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According to Bloomberg, stablecoin payment company KAST has completed its latest round of financing, raising $80 million, which values the company at $600 million. The round was co-led by QED Investors and Left Lane Capital, and the funds will be used for expansion in North America, Latin America, and the Middle East, as well as for hiring, licensing applications, and product development.According to insiders, KAST expects its annual revenue run rate to rise to $100 million this year. This financing further confirms the trend of venture capital firms continuing to invest heavily in the digital dollar account space, with related startups attracting significant capital inflows.

Coinbase Institutional posted on social media that the Federal Reserve's announcement of a 25 basis point rate cut this week aligns with market expectations, but its plan to implement Treasury reserve management purchases within the next 30 days can at least be seen as a positive signal.Here are the specific arrangements for the plan:Initial operation scale: $40 billionStart date: December 12.This liquidity injection comes earlier than expected, and reserve growth may continue until April 2026. We believe that the Federal Reserve's shift from balance sheet reduction to net injection can be viewed as "mild quantitative easing" or "stealth QE," which may provide support to the cryptocurrency market. Considering the reserve management purchase plan along with the federal funds futures market's expectation of two more rate cuts (a total of 50 basis points) before the first nine months of 2026, the policy environment may be more accommodative than anticipated.

Former Morgan Stanley NFA trader Jeff Park posted on the X platform that the Federal Reserve's recently announced reserve management-driven purchasing program, although labeled as "reserve management," is essentially still QE, just upgraded from "quantitative easing" to "qualitative easing."Under the ample reserves framework, reserves have perfect balance sheet flexibility due to a 0% risk weight under LCR, far surpassing short-term Treasury securities. This also explains why the SLR rule was suddenly relaxed before Thanksgiving and why a $40 billion monthly purchasing plan was quickly announced within two weeks before the end of QT.In short, short-term Treasury securities are "near-money," while reserves are "perfect money." Additionally, Jeff Park added that stablecoins are the most pressing "currency quality" issue at present, which is why cryptocurrencies are simply not going to disappear.

BitMEX founder Arthur Hayes published a lengthy article stating that the operations of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve are brewing a "Stealth QE," which could become a core catalyst for a new round of increases in Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market. Currently, U.S. government spending continues to expand, and political incentives determine that they are more inclined to issue debt rather than raise taxes.Foreign central banks are more inclined to buy gold rather than U.S. Treasuries due to the risk of having their dollar assets seized after the Russia-Ukraine war. The U.S. personal savings rate is insufficient to support the issuance of government bonds, while the four major commercial banks have only absorbed a small portion of the new debt. "Relative Value (RV) hedge funds" have become marginal buyers of U.S. Treasuries, primarily financing their purchases through repurchase agreements (repo).The U.S. Treasury is expected to issue about $2 trillion in new debt each year to cover the deficit. When market liquidity tightens and SOFR (Secured Overnight Financing Rate) exceeds the federal funds upper limit, the Federal Reserve injects cash directly into the market through the Standing Repo Facility (SRF). This is equivalent to "de facto QE": printing money → lending → supporting the Treasury market.As the usage of the SRF increases, global dollar liquidity rises, and the actual effect is equivalent to QE. Hayes predicts that this will reignite the bull market cycle for Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market. "Whenever the Federal Reserve expands its balance sheet, BTC goes up." Currently, during the U.S. government shutdown and Treasury auctions, liquidity is tightening in the short term, putting pressure on the cryptocurrency market.Hayes advises investors to "preserve capital and wait for the opportunity," stating that the market will experience a strong rebound after the "Stealth QE" is initiated.

ChainCatcher news, BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes posted on the X platform stating that the U.S. banking industry, led by JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, is preparing to increase credit support for domestic industries. He noted that this means the market will welcome "poor man's QE 4," and the increase in liquidity may drive Bitcoin prices further up.

ChainCatcher news, Deutsche Bank stated that if the turmoil that pushed the cost of long-term borrowing in the U.S. above 5% continues, the Federal Reserve will need to step in to stabilize the U.S. Treasury market.On Wednesday, concerns over the safety of U.S. assets escalated due to Trump's trade war, exacerbating the sell-off of U.S. Treasuries, with the 30-year Treasury yield rising to 5.02%, the highest level since November 2023. If this situation persists, the Federal Reserve will need to intervene, which the bank's global head of foreign exchange strategy, George Saravelos, referred to as a "circuit breaker"—that is, emergency quantitative easing. He wrote, "If the recent turmoil in the U.S. Treasury market continues, we believe the Federal Reserve will have no choice but to urgently purchase U.S. Treasuries to stabilize the bond market."

ChainCatcher news, Farside Investors data shows that Invesco Galaxy Ethereum Spot ETF (QETH) had a net inflow of 6.2 million dollars yesterday.

ChainCatcher news, according to The Block, the Bitcoin scaling protocol QED has completed a $6 million seed round financing, with Blockchain Capital as the sole investor, achieving a valuation of "nine figures," or at least $100 million. Previously, QED had raised $3.25 million in a Pre-seed round from institutions such as Arrington Capital, StarkWare, and Draper Dragon, as well as $1.35 million in an angel round from institutions like Sparkle Ventures, supported by Animoca Brands.It is reported that QED Protocol focuses on zero-knowledge proof verification technology, aiming to enable decentralized exchanges, DeFi, and other applications on Bitcoin through the Taproot upgrade. Founder Carter Feldman stated that QED Protocol can process over 150,000 transactions per second and plans to launch a testnet in the next 3-4 months, with the mainnet going live after community consensus is reached, along with the launch of a native token to incentivize the operation of high-performance infrastructure. QED is headquartered in Hong Kong, has over 30 full-time employees in the Greater Bay Area, and plans to open its first office in Texas, USA.

ChainCatcher news, the Ethereum spot ETF jointly launched by Invesco and Galaxy has been successfully registered with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) in the United States and is traded under the code "QETH".

ChainCatcher news, the ZK native blockchain protocol QED has announced the completion of a $3 million financing round, led by Arrington Capital, with participation from several renowned venture capital firms and companies including Starkware, Draper Dragon, Blockchain Builders Fund, Lbk Labs, Paper Ventures, Valhalla Capital, Edessa Capital, and Anagram Ltd. QED aims to revolutionize Bitcoin by combining the scalability of zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs with the liquidity and security of Bitcoin (BTC).It is reported that QED aims to address many of the shortcomings currently faced by Web3, including the challenges of building on blockchain, scalability issues, and poor user experience. As the world's first horizontally scalable blockchain, it benefits from more network nodes to increase throughput and allows any Web2 developer to write QED smart contracts using popular programming languages like Javascript and Python.

ChainCatcher news, according to Bloomberg, venture capital firm QED Investors announced that its two funds have completed fundraising of $925 million, with one early-stage fund raising $650 million and another early-growth fund raising $275 million. The new funds will support QED's continued investments in the global payments, lending, and cryptocurrency sectors.According to the crypto data platform RootData, QED has supported fintech companies such as Credit Karma, Klarna, Nubank, and Remitly, and its crypto investment portfolio includes crypto finance company Meow, blockchain development platform QuickNode, and fintech payment company Tribal Credit, among others. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, Indian crypto company Aqex Technologies India announced the completion of approximately $7.5 million in Series A funding, with participation from Hindustan Media Ventures.Aqex Technologies India plans to launch the cryptocurrency trading platform Aquarius Exchange later this year, aiming to bring professional trading services to the virtual digital asset market in South Asia (primarily India). The company has also established a strategic partnership with trading technology firm CQG. (source link)

ChainCatcher news, according to a document from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), fintech company Qenta, which uses blockchain technology to track precious metals, will go public on Nasdaq after merging with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Blockchain Coinvestors Acquisition Corp. The transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2023, and upon completion, the initial market capitalization of the merged company will be approximately $904 million.Qenta has also secured $180 million in funding from Luxembourg-based investment firm GEM Global Yield. GEM will provide Qenta with a 48-month equity subscription service. Qenta has already ventured from precious metals into the digital asset space, focusing on digital trading while providing provenance, custody, and ownership tracking through blockchain technology. (source link)