News linked to both this project and an event.
stablecoin infrastructure startup Rain is now valued at $1.95 billion and has announced a partnership with payment giant Mastercard to issue credit and prepaid cards, while also exploring the use of stablecoins for payment settlements. Previously, Rain primarily relied on the Visa network for its card products. This collaboration with Mastercard marks its entry into a "dual-card network" strategy, further expanding its institutional client market. Rain stated that the partnership will focus on serving large institutional clients already deeply integrated with a single payment network, enabling them to introduce stablecoin settlement capabilities without altering their existing payment systems.Meanwhile, the application of stablecoins continues to expand across the industry, with institutions such as Stripe and Coinbase actively promoting the integration of stablecoin payments and settlements. This indicates that the convergence of traditional finance and crypto payment infrastructure is accelerating. Analysts suggest that as regulatory frameworks gradually become clearer, stablecoins are rapidly transitioning from trading tools to enterprise payment and cross-border settlement infrastructure. (Fortune)
Hut 8 announced its subsidiary has entered into a $200 million, 364-day bitcoin-backed credit agreement with FalconX to replace the previous financing arrangement from Coinbase Credit. The new financing carries an annualized fixed interest rate of 7.0%, a reduction of 200 basis points from the previous 9.0% rate on the Coinbase facility. During the period from December 2023 to March 2025, this financing cost had reached as high as 10.5%–11.5%, meaning cumulative reductions of up to 450 basis points, demonstrating continued progress in optimizing debt costs.Following this refinancing, approximately 3,300 BTC held by Hut 8 have been converted to an unencumbered state, valued at approximately $260 million based on market capitalization as of May 1, 2026. This significantly enhances the flexibility and liquidity capacity of its balance sheet. Additionally, the credit structure maintains key risk control provisions, including a limited recourse structure, a no-rehypothecation clause, and a fixed LTV threshold design to avoid triggering additional margin calls in the event of a decline in bitcoin prices.Hut 8 management stated that this financing not only reduces capital costs but also releases more unencumbered bitcoin assets, helping to enhance capital allocation flexibility across different market cycles. FalconX emphasized that this transaction reflects its growing capability in providing institutional-grade bitcoin credit solutions. (PRNewswire)
According to on-chain analyst Ember (@EmberCN), Pantera Capital—the lead investor in Ondo—transferred 83.9 million ONDO tokens (approximately $22.11 million) five hours ago. The market expects these tokens to be sold in the near term. The receiving address has a history of similar activity: one year ago, it received 34.28 million ONDO tokens (approximately $42.52 million) from Ondo’s multi-sig wallet and subsequently transferred them to Coinbase Prime in batches.
: Solana ecosystem multi-signature protocol Squads announced the completion of an $18 million strategic funding round, led by Solana Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, L1D, and others. Its total cumulative funding has now reached $42.9 million. According to reports, Squads' stablecoin payment platform Altitude allows enterprises to conduct 24/7 global payment settlements in stablecoins through self-custodial wallets, and connects to the global payment network via its compliance and risk control system. (The Block)
According to The Block, Squads, a multi-signature protocol in the Solana ecosystem, has announced the completion of an $18 million strategic funding round led by Solana Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Haun Ventures, L1D, and others. This round is an equity financing, bringing Squads’ total funding to $42.9 million. Squads will use the funds from this round to expand its stablecoin-based corporate finance platform, Altitude.
Blockworks has announced the completion of a Series A extension funding round, achieving a post-money valuation of $192 million. The round was co-led by ParaFi Capital and Reciprocal Ventures, with support from Coinbase Ventures, MoonPay Ventures, and several other institutions and industry participants. The funding also attracted investments from over 20 founders and operators of ecosystem projects including Solana, LayerZero, Arbitrum, and Kraken, though the specific amount raised has not been disclosed.The company stated that while the crypto market has grown to a trillion-dollar scale lacking traditional capital market infrastructure, it still faces issues such as fragmented data, inconsistent disclosure standards, and a lack of investor communication mechanisms. Blockworks aims to fill this gap through a "data + disclosure + investor relations" tripartite architecture. (CNBC)
On-chain lending platform Votre has raised $3.75 million in seed funding, led by a16z Crypto Startup Accelerator, with participation from MaC Venture Capital, Druid Ventures, and angel investors from Goldman Sachs, Harvard University, and OrangeDAO. Founded in 2025, Votre operates a non-custodial crypto lending platform on Coinbase’s Base Layer 2 network, enabling users to borrow USD—settled the same day—using Bitcoin as collateral, with loan sizes ranging from approximately $25,000 to $5 million. The funds will be used to scale technical infrastructure, increase platform capacity, enhance liquidity management tools, and strengthen risk and compliance systems.
OpenGradient, a verifiable AI computation layer, has announced the completion of a $9.5 million funding round. Investors include a16z crypto, Coinbase Ventures, SV Angel, Foresight Ventures, Pragma, SALT, Symbolic Capital, Canonical Crypto, Black Dragon, NEAR, Celestia, Thanefield Capital, and angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase. The new funds will support the development and expansion of a decentralized infrastructure network for hosting, executing, and verifying AI models—enabling open and auditable model execution.