President Trump Urges ‘Lightning Fast’ House Approval of Stablecoin Bill

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🇺🇸 Trump wants stablecoin law passed “LIGHTNING FAST”

• 💀 Hacker tied to North Korea had full code access to Waves

• 🔧 Polygon zkEVM team spins off to form ZisK

• 💸 Tron fees beat ETH — just as SRM bets it all

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Trump Urges ‘Lightning Fast’ House Passage of Stablecoin Bill After Senate Approval

President Donald Trump on Wednesday night called on the House of Representatives to quickly pass the GENIUS Act, the major stablecoin bill that cleared the Senate earlier this week, voicing strong support for what he called an “incredible Bill.”

In a post on Truth Social, Trump urged the House to move “LIGHTNING FAST” so he could sign the bill into law. He praised the legislation as a step toward making the United States the “UNDISPUTED Leader in Digital Assets,” and warned lawmakers against making any changes, writing, “NO DELAYS, NO ADD ONS.”

The Senate passed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins Act — or GENIUS Act — on Tuesday in a 68–30 bipartisan vote. The bill would create the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoins, requiring full reserve backing, monthly audits, and compliance with anti-money laundering laws.

It also authorizes a broad range of issuers — including banks, payment firms, and even retailers — to offer stablecoins under federal oversight.

North Korean Hacker Gains High Level Access to Waves’ Keeper-Wallet Codebase: Report

A North Korean developer-turned-hacker, linked to online contracting rings known for infiltrating software projects, gained high-level access to the Waves Protocol’s Keeper-Wallet codebase, according to security researchers at Ketman.

The attacker, using the GitHub account “AhegaoXXX,” was able to open branches, create releases, and publish updates to the node package manager (npm) registry, effectively gaining control over the project’s code.

The GitHub account of a former Waves engineer, Maxim Smolyakov, was used to approve changes and trigger new releases. Ketman noted that this account had been inactive since 2023, but suddenly approved a pull request from the attacker.

Redirect rules were set up to move code from the main Waves Protocol organization to the Keeper-Wallet project, suggesting someone with inside knowledge was involved.

“We didn't do the regular notification because Waves Protocol itself seems to be malicious,” said pseudonymous Ketman researcher @bigblackswan on X.

“Just don't use it, don't integrate it, don't run their code,” they added.

Polygon Co-Founder Spins Off zkVM Team to Launch ZisK

Polygon co-founder Jordi Baylina has spun off from Polygon to launch ZisK, an independent project focused on advancing zero-knowledge virtual machine (zkVM) technology.

The core team behind Polygon’s zkEVM – the zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine – has moved with Baylina to this new venture, transferring all related intellectual property and code to SilentSig Switzerland GmbH, a company wholly owned by Baylina.

ZisK’s mission is to develop a low-latency, open-source zkVM stack, supporting multiple programming languages and enabling scalable, privacy-preserving blockchain applications. 

It was incubated within Polygon Labs before it was spun off this month, and follows Polygon’s strategic decision to phase out its underutilized zkEVM chain and redirect resources to its proof-of-stake network and AggLayer protocol.

Baylina will remain a Polygon advisor, but his main focus will now be on ZisK.

Tron Is Now More Expensive Than Ethereum. Will That Hurt Justin Sun’s New Company?

Dozens of crypto treasury companies have been announced since the beginning of the year. However, none may be as controversial as Nasdaq-listed SRM Entertainment (SRM), which is transitioning into a Tron (TRX) treasury company via a reverse merger and a $210 million injection of capital.

The market reaction to the announcement was swift. Shares in SRM, which will change its name to Tron Inc., are up 547.5% as of Wednesday morning.

Tron’s billionaire founder Justin Sun, who is investing $100 million into the deal and is becoming an advisor to the company, tweeted after the news broke, “This time the big one is finally here.”

But with rising fees, falling usage, and growing political entanglements, could this new venture be betting on the wrong blockchain at the worst time?

• 🕵️‍♂️ U.S. authorities filed to seize $225 million in crypto from wallets tied to global confidence scams in the largest crypto seizure in Secret Service history, following a joint investigation involving blockchain analysis.

• ⏱️ Securitize and Ethena Labs enabled continuous atomic swaps between BlackRock’s $2.88 billion tokenized BUIDL fund and the USDtb stablecoin to enhance institutional DeFi access and bolster onchain dollar liquidity.

• 📉 A memecoin called USDP on Solana lost nearly all of its $150 million market cap in under six hours after wallets tied to insiders offloaded massive holdings shortly after a price surge, according to onchain analysis.

• 🇨🇳➡️🇺🇸 Under pressure from U.S. tariffs, Chinese mining chip producers Bitmain, MicroBT, and Canaan, who collectively control 99% of global ASIC output, have started building manufacturing bases in the United States.

• 🔧 Paxos launched Paxos Labs to help institutions issue custom stablecoins, deploy tokenized yield strategies, and manage digital assets via API tools tailored for fintechs, exchanges, and DeFi networks.

• 🤝 Coinbase partnered with Nodal Clear to enable USDC as regulated collateral in U.S. futures trading and expanded its stablecoin payments network amid growing institutional support following new Senate legislation.

• 💳 Coinbase launched Coinbase Payments on its Base network to let merchants accept 24/7 USDC payments with no blockchain knowledge, integrating with Shopify.

• 🪙 Deribit and Crypto.com began accepting BlackRock’s tokenized Treasury fund BUIDL as trading collateral, allowing institutions to post low-volatility government debt instead of crypto assets to access leverage more efficiently.

• 🏛️ Ohio’s House passed a bill granting a $200 crypto capital gains exemption, shielding miners and wallet users from state interference and discriminatory zoning, while advancing broader protections for digital asset activity to the state Senate.

• 💼 Hong Kong’s Lion Group secured a $600 million facility from ATW Partners to fund its Hyperliquid treasury, with an initial $10.6 million tranche closing within 48 hours and future plans involving SOL and SUI custody via BitGo.

• 💵 Bitdeer revealed plans to raise $330 million through convertible notes to offset shrinking revenue and scale U.S. operations, just weeks after posting a 41% year-over-year revenue decline and a $3.2 million loss.

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