Stablecoin

Circle has agreed to acquire the Interop Labs team and its proprietary technology in a transaction expected to close in early 2026, while the Axelar Network, its foundation and the AXL token will remain independently governed. The acquisition will fold Interop Labs' interoperability stack into Circle's Arc blockchain and Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol to bolster crosschain infrastructure for multichain applications. The move follows Circle's earlier purchase of Hashnote and comes amid a broader wave of 2025 acquisitions by stablecoin issuers, including Paxos and Tether.

Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon has been sentenced to 15 years in a U.S. prison for wire fraud linked to the Terra-Luna collapse and could later face up to 30 additional years if convicted in South Korea. He may apply for transfer to South Korea after serving half of his U.S. term, where prosecutors have prepared a separate case tied to Capital Markets Act violations and large investor losses.

Ripple began testing its U.S.-regulated stablecoin RLUSD on Optimism, Base, Ink, and Unichain, using Wormhole’s Native Token Transfers to support native multichain issuance. RLUSD operates under an NYDFS Trust Charter, and DefiLlama data shows 79.2% of RLUSD on Ethereum worth over $1 billion, with the remainder on XRPL.

Industry insiders caution that Ethereum could fade by 2030 unless urgency returns, prompting the Ethereum Foundation to pivot toward faster iteration from early 2025. Leadership changes, including Tomasz Stańczak and Hsiao-Wei Wang as Executive Directors, accompany performance-focused upgrades and a proposed "Beam Chain" to address scaling and fragmentation.

On December 15, Ripple announced it has started testing its RLUSD stablecoin across multiple Ethereum Layer 2 networks, with a public rollout targeted for 2026 following regulatory clearance in New York. The trials span Base, Unichain and Ink, using Wormhole's Native Token Transfers standard to keep RLUSD natively issued while enabling movement between chains. Ripple aims to position RLUSD as a compliant, liquid asset for users entering and exiting the digital asset ecosystem, while also reinforcing utility within the broader XRP environment.

Updated on December 15, 2025 at 1:27 PM UTC, Oobit integrated Plasma, a stablecoin-focused blockchain infrastructure, to enable USD₮ spending via its DePay layer across a network of more than 100 million merchants. Users can pay from self-custody wallets like Phantom, MetaMask, Trust Wallet, and Binance Wallet, with negligible fees and deep USD₮ liquidity.

JPMorgan Chase has introduced a private tokenized money market fund on Ethereum, seeding it with $100 million. The MONY vehicle issues wallet-based share tokens via Morgan Money, with subscriptions and redemptions in cash or USDC and eligibility starting at $1 million; individuals need at least $5 million and institutions $25 million.

The Agnelli family, through their holding company Exor, has unanimously rejected Tether's binding €1 billion all-cash proposal to buy its 65.4% stake in Juventus Football Club. The decision, taken after the offer was formally submitted on Friday, halted one of Europe's boldest football takeover attempts even as Juventus shares jumped more than 12% on Monday on the implied premium.

JPMorgan Asset Management launched its first tokenized money market fund on the Ethereum blockchain, according to The Wall Street Journal on December 15. The private My OnChain Net Yield Fund will be seeded with $100 million of JPMorgan capital and opens to external investors on December 16, with a $1 million minimum and eligibility thresholds for qualified individuals and institutions.

Hashdex released its 2026 crypto investment outlook, with CIO Samir Kerbage suggesting most investors consider a 5–10% crypto allocation. The report projects stablecoins rising from roughly $295 billion to well over $500 billion and tokenized RWAs reaching about $400 billion by end-2026, while AI-focused crypto grows from around $3 billion to $10 billion. A portfolio test shows adding the Nasdaq Crypto Index US to a 60/40 improved risk-adjusted returns, albeit with deeper drawdowns.