Circle falls 15% on new stablecoin venture

A consortium backed by some of the biggest names in payments, banking and crypto unveiled Open USD, a new stablecoin this morning. The announcement immediately caused Circle (CRCL) to drop 15%. USDC, with a market cap of ~$73 billion, has positioned itself as the regulated stablecoin for institutions. Open USD takes aim at a different part of Circle's strategy. Rather than competing solely on distribution, it offers banks, payment companies and fintechs a share of the interest income generated on U.S Treasuries in reserve. Interestingly, Coinbase, which has a large interest in the success of Circle, is involved in Open USD. Read more →

Strategy (MSTR) filed an 8-K with the SEC yesterday, unveiling a 5-part Digital Credit Capital Framework that authorizes up to $1.25 billion in bitcoin sales, raises the dividend on its STRC preferred stock to 12%, and creates a $2.55 billion reserve with a hard floor. The company made no changes to its 847,363 BTC holdings, signaling a shift from relentless bitcoin accumulation toward more active balance sheet and liability management. Read more →

StarkWare, the company behind Ethereum scaling network Starknet, released a roadmap to make Starknet more resistant to future quantum-computing threats. The details are highly technical, but the bigger story is not – crypto projects are starting to take quantum risk more seriously. StarkWare says many blockchains still rely on security systems that may eventually need to be upgraded, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. Its argument is that the tools to protect crypto keys already exist, but the industry has been slow to move. Read more →

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