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Tether taps Deloitte for first USAT reserve report

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Tether invests in LayerZero Labs as it doubles down on cross-chain tech, agentic finance

Leading stablecoin issuer Tether has secured a sign-off from Deloitte for the first reserve report tied to its new U.S.-regulated stablecoin, after years struggling in its relationships with major accounting firms.

Deloitte reviewed a report prepared by Anchorage Digital Bank, which issued the company’s new USAT token. In a letter released Monday, the accounting firm said Anchorage reported $17.6 million in reserve assets backing 17.5 million USAT tokens in circulation. The token’s market cap has, since the report, risen to nearly $20 million as its growth accelerates.

The total market capitalization of the stablecoin sector has, in fact, been growing rapidly. It’s now past $315 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data, with Tether’s USDT making up $183 billion of that. Circle’s USDC comes in second place, at $76 billion.

The new USAT token follows the passage of the Genius Act last summer. The law limits the types of assets that can back stablecoins and requires larger issuers to move under federal oversight. USAT is structured to comply with those rules.

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Third-party attestations such as this differ from full audits, however. They offer a snapshot of reserves at a specific point in time rather than a deep review of company finances.

Tether has been leveraging the revenue it generates from the assets backing its stablecoins to invest in a plethora of industries. These include a majority stake in Latin American agricultural firm Adecoagro (AGRO), a privacy-focused health app, a stake in video-sharing platform Rumble (RUM). More recently, it invested $200 million in digital marketplace Whop.

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Pi Network Co-Founder Shares Key KYC Updates Pioneers Must Know

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Although it has been around for over half a decade in one form or another, and its Open Network was officially released over a year ago, Pi Network continues to be the center of tons of controversy related to its KYC procedures, as users are quite vocal about their failed migration processes.

Now, though, Dr. Nicolas Kokkalis, one of the project’s co-founders, spoke about some key details, including what could be next for Pi.

Pi’s KYC System

The exec began by explaining that the Pi Network community had “spent years collectively building Pi KYC solution.” They have created a system that allows people from all over the world to interact while keeping their privacy safe, he added. Because Pioneers are located worldwide, the KYC system had to achieve broad geographic coverage and scalability.

In addition to regular identity verification, the solution also integrates sanction screening and compliance checks in a single system. He outlined several reasons why the Core Team had decided to invest “so heavily” into building a robust KYC system:

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“From Pi Network’s perspective, it is foundational to the integrity and authenticity of the network. We also wanted to mitigate the need for Pioneers to pay out of pocket in order to verify their identity and thereby ensure accessibility to the entire community.”

He said the team sees KYC as a critical but unsolved problem in Web3. Consequently, they decided to build their system in-house rather than outsource it.

KYC’s Next Stage

Dr. Kokkalis further explained that the next phases of Pi’s KYC solution would be to treat it as a service, not just an internal system. Now, any transfer of funds or information begs the question of the identities of the sides involved in the move.

Being a project that has internally created its own KYC solution, the co-founder said Pi Network will offer their tech and product (not the data itself) as a service to other projects in Web3 or traditional businesses. He explained that Pi’s KYC approach is distinctive in several ways from other similar solutions:

  • Global coverage
  • Scalabity
  • A hybrid model that combines AI and human verification
  • Completed solution

He said the team is also working on adding additional safety steps, such as fingerprint verifications, to ensure no user information is lost or compromised. Lastly, he believes this step will allow the onboarding of non-Pi users to the Pi Network ecosystem.

The user comments below the official post on X were split on the matter. Some were supportive, indicating that if Pi KYC becomes a “true platform capability, that could be a major step toward real-world utility.” Others continue to be dismissive about Pi’s potential, saying, “What you are doing right now is preventing people who have been mining Pi Coin for 6 years from claiming their Pi coins, out of fear that the price might drop even further.”

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The post Pi Network Co-Founder Shares Key KYC Updates Pioneers Must Know appeared first on CryptoPotato.

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ECB Flags Stablecoins as a Growing Risk to Bank Lending

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ECB Flags Stablecoins as a Growing Risk to Bank Lending

The European Central Bank said rising stablecoin use can pull money out of bank deposits and weaken the way monetary policy flows through to lending, according to a new ECB working paper published Tuesday.

Growing adoption of stablecoins, which are digital assets often pegged to currencies such as the US dollar or euro, is expected to draw funds away from traditional bank deposits, the ECB said in its latest working paper series, “Stablecoins and Monetary Policy Transmission,” released Tuesday.

“Our analysis shows that rising interest in stablecoins is linked to a measurable decline in retail bank deposits and a reduction in lending to firms,” the report said, noting that stablecoins can reduce the amount of credit banks provide to the real economy.

The ECB noted that the effects are nonlinear and vary depending on the scale of stablecoin adoption, their design features, and how they are regulated.

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The report is part of the ECB’s ongoing efforts to monitor stablecoins, whose market capitalization has more than doubled over the past three years to $312 billion and is projected to reach $2 trillion by 2028.

Stablecoin impact: Banks, monetary policy and why currency matters

In assessing the impact of growing stablecoin adoption on banks, the ECB highlighted a deposit-substitution effect, where households and firms move funds from retail bank deposits to digital assets.

“Banks rely heavily on deposits as a stable and low-cost source of funding to support lending to households and businesses,” the study said.

“When deposits decline, banks may be forced to rely more on wholesale or market-based funding, which is typically more expensive and less stable,” it added.

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Actual and expected stablecoin market development. Source: ECB (Citigroup, Coinbase, JPMorgan)

The report also finds that stablecoins can change how policy interest rates affect bank funding costs and lending, with impacts varying by adoption scale, design and regulation.

“We find that stablecoin adoption interferes with multiple monetary policy transmission channels, potentially weakening the predictability of policy actions,” the ECB said.

Related: ECB targets 2027 digital euro pilot as provider selection begins in Q1 2026

The central bank warned that foreign-currency stablecoins could further weaken the connection between domestic monetary policy and bank lending, with risks amplified when the market is dominated by non-euro-denominated tokens.

The study reiterated that US dollar-backed stablecoins make up the vast majority of the stablecoin market. Data from CoinGecko shows these dollar-pegged tokens are valued at $301 billion, representing 97% of total stablecoin market capitalization at publishing time.

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