Tether Eyes U.S. Comeback

Hi! In today’s edition:

• 🏛️ Tether preps U.S. return with new token

• 🧑‍⚖️ PUMP suit names Solana & Jito leaders

• 🏦 Wall Street goes onchain with MMFs

• 💸 LetsBONK commits to memecoin buybacks

• 💼 Solana treasury firm seeks $1.5B raise

• ⚔️ ETH vs XRP: who wins the narrative?

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Tether Plans U.S. Market Entry In The Next Few Months

Stablecoin giant Tether plans to reenter the U.S. market with a new stablecoin specifically designed for domestic users, in alignment with the newly enacted Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino confirmed that the company is finalizing its strategy to launch a U.S.-based, dollar-pegged stablecoin by late 2025 or early 2026, with a focus on institutional payments and interbank settlements.

The new stablecoin will be separate from Tether's existing USDT, which will continue serving international markets under a different legal framework.

Ardoino said the plans were “well underway” and that the firm plans to “announce it in the next couple of months.”

Tether's USDT currently dominates global stablecoin circulation with over $162 billion but has been largely excluded from the regulated U.S. market due to past regulatory challenges.

Lawsuit Names Solana and Jito Execs in Pump.fun Fraud Case

Law firms Burwick Law and Wolf Popper have named executives from Solana and Jito Labs in an expanded lawsuit against the memecoin platform Pump.fun.

The lawsuit, filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), accuses these defendants of involvement in illegal gambling, wire fraud, intellectual property theft, unlicensed money transmission, securities fraud, and other violations.

The executives named in the complaint include Solana co-founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, as well as Solana Foundation executives Dan Albert, Lily Liu, and former communications lead Austin Federa.

Jito Labs CEO Lucas Bruder and COO Brian Smith were also named in the lawsuit.

The law firms allege that they knowingly participated in and directly benefited from fraudulent activities linked to Pump.fun’s bonding curve mechanism, which generated over $722 million through alleged illegal gambling schemes.

“The conduct at issue here is not just a failure of crypto regulation – it is the reintroduction of casino gambling under the false pretense of decentralized technology,” said the law firms in the complaint. 

After a record-breaking ICO, the PUMP token is down bad. Laura chats LIVE with Delphi Digital’s Yan Liberman, Simon Shockey, and Jason Pagoulatos to dissect what's happening and all the factors that could be at play. Tune in at 10:30 am E.T on X or YouTube.

Don’t miss it - add it to your calendar!

Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon Launch Tokenized MMFs

Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and BNY Mellon have partnered to launch tokenized versions of money market funds (MMFs), primarily backed by U.S. Treasury securities, aimed at institutional investors.

The tokenized funds will be accessible through BNY Mellon's LiquidityDirect platform, with ownership records and transactions recorded on Goldman Sachs’ blockchain infrastructure, known as the Digital Asset Platform (DAP).

This opens the door for the firms’ institutional clients to trade shares of money market funds 24/7 in a programmable and interoperable digital form, supporting automated treasury functions like real-time liquidity management and portfolio rebalancing via smart contracts.

Early participants include major asset managers such as BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, Federated Hermes, and Goldman Sachs itself.

The market for tokenized U.S. Treasuries has been growing rapidly, increasing nearly 500% in the year to around $6.75 billion as of this month. 

LetsBONK Allocates 1% Revenue to Weekly Buybacks of Top Memecoins

Solana-based memecoin launchpad LetsBONK plans to allocate 1% of its total platform revenue to buying back the top tokens within its ecosystem.

The funds for the initiative will be reassigned from the team’s marketing fund, designed to directly support and strengthen leading tokens launched through LetsBONK.

LetsBONK founder Tom said the buybacks would happen once a week, and any trading pair that “reaches the high levels” could be included. 

As of Wednesday evening, the most popular tokens in its ecosystem were Useless Coin with over $300 million in market cap, and Grok AI companion-inspired token ANI, with over $80 million in market cap.

In the past 24 hours, LetsBONK generated $1.4 million in platform fees, which would amount to $14,000 of weekly buyback pressure on the most prominent tokens.

New Solana Treasury Company Raising $1.5 Billion to Be Led by Joe McCann

Joe McCann, the founder and CEO of crypto hedge fund Asymmetric Financial, is set to become the CEO of a new Solana (SOL) crypto treasury company called Accelerate, according to pitch documents seen by Unchained.

The firm intends to go public via a SPAC with the blank check vehicle Gores X Holding.

For McCann, news of this new venture comes at an awkward time, as he has been the talk of the crypto industry over the last day because of reports that Asymmetric’s liquid fund is down 80% so far this year. The broader crypto market is up by almost $600 billion year to date and bitcoin itself set an all-time high above $123,000 last week.

With a record fundraise in motion and scrutiny mounting, can Accelerate succeed where McCann’s last big bet faltered?

ETH’s Push for $4,000 Is Making Headlines, But Price Charts Favor XRP

Ethereum (ETH) bulls are crowing. The asset has doubled in the past three months after spending most of 2025 trailing market leaders such as bitcoin (BTC), solana (SOL), and XRP (XRP). And for established holders, this move — which comes on the back of the GENIUS Act being signed into law and a growing swell of ETH-focused treasury companies — could not have come too soon.

“What we are seeing in crypto markets is that assets that are perceived to benefit from rising stablecoin adoption are outperforming,” said Zach Pandl, head of research at Grayscale Investments, in an interview. “The number one example is Ethereum. Ethereum hosts around half of all stablecoin balances and about 40% of stablecoin transactions.”

But while ETH’s rally dominates headlines, could XRP quietly steal the show with stronger momentum and a potential ETF on the way?

• 💸 FTX will begin its third round of repayments to former users on September 30, after a court allowed it to unlock $1.9 billion from its claims reserve, bringing total approved distributions so far to $6.2 billion.

• 🔓 Crypto and fintech groups are pressing President Trump to block JPMorgan’s plan to charge for access to consumer bank data, warning it could undercut open banking, kill wallet competition, and harm stablecoin adoption.

• 📈 Solana developers are testing a 66% increase to the network’s processing limit per block, aiming to support heavier traffic from complex apps like DeFi order books and NFT mints without slowing down transactions.

• 🤝 Trump-aligned World Liberty bought $6 million worth of Vaulta tokens and struck a deal to integrate its USD1 stablecoin into Vaulta’s Web3 banking platform, raising fresh concerns over the fund’s political entanglements.

• 🐵 A U.S. appeals court ruled that NFTs can receive trademark protection but reversed an earlier $9 million ruling against artist Ryder Ripps, sending Yuga Labs’ case back to trial over potential buyer confusion.

• 🧨 A few major investors, possibly including Justin Sun, pulled $1.7 billion in ETH from Aave, triggering a surge in borrowing costs and a mass unwinding of risky trades that clogged staking exits with over $2.3 billion in pending withdrawals.

• ⛓️ A judge allowed disputed testimony in Roman Storm’s trial despite the agent admitting he couldn’t prove stolen crypto reached Tornado Cash directly, casting doubt on key evidence in the high-profile laundering case.

• ⚡ Bitzero, backed by Kevin O’Leary, raised $25 million to expand its hydro-powered mining operations in North America and Europe, with nearly 3,000 new machines expected to generate $10 million in annual revenue.

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