Crypto World
JCB Signs Circle MOU to Explore USDC Payments in Japan
Japan’s largest domestic payment network, JCB, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Circle to explore using USDC for cross-border payments and merchant transactions.
Under the memorandum, the companies will initially explore using USDC for JCB’s internal cross-border fund transfers through a proof of concept, while also evaluating stablecoin payments at merchants in Japan for international visitors. The companies said they will also assess technologies that support interoperability across multiple blockchain networks.
The agreement builds on a separate initiative JCB launched in January with Digital Garage and Resona Holdings to test stablecoin payments at physical stores in Japan. That project focuses on identifying technical and operational challenges to bringing stablecoin payments to domestic merchants.
Beyond the initial proof of concept, JCB and Circle said they will evaluate additional applications for stablecoin infrastructure aimed at cross-border payments and merchant services, though they did not provide a timeline for commercial deployment.
USDC is the world’s second-largest stablecoin by market capitalization, with a circulating supply of about $73 billion, behind Tether’s USDT at roughly $184 billion, according to DefiLlama data.
Source: DefiLlama
Related: USDC issuer Circle wins final approval for US national trust bank charter
Japan accelerates stablecoin payment adoption
The agreement adds to a growing number of stablecoin payment initiatives announced in Japan this year, as companies test blockchain-based payment and settlement systems across retail and corporate use cases.
In June, Circle and Japan’s largest investment bank, Nomura, were reported to be developing a stablecoin-based foreign exchange settlement service for Japanese companies. The service would allow businesses to convert yen into USDC for cross-border transactions and near-instant settlement.
On Monday, convenience store operator Lawson announced plans to test yen-denominated stablecoin payments at a Tokyo location beginning in August, while Japanese payments company Netstars launched a merchant payment service supporting USDC, USDT and JPYC across the Solana and Polygon blockchains.
Japan was among the first major economies to establish a legal framework for stablecoins, allowing banks, trust companies and licensed money transfer providers to issue fiat-backed tokens under amendments to the Payment Services Act that took effect in 2023.
The country has also been advancing broader digital asset reforms. In June, the Lower House passed a bill that would classify crypto assets as financial instruments, potentially opening the door to crypto exchange-traded funds and bringing the sector under stricter market rules.
Magazine: Strategy became a symbol of the dot-com crash: Could history repeat?
Ironically, some critics of the bill have pointed to recent reporting by the Wall Street Journal on the Hong Kong exchange CoinEx as evidence of the risk. CoinEx is actually a story of how to use a public ledger to track, trace, and disrupt nation state activity.
Investigators traced roughly 3.84 billion dollars in transactions tied to Iran, connecting wallets controlled by Iran’s central bank to sanctioned military networks and to funds stolen separately by North Korean hackers. That level of detail is knowable today because it happened on a public blockchain, the same visibility critics are treating as the risk.
What the Clarity Act actually contains
Clarity contains nearly twenty distinct provisions addressing anti-money laundering, sanctions, and law enforcement authority.
As the bill is currently drafted, digital asset service providers get brought fully under the Bank Secrecy Act for the first time, with risk assessments, internal controls, a compliance officer, training, audits, and suspicious activity reporting all required.
Real-time information sharing between exchanges and law enforcement gets written into statute as recognized practice — the Beacon Network model of real time interdiction, seizure and disruption — replacing voluntary industry coordination with a legal standard.
An independent working group gets tasked with developing AI-powered tools to detect and disrupt terrorist financing and money laundering in digital asset markets. Kiosk operators face wallet pinning, hold periods, and daily transaction caps for first-time users, paired with blockchain intelligence requirements to catch scammers before funds leave the platform.
After Wall Street saw preliminary earnings results for IBM, it panic sold it down 26%, vaporizing $72 billion of market value before noon. It was the worst single day for IBM since Black Monday in 1987 when its stock dropped 23%.
The 114-year-old Dow component, long a synonym for corporate stability, plunged after pre-announcing its second quarter.
Technically, it wasn’t scheduled to report full results for another week but for some reason, CEO Arvind Krishna wanted to let traders sell early.
This morning, IBM plunged below $214 per share, 26% lower than its Monday close of $290.23. Its market cap fell to $200 billion, down from $272 billion at the close of business yesterday.
By noon, trading volume had already surpassed 37 million shares — 3X its daily average.
Read more: SK Hynix wipes out US debut gain in one day of trading
IBM crashes as customers spend elsewhere
IBM released preliminary figures ahead of its July 22 earnings report, and they fell far below analysts’ estimates.
Revenue rose a meager 1% to $17.2 billion, short of the roughly $17.9 billion Wall Street expected. Infrastructure revenue fell a concerning 7%. GAAP diluted earnings failed to improve, slipping 2% to $2.27 per share.
The company also blamed a shortfall in its Z mainframe line and the transaction processing software that runs on it.
That mainframe stumble is a stark trend reversal. Just one quarter earlier, Z hardware revenue had surged 51% thanks to strong z17 demand. Apparently, however, demand didn’t persist.
The CEO admits to catastrophe
The preliminary numbers immediately jeopardize IBM’s full-year target. As recently as April, the company had reaffirmed guidance of 5% constant-currency revenue growth in 2026 that is now unlikely to transpire.
A statement from Krishna was, by the standards of corporate disclosure, a confessional.
“This quarter we faltered. We did not adapt and move quickly enough,” Krishna wrote. He conceded that “numerous large deals failed to close on the timelines we expected, driving the majority of our shortfall.”
The CEO blamed a “magnitude of the CapEx reprioritization” by customers, which is a fancy way of saying that customers didn’t allocate their capital expenditures to IBM.
Instead, according to Krishna, they were distracted by “industry-wide cybersecurity” concerns during the quarter. That’s another fancy way of describing AI displacing IBM’s services.
Another Jim Cramer pick crashes
Enterprise software and IT-services names slid in sympathy, with Accenture, Cognizant, and Infosys all falling. Traders treated one company’s missed deals as a warning for the whole sector.
Clients shifted capital toward AI, servers, and memory chips ahead of expected price increases, and IBM misjudged the scale and speed of those migrations.
Krishna attempted to highlight bright spots. IBM’s Red Hat revenue growth accelerated to 11%, and Distributed Infrastructure posted what he called its best quarter on record, up 37%. Investors took no consolation.
CNBC’s Jim Cramer had spent months championing the stock, telling viewers earlier this year that IBM was “inexpensive relative to its growth rate” and that Krishna was “top-notch.”
IBM will file its full second quarter 2026 earnings with the SEC on July 22. The company has already told everyone how it will go.
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Crypto World
Crypto News, July 14: Telegram Registry Down, Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Eye Iran War Resolution
Telegram users woke up to broken t.me links after the platform’s short domain became unreachable, disrupting invites, public channels, and bot links across the web. At the same time, the Bitcoin and Ethereum price remains under pressure as we all wait for cooling signs on tensions between the US and Iran. Together, the outage and geopolitical uncertainty are being disruptive to crypto markets.
The problem centered on Telegram’s t.me domain after it entered serverHold status, preventing DNS resolution for web links. As of now, users trying to open channel invites or bot pages were met with browser errors, although the Telegram app continued working normally through direct connections.
It is reported that users can still search for channels inside the app or use full telegram.org links where available. However, so far, only Pavel Durov has asked for the registry to look into this, and neither Telegram nor the domain registry has explained the issue.
Hey @domainME, https://t.co/9z6UC2o37U links stopped working. Can you look into it?
— Pavel Durov (@durov) July 14, 2026
The disruption landed at an awkward time for crypto communities. Telegram remains the primary communication hub for many token launches, trading groups, and project announcements. When those links disappear, onboarding slows, announcements become harder to share, and community activity loses momentum. This added another layer of caution as investors already reacted to geopolitical headlines.
Discover: The Best Token Presales
Bitcoin price waits for Iran developments while markets stay defensive
Bitcoin price hovers around $62,500 after swinging between $61,800 and $63,200 since last night. Price action has been volatile as investors monitored reports surrounding the conflict between the US and Iran, with traditional markets also shifting into a defensive stance.
Risk assets weakened after fresh military developments fueled uncertainty across global markets. Oil prices climbed, the US dollar strengthened, and traders reduced exposure to higher-risk assets. The Bitcoin price briefly recovered during the session but struggled to build momentum as investors waited for clearer signals.
Markets also face another important test with the upcoming US inflation data. The results could reshape expectations for Federal Reserve policy and influence short-term demand for crypto. All while the US government transferred about $288 million in seized Bitcoin and Ether to Coinbase Prime, a routine move that still drew attention for its size.
Corporate positioning also remains in focus. Strategy has paused additional Bitcoin purchases while building a $3 billion cash reserve, giving the company flexibility if market conditions deteriorate further.
For now, the Bitcoin price continues to track both macroeconomic developments and headlines from the Middle East, leaving traders cautious ahead of the next major catalysts.
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Ethereum price shows resilience despite Telegram disruption
Ethereum price is cooling at $1,780, holding inside a relatively narrow range between $1,750 and $1,790. While market sentiment remained cautious, the Ethereum price showed slightly better stability than Bitcoin price during the latest round of volatility.
Part of that resilience comes from continued institutional interest. BitMine has expanded its Ethereum treasury to roughly 5.77 million ETH, while Robinhood Layer 2 network continues attracting activity using ETH as its native gas token. These developments support long-term demand even as short-term sentiment remains fragile.
Discover: The Best Crypto to Diversify Your Portfolio
The post Crypto News, July 14: Telegram Registry Down, Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Eye Iran War Resolution appeared first on Cryptonews.
Wisconsin prosecutors have filed a criminal complaint against Circle, alleging the USDC issuer intentionally disobeyed a court warrant to recover roughly 381,000 stolen tokens for a local scam victim.
The misdemeanor charge sharpens a dispute over how much responsibility stablecoin issuers bear for returning stolen funds.
“Circle is a regulated company that complies with sanctions, law enforcement orders, and court-mandated requirements, and has a strong track record of cooperating with law enforcement agencies across the United States and internationally. Regarding seizure requests, the legal structures that would authorize stablecoin issuers to act faster—while preserving due process and property rights—do not yet fully exist. As Circle’s Chief Strategy Officer Dante Disparte wrote in an April blog post on this topic, that is a policy gap, not a cooperation gap. Circle has filed a motion in the Walworth County, Wisconsin, proceeding, which is a matter of public record. We cannot comment further on that case or other legal proceedings,” a Circle spokesperson told BeInCrypto.
A Romance Scam Set the Criminal Complaint Against Circle in Motion
A Walworth County resident received an unsolicited text in May 2025 from a scammer calling herself Lenora. Posing as a romantic partner, she steered part of his savings into USD Coin (USDC), a dollar-pegged stablecoin, on a bogus investment platform.
According to the court filing, a county court ordered Circle to freeze the tokens last August, and it complied. In December, however, a judge ordered Circle to invalidate the tokens and reissue an equal amount to the sheriff’s office.
Circle reportedly refused, and prosecutors charged the $17 billion firm with a misdemeanor count of obstruction of justice, per the complaint. The company calls it meritless in a motion to dismiss, citing technical limits and a lack of jurisdiction.
“The tools that are at our disposal are not keeping up with the tools the criminals are using,” the report says, citing Walworth County prosecutor Thomas Binger.
Milwaukee County detective Scott Simons says Circle declined freeze requests or orders arrived too late in over a dozen cases.
The FBI logged a record $11.4 billion in crypto fraud losses for 2025. More than 18,500 victims lost over $100,000 each, even as detection lags AI-driven scams.
Why Tether Returns Stolen Funds While Circle Says It Cannot
Tether, whose USDT is the largest stablecoin, honors some law enforcement requests without a court order. The firm says it has frozen about $4.7 billion linked to crime.
Its software can also destroy or burn tokens in criminal wallets and issue replacements. Tether reportedly told ICIJ that the mechanism has returned $1.1 billion to victims.
Meanwhile, Tether’s T3 unit with TRON has frozen over $450 million. US prosecutors also seized illicit USDT funds worth $61 million in one case.
The gap reflects design and policy, not blockchain physics. Circle, which was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in June 2025, freezes tokens only under lawful process.
The policy is meant to prevent arbitrary or politically motivated interference. That caution has helped USDC gain ground in Europe under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) rules.
In contrast, offshore Tether has embraced discretionary cooperation to rebuild its compliance reputation.
However, Joshua Cooper-Duckett of Cryptoforensic Investigators says Circle could update its token code to permit such burns. Circle policy chief Dante Disparte concedes the tools exist, writing in April that legal frameworks for faster action do not.
New York prosecutors see an incentive problem, too. A January letter to US Senators argued that Circle continues to earn interest on reserves backing frozen tokens. Blockchain researcher Yury Serov estimates that at least 119 million USDC have been frozen.
Circle counters that it recently reached an agreement with federal prosecutors on a victim compensation mechanism. The process would permanently freeze tainted tokens and reissue new ones.
Whether that mechanism ever reaches Walworth County may result in multiple misdemeanor charges. The case could define how far courts can go in requiring stablecoin issuers to make scam victims whole.
Circle did not immediately respond to BeInCrypto’s request for comment.
The post Circle Refused to Recover a Scam Victim’s USDC, Wisconsin’s Criminal Complaint Says appeared first on BeInCrypto.
The UK’s tax authority announced that it planned to treat “certain disposals” related to cryptocurrency lending and liquidity pools as transactions that would effectively defer the country’s capital gains requirements.
In a Monday announcement, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said that starting on April 6, 2027, it would adopt a “no gain, no loss” approach to disposals involving crypto loans and liquidity pools. According to the tax authority, this measure would defer capital gains tax on digital assets “until an economic disposal.”
“This measure will support fairness in the tax system,” said the UK tax authority. “It aligns the tax treatment more closely with the economics of these arrangements by ensuring that gains and losses are generally recognized only when the participant makes an economic disposal of the cryptoassets.”
The measure, expected to impact about 700,000 individuals and trustees, would represent a significant change from the authority’s 2022 guidance on crypto liquidity pools and lending following a consultation period. Under UK law for 2025-2026, taxpayers pay between 18% to 24% for capital gains related to crypto transactions depending on whether they qualify as basic-rate or higher-rate.
Related: UK tokenization push could add as much as $44B to annual output by 2035: Report
According to the tax authority, it would treat crypto transactions as “no gain, no loss” under UK capital gains laws for the acquisition or disposal of an interest in a lending arrangement in exchange for the same type of asset, borrowed assets acquired at market value and similar conditions with automated market makers.
“This is the right direction, mainly driven by the industry feedback demonstrating that any other approach would cause significant admin burden for the tax payer,” said Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov in a Monday X post.
Crypto candidate enters Nigel Farage’s by-election race
In UK politics, Reform leader Nigel Farage will not stand completely uncontested in a by-election caused by his resignation last week amid reports of the politician receiving contributions from billionaires tied to the crypto industry.
On Tuesday, the leader of the Solana community group Superteam UK, Stephen Newnham, said he will run as an independent candidate against Farage and others. The by-election representing Clacton is scheduled for Aug. 13 and will include candidates like comedian and author Jon Harvey in costume as Count Binface, a self-described “independent space warrior” wearing a helmet in the shape of a trash bin.
Farage triggered the by-election with his resignation, saying that he wanted the people of Clacton to judge his actions. The Reform figure reportedly received a $6.7 million donation from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, which he described as a ”reward” for the UK’s exit from the European Union and later as a “gift,” and other financial assistance from George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster linked to a crypto casino.
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In the latest Bitcoin news, Binance customer Bitcoin holdings climbed to approximately 640,295 BTC in June, adding 7,715 BTC, a 1.22% gain, according to the exchange’s 44th proof of reserves report, which used a July 1 snapshot against a June 1 baseline.
That marks the third consecutive monthly increase in the platform’s reported BTC balance, extending a multi-month crypto accumulation pattern based on the latest consecutive monthly PoR updates. The divergence with ETH and USDT is where the more structurally interesting question sits.
Customer ETH balance fell 1.41% to roughly 4.086 million ETH, down 58,591 ETH over the month. That decline comes directly after a sharp 10.17% jump in May, when ETH holdings rose to approximately 4.14 million ETH, so the June pullback looks more like a partial reversal of a spike than the start of a structural exit from Ethereum.
The ETH/BTC dynamic embedded in these figures is consistent with ongoing capital rotation into Bitcoin, though on-chain data alone cannot confirm that thesis.
USDT balances fell for a second consecutive month, dropping 1.51% to approximately 33.7 billion USDT, roughly 510 million tokens lower than the June 1 reading of 34.3 billion.
The prior month had already shed about 460 million USDT. Two months of consecutive stablecoin drawdown across the platform’s largest reserve asset is a meaningful data point on available buy-side liquidity, even if the direction of those funds remains unconfirmed.
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Bitcoin News: What the On-Chain Data Confirms, and What It Doesn’t
The report relies on a point-in-time snapshot methodology: exchange reserves are recorded at a specific date, then compared month-over-month.
Binance uses Merkle Trees and zero-knowledge proofs to let customers verify whether their account balances are included in the total liabilities reported for each report.
What that architecture cannot do is explain the behavioral drivers behind changes in balance, whether the BTC increase came from direct purchases, deposits from external wallets, asset conversions out of ETH or USDT, or internal transfers between Binance product silos.
This ambiguity matters for interpreting the signal. Rising BTC on an exchange can read as accumulation-in-progress, but it also places more supply closer to the market. The gap between rising aggregate balances and day-to-day incremental flow signals is not directly resolvable from the PoR snapshot alone.
A similar BTC-up, USDT-down pattern appeared in the most recent reserve snapshots from Bybit and OKX. That cross-exchange alignment suggests the rotation is not Binance-specific. It more plausibly reflects a broader shift in how active traders are allocated across the major spot venues heading into the second half of 2026.
Declining USDT holdings in the platform’s proof-of-reserves report reduce the visible pool of on-exchange dry powder. Thinner stablecoin reserves do not confirm buying flows or withdrawals, but they can still matter for how liquid the on-exchange balance sheet appears at the snapshot point in time. In low-volatility conditions, that may not matter. Around key price levels or macro catalysts, it can amplify moves in both directions.
Don’t Miss Out on Our $1,000 USDT Airdrop on ByBit
The post Binance Proof of Reserves Rock Bitcoin News Amid BTC Gains and Thin Stablecoin Depth appeared first on Cryptonews.
Cardano co-founder Emurgo has been forced to hand over the running of self-styled “world’s largest crypto event” TOKEN2049 to the Cardano Foundation, following the $20 million hack of its neo-finance platform SecondFi.
That’s according to Intersect, Cardano’s governance firm, which made the announcement on Tuesday.
Intersect stated that Emurgo “is unable to allocate the necessary resources to plan and execute Token2049.”
Emurgo added, “Following the recent SecondFi incident, we have confirmed that our priority right now must be solely the recovery of assets for all affected users.”
Read more: Cardano holders cancel own summit after rejecting $2M funding request
The Cardano Foundation said, “In addition to the Cardano booth, we are also organizing the side event CardanoxDraperxBitcoin funded by Draper and Cardano Foundation. More information will be available soon.”
Cardano users had already voted to cancel the Cardano annual summit in Singapore that was scheduled for October 2026.
The vote, held last month, also passed a proposal from Emurgo to attend and sponsor TOKEN2049 in Singapore this October.
SecondFi is eating into Emurgo’s responsibilities
Emurgo also stepped down last week from the “Pentad,” an executive body made up of multiple Cardano firms.
It said, “Our immediate priority is the @secondfiapp recovery process, and we are concentrating our resources where they are needed most.”
SecondFi was hacked for $2.4 million worth of ADA last June. Emurgo used emergency measures at the time to take $18.5 million worth of ADA from users as part of a mysterious white hat hack event.
The mystery stemmed from Cardano’s founder, Charles Hoskinson, who later relayed information that suggested the identity of the white hat hacker was unknown.
Read more: SecondFi is shutting down after Cardano wallet exploit
In early July, SecondFi claimed that these white hat hack funds “are currently protected and accessible,” and that they will “form part of the recovery effort to return assets to affected users.”
SecondFi also announced that it will shut down and dedicate its time to the recovery of stolen assets going forward.
Protos has reached out to Cardano Summit organizers for comment and will update this piece should we hear back.
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CleanSpark shares jumped sharply on Tuesday after the Bitcoin miner disclosed a long-term deal that ties up large-scale power and real-estate capacity for a new data center in Georgia. The company said it signed a 20-year triple-net lease for a 175-megawatt facility at its Sandersville, Georgia campus—one of the clearest examples yet of miners moving beyond pure block-reward economics and into broader digital infrastructure.
The agreement, CleanSpark said, is expected to generate about $6.6 billion in contracted revenue over the initial 20-year term, with revenue rising to $11.6 billion if the tenant exercises two five-year extension options. The tenant will install computing infrastructure on-site, and phased deliveries are expected to start in the fourth quarter of 2027.
Key takeaways
- CleanSpark announced a 20-year triple-net lease for a 175-megawatt data center at its Sandersville, Georgia campus.
- The company estimates $6.6 billion in contracted revenue over the initial term, potentially increasing to $11.6 billion with two five-year extensions.
- Infrastructure deliveries are expected to begin in Q4 2027, giving the project a multi-year timeline rather than near-term revenue.
- The announcement highlights how miners are responding to post-halving margin pressure by securing longer-duration capacity demand—particularly from AI and high-performance computing.
- CleanSpark is also positioning itself as a continuing Bitcoin holder even as it diversifies into data-center business lines.
A data-center play built around contracted capacity
CleanSpark’s stated objective is to broaden its revenue base while leveraging the industrial footprint it already controls. Under the lease terms, a tenant—described by CleanSpark only as an undisclosed “investment-grade global technology company”—will deploy computing infrastructure at the Sandersville site, with phased delivery starting in the fourth quarter of 2027.
Triple-net lease structures typically place more operating-cost responsibilities on the tenant, which can matter to investors focused on predictability. Even so, the timing underscores a central point for the market: this is not a near-term catalyst designed to instantly offset mining volatility. Instead, it is a long-dated demand commitment that can strengthen CleanSpark’s infrastructure narrative as AI compute requirements drive new buildouts.
Why miners are chasing new revenue after the halving
Miners have been under renewed financial strain since the 2024 Bitcoin halving, when block rewards declined and competitive pressure tightened. CleanSpark’s own recent results reflect how sensitive mining economics remain to Bitcoin price movements and operating margins.
In March, the company reported a fiscal second-quarter net loss of $378 million, with nearly 60% attributed to a drop in Bitcoin’s price. Earlier, in February, CleanSpark also sold a portion of its BTC holdings—an indication that liquidity and balance-sheet flexibility continue to play a role in how miners fund operations and expansion plans.
Still, CleanSpark’s approach appears less aggressive than some peers. Cointelegraph previously reported that publicly traded miners sold roughly 15,000 BTC between October and the end of February, even as the sector struggled with margins and liquidity needs. Against that backdrop, CleanSpark has remained a net accumulator while simultaneously exploring ways to monetize its infrastructure beyond mining.
Equities react as the market prices diversification
Tuesday’s announcement translated into immediate stock momentum. CleanSpark shares reached an intraday high of $15.10 before paring gains during the U.S. lunch hour. At the time of reporting, the stock was up about 11%, while the CoinShares Bitcoin Miners ETF (WGMI) was up less than 1%.
That divergence suggests investors are treating the data-center lease as something more than routine corporate expansion. For equity holders, the appeal is straightforward: contracted infrastructure revenue can, in theory, reduce dependence on the day-to-day volatility of mining economics. It also positions CleanSpark within the broader “digital infrastructure” stack that increasingly benefits from high-performance computing demand.
What’s next for CleanSpark and the infrastructure thesis
Even with the long-term lease in place, mining performance and BTC exposure remain central to how the company is valued. CleanSpark is expected to report fiscal Q3 results on Aug. 6, with analyst consensus calling for a loss of $0.25 per share versus earnings of $0.79 in the year-ago period, according to Yahoo Finance. The company has also missed Wall Street estimates in each of the last three quarters.
Going forward, investors will likely watch whether CleanSpark can convert its infrastructure plans into measurable financial improvements over time—while also continuing to manage the impact of Bitcoin price swings and ongoing pressure on miner margins. The lease provides a longer runway, but the key test will be execution: tenant commitments, delivery milestones expected to begin in Q4 2027, and whether the company’s diversification meaningfully cushions future mining results.
Binance believes its next phase of growth will come from payments and financial services rather than cryptocurrency trading alone, as stablecoins reshape how people use digital assets, according to Shunyet Jan, the exchange’s head of spot trading and derivatives business.
In an interview with CoinDesk on Binance’s ninth anniversary, Jan outlined the strategy as Binance and shared a glimpse of the platform’s future priorities.
“We’re trying to not just be a crypto exchange, but be a super app that involves payment,” Jan said. “If you think of us as a payment provider, then that number becomes much bigger.”
Jan said Binance’s new strategy reflects how people are increasingly using cryptocurrencies beyond trading. While trading remains at the core of Binance’s business, he said stablecoins are increasingly being used for payments and transfers, creating a larger market than trading alone.
“I don’t think it’s really leveled off,” Jan said. “What’s happened is that a lot of it is driven by stablecoin usage.”
SWIFT moved its blockchain-based shared ledger into live operational use, naming 17 pioneer banks for 24/7 tokenized cross-border payments. Its payments framework lists more than 30 institutions with existing Ripple XRP ties.
The SWIFT pilot is nine months in the making and represents a decisive escalation from prototype to production. The 17 pioneer banks are live on a blockchain-based shared ledger that coordinates tokenized deposits rather than public cryptocurrencies, giving the participating institutions 24/7 settlement capability.
SWIFT’s native ledger settles in tokenized bank deposits, not XRP. The token is not embedded in the standard payment flow and is not required in SWIFT’s native ledger/payment flow.
However, the indirect connection runs through Ripple’s On-Demand Liquidity product, which uses XRP as a bridge asset for instant settlement, but that route depends on how banks deploy Ripple’s liquidity services.
What the SWIFT move does confirm is that the financial industry’s direction of travel aligns with the model Ripple has been building toward for years: always-on, programmable settlement that eliminates pre-funded nostro accounts in each destination currency.
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Ripple XRP Ties, SWIFT Development
The more than 30 banks named in SWIFT’s wider payments framework with existing Ripple relationships are a set beyond the 17 live pilot participants. The overlap is not specified. Being listed in SWIFT’s framework does not mean those institutions have activated ODL or routed any liquidity through XRP.
Many currently use RippleNet purely for messaging, without touching the token. The upgrade path from messaging to liquidity provisioning is where actual XRP demand materializes, and that transition remains at the bank’s discretion.
SWIFT has also signaled its next phase explicitly, describing its ambition to become a platform for programmable money and agentic commerce. SWIFT is aiming for a world where payments execute automatically when conditions are met without manual authorization per transaction.
Ripple’s institutional positioning has been reinforced in parallel. The company joined SWIFT earlier in 2026, enabling direct global bank access and unified management of fiat and crypto flows. It has also partnered with Kyobo Life Insurance for real-time tokenized government bond settlement.
Ripple’s institutional credibility has benefited from regulatory engagement in Europe, a prerequisite for the institutional adoption the SWIFT partnership.
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What Has to Change for XRP to Capture the Structural Upside
The SWIFT development is a credibility event for Ripple’s ecosystem, not a demand event for XRP. The token’s upside from here is conditional on whether banks use On-Demand Liquidity routes using XRP in live payment corridors, creating real settlement demand. Without that, the SWIFT-Ripple connection remains structural alignment rather than token adoption.
Near term, the case hinges on institutions moving beyond messaging into using XRP-enabled liquidity for tokenized cross-border payments. Ripple’s parallel institutional build, including its positioning on the UK’s wholesale digital markets taskforce, suggests the regulatory environment is moving in the right direction for that decision to become easier.
XRP’s fate tracks Bitcoin’s strength and broader altcoin sentiment. A sustained rise in Bitcoin dominance above 59% would likely extend pressure on XRP and other alts; the cleanest signal is that dominance staying elevated. The SWIFT narrative is real Ripple structural progress, but structural progress that does not yet mandate XRP demand trades differently from one that does.
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The post Ripple XRP Gains Attention After SWIFT Blockchain Expansion appeared first on Cryptonews.
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