Tokenization's Next Phase Is Lending, Says RedStone Co-Founder

Wall Street has figured out how to put traditional financial assets on the blockchain. Now its trying to figure out what to do with them.  Money market funds (MMFs), Treasury products, private credit and, more recently, stocks have all been tokenized as financial institutions and crypto firms expand their onchain offerings.  The next step is using those assets as collateral in lending markets and across decentralized finance (DeFi), according to Marcin Kaźmierczak, co-founder of blockchain oracle provider RedStone.  RedStone supplies price data for DeFi applications. According to DeFiLlama, it is the third-largest blockchain oracle by total value secured (TVS), securing about $4.1bn across 95 protocols.  “Right now, only a very small fraction of those tokenized assets are used as collateral or as any kind of programmable layer on top of DeFi protocols,” Kaźmierczak told Sandmark in an exclusive interview during the TokenizeThis 2026 conference in New York City.  Tokenizations real value  The comments come as tokenization continues to grow across both traditional finance and crypto. According to RWA.xyz, tokenized assets on public blockchains are now worth more than $31.5bn across about 944,000 holders.  But Kaźmierczak argues that simply putting assets onchain isnt enough. “If youre just tokenizing, for example, a money market fund, okay, its 24/7, its

06-27

Four Dormant Ethereum Wallets Move 37,602 ETH From 2018 and Begin Selling Into the Drawdown

Volume moved:Four addresses of ancient origin transferred a total of 37,602 $ETH during Fridays session.Acquisition price:The coins were originally received in 2018 at an approximate value of $830 per unit.Liquidation executed:The operators sold 33,623 $ETH at an estimated price of $1,560, generating real profits of $27.4 million.  Four dormant Ethereum walletsthat had protected thousands of tokens since 2018 broke their lethargy this Friday to liquidate most of their funds on exchanges. The movements coincide with one of the deepest price contractions within the current crypto market cycle.  The on-chain analysis from Arkham shared by Lookonchain indicates that the addresses identified as 0x71B…D412f, 0x92a…ae49D, 0x6C7…5C327, and 0xffd…5BeE5 executed the sales in an estimated span of four hours. Analysts indicated that the entities obtained approximately $52.5 million in gross revenue after trading 33,623 $ETH at a rate of $1,560 per unit.  After holding $ETH for 8 years, these #Ethereum OGs finally gave up.  Four #Ethereum OG wallets received 37,602 $ETH($58.66M) 8 years ago at ~$830.  During the 2021 and 2025 bull markets, their unrealized profit exceeded $150M, but they never sold.  The impact of timing on financial returns  The execution of these operations occurs in an environment of structural weakness for crypto assets. Historical price records show that in

06-27

Cathie Wood snaps up $25.5M in Coinbase, SpaceX and Circle shares

Cathie Woods ARK Invest has expanded its positions in Coinbase, SpaceX, Circle, Bullish, and Robinhood by purchasing about $25.54 million worth of shares on Friday across several of its exchange-traded funds.  SummaryCathie Woods ARK Invest bought $25.54 million worth of Coinbase, SpaceX, Circle, Bullish, and Robinhood shares.Coinbase led the purchases with a $10.19 million investment, followed by $7.01 million in SpaceX and $5.79 million in Circle.The latest buys extend ARKs recent accumulation of crypto-linked stocks as Wood continues to downplay persistent inflation concerns.  According to ARK Invest‘s latest daily trade disclosure, Coinbase accounted for the firm’s largest purchase by value. The investment manager bought 68,366 Coinbase shares through the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), and ARK Fintech Innovation ETF (ARKF). Based on the stocks Friday closing price of $149.06, the purchase was valued at roughly $10.19 million.  SpaceX ranked second among the day‘s acquisitions. Across ARKK, ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF (ARKQ), ARKW, and ARK Space Exploration & Innovation ETF (ARKX), the firm purchased 45,728 shares worth about $7.01 million using the company’s closing price of $153.23.  Circle Internet Group was another major addition. According to the disclosure, ARK acquired 78,756 Circle shares through ARKK, ARKW, and ARKF,

06-27

Understanding The Collaboration Between Stellar, Zebec, & AllUnity

AllUnity and Zebec have started paying European workers in a regulated euro stablecoin. On June 25, 2026, the two firms launched a pilot that streams employee benefits and payroll in $EURAU, AllUnitys euro-backed token, across the Stellar network. Staff in the program are paid directly into a digital wallet.  The pitch is simple. Most stablecoin activity still revolves around trading. This is one of the clearer attempts to use a compliant euro token for something ordinary: getting people paid.  What the pilot does  The core feature is streaming payroll. Instead of waiting for a monthly run to clear, employees and contractors earn by the second, with funds settling on Stellar in seconds rather than days. EURAU does the settling. It is fully reserved and redeemable one-to-one for euros. That backing falls under the EUs Markets in Crypto-Assets rules, or MiCAR.  The pilot targets large European enterprise clients and partners. Workers can hold their earnings in a wallet, move them, or spend them through Zebecs card products, which support Apple Pay and Google Pay. The goal is to skip the delays and cross-border fees that come with traditional bank transfers.  “Regulated stablecoins are increasingly moving from financial infrastructure to real world business applications,” said Simon Babakhani

06-27

BlackRock dumps over $265 million in Bitcoin

BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK) saw its iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) dump more than $265 million in Bitcoin ($BTC) on Thursday.  BlackRocks IBIT recorded a net cash outflow of $265.68 million on June 25, according to data from SoSoValue, analyzed by Finbold on June 26. As such, the fund held a total net asset of approximately $44.43 billion at the time of reporting.  IBIT daily cash flow. Source: SoSoValue  The IBIT fund has registered six consecutive days of cash outflows totaling about $985.69 million. As such, BlackRocks IBIT is about to record seven consecutive weeks of cash outflows of more than $4.89 billion.  On Friday, the firm deposited 4,577 $BTC, valued at over $271 million, into Coinbase Prime. Earlier this week, Robbie Mitchnick, the head of digital assets at BlackRock, warned that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) boom has been sucking the oxygen out of Bitcoin, as Finbold reported.  Moreover, Mitchnick noted that AI stocks have been rallying at the expense of $BTC, gold, and precious metals. As such, BlackRock investors could be rotating their funds from Bitcoin ETFs to AI stocks to capitalize on the ongoing boom.  Bitcoin price outlook as BlackRocks IBIT dumps  Bitcoin price has faced heightened selling pressure over the past few weeks, largely driven

06-27

Coinbase ‘I was fired’ memes revive on X amid Base outage

A blue-check account on X falsely claimed to be a freshly fired Coinbase product manager, earning nearly 200,000 views within hours. The meme fit perfectly into crypto investors predispositions yesterday with irresistible confirmation bias.  Yesterday, bitcoin and ether hit 52-week lows. Base, Coinbases blockchain, was down for roughly two hours. Everything was going down.  The account jokingly explained that Coinbase fired Ravi Riley as “a non-technical PM on the Base sequencer team and my first PR got merged to prod at noon.” Multiple trackers confirmed the roughly two-hour outage, even though it was not caused by Riley, who was never a Coinbase employee.  The memetic implication was that a new hire had crashed Base and then was marched out.  It is, after all, too easy to dunk on Coinbase. The company is the largest publicly traded crypto company and probably has the largest US customer base on social media.  Another Coinbase outage after Brian Armstrong fired workers  Yesterdays meme traces its origin to at least May 5.  Early in the morning on that day, founder Brian Armstrong cut 700 workers, or roughly 14% of his staff. He revoked access on the spot, before most employees started work in the morning, “Coinbase system access has been removed today.

06-27

Bitcoin makes first sub-$60K close since Q3 2024 as tech stocks enter ‘deep bear market’

Bitcoin ($BTC) struggled to reclaim $60,000 on Friday amid continued global market volatility.  Key points:Bitcoin closes below $60,000 on daily time frames for the first time since September 2024.Asian stock markets see another day of major losses on tech-stock concerns.$BTC price analysis hopes for a reclaim of the 200-week trend line as the bull case.  Bitcoin risks $60,000 resistance flip as tech selling persists  Data from TradingView showed that prior support was increasingly becoming the bulls‘ new hurdle after Bitcoin’s first sub-$60,000 daily close since September 2024.  $BTC/USD one-hour chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView  Asia stock markets saw more downside on the day, with South Korean circuit-breakers kicking in on a new 8% crash.  Like on Tuesday, US stocks managed to avoid contagion, with the St tell you this,” it added.  Coinbase stock one-week chart. Source: Cointelegraph/TradingView  In its latest analysis, trading company QCP Capital stressed the influence of US inflation trends on risk assets going forward.  As Cointelegraph reported, the May print of the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, known as the Federal Reserves “preferred” inflation gauge, recorded its highest year-on-year increase since mid-2023.  “Core PCE is nowcast at 3.30%, while headline PCE is nowcast at 3.82%, both still above target,” QCP wrote.  “The Feds 2026 inflation forecast has also moved up

06-27

Crypto M&A Surges to $7.23 Billion Despite Lowest Investor Count Since 2020

Crypto Venture Enters New Phase as Investor Count Falls to 6-Year Low of 651  The number of active crypto investors has fallen to its lowest level in six years, even as capital flowing into acquisitions is accelerating sharply.  Cryptorank data shows unique crypto investors declined to 651 in the second quarter of 2026. That is down from a peak of 2,564 investors in 2022. The only weaker period was 2020, when quarterly participation ranged between 250 and 450 investors.  The data points to a market that is no longer being funded by a wide base of generalist venture firms. Instead, crypto capital is becoming more concentrated among specialist funds, corporate buyers, and strategic investors with longer time horizons.  Source: CryptorankM&A Becomes the Main Source of Momentum  The clearest sign of that shift is the surge in mergers and acquisitions.  Capital deployed through crypto M&A transactions rose from $272 million in Q4 2025 to $2.14 billion in Q1 2026, then to $7.23 billion in Q2 2026. That is a more than 26-fold increase in just six months.  M&A also ranked among the top three fundraising stages, accounting for 15.36% of tracked rounds. The trend follows a sharp pickup in dealmaking earlier in the quarter. In May, Cryptorank reported

06-27

Ripple spent a decade fighting SWIFT. Now it wants to plug into it

Ripple built its identity on replacing SWIFT, the bank-messaging network that moves roughly $150 trillion a year, with $XRP as the bridge that would kill slow correspondent banking. A decade on, the banks kept SWIFT, adopted Ripple as a fast lane beside it, and the disruptor is learning to integrate. What that pivot means for $XRP is the real question.  For most of its existence, Ripple defined itself by a single enemy: SWIFT, the global messaging network that connects roughly 11,000 banks and underpins the movement of something like $150 trillion a year.  Ripples founding pitch was that SWIFT was slow, antiquated plumbing, that moving money across borders through it took days and trapped capital in pre-funded accounts around the world, and that $XRP could replace all of that by acting as a neutral bridge asset that settled value in seconds.  The companys executives spent years framing the contest in exactly those terms, as a young, fast technology coming to take the lunch of an aging incumbent.  A decade later, the scoreboard tells a more complicated story. SWIFT is still standing, still carrying the worlds bank messaging, and the banks that adopted Ripple mostly did so as a fast lane running alongside SWIFT rather

06-27

Crypto lending turns to Wall Street credit rules to win back institutional trust after 2022 collapse

Celsius froze withdrawals in June 2022 before filing for Chapter 11 in July 2022, and Genesis froze redemptions after FTXs collapse and filed for bankruptcy in January 2023, owing approximately $3.4 billion to its 50 largest creditors.  BlockFi, Celsius, Genesis, and Voyager together accounted for 40% of the crypto lending market and 82% of CeFi lending at their peaks, per Galaxy data. The 2022 unwind exposed two failures simultaneously: bad loans and the complete opacity of where risk sat inside those balance sheets.  The answer crypto landed on was to put lending on-chain, which helped address some of the opacity problem.  Building the credit infrastructure that institutional lenders require, such as defined seniority, first-loss retention, enforceable custody arrangements, independent administration, borrower servicing, and legal-grade bankruptcy isolation, demanded a different approach entirely.  Maple and Krakens warehouse facility is a test of whether DeFi can deliver that infrastructure at the collateral layer, using liquid $BTC and $ETH as the asset base.Credit modelWhat it solvedWhat it left exposedWhy it matters2021–2022 CeFi lendingEasy access to yield and borrowingOpaque balance sheets, unclear risk location, weak customer visibilityCelsius, Genesis, BlockFi and Voyager exposed the failure modeAutomated DeFi lendingTransparent collateral and liquidation rulesLimited servicing, workout, legal recovery and borrower monitoringAave/Morpho-style pools

06-27
1
...
196198
...
1000