Peter Thiel-backed Augustus has won conditional OCC approval for a US bank charter focused on AI-driven payments and stablecoin settlement infrastructure. Peter Thiel-backed payments startup Augustus received conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a US national bank built around artificial intelligence and stablecoin-based payments. The approval, announced Monday, would allow Augustus to expand its existing European banking operations into the US, as financial firms increasingly compete to modernize cross-border settlement infrastructure using tokenized dollars and blockchain-based payment systems. The company describes Augustus National Bank as “the first clearing bank for the AI era,” built on an AI and stablecoin-native core designed to interact directly with machine agents at “the speed of compute,” rather than relying on batch processes and human clerks. Read more
Strategy added $43 million in Bitcoin last week after Michael Saylor drew mixed investor reactions for signaling potential BTC sales to fund dividend payments. Strategy bought 535 Bitcoin for $43 million last week, resuming its accumulation strategy days after its chairman, Michael Saylor, said the company may sell some of its holdings to fund dividend payments. The world’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder acquired the Bitcoin (BTC) between May 4 and May 10 at an average price of $80,340 per BTC, according to a Monday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The purchase lifted Strategy’s total holdings to 818,869 BTC, acquired for about $61.86 billion at an average price of $75,540 per coin, including fees and expenses. Read more