Circle Seeks U.S. Banking License to Hold USDC Reserves

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In today’s edition:

• 🏦 Circle seeks U.S. bank license for USDC reserves

• 🪙 Robinhood to launch Arbitrum-based layer 2

• 📜 Lummis pushes tax-free small crypto payments

• 💼 Maple & EtherFi team up on weETH-backed loans

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Circle Seeks U.S. Banking License to Directly Custody Billions in USDC Reserves

USDC issuer Circle has applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) for a national trust bank license, as per a report from Reuters.  

If approved, Circle will establish a new federally regulated entity called First National Digital Currency Bank. Currently, Anchorage Digital is the only other digital asset firm with a national trust bank charter in the U.S.

The trust bank license would allow Circle to directly manage and act as custodian for a portion of its USDC reserves, which are currently held at major institutions like BNY Mellon and managed by BlackRock.

The license would also enable Circle to offer custody services for digital assets, particularly tokenized stocks and bonds, to institutional clients.

The application comes as the U.S. moves closer to implementing a federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, which will require issuers to back tokens with liquid assets and disclose reserve details monthly.

The move follows Circle’s highly successful IPO last month. The stablecoin firm is now valued at over $40 billion.

Robinhood Is Building Its Own Layer 2 Blockchain

Trading platform Robinhood announced the development of its own layer 2 blockchain, designed to power the tokenization of real-world assets like stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The new blockchain will be based on the Arbitrum technology stack and is intended to support features like 24/7 trading, seamless bridging, and self-custody for tokenized assets.

Robinhood shared its plans as part of a broader announcement of its tokenized stock offerings to customers in the EU. These tokens will initially be issued on Arbitrum before moving to Robinhood’s native L2 chain.

“Our latest offerings lay the groundwork for crypto to become the backbone of the global financial system,” said Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev. 

Shares in Robinhood rallied 12.77% to a record high ahead of $93 on the news, rising a further 13% after hours.

Senator Lummis Pushes Making Small Crypto Transactions Tax-Free in ‘Big Beautiful Bill’

Senator Cynthia Lummis is leading a push to make small crypto transactions tax-free in the Senate’s "One Big Beautiful Bill" (OBBB), with a proposed amendment that would introduce a de minimis capital gains exemption for minor crypto payments.

The amendment would set a threshold – currently proposed at $300 per transaction – below which crypto payments would not trigger capital gains tax reporting. It also calls for a proposed annual cap of $5,000 in total small transactions that would qualify for the exemption.

The amendment also seeks to clarify and reform the taxation of staking and mining rewards, so that these are taxed only when sold, not when received, addressing what Lummis and advocates call "double taxation" and aligning tax policy with actual economic benefit.

Crypto industry advocates, including Bitcoin Policy Institute’s executive director Matthew Pine, are mobilizing support for the amendment, arguing that it will encourage adoption and innovation by removing unnecessary barriers to using digital assets in everyday commerce.

Maple Finance and EtherFi Launch Institutional Loans Backed by weETH

Decentralized finance platform Maple Finance has integrated EtherFi’s weETH as collateral for its on-chain institutional lending platform. 

The integration enables qualified borrowers to access USDC loans backed by weETH, EtherFi’s restaked Ethereum token, while continuing to earn ETHFI incentives.

The integration comes with a 2% APY rebate in ETHFI on the first $50 million in loans. 

weETH is one of the most widely used restaked assets in DeFi, with over $5.3 billion in circulation and about 75% already used as collateral in major protocols like Aave.

“As staking continues to mature, we’re seeing restaked assets like weETH take on a more central role in how institutional capital allocates onchain,” said Maple cofounder and CEO Sid Powell in a statement. 

“This integration reflects our long-term view that staking is not just a yield source, but a foundation for the next generation of collateral and credit markets.”

• ⚖️ The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case challenging the IRS’s mass data grab from Coinbase users, leaving intact lower court rulings that favored government access to crypto user info without individual warrants.

• 📈 A Solana ETF that delivers staking rewards to holders is set to debut this week, using a C-corp structure to bypass SEC ETF rules while passing through taxes as fund-level liabilities.

• 🕵️‍♂️ U.S. prosecutors charged four North Korean agents with posing as remote developers at a blockchain startup, stealing $900,000 in crypto and laundering it via sanctioned mixers to fund Pyongyang’s weapons program.

• 👮‍♂️ Spanish authorities, with support from Europol and multiple nations,arrested five suspects linked to a crypto fraud operation that laundered nearly $540 million through shell networks and global accounts, impacting over 5,000 victims.

• 🧾 Backed Finance launched 60 tokenized stocks and ETFs, including Apple and the S&P 500, on exchanges like Kraken and Bybit as part of its push to blur the lines between traditional equities and DeFi.

• 🇰🇿 Kazakhstan will build a national crypto reserve from seized digital assets and state-mined coins, consolidating them under a central custodian amid a broader push to formalize its role in the crypto economy.

• ⚒️ BitMine Immersion raised $250 million via private stock sale to start one of the largest ETH treasuries among public firms, appointing crypto bull Thomas Lee as chairman and citing Ethereum’s DeFi dominance as a driver.

• 💸 American Bitcoin, backed by Eric and Donald Trump Jr., secured $220 million by selling over 11 million shares—some paid in bitcoin—to expand its mining ops and BTC reserves ahead of a planned Nasdaq listing.

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