Tether Proposes Mergers Involving Bitcoin Treasury Company
Mergers & Acquisitions
”Tether has proposed that Twenty One Capital merge with Strike, a crypto trading and spending platform, and Elektron Energy, a Bitcoin mining firm, at a time when Twenty One Capital’s main business of investing in Bitcoin has fallen out of favor. Twenty One launched in December via a special purpose acquisition company, backed by the stablecoin giant Tether, the Japanese investment firm SoftBank Group Corp. and the investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald LP. It held more than 40,000 Bitcoin — the third-largest corporate holding at the time. When the operation was first announced, publicly traded cryptocurrency treasury companies were popular, following the successful playbook of Michael Saylor’s Strategy. After the price of Bitcoin went into decline, though, the shares of many treasury companies dropped even more sharply. Critics questioned why investors would buy shares in Bitcoin-holding companies when they could buy Bitcoin itself.”
Source: Bloomberg
Visa Stablecoin Settlement Hits $7 Billion Run Rate as Pilot Expands to Nine Blockchains
Stablecoins
”Visa added five blockchains to its global stablecoin settlement pilot, bringing the total supported networks to nine as the company's annualized settlement run rate surged 50% since last quarter to $7 billion, the payments giant announced on Wednesday. The expansion introduces support for five additional blockchains, including Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo, according to a statement. These networks join Visa's existing infrastructure for Avalanche, Ethereum, Solana, and Stellar. Per the statement, the broader multi-chain rollout builds on Visa’s effort to standardize settlement across fragmented blockchain networks while maintaining a single infrastructure layer for partners.”
Source: The Block
Crypto Firm MoonPay Bets $100 Million for Institutional Push
Mergers & Acquisitions
”MoonPay Inc. has acquired Sodot, an Israeli crypto security startup, as part of a plan by the crypto payments firm to launch a new unit focused exclusively on catering to institutional demand for digital assets. The new unit, known as MoonPay Institutional, will connect large traditional financial firms to a variety of crypto and blockchain services, including trading, tokenized securities, payments, wallet management and stablecoin issuance. It’ll be led by Caroline D. Pham, who joined the New York-based firm as its chief legal officer and chief administrative officer in December, after serving as acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission throughout 2025. The all-stock transaction for Sodot, which closed this month, was worth around $100 million, according to people familiar with the matter who weren’t authorized to discuss non-public information. Pham declined to comment on the value of the transaction, as did a spokesperson for Sodot.”
Source: Bloomberg
World's Largest Stock Transfer Agent Is Moving into Tokenization Through Partnership with Securitize
Tokenization
”Australia’s Computershare, the financial services firm known as the transfer agent for a majority of S&P 500 companies that also facilitates direct stock purchase programs for millions of people in the United States, is moving into tokenization through a new partnership with digital asset specialist Securitize. The tie-up will allow U.S.-listed clients of Computershare to issue blockchain-based versions of their shares as Issuer-Sponsored Tokens, or ISTs, which allow holders to have the same rights as owners of traditional shares. These tokens differ from those offered by Kraken's xStocks or Robinhood, which provide indirect price exposure to stocks without voting rights or legal claims to the underlying shares.”
Source: Forbes
U.S. Senator Holding Cards on Clarity Act's Next Move Says It's Ready to Get to Hearing
Regulation
”The latest holding pattern for the bill to fully insert the crypto sector into the U.S. financial system was centered on Senator Thom Tillis' request that bankers get more time to negotiate the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act's approach on the contentious topic of stablecoin rewards. That may be over. Tillis told reporters on Wednesday that the work on the Clarity Act — the industry's top objective in Washington — has 'addressed a lot of the concerns' of the banking lobbyists who have been defending the turf of interest-bearing deposits they argued could be threatened by stablecoin yield. The Republican lawmaker said, 'I'm going to encourage the chair to move forward with the markup,' according to a Fox Business transcript of the remarks.”
Source: CoinDesk
