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Jonathan Forster Pens Article on Active Legacy Management for Ultra High Net Worth Institute

Ed McAndrew Joins Panel at 2026 Class Action Money and Ethics Conference

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Weekly Blockchain Blog – May 18, 2026

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The Weekly Hill Update

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<a href="#stablecoin">Stablecoin Initiatives Launch, AI and Crypto Companies Seek Bank Charters</a>

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<a href="#genius">Crypto Product Launches Focus on GENIUS Act, Agentic Payments</a>

<a href="#crypto">US Crypto Companies Announce Acquisitions, Product Launches</a>

<a href="#tokenized">US Companies Announce Tokenized Securities Initiatives</a>

<a href="#banks">Bank Advocacy Organizations Provide Input on Proposed Stablecoin Regulations</a>

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Stablecoin Initiatives Launch, AI and Crypto Companies Seek Bank Charters

By <a href="https://www.bakerlaw.com/professionals/jackson-polish/">Jackson Polish</a>

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A major U.S. financial institution that operates the world’s largest money transfer network recently announced “the launch of USDPT, its U.S. dollar‑denominated payment stablecoin, marking a major milestone in the company’s evolution toward regulated, digital‑first financial infrastructure.” According to the press release, “USDPT is designed to support multiple strategic use cases across [the company’s] ecosystem, reinforcing the company’s long‑standing role as a bridge between global financial systems and local access to financial services for its customers.” USDPT will run on Solana’s “high-performance blockchain” to eliminate “the latency and fragmentation of traditional correspondent banking rails.”

Separately, another major U.S. financial company and a stablecoin provider operating primarily across Africa recently announced “a strategic partnership to accelerate stablecoin-enabled payment innovation across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EEMEA), with plans for global expansion.” According to the press release, the partnership explores “breakthrough applications for stablecoin payments across four key verticals: cross-border remittances, B2B settlement, digital loyalty ecosystems, and treasury management.” The initial focus markets for the partnership include “Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates.”

In another recent development, a financial technology company announced that “it has received conditional approval from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to establish a full-service US national bank.” According to the press release, this newly established bank “will be the world’s first clearing bank for the AI era, built on a stablecoin and AI-native core—a bank that’s always open, made for machines, at the speed of compute.” The financial technology company believes that its full-service U.S. national bank can solve the problems faced by the existing clearing model, which “runs on legacy correspondents that are closed 115 days a year, [are] built for humans, and take two days to settle.”

And in related news, the parent company to the Kraken cryptocurrency exchange recently announced that it “filed an application with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (‘OCC’) for a national trust company charter” for the purpose of providing “fiduciary custody and other services primarily for digital assets.” The press release explains that “[a] national trust company charter would establish a federally regulated custody offering under OCC oversight, expanding access for institutional clients who require a federally regulated qualified custodian and enabling … a broader range of clients across the United States.”

For more information, please refer to the following links:

<a href="https://ir.westernunion.com/news/archived-press-releases/press-release-details/2026/Western-Union-Launches-USDPT-on-Solana-Advancing-Regulated-Digital-Infrastructure-for-Global-Payments/default.aspx">Western Union Launches USDPT on Solana Advancing Regulated Digital Infrastructure for Global Payments</a>

<a href="https://techafricanews.com/2026/05/06/mastercard-and-yellow-card-partner-to-drive-stablecoin-payments-across-eemea/">Mastercard and Yellow Card Partner to Drive Stablecoin Payments Across EEMEA</a>

<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/augustus-receives-occ-conditional-approval-to-charter-the-first-clearing-bank-for-the-ai-era-302768111.html">Augustus Receives OCC Conditional Approval to Charter the First Clearing Bank For The AI Era</a>

<a href="https://blog.kraken.com/news/payward-files-application-for-occ-national-trust-company">Payward files application for OCC National Trust Company, deepening commitment to regulated digital asset infrastructure</a>

Crypto Product Launches Focus on GENIUS Act, Agentic Payments

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

According to a recent press release, Anchorage Digital is partnering as a seed investor with State Street Investment Management to launch a GENIUS Act-ready stablecoin reserves money market fund. The fund reportedly is designed to provide a regulated, familiar structure in the form of money market fund exposure, but for the new category of stablecoin assets. Anchorage Digital’s CEO stated that “[b]y partnering with State Street Investment Management, we’re combining federally regulated crypto infrastructure with one of the most trusted platforms in institutional asset management to bring a more consistent, transparent, and scalable approach to stablecoin reserves.”

In another press release, Anchorage Digital announced the launch of Agentic Banking, a platform reportedly designed to enable AI agents to interact with capital securely and compliantly and providing a regulated trust, governance and settlement layer designed to ensure that actions are auditable and in line with enterprise policies. Anchorage reportedly is also partnering with a major U.S. cloud provider to pair its AI infrastructure with Anchorage’s regulated financial rails, including collaborating on next-generation crypto key management and transaction infrastructure delivered through the cloud to power the agentic economy. 

In other agentic news, the Solana Foundation announced in a recent press release the launch of Pay.sh, a “gateway service” intended to bridge autonomous agents and enterprise infrastructure, in collaboration with the same U.S. cloud provider. According to the release, with the new service, agents can discover, access and pay-per-request for any application programming interface autonomously. In a quote from the press release, an executive from the U.S. cloud provider said, “Agents need to transact autonomously, without setup or credentials getting in the way,” and noted that Pay.sh is the first to offer this capability at scale. 

<a href="https://www.anchorage.com/insights/anchorage-digital-supports-launch-state-street-stablecoin-reserves-money-market-fund">Anchorage Digital Supports Launch of State Street’s Stablecoin Reserves Money Market Fund</a>

<a href="https://www.anchorage.com/insights/anchorage-digital-launches-agentic-banking-and-partners-with-google-cloud-to-power-the-operating-layer-for-ai-and-capital">Anchorage Digital Launches Agentic Banking and Partners with Google Cloud to Power the Operating Layer for AI and Capital</a>

<a href="https://solana.com/news/solana-foundation-launches-pay-sh-in-collaboration-with-google-cloud">Solana Foundation Launches Pay.sh in Collaboration with Google Cloud</a>

US Crypto Companies Announce Acquisitions, Product Launches

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

The parent company of the Kraken crypto exchange recently announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Reap Technologies Holdings Limited, a “stablecoin-native, card issuing and payments infrastructure company.” A press release notes that the acquisition expands the company’s business-to-business infrastructure platform, “unlocking globally regulated infrastructure for card issuance and stablecoin payments.” According to the press release, Reap extends that platform into the global cards and payments space, enabling partners to “embed card issuance, cross-border payments, and stablecoin treasury services alongside Payward’s existing capabilities.”

In a related development, Kraken recently announced that U.S. retail traders can access regulated spot margin trading on Kraken Pro. According to a company blog post, “spot margin means borrowing against your crypto holdings without selling them,” allowing users to trade with “up to 10x leverage, long or short.” The blog post notes that the spot margin trading is offered through a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-registered entity, providing retail traders with full pre-trade visibility alongside “the same infrastructure that institutional traders have relied on.”

And in a final notable item, Bitwise Asset Management and Superstate recently announced a plan to transition investment management of the Superstate Crypto Carry Fund (USCC) to Bitwise. According to the press release, Bitwise will become the investment manager of the fund, which will be renamed the Bitwise Crypto Carry Fund, marking Bitwise’s entry into tokenized funds. The press release describes USCC as “a tokenized fund available to qualified purchasers that seeks to capture yield via the crypto cash-and-carry trade, capitalizing on the persistent premium of crypto futures prices over spot prices.”

<a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260507546580/en/Payward-to-Acquire-Reap-to-Expand-B2B-Offering-with-Global-Payments-Infrastructure">Payward to Acquire Reap to Expand B2B Offering with Global Payments Infrastructure</a>

<a href="https://www.kraken.com/features/margin-trading">10×1 regulated Spot Margin now in the US</a>

<a href="https://blog.kraken.com/product/margin/cftc-regulated-spot">CFTC-regulated spot margin trading is now live on Kraken Pro</a>

<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/bitwise-announces-inaugural-tokenized-fund-the-bitwise-crypto-carry-fund-in-partnership-with-superstate-302765289.html">Bitwise Announces Inaugural Tokenized Fund, the Bitwise Crypto Carry Fund, In Partnership with Superstate</a>

US Companies Announce Tokenized Securities Initiatives

By <a href="https://www.bakerlaw.com/RobertAMusiala">Robert A. Musiala Jr.</a>

A major U.S. financial market clearing, settlement and post-trade market infrastructure company recently announced “progress and timelines” on the expected delivery of its tokenization service. According to a press release, the tokenization service “is being designed with feedback and collaboration from more than 50 financial industry firms” that represent “a broad cross section of the TradFi and DeFi ecosystems.” The press release notes that the company “plans to facilitate the initial, limited production trades of real-world assets tokenized using [the] tokenization service in July 2026 and then plans to launch the service in October 2026.”

In a related development, Securitize, a registered broker-dealer and real-world asset tokenization company, recently announced that it has received approval from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) to “custody tokenized securities in a regular broker-dealer, enabling it to facilitate atomic swaps and clear and settle transactions between tokenized securities and stablecoins onchain.” According to a press release, the approval also permits Securitize to act as “underwriter and selling group participant for both initial and secondary tokenized securities offerings.”

Separately, Securitize also recently announced a collaboration with two other crypto industry companies to launch “fully onchain, regulated trading of tokenized equities” using Securitize’s “regulated broker-dealer and alternative trading system, transfer agent infrastructure, and KYC-enabled, whitelisted wallets.” According to the press release, the collaboration will allow investors to “discover and trade tokenized equities through a familiar DeFi interface.”

<a href="https://www.dtcc.com/news/2026/may/04/dtcc-advances-development-of-new-tokenization-service">DTCC Advances Development of New Tokenization Service, Convenes 50+ Firms to Drive Digital Assets Adoption</a>

<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/securitize-receives-approval-to-enable-custody-and-atomic-settlement-for-tokenized-securities-302760799.html">Securitize Receives Approval to Enable Custody and Atomic Settlement for Tokenized Securities</a>

<a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/securitize-jump-trading-group-and-jupiter-launch-fully-onchain-regulated-trading-for-tokenized-equities-302762248.html">Securitize, Jump Trading Group, and Jupiter Launch Fully Onchain, Regulated Trading for Tokenized Equities</a>

Bank Advocacy Organizations Provide Input on Proposed Stablecoin Regulations

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

Earlier this month, Senate Banking Committee members Thom Tillis and Angela Alsobrooks introduced a bipartisan amendment to Section 404 of the CLARITY Act intending to address one of the most pressing issues holding up the bill: prohibition of stablecoin yield. Several major bank advocacy organizations submitted a joint letter to the Senate Banking Committee to recommend edits to the amendment’s language.

The letter argues that Section 404 needs to better address the concern that customers may be incentivized to hold and grow their stablecoin balances at the expense of bank deposits. According to the letter, diminished bank deposits would reduce the availability of credit that banks can provide to the millions of Americans they serve. According to the letter, the goal of the bank advocacy organizations is to “ensure any final legislation signed into law ushers in a new financial market designed to fully accommodate digital assets and blockchain technologies, while also protecting the economic resilience of America’s consumers, small businesses and communities.”

Separately, a major bank advocacy organization recently published its comments on the proposed rule on implementing the GENIUS Act for the issuance of stablecoins by entities subject to the jurisdiction of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). In its comments, the bank advocacy organization urged the OCC to incorporate several themes and recommendations into their respective GENIUS Act implementing regulations: interagency coordination and regulatory harmonization; enforcement of yield prohibitions; avoiding redundancy with existing frameworks; safety, soundness and bringing novel entities into the regulatory fold; clarity on regulatory responsibilities across the stablecoin ecosystem; and protecting consumers from fraud and deception.

<a href="https://www.aba.com/-/media/documents/letters-to-congress-and-regulators/jointltrstablecoins20260508.pdf?rev=5370c2342eb2415781cadc2d9169e584">ABA Letter to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing &amp; Urban Affairs</a>

<a href="https://www.aba.com/advocacy/policy-analysis/letter-re-yield-on-stablecoins">Joint Trades Letter to Senate Banking Committee on Payment Stablecoin Yield</a>

<a href="https://www.aba.com/advocacy/policy-analysis/genius-act-implementation-letter">Letter to the OCC on the Genius Act Implementation NPRM</a>

<a href="https://www.aba.com/-/media/documents/comment-letter/ltroccgenius20260501.pdf?rev=2e016ee4d78747d9a6a71bae61e22528">ABA Comment Letter: GENIUS Act NPRM</a>

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