A new wave of self-custodial smart accounts aims to eliminate seed phrases, introduce card-based spending and remove the fear of losing access to crypto forever. Crypto’s longstanding user-experience hurdle, the dreaded seed phrase, is facing a serious challenge. As wallet providers experiment with programmable smart accounts and simplified recovery, the debate about self-custody is shifting from technical responsibility to everyday usability. In this week’s episode of The Clear Crypto Podcast, host Nathaniel Whittemore, Cointelegraph’s Gareth Jenkinson, and Ready (formerly Argent) CEO Itamar Lesuisse address how privacy, self-custody, Bitcoin-backed borrowing and seed-phrase-free wallets are converging to reshape how people store and spend digital assets. One recurring concern among crypto newcomers and veterans alike is the fragility of seed-phrase security. As Jenkinson noted, users often underestimate how easy it is to lose access: Read more
US stablecoin rules under the GENIUS Act are splitting global liquidity with Europe, creating regional markets and potentially leading to cross-border friction, a report says. The United States’ new approach to stablecoin regulation is reshaping global liquidity flows and driving a sharp structural split with the European Union’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regime, effectively creating separate US and EU stablecoin liquidity pools, according to a new report from blockchain security auditor CertiK. The report finds that the US digital asset market entered a new phase of regulatory clarity in 2025, with federal legislation and administrative reforms now broadly aligned around how digital assets are issued, traded and custodied. At the center of that shift is the GENIUS Act, signed into law by US President Donald Trump in July, which establishes the first federal framework for payment stablecoins. The law imposes strict reserve requirements, bans yield-bearing stablecoins, and formally integrates stablecoin ...
Digital Asset said the roughly $50 million in funding from BNY, iCapital, Nasdaq and S&P Global will help scale the Canton Network as institutions warm to onchain tokenization. Institutional blockchain infrastructure provider Digital Asset, the creator of the Canton Network, has raised about $50 million in strategic investments from BNY, iCapital, Nasdaq and S&P Global, according to a person familiar with the deal. According to an announcement on Thursday, the strategic funding will build on Digital Asset’s strong momentum to scale the Canton Network following recent funding milestones that raised $135 million. The participation of these four big names highlights the range of institutions supporting the Canton Network, as big banks, exchanges, data, and wealth infrastructure all lend their weight to the same underlying blockchain stack. Read more
Two former CEC Bank branches located in the capital city of Bucharest and the town of Targoviste, as well as a property owned by the bank in Vaslui, have been put up for auction on Azitis.com, an auction platform for distressed assets.