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The Big Story
KPMG signs off on Tether's first full financial statement audit — KPMG has delivered an unqualified opinion on Tether International's balance sheet, income statement and cash flows for the 2025 financial year, marking the first completed full audit in the stablecoin issuer's history since its founding in 2014. The sign-off ends a decade-long transparency debate that has followed the world's largest stablecoin issuer. The audit covers the period ending December 31, 2025, and represents a significant milestone for an organization that has long faced calls for greater financial disclosure.
Breaking News
SEC Looks to Approve 24/7 Blockchain-Based Stock Trading — The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing an "innovation exemption" that would allow American stocks to be traded around the clock on approved blockchain platforms, fundamentally restructuring how equity markets operate.
Trump Targets Foreign Scam Networks as Crypto Losses Soar — President Donald Trump has signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum titled "Expanding Capabilities to Combat Transnational Cyber-Enabled Crime," authorizing the federal government to work with private sector firms on cyber operations targeting foreign-based scam networks.
Fidelity Could Turn Its Ethereum ETF Into A Yield Generator — Fidelity has filed a preliminary amendment with regulators to add staking to the Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), with the fund potentially staking up to 100% of its Ether under normal conditions.
EtherFi relaunches its neobank app with tokenized stocks and portfolio-backed borrowing — EtherFi has relaunched its neobank app with a suite of features designed to bring the experience of a traditional fintech product to self-custodied crypto, adding tokenized equities, portfolio-backed borrowing, and cross-chain swaps.
Top Stories
Chainlink Brings Tokenized Equities Into Hyperliquid's Ecosystem — Chainlink has confirmed that tokenized exposure to US stocks and ETFs is now available on Hyperliquid, marking a notable step in the push to bring traditional equity markets onchain. The integration is powered by xStocks and Chainlink's Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), which handles the movement of supported assets across chains and provides price feeds for settlement. The tokenized assets represent fractional shares of US equities and ETFs, giving traders access to instruments that would typically require a traditional brokerage account.
Strategy And Metaplanet Face MSCI Index Exit Under New Rules — MSCI has opened a consultation proposing to exclude so-called "non-operating companies" from its Global Investable Market Indexes (GIMI), a move that would directly affect major Bitcoin treasury firms including Strategy and Metaplanet. The index provider argues that companies whose primary business model is holding assets rather than generating operational revenue may not align with the investment objectives of passive index funds. If implemented, the rule change would force index-tracking funds to divest their holdings in affected companies.
MiCA Triggers Massive Crypto Industry Shakeup Across Europe — Europe's crypto industry has undergone a sharp consolidation following the expiry of MiCA's transitional period on July 1, 2026. MiCA's grandfathering period, the window that let firms already operating under national rules keep going, ended on July 1, dividing the European Economic Area's crypto service providers into those that gained authorization and those that did not. According to TRM Labs, four in five firms that had been operating under transitional provisions have now exited the market or paused operations pending approval.
Deep Dive of the Week
Ripple's New Bets on Tokenized Fund Infrastructure: What ZILO and Licuido Actually Do — Ripple invested in ZILO and Licuido to close a gap in how tokenized fund shares work on the XRP Ledger: ZILO handles the regulated record-keeping that transfer agents normally provide, while Licuido manages issuance and lets those fund shares move as collateral. Together with Archax's custody infrastructure, the three firms are building the plumbing that could turn XRPL into a credible institutional settlement layer for alternative assets.
By the Numbers
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$8 billion — Ondo Perps has surpassed $8 billion in cumulative trading volume as demand for tokenized perpetual futures continues to accelerate.
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300,000 tokens — Pons Launchpad on Robinhood Chain has surpassed 300,000 tokens minted in under a month, marking one of the fastest growth trajectories seen on any new Layer 2 network.
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$574.8 million — A peer-reviewed study presented at USENIX Security '26 identified 65,340 high-risk address instances across Ethereum and BNB Smart Chain, with associated asset losses amounting to roughly 127,000 ETH and 17,700 BNB.
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75% — Algorand node support for consensus v5.0.0 has crossed the 75% threshold, though a 90% supermajority is required before the quantum-resistant upgrade goes live on mainnet.
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$1 billion — Robinhood Chain is closing in on $1 billion in total value locked just over a month after its public launch, with Uniswap serving as the primary engine behind that growth, according to Standard Chartered.
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$25 billion — NEAR Protocol's NEAR Intents platform has crossed $25 billion in cumulative transaction volume, underscoring rapid adoption of its intent-based cross-chain execution layer.
On Our Radar
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Hyperliquid lobbying CFTC — Hyperliquid controls roughly 70% of onchain perpetual futures volume but does not serve US users; its policy arm is now lobbying the CFTC for a route to offer perpetual futures onshore.
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Circle launches cirBTC — Circle has launched cirBTC, a wrapped bitcoin token built for institutional collateral desks, bringing its reserve and custody infrastructure to bear on a market long dominated by BitGo's WBTC and Coinbase's cbBTC.
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Goldman acquires NEOS — Goldman Sachs has agreed to acquire NEOS Investments, the manager of the $1.1 billion BTCI bitcoin synthetic ETF, in a cash-and-equity deal valuing NEOS at up to $2.25 billion.
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Chime explores stablecoin wallets — Chime, widely regarded as the largest neobank in the United States, asked blockchain firms in late spring to submit proposals for end-to-end stablecoin wallet solutions that could be integrated directly into its consumer banking app.
Until Monday.