Welcome back!

Here’s what I’ve got for you this week:

Reports of Bitcoin’s death have, once again, been greatly exaggerated.

Now, let’s jump right into this week’s newsletter! 

Click on any underlined heading/hyperlink to learn more.

Escape Velocity

Charles Schwab has joined JPMorgan Chase in barring outside AI agents, Meta’s Muse among them, from moving client money. Citi and Bank of America have also curtailed agent access to customer accounts.

Security is the stated rationale. The more candid explanation lies in the accounts themselves, where banks and brokerages pay customers very little on idle cash while lending or investing that same money at far higher rates. The arrangement is enormously profitable, but it works only so long as customers leave their cash where it is.

AI agents threaten precisely that inertia. An agent acting on a customer’s behalf does not forget, procrastinate, or accept a meagre rate out of habit. It notices idle balances, compares yields, and moves the money, nightly if need be, without ever needing a reminder.

The incumbents have therefore done what incumbents usually do. They have locked the gate and called it prudence.

Yet the gate matters less than they suppose. Stablecoin rails, for instance, require no one’s permission. That is not to say they lack control: a wallet holding USDC can be operated by an agent within clearly defined guardrails, from spending caps to revocable permissions and audit trails. Every transaction also settles on a public ledger in seconds, visible to anyone who cares to check. All of this is enforced in code rather than buried in amended terms of service, and no compliance department gets to decide that the software is too competent. 

The logic is straightforward: programmable money was made for programmable agents.

So let them build their walls. The money already knows the way out.

Blockchain Security: OpenAI is in early talks to acquire Trail of Bits. The New York-based firm specialises in open-source security, vulnerability research, and blockchain audits. Its clients have included major protocols such as Uniswap, Aave, and World.

Rogue Agent: Speaking of OpenAI, the company disclosed that one of its AI agents accessed a wallet on Sepolia, an Ethereum test network, using publicly known developer recovery phrases, and spent its funds to pay for tasks without the owner’s permission. No real assets were at stake, but the episode is a timely warning as autonomous agents begin to transact on their own.

Verify Humanity: World, the crypto project formerly called Worldcoin, has launched World ID for banking and finance, tools to help institutions fight deepfake fraud and AI impersonation, including a feature that lets users delegate their verified identity to AI agents. Bain Capital, OpenExchange, Outtake, Pantera Capital, and VanEck have signed on as design partners. The launch follows last month’s release of World Money, a self-custody stablecoin payments app.

Significant Token: The European Banking Authority has classified Circle’s USDC as the EU’s first “significant” e-money token under the Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation. The designation cements Circle’s institutional credibility and secures fully compliant access to the entire European market.

Stablecoin Surge: Hyperliquid’s USDC supply has caught up with, and now overtaken, Solana’s. The catalyst: Hyperliquid integrated USDC as its primary "Aligned Quote Asset" (AQA), with Coinbase acting as the treasury deployer and Circle handling minting and cross-chain infrastructure.

Financial Integration: Payward, Kraken’s parent company, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Lithuania’s Saldo Bank, a move that reflects the group’s ambition to become its customers’ financial home. Kraken users will be able, among other things, to borrow against their digital assets, earn yield, and tap traditional SEPA payment rails, all from a single platform.

And that's a wrap!

You can reach me anytime over on 𝕏 or drop me a line.

Talk soon!

J264G

_{DISCLAIMER
None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research. Lastly, please be advised that we discuss products and services from our partners from which our team members may hold tokens/equity.}