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Odaily Planet Daily reported that renowned startup accelerator Y Combinator stated that in the future, all of its portfolio companies may utilize crypto technology, particularly infrastructure like stablecoins, and this will not be limited to crypto or fintech startups.YC has previously invested in early-stage companies such as Airbnb, DoorDash, Coinbase, Stripe, Reddit, OpenAI, and Kalshi. Its latest statement primarily urges the U.S. Congress to pass the crypto market structure bill, the "Clarity Act."YC believes that for the crypto industry to enter a new phase, it must achieve deeper integration with traditional financial institutions such as banks and brokerages. The Clarity Act is expected to provide the regulatory foundation for this integration. The bill aims to clarify whether digital assets are securities or commodities, establish a registration pathway with the CFTC, and stipulate that customer assets belong to the customers in the event of bankruptcy.However, the prospects for the bill remain uncertain. Supporters argue that it has a bipartisan foundation, while opponents point out limited support from Democrats, the approaching midterm elections, and ethical controversies arising from Trump's direct association with the crypto industry. These factors could all increase legislative resistance.
According to official announcements, OKX has become one of the first partners of Mastercard’s newly launched Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M). AP4M targets high-frequency, low-value, and automated “machine-level” payment scenarios between AI Agents and supports multiple settlement methods, including bank cards and stablecoins. OKX will integrate into this ecosystem via its Agentic Wallet and the Agent Payments Protocol (APP). AP4M is built upon Mastercard’s Agent Pay, launched in 2025, aiming to provide payment infrastructure for commercial activities among AI Agents. Over 30 organizations are among the initial participants, including Stripe, Ant International, Cloudflare, Coinbase, and OKX—spanning payment, blockchain, and AI infrastructure sectors.
Global payment networks Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard are close to launching a new stablecoin platform.According to sources familiar with the matter, U.S. cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is also exploring the possibility of participating in this stablecoin platform. Meanwhile, Binance, Coinbase, Stripe, and Visa have all declined to comment, and Mastercard did not respond to requests for comment before publication. Additionally, the revenue-sharing agreement between Coinbase and Circle Internet is set to expire and be renewed in August of this year, with the current market cap of USDC reaching $76 billion. (CoinDesk)
According to The Block, treasury infrastructure provider Veda announced integration with embedded wallet infrastructure company Privy—the wallet infrastructure firm acquired by Stripe in June last year—making its non-custodial treasury infrastructure available via a self-serve API to over 2,000 developer teams under Privy.
Stripe officially announced on the X platform the launch of its new Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) feature. Users can now complete AI Agent payment-related setup and integration simply by sending a prompt to the AI Agent. Companies such as @zincdotcom, @agentscoretrust, and @ondbai have already begun accepting machine payments from AI agents via the MPP and x402 protocols.It is reported that this feature significantly lowers the barrier for autonomous payment integration of AI Agents, transforming the process from requiring manual code writing in the past to "getting it done with just one prompt."
According to CoinDesk, crypto infrastructure firm Zerohash is seeking new funding at a valuation exceeding $1.5 billion. This comes after Mastercard abandoned its investment plans for Zerohash following its $1.8 billion acquisition of UK-based stablecoin infrastructure company BVNK. Founded in 2017, Zerohash provides APIs and embedded development tools to financial institutions and fintech companies, enabling support for cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and tokenized products. The company now serves over 5 million users across 190 countries, with clients including Morgan Stanley, Stripe, Interactive Brokers, BlackRock’s BUIDL Fund, and Franklin Templeton. In September 2025, Zerohash closed its $104 million Series D-2 round, valuing the company at $1 billion at that time.
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan stated that privacy is becoming a core infrastructure direction for the next phase of the crypto industry. Recently, three institutional-grade blockchains focused on stablecoins and asset tokenization—Arc, Canton, and Tempo—have accumulated over $1 billion in total funding, indicating a rapidly growing demand from institutions for "privacy-friendly on-chain financial systems."Among them, stablecoin issuer Circle contributed $222 million in funding for Arc, giving it a valuation of approximately $3 billion; Digital Asset’s Canton blockchain is reportedly seeking $300 million in funding at a $2 billion valuation; and Tempo, backed by Stripe and Paradigm, has previously completed $500 million in funding at a valuation of $5 billion.Hougan noted that this funding wave reflects three major trends: the gradual clarification of the U.S. regulatory framework, increased institutional demand for on-chain privacy, and intensified competition among new blockchain networks supported by large enterprises. Current public blockchains still face structural trade-offs between speed, cost, security, and privacy. However, scenarios involving stablecoins and RWA tokenization require systems that simultaneously offer high performance, compliance, and privacy, making “verifiable privacy” a critical prerequisite for institutional adoption of on-chain finance.Hougan further stated that, for enterprises, “all transactions being publicly broadcast” is not an advantage but a potential flaw. In the future, users and institutions may find it increasingly difficult to accept a fully transparent on-chain financial environment. He believes that privacy capabilities could become the “killer app” driving the crypto industry into its next phase of mainstream adoption. Additionally, following the passage of the U.S. Genius Act in 2025, regulatory certainty has significantly increased, providing a clearer policy foundation for institutional funds to enter the crypto infrastructure space. (CoinDesk)
According to The Block, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has partnered with Coinbase and Stripe to launch Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments, enabling AI agents to conduct transactions using stablecoins. Coinbase stated that developers can build “agent-based payment” solutions using the x402 protocol, allowing AI agents to make micro-payments in USDC. This feature enables AI agents to instantly pay for web content, APIs, MCP servers, and other agents. AWS noted that developers can choose between Coinbase and Stripe wallets and fund those wallets using either stablecoins or fiat currency.
: Stripe officially announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide AI Agent payment capabilities for Amazon Bedrock AgentCore. AWS launched the AgentCore Payments feature on the same day, allowing AI Agents to instantly access and pay for web content, APIs, MCP servers, and other AI Agent service fees. Among them, Privy (a Stripe-owned company) will collaborate with Coinbase to provide wallet infrastructure and payment channels, supporting the initial stablecoin payment capabilities for AgentCore.
: The Solana Foundation and Google Cloud have jointly launched the AI payment gateway Pay.sh, allowing AI agents to pay for API services on a per-request basis using Solana on-chain stablecoins, eliminating the need for traditional account systems. The system is built on the x402 protocol and supports the Machine Payments Protocol developed by Tempo and Stripe.Currently, AI agents can access Google Cloud services such as Gemini, BigQuery, and VertexAI through Pay.sh. The platform also supports AI tools including Anthropic Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, and OpenClaw, along with over 50 community API providers. Additionally, it integrates infrastructure and data services such as Helius, Alchemy, Dune Analytics, and Nansen. (Decrypt)
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)
Anchorage Digital has announced a partnership with stablecoin infrastructure protocol M0 to jointly develop a next-generation compliant stablecoin issuance and management system aligned with the U.S. regulatory framework. Anchorage Digital plans to expand its issuance platform capabilities by integrating M0's modular stablecoin protocol, providing institutional clients with infrastructure support to issue stablecoins under the U.S. regulatory system.M0 allows institutions to issue and manage stablecoins based on demand and has already partnered with several payment and crypto platforms, including Stripe, MoonPay, and MetaMask. The protocol supports a highly modular design, enabling various types of institutions—including fintech companies, exchanges, and payment service providers—to quickly issue their own stablecoins. (CoinDesk)
According to The Block, Oobit—a wallet startup backed by Tether—has launched virtual “Agent Cards,” enterprise expense cards powered by Visa and designed for AI agents. These cards enable AI bots to make online purchases directly using their USDT balances, eliminating the need to convert to fiat currency or obtain manual, per-transaction approval. Each agent card features individual spending limits, category-level expenditure controls, and per-transaction or per-merchant caps. Every transaction automatically generates a human-readable record and supports integration with payment platforms such as Stripe for handling subscription billing and vendor payments.
According to Fortune, Meta has quietly launched a stablecoin payment feature, offering select creators in Colombia and the Philippines the ability to receive payments in USDC on the Solana and Polygon networks. Creators can enter their third-party wallet addresses into Facebook’s payout platform to withdraw funds. Meta does not provide USDC-to-local-fiat conversion services and partners with Stripe to handle related tax filings. According to Marc Boiron, CEO of Polygon Labs, the initiative is expected to expand to over 160 countries by year-end. This launch comes more than four years after Meta’s Libra project—later renamed Diem—was discontinued in 2022.
Meta has begun offering select creators the option to settle payments in USDC, allowing users to withdraw their earnings directly to wallets on Solana or Polygon.Creators can link crypto wallets (such as MetaMask, Phantom, etc.) to receive funds. Payment services are supported by Stripe, and users may be provided with crypto-related tax reports.Meta also cautioned that stablecoin payments carry inherent risks, and users are responsible for securing their own accounts and wallets; in the event of technical issues or special circumstances, the company may resort to alternative payment methods to complete settlements.According to previous reports, Meta is planning to further expand its stablecoin-related operations within the year.
A research report released by a16z Crypto states that stablecoins have evolved from niche trading tools into the foundational layer of a new global financial infrastructure, giving rise to a new generation of “Banking-as-a-Service” (BaaS) models. Unlike the previous wave of BaaS, this new model is built on onchain infrastructure and integrates account management, payments, foreign exchange, and credit functions via self-custodial wallets—significantly reducing reliance on traditional intermediaries. The report classifies blockchains into three categories: general-purpose public chains (e.g., Solana and Ethereum), purpose-built chains optimized for payment use cases (e.g., Stripe’s Tempo and Circle’s Arc), and compliance-focused networks designed for regulated institutions (e.g., Canton). On the regulatory front, following the passage of the GENIUS Act, stablecoin issuers are competing aggressively for national trust charters from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), aiming to gain direct access to the Federal Reserve’s payment rails and secure a central position within the payments stack. The report also notes that stablecoins have made significant progress in the “middle mile” of cross-border payments; however, liquidity bottlenecks between stablecoins and local fiat currencies remain unresolved in emerging markets. Looking ahead, as stablecoin scale grows, the onchain credit market is poised to become the next major opportunity after payments—providing capital to borrowers underserved by traditional financial systems. Moreover, the widespread adoption of stablecoins is expected to further reinforce the U.S. dollar’s global dominance.
According to Fortune, Tempo—a blockchain project backed by Stripe and Paradigm—has launched “Stablecoin Advisory” services to support enterprises and financial institutions in adopting stablecoins, including identifying suitable use cases and deploying engineers to assist with stablecoin integration. The report states that DoorDash is collaborating with Tempo to explore paying delivery personnel in stablecoins; Stripe, Coastal Community Bank, and ARQ are also building stablecoin infrastructure on Tempo’s platform, while Visa, OnePay, Felix, Fifth Third Bank, and Howard Hughes Holdings are integrating their payment operations with Tempo.
Odaily News The x402 protocol, incubated by Coinbase, has announced the launch of a unified platform called Agent.market, positioned as an "AI Agent App Store" for centrally showcasing and integrating various tools and services built on the protocol. According to the introduction, Agent.market already covers seven major categories at launch: inference, data, media, search, social, infrastructure, and trading. It integrates service providers including OpenAI, Bloomberg, CoinGecko, LinkedIn, X, and AWS Lambda, and supports permissionless integration.Erik Reppel, Engineering Lead at Coinbase Developer Platform, stated that the platform is essentially "an app store for agents." Currently, there are approximately 69,000 active agents on the x402 network, which have cumulatively completed over 165 million transactions, with a transaction volume reaching $50 million. Most services on Agent.market adopt a pay-per-use model, with some charging an "agentic premium" for AI agents. However, costs can be reduced through subscriptions in high-frequency usage scenarios. Meanwhile, the "agent economy" based on x402 is lowering customer acquisition and integration costs for businesses, unlocking previously constrained demand due to API keys, subscriptions, and micro-payment mechanisms.The x402 protocol is named after the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code, enabling websites, APIs, and AI agents to conduct instant micropayments via blockchain and traditional payment channels. The protocol is governed as an open standard by the x402 Foundation under the Linux Foundation and has received support from over 20 technology and crypto institutions including Cloudflare, Stripe, Amazon Web Services, Google, and Visa. (The Block)
According to its official X (Twitter) account, B.AI has released its latest weekly report, revealing several key developments in developer ecosystem growth and financial infrastructure building. On the product front, B.AI has officially launched the OpenClaw auto-configuration script, introduced the open-source AI coding assistant BAI Code, and completed Stripe integration—strengthening payment capabilities and development experience across the ecosystem. Regarding wallet support, multi-chain integration with KuCoin Web3 and Trust Wallet has been added. With user count surpassing 1 million, B.AI is continuously expanding its developer toolchain and financial connectivity for autonomous agents through deep partnerships with platforms such as KuCoin and Symbiosis, aiming to establish itself as a core AI infrastructure for the digital economy era.
According to Cointelegraph, Tempo—a payment-focused Layer-1 public blockchain backed by Stripe and Paradigm—recently launched its new “Zones” feature, enabling enterprises to conduct stablecoin transactions within permissioned environments while maintaining interoperability with public-chain liquidity. This functionality is primarily targeted at use cases such as payroll distribution, fund management, and B2B settlements. However, the feature has drawn criticism from industry observers due to its operator-centric design. Each Zone is controlled by a single operator who can view all transaction data and has the authority to suspend users’ transfer or withdrawal privileges in accordance with compliance requirements. Critics argue that this introduces a trust assumption akin to that of centralized exchanges, thereby deviating from blockchain’s core trustless principle.