Ndax Weekly TL;DR Sept 28

Fed proposes new stablecoin rules

• The U.S. Federal Reserve proposed new rules this week for payment stablecoin issuers under its supervision as it begins implementing the GENIUS Act. The proposal would require stablecoins to be fully backed by permitted reserve assets such as short-term U.S. Treasury bills, introduce capital requirements to address certain credit and operational risks, establish rules for banks safeguarding stablecoin reserves, and create a tailored application process for Fed-supervised banks that want to issue their own stablecoins. (Reuters)
• Why it matters: The GENIUS Act establishes the legal framework for regulated stablecoins and these proposals will define how that framework could work in the real world. Clear reserve, capital and approval requirements would give banks and other financial institutions a clearer understanding of what they need to enter the market.

Cathie Wood brings venture fund onchain

• Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest is tokenizing its ARK Venture Fund through Securitize. The ARKVX fund has around $1.3 billion in net assets with stakes in private companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Stripe, and Databricks. The tokenized fund will initially be available to eligible investors on Ethereum. (Bloomberg)
• Why it matters: Tokenization is now moving beyond stocks, bonds, and money-market products into harder-to-access private-market investments. Bringing a $1.3 billion established investment vehicle onchain gives tokenization a much larger real-world test case and could set the tone for how major asset managers view blockchain as infrastructure for existing financial products rather than something limited to crypto-native assets.

Solana puts near-instant finality to the test

• Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade moved onto the network’s public testnet this week, giving developers a larger environment to test one of the most significant changes to Solana’s consensus system. Alpenglow is designed to reduce transaction finality from just under 13 seconds today to around 150 milliseconds. (CoinDesk)
• Why it matters: Cutting finality to a fraction of a second could make Solana considerably more practical for applications where settlement speed is particularly important. This could include payments, trading, and cross-chain transfers. For now, the technology is not ready for mainnet, but the move to testing does bring one of Solana’s biggest planned performance upgrades closer to potential real-world deployment.

Canadian spotlight: Big Six banks explore tokenized deposits

• BMO, CIBC, National Bank, RBC, Scotiabank, and TD announced this week that they are jointly exploring a Canadian-dollar digital money system beginning with tokenized bank deposits. The first phase aims to enable tokenized deposits to move efficiently between Canadian financial institutions. Over time, the banks aim to connect the system with other digital-asset initiatives. (Financial Post)
• Why it matters: All six of Canada’s major banks are working together on infrastructure to move Canadian-dollar deposits digitally. Starting with a shared approach could help address interoperability from the beginning rather than having each bank build its own disconnected system.
   

BTC Weekly Range: $116K-$120K
ETH Weekly Range: $3.7K-$3.8K

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Sept 29 - Canada GDP MoM
Sept 30 - US PCE Index
Oct 1 - US Initial Jobless Claims
Oct 2 - US Unemployment Rate Annoucement

Bitcoin began last week with considerable momentum, reaching its highest levels seen in roughly eight months. Renewed institutional demand and improving risk sentiment as oil prices eased helped the market move past the prior week’s rate hike and CLARITY Act setback.

St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem said last week that additional rate hikes will likely be needed to bring inflation under control. He described the current 3.75%-4.00% federal funds rate as still being on the accommodative side.

Higher bond yields reflected those concerns, with the U.S. 10-year Treasury yield climbing to levels not seen since 2007, highlighting the tension between strong crypto-specific demand and a less supportive liquidity environment. Higher yields increase the relative attractiveness of lower-risk assets and can create a headwind for Bitcoin and other risk-sensitive investments.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem also warned that renewed U.S. tariffs could push fourth-quarter Canadian growth below 1%, compared with an earlier estimate of around 1.5%. Canada’s July GDP report on Tuesday could provide a clearer picture of whether economic momentum weakened entering the third quarter.

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