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CIPA: How Classified Information Impacts Timing, Discovery and Trial Strategy (Criminal Justice Magazine)

David Sherman Participates in Webinar on AI Governance Playbook with Board Risk Consulting

Tera Coleman Selected to Cleveland Leadership Center’s Class of 2027

Blockchain Monitor

Blockchain Monitor - Planet earth in outer space with network connection and sunlight.

Weekly Blockchain Blog – August 10, 2026

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<a href="#stablecoin">Payments Companies Announce Stablecoin Integrations, Charter Applications</a>

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<a href="#dlt">Financial Institutions Announce Tokenized Deposits, Validator and DLT Initiatives</a>

<a href="#bis">BIS Project Agorá Explores Tokenization of Wholesale Cross-Border Payments</a>

<a href="#hackers">Hackers Pilfer More than $130 Million in Bitcoin from Hardware Wallets</a>

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Payments Companies Announce Stablecoin Integrations, Charter Applications

By <a href="https://www.bakerlaw.com/KeithRMurphy">Keith R. Murphy</a>

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According to a recent press release, a major financial services and payment card company has acquired a stablecoin-focused technology company to further increase interoperability across fiat and digital currencies. The acquisition and related infrastructure reportedly will help people, companies and machines “hold, move, manage and convert value across fiat and digital currencies within a framework of security, compliance and interoperability.”

In related news, another major financial services and payment card company is collaborating with zerohash, a digital asset infrastructure provider, to integrate stablecoin functionality, according to a recent report. The collaboration reportedly will enable clients to prefund merchant accounts and send payouts via stablecoins. According to the report, the collaboration is intended to provide businesses with increased flexibility in managing liquidity and settling transactions 24 hours a day, particularly for cross-border activity.

According to another recent press release, a major U.S. and cross-border payments company has partnered with Rain, a stablecoin payments platform, to launch Stablecard, “a digital wallet and USDPT-backed … credit card designed to enable consumers to hold, move and spend U.S. dollar value globally.” As noted in the press release, “[f]or remittance receivers in markets where local currencies frequently fluctuate, a dollar-backed balance protects what they have already earned.” According to the press release, the Stablecard allows users to spend funds at merchants, at ATMs, online and in stores.

In other stablecoin news, the issuer of the USDC stablecoin announced that it received a limited purpose trust charter from the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), according to a recent press release. The company reportedly was also the first to receive a BitLicense in 2015 from NYDFS.

And in a final notable item, Dakota, a fintech and stablecoin infrastructure company, has applied to the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency for a national trust bank charter, according to a recent press release. Obtaining a charter reportedly would make the company a federally regulated provider of digital asset custody, stablecoin issuance and related services, according to the press release.

For more information, please refer to the following links:

<a href="https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/news-and-trends/press/2026/august/mastercard-completes-acquisition-of-bvnk-to-advance-global-stabl.html">Mastercard completes acquisition of BVNK to advance global stablecoin capabilities</a>

<a href="https://www.theblock.co/post/410657/stablecoin-capabilities-visa-direct-zerohash">Visa expands stablecoin capabilities on Visa Direct with zerohash collaboration</a>

<a href="https://ir.westernunion.com/news/archived-press-releases/press-release-details/2026/Western-Union-Launches-Stablecard-in-Partnership-with-Rain/default.aspx">Western Union Launches Stablecard in Partnership with Rain</a>

<a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260731400151/en/Circle-Granted-Trust-Charter-by-the-New-York-Department-of-Financial-Services">Circle Granted Trust Charter by the New York Department of Financial Services</a>

<a href="https://dakota.xyz/blog/dakota-applies-for-a-national-trust-bank-charter">Dakota Applies for a National Trust Bank Charter</a>

Financial Institutions Announce Tokenized Deposits, Staking, Validator and DLT Initiatives

By <a href="https://www.bakerlaw.com/professionals/amos-kim/">Amos Kim</a>

A major U.S. bank recently announced the introduction of tokenized deposits to enable corporate and commercial clients to move, program and settle funds around the clock within the regulated banking system. According to a press release, the bank’s tokenized deposits are a blockchain-based representation of commercial bank money that will roll out this fall with a limited U.S. dollar-to-British pound exchange, with expansion planned throughout 2027. The press release notes that the solution will be integrated into the bank’s existing offerings, automatically routing payments to improve speed and timing without changing how clients interface with the bank. Future enhancements are designed to deliver always-on settlement, programmability using smart contracts for conditional payments, and the same regulatory protections and deposit insurance eligibility as existing deposit products.

Another major U.S. bank recently announced “a strategic collaboration with Galaxy, a global leader in digital assets and data center infrastructure, to further advance digital asset infrastructure for institutional markets, including support for staking” on the bank’s digital asset custody platform. According to a press release, the combination of the bank’s custody platform with “Galaxy’s expertise in proof-of-stake network aims to provide clients with an integrated, institutional-grade experience for participating in staking through a secure, streamlined workflow.”

A third recent press release announced that several major U.S. payments and technology companies will operate Tier 1 validators on the Stellar network to expand the decentralization and resilience of the network’s core infrastructure. According to the press release, Tier 1 validators are publicly identifiable organizations that run multiple geographically distributed full validators to participate in the Stellar network’s consensus model, safeguard the safety and liveness of the network, and maintain the highest standards of uptime.

In a final notable development, a group of 10 major European financial institutions announced the establishment of Regulated Layer One (RL1), described as an open, compliance-optimized and collaborative distributed ledger technology network for the European financial sector. According to the press release, RL1 was established as a European Cooperative Society based in Luxembourg to overcome the current fragmentation of blockchain networks within the regulated financial sector. The press release explains that the cooperative aims to create a neutral, member-owned, pan-European utility for tokenized assets, digital money and next-generation financial markets use cases.

<a href="https://newsroom.wf.com/news-releases/news-details/2026/Wells-Fargo-to-Launch-Tokenized-Deposits-for-Corporate-and-Commercial-Clients/default.aspx">Wells Fargo to Launch Tokenized Deposits for Corporate and Commercial Clients</a>

<a href="https://www.galaxy.com/newsroom/galaxy-and-bny-collaborate-to-advance-digital-asset-infrastructure">Galaxy and BNY Collaborate to Advance Digital Asset Infrastructure</a>

<a href="https://www.bny.com/corporate/global/en/about-us/newsroom/press-release/bny-and-galaxy-collaborate-to-advance-digital-asset-infrastructure.html">BNY and Galaxy Collaborate to Advance Digital Asset Infrastructure</a>

<a href="https://stellar.org/press/moneygram-figure-markets-and-range-to-help-secure-the-stellar-network-by-joining-as-tier-1-validators">MoneyGram, Figure Markets, and Range to Help Secure the Stellar Network by joining as Tier 1 Validators</a>

<a href="https://www.rl1.network/news/rl1-launch/">European blockchain initiative ‘Regulated Layer One’ goes live</a>

BIS Project Agorá Explores Tokenization of Wholesale Cross-Border Payments

By <a href="https://www.bakerlaw.com/professionals/ariana-dindiyal/">Ariana Dindiyal</a>

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and the Institute of International Finance (IIF) recently announced an initiative called Project Agorá, which explores how tokenization can improve wholesale cross-border payments.

According to a BIS press release and report, the project is a public-private partnership that combines eight central banks, including those of five major reserve currencies, and more than 40 leading financial institutions convened by the IIF. The goal is to eliminate the burdens of cross-border payments like delays, increased costs and limited end-to-end visibility while maintaining the safety, reliability and soundness of traditional banking payments.

The BIS report notes that the project’s prototype uses a shared programmable platform that enables atomic, multicurrency settlement of wholesale cross-border payments, which could occur around the clock if implemented. According to the report, by leveraging smart contracts, the platform allows financial institutions to embed workflow logic, compliance requirements and conditional payment triggers directly in transactions. This reduces reconciliation burdens, manual intervention and other operational frictions, which are currently the key sources of delay, errors, cost and payment failure in today’s cross-border system.

According to the BIS report, project participants are also considering the regulatory and legal implications associated with the prototype, including with respect to issues like settlement finality, anti-money laundering/countering the financing of terrorism and data privacy. Further testing is expected to include conducting real-value transactions involving certain currencies and participants.

For more information, please refer to the following link:

<a href="https://www.bis.org/about/bisih/topics/fmis/agora.htm">BIS: Project Agorá: exploring tokenisation of wholesale cross-border payments</a>

Hackers Pilfer More than $130 Million in Bitcoin from Hardware Wallets

By <a href="https://www.bakerlaw.com/professionals/lauren-bass/">Lauren Bass</a>

According to reports, hackers recently exploited a software flaw in Coldcard, Coinkite’s hardware crypto wallet, to steal more than $130 million in Bitcoin assets. The attackers reportedly accessed code that allowed them to determine how wallet users’ seed phrases were generated and then executed a brute-force attack to gain access to the seed phrases and ultimately to the private keys enabling access to users’ Bitcoin. Coinkite has issued advisories to its users to update their firmware and replace their seed phrases, but it remains unclear whether the exploit has effectively been patched.

<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/04/hackers-steal-over-130-million-by-exploiting-bug-in-offline-hardware-wallets/">Hackers steal over $130M by exploiting bug in offline hardware wallets</a>

<a href="https://thehackernews.com/2026/08/coldcard-hardware-wallet-flaw-linked-to.html">Coldcard Hardware Wallet Flaw Linked to $70 Million Bitcoin Theft in 41 Minutes</a>

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