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Greg Kaufmann @ Cantor Fitzgerald

Flo Klein @ Bitpanda

Robert Pertschy @ Bitpanda

Miklós Veszprémi @ VCM

Leon Dong @ Bitget

🌟 Money moves where conviction flows.

From ICE’s $2 billion stake in Polymarket to Tempo’s $500 million unicorn raise, institutional capital is no longer testing crypto’s edges, it’s building the rails.

Together, these deals show how markets are converging around one truth: information, liquidity, and settlement are now investable infrastructure 🌟

ICE x Polymarket

The Institutionalization of Information 💡

What’s Happening 🚀

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the operator of the New York Stock Exchange and one of the world’s largest market infrastructure providers, is investing up to $2 billion in Polymarket at a $9 billion valuation, marking one of the largest institutional entries into decentralized prediction markets (Ventureburn).

The deal gives ICE a strategic ownership stake in Polymarket and makes it the global distributor of Polymarket’s real-time event data to thousands of financial institutions worldwide, positioning prediction markets as a new layer of institutional-grade market intelligence.

Why ICE Says They’re Doing It (and What It Really Means) 🧩

ICE stated that the partnership aims to “create the next evolution of markets” by pairing its regulated infrastructure with Polymarket’s crowd-priced forecasting signals (ICE Press Release).

Analytical inference: ICE is positioning Polymarket’s market odds as a premium data feed, similar to how it monetizes benchmark pricing for mortgages, energy, and interest rates (ICE Data Services).

By converting event probabilities into a regulated information product, ICE is effectively building a new asset class: the market for truth.

The News Cycle and Market Reaction 📣

News of the deal first surfaced through Reuters before being confirmed by ICE in its official press release, sending ICE stock up more than 4 percent in early trading as investors reacted to its expansion into predictive data markets.

For Polymarket, this milestone follows a long path to legitimacy. In January 2022, the CFTC fined Polymarket $1.4 million for operating an unregistered event-based trading platform and required it to wind down non-compliant markets. The company subsequently blocked U.S. users and restructured under regulatory oversight.

Since then, Polymarket has rebuilt credibility by acquiring QCEX, a CFTC-licensed exchange and clearinghouse, granting it legal access to operate in the United States. It has also brought on former CFTC Chair J. Christopher Giancarlo as an adviser, further solidifying its compliance posture.

That regulatory cleanup transformed Polymarket from a crypto grey zone into a fully compliant partner; making ICE’s investment not just a financial bet but a validation of on-chain markets entering regulated finance.

Market Map: The State of Prediction Markets 🌐

Prediction markets are reaching institutional scale. Below are the leading platforms by funding, trading volume, and regulatory footing, and how they stack up against Polymarket following its tie-up with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).

Polymarket’s head start in global reach and on-chain settlement now scales through ICE’s institutional distribution power, making it the first credible bridge between decentralized event markets and traditional finance.

Why It Matters 💡

Information is becoming an investable asset class.

By validating on-chain prediction markets as legitimate data infrastructure, ICE is showing that markets can price truth as efficiently as they price oil or equities.

If successful, the next generation of financial terminals may display real-time event probabilities alongside Treasury yields and futures prices.

This marks the moment prediction markets evolved from a crypto novelty into institutional-grade information finance.

Coinbase x Echo

Coinbase Acquires a Ready Made Capital Allocation Funnel 💰

With its acquisition of Echo, a platform for compliant, smart contract based capital allocation, Coinbase gains a fully operational funnel that connects verified investors directly to vetted Web3 projects (CoinDesk).

What’s Happening 🚀

Echo lets investors allocate capital to early stage Web3 projects through smart contract based fundraising flows that automate onboarding and deal execution.

For Coinbase this unlocks three things immediately:

In our own words: this acquisition effectively closes the loop between capital formation and deployment across the Coinbase stack.

News Cycle 📣

It appears like the Echo acquisition first surfaced in The Wall Street Journal before Coinbase confirmed the $375 million deal on its official blog (WSJ, Coinbase Blog).

Founder Jordan “Cobie” Fish acknowledged the sale on X with a heartfelt soliloquy, essentially reminiscing on what a wild ride this has been. (Blockworks,  Cobie’s post on X).

The acquisition also deepens Coinbase’s relationship with Cobie. 

Just days earlier, CEO Brian Armstrong announced that Coinbase had purchased Cobie’s original UpOnly NFT, a nod to his influential crypto podcast, for $25 million, calling it “a piece of crypto culture worth preserving.” 

The move reads as both a cultural tribute and a diplomatic gesture, signaling Coinbase’s intent to honor the Echo team’s legacy while integrating its technology into the company’s on-chain ecosystem (Coinbase Acquires Echo).

Market Map: Who’s Allocating Billions On Chain 🌐

These are the major players with credible reported allocation figures. Each shows a different path for compliant capital formation and how Echo and Coinbase now fit into the picture.

Echo and Coinbase are smaller by volume but stronger by design. With issuance, compliance, custody, and liquidity in one ecosystem, they are building the first fully integrated funnel for institutional-scale capital on chain.

Why It Matters 💡

By integrating Echo, Coinbase now controls a complete regulatory and liquidity funnel, from issuance to custody to exchange.

The real takeaway is that Coinbase did not just buy a startup, it bought the infrastructure for compliant on-chain capital markets, a critical step toward institutional scale adoption of Web3 fundraising.

Coinflow

Owning the Flow 💧

Coinbase, Jump, and Pantera are quietly consolidating the stablecoin payout layer by backing the rails that move real money, not just tokens (Coindesk).

What’s Happening 🚀

Coinflow Labs raised $25 million in a Series A round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Jump Capital, and CMT Digital.

The company provides instant fiat-to-stablecoin settlement infrastructure for businesses operating across multiple countries and currencies (PYMNTS).

Coinflow’s mission is to make stablecoin payouts and merchant settlements as simple as card processing, using automated compliance and API-based conversion rails (VentureBurn).

What Is Coinflow ⚙️

Coinflow acts as the middleware layer between banks, payment processors, and on-chain liquidity providers, allowing companies to convert fiat to stablecoins and back in seconds.

Its infrastructure connects directly with Visa, Mastercard, and major U.S. banks, providing the necessary fiat liquidity to support global on- and off-ramp operations (Business Wire).

Coinflow currently serves exchanges, fintechs, and Web3 companies that need real-time settlements without holding crypto themselves (Built In Chicago).

Founder Christian Heidorn describes Coinflow as “the payout engine for the tokenized economy,” emphasizing its ability to handle multi-currency, multi-rail transactions with full KYC and AML coverage (CoinLaw).

The Competition 🏁

Coinflow

Circle

Stripe

Crossmint

Borderless.xyz

Coinflow’s

The Round 💰

The $25 million Series A will fund Coinflow’s expansion into new jurisdictions, hiring, and scaling its global compliance footprint (Coindesk).

Pantera’s involvement reflects its ongoing thesis that stablecoin-based settlement rails will become the new default for institutional payments and DeFi treasury management.

Coinbase Ventures gains a strategic position in stablecoin infrastructure that complements Base and its broader push toward programmable finance.

Jump and CMT Digital, with deep roots in market-making and liquidity provision, are positioned to leverage Coinflow’s rails for cross-border volume and settlement arbitrage.

Our analytical inference: the investors are not just funding a startup. They are consolidating control over the stablecoin payout stack, ensuring that the flow of funds, data, and compliance routes back through institutional pipes they already influence

Looking Ahead 🔮

If Coinflow scales as expected, it could become the default backend for stablecoin payouts, payroll, and platform settlements across Web3.

The company’s next challenge will be regulatory scaling, particularly around cross-border AML standards and local bank integrations in emerging markets (Business Wire).

For now, one thing is clear: owning the flow means owning the future of money movement, and Coinflow’s backers are positioning themselves to do exactly that (Coindesk).

Pave

Paving the Way to True Web3 Banking 🏦

One bank

One compliance perimeter

Fiat plus tokenized assets plus programmable treasury

24 7 settlement across all of it

Tether and Accel just backed Pave Bank, the world’s first licensed commercial bank built for programmable money and digital assets (The Block).

Who Is Pave 💡

Founded by Salim Dhanani, Simon Vans-Colina, and Dmitry Bocharov, Pave Bank is building a regulated bridge between fiat and on-chain finance (The Fintech Times).

The Competition 🏁

1. Pave Bank

Offers one account for fiat, stablecoins, tokenized assets, and programmable treasury with compliance handled in-house

2. ClearBank

Provides multicurrency payments and Circle integrations but does not hold fiat and digital assets together in one regulated stack

3. Stablecore

Builds infrastructure that lets banks add digital-asset products but is not itself a licensed multi-asset bank

4. Fnality

Focuses on wholesale tokenized cash settlement for banks, not operating accounts for corporates

5. SWIFT

Adds blockchain interoperability for value transfer between banks but does not merge fiat and digital assets in a single account

6. Visa

Pilots tokenized asset rails and stablecoin settlement but remains a network, not a bank

7. JPMorgan Onyx

Runs tokenized cash and programmable payment systems internally for major clients but not as a public commercial bank offering

Bottom line: Pave is the only player currently offering true multi-asset banking under one regulated roof.

The Raise 💰

Pave secured $39 million Series A led by Accel, joined by Tether Investments, Quona Capital, Wintermute Ventures, and others (The Block).

Looking Forward 🔮

Pave is positioning itself as the core banking layer for institutional finance.

If it scales across UAE, Hong Kong, and the EEA, it could anchor settlement for stablecoins, CBDCs, and tokenized treasuries.

The future of banking may not be a fintech app or an exchange.

It may be Pave, the programmable bank that runs both worlds.

Tempo

Tempo achieves unicorn status with $500M raise at $5B valuation

What Tempo Is 💡

Tempo is a Layer 1 settlement network where gas and fees are paid in stablecoins like USDC or USDT.

In plain English, Tempo is Stripe on chain, a payments network where APIs move stablecoins as easily as dollars.

Since incubation, Tempo has evolved from an internal prototype to a full-scale network with enterprise-grade architecture.

Section 2  The Raise 💰

Tempo raised $500 million in a Series A round that valued the company at $5 billion, marking one of the largest early-stage financings in crypto infrastructure history.

The round was led by Thrive Capital and Greenoaks, both long-time backers of fintech and payment infrastructure companies.

Thrive previously invested in Stripe, giving the raise direct continuity between the incubation stage and its lead backers (Stripe newsroom).

Their leadership in the Series A signals that they are now shepherding the project from incubation into global scale.

For comparison, most stablecoin and settlement infrastructure companies raise between $10 million and $100 million, such as Fnality’s $136 million Series C, Coinflow’s $25 million Series A, and Crossmint’s $23.6 million round (Tradeweb) (CoinDesk) (CoinDesk).

This puts Tempo in a category of its own as a venture-backed network commanding capital levels normally reserved for late-stage fintech giants.

At this scale, the raise signals investor confidence that Tempo is not another stablecoin processor but the platform poised to define how institutional money moves on chain.

Even when compared to massive private raises like Tether’s, Tempo’s funding underscores a shift toward purpose-built, venture-financed networks designed to unify stablecoin and fiat settlement at scale (Financial Times).

Section 3  The Goal and Analysis 🔍

Tempo’s goal is to become the default settlement layer for global business payments.

By owning the base layer, Tempo is not competing with stablecoin issuers or payment processors. It is building the infrastructure they will eventually rely on.

This is the bet Thrive and Greenoaks are making. They are pricing the foundation of a new financial system that treats stablecoins as the internet’s native cash.

Their strategy is to scale what Stripe proved in Web2, that owning the payments layer means owning the flow of global commerce, and extend it to Web3 (CoinDesk).

There are other technologies capable of stablecoin settlement and on chain money movement, but at scale Tempo aims to capture the largest market share by being the most effective, adaptable, secure, and settlement native Layer 1 built for real world finance.

_IRL:

JPMorgan Opens the Vault to Bitcoin and Ether 🏦

What’s Happening 🚀

JPMorgan Chase will let institutional clients use Bitcoin and Ether as collateral for loans by year end (CoinDesk).

The assets will be held by a third party custodian, extending JPMorgan’s existing collateral program beyond crypto linked ETFs.

Digital Assets Enter Wall Street’s Core 🧩

The move marks a turning point in the bank’s digital asset strategy, shifting from skepticism to integration as crypto becomes part of mainstream lending infrastructure.

With Bitcoin at record highs and clearer regulatory pathways, JPMorgan joins peers in broadening their crypto exposure. 

Fidelity already allows clients to borrow against Bitcoin holdings, while Morgan Stanley and State Street provide access to crypto investment products and custody solutions.

Why It Matters 🌍

Collateral is the foundation of modern finance, and now crypto sits at that foundation.

JPMorgan’s decision brings Bitcoin and Ether directly into Wall Street’s balance sheet mechanics, signaling that digital assets have become credible capital in the world’s largest financial institutions.

ETF / ETP-tober: The List Grows 📈

From Wall Street to Main Street, the crypto ETF pipeline keeps expanding.

After last week’s wave of filings from VanEck, Franklin Templeton, Hashdex, ProShares, and Bitwise, two more names just joined the party.

🔥 New This Week

T. Rowe Price enters the chat.

The $1.8 trillion fund manager filed for its first ever crypto ETF, the T. Rowe Price Active Crypto ETF, a multi asset, actively managed fund seeking to outperform the FTSE Crypto US Listed Index (CoinDesk, Reuters).

The filing marks a major TradFi milestone, signaling that even the most conservative asset managers are moving on chain.

Canary Capital spreads its wings.

The boutique issuer filed spot ETFs for Litecoin (LTCC) and Hedera (HBR) under the SEC’s new “generic listing standards,” allowing altcoin exposure without bespoke approvals (Reuters, CoinDesk).

These products are the first U.S. spot ETFs to expand beyond Bitcoin and Ether, a crucial step toward broad based crypto indexing.

🧾 The Running List

Here’s where ETF-tober now stands:

👀 Keep An Eye Out

Figment x Coinbase Prime

Two new staking enabled ETFs launching this week integrate on chain yield from proof of stake assets like Solana and Avalanche.

Built in partnership with Figment and Coinbase Prime, these products blend institutional staking rewards with regulated ETF structures, signaling the next evolution of crypto yield in public markets.

Coinbase x Amex

Coinbase Launches Amex Card With Up To 4% Back in BTC 🪙

What’s Happening 🚀

Coinbase has rolled out its new Amex-branded card to U.S. members of its premium Coinbase One plan ($4.99 per month / $49.99 per year), offering up to 4% back in Bitcoin on every purchase.

The card features no foreign-transaction fees and allows payments either from a linked bank account or using crypto holdings on the Coinbase platform (CoinDesk).

What They Do 💳

The card is exclusive to Coinbase One members and offers:

The physical card also features design cues tied to Bitcoin’s Genesis Block, reinforcing its “Bitcoin-first” branding.

What Makes Them Different ⚡️

Unlike many “crypto-back” cards that reward multiple assets or vary by category, Coinbase’s Amex card gives a single-asset reward (Bitcoin) on all spending, regardless of merchant type.

It’s a niche product for Bitcoin loyalists rather than a general rewards card for everyday spenders.

Market Reaction 📈

Crypto rewards cards are becoming more common, but structures vary. Peer player Gemini offers up to 3% crypto rewards and a no-annual-fee model. Here’s the hyperlink version you can embed directly into your article:

Coinbase’s premium pricing and higher reward tier suggest it’s targeting engaged Bitcoin believers over mass-market consumers.

🧭 Regulation Roundup

Global regulators are no longer on the sidelines

From stablecoins to tokenised securities, the conversation is shifting from enforcement to infrastructure as crypto weaves into traditional markets, data systems and national scale rails.

🇨🇭 Swiss Bridge for Tokenisation

AMINA Bank (Switzerland) has teamed up with Tokeny to build a regulated bridge for institutional tokenised assets, combining banking, custody and compliance with blockchain issuance on the ERC 3643 standard (CoinDesk).

🇪🇺 EU Stablecoin Infrastructure Gets Regulated

Plasma, a stablecoin payment chain, secured a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) licence via an Italian acquisition and opened an Amsterdam office ahead of broader MiCA and Electronic Money Institution (EMI) compliance in Europe (CoinDesk).

🇪🇺 Fintech Crypto Hub Approved

Revolut received a MiCA licence from Cyprus’s regulator, unlocking regulated crypto asset services across all 30 countries of the European Economic Area (EEA) (CoinDesk).

🇭🇰 Hong Kong Regulator Approves Solana ETF

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission approved a Solana exchange traded fund, signaling the city’s continued effort to broaden digital asset market access under a regulated framework (CoinDesk).

🇪🇺 EU Sanctions Russian Stablecoin and Exchanges

The European Union imposed sanctions targeting Russian stablecoin platforms and exchanges to curb financial circumvention of existing restrictions, underscoring the EU’s focus on compliance in digital asset ecosystems (Cointelegraph).

🇺🇸 US Senators Introduce Bank Secrecy Act Update

A bipartisan group of US senators introduced a bill to raise reporting thresholds under the Bank Secrecy Act, modernizing requirements to better align with inflation and current financial norms (Cointelegraph).

🇭🇰 Hong Kong Approves First Solana Spot ETF

Hong Kong regulators approved the first Solana spot exchange traded fund, further establishing the region as a global hub for compliant crypto investment products (Cointelegraph).

🇨🇦 Canada Hits Crypto Firm With $126 Million Fine

Canadian authorities levied a record fine of $126 million against a crypto firm for anti money laundering violations, highlighting growing enforcement alignment with global standards (Decrypt).

🇪🇺 Revolut, Blockchain.com, and Relai Secure MiCA Licenses

Three major crypto companies, Revolut, Blockchain.com, and Relai, secured MiCA licenses under EU regulation, marking a key milestone for pan European compliance (The Block).

🇺🇸 SEC and CFTC Target End of Year Oversight Milestones

The SEC and CFTC reaffirmed their goal of finalizing crypto oversight frameworks by year end despite a government shutdown, signaling bipartisan urgency for regulatory clarity (The Block).

🇺🇸 Senator Warren Slams Stablecoin Bill

Senator Elizabeth Warren criticized the latest stablecoin bill, urging the Treasury to examine potential conflicts of interest linked to former President Trump while warning of systemic financial risks (The Block).

The takeaway

Regulators are no longer trying to stop crypto, they are defining it.

Across Switzerland, the EU, Hong Kong, and North America, new rules, licenses, and enforcement actions are shaping digital assets into regulated financial infrastructure.

The next phase will test whether these frameworks can move the industry from pilot programs to permanent fixtures in global finance.

✨ Prediction markets, programmable banks, and settlement layers are no longer experiments, they are becoming financial plumbing.

Coinbase, JPMorgan, and ICE are all anchoring crypto inside regulated systems that move real money and data.

The institutional era of on-chain finance is here, and it is being built from the bottom up ✨