Coindesk

As it was near-universally expected, the U.S. Federal Reserve left benchmark interest rates steady at 4.25%-4.50% on Wednesday at the June meeting."Although swings in net exports have affected the data, recent indicators suggest that economic activity has continued to expand at a solid pace," the press release said. "The unemployment rate remains low, and labor market conditions remain solid. Inflation remains somewhat elevated."The Fed's quarterly economic projections—which include the "dot plot" that indicates where the central bank expects the Fed funds rate over time — showed that policymakers see rates at 3.9% by year-end 2025, translating to 50 basis point cuts this year, the same as they expected in March. However, Fed members see rates decline to 3.6% next year...

Crypto exchange Coinbase (COIN) is venturing further into the global payments business with the launch of Coinbase Payments, the company said in a Wednesday blog post.The service, built on Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network Base, is already live with ecommerce platform Shopify and was designed to bring stablecoin payments to merchants, supporting around-the-clock USDC transactions without requiring any blockchain know-how, the blog post said.The company's move aligns with the growing trend of stablecoins reshaping the global payments market. Payments companies such as Stripe and PayPal debut products that use blockchain tech under the hood for payments. Meanwhile, crypto native companies like USDC issuer Circle with its payment network are also entering the increasingly competitive field. It's still an enticing opportunity:...

Stablecoins dominate the tokenization of real-world assets (RWA), but Standard Chartered (STAN) said it sees signs of a broader shift underway.With just $23 billion currently in non-stablecoin RWAs, around 10% the size of the stablecoin market, the investment bank anticipates significant growth as regulatory clarity improves and the focus shifts to assets that benefit more meaningfully from being on-chain, it said in a research report Wednesday.Tokenization is one of the main uses of blockchain technology and it is attracting attention and investment from the TradFi world. Stablecoins are cryptocurrencies whose value is tied to another asset, such as the U.S. dollar or gold. They play a major role in cryptocurrency markets and are also used to transfer money internationally.Jurisdictions like...

A Bitcoin-blockchain based decentralized finance (DeFi) project debuted a stablecoin fully backed by bitcoin BTC tokens as part of its effort to build a financial system centered on the largest and oldest cryptocurrency.Elastos, developer of the BeL2 protocol, unveiled its bitcoin dollar (BTCD) on Wednesday.The project aims to create a digital version of the Bretton Woods system, the post-World War II agreement that pegged the U.S. dollar to gold, making the greenback the world's reserve currency as a means of fostering monetary stability. Elastos said it is "reimagining with Bitcoin at its core."Stablecoins are tokens pegged to the value of a traditional financial asset, such as a fiat currency, usually the dollar. They're an important cog in the cryptocurrency...

In the search for stable, scalable yield on-chain, real world assets (RWAs) have become a cornerstone of digital asset strategies. Tokenized treasuries and private credit brought off-chain yield on-chain, delivering much-needed stability and quickly emerging as one of the strongest-performing segments in crypto.Top crypto categories by market caphttps://www.coingecko.com/en/categories#key-statsHowever, much of this early RWA activity has simply mirrored traditional finance. The next stage of evolution demands more. Capital moves quickly, and investors expect more from their assets. They’re looking for returns that aren’t tied to cycles, access that doesn’t depend on intermediaries and assets that are composable across the DeFi ecosystem.One emerging example is tokenized reinsurance, bringing some of the world’s largest and illiquid industries into the fund flows of DeFi.Reinsurance...