ARK Invest ramped up its crypto exposure on Friday, adding Bullish, BitMine, Circle, Robinhood and nearly $600K in Bitcoin ETFs as crypto equities attempted a rebound. ARK Invest closed out the week with a fresh round of accumulation across several of its flagship funds, picking up positions in Circle, Bullish, BitMine, Robinhood and Bitcoin ETFs as crypto-related equities rebounded. The largest set of purchases targeted Bullish, with ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF) and ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW) expanding their exposure, according to trade notifications for Friday. Combined, these buys amounted to about $2 million, following Bullish’s 5.75% gain on the day. ARK also continued accumulating BitMine, with purchases across ARKF, ARKK and ARKW totaling approximately $830,000. BitMine closed slightly lower on the day but remained within its recent trading range near $26. Read more
Cathie Wood’s investment company, ARK Invest, is back to buying Circle, making its first purchases since selling 1.7 million shares in June. Cathie Wood’s investment company ARK Invest is back to buying shares of USDC issuer Circle as the stock sinks below $90. ARK bought a total of 542,269 Circle (CRCL) shares over the past two trading days, investing around $46 million, according to the firm’s daily trading disclosures seen by Cointelegraph. The two acquisitions — a $30.4 million purchase on Wednesday and a $15.5 million buy on Thursday — came amid a decline in CRCL shares, which closed at $86 and $82.30, respectively. Read more
Circle is seeking to improve FX market infrastructure by offering institutions deeper global liquidity access with fewer intermediaries and reduced counterparty risk. Circle is expanding into the foreign-exchange market, positioning stablecoins as a tool to modernize one of traditional finance’s most entrenched systems. The issuer of USDC (USDC) on Thursday unveiled Circle StableFX, an institutional onchain FX platform built on Arc1, the company’s forthcoming layer-1 blockchain, according to a news release shared with Cointelegraph. Circle also introduced Circle Partner Stablecoins, a program designed to support regulated regional stablecoins. Trading in the global FX market reached $9.6 trillion per day in April, up 28% from 2022, according to data from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS). The daily trading volume in the global FX market is more than double all global stock markets combined, and far exceeds the roughly $1.69 trillion in average daily US equities trading, running 24 hours a day, five ...
The stablecoin issuer considered stablecoin-denominated gas fees on Arc, but has a long-term goal of shifting to distributed governance. Stablecoin issuer Circle, the company behind the USDC dollar-pegged stablecoin, is planning a native token for its ARC layer-1 blockchain testnet, an enterprise-focused Ethereum Virtual Machine network. Circle launched the Arc testnet in October, with participation from investment bank Goldman Sachs, asset manager BlackRock, credit card company Visa and over 100 other companies. The company, which disclosed plans for the new token alongside its earnings on Wednesday, initially planned to center gas fees on the Arc network around USDC (USDC) and other stablecoins. Read more
The US Treasury Department accepted comments related to the implementation of the stablecoin bill until Tuesday as part of the law’s planned rollout. Stablecoin issuer Circle has advocated for a level playing field among banks, nonbanks and stablecoin issuers as the US Treasury Department considers implementing the GENIUS Act following its signing into law in July. In comments submitted on Tuesday as part of the Treasury’s notice of proposed rulemaking for GENIUS, Circle was one of many crypto companies that weighed in on how the US government should implement the law establishing a framework for payment stablecoins. While the company reiterated many of the principles for which proponents of the bill had advocated, such as having stablecoins “fully backed with cash and high quality liquid assets,” it also urged the government to set clear requirements for enforcement and consequences for noncompliance. Read more
The company updated its terms to prohibit the purchase or sale of weapons “in contravention of applicable laws,” suggesting that legally permissible transactions were possible. Stablecoin issuer Circle updated its policy for one of its tokens to clarify rules around prohibited transactions, explicitly addressing the use of legally obtained firearms and weapons. Crypto sleuths and reports from this week noted that Circle had updated its terms for its USDC (USDC) stablecoin. The terms specifically stated that the platform had the “right to monitor and, if appropriate, block or otherwise prevent transactions” related to the purchase of firearms, ammunition, explosives and other weapons. However, users noted that Circle had updated the terms to include weapons “in contravention of applicable laws,” suggesting that US-based users and others could legally purchase firearms using the stablecoin. Read more
Circle’s new Arc blockchain testnet launches with participation from more than 100 institutions, including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Visa and Mastercard. Circle, the world’s second-largest stablecoin issuer, launched the public testnet for Arc, its open layer-1 blockchain network built to bring global financial infrastructure onchain. The rollout, which Circle calls the “Economic Operating System for the internet,” includes participation from over 100 major companies spanning banking, capital markets and fintech — among them BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Mastercard and State Street, according to a Tuesday announcement. “With Arc’s public testnet, we’re seeing remarkable early momentum as leading companies, protocols, and projects begin to build and test,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said. “Combined, these companies reach billions of users, move, exchange, and custody hundreds of trillions in assets and payments,” he added. Read more
Circle is now a HYPE holder, has introduced native USDC to Hyperliquid and is considering becoming a network validator. Stablecoin issuer Circle is expanding into Hyperliquid with an investment and the launch of native USD Coin on the protocol, as stablecoin competition on the network intensifies. According to a Tuesday announcement, Circle is now a stakeholder in the Hyperliquid ecosystem, directly holding its native cryptocurrency Hyperliquid (HYPE). Circle is also considering becoming a validator for the protocol. The company, which went public on June 5, is behind the USDC (USDC) stablecoin, a digital asset redeemable 1:1 for US dollars. The token will be natively deployed on HyperEVM, Hyperliquid’s smart contract layer. Read more
Mega Matrix is betting big on Ethena, positioning itself as the first public proxy for the ecosystem as stablecoin regulation heats up. Public holding company Mega Matrix (MPU) has made the Ethena stablecoin ecosystem the centerpiece of its digital asset strategy, betting that the synthetic dollar project can capture market share from incumbents like Circle. The company’s push comes on the heels of the US GENIUS Act, a comprehensive stablecoin bill that establishes federal oversight of issuers, sets capital and liquidity requirements and creates a framework for banks and fintechs to issue dollar-pegged tokens under regulatory supervision. However, Circle is currently the only publicly traded option to capitalize on the enormous growth of stablecoins, Colin Butler, Mega Matrix’s executive vice president and global head of markets, told Cointelegraph. Read more
Circle is embedding USDC into global payment networks as part of a broader push spanning Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Circle has unveiled two partnerships to embed stablecoins settlement into mainstream finance. New deals with Mastercard and Finastra aim to expand USD Coin's role to merchants and banks worldwide. Mastercard said on Wednesday that it will enable acquirers and merchants in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EEMEA) to settle transactions in USDC (USDC) and Euro Coin (EURC). Arab Financial Services and Eazy Financial Services will be the first to adopt the service, marking the first stablecoin settlement available through Mastercard in the region. Finastra, a London-based financial software provider, also announced on Wednesday the integration of USDC into its Global PAYplus platform, which is said to processes more than $5 trillion in cross-border transactions daily. Read more
SBI partners with Circle, Ripple and Startale to launch stablecoin ventures and a tokenized asset trading platform in Japan. Japanese financial conglomerate SBI inked new blockchain partnerships with USDC issuer Circle, XRP developer Ripple and the Web3 company Startale. SBI Group announced the three separate partnerships on Friday, including stablecoin-related collaborations with US companies Circle and Ripple, and a new tokenization project with Singapore-based Startale. In cooperation with Startale, SBI plans to build an onchain trading platform for tokenized stocks and real-world assets (RWAs) to enable 24/7 trading. Read more