Latest news with #ERC-20
Int'l Business Times
08-08-2025
- Business
- Int'l Business Times
Coinbase Stock Pulls Back 30% After July Peak, Analysts Split on Outlook
Coinbase (COIN) is down more than 30% from its July highs, but analysts aren't ready to declare the rally over. Mizuho Financial — once openly skeptical of the stock — just raised its price target from $217 to $267, pointing to a rebound in July trading volumes after a sluggish Q2. "While trading volumes were underwhelming this quarter, July has seen a rebound... reflecting improving market activity," – Mizuho analyst note, August 2025 The firm kept its neutral rating, noting that consumer spot trading fell 45% and transaction revenue dropped 39% last quarter. Trump's Stablecoin Law Sparked the Summer Rally Much of COIN's July surge followed President Donald Trump's signing of the GENIUS Act, the first U.S. federal law establishing a framework for stablecoins. The legislative win fueled optimism and helped Coinbase secure a spot in the S&P 500. But the momentum didn't last. After spiking mid-July, COIN reversed course and now trades well below Mizuho's revised target of $267. Citi analysts remain far more bullish, hiking their target from $270 to $505 on expectations that regulatory clarity and rising Bitcoin prices will drive long-term growth. Q2 Earnings Show Strength in Institutional Trading In Q2, Coinbase reported $1.43 billion in net income, up from $66 million last quarter and just $36 million a year ago. Trading volume hit $237 billion, up slightly from $226 billion in Q2 2024, but the bulk came from institutional clients rather than retail. Data Context: Retail Cooling, Capital on the Sidelines According to CoinGlass, ERC-20 token activity in Coinbase custody wallets has slowed, signaling weaker altcoin demand. However, stablecoin inflows into Coinbase-linked wallets remain steady, suggesting capital is parked and ready to deploy if market sentiment improves. DeFi Llama data shows that overall stablecoin market cap has held near yearly highs, indicating that cash reserves in crypto remain robust despite the pullback in speculative trading. Bottom Line: Pullback or Reset? Between Trump's stablecoin law, July's volume rebound, and strong institutional flows, Coinbase still has long-term tailwinds. The recent drop may be more of a cooldown than a collapse — but for now, COIN is clearly running in a lower gear. If you want, I can now also give you three high-CTR, SEO-optimized titles for this that will make it blog-ready for maximum clicks. That will help this piece perform well in search and social. Would you like me to prep those next?
Yahoo
31-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Germany's AllUnity Launches BaFin-Regulated Euro Stablecoin EURAU
AllUnity, a joint venture between DWS, Galaxy and Flow Traders, has launched EURAU, a euro-denominated stablecoin approved under Germany's new crypto regulations. EURAU is claimed to be the first euro-backed stablecoin to be issued under the EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCAR) and licensed as electronic money by Germany's BaFin. The token, issued on Ethereum as an ERC-20 asset, is designed for financial institutions, fintechs, and corporate clients needing regulated, instant cross-border euro payments. AllUnity has partnered with a consortium of European banks to act as reserve custodians. This structure aims to satisfy regulators and institutions seeking transparency, supported by routine proof-of-reserve disclosures. The token debuts with trading pairs BTC/EURAU and USDC/EURAU on Bullish Europe, a BaFin-regulated digital asset exchange. Flow Traders will provide liquidity as the market maker. (Bullish is also the owner of Coindesk.) Backed by names like BitGo, Metzler Bank and Fireblocks, EURAU signals a broader push to embed regulated stablecoins into Europe's financial infrastructure. AllUnity's CEO, Alexander Höptner, called the launch a step toward 'financial sovereignty' in a digital Europe. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Forbes
24-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The GENIUS Act, Reading Between The Lines
Illustration Representing the GENIUS Act, First US Legislative Bill All of the crypto-sphere is atwitter with the implications of the final passage of the 'Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act'' or the ''GENIUS Act''. I went through the text of the act that was signed into law last week. Contrary to what the boosters of the bill believe, the implications for related digital assets and the economy are very mixed at best. As the first legislation to directly address one form of crypto-assets, the act is seminal. Of course, my own compatriots at the various blockchain companies and organizations are ecstatic over the act. It is best to temper your enthusiasm due to the details in the bill. First, the act focuses on payment stablecoins, and for other purposes. 'For other purposes' could cover an unspecified number of purposes. The constitution of the Stablecoin Review Board and research into non-payment Stablecoins (the bulk of currently issued Stablecoin total value), into interoperability, into novel methods for detecting Anti-Money Laundering violations, and into the effects of foreign issued Stablecoins could be some of these 'other purposes.' Definitions Continued This act clarifies the definition of a Digital Asset Service Provider. The definition explicitly excludes wallet providers, blockchain protocol vendors, DeFi protocols etc. The removal of confusion that surrounded earlier enforcement actions which made all such activities suspect is a huge relief for such actors. Whew! Exchanges are still in purview. Payment stablecoins must obey the law. Freezing, burning, seizure and blocking transfer must be enforceable by a 'lawful order'. These cannot be implemented by ERC-20 based stablecoins. This is of course anathema to the free souls of the decentralized universe. This is in the act, any non-compliance with a lawful order results in huge daily fines and imprisonment. Also to folks that say, technology does not matter, business use cases over technology seem unaware of the fact that basic capabilities baked into the technical underpinnings are needed BEFORE any business use cases can come to fruition. Look at what the ERC-20 standard and free implementations unleashed on the world. Payment stablecoin issuers have to be regulated by either a Federal Agency, primarily the OCC or other regulators on the Federal level. There is another tier for State Level Payment Stablecoins which are meant to be regulated by state regulators. The state level issuers limit is $10B and federal issuers are limited to $50B. There are some provisions in the bill for the migration of State Regulated stablecoin issuers to federally regulated issuers. Other details including breaches of these limits are punted to a Stablecoin Review Board, making for an open-ended set of rules. The act constantly invokes the Review Board and the Treasury Secretary who is the leader of the Stablecoin Review Board giving them tremendous leeway for rule setting. Neither USDT nor USDC qualify as US payment stablecoins yet according to this act. USDT because Tether is based offshore, USDC does not have a bank charter yet. However, a safe harbor provision may get Circle off the hook while their charter is pending. As soon as USDC is approved by the OCC, they will be instantly not in compliance to the act, as USDC is more than $50 Billion in issuance. As we can see, current stablecoins are not usually used for payments. Where Are Payment Stablecoins? Payment stablecoins means a digital asset that is designed to be used as a means of payment or settlement; and the issuer is obligated to convert, redeem, or repurchase for a fixed amount of monetary value. It also represents that the issuer will maintain, or create the reasonable expectation that it will maintain a stable value. In other words, the payment stablecoin has to be used for payment and has to be stable with respect to a currency. Such a stablecoin is NOT a fiat currency, nor a bank deposit, nor a tokenized stablecoin of a bank deposit such as JP Morgan's Kinexsys. It is not clear that the current use of USDT and USDC falls within the term 'payment stablecoins'. Such payment uses cannot be distinguished from their most frequent use, to hold stable USD instead of volatile home currencies or to use as a stable parking place and an anchor in swap based AMMs and other daily arbitrage trading of volatile crypto-currencies. Stable USD may be a misnomer as USD has fallen in value in the last few months against a basket of currencies. Stability Of Stablecoins Any stablecoin whose basic function is stability with respect to a single fiat currency can only be assured by holding liquid reserves denominated in that fiat. For USD based stablecoins the act explicitly enjoins this to be cash, treasuries maturing in 93 days or less and repos as well as reverse repos based on these instruments. The act also warns against concentration risk. Significant portions of these reserves cannot be in one single institution. We have already seen this scenario play out during the collapse of SVB, which custodied more than $3B of Circle's assets. Only a last minute expansion by the FDIC of the limit to 'unlimited' saved Circle and many other startups. A Stablecoin functions as one of the representations of fiat money that it is based on. In the United States that would be the United Stated Dollar. The other forms available to retail participants are bank deposits and bank notes. Par price, that is the price between the different representations ties all these forms into the singleness of money. Par is 1:1, that is one dollar of bank deposits is equal to one dollar of currency. Stablecoins must follow this. Professor Mehrling has discussed this in a money view of stablecoins. There is no discussion of par in the act. The reserves which are a touch point between stablecoins and traditional markets is where the risk of contagion can start. The restricted redemption of Money Market Funds by BNP Paribas (my previous employer) in 2007 foreshadowed the 2008 financial crisis. A run on a stablecoin issuer could initiate a rapid sell-off in the reserves, including short duration treasury bills. A negative feedback loop on this sort of act can cascade into multiple assets as treasuries are the basis of fixed income and credit markets. We have seen that only bazookas with tremendous firepower through the buying backstop of an institution like the Fed can stem this blood-letting. These are reasonable scenarios to assess the risk of any stablecoin issuer. Additionally stablecoins are not protected by the FDIC, which can cause the panic to spread through retail investors in a very short period of time, maybe even minutes. The Fed will have to ride to the rescue to prevent the larger financial system from collapsing. How Do Issuers Make Money? No big issuers of Stablecoins currently pay interest. Most of the money made by the issuers is based on the yield difference between issuing a zero interest stablecoin and the reserves that they hold. This is the classic example of other people's money making money for your enterprise. In the case of Tether, this payout is in the billions and makes the most money per employee of any enterprise, except for shadowy enterprises such as drug dealing or other illicit activities. If we had negative interest rates on Treasuries or other qualified digital assets, this source of yield farming by the issuers will dry up. Issuers will have to increase their fees, they might also slide into loss-making enterprises. The 48 pages of the act deals with the seniority of Stablecoin claims, guidelines on custody, commingling of assets and other ideas from traditional finance. The Genius Of The Act It is to convince the crypto-universe that it is beneficial to them while advancing traditional institutions for issuing, custodying and exchanging stablecoins. Traditional banking or non-banking institutions who already have bank charters, scale and know-how for customer on-boarding, AML and KYC are the winners. It is to allow a form of private money to come into being and shut out the issuance of CBDCs. It is to remain relatively mum on par price which is only implied. It is to convince the world that the velocity of money unleashed by the near instant settlement at low cost will not have monetary policy implications.
Business Insider
01-07-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Midas and 0G Partner to Bring Real-World Assets to AI-Native Blockchain Infrastructure
Tokenization protocol Midas and AI blockchain 0G have announced a strategic partnership to unlock the next wave of onchain finance through modular design. By combining Midas' tokenisation infrastructure with 0G's decentralized AI-native compute, the partners will develop new solutions that intelligently leverage real-world assets (RWAs). As part of the partnership, Midas will deploy on the 0G mainnet, scheduled for late Q3 2025, bringing its full stack of tokenization infrastructure. In parallel, 0G will integrate Midas' tokenized instruments and vault logic into its optimized AI layer. This will position both platforms to serve institutions, developers, and liquidity providers at scale. Midas offers a compliant protocol suite for issuing tokenized certificates tracking institutional-grade strategies. Its tokens, including mF-ONE, mMEV, mEDGE, mRE7YIELD, mBASIS and mTBILL, provide exposure via tokenized certificates to reference real-world assets across private credit, US short-term treasuries, and market-neutral strategies. 0G Labs CEO Michael Heinrich said: 'Midas have made huge strides in expanding compliant access to tokenized RWAs and we're delighted that they've chosen to build on 0G. We're excited to be collaborating with them to develop new financial products that will combine AI with tokenized assets, giving users greater onchain opportunities than ever before.' By launching on 0G, Midas will introduce compliant, composable tokens into a modular environment optimized for AI-powered workflows and smart contract automation. Use cases range from onchain lending vaults and automated credit exposures to AI-enhanced risk analytics and composable strategy deployment. 0G's modular Layer 1 blockchain is purpose-built for AI-native applications. It combines high-performance compute, decentralized storage, data availability, and low-latency smart contract execution, ideal for deploying data-intensive financial applications and real-time DeFi logic. 0G's architecture supports seamless integration with EVM and non-EVM ecosystems, while its recent Galileo testnet demonstrated sustained throughput and low gas costs. It also saw significant developer adoption with over 170 million transactions and 13 million accounts in under two months. The collaboration between Midas and 0G reflects a shared vision: to make programmable, compliant financial infrastructure natively interoperable with the AI applications of the future. About Midas Midas is a tokenisation platform building institutional-grade financial products for the open web. Its ERC-20 tokens are structured to track dedicated strategies with verifiable on-chain performance, combining TradFi-grade standards with DeFi composability. Midas is backed by leading investors like Framework Ventures, BlockTower Capital, and GSR, and partners with regulated custodians to ensure strong compliance and risk controls. Learn more: About 0G 0G is the first decentralized AI protocol (AIP), purpose-built to power a truly democratized future of intelligence. As a modular and infinitely scalable Layer 1, 0G enables the execution of decentralized AI applications at scale. It unifies high-performance decentralized storage, compute, and data availability (DA) to support the next generation of AI-native use cases. With verifiable AI processing and a permissionless agent ecosystem, 0G is laying the foundation for an open and unstoppable AI economy. Learn more: Disclaimer This announcement is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer to sell or buy any financial instrument. Midas-issued tokens are not available to US & UK persons and entities, or those from sanctioned jurisdictions. This is not investment advice. Past performance is no indicator of future returns. Investors have no legal rights in the underlying assets, and their claims are subject to qualified subordination. Contact CMO 0G Labs
Business Insider
25-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Magic Newton Foundation Redefines Fair Token Launches with $NEWT
Inaugural launch addresses widespread industry calls for equitable token distributions and powers transparent AI finance The Magic Newton Foundation announced the launch of $NEWT, the native token of the Newton Protocol. The $NEWT token launch features best-in-class disclosure standards and transparent documentation, designed to promote equitable distribution and eliminate the insider advantages that have plagued cryptocurrency token distributions. Research by Solidus Labs revealed that since 2021, insiders have used decentralized exchanges to trade ahead of 56% of all ERC-20 token listing announcements, while a University of Technology Sydney study suggested between 10% and 25% of new crypto listings may have had insider trading activity. These findings have strengthened calls for the transparency measures championed by the Magic Newton Foundation. The design and distribution of $NEWT reflects the same principles of fairness, transparency and user control built into the Newton Protocol itself—infrastructure that enables secure AI automation for cryptocurrency operations while allowing users to maintain complete control of their assets. Newton addresses technical trust through verifiable AI agents, and the $NEWT token embodies economic trust through transparent token distribution. 'Not only is $NEWT unlocking secure AI-driven finance, but it's also correcting the information asymmetry problem that has plagued past token launches. With full onchain transparency, thorough documentation, and equitable distribution, the Magic Newton Foundation is committed to restoring trust,' said Mohammad Akhavannik, Managing Director at Magic Newton Foundation. 'Our number one priority is making verifiable automation accessible via a system built on fairness that users can count on.' The Magic Newton Foundation sets new industry benchmarks with the $NEWT token, earning praise from industry leaders like Coinbase, which tweeted from its Coinbase Assets X account 'The Magic Newton Foundation is sharing in-depth disclosures for their asset. We applaud this transparency on important topics like tokenomics, utility, and long-term project plans.' As detailed in its robust transparency disclosure packet, $NEWT token allocations are tagged in publicly disclosed wallet addresses and are trackable onchain or verified independently for any offchain holdings, preventing hidden allocations or surprise unlocks. The Foundation is allocating 60% of the 1 billion $NEWT supply directly to community initiatives, such as ecosystem development and growth, and community rewards, with quarterly transparency reports detailing token usage across all allocations. All team and contributor allocations are subject to 36-month vesting schedules with 12-month lock-up periods, designed to ensure long-term alignment. To support stability, fair community access to $NEWT, and overall transparency, the Foundation has publicly disclosed the key terms of its loan agreements with liquidity providers. These agreements do not include performance-based KPIs and require partners to comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including prohibitions on market manipulation. This approach stands in contrast to problematic token launches where opaque liquidity arrangements have contributed to community mistrust. $NEWT powers the Newton Protocol economy through four core functions: (i) securing the network through staking rewards for validators, (ii) serving as the native gas token and payment mechanism to issue, update or revoke onchain permissions, (iii) enabling agent operators to earn fees by providing automated services with $NEWT collateral, and (iv) giving token stakers governance rights to guide the Protocol's evolution. Newton Protocol addresses the growing demand for secure AI automation as current solutions force users to blindly trust AI agents to perform honestly, creating significant security and financial risks. The Protocol solves this through verifiable automation, allowing users to delegate tasks to AI agents while maintaining cryptographic proof that every action follows their exact instructions. Early supporters will be rewarded through a multi-tiered community rewards program to incentivize awareness, adoption, and engagement with the Newton Protocol. The Newton Protocol benefits from technical contributions by Magic Labs, which serves as the first core developer of the Protocol's open-sourced technology. Magic Labs has onboarded over 50 million embedded wallets since 2018 through partnerships with platforms including Polymarket and WalletConnect. $NEWT is now live on Coinbase, Upbit, Binance, Bybit, and Bithumb, among other select exchanges. About The Magic Newton Foundation The Magic Newton Foundation, with contributions from Magic Labs, oversees the research, development, and community initiatives of the Newton Protocol to transform fragmented, manual crypto workflows into trusted, automated execution, creating the infrastructure needed for safe AI-driven finance at scale. The Foundation stewards the Newton Protocol, a decentralized infrastructure layer for verifiable onchain automation and secure agent authorization. It enables protocols, DAOs, and users to execute complex actions through verifiable agents, without relying on centralized bots or offchain coordination. Users can securely authorize agents to act on their behalf using programmable permissions, ensuring that actions occur only under conditions they approve. By combining trusted execution environments (TEEs), zero-knowledge proofs, and a modular agent architecture, Newton Protocol brings automation fully onchain, enhancing transparency, composability, and trust. Contact Executive Director
