat currencies and stablecoin, enabling immediate, around-the-clock transactions in both USD and EUR. USD CoinVertible and EUR CoinVertible are designed to support a wide range of client activities, including crypto trading and cross-border payments, on-chain settlement, foreign exchange transactions, and collateral and cash management. The stablecoins will be listed on various crypto exchanges and available to institutional, corporate and retail investors through different crypto brokers and payment service providers, with liquidity provided by several reputable market makers. Trading of USDCV is expected to start early July. Both USD CoinVertible and EUR CoinVertible are Electronic-Money Tokens (EMT) fully compliant with the European Markets in Crypto-assets (MiCA) regulation.
Matera and Circle enable the first native integration between a real-time banking infrastructure and a fully-reserved, transparent stablecoin allowing s financial institutions to offer seamless multi-currency account experiences
Matera has announced a commercial partnership with Circle. This alliance marks the region’s first native integration between a real-time banking infrastructure and a fully-reserved, transparent stablecoin, positioning Matera’s Digital Twin realtime ledger at the forefront of interoperability between local currency balances and digital dollars. The integration between Matera’s Digital Twin and Circle’s Platform allows financial institutions to offer seamless multi-currency account experiences, where BRL, USD, and USDC balances coexist and operate in real time. These scenarios become viable without requiring institutions to build complex infrastructure from scratch. The integration natively connects local payment rails (like PIX) to global liquidity in USDC, unlocking faster, cheaper, and more transparent global payment operations. With Circle’s technology, Matera’s clients will be able to offer USDC as a balance option in their platforms. This allows people to send, receive, and pay with USDC around the world — just like using local currency. The collaboration between Matera and Circle advances the concept of a “stablecoin-ready banking platform” building bridges between traditional and digital money. More than just innovation, this is the foundation of a new global financial architecture—interoperable, inclusive, and readily available.
Financial Stability Board Chair warns of stablecoin risks – should a stablecoin collapse causing fire sales of short term bills, this could impact the stability of the mainstream financial system
Two days after the hugely successful stock market listing of stablecoin issuer Circle, the Chair of the Financial Stability Board (FSB), Klaas Knot, reiterated the risks of stablecoins. The Financial Stability Board (FSB) monitors and makes recommendations about the global financial system. Mr Knot acknowledged the ability of stablecoins to address some of the challenges of cross border payments, but highlighted that they also introduce risks. “A key question stands out: will stablecoins replace traditional bank-based cross border payments, or will they remain a niche solution in a fragmented global payments ecosystem? While the answer is unclear, the potential risks are not,” he said. One of his key concerns is the increasing use of short term money market instruments as stablecoin reserves. Should a stablecoin collapse causing fire sales of short term bills, this could impact the stability of the mainstream financial system. The FSB Chair highlighted how a failure could come to pass. “Without strict oversight, could these reserves fund riskier ventures, with stablecoins acting as conduits for leveraging the financial system? This scenario is not hypothetical. We have seen how loosely regulated financial instruments can amplify risks rather than mitigate them.” His concern is that despite stablecoins resembling bank deposits or money market funds, in some jurisdictions they are outside the regulatory perimeter. The FSB made its latest high level stablecoin recommendations in 2023. But Mr Knot warned of regulatory arbitrage. “We should not allow stablecoins to exploit gaps in oversight to gain a competitive advantage or to introduce hidden risks into the financial system,” he said.
Startup Yupp’s platform crowdsources responses to evaluate AI models by allowing users to build consensus with multiple models and rewards them with crypto tokens for providing feedback
Yupp, officially known as Ber Sarai Labs Inc., launched with $33 million seed funding led by a16z crypto, the cryptocurrency-focused arm of Andreessen Horowitz, to build an AI model evaluation platform with crypto incentives. The core idea behind the platform is simple: Instead of having a single AI respond to a prompt, users will get two responses — or more. This can be good if they want to see more than one opinion or avoid bad answers. It can also allow users to build a consensus with multiple AI models. The company says that it has more than 500 models under the hood. This includes access to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic PBC’s Claude, Google LLC’s Gemini and DeepSeek. It also features a wide range of open-source models, including Meta Platform Inc.’s Llama, as well as various text and image models from lesser-known research labs and small companies. As users browse answers from different AI models, feedback will allow users to share which one they liked and why. This feedback will help tailor future responses on Yupp to their needs. To provide an incentive for users to stay on the platform, the company will offer users a type of token called Yupp credits. These credits go toward using the AI models. Users are rewarded these credits for providing feedback: The higher the quality of the feedback, the more credits. The token can be exchanged for other cryptocurrency payouts. Yupp’s technology crowdsources assessment and uses the rewards to bring in users, but it also uses blockchain technology to provide transparency and an underlying immutable record of the evaluations that cannot be tampered with.
DTCC is mulling the potential of issuing a stablecoin; a fully-authorized bank subsidiary, limited purpose bank charter and access to central bank account to make execution hassle-free
The DTCC is exploring the potential of issuing a stablecoin. It is “monitoring policy developments in the U.S. Congress and regulatory agencies, and will continue to assess our options, including the potential of issuing a DTCC stablecoin, if needed.” For the DTCC specifically, implementation would be relatively straightforward from an infrastructure standpoint. It already has a bank subsidiary, which unlike Fnality Bank US, has full authorization. The Depository Trust Company (DTC), which is one of its main subsidiaries, operates as a limited purpose trust company under New York State banking law. It has access to a central bank account because it enables huge volumes of settlement using Federal Reserve money. Hypothetically, if the DTCC were to issue a stablecoin it could be a very high quality one, using a similar model to Fnality. In other words, perhaps backed by central bank money. Typically stablecoins are mainly backed by Treasury bills, which are usually very stable. But there have been volatile episodes in the money markets, and central bank reserves side steps this risk.
Ubyx aims to provide a clearing system enabling anyone to easily on and off-ramp between bank accounts and stablecoins supporting corporates that want to use stablecoins for cross border payments
Ubyx announced a $10 million seed funding round led by Galaxy Ventures. Other backers in the round include Founders Fund, stablecoin issuer Paxos, Payoneer and others. Ubyx aims to provide a clearing system enabling anyone to easily on and off-ramp between bank accounts and stablecoins. This is a particular issue for corporates that want to use stablecoins for cross border payments, but might find the accounting for holding them on their balance sheet tricky. This challenge has created opportunities for infrastructure providers to fill the gap. While the likes of stablecoin issuer Circle has the scale to build its own Circle Payments Network, not all stablecoin issuers have that luxury. Plus, numerous other stablecoin infrastructure startups are also duplicating effort in building their own distribution. Ubyx aims to provide this distribution and redemption service for numerous stablecoins. “Stablecoins become ubiquitous when there is a shared acceptance network, just like cards. Traditional banks and fintechs should provide wallets to accept a wide range of regulated stablecoins on many public-permissionless blockchains,” said Mike Giampapa, General Partner of Galaxy Ventures.
OpenPayd to integrate Circle’s stablecoin infrastructure with its financial platform to offer enterprises a unified layer for making seamless cross-border transfers using both traditional fiat rails and DLT-based networks
OpenPayd and Circle have partnered to offer global businesses a unified fiat and stablecoin infrastructure layer. This collaboration brings together OpenPayd’s financial infrastructure and Circle Wallets’ stablecoin infrastructure to enable OpenPayd’s enterprise clients to use both traditional banking rails and blockchain-based networks to move and manage money globally. By offering seamless conversion between fiat currencies and Circle’s regulated stablecoin, USDC, this solution will provide OpenPayd’s clients with faster access to liquidity, lower settlement costs, and the ability to develop new use cases across payments, treasury and digital asset services. This addition expands the capabilities of OpenPayd’s platform that enables businesses to embed payments, accounts and trading into their own products. The platform currently processes over 130 billion euros (about $150 billion) annually. “By expanding access to USDC across our platform, we’re extending our vision of becoming the universal financial infrastructure for a truly digital global economy,” OpenPayd CEO Iana Dimitrova said.
Fnality is partnering DTCC to simulate cash on-chain delivery versus payment (DvP) and payment versus payment (PvP) transaction with instant settlement using central bank reserves for institutional purposes
Fnality is partnering with the DTCC to potentially include its wholesale settlement system as a payment rail in the DTCC Digital Launchpad, the DTCC’s digital asset sandbox. The DTCC runs the world’s largest post trade settlement infrastructure processing $3 quadrillion in annual transactions. Fnality is backed by 20 global institutions, including the DTCC, and provides the Fnality wholesale payments system (FnPS), which facilitates the on-chain settlement of central bank reserves for institutional purposes. So far it is live in Sterling, with a US dollar version currently a work in progress. The availability of cash on chain is critical to enabling the full efficiencies of on-chain delivery versus payment (DvP) and payment versus payment (PvP). Institutions favor central bank money to minimize risk, which Fnality can provide. Fnality described the simulated transactions as involving, “earmarking funds in the Fnality testing environment, onboarding the investor’s account onto DTCC’s ledger, and executing a PvP test transaction that settled instantly.” It used Adhara’s DC Commander to integrate with the bank back office systems. Ownera’s FinP2P was used for routing transactions between separate DLT systems for DvP. Hypothetically, if Fnality adopted the Genius act model in the US, then $FnPS could be available to institutions that don’t have central bank access. Either way, within the next 18 months there’s a reasonable chance that tokenized central bank money will be available to institutions in the United States.
TikTok-alternative Own to enable creators to earn revenue without any minimum requirements for follower count and receive fully tradeable tokens in rewards based on engagement regardless of location
Own is the latest alternative to TikTok to emerge, featuring a swipeable feed for not just short videos but also text posts and images, as well as other features you’d expect, like direct messaging. However, the new app aims to disrupt the market by utilizing blockchain technology and a token economy. Most notably, content creators on the app can earn revenue without any minimum requirements for follower count or post count. Key highlights include the $OWN Token, which is rewarded to creators based on video engagement and is fully tradeable. Own operates on Base Layer 2 blockchain, ensuring secure transactions and content ownership. This will be a game-changer for creators, especially since they earn tokens regardless of their location. A portion of the platform’s cash revenue is used to buy $OWN Tokens from exchanges for distribution to creators. The app promises that creators can earn up to 50% more than on other platforms. Specifically, in the case of tipping, Own takes only 20% of the revenue, whereas TikTok takes 50%. For sponsorships, creators retain 90% of the earnings, with only 10% going to Own. Creators benefit most from Own Shops, keeping 95% of the revenue while Own takes just 5%. Viewers have the ability to interact with content by pressing the up or down arrows to cast their votes — upvoting or downvoting posts in a manner reminiscent of platforms like Reddit. Creators who receive a higher number of upvotes can climb the leaderboard, gaining greater exposure.
Card issuance platform Highnote partners BVNK to enable customers around the world make stablecoin-based funding for US-based card programmes in real-time and 24/7 basis
Card issuance and embedded finance platform Highnote has enlisted BVNK to launch real-time 24/7 stablecoin-based funding for card programmes. The partnership means that Highnote subscribers around the world can fund US-based programme accounts instantly in USD, without being constrained by standard banking hours. This, says the firm, streamlines a critical operational step for global fintechs and enterprises that need to move fast, letting them transfer programme funds using stablecoins, automatically converted to dollars, and deposited in sponsor bank accounts in real-time. “Our subscribers are building real-time financial products for a global user base, and until now, they have had to operate within the limits of U.S. banking hours,” says John Macilwaine, CEO, Highnote. “This new capability eliminates that barrier, giving them true around the clock control over how and when to move money.”