News Roundup — After 6-year hiatus, Stripe to start taking crypto payments, starting with USDC stablecoin

Major news stories this week;

1. After 6-year hiatus, Stripe to start taking crypto payments, starting with USDC stablecoin
2. Banks could flood into stablecoins if new bill passes: S&P Global
3. Runes generate over $135 million in fees in first week on Bitcoin network
4. Bitcoin Transaction Fees Hit Record Level After Halving — Here’s Why
5. 39% of Canada’s institutional investors have exposure to crypto: KPMG

Story Summaries;

1. Stripe, the fintech giant, continues to inch its way back into the cryptocurrency market. On Thursday the company announced that it would let customers accept cryptocurrency payments, starting with just one currency in particular, USDC stablecoins, initially only on Solana, Ethereum and Polygon. This will be the first time that Stripe has taken crypto payments since 2018, when it dropped support for Bitcoin due to it being too unstable.
2. A new stablecoin-focused bill introduced to the United States Senate could “encourage” U.S. banks to step into the stablecoin market, says global ratings firm S&P Global Ratings. In an April 23 research note, S&P shared that proposals outlined in the Payment Stablecoin Act — introduced to the Senate on April 17 — could encourage banks to get involved in issuing U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins and potentially spell trouble for large non-U.S entities that issue stablecoins such as Tether.
3. The Runes token standard was recently launched on the Bitcoin network and has generated over 2129 bitcoin ($135 million) in transaction fees within its first week. Runes utilizes Bitcoin’s UTXO model and the OP_RETURN opcode to offer a more efficient tokenization solution for the network than the BRC20 standard (based on the Ordinals protocols). It allows users to mint tokens on top of Bitcoin, which are generally memecoins. The Runes system was invented by a developer named Casey Rodarmor, who also conceptualized the Ordinals protocol in early 2023.
4. BitcoinBTC 0.0% transaction fees soared to their highest level ever last weekend, all thanks to trading activity for a newly launched standard for Bitcoin-based digital collectibles. On April 20 (UTC time), Bitcoin miners collectively earned $78.3 million in transaction fees, setting an all-time high for USD-denominated transaction fee revenue on the Bitcoin network. Between April 19 and 20, miners earned $89.8 million in transaction fees, which is more than they earned for the entire month of March ($85.9 million).
5. Canada-based institutional investors significantly increased their crypto exposure last year compared to the last bull run, a survey from accounting firm KPMG has revealed. Nearly 40% of institutional investors reported having direct or indirect exposure to crypto assets in 2023 — up from 31% in KPMG’s 2021 study, the company according to an April 24 report. KPMG received 65 responses, 31 of which identified as institutional investors with most managing more than $500 million in assets, while the remaining 34 were financial services organisations.

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And that’s all for last week’s news! Wishing you a great week ahead!

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