For months, Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) founder Michael Saylor frequently reposted news about DeFi protocols using a variety of tokens and blockchains backed by Strategy’s STRC.

Now that their stablecoins and other yield farming tokens have wobbled, he wants everyone to know he was only sharing news, not endorsements.

STRC is one of Strategy’s stocks. It usually trades near $100 and pays a variable, 11.5% annualized dividend. Due to its high current rate of payouts, DeFi yield farmers find STRC appealing to tokenize through a variety of protocols, proprietary tokens, and blockchains.

Saylor took to social media today to clear up any misunderstanding about his frequent and prominent reposts about these non-bitcoin (BTC) tokens.

In his view, the free publicity he gave them was merely a series of non-endorsement “notifications.”

Saylor isn’t a BTC maximalist by the strictest of definitions. Indeed, despite Bitcoin branding and orange coloring across his company, website, and even attire, Saylor has spoken positively about alternative blockchains such as Ethereum and BNB Chain, so long as their utility improves adoption of BTC or Strategy’s securities like MSTR and STRC.

At altcoin conferences, he acknowledges the work of alternative blockchains in distributing proxies for BTC and Strategy exposure.

The timing is his disclaimer wasn’t subtle. In recent days, STRC-backed stablecoins like apxUSD and sUSDat started trading well below their prior $1 targets. 

Within the last week, the STRC-backed sUSDat on Ethereum traded 9.5% below its $1 target, and apxUSD similarly traded below $0.91.

Both mirrored a crash in STRC, a stock that Strategy tries to keep trading near $100 despite it hitting $90.38 on Friday.

DeFi protocols Saylor ‘notified’ everyone about

In addition to social media reposts, Saylor named DeFi builders himself on stage at the Bitcoin 2026 conference, presenting three projects using STRC powered by a variety of altcoins: Apyx, Saturn, and Hermetica.

For example, Apyx uses DeFi protocols to transform STRC exposure into a type of synthetic dollar, apxUSD.

Saturn does roughly the same through its sUSDat token while another protocol, Pendle, slices STRC-backed tokens into ostensibly stable tokens as well as yield tokens like apyUSD.

Traders then loop their assets to borrow and re-borrow, manufacturing leveraged yields atop STRC that can reach higher than 38%.

Saylor didn’t merely tolerate this machinery, he repeatedly amplified these DeFi projects through reposting “notifications.”

For example, when STRC slipped, Saylor reposted Apyx declaring, “We just bought the $STRC dip.” 

Saylor reposted Saturn touting its increasing STRC exposure.

He reposted Pendle celebrating roughly half a billion dollars in STRC-linked deposits.

Although Saylor claims he never endorsed them, the protocols themselves never hid their devotion.

Indeed, Saturn’s account describes its team as “Disciples of @Saylor” while Strata, another builder in the convoluted stack of STRC-backed DeFi, used Saylor’s own terminology, “The Bitcoin Credit flywheel is spinning.”

Bitcoin extended its post-CPI bounce, reclaiming key ground near the $60,000 to $62,000 zone and trading around $62,400 after a volatile session sparked by the latest US inflation data. The May CPI number came in line with economists’ expectations, helping to cushion a potentially hawkish surprise and lending some support to risk assets as traders recalibrate policy bets.

Prices surged roughly 2.5% intraday, rebounding from earlier declines and testing the longer-term footing of a recovery narrative that has been rattled by shifting inflation dynamics. The move underscored that even when inflation prints register at multi-year highs, the absence of an outsized surprise can still catalyze meaningful bullish reversals in bitcoin and other risk-on assets. Economists had anticipated a 4.2% headline CPI for May, with the print matching that forecast and easing the urgency for immediate policy tightening chatter from the Federal Reserve. This interpretation drew on coverage from major outlets, including Reuters, which highlighted that the reading aligned with market expectations.

Key takeaways

• May CPI rose 4.2% year over year, with a 0.5% monthly increase; core CPI rose 2.9% year over year and 0.2% month over month, according to the report.
• Bitcoin, after dipping earlier in the session, rose about 2.5% to around $62,410, reclaiming the critical support band near the 200-week moving average and the $60,000–$62,000 region.
• The price action suggests a potential near-term relief rally, but the chart remains complicated by ongoing resistance near key moving averages and a bear-flag setup on shorter timeframes.
• A downside scenario points to a target near $57,800 if BTC breaks below the flag’s lower boundary, while a bullish breakout beyond resistance could open a path toward the $64,000–$68,000 area in June, aligning with key Fibonacci retracements.

CPI prints in line with forecasts, shaping market expectations

The May CPI report showed inflation hitting 4.2% year over year, driven in large part by increases in energy and gasoline prices, a consequence of renewed geopolitical tensions that have fed into energy markets. On a monthly basis, headline inflation rose 0.5%, while the core index—stripping out food and energy—advanced 2.9% year over year and 0.2% month over month. The horizontal reading of 4.2% for headline CPI matched economists’ consensus, removing the risk of a hotter surprise that might have forced the Federal Reserve into a more aggressive stance in the near term.

For crypto traders, the data reinforced a familiar dynamic: higher inflation can complicate the inflation/deflation trade, but the absence of an outsized surprise keeps expectations for central-bank policy somewhat flexible. In practical terms, the in-line print reduced the immediate risk of a drastic policy pivot, allowing traders to view BTC’s price as reacting to a more stable macro backdrop rather than reacting to a single, outsized move in the inflation series. As Reuters reported, markets were positioned for the number, and the result aligned with those expectations, helping to support a cautious, risk-on tilt entering the trading session.

Technical setup: bears and bulls contend for near-term control

From a chart perspective, Bitcoin rallied into resistance zones after finding support around the 200-week exponential moving average—a long-term anchor many traders watch for major trend changes. The rebound carried BTC back toward the upper end of a critical zone that has anchored sentiment in prior drawdowns, roughly within the $60,000–$62,000 band. However, the immediate picture on shorter timeframes remains nuanced.

On the four-hour chart, BTC appears to be navigating a bear-flag pattern, a formation that often signals a continuation of a prior downswing if the price breaks below the lower trend line. In this case, the risk is that the bounce could be a pause before the next leg lower rather than the start of a sustained uptrend. If a breakdown occurs, the measured downside target sits near $57,800 in June, representing a roughly 7.6% slide from current levels.

Conversely, a decisive breakout above the flag’s upper boundary and a confluence of resistance near the 20-period and 50-period moving averages could invalidate the bearish setup and open room for additional upside. In that scenario, BTC could push toward the $64,000–$68,000 range in June, aligning with upside Fibonacci retracement levels of approximately 0.236 and 0.318. That path would signal renewed momentum beyond the immediate post-CPI bounce and could attract fresh buying from traders looking to ride a more constructive macro tilt.

What comes next for Bitcoin and the broader crypto market

The trajectory of bitcoin in the weeks ahead will hinge on a mix of macro data, central-bank messaging, and the evolving risk appetite of market participants. With inflation stabilizing at a level that markets had already priced in, traders will be scanning for any shift in the Fed’s communication or new data that could tilt expectations toward tighter or looser policy. In the near term, BTC faces a tug-of-war between the potential for a continued relief rally if the broader market remains constructive and the risk of a renewed test of support if selling pressure intensifies or if risk sentiment cools abruptly.

Investors and builders alike should watch how BTC behaves around the critical levels discussed: a decisive test of the 200-week EMA, a breach of the bear-flag boundaries on shorter horizons, and the ability to establish a sustained move beyond resistance bands. The outcome will not only shape the next leg for bitcoin but could also set a tone for altcoins, risk assets, and capitalization trends across the crypto market.

As the market digests inflation data and looks ahead to the next round of economic releases and policy outlooks, traders should remain prepared for a choppy environment where macro signals and technicals can diverge in the short term.

Readers should monitor ongoing inflation readings, Fed commentary, and critical price levels close to the 200-week EMA and the $60k–$62k zone, as these factors will likely determine whether the current bounce evolves into a broader rally or a continuation of volatility-driven sideways action.

The Coinbase-backed group Stand With Crypto UK called on its 286,000 members to file formal complaints against British retail banks over blanket restrictions on crypto transactions, it announced Wednesday.

The campaign is a demonstration against country-wide bank rules that block or cap customer transfers to exchanges, including those registered with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the group said in a press release. Around 8% of UK adults hold cryptoassets, according to FCA research.

Stand With Crypto based its campaign on data from the U.K. Cryptoassets Business Council’s “Locked Out” report from January 2026. The report surveyed 10 exchanges: Coinbase, Kraken, Uphold, Xapo Bank, Zumo, Wirex, OKX, Luno, Bitpanda and Gemini.

A day after that report went out, a spokesperson for the HM Treasury, the country’s economic and finance ministry, told CoinDesk that government officials expected banks to treat all businesses fairly, including crypto services providers. “We would not expect such licensed firms to be subject to account or transaction restrictions by banking services providers,” a spokesperson said.

The FCA report found that British banks block or delay 40% of all domestic crypto transactions. Over the past 12 months, 80% of these exchanges reported a rise in the number of transfers blocked. One platform reported that banks rejected up to 1 million pounds (more than $1 million) in transactions in a single year.

The banking restrictions fall into two categories, Stand With Crypto UK said. Complete blocks are used by Chase UK, Starling, TSB, Virgin Money and Metro Bank, which stop all transfers and card payments to crypto exchanges. Hard transfer caps are set by Barclays, HSBC, Nationwide, NatWest, Santander and Monzo, which impose strict limits on the money users can transfer.

Last year, U.K.-based trading platform IG also released a damning survey saying millions of people were being locked out of crypto just because of they their banks anti-crypto stance. “Two in five (40%) UK crypto investors have had a payment blocked or delayed by their bank when trying to buy digital assets,” according to the IG report.

Advocates at SWC say these policies apply to everyone regardless of an individual’s actual risk profile. They also said that many of these same banks are hiring digital asset teams and exploring crypto products behind the scenes, making the retail customer blocks anti-competitive.

“People across the UK are being blocked from accessing a legal asset class because banks have chosen to impose blanket restrictions on an entire sector,” said Adriana Ennab, director at Stand With Crypto UK, in a statement. “From today, they are formally telling their banks that these restrictions are unacceptable.”

These blocks run counter to both local rules and the government’s stated plans to make the U.K. a global Web3 hub, SWC said. Under the Payment Services Regulations 2017, banks are obligated to execute payments that meet account conditions. In January 2026, HM Treasury explicitly stated it does not expect FCA-authorized firms to face transaction restrictions from banking providers, adding that firms must be treated fairly.

“The Government has set out a vision to make the UK a global hub for digital assets and Web3,” said Katie Harries, head of policy, Europe, at Coinbase, in a statement. “That vision requires retail participation — where every day people hold and engage with crypto assets. But the banks are choking off the crucial on-ramp from fiat (normal) money into crypto.”

Kalshi has added Solana perpetual futures to its regulated crypto derivatives lineup, while several other altcoin contracts, including Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, remain under regulatory review.

According to a June 10 post by Kalshi on X, SOL perpetual futures are now available for trading on the platform. The company also said traders can access the new contract without paying trading fees for a limited time.

When U.S. spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) launched in January 2024, investors had more than a dozen funds to choose from. BlackRock, Fidelity, Ark Invest, Bitwise, VanEck, Franklin Templeton and several others entered what many expected would become a fiercely competitive market.

Eighteen months later, the battle increasingly looks like a two-player race.

Data shows that BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) are doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to attracting new institutional capital, while smaller funds have become largely irrelevant in determining the direction of the overall market.

The trend was evident throughout the first half of 2026.

On January 14, bitcoin ETFs recorded net inflows of $840.6 million, according to data from Farside Investors. IBIT alone accounted for $648.4 million of that total, while FBTC added another $125.4 million. Together, the two funds represented more than 90% of all inflows that day.

A similar pattern appeared on April 17, when total inflows reached $663.9 million. IBIT brought in $284 million and FBTC added $163.4 million, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all new money entering the sector.

Even during periods of weaker sentiment, the dominance of the two largest funds remained apparent. On May 1, total inflows reached $629.8 million, with IBIT contributing $284.4 million and FBTC adding $213.4 million. Combined, the pair attracted nearly $500 million of the day’s total. The pattern repeated throughout much of 2026, with the two funds frequently accounting for the majority of net inflows on the largest allocation days and often offsetting weakness elsewhere in the ETF market.

The concentration has emerged during a difficult year for bitcoin and the broader crypto ETF market. Bitcoin is down roughly 29% year-to-date, a decline that has tested institutional conviction and triggered several waves of ETF redemptions. Between mid-May and early June alone, spot bitcoin ETFs recorded multiple days of heavy outflows. The selling marks a sharp contrast to earlier periods when investors often viewed bitcoin pullbacks as buying opportunities.

But the data highlights a broader shift taking place in the bitcoin ETF market in which investors increasingly appear to be concentrating their allocations in the largest and most liquid vehicles.

That trend has particularly benefited BlackRock.

IBIT has emerged as the flagship product of the entire spot bitcoin ETF sector, regularly posting the largest inflows and often acting as a stabilizing force during periods of market stress. On several days when the broader ETF complex experienced heavy outflows, IBIT either remained positive or saw far smaller redemptions than its competitors.

The dominance is not entirely surprising. Many of the largest buyers of bitcoin ETFs are financial advisers, registered investment advisers, hedge funds, family offices, pension consultants and institutional asset allocators. For those investors, liquidity, trading volume and issuer reputation often matter as much as the underlying bitcoin exposure itself.

BlackRock manages more than $10 trillion in assets globally and maintains relationships with thousands of wealth-management platforms. Fidelity, one of the largest retirement and brokerage providers in the U.S., brings similar advantages through its distribution network and long-standing presence among retail and institutional investors.

As a result, many allocators increasingly view IBIT and FBTC as the default options for gaining bitcoin exposure.

The flip side is that smaller issuers are struggling to remain relevant.

Funds such as Franklin Templeton’s EZBC, VanEck’s HODL, Valkyrie’s BRRR and WisdomTree’s BTCW frequently record daily flows measured in single-digit millions of dollars.

On many trading days, their contributions are so small that they have little impact on the overall direction of the market.

Even funds that were once viewed as major competitors, including Bitwise’s BITB and Ark’s ARKB, now play a secondary role compared with the industry’s two largest products. Earlier this year, Trump Media & Technology Group withdrew plans for a proposed spot bitcoin ETF, abandoning an effort to enter the increasingly crowded market that is now dominated by products from BlackRock and Fidelity.

The concentration has become particularly noticeable during periods of volatility. When investors buy bitcoin ETFs aggressively, most of the money flows into BlackRock and Fidelity.

When investors sell, the behavior of those two funds often determines whether the sector posts net inflows or outflows.

That dynamic suggests the bitcoin ETF market is entering a new phase. Rather than a broad competition among a dozen issuers, the industry increasingly resembles a winner-take-most business where scale, liquidity and distribution drive investor decisions.

Prediction markets overtook onchain gambling for the first time in the opening quarter of 2026, recording $36.6 billion in volume compared with gambling’s $14 billion, according to TRM Labs.

In a Wednesday report, the blockchain intelligence company said the shift followed a rapid expansion in both sectors. Onchain gambling reached $51 billion in 2025, while prediction markets climbed to $54 billion, putting the two categories at comparable scale heading into 2026. 

Still, onchain gambling remained near record levels. Quarterly gambling volume reached an all-time high of $15 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, then held at $14 billion in Q1 2026.

Neither onchain gambling nor prediction markets retreated along with the broader crypto markets. Volumes remained elevated through the 2025-2026 market correction.

Annual onchain wagering volume. Source: TRM Labs

A TRM Labs spokesperson told Cointelegraph that gambling volumes have surged during the recent market pullback because of the “sticky and expanding activity of a loyal user base.”

“This does not mean anything about concentration risk in itself, since there is quite a large gambling user base,” the spokesperson said. “It shows how a consistent user activity can insulate an industry from a market pullback and in fact drive growth.”

Gambling and prediction markets face different risks

TRM said gambling platforms and prediction markets are increasingly converging on shared stablecoin infrastructure, but their financial crime risks remain distinct. 

Prediction markets such as Polymarket and Kalshi operate as peer-to-peer markets for binary outcomes, while gambling platforms such as Stake, WINk and Rollbit operate more like traditional casinos, with the platform setting odds and maintaining a house edge.

Related: Chainalysis, South Korean police link up to fight crypto crime

TRM said prediction markets have attracted scrutiny over insider trading, while gambling platforms are more exposed to money laundering risks.

“Gambling services and prediction markets carry distinct inherent financial crime risks, and firms should calibrate controls accordingly,” a TRM Labs spokesperson told Cointelegraph. 

Casual bettors drive growth alongside whales

TRM said more than 2 million personal wallets interacted with gambling platforms between January 2022 and March 2026.

The firm divided those users into five behavioral groups. “Dabblers” made five or fewer transactions and disappeared within a month, while “Casual Bettors” averaged 18 transactions across eight active days. “Event Chasers” returned around major sporting events, while “Daily Grinders” gambled on at least 30% of the days in their active tenure. “High Rollers,” the highest-value cohort, averaged $13,558 per bet and $378,000 in lifetime gambling volume.

The firm found that volume remains heavily concentrated among high-value users, with High Rollers representing 6.3% of personal gambling wallets but driving 91.8% of personal wallet gambling volume since 2022. 

Despite this, TRM said the fastest-growing user categories are not only high-stakes bettors. Casual Bettors’ monthly volume rose from $17 million in January 2022 to $188 million by March 2026, while Daily Grinders’ volume increased 12x over the same period.

Magazine: Vietnam preps crypto pilot, HK pushes tokenization: Asia Express

Anchorage Digital, a federally chartered crypto bank and provider of stablecoin infrastructure, has submitted a public comment letter in support of the U.S. Treasury Department’s proposed AML and sanctions framework for the GENIUS Act. The firm contends that the framework largely balances compliance requirements with innovation in digital payments, while also urging the Treasury to clarify several open points that could influence operational risk and regulatory certainty for issuers and their counterparties.

In the filing, Anchorage argues that the proposed rules appropriately place AML obligations on regulated stablecoin issuers while requesting guidance on secondary-market sanctions liability, the scope of enterprise-wide AML programs, and correspondent-account requirements. The firm also cautions against imposing strict liability on issuers for failing to independently identify sanctioned users who transacts through smart contracts on secondary markets.

“A final rule that is clear and workable gives regulated institutions the certainty they need to build, and strengthens U.S. leadership in the next generation of payments and settlement infrastructure,” Anchorage stated in its letter.

The public comment letter comes as the Treasury, together with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), advances a rulemaking aimed at classifying payment stablecoin issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act. The proposed framework would subject issuers to AML obligations, customer due diligence, and suspicious-activity reporting, with enhanced monitoring and recordkeeping required for stablecoins that operate across borders and through programmable technologies.

The policy, described in a Treasury release, would align stablecoin issuers with established AML and sanctions standards while imposing additional compliance expectations designed to address the unique risks posed by programmable money. The regulatory push is part of a broader effort to integrate digital-asset payments into the U.S. financial-regulatory perimeter, including cross-border considerations and enforcement expectations.

The discussion has drawn mixed responses from industry participants. Several trade and advocacy groups have urged broader carveouts or clarifications, reflecting a spectrum of views on how expansive the sanctions and AML obligations should be for issuers with limited direct visibility into user activity on secondary markets.

Key takeaways

• The GENIUS Act framework would classify payment stablecoin issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act, placing them under AML, customer due diligence, and suspicious-activity reporting regimes, with enhanced monitoring requirements.
• Anchorage Digital publicly supports the framework’s core aims but seeks clarifications on secondary-market sanctions liability, enterprise-wide AML program standards, and correspondent-account requirements to avoid unnecessarily broad obligations.
• Anchorage argues issuers should not face strict liability for failing to independently identify sanctioned users transacting via secondary-market smart contracts.
• Industry groups such as Hyperliquid and Paradigm have submitted comments pressing for greater clarity around secondary-market obligations, arguing the current framework could impose sanctions liability on issuers even in the absence of direct visibility into end users.
• Regulatory timing and final rule design will influence how stablecoin issuers, banks, and service providers structure compliance programs, with potential cross-border implications and alignment questions relative to other jurisdictions, including MiCA in the European Union.

Regulatory context and focal points

The proposed rulemaking, issued jointly by FinCEN and OFAC and highlighted by Treasury officials, would place regulated stablecoin issuers within the existing U.S. AML/Sanctions framework. The plan envisions formalizing stablecoin issuers as financial institutions under the Bank Secrecy Act, thereby obligating them to implement robust AML programs, conduct customer due diligence, and report suspicious activity. In parallel, the framework would impose enhanced monitoring and recordkeeping requirements to help regulators track and mitigate illicit finance risks associated with programmable payments and cross-border settlement.

Anchorage’s submission emphasizes practical considerations for regulated institutions seeking to deploy stablecoin rails at scale. The firm notes that a rule that is clear, predictable, and implementable would foster innovation in digital payments infrastructure while preserving strong compliance standards. The emphasis on clarity around secondary-market liability reflects ongoing debates about how to apply sanctions regimes to the decentralized aspects of programmable money, where user relationships may be indirect or opaque to issuers.

Industry responses and carveout debates

Not all industry voices view the GENIUS Act framework as a straightforward alignment with existing anti-money-laundering and sanctions regimes. In addition to Anchorage, the lobbying arms of Hyperliquid and venture-capital firm Paradigm recently submitted their own comments challenging certain aspects of the proposal. They argued that the current framework could extend sanctions obligations to issuers even when those issuers lack direct relationships with, or visibility into, the end users transacting on secondary markets via smart contracts.

According to these groups, OFAC’s approach risks treating secondary-market activity as a continuous provision of services by the issuer, thereby broadening sanction liabilities beyond what issuers can reasonably monitor or control. The concerns echo broader policy questions about where responsibility should lie when financial instruments and protocols enable peer-to-peer transactions without traditional, on-chain counterparty visibility.

Implications for policy, enforcement, and cross-border regimes

The GENIUS Act discussion sits at the intersection of domestic regulatory design and international policy harmonization. For U.S.-based crypto firms, the proposed rules could reshape licensing, risk management, and oversight frameworks, prompting issuers to invest in comprehensive AML programs and governance structures that integrate smart-contract activity with traditional compliance controls. Banks and other regulated entities servicing stablecoins may also need to adjust their correspondent-banking and anti-financial-crime policies to reflect the newly defined risk landscape.

From a broader perspective, policymakers must reconcile these developments with ongoing regulatory initiatives in other jurisdictions. The EU’s MiCA framework represents a contrasting approach to stablecoins and crypto-asset service providers, underscoring global differences in how regulators address stablecoin issuance, payment settlement, and cross-border settlement rails. As U.S. and international authorities pursue parallel aims—reducing illicit finance risk while enabling financial innovation—the final design of GENIUS Act rules could influence cross-border collaborations, licensing pathways, and the allocation of enforcement resources among agencies such as the SEC, CFTC, and DOJ, in addition to FinCEN and OFAC.

Legal and compliance teams at issuers, exchanges, and financial institutions will be watching for how the final framework defines secondary-market exposure, the level of issuer visibility required to meet sanctions obligations, and the granularity of enterprise AML programs. As enforcement expectations evolve, firms may face increased reporting, recordkeeping, and governance demands, with potential implications for cross-border operations and banking relationships.

Closing perspective

While the GENIUS Act proposals mark a significant step toward integrating stablecoins into the U.S. financial-regulatory perimeter, the path to final rules will hinge on clear definitions of issuer liability, the scope of AML program requirements, and practical considerations for secondary-market activity. The diverse industry responses underscore that the sector seeks a balanced framework—one that reinforces compliance and national security objectives without stifling technological advancement or limiting access to regulated, resilient digital payments infrastructure. Monitoring the forthcoming rulemaking and regulator guidance will be essential for institutions shaping their governance and risk management programs in this evolving landscape.

For years, privacy in transacting was one of crypto’s most ambitious promises. Then it took a back seat as other trends took off.

As developers focused on scaling blockchains and regulators scrutinized privacy tools such as Tornado Cash, much of the industry’s attention shifted elsewhere. But a new Ethereum proposal and a growing number of privacy-focused products suggest the topic is making a comeback.

The latest example is pERC-20, a proposed Ethereum token standard that would allow users to hold and transfer tokens without publicly revealing their balances, transaction amounts or counterparties. The proposal has sparked renewed discussion around whether public blockchains should expose every financial interaction by default.

Unlike traditional ERC-20 tokens, which is the default token standard on Ethereum today that displays balances and transaction histories onchain for anyone to inspect, pERC-20 keeps sensitive details private.

Today, most Ethereum tokens function like public bank accounts. Anyone can look up a wallet address and see how many tokens it owns, where they came from and where they were sent. Under pERC-20, tokens would instead exist as encrypted cryptographic “notes,” similar to digital cash.

The result is a system where transactions remain private while still allowing the network to verify that no changes to the transactions occurred.

Importantly, the proposal does not hide everything.

The total supply of a token would remain publicly visible, allowing anyone to verify that new tokens are not being secretly created. The proposal also includes a compliance mechanism that would allow issuers to freeze specific notes through a cryptographic blacklist without exposing ordinary users’ balances or transaction histories.

The design reflects a broader shift in how privacy is being discussed across crypto.

Rather than treating privacy and compliance as mutually exclusive, many newer projects are attempting to build systems that offer both.

But some developers argue that private payments are only part of the challenge.

Earlier this week, Starknet went live with STRK20, a privacy-focused token framework designed to extend confidentiality beyond simple token transfers and into decentralized finance applications such as lending, staking and token swaps.

According to Eli Ben-Sasson, the co-founder of StarkWare, the main developer firm behind Starknet, the biggest obstacle facing privacy technologies today is not cryptography. “The big problem of dealing with privacy is UX,” Ben-Sasson told CoinDesk.

Historically, privacy-focused cryptocurrencies have struggled with usability. Users often faced slow wallet synchronization, cumbersome transaction flows and limited compatibility with the broader crypto ecosystem. Those limitations made privacy tools difficult to use and, in some cases, undermined the privacy they were designed to provide.

Privacy systems rely on large groups of users participating together. If only a small number of people use a privacy network, it becomes easier to identify individual participants.

“If the UX is bad, very few users are going to be using it,” Ben-Sasson said. “If very few users are going to be using it, and only for a very small number of things, they don’t really get a lot of anonymity.”

Ben-Sasson said pERC-20 appears to be largely focused on private token transfers and draws on ideas pioneered by privacy-focused projects such as Zcash. While he described that as an important capability, he argued that the next stage of privacy infrastructure will need to support a much broader set of financial activities.

“Today we can do more,” he said, referring to privacy-preserving DeFi applications.

The STRK20 framework was built with that goal in mind. Rather than shielding a single token, the framework allows users to manage multiple assets under a unified privacy layer and interact with decentralized applications while maintaining confidentiality. According to Ben-Sasson, users can access services such as swapping, borrowing and staking without sacrificing privacy.

The framework also uses post-quantum secure cryptography, which Ben-Sasson argued will become increasingly important as blockchain developers begin preparing for future advances in quantum computing.

The contrast between pERC-20 and STRK20 highlights an emerging debate about what privacy in crypto should actually look like.

One vision focuses on making payments private while preserving transparency elsewhere. Another seeks to make privacy a foundational layer that extends across an entire ecosystem of financial applications.

Either way, the discussion itself marks a notable shift.

For much of the past several years, privacy occupied a relatively small corner of the crypto industry, often associated with niche privacy coins or controversial mixing services. Today, the conversation is increasingly centered on mainstream infrastructure, token standards and institutional use cases.

Whether pERC-20 ultimately becomes an Ethereum standard remains uncertain. Like all Ethereum Improvement Proposals, it must go through a lengthy review process before it could see widespread adoption. But its emergence, alongside projects such as STRK20, suggests that privacy is once again becoming a priority for blockchain developers.

Read more: Not all Ethereum layer 2s are dying, but many general-purpose chains no longer have a reason to exist