Lending
the first on-chain M&A
Hey, it’s Marc, WE keep a running list of how institutions actually use blockchain. Not what they announce. What they do. Yesterday, Franklin Templeton added something new to that list.[RELEASE] They bought a crypto team. Normal. They launched a new division. Fine. But here’s the part that matters: they paid for part of the deal with BENJI tokens. Their own tokenized money market fund shares. On-chain. Earning yield. A $1.74 trillion asset manager just used a blockchain token to settle a corp
Arizona is lending its Bitcoin
Hey, it’s Marc, I've been tracking every state Bitcoin reserve bill for the past year. They all do the same thing: buy Bitcoin, hold Bitcoin, repeat. Arizona apparently found that boring. Two bills just cleared committee that would let the state treasurer lend seized crypto for yield. Also, $7.43B of public pension money is now eligible for crypto. Celsius died doing this. Arizona wants to try it with retirement funds. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. The Signal: U.S. public capital (treasuries and p
Europe's $2.3T manager went on-chain
Hey, it’s Marc! Europe’s largest asset manager decided to skip paying the operational tax and brought its fund distribution infrastructure on blockchain. Amundi (€2.4T AUM) moved $100M onto public blockchains (Ethereum and Stellar). And, it is the firm’s second blockchain-based product in five months. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. [RELEASE] 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Ceo Notes Amundi Tokenised FundsCeo Notes Amundi Tokenised Funds807 KBdownload-circle The Signal: Europe's largest asset manager
Morgan Stanley is building a full-stack crypto bank
Morgan Stanley is transitioning from a distributor of third-party crypto products to a direct issuer and platform provider. And, it is going to become the first U.S. bank to issue an ETF directly. In March 2026, the firm filed an amended S-1 for its own spot Bitcoin ETF. That filing landed one month after the bank applied to the OCC for a federally chartered crypto trust subsidiary. Beyond Bitcoin, they are also focusing on yield and filed for Ethereum and Solana ETFs in January 2026. [FILING]
who owns the agent economy?
On March 18, 2026, Stripe and Tempo co-released the Machine Payments Protocol, an open specification for machine-to-machine payments.
Wall Street just put stocks on a blockchain
On March 18, the SEC approved Nasdaq to trade and settle U.S. equities as blockchain tokens.
the SEC sorts its tokens
Hey, it’s Marc, For the first time ever in their combined 183 years of existence, the SEC and CFTC published a joint document agreeing on what crypto actually is. They named 16 specific tokens as commodities. They said staking isn't a security. And they formally acknowledged that a security can stop being a security. That last part is the one that changes everything. [RELEASE] The Signal: Most crypto tokens aren’t securities by default, and their regulatory status depends on how they’re used
Mastercard acquired BVNK for $1.8B
Coinbase had a $2 billion offer on the table in November 2025. Then it walked. ZeroHash walked away from a $2 billion Mastercard’s takeover in January. Then in March, Mastercard paid $1.8 billion for the exact same company. Mastercard agreed to acquire BVNK, a UK-based stablecoin infrastructure company, for up to $1.8 billion, $300 million of which is contingent on performance milestones. This is about plumbing for autonomous payments, reputation and distribution. Let’s unpack. [RELEASE] 👉
Florida's stablecoin bill
Hey, it’s Marc, JPMorgan closed Trump’s accounts. Congress froze on crypto regulation. Whereas, Florida just built the first state-level stablecoin regulatory system in America. And it did it unanimously. In one legislative sprint, the state passed a stablecoin issuance framework, authorized a potential $24B+ sovereign digital asset allocation, and launched a pilot to accept crypto for state taxes. It’s a live fork of the U.S. financial system. [RELEASE] 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Subscr
NYSE's parent just bought 120M crypto users
Hey, it’s Marc, Thirteen months ago, OKX paid $504M to the DOJ for running an unlicensed money-transmitting operation. On March 10, the NYSE’s parent company ICE ($90B operator) handed them a board seat and a Wall Street halo in exchange for access to 120M users. [RELEASE] 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Ceo Notes Ice X OkxCeo Notes Ice X Okx768 KBdownload-circle What happened On March 5, 2026, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), operator of the NYSE, invested approximately $200M for a minorit
4.5% broke Congress
Hey, it’s Marc, The CLARITY Act missed its March 1 deadline because banks and crypto can't agree on one number: 4.5%. That's the yield Coinbase pays on USDC. Your bank pays 0.01%. A Treasury study says $6.6 trillion in deposits are at risk. The most important crypto bill in U.S. history is stuck, with four months before the midterms freeze everything. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Subscribe now What happened The CLARITY Act passed the House in July 2025 with bipa
Nasdaq ate crypto and called it an upgrade
Hey, it’s Marc, Crypto promised to kill the middleman. The middleman just hired crypto instead. Nasdaq and Kraken are turning every Nasdaq-listed stock into a blockchain token, same CUSIP, same rules, just faster. Through Kraken’s xStocks, NASDAQ has access to 68% of the tokenized equities market with $25B+ in transaction volume across 85,000 unique holders. [RELEASE] The stock market is about to run 24/7. Let’s unpack. 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Subscribe nowHe ran the NYSE, now he's
The first crypto firm on Fedwire
Hey, it’s Marc, For 110 years, direct access to Fedwire was the exclusive privilege of chartered commercial banks. Today, a crypto exchange broke that streak. Kraken Financial just became the first digital asset bank in U.S. history to receive a Federal Reserve master account. The implications run far deeper than faster deposits. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Ceo Notes Kraken Federal ReserveCeo Notes Kraken Federal Reserve2 MBdownload-circleSubscribe now What happ
BNP Paribas called it an 'experiment'
Hey, it’s Marc, Name one major institution that launched tokenized funds on a private blockchain and stayed there. You can’t. BlackRock moved to Ethereum. Franklin Templeton moved to Ethereum. JPMorgan moved to Ethereum. Last week, BNP Paribas joined them as the first and largest European bank. And they went further. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. 👉PRO: Download the PDF at the bottom Download Subscribe now What happened On February 19, 2026, BNP Paribas Asset Management issued a tokenized sha
Wall Street's weekend just died
Hey, it’s Marc, On May 29, CME opens crypto derivatives trading 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. One problem: if Bitcoin crashes at 3am on a Saturday, CME has to manage that margin call instantly, and every bank in America is asleep. The world’s largest derivatives exchange just dragged traditional finance into a stress test it doesn’t have the plumbing for. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. 👉PRO: Download the PDF below Subscribe now What happened In February, CME Group said what traders have been
Santander let a bot spend real money
Hey, it’s Marc, I keep asking bank executives the same question: when does an AI agent make its first real purchase inside your system? On March 2, Santander answered it. An AI agent completed a live, end-to-end payment on real rails, no human at checkout. The $5 trillion checkout just got its first non-human customer. [RELEASE] Let’s unpack. Subscribe now 👉PRO: Download the PDF at the bottom Download Subscribe now What happened Santander and Mastercard executed Europe’s first live AI
Meta's stablecoin comeback with Stripe
In 2021, U.S. regulators killed Facebook’s Diem stablecoin project with a phone call. No law, no court order, just the Fed’s General Counsel Mark Van Der Weide dialling Diem’s CEO Stuart Leve and its banking partners with a message that landed like a cease-and-desist. Fast forward four years: Meta is back. But they aren’t minting a coin this time. Instead, they are renting Stripe’s stablecoin plumbing to turn WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook into a 3B user global settlement layer. And, this is
Apollo bought 9% of a DeFi protocol
Wall Street went from dismissing DeFi to integrating DeFi for tokenized funds to acquiring governance stakes. Morpho Association announced a cooperation agreement with Apollo Global Management affiliates. The deal: Apollo may acquire up to 90 million MORPHO tokens, over the next four years. This came just 48 hours after BlackRock listed its $2.1B BUIDL fund on Uniswap and purchased UNI governance tokens. [RELEASE] This didn't happen overnight. The shift from dismissing DeFi to governing it tel