Senator Elizabeth Warren is not letting up. Not after the GENIUS Act. Not after the CLARITY Act. Not after nine crypto firms got federal trust charters. And certainly not after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency spent the better part of five months quietly waving through some of the biggest names in digital assets.

 

On Monday, the Massachusetts Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee fired off a sharply worded letter to OCC Comptroller Jonathan Gould, accusing his agency of violating the National Bank Act by granting trust charters to at least nine crypto companies, including Coinbase, Ripple, Paxos, BitGo, Circle, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, Crypto.com, Stripe subsidiary Bridge, and Protego. The letter, dated May 18, demands a full accounting of the approvals, along with any communications between OCC officials and the White House or Trump family members, by June 1.

 

Regulatory Arbitrage, or Smart Business?

At the core of Warren's complaint is a fairly pointed argument: these companies are behaving like banks while holding charters that do not require them to operate like banks. National trust companies are, by design, more limited than full-service institutions. They cannot take FDIC-insured deposits. They do not engage in traditional commercial lending. They are supposed to focus on fiduciary work, managing assets on behalf of clients.

 

But Warren says the business plans she reviewed tell a different story. Several of the approved firms appear to be pursuing stablecoin issuance, custodial services, payments processing, and lending activities that resemble full-scale banking operations more than traditional trust work. She argues this creates systemic risk and amounts to regulatory arbitrage, writing: “These companies are effectively crypto banks that want to evade the fundamental safeguards and obligations that come with being a bank.”

 

That argument becomes harder to justify with how the modern banking system already operates. Under fractional reserve banking, traditional banks are permitted to lend out the vast majority of depositor funds while holding only a fraction in reserve, prioritizing leverage, liquidity, and profit generation over true one-to-one custody of customer assets. Critics argue that Warren is defending a legacy system built on counterparty risk while attacking crypto firms that, in many cases, are attempting to offer more transparent and fully reserved financial infrastructure.

 

The OCC has not responded to requests for comment. Gould, for his part, has been publicly bullish on the move toward crypto integration. When the agency announced its first wave of five conditional charter approvals back in December 2025, he framed it as a win for consumers and competition. "New entrants into the federal banking sector are good for consumers, the banking industry and the economy," he said at the time.

 

The Trump Angle Warren Will Not Ignore

There is a political dimension here that Warren has been pushing hard, and it involves the Trump family directly. World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture backed by President Donald Trump and his family, is reportedly in the final stages of receiving a conditional OCC approval of its own. Warren and Gould clashed over the pending application at a Senate hearing in February, when Gould declined to commit to delaying or denying it. Warren, visibly frustrated, called him an accomplice to what she described as presidential corruption.

 

In her latest letter, Warren went further, requesting all emails, text messages, meeting summaries, and call transcripts between OCC staff and Trump, his immediate family, or anyone acting on their behalf, specifically as they relate to any of the nine approved charters. It is a broad ask, and one that almost certainly will not be met without a fight.

 

Industry Momentum Has Not Slowed Warren Down

The crypto industry has had a genuinely strong stretch in Washington. The GENIUS Act, which created a federal framework for stablecoin issuance, passed into law last year and was hailed across the industry as a landmark moment. The SEC under Chair Paul Atkins has signaled major regulatory relief, including a potential innovation exemption for tokenized securities. Crypto-friendly appointments have reshaped several key agencies.

 

And still, Warren keeps pushing back. Her office has framed the GENIUS Act as legislation that creates "light-touch regulation for crypto banks" while weakening the consumer protections that took decades to build. The trust charter campaign fits neatly into that critique. From Warren's perspective, every charter granted to a Coinbase or a Ripple is another step toward a two-tiered financial system, where traditional banks operate under strict rules while crypto firms get a cheaper, faster path into the same market.

 

What Happens Next

The June 1 deadline Warren has set is more political theater than hard deadline. The OCC is not legally obligated to respond on her timeline. But the letter sets up a paper trail, and if the agency stonewalls or the World Liberty Financial approval comes through before then, expect Warren to take that back to the committee floor.

 

The broader question, one that neither side has fully answered, is whether the OCC's chartering activity actually violates the National Bank Act or whether it represents a reasonable interpretation of existing authority. The agency has defended the charters as consistent with prior interpretive letters, some dating back to 2021. Lawyers on both sides will be watching the OCC's formal response closely, assuming one comes.

 

For crypto firms, the political noise is mostly background at this point. Charters have been granted. Business plans are moving forward. But Warren's sustained pressure does carry real risk, particularly if Democrats gain ground in 2026 midterms or if any of the chartered institutions runs into trouble. In this regulatory environment, one high-profile failure could reframe the entire debate very quickly.

 

KRWQ, a stablecoin pegged to the South Korean won, is expanding to Solana following a recent announcement from IQ, the company behind the stablecoin.

 

The expansion, according to IQ, is aimed at enhancing KRWQ support for various Korean won-denominated trading applications on Solana, including perpetual futures, on-chain foreign exchange markets, arbitrage strategies, cross-margin trading, and other institutional and algorithmic trading systems and applications.

 

 

“The Korean won is a major global currency with substantial activity in offshore derivatives markets, yet it has remained largely inaccessible in crypto native trading systems,” IQ said in a statement to reporters. “KRWQ allows market participants to trade, hedge, and deploy capital using Korean won liquidity directly on chain.”

 

Regarding its decision to launch KRWQ on Solana, the IQ team cited Solana’s low latency and deep liquidity as key reasons for selecting the network.

 

“Solana provides the performance and ecosystem depth needed to scale KRW liquidity on chain,” said Dave Shin, chief operating officer of KRWQ. “We are seeing clear demand for non-USD trading pairs, particularly in derivatives.”

 

As KRWQ’s adoption continues to grow among both retail and institutional users, IQ expects increased usage of the stablecoin across a wide range of applications, including cross-border settlements and advanced trading systems.

 

About the KRWQ stablecoin 

KRWQ is a stablecoin developed by IQ in collaboration with Frax Finance, a notable decentralized finance project. It was created with the main goal of bringing the Korean won (KRW) onto the chain.

 

By enabling 24/7 trading, instant settlement, and low-cost on-chain transactions, KRWQ addresses major inefficiencies in offshore KRW trading, increasing demand for and use of KRW in global payments and decentralized finance, while reducing dependence on US dollar-pegged stablecoins.

 

Since its launch in October 2025, KRWQ has rapidly gained traction as the first on-chain settlement layer for Korean won trading, expanding beyond Base, its initial deployment chain, and going live on Fraxtal, Codex, Morph, and Hydrex. KRWQ was also recently listed on EDX Markets, an institutional-focused cryptocurrency exchange, across spot and perpetual futures.

 

KRWQ now has a spot trading volume of nearly $40 billion and a Non-Deliverable Forward (NDF) market worth about $60 billion.

 

 

Jupiter, the Solana-based decentralized finance platform, has partnered with crypto asset manager Bitwise Asset Management and decentralized lending infrastructure protocol Fluid to launch an Ethena (USDe) focused lending market on the Jupiter platform.

 

The partnership will see the launch of an institutional grade USDe lending market on Jupiter’s lending platform, with Bitwise serving as the curator of the new market, setting risk parameters and overseeing operations, while Fluid powers the lending infrastructure.

 

 

By assigning USDe lending curation responsibilities to Bitwise, a traditional finance asset management firm, Jupiter aims to achieve institutional grade credibility and easier access to large scale institutional capital, with the potential for the market to grow into the billions of dollars.

 

“USDe is an institutional grade savings product built for scale. By combining Jupiter Lend's advanced lending infrastructure with Bitwise's asset management expertise, we have created an efficient USDe market ready for DeFi and institutional adoption,” said Guy Young, founder and chief executive officer of Ethena Labs.

 

Before now, institutional capital and DeFi lending mostly operated separately. However, with the launch of this USDe lending market for institutional access, all entities involved, including TradFi and DeFi participants, can work together: Jupiter providing the lending market, Bitwise curating the market, Ethena supplying the asset, and Fluid powering the infrastructure.

 

“Now more than ever, it is imperative that we take DeFi risk seriously. That is precisely why we are excited to partner with Bitwise, who bring both the expertise and the institutional credibility needed to help scale on chain lending from a niche into the default way to do finance,” said Kash Dhanda, chief operating officer of Jupiter.

 

“And by working with Ethena and Fluid, two of the most technically innovative teams in the space, we are thrilled to deliver a product experience like no other.”

 

Institutions Double Down on DeFi

With DeFi growing rapidly and its TVL reaching new highs of around $150 billion to $225 billion in 2025, there has been an increase in the number of institutions entering and doubling down on DeFi.

 

Institutional capital reportedly made up around 11.5% to 20% of DeFi volume or lending TVL in parts of 2025, with institutions like BlackRock, Bitwise, and JPMorgan Chase doubling down on real world asset tokenization and stablecoins.

 

 

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic recently secured $120 million in a Series D funding round led by One Peak, with participation from Nasdaq Ventures, Deutsche Bank, and the British Business Bank. The company is now valued at $670 million.

 

 

According to Elliptic, the funding will be used to accelerate its mission to deliver enterprise-grade on-chain analytics to some of the world’s largest financial institutions, including banks, fintech companies, crypto companies, and government agencies.

 

“As digital assets become more embedded in the global financial system, institutions need trusted infrastructure to manage compliance and risk at scale. Elliptic’s platform plays an important role in providing that infrastructure, helping firms navigate digital asset adoption with confidence and integrity,” said Gary Offner, Senior Vice President and Head of Nasdaq Ventures.

 

Among Elliptic’s expansion plans is scaling its native artificial intelligence compliance system for enterprises. Leveraging its years of experience building one of the most comprehensive and diverse datasets and its ability to process more contextual information per second than competitors, Elliptic plans to build an enterprise-grade compliance system that allows compliance teams to do more with less: alerts resolved in minutes rather than hours, human judgment reserved for where it genuinely matters, and compliance costs falling as volume grows.

 

“As institutional adoption of digital assets accelerates, the demand for scalable compliance solutions has never been higher. Elliptic pioneered the use of blockchain analytics to meet this challenge and has cemented its status as a global leader, screening over 1 billion transactions a week for more than 700 customers in 30 countries,” said Charlotte Lawrence, Managing Director of Direct Equity at the British Business Bank.

 

This capability will also benefit stablecoin and tokenized asset companies that process billions of dollars in transactions. In 2025, about $33 trillion in transactions were processed by stablecoin companies. By leveraging its data intelligence infrastructure, Elliptic enables these companies to meet enterprise-grade compliance requirements in real time, an operational necessity for crypto exchanges that handle and move billions of dollars in crypto daily.

 

About Elliptic 

Elliptic is a London-based blockchain analytics firm that specializes in tools for financial crime risk management, anti-money laundering (AML), transaction monitoring, wallet screening, investigations, and threat intelligence across the global crypto ecosystem.

 

Elliptic currently serves over 700 clients across 30 countries, supports more than 65 blockchain networks, and screens about 1 billion blockchain transactions each week. It has partnered with leading industry players, most recently the layer 1 Solana and the Tempo blockchain networks.

 

 

JPMorgan Chase filed paperwork Tuesday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to launch a new tokenized money market fund on Ethereum, marking the bank's second push into blockchain-based investment products and the latest signal that Wall Street is serious about putting traditional finance on-chain.

 

The proposed fund, called the JPMorgan OnChain Liquidity-Token Money Market Fund and carrying ticker JLTXX, would issue digital tokens on the Ethereum blockchain representing shares backed by short-term U.S. Treasuries, cash, and overnight repurchase agreements. The fund's underlying blockchain infrastructure would be operated by Kinexys Digital Assets, the bank's blockchain unit that was formerly known as Onyx.

 

Built for the GENIUS Act

What makes this filing a bit different from typical money-market launches is who it's designed for. JPMorgan has structured JLTXX specifically to satisfy reserve asset requirements under the GENIUS Act, the U.S. legislation aimed at bringing stablecoin issuers under a regulatory framework. In short, the fund is positioned as a yield-bearing reserve vehicle for stablecoin firms looking for compliant, on-chain Treasury exposure.

That's a strategically significant market. Stablecoin supply has surged past $303 billion as of May 2026, with a large chunk of that liquidity sitting idle in exchange wallets generating nothing. When a bank the size of JPMorgan launches a regulated, on-chain money market product, this changes the game for institutional stablecoin issuers.

 

BlackRock Moved First, Then JPMorgan Followed Days Later

Just days before JPMorgan's Tuesday filing, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager overseeing roughly $14 trillion, submitted its own pair of SEC filings tied to tokenized Treasury products. One of those filings outlined the BlackRock Daily Reinvestment Stablecoin Reserve Vehicle, designed to hold cash and short-term Treasuries and issue what the firm is calling OnChain Shares. Another filing proposed adding an Ethereum-based tokenized share class to its existing $7 billion Select Treasury-Based Liquidity Fund, with BNY Mellon maintaining official ownership records on-chain using ERC-20 token standards.

 

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has been vocal about this for a while. He's argued publicly that blockchain-based settlement can compress transaction cycles, enable round-the-clock trading, and add transparency to capital markets. The firm is now acting on this, and at scale. BlackRock's existing BUIDL fund already manages more than $2.5 billion across eight blockchain networks including Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche, and is increasingly being used as collateral across crypto markets.

 

A Market That Has Tripled in a Year

The broader tokenized real-world asset sector has crossed $30 billion in total value, more than tripling over the past twelve months. Tokenized U.S. Treasuries alone represent $14 billion of that, with Ethereum holding over $8 billion of the total. These aren't little numbers anymore.

 

Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon have also announced tokenization initiatives in recent months. Just last week, JPMorgan's Kinexys platform joined Mastercard, Ripple, and Ondo Finance in completing the first cross-border, cross-bank redemption of a tokenized U.S. Treasury fund, settling the transaction on the XRP Ledger in under five seconds. This is another huge step... it's one thing to file an SEC registration, quite another to actually run a live settlement across borders in the time it takes to read this sentence.

 

The Race Is On

For context on how quickly this space is evolving, a Boston Consulting Group and Ripple joint projection estimates the tokenized asset market could reach $18.9 trillion by 2033. Whether or not that number proves accurate, the direction is pretty clear. Major banks are not waiting for the market to come to them.

 

JPMorgan seeded its first tokenized fund, the OnChain Net Yield Fund (MONY), with $100 million of its own capital after launching it through its $4 trillion asset management unit. JLTXX represents the bank's next step, this time aimed squarely at the emerging stablecoin compliance market rather than traditional qualified investors.

 

The filings from JPMorgan and BlackRock within days of each other are not a coincidence. Regulatory clarity, combined with the sheer scale of idle stablecoin liquidity looking for a compliant home, has created an opening. Wall Street is moving quickly to fill it, and the tokenization race is looking less like a crypto experiment and more like the next phase of institutional finance.

 

Stablecoin startup Boundary Labs is preparing to launch USBD, a “verifiable” institutional-grade stablecoin, following its most recent successful fundraising round.

 

The $2 million preseed funding round, which began last year, was led by Galaxy Ventures, with other investors, including First Block Capital and BlackWood, also participating in the round.

 

 

Following its recent fundraising success, the Boundary Labs team aims to create a stablecoin whose reserves are completely verifiable on-chain, including the stablecoin’s net asset value and protocol performance. This marks a sharp contrast with other stablecoins that depend on trust-based off-chain reporting and attestations.

 

“The Boundary protocol provides daily reporting on system state, including overcollateralization levels and real-time NAV calculations. USBD is engineered with explicit over-collateralization and delta neutral hedging to protect against market direction risk and volatility,” said Matthew Mezger, co-founder and CEO of Boundary Labs, about the USBD stablecoin.

 

Because trust is important for enhancing institutional adoption of USBD, especially for treasury management, collateral, and fiduciary use cases, Mezger said the team is building the entire USBD infrastructure with advanced smart contract code that moves the industry from monthly off-chain attestations to daily on-chain verification. By doing so, Boundary aims to transition from common trust-based stablecoin systems to a trustless one. 

 

“This shift provides the structural resilience and auditability required for safe, permissionless staking and institutional fiduciary use cases, effectively transforming stablecoins into robust financial infrastructure,” Mezger said.

 

Boundary Lab’s Yield-Generation Strategies

Unlike other yield-generating stablecoins, USBD will not be a yield-bearing stablecoin. Nevertheless, Boundary Labs will create sUSBD, a separate staked token that will enable institutional clients to earn yield from the protocol’s decentralized finance strategies.

 

The revenue generated by the protocol will be used to build treasury reserves, fund operations, and will also be distributed to sUSBD stakers through an on-chain allocation system. The reward system will be fully on-chain and available for users to track and audit.

 

To onboard early institutional clients, Boundary Labs is planning to launch a private placement campaign with the goal of reaching $100 million in total value locked (TVL). Both USBD and sUSBD will be launched on Ethereum.

 

 

Foris DAX Middle East FZE, the UAE entity of the cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, has received the Stored Value Facilities (SVF) license from the Central Bank of the UAE.

 

The announcement, made on Monday, marks a notable milestone for the crypto exchange, as it is the first Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) in the Emirates to receive the license.

 

 

With the Stored Value Facilities license now secured, Crypto.com can partner with the Dubai Department of Finance, allowing UAE residents to pay government fees with virtual assets, with all transactions settled in UAE dirhams or other stablecoins approved by the UAE central bank.

 

As the only virtual asset provider holding the SVF license in the Emirates, any other entity seeking to offer virtual asset payment services in the region will first need to be onboarded by Crypto.com.

 

“To be the first VASP to receive this license is an incredible achievement and proves our strong commitment to compliance and to advancing the regulated digital assets ecosystem in the UAE,” said Eric Anziani, President and COO of Crypto.com.

 

“We are continuing to expand our presence in this forward-thinking, digitally savvy market and remain committed to offering innovative products and services that are convenient and seamless for digital asset holders,” he added.

 

The new SVF license comes about a year after Crypto.com received a full VASP license from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), allowing it to offer crypto derivatives products, including futures, perpetual swap contracts, and contracts for difference (CFDs).

 

Derivatives trading continues to grow, accounting for about 70-75% of total crypto trading volume. In 2025, global crypto derivatives trading volume reached approximately $85.7 trillion, with analysts projecting the market to continue expanding significantly.

 

The State of Crypto in the United Arab Emirates

The UAE, over the last few years, has emerged as one of the foremost crypto jurisdictions. According to the World Crypto Rankings 2025 report by Bybit and DL Research, the UAE leads the entire Middle East and North Africa region in crypto adoption, ranking fifth globally behind Singapore, the United States, Lithuania, and Switzerland.

 

To position itself as a major crypto hub, the UAE has introduced several crypto-friendly policies, including exemptions from VAT and personal income tax on virtual assets and crypto trading. 

 

The country has also passed legislation that brings all virtual asset entities, including DeFi protocols, stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, decentralized exchanges, wallets, bridges, and supporting blockchain infrastructure, under the authority of the Central Bank. The move effectively gives the digital asset ecosystem a recognized legal framework under federal law.

 

 

Corpay, the leading corporate payments company, has partnered with stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK to provide stablecoin wallets and settlement capabilities to its global customer base.

 

The partnership, announced on Monday, will see the integration of stablecoin wallet capabilities into Corpay’s financial platform, enabling its customers to view stablecoin balances alongside their fiat balances, while also providing embedded stablecoin wallets for sending, receiving, storing, and converting stablecoins, all within the platform.

 

 

Corpay will also integrate stablecoin rails into its treasury operations, reducing reliance on pre-funded accounts when sending and receiving funds. This is expected to improve capital efficiency and enhance the way funds are moved globally. As a result, customers will no longer be limited to traditional banking hours, as the embedded stablecoin rails will allow them to process transactions even outside these hours.

 

“At our scale, the ability to move liquidity quickly and reliably is critical,” said Mark Frey, Group President, Corpay Cross Border Solutions. “Stablecoins introduce a 24/7 settlement capability that strengthens our existing infrastructure. BVNK provides the technology and compliance framework we need to deliver this securely and at scale.”

 

Jesse Hemson Struthers, CEO of BVNK, said in a statement that he believes stablecoins are reshaping the foundation of global payments, and that Corpay’s scale and reach make the two companies ideal partners in bringing these stablecoin capabilities into the mainstream.

 

What to Know About Corpay and BVNK

Corpay is a global S&P 500 corporate payments company that enables businesses and users to manage and pay expenses in a simple and controlled manner. In 2025, it recorded revenue of about $4.5 billion, a 14% year over year increase, and reported $1.26 billion in revenue last quarter. Corpay currently serves over 800,000 business clients globally.

 

BVNK, on the other hand, is an enterprise-grade stablecoin payment infrastructure company that enables businesses and corporates to send, receive, store, convert, and settle transactions using stablecoins. 

 

As one of the most notable stablecoin infrastructure companies, BVNK processed about $30 billion in annualized stablecoin payment volume last year and has been integrated into several major traditional finance platforms, including Visa, Mastercard, Worldpay, and Deel.

 

 

Stablecoin issuer Circle has raised $222 million in a private presale of its Arc token, the native token of its institutional stablecoin-focused Layer 1 blockchain.

 

The presale was led by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which invested $75 million. Investors, including BlackRock, Apollo Global Management, Intercontinental Exchange, SBI Group, Janus Henderson Investors, Standard Chartered, General Catalyst, Marshall Wace, ARK Invest, IDG Capital, Haun Ventures, and crypto exchange Bullish, also participated in the funding round.

 

Speaking in an exclusive interview with CNBC, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the company was building an operating system with multiple stakeholders and major companies that would run the infrastructure supporting the network and contribute to its governance.

 

Allaire also likened the Arc blockchain to a mobile operating system or cloud platform, saying the network was designed to allow major companies to build and operate infrastructure on the chain while participating in governance.

 

The Arc token has an initial total supply of 10 billion tokens. Circle has allocated 60% of the token supply to participants building, using, and contributing to the Arc blockchain. Circle itself will hold a 25% stake, enabling it to act as a validator for the network, while the remaining 15% has been allocated to a long-term reserve. The fundraising gives Arc a fully diluted network valuation of $3 billion. 

 

The launch of the Arc blockchain is aimed at expanding Circle’s business beyond USDC issuance, allowing the company to generate additional revenue from its stablecoin operations while owning and controlling the settlement and distribution infrastructure on which the USDC stablecoin operates. This would reduce Circle’s reliance on blockchains such as Ethereum and Solana, as well as its dependence on Coinbase.

 

Circle Publishes Its First-Quarter Stablecoin Report

Alongside the announcement of its successful presale round, Circle also released its first quarter report for this year, which highlighted strong momentum and adoption of its stablecoin.

 

According to the report, total revenue and reserve income for its USDC stablecoin reached $694 million, marking a 20% year over year increase. USDC on-chain transaction volume also surged to $21.5 trillion in the last quarter, representing a 263% year over year increase.

 

 

Although net income from continuing operations fell 15%, USDC in circulation grew 28% year over year to $77.0 billion by the end of the quarter. The report also highlighted the introduction of Agent Stack, a platform designed by Circle that allows AI agents to conduct autonomous financial transactions using USDC.

 

 

Leading startup accelerator Y Combinator will be holding the first-ever interview session in New York City, keenly focused on fintech builders developing projects around tokenization, stablecoins, prediction markets, and trading.

 

 

According to a YC spokesperson, the New York event will be the first of its kind, as it will focus on a specific sector, with accepted startups joining the Y Combinator Summer 2026 batch, which will begin on June 23 in San Francisco. Once a startup is accepted into the accelerator program, Y Coombinator will invest immediately in the company, even before the summer batch begins.

 

With New York becoming a major fintech hub in the U.S. and accounting for around 30% of all U.S. fintech investment in 2025, while also being home to roughly 1,500 crypto and fintech startups, Y Combinator is making this move to tap into this fast-growing sector and back more startups in the space.

 

Y Combinator Investing in Crypto

Through its funding, Y Combinator has helped support some of the most successful companies in the crypto space, with several reaching and surpassing unicorn status.

 

In 2012, Y Combinator invested about $150,000 into the crypto exchange Coinbase, acquiring an approximately 7% stake in the company. With support from Y Combinator and other early investors, Coinbase has grown into one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, with a market cap of around $52 billion.

 

Y Combinator also invested early in the decentralized exchange Uniswap, contributing about $120,000 in 2018. Like Coinbase, Uniswap has grown into one of the largest decentralized exchanges, with a valuation of around $2 billion.

 

The startup accelerator has also invested in the prediction market sector, backing Kalshi at an early stage. With support from early investors, including Y Combinator, Kalshi has grown into one of the leading prediction market companies and recently raised $1 billion in a Series F round, reaching a valuation of $22 billion.

 

Other crypto companies that have benefited from Y Combinator’s support include the NFT marketplace OpenSea, blockchain intelligence company TRM Labs, and the Solana-based trading platform Axiom, with all of these companies surpassing the $1 billion valuation mark.

 

 

Polygon, the leading Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution, has partnered with Hinkal, a blockchain privacy protocol, to launch private stablecoin payments within its crypto wallet.

 

The partnership, according to Polygon, is aimed at bridging the gap between on chain rails and the needs of institutional finance, while facilitating private stablecoin payments among institutional clients that often process large volumes of transactions.

 

 

Talking about institutional clients, Polygon wrote on its blog, “They won't move operational flows onto a ledger that broadcasts every counterparty and every amount to every observer on the network. We've now enabled what institutions expect in the Polygon wallet”.

 

To maintain transparency, most public blockchains are designed to publicly record key transaction details, including information about the sender, the recipient, and the amount sent. While this level of transparency is unmatched, it has, however, prevented large institutions that uphold high standards of privacy from coming on chain.

 

To ensure institutional clients do not continue making this trade off, Polygon, in collaboration with Hinkal, created this stablecoin payment privacy feature that allows both retail and institutional users to make stablecoin payments within the Polygon wallet, while shielding sensitive details about the transaction, including information about the sender, the recipient, and the amount transacted.

 

To provide the best on-chain experience, this privacy feature leverages Polygon’s speed and low-cost transactions and Hinkal’s zero-knowledge proofs, which allow the shielding and routing of stablecoin payments. Since Hinkal is a non-custodial protocol, funds will always remain in the custody of users.

 

Polygon Accelerates Blockchain Expansion Efforts

The rollout of these private stablecoin payments comes a few days after social media giant Meta partnered with Polygon to enable payments to creators in the USDC stablecoin, an initiative that is expected to reach more than 160 countries before the end of the year.

 

As part of its expansion efforts and its big bet on stablecoins, Polygon acquired Coinme, a U.S.-based cryptocurrency cash exchange, in January of this year for $250 million. It has also integrated with and partnered with major traditional finance platforms, including Visa and Mastercard.