The battle is likely to be finished one way or another next month, when the Clarity Act gets its final three weeks of Senate action before the midterm elections, and the stakes will test the old-guard strength of bank lobbyists against the high-spending political powers of crypto advocates.

The banks have made an appeal that what they’re doing represents the public good: Their business model requires that people keep their money in deposits, which don’t pay enough interest to compete with what crypto firms would pay in stablecoin yield, if given the chance. People can’t be allowed to make money off their holdings of stablecoins, the banks contend, because if customers abandon low-interest bank deposits, the institutions won’t be able to reuse their money to support bank lending.

One of their standard bearers, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon, says banks aren’t being treated fairly, contending that stablecoins don’t carry the same government scrutiny, regulations and requirements to track the identity of users.

“It should be fair and equal, period,” Dimon, whose bank is the largest in the U.S., said in a June Fox Business interview, saying the Clarity Act had “almost no legal protections” to prevent money laundering and other illicit finance.

Binance has extended its rewards push around Ripple USD with another four-week campaign offering one million XRP to eligible RLUSD holders. 

The new campaign began at 00:00 UTC on Aug. 14 and runs through Sept. 11, according to the exchange’s updated announcement. Rewards will be distributed every Friday across four installments.

The follow-on program started immediately after Binance’s first RLUSD campaign ended on Aug. 14. That earlier promotion offered $800,000 worth of XRP across four weekly distributions beginning July 17. As crypto.news previously reported, the first campaign tied XRP rewards to eligible RLUSD balances held through Binance Earn and Margin products.

Binance keeps RLUSD eligibility rules largely unchanged

To qualify, users must maintain at least 0.01 RLUSD in an eligible Earn or Margin account and record at least $500 in average daily Margin or Futures trading volume. The trading volume can come from any supported pair as long as RLUSD is being used as collateral.

Binance calculates rewards using each user’s qualifying RLUSD balance and an effective annualized percentage rate determined for each weekly period. The lowest RLUSD balance observed during hourly snapshots becomes the qualifying balance for that day. There is no stated individual reward cap.

RLUSD created by borrowing other stablecoins receives different treatment. Binance applies a 60% haircut to the leveraged portion after accounting for liabilities involving USDT, USDC, U, USD1 and FDUSD. RLUSD that is itself recorded as a borrowing liability is excluded from the qualifying balance.

One million XRP will be distributed through Sept. 11

The first distribution under the new campaign is scheduled for Aug. 21, followed by payments on Aug. 28, Sept. 4 and Sept. 11. Binance will determine the effective APR and XRP valuation for each period at the time of distribution.

The prior campaign shows how those rates can move. Its effective APR started at 22.25% for the first week, then fell to 8.22%, 8.08% and 7.69% in subsequent distributions. Binance warns that the APR is “not indicative of future results” and may fluctuate from week to week.

“The old ‘long bitcoin, short the bankers’ trade is over: banks have moved from resisting digital assets to building and enabling or distributing them through custody, tokenization and regulated trading,” Dori said.

He attributed the shift to client demand and clearer rules, calling it structural rather than cyclical.

Early bank entrants included Swissquote, which added bitcoin trading in 2017, DBS in 2020 and BBVA in 2021. BNY Mellon started institutional crypto custody in 2022, the same year Nubank launched bitcoin and ether trading and LGT added crypto services.

St.Galler Kantonalbank and Santander followed in 2023, while Zürcher Kantonalbank added retail trading in 2024, before other major financial industry players including Standard Chartered, Charles Schwab, SoFi and Morgan Stanley entered the space.

Anchorage Digital CEO Nathan McCauley, meanwhile, said its client roster has increasingly reflected the convergence of traditional and decentralized finance over the past two years.

Large financial firms are partnering with specialist providers rather than building their own infrastructure, he said. Still, real-world assets coming onchain and crypto wrappers being created by large asset managers is showing two worlds are increasingly becoming one.

“We’re quickly headed towards a world where there isn’t ‘traditional finance’ and ‘decentralized finance.’ There’s just ‘finance,” McCauley told CoinDesk. “

An unnamed XRP Ledger startup being developed by former Ripple staffer Bias Goose will use RLUSD as a primary financial rail, according to a series of public posts published since Aug. 8. 

His latest Aug. 16 post said, “We will make RLUSD great again,” but disclosed no project name, partners or detailed product structure. Bias Goose previously worked in developer growth at Ripple and now works in marketing at Walrus Protocol.

The public disclosures remain narrower than some descriptions of the project suggest. Bias Goose has said the startup involves companies from a sector that has traditionally been resistant to blockchain and intends to generate “real yield” without its own token or artificial incentives. Those economic claims cannot yet be independently tested because the underlying businesses and revenue model remain undisclosed.

RLUSD is confirmed, but the startup remains unnamed

Bias Goose first said on Aug. 8 that the XRP Ledger would get a new startup “in just about a month.” That points broadly to September rather than establishing a firm launch date. No exact date was included in that announcement.

Two days later, he said the team had formed partnerships with a “rather closed off sector” and planned to bring participants from that industry onchain. He also said the model would use RLUSD rails, involve XRP later and feature “no incentives, no tokens.” These remain statements from the project’s creator rather than independently confirmed partner announcements.

Yield claims remain the biggest unanswered question

The commercial pitch centers on returns generated by real-world activity rather than token emissions. Reports have attributed expectations of returns above U.S. Treasury yields to the project, but no underlying assets, borrowers, contractual cash flows or audited performance figures have been released. Those return claims should therefore be treated as forward-looking and unverified.

RLUSD itself does not automatically produce those returns. Ripple describes the stablecoin as a dollar-backed asset designed for payments, settlements, treasury management and onchain finance. Any yield offered through the startup would need to originate from another asset, strategy or commercial activity layered around RLUSD.

RLUSD already has a growing institutional footprint

Ripple’s latest transparency report showed $1.5896 billion of RLUSD circulating against $1.7026 billion in reserve funds as of Aug. 6. Standard Custody & Trust Company, the issuer, is supervised by the New York Department of Financial Services, while Ripple publishes monthly third-party attestations covering supply and reserves.

RLUSD has also expanded internationally. Ripple and SBI launched the stablecoin in Japan in June following regulatory approval there. As crypto.news previously reported, RLUSD trading had driven more than $2.5 billion through XRP Ledger pairs by late June, giving new XRPL applications a deeper dollar-liquidity base than existed when RLUSD launched.

What happens next

The next verifiable milestone is a fuller project reveal. Bias Goose’s Aug. 8 timeline points to roughly early September, but no firm launch date has been announced. Claims about counterparties, expected returns, legal structure or a possible Walrus integration remain unconfirmed until the project or its partners publish supporting details.

There is also no announced project token. Bias Goose has explicitly said the model will use “no incentives, no tokens” while operating on RLUSD rails. If that remains the structure, the main questions will be how RLUSD enters the system, what activity produces the proposed returns, how risks are managed and whether XRP gains a role beyond serving as the XRP Ledger’s native asset.

Cardano’s Dijkstra upgrade remains on its agreed technical scope and schedule, with developers targeting Linear Leios and Nested Transactions in the first phase before a separate Peras activation in 2027. 

Intersect said in its Aug. 14 update that planning is now shifting toward ecosystem readiness, testnet reporting and support for alternative node implementations.

The latest official roadmap divides Dijkstra into two phases. Phase 1 introduces the new Dijkstra ledger era and Linear Leios, with a Q4 2026 code-completion target. Phase 2 activates Ouroboros Peras through an intra-era hard fork targeted for Q2 2027. The published schedule explicitly says those dates are estimates and “not guarantees,” as testing and on-chain governance can extend the final mainnet timeline.

Cardano Dijkstra puts Linear Leios in Phase 1

Linear Leios is the main scaling component of the first Dijkstra hard fork. Rather than replacing Cardano’s Praos security model, it introduces Endorser Blocks that can reference additional transactions and have them certified by stake-based committees. The design aims to increase throughput while retaining the existing base consensus guarantees.

Phase 1 also includes Nested Transactions, new transaction and block serialization structures, PlutusV4 changes and several protocol parameter additions. Importantly, it will install the codec extensions and parameters required for Peras without activating Peras itself.

As crypto.news previously reported, Cardano’s van Rossem hard fork moved mainnet to Protocol Version 11 in July and laid technical groundwork for Dijkstra and Leios.

Ouroboros Peras is scheduled for Phase 2. The protocol adds a voting layer that allows committees of stake pool operators to vote on recent chain tips, giving Cardano a way to reach settlement faster than under standard Praos chain-depth rules.

Intersect currently targets Q2 2027 for the Peras phase. That will require its own Preview and Pre-production deployments followed by another mainnet governance action. Phase 1 must already be active because it supplies the ledger structures and protocol parameters Peras requires.

Amaru moves toward Cardano block production

Dijkstra is also pushing Cardano toward greater node-client diversity. Intersect said Amaru, an open-source Rust implementation, is already relay capable and can validate and synchronize with the chain tip. Mainnet block production is targeted for November 2026.

Amaru’s own development tracker provides more detail. Its general block-producer release is targeted for Sept. 30, followed by a Dijkstra-compatible block producer milestone on Oct. 29 and a Leios-compatible release on Nov. 26. These are development milestones rather than guaranteed Cardano mainnet activation dates.

Node diversity would reduce Cardano’s reliance on its Haskell implementation. Intersect is also developing a Dijkstra readiness tracker covering testnet performance and ecosystem preparation while inviting alternative node teams into its weekly Hard Fork Working Group.

Governance changes must arrive before Dijkstra

Dijkstra introduces protocol parameters that Cardano governance cannot change unless they appear explicitly within the Constitution’s guardrails. Input Output therefore plans a narrow constitutional amendment adding the relevant parameters and permitted ranges. It does not propose changes to governance roles, voting thresholds or constitutional principles.

The current target is to submit that governance action no later than Epoch 655, beginning Sept. 11. Community discussion is already being organized through Intersect’s Constitutional Amendment Portal, which had received four initial submissions by Aug. 14.

Ultimately, the near-term work centers on completing Dijkstra code, establishing readiness criteria and moving the first phase through Preview and Pre-production before any mainnet governance vote. Intersect’s latest update says the agreed scope and target dates remain unchanged.

The main caveat is timing. Although the Haskell node team is working toward Phase 1 mainnet delivery by the end of 2026, the formal roadmap describes Q4 as a code-completion target and says governance and community testing can push activation later. Peras remains targeted for Q2 2027 after Phase 1 is deployed.

Harvard Management Company kept its position in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust unchanged during the second quarter, ending two consecutive quarters of reductions in its publicly disclosed Bitcoin exposure. 

Its Aug. 14 SEC filing showed 3,044,612 IBIT shares worth $101.36 million as of June 30.

The share count was identical to March 31, when the position was worth about $116.97 million. The roughly $15.6 million decline in reported value therefore came from IBIT’s lower quarter end price rather than additional selling by Harvard.

Harvard stops selling after two quarters of IBIT cuts

Harvard had been reducing its Bitcoin ETF exposure since late 2025. It held 6,813,612 IBIT shares at the end of September before cutting the position about 21% to 5,353,612 shares in the fourth quarter. It then sold another 2.31 million shares during Q1, reducing the position 43% to its current 3,044,612 shares.

As crypto.news previously reported, Harvard cut its Bitcoin ETF position 43% and exited its Ether ETF entirely during Q1. The latest filing contains no BlackRock Ethereum ETF position, confirming Harvard did not rebuild that exposure during Q2.

Harvard’s IBIT position accounted for about 2.4% of the $4.26 billion in securities reported on its latest 13F. The filing listed 19 positions in total. Space Exploration Technologies was the largest at $2.21 billion.

Gold exposure remains larger than Harvard’s Bitcoin ETF stake

Harvard reported $149.5 million in the iShares Gold Trust and another $21.7 million in SPDR Gold Trust shares. Together, those positions were worth about $171.2 million, compared with $101.4 million in IBIT at June 30.

The comparison applies only to securities disclosed on Form 13F. It does not mean gold represents a larger allocation than Bitcoin across Harvard’s entire investment portfolio. SEC guidance says Form 13F covers qualifying securities over which an institutional manager exercises investment discretion, including U.S. listed ETFs. It does not provide a complete picture of private funds or other assets outside the reporting regime.

Dartmouth College also kept its crypto ETF share counts unchanged during Q2. As crypto.news reported, Dartmouth retained its Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana ETF positions, although their combined quarter end value fell. Its SEC filing shows 201,531 IBIT shares, 178,148 Grayscale Ethereum Staking ETF shares and 304,803 Bitwise Solana Staking ETF shares.

Abu Dhabi funds keep nearly $764M in IBIT

Two Abu Dhabi investment entities also made no changes to their reported IBIT share counts. Mubadala Investment Company held 14,721,917 shares worth $490.1 million at June 30.

Abu Dhabi Investment Council reported another 8,218,712 shares worth $273.6 million. Together, the two filings show about 22.94 million IBIT shares valued at roughly $763.7 million at quarter end. Both share counts were unchanged from Q1.

That contrasts with Q1, when Mubadala added to its position while Harvard was reducing exposure. In related coverage, Mubadala increased its Bitcoin ETF holdings as Harvard sold shares.

JPMorgan adds IBIT while Morgan Stanley trims

Other institutional filings showed a mixed picture. JPMorgan reported about 10.4 million IBIT shares at June 30, up from approximately 8.3 million three months earlier. Morgan Stanley moved in the opposite direction, reducing its reported IBIT position about 4.5% to roughly 16.5 million shares worth $548.6 million.

Those filings should not automatically be interpreted as proprietary Bitcoin bets by the banks. The SEC says Form 13F can aggregate securities over which banks, broker dealers, investment advisers and related entities exercise investment discretion, including client accounts and trading activities.

Tudor Investment Corporation reported 688,529 IBIT shares worth $22.9 million, 109,446 more shares than in Q1. Its filing also included IBIT put and call options, showing that the reported equity position alone does not capture the manager’s complete exposure.

What happens next

The filings provide a snapshot only as of June 30. They do not reveal transactions made during the third quarter or show whether Harvard, the Abu Dhabi funds or other managers have changed their positions since then.

The next Form 13F cycle will disclose qualifying holdings as of Sept. 30. Until then, the latest verified data shows Harvard ended two quarters of IBIT selling without adding shares, while Mubadala and ADIC also maintained their positions. The wider institutional picture remained mixed, with JPMorgan and Tudor reporting higher IBIT exposure while Morgan Stanley trimmed its reported stake.