Yesterday, crypto exchange OKX appointed to its board Andrew Cuomo — the New York governor whose administration created the BitLicense that OKX never received.

Maybe that’s what it takes to finally get that state license.

Cuomo and his administration created the BitLicense back in 2014, and OKX, the world’s fourth largest crypto exchange, has been chasing one ever since.

However, despite having well over a decade to apply, OKX still doesn’t appear on the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) register. Somewhat embarrassingly, competitors, including Coinbase, Gemini, Mastercard, MoonPay, and other crypto companies, do.

With yesterday’s news, however, the path for OKX to win its approval might finally have opened up.

Tough to get, even for the world’s fourth largest crypto exchange

The license is famously difficult to obtain.

Kraken, facing the same daunting application in 2015, called the BitLicense “a creature so foul, so cruel that not even Kraken possesses the courage or strength to face its nasty, big, pointy teeth” and left the state. 

Fortune, for context, reported that the BitLicense’s first three years of availability produced just four licensees.

OKX founder Star Xu boasted that Cuomo’s new board seat will help him build “the world’s most trustworthy large digital asset exchange.” This is something that could take some work.

Indeed, between 2018 and early 2024, US customers conducted more than $1 trillion worth of transactions through OKX, even though OKX’s official policy at that time prohibited US persons from transacting on the exchange.

In fact, one OKX employee advised an American in 2023: “I know you’re in the US, but you could just put a random country and it should go through.”

For its part, OKX blamed the episode on “legacy compliance gaps.”

Russia’s State Duma passed legislation establishing the country’s first comprehensive framework for regulating cryptocurrencies with most of the new rules set to take effect on Sept. 1.

The law creates a legal framework for crypto exchanges, depositories and other digital asset providers, while setting rules for who can buy crypto and under what conditions, Russia’s state-owned news agency TASS reported Tuesday.

Only organizations included in a special registry will be permitted to operate as cryptocurrency exchanges, although firms will be allowed to continue operating without registration until July 1, 2027.

Under the new law, banks will be required to refuse transfers if they suspect an unauthorized entity is operating a cryptocurrency exchange.

The legislation also guarantees judicial protection for holders of digital currencies regardless of whether the assets were previously declared.

Retail investors will be allowed to buy the most liquid cryptocurrencies through licensed intermediaries, subject to an annual limit equivalent to roughly $3,800 per intermediary. Qualified investors will be able to purchase any crypto without restrictions.

Onchain lending just gained a new option on Base: Morpho has launched Morpho Midnight, a fixed-rate, fixed-term lending market that sits alongside its existing variable-rate venue, Morpho Blue. The move introduces an intent-driven model where loans are structured around competing offers—rather than being priced by a protocol-defined utilization curve.

According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, Midnight is live on the Base mainnet and begins by supporting cbBTC and USDC across multiple maturity dates. Morpho says the rollout is intentionally contained to support a progressive deployment focused on security.

Key takeaways

• Morpho Midnight brings fixed-rate, fixed-term borrowing to Base, complementing Morpho’s variable-rate Blue pools.
• Loan pricing is offer-driven: lenders and borrowers propose interest rates, maturities, and other terms instead of relying on algorithmic pool utilization curves.
• Midnight is positioned to better match needs found in traditional credit markets, where funding costs and repayment schedules are known in advance.
• The initial deployment supports cbBTC and USDC with multiple maturity dates, and Morpho says additional integrations and features may come as the rollout expands.

Fixed terms arrive on Base, but with a different pricing engine

DeFi lending has historically struggled to replicate the predictability offered by conventional finance. In many onchain markets, borrowing costs rise or fall with changing utilization—meaning lenders and borrowers face pricing that can shift over time.

Morpho’s Midnight is designed to address that gap by shifting from pool-based algorithmic pricing to a marketplace of offers. As Morpho explained to Cointelegraph, the system lets participants propose interest rates, maturities, and other loan parameters. Instead of relying on a continuously running utilization curve, Midnight issues loans as fixed obligations matched through competition among offers.

For institutions and businesses, this matters because fixed repayment schedules can make it easier to manage funding costs, expected returns, and risk exposure. While the DeFi sector can approximate fixed income through complex strategies, a dedicated fixed-rate lending venue can reduce reliance on workarounds.

Morpho also emphasized that Midnight is not intended as a replacement for Morpho Blue. Blue remains focused on open-ended, variable-rate lending pools, while Midnight is structured to externalize loan risk, interest rates, and duration to market participants—turning those elements into negotiated terms.

How Morpho framed the “Midnight” design before launch

Morpho first discussed the fixed-rate approach as part of a broader “Morpho V2” roadmap. In a 2025 post referenced by Morpho’s development timeline, the protocol described an intent-based, peer-to-peer marketplace where users could submit custom offers. In that framing, capital could continue earning variable yield until it becomes matched to a fixed-rate offer—before locking into the fixed obligation.

In April, Morpho named the fixed-rate system Midnight and clarified again that it would complement, not replace, Morpho Blue. Later, Morpho released Midnight’s whitepaper and codebase in May. In connection with that release, Morpho said the “offered capital” model was meant to avoid a recurring problem in fixed-rate DeFi: liquidity lockups and fragmentation across maturity dates.

That design goal is important because fixed-rate markets can face an inherent mismatch—capital providers may not always want to commit for the exact maturities demanded by borrowers. By centering loan terms around offers, Midnight aims to make maturity selection more market-responsive while still offering borrowers defined terms.

Rollout status: live on Base with cbBTC and USDC

According to the Morpho spokesperson who spoke to Cointelegraph, Midnight is already live on the Base mainnet. The first version supports cbBTC and USDC, and it offers loans across multiple maturity dates.

Morpho said it kept the launch deliberately contained as part of a progressive rollout strategy, prioritizing security. The spokesperson also told Cointelegraph that crypto-native lenders, borrowers, and curators active on Morpho Blue have shown interest in moving into Midnight’s fixed-term environment.

Beyond existing Morpho participants, Morpho indicated that several enterprises and institutions are building products on the protocol in beta. Morpho did not provide details of those initiatives at this stage, saying announcements are expected as those products go live.

Where this fits in Morpho’s broader growth and DeFi lending trends

Midnight’s launch arrives after a period of rapid expansion for Morpho. Earlier in June, Morpho announced a $175 million funding round led by Paradigm, with participation from a16z crypto (Andreessen Horowitz) and Ribbit Capital. At the time, Morpho said it planned to expand integrations with banks, asset managers, and large platforms, while adding features associated with traditional credit markets—an aim that aligns with Midnight’s fixed-rate proposition.

Morpho’s infrastructure is already used by major crypto platforms for variable-rate lending. In April, Cointelegraph reported that Coinbase launched Morpho-powered USDC loans for United Kingdom users. Those loans reportedly allowed borrowers to take positions against Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and cbETH on Base, using variable rates and with no fixed repayment schedule—an example of the open-ended borrowing model that Midnight is designed to complement.

In other words, Midnight extends Morpho’s toolkit toward a segment of lending that may feel more familiar to legacy finance workflows, where counterparties often value certainty in pricing and maturity. Still, the practical impact for users will depend on liquidity at specific rates and maturities, as well as how quickly lenders and borrowers coordinate around those offer terms.

Readers should watch how Midnight’s liquidity develops across maturity dates and whether more assets beyond cbBTC and USDC are added as the rollout expands. The key uncertainty is whether fixed-term demand can consistently find matching offers at attractive terms—because the economics of fixed-rate lending live and die by market participation.

A decentralized exchange (DEX) backed by Robinhood is expanding into tokenized stocks and derivatives as platforms compete to build onchain markets for traditional assets.

Arcus, a DEX built by the team behind decentralized trading platform dYdX and backed by Robinhood Crypto, launched tokenized stocks and perpetual futures on Robinhood Chain on Tuesday, according to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph.

The company previously launched spot markets when Robinhood Chain went live on July 1. Arcus offers more than 95 stock tokens, perpetual markets and crypto assets through a self-custodial trading account, with Paxos-issued stablecoin USDG serving as its primary collateral and settlement asset.

The launch comes as crypto companies and financial platforms increasingly compete to build infrastructure for tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), while regulatory questions around access and product structure remain a key challenge for the sector.

Related: Bernstein raises Robinhood price target, cites tokenization and prediction markets

Self-custody shapes approach to onchain trading

Arcus’s launch includes tokenized versions of stock in major US companies such as Nvidia, Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon, as well as perpetual markets tied to equities, exchange-traded funds, commodities, indexes and crypto assets.

The platform uses a self-custodial model, allowing users to retain control of their assets rather than deposit them with a centralized exchange. Arcus uses Privy, a wallet infrastructure company that helps applications create and manage crypto wallets, allowing users to sign up through email or social logins.

Source: Robinhood Chain

Users who already hold crypto can connect existing self-custodial wallets, including MetaMask, Ledger and WalletConnect, with the company citing support for additional Ethereum-compatible wallets.

Tokenized stocks face regulatory questions

Arcus said its stock tokens are unavailable in the US, Canada, the UK and other restricted jurisdictions, highlighting the different regulatory approaches to tokenized securities across markets.

Cointelegraph contacted Arcus for clarification on the restrictions but did not receive a response by publication time.

Regulators in markets including the US and UK have been examining how blockchain-based representations of traditional assets fit within existing financial frameworks, with questions around custody, ownership and market structure being addressed.

The launch adds another player to the growing race to build infrastructure for tokenized assets, with platforms including Coinbase-backed Base exploring ways to bring traditional financial products onchain.

Magazine: Is Robinhood Chain’s success bullish or bearish for ETH the asset?

Augustus, a startup building a federally chartered clearing bank for fintechs and financial institutions, said it raised $180 million to expand its dollar payment infrastructure as stablecoins reshape global finance.

The fundraising valued the company at $1 billion, with Tiger Global leading the round and investors such as Hummingbird, QED and the founders of Nubank, Ramp, Circle and Deel participating, the company said in a Tuesday press release.

The investment comes as banks, fintechs and crypto firms are racing to modernize the infrastructure behind cross-border payments. While much of the attention has centered on stablecoin issuers, Augustus is targeting a less visible but crucial part of the financial system: correspondent banking.

“We think distribution breaks at the clearing bank layer,” CEO Ferdinand Dabitz told CoinDesk in an interview. Legacy clearing systems are “slow, unavailable, take two days to settle and close on the weekends,” he argued.

Taking on correspondent banking

The firm is building what Dabitz described as an “AI-native” clearing bank designed around stablecoins, programmable money and always-on settlement.

Augustus doesn’t plan to issue its own stablecoin, Dabitz said. Instead, it wants to provide the banking infrastructure that lets financial institutions move money across traditional payment systems and blockchain networks.