Hey, it’s Marc.
When JPMorgan tokenizes private equity, Circle launches a blockchain with 100+ Wall Street partners, and Mastercard drops $2 billion on a crypto infrastructure deal, the signal is clear: We’re in a race to own the rails of the next financial system.
Some are building them (JPM, BlackRock, Stripe, IBM, Circle), others are buying them. 2025 has quietly become the year of crypto M&A:
Stripe → Privy
Coinbase → Echo, Deribit
Mastercard → ZeroHash
Robinhood → Bitstamp
Ripple → Hidden Road
Circle → Hashnote
Kraken → NinjaTrader
MoonPay → Iron
It’s infrastructure, not tokens, stupid.
Also this week:
Zelle ($1T+ in transfers, 2,100 banks), integrates stablecoins [more]
First yen-pegged stablecoin went live
Western Union plans to launch USDPT stablecoin on Solana.
We’ll unpack all of these highlights below 👇
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Top Boardroom Reads
Why Privacy Is Becoming the World’s Most Valuable Currency (Maja Vujinovic)
2024 BIS survey on central bank digital currencies and crypto (BIS)
Stablecoins – Implications for EM (Standard Chartered)
Ethereum’s Endgame: Why Credible Neutrality Beats Speed, with William Mougayar (51)
The Stablecoin Balancing Act (IMF)
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Top Signals This Week
J.P. Morgan makes private equity history on-chain
JPMorgan just made private equity history: tokenizing a private fund on its blockchain, Kinexys, giving private wealth clients direct digital ownership of fund shares. [NEWS]
The goal? To digitize one of finance’s most illiquid markets and make alternative assets trade like stocks, enabling real-time settlement, programmable compliance, and 24/7 liquidity.
Why it matters: Kinexys, JPM’s in-house blockchain, has already processed $1.5T in transactions and $2B+ daily volume. Unlike Goldman and BNY’s tokenized money market funds, JPM is tackling the hardest problem: tokenizing what never moves.
Our take: Private markets are a $23T asset class expected to hit $25T by 2030, and JPM now controls the first end-to-end infrastructure to move it on-chain. By 2026, Kinexys aims to support private credit, real estate, and infrastructure funds, effectively becoming the Stripe of private markets. The world’s largest bank just built the rails for the next $15T in alternative assets.
Zelle, Western Union upgrade infra with blockchain
Two of the world’s biggest money movers: Zelle ($1T+ in transfers, 2,100 banks) and Western Union (500K+ outlets, 200+ countries), are going stablecoin. Western Union plans to use stablecoins for cross-border payments and its own treasury operations, aiming to cut fees and reduce settlement times. Zelle, backed by major U.S. banks, will use stablecoins to enable international transfers and is even considering launching its own. [RELEASE]
So what? For years, PayPal, Wise, Tether and others dominated cross-border payments while banks watched from the sidelines. Now Zelle’s owners are building their own stablecoin rails and keeping those transaction fees in-house. Distribution is their moat: 100 MILLION (!) verified bank users will now get stablecoin rails without ever leaving their banking app (Zelle has over 74.8M active users, while Western Union serves over 150M customers worldwide, operating in 200+ countries).
Circle’s Arc: Wall Street’s New Blockchain?
Circle launches its blockchain Arc with 100+ institutional partners, including Visa, BlackRock , ICE , Goldman Sachs, HSBC , State Street , AWS, Deutsche Bank , Coinbase , Kraken, Anthropic , and 90+ others. [RELEASE]
The challenge: Big players want neutral rails. Centralized blockchains only work with massive distribution and industry coalitions (if ever). Because BlackRock won’t tokenize $10T on a chain run by one vendor. They’ll need credibly neutral rails.
Our take: The financial stack is being rebuilt. Quietly. Globally. But this time, the prize isn’t the token. It’s who controls the new pipes, that makes the money. Stripe, JPM, Citi, Blackrock, SWIFT – all of them, and soon more, want to build the rails. And with Arc, Circle just made its boldest move yet to do the same.
Japan’s first Stablecoin
The world’s first yen-pegged stablecoin just went live. With 10-year JGB yields at just 1.65%, JPYC’s thin-margin seigniorage model faces heightened stability risk, making yen-backed stablecoins structurally weaker than dollar-backed ones. [NEWS]
So what? USD-pegged stablecoins command over 99% of the global market, which crossed $300B in total capitalisation as of October 2025. JPYC’s stablecoin offers a “De-dollarisation Lite” path, creating a sovereign, regulated digital alternative to the USD for Asian trade settlement.
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Mastercard to acquire Zerohash for $2B
Mastercard is acquiring Zerohash, a crypto infrastructure company, for up to $2B. This mirrors Stripe’s $1.1B acquisition of Bridge in February. Zerohash enables Fiat-to-crypto conversions, stablecoin trading, API-level crypto integration and offers tokenisation infrastructure. [NEWS] [ANALYSIS]
The best part: Zerohash raised $104M at a $1B valuation in September 2025. Mastercard just offered to double that within a month. And they know why: the race is on. Stripe, PayPal, Visa, WorldPay and pretty much all major banks are all building on stablecoin rails.
So what? Mastercard is positioning itself at the center of the stablecoin economy. By acquiring Zerohash, it gains direct control over the infrastructure that connects traditional payment networks with digital assets: fiat conversion, custody, and tokenization. It’s a strategic move to future-proof its core business as payments shift from cards to blockchain rails.
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News Flash
IBM launches Digital Asset Haven, infra for financial institutions & enterprises. Link
Securitize to become a public company at $1.25B valuation. Link
The European Central Bank plans to launch the digital euro by 2029.
Ant Group applied to register crypto trademarks. Link
Apollo partners with Coinbase to unlock stablecoin lending business. Link
Canada advances stablecoin framework. Link
Citi and Coinbase partner to streamline global digital asset payments. Link
Visa added support for 4 new stablecoins across 4 chains. Link
That’s all for now, folks.
Take care
– Marc & Team
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