Crypto & Web3

Bankless published the highest volume of crypto-focused content last week, spanning several distinct threads. On infrastructure and experimentation, it covered an AI swarm experiment called IMD on Ethereum, a Zcash-style privacy proposal for Bitcoin from Alloc Init, NFT-related developments, and Lighter's plan to add binary options support to its ZK prover. On markets and institutions, Bankless reported on Ethena expanding USDe backing into equity perpetuals, a $351.6M hack of Bitget, BlackRock's views on crypto's role in the AI economy, Binance's $100M stake commitment in Circle tied to a USDC pact, and a prediction market called Trueo moving from Base to Ethereum. It also ran commentary pieces questioning whether Bitcoin will underperform and whether the current cycle differs from prior ones, alongside coverage of Coinbase's fixed-rate Bitcoin loans via Morpho Midnight and multiple pieces on Robinhood's "onchain endgame."

Stack and Story concentrated heavily on Bitcoin ETF flows and related market mechanics, with multiple posts tracking ETF buyers approaching breakeven, a $5.8B hole being erased, a $1.7B pull into BTC ETFs, and continued buying as BTC price drops. It also covered the Bitget hack from a different angle, noting a $318K freeze and that the hack moved more funds, plus stories on NYSE and Blockchain.com exploring tokenized stocks, Coinbase locking in rates on BTC-backed loans, and the SEC's tokenized stock rule having a narrow lane.

Coverage of crypto's intersection with traditional banking appeared across several outlets. Connecting the Dots in FinTech reported on UK banks putting tokenised deposits to work and on Bitpanda and Raiffeisen bringing crypto closer to banking. Fintech Weekly covered BlackRock's claim that AI agents will run on stablecoins, Europe's central banks wanting stablecoin reserves out of bank deposits, and the ECB addressing a tokenisation payment question. Payments Wrap Up covered Mastercard and SoFi teaming up on stablecoin settlement to cards and the Eurosystem bringing central bank money to tokenised finance. Fintech Futures noted Bastion's conditional OCC trust bank approval as a stablecoin provider.

Remaining coverage was narrower in scope. Andrew's Angles addressed fallout from a "Clarity" development affecting Brian Armstrong, Coinbase, and the "Stand with Crypto" media effort. Fintech Wrap Up referenced reports touching on European banking and payments habits, agentic AI adoption in banking, and crypto exchanges building financial super apps for the next billion users, without elaborating further on any of these subjects.