NYSE Moves to Build 24/7 Tokenized Stock Trading Platform

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🏛️ NYSE partners with Securitize to build tokenized stock trading

• 📉 Circle stock drops 20% as stablecoin yield faces regulatory threat

• 🧠 BitGo and Susquehanna launch institutional prediction markets access

• 🧾 Tether hires a Big Four firm to audit $184 billion in reserves

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Citrea!

Enter Bitcoin Capital Markets

Bitcoin’s application layer, Citrea, launched its mainnet, expanding Bitcoin’s utility to privacy, lending, BTC yields, and more.

Past efforts to build a Bitcoin ecosystem were forced to sacrifice programmability or rely on heavy trust assumptions that limited adoption. Citrea marks a new beginning: an end-to-end Bitcoin ecosystem that relies solely on the Bitcoin Network as its source of truth.

Citrea enables:

• cBTC: The first trust-minimized Bitcoin on a fully programmable platform.

• ctUSD: A native stablecoin for Bitcoin, allowing for unified liquidity.

• Bitcoin Capital Markets bringing demand, and utility to the Bitcoin Network.

NYSE Taps Securitize to Build Its 24/7 Tokenized Stock Trading Platform

The New York Stock Exchange signed a deal with Securitize on Tuesday to build its tokenized securities platform, the clearest signal yet that the two largest U.S. exchanges are in a full race to put stock trading on blockchain rails. Nasdaq already obtained regulatory approval for its framework and tapped Kraken to distribute stock tokens globally.

The approaches differ. Nasdaq is layering tokenization onto existing clearing infrastructure. NYSE is building a separate digital venue from scratch, designed for 24/7 trading with instant settlement and stablecoin-based funding. Securitize, backed by BlackRock and Ark Invest, will handle the issuance side, minting tokenized stocks and ETFs on the platform.

The platform still needs SEC and FINRA approval, with a late-2026 target. But the exchange that defines traditional equity markets is now building a blockchain competitor to itself.

Circle Stock Plunges 20% as Clarity Act Draft Threatens Stablecoin Yield

Circle's stock cratered 20% on Tuesday after a Clarity Act draft threatened to close the loophole that makes stablecoin yield possible. Coinbase fell nearly 10% alongside it. The bill, from Senators Alsobrooks and Tillis, would ban anything "economically equivalent to interest" on stablecoin balances, going further than the GENIUS Act, which only blocked issuers from paying yield directly.

The distinction matters. Coinbase offers 3.5% rewards on USDC balances, Kraken up to 5%, and Binance 5.63%. Those incentives have driven USDC adoption. Cut them, and the growth narrative weakens. USDC accounts for roughly 20% of Coinbase's revenue, with a large share paid back as rewards.

Analysts called the selloff an overreaction: Circle is still up 30% this year. But the banking lobby's fingerprints are on this draft, and Tether's same-day Big Four audit announcement added pressure on the other flank.

BitGo and Susquehanna Launch Institutional OTC Access to Prediction Markets

Prediction markets just got their prime brokerage moment. BitGo and Susquehanna Crypto launched an OTC desk on Tuesday that lets hedge funds, family offices, and large investors trade event contracts using crypto held in custody as collateral, with a $100,000 minimum. No retail platform, no liquidating positions to fund bets.

It's the same infrastructure pattern that brought institutions into crypto derivatives years ago: custody, collateral management, and bilateral execution bundled into one workflow. Susquehanna was already Kalshi's first designated market maker in 2024. BitGo went public in January at a $2 billion valuation.

Prediction market volume topped $44 billion in 2025, up from under $16 billion the year before, but almost all of it was retail. This is the first institutional on-ramp that doesn't require leaving the crypto ecosystem.

Tether Hires Big Four Firm for First Full Audit of $184 Billion USDT Reserves

Tether says it has hired a Big Four accounting firm to conduct the first full financial audit of the reserves behind its $184 billion USDT stablecoin. If delivered, it would resolve arguably the longest-running trust deficit in crypto.

The distinction matters. Tether has published quarterly attestations through BDO Italia for years, but those are point-in-time snapshots, not audits. A full audit examines assets, liabilities, internal controls, and reporting systems on a continuous basis. Tether did not name the firm.

The company has promised audits before. A 2017 engagement with Friedman LLP ended without a report. The CFTC fined Tether $41 million in 2021 for misrepresenting reserves. What has changed: the GENIUS Act, signed last July, requires stablecoin issuers above $50 billion to undergo annual audits. Tether no longer has a choice.

Why Elon’s $25B Chip Fab TeraFab Is 'Not Real' and AI Layoffs Are an Excuse

Elon Musk announced TeraFab, a $25 billion joint chip fabrication venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI targeting two-nanometer process technology. Ram Ahluwalia calls the entire thing bullshit.

TSM has invested hundreds of billions to build chip fabs. Tesla generates $3-6 billion in free cash flow. The math doesn’t work without massive dilution. Jensen Huang himself has said data centers in space don’t make sense.

Meanwhile Chris Perkins argues that AI layoffs across crypto and tech are a “beautiful excuse” for companies that need to restructure. Ram counters that net engineers are actually being hired, and the companies cutting the most are spending the most on Nvidia GPUs.

• 🤖 The U.S. derivatives regulator (CFTC) launched a new Innovation Task Force focused on crypto, AI, and prediction markets, aiming to build clearer rules for emerging technologies while coordinating more closely with the SEC and giving companies a direct channel to shape future regulation.

• 💳 The Solana Foundation introduced a developer platform that lets major institutions like Mastercard, Western Union, and Worldpay build blockchain-based payment and asset systems, simplifying complex crypto infrastructure into easy-to-use tools and signaling deeper adoption of blockchain for real-world finance.

• ⚖️ Jump Trading, a major high-frequency trading firm, pushed back against a $4 billion lawsuit tied to the collapse of Terraform Labs, arguing the case is an attempt by the bankrupt crypto company to shift blame for its $40 billion ecosystem failure and avoid paying a massive SEC fine.

• 🇧🇹 Bhutan transferred about 519.7 BTC worth roughly $37 million to external wallets, likely signaling ongoing sales from its state-managed crypto reserves, which have dropped from over 13,000 BTC at peak to about 4,453 BTC today.

• 🔗 Bitpanda, a Vienna-based crypto broker, is launching “Vision Chain,” a blockchain designed for European banks to issue and trade tokenized assets under EU regulations, using euro-backed stablecoins for fees and Optimism’s Ethereum-based infrastructure to enable compliant, always-on markets.

• 💱 Ripple joined a Singapore central bank-led project to test cross-border payments using its RLUSD stablecoin, working with fintech firm Unloq to automate trade settlements so payments are released only when conditions like shipment delivery are verified.

• 💵 Robinhood approved a $1.5 billion share buyback program and expanded its credit access to over $3 billion, aiming to stabilize its stock after a sharp decline tied to cooling crypto trading activity and strengthen its financial flexibility.

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