Weekly Recap: Milestones Galore for Stablecoins
First slowly, then all at once.
For years, crypto toiled in the darkness, a band of outlaws frowned upon by elites in Washington and in the media. Then came the market rallies, and Trump, and legislation like the GENIUS Act. Now crypto is finally everywhere.
Look at the big news this week. Amazon and Walmart – companies about as mainstream as they come – are considering launching their own stablecoins. You read that right.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the world's biggest retailers are tired of paying merchant fees and other unaccountable costs to the likes of VISA and Mastercard. They want to use their own blockchain-based tokens to do their own transactions, their way.
This is contingent on the passage of the GENIUS Act, which now appears a near certainty after this week's Senate vote. Jesse Hamilton had the news.
And that wasn't the only big stablecoin news this week. Societe Generale, a lion of European finance, announced its own stablecoin on Ethereum and Solana. And Jack Ma's Ant Group applied for stablecoin issuer licenses in Hong Kong and Singapore.
The whole world is going stablecoin crazy. And why not? These mostly dollar-pegged tokens are a vastly better form of money, allowing quicker settlement times and lower fees particularly on cross-border transactions.
GENIUS wasn't the only crypto legislation moving forward in Congress. The market structure bill – known as CLARITY – emerged from key House committees. If enacted, the law would provide long-sought guardrails for crypto companies particularly around securities laws and the roles of the SEC and CFTC.
The market reacted well to the Congressional tailwinds and we saw several new announcements for bitcoin accumulation vehicles (AKA 'digital asset treasuries'). Anthony Pompliano, a crypto influencer and investor, will head a new $750 million fund, for instance.
If you're not impressed by all this, then crypto really may not be your thing. But legendary investor Paul Tudor Jones disagrees with you. He thinks bitcoin should be part of every investor's portfolio.
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