Crypto Weekly Roundup: Mastercard Rolls Out Stablecoin Settlement, ZachXBT Freezes Funds, & More

This week in crypto, Mastercard expanded stablecoin settlement services for merchants, while North Carolina moved closer to allowing public Bitcoin investments. Meanwhile, regulatory progress continued as Circle secured approval in Abu Dhabi, and Web3 infrastructure projects saw notable developments. Bitcoin North Carolina’s House of Representatives has advanced legislation aimed at allowing the state to invest public funds in Bitcoin, a move that could set a national precedent if enacted. DeFi A top 20 lending protocol by TVL, Silo is on a mission to make borrowing and lending smoother, safer, and more user-friendly than ever. Technology Mastercard has announced a significant expansion in its digital asset services, allowing merchants to settle payments in stablecoins as global regulatory frameworks for digital assets continue to evolve, paving the way for broader commercial adoption of cryptocurrencies pegged to fiat currencies. Business Tokenization firm Libre has announced plans to tokenize $500 million worth of Telegram-issued bonds on The Open Network (TON), in a move aimed at integrating traditional fixed-income securities with decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure. Ripple’s reported $5 billion bid to acquire stablecoin giant Circle was rejected over valuation, strategic differences, and regulatory concerns, with Circle opting to stay independent as it advances toward an IPO. Through his company, Strategy, Michael Saylor has unveiled plans to raise an extraordinary $84 billion to further expand the firm’s already substantial Bitcoin reserves. Movement Labs, the blockchain development firm behind the Movement Network Layer 2 project, has officially suspended its co-founder, Rushi Manche, following mounting controversy surrounding the project’s token market activity and governance practices. Web3 A collaboration between the blockchain composability startup Enso and cross-chain interoperability protocols Stargate Finance and LayerZero has opened the floodgates for billions of dollars in liquidity to flow from Ethereum into Uniswap’s dedicated Layer-2 network, Unichain. One of the more critical areas to make or break the Web3 infrastructure is RPC functionality. RPC (Remote Procedure Call) nodes are a specialized asset within the Web3 ecosystem, acting as a server that takes in client requests and successfully executes them on a blockchain. The original Neo blockchain, named Neo Legacy following its replacement by Neo N3, is officially being powered down in October. P2P.org, a leading staking-as-a-business provider for custodians, exchanges, and private investors, has been officially voted as a TRON Super Representative (SR). SpoonOS, the agentic operating system for onchain AI, has onboarded its first official partner since launching its decentralized OS. FLock.io specializes in AI model training, and it will be making full use of SpoonOS’s tech stack to facilitate this. Security On-chain investigator ZachXBT has shared more details about the recent phishing case that led to the loss of 3,520 BTC from a single wallet. Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Loopscale has confirmed that negotiations are underway with the hacker responsible for last week’s $5.8 million exploit, with both parties working toward a settlement that would see the stolen assets returned in exchange for a bounty. Regulation Circle Internet Group, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin and a prominent player in the digital finance sector, has secured In-Principle Approval (IPA) from Abu Dhabi Global Market’s (ADGM) Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA). Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice