Crypto World
Bolivia Weighs Payments Using USDT as Dollar Liquidity Tightens
Bolivia is considering adding Tether’s USDT to its national payments infrastructure, a potential milestone for stablecoin adoption in Latin America amid a long-running shortage of US dollars. The government says it is working on a regulatory approach that would treat USDT as a payment instrument alongside the boliviano and the US dollar—rather than a fringe asset outside the formal economy.
Economy and Public Finance Minister Jose Gabriel Espinoza said at a press conference on Monday that the state is assessing a framework to allow USDT “to circulate as just another currency.” Any rollout, he added, would need strong oversight and anti-money laundering controls because Bolivia remains on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list.
Key takeaways
- Bolivia is evaluating whether USDT could be recognized for everyday transactions such as payments, savings and trade.
- The proposal would require a regulatory structure that can place USDT inside the country’s formal payments system.
- Bolivia’s FATF grey-list status means anti-money laundering safeguards are expected to be central to any approval process.
- The move comes as the country confronts a widening gap between official and parallel exchange rates that has increased demand for dollar-denominated alternatives.
USDT would be treated as part of everyday payments
According to CriptoNoticias, the regulatory framework being considered is still under review. If adopted, it would aim to formally recognize USDT for retail and commercial activity, including payments, savings and trade, without relying solely on cash or the traditional banking channel.
Espinoza’s framing matters because it suggests Bolivia is not merely allowing crypto trading or occasional transfers, but contemplating a system design where USDT functions as a practical alternative for transactions. For consumers and businesses, that could mean more predictable settlement options when local access to dollars is constrained.
Regulatory hurdles tied to FATF monitoring
Espinoza also emphasized that any implementation would depend on a “robust regulatory framework” and effective anti-money laundering protections. His comments connect directly to Bolivia’s placement on the FATF grey list, which flags jurisdictions with increased monitoring needs due to deficiencies in preventing money laundering and terrorist financing.
That context helps explain why the government is taking a cautious, framework-first approach. Moving stablecoins into a national payments role typically requires clear responsibility lines—who can distribute or process them, how compliance checks are performed, and how suspicious activity reporting would operate. For Bolivia, those requirements could become a gating factor for how quickly a USDT rollout can move from proposal to practice.
Dollar scarcity and exchange-rate strain push demand toward stablecoins
The policy discussion comes against a backdrop of persistent dollar shortages in Bolivia. Reuters previously reported that Bolivia kept an official exchange rate of 6.86 bolivianos per US dollar for purchases and 6.96 for sales for years, before later abandoning the long-standing peg after pressure on foreign exchange reserves.
As Reuters noted, the abandonment of the peg contributed to the expansion of a parallel foreign exchange market where the dollar traded at a steep premium relative to the official rate. When the cost of dollars diverges sharply between official channels and informal markets, demand tends to shift toward instruments that track or approximate dollar value. In this environment, stablecoins such as USDT can become appealing for payments because they offer a dollar-denominated unit of account without requiring direct access to physical dollars.
Industry research also points to growing activity. Chainalysis’ 2025 evaluation of crypto adoption across Latin America reported $14.8 billion in total transaction volume over a 12-month period for Bolivia included within the regional assessment. While this figure does not isolate stablecoins alone, it supports the broader claim that digital assets—often used in response to currency pressures—have become more integrated into real economic behavior across the region.
Bolivia’s return to crypto-friendly policy after the 2024 ban
The USDT payments initiative fits into a broader pivot by Bolivia toward digital assets following the lifting of its longstanding cryptocurrency ban in 2024. Since taking office in late 2025, President Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s administration has pledged to incorporate digital assets into the formal financial system, an approach described by earlier coverage from Cointelegraph as paving the way for banks to introduce crypto-related products and services, potentially including stablecoin-based accounts.
What’s notable now is the specificity: instead of focusing only on banking products or general “blockchain integration,” the government is explicitly weighing how USDT could fit into everyday payments. That difference could determine how quickly stablecoins move from parallel usage toward regulated, widely accepted channels.
Readers should watch how Bolivia’s draft regulatory framework is shaped—particularly around compliance obligations given its FATF grey-list status—and whether authorities set measurable timelines for pilot programs or bank participation. The next question is not only whether USDT will be recognized, but how the state plans to govern distribution, monitoring and settlement in a way that can survive both financial controls and real-world liquidity constraints.
Bitcoin’s price charted impressive gains on Tuesday and Wednesday after the lower-than-expected US CPI numbers for June, spiking to a multi-week peak of $65,000.
However, this progress is in danger again due to the quickly escalating tension in the Middle East, especially since many reports outlined US President Donald Trump’s new attack strategy against Iran.
New Attack Strategy Revealed
The two sides sat in a fragile ceasefire for weeks but failed to reach a decisive deal to permanently end the conflict. Instead, the attacks resumed last week; Trump said the memorandum of understanding is over, and they have launched strikes against each other almost daily since then.
According to multiple reports, the POTUS held a meeting in the Situation Room on Tuesday to discuss a “massive offense” against the Middle Eastern country. Some of the details that went public include:
- The meeting was attended by Vice President JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Steve Witkoff, and other senior officials
- The new attack strategy will involve strikes with a wider scope than the current ones, which are mostly focused on the region around the Strait of Hormuz.
- Axios reported that one of the major conclusions of the meeting focused on new plans for “devastating strikes on strategic targets in Iran.”
Moreover, the report claimed that Trump claimed Iran should “better make a deal” or they are “not going to have anything left.” The good news in all of this could come from this particular sentence, as the POTUS has made similar threats in the past, which actually preceded major de-escalations.
Is BTC in Danger Again?
The timing of these new reported plans for mass attacks couldn’t come at a worse time for bitcoin. The primary cryptocurrency has finally shown some strength following a major macro reversal. The CPI data for June showed much lower inflation than expected, which could mean less chance for the US Fed to increase interest rates.
Bitcoin reacted with an immediate price pump that drove it to a multi-month peak at $65,000 after it slumped below $58,000 for the first time in almost two years on July 1. New negative developments on the war front have long harmed its trend reversal, as attacks typically lead to a BTC crash and a surge in oil prices.
Consequently, there’s a real threat that bitcoin can erase the recent gains if the US follows through on its plan and Iran starts to retaliate against many nations in the region as it did in the past.
The post Trump’s New Iran Strategy Revealed: Will Bitcoin Pay the Price Again? appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Crypto World
Warren Buffett calls Bill Gates’ actions with Epstein ‘distasteful,’ but people make mistakes
Warren Buffett called Bill Gates’ association with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as “distasteful” after the Berkshire Hathaway chairman excluded the Gates Foundation from his sizable annual charitable donations.
“I read a great deal since January 1 in terms of what happened, with Bill and Epstein,” Buffett said in an interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick. “While it’s distasteful, while he made mistakes, I made mistakes, hiring all kinds of people, or choosing friends, and then finding out later that, one way or other, they weren’t what I thought they were. I found nothing in there that was beyond what I could picture myself doing.”
Buffett, who has been friends with Gates for more than three decades, said he extensively reviewed information about Gates’ relationship with Epstein before deciding to overhaul his charitable giving. The 95-year old Buffett directed all of this year’s donations to four family-linked foundations.
For years, the Gates Foundation was the largest recipient of his annual Berkshire donations. Since 2006, Buffett has donated more than $47 billion worth of Berkshire stock to the philanthropic organization founded by the Microsoft co-founder and his former wife, Melinda Gates.
Buffett said he and Gates remain in contact and recently spent several hours together in Omaha.
“He came by Omaha three weeks ago. I kind of lose track of time, but certainly not three months, and we spent three hours talking together,” Buffett said. “He intends to call me… He already proposed another meeting.”
In the hands of Buffett’s children
The Oracle of Omaha said his estate plan should place greater responsibility in the hands of his three children. He said he had gradually prepared them for that role over decades.
“I reevaluated my whole situation,” Buffett said. “What happened was that I gave the Gates Foundation a great deal of money. I thought that was a good decision. I think it was a decent decision, but I did not think my kids were in any way ready to give away vast sums of money.”
“I tell the three children that it is theirs, and it’s their responsibility to get it done well,” he said.
Buffett said in a statement earlier this week that his goal is to dispose of all of my Berkshire shares within about eight years as his children are “unfortunately growing older.”
This year, Buffett is giving the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, named for his late first wife, 9 million Class B shares with a current value of around $4.5 billion. The three foundations run by his children, Susie Buffett’s Sherwood Foundation, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and Peter Buffett’s NoVo Foundation, will each get 1 million Class B shares worth just under $500 million.
Buffett also said he recently underwent surgery after breaking his leg several weeks ago and is recovering well.
Ted Pick, CEO Morgan Stanley, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 18th, 2024.
Adam Galici | CNBC
Morgan Stanley is set to report second-quarter earnings before the opening bell Wednesday.
Here’s what Wall Street expects:
- Earnings per share: $2.94, according to LSEG
- Revenue: $19.64 billion, according to LSEG
- Investment banking: $2.17 billion, according to StreetAccount
- Trading: Equities of $4.41 billion, fixed income of $2.49 billion, according to StreetAccount
Morgan Stanley is expected to benefit from higher trading and investment banking revenue in the quarter, as rivals JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have shown in their reports.
Heightened activity fueled by the global artificial intelligence boom propelled JPMorgan and Goldman to beat estimates for equities trading by a combined $4.4 billion, while investment banking at the two firms topped estimates by a combined $1 billion.
Analysts will want to know what CEO Ted Pick has to say on the outlook for the rest of the year as geopolitical tensions remain high.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Binance’s XRP reserves have fallen to about 2.61 billion tokens, their lowest level since February, and the balance has held there since the start of July.
And even though the Ripple token had been sliding toward $1.06 while those reserves were draining out, it reversed course in the last 24 hours, gaining over 3% in that period.
Exchange Reserves Shrink as Selling Pressure Lingers
According to CryptoQuant contributor Arab Chain, there have been no meaningful inflows to replenish Binance’s XRP stockpile in recent months, which is why the reserve figure has held near its February 2026 low instead of climbing back.
A falling exchange balance can be considered a bullish signal since it is often taken to mean that investors are moving their stash into private wallets instead of preparing to sell. That signal took a while to show up in price, with Arab Chain noting that XRP had been falling to around $1.06 while reserves were emptying out, suggesting that liquidity, trading activity and investor sentiment were outweighing the effect of declining exchange supply.
In another market update, the same analysts pointed to the Binance CVD Confirmation Score, which blends price with Cumulative Volume Delta to track whether buy or sell orders are winning out in the spot market. That CVD reading is at -6.93 million, meaning that sell orders have outweighed buys as XRP fell from above $2.00 earlier this year toward the $1.07 area.
Meanwhile, the 30-day Price-CVD Confirmation Score is holding near 0.84, a figure Arab Chain says, while reasonably healthy, still falls short of confirming a genuine shift in buying demand. According to them, only a sustained move into positive CVD territory alongside a stronger confirmation score would point to a real reversal in buying interest.
As noted earlier, XRP’s price action has nevertheless improved modestly, with data from CoinGecko at the time of writing showing the asset trading around $1.11 after gaining about 3.7% in 24 hours, having oscillated between $1.07 and $1.12 during that period. However, the world’s sixth-largest cryptocurrency by market cap is still down 7% over the past month and more than 61% across one year, despite daily trading volume jumping 31% higher than the previous day to hit $1.26 billion.
Analysts Divided On Where XRP Heads Next
Such is the state of XRP that market watchers are split on what comes next. For example, popular trader Diana has pointed to $1.08 as the level to watch and warned that losing it could send XRP toward the $0.90-$0.93 zone before one last flush to the $0.87 macro support. Fellow analyst CasiTrades holds a similar technical view but frames it as the tail end of a yearlong correction, telling followers on X that a drop toward $0.87 would “finish off the correction we’ve spent the last year building.”
But others are looking past the near-term chop, with one of them, Crypto Patel, arguing that XRP is tracing a pattern that has historically come right before rallies of more than 1,000%. On his part, crypto investor Celal Kucuker pointed to a 500% monthly gain two years ago as a reason not to dismiss $7 by the end of the year.
The post Binance XRP Reserves at Lowest Since February as Ripple Price Defends Key Support appeared first on CryptoPotato.
Stripe and private equity firm Advent International have reportedly made a joint bid to buy PayPal Holdings, putting a major payments player directly in the middle of a fast-consolidating digital payments race.
According to Reuters, the offer would include about $50 billion in committed financing and would value PayPal at $60.50 per share, a figure described by sources as representing a 28% premium to PayPal’s Tuesday closing price. Both PayPal and Stripe declined to comment.
Key takeaways
- Reuters reports Stripe and Advent International have made a joint offer to acquire PayPal at $60.50 per share.
- The bid reportedly comes with roughly $50 billion in committed financing.
- The proposal would represent about a 28% premium versus PayPal’s Tuesday closing price.
- Both companies have been expanding crypto and stablecoin-related capabilities, which could be strategically relevant if a deal advances.
- PayPal stock rose in Wednesday premarket trading on the news, but the longer-term outcome depends on regulatory and shareholder processes.
A potential reshaping of mainstream payments
At the center of the report is a classic strategic question: whether large-scale payments infrastructure and consumer payment reach can be combined under one umbrella to compete more effectively with mobile-first options.
Reuters said the offer was made by Stripe alongside Advent International and referenced sources familiar with the matter. The proposed per-share price would imply a significant premium, and PayPal shares reflected that immediately—rising 11.3% to $52.73 in Wednesday premarket trading, according to Yahoo Finance data. Still, PayPal is described as having gained about 14% over the past month while remaining down 35% year-over-year, underscoring how investors are still weighing turnaround risk against growth prospects.
Why PayPal is back in the acquisition spotlight
This would be Stripe’s second attempt to acquire PayPal. Earlier reporting by Bloomberg in February said Stripe held preliminary acquisition talks with PayPal as PayPal faced increased competitive pressure from smartphone-based payment services such as Google Pay and Apple Pay.
What’s notable here is the timing: instead of focusing only on traditional payment processing, the competitive landscape increasingly includes payment rails that can move quickly into new settlement and compliance frameworks. That environment raises the stakes for any acquirer—especially one with a track record of building payment infrastructure across different use cases, from merchant processing to stablecoin-enabled settlement.
Stablecoins as a shared strategic direction
The acquisition rumor lands at a moment when both PayPal and Stripe have been pushing deeper into stablecoin activity, a sector that is increasingly viewed as an extension of payment networks rather than a standalone crypto experiment.
PayPal introduced its PYUSD stablecoin in 2023. CoinMarketCap data cited in the report shows PYUSD peaked at a market capitalization of about $4.2 billion in February 2026 before falling to roughly $2.85 billion. While PYUSD is described as one of the 10 largest stablecoins, it remains far behind leaders including Tether’s USDt and Circle’s USDC.
Stripe, meanwhile, has been building stablecoin-related infrastructure for payments and accounts. The report notes that Stripe has offered stablecoin-based accounts globally since May 2025, and that its stablecoin infrastructure platform, Bridge, received conditional approval to operate as a federally chartered national trust bank under the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Feb. 17.
Stripe has also accelerated adoption through partnerships. In March, Visa said it would expand its stablecoin card partnership with Stripe-owned Bridge to more than 100 countries across Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa, and the Middle East by the end of the year—an expansion that signals how stablecoins are being positioned to integrate into broader consumer payment flows.
What investors should monitor next
Even if the offer progresses, the path from a reported bid to a completed acquisition depends on standard deal mechanics: due diligence, agreement on terms, shareholder approval, and regulatory review. For crypto-adjacent investors, the stablecoin angle adds another layer of uncertainty—whether a combined company would streamline stablecoin strategy, expand payment settlement capabilities, or maintain separate roadmaps.
In the near term, the most important question is whether PayPal’s board engages meaningfully with the proposal and how competitors and regulators respond to a transaction that would unite large consumer payment distribution with stablecoin-enabled infrastructure. Readers should also watch the market’s reaction for signs of whether investors treat the news as a genuine path to consolidation or as a typical M&A rumor that may not clear the next hurdles.
XRP price prediction is back in focus as it trades around $1.11, up about 3.6% over the past 24 hours. It remains pinned beneath a resistance zone that has rejected several intraday rallies this week.
So far, this has been more of a slow grind than a breakout. But Ripple’s reported alignment with the x402 Foundation to support RLUSD-powered AI payments is giving the long-term story another boost.
The x402 initiative positions RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-backed stablecoin, as a settlement asset for autonomous AI agents. That narrative gained traction after the XRP Ledger processed more than one million agentic transactions using a fixed network fee of 0.0002 XRP per transaction. Meanwhile, the x402 Foundation includes major companies such as AWS, Google, Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Circle, and Coinbase, showing the project has serious industry backing rather than just marketing buzz.
At the same time, macro conditions have become a little friendlier. June’s US consumer inflation rate came in at 3.5% year over year, matching expectations after energy prices pulled the monthly index lower. That eased some concerns over tighter monetary policy and helped improve sentiment across equities and crypto.
Ripple’s payments narrative has been building for months, and RLUSD continues to expand its footprint. However, the price still needs to confirm the story. Until buyers force a clean breakout, XRP remains stuck in wait-and-see mode, with the fundamentals knocking while the chart keeps the door only slightly open.
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XRP Price Prediction: Break $1.15 This Week?
XRP trades around $1.11, after climbing roughly 3.5% over the past 24 hours. The session ranged between $1.06 and $1.12, while its market capitalization sits near $69 billion. Price is still coiling beneath $1.12, which often means the market is storing energy before making its next move.
Support remains around $1.05 to $1.06, where buyers have repeatedly shown up. Meanwhile, resistance stretches from $1.11 to $1.15, and sellers have defended that area more than once. Trading activity has also picked up, hinting at accumulation, although a convincing close above $1.12 would strengthen that case.
Three scenarios still stand out. The bullish path begins with a daily close above $1.15, opening the door toward the $1.20 to $1.30 area over time. The base case keeps XRP chopping between $1.07 and $1.13 as traders digest macro data. Sometimes the market just likes to make everyone wait.
The bearish case is equally simple. A decisive break below $1.05, backed by strong volume, would hand momentum back to sellers and could send XRP toward the mid $0.90s. While longer-term forecasts remain constructive, the near-term still belongs to the charts.
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Maxi Doge Targets Early Mover Upside as XRP Tests Key Levels
XRP at $1.10 with a $68 billion market cap is a legitimate holding, but the asymmetric upside that early XRP adopters captured is structurally unavailable at this size. That math drives traders to scan earlier stages of the cycle.
Technical analysis on XRP suggests the next meaningful move may take weeks to materialize, which is exactly the window that presale positions are designed to exploit.
Maxi Doge ($MAXI) is an ERC-20 meme token built around a deliberately absurd but surprisingly coherent concept: a 240-lb canine juggernaut channeling 1000x leverage trading energy, with community mechanics that go beyond a simple meme pump.
The project has raised $4.8 million at a current presale price of $0.0002829, with dynamic staking APY available to holders. Standout features include holder-only trading competitions with leaderboard rewards, a Maxi Fund treasury allocated to liquidity and partnerships, and a meme-first marketing strategy built on viral gym-bro culture.
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The post Ripple Joins x402 Foundation to Advance RLUSD AI Payments: Will XRP Price Benefit? appeared first on Cryptonews.
The Czech Finance Ministry added Polymarket to its list of unauthorized online gambling websites on Monday, requiring internet service providers (ISP) to block access.
The ministry listed the prediction market’s website under the country’s Gambling Act, which prohibits operators from offering unlicensed online gambling services to Czech users.
Under the Gambling Act, ISPs must block access to websites included on the ministry’s blacklist within 15 days of publication of the name.
Polymarket is a prediction market where users trade contracts tied to the outcomes of future events. The platform gained global attention during the 2024 US presidential election, with its markets widely cited as a gauge of election sentiment.
Polymarket and rival Kalshi have been restricted by regulators across the European Union, including in France, Germany, Poland, Romania and Spain.
Polymarket did not immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment.
Prediction markets face watchdog scrutiny beyond Europe
Regulators in several jurisdictions argue that some prediction market contracts amount to unlicensed gambling or fall under existing financial market rules.
On July 3, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) warned that many prediction market contracts could already fall under existing restrictions on binary options if they meet the definition of financial instruments.
The regulator said companies cannot avoid EU financial rules simply by marketing binary-style products as “event contracts” rather than derivatives. ESMA said the assessment depends on a contract’s characteristics rather than how they are marketed, adding that firms offering qualifying contracts to retail investors may already be subject to national restrictions implementing the bloc’s 2018 binary options ban.
ESMA also said companies offering such products to professional clients may need authorization under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or MiFID II.
Related: Wall Street banks tighten prediction market rules for staff as insider fears spread
Outside the EU, prediction markets have faced similar regulatory action in Australia, Indonesia and Singapore.
In the US, Kalshi and Polymarket have been targeted by regulators in several states over allegations that their event contracts constitute illegal gambling, while the Commodity Futures Trading Commission maintains such products fall under its exclusive jurisdiction as federally regulated derivatives.
The dispute has resulted in conflicting court rulings and prompted calls for Congress to clarify whether sports and political event contracts should be regulated as gambling or federally regulated derivatives.
Magazine: Strategy became a symbol of the dot-com crash: Could history repeat?
Payments giant Stripe offered to buy PayPal (PYPL) in a deal worth $53 billion, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday.
San Francisco-based Stripe made the $60.50-a-share offer in tandem with private equity firm Advent International, according to the report, which cited two people familiar with the matter.
The bid represents a premium of around 28% on PayPal’s closing price of $47.37 on Tuesday. The New York-listed payments provider’s shares have surged over 18% to $56.10 in pre-market trading.
The bid follows an earlier expression of interest, though PayPal has been reluctant to engage with the offer thus far, the FT said.
Neither PayPal, Stripe nor Advent immediately responded to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
Stripe and PayPal are among the most prominent mainstream financial companies bringing stablecoins to traditional payment mechanisms. Stablecoins are digital tokens pegged to the value of a traditional financial asset, usually a fiat currency.
PayPal’s stablecoin PYUSD is the eighth-largest in the sector with a market capitalization of $185 million, according to CoinGecko data. The industry is dominated by Tether’s USDT at $184 billion.
Stripe’s historical focus was on embedding the second-largest stablecoin, Circle Internet’s USDC, into its payments infrastructure.
It has recently moved toward offering stablecoin and other blockchain-based services more independently, developing with its own mainnet, Tempo. The company also joined the Open USD venture alongside Mastercard, Visa and BlackRock to develop a new stablecoin, which could pose a serious challenge USDC.
Japan has enacted sweeping amendments to its financial laws that classify cryptocurrencies as financial products, opening the door to lower crypto taxes, domestic exchange-traded funds and stricter market oversight.
Summary
- Japan has passed a law classifying cryptocurrencies as financial products under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act.
- The legislation creates a path for a 20% crypto tax rate, domestic crypto ETFs and stricter insider trading rules.
- Penalties for unregistered crypto businesses will increase, with implementation set to begin after the law is promulgated.
According to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK, the House of Councillors approved the amendments to the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act on Wednesday, completing the bill’s passage through both chambers of the Diet.
The legislation creates a separate legal category for crypto assets alongside traditional financial products such as stocks and bonds. Until now, cryptocurrencies had been regulated under the Payment Services Act as a payment method rather than as investment products.
Among the changes, the amended law introduces insider trading restrictions for crypto transactions, requires annual disclosures from issuers of certain crypto assets, and increases penalties for unregistered businesses.
CoinPost reported that the maximum prison sentence for operating without registration will increase from three years to 10 years, while the maximum fine will rise from 3 million yen to 10 million yen, or about $18,500 to $61,600.
Tax changes and ETF framework move forward
Beyond market conduct rules, the amendments establish the legal basis for separate taxation of crypto gains at an effective rate of about 20%, together with a three-year loss carry-forward deduction. Japan currently treats crypto profits as miscellaneous income, with tax rates reaching as high as 55%.
According to CoinPost, those tax provisions are expected to take effect in January 2028 because enforcement is scheduled to begin during the 2027 fiscal year.
The legislation also creates the foundation for issuing domestic spot cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds. CoinPost said the Japan Exchange Group is considering the first local crypto ETF listings as early as 2027, with traditional financial institutions expected to serve as issuers. The report added that approval of spot bitcoin ETFs has not yet been confirmed.
Following promulgation, the law is expected to take effect within one year, while cabinet ordinances and supervisory guidelines will determine how the new rules are implemented.
Crypto reforms accompany Japan’s Web3 strategy
The legislation follows a series of government efforts to strengthen Japan’s digital asset sector alongside its startup agenda.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi told attendees at WebX 2026 that Web3 forms part of Japan’s national innovation strategy rather than a standalone crypto initiative. As previously reported by crypto.news, she said the conference gives founders, investors and companies opportunities to build new business partnerships, although her address did not announce new funding or immediate regulatory measures.
The government’s Comprehensive Startup Support Package, introduced in 2025, seeks to expand startup financing through public and private institutions, while Japan’s five-year startup plan targets annual startup investment of about 10 trillion yen by fiscal 2027. Alongside those initiatives, lawmakers have continued advancing crypto reforms designed to bring digital assets closer to traditional financial markets through tax changes and an ETF framework.
Coinbase head of platform, Rob Witoff, said that the company estimates between 95% and 100% of its code is written by or with large language models. It is a figure that stood at 40% just five months ago in February. The jump represents one of the strongest public disclosures of AI adoption from a major publicly listed financial technology company.
Witoff described AI coding as effectively universal across the company, with employees using LLM-powered tools daily for drafting, refactoring, testing, reviewing, debugging, and generating boilerplate.
For sensitive infrastructures like cryptography and core security systems, Witoff acknowledged that human oversight remains central. Coinbase operates trading systems, custody infrastructure, wallets, compliance tools, and blockchain integrations where software errors carry direct financial and regulatory consequences.
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Armstrong’s Leaner Operating Model
The disclosure follows Coinbase’s May 2026 restructuring, which cut approximately 14% of the company’s workforce, or around 700 employees. CEO Brian Armstrong linked the change to AI, saying AI had “dramatically” changed how work gets done and that Coinbase needed to return to startup speed with AI at its core. Armstrong also stated that engineers were using AI to accomplish in days what previously required entire teams working for weeks.
Coinbase’s earlier estimate in February was that AI was involved in about 40% of its code, and the company says it has since moved to nearly all-code AI assistance in a matter of months.
Supporters argue that AI-assisted development could improve COIN’s operating leverage if a smaller engineering team can ship and maintain products at equivalent or greater velocity.
Under that scenario, margins could improve while development cycles become shorter. What remains unquantified is the long-term maintenance and security cost of running financial infrastructure increasingly developed with AI assistance, a variable that critics argue the industry has not yet stress-tested at scale.
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The 40% to 95% Coinbase Vibe Coding Shift
The term vibe coding describes developers accepting AI output with minimal scrutiny. Coinbase’s model, as Witoff described it, emphasizes supervised AI assistance rather than unreviewed production output: AI can be used for drafting, refactoring, testing, reviewing, debugging, and generating boilerplate, while engineers remain responsible for oversight and deployment in production environments.
That nuance is easy to lose in the headline number. Coinbase’s claim is that code is written by or with LLMs, with engineers retaining responsibility for oversight and deployment. The adoption of AI tools across the crypto industry continues to accelerate, while formal guidance and governance frameworks are still evolving.
Coinbase adoption curve, from experimental productivity tool to near-universal operating model in under a year, mirrors the pattern seen at AI-native startups, but at the scale of a regulated, publicly listed exchange.
The competitive implication for peers is not trivial: a crypto exchange that can prototype, iterate, and ship with fewer employees has a structural speed advantage in a market where product velocity directly correlates with user acquisition and trading volume.
The layoffs complicate the narrative. Connecting 700 job cuts to AI productivity gains is exactly the kind of framing that draws regulatory and political scrutiny. Today, Armstrong has leaned into it explicitly rather than softened the connection.
For now, the primary variable is whether Coinbase’s supervised AI-assisted model holds up at scale, and whether the company’s security and reliability record supports the productivity claims once audited under pressure.
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The post Brian Armstrong Reveals Coinbase is 95% Vibe Coded By AI appeared first on Cryptonews.
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