settle

According to CoinDesk, Mastercard is expanding its settlement network to support regulated stablecoins, planning to offer stablecoin settlement, intraday settlement, weekend and holiday settlement services to meet the demand for real-time fund flow.The new framework will run in parallel with existing fiat settlement processes, aiming to provide financial institutions with more flexible liquidity management. Mastercard will initially support Circle's USDC, Paxos-issued PYUSD, USDG and USDP, Ripple's RLUSD, and SoFiUSD, covering blockchain networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, and XRPL. Financial institutions such as Cross River, Lead Bank, CBW Bank, ARQ, and Nuvei will be among the first participants.

Michael Selig, Chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), stated that the enforcement actions during the Biden administration are "politically targeted" at Gemini co-founder cryptocurrency exchanges and that he is pushing for a correction in the handling of related cases.Under Michael Selig's leadership, the CFTC last week requested a federal court to withdraw the $5 million settlement reached between the agency and Gemini in January 2025. This settlement occurred before the Donald Trump administration took over the commission. Gemini co-founders Tyler Winklevoss and Cameron Winklevoss had each donated $1 million to Donald Trump's 2024 campaign and attended White House events, including the signing ceremony of the GENIUS Act related to stablecoins.

The Ethereum Layer 2 project Movement, which fell into controversy shortly after its launch last year, is seeking transformation. Move Industries' new CEO Torab Torabi stated that Movement has been repositioned as an independent Layer 1 blockchain, aiming to become the settlement infrastructure for stablecoins in emerging markets.Move Industries announced on Tuesday that over the past few months, the company has gained access to a compliant payment network covering the United States, Canada, and the European Union by collaborating with regulated remittance institutions and electronic money institutions, laying the foundation for stablecoin payments and cross-border settlement operations. According to the announcement, the company has currently established partnerships with stablecoin issuer Circle, wallet project KAST, and Sorted, as well as tokenization projects Oro, Yuzu Money, and Zoth.In addition, Avant Protocol has chosen Movement Network as the infrastructure platform for its revenue and fund management products, further expanding Movement's application scenarios in the fields of stablecoins and real-world assets (RWA).

United Texas Bank announced that it has received approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to convert its state bank charter into a national bank charter, allowing it to directly access the Federal Reserve payment systems (ACH and Wire) while maintaining FDIC insurance coverage. This will provide a more stable dollar banking channel for cryptocurrency exchanges, OTC desks, and stablecoin-related businesses, addressing the dollar settlement and liquidity issues in the cryptocurrency market.

According to The Block, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) announced that its "Project Agorá" tokenization prototype has successfully verified the feasibility of atomic settlement for cross-border wholesale transactions. The prototype employs a layered architecture, utilizing tokenized central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits to achieve "all or nothing" transaction chain execution across multiple currencies and jurisdictions, while allowing central banks to retain operational autonomy.Legal analysis shows that finality of settlement can be achieved in all seven participating jurisdictions, and privacy protection can also be ensured within a compliant framework. The project is jointly initiated by the BIS and the International Financial Association, with participation from seven central banks including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Bank of England, the Bank of France, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of Korea, the Bank of Mexico, and the Swiss National Bank, as well as over 40 private financial institutions. In the next phase, the Bank of Canada will officially join as the eighth central bank member, and the project will advance to the real value testing stage, further expanding private sector participation.

According to Bloomberg, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and its partners are about to launch a real-value transaction test for the digital cross-border payment project Project Agorá. This project involves the BIS, seven central banks, and more than 40 regulated institutions, including the New York Fed, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan, the Bank of England, as well as JPMorgan, UBS, Deutsche Bank, and others.The prototype adopts the concept of a "unified ledger," utilizing blockchain technology to complete interbank transfers between different countries in seconds, trading in an "atomic" manner. The system retains existing sanctions enforcement and anti-money laundering screening mechanisms. The BIS stated that tokenization can safely and effectively address the inefficiencies of wholesale cross-border payments. The Bank of Canada has joined the project, and more private institutions are expected to join as well.

According to CoinDesk, the latest research from Project Agorá, led by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), shows that tokenization technology is expected to significantly improve settlement speed and reconciliation efficiency in cross-border payments, while reducing transaction failures and operational risks.The project involves BIS collaborating with seven central banks and over 40 financial institutions, including the New York Fed, Bank of England, Bank of Japan, and Swiss National Bank. The research suggests that tokenizing central bank reserves and commercial bank deposits can support "atomic settlement" across currencies and jurisdictions, allowing transactions to "either complete simultaneously or fail simultaneously," thereby reducing the credit and execution risks commonly associated with cross-border payments.Currently, Project Agorá has completed the simulation testing phase and plans to enter the "real-value" trading testing phase to explore on-chain settlement applications for certain currencies and institutions in a real funds environment.

The crypto market maker Keyrock, in collaboration with Coinbase, Tempo, and Virtuals Protocol, released the report "Who Pays the Agent?" which states that AI Agents are rapidly becoming important participants in the on-chain economy. Data shows that from May 2025 to April 2026, AI Agents have completed approximately 176 million on-chain transactions, with a total settlement amount exceeding $73 million. The report points out that the average payment amount per transaction for AI Agents is only between $0.31 and $0.48, indicating that a machine-native micropayment economy is forming. About 76% of the transaction amounts are below the Visa fixed fee threshold of $0.30, making it difficult for traditional bank cards and banking payment systems to adapt to the high-frequency, small, autonomous payment needs of AI.Data shows that 98.6% of AI Agent payments are settled in USDC. As of Q1 2026, more than 104,000 AI Agents have completed registration. The report states that on the Base network, the cost of a USDC transfer is about $0.0001, accounting for approximately 0.03% of the $0.31 transaction amount, which presents a significant cost advantage compared to traditional payment systems. The report believes that stablecoins are gradually becoming the "default currency infrastructure" for economic activities between AI and machines. However, Keyrock also warns that the current AI payment ecosystem's high dependence on USDC poses a centralization risk, meaning that the entire emerging AI payment system largely relies on the regulation and infrastructure stability of a single stablecoin issuer.In addition, several technology and payment companies have begun to lay out AI Agent payment infrastructure, including the x402 protocol launched by Coinbase, the Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) launched by Stripe and Tempo, Google's AP2 delegated payment system, and Visa's expanded tokenized payment voucher service. The report also points out that the current regulatory frameworks, including the European MiCA Act, the U.S. GENIUS Act, and the EU AI Act, still lack comprehensive regulatory standards for autonomous financial transactions and payment behaviors between machines.

Keyrock's latest report shows that crypto rails are gradually becoming the default payment layer for AI Agents. Over the past year, AI Agents have completed more than 176 million transactions via blockchain, with a settlement amount exceeding 73 million dollars.As AI Agents begin to autonomously purchase data, cloud computing power, API services, and AI inference resources, the traditional bank card payment system has struggled to adapt to high-frequency, ultra-small payment scenarios. Currently, about 76% of Agent payment amounts are below 30 cents, while some on-chain stablecoin transfer costs are only "a fraction of a cent." Coinbase, Stripe, Google, and Visa have all begun to lay out the infrastructure for machine-to-machine payments. Among them, Coinbase's x402 protocol allows AI Agents to directly use USDC to pay for on-chain analysis and cloud service fees.Data shows that currently, 98.6% of AI Agent payments are settled in USDC. The report suggests that this further strengthens Circle's important position in the crypto payment field, but it also means that the industry's reliance on a single stablecoin issuer is increasing.

According to The Block, FTX's former major external law firm Fenwick & West has agreed to pay $54 million to settle claims related to its alleged assistance in facilitating Sam Bankman-Fried's fraudulent activities. In addition, the auditing firm Prager Metis has agreed to pay $11.75 million, and former Miami Heat player Udonis Haslem, as a former promoter of FTX, will pay $420,000, bringing the total to approximately $66 million.The above settlement marks the second round of resolutions in the FTX class action lawsuit, with relevant documents submitted to the Miami federal court on Friday. Fenwick denies any wrongdoing and states that it was unaware of FTX's fraudulent activities. Notably, the firm still faces another civil lawsuit for $525 million in Washington, D.C., which is not covered by this settlement.FTX collapsed in November 2022, and Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for stealing approximately $8 billion in customer funds and is currently appealing. FTX's bankruptcy estate has returned over $5 billion to creditors.

Polymarket staff Shantikiran Chanal posted on platform X that they have noted a security report related to reward distribution, and user funds and market settlements are in a secure state. The investigation points to a wallet used for internal operations experiencing a private key leak, rather than an issue with the contract or core infrastructure. More updates will be released later.Previously, ZachXBT stated that the Polymarket UMA CTF Adapter contract was suspected to have been attacked on Polygon, with over $520,000 currently leaked.

Syndicate Labs, Everclear, and ZERO Network announced the cessation of operations on the same day, highlighting the deep dilemmas in the blockchain infrastructure sector.Syndicate Labs, a startup supported by a16z and having raised over $27 million, announced its closure after five years of operation, stating that EVM Rollup is no longer the industry standard and the market has fundamentally shifted to custom chains. The cross-chain settlement protocol Everclear (formerly Connext) announced hours later that it would shut down its foundation and lab entities, despite having a monthly trading volume that once reached $500 million, it was unable to convert that volume into revenue, and the CLEAR token dropped about 40% on the same day. The gasless Ethereum Layer 2 ZERO Network built by the crypto wallet Zerion also announced its closure on the same day, with the team shifting focus to the development of Zerion wallet and API products, and users must bridge their funds out by July 31.The common dilemma faced by the three projects is that even with venture capital funding and operational products, it remains difficult to find a sustainable business model to withstand market deterioration.

Tom Lee, the chairman of BitMine, Ethereum's largest treasury, stated that Ethereum has a strong group of leaders and developers who can ensure it continues to be the future settlement layer for finance and AI.Currently, much of the bearish sentiment is just despair and mutual blame at the bottom of the crypto winter. Blockchain is the only viable way for agentic AI to conduct business interactions while significantly improving the profitability of the financial system. I will continue to be optimistic about ETH.

The tokenized securities settlement platform Seturion, part of the Stuttgart Stock Exchange Group, is collaborating with Société Générale, its cryptocurrency subsidiary SG-Forge, and online broker flatexDEGIRO to build a blockchain-based securities settlement system in Europe.Société Générale will issue tokenized structured securities on its Seturion platform, such as Turbo warrants and investment certificates. SG-Forge, which holds a crypto asset market license issued by French regulators, will use its CoinVertible euro and dollar stablecoins EURCV and USDCV for transaction settlement. Meanwhile, flatexDEGIRO will connect the platform to its European retail channels for tokenized securities trading.

Documents from the U.S. Department of Justice show that Trump has reached an unusual settlement agreement with the federal government, terminating a $10 billion lawsuit filed by him and his businesses against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and further expanding the relevant terms.The agreement states that the IRS will be "permanently prohibited" from investigating or continuing existing audits related to tax returns previously submitted by Trump, his businesses, and family members. The Department of Justice stated that this restriction only applies to the scope of existing audits.Meanwhile, the U.S. government has agreed to establish a "Deweaponization Fund" of up to $1.8 billion to compensate individuals or groups claiming to have been improperly treated during government investigations. This arrangement has been criticized by some Democratic lawmakers as a "disguised transfer of benefits," and has also raised questions within the Republican Party.Former IRS Commissioner pointed out that there has never been a precedent showing that the tax agency would permanently waive its right to review the historical filings of specific individuals or businesses, emphasizing that tax enforcement principles should remain consistent for all taxpayers. The Senate indicated that there are still many unresolved issues with this agreement, which is expected to continue to spark political controversy and regulatory discussions.

According to Cointelegraph, Bank of England Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden stated that tokenization can reduce settlement costs, speed up processes, and promote competition, provided that trust and interoperability are ensured. Breeden emphasized that even in the context of private sector innovations such as tokenized deposits and regulated stablecoins, central bank money will remain the cornerstone of the monetary system. She mentioned that the Bank of England is working with industry, government, and regulators to build a framework that supports innovation without compromising financial stability.Breeden stated that, in addition to traditional bank deposits, people should also be able to make payments using tokenized deposits, regulated stablecoins, and retail central bank digital currencies, and that increased competition in technologies and business models will lower user costs and improve functionality. The Bank of England also proposed on Monday to extend the operating hours of its core settlement infrastructure to nearly 7x24 hours to support cross-border payments and securities settlement.

According to CoinPost, the Financial Services Agency of Japan announced a cabinet order amendment, officially recognizing foreign trust beneficiary rights that are "equivalent" to Japan's electronic settlement system as electronic settlement methods under the Fund Settlement Act. The amendment will take effect on June 1.This revision clarifies: first, it establishes a legal basis for qualified foreign trust-based stablecoins to provide services within Japan; second, it stipulates that electronic settlement method operators should use equivalence with the Japanese system as the eligibility criterion when handling foreign electronic settlement methods. At the same time, relevant foreign trust beneficiary rights will be excluded from the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act's securities and will only be regulated as electronic settlement methods.The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan has officially approved the "AI + Blockchain Finance" proposal, supporting yen stablecoins and tokenized deposits.

According to CoinDesk, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has rescinded the "no denial" rule that has been in place for about 50 years. The new rule allows defendants who reach a settlement with the SEC to publicly question or deny the allegations made by the SEC in enforcement actions. Previously, defendants were typically restricted from publicly rebutting the relevant allegations after signing a settlement agreement.

According to The Block, the AI settlement layer AEON has completed an $8 million Pre-Seed round of financing, led by YZi Labs, with participation from IDG Capital, HashKey Capital, Stanford Blockchain Builders Fund, and Oak Grove Ventures. The structure of this financing round and the post-investment valuation have not been disclosed. AEON plans to use the funds from this round to develop a settlement layer aimed at supporting interactions between AI agents.AEON launched its first AI payment product in May, enabling AI agents to connect with over 50 million physical merchants worldwide. In addition, AEON has partnered with BNB Chain to launch a product called x402 Facilitator, which is natively built on BNB Chain infrastructure, providing verifiable transactions, on-chain settlements, and tamper-proof receipts for service providers within the BNB ecosystem.