The UK is moving to put stablecoins at the center of a new Bank of England mandate aimed at supporting innovation in digital payments.

The government plans to give the Bank of England, the UK’s central bank, a secondary objective to support innovation in payment systems and emerging forms of digital money, HM Treasury announced on Thursday.

The mandate will cover payment systems that use digital settlement assets such as stablecoins, while financial stability will remain the BoE’s primary objective.

The proposal comes as the UK steps up its work on stablecoins through regulatory changes, payment experiments and closer coordination with the US.

BoE innovation mandate faces September debate

The new responsibility would extend an existing approach used to regulate central counterparties (CCPs) and central securities depositories (CSDs), which help clear, hold and settle financial assets.

Under the proposed change, the central bank would report annually to Parliament on its progress toward the payments innovation objective.

“Developments in digital payments technology, including tokenisation and DLT [distributed ledger technology], have the potential to transform financial markets across the globe,” City Minister Lucy Rigby said.

The government expects to implement the objective through amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Bill, which is scheduled for further debate in the House of Lords on Sept. 7 and 9.

Stablecoin rules still face industry concerns

The new mandate’s impact may depend on how BoE uses its annual reporting requirement, Maksym Sakharov, co-founder and CEO of on-chain banking infrastructure provider WeFi, told Cointelegraph.

“The objective is secondary to financial stability, so it overrides nothing, but the bank will have to publish an annual account of its innovation efforts in payments and digital money,” Sakharov said. This requirement could put greater public scrutiny on stablecoin rules the central bank finalized in June.

Related: Binance to plan UK relaunch with FCA license application: Report

Sakharov pointed to requirements for systemic stablecoin issuers to hold at least 30% of their backing assets in non-interest-bearing deposits at the central bank.

“The reserve split is the first thing to fix,” he said, adding that the requirement could determine whether a stablecoin business is commercially viable.

UK steps up stablecoin push

The new mandate follows increasing UK efforts involving stablecoins, or crypto assets designed to maintain a stable value by tracking assets such as the US dollar.

In August, a group participating in the Bank of England’s Digital Pound Lab began testing whether a stablecoin and a simulated digital British pound could work together in a cross-border trade payment. The experimental platform does not use real customers or money.

Related: Revolut rolls out euro stablecoin in 3 European markets

In mid-July, the UK and US published a joint statement on stablecoins, with the governments saying they “intend to enable the use of stablecoins in cross-border finance” and calling for greater alignment of their regulatory frameworks.

BoE also previously dropped plans to limit stablecoin holdings to 20,000 British pounds for individuals and 10 million pounds for businesses, replacing them with a temporary 40 billion pound ($52.9 billion) issuance cap for each systemic stablecoin.

Magazine: MiCA cracks down on USDT in Europe… but no one else cares

BlockFi founder Zac Prince has announced a new crypto loan program to attract more assets with promises of interest-only loans, waived origination fees, and other promotional offers.

Meanwhile, members of a BlockFi class action who secured a court-ordered payout in their lawsuit against Prince, still haven’t actually received any money from that $13.25 million settlement.

Prince was a defendant in this litigation, settling allegations that he violated US securities laws by selling BlockFi Interest Accounts without adequate disclosures.

A judge has ordered that insurance companies backing him and his executive team at BlockFi must pay $13.25 million for this class of BlockFi customers.

Today, anyone who decides to trust Prince’s new product, a so-called “crypto portfolio line of credit” by GalaxyOne, are able to entrust as many digital assets with Prince’s new employer as they desire.

Eager to amass as much capital as possible, Galaxy is extending customers fee waivers and interest-only payment options to make sure depositors can maximize their financial leverage.

From 2018-2022, BlockFi amassed digital assets in its own way, paying up to 9.5% APY to incentivize inbound deposits. These APYs were obviously unsustainable, and the company went bankrupt in November 2022.

Prince, now a managing director of GalaxyOne, described his company’s newest crypto promo, saying, “We’re excited to bring a competitive crypto-backed borrowing product to market.”

He emphasized its “competitive” fees.

Ethereum price held above $2,500 on Aug. 27 after strong US spot ETF inflows, improving global liquidity conditions, and a historic short squeeze supported its weekly breakout.

Ethereum price holds its weekly breakout

According to data from crypto.news, Ethereum (ETH) price traded near $2,507 at the time of writing, up about 7.8% from its Aug. 21 opening price of $2,326. The token briefly reached a weekly high near $2,566 before settling into a narrow range around the psychological $2,500 level.

The move followed a sharp breakout from the $1,875–$1,950 range that had contained ETH for much of August. Buyers pushed the price above its February-to-May resistance area and have so far prevented a deeper return to the former range.

Ethereum’s daily chart shows the price trading almost exactly at the $2,500 Murrey Math resistance. Chaikin Money Flow stood at 0.24, remaining well above zero and showing that buying pressure continued to outweigh selling pressure.

Holding above $2,500 would turn the former resistance into support and strengthen the case for another leg higher. A rejection, however, could leave the breakout vulnerable because ETH has moved more than 30% from its pre-rally consolidation zone without a major correction.

Why is Ethereum price up?

Ethereum’s rally began after the US Treasury announced that it would at least double the maximum size of its long-end liquidity-support bond buybacks from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation beginning Sept. 9. The increase covers nominal Treasury securities in the 10-to-20-year and 20-to-30-year sectors. The Treasury announced the change on Aug. 19.

Market participants treated the decision as supportive of liquidity-sensitive assets. Bond buybacks can improve trading conditions in older Treasury securities, while lower long-term yields generally make risk assets such as cryptocurrencies more attractive relative to fixed-income investments.

A record derivatives squeeze amplified the initial move. Nearly $3 billion in leveraged crypto positions were liquidated in 24 hours, with bearish positions accounting for about 92% of the total. Ethereum jumped roughly 18% during the event as short sellers were forced to close positions in a rising market. crypto.news reported that it was the largest concentrated short squeeze since November 2021.

US institutional demand then helped ETH retain those gains. Spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds recorded approximately $697.2 million in net inflows during the week ending Aug. 21, their strongest weekly performance of 2026. The inflows formed part of a combined $2.6 billion entering US-listed Bitcoin and Ethereum funds.

ETF demand provided a spot-market foundation after the liquidation-driven rally. It also helped offset isolated negative developments in decentralized finance, including the estimated $8.5 million loss connected to the Term Finance governance attack.

Ethereum faces a liquidity test at $2,550

The 4-hour chart shows ETH consolidating in the upper half of its Bollinger Bands. Price stood above the indicator’s $2,477 midpoint, while the upper and lower bands were positioned near $2,514 and $2,441.

A 4-hour close above the upper band would indicate that buyers have regained short-term control. The Awesome Oscillator remained positive at 32.22 and had started printing green bars again, suggesting that momentum was attempting to recover after weakening during the consolidation.

The three-day CoinGlass liquidation heatmap identifies the largest nearby liquidity concentration around $2,545–$2,555. Price often moves toward areas containing dense leveraged positions, making that region the immediate target if ETH continues higher.

Clearing $2,550 could expose thinner liquidity between approximately $2,575 and $2,600. The daily chart identifies $2,656 as the next major technical target, followed by $2,812 if momentum expands.

Leverage also creates downside risk. The heatmap shows a large liquidation cluster near $2,410–$2,420, while the 4-hour Bollinger Band provides nearer support at $2,477 and $2,441. Losing those levels could pull ETH toward the larger liquidity pool below.

Broader daily support sits at $2,343, followed by the $2,187 pivot. A decline below $2,343 would place the latest breakout at risk and increase the chance of a return toward the previous trading range.

Analysts watch the weekly close above $2,550

Crypto trader Daan Crypto Trades said ETH was consolidating above its previous resistance but needed to extend the rally soon to avoid falling back below the breakout level.

“Otherwise you risk deviating back below the resistance and for this to turn into a big liquidity grab,” the analyst wrote.

The trader said bulls should push Ethereum to new local highs by the end of the week. Failure to do so could produce a rejection wick, weakening the apparent breakout.

Analyst Ted Pillows also identified $2,550 as Ethereum’s decisive resistance zone. According to his weekly chart, a close above that level could open a move toward $3,000. The chart places the first major support near $2,180 and a lower support area around $1,950.