News Roundup — Crypto Payments Go Mobile: USDC to Introduce ‘Tap-and-Go’ on iPhones

Major news stories this week;

1. Crypto Payments Go Mobile: USDC to Introduce ‘Tap-and-Go’ on iPhones
2. Spot Ethereum ETFs see $4.9 million in inflows, Grayscale’s ETHE ends 14-day outflow streak
3. IMF execs float raising crypto mining electricity prices by 85%
4. U.S. Government Sends $600 Million Worth Of Silk Road Bitcoin To Coinbase
5. Tether crypto exchanges balance hits record high as Treasury prints $1B USDT

Story Summaries;

1. As the global crypto industry continues to evolve, the integration of the sector along with traditional technologies is rapidly becoming a thing. The latest news highlighting this phenomenon is from Circle, a fintech company behind the issuance of the renowned stablecoin USDC. Circle's CEO, Jeremy Allaire, disclosed in a post on X that Circle is gearing up to enable ‘tap-and-go’ payments using USDC on iPhones. This development follows Apple’s latest decision to allow third-party developers access to its NFC chip and Secure Element technology. Giving further details into the USDC ‘tap-and-go’ launch on iPhones, Allaire highlighted the implications of this update for payment systems, noting that point-of-sale systems could soon communicate directly with iPhone wallets to process transactions using blockchain addresses. This would facilitate “seamless” USDC payments to merchants authenticated via biometric features like FaceID.
2. U.S. spot Ethereum exchange-traded funds saw $4.9 million flow into the product on Monday, with the Grayscale Ethereum Trust (ETHE) logging zero flows for the first time since its conversion into an ETF. According to data from SosoValue, the nine ether ETFs’ net inflows reversed following three consecutive days of negative flows. Notably, Grayscale’s ETHE recorded zero flows after 14 days of outflows. VanEck’s ETHV was the only spot ether ETF to experience negative flows, totalling $2.92 million in net outflows. This marked the first time ETHV had reported outflows since July 23. Fidelity’s FETH logged $3.98 million in net inflows, while Bitwise’s ETHW reported inflows of $2.86 million. Franklin’s EZET had about $1.01 million in inflows. The total daily trading volume for the spot ether ETFs reached $286 million on Monday, up from $166.9 million on Friday.
3. Two executives from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) say increasing the average crypto mining electricity costs globally by as much as 85% through taxes could put a huge dent in carbon emissions. A tax of $0.047 per kilowatt hour “would drive the crypto mining industry to curb its emissions in line with global goals,” the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department’s deputy division chief Shafik Hebous and climate policy division economist Nate Vernon-Lin wrote on Aug. 15. If accounting for miners’ local impact on health, the tax would rise to $0.089 per kilowatt hour, the pair said. Hebous and Vernon-Lin wrote that the higher tax would increase the average electricity price for crypto miners by 85%, raise yearly global government revenue by $5.2 billion and reduce emissions by 100 million tons annually, equivalent to Belgium’s emissions. They claimed a single Bitcoin transaction uses about the same amount of electricity as the average person in Pakistan uses in three years, while the artificial intelligence model ChatGPT needs 10 times the amount of power compared to a Google search.
4. According to the on-chain analytics firm, the funds were confiscated from the defunct Silk Road web marketplace and are currently valued at $593.91 million. The latest transfer follows a previous move of roughly 29,800 Silk Road Bitcoin, valued at nearly $2 billion, in late July. The price of Bitcoin has tumbled from the $61.5K intraday highs earlier today. BTC was changing hands at $58,641 at press time, down 0.6% over the past 24 hours. While deposits to a centralized exchange often signify intention to sell the assets, today’s transfer could be linked to the early July partnership between Coinbase and the U.S. Marshals Service to “safeguard and trade” U.S. government crypto assets. It’s not clear what usually happens with the BTC after arriving on Coinbase Prime. The US government currently holds approximately 203,200 BTC, making it the top holder of Bitcoin among world governments, with the bulk of this sum coming from various confiscations of crypto assets from bad actors. Based on today’s prices, this massive cache is valued at roughly $12.3 billion.
5. Tether’s record balance across crypto exchanges followed the minting of $1 billion worth of stablecoin by its namesake treasury. On Aug. 13, data tracking platform Whale Alert noted that Tether had added another $1 billion on the Ethereum network. Paolo Ardoino, the CEO of Tether, clarified that the recent $1 billion USDT transaction was an "inventory replenish," emphasizing that it was "authorized but not issued." Simply put, the tokens are reserved for future issuance requests and chain swaps. In traditional finance, inventory replenishment involves ordering stock to meet demand without overstocking. Similarly, Tether creates USDT to maintain sufficient reserves, holding them in its treasury until needed, ensuring smooth liquidity management without immediately releasing them into circulation. According to data from the Tether Transparency page, $941.72 million in USDT stand “authorized but not issued” on Ethereum as of Aug. 14. In other words, approximately 60 million USDT from the recent $1 billion mint have already entered circulation, highlighting the strong demand.

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

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