Latest news with #USYC
Axios
29-04-2025
- Business
- Axios
The stablecoin biz is developing fast
Stablecoin legislation is already having a big impact and neither chamber has even had a floor vote on it yet. The big picture: Stablecoin projects are coming fast and furious, fueled by expectations of a liquidity wave once the world's biggest economy gives its official nod. Standard Chartered experts project stablecoins to become a multitrillion-dollar category by 2028 if legislation passes that sanctions the sector. Context: That's comparable to the entire industry's market cap today. New entrants will find that stablecoins are a good business as long as interest rates aren't zero. Backed by reserves, usually U.S. Treasuries, they're a great business if rates are high. But that's a lot of sensitivity to forces outside your control, as Coin Metrics points out in its review of Circle's S-1. It also helps if your token is really popular, and it turns out that competing for market share is expensive. New trends are emerging. Some might not be as profitable, and others may not even be permitted out of the gate. Yield-bearing stablecoins could help attract market share. But they could also chip into an issuer's profits, even when rates are strong. Circle has gotten ahead of the trend by acquiring a coin designed for yield, USYC. Other products are coming at a steady clip. We've mentioned the $5 billion synthetic dollar, USDE, before, but another such delta-neutral stablecoin with yield built in got seed funding this week, NUSD. (Stablecoin legislation looks likely to forbid those kinds of tokens here — for now.) Zoom out: There's also more to the stablecoin industry than just issuing the tokens. Startups are forming to build out the use case beyond market liquidity, including companies that use stablecoins for remittances, payroll, cross-border transactions and treasury management. FalconX, one of the custody firms from the prior item, projects perhaps 50 new entrants to the stablecoin market this year (and the company is in a good position to do better than guess).
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Archax Buys FINRA-Regulated Broker Dealer to Offer Tokenized Assets in the U.S.
Archax, a U.K.-regulated crypto exchange and custodian focusing on tokenized assets, has acquired a U.S. broker-dealer in an effort to enter the booming institutional market in the country after recent positive changes on the regulatory environment. Globacap Private Markets Inc, a broker-dealer and alternative trading system (ATS) regulated by FINRA and the Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC), is being bought by Archax and being renamed to Archax Markets US. The new entity will serve as the company's foothold on American soil and serve the institutions and professional investors in the country, two Archax executives told CoinDesk. Asset tokenization is a fast-growing sector in crypto as global banks, asset managers and digital asset firms are increasingly using blockchain rails to move traditional financial instruments. They do so to achieve operational efficiencies and speedier,around-the-clock settlements. Just in the past weeks, asset manager Fidelity Investments filed to launch a tokenized money market fund and is reportedly working on issuing a stablecoin. Derivatives exchange CME Group started tokenization tests with Google Cloud with plans to launch new services next year, while the New York Stock Exchange's parent company partnered with Circle to explore services built on USDC stablecoin and tokenized fund USYC. Archax specializes in the issuance, custody, and trading of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), including money market funds, corporate bonds, carbon credits and uranium. For example, Archax's recently-issued tokenized Treasury fund on XRP Ledger with asset manager Abrdn saw $45 million in deposits to become a top 10 product by assets under management, data shows. Archax has been exploring entering the U.S. market over the past years, but stayed on the sideline due to regulatory uncertainty, Graham Rodford, CEO of Archax, said in an interview with CoinDesk. "Under this new administration, which seems to be more crypto positive, we are getting more interest from the U.S. as well, which obviously we can't easily serve from the UK, so it makes sense for us strategically to go there," Rodford said. Archax also plans to expand its offerings to tokenized U.S. equities and bonds, building on its existing partnerships across several blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Hedera Hashgraph and XRP Ledger. The firm's U.S. entrance follows the recent purchase of a Spanish brokerage firm to expand services to the European Union, pending regulatory approvals.
Forbes
27-03-2025
- Business
- Forbes
NYSE Parent ICE Teams Up With Circle Amid Stablecoin Boom
Jeremy Allaire, cofounder and CEO of Circle, at the Paris Blockchain Week summit in Paris, France, on April 9, 2024. Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg Intercontinental Exchange (ICE)—the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange, which reported revenues of $9.3 billion in 2024 and has a market capitalization of $101 billion—has signed a memorandum of understanding with Circle, issuer of the world's second-largest stablecoin, to explore integrating Circle's products into its trading and clearing empire. Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to maintain stable value, typically pegged to fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar. Under the agreement, ICE will evaluate using Circle's flagship product, $60 billion (market cap) USDC, and US Yield Coin (USYC) across its derivatives exchanges, clearinghouses and data services to develop new markets and products. The latter was launched by Hashnote, a Miami-based firm Circle acquired in January, and offers a yield of 3.8%, backed by short-duration U.S. Treasury bills and repo/reverse repo activities. 'We believe Circle's regulated stablecoins and tokenized digital currencies can play a larger role in capital markets as digital currencies become more trusted by market participants as an acceptable equivalent to the U.S. Dollar,' said Lynn Martin, President of the New York Stock Exchange, in an announcement shared with Forbes. Stablecoins are on a tear. Tether's $144 billion behemoth, USDT, may command the spotlight, but the real draw is how these tokens have transformed from a convenient tool for crypto traders to a popular medium for fast and cost-effective cross-border payments. By February, stablecoins had amassed a combined market value of $214 billion and handled a staggering $35 trillion in annual transfers—double Visa's throughput, according to data from Dune and Artemis. Traditional finance is taking note. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan recently stated that the bank is prepared to roll out its own stablecoin if Congress signs off on the regulations. Fidelity is already tinkering with a stablecoin under its digital assets division, which currently offers custody and trading for bitcoin, ether and litecoin. Driving the hype is a legislative push championed by the Trump administration, which sees stablecoins as a key way to maintain the U.S. dollar's global dominance. Two major bills making the rounds in Congress are anticipated to bring stablecoins a clear regulatory framework. Fittingly, World Liberty Financial, a crypto project in which the Trump family has already reaped at least $400 million, said on Tuesday it also plans to launch a stablecoin, backed by U.S. Treasurys, dollars and other cash equivalents.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Franklin Templeton Brings Tokenized U.S. Treasury Fund to European Investors
Franklin Templeton, a major global asset manager, said Wednesday it has launched its tokenized U.S. Treasury fund in Luxembourg, expanding access to European institutional investors. The launch of the Franklin OnChain U.S. Government Money Fund marks the first Luxembourg-domiciled fund investing in U.S. government securities that's fully tokenized, the asset manager claimed in a press release. This means shares in the fund are recorded and transferred on the blockchain rather than through traditional processes, using Franklin Templeton's proprietary blockchain-based transfer agency platform for handling transactions to offer enhanced efficiency, transparency and security. The fund is available on the Stellar Lumens network (XLM) for institutional investors in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland, following regulatory approval in October by Luxembourg regulators. The U.S.-registered version of the fund has attracted over $580 million of assets since its 2021 debut and is limited to U.S.-based investors only, per data. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries have been at the forefront of red-hot real-world asset tokenization efforts, growing into a $4 billion asset class this year. Franklin Templeton was the first among traditional financial institutions to release such a product, and its the third largest tokenized treasury fund by assets under management behind Hashnote's USYC and BUIDL, issued by BlackRock and Securitize. Read more: Franklin Templeton Expands $594M Market Money Fund to Solana Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk's full AI Policy. Sign in to access your portfolio
