On Thursday, Tether said it will invest a total of $150 million in Gold.com, initially buying about $125 million in common shares and adding $25 million after regulatory approval. The stablecoin issuer, which already directly holds roughly 140 tons of gold and dominates over half of the gold stablecoin market through Tether Gold, will also gain the right to nominate a Gold.com board member as the firms pursue a vertically integrated gold ecosystem.

A large Aave loan backed by roughly 355,093 AAVE — about 2.3% of supply — began cascading liquidations on Thursday during a market pullback. Roughly $2 million of collateral was seized across four transactions to repay nearly $2 million in USDC, after AAVE dipped near $104–$103; it later traded around $105.60, down 15% on the day.

Polymarket, the largest fully onchain prediction market on Polygon, will shift from bridged USDC.e to a native USDC integration, according to an announcement with Circle on Thursday. USDC.e currently supports trading, order placement, and settlements. Circle said native Polymarket USDC will roll out in the "coming months."

SBI Holdings has partnered with Startale Group to introduce Strium, a new Layer 1 blockchain designed specifically for tokenized securities and other real-world assets. The proof-of-concept aims to support 24/7 stock trading, DeFi composability and interoperability with traditional financial systems, while drawing on SBI's large customer base and institutional experience.

CME Group Chairman and CEO Terrence Duffy said on an earnings call that the exchange is building a tokenized cash coin, reportedly with Google Cloud, that could be used as collateral for derivatives trading and is slated to launch in 2026. The initiative follows a CFTC pilot that permits selected cryptocurrencies, including USDC, bitcoin, and ether, to be posted as collateral and may expand CME's use of onchain margin products.

Hyperliquid said on Monday it is introducing general‑purpose "Outcome" trading as part of the in‑progress HIP‑4 upgrade, with an initial rollout on testnet. Outcomes are fully collateralized, bounded contracts that can power prediction markets and limited‑risk options, settling in USDH and running on HyperCore. The project has recorded nearly $42 billion in cumulative volume and recently reached an all‑time high in open interest.

A PayPal-backed survey released on Tuesday found that around four in ten of roughly 620 merchant decision-makers already take cryptocurrency at checkout, with nearly three-quarters of those seeing higher crypto sales over the past year. Close to 85% of respondents expect crypto payments to become standard within five years, and adoption is most common among firms generating over $500 million in annual revenue.

Hyperliquid reported on Monday that HIP-3 deployed decentralized exchanges have pushed open interest to a new all-time high above $790 million, driven by stronger commodities trading. CEO Jeff Yan said the platform now offers some of the tightest bitcoin perpetual spreads versus Binance, while HIP-3 markets have expanded rapidly since launching Builder-Deployed Perpetuals in October.

BlackRock is seeking to launch an iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF that would hold bitcoin while generating income through an options strategy, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Friday. The fund aims to sell call options primarily on IBIT shares to capture premiums and currently has no ticker. BlackRock’s Nasdaq-listed IBIT spot bitcoin ETF has about $69.75 billion in assets under management.