Stablecoin

Coinbase Ventures purchased Ethena’s ENA token on the open market as Coinbase and Ethena prepare to roll out new onchain finance and digital savings offerings. Ethena said an initial growth initiative is expected to launch next week and could make its products available to Coinbase’s user base of more than 100 million people. The update comes as Ethena reported USDe supply above $1B and outlined recent expansion across Solana and multiple partner venues.

Ripple has made its USD-backed stablecoin RLUSD available in Turkey through partnerships with Bilira, Bitexen, and Bitlo, aiming to provide enterprises with regulated access to digital dollars. The rollout targets use cases including payments, liquidity, collateral management, and tokenization in a market estimated at roughly $200 billion in annual crypto transaction volume in 2025.

Ethena founder Guy Young said USDe will go live on Coinbase next week, marking the first time Ethena products become accessible to Coinbase's 100m+ users. Coinbase also said it bought ENA on the open market as part of the arrangement, after which ENA rose nearly 28% from $0.08 to $0.10.

Tether and Fasset say they have launched the world's first gold-backed neobanking Visa card, letting users pay merchants globally while earning tokenized gold via cashback and auto round-ups. The product offers up to 6% cashback paid in XAUT and is backed by up to $1 million in XAUT rewards at launch. Users convert XAUT to USDT and then to fiat at checkout, while Fasset targets its $32 billion annualized-volume user base across Asia and Africa.

The US Treasury's OFAC sanctioned Iran's largest crypto exchange Nobitex and three other platforms—Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex—under the Trump administration's 'Economic Fury' campaign. Officials alleged the exchanges enabled sanctions evasion and processed activity tied to the IRGC, while Treasury said Nobitex handled more than 50% of Iranian digital asset inflows in 2025. The designations also included Nobitex leaders such as chairman and co-founder Amir Hossein Rad, with Treasury citing a $90 million hack in June 2025 that Rad allegedly helped the platform recover from.

On June 1, 2026, Japan put new Financial Services Agency rules into effect to recognize qualified foreign stablecoins as electronic payment instruments, while the ruling LDP's blockchain panel urged wider use of yen-denominated stablecoins for Asian cross-border payments. The shift comes as the global stablecoin market is over $240 billion and remains heavily dollar-centric, even as local players such as JPYC and bank-backed initiatives target large-scale yen issuance and settlement.

LayerZero has published an ecosystem report positioning itself as institutional-grade finance infrastructure, including plans for "Zero," a dedicated Layer 1 aimed at tokenized assets, stablecoin settlement, and always-on capital markets. The report says the protocol has facilitated more than $260bn in value transfer and supports about 70% of cross-chain stablecoin volume. The update comes as L2BEAT questioned whether post-KelpDAO moves from LayerZero to Chainlink's CCIP necessarily deliver material security gains.

Mastercard said it will extend its global card settlement network to support regulated stablecoins alongside existing fiat settlement, adding intraday options plus weekend and holiday processing. The program covers USDC, PYUSD, RLUSD, USDG, USDP and SoFiUSD across eight chains, with ARQ, CBW Bank, Cross River, Lead Bank and Nuvei expected to be early activators in the U.S. and Latin America. The company said the broader rollout is planned to continue through 2026 as more regions, partners and stablecoins are added.

A UK House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee report said Britain is falling behind the U.S. and EU on stablecoin regulation and urged the Bank of England and the FCA to adjust proposals it says could hinder market development. The panel highlighted the BoE's proposed £20,000 individual holding cap and a requirement for systemic issuers to keep at least 40% of backing assets in unremunerated central bank deposits, while also questioning the FCA's volume-based k-factor capital approach.

On June 2, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Nobitex, describing it as Iran's largest cryptocurrency exchange, and also designated several of its senior executives. Officials alleged the platform enabled sanctions evasion and processed transactions tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including activity involving stablecoins. The package also targeted Iranian exchanges Wallex, Bitpin, and Ramzinex, with restrictions blocking U.S.-jurisdiction property and limiting dealings by U.S. persons.