Crypto markets saw significant corporate activity as Circle agreed to acquire Tazapay for $400 million, while Visa integrated VisaNet data to back stablecoin card issuers with working capital. However, the sector faced a major security setback when Liquid Network halted transactions following a $320 million Bitcoin exploit.
01Company specific
Circle to acquire cross-border payments firm Tazapay for $400 million
Buying existing local banking rails converts Circle from a pure stablecoin issuer into an end-to-end global payout network, bypassing individual country licensing bottlenecks.
Circle is acquiring cross-border payments firm Tazapay for $400 million in stock. The all-stock deal is Circle's largest since its 2018 purchase of exchange Poloniex. Tazapay connects financial institutions to more than 60 banking and fintech partners, providing local payout rails across more than 100 markets. The target processes over $25 billion in annualized payment volume, with roughly 60% of those transactions already involving . The bypasses the need for Circle to build regional banking relationships and licensing country by country. The transaction requires approval from the Monetary Authority of Singapore and is expected to close in 2027.
Tazapay Annualized Payment Volume ($B)
Tazapay's annualized payment volume more than doubled from 2025 to 2026
Visa Expands Onchain Data Integration for Blockchain Lenders and Stablecoin Cards
Bridging VisaNet settlement data directly to onchain credit markets bypasses traditional underwriting delays, allowing real-time payment flows to instantly collateralize institutional working capital.
Visa is combining its VisaNet settlement data with onchain lending infrastructure to give lenders visibility into -linked card programs and fintechs seeking working . The integration allows authorized settlement receivables and onchain transaction records to automate credit assessments and financing for emerging payment companies that struggle with traditional lenders. Visa reports that its stablecoin settlement volume has surpassed a $20 billion annualized run rate, representing a 15x year-over-year increase across more than 160 active card programs. An early pilot developed with decentralized lending platform Credit Coop has supported $2.5 billion in cumulative financed settlement volume since 2023 with zero defaults. Traditional lenders often demand extensive operating history and manual , creating capital bottlenecks for digital firms that this automated infrastructure aims to bypass.
Credit Coop Pilot Financed Volume ($B)
Credit Coop's pilot has handled 2.7 billion in volume.
Robinhood Expands Prediction-Market Push with Crypto.com and OG.com Tie-up
Equity stakes tied to exchange valuations allow retail brokerages to capture the clearinghouse margin generated by their own prediction-market order flow.
Robinhood Markets will route selected football event contracts through OG.com and take stakes in both the platform and its former parent .com. The stakes will be priced in line with Citadel Securities' recent investment valuing Crypto.com at $20 billion, which includes a $5 billion for the recently spun-off OG.com. Event contracts generated $156 million in second-quarter for Robinhood. OG.com operates a exchange and clearinghouse regulated by the U.S. Trading Commission. Robinhood is also expanding its election-related contracts ahead of the November midterms with a dedicated hub for state and federal races.
Strategy Repurchases $176M of STRC Preferred Shares Instead of Buying Bitcoin
Prioritizing discount preferred stock repurchases over token accumulation protects the capital structure when equity dilution mechanisms break down below par value.
Strategy spent $176.3 million to repurchase 1.81 million shares of its rather than adding to its holdings over the past week. The company tapped cash reserves exceeding $6 billion to buy back the preferred shares at a discount through its Digital Credit Securities Repurchase Program. Management also doubled the total allowable repurchase capacity under the program to $2 billion from $1 billion. Trading below its $100 par value, the preferred stock limits the software developer's capacity to raise new through sales and threatens to force higher payouts. The corporate kept its total token inventory unchanged at 845,050 coins after deploying $370 million the previous week. Strategy shares have fallen 57 percent over the past 12 months to trade at $142.80.
Digital Credit Repurchase Program Limit ($B)
The preferred stock buyback authorization doubled to $2 billion.
Bitmine Buys $69M in ETH to Complete 97% of Treasury Target
Accumulating a fixed share of a crypto token's total supply forces corporate treasuries to rely on staking yields to offset expanding mark-to-market paper losses.
Bitmine Immersion Technologies acquired 28,086 Ether last week for about $69.5 million, bringing the corporate closer to its target of owning 5% of the 's total supply. Led by chairman Tom Lee, the firm now holds 5.93 million Ether accumulated across weekly purchases since June 2025, leaving it roughly 171,000 tokens short of its goal. The latest purchase puts the company at 97% completion of its 15-month accumulation plan. Bitmine reports $15.7 billion in total , which includes $593 million in marketable securities, cash, and other crypto holdings alongside 5.1 million staked tokens expected to $330 million in annualized . Despite the expanding treasury, the company faces $5.1 billion in unrealized losses as Ether trades near $2,469 following a 16% price decline since the beginning of the year. Bitmine shares traded down over 2% at the New York Stock Exchange open, extending their year-to-date losses.
Former Franklin Templeton Executive Takes Helm at StablecoinX
Replacing a listing-focused executive with a traditional asset manager shifts corporate strategy toward institutional risk management for Ethena governance holdings and synthetic dollar integration.
cointelegraph.com reports that StablecoinX appointed former Franklin Templeton digital executive Christopher Jensen as its new CEO. Jensen succeeds Ted Chen, who guided the firm through its June public listing on under the ticker USDE and remains chairman of the board. StablecoinX holds roughly 3.03 billion ENA tokens, representing about 20% of the total supply and making it the largest corporate holder of Ethena's governance asset. Ethena issues USDe, a synthetic dollar holding nearly $4.4 billion in circulation. Jensen previously directed digital asset research at Franklin Templeton, where his team participated in Ethena's seed round. The leadership change follows the launch of Ethena Pay, a self-custodial application for the USDe . The ENA token is down roughly 20% year to date but has rebounded by more than 80% over the past month to trade near $0.16.
Bitcoin-Based Liquid Network Suffers $320 Million Exploit
Exploiting an underlying software bug rather than federation keys exposes how Bitcoin sidechains import smart-contract protocol risks into settlement layers built specifically to avoid them.
Liquid Network lost roughly $320 million in after purported white-hat hackers drained the vast majority of its federation wallet reserves. The Bitcoin-based settlement network, which issues L-BTC to speed up exchange transactions, halted all new network activity following the incident. The breach targeted 4,000 of the 4,200 bitcoin held in the federation wallet rather than compromising private keys. Blockstream attributed the vulnerability to a software bug in Elements that allowed funds to move through the approved SideSwap trading platform. Other types on the network remained unaffected while federation members worked to restore service.
Federation Wallet Bitcoin Reserves (BTC)
Hackers removed roughly 4,000 of the 4,200 bitcoin in the wallet
Institutional adoption and infrastructure deals continue to expand, but severe exploits still threaten the ecosystem. The key question is whether traditional payment rails and corporate buyers can maintain momentum as network security vulnerabilities persist.
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