Is it officially stablecoin summer?
There’s never a dull moment on the blockchain. Here’s what you need to know this week:
Crypto prices dipped amid geopolitical uncertainty. Plus: crypto ETFs continue to surge, and ETH whales go all in.
Stablecoins are going mainstream. The Senate passed landmark stablecoin legislation, and the world’s largest retailers are plotting tokens of their own.
A record-breaking amount of ETH is currently staked. Plus, more key stats from around the cryptoverse.
MARKET BYTES
Markets dipped to start the week as geopolitical tensions rose
Prices for a wide range of cryptocurrencies — including bitcoin, ether, and many altcoins — dipped earlier this week, as rising geopolitical tensions spooked markets. Bitcoin, which spiked above $110,000 last week on news of a potential trade deal with China, fell below $104,000 on Tuesday.
In other macroeconomic news, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for its fourth consecutive meeting — with the expectation of two cuts later in 2025.
Speaking after the announcement, Fed Chair Jerome Powell signaled that the Fed is in no rush to cut rates as it negotiates a tricky landscape: “For the time being, we are well-positioned to wait to learn more about the likely course of the economy before considering any adjustments to our policy stance.”
“The Federal Reserve is navigating a narrow path,” one prominent asset manager told Bloomberg. “We expect the Fed to wait until the fourth quarter before it reduces policy rates.”
Despite recent volatility, BTC prices remain close to all-time highs set earlier this year, and a new report from Coinbase Institutional predicts that a new peak for bitcoin could come in the second half of 2025, assuming fears of a tariff-fueled recession continue to cool and crypto-friendly regulations continue to emerge.
Here are more market headlines from the week…
Crypto ETFs continued to surge
As prices surged last week, crypto investment products saw their ninth straight week of inflows, with last week’s $1.9 billion in new capital bringing the inflow streak to nearly $13 billion, according to CoinShares data.
More than half a billion of last week’s new capital flowed into Ethereum ETFs, which have seen a spike in interest in recent weeks. This includes a record-breaking 19-day inflow streak, ending Friday, that brought $1.37 billion into the asset class and even saw ETH products outperforming BTC products on some days.
It’s also been a huge year for altcoin ETF applications, with at least 31 new funds — including multiple products that would hold Solana and XRP — submitted to the SEC so far in 2025.
Trump play… On Monday, the Trump Media & Technology Group (which owns Truth Social) filed with the SEC for permission to launch a new ETF that would hold a mix of ETH and BTC.
Wall Street doubles down on crypto
Institutional investors on Wall Street and beyond have continued to make major crypto moves. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) reported purchasing another $1.08 billion in BTC, bringing its total holdings north of $64 billion — the largest crypto position of any public company.
Japanese firm Metaplanet, pursuing a similar strategy, added around $117 million in BTC to its balance sheet in its quest to add 210,000 BTC by 2027, which would make the company the second-largest corporate crypto holder.
Meanwhile, shares in the USDC stablecoin issuer Circle have continued to climb after the firm went public earlier this month at $31 per share, reaching as high as $198 on Wednesday.
ETH season?… According to Glassnode data, institutional investors have been buying ETH at a record clip as prices have slipped in recent days. “Onchain data suggests that larger market participants continue to treat the pullback as an opportunity to accumulate,” CoinDesk reported.
STABLECOIN SPOTLIGHT
Stablecoins are crossing over into the mainstream
One of the biggest crypto stories of 2025 has been the rise of stablecoins — digital tokens pegged to the price of another asset, typically the U.S. dollar.
In the last year, stablecoins have notched $33 trillion in transactions and now make up the second-largest payments network in the world, according to a new a16z crypto report.
“To put that into perspective,” the report noted, “that’s close to 20 times the volume of PayPal, close to 3 times the volume of Visa, and quickly approaching the volume of [global banking payment rail] ACH.”
That momentum shows no signs of slowing. Congress appears to be on the verge of passing major stablecoin legislation; some of the world’s largest companies are considering launching stablecoins of their own; and one top stablecoin executive predicts that the technology’s “iPhone moment” is on the horizon.
Here’s what you need to know…
Walmart and Amazon are considering launching their own stablecoins
The world’s two largest retailers are exploring launching their own stablecoins, according to The Wall Street Journal, joining a growing group that includes Expedia and several airlines that are investigating how crypto-based payments could offer advantages over traditional cross-border payments technology.
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has been expanding its fintech operations for years, including recently launching its own credit card. Amazon’s plans are reportedly centered around having its own coin for online purchases.
They’re far from the only major companies considering similar moves. Shopify recently announced plans to integrate USDC for payments by the end of the year; Stripe is letting small businesses in more than 100 countries accept stablecoins, and Google is enabling stablecoin payments for its cloud service. Meanwhile, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and other big banks are mulling issuing a joint stablecoin, and Apple is reportedly exploring using stablecoins as part of Apple Pay.
Why are companies so interested in stablecoins?
Stablecoins could unlock massive utility for global companies that operate across borders. Unlike traditional payments, which can take days to settle, stablecoins move virtually instantaneously.
Traditional payment processors also cost retailers billions of dollars each year in fees. A 2021 report from the Federal Reserve, for instance, found that merchants paid $32 billion in interchange fees on transactions from debit and prepaid cards. Stablecoins, on the other hand, are significantly cheaper to use.
Major stablecoin legislation is one step closer to becoming law in the U.S.
On Tuesday, the Senate passed the GENIUS Act, a landmark stablecoin bill, which could significantly expand the market potential of stablecoins, if enacted. This marks the first time the Senate has passed significant crypto legislation. Next up, the House of Representatives will determine whether to move forward with the bill or proceed with their own version.
As wealth manager Bernstein put it in a new report, the GENIUS Act could help stablecoins “evolve from the money rail of crypto to the money rail of the internet.”
The bill, which essentially treats stablecoins as digital cash, establishes strict guidelines for issuers. Stablecoins launched under the new law would be backed 1:1 by U.S. dollars or similar liquid assets like Treasury Bills, and undergo annual audits.
According to bill sponsor Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), smart stablecoin rules will help the U.S. economy compete far into the future, and help ensure the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global trade. “If we fail to act now, not only will these benefits slip away — we will also fall behind in global competitiveness,” Hagerty said. “Without a regulatory framework, stablecoin innovation will proliferate overseas, not in America.”
The bottom line…
In a post on X, Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire, whose newly public firm issues the USDC stablecoin, said that the moment is approaching when “developers everywhere realize the power and opportunity of programmable digital dollars on the Internet in the same way they saw the unlock of programmable mobile devices.”
NUMBERS TO KNOW
$70 million
Amount that venture capital giant a16z recently invested in Ethereum restaking protocol EigenLayer, adding to its previous $100 million stake. The fresh funding will support the protocol’s new “EigenCloud” platform, which aims to enable verification for offchain applications such as “LLMs, AI agents, prediction markets, medical records, traditional media, [and] social media.” EigenCloud will also verify price data for BlackRock’s $2.9 billion BUIDL fund according to tokenization firm Securitize.
35 million ETH
Amount of ether, worth roughly $90 billion, currently staked on Ethereum’s network, a new all-time high, per Dune analytics. As one analyst told Decrypt, the development “dovetails with market expectations around ETH turning more optimistic.”
2,700
Number of wallets holding at least 1 million XRP, a new milestone in the asset’s 12-year history, according to blockchain analytics firm Santiment. CoinDesk also notes that the amount of active XRP addresses has averaged 295,000 per day over the last week, a big uptick from the 40,000 level of the past three months.
TOKEN TRIVIA
What is dollar cost averaging?
A
A gradual investment strategy that does not rely on “timing the market”
B
A method to automate crypto purchases on Coinbase
C
A way to invest any amount of money at regular intervals of time
D
All of the above
Find the answer below.
Trivia Answer
D
All of the above
