Tether and Circle held nearly US$150 billion in U.S. Treasury securities at the end of 2025, according to data presented by a member of the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee.
In the United States, the Senate rejected by 49 to 50 the motion that would have brought the CLARITY Act to the floor, shifting rulemaking from Congress to the SEC and the CFTC.
In Europe, banks have doubled their presence in the MiCA register and now account for nearly a quarter of authorized providers, while the European System of Central Banks is calling for a change to the reserve rule.
Our article series in Exame
Nathaly Diniz, CRO at Lumx, publishes a series of articles in Exame co-authored with partners and clients from the ecosystem. The first of the two most recent pieces, written with Juliana Schlesinger Felippe, Managing Director Brazil & Latam at OSL, treats the license as a scarce asset. Of the more than 1,200 companies with national registration in Europe, about 210 have obtained full MiCA authorization, a rate of 17%. The article compares the European filter with the Brazilian framework that takes effect at the end of October, noting that while MiCA views stablecoins from the issuer's perspective, Resolution 521 brings the operations into the foreign exchange market.
The second, with João Pedro Menegotto, Head of Latin America at Levl, analyzes why four of the five countries with the highest crypto adoption are emerging markets and why each adopts for a different reason. In Latin America, stablecoins serve as wealth protection, with more than half of crypto purchases in Argentina already made in stablecoins. In emerging Asia, they move income: the Philippines receives more than US$35 billion a year in remittances, and Vietnam pays a premium of 3% to 5% for onchain dollars. The common thread is the last mile, since no remittance ends in digital dollars.
Stablecoin issuers have become structural buyers of U.S. debt
In short:
Tether and Circle held nearly US$150 billion in U.S. Treasury securities at the end of 2025, with purchases of about US$33 billion during the year.
For Carolyn Wilkins, of the Bank of England's Financial Policy Committee, dollar stablecoins expand demand for this debt and reinforce the position of the U.S. currency.
The dollar accounts for 98% of the value of stablecoins in circulation, in a market above US$300 billion.
Wilkins presented the data in a lecture at Queen's University Belfast. She argued that dollar stablecoins facilitate cross-border settlement, broaden access to dollar-linked assets outside the United States and increase demand for Treasury securities held as reserves.
The volume accumulated by two private issuers places them in a range comparable to mid-sized countries among holders of U.S. debt, which takes the topic beyond transaction costs. Wilkins also pointed to the risk in the opposite direction: a wave of redemptions would force rapid sales of securities and amplify volatility in a market under stress. The assessment comes from a central bank that is building its own framework for the pound and publicly acknowledges the U.S. currency's advantage in this market.
With the CLARITY Act stalled, the SEC and CFTC take over rule-writing
In short:
The Senate rejected by 49 to 50 the procedural motion that would have brought the CLARITY Act to the floor, short of the 60 votes needed.
All Democrats present voted against, joined by Republicans Susan Collins, Josh Hawley and Jerry Moran.
The SEC published an innovation exemption for tokenized stocks, and the CFTC sent its own rule proposal to the White House.
The Senate rejected the motion after more than a year of bipartisan negotiation, on a final text that, according to Republicans, incorporated 126 changes requested by Democrats. Thom Tillis switched his vote to no for procedural reasons, preserving the possibility of bringing the bill back in the future.
The center of gravity has shifted to the agencies. The SEC published the innovation exemption that paves the way for tokenized U.S. stocks, with Chairman Paul Atkins linking the measure to the outcome of the vote. The CFTC issued a no-action position for passive software providers and sent a broader proposal to the White House. The relevant difference is durability: agency rules can be revised by the next administration, which shortens the planning horizon for anyone structuring operations in the United States. Days later, the Fairshake super PAC confirmed US$30 million in spending against former senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio, ahead of the November 3 elections.
Banks have doubled their numbers in the MiCA register and now make up nearly one in four
In short:
The number of banks in the MiCA register doubled, from about 40 to about 80, between June 26 and September 16.
The total number of authorized providers rose from 243 to 349, with banks' share increasing from about 17% to nearly 23%.
Banks enter through their own pathway, by notifying the national regulator, without the standard authorization process.
An analysis of ESMA data shows that non-bank providers remain the majority and grew in absolute numbers, but fell from about 84% to 77% of the register in relative terms.
The speed is explained by the mechanism. Already-authorized credit institutions can provide crypto-asset services under Article 60 by sending the required information to their home regulator at least 40 business days in advance. For infrastructure providers, the composition of the register changes the demand profile, since credit institutions arrive with audit requirements, compliance trails and legacy system integration.
Germany advances in adoption while the United Kingdom falls behind
In short:
Germany has 89 licensed providers, equivalent to 25.5% of ESMA's entire MiCA register.
According to Luke Nolan of CoinShares, German adoption is advancing through family offices, wealth managers and individual advisors.
Deutsche Bank is awaiting regulatory approval to launch institutional digital asset custody, with the license expected in October.
Nolan said the United Kingdom lags behind because of the pace of regulation, since the FCA lifted the ban on exchange-traded products for retail investors less than a year ago.
Deutsche Bank announced initial support for Bitcoin, Ether and a few stablecoins, including USDC, EURC and EURAU. The register has also absorbed dozens of Volksbanks, Raiffeisenbanks and VR Banks, bringing regulated services to the regional cooperative network. In the United Kingdom, the FCA opens applications on September 30. The deadline for the transitional arrangement is February 28, 2027, and the regime takes effect on October 25, 2027.
Euro area central banks want to replace the bank deposit requirement with liquidity limits
In short:
The European System of Central Banks called for the removal of the rule requiring at least 30% of reserves, or 60% for significant stablecoins, to be held in bank deposits.
In its place, it proposed minimum liquidity thresholds with assets maturing in one and in five business days.
The rationale is that the current rule creates a direct link between issuers and banks and could generate liquidity risk in the event of a run.
The request appears in the ESCB's response to the MiCA review conducted by the European Commission. As alternatives, it pointed to overnight repurchase agreements and short-term sovereign securities. It also cited the 2024 EBA draft, which requires 40% in one business day and 60% in five for significant stablecoins.
The proposal reverses the axis of the debate seen in the United States, where the banking sector argues that stablecoins drain deposits. Here the risk identified is the opposite: the rule forces issuers to hold reserves in bank deposits, so a run on the issuer would turn into a lightning withdrawal from the bank. For issuers under MiCA, the change would directly affect reserve composition, opening room for higher-yielding instruments and reducing dependence on any specific bank counterparty.
Worth reading
Email Love published a guide on monitoring competitors' emails whose usefulness goes beyond the channel. Lululemon and Old Navy send similar volumes, 4.7 and 4.3 emails per week. However, 95% of Old Navy's subject lines feature an offer or price, versus 11% for Lululemon, and Old Navy sends 72% of its emails on weekends, versus 10% for its competitor. The analysis covers 628 emails over the same 180-day window and is transparent about the method's limitations, including the fact that a single inbox receives only part of the sends.
Story of the week
Sony is arguing in court that players do not own the digital games they have purchased, reopening an old debate about digital ownership. In 2009, copies of 1984 were remotely deleted from Kindles over a rights issue, and works by Roald Dahl, Agatha Christie and R.L. Stine were later edited remotely. Primavera De Filippi, research director at CERSA, explains that buying a digital asset creates a revocable entry in the platform's database, without the protections property law provides against arbitrary seizure.
The article discusses whether tokenization solves the problem and concludes that it does not yet. Ownership certificates that point to files hosted on a company's server preserve the dependency, and public ledgers prevent exclusive control over the content. The same reasoning applies to money, since a platform balance is also an entry in a third party's database. → Read
Further reading on AI, markets and the surrounding infrastructure
Binance buys a US$100 million stake in Circle in a five-year deal to promote USDC
SpaceX and xAI launch Grok 4.7 for coding and knowledge work
This was Stable News, a weekly roundup to keep you up to date on the latest stablecoin developments around the globe.
