Hi! In today’s edition:
🪙 Securitize decided make a statement with its IPO.
🏦 One of the world's most closely watched banks is bringing USDC to institutions.
📊 Ondo shows it can make tokenized offerings fully compliant with U.S. rules.
Securitize Tokenizes Itself the Day It Lists
Securitize became a public company and a tokenization case study on the same day. The firm started trading on the NYSE Thursday under the ticker SECZ, following its SPAC merger with Cantor Equity Partners II, and simultaneously put $295 million of that same stock onchain on Solana and Avalanche.
“Bringing SECZ onchain is not just a milestone for Securitize,” Securitize CEO Carlos Domingo said in a statement. “It is a blueprint for public companies that want to use tokenization to create more efficient, transparent and useful ownership experiences for their shareholders.”
Unlike wrapped tokens from third parties, SECZ's onchain version is the identical common stock trading on the exchange, issued directly by Securitize itself. Shares climbed as much as 9% from $12.45 to $13.70 intraday before falling to close at $12.30.
Securitize already handles the tokenization plumbing behind BlackRock's BUIDL fund. The company posted $19.5 million in first-quarter revenue, up 39% year over year.
A Systemically Important Bank Now Mints USDC Directly
Standard Chartered says it has become the first Global Systemically Important Bank licensed to let institutional clients mint and redeem USDC directly, without opening a separate account with issuer Circle. The capability launched Thursday through the bank's Dubai International Financial Centre unit, with plans to expand into other markets pending regulatory approval.
Corporate and investment banking CEO Roberto Hoornweg said the move brings "the same levels of trust and governance that underpin traditional markets" to digital assets. Circle's Kash Razzaghi called it a way for institutions to access USDC "while maintaining the compliance, governance and risk management standards they expect."
Ondo Tokenizes BlackRock and Micron the SEC's Way
Ondo Finance rolled out tokenized versions of BlackRock's iShares Core S&P 500 ETF and Micron shares on Thursday, calling it the first live deployment of the custodial tokenization model the SEC outlined in January. A regulated transfer agent, Ondo's own Oasis Pro TA, holds the underlying shares and mints one-for-one tokens on Ethereum, while Broadridge handles proxy voting and shareholder communications so holders get real governance rights.
“Tokenized Securities in the U.S. are too often framed as a binary choice between competing models and tokenization providers. This is a false premise,” Ondo CEO Ian De Bode said. “Ondo has built the regulatory, product, and service infrastructure to support all major models within the United States.”
One catch: the new tokenized stocks are not yet available to U.S. investors, even though they are built entirely around U.S. rules.
⚖️ The U.S. Treasury sanctioned 134 crypto addresses tied to ISIS-K on Wednesday, and Tether froze all 131 Tron wallets in the batch, leaving three Monero addresses beyond reach. The Tron wallets had taken in more than $1.4 million since 2023, according to Chainalysis.
📊 Metaplanet added 2,823 bitcoin in the second quarter, its smallest quarterly purchase in a year, bringing its total holdings to 43,000 BTC.
📉 SBI Crypto will shut down its mining pool on July 31, giving miners under a month to redirect roughly 2% of Bitcoin's total hashrate. The Japanese financial giant did not disclose a reason for the closure.
🏛️ CFTC Chairman Michael Selig wrote that Illinois lawmakers "decided they know better" than federal regulators by passing a 0.2% tax on crypto transfers regardless of profit. Selig warned the law could push blockchain firms out of the state as Congress weighs the CLARITY Act.
🇷🇺 Bank of Russia Governor Elvira Nabiullina said the country is ready for "widespread use" of the digital ruble, with major banks and retailers required to accept it by September 1, according to a local media report. An independent survey reportedly found Russians still don't understand why they'd need a third form of money beyond cash and bank transfers.
🏦 Anchorage Digital integrated with Lido, letting institutions mint and burn wstETH directly from its platform without leaving Anchorage's custody and compliance framework. The move extends Anchorage's push to bring staking, restaking, and governance under one regulated roof.
💰 Erebor Bank is in talks to raise funding at a valuation of at least $8 billion, nearly double the $4.35 billion it fetched in December, Bloomberg reported. Deposits at the Palmer Luckey-founded, Peter Thiel-backed bank have almost quadrupled since March to $4.05 billion.
💸 eToro led a $12.5 million round for onchain perpetuals exchange Extended, with Jump Crypto and Alber Blanc also participating. The broker plans to plug Extended's derivatives engine directly into its Zengo wallet as rivals like Robinhood push deeper into onchain trading, CoinDesk reported.
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